A Painful Swallow

At four thirty in the morning just now, I received a rather distressing phone call from Melanie. I know, nobody answers phone calls at four in the morning and I didn't either, at least for the first four phone calls. By the fifth consecutive phone call, I sleepily figured out that it must be a life and death situation, though it probably would be Melanie the one causing the death of some poor customer. That didn't stop me from being furious though and so I picked up the fifth phone call halfway and before Melanie could say anything, I slurred angrily (go figure, try it yourself), "What is it Mel, what the f**k do you want?"

"I'm dying..." Melanie groaned through the phone, her original deep male voice making a special appearance.

See? It is about life and death with Melanie, always. Jokes aside, that did woke me up a little.

"Why, what is wrong?" I said, scratching my eyes.

"I don't know... Come here quick. I can't move, I am practically bedridden!" she cried.

"Fine, I'll reach your place in half an hour. Wait for me," I said sleepily.

"No! Come faster than that!" she shouted on the phone.

"My father owns the taxi company in Singapore is it?" I said, pressing the familiar red button and tossing it on the bed. I grabbed my towel for a quick shower and reached her place in slightly more than forty minutes. Lucky for me, Melanie had given me a duplicate set of her house keys, "in case I am drunk beyond comprehension and lying outside a club like a scene in CSI". I made my way into the house rather noisily, sleepy mostly, but also to let her know that I have reached.

"You said half an hour! It's been over forty minutes!" she screamed from her room.

I opened the room door and Melanie was lying on her bed, in a foetal position and groaning loudly. In her biologically male voice. Her hands were clutching her stomach and she was breaking out in cold sweat, face pale; the palest I have seen her in.

"Shut up Mel, you're going to wake up all the neighbours. It's not even five o'clock in the morning," I told her, putting down my sling bag on her vanity table.

"You heartless piece of shit, I'm dying!" she wailed again in that deep male voice. I need to get used to this, I told myself.

"You're not going to die yet. God is not ready yet to fully recognise your new face," I joked, sitting down beside her on the bed. "Did you eat anything before this?" I asked her.

"No I was from this escort job and you wouldn't want to know what I ate, or swallowed before this," she said.

I laughed so hard, I had to cover my mouth with my palms in order not to wake up the neighbours. Melanie smiled weakly and chuckled feebly, still in pain. I helped her out of bed (she's actually heavier post op I began to realize) and called a cab. I literally carried her from the bedroom, out of the house and straight into the cab. She was still groaning in pain in her deep baritone voice, all the while wearing only hot shorts and a tight Mango t-shirt and the cab driver gave a very confused look, peering occasionally from the rear view mirror whenever Melanie groaned in pain.

It was mostly, "Oh my god!" and "F**k!" and one time she went, "Oh my god, f**k!" and I pinched her and said, "Shut up lah!" It was a very confusing ride for the cab driver, that is all I can say.

We reached the A&E and turns out it was just a case of severe food poisoning. She was on drip for a couple of hours and given the proper medicine, but because it's the A&E and everything was moving at a glacial pace, everything ended only at around noon. That is more than six hours in the hospital and I was very lucky I wore a hoodie over my shirt or I would freeze to death beside Melanie.

What caused the food poisoning was still unknown but it definitely wasn't what I thought it was. "It wasn't my first time Harry," Melanie snarled at me, right forearm attached to the drip.

When we left, Melanie could already walk and she looked like shit. The lady at the dispensary said, "You're so lucky to have a loving boyfriend. He waited for you all morning."

"He is sweet isn't he?" Melanie said, soft feminine voice on display after a whole morning of deep male grunting. I walked away, rolling my eyes and she smacked my butt on the way out of the dispensary and the lady at the counter giggled away like a schoolgirl.

Moral decay this one.