"The first duty of a scholar is to learn languages!"
- Paraphrased from William of Baskerville, The Name of the Rose

Sometimes, I wonder if my current job is making me stupider. If the skills I have picked up in school and university are slowly atrophying from lack of use, if the knowledge I'd gained from 15 years of education are slowly leaking away as the mental card index gathers dust. There are moments when I test myself, running facts and concepts through my head just to rehearse them and reassure myself. Then there are moments when I find myself banging against the brick wall of mouldering talent like a musician charting the dread progress of their deafness. For each new skill I pick up here I seem to be losing ten more. I'm forgetting things: the arguments of the Communitarians, a particularly prescient joke by Gerald Cohen that he made during a lecture on socialism, the shining lights of post-Conquest monasticism, the intricacies of Byzantine government. I'm losing one of the things I prize most: knowledge and understanding.

Take language, for example. For much of my life I've been effectively bilingual: a rather Confucian and regrettable education in Chinese schools enforced that. Compared to my halting efforts now, Mandarin in Nanyang Primary seemed such a breeze. Why, it was my language of choice in Nanhua Primary, when English was a foreign landscape and even the use of the word "neutral" was greeted with incomprehension and just the lightest dusting of suspicion (it didn't help that I was making a declaration of splendid isolation in the midst of a clique war). Sadly, the "use it or lose it" maxim has done its worst: by the time I ended Chinese lessons in JC I was all set for a downhill descent that culminated in a humiliating interview for - laughably enough - a bilingual prize. Had my parents not forced me to attend the interview I would never have gone. I could see the looks of derision on the faces of the interviewers as I proved incapable of stammering out even the most basic sentences. I could feel my shame pummeling into my chest as eleven years of training went up in the smoke of my ineptitude. Suffice to say that I was truly utter shite at speaking Mandarin and I still am, to a large extent.

The same thing has happened to my German; this time, the decline is even more saddening. I learnt the language for five years and, at the end of it, emerged with the valedictorian's prize and - more importantly - a personal sense of fluency and mastery in German. The words, phrases and grammar game trippingly off the tongue; I conducted myself perfectly when I travelled to Germany and Austria with nary a linguistic faux pas. I toyed with the idea of studying in Germany or taking the Deutsch als Fremdsprache test. The first sign of my downfall came in the second year of university, when I tried conversing with a German man in a bar and succeeded, but only just; the most crushing thing was his comment that my German was "good, but rusty". Now, I struggle to recall the simplest of vocabulary. Just several days ago I nearly forgot the word for "crazy" and it only came to mind after some hard thinking. I try to conduct imaginary conversations with myself in German and often they run aground for want of a word I once new, or a grammatical form once familiar. While my Mandarin has improved somewhat after speaking it more with my family and in public, my German has deteriorated to the extent that I can hardly string a meaningful sentence together.

I learnt two other languages in university with varying degrees of seriousness. The first was Welsh, mostly conversational; I regret to say that I can't remember a thing except for stuff like "dw'i ddim yn hoffi coffi" and "da iawn, diolch" and "nofio am saith o'r gloch bore yfory" (and I don't even know if I've got those right, frankly). That and the interesting mutations and how to pronounce the fascinating "ll" sound. I took lessons for only an Oxford University year and would have continued if the Russian classes hadn't jumped on me, making the prospect of struggling with two new languages at once rather daunting. Hence I don't really regret not remembering much Welsh: I couldn't have really absorbed much in 24 weeks and I reckon I could pick it up pretty readily if I tried - which I would like to do, since I love the sound of Welsh and I still have the Dosbarth Nos textbook sitting on my shelf complete with all the worksheets.

The more frustrating failure was with the second language, Russian. Words cannot express the sheer insanity of the intensive course I took in second year to sit the Russian Revolution Special Paper in the finals. I still recall shifting uncomfortably before the erudite gaze of the tutor as she read out the words in our Russian version of tingxie, or trying not to sound like an idiot when reading out the passages she'd set for us about life in Moscow or those bits of the set texts we were asked to translate in class. In some ways it was exhilarating and the most obvious testament to the newfound knowledge I gained in university: I went to Balliol knowing no Russian and, at the end of it all, with the help of Dr Natalia Keys and her uncompromising exercises, I left with enough of a grasp of the language to translate Soviet documents and do well in the paper. And, as a skill, it's very versatile: one moment I'm helping the Smilodon translate a Blok poem, the next I'm buying face products in Sasa with instructions that are only in Russian.

But therein lies the rub: I can only read Russian and write it (haltingly, as I pause to allow my brain to work through the grammar). I can't understand it when it's being spoken, or speak it myself. It seems like a singularly futile thing to learn a language and not be able to grasp it when it's shouted at you. The whole mental setup is very odd: when I watch Russian films, I can't understand the vast majority of it when the English subtitles are turned off; when they're turned on, the spoken words start making sense as my mind connects the English words to their Russian equivalents. Even better if the Russian subtitles are used, assuming of course that I can get all the vocab. It all makes me feel very powerless when I meet Russian people on the street and have no idea what they're saying apart from a few scattered phrases. I feel like a parvenu when I tell myself that I've learnt Russian but can't even order food in a Russian restaurant. Sure, I can tell you what Kerensky is saying if you gave me a transcript, but I wouldn't be able to tell head from tail if you sent me back in a time machine.

I've always valued languages, just as William of Baskerville did. I've always believed that understanding language is crucial to understanding the scholarship conducted in that language and bringing it to light. You need to know the language before you can begin full-scale historical work, before you can plunge eyeball-deep into the archives. Of course, there are the old chestnuts of language being essential to the understanding of culture and so on; but this is something that cuts to the quick of what I love and what I want to do. I want to do history and that discipline is peculiarly sensitive to the demands of language: how can I really undertake to study the Romans if I don't know Latin, or the Abbasids if I don't know Arabic? How can I hold meaningful discussions with the sources if I don't even know what they're saying? And how can I even think of doing research if I can't understand a language in full audio-visual colour, if a text is open to me but a film closed, if I can only read fan ti and not jian ti zi?

It's immensely frustrating to feel, on the one hand, the languages I'd once been able to master slipping from my mind, and have, on the other, the new ones I've learnt turn out all half-baked and incomplete. I know I'm capable of resuscitating what I've lost and solidifying what I've gained, but I don't have the time and resources any more. So even as I sit here correcting people's grammar, I find my own grasp of language fading and the delight I once felt in trying out a new German turn of phrase or unravelling a tough Russian sentence slowly crumble. An inevitable casualty of working life, I suppose.

Working the job that I do, I often get the chance to read the news the day before it comes out in the papers. So it was with a mixture of despair and disbelief that I learned about an hour ago that the New 7th Storey Hotel will be torn down by the end of this year to make way for the new Bugis Downtown Line MRT station.

Now I've only stayed at the New 7th Storey once, but the experience was such a pleasant one that I can't help but be fond of the old place. Before that I'd always passed the building when my family drove down Rochor Road. I liked it even then, a charming pastel anachronism next to the glossy facade of Bugis Junction, a '50s stalwart pasted next to the kitsch commercialism of the DHL balloon. It stood alone on that patch of land, a rather random oddity which made me wonder where all the other buildings had gone. I remember this one particular time as a child, when we drove by and I remarked to myself that the hotel's signboard had a nice font, that it had "Ban Leong Co" written in one of those old-style painted company coats-of-arms so beloved by Chinese businesses and that its very name was ironic: I had counted the floors and found that there were nine. And when it came time for the Smilodon and myself to find a place for another of our trysts that wasn't Lloyd's or Keong Saik, I decided to give the place a shot. I'd heard about its manual lift, the last of its kind here, and the man who answered the phone when I called to make inquiries was reassuringly gruff.

Sure, part of its charm was meeting the Smilodon and planning the bonanza of festivities that swept him off his feet. But there was something about the New 7th Storey that raised the experience beyond our usual covert operations in Lloyd's or Keong Saik. Just walking in through the glass doors was like stepping into a time warp: the lobby painted in cheerful colours, the prim but worn sofas and tables cluttered in artistic disarray. A huge old clock hung on the wall, its face massive and its tick deep. The lift operators were all genial old ah peks in Hawaiian shirts. The lift was everything that it promised to be and more: it obligingly broke down for us as one point and the man at the counter had to walkie-talkie the man in the lift to get him to press buttons and crank levers or whatever it is you do with those cage lifts. I know it's a cheap thrill, but there's something about being in a cage lift that's more exciting than even the smoothest gliding bubble elevator. It was all dark wood and black steel, the sort of place we wanted to hold a photo shoot in.

The room was really nice, the cheap and cheerful sort that was, amazingly enough, of decent size and utterly spotless. The same rate would get you a boxroom in Keong Saik with minuscule windows and the sound of construction, but this place was light, airy, with a nice view of the field behind it and a bathroom that you didn't feel vaguely wary in. The whole setup was utterly homely, not the crisp sterility that you get in some of the upscale hotels, the kind that I feel uncomfortable sleeping in for fear of creasing the meticulously starched sheets. It had the same sort of easy hospitality that you got in a B&B writ large, the same sort of unpretentious comfort. Outside our room, backpackers lounged about on the sofas reading novels and families with squealing kids swept in and out from their digs. The hotel staff smiled and had this laid-back air about them that relaxed you. Even the random signs hung up on the walls, all written in shaky English, had an endearing quality to them.

We only spent a night there, but I'm fond to bits of the place: from the clock to the Hawaiian-shirted lift uncles to the weird signs telling you about the history of the place in dubious grammar. The lift in itself was definitely something. To think of the place being torn down, a shiny new MRT station where the hotel's brightly lit, almost tinselled lobby with its wood counter used to be - it's actually quite a disorienting thought, one that almost feels as if the reality I have known and loved is being chipped away bit by bit. It's tough to think that a place that you'd just come to know intimately, a place that you'd grown familiar with even as a kid, is just going to vanish like that. Having only memories to live on is not enough. Sometimes the tangible reminders of evenings spent with my family on drives, of a night of mayhem with a lover, need to be there, a landmark of life that one can see and touch and connect to.

I wonder where the lift operators will go, or the chief concierge, whom I found out has worked with the hotel since it opened in 1953. I wonder where the nice Indian receptionist will head to. Or the resturant next to the lobby: Will that relocate? The centripetal forces on all these lives boggles the mind. The thought of losing that tangible connection is equally stunning and saddening. And then I find myself thinking: what next? The New 7th Storey today; what's going to be demolished tomorrow?

The Smilodon and I are going to spend another night there, hopefully. We're planning on taking photos of everything, including the lift uncles and the huge clock. It'll be like bidding goodbye to a partner in crime, a snapshot of our love. I think I'm going to hug a pillar at the end of it and cry, just a little.

Comment from my colleague when I came in to work yesterday evening: "You must have had a good time. You're glowing!"

Mmm hmm. I had every reason to glow. And it doesn't have anything to do with radioactivity.

For optimum feline happiness, you need:

1. A pretty qipao, seamed stockings, a hat with a veil and some long black gloves;
2. A vintage valise filled with clothes and hitty things;
3. An evening at the Home Club, hopefully with enough time to enjoy some beers in;
4. An excursion to the Science Centre where, as a responsible adult, I can "play with water" without parental disapproval;
5. A recipe for seared tuna in honey and dark soy;
6. The Smilodon with his very own pad a 10 minute walk from my house; and
7. Early offstone.

Yep, the next two days are looking pretty good indeed.

Is it a sin, is it a crime,
Loving you, dear, like I do?
If it's a sin then I'm guilty
Guilty of loving you

I think I've isolated the thing that's holding me back from religion. Sure, there are all the theoretical and philosophical objections; in those cases the clash is fundamental and unresolvable. But the more emotive issue here, the one that makes me think myself damned, is this: I feel too much guilt. So much guilt that my more irreverent Catholic friends say that I could convert without any adult catechism. I do a roaring business in guilt and it's so lucrative that the coin from my trade can be spent in any realm and in any quantity. Having a shower? Why, it's time to look back at my life, dig up all those unpleasant episodes that blossomed from my own stupidity and bad judgement and proceed to feel ashamed and unhappy. Eating? No better occasion to beat myself over the head with the number of calories I'm consuming and thoughts of how I shall be not only unattractive but also fat. Having sex? Well, then it's just the perfect place to reflect on how the very act of lust is a gob in the eye of the God I am trying to placate and how being choked by my lover - something I enjoy rather much - directly contravenes my liberal and quasi-feminist leanings.

I realised this the other day, when talking to a Catholic acquaintance of mine in the office. She's been trying to help me out by bringing me to mass and talking about religion; I'm very thankful for her help and her concern for my spiritual life. We spoke of several things before I launched into my belief in my own damnation and my unerring ability to be neurotic about my life. "I feel like I have to check myself at every moment," I told her. "I have to catch myself out in things to make sure that I'm not letting any instance of ungodliness slip by. Is this a moment of intellectual pride? Am I behaving like a bigot and giving other people insufficient credit? Why are my ideals so divorced from those prescribed by Christianity?" She seemed rather shocked at this and said it sounded bloody tough, like some kind of continual interrogation. "It's not supposed to be like that," she said. "It's supposed to be a relationship."

Yes, I know I've heard the "it's a relationship" thing ten million times. But being the bred-in-Singapore sod that I am, I kind of picture it as a relationship with my parents: being in a position of socialised inferiority to a set of elders who have bark puzzling and often contradictory orders which spring from wells of traditional and incomprehensible "values" (read: biases) and an unswerving belief in their own wisdom (read: I know what's best for you). The parallels are unnerving. God knows what's best, His ideas of justice and goodness are of unclear provenance and beyond human understanding. His edicts are as many as they are nebulous and interpreting their words has led to much blood shed and much heresy proclaimed. All around me there are people who have no qualms about yoking themselves to the religious cause, just as there are those who have a habit of obedience to their parents.

Hence you can see my reluctance to subscribe to the "relationship" model of religious relations - but unfortunately, I can see no other way. If this is the sort of relationship I have, then the sort of behaviour I adopt naturally follows parental parameters. No wonder, then, that I'm on neurotic tenterhooks all the time. Can either parent find fault with this? Have I accidentally spilled water somewhere, enough to earn me a caning? How can I believe all these protestations of love and affection if I could get myself shouted at and hit if I cross the line? Why can't I be a better child, why can't I stop questioning things and just do it because they say so? Is there something wrong with me? Why won't they stop saying that they know what's best and let me have a bit of fallible happiness? All this leads to a rather damaging internal monologue that gave me no end of mental turmoil in my home life and continues to plague me in my spiritual one.

And really, it all boils down to guilt. I feel guilty for letting my parents down and being a difficult child. I feel guilty to myself for subordinating my happiness to that of my parents. Translate this onto the heavenly plane and it sounds pretty much the same: I'm sorry, God. I just can't live up to what you expect of me. Sometimes I try, but I'm too lazy and sinful and stupid. And to be honest, sometimes I wish you weren't there so I could be happy. Everybody says that You forgive and rejoice when a lost lamb comes home; but I'm not repentent and I've never come home. I still can't reconcile my happiness with Your plan and I keep going back to my old ways because they're the ones that make me happy. I know that You're still angry with me and You can look inside my heart and see how black and deceitful it is. I'm a terrible human being and I've failed so many times. It would be just of You to damn me, because that's what I deserve.

So that's it. I'm too guilty to be saved. I'm too much of a spiritual failure for His forgiveness and I know I'm pretty much fucked from the get-go. Yet I'm too guilt-ridden to say "Oh, what the heck" and abandon God altogether. Just like with my parents, really. All this fills me with such hopelessness that my search for God isn't as heartfelt or as enthusiastic as it should be - another cause for guilt, to be sure. I can't chase something if I know I won't reach it, or worse: if I know I'm hamstrung by the very things that make life mean something to me.

I know that the way out of this is to stop feeling guilty and realise that there is refreshment and succour in religion, that God really does want me back and I'm not damned. But I can't ever stop sinning - and willfully so - because those things labelled "sin" give me joy and make my life bearable. I'll never be a good Christian and learn to condemn the things I love. I'll never be able to lead as good a life as I could, because that would mean casting my right hand from me, and I really need my right hand to function. So how can I ever wring the stains of guilt out of my skin? How can I stagger out of the labyrinth of guilt that my own cursed humanity has built for me?

Greene, in The Heart of the Matter spoke endlessly about despair, the greatest sin of all; it seems as if that particular failing comes easily to me. I don't quite know how to shake it off, but it's a burden I have to bear: the weight of my hypocrisy, my stupidity and my worldliness. A human being could perhaps forgive me, but a God? Or, what's worse, a just God? Even if I went to church or attended some theology class or took His body and His blood in my mouth, I'm still utter shite. I can't change.

They say God never gives you more than you can bear. In this case, the guilt accumulated from the mere fact of being me is probably just about skirting it.

Over the weekend, the Smilodon and I went to Ikea. Now that his father is leaving the country, he's struck out on his own, rented new digs near my place and took me along to help furnish it. We spent a couple of hours wandering around the Swedish furniture shop laughing at weird product names (the Smilodon bought a frying pan called "Skanke"), scavanging for bargains and debating the merits of metal mesh wastepaper baskets. He insisted on getting some tea light lanterns for the room and using them to navigate his way to the unattached toilet at night. I scoured the pet section for a suitable cat bowl - it's for me to drink milk out of, another manifestation of of our petplay kink - but sadly came up empty-handed. By the end of it we'd had a very productive afternoon and come up with enough soft furnishings to keep the Smilodon comfy at night, enough cookware to see him fed and several other knick-knacks he can amuse himself with. All the stuff was so nice that I jokingly told him that I'd want to spend more time in his new place just to roll in the duvet and play with his lanterns.

Truth to tell, I really am kind of excited about the Smilodon's move. His new place will be close enough for me to roller-blade to, if I can successfully conquer the vague hill that is Toh Tuck Road. We might even meet on the street now and then, or go to the shops together. He'll have a double bed and an obliging housemate who, it seems, is no stranger to nocturnal assignations. He'll have his own stove and fridge and utensils and we'll be able to cook all the stuff we've been planning to whip up. I can't help but count the days till he settles down properly there - this Saturday, to be exact. When he does, I'll give him a hand with the unpacking, help with the cleaning up and try not to look too disgusting in front of his housemate. With our combined efforts, we might be able to make his room look less utilitarian than his current Sixth Avenue lodgings; and not to mention far less dusty.

As much as I have railed against cozy domesticity before, it's beginning to hold a definite appeal. There was something warm and intimate about the way we agonised over the stupid shopping trolley and its eco-friendly but bulging yellow-bag-in-frame design. Our exchanges about wastepaper baskets, dark-coloured bedlinen and the hypothetical goth crowd that had come in and swept up all the black lanterns could never have taken place with anyone else. And I must admit that I felt a fuzzy sort of happiness as we dodged the crowds with his hand over mine on the trolley's handlebar, or whenever he leaned in to sniff at my hair as we made a turn down some aisle or other. For all my misgivings it seemed as if this was something I could slip into, this sense of belonging and partnership. It's something that I'm starting to feel more comfortable being a part of, something I no longer see as an artificial imposition on my independence but as a natural development of my wish for a shared future with this man.

In some ways it makes me realise how far I've come from my days of youthful folly, when love meant an illicit affair flying in the face of social opprobrium, an unrequited pining after some macabre specimen of the male race whom I thought I could transform. Now I realise that it is rather pedestrian after all, two people trying to make things run in the most workaday of circumstances, when love takes place not in exciting hotels or bohemian flats but in between busy hours in the office and on sheets that bear ah-kong-ah-mah floral imprints. I'm not entirely sure how to interpret this yet, but I feel as if I've sobered up somewhat and learnt that love isn't so much in the settings in which acts of affection take place: it's in the acts themselves and their accompanying feelings. And while the acts can be mundane in the extreme, the feelings certainly aren't. They're positively sublime.

I told the Smilodon that I wanted to treat him to dinner again, to celebrate the success of my thesis. He said that he would rather prefer that I showed my appreciation in another way: by buying him a duvet, so that he would think of me whenever he went to bed (also, I'm supposed to roll in it a bit so it will smell like me, but that's another story). At first I was a bit apprehensive. It seemed like an anti-climax: why choose an Ikea duvet over a nice dinner somewhere in a darkened, candlelit booth at a posh restaurant, with inconvenient foods prepared for us by a chef? The more I think about it, though, the more it seems that the duvet, for all its ho-hum-ness, was the right choice. As enjoyable as such a dinner may be, it's no match for the way a simple blanket infuses our presence into everyday life. A meal will end, but the quiet reminder of a loved one gently insinuated into the beginning and end of each day never will - unless, of course, the duvet gets ripped to shreds.

And so it's the slow incorporation of love into daily life that I've come to value most. The text message in the middle of a bus ride. The back rub after a long day at work. Sure, special occasions are nice, but it's the everyday that really becomes hallowed by the presence - or even the merest hint - of tenderness.

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go,
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground;
And yet by heaven, I think my love as rare,
As any she belied with false compare.
- Sonnet CXXX

Perhaps it's a quirk of the BDSM paradigm that heightens and fetishises conventional interpretations of feminine beauty, especially for those of us who dwell on the bottom. It's considered a feminine accomplishment to be beautiful and beauty is essential to a femsub's function as object and adornment, a kind of floral centrepiece to soothe the male eye and act as a living endorsement of his prowess. Whatever power she has emenates from her capacity to evoke desire precisely by being attractive, by furnishing her top with an appealing toy for his manipulation and amusement. These roles are not ones that I wish to fulfil, which perhaps is just as well: I'm no beauty. You wouldn't even see me if you walked into a room I was standing in. I am no testament to the pulling power of the Smilodon and his friends do not assign him uber-stud status for having collared himself such a dowdy specimen. People wouldn't take photographs of me as some kind of bondage doll and put them up on a website.

So it's a continual puzzle to me: Why does the Smilodon even want to have anything kinky to do with my person? I don't really believe him every time he says he likes to look at me, or when he gives me the eye during a session; I don't like looking at myself and I'm sure as hell that other people don't like looking at me either. Besides, why pick me when there are other more attractive specimens of womanhood all around? Why settle for less? It's no big leap to see myself as someone's friend or colleague or drinking partner, but as an object of desire? As the Smilodon's very own Cat, to whom he likes to do all sorts of heinous and enjoyable things? My mind doesn't really comprehend it, my self-image does not allow for it. I am not supposed to be anyone's lover because I am not pretty enough to be loved. Simple as that. The evidence is before my eyes every day: the girls I see on the street or in the bus, the other femsubs I encounter at BDSM gatherings, the old friends of mine who have blossomed into lovely swans while I remain an ugly duckling.

Every time I talk about this with the Smilodon, he gives me an answer close to Shakespeare's, though not quite as poetic. He thinks I'm attractive (again, that's something I cannot wrap my mind around) but he concedes the point about there being women who are far more beautiful than I am around. But despite that, somehow, he doesn't feel shortchanged, doesn't think that I need to measure myself against them or try to attain some snow-white rose-cheeked coral-lipped ideal. I can only understand a part of this: namely, that what he loves in me is not just my looks, that he likes to speak to me and laugh at my semi-jokes and hear me scream when he hits me with stuff. That much is obvious to me: Surely, if anyone were to love me, it wouldn't be for my beauty, since I clearly don't have any. Yet mixed in with that is the horrific confession that yes, he does indeed find me nice-looking, that he enjoys my form and face and thinks them pleasing. As much as I am flattered by his words, they ring somewhat hollow to me, they sound deluded. It's not possible that anyone could detect traces of attractiveness in my less-than-pedestrian face. I'm no paragon of slim, willowy dollhood.

This clash of expectations has had, I suppose, positive consequences. It's made me re-examine my more grindingly self-flagellating hang-ups about my looks. I realise that prettiness means a lot, but I have many things that pretty people don't have either. I understand that looking nice comes with its own burdens and casualties, complexes that I feel I am lucky to avoid. I now think that I have more to offer a partner than my looks, and if they were to judge me solely on how far I complied with some unrealistic and (to me) mindless image of female attractiveness, I wouldn't have much time for them anyway. Finally, I have gained a better grasp of how my ideas of beauty have been socialised, how diverse aesthetic appreciations of the female form are and how the consumerisation of beauty and the pressure to unify all these diverging tastes can be and has been harmful to individuals. I still feel a twitch of envy when confronted by the beautiful, of course, and I still feel rather down about myself when I look in the mirror on a bad day. But these sensations have become less intense as I learn to understand the pitfalls of prettiness and appreciate myself. I may be no beauty but I'm human, I'm grounded, I'm not ashamed to be judged by my brain. I won't fall prey to the lastest fashion or cosmetics fad stoked up by some company trying to siphon my money out of my pocket.

And I'm slowly becoming more comfortable with being loved and desired, I suppose. In a way I wonder if I've put the cart before the horse, if being desired paradoxically paved the way for me to reject the craving for being desired. I worry, therefore, that my newfound confidence is built on feet of clay, that it would all crumble to dust if the Smilodon left and opened the floodgates of insecurity and self-persecution all over again. So far, though, it seems to be working. As I test each board in this new framework I tap it for its soundness and all seems as well as it can be. I'm learning to see myself as Cat sometimes, someone who is worthy of being desired and can learn to manipulate this desire. It's no longer an awkward enterprise whenever the Smilodon asks to look at me and I enjoy dressing up for him and for myself. I'm coming to terms with my appearance, seeing it within the larger package of who I am and what I can give and placing it in context with all my other attributes. With practice and a discerning eye, I can cultivate what little I've got in the looks department. In short, I'm beating myself up less often and less intensely about it.

Once, when I was feeling somewhat insecure about this as I always am, the Smilodon showed me some paintings of women he liked. He told me I looked like them. For some reason, that statement aroused more than incomprehension in me: I felt, almost, as if something had shifted somewhere and I could no longer happily brush his comments off without a thought. Previously, I'd said to myself that he was deluded or lying; but as I began to look the paintings up, I was confronted by a series of women who, while not exactly reigning beauties, had something about them that arrested the eye. A certain sly smile, for example, a turn of the hip, a captivating gaze. Portrait artists had seen fit to turn them into works of art that now grace museum walls. If the Smilodon could see a shade of me in those paintings, it must be no small honour indeed; and perhaps I, too, could cultivate that something, that quirk of appearance, a look that suggests more than beauty but also an inner life, a personality and an intelligence behind the face. Something that goes beyond the glossy, posed, painted and photoshopped model into the realm of the active, fallible human.

So yes, I'm still an ugly duckling. But I'm coming to terms with it.

Horses are pretty. They come in many pretty colours, like different shades of brown or dappled white or grey. Sometimes their ears are blackish. Sometimes they have glossy manes. They swish their tails a lot.

I like horses. They are strong and sensitive and powerful and fragile. They can also be very silly at times and get scared by plastic bags and pipes. They can be lazy and stubborn and you have to growl at them. They sometimes try to take a mile when you give them an inch. When you pat them, they're warm and supple under your hand. They look at you with deep, liquid eyes.

I am a piddling rider but I still like to ride them anyway. I like to feel the spring of a horses legs under me and the speed whip by when we're going fast. I can feel their muscles work with mine, the coiled energy of the both of us moving in tandem. I like feeling tired after a good half hour's work and I like the excitement you get when you clear a jump. I like to learn new tricks and try to be better.

I want to ride and ride and ride away.

Last Saturday, I went to mass for the first time since returning to this island wasteland. Admittedly it was a Catholic mass and all sorts of denominational flashpoints could be ignited if one really felt like it, but I thought it was something I desperately needed to do. I've been spiritually parched ever since I came back: the same doctrinal and philosophical torments have multiplied a thousandfold in the rather blistering environment of Singaporean Christianity, my work has taken up most of my brain-space, while my close proximity to the Smilodon has raised all sorts of issues about my worldly priorities. A couple of weeks ago, before heading off to Bali, I asked a colleague of mine about the church she went to; this led to further conversations with another colleague, who sent me an email about a Latin mass at the SJI International chapel. Something told me I really had to be there and I pulled myself out of bed earlier than usual on a Saturday and went.

It was very different from what had moved and comforted me in Oxford. The SJI International chapel is very beautiful and very modern, with high ceilings, fish ponds and a fountain in the garden just visible through the window behind the altar. The air conditioning kept blowing the candles out and there weren't any proper pews, but there was a stillness and peace about the place, an architectural harmony that seemed to resonate with contemplation. A far cry from the old stone, stained glass and hallowed wood of Mary Mags, of course: there was less of a sense of historical weight, of the awesome time-transcending power of the Almighty. By its very lightness and airiness I felt relaxed: relieved, almost, as if I had escaped an oppressive outside world and found myself in some gentler, quieter inner sanctum. It was as if the oppressive pressure of this wasteland had been lifted and I could once again breathe, pause and find my centre.

The liturgy, too, was different. Many of the phrases and settings I'd come to know and love sprang up in different guises: the penitential rites were different, the Agnus Dei sung, the Gloria in Excelsis Deo intoned by everyone. The homily also seemed amazingly short. I blame my threadbare religious knowledge, but until then I had not entirely experienced the difference between the mass as laid out in the Book on Common Prayer and the Roman rite. It was as if I were seeing the Eucharist through new eyes. Still, I must admit that I missed the old mass, the words that had been inscribed in my mind and engraved on my heart after more than a year of Sundays: "them's good words" as Dolly Winthrop in Silas Marner would have it. I missed the Psalmist's "purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow" - those lines in the Collect have always spoken to me, despairing sinner that I am. I missed sitting in the pews and listening, breathtaken, to the strident sweet power of the choir's voices in the Sanctus. I missed the answer and response of the Sursum Corda, the plaintive tunes of Fr Peter singing the Eucharist liturgy. There was something oddly resonant about those words and those melodies and I thirsted for them; unfortunately, the cherished rites, the sights and sounds and music I had come to associate so strongly with the presence of God, weren't quite there.

But no, by no means was I completely out of place. There was enough of that resonance left in the bits of the mass that I recognised, albeit in the unfamiliar strains of Latin. The Agnus Dei may have been sung, but the words were the same and the sentiment eternal: "grant us thy peace", "have mercy on us". The joy and adoration in the Gloria in Excelsis was there, as was the same reverence in the words of the Eucharist: "do this in remembrance of me". And it all culminated in the Lord's Prayer, the same words, the same tune I had sung in Oxford and among the thousands of other faithful in Rome, the same tune that they sang on Saturday and will keep on singing as long as the church will live on and worship and remember. That did it for me, I think. Every time I sing the Lord's Prayer - and the melody of it has this strange haunting quality, I don't quite know why - I get that sense of awe. The same religious thread that connects believers of all space and all time is in that prayer, all of us singing the same tune and saying the same heartfelt words. Intoning the prayer brought back that weight of history and the universal church, the unity of belief and its strength.

I won't romanticise things and say that all Christians are alike and denominations don't or shouldn't matter: they do and, more importantly, they should. Being in a Catholic church does make me somewhat nervous: no, it's not because I belong to a denomination that could properly be called a political splitter (imagine the word "splitter" pronounced in a Monty Python Judaean People's League way). I have my doctrinal issues with Catholicism, just as I have my massive, massive doctrinal issues with Christianity, though admittedly I really just don't know enough about it and should really take the time to learn more. But what gets me about the Lord's Prayer is that, despite all our infighting and our divergent theologies and our disagrements over interpretation and ethics and legitimacy and whatnot, that profession of hope, mercy and justice is the small patch of ground that we share. It's a very small patch of ground and all the more impressive for that.

The mass was just what the divine doctor ordered, though. By the time the priest said "ite, missa est", I felt refreshed, almost as if I had found some small oasis in a parched desert. The rhythms of the mass and its verses made so much more sense to me than the two-chord pop choruses of youth hymns and the clapping and shaking of more spirit-driven services. Those have their appeal to some and if they move them, then it's just as well. Maybe I'm just an oldy at heart, but I can't abide them: they make me feel lonely, cut off, even angry at the simplifying of God. Like Scobie, I worry that Jesus has become too populist. So it's a mass like this that I draw comfort and sustenance from, that my mind does not rebel against and that my heart is filled by. There weren't any intimidatingly friendly people pressing me at the end of it to join some cell group or other and there weren't any creepily happy people holding forth about their personal lives. It felt good, like walking into the oasis and then leaving with a spring in my step and some fresh water in my mental oilskin flask.

Perhaps I shall visit St Joseph's this Sunday and reconnect with Anglicanism at St George's at some point. Perhaps the Smilodon and I will get married one day and I won't have to live in conflict. Perhaps I'll be able to resolve my objections to Christianity and find a happy via media for my religious and secular lives. Ah well. One small step at a time.

Task: Four days on horseback in Bali, four nights making the beast with two backs in Kerobokan. Watch sunburnt tourists flee in your path as you gallop down Seminyak beach and get yelled at in what seems like a friendly fashion by villagers.

Equipment: New riding stuff for the Smilodon, old riding stuff for me. Sunscreen, the fabled striped Stussy dress, the largest number of condoms I've ever carried in my life and an emergency supply of lip balm.

The Team:
Rachel "I've been bitten" Lin, who seemed to attract all manner of blood-hungry insects.
The Intelligent Smilodon, who decided to splash out on an all-polo outfit but was unable, in the end, to escape with his lower body entirely unscathed.

Four days is definitely not enough time for a fully featured Bali trip. There were many things we missed out on: the traditional dances, the beautiful temples, the cultural and artistic excesses of Ubud or the verdant slopes of Gunung Agung. Despite waking up obscenely early in the morning and going to bed obscenely late at night, we hardly made a dent in the island's sights. We didn't manage to thoroughly explore even Kuta or browse through the shops in Seminyak. We rushed in and out of Denpasar with no time at all to visit the museum or take in the hectic, dusty town. There was no time to trawl the bars properly, though we did drop into this delightfully squalid dive called the Espresso bar, which featured a fantastic local band performing odd renditions of popular rock hits in a strong Indonesian accent and sarong-clad waitresses doign their cheesy utmost to cozy up to overweight and slightly drunk white patrons. There was no time to investigate the infamous Double Six club, with its very own bungee jump, though we did loiter outside and soak in the night-time beach.

But what we lacked in breadth of experience we made up in sheer equestrian overload; it was a riding holiday after all, and ride we did. Oh, how we rode. We rode till the Smilodon's knees went funny and he managed to get abrasions on his arse, pained patches on his bum that I tried to bandage before he revisited his mounts for yet another go at a trail or a lesson. We rode till I winded myself doing jump after jump after jump on this pretty palomino horse named Romantis during a much-anticipated lesson, trying hard not to look to tired because my efforts had attracted an audience of Japanese tourists. We rode for hours every day, crossing rain-swollen rivers, scattering chickens in charmingly rural villages, passing roadside stalls selling "100% halal" petrol, galloping down the beaches to the accompaniment of crashing surf - and my word, the surf was truly gorgeous - and frolicking feral dogs. Wales was intense, yes, but this was somehow crazier.

It was crazier because Bali has that frenetic riotous edge to it that you get when development steams ahead like an express train gone haywire. Villas, shops, stalls, random buildings were springing up everywhere, for rent to whoever would believe the promises of "beach view" or "close to rice fields". Signs along the road beckoned you to all sorts of businesses: massages both dubious and delightful, food both delicious and diarrhea-ific, car repair and motorcycle repair and sofa cleaning and laundry and god knows what else, all advertised on bits of board with painted letters scrawled on them. Random vehicles stood by the roadside with a makeshift "for rent" sign on them; there was even a well in a courtyard with a "for rent" sign balanced over its mouth. It was calmer, more organised than Siem Reap, for sure, but you could almost feel the thirst for development, the burgeoning possibilities of cash and business and enterprise. The waitress at the restaurant at which we breakfasted every morning asked us if we wanted to hire a motorcycle from her. The taxi driver who took us to Denpasar one afternoon gave us his name card in case we needed another ride.

And then you had the contrast between tourist comforts and local life. Next to trim, landscaped resorts that stank of sleek money there were ramshackle huts housing sun-bleached fishing boats. Walking down the beach from Canggu we passed tanned Australians surfing in the wild waters on one end and a browned Indonesian father and his two sons splashing in a small river on the other, passing a lovely Vesak Day celebration along the way. It seemed so otherworldly, the Balinese dressed in their religious best having a feast on a rock perched right next to the roaring waves, sharing the same beach with surfers and bikini-clad strollers. Riding through the villages around Kerobokan - one of them was called Batu Belig, I think - we saw small family-run provision shops, usually with one or two barely-dressed children tumbling around the place shrieking with laughter, right next to swish villas with imposing stone walls and full security features. From the window of our room we could see the farmers at work in their plots, digging new trenches in the field or, more puzzlingly, shooting hay at a screen.

To cut a long story short, it was magnificent. It was great. I've wracked my brains and sincerely cannot think of something that went seriously wrong, apart from the Smilodon's sore bum, and even then it was a source of more mirth than misery. Most of it was thanks to the lovely people at the Umalas Stables and I have no hesitation in plugging them here. We had the opportunity of staying at the stables during our whole trip, just above a row of horse boxes: there's something to be said about hearing equine snufflings at night! The room was really pretty and had windows that opened out onto a road, which unfortunately meant that the Smilodon often ended up entertaining passing motorists with an eyeful of a Naked Chinese Man. Even better, the arena was nestled in the midst of some rice fields, which gave us a lovely view every time we went for lessons; random villagers also tended to walk past in the evenings, some carrying firewood, others pushing fluffy dogs around on baby strollers, of all things. They gave us breakfasts too and we had fantastic bacon and eggs at the attached restaurant, the Lestari. And it was also at that restaurant where we had an amazing all-you-can-eat grill. We stuffed ourselves absolutely silly on the food, which was mind-blowingly tasty; I also had my first taste of arak there, a most potent dram which put everything in a kind of pleasant haze from the start.

The riding was excellent: it was such an experience cantering or galloping in the froth and spray of a beautiful beach that stretched for miles, navigating the streets of Batu Beling and exchanging smiles with the innumerable construction teams at semi-work or stealing glances at the emerald green rice shoots as we ambled past the paddy fields. Even the lessons in the stable arena, which more than anything else worked to tire me out, were fantastic; the Intelligent Smilodon learnt a massive amount and even got to cantering by the last lesson, while I tried my hand at jumping after a hiatus of way, way too long. The horses were wonderfully well-tempered, though each had their own endearing personality quirk. Apart from Romantis I rode Asgan, who was technically the Smilodon's horse for the four days, and Manny, who rather irritatingly disliked being on the beach and charged straight into the beachfront lawn of some hotel, a move that earned me a rebuke from the elderly gardener and much embarrassment. The Smilodon had Asgan, who put him through his beginner's paces with a surprising amount of drool; Kiko, an even-tempered chap who had no problems being put on a lead rope; a skewbald horse whose name I forget, but means "two-toned" in Balinese; and Jawa, who traumatised the Smilodon on the last day by being a bit too forward-going and bouncy. But they were all lovely mounts and the Smilodon is now as assuredly a riding addict as I am. On the Seminyak beach I met an Australian couple who had lived next to the Olympic dressage coach; they paid me an immense comment in saying that I looked lovely on horseback, which was very unexpected and gave me a happy glow for the rest of the day.

Everything else seemed to wonderfully charmed as well. The food was mouth-watering and one of the only reasons why my brain registers that I'm back in Singapore is that my meals suddenly aren't as tasty as they were in Bali. The gargantuan rijstaffel in the Poppies Restaurant, the insanely delicious lemon meringue pie in the Kopi Pot, my first sampling of Balinese style burbur ayam in Made's Warung - my word, I get hungry whenever I think of them. Sipping a cool Bintang at the Echo Beach House made our trek down the sands complete, while the whole decadent tropical sex thing wouldn't have been complete if I hadn't been downing Bali Hai while applying myself to the Smilodon. The highlight, though, was our search for babi guling, something that the Smilodon had insisted upon from the beginning. The nice people at the stables recommended us a warung in Denpasar, one of those roadside dives that was sort of like a kopitiam around here, but more claustrophobic. As for the food: well, what can I say? I have no idea what spices they used or exactly how they cooked it, but my word, it was one of the most delicious roast pork dishes I'd ever eaten in my life. Even the Smilodon gave it his "Wong stamp of approval", which coming from a Cantonese man is high praise indeed.

The people there were really nice, so nice I almost felt bad for being a decadent tourist. I mean, I really didn't feel like I deserved to be pampered so thoroughly in a spa, given flower petal baths and rub-downs with herbs. I didn't feel like I was entitled to have a nice woman lather my hair in cream and massage my head, only to encounter a nice man who then blow-dried it all and complimented me on my piercings. The spa experience was all so blissful that I felt distinctly guilty even amongst all that relaxation. At the stables, the staff were nothing short of encouraging and helpful. They called taxis for us, helped the Smilodon with his laundry, were always ready with a smile and a greeting. Some of the stable lads looked positively dashing and had an easy informality about them that made everything somehow breezier: Kadek in particular was quite the roguish character who rode a horse named Ben Hur and somehow ended up calling the Smilodon "Eliot"; while Churliyanto (if that's his name) definitely broke the mould of scary, demanding riding instructors that I was used to. He was so calm and friendly during the lessons that it was a positive joy being taught by him.

What more can I say after all that? It was a thoroughly enchanting four days and I had lots of trouble tearing myself away from the place. I mean, it had loads of lovely horses, fantastic people, delicious food, wonderful scenery, that crazy mix of city and country life, that clash of cultures that keeps things interesting. Even better, the Smilodon and I had the space to just be with each other, to be intimate in all our typically deviant and tender ways, to take each other in over a nice meal or a walk or some time spent idling aroud. Nothing more that I could ask for, really. There was so much left unexplored, so many nooks and crannies we hadn't poked into, that I feel as if I've left unfinished business behind. And there was just something about that place, the chilled atmosphere and the unforced cheerfulness of the people there, that made the whole thing feel so dreamlike, so wonderful, that I couldn't find it in me to go back to Singapore.

I seriously have to visit Bali again. This time, we'll probably strike out further north and see the bits we missed: that is, if we can find the time or the resources next to all the other destinations we have planned!