With the winner of the 2013 Bad Sex in Fiction Award just announced (congrats to Manil Suri for this gem in The City of Devi, “…only Karun’s body, locked with mine, remains… In celebration of her breakthrough fourth star, statisticians the world over rejoice”) we can finally reveal our own submission*:
“Wrapped together tighter than chicken in a pandan leaf, their bodies moved in unison on the hawker center table. Careless to the rule stating that they should clear up their own mess (and ignoring the voices tut-tutting nearby), the two made love sweeter than the sweetest ondeh-ondeh, more sublime than the kway teow from Stall 74. With the music of a thousand taxi uncle radios ringing in their ears, this harmonious coupling burst through racial barriers, societal prejudice and even the wobbly table leg beneath them. No matter! If sex is this life’s retort to death then this was their abandonment of all things kiasi; a slippery, lime juice-soaked festival on the floor. Not for them the overbearing weight of familial expectation and proper behaviour, not for them any pretence that they would return their trays when they were done with them. Their minds—such beautiful, sex-addled minds—were melded on another plane (though, if we’re honest, hers was still a little bit focused on the queue for fresh popiah and whether she’d make it back to the office on time). And, with the overhead strip lighting fizzing like an Alka-Seltzer on the morning after ZoukOut, this passionate partnering concluded not with a bang (that was already over), but with the clink of handcuffs as the two were marched off to face a custodial sentence and three strokes of the cane for gross indecency.”
*Disclosure: This isn’t an award you’re supposed to want to win; but we’re too kiasu to let that stop us. Besides, with all the bad sex we’ve been having, we really thought we were in with a chance.
