Diarrhea Date

At least once a year Arsene and I organise a hiking holiday somewhere in Asia. This time we decided to climb a mountain on the island of Borneo, Malaysia. Arsene had arranged to book a guide, a cheerful local chap who welcomed us at the start of the trail early in the morning. Because it was a very popular summit, we were sharing the path with fifty other hikers who were starting with their guide at exactly the same time. It was a four-hour walk to the top, straightforward but very steep. Among the hikers were a few clusters of attractive girls.

Arsene started running ahead -showing off- while I was catching-up behind him, flashing my impossibly oversized calves, unexpected result of a mysterious genetic mutation developed by one of my ancestors hundreds of generations before me. Maybe this rare gene gave a slight evolutionary advantage to those who expressed it, by allowing them to have something to eat when trapped on a deserted island.

"Wow do you cycle a lot?" people usually ask.

"No I got that from my Gran".

Powered by my mutant calves and Arsene’s determination to beat the Malaysian record of ascent time, our group was among the first to reach the chalet. We picked a table. Arsene’s laser-beam focus locked in on food and I started unpacking my twelve kilograms of GoPro accessories. Little by little the large living room started filling up with hikers, ordering food and drinks in a cheerful mountain atmosphere. We were supposed to stay in the chalet for the whole afternoon before doing the rest of the ascent at night.

Apparently, our earlier peacocking paid off because a group of girls sat at our table, making conversation. Soon after, another group was competing for our attention. Preselection, social proof, jealousy, etc. Meanwhile I was focused on setting up geeky GoPro time lapses of the changing mountain landscape.

Drinks, dinner, more mountain food... Some of the girls were fun, in particular one from New Zealand who was planning to spend a few days in Singapore soon after. We innocently exchanged Facebooks. The following morning everyone said goodbye and we split up in small groups for the descent.  

Where is this story going then? Wait, it’s coming.

A few weeks later in Singapore I got in touch with Kiwi girl. We met in a rooftop bar in the business district to share a few beers in front of the large vista. I suggested going somewhere close to mine for dinner and we jumped into an Uber. At the food place we both ordered the seafood risotto which I recommended. "This is the best dish they do here".

After we were done eating I suggested drinking wine at my place which conveniently was a one-minute walk away. I had done a bit of laundry a few days earlier because Arsene who was staying over brought a girl back, hence ruining my duvet set forever [This is part of another story coming soon].

Back at mine we were soon kissing. It got quite hot and we moved to the bedroom. She was very horny. Myself, on the other hand, felt a bit off... Nothing to do with her by the way, she was hot. Just something with me was not right. Maybe this pint of beer on the rooftop? I rarely drink draft beer.

At one point we were both lying on the bed and I said "you know what? I don’t feel really well". 

"do you want to vomit?"

"yes, kind of"

I got up to walk to the bathroom and the second I stood up the doubt became a certitude: "I am going to puke, it’s happening NOW".

I had just enough time to close the bathroom door behind me before collapsing face first over the toilet bowl, throwing up a first batch of seafood risotto. "Closing the bathroom door" doesn’t do much in my flat since I have one of those hip bathrooms with zero-privacy glass doors. She came in, said comforting words and pat me on the back. I had tears in my eyes, holding on to the toilet bowl with both hands like it was a parachute on a plane about to crash.

I blurted out: ‘Can you give me a minute?’

Later Arsene would tell me I was living a true movie moment: Ben Stiller in Along Came Polly inside Jennifer Aniston’s bathroom or Finch in American Pie. Yet in the heat of the action those movie references eluded me.

This was a full-on gut revolt: diarrhoea was coming just as quickly as the vomiting started. Splash. When you eat something toxic the body is amazingly good at pulling the alarm bell and getting rid of everything at both ends of the digestive track very quickly. And it doesn’t stop until you’re empty: for the next forty minutes I alternated between vomiting and shitting liquid. Sexy evening; extended foreplay.

At one point she said: "You know I think you’d feel better if you were on your own, I understand that in this kind of situation you don’t want to have someone bugging you." 

And she left. Couldn’t blame her really. The second she was out of the flat, I went back to cuddling the toilet bowl for at least an hour. 

The following day I skipped work in the morning, went back to the office like a zombie in the afternoon. Later that evening my energy came back slowly and my Kiwi girl visited around 11pm to see if I was better. She must have really liked me. I was better indeed and we could finish what we had started.

A week later I was telling the story to Arsene who had a similar digestion issue after eating the exact same seafood risotto in the exact same place. I still take girls to this place though the risotto is not on the menu any more. The owners must have realised there was a problem. They replaced the dish with a much safer option: sashimi rice bowl.