Hair Raising

For those of you who came in late, Saffy recently started dating her company’s payroll supervisor. This despite the fact that he had, at the time, the worst body odour this side of a belachan factory. But being the resourceful gal that she is, Saffy tracked down the source of his BO (his armpits, if you’re the curious sort) and promptly had him waxed, plucked and deodorized.

As Amanda said the other day, it’s a measure of the man that Bradley, barely a day after meeting Saffy, allowed himself to be signed up for a half year package at Strip.

And once people were able to look Bradley in the eye without being blinded by the onion-like fumes radiating from his body, they discovered to their absolute surprise that he is, in fact, quite a handsome man. Painfully shy, but in a way that Amanda says, is maddeningly attractive.

Barney Chen says it’s all such a terrible shame that Bradley is dating Saffy. “I would have been a much better choice.”

Saffy says she’s so grateful that the day she visited payroll, she had the worst cold ever and could not smell a thing. “You could have put a durian puff in my bra and I still wouldn’t have smelt it!” she told Sharyn, who then told me that the image has completely put her off durians.

The result of the cold, of course, was that Saffy was able to take a good look at Bradley and had to, in her words, cross her legs. Tightly.

“Good Lord!” she later recounted. “If Brad Pitt and Andy Lau had gotten together and had a child, he would look like Bradley!”

But here’s the thing. Both Saffy and Amanda have dated more than their fair share of good looking men. Not one relationship has ever lasted. And when it’s ended, the guys just move on and within a few days, they’ve hooked up with another girl. Meanwhile, Saffy and Amanda sink deeper into a relationship funk, convinced they’re going to die single and childless.

“Good looking guys know they’re good looking,” Barney once told Amanda as he enfolded her into his absurdly muscular arms while she sobbed after the break-up of a relationship she was sure would lead to the altar. “And they know there’s always another girl out there waiting for them. That’s why you should always date ugly guys. They’re so grateful you’re with them they’ll never stray!”

Less than five months later, Amanda’s ex announced his engagement to his high-school sweetheart. Distraught, Amanda went shopping. Loyal to the last, Saffy sent him a voodoo doll encrusted with pins. Barney sent me a text: “I told u so!”
Bradley, on the other hand, has turned out to be the exception to Barney’s rule.

When Saffy walks into a room, his eyes never leave her side. At a recent cocktail party, Amanda wore her slinkiest Armani mini-dress and he barely said hello to her. “If I didn’t know better, I’d swear he was gay!” she slurred drunkenly, while pushing up against me. “You think I’m hot, don’t you?”

Saffy spent all of last Friday night with Bradley at home on the couch watching TV. “He’s so undemanding!” she reported the next morning at breakfast. “He was just happy to lie on the couch with me, holding me and stroking my hair the entire night!”

Amanda blinked. “There are guys like that?”

Saffy’s chest puffed out with happiness. “I know, right? After all those horrible dates where the guy just expects you to put out just because he bought you one lousy meal, I finally meet a man who just likes me for, well, me!”

She paused and pursed her lips. “I have to say, though, that in the beginning, it felt nice having my hair stroked but I got bored after a while. But then I remembered that just two months ago, I was spending all my Friday nights alone in bed playing ‘Angry Birds’ on my iPad. Which really freaked me. So, I let him keep doing it.”

Clearly, the magic is still working. For one thing, Saffy’s legendary temper has calmed down. This afternoon, while we were waiting for a cab by the road and another person cut in front of us, she sighed and just waved at the next cab.

“Life’s too short!” she said when she saw my questioning look.

“She’s so weird these days,” Amanda texted me. “But I adore Bradley!”

I do too. I just hope that I never see him walking along Orchard Road carrying Saffy’s handbag. I swear I'll be so disappointed.