Karin’s mother, Aunty Kim, diminutive and ferocious in her humiliation, screamed at her husband and his “slut” so loudly that the entire street had heard her. What proceeded were the most filthy indignities in English, German and Cantonese I had heard in my twelve years.

I remember seeing Karin huddling next to her Indonesian maid by the metal gate, her face pale with fright. She wore pink pyjamas and clutched a teddy bear. I didn’t see tears, but I imagined them streaming down her cheeks.

Karin’s dad disappeared after that and Aunty Kim took to drinking until she met a nice Indian doctor at the Polo Club, and later married him. Karin had meanwhile become the most scandalous and envied girl at Assunta Convent; she was gorgeous, smart and the school’s top athlete.

And we were friends. I was three inches shorter, rounder, flat-nosed and pimply, and three shades darker than her honey-alabaster skin. But you have SO much character, Del. At least one of us has that.

She was a pothead, most of us were—rebellion was part and parcel of growing up privileged in PJ—and together we got up to mischief that made the girls at Malory Towers look like amateurs. We were never expelled—we came close to it—but as head of the debating team, I was too much of an asset, and she was in the sports field. As long as we kept bringing back medals, which were shown off during assembly, we were in the good books.

My handphone beeped.

Hi darling, running late. See you inside! Mwah.

From the outside, you’d never think that KL’s most notorious club would be in the basement, but it was. The cramped corridor was already loud with chatter. It smelled musty and the familiar dark-red walls led to a door that would let in one person at a time. I could feel the music vibrating through my heels.

It was the beginning of a night with no end. I closed my eyes, said a quick prayer and walked in. The Backroom was a church for us to redeem ourselves with others who wanted to commune with the divine. Mass communion. Tab on the tongue. The body of Christ. Amen.

Fifty bucks got you a pill. Most times it was good, really good. Sometimes it wasn’t. The bouncer smiled, gave me a thumbs-up, a wide smile and a wink. This one good. Don’t worry. It was a pink one. Karin was the expert, so I put it in my purse for later. We’d pop it at the same time and then wait.

The podiums were already full of swaying, gyrating, topless men. Three, four to a pole. Oiled torsos, skin-tight jeans, some slightly unbuttoned. These were the beautiful gay men of KL. Muscle-Marys. Pumping iron non-stop just to show off their buff bodies. Gay culture was starting to take off, and this was a sign of liberation. They could be themselves, and it was a bold “fuck you” to the establishment.