“Alamak! So sexy what!” grins Aini, eyes squinting against the tropical afternoon light as she looks up from the pool. Her bathing costume is a modest maroon one-piece affair, melding into the rich dark skin of her short round body, carefully conserving her full breasts from view.

Her friend Heidi grins in reply, pulling off her towel and giving her tight buttocks a brief twerk, as if to prove a point. She wears a bright pink bikini, the ruched top barely covering her small pert breasts, the thong skimpy enough to be barely visible, her pale body glistening with coconut-scented suntan oil. Heidi’s body is lithe, her skin almost Caucasian in appearance, her oriental eyes concealed behind reflective sunglasses. “Mama got it for me. Says I need to be more forward. Pull the boys, find a nice expat guy like she did.”

“Aiyah! How come your mother so brani, for a nice Hakka girl?”

“Led astray by white man maybe,” giggles Heidi, leaping in with an ostentatious splash.

“Hey, you make my hair all wet lah!” screams Aini, splashing her back. Their playful conversation quickly degenerates into a giggly screechy water-splashing game, eventually leading to the Malay girl dunking her friend below the surface, in the process accidentally pulling off her bikini top.

“Hey, what you doing, Nini?” glubs Heidi as she surfaces. “Want see my boobies is it?”

“Oh sorry sorry.” She pauses. “But ... maybe...?” She stares sheepishly at her friend’s pert wet nipples, glistening with water and oil. “Yours so ... so small lah – and pink, like little sweeties. Not like mine...” She hesitates, embarrassed.

“So, what are yours like then? Big brown Melayu tits ah?”

“Didi! So rude!” exclaims Aini in mock horror. They laugh uproariously, Heidi pulls her top back into place, and they both launch into a flailing but happy swimming race across the pool.

A few minutes later, they are lounging side-by-side on deck chairs under a gazebo at the other end of the pool, overshadowed by rich pink hibiscus and bougainvillea blossoms, drinking pink syrup bandung through long straws. Heidi’s family home – large, imposing and air-conditioned – looms at the other end of the garden. “Hey, you know what?” ventures Heidi. “I got something illegal!” she giggles.

Aini frowns. “What you mean?”

“Contraband,” intones Heidi ominously. “My dad smuggled it in last business trip.”

“Aiyah, Didi. Careful lah!” Aini looks around, checking that there is no chance they will be overheard. There isn’t, of course: Heidi’s parents are out, it is the amah’s day off, and Heidi’s garden is large and private.

Heidi continues to tease. “Banned substances, Nini! Twelve strokes of the rotan for possession, from Lee Kuan Yew himself! Want see?”

Now Aini is worried. “Didi, no! What are you talking about?”

Heidi puts on a deeply serious prime ministerial face, before breathing, sotto voce: “Bubblegum!”

There is a pause, before Aini squeals in realisation, playfully slapping her friend on the shoulder in mock remonstration. “Aiyah, you silly tease! ‘Contraband’ – you bluffing me ah!” They burst into laughter together, before Heidi leaps up, runs inside the house and emerges a minute later with a tub of the banned substance.

“Wah! Dubble Bubble! My favourite!” grins Aini. “Can I have or not?” she asks, reaching out.

“Can! How many?”

“How many can?”

Heidi shrugs. “Three?”

“Oh, you want make big bubbles ah?”

“Hey, let’s have fun lah!”

Soon the two sixteen-year-olds are earnestly chewing large mouthfuls of gum, murmuring their approval as they savour the first rush of sugary pink lusciousness. “Shiok!” – “Yummy!” they exclaim, as they gradually work their respective mouthfuls of gum, intermittently sipping bandung through their straws, little dribbles of pink syrupy saliva dripping onto their chins.

“Hey, you got drink on your boobies!” giggles Heidi through her mouthful of gum. She reaches out a slender finger and wipes a sweet droplet off Aini’s swimming costume, sucking it off her finger.

Aini shivers slightly at her friend’s touch. “Want see more?” she grins. She takes a large mouthful of her drink, then parts her lips to allow a copious dribble of sweet pink syrup to flow off her chin and down onto one costume-clad breast. The milky syrup penetrates the fabric, revealing the shape of her areola and large dark nipple. Heidi pauses, looking, staring...

“Aini ... Your costume is dirty...” whispers Heidi, bubblegum juice leaking from her lower lip. “You’re a ... a dirty girl...” She bites her lip awkwardly, wondering if she has said too much.

Aini looks back at her, and shivers. “What I must do?” she breathes.

They pause, hearts pounding, eyes darting, lips trembling.

Heidi speaks first, tentatively. “If you take off yours, I’ll do the same,” she says, pre-empting Aini by pulling off her pink bikini top and dropping it on the grass. Aini gasps – and looks.

“You are so beautiful, Didi,” whispers the dark-skinned girl, as she slowly pulls her costume off her shoulder to reveal her large firm breasts, wide, luscious, jiggling – and now, her broad brown areolas glistening with yet more syrupy saliva dripping from her lips.

Heidi reaches out both arms, and Aini responds, the two of them embracing, their chins resting on each other’s shoulders, sweetened lips gently nuzzling each other’s necks, bare breasts pressed into each other, tickling, caressing, squashing. “Oh, Nini!” whimpers Heidi; and her friend responds in like manner, moaning with joy at their new-found closeness.

Soon they are facing each other, lips parted, jaws still chewing at their respective wads of gum. Inevitably, though slowly, and trembling with excitement, their lips touch, sweet with the juice of gum and syrup, and they giggle again. Heidi gently extends her tongue, licking sweet pink syrup off her friend’s full dark lips. Aini, in response, works her gum in her mouth, sticks out her pink gum-coated tongue, and begins to blow a bubble. Heidi watches in awe as it grows, then purses her lips, popping the bubble and sucking it noisily into her own mouth. Now Aini’s gum has formed a bridge between them, and they tussle over it with their teeth, giggling and grinning as they pull the soft sweet pink gum back and forth, until eventually it snaps in two.