WEDDING bells will be ringing for Dr Martha Lee in December.

She met fiance Christopher P K Fagan, 39, in October two years ago.

Dr Lee laughed as she recounted their first meeting at the budget hotel where she stayed when she was doing her doctorate studies in San Francisco.

She said: “I had been bitten by bed bugs for two weeks. The situation didn’t improve even though they had changed the mattress.”

An upset Dr Lee had gone to the front office to demand more action.

She said: “I was crying, but he was more amused that the bugs had upset me this much until I started to show him all the (bite) marks.”

And that marked the start of their relationship.

Dr Lee said: “I’d seen Christopher around in the hotel, and I used to wonder what’s a guy like him doing here.

“But we never talked until then.”

Mr Fagan, as it turned out, was working part-time, doing the night shifts at the
hotel so that he could get bed and board too.

He came to Singapore last month.

In an e-mail interview, the freelance editor said that his first impression of Dr Lee was that she was “cute and feminine”.

He added: “But ready, willing and able to stand up for herself. Oh, and obviously Singaporean.”

On Dr Lee’s profession, Mr Fagan said he is “behind her 100 per cent in whatever field she wants to pursue”.

He said: “It’s refreshing to be with someone who enjoys what she does, and finds their profession fulfilling.”

Dare we venture and ask: So, what is sex like with a sexologist?

Mr Fagan said: “I suppose the only difference is that the communication is much better.

“I don’t mind being a guinea pig sometimes, but not all the time. Other than that, our life is private, thanks.”

It will be Dr Lee’s second marriage.

She said: “I was married at 21 and divorced by the time I was 26. I married young and well, you can say I was naive.”

In a nutshell, said Dr Lee, “he promised me a rose garden” but things didn’t work out.

Dr Lee said: “I’m no longer defensive about my divorce and I’ve made peace with my past.”

But her world had crashed when it happened.

Dr Lee said: “I went through a horrid time. I lost my best friend (her husband) and I lost my home.

“But I realised too that I could not be with someone (like him) and continue with this life.”

This article was first published in The New Paper.

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