Two can play the game.

"If my husband can cheat on me, why can't I do the same to him?" declares one tai-tai who readily admits to paying for the company of toyboys.

And by cheating on him, she feels "the power of still being in control".

It's late Friday night and 44-year-old Madam Nancy Cheong is happily lapping up the attention from four young men at an all-male hosts club on Orchard Road.

Enjoying the same pampering are two other friends, each with her own man.

Says Madam Cheong: "I don't see why I can't do it."

This reporter first met Madam Cheong three years ago at a KTV-like club catering to women where young, good-looking men sing, dance and cuddle with their female customers.

She had gone to the club out of frustration and loneliness because of her businessman-husband's frequent trips overseas.

She knows that her husband has a string of lovers here and in China.

Madam Cheong and her husband have a teenage daughter, who is studying in Perth.

Madam Cheong's visits to such clubs have become more regular since her husband found out about her secret a year ago.

She says with a sneer: "At first, he said he was so hurt because I had betrayed our sacred marriage vows.

"I laughed at him and told him, 'look, you are the one who has been sleeping around'."

Madam Cheong claims that her husband "transformed from being hurt to being angry".

She recalls: "He took a golf club and swung it angrily around, breaking things in the home - our wine bottles, the antiques.

"I just stood there and laughed."

When Madam Cheong's husband finally stopped, he threatened to file for a divorce.

She says: "I told him to go ahead but I also warned him that I was going to squeeze as much money as I could from him for alimony and maintenance."

That silenced the businessman.

"I knew that would happen. He wouldn't want to share his fortune with me."

When contacted, Madam Cheong's husband admitted that her accusations were true, but declined to comment further.

While men are the usual suspects when it comes to cheating, a global sexual well-being survey commissioned by condom manufacturer Durex last year revealed that women are just as likely to cheat. They just have different reasons.

The survey, which polled 506 Singaporeans, found that 19 per cent of women were unfaithful to their partners.

While it's the same percentage for men, the difference lies in that the men are likely to be either having casual sex or paying for it, while the women tend to take on longer-term partners.

With her husband now in the know, Madam Cheong says she no longer bothers to come up with excuses when she goes hunting for men.

"He does it. I do it. We keep our affairs outside of the family home - that's what straying means to me," she says.

"We made a pact to keep it out of there."

When her daughter is back in Singapore on vacation, they "go out and do things together as a family".

When she is needed, she plays the role of a loving wife and attends business events with her husband.

Why bother with such a sham marriage? "It's not a sham, it's a convenient arrangement.

"We (she and her husband) love the perfect platform that our marriage provides in keeping us from having to commit to another relationship," she says.

But a more rational reason is that they want their daughter to first graduate.

Says Madam Cheong: "It's unfair to dump this fiasco on our only child.

"We want her to live happily, graduate and get a job, and maybe one day, when she has settled down, we will break the news to her."

By then, she adds: "Maybe we'd be too old to be playing the field and we may end up wanting to live with each other all over again."

This article was first published in The New Paper.

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