How Many Is Many
DocS was the one of the deans of the medical school where I came from. Because he was a member of a family-owned educational institution, he asked me and some of my classmates to help him conduct the annual physical examination of all of the elementary and highschool students of the said educational institution. We all rode in his van and he drove us towards the said institution, with me sitting in the front seat with him while the rest of my classmates sat at the back. As he started grilling us about school, the review, my former highschool classmate who is a niece of his, our conversation shifted to the more personal and interesting questions.
“So, [Mistress], when are you getting married?”
I laughed. “Di ko pa alam, DocS. Di ko pa po iniisip yan sa ngayon.”
“Why not? You should start thinking about settling down already.”
A polite smile was my only reply.
“Do you have a boyfriend?”
My classmates laughed from the back. They were all aware of my sordid stories of the men who had come in and out of my life. “Uhhh… no.”
“Why not? Didn’t you have a boyfriend when I interviewed you during your application to the medical school?”
Uhhh… that was eons of years ago, I wanted to tell him. But instead I just smiled.
“And I think I saw you before with some guy, I just can’t remember when it was.”
“Which one, doc?” I asked him. After which my classmates laughed. They thought I have just incriminated myself to one of the deans from our school by implying that I was a slut.
“What? So you have had many boyfriends?”
I simply laughed him off and ignored his question.
Darna then whispered to me jokingly that I should just keep my mouth shut because I am forgetting that I was talking to the Dean of Student Affairs, who was the henchman for knowing the personal stories and reputations of all medical students in the medical school.
So, how many really is many? And how many boyfriends is appropriate enough? How many boyfriends will a girl have had to be labeled a slut? Does having had a number of boyfriends, regardless of whether or not I was monogamous to them (I was, by the way, 100% of the time!), of whether or not I slept with them, or whether or not I was truly madly deeply inlove with them, label me a slut? Does the simple fact that the number of guys whom I have called “My Boyfriend” are more than the number of fingers in my one hand evidence enough to categorize me as a slut?
I do not really consider myself a slut. Yes, I have had numerous relationships, a lot more than I would care to but I regretted none of them. I did not sleep with all of them. I do not wish to tell the actual number of boyfriends I have had but rest assured that I can still count them using the fingers in my hands. I will admit though that I have only fallen truly deeply madly inlove thrice in my life.
I once heard in some show at the Discovery Channel that a person will fall inlove about an average of three times in his entire lifetime.
So, does this mean that three is the magic number?
You tell me.
Rendezvous
“Scoot over, [Mistress]. I’m feeling sleepy.”
I scooted over to the side, my breasts practically flattened to the wall, as another classmate squeezed in his huge frame between myself and TheIdealMan in the miniscule bed. “Oh, guys, come on,” I muttered, “I can’t breathe in here!”
My classmates laughed. Another day at the PGI Quarters. A full-blown whole-day citywide brown-out and a 5:00 PM class with Dr. Lee at Radiology has resulted into my hanging out at the PGI Quarters at noon. I wasn’t really much of a siesta person so I figured, since the hospital has a generator and all, it would probably be a cooler place for killing time than sweating like a pig and dying of boredom at home. Of course, I had forgotten that lunchtime was usually the time of the day when the PGI Quarters was most packed.
Cocolee, official class clown-slash-heartthrob was in the middle of telling an anecdote about a former Psychiatry patient he met during his rotation at IM when my cellphone rang.
“Hello?”
Yup… It was Mcplayer.
“Meet me at the Doctor’s Quarters. The one near the Burn Ward?”
I smiled. “What time?”
“Now.”
I laughed. “Okay.”
A quick tug-of-war between my hair and the hairbrush, a few strokes with the lipstick and a couple spritz of my perfume and I was all-set. I was about to walk inconspicuously out the door when Eve called me. We were both under Dr. Lee’s class but she usually comes in early because of – get this! – her insatiable appetite to learn… Yes, I too believe she must be suffering from some kind of a disease… “Hey, [Mistress], where are you going?”
Think, [Mistress], think. “Uhmmm… lunch.”
“I’ll go with you. I haven’t had my lunch yet.”
“Uhmmm…” Shit! What the hell— “I’m having lunch with my Mom.”
Eve scrunched her face. “Oh, well. No thanks. I’ll just wait for Doc Badz instead.”
I simply nodded and headed towards the Burn Ward, a cat-ate-the-canary smile practically pasted on my face. There’s something incredibly naughty about keeping secrets. The mere fact that you’re keeping something from other people makes rendezvous-ing so much more… what’s the word?… Delicious?…
And there he was, waiting for me by the door of the Doctor’s Quarters.
From afar, I can just imagine that expression on his face, as he watched me walk towards him. Those intense eyes, boring through me, as if he was planning to eat me up in one unexpected moment. The lips partly pouting, partly smirking, as if he knew something about me that even I didn’t know… He was very dangerous grounds, I know, but somehow, sparks flew and I was hooked to him like Mighty Bond between the pads of your fingers.
Mcplayer smiled at me and tugged on my hand as I walked into the Doctor’s Quarters. “Hi, baby,” he greeted, kissing me lightly on the cheek.
I grinned. “Hey, have you had lunch yet?”
“Yes. You?”
I nodded. “So, how was your day?”
He started playing with my hair, twirling them in between his fingers. “Don’t ask,” he answered, rolling his eyes for emphasis. “It was quite toxic at the ward this morning. Thank God that’s all done now. At least, now I finally get to rest.” He then leaned his head on my lap and closed his eyes.
“Oh, poor you,” I teased and started playing with his hair.
He laughed. “Stop! You’ll mess up my hair.” He then grabbed my hands and held them firmly, his fingers fitting perfectly in between my own.
I swatted him playfuly. “So, aren’t you going to ask how my day is?”
He looked at me guiltily. “Oh, haven’t I asked you yet?”
I laughed and pretended to look mad. “Heh!”
He laughed and held me closer. “Uyyy… hahaha… You’re mad at me…I’m sorry, baby. I’m just so tired. Okay, so how was your day?”
“I found out Rockstar got his new girlfriend pregnant.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Rockstar, your ex?”
I nodded.
“With the same girlfriend who was the reason why you two broke up?”
I pretended to look offended. “Did you have to remind me?… Yeah, I guess so. I heard his parents are having a problem right now because they can’t exactly get married yet since the girl is only 16 years old.”
“What did you feel when you heard the news?”
“I don’t know. Mixed emotions. Mostly, I felt surprised.”
“Knowing Rockstar, were you actually even surprised?”
“No. I was just surprised that it actually happened. I kinda felt sorry for him because from what I heard, he’s still jobless until now and now he’s become one of the statistics that he used to vow he would never become – an unwed father.”
“Too bad for him… Baby, that’s karma.”
“Yeah. I guess… Actually, I felt sad as well. More for myself, not for him.”
“Why? Do you still miss him?”
I laughed. “No… Honestly, I think I felt sad because… how come he got his girlfriend pregnant and not me?”
He laughed. “Aba! And you mean you actually wanted him to get you pregnant?”
I giggled. “Hehehe…Just kidding.”
“You know, it’s quite easy to get anyone pregnant. What’s difficult is to raise children.”
“Yes, dad,” I teased, kissing him quickly on the lips. “I was just joking.”
“But if you really want a baby,” he turned and before I knew it, my back was practically reclining on the white standardized sheets of the hospital bed, “I am quite easy to talk to. You want us to start making one now?”
I laughed. “Heh! You’re so bad!”
“No, I’m just being a good friend. You know, I’m always ready to lend a helping hand… So, if you really want to get pregnant now, I’ll lend you my body. Free of charge.”
I smiled. “You’re crazy!” I told him, before giving him a quick smack.
He then looked at me inquisitively. “Honestly speaking, I am not going to get mad. Do you think you’re completely over him?”
I looked at him and found myself surprised by what I saw in his eyes. It was fear, fear that he was actually going to lose me… Ha! I guess he has realized it so much earlier than I did… What started out as friendship, a fling, a relationship that was just supposed to test the waters has finally turned out to be so much more. Damn hell… how was it that I never realized it until now? Or maybe I was just so much in denial about it, afraid of getting hurt again, that I didn’t want to face what’s right there infront of me?… Until now…
Oh, shit. What the hell am I gonna do?
“I’m over him.”
“How sure are you?”
I looked at him. “I just do.”
He kissed the back of my hand and didn’t say another word.
“Baby?” I called.
“Yeah?”
“Wanna know something?”
“What?”
“I’m just as scared about this as you are.”
He turned to me, smiled and kissed my forehead. He understood. Words weren’t needed because he felt it too. And it was clearly enough for now.
The Third Floor
Secrets.
Everybody loves a secret. There is something incredibly exciting when someone speaks to you in hushed tones about his or her or someone else’s secret. Whether it’s a good secret like hiding the fact that you will be graduating at the top of your class from your parents so as to surprise them during graduation, or a bad secret like being involved with a married man or a boring secret like smoking in the house’s bathroom before bathing or exchanging flirtatious text messages with the boyfriend of someone who comes from the same school as you. Everybody loves a secret.
The third floor of my school building has its secrets.
It has been a constant witness to the numerous women taking daily baths at the 3rd floor CR despite the school forbidding it. It has been a constant witness to the many secret rendezvous with one married medical student, despite having been chastised once by one of the priests in the school for public display of affection (We were only talking and holding hands, by the way). It has been a constant witness to the various maneuvers to sneak into classrooms despite the door being locked for those who are late for even half of a second to their 7:00 AM class, the scandalous conversations between women in the comfort room regarding their sexual activities with their boyfriends, and the sexually-charged atmosphere when gay men illicitly check out the penises of straight men while peeing in the urinals.
As one passes by the open door of the 3rd floor Men’s CR, one will be able to see the heads of men standing infront of the stalls as they drain the main vein. A moment of discomfort occurs as one briefly catches the eye of anyone currently doing his business. For a fleeting time, the man holding his penis as he purges out his renal secretions and the woman passing by who manages to look into his direction exchange a few seconds of awkwardness. The man, as if ashamed of this normal act of excreting bodily fluids, is usually the first to turn his eye elsewhere. The woman, conscious of what anatomical part he is holding at the moment, proceeds to turn her gaze elsewhere as well, as if somehow afraid that her stare might cause all the blood in his circulation to rush to his main pipe, completely unaware despite her highschool background of Biology that it is almost impossible for a man to urinate when he has an erection.
And somehow they are reduced to forget that a mere strip of metal that stands as a stall separates the other from whatever it is that he or she is thinking.
