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.
Disappointing My Mother
Out of all the members in my family, I have always had the most lax schedule. Before starting medical school, I was volunteering at some hospital every afternoon, together with my boyfriend Rockstar. Both of my parents were working and my siblings had classes from morning till afternoon. As such I was usually the one tasked to go out and deposit money to the bank, pay the phone bills, electric bills, water bills, cable bills and even my siblings’ tuition fees.
One morning, my mother asked me to go to her office later because she had an errand which she wanted me to do. This was a common occurrence since she sometimes leaves blank deposit slips in her office and I cannot go to the bank without her signature in the form. A few hours later, I was finally dropped off by Rockstar to my mother’s office.
“Hi, Ma.” I took her hand and raised it to my forehead as a sign of respect.
“Oh, you’re here. Sit down. I want to talk to you.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“[Mistress], are you pregnant?”
I was shocked. “Excuse me?”
“I found your diary last night. You left it in our room, wide open. So, I read your latest entry… [Mistress], how can you do this to us? Haven’t all the unwanted pregnancies from your cousins ever taught you something?”
I wanted the floor to just open and swallow me up. I slinked further down my seat. I’m so stupid. This was all my fault. My period has been late for a few weeks. I have an irregular cycle so this shouldn’t cause such an alarm. But because I have been sexually active with Rockstar much too often than I would have cared for, I too was afraid that the frequency might have increased the chances that I could be pregnant. So, I wrote about it in my diary, which was a standard-looking blue Corona notebook back then. Because I was still deliriously inlove with Rockstar back then, I wrote about how despite my own fears, I wouldn’t really mind if I was pregnant since I know he will take good care of me and he will be a great father to my baby. Now, since I would usually write in my notebook and then encode it afterwards and our PC was in my parent’s bedroom, she must have read my diary when I had totally forgotten that I had left it in their room, after taking up a phone call from Rockstar while I was in the middle of my encoding session.
“Ma, I’m irregular. I was just afraid that I could be pregnant,” I told her, in a really small voice. I was afraid of my Mom. Still am though.
“What about our plans for you? You have disappointed us so much. What kind of example are you setting to your siblings? I would have thought that you were the smartest one in the family. I did not expect this from you. How could you do this to us? We have always supported you in all your decisions! You know, when you said you don’t want to apply abroad anymore and you want to go into medical school instead, we supported you. Even when we don’t know where we would actually get money to sustain your education for the next few years. Do you even still want to continue pursuing medicine now?”
“Ma, I’m not pregnant. I still want to go into medical school.”
“But how will you focus if things between you and Rockstar are too serious? I know it was a wrong decision to allow you to have a boyfriend. You two are always spending your time together. It can be distracting for your studies.”
“Ma, I’ve had boyfriends in college before. I never let boys affect my education. Look, despite the fact that I had boyfriends before, I never neglected my grades and I still got to graduate in time, didn’t I?”
“But are you sexually active with Rockstar?”
I could have lied and told her no but she read my diary so she’d obviously know I wasn’t telling the truth. I could have come up with a lesser lie and tell her yes, and then tell her that we only did it one time. I could have thought of a thousand other better things to tell her than what actually came out of my mouth if I had more time but alas! Being the tactless person that I was, I blurted out the first thing that popped into my mind.
“Ma, I’ve been sexually active since I was 21 with my other boyfriends in the big city. I know what to do to make sure I don’t get pregnant.”
I cringed as soon as I heard the words come out of my mouth. I just basically told my Mom I haven’t been a virgin for a long time, that I’ve slept with more than one man, and that basically despite trying to raise me well, her daughter was a slut.
GAHHHHD…
It probably took all my mother’s willpower not to slap me in the face right then and there.
My mother then went on an extremely long tirade regarding my lack of moral values, my disregard for their feelings and the Christian values they taught us, their personal vendetta against Rockstar for taking advantage of me, veiled implications of their not wanting me to pursue medicine anymore, my cousins’ unwanted pregnancies (I have one cousin who got pregnant during her affair with a married man and two other female cousins in my mother’s sides who were forced into marriage because of unwanted pregnancies), my stupidity, my apathy and my loose morals. She did not yell but continued chastising me in a soft tone, as she told me of how she couldn’t sleep at all last night and how she would just stare off into space and think about how I have destroyed their dreams for me, and how she wouldn’t even notice that she was crying until her tears were literally dripping down her neck.
I hated that. I couldn’t stand that. I would have preferred it more if she yelled or slapped at my face instead. I could face her anger well. What I couldn’t bear to face was the guilt and her disappointment.
I couldn’t look at my mother’s face for quite some time. I was allowed to go out with friends, even until the wee hours of the night, but Rockstar and I were not allowed to go out anymore together during evenings (as if people cannot have sex during mornings or afternoons, hello?!). It took a few months for my mother to learn to trust me again. I had been marked for life and indiscretions like this were one of those things that my mother would be able to forgive, but never ever forget.
So now during evenings, I just tell my parents I’m going out with friends even when I’m actually going out with a boyfriend.
Yeah, I know, I know. I can be such a bad daughter sometimes.
Catholic School Girl Guilt
I occasionally think that maybe I have a destructive personality.
I frequently lament on not having a boyfriend and getting worried that maybe someday I will end up dying alone, but when I do end up in a relationship, I somehow end up mucking things up until it just doesn’t seem to work out for anyone of us that the relationship just has to end.
And the cycle repeats itself.
I say this because I have noted one particular attitude of mine that has most likely brought about the start of the impending destruction in most of the relationships I have been in.
I call it, the Catholic School Girl Guilt.
You know that Golden Rule for Cheating Boys that goes something like, “If you’re ever caught cheating, at all costs, never ever admit to the truth”?
Well, I do the exact opposite.
Even if they have no idea that I had done something wrong, I feel so incredibly guilty that I end up confessing to my boyfriend about it. It probably had something to do with the guilt that has been ingrained far up my cerebrum from my Catholic School upbringing when occasionally, even if you haven’t really done anything wrong, your teachers make you feel like you did. You become unable to look them in the eye and your conscience really eats at you that you eventually end up confessing to a deed which, most of the times, you didn’t even do in the first place.
Case point my freshman year in medical school. I had been seeing Rockstar for more than six months already. I had just started medical school and was starting to make new friends. I loved my new classmates and I was missing my old college buddies terribly. Hence, I wanted the opportunity to get to know my new classmates more. A bunch of the guys were always inviting me out for drinks and night-outs. I always kept telling Rockstar that I wanted to go with them. Rockstar, always feeling threatened by the presence of other guys spending more time with me, forbid me to.
This, of course, does not do well for me.
“No,” Rockstar remarked, for the umpteenth time.
“Come on. We’re always hanging out together. Can’t the two of us go out with them for once?”
He, of course, took this the wrong way. “Why? Are you bored with me?”
“No, I didn’t say that. It’s just that I want to get to know these people too. I would be going to spend the next five years with them after all. As for us, we’ve known each other for six months now and baby, we have a lifetime to get to know each other. Don’t I deserve the chance to be able to hang-out with these people as well?”
“Well, if you loved them so much more than me, then maybe you should break up with me to be with them.”
“You’re totally taking this the wrong way.”
“No, seriously, I mean it.”
“What? I’m being insecure? Is it so bad to be worried that my girlfriend wants to spend time with other guys than her own boyfriend? They’re guys, [mistress]. I know what guys are interested in when they ask out girls their own age. You can’t understand me because you’re a girl and you don’t know these things.”
Rockstar had no concept of a platonic relationship with the opposite sex. His closest female friends have all been either girls he used to court in the past, he used to have a thing with, used to have a thing for him or are just too unattractive to even have a thing with at all. I pouted. “You’re being irrational.”
“Now, I’m irrational? They like you! Is it actually wrong for me to feel threatened that some other guys are interested in you and you actually want to get to know them?”
“They are NOT all attracted to me.”
“Not all? So you mean to say, there are some who actually are.”
This is the point when I should have just kept my mouth shut. But the Catholic School Girl guilt slipped in before I could even stop myself. I was just so pissed off with him that I didn’t even think first before talking my mouth off. “Well, there are a few who seem a little too friendly.”
“WHAT?” If Rockstar was a cartoon character, it would be safe to say that there would be steam coming out of his ears at this point.
But, oh, I had already opened the floodgates and I must have been incredibly stupid that I proceeded to further incriminate myself. “You know, just a little too flirty that maybe misconstrued as a sign of interest. But it’s nothing. They’re probably just being friendly or something.”
“Who?” Rockstar asked me, his expression hard as stone.
“Rockstar!”
“If you’re not going to tell me, I swear I’m going to leave you and walk out of here right now!”
“Seriously, [mistress]!”
“Okay, okay… I think FunnyBoy has a thing for me.”
Before I knew it, he begins this major phone brigade wherein he calls my bestfriend from highschool, EngineerBoy, asks him about FunnyBoy which of course, EngineerBoy does not have any idea about, asks for the number of his girlfriend Darna, who is also one of my classmates in medical school, calls her up and asks her about FunnyBoy as well which she fervently denies, asks her for FunnyBoy’s number, calls him and asks him the most embarrassing question as to whether it is true that FunnyBoy is interested in me.
The whole thing happens with me fuming and pleading him not to proceed with all this embarrassment.
“Rockstar, come on! This is embarrassing to me and to FunnyBoy! For all we know, I’m just imagining things and he’s really just being friendly. What if he’ll start thinking that I’m one of those conceited girls who think every man in the room is in love with her?”
“Stop it! I’m done talking to you!” And he proceeds to talk to FunnyBoy on the phone. FunnyBoy, of course, denies being interested in me and their conversation ends with Rockstar telling him to stop flirting with me because I already have a boyfriend. Somewhat appeased, Rockstar finally relents and drops the argument with me.
Of course, at this point, I was already incredibly humiliated that for the next few weeks, I avoided FunnyBoy as much as I could and just simply couldn’t look him in the eye.
Me and my big mouth.
Badly In Need of Listerine
TheRider and I knew each other from the same hospital where I used to work. He was a friend of HotVolunteer. Despite the fact that we have seen each other occasionally around the hospital, he had never approached me personally, except for the occasional “Hi, doc” at the Dietary. He started out as JaneDoe’s textmate and when she obviously wasn’t into him, as boys were in the popular custom of passing cellphone numbers of cute girls they knew, my cellphone number was passed from HotVolunteer to ShyVolunteer then finally, into the hands of TheRider.
He didn’t have HotNurse’s hotness nor flirting charisma. In fact, TheRider was a very shy guy, quiet most of the time, and he was one of those guys who were into constant texting, the type who goes:
Hav u eaten? Iv eatn alredy. Dis rice & fish s gud. Im dun eating. How bout u? WUD? How bout now, wud? Im toking w frends. U? Wud? Im hir @ d 2nd flor of d hospi. Now Im hir @ d 3rd flor of d hosp. Now Im in d 4th flor. Wat bout u, WUD? [Mistress]? R u bz? Its 7 pm, hav u eaten alrdy? Im havin chcken. Im dun now. WUD? Wat bout now, wud?
I had just gotten out of a severely confusing and unrewarding relationship and found him to be the most convenient rebound guy. Hence, when he started courting me, I went for it, thinking, Hey, what the hell. He seems like a nice guy. I know he’ll treat me well.
As all nice guys go, it takes some time for them to be comfortable enough around girls. I was in the throes of another new love so I looked very much forward to that first kiss with him. I remembered one particular time when I wanted him to kiss me but I ended up annoyed with him, looking up at the sky instead and watching the clouds change colors, as he was not making his moves. AT ALL.
Until one day, I finally told him that it’s about time that he should start kissing me.
The dam broke.
As he slowly brought his head down to mine and his lips finally parted, I sensed that something was off. It wasn’t his technique. It wasn’t the way he rolled his tongue. It wasn’t the way he lapped on my lower lips. It was something else.
Out of all the five senses, it was that of my olfactory that was viciously waving the red flag.
He had HALITOSIS.
Now, as a doctor, I know that most people who have bad breath do not realize that they suffer from this disease because the stench most frequently originates from the back of one’s throat. A simple round of brushing cannot eliminate the offensive odor easily since this is usually a result of a combination of decaying teeth and chronic neglect of deep gargling as well as brushing at the frequently neglected posterior and undersides of one’s tongue.
I, at first, thought that maybe it was me. And was I mortified!
So, I immediately headed to my dentist, had my teeth cleaned and my aching molars removed, regularly gargled and brushed my teeth, including all sides and crevices of my tongue. Thousands of pesos later, I was finally confident that there was no way that the kissing offense was going to happen.
Until of course, I ended up making out again with TheRider.
It was HIM alright.
He was the one who had bad breath. He was the one who was making me gag as I pretended to be seriously enjoying the Frenchkissing. He was the one who didn’t brush his teeth or gargled often enough.
After the said incident, I started noticing small things about TheRider which used to be insignificant enough for me to take notice, like how he never brushes his teeth after a meal even when we’re at his own house and we just had a meal together, or how he wasn’t conscious about his breath even after we’ve just spent two hours not speaking to each other during a movie at a cinemahouse, or that sometimes, there’d be actual food stuck in his teeth.
The stupid things we ignore when we’re inlove.
When he decided that he wanted to break up because of certain reasons that had nothing to do with me (he apparently wanted to save me from being involved in some scandal he was involved in), I simply let him.
No regrets, no drama, no crying nor pleading infront of him.
I was finally free of him.
I was just relieved that I can finally enjoy breathing fresh air again.
*** UPDATE – TheRider did try to get back with me but halitosis aside, a guy who thinks he’s being a hero by dumping you to save you from the rumors? That’s just being cowardly. I want a man who can stand up for me. Throughout our relationship, I felt like I was settling for something less than I deserved simply because I was afraid of growing old alone. Besides, how long will I be able to stand kissing him before I end up telling him that I wasn’t enjoying the bad breath all? I mean, seriously, guys. Brush your teeth regularly and use mouthwash, for God’s sake!
She’s Not My Girlfriend. She’s Just a Friend.
TheDancer and I were hanging out at the mall together after I had asked him to go to the big city for a date with me. After watching a movie I had paid for (Did I mention that TheDancer can be such a cheapskate sometimes?), we were having dinner at the food court and catching up on each other’s life.
“So, what reason did you tell your Mom as to why you had to go to the big city?”
He shrugged. “I told her I needed to get something from ClosetKing.”
“She believed that?”
“Well, she didn’t really mind. She was kind of busy since my uncle just arrived from Saudi and was asking the relatives to drop by their house.”
“Oh.”
We proceeded finishing our dinner, in between talks of other more mundane things. After an hour or so, we decided to leave since he still had to catch a bus for the long ride back to his town. As we passed by a couple of tables, someone called him.
“TheDancer!”
He turned towards the sound of the person calling his name and mumbled under his breath, “S**t! It’s my uncle.”
I turned to look at the group of people walking towards us. “Who are all those people with him?”
“My cousins.”
Hmmm… so I was finally meeting the relatives, I thought. Because TheDancer lived quite a distance from the big city, I never had the opportunity to meet anyone in his family. We had been dating for five months and the most connection to his family that I got was occasionally talking to his mother on the phone and asking her if I could talk to his son.
As was the custom for most Filipino families, he took his uncle’s hand and lifted it to his forehead as a sign of respect.
“Uncle.”
“What are you doing here?” his uncle asked, looking at me, and then at TheDancer, and then me, again. His uncle looked like the typical rich OFW, with the unbuttoned shirt halfway through his chest and a huge gold medallion on his neck. Add the carrier suitcase with wheels and the airport cart and he could be the poster child for Duty Free.
“We watched a movie and had dinner.”
“Who are you with?” he asked. I could feel his cousins staring at me from head to foot, sizing me up.
He pointed to me. “My friend.”
It was as if a thousand daggers miraculously came out of nowhere and flew straight into my chest. I ignored it and smiled at his uncle, albeit, a little uncomfortably.
“How’s your mom?” he asked.
“She’s at home. She said she was going to drop by your house today.”
“We must not have been able to catch her arrival.”
“Yeah, maybe… Listen, uncle, we’ll go ahead,” said TheDancer to his uncle, briefly patting his uncle’s arm.
His uncle nodded. “Oh, okay. You guys take care.”
One of his cousins decided to choose that moment to tease TheDancer. “Hey, bro. Is she your girlfriend?” he asked, as he nodded towards my direction.
TheDancer looked at me briefly and then turned to me. “No, she’s just a friend.”
I felt like another thousand daggers had stabbed my chest.
“Oh, come on. She’s your girlfriend, isn’t she?” his cousin taunted, grinning at TheDancer mischievously.
“She’s not my girlfriend. She’s just a friend.”
Another thousand daggers pierced through my chest.
TheDancer patted his cousin’s arm. “Hey, we have to go. I’ll see you guys later.”
I smiled briefly at his uncle and his cousins as I followed behind TheDancer. As we finally left them, walking away from the food court, I slowly tried to remove the three thousand daggers sticking out of my chest and cursed him in my mind.
It was a given that he definitely didn’t get any from me that night.
Still Searching for TheDancer
Because everybody I know has a Friendster account, one of the first persons I tried to search through Friendster’s search engine was an ex-boyfriend of mine from college whom I haven’t seen eversince I broke up with him during the last time I was at the big city.
TheDancer. The guy I broke up with before I started dating Rockstar.
I think he’s the only person I know who probably doesn’t own a Friendster account.
All my attempts to search for him through Friendster have failed. I even tried searching for him through Multiply and nothing. I figured, he wasn’t much of a computer savvy in college anyway – seeing as I had to frequently help him out with encoding his case presentations in simple Microsoft Word – but come on! It doesn’t take computer savvy to make a Friendster account, for God’s sake! I even came so far as to Google him but the only significant result I got was a list from the Professional Regulation Commission of those who passed the licensure exam for our old college course about a year after he graduated.
At least, now I know he’s finally passed his board exams.
Unfortunately, it only confirms that he has totally disappeared off my life and does not wish to be found.
I missed TheDancer. He was the first of the many players who traipsed in and out of my life. He was the first of the not-so-serious boyfriends I ever had. He was the first of the guys who treated me like crap but I continued seeing because there was nobody else around. He was the first of the guys I dated but knew I would never actually end up marrying.
He was also my first.
But that’s another story. LOL…
TheDancer and I met during my last month of internship at some rehabilitation center in Novaliches. He hailed from a private college just some distance from my own university. He was short, well-built, very masculine and cute when he grinned in that boyish mischievous way of his. It wasn’t love at first sight really. He frequently hung out with this other co-intern, ClosetKing, and one of my other co-interns, Fruity, had a crush on TheDancer. She displayed this in the most childish way possible: by constantly picking arguments with him. This did not do well with him, of course, as he ended up being frequently annoyed with her.
Our last day of rotation at the said rehabilitation, all the interns agreed on catching a movie together. TheDancer and I ended up sitting together, our elbows sharing one armchair. Sometime in the middle of the movie, our hands, which were initially hanging loosely an inch away from each other, brushed.
I ignored it. I figured it was an accident. A couple seconds later, I felt his pinkie brush against mine again. Still, I ignored it. But I didn’t move my hand away from his. And then he repeated it again.
I briefly looked at him from the corner of my eye. He was intently watching the movie.
So this time, I brushed my pinkie against his.
His expression never changed. But he brushed his pinkie against mine in return, this time a little longer than he’s supposed to.
I think I smiled.
Somehow, he ended up holding my hand during the rest of the movie. And we did all this with none of our friends ever noticing. There would definitely be a lot of teasing if anybody actually noticed it and we both did not want that. Plus I did not want to have Fruity thinking I was an Anaconda and stole her man. We separated as soon as the movie ended and the lights came on.
That same night, he texted me and told me he liked me. I told him I liked him too. Ergo, kami na (we’re going steady). Because he apparently didn’t want ClosetKing asking him a lot of irritating questions, he told me we should keep it on the down low whenever ClosetKing was around.
Which turns out to be almost all of the time as ClosetKing and TheDancer seemed to be practically joined at the hip.
At one time, ClosetKing, TheDancer and I practically got engaged in this severely complicated game of walking through the various streets and back alleys of Malate just to lose ClosetKing who was adamant in trying to join us. TheDancer it seems didn’t have the heart to tell him to bug off and he didn’t want to go off into a long explanation as to why he wanted to be with me alone, without ClosetKing’s company. ClosetKing must have noticed that I was spending a lot of time with TheDancer so he texted me if TheDancer was courting me. I told him no. He said that’s good because he was interested in me. I didn’t have the heart to tell him no so I just said I’m very flattered but I think we were better off as friends. I told TheDancer about the whole incident and he laughed his head off.
It seems that ClosetKing, who has been his bestfriend for the past few years, is infact inlove with him.
So, ClosetKing is gay.
Okay… that explained a lot.
So I played along with the entire charade between ClosetKing and TheDancer, letting ClosetKing think believe that I know he liked me too, being okay with TheDancer and I not letting ClosetKing know that we were dating. Often times, I would meet him after his duty at the hospital and we would avoid not being seen by ClosetKing together.
It was a really weird time of my life but ClosetKing was fun and flirty and was not complicated to be with so I stayed. He wasn’t as affectionate as I would’ve wanted to. He preferred being held by the elbow rather than by the hands. He was arrogant, a little bossy and was occasionally moody. We talked a lot on the phone and because I didn’t own one and he did, I frequently can be seen heading to a nearby public pay phone with my purse of P5 coins just to chat with him about his studies and making him answer hypothetical questions about our relationship. Because I owned a cellphone and he didn’t, I frequently had to be content with him sending me text messages from various unregistered numbers telling me to meet him somewhere and even waiting for him once for three hours at a McDonalds’ because he never actually got my reply at all. Because he lived one bus ride away from the big city, we didn’t see each other as often as I would’ve wanted and often times I had to entice him to head to the big city by telling him I was treating him for a movie and dinner which of course, I ended up paying for (Darn cheapskate that TheDancer!). Despite the fact that he had a temper, we rarely fought because whenever I would try to open up about certain incident that had made me annoyed with him, he had this way of making me laugh and forget about it before I even started telling him why I was angry in the first place.
He wasn’t the love of my life but I loved him, in one of those crazy I-don’t-know why ways.
When I finally told him that I was leaving the big city to finally go back home, he surprised me by saying the sweetest words I have ever heard come out of his mouth:
“If things were different and we were at an age when we could be more independent to make our own decisions, you [mistress] could have been the woman I would’ve thought of wanting to spend the rest of my life with.”
Such perfect timing. And he decides to tell me this just as I was about to leave the big city and return back at an indefinite period of time.
In all the seven months that we were together, he couldn’t even find the courage to tell me he loved me.
Arghhh, damn men! You all want what you can no longer have.
Rain Part Deux
I eventually got used to the Frenchkissing.
But the thing about kissing that way is, once you started doing that, eventually it has to lead to something more. Your partner looks forward to covering the rest of the bases and wants to accomplish that soon. A day before I was about to fly home for semestral break, Rain and I went to watch a movie. As we kissed in the dark, he started putting his hands around my face. Eventually, he started kissing my earlobe and neck region and when his hand started going lower, aiming for my breasts, I finally panicked and grabbed his hand to stop him.
Repeatedly. As one failed attempt just made him want to do another.
And another.
And still another.
While I continually refused to let him.
It got to a point that I didn’t want him to even kiss me anymore, because it will only give him an opportunity to try to attempt to put his hand inside my shirt again. But I never got mad at him, just kept stopping him whenever he tried to cop a feel. When we left the moviehouse, it was as if nothing out of the ordinary happened and we did not even discuss the incident except for his passing comment that he was sleepy and that next time, we should sleep together in a place somewhere in Sta. Mesa. I mumbled yes, not really thinking much about it, assuming that sleeping together meant relaxing and simply talking with each other while resting our weary backs in a bed until we actually literally fall asleep, and I was completely unaware then that Sta. Mesa was filled with a lot of cheap motels that offered plenty of short-time bargains.
As I went through my vacation, I pondered how I was going to approach my situation with Rain. I was curious, yes, but I wasn’t ready for all that touching the breasts kind of thing. He was just going too fast for me, who hasn’t had much experience in this field. I was hoping we wouldn’t get to the touching of erogenous zones until after two to three months of us dating but clearly, this wasn’t going to be the case with Rain. Plus, I didn’t really love him enough for me to actually want to do these things with him. I needed a certain level of comfort to be able to even consider doing these things with a guy and I certainly wasn’t feeling it with him. Until finally, I realized that the best way for me to get out of this situation was to break up with him.
When I got back to the big city, I started being cold and I refused to take his calls. When he finally cornered me at home one Sunday evening, I didn’t even want to prolong the agony with useless chit-chat.
“Hey, I’ve been calling you up again and again. Why didn’t you return my calls?”
“I’ve been busy, Rain.”
“So, how have you been? I missed you, you know. Are we still on for mass tonight?”
“Listen, Rain, we need to break up.”
“What?”
“I’ve realized that I never really loved you in the first place.”
I think his jaw must have done some major dropping. His eyes looked slightly red. I don’t know if it was from holding back tears or from smoking pot (my cousins suspected that he probably smoked pot considering that his eyes looked partially shot most of the time and he lived in the next street from ours, where a lot of drug addicts apparently took residence).
He finally stood up from his seat. “So this is it then?”
“Yes.”
I really didn’t know of any comforting words to say to him. Plus I didn’t want to. I just wanted to get out of the relationship and get a clean break from him. The truth is, that was one of the most difficult things I had to do – to be heartless and a complete bitch to a guy who thought I was inlove with him. I’ve always been a nice girl, peace-loving, non-confrontational. Much as I might have toyed with Rain’s feelings a bit, making him think that I was inlove with him this whole time, I could have been nicer to him during the break-up. But I didn’t want him to get the wrong idea that there could still be any chance if he actually begged me. I seriously just wanted him to get out of my life so I can finally move on.
“Okay, goodbye then.”
“Goodbye.”
I called for him as he was about to walk out of the door. “Rain, I’m really sorry.”
He shrugged. “If that’s what you want, I respect that.”
I could only heave a huge sigh of relief as I watched the distance between us grow bigger and bigger.
Until I couldn’t see him anymore at all.
First Frog I Kissed (Who Didn’t Transform Into Prince Charming)
I wasn’t one of those pretty mature girls in highschool.
I didn’t get the proper catcalling curves until my mid-college years. Despite the fact that I did have suitors, I decided to make it less awkward for me and my parents to not have a boyfriend until I hit college. When I started freshman year, I hung out with a group of girls who had the same plight as I was – single and boyfriendless. I was initially okay with it.
Until THEY started having boyfriends.
I was, of course, annoyed and incredibly jealous. I kept thinking, What the hell is wrong with me? I’m so much prettier than those girls! Why am I the one without a boyfriend? It didn’t matter that their boyfriends weren’t exactly that hot nor good-looking. They, at least, had one, compared to me. Me!
In came Rain.
I met Rain one wet and gloomy day in August. I was waiting for a Balic-Balic jeepney heading to Quiapo, when it started to drizzle. So, I opened my umbrella and stood under its shade. A short guy in a standard University of the East uniform was standing nearby, waiting for a Quiapo jeepney as well. He kept looking at me and my umbrella.
“Can I share your umbrella?” he asked me.
I took pity on him. “Yeah, sure.”
Rain was a very charismatic guy. As we stood under my umbrella, he struck a conversation with me, asking me where I was heading, what school am I from, where did I live, that sort of thing. When we finally caught ourselves a jeepney to ride, he continued chatting with me, oblivious that the other passengers were probably listening in on our conversation.
“I’m Rain, by the way.”
“I’m [Mistress].”
“Hey, is it okay if I get your number?”
“Ha? I don’t know, Rain.”
“Why? Your boyfriend won’t allow you to?”
“It’s not that. I don’t have a boyfriend.”
“So, it’s okay then. Come on, I just want to call you up and maybe hang out so we can get to know each other more.”
I was slightly embarrassed, as we were, after all, not alone and everybody who has been listening to our conversation knew by now that I just met this guy but I was flattered by his blatant display of interest and I admit, impressed that he had the chutzpah to ask for my number when I know I am certainly not the most approachable person. And okay, he has been the first guy to flirt with me for quite some time, except for YoungerGuy (who was heading nowhere), so it didn’t really take much for him to get my number.
He started calling me up and three days after we met, during one of his nightly visits to our home, he asked me if he had a chance with me. Naïve little ‘ol me, I, of course, said yes.
I wasn’t inlove with him. I was rather more inlove with the idea of him.
A boyfriend, finally.
I was now a part of the circle of girls in our class who had boyfriends.
In my defense, I did try to make myself believe that I was inlove with him. And frankly, it was easy since he was incredibly sweet and affectionate. We went out a lot, for a movie or dinner. Most of the time though, when he was broke, he’d just pick me up at school or just drop me off before my class. He was very much into public displays of affection and he’d make me kiss him frequently on the cheek or with a quick smack on the lips. I wasn’t really that ready for anything else.
Until one day, we went to watch a movie. As soon as we sat down and the lights went off, he moved his head closer to mine for a kiss. I assumed it was going to be one of those quick smacks so I puckered up.
And boy, was I wrong.
As soon as my lips touched his, he forcefully stuck his tongue into my mouth and gave me a taste of my first French kiss.
A first kiss can be incredibly shocking for someone who has had no experience at all in the open-mouthed art of tongue-wrestling. It becomes even more shocking when you did not expect it at all from someone you were only semi inlove with. I remembered feeling so shocked that I actually opened my eyes in surprise and found myself looking at him as he kissed me with my eyes closed.
As I felt the papillae and bristles in his tongue brushing against my own, I remembered thinking, Hmmm… My first French kiss…. This isn’t exactly as earth-shattering as I expected. Why the hell are people making such a big deal about kissing being sweet and delicious? It’s not. This feels weird… Ugh! I can feel those papilla again!…
Needless to say, it was not romantic at all.
But as with everything else, I know how to fake enthusiasm. So, I closed my eyes and proceeded to rolling my tongue around and around his mouth as if I actually knew what I was doing, all the while pretending that I too was enjoying kissing him.
I was more likely a bad kisser then. Trust me, I am sooo much better now. LOL. Kidding.
The next day, I was just so awed by what we did that I told my friends about it… So I used to kiss-and-tell. Sue me… They laughed as I narrated my opinion regarding the experience.
“You know, kissing IS supposed to be like that. You should just get used to it and eventually, you’ll start liking it,” said YoungMama, who has had a boyfriend since highschool.
“Really? But it all just felt so icky! I could feel all the ridges in his tongue.”
Lee Lee giggled. “Seriously girl, it’s your first time. Trust me, you’ll like it eventually.”
“But it felt strange! And so wet! I don’t know how you can stand it!”
“That’s supposed to be what a French kiss feels like, you idiot!,” YoungMama explained to me, laughing at me.
“Oh! Okay…”
It turns out Rain had ideas of his own as before I could even start getting used to it, he started moving on to another more dangerous maneuver: copping a feel.
But that’s another story.
Hanging Out With My Drunk Boyfriend at 2 o’ clock in the Morning
Coming home for a short weekend vacation from the community, I decided to go for a night-out with my highschool friends. Somewhere around past 1 AM, Mcplayer called me up and asked me where I was. As we were already about to call it a night, Mcplayer decided to meet up with me after he himself had attended a birthday party for one of the surgery consultants. Because we were all poor chaps with no cars (but apparently with money to go out for drinks), Mcplayer agreed to drop off my friends home first. Drunk to the point of no return, he regaled my friends and I with stories about how one time he was so drunk yet he was made the designated driver that he ended up smashing their car on the side of a truck. Despite his ability to drive in a relatively safe speed and still recognize the meaning of changing colors of the traffic lights, my friends and I began to fear for our life. As they sat at the backseat, a couple of them texted me.
Damn u, [mistress]. Dis car is a Death Trap.
If we die in dis Death Trap, our ghosts r sooo goin 2 haunt u evry nyt.
From the back seat, away from my boyfriend’s watchful eyes, my friends sign languaged choking my neck and I just smiled at them sheepishly in the hopes that they will forgive me should anything happen to us. Mcplayer, oblivious of what his revelations had stirred in us, continued chatting brazenly, unaware of my embarrassment and of how he was making a total ass of himself.
Afterwards, as we lay in bed together and tried to nurse his drunkenness and my own throbbing headache, we got to talking. Funny the things you find out when you’re with people who are inebriated to the point that they cannot help anymore what comes out of their mouth. Their loss of inhibition can be an eye opener. Mcplayer wasn’t really a funny guy but I was completely amused with the things spewing out of his mouth that night.
“I’m so drunk, [mistress].
“I know.”
“You know, I’ve wronged you so much, [mistress].”
I raised an eyebrow. “Like what?”
“Remember when you texted me this afternoon? I couldn’t reply to you right away because I was actually with my girlfriend.”
I just nodded my head and shrugged nonchalantly. “I kind of assumed that already.”
“But you,” he looked me in the eye, almost sincerely. “You’re different. I like being with you more. You stimulate me mentally and physically.”
“Yeah, right,” I replied back, smirking sarcastically. I lit a cigarette and shared a drag with him.
“[Mistress], why are we doing this, [mistress]?”
I laughed.
“Hey, don’t laugh. Why are you laughing?… Do you love me, [mistress]?”
I started laughing even harder.
“I’m serious. [Mistress], do you love me?”
I smiled at him sweetly. “And who told you that I loved you?”
“I know you do. I don’t think you’ll still keep on seeing me even if you knew I have a girlfriend if you don’t really love me.”
I shrugged. “Maybe.”
“Let’s get married, [mistress]. When do you want to get married?”
“Year 2008. When I’m 28 and have already passed my Board Exams.”
“Okay. I’ll wait… I’m so drunk, [mistress]. Why don’t we just live together?”
I laughed even harder.
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Anakan mo na lang ako, [mistress]. (Bear me a child, [mistress]).
I laugh aloud.
“I’m serious. I want to have a son with you, [mistress].”
“Go and ask your other girlfriend for a son.”
“But I want it with you. I want to see the fruit of our relationship.”
“But why me?” I asked him.
“Because I know you’ll take very good care of him.”
I took another drag from my cigarette and blew the smoke to the ceiling. “Let’s talk about that some other time. I am not yet ready for that.”
“Then, let’s get married, [mistress]. When do you want to get married? Next week? Next month? Next year? We’ll just have a civil wedding first.”
I smiled and took his face in my hands. “Look, baby, I am not yet ready to get marrried… Besides, why should I marry you? I’m very idealistic when it comes to marriage. If I was to get married, it’s going to be with someone whom I’m perfectly sure would be completely faithful to me.” I then punctuated the statement with a quick kiss on his lips.
“Okay… If you don’t want to marry me, then let’s still see each other even when you’re already married, okay?”
I started laughing again.
“Don’t laugh. Promise me we’ll still see each other even when you’re already married, okay?”
There was no way I’d allow that to happen but hey, if it rocks his socks off knowing that I would, then, by all means. “If you can find me, baby.”
“I’ll look for you.”
“Oh, really now?… God, you’re so drunk
Why God Forbid Perfection
I was hanging out with TheRock, EngineerBoy, and Darna, EngineerBoy’s girlfriend and one of my classmates from medical school, at this nice little café for some drinks and coffee (for TheRock who didn’t drink alcohol).
“So, [mistress], how come you and TheRock never hooked up?” Darna asked me.
TheRock and I laughed, me, slightly with discomfort.
“Yeah,” EngineerBoy chimed in. “I mean, you’re bestfriends, you always hang out with each other, you’re both open-minded. Imagine if you two were a couple, and the four of us would be double-dating all the time. Wouldn’t that be just sweet?”
“Yeah, I mean, seriously, TheRock, weren’t you ever interested in [mistress]?”
“She’s a girl, you’re a boy. She’s nice, you’re nice. She’s smart, you’re smart. She’s good-looking, you’re very rich,” EngineerBoy joked and we all laughed at his attempt to make fun of TheRock’s looks. TheRock was not that easily offended thankfully.
He just grinned and said one of the most profound things I have ever heard him say in his entire life, “You know, God does not allow perfection.”
We all laughed.
“If [mistress] and I fell inlove with each other and became a couple, it would have been perfect. We would have been so good for each other that it would be the perfect kind of relationship. But we wouldn’t be fighting with each other at all and it would be so boring, so God said, this is too perfect, I wouldn’t allow this. Thus, he made sure that perfection should be forbidden and thus, he gave [mistress] the most un-perfect boyfriend in the form of Rockstar, whom she constantly keeps fighting with. Hence, the reason why [mistress] and I never hooked up.”
Of course, TheRock was simply making an attempt to make light of our situation.
But still, somehow, as crazy as it sounded, it did make sense.
