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.
A Letter to my Unborn Daughter
The fact that you will arrive into my life someday is something that I both dread and look forward to. Dread because I know I will not always be the perfect mother to you. We will fight – Oh, there will be fights, I’m sure of that – all the time and there are times when you will hate me, just as much as I too hated my own mother at times. But know in your heart that I love you and I will always have only the best of intentions for you. I also look forward to seeing you because I know you will complete me, in a way that no man, not even your father or any of the great loves in my life, will ever complete me. No matter what you chose to be, you will remain the living proof that keeping you instead of taking drugs or flushing you down the toilet was the best decision that I could have made in my entire life.
Even if I know things may not be so quite peachy between us all the time, even if I frustrate you and disappoint you frequently, know that I will always be here for you. I will not only be your mother who provides you with clothes, allowance and signs your report cards, I will also be your friend whose shoulders you can cry on after some boy you’ve been crushing on tells you he doesn’t like you, who will not bug you constantly and just leave you alone when you are going through your angst-ridden teenage rebellious years, who will not say a word when you come out of your room wearing a skirt that’s too shirt or a shirt that looks too trashy, who will not complain when different guys seem to be dropping you off at home, who will buy you a chick book and open up a bottle of beer for you after you have announced that your boyfriend has just dumped you.
You will however be prepared to explain yourself to us if your grades seem to be slipping, if I ever catch you asking me for P1000 for a book that only costs P500 or if you ever get accidentally pregnant. Do not ever sass me and tell me that times are different. Wherever you think you want to go to, always remember that I have been there and back for many many times than I would care to remember.
Study well but always remember that it’s only grades. Learn to balance your studies, your family, your loves and your friends. There is more to life than the four walls of your classroom.
No matter how much money I and your father seem to be making, do not take the value of money lightly. I was not born from a rich family so I was brought up knowing the true value of every nickel and dime spent. Please understand if I do not want you to be spoiled by letting you live too luxuriously. Whether or not you will be born with a silver spoon in your mouth, you will learn to budget your allowance because I will not give you your own credit card.
Do not be angry if your father and I are always encouraging you to take up Karate, Dance, Guitar, Photography or Art classes. It does not mean that we want to live our own dreams vicariously through you. We only want to stimulate your brain to a variety of interests and hopefully expose you to a plethora of choices that may help you find your own niche.
Enjoy your youth. Do not be afraid to make mistakes while you are young. Do not fear love or getting hurt, for it is only through experience that we grow and mature into the person that we are. Be open-minded. Experience all the good as well as the bad. The drinking, the smoking, sex, etcetera. But do not let yourself be sucked in by the bad. Know how to discern and to walk away from something you feel is not right.
There will be boys who will come in and out of your life. After one man dumps you, there will always be someone else who will come after him. Do not despair that you will end up a spinster whenever someone dumps you or breaks your heart. Give your love to many but give your heart to only one. Learn to be picky, to be patient and to choose the one you should give your heart to, because my daughter, you deserve only the best. Never ever settle for the second best.
Sex is not bad. It is normal and it can be really good. But do not let anybody pressure you to engage in it unless you truly believe that you are emotionally and physically ready, until you find that special someone who will make your heart melt whenever he holds your hand. Hold on to that virginity until you see your partner as someone you are willing to be tied to just incase something goes wrong (i.e. you get pregnant). Do not engage in meaningless casual sex unless this person is someone who will actually make you cry when he leaves. And when you do start having sex, never tell me, unless you are old enough to finish school and have already started working.
Follow your dreams, my dear daughter. Never let anyone, not even me, stop you from running after what you want. We can only provide you with education and emotional support. Everything else is up to you.
Never forget your friends and your family. A man can only love you for as long as he feels something for you but your friends and your family will always love you unconditionally.
Laugh a lot. Do not take life too seriously.
Love a lot. In the end, it will be worth it.
I love you, my dear unborn daughter. I would like to believe that someday you would realize that despite all our fights and incompatibilities, despite the yelling, the door slamming and the cold shoulders, it was never easy to raise you but I did my very best to be the best mother that I could be to you.
It was the most that I could do after seeing how you proved that I did not live all my years for nothing.
— I’m not pregnant. Just listening to some serius uterus weeping. It’s those darn eggs…
The Accident
I walked into the Clerk’s Quarters and found her waiting for me, her doe-like eyes unable to mask her current inner turmoil.
I nodded to her. “Hey, what’s up?”
“Where have you been? I’ve been waiting for you.”
“I was told by one of the nurses to write a couple of discharge notes before I left the ward. Why? What’s wrong?” I asked her nonchalantly as I rested my weary back on one of the beds… Ahhh… paradise… The muscle spasm in my back wanted to sing praises.
“[Mistress], I’m late.”
I sat up straight from bed. “WHAT?”
She was known for her paranoia. Prior to every exam, she’s right there wailing about how she wasn’t prepared for the exam since she apparently didn’t study at all. As we waited for a few days for the results of each exam, she’s halfway to throwing herself off the bridge with all her exclamations of woe that she was going to fail. And she almost always turns out to get one of the highest grades in every examination.
We were one of the smart girls in class. We were the ones who occasionally studied but managed to pass every exam. We were also the Bad Girls, the Drinkers-slash-Smokers. She was the flirt who always goes after what she wants, I was the more conservative slut.
As such, she frequently finds herself in situations that constantly brings her panic and because she can be such a drama queen, her problems become magnified to one hundred thousand times its value. Of course, she would constantly have to drag me in and help her find a solution that will fix her problems once and for all.
Which is pretty much futile considering that she never listens to me.
Truth is, I have finally accepted the fact that even if she tells me that I help her fix her problems, the actual role I play in her life is a soundboard, since I’m the only one who has the patience to listen to her and everybody else has gotten tired of listening to her same-old rantings.
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“And to think you’ve slept with your boyfriend for so long, but one time with Alvin and you’re pregnant? Oh, come on!”
“I just know it’s Alvin’s. I wasn’t quite that safe back then.”
I sighed. Two weeks ago, she had slept with one of the interns she had a fancy for. Forget that I told her not to do anything because he didn’t seem that into her. Forget that Alvin, an intern, was currently courting one of our other co-clerks. Forget that she had a long-time boyfriend studying far away. She wanted Alvin and she made it extremely clear to him.
And you know what they say about worms in the proximity of any chicken…
They get eaten.
So, one fateful night during one of her 24-hour duties, she climbed into bed with him at the Intern’s Quarters and they slept together, the bulkiness of her sleeping bag, their only cover to the lascivious acts that they were doing under the mattress.
As I pondered on what she had told me, other clerks began pouring into the quarters. There obviously wasn’t anymore privacy so we decided to talk outside. As we sat on one of the benches, she buried her face in her face. “God, what am I gonna do? My boyfriend will kill me.”
“Maybe you’re just panicking too much. Stress can delay your menstrual cycle, you know. I mean, with all these work, the papers and the duties, our cycles are bound to screw up. Plus, we both know you’ve been incredibly stressed out after you slept with Alvin. Maybe that had something to do with this delay.”
“But what if I am? God, what am I gonna do, [mistress]? I cannot be pregnant.”
“Okay, wait. Let’s look at this as rationally as we can. First of all, you could just be delayed. It’s only what, five days? You are bound to have some irregularity in your cycle because of all the things that are currently occupying your mind.”
“But I’m very regular… How about if I take a pregnancy test now?”
“And waste your money? No. You’re probably just delayed for a few days. Why don’t you just wait for it? Besides, it’s not as if a month has actually passed since that time you had sex with him.”
“I want to bleed now, [mistress]. What do you think can I take? How about I buy some MTX now?”
“Seriously, how are you going to buy one? We both know they ask license numbers for that in almost every pharmacy in this city. And I don’t think they accept pers.”
“I don’t know. Maybe I can ask from one of the doctors in Internal Medicine for a pre-signed prescription and pretend I’ll be using it for something important. Then I’ll just fill in the rest using my own handwriting.”
“Come on. This is crazy… I mean, what if you take MTX and you start seriously bleeding? You can’t tell your aunt and I’d have to be the one to bring you to the hospital. I don’t have any money to put down as deposit in case you need to be admitted, by the way,” I told her as I tried to make light of the situation.
“I want to start menstruating now, [mistress]. So I can finally decide what I’m supposed to do. How about those herbal medicine thingies they sell near City Hall? Do you think those are effective?”
“The ones whose leaves or treebark you have to boil and then drink? I don’t know… You seriously can’t imagine the two of us going there and trying to buy one?”
“Well… I… ahmmm…,” she started, staring at me angelically.
“NO,” I told her, before the first word ever left his mouth.
“What about any other drugs? Do you know of any other drugs that I can take? I told Alvin I was late and he gave me the name of some progesterone-based pill. Correct me if I’m wrong but isn’t progesterone supposed to increase your threshold for uterine contractions and make the fetus attach itself more to the uterine linings? I kept thinking, God, what if this guy actually wants me to bear his child? Ewwww!”
I laughed. “Progesterone? Didn’t we use progesterone-based drugs for those with threatened abortion?”
“I know! That’s what I thought too!” she chimed in.
I remembered something I read from the Internet before. “Hey, I heard something before about overdosing on Vitamin C as an effective abortifacient. I think you have to take about 6,000 to 10,000 milligrams in one day or something. And you have take as little water as you can or else the vitamins just gets washed out with your urine. I’m not quite sure with the dosage but I’ll check the Internet when I get home later. It sounded very effective. I mean, there were these written testimonials and all about it.”
“That sounds plausible. How much does one bottle of vitamins cost?”
“I don’t know really. But I imagine it wouldn’t cost as much as MTX… Do you even have any money?”
“I still have some left… How about a pregnancy kit?”
“No. This is probably all just stress-related delay.”
“God, how could I have gotten myself into such a mess!” she wailed again and again, burying her face again in her hands.
“Hey, relax. This is probably just nothing. Today, you’ll go buy those vitamin meds and start taking the customary grams per hour. If after a week, your menstruation still hasn’t arrive, we’ll go buy a pregnancy kit already… Don’t worry, okay?” I tried to reassure her as her eyes started tearing up.
She smiled, albeit forced.
We giggled like highschoolers as we made fun of Alvin’s receding hairline. I was glad that I was able to make her calm down for a while. That afternoon, we bought the vitamins and she started taking them right away starting that night.
I wanted to strangle her.
So much for making ME panic along with her.
