The shifting groan of the aircon hurtled
my thoughts back to the sparse motel room. Here in this rented cocoon, the uncomfortable
silence welcomes me again. I stifle a smile as I remember the little justice I
tried to mete in my mind, images of him succumbing to my blows, a scene I have
wanted to be played out an hour ago. But I remain seated hiding the onslaught
within. He is here unharmed, murmuring
in his sleep with the crisp white sheet askew on his bare thighs, innocently unaware
of the violence I pictured him in. Only the steady hum of an old aircon keep me
company. I don’t know what time it is. The
windows are boarded up, blocking any streak of light, only the rickety side lamps
illuminate the room casting it with a homey glow I find ironic. I look at him, unmindful of me in his slumber.
I wonder if I’m part of his dream. Is he dreaming of me? Or is he lost in it
with her and their two boys? I sighed as
I adjusted myself on the worn sofa opposite the bed, watching him. Will I ever be strong enough to leave? I wonder.
It had been a rainy evening in July 2009.
I had been waiting on a jeepney stop wilted by the rain watching packed
jeepneys careen on the slippery streets with no headlights on when a black Mercedes
glided to a stop in front of me. He rolled down a window and asked if I wanted
a ride. I immediately recognized the face. “Naku, Sir
Charlie, thanks po”, I said and without much thinking, folded my soggy umbrella
and stepped inside, my wet shoe almost getting stuck on the door. Then I looked
at him, his wide smile crumpling his slanted eyes, his face smooth with pinkish
tints and an outline reserved for magazines. I almost held my breath. I have
always watched him from afar encased in his office or with a slew of assistant
trailing him. I’m surprised he would remember me. I tried to look detached,
distracting myself with the car’s confines, its wood-paneled interiors and fancy
leather. This was a far cry from the cramped jeepneys I rode in where I jostled
for position, burrowing my behind into a conquered space and bracing my
nostrils for polluted fumes.
Looking back, I didn’t realize then that these
“car rides” would become frequent, initially peppered with friendly
conversations, how’s your job, the family, your holiday followed by long side
glances and accidental touching of hands. Then one day he just kissed me. Euphoric was an understatement as I felt a
blush under my brown cheeks. Of course, he wasn’t into me because of my charm.
I realized that when he turned the car to an alley lined with garage rooms. Locking
the door behind him, his once affable eyes slowly became heated. He came near
and kissed me hard, his tongue lingering in my mouth. He quickly unbuttoned my
blouse then lifted me up and carried me to the thinly covered bed. Lying there,
I noticed our reflection above, his smooth back and my disheveled hair. Then I
felt him tug off my last undergarment. I don’t know why but I suddenly panicked
and covered myself with my hands. He smiled then softly kissed my lips,
trailing it to the back of my ears. He
pulled my hands down and I felt a tingle that radiated to my body. .So this is
how it feels like as I recalled some of the lewd scenes in my dog-eared novels.
Finally….then I touched his face as I spread myself to him.
There were no promises on his part and I
didn’t care. Over time, I became more than the prey, I learned to hunt for his
pleasures, subduing him with my caresses and charged kisses. I also became a
mute listener to his frustrations, his disappointments. I listened while he ranted about his father’s
interference with the business and his hard campaign for his approval while his
wife maxes out his credit cards with her trips abroad. Then he softens when he
talks about his two boys he hardly knows, blaming himself for not having time
for them. I listened to him in earnest while massaging his back or while caressing
his hair as he laid on my chest. It didn’t matter to me then, holding this handsome
angel in my arms was more than enough for me. Even if I don’t see him as much especially
during the holidays. Christmases and New Years were reserved for his family. Forlorn
and dejected, I would often spend those days walking aimlessly in festive
malls.
I wasn’t a beauty. Men didn’t fall all
over me. Riding the LRT, I often look down during Valentine’s day, embarrassed
by my empty hands, secretly envious of the roses the other girls had. Men
ignored me or pegged me as a younger sister or the silent friend. My first kiss
was with a short boy with premature gray hair from a nearby college when I was
twenty. He was visibly elated when I
agreed, maybe I was the first one who said yes. I was still flattered even if he slobbered me
like a dog, his saliva almost reaching my eyes. It was my first kiss
immortalized in the darkened cavern of a moviehouse while AiAi de las Alas
spirited it away with Aling Dionesia. He didn’t call after and I didn’t mind,
he’s not someone to look at anyway, I thought callously. No one asked me after
that. I studied for the Accounting Board which I didn’t pass. Then came Charlie,
my manna from heaven.
My friends like to ask me if I have someone
in my life. Often I lie, while the others who know are aghast with the
arrangement. “So is he leaving his wife for you?” they ask. I stare back with
no answer and they shake their heads. Then they talk about something else. Honestly,
Charlie never mentioned it and I didn’t ask or didn’t demand it. Maybe I was
grateful he chose me, that he wanted to see me even for a couple of hours even
if I have to wait for his call or text messages in the middle of the night. With
each ring or bleat, I step out in the shadowed streets to meet him, his
Mercedes waiting in a hidden side street. Any doubts I have about us dissipates
once the car door opens and I see his face.
Beholden, his soft lips will distract my ungainly mind and I will feel
enamored again. Then our exhilarating ride will end and I have to get out, back
to the ghoulish roads again.
Alone, a part of me will brood, a nibbling
ache will surface. Is it wrong to hunger
for more time with him not only the crumbs he can spare me? Do I even have the
right? I know I don’t. I should know my
place. But sometimes, I just want to know more things about him, what food he
likes, who his favorite band is and the names of his pets when he was ten. We
never talked about that. And when he leaves me two streets away from my
boarding house in a drizzling midnight, I sometimes wonder if this affair is
still worth it when the feeling of worthlessness throbs after each tryst. Why do I go on like an addict who needs her
fix? Ingesting a drug that vividly
colors my existence yet slowly destroys me within. Why do I need this quick high, this heady
feeling when I burn after? I can’t seem
to stop yearning for him. It is an addiction that doesn’t seem to care about
anybody else anymore.
“Don’t you ever feel remorse about his
wife and kids?” a friend once asked me while waiting inside a coffeeshop. Remorse, that’s a strong word. I looked at her and gripped the handle of my scalding
cup. And with an amused smile I met her accusing eyes and pursed lips. “Sometimes”,
I say, knowing all too well of the intensifying guilt that has started to
fester lately. “If she finds out, what
then?” she asks as she calmly stirred sugar in her espresso, maybe imagining
tearing out her husband’s other woman’s roots if she had a chance.“She knows” I
say casually. Her eyes widen but say nothing. “She doesn’t care as long as he
still lives with her” I continued blandly. And she shakes her head like most of
my close friends do when I talk about us.
I’ve seen her wife, sometimes visiting
the office with kids in tow chased by yayas in matching starched uniforms. She
seems larger than life with her glutathione-injected ivory skin, brown hued
lustrous hair and a kind face that belies her fierce temper. Her voluptuous
figure is often hugged by skinny jeans and sheer tops. Everything about her
spelled of expensive derma treatments, hours in the gym and exclusive salons.
She often throws me a glance when she meanders by the Accounting department and
smiles like I’m a joke. She believes there are others too, not only me. I
sometimes wonder if she doesn’t care anymore or only pretends not to or perhaps
she had been hardened by his infidelities. But she takes it in stride, parading
her expensive bags and slutty heels maybe because she knows that in the end he
will always come back to her and her children and I am but one of his flings.
Meanwhile, in the office where no one
knows or if they did pretended not to know, Charlie refers to me perfunctorily,
just another employee, no secret glances or messages. I am contacted only through
my phone. He never really asked anything about me, my family nor does he notice
the new things I try for him, the fruity cologne I dab on my wrist or the lacey
pink camisole I bought for three “gives” from our resident Avon lady. He never
seemed to be interested in me, in who I am or what I like. I don’t even know if
he knows anything about me either. And I
never really minded. He wants to see me and that’s what matters.
I’ve always thought I would get married,
imagined myself wearing a resplendent white gown with lace sleeves like the Barbie
my classmate used to have. And the only man I imagined marrying is Charlie, he
in his white tux, polished and breathtaking like a Ken doll. I know that’s
quite a laugh, dreaming to be married to a married man. But my elaborate imagination had already
captured us kissing on a dusky beach at a sunset wedding, our feet submerged in
the soft sand caressed by the waves. It’s a fantasy I’ve always seen through
while standing inside an LRT train, watching the blur of buildings go by and
listening to the nasal voice of the train driver as he announced each station. And
when the train fluidly stops and the people spills out, I’m jolted back to the
real world again. He is a married man and I have quite an imagination.
Lying on my cot at night, disturbed by
the sounds of mattresses squeaking and other boarders snoring, I often wonder
about my fate. I’m not the type who strives for the best things in life. I wait
for it to arrive. Like my job, proudly endorsed to me by my Aunt Lalaine,
thanks to her “connections” in the company
I’m working for and of course, the arrival of Charlie. Maybe this roots from my childhood recalling the
Freudian discussions I heard in the HR office once. My father left when I was five. He left us for
another woman, a hulking woman with large breasts manning a convenience store.
My mother, a frail woman didn’t fight back, she let him go. Fits of tears often
accompanied our days when I would see her lying in bed, defeated, tissues
discarded on the floor. Sometimes, she refuses to get up and I would go to
school with unpressed shirts and empty lunchboxes. But she recovered and went
to work as a seamstress in a nearby garment factory to support me. She died
before my college graduation.
It was the week before my thirtieth
birthday and an unexpected gift arrived, a wandering butterfly unconsciously landed
on my palm. Riza, a friend handed it to
me with an envelope, thanking me for trimming her business expenses. It was a
butterfly mirror case adorned with indigo stones. “You deserve it” she beamed
and walked away. I touched the glistening beads and the intricate butterfly
setting, I never had anything this beautiful, this pretty. I’m used to hand-me
downs from my richer cousins from faded clothes and yellowed books. I studied
my reflection on the mirror. Is she right? Do I deserve this? Do I deserve this
radiant and brand new gift? I sighed as I glimpsed at the dark and
plain-looking woman staring back at me. I’m not really sure.
I never expected this day to arrive, one
of the rare occasions I asked Charlie what will happen to us, our future. Maybe
being thirty in two days disconcerts one’s mind. Or maybe it was the butterfly.
He becomes evasive as always. “Can we not talk about it please?” he said while
checking his phone looking away.” I just
want to know if this is leading somewhere” I said, surprised by my honesty. He
didn’t move, his eyes locked on the screen. Then he calmly it puts down. He
comes closer and looks at me with steely eyes.“If you’re not happy with me then
maybe you deserve someone better”. Then he abruptly turned his back. And I stood there, dressed down, aghast, fixing
my eyes on his turned head as the room turned silent. It felt like a gunshot
had been fired and everything faded into black and white. The world turned
slowly and I couldn’t move. I felt parts of me collapsing inside.
He ignored me as he strips down his
clothes and entered the shower, I wanted to lunge at him and hit his face. But
I wasn’t like that. So I sat down and began to look back. Seven years, Charlie,
seven fuckin years of hiding me, of ignoring me in public, of leaving me in
isolated roads, of whisking me away when your friends or family were nearby and
I’m reduced to a damn cliché. You deserve someone better. That’s it, that’s the best you can fling to
me? I didn’t even deserve a half-hearted excuse or a nebulous one. I was silent
and he avoided my eyes. He finished his shower and lay in bed. I remained
seated and said nothing. He never did
love me, the realization echoing mercilessly in the pallid walls of my mind. I
was convenient and available for seven years. So it really is possible then for a man to
reach for a warm body when he needs it even if he doesn’t feel anything for
this thing, this person. I let him sleep, his back turned to me. Maybe he was
thinking that when he wakens, I would be over my dramatics, the way he always
does me after our fights.
Sometimes being hidden like a leper
feels like rain chipping away at you, piece by piece, flesh by flesh, cell by
cell, pounding slowly but relentlessly or like waves smashing at you in the
ocean tearing at you with undulating constancy, leaving you deformed and almost
unrecognizable. I was always picked last and I never felt that I deserved
better. Maybe I deserved this. And if people ask me, “Susan, why did you stay
too long? Wasn’t it obvious that he was just using you” stopping short of
saying how could you be so stupid. Then I
will say, even if it’s none of their business that I genuinely believed that he
must have felt even an iota of affection for me in that span of seven years, that
maybe I may have meant something more to him other than his trusty booty call. Now,
naïve as it sounds, I still wanted to hold on to this theory even after his
devastating cliché because if I was never his beloved mistress, what am I then,
a decent whore with a day job? Maybe in
the end it was wrong for me to hope. Maybe I should have given my terms. Maybe
I shouldn’t have put a low price on myself. Maybe.
He woke up and got dressed. No words passed
between us as he slipped on his polo, adjusted his belt and combed his hair. He
didn’t utter a word even when I opened the car door and slipped into the dark
streets. And as the usual cacophony reverberated in our neighborhood, a new silence
began echoing in my heart, my humiliation dawned to me again. I know this
should be the last time I should see him but I know it won’t be. Part of me
still wanted to see his face even after all this. Such was the cruel reality of
this addiction. And yes, Charlie still called me after that night and I still
met him. Again and again. And though, everything may have felt the same to him,
something in me have changed. The steady warmth I’ve always felt for him have
warped into an unexplainable frost that I didn’t show. I had begun biding my
time. Hours, days, weeks passed. Then it arrived, the phone call with an
accented voice, another manna from heaven. I couldn’t believe it at first and
repeated the offer numerous times as if I had not heard it right. Then I began
to feel happy. Finally, someone wanted me.
One night he called and I told him I
would be waiting in the usual street of M. Domingo. I waited and a car finally
came. I saw the streets bathed in weakened lights flashing through the car window
as my mind wandered inside. Then I found myself in Edsa with cars inching in
millipede pace. But I didn’t mind, I amused myself by watching people through
their untinted cars, yawning and bored while some have a deranged look on their
faces, staring ahead, seething at the stall of cars. Exiting Edsa, I felt the
car cruise to a faster pace, I looked out to see unfamiliar roads coming into
view. Finally the car moved toward a sloping pavement. Upon reaching the top, it
stopped and someone unloaded my things from the back. I stepped out and tugged
my black cardigan tighter. A mild breeze touched my skin. I checked all my bags then gave him my last
crisp bill. “Thanks po manong”. The taxi driver took it with his hardened palm
and nodded. My phone was furiously ringing and I took it out of my pocket and
turned it off. Then I looked up to see the
moving lights in the sky and adjusted my ears to the sound of loud engines
welcoming the night.
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