Benjamin (again)

"Come!" he said, motioned with a non-chalant move of his hand for me to come towards him, while he continued to walk. I took several giant steps before I could reach him and by the time I did, his one foot was outside the door of the main gate.

"Wait!" I said. "Where are we going?" I felt my face flushed. How dare this man make me follow him.

But he smiled and said in a low voice, "Let's leave Mila and Danny. I think something's bound to happen tonight."

"But my books are with her," I said and looked back as the security guard closed the metal door of the college's gate. I stopped and hesitated in the middle of the street. But Benjamin continued walking, and I followed him until we reached the jeepney stop. He hailed one going north to Escolta. My face was full of questions, and he knew what those questions were. But his gentle touch at my elbow, as he nudged me to board the jeepney, seemed to calm me and I got inside. He handed the driver some coins.

We got off at Brown Derby on Taft Avenue.

"Have you been here before? The food here is good, right?"

"No, I've never been here before," I replied.

We sat at a table on the quietest corner of the restaurant. Immediately, a uniformed waitress came with a small menu. He ordered a hamburger and Pepsi. I scoffed at him, playfully, though. I ordered a foot long hotdog and Coke.

"I told Danny that bridges sometimes give way to the river's waters, especially when the current is strong," he said, his eyes sparkled in the restaurant lights, the smile in his lips reveal some kind of giddiness. I cocked my head, not understanding what he meant.

Danny, his friend, was fervently wooing me. Danny had asked Benjamin to be his "bridge", meaning he, Benjamin, would woo me for him, Danny. Benjamin had been talking to me almost everyday, telling me how Danny felt. Mila, my friend, however, had this huge crush on Danny. I had told Danny in no uncertain terms that he is not my type. I wasn't particularly into anyone at the time, not even Benjamin.

"So, when you had told Danny for certain it's a no, I told Danny I will have to cross the bridge I built."

"Me?" I asked, pointing at myself as I realized what Benjamin was trying to say.

"Yes," he said.

The number one song of the week was being played on the jukebox: Bobby Goldsboro's version of the song "And I Love You So".

He took my hand and placed it on his chest. "I would have died if you had liked Danny."

I ate my foot-long hotdog with a grin on my face. I had scored the hottest boy in college.

Benjamin

I remember the night he sang "My Foolish Heart".

I was in the hallway, outside my classroom, looking down at my friend Mila as she spoke to her boyfriend. My seven o'clock class got cancelled and I was waiting for my eight o'clock Sociology. There was no one else in the hallway. Only one class was being conducted and it was in the farthest room down the hall. I was looking at the full moon when suddenly he appeared beside me. We exchanged the usual pleasantries. I noticed he wore a dark teal poloshirt, the fabric hugging his lithe body, and a pair of white pants that flared at the bottom, the back almost touching the ground but not quite, and only the tips of his white boots were showing. He smelled of musk, very faint, but distinctive.

His eyes sparkled in the moonlight. Or maybe it was that the moon sparkled in his eyes. We were making small talk and sometimes his elbow would brush into mine. Some of the girls looked up at us, and I could see in their faces the envy. For Ben was one of the good-looking men in our small community college. It felt good to be seen side by side with a well-dressed, good looking man.

Suddenly, in the brief pause between our small talks, he blurted out: "The night is like a lovely tune, beware my foolish heart; How white the ever constant moon, take care my foolish heart..."

I turned to look at him. I was flabbergasted because he had such beautiful voice. He was leaning on the ledge, facing me, with that sparkle in his eyes and a naughty smile.

"My goodness," I said, obviously pleasantly surprised, "you have a beautiful voice. You should be a balladeer!"

Ben, of course, worked at the department store at the public market, in the fabric section. This was why he could afford those nice clothes because he got them at employee-discounted prices.

He stopped briefly, "I sing in the church choir."

"Well," I said, "this choir of yours must be very good! Too bad I don't go to church."

He smiled, leaned his chest on the ledge, looked at the moon, then at me, then at the moon again.

"This time it isn't fascination..."

I raved some more about his beautiful voice and beautiful singing. Somehow I felt special because it felt like he was singing TO ME. But at the time I thought he was just passing time by chatting me up. I didn't have any inkling that he was starting to court me by that singing.

"It's love, this time it's love, my foolish heart."

PROMPT - sunset

The kitchen window of our first house, the one that my father built on a piece of land by the public cemetery, faced west. I remember the orange light casting a long rectangular reflection on our floor. I would sit on the floor, right in the middle of that rectangular reflection and would move as the reflection moved until it disappeared. Sometimes, our backdoor would be open and long shadows of crosses from the tombs in the cemetery were cast on the floor.

I liked to watch the sun as it set and disappear beyond the distant crosses and the mango trees. My mother used to tell me not to look at the sun for it will damage my eyes. But the setting sun was different. It had a soft quality about it, almost candy-like. I used to imagine that the orange-coloured clouds were cotton candies and the fiery setting sun a large lollipop.

Ihor appreciated my love of the sunset. The first time we went out of town, we went to Laoag, La Union, about four hours drive north-west of Manila. The place was then known (probably still is) as a resort town, with long stretches of pristine beaches facing the South China sea. We swam in the sea the whole day and had a late lunch. We explored the town afterwards, taking pictures of old Spanish houses and churches. While he napped in the late afternoon, I went to walk on the beach to watch the sun setting on the sea. I found a rocky place at the far end of the beach about a mile from the hotel. I picked up little shells and threw tiny pebbles on the rushing waves. The tide was fast coming inland. I sat on a flat rock and watched as crabs scurried as the sea water rushed in. On that rock I had a magnificent view of the horizon, the sun squarely in the middle of the wide expanse as it slowly turned from bright orange then fiery red and until it disappeared.

It was dark when I reached the hotel premises. Ihor wondered where I was. Later I learned someone told him I walked "that" way towards the rocks. When he saw me, without him saying anything, he took my hand and we walked on the shore together until it was so dark we couldn't see anything anymore, just the distant flickering of lamps on the houses nearby, and the sound of the waves that sometimes caressed our bare feet.

"What is it about the sunset that you have to watch it?" he asked.

7 days 7 answers - YOUR MOTHER FORGOT YOUR BIRTHDAY

"i'm forgetting something," she says.

"wonder what it is," i hiss.

"someone's birthday, i reckon, but i can't remember who it is."

"mom, it's my birthday, how could you forget!"

"dear child, pardon me, but i'm 98!"

PROMPT - a justifiable sin

From Judy Reeves' "A Writer's Book of Days" - "Write about a a justifiable sin."

A Justifiable Sin

I feel used and abused. And I feel cheap.

That's about how I felt every morning after Richard and I had a date. The routine was he would phone me at the office, ask if I'm free in the evening, convince me to see a movie with him. At the movie, in the darkest corner of the balcony section, we (or he, for most times, I happen to like watching the movie) would pet or neck until my lips were swollen from being sucked by him, my breasts aching from too much squeezing by him, and of late, when all has become too much for him to bear, he would do everything "except that" in the back seat of his car.

For two years that was the routine. A few months ago, he showed up at the office, all dressed up and carrying a big bunch of flowers. I got a good teasing from my officemates. We all thought I'd come back to work the next day with an engagement ring on my finger. Well, he did propose, sort of. He wanted me to be exclusively his and maybe someday we will get married. I took note of the word "maybe".

Instead of going to a restaurant, he drove up to an expensive and out-of-the-way motel, the kind where the rooms had a carport underneath so no one can recognize your car, just in case. The ante-room had a nice table for two with a small plastic flower arrangement in the middle. There was a menu card to order dinner at a nearby restaurant. The bedroom had a king size bed with white sheets and large pillows, and a checkered coverlet. The entire ceiling was mirrored. Yes, mirror-ed.

Needless to say, we went all the way that night. After that sex pretty much happened at least once a week since then. A pattern has developed. Somehow we managed to argue about something and fight. He won't call for days and when he does there's more arguing until somehow everything ends up being my fault. So I end up apologizing. Then he would "punish" me by not seeing me. I had come to a point when I really do not care if he sees me or not. But somehow, when he did come to see me, we always end up in a motel, having sex.

One night, he was on top of me, muttering how great it felt to be inside me, so on and so forth. When once I opened my eyes and caught a glimpse of myself in the ceiling mirror, with Richard's naked body on top of me, one leg stretched almost at a right angle from my body, the other wrapped around his waist as he holds me by the knee. This was the night I realized there was no love in me for him. Not anymore. But I do it with him for comfort's sake, my body had become comfortable with him. This was when I realized that love and sex do not necessarily go hand in hand.


So. Richard had punished me yet again, this time by making a business trip somewhere. He wanted me to think about my actions. I wanted to but I forgot what it was that I did to deserve such punishment. He would call. Everyday. Wanting me to apologize. I had already said I'm sorry, but he wanted me to articulate what it was that I had done. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't remember it. He got mad. "Think about it!" he told me.

John appears in my office holding an affidavit. Can I notarize it? Sure, I say. I take out my notarial journal, jot in the details of the affidavit and I stick a notarial stamp on the paper. I ask him to raise his hand and swear that all he says in the affidavit is true to the best of his knowledge. He does so and he signs the affidavit and I sign the notary's portion.

"No date tonight?" he asks. I shrug my shoulders and pout my lips. "Awww," he says.

Then the surprise: "I'll take you to dinner, come!"

John and I have been exchanging stories about anything, mostly about his marriage that is crumbling. There is no other woman. Yet.

He stands by my office door with a "So?" look on his face. As I lock my desk drawers, I look at him and I say, "Sure, why not?"

At dinner, I voice out my discontent about Richard. Suddenly, I have a friend I can tell my Richard troubles to. My girlfriends all think Richard is a great catch, a sweet man and no one believes me when I tell them how Richard actually treats me. They all think I just invent the stories of mental and emotional abuse.

The next time I stay late at work, John shows up. He has just arrived from a business trip in Germany and has been away for two weeks.

"Dinner?" he asks. Then, "I missed you!" He lobs a small flowery box of Nina Ricci perfume and I catch it with one hand.

"Well, I missed you, too, buddy," I say playfully. "I had no one intelligent to talk to around here. So glad you're back."

In the car, as he drives, I think he might have thought my knee is the gear shift.

At L'Orange, a fine dining French restaurant hidden in the farthest corner of Forbes Park, he holds my hand like I was a delicate porcelain figurine. We talk in whispers, giggle discreetly at "green" jokes, and taste each other's food. Looking at him over the rim of my glass of red wine, I smile and I run the tip of my tongue on my upper lip. When he rubs my leg with his leg, I rub back.

That night, John and I start our affair.

from 7 days 7 answers - TRAVEL PACKING

Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Travel Packing

Checklist: A list of words will be accompanied by a scenario in which to use them.

Supply a list of odd items you would pack for travel. Feel free to explain.


going on a cruise for the first time with some friends, at customs my luggage was randomly picked for examination. the officer's eyebrows raised when on opening the luggage he saw:

1. my back lotion applicator (foam shaped like mickey mouse's hand with a pink handle); my hubby's not with me to do the job.

2. my contoured pillow; the hotel's (or the ship's) are either too soft or too stiff; i'm prone to neckaches.

3. hot compress bag; for my shoulders when i do get those neckaches.

4. my cold compress; we're going to be boozing and god knows i get a headache when i get hangover.

5. glade spray (preferably citrus scent); are you kidding me, officer? i'm bunking with three other people! for one week! i need that for the bathroom!!!!

DWP - lost in the jungle

Leigh slithers down the fireman's pole wearing a pair of white lace thong panties, skimpy see-through brassieres and large angel wings. Her audience, mostly well-dressed men, and the occasional older women, for a moment stare in awe of her body's agility. She sees Dorian, the club's manager, sitting at his usual table with a new customer. She smiles at them; she knows it would be more money for her. She tries to think what she would do to this man when the sight of Henry tending the bar catches her.

Ah, dear old Henry. She tries to remember how tender he used to touch her, like she was a delicate crystal. Henry wanted her to quit her job and marry him. He said he'd give her everything she wanted. She wanted to believe him, but she was not a fool.

She is "damaged goods". No man in his right mind would marry someone like her. She who had been with hundreds, perhaps thousands of men. All for money. Only money can make her happy, that's what she has conditioned herself to believe. And Dorian brings her the men who would give her money, spend their money on her - jewellery, cars, vacations to places like Bali, Fiji, the Azores, the Riviera. What more can a woman as beautiful as her want?

As she moves her hips and surveys the hungry looks in the eyes of her audience, she suddenly remembers the day she told Henry that she was pregnant. He looked happy, but she was in a panic. She cannot be pregnant. Her body is her fortune. The money would stop. Dorian told her so. When she went to that secret clinic out of town, she knew she didn't only lose the child, but also her soul. Life is a great big jungle and she is so lost in it.