Wednesday, August 24, 2011

James Messiah

[Part 3 of "The Messiahs" series]

WE SPAT OUR PHLEGM from the open windows of the smoking area. There on the twentieth floor, we watched it spiral downwards until it became a faint dot as far down as our eyes could see. The somersault was quite a spectacle. It almost felt like the green fluid was bursting with life as it whirled helpless in the air, lured by the pull of the earth as any free fall would have been. What they say is true: the corporate world is a massive junkyard that defiles anything within and around it, like an arcane cesspool. Our afternoon ritual has been our way to cleanse ourselves of the grime. It was, and is, as literal as it was, and is, figurative. Is is to the now, the present, as was is to the then, the past. Confuse one for the other and your sense of time will blur. You will be somewhere between the is and the was, which is not always a dreary distance to venture hither and thither.

Pthhwah!

“That’s a big one!” I said, almost shouting at her face. The projectile hurled itself against the wind with little defiance, splitting into fragments as it tumbled below several tens of meters closer to the earth.

“You liked it?” she asked, wiping the curves of her lips with a tissue, gently pouting them as if a kiss was about to be given to no one. It was a protrusion sexy enough to give any straight man a mild erection for five minutes.

“Well, a bit. Actually, all of it,” I retorted while lugging a stiff penis in my jeans. I suddenly found myself in a tight situation twenty floors into the atmosphere. Curiously, I thought all the arteries in my body led all the blood to my phallus. Gravity, it seemed, had no way of interfering with the natural functions of a normal body. She has a way of seducing me without her knowing it. Fortunately, I did not pop a blood vessel no matter how bad I desired her lips and her body that moment. The urge was there, a massive explosion waiting to happen, but I had to contain it. I had to, even if it meant sticking my finger on a volcanic hole just to forestall a premature geologic ejaculation.

Five minutes after and the boner was gone. We continued to spit our lungs out one minute after the next until it was almost six in the evening. The neon lights here and there and the city skyline ahead were impressive. I was sure there was a painting somewhere in the world that had a similar view.

“Time to get back to work,” she said.

“Yeah.” Time to get back to the graveyard, I thought to myself. We walked back to our cubicles, those little parcels of squares we were instructed to treat as workspace. The frigid air consumed every human pore in the office as the digital display of the Condura registered ten degrees that lovely Monday night.



OURS IS THE USUAL STORY of any odd pair. Anne and I were mutually interested in all things borderline crazy, although, of all the acquaintances I have had in the workplace—for she was still new in the office at the time—she never became one of the gossipmongers. Being one was the popular sideline of the older employees and even the fresh meat. Amid the office clutter and nuisance, she effortlessly stood out as the most attractive. The first day she walked the aisle toward her cubicle last October, I imagined the Beatles’ If I Fell playing in the background. Everything around her moved in a motion too slow, as though the world was on infinite playback one frame at a time. She had the feel of an Anne Boleyn.

“James, could you send the accounting report for last month to my email? I need a copy right away,” she gently spoke as she perched her arms over the chest-high divider between our cubicles. I awoke from my daydream.

Six seconds of silence.

“What if I don’t send you a copy?” I responded. The taunt was poorly calculated.

“You have no other choice, James.”

“What if I have?” I insisted, hands on my pockets and my back against the chair.

“What if I grab your balls and stuff them in my mouth?”

Please do, I murmured. I surmise she could have still heard my incantation.

“So?” She asked, raising her left eyebrow, as if the question was really a divine order. It arched high enough to reveal most of her brown iris.

“Fine. You win. Those dimples never fail to work their magic.” Two seconds and then she smiled. True enough, her dimples surfaced on her cheeks. It was a beautiful chasm on a skin tender enough to make Aphrodite blush in envy.

For the most part of last year, work was just another excuse for living. I had to live because my work won’t let me die. She was, however, the first miracle that has ever happened in my life. I almost believed in a god then. It is not easy refuting the wonders of a divine power if you happen to spend most of your time with a girl who could well be a deity camouflaged in the body of a human being.

I sent her a copy of the accounting report later that night. Before the end of our midnight shift, I asked her if she was serious when she said she would grab my balls and stuff them in her mouth. She laughed. I laughed with her, trying to ease my way through a tight and embarrassing position by saying that my question was another lousy joke.



I DO NOT KNOW if I love her, but I get jealous each time her boyfriend picks her up from work. He drives a Sedan heavily modified to suit the taste of one who had to wear oversized pants and a golf cap in order to compensate for the absence of a brain. His bald head was as shiny as the rims of his car. For five days a week, it was the same routine. I was unable to completely nudge the thought of jealousy off my head. It felt like I had phlegm that was impossible to spit out.

I think he was her boyfriend. I have not mustered enough courage to ask her the question. Each time I tried, I would fold like a leaf or break like a twig, thereby leaving the unspoken question hanging between my brain and the tip of my tongue. I thought I will have to wait until she personally confirms my theory. The question was always there, but the answer never came soon.



SHE RESIGNED by April and I was left alone doing the spitting ritual for thirty minutes every day. I would look to my left and she was not there. It did not feel quite right. I was cleansing the bowels of my lungs for no one.



ALSO CALLED CUSPIDOR, a spittoon is a receptacle for all kinds of “spit,” such as phlegm, saliva, tobacco, chewed gum, curses, emotions, and others. The world is my spittoon.



I TRIED TO CALL ANNE’S phone several times but the number always returned a dead tone. Throughout the wait, I forgot to shave and cut my hair many times. After several months, my boss said I looked like a barbarian. I asked him if he ever saw one before. He said he is the boss, which was the shortest way of saying that my question was irrelevant. By the time I received a call from her, I have already shaved the mullet I have grown from all those months of waiting.

“How are you?” Anne asked from the other end of the line.

“Other than losing hair, everything has been fine so far.” I lied.

“You’re bald?”

“Not really.”

“Whatever. Let’s have dinner at The Old Grill. My treat. I’ll see you there at eight.”

“Alright. See you later,” I said. She hung up.



IT WAS A FINE SATURDAY in August. I went to a barbershop to finally get my head shaved clean before I went to The Old Grill. By the time we met, Anne looked almost the same as before, except for the bruise on her right cheek, another bruise along the skin on her collar bone, the small scar on her left arm, and what seemed to be a slight dislocation of her nose bridge. I did not ask but somehow the answer was already in my mind. I told her I decided to get bald an hour ago. Anyway, hair will always grow back, I said, not like other things.

By the time we finished eating, I told her stories of my life for the past several months. She did the same. I was right all along: the Sedan guy was her boyfriend. Or he used to be her boyfriend. They broke-up two days ago and there I was getting the answer almost ten months later. I tried to find the words to console her.

“If only to make you feel better, I could let you grab my balls,” I said. Her dimples showed themselves again.

“You’re crazy,” Anne said, giving off a hearty laugh.

“Who isn’t?” I chuckled.

We later drove from Quezon City to somewhere south, turning to a full stop at the highest portion of the skyway. Anne stepped out and I followed suit. Leaning by the edge of the road’s railings, she inhaled and spat. I watched her from a short distance. She spat until the red and blue overhead lights of the highway patrol drew brighter. We sped away.

After turning right some thirty miles away from where we last stopped, Anne parked her car on the side of the road where there was nothing much but darkness. I fucked her hard.

It took another six months before we met again. It was at father’s funeral.

“My condolences, James,” Anne whispered.

“Alfred finally slept the sleep he has never had before,” I quipped. He is my father, or he was my father, never biological, the man who wielded a cleaver in search of happiness.



Part 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

3 comments:

zeke said...

Finally, I'm not shy! LOL
I knew an Anne, too. Pretty, but without the irregularity.

I always wondered how you would pull up an erotica.

gaye said...

I think I should subscribe..

I'm loving the plot more and more!keep it up :) as always, I am your biggest fan!

Carl said...

Always, writers use women to complicate the plot, to mystify love, to sanctify life.