And because I had saved enough money, I had the surgeries done from where the first successful surgeries happened years ago, at the John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. .

It was a time of flowers because it was spring.

The skin of my penis was grafted to use for my vagina. It was a safe procedure and they were already used to doing these surgeries.

I could feel myself turn into a woman. The removal of my penis and the surfacing of a clitoris was the first success of my life. There were a lot of grafting done but I lived through it.

Breast augmentation was the pinnacle. I could feel myself whole and beautiful beyond belief. The point was to be beautiful. I felt like a Georgia O’ Keefe painting of flowers, all of them petals, flaming inside me. Before each surgery, I would find a particular flower to nestle in and I would curl within the inner pod wondering, wondering how to turn into a flower. How I would feel, where I would turn and spin and eddy upon the stream of life.

It was a process I witnessed as time unfolded like a scientific experiment as a gift to myself. Each process was almost a process of grief and pain and an unfurling of joy that was so gradual and slow, I could almost hold the guilt in between my palms to show everyone. I want this. I am sorry. But why apologize. During the initial stages I would eat by myself in the hospital cafeteria with my hair still short with a diaper between my legs.

My name is Salome. I am a Filipina and since birth I have been thought as beautiful and almost wondrous but like a wrong turn God has forsaken into the family. I loved to dress up in frilly clothes from the markets by the sea now sealed with concrete to create malls, condominiums and office buildings. Baclaran drove me in a shopping frenzy. I bought cheap, shiny maroon shoes I dipped my feet into with tiny heels that cracked after some time. I would weep because they were so beautiful and could never be replaced by time Or that green, dress no one understood from the college where I studied Communications. It had gold tipped collars and a splash of nomadic flowers because they seemed to migrate and travel as I wore them.

Green is my favorite color: the bright acid temperament of grass, the fields in my grandmother’s rice farm, so soft and beautiful to touch. Also, I loved the word beautiful because I was, still am, to be and is a beautiful woman.

I wanted to be a gift. I wanted to be a gift for the love of my life. I haven’t met him yet but I see them watching me, wondering, wondering how I could be so beautiful and untouchable because how could it be with a man? And so, I waited, saved enough to have it done.

There is so much I want to say, but I will call myself a work of art as I slowly unravel like a government which has had its time and a new one comes forth so that during the day the government did topple down I was on the streets with every person a version of her true self. The government had to stop this crazy travesty that did not fit with democracy and why should it, when it did not give us what we needed, the freedom to say what we choose, the freedom to be who we want to be, and to call on the people of the world to watch us: look we are differing, we are changing, we are evolving, we are in the throes of awakening.

And I woke up after my first breast augmentation surgery. Time stood still. The pain was a killer. But I woke up. And my breast felt like mammoth hormonal cocktail of weight. I felt deliciously voluptuous and alive.

To be a woman takes pride and I have crossed to become one of them, although I wasn’t quite sure yet. Is this me? Is this really me? I am walking down the street shouting: Ibagsak ang Rehimeng Duterte, with my breasts shaking in rhapsody.

***

II. The Woman of Olongapo

And there was a woman, dressed as a woman because she was still a man who went out on a date with an American Joe.

They danced, which was common enough, to dance with a beautiful Filipina who captivated him. It was always that way for him, for the GI, to dance, shimmy his way up her skirt and find that pearl of the orient that captivated him, always.

Instead, he felt something, bulging and big and not unlike his own. It was a huge temerity of ridiculousness that he couldn’t have known. How could he have not known? What was wrong, with him? He was the one who felt wrong and not wronged. He felt her up again and he could see her laughing and laughing as they swayed to the swirl of the music. The music was what began to be insulting. How could he have been wrong? That was when he felt insulted by her laughter. It was as though, she, were laughing at him. She smiled like a grinning skull, an animal he caught in the woods and roasted wherein the teeth remained, grinning at him. He wanted to roast her then, as animals were sought and caught and grilled for meal.

He dragged her to the toilet which was at the back of the curtain where the band was playing. She must have thought, no she thinks he is going fuck her. She had a boyfriend in Norway, why would she have to do this. She just wanted to dance tonight. She didn’t mean to be unfaithful.

She grinned at him as they drew away from the crowd and went to the back room toilet.

Inside a cubicle that stank of urine and feces, he stripped her top and found silicone cups that covered her chest. She removed them and looked at him earnestly. That was when she realized he was angry.

She knew what it felt to be with a man who was angry. She grew up with them, at her school, in the streets where she lived. She grew up being second star to women whom she dressed up even though she wanted to be the star someday. Her own star. Someday.

Time came when the internet gave her access to men who wanted her. Men who visited her here in the Philippines, dated her and made love to her. She was given love, jewels, interesting gadgets, stuffed toys and flowers because she was the star of their lives.

Finally, time had caught up with her and they were making love because she was loved. She was invited by the Norwegian guy to marry in a ceremony of sorts and waited for her papers to pass. He was coming for her all in a matter of time. Because he found her beautiful. She was finally beautiful with long black tresses on chestnut shoulders. She lived in Olongapo to escape her family and live with a group of friends who were equally beautiful in their own particular way.

They dated soldiers and some of them truly wanted her. There was no travesty. They were liked for who they were. Their golden asses, their fine penises and oh, how beautiful they were in long gowns at night, glittering like stars. They were even more beautiful than women. They were fascinating.

But this one didn’t seem to know one thing about her and the realization froze her like an animal caught in a net that held her trapped.

Let go of me! She cried because he was angry. She didn’t want an angry man. She wanted a loving man. Someone who wanted her for who she was.

He kissed her, she slapped him and he mocked her. He kissed her again and she could taste the alcohol in his mouth. She tasted beer. She slapped him again. He grabbed her hair and tried to shove her head against the throbbing penis within his pants.

You bitch! He laughed and then he cried.

Hey, are you alright? She asked and raised herself. She instinctively ruffled her hair and tried to negotiate some kind of peace with him. This night could still be fixed. It doesn’t have to end like this. She stroked his hair and he started laughing again. He sneered and grabbed her hair again. This time he took no time in sparing her what he was about to do. He shoved her head inside the toilet bowl and held her head in the water long enough for her to stop struggling.

She stopped struggling because she had no time to think, to pretend she was dead. She never felt more dead than she was as she struggled against the water in the bowl. She was dying. She felt the water clog her nostrils and her throat. She was not going to go through with her marriage to Tom, her Norwegian boyfriend and felt ashamed. Yes, she still had time to feel ashamed because there was time, a long time before she felt her hair ebb behind her back, her head turn into a mask and it was only her face in the water. Her face and the water combined like two spirits that were forced to go against each other. She remembered fondly the soft brine of the sea where she swam as a child in a girl’s swimsuit. This water was dirt but it was still water and she was held towards it against her will. She became angry and struggled, but his grip was loaded, trained to kill.

There was nowhere to go but die and so she led herself to stop breathing for as long as she could. The enemy was not water, the mother’s sac that nestled her inside her mother’s womb, the depths of the sea, the drain and life of wine, kindred spirit to whom she shall return.

He held her there until he felt safe. He knew he was a gonner when he felt her stop against his grip. He knew that she knew, he was the enemy, not the fecal, urinated water. He was the odd one who loved and betrayed her, as though he were not the one who betrayed himself in the first place. It’s alright, he told himself, the bros, the upper command would not let him down. He could pass this and they would all even make a joke about it. He was delirious and left the john to bum a cigarette until he heard the screams from the back of the curtain, where she was.

***

III. Beauty Queens and Princesses

I wasn’t thrown on being a beauty queen at some pageant. No matter how I felt I wanted to prove, I was beautiful. I was thrown into books. It happened during high school when my classmate made a picture book by filling a notebook with illustrations and words that conjured a young girl who was being bullied and found herself a male friend from a parallel universe. It was actually a wall she crossed over. She found a house with a burning hearth and a man reading a book by the fire logs beside a lazing dog.

It was profoundly and poignantly beautiful for me that I had to make one of my own. And so I started drawing and writing a story.

A fairy princess meets a pauper whom she shuns away for his dinginess. But through some desperate sorts, she becomes enmeshed in love problems, falling in love with fake princes who just wanted her money and nothing about her true self which was a fairy princess with powers to love wholeheartedly. She spent her money on these series of princes who wanted her money. Eventually, she was left penniless and sold all of her wealth including her kingdom.

And so, she was left with nothing but a library of books which nobody wanted to buy. Inside the library, which she had never known to exist in her castle, she met the librarian and recalled him as the pauper whom she shunned at some point of her life. Ignoring this fact, she was too proud to acknowledge him but went on to read the books he suggested she read. He gave her books on economics, bartering, negotiations, finance, psychology, magic potions, and love.

And the more she read. Eventually, she grew intelligent enough to make a plan on how to get her kingdom back from neighboring kings. They were kind enough to negotiate giving back what she owned for a reasonable price. They were amused at the transformation of the beautiful fairy princess whose only powers back then was to fall in love. Now she knew more and could hold a kingdom on her own.

Little by little she grew to own her power and she became the wisest ruler of all. However, she still retained that one glorious power she had which was to fall in love no matter what. And so she looked back and found him who gave her powers back in ways she never realized was possible. The pauper was quietly returning books to the shelves when she visited him and asked him if he had any books on love because she felt, she had the wrong notions about it after all. The pauper went down the ladder of the library and approached her.

He held her hands and kissed her on her fine, red lips and to her amazement she found that before him was a prince in his finery though still humble.

I, too, am a prince who had once fallen in love badly. But I learned about the fairy princess whom I thought would have the powers to see through my clothes. I did not know you were still innocent then. Now, I know you well. I have educated you and I have fallen in love with the real you. The one I created by educating you.

From drawing flowers and princesses, I drew this book in a lined notebook with ordinary pencil, crayons. It was my first novel and I loved writing from then on.

My first job after my Communications course was to inevitably become a writer, a journalist for the online newspaper Knucklers. I stayed because I knew this was where I would inevitably derive what I would write as a novelist which was an ambition and a dream I knew deep inside my gut was what I wanted as much as to be beautiful.

And so I encountered the story of the woman transvestite whose head was shoved down the toilet. I was given the assignment and off I went to Olongapo to cover the story.

I saw the toilet where the poor lady’s head was shoved into. I touched the water and felt what she had gone through. The water was soft and clear now. I waded my fingers through the water and wondered over days I had been to an island and felt the smooth, briny sea. I knew this was how she felt. We were always close to the sea. The sea was always home to us Filipinas and to a transvestite, it was closest to feel in being a sirena calling for the friendships of sailors. Beckoning was always our talent. The lady beckoned him and he was mesmerized. He must have been so angry, it must have frightened her.

I wrote the piece, describing the history of Americans who derided our land for more than they have claimed to have colonized us, claiming they have given us our independence when all along they have claimed this base in Olongapo much to the chagrin of Filipinos who wanted it back.

The soldier who drowned her in urine and feces was found guilty but was given a very unfair good treatment having a bunk of his own in the base before he was bound to be shipped back to American soil.

The lady’s Norwegian boyfriend rallied with her family to have him shut in a prison along with everyone else in Filipino soil. But he was given special treatment. No matter, we all had to shoddily agree with the lawyer who fought for the woman’s rights. He was found guilty and in America he was not to be given any special treatment there.

No matter.

***

IV. Online Dating Sites

I met you online on one of the dating sites.

You explained you were a bisexual and still loved women, although you could not resist knowing me. You said you’d arrange for us to meet and that you would take me to a hotel and make love to me for days, maybe weeks, months, years. LOL

You are an Arab who never used emoticons and I thought who never uses emoticons these days? You are a chemical engineer and asked me to make him name every chemical on the chemistry table. You were cute on Skype as you kept pushing your black framed eyeglasses back to your prominent nose. I noticed that there was sand in the rim of your eyeglasses and that the glasses were dusty. I wanted to wipe the sand off your glasses. You kept giving me fly away kisses that reached me down to where I now have feelings from nerve endings that were delicate. I have never met anyone do this to me. But I kept my distance because I might lose you. Even then, I felt less alone in the world. I wanted to marry you, because that is how women felt, after all.

You opened a door for me of delicious feelings I have never known. First I tasted a tingling because you were so pure and forward to know me. I could feel the heat coming through the screen of my laptop as we talked of how you felt. You needed someone who understood you because it was a secret you had problems holding under.

Have you had a relationship with a transgender before? I asked.

No. You are beautiful and I would like to know you more.

I wondered if you meant a fling. That you never meant to have a relationship anyway. I was saddened by this, in a way.

You had a flair for speaking your feelings beginning with an I. I want you. I want to see you in Manila because I miss you already. I want to make love to you.

I thought, his Is were very masculine and, dominant and yet also vulnerable. I wondered if it were an Arab thing. I didn’t know any Arabs who were gay, let alone know any Arabs at all. I squeezed my legs together as though to hold in every I you speak about because they held a promise for me.

You said you had a friend, a girl who was just desperate to have you and that you couldn’t anymore because you had me.

And you said you gave her my photograph and she just stymied this progress of affection you had for me and began a litany of curses against you. You laughed and I felt sympathetic to the woman. At last, I was the one who engaged you over a real woman and I felt sympathetic. That was a first. I told him you have to tell her the truth, that you have to end your friendship with her because your concept of love was for someone else and of a different orientation.

I guess, you said. But you laughed and I became angry at you. telling you that if you ridiculed the woman I would have to end this.

You capitulated and said he wouldn’t stop being her friend because she needed you. Obviously, you said, she was very sad about everything and disappointed.

The woman became a point of our conversations. I would ask about her from time to time. She was Indonesian.

I felt that I should not pursue a relationship with you, because you seemed callous and even unfeeling. Tell her that you love her too, but in a different way. As a friend, I instructed you not wanting the woman to fall into pieces because of me.

Oh God, I want you now. You replied. And the tingling feeling came back.

I remembered dressing up my female friends on prom night. How jealous I was because there was a boy at the end of the gala. I wanted to scream the night away, as I sat at the table of my friends and was cajoled by the boys to dance in which I had to smile slyly at them and scream go do something productive with your lives because you’d have hell to pay for when you get them impregnated tonight!

I remember that night so well, I could scream again.

But this poor woman was deeply in love with you, Amad. I thought it would be unfair and terrible if something were to happen to her.

You are my queen. You replied. Alright, for you I will take care of the girl. I will make sure she is fed and clothed and not suffer from thirst like a plant in the desert. I promise to love her as much as I love you.

I was satisfied by this. I didn’t know if it was the right answer but the deal sounded well enough.

Is she beautiful? I asked, founding the old edges of jealousy coming to the fore, although it was faint now. If I were to love this man, I would love the woman as well until she finds herself someone to love as well.

Every day we spoke on Skype and I could feel that each time I spent with you, time was taken away from the woman and that she knew and that her anger was growing into a tempestuous storm gathering like clouds darkening in the sky. I felt uncomfortable about this, as though we were in a room and she were listening to every spoken word passed between us. When he was with her, she would know about me and she would hate me. Hatred from a sister was something I did not anticipate. I was not a sister. I was loved because I had traversed my season of belonging. I transfigured because I wanted to be made love to. I was physically someone else because I needed to be touched the way a woman is touched. And yet, I was not a woman. I was loved for becoming past a man to become a woman.

The Indonesian woman must feel that in the first instance, an inferior woman has climbed over on top of her right to be the only woman of her kind and that someone who had surgeries done is a fake. Even if she were someone who felt she must feel a certain intelligent kinship to the transformations of her day, she would also feel an ancient right to be considered the one whose throne had been taken from her.

I understood all that and more. And yet I stood my ground. He is mine and that is the fact. I will claim him, because I am a woman now, I am human too and I am falling in love with a man who knows how it is to drown in the desert without water.

***

V. Amad

And so you came. For real.

I met you at the airport with a garland of sampaguitas that smelled and looked like small Jasmine flowers.

You were much taller than I imagined so that you had to bow your head for me to slip the garland over your head to your broad shoulders. You were dark as though the sun penetrated your skin each day you worked in Amman, Jordan. Your features were soft and bracingly handsome with limpid wide eyes behind your glasses and a high nose over a strong mouth that still maintained that you were masculine. You immediately kissed me on my lips which surrendered the words: hot blooded Arab.

We stayed at a boutique hotel in the heart of Makati. You brought a black backpack and a black travelling bag that resonated with the color of your hair.

Immediately upon arriving at the hotel, you found my mouth and kissed me hard and passionately. It was deep and sensual, I had not yet gotten over it when you led me to bed, peeled my dress, undressed yourself from your sports shirt where I found your skin. I kissed the skin on your chest and was swept by the engulfing entrance of your manhood in between my legs. My eyes opened wide and saw the ceiling painted with cherubs and clouds on a moonlit night. You were heavy inside me and I met you with equal fervor as I slid my tongue on your shoulders that tasted of salt and a certain acidity of sweat. I could smell your cologne heavy with a mingling of spice. I tasted your culture in a complete instance. You stayed inside me for a long while and came. I came and wondered at the completion of desire in one single moment. I knew I was in love and that I would desire you for all my life.

You turned from my shoulder to kiss the tips of my breasts and kissed my mouth completely. You went down and kissed me, smelled me where I was alone. I wrapped my legs about you and desire overcame me as I arched my back and felt you getting stronger again.

I have never made love before. There was pain, yes and yet the pleasure overcame the pain with a strange twist of sweetness in valleys and crevices of my body. You never spoke a word, instead you moaned, a hollow deep guttural cry from the pit of your body. Your voice came from somewhere deep inside you and not from your throat as I imagined it would be. You made love to me without trying to impress me, but then, what do I know.

We pressed our bodies each time and each time I would feel you so close to me as though words had never been invented and that they could mean so many things if uttered. I learned to scream when you penetrated me deeper each time and you watched my face each time you saw me climb that peak I never thought possible.

Away from your glasses I gazed at your eyes, that were so warm and liquid, I felt as though I were swimming in the ocean tide because you never veered away but looked at me with such control, only water could have that quality because it never could, you see, and that was the point. Never to feel control and yet pulled together like being in the middle of a boiling water that sucked me inside a vortex.

I couldn’t utter it, but you did, because you felt it too. I love you.

I love you, I replied in hushed tones that echoed up to the ceiling of cherubs and ambulatory clouds. I love you. Mahal kita.

The sampaguitas emanated a scent among other scents we emanated from our skin, our breath, our genitals. We smelled a mixture of our bodies that enmeshed and congealed between us. We embraced and you found me again and again and again.

You made love to me as though you had been in the desert for so long and was thirsty for love. You might as well be drowning. I almost cried because I loved you so much.

I doubted I could love this much again. I could write novels now, I thought, somehow feeling completed. I was vital and particular in this world filled with love and uncertainties that I felt lucky to have found a certainty in my life. To be certain, was a cure for feelings that the world was a whole block of meaningless things lumped together with no particularity. I felt like a specie of my own and I have found that one particular specie that complimented mine.

You slept.

When you woke up I was wiping your spectacles with my dress.

We dressed up for dinner and we ate at the hotel restaurant in silence. You would look at me when I was sipping my soup or drinking my wine. You would look at me when you thought I couldn’t see you, which wasn’t true because I saw you everywhere. I could see your mien from the mirror beside us, through the glass I was drinking, from the glare of the silverware as I dipped it to my soup. I could see you with my eyes closed.

We went to the mountains of Baguio and stayed at a remote hotel. It rained all the time and we could hear it pelting upon the glass of the window. Sand washed away from your spectacles. Wine hydrating your thirst.

And then time caught up on us and we had to leave.

***

VI. Perdition and Insecurities

The Duterte government is wild with perdition and insecurities. No one knows what to do. We have a president who spirals out of control, even his daughter cannot control him. He kisses women on a dais for the world to see. He says things, things like raping dead women, gunning down the genitals of women rebels and the like. He curses as though it would rain putas in our land someday. Worst of all he worships no God. A man without a God is a dangerous figure. He does not have the faith to lead a country and will give up soon because of the mess he’s made and not just trampling on a puddle of his own making, he has created a hole for himself that he cannot get out of.

The sordidness of our government has reached heights that those who do not complement it are thrown into jail for all to see. He has released the demons of our land to spread a maelstrom of deceit and lies where there was once peace and a certain kind of knowing, that the worst is over.

Through my balcony, I could hear the laughter and chortle of a woman when he was elected president as though this new one would make things more interesting in this mad world we live in. As though amusement was on the way, brace yourself, this one is the wild card that would wash away the problems of our land: drugs, addicts, runners with what: Baygon. A retinue of policemen who would shoot on sight anyone suspected of drug running, including children.

A child, no older than a boy was turned over to a dark, dank corner and shot with such speed and stupidity, the whole world watched aghast. He was called to run during his funeral. Run back to God before the Caloocan police catches you again. They told the dead.

I am telling you this, my Arab lover, because we do not know what to do.

***

At first there was amusement. Slowly, there was an unraveling. Stories came up.

A strip of mall in Makati was taken over by the government from a prominent family who had held the mall for years. For nothing. A University was transferred to the hands of the former dictator’s son. For nothing. The Marcoses was now in power again. Former dictatorship was null and forgiven, or forgotten. Activist professors were exterminated from the university strip in Recto, without reparation.

The former dictator was allowed to be buried in the Libingan Ng Mga Bayani, all done in a matter of a day, so quick it was meant to outwit the people who toppled them in the first place. It was a new generation now who lined the streets to blockade the burial of a thief, despot killer. Marcos was buried like a thief in the night. This was declared by the Vice President Leni Robredo who was gradually being stripped of her powers. We had corrupt presidents before, why could we not take away this one? Why is all our work against the current government so feeble, like throwing pebbles against a great slab of rock. Were we not decisive enough? Was the Vice President too weak to handle the President? She was our strongest hope and people were behind her but the President stood strong in unwinding every accusation hurled at him as he built a fortification of people of people who protected him and themselves. They profited and feared his wrath. The Supreme Court was infiltrated and no one could be the wiser. The ICC could not infiltrate the system because the president haughtily pulled out reasoning : do you want us to turn into another Cuba?

Journalists were harassed and arrested for exacerbated reasons that were culled from excuses ranging from not paying taxes, to being dictated to write by Western sources. The president had a stance against the West and ingratiated China to the point of slavery raking in Chinese workers over and above Filipino workers in our own country.

Now, the elections for senatorial candidates lined up in a parody of characters so ludicrous they could have been playing clowns in a carnival. The daughter of the former dictator proclaimed herself a Princeton graduate in a fake passport to ingratiate the intelligentia’s hearts and minds but was found out and brought out in the open. However, she knocked the wind out of everyone by ignoring the facts and pursued her work doing her assignment in economic reforms as governor of her region.

I was certain the election was rigged with celebrities leaching the government flashing their shiny asses to the masses. The president was voted without rigging the votes. But who have known the torrent he would unleash.

I was given a column to write for the Knucklers. Each day, I got reports of anomalies and brashly reported them in my column. I was not alone. But when you get to some point, the government notices and then, you might as well be alone or you’d need money to get your ass out of jail through expensive bails. Luckily, my paper kept pulling me out until I realized, the government meant business and I was at my final straw.

***

VII. Jail Bound

How are you?

About to go to jail again.

For something you wrote? Why do you keep doing these things? Come over here.

My friend told me to hide this time around. Exile. Exile was not on my list. I wanted to keep writing. I thought, they could keep me out of it for some more time. There was much to do, I didn’t want to go anywhere.

***

How are you? I asked.

You spoke in plain English when I’d had thought you’d have a lingering Aussie accent for having been raised there. I had no idea why you ended up there but your English is a quaint lonely mishmash of accents from places where you’d lived. Like a man who watches movies alone a lot. It was deep and sonorous.

You are in New Zealand now for a scholarship on bio mass. I had no understanding of chemistry or what you keep finding. My subjects just fell on my lap. This horrible storm threatening our land. You have your oil, and mines to study in deep reverie. I could only surmise that bio mass was another advocacy you held deep within your heart.

I researched on bio mass and found out about fossil fuels and the need to find alternatives before we mined too much of them and it would be too late. You are a scholar as I am just learning about things from books, the internet, podcasts, cable TV, news. My background on communications made me a deliberate person to broadcast what I know and found wrong. Perhaps one day we could talk about what you do and I could write about it in our paper and have people in our country be aware of such things and not be distracted by nonsense politics.

I can almost see you among the forests of New Zealand, meander the tapestries of color and light shining on leaves of trees and shrubs. The glistening patina of rain on leaves. The gushing waterfalls meant to be something. Energy. Dams to satiate a thirst that your country could not provide. You came to study, the waterfalls, the rivers, the streams, the very eddy of life. Water.

You were never interested in politics, you said and yet each step we eddy is known to be sourced in some partiality for one’s compulsion for a better life.

You were bunked in someone’s home and didn’t delve much on what you did.

I didn’t ask who you were seeing this time, nor about the girl from Indonesia. I knew how fickle men can be for you seemed out of it and never mentioned the time we spent. I never mentioned it either. You simply said it was beautiful there and that there was a pretty Filipina trans in your class you’d like to get to know more. I felt pangs of jealousy and yet you invited me to your place to escape the tedious wrath I was encumbered with here in the Philippines.

Why don’t you ask her out?

It isn’t allowed, you sighed.

By whom?

The administration. Hey, I have to go now, lots of work to do.

Yeah, me too. I have to get back to the paper.

We did not speak again for a long time. I just imagined you going about your laboratory results and recording them on top of some mossy rock. You could be dreaming of the Filipina right now and planning to date her.

New Zealand seemed so far away but I didn’t know it was near your home in Australia. I thought you lied about where you lived and if I went there I would have missed you after all. After all the lies and deceits I have on my plate writing each day, I felt most alone if you would lie to me. But I researched on a world map and realized you could commute to Australia that fast. I wondered if you had a family there in Australia. I wondered about you a lot. I thought I shouldn’t keep you tethered to me. I mean, we had our fun, who am I to you but someone you found fascinating for awhile. This did not comfort me and I felt like the Indonesian girl you talked about. This may have been how you began with her and finally shifted to being who you truly were. You were gay inside and wanted to come out and be free. I knew in Europe you could do things much freer than your country in Jordan and I couldn’t blame you for trying things out. Maybe I inspired you to like Filipina divas, which wasn’t so bad. At least I had influenced you to have a liking for my kind.

Bio mass, hmmmm, I typed on my laptop- residuals from forest resources such as wood and garbage turned to fuel. So you were interested in fuel.

I wanted to understand why you were interested in fuel. Perhaps it was an oil-Arab thing, a need to find some other source because your resource may be unhealthy for the environment or it was going under. The oil price hiked due to a very unfortunate event concerning the death of an Arab journalist who was allegedly ordered to be killed by the Saudi Prince. Jamal Khashoggi. Word was that Khashoggi was Taliban and CIA when he went into exile in the United States leaving his family behind. Yikes. I didn’t want that happening in my watch and to die that way. It was as though the Prince wanted it obvious that he had him killed in the worst way, with a chainsaw.

I became a fan of Jamal Khashoggi as soon as news broke out about his death. I wanted to know more about him and how he tried to convince the prince of reforms even as he was settled in another country. Perhaps it was possible. Perhaps it was the only answer. But what I didn’t want to do was to disturb you. You were obviously enjoying yourself out there and I could just turn out to be a nuisance.

But I missed you so much. My body ached to feel your skin upon mine. You had grown pale, seeing you on Skype and you’d gotten into the habit of wearing checkered shirts which made you look like a professor. No matter, your eyes were still the same behind your new blue glasses. You still looked the same.

***

VIII. Exile?

I was driven to hide. I took to the mountains of Benguet where a group of rebels took me in. Nothing much to do but from there I could write as much as I wanted to and was still published by Knucklers.

I washed the rebels’ dishes and spoons at noon and at night after they came home from their fight. It was not as though I had no choice. I wanted to know them too. I wore a malong at night and as I bathed. They had connections to Palestinian forces and I wanted to know more about that too. I only knew about the Israelis side, the Arab in me only knew you. They knew the whole demographic order with Joma Sison, their leader in Netherlands directing their every move. There is a lot of negotiations and the president dismissed all talks with the rebels and no one was the wiser. His talk about shooting rebel women soldiers in their genitals was not taken very well.

The rebels were kind to me. They respected me and that was important to remember.

The forest was lit by firelight which could easily put out when government soldiers came in at the middle of the night. We sang soft songs at night and gongs were played as well as flutes which simmered like smoke coming from the small blaze. These people were hungry and the rations were small so I ate as little as I could.

Eventually I received word that you were in the city. I had to see you. Wearing a hijab I came down from the mountains and met you at a restaurant in the old quarters of Manila. My friend from Knucklers, my connection, ordered a small meal of adobo and sinigang with slivers of pork and chicken.

What are you doing here? I asked holding your hand. My female friend from Knucklers left us for awhile as we conversed. You held my hand and looked deep in my eyes. It was moist with faint tears and I could only surmise you wanted to cry.

Are you deeply in trouble? I mean, what is this? You are in hiding already?

He caressed my inner palm with his finger. Oh, I remember. My heart beat fast and faster still. You wore a checkered blue shirt and seemed to have lost weight.

He was now a friend more than a lover.

I want to take you out of here. Come with me.

I can’t. I replied. I won’t get past security in the airport. Everyone is looking for me.

Who is looking for you?

The police. I am to be arrested for writing against the government. I simply replied. I released hold of your hand. I didn’t want you involved. You would be in trouble not only in our country but also with your own. You could be taken into custody, here and there in your country. You might even be uncovered as a homosexual and be beaten in your country. I could not risk that. You are here yes, but you are there far away. I told myself as I released my hand from yours.

I have fake papers made. You can come with me.

What about your new Filipina friend? I laughed and you laughed as well. You are too kind. I didn’t know you would go to such lengths to find me and do things to take me away from here.

You looked around and pulled an envelope from his duffel bag. There was a sheaf of papers inside. You placed it on my hands. I read it. There was a fake passport and documents with the name Olivia Casteldon.

Okay, I won’t exactly be sitting beside you on the plane but these papers can bring you to me where I shall be waiting for you at the end of your journey.

I will be there, you continued. Trust me. You reached out for my left hand again and pressed it with fervor. You will die here. Are you getting death threats? They will kill you before you can end up in jail.

That was true. I had gone to such lengths already.

I can’t take this, you will be put at risk as well Amad. I stood up and left the papers on the table.

No, I am not leaving until you come to me.

I sat down again and looked at him with alacrity.

Alright. I will take these. But you must promise to leave now and go back to New Zealand. I will meet you there.

Good girl. You said.

I put the papers back inside the brown envelope and surreptitiously slipped it into my own bag. We stood up and I embraced you beside our table.

Inshallah. I said.

***

I realized you had put on a lot of money to get these papers done and I wanted to scream. I stayed in the city for awhile and was hidden in the attic of my friends’ house in Tagaytay mountain. I looked at the papers and cried painful tears. I could risk everyone. Already, Knucklers was under pressure to close down. It was owned by an American foreigner and that could hold things for awhile. Our editor in chief was holding her own fort by trying to explain every step of the way that her paper was clean even if with a foreign investor.

Alright, I decided. It was time to bail out. I had to run.

I was always running. I ran away from my family because they didn’t want me, who I had become, after college. My operation was another way of running away. I escaped being a man. I wondered if I would always run away. Would I run away from you too?

***

I took the papers, the plane ticket and ran. I switched the plane ticket to fly to New York. I didn’t want you involved in whatever I was in. You didn’t deserve my problems. I rode the plane with the memory of my first kiss with you.

My mind eddied on the time I had you in my arms.

I waited for take-off. Then the plane flew from the tarmac and I could have sworn my heart leapt anticipating someone from security or the police to climb up the plane and pull me away.

Suddenly, I felt safe. I wracked my heart from the guilt of not going to you. I would be alone in New York. I had friends there but I would be too hot to take refuge with anyone of them. My friend from Knucklers brought me to the airport and we embraced. She would be the last person who would know me as Salome. Now I was Olivia. A man who turned to be a woman now another identity as another woman.

God knew, I didn’t have the money to get away and you made sure I could. I took your help but I felt there was a line somewhere to free you from my past.

I would love you, forever and yet I couldn’t have you.

I could not afford to have you or anybody for that matter. I had plans on having a new identity in New York. Perhaps fall in love again. I was and will always be looking for love. That was the core of who I was.

I remembered my first tale of the princess who kept falling in love. That was who I am. I would always love. I just wish the tale would cycle and find you at the end of my journey as you promised you would be. But it was not to be. I was running away from you as well. Because I did not trust myself enough to keep you safe. Perhaps somewhere inside me, I felt I didn’t deserve to be loved as well.

***

IX. A Strange Twist

I arrived at JFK airport and you were there.

No! I cried inside myself. I can’t love you this way. You must be delusional to think this was some reparation for having left me in Manila. The past is over.

You slowly came to me and embraced me. I held back for as long as I could. I pounded your chest. This cannot go on. I loved you too much to hold you back.

Alright, I’ll let you go if you want me to. But when I turn my back you would never see me again. You explained.

Yes! Go away! I cried.

Okay. You heaved. You turned to walk away.

I looked at his back and saw a man who loved me enough to come back, not just come back but to find me on the face of the earth. My friend must have told him.

I dropped my bags and ran to you. I jumped to cling to you with all of my reconstructed body. I was truly a woman and I loved you. To be loved so much, how could I turn my back on you.

I was blooming flowers inside me. All of me, Georgia O’ Keefe flowers flaming inwards, outwards, you must have felt the heat wicking from my skin. I was flushed with joy I could not contain anymore.

You kissed me passionately on my lips. I kissed back, remembering all of you.

Everywhere there were flowers from people waiting for their loved ones and I could smell them. I was emanating pheromones.

There is an old cliché where time stands still.

***

New York was the old and the new. I had been here before and what I noticed were the lights at night. The city that never sleeps. But I slept, like a baby after months in hiding in the mountains. You kept me warm with your skin beneath the sheet. I would kiss your arm and you would turn to kiss my lips. I would beg you to take me again and again and you would give me what I wanted. You were still angry that I would have turned you away at the airport. I wanted to satiate your anger. You were always angry, I discerned. You, I realized, was a cynic after all and that what you gave me was your anger. You insisted every corner of the world was crazy with corruption and lack of awareness of how to make things work towards something right.

I was your receptacle for the anger you felt for everything. And you loved me underneath this sheathe of anger, you were a man for me and we made love as though I were truly a woman. You did not make love to me the way you would to a man. You are strong as you knew I was strong. My muscularity had softened and yet I felt there was a man in me that reciprocated your need for a man. I wasn’t confused. I was a man who turned into a woman and that was how we made love.

I took a job at a small newspaper writing lifestyle pages. You took a job as a teacher at a local school from where we lived, a small apartment which we painted with flowers. After work, I’d buy bread and flowers from the roadside. When tired, we’d sleep and make love in the middle of the night.

I bought things I liked at thrift stores. A couple of chipped mugs that were centuries old. I wanted the imperfect but lasts through time, now mine. We bought paintings from street corners and hung them on our walls. Mostly they depicted flowers and children. I’ve never felt so happy in my life.

***

Finally news broke out that the Democratic, Liberal Party won a majority in the senate. Soon, the people were in the streets of Edsa to conflagrate the Duterte government.

We bought a small TV and had it connected to the Filipino channel. I could not repress my excitement. I felt I had to go back and join the movement against Rodrigo Duterte. News was that the Duterte family had amassed wealth all of a sudden and couldn’t explain this new wealth. The people were now becoming suspicious that the president they voted was not immune to the shimmer of money.

News came out from Knucklers with his own compatriot spilling the truth for everyone to know. The Editor in Chief of Knucklers was arrested and all the more the people stood up against her arrest. The Duterete government was ridden with nepotism which became too glaring to ignore.

They released the editor in chief of Knucklers to satiate the hunger of the people to pull the government.

I flew back to Manila promising you I’d be back as soon as things stabilized in my country.

I was given my old job as columnist in Knucklers and I was just happy to write again. I went back to my old apartment and drew aside the curtains.

The light came in a sharp relief into my dusty old apartment. Shafts of light with motes of dust eddied into my room. There was much to do, I thought while dusting the place.

I peered though my window and found children playing in the streets. I could smell the isaw barbecuing below and heard the sounds of jeepneys blaring along their paths.

It was a new day.

***

*This one was inspired by this Challenge, but I couldn’t quite meet word count - again XD : https://theprose.com/challenge/11033

“I think I’m in love.”

“What, already? It’s barely been an hour!”

“It’s been longer for me.” Tripp stared towards the other end of the tavern, eyes lost.

Roald frowned. “Is it the elf? You know how picky they can get.”

“Nah. It’s her.” Tripp pointed, and Roald nearly spit out his drink.

“The centaur?? Oi, did you order in pints again?” He smacked his friend on the back.

“She saved my life,” Tripp argued. “On the way here I was nearly run over by those daft human rangers, riding in like they owned the place - she picked me up and carried me to safety.”

“You’re a third her size, she may as well have picked up a stray cat.”

“It was fate. She’s my person.” Tripp continued to stare over his full tankard.

Roald shook his head. “If you fancy some hooves there’s a nice satyress over there, at least aim for the same weight class.”

“It has to be her.”

“I hate to break this to you, but you’re a halfling. She’s not gonna go for it.”

Tripp looked hurt. “You don’t know that! I’ve plenty to offer a woman.”

“Sure, you’re easy to carry. They love that in a man.” Roald rolled his eyes.

Tripp breathed deep. “I’m gonna go talk to her.”

“And say what? You’d make the perfect jockey?”

Tripp leaned over his stool and asked the bartender for a gallon of his best. The middle-aged human only nodded and disappeared behind the bar.

Roald frowned. “Tripp - seriously, think about this. If you offend that filly she could kick your head in, although I’m not sure it hasn’t already taken a hit.”

“I am nothing but a gentleman.” Tripp replied with an air of finality.

Before his friend could offer another protest, the door to the tavern banged open as a burly centaur male with warrior braids and a leather harness entered. With a huff, he trotted over towards Tripp’s dream date. Roald gulped and grabbed his buddy’s tunic.

“Oi, hold on there, loverboy. I think your competition just walked in.” he hissed softly.

Tripp’s face fell, as they watched the slayer sidle up to the lady centaur, his face contorting into a smirk that made even the halfling’s stomach knot. “He can’t do that! I saw her first!”

“How do you know? He could be her boyfriend.”

“Not all centaurs know each other - that’s racist.” Tripp muttered, but his eyes betrayed his worry.

“Face it, friend. That’s her type - not short two-leggers like us.”

Roald kept a steadying grip on his friend’s shoulder as they watched the pair across the room. The male centaur laid a hand on the lady and said something. Tripp’s expression turned pained.

Then the lady centaur smacked away the hand on her arm and laid into the male with a fierce kick, her rear legs connecting with bare abs and her horseshoes leaving an imprint that made every looker-on wince in pain.

“I’ve told ye, Duncan - I’m not interested. I don’t go for brutes like you.” Her voice rang across the bar, heavy with finality.

“It’s your loss, you stupid mare.” He spat back, hand still pressed to his stomach to hide the bruising. “You’ll not find a stud willing to put up with that temper!” With a snort, he turned and exited the bar, slamming the door on his way out.

After a few moments the din in the bar rose again and the lady centaur turned back to her table. Roald sat in shock.

“Wait - Tripp, hold on.”

Too late. His friend was already halfway across the bar, hefting his gallon offering like a small pilgrim. Roald’s face met his palm as he groaned, waiting for the worst.

The bartender leaned over, “He bought that for someone else, right?”

“Aye. Let’s pray he doesn’t end up soaked in it.” Roald took a long drag of his own drink, steeling himself.

Together they watched as Tripp approached the centaur, who turned as he called out. After a pause she looked downwards and saw him, holding up his gallon of ale with shakey arms that could barely hold her liquor. Roald’s heart skipped a beat.

“Gods, let him be short enough she kicks over his head.”

The centaur’s face turned puzzled as Tripp continued to hold out the giant mug. Slowly, her expression changed and to Roald’s shock it turned into a smile.

Effortlessly taking the tankard, she held it in one hand while she gently picked him up by the scruff of his tunic and - seeing no open barstool - placed him down onto her own back. Tripp modestly adjusted himself, sitting astride her while she turned and faced him, lifting up the mug in salute. He beamed, his lovesick eyes filled with admiration. Roald’s jaw fell.

“My gods, she didn’t kill him,” he breathed, watching in awe as the two continued chatting away.

The bartender shrugged. “They say true love is blind.”

“Aye, but if it were he’d be trampled to death.” Roald shook his head. “He’s still an idiot.” As he finished his ale, he glanced over periodically to check on his friend. After twenty minutes he hadn’t been bucked off.

Finally, the lady centaur set her empty mug on the table and motioned to Tripp, who blushed and nodded. Roald’s eyes zoomed in on this exchange, watching as Tripp shifted foward, his hands gently gripping around his lady’s waist, delicately avoiding her bosom. She turned around and began trotting out of the bar, halfling in tow.

As they passed, Tripp waved at Roald, who sat dumbstruck until the pair had already exited into the night.

The bartender looked over at Roald. “Need another?”

Roald shook his head. “I’ll take a full pint. I think I need it.”

Nodding, the bartender went to fetch a new mug. “Ya know, there’s a fair arachne who frequents this place. I hear she’s widowed.”

The halfling sighed. “Maybe after that pint.”

I awoke to the sound of rain hammering against my bedroom window, like a giant banging his fist, demanding to be let in. I lay there in the dark staring, as little raindrops slid down the window and connected with all the other droplets, making a miniature swimming pool when they hit the bottom; like they were meant to be together. Like no matter what they did, or whatever mistakes they made along the way, it didn’t matter; as they were bound to end up there. Together they made rivers, lakes, oceans…they were destined to accomplish great things. The window rattled at the force of the driving rain, as though it were actually feeling pain. Knowing I wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep, I threw the warm covers off and walked broodingly to the window, opening the hatch and letting the rain pour through onto me. As if I were taking the hits in place of the window. At least I was taking his pain away. Nothing could hurt me anymore, not after what happened….

I could still see her smile, I always wondered how she kept her teeth so white. But she had always insisted it was her special secret. Her hair had a golden glow in the soft evening light, her eyes shone with innocence and joy and freedom… I could look into those eyes for the rest of my life. Her fingers slipped into mine and I held her against me, softly, worried if I held her small, delicate body even the slightest bit too tight, she’d break into tiny pieces. I could smell her hair, it smelled of strawberries and mint… it had become my favourite smell in the world.

Shivering from the freezing wind, the rain dripped from my soaking wet body. I couldn’t tell if I was crying or if it was just the rain. Shutting the window down with a thud, the wind howled against it, begging me to open it again. Looking at the ground I noticed the carpet was soaked, and my toes wrinkled from all the water.

She used to love the rain; I remember her grabbing my hand and pulling me toward the bridge, our bridge, the bridge where we had first met, where I had stolen her first kiss, where she had told me she loved me, and I loved her..…it had just began to rain. I had insisted we go inside so we didn’t catch a cold, but she didn’t mind, she wanted to be out in it; holding me close as we started dancing. It was cold, it was wet, it was dark. But with her, everything was different. She gave me warmth, she was my light, and she was the love of my life.

I continued to blame myself for what happened. After all, protecting her was my responsibility. If only I hadn’t let her go to work that day. Little did I know it would be the last time I saw her. Could I have done anything different? She’d been so optimistic, convinced she’d be just fine, and I just let her go. Just let her walk out the door. I didn’t even get to say “I love you” one last time. Why didn’t I say it? I always said it whenever she went out. The blame was on me, and I will never forgive myself. How would I explain this to her family? Tell them they would never see their beloved daughter again, see her accomplish her dreams, get married or have their grandchildren? To tell them they would never be able to hug her or see her grow old?

Time, it’s something you can never get back and something you can never control. It can either heal you or destroy you. If only I could bring her back somehow, if only this were just a nightmare and I could just wake up and see her lying next to me again, smiling still.

The giant woke me out of it, reminding me once again, that this was reality. I could tell they were tears this time. I got up and opened the window again, the rain slashing at my skin and eyes. I let out a blood curling yell, a yell of pure pain, pure anger; anger that something as stupid as a car, can break your heart into a million pieces. Anger that one moment, can destroy every moment there ever was, or could be. Anger, that she was never, ever, coming back.

She will continue to haunt me till the day I die, and I can’t afford to let her go…...

so I won’t.

#fiction, #grief, #sad, #shortstory, #romance, #lovestory