ZEN Bitchin'

(part 3 of 4)

After that, it seemed that the scales of ignorance were removed from my eyes. Everywhere I would go, I would meet and catch the gazes of men who’d look me over like I was some piece of meat for their taking. Inside the jeepney on my way to class, in the review center, in the mall, even at church. Of course, my experience in the theater was followed by many others. I discovered a new community in the theater. Men who posed like peacocks in the wall that separated the balcony and orchestra seats, moving close and far according to their wishes, men who sat in the first three rows, waiting for someone to sit beside them, men who hung around the urinals and cubicles in the toilet, performing the quickest sex possible, and everything and everyone in between.

In the three months before the board exams it seemed that I went into the theater everyday just to have sex. I grew bold with each encounter; time came when I had sex with four to five people in one visit. Sometimes I allowed myself to be taken home or to some other, private place for more sex. On the day before the last day of my exams, I met Victor in the theater. We’d been eyeing each other since I came in and stood by the wall, but he made no move to come to me. I went to the toilet and let myself be blown by a middle-aged man who clutched his briefcase like his life depended on it. When he walked in, the man immediately withdrew, and seeing him just looking at us, stepped out of the toilets quickly. We kind of just looked at each other; he threw a glance at my still exposed cock before walking out. The middle-aged man came back and finished what he started.

When I sat on the third row of seats, two other men sat next to me and walked off after doing their business. Having come three times already, I was ready to go home; I’d just watch the movie in peace. As I was zipping up, he sat beside me. “I’m Victor,” he said, offering his hand. I shook it and said, “Joel.” I wasn’t in the habit of giving my real name to guys I met in the theater. He never let go of my hand, to my disconcertment. He kissed my fingers, sucked lightly on the pinky, tried to kiss my lips but ended up breathing in my ear when I turned my face away. I said no when he asked me if I had seen the movie in its entirety. “Would you like to have coffee with me after this?”

I looked at him. His eyes were narrow, deep-set, covered by thick lashes. It was an offer that I hadn’t encountered before. I said yes. An hour later—the movie was short, as it turned out—we were sitting across each other at the café I frequented. His smile baffled me, and I was amazed to discover that his name was indeed Victor. “I never give my real name in there,” I explained. “And why?” he asked. I shrugged. It seemed that we talked until the café closed and in the ride home, he grasped my hands and leaned his head on my shoulder, as if we were lovers, totally ignoring the driver’s glances from the rearview mirror. Before I alighted from the cab he kissed me chastely on my left cheek. “Good luck on the exams!” he said before the car sped off.

Victor became my first male lover. I had always considered him the first because my relationship with him was the first I made on my own, consciously, with my full consent. He was a year older, but he was still in school, taking Political Science at the state university, a student activist, and a closeted homosexual. “Is that what you call it?” he thought I was being smug, but my surprise was true. I hadn’t heard of the term before.

Like my godbrother, Victor taught me many things; not sexual things but things about myself. He had terms for almost everything. If you were attracted to the opposite sex, you were heterosexual; if your attraction lies in the same sex, a homosexual. While if you are attracted to both, a bisexual. If you engaged in homosexual activities when you were an adolescent, you had exploratory homosexuality. If your sexual partners were older men, the man was a pederast and that relationship was called pederasty. A closeted homosexual is someone who is not known by others to be homosexual. An out homosexual is the opposite.

He called me a top since I never sucked him and never let myself be fucked while he was a bottom, with me at least. I told him I was a bottom when I was younger and he laughed. “It doesn’t suit you,” he said. Victor seemed amused by my naïveté at the start. “I can’t believe you don’t know about these things, Michael.” But when I asked him what label was appropriate for me, he smiled. “What do you think?” he asked back.

Of course, I didn’t answer that question. I didn’t know how.

And of course, like a debater armed with every possible alternative, he had another term for me: MSM. “It means men who have sex with men,” Victor explained. “When you have sex with other men and you don’t see yourself gay, then you are an MSM.”

Cringing a little, I chose not to tell him anymore that although I didn’t consider myself as gay, I also didn’t consider myself any other way. I passed the board exams, found a job, eventually lost Victor to sexual indiscretions—mostly on my part—found another lover, lost him again, had anonymous sex in between relationships, found another job, and a third lover before coming face-to-face with my mother’s questions.

(to be concluded)