3. The Beginning Encounters

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Index:
A guy in fresh denims
A former college athletic (soccer) scholar
An uptight and not-so-truthful fellow

“…there are places we all come from – deep-rooty-common places – that make us who we are. And we disdain them or treat them lightly at our peril. We turn our bakcs on them at the risk of self-contempt. There is a sense in which we need to go home again – and can go home again. Not to recover home, no. But to sanctify memory.”
Robert Fulghum

I fail to recall whoever might have been the first person I casually had sex with at the Walls. Whoever he was, he certainly might have relieved himself, illicitly, with much hurried yet strange sense of physical pleasure. The same experience happened with me.

I remember someone wearing brand new denims I met just outside the Walls facing Lyceum near the underpass, very near the Revellin del Parian. It was past 11 PM and there were many others cruising. Also, there were many who were just passing by, I guess. I felt the urge to really be able to make it soon, as I needed to be home soon. This one just jutted out of nowhere while I was studying the numerous vehicles passing by where I positioned myself. The streetlights beyond somehow supported to cast an eerie combination of dirt, bodily longing, and darkness. Streetlights were off then that night, particularly in that circle where I placed myself.

The Walls stood at the distance. I happened to pass by this friendly stranger. I saw an athletic man with a fresh short haircut wearing a clean white round neck shirt. Looking more like a college student than myself who was then in college, I realize I was meeting someone very relishing that night. The urge surged itself - rushing like very strong waterfalls - beyond proportions in my mind. Knowingly, I acknowledged my attraction to this man who sent the proper signals.

“Dito tayo, gawin mo sa akin, gagawin ko rin sa ‘yo! (We're safe here...do it to me,.....and i'll do it you after you're done with me!)” as he approached me after we studied each other in barely three minutes.

I understood soon that we had to do it beside the dark portion of the underpass, near the bushes where curious passersby could easily see us. Cars continue passing by from Divisoria and Binondo. The man looked like he has just bought a fresh pair of denims, which fitted his size proportionately well. The smell of fresh, new denims just couldn’t get over me – such that I recall the night as well as the person todate with the same urgent desire to relieve myself. I zippered down his pants and proceeded to partake of the flesh before me, which looked meaty enough. His warm body just couldn’t cope with my hands as I submitted myself to his yearnings. Suddenly, the smell of the whole place brought forth memories of those whom I have met earlier. Tensely, I worked on whatever I could handle until he was over. I remember I was glad he did reciprocate my act. He did particularly well as I guided him to what really excited me then. Soon, we were both finished in 12 minutes. I never had the chance to ask anything of his identity. I just recall the freshness of it all, which todate I particularly remember. I have never met him again.

I knew I wanted more yet I couldn’t recall if I still went on cruising that night. Yet evenings like these became common for the past years. Such past evenings – the mixed pungent, salty and musky smell of which repeated even after our family has overcome the collective weariness of the thought of Mother’s near-total disability in Jordan – continue to unfold everytime I decide I have to get over myself. Mother and I have recently been able to talk on the near traumatic family event. I was just prayerful with many thanks most times. She has yet to be informed on the indirect result that her near death abroad has brought to me.

These days, there are nights when I have felt I needed divine intervention just as to be able to make it through the night. Nights when my longings just get as confused as my imaginings. Stoically, I have braved it out there in the Walls, or at times, just about anywhere. Nevertheless, I have realized that in the Walls, as in the other cruising grounds, there, indeed, are really many numbers of men who have been also in search just like me. We collectively search continuously for relatively freer grounds to just be ourselves, without the cloth of deception, practically to anyone. We search for the need to be accepted in our own terms, without the dangers and annoyances of disbelief, disgust, and bigotry, both on the surface and underneath the various levels in our society.

In retrospect, I have never been able to completely identify what I really wanted in the first place. Nor even come up with a fragment of the definitive meaning on what I have been doing. Nevertheless, I have partaken much, for which I have been thankful of what has been presented to me in return. I just want to tell my “stories” in their integral chapters that may at times will have no endings, just those others out there whose stories beg to be narrated (so to say), and be affirmed as good, honest persons with integrity in the process. Though, of course, this wanting “to tell stories” will have consequences forthcoming as well in the process.
* * * * * * *

Another among my earliest encounters has been this one with a former college athletic (soccer) scholar of Adamson University. Given my efforts in recollecting details about this guy, I guess, he must have asked me to do things on him, which I thought to be rather puking then.

I remember this guy, who must have been in his early thirties’ then, have been working in the warehouse section of a multinational pharmaceutical firm in Makati. He thought of cruising near along Manila Hotel one of those earliest evenings that I decided to cruise in the Walls. Very much naïve then, I realized I must have shown him signals that he thought could be very well be the hallmarks of someone in cruising. He was married with a child, and his wife then was visiting her parents in the province. He must have had felt the urge so much so that instead of proceeding to go to their house in Pasay City, he thought of cruising it actively out in the Walls.

He must have been one of the first of batches of men whom I have agreed to spend a night with in a motel somewhere in Sta Cruz. He got pretty disappointed, actually, when we were already in bed. I never wanted, then, to work on him orally. He kept on pleading on me to work on him practically the whole night.

“Yun dati kong roommate, minsan pinakelaman nya ako. Mula sa kama nya, ginapang nya ako, eh, marami kami sa kwarto noon. Natuwa yata sa nangyari sa amin. Nasarapan naman ako. Naulit pa iyon, hanggang sa naging madalas. Natapos lang nung grumaduate na kami (I had a former roommate who once fondled me one night. From his bed, he crawled slowly to get into mine, which was very daring of him, as there were others who were soundly sleeping that night in that same room. He must have extremely enjoyed himself that first night. I actually relish the experience myself, just like very good food. We did it again, until it became routine. We just parted ways when we graduated from college)” as he related one of his more significant physical and erotic encounters with men.

Back then, I was pretty much disgusted by engaging in such acts, although he was very much pretty well hung with a muscular body to boot, given that he’s only in his mid early 30s then. Just like the rest of us, I have had my share of sexual hang-ups, and quite unsure of what I like to engage and share in bed. I remember the two of us in that motel room just having our naked bodies pressed tightly together while in bed – the whole night. I remember him walking in the room naked, to show me his disappointment, while the lights were on, I saw how well built his body has been.

“Kung yung iba ang nandito ngayon, kanina pa ako nakaraos (If there was someone else with me here in this bed, I would have come by now)” I recall him remarking at me.

I remember having taken much rein in my urges then to simply do to him those activities from which I have gained much confidence to engage much, much graphically, sexually later on. I guess, we need to be guided step by step just as to fully enable ourselves to confidently engage in these sexual acts. These sets of behavior apparently do not come automatic especially when needed.
* * * * * * *

I met one certain fellow who could have easily turned out to be personification of dishonesty to one’s self. He was pretty confusing as soon as we got to agree that we were doing it that night.

Or I must have been very hard on him, as I try to comprehend his inconsistent behavior towards me. Although on second thought, admittedly, each one of us, in the whole place, has our individual bag of dishonesties, in trying to prevent others to see us in our bare, vulnerable selves, warts and all.

I made it with this man that night, thinking that I could have made it out with someone worthy, at the least, and gratifying at the most. A professional auditor, who works with Commission on Audit, he was rather edgy that night yet I could see through his eagerness, as he went out of his way to approach me at my seat at one of those concrete benches in the Walls.

Yet at the same time, he was rather uptight, like he couldn’t show his real self correctly to me. I just took everything as a learning process. He was rather tender and soft, and was rather uninhibited about kissing, hugging and all the works, which I found rather pretty exciting. I particularly recall exchanging such heated kisses with him, as I wondered how I got to land here as I tried to be as expressive as I could. I longed to have both of our bodied be tightly connected, at least physically for a few hours. Yet right after coming, I saw his face looking like in total disbelief and sorrow over what he had recently done, of the utter sinfulness of the whole act. His eyes showed the cowed displeasure he had after we come. Looking back, I realized I could see guilt-personified on his bright face. I remember his cute face, plus a nice naked, well-maintained body, as he shook me out the bed. I wondered why we weren’t joyously celebrating at all the blessing that we may have admitted, which normally we have, at least, after each coming. I couldn’t believe him as he showed me that face, with changing “characters” in a matter of second.

He made some sarcastic remarks, as were rushing to put on our clothes, like everything about our bodies are totally filthy beyond repair. I felt instantly like moving out as fast as I could, even like running the fastest run I could give away from the nightmare inside that cheap motel room. I thought I would be seeing no more of him, as I thought he was having grave difficulties accepting the other aspects of himself.

Yet, I saw this same guy again somewhere in a second run theatre, somewhere in Meycauayan, Bulacan. I saw him again in the deep recesses of another cheap theatre in Cubao. Both theatres are known todate to be cruising grounds for people like us, and those prostitutes hounding all of us, if given the chance. He still looks stoically cold, yet physically interesting person that challenges other cruisers. I supposed he must have been married by this time (I remember he told me his plans of getting married).

Soon, I’ve grown to realize I should be developing the expertise in recognizing the type. This type should be refused, at all costs, as he makes you go down the lower depths of possessing the ill traits a poorly developed self-confidence level. Negative vibes hound you after you have realized you have met the “type.”

Actually, every now and then, I particularly remember having met another similar fellow, of the similar variety, although belonging to the same species, who seems to merely finds enjoyments in the details of seducing guys who would get to think of him as someone with such a superb body, as he actually is physically……….yet there is the persistent disdain in his face, as one goes about working in him. The type simply makes me shake my head in disbelief.