Perfect Strangers

Scene from the movie "From Beginning to End"

Are you and PJ partners?

He nodded weakly. The direct sourness of my question have clearly unsettled him. His face didn't know how to react. It showed of guilt but was trying to put up a small smile like how someone would automatically blow into a newly acquired wound even though it really does nothing to heal it or keep the pain away.

And you have a girlfriend?

He was silent. Staring into nothingness that is the roughly paved concrete on the ground. I felt my head rush with blood. PJ was right. Everything he told me was the truth. All along I thought his revelations were mere fabrications of a jealous third wheel. I was the third wheel and I never felt so stupid in my entire life.

Then why?

Why what?

Why do you still have sex with other guys? Why do you still have sex with guys if you already have a girl friend? And with PJ acting as if he's some kind of pimp?

It was supposed to be a threesome. Me, PJ, Bryan. PJ was really my contact but was caught up at work that's whay he set me up with Bryan instead. He was like a middle man. Bryan and I contacted each other through him. Later, I found out that this was how they mostly set things up. Bryan never gave his number to anyone. He said he'd try to catch up but his call center work spits him out on the wee hours of the morning. I never got to meet him. I never did want to meet him. Because when I met Bryan, I only wanted him.

Chinito. Fair. Very manly. Older. Chubby. Those are the perfect ingredients for my poison. A  poison that turns my knees into jelly. Fills my stomach with butterflies. Makes my heart pound like a blacksmith's hammer, and clouds my judgment like a drop of black ink in a vial of clear water. It was death. And it was a death that I gladly revelled in.

We had sex. Tha was the plan. He was a power bottom and wanted to be fucked hard, or so that's what PJ told me in our text conversations. And I believed him. So I did. As hard and as wild as I could. It was all animal instict, bereft of humanity.

But that wasn't my style. Cold, Heartless sex that only views the partner as a sex object and only longs for self satisfaction. I like to give warmth. Security. Sense of belongingness and satisfaction to whoever I chose to have sex with. Even for just a night. But that giving some of myself up opens my heart a little bit, exposing it to emotions that could be dangerously infectuous.

I felt guilty and offered my warm, passionate self to him. This time looking at him with eyes that sees him as a person. With those, I saw his resemblance with Hale's Champ. Only with a lot more meat. His smiles bring out two gorgeous dimples and make his eyes sparkle, definitely imitating a smile. The wild sex was replaced with long talks, passionate kissing, tight embraces and holding of hands. We took turns massaging each other's backs. Teased each other like kids. We laid in bed with my left arm on his back and his head on my chest. Our naked bodies kept each other warm against the cold of the rainy night.

I knew I was dead.

It's complicated.

How is that complicated? How is being a slutty son-of-a-bitch complicated? And there I was. Talking as if I'm not a slutty son-of-a-bitch myself.

It's just sex. He said softly. Almost a whisper, almost ashamed.

I was trying to control my emotion. Anger. Longing. Yeah. Sex. Because a girl can't fuck your ass with her vagina!

Because I am a mess, okay. Because everything in my life is fucked up. I am fucked up! He said aloud. Emotions welling up. I knew it was hard for him to admit that. His words cut himself like a blade through the wrist. I felt how it stung him. It was a good thing it's too early for people to be out that morning.

Why did you say you like me? That you'd miss me terribly? That you'd love to visit me sometime and just chat about some stuffs?

Because I did. I do. He said sincerely.

There was silence.

I laughed at myself in my thoughts. Here I am. Begging someone to explain to me his affections from a moment of a one night stand. How stupid was that? Something that starts with sex can never be something else other than something about sex. I was supposed to know that.

My eyes left the wall it has been staring at blankly and turned my head to face Bryan who was already looking at me with his sad, glassy eyes. Our eyes met. I smiled. It was a smile of someone who has been hurt but who also has been made happy. It was bittersweet. And I knew it only had one ending.

I know you do. And I know you can't. And I know I shouldn't.

We knew there and then that even if our hearts desired it, it was not meant to be. We knew that at that moment, we are destined to travel two different roads. And with that, I turned my back and walked along the path the Universe laid out before me.

If he stayed there at the alley and watched me dissappear amongst the crowd that the morning sunlight have then stirred up, I'll never know.


Let's just keep it simple
In the AM it's goodbye
The syrup's so much sweeter
When you let the butterfly

So spread your wings and go
It's better not to know
What I'm gonna miss
I'll remember your kiss

We are passing trains
We are whiplash lovers
We are burning wax,
Melting all over each other

We could be perfect strangers,
Let's spend tonight.

We could be perfect strangers,
Hello, would look in my eyes?

Everyone wants you
But nobody knows
That you're all alone inside

We could be perfect strangers.
Thank you for spending one night with me.

Perfect Stangers, INXS

100th post.