.png)
Written by Gershom Gerneth Mabaquiao
(Instagram: @gershom.gerneth
Facebook: gershom.gerneth
Twitter: @gershomgerneth)
“In heaven, all the interesting people are missing.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche
The next step to heaven is found on the slant of the hip. Put your thumb on the thin strip of bone along “the V.” Not only is it sexy, rubbing it the right way is stimulating. I’m rubbing mine right now as I beat myself slowly, gently, and it feels so damn great, the tiles of my small dim-lit bathroom echo my moans. You can hear me, right? What do you have to say about this?
Now draw circles around your nipple, but tread a path from your hip up the side of your torso to get to it. Make sure to use a light finger with the right pressure for it to feel good. It’s important to never lose skin contact when getting from one point to another, that’s what you taught me. That’s what most of my clients lack: the buildup of tension. The deliberate crafting of a rising action.
Most men just grab and go, as if reaching climax is an item on a grocery list. They just take what they need and pay me at the checkout. But caressing a body needs to be a joyride, a treasure hunt. Beating around the bush should be as pleasurable as finding where X marks the spot.
At least, that’s how I do it. I explore my own body, experiment with what feels great and what doesn’t, then put them to good use when I’m at work. Well, at least my nightwork after my day job as a supermarket bagger in SM Calamba ends. Are you happy with what I’ve become after you kicked me out? Are you proud of me now?
There are so many points on our skin we neglect that can make our heads spin in pleasure — the bend of the ear, the corner of the jaw, the curve of the collar bone, two dots of bone a few inches above the butt crack. This new discovery, this decline on the hip, is a great addition to my mental checklist of pleasure points. Am I disgusting you, mother? I hope I do.
Hear my breath quicken as I gaze intently at my reflection in the full-length in front of me on the wall of my small bathroom. I flick a finger back and forth at the rosebud of my nipple. I suck in air through my teeth. Fuck, yeah, that feels great. I keep my eyes on myself, inspecting the wiring muscles on my lean, wiry arms; the protruding puff of my hard, hairless chest even as I sit down; smooth legs spread apart, on the green Monobloc I placed in front of the mirror.
I have to keep my body in check, of course. My work demands it in order for me to deliver the best kind of service to my clients. I have to offer quality pleasure, “the one, true heaven” as one of them calls it. (Have I told you about him? Yes, the one who gives me all the gifts from Europe.) And that means first learning how to pleasure myself. So I take the staircase up this sensational heaven one step at a time. And I take it seriously, mother. I search for the right spots, then act as their tour guide to heaven.
"Fuck. Fuck. FUCK!”
I shoot hot trajectories all over the bathroom, eyes transfixed on my reflection. Look how my hip jerks forward once, twice, a few more times, spasming with every contraction, every throb, and yet I quickly grow soft. This whole mess, and yet there’s no pleasure there, only a familiar shiver that runs down my spine, an explosion of guilt up my skull.
I look up, expecting your face to look down on me, your eyes burning with disapproval. Instead, the glow of the dim fluorescent bulb assaults my sight as my face relaxes, as my panting slows into steadier breaths. It asks me: What are you doing, Peter? Or is that your disapproving voice again? I make a mental note to change the light soon.
Peter. That’s what I tell my clients to call me. You know what the name means: rock, a fisher of men. That’s me, that’s my job. Of course, it’s not my real name, but a professional title.
A joke especially for you. Peter and his cock. Look at me now, mother. Look where your Bible took me.
Definitely not heaven, I hear you say. Neither mine nor yours.
You’re right. This “true heaven” shies away from me. For all the buildup I’ve mastered, the guiding I do to take men to that heaven, I can’t seem to fucking reach it! I always find myself shot down from the sky before I even reach that peak of sensation.
Something drags me back down.
Someone, I think, glaring at my reflection.
See my right hand covered in a slimy mess spider-webbing between my fingers? I wait for your knock on the bathroom door, like you always did when I was younger. It doesn’t come. Only I do.
Why don't you knock now? Do not be silent, mother.
With my other hand, I scoop a tabo of water from the grimy drum to wash off the stickiness. My eyes sting with tears I refuse to shed. My nose is assaulted by the lingering offensive smell of piss in the bathroom. I hold my breath to keep myself from gagging at the smell of piss and cum. You’re dirtier than this place, you tell me. There's the mother I knew and loved. Maybe I should get some bleach, too.
Another scoop of water as I grab the thumb-sized stub of Safeguard from the rack above the drum, beside the orange Kojic I use every other day and a newly opened bar of Dove from the rejects I got from my day work. I wash myself as quickly as I can, refusing to look down at the flaccid thing hanging between my legs, the part of my body you taught me to hate. Oh, God. Just thinking about the look of it makes my skin crawl. I want to scrub my skin with smooth river stone until it stings red and raw.
I wipe my wet cheeks, switch the bathroom light off, and step out of the bathroom without spending one more second to look at your reflection beside mine.
--
Danny came home from Europe today with my boxes of chocolates, bottles of perfume and lotion, and my new laptop. I love him for that. Well, of course not really. We agreed that we won't fall for each other nor ask personal questions about each other. I don't even know if his name is really "Danny." It's part of our agreement: for half a year when he's abroad, I can cater as many clients as I want. But whenever he's here for the other half of the year, I spend all that time in his Amaia Scapes house in Barandal, all his. And in return, he takes good care of me, worships my body as I ram into him.
"Do you like them?" he asks.
What are you doing?
"Of course I do," I say. But you can see right through me, can't you? You know I'm disappointed at the laptop he bought me. I specifically asked for a MacBook, not this Acer piece of crap. But I keep on my smile, the smile you taught me to flash whenever people would ask why they don't see father anymore.
The way Danny ruffles my hair with a wink reminds me so much of father. I know you disapprove of me thinking of him, but you're long gone now. Four years long gone. You don't get a say about what goes inside my head anymore. You don't just get to knock on my thoughts any time you like. No longer, mother. No longer.
"So…" Danny says, rubbing his bare, hairy torso as we both lie in bed, the hum of the air-conditioned atmosphere ringing in my ears. "What was that trick you did earlier?"
"Why, do you like it, Daddy?" I ask, running a finger over his hip. “A magician never reveals his secrets.”
He chuckles and pulls me to his hard chest. "If you keep this up, I might start fucking that tight hole of yours, boy."
"You love me between your legs too much to start doing that." I lick the valley between his pecs.
"No hickeys," he purrs in my ear, reaching down between my legs. I shudder. "Saint Peter and his cock welcoming me in true heaven."
Disgusting, you whisper. You both are disgusting.
I push his hand away. "I gotta go. Opening shift tomorrow." I pick up my work uniform scattered on the floor — my company-issued polo shirt, the blue faded, under Danny's Calvin Klein boxers; straight-cut black slacks; and my loose-gartered briefs. I grab one of my socks on top of Danny's mahogany bedside table. I find the other one draped on the mouth of the stainless trash can under it. The dotted condom I used earlier lies discarded inside the trash can. Danny's favorite texture. Limp and empty on the bottom.
"It's only nine. Stay a little longer, kid. My wife doesn't come home till one A.M.," Danny says, rubbing himself over the blanket spread above his lower body.
I pull on my briefs, acting as if in a hurry. "Sorry," I say, sliding into the legs of my slacks. I fling the shirt over my shoulder and pick up my Jansport backpack from the foot of the king-sized bed. "Tomorrow. Bawi ako."
Heading for the gold-framed mirror near the bedroom door, I angle my jaw to admire my reflection, fix my hair a bit, and wink at your pale skeletal features glaring at me from behind. What are you doing?
I step out of the room.
Do you hear the angry storm, mother?
"Well, shit," Danny says from behind me, lightning cracking in the darkness.
--
It's been three hours and the rain still rages outside. The air-conditioning unit is the only noise permeating the air in the room. Danny can't take me home because he just got back; his new car doesn't come until next week. We tried hailing a tricycle but the storm was so strong, we ended up wasting an hour just waiting for one. We decide to wait out the storm.
Danny and I keep silent as we watch the news in his bedroom.
"What's wrong, kid?"
"What's the time?"
"12:04 A.M."
"Your wife comes in less than an hour."
You're awfully quiet, too, mother. I wonder if it's you causing this. Did you tell God about the things I said? Did you tell him I'm screwing a married man twice my age? Are you even in heaven, or are you following the Devil around, doing his bidding?
"You didn't finish," Danny says. "I saw the condom when you were about to leave."
Where are you now, mother? Why don't you speak?
"It's okay. I'm not angry. I just want to know why. Aren’t I hot anymore, kid?”
"You're not my father, Danny."
“Okay.”
I fix my eyes on the door.
Do you know why I always ask you to wear dotted condoms?" he asks.
“Because you like riding young dicks so much but you’re scared you’ll catch something?”
“I’m just making conversation, Peter. There really is no use worrying at this point. I can always tell my wife you’re one of my students. Just relax, okay?” he says calmly, calculated. This is the first time he talked to me as someone younger than him.
He’s right, of course. But I can’t help but stare at the door expecting you to knock or simply barge in any second while I’m with a naked man.
“So what about the dotted condoms?” I ask, eyes still fixed on the door.
“Take off your pants,” he says.
I stare at him, blinking twice.
“Peter, it’s not as if I haven’t seen that before. I just want to show you something.”
I don’t budge. I’m suddenly hesitant about freeing my erection.
“Fine, I’ll do it myself,” Danny says. “See these little bumps around the head? They say these are genetic remnants of penile spines humans had before.”
“Penile spines. You mean —”
“Like in cats, lions, beetles… It’s a part of nature. Heightens sexual experience for both parties and makes for bigger but quicker orgasms. Dotted condoms work like that.”
“Then why don’t we have those anymore?”
“Civilization. We wanted slower, more passionate sex. So evolution erased the spines. Our current humanity is measured by the lack of those spines. But they still feel really sensitive when you touch the bumps.”
"Huh. That’s really interesting. Is there a book on that I can read?”
“Want me to look one for you?”
“If it’s not too much,” I say softly.
“Nothing’s ever too much for you, kid.” Danny pinches my cheek.
I shudder. Lightning flashes from the window.
“You’re still pretty sexy for a forty-two-year old,” I tell him, eyes fixed on the door again. “In fact you look like the first guy I had sex with. And that was really special for me. Same built. Really sweet. Can’t keep it in his pants, too.” I chuckle. “I just…” I sigh. I wait for your voice to ask me what I’m doing. It doesn’t come. “Sometimes...I cry...when I —”
“Post-coital dysphoria,” Danny says.
“What?”
“Almost half of everyone has experienced that at least once, kid. After sex you either cry, you get angry and disgusted, or you feel detached. It’s fine. I get it.”
He doesn’t. He doesn’t get you.
Go away, mother.
“Time?” I ask.
“12:30.”
I keep my mouth shut, my heart pounding in my ears. I sense the knocking on the door coming soon. Very soon. Please go away, mother. Please, not again. Not again. You don’t answer.
"Did you know I have a son."
“You do?” I ask. “But where is he? Your wife’s here–”
“My second wife. My first wife and I separated and she got custody of the boy. How old are you again?”
“Twenty-two.”
“He’s twenty. Really loves me, too. I only get to see him every six months, when I go there. He always brags to his friends that his Filipino dad is really hot. Kinda embarrassing sometimes, to be honest. But I love the kid so much, I want to give him anything in the world to show that I do.”
“Why are you telling me this?” I ask him.
“Because you remind me so much of him,” Danny answers. “You actually have the same body, except he’s a bit taller.”
I understand. I start unbuttoning my pants again.
“Do you want to…” I ask.
Danny grabs me by the head and kisses me the way Polo did four years ago.
Suddenly I’m in my old bedroom in your house in Calamba. It was a rainy night, too, when Polo came to my upstairs room. I guess at the back of my mind, I did plan to leave my door open as I slept naked. Maybe I did choose to walk around the house without a shirt the entire week you were in mission in Vietnam. Maybe I deliberately entered the room you shared with him while he was jerking himself off.
But why I did it, I still am not sure. Maybe as a way of getting back at you for all the years you rapped on my door almost every hour that we’re together in that house, checking if I was touching myself or if I was having sex with the girl I took home. I never had sex with any of those girls, mother. Not even one of them. Not even a kiss. You made sure of that.
...but I tell you that everyone who gazes at a woman to lust after her has committed adultery with her already in his heart. I knew these words of the Apostle Matthew by heart because you plastered it all over the house the day you kicked father out of the house. You were both pastors and this was how he decided to act, you told me. And so you never wanted me to be with any girl or anyone for that matter. Because you found that my holy father got a young virgin in missionary position.
I heard your constant knocking everywhere, anytime of the day, and then the question, “What are you doing?”
So maybe I decided, okay. I wouldn’t lust after any girl.
So why did you get mad at me, mother, when you found me fucking your pretty little boyfriend?
“Disgusting!” you shouted at us. “You both are disgusting!”
But it didn’t matter what you think because that time with Polo in my room, I reached what Danny calls true heaven. It didn’t matter that you kick us both out.
“I don’t care where you go! Live in the streets! Go to hell!” you shouted at us. “But you don’t deserve heaven. Definitely not heaven! Neither mine nor yours!”
You turned to me. “You think this man whore gets you? You think your bastard father does? He doesn’t get you! None of them do! You men are nothing but animals and monsters!” And then you slammed the door on our faces, the both of us wearing nothing but our underwear.
Your funeral took place exactly a week after that. I never went, and maybe that’s why you never stopped following me. And maybe you’re right, maybe I will never get to heaven, mother.
But back then with Polo, right now with Danny, I ascend the staircase to that true heaven. Each step crafted by my own hands, glued by my cum, and polished by all the tears I shed. I don’t care if you ask me to STOP!
STOP!
STOP! you scream. But I keep going. I take those stairs at a run, one at a time, each step a cloud, a thrill, like a rollercoaster falling upward.
STOP! you keep screaming, but I don’t listen. Not anymore, mother. Not like with Polo. This heaven is mine and mine alone.
STOP! STOP! STOP!
I see you by the open door as I go faster and faster inside Danny.
I’m almost there, almost at the top!
Almost!
Almost!
Oh, God!
“Stop, Peter, please,” Danny says through sobs. I blink once, twice, a few more times until your face morphs into the face of a woman I don’t know, staring at me pale-faced scowling and silently crying. “Stop...stop...stop…” Danny keeps repeating.
The skin on Danny’s back is striped red, the flesh torn open in ribbons. The linens are spattered with blood. I know I came inside him, but why does it feel different? Why do I feel different? Mother, I’m scared. Where are you?
But you don’t answer.
Doesn’t matter. I’ve reached that true heaven.
I pull myself out of Danny, slowly. But I can’t get myself out of him.
“Peter, please,” Danny pleads, voice muffled on the mattress. His knuckles are white from gripping the sheets so tight. I yank my hip, but I can’t get myself out. What is happening, mother?
I try pulling myself free a few more times, but it’s as if Danny’s insides are gripping me… Or am I gripping onto him with my —
With a strong push of both hands, I finally get every inch of me free. But in my wake, I’ve left a trail of semen, shit, and blood. Saint Peter’s cock flops on the skin of my inner thigh, feeling heavy and weirdly prickly. Maybe Danny is screaming, maybe you’re shouting at me again, mother, but I hear neither of you because all the blood on my body pulses in both my heads.
I look at my hands and I don’t recognize them. Have they always been so red and hairy, my nails these long and pointed?
Carefully, shakily, I get out of bed, the strange woman by the door still staring blankly at her bloody husband.
I head for the mirror. The thing between my legs swing this way and that as I trudge toward my reflection. It feels sharp against my skin, like a hundred needles circling like petals around my throbbing head. I refuse to look down. The familiar shiver returns, now amplified somehow.
Finally, I reach my reflection, hoping to see you. But you’re not there, mother.
Instead, in that true heaven, I see a monster.
About the Author:
Gershom Gerneth Mabaquiao is a writer of fiction and nonfiction. His works touch on the darker recesses of the human psyche and Philippine folklore. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of the Philippines Los Baños.
Social Media Contact:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gershom.gerneth/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/gershomgerneth