A letter from a past lover — A fling leaves more than a mark. Pt 1
A look back with selfies.
Why deception should never be an option.
The last decade's ghosts just reminded me I was and still am an insane asshole that ruins people's lives.
I had a short thing with this trainee waitress back in my early days in hotel kitchens. Believe it or not, I used to be hot, jacked, and tan, and If only I could keep my intellectual, high-pitched voiced mouth shut I could land every single woman on duty If and only if I would stop asking if they listened to The Smiths or read the Bhagavad Gita. My aesthetic never did fit my mind (or my interests for that matter) The budding woman in question just turned 18, I may have been 21 or 22 at the most.
Let’s call her Blue Jean, She wasn’t all that pretty to look at at first but she adored me, she grew on me. Hung on to every word I say and looked up every literature reference or quote I spewed out and even went as far as put up shit I say or paraphrase on her FB wall. Like THAT level of head-over-heels for me. I had a lot of idealistic panache back in the day and the unknowing fresh of off-school prey wouldn’t know what hit them. I was to be their first foray into the real world. The earthly rugged tattooed cook with burn marks and cuts and scars ready and willing as ever to shelter them from the pangs of physical and emotional hunger from their first few weeks of service at a bustling city destination and offer them company, an ear to rant to and maybe a ride home.
I had a girlfriend at the time, her name was Isabella and she was an atomic bomb. Intense as it can be. We were always on again off again and I wanted to get back at her for being so crazy so I marked the food and beverage neophyte Jean and went to work. I can’t say she and I clicked, It was more of that I stalked her like a meal. I told her everything she wanted to hear just so I could get her into bed with me. Made her the same mix CDs with the same well-thought-out, well-curated list of songs that have been tried and tested. Gave her the same passe lines on the same walk to the same coffee shop as any other mark that would respond well to that same set of stimuli. The ideal romantic, quirky but stern, nerd experience. I had different sets for different archetypes of women kept in a database in my head. I had it all figured out or so I thought at the time. ( later realized all my theory-crafting is bullshit and I just want to be loved goddamnit. )
I like intimacy and all that lovey-dovey passionate stuff. She really thought I was hers. Nowadays I’m too tired and too old and pained to go through shit like this ever again. If I could go back in time I would swat my young self and tell him about all the issues and the years of heartache my playing around did to people I did care for at one point or the other.
Jean had one of those end-range dark-skinned complexions like an Afro-Latina woman would. She was an upbeat and lively conduit of new energy wherever she was stationed. Her modelesque nubile figure with sexy catlike big black eyes and badly drawn eyebrows would hug me with an envelope of warmth whenever she would smile and look down as she passed by my kitchen. She was a blank slate that was ready to take on whoever and whatever I wanted her to be to please me. I had amazing discoveries with her on our short-lived time together. I felt like for the first time I could be myself. She was a good conversationalist besides the fact that she’s akin to a sheltered newborn compared to the breadth of information I was dispensing at an abnormally rapid rate. Finally, someone that could listen to me talk about and listen to the Michigan rehearsals of The Stooges from 1973.
She had so much to look forward to in life and I was about ready to scar her soul…..My lord.
We frequented cheap motels around the Cubao area every day for weeks. Just mapping each other's bodies out and being young. It took her quite a while to cum and I remember thinking how amazingly individual women are to what makes them orgasm because she would like it extremely slow and grinding and my other girl would just flat out want to be demolished, the two extremes would make it hard for me to adjust as I juggled between the two of them. (Bella “ Oh ano yan??”)
It’s so saddening that for all my posturing of being non-conformist and having punk rock ideologies. The only thing that stood in the way of me being happy with her in the past, leaving an abusive relationship, and giving it a shot was what people would think. She wasn’t as commercially pretty as my crazy lover at the time was. She was from up far East, looked at by my peers as a country bumpkin and somewhat simple. (Now thinking back who the fuck cared? AND WHY DID YOU CARLOS?)
I saw her for much more than that eventually, but the young immature fears and anxieties of protecting my newfound reputation as a regular Chef at a prestigious hotel brand with the cute girlfriend everyone likes got the best of me. For the first time in my young adult life, I made a big decision weighing the vox populi heavy and It set the tone for my future temperament, it tainted my integrity somewhat and subconsciously, my future actions of scurrying out of difficult situations.
My kitchen mates thought I was a bit disgusting and out of it for toying with a college trainee putting in hours to graduate from school rather than patch things up with my bubbly and quirky “crush ng bayan” girlfriend which everyone wanted a piece of. I began to be a butt of jokes for some reason that I would fuck someone that ugly or that I had low standards and instead of owning up to it I condemned her and slowly worked my way out of correcting my reputational faux pas. I never thought she was bad-looking, therein lies the disconnect. To me, she, like all the other women fortunate and unfortunate both to have experienced me, was Beautiful. I was grateful to share in her being.
I was shocked, word had gotten `round. How could I replace their Bella with her????
She thought we were boyfriends and girlfriends. I panicked and tried to get rid of her in a number of ways. My memory seems to have been blocked out by a combination of years past making pieces of it cloudy and an abundant lifetime worth of shame for not manning up to commitments and taking responsibility for Jeans feelings and well-being. One of the very few moments I can pinpoint where I did not do the right thing that was expected of me. That I expected of myself. I cheated on Bella with Jean, cheated on Jean with Bella cheated on both of them with another chef from the cold kitchen. Lied about cheating on all 3 of them with a 4th woman.
How spineless of me. Someone should have taught me about casual relationships earlier on but what can a fatherless 21 year old navigating the world of feelings and women do with naught but an empty house for a home and a troublesome lot and neighborhood around him. I cut off ties when she finished rendering her hours and gained myself a new admirer, using different accounts and emails. Letters here and there, Facebook requests, and random pings in the mail.
Fast forward to recent years she kept sending me emails every few months, the months became years apart. I know now she’d developed some kind of limerance towards me. That a version of me in the past was idealized, ballooned up, frozen in time, and somehow was clung onto for comfort and the difficulty of moving on from the hurt I made her go through.
Limerance is a topic that hits close to home with my current partner Candice, but that’s another story for a different time. I felt so bad about everything, only now almost a decade late into realizing the gravity of what I’ve done so so far away and far past redemption and rectifying my mistakes like the person I would want to be, a virtue I would like to embody. I hate contributing to this sick-single person culture of bad days stringed on top of each other due to heartbreak and the over-romanticized scenes of what could have been and what should have.
I emailed Jean back from the slew of emails I’ve received over the past few. This time a few weeks later I got what I deserved. A scathing letter of an empowered woman finally getting over her malady of the heart. Facing her wrongdoer and telling me off. I deserve it. I don’t even deserve to pursue for an apology. The man I am today says to back off. It is for my own ego if I’m to chase for forgiveness. I must carry this self-made cross and atone for the bad energy I’ve put into the world the suffering I’ve caused people that are flesh and bone like me.
Life is such a trip. Imagine ending your day at 9 in the morning with these thoughts?
to be continued.
