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Last message sent 12:45 AM.

I’m here in Manila and he’s where the weather is more capable of making up its mind. Snow if it’s supposed to snow. Reasonable, because called-for by the season which is understandable. Unlike here, where I can easily be cold, not being used to it, and on another night, wake to sweat greasing wherever hair meets bed.

Here, fortunately, we get on mostly by being cheap, and if it’s more than what we can afford, there are more than enough ways to get a compromise in our favor. We have a strong sense of property, make no mistake, but only on things that’re ours. Like the change in my pocket, the front windows are lighted hence the incessant jingles, dry like prayers in masses I don’t attend anymore.  Dim the lights. OK. Verify that I’m human. Download. I’d rather spend an hour waiting for this to finish. That’s all needed nowadays for a simple chuckle, a laughing out loud (though not to the point of rolling on the floor naked), occasional slight tugs on the heart, or a welling-up of something leaden down your chest, too. No more walks, well we really can’t, even if we want to. To watch the same movie is enough. We pride ourselves on our simplicity and the minimal requirements for our salvation.

Have you watched it?

Watched it. Always we like beginning with the economy of words. Everything fine? Fine, how’re you there? Here, still ok, good. Good. It’s a habit distance necessitates, that it replicates itself, otherwise a collapse. We are learning to appreciate transitions: courtesies, deflections and delays, testing if the other’s really there, what comes forward or retreats. Eventually, one gives in.

The last one’s a hardcore which he recommended after our pitiable success on cybersex. Both of us were on the floor, naked, sitting against the edge of our beds. My hands got confused, my hardness got lost between all the enter, backspace and up-down strokes. This time however, we start it as we’ve watched it on the video. He mimics a director saying something along so what are you both up to until why don’t you two start whenever you’re ready. I tell him I am kissing him gently and sense the gradual swelling inside his "trousers". He’s turns aggresive and pins me down on the bed, but shyly I warn him there’s the hint of bitter city fumes on my neck. He is pleased. He says he’s tracing the trail of hair that starts down my navel which thickens as he goes lower. I assert I know how to return the favor, you know, so I do. He goes wild. I say to him we need to slow down. And to my joy, he refuses. He says he’s on top me now and that my knees are up to my shoulders. I ask him please take it slowly and he grants my request like the gentleman that he is. We both say how warm: his, sliding inside me lengthening, and mine, taking in opening and closing in on him. He commands that I reach up and kiss him. No problem. Then I pull him down lower so that I feel his full weight on me. He tells me he’s nearly there and I reply I could tell by the way his thrusts are quicker yet they linger. I hold him from behind with both my hands, and exhale you’re so good I don’t even need to touch myself much. I remember the breathlessness of his face, his forehead creasing, I hold it in my mind.

A moment. Then, I let go.

You could say we’re conservative, we both love missionary. After a short pause, a message from him comes up: Finally! 


Finally, I repeat to him, with the small happiness of small confirmations.  Not as good as the real deal though, we both admit. I’d really like to “cyber-cuddle” you know, but I have to go. Sad face emoticon, man-whore, he jokes he feels used. Go then, go. Smiley.

I remember our agreement that Under the Tuscan Sun is just as bad as the Harry Potter series but who cares, we love them anyway, and then our ecstatic ravings about Chungking Express, that until he comes back, I’ll be waiting for that ticket.

This is still great, I mean, us.

I’m idling on the keyboard thinking of something funny to add because this is too mushy, even for me. The cursor blinks. A small icon says he’s typing, so I wait. Too long, he’s hesitating, must be backspacing. What’s he going to say?  The icon stops but nothing shows up.  Fuck. Fear. Disbelief. Name it. All in just a space of a second.

Then, there on the small box, appears suddenly a very short answer: Us.

Before I could even say something back, he logs out. So I find myself looking out of the window into the evening; I like looking out windows. I haven’t been feeling like myself lately, not until now.