…and he lingered on the moment like it was the first and was the best. The glint in his eyes were boyish and the smile on his face, mischievous. I tossed him his jacket while I touched up on my red lipstick. He was putting his socks on and sneakers.
My phone vibrated in my pocket and I held it up to get the message. It was Katy.
” Erin, airport, 4am.” It’s funny when Katy texts, she always sound like a telegram and it’s 2011 for godsakes!
I knew Erin is coming, after two years since Una Nicolet died, we haven’t really connected. Her move to New York was her way of coping with the loss and it has been hard for all of us … especially for me, holding Una at the last second of her breath isn’t gonna make you fall asleep easy into the night without some shot of hard whiskey or lots of good, hard, loud, sex.
But I chose the good, hard, loud sex coz I really don’t drink.
“let’s go” I said coldly to Jake as he looks up and putting his jacket on.
“why the hurry?”
He walked close, nibbled my ear and wrapping me in his arms, it’s pretty cold to wake up at 3am and so I’m melting in his embrace.
“I’m picking up a friend at the airport”
He continued to trace his lips on the sides of my neck…
“Jake…”
“Mia…” he was devilishly smiling, pulling me around to face him, he kissed my lips and I couldn’t move away, it was so soft, so nice to the lips….his tongue brushing my tongue, my hands moved up to his neck. His warm body and his idea of a quickie is getting pretty contagious…
“mmmnn…” Slipping a hand under my shirt over my lacy bra. His wet lips busy on my neck, while his other hand undoing the button of my jeans and sliding in to touch my soft, glossy skin that he parted with two fingers.
“Jake..”
“mmn? yes?”
“let’s do it quick…”
He smiled and went on to pulling down our pants and undies,’ lifted me and pounded mid-air.
“i’m gonna fall…”
so we struggled to the bed, hands and knees he came at me from behind, there was no orgasm on my side — the whole point of a quickie is just to rub on each other for as long as you can and basically just feel good being so close. But Jake came, as he always does.
While dressing up (again)
MY mind couldn’t keep me from thinking of what Erin looks like after two years, I’ve always known her to have short hair, a tall figure with slender legs and arms, her eyes are Japanese looking but she’s not Japanese, she’s also a pure Filipino.
I picked up my bags, went down the hotel and checked out…Jake and I nodded at each other for good bye. FUBU style.
From Manila Marriot, the airport is not far. But the desperation for a good parking is all the more time consuming.
I finally got a spot and walked up the arrival area in my red flat shoes, grey V-neck shirt and dark blue jeans…I was expecting an ERIN that looks like how I pictured her in my head, but LO and behold! a beautiful Japanese doll-looking, tall, slender figure, with long black super straight hair, in white slim jeans, pink tailored suit over a cream-white blouse. She looks immaculate in pedicured toes and high heels.
“Erin!” I raised up all my arms to hug her.
Her face suddenly lit up when she saw me,
“My god! look at you, you’re gorgeous!”
We were both giggling like highschool girls in the middle of a busy airport but then there was a sudden distance.
We both realized that time had kept us away and we parted in a situation where we ought never to go back to.
I could almost see UNA’s face sweeping behind Erin, her fragile-innocent face flashing into my vision.
“Mia…are you okay?”
“um..yeah, I’m fine.”
NO. we are not fine, we are still struggling with our conscience after 2 long years..
***
In my apartment, Erin stayed…it was an okay situation where we cannot really put her in a hotel coz we are friends for godsakes, we should keep her in my apartment.
Katy texted: Meet for coffee with Rob and Steve, 2pm.
It’s 10am and the jolt of having to see Erin in her gorgeous self is starting to sink-in…I ran a bath in the tub, I needed it warm and relaxing, so I put a bit of lavander oil in the water.
Erin was half-asleep watching TV.
In the tub, it was dreamy…I thought of Jake and his cute charms, I smiled at what we had done last night. All the noisy fucking that must’ve pushed beyond the levels of appropriateness in such a swanky hotel as the Marriott.
“fuck Jake…”I hissed.
Closing my eyes, smelling the lavander… a vision of Una surged in, I saw her pretty grey eyes staring at me like she was alive, her fragile body sitting outside my veranda, talking…her voice, I miss her voice so much…
“Mia…” I could imagine her calling me with a soft-singing voice, her laughter…the way she covers her lips when she laughs…
My heart feels heavy with all the memories of her living…breathing…
and in a sudden, my thoughts took me to that time when I found her lying on the floor, he wrist slit open and bleeding. The voices of panic all over the room while Katy, Rob, Steve and Erin were all dialing numbers and calling everyone, anyone to get help for UNA, who’s eyes had lingered on me and in her last breath, her eyes were hesitating death.
That has killed me everyday for 2 years, knowing from within that she doesn’t want to die after all.
Una, her life was full of secrets and what drove her to her madness in taking her own life is beyond anyone could imagine… Their family has dark-sides in all angles.
She was a pretty face of half-belgian, half-filipino heritage, you would think she has the face of an angel but deep within she had many demons that little by little she casts out by cutting herself and getting little colored tattoos here and there.
The secrets. Incest.
It’s a dark cloud amongst us who knew what her troubles were but couldn’t really talk about it. She points out everyone in her family has had sex with one another. That disgusts her and made her feel dirty. Her grandfather had forced sex all of his four daughters, including her mother and when she was 18 her own father had tried to “USE” her but she fought back and has not succeeded, she was battered and the images of her hiding under the table with fear, is breaking all our hearts. We tried to get help for Una, but it was always the fear of getting involved and messing up our own SELFISH lives was the hindrance.
For years she has endured this, her father abusing her, the grandfather, it was hell in the house that she once tried to set it on FIRE and went in for rehab.
When she came out, her life went back on track, she was “normal”, with her sweet-singing voice, her girlish laughs and fairy-like legs prancing around the room when excited, our UNA NICOLET, a year later had cut herself to death, with the ghosts of her past haunting her and we refused to realize it was still there, refusing to act upon it.
Fuck I can’t breathe…
The water in the tub was over my head, my body had slipped and the lavander oils were caught in my throat. I struggled up with my slippery hands and splashes of water went noisily on the white floor tiles.
“Mia!..” Erin came in trying to rescue me from drowning in a 2-foot deep water. embarrassing.
“I’m okay. I’m okay.”
“You shouldn’t be sleeping in the tub!”
***
2 hours later…
Mia, Erin, Steve, Rob and Katy, five of them sitting in a coffee shoppe. All looking flushed with guilt and conscience. This is the first time they ever sat together without Una Nicolet. The seats at the coffee shoppe always come in even numbers highlighting the fact that there is ONE empty chair on the table that will never get filled.
(Mia)