G Spot

By September 19, 2016G Spot, Opinion

Driving dilemma (Part 3)

PASALO

By Virginia Pasalo

 

IT has been two years since he left the Philippines and Ramon had found new friends at ARAMCO, the company with which his Philippine employer had partnered with for the construction of several structures in Dharan. He was determined to excel in other skills aside from driving and read the books on electrical engineering which his boss, an American engineer, left inside the vehicle. One day, his boss watched him with fascination, and started the habit to leave more books for Ramon to read.

In between driving and reading, he listened to Abba, a pop group formed in 1970, and some other foreign music. Sometimes he listened to Filipino songs but it made him long to go back home, so that his taste in music shifted to eclectic, sometimes jazzy, sometimes classic, sometimes pop, sometimes ethnic. This “sometimes” taste endeared him to Luke Lucas, who had adopted his taste for Louis Armstrong, Middle-Eastern music and the Beatles.

Ramon found commonality with Luke more than with the other Filipinos he met at work. Most of them grouped themselves into Ilocanos, Bisaya, Kapampangans and other ethnicities, something he was not, and something he did not want to be affiliated with. He was born speaking a combination of English from his father who was an American soldier, and Ilonggo from her mother who served in a bar in Subic, and a little bit of all the languages he remembered the soldiers spoke and the various local languages that women spoke to each other when they did not want others to know what they were talking about.

Except for Mercedes, he did not particularly relish talking to anyone. Mercedes was a caregiver to two children of a well-off Saudi Arabian couple. She left two children and a husband who was jobless and spent most of his time drinking with his friends who were also jobless. The care of her children was left to her younger sister and mother who stayed with her family since she was married. It was because of her mother’s pension that the family managed their financial needs because her salary as a teacher was not enough for a growing family. Lorenzo, her husband, used to have a job but he was laid off. He had applied as a draftsman but all he was able to manage was get part time jobs here and there. He slowly lost his confidence as Mercedes paid for almost everything, from the tuition fee of their children to the food on the table. He is able to ask his parents for small support but it was so little, it was not even enough to buy his cigarettes and to get a daily dose of liquor, with whom he had spent time with, like a best friend.

Mercedes was different from Anna, she did not buy Ferragamo shoes and bags, her tastes were much simpler. She loved to read. She taught the children even if that was not part of her work. She sang to them the songs that she sang to her own children.  She had a voice, a voice like an angel’s, a smile like an angel’s, the body of an angel, without wings.

Ramon watched Mercedes floating towards him, without her wings, without her clothes, with just her long black hair flying all over her face, and in his own face. Her breasts were full and hovering over his mouth, two nuclear warheads threatening to fall down, threats that he easily welcomed, and touched, frantically.

“Ramon! wake up!”

The breasts of Mercedes withdrew their assault to his vulnerable mouth, and her protruding pink nipples shrank with the deafening thunder of Luke’s voice.

“We are driving to the oil rig, hurry up!”

His hands were still trying to reach for the shrinking nipples that slowly transformed into dots, taking their place among the distant stars in the constellation. He memorized their location in the sky, two dots augmenting the Big Dipper. It was not easy to wake up, but he finally managed to stand, a reluctant zombie sleepwalking with a protrusion rebelling inside his tight denim pants.

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