Breaking Point

short fiction

A WRITING ON the wall facing her said: Rufus Hidalgo, I love your cock!

Amanda laughed aloud. Girls rarely admit to loving some guy’s cock, especially girls her age, let alone write it on a wall. She was pretty certain, though, it was written by somebody her age, as older girls simply do not do silly things like write vulgar things on public restroom walls. Girls older than her are women, she thought.

She went out of the restroom and went back to their table with a nonchalant expression on her face. She intentioned herself to wear a nonchalant expression because she didn’t like the people she was hanging out with that night -- all except for Martha, who was her bestfriend, whom she considered a genuine person.

"So what did I miss?" she whispered to Martha as she sat down beside her. She took a stick from her pack of Marlboro Lights and lit it.

"Nothing," Martha retorted.

Amanda blew a fine trail of gray smoke and said, "Thought so."

"They’re always too young for me, even those who are a couple of years my senior," the girl opposite Amanda vented. She was the one who has been talking since Amanda got back from the restroom. The girl was talking to the two other boys that they were hanging out with.

"Who are?" Amanda asked the girl.

"Boys. Men. They’re all boys, really. They’re always too immature for their own good."

The two boys they were with gave their flirty don’t-be-unfair and not-all-boys-are-boys responses to the girl. The girl gave an amused expression.

Amanda smiled to herself. "Relationships and all that horseshit, huh?" she whispered to Martha.

Martha gave a subtle nod.

"They can’t handle you? Or you find it hard handling them?" Amanda said to the girl. Only Martha was able to note the sarcasm Amanda was throwing.

"Both. Cause-and-effect, if you know what I mean."

Amanda nodded and inhaled from her cigarette. "I’ll always know what you fuckin’ mean."

"How many times have you been in a relationship, What’s Your Name Again?" the girl asked Amanda in a caustic tone. Apparently, the girl was able to note Amanda’s sarcasm this time.

"The name’s Amanda," she answered brusquely. Suddenly Amanda was furious -- not because the girl forgot her name fifteen minutes after being introduced to each other but because of the question that was thrown at her. "And I have never romantically attached myself to anyone."

The girl gave a condescending nod.

Amanda stared at the girl. "Not everyone’s like you," she said incisively, which silenced everyone at the table.

The girl shrugged haughtily.

Amanda wondered why she had stayed on, even at the very moment when she saw the two guys and the girl step down the jeepney. Martha had described them to her earlier as "goddamned posers." Brian, a tall-dark sort, who was almost handsome, was decent enough, except that he, as Amanda had noted, had kept on smiling as though he were high on drugs, and had kept on treating all the girls with annoying chivalry. Antonio, the tall-skinny-fair type, whom Martha has somewhat of a crush on, was okay, except that Amanda knew he was "typical male" in that he is completely dense about girls’ feelings, and that he was sadly an untalented architect-wannabe. And then, of course, Venus, the girl who claims to have outgrown all the boys in the world, whose relationship with the two boys and the reason why she was with them that night will always be a mystery to Amanda. Amanda felt that she should have acted on what she felt was coming the moment she saw Brian and Antonio and Venus step down the jeepney.

"Hey, Ton, is your girlfriend coming or not?" Martha broke the growing silence.

"Don’t think so. It’s their prelim," Antonio answered Martha.

Martha nodded.

Amanda looked at Martha. "You fuckin’ loser," she said under her breath. She couldn’t understand why Martha was still working hard to get Antonio back into bed. Martha had told her it only shook her a little when she found out he has a girlfriend, and at the end of the day Antonio was a great lay, and she wanted to do it with him again. Amanda wondered what sort of good lay promised beneath that terrifically empty-headed disposition. Antonio is obviously empty-headed, Amanda thought, because of his choice of friends -- Brian is so bland he is invisible, and Venus is delusional. Amanda also wondered why it is always that much work for her to like anyone. Her thoughts also wandered off to Zed, the guy whom she has always referred to as her quasi-boyfriend, and why the hell she was having ambivalent feelings toward him.

"Are you all right?" Martha asked her mechanically, drinking on beer from a plastic cup.

"I’m always all right," she retorted.

"Zacharias David!" Martha hollered right in front of Amanda’s ear, which startled the latter.

"What the fuck!" Amanda taxed as she massaged her middle ear with her pinky finger. She looked to her right after a guy’s voice boomed "Hey!" from a considerable distance. A pleasant-looking guy her age was approaching their table with a smile, to which Amanda didn’t bother reciprocate. "Hello, Zed," she greeted dryly as soon as the guy got to where they were.

"Hi, Amanda." Zed patted her on the shoulder. "And Martha," he nodded to Martha. He grabbed a stool from the next table and seated himself. "What are you guys doing here?"

"Drinking, obviously," Amanda replied with unfounded sarcasm.

Zed grinned. "Just so you know," he started, "I came here for myself. I didn’t know you were going to be here. I’m not dogging you around, if that’s what you think."

"I never fuckin’ said you were dogging me around," said Amanda. She noticed that everyone at the table was looking at her. She took the pitcher and poured beer into the plastic cup that Martha had drank from. "Your turn," she said to Brian as she placed the cup in front of him. She turned to Zed. "That’s Brian, Venus, and Antonio." Then she turned to the three. "Zacharias David. People call him Zed."

Zed exchanged nods with the three. He turned to Amanda. "Why do you always have to be rude to me in public?" he whispered.

Amanda hesitated for a second, then she said, "Because you fuckin’ annoy me."

Zed looked down and stayed quiet. At that moment he was just coming up with a perfect way to exit.

Amanda absently fingered through inside a bag Piattos then masticated on a mouthful of chips. "You know what?" she said in a little while. "Let’s just go."

"What do you mean, let’s just go?" Zed, still looking down, said with a hard expression on his face.

"To your place."

Zed heaved a sigh and stared at Amanda long and hard. "Okay," he said almost inaudibly.

Amanda addressed to the circle that she and Zed were leaving. She smiled and nodded to Martha, as though mentally telling her something only the two of them could understand. Before Amanda turned to leave she heard Venus whisper to Antonio "I thought she doesn’t have a boyfriend." Martha also heard it and took it upon herself to say cheerily "That’s her quasi-boyfriend." Amanda corrected it by saying Zed is just her fuck puppet. Zed, already standing a few feet away, pretended not to have heard.

---

While Zed was unlocking the door to his pad, Amanda was rubbing his crotch. "You know what we could try?" Amanda whispered in the dark. "That erotic asphyxiation thing I read from somewhere. It’s supposed to heighten the orgasmic experience."

"Uh-huh," Zed retorted without much zeal. The door knob made a clicking sound and Zed opened the door. "You want me to strangle you while we both have our orgasm?"

Amanda knotted an eyebrow. "Who fuckin’ died and made you an asshole?" She got in the pad after him and grabbed a monobloc chair and sat down. Zed sat on the bed. They sat facing each other. Amanda thought the moonlight shining through the opened window gave the room a sensual ambiance.

"Amanda..." he said. "Do you really see me as just your fuck puppet?"

"Well, aren’t you?" Amanda walked towards him then knelt. "I pull one string and you’re hard." She unzipped his pants and pulled his penis out.

"Stop this!" Zed stood up and put his semi-tumescent penis back in his pants. Amanda sat on the bed as she heaved a deep sigh. Zed, towering over her, stared at her expressionless face, dappled by shadows of the foliage outside the window.

Amanda started laughing. "Are you crying?"

Zed didn’t answer. He sat beside her and stared at some universe in front of him.

"Stop crying, you homo!" she said, still laughing.

Zed craned his neck to face her. "I really don’t like it when you treat me like I’m not good enough for you in front of your friends."

Amanda didn’t say anything for a long time. She couldn’t help feeling a bit guilty. She cleared her throat then said, "You want me to leave right now?" Zed did not answer. Amanda waited for a couple of minutes before standing up. She slowly made her way to the door. As she was about to turn the knob, she felt a hand jerking her hip so she could turn and almost in an instant she found herself locked in Zed’s arms. He kissed her deep in the mouth and she responded ravenously.

Minutes later, both of them were naked on the bed, making unintelligible noises, hands running all over each other’s body. Zed was on top of Amanda, going in and out of her in a rhythm that made her bite him on the shoulder. As they both headed their way towards the climax, with her hands squeezing his buttocks and his hands squeezing her breasts, she whispered to him, "Hold your breath."

"What?"

"Just hold your breath..."

Seconds later, they both moaned in each other’s ears and there was a split moment when everything could not be named. They started panting and gasping for air as though they were drowning.

"How was it?" Amanda whispered, playing with Zed’s sweaty nape.

Zed pushed himself up to look at Amanda in the eye. "Divine." Then he rolled on his back and rolled the condom off. He grabbed a towel then wiped himself. He handed another one to Amanda.

---

It was four o’clock in the morning and Amanda found herself unable to sleep. She rolled on her side and noticed that Zed has been asleep for minutes now. She ran her finger on the bite mark on Zed’s shoulder. She could not understand why but she felt an urge to kiss it. After much deliberation, she lightly touched her lips on the bite mark.

"What did you just do?" Zed rolled on his side to face her. He was holding back a smile that Amanda found annoying.

"You fucking annoy me," Amanda snapped. She sat up then started gathering her clothes from all over the room.

Zed was looking at her while she was putting her clothes back on. "Amanda, I know I don’t," he said.

"You don’t what?"

He sat up and reached for his underwear on the bedside table. "I know I don’t annoy you." He put his underwear on and stood in front of her.

Amanda laughed. "If you say so." Then she turned and left the room, closing the door behind her as quietly as possible.

Out in the streets, while waiting for a taxi, the wind was so cold that Amanda had to rub her hands in front of her face. She was startled to smell Zed on her fingers. "Oh, fuck it," she said to herself.

End.