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[Ed’s note: This is a true story that happened 16 years ago. Because of the sensitivity of the story, the writer has opted to use ‘Bettina Rocha’ as her pseudonym.]
It was 1999 and I was a wide-eyed, 18-year-old college freshman. I went from an all-girls Catholic highschool to UP Diliman, where toilets don’t flush, the faucets are dry, and religion is optional. I was officially in a state of culture shock. College was nothing as I expected.
Good thing, I was still with my boyfriend of one year, Mike*. He was my piece of home. He was my first love, my first kiss, my first everything: first base, first home run, and everything in between. He was my first taste of heaven, and I loved it.
Careful about the delicate college transition, Mike and I quickly established a routine on our first month of college. We’d see each other every Friday after school, and then we’d spend the entire weekend together.
And then it happened. On our way home one Friday evening he broke up with me in the car, five minutes before dropping me home. The shithead said it wasn’t working out anymore.
What. This came as a surprise. For one, we had just had increadible rabbit sex that afternoon; we were still clingy, holding hands in post-coital heaven. Besides, we were each other’s first loves. We had plans to get married. We even had names for our two kids already. I went from heaven to hell in an afternoon.
I was shocked. I couldn’t and wouldn’t swallow it. I trusted him with my everything — he popped my cherry, for crying out loud! I cried and I bawled. I wanted to beg Mike to take me back, but he deliberately dropped all my calls. Every time I’d call him on his landline, my heart would break all over again hearing him instruct the maid to tell me he wasn’t home.
But here’s the thing. Aside from the immeasurable pain of losing him, the physical need for sex proved real. For the first time in my life, I learned what tigang meant. You see, since the first time Mike and I had sex on our second monthsary, we never stopped doing it. We were each other’s firsts, so we really enjoyed the adventure that sex had become. Every time we saw each other, we had to do it. Twice, at the very, very least. Now that we’re broken up, the sudden state of tigang-ness just got real.
After two weeks, Mike suddenly called. I thought, “Thank heavens, alleluia, he wants me back!” We made plans to see each other that Friday. And on that Friday, we didn’t even talk about our breakup. We just went back to regular programming: had lunch, checked in a motel, and had sex all afternoon — and all night long, too. I was ecstatic. Yes! Mike wanted me back.
Wrong. On our way home in the car — again! — he broke it to me gently that he was seeing someone new. A bitch named Kathy. They were dating and they already liked each other. I was crushed. I wanted to cry my brains out, but I didn’t want him to see me like that, so I sobbed a little and hugged him. Which led to kissing and hugging and quickly, with our clothes off again.
What’s wrong with me? His touch was magic. And him touching my breasts was beyond magical. It was my point of no return: we WILL have sex. I came. A lot. When we did it that night in the car, I secretly (and pathetically) felt like I was winning against Kathy.
After a month, Mike told me he and Kathy were official. As in boyfriend-girlfriend official. The funny thing was, he came running back to me after a week.
He told me he missed me, missed the warmth of my embrace, missed monkey sex with me. Apparently his girlfriend was a stiff, pa-demure, cold fish in bed. Poor him, he was stuck with that inflated doll for a girlfriend.
I felt pity for him because I knew sex played a big part of his life, but also, I still really miss him. So when he asked if he could meet me at a motel, I agreed.
I felt safe within the four walls of the chlorox-reeking motel. Everything was safe there. It was just Mike and me. Never mind that all the other days of the week, he was busy being someone else’s boyfriend. It pained me. I felt pathetic every minute he wasn’t with me. My only consolation was our weekly rendezvous at Chlorineland.
After about a month of seeing each other on a weekly basis, he started asking for more sex days. One day a week was simply not enough anymore, he said. He “surprised” me with late-night and spontaneous visits, which was NOT cool with me. By this time, I was casually dating other boys.
So I started saying no to Mike. He would drive to my house in the middle of the night and beg me to have sex with him in the car, or at least have a taste of my critically-acclaimed (at least by him) blow jobs.
In the middle of the night, really? I had school, varsity training, and late-night dates to juggle. It wasn’t easy. The weekly rendezvous was fine with me but the extra ones? Too much.
I was in one of my dates when another such call came from Mike. Weird behavior for an ex-boyfriend, I know. My date noticed, and took it as I sign that I was getting back with him. The date — who was very cute and very promising, by the way — ended our dinner early. He would never call me again.
But that’s getting ahead of the details. When my date ended early, and Mike was still calling, I answered my phone. He was begging for sex, the fucktard. Annoyed I yelled, “Pay me!” And mother of surprises, Mike agreed.
Annoyed and tigang, we drew up a plan: He was to shell out PHP2,000 for every hour of unadulterated X-rated stuff. He would also cover our meals and the room. He won’t pick me up anymore. Instead, I was to meet him somewhere near the motel. I won’t cancel any prior plans, and we’d only do it at night, when school and training were done.
It was a flexible arrangement, but one that a) required me to ‘lie’ to the other boys that I was dating and b) give in to more adventurous sex play he wanted to try.
In the three months that we kept the arrangement, I did lap dances, stripteases, and role-playing games. My favorite was the boss-secretary, his was a bar pick up. We also tried anal sex, but I hated it. But he countered that this was paid service so we tried it again; 5 times, in fact but I really couldn’t do it.
On the average, Mike would avail of my services for two hours, twice a week. He availed of it for about three months. I never stopped dating other boys.
I ended it with Mike on the third month because I snagged myself a handsome stud of a boyfriend. He turned to be an animal in bed.
Fast forward to 2015: Mike and I are now both married to other people. We still remain friends. My husband does not know. But 16 years later, I still keep asking myself: Does this make me a prostitute?
Mike* not his real name
Illustration: Praew Tansanga
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