What You Wanted

by Mina V. Esguerra

  Sad joke.

  He was a few minutes early when he walked up to my lobby—our buildings were that close together. He asked if I was hungry, and I nodded. He gestured in the direction we'd be heading, and we crossed the street together. It was one of those long days; the sun was only beginning to set as we walked in the crowded business district, passing by people in a hurry to get the eff out of Makati, not realizing they were already stuck.

  “It's Friday night,” I said. “Why aren't you out with other people?”

  He shook his head. “I can go out any night. But I hate being out on Friday. Aren't your friends nearby?”

  I shook my head. “I have one friend who works in Makati too, but on the other side. And they're heading to Taguig for dinner.”

  “And you're not.”

  “No I'm not.”

  You'd think it would be impossible to feel any kind of welcome intimacy on a sidewalk in Makati in the middle of rush hour, but I felt something close to that. He was close but not too close, the right amount of distant. The way he looked at me as he talked was friendly enough, playful enough, like we were together but not “together.” This was the second time we'd seen each other since the wedding, and we hadn't kissed on the mouth, or groped. See how mature people could be? Adults making adult decisions. Didn't need to lead to anger and crying and throwing things.

  I might have thrown some things, then.

  “Why has work been hell?” I asked.

  “Anton's clients are difficult.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean they're damn difficult. They’re so rich, and they treat other people like shit. I don't understand why he takes them on when he doesn't have to.”

  Wow. I didn't know that about him. “Well that's enlightening. It explains why he wanted to be with my sister. Who is probably going to be one of the most difficult people to date in the entire city, if there was a ranking.”

  Damon laughed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Julie’s a manang. Straight-up good girl. You didn’t know this about them?”

  “He’s my senior at work and we hang out sometimes. But this won’t be something he’ll tell me.”

  “Whoops.” I put a hand over my mouth. “I guess we have another secret, then.”

  The restaurant was on the mezzanine section of a building a few blocks from mine. We had to go up a short staircase, elevating us from the rest of the rush hour crowd. We were quiet for that small stretch, and that made me notice where we were.

  “All you can eat sushi!” I gasped, at once giddy, and slightly offended. “This is where you take me to dinner? This is what you think of me?”

  “I remember how many oysters you had, Andrea. And other things.”

  “Our other secret, then.”

  It was relatively early, and the restaurant had a good table for two ready for us. Damon took my hand as we let ourselves be led to it. “How many secrets do you want us to have?”

  ***

  Damon’s kisses were different, this time. Not a bad thing, not at all, and I was surprised that he had...variety. I understand why a kiss at a wedding, after hearing the groom’s speech, would feel one way, and a kiss in the privacy of Damon’s one-bedroom apartment would feel like something else.

  This kiss felt playful. Teasing. I thought our gazebo makeout was teasing, and had brought my teasing game on, but no...that was a layer of teasing covering an actual feeling of oh shit we’re doing this. We were caught up in that moment, trying to keep it light.

  I could only tell the difference now because it was finally just us.

  He laughed more. Short laughs, his reaction when he liked something. Or when I reacted in a way that he liked, maybe. He smiled more. I had thought that he was an intense guy and yes he still was, but in his own room, at midnight, some burden that had been creasing his forehead wasn’t there anymore. I combed my fingers through his hair and kissed him there, on that forehead.

  “You should smile more,” I said.

  “I smile.”

  “Not enough.”

  “You don’t know me.”

  He was kidding, because we were in teasing mode, but he wasn’t going to get away with that. You didn’t say you don’t know me to someone who was right on top of you, straddling you, bare breasts pushed against bare chest. I dove down to the crook of his neck and licked him there, because I knew what it would do to him.

  “Shit,” he growled, letting out a short laugh as he flipped me over and got me on my back.

  When we made love it was slow, for as long as we could, and then we dropped that, and made love the way we needed to. It was nice to know that he could do that, that he could change it up. I didn’t need the intensity of last weekend. His new presence in my life this week actually left me in a better mood than usual, because I wasn’t feeling sorry for myself.

  “Can you stay?” he asked, when I began to stir and look for my clothes.

  I had to think about it for a second. I still lived at home, with my parents. There used to be a complicated protocol for when I partied or stayed out too late, but since I wasn’t a teen anymore, we’d had an adult conversation about this. They just needed to know I was safe, and they didn’t pry further.

  So I could stay, but…

  “Yes,” I said, falling back onto the bed. “Sure.”

  Chapter 4

  I knew what to do, the morning after. When I slept with a guy it was never in my own home. It would be his place, or neutral territory. Not that I’d slept with many guys...but since my sister recently made a vow to sleep with only one, and I knew for a fact that he was her first, then no one was ever going to find out my actual number. Not while people liked to judge.

  Maybe I was jealous of her and Anton then, right around the time I made the insane decision to “go for it” with a guy who was a friend? Sure, we’d always been attracted to each other, but in the leadup to that weekend, him finally being single the same time I was, I couldn’t stop thinking about him. Couldn’t stop thinking about how great we were together, how fun he was, and how nice it would be to have that forever.

  I remember thinking that it was the most romantic moment of my life.

  I didn’t think those existed.

  But wow. The guy you’d kind of been in love with for years, feeling the same about you? And the confession and feelings culminating in a weekend of kisses, promises, lovemaking? That was everything I thought I wouldn’t have, that I was lucky to have risked to discover.

  Then, on the drive back to Manila, he started talking.

  “Andrea, I don’t know if this is what you really want.”

  “But it is.”

  “But I know you.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means I’ve seen you get tired of guys quickly.”

  “You’re different. I haven’t kicked you out of my life yet, right? And it’s been years.”

  “I don’t want you to get tired of me, and then we stop being friends. And then you’ll hate me.”

  “What exactly are you doing right now?”

  “I think I know who you are better than you think I do. You’re a free spirit. I don’t want you changing because you think this is what I need.”

  He said other things. I said other things. Thad was always a responsible person, and yes, that was why I didn’t take him by the collar and plant a kiss on him, as soon as we met. Or as soon as I realized I wanted him. He had a sense of right and wrong, something I associated with being older, with the future, with a kind of maturity I wanted to have, but not yet.

  When I finally was ready, he showed me exactly what he thought of me.

  Not my best morning-after. Because I was stupid enough to think I probably wouldn’t need to do a morning-after escape, for a while.

  ***

  “What do you need?”

  “A lot of things.”

  “I’m serious. Everything’s literally downstairs. Give me a list.”
>
  My eye twitched, suspicious. “You’re going to think I’m crazy.”

  “Andrea, come on. I want to go out already.”

  “I’ll text it to you.”

  As soon as I woke up I decided I would be going home. You know, walk of shame and whatever. That was how it worked. I even got up a little earlier so I’d be able to swing by a drive-thru in my cab to get breakfast. But no, Damon was insisting we go out together. I said I wasn’t going to go out without having taken a shower. And he asked what I needed.

  This brand of organic shampoo. This brand of conditioner. This brand of soap, that particular scent. Water-based moisturizer. Toothpaste for sensitive teeth. Soft-bristle toothbrush. New underwear. A pair of shorts. A plain white tee. Walking shoes.

  It was all true, by the way, that I used all of it in my weekend morning ritual. I was half hoping he’d give up and send me away. But he got the text, and read it, and disappeared into the bedroom.

  He came back out half a minute later with a plain white shirt, still covered in plastic. “This okay?”

  Well, yeah. I nodded.

  “The shops across the street will have all of this. Will be back in half an hour.”

  While he was gone I walked around his condo, observing without actually opening things I shouldn’t. He didn’t seem to mind, since he left me alone here to go shopping for my things.

  The bottom drawer of his clothes cabinet was still pulled out halfway; he had fished out the condoms from there last night. And earlier this morning.

  Belts were in that drawer too. A couple of belts, tossed in there and tangled together like snakes. Loose change. Receipts, ink faded, folded once or twice.

  There was no clue lying around about his past, his present even. I wasn’t going to stumble upon family pictures, a love letter, a laptop with the email inbox open for clicking. This apartment was furnished for functionality, not sentiment. If I wanted to know more about Damon, I was going to have to ask him.

  Did I want to do that?

  When he got back, sooner than I’d thought, he found me tinkering with his shower, trying to get the water to the right temperature.

  “Everything,” he said triumphantly, tossing a paper bag onto his bed.

  ***

  Damon’s neighborhood was nice. It was what I imagined living in another country was like. I mean, not that it looked different, but it had everything. We walked past the stores where he bought my shampoo and everything on my list, and they were all there. In front of his building. I had always lived in an old-school version of suburbia, my parents’ three-bedroom house located in a private compound inside a bigger private subdivision. You had to go through two gates, and public transport never reached that far in. If I walked for five minutes all I’d reach was the corner, where my neighbor the dentist lived, and he didn’t have my kind of shampoo.

  But Damon lives in a place like this, so it’s no big deal. It’s easy.

  The fact that he shopped for my girly things wasn’t supposed to mean anything.

  That we had a four-hour breakfast/lunch date didn’t have to mean anything, either. We didn’t eat that much. But he liked to linger and talk, after eating.

  “I should have had the rice,” I sighed, as noon crept up on us.

  “You’re hungry again?”

  “I’m the opposite of it.” My tummy was full of bacon, eggs, and pancakes. It was probably an hour since my last bite, but I didn’t want to add any more to it. “It feels like I ate the wrong thing.”

  “You want me to drive you home?”

  I flinched when he said that, and surprised myself when I did. Surprised at the slight chill that went down my spine, like it wasn’t the kind offer of a lift, but the beginning of a kiss-off.

  Was that why I was still sitting here, a good six hours past my usual point of staying?

  Maybe I have some issues to work out.

  He was looking at me, and I didn’t doubt that he was trying to read my face.

  “I have an idea,” he said. “If you don’t mind waiting another few hours. Cross the street with me?”

  “Where are we going?”

  He stood up. “Saturday football.”

  Chapter 5

  They had their own football field.

  “You have your own football field?”

  Damon was smiling as he pulled stuff out of his bag. “It’s not mine.”

  “I mean this place. This community.”

  “It’s probably going to become a condo building soon. This space won’t stay a sports field for long.”

  We were in an artificial-turf football field, enclosed by a wire fence, right in the middle of the business district. It seemed like an odd thing to have, between two buildings, in an area that I’d always known as cramped. I dug my shoe (soft canvas walking shoes he bought for me, that fit perfectly) into the fake grass. I imagined this exact space as paved for a parking lot, or dug up for a building foundation. The afternoon sun wasn’t so awful that day. Clouds were passing through and giving us shade in regular intervals.

  Damon checked the time. “We’re early.” Then he pulled off the shirt he was wearing.

  I watched him do it. He didn’t even warn me, which reinforced how comfortable he was with me now. Well, he had to be, since...but the kind of familiarity you had with someone you had sex with didn’t naturally translate to easy familiarity in public. Or a football field.

  He took his time replacing that shirt. Damon had a great body and he knew it. I would have absolutely flirted with him if we had met under different circumstances, because I did that. I knew I could talk to guys, and I knew it didn’t take much to get them interested. I also knew that if they weren’t interested, it was no big deal—there would always be someone else I’d click with.

  You can imagine what it was like, growing up with an older sister who was a “true love waits” kind of girl. We got along about almost everything, except this. The idea of placing my happiness on one person, and making that person jump through so many hoops before I discovered if we could work out for longer, didn't make sense to me. No one wanted that kind of burden, that responsibility, right? I couldn’t imagine shouldering that for someone else.

  “You want me to send you a picture?” Damon said, and my eyes moved up to his face.

  “What?”

  “You're staring. You want me to send you a beast-mode selfie for your phone? Make it easier for you.”

  I picked up a random shirt from his bag and threw it toward his abs. “That's disgusting. What the hell is a beast-mode selfie?”

  He laughed and flexed his arm muscles. They hardened and bulged in the right places.

  “Don't explain,” I said. “I get it.”

  “It's self-explanatory.”

  The shirt I had lobbed at him was blue and he pulled that on, depriving me of the view I had been enjoying. And giving me a new one, that of his body straining inside a shirt that wasn't constructed for such a broad shoulder span.

  “I like my shirt on you,” he said, catching me off guard.

  To be honest, I liked it on me too. It was this basic white thing that wasn’t meant to be shapely, and was too large for me anyway, but it didn’t matter. For all my big talk about fashion and dressing well, sometimes I couldn’t resist the comfort of a big white shirt.

  “Maybe you need me to send you a selfie,” I teased, fingers touching the edge of my shirt, threatening to raise it up and flash him.

  “Damon,” someone called out from behind me, and I yelped, and turned around.

  Three people had just come in through the gate. Two guys, and a girl. They looked about our age, meaning in their twenties, and they looked absolutely at home on this turf field in the middle of two buildings. The taller guy had his arm around the gorgeous girl, and the other guy...he had blue eyes. Which I realize wouldn't be unusual in some parts of the world, but this was Manila, and it did make me stop and look at him a bit longer.

  “That's Gio,” Damon said. “
Yeah, those eyes are crazy. Everyone, this is Andrea. That's Moira and Ethan.”

  Gio the Blue-Eyed One shook my hand, and I appreciated that courtesy. As soon as he did though I felt absolutely no continued attraction to him, which made me feel...noble. Haha. That was another thing I could never really articulate to my sister, by the way. I always believed that if I closed myself off to guys, I'd end up clinging to the first one who really looked at me, whether he deserved it or not. Unnecessary deprivation would impair my judgement right when I needed it most. By being open to attraction, I'd know what it felt like to go beyond just liking how this person looked, or wanting more of his attention.

  In short, I liked Gio's eyes, and I gave myself a decent amount of time to enjoy those eyes. But that didn't mean I wanted to kiss him, or do anything else. I could tell the difference.

  “Andrea, huh?” My attention shifted to the girl, who had drifted away from her Ethan to get a better look at me. “I'm Moira. It's so nice to meet you.”

  “Thank you,” I said. She seemed really happy to see me, and I guess it was the first time Damon brought anyone to Saturday football. “Do you all...work together?”

  “We live in NV Park,” Moira said. “We all do. But Ethan, Gio, and I are in Tower 3. Want to sit down while they warm up?”

  She offered me a bottled iced tea as we settled onto the bench, and watched the three guys run around the field. “There are a few more guys in the neighborhood league,” she explained, “but they're late. I don't stay for the whole thing usually. It's a bunch of guys kicking a ball.”

  Did I expect to meet Damon's friends today? No, not at all. I expected to be home by now, kicking back with a tub of popcorn and a Harry Potter marathon or something. But I accepted Moira's tea and started drinking it. “So...there's a football league? Who do they play against?”

  Moira smiled and pointed at the building behind me. “A few offices over there have a team. They all rent this field for football so they started playing against each other. NV Park, they got in on it and asked the residents if they wanted to form a team too. Damon's the captain.”