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Jay’s Literature Page
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| Last updated: 04 Apr 2005 |
(2001-2003)
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Bembol Vee
Last night/early this morning, drunk, I was delivered safely to my cheaply rented The Towers unit by a taxi from the Bembol Vee fleet. I was so thankful to the driver, I vowed to write a short writing exercise for him. He, however, refused my show of gratitude, and advised me that if I would ever want to write a short writing exercise for anyone, I'd best write it not for or about him, but rather for the line of taxi giving him employment, that was, Bembol Vee. Kadharina had had twenty-four years in this world, yet in her heart she knew that she never actually lived prior to her twentieth. On that year, while enrolling for her second to the last term in their neighborhood state college, she met Abneg. The hot and humid afternoon of falling in line, picking the most convenient class schedules, and paying the required school fees led to an exchange of mobile phone numbers, which in its turn led to a string of "first" dates. Shortly thereafter, what was inevitable happened, and Abneg had Kadharina for a girlfriend. Kadharina loved no other man like she did Abneg--for she hadn't had any other to love before him. On their second week together, Abneg admitted that unlike Kadharina, he had relationships with two other girls before meeting her, and both of them he'd had intimate relations with. Kadharina was initially shocked, but had come to understand that Abneg's past was what had made him what he was now, and what ultimately gave him to her. She couldn't despise Abneg or his past let alone judge him, so she accepted Abneg for how he had been given to her, took his hand, blinked away what had originally been tears of shock, and laid her head on his muscular shoulders. Kadharina and Abneg were the perfect pair. The most easily noticeable proof of this was in their physical appearance. Neither of them were really lookers, but when together, a certain common resemblance seemed to surface, and an observer would suddenly be struck by how much pleasant looking they were. Height-wise, they differed by the four inches Abneg was taller than Kadharina, a perfect height difference in couples that would enable the taller to put his or her arm around the shoulders of the shorter while walking, without causing the arm of the taller to tire out, or burden the shorter with the weight of the arms of the taller. Kadharina had lighter skin between them, but only enough to assert a kind of feminine lighter-skinned-ness, and the skin Abneg wore was not exactly bad itself. They moved and walked in the same pace, swung their arms with hands together while walking in near perfect rhythm, laughed at the same jokes, ate basically the same food, adored the same things there were to be adored in this world, and shared what dreams a young, twenty-something couple could dream together without going beyond the bounds of realism and common sense. In fact their chemistry was so good, they were able to make their relationship last for three months. Two days before they celebrated what young couples like them called their third "monthsary", an antagonistic Abneg yanked Kadharina off her cluster of her close friends, pulled her by her soft, smooth, and tender, young upper arms, and took her to a corner where he could verbally assault her in private. "If I wanted a nun for a girlfriend, I would have looked for one!" Abneg said. Having known her boyfriend, Kadharina immediately was able to read what he was trying to get at. She was torn between being offended and succumbing to the pressure of her love's demands. After all, they had been together for almost three months, and according to Abneg himself, for less than half that time with his former girlfriends, he was able to share with them private things that were but proper for modern, sophisticated, and liberated men and women of the world, who were in fashion, and compliant with the latest trends. "I am not yet ready," Kadharina answered meekly the well-preached line. "Don't give me that!" Abneg then gestured with his hands, indicating Kadharina's person. "This?" he asked. "I left left my most recent ex-girlfriend for this! What do you want me to be? Celibate? If I wanted the vow of celibacy, I would have rushed to the nearest semina--" "OK, OK," Kadharina said, on the verge of tears. "OK, OK, I'll give in. I'll give in to your demands. Just please don't be mad at me anymore... I love you." Abneg, seeing the tears on Kadharina's eyes, looked doubtful. "You're only giving this out of pity on me..." Kadharina answered truthfully, "No. Not pity. Not out of pity." "Pressure, then, perhaps? You gave in because I was pressuring you!" This time Kadharina had no response, and Abneg, also being able to read her a bit well, realized that her silence was an affirmation to his suspicions. Abneg kicked an invisible object in front of him, cursed in the National Language, and made as if tearing in his hands his slick, well-engineered hair. "Then let us not do it if you're only giving in from pressure." He held a moment's pause, carefully observing Kadharina's reaction. Kadharina opened her mouth as if to speak, but Abneg interrupted. Clearly, his momentary pause had not been intended to allow for what his girlfriend might have had to say. Instead, it was to highlight the import of what he had to say next. "In fact, let us not do anything at all--let's end this relationship right now." Consistent with his strategy of not hearing a single word out of Kadharina in contradiction, he turned and walked away. This time Kadharina was not able to control her tears. In sight of the entire campus she ran after him, crying audibly, complete with violent trembling and heaving of her back and chest, and loud sniffling. "No! No, Abneg, please! Don't leave me!" He let her follow him for several meters, then stopped. He turned to the girl he had just deemed useless to him, and therefore had to be gotten rid of as soon as possible. "You are of no use to me. What good is a girlfriend if I can't even do fun things with her?" "You said you want it, and I'm giving it to you. Why else would you want to leave? I can't live without you!" She sobbed, flung her body to the nearest tree, and where once she had cuddled on Abneg's arms and lay her weary head on his shoulder, now she did to the tree. That's the point. You shouldn't even be giving it to me in the first place. Things are given because someone asked for them. I wasn't even supposed to've begged you for it." "B... but..." "If I'll ever receive it from you, it should be out of a mutual desire to do it... to share it. Not a single party should be more eager about it than the other... I'll receive what you are giving me, only if you are willing, and more, if it's as much your desire as it is mine." If there was any point in the conversation where Kadharina could have stopped and assessed matters, it was that moment. Deep inside her, silenced by all the clamors of what for her was love for her boyfriend, were her earlier instincts to be offended by Abneg's ungentlemanly demands. If she'd only paid more attention to the possibility that she was being manipulated, that this was a scheme planned to the tiniest detail, executed and tested to a science by the world's predatory male, this moment was her chance to redeem her shame and actually come out the winner. This was the point where the male's plan tottered as much towards failure as it did towards ultimate success. Yet, Kadharina had shown a weakness in professing her love. That, added to the more solid fact that she was already twenty and was not getting any younger. If she let Abneg go, she didn't know how much longer she'd have to wait again for another guy to take interest in her, if there'd ever be another. "I love you, Abneg, and I will love no one else but you." Abneg knew then that he had won. He made as if he was about to flee again, but--and as he expected--Kadharina's hand restrained him. "And I am willing to do it with you, not from pressure, definitely not out of pity, and not as an act to prove anything to you or to anyone. There is nothing to prove, because I know you are certain of my love. I desire you. And I want us to become as one, like what is inevitable, because one day I know we'll marry anyway, and it'll all be OK... I'm sure it'll all be OK." Kadharina searched her boyfriend's eyes pleadingly. At the mention of marriage, Abneg nearly had a coughing fit, which thankfully stopped at almost the same time Kadharina finished speaking. "You want us to go on?" he asked. Kadharina nodded eagerly. "You'll do anything for this relationship?" "Anything" A wide grin crossed Abneg's face. "Then what are we waiting for?" he asked in pure triumphant excitement. "Let's get us a taxi!" That afternoon, the two lovers hailed a taxicab to bring them to wherever their liaison required them to be. If only they weren't too preoccupied with their excitements and worries, they would have given just one brief glance at the sign expertly spray-painted on either of the rented cab's front seat doors. If they did, they would have learned that they were in fact, in the process of boarding a Bembol Vee taxi. |
| © 2005 Jay Santos |