Coffee Shop I
It was in a coffee shop a few months ago, and it was over those obscenely overpriced sugary drinks that Eve spilled her story to me, calm as you please.
“I want to be called Eve, once you get around to writing that article of yours,” she said, smiling.
“Blogpost,” I corrected her automatically, sipping my vanilla frappe. “It’ll be published in my personal blog. Not much audience, just some people who’re bored enough to read the stupid things I write. You do realize that “Eve” has no sense of creativity, right?”
“Maybe, but who are you to judge what’s creative or not?” We laughed at that. “I like “Eve”, I think it’s the proper personification for women and sexuality in some idiot society’s opinion.”
I chuckle at the reference to my previous write-up. “Cursed out of paradise, and seen as the tempter of men?”
“Sakto,” she replied.
“Fine. Let’s get down to business then.” I took out my cell phone, used it as a recorder. “You’re all set.”
She stared at my cell phone gravely. I wondered if she was having second thoughts, if she was ready to tell her tale. After all, it’s not a happy story. For a second I doubted that she had enough conviction to stand for what she believed she should do. But she shifts her stare at me, her eyes overly bright.
Eve opened her mouth. And began.
The Transcription
My parents never talked about sex. I learned from media, from books, but most of what I know I got from experience. That way of learning is effective, although it was something I never signed up for.
The first time I was touched was when I was four, by a neighbor I used to play with. Our families were close, and I would almost always be found playing at his place with him and his siblings. He was a few years older than I was. The oldest kid in his family, actually. He gave me special attention in exchange for what I allowed him to do to me.
It was only later life that I realized that what I allowed him to do to me made me practically a slut-child. But seriously, I was fucking four years old. Shit if I knew what was going on. My parents sure as hell never told me. The molestation continued for about two years, and by then, I had enough sense to figure out that something was off about the situation.
I was also smart enough to not say anything about it though. I was honestly afraid that my “problem” would get in the way of our families’ friendship. It was an honest-to-God good intention, but hell’s paved with them, isn’t it? Also, I didn’t want my mother to think I was a whore. She looked as so many women as whores. You can imagine how she’d talk about a teenage girl in my neighborhood who’d hang around guys. I thought – I think – she’d look at me that way even I was young and stupid. Even though I didn’t initially know what the hell was going on.
The molestations stopped, eventually. I stopped playing at his house and focused on other stuff. Growing up stuff. I had a relatively “normal” elementary life. Normal in my terms. I didn’t go out to be Miss Popular or anything drastic, but I didn’t become a complete screw-up as well, thank God for small favors. I actually started to excel in school. I guess if you look at it, it’s a form of compensation. I started out with a fucked-up, and I didn’t want a fuck up the rest of my life. I wanted normalcy. In fact, I wanted to be better than others. You have to understand, I wasn’t a megalomaniac or anything like that. I wanted to be good at something because I thought that it’s harder to like me because I’m…well… me. I think it’s because I have this innate fear that since I was corrupted, I had nothing else to offer but my brains. But screw the psychology, I’m not here to self analyze.
My Dad died when I was in high school. My Mom was an emotional wreck. We were financially unstable. During those days, if you invited me to coffee. I’d have scoffed at you, Janina, possibly with the nasty thought that you were a rich bimbo who doesn’t care that there are students like me who don’t have money for tuition and who had to survive on fishball and palamig (at this point, Janina had to remind me that she had also survived on ten-pesos worth of lunch). Those are possibly the reason why when my Mom met him, she was… captured. Trapped.
She fell in love, my Mom, with a guy ten years her junior. Oh, he was kind and sweet at first. Most men are. He’d help out at home, drive me to school, take care of her when she’s depressed. He was addicted though, and there were fights. I’d wake up in the middle of the night and hear them screaming at each other. Curses, accusations, all that dramatic shit. I’d stare at my room’s door, hoping to God it doesn’t open and find him standing there with a bloody knife in his hand. I think he could have killed us both during one of those fights. My door had no lock. I only had prayers to keep that from happening. The screaming would die down eventually and I’d be able to sleep.
One night, I woke up and found that I couldn’t breathe. There was something heavy on top of me, and the sound of panting filled the room. And that smell. Like a drunk who hasn’t bathed in a while. I also remember the pain, down there, in between my legs, but it was the smell that smothered me.
“May condom ako, wag kang mag-alala,” he whispered.
I struggled and protested but he held me down. But it was my mother’s possible reaction that kept me from screaming. I knew how unstable she was. What would she say? Would she possibly kill herself if she found out that the man she loved was fucking her daughter? I had very little doubt.
It happened again and again for a space of over a year. It happened so many times I couldn’t keep count. Sometimes I’d be able to fight him off. My mother almost walked in on us several times, but it never happened. Whenever he didn’t get some, his temper would be at the peak, and there would be more conflict between him and my mom. His temper was catalyst to the goddamn friction. My open legs were his pacifier.
That, and my shut mouth.
Coffee Shop II
I stared at her as she paused to take a sip of her coffee. Eve related these events in an almost deadpan voice.
I blurted the first thing that came to my mind, “Didn’t you want to die?”
“I did,” she replied, offering me her wrist. I could barely make out the thin scars on them. “I tried the blade, but I guess I’m just too much of a coward to kill myself. I was already dead. You know those people who say that abortion is killing innocent life? It’s the same with rape. You get raped and it’s byebye innocent life. I was half dead, but I didn’t want to die completely. I was still pretty fucking naïve despite the nightly shit I went through. I thought perhaps it’ll get better.
“Did it?” I asked, half-afraid of her answer.
Eve smiled, painfully, beautifully. “Yes, it did. He stopped doing drugs. He still loved us after all. He stopped doing drugs, and he stopped his nightly visits to my room. My mom had a lock installed on my door, and I kept my door shut. It stopped. It got better. We all moved on.”
“I don’t fucking believe you,” I told her casually. “I don’t think you move on that easily. Not from something as sick as that. Forgive my mouth, Eve, but you’re a damn liar.”
Incredibly, she laughed. “Alright, alright,” she said, “I admit, I didn’t just move on. But I didn’t let it get in the way of my life. At least, not overtly. Some things about me are wrong. Inside, I’m all screwed up, but that’s no excuse to plow through life like a suicidal moron. I believed I had a future. I still believe that.” She paused and regarded me as though I were some fascinating new specimen. The fact that I was gaping at her like a stupid fish probably added to her amusement.
“Any other questions Janina?”
I shut my mouth and went back to business. “Why do you want to expose your story? You didn’t want your mom to know. You don’t want anyone to know.”
“I’m hidden by an alias, so I guess I’m relatively safe. My mother doesn’t do computer, so she’s probably not going to have the opportunity to freak and have a damned heart attack. Besides, my story is almost generic. Like a mushy teleserye. People might even think that you made me up just to have something to write about…” Eve tilted her head and answered my final question. “Why do I want to tell my story? For kicks! To help your blog earn some friggin’ followers, my friend.”
We both laughed at that.
“Seriously, why?” I pressed.
She answered slowly, as though choosing her words carefully, so as not to misrepresent her intentions. “Shit happens, but maybe, if people knew how and why it does, they’d be able to manage it better, you know? Especially this kind of thing. Happens all the time. Happens every fucking day actually…” She looked at me solemnly.
“I want people to understand.”
