a young gay man with blue seraph wings (for gabriel garcia marquez)

Disclaimer: this is a fictional work; any similarity to actual people, places or events is purely coincidental, for everything here exists solely in the author’s imagination, or so it seems…

“We better hurry home,” my colleagues suggested, visibly irritated at the gay filmfest’s closing movie that seemed anti-climactic for its radical departure from the roster of pink-themed films and documentaries. I readily acquiesced, convinced that the event’s swan song did not give justice to the simultaneous occasion of the country’s 100th-something year of independence. The film, a terrible conflation of AIDS and homosexuality featuring English-speaking mestizos, was obviously stuck within the colonial trappings.
“Let’s dance the conga,” said Jonison, our night’s host, once the taxi disgorged all the gay passengers it had crammed. His partner Edwin made the entire compound tremble with the blaring sound of the component. The gay visitors were shaking their bodies like malarial patients, oblivious to the shrieks of neighbors who complained that their midnight sleep was going to be a real nightmare.
Jonison pulled me from stupor so I would accompany him in buying 1.5-liter soft drinks. He explained to me that their area of residence becomes a modern-day version of Sodom and Gomorrah at the cloak of night time, so I sobered up at the hint. We headed toward the 24-hour bakery, which pasted all over its walls an announcement that the shop will close tomorrow—perhaps for renovation? “No, sir,” clarified the chatty saleslady, handing us the recyclable bottles we bought. “Half of the bakery workers were sent home after their demand for minimum wage fell on deaf ears. We won’t be open in the morning so those who stayed behind can rest after three sleepless working days.” That provided us with an insight into the attendants’ zombie-like pace.
As we turned to go back to Jonison’s place, a man in white tank top and crystal blue beach shorts arrived, intending to buy a mobile phone prepaid card. He looked familiar to me, until I realized that he resembled that handsome hardcore reporter who got elected as house representative. Only, this one boasted of a fairer complexion and a torso whose regular wrestling with gym equipment was paying off. On my third second of gazing, he caught me so I looked away, pretending he did not exist. Jonison was quick to pick up my gaydar transmission, so he dashed ahead as I took steps like a footbound Chinese woman.
I found myself seated next to the man in the bench of a carinderia that was adjacent to my host’s compound. He was silent as he pressed his phone keypad to send an SMS to an invisible textmate. Glancing askance, I confirmed that my eyes had not deceived me. His boyish looks despite his mid-20s body would leave the term “gorgeous” wanting for a truer meaning. The midnight air was chilly, but I felt like sweating bullets. I received a text message that said, “Good luck, Belinda Bright!” I initially wondered if the allusion to the sexy starlet was a pun on my cruising strategy. It took me two seconds to realize that the man was a perfect reminder of Belinda’s movies entitled She Walks by Night…Sshhh!!! and Ang Kapitbahay.
As if to check on my progress, my colleagues interrupted their booties from shaking and, searching for me and my possible lay, crabwalked their way to and fro. At their third time of performing some kibitzing, I was seriously praying that some rain of fire and brimstone would drive them screaming toward the compound. I could not afford to lose this man, I thought. By some miraculous event, the dark side of the street gave shape to the barangay tanods who immediately shooed the gays away, invoking the police’ capacity to arrest the cruisers for vagrancy. I was alarmed when the man himself vacated his place and proceeded inside the tiny lawn of the neighboring house. I played my last card by standing at his gate, acting as if waiting for a tricycle ride. Seeming concerned that I might be picked up by the roving mobile or by some other cruiser, he whispered from inside the gated yard: “papasok ka ba talaga, o hindi?”
I followed him through the labyrinth of chiaroscuro until we reached the lavatory which was flooded by fluorescent light emitting from his open room. He leaned provocatively against the lit wall, but his cosmopolitan James Dean pose was betrayed by his naïve countenance. He was, at best, a wingless angel, a Renaissance painting come-to-life. I touched his gelled hair, his rosy cheeks. “God…” I murmured. “Almost, but not quite,” he smirked. We laughed. When I attempted to duck into his face, he rotated his neck aside in such a way that my kiss landed on his earlobe. His masculine scent wafted in the still air, and I was drawn inexorably.
My hands were quick in feeling him under his tank top. His pectorals were strewn with smooth hairs, while his back contoured like a shifting desert dune. His bated breathing threw me in wild abandon. Lifting his white cover, I sucked on his pinkish nipples alternately.
My desire was running so ecstatically that I did not mind much the mounting muscle in his back. I thought his body was just reacting to the racy sensation that my lips were producing as they brushed against his skin. When something flapped softly behind him, it was then that I discovered his fully-grown wings, glowing blue. They were not of a manananggal’s, so I did not fear for my blood-rich vena cava being embedded with shiny fangs. I continued pleasuring him, until he slowly took flight, taking me into the firmament of stars.
He soared effortlessly, while I wrapped my arms around his waist. Momentarily I looked at the city we had just left behind, and I saw it being dotted with yellow lights as when a benighted tree gets canopied by a dancing multitude of fireflies. We were approaching the farthest strips of clouds, upon touching which my angel knew he had completely taken my breath away. Bathed in the radiance of the golden moon, we flew back to earth, his blue wings luminescent in the velvety darkness.
We returned to the lavatory, delirious from the brief ascension to the heavens. I heard the crowing of cocks, so I bade him goodbye. He did not offer to exchange contact numbers with me, so I believed the tryst would be the first and last. Which was just fine, I came to think. My intimate moment with a blue-winged seraph was bound to be the most unforgettable in the annals of my personal history. I motioned to kiss him in the cheek and said, “Thanks.” He broke into a smile, squeezed my left shoulder and replied, “Thanks, too.”
On my way out, I tumbled upon an unseen sunflower pot which promptly fragmented into splinters of hardened brown clay. Giggling, I flirted with the idea of having to leave a replacement at the man’s door first chance I would return in the area. For now, I must rejoin my colleagues at my host’s compound for the coronation of the most beautiful.