A lot had been said about Ondoy. We knew what happened. For days, we watched our houses drown, our cars swim and experienced the pain of losing everything. It was a dream everyone wants to wake up from. Ondoy was Freddie Kruger feeding our brains.

I lost my books, some clothes and documents to the flood. Adding up to the loss was the guy I was hoping to be with someday disappeared without any hint or trace. I had questions, but there were no answers. Then came acceptance that another relationship just went down the drain.

Bloody was right. Don’t bother finding answers to questions that were meant to be left unanswered. Life has to go on, he said winking at me.

It was just a week after the flood and everything, like the traffic, went back to normal. That particular morning was the first time Bloody and I saw each other after the unusual rainy Friday night that marked the coming of Ondoy. He entertained me with horrifying tales of the flood from his place, and how he managed to save his van by parking it on the church grounds. His house, however, was not spared from the floodwaters that carried away his sofa to the gate.

“But the kids had fun using the inflated rubber peddle boat. It was like beach to them.” I remembered those two boys who looked and acted exactly like him. That wasn’t so hard to imagine. I had a pretty accurate guess of Bloody growing up as a wild kid.

There were no longer passengers by the time we reached the terminal. I was about to step out of the van when he offered me a ride to the building where I held office. Our office was just a 5-minute walk from the terminal.

“I don’t want you to walk under the sun like a crazed lunatic. Look at you – you’re like someone who just got gang-raped.” I was surprised at his expression of concern. Very fatherly. Except for the last line.

He reached for the dashboard and offered me his shades. I wore it almost absent-mindedly.

“I just wish I had that “privilege”…you know.” He chuckled.

“You wish.” I quipped while enjoying the sight from the polarized shades. I knew what he meant by that signature pick-up line – the “flower farm”.

“Of course I do,” he said lowering his voice, like a snake.

“You’re sweet.” I said that without any hint of sarcasm. That sounded unnaturally weird.

“Really?” He glanced at me and I saw that menacing glint in his eyes.

“I never thought you were capable of showing kindness to wretched beings you’ve been wanting to, um, you know, put to bed.”

“We’re friends,” Bloody answered quietly, not to raise an alarm.

“I know.” I smiled gingerly.

Bloody pulled over in front of the building. I handed him back his shades and thanked him for the ride. He held my hand a little longer than the usual, pressing my palm. His face was just a few inches from mine. I could smell mint from his breath.

“So where’s the kiss?” He was irresistible. I couldn’t tell if that was my mind playing tricks on me or the effect of too much sunshine.

I took off before I change my mind.

A few more days to go, and I would no longer see his smile, his eyes, his face and the violet Mitsubishi Adventure. The thought felt like something has just stabbed me, and I was reeling in pain.

I was scheduled to move out and head south in a week’s time. That would mean a change in my commuting routine – going on a different direction and taking the train instead. So I cherished the last few moments, knowing I would be seeing less of him and maybe arrive at a point when it would no longer really matter.

His parting words? Mag-asawa ka na.

Nyahaha.

All I heard was the sound of the car stereo playing “Victims of Love” with its ear-piercing chorus. There were so many songs available in the entire pop music history I wondered why the jocks couldn’t choose a more suitable one to play. This was not the first time I heard that particular song play in Bloody’s stereo.

Maybe the song had a personal message had I only listened carefully instead of exchanging glances with Bloody behind the steering wheel.

This was the second Joyride. And the topic was Puppy. I never saw Bloody this excited over something that stoked his ego. It made him feel superior above all God’s creatures, including the squid. Nothing beats the thrill a man gets from squashing an opponent in a race to a woman’s heart. In Bloody’s case, he did not even have to lift a finger. It was I who sent Puppy off the ring already peeing in his pants.

Of course, Bloody wouldn’t dare mention his latest victory. He knew I easily get turned off by sheer arrogance. So he played it safe in a kind of reverse way. You know, like why not pick Puppy over him. He’s handsome, single and about to get rich. He seemed serious about making babies with me while he, Bloody, was already a very complicated family man with a string of girls willing to be knocked up anytime. He might even have AIDS. I belong to a different caste, he said. Like The Chastity Belt Club. It made him feel unworthy. I didn’t know that his testosterone had reached the pious level already.

But the mere thought of me dying a virgin distressed him. I might catch ovarian cancer, cervix cancer and all types of weird diseases attributed to unused reproductive system. But he swore on other people’s grave not to hold my hand either. The electricity the contact generates could mess up his brains and send alerts to launch that “baby arm” down there. So he made us a deal. Just in case I changed my mind about the postponed trip to The Flower Farm, he would gladly oblige me with a tour.

I punched his six-pack abs and the devil laughed.

I played this particular scene a hundred times over inside my head -that night when Bloody saw me with Puppy inside the mall. It was actually a deliberate move to be seen in a place we both frequent – to spite him, to show that I had a life apart from what he thought a mediocre way of living, and yes, to prove that he was that dispensable.

“You do not have the monopoly of girls in the planet.” I thought. “Because you can never have me. And I can have good-looking dates as well.”

Well said. But things were a lot more different in reality. The moment our eyes locked, my face was flushed crimson red and my knees started to wobble. I was no less than a meter away from the walking Kryptonite.

“Hi.” Bloody’s eyes were smiling under that brown cap. He came along smooth, so sure of himself, and my world stood still. This was the kind of guy who did not need some rescuing. And he could certainly ruin a date.

Somehow Puppy noticed the sparks flying above my head as Bloody quietly made his exit to the terminal. He sensed competition.

“Do you know that guy?” His brows wrinkled.

“Um. Yes. He’s a friend.”

“Really?” Puppy had crossed the line reserved for my dead father and future husband.

“Wait. Am I not allowed to have friends now?” I growled.

Puppy wiggled his tail in agreement, which was actually a bad sign. I didn’t like guys who do not have the balls to stand up for what they believe. Guys who severely lacked identity. I completely lost my appetite and felt sorry for Puppy. I knew it wasn’t his fault. But I was born with certain preferences. I wasn’t even normal to begin with.

I bade Puppy goodbye when we reached the mall’s exit. He still acted like a true gentleman no matter how embarrassing the night was for him. I wished him well on his trip back to the Middle East and lots of good luck in finding his daughter in Macau. Puppy was like a brother to me.

I reached the terminal and saw Bloody standing beside his blue-violet van with a lighted cigarette in between his fingers. He waved at me and smiled. He knew he had just won.

Drops of rain started to fall in a humid April night as more and more people lined up the terminal. The mall was about to close to end the last minute hurdle of shoppers wanting to buy a thing or two. It was payday weekend.

As usual, I was at the end of the snake line waiting for my turn to get inside one of those commuter vans. My idle mind was completely absorbed by the Tolkien book about Numeronean wars while I kept a watchful eye on the arrival of the blue Bloody van. He’d be back in thirty minutes, I said to myself. By sheer estimation, I was more likely to catch the ride with him without putting up another excuse to wait for him. I did almost every lame excuse one could ever imagine from placing another call to an officemate to lurking inside the pet grooming shop. Sometimes, when imagination had gone dry, I simply let other commuters to go ahead and wait for him to arrive. But at this particular night, everything was just near perfect and it was zero effort on my part.

I saw The Wife come out of the crowd to get the boys and nailed them down to the bench. She was this doting mom who wiped the kids’ sweaty faces and put towels on their backs. That particular sight washed away my excitement to see Bloody again as I stood in the middle of the tired crowd frozen on my feet. I felt guilt surface and accuse me of trying to steal away their dad. How in the universe will I be able to do such wicked thing to a family who depended so much on him? While Bloody collected women since youth, he never really did abandon his family.

There in the middle of one rainy night I received my answers.

“Are you happy?”

The question snatched his thoughts back to present reality. I studied his face with the hope of finding signs of brain activity. His right hand held mine so tight as if I would disappear from his side anytime. He was driving on our way back to my office.

I had questions rehearsing inside my head. And while it took Bloody forever to give his reluctant yes, I couldn’t resist asking some more. If he’s happy, what was he doing here with me? What about those two other women I saw he flirted with last Christmas? He justified his philandering by his ability to provide for the family. As long as no one gets hungry, it’s ceasefire. He winked at me.

I felt his pulse, inspected his nails and felt his rough palm. Those thick calloused hands. He drove around with one hand on the steering wheel and alternated it on the clutch. His mind flew out of the window and landed somewhere along that dusty highway.

We met earlier that day at the other terminal on my way to work. It was the first time we were together on broad daylight. I felt relaxed and comfortable sitting beside him while we were telling each other vacation plans for the Holy Week. From time to time, his hand holding the clutch would brush against my knee and would sometimes rest his arm on mine. When all passengers were gone, he started holding my hand. The warm fuzzy feeling was intoxicating me.

Out of the blue I blurted things I should have not said. I complained about being tired, hungry and sleepy, completely clueless to their underlying meanings in the male dictionary. Before I knew it, he turned left on the road that would lead us to that particular spot famous for motel chains.

I saw in his eyes that quiet resolve. A surge of panic nearly choked me. If I had not won the argument, I was ready to jump off the car.

His gorgeous smile that brought sunshine to my day was wiped out by pain of rejection. The most charming guy in the terminal had just failed to score on a naive 30-something virgin. But he wasn’t the type who would just give up on selling the idea to me. We’re old enough, he said.

I rested my head on his shoulder and closed my eyes. I felt his hand clasp mine.

It was already close to noon and we were stuck in the middle of the traffic. The heat outside already reached a sweaty degree that we could actually fry an egg on the windshield.

He put his arm around me as he pulled over in front our building. I was about to say goodbye when he leaned forward and kissed my lips without saying a word.

It just blew my mind away.

The next few days that followed the joyride were clouded by conflicting mix of emotions in varying degrees. Bloody’s voice played over like a broken record inside my head. The touch of his hand lingered on like a persistent second-hand smoke clinging to my clothes. I could see his face on every blank space inside the building, in the movies I saw and even on my dinner plate. My stomach would twist and turn at the thought of seeing him at the end of the day. I had just lost my mind that a good slap on my face would be appreciated. Or anything that would wake me up from this long, bad, but sweet dream.

My office table was an exact replica of the current state of my mind – a virgin forest inhabited by a dangerous snake hissing “Can I see you tomorrow night? Everyday? Please?” The invitation was laid out in the open and the only answer needed was a sound yes. That would mean free rides everyday, holding hands behind the clutch, sneaking around and kissing when no one was looking.

Even if that sounded like pot, I somehow relished the thought of giving in and taking the plunge. Although I had never been into this kind of sticky situation before, stealing him away never seemed to be a problem. I was confident I could do it. He liked me for one obvious reason that I was different in his world of sameness. Maybe.

But since I had been wired to listen to reason, I had to weigh down my options between right and wrong. I already had imagined what the consequences of my actions would be like in the future. A revengeful wife would hunt me down. The brewing scandal would keep people buzzing for years. And the unimaginable damage the word “kerida” can do to my self-worth. Will he be there for me when the going gets tough? Was he worth even a grain of sacrifice?

I was torn between living on the dot and on the line, the now and forever, the good and bad. Bloody woke me up from a long deep sleep to the other side of reality that showed my propensity for evil. But in the grand scheme of things, no matter how I shut my guard down, I remained that conscience-stricken person. There wouldn’t be everyday for Bloody, neither a tomorrow night.

I was the perennially good girl. Trust me.

But no one in school told me that temptation could sometimes get tired taking the forms of a crispy P500 bill, a cold-blooded murder, or a Rated R movie. It became quite predictable I could even see it breathe through its pores and fend off its advances before it could get to me. Somehow the devil himself learned to do his homework subtly. I almost failed to tell how an innocent exchange of glances with a seemingly harmless charmer named Bloody cost me my peace and sanity. Every unexpected meeting with him for the past three months seemed to escalate from bad to worse. My steel-like resolve melted under his hypnotic gaze and I heard myself agree to his invitation to take me out. A joyride as he bluntly put it.

So I tucked conscience somewhere inside the trunk to silence it and threw away the keys and cautions to the wind.

While Bloody chuckled at the idea of having me all by himself, I was busy forming conversation fillers that would take his attention off whatever plans he had set to do and keep his mind (and hands) on the wheel. When I learned that he knew how to speak Japanese, we conversed in bloody Japanese for the next 30 minutes. It so occupied his mind that he forgot the reason why he strapped me to the seat next to him in the first place.

We arrived at the terminal an hour before midnight and I came out of the van unscathed. My role as the other woman came with this sneaky instruction, “Please wait for me at the stall down at the corner. Order whatever you want. I’ll go park the van.”

So there I was reprising the role of the other woman, hiding in the shadows and avoiding encounters with people we both knew. A soft touch on my back snatched me back to my present reality of a counter girl gawking at me and Bloody breathing down my neck. I wasn’t really sure whether to go forward, backward or sideways. I asked him to buy me a cold drink and pulled myself away to the nearest vacant table.

While Bloody served my food and drink, I tried to remain conscious on what to do on the next hand movement. He asked me to share his food by eating on the same plate using his spoon. There was something about it that was plainly seductive and violated my basic form of hygiene. Was the recession this bad that I had to eat on his plate and share his spoon on a dinner date? He laughed quietly to himself. I dug out my cell phone and started replying to about five unread messages. I wasn’t even done texting when I felt his arm wrap tightly around me. If I had to believe the reincarnation, Bloody was an octopus in his past life. But given his loose morals, he was probably a small-time squid.

“Stop texting. You should eat.” He kissed me lightly on the head and let me go. His eyes were laughing.

He paid the bill and I went back to his van parked at the terminal. It was already full of late night passengers. There was this guy occupying my front seat and I took my place beside him and the door. Bloody came along a few minutes after and chatted briefly with the barker while he kept a close eye on me. With this burly guy blocking our view, we never had a chance to speak. I closed my tired eyes while the bloody van sped down the empty highway.

I came back to my consciousness when all the passengers, including that guy between us, stepped out at the next terminal. Then Bloody held my hand.

“Can I see you tomorrow night?” His calloused hand pressed my cold hand hard. “Just wait for me at the terminal. I’ll be there. Please?”

There was something urgent, desperate, careless and stupid about his plea. “I don’t know” was the only safe answer I gave his wish. I feared looking straight into his eyes and be found lying. He pulled the van over and I reached for the door. I stepped into the night and walked away hoping the air outside would help clear my mind.

The traffic was extremely bad that one particular morning. I had to wake up early for the eight o’clock meeting and had to leave the house long before the people around my neck of the woods were up on their toes. I was caught up in this unimaginable two-hour traffic jam that caused the road temperature and everyone’s temper to rise. That defined how my day went and closed in a rather peculiar way.

The last meeting I had in this classy restaurant ended at seven. By the time I reached the mall terminal, it was already eight. I was tired, sleepy and hungry. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught that tall familiar figure looking my way with his arms folded in front of him. He was lovely sight to look at that made all my worries disappear in thin air. I turned to smile quite sheepishly and walked consciously towards his direction.

Bloody was in a happy and relaxed mood. He was enjoying his free time watching people go about their quiet lives and was probably thinking of plans on how to screw up mine. At the far end of the corner, his co-drivers gossiped like women. For Bloody, it was an opportunity to take off his mask and talk like a free man without The Wife’s spy satellites on him. He asked how things were with me for the past few days we had not seen each other. I summarized my misery in a short sentence that had the word “busy” in it.

“Your life is like your cell phone. Always busy.” He was sitting on this concrete bench wearing his usual white shirt and faded jeans that fitted him so well. I thought he was handsome without that brown cap he uses to hide his eyes.

“Welcome to the 21st century.” I tried to sound as casual as I could to conceal my excitement and prevent the nerves on my head from popping. “You’re the only Filipino I know who doesn’t own a cell phone. Even babies have one.”

He chuckled. Bloody owned commuter vans but not even the world’s lousiest cell phone. Last Christmas, I overheard him telling this other front seat girl about his sad story on how The Wife took away his unit. In my mind, that time, I labeled him “jerk”. Really.

“Wait for me. Don’t go anywhere.” Bloody went to the nearest phone booth to place a call that took ten minutes. Hiding behind a book, I watched him intently like a serial killer studying his prey. I took note of those impatient little gestures. I had imagined what the conversation was about whenever he would run his fingers through his dark brown hair or rummage his pocket for coins to feed the hungry telephone unit. After what seemed to be a thousand years, he emerged out of the hell hole with a relief on his face. With just a nod, I followed him to his van and decided to book the entire front seat. I had a plan brewing for that night. I wanted to get to know who this creep really was and learn more about his worth without a nosy third wheel clogging our conversation. He seemed glad.

During the short trip, I asked him about his past, his family, his work abroad and his life today. He gave me honest answers. Bloody did not offer too many details unless asked specifically. Time flew without me noticing that we already reached my destination. I felt my heart sank.

I was going for the door when he asked, “Would you like to join me in a joyride?”

What joyride? Was this Roxette’s “Joyride“?

My mind suddenly went blank as I groped for a more appropriate answer. Was it a date? Was it even good? Or bad?

Then curiosity kicked in and took over my rational thinking. Why not? We’re no longer kids but two middle-aged adults. We both knew our boundaries. I was confident enough to think that we would emerge out of the whole sticky situation with our clothes still on. I just wanted to seize the day, live for the moment and worry about the future later.

So I said yes.

Now I knew what killed the cat.

I was on my way home from church when I saw a familiar sight I missed for the past two weeks – a faded Superman sticker at the back of a blue-violet commuter van. My heart screamed “Bloody!”

With quick but graceful strides I reached the terminal. I scanned the entire place for that tall, dark and handsome figure in white shirt and faded jeans but he was nowhere to be found. A couple was already occupying my front seat. That left me with the next vacant space at the back of the driver’s seat.

Hmm. Not bad.

The van was dark inside and the tinted windows made sightseeing at night more difficult but my accidental guy-watching possible. While I was contemplating ways to calm my hyperventilating self, he came back to check on his passengers. I immediately ducked my head and picked up the book I deliberately dropped on the floor. That was the thirty-something me who simply couldn’t make up her mind. Should I say “hi”, smile or put my head inside my bag? I was like a thirteen-year-old who couldn’t figure out what to do with an overripe pimple.

He started the engine and the van took off with an amazing bullet train speed. That was what I liked about his driving – reckless, just like him. He drove quietly and was lost in his own train of thoughts as old love songs in the background lulled tired passengers to sleep. I caught his reflection on the tinted side window and studied his face under the guise of reading billboards. And while at it, the only word that echoed inside my head was wow.

Wow. I was smitten.

Bloody was forty but he seemed to age gorgeously like Richard Gere. I wondered how he looked like when he was younger, how many girls fell for him and what percentage of these Bloody converts he took to bed and seriously considered walking down the altar. He certainly both had the face, the body, the wit and the charm. A combo that was far deadlier than all male IQ’s combined.

He turned the lights on when we reached the destination. Everyone stepped out except for me and the couple seated in front. I hid behind the driver’s seat to avoid his gaze on the view mirror. When Bloody drove to the last stop, I decided to show up my face, smiled at him on the mirror and leaned forward to whisper “ingat”. He turned his head towards my direction, stretched out his arm to touch my shoulder and mumbled something like “nandyan ka pala”. I simply smiled at his amazement. Our gazes locked for what seemed to be forever before I finally released myself from his spell and reluctantly closed the door behind me.

I didn’t want to hear what else he had to say. This time, I may not be able to refuse him.