Melons and Pears

These breasts. Ah, if only they could speak with liberty like the vagina. If only it had two lips, a wide opening, a deep canal. The things it would say. The stories they would tell. For breasts are both spectator and spectacle. Their sole purpose to see and feel, the eyes of sensuality, the giver, the receiver. All taken with a stride that is more taboo than the inverted triangle will ever be.

As is, the breasts will never lie to you. They will never give you a fake orgasm. They will never give what they don’t have in their capacity to give.

They will always show you if it hurts. They will always look you in the eye. They will rise with excitement. Engorge with love. Pock red with pain. Bruise with suffocation. And go depleted when it refuses to nourish itself.

On some days, the breasts are more woman than the woman itself.


Green Signals

I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself
- Genesis 3:10

To him, she was a trespassing sign. Her face was closed. Eyes dilated, constantly searching. Lips pursed. Hair the color of dried grass and barbed wire. Arms crossed even when walking. And when he came astride beside her, she wasn’t there at all. Like the shoulder he draped with his arm was the only anchor for her not to float away. It seemed the world and its stories were never allowed to enter again.

There lies the mystery. Because as she seems closed to those around her, her body seemed to be screaming just the opposite. Her breasts were like two green signals. It caused people to blunder, lose sight of the road, jam in intersection. She had warned him they tended to have that effect. But nothing quite prepared him until he actually got to take a look. They arrived a few steps before her every time. Adam had tried to look everywhere else but there since they met. But he couldn’t. It would always start and end there. Only the conscious effort of looking at her face would divert from this. Sometimes, he’d admonish himself because when he sneaked glances, his mouth would go dry rather than water.

There were only bulky sweaters, tent dresses, dark blouses. Ones that never gave more attention to what they already garnered by themselves. She did not want attention. She wanted to disappear. There were never any Friday Nights with girlfriends or casual dates. She had always gone home. Even now when she was already 27 and there was no family to go home to.

In a way, he was grateful for that. He never would’ve met her had she been any of those things. Everyday, she would lock herself in the confines of her room with iced tea and laptop in hand, and meet him there, in cyberspace. She updated often, talked a lot. Her blogs intrigued him. Like she was living the happiest life surrounded by the simplest things. She talked about the things around her home. The dog she inherited from her younger sister. The kitchenware she never gets to use because she was always dropping by somewhere new before going home. The rock music she plays full-volume just so she’d feel she wasn’t home alone. Her life lists. Places she was going to someday. Big purchases she was saving up for. Sometimes he feels like she was just there, living in cyberspace. Trusting a stranger whose voice she’s never heard, but who listened 500 miles away.

Soon came regular chats at night. Hurrying home to get online. Plans to drop by each other’s areas. Exaltation in sharing childhood traumas, deep secrets. Personal info. Contact numbers. Love, maybe. Maybe but not really.

Then just as soon as if they were just talking about it, he was there. In her doorstep. For three weeks, he watched her cover herself up whenever they were beside each other. Noticed her move her elbow slightly so his own can never accidentally bump into her side. Watched her lock herself up every night in the same room he used to just imagine, and then wake up very early so they can never bump into each other on the way to the bathroom.

Why has real life suddenly become more surreal than their relationship in cyberspace?

Adam knew why, of course. It was those green signals. They had suddenly turned red for him. And he had become a stranger again.


A Recipe for Stuffed Breasts

1. Place the two pieces between your hands and a flat area; pound with a meat mallet or with own fists until they flatten evenly. Be careful not to tear through the meat.

2. Sprinkle breasts with salt to taste; fill with even portions of anger and sadistic guilt.

3. Roll up and pin with any sharp object. Arrange breasts in an orderly fashion. Spoon extra praise and attentiveness around the breast rolls. Mix soup with ½ cup tears and garnish. Pour over breast fillets.

4. Then, bake at 350°, basting occasionally with assurance it’s never going to happen again. Heat inside the baking dish, for 1 hour or so.

5. Remove your hands for until the next time. Add lavish gifts and new promises. Display to guests in a nice serving dish.

He thought they were the perfect target. This was what he found out soon after the rest of her body had been experimented with. The face and arms were too obvious. They garnered too many questions in the work place. The stomach was too sensitive. She couldn’t get up to make breakfast for him in the morning. That would be a waste to the highest degree because she was such a good cook. The back seemed too fragile. Last time he hit her there, she had to go to the hospital and made him foot the bill for what she told the doctor was a simple slip in the bathroom.

But the breasts, those round orbs he loved to bite until she screamed, were perfect. It excited him to suck them on and on like in a trance. He didn’t notice they bled too much afterwards. He could do anything with it and no one would ever see. They would be in bed and he would always stop there, slowly at first, like a child nipping candy. Then small nibbles. Then fast suckles. She knew this was the start. But she was too afraid to let him stop, so she would slowly divert him by kissing the crook on his neck and whispering ruggedly, ‘Hon, let’s go.’ .

Sometimes, it would work and he would continue down there where she no longer felt anything. But on some days, it triggered that Supernova. There’d be quiet before the big bang, but she knew it was coming. She had seen it in his eyes that glittered a little too much. The problem was she never knew which days were which.

He never meant it, of course. That was important to state out. She had to know that. It was just these fitting rages she always caused. It made him lose too much control. He would stand over her sometimes, like in an out-of-body experience, and cry from the inside. Who was this fuck slapping his wife?

Soon after, he would take the cigarette burns from the mounds and place toothpaste on them to make sure they wouldn’t swell. The last ones turned into a heart-shaped scar which made him smile. See, even her body thought it really wasn’t that bad.

In the morning, when she was ready with those made-from-scratch brioche he would tell her to make so they can kiss and make up, he would give her a smack squarely on her slightly swollen mouth. Hon, you really know how to spoil me. She would then clear the table and wait for him to leave before she would. As parting call, he would nonchantly add, Oh, maybe next time, a little easy on the milk? It’s too creamy.’ This would make his day because he knew he’d just exercised a little extra patience with her, a step to his absolution.

The breasts were slowing her down in the workplace. They were swollen and itchy and reminded her of nights past. Even when she was cooking, the thing she used to love the most, there was only the longing to take them off, discard them like the apron she hangs on the rack every night.

When was it that she started living like this? Did she know? Did he know? Was it that time when she forgot to bring out his slippers and the first hit came? Was it the time when he asked her to choose between him and her friends, and the TV broke? Was it that time when she was staring at the clouds outside his kitchen, and he fucked her from behind because he thought she was looking at their neighbor’s teenage son? She forgets what life was before this. How freedom was not always a lie. Before all the recipes for a man she now only saw as a horse coach. Once, cooking had been the dream, just like the man. Then a passion. Then obligation. Then lifeline.

She would go home now. Her body knew. There was a tingle she felt at the core the same way a sundial knew how to tell time. There was no longer dread. Only calm acceptance. Perhaps it would always be like this. These were the marks of her days, how she would chunk out one dish after the other until all her cards would run out. Perhaps then he would no longer need her. And she would go. She would mince, blanche, boil, fry, grill and roast herself until then. Most of all, she’d wait, for that time when she’ll finally be able to use that recipe for tronquito she always wanted to try.

Guide:
Tronquito- bull penis soup
Brioche- flaky French bread


Mama Knows Breast

Damn advertisements. Were they going to run this thing the whole day? Commercials just didn’t have the same professional integrity they used to. Seriously, who in their right minds who’ve actually given birth and breastfed their kids would think those boobs they’ve been flashing have been through rigorous wear and tear. Was there such a thing as a boob double? If there was, they’d probably used it here. Those smooth, creamy mounds of skin have not been milked through. She would know. It’s only been a month and already her breasts were these uneven stress balls that engorged on one side and tilted down on the other.

And don’t even let her get started on the nipples. How had they gotten so dark? Once, they were these cute little buttons that looked more like the color of pink pearl. Then coral. Then brown. Now those areolas looked like an antique coin with a nub. They were never indiscreet. They were like flashcards that screamed ‘Look at me! Look at me!’ and they did. It didn’t matter where she was. In a dark corner or in a busy mall. Somebody was always bound to look. She or the husband would look at some guy who seemed to be magnetized by the power of the nub and they would cough discretely to veer his attention away. Come on, maniac! Haven’t you had enough boobs from watching your daily porn fixture?

Seriously, wasn’t it enough she go through the painful process without having some weird standby watch her attempts at trying to let the little girl latch? But a hungry screaming baby knows what it wants. They’re torpedoes zeroing in on the targets. It hadn’t seemed such a long time ago when she would still daintily cover her assets with her hand when she bent down or looked for clothes that didn’t reveal too much. Now, one flip of the bra, and plop! It was there like a 24-hour open pantry. Constantly available. The first time they went out for her check-up and a small run-to to the mall, it was all there too. All over her clean, pressed white shirt. An outpour of liquid no one would ever doubt from where it was coming from. The husband must be livid. Even she’s never seen so much of her own breasts before.

God. The baby’s crying again. See, here’s the thing. Doctors constantly explain the benefits of breastfeeding. But what they never seem to cough out is how painful it is during the first week. It is. There’s no point sugarcoating. It’s like a bad toothache or a festering wound. It hurts like you wouldn’t believe especially if the baby’s a succubus. The first few days, she’d suck and suck and the breasts would still be empty. Seriously. Where’s the milk supposed to be coming from?
Then by some miracle, it’d be there. Flowing like a waterfall. The pain would be gone too.

What’s left would be this child who people say unbelievably came out from you. It was then, those moments when she’s feeding off from some deep part, some stronger extension, some life form made out of rougher stuff, when it’s going to hit. It’s all been worth it all along.

After that, a coin could be bounced off those little clumps of scabs once called breasts, and they’d feel nothing.

Someday, this little girl will look at her the way she once did her own mom, as if she were some creature from another planet with sandbags sticking out of her chest. She would point at those two shriveled raisins pointing to the floor. And with a small voice would probably ask, ‘Mom, what’s that?’

She knew what her answer would be.

‘Well, sweetie, that’s you. That’s all you. Right there.’