The Pilot Episode

I.

"You're too smart for this," The Pilot said. Like there's such a thing. "You're too smart to be in this... trade."

What he meant was I was too smart for him.

"What gave me off?" I asked. I usually play dumb for clients. Unless I was specifically booked to entertain with my wits, I assume the persona of "Aldwyn". I like the name "Aldwyn" for one of my personas. Its root is English, but most people think it's a combination of names, possibly, of my "parents". "Aldwyn" as a persona is a boy who grew up in Kalookan, who likes basketball, and is saving up money for a new cellphone. There's always a new cellphone every Aldwyn's saving for.

He was playing with my flaccid manhood with his left hand like it's some phallic meditation beads. This occupied him while he compose his thoughts. "I talked about the flight simulation program we use to train, and you didn't ask me to explain what simulation means," he said.

Technically, he wasn't a full-fledged pilot... yet. He still lacked a couple of flying hours for his licence, but he told me flying burns gas, and diesel for planes is expensive. He's working in a traffic control tower for the domestic airport while he saves money to afford the flying hours he's lacking. I call him The Pilot for the uniform he wears.

I dropped the act. There's a fragile moment when I have to shed off a persona and face a client as who I really am. After getting naked, doing the things they want me to do, having them do the things they want to do to me, this moment, when I have to strip off a persona, this moment is when I feel most vulnerable. As a psychology major, I am burdened with the automatic response to keep on analyzing all actions, all reactions, including my own.

Wearing a persona to "face" a client makes the job easier because on some level, I could fool myself that it wasn't "me"--the I persona, the Self-- that is involved in the transaction. I created "Aldwyn", "Marcus", "Lex", et. al., as masks: artificial egos for public consumption.

"Does it turn you off, then?" I asked The Pilot. "This knowledge that you're paying for the services of an individual who is your intellectual equal, perhaps, even your intellectual superior?" I was on my full psychologist mode. I was talking to him in my shrink voice, the one I use to deal with phone-in customers in my other job.

"What?" The Pilot couldn't keep up.

"Well, seeing that a sexual transaction like this is basically a form of power trip. You assumed the role of the 'paying customer', wherein power, in the form of cash, is transferred from you to me in exchange of services--sex, coitus, buttfuck-- which you have to presume I would not have performed willingly, giving you, then, the illusion that you possess a power to which I would surrender a part of my will, my self, my identity, in order to taste a pittance of.

"And now, realizing that the person, the other party, who you were planning on displaying your possession of this power and how you spend an amount of this power for something trivial as casual sex, is actually... priviledged more than you are... does this insult you in some way or does it turn you on more?"

The Pilot propped himself up, supporting his upper body on one elbow. He looked down at me, his eyes scanned my face. He was seeing me in a new light.

He slapped my mouth lightly, playfully. "Fuck you," he whispered.

And he did.

II.

The Pilot pays good. He has booked me thrice now, including this latest one. That makes him a regular. He's not exactly generous, but he pays good, and he never forgets to give me a little extra from the amount we agreed on.

III.

My fan has struck again.

I call him "my fan" because he pays me an insane amount of attention.

INSANE is the operative word here.

Slipped under the door of my apartment was a note.

"PUTA."

I stood there for an indefinite amount of time staring at the note. It was written on a plain bond paper, cut off to about a square of 3-in per side.

One word: an accusation, a truth.

It could be nothing. Maybe my apartment mate was scribbling something, or maybe he was playing a game, or maybe this could be a totally random note he had kept in a notebook until it fell to the floor and now, there I was, being paranoid over a slip of paper.

Paranoia. The fear of being persecuted. Often associated with guilt.

Fuck. I'm doing it again. Analyzing my own thoughts, treating my own emotions as text for deconstruction.

Maybe that's not bad, I thought.

Which is how I got started into this whole blogging thing.

Perhaps, in order to make sense of all of this, I need to treat my own thoughts, emotions, insights, as a 'case' for analysis. My life as a text for deconstruction. Perhaps I'd discover something I missed in the moment, and look back at these blog entries, and find the answers I've been looking for.

Or maybe find the questions I should be asking.

III.

I decided to keep the note. I went to the closet I assembled which also serves as a sort of divider between the sleeping area and the dining-kitchen-laundry area of the small, cubic apartment I am sharing with a friend. I threw the door of the closet open, kneeled and reached for a shoebox. I took the pair of Nike shoes out (somewhat new, used only a couple of times; and NO, this isn't a gift from a client, thank you), and dropped the note inside. The shoes I parked under the hanged shirts. I shoved the shoebox back to its place.

IV:

I am Boy de Jour. You don't know me.

I could be one of your friends. I could have dated your sister. I could have fucked your mother. I could have satisfied your father the way you used to before you realized it was wrong.

I could be the boy you have a crush on in school, at the office, on the bus, in a coffee shop, in Friendster.com.

I could be sitting right next to you while the professor discusses Jungian analysis and Skinner boxes.

I could be sharing a smoke with you before we both go back to our cubicles to deal with the Western helplessness with basic technology and credit card accounts.

I could be the smiling face in a billboard you passed by on your way to work.

I am the son of the night.

You don't know me.

Or, maybe you do.