Kilohertz & Calamansi

Gael bit into their corn. “Because I wanted to see you somewhere that did not have a broken console, an emergency light, or a risk of our coworkers hearing us through bad insulation.”

“That is three reasons.”

“Fine. Because I liked you before Booth B. Because I liked you after Booth B. Because I want to know you without a storm assigning us a plot.”

I wrote DATE QUESTIONS: 1, then added an honest answer without waiting for permission.

“What about you?” they said.

“Because I wanted to know if I still wanted you when nothing was broken.”

Gael looked at me for a moment, rain shining on their lashes.

“And?” they said.

“I do.”

HONEST ANSWERS: 5.

We walked through the closed aisles with our corn. The market smelled of damp cardboard, old cooking oil, and calamansi rinds. A few vendors packed crates under tarps. Somewhere, a radio played a love song badly through a blown speaker.

“At twenty-six,” I said, “I dated a man named Adrian for almost two years. He made adobo too salty and apologized with expensive pastries.”

“Useful skill.”

“At thirty, I dated a woman named Pilar. She painted sets for a theater company. We fought over movies and made up fast.”

Gael waited beside a shutter painted with faded fruit.

“I called both relationships exceptions,” I said. “Adrian was just Adrian. Pilar was just Pilar. Every person I wanted became a reason not to name the pattern.”

“That sounds tiring.”

“It was efficient.”

“It sounds lonely.”

I took another bite of corn. Chili caught at the back of my tongue.

Gael wiped butter from their hand with the napkin. “I dated a man who thought pansexual meant I would never be satisfied with one person. I dated a woman who thought it meant I had no standards. Both of them were wrong.”

“What did you tell them?”

“That attraction is not an excuse to break promises. That I can want many kinds of people and still choose one person honestly.” They looked at me. “That I only needed the person beside me to believe me.”

I wrote HONEST ANSWERS: 6.

“Good line,” I said.

“Usable take?”

“Usable take.”

I added one beneath the tally.

At the far end of the market, a security guard turned off a row of lights. We moved toward the open street, where rain silvered the pavement and jeepneys passed with their windows fogged.

Gael held out the marker. “My question.”

“Go ahead.”

“What would make tonight feel good for you?”

The answer came too fast to hide behind polish. “Questions.”

They waited.

“Not because I need a committee meeting before every touch,” I said. “I just want to know I can say yes without getting carried somewhere I did not choose. And I want you to tell me what you want too.”

Gael’s mouth curved. “That is extremely hot.”

“Do not score that.”

“I am writing it down anyway.”

They turned the card over and made a new list.

ASK BEFORE A CHANGE GREEN: KEEP GOING YELLOW: PAUSE AND CHECK RED: STOP NO REASON REQUIRED WATER, FOOD, RIDE HOME PROTECTION READY BOTH PEOPLE GET TO ASK

I read it twice.

“Add one more,” I said.

Gael handed me the marker.

“Neither person gets points for enduring something.”

They watched me write.

“That one stays,” they said.

“It has to.”

“Date Question Three. Is there anything you do not want tonight?”

I thought about the booth, the rain, every time I had agreed to something because refusing felt more complicated than going along.

“I do not want guessing,” I said. “I do not want to pretend I am fine if I am not.”

“Done.”

“And you?”

“I do not want you to say yes because you think I need it.”

“I won’t.”

“Good.”

HONEST ANSWERS: 7.

Gael tucked the scorecard back into their pocket. “Do you want to come home with me?”

“Yes.”

“Green?”

“Green.”

Their apartment was three floors above a repair shop, full of cables, instruments, and plants trying their best beside the windows. Rain stippled the glass. A kulintang controller rested on the coffee table beside two empty soda cans and a bowl of calamansi.

Gael stood by the door without reaching for me.

“Can I kiss you?” they said.

“Yes.”

The kiss began careful and became hungry without becoming careless. I held their jacket open at the front. They held my waist and waited every time I shifted.

“Still green?” they said.

“Yes.”

“Can I touch you under your shirt?”

“Yes.”

Their hand paused when I moved it, not away, just slower.

“Yellow?” they said.

“Yellow. I need water.”

“Excellent call.”

They brought two glasses from the kitchen. We drank on the floor beside the couch, knees touching, and I laughed when I saw the scorecard tucked behind a synth pedal.

“You planned for documentation.”

“I am a musician. We archive everything.”

“Even kissing?”

“Especially kissing.”

I took the marker and added KISSES: 1.

Gael read it, then looked at me. “Can I have another?”

“Yes.”

By the time the rain softened near midnight, we had stopped twice, checked in more times than I could count, and learned that asking did not spoil desire. It sharpened it. Every answer gave me more room inside my own body. Every question let me offer something back.

Later, with Gael asleep beside me and their hand open on the blanket between us, I recorded Memo Three.

“Production note,” I said. “Closed-market date successful. Grilled corn was excellent. Consent checklist is usable. Asking for what I wanted did not make it less romantic.”

Rain clicked against the window.

“I have spent years saying I did not need a word. Maybe I did not want one because a word could make my whole life visible at once. Men. Women. People who did not fit the easy boxes. Me.”

I looked toward Gael, then back at the red recording light.

“Bisexual fits more truthfully than every temporary explanation I have used. I am not ready to say it into a microphone. But I said it here.”

I saved the memo before I could edit the word away.

On Monday, I locked Control A, switched off the ON AIR sign, and played all three memos through the near-field monitors.

Memo One held rain on glass and my careful route around the truth. Memo Two held corn-paper crackle, Gael’s laugh, and every polite sentence I had built to avoid one clear word. Memo Three ended with me saying bisexual like I had set a glass too close to a table’s edge.

I opened each file in the editor. The waveforms looked innocent. My cuts did not.

In the first memo, I had removed a sentence after dated men, dated women, dated people. I had replaced it with complicated history. In the second, I had named the file identity notes, as if a bland label could keep anyone from looking closer. In the third, I had marked bisexual for deletion and only left it because I fell asleep before I could save the edit.

I had not lacked a name. I had been hiding from what it could make visible.

Gael knocked once, then came in with a paper bag of warm pandesal and cheese spread.

“Breakfast?”

“It is four in the afternoon.”

“Then it is late breakfast.”

I took the bag but did not open it. “I need to say something before I turn it into work.”

“Okay.”

“I’m bisexual.”

The word sat there, ordinary and enormous. Four syllables. A fact. Mine.

Gael put their synth case down beside the wall. “Thank you for telling me.”

“I hate that it feels like a revelation. I have had this entire life.”

“Then it isn’t a revelation. It is a word you are letting yourself use.”

“That might be worse.”

“Why?”

“Because then I can’t make every person I dated into an exception.” I looked at the paused waveform on my screen. “Men, women, people who made the categories bend. I kept acting like each one was separate. Like I was separate from all of it.”

“That sounds exhausting.”

“It was.”

Gael came closer, stopping beside my chair. “Can I kiss you?”

“Yes.”

Their mouth met mine slowly. No performance. No rush to turn my answer into anything larger than it was. I touched the front of their shirt and kissed them back until my shoulders stopped living beside my ears.

Gael reached for the scorecard under the monitor.

KISSES: 3

“One for bisexual,” they said.

“That is not how scoring works.”

“It does today.”

“I also want to keep seeing you.”

Gael looked at me. “Plainly?”

“Plainly. I want dates and bad food opinions and your cables all over my apartment. I want to ask questions. I want you to ask them too.”

“Yes,” they said. “I want that.”

KISSES: 4

I opened the pandesal bag. Butter and warm bread filled the booth. “I have a pitch.”

“Of course you do.”