Bunny Interludes Nineteen

Workout continues unabated: Three times a week, two hours a day.

The program given to me by the head coach is significantly easier compared to the program I had in my first gym. This time, instead of focusing my energy doing an hour of cardio exercise, my main thrust is the free weights. If I had to do a bench press or a military press exercise, there are no machines to assist me. All I have are brute force and stored fat to help me execute my program.

The fitness instructors - who are not only gym professionals, but geniuses in their own respective careers are helpful and meticulous enough to correct my executions - to the point of achieving perfection. Without them, injury might have already taken its toll on me. Besides, the camaraderie I have with them is encouraging enough to make me endure walking the extra mile just to continue my program without any man-made interruptions.

Workout continues. Though it would take forever to achieve the ideal body that I desire, I can already feel what the work-out had done to me.

In an angular shot I have taken in the shower room's mirror a week ago,

A more buffed Joms emerges in the mirror: A sign of the things to come if workout continues and laziness, which is the common enemy of a bodybuilder is kept in-check.

A Prelude To An Alliance

Mami Athena calls him the Princess because according to her, he is cute and fragile looking. Wanda Ilusyonada, who is his close friend back in college also addresses him in the same manner. He is a tall, very lean gentleman with a remarkable chinito facial features that puts him in the category of good-looking guys in the office. Compared to my rugged and brute disposition, he is a class act. Armed with an exceptionally outstanding fashion sense and a penchant for creativity - particularly in the field of visual arts, he stands out among the rest.

We were already friends long before my company had an expansion. Back then, I just knew him as the fashionista/artistic guy who caught Mami's interest. During a colleague's birthday held in the same subdivision where Princess lives, he invited Mami to check his place and see his tiny room - where he keeps all his artistic creations. After giving her a tour of his "world," Princess presented her with a painting that Mami still boast today.

Being an eccentric guy, he instantly registered in my gaydar. Despite his masculine demeanor, he gives a strong hint that we belong to the same boat. When he told me that he used to watch movies alone at Ali Mall back in college, I knew that there was something different in him. My speculations were further boosted when he told me that he loves listening to Celine Dion.

On the eve of the eyes wide shut episode, he was about to come out to me after a drunken colleague gave an impression that we were girly for him. Perhaps Princess was impressed when I stood up, hit the table with my knuckles and warned the drunken bastard never to mess up with me. But everything was just a joke though - knowing that I've always been out at work. But somehow, my display of force and aggression inspired him. He was about to confess that he is not straight (by hinting that there's nothing wrong when the bastard told everyone that his first impression of us was that we're girly acting), but I was too drunk to focus my attention to what he was about to say.

Eventually, he outed himself a week later when he told Mami Athena that he is gay during an impromptu drinking session. But it never came as a surprise to me anymore, since Wanda already confirmed what my sensors were getting. And even if our common mother insisted that she doesn't see her as one, I just contented myself to hide the truth.

Despite our common affiliation that bind us together, Princess and I were not that close. He belongs to a circle of straight guys who lives in the same subdivision. They arrive and leave the office together, so our communications were usually through instant messaging. What's fascinating about their set-up is that even if he's out to them, his barako comrades still sees him as a straight guy. When I look at him together with his barkada, I see Princess as the esteemed leader, while his tropa serves as his personal "bodyguards."

I would have been happy to leave things that way it was. However last friday, it seems like fate wanted our lives to cross. After finding out that he's going to Malate to check the place out, I decided to leave my drinking buddies at Metrowalk in order to follow him in Orosa.

At BED's dance floor, we sealed an alliance with a toast of Red Horse.

-tobecontinued-