Rumor

"Mario, someone among the bosses is spreading a rumor about you... that you live in with a guy."

I got this text message from a good friend in the office a few weeks ago while I was out doing my groceries with Luigi. At first, I tried not to feel bothered by this; however, that night, I woke up from a nightmare--I've never had a single nightmare in years.

In these times, when gay guys have sprouted like mushrooms everywhere in the media and where local indie films almost always mean gay-themed films, I still work in an environment where being a homosexual would be seen as a threat to the morale of the community. No kidding. In a way, I have already accepted this for the longest time because I love my job. I work in a very, very Catholic workplace with a lot of kids.

So when this nasty rumor message hit my phone, I was somewhat rattled. In the office, very, very few people know about my sexuality. I am pretty confident about who I am--in fact, my parents know about me and Luigi. If I may use a really stupid term from the 2000s, I am what people might label as 'straight-acting' or 'bi-curious'. I think I'm very masculine and it has been easy for me to rely on the power of denial--people brushing off the idea that I could be gay.

The funny thing is that I am surrounded by gays at work. I'm pretty confident that 7 out of 10 guys in the office are screaming fags in the closet. And maybe 1 of the 3 out of 10 may be extremely masculine that they could be elusive of my gaydar.

Even my boss is probably one of the gayest persons on the planet; I might as well add that he's probably still a virgin. Not to sound judgmental, but he's not much of a looker--he's very obese, dark-skinned, and sings a lot of Regine and diva songs in public whenever he feels like it. Trouble is that he's fucking tone-deaf and his singing voice always make me reach out for my noise-cancelling headphones. But the most annoying this about him is that he is a hypocrite: whenever I hear him screaming an effeminate voice, "Eeeww, bakla pala siya! Eeeww! Eeeww!" I always feel like spitting at his face and call him a pathetic, frigid closet queen.

I know I could've quit a long time ago, but I really do love my job.

This has not been the first time that someone circulated a rumor about me. There was another boss who knew from a friend who knew another guy who knew about me. Good thing was that he really did hate me way before he found out about my sexuality. So when he started spreading the gay rumor about me, people didn't really believe him because he had been hating me in the first place. Karma got his ass and he was forced to leave the company for being a stuck-up biatch.

Why am I shaken by the rumor? Because it came from my current boss. Yeah, Mr.Tonedeaf-Diva-Singing-Precious-based-on-the-novel-Push-by-Sapphire himself.

How did he find out about the rumor? I'm suspecting that he got it from a colleague whom I had the unfortunate of inviting to my place with other colleagues in a bonding session. We ate dinner one time in August, drank a few, and shared secrets. I never divulged anything about my sexuality, and I told them that I have a housemate who works night shift. And the sad little fucker/rumor-mongerer, who I think is in the closet himself probably assumed that my housemate and I are live-in partners. I mean, who the hell would dare bite the ass of a generous host and spread nasty words to other people, especially his boss?

The night I received the text message, I had a dream where I was running away from someone chasing me. I couldn't remember and figure out exactly what was chasing me, but I remember looking back and seeing a mass of dark entity. I woke up sweating profusely with my heart thumping like crazy.

I went to the office and I tried to act very casually. I tried looking at the eyes of my boss and at the fucker whom I suspected the one who spread the rumors about me. They couldn't look at me straight in the eye.

Weeks passed and the rumor died. I found myself laughing with my boss again. However, I couldn't feel that I could trust the other guy anymore. I find myself harboring ill-thoughts of spreading nasty rumors about him. But I figured I wouldn't go that low. He once told me, out of the blue, that his dad would kill him if he were to see him donning a drag queen's outfit. So his dad is an extreme homophobe--I think that explains a lot. And so I let the Fates decide on whatever sort of karma befits him.

And so yesterday, Luigi and I were strolling in a mall and we found an interesting condo which we could invest on. If we push through with it, it's probably going to be quite the most binding kind of commitment that we would ever do.

And so to the sad closet fags spreading rumor against me, no matter how true the rumor is: Yes, I'm living in with a guy, and we're fucking loving every moment of it. Sana kayo din.



Image Source:
http://www.curvehouse.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/rumors15.jpg