Even at his age, Jembong was already well-known in our village as bakla, a boy who acted like a girl and liked other boys. I’d seen plenty of bakla on TV, though that boy was the first I’d met in person, as he covered his mouth with one hand in an expression of playful shock.

“Ay, I’m too young,” Jembong replied. “I want to remain a virgin until marriage.”

The neighbors behind him laughed. “You know you can have a boyfriend and still be a virgin,” my grandmother joked.

“I know, but we must remember the words of Our Father,” he said, as he put his palms together, closed his eyes, and feigned prayer. “‘Lead us not into temptation,’ and by temptation He means boys.” This produced a fresh peal of laughter from our neighbors, and I found myself laughing too even though I didn’t know exactly what “virgin” meant, just that it was good to be one like the Virgin Mary. I was also perplexed over how Jembong allowed himself to be made fun of so openly, even if it was just my grandmother’s good-natured ribbing. It was clear enough that Jembong provoked so much laughter because everyone assumed he could never get a boyfriend, that no one ever wanted to love a bakla, which was also the constant theme of those comedies on TV, the desperation of these creatures who were tolerated but never wanted.

We continued our walk and passed by my great-grandmother Inang’s house, where she had planted a fruit orchard in the back. She gave us some guavas she picked herself, before sending us off to Nanay Coro’s younger sisters, Mommy Seleng and Ine, who lived next to each other just a few houses down. Once we got there, we sat on Mommy Seleng’s porch with her four children, who were a few years older than me, and Ine came over with her two sons.

As the adults were catching up, I decided to go inside the house to get myself a glass of water. I walked around the porch to the front door of the low structure with unpainted cement walls and a metal roof that clanged when it rained, unlike our own traditional wood-and-thatch dwelling. I took off my slippers as I went inside, and the cement floors felt cool under my feet. I walked to the kitchen in the back, pulled up a chair in front of the sink, reached for a glass on a metal rack, and opened the faucet to get my water.