All Chapters of The Boyfriend App : Chapter 61 - Chapter 70

From all the opening and closing prayers they did at school, at the beginning and end of the day and during Chapel Time, Kate and her classmates were bound to notice who among them came from more devout families, regardless of which religion. Those students were more comfortable with leading the class or a group in prayer or discussion. And since differences in social status and wealth had somewhat been muted by the wearing of uniforms, in a religious school, one’s devoutness became the new “It factor”. In fact, not a few of the pious kids were on the Top 10 Honor Roll. They also had their own school clique called the Chris Cross Club (pronounced kris-kros, not krahy-kros) and was an in-school extension of the city youth group, also Protestant, where they addressed one another as “brod” and “sis”. The Chris Cross Club was the second most active group in Kate’s homeroom section, 11-Narra, whose class adviser was Mrs. Lim (of the "My-stomach-is-my-alarm-clock" notoriety). Even though s

The first song on the list is Aretha Franklin’s "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman", which is also THE best soul song of all time. I don’t play the songs on shuffle even though I can – don’t be misled by my analog-looking record player – because with only 25 tracks, what’s the point? Besides, chatbots like me don’t believe in Shuffle. So, amid the Queen of Soul’s exuberant, gospel-music-inspired vocals, I brush my teeth every morning. Some people might find this weird but I actually prefer to brush my teeth BEFORE breakfast. It’s because, for a loveless Dream Boyfriend like me, the cliché that food has lost its flavor isn’t a cliché at all. I don’t get cavities either. Nor do I have, for that matter, enamel that could be damaged by too much brushing. I’m just going through the motions of being human as a self-imposed training routine. I spend exactly three minutes brushing. During the first verse, I walk into the bathroom, stocked with water from a well, examine myself in the

Woo-hoo! Oh YEAH!! I don’t know how I’m doing it but my new body seems to be capable of terpsichorean movement. In fact, I have no fewer than 25 freely movable parts in my head, ears, mouth, neck, waist, arms and legs. Most of my joints or axis points can rotate 360 degrees, too, but to avoid spinning my head and looking like someone demon-possessed, I content myself with dancing through mainly bobbing my head, wiggling my ears, shaking my butt and wagging my tail. Wait, a minute. Back up… A tail?! I have a tail?! I move across the room as swiftly as I can – i.e. in little, tremulous steps. Gee whiz, I’m like a geriatric robot whose every step rattles and makes a whirring sound. I’m still down on all fours so crawling is a more appropriate description than stepping. My palms and the bottom of my feet have sensor pads that record every contact with the floor while my depth cameras and laser sensors help me navigate through pieces of Katey’s clothing strewn around. As soon as I get

“One day,” Mrs. Lapuz continued narrating, “my mother did give me a bit of advice about my impending adulthood, which in those days seemed to be rushing at me like a rampaging bull: big, scary and unstoppable. I remember it was one of the countless times she was going through my hair with a fine-toothed comb and squishing head lice between her thumbnails. “It’s the woman’s job to serve her husband, she told me, to put herself below him and after him in all things, so that they would have a happy marriage. And from that moment on, I regarded Vic as more than just the sum of his physical attributes: his height, the steepness of his nose, the muscles in his arms… “I began to see him as a future partner who I would make my life with, a bridge between two families so that tradition and the inviolable circle of life might continue. At the same time, I started to feel lighter and easier, here inside my chest. Oddly enough, Vic even began to look handsome in my eyes. A good man, not a great

“When did you first meet Mathias?” Kate pressed because her ma looked like she was getting anxious about the time. To her relief, her ma replied: “When I was six years old, I saw a dog on the beach digging up something in the sand. It was soon after Christmas and New Year’s, I remember. The whole village, including my family, had glutted themselves with turtle meat and eggs. There was still no conservation awareness in those days, you see. “I didn’t eat any turtle meat or eggs myself, partly because our Science teacher has taught us the importance of preserving the ecosystem. Mostly it was because with every sea turtle brought ashore, I sensed gentleness and wisdom in their slanted and droopy eyes. Not to mention even after you cut off a turtle’s head, those same eyes would still open and close. The turtle’s flesh would move, too, even after it’s been chopped and even as it’s being boiled.” Kate’s pupils dilated and the horrified look on her face deepened. “I tried to discourage my