CHAPTER 6
MANILA, AFTER THE RED LIGHTS
Ermita, MANILA.
When T.A. woke, he glanced at the pillow next to his. Marivic was still sleeping. T.A. bent his elbow and propped his head on his palm to look at the beautiful face on the white pillow next to him. Some of her long black hair spread over the top of the pillow.
It was a strange feeling. Somehow there was a physical chemistry between them that fired him to arousal more often than he expected. He thought it was only his imagination the first time he felt it when she touched his cheek on the way to the restaurant. Even when they were in the shower he had simply put that down to being a long time since he had had sex.
Then within minutes, lying on the bed, bodies touching; his body sensed a charge that made him want her again. It was a feeling he had sensed with very few women.
As he thought about it, he could remember one he had felt this way with was quite ugly in fact, had a flat chest and no personality. Yet when she was near him or touched him he always became strongly aroused. That relationship lasted several months even though it was only based on his lust.
Whatever this was, there was certainly a strong sexual attraction. The added bonus here was, this woman was also very pretty and had a good personality as well.
Marivic stirred slightly, made a low animal moaning sound from the back of her throat, turned over to face away from him at the same time as moving her back closer and pushing her warm buttocks into his nether regions. With that simple body to body touch he found himself being charged again and becoming aroused.
This time, she was more asleep than awake when he had her, but somehow, perhaps even more because of it, she managed to drag him into her as though her body was surrounding his like the waters of a warm bubble bath.
He rolled onto his back at the end of it and closed his eyes. She rolled over and cuddled into his side, her arm draped over his stomach. It was as if she was not even aware of what had happened.
If this was just lust, he thought, he would enjoy this for a few days more. T.A. felt the exhaustion of sleep calling, and let it take him.
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When he next awoke, he looked at Marivic's pillow again. This time it was empty. His body and his mind felt so relaxed he could not even think to turn to see where she was.
After a few moments of enjoying the relaxed feeling, he looked around. She was sitting in one of the large comfortable easy chairs provided for the room, her legs tucked up under her. The large chair almost swallowed her. She saw he was awake.
She smiled widely. "Hello sleepy." She got up and walked towards him. She was wearing only bra and panties.
T.A. heard the quiet moan come forth from the back of his throat before he was realised it was him. It was his reaction to seeing her like that.
She kissed him on the cheek before lying on the bed next to him, their bodies separated by the bed sheets. T.A. could not believe what his body was wanting again. Even though he felt quite exhausted, he was starting to become aroused again.
After laying together for a short time, T.A. let common sense rule his body.
"I'll have a shower and let's get some breakfast." He rolled over the top of her, dragging the sheet with him as he went, and locking her arms into her side. Having trapped her like that he began tickling her. Her body jumped in protest as she combined a mixture of squealing and laughing. Then T.A. made a dash for the shower.
"Come on in, I'd love you to wash my back."
Within minutes she had joined him in the warm shower and T.A. surrendered to her touch totally as she proceeded to wash every part of his body with soap and flannel.
When she came to washing his genitals her face took on a very serious expression. He let it pass as maybe just her curiosity. But she was very gentle in the way she washed him, for which he was thankful as he had become a little tender in those parts from the sudden increase in use.
Soon they were both dry and then when they realised the time was close to midday they laughed about how late the breakfast was going to be.
She was fun, he decided. She would be good company and so far seemed to be honest. And the sex was good, really good.
"Would you like to spend a few days with me?" he asked.
She smiled widely. "Yes."
"What about your work, can you get time off?"
Her facial expression went serious for a moment. She went to the phone and presumably dialled the bar. He did not understand any of the conversation. At the end of it, her face again showed the broad smile that he was starting to enjoy seeing.
"Yes I can, for as long as I need to."
"Good," answered T.A. "Let's get something to eat."
After lunch, they shopped for some items for Marivic. She only had the clothes she had been wearing from the bar. The Shopping Centre owned by the Shoe Mart Company was huge. It was larger than any complex he had visited in Sydney and contained a wider range of shops and food stalls than he had ever seen.
They spent several enjoyable hours tasting different food and checking out the shops. T.A. bought Marivic a small soft sided and collapsible suitcase into which they put their purchases. T.A. thought the bag was a sensible one as it folded into a very small size and expanded to various widths. Though they had not even visited half of the shops, they taxied to Robinson's Department store to be closer to their hotel in Ermita.
It was approaching 6.00 P.M. as they left Robinson's. Marivic had purchased a wooden serving bowl as a gift for her Mother. Though it was only a 5-10 minute walk back to the hotel, T.A. decided it would be easier to take a taxi.
They stood outside the doors waiting for a cab to pass which he could whistle for. An intoxicated dirty and dishevelled Filipino, probably in his 30's, staggered past, muttering something, which even though T.A. did not understand, he took to be obscenities.
Marivic moved behind T.A. in fright and gripped his arm with a strength that surprised him. She tried to pull him away from the footpath and back towards the shop doors. For some strange reason there were no guards present inside as would be the case normally.
T.A. did not resist but by the time they were about to re-enter the door, the drunk had staggered past about 15 metres away from them and continued moving slowly further away, still muttering.
He felt the threat, if it was one, had passed. An empty taxi had pulled in to the curb.
Forcing Marivic to release her grip, he swapped the suitcase to his left hand and grasped Marivic's arm. "C'mon lets get this cab." He began to guide her to the taxi.
Marivic let out a scream. T.A. looked up to see the drunk on his left in a staggering run toward him. Then T.A. saw the danger. In the drunks right hand was a long bladed knife. He held it close to his waist as he ran.
T.A. pushed Marivic away and faced the attacker.
"Fucking Yankees!" the drunk screamed, and thrust the knife towards T.A's stomach.
T.A. lifted the bag in his left hand to block the thrust and the knife plunged into the side of the bag and hit the wooden serving bowl.
The drunken Filipino screamed in pain. T.A. wondered why. The Filipino lifted his right hand and grabbed it with his left, covering it. The knife was gone. It had pierced through the side of the bag and embedded into the serving bowl.
Blood started to pump between the fingers the Filipino was holding as he continued to scream. The Filipino must have lost his grip when the thrust hit the solid wooden bowl. His fingers had then slipped onto the sharp cutting edge of the blade.
T.A. looked at the knife embedded in the bag and saw it was a simple long bladed kitchen carving knife, no hilt to prevent the hand slipping. T.A. barely had time to register what had happened to the Filipino's hand. The Filipino reached into his pocket with his uncut hand and produced what seemed to be a large handle. The drunks thumb flicked across the top of the knife and a blade sprung out from the long handle. Once again the drunk began to stagger toward T.A.
T.A. pushed the bag in front of his stomach where he
expected the blow to be aimed. A figure raced at the drunk from the side and shoulder charged the drunk to the ground. Just as quickly the knife wielding Filipino was covered by four or five other Filipino's holding him down and punching him, ignoring his existing injury.
Two other Filipino's ran to T.A's side.
"C'mon Nilo's friend, quick, get into the taxi, we'll fix this up."
Marivic and T.A. were pushed unceremoniously into the back of the cab. The speaker grabbed the handle of the blade that was still sticking into the bag and with some effort wrenched it free. He screamed some instruction to the cab driver and banged a fist into the roof. The taxi accelerated away at a speed that T.A. did not think was possible for these little vehicles.
As the taxi turned the corner and into the street where their hotel was located, Marivic turned and took his hands into hers.
"Don't mention what has happened to anyone," she said.
"Christ, why not?"
"Several reasons."
"I'll tell the police. Nobody wants a mad drunk running around with a knife."
"You'll end up spending hours with the police giving details of this and that for evidence. Then maybe lose days hanging around for police line-ups to identify the suspect. Then they'd have to report it all to your consulate."
"Yeah, I suppose the time lost would be a curse."
"Don't worry. Nilo and the others'll give him some good hard street justice."
"Why Nilo?"
"Didn't you see? It was him who hit the drunk with his shoulder."
"Hell no. I didn't. It was all so quick."
If you tell the police, you could get Nilo and his friends into trouble."
T.A. nodded. She was right. A tickling feeling in his stomach had begun. He took a few quick breaths when a shudder rose from his stomach to the hair on his neck. He was beginning to realise how lucky he had been. He definitely owed Nilo.
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Back in their room, she stripped him, put him in the shower, and washed him from top to toe. He did not resist in any way. The she dried him, made him lay face down on the bed, sprinkled his back with talcum powder and began to massage. He was vaguely aware of moaning with the combination of pleasure and relief as her strong and supple fingers found small muscles that he did not know were tight and worked them to a relaxed state.
The hard squeezing of the massage complete, she began to gently run her fingers over his back with a light tickle touch. Then using her breasts, gently slid them from his buttocks to the nape of his neck. She did this several times. T.A. became as strongly aroused as he had ever been. He rolled onto his back and she took him into her with a circular rolling movement that made him climax as though it was his first sex for months.
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Something caused him to wake several hours later. He noticed the curtains had not been drawn. Marivic was asleep oblivious to everything as seemed usual for sleeping Filipinos', probably up to and maybe even including a nuclear explosion.
The bedside clock showed the time as 1:42.A.M. T.A. thought about the massage, remembered that the lights were off when she had done it, and breathed a sigh of relief. Although they were three flights up, the narrow one and a half car-width weakly-lit alleyway beside the hotel was all that separated this hotel from the more luxurious Bayview Prince Hotel which fronted on to Roxas Boulevard. The guest rooms at the back of that hotel had clear views into their rooms, and vice versa. T.A. was not an exhibitionist.
Gently easing himself out of the bed he moved toward the window and the curtains. It seemed quiet. He decided to lift the sliding window and look for any activity in the alley. The window slid up without a sound. The muggy heat pushed T.A. back from the window temporarily. Then the combination of wood fire, kitchen odours and refuse came to his nose. There were a few people below to his left in the alley gathered around a small fire in what appeared to be the bottom of a drum. They were boiling something in a pot hanging above the flame.
T.A. felt a hand on his back, which made him jerk a little in fright.
"What's wrong?" asked Marivic.
"Nothing, I just woke and decided to see what was happening outside before I closed the curtains."
They watched as a taxi entered the alley and stopped about 15 metres to the right below their window. It stayed still, nobody exiting for nearly a minute, the occupants in darkness inside the cab shaded from the weak street light directly above the car.
The driver’s door flew open and a man screaming something at the top of his voice, carrying something in his hand, ran away from the car.
Marivic leaned out so far T.A. was scared she was going to fall.
"What's happening?" asked T.A.
"There’s two people in the cab trying to rob him and steal the taxi. He's run off with the keys."
Within seconds the cab was surrounded by street people. T.A. was amazed where they had come from. Doorways down the alley that he thought were empty had yielded two or three people. Piles of garbage had come alive and people bedded in them for the night had emerged. These robbers and car thieves would not be going anywhere.
The street people swarming around were pulling on the door handles to get in. The car thieves had locked the doors from inside to keep safe from the mob outside. Some mob members had produced lengths of timber and began smashing onto the bodywork of the car and at the windows. A couple with baseball-bats also appeared and began using them for the same purpose.
A car side window smashed and a cheer went up from the mob, followed quickly by another smashing sound and another cheer. Both cheers were followed by the screams of fear of the cab occupants guessing at the street retribution that would soon take place.
The mob members reached through the broken windows, unlocked the cab doors and dragged the offenders out. The offenders immediately went to their knees, hands held up in prayer and obviously pleading for their lives. Both were kicked in the back, then, kicked a few more times before the mob stopped and just stood over the offenders making them lay face down in the alley.
Three of the mob ran out of the alley and in less than a couple of minutes four men in police uniform arrived, gave the failed robbers a couple more kicks, and applied handcuffs. They were none too gentle dragging the offenders to their feet and out of the alley.
"Wow'" said T.A., "street justice with a bit of mercy and the law,"
"They would've killed them if the driver had been a local."
The street people had disappeared as quickly as they arrived. The only people T.A. could now see were the same ones that were surrounding the pot a few minutes before.
The taxi driver returned, looked at his car with disbelief and nodded his head from side to side. Every panel of the car had suffered damage. Every window was either cracked or broken.
He put both his hands behind his neck, swore some obscenities in his own language, threw up his hands and walked away.
When T.A. lay back on his bed he thought about the loyalty and camaraderie of these outcasts. Marivic, lying on her side, was already asleep, arm draped across his chest.
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As they were beginning their late breakfast/early lunch at 11:00 A.M., one of the receptionists came to their table.
"There's a large parcel and letter at reception for you. It arrived about 10:00 A.M.," she said. "You might like to collect it after you've eaten."
T.A. was curious. There was nothing he was expecting. Nobody from Sydney would be sending him anything, though some special friends had a bit of a guide as to his itinerary.
Marivic looked at him with a frown. T.A. grinned to himself. He felt she suspected the parcel might be from some woman friend of T.A's.
They finished the remainder of the meal quickly and in silence. T.A. dispensed with his coffee. He would have one in his room.
He called at reception for the package and was given a large square parcel wrapped in a large plastic bag bearing the Robinson's Department Store advertising. It was tape wrapped so tig
htly that T.A. decided to wait until he got to his room before opening it. The parcel was light.
"This came with the package sir."
The receptionist passed him an envelope simply addressed to 'T.A.'
Looking at the envelope he saw that it was neatly typed, though the tops of the capital letters showed a well worn use of the printer device.
Marivic had already grabbed the parcel and was squeezing it to try and identify what it might contain. They turned and walked away from reception toward the lift.
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