Fifteen

Author's note: These chapters are NOT stand-alones...The story starts here.

Another lesson in economics...3

Lexi arrives home looking a little frightened and is immediately surrounded by Jana and Lyn. Thirty minutes later, her arms are around me, her head on my chest as she asks, You promise I can bring home friends when you get back? Promise?

Yes, I promise.

Me and Mel with you tonight. OK?

OK.

Not the girls, OK?

Agreed.

Good. Craig, we will be good to the girls. It will be OK.

I am not sure how it happens. One moment, Lexi is holding on to me and the next it is me holding on to her. She is only two or three years older than these three young kids. Only two or three years…

Two hours later, there are three additional women, one man and eleven kids. So that makes it twenty in total. Need me to explain? My four, the three women, plus a husband, makes is 4+1+3+1=9 and then you add the eleven kids and you get twenty.

So, in a way, just as a matter of the number, it is a party. The youngest kids are under three years of age. The married couple, Jocelyn’s family, has four kids which includes Jocelyn. Katrina’s mom has three children plus Katrina. May has a younger brother and a sister. The reason Katrina’s mom wasn’t there this morning is that she was both working and was caring for her two year old at the same time. I feel like an idiot.

Just as Lyn and Lexi told me it would be, it is an evening of manners. Respectful statements, smiles, kind words, and compliments.

I have known some of the less well off in Southie¹, where barely a sentence can be made without a ‘fuck’ inserted somewhere. Here, these upright poor folk would have cut their tongues out before a foul word passed their lips. These people are making what seems to me hard choices, but there is dignity here at the very same time.

I might well be feeling isolated, but I am also feeling honored to know these people. I am not as good a person as are they. And that is something else I am chewing on.

There is no requirement to bed the little girls. They can say I am their boyfriend without anything really happening, and so it seems like I will have three extra lodgers. It seems nuts to me. Last night my four were opposed as I was to this, now they are in favor of it.

I can make no sense of the matter at all. On top of all else, I am being referred to by the other kids, the five little ones who will not stay with us, as Tito Craig. I am told that means ‘Uncle Craig.’ In a matter of minutes I have become a family member, and one to be honored by the children.

Financially, my plan has not sprung a leak. The additional fiscal hit is small.

Looking at this in a different way, I have sprung a leak. I now have a larger family than I have ever experienced in my life. I gather that these mothers, their children, and the one father, will all now see me as relatively immediate family, as will possibly Mel’s father’s family tomorrow and Jana’s family next week.

I pull Jana away from the others. I just need someone to talk with. This feeling of isolation, being both surrounded by so many and alone at the same time, is worrying me.

Jana, I have not been here two weeks yet and I now have seven living with me. This has to stop. Please tell me how it stops.

When the house is full. Then it stops. The bigger the house, the more we can fit. It is fair that way. There is room and money for food, so there room for the seven. See?

Maybe. Are we out of room now?

Maybe yes. We will see.

The party breaks up at 11:30 with the babes basically bouncing off the wall, they are so damned tired. Mel and Lyn situate our three new girls in a bedroom together on the second floor. This doesn’t seem to be a problem. They are not clamoring to be deflowered and I have no such plans.

There is nothing to clean up as all lent a hand in that process before leaving. We just lock up the house and retire to the bedrooms.

Lexi and Mel are here with me and that works just fine. It’s not sex that I am needing to have with Mel, it is just being ‘with’ her. Every day I have been here, to this very day, I have had sex with one of them. That is sort of nuts. It goes against everything my world expects and assumes about male-female relations. The guy is to be in serious need of sex while the female doesn’t think it’s a big deal at all.

Mel appears to be more than ready for some action. I am not. So that is topsy-turvy, right? It’s close to midnight and I am just tired. I say as much to Mel; the result is less than what I might hope for. She is feeling rejected. I pull her into my arms with the intent to just comfort her. Mel has different plans.

For the second night in a row, my manhood is being coaxed to attention in spite of the owner’s intent. I can’t say I am all that firm as Mel mounts me from above, but she does seem to have me inside of her hot cunt.

That seems to do it, and the expansion to fully inflated status follows quickly.

By any standard, Mel is a young woman. Young and pretty, sweet and self-effacing, the girl has a great deal going for her. What she sees in me beyond a life-line is unclear. But love and attachment can grow on rockier soil. I choose not to judge any of these girls harshly.

For whatever reason, Mel is riding me in a dedicated fashion. No dilatory attempt, this. She wants to get off. She is working her way towards that goal as she bounces on my now rigid pole. I am doing little, other than to match her rhythm. It seems to be enough, as she is cumming.

The feeling on my member is satisfying but not encouraging a response. I suspect I am really just too tired as I lie on my back taking it all in but doing little myself.

Lexi has been a bystander in all this. Now she leans in, facing me and meeting her lips to mine as she takes two firm grips on my head.

There is an urgency to Lexi. I can feel it and, in some way, I sense it. In that second way, she is imparting that urgency to me. My balls tighten and cum shoots into Mel’s cunt.

And that is Lexi. Somehow she reads Mel’s world and figures out what is missing. I really do not understand Lexi, but she is a very special girl.

Saturday morning finds my original four and the three new ones all pulling together in anticipation of the pending arrival of Mel’s father’s family. They will be here shortly after noontime. I choose to make myself scarce via time with a book.

I don’t have much to report from the visit. Mel’s dad has no English. He does want to sit and drink beer with me. I gather that we are bonding via this procedure, but little of any substance occurs. The guy’s two wives seem to be interrogating my girls, but the result seems to be approval on their part. All are happy, a meal is consumed and the rented videoke is used far longer than I would have preferred it be.

In the end, I am able to mark Saturday as a victory. I have been accepted by one of Mel’s parents, her polygamous father with his two wives. Mel is less than happy, as her mother and she are now formally estranged. That makes my sense of victory less an ‘us’ thing and more a personal success.

I take Mel aside to talk this through. If her mother matters that much, she should consider leaving me. I will understand. What I cannot abide is her mother interfering with how I live my life. Mel leaving is one thing. Her mother messing with what happens here is quite another.

She gets it and does not want to leave. She is just sad.

Tonight, our guests are gone by 10PM, but cleanup takes the girls another two hours after our guests have left. I am not helping and that is at their request.

Instead, I am sitting on a chair on the balcony of the bedroom enjoying the cooler evening air. It is not quiet out here tonight, but I am above it both literally and figuratively. The noise does not rise very much this high up and so it is not at a disturbing level. I know it is there but am not rudely impacted by it.

This time alone, away from the others, is also an ‘alone time,’ but it does not carry the negative connotations of the feeling of isolation I feel when surrounded by others.

This being alone, is calming. It does give me time to reflect on how fast everything has been moving. I desperately need to slow things down or this just isn’t going to work, no matter the promises I have made.

I need to have a stake in the ground. For now and until I return, no more changes. I don’t want to play tourist now. I can do that when I get back. What I want to do is ‘nothing.’ Sure, I need to see my surroundings a bit more, but I want to just hang out as well, and make sure just being here, without any new crap, is going to be OK for me. Sometimes too much activity can hide the obvious everyday issues. I need time to just ‘be.’

I hear the bedroom door open and less than a minute later Jana is sitting next to me.

You OK, Craig?

I think so.

Mel say you think maybe she should leave. That true?

Huh, no, not exactly. Mel is sad she can’t bring her mother here. I told her that if she can’t do this without her mother then maybe she needs to leave. I can accept it if she leaves, but can’t accept her mother interfering with things here. She says she understands and wants to stay. I never said I want her to leave

Ah, OK. Yes I see that.

Maybe I should talk to Mel now?

Talk to her in the morning. I think that is soon enough.

OK.

Craig, no problems with my family. Promise.

Yes, you told me that before.

Sir, Jocelyn wants to know when they become your girlfriends.

What does she mean?

Sex, Sir. When you have them in your bed.

Ha! Maybe in a few years.

Sir, you make a joke?

No. Why?

Then it not a good idea.

Jana, I don’t care. They are here. That’s enough for now. I want no more changes until I return. No one new in my bed, no one new living in the house. That just has to be the way it is for now. Those girls can argue as long as they want. I just don’t care. Things just have to settle down now until I leave. When I get back, I will sort out what to do with the three children and with Lexi’s request to bring home her friends. … but even then, I am not promising anything is going to change.

My family can still come next week?

Yes, that is the only new thing I am allowing.

Thank you. Sir, it is late. Come to bed now.

It very much is late. The bed awaits. Jana is with me tonight. I make no move on her and she does not make one on me. We just sleep.

Sunday morning sees the three youngest girls plus Mel gone from the house before I am up. I am told they have gone to celebrate Mass at St. Michael’s. I gather the church is close by. Lexi informs me that the young ones were excited to go today as they can walk to the church from here — no tricycle required, though Jana tells me that Jocelyn’s father has a motorcycle and all five ride on it to church every Sunday.

I have seen such things here and I find the whole concept appalling, but it certainly does happen.

Still, the other two would have had to take a tricycle.

I ask Lexi why she didn’t go with her sister and all she does is snicker a bit. I can’t say I am a good, or even practicing, Catholic, but the disdain she is showing is more than a little unexpected. It confuses me and so I gently press the matter.

Lexi looks right at me and asks, You believe it? Really?

So, Lexi, you don’t? What don’t you believe?

It a scam! You know it. The Priests… they say have children, no condoms, no pills, but enjoying sex a sin. They not married, right? So why do they sneak and have sex? If money is the devil’s tool, why do they collect money from the poor who not have much? They have more money than the poor they take from. I see it. It true. They say the Archbishop in Cebu, he live in a palace. That is very wrong. It a scam, that all.

I don’t have anything to offer in reply other than to thank her for her honest answer.

Lexi and I will get along just fine, but it is pretty clear that she won’t win any Miss Congeniality award among other Filipinas. She is not a go along, get along gal.

Lyn has just served me what I am told is a traditional Filipino breakfast. In a way it is pretty similar to a traditional American breakfast. You substitute fried rice for the potato, and a sweet cured ham (she calls it tocino) for the side of meat you get in the States, along with the fried egg and you have it. It is close enough to what I know as breakfast that I find it a pretty darn close to comfort food. Given the fact that there has been very little that I have eaten here that can so qualify, this is a nice exception.

As I eat my meal, I explain to Lyn and Lexi what Jana already knows about how I want the rest of the week to go. They seem happy with my decision. All I hear is from Lyn, who says nothing more than, Good.

Jana tells me she has spoken with Mel this morning and thinks it is OK now. But that triggers Lexi… What you tell her?

I say, Craig not want you to leave.

Why you need to say that?

Little sister, your Ate is sad that your mother can’t come. Craig said she needs to decide, either accept his decision or go back to mama. She think Sir want her to leave. She is wrong.

She say that? She say Craig wants her to leave?

Correct, she say that.

She is buang². OK, you do right, but I will talk to her too. Craig, what you do today and the next days?

My intent is to do a little riding around during the days, looking at the surrounding area, and grabbing maybe two more books from the bookstore at the Mall.

I had initially planned to see Davao. I really don’t intend to right now, but the girls tell me that, while it is safe to take the bus, it is not smart to take the motorcycle all the way there. And anyway, they want to know ‘why’ I want to see Davao. Am I unhappy with this place?

When I explain that I am just curious, I am urged to hold off on that until I return from the States. As that was my actual plan, for now we make a plan for tomorrow to see Polomolok, Tupi, and Koronadal City. They want to go to Lake Sebu as well and are pushing me to agree.

I doubt we can see it all in one day and so the plan changes to a two-day event with a stay over in Koronadal City, leaving the visit to Lake Sebu on the second day. But the problem is that I can’t take all the ‘older’ girls with me on the bike, and Lexi has school anyway.

The decision is to see if I can rent a car for three days…. because on Wednesday they want to see a ‘resort’ near Glan on Sarangani Bay. I mention that I have just told them I didn’t want to do much. The response is… they agree and this isn’t too much.

The girls get busy checking on the car rental matter via their contacts at the Sydney Hotel.

An hour later, it turns out that a car rental does not appear to be possible, but a rental of a van and driver is, even with the stay out of town on one of the nights.

With an overnight trip, Mel says she won’t come with us. Lexi and the three kids all have school, so they won’t be coming. It will just be Lyn, Jana and me. And though I don’t want to take the bike with both behind me, a van seems excessive. I ask if there isn’t some other option other than the van and I am told there isn’t.

It seems a bit fishy, but I decide to go with the flow. I don’t know enough about the place and how things are done to push the issue.

As to today, I decide to go back to the mall and purchase another couple of books. My plan is fine as it goes, but these girls have their own agenda. I am asked to wait until the churchgoers return because others also want to go to the mall. It is a heads up that I am no longer simply able to make plans for myself without considering others.

But, I can’t take them all on the bike. They will have to take a tricycle, so why wait? The answer is that it is best if we all go at the same time. It sounds nuts. However, it is also clear that I need a four-wheeled conveyance going forward. I might like the motorcycle, but the number of bodies here argues for an alternative means of transport. Resolving that will have to wait until I return from the States.

I find it fascinating how quickly the issues of normal life in a place become clear and must be considered, once the decision to stay has been made. I am no longer a tourist. I was a tourist when I arrived, but that status has been lost. I am now a neophyte expat.

Yet, when I got the motorcycle, even though the girls were already here, I was still just thinking about me. They, however, are making it clear that I need to factor their lives into my plans.

So that is what I am doing, only to realize that I need a van! I have just before been thinking that this current trip doesn’t need one, but it is what I will need to purchase, and that means I will be taking a great many trips when it will seem excessive, for the simple reason that I am not going to purchase a fleet of vehicles for the various size needs I will have on any given day.

The thought of needing a van is nuts, humorous, embarrassing and all too real.

§ § §

1 - ‘A part of Boston on the Southern End of the City. Home to Castle Island, partially Dotty, and indeed the living place of many Mics with a love for liquor. "I'm Irish, I drink, I scream my disdain for the Yankees when the Red Sox play Philly. Don't tell me I'm from South Boston, I'm from fucking Southie."’
2 - Foolish or gently crazy. Not stark raving mad, just off her or his nut.

§ § §

Another lesson in economics...4