Fifteen

Back to Some things should not be diagrammed...3

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

Some things should not be diagrammed...4

Lexi looks at me and says, Craig, we talked about how the girls we hire need to understand that this might happen.

We did, but I also said I really only need maids. I was only saying that there was a strong possibility, based on how this house works, that it might not work to have a maid I was not having sex with. That is still the case now. But before anything happens about sex, their ability to do the job as maids must be clear, as well as the issue of trust that I have talked to both Mel and Lyn about. Ask them. Plus, I did tell you I only needed two, not three. You know that.

Craig, this isn’t fair…..

Lexi, stop! This is one of the new girls. Sir Craig is right. He not want a prostitute. He want hard working honest girls. Girls who he can trust. Why we not want the same from him. We not know him. He not know us. He is only saying, wait a while. Let us be sure. If we sure then the love will be good and not wasted. You did good. You get us here. It is now for us to show Sir Craig, you find the right girls.

Lyn, at least, has heard what she likes. Yes, you speak the truth. And you heard Sir Craig correctly. I think we are done with this conversation.

And what started with whispering ends with silence. Lyn nicely and politely said, Enough.

I was not sure who I would be with tonight, but I know now. It will be Li2x. She who from the first time we met was the one to speak to me. Who played the translator last night when I really needed it, and who spoke up correctly tonight. Little Li2x, who is another Lyn in the making.

I am sure I could learn what her life was like. She is too close to it and her mother is only a phone call away. But do I really want to know?

No, there are some things better left hidden.

I am still pondering that as I enter my bedroom.

Craig?

Huh?

See?

Wow. Where did that come from?

I bought it at the mall today.

I thought you were going for school stuff.

True. I got that. But I get this to wear for you.

It is very pretty.

Glad you like it. I talk to my mother. She say, ‘Best to make my man happy in the bedroom. I say, how that? She say, look pretty for him. Make sure he know you want to be there with him.’

You have a very smart mother.

Li2x grins and says, Mother say, ‘That why I still have your father. You think it an accident or luck? No! It because he never think he not wanted. I make sure he know that.’

Well, I suspect there is more to this tonight than what your mother told you, but she gave you good advice. And in truth, hers is probably better advice than what most girls get. So, am I to understand that you are going to hold on to me for a long time?

Silly. I never leave you. But, Craig, I really need a baby.

Sweetheart, even if you don’t have one for six years, you will still be very young. Why the rush?

She really can’t answer, or she just doesn’t want to tell me. But it doesn’t matter. We are going to make love and I am going to cum inside her. From that point on it’s up to biology and not me.

The blood-red slip she has on is sexy as all get out. I don’t try to take it off her as we get into bed.

I am naked and she’s in that red satin slip, as my hand reaches between her thighs and plays with her pussy. I want her to feel good, but Li2x starts giggling.

What’s so funny?

Those three girls. They want to be where I am. But I am here. They are not!

Ha! You be careful Li2x or I will have you eating their pussies every night for a week.

How bad do I have to be for you to make me do that?

Why do you ask?

Because, then I will be that bad! Ha! I want to see their faces when you tell them they have to spread their legs for me! Who you think more worried, me or them?

Speaking of spreading legs, kid, it’s time you spread yours!

She does and in I go.

Sex between people who actually like each other, can be playful with each other, and have love for each other; well, that’s the good stuff.

What I have found, with a girl of fourteen years, is possibly off the charts as to probability, but it has happened.

Is Li2x’s cunt hotter or juicier than the other girls here? No. Is she a better lover that the others? No. Do I love her more than the others? No. Does any of that matter? No!

Making love with Li2x is great. My love for her is real. We are bound together as tightly as I am bound to the others here. There is trust and safety. Nothing else matters.

I guess I could tell you how she arches her back as we make love; how she whimpers as her orgasms hit her; how her tongue sticks out sometimes as I pound her cunt. Yes, I could, but that would not put you in bed with her and, quite honestly, I don’t want you there. Li2x is mine.

Tonight, that feeling of being a couple is as real as it gets, as she looks up, smiles and, knowing I am moments away from what she feels inside her, says, Now my love. I am ready for you … NOW! As my cum hits her.

That’s my little Li2x.

Monday morning brings with it the need to see about the processing of the title. I have no idea what is involved, but if Rena wants the job and knows how to do it, she has earned the right of first refusal. I ask Lyn to text Rena and see if she does this sort of thing.

I am still eating my breakfast when Lyn’s text is answered in the affirmative. Yes, Rena is happy to assist. Texts follow texts. It is decided that Rena will come here.

There is no reason to explain the labyrinth of bureaucracy that is involved in processing the paperwork, but there is one oddity I guess is worth mentioning. Hang in with me, as it is a little weird.

Under Philippine tax law, the seller of property must pay tax on the sale of the land, as it is the seller who is gaining the money from the sale, as opposed to property tax whereby each year a landowner pays for the right to retain the land.

But, as I mentioned before, land sales here are cash transactions, and there is no way for the government to know a sale has occurred on the seller side.

The buyer, however, has to register the deed of sale to generate a new clear title. So it actually falls on the buyer to pay the tax, thereby actually increasing the cost of the purchase by a fair bit. To reduce the tax burden on the purchaser, it is fairly common practice to create two deeds of sale. One is the actual amount, the other, listing a lower price, is provided to the tax authorities.

Now, this practice is so common that the folks at the tax bureau know all about it. So you (or your representative) go into the bureau and present the deed of sale, and the officer says to you, ‘This is not the true amount. How much you really pay?’

You reply, ‘No this is true!’

‘I not think so. I cannot process an invalid thing such as this!’

‘But it is true! Can we maybe come to an agreement?’

And there it is. … That’s the kicker. The person you are talking to may have a government salary of what amounts to less than seventy-five dollars a month. It is a pitifully small amount.

So you agree to meet the individual at the mall the next day whereby you offer an inducement of, say, what amounts to three hundred dollars. The next week your paperwork is approved.

Welcome to the Philippines.

This person you just bribed is driving one of the only cars in town, because you are not the only one who needs paperwork approved. Just about every transaction of decent size will need the same assistance.

That is not the only person who will be bribed to get a valid deed registered and new title released. There is actually a long line of people who need to be bribed, or you can wait for many years and still never see your title.

It is Rena who explains, over cokes, breads and sweets, exactly how the system works. And now, as she lays out all the paperwork we received from Trujillo yesterday, I see the duplicate deeds with the different sums on them.

As it dawns on me how well Trujillo was looking after me, my understanding is registering on my face. Rena starts to laugh.

See, Sir? See? Atty. Trujillo, he know what you need. He take care of you. He is a good man, I think. … Sir, I will do this for you correctly. You will see. Do not worry. I know what to do. I know who to talk to. We will do this for as little as possible. This is because they like me and know I always take care of them!

I think what she is saying needs a bit of an explanation.

Rena represents many supplicants and she always uses the same employees, rather than taking whoever is next. In doing that, in taking a little longer to get to the right person, that person knows even more is coming from Rena with future business if they play ball. It’s a win-win for the employee and the supplicant. And Rena earns her ‘consideration’ in the process.

You could say that the Philippine people as a nation lose tax base. You could, but you could also note that this is small-time corruption. The big corruption is skimmed off in the national legislature. Precious little comes back to help the people… and so the people are helping themselves and keep the money in local hands. Small time corruption offsetting the bigtime corruption.

In any event, the initial effort to register the deed and gain our title starts on the second day of June, 2003.

Rena has left, and with her a bunch of the paperwork, though I do retain the true deed of sale, with the true amount, here.

And that gets me thinking. I need a safe. I have ‘land trust’ paperwork. I have a deed. I will have a title soon enough. I have my passport. I will have documents related to a retirement visa, soon enough. A safe for a firearm? Well, I can think of the firearm later. But, for now, I do need a safe.

I send texts to George and Brian asking about architects and engineers. I have Lyn text Rena for references as well.

I am not ready to build a house, but George told me it is critical that I fence the property as soon as I can. He also said that fences need city building code approval.

It is for little gems like that, that staying close to George is something I will do. Just like the fact that to build that wall I will need a source of water, which means digging a well now. Once the wall is built I can get temporary electrical service to build the house. But it will be better to get the electrical service even before the well is dug.

This, one-foot-before-the-other, type of guidance, for a neophyte like me, is invaluable. How do I know his advice is good? I don’t, really.

But am I better off taking the advice of a guy living in a sixty-four square meter home, or a guy who lives where he can’t get decent electrical service?

Rena may have a wonderful referral, but I need a way to balance local professional advice against the intellect of a guy who successfully built a mansion with half a mil. Because, for crying out loud, if the local advice is to bury water and electric inside concrete walls without double wall construction or an outer heat sink, well, the local advice is something that will only go so far.

I am thinking about the wall and looking out from my balcony as I do it, when it hits me. I can’t start the wall until I know where the electrical service will reach the property line. I’ll be damned if I am going to have electric lines overhead on the property. I can just see problems with tree branches as well as the unsightly nature of it.

Once I know approximately where the service needs to come on the property, I can run the needed conduit before building the fence, crossing well below ground level and below where the fence will be. But, from where will the electricity poles come?

I think I need a trip to what Lyn tells me is Socoteco 2, but she says I may need help getting introduced to the right people there.

OK, Lyn, who can get me the introduction?

Rena! She say she know people there, remember?

Rena, again. She is becoming my majordomo and that is a little unnerving. I am putting a great deal of faith and trust in this woman.

It is odd, but you can place a marker right here. Here where everything changes from one thing on top of another to the classic Filipino ‘wait a while, Sir.’ Things that have been at a running pace now turn into various types of crawls. Each item on a different, but protracted, timeline.

Tomorrow, the kids all start school and their schedules are intense. I don’t see them typically in the morning at all and they barely get home for supper.

Referrals for architects, engineers, and a contact at Socoteco2 take months before anything meaningful occurs. The process of getting the deed registered seems like it has been frozen in time.

The money wired here, from the sale of the Dorchester house, sits patiently at the bank. George and I get together once or twice a month as I watch molasses flow uphill on a cold day.

My evenings continue to be remarkable with my seven girls. Dido turns fourteen, Jana turns eighteen, and Lyn is twenty.

Reina, Chrislyn, and Jing2x are all still here at the house. Each is fine as a maid. In the trust department, there have been no causes for concern, but not a one of them has entered my bedroom for any other reason than to clean it.

The only thing of note is something that has occurred back in Boston. It started with a text late one night, about two weeks after I got the text that the cable TV company was sending a registered letter.

Mr. Byrne, I am checking to see if you have replied to the registered letter you have received.

I have NOT received any registered letter.

Have you refused it?

It has not arrived. I am told I may not see such a letter for a month or two.

Please check with your post office. It must be there.

I will check, but your assumption is parochial and misguided. This place operates very differently than things do in the States.

I hear you but please check.

OK, is there a tracking number?

Yes. It is xxxxxxxxxxxx.

OK it’s 11:23PM here. I will check in the morning.

I have a cellphone number for the postmaster at the local PhlPost office and so in the morning I texted the guy. His reply was:

The letter not in GenSan. Arrived in Manila. Now in mail bag on boat. Will eventually be here, Sir. Pls have patience.

I copy and paste the response to the text number in Boston, along with a follow-up that says:

Like the postmaster says, have patience.

OK, got it.

About a month after that the letter arrives. It is not delivered. Instead, I get a text from the postmaster that he has the letter there.

I sign for it and take a photo copy of the GenSan date stamp on the envelope, before opening the envelope and filling out the information on it.

Before sending it back, I take a photocopy of it. I then mail it, take the receipt I got from the clerk at the post office, and made a photocopy of that. Following which, I fax the form, the photocopy of the envelope with date stamp, and the photocopied receipt with a hand written note on the receipt that it is the receipt for the return mail.

The next day I got a text from Boston.

Problem Mr. Byrne. The company said that it took too long and they have already reported you to the credit agencies. We told them to reverse it. They say they can’t. They say you need to request it. We say that is not possible from your location. They say there is nothing they can do. We are holding a hearing on the matter. Will advise.

As of now, that is all I know about the matter. I am not sure I care much about my credit score in the USA. They don’t use it here. Still, it pisses me off.

Things do happen here, they just seem to take a long time. Today I got word that my household goods have arrived in Manila and with some ‘consideration’ offered to the right people I have avoided import duties and taxes. I may actually see my container next month. I am not holding my breath.

Tomorrow I actually get to meet with an engineer at Socoteco 2. I have the plot survey with me and a large map which helps locate the plot. As I am planning to build something that will be considered a mansion here, George has told me I will need my own transformer. I guess I buy that separately but it goes up on a Socoteco 2 utility pole and they have to approve the size of the transformer.

This will be an interesting meeting, as all I really need to know is where to put the conduit. The sticking point may be, depending on the current needed to the pole, the pole placement may vary.

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Some things should not be diagrammed...5