Fifteen
Copyright © 2019-2020 by VeryWellAged
Author's note: These chapters are NOT stand-alones...The story starts here.
The final count...2
December seems to sneak up on me. It is never cold and the rhythm of construction has lulled me again into a semi-mental torpor. I am very much keyed into the doings of the construction, but all else fades away.
Every day I need to be on my toes or little details get missed all too often. So I attend to every detail here and the rest of the world just doesn’t seem to even register as existing.
At times, plans are not interpreted correctly and an opening for a window in the hollow block will be set too low, or a conduit comes out through the footing too high up. These are all small things, but they keep on popping up. If I am not here, and not looking, I will pay the price for years to come.
Today is no different. I catch two things that need to be corrected. Nothing catastrophic, and maybe it would not have made a difference in the long term. Still, both were set to right because I was here to catch them.
I have a guard stationed at the front gate under the shade of a canopy for now. No one comes in or leaves without signing in at the gate. No delivery gets through without proper paperwork and the load being checked.
There has been some pilfering here and some disputed deliveries. The cost of the armed guard at the gate, a little over one hundred dollars in real costs based on the current exchange rate, has been offset by the savings on the back end as the pilfering has stopped as have the problems with deliveries.
George asks me if we are celebrating Thanksgiving, which he reminds me, is only two weeks away.
The fourth Thursday falls on the twenty-fourth this year. I haven’t been doing anything for the holiday up to now, but George wants to celebrate with me. I laugh and tell him he can’t afford to feed my family.
Now, considering how wealthy George is, both of us know it is a silly comment, and he is insisting. I make noises about being on the lot but, he says, we can put it off until late afternoon and, now that I have the guard by the front gate, I can certainly be gone for two hours!
He’s right and so, this year, we will celebrate an American Thanksgiving here in the Philippines, in a house that looks like a scene from Roots. There is irony here. The celebration we will enjoy is one we had to leave the USA to experience. I am celebrating with a harem I would not have if in the USA. And we will be doing it in a manner which, at least, gives a passing nod to life in the southern USA prior to 1860.
Do I feel like a pre-civil-war slave holder? I do not. But, I cannot fail to reckon with the economic disparities that existed then and those that exist here, now.
I mean, look at them! Look at my harem and just try to tell me that such things are possible when economies are vibrant, and normal labor rates support a ‘middle class’ existence.
Look at any nation where that is not the case economically and you will find severe societal problems. You had it in the USA in the 1930s. Just look at the growth of the YCL1 in that timeframe.
Things can go out of whack fast and, if they don’t get put back fast, well, you can get a harem, I guess, depending on how things play out. You can also get civil unrest and dictators. Things worked out OK for the USA that time, but that doesn’t mean it always will.
This is a third world country. There has been some civil unrest here for a long time. There is also the need for concrete walls the locals here call fences. But make no mistake… these are not white picket fences, they are tall walls that exist for security purposes. The armed guard at my front gate is not there for social reasons.
George is pushing me to man my gate around the clock. I tell him that Gladies and Shara have handguns, but he is not impressed. He tells me I need guards at the gate with AR-15s or MAC-10s. When I tell him that I suspect that is a little excessive, he starts telling me about kidnappings that have happened and introduces me to Filipinos of some means who have had relatives kidnapped.
I haven’t told George about what I may be worth. His concern is simply that the size of what I am building will be the subject of gossip far and wide. It will invite problems. I need to take some measures to add security.
I ask him why this conversation is happening now and not a year ago. George laughs and tells me that many expats talk a big game about what they will build. Most never do it at all, but even if they start the projects, many give up or run out of cash. When he looked at my project these last few months, he decided he needed to mention that he was worried for me.
Can you even get a MAC-10 here?
I have one. And yes, they can be had. Your guards can get AR-15s legally. … Do you still have girls attending public school?
Yes, why?
They need bodyguards to take them to school and pick them up.
Oh, Jesus, George, don’t you think that might be more of an inducement to kidnap the kids than if they just came on the back of a bike?
Hey, it’s your life and the lives of your girls, not my life, but Filipino families do this. Of course, those kids are going to the pricier private schools and many kids there are dropped off in black SUV’s so it’s not so obvious, I guess.
Maybe I will just start home schooling for them. It would be easier.
You can do that?
Yeh, … that’s right, you wouldn’t know as you don’t have any kids. Yes, it is possible. I have been doing it with three others for a while now.
Didn’t know that. Since you are already hooked up with that, sure, that seems like a good solution. So, will we see all of you for Thanksgiving?
Sure. Thanks, George.
How many are you?
Fifteen, plus me and the infants and two young boys.
How many seats in your van?
Fifteen.
Damn, Craig, you need a fucking bus.
I guess I would, if we were in the States, but we aren’t. Each of the infants will sit on a lap and the way Filipinas cram in, all will fit just fine.
And we all do. The girls refuse to even try the bread stuffing, but they like the turkey and gravy. There is mashed potatoes and all the girls seem to like that. Thanksgiving is a success and Mel announces to Ara and George that we will return the favor, next year in our new home.
Ara smiles and George laughs, Maybe. Maybe the year after that! There is no way you will be finished next year!
I hope we will be done, but he has a point.
The Philippine peso exchange rate is very good right now. Most of the money I have here is in a dollar account. I pull it out in pesos as I need cash. Today I am getting 56 pesos to the dollar. So my money is going a lot farther than I had anticipated.
The economy here is not doing well. Beggars are everywhere in the streets. My girls often comment about that and how life feels so different now.
There is no doubt that they are getting the message, each and every day, as to what their lives might well have been like. That may be the reason why I don’t even have to say something in passing before gals are jumping around making whatever it is, real for me.
I am getting spoiled. I am sure if I ever went back to the States, I would either be insufferable, or totally confused as to why nothing was happening, when I mumbled some damn request.
But also, as 2006 approaches, the reality that Dina has already turned thirteen is being advertised ever more loudly and frequently. In nine months she will be fourteen. Nothing seems to have changed regarding her desire to enter my bedroom and have a child. Well, it has. It seems to be increasingly the only thing on her mind.
Lanie is now twelve. So she is right behind Dina. Each year for the next three years I am adding a girl, inexorably moving toward fifteen. And, as they age into the right to enter my bed, the economy is giving them plenty of reasons to believe it is a good thing to do.
The house is coming along nicely. There is every reason to believe that we will be able to move in before 2007 rolls into view. I certainly hope so. There has been word that our lease may only be renewed one more time on the house we are in now.
When you are in this world of building your own home as your own general contractor, the rest of the world falls away. Oh, I am not forgetting the girls. Not at all, but home functions pretty much without me. I go there to eat, wash, make love, and sleep. That’s about it. The girls spend time with me on the lot, and that’s when we talk about plans, and our lives together.
I love them all, but am so removed from the day-to-day and the childcare that, in some ways, I am a boarder in their home. I had every expectation of moving funds from my investments this year, as I am finally allowed to do so, but there is still a healthy sum in my dollar account here and I just lost track of the time.
My bank balance here is, amazingly, still OK. The Cisco stock is hanging in around fourteen bucks a share and it looks pretty stable. There have been seven stock splits, though none for the last five years.
I am well aware that I am a fucking wealthy man now. The girls don’t have a clue and there is no reason to tell them, but since 2001, my ten thousand shares of that Cisco stock have grown to well over half a million shares.
There is no way, no matter what I build here, and no matter how much it costs, that I will ever have a money problem.
And that causes something of a rude awakening. I came here because I was worried about being able to live my life out, in comfort, as opposed to having to settle for a more financially cramped life as an older man.
That worry does not exist anymore. I can live anywhere in the world I might want to, without a concern. Right now I hold what amounts to over seven million dollars’ worth of Cisco stock.
Even my crappy Apple stock has gained a bit, though it really is, compared to the Cisco stock over these last twenty years, only a pittance. Still, a share is now worth a little over five bucks. Five years ago, it split two for one and just now it has done the same again. So I have four shares for every one I held initially and each share is worth more than five times the initial purchase price. So it is now worth more than twenty times the initial value.
That crappy Apple stock, which I purchased for just over ten thousand dollars, is now worth over three hundred thousand dollars. Imagine this, there isn’t enough value in the Apple investment for me to even worry about it right now!
My economic need to be here, as I understood it in January, 2003, has evaporated. Now? Now, I will never leave. Why? Well, for that answer all I have to do is quote Lyn’s sage prognostication: ‘Sir, if you have a girlfriend, you will want to stay. I sure this.’
The only thing that this wealth has changed is that I am not concerned with my budget on the house. It makes the building of it just a lot less stressful. I am enjoying my days at the lot and, weirdly, I suspect I will be sad when it is all done.
George has been out here a few times. He may be the only one who I can talk to about this project who has an inkling about the issues I am confronted with here. Brian, bless his heart, doesn’t have a clue.
In point of fact, Brian was out here once, saw all the workmen and almost yelled at me, saying I would be very sad that I had all these men here. My house, he announced, would be a never-ending source of frustration to me.
He has seen fit to not return.
Stefan has not come out and makes odd statements when I see him that he will come when I am done. I am not sure what that means. Does he think I won’t be done? Is it an excuse for not having to do a stare and compare? I have no idea.
As of this moment, I have twelve females who come to my bed. That has to be at least ten too many. Am I the only one experiencing such craziness? I hear talk that I am not, but I don’t know anyone who is crazy like this.
It must be more common than it appears from the outside looking in. To this day, when I am in and out of the stores buying things for the house, I all but get propositioned.
It happened when I went to a pharmacy and the two girls behind the counter came on to me as a pair, ready to go with me, right then and there. It happens when I go to the supermarket. There it happens as I pass other shoppers and with the gals at the checkout aisle.
Last month I got into an elevator and the elevator operator … yes they exist here … a woman of maybe forty, started asking questions. When she learned I wasn’t married, even though I told her I have girlfriends, she started telling me about her teenage daughter as a girl who is available.
Last week, I was in the back of the supermarket, close to the eggs and the bins holding kilo bags of sugar, when a little girl, maybe no older than eight, just kept on smiling at me and following me around the store. Where her mother was I had no clue. So, sure the kid was cute, but there was no way I was going to do anything and, besides her being far too young … for the love of Pete … I have too many right now.
My point is, not that I was tempted, I was not, but only that if this happens to me all the time, I can’t imagine that there aren’t other guys who don’t have more than one squeeze.
Are things worse now economically than they were two years ago? Maybe they are. The peso has lost a great deal of value recently.
And that, maybe, brings me back to Dina. She has to be looking around, too. Her seat, as she looks out, is one with a different perspective from mine.
Dina is still going to Lagao National High School. She is around other kids each day. She knows what clothing they have, how much they can afford to eat when lunch comes around, or what they brought to eat from home.
She can see how healthy they are. She can often see how their mothers are doing, when the women show up at school, which is not infrequently in most cases.
My girls can see the beggars on the street when we go downtown. Do they recognize any of those beggars from a past life?
This is their world they are looking at. This is their world without me. What goes through their minds? How do they process it? Are they happy to keep the door shut behind them? Do they wish they could offer a lifeline to a friend?
These are things we don’t talk about directly. Never directly. But there are unguarded moments, moments when a word of concern slips out, a thanking of God they are here, there are so many who simply can’t be here. I have heard reference to our house as Noah’s ark. Even there, I hear mentioned, a quota system was in force.
Are their dreams peaceful or driven by anxiety? Do they feel guilt or are they rejoicing?
I cannot know. It’s not that I don’t trust my ears or their claims. It is at least partially because we are separated by language. I can’t speak theirs, and their command of English is essentially stuck in that of a ten-year-old. It is, for the most part, concrete operational and no more than that. It isn’t that they don’t have more advanced cognition but, rather, it doesn’t get expressed in English.
I truly love my girls. I know that sounds far too facile. I lack any meaningful skill to make it sound heartfelt. I am sure most will think... who can claim to truly be in real, and deep, love with fifteen, or twelve, or even ten girls? I know, it just sounds like an excuse for having a harem.
There are times when I look at myself in the mirror, and, truthfully, I find myself asking the very same question… how can it possibly be?
It does me no benefit to catalog each of their own sweet idiosyncrasies. It makes it no more believable, should I tell you what makes each of them uniquely happy, when we lie with each other.
Would you believe me, even a little bit, when I tell you that even holding any one of these girls’ hands is a sure-fire way to calm any anxiety I might have at that moment?
I have known Lyn, Jana, Mel, and Lexi as my lovers for three and a half years. Not one of them is like any of the others. Each of them is special and has a special place in my heart. Li2x, May and Dido I have known for as long, and they have been in my bed for three years. All but Dido have borne me a child.
Every one of them will walk over hot coals for me and, I damn well know it. Every one of them is priceless.
So tell me how any sane man would not be in love with them?
I have known Si2x, Jing2x and Reina for three years, and each of them have been in my bed for more than two and a half years. What I have said of the others, I can equally say of them.
And the two mothers? I have known them for three and a half years. In my hands, they have placed their own flesh and blood. They have bound themselves to me. It could not be clearer. They are mine. Have they caused me heartburn on a couple of occasions? Yes, they have, and I can’t conceive of a way that we could have avoided it.
And the last three. I have actually known them for three and a half years, too. In a sense, they are growing up in front of me. Maybe that is the reason I find it the most disconcerting that they want to join the others in what amounts to a harem.
§ § §