The meaning of life and haircuts
Vieve is with me tonight. I have never touched this girl. Until just a month or so ago she was a working whore. That’s what she was doing when she met Kenneth. Her being with Kenneth is not a signal that she was no longer a whore, but only that she was occupied as a whore with one guy for a while.
The change in her outlook while with Kenneth also wasn’t proof of anything. Wasn’t he just a long job as a whore? If in the process she had doubts about that herself, that didn’t mean her life as a whore was over. She very much might have found another John after Kenneth left. I expect that, if she didn’t end up here that evening, it is exactly what would have happened. If Jelou was a whore in training, Vieve was the real thing and had been for a while.
I am not sure I believe people change their basic nature. We are who we are. But she is only sixteen. Possibly, she hasn’t lived long enough for the behaviors and life’s work to be truly considered as a fixed reality. I think back to my early life. Maybe it’s not the same thing, but I started smoking cigarettes when I was fifteen. By the time I was twenty I was a two pack a day smoker. And then I woke up one morning and my chest felt weird. I didn’t pick up a cigarette that day, nor did I the next day. That was forty-seven years ago and nothing has changed. I don’t smoke. If you are young enough, you can decide something isn’t working for you, at least I could.
If I had not heard her talk about the uneasiness she had felt but didn’t connect with her life’s work until Kenneth, I would not have given this a chance in hell of working.
As it is, I am, in the deepest recesses of my heart, still unsure that she is going to stay. If she goes, it will be her decision and she will not be welcomed back.
But for now, she has done all she can to be a good egg and live within the boundaries this home has. And for the sake of fairness, I note that she has used her brain and her heart to do only good since she came here. Not one problem I have had can be laid at her feet.
Considering the stress we have all felt recently, that is not a small thing.
Vieve is an interesting kid. She doesn’t speak a great deal. She hangs back and watches. She sees everything and seems to know what everyone is up to before she moves an inch. I suspect it is the residue of learning how to survive in a difficult world.
Tonight she is studying me. But I am not sure she is going to get anything worth noting in the process. I am not ‘itching to jump her bones.’ Yes, we will have sexual congress. We will fuck. But if we don’t, it will not be the end of the world.
I go about getting undressed and putting things away, putting things in the hamper, and getting ready to shower. Vieve has done little.
I look at her, a question on my face and then expressed. Are you going to get ready for bed?
I thought you are going to fuck me. Why you getting ready to sleep?
We will have sex. But we live here, together. You are not here for a sex act. You live here and you live with me. Sex is part of it. But so is dressing, undressing, showering, shitting, sleeping, and all the rest. That is what life is like when it is not sex for money. Is that a problem for you?
She looks at me, completely stumped. I don’t think this is what she expected. And then she asks me pretty much the question she asked me when I refused her the first time.
Am I pretty?
She is, of course. Yes. Very pretty.
Do you want me?
That is a silly question. She would not be here if I didn’t.
Vieve, are you my girl?
I hope so.
Well, for many years to come you will be with me. You will be sick, you will look like hell, and I will still be there for you. I will get sick, grow very old, and I hope you will be here for me. Yes, we will have sex tonight. But this is not a job, not a performance to be graded. You cannot fail. We will get ready for bed. We will enjoy being with each other. That will probably include having sex. But Vieve, you are home now. You should have sex only when you really want to, not because you are supposed to do it. Do you understand?
She looks at me as if I had just given her a dressing down. She utters, No, I not.
For crying out loud. What do I do now? I go to her, pull her to me and kiss her. The kiss lasts a while, I hold her and kiss her again. Vieve, you are a mistress. A mistress is pretty much a wife without the papers and in this case with other wives around me. So, Vieve, you are my wife. Stop worrying. It is really over. You are mine.
Oh! I scared I make you not want me and you will say, Go! That really not happen?
That is not going to happen unless you start being a prostitute again.
I never again! I promise!
So you are here to stay… now wife, act like one. Let’s get ready for bed.
OK! Yes. OK!
And bless her heart, she does. She hums and laughs and talks to me about a silly thing that they found at the ukay-ukay1. It is like someone flipped a switch. She is a different person. But in a way, a younger one. More childlike. This is not what I expected. Vieve is a worldly girl. She has seen a great deal of the tough side of humanity. I didn’t expect that critical eye would fall away in an instant. But it has. Or at least is seems to have fallen away. We will see what the rest of the night produces. It occurs to me that she has no clue about normal wives, or any normal life. Maybe she is modeling what she thinks a wife would be like. Maybe she is regressing to who and what she was before life as a prostitute took her childhood away. Is it here and now that she regresses before she can learn what normal adult life will be like?
Damn, my mind is running down rabbit holes.
We are progressing toward bed. Showers are taken, and things are set aside for the night. Finally in bed, Vieve seems to be confused, frozen in place.
I reach out and bring her to me. She comes willingly if not with an understanding of what comes next. I decide to give her something to think about that signifies the consequences of being with me here, and now. Maybe that will give her an anchor.
Vieve, are you really ready to be a mother?
Sir?
Well, I might get you pregnant. Having a baby is an event, but being a mother is a lifetime commitment. When we have sex, there will be no condom tonight, unless you want to avoid pregnancy. Do you?
What you want, Sir? You want me pregnant?
I want to know if you think you are ready to be a mother. That is what I want.
I not know, but the others, they will help me, so it OK, Sir. If you want, we do it.
Yes, you are correct, the others will help you, but you will be the mother. No one else can be that for you. Never again will you be a girl. You will be a mother.
But not like my mother, correct?
Yes, that is correct.
I not know how a mother is then. My mother not good I think.
I will help you as much as I can. Are you ready, or do you want to wait a few years?
No. Bad idea I wait. It OK now.
I don’t need to bring her to me. She is already here. I do lean in for another kiss. I am going to take a breast in my hand, but she pushes me back, onto my back, breaks off the kiss and moves down to take me orally. This is something she knows how to do and this time, it is not for money, it is for making a family.
Sure, she knows babies aren’t made by giving head, but she is going to fire me up first.
Once again, a switch has been flipped and I no longer have the young girl with me, I have the vixen. She has my balls cradled in one palm, and a hand on my dick. She is going down on me, at first not as much to get me off, as to transfer as much saliva on to me as she can, soaking my dick and her hand in the process.
Task completed, the sucking and pumping begins in earnest. She is very good at this. This is no amateur learning the craft. She has me hard, rigid, in no time.
She pulls her head back, a grin on her face and her eyes lock on to mine. There is a hungry look in those eyes. She moves up, centering her cunt over my dick, never taking her eyes off mine as she moves. They stay locked on as she sinks her cunt over my dick and impales herself. A new smile emerges, eyes affixed, as she posts on me.
I was so wet from her saliva that I am not really sure how wet she is when we join. All I know is that the process is a smooth one.
I feel her cunt muscles contracting like a ring around my dick as she moves up and down on me, as if it were her index finger and thumb encircling me. But it isn’t. It isn’t her fingers, it is a cunt that is doing things I had not thought until this moment are even possible.
I am grunting. Damn, this is so good. She is smiling again. She knows she has me ramped up. She reaches down and pinches my left nipple. Shit! Oh, shit. I am going to cum. This is so out of control. I have no control.
I do cum, but Vieve hasn’t. She may think we are done. We are not. Not by a long shot. I push her onto her back and slide down enough to take a breast in my mouth while I use a hand to explore cunt and clit.
Vieve complains. No. Not needed, you cum already.
Lifting my head up for a brief moment, Shut up, Vieve.
I am back on her breast. I have fingers in her cunt, on her clit and my pinky is playing with her butthole. I sense I am getting to her, at least a little bit.
Her nipple turns rock hard. She hunches against my hand. I hear her breathing becoming irregular and ragged. I keep it up.
Pushing fingers deep into her cunt, my pinky piercing through her sphincter, I bite down on her right nipple and I get my reward. I keep up the attack and a few minutes later, now biting the left nipple, I get my second reward. Vieve is pleading, Rolie, please, nahimo2.
I slide up and give her a kiss. Now we are done. We will never be done until you have cum. Clear?
Why?
Because those are the rules of the house, and they ought to be the rules for any marriage. The wife needs to get off at least as often as the man.
Oh. I not think this is normal.
You, my sweet girl, have no idea what is normal.
She giggles. Maybe you right. But OK, it fun. She snuggles in a bit more. Sleep now?
Yes, girl, now we sleep.
I don’t think there was a moment all night when she wasn’t holding some part of me. Of course, I can’t be sure, as I slept most of the night just fine. But each time I awaken for some reason she is latched on.
Morning comes with Vieve stroking my dick. As I rouse, she starts nibbling on my ear. She asks quietly. It OK, I here tonight again?
Ask Jezryl.
She say OK. I sure. Me and her good together.
Assuming you are correct, OK.
Good. She giggles. Very good. I go now, OK?
Yes, that’s fine.
By the time I am downstairs for my coffee and some breakfast, Vieve and Jecim have gone to the market for fish. Myra has gone to work, and Jelou has gone to school. Jezryl sits down by me, a coffee in her hand, and clearly wants to talk.
You make my friend very happy.
So it seems.
You not happy about this?
Oh! Sorry. Yes I am pleased, but it is too soon. I know she is happy, but will it wear off? Will she miss what she was before? I hope not, but how can I be sure. For all of you, her change in life’s direction is the greatest and maybe the hardest.
You want her, yes?
Yes. I am happy with her. I hope she stays.
Good. This good. We both yours tonight. OK?
Yes.
Rolie, what to do with Alida?
That is sort of up to Myra. She knows as much as we do. She is in the middle. I have given her more room to suggest a plan we will follow, but she also has a firm understanding of the consequences. I do not know what she is thinking. All I can be sure of is that this must be a very difficult decision for her.
She grabs my hand, kisses two or three fingertips. I can’t be sure why, but tells me to wait right here. A minute later she is back with the bag of manicure stuff, and demanding I hold out my hands. Evidently, she has found my nails are too long.
It doesn’t take long before the task is done, but now she decides she needs to inspect my toenails. They too must be clipped. This takes a bit longer. But eventually she has them clipped into submission and is repacking the bag.
Rolie, you have electric clippers in a drawer in your bathroom, correct?
Yes. Why?
Charline, she cut your hair?
Yes.
Good. I get it. Wait a minute!
Wait! Jezryl, do you know how to cut hair?
Of course, yes. Why not?
I have no idea if she really can do a good job or if this is going to be a disaster.
A few minutes later she appears with what looks like a bed sheet, an extension power cord, scissors, two combs, a clip like you use to hang laundry, and the clippers.
Come to the terrace, she tells me. We do this, there.
She sits me down on my chair. The one I sit on when carving. The sheet is draped around me and clipped tight to my neck. She plugs in the clippers and starts about her work. I am in serious need of a haircut. Of that there is no question. It’s not that I had put it off. It is more that I had not had to think about barbers for years. Every once in a while, Charline would announce that my hair was too long and it would be cut. Barbers are not a huge expense here. I could get a haircut for forty pesos. I just never needed to do so.
In a way I am relieved that once again, the matter has a solution. But can she do a decent job? There is no mirror to look into here. I have no idea how things are going. She seems to be confident. She seems to know about the clipper attachments. She starts with a number 3 and then uses scissors for a bit, before using the clippers with a number 2. She doesn’t use the number 1. Instead she removes the attachments to edge the back of my neck and sideburns. She moves back to the scissors and back to the clippers with the number 2 attachment.
She removes the sheet and decides she needs the clippers again but she needs me to remove my shirt, as the cuttings will get under the shirt if I do not. So, off the shirt comes and she 'cleans up' my lower neck, before brushing me off, putting some talc on me, and announcing the job is done. I thank her and am about to go inside to look at a mirror, but she has a small one with her. She hands it to me.
There is only one thing to tell her and tell her I do. Perfect.
The terrace is a mess with all my hair. Jezryl picks up a rice broom and starts sweeping up the mess. Life is good for me… and then I think about the folks yesterday in the Honda Fit and I feel guilty that my life is so damned good.
Soon enough my anti-reverie is interrupted by Jecim and Vieve who have returned with bags of fish. They are talking to each other a mile a minute until Jecim sees my newly cropped visage. She cries out Oh! Gwapo3!
Vieve swivels her head to see me and offers her agreement. So I guess it is official. My new haircutter is Jezryl. Once I have been suitably fawned over for a minute, the two enter the house with their bounty from the sea.
The wood has been sitting, patiently waiting. My knife rests in its pocket ready to be called upon.
There are three vigils4, and three funerals in preparation; none of them will we attend. Instead we will go about our normal lives, as un-normal as they are.
Life and death occur everywhere. Everyone dies and so this crop of those who have left us, does not change the total of the population who will die here compared with those in the USA. The total for both is, simply, one hundred percent of those living will die. And as all three might not have had any more kids, their deaths make no depression on the birthrate either.
So why do I feel like life means less, is valued less here? Is it because the life span is shorter?
The life span in the USA was far shorter one hundred years ago. Did those Americans value life less? Is it the casualness of it? The intensity of the vigils, all night for many nights, with dozens of family members all gathering around, suggests that there is nothing casual about it. There is an acceptance of it that I am not comfortable with.
I suspect that, at one time, it was the same way in the USA. But now, folks die in hospitals in the USA after prolonged stays. Death is antiseptic there, no longer personal in some weird way. People die earlier here and far more from acts as opposed to illness. And even when it is illness they are either at home when death comes or in a hospital room crowded with family.
Yes, there is that difference too. When you are in the hospital here, you are never, ever alone. Family members stay with you, intercede for you, care for you, feed you, and bathe you. There are no visiting hours. It occurs twenty-four hours a day.
No, they value life in so many ways, while at the same time being so cavalier about protecting that life moment by moment. The juxtaposition of the casualness and carelessness with the intense familial homage is beyond explanation.
It bothers me. I accept death. But death by misadventure seems so wrong, and the juxtaposition of behaviors is maddening.
1 - Used clothes stall near the public market.
2 - Done (Cebano). In Tagalog the word is Tapos.
3 - Handsome. (Cebuano) Tagalog is Pogi.
4 - Wakes.