The Ark

Copyright © 2020 by VeryWellAged

Birthday thoughts...12

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

Birthday thoughts...13

Fuck. I wasn’t supposed to see her until tomorrow. I’m really not ready.

When I get to the reception area I don’t see her. There’s a couple chatting with the person at the front desk. There’s a guy a fixing hinge on a door. There’s a child, I assume waiting on the couple at the front desk. No Shaniel.

I text her.

Where are you?

I hear a cellphone chime. It isn’t mine. It’s the child’s. She looks at the message, looks around the room, and walks up to me.

It me. I here. Why you not see me?

Oh, fuck. I know what I want to ask, but I don’t want to ask it here. No, not in front of all those in this room. I don’t say a word but indicate that we should leave.

Luckily she follows me out of the building and I immediately ask. How old are you?

Eighteen?

Show me your picture ID.

I not have.

How old are you really. Tell the truth.

Sixteen.

She doesn’t look sixteen to me. Yes, sure, I can’t really judge age in younger folk any more. It’s even harder for me when judging age in Asians well at all, but she just looks very young. It’s not the small breasts. Clearly that would describe most Filipinas.

What’s your nickname?

I’m learning that many do not really use their given name. Princess is Bim. Lorie is Ri. And Shaniel sounds too long to be used here.

Ann. I am Ann.

OK, Ann. I’m visiting with some friends in my rooms. Maybe you and they can talk a bit. Come with me.

I’m not ready to say anything else to the kid and don’t want to explain anything about what I’m doing here to a child. I take her to the Villa which is an entire building that constitutes our rooms.

Bim, Cincer, Nelia, this is Ann. The one who contacted me as Shaniel. She claims she is sixteen. That is way too young but I’m not even believing that is the real number. I have told her nothing other than you are friends visiting, which is very true. Please figure out why she is here.

There appears to be a negotiation related to language. Bim and Cincer are Tagalog speakers. Nelia is an Ilonggo speaker but she is able to speak a reasonable amount of Tagalog. Ann is a Visayan speaker. She doesn’t know Ilonggo and has little Tagalog.¹ In the end, it’s determined that the only language they have in common is English! Go fucking figure!

So instead of their conversation being meaningless to my ears, I’m hearing everything. Will wonders never cease?

Cincer takes the role as interrogator.

Friend, what year is your birthday?

1989, Ate.

What month and day?

February fourteen.

So, you will be sixteen next February?

Yes!

That why you tell Sir you are sixteen?

Yes, of course.

You in school?

No.

What your last grade?

Six.

You stop school at age twelve?

Yes, Ate². The high school too far away and no way to go.

You live in the province³?

Yes! You know this?

A little I guess. That all.

Why you want to be with Sir Ira?

My friends all get married.

In the province?

Yes.

All married at your age.

Of course, yes.

But you not want to marry?

I not want to live in the province. I want different. I hope maybe the city. I hope a nice foreign man, so life better? You know?

A foreign man cannot marry you. It not legal. You too young. You too young to be legally married to anyone in the Philippines. Yes, tribal marriage, but not true legal marriage.

Oh! I not know. We all marry at this age.

Yes, I understand.

No one say it wrong.

So long as you are in the province and the boy is from the province, they do not argue, but it truly is not legal.

Oh.

Do many men where you live have more than one wife.

Yes, of course! Why you ask that? This is marriage.

How many wives does your father have?

Two, but he is poor. He not afford more.

So, if a man has money, it OK for four or five wives?

Wow, he must be rich! The wives very lucky I think! Is Sir rich like that? You his wives?

Yes. We are his wives in the same way of your province. Not legal by Philippine law, but in truth we are. Friend, do you want this man to take you as a wife, too?

If he a good man, I will be very lucky I think.

I have heard all of this. Cincer looks at me and I haven’t a fucking clue what that look means. Bim has tears in her eyes. I don’t know what that means, either.

Nelia is just smiling. I turn to her and ask, Is this the same as where you live in Passi City?

No, but I know places where it that way. I see it before. Nothing new.

I decide to ask Ann a question.

Do your mother and father know where you are?

Yes.

Do they know that you have come to see me?

No. How they know that?

How long have you been in Tacloban?

Maybe five months I think. I tell my parents I come here. I not like the province.

And what did they say?

They say it my decision.

Have you spoken with them since you left the province?

No.

When do you have to go back?

Excuse? Why I go back?

I see. Never mind. … How do you get money to live? To get food?

I get numbers for jueteng⁴. I a tigkolekta⁵.

What’s that?

Cincer explains that Ann must be working for what I think she is describing as a bookie.

Where do you live?

It a bed spacer⁶.

I’m lost again. I have no idea what a bed spacer is. I have Bim and Cincer explain all of this to me. It turns out that while the kid isn’t living on the street, it’s damned close to it. Which gets me thinking.

How did you get on the website?

My employer, he run the Jueteng, she⁷ has a computer. She allow me to use it when I not busy. It a good deal. I not have money for the Internet cafes.

I feel lost. Truly lost. I think back to Bim’s ‘you not understand our culture.’

I truly don’t understand this world. It’s so radically different from my world that wrong and right are losing their meanings. Ann fundamentally left home to avoid a bad marriage and a bad life, with hopes for a better marriage and more opportunities. In the meantime she is working for an illegal numbers operator and is living hand to mouth.

What she wants is to, at fifteen years of age, be one of my wives, leave her rough existence behind her and live a good safe life. In her context… in the context of this place, Ann and my gals seem to think it makes sense.

In my world of life in the US, it makes no sense at all. It’s a combination of juvenile delinquency, child abuse, and statutory rape.

How do I deal with this? If I stay here, will I get in trouble? I surely need to consider that. But even if I don’t, how do I make sense of this for myself, outside of both contexts: the Philippines and the USA?

I’m lost in thought when Cincer asks, possibly a little more forcefully than needed.

Ira, can we order some food please?

What, now? And then I realize why she is asking. Oh, yes. Of course. Please. Get lots of food. I am sure we are all hungry.

I’m thinking of my friend with the Filipina wife. How much will she simply infer by what I’m not saying? How much will she put together when I sell the house and move here? And if she does put it together, how much of that will she share with her husband, my friend?

Will she dare? What if what she tells him, communicates that he got the raw end of a potentially better deal? What would be the way she sees it? What if she tells him I’m busy sexually exploiting Filipinas and that is why I’m staying here?

What will it matter what folks think of me when I’m gone? I would like them to think I’m a good guy. But will it really matter?

Ignoring the potential underage stuff, I’ll have what amounts to four wives including Lorie as she turns eighteen. That alone would have repercussions back home. But it won’t be home any more. So why am I caring about that?

It’s been twenty plus years since I was married and there are no children to worry about. So is it just my ego and my vanity? My need to have people think well of me? If I’m gone from there, there won’t even be a burial plot for people to spit on if I disgust them. Why should I even be a topic for them if I’m well and truly gone?

It won’t affect my pension, my 401K, or my social security checks. Why is it bothering me?

I think it’s because I’m no different from them, back home. In my head it just seems wrong. That’s why. It seems wrong, but as Bim said to me, ‘you not understand our culture.’ I really don’t, and that keeps on tripping me up. I need to find a way to let go of my cultural beliefs. They don’t work here and are just getting in everyone’s way.

I have a headache. All this is stressing me out.

There are bedrooms in this villa. I go into one, pull the drapes, turn off the lights and lie down. … Someone is kissing my neck and ear. Huh, I think I have been sleeping.

Ira, Sir, come eat. There is food here.

I don’t think Nelia is comfortable enough yet to just call me Ira. It’s cute. We make love and yet, ‘Sir’ is still there.

OK. …Wait a sec… Before we leave the room. What do you think I should do about Ann?

What you mean?

She’s too young, right?

I not think this. It OK. I think she is yours now. Jesus brings you to us for this! And, Ira, Sir, we like her.

You all like her? You all think she should stay? Really? You discussed this? How?

We talk in Tagalog. She hear it but not know it. So we can discuss privately, see?

Yes, I get it. And you really all think I should accept her?

We do… Ira, Sir, she know about land we can get. A good price not too far from the city, but far enough that the cost not bad. The owner, he needs to sell it bad. If you have the cash, we can get five hectares at low price! She also know a house close to it we can rent. She can show us tomorrow if you like.

Wait! How did we go from, I should accept her because the kid is needing a safe place to land, which is where I thought we were, to this? How does she know all this?

Nelia laughs. It the jueteng. She learn much when she do this. Yes she need us but she know a lot too.

I see. OK, I guess it is time to eat.

Once out of the room and among the rest of them, I tell Bim that I think it’ll take me a while to really accept all the differences between my culture and this one, but as of now, I guess I need to accept the way they see things. Following which, I turn to Ann and tell her, Here are the rules. You must never lie to me. You must never be sneaky. You may disagree with me, but that means you must tell me what you think and why you think it. If you can agree to those things, I accept you as a wife.

There’s complete silence. No one is speaking. Cincer and Bim seem happy with what I have said, if I’m reading facial expressions correctly, but I’m not getting any audible feedback. And then… Sir, come eat. Your other wives get lots of food! There is so much! So says my new wife, Ann.

Ann has a Nokia phone. I gather it is a necessary tool of her trade as a bet collector. She uses it to text her employer. She’s quitting.

The border between dinner and afterward is elusive. There are platters of food just lying about. Every once in a while someone eats something. Oh, we all eat a fair amount to begin with, but the rest of the evening, grazing continues.

There are a number of beds in the villa. No one seems to be interested in sleeping, but I feel exhausted, probably more emotionally than anything else. And so I slip into a bedroom, shed my clothing and get under the sheets. Let the others just figure out what they want to do.

I don’t even shower and I probably needed to. But I don’t have any intention of being with anyone tonight. I know I’ll need to take the child who has joined us, but for the life of me, as far as I care, it can wait. Let her just settle in. Is she a pity addition? I certainly haven’t added her because I want to jump her bones.

As I drift off, I’m thinking about Lorie. She was my little one until today. She was the one who didn’t want to leave my side. She is the one who figured out how to get here sooner than the month’s moratorium I had imposed. I didn’t want her. She had lied to me. She had been rude. And yet, she crept deep into my heart. How do these things happen? If I were to be with anyone tonight, I would choose Lorie, who isn’t even here.

I must have been sleeping pretty soundly for a while, but I’m awake now because there’s a hand on my cock. I can see well enough to see who it is.

It’s little Ann. I suspect the others sent her in to make sure the deal is sealed before I have second thoughts.

I have, most assuredly, had those second, as well as third thoughts, but I’m going to take her, regardless of those thoughts.

I pull Ann up and bring her to my lips for a kiss. She is willing and the kiss I receive is enthusiastic. I need to slow her down a bit, but she takes the hint and the rest is more than good.

There isn’t much to her. She is small in all ways. It seems to be true of all of them with the only real exception being Nelia. These gals are as far from the tall Nordic beauties I lusted over as it’s possible to get, and yet they’re real pretty. I’m not having any problem on that score.

Ann is naked and my hands roam over her body. It’s small and taut, muscle and sinew. No fat, no extra anything. Everything she has is there for a purpose. When I feel her butt I’m feeling the muscles beneath the skin. Running a hand over her back is to feel muscles tight over ribs. Her breasts are small and incredibly firm. She may well need a bra later on in this life, but now, there’s no need.

Her cunt is moist. Not wet, and most assuredly not gushing. But there’s dampness as I part her lower lips and slide a finger up and finally over her clit. She gasps a small gasp and clutches tight to me. I do it again and she squeals in delight. Again, and this time she grunts, hunching her pelvis forward, greedy for that which is being felt and wanting more of it.

She is on her back and I put my cock were it needs to be. I push in. There’s an obstruction. I push harder and get through. She hasn’t made a sound. I pull back and push in again, a bit harder. She grunts and throws her arms over my neck, pulling me in for a kiss. I like this kiss and hang in there with it while pulling my cock back out a bit and pushing in again.

Her mouth is hard against mine. It’s almost teeth against teeth, Ann is pushing so hard. I move my mouth a bit and kiss her cheek as I pull back and plunge in again. I hear her whisper, Do me gud husband. Do me, do me… my husband now.

My mouth is pulled away from Ann. I gather her legs up in my arms, and push them back onto her shoulders as I pound her with all that is in me. An almost sixty-six-year-old fucking a fifteen-year-old. It’s nuts, and right now I don’t care. Her dream was for something just like this, and now she has her dream in real terms. No one made her do this.

My cock has never been in a more welcome home than it is in now. We fuck for how long? I surely do not know. It seems like a long time, but maybe it isn’t. I know Ann is happy. I know my cock is getting the message my balls are sending.

And then, without warning from me, cum fills the recesses of her cunt and we are done.

Could I have been a better, more inventive lover? Sure. Do I know how? Maybe only on the margins. Does it matter to Ann?

No.

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Birthday thoughts...14