Marisel One
Marisel awoke with a start. In the yard behind the house, the cock rooster was flapping its wings, preparing to announce the arrival of the dawn of a new day. Beside her, Rhida snored lightly. Marisel smiled. Rhida was her younger sister. She was sixteen and in year five of high school, where she was doing well. The family hoped she could win one of her school's few, much-prized scholarships and go to college. If she did, she would be the first in the family to achieve such a feat. Marisel loved her younger sister and would do anything for her. If Rhida had known of the sacrifice her older sister had made for her, she would have been horrified and sad.
Marisel glanced at the cheap, plastic clock on the cardboard box, which served as a makeshift table. It was 5.30 am, and the house was stirring to life. She could already hear the subdued mutterings and laughter from her brothers' room. Ben, Johnny and Joe Junior were dirt farmers, tending a small strip of land adjoining the house. Here, they grew a variety of crops for market and home consumption. They also rented another piece of land down by the river, where they grew rice, a precarious but essential crop, which in previous years had decided the fate of the family finances for the entire year.
They had a good crop in some years and grew sufficient rice to feed the family with enough left to sell at the market. Those were the fat years. In other years, the crop failed when the rains came early or were particularly heavy. Then, the family had to dig into precious peso resources to buy rice. Luxuries such as meat and fish were rarely seen in the kitchen at this time. During times of particular hardship, the family lived on camote tops. This common weed grew by the side of the road and, although bitter and inedible when raw, if boiled for an hour and mixed with rice and, if available, a can of sardines or corned beef, made a cheap and nutritious, if not a particularly tasty meal.
That was until Marisel became the chief breadwinner. Now, they had meat or fish almost every day. And, more importantly, they could afford the school fees for Rhida.
Marisel rose quietly and let herself out of the back door into the yard, which was the preserve of the cock, who was now busily competing with other local chickens to decide which could make the most noise. The cock was the pride and joy of Ben, the oldest of the brothers. Marisel had given him the money to buy the bird he trained as a fighter and took down to the local cockpit every Sunday. The bird had proved a good fighter and won all its five fights, earning Ben and the family good money in prize money purses and betting winnings. When, as was inevitable, the cock met a rival who was the more robust, luckier, or a better fighter, then the family would have lost a good earner but gained a chicken for the pot that night.
Marisel entered the small outhouse as a combined toilet and ablution area. She lifted the shift that she slept in and squatted to urinate into the open drain that ran through the privy and out to a slurry pit behind the house. She wiped herself with a square of old newspaper, which she dropped into the plastic bucket beside her.
She thought about her busy upcoming day. Today, she was meeting with Jonathan, the money man. He knew little of her real life and the struggles she endured and no doubt cared even less. Life, for him, was a universe away from the complex realities of survival that she and millions of others faced daily to get by, such as where the next meal was coming from. Jonathan had money and had become an essential cog in the machinery of her life.
She would soon have to get ready for her trip into the city. She had arranged to meet Jonathan at 1 pm, and he got angry if she was late. Although Manila was only about fifty kilometres from her home, the traffic was unpredictable but usually very heavy. Sometimes, it could take her up to four hours to travel the relatively short distance, so to ensure she wasn't late for her meeting with Jonathan, she would leave at 8 am. This would allow her six hours to reach her destination, which was a short-time motel close to Jonathan's home. Jonathan hated Manila traffic jams and rarely travelled more than a mile or two from his home. So everything and everyone had to come to him. Being rich had its benefits.
Returning to the house to get her towel, Marisel met her Mama, newly awake from bed, hair tousled and looking much older than her forty two years. She'd had a hard life. Widowed at thirty and bringing up five children virtually alone had taken a heavy toll on her body. Marisel loved and respected her mother and wouldn't dare to tell her where the new money came from. As far as her Mama knew, Marisol was engaged in occasional modelling work in Manila. Mama had a difficult enough life, and Marisel did not want to add further to her many burdens. Marisel kissed her mother on the cheek and then busied herself, getting ready for her trip into the city.
Jonathan One
Jonathan raised the cup to his lips and sipped the strong black brew within. He had found the coffee shop a few weeks before and enjoyed their excellent Americano. The cafe was set back slightly from the busy road and had an outside veranda. Here, he could sit and observe the world go by. That was one of his more innocent pleasures. It was also only a short 'moto-tricy' ride from his rented room, which was also a plus.
He had lived in Manila for nearly a year. He had a distinct love/hate thing going with the place. He thoroughly detested the dirt, smog-filled air and crazy traffic, which made even the shortest trip an ordeal. But he loved the warm, welcoming Filipino people with their incredible resilience and positive attitude to life. But what kept him here, like a moth irresistibly drawn to light and unable to break free, were the Filipina girls and one in particular.
Jonathan had changed much since his arrival in South East Asia. It was hard to believe that it was a little over a year since he had first stepped off the plane in steamy Suvarnabhumi Airport, Bangkok and jumped into a taxi to go to Pattaya
Pattaya, with its many girls, had come as an immense culture shock to Jonathan, who had only had one real sex partner in his life: his ex-wife. He had married her when he was eighteen, and she was sixteen-their wedding night had been a hilarious wash-out, with neither quite being sure of what went where! Their sex life, since that abortive start, had been far from perfect, and in the last ten years, as they drifted apart, non-existent. They had, however, somehow managed to have two children, both of whom were now married and settled with their own kids.
Pattaya, with its twenty-four-seven, in-your-face sex industry, had been an enormously exciting novelty for a man who had led such a sheltered life up to that point. That first night, he had entered one of the many girly bars close to the hotel where he was staying. He was immediately mobbed by a group of near-naked young ladies who guided him through the crowded bar to a seat where he could survey the entire bar. He was astonished to see naked girls frolicking in what appeared to be a jacuzzi. Naked or near-naked girls were everywhere, and one attractive-looking girl approached him and, without being asked, sat down next to him and grabbed his penis and testicles none too gently. He nearly spewed the Singha beer he was drinking all over her!
After this unconventional introduction, Jonathan never looked back. He bar-fined the girl, meaning that he had paid the bar to take the girl from the bar and back to his hotel room. Jonathan had made a separate financial arrangement with the girl named Jip. Sex with Jip was not particularly good as he was unfit and out of practice, but he couldn't believe that here he was, a man of fifty-eight, having sex with a twenty-year-old girl. Amazing. He was hooked.
Jip insisted on leaving the hotel immediately after Jonathan had finished, which was fine. He had a lot to think about, and there were thousands more girls outside; should he get lonely?
Since that inauspicious beginning, Jonathan had fucked at least a hundred different girls ranging in age from 18 to 40 and a couple of ladyboys too. If he had known ten years ago what his older self would be doing a few years later, he would have been astonished and unbelieving.
But now that most of the money had gone, he was not too bothered. He had enjoyed the time of his life, doing things that beggared belief and loved every minute. He had memories that would sustain him through the, no doubt, hard days to come when he returned home to the stark realities that he would find there.
His only regret was Marisel. He had met her at LA Cafe in Ermita, a notorious twenty-four-seven freelancer pick-up joint where young and not-so-young ladies congregated to meet local and foreign guys. She said it was her first time in the place which a friend had told her about. Although Jonathan would usually take such pronouncements with a healthy pinch of salt, for some reason, he believed her.
She was a beauty indeed, and he was lucky to have been sat by the door when she had first entered the bar, blinking to regain her focus after stepping from the bright glare of a Manila day to the gloom of the bar. He knew that a girl of this quality would be snatched up quickly by one of the bar's long-timers, who was always on the lookout for fresh meat to fuck. So he had to move fast.
Jonathan said 'Hello', and the girl, momentarily startled, tripped and put out her hand to stop a fall. Her hand landed in his crotch. Surprised, he fell back and nearly knocked over the drinks on an adjoining table.
Marisel snatched her hand away, horrified, and to save her face, he said
'You know, in the UK, my country, UK, we usually introduce ourselves by shaking hands'.
Jonathan smiled at the memory. He had taken Marisel from the bar that afternoon and got a taxi to a nearby hot sheeter motel where he had fucked her three times in as many hours, which was a virtual miracle for him. Previously, he had struggled to manage two rounds, even with real hotties. But this girl was red hot, and his sex metabolism must have geared into overdrive, driven by this beautiful woman. At that moment, he became determined to hold on to her as long as he could.
When Jonathan had broached the matter with Marisel, she had been enthusiastic about being his long-term girlfriend and meeting twice a week for the foreseeable future.
Maricel Two
Marisel was in the mall, almost opposite the motel where they always met. She had made good time today with the traffic not as bad as it can be. She was pleased to have a little downtime when she could window shop without distractions. And she could get her favourite Jollibee meal of fried chicken with a side of Jollibee's famous spaghetti. She didn't mind its pink colour. Some said it glowed in the dark, but she loved it, and it was a rare treat as she seldom spent money on herself. All she earned went to Mama to buy food and essentials and pay Rhida's school fees. There was rarely any left after all the bills were paid, but as she left this morning, Mama had slipped an extra two-hundred pesos into her hand with the bus money.
She wondered what games Jonathan had planned for this meeting. He had soon tired of just regular sex and liked to 'spice up the fun', as he put it. So Marisel never knew what to expect each time they met. He brought various toys and uniforms which she had to use or wear. One week he had got a large eggplant which Marisel was expected to vigourishly fuck herself with whilst sucking his cock as he videoed the event. From the first meeting, he always insisted on filming or taking photographs of everything they did together. Marisel had no choice but to smile and go along with it. Her Mama and sister needed the money. He said they were for his private viewing, but she worried he was selling them or putting them on the internet where someone who knew her might see them. This fear was her worst nightmare because Filipinos were inveterate gossip, and such a thing was not a secret for very long. But what could she do?
He had also, very soon after they first met, coerced her into having anal sex. She had never done this before, but Jonathan said all the girls did it now, and he would use plenty of lubrication to make it easy. But Jonathan's cock was huge, and for the first time, it had been very hard for her. It felt like she had been split in two and hurt horribly, but that didn't stop Jonathan, who seemed to be whipped into a greater frenzy by her obvious discomfort, driving his cock harder and deeper until, with one mighty thrust which had her biting her hand to hold back a scream, he orgasmed inside her. Going home that afternoon on the bus, she cried quietly to herself as the act of sitting on the poorly upholstered seats caused her much pain. He did it now at nearly every meeting, and she had gotten used to it, but it still hurt like hell.
She checked her watch. It was a quarter to one, and she guessed it was time to make her way to the motel. Jonathan would text her soon to give the room number. He was very rarely late. She sighed and started walking out of the mall and into the hot, humid, fume-filled, barely breathable Manila air. She headed towards the walkway bridge, which crossed the busy road to the motel on the other side.