Francisco Jose - The Samsons - Two Novels

I lay on the pad, wondering how Lily would react when she came in. It did not take long. The door opened. “Sir,” she asked tentatively. “Will it be oil? Or lotion?”

“Saliva,” I whispered.

She paused, edged closer and peered down. She was used to the darkness and now so was I. Her dark eyes grew wide, then she bent down and embraced me, saying huskily; “Pepe, Pepe.” She started laughing. “Now, sir, would you like your sensation first or the massage?”

I kissed her, and she responded warmly, her lips tasting of promises. Her hand wandered down.

“Hell,” I said under my breath. “You do that to everyone!”

“Pepe,” she said pushing me away. “It is my job, I told you!”

“Hell,” I repeated.

“Are we going to quarrel? Did you come here to insult me? You paid fifty pesos for this, have you forgotten?”

“It was not my money,” I said. It was senseless being sullen over something I could do nothing about. My anger left quickly. I had come here to see her; I knew what to expect. And she had kissed me. After some silence, “Two nights from now, after my last exam, I will take Roger and the rest out — we will have a wonderful dinner — and if you want to come …”

“I cannot leave till midnight, Pepe. You are my first guest,” she said. “I don’t really like teenagers, and you look like one with your long hair. The boy told me.”

“What’s wrong with teenagers?”

“TY, that’s what. Thank you. No tips. Gorios , that’s what we call them. We’d rather have them fat and old — they tip well, most of them anyway.”

I lay down again.

“I’d really like to give you a massage,” she said, holding my hand. “I am very good, you know. Hard. I have several Japanese guests; they come really for the massage, and they like me because they say I am ichi bang. §”

“I just wanted to see you,” I said. “Now that I can afford it. Juan Puneta gave me the money for this.”

She drew back in surprise, then said, “You should have showered and taken a steam bath. He is there! Now!”

“He told me he has never been to a sauna.”

“Shit!” she said. “You want to surprise him?” She stood up and headed for the door, but I held her back.

“I’ll see Girlie,” she said. “She is his regular. I told you, he just talks with her.”

“Don’t tell him, promise.”

She laughed then went out.

In another minute, she was back. “We are in luck,” she said. “They will be in the next cubicle. We can eavesdrop or even peep.”

She lay beside me; we were cramped, but that was what I wanted.

“I have been thinking, Pepe,” she said after a while. “Mostly about myself — what I will do. I’ll go back to school and finish fine arts. But I have forgotten how to draw. I am in demand now — all of us who are young and good-looking. But how long will that be?”

“You study in the morning,” I said. “Don’t hurry, even if it will take six years. At least you will be prepared for a better job. I hope you have been saving.”

“What will you finally take?” It was my turn to be questioned, but before I could answer, the door next to ours opened. The girl was saying, “I will really try my best, but very few teenagers come here.”

The cracking of knuckles was enough to convince me. Puneta’s voice when he replied was so low I could not understand a word.

Lily whispered, “Didn’t I tell you? He has been asking Girlie to proposition teenagers for him. Five hundred pesos — as high as that!”

I shuddered; it was five hundred pesos he had given me. “What really does he do here?” I asked.

“I told you,” she said. “He comes here almost every day, at this time, when we have the most number of guests, or shortly after five, rush hour. He takes time in the steam room, in the shower, looking at all those pricks. Then he comes in, but refuses a massage. He always takes Girlie, waits for her if she is busy.” She got off the pad again, motioned me to peep through the slit between the rooms.

I bent over; the other cubicle was as dark as ours, but I could see the girl sitting on the pad, and the pale, handsome profile of Juan Puneta.

“Enough,” I said, pulling her back to my side.

Her face was close to mine. “Even your hair smells sweet,” I said.

“Wait till I have had five guests,” she said. Then, seriously, “Pepe, I am worried about you. There is a general— Army officers come here, you know. This general, he is very proud of his prick. They call him a general’s general. I have never serviced him, but the girls who have say it is really big. Well, he told one of the girls that the army is really going to be harsh on the demonstrators.”

“They are already doing that.”

“It could be worse. What will happen to you?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe, in the end, I will go to the mountains.”

“You will be alone and you will be hungry.”

“That would not be anything new,” I said. “I can live on coconuts, green bananas, and papayas.”

“The mosquitoes and the leeches will finish you. And you will have malaria and other fevers.”

“At least I will not be getting gonorrhea. No saunas there.”

“You are wrong,” she raised her voice above the whisper we were conversing in.

I kissed her chin. “No nightclubs then,” I said.

“And no fucking.”

“I can always masturbate.”

“Suppose I did that for you? Suppose I went with you?”

“Is that all you will do? You have no skills, really. You cannot take dictation and type. I don’t think you can carry loads.”

“You make me feel so worthless,” she said.

“But you are good enough for me.”

“Will you really take me if I came along?”

She sounded serious. “No,” I said.

“I will wait for you then.”

“Shit,” I said. “You will wait forever.”

The other room was now aglow; Juan Puneta was finished and was obviously dressing. I was tempted to rise and go to his room and confront him, but it was his money that I was using, and besides, I was not ready to make an enemy of him.

“We can peep through our door,” Lily said, standing, and that was what we did. Puneta went out quickly, and I wondered if he had his Continental with him.

“No,” Lily said, “he always comes here alone, by taxi, I think.”

I had time so I tarried even after Lily had changed the sheets. She had asked me to linger — there was no one waiting for her. She would have been informed if there was.

“Your unlucky day,” I said. I gave her a fifty-peso tip, which she did not want to take, but I thrust it down the pocket of her white skirt. Before we reached the reception area, she kissed me; then I stepped out into the blinding sunlight.

I went to Professor Hortenso’s house the next day, for he had left word for me in the office of the school paper. Mrs. Hortenso opened the door, but before she did she peered out of the grilled window into the street.

“Come in, Pepe,” she said as if she was in a hurry, then bolted the door. “Have you eaten?” She knew I had rushed from school to Dapitan and the plates were ready on the table. She was thoughtful and kind. Someday, I told myself, if and when I got married, it would be to someone like her.

Professor Hortenso sat beside me while Mrs. Hortenso came out with a plate of steaming rice, fried bangus and shrimp sinigang. I was really hungry. He watched me eat, and between gaps of silence he talked about the finals we were going through. No, I found the examinations easy, and I did not even have all the textbooks; I just listened to the lectures instead of letting my mind wander.

“You will maintain your scholarship then,” he said happily. “You have to. The university will no longer accept activists who are not bona fide students, and those who are on the leadership list are under surveillance; they have to be good to stay, not only in the scholarship rolls but in the university itself. The army is applying pressure.”