Archive-name: SpecMome/livinia3.txt
Archive-author: Friar Dave
Archive-title: Livinia - Part 3


     As Livinia watched me build two more Irish coffees, she began to 
realize that at our present rate of consumption, the excessive quantity 
of heavy cream she had whipped would last roughly until her daughter had 
a Doctorate...and Sabrina had just turned twelve at the time.
     "That's too much whipped cream," she remarked. "I made too much."
     "That's okay. I'll have some on my desert later, when I eat it."
     As she replaced the bowl in the refrigerator she looked inside. 
"Desert? I don't see any desert? What desert?'
     "You."
     She looked at me for a moment, still half-bent. Her posture made 
the loose robe snug around her butt. Yeah, it would be great to smear 
whipped cream all over her creamy, smooth flesh and lick it off -- with 
extra attention around her oversized clitoris.
     She blushed and then shivered a little. She straightened and closed 
the door, leaning against refrigerator. I resumed my construction of the 
Irish coffees. "That would be very sticky."
     "Have to lick every last little bit of it off, then, won't I?"
     "And very messy..."
     "Have to lick it all twice then."
     "And very niiiiice."
     "Living room."
     I followed her petite form -- all but hidden in my terrycloth 
bathrobe -- down the hall and back to the living room. She let herself 
flop onto the couch, closed her eyes and gave a little shiver. 
     "Cold?" I set the two mugs down and then set myself down next to 
her.
     She giggled. "No -- I was just thinking about your nice tongue and 
your nice hands and your nice little cock -- "
     "Livinia, would you please stop calling it little? I was twenty-
five before I realized it's normal. Six inches is right in the normal 
range!"
     "But it is a little too thick, I think sometimes."
     "Never had a complaint before, but if it really is too thick for 
you, I can have a doctor fix it -- "
     "Oh, no!"
     I couldn't keep a straight face for long. 
     She took a sip of her Irish coffee. "You are teasing me," she 
accused.
     "Yes. But if it's really too thick...would you mind putting that in 
writing? Just for when I feel an attack of inferiority after watching a 
porno tape."
     "Porno tape?"
     "Dirty movies on the VCR. Forty minutes of watching some guy with a 
twelve-inch dick fucking a woman who keeps screaming for more can make a 
guy like me wonder." There was a certain hesitation on her face. "Does 
it bother you that I watch dirty movies sometimes?"
     "It should not," she said. "But..." She fell silent, realized it 
and downed almost half of her Irish coffee.
     She set down the mug. "And still you do not ask questions. But 
don't you want to know?"
     "What you want me to know, you'll tell me."
     Impulsively, she leaned up and kissed me on the lips. It was just 
affection and gratitude, nothing erotic in it, even if the robe did part 
and give me a view of those lovely tits I'd been licking not too long 
before.
     She suddenly laughed. "So many men think a woman wants a twelve-
inch penees. Especially since I come here, to Brooklyn. Men see me and 
grab their pants and tell me they've got a twelve-inch cock for me. They 
don't know how much a big cock can hurt a woman."
     "Sabrina's father had a big cock and hurt you?"
     She looked at me in wonder and shook her head. "Her father. You 
never ask about him. And you don't say he was my husband."
     "Livinia, I am observant and I'm a fairly smart guy and I read a 
lot. I know you didn't get a graduation ring from New York University by 
graduating there -- not to be working in a laundromat in Brooklyn. I 
know you're not married, because the wedding band is never there when 
you're with Sabrina or me -- and it's much too big for your finger. 
Besides, it keeps going on the wrong hand every so often. I know you go 
to church regularly because I saw the stack of bulletins from St. 
Anthony's in your house and I know enough about your native land to know 
that Catholicism is taken seriously there. I know you're a single 
mother, I know you're an immigrant and I don't give a damn, because I 
think your sweet and sexy and a very, very good and strong person."
     She was staring at me. "Even with this good brandy it is hard to 
say what I want to tell you."
     "Livinia, how old are you?"
     She looked down into her lap, where her hands were torturing the 
loose ends of the robe sash. "Twenty-six."
     "And Sabrina was twelve three weeks ago."
     She nodded.
     I lifted her chin and turned her face toward me. "Just about what I 
thought."
     "You knew?"
     "I guessed."
     "But don't you get angry -- "
     "That was a long time ago. I'm just sorry it was rough on you."
     And then it all came out, bit by bit and then in a torrent.
     Her family had lived not far from Bataan. Times had gotten tough 
when some of the industries in Manila went belly-up and  suddenly
unemployed people who had been sending some money home came  home
themselves, bringing hungry bellies. But families were there and people 
shared. Privacy, always at a premium, became nonexistent.
     She'd always enjoyed bathing herself Down There. Being slapped for 
it and spanked only made the thrill forbidden and more exciting. 
     "I always knew I was different there because I'd seen the other 
girls and some of the little boys and I wondered if I was a girl or a 
boy, because it was so big."
     Then, when she was eight, her father was killed in a logging 
accident. His brother, as expected, assumed the manly responsibilities, 
taking care of the needs of the family...and sometimes the widow's 
needs, whether she wanted them cared for or not.
     "Sometimes we would hear her cry and scream, but no one ever came 
to help. She would be black and blue for days afterward."
     And he would go away for weeks at a time and return with money from 
unexplained sources.
     Then, when she was nine, he came home unexpectedly. He'd caught her 
enjoying the forbidden thrill. 
     "He became very nice and said he would show me something that would 
make me feel even better."
     And he was true to his word. He knew exactly how to touch her and 
later to kiss her and suck her down there. Inevitably, he asked for some 
reciprocation. Inevitably, she learned to use her hands and then her 
mouth. Inevitably, one night he wanted more and he got it.
     "He pushed two fingers up inside me and I screamed with the pain, 
but he didn't stop. Then he got on top of me and covered my mouth and he 
did it to me. I hurt for days and I was bleeding a lot."
     She told her mother. 
     "She said, 'What can we do? He can bribe the police -- if they 
listen. Where can we go?'"
     Then her mother slowly drew the entire story out of her. At the 
end, she told a weeping, brutalized, raped, bleeding nine-year-old girl 
that she had brought it on herself by touching herself Down There.
     She saw the expression on my face. "So, now you are angry with me."
     I shook my head, brought myself under control. "Not with you; never 
with you. But with him -- and with your mother."
     "She was right!"
     "She was wrong. You were doing what every normal kid does."
     "But -- "
     "But -- " I laid a finger on her lips, gently. "Suppose she was 
right. Just pretend she was right. Doesn't love and understanding and 
mercy and tenderness have any place? She was damned for saying it was 
your fault and doubly damned for not being loving to you!"
     I wanted to do murder at what she was telling me. I know -- it 
happens all the time and not just in Third World countries. Little girls 
and little boys get abused -- a polite euphemism for "assaulted" and 
"raped" -- by grownups. Life Goes On, Ooobla-Dee-Ooobla-Dah. Little kids 
get abused. Little kids get beaten. If they're white and in the media 
capitol of the world, there's a tremendous hew-and-cry. Front page. Lead 
story. Marches and petitions. But the same day Lisa Steinberg was beaten 
to death in the Greenwich Village apartment she shared with her mother, 
father and brother, some little black kid was being scalded by an angry 
guardian in the ghetto and some little latino kid was being starved or 
whipped and some little oriental kid was being beaten and some little --
     It goes on forever. How to stop it when it's everywhere?
     Call the cops. If that doesn't work, go over and get between the 
sonuvabitch and the kid and make him or her do you in before they can 
get to the kid. They may do it, too. But can you think of a better 
reason to die? It beats the hell out of buying it because somebody had 
one for the road before they got in the wrong lane on I-80 and hit you 
head-on at 110 m.p.h. collision speed, doesn't it?
     (St. Peter: Well, how did you buy it?
     (You: I fell asleep on the sofa with a cigarette.
     (or --
     (St. Peter: What's your story?
     (You: I heard a kid screaming and tried to help.
     (Pete: No shit? Let me shake your hand. You'll find a better class 
of people here.)
     Of course the uncle came back and of course he apologized and said 
he didn't mean to hurt her and to show he was sorry, he'd brought her 
something. New shoes. Sneakers. Genuine Keds Made In U.S.A. none of the 
other kids have them. And he had money for her to give her mother. And 
he didn't try to touch her.
     The next time he came back, he did touch her and one thing led to 
another. By the time she was ten, fucking him and sucking him was a 
regular part of the visits. So were the presents and the money for her 
mother. This went on for a year.
     When she was almost eleven, he asked her to come to Manila and help 
him out with some things. He said he could give her mother almost a 
thousand dollars American. Besides, it would be fun. By then, the pain 
had been all but forgotten and she agreed. The village was boring her. 
She was starting to develop just a little bit and she was very pretty, 
but her big eyes and soft lips made her look sexy, too. He said so.
     In Manila, he introduced her to a friend, a Japanese man who was 
willing to give her fifty dollars American to let him lick her, nothing 
else. She was so grateful, she jerked him off. 
     Her uncle had a lot of friends.
     Before she was twelve, he turned her out. He had a young protege, 
fifteen, look out for her. They were five blocks from the cathedral 
Ferdinand Marcos had built to celebrate the Twenty-Fifth Anniversary of 
marrying Evita...I mean, Imelda. The protege arranged dates. Japanese 
businessmen came to know him well. They came on sex tours. Then some 
Americans began to show up. 
     "The Japanese were usually nice enough, very polite. They never 
forced. They would just offer more and more money until I agreed."
     The Americans were another story.
     "They usually got drunk or smoked marijuana and then they couldn't 
get erections. They would be nasty. Sometimes they would hit me. That 
was okay as long as there were no bruises -- nothing to impair my value."
     The protege kept the girls in line. 
     "He would do whatever worked best,. Most he would beat. Some he 
would sweet-talk. Some, he would -- would -- "
     Some he would sodomize, rather brutally.
     "He had a very big penees, huge. He hurt. He would go inside the 
front until he came, then he would turn us over and go in the back, the 
other way, you know? And since he had already come off once, he would do 
this for a long time. There was always bleeding."
     Eventually, she was made a hostess for special parties. These were 
usually international, hosted by Japanese, but with plenty of Americans 
and British and Chinese from Hong Kong. She hated those,  because
inevitably, they hurt her.
     Finally, after six months of this, she ran away and went back home. 
She'd hidden almost two thousand dollars American and just a little more 
than half it had ever been found and taken from her. 
     Back home, she was taken in -- but coldly. She was a pariah. None 
of the others her age were permitted to associate with her and since she 
was not exactly a child any more, this was not surprising. But the men 
considered her fair game and the women considered her worthless and due 
whatever she got. She was raped. She fought, the first time, and was 
beaten so badly she could barely speak to tell the police. One of whom 
came around a week later and raped her, himself. She didn't fight this 
time. She was beaten, anyhow. She took some money and bought a knife. 
She made it very sharp. She carried it wherever she went. The next man 
who came to take her had it held against his balls till  he  lost
interest. She became as wary and feral as a jungle animal in her own 
home and village. It was difficult, but she could live with it and did 
-- for about a month. 
     Then the uncle returned. She stayed away from him, which apparently 
suited him just find, because he immediately started moving in on her 
little sister, Alicia. Just ten years old, Alicia was already strikingly 
pretty and developing a compact set of curves. She had been playing 
Doctor with other youngsters, so she was not unreceptive to the uncle's 
knowing advances. Livinia discovered him alone with her sister in the 
house with his face between Alicia's slender ten-year-old's legs, making 
her slim ten-year-old's hips writhe and her flat ten-year-old's belly 
quiver with what his mouth was doing.
     Livinia sneaked in on them and put the knife against the crotch of 
his pants from behind and told him exactly what was going to happen 
next. Alicia gathered herself at Livinia's instructions and fled.
     Alicia, he explained, had not been his original target. He'd 
planned to use her to lure Livinia back. Customers were asking for her 
by name and one, a British writer, was willing to pay ten thousand 
dollars American for her services. He wanted her to spend three months 
with him at a house on a secluded beach while he finished writing his 
book. Livinia was to keep his house clean, his food cooked and his bed 
interesting. Her uncle promised to give her fully half.
     "The way he said it, I knew he thought this was a big deal and that 
he usually gave me much less share of the money I earned. But I knew he 
had another plan, too."
     So she persuaded her uncle to agree -- swearing on the soul of his 
mother and brother -- to give her half her share now, in advance. She 
would give it to her mother, now, and make her mother promise to take 
Alicia and go live with her mother's family in Mindanao, where the uncle 
would not be permitted to behave in such a way. He said he did not have 
so much money, but he could get her that and an extra five hundred 
if she would come back to Manila now. A man there was willing to pay 
that much for some movies to be made...
     "I agreed. We made the movies with boys and girls my age, with 
grownup men and women, sometimes with all of them. They  gave  me
something to drink and I became very active and always wanting to do it 
more and more. I became crazy and could not stop wanting to do it, even 
when it was unpleasant or hurt me."
     Her uncle tried to hold out on her, but she knew something by then 
of law and went to the producer of the movie and told him she would tell 
the Customs people about his films if he did not pay. To him, this money 
was very little and he admired her spunk. He let her watch as he ordered 
the money wired to her mother and had her wait while the receipt was 
confirmed. Then he had her uncle brought in and warned him  about
double-crossing his girls, that it was bad for business. and if it 
happened again, he would tie up her uncle and leave him for his girls to 
deal with. 
     "And then -- ?"
     "Then I thought that my mother and sister were okay and I had no 
other choices with my life, so I agreed to be rented by the British 
man."
     The British man was nice enough and treated her well for the most 
part. He drank a lot and sometimes when he was drunk he would want her 
to do strange things and sometimes he insisted. Mostly, they were things 
she found disgusting and did not understand his craving for her to do 
those things on him. Sometimes they were simply unendingly boring. 
Sometimes they hurt. Like the time he tied her face down on the bed, 
rammed a banana up her vagina and sodomized her repeatedly.
     After those things, he was always remorseful and promised he would 
not do them again and seemed genuinely angry at himself. And he promised 
to make it up to her when he left.
     In the last two week, he suddenly seemed to notice the calendar, 
stopped drinking and wrote on an old portable typewriter, starting at 
dawn and not stopping till his eyes couldn't make out the pages by the 
oil lamps that were the only source of illumination. He paid little 
attention to her besides politnesses at mealtimes and he was usually too 
tired to do more than cuddle her in his arms when he fell into bed. 
     "He would kiss my ear and hold me with one hand on my belly and one 
across my breasts and say, 'Good night, dear Amanda; I shall always love 
you only.'"
     The night before they left, he made dinner for her.
     "It was not very good, but he was very sweet."
     Then he made love to her,  very  tenderly  and  sweetly  and
passionately. Then, at his insistence, she joined him in a nightcap. He 
got drunk and she helped him into the bed. His last few things were laid 
out for packing, among them the photograph of his family. As she looked 
at it carefully for the first time, she saw his daughter's name. In the 
morning, she asked if he missed his family and learned that they had 
been killed in an automobile accident years before.
     "I felt bad for him, but not so bad about what we did -- mostly."
     In Manila, they did not go directly to the rendezvous with the 
uncle. First, he stopped at the Bank of England office where he ordered 
a trust account opened for her and had one of the bankers appointed 
guardian. He could pay out of this account on her behalf,  making
purchases for her if he approved them, but he could not give her one 
penny in cash until her twenty-first birthday.
     "He had assigned me almost three thousand dollars, American!" Her 
eyes were wide as she said it and she took another big gulp of her Irish 
coffee. "He said it was to say thank you and to apologize for when he 
was not so pleasant. And he thanked me because I never asked him who 
'Amanda' was."
     "He knew he talked in his sleep?"
     She nodded gravely and sadly.
     They met her uncle and he was paid in cash -- and so was she. Half 
she gave to her uncle on the spot, repaying the advance. The British man 
nodded at this. The other half she had wired to her mother in Mindinao.
     She went back to work for her uncle, as a hostess and visitor to 
hotel rooms and cabanas and sometimes to small parties and a few more 
times to movies. She found a priest who was willing to bank what she 
gave him so it would be safe from her uncle -- in exchange for which, he 
a to take ten percent for his church work. He was a worldly man, the 
priest, and though he made clear he would do what he could to help her 
whenever she wished -- and that she did not need to pay a fee for his 
help in protecting her earnings -- he would not press her. She sent 
money back her mother regularly. Time passed. She grew more mature and 
became less in demand.
     And then she became pregnant.
     "My uncle wanted me to do something about it. He said it would ruin 
my looks and that I still had another good year to earn money before I 
became too old to get top dollar."
     But she refused and when she caught him trying to drug her food, 
she ran away. She told the priest what had happened and took half her 
money -- almost a thousand dollars -- and then went to the bank of 
England. Her account trustee understood -- she told him everything once 
he explained he knew about the British man's preferences and his special 
concern for her -- and offered to have her flown to England; he was sure 
the writer would take her in, no matter what it cost his image and 
honor. She declined and asked only that a ticket be purchased for the 
island ferry to Mindanao as well as a bus ticket for the trip to the 
village of her mother's family. He readily agreed  and  made  the
arrangements and personally saw her to the midnight sailing. 
     Her mother had told her family everything about her daughter and 
the money regularly wired to them. Her mother still was cold to her, 
almost as if she were a stranger, or a neighbor not well known who had 
come to stay with them. Many of the others were uneasy about her.
     Her grandmother, however, was merely pleased that  both  her
granddaughters were near and soon she would see her great-grandchild 
(which she predicted would be a girl) and didn't give a damn about any 
of the circumstances, except to be glad they were better now. 
     "Helluva woman, your grandmother."
     "She told me, 'I am old and I know that in the end, all that 
matters is to love and be gentle and as happy-making as you can.' This 
is beautiful, no?"
     This time I could only nod.
     Alicia had grown quite precociously -- "She already had a better 
body than I did and she was not yet twelve!" -- but Livinia's mother was 
a dragon lady and kept a tight leash on her beautiful baby. Alicia was 
not going to end up like Livinia.
     "She did not know that Alicia already learned much when they lived 
in the old house." I waited for more, but it wasn't forthcoming. I 
didn't ask. When she wanted to tell me more, she would. But I was damn 
curious about that.
     Her grandmother quietly told her some exercises to do -- breathing 
and pushing and relaxing exercise -- that she said would help when the 
time came. The time came on the first of March, three weeks after 
Livinia's fourteenth birthday.
     "Happy birthday, Livinia." I kissed her cheek. "If I had known, I 
would have bought you a birthday present."
     "Sabrina was the best birthday present I could ever have."
     She was pleased to see that Sabrina was not black -- "The mother of 
a black child is considered a slut when the mother is not black" -- but 
disappointed that she was not clearly blonde or redheaded. "So I think 
her father was one of the Japanese or Chinese businessmen at a party..." 
She finished the sentence by finishing her mug of Irish coffee. "This is 
very good. I wish I could have a little more."
     "Snookies, huh?"
     She laughed and rolled her head against my shoulder. "I think, 
maybe, once a year it is okay on a special occasion."
     I kissed her forehead. "Whatever you like."
     She was a bit unsteady now, so I helped her navigate the living 
room and office and then she sorta helped in the kitchen. Mostly, she 
talked.
     Sabrina was born in the traditional village way -- with the aid of 
midwives and other mothers, who had the experience of  a  hundred
generations to call upon, and one woman who had some limited medical 
training. 
     "No painkillers?"
     "My grandmother's exercises, a woman who could make one not feel as 
much pain by the way she talked, but -- no, not much."
     Not much meant that some kind of herbal concoction was applied when 
the time came for a very sharp, very well-sterilized razor to be used 
and again, when a midwife used a fine needle and stitched her.
     "She said that since I was so small and young, she was going to sew 
me so no man would know I had a baby by the way I was down there."
     "She did a good job," I said. "Recommend her. You are still as 
tight and small as a teenager there."
     She blushed and tried to hide it by getting out the whipped cream 
she'd overdone earlier. And by telling me more.
     Her grandmother guided and instructed her in caring for her baby 
and insisted that no matter how tired she was, she must be the one to 
tend to little Sabrina. This way, Sabrina would never doubt her mother's 
love. And she insisted that Livinia be tired -- by joining the other 
women in manual labor around the houses. She hadn't understood until 
months later when she realized that her figure was as tight and firm as 
ever and that her health was excellent and that even the young single 
men of the village, who knew her background and motherhood, looked at 
her with interest. 
     When Sabrina was finally weaned, her grandmother had forced Livinia 
to attend classes. When the school made her leave her year-old infant 
behind, her grandmother happily agreed to care for her during school 
hours.
     "And my grandmother was already old and weak, but she did this for 
me. I think she believed that maybe in raising my mother these things 
were not there, so she had to make up them."
     I noticed her self consciousness about sentences involving a word 
with an "f" or "v" sound. It seemed automatic. I let it go.
     Livinia's mother became more and more distant and never really 
showed affection to her granddaughter. Alicia was drawn more and more to 
the warmth in her grandmother's house and finally there was an episode 
that pushed her over the edge and away.
     Livinia had been at school and her mother was  visiting  her
grandmother. Alicia was studying quietly in the room -- never allowed 
from her mother's sight without supervision. The baby began to cry and 
the sick old woman could not rise easily. Grandmother asked Livinia's 
mother to look in on the baby, on her granddaughter.
     'I have no granddaughter.'
     'She is the child of your daughter,' said the old woman.
     'I have no daughter who has a child.'
     At this Alicia -- then thirteen -- said, 'But Livinia is  my
sister.'
     Her mother slapped her. 'You have no sister.'
     Alicia quietly gathered her books and stood before her grandmother. 
'May I live under your roof, grandmother? With my sister and my niece?'
     'Are you certain this is not just anger?'
     'I have thought about it a long time. I want to live with love.'
     'You are welcome here, child.'
     She put her books down and went to tend to her niece.
     'You are welcome here with your daughters and granddaughter,' said 
the old, sick woman. 
     'I have no children.' She walked out and left the village and was 
never heard from again -- except to withdraw from her account the rest 
of the money Livinia had wired during her years of painful earnings.
     The three of them stayed with the old woman until her death, six 
years later. Livinia made the trip into Manila and made arrangements 
with her account trustee for Alicia to board at a private school, a prep 
school with high standards, in Quesan. Then she arranged for passage to 
America and learned how little she really knew about immigration...and 
bribes.
     She had no family in America, and no needed  educational  or
technical specialty, was not a doctor or accountant or dentist or 
engineer and owned no property in America. Outside of her experiences in 
Manila, she had no marketable skills and had the equivalent of a fourth-
grade education.
     She did have determination and beauty -- and money.
     The trustee told her a way she might go about it. There were 
companies that arranged matches between Pacific-nation women  and
American men. She registered with Asian Flowers. It cost her $200 
American and a great deal of privacy. She had to fill out forms and she 
had to answer all the questions: Her age, the status of her virginity, 
her idea of the proper attitude of a wife toward a husband, her exact 
measurements -- including bra cup -- number of children, education, what 
she liked in a man, diseases contracted, what she disliked in a man, how 
many men she'd been with, had she ever held a job, and doing what? etc.
     "I told the truth -- but not all the truth."
     Men signed up with the service for $500 in the United States. Most 
were looking for what the ads promised: Asian Flowers who were brought 
up to believe that a wife's place was to subservient and to be helpful. 
Thirty-seven men expressed interest in her.
     "Most of them were older than you are now."
     They wrote to her and many asked extremely inappropriate questions: 
Did she like to suck cock? Did she like women?
     "Some letters were very sweet and some were very sad."
     In the end, two seemed good prospects. One owned a small real-
estate business in New York. He flew to the Philippines and made the 
journey to Mindanao to visit. Unfortunately, when she resisted his 
advances, he immediately turned all of his attentions on another woman 
in the village who was willing to accommodate him however he liked... 
when her husband was away.
     The other, a thirty-seven-year-old ad sales rep from Seattle, 
agreed to meet her in Manila. He was slim and good-looking,  with
thinning hair and a nice smile. He was restrained and polite and seemed 
to always know what small gestures would please her. He didn't so much 
as try to kiss her, though he held her hand and told her he found her 
very lovely and pleasing to look out and he seemed to get along well 
with the children who always hung out around the hotel looking to make a 
few bucks as tour guides or gofers.
     "So when he returned to America, he wrote and said he would like to 
sponsor me and I liked him and I agreed."
     There was weeping in the village when she and Sabrina left, though 
some of the unmarried women's tears were more for show than reality; 
they were glad to see such a lovely young woman leaving the market.
     The journey was a nightmare. The five-hour ferry to Manila, then 
the trip to the airport, then the long flight through storms to San 
Francisco, a two hour layover and the short flight to Seattle, then two 
hours to get through Customs and Immigration. By the time they left 
Customs to meet Bob, they'd spent almost twenty-seven hours traveling. 
Neither had slept much. Little Sabrina was cranky and Livinia was 
exhausted.
     "But he was a wonderful man in so many ways! He had prepared a room 
for Sabrina and me, and had food waiting and he would not let me carry 
anything." 
     And he still never made much of a pass at her, not for weeks, while 
he set her up for tutors and English classes, not till the night he was 
smoking grass and kissed her and began touching her. It had been a long 
time since she had been touched in those ways, but she was shocked when 
he said he wanted to go in -- 
     "-- the other way, in the back, you know?"
     I nodded.
     "And I let him do it because he was always so nice. And when he was 
done and had done it inside me and started to get small again, he told 
me I was as tight as any man back there."
     Yes, Bob was a wonderful man -- and his boyfriends thought so, too.
     He told her what she had never suspected: He was homosexual. He had 
wanted someone to play the role of wife, because many of his friends and 
colleagues would be unable to handle his sexuality and he was at that 
age in a career when a  lot  of  backward,  insecure  morons  get
uncomfortable around an unmarried, good-looking man.
     "But what did it matter to them? They were neighbors and people who 
work with him, not his bedmates?"
     "Some people just can't handle knowing someone is gay or lesbian."
     But Livinia was troubled. She wanted to be married a man like him, 
but a man who wanted her and wanted to deal with her needs -- and Bob 
admitted that he could not be that for her. He proposed an arrangement 
of convenience and she accepted.
     They were married a week later in City Hall. It worked fine for 
four years. Bob never again asked for sex when he learned how much she 
was hurt by sodomy. Sabrina really liked him and he liked her. She 
simply didn't let herself know when he sometimes went out with a friend 
and didn't come home till the following afternoon and he didn't question 
or mention her occasional delay in returning from a bachelor neighbor's 
condo a few blocks away. Bob became very attached to a fellow named 
Larry and eventually introduced him to Livinia and Sabrina. Larry was a 
nice guy and they all got along, to the point where if Sabrina was 
having an overnight with a friend, Larry would stay the night there. He 
had a good sense of humor.
     But one morning, when the three of them had sat up all night -- 
     " -- getting snookies and watching old movies -- "
     Sabrina came home early and Larry commented that she was pretty and 
at that age -- ten -- she could have been a little boy and had such a 
cute ass and like they say, 'Sex before eight or else it's too late -- 
and with that little ass, she can easily pass,' and Bob  threw  a
monumental shitfit.
     "Bob looked at him like he saw a ghost and Larry said, 'Alright, so 
she is really a girl but what does it matter at that age? It is just as 
tight and you can close your eyes and pretend it is a boy,' and Bob 
started to get red in the pace."
     "Face," I corrected.
     "Yes and Larry said, 'At that age all children really want it in 
--' the other place and Bob said, 'At that age they are all children, 
boys and girls the same, and you are saying it is okay to puck little 
kids' and Larry said, 'Do not knock it till you try it,' and Bob stood 
up and told Larry to go away and never call him again and he was mad and 
yelled and said he would call police and if police did nothing he would 
do it and -- It was not nice."
     I issued three silent cheers for Bob. That had certainly been tough 
for him, yet he hadn't yielded a centimeter on his principles. A lot of 
folks who don't realize they have  gay  friends,  colleagues  and
acquaintances think all the world's child-abusers are members of NAMBLA 
and that all faggots want to rape little boys. Bob sounded more like the 
homosexuals I've known: Without exception, they were ready to buy the 
ropes to lynch anyone who'd hurt a kid, any kid, boy-kid or girl-kid.
     Afterword, Bob felt bad and cried but he was relentless  and
eventually he decided it would be better for Sabrina and Livinia to move 
on and be out on their own, as he was planning to come out of the closet 
and things would get messy when he did so. 
     She had distant -- 194th or somesuch -- cousins in Brooklyn and 
came to New York. Before he came out, Bob used some contacts to help 
her, as well, and she came to Brooklyn and cleaned out most of her Bank 
of England account and rented a small, ramshackle frame house in a 
working class neighborhood in Brooklyn and got a job at a Filipino-run 
ex-im firm answering phones.
     "So I eventually take the job in the laundry, since I am good at 
cleaning clothes and I can have Sabrina come there after school." She 
turned and smiled. "And then I meet you."
     "Just like that?"
     She looked down at her hands, again playing with the sash of the 
robe. And she told me.
     There was another fellow, before, who came into the firm to arrange 
a special delivery. He was from Bataan and ran a private car service in 
Woodside, in Queens. He had started from scratch and now had eleven 
ramshackle old cars that showed up when they were supposed to and took 
people where they wanted to go. He was big and handsome and charming and 
willing to spend money on her. Their first few dates were very nice. 
Then she went home with him one night and he made it with her.
     "And he was very big, too big." She held her hands up about a foot 
apart. "I thought I was going to rupture, he was so big. I did not like 
it. And he wanted me to lay on my belly for him, you know?"
     I knew and nodded in understanding.
     "And I said I would not, and he said, you did it with other people 
and I asked how he knew and he dragged me into the living room and put a 
tape on the VCR."
     And yes, there she was -- the films from her days in Manila had 
been transferred to videocassette and he'd gotten a copy and recognized 
her, because you could recognize her, even 14 years later.
     "He said I must do this with him and let him do these things with 
my kid or he would tell Immigration."
     He made her watch the whole tape -- a T120 -- and when she tried to 
leave, he hit her and knocked her back down and made her watch more. By 
the end, she was weeping and sick. He threw her down and raped her every 
way he wanted, then drove her home and pushed her out of the car in 
front of her house. 
     "When was this?" I asked.
     "About one year ago."
     "Then?"
     "Tom told my boss and I had to quit that job."
     "And you have heard nothing since then?"
     "He calls me at the laundry sometimes but I always hang up."
     I shook my head. "There are some sick people in the world. And some 
very good ones -- like Bob and like you." I kissed her lips lightly.
     She pulled away from me. "Maybe I should go away from you."
     "Don't you dare."
     "You don't know the things I did -- "
     "I don't care. I like you."
     "But you don't KNOW -- "
     "I can imagine."
     Now she was the one shaking her head. "No, you cannot." She reached 
over to the side of the couch and down to floor, where she'd dropped the 
oversized purse. "But you do not have to imagine." She withdrew a 
videocassette.
     I stared.
     "He sent this to me about three months ago. I want you to watch 
it." She held it toward me as if it were a bomb. Or the Grail.
     "This is not necessary, Livinia -- "
     "Please -- you must know this, too, or I can not see you again."
     "You ask a high price for your company."
     "Please, Daveed, I want you to know it all, to know all about me. I 
must not be afraid something that happened a long time ago will come 
back like a ghost."
     "...okay."
     Suddenly, she was absolutely sober. She stood and handed me the 
tape. "I am going to go shopping."
     "Shopping??!!?"
     "Yes. For some vegetables and milk and such. I will probably be 
gone for two hours. Why don't you watch a tape till I ring the doorbell? 
You decide whether to answer."
     "You won't watch with me?"
     "Sometimes I dream and I see the same tape...I have seen it too 
much already." She suddenly seemed very tired, standing before me.
     I pulled her into my arms as she stood there and kissed her belly 
and breasts through the robe. "If that is what you want, I will do it; I 
value your company."
     She looked at me: I hope you feel the same way in two hours. Then 
she broke away and walked to the bedroom.
     I sat in the dark living room, listening to the sound of her 
footsteps change as she put on her shoes and hearing her movements and 
rustle of her clothing. What would she be doing for those two hours? 
Marketing would take less than a third of that?
     "I will ring the bell in two hours," she called jauntily and then 
the door closed behind her. I heard her footsteps recede as she went 
down the hallways stairs and out of my apartment building.
     I put the tape in the VCR, switched on the television and kept my 
word.

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