How to Tame Your Tikbalang Ch. 01

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Chapter 1.
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Part 1 of the 14 part series

Updated 06/07/2023
Created 05/27/2014
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SkinandSin
SkinandSin
133 Followers

May agimat ang dugo ko (My talisman is in my blood). ~ Bamboo, Noypi

CHAPTER 1—Recover Yourself First

Swirls of dust welcomed her footfalls, the motes of years dancing in the emptiness of abandonment.

Haunted houses are scary, but condemned structures outdo even the psychological danger posed by restless spirits. Tala Bienvenido repeated her grandmother's advice as if it were a verbal talisman, a recited anting-anting, that would keep her safe from rotted floorboards and crumbling ceiling plaster. Her grandmother, bless her departed soul, had warned her against coming to this old building time and again.

The decrepit old house on Leveriza Street last saw better days in the late 1990s, when she was still a pre-school student at St. Scholastica's College in the city next door, Manila. It was once a grand structure that boasted of a well-appointed great room, an ornate formal sala and a huge dining room that could easily seat 12. it was in these once-magnificent rooms that important guests were received and entertained in style.

The house had six bedrooms with their own indoor batalan and chamber pots from the outset—plumbing facilities that were later upgraded to more modern fixtures. There was a silong, a semi-basement that opened up to a backyard with fruit trees, a gazebo and swings that had once sloped gracefully down from the streetside wrought-iron fencing and gate to a burbling fountain that had become a trash bin full of rusting tin cans, slashed tires and whatnot. The fountain's fat little cherubs had turned black from the soot of the city and crusty layers of pigeon crap. Now they looked sinister in their unwashed state, as if they were hunting prey.

She'd had to use a heavy, old-fashioned key on the rusted gate lock, as well as more modern (but no less weighty) keys for the sturdy Yale padlocks holding the inch-thick chains binding the gate closed. The house had once been the jewel in the clan crown, the Manila seat of a sugar-baron family that had been blessed with wealth, good looks from their mixed Spanish-Chinese heritage and a surfeit of talent and brains that enabled them to shine from boardroom to ballroom.

Like almost everyone in the capital, however, the Bienvenido family had suffered much during World War II and four years of Japanese occupation. Their holdings in the islands of Guimaras and Bacolod dwindled and, post-war, had to be sold off parcel by parcel so each generation of the genteel family's survivors could continue studying at the prestigious Catholic schools that were their birthright. The years of occupation had drained all life from their once-thriving businesses. Land reform took the rest.

The last holdout was this house on Leveriza St., in what used to be an enclave of the rich and reclusive. By the early years of the new millennium, it, too, had to be let go as the neighborhood went to seed and the family fortunes shrank to the point that Tala's parents were pitted against her father's kin over what remained. The ancestral home was one such disputed property, held in escrow by the courts as the case wended its slow way to resolution.

Tala's black jeans of heavy denim, long-sleeved black shirt and knee-high black boots would take care of the rest. Or so she hoped—she was in the tropics, after all, where such clothing was already considered too heavy for the late summer evening.

Tala swept her powerful LED flashlight beam steadily across the great room just off the old mansion's foyer in a systematic pattern, searching for the stairwell that would take her to her goal: The storage crates made of now-brittle palo china wood left in the old attic at the mansion's fifth level. The scritch-scratching of rats and roaches made a creepy accompaniment to her tentative steps across the cushion of dust and dust-bunnies on the planks of the hardwood floor and she shivered, praying that she and those creatures would not meet.

Up the creaky steps she went, testing each stair before putting her full weight on each one. Her ascent was slow, and the late afternoon sun began to fade to twilight as she reached the fifth level of the careworn structure, the light coming in diluted bursts through the grimy, beveled glass of the lead-lined windows of the stairwell.

It has got to be here, Tala thought to herself when she got to the attic, it just has to. The book she wanted had been left with many other things too heavy or complicated to move—cheval glass mirrors, floor to ceiling window shutters made of delicate capiz shells and hardwood, ironwood trunks cladded in brass and inlaid with mother of pearl and carabao horn, old plantation chairs with wicker weave for seats.

She picked through the junk of the ages—literally from the early 19th century, at least, that lined the ruined old attic. Darkness had fallen completely by the time she'd picked through the musty old photo albums with their faded pictures, old wedding dresses gnawed by rats and several steamer trunks packed with the detritus of a family torn asunder.

Then she found it. The book she'd remembered sneaking up to the attic to read. The one her Abuela Selo had once spanked her soundly for reading. The memory washed over her like the Manila Bay breakers over breakwater rocks at high tide.

She could be stalwart and not give in to the rush of emotion as she picked the book up out of its swaddling of red Chinese silk, but she'd be lying if she thought she wouldn't remember the only time her abuela whipped her ass sore with the rawhide belt that had belonged to her grandfather, the one cinching a dressmaker's dummy's waist with a silver buckle upon which the word "Texas" was embossed.

"Ay, que ver! No, child! That is not for your eyes," her grandmother had uttered in that stern tone that portended punishment most severe as she undid the belt and looped it in her hands so she gripped end and buckle all at once. "You will not come up here again. You will not read that again. I locked it away because that book made my mother-in-law crazy. The book will not do the same thing to you."

It was right there, in that musty attic, up against a dressmaker's dummy, that Tala's grandmother first took a belt to her buttocks, muttering "lo siento" over, and over again through Tala's wails and tears. "I do this for love of you. Now, be quiet and take your whipping so we can be done here."

"But, Abuela, it glows..." That was all Tala got to say before the belt connected with the flesh between buttock and thigh, erasing all that she would say as she got the belting of her young life. Through the pain, Tala saw the gilt edges of the book glow unnaturally bright in the midmorning light streaming through a high window, illuminating what should have been shadow.

For a moment, in that fleeting flash between epiphany and discovery, Tala had felt the rush of power thrum through her fingertips as she traced the book title, an intaglio in gold leaf against cordovan leather: "Bestiario de Criaturas Mágicas en las Islas Filipinas." Then before she could identify the dormant emotion that began to rouse as she touched the book, grandmother had taken it from her hands and punished her.

The bestiary glowed the same way now, as Tala picked it up. Its cracked leather binding warmed to her hand in the way it had all those years ago. For a moment she could imagine it recognized her. Shaking away the dust of memories, Tala picked up the book and made as quick a getaway as she could. She didn't even bother to secure the gate again. Let the courts eat that. Let Uncle Mariano and his maligno of a wife eat that, too.

***

I dare not linger on this path. All I know now is to put one foot in front of the other and walk away as quickly as I can from the old mansion falling into the silence of shadow as the sun sets behind me.

The narrow streets of Pasay are swathed in the patchwork of evening shade and dim, grubby streetlight as Tala's swift strides take her from the enclave of houses belonging to the elite oligarch families, their Art Deco and Rococo engravings in bas relief are thrown into melding light and shadow by a full moon.

This is the Sin City of the live sex shows full of kink and of transvestite strippers who put Thai ladyboys to shame. It is the same city where the miraculous Redemptorist parish still floods with pilgrims and supplicants each Wednesday.

Her boot heels snicked sharply on pavement that was cracked and, in places, broken through enough for the sewer stink to rise on the humid air. She nimbly avoided these cracks and holes without even looking down. She grew up on these streets, after all, some of those years spent in that aged house she'd just left.

Tala carefully stuffed the leatherbound tome into a black messenger bag as the rising beat of Pasay's red-light district clubs reached a crescendo. She exited a shortcut straight into the verboten zone where sex is as cheap as beer and ladies' drinks, and just as swiftly consumed by the bright fires of disinterested lust.

Satisfied that the strange glow of the old book was stowed safely into the black leather of the pouch bouncing on her hip, Tala slowed her stride to a saunter casually, throwing back her shoulder-length cap of dark curls as she put a smile on her face. I am almost there. I will be home, safe, and none will be the wiser. She did not see the shadow that followed her steps stealthily, doggedly, and with dark intent.

Smiling to herself and humming Bamboo's song "Noypi" under her breath, Tala reached her apartment building and gave a smile to the security guard at the entrance who tipped his hat and held the door open for her. Almost there. She rode the elevator to the 15th floor and, once in her apartment, turned on the light, let out a long breath and sank onto her overstuffed couch, inhaling the lavender scent of her potpourri sticks.

With shaky hands, she drew out the thick leatherbound book she'd taken from the condemned recesses of her ancestral home and began leafing through the brittle brown pages with a small sigh.

The book's gilt-edged pages still felt warm to her fingertips, the handwriting at once complex and very inviting, very comprehensible.

Like its title, the text was in Spanish, with some text in old Tagalog. It was written in a flowing, elaborate script that indicated a feminine hand—Beatriz de la Lopa Bienvenido's verdant script. Tala scanned through the pages as quickly as she dared until she came to the middle of the book, where the entry she sought sat under the date, 22 Abril 1898.

"The Tikbalang can be tamed. Wild as it is, due to the animal spirit that imbues it, this magical creature can be broken to civilized ways in the same way a natural horse can be broken to bridle and saddle—with care and a gentle but unyielding hand. Otherwise, this maligno will assault and kill whoever attempts its taming. If the person who makes this attempt is female, she will pay an even more terrible price for her failure: Death by repeated and brutal rape of every orifice. The rapine of the tikbalang, it is also said, includes the beast's feasting upon the still living flesh of such a female should she fail to tame him. I have not failed. But I am baylan, and more powerful now for my victory, which I set down here for the descendant whose power will one day equal mine."

A strong shudder wracked Tala's body—a shudder that was mostly fear and something dark that she did not dare identify as she read on. The prim little Catholic school girl in her would not face that feeling: No sipuedes. Not now, Tala. Cuidado.

"The Tikbalang is often called an earth spirit, a melding of all the strongest, but not the always the best, qualities of man and horse. It can be malevolent, as I have said earlier. It can also, once tamed, be the most loyal of allies, immortal and powerful as it is. "Taming a Tikbalang, the lore I have collected from across the islands says, will bring power and fortune to the soul so fortunate as to achieve this goal.

"Joyful is the woman who tames herself a Tikbalang, it is said, for she will also have an immortal lover of unearthly carnal skill and a strong sire for her sons. The fortune she reaps is but the added blessing to the miracles she will harvest along with the three golden hairs hidden in the beast's mane, tail and genital hair."

A soft, insistent ringing began to swell in the living room and Tala carefully shut the bestiary with a sigh. It was her smartphone ringing out the alarm she'd set for eight o'clock. Her shift at the contact center would start soon and she needed to prepare. The team leader, after all, should not be late, Tala thought wryly in that clipped British accent they'd trained her to use when speaking in Queen's English for her inbound callers.

Stripping off her boots and clothes as she went, Tala made her way to the cold tile of her bathroom, exposing her lush curves and nipped-in waist, her wealth of mestiza skin and long, graceful limbs to the sizable peeping tom peering through the sliding glass doors of her small balcony as her rounded, high ass swayed with unconscious grace.

***

The Tikbalang's black pelt blended into the balcony's shadows. His fiery eyes followed Tala's body with a greed that burned through the double-glazed thickness of the tempered glass his breath was fogging with each heavy exhale from his velvety horse's snout.

His ears flicked back against his head, signaling a sexual tension visible in every defined and straining muscle of his heavily-furred human torso and his equine hindquarters. His long black tail whipped back and forth swiftly, impatiently.

He looked over her light skin noting the hint of gold that marked the Malay genes that blended with the Spanish-caucasian rosy-white and light Chinese yellow into an exotic golden glow. His eyes of flame skimmed over the graceful curve of her shoulder, followed the indentation of her spine down to the top of her proudly plump, rounded rump and on down slim thighs between which peeked the pinkness of woman—glistening, aroused woman—as she stepped into a doorway she shut between his gaze and her nakedness.

He licked his hand with a long red tongue and gripped his turgid member, his almost foot-long tarugo, thicker around than her forearm. His hand would have held Tala's whole head in a secure grip, easily so, for he was large even for his race. Princes, after all, are often bigger than the commoners they were destined to rule.

He hunched over as his lust for this petite taga-lupa sent shockwaves coursing like electric ripples through his body and he pumped that length of maleness hard, squeezing tightly as he pushed his hips forward and back until his pendulous testicles drew up to his groin and he erupted in an orgasm that rattled the glass doors. Straining every muscle, he drained his balls of semen in curling swirls against the glass, almost feeling the heat of her wet cunt milking him instead of his hand.

Leaning against the concrete and steel of the balcony's edge, the Tikbalang smiled and tossed his head back before climbing silently down the fire escape to the right of the fencing. He had his quarry marked after years of staking that old house out. The question that remained was whether she would be a meal or a mate.

We will see if you will win me, human, or if you will become a sacrifice to forgotten gods.

Tala couldn't shake that eerie feeling one sometimes gets that one is being watched intently, with an intense gaze that may or may not be a threat. She'd locked the bathroom door, something she did not usually do because she lived alone and had the run of her small studio apartment.

You're making your own ghosts, Tala, she admonished herself. You just had to get yourself psyched up over the old book. You don't even know why you want it. You just do. Enough of this kalokohan. Get ready for work because you have bills to pay.

With her skin tingling—and not just from a thorough scrubbing with a pumice stone—Tala dressed, applied a bit of eyeliner and lip gloss, ran a comb through her unruly mane of damp curls and made her way out the door and off to work.

***

"Thank you for calling Isles Tech Services Ltd. support. This is Tala. How may I help you?"

Tala spoke crisply into her headset as she kept a keen eye on the rest of her team. The calls were coming in hard and heavy, as per the usual for their market. They were here to deal with first-world problems, like smartphone services that did not function as they should.

A quick look at her PC's clock showed she had another few minutes before she could take a breakfast break. She helped the woman on her line resolve a problem of app conflicts and headed to the nearest 24-hour coffeeshop for a much needed shot of java. Especially since she was pulling a double shift this day and had to stay in the zone that much longer.

Tala waited for the barista to finish making her large double chocolate latte when she turned to seek an available table. She was badly startled to find herself staring at a chest—a very large chest—clad in a white dress shirt with the top three buttons open to show a peek of deeply tanned and (quite possibly) well-muscled chest.

"Oh my God! Big person, don't eat me!"

"You wouldn't be more than a light snack, my dear," the Big Person said, adroitly catching hold of her left elbow as she stumbled back and nearly hit the barista's counter.

Just then, the barista sang out her order and the round buzzer in Tala's hand went off.

"Double chocolate latte for Tala!"

"Thank you, po. I just need to get my coffee and we can forget how stupid I just sounded," Tala said. "Can you please let go of my elbow?"

She looked up to find the man smiling down at her with intense, dark eyes and dimples to die for and fought a very 1800s swoon. I can't be weak in the knees now. I need coffee!

"I'm sorry if I scared you, miss," spoke a deep, mellifluous voice above Tala's head. The large hand encompassing her elbow and upper arm released its grip. "Go ahead and get your coffee."

Tala took a deep breath and smiled as sweetly as she could at the stranger who caught her stumble. She turned to the barista to claim her cup of badly-needed joe and the blueberry muffin she'd lost all appetite for, picked up the tray and headed for the table at the furthest corner of the coffee shop. She was just taking a bite of the muffin when a shadow fell across her face and she looked up, her mouth full of pastry and berry filling.

"You make a full mouth look so good," the stranger said, setting his paper cup of coffee down on the table beside hers. "My name is Buhawi Batumbakal."

Tala choked down her mouthful of muffin, gagged on it and swigged her still hot latte to ease the choking—burning her tongue in the process. Susmarya, you aren't just scaring me. You're making me melt in all the right places and go all stand-upper in other feminine bits. Not to mention making me choke on my breakfast.

Once she could draw breath again, she pushed back that combination of fear and attraction that was soaking her undies and pinned on a wry smile. It figures that someone named after a whirlwind and iron ore would disrupt my morning, eh?

"Tala Bienvenido. I'm sorry I reacted so badly. I just find it scary to suddenly be confronted by someone so large. It's not easy being short." She held out her hand and it was engulfed in his hot, large hand. She felt like she'd plunged her hand into a pool of plasma—with the current running up and down all the nerves in her arm from her fingertips to her armpits and on, and on around her body.

They chatted about the weather, her job at the call center, his job at a nearby bank. What Buhawi did not tell Tala was that his family owned the bank, had owned it from the very beginning, over a century ago.

SkinandSin
SkinandSin
133 Followers
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