How to Tame Your Tikbalang Ch. 04

Chapter 4, for your pleasure, dear readers. :)

There isn't as much sexual congress in this chapter, but that is because the story needs more history to it for you to appreciate what underpins it. Chapter 5, I promise, will have more sex as the story moves forward.

Enjoy!

*****

Buhawi stopped mid-stroke, a sudden constriction of his windpipe and loss of air making it hard for him to finish his sensual game of choke the chicken. The hand cupping his balls fisted reflexively, delivering more pain than pleasure as it gripped his testicles way too hard, but not hard enough to make his erection wilt or stop the escalation of his need to come.

He tried to focus his thoughts on the three squat, black black candles that cast weak, flickering light in their beds of salt lining pewter holders by the bed, on the feel of Tala's silky half-slip in his hand and wrapped around his throbbing tumescence. He couldn't.

All Buhawi could make sense of was his the wild jerking of his cock, as he strangled the ever-hardening member, ripping pleasure from his bones in a growing trap of pain. But for the bit of silk in his hand, he'd flay his granite erection with just the strength of his grip. As it was, he feared he'd break the thing in half, though he could not stop.

Buhawi struggled for breath as his cock jerked, having a mind of it own and demanding brutal, relentless satisfaction, never mind if he died. His dick throbbed and swelled even harder, pulsing as keen blades of the strongest (and strangest) orgasm he'd ever experienced blackened the edges of his vision.

She's learned the kontra to my dream-manipulation, was the thought that stood out against the panic flooding Buhawi's brain and triggering a strong release of adrenalin that made his body tense and thrash about even more.

When his limbs finally stopped jerking gracelessly and the invisible hand clamped around his throat let go, Buhawi dragged air into his lungs in huge gulps and closed his eyes because the world was spinning so fast his surroundings blurred.

Buhawi's bedroom ebbed out of sight as he pushed his head back and felt his very soul jet out of his cockhead, the pleasure radiating from beneath his tailbone, through his belly and groin and up and out. Semen painted his belly and lower chest and his scream of completion was primal, pulled from the very marrow of his bones.

He was shaking and barely hanging on to consciousness when he heard her voice chanting. Then he found himself transported to the sofa in her living room, his masturbation suddenly rewound to the point where he'd begun to truly choke. Not again, he groaned inwardly, his body ignoring the frantic commands of his brain that it cease the torture.

Tala knelt in front of him, her back curving in a backward arc, its dips and rises thrown into dancing shadows by the candlelight. Her form was graceful, nude and sheened in sweat. She was releasing her deathly grip on the neck of a black chicken and had risen into a half-crouch that allowed him to see the sheen of her feminine arousal on the insides of her thighs.

Buhawi felt himself compelled to rise from the sofa as his orgasm came to that peak between agony and ecstasy, and he moved swiftly among the lit candles to stand before Tala, his bare buttocks turned to the glass of her sliding door.

He pumped harder, tighter, faster, with his hips and ass rising and falling at a frantic gallop. He felt his coming crest in splashing hot bursts that landed on Tala's breasts, her belly, the top of her puki where her clitoris stood tall, inviting the touch of the black feathers she was stroking around and over it. He heard her gasp out the last of her chant, fighting the loss of words by force of will alone.

Her body was flushed a delicious gold and pink in the soft glow of concentric rings of candles and salt. Buhawi felt himself bellow a resonating "YESSSSS! By Bulan's lost eye, YES! By Bathala's rock-hard cock, yes."

Oh fuck, FUCK the Old Gods and fuck all Taga-Lupa, he thought as he faded out of Tala's living room, his knees buckling under him. She's bound me. The bitch.

It was on that note of exquisitely agonizing pleasure and the first true flash of defeat that Buhawi landed facedown on his custom-built bed and, barely conscious, passed out as the candles on his bedside table guttered and drowned in black pools of wax and salt.

***

Now, for my next trick, I will dream-walk, the Tikbalang said wryly in his mind as his spirit entered the Other Land, his father's realm to which he was heir. Or, rather, dream-run. He set out by cantering on his unshod hooves, his nostrils flared wide in a fit of temper. His tail flicked like a cat o'nine tails in a torturer's hands and his cantering lope sped to a gallop.

The Tikbalang rushed past rugged terrain strewn with granite and sandstone boulders, past burbling streams decorated with varicolored bioluminescence and through tall patches of cogon grass. Without breaking pace, he jumped across ravines, over fallen tree trunks and from one rugged rise to another.

He'd barely evaded the hillocks of Nunos, was feeling the humidity within the triple-canopy jungle's tunnel of bark and leaf. Razorback boar and pygmy deer shied away from the staccato of his hoofbeats, and tropical birds took flight to the very top of the rainforest canopy in alarm at his passage.

A winding, stone-laid path walled in by bamboo groves and hardwood trees was strewn with glowing rubies and sapphires that lit Buhawi's way to the entrance of a large clearing where the Diwata were singing to and fussing over large flowers and creepers blooming with colorful fruit and glossy leaves that spanned every shade of green.

The bark of the massive trees was traced in cold, colorful lights limning lyric poems written in Baybayin: Dalits mourning the ones who had passed into the Skyworld to sit with the Old Gods, and Awit that rejoiced over the immortality granted to the royal ones who ruled in this domain.

The stars peeked brightly through the few spaces between the leaves, throbbing like the hardness at his groin that refused to ebb. The scent of night-blooming jasmine, kalamansi blossoms and dama de noche filled the air Buhawi was breathing in heavy gasps caused by his unrestrained run through the thick undergrowth and on the stone path.

There, his father held court on a gem-studded and gilded throne grown from a mighty molave trunk which had stood for milennia, its gnarled roots making ornate armrests upon which the roan-pelted Tikbalang King rested strong, immense hands, and natural steps down to the rich leaf-covered black loam of the rainforest floor.

"Itay!" the young stallion's bellow was meant to draw the King's attention, for the greatest of all Tikbalang was engrossed in a book, an old one, by the look of it's covering of ironwood bark.

"You and I know I am your father, Buhawi Unos Batumbakal, there is no need to yell. I may be old, but I am not deaf," chuckled the elder Tikbalang as he set the book down on his throne's broad arm. "Here I was, enjoying the ancient T'nalak verse, and you come barging into my throne room as if the jungle would collapse."

"What brings you home in such a state? And with a raging erection, too. Have I taught you no manners, princeling?" The Tikbalang King cupped his chin in his right hand, put his right elbow on the armrest of his throne and picked up a polished narra goblet of fermented nectar drawn from millions of tiny santan flowers, the beverage only the reigning King may drink.

"The Baylan knows the kontra for my magic," Buhawi said to his father as he fell to one knee squarely in front of the throne and bent his horse's head with an angry whicker. "I think she may have bound me."

The Tikbalang prince's voice expressed his frustration in a near growl and he looked up to his father with consternation and shame in his eyes.

"Well, I was telling you last week that you were getting too old to keep cantering about from female to female, wasn't I?" The Tikbalang King was laughing softly, watching his usually suave and unflappable heir go through all the stages of struggle any soon-to-be-wed Tikbalang did.

First, he'd try to control the situation, the struggle embedding the bond even deeper, like that knot that only gets tighter the more a bound victim writhes to get free. Buhawi would put himself through a fruitless struggle, but then that's what youth is for: Making mistakes and learning from them.

Next, he'd resent the Baylan, perhaps even try to eat her, if he hasn't made the attempt already. If he is unsuccessful at turning the Baylan into a meal, he would try to impregnate her and spirit her off into the Other Land, feed her its fruit and enslave her thus. That never worked. Coercion never did.

The Tikbalang King found himself wishing Buhawi would just skip to the part where he got himself well and truly wed. Being on that throne for centuries had been wearing the King down, truth be told.

"Son of mine, I wish you would just listen to me, the way you did when you were but a darkling foal still unsteady on his spindly legs," Buhawi's father said gently, standing from his throne and walking forward to pull the Prince upright.

Buhawi's father put a paternal arm about his broad shoulders and spoke even more quietly, as if he were explaining something complex to a youngling.

"When a Tikbalang and a Baylan love each other very much, it is a wondrous thing. They come together in a perfect balance of Lupa and Mundong Kakaiba. It is then that Langit opens up and delivers of that union young Tikbalang and Baylan for the benefit of the three worlds," the elder Tikbalang said, using the ancient words for the realms of humans, Other folk and the Old Gods, in that order.

"Itay, this is not the time to pull out that foolish old story. I know all about Tikbalang reproduction, ano ba? This is serious. I need to undo this binding," Buhawi said, his voice rising almost to a shout and a cold sweat escaping the thick black sheen of his pelt.

Buhawi pulled out of his father's embrace and faced the King with a determined look on his face. "She was only supposed to be a light snack, a toy, a way to pass the time. But she is more powerful, even, than Inay."

"And I told you never to play with your food," the King shot back, casting a steely look at his son. Buhawi lacked the grace to look shamefaced as his father waved a hand to the molave throne.

"I told you that you would meet your match someday, your katapat. Now, if only your younger brothers would find their women as I permit them free rein in the human domain, I'd be more than happy to abdicate to the joys of grandfatherhood and you can continue to grow that throne," the Tikbalang monarch said.

"I'd exchange that throne, all its power and all the treasure that comes with it, for little foals and baby princesses to spoil. After all, my long-term investments have grown quite nicely and I am rich on my own merit now."

Buhawi's jaw dropped and his eyes widened in surprise. "I'd have thought you'd be on my side in this matter. Inay won't let me near her until I bring her grandchildren, or so she said through the door. I need an ally, Itay. I expected it to be you. Please, I don't know what I must do."

The Tikbalang prince began to turn away when he was stilled by his father's hand landing softly, but firmly, on one shoulder.

"I am on your side, Buhawi," the elder Tikbalang said, snorting in annoyance. "You know you cannot be king if you are unbound, because you haven't ascended to your immortality. You know your brother Kidlat wants the throne and is likely to kill you for it—and he can so long as your life can end. You also know why we cannot let him have it. You have the responsibilities of the first-born, my son."

Buhawi was shaking his mane out in annoyance, attempting to wag an angry index finger to interrupt the beginnings of his father's lecture when the Tikbalang King pointed a finger straight at Buhawi's head, stilling his protest. That gesture was, in their world, more powerful than any word.

"Do not force me to be any more obnoxious than this, son," the Tikbalang King said calmly, though threads of anger and power vibrated through his words. "Your brother has gotten loose in the human's Lupa. You must bring him back because the Old Gods only know what trouble he's been up to—he may even manage to break our bank there."

"To do that, you must secure your immortality and bind to your Baylan. That, the first of my progeny, is an order from your King." Buhawi's father drew himself up to his full, impressive height and sent the prince his sternest glare, its heat withering the leaves on nearby boughs.

With that parting shot, the Tikbalang King (Ulap Delubyo Batumbakal when walking the urban jungle of Lupa, by the way) waved a curtain of Spanish moss aside and exited the realm to visit his wife. He had a daughter-in-law to secure. And maybe he could squeeze in some hot love to make with his immortal bride.

It was also time to talk to the Duwende and the Diwata, perhaps even the temperamental Nuno, for they were protectors without peer. Maybe even a Kapre or three, just to be sure. If Buhawi would balk, he would parley with the feral Aswang and the flighty Manananggal as well.

There was wedding finery to make, wine to press and ferment, tobacco to roll, security to ensure, weather to adjust and a wedding feast menu to plan.

***

Tala walked the dream world she had drawn a path through with the brightest part of her spirit. She was naked, but unafraid. Tala held her head high and her perambulations eventually brought her to a stately old house in Malate, Manila—one that was just mere blocks and a city border marker away from her apartment.

As it usually is in a dream where one is naked, the people she passed seemed not to see her, or react at all.

Now what is it that brings me here? Tala's question had barely formed when the heavy narra door opened and light spilt through to illuminate the granite steps she found herself ascending with a sense of welcome and peace.

A small, lithe woman stood there, backlit by the glow of electric bulbs within the entresuelo. Her hair fell in a mane of curls down her back, unfurled in waves that ended just past her hips.

"Welcome to my house, Baylan," the woman said with a slight bow as she stepped aside to welcome Tala in. "I have been waiting for you."

Curiouser and curiouser, Tala thought. Alice must have felt like this in the rabbit hole, with more clothes, of course. She stepped up and entered the doorway, walked into a foyer not much different from the one in her family's ancestral home, but much cleaner, well-kept and obviously well-appointed.

There were paintings by Manansala and Luna in the formal sitting room just off the entresuelo, accenting a room that was warm with its dark hardwood paneling and robust and ornately carved chairs upholstered in fine linen and decorated with needle-point embroidery depicting pastoral scenes and fantastic jungles where Diwatas danced in moonlight around a huge molave tree.

"Please sit down, Tala," her petite hostess said, offering her a deep blue sarong of fine, light cotton patterned with jade-vines and pink hibiscus blooms that Tala quickly slipped into and knotted over one shoulder. "Your great-great-great grandmother would be so proud to see you now, bless her heart."

"You knew Beatriz?" Tala asked as she sat, her eyes agog at the casual mention of her ancestor by this woman who looked to be her age and no older, now that she had more light and a closer look. Why, the lady even wore jean shorts and a bright yellow tank top and hand-painted and carved wood bakya for house slippers.

Why, the woman was lush of figure, with a tiny waist that flared into generous breasts and hips, and a face that was morena—that perfect balance of natural rosiness and healthy tan—and unlined.

Her dark sloe eyes were fringed in thick black lashes that curled up to touch her delicately arched and well-defined black eyebrows and her nose, lips and chin were strong though small, characteristic of the uniquely Filipino blend of ancient Malay and Polynesian blood that must flow through her veins. She did not look a day over twenty-one to Tala.

The woman laughed, her voice sounding like the unearthly music of rainfall on leaves, the susurrus of wind slipping through palm fronds as a storm approached.

"I am older, even, than Beatriz," the woman said as she sat, picking up a tall, cold glass of kalamansi juice from a tray on the coffee table between them and offered it to Tala.

"My name is Bulan, and I am the first Baylan," the woman said. "I ran away from my cruel brother, Arao, who wanted to trade me for better status in the Skyworld to a Bayot, a male shaman who cross-dressed to control the divine feminine—he wanted the sky to himself, you see.

"He had taken one of my eyes with his spear of flame so I would become ugly in the eyes of my mortal mortal lover, who was destined to be a king until my brother tricked him into wedding another, a Mambabarang who trapped my erstwhile lover in her evil spells until he died.

"I wandered far and wide, maddened with pain for the loss of my beloved warrior of the tribes of Lupa, and for the loss of my right eye, when I met my Tikbalang," Bulan said. "He nursed me back to life, used healing magic to restore my lost eye, so here I am, after milennia, looking even better than I did in the old days. I have found both love and power. The fortune I now hold is not half-bad, either."

"Wait, back up, rewind," Tala raised a hand after she sputtered out the juice she had been about to swallow. "Bulan, as in the daughter of the old Sky God? As in the girl whose lost eye is now the moon? Doesn't that make you a goddess?"

"Yes, Tala, that Bulan. My name has come to be pronounced 'bu-wan' and is our word for the moon. Yes, that is my eye up there, and I see all of Lupa with it—and the Other World," Bulan said with a small smile, her hands moving in the air between the two women, gesticulating the story with graceful movement.

"I needed the power to put my brother in place, for he had made me mortal in order to stab my eye out with his spear," Bulan said, a shadow crossing her face. "We used to be such happy siblings, Arao and I, but he wanted more power, more of everything, so he tried to banish me to Lupa from Langit."

"You poor thing," Tala said. "I know what it is like to have crap for relatives." She wanted to reach across the coffee table and hug Bulan, but refrained because her hostess cast her a warm look from deep brown eyes that reminded her, strangely enough, of Buhawi.

"Oh, silly me," Bulan said suddenly, wiping the tears that threatened to fall from her eyes and drawing a deep breath. "You are here with questions that need answers and here I am telling you a sob story that is so old it has been rewritten into so many conflicting reports."

"Oh, no, no, ma'am," Tala said holding both hands out to Bulan in sympathy. "If speaking of your sad experiences helps, please go on. I'll listen. Maybe that is why I am in this dream."

Bulan's sad smile took on a maternal cast as she inclined her head forward slightly in what seemed to be a gesture of thanks. "We were talking about how I know Beatriz dela Lopa Bienvenido, dear girl. So I must tell you of that. Tonight is for answering your questions. We cannot waste this dream time."