Azucena

Here's another tale based on Philippine lore (and some werewolf lore, too) for you all while I continue working on How to Tame Your Tikbalang.

While there is quite a bit of flirtation and sexual tension in this standalone short, I don't think it really falls into any erotic categories.

For those who are curious, caldereta is a very spicy stew of goat meat simmered in thick tomato sauce with carrots, potatoes, bell peppers, liver spread, grated cheddar cheese and plenty of labuyo (bird's eye) chilies.

Pusoy dos is a local version of Poker, kind of like a blend of Texas Hold 'em and Five Card Stud.

A talyasi is a huge wok, one big enough to cook up to 15 kilos of food in over a wood stove.

A barangay tanod is a person deputized to keep the peace in a community (barangay). Tanods serve as force multipliers for the Philippine National Police.

I love Boracay island, and have since before it opened up to the world and sprouted streets. Have fun, and welcome to my Philippines. If inspiration strikes, I may also expand this story into a full-length novel someday.

*****

The twilight of Boracay's magic hour is always a beautiful thing to behold, with its purples and oranges, the pinks and grays that paint the sky's canvas and give way to the throbbing music pulsing on the beach-front, as if in reply to the rise and ebb of the incoming tide. This is the new rhythm of this paradise island and it is broken tonight by the hoarse wail of the island's one police vehicle, a battered and little-used multicab with a faded Philippine National Police insignia on its white doors.

The main road, where the island's traffic of tricycles, jeepneys and smattering of sedans and cargo vehicles normally flows smoothly, is blocked off near the roadside entrance to D.Mall, the place locals call "Divisoria on the beach" and the more jaded Manilenos have christened "SM with sand and no aircon."

Several meters into the "mall," on the side of the main cobblestone path leading past shops selling sun-block, bikinis, sarongs and offering diving gear for rent and some expensive restaurants, is a young, lithe and very dead woman, a mestiza if her light brown curls and Eurasian features are any indication of her ethnicity.

Her cadaver is cordoned off with yellow tape: "Crime Scene: Do not enter." Her still-warm body is splayed at grotesque angles, her arms and legs all broken and arrayed like the limbs of a swastika, her once-lovely face frozen in a last horrific scream of glossy red lips and perfect white teeth marred only by a drying trickle of blood down to her chin as two junior police officers are taking turns fanning flies away from the corpse's open, glassine brown eyes ringed with thick, curly, mascaraed lashes.

One of the officers, Police Officer 1 Karlo Santino, turns away to retch into a nearby santan bush, losing his dinner in a spill of sour bile over the bright pink of the small blooms. Santino's partner utters shocked curses and shouts urgently into a battered old Motorola walkie-talkie, calling for additional personnel at the scene while the body is in situ to disperse the growing crowd of usiseros.

This crime scene will haunt them forever: The woman's body has deep claw marks on the upper arms. Her throat looks like it had been ripped out and a ragged hole sits where her voicebox should be. She had been ripped open from belly to brisket and the top of her itsy-bitsy, yellow polka-dot bikini lies sundered and spattered with blood and gore, baring two healthy-looking and shapely (albeit dead) breasts over the shattered splinters of what had been her sternum. Her heart is gone and, perhaps, most of her innards, and one of the responding lawmen thinks of grim puns about how a Filipina could lose her heart on Paradise Island.

Shell beads, probably from a necklace or bracelet the victim had been wearing, lie scattered and glistening in the pink-white sand and among the flagstones of the path. So much for island souvenirs, one of the officers-on-case thinks absently.

The crowd of scene oglers swells and ebbs like the tide as incoming police reinforcements and barangay tanods push them back so the mall can be closed that they may gather evidence and begin their investigation in peace. Gasps and screams and know-it-all chatter have been filling the sea air in this area over the last hour and a half since the woman was found thus splayed by a shocked Scandinavian tourist who had been looking for the public loo.

She would have to be moved out of there, to the nearest funeral parlor, for the coroner to tell them what killed her - as if the blood soaking the sand did not speak its truth, or the many, many wounds she bore did not tell the story clearly enough. Most probably, the cause of death would be listed as "cardiac arrest" for want of a better explanation. Yes, the heart stops when one dies, after all.

But the thrum of music from the beachfront bars and discos does not falter. The heart of Boracay continues to beat for the island is not dead. The libations continue to pour, the revelers keep at their partying, the beachfront masseuses, tattoo artists and hawkers still go about their business. The bartenders and baristas stay busy, showing off for the crowds. This is Paradise Island, after all, and paradise does not stop for anyone.

In the dark corners of Boracay, lovers still kiss in their pretzel trysts. Laughter still scents the air with a salty, lusty tang. Night swimmers still stroke their way through the purple waves and break through the whiteness of seafoam. The island is still beautifully clad in the black of night and spangled by party lights and strobes. One horrific homicide cannot put a dent in that.

***

Matthew swims up from the shore, his red-gold hair glinting in the waning light of the full moon and he shakes the seawater off his hairy limbs as a wet dog would shake its coat, making the waterproof pouch at his waist jingle with keys and coin. The light tan he has acquired only limns his skin's natural pallor in a golden sheen as he watches the moon retreat past the clouds.

Sunrise is coming, he thinks with a smile. So good to be an early riser and all that. And what a breakfast he had. Luscious, juicy, so full of energy, so sweet and hearty. Perfect fuel for the long hours of swimming he likes to put in before exploring this island and those near it. How else is one to maintain such buff musculature but to work off the calories one consumes with a vigorous swim, eh? Here, the sea is warm enough for a good, hard swim and Matthew is happy for it. I could live here forever.

With a loping stride, he makes his way back to his hotel, a posh, five-star beauty of Mactan stone, chrome and glass that sits smack in the middle of the beach facing the Grotto where the image of the Queen of Heaven watches over the sunbathers and swimmers.

Time to shower and change, to rinse off the powdery sand and see what the day holds, Matthew tells himself as he pauses long enough to watch the sun start to break through the sea in a red-gold disc over the center of the horizon, throwing the Grotto into a fleeting penumbra, dousing Mother Mary's meek face in complete shadow, before bringing her soft smile to light.

"Massage, sir?" The question takes Matthew by surprise, something that makes his hackles rise and draws a growl out of his throat as he turns to see a petite Filipina in a faded blue tank top and a gaily-patterned sarong full of swimming neon fish looking up at him and holding a glass bottle of clear oil in her left hand and a large beach blanket folded over that arm, her gamine face set in a friendly islander's smile. "For two hundred pesos, I promise you the best massage of your life."

Her long, straight hair hangs down to her waist, black as night, skimming the full curve of her hips and outlining a handspan waist that tapers upward to a firm, ripe bosom that is probably as brown as the rest of her body and Matthew smiles a wolfish smile. "Aren't you out a bit early?" Matthew's question hangs in the air over her head, just at a level with his bare chest, and she shrugs.

"The earlier I get out on the beach, the better. There are a lot of beach masseurs here and I need to earn my keep, sir," she says coyly, almost flirtatiously, her well-shaped brows rising engagingly as she looks up at him and dark chocolate eyes clash with his light green ones. "Just give me an hour and you will be a new man, I promise."

A bit too early for lunch, Matthew thinks to himself, but she looks like a tasty morsel. Why the heck not? Just a massage, then, maybe later, well, this is paradise. There is always time for a leisurely meal after a massage.

He grins down at her and nods: "Okay, an hour, then. For two hundred pesos. But this better be good or I'll be sorely disappointed and I may eat you for lunch." His tone, in clipped Queen's English, is just as light, as flirtatious as hers is. "But you must tell me your name. I'm Matthew."

She takes his extended right hand in a firm handshake, her little brown hand looking even smaller in his massive paw. "Hello, Matthew. You may call me Suzy, short for Azucena. Now, let me set the blanket up and I will give you a sunrise massage you will never forget."

Suzy walks gracefully over the still-cool sand to a level spot and spreads the thick blanket with practiced ease, sets down the oil bottle and whips her sarong off to reveal perfectly browned, lithely-muscled legs bared by short, sheer white shorts. "Let's start with your back. Please lie face down."

Matthew snaps out of his intent perusal of Suzy's legs and complies with a smile. Okay, I know it is bad manners to play with one's food, but, maybe this time I can have a bit of fun, eh? He stops thinking when she settles down on the backs of his hairy thighs, her firm butt wiggling a bit until she finds her balance astride him.

Oh, yes, we will play first, he decides as he breathes in deep and inhales the heady scent of flowers falling from Suzy's dark hair and an earthy odor he cannot quite place but doesn't find at all unpleasant.

The oil pools in the small of his pack in a cool puddle that Suzy begins to spread with fingers and palms in light, expanding circles on his back. "My, you are hairy, Matthew, what we like to call 'balbon' here. If you had been born Filipino, we'd have said your mother ate balut while she was pregnant with you," she comments with a whisper of a chuckle as she begins to press and rub on the tight muscles of his neck, shoulders and upper back. "Why, you're furry enough to make a rug if you lie perfectly still on the floor!"

"Mmmm. Yes, where I come from, the men are rather hairy, although there is absolutely no balut there," Matthew replies, a laugh in his voice and his eyes half closed with pleasure as the sun brightens the sky. "So, tell me, what does Azucena mean?"

"It is a very fragrant flower," she answers as she moves her skilled hands down to the middle of his back, kneading and pressing, caressing and soothing. "You know it as the tuberose." Reality begins to fade for Matthew as Suzy takes her ministrations lower down his back, to the base of his spine, over his tightly muscled buttocks and down his legs.

All he hears is her voice and the crash of sea against shore is a distant thing, irrelevant, really. Her hands, her slick, small hands are making waves of their own on the shore of his skin as the sun warms it and she works his toes and the soles of his feet. She moves up again, to massage his left arm, all the way down to the fingertips, and moves on to the right arm.

"How did you learn to speak English so well?" He asks her sleepily, for the massage is relaxing him so, making him take his guard down, making him forget everything but the soothing motions of her hands on him. "The other islanders use what you call carabao English."

Suzy smiles and pauses as she sits astride his buttocks, "I went to college in Manila, the University of Santo Tomas, and I hung out with the campus writers and read a lot of American and British authors as part of my course in Literature." Her voice sounded wistful, as if she were reminiscing about lost treasure. "We had English as the medium of instruction there."

"Turn over, Matthew. It is time to massage your chest," Suzy says with an abruptness that tells him she doesn't want to dig into that particular set of memories anymore as she rises off him. He turns over and looks at her, his light eyes boring into hers as she positions herself to his left and he cradles his nape with interlocked fingers so she can pour oil down his lightly-furred chest, over his pectoral muscles and down into the grooves separating his six-pack of abdominal muscles. "So, if you went to college, why are you giving beach massages for two hundred pesos a pop?"

Suzy cocks her head to the side and purses her plump, red lips, her thick black lashes veiling her almond eyes as she spreads the oil and begins working her magic over his collarbone and chest and the ocean breeze carries her scent to his nose. Matthew closes his eyes and breathes her in - salt, the sweet tang of tuberose, fresh and womanly sweat and that earthy odor he still cannot identify, try as he might, keen as his sense of smell may be.

The world fades away again as he feels her fingers brushing his chest and abdomen like butterflies, then pressing down to demand the submission of his muscles. He makes a sound that is half a groan and wholly a sigh, his butt lifting slightly off the mattress. Her fingers feel so good on me, Matthew thinks with a pleasured gasp. So good on my quadriceps, on my hips. So good on my...

"I had come home because my grandmother died and I had to take on family responsibilities," Suzy says briskly, matter-of-factly, her tone breaking rudely into his horny mood. "I'm the eldest granddaughter and I had to take care of the things she left behind, to take her place as head of the family. My mother, her daughter, died ahead of her so it fell to me. It's not so bad, being back home, giving massages. And my good English brings me good business. So, tell me what you do for a living."

"I'm an ordinary guy by day," Matthew says as he casts her a glance over his shoulder. "I work in my father's construction and landscaping company back in the UK. By night, well, I howl at the moon and ravish virgins," he pauses as he hears her tinkling laughter above him.

"Seriously, I'm a bad boy by night, woof-woof-bite, and all that," he expostulates with a laugh, which terminates in a groan as she undoes the knots in his quadriceps and he closes his eyes from the pleasure of her hands smoothing down the skin on his legs.

Her hands stop moving and Matthew's eyes fly open. Suzy is looking at him with undisguised and intense hunger in her eyes, massaging his scantily-clad body with those brown orbs as surely as her hands had been doing just seconds ago. "Two hundred pesos, sir," she said, a smile bringing out small dimples in her cheeks as she holds out a small hand, palm-up.

Sitting up quickly, as much to get at his waterproof pouch and draw out the money as to hide the tenting of his arousal that he was suddenly aware of, Matthew takes hold of a P500 bill and hands it over to Suzy. "Here. The rest is a tip. That was truly the best massage in the world. At least as far as I've had massages."

She beams up at him, satisfaction showing in her mien, in the way she stands tall and basks in his praise as she reaches for the currency he is holding out to her. Matthew smiles back at Suzy, a predatory gleam in his eye as he catches her hand before she can take the money he proffers. "Can I see you tonight? No massage, just dinner and a walk on the beach."

She may shy away, Matthew thinks, but she can't hide from me now that I have her scent. It is so much better when they are willing. Outwardly, he puts on his hopeful, puppy-dog face, seeming to beg when he is actually scheming.

"I'd like that. Sunset? Here? Then I can show you my Boracay," Suzy said, smiling even more widely her teeth bright white against the deep tan of her skin, her dimple deepening.

"Yes, that would be perfect," Matthew answers as she tucks a strand of hair behind her right ear and gathers up her gear. "Till then." He lopes away to his hotel and she sashays past him, down the beach to disappear in the gathering crowd of sunbathers, her hips swaying like palm fronds in the breeze.

***

"What sort of predatory animal, Officer Santino, can prowl the beach, slip unseen into D. Mall and maul a woman without anyone even seeing it? You tell me that and I'd believe your 'mauled by a wild animal' theory! There are no wild animals on Boracay. We're too far from Kalawit Island for them to swim to our shores, for God's sake!"

The squat, balding mayor of Boracay is normally a jovial fellow, more given to gales of laughter than angry bluster, and PO1 Santino is discomfited by this change in his uncle. He is also shaken by the fact that this angry, bald man who is his uncle is not doting on him now or letting him off the hook at all.

"Sir, that is what the coroner said. He said the victim was attacked by a wild animal, possibly a very big dog..." The mayor interrupts his nephew with a downward slash of his right hand and a blue streak of expletives in at least four Filipino dialects, Spanish and English. "Sir, that is what the evidence shows, including paw-prints in the flower-bed beside the victim. Paw-prints, po, with claw-marks!"

The mayor inhales deeply and holds the bridge of his aquiline nose between thumb and forefinger as he closes his eyes only to open them again and fix his idiot of a nephew with an icy stare: "Then find this goddamned animal and shoot it before it ruins my island!" There are days, the Mayor thinks to himself, when nepotism just does not pay.

***

As dusk draws near, Suzy prepares the outdoor kitchen. The wood stove out back is now stacked with tinder and kindling, a huge talyasi sits atop the stove, gleaming, for it has been freshly scrubbed. The newly-washed concrete patch and tiled countertop where food preparation takes place is drying in the late afternoon sun and she calls her two younger siblings over in Aklanon.

"Allan, did you go to the talipapa and get the herbs we need?" The gangly teenage boy nods at his sister silently. "Good. Now, you and Jessie-Mae should arrange the knives and chopping board on the counter when it dries, okay? I'll be going out in a while. When I get back, I want everything ready so we can cook. We have a guest coming over. Please dress well so we can impress him, okay?" The boy nods and his eyes light up as he goes to find their little sister.

Suzy hurries out of the back yard and into the hollow-block and concrete house to change into another set of tank-top and shorts - red top and black shorts - and pull on her best flip-flops, original red and black Havaianas bought in Manila.

She pauses in front of a cracked mirror and takes a small, old-fashioned flagon with a glass stopper and dip-stick from an ancient-looking red, lacquered Chinese chest on the dresser.

The box had belonged to her grandmother and it passed into her keeping after the old lady had died. "This is where we keep the most precious of things," her Lola told her as she lay dying on the bed not two feet from the dresser. "Keep it well. Now, kiss me goodbye, Azucena."

There are a few gold rings in that box, and a small amulet of old carbon steel with Latin markings embossed crudely on it. When removed from the box, the amulet hung by a black leather thong that has grown brittle with age and, perhaps, the salt air.