How to Ride a Tikbalang Ch. 01

For those who are reading my Tikbalang stories for the first time, this is the first chapter of the sequel to the 14-chapter How to Tame Your Tikbalang series I've already upped here on Literotica. I do recommend reading that series first so you don't get too lost at sea with this one.

For those who are waiting for the sequel to HTTYT, here is its first chapter. :)

I do appreciate feedback and it actually helps me see if I am able to execute my intents in the manner I've planned, so, yes, please do tell me what you think of this chapter if you are so inclined.

Thank you so much.

*****

The beat bit down to the bone, the full, thumping bass insistent and evocative of the pounding he wanted to give, to get, to meld to a melody of groaning need and wailing climax.

Kidlat stalked through the crowd of bodies inside Pepe's Pole on a Saturday night, his reddish-brown hair dark and still dripping from the sudden downpour that sent him into the kinky little bar in Malate, Manila in the first place.

It was when Kidlat skirted the dance floor and its gyrating bodies that he saw him: A tall human in a sea of Diwata, Tikbalang, Engkanto and Aswang, lounging with an ease that said "yes, I know I'm a sexy beast. Come and get me." One large, well-shaped hand was on a black denim-encased thigh, tapping out a sensuous syncopation on tight quadriceps muscle that echoed the pickup in Kidlat's heartbeat.

The man was seated on one of the barstools, leaning back with a fuck-me-stupid smile highlighting a face made for the immortality of sculpture. His white linen shirt offset a tanned chest and arms and, when he took a long pull off his Cerveza Negra, the shirt's mandarin collar and three undone buttons framed a luscious throat Kidlat could imagine licking over and over again. His wavy black hair was cut in a carelessly tousled just-rolled-outta-bed shag that went well with his strong, angled brows and dark eyes ringed with almost girlishly thick and long lashes. His red lips glistened, their fullness sealed against the brown lip of the beer bottle and Kidlat just had to stare, teeth on lower lip as the man took another long pull and swallow.

Onstage, dancers took to pole and cage with artful abandon, their hips and thighs making bold statements of sexual desire as they looked out on the audience below with bright, feral eyes, their clothes coming off slowly and seductively to expose flawless skin neon-painted with tribal designs that drew the eyes to breasts, built chests, gorgeously cut abs and other parts down south worth second and third looks.

Not that Kidlat noticed. All he saw was the man at the bar, swigging his beer and scanning the room. Obviously that gorgeous hunk of man was waiting for someone, what with his eyes going between entrance and stage.

Now, Pepe's Pole was a place where the beautful took center stage without shame, shook their booty and seduced the audience without hesitation. It was also a place where the Other World's denizens could let their hair down and find themselves someone to roll in the hay for an hour, a day, maybe even eternity.

It was just another monsoon evening in Malate, once the most notorious of red-light districts. Former Manila Mayor Alfredo Lim may have cleaned up the district, but that was mainly just for show. In this part of the City by the Bay, sex still happened in dark alleys and even duskier nooks. You could get your pounds of flesh any way you wanted if you knew where to look.

This Tikbalang was hunting and his prey was within sight.

***

Ulap Delubyo Batumbakal was sitting under an umbrella at the little outdoor café as the rain fell. Clad in his impeccable banker's bespoke tropical suit in charcoal gray over a pristine white shirt and red Versace tie and shod in the best black designer wingtips the Florsheim store had to offer, he looked every inch the chairman of the board that he was. His black hair was streaked with white wings at the temples, which only added a dignified air to his rakishly dark good looks and the natural tan of his skin. Not bad for someone with four children who were full-grown and living their own lives. Actually, not too bad, indeed, for someone who was about to become a grandfather at long last.

Ulap sipped his barako espresso and leaned against the wicker back of his chair, his coffee eyes taking in the slick asphalt of the designated space where he expected his wife to park her car. It was, after all, her turn to pick him up from work, but she'd gotten stuck in the monster traffic jams that make up Manileños' everyday calvary. Instead of waiting in his Manila office, Ulap decided to go out for a bit of a walk and a coffee.

The café was part of a small compound enclosed by a low brick wall that also housed a bar, full-service spa and what looked like a small gift shop and he'd come here for sentimental reasons.

When he'd been wooing his wife, this patch of pavement was once a little restaurant run by a self-made Chinese businessman who'd married a full-blooded Spanish insulares lass. This was where he'd finally won a happy "yes" from Bulan's sweet, lovely lips.

Now it was owned by different people who had preserved the Spanish colonial architecture of the main structure and the art deco designs of the outbuildings that were added years later. They'd put these to multiple purposes, but the lot itself was still a space he'd some sentimental affection for—even after all these years.

It doesn't matter how long you've been married, Ulap thought to himself as he checked his wafer-thin Breuget watch for the third time in the last quarter hour. You make sure your woman knows you're taking good care of yourself for her sake.

"Excuse me, is this seat taken?"

A masculine voice interrupted Ulap's reveries and he turned to look at the stranger who'd approached him.

"Actually, I'm just waiting for someone," Ulap said, his voice polite but carefully neutral. He was not happy with the assessing look the stranger had given him, like he was the café's dinner special.

"Are you taken?" This from the mortal in tight, white skinny jeans and black, torso-hugging t-shirt.

"Yes, son, I most definitely am." Ulap tried to keep the irritation out of his tone.

"Too bad," the wiry young human twentysomething said with a cutesy smile. "I'd happily have taken you."

With that, the young man disappeared through a set of heavy mahogany double doors under a blue and purple neon sign proclaiming the bar's name: Pepe's Pole.

At which point Ulap's mobile phone sang out Bulan's ringtone, the sexy guitar riff of the Inxs' Need You Tonight.

"Oh, babe, I'm so sorry to be so late." Bulan's apology was shot through with an undertone of anger, the slight echo indicating that she was speaking over the hands-free feature. "Manila's so full of idiots behind steering wheels. They should be shot. That's the solution to our traffic woes: Get the stupid ones and the assholes off the road permanently and reduce their vehicles to cubes of crushed metal."

"Easy, Baylan mine, don't get mad," Ulap said with a small chuckle. "You might actually call lightning on the poor fool who offends you like you did last week. I'll just keep busy here, okay? There's a bar just past the café, Pepe's Pole. Let me go see what they have there and I'll meet you inside, okay? You can pretend to pick me up. It will be kinky, for sure. Should I play hard to get or haliparot?"

"You're such a bad boy, Ulap mine," Bulan was shaking her head at her husband's audacity as she maneuvered around yet another idiot and stifled a very, very bad word about that fool's ancestry. "Just make sure you're out of the rain and not too bored. If I do like the bar, I will definitely make a slut of you when I see you. I need to de-stress."

"All right, dear, I'll be inside, waiting to be propositioned by a goddess, then. After that, I'll be inside you. All night long. Love you."

Ulap rang off to Bulan's amused little huffs and smiled. Getting older did not mean losing the excitement that had brought him and his wife together, after all. With that thought top of mind, he pushed his way into Pepe's Pole, anticipating a good, hard shot of lambanog to get him ready for the advances of that buxom armful of goddess he called wife. The Old Gods knew he'd need fortifying first, because, as insatiable as he could get, his wife could definitely do him one better.

***

"Lambanog, straight up, please. No ice." Ulap shot his order to the barkeep, a Diwata in a skintight black baby tee with the words "Don't. Fuck. With. Me." emblazoned in white across her healthy chest and tight leather pants hugging curvy hips and long, lithe legs that said otherwise.

Gorgeous as the Diwata was, Ulap's thoughts were on his wife: Her lush body with its perfectly peachy-tan skin, her beautiful bow lips. Her gorgeous black hair falling perfectly straight down past her hips, the tips just level with her pink, feminine bits. Feminine bits he wanted to explore all over again in their wettest, neediest glory. With lips and fingers and hard, hard tarugo. And, just like that, his pants got too tight. Must not think too much about what makes that woman so delicious, Ulap chided himself. Well, not until she's within reach and we're near some conveniently cool, dark place. An alley will do, but maybe a hotel? There must be about six of them here.

He settled onto one of the barstools, facing the mirror behind the bartender. There, now I can take in the show without looking like a dirty old man, Ulap thought with satisfaction as he sipped the clear, fiery ethanol that passed for native liquor. Ah, yes, the best use of coconut water, ever. He sighed and kept right on thinking of his wife and how her little sounds of pleasure tickled his ear as he fucked her wildly just that morning and he knew there was no helping his arousal until she got there. Patience is a virtue, Ulap.

Ulap turned the barstool toward the stage so he could check the door to his left before tipping his head back and rolling his shoulders, feeling the day's tension ease away as he took another, deeper draught of his drink.

And immediately sputtered it out as he felt a hand rub firmly against his groin. Onto a male Aswang who was standing too closely between his splayed legs for comfort.

"I must say I do like the way you got me wet," the Aswang said, not in the least put off by the lambanog shower that landed on his black silk polo shirt. He pressed his hand even harder against Ulap's unsubsided erection and drew all the wrong conclusions.

Which was why, when the Aswang leaned in to deliver an exploratory kiss, he managed to kiss Ulap's large, incoming fist.

***

Cocoy saw the man in black silk and denim fly over the dance floor and land with a bone-crushing thud, right in front of the pole-dancer at center stage. Thank goodness the man was shimmying his thong-clad glutes up the pole or he'd have cushioned the flyer's fall.

He winced in sympathy as he heard the impact of a large body on the polished wooden floorboards. Ouch.

Cocoy averted his eyes from the angry man. It doesn't do a body good to get in the middle of a bar brawl, no matter how one-sided, he reminded himself.

So he let his eyes wander over the dance floor, to watch a gorgeous pair of biker-booted and blue jeans-clad legs maneuver some intricate footwork with masculine grace. His eyes roved upward, to take in the tight, round butt above the meaty legs and the soft, olive-green t-shirt hugging every delineated muscle on a back that was obviously strong and ripped, a shirt that set off the rich, deep red and dark chocolate tones of this man's curly hair. The slow sway of those hips had Cocoy so entranced that he suddenly needed to look away for a bit, if only to get himself composed enough to approach that specimen of prime maleness later on.

So he turned to the man beside him, a distinguished-looking gent in a gray suit and black wingtips who had thrown the punch that sent the other guy flying.

"Oh, hey, sir, can we calm down?" The barkeep had her hand on the older man's shoulder and was trying to signal to the bouncers at the bar entrance. "We're all friends here."

"You tell that maligno that," Ulap said, shaking his right hand vigorously his low voice shot through with barely-suppressed anger. "He shouldn't be touching my personal parts like that."

"Actually, sir, this is a place where that maligno was doing precisely the accepted thing," the Diwata said as Ulap glowered down at her. "This is a bar where people who like sex—whatever they are and whatever their preferences are—can find it. Sitting at the bar means you're fair game. Of course, most people refer to Pepe's Pole as a gay bar, but, really, almost anything consensual goes."

Ulap was taken aback and he would have argued with the barkeep when he heard a wonderfully familiar voice behind him. "Well, it was not consensual and I didn't know about that rule with sitting at the bar. Thank you for telling me that. I'll not make that mistake again." Dander up, Ulap was about to turn and take his leave when he felt a smaller, softer body press against his rigid back.

"I'm looking for a very, very bad man to take home for the night," a dulcet alto whisper drifted up his shoulder to his ear as a blessedly feminine hand traced its way up one of Ulap's legs and cupped his crotch, massaging the hard heft it found with practiced ease. "Perhaps that man is you, sir?"

"Thank the Gods of War you're here," Ulap said as he turned to Bulan and buried his aquiline nose into her night jasmine-scented hair and shut his eyes. "I was getting impatient for you."

Just then, a streak of lightning arced over the dance floor, striking the rising Aswang between the eyes, knocking him unconscious. "That should take care of that," Bulan said casually. "Nobody puts the move on my guy and gets away with it. Only lightning reaps no vengeance."

Bulan wrapped a deceptively delicate-looking hand around the knot of her husband's tie and pulled gently as she walked to the door. "Let's go. I need to get you in me in the worst way. At least thrice."

"I hear, I obey, Babaylan of my life," Ulap said with a grin lacing his straitlaced tone of voice. "Lead on."

***

From the dance floor, Kidlat had a prime view of the perfect arc of lightning that hit the Aswang onstage, though he did not see who'd called it. Someone got a Babaylan angry. Tsk. Or maybe it was a Bayot, the male priests who cross-dressed to access the divine feminine aspect of the Babaylan and marry it to the raw, male energy given by SkyFather Bathala to males. The Babaylan is already a powerhouse. The Bayot even more so, transvestism and effete rituals notwithstanding. Most Bayot were totally male, though some preferred guys.

But, if the Babaylan is rare, then the Bayot is even rarer, Kidlat thought to himself. But what I wouldn't do for a Bayot of my own, he cast a silent wish. Someone who can take all of me, undiluted, and give back as good as he gets. Because, hell, I know I like mine male, big and burly, wild and delicious. Ah, SkyFather, let me have some of that someday.

Lost in his wishing, Kidlat was caught unawares when a warm male front came up smack against his back and butt and a pair of hands caught his hips in a determined but careful grip.

"That shirt looks good on you. I'm sure I'll look even better on you," a husky voice slid a sexy baritone whisper in his ear. "Wanna try me on?" Hot breath on Kidlat's neck drew pleasured shivers as the Tikbalang turned to face the man behind him and he beheld the prey he thought he'd been stalking.

"Dance with me." Kidlat decided to take charge. He was the taller one, after all. This human was what? Five foot-eleven, six foot flat? At six-four, he was confident he'd get the upper hand. But there was this thrumming energy about the man that made his inner horse prick up its ears.

"I'm so glad you dance my way, lover-boy," the man in the white linen shirt said with a smile, not in the least bit intimidated by Kidlat's intense stare. He even ground his groin against the Tikbalang's leg. "Let's. My name is Cocoy, by the way. Just so you know what you're going to yell out along with 'OhMyGod' later."

"Kidlat. And let's see who'll be yelling first."

With that, they battled for control as Kidlat began a slow, hard grind against Cocoy and Cocoy answered in kind, grabbing Kidlat's behind in a hard, unspoken challenge.

***

Just when she was about to swear off men forever (ex number sixteen having done a number on her, again), Jinx found herself watching not one man, but two. Which was awkward. Because she was in the middle of trying to get into the hot and heavy with a beautifully exotic woman in a brief little bit of lace that passed for a dress only because it just about covered her hard nipples and wet puki in peekaboo strips.

Well, if you touch the right erogenous zones in just the right way, then you'll get the arousal you intend and the happy ending you seek, right? Riiiight.

Jinx had to admit it was intoxicating, watching two very sexy men all but fucking on the dance floor, their eyes locked on each other and their hands barely restrained in their roaming over ripped chests, cut bellies and firm, high buns of steel. Whew. Hot in here.

She felt her dance partner's hands roaming over her own rounded ass, felt a wet, thong-covered groin rubbing against her bare leg as the thumping four-four rhythm of the trance music now playing brought them to a very sexy how-low-can-you-go grind. She felt soft, womanly lips caress her throat lightly as her partner flirted wordlessly with her.

They danced closely, their breasts pressed together, the girl quite obviously into Jinx and Jinx subtly into the pair of magnificent men, one tall and broad and the other tall and wiry, dry-humping to the music.

Jinx brought a hand up to tangle her fingers into her dance partner's salon-perfect raven curls and held her head in place as she closed her amber eyes and let her head fall back. The girl had a talented tongue and Jinx knew a moment of regret that she'd not connected on a deeper level with Adora.

The woman deserves better. But hell, so did she.

"

Somehow, I know you're getting all hot and bothered," Adora said softly against Jinx's left ear, "but I also know I'm not the one doing this to you, sweetheart."

Busted. Jinx pulled away a bit and looked Adora in the eye. "Well, you do know which switches to flip and you're gorgeous..." Jinx began.

"I know that, dearling." Adora was smiling. "And I do like some eggplant myself on occasion, as well as mussels. But you? You're straight as a line made with a ruler, girl. Would you like those two making like horndogs in front of us? Something tells me you do."

"I do like, yes." Jinx blushed as she said this. She had no idea why she couldn't even tell a little white lie to Adora, but, well there it was. She couldn't.

"Then go get, girlfriend. I'm just as happy being a wingwoman. Diwatas, after all, can have anyone they want. I can get me mine later." Having said that, Adora gave Jinx a wink and a small shove that sent her straight into the manwich in need of filling. "You'll thank me later," Adora added as she turned and left the dance floor.

***

"Oh, dear me, I'm so sorry to crash into your manwich like this..." Jinx's composure was shot the moment she felt the forward momentum knocking her off her black as sin fuck-me heels and right between Cocoy and Kidlat.

"Manwich?!"

"Whoa!"

Both men blurted out their surprise simultaneously and Jinx was just glad they'd had the presence of mind to keep her from falling to the floor. That would have exposed her barely-there lace boyleg panties to all and sundry and, brief as her little red dress was (a bandage dress, after all, only covers the parts that are illegal to bare publicly).