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How to Tame Your Tikbalang Ch. 01

By: SkinandSin



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 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. 


How to Tame Your Tikbalang Ch. 01



What Buhawi gleaned was that Tala was beautiful to him, her face a blend of east and west that was rare, even for these isles where everyone is a mongrel of mixed breeds. He barely heard what she said, wouldn't have been able to answer a quiz on it if his life depended on it. 

He focused on the fire-lights in her dark hair, the tips of gold on her long, curling eyelashes, the way her eyes slanted up just slightly and how the sun brought out the clear amber lights in her otherwise chocolate eyes. 

Tala's red lips were full, moist, hypnotic—and he wanted to kiss them, delve his tongue in and drink her deep. The scent of ylang-ylang and tuberose in her hair and on her skin wafted up to him and made him grow hard enough to drill a hole in the table, up from under. 

There was this feline quality to her movements, an almost supernatural and innate grace that was at once familiar and unsettling. His warning bells were ringing, but Buhawi was in no mood to heed them so he kept up his ocular vigil of Tala.

Buhawi ogled the soft curve of Tala's throat as she tipped her head and knocked back her double chocolate latte the way a thirsty lush would knock back a solid shot of scotch. That led to him looking down the open vee of her button-down shirt to trace the soft Spanish swell of bosoms thrust out by her arched back as she swallowed and sighed because the caffeine was finally, finally taking effect.

It wasn't as if Tala was doing much better, really. She focused on taking ladylike bites of her breakfast and swigging her coffee quick as she could because this gorgeous, big specimen of maleness was too hot to look at directly. His black hair was shot with streaks of sunlight—perhaps he'd had it done at one of those fancy barbershops, but, fake or not, they suited him so very well indeed.

His face was droolworthy in a way only the matinee idols of the 1950s were. He spoke in a voice that reminded her of the hot chocolate shot through with cognac her abuelo used to let her sip on the sly. He was the embodiment of a forbidden pleasure stolen in the middle of a straitlaced day, with his muscled physique and that sudden boyishness presented by the dimples coaxed out by his smile. Even good girls get wet panties, after all, when faced with such male sublimeness.

"Oh, my goodness, is it that time already? I need to get back to work." Tala picked up her mobile phone and smoothed the sides of her jeans down, skimming her hands over fidgety hips. 

"It was nice meeting you, Buhawi. Thank you for not eating me." Tala's words were sincere, with just a hint of Catholic schoolgirl flirt in it, as she held out her hand to him.

"It was my pleasure. Though I do think you would make a very nice snack, Tala," Buhawi flirted measure for measure without rising from his seat (there was a VERY big reason for that besides his desire to set her at ease). He took her hand and bowed over it. 

With a smile and nervous a wave because of Buhawi's strange gesture, Tala exited the coffee shop, her hips swaying and her scent trailing behind her.



How to Tame Your Tikbalang Ch. 02



Double-shift over, Tala made it as far as her couch before collapsing in a tired heap of cloth and flesh. But just as she was about to drop off into la-la land, she felt something hard, a corner of sorts, digging into the middle of her back. That book. She hadn't put it away and it lay just where she'd left it.

Grunting in a most unladylike manner (her mother would have frowned, really), Tala reached behind her and pulled the book out from under. She would have tossed it on the coffee table supporting her left foot, but the tome began to glow again and she felt a burst of energy begin to fill her, upward from her fingers. The book fell open in her splayed lap, right at the page where she'd put a 7-11 receipt as a bookmark. 

Baylan. Read me, Baylan.

Tala dropped the book as if it were molten and stood up. "You didn't talk and I didn't hear that," Tala said to no one in particular as she headed to the sink at the breakfast nook to get herself a glass of water. She swallowed the water, not that it helped her nervousness, her creeped-out feeling. 

Unease continued to flicker up and down her spine, the discomfort of not being alone when one should actually be alone. The voice had been in her head more than in the atmosphere of her apartment. It was a woman's voice, sultry and sure. 

Shaking herself slightly, Tala went into her room to strip out of her work clothes and change into white gym shorts and a thin yellow tank top, eschewing bra and underpants because the heat was just too much for that many layers of clothing. Anything to shake off the weirdness she was feeling. 

When she couldn't shake the feeling, Tala decided that the best defense was a solid offense. Striding the three or so steps back to the sofa, Tala settled down with a leg tucked up against her on the seat, picked up the book and began reading it again, knowing without wanting to admit it that she wouldn't get any sleep until she'd read at least another page, the entry dated 26 Abril 1898.

"There are many dangers when one seeks to tame a Tikbalang—the creature's teeth are not those of an herbivore, but of an omnivore. Beware those teeth that can, and will, tear at vulnerable flesh. It is stronger than horse and man combined, and much more determined. It is keenly intelligent, as creatures of all the Other Races are.

"My recommendation is not outright battle or confrontation. Humans are the most brittle, the weakest of races when faced with the majesty of the horse-man built of both warrior and warhorse. Heed me in this: Engage the Tikbalang on all levels that avoid combat. Use your wit and brains, your charm and goodwill. Even good cooking skills will serve you well, if you have those, for the Tikbalang is a hungry beast and he likes all things made with meat and hearty vegetables.

"Draw out your interaction with the Other Being, make yourself attractive to him and make it worth his while not to simply eat you. Then you are a step closer to the goal of taming this glorious wild thing. Thus do you get past the natural defenses of your Tikbalang.

"If you are reading this Bestiario, then you are blooded with the blessing of our ancestors' witches, the Baylan the colonizers could not burn at stake for fear of lightning reprisals from Nature Herself. You have the gifts of sight and of storms, the unwitting compassion with the Earth and its Other Races. Good. The Tikbalang will have pause despite its instinct to devour you. You are of my blood and it is in the blood that your power runs. You have been named for the star that has always shone in my family. You are Tala, the strongest of us yet."

Tala frowned. The book is talking to me. Really talking to me. This is so not the time to be freaked out about the Bestiario de Criaturas Mágicas en las Islas Filipinas. She took another breath, just to reassure herself that she is, indeed, in the present day, in Pasay City, in 2014. 

How on earth did Beatriz know she would have a descendant named Tala? For she was the only one in her clan who carried a native name—everyone else has Spanish or Western names, names that followed the fashion of the times. Her naming was only different in that her great-grandmother had named her before the old woman drew her last breath.

Well, that was a mystery for another day. Tala continued reading, more out of morbid curiosity than anything else. That, and her desire to sleep had fled, leaving insomnia in its wake.

"Since you are reading my diary—gotten hold of it, in fact, then you do carry in you the seeds of the power of the Baylan, the priestesses of old who held the power of healing and of peacemaking firmly in their hands. Don't let anyone tell you we have died out, Tala. We merely move in the spaces where the common Tao do not look, for such has always been our way. Our power lies in that which seems ordinary, say, the knife you will use to carve a chicken for tinola—that is your athame (for want of a better term, I use that which the witches of the West bring us). Kiss that knife, it is your primary weapon and tool, and never lose it.

"Before you set out to seek your fortune in a Tikbalang's pelt, you need to unlock your Otherness. Chances are, and I know our family too well to think otherwise, you have been told that your foresight is unnatural, that your hands are made hot by fever, not power. They mean well, child, but they do you a disservice.

"You unlock your power when the moon cannot be seen, on as clear an evening as you can get. You will need nine black candles that have never been lit, and nine candles of pure beeswax, candles that also have never been lit. Gather, too, one salop of sea salt and one piece of gold jewelry, the oldest piece you own.

"Buy a black chicken—they call it ulikba in the marketplace. None of its plumage should be colored or white. Slaughter it yourself and drip the blood into a bowl with a handful of red rice grains. Plunge the dead fowl in boiling water and pluck away every black feather and let the feathers dry on a bamboo threshing tray as you prepare the chicken for tinola.

"As you boil the chicken, ginger root, unripe papaya and chilies in the broth, add as much garlic and onion as you dare. Once it has come to the boil, drop in the blood and rice grains. Add some peppercorns with your prayer for power. Kiss a handful of sea salt and sprinkle it in as you stir and cover the pot. Douse the cook fire until only embers remain to simmer the tinola and prepare for the ritual that will unlock your Otherness and bring the Tikbalang to you.

"Learn to center yourself between now and market day, for, surely, you need to be able to concentrate your focus no matter what uncontrollable things may erupt around you. Make your list so you know what to buy, then sit on the ground under the stars, with your head up, focusing on one of the stars after which you were named.

"Feel the power of that star you select fill you. Do not fight it. Allow it to carry you to the plane no other Taga-Lupa may seek. Do this each night until you feel the power thrum through your heartbeats. Then you know you have been unleashed and are free to roam the Other World known only to the few of us. Touch the spark of the Old Gods in you, for they are there, waiting to be acknowledged."

Tala looked around for a piece of paper, rummaging through her bedroom and on back to the living room. Finding not a single scrap to use but for the makeshift bookmark, she proceeded to make a list of things to buy in Quiapo market five days hence on her smartphone's Inkpad app. Thank goodness she didn't have to work over the weekend. Her next problem was finding a place to do the sitting meditation part of Beatriz's instructions. Her balcony would have to do.

So she settled herself comfortably on that scrap of concrete and steel the condo developer called a balcony, her back to the fire escape on the furthest side from the sliding glass doors and facing the balcony railing where the wrought iron grilles allowed her to see the sky. That was the only vantage point she had for watching stars. 

Tala focused on the brightest star, Sirius, the dog star—the star just rising in the early evening, for her reading and re-reading the April 26 passage in the Bestiario had taken long enough that the sun had set and the stars were rising. 

The irony was not lost on Tala: Here I am beseeching a hunting dog for the power to overcome a warhorse. She shook her head, let go of her doubts and began her open-eyed sitting meditation even as she felt heat that was not born of the fading summer begin to dance in her loins and radiate up through her torso and down to her toes.

***

Fifteen stories below, the Tikbalang stood in the shadows by the entrance to Tala's apartment building, sniffing her fragrance on the humid night air. The generous red curve of his mouth curled into a knowing smile. She's home. Good. 

Up the fire escape and onto the very edge of the balcony he went, silently despite his hooves. The Tikbalang halted his ascent just as he was about to scale the balcony railing, sniffing the air and scenting Tala.

She was sitting cross-legged on the balcony's cold concrete floor, her head thrown back and limned in the dark flames of her tresses. Her back was straight as a ramrod, her shoulders were relaxed and her breathing was that even deep rhythm of a mystic's trance.

The Tikbalang stood balanced on the corner of the balcony railing, his tarugo engorging with blood as it always did around this beautiful woman he beheld. And lo, even as he gazed at her in his perfect balance, the scene in front of Tala shifted so he could see the sky of his own world, the Other Place the mundane creatures of this plane have no knowledge of, could not begin to even imagine.

He heard Tala gasp as her sight took in the sights beyond her balcony rail. She no longer saw stars, perhaps. Perhaps she was seeing what he'd grown up knowing: The dancing nymphs called Diwata and the stocky, industrious Duwende shoring up the punso, the hillock home of the long-limbed Nunos in the distance. 

Perhaps she was seeing the thick forests overlaid by the other buildings in the busy heart of Pasay's red light district, the dancing girls phasing in and out with the dancing Diwata in their garb woven of moonlight and starshine.

The sliding doors were open and, since he could not bring himself to intrude upon Tala's obvious sense of wonder, he entered her apartment and kept walking on through the bedroom door she'd left open. 

The Tikbalang opened Tala's cabinets, sniffing her tuberose and ylang-ylang scent where it was strongest: Her underwear drawer. 

He drew out the lacy nothings and granny panties she kept there, along with her silk stockings and garters, those little nothings she wore as brassieres, the modest Catholic schoolgirl half-slips left helter-skelter, as if order was not necessary for the underthings nobody else would see.

He selected a demure half-slip, one in thin beige silk and trimmed in a matching shade of lace. This will do very nicely, the Tikbalang though to himself. I can feel her in this, close against my skin, where she belongs. 

He wrapped his right hand in the half slip and wrapped that hand around his straining member as he watched the wind wafting over the balcony fan Tala's hair to flame, the motion making the natural red and gold highlights in her loose curls catch the light from the living room. 

The Tikbalang suppressed a groan as he felt the slippery silk make the sweetest friction around his huge ari, his hand squeezing as tightly as he imagined her tight, wet puki would. The now-hot silk emulated the slickness he expected to find when he finally breached her most private of places. 

His hand sped up as he listened to her murmurs and gasps while watching his world unfold before her eyes. His grin grew as he envisioned her screams and gasps as he pumped hard into her, his huge tarugo stretching her to the limits, to the border of pain and pleasure and past it into ecstasy.

The Tikbalang would pound himself to orgasm against her cervix, taking her from behind as a stallion would cover a mare in the iyot, the mating of animals. He would change back to his man-form and flip her over to face him, fucking her even harder and faster. All the better to suckle at her breasts, to draw in Tala's distended nipples into his hungering mouth. 

She would be so delicious and he would swallow her orgasms, as well as make them pound through her blood until she knew nothing else but the mindless pleasure of mating. Yes, yes, she would be so delicious. She was his delicacy and his treat after all the years spent waiting for his Baylan. 

And, just like that, uttering "Baylan" on but the slightest whisper, the Tikbalang let loose his hot seed, catching it in the little silk half slip, his knees shaking from the intensity of the orgasm that seized his whole body, shaking him despite the immense power of his muscles and bones.

Baylan? Where did that thought come from? Wadding the semen-soaked half slip easily into a ball clutched in his palm, the Tikbalang drew a deep breath, and another, steadying himself. He peeled his gaze away from Tala and scanned her living room, finding the Bestiario laid haphazardly on the couch, the lettering etched into its worn leather binding glowing gold in the bright lights of the woman's apartment.

The Tikbalang saw the bookmark sticking out of the center of the book, which gave off the slightest glow something purely of this world shouldn't ever emit.

She has the book. She can read it. She is Baylan. Oh, shit and fuckora.The Old Gods must be laughing at us now.

Tala was still enthralled with her visions and it was easy for the Tikbalang to trace his way back to the fire escape unseen. Down he went and out into the night, his mind full of what he'd just seen. 

It seems that the menu has changed somewhat, he thought to himself. I think I'll have to get used to eating her alive, then. Time for the Tikbalang to draw up his strategies, then, because, petite as she may be, this young Baylan radiated a power he had never felt before. This prince had magic of his own to prepare.

***

Rising from her balcony floor in a swift uncurling of legs, Tala tried to make sense of what she'd seen. It was one thing to read about the Nuno and Diwata, the Duwende and the Laman Lupa in the dry old lore books in the school library. It was quite another thing to see them in front of you. 

When the vision ended, she'd begun to wonder if she had, indeed, inherited Beatriz's insanity. The old woman had been considered the skeleton in the family closet, having been declared insane by her own husband just after the Americans bought the Philippines from Spain along with Puerto Rico via the Treaty of Paris. 

Because the Bienvenido family was well-off and respected in their community, one of the Illustrado class, Beatriz was kept in the ancestral home. The grounds then were extensive, so her meanderings through the dense and adjacent patch of fruit trees was not a problem. That stand of trees had since been sold, cut down and turned into a commercial building. 

Family lore had it that Beatriz also always had money, gold, gems, anything she wanted, though her explanations that the precious goods had come from the Other Land, the one overlaying the mundane plane every other human saw—those words were considered rantings. Why, even her Abuela Selo said the writing in the Bestiario was illegible, the writings of the insane. But Tala could read the book, and easily.

I will just have to sift the truth from the lie, Tala told herself as she slid the glass door shut behind her and locked it. I will have to believe what should be believed, no matter what my senses tell me does not connect with logic and reality. So she took the old tome from the sofa and resumed reading the entry she'd started before her meditation.

"Finally, embrace your pleasure. Do not let anyone deny your ecstasy and call it filthy. That is a form of control that is meant to teach you to deny the magic you alone can wield. Take your lust and embrace it as you would accept the earth and trees around you. 

"Know that your woman's peak is natural and powerful and it is this power that will fuel all your personal magic. It will help you channel the magic you need for healing, for battle, for conquest. It is what you will need to master and accept this power without hesitation or shame so that you may make peace happen and draw prosperity to yourself and those you love. Accept your pleasure. Create it. Revel in it, for it forges the way to the highest good. It is this pleasure that will enable you to tame your Tikbalang."

Good advice, Tala thought as she walked to her bedroom, intent on giving herself an orgasm or two and settling down for some shuteye so her brain could process all the strange things she'd read and seen. She espied her cabinet hanging open and her underwear drawer slid slightly ajar. Tala did a double-take, trying to recall if she'd shut the cabinet when she'd changed clothes.

Instead of feeling creeped out, a warm sensation crept over her skin, one that seeped to her bones, sought out her breasts and wended its way down between her legs. Groaning slighly, feeling the rise of arousal in her very core, Tala pulled her underwear drawer open and took out her handy-dandy boyfriend-replacement unit. 

There was nothing that a good round or three with her vibrator wouldn't fix and, hell, she needed her sleep. Fucking oneself blind, after all, would help take her mind off the strangeness of the evening.

Out of the tank top and gym shorts she got, spreading herself over the red coverlet of her queen sized mattress like an offering on some pagan god's plinth. She banished her Catholic schoolgirl self to a dark corner of her mind as she began massaging her breasts with hands made hot—over what she knew not—but Beatriz was obviously right in saying her pleasure was her power. Time to see if Beatriz was right.

So, since there wasn't anyone here to help her solve her problem of sexual tension, it was fantasy time with her rechargable fuck-buddy. The safest sex one can have in Sin City, after all, is blue, comes with five speeds and has a clitoris stimulator par excellance. Safe from STDs. Safe from heartbreak. Safe sucks, Tala thought to herself. Oh, well. Until there is a better choice...

Tala began her fantasy by morphing her hands. They were large, tanned hands, like the hand that had kept her from falling in the coffee shop earlier in the day. Those hands were pressing her bounty of breasts together, their forefingers circling her pink-brown areolas with tantalizing lightness before squeezing gently and pulling her nipples to hard little peaks. Those hands were making a magic massage that made the flame between her legs burn more intensely than the bluest flame.

A hot, wet mouth would descend on one nipple and the barest grazing of teeth would be her only warning as he would suckle hard, his tongue lashing the very tip of her captive nipple. 

His hands would move to her wrists, pinning them to the sides of her head as he sucked each nipple hard and flicked their tips with his tongue, exerting enough pressure to make her arousal gush to her thighs, but not enough to give her relief.

Her fantasy man ran his free hand down her torso, sliding down the curve of her breast and the dip of her belly to trace light circles around her navel, lower, down to the top of her thigh. 

She opened her eyes to see his dark head against the light golden skin of her chest, his face in profile as he nipped and sucked at her breasts, his thick fan of dark lashes pulled against a tanned cheek. His weight was delicious on her hips, pinning her down so she could do nothing more than undulate between him and the softness of her red-clad bed.




How to Tame Your Tikbalang Ch. 02



Tala threw her head back as her fantasy man took on the features of Buhawi Batumbakal. She let out a long groan while his hand took hold of the vibrator lying at the indent where her waist met her softly curved hip and he looked up at her, smiling wickedly as he flicked the sex toy on. The hum pieced the silence of Tala's bedroom, promising delight wielded by her dream lover's hand.

"I'm going to tease you until you beg me to fuck you with my hard cock, Princess," Buhawi of Tala's Dreams said. "I am going to take you right to the edge, eat your dripping pussy and suck that hard little clit I'm flicking with this toy and make you beg."

With that, he nudged Tala's thighs wide and pushed her vibrator into her with a slow, sure shove and licked her clit lightly as she shivered and gasped, trying to pull her hands from his grip. She pleaded in broken little sounds—the ability to speak coherently having abandoned her when he'd touched her breasts and began sucking and licking them.

The Buhawi of Tala's Dreams would not let her go. He kept building her pleasure and easing off just as she was about to hit that peak of glory and she begged. Oh did she beg—as he chuckled and laid his hard, naked body over hers, sliding what felt like a huge, steel and velvet cock against the swollen wetness of her blooming red cunt and slid it up and down her slickness.

He licked her ear lightly, murmuring the filthiest things. How he wanted to eat her until she screamed, how beautiful she looked all flushed pink and gold in her desperation to come. How tight she was as he speared into her in a single stroke, how her hot wetness made him savage with wanting her. How hard his come was going to spurt in her so she would come again right along with him.

"I'm inside you, so deep inside you that you will never forget what it is like to be fucked like this," he said as he canted his hips left and right, rotated them so her eyes rolled up in her head as she began to whimper her need. "I'm going to take you in so many ways, my beautiful Baylan. You will be mine forever and I will pleasure you until you pass out tonight and every night after." 

His voice had taken on the darkness of passion that had hit the breaking point, thundering in the growl made by the sea crashing against the soft sand of the shore. His voice was thunder in her ears and lightning snaking quickly through her blood. 

Buhawi of Tala's Dream wrapped her legs around his lean waist, gripped her hips and began the hardest, longest fucking Tala had ever had, in fantasies or in real life, and she hung on to his shoulders, digging her nails into the bunched muscles there as she screamed in the longest, most intense string of multiple orgasms she'd ever had.

His voice was rough as his orgasm came and he began to pulse, growing even thicker in her pussy as his semen began to shoot into her, triggering her strongest peak yet—a peak from which she flew, the force of it impelling her into the land of dreams.

***

Buhawi was having the most marvelous dream. His little witch was beneath him, sheathing him in her wet, hot puki as she begged him to fuck her harder and screamed as she came. He was pushing against her cervix and, with each impact, thrust against it and her G-spot as he strummed her clitoris, she screamed even more.

Her nails were drawing bloody lines on his back, the pain firing his pleasure. He would probably be sorry for it in the morning, but, right now, it was just that fine edge of agony that made his ecstasy that much keener.

His fingers were playing in her wetness, rubbing her hard little clitoris, which had all but abandoned its demure hood. His other hand was gripping her bottom hard enough to leave a handprint. Ha, let her explain that in the morning, along with all the come that would be running down the perfect skin of her inner thighs.

She was completely oblivious to the rest of the world as he pulled her to him and he feasted on the arch of her neck, nipping at her soft throat and licking his way to her ear as she shivered uncontrollably against him, their sweat slick between them as her breasts slid against his chest and she moaned again, arching her back to push her breasts and pussy even harder against him.

He looked at the magnificent spectacle of Tala's face contorted in orgasm, her brow furrowed beautifully, her head thrown back and her red mouth stretched into a huge O of pleasure, a perfect mouth, one he wanted wrapped around his monster of a cock as he rutted deep into her throat. Yes, she could take it. 

He pulled up the hand that had been playing over her pudendum as she squirted all over it and brought two fingers to her lips, giving her a literal taste of her own orgasm.

Her eyes opened in surprise and she sucked and licked at his fingers and that did him in. Her pupils were dilated to the point that her usually light brown eyes were dark as the barako espresso he loved so much. 

The surprise in her eyes deepened, as did the pleasure, when he took his saliva-and-come-slick fingers and played with the pucker of her asshole, rimming it slightly until it pulsed. He slipped his middle finger in as he pumped her pussy harder with his cock, fingering her rear hole as he withdrew and withdrawing his finger as he surged into her cunt. 

Her eyes remained open as he watched her shatter in pleasure and pulse around his finger and cock. Her pupils dilated as she threw out this question: "How can this be so good? Oh, so good. Please, please don't stop fucking me!"

Those eyes were so hot, so beautiful he could lose himself in them without caring why. As he felt her last and most intense orgasm build and break, Buhawi felt his testicles tighten as he began to gush rope after rope of thick semen onto his hand and the sheets beneath him. 

Still humping his hips against his massive mattress, Buhawi opened his eyes to the rising dawn and smiled. He checked his bedside clock, the one that was about to begin screaming his morning alarm, and Buhawi knew he had enough time to catch his little Baylan on her coffee break.

This may have been a dream to Buhawi, but if what he did with that little half slip was anywhere near right, Tala would wake up well-fucked and wondering about all the marks he'd left on her with teeth and hands. You just gotta love Quiapo and its little nooks selling the stuff of the arcane. 

Rising from the bed, Buhawi swept away the pool of salted wax left by the trio of black candles he'd burned with incense of tubreose and ylang-ylang over a bed of the purest salt taken from Pangasinan's salt flats. 

He wrapped the lot up in Tala's little half slip, wiping his come and saliva wet fingers in the fabric. Buhawi slid the sex-scented bundle into a ziploc baggie, pressed out the air, sealed the bag and set it between his mattress and bedframe, uttering an arcane phrase beneath his breath and catching it in his hand before palming his precious little package of him and her brought together.

The binding rite was an ancient one, his seers had assured him. It would stand the test of ages and she would want none but him for as long as she drew breath. 

"Let's see you get out of my trap, little Baylan. Your forebears probably don't think we've learned how to counter your tricks, but we have. Oh, we have," Buhawi whispered as he headed for his bathroom to prepare for the day.



How to Tame Your Tikbalang Ch. 03



Tala jolted awake to AC/DC's Back in Black blaring from her smartphone. She'd lain passed out and naked atop the covers of her bed, her skin sheened with sweat even the little half-horsepower air-conditioner in her bedroom could not alleviate.

Crap. I need to speed through my shower and remove this come from between my legs, was her harried first thought of the day as sunlight began to peep through her windows. Shift changes after pulling a double are a pain in the ass. Breakfast would have to be something at the café across her office.

She went to the watercloset to do her business and that's when she saw dried white streaks of... was that seminal fluid? 

Whatever that dried gunk was, it coated the insides of her thighs clear down to her knees and she traced it all the way to her asshole and over the lower half of her buttocks, which felt strange, like they had been stretched. 

Her anus felt like someone had shoved something inside it—not a very big thing, but definitely something solid. When she peed, she felt the sting of friction burn at the head of her clit. 

That, Tala knew from past experience, was the pain caused by getting repeatedly, consecutively fucked in what her college friends used to call the "walang hugutan" school of sex, where the male doesn't withdraw his penis, rather gets hard all over again from an encore of foreplay while still inside the female and resumes his thrusting when he gets hard enough to do so.

I will not freak out. I will not freak the fuck out. I will goddamn not, absocrappinglutely not, lose it. Tala chanted the words in her head like a mantra as she took deep, calming breaths gathered her wits, scraping at some of the dried substance on her legs and bringing it up to her nose. It smelled slighly like bleach and a lot like raw musk. Yep, semen. This was her first seriously "oh shit" moment of what was promising to be a long day.

Passing the full-length mirror between the shower and toilet, Tala paused when she saw handprints on her body. Large ones. As in 'grip a basketball single-handedly' large. Spanning the full rise of her buttocks from inguinal seam to flank. She had hickeys on her neck and—were those teeth-marks? 

Dropping her face into shaky hands, Tala mentally went over her arrival home the previous night. She'd locked the front door, dead-bolted it and the windows had been firmly latched. She'd only been on her balcony once and she secured and locked the sliding doors as she came in. Force of habit demanded that she lock herself in securely.

"Dammit, I'm not on birth control," she yelled at no one in particular (well, maybe God) as she stepped into the shower and turned the water on full blast to wash away the angry, confused tears streaking down her face. 

She went through her ablutions on auto-pilot, her mind returning to her self-pleauring, to that fantasy that had felt so real, from the sensations to the smells and, yes, the flavors of salt and sweet, musky skin that lingered on her tongue. To the repeated (and vigorous, very vigorous) fucking she'd gotten from the Buhawi of Her Dreams in la-la land. Or was it real?

I can't work out how I got fucked. And I cannot deny I truly got FUCKED, all caps, Tala thought, shaking her head as she let her the conditioner seep into her hair. 

I'm not even going to try today. Maybe the Bestiario will have an answer, but I've got work to do first. Pregnant is gonna happen if it's gonna happen. Strange is gonna happen. Sweet Mary and Jesus I hate having no control over shit like this. 

The last time she had an "oh, shit" moment coming even close to this magnitude had been six years ago, when Tala was a college senior hanging out with her best friend at the dorm on Morayta St., at the university belt's "buckle" in the City by the Bay. 

That best friend had turned into an erstwhile boyfriend when they'd played truth or dare with his fraternity brothers and they'd kissed because she chose the dare. 

Tala and her best friend wound up in a seedy little motel with a creaky bed for a three-hour "short time" sex session and they'd forgotten to use protection of any kind. 

Oh, yes, she'd been a virgin, but the sacrifice of hymens on the altar of young love was an everyday occurrence along the U-belt. So was the anxiety that followed. 

He'd sworn to do the right thing by her and she'd chewed her nails for three weeks after their fevered bout of motel-room acrobatics until her period came. 

That was the end of that sad tale, with her bestie returning to his fratboy ways, fraying Tala's patience, and she shied away from the "relationship" slowly but inevitably. 

They were still friends, albeit no longer BFFs, and they sometimes chatted or met for coffee. It was all so amicable, this lack of recrimination between them. It had taught her to keep her silly notions of romance to herself and her heart uninvolved with her body's processes.

The illusion of young love was well and truly shattered for Tala, but her qualms about having sex with someone who shared her attraction were removed as well. So, all's fair, right? She shrugged and prepared for her day, tucking the Bestiario into the white canvas tote bag she'd chosen for the day.

Well, six years ago, she had someone she could be angry at. But how, pray tell, can you be angry at a dream?

+++

Buhawi sat in an unobtrusive corner of the café, sipping his barako espresso and eating his bacon and eggs on toasted panini and large Caesar's salad slowly, his eyes on the single entry and exit of the establishment. Any time now.

The gradual crescendo of a Sugar Hiccup song was interrupted by the chiming of bells over the café's swinging door. The rushed staccato of carnal red, mid-heeled pumps on the polished wood parquet made a jarring counterpoint as the vocalist's crescendo peaked. 

Sensible shoes in a fuck-me hard color. Buhawi noted with a cocked right eyebrow. Somebody armored up today. I wonder why. Heh.

There was Tala, walking purposefully to the counter, tight white jeans hugging the high, rounded curve of her tight hindquarers and molding around her long, lissome legs like they were painted on. The torso-engulfing linen of Tala's filmy black blouse floated behind her on the café's artificially-cooled air even as it swathed her from neck to hip and all the way down to her wrists. 

Her hair was braided tight and wound up in a straitlaced bun just over her nape. What a deliciously soft nape that is, Buhawi reminisced with a hard, predatory glint in his eye as he licked his lips and bit into his sandwich.

Tala ordered the largest caramel macchiato the café offered, with a Filipino breakfast of crisp-fried fish (boneless Palawan danggit one could eat from tail to head) two poached eggs, fried rice and pickled unripe papaya and carrot shreds on the side.

Any time now. Buhawi counted off the seconds silently, patiently, as he kept his eyes focused on Tala at the counter. 

He took in the way her shoulders seemed to be unnaturally stiff, as if she was barely holding herself upright. She turned slightly to the right and he saw her winding and unwinding her fingers together, as if her hands were restlessly seeking something to grip besides fingers. 

She closed her eyes and rotated her head and neck as the barista conveyed her order to the kitchen and prepared Tala's coffee. 

My, my, she is tense today, is my little witch. Buhawi leaned back in his chair and kept his eyes on Tala as he savored both his coffee and Tala's obvious tension. Very good.

Tala took her order buzzer and turned her back to the counter, scouting for a free table. Her eyes met Buhawi's, the sunlight rendering her pupils amber and giving him a clear view of their irises quick dilation in surprise. 

Buhawi let a friendly smile curl up his face and he rose in greeting. "Good morning, Tala. Would you care to sit and have breakfast with me?" He waved at the spare chair to his left with a gracious hand. "I don't like to eat alone. Not when there's a perfectly beautiful woman to share breakfast with."

Tala felt the heat and blood rising up her chest to her face. Damn this Spanish propensity for blushing, she thought with a mental "tsk." Of all the things to inherit from Beatriz, I had to get this. Haynaku. How do you greet someone whose face and hands you jilled off to last night. Where in heaven's name do you get the etiquette for that, Miss Manners?

She was struggling for breath, for composure, for the perfect thing to say in response to real-life Buhawi's friendly overtures—really, she had it on the tip of her tongue, ready for a witty delivery when the buzzer in her hand went off.

"Double-tawl caramel mashiato for Tala! With Filipino vreakpast!" The barista's voice sang cheerfully over the heads of a group of zombies dragging their feet into the café and her heavy Visayan accent and simultaneous attempt at an American one grated on Tala's raw nerves. 

Buhawi strode to the counter, taking the buzzer from Tala's suddenly unresponsive fingers and put it on the counter in front of the peppy barista with the obviously straightened hair and flirty dark eyes. 

"My friend's order is ready? Good, I'll take it to our table now," he said with a smile guaranteed to drop any red-blooded female's panties as he took the tray off the counter.

"Enjoy your meal, Tala and Vernie," the barista said with glazed eyes as she stared at Buhawi, who masked his sudden and deep irritation with a lowed head and a grin in Tala's direction. in Tala's direction. That barista will pay for that, he swore. How dare she rename me, and after a female singer whose songs I never liked, too. Ngarrr...

"Vernie?" Tala said teasingly, nervous giggles escaping and coming out as true laughter as she caught the sliver of burning anger aimed at the barista that slipped through the thick, dark dark fringe of Buhawi's eyelashes. 

"I thought you introduced yourself as Buhawi. Naughty Vernie, giving me a false moniker." Tala waggled a forefinger at Buhawi, who smiled tightly back. Ah, there, I'm more at ease now. But I do think he's pissed. 

Tala threw her head back as she sat in the chair he held out for her and flashed Buhawi her most disarming smile, the one that always got her off the hook when she'd been naughty. 

That brought Buhawi's blood pressure down somewhat, then kick-started it up again, but this time, his blood was racing from randiness, not anger.

"I am NOT named Vernie," Buhawi snorted, peevishness still stubbornly in his tone even as he traced the curve of her breast with lascivious eyes. "She's been calling me that since I first came here for coffee two weeks ago. Not funny." 

Buhawi set both hands palms down on the table on either side of his plate. Contain the temper, Buhawi. This is not the time to get angry.

Tala put a hand over one of Buhawi's, and he seemed to calm some more at her warmth, relaxing just the slightest bit into the comfortable armchair his huge body dwarfed. "Your coffee is getting cold. Can I get you another?" Tala cocked her head to the side as she asked her question.

All I need now is under all that cloth, Buhawi thought, even as he said "oh, no, I've already had three espressos. Just keep me company while I eat my sandwich and salad, please?"

Tala nodded and he dug into his meal. She attacked her breakfast with equal ferocity, pulling the halved fish apart with dainty fingers and holding a piece into her mouth as she munched it steady as a printing press roller eats paper. 

Tala then took up her utensils and scooped egg and rice onto her spoon, lifted it to her mouth and closed her eyes as she consumed her feast.

They ate thus, ravenously and silently, for the few minutes it took to scarf down their meals. But where Tala ate with abandon, Buhawi kept his coffee-dark eyes on her, visually devouring her in much the same way he was scarfing down his sandwich and salad: Like there was no tomorrow and he would not be denied his feast.

Not that Tala noticed. She was the kind of person for whom a meal was a sensual, full body experience in which shame had no part. She sighed as she ate the pickled papaya and carrots, let out a low "mmmm" as she bit into the danggit, threw her head back as she enjoyed the sensation of her macchiato sliding down her gullet. 

Her legs splayed wide as she ate, her feet resting on the little kitten heels of her not-really-sensible shoes and her toes pointing to the ceiling.

She likes food. A whole helluva lot. Buhawi filed that observation away for future use. I wonder, he thought idly, his nostrils flaring to the musky floral scent that was uniquely Tala, if she'll orgasm over chocolate, reallym really good chocolate?

Replete, Tala put her cultery daintily and neatly down on the center of her empty plate, her movements so ladylike it was hard for Buhawi to reconcile her refined movements with the total abandon she'd displayed while eating.

They chatted about the weather for a while, shifted to the peso-dollar exchange rate, agreed that the legislature was a waste of their taxes and jousted over which National Artist for Literature would write the Great Filipino Novel, F. Sionil Jose or Bienvenido Lumbera.

Buhawi was entranced, truly entranced, and his smiles grew more and more spontaneous, natural, as if he hadn't a care in the world. 

He forgot himself and was about to ask Tala out to dinner—all part of his plan, of course—or that was his justification for the sudden urge to take her out on a date when he really did not do dates.

Then Tala's phone started blaring the Radioactive Sago Project's Love ka ni Satan out of the depths of her tote bag and she practically jumped out of her chair.

"Oh, my, that's my Bundy-in alarm," Tala said, groping in the depths of her bag to silence the handset. "I've got to go. Team leaders can't be late. Thank you for sitting through breakfast with me! Byeee!"

Just like that, the little tempest was out the door and jaywalking through the early morning traffic toward a glittering high-rise of steel and chrome.

+++

Tala took her mid-afternoon break in the contact center's break room, settling down in a huge black beanbag and opening up the Bestiario, scanning the entries for anything that would answer the question "what fucked me last night?"

In a far corner, someone was watching the ANC News channel and Tala, absorbed as she was in her search, missed the gasps from her some of her team members over the news that a woman had been brutally raped and left for dead on the gravel mound of a construction site.

The crime scene was the old location of the stables of the Philippine Racing Circuit racetrack that was now the Circuit shopping mall in Makati City—mere blocks from the Isles Tech office.

"...the woman, identified as Martha Ambel, was last seen leaving the café in Ayala Center where she worked the graveyard to early morning shift," read newscaster Pinky Webb. "Her naked, battered body was found at noon. Ambel's body bore large bite marks that forensics expert Dr. Dinah Malamin said resembled those of a horse, except for the obvious tooth marks of an omnivore. Her liver was also missing and almost all her bones were broken in several places, the forensics expert said."

That segment of the news report made it through Tala's concentration and she turned her eyes to the wise-screen LED TV and drew a shocked hand to her mouth when she saw the Facebook profile picture of the barista who had served her coffee just that morning.

"Ohmygod, Tammy," Tala called out to a woman clad all in orange, "isn't that the barista at the café across the street?" Tammy nodded, tears in her artificially blue eyes as she fretted aloud whether another barista could prepare her soya-mint oolong chai the same way Martha did.

As horrified as Tala was with the murder of that familiar stranger, though, her own problem of an "oh, shittisimo" moment pressed on her heavily, like a ton of kryptonite would on Superman's chest. She resumed her search through the Bestiario, flicking back and forth until she found the entry dated 1 Mayo 1898.

"Do not be afraid of the dreams that come to you after the Other Land is revealed to you. It is merely your Baylan's sight opening to the world that lies over ours. You will see the criaturas, and that is normal. Greet them with respect. Never point a finger at them or their homes, for that is the ultimate rudeness.

"Be comfortable with this natural progression. It means you are tapping your magic properly. Soon they will speak to you, call you by your epithet: Baylan. It is respect which you will reap if you follow my dictates. Respect them back, for they, too are powerful. The Manananggal can steal your unborn child with her needle-like tongue. The Sigbinn can kill you with a mere look from between its legs. The Black Pig will not be penned or held and will eat your beating heart from your chest if you even try. I've told you about the Tikbalang..."

And on and on did Beatriz list the criaturas of the Other Land, describing them—sometimes in detail, at other times only by name. Yeah, yeah, lelang, get to the how of getting fucked while alone in a home locked up tight already, Tala snorted her impatience. I'm not afraid. I'm pissed.

On down to 5 Mayo 1898 Tala went, finding something worth a second and third read:

"If, by some ill-fortune the Tikbalang finds you before you find him, especially if he finds you as you begin to own your power, he will be gripped with a deep and driving lust for your body. You must be very careful to check your house if you suddenly feel a strange presence. For all his large size, a Tikbalang will move silently as a cat stalking a sparrow.

"Take heed and check every part of your residence. If you find semen stains on anything made of glass, you will know you have become known to the Tikbalang and he will make himself known to you as well, in the most carnal sense of the word. You can stave this off by setting yerbabuena leaves on your windowsills and any opening in your house covered by glass or capiz. This is to keep the dream-self of the Tikbalang from your physical body—at least until you are ready to know the Tikbalang physically, to mesh with him spirit and skin, flesh to flesh in a meeting of equals. It is imperative that you do not let the Tikbalang gain any advantage on you.

"He will appear as a creature of your fantasies, as the man you imagine when you pleasure yourself to touch your divine spark and stoke it to a roaring fire. Do not be fooled. He is a Tikbalang, a creature of awesome power and one capable of great harm or great good. He will make you scream as he takes your body, make it shake with physical need. Do not think this is mere dream, for though it is a true dream, the intercourse will be real, in the physical world, by means of his innate magic.

"If the dreams have begun and you awaken with seminal fluid dried on your body, then the situation is very unfavorable to you, but not unsalvageable. Do as I say and lay mint leaves on your windowsills and any other openings covered in glass and capiz. This will buy you time until the moon has waned to nothing but the thinnest sliver, then you may begin the ritual of fully owning your place as Baylan and of taming yourself a Tikbalang."

Tala drew in a deep breath, holding in the scream of complete and utter rage that was building in her throat. Well, she'd better get to taming herself a Tikbalang, then, after putting min on her windowsills and glass doors. 

Tala felt the power of her temper begin to flow out of every pore of her skin. Nobody fucks with her and gets away with it, after all. I'm Baylan, bitch. Let me show you whatfor.




How to Tame Your Tikbalang Ch. 03



On which thought the TV exploded, along with the lighbulbs and the PS4 console. Whoopsies.

Tala knew deep down inside that the power surge that had caused all the electronics to blow up had come from her, though she kept that thought to herself as she stood up and worked to stem the chaos she'd caused. 

Nobody needs to know and maintenance will just say it was one of the usual power surges that hit Metro Manla because of our power-plant problems. 

"All right, people, let's stay steady and leave the room calmly, single file to the door," she said out loud. "We know the drill."

+++

Saturday morning was awash in heavy rain as Tala picked her way through the bowels of the Baclaran public market. She had a live chicken in a cage, its glossy feathers all totally black (she'd checked and the fowl balked and pecked her hard when she inspected it's tailfeathers). 

Ginger root. Check. Moringa leaves. Check. Unripe papaya. Check. Bird's eye chilies. Check. Peppercorns. Check. Sea salt. Check. That's it for the wet market, then. 

Tala had found the almost transparent spatter of Tikbalang come on her sliding doors

She browsed among the spices and herbs as she waited for the downpour to let up, as most tropical rainshowers did this time of year. She would head on down to the Redemptorist Church, or rather, behind it, where a middle-aged Chinese lady sold hand-dipped beeswax candles at a reasonable price out of a tiny makeshift stall. She'd get herself more lavender incense, perhaps some verbena and sage sticks, too, in case she needed them.

Once the rain had eased, she'd made her way to the little shop, haggled as the tindera expected, and wound up with a bottle of ginseng root in rice wine—allaway froh Xiamen, iha, the Chinese storekeep boasted—and an oblong carbon-steel amulet graven with an eye within a triangle, within the spokes of rays.

"It will keep you safe from the malignos, evil spirits," the Chinese matron in her faded denim apron and gaudy floral print dress told Tala, her chinky black eyes darting behind her customer time and again. 

"There is a maligno following you. He is very big. Suzy knows this," the woman said as she pressed the talisman into Tala's hand and wrapped her fingers around it despite Tala's raised eyebrows. "You are what the Filipino call Baylan, ano? I can feel it. So can he. You take and you use. Is a very old anting-anting. Very strong."

With that Suzy the storekeep turned away and put Tala's payment into an old-fashioned cash register and wrote out a receipt. She handed Tala several dried katatataka leaves in a small ziploc bag along with the receipt. "You will need this if the maligno bites you, to keep you here on our side of Lupa. We are Taga-Lupa, we do not belong in their world."

"What do you mean if the maligno bites me?" Tala's unencumbered hand went up to her neck as she asked Suzy this question. Her fingers fluttered over the hickeys and bite marks on her neck beneath her blouse.

"The maligno kidnap Taga-Lupa two ways: They either bite you and break the skin, or they feed you things that have grown in their world," Suzy said, clucking in disapproval over Tala's ignorance. "Then you will follow them no matter what your mind tells you. You are Baylan. You should know this. You should have anting-anting, oraciones, the works. Because maligno like kidnapping Baylans. This is why there are so few of you now." 

Shaking her head at Tala's befuddlement, Suzy espostulated: "Hala, just do as I say. If the maligno bites you, you soak these leaves in hot water and press them to the places where the skin is broken.You have a book with you, do you not? Something written by an ancestor? Something only you can read? Read it." 

Suzy began muttering in Fookien under her breath and lit joss sticks that she waved in Tala's wake as Tala left her store with eyebrows still cocked high.

+++

It was well past noon by the time Tala got home. She set down the scandalously squawking chicken and her other purchases on the kitchen counter, half-filled her largest stockpot and set it on the stove to boil.

Tala picked up the bundle of candles wrapped in an old edition of the Chinese United Daily News tallboy newspaper and, glancing on the bookmarked page of the Bestiario, set them out in the middle of her sala, which she had cleared of furniture.

She took out the salop of salt, slit it open, set it on the counter and took a handful of the salt and put it in a glass bowl on the kitchen counter. Then she took the rest of the salt and made a circle around the candles she'd positioned according to Beatriz's dictum.

Tala prepared the vegetables and opened a bag of red rice before drawing her trusty, sand-weighted Solingen chef's knife and giving the blade a firm kiss. Then she opened the basket, grabbed the ulikba by its fat neck with both her hands and wrung it, whispering apologies and thanks to the frantically-jerking fowl as it died.

She dropped the dead chicken into the boiling water, rolling it with a long-handled slotted spoon to ensure the bird got properly soaked. She pulled on a pair of pink silicone oven mitts and, thus protected pulled the chicken out and laid it on a pile of kitchen towels.

Tala set about plucking the bird, draining its blood and adding that to the handful of red rice she'd placed in another glass bowl on the counter. She dressed the fowl out using her memories of the process from visits to Guimaras at fiesta time and reduced the chicken to its birdy-parts. 

She put the head and feet in the center of the salt circle and candles and set its feathers out to dry on the bilao-the round threshing tray most Filipino households use to sort pebbles and palay grains from milled rice. 

By the time she was done, the sky was turning orange and lavender. Sunset. The time to begin her chicken soup ritual had come.

Tala emptied the stock pot into her sink and refilled it with water from the tap. She put the pot on the stove, tossed in the ginger, onions, mashed garlic and chicken, kissed a the handful of salt she'd reserved and sprinkled it into the pot, following up with peppercorns and chilies. 

The papaya and moringa leaves would follow in about 30 minutes and she'd let the magic tinola cook another 20 minutes before turning the stove off. Then she'd begin her ritual and change her stars.

+++

Tala stripped naked and laid her clothes on the sofa behind her. She took the amulet Suzy the storekeep had pressed into her hand, unfurled its black leather thong and put it on. 

The carbon-steel talisman glinted dully as she moved to extinguish the overhead lights and began lighting the black candles, then the white ones. 

The Baylan in Tala took over, her confidence now solid as she carefully scattered the ulikba feathers within the circle. between and around the candles.

She knelt before the chicken head and feet and began to chant the oraciones for protection, the spells claiming her birthright of knowledge, the paeans of thanks to the Old Gods for her innate power with her hands raised to the ceiling, palms up and cupped to hold her magic.

Speaking in old Tagalog, the ancient form and not the modern slang that is so commonly used, Tala called the Tikbalang to her with a chanting rhyme as new and as ancient as all Baylan spells are:

Do not hide in shadow

You will not succeed.

Your plenty will be fallow

If my call you do not heed.

I am Baylan, you will come to me

I am Baylan, you will not be free

Until you manifest and allow me astride

Take me for my desired ride.

Bring me fortune, power, treasure and gold

I bind you to suffer my brutal hold.

Tala took up the chicken head, squeezing its throat and calling on her sympathetic magic to transform that neck into her Tikbalang's neck. She set it down between a black candle and a white candle, picked up the chicken feet and continued her chant.

Your hooves will bring you to my domain

When I say and when I deign

You will bow your head and let fall your mane.

Thence shall I pluck the first golden hair

And give you pleasure in an exchange most fair.

My second call will be louder still

You will bend even more to my will.

Turn about and bend yourself over

Willing or no, you will not recover

The hair of gold I will have without fail

From your lush and beautiful tail.

But protest not for I do bargain

Another night of your bliss without wane

You will be sated, I will be stronger

You will love me even more than ever.

Finally, Tala took nine of the black feathers and tied them in a bunch with one long lock of her hair and sealed it with hot wax from a black, then a white candle. 

She ran the feathers over her skin, making electric trails up and down each arm, each leg, circling the light caresses to raise goosebumps of pleasure over her skin.

Tala brought the the feathers to her breasts, caressed and teased her nipples until they stood achingly erect. She visualized Buhawi on the sofa, watching her by the dark reflection on her freshly-cleaned sliding doors. 

The Baylan pleasured her cunt with the feathers, holding the labia open as she swept the black softness around and around her clitoris, dipping into her wetness and back again to that knot of nerves until a soft crescendo played through her body. 

She imagined Buhawi pulling his cock out of his pants and stroking because he just couldn't help himself. But he could not come yet, and he would not touch her no matter how horny for her he was.

Tala brought herself higher and higher with that brush of feathers, closer to the orgasm she sought. As she came her voice swelled with the closing verse of her spell, the power coursing through her body and into the words. 

In her fantasy, Buhawi, too, was coming, his fist pumping furiously, gripping his magnificent cock as he spurted hot, white come all over her breasts and thighs, directly onto her clit and making her orgasm even more intense.

Come to me, open your thighs

Bring your ari even with my eyes

That I might pluck the last golden hair

While on my knees within my lair.

I will win this, doubt that not

You will then know just how hot

This joining will be, how elemental

How you were at birth held and shall

Remain so to be mine alone until

I choose to release you from my will.

Panting from the chanting and her orgasm, Tala sagged to her butt on the floor. She'd been straining her body into an arc limned by the candles' glow. 

The power surging through her had ebbed, contracted back into her body to throb slowly, steadily in that part of a woman now called the Grafenberg spot.

She slowly put out the candles and swept up the floor, putting everything in biodegradable trash bags ready for dumping down the building's trash chute.

Without bothering to get dressed, Tala took a bowl of the tinola and some fish sauce for dipping, scooped some hot white rice and ate her magic meal with gusto and in silence. The ginger-laced soup soothed her throat and the chicken meat filled her belly quite nicely. She cleaned up, put the excess food in the refrigerator and headed for a shower and then bed.

Take that, nasty Tikbalang. I'll be fucking you back and over soon enough. Meet me in the dream if you dare. These were Tala's last coherent thoughts as she fell asleep, girded well now to give as well as she'd gotten.



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 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."




How to Tame Your Tikbalang Ch. 04



"So let me begin that tale, because you are her descendant and are destined to tame a Tikbalang of your own—a debt I owe to Beatriz, for my husband had defeated her lover for the Tikbalang King's throne," Bulan said.

"Your great-great-great grandmother was half Spanish, born of a Basque trader who sought his fortunes away from Catalonia in Spain," Bulan continued. "Her mother was a comely woman, the by-blow of a priest from Madrid and a local woman, a Baylan in secret, for it was forbidden to worship the 'heathen' religions then. Beatriz's mother had come from one of the highland tribes that still knew my story well, still invoked me when there was need for healing or peace among their head-hunting communities." 

"Beatriz had been seeking power, a way out of the daily beatings her husband used to deliver when she would protest at his gambling or philandering," Bulan said. "She remembered the old prayers her mother had taught her and used one of them to summon me. She invoked the sympathy I have for women whose men abuse and batter them and I answered."

"Much like you, she did not know she was a Baylan until she began to dream that she was riding astride a war horse, a chestnut stallion that was a mix of destrier warhorse and Arabian thoroughbred," Bulan said. "I helped her as much as I could, took her to places where she could learn one aspect or another of the herb lore the Spaniards had attempted to wipe out over the centuries of their colonization of the Philippines."

"I knew those dreams Beatriz spoke of, Tala," Bulan said, her voice falling into a whisper, as if she were haunted by remembered pain. "I'd had them myself when I came into my own power, once my SkyFather's power had begun to ebb and my divinity faded. I could no longer dwell in Langit, and I was a stranger to Lupa. I needed my own place in this world of many dimensions where we dwell and Beatriz, in her way, did too when we'd met."

"They call it 'girl power' now, I believe, when one female helps another," Bulan mused, her face lightening up and beginning to take on the strange glow that had shone with increasing intensity off the pages of the Bestiario Tala now possessed. 

"Beatriz needed her power and I shared what I knew of conquering a Tikbalang so she could have it. Unfortunately, your lelang had mated to a Tikbalang who was not sane, whose only sanity came when she was with him," Bulan said sadly. "She had made her choice way too late, as she was already married to your lelong, so she could not grant her Tikbalang immortality, not gain it herself, for a part of her would always belong to the husband she could not deny." 

"Bulalakaw was always a headstrong creature," Bulan continued. "He was created alongside my husband and mate, Ulap. They and three other Tikbalang were raised as brothers, though they shared no family relations, and were meant to establish strong bloodlines for their kind, with Ulap as their king. They were supposed to work to keep the Other World safe, prosperous and united, to share their blessings with the Tao who were created last for the realm of Lupa."

"I could not turn Bulan away, though I read in the ritual of Tawas that I'd done that she would become an enemy," Bulan said. "I wove a spell of moonlight and starlight, called on what divinity I had left to make the kontra to that prophecy. I liked Beatriz and I wanted her to be happy. I wanted to prepare the ground to make amends to her family for what my husband was duty bound to do," Bulan released a sigh and took a deep breath before continuing.

"I released my last divine seed into Beatriz, read the candlewax and salt of the Tawas ritual for her," Bulan added softly. "I created you in my mind and planted that seed in her. You would be the one good gift Beatriz's husband would give her." 

"I told Beatriz what your name would be: Tala, star, more powerful even than the moon's magnetism, the fire that lights the darkest skies when even my eye is covered. In a sense, I created you to be the woman to hold all the blessings that should have belonged to Beatriz," Bulan's voice had taken on a dreamy cast before growing stronger, more grounded in the present. "She, too, believed I was but a dream. But you know better."

"The long and short of it is that Ulap was immortal, thanks to his binding to me, and he slew Bulalakaw," Bulan continued her story, her eyes holding Tala's in a direct and disconcerting gaze. "Beatriz went insane when her beloved Ulap was no more. She wrote and enspelled the Bestiario to recognize only a Baylan of greater power than her. A month after, she poisoned her husband, for she could no longer take the beatings he dished out. She'd just delivered a son she named Alejandro Santiago, who had a son named Pedro Jose, who sired your father, Sixto Juan, who is your father's father."

Tala was fascinated and horrified by the story Bulan told her. It is a little much to get my head around, but, hey the last week has been an exercise in the abnormal and strange, so maybe this little peek into my family history is not so bad at all, Tala thought to herself.

"My family, as I said, is crap," Tala said firmly, her tone reassuring though it carried no small resentment for her kin. "I've no great love for them except for my mother and my Abuela Selo and Abuelo Toto. My father, Maximo, was always cheating on Mama, or losing money in the casino. His brother Mariano was no better and the two men fought over the family property after teaming up to cheat their siblings of it. Don't feel so bad about what you and Ulap had to do. I don't."

"But that is exactly the point, dearest," Bulan said as she reached for Tala's hands across the table, "It was the death of Bulalakaw that signaled the decline in your family fortunes, caused there to be such pain in it for generations. It is what brought malas, misfortune, into your clan. I would have spared all of you that, if I could, but the SkyFather would not have it so, nor would the EarthMother."

"Now you are owning your power as a Baylan, with Beatriz's power manifesting a hundred-fold in you," Bulan said on a happy note, her seemingly dainty hands radiating white heat into Tala's fingers—heat that rose from the pads of each digit and spread through Tala's body until she glowed like a full harvest moon.

"It is the power that should have belonged to Beatriz, with over a century's worth of interest," Bulan smiled as she watched Tala glow like a goddess. "With it, you will tame your own Tikbalang, gain your fortune and make right what has been awaiting restitution all this time."

"So you are saying I was born as payback, that I have no choice in the matter?" Tala's incredulity was stained with the temper rising to paint her high cheekbones. "Whatever happened to free will?"

Bulan shook her head on a small peal of laughter, as if Tala was merely a cute, confused child stamping her foot in a tantrum, not a dangerously powerful witch she'd just infused with divine power.

"No, dear, I am not saying that at all," Bulan said, patting Tala's shoulder as she moved to sit beside her. "You have never lost your free will. In fact, you've used it to own your power as a Baylan, as the bridge between all three worlds we live in."

Inhaling long and hard, Tala fixed Bulan with a demanding look. "So, tell me, am I to know who this Tikbalang is that I must conquer for all to be made right, and why should I even choose to do this?"

"You must tame your Tikbalang so that he may ascend as King to the molave throne," Bulan said, her tone reasonable, as if all she asked of Tala was a normal thing, like straightening a throw pillow on the long sofa where they sat.

"You must tame the Tikbalang crown prince so his brother will not be able to slay him and begin a series of disasters once he takes that throne, for the only the true heir to the throne can grow it into peace and prosperity," Bulan said in all seriousness. 

"To choose not to is to see your world crumble even more into the corruption that reigns it now that the Diwata have no queen, the Nuno have no rulers and the malignos remain divided and locked in their own battles for supremacy in their fiefdoms."

"Ooooo-kay, so you want me to choose world peace, I take it?" Tala cocked an incredulous eyebrow at Bulan. "And you still haven't told me who on earth this Tikbalang is that I must tame. A name would be a good start, my lady Bulan."

Bulan nodded, a broad smile on her face and all her teeth gleaming whiter than those shown in toothpase commercials and her curving, full lips red as ripe Benguet strawberries in the summer.

"The Tikbalang prince is my son, my firstborn and his name is Buhawi."

Tala began framing another question, but no sound issued from her mouth. She felt herself fading from this warm living room, felt Bulan become as distant as her eye, the moon that was illuminating a patch of hardwood-plank floor just inside the French windows facing a garden full of flowers and fruit trees.

***

Buhawi returned to the realm of Lupa even more frustrated than he had been when he'd left with his mane on fire. So he chose to ride through the jungle in a sweaty lather, fully the war-horse he was, whickering and whinnying his displeasure to warn away the Other World denizens along his path.

Once outside the garden of his Forbes Park house, Buhawi willed himself back to his human form, allowing the magic to shroud his body in the darkness of the wee hours.

I am not giving my parents what they want without a fight, he told himself as he unlocked his back door to stalk angrily from his kitchen to the master bedroom. I am going to find a way to defeat Kidlat and remain free of this shitty binding.

With that, he yanked his antique Chinese armoire open and took out his bag of spells, an old World War II army duffel in olive green that had been gifted to him by a USAFFE soldier his father had guided out of the Batangas jungle so Manila could be retaken as that war wound to its bitter end.

His father had converted that dun canvas sack into a vessel for summoning what a Tikbalang needed from the Other World. All he needed to do was make a clear mental picture of whatever it was he wanted as he opened his hand in the bag and there it was.

Candles of red beeswax, seven of them, tall, like pillars, Buhawi commanded the bag, channeling his innate power with extreme focus. When he had them, he continued ticking off his mental list until he'd assembled all his spell implements.

Buhawi made a circle of black salt from the northernmost beaches of the Philippines over a tapestry woven from a unknotted threads on the looms of Maranao tribe of the southern island of Mindanao. He laid down nine conch shells from the Central Visayas, where the Philippine sea was deepest.

He began his chant in a deep, truly non-human voice, seducing Tala into masturbating by sending her erotic visions, summoning the Baylan into his arms because he could not enter her home anymore. 

That done, he pierced his left thumb with a black dagger and dripped his blood onto the red candles to extinguish the flames before laying on his bed and stroking his aching tarugo and tight-drawn bayag. 

Oh, you witch, my bayag are heavy with Tikbalang seed. All just for you. Tonight we will see who gets to stay on top.

"Oh, yes, Baylan, I am so going to eat you. Naked. Writhing. Screaming pleasure through the pain. You will be mine. It is not going to be the other way around."

His penis was still hard as the Tala materialized straddling his lap as he lay on his bed, stroking his masculine tumescence. Her eyes were shut tight and she was naked and glistening with sweat. Her hips were writhing as she rubbed her right nipple with one hand and delved into the sucking wetness of her pussy with the other. 

Buhawi smiled as he cupped her buttocks and licked a light, hot line of lightning from her collarbone to her left ear. "Hello, Baylan."

"Ohmygod, Big Person, don't eat me," Tala shrieked as she threw her shaking palms over her chest and genitals. This is not a drill. This is not a dream, she realized. I think I am fucked because I am naked and small and that is a Tikbalang under me.

"But I must, Baylan," Buhawi said dryly as he humped his monster member's hard length against the sweet wetness of her puki, drawing a groan that was half protest and half capitulation from the woman he'd summoned to his bed. "I did say you'd make a delicious snack."



How to Tame Your Tikbalang Ch. 05



 Well, here's chapter 5. :) One request was to show Buhawi's brother, so here's Kidlat. Yes, he is a handsome rogue and, maybe, just maybe, if he finds redemption in this story, I'll write him his own story someday. :)

Enjoy!

*****

How she wound up like this, naked and in orgasmus interruptus atop Buhawi, Tala had no idea, but she was sure of one thing: She needed to get the hell out of wherever she'd landed. Or pluck those hairs of his. Fast. Otherwise, well, she was quite literally dead meat.

Not that she could think clearly when her wet and swollen genitals were engaged in such sweet friction with her nemesis' hard, long and manly bits. That felt almost too good for her to protest against this rubbing of cock and pussy. 

What? No. Just talk yourself into a better situation. Forget about the mind-bending pleasure first. Save self now, fuck later, with the battery-operated boyfriend.

"We have to talk about this—Buhawi, stop!" Tala finally found her voice somewhere between a wail of pleasure and a scream of panic. "Seriously, stop, please. Please!" 

Tala flattened palms slick with sweat and her own arousal against his chest, pushing herself as far upright as she could. Her hair cascaded down one shoulder, over one heaving breast and her back, a fall of dark fire against her candle-lit skin.

Still gripping Tala's hips in his large hands, Buhawi bit down hard on his lower lip. The coppery taste of blood coated the tip of his tongue as he pulled the Baylan firmly down, holding her twitching wet folds tight against his throbbing member. 

His brow was furrowed in the pain of unspent (and very intense) arousal. By the Old Gods, my balls hurt just like when Kidlat kicked them when we were kids.

It didn't help that the tips of Tala's tresses were brushing his belly and groin in an erotic counterpoint to the pain in his tight scrotum. Buhawi let out a low groan. Well, unwilling is unwilling, he thought to himself. It is bad enough that so many think we're rapists. I'm not turning into that kind of monster. Fuck my life.

Now, if only the trembling urgency in Tala's voice would actually douse his hard-on, Buhawi would be just peachy-keen. But, no, this is Totoy Mola we're talking about below the waist, Buhawi thought to himself with derision—nobody ever stopped that B-movie lothario with the horse-cock from fucking them. Nuh-uh.

"Now?! By the Old Gods, woman, your timing is atrocious." Buhawi drew in a deep breath as he slowly released her hips, which were, even now, beginning to bruise from the tightness of his grasp.

Hastily grabbing a folded black cotton sheet lying askew by her right thigh, Tala wrapped up as much of her sweaty, still-horny body as she could while she dismounted. Tala wished she could wrap her face, as well, but she needed to talk sense to this, this creature. Not something I can do with a sheet over my head.

"Look, I don't have any idea how I got here and I am sorry to be such a wet blanket on your, um, self-love and all that. Please do not hurt me," Tala blurted out in a rush once her breathing stabilized and her brain kicked into gear as she inched away from the heat of Buhawi's naked, muscled and oh-so-delicious body.

"Not that I don't want what you seem mighty capable of giving me, but I just want it clear that I am not a McDonald's Delivery Happy Meal, here," Tala drew herself up as tall as she could on her haunches (which wasn't much considering who she was addressing). "I will not be eaten like that barista from the coffee shop who got your name all wrong."

Well that did it. Erection wilt achieved in zero. Buhawi rolled his eyes to the ceiling in exasperation as Tala blathered on, her nervous energy fueling her mouth. 

"Okay, you had better stop right now before I feel forced to slap your hysteria away," Buhawi said through clenched teeth as he sat up and raised a hand to signal Tala to shut up. "What barista? What are you talking about, woman? For your information, I don't eat ugly people. I prefer to eat people food, not people—although I may have had to bite a few of them on occasion because they tried to yank my mane or tail."

"Next, I am not a rapist. I don't need to be a rapist," Buhawi said, his voice thick with both anger and that horny growl he'd become so familiar with lately. "I'm extremely pissed at you for thinking I'd stoop to that. Yes, I want this—I wouldn't have summoned you all the way across two cities if I didn't, but don't think I have no self-control, Baylan." 

He spat the epithet for Tala's kind as if it were the worst curse word on the planet as he fixed her with a literally black glare lit by dangerous red lights. "I prefer my women willing and, since you let me into your dream and summoned me not so long ago into your living room while you enjoyed your version of self-love, well, I thought you were game for it, witchling." Memo to self: Ask about the barista when she can talk sense.

Returning a glare of her own, Tala flipped back her hair and set her shoulders back, the action pressing the hard points of her nipples against the thin cotton sheet as she backed her way off the bed and onto her feet. 

Nipples, sweet, tasty nipples, was Buhawi one coherent thought. Then he shook his head. Do not think about sweet, tasty nipples now, you ass, this woman needs to be set straight first.

Standing with a regal grace many aspire to and few achieve (wet thighs and throbbing lady parts notwithstanding), the Baylan squared off with the Tikbalang. 

"Excuse me, but that was not about lust, even if it was rather, well, sexual," she said as haughtily as she could, considering that she was holding nothing but a flat sheet between herself and Buhawi. "That was about owning my power you old nag."

"Old nag? Old NAG?" Buhawi's voice rose to a thunderous volume as his temper got the better of him and he leapt off the bed to the cold tile of the floor beside it. "I was minding my own business and trying to making sure that old book stayed where it was and you call me an old NAG? Nags are female, which I assure you I definitely am not. Dear me, you steal things that you are better off leaving alone and you call me names. That's so fucking rich, Taga Lupa."

Now standing on opposite sides of the massive bed, the two locked gazes in a silent battle of wills. You aren't going to stare me down you stupid horse, Tala thought furiously as she squinted her eyes and called upon her anger to keep her glare going. I will win this if I have to saddle you up, ride you hard and put you away wet. 

"So jacking off in front of my sliding door and leaving a crust of tamod for me to clean up is a sample of your self-control?" Tala asked caustically. "And stalking me is a good thing? Oh, and lest I forget, screwing me sore and six ways from Sunday in a dream is all about willingness, yes. I may have liked that, but I don't recall you asking me if I wanted to fuck you, asshole. Nor did you do the polite thing and use a condom. I don't know where that's been," Tala bit off curtly as she pointed to his still hard (and still very naked) penis with her pouting lips.

Ah, those pouting lips, pointing at my... Get a grip, Buhawi Unos Batumbakal. This is not a time to think with that head.

There was the slightest twich to Buhawi's eyelids as Tala kept her mouth going at Mach 1-per minute. Then he blinked. Ah, victory, Tala thought. Small, but decisively my round. Tala inhaled and Buhawi watched her chest rise and fall. My, she looks so fine in my sheet.

"But, wait, there's more," Tala continued her tongue-lashing oblivious to the ogling she was getting. "You also pretended to be this nice guy who bumped into me at the coffee shop who probably told a whole host of big fat lies to get me at ease. That's it. I'm outta here."

Tala pulled the sheet up so she could stalk to the bedroom door to her right for her grand exit. The high dudgeon she was in stained her cheeks and throat a deep red that, for some reason, dampened Buhawi's own anger. Her angry Spanish eyes sparkled like stars, her namesake, and Buhawi found himself batting non sequiturs about in his head, rather than counter-arguments.

All that fire, all that grace. She's magnificent when she is riled, he thought. I'd love to see that the next time we fuck, own it, revel in it—the passion, not anger. 

Then he saw Tala hesitate at the half-open door, her right hand on the knob and her teeth worrying that red fullness of her lower lip as she kept her grip on the sheet. He took a deep breath to steady himself as she spoke. I wonder how many times I can make her come in a night. And how spectacular her coming will be after I keep her on the edge for an hour or two. Be good, dude, and perhaps you'll find out.

"By the way, where are we, anyway?" Her unsure question made him laugh softly as he pulled a red towel off the ladder back of a bedside chair and wrapped it about his hips. Buhawi walked slowly toward Tala his empty hands up in the air until he gently shut the door.

"Wouldn't you want to get dressed first?" He asked. "I doubt if any cab drivers passing McKinley Road would stop for you dressed as you are in that sheet. Of if any of them would see you standing on the roadside at night. For the record, I am a nice guy. It just isn't easy telling people I'm a tikbalang, you know. And, yes, I still want to get into that gorgeous body of yours, I have since I first saw you. But I am not going to hurt you. Much."

Tala's eyes widened. Her panic was starting to rise to the surface again but something, some instinct told her to stay very still and keep her eyes on him. So she did and that small pause was enough to give Buhawi time to do a full 360 and turn on the charm.

"I've got some clothes here, and a car," Buhawi offered with a slow grin that would have dissolved Tala's panties had she been wearing any. "I can drive you home. Or we can have a cup of coffee first, if you want."

"Look, I'm totally freaked out as it is," Tala said carefully, modulating her voice so it would come out even despite her emotional turmoil. "I'd just really like to go home now."

She cast unconsciously pleading eyes up at Buhawi as he stopped a foot away from her and he was a goner. All the fight left his system and all he wanted to do was hold her close and reassure her that the last thing on earth he wanted to do was hurt her. 

"Please, just take me back to my house in one piece and I promise you I will never bother you again. I'll even cross my heart and hope to die," Tala said, hating the note of desperation that sharpened the pitch of her voice.

"There's no need for that," Buhawi said quitely as he pulled open a cabinet and took out one of his white T-shirts and a pair of blue board shorts with drawstring ties and laid them on the bed. 

"There, those should cover you up well enough. Let me just go hose myself down and I'll drive you home. That summoning spell is a one-way thing, you know."

***

Standing under the coldest spray he could get out of the shower, Buhawi scrubbed away the smell of his sweat and her sweetness with peppermint soap. Not that the hot-cold tingle of the peppermint nor the cold rush of water were helping any, really.

He took himself in hand and began a swift, hard rhythm of harsh jerks to relieve the pressure in his balls, pressure that only built the longer he was in the same space as Tala. Hopefully, mastubrating would take the edge off his horny need to fuck the witch. Yeah, good luck with that.

I'm going to need to convince that witch to reverse her binding spell, Buhawi told himself, his breathing labored and hard. I can't perpetually be this hard. I'd have to open a construction business and hammer nails with my tarugo if this keeps up. Hell, if this keeps up, I'll die of dehydration from all the jacking off.

So Buhawi ticked off a mental list: 1) Keep her calm. Do not threaten her. 2) Do not jump her bones. Yet. 3) Get her to unbind you. 4) Talk to her about the barista. 5) Do not lose your temper.

Yet, as he was making up that list, he remembered how good she smelled. How that slick of salty and sweet on her skin left him wanting more. How her hot little mouth felt under his lips and tongue and, yes, how tight and wet and welcoming she was as he pumped into her. How her pupils dilated to black and how her lips formed a delicate red 'O' as she came. 

Yep. That does it every time, Buhawi thought as his tamod spurted to the floor of the shower stall. Well, so much for cold showers. They obviously don't work when you're enspelled. Buhawi sighed, shrugging as he exited the shower, dried off and donned his jeans, a shirt and stuck his bare feet into whatever shoes he found.

***

Tala got into the pup-tents that served as Buhawi's clothes and looked in the full-length mirror attached to the back of the bedroom door. I look like I stole this outfit off someone's outdoor clothesline, she grimaced at her reflection. But at least I'm all covered. Now, how do you go about talking to someone you're not sure you really fucked? This is all so awkward.

She looked around the room, noting the starkness of the place, like it had been taken straight out of an architectural magazine. The only personal touches she saw were three silver-edged photo frames atop a desk, behind a black smartphone, a white tablet and an open MacBook Air in sleep mode and a blinking fibre-connected WiFi router.

The photograph showed a younger, triumphant Buhawi grinning amid a cheering crowd on a basketball court. He was wearing a blue and white basketball uniform emblazoned with an eagle and stood beside another guy in a similar uniform, a guy with a marked family resemblance to Buhawi, but who stood a bit shorter and sported a mop of reddish curls that constrasted with the jet black of Buhawi's straight locks. 

A brother? There's more than one devil-horse spawn? Great. Fanfuckintastic. I feel so safe now. Duh. 

The two young men were smiling at the camera and seemed to be in high spirits as Buhawi raised a huge trophy in one hand as he held his brother in a one-armed hug. The brother flashed the 'rock on' hand sign with his left hand and stuck his tongue out at the photogtrapher as he spread his other hand, palm to the camera. 

So they were part of the Ateneo de Manila University team that made the five-peat in the college basketball leagues? Wow. Why am I not surprised?

The brothers Batumbakal seemed just as close in another, older photograph, this one in black and white. They were frolicking on a white sand beach, with a laughing Buhawi chasing after his merry (and, apparently, younger) brother in the foam of waves ebbing from the shore, his right arm outstretched as if frozen in a game of tag, his dimples framing a wide, gap-toothed smile and his eyes glinting in the bright sunlight.

The third photograph was probably the most recent one. The two men wore lightweight tailored tropical suits sans ties, their strong throats and tanned, muscular chests peeking out of the unbuttoned vees of pristine white linen shirts, something that could have been taken from a magazine photo shoot. They stood back to back, arms crossed and faced the camera with devil-may-care smiles.

Maybe it is just me, but the tension between them seems to overflow the frame, Tala thought. Their smiles are definitely confined to the lower halves of their faces and their eyes look so hard, like dark glass.

Just about then, a loud rumble crossed the sky above the posh Forbes Park enclave and lightning streaked through the sky. Oh, dear, rain. Not now you stupid monsoon. I need to get home before the flooding sets in. Tala turned around and was about to search for Buhawi when she smacked right into his chest. Again.

"Okay, this is getting to be a bad habit between us," Tala piped up as she inhaled the clean, peppermint and male smell that she now associates with the Tikbalang in man's clothing now holding her steady. Again.

The rumble of thunder overhead was matched by Buhawi's own rumbling laugh. "I'd call it a good habit," he said, setting some distance between them as he laughed (though, truth be told, he just wanted to carry her to the bed, hold her tight, get inside her and to hell with the consequences).

"Now, we'd better get going before the flooding from the rain gets so bad we get stuck on the horror that is EDSA," Buhawi said, leading the way out of his bedroom and down the stairs to the garage where he'd parked his red Land Rover Defender with the vanity plate "Agimat 1" shining luminescent green on white in the low light. "I can handle floods, but I hate the crazies who think they can drive like maniacs who like joy-riding when EDSA is not one long parking lot."

***

"Look," Buhawi said as he idled the vehicle and he and Tala buckled up. He kept his tone as even and as calm as he could. "You mentioned a barista from that coffee shop where we met. You practically accused me of raping the woman. What happened to her?" 

Snapping her seatbelt into its dock, Tala turned to Buhawi with her eyebrows up. "I saw it on a TV news report on ANC while I was at work. Her name is Martha and she was murdered at a construction site near Circuit mall."

Buhawi eased the Range Rover onto the road and drove out to the highway, keeping his speed even as he turned on the windshield wipers as the rain began to fall.

Tala forced herself to look straight ahead as she continued her reply, just so her voice would stay steady. "She'd been found on a pile of gravel, naked and mutilated with hoof-marks from an unshod horse and bite marks all over her body. She'd also been raped."

"And you think I did this?" Buhawi fought to control the anger rising through him. His knuckles were white as he gripped the steering wheel. "I don't know why you think I did that. Okay, so I hated that she changed my name to Vernie, but that isn't a bad enough thing to rape and kill someone over."

She thinks the worst of me. Buhawi forced his concentration back to the road as the rain began to fall in almost impenetrable sheets as tropical monsoons usually do. Why do I even care about that? Shit, man, that just plain hurts. 

He, too, kept his eyes front, unable to look at Tala because he didn't want to see her judgment of his character on his face. Not that he should care, but he did. Too much. It's the binding spell, he rationalized. I just need to get that undone and I'll be okay. This won't matter. 

Lightning flashed across the sky, striking earth somewhere in the distance, illuminating the harsh planes of Buhawi's face as he slid on a mask of indifference.

"What am I supposed to think?" Tala asked, her voice a soft whisper. "You're the only Tikbalang I know."

"What you are supposed to think," Buhawi countered, "is that I don't go around doing that kind of shit even if I am a Tikbalang, lady. If I were that bad, there'd be a lot of dead bodies out there to keep the police busy because, I tell you, people piss me off every damn day."

"I'm sorry," Tala's voice was small, afraid. "I don't really know what to think. Especially when I saw those pictures of you and... was that your brother?" Distract him. Don't make him angry, you fool.

Buhawi breathed deeply again before speaking. "I promised not to harm you. I'm hoping you letting me drive you home means you trust me a bit. Now, I don't know who raped and killed that barista, but it sure as hell wasn't me."

Something in the raw earnestness and anger in Buhawi's words made Tala think twice about her suspicions. After all, I don't think I want to imagine that I am in a car with a rapist and killer, she told herself. Better to just let that slide. If he was intent on doing me in, I'd have been done for weeks ago.




How to Tame Your Tikbalang Ch. 05



"Was that your brother with you in the photos on your desk?" Tala asked, hoping a change of topics would ease the almost solid tension in the vehicle's cabin. "Are there more than just the two of you?"

"That's my younger brother, Kidlat," Buhawi said, his grip on the wheel tightening even more. "We used to be partners in crime, if you'll pardon my unfortunate turn of phrase. We don't talk much now."

Buhawi eased the Range Rover into a parking slot in front of Tala's apartment building and shut off the engine. "We're here." There was a chill in his tone that indicated an end to the discussion of his family and stopped Tala from asking another question. So she just pursed her lips and began to release her seat belt.

Something heavy and large dropped onto the hood of the Range Rover as both Tala and Buhawi reached out to open their doors and they both looked up in time to see the windshield shatter outward into tiny, rounded shards of safety glass.

Moving on instinct, Buhawi yanked Tala to his side of the vehicle, shoved his door open and dragged her out behind him onto the pavement. He took the impact of their fall and rolled to covered her body with his. Buhawi looked back and up above the seriously dented hood to see another Tikbalang standing atop his beloved car.

The roan Tikbalang looked down at Buhawi and Tala with fire in his eyes and he snorted what seemed like a cackle (if horses indeed cackled) and began to change form standing astride the Range Rover's hood.

"So this is the Baylan who needs to die, brother. So good of you to be in the same place as her," the other Tikbalang said, unmindful of his naked human form in the rain. "This is going to be so easy now."

"Oh, shit. Shitissimo. Shit. Shit. Shit." Tala's voice was rising steadily in a crescendo as she began to truly panic under Buhawi's massive frame. "Wake me up! Dammit!"

"Kidlat, you always did have a penchant for drama," Buhawi said slowly as he rose to kneel from his supine position. "I did tell Tatay you were the actor in the family but he wouldn't believe me."

Buhawi moved his hands in an arcane gesture, chanting in a language Tala neither understood nor wanted to understand. Then he opened his arms wide, made a fist with his left hand and pointed at Kidlat with his right index finger. A flash of lightning drove down to strike its namesake, momentarily stunning the roan Tikbalang and driving it down splat on the Range Rover's hood.

Buhawi inclined his head to Tala's, dropping his voice to a whisper only she could hear: "This is not a dream. Shit just got real. This is why you shouldn't have taken that damned book." 

He looked into Tala's eyes and continued: "You see that gold hair in front of you? Pull it. You're gonna need it. Then think of the strongest memory of being protected that you know. Do it, now."

Tala nodded, her heart a jackhammer in her chest as she reached out to wrap the golden, metallic strand around her forefinger and tug it loose from Buhawi's scalp.

That done, Buhawi stood up over Tala, setting his body between the Baylan and his brother. "You, brother, are out of line. And you really shouldn't have done that to Giselle. She hates being dented, you know."

Kidlat launched himself off the vehicle and onto his brother with a wild snarl and the two fell to the pavement, wrestling for dominance, pummeling and kicking viciously at each other as they went.

Skirting the Batumbakal brothers, Tala wracked her brain. What the fuck am I supposed to do now? Another lightning strike came sizzling out of the sky, striking the pavement before her and sending shocks of electricity up Tala's feet and through her body. 

Do what feels right, a woman's voice said in Tala's head. But don't kill my son if you don't have to. 

Holy shit. Voices in one's head were so not a good thing. Worry about your sanity later. Just get this over and done with now, Tala scolded herself. Focus, woman.

She closed her eyes and visualized her mother singing a her lullaby while rocking her to sleep in the old rocking chair in the ancestral house's solarium. She felt her mother's arms wrapped around her shoulders as she nodded off to sleep in the late afternoon sunlight even as she felt a surge of power rise up from her navel and radiate through her body.

Tala opened her eyes just as Kidlat grabbed Buhawi's hair and yanked the dark Tikbalang's head, preparatory to bashing it down on the cracked concrete of the sidewalk.

She pointed her index finger at Kidlat and silently called on the Old Gods to grant her the power to stop the roan Tikbalang. "I bind you from doing harm to yourself or others, Kidlat. I bind you to the earth. I bind you with words. I am Baylan and you will obey me."

As she spoke, the power slammed into Kidlat with each word uttered, driving him back against one of the pink hibiscus shrubs in the parking area's row of planters. The shrubs came alive, wrapping their branches around Kidlat and, with strange strength, holding the roan Tikbalang immobile.

Tala held out her hands, the blood vessels and muscles in her neck and arms standing out from the strain of maintaining control over the power she was wielding. She looked heavenward and silently called for another lightning bolt, which arrived as ordered and struck Kidlat until he passed out in an embrace of pink flowers, glossy leaves and branches that just refused to let go.

Miraculously, Kidlat still breathed, though the smell of burnt hair and skin filled the air along with the ozone smell of lightning in the air. Buhawi gently disentangled his brother from the hibiscus gone wild and laid him down in the empty parking slot next to his Range Rover. Buhawi then pulled a square silver amulet from a pocket of his jeans and placed it on his brother's chest, whispering softly over the amulet until his brother's body faded into mist.

"Well," Buhawi said in a shaken voice, "there goes my quick ride home. I hope Inay has the first aid kit out and Itay doesn't whip my hide for this. That lightning was nasty."

Sagging to the ground, Tala sat heavily on crossed legs and stared up dazedly at Buhawi. "Now, if you don't mind explaining that, I'm dying to know just what I did to your brother."

Buhawi sat beside Tala, just as heavily and with a sad look on his face. "You just saved my life. By hitting him with so much electricity his brain shorted out temporarily. Then you tapped your power with my golden hair as a point of focus."

"Oh. All in a night's work for a Baylan, I suppose," Tala tried for flippant and only got wired. "Nothing special, right?"

"Actually, you've got to be a very powerful Baylan, to be able to call lighting with that kind of precision," Buhawi said. "You must be really tired out now. Being new to this and all."

Tala nodded and looked up at Buhawi as she tried to get to her feet and failed. "I think I'm going to need some help getting to the elevator. Will you help me get there, please?"

Buhawi nodded and, instead of just letting her lean on him, he scooped Tala up carried her into the lobby of her apartment building, crossed the lobby and took her into the elevator.

"I'll see you to the door of your apartment and, if you'll let me, I'll put you to bed," he said, his lips grazing the hair at the top of her head. "Rest. We'll need to have a serious talk in the morning."

"What about? I kicked your brother's ass for you and we're done, right?" Tala's query was hopeful, but Buhawi's eyes pretty much extinguished that idea.

"We aren't done. You plucked one of my golden hairs and there is a price to pay for that," he said. "One you and I have to pay or you will be in very deep trouble and so will I."

"Oh, shit."

"Indeed."

***

Tala awoke still wearing the clothes Buhawi had lent her. They smelled of him and she closed her eyes, unwilling to enjoy that scent of peppermint and wonderfully male musk that made her melt in the southern reaches.

When she tried to move, she found herself pinned down by a long, muscled thigh and enfolded in a warm, male hug. A naked male hug that smelled just like the shirt she was wearing.

"Buhawi, is that you?" Tala attempted to shift again. To no avail. "Buhawi, wake up. I need to go potty." She shoved backward with a shoulder, her arm and hand braced on the mattress for leverage. "MOVE!"

Yawning, Buhawi shifted a bit and opened one eye, smiling lazily as he came to full alertness. "Good morning to you, too, honeybunny." There was a warm, hot chocolate feel to his look across the one breath that separated his face from hers.

Tala threw him what she hoped passed for a dirty look. Never mind that his sleepy, deep voice made her want to jump his bones and fuck him silly. She needed the bathroom. Now.

She rolled off her bed and went into the bathroom to brush her teeth and do her business—business that included a cold shower and a bathrobe. Stepping back into her bedroom, she grabbed some clothes from her closet and re-entered the bathroom to get dressed.

Thank goodness I've got today off, she thought. I'd be the team leader who was late, otherwise. Not that that was more important than all the events that had transpired in the last few hours. No, that really screws with my head, ergo, is more important.

***

The scent of ylang-ylang and tuberose floated out of the bathroom, signaling Tala's return to the bedroom, and Buhawi sat up in the bed and stretched his long arms over his head, his naked body on display for her eyes to feast upon.

"Come back to bed, Baylan. We have unfinished business, you and I," Buhawi crooked his index finger invitingly. "You cannot have that hair without the sex magic."

"Sex magic? Now wait just a minute, mister," Tala began saying as Buhawi rose from the mattress to stand behind her. "I can give that hair back, right?" She threw that question breathlessly over her shoulder, her lips almost touching his.

Buhawi just flashed Tala a hot, naughty smile, his eyes glittering with lust and, perhaps, something else. "Sorry, my black magic woman, no return, no exchange. If you pluck it, I consider it sold."

He laid sweet siege to Tala's neck with a light trail of kisses, letting just the tip of his tongue dip into the hollow where shoulder met neck and trace the curve of her ear. "You want this, right?"

Tala let her head fall back against Buhawi's chest when he nuzzled her hairline, the heat in her loins burning almost white in intensity. "Well, yes. Yes, I do. But I'm not on birth control...oh!"

Buhawi nipped her earlobe and began telling her what he wanted to do to her with his hands, his mouth, his tongue, hot little whispers that made her squirm against him, sent her buttocks against his thighs in sensuous circles of erotic need.

"Just say yes, Baylan. You've begun to own your power. Don't you want to find the two other hairs you need?" His question was a seduction of both her body and her otherness. "My tarugo wants into your puki, sweetness. My mouth wants to taste your come."

His hands came up under her tank top, cupping her breasts and gently but firmly kneading them until her nipples stood hard as gems and she ached for his fingers to rub them, to stimulate the sensitized nubs until her juices flowed to her thighs.

One hand went under the waistband of her gym shorts and Tala raised a foot to her mattress, opening her to Buhawi's hard, hot fingers. He massaged her labia, rubbed up and down her slit with his whole hand, fingers to palm and back again, spreading the wetness of her arousal all over her mound as she moaned into his mouth. 

Buhawi's tongue was tracing light, wet patterns on Tala's lips, teasing her so she raised her head for a deeper kiss, her tongue invading his mouth just as his fingers found her rigid clitoris and made slow, maddening circles around it, pulling its hood back and forth along the way.

"So, is that a yes?" Buhawi asked against Tala's lips, his voice a growl of want. "Because if that is yes, I want to finger-fuck you until you come riding on my hand while I watch you in that mirror across us."

Tala bucked sharply against his questing hands, her eyes on the mirror, watching his hands move under the fabric of her clothes. "Yes, oh my God, yes. Please, please..."

"Do you want me to do what I did in your dream? Put my finger in your ass while I fuck you?" Buhawi began to rock his cock against her body, needing the friction every bit as much as Tala did. "Because if you do, then I'm more than ready to fuck you a million ways from Sunday, and then a few ways that only we in the Other World know."

Tala nodded and Buhawi began to finger-fuck her hard, shoving one, then two long fingers into her tight wetness and rubbing her G-spot as his palm ground against the head of her clit. 

His other hand continued playing under her shirt, tweaking nipples and coming up between her breasts to hold her throat as he began kissing her hard and hot, his tongue-fucking her mouth the way he'd promised to tongue-fuck her pussy.

Just as Tala was about to come, Buhawi pulled his hand from her cunt and he stripped her of her shorts, bending her over the bed in the process.

Tala reared up and bucked her hips backward, whimpering in frustration. Buhawi held her shoulders down on the bed until she stopped bucking. "Hush. We're not done yet, my witch. This will be so good, I promise you."

He stripped her shirt away and held her hips down to the mattress as he parted her thighs with his. Buhawi began licking Tala's dripping slit, his tongue delving into the hot depths of her as she began to shake and reach the crest of another orgasm.

She felt a low buzzing against her pussy as Buhawi moved his mouth to her asshole, licking insistently as he began to slowly massage her the sensitive head of her clitoris with the vibrator before pushing it in and out of her pussy. 

Tala went nova, starbursts of her orgasm filling her shaking body as Buhawi plunged his tarugo into her puki, holding himself there as he pushed the pulsating vibrator covered in her come slowly, but surely into her asshole, pumping it in and out to the rhythm of her moaning, driving the vibrator in up to its flanged base and his cock balls-deep into her pussy.

Then Buhawi covered her body with his, the way a stallion covers a mare, and, as he pushed the vibrator to its highest setting and began a furious rhythm, he kissed her again, his tongue in perfect sync with his cock. His hands were back at her breasts, rubbing and pinching and tugging on her nipples, layering another set of electric sensation over her deliciously overwhelmed body.

Tala's orgasms melted into each other, each one more intense than the last until she heard his hoarse cursing that heralded his own shattering orgasm and the jets of come spurting so copiously into her that she just didn't have room to hold it all in and his tamod flowed down her thighs.

They lay unmoving for several minutes, needing the time to catch their breaths and not pass out from the sheer intensity of their fucking.

"That, Baylan, is the downpayment of the price you have to pay for each golden hair you take, Buhawi said with a wicked grin once they could finally move. He shifted off her, rolled her over and moved her to the center of her queen bed. "Now, we need to work on the rest of the payments. This could take all day. And all night. Maybe all week."



How to Tame Your Tikbalang Ch. 06



Tala filed her vacation leave with a smidgen of regret. Her team would have to do without her for a while, but she had accrued enough leave credits to take a couple of months off—goodness knows she needed it now if she intended to explore her Baylan nature. She'd probably need a few weeks to recover, too, considering what tapping her supernatural whathaveyou involves.

That, and her body seemed to be extremely sensitive lately. Her cotton undies felt scratchy and she suddenly couldn't stand the lace on her bra cups. She'd awoken to the shrill meowing of a hungry cat knowing damn well there wasn't a feline in the building save for the scraggly stray the guards at her apartment building usually fed 15 stories below her balcony, in the parking lot.

The early morning light made her squint hard enough that she reached for her sunglasses before setting out for her office and, once there, she'd found that the flavor of her morning latte exploded like a bomb—a nice one, though—on her tongue and soft palate. 

Funny things. Things that would likely freak her out, so she threw herself into her shift before deciding on taking a nice, long break during which she did not need to hear some of her team members surreptitiously texting friends and family when their phones were supposed to be in the lockers. So she could lose it at her leisure, away from prying eyes. 

Mental note, read what Beatriz has to say on these things. Perhaps on a beach. With Buhawi. Definitely with Buhawi. Though how that will get done, only the Bestiario knows. Dear me, will I feel everying so intensely? Before this the sex with Buhawi already drove me around the bend. How would his tongue feel now? His lips? His fingers? Oh, my God, how would it feel to have him inside me, fucking me slow and sure or hard and fast. Oh, my.

Tala walked into the HR office as her shift came to a close, toting her accomplished leave form in triplicate. Most people would think contact center personnel all dressed flamboyantly, but, really, the admin people are like admin people the world over: Conservatively dressed and impeccably unflappable. The fashion statements and victims were the ones who walked the inbound and outbound call office floors. 

She squirmed as the bespectacled, prim and pinstripe-suited Ms. Dela Cruz of HR's lean and mean crew turned speculative owl-eyes at her and cocked a finely-plucked brow up as she made a slight moue with her lips. 

Dear me, I hope I don't give off a sex-fiend vibe. I hope she does not see that I'm horny as all get out and am this close to locking myself in the locker room, getting into the shower and fucking myself silly to the tune of Billy Joel's "It's Just a Fantasy." Aw, shite. Down, Tala. Down, girl. And down, nipples and clitoris, too.

"Ms. Bienvenido, it is good that you are taking a leave," the HR manager said. "You've been working very hard and a break will keep you productive." Ms. Dela Rosa was shifting subtly in her seat and fanning herself with a manila envelope, despite the air conditioner belting out the coldest blasts of air it could.

Don't chicken out now, woman. Tala scolded herself as she handed the form over to the crisp and efficient Ms. Dela Cruz. It isn't even just about all the orgasms you're gonna have in the process. It is about finding out what you truly are. 

Ms. Dela Cruz cracked a slight smile, took Tala's leave forms and stamped each copy, filing them away with the OCD precision that effectively dismissed Tala and hid the HR lady's face from Tala's view. "It is nice giving you a leave instead of your team members, for a change." 

"Thank you, Ms. Dela Cruz," Tala forced her focus back on the woman sitting in front of her. "I do need the break." With that, she gave the HR lady a smile and walked off the end of her shift and into the bright afternoon sun, shades on and iPod earbuds firmly in place with Pachelbel pouring a rousing but low-volume sonata into her head.

*** 10 Junio 1898

When you have taken the first golden hair, expect to see changes that may upset you at first. Your touch will likely shock people, animals and objects with sharp pulses of energy. To prevent this from happening, make sure you plant both feet firmly on the ground, heels to balls of feet, before you touch anyone or anything.

Your hearing will grow very keen—keen enough to pick up sounds most humans cannot. It will be sensitive enough that the slightest tread of feet on soil will sound as loud as a horse's stomping gallop over a cobblestone street.

Your skin will be much more sensitive and you may want to choose clothes that are not rough, or you will feel constant discomfort when thus clad. You will not be able to tolerate anything but the softest, lightest cloth against your intimate parts or against your breasts. Perhaps you will want to go without underclothes for a while, at least until you adjust to the increased sensitivity.

Your eyesight will grow very clear and sharp and, if you look at a bird in flight, you may even be able to see the small patterns in its plumage—even if that bird is tiny as a sparrow and flying higher than most people would be able to see.

You will taste the smallest bits of flavor on the tiniest morsels of food and you will be able to pick up and distinguish scents much better than a hunting dog ever will. These give you excellent help for cooking, by the way. Since Tikbalangs do like to eat and they eat like, well, horses, you will be able to put these enhancements to your senses to good use.

Do not be alarmed at these changes. You are becoming more attuned to the different dimensions in which you dwell. You are a vessel of power and your body is changing so you will be better able to handle the power you are allowing to flow from your very soul, from the Old Gods of the Skyworld, from that core of energy that inhabits all of creation.

Keep up your meditations, do them at least once a week. Ground yourself in the earth below you and raise your hands to the heavens above. Remember that you are the bridge, the human connection, between the land and the sky and you straddle the dimensions in which we and those of the Other World dwell. You are Baylan. Even the Old Gods will heed you.

By now you have paid the first toll for that hair you have plucked. Your Tikbalang will fight you, for it is his nature to challenge the power you now hold. Stay your course. It is no easy task to tame a wild horse. It will be even harder to tame a Tikbalang, but if anyone can do it, you can.

He will want control over you. You cannot give him this control, not this early, at any rate. He has to know Tikbalang and Baylan are meant to be equals. He will after he has also relinquished control to you. That power must flow both ways, or not at all.

By now you have begun to bind the Tikbalang, but be warned: No chains will hold the devil-horse tighter than love—not even the lust of the body or the puzzle that endlessly engages the mind. You have the body. Now you need to win the creature's mind and heart, for he must be all yours. Without question and without a jot of doubt.

Perhaps you will want the spells I've written in this journal. I wrote them for your use. Cuidado, my dearest, use them with compassion and with a clear goal in mind. They can harm as well as provide benefit. 

Here I leave you a caveat: You have only one heart to give and, to fully become the Baylan you have decided to be, you must give it willingly and without reservation. That is the price of all this power.

If you would use my spells to tame your Tikbalang, know that both of you will be bound together. If you want that binding to last, don't rely on just our witchcraft to grow what you've planted. Earn the love and the loyalty, too. Even in this, the ordinary and non-magical human meriting of love is powerful and unbreakable.

It is also worth mentioning that your emotions will affect all those around you, the animate as well as those which are not. You are even more rooted, even more connected to this world now that you have made your decision to be Baylan. 

Anger is likely to make objects shatter and fly about and, in some instances, bring strong storms. Fear is likely to temporarily blind people and animals and cause them to panic. You must keep a strong hand on these emotions and not allow them to become the destructive forces they can be. It is anger that allows you to call lightning and sheets of rain that trigger deluges, so use it well and with utter and implacable control. 

Love and lust, when left to run wild, are likely to cause rather embarassing public spectacles among the unwary people you may be among when you feel these emotions. Until you can direct the emotions better, I do recommend keeping yourself under a tight rein.

You cannot allow your emotions to run wild, but you are a Bienvenido and it is a family trait, as it is a dela Lopa trait, to be discreet and disciplined about one's emotions, at least in public.

The reason I write in this journal is the fear that our family may not be able to support you or guide you through this process of growing into your power. Indeed, they may even try to stop you, or punish you for being what you are, what you choose to become.

Even across the years, my dearest, I want to be here for you. I was fortunate enough to have the guidance of dreams, to have found across the islands people who could share what they found and learned. You should not be alone in your seeking, so I am here to help, if only with my words.

*** Taking a cab home, Tala unplugged the iPod buds from her ears and mused over the Bestiario entry she'd read while curled up in her office break room's beanbag. 

She'd forgone her breakfast break for that and, in the process, probably missed seeing Buhawi at the coffee shop. No matter. I will find him easily enough, she thought to herself with a good measure of cheer. Perhaps things are looking up, after all.

The Baylan was browsing through Beatriz's spells while the traffic light on the intersection of Gil Puyat Ave. and Osmena Highway took its sweet time changing over from red to green and the snarl of early afternoon traffic wended its way across Makati City to Pasay City. 

Ah, here are some interesting ones: How to brew a potion for lust. How to heal broken bones. Summoning lightning in seven steps. Making floods ebb. Ensuring a good harvest. Making investments grow. Potions for forgetting, for remembering, for seeing what will be. Wow. Tinctures for ailments. Incantations for quieting animals. Chants for harmony in families—that would have been useful if things hadn't been so far gone by the time I found this.

Just as she found a promising spell, one for persuading someone to listen to her propositions, Tala's phone began to blare the Eurythmics' Here Comes the Rain Again, the default ringtone for an unknown number.

"Hello?" Tala frowned, knowing nobody at work was going to call her unless it was an emergency, and how many of those do you really get working at a contact center, even as team leader?

"Baylan," Buhawi's voice was smooth and warm over the line. "I missed you at the coffee shop today."

"Oh, hey, Buhawi," she said. Great. Now what to say to someone who is not your boyfriend, but whom you'd boinked. Repeatedly. Vigorously. With soooo much pleasure. 

Tala prayed she'd not get foot-in-mouth disease now. "Missed me? Did we have a date?" Oh, that flirty, teasing tone was so not her, but Tala couldn't help herself where Buhawi was concerned, really. 

"I missed breakfast because I waited for you. How about lunch? Unless you don't want the other two hairs you left on me." His voice was just as teasing and flirty, light, almost affectionate. It made Tala's brain short circuit like she'd stuck wet fingers to a live wire.

"Lunch would be really nice," Tala said, shyness creeping inexplicably into her voice. She crossed her legs as the delta above her thighs heated up, softened and melted. "But I'm headed home."

"Perfect. I'll pick you up outside your apartment building," Buhawi spoke as id she'd never dream of turning him down. It would have been arrogance in other males, but Buhawi seemed to get away with a lot where Tala was concerned and all she could do is smile in anticipation. "I have a place in mind where the seafood is out of this world. The dress code's casual, so you don't need to change and we can go straight there."

"All right," Tala said, tamping down on the excitement in her voice. "See you in 15 minutes, then."

"Oh, and Tala? Please save this number. Just in case you need to call me." There was a smile in Buhawi's voice that gave Tala an inkling that he was probably waggling his eyebrows in that naughty, charming manner that made her knees weak. He'd done that during their sexathon and she'd sighed like she was sighing now as they ended the call. 

Belatedly, Tala remembered Beatriz's caveat about emotion and she tamped down on her excitement with a ruthlessness that erased the glazed look from the cabbie's eyes, as she saw from the rear-view mirror.

The man shook his head as if awakening from a pleasant dream and applied pressure to the accelerator when the traffic began to move again.

A bite of worry assailed Tala, but she shoved it away. I'll deal with my commitment phobia when there is actually something to worry about. Beatriz, times are different now. Women don't need marriage or commitment to be happy. It's not like we'll be making babies. Well, at least not on my part. That depo-provera shot should be working now.

*** Buhawi smiled as he tucked his phone into his shirt's breast pocket. He was sitting in his Range Rover (the hood now fixed, thanks to the car dealer's expert body shop care), waiting patiently for Tala at her apartment building's parking lot.

Ah, yes, the charm offensive. Wonderful strategy, that. I may have had to give her that hair, but that does not mean she's got me wrapped around her finger, Buhawi mused. Besides, he wasn't about to let Kidlat get his way when that way would be so patently nasty. Murder most foul was not his idea of a good time.

Speaking of good times, I wonder what she's wearing. Perhaps it will be a blouse and skirt this time. If the Old Gods favor me, she'll be in an easy-open dress, with nothing underneath. Buhawi shifted in his seat to adjust himself. The bad boy in his pants was liking the direction of his thoughts way too much.

He'd checked in with his office, taken precautions to prevent his brother from wrecking things at the bank while he was away. After all, the best way to get the upper hand with a Baylan is to beat her to the punch, to take the wind from her sails and to get her firmly in his power before she found out what he was about.

Since the fire between them burnt so lusty and so hot, that would not be a problem. He'd made several vacation reservations to some of the best beach spots in the country: Amanpulo, El Nido, Paoay, even Palawan, where he'd take her to the Crystal Caves by moonlight and traipse the lush forests with her riding astride his back. Some of the best beaches in the world are, after all, in the Philippines.

All that remained was for Buhawi to convince the little workaholic to take a break, join him for a journey through this paradise they both called home. If he was really, really lucky, they may just be able to visit the mystic isle of Siquijor, where the Other World and Lupa overlapped most strongly in what westerners would call a very thick, very primal ley line.

And along the way, I'll find out just how well she fills the little triangles of a bikini. I'll even snap pictures of her. Perhaps I'll paint her, nude if I can persuade her. I just need to find where Inay kept my canvasses and oils. Now there's a thought. Tala as a nude model.

Just as Buhawi was visualizing how Tala would look sprawled back and spread out over a large bed, her hands on breast and pubis, her body wet with sweat and come, she arrived. Her eyes were flashing the same fire through the glass of the cab window that they would have been if she were, indeed, laying naked and orgasming on a bed at his behest.

Tala stepped carefully out of the cab, making a real effort not to have the skirt of her red wraparound sundress blow in the wind because, yeah, underwear was hell now and she'd gone without. Her eyes met Buhawi's as she shut the cab door and she heard the cabbie's strangled moan as the poor man tried to keep his eyes up front.

Uh-oh. Broadcasting much? Down, girl. You can't jump his bones in the parking lot, for the love of all that's holy.

Her smile faded in her effort to sober up, but she quirked it up on one side, bringing out a dimple that rarely came out to play. Buhawi exited his vehicle and met her with a warm hug.

"You look so good in red," he said against her hair after breathing in her scent. "You remind me of strawberries. Juicy, ripe strawberries. Mmmm."

The shivers up and down Tala's spine were on a roll and she held her huge black canvas tote across her chest. The better to hide hard nipples with. Not that anything could hide the gush of arousal making for a slick pudendum and upper thighs, but a woman could wish, right? And at least her skirt fell below her knees.

"Uhm, yeah? Well, strawberries are good, but I believe you promised me out of this world seafood, Mr. Batumbakal." Tala looked up at Buhawi with a hungry glint in her eyes that had nothing to do with food. "I need feeding."

"So you do," Buhawi released her with a chuckle and rounded the front of the Range Rover to open the passenger door and hand her into her seat. "Buckle up, then and we shall be off. Just know that the eating won't just be about food, Baylan."

His eyes glittered like obsidian and shone with laser intensity right at Tala's face. My, it is getting hard to swallow, she thought, that predatory look is so scary and hot I can't think at all.

Buhawi shut the passenger door, got into the driver's seat and they left for the Dampa, the seafood market/al fresco eatery where President Diosdado Macapagal Boulevard met the breakwater of Manila Bay.

The drive was a quiet one, with driver and passenger both too keyed up to talk much and preferring to instead listen to the restful music of Levi Celerio and Cecille Licad's fiery concert piano performances playing on the audio system.

*** She'd ordered the milkfish bellies in tamarind broth and the crisp crablets while he'd chosen to eat roast sole with fish sauce and juice from little native limes along with a huge basket of steamed prawns. 

They ate kamayan-style with bare fingers and Buhawi found himself more interested in watching her dainty movements as she fed herself, her fingers picking the seafood apart before popping them into her lush mouth. Oh, that lush, delicious mouth. Buhawi shook his head. Not here. Not yet. Talk to her first. Find information to get yourself out of this mess your parents are so happy to see you in. Control.

Tala definitely liked her food, he noted, even as she dismembered a crablet and offered him the choicest parts, feeding him with her small, elegant fingers.

Every few bites she offered, he teased her without words, catching the pads of her fingers with his teeth and raising an eyebrow as she quickly tried to pull her hand back. 

He caught her wrist with his free hand and held her hand to his mouth as he sucked the vinegar and chili dip that went with the crablets from each fingertip, his eyes hot on her face as he did so. I know I shouldn't be playing with fire, but, moth, what can I say. Just a bit of play. Just a little. Buhawi gave himself that much, at least.





How to Tame Your Tikbalang Ch. 06



"Delicious. I love eating crablets with a side of stars," Buhawi said as he released her wrist from his firm but careful grasp. "I could eat that every day." What did I just say? Cool, cool. Just stay cool, dude.

Tala's ears were almost as red as her dress and the flush on her cheeks was not from the tropical heat—it was the monsoon season and they were so close to the sea the salty breeze of the Habagat, the North Wind, kept them cool enough.

"The seafood is out of this world," Tala murmured quietly, her eyes on the red and white gingham tablecloth. "I'm dying to try the stuffed grilled squid." She dipped her fingers in the wooden water bowl beside her and wiped them off with a paper napkin. As if cooling off her fingers would do the same for the rest of her. Ha, fat chance of that. You could boil lobsters over my hoo-ha. With a cast iron pot. Yep. That hot down there.

"Hey, did I just scare you, Baylan?" Buhawi put a finger beneath Tala's chin and gently brought her face up so her eyes met his. "We're just enjoying a long lunch, you and I. Nothing spectacular, nothing to be afraid of. Go ahead and order the squid. I'm thinking of trying the snapper in lemon butter sauce."

An arc of electricity jumped between them like a closing circuit and it was all Tala could do not to squirm for the humming energy that seemed to shroud them. 

Tala looked around her, noting that most of the couples in the eatery were beginning to fan themselves and look heatedly at their dates. Some couples had even begun surreptitiously touching each other under the scant cover of the gingham tablecloths. Possibly intimately, as some of the men and women's faces showed.

At least the restaurant was close enough to hotels and motels for the lucky ones to get a room. This was Sin City, after all. Hopefully they had cars, because, Sin City or not, public fucking was still against the law. Thank goodness the music was set on loud and they were playing some nonsensical K-pop music. That helped drown out some of Tala's broadcast of lust. But it didn't help that Buhawi was broadcasting his desire subconsciously, too. Oh, dear.

Whoa, no public sex. For anyone. The voyeurism wouldn't really be a bad thing, but you never know who's gonna capture you on cam and, bam! Hello internet pornstars. I have to get this libido under control or we'll have an outbreak of public indecency. This broadcast has to get taken off the air.

On that thought, Tala took a swift, long drink of her iced tea, held the drained glass to her neck to cool her staccato pulse and did calculus in her head until the sexual tension coiling through her was back inside her skin, where it belonged.

Then the rain began to pour in a vision-obliterating curtain around the Dampa's picture windows. Kind of like the liquid sluicing from Tala's vulva to the rattan chair seat even as she slid a handful of tissue paper under her to catch the flow while she ordered the chaos of her thoughts.

Buhawi signaled for a waiter and gave their orders, plus two papaya shakes before turning back to Tala. "Papaya. Great for getting the sexual urges under control, don't you think?"

They both began laughing at that one, the tension finally breaking into humor. "Yes," Tala answered between hearty guffaws that threw her head back and bared the graceful line of her neck to Buhawi's avid eyes. "Yes, I think we need to have lots of papaya. Lots and lots."

"Look," Buhawi said once they'd stopped laughing. "We kind of landed in a bind, you and I. We started off on the wrong foot and now we're struck neither here nor there."

Taking a deep breath, Tala nodded. "We did. All I wanted was to read that Bestiario written by my ancestor, you know. I didn't mean to drag you into this Baylan business."

"Maybe you should tell me why you went to that old house and got that book, anyhow," Buhawi said. "My father sent me to watch over that house, to guard that book, you know. He didn't want it in the wrong hands for a reason. It is a very powerful thing, that Bestiario. Or at least that is what my Itay says."

"Did your dad tell you why the book was dangerous?" Tala's eyes widened as she asked this question, searching Buhawi's face. "I saw it as a kid, in the attic, and when I told my grandmother it was glowing, she spanked me with a belt and forbade me to touch it again. She said it made her mother go crazy."

"Itay never told me why it was dangerous," Buhawi said, cocking his head to the side. "But if it can make people go crazy, well, there you have it, danger. Crazy people can be dangerous."

"True, that," Tala concurred, her brow furrowed in a little frown Buhawi found adorable, curse the brain-melting cuteness. "But I have this feeling that crazy isn't even the danger of which your father speaks. I had this weird dream where Bulan was your mom and she told me about Beatriz, my ancestor, the one who wrote the Bestiario." 

Buhawi relaxed into his chair, settling down to listen to Tala's telling of the dream, his eyes focusing intently on her face as he raised them from the shadow of her most intriguing cleavage, which he'd silently decided to explore later, with his tongue and his fingers and other... sensitive parts.

"In the dream, Bulan said I was sort of the fulfillment of a reparation to my family," Tala continued, not noticing how Buhawi's lips turned up in a slight smile as he refocused his regard to her mouth. "She also told me that your father became king after he fought and killed another Tikbalang. That the king could only ascend the molave throne if he becomes immortal by binding to a Baylan. If someone else wanted that throne, would that not be dangerous, too?"

The question struck a chord in Buhawi as he remembered the murderous, determined look on Kidlat's face as he leapt to pummel Buhawi. Of course his brother wanted the molave throne. That's why he wanted to kill the Baylan. 

Hopefully, he and Tala had bought themselves some time while Kidlat recuperated from the lightning strikes and beating he'd taken. And it was likely that their parents were applying their own brand of discipline to their younger son—but that would only give them a few weeks of peace, at most. If Kidlat was the only danger.

"You are the strongest Baylan I've ever met—not that there are many of you," Buhawi said, his forefinger tracing a light set of figure eights on the back of her left hand. "I don't think you have anything to fear in terms of danger. You commanded that hibiscus plant to hold my brother, gave it the strength of steel to do just that. You called lightning strikes with precision and power. If that isn't power, I don't know what is."

"Yeah, well, duh, I have to sleep," Tala countered with a worried rise of eyebrows as she pressed her mouth into a rosy, glossy moue. "I am still human. Which is why I've taken a two-month leave from work to go travel a bit, follow the path of Beatriz's journey and maybe, just maybe, find a bit more information that the Bestiario yields."

"And here I thought I was going to have to convince you to take a vacation with me. I've been optimistic enough to book a few places where we can stay and transport is easy enough to arrange," Buhawi's smile was broad and dazzling as one of Paoay's pristine white sand beaches. "I was going to ask you to come with me to, ahem, tap your powers better."

Tala blinked in surprise as Buhawi's warm hand closed over hers. She cocked her head to the side to look up at him, her gaze pinning him in place. She didn't know whether to be happy he'd gone on to make travel plans for both of them without her or be pissed about it. But his waggling eyebrows and broad, naughty smile swung the decision in his favor. Not that she'd make it an easy thing for him to get a yes.

"Oh, really? And if I had to work, what then?" Sarcasm laced Tala's voice, but only lightly. "You sound so sure I'd say yes to your plans."

"Baylan, you need this," Buhawi was getting exasperated, his tone was slipping into sharpness. "You took one of my golden hairs and paid the toll. You need to take the other two as well. You wouldn't want to be among a crowd of Taga-Lupa when you do that, surely? Imagine the pandemonium, the amateur internet porn videos that will follow. All the arrests for public indecency."

He ran a hand through his obsidian hair. "Think of how much your energies with throw everything in the metropolis out of whack. Think of that and tell me you won't come with me—in all the ways that you should." Buhawi curbed the sharpness from his voice with effort and slid into the much more comfortable role of seducer, his words going from acid to honey in the snap of a finger.

The people around the Baylan and Tikbalang began to moan, vocalizing what the two could only hold within their skins. But barely. When the moans began to override the music and the frazzled manager appeared and picked up a landline phone, perhaps to call the police, Tala decided it was time to get out while the getting was good.

"You have a good point there," Tala conceded, her eyes falling demurely to her lap. She looked around at the couples already openly kissing (tongues were definitely involved and, in some cases, hands on body parts better left unmentioned) right there, shrouded by a curtain of rain. "Perhaps we need to get out of here before an orgy starts."

"Let's go to my place, first, then," Buhawi said as he called a waiter to pay the bill, bidding the young man to keep the change to the handful of thousand-peso notes he'd handed over so they could leave without too much fuss. "We're going to need privacy for... further discussion of this matter."

*** Ha, discussion shmiscussion. What happened after they pulled into Buhawi's garage was car sex. Intense, unbridled car sex. With their clothes still on.

Woman superior with Buhawi's fingers teasing nipples and clit in the front seat. Doggy-style with her bracing her hands on the passenger door in the back seat. Savage fucking while their tongues sparred on the hood. Her thrust up against the garage wall as he drove into her over and over again. An amazing standing sixty-nine in the hall on the way to the bedroom, but no coming. Yet. 

"I should be sore as all hell," Tala said as she gasped for breath and tore Buhawi's shirt open to her searching hands as she lay on the Range Rover's hood. "If you stop now I will kill you. I don't care if tikbalang are hard to kill. I will kill you. Painfully. Get that cock back in me!" She tweaked his nipples hard to get her point across, drawing a pleasured groan of pain from Buhawi's red, red lips.

"By the Old Gods, I just keep wanting to fuck you," Buhawi's voice was hoarse, probably from all the vocalization he'd been doing throughout sexathon part two. "I've had you how many times in the last hour and I still can't stop."

They resumed the sixty-nine, giving oral pleasure side by side to mutual completion, on the black shag carpet between the loveseat and glass-topped coffee-table that sat betwixt dining room and bedroom—he licking her and fingering her until she squirted and she deep-throating and swallowing him and fisting him in turns until she swallowed every jet of tamod he had to feed her for that round.

They'd left their shoes in the vehicle and a trail of discarded clothing marked the erratic path the Baylan and Tikbalang made to the master suite and the massive bed.

Pausing for breath, Buhawi gently set Tala's naked, shaking, sweaty body on the mattress and pinned her wrists up against her head as he kissed her again, deeply, hungrily and with primal carnality. 

"I have a few more things to show you," he said when he finally released her lips and came up for air. "I do believe you will like them. Let's get the edge off this lust and then we'll talk seriously, I promise."

Tala had been so well eaten, fingered and fucked en route to the venue of their "discussion" that she'd thought eight massive orgasms and the little ones she'd lost count of was excessive. There was so much sex they hadn't the time to talk, let alone discuss the matter of danger and the Bestiario. 

As much as she would have wanted to protest his fervor in fucking her into the next decade, she was too busy recovering from the sheer exquisiteness of the pleasure her now acute senses were overloaded with. She also hadn't the words to speak just yet and she still wanted more, overload or no.

Buhawi opened the massive coffee table/steamer trunk made of tooled ironwood with a mother of pearl inlay depicting an orgy of Taga Lupa and mythical creatures. Inside this erotically-decorated box lay the naughtiest of human-made sex toys, the nastiest looking shackles and tools for sexual torment of the best kind. Beside them lay feathers that looked as if they were made of actual flames and strange, flowering vines that writhed with life, and smooth gem-like orbs that hummed with varying pitches.

Now, what would Buhawi do with all those things? Would he do them tonight? Would she still be able to walk after all that? Before she could bring herself to ask these questions, he picked up the vines, the orbs and the feathers, a wicked light flickering in his black coffee eyes.

"First, we will test just how much more endurance your very, very sensistive body has," he said as he strode back to the bed. "I do think you are going to find out just how much better we of the Other World are when it comes to fucking someone's brains out."



How to Tame Your Tikbalang Ch. 07



 Here is chapter 7. Thank you for your patience with me. I do hope you enjoy this part of the story and, yes, I am working on the next chapter now, as well as the continuation of Isle of Lays.

*****

20 Junio 1898

Do not wait too long to finish gathering the three golden hairs you need, especially not if you've already taken the first one. Your Tikbalang may sicken if you wait, and a sick Tikbalang is the worst patient you will ever have the misfortune to tend.

You will be enthralled by each other, the Tikbalang losing some of that fight the way a horse being broken gets used to a rider on its back in the middle of a stream with a strong current. Remember to be as gentle in your approaches as you can be, but remain firm and resolute under it all.

You have passed the physically difficult stage, the strong bucking, as it were, of a horse hanging on to its freedom. Now you need to engage your Tikbalang's mind, to show it that we of Lupa are just as intelligent and cunning as they are. Those of the Other World tend to write us short-lived Tao off mainly because we are short-lived and, when compared to them, more fragile in constitution.

What they always underestimate is the strength of our wills, how we can stay our course so doggedly. We are the people of fire and storm, survivors of wind and water. We have weathered disaster after disaster and rebuilt—better and stronger—each time. True, it is rare to find a human who can control the elements as the youngest and most wee of the Other World do from within the womb, but we have our strengths. You have these strengths. Use them well.

You must claim the second golden hair within nine nights of claiming the first one. You will need to travel away from the crowded places humans frequent and, if you can, take the hair on a full moon night. Any other phase of the moon will do, I suppose, but the full moon offers much more power for the kind of magic that increases the power of a Baylan once the second hair is taken.

***

Tala blinked hard to keep her tears (and, truth be told, her fear) from spilling all over the pages of the Bestiario. She was reading this particular passage out loud to Buhawi as she sat on his black leather couch with his head in her lap.

His very busy head. Buhawi was nuzzling Tala's thighs, taking deep breaths as his nose pushed into the crotch of the pink velour short shorts she'd put on after they'd awakened from the exhausted sleep they'd fallen into after her twelfth climax. Her nipples pushed at the soft gray cotton of her tank top. Buhawi had shopped for clothes for her, apparently, before their lunch date, and everything was either very brief, or easy to open. And he'd left underwear completely off his shopping list.

"Hoy! You keep your nose out of my business," Tala said, the irritation strong in her voice as she shoved Buhawi's head off her lap and pulled her splayed knees together primly.

"But your business smells so good," Buhawi shot back with a dimpled grin and a chuckle. "It smells wet and wild and delicious. Just like you and me, up a tree, F-U-C-K-I-N-G." 

He then settled his head beside Tala's thigh and contented himself with stroking that thigh softly, just millimeters from her pulsing wet pussy, raising goosebumps on her arms and around the areolae of her breasts. "I guess I'll just keep busy. Don't mind me. I'm listening. I can multi-task, you know." 

Then he took another deep sniff. "I don't need to have my nose in your groin to smell all that wonderful, wet woman waiting to get fucked by me over and over again with my fingers, my mouth, my toys, my tarugo. Mmmmm..."

"Shaddap. I'm not done yet. This is serious business you egghead." Red-faced because she was both immensely turned on and very embarrassed, Tala smacked Buhawi on the head with the Bestiario. "If you know what's good for you, you'll toe the line. Now." 

She didn't know which was worse, her arousal at his blatant display of lust for her or the fact she was aroused no matter how sad the text she was reading became. For shame, Tala, your lelang is pouring out her heart and soul here. This is no time to be horny. Ewwww.

Buhawi raised both hands in good-natured surrender as he looked Tala in the eye. Then he reached one hand down and began stroking his massive and quickly hardening member through the silk boxers he had on, worldessly reminding her that he was, indeed, ready for the sex magic that would follow. Buhawi's other hand rubbed that delicious six-pack he obviously wanted to show off, since he was shirtless. 

Dammit, Tala wanted to rub that six-pack, but she had to finish this. She pursed her lips and gave him the eye. Which cut absolutely no ice with him. All he did was look at her with an invitation to things lusty and sweaty issuing from his hot, dark eyes. While he touched himself where she wanted to touch him.

Ah, little witch, I will have you. I can wait. But you're so going to pay for making me wait. With sweet, sweet interest. His dark eyes roamed bold, heated trails over her face, her shoulders and neck. So intent was he that Tala could almost swear he was touching her with his hands. Or his tongue. Or...

Buhawi's eyes lingered a long while on her breasts and their jutting tips before he fixed his gaze on the wet spot growing at the crotch of her shorts (thus making the wet spot grow faster). He smiled happily as he stroked himself through his boxer shorts and made the tropical heat rise even more, air-conditioning notwithstanding, at least to Tala's perception.

Tala pretended to ignore the hot flash of lightning in the Tikbalang's eyes that invited her to push the envelope. Instead she resumed reading, swallowing hard as she stumbled over some words—the smograsbord of prime male before her was, after all, drying her mouth and throat out, as was the caress of his eyes on her body. Soldier on, Tala, soldier on. This is the how-to manual you're reading. Go on, pretend. You should have your speech for a world-class acting award ready after this performance.

***

Know that plucking the first hair commits you to the course you have chosen irrevocably, for good or for ill. So you must pluck the second, and the third.

Let me give you this warning, for woe will befall you and all who follow in your bloodline if you don't heed it: You belong to your Tikbalang, as much as he belongs to you. To have any other creature (save the gods, I suppose, but maybe not even them) stand between you and your chosen Tikbalang will break you both forever. If you will not complete the consummation of your transition into Baylan, then make barren your womb. 

There are many herbs in our ancient lore for this. Do not pass the misery you will reap onto another generation as I did. It is something I would regret were it not for the hope that you bring, in what is our family's distant future.

To leave a binding unfinished is to have some longevity and some power, to gain abundance in material wealth. But you lose yourself in the process. You destroy all you love. It is not worth it. If you haven't the courage to stay on the path you have chosen, then you also unleash a powerful and unstable being on all the Three Worlds: An insane Tikbalang that may or may not be immortal. 

Such a creature will live on for centuries, as the mortal Tikbalang live three centuries or more, but he will be driven insane by his misery, for his soul has been denied its mate. 

A Tikbalang left only half-bound is a creature of fear and nightmare and must be killed. A Baylan left half-bound is the saddest human in the world. I should know. This sorrow breaks me each day I wake and sings me to sleep every night.

Such is the unkindest cut of all and, yes, my dearest Tala, I have unwittingly been very, very unkind. I would undo it all if I could, but I cannot. I haven't even got the strength to undo what I'd left unfinished for I am here, sitting in a shaft of Bulan's light, writing this. My Bulalakaw wanders, homeless, rootless, unbound and quite mad, for I hadn't the heart to slay him, even if I could.

***

The last rays of afternoon sun were streaking in through the garden windows, gilding their faces, and Buhawi was casting intent looks at Tala's face, reading her sadness as easily as she read the Bestiario. He reached over his head and across Tala's lap to snag an open box of tissue paper, which he held up to her.

He sent her an understanding look, something so unexpected that they triggered a silent fit of crying from the soon-to-be Baylan.

"Need a mop-up?" Buhawi reached across Tala's lap to the end table by the sofa and grabbed an open box of tissue paper and held it up to her. 

Now he wants to be sweet and caring? Tala eyed the box, then Buhawi's face, suspiciously for a second before she took a tissue and wiped the tears streaking down her cheeks. "Thanks."

"Oh, hey, what's with the filthy look? I was just trying to be nice," Buhawi said with a butter-wouldn't-melt-in-my-mouth look in his black coffee eyes. "Just because I find you so fuckable and I'm always horny around you doesn't in any way limit my capacity to understand that what Beatriz wrote is making you sad. You are human, after all, and things like that make you humans sad."

"It's bad enough that this entry is sad, Buhawi. You being nice to me makes me even sadder. Then you totally confuse me by acting all horny. I need to concentrate here," Tala said. "So cut it out already. I'm not done yet."

Maddening human. Maddening female human. Buhawi huffed in exasperation and rolled his eyes as he sat up, scooted close to Tala and put an arm around her shoulders. "By all means, go on. Don't mind me while I ogle your magnificent breasts. We both know where this will end, anyway. Since I have absolutely no desire to become a wandering ronin of a Tikbalang."

"Ronin only applies to Samurai, Buhawi, not your kind" Tala said, ignoring the shivering his breath on that sensitive spot on her neck was causing. "So let's go on with this. Read now. Sex magic later."

"Promise?" Buhawi laughed in the face of Tala's best 'wither the leaves on the trees' look aimed straight at his face. Buhawi's laughter was sexy, charming, yet there was something in it that Tala couldn't pinpoint, something that was not funny at all. Was he anxious? Oh, well, he'd tell her or he wouldn't. She needed to finish this entry in the Bestiario first.

***

Perhaps it is hope I feel as I put this all down in words for you, but it is a selfish hope, I know. Yet, I digress. So let me wipe away these silly, useless tears of remorse and continue. Some solutions take decades, if not centuries, to complete and I am only at the beginning of this one. You are the conclusion, or will be if you choose it. After you become the full Baylan you have begun to be, you may begin a new chapter of your life. There will be no closed doors and no regrets for you if you see this through.

Pluck the second hair from your Tikbalang's tail. This is the piece of gold that will unleash your power over wind and water. I do pray that you find an island where you can do this, one where there are few people. It would be even better if the island is uninhabited, or at least that is what the witches of Siquijor isle advise. 

Those witches are powerful and will not steer you wrong, though I also believe you must approach them with caution and humility. Such is their power, drawn from the Dark Gods whose names are not spoken by even the most perverted mambabarang. Do not bargain with the witches of Siquijor, because they will want things you may not be able to give them. Instead, ask politely for what you need and take their aye or nay with gratitude.

If you have reached an accord with your Tikbalang, then let him lead the way to the isle where you will take the second part of your power. Tikbalang are masters of all pathways, opening up ways that did not exist before. This is why they are the messengers between worlds. 

If not, I have drawn, faithfully, all the best maps to the isles I know will suit your purposes. I pray that the world hasn't changed so much that my maps will prove useless. They are kept folded in the pockets of this journal's front and back sleeves. 

The maps show seven isles, three to the north past the head of Luzon, and four in the south within the belly of the Visayas. The most mystical is Siquijor, but go to the Isle of Seven Volcanoes only if none other will suit, there is such strong magic there and I fear it, fear for you.

Yes, you will need to couple with your Tikbalang, something you must prepare for well. The coupling must last seven days and seven nights, with only the most necessary breaks for food, water and your ablutions. 

He will bring fire and shake the ground and that is all very normal for this sort of thing. Do not be frightened as I was. 

The goddess Bulan told me in a dream that you would hold much more power than I and, for all that I fear for you, I am proud of that. I will do all I can, coward that I am, to give you what strength and knowledge I can add to yours. 

I may not know you, nor you I, but I know my love is contained in these words, in the honesty I have given only to my lost Bulalakaw. I know you will rise through this victorious and my tears now are tears of love for you and pride in you, my Tala.

***

"Pathfinders?" That one word was a query, along with the cocked right eyebrow and the look she sent in Buhawi's direction.

"Pathfinders," Buhawi said with mock seriousness as he suppressed a grin. "We tend to make travelers we chance upon lose their way, especially those annoying hikers and mountain climbers. Especially when they use their puny little knives to cut into the Diwatas' trees. You have to agree that's much better than the rapine and murder we're usually accused of."

"So that part of our Tikbalang lore is true? Does turning one's shirt inside-out work, too?" Tala's query was rather sarcastic.

"Actually, yes," Buhawi said, waggling his eyebrows suggestively. "Especially if the lost person is a woman with a great rack and she's not wearing a bra. We'll definitely help such a beauty find her way back to civilization. Ugly men, however, are likely to find themselves in a lair of wild boar or something equally feral. Especially if they're careless about where they piss. Bathala the SkyFather himself gave us that power. How we use it is up to us."

"Why is that, if I may ask, o great Tikbalang?" Tala was rolling her eyes and setting hands to hips and standing as she posited her question, something Buhawi found immeasurably cute. Along with the way she tapped that bare little foot with its pretty pink piggies on his shag carpet.

"Because we are the guardians of the gates to other realms, o temptress Baylan," Buhawi's answer was just as glib. "We are the messengers of the Three Worlds. We are the keepers of all paths. Or at least that's what my father says. Now, enough talk. We have another ritual to get on with, don't you think? The timing is perfect. Look out the window."

Buhawi took Tala's chin in a firm but gentle grip and tilted her face up so she could see the big yellow moon suspended high in the blackness of the night sky. "You get to touch my otherworldly ass and I get to fuck you silly all over again. Then dinner and some sleep before we plan this vacation sexathon of ours, hmmm? I even have salve for the friction burn we'll be making."

"But we're in the middle of the metropolis! It says here we need to find an island, preferably deserted, before we get to the plucking and fucking," Tala protested, as much for the delay as for the locale.

"Shush, woman. Let me get our things," Buhawi said. "I'd packed them while you were still asleep and we're ready to go." He exited the living room and came back out of his bedroom a few minutes later dressed in faded black jeans that did nothing to hide the huge weapon it contained and a tight black shirt over which lay a silver necklace with a small, perfect brown cowrie hanging from it. He had slung an old olive green duffle bag over his right shoulder and carried two large footlockers in his equally large hands. 

"Now, get a hold of my arm," he told Tala. "I've got my two-way pendant to paradise on and you'll need a firm grip, since I've got the bags."

Tala took a deep breath and took hold of Buhawi's proferred arm and felt the hardest jolt of her life as they were sucked right out of Buhawi's house, through a blur of colors and out into the starriest night she'd ever seen.

***

When Tala was finally able to pry her eyelids open and her clenched fingers from their two-handed deathgrip on Buhawi's (mmmmm, delicious...) muscular upper arm, she felt soft, still-warm sand underfoot, sifting between her toes.

"You could have warned me we weren't taking a plane. Or a car," Tala said, her voice squeaking with shock and residual fear. "I don't jet-set this way, horse-man."

"But the surprise on your face and that tight grip of yours made it all fun," Buhawi said as he took one of Tala's fear-cold hands in his and swept the other in a wide arc before them. "Look around you. This is my island, smack dab in the middle of the Calamianes group that includes Boracay and Coron." 

Looking in the same arc swept by Buhawi's hands, Tala saw the waterfall glittering in the moonlight, offset against a lush wood of what looked like ancient mangroves that practically encircled the isle, save for a ribbon of pink-sand beach with a small jetty where a sporty red speedboat bobbed at a mooring post. 

"You can't tell me you don't want to be in this beautiful place," the Tikbalang said in a low, seductive tone. "Why, we'd be so happy here. Fucked-out, totally blissed-out happy. Sore, but oh-so-happy. And comfy, too. I've got my own waterfall over a hot spring, a lovely little love nest and no one else around us at all. For many nautical miles. We even have solar power on the roof and a small hydropower thingamajigabob under the jetty and a distillation plant and rainwater catchment-slash-water heater thing so there is enough fresh, hot water for the spa in the backyard and my phenomenal shower stalls. Designed them myself." 

There it was again, that tinge of pride in Buhawi's voice that hinted at something more than mere lust among his intents. Skittish over that, Tala looked everywhere (or at least tried to) but at Buhawi's marvelously sculpted butt and legs snugged in those damned jeans. 

Okay, I can probably do the sex part, but that undercurrent in his voice, that thing I can't pin down, it's freaky. It's almost like he wants to impress me, to show me what a good provider he is. Creepy. Really creepy. Tala mentally shook herself. You can't tell what he's thinking you idiot. He isn't human. He doesn't want forever. So stop reading more into that tone of his voice than there is. Prepping her heart's armor, Tala took a deep breath and took another look around.

The "little love nest" Buhawi spoke of was actually a pretty large house covering maybe 400 square meters. It was faced with marble from Mactan island, accented with white adobe trim around large picture windows covered by bamboo blinds and sported wraparound lanais on the ground and second floors made of hardwood and bamboo with long-armed planter's chairs in rattan weave over polished dark teak positioned near end-tables of black wrought iron topped with immaculate white marble amid large potted palms and ferns.

The yellow moon was even bigger and the dark night was starrier here, Tala noticed. The only thing breaking the silence around them was the gentle smacking of waves hitting shore and the rustling of leaves in the salty wind. Buhawi walked to the house and up the steps to the massive narra front door, opened it and carried their baggage in, with Tala trailing behind him.




How to Tame Your Tikbalang Ch. 07



The interior of the house was just as beautiful as the front, with a high ceiling offsetting the dogleg stairwell in wrought iron and hardwood and an internal balcony overlooking a living room furnished in dark mahogany chairs and rattan settees upholstered in fine, cream linen over what felt like memory foam when Tala sat on the armchair near her. There were cushioned embrasures in the two-story windows, presumably for those times when Buhawi or his guests wanted to watch the timeless dance of surf and sand.

"We're sharing the master suite, you and I," Buhawi said as he switched on the living room lights from the foyer and at the base of the stairs. Then he ascended the stairs and walked to the room at the end of the balcony. "I think it's best for what we have to do, hmmmm?"

Tala felt the coldest feet she'd ever felt in her life and tried to swallow the lump in her throat that just wouldn't go down. Okay, I know I'm fucked. Hell, I've been fucked since I picked up that damn Bestiario. But don't I want to be fucked? I mean, yes, literally, but don't I want to do this? Become the Baylan I was born to be? Maybe I do, but, damn, this is scary. Fucking I can do, commitment, not so much. Damn, girl, stop talking to yourself. Big girl panties. On. Now.

"You know what? Dinner can wait." Buhawi had come up behind her. Silently, startling Tala out of ten years of her life.

"Haysuskomaluuy! What the fuck?! Don't do that!" She whirled around and slammed smack into Buhawi's bare chest—again. Her palms pressed right against hard male nipples while something long, thick, hot and very hard pressed against the strip of belly-skin that her low-riding shorts and brief tank top bared. "Homaygad you're naked!"

"Of course I'm naked. How else am I going to change into my Tikbalang body so you can pluck the second hair? Hmmm?" Buhawi smiled down at Tala's face, tracing her lush red lips with a forefinger. "You wanted the power and, as much as I didn't want to give it to you, we've begun walking a path we need to finish walking or else."

"Look, I'm not so sure about this, Buhawi," Tala began to babble, her hands flying in whatever space between them the Tikbalang allowed (not much, really and she kept touching his chest and, other parts). "I mean, sex is one thing, but binding together? For life? Immortal life..."

Buhawi slowly drew Tala into a tighter embrace, kind of the way a python coils around its prey: Slowly, inexorably, without leeway for denial.

"You took the Bestiario," he said, his lips brushing her ear and the low timbre of his voice making her toes curl into the area rug beneath their feet and the coffee table behind Tala. "You began the rituals to bind me. I was fighting you every delicious step of the way until you took the golden hair on my head, my delicious one. Now we need to finish that."

Buhawi's lips and tongue skimmed a line of electric sensation from the pulse at the base of Tala's throat and over the shell of her ear before he continued. "You spoke with my mother in a dream-talk and heard her story. You read what Beatriz laments. We need to do this right. My mother and father now expect grandchildren from us and I have no problem giving them what they want, my pretty witch. None at all."

"Just like that?" Tala got the words past her lips despite the quivering deep in the pit of her belly and the shaking of her upper thighs. Dear me, what is Buhawi doing to me, why can't I think? Because it feels so good. Feelings good. Thinking bad.

His hands were under her tank top now, palming breasts that were heavy for his touch. Tala arched into the warmth of those hands, gasped as he rubbed around the areolae, teased her nipples with the lightest grazes of heated fingertips before he pulled the shirt up and off her body.

His mouth was doing incredibly wicked things to her lips, his tongue sparring with hers as their hunger grew like a brewing storm surge. By instinct, Tala raised a leg and slung it over one of Buhawi's hips, pressing her wet, molten core to his hard tarugo. Her arousal was so pitched it ran down the insides of her thighs.

"Yes, sweetness, that's just how I want you," Buhawi's words tickled her ear again as he nipped the earlobe and made her spine shiver with pleasure. "I want you wet and ready for me. I want you almost blind with desire. It's just the two of us here, as it should be."

Buhawi sat Tala down in the middle of the rattan sofa facing a large window and the full moon over the sea. He pulled her shorts off in one swift move and turned around so she had a fantastic view of his rock-hard glutes, a view that made her heavy-lidded as she watched his erection bob down past his heavy, drawn-up balls.

Tala bit her lip as she watched a slight shimmering aura of gold form around Buhawi. In the blink of an eye, a black Tikbalang stood before her, his long, black tail sporting a single strand of gold. Buhawi flicked his tail to and fro, as if teasing her. His right hand moved forward and, when Tala looked past him to the glass of the window, she saw him grasp the granddady of all hard-ons and begin a slow, seductive pumping, his handsome horse-head raised skyward, teeth bared.

It's now or never, Tala, she said to herself. Pull the damn hair. Nakedness be damned. Tala reached out and timed the movement of her her hand to the flicking of Buhawi's tail. Gotcha! She pulled her hand back as a smile spread across her face. She had the hair between thumb and forefinger. That was when the heavens opened up and met the rising sea.

"Wrap that hair around your finger, woman. We've got to go outside now," Buhawi had somehow gotten reverted to his human body and picked her up before striding outside to meet the crashing waves and pounding rain.

"What am I supposed to do, you big lug?" She was screaming over the rage of wind and water, soaked and naked and totally scared out of her wits.

"Now you test your new power by calming the storm," he replied with a laugh. A laugh. That made Tala's temper boil over in a mix of sexual frustration and the anger that comes nipping hard on the heels of intense fear. "Or you can let us get washed out to sea. Your choice, sweetness." More laughter assailed her ears.

That's it. He's laughing at this? At me? I'll show him who and whatfor. Tala squirmed out of Buhawi's arms and onto the wet sand, wrapping the gold hair around her right index finger as she slid down the hard, rain-wet length of him, calling to mind the weather spell she'd read in the Bestiario, though how she remembered it, she had absolutely no idea.

Wind and water, hear me well.

I am Baylan. Obey me. Cease to swell.

Stop your restless shifting.

Do as I say: 

Separate to the sand

And the arms I am lifting.

Sea at my feet,

Sky overhead,

Calm yourselves. 

I am here unafraid.

My rage is greater than yours.

I can contain you.

My will is elemental

Thus I constrain you.

My hands are raised, 

My power bared.

I shape you into what I will.

I commad you both: Be still.

Tala's sweet voice rode waves and wind until they fell back into place. By the time her hands came down, the wind was gentle again, and the sea serene as if there had been no squall.

Then she turned to face Buhawi, her whole face lit up with a grin of pure delight as she jumped up and down in excitement, spraying wet sand every which way.

"I did it! And I'm not even tired like the last time! I felt that power surge right through me and I held it. I was so scared I couldn't but I did!" Tala was squealing and babbling, her eyes lit up and focused on Buhawi's handsome, smiling face as she made a running jump straight into his open arms. "Yebah!"

Tala laid a hot, almost fevered kiss on Buhawi's lips as she thrust her hands in his hair. The golden hair she'd wrapped around her right index finger slowly disappeared into her skin as they kissed and gyrated against each other before falling to the wet sand in a gasping, horny pretzel.

"How do you feel about sex on the beach, my lovely?" Buhawi asked as his hands went straight for her boobs and began a massage that had Tala biting her lower lip and rubbing her wet puki against the hard ridge of his erection as he began to suckle one nipple, then the other.

"Oh, yes, oh yes, please." Her words came out half-groan and half-shout. Buhawi wasted no time with foreplay. They'd been at that all day, it seemed. He raised her hips with both hands and thrust home in one long, hard slide and fucked so furiously each upthrust practically sent Tala airborne. Then gravity sent her back down mid-buck and she gasped with each return to earth impaled on Buhawi, his large hands branding her ass with their grip.

"So tight. So wet. So fucking good. So mine." Each word Buhawi gritted out was punctuated by a hard thrust, sometimes two. Tala was beyond words, keening as she clawed her nails over his chest, he head thrown back and her hair trailing wetly over his straining thighs.

"I'm going to come so hard inside you, Tala," Buhawi said after Tala's fourth scream of orgasm, his voice a brutal rasp of passion and pleasure. When he spurted (and kept spurting high, hot and helluva lot), Tala screamed again, a long high-pitched wail that heralded the most earth-shattering orgasm she'd had with him thus far.

Oh my goodness. I do think I may fall in love with this one. Tala's thoughts sent a small chill up her spine as she attempted to dismiss them from her mind. Nope. Don't go there. Nuh-uh. She shut her eyes and let her body lie lost to lassitude. Otherwise she would have jumped off Buhawi and run as far away from him as she humanly could. So she lay on him, wide-eyed and thankful her fear was camouflaged by the quick, just-fucked pace of her heart.

Clasping the curvy little Baylan to his chest. Buhawi waited for his heart to stop thundering. And I thought getting trapped in a binding was bad? Hell if the sex is this good, I just may decide to keep her, he thought to himself. The sex alone is beyond description. That, and she's got some kitchen skills. And she has the cutest smile and she will, no doubt, be a good wife and mother. I can feel it in my bones. Itay was right. She is a keeper. But I need to go slow on this, I think.

***

Buhawi had carried Tala into the house after the most elemental sex on the beach either of them had ever had (or at least he wanted to think so). She was awake, but dazed and in an orgasm haze. So he brought her into the master bathroom and set her down on the shower bench while he fiddled with the eight shower heads and the water temperature.

"Wow," she said as she took in the luxurious foliage of ferns and tropical blooms growing from pots and soil inset in the granite of the tiles and walls. "You have a beautiful place here. I love the glass wall. It makes me think of kinky against-the-window sex amid this indoor forest."

"Kinky against-the-window sex, huh? Sounds good to me," Buhawi said with a smile as he turned the shower on and pulled Tala into the warm spray, lathering her up with a newly-opened bottle of body wash that smelled of tuberose and ylang-ylang—her favorite brand of body wash. "Maybe we ought to make a bucket list. We will be immortal and bound to each other, after all this is done. A list may make things more interesting."

"Can we not talk about that first?" Tala's eyes were suddenly fearful as she looked up at Buhawi, her words a mere whisper and the rosy glow on her face leached to a pallor that screamed "phobia."

"Hey, sweetness, I'm in no rush," Buhawi said gently. "I may be an animal when it comes to sex, but I can take my time with you. Let's just take this shower, okay?"

Tala nodded and Buhawi stroked her bath gel-slick flanks slowly as the color returned to her face and the fear slid from her light brown eyes. Then he put her hands on him and grinned down at her upturned face.

"You can't be the only one getting clean, yeah? Soap me up, woman." Buhawi said this as he picked up a pair of the gem-like balls she'd seen in the toy chest in his room. Buhawi pulled up one of her legs and gently pushed the balls into her, one after the other, with slow, deliberate motions, his fingers lingering to circle her stiff clit and draw a moan from her. Then he took her hands, lifted them palms up and squirted the creamy bath gel into them.

On a deep breath, Tala smiled and began rubbing soapy hands all over Buhawi's chest and arms, moving down to his butt, up his back and back down, making a good layer of lather over every part but his dangly bits. 

Then she knelt on the bathroom floor and took a long, hot look at his cock and spoke her mind.

"I wonder if I can fit this in my mouth." She rinsed off her hands on the lowest shower head before clasping the turgid member in her hands. "Lean against the wall, horse-man. I'm taking you for a ride."

"By the Old Gods, woman, that's mmmmmmmhhhhhh..." Buhawi nearly banged his head against the shower wall's granite when Tala began to lick around the glans, flicking her tongue over the slit of his cockhead before she engulfed him and began a slow, liesurely sucking that was designed to drive him insane.

The balls Buhawi had put in her began to vibrate and move—up and down and around clockwise, then counterclockwise, stimulating her G-spot mercilessly. Soft vines sprouted out of them and began massaging her clit in a maddening circular pattern that made Tala suck even harder.

Buhawi reached down to cup her breasts, his breathing ragged and his hips thrusting against her hands and mouth in a fast, hard fuck. "Don't stop sucking me, sweetness. Just like that."

Tala's cheeks were hollow from the force of her suction and her head bobbed even faster as the toys Buhawi was somehow using on her raised the bar and increased both pressure and stimulation against her G-Spot and clitoris.

This is like being fucked and licked at the same time. Amazing. So amazing. Tala was writhing, barely able to keep her body from exploding when another tendril from those magic balls began to rub her asshole and poke in lightly, teasingly, retreating only briefly before repeating the pattern with more vigor.

Tikbalang and Baylan came simultaneously, he spurted as she thrust her breasts against his hands, his fingers pinching and rolling her nipples perfectly. She was cupping his balls, her fingers massaging the perineum between scrotum and asshole as she swallowed the first hot spurts of his tamod before releasing his cock from her mouth to scream her pleasure as she jacked the rest of his seed onto her breasts.

"Oh, my succulent little woman, I may have to keep you after all," Buhawi said as he fought for breath, fought to keep his knees under him. "I am going to keep you coming for a bit more. So don't think this is going to end in the next hour or so."

Tala looked at him, wide-eyed and still shaking from her orgasms. Her light eyes had turned the velvety dark of the thick hot chocolate Buhawi enjoyed drinking almost as much as he enjoyed drinking her orgasm in.

"What? Wait... ooohhh..." Tala tried to hold on to a train of thought latched on to Buhawi's statement about keeping her, but failed as Buhawi hoisted her into his arms, lifted her breasts to his mouth and began to suck hard on her nipples and another orgasm hit her, chasing all rational thought from her head.

"I am keeping you, Baylan mine," Buhawi said between suckling her nipples and licking her cleavage while he carried her out of the bathroom. He laid her gently on the bed and ran his hands down her torso as he leaned in to kiss her senseless, his tongue fucking her mouth as ruthlessly and as surely as his toys were fucking her cunt to spasm after spasm of sheer, unadulterated pleasure.

"I am going to keep this up until you pass out from unimaginable pleasure," he said as he teased her nipples and clitoris with expert fingers. "Then I'm going to bring you back to consciousness with an even bigger orgasm. You wanted to tame a Tikbalang? Well, here we are. But taming me means taking all that makes me wild in bed. And on the beach. And in the bathroom. And anywhere I damn well please to fuck you."

Then Buhawi stopped talking and began to lick his way from Tala's throat to around her breasts. Down her belly's midline to her tightly clenched upper thighs and on down to her feet. He sucked each toe to the rhythm of the toys keeping Tala coming, his eyes meeting hers each time an orgasm hit and her tight-shut eyes flew open on her gasps and moans.

Then he began licking his way back up, his mouth closing on the erect little soldier that was her clitoris, flicking it with his tongue as Tala looked on, rapt and in ecstasy. He sucked on the hard bud once, twice, thrice, each suck harder than the last. Then he bit down lightly, drawing another scream as she threw her head back and passed out.

"Mine." Buwawi said as he kept licking and drew his toys from her snatch, replacing them with his still-hard tarugo and set a slow, steady rhythm that had Tala's hips thrusting back slowly but with increased tempo as she came to.

"Mine."



How to Tame Your Tikbalang Ch. 08



I had enough time to hammer out Chapter 8, so here it is. I will probably be working on the next chapter of Isle of Lays, since I have neglected that story, too. 

Enjoy!

*****

Somewhere around the second day of the Buhawi-Tala island sexathon, the two were exploring the best coital positions for water-play in the hot spring when the ground began to seriously shake. Water was sloshing over the shores of the spring while Buhawi was drilling hard into a writhing Tala underwater in a game of hold-your-breath.

Some things, even the primal sort of thing like a temblor, do take time to register when the people caught in it are blinded by a haze of intense sexual pleasure. They definitely noticed it when the hot spring got too hot for comfort.

"Wow, is that me or is the earth really shaking?" Buhawi's head broke the surface at the deep end of the hot spring a smidgen of a second before Tala's did. They'd been kissing deeply (yes, pun intended) when they felt the water slosh them about like so many ice cubes being shaken in a drunk's scotch glass. So Buhawi had swum, one-armed and with powerful scissoring kicks, to the surface with Tala in his other arm and still impaled on his still-erect shaft. "That was some kiss. We should do this more often, screw underwater and kiss like fiends."

"I think we need to get out of the water, Buhawi." Tala was not amused and, if her squirming to disengage herself from him was any indication, she'd lost the mood for hot spring sex. "We seriously need to get out of here because I think the water is getting too hot really fast." 

Tikbalang and Baylan swam to the closest edge of the pool, a rim of natural granite to the left of the waterfall feeding the spring, and hauled themselves out quickly, just as the water began to simmer. 

Getting away from the hot spring coming to the boil was no easy task with the ground shaking and their wet feet slipping on the gray stone, but they finally managed to get to the sand surrounding the pool and stagger to the beach, where the waves were slapping madly to shore in rather high, overlapping whitecaps. 

The large waves washed up over the jetty, slamming the speedboat against the old tires wrapped around the mooring post it was tied to, then ebbing out so far from the wet sand that the boulders and coral that normally laid underwater even at low tide were exposed to the air.

"Talk about coitus interruptus," Buhawi spat out as he and Tala were thrown slap-bang against the sand, he face up and she on her side. "The timing of this trial sucks major eggs."

"Trial? I thought that was over with last night's storm," Tala said, as she tried to keep her heart rate just this side of 'panic most lethal' and hold off the urge to hyperventilate. "We aren't at the third hair yet, right?"

"Yes, but every damn time we try to screw each other silly the way we should for this to work, something elemental happens," Buhawi said, much less agitated, it seems, than Tala. "It's a damn big turn-on if you ask me," he added, looking down at his turgid penis and back up at Tala with a smile and his dimples out.

She stood up, legs apart and arms akimbo, and glared at the Tikbalang. "Will you be serious for one effing minute and talk sense to me? This kind of phenomena can't be normal, can it? That storm last night, the school of huge great white sharks in a feeding frenzy and body-surfing past us at breakfast while you were playing footsie with my, uhm, well, my... and now this..."

A wet, loud whooshing boom from the direction of the hot spring stopped Tala's words in their tracks and she turned around slowly, her eyes big as dinner plates and her mouth hanging open as she beheld the "geyser in your hot spring..." shooting a thick, boiling column of water almost six meters into the air, her voice barely a squeak, then fainted.

"Haynaku." Buhawi let his body fall back flat on the sand in exasperation, his left hand pinching the birdge of his nose. "Oi. You'd think the woman could take a geyser or two in stride. And that a little storm last night. She didn't even get to do a Mary Poppins and fly through the air. It was that mild." 

He got up, shaking sand and water off himself with another mischievous grin, and strode to Tala's inert body. "Okay, EarthMother, we hear you. Let me just get your little acolyte up, eh? Save the pomp and circumstance for when she can appreciate it."

Buhawi's cheeky talk was answered by the rumble of thunder and a darkening sky as he gently shook the Baylan's shoulders and smacked her cheeks until she opened frightened eyes. Whoops. Grandfather Bathala needs to restock his sense of humor.The SkyFather's always so serious.

***

"Oh, dearest, you have to go back." Tala heard a soft, alto and very feminine voice from far above her. She was still lying on wet sand, in her birthday suit. The geyser was still spewing and the shaking and rumbling hadn't stopped. She could also still hear the wild crash of the surf beyond.

"Shut up and let me be the ostrich, whoever you are. I give up. I don't have to do this." Tala kept her eyes firmly shut, knowing she was in some dream state because she didn't give a rat's ass if she was naked around some strange woman who, for all she knew could be a maligno (considering her poor run of luck in the meeting new people department).

"Tala, this is your great-great-great grandmother. Oye! This is no time for you to dormida asi," the gentle voice grew stern and scolding. "You have to get up and finish this business you began. Now, niña mia."

Tala popped one eye open and took a gander at who the shit had the foolish idea that she would give a flying, unzipped fuck whether she had to do anything or not. A woman dressed in the traditional Manileña garb of a baro't saya that would have done Maria Clara or Josephine Bracken proud was kneeling by her, unmindful of the damage the salt and wet sand could do to the fine, beige pineapple silk jusi cloth of her hand-embroidered pañuelo shawl/blouse combo or the cotton silk of her long red and black skirt. Her zapatillas must be full of sand and they'll be hell to walk in, Tala thought. Why doesn't she care?

The woman looking worriedly down at Tala looked mostly Spanish, with the sun setting fire to her reddish-brown hair. More true red than Malay brown, Tala mused inconsequentially, enjoying the non-sequitur. The woman's eyes were a blend of hazel green flecks against a field of antique gold, fringed in long brown lashes and tilted slightly up at the outer corner, hinting at a bit of the oriental in her genetics. Her lush red mouth was the mirror image of Tala's lips, down to the slight indentation in the middle.

"I am Beatriz, my darling," the woman said as she pressed a fair-skinned hand to Tala's cheek, patting it lightly. "You have to continue. Don't let these things upset you like they upset me and stopped me. I promise you'll have your answers in my Bestiario. Just get back to it and read the entry dated August 13, 1898 after you calm the elements the SkyFather and EarthMother send for this trial. Don't be a coward like I was, because this is just a foreshadowing of what is to come. Hala, go back to your Tikbalang. Ensiguida."

Foreshadowing?! Craptastic. Motherfathersonofabeach. Before Tala could even form a question, she felt herself being shaken out of the vision of her ancestor.

***

"Is it over?" The hope and fear in Tala's voice as she returned to consciousness tugged at Buhawi's heart, yet made him want to laugh. So he went with his gut and laughed, his guffaws blending with the booming, crashing and rumbling all around them as he gave Tala a quick hug that he hoped would convey his confidence that she could handle such small things as a mild earthquake, a geyser and stormy seas. 

After all, if someone is to tame me, Buhawi thought, that someone might as well be gorgeous, intelligent and a total animal when it came to all matters coital and carnal. In a word, Tala. Adorable, delighful, delicious Tala, who has the power to call and silence the elements and is a crack shot with lightning.

"Nope. It's just started, sweet Balyan of mine," Buhawi grinned down at her. "You're gonna have to toughen up if you want to tame me. C'mon. Time to get to work. You gotta earn your Baylan badges and get them in a row to claim the last hair. The GrandParents of Sky and Earth expect it."

Tala curled her naked self up into the smallest ball of human she could and hid her face behind her knees. Something that sounded like "I can't" made its way out from under her tousled, gorgeous hair.

"Of course you can," Buhawi said, paying no nevermind to the shaking underfoot. "You've got to if you're going to deserve the eternal devoion of a prime cut of maleness like me. You scared of a little elemental rock n' roll? I tell you, this is gonna happen a lot whenever we get in the mood for a good romp—at least until you learn how to stop it or prevent it in the first place. You can't be that much of a sissy-girl."

"I may be a sissy, but excuse me for being shitting-igneous boulders-scared of earthquakes, huge hungry sharks, storm surges and sudden geysers, my princeling prickhead," Tala's head came up and the color that rushed back into her cheeks was the bright crimson of her temper. "I'm a human."

"Nope. You're more than human now, my precious little pop-tart," Buhawi said, his irreverent words an electric cattle-prod to her anger. "You're a witch, and a strong one. This should be nothing to you. Unless you aren't the Baylan Beatriz had so much faith in having for a descendant."

He lay sprawled on the wet sand, just out of reach of a boiling geyser and a roiling sea, on unstable ground, yet struck a languid pose better suited for a centerfold shoot for Playgirl than all the elemental crapfest now showing. How dare he look at me with come-hither eyes as if nothing was wrong at all. Males. Of every species. Grrrrr.

A low, feral growl made its way up her throat before she rediscovered her vocabulary. "And here I thought you'd at least protect me," Tala hollered at him, rising to her feet and raising both hands skyward in utter disgust. 

This only made Buhawi break out into fresh peals of laughter (and adding to Tala's already high surge of gall), rubbing his magnificently sculpted belly over its happy trail to his upstanding and bobbing member while he was at it. "I guess I'm going to have to do that myself, you oversized draft pony," she tacked on with icy, spinning razors in her voice. "So mote it be, Your Royal Pain in the Assness."

Gods of war, she is magnificent. Buhawi smiled as he watched her stride angrily toward him, murder shining amber lights in her eyes and her hand clenching into claws, then solid fists at her sides. She was totally unmindful (for once) of her nudity or her hair curling wildly around her shoulders and face. 

Look at that. I could spend eternity with that woman, yes, I could—and she's definitely going to make this a fight worth having. Her face is so beautiful when she's in a rage like this. Mmmmm...That's a WOMAN. Buhawi felt a strange, gooey melting somewhere in the area of his chest even as he felt a strong stirring in the region of his balls. My woman. Mine.

When cold, heavy raindrops began striking her skin, Tala broke her stride and looked to the skies, barking out a quick short spell in Latin (probably taken from the Bestiario, Buhawi presumed) as she raised both hands palms-up above her head. 

The movement thrust the juicy globes of her now sun-kissed breasts up high and proud, a view Buhawi happily ogled. He also happily ogled the spread-legged stance Tala unconsciously took, especially since it gave him a fine view of her perfectly fine legs and well-trimmed pubes with their pouty, deep-pink lips. 

Ah, this may be worth all the damn bother of the binding, after all, he thought to himself as he bit his lower lip to hold back yet another chuckle and to keep his lascivious thoughts to himself. This memory will make all future rituals of choke the chicken that much more fun.

Shaking a fist at the unruly heavens, Tala switched to her natural, uninflected English and pumped up the volume: "You just shut it and keep your damn rain to yourself. I'll deal with you later." 

Then she stomped her pretty little feet on the ground and uttered another low incantation. "And you, too. Stupid fucking ground. Calla te! Punyeta!" The shaking eased up and quieted and she looked straight at Buhawi before flipping her hair and tossing her head in a snub directed at His Royal Horsiness before sticking her tongue out at him. "So there! Hindot."

With that, she walked on, increased her forward momentum and slammed her left shoulder hard into Buhawi's right flank, pushing him out of her way as she strode to the now-whistling geyser in his hot spring. 

Tala muttered in low and dead serious tones over the edge of the pool and the geyser fell, popped up a couple of times, then disappeared as she completed her chanting just within Buhawi's earshot so he could only hear her cadence and voice, not the words. 

Not that Buhawi was paying as much attention to her words as he was to her fine, heart-shaped ass and the sexy pair of dimples where back met buttocks. That was an ass he wanted to slap and mark with his big palms—again and again—and he flexed and fisted his hands so he could keep them off her. In the meantime, at least. 

I wonder if she'd like a bit of spanking? Maybe we can spank the monkey together...I'll even let her cuff me and spank me. Maybe I'll call her 'Mistress' or 'Domina,' since she knows Latin. I'll even use the dirty words of that dead language, like mentula and cunus and fututere. Maybe I'll recite some of Catullus' bawdiest verse while we fuck. Now there's an idea she'll like. Buhawi's eyes lit up at the thought and he sighed his rising lust, but left her to complete her trial. 

Mental note, buy Tala thigh-high boots for her to wear as I lick them. Maybe some leather and latex fetwear, too. Kinky is good. Very, very good.

By the time Tala sent her wrathful glare and stretched ominously open hands that crackled with energy yanked straight from her spirit's core out toward the sea, the waves began to smooth out from thrashing whitecaps to strong ripples, then the waters about 20 meters from the shore became calm and smooth as glass. 

She no longer needed to utter anything: So high was the blaze of anger burning in her gut that that one sweeping look was all it took to quell the rage of water surrounding Buhawi's isle.

Feeling the first tug of tiredness, Tala closed her eyes and took deep breaths of the salt air, centering herself and making a mighty effort to batten down the hatches on the storm that was her ire before she turned around again.

"Now that I've straightened up here, I believe you owe me a meal," Tala said as she sauntered to the house with as much righteous indignation as she could muster. "Chop-chop, horsey." Tala came down from her emotional high and made a mental note to review Beatriz' writings again after they ate. Things like this can't keep happening if I want to return to work after this 'vacation' is over. I need to find a way to work around these events, stop them if I can.

"Yes, Mistress. I hear. I obey." Buhawi jogged past Tala, who yelped when he slapped her rump as he headed straight for the big, well-appointed kitchen off to the right of the foyer and through the dining room. "Just as long as you feed me hot pussy on my granite kitchen island while we wait for the rice to cook. It's the perfect height for that."

Tala shook her head as she rubbed the spot where Buhawi's palm connected with the meatiest part of her butt cheek in exasperation and snorted. "Haynaku. Punyemas." Other crisp cuss words in Spanish, Tagalog and Bisaya fell from her lips as she stalked indoors.

Some adults just never conquered their juvenile tendencies, it seemed. Not even bankers. Of course, not all bankers were Tikbalang, so what could she expect, really?

***

The Tikbalang was singing while he cooked and Tala could hear it all the way upstairs, in the master suite, as she rummaged through one of the footlockers for clothes she could armor up with. She could deal with Buhawi, but it would be better if her nipples weren't announcing her constant state of arousal, which would probably lead to fucking rather than a rational discussion. A girl had to be able to think to communicate, after all.

Didn't Buhawi's parents warn him that it's bad to sing while cooking because that would call malignos to sneak in and spoil the food? Oh, wait. He is a maligno. Of course he'd not hear that from his parents. Tala rolled her eyes as Buhawi ended his desecration of Martin Nievera's 'Be My Lady' and began mangling Adele's 'Rollin' in the Deep.' You'd think something with as sexy a speaking voice as that Tikbalang would be able to sing, but, noooo. I should have brought earplugs.

She stepped into the bathroom and ran a hot shower, twisting the knobs so the water came at her full blast and drowned out Buhawi's caterwauling well enough so she'd not go deaf. Or at least not because of his unholy wailing. Then she stayed under the showerheads for a full thirty minutes while she lathered up and rinsed the salt and sand from her skin and hair before she shut off the spray and dried off, feeling much, much better after bathing. 

I must admit, the creature sure knows how to design a fantastic shower. Maybe that's worth committing to? Maybe not.Well, time to pin the tail on the donkey and discuss Buhawi's sudden about-face with regard to the commitment thing. Now or never. Though I'd prefer never. Forever is kind of literal for his kind and I am not sure I can do that. Fuck my life.

Tala yanked on a pair of sky-blue yoga pants and yet another tank top (didn't the Tikbalang pack anything else for her to wear? Damn maligno) and shoved herself into them before padding down to the kitchen barefoot because she had no patience to search for footwear.

***

"I didn't know what you wanted to eat," Buhawi said as Tala walked into the kitchen and parked her butt on a high chair by the sink at the granite island, "so I put together shrimp spring rolls and garlic-vinegar dip, flipped a few pancakes, fried a bit of bacon and pulled out some rice cakes I'd brought from the ref. There's rice in the cooker over there and I've got some beef tapa marinating in the quick chiller and fresh eggs if you want that."

All of the serious and mean words whirling around Tala's brain came to a standstill and fell straight to the marble kitchen floor. Now how can I be mean to a man who cooks this much food for me? Holy shit, I'm in trouble. I love having guys cook for me. That's hex-boyfriend number three, right there. The one who fucked around and got me to forgive him because he made such good paella. Fuck my life. This is my kryptonite, all right.

"Am I making you fall madly in love with me yet, my witchling? Am I?" Buhawi had come around the kitchen island and flicked a towel right at Tala's butt, the same butt cheek he's smacked on his way into the house, and the spell he wove just minutes before shattered to pieces.

"Close, but no cigar, Boowie-boy," Tala's voice was as icy as her glare a him was laser-hot. "I was hungry and, yes, men who cook are generally a huge turn on for me. Then you had to open that big mouth and shove both your monstrous hooves in it. Now I've lost my appetite."

Buhawi put his hands gently on Tala's shoulders as she was turning to leave the kitchen. "Now, now, I meant that in the best of ways." He chucked her under the chin lightly before lifting her face so he could look into her stormy eyes. "I wasn't out to upset you. All I want to do right now is feed you." 




How to Tame Your Tikbalang Ch. 08



And lay you on the countertop and put my mouth on your breasts and suck until you can't speak. Then eat your cunt out until you can't think and fuck you until you can't walk. Not that Buhawi was going to say that out loud. Not just yet. He may be a randy, instatiable monster, but he was also a tactful one—most of the time, anyway. "Sit, Tala. Eat. Tell me if you want me to cook something else. You need fuel for all the trials you're going to have to meet head-on."

Tala relaxed into Buhawi's hold for a minute before she settled back on her high chair and began putting bacon and pancakes on her plate and smothering the lot with butter and strawberry jam. Bacon made everything better. She'd just need to eat enough bacon to get her equilibrium back.

Buhawi smiled and sat beside her, picking up one of the crisp spring rolls and dipping it into the garlic and vinegar dip before popping the whole thing into his mouth.

They sat in fairly companionable silence for a half-hour as they ate everything the Tikbalang had cooked with the systematic efficiency of people who'd burnt so many calories they needed quick replenishment. 

Once their hunger was sated, Buhawi turned to Tala with an intent look and a serious expression on his face.

"We need to talk."

"Wait a minute, kapeng mainit!" Tala said, caught off guard yet again. "That's my line."

"Well, we do," Buhawi said. "You apparently did not read the part of Beatriz's journal that tells you what you're supposed to face and we can't proceed if every little thing is going to shock you speechless."

His argument made sense, Tala knew. But she was still feeling like a small-town probinsyana walking through a big city for the first time: Lost, unsure, wondering if she fit in this world. She felt like that fool in the old Manila joke about the newly-arrived provincial hick looking in wonderment at the city's overhead power lines and wondering how the hell city folk hung their laundry on those.

She drew a deep breath and laid her cards down on the table as best she could.

"Look, I have been drawn to that damn book since I first laid eyes on it, I'll admit that much," Tala said slowly, wrapping her fingers around each other as she looked Buhawi straight in the eye. "But I never got to read it until I'd gotten hold of it last month. Then I only got to read it over stolen time—and I wasn't even able to steal that much, at that."

"That still doesn't explain how you froze up, o team leader who is never late," Buhawi said, taking her hands in his to stop her from mangling her fingers in her agitation. "You don't strike me as the kind of woman who shies away from a challenge. So what's scaring you so much? All the wierdness that's been happening? It's only weird to you because the world of Lupa is usually not privy to these things."

Tala picked up her glass of water and took a long swallow before answering Buhawi. "Everything over the last month has been freaky, strange and scary, Buhawi. I've been shoving every heebie-jeebies moment into my miscellaneous file for later. Well, that file is full and I'm about to have a major syntax error. The kind that causes insanity."

Buhawi stood up and hugged Tala, his back to her front. The gesture warmed her icy toes somewhat and allowed her to relax into his yummy chest as she closed her eyes.

"Listen, I am guessing you didn't know what you'd gotten yourself into, but you and I both know Beatriz was on the right track until she gave in to her cold feet and somewhow derailed the binding she'd initiated with Bulalakaw," Buhawi said in a calm, rational tone. 

"We have a history to refer to and a guide to the correct path we can choose," he continued. "You don't want heartbreak and I understand that. I don't want to be insane. The best way to prevent both is to learn from Beatriz and Bulalakaw's mistakes."

Tala took hold of Buhawi's shoulders as she fit her head more snugly in the curve of throat beneath his chin and breathed in his scent of spice and musk.

"I know, but what truly scares the shit out of me is thinking of being in a bound relationship with anyone forever," she said slowly, turning in her seat to look at Buhawi's face. "I suck at keeping a relationship going for even a month. I don't know how that works. I never did."

Buhawi swiveled the high chair around and wrapped himself around Tala's softness and closed his eyes, enjoying this closeness no matter that the reason for it was that Tala was frightened out of her wits with commitment phobia. 

"Then we eat the elephant a bite at a time," he said. "Let's not look at forever, because I'm not sure about that, either. Hell, just weeks ago I was ranting at my father to give me a way out of this, but you plucked that hair because Kidlat was being an ass of a little brother and now we have to finish this."

Buhawi rubbed Tala's back and began kissing her softly on the head, on her cheeks, his lips meandering over her face until they found her warm, bacon-flavored mouth and she kissed him back until they both moaned.

"Let's take this upstairs, hmmm? We can bless the kitchen with lust another time." Buhawi lifted Tala from the seat and kissed her again until her already spinning head was light with wanting him. "I don't think we've tried slow, hot love-making yet. Maybe we should." He took her wordless murmur for assent and carried her up to their bedroom.



How to Tame Your Tikbalang Ch. 09



Agosto 13, 1898

Bathala have mercy on me. I've failed. I hadn't the heart to bind or whip my beloved Bulalakaw and I fear he is lost to me now. All I have left is Bulan's promise that in my bloodline lies hope. It is ironic that for all that I cannot find the courage to draw blood, in the end, it is blood that will save those whose lives I shatter out of cowardice.

Dearest Tala, you are so real to me now, though I haven't the faintest idea how you will look, or even how much power you will someday command. I imagine you, build you in my mind. I would like to imagine you have the tiniest traces of me in your face. Perhaps in the fullness of your lips, or the low melody of your voice. Perhaps you would have the Spanish curve of hip and breast as a legacy from me, or fire in your curly hair. I make an image of you to comfort and old woman, to warm away my loneliness. Perhaps I am a fool, but I am taking what joy I can, where I can because all else is emptiness and defeat.

But let me resume my cautionary tale. Complete your ascension to the hallowed status of Baylan—do what I could not. I know you can, for you carry the strength of my husband, for all that he has made me hate him with his rattan rods and leather straps. Your ancestor was so strong of will that an erupting volcano underfoot would not have killed him had he decided it would not. I pray he also gave you his physical strength, that of a water buffalo bull in its prime. You will need both and I pray the gods of the Skyworld give you these gifts you will need.

These traits I so hate make up the inheritance that will save you. So use them well. Don't think about how I detest them. Rather, focus on making it serve you as a tool and a lifeline. The legendary stubbornness of the Bienvenidos will be your strongest asset. So will their sturdy constitution.

I know this: You will have my passion, this force within me that pushes me forward. Passion that only fear will defeat, if you will permit fear free reign. Leash that fear, truss it up so it cannot move against you. Because there is no ignoring it. So conquer it as our Spanish forebears conquered and colonized. Find your sword and know its heft and balance. Hold up your shield and grip it tight. 

You will have my sight, my instincts that guide me right, though I fight them at every turn. Do as I say, not as I do.

This is the Trial of the Third Hair and it will be the most difficult of all.

***

Tala turned in Buhawi's embrace, her whole body throbbing in the aftermath of the climaxes he'd drawn with the slowest strokes of fingers and tongue and pervasive penis.

She smiled into the purple darkness of the wee hours they'd slumbered through, her half-conscious mind slipping back into the delicious dream of Buhawi licking her neck lightly as he spooned her, pressing his body tight against her back so she could feel his heartbeat pulsing through his chest and the tarugo still pressed against her.

Tala shimmied slightly, drawing a sexy, low groan from Buhawi as his hard length found a haven between the cheeks of her ass. Buhawi's breath engulfed her ear in hot exhalations as she closed her eyes and bit down on her lower lip.

"Look at you, sweetness," Buhawi's words were whispered on another baritone moan as he clasped a breast and pulled on her hardening nipple. "You look so gorgeous in moonlight and cotton-silk sheets." 

He nudged Tala's head with his chin, turning it toward the floor-length cheval glass mirror across the bed. His other hand snaked under and around he waist and he began to gently finger the wetness of her cleft and the erect little soldier of her clit. "You were meant to be a goddess, Tala. You were made to be worshipped."

Buhawi's forefinger made a slow, tantalizing assay into her slick, tight heat and the exquisite sensation that flowed gently through her from her most female of places grew more intense as he crooked that digit within her once, then again, slowly and sensuously. 

Words? She'd completely lost her faculty for words because Buhawi was nuzzling her neck at its most sensitive erogenous zobes, plucking hard nipples and making the sweetest, filthiest pillow-talk she'd ever heard.

"Tang-ina, ang sarap mo," Buhawi's voice was rough as a pebble beach now as he told her how good she felt and tasted, with a bit of profanity for emphasis. 

The head of his erection was straining urgently against the indentation at the small of her back, leaving a wet spot of his pre-come—evidence of how much he needed to enter her. His tongue punctuated his sentences with long, slow licks and his perfect teeth made sharp little nips at her neck and earlobe, triggering the most delicious shivers all over her skin. 

"I'm so hard for you. But I am going to go so slow, make you as crazy as I feel now. We'll both be begging when I plunge my cock into this hot, dripping pussy."

Tala plucked at her other nipple, hooked a leg backward over Buhawi's elevated thigh and gasped as the night air touched her open, desire-swollen sex. She reached between her legs with her other hand, gripped Buhawi's writst and tried to push his hand in faster, but he wouldn't let her.

"Oh, sweet Baylan, you aren't going to make me finger-fuck you any faster than I decide to invade this sweet, tight hole," Buhawi pinched her nipple a bit harder as his other hand penetrated her wetness in a slow, deliberate tease that made her cry out in aroused frustration. 

The zinging pain and pleasure went straight to her already twitching clitoris. "It would be so hot to watch you rub that stiff little nub while you and I play with your perfect tits. Or maybe I will tie you up and make you take every little torment I can wring from this gorgeous body of yours."

Tala whimpered as Buhawi moved as fast as the whirlwind that was his namesake. He pinned her under his body and held her hands to the headboard as he ground his hard length of tarugo against the wet slickness of her pussy, making sweet friction between labia glistening with her arousal, rubbing the head of her shameless clitoris.

***

"Tanikala." Buhawi made the sound of the word for chains so sexy, a whisper of promised pleasure against the soft valley between her breasts. Soft material slithered around Tala's wrist quickly, binding her to the headboard firmly, not giving at all when she gasped and tried to tug her hands down, lightly at first, then with more effort.

Similar shackles, soft but unyielding, wrapped around her knees and pulled her legs apart and Buhawi rose, pulling the silken blanket off Tala's body slowly as a striptease's opening moves.

Her eyes went wide as she looked up at Buhawi, trying to find the words to protest, to set herself free. She struggled, but remained fastened firmly to the bed, noticing for the first time that there was a full length mirror embedded in the canopy above the bed.

Oh, my goodness, I'm spread so wide, was Tala's first coherent thought. I can't believe that's me I'm seeing. That's my pussy soaking the sheet under me. It is so swollen, so pink, so... so hot. I can't move. This should feel wrong, but I feel so turned on. She closed her eyes and kept trying her bonds as Buhawi left the bed, his body magnificently naked in the light of the full moon streaming into the bedroom.

"Now that I have you where I want you, my pretty little witch, I am going to see just how much pleasure it takes to knock you out," Buhawi said over his shoulder as he opened an ornate trunk that was identical to the one in his Forbes Park bedroom. The kind of trunk a Tikbalang kept his sex toys in. Tala got even wetter as she watched him pluck toy after toy out of the box and lay each one on the hardwood nightstand by the bed.

"Please, Buhawi, I need you. Please," she pleaded, her hips twitching upward as far as the bindings on her arms and legs permitted. "I'm so hot all over."

"We'll give you what you need, Baylan, but first, I need to make you pay for the second golden hair you took. Consider this an installment, with a few more due before we can move on to plucking the third hair," Buhawi's eyes roved over her skin and his hot, greedy gaze was tangible, a light, continuous caress that told Tala wordlessly where he wanted to play. 

"Stop talking, woman. Every word you speak will add more torment. I'd love that, I really would, but that would mean I must withhold your release another few minutes for each infraction. You may scream and moan. You may whimper, but you will pay for every word you speak. You took the hair. Pay the price."

Tala did whimper then, her eyes wide and begging as Buhawi took a fire-feather in hand and began tracing lines of Baybayin script across her torso from just above her mons pubis to just beneath her chin. He was spelling his full name in flame over her skin using the most ancient writing known to the three lands.

"You are mine," he said, each lick of the fire-feather searing her skin with pleasure and heat and making her nipples tighten almost to the point of pain. "This is a feather from the tail of the Ibong Adarna. Dreamers fall asleep to its songs, but lovers can be bound to each other by this feather taken from the bird's most sensitive parts." He repeated the symbols seven times, until Tala saw the flames dancing on her body, going from orange to red to blue to white and leaving a deep sepia tattoo in its wake.

"I am branding you as mine," Buhawi said. "You will get your chance to do the same to me. The tattoo is only visible to both of us. It is how you will find me when you need to. It will also enhance whatever pleasure we will take from sex each time we have it."

Almost mindless with arousal, Tala managed to stammer out a query: "How will I mark you? How will this enhance our pleasure? Ooooh..." Her words were cut off as the symbols glowed again.

"All I need to do is think of how much I want to make you scream your pleasure like a paean to the Old Gods, sweetness," Buhawi spoke barely above a whisper. "Think, for example of how I would eat that puki of yours, ram my tongue in as deep as it will go, flick that hard little clit until you beg for your orgasms, and you will feel it. I don't even have to touch you. Think of the possibilities that presents, beautiful girl."

Tala's gasps came hard and fast as the pleasure raced through her pussy, her clit, her entire belly, over her shaking thighs. "Fuck!"

"We'll get to that," Buhawi said as he picked up another toy, a strange, amorphous thing that changed colors from blue to purple to orange and back again, like smoke he could shape. "For now, no coming yet. Because when I start allowing your orgasms, I will not let them stop until you're unconscious and with me in the Other World, the one my kind call home."

"Fuck, Buhawi, don't stop whatever that was now," Tala yelled. "Sweet Mary and Jesus, I need to come. It hurts, you asshole, hurts!"

Buhawi grinned down at her. "Good things come to those who wait, sweetness. I'm sure you'll enjoy the payback when you are able to give it."

"I swear if you leave me hanging I will find a way out of these... whatever they are and I will kill you. Slowly," Tala growled out through gritted teeth.

"Ah, I see we need to show you who is in charge tonight, sweet thing." There was a hard glitter in Buhawi's eyes as he ran the fingers of one large hand through Tala's burnished hair. The smoke-thing in his other hand elongated and divided into a small whip that looked as insubstantial as colored air. "I think you need a bit of whipping to teach that smart little mouth to speak with more decorum, hmmm?"

Buhawi raised the smoke-whip and brought it down smartly over one breast, its tips brushing the hardened nipple and sending electric shocks from its handle to the breast it struck.

He smiled at Tala's screams, her voice expressing both extreme pleasure and a surprised measure of pain. "Lightning is a wonderful thing to harness, don't you think?" 

He brought his lips close to her ear and his words sounded intense, aroused, dominant. He licked her at the point where shoulder and neck meet, nipped that sensitive spot that made her shake hard and rose up on his knees beside her once more. Another strike to the other breast had her screaming and begging. Then came another and another, one for each breast until he'd reached a count of ten and she was again on the edge of orgasm.

All I need is another hit, was the thought that went through Tala's head, just another one and, dear me, I will come and he hasn't gone for my pussy yet...

Tala looked into the mirror overhead, watching herself thrust hungry hips up as far as they would go with each strike, again and again, mimicking the fucking she needed more than air now.

Then the strands of electrified smoke trailed over the inside of her left thigh, brushed her wet pussy and sparked against her clit, drawing another long, hard gasp from her before trailing (wet and sparking) down her other thigh.

Buhawi raised the whip he held and waved it once, twice, thrice and it turned into a phallus. "Ever played with electricity like this? Would you like to know what it is like to be fucked by lightning and live to tell?"

This time Tala truly put up a struggle, scared out of her wits and determined to get free. Especially since the smoke and sparks "dildo" was just about as big as Buhawi was. With electricity.

Instead of going for the gusto, Buhawi paused and sat on the bed beside her, his free hand trailing a gentle wake of fingertips over her cheek, wiping away the panicked tears that had begun to fall.

"I won't hurt you, sweetness. Not much, and not in a way you won't enjoy immensely," Buhawi said on a serious note. "I need you alive. I need you to trust me. Trust me. I promise you that this will be pleasure as you've never had it. Let me take you there."

He held her gaze as he spoke, his eyes gentle and reassuring. "We need to do this, my witch. You must be mine before you make me yours. But I will let you make your choice. Breathe, breathe. Feel how much I want you, how hot my name pulses on your body, how much your pleasure means to me. Nod if you will let me proceed."

Tala closed her eyes, her body still shaking and struggling still. She focused her mind on the now, on Buhawi's words. I need to trust him. We need to finish this. I am so scared, but the alternative is just not an option. 

"No, it isn't, Tala." Buhawi answered. Had Tala spoken her thoughts? "No, my witch, you haven't, but I can hear them because, deep down inside, you do trust me. We can proceed."

Part of Tala wanted to protest, but she tamped that idiot down. "All right then," she said, her voice barely a whisper, but loud in the silence of the room. "Do with me what you will, Tikbalang mine, but I will make you pay and pay dearly." Low and barely inaudible, her voice still carried a steely strength and resolve to it that made Buhawi grin.

"I expect no less from you, Baylan. Prepare to be breached."

He began slowly rubbing the otherworldly sex toy against her slit and her hips shot back up in a fevered rhythm that had her clit grinding against the current in the smoky dildo. Her moans were low, drawn out, her entire body straining as Buhawi frigged her with cloudy lightning and licked light circles around her nipples, one after another.

Thus did he bring her to the brink again, for the nth time, for Tala had lost count, lost the capacity to even think because she was so awash with pleasure.

Buhawi licked the tattoo of his name from her neck to her belly as tendrils unfurled from the bindings around Tala's wrists and knees. Soft, silky vines slid smoothly over her arms and neck, up and around her thighs. They enclosed her nipples, clamping tight and squeezing rhythmically, the ends rubbing the tips of her nipples like tongues. 

The two tendrils snaking around her legs rubbed in a caress that made her skin come alive, their ends massaging either side of her labia majora before looping down to rub the pink rosette of her asshole and probing lightly inside in alternating forays.

"We can't neglect that lovely little asshole, my witch." Buhawi's breath was hot on her puki as he began shoving the dildo into her sheath harder, faster, its lightning touching every nerve inside her and making her body jerk even more in pleasured pain. His mouth closed on her clitoris, his tongue hot and wet and flicking a wild syncopation that was utterly sweet.

Tala began coming, the first orgasm hitting her like a bullet train at full speed as she screamed. The combination of a fucking with lightning and the stimulus of the tendrils was pulling scream after scream from Tala's throat. Buhawi's sucking was pushing her from one climax to the next without mercy and she bucked until the bindings broke—on her twelfth orgasm or so.

"Ah, finally, you've found your body's strength," Buhawi said, his voice now truly hoarse and hard as he rolled her over and speared her with his hard shaft, hilting himself in one smooth, hard stroke. "Ride me, Baylan. Fuck me."

***

Tala's body was nothing but flame and Buhawi's name as she rode him wild and hard. Filthy words were flying out of her mouth as the dug her nails into his shoulders and bucked hard against his upthrusts.

"I'm going to ride you, you sonofabitch. Ride you so hard until you are fucking sore and can't move," Tala said, her eyes fevered and dark as pitch now. "You're mine. Your tarugo is mine. Your come is mine. Give it to me!"

Buhawi could feel his spirit surrender some more to this glorious, wild woman riding him as if the demon hounds of the World Below were after her. He locked eyes with her as her puki squeezed his cock with a mighty grip and her nails began drawing blood as she raked them down his chest, her body pounding ever faster, harder.

"I belong to you, witch, and you're mine because I've given you my true name and two of my treasured hairs." Buhawi's words came out in hard pants. The ground trembled and rumbled, shaking in a temblor that matched the frantic pace of their coitus. "The elements acknowledge your claim. Make me come. Make me yours."

Their eyes met as the final and most powerful orgasm rolled like gale-force typhoon winds through their joined bodies, the power growing, morphing into light that blinded both of them at the final climax.

The Tikbalang and Baylan lost consciousness at the same time, collapsing in a heap of limbs and sweaty skin as they entered the Other World together.

When they both came to, they were lying in by a quick-running stream in a clearing that sat within triple-canopy rainforest, a soft bed beneath them and Spanish moss hanging in a natural curtain around the bed.

Tala looked about them in wonder and rubbed a cheek against an uninjured patch of Buhawi's chest to wake him. "Hey, horsey boy, where are we?"

Blinking thrice, Buhawi came awake fully alert and looked around before answering. "We're in the Other World, in my territory, withcling." He slapped her butt and grinned. "Didn't our last fucking session teach you better manners? We were at it for over an hour before I got into you."

Her grin was just as naughty. "You wish." 

***

He engulfed her in a sweaty, musky hug. "Now, sweetness and light, you will take the third hair. Here, in my bed. In my world. Are you ready?"

"Let me catch my breath first. Human here." Tala's voice held both happiness and exhilaration, unsteady as it was. "You just fucked me into the next dimension, you ass."

"Why don't we go for a swim?' Buhawi's words were pure temptation, as was the crystal-clear water. Water that, to Tala's imagination, must be as cold as it seemed from her vantage point.

"Are you kidding me? I hate cold water." Her haughty tone trailed into a scream as she found her body flying through the air and slicing cleanly into the stream, ass first.




How to Tame Your Tikbalang Ch. 09



A splash dunked her under again as Buhawi's huge (and absolutely delicious) body followed into the water. Tala was shrieking as she surfaced and hurled every invective she knew in Tagalog, English, Spanish and Ilonggo at the Tikbalang.

"Oooooh, I can't wait to tame you, you beast!" She turned on her side and began swimming away, only to be caught up against Buhawi's hard, sexy chest.

"Oh, I don't know about that. I was just thinking that you would appreciate a cold dip," he said as she bit her lush lower lip and glared at him, not appreciative in the least. "You still need to take the third hair before we go on the fuck-fest to end all fuck-fests."

"Really? Now? I'm sore and I'm hungry and I am damn pissed about being thrown like so much baggage into cold water—which I frigging hate—mmmppppffff!"

Buhawi shut Tala up the best way he knew how. Tongue in mouth is an effective way of shutting a sexy, naked, angry female up in his book.

They struggled for dominance in the water, sinking and rising for air as their tongues clashed. The kiss was war and Buhawi kept battling until he felt her body soften and mold against his, just the slightest bit, before he released Tala's bruised, red lips.

"Listen to me a bit, will you?" His dimples peeped out and mesmerized Tala, who was all for watching his mouth move, even if his words sounded serious. 

"Seriously, woman, listen to me," he demanded, holding her body above the deep water as he spoke and scissored his legs to keep them afloat. "We are at the finish line. We can breast the tape if we keep on this path. Stay with me now."

Buhawi maneuvered Tala onto his back and swam for shore in long, sure strokes and set her down where the water was shallow enough for her to stand.

"You read the Bestiario, right? You read about what to expect when you pull the third hair?" His eyes were on hers, hypnotic and dark, intense as twin lasers in their effort to read the thoughts she hadn't even formed yet.

"I did, yes, but Beatriz was so vague all of a sudden," Tala said as she bit yet again on her lower lip. "I understand she was unable to complete the ritual and it seemed as if she didn't know how to."

"Bloody hell," Buhawi said, casting his eyes skyward on a deep, exasperated breath. "So this means we need to talk to my mother about what comes next."

"What? No!" Tala's shock and all-too-human embarassment rang loud and strident in her two-syllable yell.

"Do you know a better way to find out how to do this right? Because getting it wrong would be just plain catastrophic on every level, woman." Buhawi's post-coital good mood faded in that instant and he shook his head in disbelief. "You'll be miserable. Catastrophes will be set loose on your world and I'm going to go insane if we get this wrong."

He strode out of the water and shook himself, spraying Tala with cold droplets that matched the fear rising in her chest, suffocating her.

"We have to work together. We passed the point of no return when you took the first hair," he said as he turned to her, hands wide and open to the sky. "We cannot stop what we set in motion."

"Look, I don't know about you people, but, in my world, you don't go telling your parents about the freaky, kinky sex you have, you know," Tala said, her anger starting to overwhelm her control. "Cut me some slack here. There has to be another way."

"I'm not telling you to spill the kinky details to my mother," Buhawi said after a few deep breaths to get his temper in check. He sat on his bed and pulled Tala down beside him. "We just need to ask her how the last part of this damn ritual goes because she tamed her tikbalang, okay? And, no, I don't want to know about her and my dad doing whooppee, either, you know."

"So tell me, how are we supposed to do that," Tala asked on a shrill, sarcastic note. "Hi, Mrs. Batumbakal, do you have wild monkey sex before, or after, you pull the tail hair? Does it involve more kinky stuff, like fisting and such? Yes, that would go down really well with your mom. I'm sure disrespect would."

"Don't you roll your eyes at me, Tala Maria Urduja Fernandez Bienvenido," Buhawi said, his voice stern and cold. "Just consider what options we have and how we should solve the damn problem."

Tala's mouth fell open as she heard Buhawi utter her full baptismal name. Then she put her head in her hands and muttered "why the fuck am I not surprised you know my full name?"

Looking at her curled up body, seeing the defeat that stood out in every slump of shoulders and head, Buhawi felt the strangest things gnawing at his chest: Remorse, something he'd rarely ever felt, and a growing tenderness that had absolutely no business anywhere near him, let alone inside him.

He gentled his voice as he reached out to pull her into his arms and warm her shivering body. "Hey, princess, don't cry. Just. Don't. Fucking. Cry. I don't know what the hell to do with crying people. Shush. Shush. We'll think of something.

Tala, who had held up under all the pressure of this strange twist of her fate, finally gave up holding her walls up and stalwart and cried long and hard against Buhawi's chest.

Buhawi felt another new emotion. He felt panic. 

Casting his eyes about for something, anything to use to stop the Baylan's crying jag, he held her tighter and called on the Old Gods. Make her stop crying. It's painful to watch. What the hell did I do wrong now? By the Old Ones, I don't understand humans at all. Help, please, help. Losing it here.

Twenty exhausting minutes later, Buhawi felt Tala's stream of tears slow and her chest expand as she took deep, steadying breaths. Praise the Old Gods, she's stopping. Haynaku.

Tala finally raised her face off his chest and Buhawi was dumbstruck by this new facet of her beauty. Her eyes were limpid and back to their clear, light amber, her lashes were bejeweled with diamond tears and her cheeks flushed with heat. Tala's mouth was slightly open, as if she were about to ask for a kiss and her nose was an adorable shade of red. Not to mention the heaving breaths she was drawing were making her breasts rise and fall in a manner that was making him hot and bothered all over again.

This is so not the time to be turned on, asshole. She's just stopped crying. Comfort now, fuck later, Buhawi chided himself, trying his level best to make his erection subside.

A few more deep breaths later, Tala finally spoke.

"I'm sorry to turn the taps on," she said, her smile shaky and unsure. "I've just been through so much mind-bending ewan over the last few weeks. It's enough to make a girl cry."

Buhawi closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I know, sweetness. But now I know that your crying breaks me. Please don't do that to me again. Are you ready to work with me on solving this puzzle of what to do? We do not have much time to waste, even here where time is slower."

"Does your mom keep a diary or a journal of some sort? Maybe we can ask her to lend that to us instead of ask her point-blank about matters better kept between her and your dad," Tala said looking up at Buhawi with a firmer, more confident smile. "If Beatriz kept a journal, perhaps she did, too."

"You thought of that while crying?" Buhawi asked, the incedulity in his voice drawing a chuckle from Tala. "Maybe I shouldn't stop you from crying next time. That's a brilliant idea. We'll find out after I feed you."



How to Tame Your Tikbalang Ch. 10



Buhawi and Tala wandered off to another clearing that, obviously, served as a kitchen of sorts, though not one Tala understood at all (not that she understood kitchens, really). 

A stump wider than her girth and Buhawi's combined made a counter-cum-butcher's chopping block and four clay wood stoves stood in a straight line along the flattened top of a massive fallen log.

Here and there were beautifully hand-shaped pieces of unglazed terracotta pottery of varying sizes, what her people called palayok, which were used to cook traditional Filipino dishes like the oxtail and vegetable stew called kare-kare and the tamarind-broth based sinigang, as well as sweets like leche flan, ube halaya and the multi-colored and sticky sapin-sapin rice cakes in banana leaves. 

Some of the pottery were sitting open, lined with fragrant leaves: Leeks, lemongrass, pandan. Others were bare, but capped with lids sculpted so that their handles were shaped like the Sarimanok or the Ibong Adarna.

"What do you feel like having, BaBaylan mine?" Buhawi's equilibrium was back and his question was good-natured and upbeat. "I can't cook as well as my Inay does, but I can whip up some pretty good dishes, like dinuguan stew from razorback boar blood and meat or deer tapa. I can even make puto rice cakes from scratch and steam them in this," he said pointing to an unusual layered set of two palayok. 

"I'm not much of a cook, Buhawi," Tala said hesitantly, holding onto the sheet she'd wrapped about her body for modesty's sake. "You just go ahead and cook. I won't be picky about what I eat."

"I guess this means that I am the appointed cook, then," Buhawi said on a grin. "Perhaps I can get Inay to part with some of her recipes, then." He proceeded to prepare garlic, bird's eye chilies, red onions and ripe little native tomatoes for a saute, chucking the sliced condiments into little wooden bowls, whistling as he worked.

Tala settled herself on a bench across the kitchen work areas that had formed from smooth gemelina saplings that had been overlaid with fat square cushions upholstered in silk. 

Oh, I could get so used to this, she thought to herself. It is so nice to watch a ripped, gorgeous man cook in nothing but those thin cotton pants that hug his gorgeous ass. Now, time to go over the Bestiario again. Maybe I missed something...

Tala had taken Beatriz's journal out of the folds of the bedsheets, where she'd spotted it before heading to the kitchen clearing. The book seemed to have a strong enough connection to her that it was with her when everything else in her bag was back in the land of the Taga-Lupa.

***

A shadow slid behind a huge balete tree, its tail whipping swiftly into the shadows cast by the trunk. A low snicker carried on the wind, but Buhawi was too busy making a feast for his Baylan and Tala was doggedly trying to find even the slimmest guide to taking the third hair. It passed them by even in the quite of the glade.

A horse's head, huge and malevolent, black as the deepest night, peeked slowly around the craggy bark of the ancient balete. Red eyes gleamed, shrouded by the moss and the masses of aerial roots hanging from the trunk and low branches of the tree as a huge Tikbalang, bigger even than Buhawi, hunkered down with predatory patience.

Soon, soon, it will be time to move. The malevolent creature behind the balete tree grinned as it watched the witch and her Tikbalang move to a picnic blanket laid on the forest floor to eat the dinuguan stew and steamed rice Buhawi had prepared.

They think they've found their way. They think they will triumph. It will be so sweet to take that victory right out of their reach. The shadow Tikbalang, for that is all he was, shadow sifting out all that is light, a featureless maligno eroded by time. I'll let them enjoy this meal. Even the condemned get to eat what they will before the end.

The creature phased in and out, flickering from opaque to translucent, once, twice, a third time. Then he gained full solidness bearing an ornate bow double-nocked with barb-tipped arrows that dripped red venom from their pointed tips to the fastenings of their flights, sighting his unsuspecting prey.

***

"That dinuguan was delicious," Tala said as she curled into Buhawi's body. "And the puto... fluffy, light, but so beautifully done. You have to give me the recipe."

"Give you the recipe?" Buhawi cocked his left brow up at Tala as he pulled her closer to him. "Witch, after you take the third hair, you'll probably be calling me in at all hours to cook you that puto you like so much." He rubbed her belly slowly. "Then you'll be my fat wife—eventually, after all those rice cakes."

Tala gave Buhawi a filthy look, one that made him laugh again. She pursed her lips and pulled away from him as she rose gracefully from the ground, all legs and hips working and look-Ma-no hands. Fat wife my ass.

Buhawi stood up and pulled Tala into a hug, his mouth opening to reassure her that he'd still find her sexy, a few more pounds notwithstanding when his words were cut off by a searing pain in his arm. Just feet from them, two bloody arrows thudded into the forest floor. Arrows that had left deep gashes in Buhawi's arm and on Tala's shoulder.

Fire was spreading over his skin as he heard Tala's gasp of pain. Then she screamed, her agony making her keen through clenched teeth, gripping him to stay upright.

A shadow detatched itself from the huge balete tree to Buhawi's left. A tall, menacing umbra with red eyes and a long, flickering tail. A tikbalang unlike any other seen by Buhawi or his kind stalked across the space between them and Buhawi moved between it and his Baylan almost by instinct.

"I see the prince of the Tikbalang is not yet immortal," the shadow spoke, smoke snorting out of its flared nostrils, its voice both sharp and raspy. "Nor is the Baylan."

"Who are you and what did you do?" Buhawi's query trembled. His body was tense and awash with cold sweat and flaring, sharp pains that caused his muscles to sieze and shake. 

Tala was trying to keep her feet under her, but her vision was blurring. Must stay awake. Can't pass out. She uttered incantations for healing under her breath, clasping Buhawi's hand tightly in hers as she willed herself into a conduit, praying her incantations worked.

"Don't worry yourself overmuch, Princeling," the shadow Tikbalang chuckled. "The poison is slow-acting. You have just enough time to finish your quest. Though I wouldn't dally, were I you. The poison is lethal, after all. Blood from a tiyanak's first kill always is. Especially if you manage to kill the tiyanak."

Tiyanak. Tiyanak blood. Herodes! Tala closed her eyes, willing herself to remember the Bestiario's passage about the tiyanak and its poisonous blood. 

The tiyanak is what Europeans would have mistaken for one of their monsters, a changeling. But changelings are not by nature the purest evil, as the tiyanak is, Beatriz had written. The tiyanak is the soul of a human child unwanted by its mother, fed on hate and weaned on despair, often killed in utero and buried or tossed out with the trash in shame.

This vengeful infant is undead, the hate and despair it carries fuel its rage. The tiyanak often disguises itself as a beautiful but fretful infant left deserted on the edge of the forest or on the front stoop of its victim—and its first kill is often its own mother.

The tiyanak's true form is that of a demonic infant, with skin gray as charcoal ash, eyes of a flat black void and vicious, pointed teeth of dull jet. It only shows its true form when its prey has picked it up and tries to comfort it, as such prey feel compelled to do. Then the tiyanak strikes for the throat, baring its ungodly teeth and bites deeply and repeatedly until its prey is full of its venom.

Tiyanak-attack victims rarely feel the initial attacks, bleeding profusely while their minds are numbed to all but one thought: To feed the baby they have rescued. To protect it until death claims them. Which happens in mere minutes, as the tiyanak has an uncanny sense for biting deeply into the large arteries of the neck and head.

As Tala fought to remain conscious, her mind skipped forward to Beatriz's passage about poisons. Tiyanak blood, it said, is an especially treacherous and deadly poison, though it takes at least three months to kill. If, however, it is made more potent by blending with the blood if its first victim, then the time to death is shortened to three weeks at most. 

Such a compound has three effects: Those poisoned with tiyanak blood and the blood of its first victim will first feel the agony of fire, though they do not burn, and frightening hallucinations. 

The next effect is psychological, but no less agonizing: Whoever is poisoned with this combination of venom and victim's blood will grow paranoid, anxious, terrified of all that surrounds him or her, so much so that the being will fight off even those who would help. 

This is followed by muscular spasms that begin as cramps and increase in intensity until the muscles break the poisoned being's bones and, eventually the seizing and rupture of the poisoned creature's heart.

The antidote to the tiyanak's venom mixed with its first victim's blood is rare and difficult to obtain, for one must seek the scales of the siokoy, inhabitants of rivers and the sea. They must bargain for the scales, as only a fair trade of scales for goods or services will make the cure effective.

The siokoy scales, at least a dozen for each poisoned being, must be ground to a fine powder and mixed with Tikbalang blood on a full moon night. 

Meanwhile, incantations for healing can keep the poisoned one alive and in a relatively functional state. Without the oraciones by a Babaylan, however, the poisoned being will be unable to think lucidly or act rationally. If there is no Babaylan on hand to utter these spells, it would be most merciful to spare the poisoned being by euthanasia.

Tala shut her eyes as she recalled the passages of the Bestiario in her head. Ah, what one can recall when the situation is life or death. She opened her eyes and fixed a glare on the shadow Tikbalang before her and shoved her way past Buhawi.

"You will tell me your name, maligno." Tala's voice was cold as the stream nearby, even if it was unsteady. "I am Baylan and you will obey me."

The shadow tikbalang made a tsk-ing sound and shook its head slowly as it stepped closer to the poisoned couple. "You don't need to command me, puny witch. I'm more than happy to make your acquaintance. My name is Bulalakaw, and I see your grandmother's choice has borne pretty fruit. I will fuck you as the spasms take you. Because tight, clenching pussy and ass, and a mouth sucking desperately for air are always so much fun to fuck."

"I'll kill you before you have a chance to do that, you abomination." Buhawi's words came out on a ragged whisper as flame licked through his veins. "I will kill you with my bare hands."

"Such bravery, princeling," was Bulalakaw's wry retort. "It will amuse me to watch you sort yourself out well enough to make more of that than an empty threat. Perhaps your father will be able to say his goodbyes to you yet. Do give him my regards. Ta-ta. For now. Be watching you."

That said, Bulalakaw made a circle with his left hand and clenched his right before he dissipated like smoke, leaving Tala anf Buhawi fuming and in a literal hell.

***

"Where on in the realms will we find a siokoy? Are there any nearby?" Tala shot these questions in a fusillade at Buhawi, explaining the text from the Bestiario to him as coherently as she could through the sweat and the pain licking her all over.

"By the old gods, don't tell me we need to call on those lechers," Buhawi said on a ragged sigh. "They won't come out of the water unless they've got a helluva show to watch, and I don't mean that in the sense of dinner and a movie. That, and most of them are in the land of Lupa, up north, just past Paoay in Ilocos Norte this time of year."

"And that's a problem because?"

"Because, it is taking all my energy just to talk to you and make sense, woman," Buhawi said through gritted teeth as he suppressed a groan of pain.

"Let me worry about that," Tala said "I am a Babaylan. Or at least I'm learning to be one. I'll do the incantations and you get us to a full Babaylan—you know, your mom—and we'll take it from there."

"I can see why my parents like you, smart girl," Buhawi said, a bit of his good nature showing through the heat haze in his body. "Let's do this."

***

Seven incantations and two "homing amulets" later, Buhawi and Tala finally got themselves back to Bulan's house in Manila sprawled on the hardwood floor of the sala while Bulan rushed to the kitchen to get what she needed to administer her incantations.

"Who did this to you?" Bulan's query came out on a quietly furious note after she spat the herbs she'd chewed onto katakataka leaves that she slapped onto the deep cuts made by Bulalakaw's barbed arrows on Buhawi's arm and Tala's shoulder. "Tell me so I can find whoever it is and kill that creature myself."

"He called himself Bulalakaw," Buhawi said, hissing as the poultice touched his wound. "He told me to give Itay his regards."

"Oh, he did, did he? That son of a syphilitic breeding nag should die," Bulan said, anger bringing out the fire in her eyes and making her hair curl and writhe in defiance of the laws of gravity. "You know where to find the siokoy and I will teach Tala the incantations you will need to keep the worst of the poison from making you both helpless. Then we will make that gods-forsaken creature pay for doing this to my firstborn and his bride."

The front door opened and Buhawi's father, Ulap, rushed to his son, his human face pinched with worry, his brows united on his furrowed forehead.

"I came as soon as you called, beloved," Ulap turned his intense eyes on Bulan. "What do our son and Baylan need?"

"They need to go to Paoay, Mahal ko. They need siokoy scales," Bulan answered, her voice curt with care. "Take them there. I have stocked Tala's bag with what they need. There is no time to lose." 

Bulan looked right at Tala as the Babaylan began to rise off the floor. "I have put my spellbook in your satchel, young one. Use it well and return it to me intact."

With that, Bulan took Ulap's hands and they exchanged a quick kiss before Ulap helped both his son and his prospective daughter stand. "Goodbye, children. Go with Ulap now and get your antidote. Remember that you only have three more days to complete the taming of our Prince, Tala. I'm counting on you."

She turned to her son and hugged him. "Take care of your Babaylan, my son, and do not fail."

"Inay, I'm all grown up now, you can let go of your foal now." Buhawi's shaky attempt at levity only made his mother give a sad shake of her head. 

"Let's go now," Ulap said in stern tones. "I'll talk to you about sassing your mother when you get back, young man."

***

They arrived at the seaside town of Paoay quickly, thanks to Ulap's long strides—literally leaps and bounds, for he had taken his full horse form and he was bigger than any horse, natural or not, in existence.

Tala and Buhawi thanked Ulap and bade him farewell when they reached the seashore, where powder-fine white sand met indigo sea and blended seamlessly into starry skies.

Bulan's spellbook was open in Tala's hands as Buhawi shone a maglite onto its pages and both of them read the delicate cursive Baybayin script that gave instructions for summoning the siokoy who were likely cavorting in a festival beneath the warm and gently lapping waters of the West Philippine Sea.

"Okay, how do we do this summoning without setting off a storm or a volcano, you think?" Tala asked no one in particular. "Because every time we so much as think horny thoughts about each other, we set the darned planet off."

"Maybe a striptease? While facing opposite directions?"

Buhawi's suggestion had some merit. "Maybe we can just masturbate with our eyes closed." Tala said wryly. "Because your Mom says here that the siokoy are drawn by sexual arousal or any heightened emotion."

Buhawi nodded his assent and turned to the sea and away from Tala, who was spreading a shawl she'd taken from her bag on the seashore. "Go for it, babe. I don't mind if you have a go-to fantasy to use that doesn't include me," Buhawi said. "Just as long as I'm in whatever comes after."

"Roger that, o great prince." Tala rolled her eyes heavenward and both of them shared a little laughter before they faced the sea and its unseen denizens. 

Buhawi stripped, knelt on the sand and closed his eyes as he gripped his tarugo, throwing his head back and thrusting himself into his fist until he hardened to his full length and girth. Then he began to wank in earnest, his buttocks' clenching limned in the faint light from the moon and stars.

Okay, Tala took her gym shorts off and settled on the shawl with her legs spread. All I need to do is make a good show of jilling myself off—and not think about how good it would feel to watch Buhawi stroke himself. Not hard. Not hard at all. Really.

She pulled off her tank top and began stroking her breasts, closing her eyes and going to her favorite fantasy of reclining against a muscular man big as... well, a big muscular man, then, stroking her breasts, rolling her nipples and tweaking them until she gasped.

Getting there. His hands are so hot and he is squeezing my breasts. He is sucking a hot path from my shoulder to my earlobe while one hand trails down my belly to my thighs. I am shivering in pleasure because his fingers have found my wet center and he laughs softly, hotly in my ear. He is telling me how much he wants to eat my pussy while he finger-fucks me for an audience. 

He is moving his fingers faster, curling them against that sweet, sweet spot while he nips my earlobe and tells me how hard the men watching me are, how the women are fingering themselves with abandon while he makes me come. His thumb is circling my hot little clit now, faster, harder and he is telling me to come while he pinches one of my nipples, then the other. 

So close, so very close.

Tala's body arched on the sand and the shawl, her teeth dug into her bottom lip almost hard enough to draw blood. The fire smoldering in her veins began burning hotter again, the poison making her orgasm more intense, blending pain with her pleasure in equal measures.

Beside her, Buhawi's groan comes just seconds before the sound of come spurting on the sand as he sinks to his knees, still holding his member in a tight, tight grip.

Both Babaylan and Tikbalang begin to drift into a sleepy, post-orgasmic nap when they hear the wet smack of applause coming from the sea.

***

The naked couple opened their eyes to see a pair of siokoy rising from the water, one male (or so the tumescence at his groin would indicate) and one female. These were beautiful creatures, with their bodies covered by pearlescent scales the size of Tala's thumb. 

The female siokoy was broad-shouldered and curvaceous, with a large bust nipping into a small waist before flaring out into generous hips and gliding down to sleek, beautifully muscled legs. If not for the scales and the long, deep green, pearl-studded hair, she would have been quite the ringer for a Baywatch babe. 




How to Tame Your Tikbalang Ch. 10



A beautifully scaled, very naked, exotic Baywatch babe with high cheekbones, full lips, a strong jaw and the most limpid black eyes Tala had ever seen.

The male was wide, as muscular as Buhawi, and as tall. You could have swapped his face with the male faces in any Juan Luna painting of pastoral scenes where men thresh the grain or plow the fields: His lips sat full and proud above strong cheekbones, a chiseled jaw. He had wide, but slanted, eyes of such a deep green they looked black. Instead of hair, he had a large dorsal fin that caught and refracted the dim starlight to cast a rainbow mohawk over his beautifully-shaped head.

"You give a good show," the male siokoy said, still clapping webbed hands. "My mate was impressed—and aroused. You will give us a wonderful impetus for our coupling tonight. I am sure that, on this night, we will create life."

"Please forgive my mate," the female spoke, her voice sounding like the sea ebbing from the sand. "My name is Siuraya and this is he-who-won-me, Jairasiya. Tell me, what can we give you for the blessing you have given us? We have waited so long for a child and your openness with us grants us that."

"I am Buhawi and this is Tala," the Tikbalang said without preamble. "We need some scales because we have both been poisoned with fouled tiyanak blood."

The pair of siokoy looked at each other, bringing their palms together for a minute or two before Jairasiya turned to Tala. "Our scale may only be given to a Babaylan. I take it you are she?"

"Well, will a Babaylan-in-training do?" Tala fidgeted, wanting very much to cover herself, but feeling that to do so might be rude to these gloriously naked (well, okay, scaled) creatures of the sea. 

Oh, what the heck, it's getting chilly. Tala donned her clothes, sand and all and stuffed her shawl back into the satchel before slipping the strap across her neck and torso. Buhawi, meanwhile, got back into his pants.

"Ah, Baylan," Siuraya said, her voice sad indeed. "You must take the third hair and come into your own before we can give you any scales. Indeed, you must come into your own before we can conceive."

"But let us do this much for you," Jairasiya said in his voice of crashing waves. "Let us bring you to an island where you will have privacy so you may complete that final rite. There is a sandbar nearby that we can dry out for you, a path to your own paradise."

With that, the siokoy took the hands of Baylan and Tikbalang and, with their free hands, motioned for the sea to ebb until the sandbar Jairasiya spoke of came into view. 

The path was lined with a shimmering that grew into the bodies of more siokoy forming two rainbow-spangled queues that led them to a gorgeous island dominated by a rock-faced waterfall.

"Behind the waterfall is a cave, where my queen mate and I go to worship one another's flesh," Jairasiya said. "Please feel free to use it to complete your coming into power with our felicitations." 

*********************************************

I have had requests for a glossary of terms, so here it is, with a phonetic pronunciation guide, since Filipino is a language where you spell as you speak.

Arao (ah-ra-o) - The god of the sun who did not want to share the sky with his sister, the moon-goddess Bulan. He put out Bulan's eye with his spear, thus making her fall from the Skyworld.

Aswang (asu-wang) - A maligno that passes for human. It was said that the Skyfather Bathala caught some humans committing acts of cannibalism despite the plentitude of food that was theirs. 

Bathala cursed these beings and turned them into aswang who needed to eat human livers and drink human blood to survive, even if they were not undead.

In the Visayas and Mindanao, it is believed that aswang traits are inherited, passed on from parent to child or grandparent to grandchild via a sentient, withered and ancient tongue (the actual, physical tongue) that detaches from a dying aswang into the aswang-in-waiting through a kiss with tongues involved (yes, ewww).

Awit (ah-wit) - A traditional Filipino poetry/song form. Song/paean.

Babaylan/Baylan (ba-ba-ee-lan/ba-ee-lan) - Animist priestesses/healers believed to have supernatural powers. They were wise women learned in herb lore and incantations. 

Babaylans were were the primary health care providers on a day-to-day basis, but they were also believed to be seers, callers of rain in times of drought and lightning in times of battle. 

Their blessings ensured fertility for crops, livestock and people seeking to have children. They were generally advisors to the ruling elite, counselors and spiritual advisors to the rest of their tribe. They were also skilled in reversing the hexes of mangkukulam and mambabarang and sending these hexes back at the casters with interest.

Their power is based in the divine feminine, the aspects of mother/nurturer, protector and life-giver

that is intrinsic to women.

Barang (bah-rang) - A deadly hex cast by a Mambabarang.

Bathaha (bat-ha-lah) - The Skyfather and father of all gods, the creator of life with his consort, Poon. Father of Bulan and Arao.

Bayot/Binabae (ba-ee-yot/bee-nah-bah-ey) - Animist priests who cross-dress as women to access the powers of the divine feminine. They served the same function as the Babaylan/Baylan. 

As the Spanish colonization of the Philippines progressed, the terms "bayot" and "binabae" became derogatory terms for homosexual males.

Bulan (boo-lan) - Goddess of the Moon. She was cast down from the Skyworld after her brother, Arao, put out her eye with a spear. Her eye is now the moon and, through this moon, Bulan watches over the Tao of Lupa.

Dalit (dah-lit) - A traditional Filipino poetry/song form. Lament/dirge.

Diwata (dee-wah-ta) - Nymph, usually a woodland nymph. However, these nymphs are more than just beautiful enchantresses. They are also capable of healing injured humans, guiding lost travelers to areas where they can get help. When angered, the diwata can lay terrible curses on the offender that last for generations.

Duwende (doo-wen-deh) - Dwarves, wee folk who are no bigger than a human child's hand.

Colorful duwende are good duwende who help with household chores and farm work. They like to play with infants and, if they like a child too much, may lure that child to the Other Land and, without meaning harm, feed that child food from their dimension, making it difficult for the child to return to his/her own plane.

Black duwende are evil wee folk and they wear only black clothing and they bring disease to crops, pestilence to livestock and miasma into one's home. 

They hate children and make children sick, sometimes killing the children in the process.

Inay (ee-nah-ay) - Mother. Also, Nanay, Ina.

Itay(ee-tah-ay)  - Father. Also, Tatay, Ama.

Kapre (kah-pre) - A tobacco-smoking giant who likes to perch on large balete trees. Usually non-hostile to humans, the kapre has a frightening appearance simply because of its size. 

If one is courageous enough to befriend a Kapre by giving it good cigars, then one may attempt to climb up a Kapre's tree with a goodly length of Manila hemp rope. Should you manage to tie the rope fast around the Kapre's neck or waist so that the Kapre cannot get loose, you will find a pot of gold at the noose end of the rope in the morning. 

Not that the Kapre will remain your friend, so watch your back ever after.

Kulam (coo-lam) - A non-lethal hex cast by a Mangkukulam.

Lupa (loo-pah) - Earth, the dimension where humans live.

Mahal ko (mah-hal koh) - An endearment: My beloved.

Maligno (mah-lig-noh) - A blanket term for supernatural beings, inclusing ghosts and shape-shifting beings. However, this term is considered derogatory and is 

most often used to describe supernatural beings who harm or frighten humans.

Mambabarang (mam-bah-bah-rang ) - Maleficar. More powerful and more evil than a mangkukulam, the mambabarang casts deadly hexes that may kill a target instantly, from a distance and without leaving any traces of their hexes that can be detected by medical science.

Like the mangkukulam, the mambabarang need items taken from the intended target (nail clippings, hair clippings, pieces of umbilical cord, scraps of unlaundered clothing, etc.) to cast their hexes successfully, as well as other spell components, such as blood and teeth drawn from a fresh corpse, which is partly why Filipinos stay awake and alert to watch over their dead day and night until the deceased is buried. The other reason for vigilance during a wake is that aswan like to steal the newly dead and put enchanted banana plant trunks in place of the cadaver, which they feast upon.

Manananggal (manna-nang-gal) - A maligno that mixes with the human population by day but victimizes pregnant women and sucks their babies out through the pregnant women's navels with its long, straw-like tongues.

The manananggal is another creature cursed by Bathala. It can separate its top half from its bottom half and sports huge bat-like wings. The bottom half is usually left amid a stand of banana plants with a few stumps in it. Thus camouflaged, the bottom half of a manananggal ensures the survival of its top half no matter what injuries the manananngal's top half may recieve. To truly kill a manananggal, one must find its bottom half, and sprinkle it with sea salt and minced raw garlic before staking the manananggal with sharpened and fire-hardended bamboo to kill it.

Mangkululam (mahng-coo-coo-lam) - Maleficar. Someone who casts evil spells that cause ill-luck to befall a given target for a fee, usually paid in gold or currency. Mangkukulam also hex people to make them sick in a way that cannot be remedied (such as by making hordes of insects crawl out of one's skin or orifices), though they are rarely able to cast hexes that kill their targets.

A mangkukulam usually requires something taken from the target of a hex without that person's knowledge, such as a photograph, hair clippings or scraps taken from clothing that was worn but not yet laundered. The closer to a person's body the item taken has been, the more powerful as spell focus this item is.

Mundong Kakaiba (moon-dong kaka-eeh-ba) - The Other World, where supernatural beings dwell. The world between the Skyworld (heaven) and Earth.

Nuno (nooh-noh) - A humanoid earth elemental with limbs and digits that are longer than twice the length of the average human. They are neutral beings who may choose to help or hinder whoever they come across. They live in earthen hillocks that resemble anthills but are much bigger.

It is said that laying sweets in front of a Nuno's house or punso will gain you the guardianship and favor of a Nuno. 

If you point at a punso with your fingers, you will draw the Nuno's ire and it will make parts of your body swell painfully for weeks. This is probably why Filipinos prefer to point at things with their lips, or nod in the direction they wish to indicate. 

If you step on a punso, your foot will swell painfully and it will become infected to the point where you may need an amputation. 

However, if you do have the protection of the Nuno, your house is secure and your fields will be well-guarded and woe betide anyone who attempts to steal from your home or your crops.

Oraciones (ora-si-on-es) - Spells, usually beneficial ones.

Poon (poh-on) - The Earthmother who created the world along with the Skyfather. Mother of Arao and Bulan.

Puki (pooky) - Pussy. Also: Kepyas (kep-yahs), Pekpek, Puday (pooh-day), Ari, Bilat (bee-lat).

Punso (poohn-so) - A Nuno's home.

Sigbinn (sig-been) - A totally black demon goat with red eyes that kills its victims by turning its back on the victim and staring at it from between its hind legs. The sigbinn's hindquarters are almost twice as long as its forelegs and it has the long, venomous fangs of a snake.

Once the victim is dead, the sigbinn tears into its chest and abdomen to gorge itself on the victim's heart and liver.

Siokoy (see-oh-coy) - A sea-dwelling and river-dwelling creature that is often (but not always) humanoid and bipedal in form that is covered from head to foot in iridescent scales that shimmer like mother-of-pearl. Its scales are said to have very powerful healing properties. 

The siokoy are not usually hostile to humans, and that they like watching humans who are close to the shorelines or traveling over the sea and rivers. When its compassion is stirred, the siokoy may even help hungry fisherfolk by filling their nets with edible seafood. 

They have also been said to have come to the rescue of drowning people. When provoked, however, the siokoy will drag a human into the water and drown him or her. 

Taga-Lupa (tag-a-loop-ah) - Beings of Earth, of the dimension where humans dwell.

Tarugo (tah-roo-go) - Penis. Specifically a larger than average penis. A penis is average is also called "ari" (also the generic term for genitals, male or female) and "titi." If it is small, or the member of a young boy, it is called "pototoy (poh-toh-toy)." 

Tikbalang (tick-bah-lang) - A creature that has the head and hindquarters of a horse (usually a warhorse like a destrier), and the muscular torso of a human male, with an unusually large male member. It is believed that plucking the golden hairs off a Tikbalang will bring the daring adventurer uncanny good luck and immense wealth.

Tiyanak (tia-nak) - A monster that disguises itself as an abandoned but beautiful infant. 

The tiyanak targets humans for food and entraps them by crying like a hungry or distressed human baby. If the Tiyanak is picked up by its human target, it will attack the human, reverting to its real form while doing so. The Tiyanak is said to look like a demonic infant, with black voids for eyes and the gray, ashen skin of the dead.

A Tiyanak comes to be when a mother is distressed over or resents her pregnancy enough to passively or actively cause a second- or third-trimester abortion/miscarriage. 

Lore from the Chritstianization period of the Philippines onward says a Tiyanak is made when a stillborn infant is buried secretly, without benefit of blessing or baptism.



How to Tame Your Tikbalang Ch. 11



 I know it took a long time to get Chapter 11 out—and you do have my sincerest apologies for that. 

I also revised Chapter 10, adding a bit more story to it to flesh it out better. Life happens. So do rewrites (I think I must have made two dozen). Author perfectionism is a disease, I know.

That said, I do hope you enjoy this set of chapters. :D Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for the stars and comments. Your kindnesses do my kinky little heart so much good.

*****

Chapter 10 — Otherworldly solution

Buhawi and Tala wandered off to another clearing that, obviously, served as a kitchen of sorts, though not one Tala understood at all (not that she understood kitchens much, really). 

A stump wider than her girth and Buhawi's combined made a counter-cum-butcher's chopping block and four clay wood stoves stood in a straight line along the flattened top of a massive fallen log across it.

Here and there were beautifully hand-shaped pieces of unglazed terracotta pottery of varying sizes, what her people called palayok. These were used to cook traditional Filipino dishes like the oxtail and vegetable stew called kare-kare and the tamarind-broth based sinigang, as well as sweets like leche flan, ube halaya and the multi-colored and sticky sapin-sapin rice cakes in banana leaves. 

Some of the pottery were sitting open, lined with fragrant leaves: Leeks, lemongrass, pandan. Others were bare, but capped with lids sculpted with handles were shaped like the Sarimanok or the Ibong Adarna.

"What do you feel like having, Babaylan mine?" Buhawi's equilibrium was back and his question was good-natured and upbeat. "I can't cook as well as my Inay does, but I can whip up some pretty good dishes, like dinuguan stew from razorback boar blood and meat or deer tapa. I can even make puto rice cakes from scratch and steam them in this," he said pointing to an unusual layered set of two palayok. 

"I'm not much of a cook, Buhawi," Tala said hesitantly, holding onto the sheet she'd wrapped about her body, sarong-style, for modesty's sake. "You just go ahead and cook. I won't be picky about what I eat."

"I guess this means that I am the appointed cook, then," Buhawi said on a grin. "Perhaps I can get Inay to part with some of her recipes, then." He proceeded to prepare garlic, bird's eye chilies, red onions and ripe little native tomatoes for a saute, chucking the sliced condiments into little wooden bowls, whistling as he worked.

Tala settled herself on a bench across the kitchen work areas that had formed from smooth gemelina saplings that had been overlaid with fat square cushions upholstered in silk. 

Oh, I could get so used to this, she thought to herself. It is so nice to watch a ripped, gorgeous man cook in nothing but those thin cotton pants that hug his gorgeous ass. Now, time to go over the Bestiario again. Maybe I missed something...

Tala had taken Beatriz's journal out of the folds of the bedsheets, where she'd spotted it before heading to the kitchen clearing. The book seemed to have a strong enough connection to her that it was with her when everything else in her bag was back in the land of the Taga-Lupa.

***

A shadow slid behind a huge balete tree, its tail whipping swiftly into the shadows cast by the trunk. A low snicker carried on the wind, but Buhawi was too busy making a feast for his Baylan and Tala was doggedly trying to find even the slimmest guide to taking the third hair in the Bestiario. It passed them undetected, even in the quite of the glade.

A horse's head, huge and malevolent, black as the deepest night, peeked slowly around the craggy bark of the ancient balete. Red eyes gleamed, shrouded by the moss and the masses of aerial roots hanging from the trunk and low branches of the tree as a huge Tikbalang, bigger even than Buhawi, hunkered down with predatory patience.

Soon, soon, it will be time to move. The malevolent creature behind the balete tree grinned as it watched the witch and her Tikbalang move to a picnic blanket laid on the forest floor to eat the dinuguan stew and steamed rice Buhawi had prepared.

They think they've found their way. They think they will triumph. It will be so sweet to take that victory right out of their reach. The shadow Tikbalang, for that is all he was, shadow sifting out all that is light, a featureless maligno eroded by time. I'll let them enjoy this meal. Even the condemned get to eat what they will before the end.

The creature phased in and out, flickering from opaque to translucent, once, twice, a third time. Then he gained full solidity bearing an ornate bow double-nocked with barb-tipped arrows that dripped red venom from their pointed tips to the fastenings of their flights, sighting his unsuspecting prey.

***

"That dinuguan was delicious," Tala said as she curled into Buhawi's body. "And the puto... fluffy, light, but so beautifully done. You have to give me the recipe."

"Give you the recipe?" Buhawi cocked his left brow up at Tala as he pulled her closer to him. "Witch, after you take the third hair, you'll probably be calling me in at all hours to cook you that puto you like so much." He rubbed her belly slowly. "Then you'll be my fat wife—eventually, after all those rice cakes."

Tala gave Buhawi a filthy look, one that made him laugh again. She pursed her lips and pulled away from him as she rose gracefully from the ground, all legs and hips working and look-Ma-no hands. Fat wife my ass.

Buhawi stood up and pulled Tala into a hug, his mouth opening to reassure her that he'd still find her sexy, a few more pounds notwithstanding, when his words were cut off by a searing pain in his arm. Just feet from them, two bloody arrows thudded into the forest floor. Arrows that had left deep gashes in Buhawi's arm and on Tala's shoulder.

Fire was spreading over his skin as he heard Tala's gasp of pain. Then she screamed, her agony making her keen through clenched teeth, gripping him to stay upright. They both broke out in sudden, cold sweats and the agony was seeping into their very bones.

A shadow detatched itself from the huge balete tree to Buhawi's left. A tall, menacing umbra with red eyes and a long, flickering tail. A Tikbalang unlike any other seen by Buhawi or his kind stalked across the space between them and Buhawi moved between it and his Baylan almost by instinct.

"I see the prince of the Tikbalang is not yet immortal," the shadow spoke, smoke snorting out of its flared nostrils, its voice both sharp and raspy. "Nor is the Baylan."

"Who are you and what did you do?" Buhawi's query trembled. His body was tense and awash with sweat and flaring, sharp pains that caused his muscles to sieze and shake as he struggled to support Tala. 

Tala was trying to keep her feet under her, but her vision was blurring. Must stay awake. Can't pass out. She uttered incantations for healing under her breath, clasping Buhawi's hand tightly in hers as she willed herself into a conduit for whichever deity answered her prayers for her incantations to work.

"Don't worry yourself overmuch, Princeling," the shadow Tikbalang chuckled. "The poison is slow-acting. You have just enough time to finish your quest. Though I wouldn't dally, were I you. The poison is lethal, after all. Blood from a tiyanak's first kill always is. Especially if you manage to kill the tiyanak."

Tiyanak. Tiyanak blood. Herodes! Tala closed her eyes, willing herself to remember the Bestiario's passage about the tiyanak and its poisonous blood: 

The tiyanak is what Europeans would have mistaken for one of their monsters, a changeling. But changelings are not by nature the purest evil, as the tiyanak is, Beatriz had written. The tiyanak is the soul of a human child unwanted by its mother, fed on hate and weaned on despair, often killed in utero and burried or tossed out with the trash in shame.

This vengeful infant is undead, the hate and despair it carries fuels its rage. The tiyanak often disguises itself as a beautiful but fretful infant left deserted on the edge of the forest or on the front stoop of its victim—and its first kill is often its own mother.

The tiyanak's true form is that of a demonic infant, with skin gray as charcoal ash, eyes of a flat black void and vicious, pointed teeth of dull jet. It only shows its true form when its prey has picked it up and tries to comfort it, as such prey feel compelled to do. Then the tiyanak strikes for the throat, bares its ungodly teeth and bites deeply and repeatedly until its prey is full of its venom.

Tiyanak-attack victims rarely feel the initial attacks, bleeding profusely while their minds are numbed to all but one thought: To feed the baby they have rescued. To protect it until death claims them. Which happens in mere minutes, as the tiyanak has an uncanny sense for biting deeply into the large arteries of the neck and head.

As Tala fought to remain conscious, her mind skipped forward to Beatriz's passage about poisons. Tiyanak blood, it said, is an especially treacherous and deadly poison, though it takes at least three months to kill. If, however, it is made more potent by blending with the blood if its first victim, then the time to death is shortened to three weeks, at most. 

Such a compound has three effects: Those poisoned with tiyanak blood and the blood of its first victim will first feel the agony of fire, though they do not burn, and frightening hallucinations. 

The next effect is psychological, but no less agonizing: Whoever is poisoned with this combination of venom and victim's blood will grow paranoid, anxious, terrified of all that surrounds him or her, so much so that the being will fight off even those who would help. 

This is followed by muscular spasms that begin as cramps and increase in intensity until the muscles break the poisoned being's bones and, eventually the seizing and rupture of the poisoned creature's heart.

The antidote to the tiyanak's venom mixed with its first victim's blood is rare and difficult to obtain, for one must seek the scales of the siokoy, inhabitants of rivers and the sea. They must bargain for the scales, as only a fair trade of scales for goods or services will make the cure effective.

The siokoy scales, at least a dozen for each poisoned being, must be ground to a fine powder and mixed with Tikbalang blood on a full moon night. 

Meanwhile, incantations for healing can keep the poisoned one alive and in a relatively functional state. Without the oraciones by a Babaylan, however, the poisoned being will be unable to think lucidly or act rationally. If there is no Babaylan on hand to utter these spells, it would be most merciful to spare the poisoned being by euthanasia.

Tala shut her eyes as she recalled the passages of the Bestiario in her head. Ah, what one can recall when the situation is life or death. She opened her eyes and fixed a glare on the shadow Tikbalang before her and shoved her way past Buhawi.

"You will tell me your name, maligno." Tala's voice was cold as the stream nearby, even if it was unsteady. "I am Baylan and you will obey me."

The shadow Tikbalang made a tsk-ing sound and shook its head slowly as it stepped closer to the poisoned couple. "You don't need to command me, puny witch. I'm more than happy to make your acquaintance. My name is Bulalakaw, and I see your grandmother's choice has borne pretty fruit. I will fuck you as the spasms take you. Because tight, clenching pussy and ass, and a mouth sucking desperately for air are always so much fun to screw."

"I'll kill you before you have a chance to do that, you abomination." Buhawi's words came out on a ragged whisper as flame licked through his veins. "I will kill you with my bare hands."

"Such bravery, princeling," was Bulalakaw's wry retort. "It will amuse me to watch you sort yourself out well enough to make more of that than an empty threat. Perhaps your father will be able to say his goodbyes to you yet. Do give him my regards. Ta-ta. For now. Be watching you."

That said, Bulalakaw made a circle with his left hand and clenched his right before he dissipated like smoke, leaving Tala and Buhawi fuming and in a literal hell.

***

"Where on in the realms will we find a siokoy? Are there any nearby?" Tala shot these questions in a fusillade at Buhawi, explaining the text from the Bestiario to him as coherently as she could through her sweat and agony.

"By the old gods, don't tell me we need to call on those lechers," Buhawi said on a ragged sigh. "They won't come out of the water unless they've got a helluva show to watch, and I don't mean that in the sense of dinner and a movie. That, and most of them are in the land of Lupa, up north, just past Paoay in Ilocos Norte at this time of year."

"And that's a problem because?"

"Because, it is taking all my energy just to talk to you and make sense, woman," Buhawi said through gritted teeth as he suppressed a groan of pain.

"Let me worry about that," Tala said "I am a Babaylan. Or at least I'm learning to be one. I'll do the incantations and you get us to a full Babaylan—you know, your mom—and we'll take it from there."

"I can see why my parents like you, smart girl," Buhawi said, a bit of his good nature showing through the heat haze in his body. "Let's do this."

***

Seven incantations and two "homing amulets" later, Buhawi and Tala finally got themselves back to Bulan's house in Manila sprawled on the hardwood floor of the sala while Bulan rushed to the kitchen to get what she needed to administer her incantations.

"Who did this to you?" Bulan's query came out on a quietly furious note after she spat the herbs she'd chewed onto katakataka leaves that she slapped onto the deep cuts made by Bulalakaw's barbed arrows on Buhawi's arm and Tala's shoulder. "Tell me so I can find whoever it is and kill that creature myself."

"He called himself Bulalakaw," Buhawi said, hissing as the poultice touched his wound. "He told me to give Itay his regards."

"Oh, he did, did he? That son of a syphilitic breeding nag should die," Bulan said, anger bringing out the fire in her eyes and making her hair curl and writhe in defiance of the laws of gravity. "You know where to find the siokoy and I will teach Tala the incantations you will need to keep the worst of the poison from making you both helpless. Then we will make that gods-forsaken creature pay for doing this to my firstborn and his bride."

Wait. Bride? Whut? Tala would have blurted those three words out loud, her eyes wide and confused. But Bulan held up a placating hand. 

"You chose your path, child. That is where it leads," Bulan said, a stern note in her voice. "Hush now, do not question yourself, because you have chosen well." Buhawi snorted softly at this and, for that, was fixed with his mother's stern glare himself as his mother bit this out: "I will speak to you in less stentorian tones when you bring me my grandchildren. Until then, you will just have to man up and do what both of you have set out to achieve."

The front door opened and Buhawi's father, Ulap, rushed to his son, his human face pinched with worry, his brows united on his furrowed forehead. "I came as soon as you called, beloved," Ulap turned his intense eyes on Bulan. "What do our son and Baylan need?"

"They need to go to Paoay, Mahal ko. They need siokoy scales," Bulan answered, her voice curt with care. "Take them there. I have stocked Tala's bag with what they need. There is no time to lose." 

Bulan looked right at Tala as the Babaylan began to rise off the floor. "I have put my spellbook in your satchel, young one. Use it well and return it to me intact."

With that, Bulan took Ulap's hands and they exchanged a quick kiss before Ulap helped both his son and his prospective daughter stand. "Goodbye, children. Go with Ulap now and get your antidote. Remember that you only have three more days to complete the taming of our Prince, Tala. I'm counting on you."

She turned to her son and hugged him. "Take care of your Babaylan, my son, and do not fail."

"Inay, I'm all grown up now, you can let go of your foal now." Buhawi's shaky attempt at levity only made his mother give a sad shake of her head. 

"Let's go now," Ulap said in stern tones. "I'll talk to you about sassing your mother when you get back, young man."

***

They arrived at the seaside town of Paoay quickly, thanks to Ulap's long strides—literally leaps and bounds, for he had taken his full horse form and he was bigger than any horse, natural or not, in existence.

Tala and Buhawi thanked Ulap and bade him farewell when they reached the seashore, where powder-fine white sand met indigo sea and blended seamlessly into starry skies.

Bulan's spellbook was open in Tala's hands as Buhawi shone a maglite onto its pages and both of them read the delicate cursive Baybayin script that gave instructions for summoning the siokoy who were likely cavorting in a festival beneath the warm and gently lapping waters of the West Philippine Sea.

"Okay, how do we do this summoning without setting off a storm or a volcano, you think?" Tala asked no one in particular. "Because every time we so much as think horny thoughts about each other, we set the darned planet off."

"Maybe a striptease? While facing opposite directions?"

Buhawi's suggestion had some merit. "Maybe we can just masturbate with our eyes closed." Tala said wryly. "Because your Mom says here that the siokoy are drawn by sexual arousal or any heightened emotion."

Buhawi nodded his assent and turned to the sea and away from Tala, who was spreading a shawl she'd taken from her bag on the seashore. "Go for it, babe. I don't mind if you have a go-to fantasy to use that doesn't include me," Buhawi said. "Just as long as I'm in whatever comes after."

"Roger that, o great prince." Tala rolled her eyes heavenward and both of them shared a little nervous laughter before they faced the sea and its unseen denizens. 

***

Buhawi strips, kneels on the sand and closes his eyes, gripping his tarugo, throwing his head back and thrusting himself into his fist until he hardens to his full length and girth. 

He has a go-to fantasy of his own and he brings it out to play, mindful that he can't put Tala in the place of the woman of this fantasy. Not yet, at any rate. Well, time to get to the fun part of this quest: Showtime.

She is dancing on my lap, naked and fragrant with clean sweat and honeysuckle. My member is hard and pulsing against her leg and I shift so I can rub it against the smoothness of her thigh. 

She bites down on her full lower lip, that cherry redness I want on my own lips, around my shaft, sucking me. Hard. Deep. She shakes her tits against my face and I capture a nipple to suck and nibble on, making her work to keep dancing as her wet little puki grazes the head of my tarugo.

Her hair falls to the floor as she bends back and up. She grinds her arousal-swollen slit against my face, her hands palms down on my knees. She smells so sweet and hot that I lick her shaven mound, my tongue finding her center and rimming it as she lets out a low groan and bucks against my oral onslaught to the slow beat of that music she's put on.

I grip a firm buttock with one hand and feast on her hot, wet flesh as she grabs my shoulders and pushes against my suckling mouth. My other hand is in her hair, gripping tight. I feel her get wetter as I tighten my grasp on buttocks and lush, silky hair. She cries out and I feast on her with even more gusto. She smells divine and tastes so damn sweet I could do this for hours, but my cock is throbbing and it wants into her. Now.




How to Tame Your Tikbalang Ch. 11



The music reaches its first crescendo as I bring her body down against me, hard. I make her shiver as I kiss her deeply, my tongue exploring her mouth the way my cock will, soon. She tastes herself and sucks the flavor of us in greedily while her hips sway. Her creamy cunt rubs hard against my cock. 

I can feel her clitoris rasp just under my glans and I hump her slit while I lick the hollow of her throat, move her body up so I can lick her breasts and suckle her nipples again. I nip her lightly on one hard little nub and she grinds down on me. 

Her hands are speared in my hair and she is clasping me to her as I suck harder on a captive nipple. She raises her hips and gyrates until my tarugo is aimed dead center against her hot furnace of a cunt and she slides me in with a swift, hard swivel and shove. 

Balls deep in her, I groan against her chest and take hold of her hips so I can fuck her, fast and furious. She shudders, moans and thrusts herself against me harder. Her nails dig into my shoulders. 

I thrust into her once more, holding her hips in both hands now, and grind against her pubis until she wails in a spurting climax that inundates my groin. Her head is thrown back so I can lick her throat and make her clench around me some more, her hot sheath clenching like a wet velvet fist around me as she comes apart again just like a supernova, with much screaming.

I trace the shell of her ear with my tongue and tell her I want to come in her mouth. She gets off my lap and shoves my legs apart so she can kneel between my knees. The music is thrumming furiously now, just like the heartbeats she and I can feel between our sweaty legs.

She looks up at me with a sexy smile before bringing those wet lips to my cockhead for a teasing little kiss. Her mouth opens and out comes her tongue teasing the weeping slit at my tip. Round and round it plays, bringing me even closer to coming. I'm right on that razor edge between pain and utter pleasure and I can't take much more. 

Inside, I tell her. Let me in. Her mouth opens, my cockhead is between those sweet lips, stretching them as her tongue gently lashes me. She begins to suck me in an inch at a time as I watch, my tarugo twitching at the sensation of her mouth's heat and pressure.

Her fingers are playing with her stiff clit as come drips down her inner thighs. She strums herself slowly with one hand as the other grasps the base of my tarugo. I am slick with our jism and she licks me from balls to glans as her fingers penetrate her puki slowly. She's still putting on a show for me and I like it. Oh, I do.

I lean forward to fondle her generous breasts, press them together and stroke her sensitive nipples before I pinch them again. Her groan vibrates up and down my cock as she swallows me. She is twisting that hand around the base of my dick, making my hips jerk forward wth the pleasure of it. 

Suck, swallow, lick, squeeze and twist: That's how she blows me, hand to mouth, before she sucks on my balls and licks them while she jacks me. She repeats those moves. Again. And again. Until my eyes roll back in my head and I thrust my hands into her hair and begin to fuck her mouth in earnest.

She keeps her eyes trained on mine and I see the hand at her nether lips move faster. Her cheeks are hollowed out and her increased suction forces me to lock my knees so I don't fall down on her. I can't help but throw my head back and thrust deeper, down into her tight throat as she swallows me. 

I can hear myself biting off the filthiest cusswords on each slide of those lips so tightly around me. They're red and swollen from the hard mouth-fucking she's taking so well. My hips are bucking so damn hard now, a counterpoint to the music.

I tell her I'm going to blow my load and she deep throats me, swallowing me all the way down to my balls, one hand cupping my sac and rubbing my taint with saliva-slick fingers. Her throat massages me and I let go.

She is swallowing my cock and come as she hums while fingering herself even faster, her hips furiously in motion against her hand. Her cock-muffled yells are vibrating up and down my shaft as she sucks me dry on what feels like a shout. Fuck.

I finish just as cymbals clash and the music ends.

Buhawi begins to wank in earnest, his buttocks' clenching limned in the faint light from the moon and stars.

***

Okay, Tala sheds her gym shorts and settles on the shawl with her legs spread. All I need to do is make a good show of jilling myself off—and not think about how good it would feel to watch Buhawi stroke himself. Not hard. Not hard at all. Really. She shuts her eyes, as much to nullify the temptation to look at Buhawi as to lose herself in the fantasy she is calling to mind.

She pulls off her tank top and begins stroking her breasts, closing her eyes and going to her favorite fantasy of reclining against a muscular man big as... well, a big muscular man, then, stroking her breasts, rolling her nipples and tweaking them until she can't hold back her gasps. She arches her back, digging her shoulders and heels into the shawl and the compacted sand beneath it.

His hands are so hot and he is squeezing my breasts gently, rolling my hard little nipples and pinching them until I struggle to draw in air. He is licking a hot path from my shoulder to my earlobe while one hand trails down my belly to my thighs, up to my Delta of Venus and to my mons pubis.

I am shivering in pleasure because his fingers have found my wet center and he laughs softly, hotly in my ear. He is telling me how much he wants to eat my pussy while he finger-fucks me for the naked, writhing audience in orgy below the stage we're on.

One slow finger. Two, and faster. Three, and harder.

He is curling those long, thick fingers against that sweet, sweet spot inside me while he nips my earlobe with his teeth, licks and sucks it until my legs shake and my slickness drips to his bare thighs as he works those fingers into me and out again. I can feel his hard length against my butt and back. 

His voice is rough and low as he tells me how hard the men watching me are, how the women are fingering themselves with legs spread in abandon as they watch him frigging me. 

He tells me about one couple in a frantic sixty-nine and how another pair is pleasuring them with mouths and fingers and genitals slick with sweat and saliva. We're making that happen. We're the live porno that's getting them off.

His thumb is circling my hot button now, faster, harder. I hear groans and hushed cursing from the audience. He is telling me to come while he pinches one of my nipples, then the other, with his free hand. I am so wet his fingers squelch as they shuttle in and out of me. That bite of pain makes my pleasure rise even more.

So close, so very close. 

He licks the shell of my ear and tells me how much my arousal makes him want to drive himself to the hilt into the pussy his fingers are ravaging without mercy. 

He switches hands. The one wet with my juices rubs across my nipples, around the areaolae. He tells me that's for later, when he sucks my cream off my nipples. I'm ready to begin begging for release when he wraps a hand around my throat to hold me against his torso and speeds up the hand playing at heaven's gate. 

His legs spread wider, splaying mine further apart so the orgy below the stage can see just how I'm getting off on being finger-fucked for their pleasure.

He tells me to fuck myself on his fingers, to work for the satisfaction I crave, so I do and I'm not gentle, either. I rotate my hips and grind myself down against his calloused fingers, rub hard against his rough palm and gibber incoherently at the cusp of that climax I want so much.

He leaves a slow trail of sucking bites along my shoulder as his hands play my body to a frenzy. He tells me he wants to hear me scream for him as I come. I comply amid the smacking and sucking sounds of bodies fucking on the floor below. 

There. There. Finally. I begin my ascent to a climax. He lifts me up and impales me with his cock in one hard stroke, pulling my legs up over his arms, all the better to hold me open as he pummels into me with frenzied speed. 

We fuck like this until he begins to pulse, his come spurting onto my belly while he fists himself with one hand. He rubs my clit with the other, three fingers back in my sheath curling relentlessly on my G-spot and I scream again. His harsh obscenities vibrate along his teeth and the skin of my nape as my screams die down to whimpers.

Tala's body arches, her teeth dig into her bottom lip hard enough to draw blood. She is stretched out like a taut bowstring, her tight, round backside lifted high as her body works to reach that desperate climax.

The fire smoldering in her veins begins burning hotter again, the poison making her orgasm more intense, blending pain with her pleasure in equal measures.

Beside her, Buhawi's groans come just before his heated emission spurts onto the sand. He sinks to his knees, still holding himself in a tight fist, his body dripping sweat. His face is a rictus of tormented pleasure and his eyes shut tight, sealing him in his fantsy to the last moment of his orgasm. 

Poison or no poison, his climax is huge and exhausting.

***

Both Babaylan and Tikbalang had begun to drift into a post-orgasmic nap where they lay when they heard the wet smack of applause coming from the sea in front of them.

They opened their eyes in time to see a pair of siokoy rising from the water, one male (or so the tumescence at his groin would indicate) and one female. These were beautiful creatures, with their bodies covered by pearlescent scales the size of Tala's thumb. 

The female siokoy was broad-shouldered and curvaceous, with a large bust nipping into a small waist before flaring out into generous hips and gliding down to sleek, beautifully muscled legs. 

If not for her long, deep green, hair studded with pearls, the female siokoy would have been quite the ringer for a Baywatch babe. A beautifully scaled, very naked, exotic Baywatch babe with high cheekbones, full lips, a strong jaw and the most limpid black eyes Tala had ever seen.

The male was wide, as muscular as Buhawi, and roughly of the same height. 

One could have swapped his face with the male faces in any Juan Luna painting of pastoral scenes where men thresh the grain or plow the fields: His lips full and proud above strong cheekbones, his chiseled jaw strong and very masculine. 

He had wide, slanted, eyes of such a deep green that they looked black. Instead of hair, he had a large dorsal fin that caught and refracted the starlight and moonlight to cast a rainbow mohawk over his beautifully-shaped head.

"You give a good show," the male siokoy said, still clapping webbed hands. "My mate was impressed—and aroused. You will give us a wonderful impetus for our coupling tonight. I am sure that, on this night, we will create life."

"Please forgive my mate his forwardness," the female spoke, her voice like the sea ebbing from the sand. "My name is Siuraya and this is he-who-won-me. He is called Jairasiya. Tell me, what can we give you for the blessing you have given us? We have waited so long for a child and your openness with us grants us that."

"I am Buhawi and this is Tala," the Tikbalang said without preamble. "We need some if your kind's scales because we have both been poisoned with fouled tiyanak blood."

The pair of siokoy looked at each other, bringing their palms together for a minute or two before Jairasiya turned to Tala. "Our scales may only be given to a Babaylan. I take it you are she?"

"Well, will a Babaylan-in-training do?" Tala fidgeted, wanting very much to cover herself, but feeling that to do so might be rude to these gloriously naked (well, okay, scaled) creatures of the sea. 

Oh, what the heck, it's getting chilly. Tala donned her clothes, sand and all, and stuffed her shawl back into the satchel before slipping the strap across her neck and torso. Buhawi, meanwhile, got back into his pants.

"Ah, Baylan," Siuraya said, her voice sad indeed. "You must take the third hair and come into your own before we can give you any scales. Indeed, you must come into your own before we can conceive."

"But let us do this much for you," Jairasiya said in his voice of crashing waves. "Let us bring you to an island where you will have privacy so you may complete that final rite. There is a sandbar nearby that we can dry out for you, a path to your own paradise."

With that, the siokoy took the hands of Baylan and Tikbalang and, with their free hands, motioned for the sea to ebb until the sandbar Jairasiya spoke of came into view. 

The path was lined with a bioluminescent shimmering that grew into the bodies of more siokoy forming two rainbow-spangled queues leading to a gorgeous island dominated by a rock-faced waterfall.

"Behind the waterfall is a cave, where my queen mate and I go to worship one another's flesh," Jairasiya said. "Please feel free to use it to complete your coming into power with our felicitations."

Chapter 11—Pain and saved bacon

"Nice crib." Tala's words bounced in little echoes across a cavern given opalescent, shimmering light by crystals set in varicolored granite and sandstone dotted with lichen and ferns spiraling up to a hole at the top that opened to the sky.

Water falling in another spiral down and around the cavern walls on seed-pearl lined stone gutters filled a small pond that looked like a bathing pool surrounded by a natural dais of flat steel-gray rock that sat directly under the natural skylight through which the moonlight shone. The moonlight was refracted so that the water looked like fluid rainbows that sent colored light all dancing over the cave.

"Well, it doesn't hurt that they've been good enough to provide a bed," Buhawi said, setting his bag down at the foot of the biggest bed Tala had ever seen. It could have lain an orgy of ten without being crowded, and the blue-green sheets and pillows looked soft and inviting.

The cavern itself had several levels, including what looked like a recreation area near the cavern entrance with woven seats that swung off ropes bolted into low rock shelves and a low granite table. This area was highlighted by tide pools lined with bioluminescent algae at the lowest floor level. Glittering, fat fish swam and hermit crabs hosting anemonae scuttled among the multicolored live coral in these pools. 

The seating areas were lit from recessed lights that shone like the algae in the pools, just brighter—bright enough to read by, Buhawi noticed. Good, we can read if we need to, he thought as he took a deep, cleansing breath. We can also put those swinging chairs to good use. Without cracking any books. Heh.

Up a few hewn steps from the recreation area sat a rough deck that opened out onto the sea itself. Presumably the siokoy could dive off it if they wanted to. The view from this deck was stunning: The restless, dark ocean set against an umber sky filled with stars and a lazy moon. The salt air and undiluted scent of sea wafted in, cooling the cave interior.

Off to the side of the deck sat what could be a kitchen, of sorts, including some cannily-hidden cabinets that opened at Tala's touch. "Spices," she said as she discovered one such cubby. "Dried...fish? Maybe squid? They must like snacking when they aren't trying for a baby, huh?"

"Oh, I intend to build up an appetite," Buhawi said as he sat and swung from one of the chairs with a lazy push of one foot, his voice hot enough to bother what remained of Tala's equilibrium. "All of my appetites. And yours. Come here."

"Now?" Tala's voice shook with incredulity. "We don't even know what the next step is, you know." That said, she still walked toward Buhawi, bag in hand, with her hips swinging in time to the beating of her heart. 

Buhawi's eyes locked on Tala's hips before traveling up to her face (after an infinitesimal pause on her boobage, of course, because he loved looking at that boobage). "I just need to hold you now, Baylan. It's been a rough evening for me, too, you know. Bring out the spellbook. We should start reading through that if you can't find anything we need in Beatriz's Bestiario."

Stopping in front of the tikbalang, Tala laid her bag on the granite table and fished out Bulan's spellbook and looked upon it in dismay. "I can't really read much Baybayin, Boo. I sure hope you can."

Ah, nicknames now? Buhawi cocked a brow at Tala as he took her free hand. Nobody ever dared call me 'Boo.' It is doing funny things to my body and... okay, let's not go there yet. So I am falling for her, and that's just fine with me. But I need to make her fall just as hard. We can't be holding back now. The results of that would be unthinkable. 

"Of course I can read in Baybayin," Buhawi said as he drew Tala down into his lap, his voice low as unadulterated sin. "Give the book to me," he said as he drew circles up from Tala's left knee to the hemline of her very short shorts and held out his right hand, palm up.

"Can we read first and do the nasty later?" Tala said the aspersion in her tone making Buhawi smile down indulgently at her as if she were the cutest thing, ever.

"We will, sweetness," Buhawi locked eyes with her as he said this. "But you aren't going to deny me this gorgeous body, are you? I need to touch you. More than I need air or an antidote."

Tala, for want of a quick comeback, shut up and turned her attention pointedly back to the book, which Buhawi now held in both hands and was flipping through until he found a page likely to hold the text they needed. Buhawi began to read the squiggles and dots that made up the script of the ancients.

Where Beatriz's Bestiario was infused with many emotions, Bulan's book was spare in its text, almost academic in tone. The words were detached, clinical—and very clear because of it. Bulan was, after all, the first Babaylan and if this was how she reclaimed her immortality, then she knew that whereof she spoke.

***

Taming the Tikbalang: Final Phase

The third and final phase of the process is the most vital. By this point, there is no question that the Babaylan and the Tikbalang are committed to the quest for immortality and power. There is no question that failure is the worst option to choose.

The third hair is in the pubic area of the man-beast and it must be claimed decisively, by subjugating the Tikbalang totally and beyond question.

The Babaylan needs to bind her lover physically, as well as emotionally. She must be able to inflict punishment upon the Tikbalang's body and tattoo her name upon him from throat to genitals in Baybayin, that all who may see these marks will know the Tikbalang has been owned.

The Tikbalang's spirit will resist this, as is the creature's wont. Such beings need to be free, but this act of subjugation will, in fact, set him freer than he has ever been. He just has to be made to see that. And he will see that, in the end, if success is met. Yes, there must be cruelty for this ultimate kindness to bear good fruit.

He must be bound hand and foot so that he cannot break free. Seven times must he be brought to the brink of release and denied. The Babaylan will need all her strength do do this, and for it to happen as it should, she should not hold anything back.

On the first denial, the Tikbalang must be whipped on the back and she must draw blood. On the second, the backs and insides of his thighs. On the third, his mistress must slap his face as hard as she can. On the fourth she must take a strap to his buttocks. On the fifth she must punish his flanks with her nails. On the sixth, she has to tattoo her name on his chest with electricity called straight from the skies.




How to Tame Your Tikbalang Ch. 11



The seventh cycle is when she pulls the last hair from his genital area and, only then can she grant him release, and take hers with his. She must also make him swear his loyalty to her and her alone. Throughout this process, the Babaylan cannot, in any way, allow the Tikbalang the dominance he will attempt to assert. He must be utterly at her mercy, subject to her whims without question or the process will an utter failure.

On the seventh cycle, the Babaylan must wrap the claimed golden hair about her right index finger, where it will be absorbed through her skin and into her soul, changing it forever as she ascends the goddess' path. She may now release the Tikbalang from the restraints.

Emotions will run high as the final phase unfolds, as is normal, but neither Babaylan nor Tikbalang can lose sight of the final goal. If they are to achieve this goal, they must take their roles in this process seriously and not hesitate to fulfill these roles. 

Focus and determination will be the Babaylan's primary tools. The Tikbalang will need to trust his Babaylan, for he will only have her totally when she has owned him totally. It is only when this exchange of personal power is complete can the Tikbalang be released from his restraints.

After all, the Tikbalang is born of the gods. He needs a goddess. 

***

Tala gulped past the sudden choke in her throat as she listened to Buhawi's steady voice. How can he be calm reading this out loud? I'd be scared witless if I were in his shoes. And how am I supposed to hurt him the way Bulan says when I can't even kill a cockroach? She looked at Buhawi with these questions in her eyes and swalloed again. I'm just gonna have to do this. No ifs. No buts.

"Uhm, I need to tell you that I was never really into pain, Boo," Tala said, apology in her voice. "I mean, it is one thing to play kinky, it's a whole other thing to draw blood..."

Buhawi shut Tala up his usual way, by applying a sensual lip-lock that melted her brain (and other parts down south), his tongue soothing hers and keeping her from babbling in one (perhaps more, really) master stroke. His hands caressed her back and buttocks, pressing her even harder against his body, which was tense and hard for her again.

When he surfaced for air Buhawi was panting and smiling. "But we know what needs to be done now and, let me tell you this, I am so glad I'm not gonna be the one hurting you. Don't worry, I'm built like a horse and I can take whatever you dish out. I even brought rope, and a few toys you can use for tattooing and whipping me."

"But I have to draw blood!"

"And that's okay because my body will make more."

With that, Buhawi rose and went to pick up his duffle bag from the foot of the huge bed. He paused to test the granite pegs at the foot of the bed and two vertical lines of hooklike rock protrusions at either side of the head of the massive bedframe.

"This looks like as good a place as any to restrain me, Babaylan mine. Come here and get to work. I trust you not to kill me." Buhawi's eyes shone black in the soft light by the bed, his face etched in expectant desire. "Woman up and do me, Babaylan."

Tala approached Buhawi, her confidence increasing with each step as she stripped her shirt and shorts and left them in her wake. "Fine. Bring out the rope, horsey-boy." Her words came out harsh, as if she were accessing a dominant part of herself that she'd never known and was getting to like.

"Remember, no apologies, sweetness," Buhawi reminded her as he pulled four generous lengths of Manila hemp rope from his bag and laid it on the bed. "No hesitation." He laid the smoke and lightning sex toy and feather by the rope and knelt left-of-center on the bed, his magnificent ass facing Tala and flexing in sexual excitement as he looked at her over his shoulder. "I am putting myself in your hands with no regrets."

And I will always remember this picture of you on your knees, Tala promised silently, letting her eyes do the talking as she picked up one length of rope and bound one of Buhawi's ankles with it, allowing some slack in the loop to prevent a cut in his circulation and testing each of the seven knots she made to ensure there would be no unraveling until she loosed them. 

She repeated this process with his other ankle, spreading the Tikbalang's legs wide enough to leave his backside at her mercy and frame his scrotum in the most appealing way.

"Give me your hands," Tala said as she came around to face Buhawi. "Put your palms against each other." She was looping the two remaining lengths of rope together, bound his hands and tied the rope off securely to a mid-height hook at the head of the bed. She breathed in deeply, looking into Buhawi's eyes as she came in from the side to give him a carnal kiss filled with all the lust she felt for him, her hands woven tight into his hair as she plundered his mouth until his breathing ran ragged.

"I am so wet for you right now all I can think of is that I need to fuck you, Buhawi," Tala said, her words dark with desire. "And I will fuck you, eventually. If you are a good Tikbalang and take your punishment. For me. Because that is what you have to do."

She ran a finger lightly from Buhawi's lips to his nipples and pinched each one sharply, soothing each keen punishment with the heat of her lips and slick tongue, sucking until Buhawi groaned and pushed is chest against her, his head thrown back and his heartbeat thundering in his ears.

"I am going to make you beg so hard," Tala said in a sultry promise licked against his ear and neck as she moved behind him on the bed, her breasts and belly pressing against his back, her shins weighing in over his calves.

Tala kissed and bit at Buhawi's shoulder as both her hands snaked around his torso. She lifted her right hand up to his face as her left gripped his hip. "Lick it well. We don't want you getting friction burn, darling," Tala said as she nipped his earlobe. Shuddering from the sensual assault, Buhawi complied, licking from heel of palm to fingertips once, twice, thrice, before the Babaylan withdrew her hand.

She was shaking from the warmth of Buhawi's tongue as she brought that wet hand down to his tarugo and took it in hand as Buhawi groaned and thrust his hips forward. Her other hand cupped his bayag gently massaging the testes within as she began jerking his tarugo with a brutal grip.

Buhawi was lost in the driving motions of his tarugo in the slick tightness of Tala's hand. She was nipping a line of fire from earlobe to the space where neck met shoulder, telling him how much harder he has been getting in her hand, asking him how badly he wanted to come, telling him she would take him to the edge of heaven and keep him there.

He could feel his tamod rising, tightening his bayag against the apex of his groin. His breaths came even faster, matching the thrusting of his hips and he began to ride her hand for dear life, the finish line in sight.

Then she stopped and pulled her body away from his. Buhawi thrashed against the hemp rope, trying to find a way to get that sweet friction back against his dick.

"I'm so close, dammit!" Buhawi's face was a rictus of pleasure and pain and his groin was hurting in a way that was supremely unfunny.

"Bad boy." That was all Tala said before he felt the first strike of a many-tailed whip cross his sweaty back. Electricity crackled agains the sweat and skin, making him arch away from the pain and scream.

"You will take three strikes." Her voice was hard, nothing at all like the Tala Buhawi had known and grown fond of. "I will not have mercy on you. Keep screaming, but you will take this and I will give it to you. Hard."

Twice more, the whip landed, drawing blood at each tail's strike. Buhawi's back was, after those three strikes of the smoke and lightning whip, bloody as if he'd been scourged. His erection had wilted and Buhawi took a deep breath.

"That was one. Thank you, Baylan," he said, looking up as she came forward to look at him. "I trust you." She bit her lip at that and Buhawi found himself wishing he could bite her lip, too.

"Thank me later. I did not permit you to speak, Tikbalang." Tala was back in her role and she picked up the whip of smoke and lightning, willing it into another form: A quirt.

"Tell me, what other toys have you packed?" Tala said as put the quirt down where Buhawi could see it.

"Vibrating pleasure gems, my Baylan, heating oils and those erotic vines you enjoyed so much. I also have alligator clamps and lubricants, dildos and plugs—both mundane and from my world," Buhawi said, panting through the pain of his bleeding back.

She shuttered her eyes as she searched his duffle bag. It would not do to show him her distress over his torn back. What she did not see was that the bleeding was slowing and the rips were healing even as she searched his pack for the items she needed. You have to do this, Tala, she told herself sternly, holding her horror over bleeding Buhawi at bay. You have to or you can kiss both your asses goodbye.

"Do you want your orgasm, Tikbalang?"

"More than anything, my Baylan."

Their eyes met in a clash of brown and black fire and Tala licked her lips slowly. Buhawi groaned at the vision of his goddess-to-be looking ferally at him, at the white nip of teeth over red lower lip that told him she wanted to come, too.

"You come when I tell you you may. No sooner. Until then, I get to play with you."

She inserted herself into the vee of his bound arms, her palms flat over his pectorals as she licked the hollow of his throat, grabbed his hair and drew his head down for another hot invasion of his mouth.

Her thighs closed around his semi-hard cock, enclosing it in the slick wetness flowing down from her puki. "Can you feel how much I want you?" she asked, rubbing her wet pussy against his hardening member with sweetly cruel friction. "I am going to come against this beautiful cock, Buhawi. But I won't let you come. Not yet."

She molded her lips against his again, as his cock pulsed hotly between her thighs and jumped up, seeking ingress into her sweet, tight sheath. Tala swiveled her hips and Buhawi groaned into her mouth, his hips pumping ever harder against her.

Just when heaven's gate seemed within sight, Tala pulled back and away, her breaths heaving and her breasts slick with their sweat.

"Enough, my Tikbalang." Tala said on the exhale. "Time to see how much punishment those gorgeous thighs can take. Count out my strikes."

She'd gone behind him again, so Buhawi could not see where she would land the first blow from the quirt. It struck the inside of his right thigh and he gasped at the pain, a thin, red welt echoing the red of his vision as the electric surge layered pain on pain.

Again and again the quirt rose and fell, until he'd counted out seven strikes and was breathing hard from the pain, his eyes screwed shut and curses were echoing in his head. He bucked and screamed out each number, fighting to control his need to break free from the ropes even as both his feet lifted off the bed and his biceps flexed against the bindings at his wrists. The rope held and he dropped his chin to his chest.

"How are you, Buhawi?" Tala propped Buhawi's hung head up with the quirt as she asked the question, as she avoided looking at the blood trickling down his thighs.

"I am still alive, my Babaylan, and I still trust you. That was two." 

"Good," Tala said in her best strict training officer voice. "Because I intend to go for a ride. On your tarugo. Do you want to be inside me?"

Buhawi's answer was a groan and a sigh, mainly because Tala was stroking his dick with light teasing touches, circling the glans with a forefinger and running it up and down a pulsing, prominent vein.

"Yes. Please fuck me, my Baylan. Ride me if it pleases you."

Standing on the mattress within the triangle of his bound arms, Tala looked down at at Buhawi and put her hands on his shoulders before she lowered herself so her chest was level with his mouth. "Worship my breasts, Tikbalang."

Buhawi needed no further prodding. He'd been wanting to suckle her for hours. No, that wasn't right. There wasn't a time when he hadn't wanted to suckle her. So he went from one breast to the other, licking and nipping and sucking with gusto until his cock throbbed again, until she pushed her hands into his hair again and, on a gasp, tore herself loose from his mouth.

Tala kept one hand in his hair as she lowered herself further, taking his rock-hard penis in hand and aiming it at her hot, dripping center. Once the head was in, she squeezed it with her puki and licked his ear.

"I want more," her breathy whisper made his pulse hammer hard and intensely as she took another inch of him. "I want to engulf you and feel you filling me, stretching me, making me come." With those words, she drove down on his shaft and Buhawi's body arched toward her, pushing upward as far as his bonds allowed.

Tala rotated her hips clockwise as she descended, rotaing the other way as she rose. The slow corkscrew motions maddened Buhawi and he strained even harder against the ropes, willing her to speed up yet wanting this to last forever.

"Shhhh... stop fighting the ropes, Boo. I am going to keep fucking you slowly until you do."

Buhawi was crying out in a wordless mix of frustration and pleasure, groaning into Tala's shoulder as she wrapped her arms around his chest to clamp her hands on his shoulders. He forced his body to relax, laying his legs and feet against the mattress and letting his hands and arms relax the tension pulling the rope against his wrists taut.

"Good boy." Tala sped up her thrusts and deepened them, taking him to the balls as her pussy tightened rhythmically on his cock. "You feel so good like this. So hard. So hot." She kissed him again and he took her mouth for the boon it was, his tongue skirmishing with hers as he felt the tightening at the base of his spine that heralded his orgasm.

Tala gasped her pleasure against his mouth and her body shook, an orgasm she fought to hold at bay as she took his balls in hand and tugged gently, but sharply down, stopping his orgasm as her broke on through every nerve in her body.

Buhawi's body was on fire and his orgasm denial had him on the very edge of his temper now. Fury was blazing black in his eyes as Tala ducked out from under his arms and away from him, a hand over her pulsing pussy. He bowed his head again, teeth on his lower lip so he wouldn't shout at Tala. Oh, Gods, I am never going to breathe normally again. Fuck. My. Life. He shook from the effort it was taking not to lash out and demand that he be allowed to come.

Keep your eye on the ball, man. You have four more rounds to go. Four more rounds that made him want to scream and commit murder. Four more rounds that could, very well, break his sanity for good.

"How are you, Buhawi?"

That question. Fuck that question. Why did Tala sound so gods-damned controlled? "Fuck your question. I am not all-fucking-right. Just get on with my punishment, Babaylan. I still trust you but you are really laying the hurt on now."

He should have expected the impact of her hand on his face. After all, he was the one who read the passages from Bulan's spellbook. Yet it came as a shock of flesh and bone hitting flesh and bone and his eyes widened at the burst of pain that lit up his cheek and made his erection fade again.

"That's for the disrespect in your tone, Tikbalang." Tala backhanded him on the return swing. "That's for glaring at me. I am doing this out of love for you and love for myself, for love of all our realms, including yours, Tikbalang mine. You will be grateful for it."

So I am not the only one with temper on the edge. Good. Buhawi smiled grimly, even as he tasted blood from the impact of his teeth against his inner cheeks. That woman sure can pack a wallop, he thought ruefully and shook his head at the thought—as much to clear his head as to express his utter exasperation.

"Thank you, Babaylan mine." His answer was uttered through gritted teeth, but there was gratitude in it, nonetheless. Buhawi just hoped Tala could tell. "That was three."

The Babaylan picked up the writhing vines she'd laid on the bed and held them up for him to see. "Tell me, how do you use these?" Her tone was now all command and, despite the pain lancing through his body, Buhawi could feel his pussy-wet cock beginning to rise anew.

"They respond to thoughts, just like the flogger" Buhawi answered, his teeth still gritted. "You visualize what you want to do to me and they will do it."

Tala smiled evilly at him as she laid the vines over his huge, angry tarugo. "I wonder what hasn't been done to you, lover boy?" She closed her eyes for a moment before meeting his gaze, a smile quirking up the corners of her luscious red lips.

She drew her tongue over her top lip as she turned her gaze to the vines, which began to wind around Buhawi's jerking member. The vines began squeezing and wrapping themselves up his length like a nest of boa constrictors, wrapping it in overlapping coils that came to just the crown of his cock.

"Fuuuuuuuuuck!"

"Do you like that, big boy? Do you like those vines coiling around your ari and rubbing it? Mmmmm. I know you do. Look at the tip of your cock. It's weeping for joy."

Buhawi's gasps filled the air, interspersed with multi-tonal variations on the theme "fuck" that was about all the Tikbalang could utter. Then one slim vine snaked its way up, tracing the slit of his cockhead, teasing it, fucking the hole in shallow forays and Buhawi's whole body clenched.

Tala knelt in front of the Tikbalang now, her breath on his chest as she drew closer, her tongue darting out to lick the defined line between his pectoral muscles just as that slim vine pushed deeper into his cock's slit, rubbing inside and plugging the hole at the same time.

"Do you like getting fucked by that the way you fucked me with it?" Tala's words rang in his ears, right along with the pounding thrum of blood through his whole body as he fucked his hips forward against the vines.

"Yesssss. Fuck, yeah."

"Good Tikbalang." Tala licked and sucked on his nipples again, and Buhawi began to beg her for release with his body, his mouth shut tight against the words he was just dying to let out.

More filaments of vine wrapped around his balls, rubbing him to madness before they clamped around the flesh between scrotum and cock, tightening so no seminal fluid could escape.

Buhawi couldn't hold his screams of pain and fury in any longer. "Fuck me, just let me come, woman!" 

"No."

With that one syllable, Tala picked up Buhawi's pants, pulling his leather belt from them before snapping it and folding it in half. She gripped the belt in a white-knuckled hand and raised it before making the air sing in practice for its passage down to his muscular ass.

"I'm going to belt that ass of yours now, Boo. I will give you twelve strikes and you will count them out for me."

Fire seared the skin of his ass as the belt connected again and again, one cheek first, then the other, none of the strikes overlapping but each one hurting like a bitch as he screamed his count. After four blows, Tala let the belt drop and stroked his ass cheeks with her warm palms, soothing him as he bucked hard against his restraints.

She followed that pattern thrice, thankful he could not see the tears streaming down her face even as she kept the amount of force she applied steady and unwavering.

Buhawi was thankful Tala could not see his face. Because if she did and he had Superman's laser eyes, she'd be ashes on the floor. His maddened animal was struggling to surface. He could feel the warhorse, unbroken as it yet was, coming out of his skin. He could feel the bones of his face changing, lengthening into a horse's muzzle and he couldn't stop it.




How to Tame Your Tikbalang Ch. 11



When the belting ceased, he bellowed out: "That was four!"

Buhawi's feet were hooves now, his ankles grown wider so the bonds around them dug in. Tala saw this and knew she'd have to finish soon or he would either morph fully or break loose half-shifted.

She took the vines from his cock and flung them on the bed as she got down on her knees in front of him and took the Tikbalang's much-grown member in both hands, jacking and twisting her hands up and down its length.

"Mmmmm... horse cock," she said as she licked up his belly in hot, wet swipes. "I like horse cock." She engulfed his cockhead in her mouth and began sucking in as much as she could take, her hands pumping and twisting along the part of him she could not push into her mouth.

Buhawi's body shuddered even harder, his adrenalin- and shift-induced strength starting to fray the ropes as he pulled on them steadily. His hips began jerking back and forth again, the motions instinctive and desperate. 

When his cock began to swell even more, Tala pulled away and scraped her nails up the sides of Buhawi's thighs, hard enough to draw eight bloody trails from knee to hip and make him whinny madly.

"Five!" Buhawi yelled, flame and smoke jetting out of his nostrils. His Tikbalang fire was coming out and he was more than maddened enough for single combat now. But, frayed as they were, the ropes held and even the fire he was capable of breathing when truly angry couldn't reach the bindings on his wrists.

"Just one more punishment, my love," Tala said with a strength she couldn't believe she had. "Then I will let you come. Trust me some more."

Buhawi looked at her as she rose up right on her knees, too far away from his agonized body. Anything that takes her away from my ari is too damned far. He nodded and nuzzled the hand she held to his muzzle as his tail sprouted out and the rest of the change took over his body.

Tala picked up the flame feather which had not, as she feared, set the mattress on fire. She held it up and uttered a short incantation to the Ibong Adarna, wherever that primped up, glorified rooster may be.

"I am branding you with this feather the way you branded me, Tikbalang. You are mine as much as I am yours."

Tala remembered her old lessons in Baybayin, the ones that taught her to write her name in the language of her ancestors. She held that picture in her mind, fixed it well and brought the feather down to Buhawi's offered throat. 

Buhawi felt the throb of arousal build almost impossibly high in his body, making his dick bob like it had a life of his own as Tala wrote the first character of her name, then the second. Her name was tattooed on his chest as if with lava, if lava could give such sublime pleasure while it burned everything in its path.

The rush of molten pleasure from the feather encompassed his torso, shooting down to his groin and through his legs, to his toes, shot up and outward to reach the top of his skull and the tips of his fingers as he writhed in his bonds.

Tala's name glowed gold over the sleek black fur on the Tikbalang's chest and she dropped the feather to grip the base of Buhawi's tarugo, stopping his seed yet again.

"Save that for my body, Boo," Tala said with steel in her voice. "It is mine, not yours." With that she held on with a grip that would not be denied, her eyes locked to his as his nostrils flared and spouted some more fire.

"I am yours, Tala," Buhawi's words were coming out on gasps for air now. "I trust you. You own me as I own you." His eyes shone with suffering and with what Tala would have liked to think was love. 

She drew a deep breath when Buhawi's erection calmed to flaccidness again. "Then we will finish this. You like shoving your finger up my ass. I wonder if you ever thought of karma?"

Tala's eyes glittered like the tree sap that traps unsuspecting insects in amber forevermore. She picked up the pleasure gems, rotating them against each other in one hand until they began to vibrate and sing.

"I hope you like having your version of ben-wa balls up your ass," Tala said, tryng for a conversational tone as she poured cinnamon-scented warming oil over them. "I also hope you like having a literally hot ass. Bend over."

Tala put a firm hand against the small of Buhawi's back, pushing him forward and, as he complied, spread his butt-cheeks with her free hand.

Buhawi jerked his head up with each intrusion into his ass and back down as the gems began to vibrate against his prostate gland, bringing his ari back to attention

Tala moved back to Buhawi's front and pushed his shoulders back until he was upright. He looked down to see her bending over, his view of her perfectly heart-shaped ass riveting his attention until he felt her mouth engulfing his cockhead and her tongue giving him the sweetest lashing of his life.

Tala took hold of the golden hair at his groin, the one right in front of her eyes, and wound it around her forefinger. She suckled Buhawi harder and tightened the hand she had on his cock, jerking him off as she began to swallow as much of his shaft as she could. She pulled on the hair, hard, until his body let it go, her cry of victory vibrating down to Buhawi's balls and taking him back to that sweet, sweet precipice. 

Buhawi felt the power of his full shift surge through him and he yanked on his bonds, feeling the rope finally give way. Tala clambered up over her Tikbalang, her knees at his hips as he surged upward to meet her body.

He's so much bigger now that he's shifted to his full Tikbalang body, Tala thought, I have to make that huge tarugo fit and, by the Old Gods, I will. She pushed herself down feeling the wide head of Buhawi's cock against her dripping slit. She rubbed teasingly against it and Buhawi bellowed out her name.

Without looking, the Babaylan sheathed her Tikbalang in her puki, riding him hard and fast, his increased girth stretching her even more, making her scream out his name in pain and pleasure. 

Buhawi's hands were still bound, but his freed legs allowed him to push off the bed and fuck hard and furiously into his Babaylan's tight wetness over and over while she tucked her face against his neck, her fingers digging into his shoulders as they both rode their passion.

The golden hair melted into Tala's skin. She felt the surge of power stream through all her blood vessels as she began to come apart in a series of multiple orgasms that drove all rational thought from her mind.

Tikbalang and Baylan rode the night, their orgasms rippling like heat haze through their bodies, leaving them shaking and barely conscious as their ragged breaths and shouts echoed around the cavern and out the open expanse of the deck to surf on the rough waves of the incoming tide.

"My Buhawi," Tala uttered on a shaky breath as Buhawi reverted to his human form beneath her. She put a hand on his stubble-roughened cheek and lay down into the circle of his embrace.

"My goddess." Buhawi's last conscious thought was uttered out loud. Not that Tala heard as she passed out a few seconds before he did.



How to Tame Your Tikbalang Ch. 12



Tala's eyes snapped open with a suddenness that stunned her and she jolted bolt upright in Buhawi's arms. Shit! I forgot to untie Buhawi. She scrambled off the bed to find her bag and extract the keen little folding knife that was her everyday carry (living in Sin City meant going about armed, after all).

She walked back to the sleeping Tikbalang and gently lifted each extremity so she could slice the abaca rope off with a clean swipe of the nifty black Sypderco's blade. By the time she'd gotten to the last bindings on his left ankle, Buhawi roused and eyed her with a sleepy little smile pushing up one corner of his full lips.

"Hey, goodess mine," his voice slurred a bit over the 'goddess' part of that sentence as he rolled over on his belly. "My back's sore like you wouldn't believe." 

The pleasure gems were sitting on the bed and Tala picked them up, putting them in a bowl on the bedside table that she'd filled with some of the water from the beautiful bathing pool as Buhawi spoke before turning to him. She picked up the sex-vine thing and popped it into the bowl, too and set the smoke and lightning thingamajigabob on the table beside the bowl. 

Tala smiled back at her lover. My lover? Where did that thought come from? Well, maybe my fucker? Fuckee? Shit. Her confusion was not visible in the lines of her face, but it made for some interesting storms in her eyes and Buhawi saw that much more quickly than he wanted to.

"What's between the ears, my lovely witch?" Buhawi worked to keep the question cool, casual, even. But the worry knit his brow as he propped himself up on his elbows.

"Nothing." Tala's response was loaded with a lot of somethings, but damned if she'd admit it now. She rummaged in Buhawi's duffle bag by the bed, as much to keep her face from view as to find something, anything that would salve the wounds she'd inflicted on his tough Tikbalang hide. "Do you have anything here even remotely resembling an anti-bacterial cream or hydrogen peroxide or iodine? Bandages? First aid kit?"

"Is that all you're worried about, my love? You seem to be all pink and flustered," Buhawi said evenly. "I love how you go into a full body flush when you are embarrassed, or horny, or..." he let that sentence drift off tantalizingly, knowing full well Tala hated hanging sentences.

Tala popped her head up over the mattress and glared at Buahwi. "Well, go on, finish the statement. And don't think I didn't catch the L-word you inserted oh so casually."

"The L-word? Since when can a communicator like you not be able to say the word 'love,' sweetness? C'mon, you can say it. Just one and a half syllables, 'love.' C'mon." Buhawi was back to teasing Tala, knowing full well he had her exactly where he wanted her: Over a damned barrel.

"Look, I'm worried about the whole 'tattoo your name in Baybayin with a fresh streak of lightning' thing, okay?" Tala's temper exploded with each syllable she bit off. "I don't know if I did that right and I'll be damned all to the world below if I have to do that again because, as kinky-hot as whipping the crap out of you was, I can't bring myself to look at what I did to you. I'm not a sadist and I will not repeat that."

"Come to the bed, darling woman," Buhawi said, cocking up a knee and displaying his mouthwatering eight-pack and obliques to best effect (not to mention the other parts that made Tala's heart go all pitter-pat in a happily quick syncopation). "I told you that if you make me bleed, my body will make more blood. And don't worry about the cuts and scratches—they're not bleeding anymore because we monsters heal really fast."

"So why the fuck are you complaining about being sore?"

"Because I want you to pamper me a bit, you silly female," Buhawi said on a laugh. "I'm appealing to your tender underbelly. To get you within arm's reach. So I can ravish your pretty little puki again. With my mouth. Maybe my fingers and a few toys... definitely with my tarugo."

Tala picked up the nearest bolster pillow and began hammering Buhawi on the head and about the shoulders with it and, forced to defend himself from the pillow assault, he yanked another pillow and parried as best he could until they both collapsed on the bed in a hailstorm of laughter.

Buhawi wrapped his arms around Tala when they could finally breathe evenly again and threaded his fingers into her sex-wild hair, turning her head to face him. "Look, you used the lightning and smoke toy as both flogger and quirt. It channels lightning straight from the sky. So does the Adarna feather because that bird is a mix of fire and lightning. So it's all good."

"This ritual is not like a recipe you can improvise on, Boo," Tala said, her anxiety back in spades. "I'm so sure I went wrong with the last part." Her eyes went luminous with unshed tears and she bit a quivering bottom lip.

"Don't cry. Please, for the love of the Old Gods, don't cry," Buhawi said, pulling Tala close to his chest so he wouldn't see her spill those treacherous tears that made him fall all to hysterical bits of useless Tikbalang meat. "If something went wrong, then tell me why the gashes on our upper arms are closed now. Because they are."

Tala brought her head back up off Buhawi's chest and peeked at the area on his arm that had been strafed by the two poisoned arrows and they were indeed healed. Then she looked at her own injury and her eyes grew even wider. "They are. But that poison is supposed to stop the healing, isn't it? Does this mean we aren't poisoned anymore?"

Shafts of pain shot through their arms as Tala posited her query, as if in reminder of the fact that they did indeed still have poison running in their blood. 

"I guess not." Buhawi's sharp inhale and the darts of pain zinging in his body and hers as he spoke pushed him chest to chest with Tala. "We still need the scales. Why don't you go parley for them while I read up the preparation of our remedy? Because, while the poison won't kill us anymore, it will fucking hurt like a huge bitch ever after and make us do rash things we really shouldn't."

Tala nodded and reached for her clothes. Donning the tank top and gym shorts, she made her way to the cavern opening swiftly and with purpose to her stride.

***

When her feet stepped onto the talcum-like surface of the sandbar, Tala found Jairasiya and his consort, Siuraya, lounging against a rough boulder, kissing softly.

The siokoy couple slowly parted and turned their eyes to the Babaylan, smiles wreathing their faces. This is it. If I am truly a full Babaylan, they'll give me the scales we need. They'll know, Tala thought to herself. Please, Bulan, let me not have done this wrong.

Siuraya rose gracefully from the sand, her scales making little rainbow sparkles in the air like a shimmering aura of color spawned by the moonlight against the dark velvet sheen of the sky. She stretched out her arms to Tala and unfurled her palms in welcome.

"There is a change I sense in you, Babaylan," Siuraya's voice carried softly as she walked to meet Tala halfway. "Your power has grown like the sun rising to its zenith. You completed your ritual?"

"I think I did," Tala responded, shifting from foot to foot uncomfortably. "But I am not sure."

"If you were able to pull the third golden hair, godling, then you completed the ritual successfully," Jairasiya said, rising behind his wife and welcoming Tala in the same way as his consort. "That hair would not have been plucked if you did not use enough lightning."

"Where's a plug socket when you need one, eh?" Tala's question was unintentionally flippant, but she was quite uncertain of what she was now and that insecurity came right out of her mouth.

"You need no plug sockets, Babaylan," Siuraya said with a serenity that made Tala want to yank on the siokoy's hair until her neck snapped. Tala tamped her temper down. They aren't human, you dolt. Don't expect them to understand what makes you so afraid.

"The ritual was completed as it needed to be, with enough lightning and will, with the Tikbalang's fight and submission and your domination, reluctant as it must have been, if I read your body movements right," Jairasiya said, his observations making Tala even more uncomfortable.

Tala's hands were busy fidgeting with each other and her shifty feet had begun their own dance, as if the sand were hot and not cooled by the Habagat winds blowing in from the north.

Siuraya walked closer to Tala, her eyes soft with sympathy for the Babaylan. She motioned to Jairasiya, silently bidding him to come to her side. The siokoy flanked Tala and walked her away from the rock they'd been reclining against as they kissed, moving a safely far distance from it before turning her back around.

Jairasiya cupped Tala's face in his webbed hands and spoke to her calmly and reasonably. "If you are indeed a full Babaylan, you will be able to move that rock over there." He pointed to the boulder with his full lips and looked back at Tala. "Then, while it is moving, you can shatter it with lightning called straight from the sky. That, my dear, should prove to you that you are what you set out to become."

"Jairasiya is right, young one," Siuraya concurred. "You will have to try that and see for yourself how your power has grown. Then we can give you our scales in a fair trade. Already I quicken with new life that I will allow my mate to carry to term in a few days' time, so I know you have come into your own. Our children are already made. You need to believe in what you now are."

"Visualize it, right? Make what incantations I know?" Tala's upswept right brow underscored her queries and the siokoy couple nodded in syncronicity with each other.

Tala closed her eyes and envisioned the boulder rolling left, then right. She opened her eyes to see that it was, indeed, rolling as she wanted it to roll. She lifted it up to the sky, about even height with her head and the boulder levitated to the desired height.

Then the Babaylan extended her left arm to the heavens, silently calling for a lightning bolt that streaked down to hover over her open palm, frozen in the sky and subject to her will until she unleashed it by pointing her index finger at the boulder. 

She let loose an incantation in Latin from the Bestiario, the one meant to shatter glass and wood because she couldn't call anything else to mind. She reshaped the oracion, substituting the Latin word 'lapis' for the other words underscored by Beatriz and let her trapped lightning bolt fly.

The bolt passed through Tala's body, exiting from the tip of her forefinger in a jet of white light and firing all her nerve endings. The passage of the lightning through her arms and chest made Tala hyperaware of her surroundings. The color dancing on the siokoys' scales just outside the corner of her eye was so very clear, the shapes of the stars were well-defined behind the boulder and above the horizon splitting sea from sky. She could hear her own raspy breaths as if they'd been broadcast over a 7.1 surround sound system at full volume. 

Time seemed to slow down to the point that she could see each individual molecule of plasma from the lightning shoot toward her target. The rock shattered into a granite firework display, its shards falling gracefully to earth as the ear-splitting cracks broke it into a round blast of gravel and sand.

"Gods of war, I did it!" Tala's cheer rang across the small isle and into the cave to Buhawi's ears and the Tikbalang smiled as he continued reading Bulan's spellbook, his finger on the recipe for tiyanak venom antidote.

"Yes, beautiful Babaylan, you did," Siuraya said, her chiming voice brimming with glad laughter. "We did tell you so," she said, rubbing her belly with a loving hand. "And my Jairasiya will soon grow round with our fingerlings. Well done."

Jairasiya bowed his head to his consort, then turned ot repeat the gesture as he faced Tala. "As promised, here are our scales." The siokoy king opened a lovely, large clam shell to show Tala a pile of beautiful, irridiscent scales. "A dozen from me and another dozen from my beloved. We also included 24 more scales gifted by our people, for you to keep, just in case."

Tala cupped the clamshell in her trembling hands and looked both siokoy in the eye. "Thank you so much, Jairasiya, Siuraya. I—I don't know what more to say except thank you."

"You are welcome, Babaylan." Siuraya spoke the words with a beautiful smile. "Now, go to your Prince. He needs you."

***

Tala was dancing on her way back into the cave, where Buhawi was setting out red pillar candles, black salt crystals, what looked like a large piece of kelp and feathers from a rooster's gaudy tail on the table by the tide pools.

"Scales incoming! Who's the Babaylan? Who?!" Yeah, she was pumping her fist in the air like a champ, alright.

"You the Babaylan, my witch-goddess!" Buhawi answered, not bothering to hide the jubilation in his voice. "And I love you for it. To bits. To absolute bits," the Tikbalang said unabashedly as he caught Tala up in a happy, sweep-her-off-her-feet-and-spin-her-world hug. "I am not letting you go for the rest of my life, babe." The last statement was a whisper against the cleavage between her breasts, words that made her go hot and cold all over—in both a good and a bad way.

Because she was leery about dropping the precious scales, Tala didn't brain Buhawi as was her first reaction. Instead, she stared down at him with fright lightening her eyes almost to amber, her pupils mere pinpricks in her irises' fields of old gold.

"Whoa, Nellie! Rewind and dub that over, Boo."

"Not on your life, Ta." Tit-for-tat time. Buhawi told himself as he teased Tala. If she sees fit to give me an atrocious nickname, two can play at that game.

"Seriously? We have an antidote to make and this is the worst time to lay declarations of undying love on me, buster."

"What better time is there? We're poisoned. There's a Sharespearean touch to this, us being star-crossed lovers and all, my Juliet."

"Gago. We're not committing suicide and we are not pre-teen kids whose families won't let us marry." Tala rolled her eyes. Please, Bathala, give me patience right now. And please make this big lug release me. She tried to wiggle out of Buhawi's embrace, to no avail.

"Well, there is that. But the poison part. And you have a knife. So sexy, yeah. Edge-play. Mmmmm." Buhawi wrapped a big hand around Tala's nape and pulled her in for a slow kiss that began with him coaxing her to open her mouth with his tongue and ended up with both of them breathlessly tongue wrestling and playing tonsil-hockey with gusto and vigor.

By the time he pulled away, Buhawi knew his Babaylan had acquised to his persuasion. For now. Which was just fine because they had an antidote to make.

Tala walked out of the Tikbalang's embrace on unsteady legs and set the clam shell down among the rest of the ingredients. She took a deep breath to focus her mind and steady her hands as she got down to brass tacks. "Okay, hit me with it. What do we have to do?"

"You take one of the red feathers and breathe on it. Then make me breathe on it." Tala followed the instructions Buhawi was reading from Bulan's book. "Then you put the feather on the seaweed sheet."

They went through the motions until all the enchantments and antidote ingredients were assembled and wrapped in the seaweed and the red candles lit from the lightning Tala was getting so much better at calling and aiming.

"Now, bind the package with your power, Babaylan. Just close your eyes and visualize it transforming into a potion. Transmute the ingredients with your mind," Buhawi instructed, his nose firmly in the book. "Keep your focus now."

Tala held the precious package of antidote in the palm of her left hand and covered it with her right. She chanted the Bestiario's spell of transmutation under her breath, even as she crafted a crystal bottle in her mind and filled it with the shimmery liquid she imagined an antidote of siokoy scale would look like.

The flat glowing rectangle in her hand elongated and gained a bulbous curve pushing her hands apart as it grew a neck and stopper of cork. Tala felt the beads of sweat forming on her brow as she held on to the vision while the darts of pain from the poison returned and almost made her drop the bottle of antidote. 

Buhawi saw her hand shake and he gently put his bigger hand beneath her shaky one, catching the overbalanced bottle. "Thank goodness you made a stopper," he said, his chuckle coming out strained as he, too, fought the pain an weakness the poison sent through his system.

"So what next?" Tala turned intent eyes on Buhawi as he referred to his mother's spellbook and turned beet-red.

"Well, we need to drink the potion. You first, then me. Then..."

Tala swigged her half of the potion and handed the bottle to Buhawi, cocking a curious brow up at him as she swallowed. "Then..." One hand was moving in a 'please continue' gesture as she passed the flask on to the Tikbalang.

Buhawi knocked his shot of antidote back like a pro and swallowed the potion. "Then... we have to go back to being pervs. How do you feel about butt sex?"

"Butt what?"

"Me up yours. Not the front."

"You have got to be effin' kidding me."

"Nope." Buhawi read the passage he was referring to from Bulan's spellbook under the heading 'After the Antidote: Exorcising the Aftereffects.'

"After imbibing the full dose of the antidote for tiyanak blood venom, the poisoned parties must engage in anal sexual relations. First the female, then the male, with the female penetrating him using an apparatus strapped to her loins," Buhawi read, careful to keep any inflections out of his voice, though he was feeling rather conflicted about the instructions he was reading to Tala.

Of course I'd love to be in that butt, Buhawi argued with himself. But I don't want to hurt Tala and I am kind of, well, massive. Definitely not human down there no matter how it looks.

"I have to take that up my butt? All the way kind of up the butt?" Tala swallowed nervously as she eyed the anaconda in Buhawi's board shorts, which the loose board shorts could not hide at all. "Fuck me sideways," she muttered, heavy on the sarcasm.

"Well, Inay says nothing about being fucked anally and sideways..." Buhawi began to explain when Tala yanked the book from his hand and swatted his arm as hard as she could. "But maybe we should, considering my size..."

"I'm not speaking literally." Tala said. "I'm talking about physical impossibilities."

"It's not physically impossible," Buhawi said, reclaiming the book from Tala's nerves-cold fingers. "But if you read on, it should be possible because, and I quote: 'If either receiver of a phallus up the rectum is fearul of tearing, which is reasonable, the antidote allows the imbiber great flexibility and ability to stretch beyond normal parameters in all areas of the body—including the anal passage. Of course, it would still be prudent to lubricate the area and the phallus in question beforehand.'"

"You aren't bullshitting me, are you?" Tala's question caught on a quaver as she looked up at Buhawi's dead serious face.

"I'm being honest. And I promise you I will make it as good for you as I can." His face was earnest and there was worry in his eyes and Tala couldn't bring herself to think he was telling even a smidgen less than the truth. "There are so many ways to make the hurt feel good, baby." His voice dropped to a dominant, sexy whisper, and Tala had the sneaking suspicion that, as much as Buhawi worried about causing her pain, he did want to fuck her in the ass.




How to Tame Your Tikbalang Ch. 12



"Do we have to do that now, as in, right now, now?" Tala's gulps were nearly audible in their nervousness.

Buhawi hated to crush the little spark of hope in Tala's voice, but he went on as he began: With barefaced honesty as he looked her straight in the eyes: "Yes. So I need you to strip." He went to the bedside to pick up the cinnamon oil on the bedside table and the smoke-lightning toy.

Hesitant, Tala trailed him to the bed and he took her hands when she reached his side. 

"You asked me to trust you earlier, remember? We weren't immortal then and you could have killed me if you'd made that choice, but I trusted you with my life, right?" Buhawi was earnest as he spoke, looking down at his Babaylan with reassurance and a question in his eyes. Tala nodded, bereft of words. "Then trust me now. I can't kill you anymore, my goddess. I can even go as slow as you need me to go. I'll start with just a finger. Or two."

Making up her mind, Tala stripped out of her clothes for the third time of the evening and crawled onto the mattress, laying her head down on a plump King-sized pillow and waggled her rounded butt in the air.

"Go for it. Before I change my mind. And please, be gentle. I've never had anything bigger than your finger up there." Tala heard the rustle and slide of cloth as Buhawi shed his board shorts. She screwed her eyes shut tight, expecting the worst when she felt a light, wet touch as Buhawi rimmed her back end and caressed her ass cheeks with his big, warm hands.

"Relax, sweetness. The instructions did not forbid some fun," Buhawi said, his breaths hot on her puckered hole. He went back to licking her, this time with more pressure as she reached back to hold her cheeks apart for him. 

"I take that as a yes, my love." Now he was rubbing a finger up and down her wet puki slit, running the same circles around her still-sensitive clitoris as his tongue was running around the throb of her pucker hind hole. He put a bolster and another pillow under Tala's torso and she rubbed her breasts against the raw silk of the pillowcase, needing the soft stimulation on her hard nipples as Buhawi's licking and fingering intensified. "You are so pink down here, a deep rose. So pretty. So delicious."

She felt him press something wriggling and warm against her inner labia, just outside the entrance to her puki. It was the vine thing and it was expanding into one thick, smooth vine and pushing its way into her feminine core the same way his tongue was seeking entry behind it. One tentril wended its way to her clitoris, wrapped around the engorged and stiff little bud and jacked it until she began making the most animal sounds of pleasure as the thicker segment of vine rubbed firmly against her G-spot, making her hips hump forward and back to its slow burn of a rhythm.

"I love this ass," Buhawi said, his voice thick and slightly slurred because he was so turned on. "It tastes so damn good and it's so tight. I'm going to enjoy fucking it until you scream your pleasure."

Tala was so pink with embarrassment now, caught between the throes of a full-body blush and the rush of arousal radiating outward from her most private parts to the tips of her fingers and toes, arousal that threatened to blow the top of her skull wide open and splatter her brains on the rock wall in front of them both. "Do it, love. Breach my ass."

Buhawi poured a generous amount of cinnamon oil over her pulsing pink rosette, pushing the oil in with one long finger, then two, in a steady glide and scissoring the fingers to stretch her a bit before adding a third finger when she relaxed ever so slightly and breathing deeply. He then liberally spread more of the oil on himself, hissing along with Tala as the slight sting of the oil's heat began to seep past the very sensitive skin of his southern reaches (and hers). 

He pulled at his penis once, sliding his hand back to its base and positioned himself for entry. 

"Oooooh... that... that feels... good," Tala said in surprise as Buhawi breached her sphincter on a slant to ease the way, then pushed steadily until he was fully seated, holding both hs breath and his position. 

"Keep going. Please." The Babaylan's words exited her mouth with a begging tone as Buhawi pressed forward and the thick vine in her pussy pulled out, its slim tendril continuing to jack her clit off like a little penis.

Once he was seated fully, Buhawi began a slow rhythm, his breaths coming in sharp inhales and coming out as pleasured grunts as he gripped her hips, holding back the frantic tempo his body was demanding with increasing intensity as he thrust and withdrew. 

"Please go faster, Boo," Tala pleaded. "You aren't hurting me. Make me come. Please, please make me come. I need to get there so badly."

And that was all the encouragement the Tikbalang needed to go to town on Tala's ass. Buhawi pumped harder and deeper, his pleasure coming in closer and closer waves now. His eyes were shut tight and his face thrust upward to the cave ceiling above the bed. Tala's pleasure and pain were so deeply rooted in each other that she could only embrace both, relish the sensation as if she'd always done this. Stars were about to go nova and she was right up there with them.

"Dear sweet gods, you feel so good, Boo. Fuck. I'm coming so hard," Tala screamed in a crescendo half into the pillow beneath her face as she shoved her ass up to meet Buhawi's frenzied thrusts. "Fuuuuuuck!" Her high-pitched wail drew a roar from the very depths of Buhawi's soul in answer. Every sinew was taut on his body as he ejaculated a several long streams of semen into Tala, pumping them deeper and deeper until he couldn't pump his hips any more.

Breathless, Babaylan and Tikbalang rolled over and into a hug on the bed, their mouths meeting in a series of lazy, sated kisses. The vine thing in Tala had stopped its frenetic movements and fell, shaking, to the bed between Tala's splayed legs. 

"Let me catch my breath, Big Person," Tala said finally, putting both her palms flat against Buhawi's chest ahd pushing him gently. The Tikbalang took her not-so-subtle hint and let her up for air, one hand sweeping possessively up and down her side as he rolled onto his back. 

He reached into his duffle bag by the bed and drew out two bottles of water, uncapping them and handing one to Tala. "Drink up. We need to stay hydrated to finish this antidote spell." Buhawi downed his water in one long swallow and they both rested awhile, catching their breath and drowning in each other's eyes while they were at it.

When their breathing rates normalized, Tala turned to Buhawi, her eyes somber, yet darkening to hot chocolate as she thought of pleasuring him as he'd just pleasured her.

"I know you liked those balls up your back end," she said, flicking his nipple with her tongue as he pulled her into his arms. "How would you like me to fuck your ass this time?"

"I want you to take this," Buhawi said, piking up the smoke and lightning toy he'd turned into a double-headed dildo, "make it vibrate and don't be afraid of hurting me. I'll love whatever you do to me because it's you doing it to me."

"Maybe I should fuck you sideways, because you're so big we'd look like a dacshund trying to mount a great dane." Tala giggled at the idea and Buhawi could not help but laugh at that absurd picture.

"Perhaps we should. But don't feel any shame about this, okay? It's a medicinal thing we're doing." Buhawi tried to keep a straight face as he said this, and they both brooke out in a fresh round of belly laughs.

"Let's start easy, big person," Tala said, wiping tears of mirth and relief from her eyes. "I think we're pretty good with kissing and touching, yeah?" With that she began kissing her way up Buhawi's chest and throat, taking a detour to nip his ear and make hot little licks along his jawline before planting her lips firmly on his.

Buhawi shivered under the sensual trail Tala's lips were blazing to his mouth, but that did not deter him from rubbing the smoke and lightning dildo up her leg and against her pussy. 

Tala moaned into Buhawi's mouth and that was the moment he chose to work the dildo into her with sure, firm strokes. "I want to be here, sweetheart. I want to be fucking this juicy, tight place that is all you. Think about that while you drive this toy into me. Think about how crazy I am about your beautiful body while you cure me." There was a wry bit of laughter in his words, with a hefty dose of something else Tala did not want to classify right now.

"Turn around, Big Boy," Tala's husky order came with a lick and a nip to Buhawi's ear and he did as she asked. She left small, firm love-bites at his nape and shoulder and ran light strokes along his thighs, teasing him to open up for her as she rubbed cinnamon oil into the crevass between his butt cheeks.

"Go ahead and touch me there, witch. I like it," Buhawi said between low, aroused vocalizations as she stretched him with her fingers the same way he'd stretched her. "Deeper, sweetheart. I'm not going to break." She went in deeper, pushing harder, until she felt a small round thing with her fingers and made him curse like a dock-hand. His prostate. Bingo. 

Tala rubbed that magic button a bit more before positioning the other end of the dildo and pressing it in in one smooth stroke. She brought a hand around to grip Buhawi's tarugo and began to stroke that, too, firmly and smoothly.

The Tikbalang's cursing turned into incoherent yells. His hipps jerked forward and back as Tala began to move, taking her cue from Buhawi's body, how hard his nipples were, beaded against his chest like pebbles, how his cock jerked like a wild thing in her hand as she bumped his prostate with each upstroke, the way he barely held himself from thrashing around.

"I'm in you with this toy, my love," Tala breathed out, the pleasure overtaking her, too. "Feel us connected by this beautiful toy of yours. Do you want more?"

"Yes," Buhawi hissed out, adding his hand to hers and jerking his cock harderm with rougher movements. "Your hand feels so good on me, between my cock and my hand. You're hitting that buzzer inside me and lighting me up so well. Almost there... don't... stop—Agh..."

Tala was beyond speech and lost in sensation herself, the double dildo buzzing her with little, pleasure-triggering shocks each time it hit her G-spot. Her head was spinning with all of it and her hips bucked harder against Buhawi as his come jetted out on the sheets in front of them.

Trying to stay conscious, Tala pulled the dildo out of Buhawi, then herself before she fell on her back with a big smile on her face. Buhawi rolled over on his face, still chasing breath, and turned to face her.

"I love you, Tala."

If Tala's legs hadn't been so weak from all the fucking they'd been doing, she'd have sprung up off the bed and run until she needed to swim. Then she'd have swum as far away as she could, as fast as was humanly possible. Maybe faster.

Seeing Tala's body go stiff in a way that was definitely not good, Buhawi reached across the bed for her, pulling her into his chest and cradling her shaking body with his.

"Hey, shush," he said with more confidence than he felt. "You don't need to reciprocate, you know. Just relax and lie here with me. I am sorry to scare you, but I'm not sorry I love you, you know."

Not helping. Tala's inner smartypants sounded off. Your reassurances are close, but no cigar. "Oh, Big Person, don't eat me," Tala said out loud as she gave in to the crying fit she'd been wanting to have since the Bulan and Ulap's house.

Crying person. Buhawi closed his eyes and prayed to every deity who would deign to listen. Please give me strength. I'm holding a crying person. And I am truly too exhausted to do anything about it. So he just did what he could. He held Tala, shut up and stroked her hair and her back, as long as it took to reduce her full blown tearstorm and heaving to mild, intermittent sobs that gave way to little snores.

Buhawi looked down at his Babaylan in a mix of disbelief and envy. I can't believe she cried herself to sleep. Lucky her. Making a choice between disgust over the crying to sleep thing and joining Tala in dreamland, however, he chose to sleep, spooning her close to his body and wrapping his arms securely around her so she wouldn' be able to leave the bed without awakening him.

But sleep wasn't easy, even if the Tikbalang was so tired he felt like he'd have keeled over from fatigue. And friction burn. In more than one sensitive place. Ah, fuck me, I'll settle for just a little peace of mind, eh? How about that? Buhawi asked no one in particular as he drifted into an uneasy slumber.



How to Tame Your Tikbalang Ch. 13



 Polishing the final chapter as I send this to the admins. :)

I know there isn't as much nookie in this chapter, but please bear with me. I promise that it is worth the orgasm denial.

Do let me know what you think and I hope you have enjoyed the story so far, because I am preparing the Tikbalang wedding now.

Also, the English usage and spelling errors you will find in this chapter (at the point where Kidlat and Ulap peek into the Makati Police headquarters) are deliberate and are part and parcel of the work. Yes, they are deliberate.

*****

The night gave way to a stunning dawn painted in bright fingers of pastel lightening to cerulean blue as Buhawi and his Baylan slumbered on, their bodies entwined and their breaths mingling in the salt air. 

Meanwhile, in the Other Land, a shadow trampled sod and undergrowth, flame shooting from its muzzle and red embers lit his eyes. Frustration was his rice and viand today, it seemed.

The shadow stilled as another passed, a roan Tikbalang in warhorse form running full stretch, his hooves leaving a thundering wake. The shadow melted to smoke and slid silently through the trees, stalking the Tikbalang almost to the clearing where the molave throne sat and stilled under a rubber tree to wait, watch and listen.

Kidlat was sweaty from his race through the triple canopy forest's humid air, but he did not dare delay. When Haring Ulap summons you, son or not, you get there yesterday, Kidlat thought wryly. Slowing from gallop to canter to walk, the young Tikbalang approached his father with a bowed head though his eyes were intent and his ears pricked up attentively. Finally, he stood at the foot of the molave throne and transitioned to his Tikbalang form. 

"Well, son, it is about time you answered my summons." Ulap addressed his second son with asperity dripping from his deep, haughty 'I am your king' voice. The liege-voice reserved, it seemed, just for Kidlat (for Buhawi surely never heard that, the perfect princely prat that he was, or so Kidlat reckoned). "You have explanations to make and they better be good."

Kidlat held his peace and kept his head down. That worked well in the past, since Ulap would simply scold him and, when he tired of the silence, dismiss him. 

Not that Kidlat had any such luck as that today.

"Speak, my son," Ulap said, rising from the throne and stepping to the floor of the forest clearing. "When I said you have much to explain, I meant it." 

Ulap waved his right hand in a circle, as one would rub condensation off the glass of a window, his gesture opening a dimesional window on what appeared to be a police station where a middle-aged woman clad in a tie-dyed housedress, every color of which clashed with the cheap neon-green rollers sitting askew in her graying brown hair. She was haranguing a police officer over the investigation into her daughter's murder.

***

"You telled me you will make the case of my daughter a friority!" The woman's screech and heavy Visayan accent complete with p and f interchange rang across the Makati Police headquarters homicide division office as she locked angry eyes on and pointed her right index finger accusingly at Senior Police Officer 3 Conrado Medado. 

"It has been more than one month and still nobody is making to pay for da keeling of my Martha! My dafter is deserves so much better than is this! She was da pamily breadweaner. How will we live without her? You answer me! You answer me!"

Medado tried not to flinch at the wild virago screaming at him in mangled English (not that his English was all that good, but, well) and spraying him with the saliva flying off her ill-fitting dentures, her thin, silent husband doing his level best (and failing) to calm her down. 

"Ma'am, we are doing what we can, but you need to understand, this case is at a dead end. We do not have any witnesses..."

"You don't need a wetness! You think I am bobo? I watch CSI: Las Beygas! Tonto! I know you need to get good forensicatory tracery ebidens prom de SOCO fifols. But you are so lazy! You just want money prom us poor pamily op da Pilipins! Only the rich get hustisya. But what is dis I cannot even! My precious baby gehl, I taught her da bestest Inggles, so she can spoke like a Kano and work abroad por dolyars. I made insisting a lot that she keep on imfrovement so she would better herself and us, then this bad happen. I telled her not to go der, then she go der. Now look at!" 

The woman's tirade ended on a wail and uncontrollable sobbing as she collapsed on her husband, who collapsed under her weight. Medado struggled to get the couple off the floor, only to be kicked against his desk by the murdered Martha's mother, who, apparently, was still angry.

Having rolled out from under his wife, the thin man said in Visayan, "Isay, speak in Tagalog. Your English..."

"There is nothing wrong with my Inggles, Juan! My Inggles is ferpect! My deekshun is dibine!" Isay silenced her husband with a glare and a pout s she rose off the floor and turned to face Medado. "And you, you do everything humanly and inhumanely possible to pind out who keeled my baby or I will make kulam you!"

***

Ulap waved his hand to dismiss the dimensional window he'd opened before turning to Kidlat. "Now, my son, tell me honestly: Were you the one who killed that coffeeshop barista and caused that family of Taga-Lupa so much grief?"

Silence.

"The poor woman was raped, Kidlat," Ulap said, his voice low and castigating, walking in a maddeningly slow circle around his second son. "She was battered so hard her legs were broken in several places. She was bitten over and over again by a Tikbalang in a feral rage, if the medical examiner's report is accurate. She died in agony. Only you and Buhawi were in that realm, my son and, as much as I don't want to believe you did this, I have to ask you if you did it—because your brother would not and could not do this."

Kidlat's head snapped up and smoke began to stream out of his nostrils, his eyes bright with anger and pain as he looked at his father and held the Tikbalang king's steady, penetrating gaze.

"You've come to the conclusion that I did that, Itay?" Kidlat's voice shook as he spoke. "Then what further explanation is needed? You already believe I am capable of rape, like the Taga-Lupa keep saying Tikbalangs rape. Buhawi is the perfect son. Me, not so much. If you have decided to punish me, then punish me. I have nothing more to say."

"You aren't getting the point, son of mine," Ulap said as he resisted the urge to cuff the young Tikbalang, if only to get through that wall of stubborn pride Kidlat had put between them. "I said I HAVE to ask you whether you did this or not. I did not say I BELIEVE you did it. I don't want to even think you killed that woman. Your mother and I raised you to be honorable and to treat the Taga-Lupa with respect and gentleness. But this is something that needs to be resolved."

More silence.

"Haynaku!" The Tikbalang king uttered his expression of exasperation on a hard exhale. "Why are you acting like I am the enemy? I am duty-bound—I am the king of all Tikbalang and that comes with the job—to find out what happened with that woman and who of our kind murdered her so brutally, Kidlat. At the time she was attacked and killed, you and Buhawi were the only Tikbalang anywhere near her. This is not about that stupid sibling rivalry of yours."

"Of course I didn't kill that barista, Itay," Kidlat drew himself up ramrod straight and looked his father in the eye, finding that himself unable to keep the sarcasm and hurt out of his voice. "is that what you want to hear me say? Give me a script and I'll follow it. Just so this interrogation ends."

A slap to the back of the head from left field made Kidlat's head reel and he saw stars. It also sent him staggering forward.

"You will not take that tone of voice when speaking to your father, young man." Bulan's hand drew back as she moved to stand between her husband and son. "And you, Tikbalang," the goddess turned to Ulap, arms akimbo. "You will not shout at my Kidlat like that again. Now, settle this."

"You," Bulan said, cupping Kidlat's muzzle in a firm grip and making him face her "will tell us the truth and nothing but the truth or there will be no gods who can help you when I lose patience with you."

"Yes, Inay," Kidlat mumbled, chastised and shamed by his mother's ire.

"And you," Bulan said to Ulap as she narrowed her eyes at him "will listen without putting both your hind hooves into your big mouth. Now, talk, son." Bulan took a seat on the second step below the molave throne and nodded, her signal for Kidlat to begin. 

Ulap ascended to his throne with a heavy sigh and cupped his head in a large hand, his eyebrows cocked and his eyes on his son.

Taking a deep breath, Kidlat blinked away tears and spoke in as steady a voice as he could muster.

"As I said, I did not kill the barista. I was...elsewhere, not in Makati, at the time. I saw the news about it later on, when I was watching TV at the bank, in my office."

"And where were you when she was killed, then, if not in Makati, Kidlat?" Bulan's query was sharp with hope.

"I was at a club, Pepe's Pole, in Malate."

"You were at a gay bar?!" Ulap's voice began to rise as he locked his shocked gaze on Kidlat. "Why were you there?"

"I think that would be obvious, Itay." Kidlat's voice had dropped to almost a whisper. "Only gay guys hang out there. We go there to find what acceptance we can."

Bulan and Ulap exchanged glances and looked worriedly at their son, whose head was downcast and whose posture was that of defeat.

"Yeah, I'm the son you shouldn't have had, huh? May I leave now? Please? I promise I won't bother you anymore. You can just forget about me, since you have kuya Buhawi anyway and he's perfect." Kidlat turned to go and found his mother had, as is her maddening way, teleported from the throne steps to his side.

Bulan enfolded her son in a tight hug. "Oh, my darling," she said as she stroked his roan mane and spoke gently. "You will always be loved for who you are. Just the way I love your elder brother just as he is. If you are telling us you are gay, that does not change the fact we love you... even if this—announcement—does surprise us."

Kidlat hugged his mother back, seeing as the goddess would not let him move away, even if he wanted to. Her magic kept him rooted where he stood.

Ulap walked to his wife and son and, after a moment's hesitation, enfolded them in an even bigger embrace. "Your mother is right. You will always be my son, flesh of my flesh and part of my heart. Your coming out of the closet like that, however, is something I have to, how do you kids say it? It is something I need to wrap my head around. I was expecting grandchildren from you someday, you know."

Kidlat felt lighter. He felt a cautious tendril of joy unfurl as he stood in his parents' embrace and closed his eyes before taking his human shape, the form he was most vulnerable in. All the better to appreciate the parental hugging he was getting.

"I believe you, son," Ulap added. "I am sorry for the heavy-handed manner I used to ask you about the murder. You know we need to solve that, find the Tikbalang who committed that crime and serve what justice we can to the bereaved."

Hearing those words gave Kidlat some relief and he breathed easier in his family's arms.

"Thank you, Itay, Inay," the young Tikbalang said in a voice laced with unshed tears. "If you will let me help, then I will. If a Tikbalang killed that woman, then you are right in wanting to find the perpetrator and visit our justice on him."

"That, and we must find a way to fix that problem between you and your brother, hmmmmm? Because I am so tired of you both acting like toddlers who refuse to share their toys." Bulan arched a maternal brow at Kidlat, who nodded slowly.

***

The shadow peeled himself from the balete tree a few moments after Ulap, Bulan and Kidlat left the clearing through a shimmering portal behind the molave throne, the lines of his face solidifying into a sneer aimed at the family's backs.

So this is how love makes fools of the mighty. The thought percolated through Bulalakaw's brain as he snorted smoke and little licks of flame. I would have been the better king. No sons of mine would come out gay. I'd kill them first. The second son is no threat to me, then. Just the firstborn. Good.

Unbidden, the image of clear hazel eyes—old gold flecked with green ice—disturbed Bulalakaw's malicious reverie. Beatriz's voice haunted him again, clear as the day she cringed away from him, her body trembling in its nakedness as she dropped the stingray-tail whip and leather manacles and chain that he'd handed her as he beseeched her to complete their ritual.

"I can't torture you, Bulalakaw. I can't draw blood," the anguish in Beatriz's voice cut him worse than any whipping would. Her drawing away from him cut the heart from him. "I don't have that strength. I can't risk driving you insane with the ritual if I fail. I won't."

"You love him still, don't you?" Bulalakaw's question flew out as an accusation. "You won't leave your bastard of a husband for me. That's why you can't complete the ritual. And since I won't become a king, because I lost the battle with Ulap, you have no reason to choose me over your human mate. You do not love me."

Beatriz cast her head down so he could not see her face, only the slow drip of tears onto the floor of the forest clearing on mystic Mt. Makiling where they'd chosen to make their rendezvous. 

The nexus of power in this glade was strong and they knew they'd need it to boost Beatriz's spells. But Bulalakaw had no inkling of his Babaylan's misgivings. She'd kept them from him and now it was too late to explain to her that he would do anything for her, would trust her no matter what. The irony was that she did not trust herself. 

He began to walk toward her, but she backed off, matching his pace, until she stood in the center of the glade. "Believe what you want," Beatriz said, her voice breaking. "We're ending this now." 

With that, she turned away from him and cast her arms up to the sky, power surging to her fingers as she clenched them against the sudden flash of white sheet lightning illuminating the little patch where they stood. Then Beatriz turned back to her Tikbalang lover, regret in her eyes and her upraised hands full of bright power.

Lightning bolts began to rain from the sky like the fat droplets of rain one sees in a monsoon shower, each strike deadly in its accuracy, hitting Bulalakaw mercilessly, reaching into his chest to grip his heart with debilitating electricity, setting his pelt on fire, crackling through bone and sinew until his muscles clenched hard enough to splinter his skeleton to slivers and drop his writhing, agonized body to the ground. 

The pain Bulalakaw felt was more than merely the physical suffering of death by repeated electrocution. It was more than just his body that Beatriz was breaking. This, to Bulalakaw, was worse even than not getting the last stage of the ritual right. This was betrayal. This was the withdrawal of the love he craved and could not contemplate living without.

Beatriz kept up the lightning strikes until Bulalakaw lay still, his shattered body contained in an intact sack of smoldering skin and hair but bereft of breath. As painfully long as the process of calling lightning on the Tikbalang seemed, only a handful of seconds had elapsed. His corpse lay on a bed of humus and fallen leaves, mercifully bloodless, as his spirit rose above Beatriz's head.

"I am so sorry, my love," Beatriz said, her voice coming out in a hoarse whisper. Her eyes were strangely dry as she looked upon Bulalakaw's body one last time. "I never loved him. This is the kindest thing I can do to you. Forgive me. But you are better dead than insane."

Bulalakaw could not bring himself to forgive his lover. He gathered what was left of himself as she walked out of the glade on faltering feet, her walk speeding to a heedless run. He watched her leave as he struggled to keep his form, struggled to gather the wispy smoke rising from his mortal remains and hold himself together with rage and pain and a growing appetite for revenge.

I would have made peace with the Tikbalang King for you, Bulalakaw thought as Beatriz's betrayal reopened unhealed old hurts. I would have been a better Tikbalang just for you. You didn't trust me. You never trusted me. I will make my own immortality, little witch, and I will have my revenge on you, on Ulap and his children. You'll see. You'll see.

Beatriz had eventually needed to be institutionalized. Her husband died in a "riding" accident, trampled by his favorite horse. Her children's lives were living miseries and, for good measure, Bulalakaw made sure that the family she'd placed above him was impoverished, their properties tied up in a court battle that was slow and painful. 

Only when he was sure that the fortunes of this human family were well nigh destroyed did Bulalakaw turn his undead sights to Ulap and his progeny. Always, always save the best for last.

***

Tala awoke to find Buhawi looking down at her, his forefinger tracing her brow gently, his body wrapped snug against hers and his lips a whisper away from her temple.

"Ah, she awakens like a goddess." Buhawi said, forcing a light note into his voice that he was far from feeling. "You bring the sunshine back just by opening your eyes, my Tala."

Tala tried to wiggle out of the full-body lock Buhawi had on her, but no dice. "Boo, I need to, um, use the facilities. Let go. I promise I won't run, okay? Now can I go pee?"

Buhawi smiled as he slid his arms and legs sensuously against Tala's skin before releasing her. "Of course, my Baylan. I am yours and I do as you bid."

Tala made a run for the little alcove they'd seen when they entered the siokoys' cave and did her business. She heard the Tikbalang rummaging in his duffel bag and saw him approach the pool as she came out of the alcove.

Buhawi was laying soaps and bottles of what looked like shampoo and conditioner on the ledge of the bathing pool. He turned to her and stepped into the pool, naked as a jaybird.

"Come, you will want to soak those sore muscles, my love. The pool is big enough for us to share." Buhawi opened his arms wide and turned full circle before settling down on a submerged bench. "The water is just as hot as you like it."

Because she couldn't fault his logic, Tala complied silently, letting the heat of the pool envelop her body and its aches and twinges. Drawing a deep breath, Tala began wading toward the Tikbalang and sat beside him on the bench, all the better to immerse herself in the soothing waters of the hot spring.

"About you being mine, Buhawi," Tala began speaking, only to have her light rail transit of thought derailed by slick, large hands lathering her neck, shoulders and back with fragrant soap. "Um, stop that. We need to talk." Tala scooted away from Buhawi's hands.

"Then talk, Tala. I'm listening." The hands were back on her body, scrubbing her upper arms briskly. "But let me take care of you."

"That's just it. We're done with this ritual, right? We're immortal now. I'm a Babaylan in truth and you can't die anymore, so where do we go from here? We don't really need to be joined at the hip now, do we?" Tala braced herself mentally for the answer she wanted, the one she was, paradoxically, afraid to hear: That they were done and this was the time to part ways.

"About that," Buhawi said, pulling Tala into an embrace as he spoke. "We don't need to part ways, my love. Look at my parents. They chose to stay together, to have kids, to build a life. We can choose that."




How to Tame Your Tikbalang Ch. 13



"But what do you want? I'm not sure about building a life with you. I wouldn't know how." Tala looked up at Buhawi, her eyes wide and earnest. "I feel like we've been riding a comet, that things have been going faster than the speed of light. I'm really scared I'll fuck up and we'll just get hurt because I'm so bad at this kind of thing. My parents couldn't stop fighting. Hell, my grandparents couldn't stop fighting. I don't think I have the right genetics to keep a commitment well."

"Shhh. I hear you," Buhawi said, tightening his hold on Tala. "But the heart is unbiddable, Babaylan mine. I didn't want this when you found that Bestiario, you know. I was happy being a bachelor and not answering to anyone, but here we are and I love you now. I can't imagine a life without you in it."

Buhawi's gaze was steady as he looked into Tala's eyes, while he lifted Tala out of the water and set her down on the ledge where the toiletries lay and began soaping her back and front with soothing, circular motions that made her squirm deliciously against the cold stone.

"I also know you love me, my goddess," Buhawi continued, standing between her knees and looking into her eyes with a steady, dark gaze as he soaped up one of her arms, then the other. "Even if you find it so hard to tell me what your unbiddable heart has decided. I could persuade you with this tattoo on your body. I could make you want me with the same intensity of lust I feel for you by making my name glow on your body. But I want you to decide to follow your heart instead of force you to do it. You could even do the same thing to me, if you want to. But the question you need to answer is whether you want to or not."

"What answer do you want to that question, Buhawi? Is it 'yes, I love you' or do you want me to set you free? Because I won't force you to stay with me and, yes, dammit, I love you." Tala's eyes were dark with uncertainty and lust, her face marred by worry and confusion. "I don't know what the right answer is."

"The right answer, my beautiful goddess, is the truth," Buhawi said as he traced a finger over the seam of her red lips. "If the truth is that you love me, say so. If the truth is that you want to be with me for the rest of our immortality, then accept it."

Drawing a deep breath, Tala bit her lip and paused for thought, her hands coming up over Buhawi's shoulders and settling over his collarbones in a silently possessive hold.

"I do love you. I do want to spend the rest of my life to my last breath with you," she said in a rush, as if she wanted the words out before she could stop them. "If you want the same thing."

"Silly woman. Of course I want the same thing," Buhawi said. He dropped his lips to hers and took her mouth into a searing kiss and speared his tongue between her lips to seek its mate. He lifted his head for a breath, saying, "I know you're too sensitive for us to continue fucking the way we have, but let's try something new now that you've told me what you want, hmmmm?"

As soon as Tala nodded her agreement, her tattoo lit up in glowing, molten gold and she began to writhe on the lip of the bathing pool as Buhawi continued to soap her body with gentle hands. She closed her eyes, all the better to feel the pleasure coursing through her as her nipples hardened and she went slick between the legs.

Images of Buhawi kissing her chest and suckling on her breasts filled her mind as she spread her legs wider, wanting the pleasure he would assuredly give her.

"That's it, Tala my love, give yourself over to this," Buhawi said. "I'm going to make love to you with my mind. My filthy, lusty mind."

The visions Buhawi fed her were lusciously lewd, sweetly salacious: Him feasting on her as she bucked against his face and tongue. Her lying on the pool edge as he ate at her puki while his tarugo surged into her mouth, all the way down to her throat where she swallowed him down. Both of them shuddered in an orgasm that triggered a slight shift in the tectonic plate beneath them.

When they both surfaced from the vision Buhawi had woven, they were sated and relaxed in their afterglow, though the water in the pool was definitely sloshing about.

"I can't promise you the road will always be smooth, or that our paths will always be clear," Buhawi said as he hugged his mate to his chest. "But I can promise you I will always do my best to be a good Tikbalang and a good mate to you."

Catching her breath, Tala smiled into Buhawi's chest. "I'm still scared, but I promise I'll do my best, too. Just as long as you love me and I love you, right? Maybe that's what's most important in all this."

"Maybe it is."

They sat in the hot spring pool for a long while, saying nothing more as they bathed each other, their hands saying what they could not speak out loud, each touch a commitment and an exploration.

***

Bulalakaw had tracked his quarry down to the beaches of Paoay, but their trail went cold past the tip of the coastline dotted by beach resorts. He looked down at the vial holding the remainder of the tiyanak blood venom he'd used on them. It was a dull black, the red lights that he'd once used to find Buhawi and Tala absent from the foul liquid.

They've made and taken the antidote. The shadow Tikbalang fumed, his fury building into a loud scream directed at the heavens. Even in this, I am thwarted. SkyFather, how could you let me be left like this? How can I be denied my revenge?

Bulalakaw's only answer was a distant rumble of thunder.



How to Tame Your Tikbalang Ch. 14



 As promised, here is the final chapter of How to Tame Your Tikbalang.

I truly enjoyed writing this story and am a bit sad to see it end, but, like all good things, it has to come to a close.

Thank you so much for bearing with the long intervals between chapters and for reading my story. Thank you for taking joy in my native lore and for being with me on this journey. 

Yes, I will write more stories along this vein, since Kidlat's story still needs telling, as well as the back story of how Bulan and Ulap got together (FTW). 

For now, I'm going to take a bit of a break before I finish up a few more writing projects, including my Isle of Lays series. :)

Thank you for the stars and the favorites, they've meant so much to me, so much more than I can say.

*****

"Kapag maaraw at umuulan, may kinakasal na Tikbalang [When it rains while the sun shines bright, a Tikbalang is being wed]." ~ Old Filipino proverb.

The glade in front of the molave throne was decked out for a wedding, with Bulan adding the finishing touches to the pink stargazer lilies and lush flowering vines holding midnight-blue and gold damask table-cloths and chair-covers in place. The sun was up and blazing brightly through the lattice and lace of branches and leaves.

Here and there, nubile Diwatas clad in filmy tunics shot through with silvery starlight were setting bright, multifaceted jewels that would serve as soft, colored lights for the nighttime revels along the lowest branches of the rainforest's triple canopy. 

Industrious little Duwende in their brightly colored jumpers and shirts were setting out buffet tables and ice carvings representing scenes from the daily lives of each of the Other World races. The dark Duwende stood sentinel at the outskirts of the clearing, squinting their eyes at the sunlight, for they rarely, if ever, were out in the sun. 

This was more than just a Tikbalang wedding: It was a royal Tikbalang wedding and, as has been tradition since they could remember, they were the honor guard in their black and silver barong Tagalog of pineapple silk (also known as jusi), salakot hats, pristine white pants and mirror-shiny black boots.

There, too, were the Nuno, the most exotic of the Other World's elementals with their long, lithe limbs and flowing black hair, naked but for white loincloths and hand-woven tapis that changed color brightly in the sunshine as they moved, their flawless brown skins gleaming as they went about carrying large clay pots containing razorback adobo, venison jerky marinated in sweet rice wine, blood stew, succulent beef in tamarind broth, chickens steamed over beds of sea salt and lemongrass and a whole roast pig to the massive trestle tables at the center of the clearing. 

They brought out and arranged large clay tapayan vats with spigots that were full of fresh pineapple, satsuma and mango juice, pink tapuey rice wine, as well as clear, fiery lambanog and sweet but potent basi atop the bar set up by the tables and attended to by a tall and stunning Diwata queen.

"Hey Maria!" One of the Nuno called out to the erstwhile barkeep. "It's good to see you leave Mt. Makiling every now and then. We should get together, if you know what I mean." He waggled very bushy brows at the Diwata queen, who just rolled her eyes, smiled and went about mixing the cocktails that would be served soon. If things went well, then maybe she'd take him up on his offer, or at least that's what her coy little smile said as she practiced her bottle-flipping moves while mixing the first batch of what promised to be several batches of cocktails.

The Nuno, being innate musicians, were the ones who set up the bandstand on a small stage beside where they placed the bamboo angklung shakers on stands, set a table for the jaws harp or kubing, placed the graduated kulintang gongs, the Ifugao gangsa and hibat, and several different lengths of bamboo rain-sticks. The live music would accompany the ceremony proper and the Nuno had to be very precise in the instruments' placement.

The river running through one side of the clearing sparkled a deep, cool blue in the sunshine and some siokoy were busy setting delicacies from the sea on polished bamboo rafts of varying sizes. 

Freshly-cooked grouper topped with arosep seaweed sat in beautifully-crafted unglazed clay pots molded to look like whale sharks. Large clamshells were filled with mahi-mahi cooked seven ways, each with their own distinct sauces from sweet to almost unbearably spicy, surrounded by woven banana-leaf trays of lovely raw oysters with halved kalamansi limes and sea salt, mussels topped with generous amounts of garlic and baked golden brown, sliced abalone and giant conch meat. Live shrimp jumped as they marinated in vinegar and chopped labuyo chiles in large crystal basins. Grilled lobsters long as a Tikbalang forearm and twice as thick were presented sans shells on banana leaves and slathered with a savory coconut milk sauce. Multicolored sweets made with coconuts harvested from the shore all danced on these rafts held by tethers of seagrass rope. 

The waterfolk did like their food—and their drinks, which were lined up in colorful rows along the top of a semi-submerged tiki bar, beside which stood a huge golden perch inlaid with turquoise and sapphires, the seat for the Ibong Adarna, who would sing the last wedding song.

The evening feast of raw foodstuffs for the Aswang, Sigbinn, Manananggal  and other nocturnal malignos was kept cool in blue tents—mostly for the other guests who were not so fond of raw hearts and livers, unshelled balut cooked four ways or stews of chopped up internal organs and intestines, or the rather pungent smells these gave off. These dishes contained no garlic, salt or vinegar to ease their aromas, because, well, those denizens of the other world were very, very allergic to those, as well as to bamboo in any form. 

So far, so good, Ulap thought to himself as he oversaw the layout of the wedding feast. I can now go find my wife for a a well-deserved kiss or two.

***

Long wicker sofa sets and lounge chairs designed by Kenneth Cobonpue made a loose ring about the glade, their memory foam cushions covered in deep red, gold and blue Maranao-woven raw silk made even more elegant by large hand-woven Tubao cloths and batik sarongs following the same color motif.

Strains of Ella Fitzgerald's Come Rain or Come Shine filtered through the leafy boughs and aerial roots of the trees as a young, long-limbed Nuno with large, obsidian sloe eyes and six-jointed fingers manned a DJ station and adjusted its sliders and switches. The classic blues song's lyrics were set against a very modern, very techno-trance beat that went surprisingly well with the song.

Ulap caught his wife up in a slow dance, pressing his body flush against hers and grinding his hips against hers as discreetly as possible while he sang along in a mellifluous baritone: "I'm gonna love you like nobody's loved you come rain or come shine." He looked into Bulan's eyes with intense, unwavering adoration as they two-stepped perfectly through the music.

With a light laugh and a hitching little sigh, Bulan gyrated slowly against the firm, muscular form of her husband and king before raising her voice to answer Ulap's: "High as a mountain and deep as a river come rain or come shine/ I guess when you met me it was just one of those things." 

As they always did, Bulan and Ulap sang these lines in perfect harmony: "But don't ever bet me cause I'm gonna be true if you let me/And I'm ready for love." This was, after all, their song, one they'd discovered decades back and considered a firm favorite ever since.

Capping their impromptu dance with a kiss, Ulap dipped Bulan low to the ground and went from snogging her to blazing a trail of sucking little kisses from her lips to her ear to her collarbone and running a free hand up and down her side from upper thigh to waist and back again, his fingers not resting on any one spot at all. A telltale glow of Baybayin peeping just above Bulan's terno hinted at what was on Ulap's mind (well, okay, her soft sighs and the slight undulations of her hips were hints, too).

"Ahem." Buhawi came up behind his father with a huge grin on his face and his dimples out in full force. "The groom requests some assistance with this barong, Itay. And I think you may need to help Tala get into her gown, Inay."

"Oh, well, in that case I'd better leave you to your father," Bulan said, pulling her composure back in place as Ulap pulled her upright again. Smoothing the jusi and raw silk skirt and rearranging the beaded butterfly sleeves of her midnight blue and harvest moon gold terno, Bulan cast a brilliant smile at her husband and son before sashaying to the red tent where the bride and her entourage were preparing for the nuptials. 

"Did you really have to interrupt us now, anak? I was just about to..."

"Itay, you and I both know that if your lips got past the neckline of Inay's terno we'd have to send out a search party for both of you." Buhawi shook his head and held back a belly laugh at his father's knitted brows and deliberate deep breathing (cockstands are hard to quell, after all). 

Ulap snorted in exasperation.

"You both act as horny as newlyweds. All the time. Which is not a bad thing but we need you both present to get married, you know. Seriously, I don't think my barong likes me," Buhawi said as he fidgeted with the pearl-capped buttons at the collar and cuffs of his native formalwear, into which was woven small, yet startlingly detailed representations the creatures of myth and legend who were their guests. "I wish I could get married in a bahag. For ease of access and comfort."

"What do you mean your barong doesn't like you? It's made by that designer, whatshisname? Rajo Laurel. It cost an arm, a leg and half my torso. It is enspelled by your mother. It should like you," Ulap said as he smacked Buhawi's hands away from his cuffs. "It is supposed to be a close fit like that. Besides, the Nuno already claimed loincloths for their formalwear, so no bahag for you. Now be still while I adjust your barong. Stop fidgeting." 

"Itay, if I'm not getting any until we're done with the wedding, neither are you." Buhawi grinned unrepentantly as his father threw him a look of utter disgust.

"I'm with you on that, brother," Kidlat said as he walked up to his brother and father, holding out his hand to Buhawi. "But first, let me wish you peace and joy on this fine day."

Buhawi stood stock still as he cast an assessing look at his younger brother. "You wish me peace and joy? What happened to trying to kill me, Kidlat?"

"Well, about that..." Kidlat looked shamefaced and kicked at the shiny, pretty pebbles on the ground under his feet before sending a sincerely sorry look at Buhawi. "I want to apologize for being such an ass. Knowing how perfect you are, well, maybe you'll forgive me? Please? Or Inay will make horse tapa out of me."

Feeling the sincerity emanating from his brother's aura for the first time in years, Buhawi drew in a long sigh and clasped Kidlat's arm in the ancient gesture of a brotherhood compact, one they hadn't made since they were on the Ateneo basketball team. "All right, I will forgive you. On one condition."

"Name it, brother mine." Kidlat smiled at his kuya, his hands spread out as if to say whatever it is I can give you, it is yours.

"Stand with me as my best man." Buhawi's voice was thick with emotion as he waited for his brother's answer. 

"Consider it done." Kidlat said on a sigh of relief as he pulled his big brother into a tight hug. "Thank you."

"You're my little brother. It's not like I can throw you into the river and drown you," Buhawi said, looking Kidlat in the eye and laughing off the relieved crying he felt coming on. "You know what Inay would do to me if I tried that again."

***

"Seriously? Buhawi gets a barong and I have to wear clouds and lightning?!" Tala was trying to get a hold of her 'gown' and failing, the ephemeral material slipping through her nervously fidgeting fingers. "And what's with the live plants in my hair?"

"There, there, sweetheart," Bulan said with a maternal chuckle as she passed the bridal tent entrance. "That's my wedding gown you're talking about. Just let it flow around you. Those jade vines are from my own garden. When the moon comes out later, the buds will bloom and give you the most wonderful scent. For now, they will keep your gorgeous curls in place"

Bulan oversaw the final touches made by the entourage of Diwatas on the bride's hair and makeup and put her her wedding gifts of opal, diamond and pearl dangling earrings, collar necklace, cuff bracelets on the bride. She also laid a diamond and gold diadem inset with a large, purple star sapphire over Tala's forehead.

"You are more than just a beautiful bride, Tala," Bulan said with what looked suspiciously like tears in her dark eyes. "You are a goddess in your own right now and you are perfect for my Buhawi."

Tala kind of felt like crying herself, but held back because, well, she'd probably make Buhawi panic if she did. So she did the next best thing and hugged her mother to be. "Thank you." Her words came out strangled, but the right emotions were all there in those two words: Gratitude, love, trust.

"Come now, daughter mine," Bulan said. "Buhawi had to get his dislike of crying from at least one parent and that parent is me. Don't cry. Let's step out and wow our Tikbalangs, shall we?"

"We shall, mother mine." Tala's smile was as bright as her name and the ladies stepped out in their gorgeous outfits and gemstone-studded zapatillas to do just that.

***

The guests arrived, first in trickles, then in a steady stream in finery that would likely blind most mortals. Jewels glittered in the sun and fabrics swished with a music all their own as the wedding guests settled into their seats and the Nuno band began to make music of rain and thunder with the instruments on the stage by the molave throne where Ulap now sat with his sons flanking him on the highest step.

Bulan and Tala came up the path to the throne with measured steps, dancing Diwatas throwing rose petals, santan flowers and ylang-ylang blooms in the air. 

Tala's gown shimmered around her, limning her curves in lightning, teasing the eyes of all present by covering and baring the skin of her upper thighs, back and arms in turns, the way clouds cover and reveal the flanks and peaks of mountains. Her smile, though, was more radiant than even the gemsones she wore or the lightning of her wedding dress—and it was a smile focused firmly on Buhawi.

Buhawi stepped forward, extending his hand to his bride, pride, love and appreciative lust shining in his eyes as he looked her over from head to toe.

"Wow." Buhawi somehow managed to convey, with a look and a monosyllabic word, just how much of an impact Tala had on him at that moment.

Bride and groom smiled at each other happily and turned as one to the throne and the moon goddess whose priestess duties for the day were about to begin.

Bulan took her place at the foot of the molave throne and smiled at the assembled guests, including the nocturnal ones sitting in the dark of the forest just outside the clearing perimeter.

"We have gathered to witness the joining of two immortals," Bulan said as she cupped her hands and raised them to the heavens before bringing them down to rest on Buhawi and Tala's bowed heads.

"We are here to bless this union of a Babaylan and her Tikbalang with our joy, to celebrate in their oneness," Bulan said, her face raised to the sky and sun. "We call the SkyFather and EarthMother who made us all to bless this joining with abundance and power, to give it peace and stability. We invoke the Great Parents' love that will be mirrored in the life Tala and Buhawi will build together."

Raising her hands over her head, Bulan clapped once, twice, thrice. Her clapping was answered by the heavens: Thunder rumbled and three sharp cracks presaged the coming rain.

Bulan turned her face to her son as she continued the wedding rite: "Buhawi, do you vow to cherish your Babaylan forever, serving her and honoring her, clearing her path and raising her up to the heavens with your mind, spirit and body?"

"Yes, Mother Bulan, I do." Buhawi slid an armband of gold and platinum beaten into the shape of a rampant horse over Tala's left bicep.

Turning to Tala, Bulan said, "Tala, will you cherish Buhawi, obey his wisdom, honor him and trust him unconditionally as you raise him to heavens with your mind, spirit and body?"

"Yes, Mother Bulan, I do." Tala slid a matching band of gold and platinum, this one shaped like a star and starburst, onto Buhawi's left bicep.

"Hear me, SkyFather, bless this marriage with your monsoon," Bulan intoned. "Hear me, EarthMother, bless Tala and Buhawi with your fertility and grace."

Fat raindrops began to fall over the gathered assembly and the music swelled even louder. The Siokoy cavorted in a stunning show of aerial and aquatic acrobatics and the Diwatas began to sing along with the Nunos' music in haunting, wordless vocalizations. 

"I swear I will love you with everything I have and everything I am, Tala," Buhawi said as he clasped his bride in a full contact hug and goosed her, triggering a surprised laugh from Tala. "I am going to take your for the ride of your immortal life. Every blessed day. Several times a day."

Hugging Buhawi back (and goosing him back) Tala gave her heart's reply: "I swear I will love you with everything I have and everything I am. I will also ride you hard and put you away wet."

The speeches began, with formal felicitations from representatives of each Other Worldly race promising allegiance and fealty to the Tikbalang Crown Prince and his Babaylan bride. The speeches ended with the Aswangs' representative, who spoke in sibilant hisses to say that they, too, would respect the couple and help them in any way they may need. 

"We are your friends and allies, for as long as there is peace between our races, so will you have our goodwill and our protection." That was a lot coming from the Aswangs, considering how much they liked eating livers out of their living victims.

"You are one now, my children, you may kiss each other and begin the feast of life together." Ulap rose from his throne, listening with a satisfied smile as the rest of the congregation uttered their own blessings upon the bride and groom. "Now, you may dance together among our guests. Long live the newlyweds!"

Cries of "long-live the newlyweds" filtered through the sound of falling rain and thunderclaps. Kidlat had to pry Buhawi from Tala and point to the dance floor of polished teak wood. 

"Get yourself to the dance floor, kuya," Kidlat said with a gentle shove and a quiet laugh. "You can't start the pulot-gata yet. The wedding is far from over."

Prodded out of his lustful haze, Buhawi tugged Tala gently to the dance floor as the Nuno band exited the stage and the DJ took over by playing the Eurythmics' Here Comes The Rain Again, seguing it smoothly into Basil Valdez's Tagalog ballad Tuwing Umuulan at Kapiling Ka.

The bride and groom danced slowly and sensuously as the guests began to fasten pins of gold and precious stones to their clothes, giving their congratulations and felicitations while at it.

The music changed over to The Doors' Riders on the Storm, then into Madonna's Rain but Tala and Buhawi barely noticed it as they (surreptitiously) lit up each other's tattoos. Of course, the light trembling of the ground may have given them away. Or maybe it was the sloshing of the river, for the siokoy began cheering at the newlyweds and the Duwendes chuckled with jollity.




How to Tame Your Tikbalang Ch. 14



"It looks like we're going to have grandchildren soon, my love," Ulap said to Bulan as he pulled his wife into his lap for a slow burn of a kiss.

"Behave yourself, Tikbalang!" Bulan said, smacking her husband on the shoulder with the abaniko fan she'd hung from her wrist after she concluded the rites. "You're holding the First Priestess. Show some decency."

"What decency? You were able to buy me some?" Ulap attempted another kiss only to get smacked again. "Okay, okay, I'll behave. But you're in for a very wild ride later, Baylan mine."

Kidlat rolled his eyes to the heavens as he looked upon his parents, then the newlyweds, before circulating to ensure that the guests would get fed and entertained because it looked like that was going to be his job. So he marshalled his Tikbalang kin and they really got the party started.

***

Bulalakaw materialized in the shadows of the forest as the revelry reached its zenith in the last minutes of sunset. He looked disparagingly at the display of wealth, power and disgusting happiness before him and began striding to the clearing, intent on mischief.

Bam. The shadow Tikbalang was pulled up short when he strode headfirst into an invisible barrier. He stepped back and felt along the barrier, trying to find a break or opening he could pass through, smoke pouring out of his nostrils as his temper flared even higher.

"Where do you think you are going?" The question was deceptively casual, delivered in a deadly quiet tone from behind Bulalakaw.

The shadow Tikbalang spun around, trying to locate the voice. The EarthMother. I'd know that voice anywhere. His breaths came faster now, as he thought of evading her.

"As well you should, you aberration," The EarthMother came up before him, rising from the roots and soil, her brown skin and voluptuous curves clad in a dress of stormclouds and rain and her red-brown cascade of curly hair. "You will do those people no harm."

Roots began to wrap around Bulalakaw's feet and legs and he tried to break free, to scream, but couldn't. His eyes blazed in rage and defeat as he heard the words of Poon, the EarthMother.

"Bathala is on his way to deal with you," Poon said, turning dark eyes on the shadow Tikbalang, her dulcet voice underlaid by the rumble of a landslide. "You will be given a choice. Choose wrong and I will reclaim you as fertilizer for the rice paddies."

***

Tala was smiling at a Duwende elder who was telling her stories that involved razorback-boar baiting when she was suddenly yanked behind a millennium-old mangrove by the river.

"Finally, I get my wife all to myself," Buhawi growled as he ran greedy, hot hands over Tala's back and down to the thighs he parted to make a cradle for his aching groin. "It's dark and nobody will see what goes on here, Baylan mine. I have to have you now."

"Boo! You almost gave me a heart attack, you know mmmmpffff." Her words were shut off by Buhawi's favorite shut-the-woman-up tactic. Tongues were definitely engaged as he reached through her gown of clouds and lightning to trace a forefinger over his name on her chest and belly. 

"Silence, woman," Buhawi said as he lit her tattoo up to hundred-watt brightness. "This Tikbalang is looking to ravage a gorgeous Babaylan and you aren't going to say no, are you?"

"No." Tala looked up at Buhawi with a big, mischievous smile and her Tikbalang gave her behind a sound slap.

"Bad girl." Buhawi's answering grin belied his words and he hefted her up against the ancient tree trunk so he could feast on her breasts, her thighs surrounding his waist and his tarugo aimed straight at her wet, wet puki.

"You know your mother's dress made it impossible to wear underwear," Tala said, her breath coming in hard pants as Buhawi sent visions of them having the filthiest, raunchiest outdoor sex straight to her head and unzipped his pants to release his hard, hot puki-seeking shaft.

"I know," Buhawi said as he sheathed himself in her to the hilt. "I like her fashion sense." Snapping his fingers, Buhawi summoned some of the rubber tree's aerial roots to wrap around Tala's wrists and thighs to hold her in place against the tree. "So, do you want to get kinky yet?"

Her vocabulary short-circuited and Tala groaned as Buhawi did a slow grind and pushed in deeper than he'd ever gone before before he began to fuck her in long, blissfully hot strokes.

"Tala and Buhawi against a tree, F-U-C-K-I-N-G." The Tikbalang Crown Prince's breaths tickled his Babaylan's sensitive ear and neck, making her writhe even more as she vocalized her pleasure.

Not one to give it up just like that, Tala sent her own set of visions to her Tikbalang, of her riding him hard and long while she sat in his lap and held her breasts up to his seeking mouth, her hips gyrating like a world-class belly-dancer and her head thrown back in sheer, unadulterated ecstasy.

So went the give and take of their mind-fucking and physical coupling, for what felt like hours as they both rode our multiple orgasms, fucking in the time-honored 'walang hugutan' manner of their ancestors. The ground shook and, in the distance, volcanoes awoke and made magnificent fireworks to light up the night sky. Thank goodness that, in the Other World, nobody lived anywhere near the volcanoes.

Breathless but nowhere near sated, Buhawi released his bride, their bodies now shimmering with sweat and covered in Tala's long mane of curls, which had fallen free of their jade vine coif.

"We have to do that again, my love." Tala said, catching her breath and hanging on to Buhawi because she'd gone boneless from her climaxes.

"We're just getting started, mahal ko," Buhawi answered, his breathing erratic but ecstatic. "I'm still fully dressed." He hoisted Tala into his arms and carried her through a waiting portal to his island home, their foreheads touching and their eyes locked in a look of lust and love. "This is going to take forever."

_________________________________________________

APPENDED GLOSSARY

Abuela (ah-boo-we-la) - The Spanish word for "grandmother" from which the Filipino term "Lola (lo-lah)," or grandmother, comes.

Abuelo (ah-boo-we-lo) - The Spanish word for "grandfather" from which the Filipino term "Lolo (lo-loh)," or grandfather, comes.

Adobo (ah-doh-boh) - In the Philippines, if you eat a stew cooked with vinegar and soy sauce with plenty of garlic, it is adobo. You can cook vegetables and meats, like pork and chicken (smoetimes together) in this manner. They say adobo has as many versions as the Philippines has communities, and this is true—there are versions that use just vinegar and salt, versions that use fish sauce instead of soy sauce and versions where the adobo is twice-cooked (boiled, then fried until the sauce is reduced to a mere coating on the viand).

Angklung (ang-cloong) - A musical instrument made of bamboo that comes in graduated sizes, with each one tuned to a single note on the pentatonic scale. It is played by shaking the instrument to elicit a loud vibration in the note chosen, usually in conjunction with other angklung in a sort of quintet.

Arao (ah-ra-o) - The god of the sun who did not want to share the sky with his sister, the moon-goddess Bulan. He put out Bulan's eye with his spear, thus making her fall from the Skyworld.

Aswang (asu-wang) - A maligno that passes for human. It was said that the Skyfather Bathala caught some humans committing acts of cannibalism despite the plentitude of food that was theirs. 

Bathala cursed these beings and turned them into aswang who needed to eat human livers and drink human blood to survive, even if they were not undead.

In the Visayas and Mindanao, it is believed that aswang traits are inherited, passed on from parent to child or grandparent to grandchild via a sentient, withered and ancient tongue (the actual, physical tongue) that detaches from a dying aswang into the aswang-in-waiting through a kiss with tongues involved (yes, ewww).

Awit (ah-wit) - A traditional Filipino poetry/song form. Song/paean.

Babaylan/Baylan (ba-ba-ee-lan/ba-ee-lan) - Animist priestesses/healers believed to have supernatural powers. They were wise women learned in herb lore and incantations. 

Babaylans were were the primary health care providers on a day-to-day basis, but they were also believed to be seers, callers of rain in times of drought and lightning in times of battle. 

Their blessings ensured fertility for crops, livestock and people seeking to have children. They were generally advisors to the ruling elite, counselors and spiritual advisors to the rest of their tribe. They were also skilled in reversing the hexes of mangkukulam and mambabarang and sending these hexes back at the casters with interest.

Their power is based in the divine feminine, the aspects of mother/nurturer, protector and life-giver that is intrinsic to women.

Barong (bar-ohng) - A formal, button-down shirt made of silk from pineapple leaf fibers. This is traditionally worn over a thin white crew-necked, long-sleeved shirt called a camisa de chino and smartly pressed dress slacks. If you go to a Filipino wedding, chances are this is the shirt worn by the groom and his groomsmen, even the little ring-bearer. :D

Batalan (bah-tah-lan) - A bathing area where the "shower" is actually a large clay vat filled with rainwater, complete with spigot.

Barang (bah-rang) - A deadly hex cast by a Mambabarang.

Bathala (Bat-hah-lah) - The SkyFather and father of all gods, the creator of life with his consort, Poon. Father of Bulan and Arao.

Basi (bah-see) - A sweet, potent, raw liquor made of fermented coconut water. It is very perishable and, if left to continue fermenting, basi becomes a coconut vinegar known as Sukang Sasa (soo-kang sah-sa).

Bayot/Binabae (ba-ee-yot/bee-nah-bah-ey) - Animist priests who cross-dress as women to access the powers of the divine feminine. They served the same function as the Babaylan/Baylan. 

As the Spanish colonization of the Philippines progressed, the terms "bayot" and "binabae" became derogatory terms for homosexual males.

Bulan (boo-lan) - Goddess of the Moon. She was cast down from the Skyworld after her brother, Arao, put out her eye with a spear. Her eye is now the moon and, through this moon, Bulan watches over the Tao of Lupa.

Dalit (dah-lit) - A traditional Filipino poetry/song form. Lament/dirge.

Diwata (dee-wah-ta) - Nymph, usually a woodland nymph. However, these nymphs are more than just beautiful enchantresses. They are also capable of healing injured humans, guiding lost travelers to areas where they can get help. When angered, the diwata can lay terrible curses on the offender that last for generations.

Duwende (doo-wen-deh) - Dwarves, wee folk who are no bigger than a human child's hand.

Colorful duwende are good duwende who help with household chores and farm work. They like to play with infants and, if they like a child too much, may lure that child to the Other Land and, without meaning harm, feed that child food from their dimension, making it difficult for the child to return to his/her own plane.

Black duwende are evil wee folk and they wear only black clothing and they bring disease to crops, pestilence to livestock and miasma into one's home. 

They hate children and make children sick, sometimes killing the children in the process.

Gangsa (gang-sah) - A hand-carried gong played by the Ifugao during ceremonies and rites involving dance and chanting.

Hibat (hee-bat) - Also an Ifugao gong, but bigger.

Ibong Adarna (ee-bong ah-dar-nah) - A mythical bird whose song will put listeners to sleep. Its feathers are believed to have magical properties for healing and making oneself invisible. Other nations in Southeast Asia have their version of this bird that they call the Sarimanok (sah-ree-mah-nok).

Inay (ee-nah-ay) - Mother. Also, Nanay, Ina.

Itay (ee-tah-ay) - Father. Also, Tatay, Ama.

Jusi (hoo-see) - A sheer silk fabric made from the fibers of the pineapple plant's leaves. It is used to make formal clothing like barongs, pañuelos and ternos.

Kapre (kah-pre) - A tobacco-smoking giant who likes to perch on large balete trees. Usually non-hostile to humans, the kapre has a frightening appearance simply because of its size. 

If one is courageous enough to befriend a Kapre by giving it good cigars, then one may attempt to climb up a Kapre's tree with a goodly length of Manila hemp rope. Should you manage to tie the rope fast around the Kapre's neck or waist so that the Kapre cannot get loose, you will find a pot of gold at the noose end of the rope in the morning. 

Not that the Kapre will remain your friend, so watch your back ever after.

Kontra (con-trah) - Counter-spell.

Kubing (coo-bing) - A jaws harp that is placed between the lips and tweaked to make a twanging noise. This instrument uses the natural reverb of a partially open mouth to project its sound.

Kulam (coo-lam) - A non-lethal hex cast by a Mangkukulam.

Kulintang (cool-lin-tang) - A set of graduated gongs played by striking the center of each gong with a pair of sticks. the kulintang is kind of like the piano in that you strike the instrument to get a melody rather than a percussive sound. 

Lambanog (lam-bah-nog) - A fiery coconut liquor that is clear and very, very flammable. In some provinces, it does double duty as fuel for outrigger canoe engines—I call it cocobiodiesel and yes, it can peel the enamel off your teeth.

Lupa (loo-pah) - Earth, the dimension where humans live.

Mahal ko (mah-hal koh) - An endearment: My beloved.

Maligno (mah-lig-noh) - A blanket term for supernatural beings, inclusing ghosts and shape-shifting beings. However, this term is considered derogatory and is 

most often used to describe supernatural beings who harm or frighten humans.

Mambabarang (mam-bah-bah-rang ) - Maleficar. More powerful and more evil than a mangkukulam, the mambabarang casts deadly hexes that may kill a target instantly, from a distance and without leaving any traces of their hexes that can be detected by medical science.

Like the mangkukulam, the mambabarang need items taken from the intended target (nail clippings, hair clippings, pieces of umbilical cord, scraps of unlaundered clothing, etc.) to cast their hexes successfully, as well as other spell components, such as blood and teeth drawn from a fresh corpse, which is partly why Filipinos stay awake and alert to watch over their dead day and night until the deceased is buried. The other reason for vigilance during a wake is that aswan like to steal the newly dead and put enchanted banana plant trunks in place of the cadaver, which they feast upon.

Manananggal (manna-nang-gal) - A maligno that mixes with the human population by day but victimizes pregnant women and sucks their babies out through the pregnant women's navels with its long, straw-like tongues.

The manananggal is another creature cursed by Bathala. It can separate its top half from its bottom half and sports huge bat-like wings. The bottom half is usually left amid a stand of banana plants with a few stumps in it. Thus camouflaged, the bottom half of a manananggal ensures the survival of its top half no matter what injuries the manananngal's top half may recieve. To truly kill a manananggal, one must find its bottom half, and sprinkle it with sea salt and minced raw garlic before staking the manananggal with sharpened and fire-hardended bamboo to kill it.

Mangkululam (mahng-coo-coo-lam) - Maleficar. Someone who casts evil spells that cause ill-luck to befall a given target for a fee, usually paid in gold or currency. Mangkukulam also hex people to make them sick in a way that cannot be remedied (such as by making hordes of insects crawl out of one's skin or orifices), though they are rarely able to cast hexes that kill their targets.

A mangkukulam usually requires something taken from the target of a hex without that person's knowledge, such as a photograph, hair clippings or scraps taken from clothing that was worn but not yet laundered. The closer to a person's body the item taken has been, the more powerful as spell focus this item is.

Mundong Kakaiba (moon-dong kaka-eeh-ba) - The Other World, where supernatural beings dwell. The world between the Skyworld (heaven) and Earth.

Nuno (nooh-noh) - A humanoid earth elemental with limbs and digits that are longer than twice the length of the average human. They are neutral beings who may choose to help or hinder whoever they come across. They live in earthen hillocks that resemble anthills but are much bigger.

It is said that laying sweets in front of a Nuno's house or punso will gain you the guardianship and favor of a Nuno. 

If you point at a punso with your fingers, you will draw the Nuno's ire and it will make parts of your body swell painfully for weeks. This is probably why Filipinos prefer to point at things with their lips, or nod in the direction they wish to indicate. 

If you step on a punso, your foot will swell painfully and it will become infected to the point where you may need an amputation. 

However, if you do have the protection of the Nuno, your house is secure and your fields will be well-guarded and woe betide anyone who attempts to steal from your home or your crops.

Oraciones (ora-si-on-es) - Spells, usually beneficial ones.

Pañuelo (pan-yoo-weh-low) - A shawl, usually of jusi cloth or fine cotton, worn by women clad in terno, baro't saya and Spanish-influenced dresses.

Poon (poh-on) - The EarthMother who created the world along with the SkyFather. Mother of Arao and Bulan.

Puki (pooky) - Pussy. Also: Kepyas (kep-yahs), Pekpek, Puday (pooh-day), Ari, Bilat (bee-lat).

Pulot-gata (pooh-lot gah-tah) - Honeymoon.

Punso (poohn-so) - A Nuno's home.

Sigbinn (sig-been) - A totally black demon goat with red eyes that kills its victims by turning its back on the victim and staring at it from between its hind legs. The sigbinn's hindquarters are almost twice as long as its forelegs and it has the long, venomous fangs of a snake.

Once the victim is dead, the sigbinn tears into its chest and abdomen to gorge itself on the victim's heart and liver.

Siokoy (see-oh-coy) - A sea-dwelling and river-dwelling creature that is often (but not always) humanoid and bipedal in form that is covered from head to foot in iridescent scales that shimmer like mother-of-pearl. Its scales are said to have very powerful healing properties. 

The Siokoy are not usually hostile to humans, and that they like watching humans who are close to the shorelines or traveling over the sea and rivers. When its compassion is stirred, the siokoy may even help hungry fisherfolk by filling their nets with edible seafood. 

They have also been said to have come to the rescue of drowning people. When provoked, however, the siokoy will drag a human into the water and drown him or her. 

Taga-Lupa (tag-a loop-ah) - Beings of Earth, of the dimension where humans dwell.

Tarugo (tah-roo-go) - Penis. Specifically a larger than average penis. A penis is average is also called "ari" (also the generic term for genitals, male or female) and "titi." If it is small, or the member of a young boy, it is called "pototoy (poh-toh-toy)." 




How to Tame Your Tikbalang Ch. 14



Tapa (Tah-pa), - Thinly sliced meat strips (usually beef, but sometimes pork or horsemeat) marinated in soy sauce and the juice of small, round Philippine limes called kalamansi (kah-lah-mahn-si), or in a dry rub of salt, sugar and fresh-cracked peppercorns, that is fried crisp and sauteed in caramelized onions and simmered in the marinade (slightly thickened to make a savory gravy) if one does not use the dry rub version. Also, spiced and thinly sliced dried meat, kind of like jerky. 

Tapuey (tah-poo-wey) - A potent but deceptively sweet rice wine made in the Cordillera Autonomous Region (CAR) to the north of the island of Luzon. It tastes like a cocktail, but three shots of this stuff is like six shots of tequila. 

Tikbalang (tick-bah-lang) - A creature that has the head and hindquarters of a horse (usually a warhorse like a destrier), and the muscular torso of a human male, with an unusually large male member. It is believed that plucking the golden hairs off a Tikbalang will bring the daring adventurer uncanny good luck and immense wealth.

Terno (ter-noh) - Traditional formal dress worn by Filipinas. It is a long sheath dress with large, "butterfly" sleeves that clings to the body, reminiscent of the peasant garb called baro't saya (bar-ot say-ah) that literally means "blouse and skirt." The baro't saya was the everyday garb. The terno its glamorous sister.

Tiyanak (tia-nak) - A monster that disguises itself as an abandoned but beautiful infant. 

The tiyanak targets humans for food and entraps them by crying like a hungry or distressed human baby. If the Tiyanak is picked up by its human target, it will attack the human, reverting to its real form while doing so. The Tiyanak is said to look like a demonic infant, with black voids for eyes and the gray, ashen skin of the dead.

A Tiyanak comes to be when a mother is distressed over or resents her pregnancy enough to passively or actively cause a second- or third-trimester abortion/miscarriage. 

Lore from the Chritstianization period of the Philippines onward says a Tiyanak is made when a stillborn infant is buried secretly, without benefit of blessing or baptism.

Zapatillas (zah-pah-teel-yas) - Spanish for pointy-toed, open-heeled mules, usually made with a half-inch to one-inch kitten heel. Zapatillas uppers are usually made with a rich fabric, like silk or satin over leather and embroidered with silver or gold thread or encrusted with paste gems/costume jewelry gemstones.

* In case you are not Filipino and don't know much about the Philippines, we are a people who experienced 400 years of colonization, first by the Spanish, then by the United States (we were sold by Spain, along with Cuba and Puerto Rico under the Treaty of Paris just as the Philippine Revolution was gaining victory).

Hence the strong Spanish influence in our genetics, culture and history—and the Spanish words we use in everyday speech.

We also traded with the Chinese and had thriving Muslim communities as the Spanish colonization of our islands began. 

Sadly, much of our old religion and lore has been lost and I've found mere fragments that hint at a much larger, much more complex body of lore. So I did what any writer will do: I filled in the gaps of my country's lore with fiction. :)