Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2010 12:48:02 -0600
From: michaelpete@hushmail.com
Subject: Career Choice 3

	"We didn't do nothing wrong! Get off us!" shouted Brandon at the
uniformed shopping center guard hauling him by the hair.

	No answer.

	"What'd we do?"

	"Shut up, kid!" Another hard yank on his hair.

	Don Don tried to kick at the guard holding him, missed, and had his
arm twisted painfully in response.

	Passersby watched in amusement.

	The boys were dragged down a concrete staircase, along a wide
hallway and shoved into a small basement room.

	"That guy was a cop or something," grumbled Don Don about the
foreigner they'd been following.

	"Nah, he was a tourist. They probably got him too, but don't worry,
we didn't do nothin', so they gotta let us go."

	A few minutes later, Brandon said, "We can't go givin' `em our real
names, at least not mine. And where are we supposed to live?"

	"Just say the Bay Hotel," suggested Don Don.

	"No, we gotta say a house or something. I don't know no
addresses. We say we live on the street they'll say vagrancy and we're
gonna be locked up. We need an address."

	They invented names but neither had any idea for a home
address. "Can't we say we're from some barrio don't got addresses?" asked
Don Don.

	"You know one?"

	Don Don thought. "No."

	They sat pondering their situation for over an hour. When the door
finally opened, two Western District police officers entered, handcuffs in
hand.

	"Get up," ordered one.

	As they went through the boys' pockets, the same one asked, "What's
your name?"

	"Freddy Ortega," answered Brandon. He felt the cop remove the money
from his pocket. "That's mine. That's my money."

	"Why aren't you in school?"

	The first response that came to mind was, "I failed. I gotta go
back next year. What about my money?"

	"Stowaway, huh?"

	"No, do I look like a stowaway? My money!"

	"No, you look like a stowaway call boy. Let's go."

	The guard's handcuffs were carefully replaced with those of the
policemen

	They didn't speak to Don Don, just searched him then pulled him and
Brandon along by the shirt to a patrol car parked in front of the shopping
center. As soon as Don Don was seated, he began shaking.

	"They're taking us to MYRC, I know," he whispered.

	"We didn't do nothin'. How come you're taking us?" demanded Brandon
loudly. He was ignored.

	Seeing Don Don close to tears, Brandon slid beside him. "Don't cry,
they gotta let us go. We didn't do nothin'." The bravado was purely
exterior. Inside Brandon was collapsing. Only when he'd watched his mother
being hauled away after the death of Alie Ladaw had he felt such an ache in
his gut, an ache that seemed to spread ribs to ribs and up into this
throat. He found himself short of breath. Street boys were full of horror
stories about the Manila Youth Reception Center. But, he rationalized,
they'd exaggerated. Nothing could be as bad as what they'd described.

	As soon as they veered off the boulevard onto a two lane street,
Don Don began to sob. A few blocks later, they turned onto a dirt road that
went past what looked like warehouses. The car stopped before a high chain
link fence with a double gate. Don Don kicked the back of the driver's
seat. They waited while a man strolled across the empty lot behind it to
open a padlock on a chain to let them in. They drove to and parked in front
of a broad two story brick building with barred windows, more like a prison
than a place for children. It took longer to get inside. Several minutes
passed after the policeman knocked loudly before a key could be heard
unlocking the thick wood door. A slim teenager dressed only in a red T
shirt, khaki shorts and slippers stared out at them then stepped
back. Brandon and Don Don were pushed past the youth ahead of the
policemen. Inside was a wide corridor with pale yellow walls interrupted on
each side every few yards by unpainted wooden doors. Halfway toward the
rear on the right, a broad staircase rose to a second floor.

      It was strangely quiet for a place supposed to house over a hundred
children.

	The loud sound of the door being closed and locked behind them
caused Brandon to jump. Control was lost, entrapment complete. He was
caught in a nightmare with no awakening release.

	Brandon and Don Don were seated on a wood bench beside a door
marked `Director'.

	One of the officers knocked and waited. When the door opened,
Brandon felt a rush of refreshingly cool air. Was this place air
conditioned?

	The other cop spoke in hushed tones with the scantily clad teen
doorman who then walked up the stairs.

	When the officer came out of the office, he took the handcuffs off
the boys without looking at either. Wordlessly, the two cops headed down
the hall and up the stairs. Moments later, a young woman with close cropped
hair and a bored expression walked up to them. "Santos, what are you doing
back here?" she asked looking down at Don Don.

	Brandon hadn't known Don Don's last name. Don Don just stared at
the floor.

	"All right, come with me," she ordered.

	Don Don urged Brandon up. They followed the woman down the hallway,
through a metal door she opened with a key, to another enclosed walkway
which went off in both directions. Through the windows in the walkway wall,
Brandon could see an open area across which were more windows, those with
bars, and behind them what appeared to be more bars, a wall of them. Was
that to be their new home?

      The young woman took them to the right and into a small office with
very used furniture. The desk was an old L shaped steel secretarial. Two
folding metal chairs were placed in front of it. In the corner behind the
desk were two four drawer filing cabinets, a magnificent old oak unit that
desperately needed waxing or something to renew the drying wood and a gray
metal unit close to falling over due to a damaged base. Behind the desk a
new photo of Cory Aquino hung prominently on the wall.

	"What are you doing back here, Santos? What happened? Didn't you go
to that home in Pangasinan?" she asked Don Don as she sat in her creaky
wooden swivel chair.

	Don Don examined his fingers.

	"Okay. My name is Miss Jenny. I'm your social worker while you're
here. Now, I need your information." She looked at Brandon. "Full name."

	"Freddy Ortega."

	"All your names including nicknames."

	"That's all. Freddy Ortega."

	She frowned and continued. "Address, where does your family live,
what part of the city?"

	"Tondo but I don't know where."

	"Who lives there, mother, father, who?"

	"Grandmother."

	"What's her name?"

	"Lilly or Tilly, I don't remember." Lilly was a bar girl at his
mother's bar.

	"Where's you mother?"

	"She's dead."

	"And your father?"

	"I don't know. He left when I was little."

	"Why did the policeman bring you here?"

	"I don't know. He stole my money."

	"How much money did you have?"

	"About seventy, I think."

	"Seventy? How'd you get seventy pesos?" She looked at his and Don
Don's clothes. "And where'd you get those clothes?"

	"My grandmother."

	"But you don't know where she lives, or her name?"

	"No."

	"So how'd she give you those clothes? Who gave you the money?"

	"I begged it."

	"Seventy pesos?"

	He nodded.

	"And how'd your grandmother give you the clothes?"

	"She gave them to me when I was there. I wash `em all the time, me
and Don Don."

	"Freddy, or whatever your name really is, I'd like to help you but
you have to tell me the truth. Where did you live with your mother?"

	Thanks to his geography class he was prepared for that. "Batangas
somewhere. I tried to find it but I couldn't."

	"You better think about telling me the truth. The only way you're
going to get out of here is if we can release you to your family. No
family, no release. Tell him, Don Don."

	That ended the interview.

	Miss Jenny walked into the hallway and called out, "Emanuel".

	Don Don leaned toward Brandon. "They're gonna cut off all our
hair."

	Brandon was incensed. This couldn't be! He stood and addressed the
social worker angrily. "We didn't do nothin'. The cop stole my money. You
gotta let us go. You can't cut my hair. We didn't do nothin'." It was
difficult to keep the tears out of his voice.

	A short teen in shorts and white T shirt came to the door.

	"Go with him," said Miss Jenny as though Brandon had said nothing.

	"No!" shouted Brandon. "We didn't do nothin'! We didn't do nothin'!
You people did stuff, not us! You stole my money! You gotta let us go!"
Fury grew with each word.

	Don Don tried to calm him. "Shut up or they're gonna hit us."

	The social worker went into the hall and blew a whistle. Two men
dressed in street clothes and blank expressions appeared in the
doorway. Miss Jenny pointed inside at Brandon.

	The men entered, grabbed Brandon by his arms, lifted him off the
floor and carried him out and down the hall. "Son of bitches! Let me go!"
Brandon screamed over and over. At the second door, they squeezed through
and calmly threw Brandon against the far wall.

	His head and right shoulder hit first. His elbow and rear end
struck the floor. The pain was the worst he'd ever felt. But it wasn't
over. The larger of the two men followed him across the room and kicked him
in the leg, reached down, smacked the side of his head and growled," Do
what the fuck you're told or I'll beat your fucking head in! Understand?"

	Brandon was too woozy to react or even cry. This time, he didn't
hear the door close or the lock being turned. The only pain he could locate
was in his shoulder though he was sure he had to hurt elsewhere. Don Don
knelt beside him in a panic. "Get up, Br.., Freddy, get in the chair, come
on, get up." He stood, pulling on Brandon's arm.

	Brandon was having difficulty catching his breath. After letting
Don Don pull him to a seated position, he fell back, struggling to suck air
into his lungs. That was when he felt the pain in his head.

	Don Don said to the frowning teen standing by a wooden stool, his
arms folded, "Do me first."

	Using scissors then a dull safety razor, soap and water, Emanuel
scraped off most of Don Don's hair leaving small patches of stubble on top
and at his neck. Brandon, meanwhile, was sitting, back to the wall, head in
hands, trying to ignore the pain and figure an escape from a place he knew
nothing about. He didn't watch what was happening above him but did see the
falling hair. They couldn't take his. It made him who he was, like a
trademark. Brandon without his hair wasn't Brandon any more, but, maybe
that's what they wanted. He had to escape. He imagined waiting for the teen
to open the front door then rushing out and climbing the fence before the
man outside could get to him. That, of course, was if he could get back to
that hallway. There'd been no other kids around so maybe it wouldn't be
possible, and, based on what had just happened, he'd be beaten half to
death if he failed, as was likely. In the distance, he heard Don Don
speaking to him.

	"Get up. Get in the chair, come on."

	Brandon felt himself being pulled up. He looked, recognized the
face, saw the teen with the scissors, knew he was lost. "Son a bitches," he
groaned, unable not to cry. "We didn't do nothin'."

	The sound and feel of hair being cut kept the tears flowing though
not entirely due to the loss of hair as to the complete loss of control
over his life. These people could now do whatever they wished with him and
he had no recourse but to let them. They'd proven their willingness to use
violence if he resisted.

	He didn't see the hair falling, couldn't bear to watch. Cutting off
his beautiful shoulder length locks had been a difficult decision but he
was left with enough to frame his face, run his fingers through, feel it
toss back and forth when he turned his head. He had no idea what he would
look like without it, didn't want to think about it. Fortunately, there was
no mirror to reflect his shame.

      The cutting stopped; the scissors were put on a shelf. For the first
time in his memory, there was the strange feel of a wet, slippery hand
directly on his scalp. That wasn't nearly as bad as the razor that
followed. The scraping and pulling seemed to reach right down into his
brain. He tried his best not to cry but could feel the tears dripping onto
the backs of his hands, his pants. There was a growing mound where his head
had hit the wall. The boy with the razor pressed it down while shaving
there. "Oww!" protested Brandon and reached up with both hands to stop him.

	The teen brushed his hands away. "Don't be a baby."

	"Son of a bitch," he grumbled.

	The teen slapped him on the back of the head. "Want me to call the
guards?"

	The `fuck you' was only in his mind.

	The ordeal of amateur barbering complete, the teen with the keys
was called and both were taken back down the hall and through a metal door
the boy unlocked, across the concrete plaza to another locked metal
door. As they walked, Brandon kept his hands at his sides, horrified at
what he imagined his bare scalp would feel like, at how he must look.

      The moment the iron door was opened, before they saw beyond it, they
were hit by the heat, assaulted by the smell of body odor, urine and feces,
frightened by the unhappy murmur of preadolescent and changing voices and
the low key crying of at least two boys, one, strangely enough, on the
verge of adolescence. A chill ran through Brandon's body, neck to chest to
gut and down into his thighs. The teen had to push him through.

      Inside was like a painting of hell. Dozens of unsmiling boys' faces
peered out through and from behind a long row of floor to ceiling jail
bars, their standing, seated and recumbent bodies nearly blotting out the
concrete floor under them. One, his tiny emotionless face following their
passing, couldn't have been a day over six. Most of the inmates were bare
chested, damp with sweat though hardly moving. The crying older boy was
against the far wall, facing it, pounding his fist and banging his head in
slow motion on the concrete. No one was paying him any attention.

      There appeared to be three cells about twenty-five feet square
separated by concrete block walls. The teen jailer or whatever he was,
sorted through his ring of keys as he led them to the first one on the
left. He opened a padlock on a gate made of the same metal rods as the rest
of the cell wall.

      Don Don entered warily, looking about as though he might be attacked
from any direction. Eyes watched their entry, some interested, some not,
some menacing. The age range worried Brandon. By one of the two windows
were boys the size of men, a couple with tattoos on their necks. Don Don,
avoiding their gaze, looked around the room. One boy about ten or eleven
nodded recognition. Another the same age stood to greet him.

      "Shit, you get caught again?" he asked with what might have been an
attempt at a smile but didn't quite make the grade.

      "Fucking cops. We didn't do nothin'. This is, a, Freddy." To Brandon,
"His name is Jimmy. He was here when I was before." To Jimmy, "Boyet still
the boss?"

      "Yeah, and Chino, the one with the muscles."

      "Don't look!" said Don Don urgently to Brandon. "They're gonna take
our clothes."

      But Brandon had already noticed them all staring their way. "They
already seen us."

      Jimmy pulled Don Don by the arm to a small open space. Much of the
floor was covered by straw mats shredded on the edges, most occupied by
seated or reclining boys, most silently sullen, sad. The few who were
speaking did so in hushed tones. Missing from the conversations was the
emotion one would expect, no laughter, excitement or even anger. Brandon
was frightened by the sense of misery around him.

      Jimmy said, "There's more kids now, more mean ones too. That kid over
by the bars standing up's name is Virgilio. Almost anything and he wants to
fight. Made my mouth bleed and I didn't do nothin' except say "ow" when he
stepped on my foot.

      "How come the guards don't make him stop?" asked Brandon

       "Shit," anwered Jimmy, "guards don't never come around, wouldn't do
nothin' anyhow."

      Don Don continued, "The big kids are in charge in here, like
Boyet. He's the boss in this cell. Just don't make him mad."

      Brandon asked, "Which one's Boyet?"

      A maturing voice answered from behind, "Me."

      Brandon, startled, turned to face a smiling teenager, a head and a
half taller than him, five or six years older, displaying perhaps twenty
teeth, missing an incisor, one canine and a bunch of upper and lower
molars, a row of nascent mustache hairs below a nose apparently broken
multiple times, beady eyes and long hair pulled into a ponytail, with BCJ,
the insignia of membership in the Batang City Jail gang, tattooed down the
left side of his neck.

	"Welcome home, Don Don. You tell your friend the rules. My, look at
those eyes. You are going to be very popular here." Boyet was a queen.

	"I told him you're the boss in our cell."

	"That's enough. Just do whatever I tell you and," he grinned,
"you'll survive."

	Fear turned to hatred. Boyet had challenged him. Damn right he'd
survive! And escape. That was priority number one, get out of this stinking
place, this unjust imprisonment, away from these evil people. Brandon
closed his eyes, the realization of a complete lack of control over his
situation blacking out, crushing any hope of escape. The only way out was
to tell them his real name, accept an alternate, maybe not as onerous,
imprisonment but, perhaps, one from which there would be an escape.

      He sank to the floor, head in hands. What the fuck was he doing in
this place? He'd done nothing wrong. Right then, he should have been
swimming in the bay with other stowaways. Stowaways. He was, in reality, a
stowaway. Most of the kids around him were there because they were
stowaways, a life they chose because their former home was worse than the
hard life on the streets. Still, nasty as it was, out there they had their
freedom, that great, all important part of life; freedom, exactly what was
now denied him, to them. And they too had done nothing wrong.

	He pulled his knees to his chest and squeezed, trying not to
scream. He felt Don Don lean against him. The nine year old probably knew
what he was thinking. He'd been lucky before, been put into a home from
which he could run away. But now he was back.  Brandon needed to do
something, to redirect his mind from the horror of being locked in this
wretched cell.

	He asked Don Don, "How come they put you into that home, the one
you were in before?"

	Don Don sat up and leaned back on his hands. "I don't know. They
knew I was in one before and the social worker just put me in another one."

	"So you didn't say nothin' about wanting to be a home?"

	"Uh uh. They just done it but I didn't like that one neither. Wanna
ask `em to put us in one?"

	"I just wanna get outta here."

	Don Don made no comment, just looked at the window.

	Brandon looked over the cell, his mind again on a possible
escape. The two windows were barred, the ceiling and walls were concrete or
more bars. He asked Don Don, "We ever get to go out of here?"

	"Just if the social worker wants you, or there's school but the
teachers never came when I was here before." He paused, "Or if you get a
visitor. Maybe Ray can find out we're here and he'll come."

	That was a dead end as long as Brandon continued to use a name Ray
wouldn't know. Would he think to ask for Don Don? Did he know Don Don's
last name? He didn't think so.

	"What about mail. Can we send letters?"

	Jimmy answered, "Sure, but they won't give you nothin' to write on,
not even a pencil an' how you gonna pay for stamps if you ain't allowed to
have no money?"

	Brandon toyed with the idea of giving the social worker Ray's name
and address but dropped that quickly as he was sure she'd just think of him
as a foreigner probably having sex with him. It could cause Ray a lot of
trouble.

	"Where do we eat?" asked Brandon

	"In here."

	He looked around for a bathroom. Seeing none, he asked, "What about
if you gotta take a shit or piss, or take a shower? How come it stinks so
bad in here?"

	"Everybody shits and all in a hole over there," he pointed to a far
corner, "but the pipe's broke so there's always shit down there. You gotta
put water in it every time you shit but only some of the shit goes
down. Water's on the wall behind those kids. There's a bucket." He
indicated an area just up the wall from where the toilet hole was supposed
to be. "You wash there but kids don't do it that much. Big kids always
looking at your ass and, anyway, we never get no soap, just the big kids."

	The prospect of dropping his pants in front of this motley crowd
didn't worry Brandon as much as the risk of not having them safely on his
body. He and Don Don stood out for the nice clothes and shoes they wore,
items that street kids yearned for and were quick to steal. While many of
the boys in the cell appeared weak and timid, others, like Virgilio,
definitely weren't. The hardness on many of the faces, the cold,
calculating eyes were familiar from the streets. These were boys, almost
all wearing nothing but ragged shorts, who'd snatch what he had and dare
him to attempt retrieval. Being new, and with no fighting skills, there'd
be no recourse. He'd be naked again, this time with no church from which to
seek relief. He'd have to keep everything on until he found a way to
escape, if that was ever possible.

	Don Don, as though again reading his thoughts, said, "Everybody's
looking at our clothes. Somebody's gonna take `em. I'm gonna talk to
Boyet. Maybe he can get us shorts."

	"And what happens to these?" asked Brandon pulling on his shirt.

	"They're gonna take `em anyhow. You wanna be naked?"

	"What about the social worker? Can't she take `em until we get
out?"

	Don Don frowned. "We ain't getting out. We ain't got family."

	"But you got out before."

	"Uh huh, `cause they put me in that home but I ran away so I ain't
gonna get out until I'm seventeen like those guys." He pointed his chin at
the small group of older boys near Boyet. "They might put you in a home or
something but it takes a long time. I was here almost a year before they
sent me."

	"But we didn't do nothin'. They gotta make us see a judge or
somethin', don't they?"

	"You gotta have a mother or somebody to get you a lawyer."

	"So they can just stick us in here for nothin' until we're
seventeen?"

	Don Don shrugged his shoulders. "Even if you got a lawyer, a kid's
gonna be in here three, four months and you better have money. They always
want money."

	Jimmy added, "More. Virgilio's been here almost a year and his
mother got him a lawyer. Been to the court two times but always some shit
about they gotta check on something. And he ain't the only one. Ariel, that
kid by Boyet with the shirt, he went to court a couple times but it was a
couple years ago, before I got here. One kid got outta here couple weeks
ago when he went to court, maybe, but he didn't come back. Most kids get
out `cause their mother or somebody like their grandmother comes and gets
them but not all that many. Lot of kids here now. Maybe they'll let some
go. Did before. Or they make some trustees and send `em to the store. They
never come back, `cept the stupid ones, unless they get caught again."

	Brandon shook his head in despair. "This ain't right. They gotta
say we did somethin' and we get to tell a judge we didn't and they gotta
prove we did which they can't."

	Don Don stared at the floor. "Not here."

	Without thinking, Brandon's hands went to his head then realizing
what the unfamiliar feel was, jerked them away, immediately falling into a
well of depression. He'd done nothing to deserve this. It was just sex. He
hadn't stolen anything, hurt anyone, caused anyone harm. It was completely
unfair, unjust, wrong. These people were wrong. Somehow, someone had to
realize a mistake had been made, that he didn't belong in with these
boys. They'd stolen, sniffed rugby, bothered people. What possible harm had
he done?

	It was difficult to stifle that scream inside him.

	And what about Don Don? He'd said he'd been here before yet he was
only nine. He must have been eight, no, seven. It had been a year he
said. And the little kids he'd seen, the one in his cell? What had they
done to be locked up?

	Brandon nodded toward the five year old by the bars. "How come he's
in here? If you were here a year before you went to the home, how old were
you when they put you in here?"

	"About like him, six, I think."

	"Why? What'd you do?"

	"Nothing. Rugby, and I ran away from that other home."

	"You sniffed Rugby when you were six?"

      "Sure. Lots a little kids do it."

      A look of disgust on his face, Brandon asked, "Why?"

      "Get high. Makes you forget bad stuff and you can have good dreams."

      "When you were six?"

      "Sure, why not? There was kids littler'n me sniffing. Don't matter
how old you are. Still works."

      "I never done it, ain't never gonna do it."

      "That's what you say. Everybody on the streets for a long time
sniffs. You gotta or you're too unhappy."

      Brandon tried to lie down but there wasn't enough room. He asked,
"You were in a home before, before the last one you ran away from?"

      "I been in homes all my life except when I was on the street. My
mother left me when I was born. They know all that. It's how come they put
me in that shit home but now I can't even go back there `cause I was stupid
and I ran away `cause a the big kids always beating on me, taking my stuff
but it's worse here. Just be good and don't get in no trouble and maybe you
can be a trustee in a couple years. It's like Jimmy said. Sometimes you get
to go outside to go buy something and you can run away."

	Brandon understood Don Don's unwillingness on the street to speak
about his past. The reason was similar to his. If the wrong people found
out, they'd end up where they were. But there it was again. He hadn't done
anything wrong in Angeles but they were ready to arrest him there too. Why
were adults so angry about a kid having sex? Adults did it all the
time. That's what the clubs were there for.

	Again, he touched the unexplored territory of his bare head. Other
than a little stubble, it was pure flesh, flesh that hadn't seen the light
of day since he was born. To him, it was what had made him good looking,
even more than his eyes. Did the sons of bitches cut it off so no one would
want him?

	Unable to relax, Brandon again explored his surroundings. There
were around thirty boys in their cell, most older than Brandon, a few
younger than Don Don. There were two wall fans on the back wall.

	"How come they don't turn on the fans?"

	Don Don looked up. "They don't work."

	"So why don't they fix `em?"

	"They don't fix nothin' around here. Like the toilet."

	Another concern. "They got toilet paper?"

      "Sometimes we got newspaper but that's like soap, mostly for the big
kids and a couple others they like `cause they join their gang or
something. We gotta use water and our fingers."

      "You mean our fingers in our ass, in our shit?"

      "Uh huh. I done it lots. It's better when you got soap to wash
after."

      "Then they gotta give us soap. We could get sick. I ain't doing
that. We gotta have something to wipe with."

      "Boyet ain't gonna give us none."

      "He's gotta."

      "You better not say nothin' like that to him. He'll tell one of his
kids to beat you up."

      "He's a girlie boy. How's a girlie boy gonna make big kids do
somethin'?"

      "He's the boss. The director made him boss. So, if you want
somethin', he's gotta say so, even food."

      "They gotta give us food. He can't stop that."

      "Sure he can. I saw kids almost die when he didn't let `em have food
`cause he was mad at `em or somethin'. Anyhow, they don't give us that
much."

      "Like what?"

      "Rice and shit, vegetables, sometimes a little chicken and just two
times a day."

      Brandon watched others using their open toilet. The bigger boys did
have newspaper to wipe up. Younger ones, even some who looked to be
thirteen or fourteen, didn't bother to clean themselves. One scraped his
butt on the side of the hole. Another did as Don Don had said, splashed
water out of the bucket up into his rear end while running a finger through
it. What water wasn't used was dumped into the hole, an act that didn't do
much if anything to reduce the stink.

      By the time he'd watched a few squat over the hole, what concerned
him more than using his fingers to wipe his ass was the scabies a couple of
them had, one all over his middle. Brandon looked at the boys near him. One
of them had it on his lower legs. Another just past that boy had his hand
down inside his shorts scratching. There had to be a way to convince this
Boyet to let him use soap.

      Another indication of his situation was the fact that none of the
boys he saw using the hole had underwear, just shorts or ragged, torn
jeans. Either due to the heat or, more likely, because they didn't have
one, only a few boys wore any kind of shirt. Brandon was sweating profusely
under his shirt and undershirt but didn't dare take off either for fear of
their being stolen.

When he couldn't hold it in any longer, Brandon went to the hole to take a
pee.  The stench over it had him holding his breath. On the floor around
the opening was the outline of the toilet that had once been there but long
ago. It was too dark inside to see the break in the pipe reported by Don
Don.

      He noticed that those closest to the open toilet were smaller
boys. The biggest inmates had the areas furthest from the hole, especially
near the windows. As he looked over the room while zipping up, a boy about
fourteen stared hard at him and asked with narrowed eyes, "What're you
looking at rich boy?"

      "Nothing, sorry."

      "I'll kill you!"

      Brandon looked around. Only a couple of others were looking his
way. Both were grinning. Another said, "Yeah, he's gonna kill you. Kill
him, Ting, go get him!"

      Ting, the angry boy didn't move, just glared.

      Boyet shouted across the room, "Shut up, Ting, you'll scare the rich
boy."

      Several older teens laughed. Ting mumbled, "I'll kill you."

      Brandon, keeping Ting inside his peripheral vision, stepped over two
groups of kids back to his space. Don Don said, "Jimmy says he ain't gonna
do nothing. He's crazy. He does that with everybody, even Boyet."

      That wasn't the last outburst of the afternoon. A thirteen year old
standing at the bars, holding them tightly, became increasingly
agitated. "Son of a bitch gotta let me outta here," he spoke to no one in
particular, then said it again to a boy on the floor beside him. There were
tears in his eyes. Within minutes, he was screaming the same words into the
hall, pulling himself up on the bars, his stringy muscles taut and shiny
with sweat. A nearby boy his size stood and kicked him in the butt. "Shut
the fuck up!"

      With that, the agitated boy turned and spit in his tormentor's
face. That set off a fist fight that lasted two blows each, neither one of
which did any damage. Exhaustion ended it. The agitated boy sat against the
bars, rocking and sobbing.

      Jimmy said, "That kid just come in two days ago and needs his
Rugby. Boyet has some but he won't give him none `cause he won't suck his
dick when they're fucking him. Didn't give him no food neither."

      The final incident before dinner was a one sided fight mismatching a
hefty fourteen or fifteen against the small but feisty thirteen year old,
Virgilio. The latter was quickly down on his backside, but got back up and
rammed head first into his opponent. That time when he went down, the
bigger boy kicked him hard in the face drawing a stream of blood from his
nose.

      "Shit!" garbled Virgilio softly then lay still.

      The only movement apart from the combatants during both battles had
been boys trying to avoid falling bodies. The only comments were a few
egging on one or the other then laughing when someone went down.

      Don Don's friend Jimmy had no idea what the second fight had been
about. "Sometimes they just fight over nothing."

      The level of conversation depended on the age of the conversants,
older boys speaking louder than younger. A group of teens with a ragged
deck of cards grew noisier toward the end of each hand. The smallest boys
didn't seem to speak much at all.

      Other than during fights, the only time there was much movement
around the cell was when an afternoon rain sent slightly cooled air through
the two windows. Many of the older boys stood and crowded around to catch a
part of the refreshing breeze. Those closest even caught the occasional
wind blown wisp of droplets. As usual, there was no space for smaller
inmates.

	Dinner was rice and vegetables in metal cups delivered on four
aluminum trays brought on a cart by, Emanuel, the boy who'd cut Brandon's
hair. Boyet and two of his friends handed it out. In some cases, they shook
a little from one cup into another, the fuller cups going to the older
boys. None were handed to Brandon or Don Don. Brandon asked him, "What
about us?"

	The cold answer was, "You already ate today. Maybe I'll give you
something tomorrow."

	Brandon looked outside the bars for help. There was no one.

	Don Don told him, "He wants our clothes. We gotta give `em to him
or we ain't gonna get no food."

	"So what are we supposed to wear?"

	"Maybe he'll give us something but we gotta do it or we'll never
eat."

	"Now?"

	"Uh uh. Tomorrow. He already give somebody else our food."

	Brandon looked over the room to see who had extra food. Two smaller
boys had nothing. The five year old ate rice out of his cupped
hands. Things kept getting worse than his original fears.

	As light ceased coming through the windows, many of the boys curled
up on the straw mats spread haphazardly across the floor. The only light
fixture was in the hallway outside their cell. It wasn't turned on. A few,
possibly to avoid others seeing them clearly, went to the faucet to
wash. Only two of the five, two older teens, stripped down. The others
poured water down the inside of their shorts, rubbing themselves vigorously
with their hands.

	Brandon searched the walls for a free space but there wasn't any,
nor on any of the mats. The smallest boys had to sleep on bare cement, a
surface that should have offered a degree of coolness, but didn't.

	He wondered how Don Don would deal with what was left of his
withdrawal symptoms if there were any. He certainly couldn't give him a
blow job nor even hold him. The two boys lay side by side on their backs, a
pair of filthy feet by his face, Brandon happy to have a shirt and
undershirt under him.

	Two of the older boys stepped over others and squatted beside
Brandon. "There's space on the mat over there." The speaker pointed with
his pursed lips at the far side where Boyet was sitting. Brandon knew that
was not an offer out of charity.

	"We're okay here. Thanks."

	The speaker chuckled. "Get you ass over there. We wanna talk to
you. Let's go. He stays here." He nodded at Don Don.

	When Brandon hesitated, the other teen kicked him in the
thigh. "Let's go."

	Don Don whispered, "You gotta do it or they'll hurt you, me too."

	Brandon, sure he was about to lose his clothes but hopeful of
receiving shorts in return, rose and followed the first. The second boy was
behind him as though he might try to escape.

	In the dark, Brandon tripped on someone. No one protested.

      He heard Boyet's feminine voice from the next mat. "You be good, now,
Freddy, and maybe you'll get food tomorrow."

      The first teen ordered, "Take off you pants." Another added, "And
your shoes." Brandon frowned at the idea that he'd be able to do one
without first doing the other. As he unlaced his shoes, he said in the
direction of Boyet, "You gotta give us something to wear."

      Boyet laughed.

      Brandon's clean white briefs and undershirt looked out of place among
the ragged, dirty shorts and sweaty bodies as the jeans Ray had bought him
dropped to the floor. Then, a pair of hands grabbed his briefs and pulled
them down. "These too," said someone.

      When a hand felt his ass, Brandon was jolted by the reality of what
was about to happen.

      Hands pulled him to the mat. "On your knees, kid, up on your knees
and don't move or we'll fuck you up."

      A naked body moved in front of him. "Suck on this," a young teen
voice gruffly whispered into his ear. What was obviously a cock poked his
chin. "Open up!"

      Brandon obeyed as he felt a wet pair of fingers between his
buns. They stayed there as a warm liquid fell on his ass and was rubbed
onto and slightly into his hole. It had to be saliva. The familiar feel of
a slippery cock replaced the fingers, sliding around, seeking an opening,
finding it, and pushing too quickly inside, briefly causing a painful
stretching of his anus. The cock in front wasn't fully developed. There was
no hair on the body that pressed against his lips. Both cocks pulled out an
inch or so and rammed back in together.

      Sucking hard to get it over fast, Brandon used tongue, lips and
cheeks, held his head at just the right angle.

      The fucking was erratic, inexperienced, the cock larger than the one
in his mouth but not by much. Brandon had to spread his knees and hands to
keep from falling over as the thrusting became harder. The boy in back came
first, slamming Brandon into the boy in his face, almost knocking both to
the mat.

      "Shit, Mario, take it easy, protested the fellated while continuing
to pump.

      Brandon was right in his assumption that there'd be another at his
rear. Seconds after the first cock was withdrawn, a slightly larger one
took its place, pushing inside easily. Hands gripped his hips as the boy
behind fucked hard and fast. The teen in front grabbed Brandon by the ears,
his passion rising, his cock hardening, expanding. The two came almost
simultaneously, the sperm of the boy in his mouth still without the
bitterness it would have in a few months.

      "Move," ordered someone behind him.

      "Wait a minute," insisted the other. Brandon could feel him still
pulsing.

      A third boy with a smaller cock replaced him quickly after he pulled
out. At least, he felt smaller. The voice was the deepest Brandon had
heard, his hands holding more of him than the others. He fucked slower with
long strokes, poking and passing Brandon's prostate. He'd done this before.

      The boy in front finally let go of Brandon's ears but held his head
to him, his hips revolving a few times before letting go and sitting down,
still breathing heavily.

      The boy behind ordered, "Get down," and pushed Brandon onto the
mat. From the weight that lay on him, Brandon guessed his third rear rapist
to be Chino, the healthiest looking of the older boys. He never slowed nor
sped up, reaching a silent orgasm in a few minutes without any indication
it was near.

      A fourth pair of hands pulled him back up and pushed inside, fucking
faster and harder than the big boy, cumming in less than a minute.

      "That's why I don't like doing it with you, Ariel. You cum too fast."
Boyet was right beside him. To Brandon, "When you get bigger, a lot bigger,
you can do it to me. You ever fuck a boy before?"

      As he spoke, another, this time a definitely smaller cock was
inserted.

      "Freddy, did you?" persisted Boyet.

      "No."

      "But you been fucked a lot by those big dick foreigners. You can
hardly feel our little dicks, can you."

      Brandon didn't reply. He could, as a matter of fact, hardly feel the
little dick plumbing his ass.

      "Come on, Freddy, we know you were a call boy and the way you sucked
on Mynor, I'll bet you were a good one. Mynor said you were real good."

	 Brandon, as he was bounced back and forth by the boy fucking him,
cursed himself for giving anything but the most amateurish blow job
possible.

	Boyet went on. "When they're finished with your ass, I want you to
blow me while my lover fucks me." He paused, "Tell you what, do me really
good and I'll make your little friend suck you while they fuck you
tomorrow."

	"He don't do that."

	"Sure he does. All little boys like to suck. It's natural. It's
like sucking the nipples of their mamas."

	The current teen blasted his cum up inside Brandon. Another took
his place. "Lay back down," he ordered. Brandon couldn't recall how many
there'd been. He tried to remember in an attempt to distract himself from
what was being done and what might come. It didn't work.

	As the last boy pulled out, Boyet tugged Brandon by the arm. "My
turn. Now suck me good and Don Don'll do you tomorrow."

	Brandon realized he was about to expel what had been put into
him. "I gotta shit, now."

	Boyet laughed and ordered a boy nearby to guide him to the cell
toilet hole. Brandon barely made it. The noise made some boys laugh.

	As he squatted over the hole pushing out the last of his liquid
load, he noticed a teenager by the water faucet using soap to wash off his
cock. He smiled Brandon's way and formed a kiss with his lips.

	Brandon's cleanup was by water out of the bucket, applied by his
hand. The odor coming out of the hole now had a trace of sperm to
it. Brandon wanted to empty the bucket on top in hopes of flushing the
evidence of his shame but it been carried off. The moonlight coming through
the windows put the wall around them into shadow. Then, he saw his bright
white briefs being waved back and forth by Boyet. Accompanied by deep
breathing of sleeping boys all around him, Brandon carefully worked his way
back to his abusers. No one seemed to be watching. Had they seen this too
many times to find it at all interesting or odd?

	Boyet was lying on his side, an unimpressive hard on at the
ready. The rhythmic forward and backward motion of the queen's body made it
clear someone was fucking him and made it easier for Brandon to
suck. Though he tried to do a minimal job bringing it on, Boyet was quick
to cum. The teen queen grabbed Brandon's head and held it tight to his
crotch as he unloaded some of the foulest, acid tasting cum Brandon had
ever tasted.

	Much as he wanted to get to the faucet to wash out his mouth, his
first priority was his pants and shoes. Boyet claimed no idea where "they
might be" but did hand him his briefs. Feeling around only turned up
irritated teens.

	Frustrated and disgusted, Brandon stepped over bodies to the faucet
where he was only partially able to rinse away the bad taste. On the way
back to Don Don, he stubbed his toe against a dozing boy but, again, there
was no complaint. Don Don, as most others, was sound asleep, still wearing
his jeans and shirt. It wasn't until morning they realized his shoes were
gone.

	When more rice and vegetables came up, Brandon was handed a cup but
not Don Don. "He didn't do nothing," was the remark the teen gave when
Brandon asked. Moments later, they spotted both of their shoes in the hands
of the teen doorman as he disappeared out of the cell area.

	Don Don cautioned, "Don't say nothing." He didn't ask about what
had happened the night before. When Brandon started to tell him, he held
his hands over his ears. "We gotta do what they say or they'll hurt us
`cause nothing's gonna happen to them if they do so just do what they say."

	Brandon leaned against Don Don and tried to figure a way to exploit
what he had to offer. Being screwed by these boys' "little dicks" as Boyet
so correctly called them wasn't going to be difficult or in any way
painful. He still wasn't sure how many had screwed him the previous night
but certainly more than any full day before, yet his hole felt just fine,
ready to go again. The problem he faced in taking advantage of that was his
powerless position in the cell hierarchy. Worse, anything special he might
offer would then be expected with no accompanying improvement in his
situation, or Don Don's. His goal was simple: adequate food for him and Don
Don. Sharing the little he was receiving at that point would only make them
both increasingly weaker, less able to escape if the opportunity presented
itself. Of course, that might be what the staff wanted, keep them weak,
docile, so they'd be less of a problem. Some of the boys in his cell were
very thin, very docile, lethargic.

	Don Don thought he might have a temporary solution. He went to
Boyet. Brandon followed.

	"If I give you my pants, can I have more food?"

	Boyet whispered something in his ear. Don Don's head drooped. He
unbuttoned his pants and shirt, shed both and handed them over to one of
the teens.

	The both of them were down to undershirts, briefs and socks,
apparently non-negotiable items. Don Don revealed nothing until they were
back in their space. "I gotta suck you tonight when you do him."

	"And what about your food?"

	"Maybe after that."

	Anger rather than simple reasoning motivated Brandon's next
move. He went back to Boyet who was resting against the wall and spoke into
his ear. "I let you guys fuck me last night so how come Don Don don't get
food too. I'll let you..."

	"Bitch," Boyet interrupted with a smile, "You're gonna get fucked,
suck and do whatever I tell you and, if I decide you can have some, you'll
get some food. So just go fuck yourself until I call you." With that, Boyet
closed his eyes.

	That was the beginning of a routine of nightly rape. The number of
boys using Brandon's body as a sperm receptacle dwindled after that first
evening to two or three except one night when several barely adolescents
were allowed to give it a try. Although Brandon had learned the bigger boys
had been using cooking oil out of a rice cup to lubricate themselves, these
kids effectively used saliva. The third one irritated the last two with his
long but unsuccessful and erratic attempt to achieve orgasm. He'd fuck fast
and furiously for a few moments, stop to catch his breath then roar on
ahead for a few moments of frantic fucking. One of the older boys conceded
to the preteens' complaints and ordered him out. The last two managed to
get off, their orgasmic pulsing clearly felt though Brandon doubted they
were leaving anything behind.

      Don Don was required to participate, first in blowing Brandon while
he sucked off Boyet as the cell boss was being fucked by one of the three
teens he rotated, then in sucking off two favored boys who were too small
to get much of a sensation from Brandon's well used anal cavity.

	The third day, Don Don finally began receiving full though small
portions of food twice a day. Brandon, used to a far better daily diet than
a cup or so of rice and vegetables occasionally spiced with tidbits of fish
or chicken, suffered hunger pangs every waking hour. Still, it was better
than what was happening to others, particularly smaller, defenseless boys
who only ate once a day and were ordered to perform such tasks as
collecting and washing the cups after everyone cleaned out all the but last
vestiges of grease, washing the older boys clothes and even their
backs. After performing the latter, they were allowed to use the soap
remaining on their hands to wash themselves.

	That night as he was being led to be fucked, Brandon spotted
another boy about his age sucking the cock of a young teen on the mat next
to Boyet's. A second boy the size of the first seemed to be waiting his
turn. When he asked Jimmy about his the next morning, he was told, "That's
Jun Jun. He's a fag. He'll suck you if you want."

	Brandon shook his head. Associating in any way with a gay boy could
only make his situation worse.

	What was beginning to bother Brandon the most, aside from the
injustice of his incarceration, was the abject boredom of being in that
cell all day with nothing to do, not even much communication. Most inmates
were so weak, they tried to sleep as much as possible. One boy, another
eleven year old who'd been there for eleven months, told of the educational
program he'd been promised by his social worker when "I was stuck in this
shit hole." Teachers had arrived only one day during his entire time there.

	The only break in the day was the occasional brief fight or the
sound of a boy breaking down and crying or screaming.

	Recreation was reserved for the so called trustees which included
mostly teens such as Boyet who'd been there for years and a few younger
ones with a year or more of incarceration, most of whom regularly ran away
the first time they were sent to a store. Brandon didn't see why all
weren't allowed into the back yard. It had a twelve foot high concrete
block wall he was sure none of the weak boys would ever be able to scale.

	Of course, due to that same weakened condition, most boys wouldn't
be able to do much in the recreation yard anyhow. Watching the teens play
basketball only convinced Brandon that their hoarding of much of the food
was the reason the rest of them received so little.

	It was while the older boys were outside that Brandon and a few
others had their only daily opportunity to stand by the windows, to smell
fresh air instead of the stench behind them, to feel the occasional cooling
breeze on their sweating flesh, and to look out at the world where kids
could go wherever they pleased, the soul wrenchingly unreachable world of
freedom. During his first times there, Brandon had to hide his tears.

	Back inside, Brandon was increasingly concerned about disease. Many
had scabies, a highly contagious condition that required cleanliness and
medicine to cure as in Don Don's case. Cleanliness was difficult without
soap and, from what he'd seen and heard, there was no medicine. There cases
of boys who'd eaten with dirty fingers vomiting up the little food they'd
been served, weakening them further. Supposedly, according to a couple of
long timers among the preteens, a doctor was on call but, with the
exception of two boys who'd nearly died of malnutrition and another
suspected of having tuberculosis, no one they knew of had seen a
doctor. Since none of the three he mentioned was brought back to the cell,
they had no idea if they'd survived or not. Soap was reserved for the
bigger or connected boys leaving others, all of whom ate with their hands,
to wash with water alone, a not very hygienically effective method.

	The second evening, Brandon was allowed to use Boyet's bar of soap
but that was certainly to protect those fucking him from contracting
scabies. The following day when he let Don Don use the suds off his body,
not the bar itself, he was smacked on the head and when he slipped and fell
from the blow, kicked hard in the stomach.

	On the fourth day, Don Don offered to blow Boyet or one of the
other teens.

	"We don't need your little mouth. We got Freddy's," replied Boyet
disdainfully. "You can help Jun Jun, if you want but he ain't gonna give
you nothin' neither."

	Nonetheless, as sunlight was replaced by moonshine that night, a
skinny thirteen year old came to Don Don claiming Boyet had sent him for
servicing. Then, while Don Don was sucking off a second boy, Virgilio came
up behind him with a saliva slickened finger and stuck it inside Don's
Don's hole, wiggled it around, withdrew and replaced it with his maturing
cock, still smaller than Boy's but bigger than Rafael's. It hurt. Don Don
grunted. Virgilio clamped his hand, the one with the greased and shitty
finger, over Don Don's mouth and said, "Shut the fuck up!"

	Brandon, on Boyet's mat impaled on a teen cock, could only watch as
Don Don, while working on the first boy, was brutally mounted by
Virgilio. His brief attempt at a protest was stifled by a gruff, "Shut up
or we'll fuck him too." In the morning, Don Don refused to talk about it.

	Then it was Sunday, visiting day.

	There was more food than usual with a bit of scrambled eggs mixed
into the rice and enough soap for nearly everybody. Three and four boys at
a time bathed themselves. Brandon and Don Don washed up with Jimmy, each
scrubbing the back of the other. Brandon and Don Don did the best they
could to get the white back into their dirty underwear, then wore them damp
back to their space.

	Jun Jun squatted nearby watching Brandon, licking his upper lip
whenever Brandon glanced his way. When Brandon shook his head, Jun Jun
shrugged his shoulders and cocked his head.

	One by one, five boys were called out and sent to the yard outside
their cell where parents or relatives were allowed an hour with them. One
preteen came back with tears rolling down his face. Another returned
mumbling curse words. A fourteen year old walked straight to another boy
and hit him hard in the face claiming something or other was his fault. It
was the longest fight Brandon had seen. Two others were drawn into the fray
briefly when the combatants fell over them. It ended when the one
originally attacked got up and walked to the toilet area and kicked a
smaller boy. The visited boy watched him go, apparently too tired to
follow. "But you watch, I'm still gonna get out before you!" he shouted
after him.

	Virgilio was called out. It seemed to animate him. He left smiling
but came back furious. At first, he just sat and brooded then, "Freddy,
come here." It was an order, not a request. Brandon, afraid of his
volatility, obeyed in hopes that the friendless boy might just want to
talk. It was daytime with the occasional staff adult passing by so a desire
for sex didn't seem likely.

	"Blow me," he said quietly.

	"It's too early," answered Brandon timidly.

	Virgilio reached up and grabbed Brandon's still wet undershirt,
ripping it as he yanked him down. "Blow me, faggot!" he growled and smacked
him across the face.

	Brandon looked toward the window. Boyet had his back to them. Two
other teens seemed amused by what was happening.

	Virgilio jammed Brandon's face into his shorts. "Get it out and
suck it."

	For the first time, Brandon felt ashamed about what he was about to
do. Everyone could watch including younger boys who might not have known
what was going on after dark.

	Virgilio slid down the bars making his crotch more
available. "Suck, faggot!" he said more loudly.

	Brandon unbuttoned the top of Virgilio's soiled shorts. The fly was
broken, His cock was soft. Kneeling, he leaned in to do as he'd been told,
sure there'd be pain if he disobeyed. He lifted up the hairless penis and
sucked it in. Using his tongue, he worked the bottom, urging it to
stiffen. That failing, he sucked on the head, taking it all every few
seconds, but that didn't work either.

	Virgilio whispered angrily into his ear, "Harder, you son of a
bitch, make me hard."

	Both times he'd sucked him, Virgilio had arrived already erect and
had climaxed in minutes but nothing he tried now seemed to have any effect.

	Virgilio hit him in the back of the head and pushed his hips
upward. Brandon took that to mean he wanted his balls sucked. It
wasn't. Along with another hit to the head, Virgilio grumbled, "My dick,
faggot."

	Again, nothing worked. Brandon could feel Virgilio's thighs harden,
his breathing increase. Fearful of the boy's anger, he worked faster,
sucked harder, ran his tongue around and over the flaccid cock.

	Virgilio muttered , "Shit," and rammed his knee into Brandon's
chest following that with slaps to both sides of his head.

	One of the teens called out, "Virgilio can't get it up!" That was
followed by adolescent laughter and catcalls which enfuriated the thirteen
year old. He put a fist into the side of Brandon's face then kicked him in
the gut as he scrambled backward trying to escape. Holding onto his shorts,
Virgilio jumped up and followed Brandon across the quickly evacuated floor,
kicking him repeatedly. Brandon, terrified, rolled into a ball, covering
his face with his arms. A foot to his kidney made his body straighten
out. Virgilio's slippered foot came down on his chest, taking his breath
away. That was followed by an attempt to kick him in the groin that instead
landed painfully for both on his hip. Frustrated and furious, Virgilio
stepped up and, as Brandon peeked out to see, kicked him in the side of the
face. And it was over.

	Virgilio screamed "Fuck you!" at the cell and walked away. Brandon
curled back up and struggled to breathe while beginning to cry. He hurt
everywhere. It was worse than the attack in the hair cutting room.

	Don Don eventually arrived, apparently feeling safe to do
so. Virgilio was back sitting at the bars, eyes hidden behind hands
supporting his head. Boys nearby watched as Don Don pulled Brandon to his
feet and led him back to their space.

	After watching Brandon sob and feel the parts of him that hurt,
Jimmy suggested, "When they beat me up, I take a bath. The water makes it
feel better."

	Don Don agreed. Brandon hardly heard what was said but allowed Don
Don to take him to the faucet. The cooling water did moderately decrease
the pain.

	Hours later, the swollen lower lip, torn inside and a painful jaw
from the kick to his face made eating and drinking difficult. Nonetheless,
when the sun went down, Boyet's buddies, more interested in their own
passions than concerned about any discomfort or pain they might cause, took
their nightly toll of Brandon's body. Three of them fucked him, one
gripping sore ribs, another thrusting on top of a painful thigh. Boyet
insisted on his blow job.

	Only one twelve year old with `BCJ' tattooed onto the side of his
ass went to Don Don for a blow job.

      Then, Monday morning, a strange thing happened. four pairs of small
shorts were sent into their cell. Brandon watched as they were handed out
to the expected tougher kids preferred by Boyet's teenage gang. Then, two
of the discarded dirty shorts were handed over to a couple of boys who'd
been using oversize shirts to cover their privates. Finally, that evening
after passions were relieved, Brandon and Don Don were presented with the
other worn shorts and a bar of soap to wash them. Sex had earned a small
amount of success.

	Once that week and again the following, the social worker tried to
convince Brandon to give up his real name. Both times, Brandon insisted he
was Freddy Ortega and had no idea where his family currently resided.

	A number of new boys came in, three to their cell with none
leaving. According to Ariel, one of Boyet's older teen groupies, "When they
get too many, some kids get let go, not new ones like you, maybe Marcelino
over there." He pointed out the ematiated, listless five year old.

	Then, he asked, "How come you don't tell Miss Jenny your real
name?"

	Brandon, surprised this boy knew anything about his interviews,
answered, "I did. My name's Freddy Ortega."

	"No, it ain't. It's something begins with b r like Brian or
something. So what is it, really?"

	"It's Freddy. Who told you what I said to Miss Jenny?"

	"We hear stuff. After you been here for a year or two, you'll see."

	Ariel was one of three trustees, including Boyet, in their
cell. Brandon asked, "How'd you get to be a trustee?"

	"I been here three years, that's how."

	"Anybody get to be a trustee sooner?"

	"Shit, they ain't gonna make you no trustee when you won't give `em
your real name. You might be wanted for murder or something. You gotta have
a reason for lying about your name."

	He was close. The statement reinforced Brandon's determination to
keep his identity away from these people. The possibility they could
convince Don Don to give him up was worrisome but they obviously hadn't
done it so far. But why not? Just one boy had heard Don Don's slip. Was it
possible that only the imprisoned knew about it and hadn't told their
captors? He tried to think if he'd ever mentioned his real last name in
front of Don Don but couldn't. Even if they knew his real name, would the
Manila authorities have any reason to contact those in Angeles? The
Americans involved probably thought he was somewhere around Angeles. No,
those bar girls talked too much. Word would get out about the escape to
Tondo, maybe even the address. If he were to escape, trying to find his
grandmother was out. Anyhow, his only reason to seek her apartment was to
recover his backpack and the money inside, cash that had certainly been
found by his uncle and taken.

	Escape was still his number one priority. He'd had two thoughts
concerning it. One was to somehow get out into the yard with the trustees
and climb the wall. According to the kids in the cell, there was a river
behind it. He wasn't a great swimmer but if he could get across, he'd be in
Quiapo with several then hundreds of directions he could run. Once into
that rabbit warren of narrow streets, it would be nearly impossible to
catch him.

      The two times he'd been taken to the social worker, there'd been a
teenage trustee with him, not that there would have been an opportunity
alone. On both occasions as he'd walked across the open mid-building area,
he'd examined the second floor from below and saw nothing encouraging. He
knew the girls' cell was up there as well as a couple of classrooms,
storerooms and offices, all with locked doors. The only way out was through
the front door and over a high fence without the guard getting to him
first. But, to get that far, he'd either have to find a way to convince the
teen doorman to let him out or steal his keys.

	He was entirely unwilling to wait a year, a year of rapes, abuse
and so little food he'd be too weak to run, just to become a trustee who
may or may not be allowed to go outside on an errand. But, he gradually
accepted the reality that climbing the twelve foot wall on the playground
was beyond his capabilities. He envisioned three of them on each others
shoulders but couldn't figure out how the third person could be reached to
pull him up.

	Apart from fretting over his unjust loss of freedom, sitting long
hours with nothing to do gave time to imagine all sorts of escape plots,
most absurd like getting to the roof and jumping the twenty plus feet to
the ground. He even played with the idea of giving up his real name and
accepting whatever the Americans would dish out, most likely time in a
correctional facility more difficult to escape from than where he was, but,
maybe not. Maybe they'd put him in a home, probably not. Without a good
lawyer, poor kids never got a break.

	Don Don was resigned to the depressing reality of living where he
was. It made him less and less communicative, less interested in things
going on around him. There'd been a fight between two mid teens during
which one nearly strangled the other to death. Most of the boys ringed the
battle, urging on one or the other. A few sad cases like Don Don glanced
the way of the churning crowd but didn't join it or even ask what had
happened. He did spend time at or near the window, looking out for hours on
end but with eyes fixed on some unseen place, not really seeing
anything. Brandon stood with him a few times and asked what he was looking
at. The answer was always, "Nothin'."

	Don Don's mechanical sucking worked to encourage the boys he was
servicing to seek out Jun Jun instead. The less endowed fucking him didn't
seem to mind the impassivity and one or two used him almost every
night. There really wasn't anything else to do.

	Brandon tried to read the pieces of days old newspaper before they
were torn up to be used as toilet paper. There were tidbits about what the
new Aquino government was doing, advertisements for movies he wasn't going
to see any time soon, stories about which rich persons attended which
parties and lots of sports he knew nothing about. The newspapers did
inadvertently demonstrate a sad situation, very few of the boys in his cell
could read, including Boyet. Out of boredom, he offered to teach him.

	There wasn't much interest. "So what am I going to read about,
Cory's new dress? There ain't nothing in there for me."

	Nonetheless, three others from Boyet's group, including two who'd
been fucking him, did want to learn. Boyet allowed portions of newspaper
with complete or near complete stories to be saved from destruction. He
even requested pencils and paper which were immediately denied.

	Brandon started with names the boys recognized like their
President, Cory Aquino, and Juan Ponce Enrile and Fidel Ramos, the leaders
of the recent EDSA Revolution against Ferdinand Marcos. He went letter by
letter, vowels first. The one, Ariel, the biggest of the teens, picked up
in three days enough to figure out other words. That third night, while he
was fucking him for the first time in a week, he thanked Brandon then
asked, "This don't hurt you none, does it?"

	Brandon admitted it didn't.

	He tried to interest Don Don in his reading class. The nine year
old did sit with them but didn't learn anything, not even the `o' that most
picked up almost immediately.

	Word of his reading class reached the next cell. Several boys
wanted him to come teach them. Once again, the staff turned down the quite
reasonable request.

	By the end of that week, there were seven kids with Brandon
mornings and afternoons. Since outsiders had been prohibited from the
class, the teen key boy asked Brandon to teach near the bars so he too
could learn. Was this going to turn into an opportunity, access to the
keys?

	Brandon tossed the idea about that all evening, while two boys
fucked him, as he sucked Boyet with another teen banging into him from the
opposite side, then, after rinsing out the worst of the taste of Boyet's
foul sperm, and back in his space. He didn't dare ask too soon. The boy
would realize that the favor asked would bring about the end of his English
lessons. What about teaching him apart from the others and somehow stealing
his keys? Since he wasn't allowed inside the cell, it was even less likely
he'd open it up to let Brandon out.

	Patience, he told himself while running his fingers over the
growing stubble on his head. Befriend the boy. Watch for some kind of
opportunity.

	Brandon's concern for Don Don's deteriorating mental condition put
a certain amount of urgency into his plans. He pondered the possibility of
offering someone cash that he'd send them once he was outside but quickly
decided no one would believe him.

	Ray would be back soon. He tried to figure out how long it had been
since he'd left but found it impossible. Anyway, how could he contact him?
Mail, he'd been told, wasn't prohibited, just impossible. No one would give
any paper to write it on and pens and pencils were prohibited inside the
cells.

	Meanwhile, three more boys were put into their cell. None taken
out. With no rain for a week and the increased population, the heat was
intense. It wasn't necessary to move for one to sweat profusely. The stench
from the open toilet grew stronger. On calm days when no air came through
the window, it was worse. The boys tried piling their mats over the hole
during the day. Boyet advised against it but the situation was
desperate. That helped but then, as Boyet had predicted, they had to put up
with the horrible odor in their mats as they tried to get to sleep. That
experiment was dropped after one bad night.

	With the worsening conditions, more fights broke out. In an effort
to diffuse the situation, the staff tried moving boys around. Two of the
more disagreeable boys were taken out of their cell and replaced with three
from two others. All had heard of Brandon's sweet ass. All three wanted to
partake that first night. The regulars took offense. The fight that ensued
brought both night guards to the bars screaming for them to stop. But,
since everyone knew they weren't about to enter, the battle went on. One of
the three new boys was beaten unconscious, nearly killed. All night, he lay
unattended, bleeding badly from head wounds. Finally, in the morning, with
five guards and four policemen, all with batons, the injured boy was
removed, dragged quickly out by his feet.

	Boyet, who'd stayed well out of the previous night's fray,
negotiated a peace pact of sorts granting each group access to Brandon's
ass on alternate nights except Sundays when others not in those two groups,
principally saliva lubing twelve to fourteens, were allowed to indulge
themselves. Boyet's nightly blow job wasn't affected. Brandon wasn't
consulted on the matter.

	To keep the newcomers content, they were given the first night. The
fucking was the most brutal Brandon had endured since entering the
institution. It wasn't the size of the relatively small cocks, it was the
repeated ramming against his anus. It took the second boy the better part
of half an hour to cum. Brandon's ass hurt like it never had before. He
begged Boyet for soap to wash himself off but with, "Only got a little
piece", he was denied. Water cooled him but didn't calm the aching.

	He lay on his mat weighing the risk of telling the social worker
his real name and situation. Sleep was a long time coming.

	The following day, a day short of four weeks since Brandon and Don
Don had been arrested, what looked like, at least on the stench front, the
MYRC administration coming to their rescue, appeared in the form of two
men, plumbers ostensibly, who were let into their cell the next morning
after all the boys been hustled into what was supposed to be a classroom
directly across the midbuilding plaza from their cell. The noise the
workers were creating sounded like sledge hammers breaking concrete. The
men came and went pushing a wheelbarrow loaded on the way out with broken
concrete and dirt.

	"No more stink!" declared Boyet after the first wheelbarrow full of
debris left.

	There was speculation that they would actually put in a real
toilet. "But the water pipe is too far away," countered one.

	"They can put in a new one, stupid. They tore up the floor."

	With all the action and discussion about what might be going on,
that day passed faster for everyone, and much more pleasantly, than any in
memory. No arguments or fights. Even Don Don seemed somewhat interested.

	"Think they'll give us toilet paper?" he asked Brandon.

	"I don't think so but maybe more newspaper." He was far more
occupied in trying to see if this situation offered any increased
opportunity for escape. They were still behind walls and bars but they'd be
moving them back and forth for at least a couple of days. Maybe he could
sneak away from the group as they walked from the classroom through the two
metal doors and back into their cell, especially if they waited until dark
to move them, an unlikely but enticing prospect. There'd only been three
guards and the key teen watching them when they switched locations. One
missing out of the current thirty-eight might not be noticed. Then, of
course, what was he going to do?

	The workers left late afternoon but well before the sun went down,
just before the afternoon meal. However, no one came to move them until
after the day shift left. There were only two guards at night plus the key
teen and an outside watchman. Brandon debated suggesting a group jail
break. Thre was only one door between them and the entry door. His top
student, Ariel, was a big boy, bigger than the key teen and one of the
guards. They could overpower them and grab the keys.

	Just as he was about to broach the idea, a guard shouted from
outside, "Everybody up. Get in line." The guards had just such a
possibility in mind. Only five at a time were transferred. The rest were
ordered to line up against the far wall and wait until told to come out.

	Brandon was in the fourth group. The moment he walked into their
cell, he knew something was up. All the boys were grouped around the toilet
hole but several were faced out rather than looking at what had been
done. When he approached them, Boyet was admonishing everyone to, "Just
stand around here and act normal."

	Brandon, as were the others, was confused. He tried to look through
them at the hole but Boyet whispered through his teeth, "Do what I
said. Act normal."

	What they were doing was anything but normal. They'd generally have
sat down.
 Brandon said, "This isn't normal. What's wrong?"

	"Shut up and do like I said. All right, sit down. Couple of you sit
down."

	The fifth group walked in. Boyet went to them and told them to just
go sit down. There were questions but he gave them his look and they
ceased. The guards had their attention on boys moving from the classroom to
the cell. They weren't looking into the cell proper. When all thirty-eight
were transferred, they put the padlock on the gate and left without even a
glance back.

	Boyet rushed back to the hole, and a hole it was, about a yard wide
running from the toilet hole location right under the exterior wall. Three
boys were already on their way out. Boyet angrily ordered them back
inside. "How're you gonna get over that wall, you stupid assholes?"

	Brandon's mind, sensing a glorious return to freedom, was racing
over ideas. "Let me look outside, let me. I'll stay where they can't see
me." There were many windows overlooking the recreation area and boys who
might shout if they saw a cell full of boys racing across it.

	Boyet said, "No, wait. I know the yard. There's nothing out
there. Let me think."

	"Fuck you," said Chino, "I'm gonna take a look. Anyhow, we can
climb over each other. One kid gets on the shoulders of the other." He
dropped down into the open pit and crawled under the wall.

	Brandon had thought of that but it was a plan that only benefitted
the taller boys. He doubted they'd help smaller ones get out. "Boyet, he's
right but let kids like me get on your shoulders and we can help others up
and they can pull kids." He was still formulating his incomplete plan as he
voiced it.

	Boyet didn't say anything. Chino poked his head back inside and
said with a smile, "There a fucking ladder out here! Come on!"

	Boyet jumped in ahead of all but blocking it rather than trying to
get through. "No! No. We gotta wait until everybody else is asleep. We go
now, the others are gonna see us. People are gonna see us going over the
wall. Wait or we're all gonna get caught."

	Chino agreed and crawled back inside. "He's right. We need to wait
until late when nobody's around, outside too or they'll start yelling and
we'll get caught."

	When Ariel agreed, others followed. Everyone went to their space
and sat. Brandon, realizing they were right, began making plans. His first
thought was to get to Miss Sally and his money. The hotel wasn't a viable
option shoeless, wearing filthy shorts and undershirt and arriving late at
night.  There was enough money at the club to buy decent clothes, clothes
that wouldn't make him look like a stowaway. And, he'd find some that
didn't look as fancy as the ones he'd been wearing on the street. And, he'd
stay out of Robinson's. The sea wall was a safe place, and maybe that other
movie theater Junior at the Venus had mentioned. That might even be
better. And he'd get some decent food into Don Don, reanimate him, bring
back the boy he'd come to regard as his little brother.

	They waited. Brandon began to worry they were being set up, that
the whole thing was some kind of trap. He went to Boyet with his concerns.

	"I don't know," answered the teen after a few moments. "Maybe they
didn't tell the night guards to keep us in the classroom."

	Brandon thought that possible but, then, there was the ladder. "So
how come there's a ladder outside."

	"Shit, Freddy! Maybe they're gonna paint or something. How'm I
s'posed to know? Just be happy you're gonna get out."

	That didn't satisfy Brandon a bit but it also didn't deter him from
preparing to take advantage of the situation.

      The later the hour, the more calls came for them to leave but Boyet
and Ariel counseled that even later would be better. Best to wait until the
middle of the night when no one was around. Ariel said he knew the area and
could lead them over the bridge to Quiapo where there were plenty of places
to hide out and easy access to other, farther away parts of the city like
Monumento and Tondo where they'd never find them. He even had some ideas
about finding clothes.

	To Brandon he admitted, "We gotta steal `em but when they're
setting up their stands in the morning, it's easy. I'll show you how. You
stay with me. I'll take care of you and you can keep teaching me how to
read."

	That complicated Brandon's plan. He'd need to get loose of
Ariel. There was no way he wanted him around when he went to Miss
Sally's. Anyway, if they left too late, Miss Sally's would be
closed. Perhaps staying with Ariel made good sense. Oh freedom! He could
decide where he'd stay, what he would do.

	The two teens' logic prevailed. Everyone waited until late. With
silence around them and outside, Chino led two others out to look at the
ladder. It was an aluminum extension ladder. They suspected the workers had
left it there thought they couldn't imagine why when they were digging
holes, not painting or fixing anything high. Ariel conjectured that they
were going to put another toilet on the floor above.

	Neither Brandon nor a few others bought that. "Toilets are inside,
not outside," argued one.

	Another commented, "Something weird is going on."

	Brandon's concern about a trap grew. If they were caught trying to
escape, that would probably be a crime so kids like him who hadn't any
provable charges against them would then be liable for a somewhat
legitimate charge rather than being held for being poor and on the
streets. Still, when it came time to move out, he was up and ready.

	The ladder was quietly placed against the wall near the end of the
building putting their escape out of sight of the other windows. There also
was the cover of a large tree outside the wall whose branches hung well
over it. The moment the go ahead was given, the biggest pushed ahead into
the hole and out first, followed by medium sized then the
smallest. Survival of the fittest in action. Brandon waited to help Don Don
who didn't seem to fully understand what was going on. Looking down into
the hole, he said, "They're gonna catch us. We're gonna get caught."

	Brandon wasn't hearing any of that. He jumped into the hole with
another kid his size, pulling Don Don by the arm. Don Don fell on top of
him. To get him to crawl out under the wall, Brandon had to get behind and
push. Once outside, Don Don had difficulty climbing out of the
hole. Brandon hadn't realized how weak his friend had become. He sat on the
side of the trench and pulled Don Don up and out.

      There was only a partial moon. It was too dark to see much but the
metal ladder shone like salvation with souls struggling up it to reach
paradise. The image was broken by the noise made as boys climbed up the
metal rungs, like tin cans being banged against the wall. Someone had to
hear them. How was he going to get Don Don to the top? He froze. How was he
going to get him down? There was a twelve foot drop on the other
side. Bones could be broken by a fall from that height. He could lower him,
drop him but he'd still be six feet up. How were others getting down if
they were? It was hard to imagine any of the bigger boys waiting around to
help.

      He led Don Don to the foot of the ladder. There was a crowd trying to
get on, a crowd on the rungs. No one was moving. From the top of the wall,
he could hear sometimes angry, sometimes anxious though subdued
voices. They were arguing over who was going to do what. Boyet was up there
but afraid of the height.

      "Bring the ladder up and put it down this side then you can bring it
back here," he said.

      Brandon saw the flaw in that. Only bigger, stronger boys would be
able to move it leaving the smaller ones trapped inside. He suggested in a
loud whisper, "Some kids can hang and drop then help the others get down,
little kids first `cause they weigh less."

      Grumbling erupted. No one wanted to wait while smaller kids went over
ahead of them. Patience was waning. Finally, Chino said, "I'm going."

      Silence followed then someone, another teen, said, "Okay, now me."

      Brandon said, "The little kids now."

      "Uh uh," said a changing voice on the ladder. "Everybody."

      Several voices agreed. The line on the ladder began to move though
slowly. Soon the only voices were younger. A changing voice cried out in
pain from the other side. From the wall, Boyet said, "Be careful. Wait, I'm
getting tired."

      Brandon strained to see. There was a larger figure on top of the wall
along with several smaller ones. Was Boyet helping others instead of
escaping first as Brandon had expected?

      If it was Boyet, he leaned over, helping someone over the side, then
another. The line up the ladder continued to move. The smallest child, the
weak five year old stood watching. Another boy urged him forward. He and
Brandon lifted him up on the first rung. "Climb," urged the other, a boy
about Brandon's age who'd never said much, was one often left out when food
was dispensed. Brandon let him go first. Two more smaller boys pushed in
behind them. When Brandon put Don Don on ahead of him, another stepped onto
the ladder beside him. Two steps up, Don Don stopped. "I can't."

      Brandon put his arm around Don Don's waist and lifted him, step by
step until they reached the top. Darkness was all he saw on the other
side. Boyet, his sweat covered face reflected in the sparse moonlight, was
lowering a boy Brandon's size. He lay flat and stretched as far as he
could. "Here he comes," he called out softly to someone below.

      Brandon heard the sound of body hitting body. Breathing heavily,
Boyet said to Don Don as he took his hand, "Don't come back this time,
okay?"

      Don Don was too terrified by the dark abyss below to answer. Again,
"I can't. I can't."

      His pleas went with him over the side then Brandon pushed his legs
and rear end off. Boyet said, "Here comes Don Don," and dropped him. Again,
the sound of body on body but nothing more. As he prepared to lower Brandon
over the side, Boyet said, "Don't wait for me. I'm staying."

      "Why?" asked Brandon incredulously.

      "I'll be okay. I been here six years. Come on. Take my hand."

      The boy behind Brandon was nudging him forward. There were more on
the ladder. With no idea what to say, he took Boyet's hand.

      Ariel slowed his fall, letting him slide through his arms to the
ground.

      "Boyet's not coming," Brandon told him.

      "I know. He'll be okay. He likes this shit hole."

      Brandon, fear and exhuberance competing inside him, whispered Don
Don's name.

      "I'm here," he answered.

      It was difficult to see well but there seemed to be far fewer human
shadows than had gone over the wall.

      When the last boy was down, Ariel led the group through a few
buildings to a street under the elevated train tracks. Several of the older
boys ran ahead and disappeared in the dark. By the time they reached a
major boulevard, more had split off and gone their own way. From there the
depleted band of fewer than fifteen went to a major street and a bridge
over the Pasig River that curled through central Manila before dumping its
sludge into Manila Bay.

      Traffic was light. After ordering them to walk normally over the
roughly two hundred yards to the end then cut back under the bridge and
wait, Ariel sent a quiet fourteen year old across with a group of
three. When they'd dropped out of sight down the far side, two more groups
of four were dispatched until Ariel took Brandon, Don Don and Jimmy
across. The rest, again missing a few including the five year old, were
waiting down a street along side the bridge in a walkway tunnel through its
base midway back toward the water.

      "This is Quiapo. Lots of stowaways live around here or you can hitch
on a jeepney and go to Cubao or up to Monumento. We need to split up or
we're gonna be spotted. Cops'll be looking all over for us in the morning."

      He put his arm around Brandon's shoulder and said softly, "Come with
me. I know a place where we can sleep and in the morning get us some
clothes and maybe something to eat."

      "Don Don's coming with me," said Brandon.

      "I know."

      He took them along the base of the bridge almost down to the
water. There, under the bridge's super structure, were small shacks and a
few jeepneys. They crawled into the back of a jeepney and lay on the seats,
Ariel on one side, Brandon with Don Don on the other.

      Even though he felt he owed Ariel for helping him escape, Brandon's
thoughts were on getting to Miss Sally's, not going anywhere with
Ariel. After coming to Quiapo area movie theaters, he felt he could find
his way to Malate and the gay bar. There were problems with that. First,
neither Miss Sally nor anyone else inside got out of bed until
noon. Looking as he did, it would be risky waiting around or even arriving
in daylight. Then there was Don Don. He didn't think Don Don could hold
onto the back of a jeepney long enough if at all. If what he said was true,
Ariel did offer a solution to the clothing problem. Then, maybe he could
convince him that he had some money stashed and would share some of it when
he got back. He'd have to leave Don Don behind. That might convince the
teenager of his sincerity.

      Brandon had barely fallen asleep when someone rudely awakened him
with a smack on his bare leg. "Get the fuck outta my jeepney, kid!"

      It was still dark as the man drove away. The three boys slumbered
against the carton wall of a shack.

      True to his word, when the sun was appearing over the horizon behind
them, Ariel showed Brandon a street where men and women were setting up
clothing stalls, most long lines of tables end to end with a great variety
of clothing. Brandon made his proposition.

      "I got some money with a guy in Ermita. He's got plenty and he likes
me so I can get it. Just get me some clothes first and we can buy you and
Don Don some without getting into trouble."

      "It ain't no trouble. I done this before lots a times. You just stay
here and watch. Then we'll steal some food and after we eat, you can go get
your money."

      Brandon suspected Ariel had something in mind that didn't include him
going anywhere. He didn't think the teen believed his story about having
stashed cash. Still, he couldn't go off as he was. Ariel quickly blended in
with the dozens of shirtless men and teens carrying loads of
merchandise. For a while, he strolled casually between the tables. Brandon
hardly saw it when Ariel leaned down, picked up a large full sack and kept
on walking. It was several minutes before the owner realized it was
gone. First, he looked under his tables then stood, furious, looking all
around him. Finally, he just sat down on top of displayed clothing and
shook his head.

      Ariel didn't show up for several minutes. When he did, he was still
hauling the same stolen sack on his shoulder. "Follow me," he said and
walked back down under the bridge four blocks away.

      Where they'd slept, a woman was washing clothes while three toddlers
played around her. Another was preparing food. Back up where the bridge
base approached the uneven ground below, small children played and ate with
dirty hands. They sat just down the slope from a woman grilling fish. When
they began sorting out the clothing from the sack, she took notice but
didn't appear concerned where it had come from. Moments later, another
woman and her kids approached.

      All the clothing was for children, mostly small ones. They found some
pants and colored T shirts Don Don's size but the rest were smaller.

      The woman asked, "How much for these?" She pointed at some small
elastic backed jeans.

      "Five," answered Ariel.

      She bought them. More people showed up. They netted ninety pesos in
short order plus bartered breakfasts for the three of them. Ariel carried
the rest to the other side of the bridge where jeepneys from Cubao and
other areas turned around. Sales there boosted their cash haul to one
hundred and seventy-five pesos, enough to buy both Ariel and Brandon pants
and shirts at a nearby used clothing store, and more food.

      Brandon twice used jeepney mirrors to check out his growing hair. It
was going to be a long time before he could do anything with it. It was
about then he thought to ask what day it was. "Wednesday," answered the
driver then muttered, "Stowaways."

      "Now let's go get your money," said Ariel confidently.

      "I gotta go alone but Don Don'll be here with you so you know I'm
coming back."

      Ariel stared at him for a moment. "Okay. We'll meet you under the
bridge. How long you gonna be gone?"

      "I don't know, maybe a few hours. Depends if my friend is there. I
might have to wait."

      Ariel allowed himself to be convinced to buy Brandon a pair of
slippers for his bare feet.

      Rather than hitch a ride, Brandon paid for the jeepney ride to
Ermita, thoroughly enjoying the wind and the feeling of freedom. The short
walk from Taft Avenue to the Malate club made him feel whole again. He
didn't mind it when the man who opened the door didn't know him at
first. "What do you want?"

      "It's me, Freddy!"

      It required a second look for the man to realize who he was. Rather
than the expected welcome, the expression was one of apprehension. He
checked up and down the street while pulling Brandon inside. "Wait
here. I'll call Miss Sally."

      Miss Sally rushed to him, robes flowing behind him, hair bundled in a
scarf, an expression of concern in his eyes. "Brandon, dear! What happened?
We were all so worried. Look at your hair!"

      "I was in MYRC. The cops arrested me in Robinson's for nothing."

      "Robinson's, oh, dear, you were working and got caught. Oh, your
beautiful hair. Why do they always do that? And you're so thin. Are you
hungry? You must be hungry. Come, let me get you something to eat."

      Miss Sally took Brandon to his apartment where he ordered a teen to
prepare breakfast for them both. While they waited, he pried Brandon for
tales from the inside.

      "That place must have been terrible. Did they, uh, do things to you?"

      Brandon decided to limit his answer. `I got beat up once."

      "I mean, I've heard that good looking boys like you get, fucked by
the bigger boys."

      "They just didn't let us have food sometimes, so they could eat it
all."

      Miss Sally appeared dissatisfied but let a sigh do and asked about
Don Don.

      Brandon related the story of their escape.

      "Sounds to me like they wanted you to go."

      It had occurred to him as he was crossing the Quiapo Bridge but just
didn't seem like something such terrible people as his captors would
consider doing.

      "Well, you said there were too many of you. And, really, a ladder?"

      Brandon said, "Sure glad it was my cell."

      Miss Sally was coyly curious about Ariel. "And he's looking after the
two of you. What's he look like?"

	"He's a thief. He stole clothes in the market so we could eat and
buy this." He fingered his new shirt.

	"Oh," sighed Miss Sally, "That's too bad."

	A large plate with rice, fried eggs and a fatty slab of beef was
put in front of each. "Do you want coffee, tea or mango juice, my dear?"

	Brandon opted for the juice then gently brought up his money.

	"Don't you worry. It's here, dear, every peso. You can have it all
if you like but shouldn't you leave some here in case you get robbed or
something?"

	That made sense. "Can I come work here some on the weekend?"

	"Oh, dear, I don't think so. You were very good and some of the men
really liked you but you're so young. I was a little crazy letting you do
it before. We could get in a lot of trouble the way things are these days."
The apologies became intertwined with further questions about Ariel. The
food tasted great after weeks of not much more than rice but Brandon's
stomach had shrunk so he wasn't able to enjoy very much. Miss Sally gave
him a plastic bag to carry leftovers back to his `companions'.

	Getting to Ray's apartment building became a puzzle. Brandon had
forgotten exactly where it was, especially coming from Miss Sally's rather
than Ermita but he eventually got his bearings and found it. The clerk
entrusted with his money took a lot longer to convince that the stubble
headed boy in front of him was the owner of the clothes and pesos he was
watching over. However, since Brandon only wanted to know if Ray had
returned and wasn't requesting anything, he finally allowed himself to
recognize him. There'd been no word from Ray Hoolihan.

	In Quiapo, Ariel was where he'd left him, alone. "Where's Don Don?"

	Ariel frowned. "I'm not supposed to tell you but if I don't you'll
blame it all on me. He's under the bridge, where we sold the baby
clothes. I didn't say nothin'."

	Confused and unsure what was happening, Brandon trotted down toward
the Pasig River. Don Don made no attempt to hide when he saw Brandon
coming.

	"What's wrong? I've got some money so we can stay in a hotel
tonight."

	Don Don stared at the ground. "I don't wanna go back there."

	"Why not? And Ray's gonna be back soon and we can stay with him."

	"I just don't wanna be in Ermita. I don't like doing that kind of
stuff."

	Brandon sat beside him. "You don't have to, just me."

	"And Ray? He's like the others. He wants to do it. He already did
it with you."

	"That don't mean he's gonna do it with you. I'll just tell
him. Don't worry. Let's go."

	Don Don said, "I wanna stay here with him." He nodded up toward
Ariel who was standing about twenty feet away.

	Brandon looked, immediately feeling betrayed. "You wanna live on
the street again instead of sleepin' in a bed and eating right? Shit,
you're gonna have to beg and steal like before and the big kids are gonna
fuck you anyway. Ariel fucked me a lot. He's gonna fuck you too." Brandon
was on the verge of tears.

	"No, he ain't. He promised. Anyhow, I don't wanna go back
there. We'll just get arrested again. I'm stayin' here. Anyhow, maybe I'll
go back to that home."

	"You hated it there."

	"It's better'n MYRC."

	"Ray's place is better than any of `em'." He shot an angry glance
at Ariel but dropped his gaze at the thought of what the bigger boy could
do to him should he so desire, particularly if he knew there was two
hundred fifty pesos in his underwear and pockets.

	In the end, he accepted a temporary stalemate and slipped all but a
hundred of his pesos to Don Don. "Don't let Ariel have any of that. It's
for you."

	"Ariel got us out of MYRC."

	That sent a spark of fury into Brandon's brain. "No, he didn't. I
got you up that ladder and Boyet got you down. Ariel just helped when you
dropped. We coulda got away without him easy." He glanced back to see if
Ariel had come any closer. He hadn't. "Don't listen to his bullshit. He's
just a thief. You saw him this morning. That's probably why he was in
there, stealing."

	"So what, I steal too sometimes. You gotta. Anyhow, I'm not going
back there where you're going, never. I'm going back to the home."

	Brandon was filled with an urge to get away, run. He was losing
another friend just as he had before, through injustice, the nastiness of
others. Still, "I'll come back next week. If you change your mind, be here,
or just go to the sea wall or Ray's house. He'll be back soon and I'm gonna
live with him. I, I gotta go." And he did without looking again toward
Ariel. He walked until he got to the line of jeepneys then ran up and onto
the bridge, quickly tiring but continuing on at a fast walk, agonizing over
lost friends, especially Millie. How he yearned to lie again with her, arms
around each other. She'd loved him, wanted to marry him some day. She was
locked in some home and she'd only been doing what her stupid mother made
her do. Then there was his mother, in jail and she hadn't done anything,
nothing, just angry at what she thought Alie had done to her son, but they
locked her up anyway. Alie had fallen on her own. He'd seen it. His mother
hadn't pushed her in front of that jeepney, she'd just fallen. And now the
fucking Americans were after him, wanted to lock him up. He hadn't done
anything wrong either.

      When he reached the east end of Luneta Park, he sat on a bench and
fretted, but only for a few moments.

	Mentally, Brandon kicked himself. He was free, out of that horrible
place. He missed Don Don but that shouldn't matter as much as the fact that
he could now do as he wished. However, he realized that he was
tired. Jumping up and heading into the park wasn't what he should be doing
at that point. Rest was needed, preferably on a bed, maybe on his belly
with a dick up his ass. That didn't take much effort. What time was it? The
sun was still high in the sky, not a great time to find a tourist. Worse,
they were at least four blocks away, more likely six or seven. Fuck it! He
had the money. He took a taxi to the sea wall planning to lie down and
snooze on the beach. Inside the car, he pushed eighty pesos back between
his ass cheeks, laughing to himself since that was where most of his money
came from.

	The woman who'd watched their clothes for three pesos was where
she'd always been. He lay down in front of her and fell asleep.

	When Brandon awakened, there was a towel over his face and
head. "You're all white and you can get burned," said the woman when he sat
up.

	The sun wasn't far above the horizon way out over the bay. A few
kids about fifty feet out in the water were splashing each other. None of
the half dozen adults around seemed to be their parents making them
probable stowaways like him.

	Hunger struck as he stood and thanked the woman for her
kindness. He walked toward Ermita and food vendors always to be found
there, or perhaps he'd buy a sandwich in Raymond's Fastfood.

	Before leaving, he looked around the area for an interested
tourist. A night in a nice hotel room would be great. There was an older
couple, probably married. No potential there.

	He walked over to and down Santa Monica Street to the corner of Del
Pilar, probably the most famous area spot for boys to meet men. And there
they were, one in front of the bar across the street and two in Raymond's,
all looking at him, the only boy around. Brandon wanted a single customer
but the two were where he would obviously have to be fed. He could deal
with two.

	Brandon didn't have time to sit before the two waved him to their
table. "You hungry, mate?" They were Australians.

	"Hungry yes," answered Brandon in his callboy English just like old
times.

	The teen age waiter told him, "They don't got much money."

	Brandon shrugged that off and ordered a cheeseburger, fries and a
lemonade.

	"You tourist?" he asked them.

	"Sort of. You sleep us?"

	Tourists but they'd been around long enough to learn how to speak
to kids like him. Brandon asked, "You sleep hotel?"

	"We have apartment near here. You come?"

	Brandon debated how to bring up his fee. "How much?"

	"We give you food, a bed for the night."

	"Need money."

	"No have much money, just food."

	Brandon frowned and looked to see if the other man was still across
the street. He'd crossed over to the park and was watching. His clothes
were a cut above what these two wore. Then Brandon noticed his shoes, black
leather, well shined. American Embassy? He negotiated harder with the
Aussies. "Need money. Suck twenty-five, fuck fifty."

	"Brother! You too rich for our blood. We just suck you. You
sleep. That's all."

	Brandon didn't believe them. The burger came. He dug in worried
they might take it away if he didn't go with them. They stared at him
waiting for an answer. With his mouth full, he said sadly and used the old
callboy line of, "Need money for mother."

	The one who hadn't spoken yet laughed, "You don't have a
mother. You live on the street. Come on, sleep us."

	Brandon pretended not to understand. The young man threw up his
hands.

	The spoke to each other lamenting that they might be going home
alone again. Brandon felt sure they would. They did allow him to finish his
meal and, "You need bed, you come here, sleep us."

	Brandon nodded and, seeing that the probable American was gone,
went to the small concrete plaza across Santa Monica Street. Another
slightly older boy stood across the street. The Aussies waved to him. He
shook his head.

	An older foreigner walking south Del Pilar used his eyes to suggest
that Brandon follow him. Brandon looked across at the other boy who
shrugged. He didn't know the man. Brandon stood, stretched and did as
requested. The man turned left at the next street and waited.

	As he approached, Brandon looked the man over. He was in his
fifties, his button down shirt, decent slacks and moccasins seeming
appropriate for his face. "We go my hotel?"

	"How much?"

	"Depend what you like." He spoke with an accent Brandon didn't know
but probably European.

	Brandon had to decide if he should understand that. Coming up with
a no, he stated his price, "Twenty-five suck, fifty fuck."

	The man smiled. "Okay. We go?"

	It was a small hotel on Padre Faura. They entered quickly. The boy
at the desk pretended not to see them.

	The room was a pleasant one on the third floor. Brandon noticed
that the closet was empty. There was no suitcase in sight. The man was
staying elsewhere using this as a fuck pad.

	"We bathe?" suggested the man.

	After a shower and a thorough tongue bath, the man put on a rubber
and lubricated it with a sweet smelling clear salve out of a small thick
glass jar. He was well experienced, entering with no discomfort even though
his cock was on the large side even for a foreigner. The fucking was
deliberate and slow, done in a variety of positions including at one point
standing up. In the end, Brandon was required to sit facing him and bounce
up and down. The man closed his eyes as he reached orgasm.

	They showered again. Brandon asked, "I sleep here?"

	"Sorry, I must go."

	Brandon made a deal with the desk clerk for twenty-five pesos under
the table and did sleep on the comfortable bed with the understanding that
he'd be called and have to leave before six in the morning.

	Though he tried to lie awake and enjoy the cooling air from the
ceiling fan, he quickly fell asleep and didn't awaken until the phone
beside his bed roused him at six.

	None of the turo turos were open so he wandered to the seawall. A
few women were preparing food over small fires in front of their lean to
shacks against the stone wall and a young couple walked slowly hand in hand
along the beach. Brandon sat on top of the wall and stared out to sea
watching a pair of freighters move slowly on their way to the harbors north
of Luneta Park.

 	Freedom. How special it was. The sailors on those ships could
travel all over the world. The couple on the beach could walk as far down
the shore as they wished. The women on the beach were poor, very poor, but
they could get up or go to bed when they wanted, come and go as they
pleased, just like him. He needed to make money but in his spare time, he
was free to do whatever he wanted. Care was going to be needed never to
allow anyone take away that freedom. No Robinson's. Stay away from places
with Barangay Tanods. Choose customers with care.

	He lay back on the wall and looked up at the sky. It was becoming
its daytime rich blue. By afternoon, it would cloud over, maybe rain, but,
for now, it was a wonderful blue, the color of freedom.

	A group of three stowaways, roughly eleven to thirteen years old,
walked down from the park, climbed then jumped off the wall onto the beach
where they shed their miserable clothing and dashed naked into the
water. Brandon couldn't keep himself from joining them. He left his clothes
with the woman watcher and walked into the almost calm waters. The trio,
two sitting comfortably in water up to their shoulders, the other
squatting, eyed him suspiciously until one relaxed and asked, "When did you
get out?"

	The question surprised Brandon for a moment until he remembered his
shorn head. Two of them looked to have been bald less than a few months
before. "Couple days ago."

	"You escaped, didn't you, with the others."

	"Who told you that?"

	"This kid in the park got a brother named Marcos. He said some men
were puttin' in a new toilet and left a hole and a ladder and everybody got
out. You know Marcos?"

      Marcos was a fifteen year old who'd been fucking him a couple of
times a week.

	"No, I got out last week but I heard."

	The threesome had heard glorified stories about what had occurred:
over eighty had escaped, a guard had tried to stop them but been beaten
senseless, the director had called in the military to seek out the
escapees, and so on. Brandon, not wanting to tempt fate, said nothing.

	The squatter, the smallest, stood, displaying a dying hardon. The
eldest said, "Let's move. Ting just shit, didn't you."

	"You do it too!"

	"On the rocks, not in the water."

	That argument followed them out into until they were covered up to
their waists, deep enough for a splash battle to ensue.

	An hour or so into their play, Brandon noticed a barely visible man
on the far side of the seawall, his head hidden behind a camera with a
large lens lying on the concrete, pointed their way. Was it Ray? He stood
up, looked hard then turned quickly away. The hair was too light. Was it
someone from the embassy? Did he already have his face on film. That lens
seemed big enough to have captured it clearly.

	"There's some guy back there taking out pictures," he told the
others.

	The frolicking stopped. All three stared toward the beach. "There
he is," said one with a smile and flipped his dick.

	"Quick, go ask for some money," said another.

	"What if he's a cop or something?" asked Brandon.

	"Shit! So what. We ain't doing nothing wrong. Anyway, he's a
foreigner, look." He waved at the man who waved back but stayed tight
behind his camera, obviously continuing to take photos.

	Brandon, turned sideways, watched him covertly under his arm. Two
of the stowaways headed toward the beach in hopes of a score. The remaining
boy, the eldest, said, "Those assholes went to a hotel with one of them
foreigners and just got ten pesos each," then dropped over backwards and
floated, his growing cock flopping side to side.

	When the pair reached the sand, they ran up to the base of the wall
where each held up a hand. The man looked around his camera and spoke to
them. They turned and walked back to the water. The man got back behind his
camera. Once at the water's edge, they ran as far as they could then dove
and half swam, half crawled toward Brandon and the third boy.

	"Five each if we all walk back to where he is. I think he wants to
suck our dicks."

	"Fuck that," said Brandon, "you go ahead, I'm staying out here."

	"Uh uh, you gotta come too. He said only if all of us do it. Come
on! He sucks our dicks and he's gotta give us more. It's fun. We done it
and it was fun, better'n beatin' off."

	Brandon shook his head. "What if he's from the embassy up there?"
As he was asking it, he knew it wouldn't make any sense to them. It didn't
make much to him. If he was from the embassy, he already had his
picture. It was more likely he was a potential customer. "Okay."

	They pushed their way back through the water, the two who'd gone to
the beach wiggling their hips and flipping their cocks until the third boy
told them to stop. "Some cop or somebody sees you and we'll be in trouble."

	As they approached the photographer, Brandon was sure the camera
was principally on him though, once they were on dry sand, the foreigner
did seem to snap quick shots of each. The man spoke a modicum of
Pilipino. "Now, go back to the water, you, then you, then you, then you."
The last you was Brandon.

	The moment the third boy walked off, the man said to Brandon from
behind his clacking camera, "Mabini, Padre Faura, thirty minutes. Mabini
Padre Faura, thirty minutes." Mabini and Padre Faura were streets that
intersected a few blocks off the beach. Brandon nodded and walked back
toward the water, the sound of the camera continuing as long as he could
hear it over the small surf.

	So, he had a customer, but was he a safe one? As he got to the
water, Brandon looked back. Backsides were being photographed.

	Half an hour later, he walked cautiously up Mabini from the south,
watching to see if anyone other than the photographer was waiting. He saw
no one from a block away. According to a clock in a store window, it was
barely eleven, an hour from when people would be out for lunch. It wasn't
until he reached the corner of Padre Faura that he saw a man with a camera
bag well to his right nodding for Brandon to follow. At the next corner, he
walked into a small hotel Brandon had been taken to twice before. Inside he
led him past the empty desk clerk position in a small room halfway up the
stairs to a second floor room where he greeted in English, "Jesus, you've
got beautiful eyes!" The accent was American.

	Brandon pretended not to understand. The man pointed to Brandon's
eyes and rolled his own. "Father American, German?" he asked in Filipino.

	Brandon shrugged his shoulders and kicked off his slippers.

	After a name exchange, the man claimed to be Brian, the American
asked in fractured Pilipino, "What do you like to do, in bed?"

	Brandon, sure he could have charged the man from the previous
evening more than he did, tried to guess what this young man with his
expensive camera would be willing to part with. "Suck thirty-five," the
five was added on as he said thirty, "fuck seventy." The pensive look on
his customer's face told him he'd priced himself correctly.

	In Pilipino, "I suck you, thirty-five or you suck me?"

	With another shrug, in English, "You suck, I suck."

	"Then let's suck!" He began undressing.

	Moments later, before Brandon could get a good look at what was
between the man's legs, the two were naked side by side on the bed with the
man attempting a kiss. Brandon turned his cheek to the man's lips. He
kissed then laughed. "Kiss extra?"

	"Kiss ten." He wished he'd said twenty.

	They kissed, tongues slipping past teeth, massaging one
another. Brian tugged Brandon on top of him and took hold of his ass
cheeks, alternately squeezing and fondling them. Brandon felt a hard on
slip up between his legs. He clamped his thighs on it and worked them back
and forth. The man's hands caressed Brandon's smooth legs as far as he
could reach then reached between them to take hold of the stiff boycock
there.

	Brandon took that to mean he was ready to be blown and pushed
himself down toward the man's middle. Brian said, "Turn around." And pulled
on his leg.

	The cock he found in front of him was so long, well over seven
inches, Brandon hardly noticed when the man began sucking on him. He
managed to get half inside before sucking on it. Perhaps it would be best
to get him off orally rather than risk a hard fucking by something that
would reach well up into his abdomen.

	His customer was a competent fellator, sucking, moving his cock
back and forth across the inside of his mouth, keeping Brandon well short
of climax. Brandon went up and down, sucked on the head sticking his tongue
into the opening, revolving his own head while fondling the heavy testicles
below. A couple of times, it seemed the man was about to shoot but, each
time he grabbed Brandon's head and kept him still long enough for the fire
to diminish. Brandon's jaw, accustomed to Boyet's small tool and fast
finish, began to ache.

	Brian stopped and said softly, "We fuck?"

	Brandon, the mancock well into the back of his mouth, thought it
over and decided to go for more money based on the size he'd have to take
in. He lifted off and said, "Very big," in English.

	"Hundred fifteen pesos very big money."

	Brandon had meant a total of seventy for the suck and fuck. Brian
apparently had added them separately. That worked. He sat up. In simplistic
Pilipino, "You down, I sit, okay?

	"Okay."

	"Condum?"

	Frustration covered the man's face. "No have. I very clean, no
problem."

	Brandon shook his head and said in English. "Condum. No condom, no
fuck."

	"Shit!" was on his lips but silent. "Okay, okay," he said as he got
up, "I buy condom."

	"And grease."

	He sighed, "And grease."

	Brandon had a thought. "You buy ten condom, more grease. I pay," he
requested in Pilipino.

	Brian dressed quickly, forcing the massive erection inside his
jeans, grabbed up his camera bag and rushed out.

	Brandon was asleep when the man returned nearly half an hour
later. A kiss awakened him. Brian was already naked but soft, holding a
white plastic bag in the air. "Yours," he said triumphantly and put the bag
on the bedside table. His other hand held a still packaged condom. He lay
beside Brandon and said, "You suck."

	Brandon, still a bit woozy, crawled down and sucked in the limp
organ which didn't stay that way for more than a few seconds. Brian had the
condom out and ready. Brandon took it and applied it. The `grease' was a
small tube of K-Y, Millie's favorite. Brian applied it liberally.

	As promised, Brian lay on his back and raised his formidable cock
perpendicular to his body. After staring at it for a moment, assuring
himself he could handle it and poking a bit of K-Y inside, Brandon, cock
soft, climbed over the man's body and positioned himself facing him, feet
to either side of his belly. Squatting, he placed his hole on the tip and
let it push past his sphincter. Diameter wasn't what he was concerned
about.

	With a brief back and forth wiggle, Brandon began lowering himself
slowly. He put his hands on the bed and leaned back slightly. Unable to see
how far he had to go but not feeling any discomfort, he went on. The tip
passed his little prostate providing a slight titillation then straightened
out his colon. Brian's eyes, fixed on the entry, provided no clue as to
when body would meet body.

	Something seemed to creak inside. Brandon stopped and waited,
gently moving his hips forward and backward. Brian's eyes closed. Not
feeling anything strange, Brandon slid down some more. Tips of pubic hair
touched his buns. With a slight forward movement, Brandon sat full down on
the man's crotch. Brian opened his eyes and whispered, "Jesus, that's
good." He looked up at Brandon, "Okay?"

	"Wait," he replied in English immediately wishing he'd used
Pilipino. Brian didn't seem to notice.

	"It's got to be up to here," said Brian in English, his finger
poking Brandon's belly button.

	Brandon pushed himself halfway up the shaft then settled back
down. No problem. He began doing it continuously, lifting higher each time
until the head was at his hole. Brian watched his cock appear and disappear
inside the eleven year old, occasionally mumbling `good' or `incredible'.

	Brandon suggested, "You fuck now," and maintained himself well
above Brian's body. The fucking was okay until Brian shifted down a bit and
the tip began hitting something sensitive inside. Brandon stopped him with
one hand and moved forward. "Okay." The thrusting continued, smoothly
through Brandon's rectum, past his prostate and into his colon, the only
sensation being a slight stretching of the canal with each full entry.

	Brandon remembered his training. "Feel good, Brian, fuck me good."
Putting more weight on his legs, Brandon used one hand to hide his soft
cock.

	Droplets of sweat appeared on Brian's forehead. He upped the tempo
and took hold of Brandon's hips. Brandon tried moving them side to side. No
pain. Brian grunted, "Oh shit!" Brandon repeated it, "Shit. Fuck me good."

	Brian returned with "Oh man!" lurched upward then pulled Brandon
down with him. Brandon felt the throbbing as Brian bloated the end of the
condom with cum.

	It took him a full minute to relax but even then, a couple of
pulses passed through the buried shaft. "Jesus, Brandon! That was
incredible. Oh man."

	They waited for Brian's cock to deflate and slip out of its own
accord. It wasn't until he stood up that Brandon realized the condom was
still inside him. Fortunately it pulled out intact, the tip full of thick
white sperm.

	Brandon walked away with a hundred fifteen pesos and a date for
Monday morning. Brian had wanted a reappear Saturday afternoon but Brandon
had plans to spend the weekend at the Premier Theater sucking and sitting
on smaller organs.

	Happy to have taken comfortably such a large pole up his rear and
feeling that raising his prices was going to be generally if not always
possible, Brandon went up Jorge Jocobo Street to the United Nations Avenue
McDonald's and ordered a Big Mac with fries and a chocolate shake.

	That afternoon, he was picked up on the Santa Monica Plaza by
another American who paid thirty-five pesos for a blowjob then a tourist on
his first trip to Asia from Austria kept him overnight to see how long he
could keep his dick inside. It came out minutes after unloading. Brandon
gave him a free repeat in the morning which netted him an in-room breakfast
and a crisp hundred peso bill.

	After a morning cavorting in the bay with stowaways and a pair of
truants, Brandon bought a rice and fish lunch there on the beach then
wandered down to Ray's apartment house to see if there was any news on that
front. There wasn't. He considered leaving most of his cash there but
decided Miss Sally, only a few blocks away, was a safer place. He had to
listen to admonitions on safety but Miss Sally agreed to be his
banker. Brandon left with fifty pesos, enough for jeepneys, a little
refreshment, and a cap, hopeful of returning with a lot more.

      From the club, Brandon walked to Taft Avenue and took a jeepney to
Quiapo where, after buying a baseball cap to make himself a bit less
recognizable, he spent a fruitless two hours looking for Don Don.

      The Premier Theater, according to Junior at the Venus, was on the
east side of Rizal Ave., a broad commercial boulevard on the outskirts of
Tondo that ended at the Monumento market near where Boy had taken him to be
screwed by a group of crude teens. Junior said it was a few blocks before
the market which wasn't accurate. Concerned that it might be infamous for
what went on in the balcony, Brandon was reticent to ask anyone its actual
whereabouts so ended up passing its location well south of Monumento then
finding it when he walked south for ten minutes from the market.

	Entry cost fifteen pesos rather than the Venus' ten. On the stairs,
Brandon decided to raise his prices accordingly.

	The war movie was occasionally bright enough to illuminate the
balcony. A man slumped in a seat near the middle. The only other person
there was a young teenager sitting in the seat nearest the top of the
stairs. He stared at Brandon as he stopped at the top and greeted with a
nod. Assuming the boy would be competition but wanting to stay near where
potential customers would enter, Brandon backed into the corner and leaned
on the railing watching the film.

	Twice, Brandon looked back at the teen who, each time, glanced up
at him. The second time, the boy waved Brandon to come sit by him. Happy to
have someone to possibly clue him in on the way things were done, Brandon
complied.

	"They don't come until after five. That guy," he pointed over his
shoulder, "just likes to watch. He's old. Can't get it up. I've tried. Poor
guy." The boy was obviously gay. "This is your first time here, isn't it?
My name's Billy. What's yours?" He held out a limp hand which Brandon took
but had to do all the shaking.

	"Freddy. How much they pay here?"

	"Depends on what you do. Anyhow some of them are cheap
bastards. What do you do?"

	Unsure how much to say, Brandon answered, "What do they like?"

	"Jesus, you ever suck a cock before?"

	"Uh huh. How much for that?"

	"No you didn't. My God, a virgin in the Premier. They're gonna love
you."

	"No, I did it before."

	"Where?"

	"Venus."

	"Oh, that place." Billy rolled his eyes. "You meet Junior?"

	Brandon smiled. "Uh huh. You know him?"

	"Oh yes. He was here before until they raped him in the projection
booth, some guy from the market, sells fruits. Him and his friend stuck a
banana up Junior's ass and tried to fuck him together, both cocks at the
same time. Stupid but then they beat on him `cause they couldn't do
it. Those two can't come in here anymore but Junior won't come back
anyhow. Didn't he tell you?"

	"Uh uh. He just said it was okay here. So how much they pay for a
blow job?"

	"Depends. A lot of `em just wanna pay ten and you gotta swallow
their nasty shit."

	"I ain't gonna do nothing for ten. They gotta pay fifteen and five
more if they wanna shoot in my mouth."

	"Good luck. You'll get some but most of `em are cheap."

	Billy went over some of the men who came in and his experiences
with them. To Brandon it didn't sound much different from the Venus. What
he didn't mention was fucking so Brandon asked. "How much they pay to
fuck?"

	"Oh that. Well, maybe, twenty, twenty-five but most of `em just
wanna get blown."

	"They use condums?"

	"This bunch? No but I never caught anything from `em. Just gotta
look and see how clean they are, you know, if their dick stinks. Anyhow,
you're too little for that."

	"I've done it before." He stopped himself from exposing more.

	"Well, you still look too little to me so you better be careful."
Billy seemed nervous.

	Brandon sensed competitive concerns. "How many other kids come
here?"

	"Oh, lots, especially tomorrow and Sunday. It's probably better at
the Venus those days."

	Brandon looked at Billy who didn't look back at him. Was he lying,
worried Brandon would take some of his customers. At the Venus, the ones
who liked the older Junior weren't interested in Brandon or any of the
other smaller boys his age. Brandon sat back to wait and see what would
happen.

	After about ten minutes, Billy asked, "How big is your dick?"

	Surprised, Brandon said, "Not all that big."

	"Your balls growing?"

	"Uh uh."

	Silence for several minutes then, "Can I see it?"

	Amused, Brandon pushed down his shorts. The solid railing in front
of them blocked the light from the screen below.

	Billy requested, "Stand up."

	Brandon stood and turned slightly toward Billy who looked without
turning his head. "Well, it's gonna be big. Okay if I touch it?"

	Brandon shrugged his shoulders.

	Billy, head still unturned, reached out and gently slipped his
fingers under the flaccid penis and lifted it. His index finger went to
Brandon's testicles and felt them both. "You ever been sucked? Of course
you have. Want me to do you while we wait?"

	Brandon began to suspect Billy was a customer rather than a
competitor. "Maybe later."

	"Oh, okay." He massaged Brandon's cock then let it go. "Just
something to do. Gonna be a while before anybody comes up."

	Brandon pulled up his shorts and sat down. Billy put his hands
together at his mouth and fingered his lips.

	Two men came up. Both smiled at Billy who followed them into the
back. Brandon didn't watch.

	It was a while before more appeared. They looked at Brandon but
made no indication they were interested in his services. A boy about
thirteen stopped and looked at Brandon then stepped back into the corner
where Brandon had been. The next man up the stairs led that boy to the far
end of the balcony where his head was soon bobbing up and down in the man's
lap.

	Brandon began to worry he was too young for that place and thought
about heading to the Venus. It didn't seem likely he'd run into Boy or
Rafael but that was a minor problem along side the fact that he had no idea
how to get there. He looked back to see if Billy was finished. He'd
probably know. Neither Billy nor the man were visible. Were they in the
projection booth?

	Finally, after two obviously gay men came up and went to sit
together in the back, an older man stopped to look at Brandon then nodded
that he should go with him. What to do about price in a market that didn't
seem hot for his services?

	His customer stopped a few seats from where the kneeling thirteen
was spitting onto the floor. The man began opening his pants. Brandon sat
beside him and whispered hopefully, "Suck fifteen, fuck thirty."

	"No," said the man, "Ten," and pulled out his stiffening cock.

	Brandon took off his cap but stuck to his price. "Only fifteen."

	The man looked him over. "We only pay ten here. Come on, I'm fast."

	Brandon stared at the man and timidly shook his head.

	The man laughed quietly. "Okay, you're new but just this time to
see how good you are."

	Following the example of the boy nearby, Brandon got on his
knees. "Tell me before you shoot."

	"Why? For fifteen, I stay inside."

	"That's twenty."

	"Son of a bitch," grumbled the man as he looked over toward the
other boy. "Bong, come do me," he whispered loudly acting as though Brandon
was no longer there.

	The barely teenager smiled at Brandon and urged him away with both
hands.

	Brandon stood and left shaking his head. Where was Billy? A hand
touched his shoulder. It was Bong, frowning. "He wants you."

	Back in front, with twenty agreed on and a hard on nearing his
lips, Brandon heard, "You better be good."

	Brandon gave him the full treatment, running his hands up and down
the man's torso, revolving his head, taking the cock right down to its
pubic hairs then swallowing the full load, leaving nothing to drip into the
man's underwear.

	"You gonna be here Sunday?" he was asked as the twenty was handed
over.

	The next customer, on hearing `fuck thirty' tried to get it down to
twenty, then twenty-five. When Brandon handed him the condom after he
finally agreed to thirty, he made the same remark as the first, "You better
be good."

	Right in the front row by the first aisle, he sat on the man's lap
then, using the arms of the seat, moved up and down on the cock inside
him. After a while, the man had him hold a position five inches above and
fucked up from his seat. Brandon moved his hips side to side, forward and
backward. The man nearly slid out of his seat as he banged upward. Other
men had to step over his legs to get by. Finally, he pulled Brandon onto
his chest and finished off from there.

	Billy was waiting in his seat when Brandon, fifty fresh pesos in
his pocket, sat beside him. "How much he give you?"

	Brandon shrugged off the question.

	"Come on, he always takes a long time so he had to give you
more. How much?"

	"Thirty." He'd only taken six or eight minutes. The full condom was
under the seat. Perhaps Brandon had a tighter or better technique. Either
way, he sensed a note of jealousy.

	Before he quit at nine thirty, Brandon had been fucked a total of
seven times, three more sitting, two lying on the carpeted aisle steps and
once in the projection booth by an apparently well-to-do youth who insisted
on a blow job first then didn't get off inside him until the projectionist
had returned and was loading the next reel. The two apparently knew each
other. On learning of his willingness to screw, no one else had asked for
oral sex. Brandon only stopped because he ran out of condoms.

	With over two hundred pesos on him, Brandon began to worry about
getting back to Ermita safely. Aware Billy had to know he was carrying a
lot of cash anyway, he confided his concern to him. "Why don't you just
stay here. Give Tom ten or fifteen pesos and you can stay in the
booth. Only problem is you can't leave until about ten tomorrow. I do it a
lot. Maybe I'll stay here tonight."

	The idea had its merits. The downside was food. He was very hungry
right then. What they sold there in the theater was hardly what he wanted
and was very expensive. "What about food?"

	"Whatta you want? I can go out for both of us. There's a place two
blocks up stays open until real late."

	Brandon gave his fifteen pesos. He came back with fried rice with
pork and camote leaves, two plastic bags with a fruit punch, and, for the
morning, four cupcakes and two bottles of an orange drink.

	Tom, the projectionist accepted Brandon's fifteen peso bribe and
left the booth door open. A hotel, Brandon figured, would have cost a lot
more. Staying on the street with all that money could cost him that and
even his shorts.

	Immediately after eating, Billy became amorous. Brandon turned his
lips away from Billy's. Unfazed, Billy groped Brandon's crotch. "I just
wanna see what it's like hard."

	Brandon let him pull his shorts down. Seeing it hard involved
getting it that way with his soft fingers then sucking him off as well as
any customer had ever done.

	"You can fuck me later if you want."

	Brandon declined. Billy awakened him twice during the night, once
for a second blow job then finally to get himself off between Brandon's
saliva slickened thighs.

	In the morning, Billy showed Brandon where he hid his money inside
a seat cushion he'd torn just enough for the purpose. He tore the next one
down for Brandon. When the clean up woman came in at ten, the pair went off
for an early lunch. Brandon wanted to re-supply himself with protection.

	"We gotta get back by twelve. I got a regular then. Saturday's the
best day. You can make a lot of money today."

	Brandon needed more condums and lubricant. Billy, who still claimed
not to use more than saliva, took Brandon to an enclosed mall three blocks
up from the theater where he bought twenty condums and something in a tube
Billy insisted was as good as KY and cost less.

	They were back before twelve with full bellies and the tools of the
trade.

	Billy's customer paid their way into the projection booth during
the first reel of the same war film as the day before. Brandon was beaten
out of the first customer by another boy his age who waited halfway up the
stairs. The boy gave him a nasty nod when they passed by on their way to a
back seat. A look down turned up two more service boys waiting below. When
he came back down, Billy thought the situation was funny.

	"Got some competition, huh?"

	Over a dozen service boys from ten to sixteen showed up but Brandon
was the only non-adolescent willing to sit on a man's cock. One twelve year
old, after watching Brandon take three in a row, literally, gave it a try
but found it too painful and left rather than watch his customer go to
someone else. That trio was three men seated side by side in the front row
far section from the stairs. Brandon went from one directly to the next,
just lifted off one cock and slid across the seat arm to the next where he
performed the same up and down calisthenics, wearing out his arms but not
his ass. Ten minutes later, he was on the projection room floor taking in a
foreigner with his foreigner sized dick. Overall, he was punctured eleven
times in seven hours as well as fellating five who didn't have the required
thirty pesos. By early evening, both his pockets were bulging with cash and
he was trying to figure out how to get himself and his new wealth back to
Miss Sally's.

	Once again, Billy suggested he spend the night in the projection
booth. The price changed. Tom the projectionist wanted to round out the
dozen in exchange for the room. Brandon still had some condums so lay on
the floor again, this time on a blanket Tom dug out of a locker. After a
final trip to the first floor men's room to clean up, he and Billy ate the
rice and fish Billy had bought while Tom had his turn.

	As they ate, Brandon asked what time they could leave in the
morning.

	"You could live here if you wanted, not just here but I know a
cheap place where we could stay, only twenty-five pesos a night, half and
half."

	Brandon caught the "we" but not the intensity of yearning. "I stay
with somebody so I gotta get back tomorrow but I'll come on Fridays."

	Billy lightly bit his lower lip. "We could be a great team, you and
me. I could get you customers every day if you wanted. I got plenty
too. And we get along good, don't we?" He leaned close. "And I got
friends. We could protect you, and your money." He tapped Brandon's stuffed
pocket.

	Brandon tried to see if there was threat in Billy's words or just a
deal. Every time he'd had dealings with an older boy in Manila, protection
had been offered, protection that carried with it a heavy price. Was
Billy's offer more of the same?

	 Billy cut short Brandon's internal doubts by, "Let's talk about it
tomorrow. Let's go to sleep."

	It only took a few minutes, though, for Billy to again probe
Brandon's crotch. "Want me to suck you again?"

	Brandon had already been sucked off twice, once by a man who
sixty-nined with him on the floor between rows and finally by another
service boy the man fucking him apparently needed as visual stimulation to
get off. Still, he felt it might be necessary to avoid problems. "Okay but
I don't know if I can cum again."

	"Don't worry. I can make you cum as many times as you want."

	Billy unbuttoned Brandon shorts. Brandon raised his buns off the
floor so they could be pushed off. "Want me to turn off the light?" asked
Billy seductively.

	"If you want."

	When Billy lay back down ofter going to the switch by the door, he
was naked. Without a word, he slid close, face to face and put his lips to
Brandon's. Brandon turned his cheek. "I don't like to do that," he said
softly, timidly.

	"Oh, c'mon, just one good kiss and we can suck."

	There was that `we' again. Rather than risk unpleasantness, Brandon
allowed a lips to lips but with his mouth closed. Billy sucked hard on
Brandon's lower lip and pressed his tongue against the exposed
teeth. Brandon let him in. At least he didn't taste like the foul breathed
men. Billy's tongue pushed its way under Brandon's. Brandon kept his mouth
open but didn't respond. Billy took hold of Brandon's soft cock and gently
massaged it. With his free hand, he nudged Brandon's at his own hairless
groin. Brandon took hold of the stiff organ but merely held it. Billy
sighed through his nose

	Giving up on the open but inactive mouth, Billy dropped to
Brandon's little nipples, sucked and ran his tongue over them, gradually
turning his body as he did. By the time the point of his tongue was poking
into Brandon's belly button, his middle was over Brandon's face. There was
no question where this was going. Brandon decided it was best to get it
over as quickly as possible so, when the four inches of cock was at his
mouth, he took it right in.

	Rather than begin working right away on Brandon's cock, Billy
sucked in his balls. Letting go for a moment, he said, "Go slow."

	With Billy lying on his face, it would have been difficult to do
much else. Billy ran his tongue over and under Brandon's organ to get him
as aroused as possible.

	Billy eventually took in Brandon's limp tool and began sucking it
in and out of his mouth. Brandon pushed Billy up and said, "I can't breathe
like this," and pushed Billy onto his side.

	The fourteen year old permitted it but wrapped his thighs around
Brandon's head so he couldn't move. "When you're close, tell me."

	Brandon was sexed out and uncomfortable with what was going
on. Billy was gay and wanted to make love. Brandon didn't consider Billy a
friend much less a lover. Even getting hard was going to be a
chore. Reaching orgasm would have to be faked. But, he'd done it before.

	It took a while, but Brandon was eventually able to get some blood
into his penis. It required pumping hard into Billy's mouth. He'd need to
get it really hard to fake the pulses. Fortunately, Billy had to know he
couldn't ejaculate.

	"I'm getting close," said Brandon in a strained voice, something he
didn't need to fake since he was tensing his entire middle to keep his dick
stiff.

	Billy raised his one thigh. Brandon began running a tightly closed
mouth up and down Billy's nail hard cock. Seconds later, Billy was shooting
his sweet juice onto the back of Brandon's tongue. Brandon jerked his lower
body and repeatedly stiffened his cock then snapped it out of Billy's
mouth, reaching down to grab it at the same time, Billy tried to push his
hand away. Brandon opened his mouth and struggled with "Don't! It tickles."

	Billy cuddled up behind Brandon to sleep, effectively making it
hard for Brandon to do so but he did gradually drift off.  As the night
before, Brandon was awakened by unwanted attention. The first time he found
Billy had moved to his front and was kissing his lips. He pretended to
still be asleep and rolled over. Later, Billy had pushed his saliva covered
cock at Brandon's hole. Brandon decided to permit that in hopes it would be
the end. Apparently it was as there were no more disturbances before
morning.

	Billy tried for a good morning lips to lips but Brandon sat up and
claimed, "I gotta pee. Be right back."

	When he returned from the first floor bathroom, Billy was still
lying on the blanket naked, an erection in his hand. "Did I fuck good?" he
asked with a grin.

	"Mmm hmm. Let's eat."

	"Wanna do it again?"

	With a sigh, "Okay, but let's eat first."

	The two breakfasted on corn chips and bottled juice Billy had
purchased the night before. Billy kept up the amorous conversation. "You
must really like getting fucked. All those men yesterday. I like it
too. You can fuck me if you want but I'll fuck you first if you want."

	Brandon sought a way to reject Billy's advances without risking a
problem. He tried some clumsy diplomacy. "I know we're friends and all but
I don't really like getting fucked all that much. It's just for the money
so I can eat and sleep inside somewhere instead of on the street."

	"And the blowjobs all the men say you're so good at? Come on,
Freddy. You gotta like that."

	"Really, Billy, it's just for the money."

	"Bullshit," he blurted out with a forced smile. "Nobody's as good
at sucking and fucking as you if they don't like it. Just `cause you don't
talk like me don't mean you're not, you know, like me, if you do all that."

	The thought had occurred to Brandon a number of times but he'd
always regressed to the pleasant memories of sex with Millie and how much
more he'd enjoyed that than anything a man, or even a boy, had ever done
for him. "No, really, a girl showed me how to do this so we could make
money. We were gonna get married one day but," he paused seeking a story
that didn't include Angeles or any of the happenings there, "She got put in
a home when her mother died. She didn't have a father."

	Billy rolled his eyes. "Boy, like I believe that but, anyway, okay,
so you wanna make money to eat and sleep in a bed. We can do that
together. I know a place just twenty-five pesos a night, maybe less if we
rent for a month and you can make plenty of money here. You made enough
Friday and yesterday to eat real good for a week and pay your half of the
rent. C'mon, let's be partners."

	"I don't know. I'm, uh," he realized he'd said some of his money
was for sleeping yet the night before he'd claimed to be living with
someone. "There's this guy who said I can live with him but he's not here
now but I leave my stuff where he lives like my money and stuff." He knew
he was rambling. "Let me think about it. I gotta go now but I'll come back
this afternoon."

	"We can't get out until the woman comes at ten thirty or eleven. If
you're gonna stay with this guy, how come you gotta make money?"

	A good question. Brandon pulled together, "It's just when he's
away."

	"He a foreigner?"

	"Uh huh."

	"So how come you can't stay at his place when he's not around. He
don't trust you?"

	"He don't know me that good but I think he will."

	"Then maybe I can stay with you too. I don't got no hair on my
dick. The ones like little kids like you don't like it if you got hair
there, and he can fuck me too."

	"I don't know but I can ask him when he gets back."

	Billy stared at Brandon for a few moments. "You aren't coming back,
are you?"

	"Yes, I am, this afternoon."

	"How come you didn't wanna kiss me last night?"

	That was difficult. "I just, uh, it wasn't all that bad, it's just
that I don't do that."

	"I saw you do it with that man Friday."

	"That was for money."

	"So I gotta pay you to get a kiss?" Billy's expression bordered on
anger.

	"No, no. I can do it if you want, just not all that much." He saw
it was the wrong answer.

	Billy pursed his lips then, "I'll go see if the woman is here yet."

	Brandon was sure it was much too early. Billy was mad at
him. Brandon went to the theater seat where he'd stashed his Friday evening
earnings. It was all there. Back in the projection booth looking at the
large wad of small denomination bills, he debated going to the ticket
seller when he arrived to exchange some for hundred peso bills. There was
nearly nine hundred pesos in fives, tens and twenties. Wearing only
slippers, shorts and a tee shirt, it would be difficult to hide. Perhaps he
could carry it in a paper or plastic bag as though it was food or some
cheap purchase.

	Billy came back to the projection booth with a frown on his
face. He walked to the painted over window, turned around and faced
Brandon. Staring at the money Brandon was arranging, he asked coolly, "How
come you really don't wanna live with me?"

	"I didn't say that. It's just that this man, he's a nice guy, said
I could live with him. I'll ask him if you can stay with us too. If you
sleep here tonight, I can stay with you again. I just gotta see if he's
back and leave some of this money with another friend who keeps my money
for me."

	"Another foreigner?"

	"No, he's Filipino, a friend of the foreigner. He's like you but he
just likes men. When I got out of the detention center, he still had the
money I gave him before and gave me some." Expecting a request to accompany
him, he continued, "I can't bring other kids around his place. Like I said,
he doesn't like boys, just men."

	"You're a real big liar, Freddy."

	Brandon straightened to defend his semi-truth. "No I'm not. It's
all true. How come you don't believe me? I'm gonna do just like I
said. Anyhow, I'm leaving some of my money here `cause it's too much to
carry, too big. You can hold some of it so you'll know I'm coming back."

	"How much?"

	Thinking fast, "Three hundred." Losing three hundred wasn't nearly
as bad as nine hundred.

	Billy grunted something unintelligible, finished off his juice
drink and lay back down on the blanket where he stared blankly at the
ceiling.

	Brandon, sure he'd handled the situation poorly, examined one of
the projectors while trying to come up with something that would salvage
the situation. His theater earnings were something he didn't want to lose
though he did have to find a safe way to get them back to either Miss Sally
or, when he arrived if he did, Ray. He didn't really believe the clerk at
the American's apartment hotel insistence that Ray had gone to the states
but enough had gone wrong in his life that it certainly wasn't beyond the
realm of possibilities. Maybe there'd been a problem with a boy or another
contract he couldn't back out of, who knew?

	Attempts at speaking with Billy were brushed aside with
pleasantries as though no problem existed but there was no mistaking the
less than friendly tone. Brandon hoped that by actually coming back in the
afternoon, something he earlier hadn't planned to do, things would be
better.

	They heard the main theater door open. Brandon said, "Okay, you'll
see, I'll be back at about one or two."

	"That's good," replied Billy with a frown and rolling eyes.

	Brandon snatched a popcorn bag from the concession booth on the
first floor and stuffed his money inside then the bag into the front of his
shorts, clearly visible so no one would think he was trying to hide
something.

	As he walked across the lobby, the cleaning woman said, "You better
hope the manager don't know you slept here last night. Who's upstairs,
anybody?"

	Brandon shrugged his shoulders and walked quickly out the
door. Seconds later, as he passed the narrow walkway between the theater
and the store next door, two teenagers shot out of it and grabbed his arms
from either side. Brandon felt something sharp poking painfully into his
ribs. He knew immediately he was about to lose his money and that Billy had
set him up. He didn't resist.

	Without a word, the two dragged him back into and down the walkway
all the while searching him. The bag went first, then hands went into his
pockets and inside his shorts front and back. Halfway down the walkway,
they stopped. As one yanked down his shorts, the other said, "You just stay
here for five minutes and don't say nothing, understand?"

	Brandon nodded assent. One foot then the other was pulled up as
they removed his shorts and took his slippers. The one who'd stripped him
growled, "Don't never let me see your faggot ass around here again or I'll
cut you up!" Then they were gone.

	Brandon, crushed inside, slumped to the ground, his bare ass hardly
feeling the debris he sat on. There were no tears. What he felt was total
despair, then anger at himself for not making love with Billy, then despair
at the unfairness of having had to deal with such a situation, then anger
at his mother and grandmother for being whores, his father for leaving him
and all three for not providing him with a normal home.

	Eventually, forcing himself past the self pity, he stood, pulled
his tee shirt as far over his groin and ass as possible and maintaining it
there with both hands, he walked out to the boulevard and headed south
toward Ermita. Doing the math in his head, he calculated that jeepneys had
taken about half an hour to get him to where he was therefore he, walking
continuously was moving about one tenth as fast therefore the walk would
take about five hours or maybe four. Stealing rides on the back of jeepneys
would expose his bare middle, especially his ass. Did he want to, could he
bear to stoop that low? Fuck it all! He was a street kid doing what he had
to to survive. Fuck anyone who looked down on him for it!

	Reality struck quickly. His first attempt lasted only one block
when a passenger told the driver who jumped out and chased him off. The
second was worse. A pair of teenagers leaned out and kicked at his hands as
they were moving. Brandon managed an athletic move to the side where he was
able to run along side briefly before letting go, avoiding a nasty fall
with little to protect his bare skin.

	He walked a few blocks before his next try. He looked over the
passengers of passing jeepneys with an eye to a bunch less likely to be
concerned about his presence and chose well, this time making it all the
way to Santa Cruz north of Quiapo, his bare ass out for all to see with the
wind blowing up his tee shirt. There, a cop yelled and acted like he might
chase him down. From there he ran then trotted three blocks before slowing,
out of breath. The cop was nowhere to be seen.

	He was somewhat amazed again at the complete obliviousness of
passersby to the presence of a near naked street child. He let go of the
hem of his shirt which allowed it to rise above the head of his cock and
bare the bottom of his buns. No one seemed to notice, or care. He pulled
his shirt up pretending to blow his nose. One woman frowned but that was
it.

	He considered but discarded the idea of trying to steal a pair of
shorts in Quiapo's open market. Were he to be caught, it would almost
certainly be back to the detention center. Once again picking carefully, he
hopped the back of another jeepney, this time not hanging off but standing
on the bumper enjoying the wind in his face as it raced across the Quiapo
Bridge and down toward Luneta Park. When it stopped there, the driver gave
him a nasty look and nodded for him to get off.

	Now in an entirely different type of neighborhood, he was more
concerned about covering himself. He continued south holding his shirt as
far down his body as possible and debating whether to go to Miss Sally's or
Ray's hotel. He opted for the former sure the hotel clerk wouldn't speak to
him as he was.

	Miss Sally was more than kind. He sent out one of her teenagers to
buy shorts and slippers for Brandon. "Things have changed, Freddy," he told
him. "What you do is harder now. It's more dangerous. You've gotta find
yourself a man who will take care of you."

	Brandon almost mentioned Ray but wasn't sure he was returning. With
his new shorts and slippers and a hundred pesos in his pocket, he went to
the hotel and sought out the clerk. The man wasn't happy to see him, only
opened the door a crack. "I told you. He's not here and I don't think he's
coming back so you don't come back either. Anyway, he can't take minors
inside. It's the law now so go away." He pointed at a paper pegged to the
wall beside him.

	Ignoring that, Brandon asked, "What about my money, my two hundred
pesos?"

	"I don't have no money of yours, now, go away!" He closed the door
in Brandon's face.

	"I want my money. Ray left two hundred pesos for me and Don Don,"
shouted Ray through the glass as the clerk walked away. "Fucking thief!" He
kicked the door.

	Walking toward the seawall, Brandon tried to figure how long it had
been since Ray left. He said he'd be away six to eight weeks. Had it been
that long? How long from when he'd left before he was arrested? A week,
two? He'd been in MYRC for about a month and out for less than a week. That
was over six weeks.  Maybe he was still coming back but how would he know?
Ray met him at the Venus Theater. Maybe he should start going back. Boy
wouldn't be looking for him there. And Ray knew he went to the seawall a
lot. Would the clerk admit he'd been coming around asking? Would Ray look
for him or just figure he'd gone with someone else?

	It started to rain. He ran the last half block to the seawall well
south of the beach and sought shelter under a palm tree. Two foreigners
with umbrellas were walking toward him. The older of the two, easily in his
sixties or more approached him.

	In crude Filipino, he asked, "You want to make some money?"

	After agreeing to ten pesos, using the umbrella to hide them from
passing cars but not anyone who might walk by on the sidewalk, the man sat
Brandon, shorts down, on the wall, bent over, ran his tongue up his
perineum, briefly sucked his balls then gave him a blow job. He was very
good at it. Brandon came in just a few minutes.

	The old man's friend called him an idiot as he walked away.

	Brandon waited another fifteen minutes for the rain to pass and
continued on up to the beach. He used the ten pesos to buy some rice and
chicken feet plus a drink from a woman there. It rained again as he was
finishing, this time hard enough that he had to run across the boulevard
into the alley and down to Raymond's Fastfood, soaked by the time he
arrived. A number of young mostly male foreigners were munching on burgers
and sandwiches. None took notice of him. He laughed to himself as he
wondered what would have been their reaction were he to have been dressed
in just a tee shirt, his dick hanging below the hem.

	The rain lasted nearly an hour and the dark sky indicated more on
the way. Other than a homely young girl about ten in the plaza across the
alley, there were no kids to be seen. The few tourists on the street
appeared to be heading somewhere, none potential customers.

	Brandon walked up the steps onto the plaza, nodding at the
girl. She had nothing with her to sell. Was she too seeking customers? He'd
never seen her before. She was staring at him though the look on her face
told nothing. He raised his eyebrows at her. She returned the
gesture. "You're Brandon, aren't you?" she said his way.

	He hadn't used his real name since before his internment at
MYRC. He tried to remember if he'd seen her, perhaps at the beach. No. "My
name's Freddy. What's yours?"

	"Uh uh. You got the clear eyes. Only Brandon has eyes like
yours. You're Brandon."

	  "No, Freddy. That's my real name. Maybe somebody called me
Brandon but my name's Freddy."

	"You had long hair before. How come you cut it?"

	"I didn't. They did at MYRC."

	"Shit, I been there once but my mother got me out."

	"How long were you in there?"

	"About three months."

	"Why'd they put you in there?"

	"Why they put you in there," she returned.

	"Nothing. We were just in Robinson's."

	"Shit. You were with a tourist. That's what they got me for but it
was here."

	"Right here?"

	"Stupid tanod tried to get this guy to pay me outta the cage but he
went away, son of a bitch." The cage was a small closet sized wooden jail
the Barangay Tanods there used to hold people they grabbed until the police
came to get them.

	"So why didn't he just let you go?"

	"Son of a bitch said `cause if he did, none of the tourists would
never pay him, son of a bitch."

	Brandon looked back over his shoulder at the cage. A tanod was
snoozing in a wooden chair in front of it. After a pause to think about
whether he should be where he was, he asked, "What's your name?"

	"Ana Veronica. How come you changed your name? Cops looking for
you?"

	"I didn't. It's Freddy."

	"Shit, but I don't care. I like your eyes. Wanna do something if
nobody comes?"

	"What?"

	"I don't know. It's gonna rain some more. I'm going up to the
grandstand later." The grandstand was a large concrete viewing structure
with room for hundreds in Luneta Park. It had most recently been used for
anti-Marcos rallies and evangelical revivals but was originally designed
for national holiday and military celebrations. At night, a number of
street people slept on, around or below it.

	"You sleep there?"

	"Sometimes. Where you sleep?"

	"Hotels sometimes, wherever it's dry."

	"I was in a hotel with my tourist last night but he's with somebody
else today. You know Nancy?"

	Brandon shook his head.

	"She's twelve and real pretty is why she gets so many tourists. I
ain't pretty so it's harder but I fuck real good so I get some. They say
you fuck good too."

	"Who says that?"

	"The other boys."

	"How they know what I do?" He almost claimed he didn't but knew it
would just make him look foolish. Somehow she knew.

	"Tourists tell `em, and you suck good. Some of the tourists were
asking about you but you were locked up. How long you been out?"

	"About a week. Tourists aren't..." He was peeved that so many
people apparently knew all about what he did. He moved closer to her. "The
tanods know?"

	"Sure but they don't care, well, not so much. Now the cops are
sayin' they gotta stop us from talking to foreigners. They told me so I
don't say nothing, just kinda look at `em and then I walk behind `em some
until I know where we're supposed to go or they tell me. You know about the
new signs in the hotels about us?"

	Brandon remembered the clerk at Ray's hotel saying something about
it. "Whatta they say?"

	"Foreigners aren't allowed to take minors, that's us, into hotels
but some of the hotels just make us go in after. One I stayed in last night
I hadda let this kid works there fuck me too so he'd let me go up, son of a
bitch. Didn't use no rubber. Hope he don't have nothin'." She grinned and
looked at Brandon. "Shit, you fuck me and you couldn't use a rubber `cause
they don't make `em little for kids like you."

	Was that an invitation? She wasn't nearly as pretty as Millie but
he'd really like to make love to a girl again, even a skinny one like
this. "How old are you?"

	"How old are you?"

	"Twelve. You?"

	"Shit. You ain't twelve yet."

	"I will be. So how old are you?"

	"Almost twelve, I think. Shit, I don't know."

	The two told versions of their stories, Brandon's well off the
truth. Ana Veronica claimed to live at times with her mother in a shack in
a walkway in Malate but, since they didn't agree on much, she slept most
nights away, some in hotels with tourists, others in various parts of
Luneta Park. She'd never been to school so couldn't read or write.

	As they spoke, a man eyed Brandon from the far side of Del Pilar
Street. Brandon gave him a chin up. The man nodded south. Brandon asked Ana
Veronica, "Where you gonna be in the grandstand?"

	"I'll sit in the middle so you can see me, if I don't get a
tourist."

	The tourist was a German who knew his way around. They went to a
small Malate hotel that welcomed him with Brandon right behind, right past
the new sign prohibiting it along side the entry door. Serious negotiating
was required to get fifty pesos after seeing the thickness of the man's
cock, the biggest he'd taken since before being locked up. The man got the
most he could for his money, fucking Brandon hard from the front and back
for over fifteen minutes. The shower was cold.

	"You come again Tuesday, five o'clock?"

	Brandon's ass was sore, too sore for another fucking that
night. "More money," he insisted in callboy English.

	"More money? I pay just thirty to other boys. Just fifty."

	Brandon pretended not to understand and said, "Seventy-five and
suck. No fifty."

	"Too much. No. Too much."

	Brandon turned and headed out the door. The German caught him
halfway down the stairs, "Okay, you come Tuesday five o'clock, okay?"

	Brandon agreed and walked through off and on rain back to the Santa
Monica Plaza. Ana Veronica was gone. He did collar another customer, a
Frenchman who, though he seemed more interested in sucking him than being
sucked, paid thirty pesos for the blow job then five more for a few French
kisses. He wanted Brandon to spend the night but Brandon harbored hopes of
sleeping intimately with Ana Veronica. Unfortunately, she didn't show
up. Brandon slept alone on a top step in the grandstand, his money hidden
under some trash nearby, a good move since two older boys went though his
pockets early the next morning. Finding nothing, they warned him that he
better bring some money if he wanted to sleep there again.

	Monday was reasonably successful with two customers, one of whom
took him to the skating rink for almost two hours of fun and dinner at the
park restaurant. With an additional eighty pesos in his pocket, Brandon had
no intention of sleeping outside. Nonetheless, he waited near the
grandstand to see if Ana Veronica would appear. She didn't. He spent the
night in a bedding closet at the Bay Hotel for a twenty peso bribe to the
teenage night clerk.

	Tuesday was a long day. Brandon spent the morning between the
seawall beach and walking up and down Del Pilar Street looking for Ana
Veronica or a customer. Due to Ana Veronica's story about the tanod locking
her up he'd become wary of sitting on the small plaza in front of the tanod
station. Neither a customer or Ana Veronica appeared.

	At the beach, he played in the water with the same stowaways he'd
met there before. The thirteen year old was expecting a foreigner to pick
him up before midday. It was a fat man who took all three but suggested to
Brandon that he be there in the afternoon around four.

	Ana Veronica showed up at the seawall with another girl her age she
introduced as Lily. Lily was almost as slim but somewhat prettier. However,
before Brandon could do more than look, she left to meet a "tourist who's
gonna buy me a dress."

	"Son of a bitch fucked me and didn't buy me nothing," complained
Ana Veronica.

	Brandon bought her lunch.

	She had a date for two at a hotel in Santa Cruz. "Chinese guy don't
pay much but it's every Tuesday and he's gotta little dick. I don't got
nothin' after that. Wanna meet me in the park tonight?"

	With renewed hopes for lovemaking and plans to try and get her into
the Bay Hotel, Brandon went back to Del Pilar Street in search of a money
making opportunity. He found one almost immediately. "I sleep you, Joe?" he
said as he slowly passed a man who'd been looking him up and down as they
approached one another. Trailing thirty yards behind his customer, Brandon
was led up Padre Faura Street to a small hotel he'd been in several times
before. The same teen grinned at him as he walked by his desk halfway up
the first flight of stairs past the sign prohibiting his entry.

	His customer was a middle aged Brit intent on lovemaking before
sex. He grumbled at the additional five pesos for French kissing then took
full advantage of his payment, thoroughly licking out the insides of
Brandon's mouth while humping his hardon between Brandon's thighs. Brandon
worried he'd get off there, cutting his profits drastically but it took a
long blow job then an extended stand up fuck, with Brandon standing on the
man's suitcase, before the long dicked Englishman finally shot his load
into the condom far up inside Brandon.

	When Brandon got back to Del Pilar Street, he was greeted by a
relatively quiet, orderly march by a few hundred crisply uniformed high
school students, mostly girls, led by a nun and other well dressed adults,
some carrying signs reading "Foreign Pedophiles Out of The Philippines",
"No Foreign Sexual Exploitation of Our Children" and the like. At one point
someone started an unintelligible, noticeably unemotional chant. Two local
photojournalists were tagging along, their cameras hanging at their sides.

	A foreigner dressed in a Barong Tagalog and slacks rushed toward
the front, another foreigner with a large video camera and a Filipino with
a microphone on a boom close behind him. Once he reached the nun at the
front of the procession, the cameraman raced ahead and began filming. The
Filipino sound man got his mike close enough to catch conversation between
the foreigner and the nun.

	Brandon stood in the street to one side and watched. A man wearing
a crisp barong tagalong and sun glasses and carrying a rosary, disdain on
his face, waved him toward the sidewalk. Brandon stepped back and muttered
`Fuck you," in English. The man gritted his teeth but continued on.

	When he reached the Santa Monica Plaza, a Barangay Tanod grinned at
Brandon and pointed to the passing bunch with his pursed lips. Brandon
shrugged his shoulders and turned toward the seawall.

	Lying naked after swimming alone netted him another client, the
younger friend of the older American who'd sucked him off in the rain under
his umbrella. As they walked together into Ermita, he apologized for his
companion's rashness. "He's gets a little crazy sometimes," he explained in
passable Filipino.

	They went to a storefront where he had a small business and
apartment. "Your name's Freddy, right?" he asked as he led Brandon into a
kitchen at the back of what seemed to be an office and meeting room.

	"Who told you that?"

	"I saw you at Miss Sally's a month or two ago. Just didn't have the
hundred pesos on me or I'd have gone with you. You mind if I take a few
photos, naked? I develop them myself. Nobody else is going to see them."

	Brandon shook his head. "I don't do that."

	"What do you do?"

	Brandon smiled, "You know."

	After peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, the two went into the
bedroom for a sixty-nine and front to front fuck. The man's slow fucking
and gentle up and down motion was actually enjoyable, brought on a strong
erection. Brandon closed his eyes and imagined the man's cock passing back
and forth over his prostate finally reaching down and masturbating himself,
climaxing seconds after the man. His customer noticed.

	"Good, huh? I get a discount?"

	He didn't.

	Next was the painful five o'clock appointment with the thick cocked
German. For an easier entry, Brandon insisted he sit on the broad organ
while he waited for his body to adjust to the fat invader. Then, again, the
hard screwing, this time including being held up against the wall, feet
dangling below, while the man pounded in from behind. Brandon put his hands
between his face and the plaster to keep from bruising himself. Climax came
on the thinly carpeted floor. When the man's cock shriveled, the rubber
stayed inside. The man pulled it out and proudly showed off the large glob
of sperm inside.

	"You very good boy," he told him with a broad smile. "We do it
again Friday?"

	Brandon had been thinking about trying the Venus again on Friday
but, with the pre-fuck loosening up, it had gone better than before, so, he
agreed.

	Walking up toward the park, Brandon realized he was a bit too sore
for another screw that day. Anyway, his goal for the evening was to get Ana
Veronica into the Bay Hotel.

	She wandered into the park from the US Embassy side as it was
getting dark. Brandon had been sitting with three stowaways his size and
larger playing marbles with pebbles in the dirt. All three knew her. As
Brandon walked her to the next section in search of food vendors, he asked,
"How come you know those three?"

      "They stay in the grandstand."

      "They go out too?"

      "Jaime does but he don't like to do nothin', just get sucked. It's
why he's always gotta collect cups." Street people collected discarded
plastic cups throughout the park which they sold to drink vendors who
washed them out for re-use. Each cup was worth two centavos, two pesos per
hundred. Competition at the trash receptacles could be fierce, occasionally
resulting in brief fights, brief due to the weak condition of the
combatants. Those existing on income from cups didn't eat very much.

      Brandon's actual interest was whether or not Ana Veronica had shared
her charms with other boys. She seemed fairly open about sex. He remembered
her admitting to getting into a hotel by opening her legs for a young hotel
worker. "You got a boyfriend?"

      "Shit, no. You wanna be my boyfriend?"

      That wasn't where he'd wanted the conversation to go. "I don't
know. What's a boyfriend gotta do?" Stupid question!

      "Buy me things." Of course.

      "Like what?"

      "Clothes, food, a bracelet." She was looking at a vendor with
bracelets on a wooden display rack he carried around.

      "I got enough for food."

      "You got more'n that. You went with Frank to his house today. He said
so."

      "Who's Frank?" She had to mean the American.

      "On A. Flores Street. He fuck you? He fucks good. I went with him a
few times. He give you a peanut butter and jelly sandwich? He loves that
shit. So whatta you gonna buy me?"

      Brandon tried to guess what a bracelet would cost. Ana Veronica
asked. "Twenty-two pesos," answered the vendor.

      Brandon bought it then a rice and chicken dinner.

      As they ate, he suggested, "I can get us into this hotel in Malate."

      "The Bay?"

      "Yeah. How'd you know that?"

      "You always go there."

      He didn't bother asking who told her.

      "You see, I know all about you. I know what you wanna do."

      "What?"

      "Want me to say it?"

      "Um hmm."

      She leaned close and said, "Fuck."

      "You wanna?"

      "Of course."

      Brandon had a hard on all the way to the hotel and paid twenty-five
pesos for an empty room on the third floor. Ana Veronica was out of her
halter top, shorts and slippers before falling face up on the bed. Brandon
was pushing off his tee shirt as he lay beside her. Ana Veronica rolled
into him and opened up for a deep kiss. Brandon wrapped his arms around her
and pulled them tightly together, his cock probing between her legs.

      "Not yet," she whispered. "That's later."

      She climbed on top of him and turned her head sideways. "Suck on my
ear."

      She moved her head, pushing her entire ear in and out of his
mouth. "Suck on the bottom part."

      Brandon worked on her lobe.

      "Yeah, there. Bite it a little, not hard. Uh huh, like that."

      Brandon nibbled and lipped and sucked.

      Then, "Now lick on my neck, here." She pointed below her chin and
slid slightly up so he could get there.

      Brandon shifted himself to keep his crotch under her thigh, turned
his head and opened up on her neck. There was a slight salty taste.

      After a few minutes of getting her neck wet and warm, Ana Veronica
ordered another move. Pushing his head down to her chest, "Do my tits, this
one first." His head was on her left nipple. As opposed to Millie's pointed
lumps, it was flat. He sucked gently.

      Rather than asking him to do the other side, Ana Veronica again
pushed him downward, "More, more, there." She let go as his mouth reached
her vagina. "Stick your tongue inside, uh huh, like that, and suck some on
the top, the little thing there." Brandon obeyed. "Yeah, keep doing that,
harder, tongue too, up there. Uh huh."

      Brandon slid his tongue in and out of her slit and sucked and licked
her clitoris. Ana Veronica raised her hips. Her hands lightly touched
Brandon temples. Her feet and legs wrapped around Brandon's body.

      "Stick your tongue in more and suck at the same time,"

      "I can't." replied Brandon best he could with his tongue unavailable.

      "Just like you're doing now. Keep doing that."

      Brandon was repeatedly pulling his upper lip over her clit while
fucking her with his tongue. Without her leg to rub his groin over, he
pumped into the bed and hoped she'd soon let him use his dick instead of
tongue inside her.

      "Want me to suck you?" she asked.

      Rather than answer, he quickly turned until his cock was over then
inside her mouth. He pushed him up and out. "Don't cum yet. You feel like
cumming, pull your dick out, okay."

      "Mmm hmm."

      It was no longer possible to put his tongue inside so he ran his
mouth over her entire vagina and sucked on her clitoris. She revolved her
head flipping Brandon's cock front side to side, under and over her
tongue. She pulled on one of his buns and pushed her other hand between his
legs, fingering the flesh behind his balls, rubbing his perineum then
pressing a finger into his rectum, still tender from the fat German
cock. Brandon almost stopped her but she returned to his balls. Brandon
again tried to get his tongue inside her. It must have worked because she
arched her hips and went, "Mmmmm."

      Brandon raised and lowered his own hips slightly. This was something
he and Millie had never done as well. After a few moments, feeling his
middle fill with that sensation just before orgasm, he dropped his groin
down on her mouth and took a deep breath. She must have understood the
situation and stopped her oral manipulations. Instead, she pressed his head
down into her own organ. Brandon worked his end harder. The feeling
receded.

      They repeated that progression twice more before she listed his head,
let go of his cock and said, "Now, fuck me."

      Brandon raised up on his hands and feet and made a fast double move
that put him on top of her, face to face, cock to cunt. She pulled his face
to hers. His cock slid inside. Brandon sighed into her mouth.

      He fucked slowly. She pushed his head slightly away and said, "Like
that but go in harder."

      He arched his back and he pressed hard at the end of each stroke.

      "Yeah, like that. Fuck."

      The well used inside of her vagina wasn't nearly as tight as her
mouth but somehow felt better, She raised up at him and pressed his buns
downward in time with his thrusts. Her tongue went into and stayed in his
mouth. Without thinking about it, he sucked on it gently like he was doing
a man's cock.

      It took a while but soon enough Brandon felt his passion rising and
fucked even harder, going for a climax.

      Ana Veronica pulled mouth free, let go of his ass and said, "Take it
out. Don't cum yet. Okay, put it back in. Just don't move. Harder."

      Just removing his cock backed away from heights, putting it back into
her body, kept him close. She kissed him but didn't put her tongue back
where it had been. Then, "Okay, but slow, and hard, like before, uh huh,
like that."

      Brandon continued at a reduced speed. It kept him feeling great but
his body wanted completion. He began slamming in very hard with each slow
fuck.

      "Oh, God, yeah, like that." She humped up at him and yanked his ass
down even harder than before. Her legs alternately went up and around his
then fell flat and straight. Suddenly, she opened her mouth, sucked in his
lips then forced her tongue into his mouth.

      Brandon lost all control and upped his tempo, quickly moving past the
threshold of no return. One last time he rammed inside her and sucked in
air as his cock throbbed.

      Ana Veronica let go of his ass and embraced him tightly. Gradually,
she relaxed until she withdrew her tongue a last time and said, "Shit, that
was good. Freddy, you're the best. Wanna do it again tomorrow?" She kissed
him again sucking in his lower lip before turning her head and repeatedly
kissing his cheek.

      Sleep came easily.

      In the morning, Brandon thought there'd be more sex but Ana Veronica
had to go. "I gotta go help my mother buy some shit."

      Brandon ate breakfast alone in a turo turo.

      It rained much of the day. Two potential customers were spotted first
by other boys. There was no sign of Ana Veronica. Brandon spent much of the
morning and afternoon moving between rainfalls from Santa Monica to the
park, some of that wondering where Millie was, could he find and free
her. Ana Veronica's lovemaking had rekindled a need for Millie's presence,
embraces, friendship. By late afternoon he'd drifted back into feeling
sorry for himself, angry at the injustice that had been inflicted on
him. Sitting out of the rain on the top steps of a government building at
the side of the park, he considered trying again to find his grandmother's
house in hopes of learning what was happening in Angeles, were there still
people looking for him, what was his mother's situation, was she free?

      It was there that the only customer of the day found him. He was a
middle aged American who communicated in stunted callboy English and sign
language. They walked swiftly under his umbrella to a small hotel in Paco
just East of Ermita. He had his own pre-lubricated condums.

      Brandon used half his earnings to buy a McDonald's dinner after which
he went to the grandstand in the park in hopes of finding Ana Veronica then
gave up five pesos to a pair of teens who harassed him for sleeping there
without `permission'.

	Thursday it rained again, most of the day, too much to get to the
seawall, too much to stay dry the four blocks between Raymond's at Santa
Monica and Luneta Park. Fortunately, it was seasonally hot so being soaking
wet wasn't particularly uncomfortable, at least for a Manila
callboy. Tourists were another matter. Brandon didn't see any until the sun
went down and the clubs went into high gear, music blasting out doors when
opened, men of all ages leaving with scantily dressed girls on their
arms. They could go to any hotel they jolly well pleased. The prohibitory
signs weren't for them, just younger workers like him and Ana Veronica.

	Brandon found himself cussing the rain. He had money in his pocket,
well over four hundred pesos, enough to last for several days, more than a
week or so if he was careful and didn't spend any on sleeping facilities or
eat in McDonald's or the Luneta Park Café.

	To further darken his spirit, there was another newspaper article
about `depraved foreign pedophiles taking advantage of the poverty of
innocent Filipino children', `ravaging', `raping', and so on. Malaya, the
left leaning rag which had been at the forefront of the anti-Marcos
campaign, apparently looking for a new sensational issue, was regularly
putting stories about foreign child molesters, especially American, on its
front page. There were photos of the Santa Monica Plaza and the village of
Pagsanjan which was supposedly overrun by foreigners chasing after local
boys.

	Brandon braved the rain and went by Ray Molina's hotel only to have
the door shut in his face with no reply to his query about his friend's
return.

	On his way back to Luneta Park to find a safe place to hide his
cash and sleep, Ana Veronica came running up behind him.

	"Shit, Freddy, where you been. C'mon, let's go to Frank's. He wants
to see you again."

	As a precaution, Ana Veronica insited they go up to United Nations
Avenue a block above Frank's place then walk down the dark Cordoba alley
which ran along the side of Frank's store, allowing them to enter via an
alley door that led to the rear room where Frank had his kitchen and
bathroom. The door to the front of the apartment was closed.

	"Frank thinks they're watchin' `im, not the cops, the people at the
church across the street," a Catholic Church with a program to help young
girls and women in the sex trade.

	The moment they were inside, Ana Veronica insisted on a warm shower
for the both of them. "Got rained on, huh? Just don't go doing anything in
there," admonished Frank. Brandon used the toilet first, "so Frank won't
get shit all over his dick."

	The two quickly fell into close body contact and kissing then a few
seconds of Ana Veronica's expert sucking. When she stood back up, she put
Brandon's hand between her legs, pressed her body to his and rubbed back
and forth for a while.

	"Frank thinks you fuck good and so do I," she said into his ear as
she nibbled on it.

	"You guys wanna eat?" called out the man.

	Ana Veronica said softly to Brandon, "I want you to eat me," but
before he could drop to the floor, she turned off the water and reached up
for a towel. "We better eat out there first," she said nodding toward the
kitchen area. Brandon wanted to wash his shirt and shorts first. Ana
Veronica got some detergent from Frank and they both scrubbed.

	After Frank's famous, at least among area child prostitutes, peanut
butter and jelly sandwiches, on white for the naked kids and whole wheat
for him, they retired to the queen size mattress on the floor of the
bedroom. Ana Veronica had rubbed her sandwich onto her vagina. Brandon
wasn't aware of it until she lay on the bed, legs open, exposing the
smeared sweetness inside. Brandon didn't need any encouragement to lick it
out. As he stripped, Frank watched.

	Though he was known to enjoy young girls, Frank's passion was for
prepubescent boys, especially the few with large organs and bulbous buns
such as Brandon's. For a while, as Brandon slurped away the last vestige of
strawberry from between Ana Veronica's legs, Frank licked and sucked on
Brandon's balls and hard on. Tired of twisting his body to give Frank
access to what he desired, Brandon finally pulled Ana Veronica onto her
side. She raised one knee and tugged Brandon's head tight into her, pulling
it up and down so he'd work her entire vagina. Brandon shoved his tongue as
far inside as he could then sucked on her clit, an act that, each time,
caused her to take a deep breath.

	Then, without warning, Brandon felt a lubricated finger push inside
him, then two. It felt invasive at first until Frank found his sweet spot
and gently massaged it, first with one finger then the other. The man must
have known what it would do because, rather than suck on Brandon's cock, he
worked on his testicles and perineum. Gradually, Brandon found himself
enjoying the attention and arched his ass backward allowing for a deeper
penetration.

	That went on until Ana Veronica, as though in a daze, said, "Fuck
me now."

	Frank's fingers came out. As Brandon climbed on top of Ana
Veronica, Frank requested softly, "Okay if I fuck too? You'll love it."

	Brandon, his cock deep inside the hairless slit, mumbled, "Mmmhmm."
He sensed more than felt Frank straddle the two of them and push his cock
between his cheeks. Entry was slow and complete, pressing him down and
deeper into Ana Veronica. It was the most exciting sensation he'd ever
experienced. Frank pulled out, past the sphincter then slowly spread it
back open and slid through, past the small prostate and into the beginning
of his colon. It was as though Brandon had a single long organ extending
from his anus to the tip of his cock.

	Ana Veronica hugged Brandon tightly and spoke into his ear, "Don't
do nothing. Let him do it. Just kiss." She turned his mouth to hers and
opened up. When he didn't do it, she told him to, "Stick your tongue in so
I can suck it."

	Brandon obeyed.

	Frank's slow but forceful deep fucking pulled and pushed him in and
out of Ana Veronica's loose but hot and slick vaginal passage. Had it been
tighter, he was sure he'd cum in seconds. Frank's passes over his
increasingly sensitive prostate were raising his passion, nudging him
closer to orgasm. Possibly understanding the effect he was having and
likely not wanting his own passion to end too quickly, Frank paused
occasionally, cock as far inside as possible. Each time he resumed, the
first thrust sent a mild electric shock though Brandon's middle.

	Ana Veronica alternately sucked on Brandon's tongue then lips,
twisting side to side, revolving her hips into him in time with Frank's
fucking.

	Brandon lost track of time, of where he was. It was the best sex
he'd ever experienced. Frank's cock seemed to reach up into his stomach. He
missed it when he pulled it out but relished the anticipation of re-entry,
the spreading of his anus, the feel of the shaft sliding up his rectum,
across his sweet spot and past all while his own cock, with no effort on
his part, was pushed deeper into the hot vagina of the girl below him, his
cockhead sending out sparks, his shaft seeming to swell as it was enclosed
by warm slick flesh.

	But, as always, it had to end. Apparently, Frank was waiting for a
sign from Ana Veronica. Brandon felt her excitement when she hugged him
tighter, sucked his lips and tongue harder, began to moan. When she
suddenly opened her mouth, letting go of his and yanked on his back rather
than embraced, rammed her hips upward much as she could under two excited
males, Brandon knew she'd reached orgasm. Frank upped the tempo of his own
fucking and, in seconds, taking Brandon to his own climax, one so powerful
it had his head swimming, made him oblivious to Frank's own pulsing.

	Frank fell over onto his side, pulling Brandon and Ana Veronica
with him. His upper leg flopped over the boy and girl, keeping them
connected. For a while, he continued to fuck slowly, reaching out to pull
the girl's buns to them.

	"I wish we could sleep like this," he said finally.

	Brandon quietly agreed and began to wonder if this could be his
man, the one Miss Sally said he needed. Rather than say anything with Ana
Veronica near, he decided to wait until morning.

	Unhappily, morning, and bad news, came early. Frank awakened them
before dawn. "I gotta be at the airport by seven, business trip," he
explained in his reasonably good Filipino. He wasn't sure when he'd be
back.

	Brandon had planned to ask if he could live with the man, at least
until Ray got back, and for a little more lovemaking with Ana Veronica.

	The two kids, Brandon depressed, walked to the park. Ana Veronica,
sensing his sour mood, asked, "What's bugging you? Frank'll be back."

	Brandon was comparing Frank's promise to Ray's unfulfilled
words. It did seem more likely that Frank with his business and long time
residence there in Ermita would come back. The lack of a return date was
bothersome. "Maybe."

	"Sure he will." Her tone didn't match her words.

      They went into the section of Luneta Park nearest the bay and
stretched out head to head on a concrete park bench. Ana Veronica quickly
fell asleep. The quiet slowly lulled Brandon to sleep too.

	Later, Brandon bought the two of them breakfast from a street
vendor on Kalaw Street, the avenue that ran between the park and
Ermita. Ana Veronica remembered a large group of Americans shooting a Chuck
Norris film in the hotel across from where they sat. "He was climbing up
the side of the hotel, well, sort of. He went out a window on the side and
made like he climbed up there, or somethin'. They were there for a couple
three hours, wouldn't let none a us get close. You ever been to one a his
movies?"

	"Unh uh, you?"

	"Nah, only been to a couple movies when this guy took me `cause I
asked. I don't understand English for shit, just a few words so we went to
ones just with Filipinos. The guy didn't understand nothin' but he took me
anyhow. How much English you understand?"

	"Not much, almost none, just like you. You know, like fuck and suck
and numbers for money. If I make some money today, you wanna go to a movie
tomorrow?"

	"Tomorrow's Saturday, right?"

	"Uh huh."

	"Can't. Gotta date with this man says he's gonna take me to some
beach, me and Nancy. I don't know how he's gonna fuck anybody on a beach so
maybe we ain't gonna fuck unless they got a hotel there or somethin'."

	"What about tonight?"

	"I don't know, if I don't get a customer. What're you gonna do
today?"

	"I got this German tourist in the afternoon."

	They planned to meet at the Santa Monica plaza at six if they
didn't have customers.

	Ana Veronica went to her mother's. Brandon went to the
seawall. Melvin was there with three other street kids. They'd had an
adventure the previous evening.

	"This tourist wanted to take Melvin to his hotel and we tried to
sneak in too but this woman saw us and yelled at us. Chino told her to go
fuck herself."

	Chino, one of the stoways, interrupted. "No, I didn't. You said
that."

	They argued about who said what until Brandon insisted on the rest
of the story.

	Chino, about twelve, chunky with slanted eyes and a missing
incisor, continued the tale. "So, we went down by the corner and was
waitin' for Melvin to come out and the cops came and went in. We was scared
but we waited anyhow and then Melvin comes runnin' out just in just his
shirt holding his pants and slippers and we all ran and Melvin tells us
that the cops banged on this guy's door and they were both naked and before
they could put their clothes on they opened the door and come in. Melvin
gets smart and says this guy was rapin' `im and help and all and gets out
in the hall like he wants to cops to protect `im and, soon as he's behind
them, he runs. Son of a bitch says he called the cops names but I didn't
hear nothin'."

	Melvin jumped in. "I did so, son of bitches cops I said."

	They had no idea what happened to the man but figured he probably
just paid the cops off. "We ain't goin' back to that hotel with nobody,
that's for sure."

	"They all got them signs say no kids can come in with foreigners,"
said another of the stowaways, the cleanest of the group.

	"How you know, Sonny. You can't read nothin'."

	"'Cause everybody says that's what that paper at the door says and
I seen it in that other hotel on Faura. You was there. You saw it."

	Seemingly unconcerned about the previous night's happenings, the
three shed their clothes on the rocks beside the American Embassy and
played in the water nearby. Brandon sought a newspaper among the lean to
shacks along the beachwall. A woman let him read hers, a cheap scandal
sheet. There was an article on the third page about foreign tourists in the
town of Pagsanjan complete with photos of two men and four boys in a police
station. The boys were pointing at two hapless white men, heads down,
seated on a bench, their hands cuffed behind them. It was impossible for
Brandon to tell if he knew either one.

	Before he could read further, it began to rain. With worries about
the future of his livelihood occupying his brain, he hardly noticed the
rain soaking him as he walked to Santa Monica alley and up to Del Pilar
Street and Raymond's Fastfood.

	Nanding was selling cigarettes out of a small plastic covered wood
box with a couple dozen packs, several open. He was back in business.

	Toti had his shoeshine box but no customers. Nanding darted inside
out of the rain. When asked about his merchandise, he explained, "This
stupid missionary guy gave me a hundred pesos when I told him about getting
robbed. Tell him, Toti."

	"It's true. He gave me a twenty for shinin' his shoes and this
other tourist was making a movie of us doing it. Had a microphone too. "

	"Big tall guy?" asked Brandon.

	"Yeah. You know him?"

	"Nah, just saw him this one day when they were doing some kind of
march up the street with a lot of school girls against the tourists, the
ones we go with."

	"I saw that too," piped up Toti, "twice. This nun from the church
by Frank's was in it."

	Toti explained that he went to a Catholic Church program designed
to help Ermita callgirls and peddlers, of which he was one. They provided
emergency medical care, T shirts and counseling.. He was wearing one of
their T shirts.

	"You think the cops are going to come around here a lot about the
tourists and us?" asked Brandon.

	Nanding opined, "They went to that hotel Melvin was in. I'll bet
they do. You better sell something, Brandon."

	That was exactly the thought in Brandon's mind. Frank's sudden
departure was a bad sign. The problem was the low income. Nanding and Toti
both lived on the street and ate cheap food. There was no McDonald's in
their diet unless some tourist bought it for them and, if Nanding was
right, there wouldn't be tourists much longer. Perhaps the movie theaters
were the answer. He'd see how it went at the Venus the next day.

	There was to be more bad news that Friday. The German showed up,
but had nowhere to take Brandon. The hotel he'd been staying in and taking
his boys to advised him he could no longer stay there. He had hopes thing
would improve by the same time next year. If so, he'd be back and look for
Brandon.

	Then things got better, sort of. Brandon had gone back to the
seawall to see if the other kids had had any experiences in movie houses,
particularly if they knew where the Cameo Theater was. It had been
mentioned by one of the kids at the Venus.

	No sooner had he arrived than it started to drizzle. Melvin was
gone. Chino and two others were dressing quickly to go. A young man coming
up the stairs from the beach walked to him.

	"Hi," he greeted with the smile of a man who wanted the
conversation to go on. "Rain," he said in Filipino.

	Brandon smiled back knowing a customer when he saw one. He almost
said `I sleep you, Joe' but the man was quicker. "Earn money," he asked in
Filipino.

	"Let's go to your hotel," suggested Brandon.

	The young American, by his accent, frowned. "No can. Hotel say no
boys." He produced an umbrella.

	Chino and his friends rushed by, all three grinning, the last
raising his eyebrows repeatedly.

	"Where," asked Brandon hoping he had someplace in mind that would
be dry. He didn't.

	"Rocks, down there." He pointed south on the bay side of the wall
where there were outcroppings of rocks, none more than a few feet high."

	Brandon said in English, "Police see."

	"No," he answered also in English, "rain, no look." It was raining
harder.

	"Suck thirty," said Brandon.

	The man produced a condom. "How much?"

	"Sixty." Brandon was becoming soaked but feeling somewhat
adventurous, as well as greedy.

	Another frown. "Only have fifty."

	Brandon didn't believe him and shook his head, by then his hands
stuffed into his pockets to keep his money dry.

	The man put his hands into his own pockets and smiled, "Ah, found
more. Okay, let's go."

	Brandon held his hand out. Another smile and cash was handed over.

	As they went down the six steps to the beach, Brandon looked behind
them at the lean tos along the wall. Not a face was in sight. All had taken
cover. About forty yards down after having to step into the water a number
of times, the umbrella wavering enough over the man's head that he too was
completely soaked, they reached an alcove where, seated, they couldn't be
seen from either direction but were clearly visible to anyone on the
sidewalk who might look over and down from the wall above. It was raining
hard, didn't seem likely anyone would.

	The American sat, the umbrella resting on his head, opened his belt
and pulled his pants to just above his knees. He was already erect. The
condom was an expensive pre-lubricated kind, After being motioned that he
should sit in the man's lap, Brandon pushed down his shorts and turned
around, all the while searching the bay in front of them for passing
boats. There was a large outrigger banca with three people in it but well
out to sea. Remembering the paper money in his pants pocket, he pulled his
shorts within reach, found it, sought a dry place to stash it and thought
`the umbrella'.

      As his customer tried to pull his hips back and down, Brandon reached
up into the umbrella and stuffed his money between a rib and the
fabric. The man's attention was fixed on getting pole to hole and didn't
notice. Finally, with Brandon's cooperation, he got things lined
up. Brandon felt the slick rubber covered cockhead spread his cheeks on its
way up. It missed his hole so he reached back and got his fingers greasy
guiding it to where it needed to be. From there, full entry was quick and
easy. Brandon sat down in the man's crotch, the long, slim cock poking into
his colon.

	"Oh shit you're good," muttered the man.

	 The rain got harder. The wind kicked up blowing the umbrella off
to one side. The man didn't seem to notice. Brandon did. He grabbed at the
edge and pulled it back.

	"Shit, forget that thing. We're already wet."

	"It's my money, up inside," he said in English, cursing himself for
letting it slip. There was no comment from his customer. Brandon pressed
the latch at the top of the rod, folded the umbrella and lay it beside them
on top of a rock so rain couldn't get inside.

      "Okay, can you go up and down?" asked the man in English.

	Brandon played dumb hoping the man hadn't caught his slip.

	The man showed him, lifting best he could. Brandon dropped his
hands to the man's thighs and raised himself. At the highest possible
point, Brandon's hands slid off the wet flesh, He dropped fast into the
man's pubic hairs, a brief sharp pain halfway down.

	"Oh shit, keep doing that. Uh, a, again, again!"

	Brandon figured he could logically understand `again' so pushed
himself up and, leaning back for a better entry angle, let himself fall
again and again with not the slightest discomfort. It even seemed to miss
his prostate. "Good fuck, Joe. You good fuck. Fuck me good." The rain was
uncomfortable, cold. He wanted to get this over.

	After a few more drops, the American took Brandon by the waist,
lifted him up and fucked hard from below for a few minutes before letting
him drop back down. "You, you do now," he said in Filipino. Maybe he hadn't
heard Brandon's English.

	Brandon went back to pushing himself up then falling back. Again,
the angle was good. He hardly felt the man's cock slide up inside each
time. Good lubricant, he thought and tried to push himself higher. The man
tried to help by putting his hands under Brandon's buns and lifting,
managing to get the head of his long cock almost out of Brandon's
hole. Less than a dozen more times along with more vocal encouragement and
the man grunted, allowed Brandon to take himself up and down one more
before grabbing him and pushing up from below. "O shit!" His legs stretched
and toes curled. Brandon felt the pumping action inside.

	When he was able to catch his breath, the American said, "We are
both wet puppies."

	Brandon had considered heading for the Venus but, now dripping wet,
he needed to dry off. The best place would be the Bay Hotel but he doubted
the desk clerk would let him in at that early hour. It was still day but
barely though mostly due to the dark cloud cover. The rain was going to
continue. Since the bay water was warmer than the rain, Brandon removed his
clothes and asked the woman who normally watched them, for three pesos, of
course, if she could wring them out best she could and hang them up inside
her lean to. She agreed and invited Brandon to come inside and dry himself
as well. When she offered him a towel, he joined her.

	"How much did that man pay you?" she wanted to know.

	Hoping against hope she hadn't seen what they'd actually done,
Brandon said, "Ten pesos."

	"You let him do that for ten pesos? I don't believe you."

	Brandon kept his mouth shut.

	"I saw your head go up and down so I know. How much?"

	"Forty," he lied.

	"You should charge more. Here, hold your money." She stopped and
looked at the wad of bills. "How much you have here?"

	Brandon reached for it but she pulled her hand back and counted it
out carefully. "How many foreigners you go with to make this much?"

	Brandon wasn't sure how much there was. "Maybe three."

	"Three? You got almost two hundred, one hundred ninety-five pesos
here. You let them all fuck you? You better be careful, some of them have
diseases and will make you very sick like that boy almost went blind. He
was lucky Mister Frank helped him and took him to the hospital."

	"What boy?"

	"You don't know Rey, the skinny one? He's always at Santa Monica
like Melvin and Nanding. You gotta know him."

	Brandon shrugged his shoulders. "What happened?"

	"This American fucked him in that hotel over the bar across from
Raymond's, and not just him, and then Rey had pink eye and they told him to
put his piss in the eye and it would go away because it really works so he
put his piss on it and it got better but a couple of days later, his eyes
were all swollen and closed with puss coming out and he couldn't see
nothin' so Toti took him to Frank and Frank took him to Manila Doctor's and
when Frank told the doctor Rey sometimes went with tourists, the doctor
said it was gonorrhea and gave him a needle with penicillin and some more
medicine and Frank bought some too. Frank kept him for a week I think and
he got okay but he was real lucky Toti took him to Frank or maybe, no, for
sure, he is blind now.

	"You gotta use rubbers. You make that man put on a rubber?"

	Brandon frowned but nodded yes.

	"That's good `cause you gotta do that or you can be blind too like
Rey almost was."

      The woman, who seemed to know a lot about commercial sex, went on and
on about what to do and not do, information Brandon already had in his
young brain though some, particularly regarding the possible diseases was
new and somewhat frightening, particularly syphilis, whose unpleasant
results Millie, who hadn't mentioned that nasty problem, either didn't know
about or found too ugly to describe. Brandon decided he needed to carry a
better quality condom than he'd been buying.

      After a while, the rain stopped but Brandon's clothes were still very
wet. As it was dark but early, Brandon accepted a five pesos meal the woman
offered and ate it naked on the seawall. A lot of people passed by but no
one took notice of the nude boy sitting in full view.

      Eventually, Brandon accepted the cold shirt and shorts and headed for
the Bay Hotel though via Santa Monica Plaza. Toti was shining shoes and
Melvin was selling cigarettes out of his brother's box. Nanding, Toti
explained, was asleep behind Raymond's.

      "Any tourists for me?" Brandon asked in a whisper.

      Low enough so his Filipino shine customer couldn't hear, Toti
answered, "Johnny went with this one guy but he just wanted to talk but he
could talk Filipino so they just ate. Didn't give him nothin'. Nobody else
been here."

      "Ana Veronica?"

	Toti stood and held his hand out for payment. Three pesos was
handed over and the man walked off. Toti answered Brandon query. "Ain't
seen her for a couple days. You fuck her?"

	"What's she say."

	"Nothing but I did her, and Johnny once. You?"

	Brandon was unwilling to admit anything. "Ask her," he answered
with a smile.

	"You fucked her, didn't you." Toti was persistent.

	"Who else went with her?"

	"Everybody but she mostly just lets you do it once and no more. I
did it once but her hole was so big I couldn't cum. So, did you?"

	No reply.

	Brandon hung around for over an hour but found no
business. Eventually he walked to the Bay but, "You can't come in here any
more. The owner said we let a kid in here and we're fired so I can't."

	"I'll stay in that closet. Nobody'll know."

	No amount of pleading moved the young man. Brandon returned to
Santa Monica Plaza. Toti took him along to a walkway three blocks south
where he slept between two makeshift shacks against a stone wall. It was
more comfortable than the floor at MYRC.

	Saturday morning, Brandon bought breakfast for himself and Toti in
a closeby turo turo after which they went to a near empty Santa Monica
Plaza. The clubs were all closed. A few young tourists were eating in
Raymond's. Other than the sound of mostly jeepney traffic, there was none
of the normal racket. Johnny, along with the same woman vendor who seemed
always to be there, was asleep against the tree at the center front of the
plaza. They went to the seawall where Toti went well down the rocks to take
a shit.

	A woman with two small children sat on a blanket eating. The
regular street people in their shabby leantos went about their daily
rituals and chores below the seawall. Brandon left his clothes with the
watcher woman and waded out into chest high water mostly to wash the
remains of lubricant off his ass then, when the urge hit him, to take a
crap where he stood. It shamed, depressed him as he did it. He was becoming
just like the rest of the stowaways, like Chino and Nanding and the rest,
accepting the shitty life they were living, a life that held no hope for
improvement. He couldn't be like that, wouldn't allow it to happen. He was
supposed to go to college one day, be something better than the son of a
whore, the son of a bitch. Where was Ray? Somebody had to help him. Miss
Sally said he needed to find a man who would be his lover, take care of
him, put him in school. The problem with tourists is that they always
left. None of them were of any help. Even Frank who he'd been told had
lived there on Flores Street for years was gone. Filipinos didn't really
care about strays like him. Americans, his other nationality, just wanted
to lock him up then put him in some crappy home. Maybe there wasn't really
any hope. Maybe the others were right to accept their situations. Maybe
they understood that, in fact, they had no hope, that they'd end up in a
few years like the other derelicts wandering the streets collecting cups,
begging, sleeping in the Luneta Park grandstand or on a street corner.

	No! That couldn't be his future. There had to be a way to make it
better. Even if the cops could chase off his tourist customers, there had
to be Filipinos who'd pay enough for his services to keep him alive. Maybe
he could find a way to enroll himself in school, or get someone to do it
for him.

	Toti came out to where he was still standing. "Don't walk here," he
told him, "I just took a shit." He hated to hear those words come out of
his mouth.

	As they floated and waded, Brandon asked Toti, "How come you don't
go with tourists?"

	"I just don't like it."

	"Why?"

	"It's a sin."

	Brandon had thought about that possibility but rejected it because
he could see any harm being done to anyone. Still, "How come? Don't hurt
nobody."

	"I don't know. It's in the bible. The nuns showed it to us."

	"Did you read it? What'd it say?"

	"I can't read. You know that."

	"Then maybe it didn't really say that. Anyhow, sex don't hurt
nobody. You ever tried it?"

	"Sex with a tourist? Uh uh. I don't want nobody fucking me."

	"Some of `em just wanna suck you. You can do that."

	"It's still a sin."

	That discussion went nowhere. Neither understood nor accepted the
other's point of view. It did worry Brandon a little. What if Toti was
right and God would punish him. Was all that had happened, from Millie's
mother's death, his own mother being locked up and all that had befallen
him, be a punishment for him having sex with men? That didn't make any
sense. The men, even that Australian who'd in reality raped him, were doing
fine. If God punished sex, how come they were doing so well with enough
money to fly to the Philippines from where they lived, stay in nice hotels,
eat good food and have enough to pay for sex with kids like him? Nah,Toti
had been lied to.

	After a spirit lifting Big Mac and chocolate shake lunch at
McDonald's, Brandon jeepneyed off to find the Venus Theater using an
address out of a telephone book to locate it. After two sets of wrong
directions, he finally was able to find it with the help of a suspicious
woman who wanted to know what his real reason was for going there.

	He stood outside for a while. None of the men who entered showed
any interest in him so he paid his way in only to be shocked by a `Balcony
closed' sign at the stairway. Was sex going on in the main seating area? He
went in and sat in the last row. There were no boys leaning over anyone's
crotch, no bobbing heads. Everyone seemed to be watching the movie. He went
back to the lobby to see if the balcony was actually closed or maybe just
to those who weren't aware of what was going on up there.

	He ducked under the rope only to have someone call out from behind,
"Hey, you can't go up there."

	"How come?"

	"Can't you read, kid?"

	Brandon left, crossed the street and sat on a park bench facing the
theater, just as Boy and Rafael had done.

	If the Venus had put an end to balcony sex, what about the other
theater mentioned, the Cameo. It hadn't been in the telephone book. All he
knew was that it was in Quezon City, a place he knew nothing about but
apparently was very big. Did he dare go back to the Premier, try to
apologize to Billy, maybe give him some money, make love to him. Even if he
was successful, it might only be a temporary solution if that theater too
ended up being shut down to upstairs sex.

	Was there some other part of huge Metro Manila where a boy could
make money with his body?

	  He took jeepneys back to Ermita. Nanding was chasing jeepneys
with his box of cigarettes.  Toti was hustling shoeshine customers in the
nearly full Raymond's Fastfood, Melvin and another stowaway were sitting in
the back of the plaza playing cards with a Barangay Tanod. Most of the
coins they were gambling for were in front of the man. Melvin nodded his
way.

	Brandon sat under the tree and watched the area hustlers
merchandise their wares to passing tourists, everything from T shirts with
Philippine scenes to ear rings and necklaces. At one point, a middle aged
man stared at Brandon briefly from the far side of the street but turned
and headed south, his hands stuffed deeply into his pockets.

	Brandon had fallen asleep when someone nudged his arm. "Good
afternoon, young man, sleepy are you?" The last three words were Filipino.

	He was older, fifties and obviously British, a full head of light
brown hair changing to white on the sides, pressed slacks, a distinctive
accent with a calm, crisp delivery, and the black umbrella. He continued in
fractured but clear Filipino. "You want to earn money?"

	Brandon opened and closed his eyes to get his vision working. A
customer. "How much?" came out in English, not what he'd have preferred to
say.

	Through a slight smile of regret, the man answered in his own
version of Filipino mixed with English, "No hotel here. We go
Calamba. Sleep Calamba, return tomorrow?"

	Brandon's radar sensed potential danger. "What will we do in
Calamba?" he asked in Filipino.

	"Eat, sleep, maybe some sex, if you like."

	"How far is Calamba?"

	"We go jeepney, bus. Hour, hour and a half."

	It was a bed for the night. "How much?"

	"What do you like to do?"

	"Suck, uh, forty, fuck, eighty."

	"Very expensive. I buy food, pay hotel. Fifty everything for you."

	Brandon shook his head, certain the man would pay his price. He
agreed to do so.

	Still uncertain, he asked for a moment to tell his friends he was
going away until the next day. Neither Melvin nor the tanod had seen the
man before. Nanding was too busy to look. Brandon, with a slight hope this
man lived in the country and might be a long term possibility, went along.

	The Brit said, "I'm John, and you?"

      "Freddy."

He handed Brandon change for the jeepney and three five pesos notes for the
bus along with instructions to sit apart from him on both. They took a
jeepney to the South Super Highway and there waited for a bus which took
them all the way to Calamba, a forty minute ride. The hotel was a spread
out single story affair behind a large open air Chinese restaurant. The man
was known to the young women at the desk. They smiled graciously at both
him and Brandon who, though he looked, didn't see any of the government
notifications regarding the prohibition of admitting minors in the company
of foreigners.

	The room was spare, cooled by a ceiling far. The screened,
glassless windows were covered by inexpensive lacey curtains. The single
whicker chair had a threadbare cushion. The bed sheets had the hotel name
printed on them. The place reminded Brandon of the cheaper short time
hotels in Balibago and Angeles but without the mirrors. Though their room
was at the far end of a long row of rooms, all with doors direct to the
outside, anyone who wandered down could hear whatever was said, or done if
it produced any sound, from the outside a window.

	"Shower?" suggested John.

	The water was moderately warm despite not being heated. John's body
was fit, not slim but exhibiting no excess flesh. His expressions clearly
showed his approval of Brandon's body parts, each of which he washed
thoroughly, a soapy finger slipping full inside the young rectum. The
attempted kisses Brandon expected weren't attempted.

	After drying off, John asked Brandon to stand in the last of the
daylight coming in from the window so he could admire his body. "Turn
around slowly," he ordered softly. When Brandon's back was to him, he said,
"Stop," approached and felt his buns. Then, without a warning, gave one a
swift swat.

	Brandon jumped and turned. "Don't do that!" There had been one
other man, also a Brit, who'd tried light spanking but Brandon hadn't
allowed it with no consequences. This man wasn't so easily dissuaded.

	"Oh, just a few. You're going to be leaving tomorrow with eighty
pesos. Please lie down on the bed."

	"I don't do that. Just sex."

	"Just a few, young man. It won't hurt that much," was what he
wanted to say though it came out that it wasn't going to hurt at all.

	"Hitting hurts. Just sex."

	John sighed and folded his hand. "How much for, oh, ten times, not
so hard."

	Brandon's initial thought was outright rejection but, again, if the
man lived in the Philippines, perhaps around there, it might be worth it to
see how bad it might be. He needed a place to stay until Ray came back, if
that was going to happen, longer if he didn't. "Twenty-five." He said in
English. "Not hard."

	John seemed to consider that. Brandon hoped he wasn't going to try
and force things. He located his clothes in case.

	"Ten and I buy you a very good desert after dinner."

	"Twenty-five and not hard."

	Another sigh and a wave toward the bed.

      Brandon held out his hand. John laughed quietly and went to his
wallet on the table by the bed. Brandon put the resulting cash into his
pants pocket and lay face down on the bed. John sat beside him and caressed
Brandon's hefty bottom. Then came the first swat, loud enough to be heard
halfway up the row of rooms. It hurt but was bearable. Brandon gritted his
teeth for the second. It was at least a full minute before it was
delivered. Smack! Brandon was sure someone was going to hear. There was
another minute or so before the third, which was a bit harder than the
first too.

      "Not so hard."

      "That's not hard." Smack! That's hard.

      Brandon started to get up but was pushed down. "Calm down, calm
down. That's what the twenty-five pesos is for. You can handle it."

      It had hurt but, again, was bearable for twenty-five pesos. Five more
to go.

      Smack! Brandon grunted and buried his face in the pillow.

      His ass was rubbed gently in a circular motion for a while. Brandon
stiffened in preparation for the next blow, the sixth.

      "Relax, young man. It hurts more if you are tense."

      Brandon relaxed. Smack! The hardest yet but just three more .

      More massage and what felt like a peek between his buns. Smack! That
one managed to get both sides, and hurt less.

      John kissed both of his ass cheeks then licked one before kissing it
again. Smack!

      Brian jumped. The blow was very hard but there was just one more. He
was sure it would be the worst and braced himself, gripping the pillow with
both hands. John got up from the bed and walked to the other side, stood
still for the longest time then returned to where he'd been. Rather than
sit, he kneeled beside the bed. Whack!

      "Mmmmph!" cried Brandon, near tears, into the pillow. But, it was
over.

	"One more, please. Five pesos. That's thirty. Okay?"

	Brandon wiped his eyes on the pillow case, looked up at the man who
was rubbing his hands in front of himself, his cock pointing up at a
forty-five degree angle, at full mast. Brandon convinced himself it would
be worth it. Five was what he'd charge for each blow the next time. He put
his face back into the pillow and grabbed the sides of the bed.

	He had to wait for at least half a minute before, whack! hard as
the last. His tightly closed eyes were wet but he was ready for another
should the man be willing to pay. However, it was over. John lay beside
him, pulled Brandon on his side, bodies tight together, and pushed his
saliva covered cock between Brandon's legs. A towel was tossed on the bed
in front of them. Ejaculation came on the third thrust.

	After John finally let go and fell onto his back, eyes closed,
breathing heavily, Brandon turned to see the condition of his rear end. The
deep brown from sunbathing nude on the seawall beach was changed to a
bright red which almost glowed making his buns appear larger than
normal. His ass was sensitive to the touch. He sat on it to see how that
would feel. Not too bad but better standing up.

	Then, it was time for dinner. John thought it might be better if he
fetched the dinner and brought it to their room. "You like Chinese?" he
inquired.

	"Never ate it. What's in it?"

	They had fried rice chicken with sweet and sour pork. John drank
tea, Brandon a big orange drink, nude. Easier to clean up spills on
oneself, explained John.

	Would he like desert? "They have ice cream."

	Brandon had a chocolate sundae, of sorts, no cherry. John had more
tea.

	John produced a portable magnetic checkers set. Brandon thought
they ought to wager something. He'd never played any kind of game where
players couldn't win, or lose, something. John went to the desk and
exchanged a ten peso bill for ten one peso coins. "Here are the five pesos
I owe you."

	They played five games. Brandon lost them all, and his earnings for
that last hard swat on the ass.

	"Are you ready to earn some more money?"

	John wasn't interested in oral action. He immediately put on a
rubber. As he greased it up with something out of a toothpaste shaped tube,
Brandon sat on the bed awaiting instructions.

	"Lie on your back, legs up."

      Brandon complied.

	"Now, squeeze your anus shut, your hole, tight as you can."

	Brandon worried he was planning a painful entry but figured he
could release himself fast enough to avoid it. He squeezed.

	"Now, relax and push it out, like you're going to poop."

	Brandon obeyed.

	Three times more his customer made the same commands, his eyes
never leaving Brandon's hole. As Brandon was releasing the third time, John
stepped up and poked his cock into the now wide open hole, watching as he
ever so slowly slid easily inside. Brandon hardly felt a thing until it
reached his prostate then straightened his rectum as it neared the colon.

	John leaned into him, pressing his groin against Brandon's still
reddish backside. He straightened up and pulled completely out then
immediately pushed back inside as slowly as he had with the first
penetration. That went on for a while, the only variation being an
occasional twist to the right or left. It was really too slow to have been
called fucking, more like probing.

	The last time he pulled himself out, he sat beside Brandon and
motioned for him to sit on his lap, facing him, impaled on his organ. For a
few moments, John embraced him, not moving at all then, "Put your arms over
my shoulders and move up and down."

	It was necessary to use some leg power as well to accomplish the
vertical distance John wanted. The internal sensation was pleasant enough
to pump blood into Brandon's own cock. Gradually, John began brief thrusts
in time to Brandon's movements. His eyes remained fixed on what was going
on below.

	Then, "Stop." John lay back. "Move side to side and back and
forth."

	Brandon slid his body as far left and right, forward and backward
as he could sitting on a fixed object. They were both beginning to sweat
making John's middle slippery, easier for Brandon to slide around. Brandon
hoped his ministrations would bring on an orgasm. At one point, John
appeared to stiffen, his eyes closed tightly, but again, "Stop, just sit
there for a moment."

	After withdrawal, Brandon was led into the bathroom and told to
stand on the toilet with its seat raised, bent kneed, hands on the tank
cover. John stuck his erection between Brandon's cheeks, pushed inside then
tugged him slightly downward until penetration was complete. The toilet was
low but Brandon was still required to hold a squatting posture while he was
slowly fucked from behind.

	From there, John, maintaining full penetration, carried Brandon
back to the bedroom and lowered them both face down to the bed where he
continued slow screwing for a while then rolled them over, never halting
the slow, deliberate deep thrusting into Brandon. He sat Brandon up. "Turn
around." Brandon started to get up but John kept him down. "Just turn, keep
me inside you."

	Once Brandon was face to face, John sat up, embraced Brandon,
lifted and lowered him which only pulled the bottom half of his cock out
each time. He cut that short and laid back down. "Go up and down on me, all
the way up. Just don't let me come all the way out, just almost," was what
he wanted to say. However, it came out that Brandon should lift himself up
off the cock then go back down on it. Brandon obeyed what he heard. John
appeared frustrated when his cock came free but stopped himself from saying
anything when Brandon reached back and guided the cock back into his hole,
and kept doing it. He let that go on until Brandon, who was doing all this
with knee bends, was too tired to get all the way up and off.

	Next, he turned Brandon back around and down, rolled over and
raised them up together into a doggie style fuck, much of the action by
pulling and pushing Brandon forward and back with his hands on the boy's
hips.

	Brandon was wondering if he should be charging more for this
prolonged session but figured the bed for the night warranted at least
something extra. He also was somewhat amazed the man could do all this
without cumming. No one else had been able to plumb his bottom for much
more than fifteen minutes without reaching orgasm.

 	After several minutes of hard but still slow entries and
withdrawals, John pulled out. Without a word, he guided Brandon onto his
back, pulled his legs until his knees were close to his chin and ass well
in the air. He stood on the floor, adjusted Brandon until he could push his
dickhead into the boy's hole at an angle which stretched Brandon's insides
toward the front of his body with each long thrust. The hard passage across
Brandon's prostate was particularly stimulating causing his own cock to
stretch out.

	John increased the speed of entry and pushed as deep as he could
each time. The back end of the rubber was being pulled just perceptibly up
the shaft with each thrust. John pushed Brandon's hips slightly downward
and banged in harder. John ordered, "Beat off. Use your hand. Beat off!"
His voice was strained. The end was near.

      "Hurry!" insisted the man.

      Brandon took hold of his own by then very stiff cock and got to
work. It wasn't going to take very long and didn't. The passes of John's
cock over his sweet spot had already put his juices to gurgling.

      It took Brandon less than a minute to reach fruition. The rhythmic
tightening of his sphincter took John to where he wanted to go. He grunted
and pushed home, fully buried inside Brandon's rectum, almost falling over
on the boy.

      Brandon was allowed to sleep alone but had to put up with a second
screwing in the morning though it was a standard on his stomach, man on top
affair that was over in relatively short order.

      During breakfast, as with dinner eaten in their room, Brandon asked
John if he'd ever had a boy live with him.

      "I'd love to, my young friend and you'd be a perfect choice, but
sadly it isn't possible. I'm only free on weekends. Would you like to come
back next Saturday?"

      Plans were made to meet at the bus terminal Saturday at
three. Payment was in full with an additional fifteen pesos to cover
transport back to the city. John remained behind. Brandon guessed he lived
somewhere nearby.

      It was midday when Brandon walked into Santa Monica plaza. Raymond's
was, as usual, full of less affluent touristsl. Toti and his shoe shine box
were idle. A pair of prepubescent stowaways were hustling coins from
passersby while an older street boy watched from the other side of the
street. Brandon figured him to be handling them as Boy had exploited him
and Don Don.

      Brandon sat under the tree for an hour, Toti with him for a
while. Nanding was selling cigarettes with an older friend / protector on
the more heavily travelled Taft Avenue. Melvin with two friends were
supposed to be begging at some festival in Quezon City that they'd heard
about from another stowaway who could read and had told them about it. Toti
hadn't seen Ana Veronica. Johnny had been around earlier but decided to see
if he could find a tourist in the park. He'd left late the night before,
angry and frustrated that there hadn't been any customers on what usually
was the best night of the week, a night when he could usually pick and
choose among a number of horny foreigners.

      Brandon told Toti he'd be at the seawall if anyone came looking and
left. One of the local tanods waved at him as he walked out of the plaza.

      The beach at the seawall was crowded as usual for a Sunday with
family groupings though most without fathers. Children of all sizes played
in the water, increasing in size as the water deepened over nearly a
hundred yards. There were no obvious stowaways but Brandon was sure some
were out there in the mass of young bodies. Their nudity would be hidden by
waist deep water. Rather than go into the water, he'd had a shower before
leaving Calamba, he sat apart from all others on the seawall trying to look
available. At one point, he did spot familiar faces in the water including
one he knew to have gone with tourists though not as a living. He wondered
how Johnny was doing in the park.

      The sun was going down when a foreigner stopped and leaned on the
wall beside him.

      "Hi, your name?" he asked in accented English that Brandon couldn't
tag with a nationality.

      "Freddy. Your name?"

      "John. You live around here?"

      Feigned lack of understanding.

      "Where sleep?"

      "I sleep you?"

      "Uh, yes, but where we go? You know hotel?"

      Brandon shook his head. "We go your hotel?" He knew what the answer
would be before it came.

      "My hotel say no boys. You know hotel, uh, anywhere?"

      Calamba entered Brandon's mind but was sure last night's customer had
some special arrangement there that wouldn't be available to someone like
this man. Again, he shook his head.

      The man looked around. "Maybe bathroom, baņo, someplace private, no
one see?"

      A man had done him and Don Don in a toilet stall in Robinson's but
there was no way he was going back there. He tried to think where there
might be an out of sight spot, or a public bathroom they could use but
could come up with nothing.

      They went back and forth on places the man thought might be
possibilities but which Brandon felt were too dangerous. Then Brandon
suggested, `Night? There?" and pointed at the rock formations on the other
side of the seawall where he'd been fucked a few days before.

      The man gave Brandon ten pesos to get something to eat then meet him
in an hour and a half at the steps.

      At eight o'clock, there was sufficient moonlight to avoid falling
over the rocks they had to struggle past. John, as he called himself, had
taken off his shoes and socks when he saw they'd be stepping into
water. Once at the break in the rocks, Brandon shed his shorts and waited
to see what the man wanted. He had pre-lubed condums if necessary.

      John felt his groin. Brandon returned the favor. "Suck forty, fuck
eighty."

      With the both of them fighting off mosquitos and other insects,
Brandon earned forty pesos while his customer jerked him off, or tried
to. He squirted cum into Brandon's gullet within two minutes, from the
man's point of view, a lot of work and cash for very little.

      They made a date for the following evening with both promising to
find a less infested place.

      Toti, with whom he'd planned to sleep, was nowhere to be found. He
resigned himself to paying off one of the teens there to sleep in the
grandstand.

      With all but five pesos of his cash hidden inside the folded bottom
of his T shirt, Brandon found an area well up under the overhang, apart
from the dozen or so others preparing to sleep or already down. Minutes
after settling down, a pair of hard faced adolescents approached and asked
what he was doing there. After pulling his pockets inside out to show the
five was all he had, they agreed to accept it.

      Brandon waited to see them go then hid his money under trash in a
nearby corner, placing a abandoned torn leather shoe on top in case wind
began blowing during the night. But, moments after he'd laid down, the same
two boys reappeared from below and went straight to his hideaway. Brandon
dashed toward them and tried to grab what he could.

      "Son of a bitch, liar son of a bitch!" growled one. The other yanked
him by the shirt, tearing it down the back.

      The first one said, "Shit, you're a big liar. How much you got here?
Couple hundred? Who you steal this from?"

      "I didn't steal it. It's mine!"

      He smacked Brandon open handed across the face. "You lie to me and
I'll break your face. Where you get this money?"

      "I worked for it. Give it back!" Desperately, Brandon looked around
for anyone who might help but the few still awake were only watching. One
did stand but only for a better view.

      "Shit, you're stupid you think I'm giving you shit. Where you get
this from?"

      "I told you. I worked for it."

      "Where you work they're gonna give a stowaway money like this?"

      Brandon had an answer. "I clean up in a restaurant."

      Another smack to the side of the head followed by a fist to the back
from behind.

      "Shit, and they pay you maybe ten, not couple hundred, shit, three
hundred."

      "Fuck him! Let's go," said the second boy.

      "Shit, Marvin. That's what he does. He gets fucked by
tourists. That's how he gets all this money. How much they pay you to get
fucked, faggot?"

      "I don't do that, I saved that. They used to let me sleep in the
restaurant but they don't no more."

      That didn't work.

      "What I gotta pay you if I wanna fuck you, faggot?"

      No answer.

      "I tell you, nothing."

      His friend wanted to leave. "Fuck him, let's go."

      "Nah, let's take him in the back and fuck him. He's gonna be tighter
than that bitch you found."

      Brandon was looking for an escape route but also a way to snatch some
of him money as he took off. The two were both close, the one who wanted to
leave right at his back.

      "Let's go kid, maybe I'll give you something if you're good. You can
blow me first. You try to scream or something, the tanods downstairs gonna
hear you and they gonna wanna fuck you too so keep quiet." He pushed
Brandon backward. The second teen grabbed him by the arm.

      They walked to the stairs and down, past still, silent observers, the
two in front of and directly behind Brandon. At the foot of the stairs, the
one in front took Brandon's arm and turned him left, pulling him along to
the end of the grandstand and into the darkness at the side. The leader of
the pair said, "I know where we can do it, come on," and led them away from
the grandstand toward the north side of the park then up along the side
into trees and bushes near a fence.

      There was still enough moonlight to run safely across the great open
grassy space out from the trees that eventually led to Roxas
Boulevard. Brandon looked back at the boy with his money. He'd stuffed it
into his pocket, the tips of a few bills sticking out. He'd have to pull
his shorts down if he wanted to get sucked. Brandon would take his chance
then.

      They had apparently thought of that possibility. Marvin knelt behind
Brandon holding both of his arms as the other dropped his shorts and
ordered, "Suck, faggot!"

      "I don't..." was all he got out before the hand struck his face.

      "Suck!"

      Brandon opened up. The soft cock pushed into his mouth was filthy,
probably hadn't been washed for weeks. He spit it out
involuntarily. Another hit. "Suck it!"

      Brandon sucked and spit, each time trying to get the hardening cock
out then back in fast enough to avoid being hit. It seemed to work. The
taste improved to just bad within a couple of minutes. The teen grabbed the
sides of his head and forced himself in hard again and again, long minute
after long minute, Brandon forced his mind and eyes to concentrate on the
money sticking out of the shorts by the rapist's slippered
feet. Eventually, the boy's cock began to bloat then harden, seemingly
doubling in size. Still, it took a while before he fired his foul tasting
cum reminiscent of Boyet's into the back of Brandon's mouth.

      "Shit, kid, that was good. Now just Marvin's gonna fuck you."

      But Marvin didn't want to "get my dick all covered with shit" and
went for the same as his partner.

      As he released him to take his turn and the first boy was pulling up
his shorts, Brandon reached up carefully then leaped forward and grabbed
for the few bills sticking out of the boy's right pocket. Taking what he
could, he ducked and ran. For a precious few seconds, the two teens both
fell to the ground to recover bills that had come out along with what
Brandon was able to snatch. "Go get him! Got get him!" shouted the first
teen to Marvin. Brandon, in full sprint, saw Marvin jump up and come after
him. But the poorly fed teenager was no match for the healthy eleven year
old and gave up minutes later as Brandon headed down Roxas Boulevard past
the American Embassy.

      Seeing no one pursuing him, Brandon slowed under a street lamp to see
what he'd recovered. There were just three bills, a twenty, a ten and a
five, a mere thirty-five pesos out of over three hundred. The feel of
concrete under his feet brought on the realization that he'd lost his
slippers during his escape. The foul taste in him mouth seemed to seep
throughout his being. He slumped against a tree and cried. Why was all this
happening to him? All the perceived injustices ran through his mind. Why
couldn't he just have a normal life? He wanted to scream but realized he
was in front of the huge American Embassy, a place full of people who
wanted to grab him, turn him into their snitch, then discard him into some
home. The bastards! He felt so completely powerless. He was going to be
like Melvin and Nanding, a stowaway, sleeping on the cold concrete of
walkways or right out on the street, begging so he could eat crappy food,
shitting diarrhea, because of it. Right then, he needed to shit. He'd done
it mostly in hotel bathrooms with toilets and toilet paper. Now he had to
find a place to hide, wipe his ass on trash or not at all.

      A thought struck him, a bit of rebellion, a small insult at the
bastards inside the building in front of him. He yanked his shorts down and
squatted. A man's angry voice shourted from inside the great steel fence in
front of the embassy, "Hey kid! You can't do that there!"

      Brandon smiled and pushed.

      "Stop! I'm coming out there!" There was the sound of a key in a lock.

      Brandon felt the shit slide out. He had a big hole. It was easy.

      The gate opened. Brandon jumped up, pulling his shorts. "Fuck you!"
he shouted in English and ran south.

      "Son of a bitch!" yelled the guard in Filipino.

      Brandon slowed to a trot. There was no pursuit this time. He needed
to clean his ass before he had shit all over the inside of his shorts. He
was beside the seawall. He went to the beach and up to the water, stepped
out of his shorts and into the water. Squatting, he splashed the slow
rolling surf water up into his crack then cleaned it out with his middle
finger. That finger he pushed into the sand and moved it around in an
effort to clean it.

      Now, he had to do something about the horrible taste of filth and bad
cum in his mouth. The water there was polluted but not as bad further
out. He took off his shirt, reminded it was torn when it ripped more when
he pulled it. He cursed the boys who'd attacked him.

      With his clothes held over his head, he waded far out until the water
was up to his chest. It felt refreshing, cleansing. He scooped a handful
into his mouth, the salty taste immediately masking what had been forced
into it. Three times, he swirled water around, careful not to swallow. It
was much better, but now he was thirsty, and hungry. But, it was late
Sunday night. There'd be no vendors about. Even the Ermita strip would be
shut down, nothing until morning.

      He struggled back to the beach, put clothes back on his wet body and
walked across the Roxas Boulevard and up Santa Monica Street in hopes of
finding Toti or one of the others and maybe water to get the salt taste out
of his mouth.

      There were two street kids asleep against the plaza wall across from
Raymond's, both older than him, unknown, possibly dangerous. A single
jeepney raced by, then silence, just the sound of window air conditioners
in the second floor hotel over the bar across the street, the hotel where
Rey had been infected with the gonorrhea that nearly blinded him.

      Again thoroughly depressed, Brandon walked the three blocks down Del
Pilar Street to the leanto shanty filled walkway where Toti often
slept. His mouth felt rancid, in desperate need of clean water. Toti wasn't
there. Brandon sat between a pair of shanties and gradually fell asleep, a
sleep broken too many times by the need for a drink, bad thoughts, a
nightmare involving two boys raping his mouth.

      The final awakening came when someone tripped on his extended
legs. He had to look up toward the sky to confirm the sun was rising. Still
tired but with the urgent need to clean out his mouth, he struggled down
the walkway looking at every shanty in hopes of finding a source of
drinking water. A woman washing dishes in the next to last shanty offered a
half full metal bowl. It worked but didn't completely eliminate a difficult
to identify bad taste.

      Finding no one at the plaza, he walked to the seawall in hopes of
finding an inexpensive breakfast. The clothes watcher woman provided rice
and scrambled egg for five pesos.

      "What happened to your face, and your shirt?" she asked as she cooked
the egg.

      "Some kids last night."

      "Why don't you go back to your mother? This is a bad life for
you. You're not like the others. You went to school."

      The mention of his mother brought tears to his eyes. "They locked her
up for nothin'. She didn't do nothin'."

      "What'd they say she did?"

      Brandon felt he shouldn't say anything but couldn't stop
himself. "She was fighting with this woman and then she stopped but the
woman went into the street and got hit by a jeepney and got killed. My
mother wasn't even close and she didn't push her or nothin'. She went out
there by herself."

      "Poor dear. Don't you got aunts or uncles or grandparents? Can't you
go stay with one a them?"

      "My grandmother wanted me but my uncle kicked me out. He even tried
to hurt me but some men made him stop."

      She handed him his food, tossing on some extra rice as she
did. "Maybe you ought to go to one of those homes for kids got no
family. At least you got a bed and something to eat. This is a bad life out
here." She seemed genuinely concerned but had no more suggestions though
did promise to see if she could find a shirt of some kind for him. She let
him crawl inside her leanto and sleep for a couple of hours.

      At ten, with no kids showing up at the beach, Brandon went to the
Santa Monica plaza. Nanding was there playing cards with an older stowaway
Brandon didn't know. Another younger stowaway was hustling a pair of young
male tourists in Raymond's. It took a second look to realize it was
Johnny. He was wearing ragged pants and a dirty white T shirt instead of
the nice clothes Brandon had always seen him in. When he walked out with a
couple of coins, Brandon, who'd already heard he'd been begging and
collecting cups in the park rather than being a callboy, asked what had
happened.

      "This tourist took me to this hotel in Santa Cruz I know and after,
these kids, like five or six of them, jumped us right in front and stole
his wallet and my money and nobody said nothin'. And the shit tourist said
I told `em to do it and when I said they stole my money too he said they
was gonna give it back `cause they was my friends. Son of a bitch!"

      "I got robbed too, last night, in the park on the grandstand. These
two wanted money so I could sleep there..."

      "Shit! Everybody knows them. You can't never go there. You gotta
sleep in three or four." Luneta Park is divided into four sections with one
by the water and two, three and four stretching inland out to Taft Avenue
on the East.

      "So what happened to your clothes?"

      Johnny frowned. "I sold `em. Guy's gotta eat."

      They sat on the plaza steps. Brandon asked, "You know any hotels
where we can go with tourists?"

      "Just that one in Santa Cruz but, shit, can't go there no more."

      They commiserated for a while. It was by far the longest, and only
friendly conversation Brandon had ever had with Johnny who had always
treated him as unwanted competition.

      Toti and two club girls came down Del Pilar Street shortly before
noon. They'd been at the Catholic Church across from Frank's place. Toti
had news.

      "Bunch of immigration men were looking for Frank this morning, They
even broke open the front door and went inside but nobody was there. That's
why he left. He knew. He's not coming back."

      Once again, there were no customers all day though one man did stop
and speak to them with the usual where do you live, go to school,
etc. Johnny let the man know how hungry they were and he bought them a
Raymond's lunch then gave them five pesos each when he left.

      "He knows there's no hotels for us any more or we coulda made some
money."

      Brandon smiled to himself since he knew Johnny never shared a
customer.

      Brandon, Melvin, Nanding and three other stowaways went to the
seawall beach for an afternoon swim. As they horsed around in the water,
Brandon kept an eye out for interested foreigners. Since the watcher woman
was taking care of his clothes for free, `this time' as she explained, he
was down to thirty pesos, enough for two days food, no more. But, though
two men did stop and watch them, one with binoculars, and Brandon walked
nude up onto the beach both times, they showed no sign of wanting his
company.

      Even the Del Pilar strip, which just weeks before was guaranteed any
night to find a callboy some business, provided no more than the occasional
look. Brandon's request to sleep with Toti was accepted. They went three
blocks down Del Pilar to a small park.

      "There's this old man don't let nobody do nothing to us but sometimes
you gotta let him suck your cock."

      "I thought you didn't let nobody do that to you."

      "Just him and he's only done it a few times, maybe four. Just don't
go saying nothin' to nobody about it. He don't like many new kids,
especially call boys. He hates call boys so don't say nothin' about doing
that. If he wants to suck you, say it's your first time."

      "He pay."

      "No, stupid. He protects us when we sleep here so nobody can rob us
or nothin'. He stays up all night and sleeps in the day. Just make like
it's your first time, okay?"

      The man was no more than sixty and looked fit and clean sitting
upright, arms folded, on a concrete bench watching them enter. Only his
unkept hair indicated he might be a street dweller. There was no shack or
anything to indicate he lived there.

      "Who's your friend, Toti Tooti Toti?"

      "Freddy, okay if he sleeps with me tonight?"

      With a shoulder shrug, he answered, "I don't care, not my park. No
Melvin Melvin?" he smiled a two toothed smile.

      "Ain't seen him since the morning. Maybe he'll come later."

      Toti led Brandon to a tree near a wall. "He's kinda crazy too. If
he's wants to suck you, it won't be until real late, after midnight when
nobody's around. Just let him but you gotta cum or he'll do you all night
until you do. Rey was here once and, first `cause his dick's so little then
`cause he couldn't cum, the old man wouldn't let him come back. Rey faked
cumming but he knew it was fake and just got mad, at me too, for bringin'
him."

      "What's his name?"

      "I don't know. He won't tell nobody. Maybe he's wanted or something
but he could just tell us a fake name but he don't do that neither. But,
like I said, he's kinda crazy."

      They sat against the wall talking about the costs involved in shoe
shining, how much Toti made each day and was it worth Brandon's while to
try it. "Too many shoe shiners," was Toti's answer. "I'm looking for
somethin' else."

      Once they were lying down, Toti got close behind Brandon and began to
play with his ear making him think more was to come, that possibly Toti was
gay and wanted to do him but, ear fiddling was all there was to it. Brandon
fell asleep with his ear still being finger massaged.

      Nor was he awakened for a blow job. He slept right through to
Tuesday's sunrise. The old man was still sitting on the bench looking out
toward Manila Bay. Toti went to him to say goodbye, receiving a nod in
response. Brandon suggested they see if the woman clothes watcher at the
seawall would prepare another five peso breakfast. She was off in the rocks
doing her business so they waited.

      She knew Toti and apparently liked him. She got right to cooking.

      Back on the plaza an hour later, Toti picked up his shoe shine box
from the Barangay Tanod who regularly kept it in his little jail. There was
immediate business. Two Filipinos in slacks and barongs stood chatting with
one another while Toti worked and Brandon watched.

      An hour later, a woman Toti knew came up on the plaza looking for
Melvin. "You know they took my Ana Veronica last Friday. She says Melvin
knows the tourist was with her and maybe he's out and can pay to get her
out."

      Brandon had been sure something bad had happened to Ana Veronica when
she didn't show up for so long. The news caused his belly to seem to fill
with something foul. He asked, "Where they put her?"

      "They got her down at Manila South. You know the man was with her?"

      Toti introduced him as Freddy. "No," he answered sympathetically.

      Ana Veronica's mother went off toward the seawall.

      Brandon sadly compared Ana Veronica's problems to Millie's then his
own.

      Since it was unlikely that her mother would find a tourist who was
probably locked up himself, Ana Veronica would likely end up in a home
though, from all he'd heard about the extremely slow procedures involved in
moving a minor from one place to another, she might be where she was for
months, probably being screwed by the cops there. He had no idea where
Millie was at that point but it might well have been a similar situation in
a jail back in Angeles enduring the same police abuse. In the end, though,
with no mother, she certainly would end up in some awful home, maybe even
the one he'd been briefly exposed to.

      The big question was why all this was happening to any of them. What
had they done that was all that wrong? While he didn't particularly enjoy
most of the sex, it didn't bother him in any way, except for the occasional
big dicked Aussie. Even the spanking, though unpleasant at the time, was
over quickly with no long or even short term discomfort, and netted him a
quick thirty pesos. The important thing to him was his own control over his
situation. He decided what his customers could do, not them. He could even
choose to go or not with any particular man, to work or not, to come or go
as he pleased. Up until the current crack down, his life on the streets had
been more than tolerable. He ate well, mostly slept inside in a bed and had
been accruing enough money to be able to put himself back into school. Was
that any different than shining shoes or selling cigarettes? It certainly
earned him more cash, making his life a lot better than that of Toti or
Nanding. What the hell was the problem with these people? Why were they
doing these things to kids like him, Millie and Ana Veronica?

      Toti said it was sinful but he was being sucked off by the old man in
the park by Cuarteles Street.

      Brandon mused over the ear massage from the night before. There'd
been tourists who nibbled or sucked on his ears before but never massaged
them. And Toti had gotten very close, pressed right up against him. There'd
been no more but maybe he was gay, would do more when he got the
chance. But, Ana Veronica had sucked on his ears, Millie too. Who knew?

      Melvin with his brother Nanding showed up shortly after Ana
Veronica's mother had left but from the opposite direction. He'd seen the
tourist with Ana Veronica but had no idea who he was or where he might
be. "He liked girls. How'm I gonna know him?"

      As they sat chatting in the plaza, Brandon noticed a wavy haired man
watching him from the other side of Del Pilar. He'd been one of the two men
he'd seen the day before. Brandon stood and headed for the sidewalk but the
man continued on down the street, not looking back. No sale.

      Things were bad. Melvin and Nanding had admitted that they'd been
begging on Taft Avenue and in the park scoring enough to split an eight
peso meal, their first of the day. Although he'd done it and was willing in
a pinch to do so again, it wasn't how he wanted to live, survive. There was
one more theater, the Cameo somewhere in Quezon City, that he needed to
check out. If that didn't work, he planned to take a bigger boy, one of
Melvin's bigger buddies, along with him to the Premier for negotiations
with Billy. The problem there was how to get his money out safely. While he
was willing to spend some nights with Billy, he wanted to get back to
Ermita at least five nights a week. He had friends here, had, in some ways,
found a home.

      He felt a little guilty buying lunch for himself while Toti struggled
to earn enough to eat. Still, he was down to eighteen pesos after eating
and no customers in sight.

      After eating, Brandon again asked about and went through a telephone
book seeking the address or even a close location for the Cameo
Theater. One of the waiters in Raymond's suggested he look in the newspaper
and handed him two copies from previous days. He found the section in the
Inquirer where all the theaters were supposedly listed but found no Cameo
but while the Premier was there, the Venus wasn't.

      Frustrated, he went to the seawall to better show off what he knew
was his attractive body and speak to Melvin who'd already gone there prior
to more begging. But, as he reached Roxas Boulevard, a young teenager came
up to him. "This tourist wants you to go to his hotel. We can go in the
back so there's no problem."

      The boy was clean, didn't seem in any way threatening, didn't seem to
care if Brandon agreed to the proposal or not. He waited for an answer.

      "Okay."

      It was a middle class hotel on Roxas Boulevard, across the street
from the seawall beach. A young man at a rear door let them in through the
kitchen. It reminded Brandon of the back door entries into the Spring short
time hotel in Balibago, engendering a brief wave of yearning for
Millie. This place, however, was a lot nicer. They went up to the top floor
in a service elevator. The boy, who hadn't said a word since asking Brandon
if he was interested, led him around a corner and down a hall, stopping to
knock on the last door.

      The smiling man who greeted him seemed prepared for sex. Before
seeing his face, Brandon's attention was drawn to the long thick white
bathrobe which appeared to be all that covered him. The moment he saw his
face, Brandon recognized him as the wavy haired tourist who'd eyed him
earlier that day and the day before. "Come in," he said in English then
walked to the messenger boy, gave him something and shut the door behind
him after he'd left.

      Though he'd been in countless hotel rooms along with men and never
felt any concern for his safety, something about this foreigner worried
him. He was big, not so much tall which he was, but brawny. His smile
seemed pasted on.

      Perhaps he saw Brandon's discomfort. "Don't worry," he continued in
English, "We're gonna have fun."

      Brandon put his confused face.

      "No English?"

      Brandon shook his head.

      "No Filipino, sorry." He waved Brandon to the bed, pulling out a
couple of twenty pesos bills and holding them out to him.

      Brandon said, "Suck fifty, fuck hundred."

      "Hah, a little English, important words but very expensive. I suck
you, forty," he said motioning with his hand and mouth. "You get naked,
clothes off," again miming the requested actions.

      Brandon put the money in his shorts pocket and took them off.

      "Shirt too," said the tourist pointing to it.

      Brandon obeyed.

      "Very nice body, Freddy, right?"

      He'd checked him out. Brandon nodded.

      "Ted," he said pointing at himself. At least it wasn't John.

      He sat on the bed and tugged Brandon gently down beside him, nudging
him flat onto his back. "Very, very nice," he said softly as he ran his
hand from Brandon's chest down to his groin. There he fumbled his balls
around before lifting his cock and slowly masturbated it. Brandon began to
relax and quickly developed an erection. "Very, very nice."

      Ted slid back far enough to lower his head into Brandon's crotch and
suck in his hard on. He was experienced. The feeling was great.

      After a few moments, Ted pulled Brandon into the middle of the bed,
pushed him toward the headboard and turned him onto his side where, from
below, took the boy cock back into his mouth. His right hand reached around
and fondled Brandon's buns, his fingers slipping between his legs then the
ass cheeks and back.

      Brandon debated mentioning that to fuck him cost a hundred pesos but
waited to see if that was really what the man wanted to do. It was likely
he was naked under the bathrobe so was planning to get himself off in one
way or another. There were no condums or lubricant to indicate intent.

      Ted lifted Brandon's upper leg and moved his mouth to his balls then
licked his perineum. Next, he lowered Brandon's leg, turning him onto his
stomach and immediately put his mouth and tongue down between buns right
into his anus. The man was very skilled, knew how to make a boy feel
good. His tongue pushed its way inside. Brandon arched his ass
upward. Ted's hands went up and down Brandon's sides then lifted himself on
top of the boy.

      It was time to speak. "Fuck one hundred."

      "Mmmm hmmm," replied the man unconvincingly.

      Ted was heavy. Brandon could hardly move. The bathrobe was pulled
open one side then the other. Brandon said, "Condum."

      "Mmmm hmmm."

      Brandon felt a cock between his legs. Was he going to do it that way?

      Ted kissed Brandon's neck. His left arm lifted Brandon's shoulders
and slid under him. The man's right hand was doing something else. He
lifted his hips and stuck something cold and plastic between Brandon's
buns. A cool liquid squirted in there. Brandon knew he was about to get
fucked. He tried to feel if the man was wearing a condom but couldn't move
his arm far enough. He was trapped under this big man. The cock, from the
feel of it, a big one, was guided toward his hole.

      Brandon tried to free himself, get up. "No, no fuck...uummmph!"

      The cock head was rammed inside causing excruciating pain, held there
for a second, withdrawn and jammed back inside, clear inside. Brandon tried
to scream but the man's right hand clamped over his mouth and
nose. "Shhh. Shhh."

      Brandon wiggled best he could, tried to hit his attacker with his
partially free right arm and kick up but to no avail. The man dropped his
heavy legs down on Brandon's, withdrew his cock and rammed it back inside
again, this time hitting something that hurt terribly, more than the
searing pain at his anus. Tears flowed.

      The fucking got going in earnest, full penetration with each hard,
fast thrust. It rivaled the pain of his beating by the MYRC guards. Worse,
trying to cry as he was with the man's powerful hand over his mouth and
nose, breathing became nearly impossible. He tried to bite but his teeth
only rubbed across the palm. Suddenly, the hand was removed. Brandon gasped
in a lungful of air only to have the hand replaced before he could
scream. There was no cessation in the horrible agony inside his rectum. He
began to fear he might die.

      He struggled harder, trying to turn the man off him but, between his
inability to breathe and the unbearable pain, he collapsed, unable to
move. The hand came off again. As he breathed in, he tried to turn his head
but even that small maneuver wasn't allowed.

      The fucking became actually harder. It felt like the man was ramming
his cock right into his stomach. Each thrust banged into his body as though
he was being beaten with a stone club. His back began to hurt. Nothing he
did could stop the man. A sense of defeat swept over him. He wished death
on himself, anything to stop the pain. His head seemed to fill with
water. The cock came out! Was it over? The great organ jammed its way back
inside, stayed there for a moment, was pulled completely out, then shoved
mercilessly back up Brandon's rectum, and held there, pulsing, firing gobs
of the man's sperm into Brandon's innards. The man's hand pressed tighter
over Brandon's face. Just before he was about to pass out, the fingers
parted, just enough air to save him was allowed into his lungs.

      "I'm going to let go, Freddy. Don't make a sound or I'll be forced to
stop you," spoken in English that Brandon had no thought of pretending not
to understand. The hand came off enough for him to breathe but he couldn't
keep himself from crying. The cock stayed inside, moved around as the man
moved his hips slightly side to side.

      Brandon's crying was airy with no vocal sounds. He was still pulling
air back into his body. Then came the completely involuntary scream,
quickly cut off when the hand was slapped across his mouth again. The cock
was pulled partially out then rammed back inside violently and very
painfully. The cry was muffled.

      "Now, you gonna stay quiet, little boy?" He emphasized the word
`quiet' with an additional short thrust.

      Brandon nodded best he could with his head held so tightly.

      The hand was partially opened. Again, Brandon sucked in air. His body
was wracked with hard sobs and desperate attempts to get oxygen back into
his system. There was no fight left. He yearned quietly for a reduction of
the agony inside him.

      The man pushed himself up, maintaining his cock inside Brandon. He
reached under Brandon's middle and lifted him as he rose until he was on
his knees.

      "P'please s'stop," begged Brandon.in English.

      "Almost done, little boy. Now, just stay quiet or this'll have to
hurt more."

      Brandon, terrified about what was coming, began to cry loudly. His
face was pushed into the bedding and roughly held there. The big cock was
pulled completely out then pushed slowly back until the man's groin was
pressed on Brandon's buttocks. Again it was pulled out but this time jammed
back hard and fast. "Once more," said the man and did just that. Brandon,
by then out of air, fainted.

      When he came to minutes later, the man, but not the pain, was
gone. The uncontrolled crying returned. His insides felt broken. His anus
stung like it had been stretched and pulled bloody. He was afraid of
touching it for fear of what he might find. Anger began to build in him but
when he struck the bed with his fist, it hurt inside. That brought on more
crying, the strain of which had the same effect.

      A death wish crept into his mind. He didn't want to live like this,
at the mercy of animals like the one who'd just raped him, living on the
street uncertain if he'd be able to eat, being robbed and beaten with
impunity while the very people who should have been protecting him were
chasing him like a criminal when he'd done nothing to warrant
it. Obviously, it wasn't going to get any better. Death was the only way
out, the only way to stop the pain, the anguish.

      He wrapped his arms around a pillow, dampening it with his
tears. Where the fuck was Ray. He promised to come take care of him.

      It took what seemed like hours but was actually less than one for the
pain to subside sufficiently for him to slowly move to the side of the bed,
lower his feet and stand. Summoning up the courage to do so, he reached
back and pushed his index finger between his cheeks. His anus was swollen
and very tender. A look at his finger showed there at least was no
blood. He walked slowly with short steps into the bathroom. The warm water
of the shower seemed to relieve some of the ache inside. He stood under the
stream for a while before taking the soap off the soap dish and washing
himself. The death wish he harbored was gravitating toward the man who had
done this to him. He remembered Ray mentioning a man in a hotel on Roxas
Boulevard who raped boys. This had to be him. Apparently he'd been around
for a while and therefore might still be. Or maybe he just came around
every few months or so. None of the kids had mentioned him. Of course, they
might have been either afraid or ashamed to have something so terrible
happen to them. Still, somehow, he had to find this man, this son of a
bitch, and kill him. He should be able to go to the police but, as the man
probably knew, a kid couldn't report him without reporting themselves and
ending up in MYRC or some other bad place. In his case, it was even worse
with the fucking Americans looking for him. The man, by his accent, was an
American himself. He was going to be a dead American if it took the rest of
Brandon's life. Those murderous thoughts took his mind off some of the pain
in his middle.

      Brandon tried to figure out what time it was. Someone would be coming
to the room at some point to clean up, unless it had already been done for
that day. As long as he was in the shower, he didn't think anyone would
come in. What he wanted to do was get some sleep on the bed, let his
insides calm a little. He was sure he would be unable to walk properly for
a day or so.

      Worrisome thoughts popped into his head. What if he was bleeding
inside? What if there was serious damage? When the Australian had raped
him, he thought there might have been but there wasn't. This though was
worse, much worse. Had this bastard's cock been as big or smaller than the
Aussie's? It was definitely bigger than most. It had been big enough to hit
something up inside him that he didn't remember being reached by the
Aussie. He'd have to wait until his next shit to see. He hoped that
wouldn't be for another day or so or be soft, very soft. His hole was very
tender.

      After a while, feeling a little less pain, he dried off and got back
on the bed, then under the covers, hiding his head in case some staff
person should peek inside. The internal hurting wouldn't let him sleep. He
tried to divert his attention off his body with continued thoughts of how
he could find and murder the son of a bitch who'd raped him. He repeated
the word `rape' to himself over and over. It sounded right for what it
described. Maybe he could rape his rapist with a broom handle stuffed up
his ass right into his head. He'd sharpen the end and ram it in as he'd
rammed his cock inside but not so fast, slow so his death would be slow and
agonizing. His own pain diminished again with visions of the suffering the
American would have to endure, the unheeded sounds of his crying out for
Brandon to stop.

      Those delicious dreams were brought to a sudden halt when he heard a
key in the door. He pulled the covers fully over his head and lay still but
it didn't work. The young man who'd let him in the back door shook him.

      "Wake up, you gotta go now. They're gonna be up here to clean the
room."

      The youth didn't seem at all surprised that he was naked or even that
he appeared to be in some discomfort after seeing him in fine health just a
few hours before. Did he know the son of a bitch? Did he know what he did
up here? Asking this man anything might just get him in trouble, bring on
more hurt.

      He left quietly the same way he'd come in.

      As he hobbled away from the hotel, he checked to see if the forty
pesos the man had handed him was still there. It was. The son of a bitch
should have paid him five hundred, a thousand. The Brit who'd spanked him
had known what he was going to do would hurt briefly and paid him
accordingly.

      Rather than go the seawall or the plaza, he walked slowly toward
section four of Luneta Park. It hurt to walk but he wanted to be alone for
a while, to not have to answer any questions about why he was moving so or
why he wouldn't want to go swimming. He didn't want anyone to see him like
this. For some reason, he felt shame over what had happened. How could he
have permitted that man to do such a thing, allowed any man to control him
so? He was an experienced pro but, this was the second time. Was it going
to be something that just happened from time to time? Was it just part of
the job, a bother that just had to be put up with every once in a while?

      Then, as he was looking for a place to lie down on the grass, he ran
right into Melvin and Nanding who were quick to ask why he was "walking
like that".

      He had no quick answer. He was still barefoot so couldn't claim a
foot injury that wasn't there. "My leg hurts."

      "What happened?"

      "I don't know, just started hurting a while ago." Had it been Toti,
he probably would have told him the truth.

      The brothers were carrying long stacks of recovered used plastic
cups, Melvin with twice as many as Nanding. Brandon calculated ten pesos
worth. Nanding noticed what had Brandon's attention. "He stole `em from
some stupid guy asleep." He was grinning.

      Brandon couldn't think of anything to say. They'd just robbed another
street person like themselves, just like the ones who'd robbed him so many
times. He wanted away from them. "I gotta see somebody."

      Nanding asked, "You gotta tourist?"

      "Just somebody. I gotta go." Forcing himself upright, he tried to
walk as naturally as his injuries would allow.

      For some reason, tears formed, brought on by the same old questions
about why he'd been forced to live in such a crappy world. And he hurt. The
pain was returning. Every movement of his legs caused his anus to sting,
his insides to ache. The moment he was out of sight of the brothers, he
turned onto the grass and carefully lay down, his tear wetted face buried
in his arms. He tried not to cry but the sobs couldn't be
controlled. Nonetheless, either no one noticed or none of the passersby
cared about the small boy crying in the grass beside them.

      Ha lay there long enough to fall asleep, awakening in darkness. For a
moment, he wasn't sure where he was or why he hurt. When he tried to sit,
it all came flooding back. He lay back down. In a panic, he checked his
pockets. The money was still there. He'd been very lucky.

      He rolled over and slowly stood. Not far away, the skating rink was
lit up, skaters raced and stumbled back and forth. A woman dressed
completely in a mass of plastic bags walked from one spectator to another
begging.

      Brandon tried walking. It was uncomfortable but less painful than
earlier. It took longer than usual at his slow pace to get to Santa
Monica. Toti was hustling passersby for shoe shines. Brandon needed someone
to talk to, relate what had happened, get some sympathy.

      He realized he was hungry but worried about what foods wouldn't
produce a large stool. He recalled someone saying fruits were good for that
but no one around was selling any. Raymond's sold a banana split ice cream
dish, but it was expensive, eight pesos. He negotiated a simple cheese
sandwich for an additional three pesos to go along with it and, as
requested by the waiter who'd been burned before by stowaways, paid up
front.

      Brandon ate standing out behind the restaurant to avoid difficult
conversations and having to share his expensive meal with anyone else. When
he finished, he walked back to the plaza. Toti was sitting below the tree
organizing his shoe shine box for the next day. When Brandon didn't sit, he
asked why.

      "I'll tell you later."

      Toti wanted to know right then. He stood. "What happened?"

      Brandon felt tears returning. He turned away. "Later."

      "Wanna go to the park now, Cuarteles?"

      They left the plaza together, walking down the street behind the
plaza and Raymond's so as not to run into anyone they knew.

      Brandon, tears falling, told Toti everything that had happened that
afternoon.

      Halfway through, Toti put his arm over Brandon's shoulder. When he
was done he said, "You oughta see a doctor."

      "And what do I tell `im? And what if he wants to call the cops?"

      "But what if you're bleeding inside?"

      "Ain't none come out. Anyway, we'll see when I shit."

      "I gotta tell the old man you're sick so he won't wanna do nothin'
tonight."

      They talked about Brandon's business and alternatives for a while
then, as before, Toti slipped in tight behind Brandon and fiddled with his
ear. As before, that was all that occurred. Telling Toti his story had
changed his perspective somewhat. Though he hadn't said so directly, there
was the suggestion in Toti's remark about the type of people callboys went
with that he thought this incident, as the one that had occurred to him in
the park, was something bound to happen every once in a while. Had Toti
stated that no one had ever raped him, it couldn't have been any clearer.

	Brandon, however, didn't want to sleep on the ground for the rest
of his life, not even many more nights. He wanted to be able to go to
McDonald's every once in a while, watch TV, go to a movie, go to school.

	In the morning, they had another of the watcher woman's breakfasts
of rice and eggs. Sitting on the sand wasn't too bad but standing bothered
his anus less. He could feel his insides rather than, as usual, not, but
that was the extent of it. He had hopes there was no damage in there.

	Toti thought a swim or, at least, a walk in the cool salt water
might do him good. He tried it, wearing his shorts in case some of the
damage was visible. The water stung at first but the discomfort subsided
before Brandon could return to the shore so he went back out. He even swam.

	Back on the beach, he took off his shorts and lay face down, legs
closed, the shorts tossed onto his back to dry. It was only minutes after
laying down that a pair of hairy legs with sneakers appeared in front of
him. It was the young man who'd screwed him between the rocks in the rain
the week before.

	"Hi. You like beach very much," he said haltingly, fingers pointing
out what his mouth said.

	Toti asked, "You know him?"

	"Mmmhmm." He looked up at the man and shook his head.

	"No like beach?" He waved his hand at the pebble and plant matter
cluttered gray sand around them.

	Brandon smiled. "Today no, uh, no can today. Tomorrow, okay." He
didn't believe his hole would be ready then but he could always put him off
for another day, or maybe not. Nanding, Johnny or any of the other boys
able to take a dick up their ass would be glad to make some money these
days. He hoped he'd be ready by the next evening.

	He tried for some help. "We very hungry. You buy food?"

	The young man gave him a strange look, frowned, then grinned. "Ah,
okay. We go eat?"

	Brandon shook his head, pointed at him and himself, "Police," and
feigned someone grabbing another. "You give money, twenty, we
eat. Tomorrow," and pointed with his face at the rocks where they gone the
week before.

	He didn't seem to like that. "We go rocks today, okay?"

	"No can," answered Brandon, "sick."

	"But you can eat, can't you." He stood. "Tomorrow, we talk
tomorrow." He left, a look of frustration on his face.

	"Son of a bitch," muttered Brandon.

	Toti remained silent.

	Later during the early afternoon, another demonstration against
child prostitution and its foreigner customers filed up Del Pilar Street
past Santa Monica. There were the same uniformed school girls, nuns, stodgy
men in barongs, and the foreigner and his video crew mingling about in the
front. The foreigner motioned for his cameraman to shoot the kids, Brandon
among them, sitting in the plaza. Brandon quickly turned away though sure
he'd been captured.