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House of Singing Wind
By
Sir Marc Wyld
Chapter 10
Topanga to Stonecutter
Slut’s lips wrapped around my ever expanding joint is exquisite; still, I push her head away, rise, stretch lavishly and dress. Immediately she jumps to her feet on the opposite side of the pallet and stands there like an idiot since she has not been given any direction as to what she is to do next. I take a very long moment enjoying the beauty of her nakedness then turn my back to her, smile, and slip into my shoes.
“Get dressed, look presentable, act happy and be polite; we’re about to have company. Judging from the noises your gut is making I assume you’re starving. The lesson you need to learn here is if I don’t tell you what to do and you don’t know what to do, ask. If you can’t ask, do what feels natural, and always, do the right thing. Do you know what the right thing is? Figure it out. So, from this point, be happy, be polite, think ‘tis better to give than receive’ and just go with the flow. Are we clear?”
“Yes, sir,” she answers meekly and unfolds the clothes she was wearing this morning and in no time she is presentably dressed.
“Do you have a hairbrush?” I ask, eyeing her up and down quickly and carefully. “Your hair looks like it’s been shot at and missed and shit at and hit.” She shakes her head so I remove an ivory handled brush with stiff natural bristles from my pack. “Hold on to this and make sure you clean any loose hair out of it, I hate that shit.” She can clearly see the brush is very clean though well used. I almost tell her how attractive she is sans the makeup she wore at our first meeting, but she hasn’t earned any real compliments yet.
“Thank you, Sir. I will, Sir.” She says with a sweet smile.
Satisfied with her appearance and demeanor, I cup my hands by my mouth and let loose a single word at the top of my lungs: “Mabuhay!” Answering as if an echo, the word reverberates back in a decidedly feminine voice and minutes later, a small cart pulled by a water buffalo and surrounded by four figures rolls onto the beach about 200 meters from us. Clearly, it is a family; a man, woman and two children. As they close the distance to within a few meters of the pavilion, Slut can clearly see these people are very excited and happy to see us as they are smiling and wildly waving in greeting. Caught up in the moment, she waves in return and even lets out a loud whoop toward the happy band approaching us. The children, a boy and a girl, suddenly break away and come running toward us shouting, “Uncle! Uncle!” They wrap them selves around my legs and I give their hair a tussle before I fall over like a linebacker tackled for no gain.
“Tito, Marie!” I laugh, “You are getting too big for me! You’ve grown so much! Rosario, Daniel! What are you feeding these two monsters?” Breaking away from the kids, I accept Daniel’s outstretched arm and grasp his arm firmly just below the elbow as he grasps mine in kind. In Tagalog he says, “Good to see you, old friend.” I reply, “It’s been too long, comrade.” Rosario, not one for any protocol or conservative action at all hauls off and hugs my neck very tightly while whispering softly in happy sobs, “Oh, my Sir! Welcome, welcome.” Breaking away from me, I hold her for a moment so she can stifle a stray tear and pinch a little color back into her cheeks before she faces her family again.
Once I have Rosario untangled from my neck, I introduce Slut to everyone and we all engage in idle chatter as we attend to our respective businesses. Rosario and Marie retrieve a large basket containing stoneware pots and covered dishes along with plates, cups and silverware. I shoot a look at Slut and motion discreetly with my eyes for her to get her ass in gear and be of assistance. Immediately, she is given the task of setting the table where our luncheon buffet had earlier lay. She spreads a crisp, white, linen tablecloth that appears to be especially made to fit this table and lays fork, knife and spoon next to plates she discovers to be fine bone china; she lingers for a moment staring at her perfectly laid table seemingly lost in thought before she blurts out “Sir, may I use utensils?” I smile.
“With your absolutely finest manners and as lady-like as possible,” I reply with a smile as I busy myself with the bag I filled earlier at the garage. I extract eight bottles; a pair of orange pops for the kids, two ice cold bottles of water for the women and a pair of painted label San Miguel beers for Daniel and me each. The bag has kept the bottles just enough above freezing so that as soon the tops are popped off, the bottle immediately freezes with a thick rime of ice. The beer is teeth hurting cold and not the least bit slushy. I sit the bottles at the appropriate places: Daniel and myself at opposite ends, Rosario and Slut to our respective rights with Marie next to Slut and Tito next to his mother. As Daniel and Tito finish packing the pallet onto the cart, we all sit almost simultaneously. Slut is once again momentarily at a loss for what the fuck to do when Marie takes her hand. Slut turns to me and discovers that I am offering my hand to her to complete a circle. As the circle completes, Daniel begins to speak. Everyone, save Slut, momentarily breaks the circle to touch their forehead with the tips of the fingers of their right hand as the prayer begins in lilting Latin:
“In nomini Patris,
Et filii,
Et Spiritu Sanctus,
Amen.”
Daniel kisses his thumb, the circle rejoins and he continues in English:
“Bless us, O Lord, as we thank thee for these, thy gifts for which we are about to receive through thy bountiful hands. Amen.”
The circle again breaks as Daniel closes as he began, and this time, Slut remembers the praying etiquette from her childhood and makes the sign of the cross with everyone else and immediately the table breaks into a cacophony of joyous dinnertime camaraderie.
Rosario has made Lumpia, Pancit Canton, and steamed some Fiddler crabs. Plates are passed, filled and returned to owners. Slut looks at the shell of the crab on her plate and has no clue as what to do with it. Before she can open her mouth and ask, Maria nudges her. “Tia Slut. I show you.”
She watches as Maria deftly pops off the top shell and scrapes out some dark, fluffy stuff. “Those crab lungs, no good!” Slut watches as Maria separates meat and shell quickly and efficiently. Looking around the table, Slut sees that Rosario is doing the same for Daniel as well as Tito. Using only the example provided by Marie to guide her, Slut reaches for a crab on my plate in an effort to follow Rosario’s lead. Trying appear as if I am tenderly grasping her wrist, I stop her by applying pressure to the edges of her wrist bones and punctuate her pain with a sharp yet barely audible “Don’t! You are neither my wife nor my mother.” I give her wrist one last sharp squeeze to the sensitive nerves along the edges of the wrist and I am amazed that she does not cry out in pain. When I let go, she cradles her arm for a moment below the edge of the table, amazed at how quickly the pain dissipates once the pressure is alleviated and she resumes eating.
Throughout the meal, questions come at her from every direction except mine. I do not need to ask anything as every piece of information supplied by her is filling the holes in my knowledge since my very presence, not to mention simple courtesy, dictates she answer every question with cheerful, simple honesty.
Once dinner is over, the women pack away leftovers and clear the table as Daniel and I walk along the darkening beach smoking a very good cigar while sipping an icy San Miguel. Looking westward over the glassy sea, a silvery light is illuminating the horizon as the last of the day finally departs. The full moon is rising and it is pulling the placid sea, as if mesmerized by the light and moving like a wave of devout parishioners drawn to a sermon in the dead of night.
As we watch, the utmost top arc of the orb suddenly breaks the plane of the horizon and we can almost watch the moonbeam race across the stilled water to greet us. We smoke our Cubans, sip our San Magoo’s and watch in silence as the full moon, enormously huge, rises completely and bathes the beach with a silver-white floodlight. Surrounding the moon, in every direction, the enormity of the universe can easily be seen as the night sky, unpolluted by any unnatural light, is filled with a million, billion stars. Daniel and I have barely spoken a word, our bond doesn’t require a lot of words. The pavilion, however, is a different story. Squeals of laughter can be heard distinctly from Rosario, Slut and Marie.
Once the moon is fully above the horizon, we walk back to the pavilion I can see that Tito has brought a pair of saddled white Arabians geldings down to the beach and is putting our gear in the saddle bags on the horse’s flanks. In the light of the moon, the horses appear to glow from some inner iridescence. Tito loves these horses and it shows. As a man without sons, for a moment and only a moment, I curse Daniel and his good fortune. Then, my love returns as I remind myself that I love this man in the only way human beings can express true love for another: I will die for him.
Goodbyes are said quickly and simply with lots of hugs and kisses. Daniel helps Slut aboard her horse as I mount mine and turn to saunter down the beach toward the rising moon. In about three minutes, we round a copse of trees intruding onto the beach and the small, happy family following the small cart back to their home drops from sight.
* * *
The Trek to the convent has now been shortened considerably thanks to our mounts that trim the time by more than half. Slut is utterly fascinated with the nocturnal landscape of sea, beach and sky intersecting in the moonlight and rides in silence. When she finally speaks, she actually rambles on with little factoids about her life such as her horse, Sabrina, riding horses at scout camp where she learned barrel racing as well as steeplechase and camping out. I think about asking her if there is a real question anywhere in this noise she is making but decide that would make me sound lawyerlike and listening to her prattle is actually quite pleasant and soothing.
Long ago, Sollie and Li lost their annoying oriental accents and I broke them of the bad habit of speaking in broken English. They now speak with impeccable diction and syntax. However, their intonation and accents, to my ear, anyway, is not and never will be that of a native born speaker of American English since they do not speak with regional accents. Most people, in my experience, that learn to speak English as a second language speak with a bland, almost west coast accent which and sounds pretty much accent-less. Suddenly, without thinking, I turn and say in a matter of fact tone, “You grew up in South Texas.” This information is not in any dossier provided by Maelstrom, it is a simple observation.
“Victoria, Texas,” she says simply.
“You went to school out east, though. Harvard, NYU, Princeton?”
“I’m an Eli,” she says this with a laugh as if she is talking to a very old and dear friend.
“Yale: yeah, I can hear that. I bet your first Apartment in the Big Apple was either in Yonkers or the Bronx. Yankees fan, maybe? Thought so. Hmm, let’s see here, I’m on a roll, just as soon as you could afford it you rented, no, you bought a loft in the East Village or Soho, and you say the word ‘Manhattan’ as if you are one of the chosen few to live there. Ten bucks says your furniture looks like you overdosed at Ikea. Your four favorite stores are Yankee Candle, Victoria’s Secret, Macy’s and Crate and Barrel, but you’re way too busy to spend any money regularly so shopping is an adventure and shop girls working on commission love you.”
The look on her face is priceless as my profile is dead on or at least close enough for government work. I give the reins a little flick the give the horse his head and take off down the beach at a full canter. Moments later, I hear her snap her reins against her horse’s flank and she races past me crouched over her horse, tucked low, knees high, like a jockey. I outweigh her by at lest a hundred pounds so I tuck in even tighter and give chase.
* * *
It is a duel of endurance in the moonlight as he chases her down the beach on the packed sand just above the low tide water line and sometimes splashing through the gentle surf. The horses are beginning to lather and breathe in great huffs audible above their drumming hoof beats. Sir pulls even, threatens to ask the horse for more and calls out to her: “Enough!” and they both sit up straight in the saddle. The horses, sensing that the race is over, begin bleed off speed, slowing their gait to a walk. Slut follows suit when he dismounts and begins to walk the horse to cool in the ocean. There is no mention of the fact that Sir has just capitulated and turned the race into a draw. She walks up beside him and asks a question.
“What does ‘Tia’ mean?”
“Auntie,” he says. Tagalog is a strange language. The islands have had so many occupiers over the centuries that their language is now a mélange. There are Chinese, Spanish, Korean, Japanese as well as English words and even some indigenous words. As in Africa and South America, there are still a few tribes of people scattered throughout these islands whose knowledge of the outside world is tempered by the view the ships that pass and the airplanes that fly overhead and more often than not, think of these as omens from the gods. “You’ve been given a very high and special honor; Maria has made you part of her family and a part of her history. Even though you will never see her again, the story of the visit of Tia Slut will be told, probably for generations, told as a happy event and good memory in the life of Maria.”
The beach begins to widen considerably and in the moonlight she can clearly see a high peak inland, unmistakably a worn down volcano but before she can ask about the mountain, her ears detect a sound that at first sounds like a soft buzz and soon settles into a steady constant drone that sounds almost like the rhythmic cadence of a drum beaten very rapidly.
Ahead at what appears to be a bend in the beach, the endless beach gives away to a large natural bay. Slut can make out a palatial building at the center of the bay. The building looks almost as if it is an integral part of the basalt cliffs that surround the massive structure. The combination of softly lit windows in the bright moonlight gives her the impression of a medieval palace simultaneously enormous and foreboding. She can only imagine this building in the full sun of a tropical day.
* * *
I learned a very long time ago that New Yorkers are a breed apart from all other Earthlings and only interact with aliens, meaning the rest of us, when their choices are limited. It is my belief that New Yorkers are simultaneously the most brilliant people in the world and the most gullible. They are more proud of their city than any other I have ever visited and the most loyal people in the world to each other. New Yorker’s are made, not born. Slut is staring at the convent almost as if she is in some sort of Zen trance and wheels are turning and I actually wonder for a moment what she is thinking. Or perhaps it is best I don’t. All I know is that it is hard to impress a New Yorker and the way she is looking at the convent in the moonlight goes beyond impressed and straight to awed.
For me, a tedious night walk on the beach has turned out to be euphoric adventure in the moonlight and I am exhilarated. Quietly, I retrieve our gear carefully stowed in the saddlebags by Tito and take the reins from her hand. As the leather thong slips through her fingers, she turns to watch me. I remove the halters and gently take the bits from between the horses’ teeth and give each horse a good scratch on the flat of their face between their eyes. As if possessing the patience of Methuselah, the horses stand quietly and let me do my work. After stowing away the harnesses in the saddle bags, I rub their necks while standing between these magnificent beasts and they both nicker softly. I hand Slut her bag and shoulder mine on one shoulder. I raise my chin once in the horses’ direction and quietly say, “Tito!” As if on cue, the horses nod twice at me before turning to canter back down the beach from where we came, towards home. I turn toward Slut and say, “There is nothing more wonderful in this world than a well trained, useful animal.”
* * *
The hoof beats of the retreating horses fade behind us as we round the bend of the lip of the bay toward the convent. The noise has become more pronounced. I point out a wide sandy lane disappearing back into jungle between two large palm trees and motion for slut to follow it. After a few scant yards, the path turns sharply to the left and soft solar lights illuminate the path leading to a peaked double wooden door situated firmly in a wall of neatly laid, quarried basalt. There is a highly polished stone above the door with one word carved into it:
STONECUTTER
We mount the three shallow steps of the stoop as a light above the carving comes to life. “Motion sensors,” I tell her. “No one is here.” I swing the doors open wide for her to enter and touch a bank of switches near the door and a furnished interior appears out of the darkness in soft, subdued, light.
The interior is one large living space and the shape of the single room is familiar yet she cannot grasp why. The room is furnished with stylish modern furniture that delineates the use of each area by its placement. She is standing in an oddly shaped foyer, three joined semicircles with an opening to a great room. Walking through the archway out into the main room it suddenly comes to her: This building is shaped like a Byzantine chapel in miniature: It is built in the shape of a cross! The nave is the main living room and at the junction of the arms under a domed roof is gigantic bed. At the ends of every room she sees, the clover serifs of the foyer are repeated. The head of the cross is an open kitchen and dining area. She can see that the apse of the right arm is a well appointed, spacious spa bath that even includes a bidet. The apse of the left arm however is dark: the archway leading into there is covered with heavy black velvet drapes. Standing near the bed, she looks skyward for a moment she imagines that she is looking at a painted ceiling before she realizes that she is looking deeply into the night sky through a transparent dome. The bed is perched on stone platform where an altar should stand three steps above the main floor. She utters one word: “Sacrilegious!” Deciding that she has spent too much time marveling over Stonecutter’s architecture, I jar her back to reality.
“This has never been a church; it was built by the monks and nuns who built the convent as practice to learn how to quarry stone and prefect masonry techniques using modern equipment. This building served as a dormitory for over 300 workers and it took one hundred and fifty-four days to complete. The convent you’ve glimpsed outside took another thousand ninety-five days to complete. Stonecutter is a three-fifths scale replica of a chapel that once stood in Poland called St. Stefan the Stonecutter and was one of the earliest example of buttress architecture of the13th century. Enough history, you smell like a horse that has been rolling in shit and so do I. Every thing you will need is in there. Get your filthy ass clean and be ready, I’ll be in for my bath in 45 minutes. Are we clear?” Without acknowledging her nod, I turn and leave Stonecutter.
* * *
She watches his receding form as he walks away and closes the door behind him. Slut realizes this is the first time she has been totally alone since her arrival at Singing Wind and she wants to use this time well. Rushing into the bath, she discovers an armoire filled with every bath product imaginable along with large fluffy towels and neatly folded silk robes. She strips out of her clothing, grabs bath gel, shampoo and conditioner and heads directly into the stall to takes a no nonsense shower, taking care to ensure her pussy and ass are extra clean.
At the vanity she notices an anomaly concerning the décor: There are three sink bowls rather than the customary one or two. In the vanity drawers she discovers that they are also well stocked with hairdryers, combs, brushes, cosmetics, condoms, dental hygiene products and other sundry personal care items. It strikes her that she has arrived at the world’s most luxurious visitor suite. With 35 minutes to spare Slut is out of the bath and eager to explore Stonecutter.
Behind a counter that serves as both a buffet and a prep counter in the kitchen she finds that it is well equipped and fully stocked including a large selection of racked red wines and white wines chilling in a cooler. Opening the cold safe door, she quickly gathers that the quantity of Dom Perignon 1992 alone represents several years of her gross salary as a reporter. Finishing her reconnoiter of the kitchen and pantry, she makes her way slowly around the interior looking closely at the various objet d’art tastefully spread throughout the room as well as the myriad of paintings and prints on the walls. She now wishes her art appreciation courses had meant more to her than hours to meet a curriculum; some of these items are familiar and all are exquisite.
She finally works her way around to stand before the heavily curtained archway leading into the apse that lies beyond. The first thing she notices is a compass rose about a foot in diameter engraved into the stone floor. Just like on many maps she’s seen in her life, the compass rose has an arrow superimposed over the letter N pointing directly into the room beyond the curtained, teak trimmed arch. A single illuminated light switch is sit into the molding, glowing to indicating its presence. Flipping the switch, she sees bright light leak from beneath the hem of the curtain. Boldly, she parts the curtain and steps through and looks about the room. Uncomprehending what she is seeing, she is carefully scanning the room when the realization of what she is seeing suddenly hits her and she involuntarily takes a step backward: She is standing in a torture chamber worthy of a Grand Inquisitor.
Nearly touching the curtain with her naked back, she is unaware of a hand shooting through the curtain that draws her tightly against her attacker. She attempts to scream but the sudden obstruction to her windpipe makes any noise utterly impossible. She cannot scream, she cannot breathe and she cannot see her captor and her feet no longer touch the floor. The only things she can see are the various implements of pain, torture and sexual depravity hanging from the ceiling or decorating the walls. The only feeling she is aware of is the strangling arm around her neck. Slut’s conscience brain is rapidly filling with panic and fears as a thousand images of pain and torment fill her mind and she begins to wonder what might lie between this moment and the moment of her death. She realizes she is about to pass out and she embraces the fact that instead she might be dying. Suddenly, the pressure eases and her toes once again touch the floor and she hears a familiar voice whisper into her ear seemingly from very far away:
“I see you’ve found the North Room.”
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