As Livinia watched me build two more Irish coffees, she began to realize that at our present rate of consumption, the excessive quantity of heavy cream she had whipped would last roughly until her daughter had a Doctorate...and Sabrina had just turned twelve at the time. "That's too much whipped cream," she remarked. "I made too much." "That's okay. I'll have some on my desert later, when I eat it." As she replaced the bowl in the refrigerator she looked inside. "Desert? I don't see any desert? What desert?' "You." She looked at me for a moment, still half-bent. Her posture made the loose robe snug around her butt. Yeah, it would be great to smear whipped cream all over her creamy, smooth flesh and lick it off -- with extra attention around her oversized clitoris. She blushed and then shivered a little. She straightened and closed the door, leaning against refrigerator. I resumed my construction of the Irish coffees. "That would be very sticky." "Have to lick every last little bit of it off, then, won't I?" "And very messy..." "Have to lick it all twice then." "And very niiiiice." "Living room." I followed her petite form -- all but hidden in my terrycloth bathrobe -- down the hall and back to the living room. She let herself flop onto the couch, closed her eyes and gave a little shiver. "Cold?" I set the two mugs down and then set myself down next to her. She giggled. "No -- I was just thinking about your nice tongue and your nice hands and your nice little cock -- " "Livinia, would you please stop calling it little? I was twenty- five before I realized it's normal. Six inches is right in the normal range!" "But it is a little too thick, I think sometimes." "Never had a complaint before, but if it really is too thick for you, I can have a doctor fix it -- " "Oh, no!" I couldn't keep a straight face for long. She took a sip of her Irish coffee. "You are teasing me," she accused. "Yes. But if it's really too thick...would you mind putting that in writing? Just for when I feel an attack of inferiority after watching a porno tape." "Porno tape?" "Dirty movies on the VCR. Forty minutes of watching some guy with a twelve-inch dick fucking a woman who keeps screaming for more can make a guy like me wonder." There was a certain hesitation on her face. "Does it bother you that I watch dirty movies sometimes?" "It should not," she said. "But..." She fell silent, realized it and downed almost half of her Irish coffee. She set down the mug. "And still you do not ask questions. But don't you want to know?" "What you want me to know, you'll tell me." Impulsively, she leaned up and kissed me on the lips. It was just affection and gratitude, nothing erotic in it, even if the robe did part and give me a view of those lovely tits I'd been licking not too long before. She suddenly laughed. "So many men think a woman wants a twelve- inch penees. Especially since I come here, to Brooklyn. Men see me and grab their pants and tell me they've got a twelve-inch cock for me. They don't know how much a big cock can hurt a woman." "Sabrina's father had a big cock and hurt you?" She looked at me in wonder and shook her head. "Her father. You never ask about him. And you don't say he was my husband." "Livinia, I am observant and I'm a fairly smart guy and I read a lot. I know you didn't get a graduation ring from New York University by graduating there -- not to be working in a laundromat in Brooklyn. I know you're not married, because the wedding band is never there when you're with Sabrina or me -- and it's much too big for your finger. Besides, it keeps going on the wrong hand every so often. I know you go to church regularly because I saw the stack of bulletins from St. Anthony's in your house and I know enough about your native land to know that Catholicism is taken seriously there. I know you're a single mother, I know you're an immigrant and I don't give a damn, because I think your sweet and sexy and a very, very good and strong person." She was staring at me. "Even with this good brandy it is hard to say what I want to tell you." "Livinia, how old are you?" She looked down into her lap, where her hands were torturing the loose ends of the robe sash. "Twenty-six." "And Sabrina was twelve three weeks ago." She nodded. I lifted her chin and turned her face toward me. "Just about what I thought." "You knew?" "I guessed." "But don't you get angry -- " "That was a long time ago. I'm just sorry it was rough on you." And then it all came out, bit by bit and then in a torrent. Her family had lived not far from Bataan. Times had gotten tough when some of the industries in Manila went belly-up and suddenly unemployed people who had been sending some money home came home themselves, bringing hungry bellies. But families were there and people shared. Privacy, always at a premium, became nonexistent. She'd always enjoyed bathing herself Down There. Being slapped for it and spanked only made the thrill forbidden and more exciting. "I always knew I was different there because I'd seen the other girls and some of the little boys and I wondered if I was a girl or a boy, because it was so big." Then, when she was eight, her father was killed in a logging accident. His brother, as expected, assumed the manly responsibilities, taking care of the needs of the family...and sometimes the widow's needs, whether she wanted them cared for or not. "Sometimes we would hear her cry and scream, but no one ever came to help. She would be black and blue for days afterward." And he would go away for weeks at a time and return with money from unexplained sources. Then, when she was nine, he came home unexpectedly. He'd caught her enjoying the forbidden thrill. "He became very nice and said he would show me something that would make me feel even better." And he was true to his word. He knew exactly how to touch her and later to kiss her and suck her down there. Inevitably, he asked for some reciprocation. Inevitably, she learned to use her hands and then her mouth. Inevitably, one night he wanted more and he got it. "He pushed two fingers up inside me and I screamed with the pain, but he didn't stop. Then he got on top of me and covered my mouth and he did it to me. I hurt for days and I was bleeding a lot." She told her mother. "She said, 'What can we do? He can bribe the police -- if they listen. Where can we go?'" Then her mother slowly drew the entire story out of her. At the end, she told a weeping, brutalized, raped, bleeding nine-year-old girl that she had brought it on herself by touching herself Down There. She saw the expression on my face. "So, now you are angry with me." I shook my head, brought myself under control. "Not with you; never with you. But with him -- and with your mother." "She was right!" "She was wrong. You were doing what every normal kid does." "But -- " "But -- " I laid a finger on her lips, gently. "Suppose she was right. Just pretend she was right. Doesn't love and understanding and mercy and tenderness have any place? She was damned for saying it was your fault and doubly damned for not being loving to you!" I wanted to do murder at what she was telling me. I know -- it happens all the time and not just in Third World countries. Little girls and little boys get abused -- a polite euphemism for "assaulted" and "raped" -- by grownups. Life Goes On, Ooobla-Dee-Ooobla-Dah. Little kids get abused. Little kids get beaten. If they're white and in the media capitol of the world, there's a tremendous hew-and-cry. Front page. Lead story. Marches and petitions. But the same day Lisa Steinberg was beaten to death in the Greenwich Village apartment she shared with her mother, father and brother, some little black kid was being scalded by an angry guardian in the ghetto and some little latino kid was being starved or whipped and some little oriental kid was being beaten and some little -- It goes on forever. How to stop it when it's everywhere? Call the cops. If that doesn't work, go over and get between the sonuvabitch and the kid and make him or her do you in before they can get to the kid. They may do it, too. But can you think of a better reason to die? It beats the hell out of buying it because somebody had one for the road before they got in the wrong lane on I-80 and hit you head-on at 110 m.p.h. collision speed, doesn't it? (St. Peter: Well, how did you buy it? (You: I fell asleep on the sofa with a cigarette. (or -- (St. Peter: What's your story? (You: I heard a kid screaming and tried to help. (Pete: No shit? Let me shake your hand. You'll find a better class of people here.) Of course the uncle came back and of course he apologized and said he didn't mean to hurt her and to show he was sorry, he'd brought her something. New shoes. Sneakers. Genuine Keds Made In U.S.A. none of the other kids have them. And he had money for her to give her mother. And he didn't try to touch her. The next time he came back, he did touch her and one thing led to another. By the time she was ten, fucking him and sucking him was a regular part of the visits. So were the presents and the money for her mother. This went on for a year. When she was almost eleven, he asked her to come to Manila and help him out with some things. He said he could give her mother almost a thousand dollars American. Besides, it would be fun. By then, the pain had been all but forgotten and she agreed. The village was boring her. She was starting to develop just a little bit and she was very pretty, but her big eyes and soft lips made her look sexy, too. He said so. In Manila, he introduced her to a friend, a Japanese man who was willing to give her fifty dollars American to let him lick her, nothing else. She was so grateful, she jerked him off. Her uncle had a lot of friends. Before she was twelve, he turned her out. He had a young protege, fifteen, look out for her. They were five blocks from the cathedral Ferdinand Marcos had built to celebrate the Twenty-Fifth Anniversary of marrying Evita...I mean, Imelda. The protege arranged dates. Japanese businessmen came to know him well. They came on sex tours. Then some Americans began to show up. "The Japanese were usually nice enough, very polite. They never forced. They would just offer more and more money until I agreed." The Americans were another story. "They usually got drunk or smoked marijuana and then they couldn't get erections. They would be nasty. Sometimes they would hit me. That was okay as long as there were no bruises -- nothing to impair my value." The protege kept the girls in line. "He would do whatever worked best,. Most he would beat. Some he would sweet-talk. Some, he would -- would -- " Some he would sodomize, rather brutally. "He had a very big penees, huge. He hurt. He would go inside the front until he came, then he would turn us over and go in the back, the other way, you know? And since he had already come off once, he would do this for a long time. There was always bleeding." Eventually, she was made a hostess for special parties. These were usually international, hosted by Japanese, but with plenty of Americans and British and Chinese from Hong Kong. She hated those, because inevitably, they hurt her. Finally, after six months of this, she ran away and went back home. She'd hidden almost two thousand dollars American and just a little more than half it had ever been found and taken from her. Back home, she was taken in -- but coldly. She was a pariah. None of the others her age were permitted to associate with her and since she was not exactly a child any more, this was not surprising. But the men considered her fair game and the women considered her worthless and due whatever she got. She was raped. She fought, the first time, and was beaten so badly she could barely speak to tell the police. One of whom came around a week later and raped her, himself. She didn't fight this time. She was beaten, anyhow. She took some money and bought a knife. She made it very sharp. She carried it wherever she went. The next man who came to take her had it held against his balls till he lost interest. She became as wary and feral as a jungle animal in her own home and village. It was difficult, but she could live with it and did -- for about a month. Then the uncle returned. She stayed away from him, which apparently suited him just find, because he immediately started moving in on her little sister, Alicia. Just ten years old, Alicia was already strikingly pretty and developing a compact set of curves. She had been playing Doctor with other youngsters, so she was not unreceptive to the uncle's knowing advances. Livinia discovered him alone with her sister in the house with his face between Alicia's slender ten-year-old's legs, making her slim ten-year-old's hips writhe and her flat ten-year-old's belly quiver with what his mouth was doing. Livinia sneaked in on them and put the knife against the crotch of his pants from behind and told him exactly what was going to happen next. Alicia gathered herself at Livinia's instructions and fled. Alicia, he explained, had not been his original target. He'd planned to use her to lure Livinia back. Customers were asking for her by name and one, a British writer, was willing to pay ten thousand dollars American for her services. He wanted her to spend three months with him at a house on a secluded beach while he finished writing his book. Livinia was to keep his house clean, his food cooked and his bed interesting. Her uncle promised to give her fully half. "The way he said it, I knew he thought this was a big deal and that he usually gave me much less share of the money I earned. But I knew he had another plan, too." So she persuaded her uncle to agree -- swearing on the soul of his mother and brother -- to give her half her share now, in advance. She would give it to her mother, now, and make her mother promise to take Alicia and go live with her mother's family in Mindanao, where the uncle would not be permitted to behave in such a way. He said he did not have so much money, but he could get her that and an extra five hundred if she would come back to Manila now. A man there was willing to pay that much for some movies to be made... "I agreed. We made the movies with boys and girls my age, with grownup men and women, sometimes with all of them. They gave me something to drink and I became very active and always wanting to do it more and more. I became crazy and could not stop wanting to do it, even when it was unpleasant or hurt me." Her uncle tried to hold out on her, but she knew something by then of law and went to the producer of the movie and told him she would tell the Customs people about his films if he did not pay. To him, this money was very little and he admired her spunk. He let her watch as he ordered the money wired to her mother and had her wait while the receipt was confirmed. Then he had her uncle brought in and warned him about double-crossing his girls, that it was bad for business. and if it happened again, he would tie up her uncle and leave him for his girls to deal with. "And then -- ?" "Then I thought that my mother and sister were okay and I had no other choices with my life, so I agreed to be rented by the British man." The British man was nice enough and treated her well for the most part. He drank a lot and sometimes when he was drunk he would want her to do strange things and sometimes he insisted. Mostly, they were things she found disgusting and did not understand his craving for her to do those things on him. Sometimes they were simply unendingly boring. Sometimes they hurt. Like the time he tied her face down on the bed, rammed a banana up her vagina and sodomized her repeatedly. After those things, he was always remorseful and promised he would not do them again and seemed genuinely angry at himself. And he promised to make it up to her when he left. In the last two week, he suddenly seemed to notice the calendar, stopped drinking and wrote on an old portable typewriter, starting at dawn and not stopping till his eyes couldn't make out the pages by the oil lamps that were the only source of illumination. He paid little attention to her besides politnesses at mealtimes and he was usually too tired to do more than cuddle her in his arms when he fell into bed. "He would kiss my ear and hold me with one hand on my belly and one across my breasts and say, 'Good night, dear Amanda; I shall always love you only.'" The night before they left, he made dinner for her. "It was not very good, but he was very sweet." Then he made love to her, very tenderly and sweetly and passionately. Then, at his insistence, she joined him in a nightcap. He got drunk and she helped him into the bed. His last few things were laid out for packing, among them the photograph of his family. As she looked at it carefully for the first time, she saw his daughter's name. In the morning, she asked if he missed his family and learned that they had been killed in an automobile accident years before. "I felt bad for him, but not so bad about what we did -- mostly." In Manila, they did not go directly to the rendezvous with the uncle. First, he stopped at the Bank of England office where he ordered a trust account opened for her and had one of the bankers appointed guardian. He could pay out of this account on her behalf, making purchases for her if he approved them, but he could not give her one penny in cash until her twenty-first birthday. "He had assigned me almost three thousand dollars, American!" Her eyes were wide as she said it and she took another big gulp of her Irish coffee. "He said it was to say thank you and to apologize for when he was not so pleasant. And he thanked me because I never asked him who 'Amanda' was." "He knew he talked in his sleep?" She nodded gravely and sadly. They met her uncle and he was paid in cash -- and so was she. Half she gave to her uncle on the spot, repaying the advance. The British man nodded at this. The other half she had wired to her mother in Mindinao. She went back to work for her uncle, as a hostess and visitor to hotel rooms and cabanas and sometimes to small parties and a few more times to movies. She found a priest who was willing to bank what she gave him so it would be safe from her uncle -- in exchange for which, he a to take ten percent for his church work. He was a worldly man, the priest, and though he made clear he would do what he could to help her whenever she wished -- and that she did not need to pay a fee for his help in protecting her earnings -- he would not press her. She sent money back her mother regularly. Time passed. She grew more mature and became less in demand. And then she became pregnant. "My uncle wanted me to do something about it. He said it would ruin my looks and that I still had another good year to earn money before I became too old to get top dollar." But she refused and when she caught him trying to drug her food, she ran away. She told the priest what had happened and took half her money -- almost a thousand dollars -- and then went to the bank of England. Her account trustee understood -- she told him everything once he explained he knew about the British man's preferences and his special concern for her -- and offered to have her flown to England; he was sure the writer would take her in, no matter what it cost his image and honor. She declined and asked only that a ticket be purchased for the island ferry to Mindanao as well as a bus ticket for the trip to the village of her mother's family. He readily agreed and made the arrangements and personally saw her to the midnight sailing. Her mother had told her family everything about her daughter and the money regularly wired to them. Her mother still was cold to her, almost as if she were a stranger, or a neighbor not well known who had come to stay with them. Many of the others were uneasy about her. Her grandmother, however, was merely pleased that both her granddaughters were near and soon she would see her great-grandchild (which she predicted would be a girl) and didn't give a damn about any of the circumstances, except to be glad they were better now. "Helluva woman, your grandmother." "She told me, 'I am old and I know that in the end, all that matters is to love and be gentle and as happy-making as you can.' This is beautiful, no?" This time I could only nod. Alicia had grown quite precociously -- "She already had a better body than I did and she was not yet twelve!" -- but Livinia's mother was a dragon lady and kept a tight leash on her beautiful baby. Alicia was not going to end up like Livinia. "She did not know that Alicia already learned much when they lived in the old house." I waited for more, but it wasn't forthcoming. I didn't ask. When she wanted to tell me more, she would. But I was damn curious about that. Her grandmother quietly told her some exercises to do -- breathing and pushing and relaxing exercise -- that she said would help when the time came. The time came on the first of March, three weeks after Livinia's fourteenth birthday. "Happy birthday, Livinia." I kissed her cheek. "If I had known, I would have bought you a birthday present." "Sabrina was the best birthday present I could ever have." She was pleased to see that Sabrina was not black -- "The mother of a black child is considered a slut when the mother is not black" -- but disappointed that she was not clearly blonde or redheaded. "So I think her father was one of the Japanese or Chinese businessmen at a party..." She finished the sentence by finishing her mug of Irish coffee. "This is very good. I wish I could have a little more." "Snookies, huh?" She laughed and rolled her head against my shoulder. "I think, maybe, once a year it is okay on a special occasion." I kissed her forehead. "Whatever you like." She was a bit unsteady now, so I helped her navigate the living room and office and then she sorta helped in the kitchen. Mostly, she talked. Sabrina was born in the traditional village way -- with the aid of midwives and other mothers, who had the experience of a hundred generations to call upon, and one woman who had some limited medical training. "No painkillers?" "My grandmother's exercises, a woman who could make one not feel as much pain by the way she talked, but -- no, not much." Not much meant that some kind of herbal concoction was applied when the time came for a very sharp, very well-sterilized razor to be used and again, when a midwife used a fine needle and stitched her. "She said that since I was so small and young, she was going to sew me so no man would know I had a baby by the way I was down there." "She did a good job," I said. "Recommend her. You are still as tight and small as a teenager there." She blushed and tried to hide it by getting out the whipped cream she'd overdone earlier. And by telling me more. Her grandmother guided and instructed her in caring for her baby and insisted that no matter how tired she was, she must be the one to tend to little Sabrina. This way, Sabrina would never doubt her mother's love. And she insisted that Livinia be tired -- by joining the other women in manual labor around the houses. She hadn't understood until months later when she realized that her figure was as tight and firm as ever and that her health was excellent and that even the young single men of the village, who knew her background and motherhood, looked at her with interest. When Sabrina was finally weaned, her grandmother had forced Livinia to attend classes. When the school made her leave her year-old infant behind, her grandmother happily agreed to care for her during school hours. "And my grandmother was already old and weak, but she did this for me. I think she believed that maybe in raising my mother these things were not there, so she had to make up them." I noticed her self consciousness about sentences involving a word with an "f" or "v" sound. It seemed automatic. I let it go. Livinia's mother became more and more distant and never really showed affection to her granddaughter. Alicia was drawn more and more to the warmth in her grandmother's house and finally there was an episode that pushed her over the edge and away. Livinia had been at school and her mother was visiting her grandmother. Alicia was studying quietly in the room -- never allowed from her mother's sight without supervision. The baby began to cry and the sick old woman could not rise easily. Grandmother asked Livinia's mother to look in on the baby, on her granddaughter. 'I have no granddaughter.' 'She is the child of your daughter,' said the old woman. 'I have no daughter who has a child.' At this Alicia -- then thirteen -- said, 'But Livinia is my sister.' Her mother slapped her. 'You have no sister.' Alicia quietly gathered her books and stood before her grandmother. 'May I live under your roof, grandmother? With my sister and my niece?' 'Are you certain this is not just anger?' 'I have thought about it a long time. I want to live with love.' 'You are welcome here, child.' She put her books down and went to tend to her niece. 'You are welcome here with your daughters and granddaughter,' said the old, sick woman. 'I have no children.' She walked out and left the village and was never heard from again -- except to withdraw from her account the rest of the money Livinia had wired during her years of painful earnings. The three of them stayed with the old woman until her death, six years later. Livinia made the trip into Manila and made arrangements with her account trustee for Alicia to board at a private school, a prep school with high standards, in Quesan. Then she arranged for passage to America and learned how little she really knew about immigration...and bribes. She had no family in America, and no needed educational or technical specialty, was not a doctor or accountant or dentist or engineer and owned no property in America. Outside of her experiences in Manila, she had no marketable skills and had the equivalent of a fourth- grade education. She did have determination and beauty -- and money. The trustee told her a way she might go about it. There were companies that arranged matches between Pacific-nation women and American men. She registered with Asian Flowers. It cost her $200 American and a great deal of privacy. She had to fill out forms and she had to answer all the questions: Her age, the status of her virginity, her idea of the proper attitude of a wife toward a husband, her exact measurements -- including bra cup -- number of children, education, what she liked in a man, diseases contracted, what she disliked in a man, how many men she'd been with, had she ever held a job, and doing what? etc. "I told the truth -- but not all the truth." Men signed up with the service for $500 in the United States. Most were looking for what the ads promised: Asian Flowers who were brought up to believe that a wife's place was to subservient and to be helpful. Thirty-seven men expressed interest in her. "Most of them were older than you are now." They wrote to her and many asked extremely inappropriate questions: Did she like to suck cock? Did she like women? "Some letters were very sweet and some were very sad." In the end, two seemed good prospects. One owned a small real- estate business in New York. He flew to the Philippines and made the journey to Mindanao to visit. Unfortunately, when she resisted his advances, he immediately turned all of his attentions on another woman in the village who was willing to accommodate him however he liked... when her husband was away. The other, a thirty-seven-year-old ad sales rep from Seattle, agreed to meet her in Manila. He was slim and good-looking, with thinning hair and a nice smile. He was restrained and polite and seemed to always know what small gestures would please her. He didn't so much as try to kiss her, though he held her hand and told her he found her very lovely and pleasing to look out and he seemed to get along well with the children who always hung out around the hotel looking to make a few bucks as tour guides or gofers. "So when he returned to America, he wrote and said he would like to sponsor me and I liked him and I agreed." There was weeping in the village when she and Sabrina left, though some of the unmarried women's tears were more for show than reality; they were glad to see such a lovely young woman leaving the market. The journey was a nightmare. The five-hour ferry to Manila, then the trip to the airport, then the long flight through storms to San Francisco, a two hour layover and the short flight to Seattle, then two hours to get through Customs and Immigration. By the time they left Customs to meet Bob, they'd spent almost twenty-seven hours traveling. Neither had slept much. Little Sabrina was cranky and Livinia was exhausted. "But he was a wonderful man in so many ways! He had prepared a room for Sabrina and me, and had food waiting and he would not let me carry anything." And he still never made much of a pass at her, not for weeks, while he set her up for tutors and English classes, not till the night he was smoking grass and kissed her and began touching her. It had been a long time since she had been touched in those ways, but she was shocked when he said he wanted to go in -- "-- the other way, in the back, you know?" I nodded. "And I let him do it because he was always so nice. And when he was done and had done it inside me and started to get small again, he told me I was as tight as any man back there." Yes, Bob was a wonderful man -- and his boyfriends thought so, too. He told her what she had never suspected: He was homosexual. He had wanted someone to play the role of wife, because many of his friends and colleagues would be unable to handle his sexuality and he was at that age in a career when a lot of backward, insecure morons get uncomfortable around an unmarried, good-looking man. "But what did it matter to them? They were neighbors and people who work with him, not his bedmates?" "Some people just can't handle knowing someone is gay or lesbian." But Livinia was troubled. She wanted to be married a man like him, but a man who wanted her and wanted to deal with her needs -- and Bob admitted that he could not be that for her. He proposed an arrangement of convenience and she accepted. They were married a week later in City Hall. It worked fine for four years. Bob never again asked for sex when he learned how much she was hurt by sodomy. Sabrina really liked him and he liked her. She simply didn't let herself know when he sometimes went out with a friend and didn't come home till the following afternoon and he didn't question or mention her occasional delay in returning from a bachelor neighbor's condo a few blocks away. Bob became very attached to a fellow named Larry and eventually introduced him to Livinia and Sabrina. Larry was a nice guy and they all got along, to the point where if Sabrina was having an overnight with a friend, Larry would stay the night there. He had a good sense of humor. But one morning, when the three of them had sat up all night -- " -- getting snookies and watching old movies -- " Sabrina came home early and Larry commented that she was pretty and at that age -- ten -- she could have been a little boy and had such a cute ass and like they say, 'Sex before eight or else it's too late -- and with that little ass, she can easily pass,' and Bob threw a monumental shitfit. "Bob looked at him like he saw a ghost and Larry said, 'Alright, so she is really a girl but what does it matter at that age? It is just as tight and you can close your eyes and pretend it is a boy,' and Bob started to get red in the pace." "Face," I corrected. "Yes and Larry said, 'At that age all children really want it in --' the other place and Bob said, 'At that age they are all children, boys and girls the same, and you are saying it is okay to puck little kids' and Larry said, 'Do not knock it till you try it,' and Bob stood up and told Larry to go away and never call him again and he was mad and yelled and said he would call police and if police did nothing he would do it and -- It was not nice." I issued three silent cheers for Bob. That had certainly been tough for him, yet he hadn't yielded a centimeter on his principles. A lot of folks who don't realize they have gay friends, colleagues and acquaintances think all the world's child-abusers are members of NAMBLA and that all faggots want to rape little boys. Bob sounded more like the homosexuals I've known: Without exception, they were ready to buy the ropes to lynch anyone who'd hurt a kid, any kid, boy-kid or girl-kid. Afterword, Bob felt bad and cried but he was relentless and eventually he decided it would be better for Sabrina and Livinia to move on and be out on their own, as he was planning to come out of the closet and things would get messy when he did so. She had distant -- 194th or somesuch -- cousins in Brooklyn and came to New York. Before he came out, Bob used some contacts to help her, as well, and she came to Brooklyn and cleaned out most of her Bank of England account and rented a small, ramshackle frame house in a working class neighborhood in Brooklyn and got a job at a Filipino-run ex-im firm answering phones. "So I eventually take the job in the laundry, since I am good at cleaning clothes and I can have Sabrina come there after school." She turned and smiled. "And then I meet you." "Just like that?" She looked down at her hands, again playing with the sash of the robe. And she told me. There was another fellow, before, who came into the firm to arrange a special delivery. He was from Bataan and ran a private car service in Woodside, in Queens. He had started from scratch and now had eleven ramshackle old cars that showed up when they were supposed to and took people where they wanted to go. He was big and handsome and charming and willing to spend money on her. Their first few dates were very nice. Then she went home with him one night and he made it with her. "And he was very big, too big." She held her hands up about a foot apart. "I thought I was going to rupture, he was so big. I did not like it. And he wanted me to lay on my belly for him, you know?" I knew and nodded in understanding. "And I said I would not, and he said, you did it with other people and I asked how he knew and he dragged me into the living room and put a tape on the VCR." And yes, there she was -- the films from her days in Manila had been transferred to videocassette and he'd gotten a copy and recognized her, because you could recognize her, even 14 years later. "He said I must do this with him and let him do these things with my kid or he would tell Immigration." He made her watch the whole tape -- a T120 -- and when she tried to leave, he hit her and knocked her back down and made her watch more. By the end, she was weeping and sick. He threw her down and raped her every way he wanted, then drove her home and pushed her out of the car in front of her house. "When was this?" I asked. "About one year ago." "Then?" "Tom told my boss and I had to quit that job." "And you have heard nothing since then?" "He calls me at the laundry sometimes but I always hang up." I shook my head. "There are some sick people in the world. And some very good ones -- like Bob and like you." I kissed her lips lightly. She pulled away from me. "Maybe I should go away from you." "Don't you dare." "You don't know the things I did -- " "I don't care. I like you." "But you don't KNOW -- " "I can imagine." Now she was the one shaking her head. "No, you cannot." She reached over to the side of the couch and down to floor, where she'd dropped the oversized purse. "But you do not have to imagine." She withdrew a videocassette. I stared. "He sent this to me about three months ago. I want you to watch it." She held it toward me as if it were a bomb. Or the Grail. "This is not necessary, Livinia -- " "Please -- you must know this, too, or I can not see you again." "You ask a high price for your company." "Please, Daveed, I want you to know it all, to know all about me. I must not be afraid something that happened a long time ago will come back like a ghost." "...okay." Suddenly, she was absolutely sober. She stood and handed me the tape. "I am going to go shopping." "Shopping??!!?" "Yes. For some vegetables and milk and such. I will probably be gone for two hours. Why don't you watch a tape till I ring the doorbell? You decide whether to answer." "You won't watch with me?" "Sometimes I dream and I see the same tape...I have seen it too much already." She suddenly seemed very tired, standing before me. I pulled her into my arms as she stood there and kissed her belly and breasts through the robe. "If that is what you want, I will do it; I value your company." She looked at me: I hope you feel the same way in two hours. Then she broke away and walked to the bedroom. I sat in the dark living room, listening to the sound of her footsteps change as she put on her shoes and hearing her movements and rustle of her clothing. What would she be doing for those two hours? Marketing would take less than a third of that? "I will ring the bell in two hours," she called jauntily and then the door closed behind her. I heard her footsteps recede as she went down the hallways stairs and out of my apartment building. I put the tape in the VCR, switched on the television and kept my word. [more]