Chapter 2. "Girlopolis."
Angeles City, America, and "the Girlfriend Experience." Talent Spot. Opportunities and city life. Luke, Tyson, and Blen's first Blow-job. Mr Hirohito.
The story of how Angeles City became a world-renowned hospitality destination is complicated, resulting from the juxtaposition of wealth and poverty - wealthy men and poor girls. This corrupting mix, which usually results in the prostitution of venal women to desperate men, in Angeles spawned the licensed entertainer and, uniquely, the vaunted 'girlfriend experience'. Colonisation, war, corruption and poverty rarely produce anything of worth, but, exceptionally, in Angeles City, it did.
Following the outbreak of the Spanish American War in 1898, the Philippines Republican government withdrew before the invading Americans along the northern railway, temporarily to Angeles, and then to Tarlac. An army camp was established at Angeles, bringing large numbers of single young men there for first time. These lonely, sexually active young men were exposed to poor, sexually active Filipina girls, and each grew to appreciate the virtues of the other.
In 1917 aircraft hangers were built at the site of the base. In 1919, a dedicated airstrip was laid out, and the 3rd Aero Squadron formed. The airbase became the central pillar for the defence of the Philippines. On the outbreak of WW2 Japanese bombers flying from Taiwan caught all the American aircraft lined up on the ground and destroyed them.
The Japanese occupied Clark Field from 1942 to January 1945 and from nearby Mabalacat operated their Kamikaze squadrons.
After the war, in 1946, the Philippines became independent for the second time. Clark Field however, remained a sovereign American base. The municipality of Angeles became a City, Angeles City, and subsequently expanded to become the city it is today. In 1956, Philippine sovereignty over the air base was acknowledged, but to little effect, owing to Visiting Forces Agreements.
During the Vietnam War, from 1964, Clark Field became an important logistics and support base in for their combat forces.
From this period, Angeles City became a popular rest and recreation facility for the combatants. The many young, single men created a demand for drink and girls, which led to a proliferation of hotels and bars along Perimeter Road, down and around Fields Avenue, along MacArthur Highway, and on to Mabalacat.
The bars became a magnet for girls who wished to meet and marry American men. Angeles City received a major economic impetus from providing services to the base, and, of course, services to the service men. It became a huge centre, dependent on the hospitality industry, and local businesses, politicians and functionaries made comfortable livings from it. As a public health measure a Hygeine department was set up to register hospitality workers and test them weekly for STD's. Their registered ID could be produced to tourists as an assurance of quality.
Angeles gained notoriety as a resort for single men.
The American's had required a certain standard of service, quality and price, including the girlfriend experience, and the marriage minded Filipinas had the disposition to provide it. Many Rest and Recreation romances resulted in marriage. This produced a win-win scenario. After Pinatubo, and the closure of Clark Base, the hospitality trade slowly rebuilt itself over the next twenty years, widening its client base to Australia and Europe, then Asia, but preserving its unique ethos. Fun and raucous girly bars have slowly given way to more sophisticated, nightclub venues and value hotels to luxury hotels.
The hospitality industry in Angeles City continues to be a major economic force, providing employment directly and in construction, and channels large amounts of overseas investment into the economy. The girls who entertain in the clubs, and provide the municipally regulated and quality controlled girlfriend experience for the visitor, are as much front line heroes of the Philippine economy as the lauded Overseas Worker, but without the recognition.
For now, much of the fun, the friendly atmosphere, and the opportunity for an advantageous marriage, still survives in venues like Talent Spot.
The twenty-four hour journey by boat and coach proved an exhilarating adventure for girls who had never travelled further than ten miles from their barangay. It was but a small step on the cultural journey which arrival in Angeles City would entail.
For that first night Mama Mutia took them to her own house, telling them that, tomorrow, she would take them to their permanent accommodation. She was anxious to put them to work as soon as possible, and enable them to spend their yet unearned wages.
When rested and refreshed, Mama produced her catalogue and invited the girls to buy toilet essentials, make-up and clothing - on credit. Set free in Aladdin's Cave, they spent eagerly and foolishly, the anguish of payment being postponed to another day.
A luxuriant shower together followed; a real shower in hot water, with real, scented soap and creamy shampoo that left their hair a lustrous black. When dried off, they spent some time before a mirror, learning how to apply make-up to good effect, and then, less than three hours after they had arrived in Angeles, they were off to Talent Spot, to a new life - a life of work, money and opportunities.
At a time when, before, they had been extinguishing oil lamps and retiring to bed, they were, now, abroad in Angeles club land, which was raucous, garish and bursting with life. The lights, the music, the street life, the foreigners who frequented the pavements, the street bars and cafes were new and utterly fascinating, but intimidating, to the provincial girls.
The building that housed the club was modest; appearing unimposing to its customers, nevertheless, it was the most magnificent the girls had ever entered. Ushered through the bar, they felt they were walking onto a film set. The lighting was crazily colourful but dim, the music loud and upbeat, and the air smoky but mercifully dry from the air-conditioning.
It took a short while for their eyes and ears to adjust. On their left they could see a circle of scantily clad girls, whose reflections appeared in wall and ceiling mirrors in whichever direction they looked, gyrating to the rhythmic music, competing between themselves to catch the attention of the, mostly western, men sat in groups or alone before them. Soon they would join them.
Mama Mutia led them into the cramped changing area, where they changed for the first time into the boots and costumes bought from her on credit. She inspected and adjusted them, then handed each a licence belonging to an absent girl to clip to their costume.
"Use these tonight. Do not let the customers look at the photo. You will go on with the next set," she told the girls. "Dance like in the disco, enjoy yourself and smile. Look in the mirrored wall to see your look and your dance."
Over the babble of voices raised to pierce the wall of music, Blen could hear her heart beat. Butterflies fluttered in her stomach, her chest was tight, and she felt dizzy as the minutes to the next set ticked away. Mama Mutia clapped her hands and Blen and her friends, who had attached themselves to end of the line of girls, shuffled on their unaccustomed high heels out to queue at the end of the stage. When the number ended, Mama clapped again, and as the last set filed off at the far end, Blen filed on with the new set, up the steps, onto the stage, into the lights, and across the bridge of no return. She turned, shyly avoided the faces of the couple of customers scrutinising the new line-up, and sought her reflection in the wall mirrors opposite.
Such was the transformation that she could not at first pick herself out, but like a child noting than when she moved, her reflection moved also, she identified herself.
What she saw in the mirror surprised, delighted, shocked and fascinated her. The shiny knee length boots, with three-inch heels, made her appear tall and slender. Not only did the heels add three inches to her height, but, to balance in the boots and maintain aplomb, she needed to draw herself straight and erect. Her immediate impression was of one of those catwalk models she had seen on Marisol's TV.
As her eyes adjusted to the dim lighting of the bar, through her diaphanous camisole she could see that her pert breasts were visible, and that the darted garment accentuated the feminine curve to her flat, exposed waist. From her camisole, suspenders passed vertically down, under the thong clinging tightly to her hips and thighs, to support her black stockings. Around her right thigh clung a red garter.
She could not help but smile with delight at her look. Never had she dreamed she could be so glamorous, appearing to herself the epitome of seduction. Carefully studying the way she danced, she found that moving in half time to the music she was able to maintain her poise and elegance, even in her high-heeled dancing boots. Gradually, she adopted a universally recognised, languorous seductive motion - that stylised courtship display that comes instinctively to teenage girls.
Back in the barangay Blen had felt the impulse to pose and preen when in the company of young men she secretly admired, but had to bottle up the urge. Now, that bottled impulse was uncorked, and she revelled in the freedom, dancing to seek the attention of these desirable foreign men. Absorption in this brief interlude of self-discovery had calmed her jangling nerves, which were smothered by a blanket of elation. Her focus narrowed on the lovely creature she manipulated in the mirror and she exulted in her undulating reflection.
Blen had been on stage only ten minutes when a tap on her leg returned her to the world of nervous confusion.
"What is your name?" asked the waitress, and having been told, continued, "Well Blen, the customer in the blue shirt like to buy you a drink."
Blen's nerves returned with a shudder and the pitch of her voice rose in panic. "What do I do?"
The waitress rolled her eyes. "Only go and sit at his table and say Hello." Her tone was deadpan, that of a person unexpectedly having to state the obvious.
Moving slowly to retain her balance, Blen dismounted from the stage and walked to the table where she sat down and smiled. The waitress placed a glass of cola and ice before her, filled out some vouchers, placed one in the customers tab, and gave the other to Blen. "Keep that to claim your commission," she explained.
Her customer introduced himself and asked her name.
