How to Ride a Tibalang

Jinx stretched lazily, luxuriating in the tingles of utter satisfaction that ran up from the soles of her feet to her scalp and down again. She felt blessed coolness on her naked body, a counterpoint to the warm, solid arms hugging her waist and the hands cupping her breasts as she reached full consciousness.

Those hands tightened over the bounty they seemed reluctant to release, even in sleep, and she burrowed back against the very male body to which they belonged. She felt so feminine lying against this very male body. She was taller than average at 5'9" and, while that kind of height was par for the course for a model, she couldn't help feeling awkward around most Filipinos who were shorter than she was (which was a pretty common occurrence).

It's good to feel like I fit perfectly, for once.

It was dark out, a gibbous moon dominating the skyscape outside the plate-glass window Jinx was looking out of, the lights of three cities twinkling like a display of multi-colored gems set against deep black velvet.

"Hmmmmmm," Cocoy murmured sleepily against Jinx's nape, triggering pleased shivers from her. "Hold still, gorgeous, I like the way you fit against me."

"That tickles!" Jinx squealed as Cocoy woke up completely and nuzzled her nape with his nose and lips. Cocoy smiled against the juncture of Jinx's shoulder and neck and made a few lazy licks that made her writhe even more frantically in an effort to get away, her breathless laughter precluding any coherent speech.

His arms remained wrapped firmly around her waist as he thrust his revived erection against the cleft between her buttock cheeks.

"Even your laughter is sexy, Jinx," Cocoy said softly as he took mercy on her and stopped tickling her, choosing instead to rub his legs over and between hers in sinuous motions that had her libido waking up and paying attention, too. "Especially when you wiggle against me like that."

"You two can save that for later, and not leave me out, mind you both," Kidlat said as he padded into the bedroom on bare feet. "It was hard enough putting you both to bed. Since you're up, dinner's on the table."

***

Jinx and Cocoy exited the bedroom. He in his red silk boxer shorts and she in a soft black t-shirt borrowed from Kidlat. They both sniffed the good kitchen smells with appreciation and anticipation and smiled happily when they saw the beautifully-set table before them: A steaming meat and vegetable soup was wafting up a mouth-watering aroma from a smoke-gray cut crystal tureen and three place settings were laid out—woven bamboo placemants bore beautiful, black octagonal plates which set off generous cut crystal bowls that matched the tureen.

Silverware that looked to be well-loved heirloom antiques flanked the plates. Curvy clear glass pitchers held cold, freshly-squeezed kalamansi and apple juice, as well as ice water. Each of the three place settings had origami swan-folded black napkins on the side, as well as an octagonal highball glass and a long-stemmed cut crystal goblet that sparkled in the cool light of the dining room lamps. A lacquered black and red bowl by the tureen held piping hot brown upland rice.

"I hope you like pork

sinigang,

" Kidlat said as casually as he could. "Because I'm too damn hungry to cook another option. There's pineapple pie for later."

For some reason, Kidlat wanted to impress these two with his kitchen skills—but he wasn't quite that ready to explore the why of it.

But, hey, the kitchen is my turf. Not even Buhawi can outdo me here. Hell, if I didn't have to work on the family bank's internal communications, I'd have my own restaurant.

The trio ate in silence, enjoying the sour tamarind broth mildly spiced with long, green Tagalog chilies and the meltingly tender pork chunks that added richness to the broth. The swamp cabbage leaves and shoots and the perfectly thin slices of native white radish rounded out what was a beautifully done

sinigang

.

They dipped the pork chunks in little bowls of fish sauce spiced with potent little bird's eye chilies and fresh lime juice before scooping them onto steaming hot brown rice, then washing each mouthful down with spoonfuls of the soup.

"Mmmmph," Jinx said, turning worshipful eyes to Kidlat. "This is, bar none, the best

sinigang

I have ever eaten in my life."

"And I can't wait to taste that pineapple pie," Cocoy said, his eyes, too, fixed on Kidlat in something that resembled adoration. "

Sinigang

is my favorite dish and pineapple is my favorite fruit. You're about to become my favorite guy, Kid."

Kidlat couldn't keep the blush from his cheeks. The praise felt so very good indeed, but he wasn't used to this, even if he'd slaved two sweaty hours over the food he'd prepared, working his perfectly flaky, buttery pie crust dough from scratch and peeling that damned pineapple (ouch, because it was pretty well armored and he'd cut himself on the sharp leaves at some point). "Well, then you don't need to wait too long. Let me get that pie." So he just got up from the polished glass and steel dining table to do that.

The pie, still warm from the oven, did not have a chance to cool. Cocoy ate half of it, scarfing it down like it would walk off his dessert plate if he didn't. Jinx savored her fourth of the pastry, making the sexiest sounds of pleasure after each bite.

Now that's as a good reason as any to be barefoot in the kitchen,

Kidlat thought, watching his two new lovers enjoy the food he'd prepared just for them.

Bathala, what is it about them that's making me act like a bird feathering its nest, anyway?

"Since you cooked, I'm doing KP duty," Jinx said as she cleared the table. "It's the least I can do for someone who has gotten me closer to a food coma than I've ever come."

"I'll make us coffee," Cocoy volunteered. "I know how to work that coffee machine over there and we do still need to talk, so let's have a bit of a pick me up so we don't to the eat and fall asleep thing."

***

Settling in the living room, with coffee Kidlat had laced generously with some fine Irish whiskey, the trio took up where they were supposed to have begun in the first place.

"So," Jinx said with a grin as she sat cross-legged on the cool tile of the floor and cradled her mug of spiked coffee. "Why did you ask us to come over? Besides the fantastic sex, of course."

"When I met Cocoy at Pepe's Pole, I had been wishing for a Bayot of my own," Kidlat began after taking a long drink of his coffee. "I saw him there, sitting like sex on a bar stool and felt more drawn to him than I'd ever felt drawn to anyone in my life. I was fine with that and I went for it. Then you got thrown our way," he turned his dark eyes to Jinx, "and, for the first time in my life, I was just as drawn to a woman. I wanted to see where this would take us and why this attraction between us is so strong."

Jinx and Cocoy looked at each other, then at Kidlat, and Jinx set her mug on a low coffee table by the sectional sofa and held her hands out to both men, who each clasped her hands in their own.

"I was just there to shoot the breeze," Cocoy said. "I was about to launch my indie music label, Lintik Records. So I went to Pepe's Pole to relax, enjoy a naughty show, maybe find someone who was game for a night of sex magic. Not literally magic, but maybe a good banging or two. Not that we got any from each other last night, but I've no complaints now. Then things went so well at the launch earlier today—too well, in fact—that I had to escape from the madding crowd. Thank goodness I've got really good PR people who managed to restore order and get the news of the launch out without me. Then you called me a Bayot. Don't get me wrong, I like what we've done with each other so far, but I'd love to find an explanation for the strange things that happened today."

"Me, too," Jinx said, her voice getting pitchy with agitation. "I was having breakfast when I got all 'the future's so bright, I have to wear shades.' You both blow my mind, but I need to know why you called me a 'changeling,' Kidlat, and what the hell that is."

"I'm just going to spit it out plain," Kidlat replied to his lovers, figuring that the fastest route between points A and B was a straight line. "I'm a Tikbalang."

Kidlat let Jinx's hand go, stripped off his pyjamas and rose to his full height. "You're a

Diwata

changeling," he waved a hand toward Jinx, "and you are a Bayot, but I don't think you know that yet," he nodded toward Cocoy, his eyes pleading for understanding from both of them before he stripped his PJ bottoms off. The rippling of Kidlat's muscles drew Cocoy and Jinx's gazes down his defined eight-pack and lower.

"I'll show you I'm not lying. My eyes are up here, people," he admonished his lovers softly as he pointed to his face, then allowed his body to take its Tikbalang form.

Kidlat's beautifully-shaped, size 13 feet compressed into shiny black, unshod hooves. A glossy and soft roan pelt shot through with subtle black dappling grew over his skin. A long, wavy tail of dark brown horsehair shot through with red streaks flowed out over his tight, rounded butt and his head morphed into a warhorse's head, complete with a wavy mane that matched his tail.

Three golden hairs gleamed in the soft glow of the living room's recessed lighting: One atop the neat thatch of pubic hair at Kidlat's crotch between his

tarugo

and the stark black happy trail marking the midline between navel and groin, another in his tail and one near the crown of his hairline.

He held his arms out to his sides, palms facing Cocoy and Jinx, his dark brown eyes fixed on them both in a silent appeal as he sent up the most heartfelt prayer he'd ever made:

Godmother Indianale, if I ever did anything good, please let its reward manifest now. Please, please don't let them be disgusted with me. I don't think I could take that. Please, let this be good for all of us.

Cocoy downed the contents of his almost full mug of coffee in one long set of steady swallows, his eyes focused on the Tikbalang in front of him. Jinx nearly sputtered the coffee she was trying to swallow all over the tile floor, then choked as she swallowed it down as Cocoy rubbed a gentle hand between her shoulderblades.

Kidlat changed back to his human shape and returned to his seat on the sofa, his head bowed and his hands clasped loosely and hanging between his knees.

"So I can tame you?" Cocoy's words were warm, inviting and sensual and they made Kidlat bring up his head in pleased surprise. "Because I see you still have all three golden hairs." Ice broken, the three began to laugh, as much in relief as at Cocoy's audacity and the priceless expression on Kidlat's handsome face.

"So, if Cocoy gets the golden hairs, what's in it for me, o great Tikbalang?" Jinx managed to get a bit of a sigh and a bit of a joke into her mischievous tone as she gave Kidlat a wide, sexy wink. "I'm hoping for a good ride or two—if you know what I mean."

"You get both of us, changeling girl," Kidlat said as he reached over to scoop Jinx up off the floor and lay her on his lap. Cocoy scooted closer, wrapping his arms around Kidlat and Jinx, kissing Kidlat's neck as Kidlat snogged Jinx breathless. "And, yes, you will get to ride me as much as you want."

"Hey, I'd love to have her ride me, too." Cocoy waggled his brows at Jinx, his eyes sparkling with mirth. "I'd be happy to have any reason at all to hang on for dear life to those wonderful, tasty tits. Come to think of it, I'll even let you ride me," he said in an aside to Kidlat, "so long as I get to ride her while you do. The possibilities are great and infinite."

"By Bathala's breath I thought you were both going to walk out of here just now," Kidlat said on a relieved sigh before leaning back to kiss Cocoy and give him a one-armed hug.

"Now, why would I do that when I stand to get a better deal by staying here?" Cocoy's question was smooth as satin against Kidlat's cheek. "It must be a midnight sale in heaven. I got the best buy-one-take-one bargain. Besides, I haven't had enough of either of you and that's way stronger than how strange I find all of this."

Cocoy pulled Jinx into his lap and Kidlat's. Both men were stroking her bare legs and shirt-covered belly and back gently as they took turns kissing her senseless.

OhMyGod, they taste so good.

Jinx's world was spinning.

Their fingers are so close to my... oh, my. And my... But, wait, there's more to talk about. Must pause this.

"Yes, yes," Jinx interjected as she levered herself slightly back from the men so she could speak as she pushed her lusty thoughts aside for the moment. "But can you tell us why you call Cocoy a Bayot and why you think I'm a Diwata changeling? Don't think I won't have my answers, despite all your hotness and drool-worthiness. But, no, I'm not leaving, either. How can I when you both look at me like I'm a goddess?"

"I'll do you one better, my gorgeous one," Kidlat said, not wanting to rock the boat by telling Jinx that she is a goddess, one who needs to upgrade her mortal shell into the divine version. "I'll show you both what I mean. My mother has been collecting what written records she could of what the

Taga-Lupa

may have on those of us from the Other World that they have seen."

Kidlat pointed his lips toward an intricately-carved trunk made of molave wood before moving to open it, exposing rolled vellum scrolls and leatherbound journals. "She made it possible for all of us, her kids, to access those records. If you can read the writings in there, then you'll have the information you need—because those would be the texts that apply to our situation as a whole."

***

"So, this is telling me I need to conduct certain, ah, rituals, in order to fully become a Bayot? And I have to dress in women's clothing while I'm at it? I may swing both ways, dude, and I may enjoy playing rough and dominant on occasion, but I know which side of the wardrobe divide I prefer—and that's the masculine one."

The distaste was clear in Cocoy's voice, as he shook his head, his eyes wide as he again perused the illustrations on of the vellum scrolls that detailed in separate panels the process of transformation a Bayot must undergo when taming a Tikbalang and ascending to his power.

"Think of it as taking the good with the bad," Kidlat said, patting one of Cocoy's beautifully muscled forearms. "It's a means to an end and, at least, it involves quite a bit of pleasure for all of us."

"But these scrolls only show two people doing these rituals," Jinx spoke slowly, carefully, her eyes going from Cocoy to Kidlat. "They're not made for three."

"No, they're not, but there are other texts there we will need to read, cross-reference to the ones we've already looked at," Kidlat said just as carefully, looking at each of his lovers' faces to be sure he was getting through to them clearly. "We cannot leave you like this, on the cusp of fully becoming the

Diwata

you are. Those texts also detail processes for only two people, at the most."

"So we're going to have to wing it?" Cocoy's doubts were apparent in the sharpness of his cultured, deliberately modulated voice now. "Or blend rituals? That sounds like it has as much chance of blowing up in our faces as it may succeed."

"But, which should we do first?" Jinx's agitation came shining through—her eyes, mouth, fingertips, across her skin—as white light began flaring ouward from her like an expanding aura. Kidlat gripped both her wrists and pulled them off the leather-bound book she was holding before the heat from her burned it.

"Perhaps we'd better get your change done first," Cocoy spoke with a raised eyebrow. "We can't have you burning things without warning. It says here," he added, reading the text etched on a large, well-preserved anahaw leaf he'd unfolded "that once a changeling

Diwata

begins to manifest the natural force that is hers to control, she must find her path, her guardian and her true nature. She needs to gain control over that which is hers alone to command."

"'Find her path'? There's a map for this, I hope?" Jinx laid her hands on the tile beside her legs, hoping its coolness would contain the heat she could feel coursing though her, under her skin and in every vein like molten lava.

"Well, that's where I come in, I guess," Kidlat was rummaging through the contents of the molave trunk as he spoke, his calm tone belying the speed with which he was sorting through the documents. "Tikbalang are supposed to be pathfinders. We're the ones who are supposed to create ways and means of getting things done, as well as routes that will help us reach our destinations when we need to be there."

The three continued to rifle through the contents of the intricately-carved trunk, none of them noticing that some of the carvings on the upended lid had begun to glow as a coating of pure yellow gold rendered three images distinctly: A Tikbalang pointing to a nearly-hidden track into a rainforest, a carving that was clearly a man dressed in the gathered bark-cloth skirt of a Babaylan and wearing a definitely feminine headdress of beads and feathers, and a nymph-like figure standing at the foot of a volcano, her long hair seeming to be part of the lava flowing down the volcano's slopes.

***

"I found this translation of a text by a Fray Domenico Juan Santiago that you may find interesting," Cocoy said, excitement ringing loud and clear in his words and tone. "It says here that the religious who arrived in the archipelago were shocked to find that the natives of the

Islas de los Pintados

thought nothing of fornicating with one another in rituals for fertility and to honor their ancestors and pantheon of gods and goddesses. Let me read it to you guys."

Translation of the ledger of Fray Domenico Juan, on the sexual perversions of the natives, with annotations, by Dr. Isabelo Reyes, professor of anthropology, University of Sto. Tomas (July 14, 1963):

"... it is interesting to note that the Spanish friars who came upon the isles we now call the Visayas initially called it the Isles of the Painted Ones or Islas de los Pintados before renaming that area Islas de los Ladrones or Isles of Thieves. However, Fray Domenico Juan, OP, and a member of the third expedition to these isles delved a deeper than tattoos and petty thefts. He looked into the sexual behavior and pagan rituals practiced by the natives themselves and the reasons given for these. Fray Domenico had immersed himself in the culture and language of the people he studied and here is the translation of the observations he recorded in a total of sixteen (16) ledgers."

Translation, Ledger 1

"While those of us who fear and obey the strictures of the Holy Mother Church and the One True God without question, the natives of these islands have not quite embraced our enlightened path yet. The rest of my comrades on this mission of salvation and mercy are working on that as I write this. It has been given to me as duty to learn the languages and customs of these savages. All the better to understand how to bring them to our wise and merciful Lord and the ways of his Son, Christ Jesus.

"I have been here three months and found that the best way to gain fluency in the tongues of these natives is to speak to them in their languages exclusively. I find that these people are good of heart and are generous with their food and space in their huts as they are with their bodies when the fishers come home, nets heavy with the bounty of the waters that surround us. They strip down to almost nothing but strips of beaten bark or loom-woven cloth to preserve their private areas from total indecency. They dance to songs praising their god of the sea, singing their joy to the EarthMother to whom they return and the SkyFather who guides their little [outriggers] home. They weep to the deities of the dead and of passage into the afterlife asking for clemency for the souls of those who have been taken as a toll for the bounty of each catch brought safely home.