Chapter 10

Returning home is an experience. It means saying goodbye to Jojie and Venus. We had arrived in the Philippines with Muriel, but that headstrong adolescent who was both a handful and somewhat disrespectful has been lost to us. We return with Pandora, a very young woman who knows she is on the shit-end of the stick and is just glad to still have a stick to hold on to.

It also means rejoining Krissell, Ann and Ninay and introducing them to Pan. Pan might look like Muriel, but that's all. Her demeanor, values and core have been radically transformed. She is no longer Muriel.

We have the hardest time with Ninay who is truly pissed off in the worst way. There is little I can do to help Ninay with her feelings. So we just ride them out. Her worst problem is that no one, not even Pan will support her tantrums and childish behavior. Pan is the clearest on this and that is what has been sending Ninay over the top. Pan's subservient behavior undercuts Ninay's bad girl stuff. Ninay is out of step with the entire family.

It is Ann who finally cuts the floor out from under Ninay one evening at the supper table when she tells Ninay to shape up or leave the family. She tells Ninay that we have no place for her as she is behaving. Right there at the table, Ninay appeals to Krissell who tells Ninay that Ann is right. And then Krissell adds: Don't you dare ask Ganda, or God forbid, Jake. If you do, Ann and I will throw you out immediately!

I ignore the entire discussion as does Ganda. Pan just sits there, not saying a word but clearly looking on. Ninay has been her best friend, but that was then and now they are no longer even talking.

Ninay asks where they expect her to go? Krissell tells her in very simple Tagalog. She will be going back to the Philippines as she is still a minor and Krissell is her guardian. Ninay gets real quiet. Now for the first time in long time the reality of how lucky she is begins to sink in to her head. For over two years she has lived in the US without fear, without need and with a very comfortable life. She has come to expect it as her right. Ann and Krissell have just made it abundantly clear that she has no 'right' to it and she is damned close to losing all of it. She is about to argue that they have no right, but she knows Krissell at least does have a right to send her back. And even if she can stay in the US, the College education she is enjoying, her car, all will come to an end as will the connection to her only family in the world. Just as Pan has learned that cutting ties can be a very painful experience, so at this moment Ninay comes face to face with the consequences of her behaviors. She apologizes for causing an upset at the table and asks for permission to leave the table. I grant that and Ninay removes herself to another room.

I do not see Ninay until the next day and the change in Ninay from that moment on is complete. There are no more tantrums, no more 'me' stuff. The supper table returns to being a pleasant place. After a month of difficult behaviors, she settles down and finds a new normal.

But I do have a few problems. The first is the house. The house is now already too small for the people in it and how the house is being used. I have put it off way too long as is. Ganda has been tolerant, however as soon as I say something about it, she jumps on it as if our lives depended on it.

I work with a local engineer to build a house that has ten bedrooms. There are six of us now and two more coming.

Up to now most of the women have been on birth control (with the exception of Ganda) but there is talk of that ending and I am fertile. I have to consider that we may need nurseries and rooms for kids. Ganda, Krissell and I always sleep together. Ninay and Pan were sleeping together again. Ann needed her own room. We would be adding Jojie and Venus at some point. I wanted to give Ganda a place to lay when she wasn't feeling well. That was six bedrooms, without any kids or a guest room. Within months we find land on which to build and the place is up within twelve months. The first floor is living room, kitchen, dining room, CR and office. The basement is laundry, utility, family/play room, network server room and CR. The second floor is six bedrooms and two big CR's. The third floor has three slightly smaller bedrooms and a shared large CR, and a master bedroom with its own CR and deck. There is an elevator for me for when I need it later in life.

We are in the home only eight months before Jojie and her 'daughter' Venus arrive. If anyone cares, that is seven women, each of whom I am fucking, and me. I am sixty-two at the time. With the diet I have been on for the last four years I have lost 65 pounds and now weigh 155. A whole lot better than the 220 that I weighed when I met Ganda.

The first month all seven women are in the house I just about lost it, there are so many hurt feelings and demands on my time. Ganda puts an end to the problems by instituting some regularity on who can see me when. I have nothing to do with this and am happy to stay distant from the process of the calendar.

From then on I am just fine as the pressure disappears. Ninay is nineteen. The only problem now is that we have two fourteen year old girls who need a regular screwing or they become unstuck from their moorings. And that is only a problem if it is known outside the family. It is the only thing that keeps me up at night with concern. I will be sixty-six before I can really relax.

It is fun watching hopeful boy after hopeful boy take our two little girls out to a dance only to get nowhere and bring them home earlier than they had hoped. Even Prom worked that way. The girls like to dance and go to a party, but then they need to get home. I would have been happy to see them leave, but they are having none of that.

Other then the happy arrival of babies from Jojie, Ann and Ninay, a boy and two girls, there is little that changed until about the time I turned sixty-six and Venus turned eighteen. The infants are named Abraham Moses, Bella Charlotte and Rose Leah. It turns out that neither Ganda nor Krissell can have children. (Ganda because of a medical procedure she had after Muriel was born and Krissell because her plumbing is just screwed up.) Jojie, Ann and Ninay have no problems and prove it. The little ones we keep on birth control.