One thing that never fails to amaze me about this backpacking trip is the amount of middle-aged men who expect me to sleep with them. Please notice the phrasing. Not "hope for", not "wish". "Expect". As if it simply fails to occur to them I might object.
I'm at the end of my allocated backpacking budget. I've decided that instead of spending my last dollars on scuba diving, volcano climbing, and whatnot, I'd spend it on a week's stay at the beach. Quite literally, that is where my room is located - on the beach. Five feet from the water. I have a view of the ocean on three sides. I've been doing nothing but lounging around on various hammocks, reading books and filling out crosswords.
As you'd expect after being somewhere for a week, I've gotten on casual speaking terms with the staff - and even the owner. It turns out he owns another resort a few kilometers away, known as The Tree House for the very simple reason that the main cottage in his resort is, yes, built on a tree. The other day, as we were exchanging the usual "Hey, whats up?", he told me he was heading to The Tree House. "You can come along if you have nothing better to do," he added casually.
Side note: Being invited along at random is actually quite common on this trip. Filipinos, far more than Westerners, are shocked at the idea of traveling on your own. I've lost track of the amount of times I've been asked the following questions (in order) "Where's your companion?", "Don't you have a boyfriend?", "Aren't you lonely?", and my absolute favorite, "Your mom LETS you travel alone?!?!". To them, traveling is a group event. Doing it solo is incomprehensible and exceedingly dull.
Even Westerners don't fully get it, either. I'm constantly asked if I wish to join in on even the smallest activities - a walk to the store, a jaunt to the internet cafe. The scuba dive shop I used in Boracay would even ask if I wanted to tag along to various resorts which they had to pick customers up from. "If you have nothing better to do," they'd add.
In this case, the entire point of spending a week on a beach IS to have nothing better to do. I hopped along. He immediately showed me the famed Tree House, told me to relax, and left. Half an hour later, he checked on me, curled up in my book. "Hey, do you want to spend two nights here?", he asked, "No charge. The place is under renovation, but it's going to open soon. I just want someone to spread the word about the resort to other areas."
Secluded, gorgeous, and free? Sure, I'll take it.
I won't bother you with details about the rest of the day. Short version is I popped in and out of town. When I was in the room, someone would occasionally invite me along to whatever they were doing - like eating lunch. A little after sunset, the owner knocked on the door again. "Let's sit on the veranda and enjoy the twilight." In his hands were rum and coke. It seemed impolite to decline.
We sat there for about an hour. Luckily, he seemed content with sitting in silence, as my thoughts were racing ahead, forming a million ideas of things to do about the future. Unluckily, he seemed to occasionally want skin-to-skin contact. The first two times he gently put his hand on my knee, my legs skittered away. Nothing subtle about it. If the bench we were sitting on were a globe, he'd be in America and my legs would be in China. I told him how much I deplored being touched when he asked if I had a Japanese massage when I was in Japan. The third time his hand aimed towards my knee, I managed to catch it mid-air - an impressive thing to do in the ink-black night - and place it back on his lap. Soon, I did what every girl throughout the ages has done when not wanting to deal with roaming hands any longer - I suddenly became extremely exhausted. "Sure, sure, no problem," he said when I explained my sleepiness, "You go to bed. Let's bring these things back to your room." He grabbed the coke and told me to get the rum.
As he walked in to place the coke on the table, he closed and locked the door.
Um, EXCUSE me! I certainly hope that's to keep the mosquitoes out during your three seconds in this room.
Before I could comment, he stripped off his shirt. "So, do you want the left side or the right?"
Hope - a thing that crashes and burns. "I. Want. to Sleep. Alone."
"Oh, don't worry, no expectations," he assured me loftly, "I only want sleep. So, left or right?"
No expectations? Cool. You can sleep in this bed with no expectations or hopes. I'll sleep in a different bed - in a different room - with no fears or worries. Deal?
The next few minutes involved him explaining there were no other empty rooms in the newly renovated resort and me explaining that I'm perfectly willing to sleep outside. I replaced non-verbalized phrases of "You dirty rotten scumbag" with subtler "Sorry, I guess I didn't understand". A few replacement phrases later, he came upon a new, revolutionary idea. "So, I guess I should go to my room?" He headed for the door. Life lesson #418: Problems are solved much more efficiently with polite yet insistent confusion than with anger.
When his hand got on the knob, he stopped and turned around. He would've craddled my head with both hands if I hadn't jerked my head back, looking like one of those solar-powered head bobbers in the midst of a nuclear explosion. He stared beseechingly into my eyes. "Are you sure you won't regret this?", he implored.
Hmmm.... let me think. Am I going to wake up in the middle of the night, longing for the middle-aged body of a stranger "with no expectations" next to me? "I'm sure", I confirmed.
In the morning, a messenger was sent to me. Overnight, the empty renovating resort became overbooked. They no longer had space for me.
Two days later, when he returned my eyeglasses, he asked if I had time to receive a Japanese massage.
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