Siren of Julio Santayana: A Dark Revenge Romance ENGLISH

Chapter 2

It was Siren’s everyday ritual to go to the outback of the overpopulated houses and the mountain streams. There are tall mountains behind the area and that’s where these streams came from, then directly flowing to the river and the sea.

It was the one that helped with the irrigation from the vacant lot and the one closer to the main road. People used to wash clothes in the streams, but there was one time when a crocodile suddenly showed up. It was astray; the folks said. As to how and why no one could tell. But since then, the people rarely went there. Even the rivers were often empty from the locals who usually spent their afternoon swimming there. Now it’s only used as the shortest passage of the farmers coming from and to the fields.

Sometimes the enormous stones beside the river are used as a hang-out place by some, but it was a rare sight now. The place has become a little more private compared to when it was crowded before.

There’s an old abandoned cottage. There were ten of them before, but were soon neglected since no one was using them. Well, who would take care of anything if it’s not of use to them? They let the heavy rain destroy it and the strong wind takes it down the river and away. The only one left was the one by the hillside. Tall grasses grew on the floor. It collapsed once, but youth boys helped fix it together when they learned Siren is using it as her resting place.

She’s not afraid of the snakes or any animals that might appear. Unlike the other girls who tried mimicking her when they found out, she started owning the place. Siren only wished for a place to rest and nap. Somewhere cool and peaceful. But the girls who tried were so loud they disturbed the frogs and other insects nearby. One of them even has a bird poop over her head.

They ran screaming, throwing glares in Siren's way, who was watching them from a distance, disappointed because she thought she wouldn’t be able to use the cottage again. Since then, no one dared to take up her place again. Except for the group of men who spied on her every time she visited the stream.

She knew they were around while she took a nap, or when she sat on the stones at the stream and took a quick bath. But no one would dare take advantage of her. Not only do they know how Siren can make a fight, but they are stupidly scared of Franco. Again, he’s a sense of protection for her.

There’s an eatery outside where she eats, Anita's eatery, owned by a live-in partner. There’s not a day she doesn't hear the ear-piercing ram and crash of the cooking pots and plates while she eats. She won’t be surprised if the woman, Anita, throws the knife she is holding at her. But instead, she turned her annoyance to his partner by ordering him to get inside the house.

She never voiced her concerns to Siren. She paid enough for the food and the service. She doesn’t want to assume they are fighting because of her. She only wanted a place to eat since she’s certain there’s no food in the house. And she has to admit the food is delicious for the price. All the meals were sold before the evening when Siren became their customer.

She’s wondering why the jealous woman never tried to put poison on her food.

She went to the house to prepare for her work. It’s already around four. The sun’s still up and bright and no matter how much she wants to stay in the stream, she has to work her ass off. She doesn’t want to stay in the house when it turns six or seven. That’s also the time Franco usually comes home to prepare for his own adventure. Sometimes he’s already brought the adventure home.

They don’t often see each other despite how small the rented house is. She would only leave the money on the table and leave. Be back in the morning to see the limp and wasted Franco on the floor. Sometimes alone. Most of the time not. Or even his shadow is not around the house.

She has heavy make-up on. The small red dress in bright sequins felt like a second body on her skin. It was so tight that she almost couldn't breathe. But what can she do? She has no money to buy her size. And her line of job demands this kind of clothing. She hides the dress with the black shirt she wears atop it.

She put the pink footwear on. She hates pink. But Franco kept on telling everyone she likes it so everyone assumed it. Everyone who gives a gift gives it in all the same color. She never wanted to accept anything, but Franco believed it was ill-manner to refuse blessings.

She strode to the street with her head held high. People flocked at this time the sun’s starting to set. Shouting here and there. Wives throw random things. Before their husbands could look away, they already had a bruise on their faces. Or maybe it was from yesterday or the other day. The glares and awes are creating holes behind her, but it never hurts. She wondered why.

Her thick long and still damp hair is in a high bun behind her. It’s better or less, the smell of the smoke from the neighbor selling barbeques will get to her hair. That’s why she likes to put a shirt over her uniform. Because of the unpleasant smell of her surroundings, she might not be able to earn money for the night. She wrinkled her nose at the smell of sweat, pees, cigarettes, and perhaps the saliva coming out from the people who kept talking behind her.

Siren’s not being picky or pretending rich, she just valued the money for that night.

“Hey, girl! They are accusing you again,” a proud gay stopped her. She doesn’t remember the name, but her colorful face is familiar. She wondered if she looked like a clown to them, too. They always see each other in the street and among the people around, this is one of the faces she never forgets. Why, their family owns the apartment!

“Really?” was all she said before accepting the list she handed to her. She smiled at her and continued walking. Siren fisted the small paper around her hand after reading the total computation at the end of the long list. A debt list of Franco, five-six from the Bombay, the rent in the house, water, and electricity.

She sighed and quickened her pace. There’s no need to take a vehicle because, outside the district, about a few more steps and some blocks line up the cheap clubhouses. If she walked the distance from their house up to there with her high heels on, it would feel like she took the path to hell.

She shrugged at the sneers she was receiving while entering the clubhouse. It’s too early for the patrons, but the clubhouse is as good as full, which in fact is not surprising because it’s an everyday scene in the club. Later, before a complete evening, they’ll be gone and decreased by halves. After the van took off.

“Is everyone here?” Miss Katty asked as she looked around. Her eyes landed on a particular beauty. Her eyes twinkled in recognition. No one doesn’t needs a word for them to know her special treatment towards Siren. Favoritism at its finest. She honestly doesn’t give much care to her other lovely ladies, but she won’t tell them.

The girl can literally start her clubhouse and be a millionaire with that alluring beauty. But even a small business needs money to operate. And Siren will never have it. Franco was Miss Katty’s ex-flings, and she knows how he spends money. They treat them like salts when he has them around his hands, and grains once they’re nowhere near his pocket. He’s willing to spend even the last penny of Siren like he owns it.

Miss Katty owned one of the clubhouses lined on the Walk Street. She has a good body at the age of forty-five. Her straight hair was a fake blonde. She has a tight dress that perfectly fits her frame and highlights her natural curves. The only thing that distinguished her from her employees was her black choker. She has a collection of every design as long as it’s black. The patrons or the other owners of the nearby clubhouses know who she is. In that part of the city, especially at the heart of the clubhouses. Whoever daring lady you see with the black choker is none other than Miss Katty.

If you want to hear profanities from her, and experience how rude her tongue can get, you can try wearing a choker in front of her. But just a reminder that you’ll be out of her sight, but she’s not done talking ill about you. Even if you don’t know each other. She’ll make up stories to make her shrilling barks more interesting. You’re lucky if she stopped within a week because it usually lasted for an entire month. That is, if you’d be gone from her sight, or she would never stop yelling profanities with your name.

She wasn’t like that before. Her club was silent then. Twenty customers were already enough in a night. But everything turned into a drastic change when she met Siren. She felt that she owned the place. In fact, she literally owned the clubhouse and the surrounding spaces. The whole area as well as the lot where the other clubhouses stood. It was only after a year since Siren started working for her.

She and Franco were casual with their relationship. He was a regular to her club and had it not been for him, she would never have met her lucky charm. Now he barely sees Franco inside her club. Siren requested not to let him inside while she was working. She agreed and didn’t care if they argued about it at home. Franco has no says in it anyway since there are lots of clubhouses around.

“What happened here, dear?”

She was instantly hysterical to see a scratch on Siren’s right knee while she was taking her huge shirt off. It was red and new. The vixen shrugged her shoulders and said nothing. Miss Katty gasped at her indifference with the scratch that is too obvious to her perfect legs.

“Damn, Franco! He knows how… what kind of investment your skin and body are in this business! Every inch of you! He’s stupidly reckless!”

Siren remained silent. She retouched her makeup and fixed her dress. She also put her heels on. During her first day working, she prepared and put makeup on in the clubhouse. She’s not comfortable walking outside the district, especially because the people know where women like her work. Colorful make-up in that area is either prostitutes, waitresses, or crackheads. But despite being private in her line of job, people still throw judgments on her. Claiming that all the girls working in the clubhouse are prostitutes but pretending to be a waitress.

She got tired and simply showed everyone where she was working without being shy about it.

And also, she received several complaints from her co-workers because she needs more time to prepare. To think it was her first time with all the cosmetics. Miss Katty sometimes helped her but there were times she needed something urgent, too.

She knows how nothing they are to Miss Katty’s eyes since she entered the club. But she doesn’t want to rub that to their faces. They are all here to earn money. To get a drop of coins from the rich. She doesn’t understand why they’re all mad at her when they’re all the same in society. All the money they earned went from their hand to their mouth and gone in an instant.

“Let’s go!” Miss Katty announced and made a quick fix with Siren’s hair before her insecure girls saw her taking care of Siren again. “Never with the attitude, okay?”

“Yeah!” they all said in unison. Siren pressed her lips together and just followed everyone out without opening her lips.

Every night there are ten girls from Angle’s Night Lab that are brought to the Playhouse, one of the gentlemen’s clubs in Makati. The owner, Kendra, is Miss Katty’s friend and business partner. The ten girls are thoroughly chosen since it’s a rich men’s club.

The girls must be ‘clean and pretty’. No scars on the skin. Everything must be natural from head to toe. Even the color of the hair. And the most important is education. Must be at least high school graduates. According to Miss Katty, it’s easy to teach a class to educated people, who at least pretend they're thoroughly educated.

The girls must be good if not fluent in English because there is a sea of foreigners in the rich men’s club.

Siren was fortunate enough to finish high school before Jocelle died. But her days in school were nightmares. They were still sleeping in the streets then and they used public comfort rooms in the markets, where you need a thick handkerchief to cover your nose. The stench was so strong it would leave you in tears.

Sometimes Siren used the shower room in the activity center of the school that was only made for the athletes. It was fine for her PE instructor. The facility is more secure for Siren’s safety.

Siren is naturally close to boys. They all like to be friends with her, unlike most girls. They are like a magnet to her, ready to succumb to all her whims. And with it are the sneers and judgments. Mostly from girls.

They made her life a living hell. They would visit the street where they lived and make a good laugh at her poverty. She learned to be tough. She only gets hurt by the hurtful words because of her mother Jocelle but Siren never did once let her see she’s affected.

Her silence annoyed them, and when she learned to fight back, they despised her. But she doesn’t care. She just has to let the people see she can fight, too, and soon, they will get tired of it.

Because honestly, they are nothing compared to Siren.

Miss Katty enrolled her in the TESDA program to at least finish her college but she failed to finish it. Her homeroom teacher tried to take advantage of her. They claimed she had a failed mark on her report card. But everyone knew that despite living in the street, Siren is a smart child.

What they didn’t know is she purposely failed herself not to get on the top lists. She once got to the top of high school but everyone accused her of getting it in return for whatever favor she did to the handsome teacher that really serves a look in the school.

She went home from school with one of the buttons of her blouse missing. She threw the used notebooks in the trash bin and gave the unused ones to their neighborhood, who often got physically abused by her parents for not being able to give her the notebooks she needed. That girl usually went to school without money, too. Siren gave the ballpens and the bag she doesn’t know where Franco got for begging.

“What are you doing?” Franco was instantly fuming mad seeing her in the act of giving all her school stuff. She snatched it back from the girl who was in her high school years. Siren turned around and went inside the house. Franco followed her with her bag. He picked up the discarded notebooks from the trash.

“I will stop studying now,” she declared.

“What?” He threw the bag on the old long wooden chair. No cushion and a struggle to sleep on. “Katty said you need to study for her to hire you! Where do you find a job that will wait for you? Don’t be arrogant, Eli!”

Her shoulders fell. She’s utterly irritated and frustrated by what happened to her school. She clenched her hands on her sides as she remembered it. “I don’t want to go to school.” Before Franco could hurt her, she stepped away from him and continued, “our teacher tried to take advantage of me! He invited me to the office and then, he dragged me and framed me against the wall!”

“Eh, why?”

Eli stared at him in disbelief.

He shrugged. “Well, Katty won’t accept you if a worthless motherfucker molests you,” he murmured to himself, not because he cared for Eli, but because it might ruin his investment to earn more through her. “Your school teacher is a worthless fvcker! Where is he now? Still at school?”

“I don’t know. I ran when I had the chance. I kind of hurt the guard because he doesn’t want to let me out. I was so scared to even tell him what’s going on to me.” She rolled her eyes and hugged herself. “Let’s just wait for the barangay to call me.”

“You didn’t steal, why the barangay? He’s better off dead!”

The barangay came the next day, but not for her but Franco. Siren has no idea he already made a move and nearly killed her homeroom teacher. Miss Katty was with the barangay councils who told them not to take Eli because it would traumatize the kid.

But Eli knows it’s because she doesn’t want her to have a bad record on the barangay again. She cleared the lists of her name for pickpocketing. She said it’s for once she starts working at her club. If it’s time for her to be brought to the Playhouse in Makati, she will be needing a good record to get the job.

Up until now, she’s the one who fixed everything every time Siren did what she’s been used to doing since Franco became her guardian. Sometimes, the mess she didn’t mean to create for herself.

“You have a wound?” the lady next to her in the van, asked. Marinel’s her name if she remembers correctly. A little shorter compared to Siren’s five-point-eight. Straight black hair and all the Asian beauty with the skin. Her tone was full of sympathy but when you look closer into her eyes, you’ll see the hidden mock. Siren didn’t look up to see it. She knew it before she saw it. She pretended to be innocent of the woman’s judgment.

“It’s small,” she answered and the two other women from the middle seat turned to them. They glared at her as if it were a curse to speak without a proper accent. They have to be working on it once they’re inside the van and on the way to Makati.

They waited for Miss Katty’s reaction on the passenger’s seat, but she pretended to be busy with her phone. She heard everything but also knew these girls were only jealous. They hated the poor girl but couldn't keep their eyes off her. Miss Katty wishes for them to learn to close their eyes so as not to hurt their ego. Instead, they’re always watching her and waiting for her to make a minor mistake.

They continued to wait for Miss Katty’s strict reaction but didn’t come. They exaggeratedly sighed and turned to the road again. Marinel turned to the other girl on her left but no one said anything.

To the ten of the girls scheduled to go to Makati, these five are at least little war freaks and have much self-control. Before, Miss Katty and Siren used different vehicles to drive to Makati because there was not a night where the other girls didn't complain as simply as anything. There even had a fight that left Siren with several scratches from the girls. Miss Katty nearly fainted seeing her bloodied arm. If only these girls knew how much she invested in Siren.

For now these girls, though insecure about Siren, still have control. Also, Miss Katty is with them, who wouldn’t second think of firing any of them once they made a scene in front of her.

They finally reached the bright, colorful street in Makati. There are foreigners inside and outside the area. The mere lights looked expensive. The mixture of perfumes was nothing Siren can smell in their neighborhood, with nothing but cheap colognes, and sweats of the random hard work of the poor.

Compared to the Angel’s Night Lab, here, there’s surely a huge income. Every time she goes there, she feels like she’s being shoved into the town of gold. Unlike their district, with a penny in exchange for hard labor for a whole day. She thinks their district is the poorest place on Earth. What goes to the hand, goes to the mouth, and is gone. Repeat the process of another fateful living.

Miss Katty, together with the driver and the van will have to leave and go back to their place, leaving the ten girls to work and earn on their own.

Siren greeted Kendra and immediately went inside the kitchen to get a drink of cold water, and to prepare as well. Kendra will leave soon now that they’re here.

Kendra is a really rich handsome bisexual man with a body and foreign features to die for. He was so manly when Siren first met him. Until now he has a really strong built body. But at night, when his business is at its peak, he’s also at his peak being busy in the bar a few blocks away that is said to have many hot men as regular customers. Siren has never been there so all are just rumors to her.

“Always gorgeous,” Aiden, the cook in the Playhouse, greeted her. The bartender, Maureen, also smiled at her. They have been together for years and have a live-in partner. Maureen treats her well, unlike the other workers here, though she’s a little snob, too. Siren guesses because she already has Aiden and there’s no need for her to flirt with the other customers like the rest. That’s one of the reasons why she’s not insecure with Siren. She’s completely committed, and Aiden is utterly into her.

So, as much as possible, she kept enough distance from Aiden. People tend to think ill of how she gets along with men. She doesn’t want Maureen to think badly of her friendship with Aiden. She's being careful because she doesn’t have to tell everyone how she treasures how this couple is treating her.

She sees everyone who doesn’t talk ill about her as friends. It’s not every day that you meet someone who doesn’t give you a disgusting glare as if you’re the reason their lives are miserable. People like that are rare so she treasured them. If this world is full of problems, she wondered why people have time to envy anyone, who in fact, has a more miserable life than them.

She couldn’t help but ask. Are they jealous because she has nothing? Because she’s no one? Or is it their way of diverting their attention off of their misery, instead of just working their ass off to get out of the bad situation?

She doesn't think she would be able to get the answer.