Mountain Man Lovin'--Gay M/M Interracial White/Asian Erotica from Steam Books

by Bernadette Russo

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  MOUNTAIN

  MAN LOVIN'

  Bernadette Russo

  Copyright © 2013 Steam Books Erotica & Romance

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author or publisher except for the use of brief quotations in critical articles or reviews.

  Baguio is a very beautiful city nestled among the Cordillera mountain ranges of the Philippine island of Luzon. If the city’s central district looks like San Francisco, I assure you: it was no accident.

  Daniel Burnham, the architect and urban planner for San Francisco and Chicago, built this city. Considering Baguio’s mountainous terrain, he patterned this one after the former.

  Back when the Americans ruled these islands, it served as the government’s summer capital beginning in 1903. Can you imagine it?

  Thousands of government people and their families would come up here and administer the seven thousand plus islands when the heat below became too much.

  To get here, they would mostly pass through Kennon Road, another engineering miracle the Americans had wrought. Though considered the biggest, most challenging, and most expensive project in its day, it was finished in only two years under the direction of Colonel Lyman Kennon of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. It is not the only road leading to the country’s summer capital, mind you, but it is the most magnificent.

  The Americans wanted to show the benefits of their rule in this part of the world, as well as the massive engineering feats they were capable of. They wanted to prove that they were better than the British, the Spanish, the Dutch, and the Portuguese, who had been at the colonial game in these here parts long before their land-of-the-free even came into being. A pre-cursor of the Cold War with the Soviet Union, I suppose, but with more nations involved.

  Kennon is a spectacular road that snakes up the mountains with breathtaking scenery on all sides. I have been told that the view has not changed much since the Americans first completed it: with tiny villages clinging to the mountain sides, waterfalls bursting forth here and there, and pineapple farmers dangling from ropes on vertical cliff faces (whom I at first took to be mountain climbers when I first saw them).

  In 1913, however, President Woodrow Wilson appointed Francis Burton Harrison to be the new Governor-General of the Philippines, and when he saw how much was being spent annually to transfer and house everyone up here each and every year, he had a heart attack (I imagine, I really don’t know). As such, he put a stop to the practice.

  Still, much of what the Americans built remains, and it is very beautiful! Almost everything here is very different from the low-lands. Unlike the heat, dust, pollution, and general drabness of Manila below, Baguio is very green, very clean, and very colorful. The latter comes from all the flowers that grow throughout the year, over which the local populace are all so crazy about with good reason.

  It is also a very rich city, as the mines about produce some of the highest quality silver in the world, though most goes for export.

  I got here two hours past lunch on my own, having taken a bus through Kennon Road instead of a plane into Loakan Airport as the tourist brochures advised. I was glad I did.

  I booked myself at a lovely hostel a few minutes’ walk away from the heart of the city, though truth be told, the borders between what constitutes the city and what makes up the suburbs, is hard to define. This is partly due to the way the former has been expanding, the way the latter has been growing, and the way the whole set up is not just about a horizontal sprawl, but a vertical one, as well.

  Again, so very like San Francisco, but on a far smaller scale. A lot cheaper, too.

  I came here to buy some local handicraft items for my modest store back in London. With Middle Eastern, African, Indian, and Oriental establishments everywhere there, I thought about doing something different. It’s how you survive in this day and age, you know?

  The people here are Igorots, an Austronesian group who are genetically different from their Malay-Polynesian cousins who dominate the lowlands below. That’s the name the latter give them, anyway. They prefer to call themselves the Ifugao, and their culture is very different from the rest of the islands.

  Unlike those below, these people resisted Hindu, Chinese, Islamic, and Spanish influences till the arrival of the Americans and later, the Japanese during World War II. They could not possibly have resisted the superior weaponry of the last two.

  The first time I saw an exhibit on Igorot handicrafts, I knew I had to have them. They were so unlike anything being sold in London that I immediately thought: bingo!

  I don’t sell tourist crap, mind you. I like to combine my two loves: working for myself and travelling. So that’s what I do. I travel; buy what catches my fancy in the hopes that it’ll appeal to others so they’ll dig into their pockets for it; and keep or give away the rest as gifts. So here I am in Baguio: a tourist on the look-out for stuff I hope will sell back home.

  If I get it right, I’ll recover the cost of the trip, and still be able to pay the bills back home, see? If I get it wrong, I’ll at least get to see some place I’ve never been in before. Fortunately, I rarely get it wrong. The stuff I get all sells eventually. At the very worst, it takes a while, but no worries: I’ve never suffered a major loss before.

  As I walked down the city’s center, a place called Session Road, I couldn’t help but ogle the eye-candy all about me. Although there were many people from the low-lands who’ve made this place their home, the dominant population was still made up of the Ifugao peoples who’ve called this place home for thousands of years, if not longer.

  Malay-Polynesians are generally rounder of face with flatter noses, though since this country has been trading with the Indians, the Chinese, and the Arabs for thousands of years prior to the arrival of the first Europeans, the mixture of races is quite apparent in many of the local features.

  The Ifugao, however, generally have sharper features and more prominent noses, looking more Amerindian than their generally flatter-nosed, rounder-faced cousins below. A number look positively hawkish, in fact, especially the older ones, and a part of me can’t help but imagine them with feathers in their hair (stupid though that admittedly sounds).

  From what I’ve seen of the tourist picture brochures, however, as well as some of the tribals who strut about in their G-strings so tourists can cop a picture with them for a price, feathers are indeed a part of what the men wear on their heads. Then again, the latter could just be a show for the tourists who expect it.

  My tourist booklet recommended that I start out at Maharlika, one of the city’s oldest buildings, as well as its oldest shopping center. The people at my hostel agreed that it was a good place to begin my shopping spree, but cautioned me against buying anything, as anything found there could be found cheaper elsewhere.

  Maharlika lies at the bottom of Session Road and had clearly seen better days. Regardless, it apparently does sell everything made in these mountains: from hand-woven shawls to life-sized wooden statues, as well as fantastic jewelry of silver, gold, and turquoise. I even saw wallets made out of frogs (not wallets made to look like frogs, but actual frogs that were turned into wallets, see?), preserved monkey skull heads, and elaborately carved… I don’t know how to d
escribe them, but they turned out to be the spines of some creature I knew not what, but was too scared to ask. Lovely.

  Then again, they might appeal to the witches, druids, and other neo-pagans back home. Who am I to judge other people’s tastes?

  I was surprised at the level of English spoken by even the tribal peoples who rented stalls here, and it was explained to me that because of the American military presence till the late 1990s, English is more widely spoken here than even in the lowlands. Both the Voice of America radio station and the U.S. military television channel still operate here, after all.

  As such, even the accents I heard were distinctly tainted with what the Americans would call a mid-western drawl. Amazing. As such, more U.S.-based call centers were doing business up here.

  It was while wandering around the cramped, stuffy-smelling building, ogling the exotic merchandise, that I saw him. Taller than I, which was unusual in itself, for while I’m not tall back in England, I qualify as such here.

  But yeah, this guy was tall. And gorgeous. How gorgeous? I had a heart-attack the minute I laid my poor myopic eyes on him. I at first took him to be a Latino, a thickly-built one at that, with dark, straight hair, dressed in a dark brown leather jacket and tighty-tight blue jeans that were sheathed in brown leather boots.

  I had just left the store which sold the frog wallets and monkey skulls (all the while thinking “bubble, bubble, boil and bubble” to myself in glee) when he passed me.

  And I just stopped, my jaw no doubt hitting the floor beside my feet.

  In a city full of eye candies, this one was so good he gave me a coronary just by the sight of him. His eyes briefly met mine, which gave me a glimpse of his sharp features, hawk-like and forbidding, almost as if he was pissed off at something. He had light-brown eyes surrounded by long dark lashes, and his lips were full and pouty, as if he had just been roughly kissed.

  His eyebrows were thick, rising slightly at the edges, and considering the weird stuff around me, the first thing that came to mind was a Vulcan. Traveling outside the boring confines of England, I sometimes entertain strange thoughts. The farther away from Britannia, the fancier my thinking. Which is why I love to travel, I guess.

  So I stood there, thinking that if I don’t at least get this man’s name, I’ll die. Whither away. Unfortunately, I couldn’t move from my spot. And he just kept on walking, moving with athletic grace through the humans (merely being) about him as if he were some type of deadly royalty.

  As I lost sight of him, I managed to shake myself out of my stupor (oh how dramatic), and went on my not-so-merry way, feeling dejected for some reason. Crap, I know the reason: guys like that never go for guys like me.

  I get why people fall for those Nigerian love scams. They say you should never fall for someone if you can’t see the whites of their eyes over a drink. Trouble is, no one ever buys me a drink. Oh well.

  Speaking of drink, a woman at my hostel recommended a vegetarian restaurant which also serves as an art gallery higher up along Session Road, so I decided to have an early dinner there. Darkness was beginning to fall, and I was getting hungry, after all.

  As I got closer to the top, however, I noticed a white, canvas-covered building at the top of the hill, and when I asked a passerby about it, was told that it was a mall. The city’s only one, in fact. Curious, I continued on past the restaurant and made my way up the cone-shaped hill to it, and was stunned to discover that it had no roof or outer walls. It was almost completely covered in canvas material.

  This mall is located at one of the highest points of the city, and has breath-taking 360° views of the surrounding areas. Feeling somewhat guilty, I settled for a resto-bar called Gerry’s Grill, not because I’m not an adventurous person (for I’d like to think that I am), but because it had a balcony section overlooking the city proper.

  Though early evening, there was already a Friday night crowd, and the place was packed. Fortunately, there was a two-seater available, and I was led to it. Equally fortunate, it was located by the balcony’s edge, and I was mesmerized by the darkening day and the brightening city lights.

  I was still scanning the menu wondering what to order, when my faith in god was suddenly renewed.

  “Excuse me,” asked a deep and husky voice above me. “Could I sit here with you?”

  Looking up, I saw that it was his majesty, mister tall and gorgeous from Maharlika! Seeing that he had my attention, he swept his arm around us to wordlessly explain his request.

  “Oh! Emm. Well… uh…” I began with my typical erudition, panicking and wondering what to say, unable to believe my luck, pissed off at myself for being so flabbergasted. I mean what are the chances, hey?

  I was trying very hard to come up with a coherent sentence, but his piercing eyes were looking directly into mine, and he was so close I could actually smell him: a clean, but slightly musky man-smell mixed with leather.

  As he bent his head down to continue looking at me, some of his hair fell across his forehead, and I was fascinated by the way the light behind him created a halo around his head.

  “I’m Jason,” he continued, holding out his hand to me. He smiled, making him look a lot less forbidding, less angry, more beautiful, and I melted further.

  “Sean,” I replied, grabbing his hand and not wanting to let go. I did, however, and waved my hand toward the other seat, squirming at the nearness of him.

  Scarcely had his butt touched the seat than I was already making marriage plans, wondering what his body must look like beneath that jacket and tight pants of his. In my mind, I was a character in a gay version of Mills & Boon, hoping and praying ours would turn out to be a happily ever after situation.

  Though born here, he held British citizenship apparently, but sounded somewhat American. Self-employed (like me!), he works as a silver merchant who travels back and forth, buying (here) and selling (there) the precious metal. A charmer, he got me relaxed enough, and before long, we were chatting up a storm.

  Looking at him more closely, I couldn’t make up my mind if I found him gorgeous or intimidating. His face was so incredibly chiseled, as if someone had carved it out of wood with a stone ax. Only his full lips, slanted eye-lids, and hair softened his features. When not smiling, he looked angry, but he was very quick to laugh and smile, and I was flattered that he seemed to enjoy our conversation.

  This close to him, he turned out to be much bigger than I had at first assumed, towering over me even when seated. And judging by the form fitting shirt beneath his jacket, Jason pumped iron. Couldn’t help wondering what else he pumped.

  Turns out we were about the same age, as I had just turned 30 and he was about to turn 32. We were not neighbors, however, as I live in London, while he was based in Birmingham, which makes him a Brummie.

  Throughout the conversation and dinner, his legs would sometimes stretch forth and touch my calves (through my pants) and feet (through my shoes), sending thrills through me. Never one to presume, I assumed they were accidents, but neither have I been one to pass up any opportunity. I kept my feet glued to the spot, giving him every opportunity to brush up against them.

  Nothing in his outward demeanor changed, however, and he made it quite clear that these brushes were accidents by moving his legs away. Oh well.

  I wasn’t sure if it was his ability to make me relax, the alcohol, the exotic surroundings, or all of the above, but by desert, I was the one stretching my legs forward till they touched his. When he didn’t withdraw, I took it as a good sign.

  Unfortunately, I started to yawn. Damn it! Jet lag can be such a bitch, eh?

  The perfect gentleman, he insisted on driving me back to my hostel, which turned out to be mere minutes away. As usual, I ended up sleeping alone, though we did manage to exchange calling cards before he left. How romantic.

  You can imagine my surprise, therefore, when I received a phone call from him the next morning, shortly after my breakfast, inviting me to have lunch with him later that day. Like I’d
refuse?

  I decided to do the touristy thing till then, so I joined a guided tour bus service and actually managed to forget about him till just before lunch. I went into the vegetarian restaurant cum art gallery that I was supposed to have had dinner at last night, and felt a thrill when I saw him already there at a small table on the balcony overlooking the street.

  He was wearing black trousers this time, topped by a blue shirt, though he still had on the leather jacket and boots he wore when we first met. His profile was to me as he looked away at something, and I couldn’t help but notice that a number of the other patrons (of both genders) were stealing glances at him.

  I felt an irrational mixture of smugness that it was I and not any of them who had a date with him, as well as a sense of possessiveness for daring to look at “my” man. Pathetic, I know.

  He turned my way as I got closer to him, and shot me such a beautiful smile I wanted to kiss him right there and then… and everyone else around us be damned! When this was over, he’d go back to Birmingham and I to London, but I intended to enjoy myself as best I could while I could. It had been a while, after all.

  We were still ordering when his right foot met the instep of my left one beneath our small table once more. Feeling bold and keeping my face bland, I hooked his foot and pulled it closer to me, pinning it in place with my right foot, so his leg rested in the V of my crossed ankles.

  His expression didn’t change, but neither did he make an effort to pull away. I just might be lucky tonight! I’ll worry about tomorrow later.

  The resto-gallery featured modern art, even the walls were painted with graffiti-like murals, but the tables were covered with nearly floor length fabric.

  By the time our orders were taken, Jason had started to tell me more about his life growing up in this city, leaning forward till our knees almost touched.

  “My entire family led a double life here,” he started, as his foot raised itself along my left calf.