"Dried Leaves"
Pambungad: I don't own Jose Rizal's Noli Me Tangere. Duh. Still, stealing this fanfic will garner you and your conscience t(-_-t) (the finger)
Author's Note: Actually, this was homework assigned to us months ago: "Write a what-if about the early chapters of Noli...in a size 4" This the expanded version :)) *Throaty Evil Laugh*
I seems fate let me pick the part where sir told us to describe Crisostomo Ibarra's life before returning to the Philippines :-?
1884, St. Petersburg State University, Russia
The soon-to-ring 4:00 bell signalled dismissal.
Dismissal signalled relief.
The thought of relief gave Crisostomo Ibarra that now I can take a piss look on his face.
And perhaps get an eyeful of European girls and a hot cup of coffee, his smacking lips added.
Too bad, there were 5 minutes left of stagnant hell.
The droning of the physics professor's voice slurred, making the professor seem more like a friar preaching for the sole purpose of ensuring this his blessed, sticky saliva, would land on the natives below the pulpit, cleansing their souls but dirtying their shirts.
The only difference was, the professor was explaining by example why saliva fell to the ground and why it happened to hit the native churchgoers and not the Spaniards.
Crisostomo, bored with a re-lecture on Gravity and Trajectory, looked around the classroom.
All of a sudden, the teacher's mouth, the second hand on the clock tower, the ant on the floor seemed to slow down as Crisostomo laid his eyes upon one of his female classmates.
She had long hair that primly came to a halt at her eyebrows and extended to her back.
She had cross-racial facial features, part-Asian-European. The best of East and West.
Her almond eyes accented the succulence of her playful lips, tongue licking them.
Worse, her seating position indicated a mood of playfulness, and her pupils were dancing flames.
Even worse, her playfulness was discreetly directed at Ibarra.
He gulped as he realized she looked a lot his childhood sweetheart Maria Clara, though less chaste.
He wiped the sweat on his brow with his handkerchief, puffed his tunic a couple of times, and realized how hot the afternoon was.
----
The butterfly took off to safety, away from the clumsy human child who planned to ice and display it.
The pollen from its wings fell on the boy's face, seemingly bidding So long, sucker as he covered his eyes.
The boy gave up and lost interest as the girl following him laughed from behind.
Instead, he spotted some leaves, gathered them and bragged about his knowledge of them, provided by the Jesuit school he studied in. The girl could only roll her eyes at another Latin lecture blah blah.
He made a crown out of them and declared himself "Ang Nian", the Leaf King to the girl's laughter.
The boy's mother who was following them came up, took the leaves and mashed them, putting them to good use and telling the boy how stupid he looked. The boy's eyes fogged up as the girl laughed harder.
He tongued-out the girl as he ran away, splashing water on her feet. She rolled her eyes again and proceeded to chase after the boy. Meanwhile, his mother kept the mashed leaves in for future use.
"My mom thinks I'm stupid," he wept.
"Get real, even more than me, she is the woman most proud of you."
"More than you? You? A woman? You're a puny girl."
"Now who gets angry faster and who comforts the angry one?" before the boy could retort, the girl proceeded to hug him in a motherly fashion.
"Here," she said, handing leaves of the same type as the ones earlier, "my offering to Ang Nian".
They both laughed.
Later at home, the boy kept the leaves in wax paper to preserve them.
----
A clump of bushes, illuminated solely by lamplight fighting through the mist rumpled along the banks of the Volga River, against the red summer night sky.
Kissing the neck of his classmate, Crisostomo tasted perfume, womanly sweat and foliage.
"Calculate the radius of the elliptical force of this," Crisostomo said as he grinded one of her breasts.
She moaned in ecstasy and slight pain, pain, which was after all the slightest tinge of pleasure.
One hand was ripping his tunic, her other hand fumbled then groped for his bone.
"Watch it, unless you can pay for a new shirt."
"Watch it, unless you want us both to fall into the river."
"That shouldn't make us stop."
Their mouths locked again.
Soon, they were back to the primitive, clothed only by grass and leaves and twigs.
Crisostomo never had a glimpse of his beloved Maria's body; well, now he could clearly visualize it.
Still, despite the intensity, lust still involves the brain, more so than the phallus or cherry.
He had to find alternate ways to get rid of the eager genes lest risk being an unwilling father.
So instead of landing an eel into a cave, he slipped it between the fjord of her breasts.
She pushed the critter and away and instead groped it back to place, away from her body.
His hand fell on his trousers, which was sprawled on the ground; whilst his other was busy on her.
As his hand hit his trouser, he felt a crumpled wax paper next to his wallet.
For once in this moment, he closed his eyes and remembered the tantrum he threw, years ago at the meadow when his mom made him feel stupid as he played with said leaves.
He remembered the hug Maria Clara gave him, the world slowed down again, and all of a sudden, that pure, innocent hug seemed more pleasurable.
The memory of that hug, and Maria Clara's consolation was sweeter than any wild sex he's ever had.
Maria Clara was a jewel compared to mere rubies of women who stole his eel more than his heart.
The woman's moans were getting more muffled, his groans more tired.
And when he came, tears flowed down his face, simultaneously with the beads of semen from his eel on her fjord. "Ooh, someone's a tearjerker," the woman teased.
"Was the pleasure that painful?" she laughed, a laugh unlike Maria's virgin giggle.
She seemed so used to things like this, so unlike Maria, now if she was in this woman's place...Crisostomo could not even fathom doing it with her! Such was the power of love over lust.
"We still have homework you know, regarding kinetic energy," said the woman as she strapped her undergarments on. "Though thanks to you, I know a bit more of the lesson," she winked.
As she walked away, leaving Ibarra in the mist and half-naked, the tears continued to flow.
"I'm sorry, Maria..."
He swore never to give in again.
And guess what, he never even knew his classmate's name.
And he probably never would after this night, even if she told him the next day.