Johnny Christo ran, his old army boots pounding the concrete path along the edge of Wharf Four, the sweat coming good under his rubber jacket. As he ran, he watched the sun rise above the horizon beyond Manaha Bay, its golden disk a promise of another hot day as it began to climb into a clear blue sky. With years of workouts behind him, he knew when it was going to be a fine training day. He felt taut, big lungs blowing easy, his energy level high. He had recently begun to actually enjoy hard physical exertion and understood that was due to his great condition. He felt good, okay, except for the cursed "problem".
His hands balled into fists as he moved past the steel derricks, cranes, containers, and forklifts parked along the docks. He was thinking about the upcoming fight against the Japanese bastard. The pug he would enter the ring with twenty-nine days hence was just "the Japanese bastard" in Johnny's mind. As he ran, he pumped his fists in front of his chest, uppercuts, jabs, left and right crosses, grunting with the effort, imagining the bastard in front of him as he rained blows on his opponent's head and torso. But still, in the inner recesses of his mind, he couldn't escape the nagging reverie, the disturbing mental images of the problem.
Pulling a face towel from the back pocket of his heavy jeans, he paused at an iron bollard, and wiped tears of perspiration from his eyes before falling stiff-armed onto the bollard to begin a series of eighty push-ups. As he pumped up and down, he felt the power in his shoulders, arms and wrists. By the time he hit the eighty count, the bollard was slippery with his sweat. He continued at a fast pace, crossing through the next two wharves until he arrived at the Wet Dream moored alongside her habitual berth under the high timber pier of Wharf Seven. He slowed his pace, glanced down and spotted Pedro, Captain Max Krueger's chief mate, hosing down the aft deck of the wide-beamed tugboat He waved at the fellow. Pedro, looking up, returned the gesture with a smile and a salute. Pedro was Johnny's favorite Verubian. They had become pals on the journey over to Ujung Kupang to do battle with pirates months earlier. Pedro was close to Johnny's age and had a burly physique that matched the Filipino's in bulk, if not in fitness. Johnny had once suggested to Pedro that the seaman take up professional boxing, but the chief mate had chuckled and said he was way too handsome to be messing up his looks in the ring. Pedro had worked for Krueger for several years and was a contented dude.
Johnny thought about Max Krueger. Now there was a man he could trust. He and the captain weren't exactly buddies. He couldn't say that the skipper was his pare, but there was something about the rugged European that calmed Johnny, gave him confidence in himself. It was Krueger who had arranged for the fight against the Japanese bastard, despite doubts on the part of Vic, Johnny's new trainer in Verubia, that Johnny was ready yet, or would ever be ready for such an important bout. Well, if Krueger reckoned he was ready, then he was, and the money would sure come in handy. Johnny's relationship with the skipper was influenced by the fact that Krueger was a generation older than him, and was his boss, no matter which way you looked at it.
Johnny got on well with the Verubian boxers who trained under Vic at the gym. They were similar to Filipinos in appearance and character, possessing the same insecurities as fighters anywhere. Most of them could speak enough English to communicate with him, and he was trying to learn their language. Things, in fact, were going well. Except, of course, for the problem. He shied away mentally from that taboo subject with some desperation, and concentrated on his memories... of the late Jun Dagdag, the closest friend he ever had, his fellow seaman on the Komun Hangoo, and Captain Park, the Korean master of that ill-fated bucket of rust, whom he had respected so much, and the cold hearted radio officer Fong, who had betrayed his shipmates. And he briefly remembered his fear of sharks, one of the reasons he'd been so reluctant to go to sea again, but all of it did no good.
He stopped running and leaned the palms of his hands on a low brick wall at the end of the docks near the road that led to the municipal pool and clubhouse. His head slumped forward and he gazed down between his outstretched arms, watching beads of sweat drop from his stubbled face onto his scuffed boots, the same boots he had trained in for all those years he'd been a fighter back in the Philippines. The sound of his breathing was harsh in his ears. He was suddenly short of breath. There was an ugly knot in his belly and abdomen, and his cock was stiff; trapped and crushed in his sodden jockstrap. He couldn't have continued running with this solid erection even if he'd wanted to. There was no denying it... the problem had caught up with him. It had sprinted behind him like a malignant shadow that couldn't be shaken off, a shadow that only waited for him to slow down and let his fevered imagination falter for one moment of weakness, and then the shadow pounced and he couldn't fight it off anymore.
He groaned, lifted his face and stared at the wall in front of him. Putang-ina he muttered, shaking his head. He was so horny he could shit. He was so malibog he could pop a blood vessel. He glanced down at the front of his jeans and saw the bulge of big tumescence. Good god, would he never get laid again? Would he never feel the hot juicy passion of a woman? He was twenty-eight years old, had been in Manaha about four months now, and he hadn't felt the sweet soft warmth of a female's skin since his arrival. Those months had been so full of activity... training, eating right, sleeping the sleep of the exhausted, helping Vic outfit the gym, fixing his papers with Immigration, calling his mom back home, exploring the new city... but no goddam sex. He couldn't stand it anymore. If he didn't get hold of a chick soon, he'd explode.
* * *
"Hello."
Startled, Johnny looked round quickly at the sound of the voice, convinced his sexual fantasies were on guilty display. For a second he saw no one, then noticed a pair of smooth brown legs swinging in his field of vision. He raised his eyes and there was a girl the likes of whom he had never seen before, perched on the brick wall like Humpty Dumpty, smiling down at him. He stared at her, open-mouthed, then twisted sideways in case she was catching a glimpse of the boner under the rough material of his pants. He was speechless.
"You're Johnny Christo, right?'' He nodded, still confused.
She laughed. "I've read about you in the papers. My dad showed me an article about you in the sports pages, together with your photo. You know, all about the fight later this month? Didn't you know you've got a fan club?''
He shook his head, bewildered. "A fan club? Me?''
"Sure. You're a star here in Manaha. And why not, you're pretty cute."
Johnny scratched his damp crew cut, which is what he did when he was embarrassed. He looked at the girl carefully. She was about nineteen or twenty, with a helmet of short black hair glistening in the morning sun. Her eyes were big and round, and she had real prominent dimples in both her cheeks.
Talk about cute, he thought.
"Here, help me down," she ordered.
He raised his hand. She took hold of it and jumped down. For a moment, her skirt got hitched under her on the bricks, so that her legs, clear up to her panties, were briefly exposed, and Johnny almost orgasmed on the spot, he was that ready to fire with both barrels. Her legs were gorgeous, her panties black and wispy.
"Hey, are you okay?" she asked, concerned by the look of pain on his face.
"Yeah," he muttered. "What's your name?''
"Dana, but people call me Dimples."
"Cute," he smiled, recovering his equilibrium. "So why are you sitting here so early in the morning?"
"I'm looking for a job, and the early bird catches the worm."
"Your English is real good, Dana."
