Frankie was not married. He had never married. He introduced himself to women as married, because he found out that married women wanted married men as lovers. It was simpler. Married men had something to lose if they were imprudent in public. Married men would never talk about them. Or so they thought.
After sleeping with quite a number of married women, Frankie eventually found three women who could maintain him in the lifestyle that he wanted for himself. The first, the wife of a city mayor, taught him how to put up non-government corporations without any capital or even actual office. The wife gave him a commission for every government contract that she herself obtained. The commission was in the hundreds of thousands. Once, it was even three cool millions. That enabled Frankie to buy a car.
The second, the wife of a Filipino engineer who worked in Saudi Arabia and came home only for birthdays and holidays, gave him plane tickets, hotel vouchers, and once, even a cruise ship ticket. That enabled Frankie to learn how to behave like one of the nouveau riche, a little loud, but knowing enough not to order soda in a fine dining place.
The third was Julie, a school principal who was not wealthy by herself, but whose husband was one of the wealthiest CEOs in the business district of Metro Manila. Julie had not given him money or trips, but she loved him, and that was refreshing. None of the unjustly-famous actresses loved him or even had any affection for him; they humored him with their lessons on making love and were in it only for the orgasms that he managed to give them. The other two married women did not love him; they just called for him when their husbands were not around.
Julie loved him. He even entertained thoughts of loving her back, but love was just not in his vocabulary. Of course, he said "I love you" to all the women he fucked. It was one of the pieces of advice he got from the actresses. "Always tell them you love them," they had all told him, "especially after you have disposed of your load." But he never meant what he said. In fact, he never meant anything he said. He just pretended that he was still in front of cameras, merely performing.
Killing Julie's husband was no big deal for him. He had killed a number of other people before. It was one of what he called "odd jobs" that he had to do for the wife of the city mayor. The scam of fake non-governmental organizations was soon uncovered by the press. There were whistle-blowers who wanted to see their names in the papers. They saw their names in the papers, all right, in obituaries, after he waited for them when their police escorts had gone somewhere else.
He preferred knives to guns when it came to killing whistle-blowers. Guns were expensive. They could be traced through ballistic tests. If he had to throw them into Manila Bay, it was like throwing away cold cash. He hated wasting money, since he grew up without it.
Knives were untraceable. He just washed the blood away as soon as he got the chance. Then he threw them away or gave them to the little boys sniffing rugby on the streets.
If he had to kill someone in a mall, he just bought a hunting knife from one of the Big Boys Toys 'R Us stores, used cash of course, then just dumped the knife into a trash bin after wiping away his fingerprints and the blood.
Killing people was not his main line of work, but he did it to keep the city mayor's wife happy, not to mention out of jail.
Naturally, it was impossible for the city mayor not to find out about his extracurricular duties in bed. The city mayor was not that dumb. Two men riding tandem on a motorcycle watched him alight from his car in front of a mall. The man riding tandem opened fire. Eight bullets hit Frankie.
The motorcycle sped away. The security guards gave chase, but only half-heartedly. They were not going to risk their lives running after professional assassins. The guards brought him to a nearby hospital. Surprisingly, Frankie was still alive, though barely.
The hospital had a priest going around, consoling the patients. The Emergency Room nurses called the priest. His name was Father Romy.
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Love After Heaven
عاطفيةA murder victim gets a chance to return to earth to meet his wife and her lover. He still loves his wife, despite her complicity in his murder. But he returns to earth not as himself but as a priest! How can he and his wife come together again? What...
