They’d done it in Manila first. Visiting a brothel with its own bar that was stacked with gorgeous Filipina women, they’d picked one each and retired to separate rooms with their escorts. Once again, it had been great fun. Bannister’s girl was a tiny doll-like beauty who, in the space of a night, taught him things he’d only ever heard about, or seen on an illegal hardcore videotape. And all, he recalled, for the price of barely three pounds.
After that, he’d been hooked. They’d hired girls – sometimes freelancers they met in bars, other times ones from official establishments – all over the islands of the northern Philippines. One night they shared the same girl. It was another first for Bannister and he remembered it as a huge turn-on. Soon after that they rented a bungalow in a place called White Beach, and shared three girls at the same time.
It seemed to Bannister that Alastair was forever trying to push the boundaries. It should have scared Bannister, because the thing was, Alastair seemed to get a lot of pleasure from being rough with the girls – pulling their hair, slapping them hard, making them cry out in pain. He especially liked sodomizing them. They tolerated it because they were poor and he always paid them well. And Bannister found himself getting swept along by the whole thing, treating it all as a big joke, convincing himself that because the girls were being paid, and the violence against them wouldn’t leave physical scarring, it wasn’t that bad.
It happened near the end of their time in the Philippines. They were staying in a dump of a town called Angeles City which, it quickly became clear, was the centre of the Filipino sex industry thanks to the huge American military base nearby. Alastair suggested they hire a freelancer, take her back to the cheap hotel room they’d rented, and give her, in his words, ‘a real rough seeing to’.
Bannister shuddered when he thought back to how sickeningly he’d behaved. The girl they’d picked up couldn’t have been much older than sixteen. It was possible she was even younger. Either way, she’d got a lot more than she bargained for when they got her back to the room. Alastair had gone first. He’d been very rough, and the girl was lying on the bed bruised and crying when he’d finished.
‘Now it’s your turn,’ Alastair had said with a grin, getting up from the bed, naked and sweating.
Bannister had been drinking. That was the excuse he’d always given to himself for doing what he did next. He’d climbed on the bed and, even as the girl had sobbed, he’d forced himself upon her without a thought, revelling in the power he wielded. And then, when he was just about to reach orgasm, holding the girl down by her slender shoulder with one hand, the other hand pushed hard over her mouth to stifle the sobs, he’d caught the flash of a camera. At that point he’d been too far gone to react, and he’d continued in those last few seconds. It was only when he was lying on top of her, still panting, that he realized what had happened.
He’d turned towards Alastair and seen him standing there with that old-fashioned Kodak camera of his in his hand, the one that developed photos instantly. Bannister had often wondered why Alastair carried round such a bulky piece of kit on his travels when he could just as easily use a smaller camera and get the photos done when he got home. Now he knew.
‘What the hell are you doing?’ he’d asked as Alastair shook the photo to dry the ink.
‘Just a little memento,’ Alastair had replied, with a grin. ‘You can take one of me next time.’
But Bannister had been grimly aware of what he must have looked like in the photo, holding down a very young-looking teenage girl with his hand over her mouth, while having sex with her. ‘Give it back,’ he’d demanded, getting up from the bed.
But Alastair had been having none of it. ‘Hey, relax,’ he’d said, slipping the photo into one of his backpack pockets. ‘No one’s going to see it except us.’
Panicking, Bannister had gone to grab it out of Alastair’s backpack, but Alastair had stepped in front of him, blocking his way. He was six inches taller and at least three stone heavier than Bannister, so brute force wasn’t going to work. He’d got dressed too, with his shoes on, making Bannister feel suddenly vulnerable against him.
‘Give it back to me, Alastair,’ Bannister had said, as firmly as he could. ‘I’m serious.’
He’d tried to push past him but Alastair shoved him hard in the chest.
‘Come on mate, it’s only a bit of fun,’ he’d said, still smiling, but this time there was an edge to his expression. It was clear he wasn’t going to give the photo back. Instead, he’d picked up the backpack, slung it over his shoulder, and pushed past Bannister, almost as if he wasn’t there, throwing a couple of one-hundred-peso notes in the direction of the sobbing girl. ‘I’m just popping out for a bit. I’ll be back in a mo. Keep her here a bit longer if you like. We’ve paid for all night.’
Bannister had got rid of the girl, paying her an extra two hundred pesos – about the equivalent of three pounds – as a mixture of hush and guilt money. Then he’d gone to bed and waited for Alastair to return, which he did several hours later, sounding inebriated. Bannister had waited until he was fast
