Desperate Measures

by Stephen Leather

  The second customer was called Jon, without an ‘H’. I actually have three customers called Jon without an ‘H’. They are all English. The Jon from yesterday was very tall and thin, he looked like he could be a basketball player. He had to bend his head when he walked into my bedroom so that he wouldn’t bang it on the door and his feet were hanging over the edge of the bed. He looked like a giant. Jon said he worked for a double glazing company and that he had just been paid a big bonus so he wanted to treat himself. I thought that was quite sweet, it was like I was a prize. I couldn’t give him a bubble bath because he was too tall but I showered with him and then we had sex in the bedroom, with me on top. It was funny seeing his feet sticking off the edge of the bed but I tried not to laugh. I think he is my tallest customer by far.

  The third customer was called Mark. Mark booked me for two hours and he said he drove a delivery van but I don’t think he was telling the truth. Actually he reminded me of Vince and I think maybe he sold drugs. But I don’t care if customers lie to me or not, all I care about is if they are good customers and Mark was okay. He wanted oral and then sex doggy-style while he watched me in the mirror. I did what I always do when I do it that way and look at his eyes in the mirror and open my mouth a bit and lick my lips, the way that Candy showed me. And I moan a bit and say ‘yes, yes, yes’ because customers like to think that I’m enjoying it. I’m not sure why that is, because they are paying me for sex so why does it matter whether I like it or not? All that should matter is how it feels, right? But I’ve noticed that if I pretend to come when the customer is having sex with me, they come at the same time or very soon afterwards. It’s as if seeing me come makes it more sexier for them. Now I always pretend to come. Actually, sometimes I really do come, but not often. And I don’t think a customer can tell the difference. That is the big difference between a man and a woman, I think. With a man, you always know if he comes. There is evidence. But with a woman, you never really can tell.

  Chapter 48

  Saturday May 30. I went to the Post Office yesterday and I sent the envelope to my mum in Udon Thani. I had to queue outside and wear a mask before I went in. Everyone was standing six feet apart and nobody looked happy. I sent the envelope by Registered Post so that she will have to sign for it when she gets it so I know that it will get there safely. I put in a letter telling her to take it right to the bank and not to give any of it to Kung, even if he asks. Sometimes Kung goes to my mum’s house to see her and Ice and I don’t want her giving him any of my money.

  I spoke to Kung yesterday. He phoned me six times and I didn’t answer, but then I answered the seventh time. It was two o’clock in the morning so I told him that I had just got home from the restaurant. He didn’t ask me how I was or anything, he just started talking about the house immediately. He said he wanted to put a 46 inch plasma television in the bedroom but that he would need 60,000 baht for that which is almost £1,000. And he said the builder wanted another 35,000 baht for the marble tiles in the master bathroom. And he said he might be able to buy another piece of land at the back of the house so that we could make the garden bigger. The land would cost 100,000 baht and another 50,000 baht to build a wall around it. He wanted to know when I could send him the money because he didn’t want someone else to buy the land.

  Can you believe it? He was asking me for 245,000 baht which is more than £6,000 but I am supposed to be working as a waitress in a Thai restaurant. I knew then for sure one hundred per cent that he is using me, He knows that I am working for the agency, he knows that I am selling my body. He knows and he doesn’t care. All he cares about is the money that I send him.

  I didn’t say anything, though. I just said I didn’t have much money but I would try to get some. That was a lie. I am lying to him now the same way that he lies to me. I will lie to him while I work out what I can do.

  Vince came to see me in the afternoon. He phoned Oliver and booked me under his real name. I think he forgot that he used to be James. Actually, I thought that Oliver should have realised because he should be keeping a record of who comes to see me, for security. But I think Oliver isn’t worried about security, he is just worried about the commission I am to pay him. Anyway, Vince booked me for two hours and he was very happy because he had just sold some cocaine to a group of students and they had spent £2,000.

  I gave him a bubble bath and oral and then we had sex. I didn’t come but I pretended to. Afterwards I asked him about his money. I said that I didn’t know what to do with mine and I wanted to send some to my bank in Thailand. Vince said you had to be careful when you put money in the bank in England because sometimes the banks would tell the police about you. He said if the police found out you were putting a lot of cash in the bank then they would ask you where it came from and if it was illegal then they would take it off you.

  I asked him what he did with his money and he laughed and said that he used Smurfs. I didn’t know what a Smurf was. He explained that a Smurf was someone who put money into the bank for you. You paid them to put small amounts of money into lots of bank accounts. Instead of putting £10,000 into one bank you put £1,000 into each of ten banks. And you paid the Smurfs a commission of five per cent. For every one thousand pounds they paid in, you gave them £50. You had to trust the Smurfs, of course, because they might run away with your money. If they did that you had to find the Smurf and hurt him to show to the other Smurfs that it was not a good idea to steal. Vince said that most of his Smurfs were students. He said if I wanted I could use his Smurfs. He said what I should do is to open a bank account using my passport and my electricity bill or something else that showed where I lived, and I should deposit about £500. Then I should give money to Smurfs and they will pay it into different accounts and then transfer it my account. Because it is small amounts of money, the police don’t care. Vince says that every week he gives more than £10,000 to the Smurfs. Then he transfers the money to banks in Jersey and Hungary and he said that even if the police catch him they will never get his money. I think Vince is quite clever so I said okay, I would like to use his Smurfs. I didn’t want him to see where I hide my money but I did have £800 in my kitchen drawer plus the £300 he had paid me so I asked him if I could give him the £1,100 to give to the Smurfs. He laughed and said that I had to open my bank account first. Then he said he had a better idea, he said I could give him the £1,100 and he would transfer £1,100 from his account to my account in Thailand. That seemed like a great idea to me so I gave him the money and the number of my bank account in Udon Thani. I am so glad to have met Vince.

  Chapter 49

  Sunday May 31. Yesterday Nancy called me and asked me if I wanted to go to her apartment to watch Thai soap operas on the internet. I said I had to clean my flat. The real reason that I didn’t want to go to Nancy’s flat was because I didn’t want to see Chris. He keeps sending me text messages asking if he can come to my flat to see me but I ignore him. It is not fair. He is Nancy’s boyfriend so he should not be trying to have sex with me. I think I should tell Nancy but I am scared that if I do she will blame me.

  In the evening I had a customer at six o’clock. His name was Richard and he came in a tracksuit and running shoes. He said he lived in Queensway which is not too far away and that he had told his wife that he had gone out running. People are allowed out once a day to exercise. It was so funny. We had sex, twice, and then he put his tracksuit back on and went. He didn’t want to shower because he wanted to go back all sweaty so that his wife would believe he had been out running. I wonder what she would think if she found out what had really made him sweat! He was going for sexercise, not exercise!

  Then Bee phoned me and asked if she could come to my flat because she wanted to talk to me. I had an outcall booking at eleven o’clock but said that she could come and see me before then so she came at eight o’clock. She brought a whole watermelon with her which was nice because she remembered how much I like to eat watermelon. I made her some Japanese green tea and
we drank it and ate the watermelon.

  Bee said that she was really busy which was why she wanted to talk to me. She said that some days she was having to turn down customers and she was worried that she might lose business if those customers started going somewhere else. She wanted to send some customers to see me on the days when she was busy. Her customers paid £200 an hour and she said that I could keep £160 and just give her £40. Actually that is a very good deal. When I see a customer through Oliver’s agency I charge £150 an hour but I only get to keep £100 for myself. If I saw Bee’s customers I would keep £160. That is a big difference. Bee said that if I wanted I could put my photographs on her website. That way some customers might ask to see me and she would do the same deal and let me keep £160.

  I think it would be great to have the extra money but I don’t think Oliver would be happy. That is what I said to Bee but she said that Oliver wouldn’t know and I said well of course he would if he saw my photographs and she said that the photographer could hide my face or blur it a bit.

  I said that I didn’t think it would be fair to Oliver and she said that Oliver wasn’t fair to his girls, that he took a third of what they earned and all he did was answer the phone. Actually there is more to it than that but I didn’t want to argue with Bee. I said I would think about it but really I have already made up my mind.

  Then Bee started asking questions about Alice and I realised that she is still angry about the fight at the Sloane Square flat. The bruise on her face doesn’t look too bad now and with her make up on you can hardly see it, but I don’t think she has forgotten or forgiven Alice. Then Bee told me a story about Alice that I am not sure is true or not. She said that Alice used to be a go-go dancer in Soi Cowboy in a bar called Long Gun. She said that Alice took a lot of drugs, especially a drug called Yar Bar. A lot of go-go dancers take Yar Bar, she said, because it gives them energy, but it also makes them crazy. That is why it is called Yar Bar. In Thai that means Crazy Drug.

  Bee said that Alice was always fighting with girls in other bars in Soi Cowboy, because she was jealous if they went with her customers. And one night she got into a fight with another dancer and hit her with a bottle, the same as she hit Bee. But the bottle broke and the glass cut the other girl’s throat and she died. The police came but Alice ran away and she got a passport in the name of another girl and she came to England. Bee said that Alice can’t go back to Thailand because the police are still looking for her, and if they knew that she was in London they would come to get her. I don’t know if that story is true and Bee wouldn’t say how she knew.

  I asked her about the magic perfume that makes men fall in love and she said that if I wanted I could use it one day. It definitely worked, she said, which is why it is so expensive. She had used it on four customers now and they all wanted to marry her and take care of her. She said she was careful who she used it on because she didn’t want someone ugly or poor falling in love with her. The best thing was for someone rich and old because then they would die soon and she would get all their money. She might marry the rich American customer she had, but first he had to build her a house and give her a car to prove that he did have money. If he did that then she might marry him. He was quite old and she thought that he might die soon. She smiled and said that if he didn’t die soon then she had another magic potion that would take care of that and then she laughed but I don’t think she was joking. I think she was serious. I know that Alice is dangerous but actually I think Bee is dangerous, too.

  Chapter 50

  Monday June 1. I have been an escort for three months now. I know I am a very different girl from when I started doing this job. For a start, I never cry any more. There is nothing to cry about. I make love for money, that is my job. And the better I do my job, the more money I get. I get to live in a nice apartment and I wear nice clothes and I can eat good food and do whatever I want. I am happy, I think. I try not to think about how many men I have had sex with. It is a lot. I could go to my book and count but really I do not want to.

  Yesterday evening Nancy and Sandra came to my flat to pay me back some of the money that they owed me. Nancy paid me back £500 and Sandra paid me back £1,000. Sandra said she had had a really good week and they both thanked me, which was nice.

  Sandra said that Bee still hadn’t paid her back any of the money she had borrowed and I said that maybe she should ask her again because now she was very busy. Sandra asked me how I knew and I said that she had come to see me, and I told them about Bee asking me to take care of some of her customers. I told them I wasn’t going to do it, of course, because it wouldn’t be fair to Oliver. Sandra seemed really angry and said that it wasn’t fair, that if Bee was earning good money then she should pay her back straight away.

  I told them what Bee had said about Alice, but said that it was a secret and that nobody should tell Alice. Sandra said that she knew that Alice used to be a dancer in Soi Cowboy but she didn’t know if she had ever killed anybody.

  Nancy said that she had something to tell us. She has a friend who works for the A1 agency, which is one of the biggest in London, and she said that one of the A1 girls had been robbed. Not robbed like Dao had been robbed, but tied up and beaten until she told the robber where she kept her money. Now she was in hospital. I asked Nancy if the girl had spoken to the police but Nancy said she couldn’t because she was in England illegally. She had come over using another girl’s passport and that passport had been sent back to Thailand. So she had no passport and no visa and if the police caught her they would send her back to Thailand straight away. And Nancy said that even if the girl went to the police there was no evidence like CCTV pictures because the flat she worked in didn’t have CCTV. I felt very sorry for the girl, but she should have had a flat with CCTV really. I asked Nancy if the policeman I had met, the one called Neil, had talked to the A1 girls and she said that he had but because the girl didn’t have CCTV she couldn’t see who the customer was before she opened the door. That is not a good idea. A working girl should always know who is outside the door before she opens it.

  We had arranged to eat at Cat’s flat so we shared an Uber taxi to Sloane Square. Cat was cooking Pad Thai and Thod Mun Pla which she cooks really well, and she had brought some red pork from Chinatown and I had brought some lychees that I had bought from a shop in Edgware Road. All the rest of the girls were already in the flat and Alice and Rachel were already a little drunk, I think. They seem to be best friends, they always laugh at each other’s jokes and they kept clinking their glasses together.

  We ate the food and then we played cards. Rachel and Alice were drinking a lot, and everybody seemed happy. Then Alice and Sandra got into a bit of an argument, over nothing really. I think Alice wanted more ice and she asked Sandra to get it from the fridge and Sandra said she wasn’t a maid and Alice told her not to be stupid because she was dealing the cards so she couldn’t go to the kitchen and then Sandra said what would Alice do, kill her like she killed the girl in Soi Cowboy. I think she only said it because she was a bit drunk and she was joking, but Alice got really angry and asked her what she meant and then Sandra said that Bee had told me the story of what had happened in Soi Cowboy and then everybody was looking at me and I just wanted to cry. Oliver was angry at me because I had been talking to Bee, Alice was angry at me because she thought I had been telling lies about her, and I was angry at Sandra for getting me into trouble. Alice started shouting and I thought that she was going to hit me with a bottle but Rachel calmed her down and Dao took me into one of the bedrooms because she could see how upset I was.

  Oliver and Cat calmed everyone down and Dao and I went back into the main room and played cards again but I could tell that Alice still wasn’t happy. But she said that it wasn’t me that she was angry at, it was Bee. She wanted to kill Bee, she said, and I think that she means it. I just kept quiet and played cards. I lost a lot of money. More than £1,000.

  When we had finished I went home with Dao because
I didn’t want to sleep alone. She told me not to worry and that it was just because Alice was drunk. I like Dao. She really does care about people. But she didn’t talk about the money she owes me. I told her about the girl at A1 who had been beaten up and told her that she was lucky that she wasn’t hurt when she was robbed and she agreed with me. Money is just money, we can always earn more money if we have to.

  Chapter 51

  Wednesday June 3. Yesterday I worked with Dao for the first time. The customer called Patrick from Belfast who I had seen with Nancy wanted to see me and Dao so he booked us for two hours incall at my apartment.

  Dao came to my apartment first and she said she was a bit nervous because it was the first time she had worked with another girl. I said there was nothing to worry about because it was actually easy but she said that she wanted a drink so she opened a bottle of wine and drank two glasses before Patrick came. She was wearing black suspenders and a black bra so I put on my red suspenders and my black vinyl thigh-length boots which I think make me look very sexy. Patrick came at six o’clock and paid me and Dao straight away with £300 each. He had brought a bottle of champagne with him which was nice, so I went to the kitchen to open it. When I came back Dao was already giving him oral on the sofa so I took off my bra and started kissing him. Dao didn’t seem shy at all. Patrick asked her to kiss me, and she did, and then he asked us for a lesbian show so I licked and kissed her and she moaned as if she was really enjoying it.

  After we had sex Patrick had a shower and then he came back to the bedroom and we gave him a body massage using lots of oil. I asked him why he hadn’t booked me and Nancy and he said that he had seen the photographs of me and Dao on the website and thought that we looked very sexy. He said that maybe next time he might book me, Dao and Nancy together. Can you believe that? One man and three girls? Actually I think that might be fun.