Desperate Measures

by Stephen Leather

  After Patrick and Dao had gone I phoned my mother in Thailand and asked her about the envelope but it hadn’t arrived yet. Then I spoke to Ice and he kept asking me when I was coming home and I said I didn’t know, that I was working hard to make a better life for him and me but that I loved him and missed him so much. That is true, I miss him every hour of every day. But I have to make money so I have to do this job.

  Chapter 52

  Friday June 5. I think Kung is a really bad person. My mother says it is wrong to hate anybody but Kung has been so bad that I am starting to hate him. On Wednesday evening he phoned me again and asked me to send him money so that he could buy the land behind the house. He said if I didn’t send it right away someone else might buy the land and build a factory next to our house and that would be terrible. He asked if I could send him 245,000 baht. He could only ask for all that money because he knows that I am selling my body in London. If he believed I was working in a restaurant then he would know that I can not earn so much.

  I asked him if he really loved me and he said yes. Then I asked if he would leave his wife and live with me and Ice and he said that was difficult because he did not want to hurt his family. I said that was not fair because he was hurting my family and he said that I had to understand him. Then he asked me to call him back because it was expensive to phone me from Thailand. Can you believe that? I called him back and this time I was angry but very cold. Jai Yen, we say in Thai. Cool heart. I said that I thought it might be better if I had the house myself. That way he wouldn’t have to come and live with me and Ice and I could take care of myself. I asked him how much I would have to pay him to have the house to myself, and do you know what he said? He said two million baht. I know that is not fair because the house is worth three million baht. I said that one and a half million baht would be fair and he said it wasn’t fair because he had been doing all the work, talking to the builders and the bank and organising everything. I felt like I wanted to cry because I had given him so much of my life. I was waiting for him to leave his wife but now I know that he never will.

  Thursday was a very busy day. I did two hours incall with Nancy in her apartment with an American lawyer called Hank. Nancy didn’t say anything about paying me back the money she owed me, which annoyed me a lot because Hank gave her £420 plus a $100 tip.

  Then I had one customer who was French. His name was Alain and he was bald and a bit fat but very nice. He had booked me for two hours incall and he asked me if I knew where he could get some cocaine so I phoned Vince and he came around with some. Alain asked me if I wanted some and actually I was a bit tired so I did sniff a bit, just to get some energy. Actually, it felt quite good, but I do not want to take it too often.

  After Alain left Oliver phoned to say that Simon had booked me for three hours incall which was great because Simon always wants to watch a Netflix movie and eat with me. He only has sex once so it’s easy work and he is quite nice, even though he keeps asking me to stop work and to live with him, which is a bit annoying.

  Chapter 53

  Sunday June 7. Yesterday I worked with Candy for the first time. It doesn’t say on the website that I will work with Candy, but Oliver phoned me and asked me if I would do it because a customer wanted something special. He wanted domination with two girls and he had seen my picture and wanted me to do it with Candy. I said I didn’t want to be dominated but he said no, it would be me and Candy dominating him. He wanted to book us for two hours incall and because we would be doing domination he would be paying extra – he would pay us each £420, the same price as outcall. I said okay because actually I wanted to see what domination was like.

  The customer had booked us for seven o’clock but Oliver said I should get to Candy’s apartment at six o’clock so that she could show me what to do. Candy has a two-bedroom apartment near to Paddington station in an old building but it has CCTV which is good. She pays £550 a week which is quite expensive but she said she needed two bedrooms because she does domination. She showed me the second bedroom and I was so surprised. For a start she had covered all the walls and the window with black plastic from garbage bags and there were red candles everywhere. There was no bed in the room but a sort of table covered with black leather and there was a cage made of black metal bars that was just big enough for a man and a thing made of wood that had holes for a man’s neck and his wrists with locks so that he couldn’t get out. Hanging on the walls were whips and paddles and straps that Candy said she used to hit the customer with, and lots of other things like little balls on strings and metal clamps and dildoes, some of them really big.

  I asked her how she knew what to do to the customer and she said that when the customer first came she sat down with them and asked them everything that they liked to do and everything they didn’t like to do. The customer she was seeing was one she had seen before so she knew what to do.

  She said that she always gave the customer what she calls a safe word. For this customer the safe word is ‘high heels’ though actually that is two words. If the customer says the safe word then we have to stop straight away. But if he says anything else like ‘stop’ or ‘no’ or if he screams, we carry on doing it because really he does not want us to stop. It sounds a bit crazy but Candy said it is very important because we don’t keep stopping just because we think we are hurting him too much. Unless he says the safe word, we are not hurting him too much.

  Candy said most customers who want domination do not want sex, not even oral, but that they often made themselves come. Or sometimes they did not want to come at all. She showed me her outfits. She has a lot of domination outfits and masks and things, most of them made from plastic or leather. She gave me a very short leather skirt and a leather jacket with chains on it and high-heeled boots. She wore fishnet stockings and a leather bra and a leather g-string with chrome studs on it.

  The customer’s name was Luke. He was about forty years old and quite short and not very handsome and it was very funny what we had to do to him. Candy told him to take his clothes off and kneel down and then she spat into a saucer and I did the same and then he licked it up like a dog. Then she made him lick our feet, but it wasn’t sexy like when Robert licks my feet, it was like he was a dog. Then she started calling him all sorts of names, telling him he was no good, and then she whipped him with a leather whip.

  Then we took him into the bathroom and she told him to lie down in the bath and then she told me to pee on him. Can you believe it? It was quite difficult to pee because I didn’t feel like it, but I managed. And do you know what? He drank some of my pee. I don’t know why anyone would want to do that but he did. We did a lot more things to him which I think were cruel and stupid, but afterwards when he was dressed he thanked us both and gave us both £50 tips so he must have been happy. Men can be so strange sometimes.

  On the television news they were talking about a demonstration in Trafalgar Square by a group called Black Lives Matter who want to destroy statues. There are many statues in Trafalgar Square including four huge lions. I do not understand why these people hate statues but there were thousands of them and most of them were not wearing masks. The police were there and we thought the police would send the protestors home but instead the police knelt down in front of them. It was so strange. In Thailand the police only kneel in front of the king and the royal family. They would never kneel in front of a crowd of angry people. I do not understand what happened. The police walk through the parks now telling people not to gather in groups, but when they see thousands of people in Trafalgar Square they kneel down.

  Chapter 54

  Monday June 8. Sandra and Nancy came around to my flat before we went to Sloane Square in an Uber taxi. Cat cooked Tom Yam Kung which is a hot and spicy prawn soup that was really delicious and Candy had brought some fruit, and Nancy had a bottle of brandy that a customer had given her. I didn’t drink any of the brandy but everyone else did and they got a bit drunk.

  Wanda said she thoug
ht there was a ghost in her flat that was bringing her bad luck which sounds crazy but actually Thai people believe in ghosts. The ghost of my grandfather once gave my mother the winning numbers for the lottery and she won one thousand baht. Wanda said she wanted to talk to the ghost to see what it wanted but she didn’t know how to talk to ghosts. In Thailand we call ghosts Pee. Cat said that she did, she had done it before, so she said that one day this week we would go to the flat and try to talk to the ghost. The more people that went the better, she said, because ghosts couldn’t do bad things if there were many people there. Alice said that ghosts didn’t always want to do bad things, sometimes they wanted to help and I said that was true and told them the story about my grandfather giving the lottery numbers to my mother.

  Before we went home, Oliver said that there was something special that we had to do next Saturday. He had a friend who was a Russian who wanted to have a big birthday party at his house and all of us girls would have to go. We would have to go to a house in St John’s Wood and there would be other girls there and a lot of the Russian’s friends. Nancy asked how much we would charge and Oliver said that actually because the man was a friend of his he wouldn’t be paying and everyone said that wasn’t fair because we were working girls and we didn’t do sex for free. Oliver was a bit angry and said that we didn’t understand, the man was a friend so he couldn’t charge him but Alice and Rachel said that he had to pay because we would be working. Oliver said that okay, he would pay us. He would give us £300 each and we wouldn’t have to pay him any commission. The party would start at ten o’clock at night. Alice wanted to know when the party would finish and Oliver said that he didn’t know, but that it would be fun and there would be lots of food and drink and drugs and we would all have a good time. I don’t think that he understands that even when we are having a good time we are still working. Wanda asked about Covid and said that really we shouldn’t be going into the house together but Oliver just laughed. He said if the police stopped us we could just say we were with Black Lives Matter and they would kneel down. We all laughed at that.

  Chapter 55

  Wednesday June 10. I phoned my mother about the money I posted her and she said that it hadn’t arrived yet. I am starting to think that perhaps I was a bit crazy to post £4,000 to Thailand.

  In the afternoon Cat phoned me and said she was going to Wanda’s apartment in Queensway with Sandra and Alice and Rachel to talk to ghosts and she asked me if I would go, too. I walked around to Wanda’s apartment. It was in quite a nice building and it had CCTV which is important. There was no lift and her apartment was on the third floor and that’s not so good because customers don’t like to climb stairs. Actually, a lot of girls like basement flats because they have their entrance and customers just have to walk down a few stairs to the door. That way no one can see them come and go. Some customers are shy, you see. Especially the ones who are married.

  Cat was already there with Sandra and Wanda and Wanda made coffee for us and then Alice and Rachel arrived. Alice said she couldn’t stay long because a regular customer had booked her for four hours outcall so Cat said we should get started right away. Wanda cleared everything off her glass coffee table and Cat wrote down letters on pieces of paper. She wrote down the English alphabet and the numbers one to ten and Wanda asked her why she wasn’t using the Thai alphabet and Cat said it was because if there was a Pee in the apartment it would be a farang Pee and not a Thai Pee and a farang Pee would not understand the Thai alphabet.

  Cat also wrote down ‘YES’ and ‘NO’ and ‘DON’T KNOW’ then she put those pieces of paper in the middle and surrounded them with the twenty-six letters of the alphabet. In fact I think it is better to use the English alphabet because the Thai alphabet has 44 letters and more than twenty vowels. Cat told Wanda to light candles and close the curtains and she did and we sat around the table and Cat put a glass on the table upside down and said we should all touch it with the fingers of our left hands. Actually I have done this before in Thailand with my friends when we were at school and I always think that somebody is pushing the glass and that really it is just for fun and not for talking to Pee but Cat was very serious.

  Cat said the Lord’s Prayer which is the prayer that Christians say, which I thought was strange because we are all Buddhists but Cat said it was because the ghost would most likely be a farang. Then she asked if any spirits were there. She spoke in English. Then the glass slid towards ‘YES’, quite slowly. Cat asked for the name of the Pee and the glass spelled out ‘J-U-L-I-E’. It was a bit scary actually because I don’t think anyone was pushing the glass. Julie is a girl’s name. Cat asked Julie how old she was and the glass went to the number 10 and then the number 2 and when Cat asked if that meant that Julie was 12 the glass moved to ‘YES’. Cat asked Julie where she was and the glass moved really quickly to ‘DON’T KNOW’ and then it slowly spelled out ‘D-A-R-K’ which was a bit scary. Wanda looked a bit worried but Alice and Rachel kept joking until Cat scolded them and told them to take it seriously or they would upset the Pee.

  Then Cat asked the Pee if she had a message for anyone and the glass went to ‘YES’. Cat asked what the message was and the glass stopped for a minute or two as if it was thinking and then it slowly spelled out ‘D-A-N-G-R-E’ which didn’t make sense and then Sandra said maybe it meant DANGER.

  Cat asked who the message was for and the glass stayed still. She asked again and said ‘Please Julie tell us who the message is for’ and the glass started to move. It spelled out ‘E-V-R-Y-B-D-Y’ which I think means it was trying to spell EVERYBODY.

  Then Wanda’s phone rang and made us all jump! It was Oliver phoning to say that she had an incall customer who was coming in fifteen minutes so we all had to go. Actually I am glad that he phoned then because I did not like talking to Julie. I believe in Pee and I believe that sometimes Pee want to talk to people.

  Chapter 56

  Thursday June 11. Yesterday a customer booked me and Nancy together for two hours incall in the afternoon. I went around to Nancy’s apartment and we changed into sexy dresses and high heels and put on sexy makeup. His name was Alex and he was about fifty years old and wearing a suit. I think he had taken Viagra because he was red faced and he kept sniffing and he made love to me three times and four times with Nancy. He kept changing from me to her which meant that we had to use lots of condoms. Then after he came he asked if we would do a lesbian show for him so we did. Then we gave him a massage and he was still hard and he said that he wanted to do anal and I said that I wouldn’t. Nancy said that she wouldn’t either but then Alex said that he would pay an extra £50 so Nancy said that she would. After he had gone away Nancy said that actually anal was quite nice and she didn’t mind doing it with her boyfriend but she always made customers pay extra for it. I don’t think she tells Oliver that she is getting extra money from customers but that is not my business.

  I was glad that Chris was not in the flat because I am still angry at him for coming around to my flat and he still sends me texts saying that he wants me to be his girlfriend. I think he is crazy because Nancy really likes him a lot and gives him FFF and money too.

  Then I remembered that this was the time of the month that Nancy had her period and I asked her how she could work and she said that her period hadn’t come yet. She laughed and said that she hoped she wasn’t pregnant but I don’t think it is anything to laugh at. If she is pregnant she can not work. She said that maybe the famous customer had made her pregnant so she would get money from him for the rest of her life. Actually I think that sometimes Nancy is a bit crazy.

  I told her about talking with the Pee with Cat at Wanda’s flat and she said that we should buy Julie something to make her happy. If you gave a present to a ghost then it would not be so angry. It sounded like a good idea so we went to a corner shop that was still open. Nancy bought some chocolates because all young girls like chocolates and I looked for a doll so that she would have something to play with. Do you kno
w what I found? I found a doll called Julie. It was in a box with pretty clothes and a toy dog so I bought it because I thought that Julie would be happy to have a doll that had her name.

  Nancy and I went to Wanda’s apartment and we gave the presents to her and she put them on top of her wardrobe where she keeps her Buddha figure and her candles. She said it was a very good idea to give Julie presents. I asked her if she thought that Julie was happy or not and Wanda said she thought that she wasn’t because sometimes the room felt cold even when it was warm and sometimes Wanda felt sad even though nothing was wrong. She said that she wanted Cat to come back some time to talk to Julie again and Nancy said she would come because she wanted to ask Julie for numbers to play the English lottery because with the English lottery you can win millions of pounds which is a lot more than you can win in Thailand.

  Wanda cooked some Phad Thai for us and we ate it in the kitchen. Wanda told us about her life before she came to London. She was born in Buri Ram and has a five-year-old daughter who lives with her mother. Her husband was a bus driver but he left her when her daughter was born and she discovered that he had three different wives all over Thailand. Wanda had a job in a factory but the work was very hard so she went to be a working girl in Singapore. A friend told her how to do it and she said it was easy money. Thai people need visas to go to most countries, but not to Singapore. Thai people can get a two week visa on arrival and sometimes a month. So Wanda went to Singapore with her friend who was quite pretty and they shared a room in a hotel and in the evenings they went to a building called Orchard Towers. Wanda said that farangs called it the ‘Four Floors of Horse’ which I didn’t understand but then she spelled it out for me and I realised that she meant ‘Four Floors of Whores.’ Her English isn’t very good, actually. In the building there are lots of bars and Thai girls can find customers there. There are a lot of ladyboys working there too, and Filipina girls too. Wanda said a farang will pay 300 Singapore dollars to go with a girl which is about £100 and so it is almost as much as we get working in London. Wanda said that she could get two or three customers a night which was really good money. She had to leave every two weeks but the ticket to Singapore only cost about 10,000 baht and the room she stayed in was quite cheap. Just working for two weeks she could save about 100,000 baht. She would work for two weeks and then fly back to Thailand for two weeks.