The Second Poison

by Pieter Wilhelm

  I got the call at around midnight while I was with a Swedish guy, who had booked me for the night. We were just having a beer after a round of bed activities and I told the man I had to go. When he complained and demanded his money back I hit him over the head with a beer bottle. He began screaming so I hit him harder. The second blow shut him up. I couldn’t think straight. My little sister had been raped and was hurt. I rushed home, burning with anger. Outside the hotel I ran into Ma Boxer who I’d made friends with over some drinks and ganja at the old shopping mall. Ma noticed my agitated state and offered to drive me home in his pickup. We arrived in the early morning while the village was in a deep sleep. Except for Grandma. She was sitting on the porch. She was calm but I could see she’d been crying. Nok was asleep. The doctor had given her some strong sleeping tablets and she was curled up in bed sucking her thumb, looking sweet and innocent. I was overwhelmed with emotion and felt a strong desire to inflict severe pain on the thugs who’d done this to her. I sat with grandma while she explained what had happened. She had tried to call mum but couldn’t get hold of her since she was in America with her latest admirer. I was furious with what had happened to my sister and left, telling Grandma to stay at home and look after her.

  Ma Boxer

  I’m Ma, but people call me Ma Boxer, not because I’m a Muay Thai fighter, but because they reckon that I have the nose of a boxer dog. What do they expect? I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve been punched in the face. I’ve only recently finished doing time for murder, but I don’t think it was fair; it was just an unfortunate accident. The guy just didn’t wake up after I’d knocked him unconscious in a bar fight. I’ve come to Udon because this police captain offered some cash for a few boxing matches. I was just about to leave to do another contract when I ran into Yuth. He seemed upset, and after I’d offered to drive him home he told me the reason. I parked around the corner from his house and took a nap while he went to see his grandma and sister. Yuth had been gone for a while but eventually returned to tell me what had happened. Every man should be able to take care of his own business and I didn’t want to get involved as I’d only just got out of jail, but he said he just needed a ride. We drove off but only went a few miles before he told me to park and wait on a dirt track. I don’t know how long I slept while waiting. I remember being woken by what seemed like screams, but I just brushed it off as the sound of wild animals. Yuth had been gone for some time though. When he came back he looked bewildered, with blood splattered across his face and shirt and smelling of smoke and gasoline. I told him to sit in the back of the pickup as I didn’t want the smell inside. We drove to a lake where he washed and changed into some of my clothes before I dropped him off at the hotel and went on my way.

  Muk

  The stilted house had been on fire, and the gas tank of the motorbike parked underneath had certainly accelerated the blaze. I thought I’d better oversee the crime scene before the sun came up and found my men there, standing around the smouldering remains of the house. A few pieces of blackened bones and bits of skull had already been found in the smoking pile of wood. Nothing indicated that they’d died in agony, and at first sight it seemed that the fire was nothing more than an unfortunate accident, most likely caused by one of the many carelessly discarded cigarette butts dotted around the charred remains. I am a simple police officer and the only thing I want is to earn a living to support my wife and kids, but that doesn’t mean I’m stupid. Why didn’t these thugs jump out of the house when the fire took hold; were they very drunk or high? I don’t think so! I suspect they were already dead before the fire started. But we all knew what those burned thugs had done. We just blamed the fire on a discarded cigarette butt as none of us was keen to explore or even suggest an alternative scenario.

  Grandma

  Many years ago I spent a lot of time in bars with American servicemen. I was the regular girl of a fighter pilot who flew out each day to some poor village in Vietnam to sow death and destruction. I’m sure it destroyed his soul because his green eyes were always cold and cruel. I try very hard to forget what this evil man took pleasure in doing to me. Unfortunately, it all came back to me when my daughter gave birth. From between her legs I found those same evil green eyes staring back at me. I’m an ordinary woman and I couldn’t comprehend how I could see those same evil eyes again, so I ran to the temple and threw myself on the ground to pray to Buddha, but I couldn’t! I was crying so loudly that the monks woke the abbot who ran over to comfort me. Buddhist monks cannot touch women, you know, but he chanted prayers until my sobs receded, and only then could I tell him how the American warrior had returned to my family. The abbot listened and seemed concerned. He explained that under the sway of karma, most of us are drawn back to life by destructive emotions and desires. He was referring specifically to the second poison, which is the destructive emotion of hate. He urged me not to hate my new-born grandson. When I eventually returned home hours later, I told my daughter that her son should be named Yuthakon, which means warrior. Many years have passed since then, and over the years Yuth turned out to be a nice, softly spoken and quiet boy. Today though, I saw that look of evil in his eyes which I’d seen so many times before in his grandfather’s eyes.

  4

  Chapter 4

  Yuth

  My uncle, Muk, paid me a visit a few days after Nok’s rape. We sat in the shade of a tree behind the hotel and talked, or rather, he spoke. He didn’t mention the fire but told me that Ma Boxer had phoned from Pattaya about a job waiting for me. He handed me a bus ticket. It was obvious that he wanted me out of the way. I got on the night bus to Pattaya that same day, and started working as a prostitute in a bar called Boyz Boyz, the oldest gay bar in Pattaya’s gay nightlife district. The area is full of places catering to gays, from bars and massage shops to restaurants and guesthouses. I don’t think I’m gay because I keep getting paid by farang couples to fuck them both, and I have absolutely no problem with that. A fresh young farm boy can make good money in Pattaya. So long as you don’t limit yourself too much that is. Competition is strong so we have to fight for every customer, and you can’t refuse many of the farangs’ perverted demands because they’ll just move on to the next boy. Some of them wanted to get rough with me and tie me up and play rape games. A short time with a farang will earn me five hundred baht. I can get a thousand if I sleep with him in his hotel, and weird and kinky stuff will pay even more. Pattaya is a magnet for poor and uneducated boys and girls from Isaan. I’ve been fascinated by the ladyboys ever since I arrived in Pattaya. I’ve seen them hanging around on Beach Road and behind Soi 6. They’re extremely attractive and very feminine in appearance. I got to know one of them as we were both booked for a threesome with a German guy. I was impressed by the ladyboy’s body, her long black silky hair and her beautiful boobs. I wanted to know more about her, and so after the encounter I went for a drink with her.

  US Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor

  Thailand’s Dark Side Papers

  In the USA and many other western countries it has only recently become acceptable to support and stand up for the LGBT community. In Thailand, however, ladyboys have been present for hundreds of years, with images of transsexual women being found from the 19th century. In Thailand this isn’t a modern phenomenon. Most ladyboys refer to themselves as phuying (women), with only a few referring to themselves as katoi or “third gender”, a socially accepted gender in Thailand. Katoi is of Khmer origin and is often used in English conversation with Thais. Katoi are numerous in Thailand and are seemingly accepted by society, likely because Thai Buddhism doesn’t specifically regard homosexuality as a sin and there are no specific prohibitions against it. More recently, a new phenomenon has arisen in Thailand where straight men have begun entertaining foreign tourists in gay clubs or having sex-change operations to enter the lucrative transgender sex industry. Preliminary steps are not required to undergo hormone treatment and sexual realignment surgery in Thailand, and there are
also none of the mandatory psychiatric evaluations required in the West. Many men decide against having an operation and instead grow their breasts and grow some feminine curves naturally using hormones, although more often than not this makes their penis non-functional. This is the primary reason that many opt for breast implants to keep their penis fully functional, which is certainly more useful from a commercial perspective. Westerners, and more recently Middle Eastern men, prefer a versatile ladyboy who can act as both a male and a female during their sexual encounter. These ladyboys try to appear as typical Thai women with long hair to signify their feminine beauty. The other type of ladyboy consists of men who have undergone hormone treatment in conjunction with their penis removed and reconstructed into a vagina. These men consider themselves as fully female and are not primarily driven by commercial interests. Although many of this group are also active in the sex industry, they often serve heterosexual men. Most men who knowingly buy sex from ladyboys are either homosexuals in denial or bisexual. Most of them don’t think of ladyboys as homosexuals or men, but they are specifically attracted to “that extra special something down there”. When asked, one westerner said, “I am happy with my ladyboy girlfriend. I love her as woman, I love her femininity and people can’t even tell that my girlfriend is a ladyboy because she is so feminine.” Another westerner was more straightforward: “a dick is definitely not a female sex organ! You can’t be a straight man if you like Ladyboys.”

  The Economics

  The US Department of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor reported in 2015 that there were between 600,000–800,000 sex workers in Thailand, while current statistics point to there being between 800,000 and 2 million sex workers in the country. The Thai prostitution industry generates over $6.4 billion a year in revenue, accounting for roughly ten percent of the country’s GDP. However, the report doesn’t cover the proportion of the total revenue generated by transgender people working in the Thai sex industry. Additionally, related revenues generated by sex tourists in the food and hospitality industries are not taken into account. Simply put, most hotels including those belonging to international chains would not exist in Thailand without the revenue generated by sex tourism.

  Yuth becomes Yayee

  On turning eighteen, I decided to have a partial sex-change operation. I grew my hair long and got myself a nice pair of fake boobs. Cutting my dick off was never an option in my mind – that’s my best money-maker. I didn’t take any hormones either because there’s not enough Viagra in the world to keep a ladyboy’s cock hard while taking hormones. The whole thing was a bargain at only 15,000 baht. I needed a female name to go with it and so I called myself Yayee. Working as a ladyboy in Pattaya was a whole different ball game. There are some ladyboy bars on Soi 6 with short-time rooms upstairs, but I spent most of my time hanging around Walking Street – the main red-light district – or in discos, and of course on Beach Road, where there’s a sort of human-flesh market. On Beach Road sex can be bought from underaged and older male and female hookers. Beach Road has its own ladyboy scene between Soi Praisanee and the Royal Garden Mall.

  Guys buying sex from me as a ladyboy cared more about my appearance compared to my previous gay customers. Many got really turned on by me parading naked around their hotel room wearing only high heels and an erection. The sex was the same though; they only wanted to get sucked and fucked. I got to know a lot of the other ladyboys plying their trade on the streets, and my new friends were often involved in theft and robberies. Many specialized in swiping cash and bank cards, which isn’t difficult when their customers are in the shower or have had their drinks surreptitiously spiked. Older ladyboys who struggle to find new customers specialize in pickpocketing and snatching gold chains in drive-by robberies. On any given night the bars are filled with farangs, many of them Pattaya regulars. The regulars usually take a taxi from Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok straight to Pattaya, and rarely go anywhere else in Thailand.

  They’re not difficult to spot as they’re often fat; they wear gold chains and are usually covered in tattoos. They can be found loudly and drunkenly sharing their fatheaded opinions with anyone in earshot. These farangs think they know it all, but at some point they’ll finally realize how they couldn’t have been more wrong! Sometimes they insult the girls or get rough with them while they’re in a short-time room. This kind of behaviour isn’t wise in Pattaya; bargirls will send us a text to tell us when one of these farangs leaves a bar or short-time room to drunkenly wander the streets. We just drive by on a motorbike and either rip the gold chains from their necks or beat them up before relieving them of their valuables. We share some of the loot with the girls who tip us off to ensure they’ll do the same for us the next time. We occasionally get caught by the police, but the gold and other valuables are rarely returned to their owner. We keep everything we take from the farangs. It’s fair if you consider all the disgusting things they make us do, plus we aren’t the only ones ripping them off. I don’t give a fuck – they’re animals!

  About a year after I started working as a ladyboy I met a girl who’d just arrived in Pattaya from Bangkok. She approached me while I was having a quick snack in the Royal Garden Mall, which is a great spot to pick up customers when you’re fed up with cruising the streets. She told me her name was Nid and that she had a regular customer coming from the US who wanted a threesome with Nid and a ladyboy. He had already sent her the money to rent a condo and to find a suitable ladyboy. She offered me ten thousand baht to join them for a day and a night, and even more if the American wanted me for longer. It didn’t take much thought before I agreed to join them. She waited for me outside my apartment building in her red Toyota as I packed my overnight bag. She told me she used to work in a 7-Eleven in Bangkok, and that she and most of her colleagues just chatted on internet dating sites during the night. After her hunt for a suitable marriage candidate didn’t work out, she began selectively accepting offers for occasional paid sex. She said she was seeing a banker from New York, a farmer from Texas, and that the guy on his way was a university professor. It was nice settling into the condo – the place had a huge living room, three bedrooms each with its own bathroom, and a massive balcony overlooking the sea. Nid set up her laptop on the dining table. I’d seen customers with laptops before and had occasionally stolen one, but I’d never thought of using one to find work for myself online. I asked Nid to show me how to use it. The internet opened up a whole new world for me; I’d never realized its potential.

  Nid was a member of numerous dating sites and her smartphone was full of dating apps like Tinder and Badoo. She was connected to farangs all over the world. She explained that those apps are supposedly meant to match people wanting a relationship and marriage, but like everything in Thailand, there is a large grey area. Some of her online contacts had asked her to keep them company while they were here on holiday or on business. She’d given up her night-shift at 7-Eleven and had started sleeping with farang businessmen. Nid stayed in her lousy job in the daytime, and at night she slept with farangs for a fee. That sounded pretty good for her but was of no use to me, so I asked her for the sites that connect farangs with ladyboys. She showed me the more explicit dating sites for my niche market. Until then, Facebook and YouTube were the only sites I really knew about on the internet, but I was soon browsing through dating sites and began dreaming about finding customers online and saying goodbye to my life on the streets.

  Online prostitution in Thailand

  In the past, interactions between western males and local sex workers were always orchestrated by bar management, escort services or hotel service staff for a cut. The arrival of the internet and smartphones changed the industry dramatically as girls no longer needed to rely on middlemen. Instead of dancing in a go-go bar or finding customers on the streets or in parks, casual dating apps like Tinder, Badoo and WeChat are increasingly replacing the traditional venues for sex workers to interact with potential customers. Now, girls make the initial contact from home.
They only need to apply their make-up and walk out of the door after a deal is sealed. These smartphone apps have also created the new phenomenon of part-time sex workers, made up of ordinary Thai woman needing to raise extra money for car instalments or students requiring money to support their studies.

  Yayee

  The professor arrived late that night and Nid introduced him to me as Stephen. He actually looked like a professor; he wore spectacles and had a beard, but the flight and taxi ride had clearly exhausted him. Nothing happened that night, with him just having a drink and a shower before going to sleep in one of the bedrooms. Nid and I stayed up late. She was a nice woman and I was eager to get to know her better and find out how she found farangs using her laptop. Stephen turned out to be a decent guy too, especially compared to the farangs on Walking Street or Beach Road. He was clean and well-mannered. He had lunch ordered via room service and later treated us to a nice dinner at a fancy restaurant down the road. His sexual tastes were a bit weird though. In the afternoon he wanted Nid and me to wear kinky lingerie and high heels that he’d brought with him from the US. He also had porn videos streaming continuously from his laptop onto the big screen in the living room. The guy had a serious fetish for kinky sex and he got me to fuck him while Nid sucked his penis and licked his balls. When he got exhausted I had to fuck Nid in front of him. It was strange fucking her. Don’t get me wrong, I get hired by couples to fuck either of them, but those couples are usually both farangs. Nid was a Thai woman and had also become a sort of friend to me. It was strange for her as well I think, but the money was simply too good so we just got on with it. The orgy lasted the whole afternoon, and after dinner we returned to the living room to watch more porn, but the orgy had already run out of steam.