by Chai Pinit
He then lent towards me and said, ‘Tomorrow we come back and go enjoy? You massage?’
I assured him I did, knowing full well what he was implying. I could tell it was their first time hiring an additional lover, and I presumed they were buying themselves some time to talk about it before making a definite decision. I hoped they’d return, but suspected they might change their mind. True to their word though, they returned the following night. So I approached them with a big smile and wai.
Tony wasted no time. ‘Everything okay? Can you go with us? You go give me and my wife massage?’
Anna gave me a sheepish smile from behind Tony’s back. We all knew that a massage was the very least they were expecting from me.
I invited them into the bar and we sat down on a sofa, with me awkwardly seated between them. I assumed I’d need to help them relax a little before the night’s activities began, but was taken by surprise when Anna’s hand crept into my skimpy underwear and began playing with my penis. Meanwhile, Tony looked on approvingly. I knew then that I’d definitely be having sex with Anna. I’d never slept with such a beautiful Chinese lady but had always fantasised about it. Now I was about to fulfil this fantasy and even get paid for it. Had I met Anna outside of the bar, I’d gladly have paid her to sleep with me. Not all Asian women appeal to me—especially if they are stubby, short-legged, and have no bottom. On the other hand, I adore Western women, who I find sexy, open, and most importantly, they treat me as an equal. I would gladly sleep with them for free. Anna was just as appealing, if not more so, than the white girls I fantasised about. I couldn’t believe my luck that night in the bar.
When we arrived at their room we got straight down to business. Tony asked if I’d like to take a shower first and I hastily agreed. Anna did likewise. Tony was the last to wash up. Before he went into the bathroom he turned to me and said, ‘You massage my wife now?’ I began to slowly massage her as Tony exited the room. Anna was face-down on the bed as I lathered my hands in oil and began slowly kneading the muscles in her shoulders, back and buttocks, while blowing gently on her delicate skin. She spread her legs, allowing me to slip my hands between the cheeks of her buttocks. I eased my fingertips into her vagina and began slowly stimulating her. She was already moist, so I gently turned her over and began to run my tongue and hands all over her body. Not one inch of her gorgeous silken torso was left wanting, including her musky-scented nether region. She purred with pleasure as I began pleasing her with my tongue and fingers when Tony came from the shower. He walked over to the nightstand and retrieved a condom. After handing it to me he commanded, ‘Make her happy.’ I slid the condom on and entered her with a glorious thrust.
Anna cried out loudly as her whole body shuddered with pleasure. I continued ecstatically as she murmured something to Tony who translated that I was doing a great job. I’d been thrusting into her for some time before Tony helped us change positions. I stood up and Anna wrapped her legs and arms around me while Tony supported her back. He kissed and caressed her while I continued to pleasure her. Anna’s eyes remained closed the entire time, as if she was lost in some erotic reverie. Sweat formed on her face as she rasped and bit her bottom lip sensually.
We climaxed simultaneously then collapsed on the bed, exhausted but deeply satisfied. No one was as content as me though. In a normal everyday scenario, I’d probably be killed for having sex with someone’s wife, but here I’d been encouraged to do so . . . and was even paid for it. Life as a go-go boy is strange indeed.
I wanted to stay on and please them further, but the party was over. Tony picked up his wallet and counted out five one-thousand baht notes. Less than an hour had passed since I’d first stimulated Anna. In jest I kissed the bank notes, feeling like the luckiest man on earth. Before I excused myself, Tony turned to me and said, ‘You come back here at 5pm tomorrow.’
I was overjoyed. Not only had I just been paid for sleeping with a beautiful woman, but I was being invited to do it all over again. This kind of rendezvous was to continue throughout their stay in Bangkok.
When the time came for Tony and Anna to fly home to their three children, Tony gave me his mobile number so we could meet up next time they came to Bangkok. They seemed content with my services. Tony told me he was willing to do anything to make Anna happy. Judging by the size of Tony’s manhood, sexual pleasure was something he wasn’t quite able to provide for her. Tony and Anna were the first two clients I ever really looked forward to encountering again. Each time we slept together, I wanted to win Anna over with my performance. I pulled out all the stops. I thought that I was a valued member of our love triangle, but in reality they probably thought of me as little more than a sex toy, a walking dildo if you will. For once Anna had climaxed, she didn’t want anything to do with me.
While I was obsessing over ways of repaying my gambling debts, I received terrible news. My mother called imploring me to come home because Pa had gone missing. He’d left to go on business to a nearby town and hadn’t been seen since. Mae feared the worst. The neighbours had formed a search party but, so far, their efforts had been fruitless. Mae feared Pa might have been drunk and fallen into a pond and drowned.
A few months beforehand, my father informed me of his plan to demand compensation from a man named Phisanu, who was the father of the boy who’d been driving the scooter when Choke was killed. We’d had a simple funeral for Choke and I thought that everyone had moved on by putting his untimely death behind them. But my father had continued to obsess over the details of the crash, and insisted our family was owed compensation. Suwan, the man who’d been teaching his wife to drive the pick-up truck that fateful night, offered my father 100,000 baht in compensation if he agreed not to press charges against him. Suwan was a teacher at the same school as my father and they’d actually been good friends. I don’t know what my father was thinking—perhaps he felt some sort of loyalty to Suwan for old time’s sake—but he accepted the money and dropped the charges.
The two boys who’d been on the scooter with my brother only incurred some minor bruising and a few fractures, so Suwan refused to pay them any compensation. So Phisanu, the father of the driver, demanded justice. He took his grievances to court in the hopes that he and the family of the other boy would be awarded compensation. In court, the two survivors insisted that my brother had been driving when the accident occurred. Meanwhile, Suwan insisted he’d seen Phisanu’s son driving the vehicle. Instead of being awarded compensation, the court ruled that the driver, Phisanu’s son, was guilty of reckless manslaughter and was sent to prison. The court case had backfired on all involved. Phisanu was devastated by the verdict and cursed my father ever since. A series of brawls and angry outbursts ensued.
Rather than letting bygones be bygones, my father’s lawyer suggested Pa seek compensation from Phisanu also, since his son had been found guilty of manslaughter. I don’t think my father’s motives were purely mercenary though. Phisanu had publicly disgraced him with vitriolic attacks on his character, and my father’s pride had been deeply wounded. So he insisted Phisanu pay up. His incessant demands for compensation served only to worsen the rift between them. Phisanu threatened my father with all kinds of violence but Pa thought he was merely putting on a show of false bravado. It was a shame that relations had soured between them; once our two families were extremely close. Both sides had lost loved ones in the accident and, rather than causing them to bond over their shared grief, it only drove a wedge between them. I pleaded with my father to let it go, but between his macho pride and desperation to save face, he refused to listen.
We Thais believe that when it’s someone’s time to go back to their old home—that is, to die—then it’s impossible to change that destiny. That was the last conversation I had with my 62-year-old father.
By the time I arrived at the village, my father’s body had been found. He’d been dead for four days. They discovered him face down on the roads
ide. I was the only member of my family called to identify the body, yet I barely recognised him. The Khmer tattoo on his back was the only identifiable feature that revealed the corpse to be that of my father. He was horribly bloated, and one of his ears had been almost completely torn off; his face was covered in dried blood and both his eyes sat unnaturally in their sockets. Wriggling maggots seemed to delight in destructively gorging his flesh—a sight that brought home to me the reality of what had actually happened. My father was dead. It was a soul-destroying moment. My stomach wrenched violently and I couldn’t help but throw up. I cried out in agony, like a wounded animal. Words can never adequately explain what it was like seeing my father that way.
Ligature marks criss-crossed his body, suggesting rope had been used to restrain him. It was no accident that killed him; my father had been brutally murdered. My heart sank even further. I agonised thinking about how he’d struggled as his killers were beating him. I found it nearly impossible to come to grips with the horrific fate that had befallen my dearest Pa.
A policeman investigating the scene, who I later learned was a good friend of Phisanu’s, tried to convince me my father’s death had been accidental. He claimed my father had been the victim of a hit and run. Clearly, this made no sense. Had it been the case, the search party would have found him almost immediately since it would’ve happened in such an obvious spot. A hit and run didn’t explain the rope marks and other horrific wounds all over his body. Pa had obviously been abducted, tied up, and beaten to death. His body had possibly been hidden in the forest for some days before the killers decided to later dump him on the roadside. I desperately wanted to believe my father’s death hadn’t been so barbaric; but the evidence stared us all in the face.
The inquest confirmed our fears. Pa had received repeated blows to his head and body from a blunt object. It’d been raining continuously for several days, making it impossible to gather any real evidence, so it was never revealed exactly where he’d been killed. I concluded that whoever did it, wasn’t acting alone.
While my siblings and mother busied themselves preparing for Pa’s funeral, I occupied myself with gathering information through the local rumour mill. Mae told me that Pa was supposed to be going on business for half a day but never returned. Sombat, an acquaintance of my father, said he’d asked Pa to join their usual evening drinking circle on the day he disappeared and Pa had apparently done so, before leaving the party in a drunken stupor. I became suspicious of Sombat. He was the last person to see my father alive and also happened to be the one to discover his body. Pa usually walked home from Sombat’s along a small track which wove its way through an area of dense forest which, nonetheless, was inhabited by a handful of residents. At night-time though, the place was deathly quiet and a man’s screams would surely have been heard. After much prodding on my part, one of the locals confessed that he and his family had heard a pick-up truck race down the small road on the night in question. They also heard the distinct cries of a man in trouble. But they thought a fight had broken out between local louts and decided that it’d be better not to get involved.
I slowly began to piece together the night’s events as best I could. My father’s attackers must have come after him in a pick-up truck and abducted him. They then took him to a secure location and tortured him to death, before surreptitiously dumping the body at an opportune time in order that it be found half a week later. Nobody was willing to give any other information so this fragmented picture was the best I could come up with.
The more I delved into the crime the more convinced I’d become that I would be next on the murderers’ hit list. After all, I was nosing about and no doubt ruffling some feathers, especially judging by the nervous responses I was getting to my questions. I realised I needed to be more cautious when probing the locals. For all I knew, some of them might have been in cahoots with Phisanu, even helping to carry out the crime. Or if they hadn’t been directly involved, they may have had knowledge that would have put them in danger if they decided to disclose it. The atmosphere was less than cooperative, and the more information I gathered, the more confused I became.
One thing I was certain about was that Phisanu was the mastermind. I confided this thought with a close friend who promptly informed me that for 20,000 baht he could put a hit on Phisanu. Another friend offered to sell me an M16 so I could take matters into my own hands. I drank countless bottles of rice whiskey but nothing drowned the anger and hatred simmering within me. The only thing that prevented me from taking the law into my own hands was the fact I had a son and wife to think of. I didn’t want to perpetuate an endless cycle of revenge and death. If I avenged my father by killing Phisanu, it’d only be a matter of time before his family came after me. I reluctantly put the matter to rest, and prayed that karma would decide the fate of those responsible for Pa’s death.
Pa’s funeral had few attendants, which for me was further proof that many villagers had somehow been involved in his death, even if only by refusing to talk. They might have feared that Phisanu would interpret their attendance as disrespectful, or even as a way of pointing the finger at him. For others, I’m sure an uneasy conscience kept them away. I was enraged and threw all caution to the wind. I began accusing whoever I saw partying or merrymaking at the time of Pa’s funeral. His so-called friends, who eagerly soaked up free booze and money at his expense for years, were nowhere to be seen. At the end of the day, despite his reputation for kindness, my father had very few real friends.
My mother still hadn’t come to terms with Choke’s death and the loss of my father crippled her. After the funeral, she began to complain of powerful headaches, which she believed were a sign Pa wanted her to follow him into the afterlife. She claimed he called to her softly in her dreams.
The police finally recorded my father’s death as a murder; however, to this day, no arrests have been made.
I went back to Bangkok drained and defeated. It took me a long time to readjust, and to be honest, I never really did. I relied on my trusted friend, alcohol, to help me cope with the loss. Gambling also diverted my thoughts from the pain.
The last time I met my Hong Kong sweethearts, I brought my wife and son along to meet them at the airport. I lied again by saying Nuan was my cousin and Chuan my nephew. To thank us for welcoming them so hospitably, they treated us to a lavish dinner in an expensive restaurant. Nuan and Chuan then went home and I stayed on to take care of Anna, at Tony’s insistence. After I’d pleasured Anna in the usual fashion, I brazenly asked her for 30,000 baht to help pay off my gambling debts. This was the first time Anna had ever heard anything of my addiction. Tony interjected that he didn’t have that kind of cash and instructed me to come to see him the following day. They stopped taking my phone calls and abruptly vanished from their hotel room without a trace. I’d overstepped an invisible boundary and due to my greed, shot myself in the foot. I was not a charity case, so by stepping outside of my designated role they simply discarded me. I’d deluded myself, believing I had the upper hand in the relationship thinking they actually needed me and my sexual prowess. I felt that Tony’s shortcomings in bed gave me licence to take advantage of them. I found out the hard way that Tony had the power all along. He hired me to be his wife’s lover, but the moment I became too demanding he simply replaced me with someone else. I might have been able to penetrate Anna’s sex, but her bond with Tony was something I could never interfere with. I was hired help and nothing more.
A year after Pa died, my mother called me on a regular basis, begging me to help her organise a ritual called riak kwan at her house. This religious ceremony is supposed to help strengthen and secure the spirit and thus prevent its being robbed from the body. She believed Pa desperately wanted her to join him in the spirit world, and that through the strength of his desires, he somehow stole part of her spirit. She claimed that Pa’s powerful yearnings were manifested in physical form by the mind-numbing headaches she
was experiencing. I suggested that it was her negative thoughts causing the headaches and begged her to see a doctor. I swore she’d be able to heal herself if she followed my instructions.
In reality, I was terrified of returning to my village. I’d accused countless people of being involved in my father’s murder and believed that they might come after me. When I learnt my mother had been hospitalised, I sent Nuan to care for her, rather than do so myself. Mae died in her sleep in a lonely hospital bed. She was 59.
The doctors told us afterwards that throughout the hours preceding her death she appeared to be incoherently talking to someone. Of course, no one was present. Lau generously gave me 20,000 baht to pay for her funeral.
I lost three family members within a short period of time and I was inconsolable with grief. I alternated between moods of depression and guilt. I wondered if my mother might have lived longer if I’d helped her carry out the riak kwan ritual as she’d asked. She’d suffered two great losses and her will to live just ebbed away. After Pa’s death, Mae was all alone; one by one her children simply returned to their families. My mother’s only companions had been the neighbours—many of whom we suspected had been involved in Pa’s murder—and her relatives who visited rarely. I could’ve asked her to come live with us in Bangkok; instead, I selfishly stuck my head in the sand. I’d disappointed her so many times, and when I had a chance to make things right, I chose not to.
I have made many mistakes, but the wrongs I committed against my parents really are the actions I regret the most. I often worry that one day my own children will abandon me in the same manner. And if it does happen, I will have no choice but to accept it.
My life was collapsing around me like a house of cards. Losing a large part of my family in such a short space of time was too much to cope with. Each death brought its own tidal wave of sorrow, and my own will to live seemed to be drifting away.