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Short time mean I fuck you two time, one hour, said the Hotel 38 girl. All night mean until twel' o'clock. Then I go home Papa-san.
He tried to tell her that he was a journalist, just to tell her something, just to reach her, and then he asked if she understood and she said yes and then he wondered how many men asked her if she understood and how often she said yes.
He showed her the rubber. - You want to use this? Up to you.
Yes, she said. Good for you, good for me.
Well, he thought (a little dashed), now my perfect record's spoiled. Now I've actually used a rubber from the beginning with one of my girls.
That's how the cookie crumbles, he said to himself.
Well, there was that one I caught the white fungus from, but I started by eating her out so that didn't really count.
This girl cost three hundred bhat. He'd told the night manager to pick one out for him, whoever wanted to come. - Be good to her! the night manager had said. He tipped her two hundred. When he saw the expression on her face, he thought:
Well, at least once in my life I've made another human being completely happy.
He tried to get her to stay a little longer, but she wouldn't. Later, though, she came back because she worried that he might not have had a clean towel . . .
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You butterfly too much, Joy said to him when she and the photographer came in that night. Too much Thai lady! No good for you, no good for her. She no good, no good heart! She have boyfriend! Not me. I no boyfriend. I love you, I go with you; I no love you, I no go. Before, I have boyfriend. He butterfly too much. He fucking too much! (Joy was shouting.) One day he fucking one, two, three, four. I say to him: OK, you no come here again, we finit. I say: You want marry me, see Mama me, Papa me - why? He crying. He say: I don't know. I say: You don't know? You finit! Finit me!
What did you think of that? laughed the photographer. Boy, you looked scared for a minute!
He pointed solemnly to the journalist and said to Joy: He butterfly too much!
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Lying in that absurd round bed at half-past four in the morning, he blew his nose, cleared his throat, coughed, and spat on the floor, listening to the rain outside while the air conditioners droned and the blue curtains hung dirty, fat and listless like diseased cunt-lips. It was not very dark because the rooms with round beds had windows at the tops of the doors to let hall-light in, probably so that the whores wouldn't lose money for the hotel by falling asleep. He coughed. Finally he got up, turned on the light, and sat alone in the middle of the round bed, weary and calm. The shrill shouts of the whores had ceased; he could hear nothing but the rain and the air conditioner. A big bug scuttered across the floor. (In Pat Pong he'd seen the whores eating bugs roasted on a stick. ) The late night feeling went on and on, and he cleared his throat and spat white fungus.
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There weren't any other rooms in the hotel, and though he'd invited the photographer and Joy to take the round bed (he didn't mind sleeping on the floor), they went home to Joy's to sleep.
When he went into Joy's box, there was nothing but smallness, heat and darkness humid with sleeping breath; the photographer and the two women didn't make any sound as they slept.
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You go Pattaya? said the journalist to Pukki.
She looked guilty, and he was sorry he'd said anything. - How you know?
I know everything, he said with a wink. My name King Pat Pong. Your boyfriend good?
So-so. Not good, not bad.
When the photographer had gone out to the toilet, Joy said to him right in front of Pukki: Do you love me?
The journalist didn't want to hurt her feelings. He didn't know who he loved anymore. He was fond of her ... - Yes, I love you, he said lightly. She didn't say anything.
After awhile he said: Do you love me?
No. I like you. I don't love you. I love only him.
Then he felt a little ashamed, as usual; why did he have to either hurt people or lie?
But maybe he did love her. Like a brother, of course . . .
Joy seemed so sweet and patient and all-seeing with the towel around her, cigarette in hand, other hand between her legs, casting her black shadow against the day, her eyes and mouth and nostrils perfect slits, the towel folds fanning down like sandbars from her left breast, a dark fingertip of shadow between her right breast and her arm, her expression maybe not quite so sweet after all, maybe only neutral.
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Well, 200 bhat for a stifling sleepless night at Joy's place versus 300 bhat at the air-conditioned Hotel 38; perhaps (thought the weary white boys) Joy's place was a false economy. - Back to the 38.
While the journalist squatted at his ease in the puddled bathroom, having diarrhea and cleverly vomiting between his legs at the same time, the photographer caught a tuk-tuk to Pat Pong to buy Joy and Pukki (whom the photographer, though he no longer hated her, still enjoyed calling Porky). The journalist was not that interested in Pukki, but he wanted to do Joy a favor, and it seemed important to her to set him up with Pukki; fine, he'd stick it in. (I want to kin kao her. - No problem, she said tonelessly.) So many times now he'd seen Pukki dancing on top of the bar beside Joy, grasping the cool shining pole whose reflected light rocketed invitingly up her half-cocked thighs, and Joy would be looking away, moving her knee up and down while Pukki in the silverlime bathing suit smiled open-mouthed hi! like some comedian brining thumb and forefinger together in a circle which summed up all holes, poor Pukki dancing on, never getting as much attention as Joy . . . So all right, let's be Mr. Nice Guy. Oh, the problems you can have with women when you're popular . . . They came in already half loaded, and Joy had bought a giant-sized Singha beer for each of them. Pukki sat on the journalist's bed scarcely paying any attention to him; her face was full of Joy, who lay hugging the photographer and glancing over her shoulder every ten minutes or so at Pukki, who would giggle again; the photographer had said he thought they were lesbians, which the journalist hadn't believed, but now he wondered and said quietly to Pukki: You go with ladies sometimes? and Pukki blushed and said: Sometimes and he said: You go with Joy sometimes? and she nodded. - He said to her: You no want stay with me. It's OK, honey. I pay you same you stay, same you stay; up to you . . . — and Pukki whirled on him in a flash, scared now, and started snuggling him, and he felt very sad. — I stay I stay! she whispered. I stay short-time you want short-time; I stay all night you want all night! and this got his hopes up a little bit; so maybe he'd finally found a Thai lady who'd stay all night with him (all the photographer's had been all-nights), so he said: OK, you stay all night, please, Pukki and she smiled. - Joy said something to her very sharply and she opened her fingers to show him a condom and said: You use this please. - That's only fair, he said. I've been telling you I'm a butterfly. - Butterfly no problem me, she said. - Kap kum kap,* Pukki. Why don't you go and take your shower? - So, not too long afterward, she'd fumbled the condom onto him and for variety's sake he put K-Y jelly on the condom instead of inside her and after a few half-hearted caresses he slid it in good and deep, semi-erect like a banana leaf, wanting only to sleep, and he pulled it out and stuck it in and pulled it out and stuck it in and could feel himself starting to go soft just like with Vanna, from whom he was sinking farther with every thrust, and he got softer which he didn't like one bit because it would only make Pukki feel worse about herself (as it was, she couldn't be exactly enjoying herself, but the similarity between whores and wives is that you don't have to consider their pleasure when you fuck them, unlike sweethearts such as Vanna who probably don't enjoy it, either), so he did his best to feel in the mood and the bed creaked cheerfully and he stopped noticing the other two in the other bed and her face was gentle and kind; she was trying to make him happy; and after awhile he started thinking he'd finally mastered the art of enjoying himself with a rubber; it felt better than it ever had before; he could feel the heat of her cunt right through the rubber, and the
harder and faster he did it to her the hotter and wetter and more slippery she got and he was sailing and flying thinking to himself this is great! and her cunt was so good, almost too good, and then just as he came he saw the same thing in her face that he'd seen in rush hour people at the beginning of a sudden rain, the lady running with her shopping bag, the man in the soaked white shirt, the man on the moving truck quickly throwing pieces of plastic over a cargo of cardboard, raindrops spilling off the tuk-tuk awnings, the air no cooler, a sudden hot wind coming, the pavement now a river, and she said urgently: Let me see condom please! and he pulled out of her with a slurp and the condom had dissolved.
Now I have bay-bee! she wailed.
* Thank you.
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He helped her wash. - I go now! she said. Go talk friend stop baby, sleep home, not with man, OK?
Whatever you want, Pukki.
You not angry?
You butterfly me, I butterfly you, no problem, I not angry, Pukki. . .
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All morning and all afternoon the photographer lay in bed, helpless without his fix of pussy. The journalist wandered in and out with his heart racing for Vanna. At the park gate two men were playing checkers with bottlecaps on a piece of cardboard, and the journalist went in and sat beside the mud-brown lake as rainclouds guttered like greasy candles in the sky.
He reread her letter, as he'd done every day . . .
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Joy had told the photographer that she had to see someone before she came that night, so she'd be late. - Probably got to make some money, said the photographer. It's not like I've been giving her much . . .
She came at four or five in the morning, smiling and swaying. - I drink too much! she giggled.
Are you happy? asked the journalist quietly.
Yes, me very happy, 'cause I drink too much! I bring something for you. Here your clothes; I wash them for you; your shirt not yet; I no iron -
The photographer lay on the bed, his eyes closed.
You angry me?
No, not angry, Joy, just tired.
Look! I got toy monkey! You see? From lady! She like me too much! You go America Friday, I go her Saturday for holiday. No make love! No make love! Only go with her . . . You not angry?
Nope, yawned the photographer.
He looked at the monkey on the bed for awhile. Then he flung it to her, or at her; what he was doing was never entirely clear. But surely he was only playing with her . . .
She froze in just the same way that Thais jogging in the park freeze into rigid attention when the national anthem comes on the loudspeaker. Then she whirled on him. - Why you do that? You angry me?
No. Just tired.
You no like me?
I like you fine, Joy.
Why you angry me?
After that, the photographer's face hardened. The journalist knew that something bad would happen.
Joy stood by the mirror. She had been about to undress. She fingered the topmost button of her Pat Pong uniform, undoing
it and then doing it up again. Then she began to speak in a rapid monotone:
You no like me? You no like me OK I go home sleep. You no like me? You no like me?
The photographer said nothing. He didn't even open his eyes.
OK you no like me I go. I go now. You no like me. OK.
She began to pack very rapidly. She slipped her sandals back on. She stood waiting for the photographer to say something, and the journalist wanted to call out to her and take her in his arms, only to take her pain away - as if his embrace could do anything; he had to PAY to embrace . . . and he wanted the photographer to say to her once more that he loved her (although that probably wasn't true) but he knew that the photographer was not going to say anything, and even if it had, that wouldn't have helped her, and even if the journalist or the photographer or anyone could have smashed the collar of anguish that was strangling her, she'd be choking again tomorrow night; so he lay watching her in silence, saddened to the bottom of his heart, knowing that there was nothing he could or should do, nothing to do, in that long long time when she stood by the doorway waiting, and then she said: OK. I go. - And she waited a little longer. Then she turned out the light, opened the door, and shut it behind her. Now she would be walking toward the stairs; the photographer could still have leaped up and caught her; now she was downstairs; now she'd be walking very very quickly in the rain to find a tuk-tuk. Lying in the darkness, he heard the photographer groan.
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In the morning he decided to set out for Joy's to tell her that he was worried about her, and possibly to give her flowers or money. The photographer had her address, written in Thai for the tuk-tuk. He didn't want to tell the photographer where he was going;
the photographer might feel (and rightly) that it was none of his business. He decided to walk. He didn't know exactly where it was but he thought he knew the direction that the tuk'tuks went. It was near a large park, which he was confident he'd find. Soon he was in places he'd never been before.
The fungus between his fingers itched. Thais immaculate in pressed and sweatless shirts eyed him as he trudged and dripped. - Where are you going, butterfly? a man called. - He came to a translation service, and remembered that he had a letter for Vanna with him. - Can you translate from English to Khmer? he said. - No, they laughed. - They always laughed. It was the tenth place he'd tried. He came to an international calling service and asked them if he could call Cambodia. Yes, but he must wait one to two hours to get through. - Anyhow, he didn't know whom to call, how to reach her ... He came to a department store and then a vast spacious park with fountains and playing fields; a grand white structure rose in the distance, multiple-roofed like a wat. Probably it was a girls' school. Everywhere he saw girls in white blouses and navy blue skirts. They sat in ones and twos on the edge of a brown pool, their homework on their knees. No, evidently there were boys, too; here came a procession of them in white shirts, navy blue trousers, marching along the outer perimeter of the pool. - Too bad there had to be boys. Now the place was polluted. - He sat for a long time and watched the water.
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He arrived at Joy's with his heart in his throat, and knocked, seeing light under the door. At least they weren't sleeping.
Joy? he said. Sawadee-kap.*
Yes, she finally said listlessly.
* Thai greeting.
He went in and said: My friend no angry you. I worried you. You drink too much. No problem. OK?
Pukki's face had lit up when he came in, but now it dimmed. - You no come for me?
I have something for you, Pukki, he said, giving her his last twenty dollars.
For me? Why?
I sorry maybe you have baby.
OK. No problem.
The girls were not their bar selves. They sat sweating and trying to rub away beer headaches. Two Thai boys (whom they vehemently assured him were not their boyfriends, and he thought: Why does it have to be my business? Why can't they
be your boyfriends? We have no claim on you; we're only sick butterflies) were lying on the futon. Soon Pukki began to pay the journalist his due attentions. She sent one of the boys out to get lunch. When he came back she spooned the journalist's food onto the plate for him, just right. She peeled the skin off his chicken. She poured his water while the boys ironed his shirt and bluejeans. She had him lie down, and she sat fanning him. - Time to work. He wrote: Article about a whore who kisses a locket with her (dead?) boyfriend's photo before every sex act. -You good wife, he teased, and she laughed in delight.
You marry me?
Maybe next time.
When you come back?
I don't know, Pukki. I no lie you. Maybe never. I no good. I butterfly. I butterfly you forever.
But later, when she snuggled against him and the boys massaged his legs, calling him Papa-san and bumming ten bhat off him (he gave them twenty), he thought: Well, I could do worse than marry Pukki; Pukki is really a dear, dear girl . . .
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The photographer came and made up with Joy. The journalist stayed and stayed. - I really should cable something to the newspaper, he thought. Well, maybe I shouldn't; if they know how to get hold of me they may tell me I'm fired. Shit. Maybe I'll write something. What I need's an idea ... an idea - by God, I have an idea! That means LIGHT BULBS!
Finally Pukki said to him: OK you go hotel now.
You come with me?
No. I go see friend. You come bar nine o'clock, say goodbye me. I buy you beer from money you give me.
OK.
But at nine o'clock, rolling into Pat Pong on a tuk-tuk with the photographer, who should he see but Noi, the short girl he'd bought all those drinks for and hadn't seen since, and Noi ran up and grabbed his hand, crying: I wait you, I wait you - every day I wait you!
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Noi, I don't have any money left.
No matter me. Mariée say you save your money come looking me; you have good heart -
I can't even buy you out of the bar. How much is it, three hundred bhat?
How much you have?
The journalist turned his pockets inside out. He gave her everything he had: a hundred fifty.
OK, she said. No problem. I love you . . .
Butterfly Stories: A Novel Page 13