Bangkok was supposed to have been an overnight stop-over en route to Phuket, but the Mandarin Oriental had been so nice he had checked himself in for a week. Miles gazed out of the cab’s window at the endless pink and blue neon signs: ‘Go-go bar!’, ‘24-hour Sex Show’, ‘Girls, Girls, Girls!’ You didn’t need insider knowledge to find the Patpong Road; in fact it would be hard to miss. Although Miles had no great desire to see Thai girls firing ping-pong balls from their vaginas, curiosity about this famous hotbed of wickedness had got the better of him. He left the cab and wandered among the thronging streets, peering at the signs advertising pedicures, two-for-one beers and ‘full-body massage’. On the pavements, petite Thai girls in white vinyl boots beckoned him into their darkened doorways. Miles was having a great time. He hopped from bar to bar, drinking Singha beer and enjoying the alien sensation of being dislocated, surrounded by people who had no idea who he was: giggling couples on a naughty pit-stop to their honeymoon oasis, Western men in denim and football shirts gawking at sights which would stay with them all the way back to Dusseldorf and Tynemouth. It struck Miles that this was the first time he had truly been alone in years. Eton, Danehurst, Oxford, he’d always been surrounded by ‘his people’, and even when he’d flown the nest, he’d sought out other playboys to join him on his quest for the next high. But here, he was just another farang, a foreigner, a fish out of water – and he was loving every minute of it. He could go anywhere, do anything and no one would ever know.
He turned into another street, just as gaudy as the other strips, but here the girls in miniskirts had been replaced by muscular men in vests. In tight groups, their arms casually draped around each other, they watched Miles pass and smiled appreciatively. Miles was mesmerised, frightened, but above all excited. He hesitated on the street, then, taking a deep breath, he pushed his way into a humid basement bar, the throb of the music hitting him in his chest, the condensation dripping down the black lacquered walls – everyone seemed to be sweating, even the club. He elbowed his way to the bar and ordered a Jack Daniel’s, knocking it back as he looked around. Men were everywhere, many stripped to the waist, drinking, dancing, even kissing. Miles was aroused by the sheer forbidden nature of the place. I’m just curious, he told himself.
‘Your first time in Bangkok?’
He looked up. The man was maybe ten years older than him, and there was a trace of a European accent – Dutch? German? He was shorter than Miles but his pumped-up build bulged from the sleeves of a black T-shirt and his dark blond hair was cropped. Part of Miles wanted to run straight out of the club into the fresh air, but his feet felt welded to the spot.
‘What makes you say that?’ he asked.
The man smiled. ‘Just a look.’
‘What about you?’
‘I come to Thailand twice a year. On business,’ he smiled. ‘It suits me.’
Miles glanced at the man’s rough hands; on his finger was the glint of a wedding ring that both shocked and reassured him.
‘You do know what this place is, don’t you?’
Miles shrugged. Nonchalant, uncaring, as if he could take it or leave it, but inside his heart was pumping rapidly.
‘Should I show you the back?’
‘What’s there?’ asked Miles, finishing his drink. Suddenly his throat seemed very dry.
‘What do you think?’
Miles allowed the man to lead him towards a door at the back of the bar where he gave a handful of baht to a bored-looking Thai man on a stool. Inside was a dark corridor smelling of disinfectant, a number of doors leading off to the right. Low sounds echoed behind the walls, moans, murmurs.
Holding one of the doors open, the man indicated that Miles should enter. Nervously, he stepped into a small, dark booth. The heat was oppressive and he felt his body tense. The man was behind him now in the confined space, so close that Miles could feel his breath on the back of his neck.
‘Relax. I don’t bite,’ he said, smiling. ‘Not unless you want me to.’
Reaching past Miles, he pushed a token into a rusty slot and a window instantly opened in front of him. Inside, on a vinyl mattress, were three naked men touching, stroking, fucking. For a second, a series of images jumped into Miles’ mind, schoolboy fumbles in the dorm at Eton, stolen experimental kisses in the bathroom, the odd encounter on a stairwell in some club in London. But nothing like this. Nothing this – real.
‘Do you like this?’ asked the man as he unzipped Miles’ chinos and reached inside. ‘Ah, yes, I think you do.’
Miles closed his eyes, his breath coming in rasps now.
‘How’s that feel?’ asked the man as his trousers fell to the concrete floor.
Miles said nothing, but it felt wonderful. It felt so good to finally release the shameful pent-up desires he’d carried with him for so long, and now, finally, he was ready and willing for the pain and pleasure he was about to receive.
Twenty-four hours later, Miles was in Phuket. The morning after his night out in the depths of Bangkok he checked out of the Oriental, found a stand-by flight and by early evening was weaving up and down the side streets of Patong’s Bangla Road with an enormous sense of relief. He felt much more at home here: tanned, slim posh girls on their gap years filled the streets alongside Aussie backpackers on their way to bar jobs. Were it not for the palm trees and the clear blue of the Andaman Sea in the background, it could almost have been a Saturday night along the Fulham Road. At a Thai boxing match he fell in with Tom and Zac, students who had graduated from Edinburgh that summer, and they spent the rest of the evening hopping from bar to bar, enjoying the easy camaraderie of young Brits abroad. Miles felt safe with these boys – they were straight, normal and predictable, exactly what he needed after last night. The thought of it set off a clash of emotions – shame, confusion and, most of all, desire. He pushed the feelings away and herded his new friends into the Disco-a-Go-Go bar behind Soi Seadragon, hitting a wall of neon and sound.
‘Welcome, boys,’ smiled a petite Thai girl in a tight T-shirt and micro-shorts.
‘Hell-oh, mama,’ said Zac, gawping at the girl’s breasts.
‘I hope they’re going to be filthy,’ said Tom as they ordered beers at the bar and clambered on to bar stools to watch a line of girls sashay out on to a runway. They were mostly Thai, slim and young, wearing an assortment of skimpy clothing – mesh cropped T-shirts, leather shorts, metallic bikinis. The room filled with a sexual charge as the girls danced, hips gyrating, arms circling suggestively. But Miles was only watching one girl. She was different, and not just because she was the only Western girl on the stage. Her long hair was dyed red, swishing back and forth across her curved back. A black crop-top clung to voluptuous breasts and stopped short of a slim, perfectly toned belly. She had spotted Miles watching her and strode over, grinding her taut tummy just in front of his grinning face.
‘Tuck a fifty in her bra, Miles!’ whooped Zac.
‘Pounds or baht?’ He smiled.
Tom sniggered. Fifty baht was worth less than a pound. Miles gave the girl a hundred-dollar bill, hard US currency. It wasn’t like he couldn’t afford it, was it?
‘Whoa, your round I think, Miles,’ said Zac, slapping him on the back.
The dancing girls came off stage to mingle with the crowd, draping themselves over the punters, flirting crudely, cajoling the punters to buy them drinks; small measures, Miles noticed.
‘Hey, cowboy.’
Turning, he met the piercing gaze of the redhead.
‘Shouldn’t you be checking out the dancers, not the bar?’ she said with amusement.
‘I was just working out how much money this place made a night,’ said Miles.
‘Fancy the Patong bar game, do you?’ She looked at his cream trousers and pink Turnbull and Asser shirt. ‘You don’t look like the type.’
‘Just curious.’
She nodded non-committally. ‘So are you going to buy me a drink?’
He smiled. ‘A watered-down one, you me
an?’
She twirled her finger around her belly chain. ‘Oh, I do miss the cynicism of Britain.’
‘Where are you from?’
‘Hastings,’ she said after a minute pause.
‘So what brought you here?’
‘Same thing as half the other people in Patong. Money, adventure, excitement.’
She gave him a suggestive half-smile. To his surprise, he found he was enjoying her attention.
‘And did you find it?’
‘Business is good.’ She smiled slowly. ‘I probably make a great deal more money than most people my age, even posh Home Counties ones with fancy educations like you.’
He smiled at her naïve suggestion that she somehow had more money than him. But she had a ‘screw you’ attitude that appealed to him. She wasn’t going to sweet-talk him just to get the commission for a few overpriced drinks. Still, he couldn’t help goading her.
‘So how exactly do you make that money?’
She visibly bristled.‘This is a decent place. The dancers here aren’t hookers.’
She waited, hands on hips, for a smart remark, but Miles just met her gaze.
‘I make money because I’m pretty,’ she continued with irritation. ‘Because I’m European. Because I don’t want to get married to the first guy who shows interest. And the Asian guys love me. I don’t fuck. I just dance, and I make a lot of cash doing it. Speaking of which, are you going to buy me a drink? My bosses are watching.’
‘I don’t pay to talk to girls.’
‘Yes, you have that look about you,’ she said, turning on her heel.
Miles pulled her back. This girl was affecting him. Not in an obvious sexual way, but there was something about her that made him want to keep talking to her.
‘Why don’t we meet later?’ he said. ‘Not for money. Because you want to.’
She was about to laugh it off, but then saw Miles was serious. She hesitated.
‘I’m at the Marriott in Karon Bay,’ he said quickly. ‘Come by for a drink at the bar later.’
She shook her head slightly. ‘When I’m off duty, I’m off duty.’
Miles smiled. ‘Come on. I thought you came to Phuket for adventure. ’
She raised that sculpted eyebrow again. ‘You could be anyone.’
‘Do I look like Jack the Ripper?’
‘Just because you’re wearing Ralph Lauren doesn’t mean you don’t want a freebie fuck with a go-go girl.’
Miles smiled slightly. ‘Thanks for making me sound so cheap,’ he said. ‘Not many people can do that, believe me.’
She laughed. Suddenly she seemed to make a decision. ‘I finish at one a.m.,’ she said. ‘There’s a little bar in Karon Bay called The Red Parrot. One drink. And I’m buying.’
And with that, she walked off into the crowd. Miles grinned at her back, feeling strangely buoyant.
‘Strike out with the redhead?’ said Zac sympathetically. He had a Thai girl with waist-length hair sitting on his knee, simpering.
‘Can’t win ’em all, can you?’ said Miles, signalling to the barman and wondering how long he could leave it before he got rid of Tom and Zac.
24
She was twenty minutes late. Miles had considered leaving, but when she walked through the door in white jeans and a tight red T-shirt, he was glad he had swallowed his pride and stayed. She looked fantastic and Miles was particularly pleased that she looked even better in this relaxed setting. Karon Bay was just two miles down the Suwang Road but a million miles away from the fluoro pink lights and sex tourists of Patong. Chrissy Devine (‘The name on my birth certificate,’ she smiled. ‘I was born to be a go-go dancer, wasn’t I?’) had been in Thailand for almost eighteen months, lured to the exotic East when an ex-boyfriend had told her about the money to be made on the strip. She ordered Miles a cocktail – not bothering to ask if he wanted one – and pulled him over to the pool table where she expertly potted four balls in quick succession.
‘So that’s me,’ she smiled, lining up her next shot, breasts almost spilling out of the low scoop of her T-shirt. ‘What about you? On a round-the-world ticket with Daddy’s money until he finds you something at the family firm?’
Miles laughed. He loved the fact that she didn’t mind pissing him off. Girls usually tiptoed around him, twirling their fingers in their hair, careful not to say the wrong thing, careful not to upset the highly eligible Miles Ashford. Chrissy was different, crackling with sexual energy and attitude. Miles could feel himself getting aroused as much as the night before.
‘You’re right about the round-the-world trip. But wrong about Daddy’s money.’
‘So you work?’
‘No. Inheritance.’
‘Lucky you,’ she replied with a small throaty laugh. ‘The only thing I got from my family was a rejection complex.’
‘Really? What happened?’
Chrissy waved a hand in the air. ‘Oh, just the usual story. My dad pissed off when I was nine, Mum got a new boyfriend, and they started breeding like rabbits to get a bigger house off the council. Once the new kids came along, me and my brother were pushed to the side. My brother didn’t handle it very well. You can see him hanging around Hastings harbour now trying to score heroin.’
‘Christ,’ said Miles, trying not to look as shocked as he felt. He had never met the benefit scroungers he’d read about in the tabloids, and he’d certainly never met a junkie. ‘Sorry.’
‘Don’t be sorry,’ said Chrissy. ‘My brother was always a loser. I got out as soon as I could. I went to Amsterdam when I was seventeen, then Tokyo, working in bars for a couple of years until I’d saved up the cash to come here.’
He did the arithmetic. ‘So you’re twenty-one?’ He was surprised. She didn’t look the same age as him. He was suddenly more impressed with her worldliness. ‘How long are you going to keep doing this?’
‘I’ve already been sounded out by Sundown on Soi Bangla to be a mamasan in the New Year.’
‘What’s that?’
‘A manager.’ She smiled. ‘It’s a promotion.’
‘Really?’
‘As mamasan I’ll get a cut of everything my dancers make. It’s good pay; it’s dirt cheap to live out here. I reckon to make a hundred grand before I’m thirty.’
Miles whistled. ‘Shit, you have it all worked out.’
Chrissy potted the black with a decisive thunk.
‘Then again,’ said Miles slowly, ‘a hundred grand? That’s not particularly ambitious.’
‘Sorry if it doesn’t sound much to you,’ she snapped. ‘But I’ll have earned it, not just pulled it out of my trust fund.’
‘I didn’t mean to sound patronising. And it doesn’t matter where you come from, Chrissy; if you want it enough, you can be as big, as rich as they come.’
She eyed him up slowly. ‘I thought you’d be a snob.’
He laughed. ‘Not me. At school, my best mate was the scholarship boy.’
‘How fucking generous of you.’ She laughed, taking a long drag of cigarette. She wasn’t as beautiful as Sasha, thought Miles, but she had something more raw, more animal. Even so, put her in jeans and cowboy boots and behind the wheel of a BMW on the King’s Road, she’d fit right in.
‘Want to come back for a smoke?’
Chrissy’s flat consisted of one large room with a bathroom, but it was tidy and surprisingly feminine: purple velvet cushions and rose petals by the bath. Miles sat on a small sofa pouring vodka into two old china cups, while Chrissy sat cross-legged on the floor, expertly rolling a double-size joint.
‘I thought the Thais were zero tolerance on drugs,’ said Miles as she passed it over. ‘The papers are full of stories about the Bangkok Hilton.’
Chrissy let the fragrant smoke out with a sigh. ‘You don’t want to get caught dealing,’ she said. ‘They still enforce the death penalty for trafficking. But the police are always open to a bribe for anything recreational.’
Miles moved to sit next to her on the floor
.
‘I’m a bit drunk,’ she said with a laugh. ‘I think you’re a bad influence.’
‘It’s not the first time that’s been said,’ drawled Miles.
He felt his cock stiffen. Carefully he pushed back the scoop neck of her T-shirt and kissed her shoulder, tasting her skin, soft and moist like chocolate butter.
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