Tony;
“After I got the phone call I looked it up on the internet. Ricky and his wife had been shot dead during the wedding ceremony. A gunman dressed as a parcel delivery man came in carrying parcels. He was wearing a motorbike helmet and gloves. He put the parcels down behind the couple and then shot them both in the head and just walked out and got on a motorbike and went.”
Nit;
“I was there. A parcel delivery man came in. Nobody took any notice. He put the parcels down behind Ricky and Fon. He was wearing one of those helmets with a dark mirrored visor and gloves of course. Then he shot them both in the back of the head. Everybody was screaming and diving for cover. The gunman just walked out and got on the back of a motorbike and he was driven off. It was a professional hit and the police knew straight away that JW was behind it. They went to his house and found him dead. He had taken an overdose. He left a note saying that he had hired the two gunmen and he was dying happy knowing that Fon and Ricky would also be dead. The note said that she was never going to be Ricky’s wife, but as far as I’m concerned, she already was. I’ll never forget Fon. She was my best friend and I loved her. I hope she is happy in the next life with Ricky and their baby. I don’t know what else to say now……”
Tony;
“The ex-husband had paid to have Fon and Ricky shot dead at their wedding. When the police went to his house they found him dead. It was a suicide. He had left a note claiming responsibility for the shootings. He was obviously a crazy old man. I’m glad he topped himself.”
John S Richards Jnr.;
“Now you shouldn’t speak ill of the dead and I’m not going to speak ill of JW. He was heartbroken and he had lost everything he loved. I don’t condone what he did. It’s just sad. I hope he rests in peace. I blame the girl, Fon.”
2. Up Country
The adventures of a first time visitor to the north of Thailand
My name is Edward Earl James III. I was named after my pappy and his pappy before him. I own a ranch in Texas, which I think is the finest state in the finest country in the world. I am proud to be a Texan. People say that I talk like Johnnie Cash sings. Well, if that’s true, then I am mighty proud of that too! I produce meat products, hides, sheep skins, leather goods, animal feeds and even bone meal to make your roses grow pretty. I have voted democrats in every election since I was old enough to vote and I am worth just over three million dollars. My story really started 10 years ago just before my birthday. I was going to be sixty years old in the June. My mammy died when I was 23 years old and pappy died 10 years later. I have no brothers or sisters. I was married, but my wife died four years later in a car accident. God had chosen not to bless our marriage with children. I tell you all this because I think it is important for the story and it is important for me that you understand me - a little bit anyway! My friends call me Eddy or Beef. Everyone else calls me Sir, or Mr James.
I think it was my approaching landmark birthday that made me think about my life and made me want to make some changes. It might sound silly to some, but I still wanted children. I think I needed children to leave everything to, otherwise what was the point of it all. Anyway I had heard that the little ladies out in the Far East love older guys, especially someone like me who has made something of himself. I was no movie star and I carried a few extra pounds. I have been the cow-pie eating champion of my state for the last 30 years! I’m not a stupid man. I think I would make some little oriental lady a perfect husband and I know that I will make a great pappy for little Edward Earl James IV, when he comes along.
Now I’ve been a business man all my life, so I went about my search in a business fashion. I wanted either a Chinese or a Thai lady. I checked out dating sites online and found that the Chinese girls couldn’t speak English. So a Thai lady it was going to be. I wanted someone young enough to be a mother, but not so young that they were still a child themselves. I thought between 25 and 30 years old would be okay. I wanted a good hard-working girl with good family values. I wanted someone who didn’t have kids already. I wanted her to be pretty, but the most important thing to me really was that she was honest, decent and she had a good heart. I wanted someone who was intelligent and could look after the family business and children after I was gone. I wanted someone who was prepared to come and live here in Texas with me and I wanted someone who could really love me as much as I would love her.
I wrote all this down on my profile and put up a recent photograph - a photograph in which I wasn’t wearing my hat. I wanted the little lady to know what she was getting. I tried to smile on the photo, but I don’t look good smiling, I look sort of awkward, but it was a smiling photograph without my big hat. Maybe I wouldn’t get any replies, but I was honest and upfront and hiding nothing.
I got replies - hundreds and hundreds of replies. I could hardly believe it. I set about going through them. This was more important than buying a new tractor or a pick-up or new prize cattle. I went through all the replies with the same eye for detail. If I was going to get my bride this way then I wanted her to be perfect for me and I was prepared to put in the time to find the right girl.
Girl! That was an important part for me and more than a few of the replies that I received were not from real girls. Oh, they looked like girls, real pretty girls, but they told me that they were actually lady boys. Men who looked and acted like women, but weren’t the real thing. Amazing! The days turned into weeks, which turned into months, but I was narrowing down the search. I intended to go over and spend some time with the lady who I eventually decided on. My friend suggested that I line up twenty or so girls and try them all out while I was over there, but that is not the kind of man that I am. I just wanted one little lady. My plan was to go and meet her and if everything turned out okay, we could marry and she could come back to Texas as my wife. Eventually I decided on a lovely lady called Apple. She was 25 years old and worked selling ice cream in an area of Bangkok called Nana Plaza. I liked the sound of it and I had a vision in my mind of her selling ice creams in a nice new plaza. She looked as cute as a button, more than cute. She was beautiful. She told me that she had never been married and had no children. After a few days chatting on the internet she confided in me that she had never actually had a boyfriend or even been with a man before. She didn’t have to tell me that and I was too much of a gentleman to ask such a question, but it was nice to know. I told her about myself too. I told her about Texas and about my ranch. She didn’t understand the word ranch, but she knew what I meant when I said it was a farm. Her pappy had a farm too. She laughed a lot when we chatted and she spoke good English. She was perfect and I knew in my heart that she was the little lady who I was searching for. She liked the idea of moving to the States, so we arranged a date for me to fly over to Bangkok and I booked the flights. I did get a couple of email messages from her over the next two weeks. She had had some bad luck. Her pappy had been taken ill and was in hospital and she asked to borrow some money, but she didn’t say how much, just gave me a Western Union account to pay it into. The trouble was, because she didn’t actually say what was wrong with him or how much she wanted to borrow, I didn’t know how much to send. If I sent too much then it would cost her money to send back what was left and if I didn’t send enough then it would be of little use anyway. So in the end, because I couldn’t get hold of her on the internet, I didn’t send anything. Her bad luck continued because one of her cows on the farm was sick and needed medicine from the vet. I had sympathy. I know what it is like to have a sick animal on the farm. A few days later her brother’s motorbike had broken down and needed fixing for him to carry on working. But again, because she didn’t give me enough detail or the amount that she wanted to borrow, I sent nothing. I was sure that her luck would change when we actually got together. Most people working on the ranch knew that I was going over to Thailand and what I was going for. They were all very supportive and wished me a lot of luck. I eve
n showed a few of them Apple’s photo. They all agreed she was beautiful. I left Mrs. ‘B’ in charge of the house. She did my house cleaning and was in charge of the catering for the workers at the ranch. I left Jim Walker in charge of the ranch. He was the foreman and my second in command. We had been life-long friends. Jim wasn’t afraid to make decisions and he was usually right. The most important thing was that he could be trusted. He was a good man. It was Jim who drove me to the airport.
I was more than a little excited on the flight to Thailand. In just a matter of hours now I was going to meet my little lady and, if it all worked out, she was going to be my bride. My virgin bride! I never believed that I could be so lucky, but my dream was coming true. She had agreed to meet me at the airport and, sure enough, she was there waiting for me. She was beautiful and I recognised her straight away, even in the crowd of Asian faces. She was smaller than I had imagined, but that was okay. She saw me and came running towards me with the biggest smile on her face. I picked her up and swung her round with a hug before I put her down again.
“Wow! You big, same like giant,” she said, still giggling.
Now I’m 6’ 7” in my stocking feet, but with my boots on and my Stetson hat, which I nearly always wore, I was just a gnat’s cock off 7 foot tall. So I wasn’t surprised that she thought that I was ‘Big same like giant’.
We stood looking at each other for a moment. She was even more beautiful in real life. Her eyes were big and brown and sparkled with excitement. Her hair was jet black, long and silky. She wore a tight yellow Lacoste top and a little denim mini skirt with some high heeled shoes. She had a big ole tattoo of a scorpion on her left thigh and it was disappearing up her tiny skirt. Her fingernails were long and perfectly manicured, painted red and encrusted with tiny fake diamonds. Now I might never have been to Thailand before, but I wasn’t stupid and this little lady was no ice cream seller. I decided that now wasn’t the moment to question her about anything but, if we were going to have a future together, then I needed the truth and I needed honesty. In all honesty, I wasn’t too concerned about the past. It was the future that was important to me. Ever since I had received her emails I had worried about her sick pappy. It had been on my mind!
“How is your pappy?”
“My papa good.”
“Is he still in hospital?”
“Papa good. No hospital. Why you say like this, tee rak?”
I should tell you that she started calling me ‘Tee rak’ on the internet and she told me that it means ‘Darling’. I sort of liked it.
“You sent me email telling me that your pappy was ill in hospital!”
She just looked at me sort of confused. Maybe something was getting lost in translation.
“How is your brother’s motorbike?”
Again she just shook her head with a blank expression on her face.
“You told me that you had a sick buffalo on the farm and that your brother had a problem with his bike and that your pappy was sick in hospital. You asked me to send you money to help with these things!”
As some penny dropped in her mind a realization spread across her face. She smiled again, but it was an embarrassed smile - a smile that was hiding something. She shrugged her shoulders;
“No. Everything okay now. Not need money. Now no problem.”
Okay, so that was two things in two minutes that I intended to get to the bottom of - the emails asking for money and what she really did for work. But now wasn’t the time. Although she now had some question marks hanging over her, she was still a lovely girl and I sort of liked her…..quite a lot!
I had already booked us into an Executive suite at the Hilton Millennium Hotel on Charoennakorn Road. It stood on the banks of the Chao Phraya River and we had a fantastic view of the river from our room. It was an impressive hotel and I could see that Apple was a bit overawed by it. I guessed that she had never been in a hotel as fancy as this before. She wandered around the room touching everything with her fingers and making little ‘Ohh’ and ‘Aww’ sounds under her breath. When she slid open the sliding doors to the wardrobe she actually hugged the thick white bathrobes that hung there and held the soft fabric to her face.
“Smell good,” she said, turning to smile at me. She reminded me of an excited child on Christmas Day. She was so cute I wanted to hold her and never let her go. She walked into the bathroom area. I think the bathroom was as big as most hotel rooms. The lighting was really well thought out and gave the bathroom a grand look. Apple opened all the toiletries and sniffed at them all.
“They give for free?”
“No. We have to pay for everything.”
“Oh my Buddha!” she said, quickly trying to put everything back in the little boxes, with the guilty look of someone who had been caught stealing. I burst out laughing. I couldn’t tease her anymore.
“I’m joking, darlin’. It’s all free. Help yourself.”
She laughed too and hit me with a tooth brush that she was still holding.
“I think this hotel same like palace,” she smiled. “You tired tee rak after fly?”
“I’m tired and hungry, I think.” I didn’t realise how tired and hungry I was until she just said it, but now food and a good sleep sounded like a great idea to me. We were booked into the hotel for four days before we planned to go ‘Up Country’ to meet her family and make wedding plans, if everything was working out okay between us.
“You want we go get food and then sleep?”
“We can order food to be delivered to the room.”
“Wow! I never do like this. I exciting!”
I gave Apple the menu from the desk and she sat on one of the chairs and perused it. I could see that she was excited by the huge menu and the colourful photographs of perfectly prepared dishes. Western food, Thai food, Chinese food, snacks and drinks.
“They give for free?” she asked.
“No. We really do have to pay for the food, but order what you like. I’ll have a steak.”
“Sa-take!” she repeated.
I pointed out the biggest steak on the menu and told her to ask for it rare.
Apple phoned down the order. She spoke for a long time and I could tell that she was ordering a lot of food. It wasn’t until the trolley arrived some twenty minutes later that I saw just how much food she had ordered. I think she had decided to try every single Thai dish on the menu. I had the steak and it was done to perfection, just the way I like it. I thought that Apple was going to nibble at each of the dishes that she had ordered, but I have to tell you, she ate the lot. Every last bit of it! I was amazed, really amazed. I am a big man - 180lbs give or take a few. Apple was a tiny thing and probably weighed 40lbs, but she could eat more than me. That was for sure. After we ate I had a cigarette and a small glass of whisky out on the balcony. Apple just drank some water.
“Tee rak, we shower and go to bed now!”
“Sure thing, darlin’. You go first. I’ll just be a minute.”
Now I don’t know if she meant for us to shower together or not, but I don’t look good naked and, to be honest, I’m sort of shy when it comes to things like that. I’ve only ever seen one lady naked in my whole life and that was my wife. Apple went off into the bathroom and I had another whisky with a cigarette. When she came back she was wrapped in a white towel and her hair was wet. She had the biggest smile on her face. She just plain melted my heart.
“Tee rak, shower very good. Super perfect!” Her smile was infectious and I couldn’t stop smiling back.
“Okay, you go shower now. I wait in bed.”
I went and showered and when I went back into the bedroom with a towel wrapped around my waist she was naked in the bed. She pulled the cover back for me and I saw her body. Her perfect, sexy little body. The Scorpion tattoo went all the way up to her pubic hair.
&nbs
p; Now I am too much of a gentleman to tell you any details about what happened in that bed, but I will tell you that that little lady did things to me that I ain’t never had done before. I never knew sex could be like that. I also knew that my little princess was no virgin. She was an expert at everything she did to me and she did a lot. She knew a lot - more than I ever knew! After two hours of the most amazing sex that any man had ever had, we slept snuggled together, as if we were never going to let go. I got the feeling that she really loved me and I wondered if she knew that I was falling in love with her too.
We ordered breakfast up to the room. I told Apple that I was going to take her to see all the things in Bangkok that were worth seeing and she got excited like a child. But I decided that first I needed to have a serious talk with her. I needed to get to the truth about my little princess. I didn’t really know the best way to tell her that I thought she was a liar, so I just let it spill out and thought that we could pick up the pieces as we went along.
“Apple, I need to tell you something!”
She stopped chewing on some fried fish coated in chili just long enough to say something. As usual it was said with a huge beaming smile.
“What you tell me, tee rak?”
“I know you ain’t no ice cream seller. I can tell by the way you dress and the things you did to me. Even the big tattoo on your thigh gives you away. Now I am serious about you, and I believe that we can have a future together back in Texas, but I need the truth. If you lie to me now or in the future, then it is over between us. I will always tell you the truth and I need you to do the same with me. If we are honest with each other then we can cope with anything, but we cannot build any kind of future based on a lie. So now is a big moment for you. You have to decide. Do you trust me enough to tell me the truth and then maybe we have a chance of a happy future together. Or do you want to risk telling me lies or not telling me anything and just hoping that I’m stupid enough to believe you. What you decide to do now will decide the course of the rest of your life. This might be the biggest decision of your life, little lady. So what is it going to be?”
Thai Shorts Page 3