England Away

by John King

There was a big queue outside one club in particular and he couldn’t help laughing how ordered and proper everyone was. He thought the English were the only ones who could be bothered queueing, but the hundred or so people outside were in a rigid two-by-two formation, gagging for a bed in the ark, handing their rubbers in at the door. They were people as well: men and women of all ages, shapes and sizes, and though he knew the clogs were open-minded he still didn’t expect to see whole families chatting as they waited for the advertised live sex. It was mostly couples and small groups, but there were grey-haired parents with grown-up children, in-laws, cousins, all waiting patiently. He couldn’t get his head round that at all. It was sick. Somehow perverted. It just wasn’t right. He looked at the masked photos outside the club a bit closer and they were going to get some hardcore sex for their guilders.

  Harry couldn’t sit through something like that knowing he was surrounded by happy families. It was almost the same as incest. He turned away and passed a couple of smaller, dodgy-looking clip joints where the champagne was a hundred quid a bottle and the bouncers big bastards in tuxedos. He turned down a smaller side street lined with glass. This was more like it. There was a better mix of girls and the street’s quieter atmosphere gave him confidence. He stood back and took his time because his balls were heavy and he wanted to make the right choice. There was a blonde who looked alright, with red stockings, suspenders and basque. She was a big girl with a healthy figure. Harry breathed deep and moved in for the kill. He was halfway there when he spotted a smaller brown girl. He stopped and looked her over. Now he’d spotted her, she stood out. She had short black hair and was dressed like a European tart, which didn’t seem natural, a bit artificial somehow. The stockings and that looked right on white birds, but on black and brown girls it didn’t work. He’d never find something like this down Blues. No fucking way.

  He turned towards the girl and thought hard about what she saw coming. A big white man with a shaved head and drink on his breath, the smell of smoke on his clothes and half-stoned eyes, who in a few minutes would have his jeans on the floor and his knob racing in and out of her, his big white gut bouncing against her flat brown belly, arching his back as he finished in a pool of sweat. She probably saw one more pissed geezer from England swaggering towards her, on holiday looking for something dirty he couldn’t get off the wife back home. Maybe she’d had a drink and was resting after that last wanker from France who’d given it three quick thrusts and finished, then started moaning about how he hadn’t got his money’s worth, causing trouble so she’d called her minder in to turf the ungrateful cunt out into the street, leaving a bad taste on both sides. Harry guessed it was something like that and hesitated, but then he was right in there talking to her and she was almost too friendly, inviting him inside after he’d agreed to her price. He didn’t know what the going rate was, but went along with what the girl said. It was all about money in the end. He wasn’t going to argue over a few guilders. He was Chelsea, not Tottenham.

  The room was small and warm and the girl laughed a lot as she invited him to come and stand in front of her so she could have a look at his cock. She was professional, but friendly. She opened his jeans and did a quick check. There wasn’t much of the Orient about her room and she put on a Sting CD for some flavour. He didn’t like the music, but it was in the background and soon faded off. The girl had a way about her that put him at ease, but there she was handling his knob doing her clap-clinic routine and he was limp. He wasn’t bothered because this was the preliminaries and she knew what she was doing. He started taking his trainers and jeans off and she was getting ready arranging the cushions, and to pass the time he asked her where she came from.

  She said her name was Nicky and that she came from a Thai village near to the border with Laos. He stripped off his pants and she kept talking. She’d wanted to see the world and get away from Thailand, so she’d come to Amsterdam with a Dutchman she met in Pettaya. She was twenty at the time and he was in his forties. He’d treated her good for a couple of years and she’d got her residency, but then things changed. He started going with boys and wasn’t interested in her any more. She didn’t mind because he was old and she was young, and she wanted to be free. She’d been in Pettaya since she was sixteen and was determined to stay in Europe. All the girls dreamed of moving to Europe. Her village was poor and the resorts were full of Western men who paid good money, but she wanted to get ahead. European men usually treated the girls better than the Thais, and they had a lot more money.

  She smiled this mental smile and Harry nodded not knowing what to say. She had a perfect body without any trace of fat, and she was still soft despite an adult life on the game. Nicky loved Amsterdam and hated Thailand with a vengeance he couldn’t understand, because to him it sounded like a tropical paradise. Her Dutchman had given her enough money to keep going for a couple of months and then she’d had to find work. They’d had two years together and it had worked out okay, but now she was free and could have some fun. She’d done everything for him, and he’d looked after her. He’d bought her clothes and took her to restaurants. She’d never been in love with him, and he’d only loved her youth and body. Her life had improved.

  Nicky made a good living and she liked white men, the colour of their skin. For Thais white skin was attractive. She hated Arabs. Harry liked the way she spoke and the way she moved. He couldn’t help himself and asked how she’d ended up as a prostitute, even though he felt like a mug soon as the words came out of his mouth. He expected her to tell him to mind his own business and get on with it, because time was money, that stupid lines lifted from shit films would cost him extra, but she wasn’t bothered and started going into one so he wished he’d kept his mouth shut. She was a fucking beauty and he wanted to get stuck in, to fuck the girl’s brains out, to squeeze inside the tightest cunt on the planet and dump his load, but the way she started carrying on was killing his passion dead.

  Because Nicky was telling him all about her village, set in the jungle but poorer than anything he would see in Europe, about the hunger and illness. She had three brothers and two sisters who’d survived infancy and the money she sent home helped the family survive. It didn’t matter if she was a prostitute because she was getting along and helping other people. She wasn’t just surviving either, she was enjoying herself in Amsterdam. She had clothes and went to clubs where she could take ecstasy and dance till early morning. She would never live in Thailand again. One day she would get married and settle down. Nobody really chose to have sex with people for money, it was something that was forced on you by karma, but she was lucky. She was glad to have a face and body that men desired, because otherwise she would be working in the paddy fields, and did he think she was pretty?

  Harry nodded, because he did, but all this talk about brothers and sisters and extended families scratching around in the dirt and kids dying early was putting him right off. Everyone knew Thailand was a knocking shop. He’d made the mistake of treating her as a human being, but that was him all over, making mistakes Carter would never dream of making. Carter would’ve mumbled a few words and had the fucking slag over the bed inside thirty seconds, giving her one from behind as he planned his next move. More than that, he wouldn’t bother with prostitutes in the first place. He didn’t need to pay for sex. Bollocks, though, because Harry was his own man and he was riding the crest of a wave, seeing the world and meeting exotic tarts, getting wasted with hairies and on the piss with his mates.

  Nicky pulled him to the bed but Harry was thinking about the girls in Rudi’s and the blow, and his head was floating imagining a Thai village and a ready supply of poppy seed. He saw himself going from one opium den to another, surrounded by hippies and Siamese princesses, the prince in his harem spaced out on sex and drugs, no fucking rock-n-roll or even music as he turned off the CD. Nicky dimmed the lights and he was in this little palace somewhere in Bangkok, down by a river with the bustle of sticky-rice street vendors, while really he was in Amst
erdam following the train of tourists shagging for their photo albums. He moved in on Nicky but when her hand went down to his knob he was sorry to say there was nothing there for her to get hold of. She looked at him and smiled, and started playing around, and then she pushed him back on the bed and went down and started using her mouth.

  Harry laid back and thought of England. He thought of The Unity and Rod missing out, about the rest of the boys alive and well, his mate Balti dead and gone, a red ball of gristle at the top of his neck, brains seeping into the sewer. He stopped and tried to concentrate on Nicky. Here he was with the golden chance to shag a real cracker, even if she was a tart, and he was trying to will some steel into his cock but still nothing happened. The more he tried conjuring up a hard-on, the limper he got, shrinking from those Thai teeth as his brain drifted off again. He raised his head and could see this girl with small tits and a tight cunt, a suction pair of lips and perfect body, with years of training doing her best for her customer and not getting anywhere. Harry wished he’d stayed with the rest of the boys and given all this a miss. It was that fucking hippy smoke that had done him. Never trust a hippy. He had to admit there was no point going on, because the more he thought about what was happening the worse he got. He was thinking of England, but just couldn’t get it up.

  Harry moved away and started putting on his pants. He said sorry about that, bit too much drink, bit too much dope, and Nicky said it didn’t matter, that he’d be surprised how often it happened. He told her to keep the money, that it was down to him, but he didn’t look at the girl and she wasn’t exactly going to hand it back. Fucking hell, if he couldn’t shag something like that then he was in serious trouble. She had the rubber ready and everything. Nicky ran through a list of limp knobs, premature ejaculations and general rubbish sex that made him feel a bit better. She was trying to cheer him up and he supposed she didn’t mind either way. It was probably better for her not having to lay down under yet another fat cunt. She was probably pleased.

  She asked him where he was from and when he said England she asked if he liked the Queen. Everyone liked the Queen, and Nicky started going into one again as though nothing had happened, saying the Thais had a king who they loved as well. He sat down for a minute doing up his trainers and she was rambling on and offered him a drink, pouring two glasses of whisky. She had a small container of ice and for some reason she wasn’t in a hurry to get rid of him. She asked him what London was like and what he did for a living and where he was going after Amsterdam. When he said Berlin she told him of a man she’d known in Thailand who came from Berlin. She’d stayed with him for two months on Ko Samui before he went home, leaving her pregnant when she was eighteen. She’d hoped he’d take her away from Thailand but he’d left suddenly and she’d found someone else. All the bar girls in Thailand wanted to get out, to go to Europe and America.

  She said she was finished for the night. She’d been working hard and was tired. She aimed at ten men a night and Harry was number ten. He nodded and got up to leave and was surprised when she suggested he come with her for a drink. She pulled the hair on his arms and pinched his gut. Harry wasn’t sure what she was doing. He wondered if it was a con, if she had an ambush lined up, but she said she had some whisky and hashish in her flat. She lived a couple of miles away in the flat her ex-friend had rented for her. He’d been good to her. She looked up at Harry and he could feel his knob stirring. He couldn’t believe he’d paid good money and hadn’t poked her, and though he was confused he thought why not, because what else was he going to do tonight?

  They were soon walking out of the red light district, and once over the Amstel River everything seemed different. He was wondering where it was leading, but enjoying himself and this woman next to him. She had her arm through his and he had to remind himself she was a tart. She was fucking lovely, and it seemed unreal somehow. He felt like he was in a video. He remembered Mango saying how the girls in Thailand didn’t see it so much as a shag as a possible introduction, but Harry was smart enough to know that Amsterdam would’ve changed some of that. He was looking for an angle and half-expected a couple of pimps to arrive and start slicing him up. But Nicky was talking about whisky and hashish and how she loved going out to buy clothes and music and how shit Thailand was, that he couldn’t help wondering if Mango was right.

  They took a cab the short journey to her flat. It was small but well done up and Harry sat down on the couch as Nicky brought out a bottle of Jack Daniels. She was asking about London and he found himself telling her about the pubs he used, about Blues and how he liked going to football. She rolled a chunky spliff and after a while he was even telling her about his mate Balti who’d been murdered in the street, her hand going to her mouth in shock. He told her how they’d grown up together and shared a flat, and how they’d been closer than brothers. Funny thing was, he didn’t mind talking and didn’t feel too bad about the memory. He couldn’t smoke a lot and the hairies had already set him up, so maybe that was the reason, though it could’ve been because she was a stranger and, more than that, she was a whore who didn’t really count.

  That wasn’t true, though, because Harry had to keep reminding himself that this woman sitting next to him was a prostitute. She had sex with ten men a night. Fuck knows what kind of diseases she was carrying. She was a fucking prostitute, and whores were supposed to turn their mouths away from you if you tried to kiss them, and they were supposed to be professional and blunt with their services, showing the punter who was in charge, and then if he was pissed he was going to get narked by this lack of respect and start having a go and fuck knows what could happen. No, Nicky was talking to him like he was a person rather than some sleazy cunt off the street. He found it hard remembering she was a pro, and with some of the old herb he soon forgot altogether.

  Nicky got up and went for a piss as Harry poured himself another glass of whisky. He fancied a bottle of Heineken, but the Jack Daniels was fine for now, till she came back. He wondered what the rest of the boys were up to, but was happy enough here. It wasn’t that late, and Nicky said she liked to finish early and avoid the worst of the drunks. He was in Amsterdam, but could’ve been anywhere in the world. This place was international, because you went for a simple shag with a whore and ended up sitting on a couch getting stoned with some Thai all the way from the Laos border. You didn’t get this kind of thing down Blues.

  Harry had never been outside Europe. One day he’d go to the States and, who knows, one day he might even go to the Far East. It would be hard, because the poverty would get you down, but there were a lot of places to see in the world. When England joined up with Europe they’d be getting all the influences and this would liven things up. Harry sipped his drink and put his feet on a stool. He looked up and saw Nicky walk into the room naked and this time he was ready.

  We’re standing by one of the humped-back bridges that arc over the canals enjoying the scenery, wondering where Harry’s disappeared to. Little knots of English are scattered around. Sitting on cars and railings. A bottle lands in the water and ripples catch the sex club neons. The water’s a burnt-out stretch of black in between brightly-lit buildings. There’s clubs, restaurants and bars rubbing shoulders. Enough drink to keep us going and one or two shops still open selling stuff to the locals. We’re outside two bars sitting side by side, having a drink and watching the show. It’s after ten now and it’s nice knowing the bars will be serving late. These two are packed. One with English and the other with a mixture of English and locals. Might not be local to the red light, but they’re Dutch. The English bar is singing RULE BRITANNIA while the other has the music blaring out. Rule Britannia on one side and The Prodigy’s Firestarter on the other. The songs mix together and somehow sound perfect.

  – Did you see those sand niggers run? Carter asks, rocking back on the parked scooter he’s sitting on. I’ve never seen men run that fast. I thought the Italians were nippy, but those blokes were greased lightning. Should sign those cunts up, give th
em passports and get them to run in the athletics team. You’d never get an Englishman moving like that.

  Carter starts carving CFC and ENGLAND into the scooter with his keys, talking about the pimps we smacked on the way here.

  – They knew their time was up, Mark says. Makes me sick seeing white girls getting used by those cunts. What were they? They weren’t Turks, were they?

  – Moroccans, Carter says. Moroccans, Tunisians, Algerians. Something like that. Fucking sand niggers. Fresh from the Sahara. You go down Bayswater and you’ll find enough of them round there running the shops and kebab houses. They’re not poor. How do you think they get out in the first place?

  – Couldn’t believe it when that cunt hit the girl in the gut like that, Mark says. Just punches her in the belly as if that’s how we all behave. Fuck me, what kind of cunt is that? Still, I did him alright. Straight in the bollocks, and Tom slapped his mate. Couple of shitters.

  I nod and agree. I mean prostitution’s a natural enough business, but there’s no need to hit the workers. I thought the Dutch had all this stuff sorted out. That’s what they say. That’s the impression you get back home. But they’ve only gone so far. It’s the soft drugs that are legal and only so much in certain places. There’s enough pushers around selling smack and what have you. As for the tarts, you’d think the shop windows would get rid of the pimps, but there they are. Scum always floats back. Suppose there’s always going to be girls selling themselves, and that’s the way it should be, because we live in a free-market economy. The girls get their money and the bloke gets his end away. Everyone’s happy. Till some fucking sand nigger comes along and starts knocking them about. There’s no excuse for those wankers. Pimps are fucking scum. They’re always these fucking greaseballs as well. Either that or blacks That Turk or whatever he was won’t be hitting anyone for a while. Never mind his sore bollocks, his hand’s going to take some stitching after Harris slashed his knuckles. That’s what those cunts believe in anyway. Chopping off hands. They treat their women like shit. An eye for an eye and a hand for a hand. Instant justice. Harris doing his good deed for the night.