“Yes I have to, she is my most powerful weapon.”
It is common. Prostitutes, a few of them tolerate a male client, but many eventually come to submit their own sensuality in lesbianism. Most just lose the sensitivity of sensuality, seeking instead the dream of lighting a stove for a man and his family. In South East Asia, they easily achieve that dream after they are off the shelves of Bangkok. The minority lesbians suffer, becoming too stale to buy and too queer to enter polite society.
Not all of the two thousand units in the consignment were physically waiting when we berthed back in Pattaya. A large number were simply present on assorted paper forms, with photographs prominently displayed, carried in files, images that pimps put forth for selection. These girls on the forms, they were mostly from the provinces of the mighty Mekong, fruits of the river, plucked from the trees of Burma, Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia.
We went through the catalogue of girls. For an untrained eye, searching for complexion and bodily beauty may seem logical; it was the doctor who enlightened me to the criterion of selecting girls for trade, from catalogues.
First, reject all those who don’t reveal limbs, legs in particular, since they likely came from parts still pocked by mines. A legless girl was not an object of pleasure that could be traded in. In farm life, a limbless individual is a liability pushed often into prostitution.
The history of prostitution is learnt best from the disabled prostitute, who arrives hopeful into the market before being shunned by the pimp, eventually rising to favouritism of a few well paying customers.
A loveless-legless prostitute, it is another of my long tales, a diversion here, since in the honeycomb of my life’s tales I can’t wander about too much.
Second, look for young girls and set aside any photographs that may look crumpled and old, well used prints, thumbed by years that will not deliver the promise, a few moments of young pleasure with no further attachments.
Other than that, all girls were fine, for there is always one who will love you.
Once a stack of girls was shortlisted, Thuy Binh and Miho stepped in, browsing perfunctorily through the stash, negotiating prices with the pimps. The presence of Miho seemed to steer conversations towards short, favourable trades.
Some portions of the consignment needed physical picking, and, in the days ahead we moved about the red light districts, inspecting girls presented to us, often touching and feeling them, much to their delight before concluding upon trades. It was an opportunity for Thuy Binh to meet with the brothel keepers, cadence of business a couple of times each year.
There was not much order, meaning or science with which the affairs of prostitution were put in motion by Thuy Binh, her assassin Miho, and, the manager of all else, the strange doctor who hovered in the background. They all moved about, paying for and supplying girls to the brothels from where a steady income accrued each year.
A good well utilised whore can yield up to a fifty thousand dollars each year, most of which whittles away in the hands of the keepers and the supply chain of the pimps and mafia, leaving the girls almost permanently in debt, at least for the first seven odd years after which they may manage to put money away for a life after time takes its toll, leaving bodies un-vendible.
The economics are no different from an office worker’s life.
I got immersed in their business, since I saw what auditors see, metrics like dollar per prostitute, details gangsters don’t bother with. And, when I meditated upon the numbers, anomalies surfaced. Like at the largest brothel along the busiest night strip, walking street, where we had the largest concentration of girls and the strongest collections, but, well below the mark when one thought about revenue on a per prostitute basis. When I voiced my concern to Thuy Binh, it was past sundown, meaning she was stoned and drunk, and flew into a rage. She asked for the doctor and the chocolate Camry, grabbed her shawl and soldier-maid, before we were speeding away.
Eventually, I felt repentant of the math that school had nailed in me. The business logic of an auditor, it is meant only to curtail enterprise, and in this case the unleashing of a gangster’s wrath upon a profiteering culprit. In this world, my new world, there was a consequence to what I unearthed: severe punishment. If I knew that, I would have kept my math to myself.
At the brothel, our path cleared, everyone bowing to us and disappearing hurriedly. Thuy Binh kicked the inner den-door open and faced the brothel owner. He jumped out of his large reclining blue chair bowing as he spoke incoherently, offering his chair, on which Thuy Binh sat, throwing her ivory legs onto the table in front. The silk of her sarong fell away on either side of her milk-naked thighs.
“Suay . . . you should have sent for me, why did you bother coming all this way, I am your servant and would have come, had I known you wanted to see me,” the man was on his knees. A facial tremble struck him. Incense sticks stuck in rice cakes were soon laid for us on the table. Miho undid the Tanto, releasing it from its scabbard and moved behind the owner, her eyes trained on Thuy Binh, searching for instructions or even hints of action that may quench her weapon’s thirst.
“Is there anything to confess, anything you think may require my attention,” Thuy Binh rocked back and forth, flashing blue, an impatient look at the doctor who sprang into action, laying huge lines of white, neat on a mirror he placed in front of Thuy Binh.
The owner, still on his knees, responded involuntarily to his fear, urinating, a small stream of liquid flowing away from his soaking knees. Thuy Binh turned up her nose in disgust as a faint ammoniac tinge rose in the air.
“Come, breathe from my plate, it is a privilege that I don’t offer to many,” she motioned for the owner to come towards her, passing him a large straw, from which he insufflates the powder on the mirror. When he stopped, Miho pressed the cold flat face of the Tanto behind his neck, forcing him to take in more of the obscene coke on the mirror. He began crying, “Mercy, please, you are the merciful one. I shall be in your debt forever, please spare me. I will make good each and every dollar that I have taken. Please help me,” he begged pathetically, with a graceless loss of reason.
An ornate Thai doll entered the room, kneeled close to Thuy Binh, took a flute out of her silk scarf and began to play soft tunes in which the owner’s tears flowed. The doctor replenished the smooth surface of the mirror with many more lines of white, bringing back the horror of my own overdose. Miho stood poised, directly behind the owner.
“I fight with all my might against the powers that threaten us, like Kawai and his plots of taking over and defiling our peaceful existence. I am the protector of all who work for us here, the shade that soothes and wards evil off,” Thuy Binh was speaking gently into the mellifluous backnotes of flute that the Thai doll produced, almost as if she were adding words to the flautist’s tunes. “Today, I learnt there is a snake that suckles from me, right here amongst us. What should I do with that snake?”
“Please pardon me, take me in the shadow of your mercy. I will serve you forever, please spare me,” the owner was pleading, his hands trembling while they remained folded in front of Thuy Binh.
“But, we must have something in return, something that compensates for the venom that has been spread by the snake. Maybe, we should cut the snake’s tongue off, or, maybe we should cut off his head,” Thuy Binh spoke and smoked at the same time, thick grey fumes rose from her mouth and nostrils. She held a long oriental pipe by its stem, from the bowl of which a fluid stream of smoke rose.
By now the owner was incoherent, his voice simply shaking in the tremor that his entire body had assumed.
Miho placed the Tanto on the owner’s shoulder, leaving him no option but to snort in the vast quantity of drug that was replenished by the doctor onto the surface of the mirror in front of Thuy Binh. She was cocktailing him with cocaine and heroin, her favourite trick.
In about ten minutes the brothel owner fell to the floor, unconscious while the doctor bent, administering intravenously what would make the
owner’s heart beat wild till it imploded, killing its host and allowing Thuy Binh to put in place a new trusted manager for the crown jewel in her empire.
A wave of guilt swept over me, for it was me who had stumbled upon the notion of per-capita revenues from each establishment, a metric that revealed the deceit of the victim that lay inches from death near my feet. In some sense it was me who was killing him, my first victim.
“Suay, spare him, I cannot be the reason for his death. I will revive the profits that this shit-mouth has wasted. Please ask the Doctor to revive him. He is a just pimp, a simple man, stealing money, maybe for the education of children,” I too was stoned, but the physical union with the femme-fatale on the Yacht, it put the winds of courage in my sails.
Miho, she moved to my side, wavering, seeking directions, with her eyes, from Thuy Binh.
“Remember, the Lord is a beggar, and he begged. This man, he deserves the mercy of the one who laid him bare, me that is. Give him a chance,” I moved towards the doctor. “Doc, save this wretch, please..”
“What if I am not in a mood of mercy?” Thuy Binh, she stared blood shot, straight into my eyes.
“Our Lord favours the compassionate.” I strode up to her and bent, taking what remained on the mirror of death, heroin-cocaine infused by the nasal fluids of the dying pimp.
Besides him I lay, besides the dying pimp, whispering softly “Don’t worry. Try to breathe steady,” from the corner of my vision, I saw Thuy Binh, smiling gently.
Mine and Thuy Binh’s sexual union, consummated upon the rhythmic waves of my pelvis, across the South China Sea on a private Yacht, was that the bedrock of my begging being accepted by her?
All things must pass away, but in my passage, I saved one life only, that of the cheating brothel owner.
Part 3
Kawai’s Kingdom of Cards
Through the years I spent with Thuy Binh and Miho, my ears were pricked to the happenings in Singapore. More specifically, we planted moles from private agents, which helped track Li Ya’s travel plans with her parents. The months went reeling by, since I too had assumed duties in the prostitution ring, always acting on behalf of, and under the directions of Suay, a name that came to stick, meaning ‘a beautiful vista’ in Thai.
The owner at the prime prostitution den, he repaid debts many times over and the winds of our business blew fair.
If I really had my way, I would have implemented a simple Human Resource management tool, since the business we ran was about managing bodies and a simple Information System would go a long way in bringing efficiencies that any business of bodies needs. They heard me out for a few days, before Suay laughed almost continuously for about four minutes. Eventually I too had to laugh-off reluctantly with them the stupidity of my suggestion.
My physical condition was not that great but I disciplined myself in small measures, often joining Miho on her morning swims before succumbing to narcotic and drink at sun-down, as was routine in the house of Thuy Binh and Miho.
Thuy Binh and I never made love. Miho observed us closely, searching for hints of intimacy, which I am certain she was picking up. Two individuals having been physically together are almost impossible to tell apart. The more they try to seem apart, the more revealed they stand. From her vantage, Miho could merely harbour suspicion; she could not voice it, since she too stood to risk it all, her own existence and that of the prostitution ring. They had to be together, Miho and Thuy Binh, for their whole to function. Their personal union was a statement in authoritative unity, which if broken, would lead the dogs in. Their teeming had a desirable effect on adversaries, instilling deep, fear of retaliation. Their teaming was a problem of human jealousy. It was not straight forward, and I knew I could become the cause of their falling apart if I was discovered as Thuy Binh’s secret lover, the first fatality being me. I took immense care in masking the escapades of adult pleasure that I had savoured upon the Cross.
The constant chatter from Singapore kept us abreast of happenings there, and in about two years the first opportunity of an encounter with Li Ya presented itself.
They were transiting through Bangkok, where they planned to stay a couple of days before heading further to the Gold Coast for vacations and Li Ya’s eventual admission to University. It was probably Georgy’s work that was keeping them in Bangkok for a couple of days.
When I suggested that the time was right for me to meet Li Ya and win her back, Thuy Binh agreed, since Li Ya would be old enough, about eighteen, leaving her to meet the consequences of her own decisions.
“Go down to Australia and see her. Not in Bangkok, I cannot ensure your safety in Bangkok,” she said.
“Why not?”
“Kawai, he will find out. And if he knows we are in Bangkok, he will come after us,” she said.
“Come on, Bangkok is a big place. I can go in alone and see her before slipping back out,” I said. “He may not even know who I am.”
“He knows everything and is waiting to seek his revenge on us,” Thuy Binh and I, we were alone on the beach. Behind us in the balcony about twenty metres away, Miho reclined lazy in a hammock.
“He won’t know, I can just take a bus and get in . . . ”
“Miho and I were his top prostitutes before we ran away . . . ” she said, glancing up at Miho who simply lay rocking in her hammock.
“What?”
“Yes it is time to tell you a few things. Miho is younger but not as young as you think she is. I was only eight when Kawai’s pimps bought and sold me into prostitution in Bangkok. I met Miho after about four years in the business, on a night when a client demanded two girls,” she said.
The years of Asian women are revealed on the back of their palms, which wrinkle and darken in line with the proportionate passage of time. The rest of their observable bodies’ remain almost intact, till years cannot be hidden anymore. It is the reason why Asian women succeed, with a haul of medals when they compete in the ring of prostitution.
“You mean you and Miho were prostituted by Kawai?”
“Yes, for a few years before we escaped, we would have killed no one, nor would we have run, had the simple business of prostitution persisted. The brutality began with Kawai’s pimps unleashing the most violent customers upon me and Miho. We had to fall in love with each other; I mean amidst all the pain, she and me became dependent on each other, stealing away intimate moments of gentleness with each other, knowing the brutality that awaited us in the room around the corner. Kawai knew we were lovers and often made Miho watch while I was being brutalised. He wanted to break us, instead, his ways brought us together.”
She paused and looked around, ensuring we were by ourselves.
“I don’t look back with remorse, the pain was for a better life,” she was smiling as she spoke. My instinct was to hold her and soothe her, but I checked my affection. Miho was close by, and the roots of her poisonous possession were only becoming clear to me now.
In my auditor life, I would have signed, or made another sign terms of confidence, before listening to or revealing what she told me.
“Running away from Kawai . . . Miho planned it, waiting patiently for a night when we were sold together to a customer. She made the first kill, setting up a chase that lasted two years . . . It was a long painful journey, let’s not go into it now. I can tell you she was brave and often, we were lucky, buying the local police, just in time for us to escape Kawai’s claws. In those two years we came to settle in Pattaya, slowly wrestling this island’s business away from Kawai.”
“How did the two of you manage to beat a gang lord?” I asked.
“It was a combination of luck and terror that we were able to spread and thrive on. Just before I took control of the ring in Pattaya, the violence became rampant enough for the police force to intervene and facilitate a truce, un-mindful of the money that we are all ready to feed them for our dominance. I was twenty then and Miho had enough blood on her hands not to be seen as a mere child. The truce has held
, but I know if we are caught in Bangkok we won’t be spared. And, if he is found in Pattaya, we will feed him to the sharks.”
I imagined a twenty year old lady gang leader, fucked and sodomised almost as a passage to the top, from where she now ruled. From the top she would have ruled well, since she knew the hidden intricacies of the trade she conducted. Given her past, it was virtually impossible for her to fail.
The Cross, it was anchored at a swimming distance from the beach we sat upon. The vessel’s silhouette against the evening sunburst brought memories back, of my maritime lovemaking with Thuy Binh. In that instant, reason failed and I moved my hand across the sand, placing it on hers, not realising that Miho had emerged from the beach-house, and was approaching us from behind.
Thuy Binh pulled herself away, rose unnaturally, and spoke to Miho in Thai, “I need you to go to the city and check on the doctor at the brothel on Walking Street.”
“Do you suspect anything?” Miho asked, looking askance, sensing I am sure, that her departure would leave her beloved mistress to me all night. My conjecture, at Miho sensing my bond of union with Thuy Binh was not misplaced. In a few minutes, Miho was in the beach-house again, putting on her Sarong and collecting her weapons before attending to the assigned business of the night.
Before leaving, she came back on to the beach and handed Thuy Binh a pistol with a miniature Tanto, “You know I don’t like to leave you by yourself. This guy is useless when it comes to protecting you or himself. Please keep this gun and the sacred blade. Peaceful is the Lord who protects you and I pray you don’t ever need to use these,” with that Miho moved away, firing up the chocolate Camry, leaving us by ourselves on the beach.
The loss of reason, it followed a silly logic, one of reaping pleasure from another’s body, unseen and away from Miho’s glare. We ate quickly at the beach-house and sprinted through the sea water, our arms and legs powering us through the final stretch towards the yacht, where I tasted the liquid salt of sea, off each and every inch of my lover’s body. Only when spent did we shower and recline back on the deck.
Lost in Pattaya Page 10