Private Dancer

by Stephen Leather

  I stopped dead. She hadn't had the fucking operation. I was gobsmacked. The katoeys who still have their dicks usually work in the upstairs bars in Nana Plaza, they don't work downstairs until they've had their tackle surgically removed. It wasn't big, it was more of a vestigial thing, smaller than my little finger, and as soft as overcooked spaghetti. I guess it was the tablets she took to grow breasts, they make the balls and dick shrink, too. Anyway, the geezer realises that's something's wrong. She smiles at me and caresses the back of my neck. ‘You not know?’ she says. ‘I thought you know.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I didn't know.’

  I rubbed it with my hand but there was no life in it. It was like a dead thing. The geezer pulls me down and starts kissing me again. She slides a hand down my chest and grabs my dick and within seconds I'm hard again. She was sexy, all right, even though she still had a meat and two veg. I start panting and before I know what's happening she rolls on to her front and gets up on her knees. She pushes herself back against me and the next think I know is I'm up her arse, pumping away like there's no tomorrow. She's looking over her shoulder, urging me on, and I come like a fucking steam train. It was a great shag, all right, the first of many that night. But I gave Rick and Matt hell when I saw them in Fatso's. I mean, they're mates and they should have told me. The thing was, they both swore blind that they didn't know that the geezer had a dick. It just shows you how cunning katoeys can be. Masters of illusion. Which, I guess, is what it's all about. None of this is genuine, really, not when you get down to it. You're paying for an illusion. That's what Pete doesn't realise, of course. He thinks it's for real.

  PHIRAPHAN

  I've had a few farangs in my office over the years, and they always have the same story. They meet a girl in a bar, they fall in love and want to marry her, but they want to check that the girl is being faithful. I think they're crazy. What do they expect? Bargirls are prostitutes, why do they think a prostitute is going to be faithful? They don't become prostitutes because they want to settle down and raise a family, they become prostitutes because they want money. And most of the time they give their money to their boyfriends or husbands, or they're on drugs. Most of my clients are Thais, and I do a fair amount of marital work, and in my experience, if one partner suspects his spouse is being unfaithful, the chances are that he or she is. There has to be something to spark off a suspicion, so if a situation doesn't feel right, it probably isn't. But when it comes to farangs and bargirls, I can guarantee that the girl's lying. She's either got a boyfriend or a husband, or maybe a kid up country that she's not telling the farang about.

  Most of the farangs I do work for have only been in Thailand for a week or so. They come here on holiday, meet a girl, pay her to stop working, then go back to wherever they came from and keep in touch by letter and phone. I think the distance makes the attraction all the more intense, it's as if they've fallen in love with a fantasy figure. How can they expect a girl from a different culture, who doesn't even speak their language properly, to fall in love with them after a few days? How gullible can they be?

  Pete was a bit different because at least he'd been in Thailand for a while and could speak some Thai. That just made it all the more surprising that he should fall for a bargirl's charms. He showed me her photograph and frankly I couldn't see what the attraction was. She was a typical Isarn girl with dark skin and a small flat nose, not my type at all. He gave me a photograph of her house near Surin and the address, then asked me how much it would cost to check her out. I explained that it wasn't going to be easy, her village was close to the border with Cambodia and strangers would stick out a mile, and I told him what I'd need as a fee. He left me a deposit, gave me his address and phone number in London, and that was it. Actually, I'd have done the job for considerably less. I had a personal reason for visiting Surin. I have an old girlfriend who lives there and it had been a while since I'd seen her. Pete's case gave me a perfect excuse for visiting her.

  PETE

  It was strange being back in London after such a long time in Thailand. I hadn't seen my flat for more than six months and it didn't feel like home. Neither did London. I missed the noise of Bangkok, and the heat and the smells, the smiles of the people and the buzz of the place. There was a stack of mail in my mail box but nothing important. A friend had been sending any mail on to me every month or so, and he'd kept an eye on the place for me.

  I got stuck into work straight away. The company had a small sales office in Covent Garden and Alistair had arranged for the guy who had been compiling the London guide to leave what he'd done with our sales guy. I took a cab out and picked it up. Most was on disc and I loaded it into my own desktop word processor. It was a mess and I spent the first week whipping it into some sort of coherent shape. It soon became clear that it was going to take me longer than Alistair had anticipated, three months maybe.

  I pinned up several photographs of Joy on the wall around my desk, pictures I'd taken around her house in Surin. I wondered what she was doing and if she was missing me as much as I was missing her. I'd arranged to phone her on the morning of the second day I got back in London. Thailand was six hours ahead of England, so I said I'd call at ten o'clock in the morning which would be four o'clock in the afternoon for her. It was always best to pre-arrange calls because the telephone was a call box a mile or so from her house. If she wasn't there it would be pot luck as to who answered. If it was someone who knew Joy and who was prepared to listen to my stilted Thai, then I could ask them to go and get her and I'd call back an hour or so later. But if it was a child who answered or an adult who couldn't understand my Thai, then they'd just hang up. If I was in Bangkok, I could get a member of the hotel staff to call, but five thousand miles away in London, I was on my own so it was better to tell Joy in advance when I was going to call. I just hoped that she'd be there.

  I set two alarm clocks on the day I said I'd call because I was working late into the night. The quicker I finished the book, the sooner I'd be able to get back to Bangkok and see Joy again. I paced around the flat, waiting for ten o'clock. I kept stopping to look at the photographs of her, smiling cutely at the camera.

  I started dialling as soon as the second hand hit twelve and practically held my breath as it began to ring out. It seemed to take for ever but I guess it was only ten seconds or so before she answered. ‘Sawasdee ka. Hello?’ It was her.

  I almost couldn't believe it. I suddenly felt guilty for ever doubting her. She'd done everything I'd asked of her. I'd asked her to stop work. She'd agreed. I'd asked her to go and stay with her father while I went back to England. She'd agreed. I'd asked her to be at the phone at a particular time. She'd agreed.

  We chatted about my book, about what London was like, and what she was doing. She said that her father was buying barrels of fuel and she was selling it at the roadside by the litre. ‘I very dark now,’ she said. ‘Maybe you not like me any more.’

  I told her not to be silly, that I'd love her whatever the colour of her skin. That's one of the crazy things about Thais, they prefer their skin to be as light as possible, whereas often they looked better when their skin was dark. There was a huge amount of prejudice, with the whiter skinned people of Bangkok clearly looking down their noses at their poorer, darker, cousins from the east of the country. Each time Joy returned from a stay in Surin she was always darker, but I thought she looked great.

  She asked me when I was coming back to Thailand and I said probably two months. To be honest I was pretty sure I'd be working on the London book for three months but I didn't want her to be too disheartened. Twelve weeks was a long time and if she thought I wasn't coming back she might well decide to go back to Bangkok and stay with her friends.

  Joy said she missed me and started blowing kisses down the phone. I felt suddenly guilty for doubting her. Of course she loved me, if she didn't love me she'd have just stayed in Bangkok.

  I promised to call her in another two days at the same time. ‘I love you,’ wa
s the last thing she said to me. When I put down the phone I was elated, almost light-headed. She loved me. I was one hundred per cent sure she loved me.

  BRUCE

  Did Joy love Pete? I don't know. I guess the pat answer would be, in her way. It's not as if they lived together, is it? Hell, he was paying her to stay in Surin, hundreds of miles away. She was a young girl, twenty-one. She needed stimulation, things to do, parties to go to. She'd worked in a go-go bar, lots of music, drugs, people coming and going. Whichever way you look at it, that's got to be more exciting than planting rice, hasn't it? Love isn't a result of paying money, is it? And that's what he was doing, really. Sure, he was taking her out for dinner, going to movies with her, sleeping with her. But he wasn't living with her, he wasn't sharing his life with her, and that's where love grows. If you ask me, he was treating her like a mia noy, a minor wife. She was only getting a small part of his life, and for a girl her age, that's not enough.

  Now Troy, Troy's totally different. I know Troy loves me. I can see from the way Troy looks at me that she loves me with all her heart.

  It was funny how quickly I got used to having her around. She never enjoyed working in Spicy-a-go-go in the first place, and she kept coming up with reasons not to go in. I didn't mind. I'd been spending too much time sitting outside the bar anyway when she was there. The fact she was in the house made me keener to get home. We'd eat together, she's a great cook, simple food, spicy the way I like it, and then we'd watch TV together. She liked to watch Thai game shows and chat shows and she'd explain the jokes to me. Sometimes we'd just sit and talk. Her English isn't very good and my Thai is so-so, but we managed to talk for hours. I was never bored with her. I'd tell her about my childhood, about Newcastle, about what I planned to do with Saravoot's factory. She slept in my bed, not for the sex, it really wasn't for the sex, it was just that I wanted her close by. She'd sleep wrapped around me as if she was frightened of losing me.

  She brought a few clothes around, and stuff she needed for the kitchen, and I gave her one of the bathroom shelves for her wash things. She did the shopping and she'd always leave the receipt and any change on the kitchen table as if she wanted to prove to me that it wasn't about money. I gave her some, of course, because she wasn't working as much as she used to, and she had to send money back to her family. She had a baby, a two-year-old, that her mother and elder sister looked after while she was in Bangkok. Her husband was a right bastard, used to knock her around and ran off soon after the baby was born. Now she didn't like Thai men, she said.

  She cooked, too. Always Thai food, she couldn't get the hang of farang recipes. The fridge was full of herbs and spices and plastic bags of things I couldn't identify. She used to make up batches of sauces and pastes, some of them so hot they could burn the roof off your mouth. Her nam prik was the best I've ever tasted. I used to love watching her cook, she was always so intense about it, as if her life depended on getting it right.

  One night, as we lay in bed, I asked her what she wanted out of life. She was playing with my beard, wrapping the hair around her fingers and tugging it gently. ‘I want good man to love me,’ she said. ‘I want someone take care of me. I want someone to love.’

  I asked her if she wanted to go to school, to learn English or computers, something that would help her get a better job.

  ‘I too stupid,’ she said, which fair broke my heart because if there's one thing she's most definitely not it's stupid.

  I asked what job she'd like to do, if she could do anything. ‘I want to be your maid,’ she said softly. ‘I want to take care of you every day.’

  That wasn't on because I already had a maid, a woman in her sixties who Saravoot sends in to keep the place clean and look after my laundry. I offered to find her work at the handbag factory. I was pretty sure I could get her a job somewhere, either on the sewing machines or in quality control.

  She didn't say anything for a while. ‘Your factory very far away, Bruce. How I get there?’

  I knew what she wanted. She was hoping that I'd offer to let her travel in with me every day, and that would mean she'd be living with me all the time.

  ‘Some of the people who work in the factory live there,’ I told her. ‘They have rooms, and they get their food.’ They were dormitories rather than rooms, but I figured that once she saw the living quarters she'd be happy. From what she'd told me, anything would be an improvement on her house in Nong Khai.

  ‘You want me live in factory?’ she said.

  ‘It's up to you,’ I said. ‘Why don't you come in and have a look for yourself.’

  ‘Okay,’ she said, snuggling up against me. ‘If you want, I want too.’

  From COOKING ACROSS SOUTH-EAST ASIA Edited by PETE RAYMOND

  NAM PRIK (Prawn paste relish)

  3 cloves garlic, chopped

  1 tablespoon dried shrimps, rinsed and chopped

  1 tablespoon fish sauce

  2 tablespoons lime juice

  5-10 small green chillies

  1 tablespoon palm sugar

  3 dried red chillies with seeds, chopped

  Use a pestle and mortar to grind together the shrimps, garlic, and dried chillies to a paste. Stir in the fish sauce, lime juice and palm sugar. Mix well and transfer paste to a small bowl. It can be stored for up to one week in a covered jar in the refrigerator.

  PETE

  Joy was waiting by the phone in Surin the next time I called. And the next. On one occasion it was pouring with rain, I could hear the drops pounding off a corrugated iron roof in the distance. ‘Pete, I very wet,’ she giggled. ‘Have rain too much.’ She kept asking me when I'd be coming back to Thailand, kept saying how much she missed me. I told her that I'd be back as soon as possible, but that I had to do a lot of work on the book. ‘I understand, Pete,’ she said solemnly. ‘I wait for you. I be good girl for you.’ She told me she was spending most of the day at her roadside stall, selling fuel to passing vehicles.

  I told her I'd written to her and she said she'd written many letters to me. ‘Maybe I write too much,’ she said. ‘Because I miss you, I want you know how I feel.’

  I felt bad at not trusting her, how could I ever have doubted her? Everything I ever asked her to do she did, with a smile. With love. After I'd said goodbye I went straight back to work. I wanted to get the book finished as quickly as possible so that I could get back to her.

  I'd been in London just over a week when the letters arrived. Five of them, from Thailand. My handwriting on the envelope. I ripped them open and read them one by one.

  July 8.

  Dear Pete -

  I'm sorry for everything Joy make you not happy. But in my heart I love you too much. I have you only one. But I not want have big problem with you. Pete, listen to me. I want you understand me. Pete, what I do? How I do? Pete, everything I do I want make you happy heart. But every time you think I lie to you. Pete, sometime Joy no good. Sometime Joy be good. Pete, I want you know me. Every time I love you. I love you a lot. I miss you all the time.

  Joy.

  July 9.

  Hello my love -

  Are you happy in England? I hope you very happy heart in your house. What do you do now? You have a little time to think about me? or you forget me? Pete, now I want see you. I want talk with you. I want kiss you. Now I lonely. I want you live in Bangkok with me all the time. I like to see you and talk with you every day. Sometimes I have a big problem but I happy because I can talk with you. I think about you and me every day. I love you and have you in my heart only one. Miss you all the time.

  Joy.

  July 10.

  From Joy.

  Dear Pete -

  Pete, where you stay now? I want to see you now. This time you have time can you think about me? For me I think about you too much. I want you come back to Bangkok now. I want you come see me, talk with me. Pete, when you with me, I very happy heart with you. I like have you stay with me all the time. I happy when I see you, I talk with you. Pete, I hope you n
ot forget me and you love me. I cannot stop love you. I love you when I die. I love you too much.

  Joy.

  July 11.

  Hello my love -

  Pete I want you give back my heart to me now because I think about you too much. Pete, I cannot sleep. I not want to do anything. Pete, when you come back Bangkok to see me? Pete, this time what you do? Pete, I hope your book be good, for your book I not like you have big problem. I want your book everything be good. I happy heart to you too because I not want you stay in England long time. I want see you and kiss you now. When you have my letter I want you smile and miss me. I hope you come to see me soon. Love you and miss you too much.

  Joy.

  July 14.

  For my love -

  Hello Pete. How are you? What do you do now? Pete, when your book not have big problem? Now what you think? You tired heart or happy heart? I hope you very happy heart for your book and happy in England. Pete, when you live in England you be happy because you not have big problem every day. If you very happy heart when you live in England, I very happy heart for you too. I not want you think too much, and not have big problem everyday. I want see you, talk with you. I love you all the time. Only you. When you come to see me, I very happy in my heart.