Private Dancer

by Stephen Leather

  The next day they were all up on the stage, dancing naked around the silver poles. A six-foot tall Scandinavian guy paid bar fine for Dit and she left holding his hand, Joy smiling proudly like a parent at a graduation ceremony. How did I feel? Uneasy, I think. Like I'd been witness to a coming of age in a culture I didn't understand. Or didn't want to understand. Dit was a bright, pretty young girl from the country but she'd taken on the life of a Bangkok bargirl without a moment's hesitation.

  JOY

  Wandee had to go home after a week. She wasn't working out. She couldn't dance, in fact she could barely walk in high heels. That wasn't the problem, though, a lot of the girls just stand and hold the pole and jiggle around, it's not as if the farangs actually go into a bar to watch girls dance. The problem was that she wouldn't talk to customers, even if they approached her. She wouldn't smile, either, it was as if she was paralysed with fear. I tried to get her to relax, I'd sit with her and help her make conversation, but she was too nervous. Only one guy wanted to pay her barfine, an old Swedish man, but he came back to complain the next day. He told the mamasan that Wandee lay on her back with her legs pressed together and her arms folded across her breasts. He demanded his money back and the mamasan gave it to him.

  The mamasan wanted to beat Wandee, but I said no, that I'd talk to her. I sat her down and explained what she had to do, but she just kept on shaking her head and saying that she couldn't do it. I asked her what the problem was, because it wasn't as if she was a virgin or anything. She'd had a boyfriend back in Surin, and I think she first had sex when she was fifteen.

  It was farangs, she said. She didn't like the way they looked, and she didn't like the way they smelled. I said that hardly anyone does, but you had to think of the money. You can do anything if you think of the money. I used to work in a factory for a few thousand baht a month. You can earn that in one night, so isn't a few minutes of discomfort worth it? She started crying and I put my arms around her. Some girls just can't do it, and I guess Wandee is one of them. I gave her enough money to get the bus back to Surin and sent her on her way.

  Sunan was furious. She'd paid for clothes and shoes for Wandee and she'd given her spending money. She was expecting to get a commission from the money Wandee earned. She's a smart businesswoman, is Sunan. She brings lots of girls down from Surin and then takes ten per cent of what they earn for the first year. Sunan wouldn't talk to Wandee after she'd said she wanted to go home. Wandee kept saying that she was sorry and that she'd pay Sunan back, but Sunan just ignored her.

  Dit was totally different, she took to working in the bar like a duck to water. She was going out with farangs every night, and she was in the short-time room a lot, too. Dit loves sex and I don't think she cares who she does it with. Her husband came with her to Bangkok and he encourages her to screw as many farangs as possible. She gives most of her money to him and he's already bought a motorcycle.

  Dit's a good dancer, and a quick learner. I showed her a few moves and she learned them really quickly. She's got a good body, long legs and big breasts. Eighty per cent of farangs like girls with big breasts. Her English is getting better every day, too. She can make farangs laugh and she knows what to say to make them like her. She reminds me of myself when I was her age.

  I think the only difference between us is that she likes sex and I don't. I hate it. Except with Park, of course, but then it's not sex, it's making love. What I do with the farangs is just sex, in and out until they come, and I hate that. They'd never know, of course, because I know how to smile as if I'm enjoying it and I make the right noises. Just like the lesbian show I used to do with Wan. It's all a big act.

  PETE

  Joy had been working as a waitress for almost two weeks when I saw him. I actually wasn't sure it was him, so I kept looking at the booth where the DJs worked. He was wearing a baseball cap so I couldn't see how short his hair was, but there was no mistaking the bulging eyes. Joy kept coming over to me, as attentive as ever, leaning against me, rubbing my shoulder, pulling faces to make me laugh. ‘What are you looking at?’ she asked eventually.

  ‘That guy. The one playing records.’

  She didn't look around, she just kept looking at me. ‘What about him?’

  I took a deep breath. ‘Joy, he looks just like your husband.’

  She frowned, then turned and stared at the DJ, her hand resting lightly on my thigh. She made a soft, snorting sound. ‘Him? No,’ she said. A teenager walked by carrying a tray and she grabbed him by the arm. ‘My husband looked more like him,’ she said, nodding at the surprised waiter.

  I looked back at the DJ's booth. If it wasn't him, the resemblance was amazing. Joy released her grip on the waiter's arm, and slid her arms around my neck. ‘Pete, I not lie to you,’ she said. I looked into her eyes and wanted so much to believe her.

  ‘It looks just like him,’ I said.

  She took a step back and looked at me admonishingly. ‘Pete, he only work here one week.’

  ‘What's his name?’

  ‘I don't know,’ she said. ‘You want me ask?’

  I nodded. She sighed theatrically and walked over to the DJ's booth. She climbed up on to a seat and called over the top of the glass partition. ‘What's your name?’ she shouted in Thai.

  ‘Gung,’ he called back. It means 'prawn' in Thai and is a common name for both men and women.

  She walked back to my table, swinging her hips prettily. She raised her eyebrows. ‘Gung,’ she said. ‘His name's Gung. Are you happy now?’

  I smiled and put my arm around her. She smelled fresh and clean, despite the smoky atmosphere. I kissed her on the neck and she pressed herself against me. ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘I'm happy.’

  Something about the way she smelled worried me. I'd smelled it before, but for the life of me I couldn't remember where.

  BRUNO

  Love is blind. It really is. It's not a cliche, it's a truism. There's an experiment that demonstrates the fact perfectly. You show a film to a group of volunteers. It can be about anything. The one I've seen is a robbery, three men steal some money from a security van and are thwarted by two passers-by. Then you tell the volunteers that they're going to be asked a series of questions about what they've seen. They're told to answer specific questions truthfully, and to lie when they answer others. Now, you get three types of people to ask the questions. The questioners, of course, haven't seen the film. You get a stranger, a friend, and a marriage partner to ask the questions, and they have to assess whether or not they are being told the truth or a lie.

  Now, what do you think the results of the experiment would be? The layman would assume that the partner would be most likely to spot the lies. But in fact, the exact opposite occurs. The strangers are most likely to spot when they are being lied to. The partner is the least likely. And the friend is somewhere in the middle, depending on how close a friend he or she is.

  What does this tell us? There are a number of possible conclusions to be drawn. It could be that people find it easier to lie to those who love them, that they learn to hide the non-verbal cues that give away untruths. It's far more likely, however, that we as human beings prefer not to believe that those we care for would lie to us, so we fool ourselves, we force ourselves to overlook the tell-tale signs of deceit. Love truly is blind.

  PETE

  I could sense there was something wrong as soon as I walked into Fatso's Bar. Big Ron was sitting there with a big grin on his face, jiggling in his specially-reinforced chair like a volcano all set to explode. I sat down and ordered a gin and tonic.

  ‘Joy's at it,’ he said.

  I felt cold inside. I knew what was coming. I could tell by the smug look on his fat face.

  ‘She was bar fined last night.’

  ‘Impossible,’ I said. ‘I was in there at ten.’

  ‘Yeah, but what time did you leave?’

  ‘About eleven. Then she came around to the apartment when she'd finished work.’

  Big Ron giggled li
ke a schoolgirl on her first date. ‘Better speak to Matt, then.’

  I pretended that I couldn't care less, but my heart was racing. Matt was an American guy and a regular visitor to Nana Plaza, where he'd recently started barfining katoeys. He walked into Fatso's about an hour later and sat down on the stool next to me. He grimaced. ‘Big Ron told you?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, swirling the ice cubes around my drink with my finger. ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘No question. I was with Jimmy, and Jimmy tried to bar fine her. She said no, but about twenty minutes later she left with an American.’

  ‘Do you know who he was?’

  Matt shook his head.

  ‘And there's no doubt, Matt? She couldn't have been going out to buy cigarettes?’

  He shook his head again. I guess we both knew I was clutching at straws. ‘I know the difference between a girl going out for cigarettes and a girl who's had her bar fine paid, Pete. She'd changed into her jeans, for a start.’

  Yeah, he was right, of course. I tried not to show how upset I was, rang the bell to buy everyone a drink, and ending up getting pissed out of my skull.

  I went around to Zombie just after midnight. Joy was there, playing with the laser I'd bought her. She grinned and ran over and gave me a big hug. ‘I think about you too much,’ she said.

  ‘I love you, Joy,’ I said.

  ‘I love you, too much,’ she said.

  ‘Don't ever lie to me, Joy,’ I said, hating myself for sounding so pathetic.

  ‘You drunk,’ she said. ‘I never lie to you, Pete. I love you, too much.’

  JOY

  I told Park it was a stupid thing to do, that Pete was sure to recognise him if Park started working in Zombie. Park slapped me and told me he didn't care, that he wasn't going to allow a farang to dictate his life. I said that he was being dumb because Pete had his photograph, but Park slapped me again so I stopped arguing.

  Sure enough, Pete spotted Park and I was the one who had to cover up. My heart was racing as I walked across the bar to shout up to Park. I nearly burst out laughing when he said that his name was Gung. Prawn? Park hates prawns. Calls them sea insects. Pete believed me, though, so maybe he's as stupid as Park seems to think he is. I told all the girls to say that Park was Gung if Pete asked them, but I don't think he did.

  Park kept pressing me to go with other farangs, even though I warned him that Pete's friends all drink in Zombie and one of them would be bound to see me. Park didn't care, but he said that if I was worried about getting caught I should take the farangs into the short time room. I told him how much I hated the short time room - it smells and the bed's got ticks, all the girls complain about getting bitten, but Park wouldn't listen to me. Sometimes he can be so stubborn.

  It's not as if we needed the money. Pete was giving me about four thousand baht a week, and I was earning at least five hundred baht a day in tips. I was paying for our room, and our food, and I was giving Park money for beer and cigarettes, and I was paying for his motorcycle. Sometimes men can be so ungrateful. I mean, Park was only getting three thousand baht a month for playing records. It's not even a real job. The DJs don't get to choose their own music, the farang who owns the bar, Damien, he decides what they play. Most of the time he just puts on one CD and lets it play right through. The farangs don't care, they're in the bars for the girls, not the music. I know the real reason Park wanted to work as a DJ again: it was so that he could be around the girls. I saw him making eyes at Wan and I gave him a piece of my mind. There's no way any man of mine is getting away with being a butterfly, not in front of my friends.

  PETE

  I left it until the end of the month before going around to Zombie to see the owner. I'd gotten his name from Jimmy. Damien Kavanagh, his family are big in double-glazing back in the UK, that’s what Jimmy had said. But there were other versions of his life story floating around Fatso’s, too. Bruce had heard that he’d once been a barrister in Belfast but had done a runner with clients money. Rick said that Kavanagh wasn’t his real name, that he’d changed it by deed pole after he’d been convicted on paedophile charges a decade ago. Big Ron was sure that he’d spent time in a Thai jail for trafficking women into Europe. No one seemed to know for sure. Whatever the truth about Kavanagh’s past, I found him in a cramped little office off the back of the room where the bargirls changed. He was crouched over a computer keyboard, peering at the screen through thick-lensed spectacles. He was a shifty-looking man, in his fifties, I guess, with thinning grey hair and a habit of licking his lips when he listened, like a frog contemplating its next meal. I introduced myself and told him what I wanted to know, and he just grinned and shook his head.

  ‘Why didn't you just walk away?’ he asked.

  I shrugged. ‘She wants to change. She doesn't want to dance any more.’

  Damien chuckled and pushed his glasses up his nose. ‘Pete, Pete, Pete, these girls are here for one reason, and one reason alone. They're hookers, and they're hooking.’

  ‘Joy's different...’ I began but stopped when he started shaking his head.

  He leaned forward as if about to share a secret with me. ‘You're wasting your time,’ he said. ‘And what's more, you know you're wasting your time.’

  ‘Okay, but I need to know for sure,’ I said. ‘I need to see her card.’

  The card was the key. Sure, I knew there was no reason for Matt and Jimmy to lie, but if Joy's bar fine had been paid, it would have been recorded on the card that she used to clock in each day. The cards were stored in a rack by the side of the lockers.

  ‘You used to be a journalist, yeah?’ he said.

  ‘That's right.’

  ‘Well, me showing you a girl's card would be the equivalent to you revealing a source,’ he said smugly. ‘I just couldn't do it. I'd have a revolt on my hands. The girls wouldn't stand for it.’

  ‘But Joy said...’

  ‘They'll say anything so long as they can get money out of you. Why can't you just accept that? They're hookers.’

  ‘She says she loves me...’

  He started laughing again and I felt my cheeks go red. He took his glasses off and began to polish them with a grubby handkerchief. ‘Pete, that's what they all say.’

  I wanted to slap his smug face, but I didn't. I tried to reason with him. I explained that she could earn much more money if she was dancing and going with customers, that it had been her idea to work as a waitress.

  ‘The waitresses go short-time, too,’ he said. ‘Some of the waitresses get screwed more than the dancers. It's the black and white uniforms, makes them look like schoolkids. Big turn on, that.’

  ‘But Joy's...’

  ‘Different,’ he finished for me. ‘Yeah, you said.’

  ‘Look, Damien, I know what you're saying, but do you know for sure that Joy has had her bar fine paid? Have you looked at her card?’

  ‘I don't have to,’ he said. ‘Look, have you any idea how many guys like you come into this office and tell me exactly the same story as you've told me? I had a Danish guy here last week. He'd fallen in love with a girl, Need, the one with big knockers. Now, Need's been hooking since she was twelve years old and she's almost thirty now. She's got three kids and a Thai husband who hits her around. But this Danish guy, he comes in here convinced that she's the Virgin bloody Mary. Says he's going back to Denmark and wants Need to work as a waitress while he's away. So Need winks at me and I say, sure, fine, whatever. He gets back on the plane, she takes off her kit and starts dancing again. He'll probably send her money every month and she'll give it to her old man so that he can go out and get drunk and slap her around.’

  I started to say that Joy was different, but even before the words left my mouth I could see him start to grin.

  ‘Look, you've more than a hundred girls working here, do you actually know which one Joy is?’ I asked him.

  He put his glasses back on and blew his nose on his handkerchief. ‘Saw her a couple of weeks ago and I asked the mamasan who th
e pretty new waitress was. She said it was Joy, that she used to dance.’

  ‘But it's not as if you know her personally?’

  ‘She's not one that I've fucked, if that's what you mean.’

  ‘No, that's not what I mean. I mean, maybe, just maybe, she's keeping her side of the bargain. Maybe she hasn't had her bar fine paid.’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Look, do me a favour,’ I said. ‘Just have a look at her card. You don't have to tell me what's on it, but maybe when you've looked at it you'll realise that she is different. And if her bar fine has been paid, all you've got to say is that your advice to me hasn't changed.’

  He sat back in his chair. ‘Suppose I do that,’ he said. ‘What do you plan to do?’

  ‘I'll walk away,’ I said. ‘If I'm sure that she's lied, I'll walk away.’

  ‘You won't be able to,’ he says. ‘You'll tell her that I showed her the card, and she'll give you any one of a hundred excuses why she went out. She was sick and paid her own bar fine, she went out to eat with friends, blah blah blah. She'll convince you that you're mistaken, then I'll have a riot on my hands when she tells everyone that I let you see her card.’

  ‘I promise you, Damien, on my life, that I won't tell her.’

  He picked up a chipped mug and sipped something brown. He put the mug down. ‘If I look at her card, I want you to promise me something.’

  ‘Anything.’

  ‘If I see what I know I'm going to see on that card, I want you to never talk to her again. Forget about her.’

  ‘No problem,’ I said. ‘I've got to go to Cambodia next week. Phnom Penh. I just won't tell her when I'm getting back.’

  He looked at me for several seconds and I thought he was going to change his mind, then he pushed himself up out of his chair and went over to the rack of time cards. He ran his finger down them. ‘What number is she?’ he asked. ‘There are a few Joys here.’