Private Dancer

by Stephen Leather

  There was a telephone in the room and Joy wrote down the number on a scrap of paper, and presented it to me with a key to the door and a key card to get into the building. ‘Now you can come see me every day,’ she said.

  VERNON

  I spoke to Sunan and told her what Phiraphan had said, that Bird wasn't her brother. She asked who Phiraphan was and I said he was a private detective, the same man that Pete had used to check up on Joy in Surin. Sunan started laughing and said that I shouldn't believe anything he said. She said that Pete wanted to divorce Joy and that the private detective was lying so that Pete could get a divorce without giving Joy any money. Phiraphan lied about Joy having a husband, he'd lied about everything. Sunan said Pete didn't like her and he was probably paying Phiraphan to say bad things about her.

  Sunan said that she loved me. ‘If I didn't love you, Vernon, why I marry you? Why I say I come to America to live with you?’

  It was a good point. If she had a Thai boyfriend or a husband, she could stay with him and go back to working in the bars. She could earn more as a dancer than I was paying her.

  ‘Pete want you not believe me,’ said Sunan. ‘He not good guy, Vernon. He not same you.’

  I think she's right, I think Pete was trying to split us up to get back at Joy. And I think he was jealous of the relationship that Sunan and I have. Sunan's much softer, much more caring than Joy, and prettier too. Joy always seemed to me to have a hard face, cold eyes, you know? She always had this calculating look about her, as if she was trying to work out how much money you had and how much you'd be prepared to spend on her. She's unbalanced, I think, you can tell that from the scars on her wrists. Sunan's never done anything like that to herself. She's a sensible, level-headed young woman, and she's going to make a great wife. She's my soulmate, and Pete's not going to split us up.

  JOY

  Sunan thinks I'm crazy. She says I should start working again because Pete's never going to take care of me properly. I told her that I wanted to give him a chance. Park was living with Daeng, I hadn't seen him since we'd had the argument in Zombie. What was I expected to do? To start dancing again, to have all my friends know that I'd lost Park and Pete? It's all right for Sunan, she's got Vernon and she's got Toine in Norway. And she's got Bird. Who've I got? No one. Pete's giving me money again, and he's paying for my room and my electricity and for the phone, and he bought me a television and he's promised to get me a fridge. I think he'll take care of me this time. Maybe he'll take me back to England with him. I hope so because I'm bored with Thailand. I'm bored with everything.

  I do miss the bars, though. It's difficult to explain why. There's something about the excitement of the bars. All the people, the noise, having your friends around. I used to enjoy going out with the girls after work, drinking and singing karaoke. I can still do that, of course, but Pete won't like it. He expects me to stay in the room twenty-four hours a day, like a dog.

  DAMIEN

  The big mistake that most farangs make is that they think the girls don't like being hookers. Well, they do, they bloody love it. For a start, there's the sex. Most of these girls lose their virginity before they're thirteen, and then it's to their father or their brother or one of their brother's friends. I mean, they're peasants, they see the animals doing it around them and it's a case of monkey see, monkey do. Sex to them is as natural as eating or shitting. I'm not saying they like it, I'm not saying that they have a thumping great orgasm every time a big, sweaty German climbs on top of them, but having sex is no big deal, it really isn't.

  They like the dancing, too. They always dance, even when work's over they'll go to a disco or a restaurant and get tanked up on Thai whiskey or heroin or whatever their thing is, then they'll dance, dance until they drop. The DJs know what music the girls like, and they're all dancing together, so for them it's fun, not work. And they like the adoration, too. The fact that dozens of guys are staring at them with hard dicks, wanting them, willing to pay money for what they used to do for free back on the farm.

  I tell you, there's girls get married from Zombie, they go back to Germany or Denmark or England, they live with the farang for a few years and then they say they have to come back to visit a sick relative or something. Sure, they go up country for a few days, but then they're back here, up on the stage flashing their tits and arses. Why? Because it's a turn-on, that's why. They've got guys staring at them, wanting them, lusting after them. Sure, men come in the bars and have women hanging all over them, but deep down we know it's for the money. With the girls, it's different. They like to be wanted. It's an aphrodisiac. It's power. It's a feeling they never get from a husband and a family, and it's something they miss. Something they need. That's why guys like Pete are never going to win. He's never going to be able to give Joy anything that comes even close to what she gets from dancing naked.

  The other big mistake that farangs make is that they think there's a shame in working the bars. They think they're going to come in here and rescue the girls from a life of vice, that the girls will do anything to escape. They don't understand that there's no shame attached to being a hooker. None at all. Okay, some of the more educated Thais might look down on the bargirls, but basically the whole Thai social structure is built around the acquisition of money and the building of relationships that will lead to the acquisition of money. For the educated Thais or those born into rich families, it's all about forming and maintaining links with the army, the government and the police. With working class Thais it means getting on with your boss and with your opposite numbers at organisations you do business with. With hookers, it's getting a farang to fall in love with you so that you can take them for everything they've got. The Thais understand that, they know that the hookers are only doing a job.

  But farangs think about it in their own terms. Back where they're from, being a hooker is a sinful thing, something to be ashamed of. Okay, so a Thai bargirl doesn't go around broadcasting the fact that she's a prostitute, but she's not shy about walking around Robinson department store hand in hand with a guy twice her age. If anything she's proud of the fact. Look at me, she's saying, I've got a rich guy who's taking me shopping, who'll buy me anything I want.

  There's a village in Isarn, right at the end of a dirt track in one of the poorest parts of the country. You come around a bend and you're confronted by dozens of big, expensive houses. They call it Swiss Village. Nothing to do with the style of the homes, it's because the whole damn village was built from Swiss money. About fifteen years ago, a girl from the village went to work as a hooker in a Zurich bar. She made a fortune in Thai terms and came back and built a house for her parents, bought a pick-up truck and a couple of motorcycles for her brothers. Word soon got around how she'd made her money. Do you think the villagers started pointing their fingers and shouting ‘shame, shame, shame’? Did they fuck. The girls from the village were queuing up at her door, asking how they could go and work in Zurich, too.

  So a few more local girls go over to the same bar. They make money, more money than your average Thai farmer would make in a hundred lifetimes. They come back, they buy land and a big house, and within a few years practically every fuckable girl from the area is on a plane to Switzerland. These days it's a bloody business. As soon as a girl is old enough, and assuming she's not pig ugly, she's approached by an agent. The agent sends her to Bangkok for six months where she goes to a language school to learn French or German. Then she goes back to a sort of finishing school where girls who've been to Switzerland teach them to smoke, drink, touch up the guys. By then most of the girls are already experienced sexually, but if there are any virgins then a representative of the company that runs the bars, a farang, breaks them in.

  Once they're ready, the company arranges their passports and visas and flies them over. They're moved around from bar to bar, never spending more than a month in any one. That makes it look as if the bars are always getting new girls, you see. Smart move, that. Punters don't realise the girl's been ar
ound for a while. They think she's fresh off the plane from Thailand. The girls dance, and they persuade the customers to drink champagne at God knows what price. They get a commission, and they can earn up to a thousand quid a month. There's no barfine system because the company is legit and obeys the law religiously, but after hours the girls are free to make whatever arrangements they want. And they do. Eight months later they fly back, their tour of duty over. Shame? Don't talk to me about shame. The only shame in Thailand is being poor.

  I’ve lost count of the number of farangs who’ve written to me asking if their ‘girlfriends’ are being faithful, or if they’re still going with customers. Usually they’re sending the girl money every month but the girl has told them they want to keep working in the bar so that they can be with their friends. The letters go straight into the bin. The fact is, if the girls are dancing in the bar, they have to go with customers. Have to. We build it into their wages. If they have their bar fine paid seven times in a month, they get their full salary. If their bar fine is paid six times, we dock them three hundred baht. No bar fines in a month and we take 2,100 off their wages. It has to be that way. The bar fines are a big slug of our income and if a girl isn’t hustling, we’re not earning and we’d be better off without her. So if a bargirl tells her farang boyfriend that she’s dancing in the bar and not going with customers, then she’s lying. In fact, if a bargirl tells her farang boyfriend anything, she’s lying. That’s the golden rule when dealing with bargirls – if their lips are moving, they’re lying.

  The waitresses don’t have the same pay structure as the dancers, but most of them will go short time with customers. But we don’t dock their pay if they don’t – it’s their choice. Waitressing is one of the ways that the girls get into prostitution, it’s sort of a half-way stage. They get to improve their English, they hang around with farangs, and they see how the dancers operate. Then one by one they succumb, and if they’ve anything about them they’ll be up and dancing around the silver poles within six months.

  A few days after Pete came into the office, I went looking for Joy. Server 127. She didn’t look that special, I have to say, but cute in that Khmer way. Long hair, dark skin, upturned nose. I took her into the short-time room for half an hour and gave her one. Nothing special in that department. Wouldn’t take it up the dirt-box but was up for everything else. Bit too old for me, truth be told.

  PHIRAPHAN

  I was in a department store in Bangkok just before Christmas and I saw a couple of Americans chatting. ‘Have you met my wife,’ says one, and introduces a girl probably ten years younger than he was, holding a small baby. A nice enough girl, but clearly a former bargirl. Showing her midriff, a bit too much make-up, probably a tattoo hidden from view. I couldn’t help wonder what had gone through the American’s head before getting hitched to a prostitute. Doesn’t he know the dangers of getting involved with a bargirl? And leaving aside the sheer futility of expecting a marriage to a hooker to have a happy ending, doesn’t he realise that every Thai who sees them together will know that she was a bargirl? Every time they go out together, every restaurant they eat in, every cinema they go into, every shop they visit. And it will stay like that for the rest of their time in Thailand. No Thai he meets is going to take him seriously. If he works for a Thai company, his bosses will lose all respect for him. His Thai co-workers ditto. Why would anyone respect a man who has married a prostitute? Taking her overseas won’t be any easier. Most people he will meet will assume, rightly, that he married a hooker. Why would any man put himself through that?

  That got me to thinking about farangs who marry Thais. It seems to me, based on almost twenty years experience as a private detective, that the vast majority of farangs who marry Thai girls are sex tourists. And most of the Thai girls who marry Westerners are bargirls. This is a fact, no matter how unpalatable that is. A common complaint from farangs who take Thai wives back to their own countries is that their girls are treated like prostitutes by all and sundry. There’s a simple reason for this. With few exceptions, they are prostitutes.

  Now, most sex tourists wouldn’t think of describing themselves as such. They see themselves as men of the world, visitors to an exotic country where young, beautiful girls treat them as gods. But in my view, ninety-nine per cent of men who visit Thailand without a female companion are sex tourists. And marriage between a sex tourist and a prostitute will always end in disaster.

  Why? Because virtually without exception, bargirls are damaged goods. Addicted to booze, drugs or gambling. Probably with a Thai husband or boyfriend in the background. A child or two up country with the relatives. A box full of photographs and business cards. A mobile phone full of telephone numbers of men she’s slept with. A jaundiced view of farangs in general and sex tourists in particular.

  And what of the sex tourist? He’s paid for sex with how many young, sexy girls. How likely is he to settle down? In a way, sex tourists and bargirls deserve each other. But one thing is for sure – the relationship won’t last. Guaranteed.

  The next group who tend to marry Thai girls are expats who say they live here. You’ll meet them all the time in the bars of Bangkok and Pattaya. They sit there with a thick gold chain around their thick neck and a mobile phone clipped to their belt and talk about Thailand being their home. But when you get to know them, you discover that the bulk of them are actually long-term sex tourists, working at jobs that do little more than cover their living (and screwing) costs. English teachers, bar owners, website designers, scuba instructors. Anyone serious about any of those professions wouldn’t be working in Thailand. A teacher of English as a foreign language can earn several times a Thai salary working in the States or Europe. Website designers abroad make a good living, here it’s thirty or forty thousand baht a month at best. Magazine sub-editors here earn a fifth of the salary they’d get back in the States. Freelance journalists have to live like paupers to survive. These men aren’t here for the money, they’re here for the sex.

  The same goes for most of the men here on retirement visas. They’re not here for the cheap food and the temples. Ask yourself why so many live in Pattaya or within walking distance of Nana Plaza or Soi Cowboy. They are long-term sex tourists, nothing more, and personally I look forward to the day when the Government here bites the bullet and sends them all packing. Let’s see how they get on paying for sex with girls a third of their age back in their own countries.

  As in the case of short-term sex tourists, the long-term variety of sex tourist has no chance of getting close to a decent Thai girl. When they do marry, they almost always marry bargirls. Often they’ll lie, claiming to have met the girl in Robinson’s Department store or at a temple. Bollocks. Spend any time talking to the wife of a long-term sex tourist and you’ll soon see her true colours. Often these men end up marrying a succession of prostitutes before returning penniless to their own country. Let’s repeat – you cannot have a successful relationship with a bargirl. Anyone who thinks they have a loving, caring, sharing relationship with a (former) bargirl just hasn’t discovered the truth yet. Get yourself a decent (honest) private detective like me and get the facts before you throw more good money after bad.

  A growing percentage of marriages to Thais involve sad bastards who can’t find a wives in their own countries. Strange as it may seem, there are probably more success stories among this group than any other. Usually they are middle-aged men, often with at least one failed marriage behind them, who decide that they want a Thai wife. What saves these men from disaster is that they don’t go through the sex-tourist phase. Instead they use an agency to find them a partner. Providing the agency doesn’t fix them up with a hooker, and providing the girl/woman is serious about wanting a farang husband, and providing she moves with him back to his country, these marriages do have a surprisingly high success rate.

  They also tend to be marriages of equals, which makes them more likely to succeed. Plus marriages through agencies tend to be less for sex and more for compan
ionship. That’s where the sex tourist usually comes adrift. The Thai girl who looked so attractive dancing naked around a silver pole isn’t quite so alluring wrapped up in a duffel coat against the chill winds of north east England. And it’s amazing how quickly the slim, sexy bargirl figure (probably due to heavy Yar Ba consumption) turns to fat on an American diet. Men who use the agencies tend to be looking for companionship rather than sex, so they are less likely to be disappointed if they don’t get fixed up with a sex goddess. Or if their sex goddess metamorphoses into a heavy-set lump, albeit one with a charming smile.

  The last group of men who tie the knot with Thai girl are the long-term expats. These men are totally different from long-term sex tourists. They have real jobs and earn salaries comparable with what they would get back in their own countries. Often they are not here by choice, but have been sent to Thailand by their companies. These are not men you will ever see in a go-go bar, unless they are entertaining a visitor from overseas who wants to see sleaze. These are not men who would go near a bargirl and who would be contemptuous of any farang who did. More often than not, such men will already have families. Of those that are single, most would not want to marry a Thai. Those that are single will know all the pitfalls of marrying across a cultural divide, and will not enter into it lightly. And if they do marry a Thai girl, she’ll be from a good family, either with a career of her own or rich enough that she doesn’t have to work. It won’t be a girl he met in a bar, working at Robinsons department store, dancing in the Hard Rock Cafe or prowling the various Thai internet chatrooms.

  One thing you will notice about long-term expats who marry Thais – generally the age gap isn’t much greater than it would be back in their own country. Generally five years, probably ten, in some cases fifteen. But what you won’t see is a long-term expat marrying a decent Thai girl young enough to be his daughter. Or his grand-daughter. I don’t care what the sex tourists say about Asian girls appreciating a man of senior years, there is something grotesque about a fifty-year-old man walking hand-in-hand with a twenty-year-old unless he is a blood relation. A thirty-year age gap is simply ridiculous. Forty is sick. My own wife is just two years younger than I am and she often tells me that I am too old for her.