Asiatic Moments

by Al Culler

  The frails moved, leaving me looking up into a deep black forest of pubic hair, belonging to the girl of my dreams. She seemed precarious on her high-heels, needing the support of one of the poles on the edge of the stage to stop her falling over.

  Either newish or drugged out of her mind. She didn’t have the glassy-eyed stare that foreigners who were new in town often confused with a look of innocence but was usually produced from quaffing an excessive amount of speed tab’s.

  From the way she twitched her body I soon decided that innocence was something that had long passed her by, maybe by way of half a decade or more in the brothels in China town. Sensing my spent interest, in a typical female reaction, she made some heavy eye contact and gave me a smile that would cure impotence and almost caused me to leap off the stool... the smile seemed to even reach her eyes. Maybe the twitching was just an act?

  The predominant feeling of never quite knowing where you are, or what’s actually going down, is one most farang major in - whether in Bangkok bars or trying to survive up-country. It has nothing to do with the language, although that obviously doesn’t help, more it’s a case of the babes’, not to mention half the general populace’s, ability to pitch a line of lies at you that just happens to be exactly what you want to hear. Keep repeating, too good to be true, over and over again - and you might not get caught and dragged into god knows what mess of psychosis and general delinquency.

  Of course, none of that stopped me buying Tan a Cola when she descended from the stage on to my lap. I managed to keep a tight grip on the bar, stopped us going end over end. Everywhere she touched me fierce heat, directly out of a nuclear reactor melt-down, sprang out of her body, left me totally overwhelmed by lust! Heaven in one easy move. I didn’t know whether I should scream with the pain of excessive lust or just howl with pleasure.

  Twenty minutes is the time it takes a girl to drink her Cola if she actually likes you. Ignore this minor fact at your peril! Tan’s went west in less than twenty seconds. When I ignored her request for another she went into a bit of furious lap dancing. She hadn’t bothered to put any clothes on, wasn’t any insulation from the snake-like undulations of her body.

  If I’d been a newcomer to the scene, I would’ve been in deep shit (dead easy to fall in love at first sight with someone totally unsuitable) but it was pretty obvious she was too far gone to be of much use, despite her youth and looks.

  Another case of the girl being through so much that however much love and affection, not to mention millions of baht, that you threw at her it wouldn’t make the slightest bit of difference. As soon as your back was turned the same old shit would go down.

  She almost burst out her skin when I suggested 500 baht was all I’d pay for short time after she tried to get me to come up with the bar fine, reckoned five thousand was more like it. Which I figured meant I was somewhere between being a rat and a dog in her scheme of things! Again, like anywhere else in the world, a girl really likes a man, she’ll go for free and don’t let any amount of posturing and stories of families to support persuade you otherwise.

  We parted on the worst of terms, which meant I’d found another bar where I’d be ignored totally - how to piss off the most beautiful girl in Soi Cowboy. All in a days work, natch!

  Pleasures and Perils

  It was one of those nights. I’d staggered into a Patpong bar, all but collapsed on to a stool - suffering the deprivations of too much heat, an heady dose of pollutants and the usual mix of local beer with whisky chasers. My eyesight wasn’t so far gone that I didn’t physically react when some elderly bar-babe put her grinning face in my field of vision.

  Nearly fell off the stool in shock, the smile seemed painted on her face which was ugly enough to pass for a katoey, though she had none of the other tell-tale signs. She grabbed my groin, pretended to swoon with passion. This was supposed to be attractive? I had to grab hold of my right hand with my other one to stop myself slapping some sense into her.

  The bartender was one of those oversized Thai men with an excess of self-regard that was at odds with the bloated, ugly face he sported. He was half my age yet thrust out a bigger beer belly; though he grinned widely it did nothing to hide the evil lurking behind his eyes.

  ‘Good girl! She do anything for you!

  ‘Good, tell her to get lost, then. Bpat Narook!’

  The guy twitched with repressed violence, slammed down a bottle of warmish Chang, whilst spitting out some Thai at the girl. Jai Dam was mentioned several times (black heart!). The slight breeze from the airconditioner suddenly did a runner, sweat pouring off me by the bucketful. The warm beer was about as helpful as a Russian condom in a Chinese bordello.

  The stage packed with girls, women, babes, katoeys, wearing minimal clothing, perched on high-heels, half-heartedly moving to the music. Lust fluttered when I saw one of them with a slender yet muscular body straight out of the rice fields; unfortunately she turned around, revealing an heroin worn face - like nineteen going on forty: a smile that could crack ice. She caught my glance before the naked lust went out of it...

  Meanwhile, a real monster had crept up on me, one of those incredible katoeys - six feet six inches tall, shoulders right out of a Welsh rugby front-line and about as much sexuality as a concrete post. The lout tried to grab me in an embrace, but I whirled my hands around and attempted to knee it between the legs.

  ‘Why you like that? New pussy, only one year old!’

  ‘No money, farang jonn!’

  ‘Dog man!’

  The creature stamped its foot with the petulance of a two year old, stomped off with all the elegance of a three-legged elephant. I felt grievously insulted that such a monster would think I’d be desperate enough to be interested in her/he/it.

  The girls on the stage replaced by another set; the same mix of young and old, fat and thin, sexy and brain dead. The one who’d caught my glance earlier sauntered up, announced her name was Dieppe and thrust her bum into my groin. A move that nearly made me totter off the stool. Velvet skin, steel muscles, an heady combination that had the pecker at full alert.

  Problem was her face was so wasted - she reckoned she was twenty but could’ve passed for twice that - that I wasn’t going to take the chance. An unfortunate excess of babes in Patpong had found their way there via Chinese brothels and the usual ten, or more, men a day.

  Didn’t stop me buying her a drink or running my hands tenderly over her body. The barman scowled as he loitered nearby, hoping for a reason to beat the shit out of me. A lot of the Thai men working the neon strip had spent their youth in the gay bars, moving on by finding a girl to live off; an unlikely mix that just emphasized the range of diseases and viruses that could easily be caught.

  The babe growing bored with mere foreplay, suggesting a barfine and a short-time hotel. The girls changed again, saved from making up some excuses. One of the hostesses, dressed in a Thai student outfit, gasped at my appearance, giggled and fluttered away... she looked about sixteen, seventeen, (illegal...) and luscious; probably one of the Thai boss’s mistresses. Most of the girls in Patpong too old and dirty to interest the locals.

  I could see the monster katoey eyeing me up again, time to exit fast; not that I fancied another warm beer or any more of the sauna-like temperatures. I threw the correct change on to the bar, causing massive scowls all round. Some of the bars had cashiers who would go home brokenhearted if they let one farang out of the joint without short-changing him, though if you made enough fuss you got the money back.

  It was actually cooler outside. An unlikely collection of touts screamed entreaties at me whilst I tried to find a path through the vendor’s stalls - selling everything from hardcore DVD's to fake Rolex watches. The cigarette vendors usually refused to sell to natives they didn’t know, as they were off-loading black market goods and didn’t want any trouble from undercover cops. It was that kind of scene.

  The next bar down the line was 99 percent katoey, although the management had a rare sense o
f humour - putting in one or two knockout babes. I peered in but decided it wasn’t worth the hassle. The last time I was there I’d had to slap one of the gay-boy waiters who’d gone all enthusiastic over the Culler body; can’t think why! Thais had long memories and majored in retribution.

  I was too drunk to risk climbing the near vertical stairs to the hardcore bars where anything and everything went. High velocity darts popping balloons, exploding soda bottles, weird sex shows on motorcycles and slings, lesbians cavorting and even the odd farang couple getting in on the act (usually desperate Russians!). No, I couldn’t cope with that.

  Sullen Thai men waited for their women to finish work, sitting on flash motorcycles and yacking away about the ugliness of the farang customers, though there were as many young kids as there were ancients on the scene.

  The Thais were never too sure about their women - maybe the money or even the sex would prove too big a lure! Even some babe who’d left school at twelve could eventually work out that some local lout burning through her money whilst she risked all kinds of madness wasn’t going to get her ahead of the game.

  A couple of big Belgian women were growling at one watch vendor, refusing to pay ten times the going rate. The Thai’s outrage at the price offered was almost authentic - god knows what he thought of the women, 200lbs of meat going towards elephant status - serious hormonal chaos - he’d probably be swallowed whole and never be seen again.

  It was all getting pretty desperate, ugliness and craziness everywhere I looked. I staggered into another dive, carved in half just before the recession got serious, loads of Americans in residence, making like they were CIA goons or something. Some of the girls looked like they had done the Saigon gig - frightening!

  ‘ Beer Chang, yen macma, meeow gow,’ I screamed over the music - Chang beer, ice cold, no glass. Sometimes it got through to them! At 90 baht a throw it was still bargain time. The waiter came back with the bottle, flipped the cap off, the difference in temperature causing the iced beer to foam out of the bottle, about a third lost until I could get it to my mouth. Sarcastic bastard! I downed it in one, and waved for another. The ice hitting my veins harder than heroin ever would!

  There were a couple of half decent girls on the stage who were doing the a-go-go blues perched on indecently tall high-heels. One of them was definitely a traffic stopper but she totally ignored my stare. An all too common occurrence. I could find neither sense of outrage nor surprise when she staggered off the stage into the arms of some eighty year old who was trying to relive his youth but had difficulty in keeping his false teeth from popping out. He was probably still trying to figure out how to reconnect to his long dead member!

  ‘Velvet trash,’ screamed someone. Imagine my surprise when all heads turned in my direction. I tried to look profoundly innocent, jerking my head to indicate that the vocals were surely caused by the obese, bald headed patron sat nearby - only to find I was looking into a mirror! They soon settled down again - giving me the chance of an easy exit - soothed by the teeth grinding bass and the easy sex on offer.

  Rather too easy! Any clown can walk into Patpong straight off the plane, find a babe of sorts and get right down to it. No discernment, character, humour, hint of attractiveness...nothing, just a couple of thousand baht or so! If you’re an ancient with money and time to burn it’s all fantastical and you’ll probably conk out before the diseases get you! If you want any kind of relationship, remotely serious, look elsewhere - Patpong isn’t hardcore by Thai standards, it’s mostly a cosmic joke on farangs! Time to go home!

  Wrecked in Pattaya

  I was slurping from a flask full of Lao whisky (paint stripper!) between taking slugs of Chang beer... I needed the inspiration to cope with Beach Road, a wrecked street almost in the sea, full of bars and discos, once the territory of GI’s on R and R from ‘Nam but now fair game for anyone who could come up with the price of a beer.

  I’d somehow gone on a three mile ramble around abandoned roads, empty condo’s and derelict land before coming back where I started and noticing that there was a bloody big sign pointing in the direction I wanted to take. I added fast failing eyesight to the long list of medical problems.

  Heat and pollution exhaustion not putting me in the best of moods, nor the rank smell coming off my sodden clothes doing anything for my chances with the down-market babes loitering with intent in the kind of minimal clothing that would put a Patpong hooker to shame.

  Who needs Viagra when Lao whisky, Thai beer and Oriental babes leaves the poor old pecker twitching in lust? Not this kid, for one. The fatality rates are about the same, too!

  I was just beginning to get back into the swing of things after chucking the empty beer bottle, when some lunatic thrust a bloody big snake in my face. He was a scrawny little wimp so I had no qualms about giving him a back-handed slap.

  Didn’t even think about it, really, surprising myself with the instantaneous reaction to imminent demise. The little runt moved faster than a snake about to pounce, leaving the full force of the Culler attack in empty air.

  The next thing I knew, I was in a heap on the floor with a couple of youths giving me a good kicking - just as well I had a deep band of fat to protect me from the worst of it.

  Screaming whistles, howling motorcycles, barking dogs and the buzz of speed boats and jet-ski’s were my next conscious moments, the Thai’s scarpering as the cops turned up.

  The large group of native spectators went into vocal gymnastics with the porkers, sounding like a million, or so, monkeys about to meet their maker.

  A couple of cops pulled me up, dusted me down and waved me on my way as if being viciously assaulted was an everyday occurrence and no real cause for concern. I could heard the echo of their laughter as I waddled away.

  Beach Road is a f..king long street - I know, because I’ve walked its full length, mate - and not the kind of trip to do with bruised ribs. A bit of reality here, I’m fat, bald and more likely to cause hysterical laughter than unstoppable lust, but even in rumpled clothes dirtied from the assault, walking past the open air bars, the babes screamed out,

  ‘Handsome man, handsome man...Sit here!’

  Who was I to argue with that sentiment, even if the babe in question had a face that looked like it had been around the block a few times. I refrained from asking her what she did in the Vietnam war, though; one fight a day more than enough.

  An ice cold Chang was thrust into my shaking hands, downed it in one. A general feeling of approval emanating from the gals. A second was thrown my way and I managed to sip it slowly. It was still afternoon, at least another twelve hours to blow.

  The humidity drained every last drop of water out of me, gravity tripled. I felt twice my real age, probably looked it too. Didn’t stop the old gal from trying to sit on my lap, made the stool wobble alarmingly.

  Her breath smelt of excrement, the way she downed her shot of Tequila in one go, god only knows the state of her liver. She poked out an alarmingly long tongue that looked like it was infected with several different fungal strains, upturned its end until the tip was flowing right back down on to its surface. Despite the state she was in, I felt alarming tremors in my groin!

  It was one of those days. Our combined mass, and all her snaking around, sent the stool flying backwards. The babe had the good sense to land her 50 kilo’s, or so, atop the permeable Culler frame which caused me to yodel in agony.

  My spine felt shattered and I had triple vision - Thai girls with three heads, all cackling insanely with the sheer outrageous hilarity of it all!

  Reseated, I had three old biddies giving my back a massage - nuclear reactor heat coming out of their paws as they worked me over like I was a recalcitrant buffalo. I tried to keep the tears out of my eyes and screams out of my mouth.

  Bought a bottle of local whisky, downed half of it in one gulp whilst the women attacked their Cokes with unseemly vigour.

  By the time I was feeling whole again the gals were into all sorts of theories a
bout what kind of sex I liked, only to end up complaining that I was obviously gay as I didn’t want to buy any of them out. Cheeky bitches, especially after I blew almost a thousand baht on the drinks.

  There are two ways to do the bars on Beach Road. One is to wander along slowly, looking into the bars in the hope that someone interesting will catch your eye. The other is to amble from bar to bar, downing a couple of beers at each, full of exactly the same ambition but giving fate and luck a little time to work their magic. It’s probably no surprise that I chose the latter!

  Three bars later, with just the old broads trying to make my day, I wandered into one of the bigger plays in town and found myself going all righteous at the sight of a couple of pensioners feeling up some Thai kids who couldn’t have been more than ten...

  That was how I ended up in a shouting match with two eighty year olds (I kid you not!). The kids joined in, shaking their fists at me whilst most of bar staff gave me nasty scowls! Hero of the moment, I wasn’t! I kept up the swearing fit for a good minute, before finishing my beer and exiting fast.

  The cops I collared a minute later refused to understand, even when I screamed abuse at them. One of them was fingering his gun in the hope that he could get some practice in. I practically had to drag the other one into the bar and shove him into the ancients’ faces.

  Bedlam broke out, the staff screaming Thai at the cops and shaking fists at me. A few moments later I was hauled out by the cops and given a quick body search! It had to be quick as I was only wearing shorts and a tee-shirt.

  The wannabe gunslinger seemed to enjoy himself immensely by feeling up my groin until he worked out how well armed I was - more scowls! The other one counted my money, sniffed, and gave the roll back to me less a purple note.

  I knew enough about the heart of darkness to give up. By the time night fell I was absolutely pissed out of my head and had to be physically restrained by a couple of Aussies from throwing myself into the sea! I threw up instead!