Legless

[Guest]

I felt good. I felt alive. More alive than I?d felt for a while. Tonight the world was aflame with a kind of wild joy. The Nana Plaza, one of the world?s more significant and obvious brothels, felt like some wild and wonderful party and the one place in the universe to be. Paper darts, folded with craftsmanship and full attention to the laws of aerodynamics, flew across the gap between first floor bars. Sporting events relayed from satellites directly to outside beer bar TV?s beamed events to major audience participation. Bargirls darted like laughing fairies from bar to bar, sometimes wearing clothes, sometimes wearing next to nothing, and hopelessly slow and clumsy drunken farang lumbered after them. And drinks were served with jokes and mockery and laughter. Flirtatious games abounded. Newborn babies got passed around and made a fuss of by women who always stopped being whores and became mothers in the presence of fresh life. And all this played out to the relentless soundtrack of music boom boom booom and the laughter of life lived without thought.

 

Throughout the evening I?d been roaming Bangkok. Just wandering like a man let out of a cage and loving the sense of freedom. It seemed natural to gravitate towards the Nana Plaza. I was still avoiding the Soi Cowboy but the Nana held no entanglements. I arrived at around nine and passed from bar to bar. Every bar seemed filled with people who knew my name. Women I barely knew flung themselves into my arms in small first floor bars ?Turk... Turk... Where you go ? I miss you.? Everything was bathed in that laughter. Nothing was serious. After an hour or two of this I?d been squeezing my way between an old bin and the side of a bar when I heard a familiar voice.

 

Swedish Vic was sitting at one of the outdoor bars chatting up the barmaid into providing him with an extra bowl of peanuts. Vic was in his mid forties but always came across as a man part child and part Santa Claus. His messy blonde hair and ruddy expression added to this impression but it was his manner that really clinched the deal. ?Aaaaay Turk,? He said catching sight of me. ?Good to see you still breathing. We were just wondering if you?d been killed by your evil girlfriend.?

 

?Give it time... Who?s we ??

 

?Bob and Richard. They?re around here somewhere. You know Bob is chasing after the ladyboys at Casanova. And Richard... I don?t know where he is. He went for a piss about fifteen minutes ago. Maybe he fell in love on the way. What are you drinking ??

 

?I?ll have whatever you?re having.?

 

?Not whisky.?

 

?I?m feeling sociable.?

 

Vic ordered me a beer which the barmaid pulled up and opened offering me the option of a glass. As Vic wasn?t drinking out of a glass I decided to join him in drinking straight from the cooled bottle flecked with tiny drops of water.

 

?Tonight,? He smiled. ?Tonight is a festive night. You know ? Sometimes it can be boring here... Bangkok can be dead. Sometimes... But tonight. There is a feeling that anything can happen.?

 

I felt small hands over my eyes and a soft kiss on the back of my neck. For a moment I feared the worst. But when I spun round I saw the laughing eyes of an old old girlfriend I hadn?t seen for months. She showed me a ring on her finger and pointed to a man who was with a couple of friends and didn?t seem to mind his new wife chatting to guys. I figured he even stood a chance. She didn?t say much but ran off to join him and wrap her small body around his. There?s always a moment of small regret in such things. But it added to the sense that everything could be all right.

 

Vic clinked bottles with me and said ?Cheers?. He was an interesting man. He?d made a fair amount of money in his youth from working in the hotel administration and advertising, put a down payment on a medium sized hotel in Southern Spain, and run it until it was a big success. After that he paid off his debts and bought another hotel in Greece doing the same again. By the time he was forty he had four hotels all bringing in money. That was when he started taking holidays in Thailand. Now he ran seven different hotels around Europe. I asked him why he didn?t expand out to Asia. He told me ?Never shit where you eat.? I didn?t know what it meant then and I still don?t know. He?d go back to visit each one of his places two or three times a year. Other than that he just let his trusted staff keep everything going. He was the kind of person who, I could imagine, made each of his employees feel like a valued and trusted friend. He remembered the birthdays of his cleaning staff. Sometimes their kids birthdays. He often attributed this ability to never having had a serious relationship or a desire for a serious relationship with any woman. This, he said, kept the mind focussed on the important things in life. ?People who are married get in little cages with that other person. I can see why they do it for kids but that aside it just makes the world a crappy place. Everyone should be able to fuck everyone.? Vic preferred the company of hookers. And the hookers he preferred the company of were those who could show him something new. Maybe his palette had become a little jaded over the years with a seemingly endless parade of one night stands. ?Life?s too short for repeat performances,? He said. ?If I go with a woman I want something new not the same old fucking bullshit.? As a result he didn?t go with all that many women now. He saved it up for those who were ?special?.

 

Bob turned up with a katoey in tow who, to me, just looked weird. I?m as impressed by a pretty katoey as much as the next man. I don?t know how they do it. But sometimes they just look weird and, frankly, a little scary. This was one of the weird looking ones. Not masculine or feminine. Just alien. Bob introduced me and Vic her as Spit. Or, at least, it sounded like Spit. She shook my hand and it felt like grabbing a bar of soap in the bath. ?I see you walk by many many times,? said Spit. ?My friend in the bar she like you.?

 

?How nice.? I said and took a drink.

 

?My friend she say she think you look like man have very big dick.?

 

?Tell your friend she couldn?t be more wrong but that it?s nice to be thought about at all.?

 

Spit laughed a laugh that was probably meant to be coquettish but which came across like something out of a horror movie.

 

Bob started explaining that Spit was just a friend but that I probably shouldn?t mention this to Sawannii all the same. I nodded and then he started to hold forth on the telecommunications revolution that he was hoping to have a hand in installing as, I noted, Spit fingered his genitals just below the level of the bar.

 

A pair of laughing girls came chasing around us escaping from a farang who kept apologising to everyone he bumped into. With this distraction serving as a kind of social cover Bob was soon sucking the face off Spit.

 

Richard appeared looking drunker than I was ever aware of having seen him before. He was being held up by a pretty girl whose brow was liberally flecked with acne. ?Hey Turk,? He said with a slur. ?I thought you were dead. We were trying to call you for about three days. Johnny was setting odds on how long it would be before Khlong Toey?s finest stumbled over your decapitated body wrapped in plastic.?

 

?Sorry... I have an arrangement with a guy called Lefty who guarantees that in the event of decapitation my corpse will be dumped in a Banglamphu guest house. In the event of my brutal murder I want to make the next edition of Lonely Planet.?

 

?How?s Nam ??

 

?Haven?t seen her for a few days. I think she lost the scent.?

 

?I haven?t seen her at her bar for a while. Thought she might have moved in with you.?

 

A great round of ?Aaaah?s? and ?Ooooh?s? erupted from the Rainbow beer bar. Someone shouted ?Ref?.

 

An American guy in his early sixties wearing a baseball cap started telling me and Vic about his experiences in Japan. ?Best fucking of my life. If my company hadn?t gone under I?d still be there today. These women, bored housewives most of em, they would do anything. Make these bargirls seem like a bunch of nuns.? (an idea for a themed bar popped into my head) ?They do anything and they do it for free. All their salariman husbands leave them for 16 hours a day. They?re all horny as Hell with nothing on their minds except where the next fuck?s coming from. Shopping centres in Kyoto. Best place in the world to score. If you can?t pick up a woman in a Kyoto shopping centre then you couldn?t pick up a whore in a brothel. And they fuck like crazy women. You ain?t never heard nothing like the noises they make. They scream man. Scream for more. They want you to fuck them in every imaginable way. Hell. I?d be ready for calling it a day but they?d be screaming for more and sucking your dick to make sure you could give it to them. These fucking Thai bitches just want money money money. Japanese women actually want your cock. They love sex. Any kind of sex.?

 

Vic said ?This is why they have bandy legs.?

 

?Damn right. That?s the one thing they do have. But I wouldn?t give a shit if they walked like John Wayne. They know how to fuck.?

 

Richard left the rest of us claiming to be on call early the following day but I suspected it was getting close to his girlfriend?s bedtime. Spit didn?t hang around long either. I didn?t think she would. Bob was pretty heavily in with Sawannii. When a paper dart landed in the beer glass of our local representative of the Japanese Tourism Office we moved on to another bar. Then another. Then another.

 

At the last bar, as it grew closer to the legal closing time, Vic said ?Want to make a night of it ??

 

I nodded. ?Beats going home.?

 

Bob shrugged agreement.

 

?How about The Patpong Bar ??

 

For all those smart enough to have stayed clear of such places, The Patpong Bar was a bar with a down and dirty reputation of being able to always turn up something... surprising. It wasn?t a place that catered to all tastes. More the kind of place that offered its customers a walk on the unusual side of life. It was a place that seemed virtually invented for people like Swedish Vic. Despite the popular moniker The Patpong Bar was nowhere near Patpong. Neither was it called The Patpong Bar. Not officially. Not any more. It had gone by that name a decade earlier. Of course it was a different type of bar then and had been under a different management... Allegedly. When it had been The Patpong Bar it was one of the most infamous of all clip joints. Many a guileless drunken tourist who jumped in a cab and said take me to Patpong would be driven to this small bar down a small soi on the wrong side of the river and told that this was Patpong Bar. If they insisted on being taken back to the real Patpong the driver would negotiate a new fee (this being in the days before taximeters). More often they would stumble inside this sleazy bar with its sleazy women and be charged some outrageous sum of money for a couple of beers and a lady drink. No nearby tourist police for the customer to run crying to they nearly always paid up and the cab driver earned his nice little backhander. They didn?t do that any more. That was in the bad old days. Now they just found the weirdest hookers that money could rent. Vic was always coming back with some story about finding a sexually rapacious dwarf or some kind of wondrous genetic mutation. I was never a hundred percent convinced by Vic?s stories. He had a slight tendency to exaggerate. All the same. If there was a two headed whore in Bangkok I feel absolutely sure The Patpong Bar, or whatever its real name was, would have been the most likely place to find her.

 

?How about it ?? Said Vic.

 

?What time do they chuck out ?? I said.

 

?They don?t chuck out. They?re open all night.?

 

?I don?t know.? I said. ?I was in a Thermae state of mind.?

 

Vic got this gleam like some kind of missionary and said ?You can go to the Thermae any night. Tonight is a night of strange magic. You have to go with the flow of these things. The first round?s on me.?

 

?Then it?s settled.? Said Bob.

 

By the time we set off it was around half past two. A few bars were still open - this being a time between crackdowns - but the majority of girls were flowing from the area like blood from a severed artery. The general flow was to the Nana Disco with a few choosing to hightail up to Patpong, the real Patpong, or the Thermae. Some were even headed home to bed. And as we watched them all black lipstick and noisy death I felt maybe Vic was right. It was time to step into a world where the normal rules no longer applied.

 

All the taxi drivers and tuk tuks were at the mouth of Nana for people going to places they knew. We had to walk way up to Witthayu before we could get a driver to follow Vic?s directions and even then we had to promise him a big tip. It struck me as ironic that once upon a time this was a place you?d get taken by a lot of those same drivers against your will and that now you had to really push to get taken there at all.

 

After a constant set of running directions from Vic we arrived at the corner of two small sois where the bar stood between a non-descript looking hotel and a series of shutter down shops. The name, in Thai, shone out in fluorescent violet lights.

 

?Tung laaw la ?? Said the cabbie incredulously not knowing where he had brought us.

 

Vic paid him and he drove off leaving us standing there in a way that reminded me of the scene in The Exorcist where Max Von Sydow arrives at the door of the house Satan has made his own. ?Tung laaw la ?? I said repeating the cabbie.

 

Vic smiled and nodded. It seemed a bit bleak. No hawker standing outside. Just a black glass door with peeled off Thai letters. Vic smiled a friendly kind of a smile that, nevertheless, seemed full of a kind of dark mischief. Then he rang the bell.

 

The door buzzed and Vic pushed it open. Stepping inside was like stepping into Dr Who?s Tardis. Much bigger on the inside than you could ever have imagined by looking at the outside. In some ways it looked like one big pub with a well lit bar down the centre and darkness or dim lighting all around. There were no sex shows in a place like this. Here they just skipped right on to the sex.

 

The women sat, barely discernible in the dim lighting, all around the edges at the back of the bar while the larger part of the place was filled with this candlelit booths that looked like some romantic restaurant you?d take your wife to in an attempt to get the sex back in your marriage.

 

A Chinese waiter with expressive eyebrows approached the three of us. ?How many come sitting.? He asked.

 

?Just the three of us.? Said Vic.

 

He nodded and led us to a medium sized booth. We were close to the back of the bar and I noticed, almost with a degree of disappointment, that they all looked perfectly normal. Vic ordered a bottle of black label and soda water. The prices were no worse than you?d expect to pay at a normal disco and when the bottle and glasses came beer nuts and damp towels arrived too.

 

An old Chinese lady approached our table and waied each one of us in turn. Vic asked her what she would like to drink. She thanked him and said she?d like a gin and tonic. He caught the eye of the waiter whose eyebrows lifted a full inch and ordered her drink. Then he spoke to her in rapid Thai about her family and, in particular her two sons, one of whom was studying abroad. While he was doing this Bob made a quick telephone call to Sawannii who was in between her two shows and told her where he was. I could hear her mocking laughter even from the other end of the table.

 

Vic said something about the girl with no legs and a katoey to the Chinese woman but I was diverted by a couple of really pretty girls who were blowing me kisses and laughing.

 

The Chinese lady, who I?d presumed could only speak Thai and Mandarin asked me and Bob in perfect English ?You want something to eat ??

 

?You don?t do Egg and chips do you ?? She laughed and said that she didn?t think this would pose too much of a problem for the chef. Bob ordered ribs Vic ordered Naem sod, som tam puu palaa, takkataan and rice with Nam prik mangda... And chips.

 

She finished her drink and disappeared through a room at the back of the bar.

 

?What were you saying about a woman without legs.?

 

?Yes. I think you?ll like her. She?s a very nice girl.?

 

?You...?

 

?No. No but I had a chat with her once. She had a good sense of humour.?

 

?I suppose that would be an asset. All things considered.?

 

The food came first and the women followed.

 

They were all wearing evening dresses and, to look at them you wouldn?t think that any were in any sense abnormal. One girl walked in a way that appeared slightly awkward and had long black hair combed completely masking one side of her face like the film star Veronica Lake. She came and sat by me looking like the epitome of style and class that was only slightly punctured by a light farting sound. . She looked at me silently. She seemed very pretty. Skin dark. Eyes black as pitch. Something hung between us and, at once, I was frozen in her stare.

 

?You speak English ?? I said.

 

She nodded.

 

I smiled and nodded thinking she probably didn?t. ?You want a drink ??

 

She nodded again.

 

?What?s your name ??

 

She seemed to pause a moment and then, with a little difficulty, said ?Lumi.?

 

?Lumi.?

 

She smiled a slightly askance but sincere smile and nodded. Almost as a reflex I reached out to brush her hair from her face. She started to stop me but then let me as if she had been forgetting herself. There was an ancient scar that looked as though half her face had, at some point, been almost torn away and then stitched back together again. The scar led all the way to the side of her mouth.

 

?Sorry.? She said.

 

?Why ??

 

?I think maybe you not like look.?

 

?If I didn?t want to look I wouldn?t have looked. What do you want to drink ??

 

She gave me a look as if to say ?You sure ?? Then said ?Mekong-coke.?

 

We all ordered drinks. Lumi?s eyes darted around the room as if looking out for someone who might be watching her.

 

?What?s wrong.?

 

?Plaow? Nothing.

 

?You sure ??

 

She nodded and said ?Hmm.?

 

Drinks came. She clinked her glass with mine and smiled or half smiled.

 

?Where are you from ?? I said.

 

?I not understand.?

 

?You?re not Thai are you ??

 

?No...? She shook her head.

 

?You don?t have to tell me.?

 

She suddenly and charmingly laughed at herself. ?Sorry. I think about something someone say today. Before have one man come see me every day. But him come back home. Go back home. I don?t know come or go.?

 

?Went.? I said.

 

?Yes... I know. I forget this one. Anyway he went back home.?

 

?I?m sorry.?

 

?You know Kampuchea ??

 

?Is that where he went ??

 

?No.? She laughed again. ?That where I come from. I come from Kampuchea... Cambodia.?

 

?What about this man ??

 

?What man ??

 

?The man who came to see you every day.?

 

?Yes. Before he come to see me every day... What your name ??

 

?Turk.?

 

?I sorry I not ask your name before.?

 

?It?s okay.?

 

?I work here seven month but I still not make good. I not ask you happy. I not ask you like me sit here. I not ask your home.?

 

?It?s okay. I like that you didn?t. Makes a change.?

 

?You not mind look my face ??

 

?Why should I mind ??

 

?Some man see me same him want oowak. You know oowak ? But I know another man. Him only look this.? She pointed at the scar. ?Same him only interesting this. Not want look me. Only want think what happen to me. You know why man like to think about this one ??

 

?No... I don?t. Maybe some men are curious.?

 

?Curious.. Same inquisitive ??

 

?Yeah.? I said.

 

?I don?t think I like man inquisitive. Same I don?t think man like lady inquisitive. Someone ask him he marry... Have children. Not too good. You think good or not good ??

 

?Depends on the man.?

 

?You like me ask ??

 

I paused for a moment. ?No. Not really.?

 

?Same me. I not like someone too interest something my life. Here is now. Cing na ??

 

?Cing.?

 

?But I think some man like to think about some woman hurt. I have broken more than four year. I lose leg four year. But still every man want to ask me. I think him not care he just like to think about me hurt. Make him exciting. You know ??

 

?Okay... I promise I won?t be inquisitive.?

 

?Same man before... Man want to know everything about me... You know ? Him come to see me every night. He like me. But I think him man same sadist. Like to see woman hurt. Very very bullshit. I don?t like man bullshit. I not want to believe someone bullshit me.?

 

?Well you better not believe me... I?ll only bullshit you. Bullshit?s my middle name.?

 

Suddenly she was laughing uncontrollably.

 

?What ?? I said.

 

?Turk Bullshit.?

 

?It?s an honour to meet you Lumi.?

 

I took her hand and held it lightly in mine for a moment.

 

?You happy Turk ?? She said with a sudden seriousness in her eyes.

 

?As happy as I get.?

 

?You want go somewhere ? Somewhere away from your friends.?

 

?You want ?? I said.

 

?Does it matter if I want or not ??

 

?It matters to me.?

 

?Yes. But if I speak I want then how you know I not say I want because then I think you give me money.?

 

?What ?? I said.

 

?If I say I want, after, you think I say because I want money. How you can believe me ??

 

?Maybe I?m gullible.?

 

?I don?t know ?gullible?.?

 

?You know ?inquisitive? but you don?t know ?gullible?.?

 

?No.?

 

I pulled out my wallet and handed her a large amount of money. She held it for a moment and then let go of it letting it lie on the table in front of us.

 

?For what ?? She said.

 

?For up you.? I said.

 

?Why ??

 

?If I give you money now and say that this is your money but I don?t give you any more money then whatever else happens is whatever you want.?

 

 

?No...I don?t fuck for free but I don?t take money for nothing.?

 

?That?s up to you.?

 

She picked up the money and held it tight. ?Okay,? She said. ?But this is my money. You still must to pay bar.?

 

I paid the bar and we moved to another booth. A booth we could be alone.

 

?You like me Turk.?

 

?Only time will tell.?

 

I place a hand on her face. The side of her face with the scar. She leaned against it and kissed my fingers taking one into her mouth. I watched the way the line of her scar seemed almost like a valley in her face and saw how exquisite her face would have been without it. Her full dark lips around my finger in some mime blow job. She laughed and kissed my hand again.

 

I?d never seen a face like hers before so close to mine. I thought of those near perfect statues of Greek and Roman gods and godesses where all is perfection but for a missing arm or two and a chip off the nose. There was always something about the broken-ness of those figures that made them seem more beguiling. She kissed me with a kind of controlled passion. A small sigh as if the act of kissing itself was enough to bring her to ecstasy.

 

She pulled away. ?Siaow.? She said. I thought this was an act but, in some way, it didn?t matter that it was an act. ?Go hotel na ??

 

?What ??

 

?Go hotel.?

 

?We just came here.?

 

?Sorry... I very horny. I want go now.?

 

As it happened I was surprisingly horny too. I thought about it for about 0.001 seconds and then said ?Yeah all right.?

 

I told Vic and Bob I was off. Vic pointed his finger at me like it was a gun. ?Told you.? I noticed, or thought I noticed, that the girl he was with had six fingers on her right hand.

 

Walking out into the warm air in this unfamiliar place seemed odd. But she knew what she was doing. She walked us into the hotel next door to the bar. The desk-clerk recognised her at once and offered a friendly smile and a set of keys. She told him we were staying all night and I paid.

 

We got in a lift and went one flight up.

 

Once in the room Lumi went straight to the bathroom. I lay back on the bed and started counting the repeated flower pattern on the wallpaper as the toilet flushed and the shower came on. She was gone a while. I had to start counting the patterns again and then started reading from the copy of Bangkok Yellow Pages. I always turned to the Massage Parlours and Escort Services. The pictures of the models always looked like they?d been cribbed from Thai Penthouse. I looked in the draw and noticed a couple of condom packets already ripped open. I lay beck on the bed again and then heard the latch go. Lumi came out fully dressed.

 

?Now your turn.?

 

I nodded.

 

?Don?t be too long. If you long time I go sleeping.?

 

I showered quickly. My body seemed distanced from me. Maybe it was something to do with the night before and the smell of strange oils. Maybe it just seemed odd to see myself all in one piece. I couldn?t work out if there was something perverse in my attraction to Lumi or if it was just normal. Maybe I was one of those guys who wanted to see a woman broken into pieces. Or maybe it was just something about her. Just the idea of her had me erect. Usually the shower is a few moments of relaxation but the idea of seeing her without her prosthetic legs...

 

When I came out the bathroom I couldn?t see much of anything. The lights were out and I knew Lumi was in bed. Undercover. I saw the shape of her legs erected a few feet from the bed. They looked almost like real legs standing their ghoulishly removed from their owner. I took a few steps toward her and stubbed my toe on the bedside drawers.

 

?You okay ?? She said.

 

?Yeah. I just walked into something.?

 

She laughed. Nothing needed to be said. I stepped onto the bed and pulled back the covers.

 

?You don?t try to look me yet.? She said.

 

?Why ??

 

?You can do everything to me but I don?t want you look me.?

 

?If you feel shy or...?

 

?You don?t know about me.? She said.

 

?It doesn?t ma...?

 

?Shut up and fuck me.?

 

And she pulled me over so I was on top of her and kissed me deeply and passionately. My hands ran down her body and over her breasts. I could feel the raised skin and knew that the scar on her face was like a scratch in comparison to these. But she kissed like she wanted it more than anyone could ever want it. She kissed and pulled me into her as my hands caressed flesh with raised nylon smooth patches. I squeezed and kissed her small breasts. One of these was scarred but as my own passion grew I stopped noticing and felt the remains of her legs pulling me. She threw me over and got on top of me and gripping my thighs between her stumps rode me like the whole of her body was made for this act. Holding me down by the chest and riding on top of me. Moving as if her vertebrae were made of rubber. Suddenly I felt this sick urge. It was like she was this broken thing and I wanted to fuck her. I wanted to throw her down and just fuck her... I threw her over with this idea in my mind that I was fucking a cripple. A victim. I was pushing myself upon someone who could do nothing and the idea flowed through me giving me this intense erotic high. I held her down by the shoulders and fucked her. Sliding inside her and then making it short and violent. Pushing right into her. Pushing my dick against her clitoris. She sighed and moaned and screamed short bursts of passion and I came and slumped down atop her. I knew that she had faked it all the way. There was no little telltale cunt twitch. For her this was a business of play acting. But she had brought something out in me.

 

I pulled out and removed the condom as she lay there panting as if I had had any effect on her at all. I kissed her body. I kissed the scars. I kissed and bit against her nipples. I followed and traced a scar across her belly with small kisses and then plunged my face between she her stumps and licked softly but persistently at her clitoris until her responses were as real as anything I had ever felt. Soon her torso was trembling in my arms and her semi legs were squeezing my head. Then came her explosion. A moment of death. A moment of not breathing. A moment of murder. Then the surge of life and air filling her body and trembling as she tried to push my face away from her cunt. I let her. I let her spasm light spasms and pull me back so I was face to face with her.

 

?Put it in me.?

 

I slid inside her and just lay there like that feeling her cunt clenching involuntarily. Again and again and again. In seconds I was hard enough to fuck her again but I didn?t. I just lay there holding her in the darkness. Holding her as if there hadn?t ever been anyone else.

 

?You like me Turk ??

 

?Yes.?

 

?You sure ??

 

?Uh huh.?

 

She leaned across with me still inside her and put on the bedside lamp.

 

I looked at her body. I?d never seen a body like it before. Not outside a Frankenstein movie. It was much more scarred than even I?d imagined. Thick purple welts of shiny scar running along her breast. Scars everywhere. Lesser scars in places I hadn?t imagined anything. And yet... As strange as this may sound. Her scarred body was among the most beautiful things I?d ever seen in my life. The scars had the same colour as the dark flesh of her lips. Her rounded off legs covered in a patchwork of red scar lines and deeper ingrained ones looking something like a road atlas. And yet they somehow looked as if she had been born this way. Born perfect in this form.

 

?You like me Turk. You like my body.?

 

Knowing it was somehow the wrong answer to give I nodded and said ?Yes.?

 

She smiled one of her half smiles. ?Before I jealous some lady look lovely. I think every man see a beautiful lady he want to fuck her, look after her, keep her for hisself. But then sometime I think lady like this never know if man like her true or not. Maybe him only like her because she look lovely and when she get old him forget her. Him not care her cing cing. Only that thing he can see.... Now I think same about me. A lot of man see me and want to fuck me. A lot of man like. You know ? I never know if him like me because him like me or if him like me because I same fucked up. You know what I tell man. I tell him because I same Khmer I tell him that this happen to me because I step on the bomb. The bomb in the ground you know...?

 

?Landmines.?

 

?Yes. I tell him how I walk when I work tham naa. Make rice you know. I tell him I the kid in Kampuchea. I tell him I working step on the bomb. I tell him I lie in the dirt for half a day thinking I?m same dead. If I say like this is good for tip. Especially if man America man. Good for tip. Then the man think him close to something him like. Close to death. Close to the war. Close to evil times. But is bullshit. I live in Buriram since I six year old. I don?t even remember Kampuchea. I never go back there. When I sixteen I have kid with some man. Little boy. I not love him good same another mum. I not have good heart. I want live same young girl. I go work in the bar in Khorat fuck around make good money. I leave the boy with my mum. Sometime I send money to baan. Sometime I not send. I very bad girl. I take money. I kin yaa a lot. You know yaa ? I get everything for myself.?

 

?One day I go back home. Have a lot of money. I show off how much money bad girl can get. I buy big motorsigh. Same only rich man can buy. I want to show everybody how clever I am. I mao yaa all the time. I tell every girl in town how I working with my pussy and make good money. Then I take my son on the motorsigh. Have big crash. I not know nothing. I not remember what happen. Only know in the hospital. My son dead. My little boy dead. But I not even think about him. When someone tell me I not care about him. I only care about my face. My body. My legs. I never think about him dead or not dead. I never know him. Him only come out my pussy. I more scare now I cannot make money. Now I live like someone in hospital forever. I not think about my son until they make me look sop khow. My mum make me look sop khow. When I see this one I yaak die. I kin every yaa to make die. Everything. I think I can die but not die. Only oowak. Me cannot die easy. Same Buddha want me know hurt too much.?

 

?I like you Turk... I tell you because I like you. You think you can like me but I know you only like the cripple because you can songsarn or think about hurt me or both same. But is not me. I not same good girl. Not same I make man think in the bar. I can make man think I the poor girl nobody care about. I little girl step on bomb. This make me money. Money good more than you think when you look my face. I thawlae him easy. Man see someone look same me him feel everything but him never think me same bad girl. But this is me. I kill my little boy. I kill him you know. You ever see the kid dead. Not look nice. You know. Not have the doctor can make look nice. Look very bad. Because the kid... Him not know nothing. You know. Him know nothing. Some time I forget about him. Sometime, when have man, when have some customer, is easy for me forget him. I like to fuck man. I like when the man very ugly or fat or smell bad. I like because I think this is me. This is my life. If him bullshit man, very ugly man I happy too much. Make my life very easy. But you know I look you. I look you like now. I look your eye same you songsarn me or something. I not want. I like you but I not want you come back see me again. When I look you I think you like him. Little boy. Because only him can love me and I never care him. I never make nothing for him. I just make him dead.?

 

?So you think you deserve to live in shit ??

 

She laughed. ?I joking. I not speak true okay. I joking. You look yourself same serious.?

 

She held me in her arms. Held me close to her body. She felt hot.

 

?I not speak true okay. I never have kid.? She kissed the top of my head and held my head on her breast. The one without the scars. ?I just want see your face. Mai tong kit maak.?

 

She turned out the light and I held on to her as if I was at sea and she was the only thing in the world I could hold on to.

 

And when the silence and darkness of the room crept around me tears crept from my eyes while I pretended to be asleep. I probably held on to her even more tightly. Tightly like I was a kid and scared to let go lest the darkness eat me up. Her hand stroked my head and I thought she said. ?Shhhh. I know.? Of course she couldn?t have known. But it was good of her to pretend.

 

 

 

 

 

[BelgianBoy]

TF,

 

Thank you...... again....... brilliant !

 

Encore

 

Cheers !

[Guest]

Truly well done.

 

They are only getting better.

[Pharcyde]

Mesmerising tale from deep under the sweaty cover of Bkk!

 

I like your stories a lot.

 

[rockbrowns]

Turk

your tales are very consuming

love them

they capture so much detail, they really make me look forward to my first visit to Thailand next spring

hope you are around,

like to buy you several rounds

[Redbaron]

They just keep on coming... well done