Miss Bangkok: Memoirs of a Thai Prostitute (8 page)

Like all Japanese men, Hiroshi was careful to adopt a long-term strategy for success. This is perhaps why he waited three years before asking me to accompany him on a holiday to Chiang Mai, in northern Thailand, for three days and two nights. I suspected that he wanted to consummate our relationship and, even though I had no desire to be physically intimate with him, I agreed to go. Besides, I had come to the gradual conclusion that Hiroshi enjoyed the chase more than anything else.

We had to take a flight to Chiang Mai, a city surrounded by tall mountains. Once there, Hiroshi was keen to visit as many mountain temples as possible, whilst I, on the other hand, was content to visit just the one—a temple called Wat Prathat Doi Suthep, which overlooks the city of Chiang Mai. It is situated on the top of a mountain and accessed by endless steps. Two magnificent, seven-headed
naga
(serpents) slide down the sides of the steps, serving as banisters.

At the summit, there was a
chedi
, which contained the relics of Buddha, but no woman, regardless of her status, was permitted to enter its inner sanctum. This was because the relics rested below the baseline of the
chedi
, and the monks feared menstruating women would taint its holiness.

Despite this, the visit proved a very special and memorable one. Had it not been for his age, I might even have fallen in love with Hiroshi.

When darkness fell, a chauffeur collected us and drove us to the hotel.

I pretended to be unaware of his intentions on the first night, so when Hiroshi took me to a club and spent the evening buying cocktails and champagne, I made sure to pace my drinks, so I was still quite sober when we returned to the hotel.

I accompanied Hiroshi to his room. He closed the door behind me with a satisfied grin. This was the moment he’d been waiting for. He moved to touch me, but I slithered free from his grip with the agility of a snake.

‘
No, leave me alone,’ I said to him.

‘Don’t be so ungrateful Bua.’

His face fell as I resolutely grabbed a blanket and lay down on the floor.

‘What are you doing? Don’t worry, I’ve got condoms. I’m prepared.’

‘I’m not,’ I replied. ‘I’m drunk and tired. Do not disrespect me again! Goodnight.’

And with that I went to sleep.
I awoke the following morning to face a disgruntled Hiroshi. His hopes of taking my virginity had been dashed. I didn’t expect him to take rejection well, but he surprised me by quickly returning to his normal good-humoured self.

That evening, after visits to more temples, he took me to another club where I made a point of befriending a girl whom I urged Hiroshi to entertain. I was hoping that she would serve as a distraction and I wouldn’t have to fight Hiroshi off if we spent the night drinking with her.

In my reckless insolence, I invited her back to the hotel with us. At first, Hiroshi didn’t object and the girl accompanied us back to the room. But as Hiroshi began to sober up he realised that I had been leading him on all these years, with no intention of ever sleeping with him. He was furious. He raised his voice to me for the first time and accused me of embarrassing him and making him feel smaller than anyone else had managed to do in his entire life.

He bid our guest goodnight and went to his bed without saying another word to me. He didn’t try to seduce me again that night or any other night.

He had visited the club every evening for three years, but that holiday was to mark the end of our friendship.

It was only when I received my salary that I noticed his patronage had ceased.

In the years that followed, I often wondered why I hadn’t ever relented to his incessant pleas that I become his mistress. But deep down I knew that the answer to this question was really quite simple; he knew nothing of my child or my marriage, and had I let myself become emotionally attached to Hiroshi, there would have been a greater risk of my secrets being exposed. Such an exposure would have doomed our relationship, and his patronage, to an even more hostile closure.

I saw Hiroshi once more after that holiday, and I took the opportunity to ask him why he had vanished.

‘To be honest Bua, I’ve met another girl, a university student,’ he told me.

‘Is she a real student?’ I asked.

‘Yes. I’m paying for her courses and she shows me her report cards. I couldn’t wait for you anymore. A man has his needs, you must know that.’

I have to admit that I felt a little jealous of his new relationship. My own insecurities, rather than any strong emotions for Hiroshi, gnawed away at me. I wondered if his feelings for this girl were more genuine than they had been for me, or if he thought her intellectually superior to me because she was a university student.

I never saw Hiroshi again, and it was only in later years that I realised the stupidity of my actions. He had supported me for over three years, and when our relationship ended I was told by
mamasan
that I might have to entertain other clients if it was asked of me. Apparently the bar was losing business to rival establishments whose hostesses offered their customers what
mamasan
politely called a ‘more flexible service’.

Jasmine’s was to offer a ‘ten drinks’ option, a code word for the bar fine patrons would have to pay to take a hostess away from the premises. The 700 baht fine went entirely to the bar. How much a hostess would earn for service outside the bar was decided by her, and belonged to her. It ranged from 3,000 baht for a ‘short time’ to 6,000 baht for an overnight stay. We hostesses were told that we would be given red number tags instead of blue ones, because red meant you were available for sale. However,
mamasan
assured us that none of us would be forced to do anything against our will. Her assistants would approach the clients and offer the new service by gesturing to a girl and asking them if they wanted to go to a hotel with her.

This new policy came as no surprise to me because I knew long before that some of my co-workers had secretly sold their bodies to the clients. It was only a matter of time before Jasmine’s would have to embrace prostitution. This new status was mutually beneficial because the bar earned more money in bar fines, and the girls who already sold themselves didn’t need to hide anymore.

I wasn’t interested in prostitution because I was too shy and sexually inexperienced.

Surprisingly,
mamasan
seemed to accept my position and agreed that I would offer only the services of a drinking companion. Although I was not yet having to prostitute myself, I found myself sinking deeper and deeper into the murky world where women were no more than objects to be bought.

It was much easier to allow myself to sink further, than to fight my way out.

I knew that any chance of a comfortable life had vanished along with Hiroshi. I bitterly regretted the way I had treated him. I had strung him along for over three years, accepting his gifts even though I had known all along that he wouldn’t be content with simply holding my hand forever.

The loss of his patronage meant that I was no longer able to afford my room and was forced to move into a small wooden house located in a hidden slum on Charoen Krung Road. The rent for this privilege was 2,000 baht a month, and the house was nothing more than an old shack.

I was now stuck with a job with no real sense of purpose and absolutely no prospects; hostessing usually just serves as a stepping stone into prostitution. I was perhaps the only hostess at Jasmine’s who did not sleep with her customers.

Although I was not actively involved in the sex industry, it was like wallpaper in my day-to-day life, and I had effectively become desensitised to it.

I would occasionally invite friends, who worked as prostitutes, to my home. We would spend such nights drinking beer and talking about men, clients, and how much money they earned.

What little money I had, I squandered on alcohol in an effort to escape the harsh reality I had been plunged into. I drank both at home and in the bars and clubs of Ratchadapisek, a district in Bangkok that is renowned for its debauchery and decadence. There was no problem in life that couldn’t be washed away with a couple of cheap beers. Rather than admit to myself that I had completely lost my way in life, I instead likened alcohol to pain medicine. If you had a headache, you took a painkiller. And if you had a problem, what was wrong with using alcohol to numb this type of pain?

It was at this time, when I was at my lowest, that I fell in love for the first time. His name was Yuth, and he was a motorcycle courier. I met him by chance in a bar while drinking with friends. He was a year or two older than I and was more attractive than Chai. To others, he had a tendency to act like a beer-swilling macho man, quick to verbally abuse anyone that glanced in his direction. But to me, he was sweet and affectionate. I refused to acknowledge any of his faults, happier to focus on his charming and exciting nature.

Yuth and I shared a mutual friend, Som, who invited us on a double date with her and her boyfriend Pira. I agreed without hesitation, eager for an opportunity to see Yuth. We decided to go to a movie. After ages of deliberating over what to wear, I finally settled on a silk dress that revealed only a modest amount of cleavage.

On the night of the date, we met in a bar close to the cinema. At first, the conversation between Yuth and me was slightly awkward. But as we both began to relax, we became increasingly flirtatious.

We didn’t hold hands in the cinema, but later, as we made our way to the restaurant, I felt him place his hand on the small of my back.

He sat beside me at the dinner table, and our two friends sat opposite us. Conversation revolved around our jobs, the people we knew, and Jasmine’s.

My friend Som spoke openly in front of her boyfriend about working as an escort, and joked about how much she was able to earn.

I drank a lot that evening, emboldened by Yuth, who repeatedly topped up my glass, no doubt hoping it would lower my guard.

After dinner, Som and Pira left, leaving Yuth and me alone. Taking advantage of the privacy, Yuth immediately leaned forward and whispered, ‘What would you like to do now?’

His question caught me by surprise; Thai men are usually not so forward.

He mentioned that he knew I worked in Jasmine’s, implying that he believed I, like my friend Som, sold my body. I was about to set him straight, but as before, when Hiroshi had asked me if I was a virgin, instinct took over and I found myself silently agreeing.

Yuth assured me that he didn’t have a problem with prostitution, before whispering in my ear, ‘You must be a wonderful lover.’

These words struck me with the force of a bolt of lightening. I reached for his hand to steady myself as I stood up. We made our way outside, where he began to kiss me passionately to the astonishment of passers-by, who raised their hands to their mouths in an expression of disbelief. In Thailand, public displays of affection are considered
na mai ai
; they are shameful.

But Yuth didn’t care, and sought only to shock them further by shouting, ‘What are you looking at? Have you never seen lovers before?’

I giggled, thrilled by his nonchalance. I loved his tiger attitude to life, the taste of beer and cigarettes on his lips, and the way he held me close. No one had ever kissed me with such passion before.

It took us ten minutes to reach a cheap motel. He paid the fee for the room, before almost pushing me through the doorway in his excitement.

‘Now you’re mine,’ he declared triumphantly, as I began to undress. He took off his shirt and pushed me onto the bed.

We both struggled to remove our clothes, our haste and excitement causing zippers to catch and shirts and dresses to become tangled. When we were finally standing naked before one another, I leaned forward and whispered in Yuth’s ear, ‘I’m all yours.’

He lay me down on the bed and climbed on top of me, frothing at the mouth like a wild animal. Five minutes later I climaxed in his arms.

For the first time in my life, I’d had sex with someone I actually felt an attraction to.

A period of blissful courting and passion followed that first night. We became inseparable, like siamese twins. My feelings were reciprocated as Yuth told me that, for him, this was
ruk thae
, or true love.

Only a week into our courtship he introduced me to his mother, and a week later he moved into my shack. His mother and sister moved into a neighbouring shack shortly afterwards. We were moving at breakneck speed, but I figured love was supposed to be reckless, and so I had no desire to slow things down.

Our roller-coaster affair climbed to a dizzying height before dramatically derailing one evening several weeks after we first met.

My friends and I decided to go to Khorat to watch a solar eclipse after work one evening, but I neglected to tell Yuth of my plan. I returned to Bangkok a few days later and was working in Jasmine’s when he came looking for me. He approached me from behind and laid his hand roughly on my shoulder as I stood in the bar. I jumped in fright because I knew a customer would never dare touch a girl in such a fashion. When I turned around, Yuth grabbed me by the shoulders and started to shake me as he screamed, ‘We are leaving right now.’

His breath reeked of alcohol and his eyes were alight with a fire that was all too familiar from my time with Chai.

As soon as we had reached my shack and he had closed the door on the rest of the world, he beat me senseless.

‘Where were you? Who were you with?’ he demanded, viciously striking me between each question.

I told him the truth—that I had simply gone home to Khorat to watch the eclipse. My eyes began to well up with tears, but rather than feel pity for me, he took this as an admission of guilt.

‘You lying whore!’

He began slapping me across the face with both hands. I was too shocked to defend myself. All I could do was repeat the words, ‘This cannot be happening to me, this cannot be happening to me,’ over and over in my head in a vain attempt to focus on anything other than his pummelling fists.

He continued to scream obscenities with every slap, punch, and kick he dealt me. The noise eventually brought worried neighbours to our door. One of these neighbours was Yuth’s mother.

‘Leave her alone for the sake of your mother,’ she pleaded with him through the closed door. But her words couldn’t penetrate Yuth’s steely rage.

‘This is none of your business! Stay out of it!’ He screamed in unison with another swift blow to my stomach that caused me to fall to my knees, gasping for breath.

‘Don’t fuck with me bitch,’ he screamed as he began to circle me. He kicked me one last time, then turned and walked out of the house, his head held defiantly high as he marched past his mother and the rest of the neighbours that had assembled.

His mother helped me to my feet.

‘I’m sorry. I prayed that you would never have to deal with his temper. He just can’t seem to help himself when he starts drinking. His father was the same.’

I started sobbing in her arms, and she stroked my hair like I was a small child. I had done nothing to provoke him—I was completely innocent. But I had played this game with Chai so many times before that I should have known that there were no rules and that justice certainly wasn’t a contender.

Yuth’s mother took me back to her shack where she helped me get cleaned up. An hour later I ventured back to my house. Yuth was no longer conscious. He was snoring peacefully on the couch. I tiptoed by him and went straight to bed.

When he awoke from his drunken slumber the next morning, he was still angry.

‘If you ever do that again, I will beat the living daylights out of you, bitch,’ he snarled.

When I left Chai, I vowed never to let another man strike me. Yet here I was again: walking on eggshells, terrified that one would crack and alert Yuth to my presence. I thought that if I could just make myself invisible then I would be safe. But sometimes the loudest sound in the world is someone trying their very hardest to be silent.

During the following weeks, I began to realise that I had not known Yuth at all. I only discovered that he had a criminal record for theft and assault when I happened to open the door to his parole officer one afternoon. When pressed, his mother confessed that he had served five years in Klong Pai Prison in Nakhon Ratchasima. Our whirlwind courtship had left me so dizzy that I was unable to focus on anything other than how amazing he made me feel, and so the plain, cold facts that had been staring me in the face had gotten lost in all the commotion.

But the honeymoon period had come to an abrupt end. Yuth had taken off his mask and revealed himself to be just another Chai—an angry and jealous man.

I knew that, like Chai, he would never change, but his mother begged and pleaded with me not to leave him. She even told me that I could earn merit from Buddha if I tried to help Yuth. Rather than interpret this as a form of spiritual blackmail, I simply saw her as a mother desperate to save her son from himself.

Unfortunately I could no more control Yuth’s behaviour than he seemed able to. His mood swings and jealousy were independent of alcohol, making him all the more unpredictable. He was also a master of deceit. After he beat me for the first time, he confessed that he had lost his job some weeks ago. At first I didn’t believe him, as he had been leaving for work every afternoon since we had moved in together. He laughed at my confusion and seemed to consider this deceit a personal triumph against me.

‘I spent each day drinking in bars with my friends, while you thought I was at work,’ he boasted, as I stared on in disbelief at the stranger standing before me.

There were times when I thought of leaving Yuth, but I stayed because I was still in love with the man I had met on our first date. I convinced myself that even if this man never resurfaced, he was still in there somewhere, and just the memory of him alone made the beatings more tolerable. It became my mission to retain the love Yuth had once professed for me. I was willing to forsake a comfortable home and put up with the physical abuse once I had someone who loved me as much as I loved him; the fact that I was in love with a ghost was irrelevant. This, of course, made sense to no one else but me.

Throughout my life, I had always believed that unforeseen powers shaped my fate and that I must have committed some terrible deed in a previous life, for which I was now paying the price. This belief was compounded three months later when I fell pregnant with Yuth’s child. I had been on the pill, so the news came as a complete surprise.

My first thought was that I had to have an abortion. I already had one child in this world that I was unable to take care of, and I couldn’t bear the idea of having a second baby in identical circumstances to the first.

I approached Yuth’s mother in the strictest of confidence and asked for her help. I knew that it would be a difficult situation for her because she secretly longed for a grandchild.

At first, she pleaded with me to reconsider the termination. But when she realised I wasn’t going to change my mind, she reluctantly offered the name of a Chinese pharmacist who might be able to help me.

Although abortion is illegal in Thailand, backstreet services are available to women who find themselves in my situation.

I presented myself at the pharmacist’s shop the following morning. There were no customers there at the time, and that instantly relaxed me. An old Chinese man stood behind the counter waiting to serve me.

‘I want
yaa kub leaud
.’

‘You want something to take your baby out?’ he asked.

I nodded, unsettled by his bluntness. He casually removed his spectacles and cleaned the lenses with a handkerchief before asking, ‘How far along are you?’

I told him I was in my second month. He turned his back to me and began rummaging through dozens of small drawers containing all sorts of mysterious-looking ingredients.

Moments later, he handed me what looked like powder wrapped in paper.

‘Take this with a glass of water and drink it in one gulp.’

When I reached my trembling hand forward to take the package from him, he lent over the counter and whispered, ‘No refund. If it doesn’t work, don’t bother coming here again.’

I nodded and paid him the 2,000 baht fee.