Private Dancer Read online

  She climbed out of the bath and used a lump of soft soap to lather up a bowl of water which she poured over a thick blue plastic mat on the floor. I got out and lay face down on the mat, my head on a thick rubber pillow. Jo-jo used her body to massage me, rubbing herself up and down, along my back, between my legs, slowly at first and then more vigorously. I had my eyes closed and I kept thinking about Joy. Joy had never given me a massage, I don't think she even knew how to, but I couldn't stop imagining it was her.

  Jo-jo rolled over me and told me to turn over. She knelt down next to the mat and prepared another bowl of hot, soapy water and poured it over me, concentrating the flow over my groin and thighs. She lowered herself on top of me and began rubbing herself against me, her large breasts against my chest, her thighs against my groin. I felt myself growing hard and she moved more sensuously as if she were making love to me. Jo-jo was a professional, though, and there was never any chance of my accidentally entering her without a condom.

  ‘You want fuck me?’ she whispered.

  I opened my eyes. ‘Huh?’

  ‘One thousand baht, you can fuck me.’ She ground herself harder against me and parted her lips in what she must have thought was a sexy pout. She looked like a goldfish gasping for air.

  ‘Okay,’ I said.

  She pushed herself up against me and groped in her shopping basket for a condom. After ripping the packet open with her teeth she took out the condom and slid it on to me. It was something she'd obviously done hundreds of times before, totally mechanical movements devoid of any sensuality. Thoughts of Joy suddenly flooded through my mind and I felt my erection start to subside.

  Jo-jo realised what was happening and she began to caress me. ‘You very handsome man,’ she said, straddling me. I reached up for her soapy breasts and stroked them. She gripped me tighter and I felt myself respond, then she quickly slipped me inside her.

  She rode me the way she might ride a horse, pressing her thighs against me and holding on to my shoulders as she pushed down. My back slid along the wet mat with each thrust until my feet were pressing against the tiled wall.

  ‘Jo-jo?’ I said.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘What's my name?’

  She frowned. ‘I don't know,’ she said. She moved faster, pounding against me. ‘I not care. You handsome farang.’

  I closed my eyes. Joy was so much gentler, so much more sensitive to how I felt, changing her pace, varying her movements to make the love-making more sensual. Jo-jo was riding me, trying to get me to come as quickly as possible so that she could get back behind the window again. I didn't want to be with her, I wanted to be inside Joy, I wanted to make love to a girl I loved, not have paid-for sex with a girl who didn't even know my name. I stopped moving. A few seconds later, so did Jo-jo. ‘You come already?’ she said.

  ‘Yes,’ I lied.

  She reached down to my groin, held the condom, and lifted herself off. She slipped the condom off and examined it with a frown before wrapping it in a tissue and putting it in the basket.

  I got back into the bath and she rinsed me off, then herself. ‘You want massage?’ she asked, nodding at the table.

  I said no, I had to go, and I dressed while she dried herself and sprinkled talcum powder over herself. I gave her a thousand baht and left while she was still dressing. I felt like an unfaithful husband, I felt as if I'd betrayed Joy, and that was crazy because she was the hooker, she'd been the one who'd left Zombie with a farang, she was the one who let someone else pay her bar fine. It wasn't me who was being unfaithful. I wasn't the one in the wrong.

  I went down in the lift, and out into the crowds of Patpong. Despite the bath, I felt dirty. Unclean. I walked along to Suriwong Road past the go-go bars. Touts kept touching me and trying to entice me into their bars. ‘You want see fucking show? Many girls? Free look. No cover charge.’ I hated being touched. Generally Thais avoid physical contact with strangers, but Patpong wasn't Thailand, it was where farangs came to ogle girls, get drunk and have sex and normal rules of behaviour didn't apply. I shrugged away the touts but didn't say anything. I'd seen touts turn on tourists before and knew how easily they could change from grinning sycophants to angry thugs. Theirs were the smiles of cruising sharks.

  I found a group of motorcycle taxis, the riders wearing bright orange vests over denim shirts. They asked me where I wanted to go. Nana Plaza, I said. I wanted to see Joy.

  JOY

  Pete arrived just after midnight. I wasn't dancing when he came in so I went straight over to see him and threw my arms around his neck. He'd just showered and his hair was still wet. I thought that maybe he'd gone short time with another girl but he said he'd showered in his room. I told him I was sorry about selling his gold, that I really needed the money, but he still didn't smile at me. Well, he smiled, but I could see it wasn't a real smile. He was worried about something. I found him a seat and sat down next to him.

  Sunan came over and said hello. I told Sunan in Khmer to rub my number off the board by the changing room. I'd been in the short-time room with a customer earlier in the evening and Pete often checked the board when he came in. If he looked, he'd see my number, 81, and STR. Pete wasn't stupid, he'd know what that meant.

  He ordered a gin and tonic but he didn't ask me if I wanted a drink. I didn't ask. I know that most farangs don't like to be asked, you have to wait for them to offer.

  ‘What's wrong, Pete?’ I asked.

  ‘Why do you think something's wrong?’

  ‘You not happy,’ I said. ‘I can see you not happy.’

  ‘Do you love me, Joy?’

  ‘Of course. I love you number one in the world. I have you, only one.’

  ‘And you not go with farang?’

  As soon as he said that, I knew what had happened. I'd obviously been seen with a customer. Pete had a lot of friends in Bangkok and most of them knew me. There was the one with the eye-patch who was tight with money, Nigel. The short one with the beard, Bruce. And the ones called Jimmy and Rick who liked going with katoeys. I smiled and put my hand on his thigh. ‘Pete, you know I not want go with farang. Have you, only one.’

  He looked at me without speaking for a while, like he was trying to see inside my head. I waited to see what he'd say. To see how much his friends had told him. It would be my word against theirs and he didn't love them the way he loved me. I'd heard Sunan talk to her boyfriend in Norway lots of times. He'd get suspicious when he phoned and she wasn't home, but Sunan could twist him around her little finger. It's so easy with farangs. They want to believe you, you just have to tell them what they want to hear. A Thai man would never believe the lies we tell, he'd believe what he was told or what he suspected.

  ‘Joy, I know you go with farang,’ Pete said. His eyes were red and his breath reeked of drink.

  I shook my head. ‘No, Pete.’

  ‘Somebody saw you. Somebody saw you leave with a farang when I was in Hong Kong.’

  ‘Who? Who saw me?’

  ‘A friend.’

  ‘And what did the shit-eating dog tell you, Pete?’

  ‘He said a farang paid your bar fine.’

  I sighed. Sometimes he could be a real pain. ‘Okay, maybe farang pay my bar fine so I can go eat. Sometimes farang want go eat with me, Pete. What you think? You think I want fuck farang? I not want, Pete. I want you only one.’

  Pete looked sad. He leant his head back against the wall.

  ‘Pete, why I want fuck farang? How much I get? One thousand five hundred baht. You give me a lot more. Why I want to lose you? Pete, I know you. If you know I go with farang, you not love me. You not take care of me

  Sunan went over to the board and rubbed my number off. She turned around and stuck her tongue out at me, then crossed her eyes. I almost laughed but I kept a straight face and carried on talking to Pete. ‘Pete, I know you have many friends in Bangkok. I know if I not good girl they tell you. You think I stupid, Pete? You think I water buffalo?’

  He opened his e
yes. He looked at me for a while and then smiled. This time it was a real smile and I knew I'd won. ‘No, Joy, I know you're not stupid.’

  ‘I love you, Pete. I love you, only one.’ I fluttered my eyelashes and he laughed. Eighty per cent of farangs like their girls to be cute.

  He asked me what I wanted to drink and I went over to the bar to order a cola.

  Sunan came over and stood next to me. ‘What's he so upset about?’ she asked.

  ‘I was seen with a farang while he was away,’ I said.

  Sunan laughed. ‘Just once?’

  ‘Yeah, lucky for me, huh?’

  We both giggled and I went back to Pete. After an hour he paid my bar fine and took me back to the Dynasty Hotel. He was too tired to make love so we just lay together. I left at five o'clock in the morning, I told him that one of my cousins was in my room and that she was young and I had to take care of her. He was sleepy so he didn't argue. He gave me three thousand baht and I went to see Park.

  PETE

  Funny thing happened yesterday. I went into a book shop to buy a couple of thrillers, and while I was browsing I came across a book about Chinese astrology. I flicked through it. There was a section on compatibility and I read through it. According to the book, the monkey and the rabbit got on just fine. I tried to remember what Joy had said. Big problems. The monkey always wants to pull the rabbit's ears. I wondered why she'd said that. Maybe someone else had been teasing her. Maybe she'd made it up. I mentioned it to her when I saw her in Zombie and she just laughed and said the book was wrong.

  I paid her bar fine and she left her purse on the table when she went to change. I picked it up and opened it. My photograph was there. And two of my business cards. She only had a hundred baht. She rarely had more than that in her purse. I could never work out where all the money I gave her went. She said she didn't have a bank account and she lived in a room with two other girls so I didn't think she'd leave money there. Whenever I asked Joy what she spent her money on, ‘Bangkok very expensive,’ she'd say. ‘Have to pay room, pay food, shampoo.’

  ‘Shampoo?’ I'd say and she'd laugh.

  ‘You like my hair long, Pete. Every day I have to wash. I use a lot of shampoo.’

  Sometimes I'd sit down with her and try to work out what her outgoings were. She said the room she shared cost four thousand baht a month, but that the other two girls often didn't have any money so she had to pay their share, too. Electricity cost another thousand baht a month. Then there were her taxi fares, another two hundred baht a day. I asked her why she didn't get the bus, because buses in Bangkok are very cheap, just a few baht, and pretty efficient, too. She said she didn't want to go on the bus dressed for working in the bar because everyone would know she was a prostitute. She didn't want everyone looking at her, she said. I kept asking her why she didn't move closer to Nana Plaza - that way she could save six thousand baht a month in taxi fares. She said that all her friends lived in Suphan Kwai, but conceded that I had a point. ‘Okay, Pete, you very clever. Maybe I get a new room.’ She never did.

  She spent another hundred baht a day on food, she said, and that seemed expensive. A bowl of noodles on the street would cost twenty baht, chicken and rice the same. If she was eating with the other girls, they'd be buying food together which would make it even cheaper. Whichever way I played with the numbers, Joy shouldn't be paying more than 17,000 baht a month. And that was if she was paying all the rent.

  Pretty much every time I saw her, I'd give her a thousand baht, sometimes more. I figured that if she had enough money, she wouldn't be tempted to let anyone else pay her bar fine. I guess in all I gave her sixteen thousand baht a month, maybe a bit more. The bar paid her six thousand, plus there was the commission she got from the drinks punters bought for her. That was probably another four thousand baht or so. So what did she do with the rest of her money? I didn't get the feeling that she sent any back to her family in Surin. She should have been saving at least nine thousand baht a month. I wondered if maybe she was still paying for her motorcycle, the one her brother had crashed, but the payment book had disappeared from her purse and she insisted she'd sold it. She knew I thought the bike was a waste of money, it always seemed crazy to me that she was living in Bangkok and paying for a bike in Surin, but I knew that to her it had been a status symbol, it gave her face when she went back home to her village.

  I pulled out her identity card and smiled at the photograph. It had only been taken a year or so ago but she looked impossibly young, smiling at the camera with no make up and her hair tied back. She'd changed a lot since the photograph had been taken, and most of the change was down to her having worked in Nana Plaza.

  I put the card back. There was something behind the business cards I'd given her. I groped with my fingertips and pulled it out. It was a condom. My heart fell.

  ‘What you think, Pete?’

  I looked up. Joy was standing there, looking at me. She'd changed into a tight black tank top and flared denim jeans. Her face was a stone mask. She took the condom off me.

  ‘What you think?’

  I didn't know what to say. I didn't know how I felt. There was no reason for her to be carrying a condom, not if she was telling the truth when she said she wasn't going with customers.

  ‘Pete, it not mine,’ she said, sitting down next to me.

  ‘It was in your wallet,’ I said. I wanted to walk away, to get the hell out of the bar. I wanted to tell her how angry I was, how betrayed I felt, but at the same time I wanted to hear what she had to say because maybe, just maybe, there was an explanation for it. I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt, I wanted her to tell me that everything was all right, that she really did love me. So I sat there with some Thai pop song blaring out of the wall-mounted speakers, surrounded by half-naked hookers and sweating farangs, and waited for the love of my life to explain why there was a condom in her wallet.

  ‘This belong to Apple,’ she said. Apple was dancing and making eyes at a small, bald guy in the corner. Joy shouted over at Apple and waved her over.

  Apple scampered off the stage and tottered across to where we sitting. She held out her hand. ‘Hello, Pete, how are you?’

  I told her I was fine, even though she could see from the look on my face that I wasn't.

  Apple looked at Joy. Joy spoke to her quickly. I don't think it was Thai because I didn't recognise any of the words. It was probably Khmer, Apple and Joy were from the same village, close to the border with Cambodia and they spoke several dialects. Joy knew that my Thai had been improving, and while I couldn't always make out what she was saying, I could at least follow the gist. But Khmer was a closed book to me, and Joy knew it.

  Joy waved the condom as she spoke and Apple kept looking at me. When Joy stopped speaking, Apple nodded furiously. ‘Condom for me,’ she said. ‘Condom not for Joy.’

  ‘Why did you give it to Joy?’ I asked her.

  ‘I not have key for locker. Joy take care my money and my condom.’

  ‘Money?’ There'd only been a hundred baht in Joy's purse.

  Joy spoke to Apple quickly. Snapped at her, almost. Apple flinched, then smiled hurriedly.

  ‘But I spend money already.’ She patted her stomach. ‘I eat rice soup. Aroi mark.’ Delicious. There were a number of food stalls at the entrance to Nana Plaza and one of them sold rice soup. Thais often ate it for breakfast, but it was a great late-night snack and the guys from Fatso's could often be found sitting at the side of road slurping bowls of it after the Plaza had closed. Jimmy and Rick swore it was the perfect hangover cure, but Big Ron reckoned it was a sure-fire way of getting salmonella poisoning. I liked it, and had even included the hawker's recipe in the guide book.

  Joy gave the condom to Apple, who slipped it inside her bra then went back to the stage.

  ‘Okay?’ said Joy, sitting down next to me and putting her hand on my thigh.

  ‘Yeah, I guess so.’

  She leant over and kissed me on the cheek. ‘I love you,
Pete. Only one.’

  I put my arm around her and buried my head in her hair. She smelt fresh and clean as if she'd just showered.

  ‘I don't want you to lie to me, Joy,’ I said. ‘If you want a Thai boyfriend, just tell me. If you want to go with customers, you can tell me and I'll understand.’

  She pushed me away. ‘Pete, I not lie to you.’

  ‘I know, I know,’ I said. ‘But if you want to be with someone else, or you want to go with customers, please, please tell me. You were working in Zombie when I first met you, you were dancing and going with customers, I have no right to change you, if you...’

  She pressed a finger against my lips. ‘Pete,’ she said. ‘Shut up.’

  From COOKING ACROSS SOUTH-EAST ASIA Edited by PETE RAYMOND

  RICE SOUP

  2 tablespoons vegetable oil

  2 cloves of garlic, chopped

  4 ounces chicken meat

  2 pints chicken stock

  4 spring onions, chopped

  1 tablespoon white vinegar

  1 teaspoon fish sauce

  4 ounces long-grain rice

  2 tablespoons chopped coriander leaves

  Put the oil in a wok and fry the garlic and chicken meat until lightly browned. Add the chicken stock, onions, vinegar, fish sauce and rice and bring to the boil.

  Simmer for twenty minutes or until the rice has turned to mush. Serve sprinkled with coriander.

  BIG RON

  Do I think Joy was lying to Pete? Fuck, I'd have been surprised if she hadn't been. She's a hooker, for fuck's sake: when he met her she was a hooker, how the fuck could he seriously expect her to change her spots just because he wanted sole fucking rights?