Visa Run - Pattaya to Sihanoukville (14 page)

My next attempt at purchasing a night’s female company on The Hill was equally disastrous, but for completely opposite reasons to the debacle with Khwan. I didn’t bother for a while after that. After blowing forty bucks on a ten minute shag that would have cost my pal Keeniaw Kevin two dollars down at the Chicken Farm, I was slightly reluctant to take the plunge again. Besides, I was thoroughly enjoying Sihanoukville by now and I was content to retire to bed every night with nothing more than a healthy buzz that was brought on by a good deal of Angkor draft beer together with Victory Hill’s own particular brand of herbal cigarettes.

I also fancied I cut rather a dashing figure as a bit of a detective whenever I produced Ron’s photograph. Feeling like that fat bloke on NYPD Blue with the moustache I would whisper, “You ever seen this girl?” out of the corner of my mouth; something I’d wanted to do all my life. No matter that all my sleuthing so far had produced precisely nothing, it gave me a magnificent excuse to be stumbling around the bars all night besides the usual less laudible reason of getting pissed drunk.

However, a week after the street-wise gangster’s moll had taught me a lesson I wouldn’t forget in a hurry, I was at it again. I found myself sitting next to a girl in the Shark Bar who was so sweet and charming I knew immediately I would never be able to resist her. Her name was Kanya, which means beautiful virgin, and just like her name, she looked nothing like a hooker at all. Kanya couldn’t speak a word of English but this didn’t seem to matter because she smiled at me every time I looked at her and clung to me limpet-like, in a way the far more cynical bar-girls in Pattaya had ceased to do for years. She was around eighteen and the delightfully shy expression on her fresh, sweet face contrasted sharply with a pair of tits hidden unsuccessfully under her loose clothing that would have put Miss Pattaya Wet T-Shirt to shame.

I couldn’t believe my luck. Besides Psorng-Preng, Kanya was exactly what I hoped I might find in Cambodia. I’d only bought the girl an orange juice and she had put her arms around me and showed an ardour and eagerness which I had almost forgotten and that would have taken at least a purple note to produce in Pattaya these days. In fact, the lovely young girl had me reminiscing about those long-gone, halcyon days of my early twenties a quarter of a century earlier. Back then, the Thai bar-girls were not quite as acquisitive as they are today and Joe Bucket was the youngest and best-looking guy in every bar and not the greying, middle-aged ruffian with a burgeoning beer gut the past twenty-five years have turned him into. My appearance didn’t seem to bother Kanya though, because her soft brown arms encircled me as if they would never let me go, and every time I left my beer long enough to look at her I was treated to a smile which would have melted the heart of even the most cynical of Pattaya bar-hoppers.

There was a lady-boy working in the bar whom I had become friendly with simply because I had tipped her a couple of times. Her name was Putrea, which apparently is a kind of Cambodian plum. She could speak English and had helped with a couple of impromptu translations during my intrepid detective work in looking for Psorng-Preng, so I had given her a couple of bucks.

Now, I have been fooled by lady-boys before in Pattaya and two particular occasions spring to mind instantly. Once, after a night’s revelry, I awoke in a strange bed to find myself sleeping next to a naked girl who had her back to me. The sheet had fallen away from her during the night and she had shining, waist-length hair and a gorgeous, tight little behind. Smiling complacently to myself, I snuggled up closely to my unknown new girlfriend and slipped an investigative hand around her shapely back to find a small, perky pair of breasts. The girl sighed throatily and wiggled her small rump closer into my crotch. So far so good. Anticipating a bit of morning delight, my hand wandered further down her flat stomach until I discovered a penis that was equally as small and perky as those knockers. I have never been a morning person but the speed with which I arose from the bed, threw on my clothes and disappeared out of the door would have impressed even the most diligent firefighter on night-call.

My second serious encounter with a woman of the second category was possibly even more alarming because it lasted longer. I became totally besotted by Joy, a gorgeous creature who worked in a bar in Soi Eight. Joy was one of those girls passing
farangs
nearly fall off their motorcycles to look at. For several nights I visited the bar where she worked but Joy resisted all my attempts, both financial and amorous, to get her into my bed. Eventually, in despair, I asked her what the hell was wrong with me. Was I really such a no-hoper›?› I asked her miserably.

“I’m a lady-boy, you idiot!” Joy told me, letting on at last. “And I know that you think I’m a girl. I don’t want you breaking my nose in the shower when you find out—it cost a lot of money!”

Still I didn’t believe the sexy young girl. Eventually, in a fit of pique, the pissed off katoey led me to the back of the bar when there was nobody about, grabbed my hand and shoved it up her dress and down the front of her panties. Yes. There was no doubt about it. What I encountered under the skimpy, frilly underwear left me in no doubt that Joy was at least honest.

This story does have a twist to it. Three years later I was walking down Soi Diana Dragon when I heard a voice calling to me. It was Joy. She was sitting alone at a table outside the new, expensive hotel recently built there.

“Hi, Joe, do you remember me?”

How could I forget. It’s not every day you grope a bloke.

“I’ve had a sex-change operation now and I am married,” the lady-boy told me proudly, as if these developments were every day occurences. “To a handsome, good-hearted, rich young guy from Sweden.”

I looked at Joy thoughtfully. There was no doubt about it, she still looked great.

“You’ve been very lucky, then,” I congratulated her, marvelling that this seductive young woman used to possess a bigger plonker than I did. “Your husband must love you very much to accept you for what you used to be.”

Joy grinned at me conspiratorially.

“I never told him,” she replied, with a wicked grin.

Bidding Joy goodbye, I couldn’t help wondering what would happen should the truth ever come out by way of an incautious word spoken in anger during one of those little spats all too common between every husband and his wife in the world.

“Aren’t you going to help me with the dishes?”

“No, it’s your turn to do the washing up.”

“You’ve turned into a lazy bitch!”

“Yes,
and
I used to be a bloke.”

The only other time I fell foul of a Pattaya lady-boy was way back in the eighties when one of them put me flat on my back with a right hook Muhammed Ali would have been proud of. I was walking down Soi Six one night slightly the worse for wear when one of the women of the second category standing outside The Jasmine Bar imagined I had thrown a dirty look at her.

“You got a problem with me?” she growled, hands on hips and big, silicon breasts jutting out alarmingly.

“You’re the one with the tits and the big cock, I reckon you’ve got the problem,” I quipped back, feeling smart.

Bosh. In hindsight, I guess I would have done better to have kept my big mouth shut.

Anyway, I digress. Back on Victory Hill, there was no way this particular lady-boy was going to be mistaken for anything other than what she was. She had bigger biceps than Sylvester Stallone, an expression like Wayne Rooney with a toothache and a magnificent scar from a previous knife fight all the way down one stubbly cheek. When she saw how things were progressing between Kanya and myself she made her way over to us, no doubt hoping to provide a bit of translation and earn herself another dollar tip.

“She very good girl—you like her?” Putrea rumbled at me hopefully.

Of course I did.

“You can boom-boom her, twenty dollar all night, bar-fine ten dollar before twelve o’clock, five dollar after twelve o’clock,” the laddie of the night continued with great subtlety. Not perhaps how I would have liked my intended night of romance to have been described, but it sounded like a pretty good idea to me, just the same.

So, at precisely six minutes past midnight I paid my bill, together with the five dollar bar-fine necessary to take Kanya out of the bar, and the two of us walked back to the Crazy Monkey. As we neared Narith and his cronies at the crossroads, I was anticipating a barrage of ribald comments from the boys and I was very surprised when they all did nothing more than take a good look. I thought that was pretty nice of them. They were rough lads, and with a few choice comments they could have had a big laugh at Joe Bucket and his new girl and made them feel very awkward. I don’t know whether it was respect or simply good business sense that made them keep quiet—or maybe they were just all terrified of Louis the gangster—but it was a surprise and a pleasure when I got nothing more annoying than a few goodnight nods. I’ve had guys spit at my feet in similar situations in some countries in Asia.

Back in my room, I followed Joe Bucket’s standard Pattaya proceedure. I handed Kanya a big fluffy towel and showed her where the shower was. There are plenty of girls I would have joined in the shower at once for a bit of soapy fun, but Kanya was not one of them. Since we had left the bar this girl had suddenly become way too shy and I could tell if I’d walked in on Kanya it would have scared her to death. This also gave me the chance to stash anything of value I might have left lying around. I had no reason to distrust Kanya, but why put temptation in somebody’s way? It was already plain to me that most of the poorer Cambodian people posessed absolutely fuck all.

After what seemed like a very long time, Kanya eventually emerged from the shower with the towel wrapped around her body. She looked lovely, far better than she had done in the bar. This girl was no hardened professional like Khwan had been. Her eyes were wide with trepidation and she looked very much as if she would liked to have made a run for it. The young girl’s skin looked very dark against the stark whiteness of the material and her long, wavy hair glistened with droplets of water. I was trying not to stare too hard at her breast, the size and shape of which looked spectacular even under cover of that towel.

Kanya didn’t seem to know what to do at all. I motioned her towards the bed. I picked up the other towel, intending to take a shower myself. The scared girl took advantage of my movement to scamper across the room, and still wrapped in the towel, she threw herself between the sheets and pulled them up to her neck. Her large, brown eyes gazed up at me. I couldn’t help remembering a hare I’d caught in my car headlights on a dark night back in England. I didn’t have time to stop and the poor animal had looked up at me in terror for a second before I unintentionally flattened it into the quiet, country road.

I took a shower quickly, then dried off a bit. When I had finished, I wrapped the towel around my waist, opened the door and walked towards the bed and lay down beside Kanya. And that’s where it all started to go wrong.

Before I had put so much as a hand on the frightened girl she sat up in panic and stared straight in front of her. She then began repeating the same sentence in Khmer over and over again, which of course, I couldn’t understand. It wasn’t difficult to see that the young girl was really terrified of me. As Kanya sat up, the towel fell away from her. Even though events had taken a turn for the worse, I couldn’t help noticing what was hidden under the towel was dazzling. I had guessed Kanya would look pretty good unwrapped, but the fleeting glimpse I caught before she pulled the towel back around herself again showed me she possesed one of the most magnificent, perfectly proportioned bodies I have ever seen. Unfortunately, it was beginning to look as though Joe Bucket was not going to get his hands on it.

Still repeating that same phrase, Kanya stood up and backed away from me into a corner of the room. I was thoroughly confused and I tried to calm her down. If I had been in Thailand, I would have known what she was saying and could have put things right, but here in Cambodia I was beginning to get a situation on my hands. I went to put my hand on her shoulder, but she drew back like an alarmed wild animal and a note of panic crept into her voice. I was now sure Kanya was not acting. This was no scam. The terror in her voice and face were real and I wondered if I had unwittingly done something terribly wrong. Could I have angered or scared her in some weird Cambodian way by something I had unintentionally done?

Realising Kanya was about to lose it completely, I sat down on the bed and cautiously handed the young girl her discarded clothes. She pulled them on quicker than a lover caught in Mike Tyson’s bedroom would have done. Once the girl was dressed, she began to calm down a bit. I opened the door of my room for her, then did the same with the metal door that led out into the yard. As she left, I put twenty dollars into her hand. I wasn’t having Louis the gangster banging on my door in the wee, small hours asking why I had upset one of his girls and not paid her. Kanya tried to give the notes back to me but I shook my head and motioned for her to take them. I wasn’t enjoying this experience at all now and I just wanted to get her out.

Confusingly, just before Kanya walked out of the door she threw her arms around me just like she had done in the Shark Bar and kissed me hard on the lips. Then she disappeared through the sliding gate and out into the dark of the night. For the first time since I had arrived in Sihanoukville I wished I was back in Soi Eight where I knew what the hell was going on.