Daddy's Hobby

1 A Close Cal-2

“Good Morning, Luaek,” he mumbled, as boldly as he dared.

“Did you sleep well?”

“My name Lek,” she pouted, “and no. I not sleep good. You want shag me in bum and I not like. You hit me too much! I not happy. Maybe I go to police tell them ‘bout you. Police take you Monkey House and man shag you in bum and you not like same same me.”

Ali had thought it was going too well, but he said:

“Venez, venez. Go shower, Lek, and we talk about it after you finish.”

Lek pul ed the towel, which experience had taught her to keep by her pil ow, around her and hobbled off into the bathroom without giving Ali another glance. She bolted the door as hard and noisily as she could and began to sob audibly.

At least, she hoped it was audible from outside. So, she turned the shower on and made even louder cries of pain, just to make sure. She inspected herself in the mirror and was pleased to see there were no signs of blood or bruising and as the cool water started to take the sting out of her beautiful bottom, her plan was unfolding.

After showering, she again donned the towel and limped into the bedroom, where Ali was sitting in anticipation, already dressed.

A good sign, she thought to herself, she had escaped a replay of the previous night. She sat down gingerly; making sure that Ali was well aware of her discomfort and gave out a squeal of pain.

“Oi! Oi! Oi! I hurt!,” she moaned, rubbing her right buttock.

“Oh, Ali, why you hit me too much last night? I good lady for you but you hit me too much. I think you kil me. You crazy. I think I

go see Mama San ask her what do. Maybe go police, you not good man, Ali.”

She was getting dressed without showing a square inch of flesh, as only women brought up in a small house with a large family know how to, and Ali did not dare to ask to see the marks. In truth, Ali was a kind and decent man and flashes of the previous night had already started to filter through to his blurred consciousness making him feel quite ashamed – he could not remember ever having hit a woman before. He knew he had to appease her and he knew that that meant money, although not necessarily a lot. He said:

“Lek, I really very sorry. I not know what happen. I very drunk.

J’étais mal. I think man put something in my drink, drugs or something like that. I want make you happy: buy you very good eating in good restaurant and pay you for say ‘thank you’ too. Je suis desolé. I very sorry, please forgive me. I have good heart, truly. I not hit mademoisel e before.”

Lek looked up at him from the bed with her big, brown, doe eyes as she was combing her hair and wiped away a tear.

“OK,” she simpered, “but I want you give me 2,500 Baht for go to doctor for cream and eat in ‘Savoy Restaurant’ and I not want see you again. You crazy sometimes. I not believe you any more!

Not come to bar look for me. I have boyfriend take care me there.”

Actual y, that was the last thing that Ali was considering doing anyway, so he nodded his assent and looked as contrite as he possibly could. Inwardly he was relieved; he felt that he had gotten off lightly. It would cost him a quarter of a days pay on the rigs and he had escaped a brush with the police.

He knew that an unprovoked assault on a Thai was taken very seriously indeed and that it would mean at least a few nights stay in the notorious Pattaya gaol or ‘Monkey House’, as it was even less affectionately better known plus a fine of probably 20,000 Baht, half of which would probably go to Lek in compensation.

He could even be deported and blacklisted from re-entry into Thailand. Then his friends would have to know why he did not want to go to Pattaya on their next regular vacation. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. Better to pay up now and try to learn from the experience, if he could only remember exactly what that experience was.

Lek finished getting dressed and put on a little make up – she never used much anyway and did not really need it. Ali thought she

looked a little happier, which cheered him up too and within ten minutes they were walking out of the hotel into the hot morning sunshine. Lek had already discarded any pretence of a limp as they turned left out of the hotel and started to walk the 300 metres north along Second Road towards the junction with Central Pattaya Road or Pattaya Klang, as it is known in Thai, where the Savoy is situated on the corner.

Lek loved this time of the day – about 11 a.m. – because Pattaya did not really ‘get going’ until about 10 a.m. and everybody and everything was ful of the life, promise and hope that a new day brings – except, of course that in Pattaya it is al about the night time, so the day kicks off a little later. She sauntered along with a spring in her step and a smile on her face, keeping about two metres behind Ali.

She did this for several reasons: firstly, because she knew that most Arabs preferred to walk in front of ‘their ladies’; secondly, because she did not really want to be seen with him (many men were casting appreciative eyes over her, as they always did, and from behind Ali she could smile back, without upsetting his pride) and thirdly, because of a joke she had heard a few weeks previously that always made her smile.

She repeated it to herself: ‘A survey in Afghanistan revealed that most women walked three metres behind their men before the U.S. intervention, but that after the intervention this had increased to ten metres. When asked why, most Afghani women replied, smiling: “Landmines”’. She put her hands over her ears and mental y said: “Boom,” giving a little hop and a smile at a passing farang (or foreigner).

She was one of the most beautiful women in Pattaya, which meant one of the most beautiful women in Thailand, which meant one of the most beautiful women in the world and she knew it.

No man would not call her beautiful and she could take her pick from any of them, and they would happily pay for the privilege.

It gave her a feeling of power and a sense of self-worth, even though she realised that she had only about five years of the good life at the top left. She had led a remarkable life by the standards of most Thai women. She had met hundreds of men from almost every country in the world and most of them had been kind and generous and, unfortunately, married. None of them had ever taken

her ‘home’ to their country, but she had stayed in the best hotels and eaten in the best restaurants for about a decade. Most of her relationships were not one-night-stands, as most people imagined.

She did not want those. Her strategy, honed over the years, was to try to find out something about the man first. She always wanted to know: how long he had left to stay in Thailand; where he came from; how old he was and whether he was married. The longer he had left in Thailand, the better a relationship she might form with him and the more chance she had of getting him to fal in love with her.

Country of origin was important, because she had preferences for where she wanted to live. She favoured Britain, but America, Canada, France or Germany would do too. Also, age was important, because it could affect his visa status in Thailand and knowing whether he was married or not was obviously essential.

Her average relationship, using the knowledge gleaned from these four questions, lasted two or three weeks. Very, very rarely had anyone left her before their flight home. Sometimes, she had been with the same man for a month or more. Some men had even taken her to other Thai cities as a companion and interpreter. She had flown to Chiang Mai, Phitsanulok, Ko Samui and Phuket at other people’s expense many times.

Sometimes, men would come back and ask for her, because they had met on previous holidays. Others wrote sporadically or sent emails – not that her written English was even passable, but some of the older women specialised in reading these letters to the girls and drafting suitably romantic replies.

Lek did not often get into al that; it seemed a little bit too much like cajoling or begging and a little bit seedy or dishonest.

There had been a few scary times too, but too few to mention. Not many men, it seemed, would fly al the way to Pattaya to cause trouble and risk spending ten years or more in the ‘Bangkok Hilton’, life in which could be likened to scenes from the film ‘Midnight Express’. She had never been cut or raped as had happened to some other girls. Some girls had even been found murdered and there were rumours that some girls had disappeared into foreign slave brothels abroad against their wil .

She hoped that they were only rumours, but she had never been caught up in the darker side of the s*x industry. She did not

even want to think about child prostitution or paedophilia, but she had always kept both eyes open for this kind of abuse. She would not have hesitated to report it to the police.

She had even managed to save a tidy sum for her contingency plan, when the inevitable retirement day arrived and she would go back to her vil age to live, unless she met a wealthy, single foreigner, who wanted to take her and her daughter back to his own country.

That was the goal; that was the ultimate dream and she had been chasing it for 10 years. The contingency plan was to open a smal shop in the vil age and marry a kind farmer. True, she would probably have to settle for quite an older man in this scenario, but she had had a good innings so far and she would take care of him, if he were kind to her daughter.

If she had stayed in her village, she would have been married to a farmer of her own age for about twelve years by now and have three or four children. Not that those were bad things, but she had had to leave and now she told herself that she was glad she was not bee shackled to the routines of a house and a farm, watching the world pass her by on the television screen.

She had friends who had chosen married life straight after school and she felt that most of them envied her playgirl life-style, her racks of beautiful clothes and her stories, backed-up by photographs, of fabulous locations with wealthy, generous foreigners, who thought nothing of spending as much on a single meal, a bottle of wine or a present, as most farmers earned in a month.

Her vil age friends and family had respect for what she had done, despite the way she had chosen to accomplish it. They were not hampered by Western morality and double standards. Were not most of the people who condemned her or ‘felt sorry for her’, as they more often phrased it, the frumpy wives of the very men who came to Thailand to meet girls like her? She had no time for them or how they thought.

Would they fund her lifestyle and provide for her mother and daughter if she did not do what she did? If what she was doing was so wrong, she would pay for it in Karma herself one day. She had no problem with that; so long as her ageing mother and nearly teenage daughter were al right. “Give Good, get Good. Give Evil, Get Evil” was her motto,

And the monks’ motto. And what was good enough for the monks was good enough for her too.

In her state of reverie, she had forgotten about Ali and she now found herself alongside him, his arm wrapping itself around her waist to steer her into the restaurant.

“Oh well,” she thought, “it’s a free lunch” and Lek, like most Thais, was very reluctant to turn down a meal.

They sat in the air-conditioned section on the left and Lek ordered spring rol s and fish cakes to start; fol owed by a huge Red Snapper, which was to be cooked in a fish-shaped dish at the table itself and boiled Jasmine rice. Lek demonstrated her gastronomic expertise and table manners by ordering a perfect combination of sauces for the appetiser, helping Ali to titbits and attending to the cooking of the fish, while eating her own food at the same time.

They ate a fine meal, but hardly spoke, which was due equal y to Ali’s poor command of the English language, the tension between them and their hangovers. When they went their separate ways forty-five minutes later, both were pleased that the relationship had ended on a happier note.

Lek watched Ali turn right, presumably to go back to his hotel by Soi 9, gave him a smal wave and dashed across the busy Second Road weaving in and out between the dozens of motorbike taxis and Baht buses that were waiting at the lights. She turned right into Pattaya Klang and walked the two hundred metres east looking in the shop windows to the next turning on the right, Soi Buakhao.

She calculated that she had taken enough precautions to shake Ali off, if he had decided to fol ow her. She did not like men knowing where she lived.

She was as happy as a songbird and it radiated out from her.

She felt that everybody could see how happy she was. She had landed herself in a tricky, potential y dangerous, situation, because she had not listened to her instincts, but she had played the bad hand she had been dealt like a Mississippi card-shark and had come out of it with as much money as many Thais earned in a month and she had eaten well.

Lek was waiting at the junction of Soi Buakhao and Pattaya Klang for a ‘Baht Bus’ to take her home, but she changed her mind and decided to walk around the corner to the Thai market opposite the Naam Chai Restaurant and buy a new skirt to celebrate. It was a