An Exciting Future

2 SETTLING IN-2

Most of the girls were beautiful and scantily-clad. Not many of them could speak English well enough to hold a decent conversation, but if the truth be known, they weren’t really interested in talking either. If you didn’t want s*x and you wouldn’t buy them a drink, you were soon left to your own devices. This was not a problem, because there were literally hundreds of bars on his chosen route and thousands of girls. He could not possibly have even one small beer in even five percent of them.

There were usually some nice surprises too though. You would meet a girl who was willing to just talk for a beer or even for nothing, because it kept you spending money in her empty bar and because she was bored out of her mind. If there were clients then it was only fair to move on. These were the sort of contacts that Craig was hoping for today. Just a few nice chats with young, beautiful, half-n***d, female strangers.

He always made a point of telling the girls the truth, although he would never reveal were he was staying. After all, the last thing you need is some drunken, desperate woman knocking on your hotel room when you and your wife are asleep. And that had been known to have happened, or so he had been told. You never knew what to believe in Pattaya, but it sounded plausible enough to make him cautious.

Today he could tell the girls that this was the first day of his holiday. That always caught there attention, because it could mean that you will stay with them for a month (most people go for a month’s holiday), or at least take them out often or it could mean that you didn’t know your arse from your elbow with regard to Thai bar girls, so they would get more money out of you. The second question was usually: ‘How long you stay here’ and the third, though less important question for most girls was: ‘You have Thai girlfriend already?’

Most girls didn’t mind ousting another Thai if she didn’t know them and some didn’t care whether they did or not, but those were rarer – much rarer. It was usually the older, desperate pros who fell into that category – and the loners and the free-lancers.

As a bar girl had once told him: ‘We bar girls don’t cheat on wives, we are just the rope that cheating, husbands hang themselves with.’

In time, he got to the ‘Pig’ and went inside to see who was there. It was four o’clock, not the busiest of times, which revolved around meals: midday, five to six and seven to ten, but there were a few faces sitting at the bar that he recognized from his previous visits months before.

“Hello, Craig, how are you?, When did you get back?,” said a voice from down the bar. It was one of the people who either owned or managed the barestaurant-c*m-hotel.

“I’m fine thanks, Rob. How are you? We got back yesterday evening.”

“How’s that little darling of yours, Lek, isn’t it? I thought I saw her walk past here a few minutes ago with another woman arm-in-arm, but I thought, no, that can’t be Lek, she’s in Wales with that Taff.”

“It probably was her – with her cousin, maybe. She went for lunch at her house and I’m supposed to be meeting her at about now. But she’s all right, can you ask one of the staff for a pint of Guinness, please? Do you want one?”

“Nah, not for me, thanks. I’ve got an hour off, then I’m on till closing. It’ll start getting busy soon. Can’t be pissed on parade, can I? Well, not every night anyway.”

The pint of Guinness duly arrived. The taste of burnt wood or charcoal that characterized Guinness for Craig was always a lot stronger in Asia than in Europe. Probably because of the water supply there he thought.

“What’s the news then, Rob? Anything monumental happen while I was away? A few more Scandinavians fell off their balconies pissed, I suppose?”

“Nothing much has been going on. The season has been quiet and hot. Except for Songkhran, of course. That was busy, but then it always is. Even if there were no falangs the Thais would make up for it. It’s always good. A couple of jumpers, yes, if you believe that. I think most of them get pushed. Pissed, robbed and pushed. Not only Scandinavians either. Quite a few Germans too.”

Rob left and Craig had another Guinness. Nobody else seemed to recognize him and he couldn’t be bothered to start a conversation with any more strangers, so he just sat there and watched the girls walking to work and the falang coming back from the beach, wondering about where all this living in Thailand lark would eventually take him.

In truth, in private, in his head, he had no idea at all, although he was more confident when talking to others. He knew what he wanted to do: live in Thailand with Lek and support them by working on the Internet. And that seemed possible, but so much was beyond his control that anything could go wrong any day with just minute changes in the law or the exchange rate. It seemed unlikely that no law or no currency valuation would not go against him in the twenty-five years that he reckoned he had left to live there.

That was too much to hope for. What then? Would he have to go home broke with his tail between his legs? Would he be able to take Lek, even if she wanted to go with a pauper? The future was exciting, but it was also very uncertain and there was nothing he could do about that at all.

He and Lek were riding a canoe in white water on an unknown river.

So, on that sobering thought, he finished up and ambled down to see Lek, who he assumed would be waiting for him at Beou’s.

And there she was, looking as beautiful as ever, standing behind the bar chatting with Beou and a couple who were sitting in front of it.

She saw him coming and waved and whooped as if she been doing it for years. “Hello, sexy man. You want to have drink with me? Where you come from?,” she shouted. The three women laughed out loud and the man smiled broadly. When Craig got closer, he stood up and held out his hand.

“Hi, my name is Bob. I’ve heard a lot about you. How are you doing?”

“I’m fine thanks, Bob. How are you?”

Craig struggled with the man’s face as he shook the girl’s proffered hand. He knew her all right though – that was Mia, an old friend of Lek’s from up-country, but Bob with the Australian accent, Craig was sure he’d never met him before.

Craig had met Mia before though and in such a way that it would take senile dementia for him ever to forget her. She had behaved even more ‘friendly’ in the past than the new girls last night, although Mia had been shrewd enough to avoid being seen doing it. Mia was dangerous, but he liked her. However, they were all sitting right in the front of the bar with Mia’s fairly long-term boyfriend so that should be all right, Craig was reasoning.

He sat down next to Mia, Lek put a beer in front of him and Mia squeezed his knee.

“Oh, Bob! I love this man. He is very good friend for my good friend Lek and he help me too. You un’erstan’? You not jealous, neh? Craig only good frien’.”

Bob nodded and smiled at Craig. Craig smiled, but grimaced inside knowing the truth that was being shared between him and Mia, but which had not been told in its entirety to Lek and Bob. He felt as if he were being held to ransom.

“We good frien’s long time, neh, Craig? You, me and Lek?,” she said as her hand moved up from his knee to his thigh and squeezed it. “I know Lek very long time and I love her friend, same she love my friend, neh, Lek?”

Lek nodded enthusiastically, saying: “Mia and I know each other from baby school and we met Craig nearly one year ago.”

That elicited another squeeze on the thigh, but higher up and a kiss on the cheek. Lek was sitting behind the bar, so she couldn’t really see exactly what was going on, although she knew from the direction of Mia’s arm where it was roughly.

Bob knew exactly and he wasn’t too pleased about it.

He realized that there was more going on than he knew about, but didn’t know what. Lek, for her part, could see the growing consternation on Bob’s face, but she put it down to jealousy – an emotion that she detested and had given up when she had left her husband more than ten years before.

Craig had asked Lek before whether Mia was an exhibitionist, and Lek had reacted with surprise, but he knew from previous experience with Mia that she was ‘up for anything’ as long as there was a reasonable chance of not getting caught, although he suspected that she did want to be observed one day really.

Mia was like a ‘shy’ convent girl who drops her towel while changing and is so flustered that it takes her three minutes to cover up again.

The only one sitting there who knew that except Mia herself was Craig, because he had been on the receiving end. He would happily be there again, if the truth were known, but the stakes were higher now for him and he had had his fun.

Still, she tempted him more and more as the drinks flowed and Bob was becoming more are more cheesed off.

When Bob went to the toilet and everyone behind the bar was working because of the rush, Mia leaned over, put her hand on Craig’s bulge, slowly undid his zip and said in his ear:

“Your trousers are open, do you want anything while I’m here?” and she stroked him inside his trousers.

‘Where was Lek and her guardians when you needed them’, he thought, ‘when resistance was low?.’ Bob came back and Mia said:

“Craig you zip kaput Look!”

Three or four by-standers looked and laughed.

“The zip is broken, I’ll go fix it and go pee-pee,” he said in pigeon-English.

Craig slinked off to the toilet with his hand over his crutch, trying to keep up the illusion than the zip was broken. Lek blew him a kiss from behind the bar. Once in the toilet, Craig did his business, zipped up and walked outside, only to be grabbed by Mia.

She pulled him into a shadow, lifted up her skirt and put his willing hand into her knickers.

“I shave my p***y,” she said, “but you think I do good job? You shave for much longer than me; can you help me learn to shave p***y good same your face? Have little bit hair here, by p***y, what you think? Feel here. Oh, too wet, not have hair here. Sorry, what you think? Cannot grow hair in there, eh?”

After a fondle and with a great deal of will-power, Craig said: “Mia, you said that you had finished all this stuff because you had your own boyfriend. Bob, I suppose. If you are happy with him and I am happy with your friend Lek, what the hell are you doing?”

“Nothing,” she said, “Just having some fun” and she walked back to the bar.

Craig followed a few yards behind, but he was troubled.

This was beyond his ability of deception. Not that he wanted to deceive Lek anyway. The problem was that he couldn’t help feeling flattered and attracted to Mia. In fact, this was the first time anything like this had ever happened to him. Mia was unique amongst his friends or even casual acquaintances.

When he retook his seat, Lek smiled at him from where she was standing in font of the customer she was serving and Mia smile at him too.

Bob was looking the other way quite studiously.

Eventually, Lek tired of helping out and went to sit with Craig. Lek was on his left and Mia was on his right, so to talk over the din, they both had to lean across him and shout in one another’s ears. Lek put her hand on Craig’s thigh to steady herself and Mia put her hand about a foot higher on the other one.

Whenever Mia thought that no-one was paying attention, she stroked Craig’s crotch lightly by wiggling her little finger. She pretended to be really drunk too, but maybe that didn’t take much pretence. Eventually, the night finished and everybody went their own way.

On the way home, Lek said:

“Mia likes you, I can see. If I didn’t know any better, I think I might have reason for concern.”

“Ah, don’t worry.,” said Craig, knowing that he would never shag Mia or swap her for Lek in a month of Sundays.

As much fun as Mia was.