Miss Bangkok: Memoirs of a Thai Prostitute (14 page)

To Roj, sex was just a product to be sold to the highest bidder; she saw
farang
s as fools, with more money than sense, willing to part with their cash for a few moments of pleasure. And if Roj could exploit this weakness and make a living from it, then all the better for her.

Roj had countless stories about the strange men she encountered. But one story in particular both amused and terrified me so much that I would regularly ask her to recount it; each time she would add a new colourful detail that would have me squealing in delight.

Roj accompanied a
farang
back to his hotel room one night. The client in question was a small wiry man with a furrowed brow that gave him an anxious expression. His voice was a low, almost inaudible squeak, not unlike a mouse Roj had said. He wrung his hands nervously during the taxi ride and seemed to be of a timid disposition. However, as soon as they reached his hotel room all this changed. He produced a leather whip from the wardrobe, and the little mouse that had paid for Roj’s company vanished into thin air. In his place was a much more confident man, who cracked the whip against the bed with an evil glint in his eye. Just as Roj was about to run out the door, he reassured her that he had no desire to hurt her but instead wanted her to be the one administering pain. He stripped off and requested that she put her full force into the lashes. He even demonstrated what he meant by striking the whip against the bed several times before lying facedown on the bed. Roj cracked the whip above him, trying not to let the smile playing on her lips undermine her dominatrix act.
As she was nearing the end of the session she accidentally whipped herself, producing a long purple welt on her arm. She had to buy cooling gel and plasters on her way home to try to conceal what had taken place that night.

Roj was completely mystified by how anyone could achieve sexual gratification from such a violent act. I had no answer for her. Despite the many years that we had both worked in prostitution, neither of us had come across this particular fetish before, although I now realise that it is not uncommon.

I sometimes feel that I have been protected, in many ways, from the really horrible side of prostitution. I haven’t had too many bad experiences, relatively speaking, and I try to learn from my friends.

We always have a shower when we go back to the client’s hotel, and we insist that the man shower too because hygiene is an extremely important part of our job. One night when Roj stepped out of the shower in a
farang
’s hotel room, she decided to skip the small talk and get straight down to business. He was sitting on the bed with a towel around him, waiting for Roj to take the lead. She adopted her most seductive expression and whipped his towel from him. Although he had already showered, she was greeted by the most pungent smell from his penis. She said it appeared that he hadn’t cleaned his shaft since his last life, as he had quite a lengthy foreskin, and he obviously didn’t bother washing underneath it. She immediately gagged, so overwhelming was the smell. It was apparent that he wanted a blow job, but Roj told him that he’d have to wear a condom while she smoked him.

He refused, and was quite crude to her, saying that if she insisted on blowing him with a condom, he’d rather bang her. He finally agreed to pay 1,500 for a blow job with a condom.

He spoke Thai quite fluently, and told her that he was a good lover. He then sneakily added that he’d pay her 2,000 baht if she agreed to smoke him raw.

‘Not in this life,’ she retorted. Roj said that she grabbed a towel and started to rub his penis in an attempt to clean it somewhat, and remove the mucus and encrusted dirt.

‘Do I disgust you?’ he asked, almost appearing amused by this turn of events.

‘I use my mouth to eat, not to perform this type of job.’

‘Very well, if it’s such a big deal, I’ll just bang you then.’

Roj jumped back onto the bed where he proceeded to suck on her nipples. She always cringed and laughed as she recounted this part of the tale, almost as if it was worse than the smelly penis. He sucked her breast as if he was trying to breast-feed, sucking even harder than her children had while she was nursing them. It was unfortunate for Roj that she was quite sober at the time because it started to hurt her, especially when he entered her and kept on pumping at her until her inner thighs grew sore. Although she asked him to climax quickly, it went on for some time until Roj could take no more. She asked him to stop, and just to pay her 1,000 baht and she would leave immediately. They had been having sex for almost an hour at this point, and Roj suspected that he had taken Viagra. He eventually removed himself from her and started to jerk off in front of her face. Roj kept her lips firmly together, but he managed to grab her head with his free hand and used his fingers to pry her mouth open. Roj kept her mind on the money, and as soon as he ejaculated, she ran back into the shower, and then grabbed her things ready to go.

‘What’s your hurry?’ the
farang
drawled.

‘Why should I linger with a jerk like you?’

‘I’m only giving you 1,500 baht for that, by the way.’

‘That’s fine by me,’ she retorted. ‘I am ready to get the hell out of here.’

It was such a shame, because he was staying in a very fancy hotel, and had appeared to be a nice guy at first.

During my first year at Patpong I was occasionally bought by Japanese men. It seemed that they gradually became more savvy and were tired of spending a lot more money for less hanky-panky in Thaniya, and so made their way to Patpong.

I took comfort from the fact that I had some experience in dealing with them, but my Japanese had gotten rusty over the years, although I still retained the essentials.

When I wanted to offer myself I would say, ‘
Yaritai desuka
?’ and then state my price for a quickie, ‘Give me
nisen o kane
baht
shotto
.’

I was going out to Khao San Road once with a young, skinny Japanese man who could speak some English. We wanted to go back to his hotel so we could finish our business there, but he couldn’t remember where it was. He put his backpack on the street, and I looked in it for his hotel’s business card, which would have the address on it. Just as he found it in his pocket, a police officer walked over to me and told me to give him my ID card. I reluctantly gave it to him and he took one look at me before telling me to collect my ID card at the police station. My first thought was that he was going to fine me for soliciting, so I asked my client to say that I was his girlfriend, not his prostitute.

When we arrived at the police station I found a line of streetwalkers sitting with their heads low, concealing their faces. It turned out I didn’t need his false alibi after all. I was informed that I would be fined 100 baht for loitering. I instantly paid the fine and got my card back; it’s not worth arguing with the police. The streetwalkers were all fined with the same charge. They are the easiest prey for the police, who want to make some quick money.

Later on we made our way to his hotel, where he invited me to his room. Once I was naked he asked me to lie down and took out a pink vibrator. He starting using it on my breasts, thighs, and around my vagina. The sensation tickled me and I couldn’t hold my laughter in. He asked why I didn’t like it, as women in the videos seemed to enjoy the gadget very much. I told him that in truth, those women were probably faking it. He seemed slightly disappointed, but responded by asking if I could give him oral sex. I happily obliged because he had a rather small penis. I put the condom on him and pleasured him for about five minutes before he penetrated me. He was so small that I almost couldn’t feel his penis inside of me. He watched a porn movie throughout our intercourse, and I couldn’t have cared less that he paid more attention to the girl in the video than to me. He worked himself up, and I faked moaning to help the poor man reach his climax faster. What I always fondly remember is that our encounter was less than 15 minutes in total, and he paid me my usual fee.

On the other end of the spectrum, I have also had men buy me out who have been simply too large for me to handle.

I had only been working in the bar for about two months when Nhim told me there was a client who wanted me to sit with him. At first I was delighted at the prospect of making some money. I wanted to buy a new mattress and clothes for Atid and Peung, who were growing so fast. Peung was a little doll to me and I loved dressing her up. My smile dimmed a little when I walked over to my prospective client. He was a very muscular man of over six feet. Although he appeared to be friendly and was generous with money, I was reluctant and about to go back on the stage when Nhim noticed my nerves and told me to relax. She said I should treat him as I would treat any client, as he had given me no reason to disrespect him. Despite my gut feeling, I agreed to leave the bar with him.

While he was in the shower I realised what had perturbed me. He was a black man, and I had heard stories about the size of their penises, but I wasn’t sure I believed that they were so big, until this moment. His aroused penis resembled a very large tube of toothpaste. I was frightened by the size of it; that he would block my air passage and I wouldn’t be able to breathe if he forced me to smoke it.

I was considering making a run for it when he grabbed my wrist with his giant hand and dragged me to the bed. He sat at the end of the bed, and before I showed any sign of resistance, he pushed my head against his erect penis. I would never blow a man without him wearing a condom, but I didn’t get a chance to ask him to put one on, as his penis was already in front of my mouth. That suddenly sent tears streaming down my face. As he was poking his penis at my mouth, I kept my lips shut as tightly as I could whilst sobbing and shaking.

His friendly manner was gone, and now he had a crazy grin on his face as he tried to invade my mouth. I was paralysed by fear and didn’t know what to do. I just closed my eyes as if to fool myself that it was only a nightmare, and that when I opened my eyes again it would be over. I couldn’t run for fear that he would hurt me. With both of his hands behind my head, he continued pushing my head against his penis, which was so hard and big that it hurt my face as he slapped it against my mouth. This made every hair of my body stand up, as it reminded me of the terror I experienced at the hands of Yuth. I was feeling more helpless than I’d ever felt before, and I couldn’t summon enough strength to tell him to stop.

After what seemed to be an eternity, he realised he couldn’t force me to perform oral sex. He let go of my head, and I almost fell back from his grasp. Then I broke down and cried uncontrollably. He threw my clothes at me and I dressed as quickly as I could and ran out of his room. I went straight to the bathroom in the lobby and washed my face thoroughly before rushing out of the hotel. I wondered if anyone would notice the humiliation on my face.

I needed someone to comfort me, so I went back to the bar. Nhim listened to my story and told me that she was sorry for pairing me up with him. I told her if a black man ever showed an interest in me again, she could tell him I was sick, or any excuse she could think of. I knew my limitations. I didn’t tell Yuth about what happened because I knew he wouldn’t sympathise.

I was quite shaken by the aggressive way in which this man had tried to get a blow job, and I stopped working for two days before the need of my family forced me to resume.

I told the story to Roj, who responded with two stories her own experiences with black clients, of which both had been positive. She told me that her clients were gentlemen who paid handsomely for her time, and understood that their endowments were too big for her. They just asked her to dance for them while they masturbated themselves. She tried to console me and made light of my horrible experience, saying I was just tremendously unlucky and I should make merit to prevent bad things from happening to me again.

After that, I always
wai
’d the shelf of deities situated in my bar every time I went out with a client, asking them to protect me. I also started dropping a small amount of alcohol onto the landing where my friends and I gathered, as a way to invite the spirits within the building to join us and watch over us.

My life continued as usual after that. Every evening we exchanged story after story about customers we had been with before work. The more I listened to other girls’ client stories the more I couldn’t help but feel lucky by comparison. Priew brought up a story of a client who was the same age as her grandfather. He asked her to tightly wind a thin nylon rope around the base of his scrotum because he couldn’t maintain an erection. He then asked her to squeeze his balls hard while he masturbated.

Roj tried to top Priew with her latest client who had ejaculated on her face. Priew then responded with a girl she knew who ran away from her client because he wanted to push his fist up her ass. This story drew our loudest shrieks of disgust and terror.

I had once met a guy who liked to be poked by toothpicks on his sensitive area while he gratified himself. This was an easy job for me. Another girl said she knew someone who ate a customer’s faeces. I recoiled in horror, as no amount of money in the world would make me do such an act.

There are pros and cons with each kind of man, but in general, we all agreed that
farang
s treated us with respect and spent their money generously, unlike their Thai counterparts who looked down on us and were often mean. Thai men were always a prostitute’s last resort because they only paid between 500 to 1,000 baht for a short time. I never slept with Thai clients for this reason.

Although my friends tried to make light of these stories, there were times when I wished I was somewhere or someone else. Between each story there was this silence when I, or perhaps we, started to realise how horrible and abusive our clients could be and how much these ‘funny’ stories really affected us.

Despite how much I hate what I do, I can’t imagine working anywhere but Patpong. Outside of here, there are only low-paid jobs available to a poorly educated girl like me. This place can be heaven or hell depending on what side of the fence you are on. The
farang
s who frequent this red-light district claim that it is like a utopian parallel universe. Whereas the prostitutes who work here see it as their own personal hell. Despair, betrayal, secrecy, and abuse lurk around every corner for us. No one is to be trusted in Patpong—be they prostitutes or
farang
s.