by Guy Lilburne
“I am truly shocked. He sounds more like a gangster then a publisher.
Why did he suddenly become like this?”
“I don’t know, maybe it was always there hidden inside. He always blamed me for not giving him a son, although all the medical tests showed that it was because he had no sperm. He changed the day after we buried my father. He beat me that night for the first time, beat me and raped me and he told me that from now on things were going to change.”
“Can’t you go to the Police or see legal people and get your family business back?”
“In south east Asia things are not the same as in the West, but I am thinking now what to do, that’s why I’m here.”
The tears she cried while telling her story tricked down her face, but she didn’t sob or make any noise, it was a silent cry: a silent, painful cry from a broken heart within.
“I want to wipe your tears away, but I have nothing and my hands are covered with sand,” Simon said, feeling hopeless to help her pain.
“It’s ok. I have tissues in my bag. I’m sorry I cry.”
“It’s ok Tika; sometimes it’s good to cry. Wow, we have shared so much great sorrow with each other, I think we need to share some fun. Do you swim?”
“Yes,” she said, wiping the tears from her face. “But I cannot swim here.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t want to take off my sarong. My body isn’t beautiful: now I’m an old lady. I don’t want you to see my body.”
“Tika, I want to see your body.”
Before Tika realised what was happening Simon had reached out and undone the knot in her sarong and held it open to look at her body. She put her hands over his and tried to pull the sarong closed.
“Please, relax Tika. You look beautiful. Really! You have a wonderful body, a woman’s body: a sexy body.”
She didn’t resist and, as he sat there holding open her sarong, she felt a sexual rush surging through her body. She felt herself blush and once again she was slightly shocked at his directness. He let the sarong drop off her body and onto the sand. He grabbed her hand and pulled her up and they ran into the sea. It was warm and Simon pulled her around and held her in his arms as they laughed and splashed and she found herself clinging onto him in the water. She was excited and happy. This was the most daring thing she had ever done and she didn’t care, it just felt right. She made her mind up there and then in the warm Andaman Sea that Simon was going to be only the second lover that she had ever taken in her life.
Chapter 3
Tika’s husband ‘Yuda’ was furious when he had found her gone. He didn’t bother with his driver. He jumped into the Mercedes and raced round to Tika’s mother’s house on the other side of the city. As he sped along Sudirman Street and past Jakarta’s Golden Triangle, the prestigious business area where the family publishing house is based, his anger grew inside him and the veins in his neck started to pulsate. His fury turned to rage when he found that Tika’s mother had gone too. Yuda wasn’t a handsome man. He was small, but he was powerfully built and intimidating to everyone who knew him. The only person that had ever seemed to stand up to him was Tika’s father, but since he died, Yuda did just what he wanted to.
Yuda had derived his power because Tika and her mother were very decent and honest people. They were trusting and had allowed themselves to be bullied. Yuda could only keep this power while he had them there to bully. They were afraid of him and, because he had the great majority share in the company, they allowed him to do what he wanted for fear of losing everything, which was a threat that he used a lot. What Tika and her mother didn’t know was that Yuda had no controlling share in the company at all. Tika’s father had always been a bit suspicious of Yuda and his friendship with the company’s lawyer, Jaya, and before he died he had got a team of independent lawyers to wrap it up air tight. Tika owned everything and her mother was on the Board of Directors in name only, as an advisor with a huge protected pension. The Will and the other documents that had been shown to Tika and her mother by Jaya after her father’s funeral were all fakes. These papers, that gave control of the company to Yuda, weren’t worth the paper that they were written on.
To keep the independent team of lawyers off track, they too had been supplied with a stream of forged documents, purported to be from Tika, requesting that they sign the publishing company over to her husband. The lawyers were insisting on a personal meeting with Tika, but, of course, this was always being put off until Yuda could find somebody who looked enough like his wife to play her role and fool them.
Yuda was well aware that if Tika left him, or started divorce proceedings, then this would all come out and he and his company lawyer, Jaya, would lose everything and be looking at a long time in prison. He was not going to let that happen. He needed them back under his control. He punched the number of his corrupt lawyer, Jaya, into his mobile and updated him. He instructed that he find Tika and her mother.
“Hire private detectives, pay off police, anything. Just find them and quick,” he screamed down the mobile phone before throwing it in the foot well of the car.
Jaya was as worried as Yuda, but without all the rage and anger, because he knew that he had just as much to lose as Yuda. Jaya wasted no time and began a series of phone calls to trace Tika and her mother.
Jaya had been a good lawyer until Yuda had corrupted him with money and prostitutes. Tika’s father had been very good to Jaya’s family when he was still a boy and his family had fallen on hard times. It was
Tika’s father who had paid for his education, and, after he had qualified as a lawyer, it was Tika’s father who hired him as the company lawyer.
It was then that Jaya met Tika for the first time. He fell in love with her at first sight, but she was already married to Yuda. Jaya could see that Tika had a beauty that came from her heart, just like her father. She had the same humanity and she was as charming and kind to the cleaning lady as she was to her own father, the head of the company. Jaya loved this quality about her and he was always happy to be in her presence. He never really liked Yuda. Although Yuda looked strong, he was a short and ugly man who didn’t seem to like anyone except himself. Over the years he got more and more angry with the world, and everyone in the company thought that this was because he and Tika had no children.
There were rumours that he couldn’t have any, but he would openly blame his ‘infertile’ wife in front of anyone who would listen. He even claimed to have many children outside of his marriage, which was just another lie, but it gave other men around him a chance to pat him on the back and shake his hand and generally suck up to him, which was something he enjoyed.
Yuda had started giving Jaya money and other presents like a car, a gold watch and a supply of beautiful women. Jaya accepted his new life style willingly. He helped Yuda cream off profits from the company into his own bank account and Jaya got a cut of that as well. Yuda used the money to set up an illegal loan sharking business throughout Indonesia and Malaysia. Poor farmers all over southeast Asia now owed Yuda a small fortune by their own standards, which they could never hope to pay back. It was only after Jaya helped Yuda get fraudulent control of the company that the guilt started to penetrate his heart. He was aware of the treatment that Tika was suffering at Yuda’s hands, because Yuda took great delight in telling him. He would tell him about the beatings, the rapes, the sexual abuse and all the degrading treatment that he caused her to suffer.
Jaya was fully aware that he had played a big part in destroying this family: a family that had done so much to help his own family, but now he was in too deep. So his soul suffered in silence and he carried out
Yuda’s orders, as he always did. It was only two days later when Jaya telephoned Yuda to tell him that Tika’s mother, Bethari, was staying with one of her nieces in Bandung about 120 miles south east of Jakarta.
A little over two hours later Yuda was parked up and watching the address from further along the village road. He waited until the niece had left. It was just after 10:30am before he approached the house and found the back door was unlocked.
Yuda entered the house and sneaked quietly around checking each room until he found Bethari in one of the bedrooms. He burst in to startle her and, although it made her heart jump, she managed not to scream. She was still only dressed in her kimono and her modesty made her clutch it together tightly with gripped fingers. She was a kind gentle woman of 60 years and she was embarrassed for her son in law to see her in this state of undress. She was scared of Yuda but tried not to show it.
“Hello Yuda, what are you doing here?” She knew that it was a stupid thing to ask, but she couldn’t think of anything else to say. She could see the rage and anger in Yuda’s eyes. He took two paces towards her and struck her hard across the face with his open hand. The blow flashed white inside her brain and sent her sprawling backwards onto the bed.
Even in her shock and pain the first thing she thought about was her modesty and, to cover herself up, she scrambled to gather the Kimono back closed in front of her. She could taste her own blood in her mouth. She was already very scared of Yuda, but he had never hit her before. Now he had hit her so hard and without any hesitation, she was terrified.
“Tell me where she is you bitch,” Yuda screamed.
He grabbed her Kimono and pulled her back up and struck her across the face again.
Bethari sobbed and begged him not to hurt her anymore. She offered no resistance. She couldn’t tell Yuda where her daughter was because she didn’t know. She didn’t tell him that Tika rang her every night because she knew that she had to protect her daughter. She told him nothing. The beating continued for several minutes during which time her Kimono had fallen open and ripped, revealing her naked body. Yuda threw her onto the bed and undid his trousers. He was already erect. It wasn’t a sex thing: it was power over people that aroused him. Bethari had little resistance as she saw him move towards her and pull her legs apart. He raped her and, before he left, he told her that if she told the Police he would kill her and her daughter.
Bethari would never tell the Police. She wouldn’t even tell her own daughter. She had only ever known the love of one man: that of her husband. The shame of being raped by her son in law was overwhelming to her. She would never recover from this, but she would never tell anyone. She cried as she cleaned herself up and she cried all day, but managed to stop when her niece returned home.
Yuda had a private detective watch the address in case Tika turned up there, but she never did.
Chapter 4
Simon offered to give Tika a lift back to her hotel on the back of his motorbike, but Tika declined: she liked the walk along the beach to the hotel. They had both enjoyed meeting each other and both were surprised at how easy it had been to tell each other their own sad stories.
They felt as if they had known each other for longer than just a few hours on a beach. They had shared something of themselves with each other and there was certainly a sexual attraction. Tika was hoping that
Simon was going to ask her out that evening for dinner. She wanted to spend more time with him and get to know him more. She wanted to become his lover. Simon was looking forward to spending more time with her on the beach the next day and he asked her if she would be there. She said that she would. She was happy that they had planned to meet again, but slightly disappointed that it wasn’t going to be that evening.
Simon had enjoyed the day with Tika. His days were filled with quiet relaxation and meeting Tika had made it special. His nights were something else completely. During the hours of darkness Simon went out to lose himself in alcohol and sex. It didn’t make him very proud of himself but he didn’t care; this is what he had come to Thailand for. He never took any girls back to his own hotel room, but usually hired another room in one of the hotels on Nanai Road for about 400 Baht (£8)
It was going to be another night in Bangla Road; maybe some food, plenty of drink and plenty of female attention and then back to a Nanai Road hotel with one or two girls for showers and drunken sex.
This had become Simon’s nights in Patong. So Tika and Simon parted on the beach. Although they had been playing around together and splashing in the sea, it was still an awkward parting. They liked each other but didn’t know each other well enough to kiss goodbye and a handshake or a pat on the back wouldn’t have been right either. Neither knew what to do, and as Simon leaned forward to kiss Tika, she offered her hand to shake.
“Oh!” they both said together and then did a sort of head pecking movement like two birds in some kind of mating dance before they managed to more or less give each other a pecked kiss on the cheek. Oh well, at least they would see each other tomorrow. They walked away from each other in opposite directions, but they kept turning to see each other and smiled and waved until they were out of site. Simon went back to his hotel, showered and went to bed for a late afternoon sleep before another night out on the town.
Patong is a different creature by night. The atmosphere changes as soon as the sun drops into the sea. Waste ground, pavements and shop doorways that are empty during the day are now filled with people selling ornaments, trinkets, jewelry, cigarettes, lighters, flashing and noisy toys and most everything else from little blankets on the ground.
A couple of women sit on the kerb side with babies and small children and beg with plastic cups. They share the kerb space with a leper and a couple of amputees. Mostly, all these people are ignored by tourists and locals alike, but some kind souls will stop and give them money.
Bangla Road was loud, brash and buzzing as always. Bright lights flashed from every bar and a thousand different songs blasted out from the bars’ speakers, competing to be heard above the noise.
Girls dressed in tops that barely concealed their breasts and miniskirts that revealed their legs right up to their thongs, if they were wearing any, waved and smiled at the passing farangs, trying to tempt them into their bars. The more daring or cheeky girls would walk out onto the street and flirt outrageously, or push or pull the men into their bars. Old fat and bald farangs would give up without much resistance and smiling, go willingly with the girls, telling themselves and their friends back home how much these Thai girls loved older farangs, and how they treated them like movie stars. They would never mention how much they had to pay to sleep with these girls. Bangla Road is seedy, but it’s also compelling. Sex is available everywhere, but it’s not so much in your face as Nana Plaza or Soi Cowboy in Bangkok.
Simon loved this place; pretty girls everywhere all smiling back and each one available for a small price. Simon was young and attractive compared to most of the other farangs who prowled these streets, so he got more attention than most and could have his pick of the girls anywhere. He liked walking up and down Bangla Road and sitting at the front of the bars on the main road and watching the people. The tourists, the locals, the sex workers, the cigarette sellers, the old ladies dressed in traditional northern Thailand costume and piled high with hats and other useless items for sale. They constantly rattle little sticks along the back of carved wooden frogs to mimic the croaking of real ones.
All the side streets were bursting with Beer Bars where he had to fight his way past bar after bar, being almost mobbed by gangs of scantily dressed girls who wouldn’t hesitate to rub his penis or flash their vaginas or breasts. Dancing girls on the bar tops were gyrating and grinding to songs, thrusting their pelvis to flick up their short skirts and flash their thongs. Soi Eric, Soi Crocodile, Soi Easy and Soi Sea Dragon, where the Go Go Bars and strip clubs were located, were where old men could be seen with sexy young girls wrapped around them, sitting on their knee or just pressing against them. Old men would sit there with their hands up a girl’s skirt, or feeling her breasts and the girls would giggl
e and pretend that they were enjoying it, in the hope that he would be her paying customer for tonight. Playing the bar top games of Connect Four, Jackpot and Jenga gave the girls a chance to move in on any male customer who sat at the bar.
There were pool tables to play and huge slices of tree trunk into which punters tried to drive 4” nails with the wrong end of a hammer head.
Laughter and giggles and screams of pretend delight from the girls all enticed the men into their bars. Sometimes the girls pretended to let the customers win these games, but if there was money on it, they always won, They should do, as they are experts at it.
Simon liked the girls who danced on the bar top at the Tiger Bar, with their school girl type uniforms of tartan mini skirt, white blouse and black tie. They flashed their knickers and smiled sweetly as they danced over the heads of the men who sat drinking at the counter. Most nights Simon would sit in this bar for a while, but one of his favourite places had become Soi Gonzo.
Soi Gonzo was a smaller, cooler and generally quieter street than the others, and consequently it was often missed by people, being squashed between the busier and brighter Soi Eric and Soi Crocodile. In Soi Gonzo Simon could sit and actually chat to the girls and enjoy all the bars along the soi. So within the first few nights it seemed as if all the girls along the soi knew him by name. He didn’t always end up with girls from Soi Gonzo, but more often than not he did.
Tonight, though, he ended up in Tai Pan, a night club at the junction of Bangla Road and Rat u Thit Road. As soon as he walked in the place he was targeted by a number of beautiful girls and after talking to a few he ended up with ‘Moon’. She didn’t want any money off him, she just liked him. She told him that she worked in a pool hall, but Simon wasn’t really bothered what she did. She was pretty and had a nice smile and a good body. She was 20 years old and fun to be with. Simon knew that he would end up paying her anyway, and that’s the way he liked it; no emotional attachment.
