Lost in Pattaya

by Kishore Modak

  “Tch-tch,” she motioned gently for Miho to back down, signalling through the mirror in which we all held each other, Miho being the only one in complete control of our tangled impasse.

  Turning like a planet on its axis, she, my future lover, giver of physical gratification, remained in the fading gravity of my arm. Thuy Binh’s face was no more than a few inches from mine. Still smiling, she looked up at me.

  “You are a good man, but you have to learn to be a man, don’t have to run around like a child before you come off. Man-up, we can even use you,” her whisper was faint, like a secret revealed to only me.

  “What?”

  “No one attacks me in the presence of Miho and lives to brag,” softly she hissed, looking up, eyes wide, lips curving in a smile.

  “What . . . What does that mean?”

  “Lesson one, don’t speak of my weak moments, else you will join the list of my dead-unsuccessful assailants,” she switched to a conversational tone, loud enough so Miho did not have to strain to hear. I had completely released Thuy Binh, though she had not moved one inch away from me. The wrinkles of time were on her face for me to see close up, dry-ridged and beautiful, unaltered by the cosmetic slather of advertising. Her silken lapels dove deep into her breasts as she disarmed me with the mere presence of her words.

  The tips of her breasts touched my chest in an unhurried lingering manner.

  “You want some more,” she whispered, undoing the wire-noose around the neck of a little transparent pouch of white-powder drug, her forefinger tapping some onto her palm. I dove in, bent like a dog eating greedily from a bowl, needing desperately to remain high through the ladies of the morning.

  Just as the white soot hit the base of my brain, I knew it was going all wrong. First my knees buckled, and on the floor I touched my nostrils, blood streaming through them and onto my fingers.

  “Lesson two, taste before accepting stuff offered by strangers,” her whisper clanged in my brain like un-rhythmic snare drums. I felt my heart beating; it was slowing in echoes, with each beat becoming laborious.

  In the blur that followed, I had visions of Thuy Binh’s unequipped doctor administering vials of liquid in my body, straight through the soft tissue between my ribs. It all happened in the same room where I had fallen. From the floor I could see Miho and Thuy Binh kneeling by the coffee table, no more than a few feet away, shooting up.

  The interminable passage of time ended with me in the back of their Camry, still alive and conscious, bumming in depths of unimaginable discomfort and amid hellish invasion of insects. In the Camry, on either side of me, Miho and Thuy Binh chatted in Thai, all smiles and giggles as if lone and by themselves. The Camry stopped on the busy streets as they grabbed take-away which our chauffer went out and scored in white styrene boxes. The policemen helped manage traffic meticulously around the Camry while we waited for food to-go. Motorists and commuters bowed all around us as they sped and walked past.

  All the while, the plain clad doctor sat in front, silent and respectful, seemingly unworried about my state of being.

  This worried me.

  We drove for a good while before the Camry stopped in the sands of a deserted beach. The ocean was blue and the ladies entered the surf, swimming playfully in circles and splashes, mostly naked. The doctor and I were left alone in the Camry as the driver spread a picnic on the beach, guarding it dutifully from the beach dogs that appeared around us. I tried but found myself unable to talk to the Doctor who spoke reassuring in Thai, checking my blood pressure and pulse, smiling all the while.

  I felt better and must have slept, for when I awoke I was alone in the Camry, the air conditioning contrasting against the warmth of the sea and sand outside. The keys in the Camry meant that I could run it through my captors in front, as they lay on the sand. The Driver and the Doctor gently massaged oil further into their suppleness. For a few minutes, they lay face down in the powder-white sand and then they threw towels across their faces as they relaxed, faces sheltered from the sun. She glanced and smiled at me, Thuy Binh, as she turned over in her afternoon of pleasure. A few beach dogs lay around them, resting alert, ears pricking, snarling at me every once in a while. I must have fallen asleep again.

  The Camry was chocolate and I came to love her, much more than the green-vintage-overpriced Mercedes that we later came upon and bought in a drunken auction, simply because it may have hauled Goering’s arse once in a while in the war.

  Ghastliness in cruelty is ridiculously readable, like the life of Saloth Sar or for that matter Goering, in whose car we committed acts of glee, our pleasure enhanced in his genocide-will, which may have been as cold as ours, the buyers of his legacy.

  The cold chill of turkey was for me to live through, since the availability of hits was completely cut off by Thuy Binh and her deadly muse, Miho.

  In the secret space of my dreams, I was scared each evening before being bathed in a glow of psychedelic lights, transitioning gently between green and red. On the first night, I lay in the soft of down, my stomach cramping and retching in the discomfort of convulsions, while Miho moved in flowing silk towards Thuy Binh. They were unhurried, the lips of each dwelling upon the lips of the other for tens of seconds at a time, savouring and growing gentle in tasting the rewards of patient-unhurried lust.

  It is the in-between that stones you, brown, surging when green struggles against red, landing in a shade of stone.

  When I shrivelled wormlike in withdrawal, the hallucinations became as real as dreams that you enter without ever waking up, infinity nightmares. In that wring of pain, Miho and Thuy Binh, they came to me, often shooting up from off my chest while I was denied the drug that my body craved. On that first night, as if in a game, they allowed me to eat and suck the remainder powder off their fingers. Those few micrograms left me sweating and begging for more. My women, they simply caressed me, smiling all the while.

  The first forty eight hours were the worst, and I know not why they made me suffer, since in the end

  I regressed back into the world of cocaine, careful enough to taste on the tongue what I accepted as coke into the nose.

  You may have guessed, heroin, it does not agree with me, and for my remainder days I stayed away from it, except once when my aggressor forced me to eat it while I screamed from the restraint of shackles.

  They loved each other, Miho and Thuy Binh, respectfully. It was evident in their decent-genteel lovemaking that I lay witness to in those ghastly days of withdrawal. The respect, I recognised it immediately as an evolution from debased stoned sexual experiments of body and mind, succumbing eventually to the liquid warmth of locked lips as the ideal avenue for tasting love, on a longer term vista with a steady partner. The gentle decency was in accepting the perversion that one may have unleashed on the other, leaving things behind, looking at a life ahead spent in the others love.

  Drenched in the transition rainbow of dim lights, they made no attempt at privacy in their love making, often flashing glances at me through it all, as if from a screen of a titillating film made for the express purpose of male arousal.

  In the few infrequent open windows of sobriety, I soaked in the images of Miho at dawn, sweating upon the sands in the flourish of a well wielded Katane. Often, she perfected her skills alone, in the knee deep waves of the sea beyond. I came to respect her weapons as natural extensions of her arms. When I felt strong enough, I stood in the balcony gazing upon her in the sea, marvelling at her superhuman swims and sprints. She would swim for many minutes before she lay exhausted on the sand. Even in deep waters, she clung on to her weapons; the additional weight made the minutes of survival seem hours for that apprentice of martial arts, Miho. It made me crave the physical torture of squash but my depleted strength left it a mere dream for now.

  Each morning, the two lovers dressed in traditional Sarongs and offered prayers to their Lord, chanting along with the tinkle of bells while the priest adorned the figure of the Lord with fragrant flowers. They offer
ed dumplings, cigarettes, whiskey and other such consumables in small quantity each day at his feet before they broke their fast, eating slowly for an entire half hour, consuming Thai tea all the while. They invited all who were present in their large living space to join them in their meal, and out of respect the priest as well as the attendants never refused, reaching for a morsel before falling back to their daily duties.

  A Buddha shuns idolatry.

  From about eight it the morning till about noon, Thuy Binh conducted business with visitors from behind her large desk, who seemed compliant and nervous with respect, stealing glances at deadly Miho who simply hung around the room in boredom.

  The doctor came often enough for me to know that I would live, until one glorious vermilion sunrise I was on the beach, looking up at him standing in the window of what had been my home of rehabilitation, a full fortnight before I felt up to walking outdoors. On that sixteenth day, I felt the glow of the rising sun, in which I finally ran, imagining myself in the stretch of the longest squash rally I had ever played. I worked out for the first time in days and at breakfast I became all wide eyed and ravenous, fired by the healthy appetite of a solid workout. On the internet I searched for squash clubs in Pattaya. I did not find any so I settled for badminton sessions with the sporting fraternity of Thailand on badmintoncentral.com.

  I was not a prisoner. Yet, I was imprisoned by the knowledge they held, the knowledge of Li Ya. The thought of moving back out into the city and resuming my search did not arise since I knew the answers were here. I felt a bit indebted too, after all it was with them that I had lived through the horror of my overdose.

  I have to confess, in the hours of struggle for my own life, the pain of Li Ya’s loss left me altogether. I simply pondered on my own end.

  After I recovered, the Doctor often smiled as he smoked joints, always offering me one. For now, I refused, being too taken by my resolve at abstinence.

  “Doc, do you speak English?” I asked.

  He measured me, reaching a conclusion of trust,

  “Yes, I do, little,” he said, accentuated but clear.

  “What was it I had, a stroke or a heart attack?” I asked him, repulsed by the smell of burning grass.

  “I can’t say for sure, but it seemed like a mild allergy and some arrhythmia of the heart,” he answered, joint wedged between his teeth.

  “You took the Hippocratic Oath, how could you leave me to die while you stuck your silly stethoscope on my chest?”

  “You trended well, and your death would be a small price in the path of allegiance that I owe my Mistress,” he said, sipping country whisky like a connoisseur, lighting up again.

  “Shit talk, it was a heart attack wasn’t it?” I moved towards him, the air thickening with tension as I suddenly grabbed the Tanto from Miho. She simply lay on the divan, resting with a stack of manga by her side.

  “Take it easy . . . ” the Doc veered between confidence and panic, stumbling as he rose, spilling the whisky.

  “Tch Tch Tch,” Miho, she was on my back, her hand easily wrestling the Tanto away. With proximity and touch, the naked image of her body rose thorough my eyes and nose, a faint mix of jasmine, coke and clove spread itself out.

  Did she linger? Her nipples brushing as she sized me up with her own sense of smell, making elastic and long the easy jerk of force with which she could disarm me.

  “I don’t think you had anything more serious than an allergic reaction. At most a mild heart attack, don’t worry about it,” the doctor had tensed with the quick movements of Miho.

  “Where is my stuff, my bags and my passports etc.?” I asked, turning to Miho.

  “That is not important,” she simply said, moving back to the divan.

  “I need things; I need money to buy things.”

  “Write down what you need and give it to the doctor, he will arrange things.”

  In about an hour the doctor made good the items on my list, which were mostly related to badminton gear and dumbbells.

  “I thought you liked squash,” Thuy Binh said, when I was leaving for badminton, having been handed a wad of notes from a safe operated by the Doc.

  “This island offers only badminton,” I replied.

  “Offer is a proposition made by another. We rarely receive meaningful offers. Other than Miho, you are the only one that has stayed with us for over a couple of days without dying,” Thuy Binh replied. The silk of her Sarong slid off the snowy peak of her soft right knee as she reclined on the divan. I withheld my glare, resisting the urge to take her in with stares.

  I wanted to pierce her with my penile spear, thrusting deep till the torture of force made her blurt out the answer to my question “Where is Li Ya?”

  “Be sure to be back by 9 PM, we have a flight to catch,” she added.

  “Flight? Where to?” I asked.

  “You came here to search for answers, right?” she asked me.

  “Yes I want my daughter back. I know you know about her,” I said, slowly moving towards her, almost folding my palms in a gesture of obeisance.

  “You are searching in the wrong place. I will fly with you, later tonight,” she said, raising her hand, meaning that she was done with conversation for now. Though full of questions, I had learnt a few rules, including not pressing the lady with conversations.

  My questions turned inward in a confusion of outcomes that may have dragged Li Ya into the year past.

  She would have been traded by Thuy Binh, to be consumed in other markets for a profit. Or, maybe she had run away, discovered only recently by Thuy Binh and her network of pimps. Li Ya, she may be in mental and physical tatters, destroyed in her year of absent childhood, but for now it was sufficient that she was alive. Therapy and my care would heal her, only invisible scars would remain.

  At the terminal Thuy Binh and I sat in the VIP corner of the lounge while the Doctor handled all our papers for passage. The status of flights flashed on the console.

  “Where are we heading?” I asked, sipping wine.

  “You will see,” she simply said, smoking steadily in the non-smoking terminal, her Thai robes flowing luxurious like a river of silk over her body. She exchanged glances with a few people who bowed from a distance.

  Food was presented, of which we ate a little. She seemed preoccupied and unwilling to share any of her thoughts with me, and this only heightened my restlessness. The platter remained largely untouched.

  “It’s time,” she said as soon as the flight to Singapore changed its status from Security to Boarding.

  A chill ran down me. It was our intent to board a flight to my home city.

  Singapore is unique among countries that claim recourse to law, because in Singapore the respect for law comes from the wrath of enforcement inescapable in deviance. It seemed ironic and a bit foolish to me that after my unbridled charge into Thailand’s underbelly, I was returning to docile Singapore with a mafia-pimp-queen by my side.

  At the gates my suspicions came good; we were heading for Singapore. The Doctor handed our travel documents to Thuy Binh at the very last moment before bowing, as we moved into the vestibule leading to the craft.

  On the flight she remained herself, aloof and above the rest, but a transformation began with our descent into Singapore. She went to the lavatory, emerging in blue jeans and a plain white t-shirt. Without the silks, the oriental hair-do’s and the jewellery, she looked even more radiant.

  In Singapore, it was only by the time we were in the taxi that it struck me – I was free of her. Her dark shadow of power did not extend into Singapore.

  “I worry for you,” she moved her hand over mine and gently kissed me on my lips.

  “What do you mean?” I was drawn to her and the secrets that she had been keeping.

  “I run an empire of prostitution. My control is from the fear that I extend in my name. You are a good man, but I have to distance from anything that weakens my only strength – fear,” she said, comfortably resting her head back on
the taxi’s seat.

  The blue ice-box taxi sped through the halogen-glow bathing the urban highway.

  “How do I weaken your strength?” I asked, realising that the woman next to me was mine. The reticent monosyllabic, vicious leader of corruption that I had come to know in the past couple of weeks had rapidly transformed into a caring intimate friend.

  “Where is Li Ya?” I added.

  “I can’t tell you, but by tomorrow afternoon I think I will be able to show you everything,” she said, touching my face with her palms.

  “Is Li Ya safe?” I asked her, my lips trembling in a prelude to the tears that formed in my eyes.

  “Yes, completely safe. But, I can’t say any more now. You have to promise patience for one night, and, if you can’t, I would be forced to take the alternative path of cutting myself loose off you and simply disappearing. It’s your choice,” she was measured, as she delivered her threats.

  It left me no choice. Being so close to answers, I had to comply with her request of patience, of which I was tested supreme in the day that lay ahead.

  “Okay,” I said, holding her in my arms lightly as I kissed her mouth gently.

  We did not check into hotels, walking instead towards a large yacht, pre-arranged no doubt, at the Marina where the taxi left us before speeding off.

  On the yacht, we were by ourselves apart from the crew of two who steered the ship and paid immense attention to leaving us alone. A dinner of champagne and caviar followed by poached fish and crème brulee left us languid; the city lights became distant as we moved away on the ocean. Thuy Binh took her clothes off and descended into the water. I was numbed by a premonition of the confusion to come. So I jumped in after her, swimming about for a while in the sea, resting from time to time on the small open lower deck. Naked but for the moonlight that shone off our bodies, we kissed gently on the lower deck, before climbing back onto the main deck, lightly robed. The crew dropped anchor in a faraway part of the ocean and bid us good night as they sped away in a little insect like boat that got launched from the belly of our mother ship.