A Smile Is Still A Smile

My attention was completely focused on the young bar tendee, Ning. She was a knockout. Nineteen years old, dressed to kill and surely the most beautiful girl I had seen…..today.
Ning was playing with me but I was just too drunk to know it. I already had three sheets to the wind when I bought a couple of rounds of tequilas for the staff and the three customers that were gathered around the bar. Ning pointed out it would be cheaper for me to buy a bottle. Her mathematical logic bamboozled me so I just bought the bottle anyway. Man, that tequila is plain wicked stuff.

As the contents of the bottle disappeared, my brain started to raise objections about the treatment my body was receiving. It was having trouble differentiating between what was sound and what was vision. I remember seeing purple music, hearing pink lights, cigarette smoke swirled into impressions of female body parts and people were talking backwards. I hadn’t felt like this since that night in Brecon in 1979 when I washed down a bag of magic mushrooms with a bottle of vodka. Boy, was I wasted.

When I came round, I could feel the air moving slightly around my face. It was quiet but I knew it wasn’t dark even though I hadn’t opened my eyes yet. I felt the presence of an overhead fan. I was lying on my back on something soft. I decided to risk opening my eyes, slowly. The room was dimly lit. A large central fan was throwing black stripes across a white ceiling. The blades were turning slowly, gently churning the heavy air.

I lifted my head slightly and looked down towards my toes. My shirt was open but my trousers were still on and my belt was still buckled. I was wearing my socks but my shoes were absent. I eased my head back so that I was looking at the fan again.

“Ah, you wake up already. How you feel now?” asked a soft female voice that I was sure I had never heard before. I turned my head sideways to see who owned it.

A lady of about thirty years of age was sitting cross legged on the floor next to the bed. She was wearing a pale blue kimono style dressing gown and she was brushing her hair which flowed over her shoulders almost reaching the floor behind her. I could only stare.

“You not remember me? My name Nok.” She purred.

Oh Jesus, where the f*#k am I now? I thought to myself as I refocused on the ceiling fan.

“You not like me?” Nok enquired gently, mistaking my state of confusion for rejection.

I had no idea where I was, who Nok was, what time it was, how I came to be wherever I was and this poor girl was afraid that I didn’t like her. I was in no condition to turn on the charm. I had no idea where the switch was.

“Where am I?” was about all I could muster.

“This my room. You give mamasan money. She give me look after you. She say you good man but drunk too much.”

Nok moved from her lotus position on the floor and sat on the edge of the bed. She handed me a glass of water and wiped my face with a small flannel. “You stay here tonight. I take care you, OK?” she smiled.

That was when I noticed Nok’s slightly lop-sided smile for the first time. She must have noticed that I noticed and let her smile fade much like someone who feels self conscious about wearing braces on their teeth would. She half looked away.

“I not beautiful.” She said.

She was wrong. I smiled at her and said, “Thank you for looking after me Nok.”

Nok had a faint scar below her left eye, which was barely noticeable. A clever bit of make-up made it almost invisible. That side of her face, however must have suffered some serious nerve damage. The only noticeable affect now though, was that it made her smile a little uneven. As if you’re going to notice that after Jose Cuervo has dealt you a few body blows.
I didn’t need to know anything else just then. Staying exactly where I was seemed like a pretty damned good idea to me so I pulled my shirt off and tossed it on the floor.

Nok leaned over me, unbuckled my belt and slid my duds off. Then she removed my socks. I’m glad she did. I always feel there is something rather undignified about being naked except for your socks.

It’s what happened next that made a lasting impression on me. It is true to say that Nok really made love to me on that hot, sticky and confused night. She didn’t just go through the motions of ‘putting part A into part B and repeat’. She kissed me with such gentleness that she rekindled sensations and feelings within me that I thought were distant memories. I felt like I used to feel in a previous life, before I became a drunken Bangkok whore monger. It reminded me of days long gone when I had youth, stamina and hair. She really was quite something.

When I left Nok’s room, she was still in bed and would probably sleep some more. I made the usual promises to come back to see her soon and made my way back to the bar.
As it happened, her room was not to far away from her bar. It had been a short cab ride the previous night in my tired and emotional state but in the morning it was a ten minute walk.

I needed to go back there to find out from the mamasan just how badly behaved I had been the previous evening and to clear any unpaid debts. That is my way. Not that it was important but I might also unravel the little mystery of how exactly I came to be in Nok’s custody for the night.

The mamasan, Khun Na, was busying herself around the place when I turned up. Stools were still on tables and there was sweeping and re-stocking and ice delivery going on all around. I turned a stool over and sat on it. Na come over with a cold bottle of Hieneken that I wasn’t sure I wanted and sat down next to me.

“How you feel today?” she enquired “Last night you drunk, maak-maak. How is Nok? She very good girl, no?.”

“Yes, she’s a very good girl. What happened to her face, Khun Na?”

“Ah, she very lucky girl. She have very bad motosai accident. She lucky she not die.”

“I don’t remember talking to her here, last night?”

“No. You very drunk. You want to take Ning but Ning only go with young man. I give you Nok because she don’t go with man too much. You say, OK and pay bar for her. She very good.”

I took a slug from the bottle and steadied myself for another day in The Land Of Smiles.

Union Hill

© Union Hill. All rights reserved by the author.