Links
Our banners
Latest News
Newsletter archive
Interviews
Sileakhunt
Book Store

We take a table overlooking the sea. Lek had decided to wear a very appealing black dress, and enjoyed being watched by every male and female customer as she walked over to the table in the far corner where we were seated. The western males looked on with a longing jealously and the females looked on with a disgusted jealously. I had spoken to the restaurant earlier in the day and reserved the table by way of slipping the waiter five hundred baht. The sun was setting slowly over the sea. The sky lit up in an amber light, sparkling reflection over the water. Beside our table a miner bird chatters in English, the bird says ‘Thank you, thank you. Good night.’

‘Bird must have big brain’, Lek says, ‘He can speak English good.’

‘Yeah,’ I say.

Lek glances at the menu, written in English, she then glances up at me, and the miner bird above my right shoulder. She is confused at the strange English text and jealous of the bird’s ability to master this strange foreign tongue so quickly. The miner bird must be a few years old at the most. Lek is almost thirty. Everybody knows that birds don’t live that long except for a scarlet coloured parrot her uncle had once kept in Bangkok. And that bird could only speak Thai.

“I no understand.”

“No problem,” I say, “I’ll order. What would you like to drink?”

She asked for an orange juice and I ordered the same along with a selection of seafood, rice and a couple of Thai dishes. We sat in silence for some time. The Western couples who sat on the tables around us looked at us, the women with appalled expressions – ‘I wonder how much he is paying her?’ And the men – ‘Get in there son!’

The food came out; Lobster, King Prawns, Squid Tempura, Sun dried beef, Mussels in a clay pot and steamed rice. Lek set about the meal and looked out towards the sunset. A few fishing boats, reds and greens, bob around in the marina. The fisherman, sit on deck and mend nets or whatever it is that fisherman do at this hour. I decide to drop it.

“Did you know a girl name Noy who used to work in your bar?” I ask her. Lek’s face becomes a frown. I’ve seen this face many times. It is an expression born from both aggression and defensiveness. It is a face of competition. Like the kind of face a toddler makes when you take away his favourite toy and hand it to his sibling. It is the face of total ruthless greed. It is the face of anger.

“Noy? Where she from?” Her eyes narrow, the eyebrows almost touching. Her hand tightens on a piece of tablecloth she has a grip on beneath the table. I can almost hear the clogs in her mind begin to turn. The questions building up inside; the army of uncertainties forming units and planning aggressive counter-tactics. The troops are marching forward blindly, but with rage.

“Isaan somewhere’, I tell her ‘She worked in your bar maybe two, three months before.” I hand her the picture. For the first time I realise that she looks quite pretty in the picture, laughing and sitting on a hammock. For the first time I realise that I could have taken the picture myself. Lek is certain that I took the picture myself.

“Why you have picture?” She accuses me. The jealous anger has almost reached boiling point. Despite the number of times I have encountered bargirls jealous over clients, the sight never ceases to amaze me. It’s like a professional jewel thief becoming livid over someone accidentally pocketing his disposable cigarette lighter in a bar. Like a snake handler who allowed themselves to get bit. It comes with the territory honey, its all part of the job. But try telling that, or anything like that to a bar girl when she be seeing crimson.

As we all know, the bars in Thailand are full of local women hoping to find a western lover who will look after them and their family for the rest of their financial lives, and perhaps the one after that. They are very, very good at it. It can hardly be described as prostitution in the strict sense of the word. The women here want more than money alone, they also want things that cost money, security, companionship, family, children, Gold. But maybe that is the intention of all prostitutes, or all people for that matter. And what are prostitutes if they are not people? The difference is that the women here want to be with who they are with right now rather than like their western counterparts to use their money to move on with their lives to somewhere else, intangible and unthinkable. A Thai bar girl may have as many as ten different boyfriends, most of whom send money. But the moment that one of these boyfriends is seen to be unfaithful, especially with a girl who is known to her, the proverbial hits the fan. There seems to be a degree of double standards at play. But in the end most bar girls would prefer to have one steady customer, rather than juggle around a few overseas clients. But, I guess, they all differ.

“She gave it to me.” I lied. I gather if I can get her anger up a bit more than she will start to blurt out information.

“You and she boom boom together?” Boom boom, is a self explanatory Thai slang term for sexual intercourse. A nice term, why make language complicated?

“We were friends,” I tell her “No boom boom. I want to know where she stay now.”

“She from Surin,” She makes a sickly face indicating her low opinion of anyone who lives in Surin, “Black Magic lady.”

“Black magic?”

“You not understand Surin. Have many black magic lady. She crazy girl. No good. You like her?”

“I like you,” I tell her, “I just need to speak to Noy. What’s this about black magic?”

‘People Surin understand it. I know understand. They can take your hair, a little bit of your hair and give to black magic man. Sometime need picture too. Black magic man same Buddha man, can make bad thing happen to you’ She points across the table at me. ‘Maybe you die soon’

Maybe, I thought philosophically.

‘I just need to speak with her.’

“I think impossible. She leave Ko Samui. No have people understand where she go. Maybe she kill her body already. Maybe she try kill you later. I don’t know what she do.”

“Where does she live? Where is her village?”

“Better you not understand.” Lek toys with a few fibres of rice on her plate and then begins to open, by hand, a king prawn.

“Why?”

“She have problem with Farang. Big problem” She opens the prawn and extracts the white meat and chews it with her mouth open.

“A boyfriend?”

“I think so. She stay with him for long time. Like play drug together. Do many bad thing.”

“What was the problem?”

“I don’t know. Something about money.”

I decided to leave it there for the time being. She had told me nothing more than I already knew apart from the Surin connection. I could probably find her if I could get her real name and a copy of her identification card. All Thais must carry their ID card at all times.

“What hotel did they stay at in Samui?”

“I think they stayed at the Pavilion. Then he take her to a house somewhere in the jungle. I finish speak now. I no want speak more about this girl. She make problem for me now”

You and me both, I thought.

“Ok. Sorry to ask all the questions. How would you like to go back to the apartment?”

She did. In silence.

As she hit the shower I had a feeling that there was a lot more to this case than some money going missing from a bungalow. The mention of money and the mention of drugs had me concerned. The Black Magic routine was just Lek’s way of trying to tell me to keep clear of Noy. A defensive move. It is looking like I won’t get much more information from Lek. I would have to think of a new angle. Try something new.

Lek returned from the shower. Her braided hair was wet, gleaming wet. She was wearing a pair of my boxer shorts and nothing else. Her breasts jutted upwards above faintly visible ribs and her slim waist and wide hips. I was lying on my back on the bed. It would seem that she had calmed herself from her previous rage. She sits down with her legs either side of my hips and brings her head downwards, her braided hair teasing my face. Her mound rubbed up against me as she made backwards and forwards motions before brushing her hair down my chest towards my centre.

It was magic, but it weren’t black.

 

 

© Sisterray. All rights reserved by the author.