Feeling Seedy in Another City

The problem with hanging out in a seedy freelance bar is not the bar itself. Rather the problem is you start to see yourself as seedy. It’s all the more unpleasant when you realize it’s true. This thought occurred to me as I walked down the steps of Neptune II, the finest pick-up joint in Hong Kong’s notorious Wan-Chai district.

It was very late, but the happy hour there starts at 1am and ends at 6am, which says as much about the place as I can. Even so, the patrons lacked a certain vitality at this hour and the ladies seemed less forward than usual. I did a circuit of the room without making any eye contact, to see if it was worth staying. A lovely looking Thai girl was tearing up the dance floor, but something told me she was only there to dance. Perhaps it was her dress, which didn’t look like it spent most hours strewn on a hotel floor. I tried to chat her up anyway and the impression became stronger, so I moved on.

About this point I noticed another girl in a pretty black dress, sitting at a table by herself. She looked so unimpressed by the scene before her I thought she must have been dragged in by an inconsiderate boyfriend. Before I could inquire about her situation my way past the bar was blocked by a more cheerful group of girls, whom I quickly realized were all Thais too. It turned out their intention was to hook me up with the unimpressed girl in the black dress, who was the little sister of one girl in this group.

It seems to be a popular jaunt for Thai freelancers when they can find the money for a ticket. On a tourist visa they head for Hong Kong, where expats are likely to offer HK$1500 rather than 1500 baht for their services. With several of them sharing a cheap room they can clear town with a tidy profit in just a couple of weeks. These girls at the bar were clearly very well experienced in the scene, but when they called over little sister, her shy manner suggested she was quite out of her element.

Wandering out of her dark corner, I suddenly realized that she was probably the best-looking girl in the bar, especially when Big Sister teased her into a smile. She was especially shy about speaking, though her English really wasn’t much worse than the others. The longer I sat there attempting to chat, while stealing glances at her figure, the more obvious it was that I couldn’t leave without her. She really was quite a stunner, even without a hint of makeup.

I wondered why she had chosen to come to HK. Was she pushed into it by Big Sister? Did she have some debt to pay off? Had she simply given up on being a GTG? She certainly didn’t have the manner of a bar girl, but she knew exactly why she was there… and it wasn’t for the Filipino cover band.

Big Sister tried to talk me into taking her to my apartment, but it was much too far away, so I elected to take her around the corner to the short-time hotel on the same block. I declined Big Sister’s kind suggestion that I should take both of them there.

Even with a large coat on, Little Sister was very nervous outside and froze up when she saw the hotel, saying she had heard bad things about it. Not sure what to do, I took her back inside the bar so Big Sister could do some more negotiating.

It seemed the reason for her panic was her fear that I might be a policeman. Presumably the hotel had been stung by a vice raid at some point recently. Eventually she was convinced that I was safe and we ventured outside again to a different short-time hotel. By this time it was 5am and they were full up, so she conceded that the previous dive was our only option. It’s at this point that you feel the most seedy, dragging a beautiful young lady into a far-from-beautiful hotel for the least honorable reasons possible.

It was almost a relief when we discovered this hotel was full too. Taking her home just wasn’t realistic at this time of night. It would be light by the time we got there. Instead I had to let her go back to the bar and continue accepting her older sister’s questionable guidance. I slipped her a tip for her time and got her Thai mobile number just in case. Now, nearly sober, I could only catch a taxi alone and head off feeling like the seediest man in Hong Kong... even if I didn’t sleep with her.

Idle Hands

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