Fiction

I have a number of bits of writing that have no home. This is one of them.

Nit cuddled next to Greg as the taxi sped down Soi 22 toward his house. Greg moved his face into Nit’s shining ebony hair and inhaled deeply her scent. She smelled of flowers, perfumes, and womanly hormones.

Harry had known Max since he was seventeen, well over six foot and ten and a half stone in the terminology of the time. All bones and hair, as enthusiastic as a Labrador pup, an empty page awaiting the pen.

Max watched the twenty metre yacht cut through the water towards the tourist launch. Custom built for ocean racing after World War Two she had campaigned successfully for more than a quarter of a century before being sold off as a cruising boat.

Tonight was something different. He wanted to get drunk. He wanted to forget about his wife Noi; about the incident at the hotel room, about the monies taken from the accounts, about his daughters being gone, even about Joy, who he knew was merely an infatuation ... Read more.

To many of the new arrivals it was paradise on earth, so many willing women and it was so easy to convince themselves that the money that changed hands was a small token of appreciation and not payment to prostitutes.

Suddenly electricity filled the moist warm air of the beer bar. The drunken farang boiler room workers were up off their stools and posturing menacingly. Macho flexing and chest puffing ensued, heated foul words were exchanged, slurred actually, and it looked for a moment that blows were to be exchanged ... Read more.

Nit’s face lit up in a broad gleaming smile of brilliant ivory teeth that would have made a toothpaste commercial producer proud, and, letting out a ear-piercing squeal of glee, ran over to Greg, throwing her arms around him and chattering in his ear excitedly ... Read more.

Nong Khai is arguably the pearl of Isaan; the north east corner of Thailand that’s main economic product is its daughters who travel every year to the bars and brothels of Bangkok and Pattaya.

The quality of travel information in Laos varies. It mainly depends on how recent it is, the borders of four of it?s neighbours opening and closing sporadically. It depends more on the personal safety of travellers than international relations and a spot of banditry can involve border closures as a cheaper option to hunting down the bandits. Difficult when unpaid local police or even soldiers may be involved.

Sometimes just getting out of wherever you are and getting to Thailand is just as much of a story as what happens once you get there....

Da had loved Max but had no illusions about him. When he had came back expecting to live with her after a brief earlier affair, which she considered at the time that she had never been properly compensated for, he had handed over a wad of US dollars telling her to get an apartment, furnish it with fridge and TV and get herself a motorbike.

Walking out of the immigration area Max strolled across to the collection of decrepit taxis and tuktuks lined up in the car park. The same old faces sauntered across to him and inquired where he wished to go. He negotiated an hourly rate, saying that he had indeterminate business on the way to Vientiane and directed the driver east, away from the city.

Max spent some time thinking over his breakfast rice and omelette. Not being a fan of Chinese steamed buns he had settled into a Thai restaurant, sending across the road for Chinese tea. He couldn?t see any problem getting down to Chiang Mai where he would get the train to Bangkok.

Jerry the Finn swaggered into the Tachilek immigration office and demanded his passport. The uniformed men and the office girl backed off from him in horror, not only was he staggering drunk but he stank of cheap whiskey and the vomit that stained the front of his tee-shirt.