Lost in Pattaya by Kishore Modak Page B

crescendo of the song.
    Then she lay
besides me, in the vacant silence between songs, topless, reducing the volume
and dimming down lights, allowing me to play David Bowie, the gold of her
pubescent breasts still heaving in the exertion of her silly dance.
    “How old are you?”
    “As old as you
want me to be?” she asked, jamming one palm between her skirted thighs, squeezing
with the force of rubbing legs, while the other palm landed gently over her own
breasts, caressing mounds.
    This is Major Tom to ground control; I’m stepping through the door. And I’m floating in a most peculiar way.
    Rock music came
belting out of my stereo. “Do you get high every day?” I asked.
    “No, in fact very
rarely, that too only pot; coke is a treat like the moon,” she said.
    “Do you come
often, when you are with customers?”
    “No, except when I
am on coke,” she said. “What do you want to do, oral, anal, in my tits,
missionary, doggy, yogic what would you like?” she asked quite directly.
    “You don’t talk
like a teenager, come on tell me how old are you?” I asked again, aroused, yet
determined not to have sex with a kid.
    My guess, she was
anywhere between sixteen and nineteen.
    “I am as old as
the pimp told you,” she said. “Come on let us get on with it. Just fuck me and
do what you imagined you want to do,” she started to undo my shirt.
    Why did she want
to get on with it?
    Because, if she
satisfied me, then her age would not matter, meaning I would have no reason to
fuss over payments, not that I intended to, just that her experience taught her
not to leave sexually dissatisfied customers, it was bad business and tarred
her reputation.
    “Wait, I need to
visit the toilet,” I left, and masturbated in the toilet, dwelling on acts that
she had suggested earlier, ridding myself of the pressure that temptation
built.
    “Do you want to
eat, are you hungry?” I asked, after I emerged, knowing that within the hour the
coke would lead back to the territory of sexual craving. If she remained with
me, naked and comely, it could be quicker than the hour.
    “Yes,” she jumped
with glee and picked up the phone again. She ordered sandwiches and ice-cream,
which arrived in about ten minutes.
    She ate by
herself, devouring mindlessly with no care for the calories or fat that she
consumed.
    My appetite had
been killed by the coke, a week ago. “Is it Ok if we just spoke for a while
first?” I asked.
    She stopped
eating, threw the half eaten sandwich back on to the plate and looked up. “Look
I don’t like this kind of thing. You will talk and then you will say you want a
refund since you did not have sex. Come on, I can make you happy,” she thrust
her index finger into her mouth, licking clean the mayonnaise from her
sandwich.
    “I am not going to
ask for a refund, if you want you can have your tips in advance,” I reached for
my wallet and gave her a ten dollar leaf.
    “Okay, but I have
one condition. We can talk for an hour and if by then you decide not to do
anything, I will leave, at least I can have my regular customers and make some
more money tonight. OK?” she asked, grabbing the note before returning to her
meal.
    “But, I paid for
the entire night,” I protested, mildly.
    “Hey Mister, if you
don’t want to do anything, just go to bed and let me go. I can earn a bit more
that way,” she said.
    Slut, it was
pointless reasoning with her, and in any case, the hour would be enough to seek
what I lost.
    “Since when have
you been in the trade?” all the while I held my wallet, waiting for the moment
to whip Li Ya’s image out, asking if she had seen her.
    “A few years.”
    “Why do you want
to do this? Why don’t you seek a better life?”
    “Yes, I will go
back to my village in Vietnam in about ten years and there I can live like a
Queen of the grocery store I will buy. My agent paid a large sum to my uncle
before shipping me here, so I have to pay back his charges and then save for
the