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Money

Derrick Sherwin

    “You can take the girl out of the bar but not the bar out of the girl!” said the old Australian sagely.
    He flicked the few stray locks of hair that had somehow strayed from his ponytail back over his forehead, so spattering the young man seated next to him with droplets of sweat.
    “Not much you can tell me about these girls,” he continued, nodding towards the gyrating females behind the round bar.
     It was a typical Thai beer bar; brightly lit with Christmas tree lights festooned around it. A powerful sound system pumped out a continuous thumping beat of techno music. In the middle of the bar was a raised, concrete circular podium in the centre of which was a metal pole that the girls used for support as they did their bumps and grinds to the beat in a simulated sexual frenzy. The bar was one of a dozen or so in the complex surrounding a Thai boxing ring, all round, all garishly lit, all pumping out their choice of music and all stuffed with as many nubile, young Thai girls as was humanly possible to crowd into the tiny space.
    “Thai girls’ll smile at you, give you the old ‘come on’, jump all over you all night if you want but at the end of it all it all comes down to one thing – money! Money, that’s what they’re here for.”
    The young man nodded automatically, he’d been listening to the old man blabbing on about the trials and tribulations of relationships with the Thai girls for half an hour or so but his mind was on other things. More specifically on one of the sensuous, boyish figures dancing away behind the bar. The young girl was stunning. Slim of figure but with unusually full breasts and liquid hips. Her hair was coal-black and shining with health and seemed to have a life of its own as it swished about her face as she danced. Her eyes almond shaped and deep brown. Her mouth full and when she smiled she displayed a perfect set of gleaming, white teeth. She was perfect in every way. Several times their eyes had met and each time she demurely dropped the lids in a flicker of eyelashes and smiled directly at him.
     “Hookers! All of ‘em mate. All they’re after is your wallet. Been here fifteen years so I know all about ‘em. They’ll lead you one hell of a dance, mate, but when the old readies run out you won’t see their pretty arses for dust! Hookers!”
    He swigged the last drops of his bottle of Chang beer then slapped the polystyrene condom on the counter meaningfully.
    “What’s your name, mate?”
    The young man reluctantly tore his eyes away from the sensuously swaying hips of the girl.
    “Robert. Robert Hines. Another beer?”
    “Thought you’d never ask,” grinned the old Australian throwback to the sixties. “Hey Jimmy, stop wiggling your arse like a bloody girl and get us a couple more beers before we die of bloody thirst!” He leaned conspiratorially towards the young man and nodded towards one of the girls. “That one there’s a fella.” He chuckled lasciviously. “Here, you’ll laugh. Bloke in here the other night took a shine to Jimmy who was all done up in his sexy girly gear, you know, false tits, the lot. Anyway this fella wouldn’t believe us when we told him Jimmy was a ‘he’! Took old Jim back to his bungalow three nights in a row and he still wouldn’t believe it! Swore he was a girl!”
    “Do you know that girl?” asked Robert, indicating the girl with the liquid hips.
    “Fresh meat! Only come at the beginning of the season. You’re all right there, mate, she’s a girl right enough. Name’s ... Goy! That’s it, Goy. Why, you interested?”
    “She’s unusually pretty. Still naîve. She hasn’t got that hard, brittle look of all the other girls.”
    “Told ya, she’s fresh meat. They all come down here out of the sticks, straight out of the jungle, mate. Come in November for the beginning of the high season, spend five or six months fleecing the punters then bugger off back to the family with enough dosh to keep them for the rest of the year if they’re lucky. But you want something with a bit more experience, mate. Here, girl I know on one of the other bars down the street earns upwards of forty grand a month! In the season she takes home maybe three or four hundred thousand. That’s five or six grand in your English money. May not sound a lot to a rich Pommie like yourself for all that heaving and humping she has to do but to a Thai from the sticks it’s a small fortune!”
     “She sounds very ... experienced.” Observed Robert, his attention still on the nubile young girl who now seemed to be dancing only for him.
     “Not half! What she don’t know about the old boomsing ain’t worth knowing. Mind you, she’ll cost ya. She won’t even leave the bloody bar for less than a couple of grand. She’s been on the game for over twenty years now – nearly forty she is although you wouldn’t know it. Got a bloody great house up North – cost a million to build – and three kids, all from different blokes! Ya gotta hand it to her, she’s a good businesswoman.”
     “She sounds quite exceptional,” said Robert, his mind only half on what the aged Australian was saying.
    “You can say that again. Mind you, most of these girls barely make a living. Half of ‘em will end up alcoholics if they don’t break their bloody necks on them motorbikes they flash around on. Some’ll get lucky and marry one of the punters and end up being miserable back in Europe or wherever and bugger off back here ‘cos they’re bored or too bloody cold. The rest, well, they was never going to make it anyway and they’ll end up back with the family scraping a living from the land planting rice and that. I mean, you can’t blame ‘em. What would you do if you was given the choice as a kid of coming to a place like Lamai, where there’s night life, blokes, booze and parties all the time, or staying in some shithole of a village up to your arse in mud in a paddy field most of the time? Ain’t much of a choice, is it?”
    “You know almost all the girls then?”
    “Most of ‘em. Certainly them as comes back regular every year.”
    “Perhaps you should provide a service to the more nervous tourists, introduce them to a nice girl?”
    “Ain’t no such thing down here, mate! I told ya, they’re all hookers. A bloke wants a bunk-up he don’t need my help! He won’t be nervous or shy for long – not with these girls. Besides, too much hassle. Pick a wrong ‘un and you gotta carry all the flack! Pretty rough some of these kids, and light fingered? Christ, you wouldn’t believe it! Steal you blind give ‘em half a chance. So, watch your wad! Some of ‘em work with their Thai fellas, pick a likely mug, suss him out and one dark night...!” He spread his hands and shrugged. “So, watch your arse, mate!”
    “Thanks for the tip,” said Robert with a somewhat sardonic smile.
    He caught the dancing girl’s eye once again and inclined his head in an invitation for her to join him at the bar.
    The Old Australian grinned. “Taken a fancy to her, have you mate?” He chuckled a throaty, tobacco induced laugh. “Don’t pay her more than five hundred and two fifty to the Mama Sang for her bar fine.
    The dancing girl slid from the central concrete podium, curling gracefully down the metal pole to the floor all in one well-practiced movement. She came to the bar, smiled invitingly at Robert and leaned forward across the bar giving him a close-up view of her obvious upper torso attributes She extended her hand towards Robert.
    “Name Goy. You English?”
    “Partly,” answered Robert. “Robert. You speak English?”
     “Nit noy. Little bit,” she said demurely.
    “Perhaps you’d join me for dinner then?”
    She frowned, not understanding.
    “Gin cow, you silly Thai bird!” croaked the Australian. “Gotta learn a few words of Thai, mate, most’ve ‘em have only got bar English.”
    “Thanks,” said Robert. “I think I can manage.”
    He pulled the girl gently towards him over the bar until his mouth was close to her ear and whispered to her.
    The Australian leaned closer but couldn’t hear what was being said.
    “Watch it, mate, remember what I said.
    The girl giggled and nodded.
    “Thank you, I will.” Robert took out his wallet and extracted a large note. “Would you mind paying my bar bill? There should be enough left over for a couple or more beers for you.”
    The Australian took the note gratefully. “Right on! Sure, mate, anything for a friend. And I wouldn’t flash that wad around like that if I was you. They’d mug you as soon as look at you if they see what you’re carrying.”
    “Oh, I think I’ll be all right,” smiled Robert as he motioned for the girl to join him.
    “Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
    Robert left the bar with the young girl as she joined him.
    “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” warned the Australian as he swigged back the rest of his beer and slapped the condom on the bar again and indicated for a refill.
    As he turned away from the bar he noticed two unusually smartly dressed Thai young men leave the other side of the bar and discretely follow Robert and the girl.
    “Oh shit!” muttered the old Ausie as he turned back towards the bar, searching the crowded centre area. “Hey, Mama!” He waived his hand to catch the Mama Sang’s attention. “C’mere a minute.”
    The busty Mama Sang threaded her way through the gyrating girls towards him. “What you want Nobby? No credit, OK?”
    “No, no it ain’t that. I got me a stake here. That’s the problem. Bloke who gave me this flashed a large wad so every light-fingered bugger in Lamai could see! Then he left with young Goy and them two smartarses followed him!”
    He nodded towards the retreating figures of Goy and Robert with the two Thai men following.
    “I reckon he’s in for a bit of a dust up!”
    “Do you Nobby?” she laughed.
    “Nothin’ to laugh about Mama. Straight up, they was right on his tail like they was glued to him!”
    “They better be, they want keep job.”
    “Eh?”
    “Robert very powerful young man. Robert Hines-Wong. You no know him?”
    “Never seen him before in me life.”
    “Papa him English. Mama Thai. Robert educated Oxford England. Very clever. Speak good Thai.”
    “He speaks Thai? Well, I’ll be buggered. And he let me go on like that! Cheeky sod!”
    “He come every year beginning new season. Look new girls for smart club in Bangkok. Him like Goy – sure. Take her Bangkok, work for Mama him. She lucky girl.”
    “Yeah, well ... But what about the two goons who followed him?”
    “They bodyguard. I think him be safe enough, Nobby.” She roared with laughter as she left him and made her way back through the corded bar.
    “Well, I’ll be buggered,” muttered Nobby to himself.
    He fingered the thousand Baht note that Robert had given him then grinned and shrugged.
    “Ah well, not a complete cock-up Nobby my old mate. Hey Jimmy!” he hollered across the bar again.” Come on, I’m dying of bloody thirst here!”

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