Hello!, dear Fellow Travelers!
Tonight I’m feeling a little flat after the last two completely insane days, during which I slept maybe three hours in total. I think I have a bit of a fever and my throat is on fire, so from my usual little terrace at the Hyde on Soi 13, I want to talk about one of those experiences that, if you spend enough time in Thailand, sooner or later happens to you. And when it does, you need a heart of ice, a clear head, and a quick alternative, if you do not want to fall into it with both feet.
I’m talking about when you meet someone you genuinely like, and not just physically, because there are certainly better-looking ones ten years younger. In this case, though, it’s about having very similar tastes and the same kind of craziness, along with several other things you simply feel instinctively. The kind of woman who, if she were not in the business and I did not live on the other side of the world, might actually make me consider sticking to just one. Strong words coming from me, I know, considering I could not manage to want only one woman even when I was practically married many years ago. But deep down, I’m human too. Fortunately, this is not the first time it has happened to me. I have built up the defenses needed to enjoy the experience and then move on without getting stuck in it. But it made me think: what happens if this happens to a “newbie” visiting Thailand for the first time? Maybe someone coming out of a serious relationship that ended badly, someone who has always struggled to find female companionship, or perhaps someone who has never had anything to do with working girls and does not understand the game?
But first, let’s see exactly what I mean and give some context to the word “dangerous” in this situation. And there is no better way to do that than by telling you about this latest little adventure:
The other night I met up with a fellow traveler who is almost from my hometown and was passing through Bangkok. We stopped at a little bar on Soi 7 for a beer, and there was this girl who I’m sure many people would not exactly call hot: glasses, a bit of that little “mustache” you sometimes see with certain ethnic groups (she says she is half Laotian and half Cambodian, although plenty of Isan girls have it too; they just usually have the decency to remove it). Still, aside from those details, she was not bad at all, and even though my friend and I have different tastes, I would say we agreed on this one. I was planning to meet my friend Ice later on. She had left that morning and I had known her for a while, so I did not pay too much attention to this girl and let my friend interact with her without interfering. She was lively enough, though, and I could not completely ignore her. There was something about her that caught my attention despite everything. My friend confirmed that he liked her, but he is basically “allergic” to smoking, meaning he cannot stand the smell, and this girl smokes at least as much as I do. So we moved on to Nana Plaza for a round of Go Go Bars—Geisha, On Top, maybe another one, I do not remember—but since I was still planning to spend the night with Ice, none of the girls really inspired me. We left the Plaza. He said he was going to Hillary on Soi 11, while I wanted to go back to the apartment for an hour because I felt like I needed a shower. At the beginning of Soi 4, I ran into Ice, who was probably coming back from a “Short Time” and heading back to the bar where she works now. Not that she told me that, but when I quickly said hello, she saw that I was with someone and we did not stop to talk any further.
I finally take that much-needed shower, but after a while I start thinking again about the girl from the bar on Soi 7, so I go back to see if she is still there. I find her free and already a little tipsy. One beer, a bit of conversation—she speaks English better than I do, and I will later find out why. At 2:00 AM the bar closes, the pool table turns into a card table, and the place becomes a kind of “illegal gambling den” behind the curtain. Meanwhile, I get a message on LINE: “I see you!” It is the ladyboy friend who works with that little bitch Baimon at a bar on the other side of the square. I ignore the message and just go with the flow. Everyone is in a good mood, some of them clearly regulars, and most are at least a little drunk. The girl plays a couple of rounds of cards, loses 100 Baht, then gives up and tells me she wants to go party on Soi 11. “Ok.” She jumps straight into a tuk-tuk, pulls me in with her, and a few minutes later we arrive at Hillary 11. I find my friend again right near the entrance, looking a little surprised by this unexpected turn of events, I think. The girl orders a basket of beers so we can take a table; she is practically a regular there. Then an American guy, a little older than me, shows up and jokingly asks her with a sarcastic smile if I am her new boyfriend. She quite rightly says no, then tells me that he is basically one of her regulars who apparently spends good money whenever he wants to be with her. He says goodbye and leaves. I think he is someone who knows how the game works, so there is no problem.
Then the place “closes” and we move upstairs to the disco area. We drink, we dance, and she seems to appreciate the fact that I can keep up with her on the dance floor, despite not being young anymore and despite the fact that we are both already pretty drunk. Meanwhile, my friend is wrapped up with another girl, and not long after that he disappears with her.
At some point she asks me if I’m hungry. I tell her yes, and I take her with me to Nana Seafood, the one on the corner of Soi 17. She has absolutely no intention of walking and also needs to pee. As soon as we arrive, she runs to the bathroom and I find myself sitting alone at the table. At the table behind me is Jom (the last girl I had the pleasure of “testing” at Magic Table, although certainly not the best) together with two friends. Somehow she recognizes me from behind and comes over to say hello. I stand up to hug her and she invites me to join them. I do not even have time to tell her that I’m there with a friend before the girl comes back from the bathroom, and judging by how quickly Jom returns to her seat apologizing, I think she must have given her a murderous look to mark her hunting territory. After all, for them it is still work.
I’m starting to think that Bangkok’s “Sukhumvit area” is smaller than it seems.
Another beer, we eat sushi and a few other things. I’m still holding up reasonably well, while she clearly needs water and a shower because she is completely wasted. Halfway back, she asks me to carry her on my back, so I pick her up and start running down Sukhumvit with her on me while the African dealers along the side of the road keep saying, “’Sup bro, ’sup bro.” She knows two words of Italian, and one of them is vaffanculo. I do not think they had ever been told vaffanculo so many times in such a short space of time. I notice people looking at us strangely, some laughing, one guy almost seems to be cheering us on. To be fair, it is not exactly something you see every day, but most of them are drunk too, or freelancers and ladyboys waiting for customers, so… who cares.
We make it back to the Hyde, and even the night guard laughs when he sees us. I let her down and we head upstairs. As soon as we get in, she strips off and collapses onto the sofa. That is when I realize she was wearing nothing but those slightly ripped shorts, which means that while she was on my back she probably ended up accidentally flashing quite a few people on the street. I start laughing and offer her some water. There is soju in the fridge. She wants that instead. Oh well. Let’s get properly drunk…
The shower that follows gets both of us back on our feet, maybe a little too much, because I’m about to go at it with her without a condom too, just like with my friend the day before (long story, I’ll talk about it in the next recap). We move to the bed and, without going into unnecessary details, she makes me forget that my little friend Ice even exists, and she is someone I get along with very well, just to give you an idea. We fall asleep, maybe for half an hour, then I open my eyes again and she is there, naked on the bed. I cannot resist. I wake her up with my face between her thighs and we start again. I lose track of time, but eventually it is daylight. I realize that maybe I like her a little too much, then I close my eyes again for a while, only to wake up shortly afterwards.
She is still asleep, so I go out for a cigarette on the little terrace. After a while she appears behind the glass, gets herself something to drink, wraps a towel around herself, and comes out to join me for a smoke. We exchange a few words and a couple of kisses. She tells me she likes peace and quiet, and that there is none of that on Sukhumvit. I can honestly say she is pleasant to talk to. She is not the usual ignorant Thai girl; I would say she is someone who knows what she is doing. I find myself wondering why she lives such a chaotic life, and I honestly cannot come up with an answer other than “boredom” or “money.” We go back inside, take another shower to wake ourselves up, and I fuck her from behind against the glass. She says to me, “But people can see us from outside.” “Let them watch,” I say, although from the twelfth floor I doubt there is much of an audience looking at us, but those are details. Having sex with Nana and the surrounding area as the backdrop is priceless, but the sun starts getting strong, so we finish things off on the bed.
We get ourselves together, and she tells me she has to go home because her “sister”—who is not actually her sister, but the woman she lives with together with her whole family—wants her to go to the temple to pray. Naturally, I assume it is the usual excuse to disappear. It happens often enough. “Ok,” I tell her. Then she catches me completely off guard by saying, “Do you want to come with me?” I was not expecting that. I cannot tell whether she is joking or what, but she is serious. I think about it for a moment and agree. Before we leave, though, I put 2,000 Baht in her hand, just to avoid any misunderstandings. She thanks me and calls a taxi.
She lives around Rama III, not far from the river, and it takes about half an hour by car to get there. A typical Bangkok suburb. The building is too old to be called decent, but not exactly falling apart either. All the doors on the ground floor are open, something you probably would not have seen in Italy even forty years ago. There is a shared garden where everyone minds their own business and everything somehow belongs to everyone. The apartment where she lives is also occupied by her “sister,” her husband, and their two children. At the moment only the sister is home, together with the little daughter playing on a tablet. Naturally, you take your shoes off before going inside, but outside there is a whole row of slippers to use when you need to step out. There is a bed in the first room, which also serves as the kitchen and pretty much everything else. Then there are other rooms further back, maybe just one, but I do not feel like investigating. I ask to use the bathroom. There is a toilet with the usual spray hose and then two water hoses lying on the floor, no actual shower, but that is nothing new. I already have a vague idea of what these kinds of homes are like, so it does not surprise me. She unfolds a camping chair, places it in front of one of the fans, and tells me to sit down while she goes to get changed. The sister speaks a little English and we exchange a few words. I find out that she runs a food cart and that her husband and older son are at work. Then she tells me that the other one should drink less and that she is a bit crazy, but a good girl. Whatever. In one ear and out the other. Then she comes back out dressed like a tourist, wearing an oversized white T-shirt and those loose elephant-print trousers they sell to tourists at temples. She puts on a cap, says she is ready, then asks me if I drive so we can take the car. There is a pickup belonging to the sister’s husband, and it is not even a bad vehicle, but apart from the fact that I would never dream of driving someone else’s car in a place I do not know, I tell her I do not have an international driving permit and that in Italy we drive on the right. She obviously knows that, but apparently had not thought about it. So, taxi. It arrives and I get in with her, the sister, and the little girl. It takes about ten minutes to reach this temple by the river. The sister pays for the taxi; I offer to pay, but she stops me. The place is nice and peaceful. I am not particularly interested in the temple itself, I am just going with the flow, and she looks incredibly cute in this setting. Almost too much. I tell her that I am not interested in any religion. She gives me a strange look for a second, as though I had just insulted her mother, then goes over to a stall and buys some animal feed, a full bucket and a scoop. She tells me to follow her and we walk toward a sort of pier on the Chao Phraya, full of pigeons. She goes up to the railing and throws some feed into the water, where around a hundred catfish suddenly appear, all crowded together, while the pigeons attack the bucket she has left on the ground. Nothing particularly unusual. These are all familiar rituals to them. I know about them, but I am not especially interested. She, however, is genuinely adorable and seems to be having fun. A completely different person from the drunk mess in a top and tiny shorts with no underwear on Soi 7.
We take a couple of photos on the pier, then they go to kneel down and pray with the monk while I stay off to the side watching. She asks if I am okay with going to get something to eat. I agree, and we walk about five minutes to a place nearby, a restaurant overlooking the river. It is very nice, with a vaguely elegant atmosphere, the kind of place that in Italy they would probably charge €100 per person for just because of the setting. I have to admit, though, that the food is good as well. We sit outside with a view of the river, which is not exactly beautiful, but it does create a certain atmosphere. I find myself sitting there eating with her putting food on my plate, the little girl getting curious and wanting to ask my name, and her mother explaining to her how to say it in English, even though that is actually one of the few things I know in Thai, so it would not really be necessary. The whole situation feels absurd. I wonder what the hell I am doing there, then I look at her watching the scene, she looks back at me and smiles, and I get my answer. Too cute. Definitely too cute. In the end I spend 1,500 Baht, eat well, and have a few laughs. I would say that is fair enough.
We take a taxi back to her place. Once again, the sister pays. She asks me whether I want to stay there or go back home. I think about it for a moment. It would be interesting, but it does not really feel appropriate, especially since a moment later the others come back, some neighbors come out to chat, and the place starts getting a little too crowded for my taste. I ask her what she wants to do. She tells me that if I want to be alone, she will stay there; otherwise, she will come with me. I choose the second option. I still want her around. She calls a taxi. There is traffic, so it takes a while to arrive. She invites me inside, but honestly I feel out of place in the situation and, even though everyone seems friendly, I do not really feel like it. So I stay outside smoking. The taxi arrives, I say goodbye, and we leave.
On the way back, she says, “Sorry, I have to do something,” and since she had ignored several calls since the night before, I can imagine what it is. She calls a guy in the UK. She says he is her ex-husband, which could be true, or maybe he is just a long-term sponsor or something like that. She asks about his mother, they talk about a house in Hua Hin, while he has bought one in Koh Samui, and she asks when he is going to send her more money because she has already spent the 10,000 Baht he sent the week before. She tells him she is going to Sukhumvit to do some shopping, that of course she is alone, and a few other lies that make me feel a certain amount of pity and sympathy for the poor guy on the other side of the world. In short, the usual stuff I have heard before. Meanwhile, she keeps holding my hand as if I might run away or something. I have no idea what goes on in the twisted minds of these crazy girls. It is hard to say.
The call ends badly, with her telling him to send the money because she has to contribute to the expenses at her sister’s place, to stop bothering her, and that she will call him when she feels like it. She apologizes again. I tell her I’m not stupid, I know how the game works, and there is no problem. She laughs and gives me a little kiss. She tells me a bit about her life. I’m not particularly interested, but it is always curious to hear people’s stories, and I realize she knows Europe because she traveled around it with this supposed ex-husband. She is not a young girl, she was born in 1992, and considering the life she lives and has lived, she probably has more life experience than the average fifty-year-old Italian woman. But she has a body and a vitality that most thirty-four-year-old Italian women can only dream of.
We get back to my apartment. She looks incredibly cute dressed like that, but I still prefer her without clothes. Once again I lose track of time, and we spend a few hours having sex in pretty much every way that comes to mind. She keeps telling me I’m good in bed. I can believe it if I want, it does not really change much, and when a prostitute says something like that I take it with a grain of salt, even if the look on her face while she says it gives some weight to her words. The fact remains that she is at least as crazy as I am, and the whole thing feels very good. Eventually, though, I give in and collapse. I have nothing left to give. I have slept only a few hours in two days and I am exhausted. We stay there cuddling, wrapped around each other on the bed. Now she is disarmingly sweet, blissful and relaxed, apparently at peace with the world. If she were not in the business, I could almost lose my head over someone like her. But of course, however much she may genuinely enjoy herself and enjoy my company, just as I enjoy hers, I am still a customer and she is still a working girl, even with the particular Thai way of doing things that can sometimes blur the lines.
I tell her I need to rest, that I need some sleep, and that if she stays there I will not get any. She says okay, tells me she does not have to work but is going to see her friends at the bar, and that we will meet later. I close my eyes for a while but cannot sleep, so I go to say hello to my friend at the Orange, thinking that if I recover a bit I might call her later. I have a beer, but I am completely exhausted, and he tells me so too, which means it must be obvious. I head back, tell her I still need to rest, and she says that if I want, she can come over. I tell her it is probably better not to because I would be boring, say goodbye, and finally sleep like a baby. She probably went off to sleep with one of her regulars or someone else. It is part of her job, even though she says she does not go with men she does not like. Judging by the two guys I saw, that is not entirely convincing, but I assume they pay well, so fair enough.
This morning I woke up completely out of it, sore all over, and with my throat on fire. Sure, we had sex like two animals day and night, but I think it is probably just a bit of bad luck combined with the lack of sleep. In any case, I did absolutely nothing today. I went down to 7-Eleven to buy some paracetamol and then went straight back to bed. Now, after sleeping and having a good sweat without the air conditioning on, I feel a little better, and I hope to be back in shape by tomorrow. But apart from those details, it was a great experience.
The moral of this whole story is that if you find the right person, have fun, feel good together, spend time with each other outside the bedroom as well, and simply go with the flow, that is perfectly fine. I have been seeing working girls in European venues for twenty years and Thai girls for ten. It has happened to me before, and in some cases I admit it was difficult to keep my feet on the ground, but by now I can say I have gained a fair amount of experience. And I am not talking about sexual experience—that part is obvious. I mean experience in managing the emotions that can arise in situations like these, especially for people who are not used to this kind of environment or to the skill some working girls have in making clients fall for them in order to keep them coming back or turn them into sponsors. Of course, there may also be some truth when they show that they genuinely enjoy spending time with you rather than with someone else. That can happen. But just as it happens with you, it almost certainly happens with other people too, and that is perfectly normal.
The point is that if situations like these can stir the emotions of a “hardened whoremonger” like the Editor, what happens when the same thing happens to a “newbie” who does not know the game?
What happens is that it becomes difficult to think clearly and separate reality from lies, that the illusion starts to take over from what is actually true, and that you can end up losing your head over a girl who was in someone else’s bed the day before and will be again the day after, doing and saying the same things in an endless loop, because that is her life. As I always say, they are human beings too, so of course they have preferences, but in the end it is still work, and often the only thing they truly love is money. That is why they are Dangerous Girls. Unlike the stunning girl you find in a Go Go Bar, pay, have your fun with, and then watch disappear, these are the ones who somehow get stuck in your head and you do not even know why. You keep thinking about them over and over and cannot completely let them go, even when you know it is an illusion, even when you know it will not lead to anything good. We are human. It is part of the game.
In short, knowing that not everyone has the right mental armor to protect themselves, I simply want to warn those who are new to this world and those who are looking for affection rather than sex and fun, because they are the ones most at risk.
You always have to remember that if you stop thinking clearly and become fixated on one girl, in the best-case scenario you end up becoming her sponsor, sending her money while she carries on having fun with other men day after day. In the worst-case scenario, you can ruin your life by getting dragged neck-deep into a situation that is impossible to manage, convincing yourself that she is “different” and that you can “save” her from that life, even though she does not want to be “saved” at all, because that is the life she wants to live. It is her choice, at least until she becomes too old and tired not to look back and reflect on the life she has lived.
It is certainly true that in some cases things do work out. I personally know a few couples who met this way and have been together for ten or twenty years, but they are exceptions, and often the relationship also comes with children and extended families to support, at the very least. But a true whoremonger is not looking for love. He is looking for sex and fun. He does not want a wife; he wants a different woman every day, along with all the emotions that a different experience can bring, while still taking it for what it is: a fun game, a temporary escape, a different kind of entertainment, a glimpse at the other side of the fence, a good memory. When it becomes something more, that is when the problems begin, and that is not what we are looking for. Otherwise, we would be loving a wife to grow old with, not cheerful young working girls.
But now it is time for me to sleep, and for you to think about the next adventure, remembering to keep your brain switched on between one fuck and the next so you do not get caught in the web of the Dangerous Girls. And never forget that, to them, you are the prey, not the hunters, even if some of them are very good at making you believe the opposite. ^^
See you next time, fellow Travelers!
