girl in club
I tell myself that punching the fucking ATM won't help, but I do it anyway and I hurt my knuckes so I kick it forgeting I have sandals on and stub my toe so I shout the 'F' word and the 'C' word and pepper it with blasphemy.
I have just 518 baht, that's it - five hundred and eighteen baht to my name. I don't know what I am going to do but whatever I decide, I will have to stop going out and budget fiercely, it is time to be sensible and first thing tomorrow morning I must find a job.
About an hour and a half later I am dancing, pissed out of my noggin next to a heavily tattooed prostitute on the huge bar at the cavernous, tubthumping Sub Club behind McDonalds on Lamai beach road.
I jump down onto the floor which is further than I had judged and upon standing up straight and finding my balance as the shock ebbs away from the soles of my feet I turn to find myself facing a very attractive, very well proportioned young Thai woman.
Of course, almost all Thai women are very attractive to the newcomer but the bar is raised considerably when Thailand has been a second home almost four years and beautiful women are second nature, however, the type of women I find attractive are those that are objects of obsession with backpackers, objects of lust with expats, they are heartbreakers and holiday spoilers - fashionably arrogant, cool headed, cold hearted bitches who know the score before the game even starts and this femme fatale looking at me - then up at the bar - then at me again with a wry smile appears to be no exception.
She's not dark skinned enough to be a local, she's probably flown down from Bangkok with her Uni mates for the weekend. She is round and buxom where women should be round and buxom, her provocative 'come fuck me' eyes look hungry for adventure and give her face the kind of recalcitrant look that lends me the impression she was more than likely expelled from school - and she's still looking at me.
"I've got no money and I'm not on holiday!" I shout above the din, hoping that I am not slurring which I don't think I am, but hey, who am I to judge.
She shrugs her shoulders and puts her mouth to the straw taking a slow slurp of her Bacardi Breezer without breaking her eye contact... When she has swallowed a sufficient amount she slowly puts the bottle back on the table and only breaks eye contact to open her bag, taking out a chrome lighter.
"I just come here with friend, I not working same every girl" She says, lighting a cigarette.
"I never said you were you stupid tart" I reply, confident and sharp and pleased with my confidence and sharpness.
'I'm The Hutchinson Whump, what's your name?' I shout between sips of my G&T which I have stolen from the table behind.
'Anne' she replies, smiling at me with those 'fuck me' eyes.
And so begins a conversation of sorts, a flirtatious but moderately intelligent conversation that is cut short some twenty minutes later when the lights go up and the music stops.
"Where are you staying?" She asks, and I realize with horror that I am wearing the oldest, ugliest wash faded pair of shreddies that I own.
"With my friend" I reply, "Do you have a number - maybe we can meet for lunch tomorrow?" I cross my fingers hoping it works, it usually does and it does.
"I am renting bungalow not far from here" She says, looking over her shoulder at her friends who are waiting for her. "Wait for me outside, five minutes ok?"
Sold! ...To The Hutchinson Whump!!!
Now this is great, but a little to good to be true so I don't expect her to be there five minutes later yet sure enough, five minutes later there she is, and five minutes after that we arrive at her modest rented room where I take a shower while she nips out to 7-Eleven returning with two bottles of Spy Red and two toothbrushes.
I have always found erotica in literature rather cringe worthy to read so I will leave it there.
5:28pm the next day
For some reason there was something about her I doubted and despite her ardor when we awoke in the early afternoon I'd had a hunch she would not be at her friends cafe later where we had arranged to meet at 5pm, and sure enough - she never did show, and I figured that she was probably so westernized (in all the wrong ways of course) she'd simply wanted a one night stand; a shame because she would have made a great twenty eight night stand or a stand for however long I was going to be stuck on this island for.
About a week later I saw her again with some shirtless expat, twatspat, halfwit, fuckwit, wanker poseur with a ****y London accent who runs some crappy half-baked shitty faux English pool bar.
She and I exchanged pleasantries for a moment and I tactfully refrained from mentioning our first and final rendezvous because I could see from her slight discomfort upon my arrival that her companion was in fact her b-o-y-f-r-i-e-n-d - this over confident, brainless, shitbag wannabe expat gangster who probably does a bit of Muay training for the sake of show yet would never get in the ring and simply doesn't need to be here (Planet Earth, not Samui) was putting his arm round his 'trophy' and giving me one of those cocky smiles that say, 'she's mine mate, dream on', and so I give him a look that bears no relation to what I am thinking, but she knows what I'm thinking and that is enough.
Only a wink would have completed the look she gave me over her shoulder as I looked over mine upon leaving. It was the briefest of glances which acknowledged our secret, mine saying to her - 'I get it now, you bad girl you' and hers saying in return, 'Yeah I know, sorry, but nice meeting you - perhaps next time he's away'.
I turn on my heel and walk away with half a grin on my face, flicking my bike keys into the air and catching them again.
***