One late Saturday morning in Bangkok: I see him on the crowded platform at Asoke: tall, lean, bespectacled, red-T-shirted, aged maybe 50. He, like me is a farang, a western foreigner. Me, female,—26 years old, dressed in floppy, short culottes and a loose blouse. As the elevated Skytrain pulls in, we exchange glances. He smiles. Or does he? Inside the train, we are pushed next to each other.
So many tourists. At the next stop, more people push in and I am forced against him. I look up in apology and he looks down at me and smiles as if to say, that's okay, honey. He's looking down my blouse.
At Chit Lom station, more male farang force their way inside although there is no more room. The doors close. The train moves off. I cannot move. I am pinioned against him, my nose pressed hard against his red T-shirt.
A hand clutches at my crotch and something pushes into my bottom. It might be a women's handbag, but no, fingers are working into my ass. Is it his hand in my crotch? Now it seems that three hands are getting under my panties at the front and back. Panic sets in. I twist and turn. I try and look for help. An Asian woman gapes at me in dismay from beneath a floppy straw hat. She is just three feet away but cannot see anything below chest level—she can only imagine what is happening. The ride seems to go on for ever. I bunch my buttock muscles in protest. Another hand gets right into my crotch from behind. Fingers dig through my panties and brush my vagina.
At Siam, the interchange station, the doors open and I gulp relief. I step out on to the platform and the throng pours out. I try to identify the gropers but they fade into the crowd swarming for the exits. My head spins. I wait by the doors but I do not see him get off. I get on again, but cannot see him. I am shaking. I cannot clear my brain. The train is not so full now but there are still no seats. I stand just inside the doors. My head is down, my chest will not stop heaving. The doors close and the train pulls out.
At first, I do not notice the lady in the floppy hat standing next to me. She reaches out and strokes my arm. I am too distraught to be surprised. This seems to me to be quite normal. She talks to me softly, caringly. Her English is good, but I'm still not hearing everything she says. I have forgotten where I am supposed to be going. Way down below the Skytrain, the townscape slips by as a blur.
Her name is Mary, she tells me. She is in her late 30s, although it is hard to tell. Her eyes are hooded and sad, her makeup is heavy. She fondles both my hands and my mind clears a little and I begin to work out my emotions. I am shocked by the groping, but I am also shocked to realize that I am on heat. Mary's soothing presence is balsam, her voice swollen with assurance. As she talks my distress wanes and I feel myself sliding into a sea of tranquility, as if she is hypnotizing me, and I do not resist. She is just what I need, and she knows it.
We both get off at Mo Chit station. This is not where I wanted to come when I set off this morning, but the train goes no further. I am almost mesmerized. I walk with Mary. She seems to expect this. She gently rubs my arm as we descend the station steps, come out into the blazing sunshine and merge into the crowd heading for Chatuchak market. We walk past souvenir sellers, T-shirt stalls, past a fruit vendor butchering a melon with a machete. Mary is close to me. We enter the labyrinthine interior of the market, a lacework of narrow walkways between stalls packed with wares, simmering with the hubbub of huddled shoppers looking for bargains. Mary's hand brushes my ass. This excites me. We reach a stall packed with dresses tended by a pretty woman in her twenties who wears a T-shirt with "Knowledge is Power" across the breasts. Mary introduces her to me as Sissy. I say hullo. Sissy responds warmly and ushers through the curtains of dresses, to a door hidden behind a screen. She unlocks it and lets us enter a tiny room. In here, it is cooler. Sissy shuts the door and leaves us alone.
