Amazon
I had the oddest feeling as I left the restaurant and crossed the crushed gravel of the small parking lot and drank in the rich earth smell of the city. It was diesel fumes and shit, I thought, and decay. Everything here on this big town on the river with the canals- klongs, they call them- would return to mold and earth if left alone.
And of course that included me. The feeling I had was one of tension in my loins. Had I misread Rick? He was an intense guy, personable to a fault, a hail fellow well-met. I had dinner with his mistress, the lovely Oy, whose transition from country boy to lady of the mansion was seemingly complete.
He had been charming and gallant. But a little aloof. There was something about those eyes, so worldly and dark. And I was headed to an assignment with a katoy that could meet my desire.
How had Oy put it? It was delicious. A man being a women to make me, a man, feel like a woman? Shit, all I wanted to do was get a good fucking. I think that is just human, maybe the most human thing there is. I lit my Zippo lighter and looked at the piece of paper that I had been handed.
The address was on Soi 6, perhaps a half mile from where I stood. I stood under the faint light above the gate of Rick's Number One and waved for a pedicab, careful to keep my hand down so as not to offend the Thai driver. Traffic was brisk in the middle-evening as partygoers ventured out into the cool of the night. Acab lurched over, the peddler wearing a skirt and plaid shirt tied gathered at the waist. He smiled at me with betel-juice stained teeth.
I told him the address and he stood on the pedals and we lurched into traffic. I looked around at the throng, western tourists returning for dinner, Thais going home or out to sample the nightlife, men attracted to the heady aroma of sex that hung in the air of corruption. Maybe that was what made this place so sensual, the heat and the sweat and smell of the buses and crap.
I was tense as we pulled up in front of a low block of apartments. In the night I could only see that they had once been whitewashed, but there was the stain as they began the slow return to the earth.
I handed the driver five bhat for the trip and dismounted from the cab. There was a central doorway leading to a passage inked in darkness. The paper had said apartment 3 at this address. I checked my watch. I was a couple minutes early. I lit a cigarette and choked down the smoke, feeling the tension in my gut. I threw the butt down after a few drags. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. I took a deep breath of the rich air and walked up three steps to the open portal and walked down the hallway, peering at number on the doors.
Number 3 was second on the right. I could barely make it out in the gloom. There was a faint orange flow around the bottom of the door. I swallowed and rapped softly on the door.
I could hear motion inside, and the rattle of a chain on the other side of the door. The knob turned and the door opened to a candlelit room. I smelled the musky scent of incense, so rich as to be almost overwhelming. Before me was a woman who towered over me.
Her face was framed in an afro that formed a perfect corona and her skin was a rich ebony, like oiled teak. Her ears were pierced with large silver hoops. Her brows were plucked to high accents and her eyelashes were enormous, drawing me into intense dark eyes, her lids colored a deep purple, and her lips were voluptuous and colored brilliant crimson.
"Hello, Rob," she said in a husky contralto. I could see her adam's apple move behind a thick velvet choker as she spoke. "You are Rob, aren't you? Or did you forget the pizza?"
I smiled, frozen in the gaze of those eyes. "Yes, I'm Rob. Oy referred me..." I trailed off lamely. Was this a visit to the doctor's office? Panic began to rise and I looked down the towering frame to the tits that thrust at me aggressive as torpedoes.
They were gigantic, thrust up against the silk of a patterned blouse cut high so her mid-section was exposed. The muscles of her belly were defined, leading my eyes down to thin hips caught in a mini-skirt. Her legs went all the way to the ground, ending in platform shoes with a pronounced heel.
She might have been a little taller than me in bare feet, but with those shoes and that hair she towered above me.
She smiled, though not in a kind way. A neutral smile, perhaps, a professional courtesy, one that indicated nothing. "Come in, Rob. Let's get to know one another. Perhaps we have something in common. Mother Oy thought we might."
By her smoky voice she was American, and African-American at that. I have always had a weakness for men- people- of color, and I was stunned. She took my hand and pulled me into the room, closing the door behind me.
"Thanks for the response. I get that sometimes. But can you talk?"
"Um, yes, yes of course I can. I just was not expecting..."
"A six-foot five inch nigger?"
"No! I didn't mean that. My first lover was a black man, please, don't take it that way," I stammered. Shit, biggest event of my life and I am blurting it out in the first seconds. "Please."
She looked at me stoically and then there was a smile that actually held some warmth. "So you like black folks?"
I felt better, thinking of Alexander of the café au lait skin and thin imperious cock and passionate lips. "I love black folks," I breathed. "I love them."
"Fair enough. Would you care for a glass of wine? I'm drinking white."
"That would be wonderful." I think I exhaled for the first time since I knocked. She turned and walked toward a short hallway that held what looked like a kitchenette. The bathroom and the bedroom were probably beyond that, though the rest of the hall was cloaked in darkness. The whir of an old window-mounted air conditioner stirred the air and blew the rich cocktail of her scent and sandalwood in lazy coolness.
"Make yourself comfortable. Have a seat."
There were two couches pulled together in an L-shape around a low coffee table. A stick of incense burned there in a long narrow tray. There some silk prints on the wall depicting Thai dancers in the stylized costumes, cobra figures sprouting from their shoulders and erupting from the peaks of their hats. The Cobra was a powerful symbol here, one of strength and virility and danger. I walked over to the couch and sat down on one, on the edge, still ready to flee if I had to. I heard the opening of the refrigerator and the clink of bottle on glass.
She stepped around the corner, a wineglass in each hand. She walked toward me, extending one hand. Her nails were long and painted crimson to match her lips. I took the glass from her and brought it to my laps. She slipped by me, her navel at the level of my eyes, and delicately took a seat on the adjacent couch, so that the arms were between us. She looked at me levelly.
"Relax, White Bread. What you see is what you get. Maybe."
"All right. I'll try. This is not what I expected. I thought you would be Asian."
"Reasonable enough, I suppose. And in a way I am. I am going to be a woman in Asia, or at least the kind I can be here and I can't be at home." She arched her back, and her magnificent bosom strained at the material of her blouse. "I got these here. They are brand new. Cost a fraction of what they would have cost back in LA. What do you think?"
I took a sip of wine, hypnotized by the jutting mass of her chest. "Why, they are very impressive. Lovely, I mean." I tried to be polite about them, but they frankly freaked me out. When they pointed at me I felt like I was being illuminated by twin searchlights.
"They are nice work, if I must say so. But listen, White Bread, why don't you drink your wine and we can have a bowl or two and see if we can loosen up. She rose and walked to a reel-to-reel tape recorder on a console against the wall. She flicked a switch and the tape began to roll. Miles Davis, cool and cerebral passion flooded the room. She took a small box from a shelf and returned to her seat. She looked at me and I felt like a rabbit caught in the gaze of a cobra.
She slid the top of the box off and set it down on the coffee table. She fished around in the box and brought out a bamboo stick with brown materials wrapped in a bundle at the top. "Thai stick," she said. "The very best." She bent forward and removed the strand of wrapping from the bundle and gently crumbled the dark marijuana from the stick onto the lid of the box, careful to keep it all in a neat pile.
Then she removed a little brass pipe with a wide flat bowl. She took a pinch of marijuana and placed it in the bowl. She produced a wooden match and struck it artfully one-handed and raised the pipe to those enormous crimson lips. She carefully applied the flame and drew the smoke deep into her lungs. She held it there, gazing at me, and then exhaled slowly, the smoke hanging between us.
