Timothy Hallinan - The Queen of Patpong

"He pays her."

"Well, of course he does. Oom's pretty, but she has to eat, same as me."

The buzz of traffic from the street below floats into the room through the open window. Kwan can feel a warm energy coursing through her, a little kernel of electricity beneath her heart. She lifts her head and takes another swallow of the Nescafe. It's starting to taste better. "Oom's beautiful."

"Beautiful is easy. Keeping a good heart, that's hard. But you know what? In twenty years she won't be so beautiful, but you and I-you and I will still have good hearts."

"You think I have a good heart? How can you tell?"

"Kwan. You're as transparent as water." Fon kisses the tips of her fingers and then places them dead center on Kwan's forehead.

Kwan puts a hand over the place Fon touched. "I never had a friend like you before."

Fon is silent for a moment, but then she says, "Be careful. Lots of girls will act like… oh, well, you know. Nana." She smooths Kwan's wet hair. "Everybody in the bar wants something. They want to borrow money or they want some man who likes you or-this could happen because you're beautiful-they'll pretend to be your friend so they can drag you into threesomes."

"Threesomes?"

"Two girls and one man. Some of the girls who are ugly will do that, make friends with a beautiful girl so they can say to a man, 'You want me and my friend over there? Two ladies? No problem.' "

Kwan says, "That's awful."

"It's okay sometimes. It's less work, and it's a little safer. Most guys won't try anything with two girls in the room. And if he doesn't speak Thai, you can talk about him while you're working, as long as you don't laugh too much." She runs her palm over Kwan's slick hair again. "But," she says, "speaking of ugly."

"What?" Kwan holds up the cup, nothing inside but a thick black paste on the bottom. "Can I have some more?"

Fon takes the cup out of Kwan's hand and puts it on the three-legged table. "No. You're going to want to sleep eventually. Ugly. You know, Captain Yodsuwan. Talk about it. Get it all out, and then you can go to sleep."

"I slept at the hotel, a little. You're the one who stayed up."

"I'm used to it. You're a farm girl."

"That's what he called me," Kwan says, and suddenly the coffee seems to be rising in her throat. "Just after he called me a whore."

Fon puts her hand back on Kwan's forehead. "It doesn't mean anything. You're the same person today you were yesterday."

Kwan says, "Not exactly."

"Oh, well, if you never lose anything more valuable than that, you'll have lots of tears left over when you die. Why did he call you that?"

"I don't know. Because I am?"

"Oh, shut up. When? Where? What was happening?"

"We were in the bar. The back room. I was trying to decide whether I could do it."

"That was the mistake. You always have to make them think you want to do it."

"But… but they're giving us money to do it. Why would they have to give us money if we want-"

"Doesn't matter. They all want to believe you're thrilled to go with them. They want to feel like they just give you money because they're generous." Her hand, which is still stroking Kwan's damp hair, stops. "I shouldn't say 'all.' There are a few men who hate us. They're happy that we don't want to do anything. They like to force us. They love to make us feel like dirt."

"I did feel like dirt. Keep playing with my hair or I'll cry again."

"If you cry about that, I'll slap you."

"You would not."

"I would. Listen, baby sister, this is how it is. We're poor. We've barely been to school. We're doing the only thing we can to help our families. We may hate it, but we do it, and we don't do it for ourselves, at least not mostly. We do it for people we love. Them? They're rich. They have houses, families. They fly thousands of miles to come into the Candy Cane or the King's Castle so they can pay us money to fuck us. Who's dirt? Them or us?"

Kwan rolls over onto her side, her knees against the back of the couch, her nose inches from the warmth of Fon's belly. "I don't want to do it."

"Nobody does. Do you think this is what I dreamed about, back when I was a kid?"

"No." She looks up at Fon. "What did you dream about?"

"Doesn't matter. This is what I'm doing. Do you think it's made me into a bad person?"

"Oh, no." Kwan puts her hand on top of Fon's and presses down. "You're a wonderful person."

"Coffee," Fon says. "Maybe I shouldn't have given you coffee."

"I mean it. You've taken such good care of me. Nobody-" She swallows, hard. "Nobody in my family ever cared about me this much."

"Sure they did. They just didn't know how to show it. Kwan. You can do this job and still be a good person. You can do this job and still honor Buddha. You can do this job and keep your heart clean."

Kwan says, "He opened me with his finger."

"Because he couldn't-"

"He was too drunk, so he did it that way. Later he could, and he did. And it hurt. Then he drank some more and he couldn't anymore."

"Did you help him?"

"Help him?"

"Help him do it again."

Kwan turns her head to look up at her friend. "Why would I help him? And how?"

"Those are two different questions." Fon reaches over Kwan and picks up the coffee cup, looking down into it. "Was he angry?"

Kwan has to think about it. "I don't know. He didn't seem happy, but he didn't tell me to go away. He made me sleep there."

"Did he say anything about seeing you tonight?"

"No."

"Get up." Fon waits until Kwan's sitting at the far end of the couch, and then she takes the wet towel off her lap, folds it, and rises. "More coffee," she says. "This is serious. If Captain Yodsuwan is angry with you, you could have a very bad time in Bangkok." AN HOUR LATER Kwan puts down the cup and says, "They're like dog tricks. I feel like the new puppy."

"Can you do them?"

"Maybe. Most of them anyway. If he's clean. He did take a shower last night. That's the only nice thing he did."

"Get in the shower with him," Fon says. "They all love that. And you can wash him yourself, every place you're going to have to touch."

"Or eat," Kwan says. "It's funny, the first night Nana took me to Patpong, and I saw all the farang and smelled them, I wondered if they'd let me wash them if… if I had to."

"The answer is yes." Fon lights another cigarette. She's begun to look tired. "It's a way of paying attention to them. They're always happy when you pay attention to them. The point is to make them happy, from the minute they buy you a drink in the bar until you leave and the hotel door closes behind you. You want to be their best memory." She rolls over onto her side, up on one elbow on the floor. "Okay. Here's a quiz."

"Like school."

"Just like school. Where do you get undressed?"

"Wherever he wants me to."

"But you put your clothes…"

"By the door. The side with the doorknob, not the side with the hinges. Fold them and stack them. Put the shoes on top so I can pick up the whole stack one-armed while I'm opening the door, if I have to get out of there."

"When do you put them there?"

"When he's in the shower, if I can. Then I can get in with him."

"What would make you run?"

"If there's another man in the room when we come in, or if one comes in while we're there. If he hurts me. Pinches me, slaps me, pulls my hair, even if he acts like it's a joke. If he wants to tie me up or put things on my wrists or anything, I tell him I want to go to the bathroom first, and then I grab my stuff and run."

Fon yawns smoke. "Where?"

"The fire stairs." She points at the sign Fon lettered in English on the back of a menu. "There's always a sign that says 'Stairs' or 'Fire Stairs' near the elevator. I look at it when we arrive and see what direction I have to run in."