Owen Jones - An Exciting Future

“Anyway, the ten-and-a-half hour flight to Bahrain was very comfortable. The food was not to my liking because I am a Buddhist that does not eat beef or dairy products and the only two other choices were Indian curry or vegetable pie. I didn’t mind though. It all looked very nice and I swapped my main course for Craig’s ice cream.

“Bahrain was a shock from Suvarnabhumi airport. Oh, my God! It was OK, really, but we didn’t have any of their money, Dinar, I think, so we just had to sit there and watch people for the two hours until the connecting flight to Gatwick. That is in the UK. The time passed slowly and I was a little cold because it was 20°c there, much colder then Bangkok. Virtually freezing!

Did I tell you that a man died on the flight? I nearly forgot. Shock or travel-sickness, I think. When they opened the doors to take him off mosquitoes as big as birds flew in! Oh my Buddha! I was sure we’d get malaria…

“Anyway, the second leg flight was also OK; not as good as the first, but at least I could eat the scrambled egg and pork sausage. I had Craig’s too, because he took my feta salad. Feta is cheese by the way. Greek cheese, isn’t it, Craig? Craig? He’s not listening again... Anyway, they eat a lot of cheese in Europe. The coffee was much stronger than I am used to too, but it was lovely. All in all, I liked Etihad Airways and would fly with them again, wouldn’t we, telak?

“It took five hours to get to Gatwick and if Bahrain was a shock, Gatwick’s 5°c was as good as icy to me. As soon as I got off the plane, I was looking for the Ladies! It was that cold, honest. If you haven’t been abroad, darlings, you have no idea what cold is. We are so lucky here in good old Thailand. Anyway, fortunately we only had twenty-five minutes to wait for the bus to Cardiff via Victoria Coach Station – that’s in London again, of course.

“The tour coach was good and the driver was friendly, but the weather turned so bad as we crossed the Severn Bridge, into Wales, that is, over the Bristol Channel, isn’t it dear? that we were late arriving in Cardiff. We got there just in time for the eleven o’clock traffic jam. Just as bad as Bangkok, but you’re in the dark, which makes it a lot worse!

“It was hor-ren-dous!

“So, then our friend Nick, you know Nick, he comes in here sometimes took us in his car through Dinas Powys and Penarth before coming into Barry through Cadoxton.

“Craig suggested getting out at the King William IV – called The Billy – that’s a pub, so that we could have a drink. It was typical of him; well, you know my Craig, but it was bitterly cold, and it was close. We had been travelling for thirty-three hours and now we were ten minutes from my Welsh Mum’s house.

“Ooh, I’m parched, well, when we got to Mum’s, which was a day and a half after we started out from here… No, more about that later.

“I met so many handsome men, Oh my gosh! Our friends Colin, Ray, Billy, Digger, Danny, Sam, Paul and Selby, the father of two famous Welsh boxers, Andrew and Lee (he gave me one of Andrew’s jackets – I’ll show it to you one day) - they were in O’Brien’s and Mike, or Henry as his friends call him, in the Buccaneer and so many others. Those places are in the centre of the town of Barry, of course, Holton Road, near the King’s Square. When they come over to visit us, we could introduce you, if you like....”

Lek had them spellbound. It was exactly what it must have been like to watch Hans Christian Andersen telling fairy stories to kids in Denmark, although Lek’s stories were true even if a little dramatised. They just stared at her, sometimes looking at Craig as if to say ‘What with him?’, but actually saying “Ooh, really?” and “Ahhh, really? None of them had been to Europe before, although it was the dream that every single one of them had.

In fact, they would happily go to live anywhere abroad so long as the job was better and there was more money, which everybody believed that it was ‘abroad’ – meaning Europe, Australia and the USA. Not many of them had heard of Canada or New Zealand. Second choice was northern Africa, but most of the girls had heard rumours of sex slaves there and none of them fancied that.

Beou arrived on her motorbike and the commotion started all over again. Some girls jumped up to pretend they were working and others got out of the way to allow the boss easier access to her favourite cousin. She put one arm around Lek and, as she leaned in to exchange kisses, took Craig’s hand with the other.

“Hello, both! How the devil are you? Did you have a good time? Sorry that I couldn’t be here to greet you when you arrived, but someone was late coming to see me. (They’ll never do it again though). So, he didn’t sell you into slavery then? Or did you do a bit of part-time sex-slaving? Did she tell you, Craig? She was rather worried that you would sell her as a sex-slave to a bunch of old men in a nursing home! She might not have minded if it was to a football team. Or what do you play over there in Wales? Ah, rugby, is it? Yes, rugby.”

Lek was blushing deeply and she thought she would die if any of the girls knew what was actually being said about her, but it was a bit too fast for most them.

“No, she didn’t say anything. What’s this all about, Beou? And how are you anyway?”

“Oh, I’m fine. A few of the old women back home warned Lek to be careful that you didn’t sell her into the sex industry. A lot of people are worried about it, but I told her that the old biddies in the village were just jealous.”

Lek could still barely speak so she covered her face below her eyes with a hand to hide her blushes.

“Oh, Beou! How could you? I didn’t really believe them, but you hear such terrible things, don’t you? And I never said anything about an old men’s home or a football team! And I didn’t even know what rugby was until a few months ago.” Then in English: “Don’t believe her, Craig..... Well, not all of it anyway.”

“I don’t know what you are all talking about. Don’t believe all of what? What did Beou say?” asked Craig

“Oh, don’t worry, I tell you later. It is not important now. Ladies in the village tell me to take care nobody sell me into sex slavery, that’s all. Don’t worry.”

“Oh, is that all,” he replied, still not completely understanding. One thing he had learned though was that if Lek said ‘later’, it usually meant either ‘no’ or ‘never’, so he just let it drop. He trusted her and her judgement and, besides that, they were back on her turf now where she knew far more than he ever would.

Beou sat down and a gin and tonic was put in front of her, she lit a cigarette and rang the bell, which was an uncommon thing for her to do. Half-a-dozen of the girls jumped up to see to their boss’ order, but they all came back to find out how the story would develop. Beou didn’t mind that, she was a pretty good employer and the majority of these girls were not there to clean glasses anyway.

Lek recovered quickly from her embarrassment and she seemed to have thrown off the effects of the tablets too. The adrenaline and excitement of being with her friends again had ‘sobered’ her up faster than a cold shower, a coffee or even a car crash ever could have. She was flying high and everybody else was up there with her, so Craig just settled back to drink his beer and watch the proceedings.

Customers came and went and girls got up to keep them company and either came back when the man had left or went with him. Some girls had their regulars, whom they were grooming so that they too might have an adventure like Lek’s. Everybody wanted what Lek had and they were hoping that she would pass on some secret, insider tips on how to accomplish it.

No-one was surprised that Lek had been the first to manage going abroad in years and no-one begrudged her her good fortune either. She was their big sister, the legendary heroine Lek, and they all wanted to be like her. Even the new girls had heard of her, they had just never met her in the flesh. This put Craig on a pedestal, because they all assumed that a woman like Lek would have had many chances to get out, but just didn’t take them for one reason or another. That meant that Craig must be something special.