Suddenly I was looking at Fatima, naked to the waist, her familiar breasts pointing at me, that slight smirk on her face as in the portrait opposite Bradley’s bed. “Just tell me, Doctor, while all this was going on-what was Fatima doing? After all, it was her body you two were discussing.”
“ ‘Passive’ is too insulting a word. But she wasn’t inclined to assert herself much, either. Bradley usually visited me on his own, but when she came with him, he was careful to include her. ‘That okay, darling? You’re gonna knock ’em out’-that sort of thing. I think she believed he genuinely wanted the best body for her, and probably had a better understanding of beauty than she did. Also, you have to bear in mind this guy was a very powerful presence. A giant and maybe even a kind of a genius in his way. It was hard for me to argue with him or contradict him. And she adored him, you could see it in her eyes. This guy, this god, came out of the night, turned her whole life around, gave her self-respect-after all, we’re talking about a street prostitute who never had anything, transformed into a kind of a star. She was ready to go along with him in just about everything. I wouldn’t say she was without personality, though. Not passive, just appreciative.”
“You never saw them argue?”
The doctor thought about that one. He frowned. “Not argue exactly, but you have to bear in mind the cultural divide here. Fatima has jungle roots. She would talk about them having sex when it was all over, she would go right to the point of the exercise in other words, and he was a bit of an American prude. He didn’t like to talk about their intimacy in front of me, which Fatima and I both thought was odd. After all, I was building the body he was going to worship, when it was all over. Fatima wanted to be sure her new vagina would satisfy him, would give the full pleasure, but he wasn’t comfortable talking about that. In all our discussions, it was the visual aspect he was interested in, he hardly mentioned what the experience of sexual intercourse was going to be like.”
“Is that unusual?”
He nodded. “Yes, very. The big question after ‘Will the patient be able to experience orgasm?’ is ‘Will the vagina feel real?’ The answer is yes in both cases, by the way. We use erectile tissue from the penis to provide the sensation of pleasure and orgasm. Since we use skin from the penis to form the vagina, it feels just like a real vagina, so long as a lubricant is used.”
“Sorry, I forgot to ask. When Fatima came to you she had already been taking hormones-estrogen I think you said-for some time. Was this something Bradley started her on?”
That frown again. “I don’t know. You’ll have to ask her.”
“Didn’t you ask her?”
His mouth tightened. “I didn’t need to. She was taking estradiol, which is a plant-based estrogen widely used in the U.S. and Europe. It’s quite sophisticated. Most local estrogens are still made from the urine of pregnant cows. There’s no difference in effect, but some evidence to show that the synthetics like estradiol are safer.”
“In other words, left to her own devices, Fatima would have taken the local variant? It does look as if she was coached from an early stage, doesn’t it, Doctor?” A grunt. “That didn’t bother you?”
It seemed that I had finally succeeded in piercing the doctor’s urbanity. He abandoned the intermittent English phrases and broke out in pure Thai. “Bother me? That she was the creature of her lover? You’re talking like a farang, perhaps because you’re half farang. Which of us isn’t the creature of someone else? He was giving her a better life, the life she wanted, that was the only issue for her, and she was prepared to pay any price. Those were my patient’s subliminal instructions to me, the rest is just farang nonsense, bullshit they cook up over there to justify an army of consultants, all of whom cost the earth. Thank god Thailand hasn’t come to that yet.” A swallow, then in a more temperate tone: “Do I really have to remind you what kind of life we offer to penniless illegitimate half-castes, Negroid half-castes, in this land of compassion?”
“Thank you, Doctor. Sorry for one last question, it really is the last: Did you have any idea how Bradley was able to afford you?”
I watched carefully for signs of insecurity and found none. Dr. Surichai simply shrugged. “He was an American. Americans have ways of getting hold of money, even if they’re poor. Perhaps he had a rich relation or something? It wasn’t my business to ask. He paid my bills regularly, on the dot.”
“About how much? Roughly, I don’t need the exact figure.”
Dr. Surichai rubbed his jaw. “Well, I had to charge for all the extra time spent with Bradley, all those two-in-the-morning conversations when he’d woken up with some new idea, or some aesthetic issue that was nagging him. About one hundred thousand U.S.”
“Compared with how much for a more average client with no lover to complicate things?”
“Maybe five percent of that.”
“Five percent? You and Bradley really went to town on Fatima, didn’t you?”
“Like I say, he was obsessed and could afford it.”
Jones is quiet for a long while after I finish. We’re almost at the outskirts of Krung Thep when she says: “That’s what you saw the other day at Warren’s shop? You took one glimpse close up and saw she was a transsexual? I’m a woman and I couldn’t tell. Even now, if I didn’t know and I spent a day with her, I don’t think I would realize. But you saw it and understood the case right away, didn’t you?”
I raise my hands, then let them drop. “The whole case, no. The outline perhaps.”
“You’re gonna tell me it’s your meditation makes you so sharp?”
“Not meditation. I’m from the street, like her.”
“Is that what it takes for a woman to turn you on, she has to be from the gutter? Don’t answer that. So, we have a designer victim?”
“Yes,” I say.
“And a business partnership intended to produce product after product, just like with the jade?”
“Life is cheap in this kingdom, and the life of a male whore particularly cheap.”
“Take a throwaway body, turn it into the object of your fantasies, do what you like with it, then when your sponsor the big boss says it’s time, let him use it in his own unique way, trash it and get ready for the next one? Play God and the devil both at the same time?”
“Yes,” I say, “exactly. What could be more intoxicating for men who, in their different ways, have had the best of everything? Except it didn’t work.”
“You give up your gender, your genitals, turn yourself into a eunuch for the man you adore, then find out what he has in mind for you.”
“By which time you have also found out he is a coward and terrified of snakes.”
“Yep, I would go for the cobras.”