The journalist's teeth chattered with fever. - Man, I hope you make it, said the photographer.
I'm all right, the journalist said. Do you see Oy anywhere?
You wait here. I'll ask around.
Well, he said after a moment, they say she'll be in at seven or seven-thirty. You want to wait?
Sure.
At seven, Toy came in. She said hi, smiling; she said no Oy today. She smelled like perfumed excrement. There was some-, thing so sincere about her that the journalist almost said to hell with it and asked her, but she would only have said no. He wrote her a note for Oy, showing her each of the note's words in the English-Thai dictionary: Oy — I worry you blood that night. Are you OK?
Will Oy come today? he asked her again, just to be sure.
Toy patted his arm. - Not today.
You come hotel me, Toy?
No, sir.
You my friend?
OK friend OK.
Oy is sick?
Oy no today.
Then Oy came, smiling. Toy went off to dance.
He bought out Oy, saying: I just take you back. Just sleep watch TV no fucking just sleep you know OK?
OK, laughed Oy.
She seemed in perfect health. That annoyed him after all his anxiety. Oy? he said. Oy? I'm sick from you. From your pussy.
Oy hung her head smiling. .
The photographer went back to the other bar to buy Joy, and the four of them walked down the hot narrow alley, the two boys in faded clothes a little dirty, the two girls in fancy evening wear; what a treat! — Oy went to a store to buy condoms; he said no need and she was happy. They got a taxi to the hotel. Joy rode in front with the driver. Oy pressed against him. He held her hand, gave her leg a feel; her dress was drenched with sweat. - You hot? he said. - She nodded; she'd always nod no matter what he said.
How long have you worked in Pat Pong? he said.
Six month.
How long has Toy worked there?
Ten month.
(Toy had told him that she'd worked there for six months.)
The photographer grinned. - So, how do you know she worked there for ten months if you only worked there for six months?
Oy blushed and ducked her guilty head.
He led Oy into the hotel while the photographer paid off the driver.
The journalist went grandly up to the desk. - Two-ten, please.
All the Thais in the lobby watched silently. Oy hung back, ashamed. They began talking about her. She raised her head then and followed her owner up the stairs, into the humid heat and mildew smell… At the first landing, when she could no longer be seen, she took his hand and snuggled passionately against him. .
He told her again that she'd gotten him sick, but that it was OK.
I go doctor; doctor me in here! she giggled, pointing to her butt. Later, when he'd gotten her naked, he saw the giant bandage where she'd had some intramuscular injection. It did not give him confidence that while her disease must be the same as his her treatment had been different. - Best not to think about it.
The photographer came in. - Same room? said Joy on his arm.
It's OK, the journalist told her. No sex. Don't worry.
That was truly his plan — just to lie there in the darkness with Oy, snuggling and watching Thai TV while the photographer and Joy did the same. Needless to say, once the photographer took a shower and came out wearing only a towel and cracking jokes about his dick, the journalist could see how it would actually be. He took his shower. .
The photographer laughed. - You should really get back in the shower, he said. You finished, man?
The journalist just nodded. He was feeling dizzy. He wandered out with his shirt around his waist; the girls laughed; Joy shook her head saying you baah which means you crazy and he hopped into bed sopping wet. Obedient Oy snuggled up to him in her fancy clothes. .
You take shower, he said to her.
Finally she did, wearing the other towel. The light was still on. Every time anyone flushed the toilet the floor always flooded; he could see the comforting sparkle of that water on the bathroom tiles. . She crawled in, snuggling him, and he slid a hand between her legs and was happy to feel her narrow little bush.
I go ten o'clock, she said. Toy birthday party. Toy my sister.
Whatever you say.
He lay sucking her tits while she held him. She let him kiss her a little but she didn't like it. Her body was slender, her nips just right. Her face looked rounder and older tonight; her voice was hoarser. She kept coughing. After awhile she started playing with his penis, probably to get it over with. He had an erection, but no desire to use it; his grapefruit-swollen balls seemed to be cut off from the rest of his body. He still didn't plan to do it, but when he got up to go to the bathroom with just the shirt around him, the two whores sitting eating room service (the bellboy had carefully looked away when he brought it into the half-darkened room, the photographer and the journalist lounging like lords with their half-naked girls beside them), the head of his dick hung down below the shirt and they started laughing and then he started getting wild like the class clown. First he began tickling Oy. Then he started lifting her around, and pulling the covers down to show her off naked; she laughed (probably thinks you're a real pest! said the photographer, shaking his head); she kept rubbing against him to make him do something, and then she'd look at the clock. .
Eventually, she rubbed against him in just the right way, and then he knew he'd have to do it. What a chore! But life isn't always a bed of guacamole. He squeezed K-Y into her cunt, handed her the rubber, and then she said she didn't know how to put it on. . Wasn't that SOMETHING? She tried sincerely, but she just didn't understand it. He did it and then thrust into her. She pretended to come and he pretended to come; he didn't care. In the carpet of light from the half-open bathroom door the other two were doing it in the far bed; Oy lay watching the photographer pedaling slowly like a cyclo driver high between three wheels, and she clapped her hand to her mouth and snickered softly; meanwhile Joy suddenly noticed that Oy was on top of the journalist and rolled off her trick and went into the bathroom and turned the shower on loud for a long time.
He really enjoyed playing with her body, lying there relaxed and feverish, doing whatever he wanted while the TV went ai-ai — if he felt like sticking a finger up her he'd just grease it and pop it in! — I have the clap! he announced to himself, and he felt that he'd won some major award. Light-headed and distant, he enjoyed snuggling up to her and smelling her, sucking her shaved armpits, pursuing with kisses her face which sought to evade him; every now and then he'd catch her and kiss her lips and she'd laugh. Whenever he'd touch her between the legs she'd start going urn urn and begin swinging her hips as if in ecstasy, but her cunt stayed dry and her face didn't change and her heart didn't pulse at all faster beneath his other hand. . He lounged, played, stroked in a delightful fog of disease like the foggy sprawl of Bangkok he'd be leaving in four hours, soaring east over big grey squares of water going into greyness, riding the hot orange sky. At the moment it was still dark. She tried to get him off again and he let her play with his useless and meaningless erection; later he lifted her onto his neck and ran around the room in his underpants with her on his shoulders clinging and laughing in fun or terror while the photographer and his whore laughed themselves sick.