He reached over her to turn out the light, and she cuddled him. He sucked her little nipples and she moaned. He kissed her belly, and eased his hand in between her legs. She'd shaved her pubic hair into a narrow mohawk, probably so that she could dance in the bathing suit. He stuck his mouth into her like the midget had, wondering if she'd push him away, but she let him. He had to suck a long time before he got the cunt taste. She started moaning again and moving up and down until he could almost believe in it. He did that for awhile until she pushed his face gently away. He got up and opened her with two fingers to see how wet she was because he didn't want to hurt her. Not surprisingly, she wasn't very wet. He reached under the bed and got the tube of K-Y jelly. He squirted some in his hand and smeared it inside her.
What's that? she said.
To make you juicy, he said.
When push came to shove, he didn't use a rubber. She felt like a virgin. When he was only halfway in she got very tight and he could see that she was in pain. He did it as slowly and considerately as he could, trying not to put it in too far. It was one of the best he'd ever had. Soon he was going faster and the pleasure was better and better; she was so sweet and clean and young. He stroked her hair and said: Thank you very much.
Thank you, she said dully.
He got up and put on his underwear. Then he turned on the light and brought her some toilet paper.
She was squatting on the floor in pain.
Look, she said.
Blood was coming out of her.
I'm sorry, he said. I'm really sorry.
No problem, she smiled. .
I'm sorry!
Maybe I call doctor.
He got her some bandages and ointment. She prayed her hands together and said Thank you.
He gave her one thousand bhat. She hadn't asked for anything. - Thank you, sir, she smiled.
Enough for doctor?
This for taxi. This for tuk tuk.
He gave her another five hundred and she prayed her hands together again and whispered: thank you.
He gave her some ointment and she turned away from him and rubbed it inside her. When they finished getting dressed she hugged him very tightly. She turned her face up to let him kiss her if he wanted. He kissed her forehead.
She hugged him again and again. When he'd shown her out to the tuk-tuk, she shook his hand.
Well, he said to himself, I certainly deserve to get AIDS.
I can't help but feel it's wrong, he said.
Well, we're giving 'em money, aren't we? said the photographer, very reasonably. How else they gonna eat? That's their job. That's what they do. What's more, we're payin' 'em real well, a lot better than most guys would.
What did the journalist really want? No one thing, it seemed, would make him happy. He was life's dilettante. Whatever path he chose, he left, because he was lonely for other paths. No excuse, no excuse! When the photographer led him down the long narrow tunnels of Kong Toi (they had to buy mosquito netting for Cambodia), he got bewildered by all the different means and ways, but everyone else seemed to know, whether they were carrying boxes on their shoulders or hunting down cans of condensed milk, dresses, teapots, toys; it was so crowded under the hot archways of girders that people rubbed against each other as they passed, babies crying, people talking low and calm, nothing stopping. How badly had he hurt Oy? He had to see her. Lost, the two vampires wandered among framed portraits of the King, greasy little blood-red sausages, boiled corn, fried packets of green things, oil-roasted nuts that smelled like burned tires, hammerheads without the handles. . But it was equally true that the vampires felt on top of everything because they were fucking whores in an air-conditioned hotel.
In the bar after the rain, the girl leaned brightly forward over her rum and coke with a throaty giggle; everyone was watching the gameboard, smoking cigarettes while the TV said: Jesus Christ, where are you? and the girl said to the photographer: Tell me, when you birthday?
She said to the journalist: You smoke cigarette? so he bit down on his straw and pretended to smoke it, to make her laugh. .
The girls leaned and lounged. The photographer's girl was named Joy. She kept saying: Hi, darling! Hi, darling! — Her friend's name was Pukki.
Come here, darling, said Pukki. What you writing?
I wish I knew. Then I'd know how it would turn out, said the journalist.
He likes to write long letters to his mother, said the photographer.
The girls had brought the photographer a steak. He didn't want the rest of it, so he asked Joy if she wanted to eat it. Pukki cut pieces for her, nice and fat; she screamed teasingly because it was hard to cut.
You buy me out please, Pukki cried to the journalist.
I love Oy, he said. Tonight I buy Oy.
(That's real good, said the photographer admiringly. That's the way to show 'em!)
The journalist got a little loaded and made the bar-checks into paper airplanes and shot them all over the room. Patiently one of the girls gathered them all up; she smoothed them and put them back in his cup and he said: You boxing me? and she giggled no. More girls swarmed around, cadging drinks (he bought them whatever they asked for), sliding their arms round him, snuggling their heads on him, stroking his money pouch slyly.
The photographer squeezed Joy's butt and Pukki's tits and all the other girls cried in disgust real or feigned: You butterfly man! — He bought Joy out, and Pukki screamed at the journalist: Please you no buy me out whaiiiiieee?
I'm sorry, he said. I promised Oy. I'm really sorry.
He slipped her a hundred bhat and she brightened. .
So they went to Oy's bar, the photographer, the journalist and Joy. Toy said: She no work today.
Is she OK? said the journalist. I worry about her. I hurt her pussy. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. .
She no work today, Toy smiled.
The manager came and said: Oy? Which Oy? — Evidently there were so many Oys. .
The photographer went and looked (he was very good at picking people out), but he couldn't find her.
Racing the unhappy accelerator in stalled traffic, the taxi driver ignored the tree leaves wilted down into balls in the air that smelled like a black fart. The journalist sat up in front with him so that the photographer and Joy could fondle privately. The letters on the bus beside him swirled in white flame. Wet noises came from the back seat. The driver stared from the righthand window, disapproving, envious, appalled, or indifferent.
He say me where you go I say Metro Hotel, Joy announced.
Finally the light changed, the driver shifted gears so that his weird mobile of shells tinkled as the taxi sped past dogs and corn-stands. A big canvas-covered truck loomed in the darkness. The driver looked ahead when they stopped again: his lips were wide and rounded. Raindrops shone like dust on the other cars' windshields. A foreigner made chewing motions in back of a tuk tuk and then he was gone forever as the taxi driver made a roundabout and rushed between twisted pillars, honking his horn in the fog. He took them down secret-arrowed alleyways to the hotel. .
All night the TV went aah! and oi! to dubbed movies while the prostitute lay wide-eyed in the photographer's bed, bored and lonely, snuggling her sleeping meal ticket while the journalist, unable to sleep on account of the TV and therefore likewise bored and lonely, could not ask her to come even though the photographer had offered because he didn't feel right about it the way she snuggled the photographer so affectionately (when he got to know her better he'd understand that she wouldn't have come anyway) and besides he was worried about the growing tenderness in his balls. He jerked off silently to Joy; it didn't hurt yet, just felt funny, so he could still pretend that it was nothing; as soon as he was done he wanted to get inside Joy as much as before, and then he had to piss again; that was a bad sign; as soon as he pissed he felt the need to piss again.