An elder of the village walked up to her. He did not smile. “What do you want?” he asked. ”If you are not here to take the children…why are you here?” They were rejecting her. She’d been foolish to think she could walk into a village and be accepted. The past seventeen years had changed her too much to enter this idyllic paradise.
She had changed enough to recognize the squalid conditions that soiled her imaginary Garden of Eden. She saw the untreated cuts on feet and legs and bodies. The ripped clothing was far from traditional, more likely cast offs from backpackers who considered it garbage. There was little beautiful beyond the children who stood around her looking up with wistful eyes. “Will you take me to your city?” a little girl asked her. “My father will let me go cheap. I want to go to the city.”
Star closed her eyes. She too had wanted to go, she’d been excited to go, but she had not known the life that awaited her. A brutal life of sex, drugs, and leering old men staring at her through plexiglass and then leading her to dimly lit hotel rooms.
The money she received from the Thai’s had been barely enough to feed herself. Locked up like an animal most of the day and only allowed to leave once she was so hooked on heroin that they knew she would return. Finally being moved from the brothel to the bar when her “young” appeal had dried up at age 15.
It was the bar that had given her the opportunity to free herself. Two years of selling herself for next to nothing. Two years of loveless love before she saw her opportunity, and took it. She allowed the Dutch man to fall in love with her. He was old and ugly, but he took her to Holland with him.
They spent two weeks in courtship before he proposed marriage to her. She accepted and after they were married, he flew her to Amsterdam. His house was huge. He was only there on the weekends. He spent most of his time in Rotterdam, managing his many business affairs while Star occupied herself bringing hundreds of Johns to his mansion, making more money than she had ever thought existed. The Dutch gilders multiplied in her small bag until she had to arrange a suitcase for the money and finally to get the cleaning lady to help her open a bank account.
When her husband died she inherited the Amsterdam house. Seven girls had moved in. She ran a respectable house. Madame Star’s House.
She walked to the village gate and reached out to touch an ornament, knowing that the touch of a woman on the sacred objects was forbidden. Knowing that it was expensive to coax the spirits into forgiving the touch of a woman. The Lao people behind her got excited and she could hear them asking her to step back. Her fingers wrapped around the palm ornament.
“I am very sorry,” she apologized, “It is just so beautiful.” She knew what had to happen now. She walked back to the elder’s hut and opened her bag. The small gold coins felt heavy in the knit bag. She pulled out a handful.
“I’m sorry,” she said as she began to drop the coins in hands reaching towards her. ”You must accept this gift to ward off the spirits I have angered.” She continued handing the coins to the hands that reached towards her again and again until only a small number were left.
She knew that even with this new found wealth, the villagers would continue to sell their daughters to the men from Bangkok, but she hoped that it might save just one of them from the life she had been forced to lead. She walked to the headman.
“Use these to buy a pig for a sacrifice,” he looked in her eyes with a confused expression. “And give me a bottle of Lao-Lao.”
He turned and went to his hut bringing back a bottle of clear whiskey and handing it to her without a word.
Star put the bottle in her now empty bag and walked from the village careful to detour around the gate that would keep evil spirits from bothering the inhabitants.
Eric the Exploiter
“You go lay down in the hammock and I will come over to fuck you,” Eric, the fat Belgian told the Thai woman. She looked at him for a moment, then at the ten other white people at the table.
“You go fuck yourself,” she replied. Her response caused ripples of laughter, but several of the other guests were looking anything but amused. She grabbed the bottle of lao-lao and took a quick swig.
“Give me some lao-lao, or I will come take it.” Eric started to get up.
I stood up too, shoving Eric back down in his seat. “That’s not your whiskey, she’s not your woman, and you can’t talk to these ladies any way you want. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” Eric looked down at the table, “I’m sorry.”
I’d been expecting a fight. His meekness surprised me.
“You should be apologizing to Star, not to me. You’re acting like an asshole.” I pointed to the ladies in our group. There was Star, a mysterious Thai beauty,Debbie, the mousy Australian woman,Laila, the big Dutch girl who looked like Cindy Crawfor, and Evie, another Belgian. She was twenty years younger and not connected to Eric.
Eric began to mumble as he stared at the tabletop. It was as if he had become a fat child who was trying to explain why he’d eaten too much chocolate to his German nanny.
“I don’t know what happened, I went from one village to another, and drank so much lao-lao. Each village would have me sit down. They would pour me two, three, or four drinks and I would drink them.”
His voice lifted with a hint of pride and his eyes were off the table top. “I am a real man, I drank 10 or 15 shots of lao-lao.” He was roaring now. “I smoke opium in every village. I have many women take me in their huts. I am a real man.”
He pushed his fat black rimmed eyeglasses up his nose and looked as if he were going to stand up again. “Which woman here will I fuck tonight? Debbie, you go to my hut and I will come to fuck you. Go, you go now. Give me the lao-lao you Thai bitch.”
“Oh my goodness, he’s horrible. He’s so horrible,” Debbie ran from the restaurant to her hut and slammed the door The other guests either moved from the table we all shared with Eric and soon, it was only Star, Eric, and me.
“You are messed up man. Completely fucked up. What are you here for anyway? You’re a real fucking prick.” I still stood near Eric’s chair hoping the Belgian would stand up.
“Yeah, big fucking asshole. Fuck you Eric. Fuck you. Cocksucker.”
Star had a real way with words
“I’m sorry.” He looked at Star, then at me. “Can I have lao-lao now?”
“Fuck you cocksucker. Lao-lao is mine.” Star got up and left the table going towards her bungalow.
Bitch, I will take it,” he went to stand up again and I shoved him down on the ground. It felt like I was abusing a small child. Still, I wanted to kick this Belgian’s fat face into a bloody pulp.
“It’s time for you to go to bed. If I hear you giving any of these girls a hard time, I’m going beat you bloody. Good-night.”
I went to the bungalow I was sharing with Johnny. Johnny was busily rolling a huge three paper spliff using half a Marlboro light and about an eighth of an ounce of Lao weed. The room was lit by two candles and the shadows danced on the mosquito netting that hung over the two beds.
“What do you say we pay Laila and Evie a visit and smoke this spliff?” Johnny asked me as I came in the door.
“Sounds good to me, I need to relax a little.”
Johnny suddenly blew out the two candles. “Shhhh! It’s that fat, drunk Belgian. If he sees us we’ll have to get rid of him.”
We watched Eric stagger past in the moonlight. He turned where he should of gone straight to reach his bungalow. Instead heading for Evie and Laila’s room.