My Heart Is Still In Pattaya
After many years of hearing the tall tales about the Land of Smiles, I got a chance to spend a few nights in Pattaya. This is my story. Is it unique or is it the same as all the others? I don’t know. You be the judge.
The first of three nights in Pattaya, I made the rounds on Walking Street, and was happy there were boobs showing, as I am easily entertained. I was still trying to get used to the idea of paying directly for sex (I have always paid indirectly, and a very high price indeed) so I was slowly getting used to the concept.
In and out of a variety of bars, plenty of cute young girls to choose from, and I start talking price. I got quoted up to 4000 baht for the night, as they could smell I was a novice on the prowl. Quite a bit higher than what I heard in the Stickman reader contributions, so I kept on cruising the bars.
I wind up at Classroom A-Go-Go, a name I believe I remembered from Stickman’s column. Again, lots of cuties and I strike up a conversation with a potential candidate. I get quoted about 2000 baht, but there is a bit of back and forth about whether this is going to be at the short-time hotel or back at my hotel room. It was obvious she wanted to go to the short-time hotel, get popped and get back to action for one more round for the evening. After all, business is business.
We are still batting this around. I am making it rather clear I want to go back to my hotel room for the night. Foreplay is half the fun. I wasn’t interested in the short-time room. Well, I made the mistake of asking her how old she was. She was rather a bit too honest and told me 34. I thought she was 24. Then I asked her how long she had been in Pattaya. She told me five years.
I have been accused of being a bit too analytical at times, and my analytical brain went to work. My mind automatically multiplied five times 300 for the amount of traffic this “young thing” had seen, and the magic number that popped in my head was 1,500. Give or take what the real number was, that was the number I couldn't get rid of — 1,500 guys before me.
I immediately went limp in the downstairs department, and though I tried to hide it she knew she was losing the fish off the hook. She offered to go to my hotel room after all, but I was no longer interested. I explained I was new to town and a bit nervous still about the whole thing, and she said she understood. I spent the night alone that evening.
The next day I took a long walk down the beach, eating fresh fruit from the vendors as I went and ended up having a great workout at the gym. At the gym I met a friendly pair of whoremongers (both named Scott) who had sworn off women in the States.
Quote of the day from Scott #1: Every time I get horny in the States, I just put $100 in my travel fund.
Quote of the day from Scott #2 was on his t-shirt: The only difference between tattooed people and people who aren’t tattooed is tattooed people don’t give a shit if you don’t have a tattoo.
They gave me a bit of direction and advice and suggested the Welkom Inn on about Soi 3, in the exact opposite direction from Walking Street. The girls there were 900 baht and you could enjoy a great dinner and just check out the girls without any pressure. Sounded good.
I wound up eating dinner there at the outside restaurant after checking out the bar and the action. Lots of cute girls but I just didn’t see anything I wanted to lose my Pattaya cherry to. The food was great. The cucumber salad had both bits of squid and pork to liven it up and the fish was first rate. The serving girl I could tell was still an innocent young thing, and it’s funny how the human mind works: You want what you can’t have.
So I leave the Welkom Inn and slowly work my way back toward the hotel. I walk past hundreds and hundreds of girls, many beckoning me to sit down. At times, I would stop and contemplate sitting down and joining them for a drink, but I don’t want to lead a girl on if I am not going to help send money back to the family in Isaan, so I just keep on walking.
I finally see a cute young thing, very petite, and start chatting her up. I ask her how much it would cost for her to spend the night in my room, and she is very hesitant about this. She wants to use the local short-time hotel. She is adamant about this. I ask her how much for the short-time room, just for curiosity (I wasn’t interested in short-time) and she tells me: You pay what you want.
Finally, another girl in the bar comes over and explains that I am talking to a lady-boy, and since his ID says he is a male, the hotels won't let him in the rooms.
Well, this totally cracked me up, as I had read about this before, but I was totally stumped. I didn’t have a clue. I told “her” that she was aloi mahk mahk (very pretty), but I didn’t have to explain I wasn’t interested. <actually, that translates as very delicious – Stick> The girl at the bar told me she thought I knew. Yeah…right. I left soon thereafter. At least I didn’t buy “her” a drink. I wish I would have taken a pic to share with friends and family. Well, maybe not.
I walk down the lane just a bit and that’s when I see her. This is where my story really begins. Her name is Ree. I am in love.
She is from Isaan, of course. The most beautiful girls in the world are from Isaan. 24 years old, looked younger, killer 40 kilogram body. She says she has been in Pattaya five months. Whether that’s true or not, I didn’t care. I appreciated her not spoiling the illusion by telling me she has been there five years. Honesty is not always the best policy.
Her English was extremely limited, and I took that as a good sign she hadn't been totally jaded yet. I am very interested. There is only one catch. She is on her period and not available for the evening. She is just hanging out with friends.
Now, this is where things go a bit off the standard track. I told her that was fine. I wasn’t interested in sex, only sanuk. (Fun.) We didn’t define what “sanuk” was, but she finally agreed to come spend the night with me for a mere 900 baht.
At the hotel, she did the standard towel routine, just like I read about in Stickman. She undressed in front of me, but not exposing a thing because of the towel. Sanuk was not going to include taking a shower together. Oh, well.
Then I showered and joined her in bed. I told her the evening was hers and she could do whatever she pleased. She was quite pleased with the color TV and began watching her Thai TV. Flipping through the channels, one of my favorite horror shows came on – Queen of the Damned with Aaliyah with Thai subtitles. We watched the whole thing together, while my beautiful Ree snuggled close to me while watching the scary movie.
During the movie, the towel slowly worked loose, with a bit of help on my part, and there she was in all her glory, with only her sexy black panties on because of her condition. No problem. I had been in the land of fat white women for too long. If nothing else happened but watching a scary movie with a beautiful topless woman, this was one of the highlights of my life. I was at peace.
Before and after the movie, I was happy to massage her back and give her plenty of attention, occasionally cupping her sexy little breasts, but not being overly sexual. After all, this was about sanuk…not sex.
Throughout the evening, she persistently asked whether I was married or not. I kept insisting that I wasn’t.
Finally we settled in to go to sleep, and I was ready to call it a night. But Ree was a good little Isaan girl and wanted to give me my money’s worth. She started giving a massage in a very happy place. One of the best massages I have ever had, truth be told. It was just a natural ability on her part. Something like that can’t be taught.
I just slept off and on that night. It was just too new and exciting and wonderful. We snuggled and hugged throughout the night. There was no price one can put on this.
I would constantly wake up and just look at her. Being in my forties, I could still be in denial about my age to a certain extent. This was most definitely an illusion, but one of the best illusions I could ever dream of.
For the regulars to Thailand, this would be just one more night in the Land of Smiles, but for me, it was like taking a ride to the edge of the galaxy and watching the Milky Way swirl around its axis. This is what I had dreamed about for endless years. This was a genuine dream come true.
Early the next morning, totally on her doing, I got a bit more special attention. This was just icing on the cake. I was just happy to have her with me. I planned to spend the day with her, and we went to eat breakfast. I had to make a phone call after breakfast at the pay phone to check back in with the real world, and I think Ree’s special illusion was a bit destroyed by the fact I was giving attention to someone besides her.
I was beginning to wonder how I was going to entertain her all day long, and I was in a way happy when she said she was ready to go home. I told her I would look for her that evening, which I did, but I wasn’t able to find her. I wasn’t even exactly sure which outside beer bar she worked at as I was wondering around so much the night before. I asked a couple of bar girls if they knew her, but no luck. Ah, well.
That night, I continued to walk up and down the street I thought I had met Ree on and finally sat down with a girl and bought her a drink. But she could tell I was distracted looking for someone else. She wasn’t that disappointed when I left without taking her home. Isaan girls have pride too, you know.
I truly thought that was going to be the end of my fun in Pattaya, and I was content with that.
I started working my way up and down the streets on the way back to my hotel. Am I going to spend my last night in Pattaya alone? Hundreds of girls, and I just wasn’t interested.
And then I saw dream girl number 2. She was wearing a cute little dress and was trying to motion me to come sit at a certain outside beer bar. When I went over to her, it was like she was motioning me to sit down at the bar with the other girls, but I was having none of it. I held onto her tightly while I sat down at the bar, with her standing in front of me. I wasn’t going to let her go.
The strangest thing, all of these hundreds of girls you walk by, and one of them just catches your eye. Om, I felt, was about as innocent as you could possibly be in Pattaya. She was 19 years old and had been in Pattaya only a short time. I felt lucky to have met her before she became hardened. Maybe that is leading to the main theme of this story.
A photographer came by and took our pic, and before you know it, we are off on the little truck taxi to the hotel. I am proud to have her with me, and I admire her pic in the truck taxi while a more mature American looks on at me somewhat disapprovingly. I don’t care. I am having a great time.
I decide right then and there I want Om to have a good time too. I know that I will. No matter what happens. Period. Even if we don’t have sex. She is 19, 40 kilograms, and giving me more happiness than I got in two failed marriages combined.
We have a lot of trouble trying to communicate, so I decide to take her out to get a Thai/English dictionary. I think to myself, again, this is about sanuk more than sex. When we get back to the hotel, she points to the Thai word for what I translate as sexual disease. She is worried she might catch something. Yes, she is new to the game, and, again, I feel lucky to be with her.
Again, the towel thing. They must learn that in Isaan school. She tells me: Ap nam. Take a shower. That’s my Thai word for the day. While I am in the shower, I keep hearing funny noises coming from her cell phone. When I get out, I see her playing with the vibrating alarm on her cell phone. She is totally entertained by the phenomenon and she giggles happily.
We settle into bed, and she seems thrilled to death with the color TV and she watches a really cheap yet scary ghost movie. Of course, she has to snuggle up close because she is so scared. I love Thai TV. I know the Thai word for ghost (pee). Wow, we are really beginning to communicate.
She is a shy one, and the towel very slowly works off, but she stays strictly under the covers. That’s fine. Every once in a while I sneak a peak under the covers. Everything is sabai dee (great). For the first time, I have a young, totally naked Isaan girl snuggling up next to me. I know this is a night to remember.
I finally resort to the “massage” therapy to reveal a bit more skin, starting with her back and working my way down. I don’t know what is going to happen, but she has the sexiest little butt I have ever seen and I go over to get some protection.
I like to think I am somewhat of a sensitive individual, be it for better or worse, and I got the slight impression from her body language that she just was not quite ready for boom-boom. I figure what the heck…she is a sweet, young 19-year-old country girl. I can handle giving her the night off and see what happens in the morning.
As she snuggled in my arms that night, this is when I truly got to thinking about the whole situation. Money is power, and the farang had the power in this town. Because of our luck of being born in the right country, we were born with opportunity and options.
Don’t we all hate the insurance companies? Why? Because they have the money and they abuse their power, and that really sucks.
Again, I didn’t sleep much that night. I looked over at her beautiful, slowly sloping eyelids and I saw Buddha. Yeah, I know, but that’s what I saw. She had a touch of innocence left in her, and I valued that. I had gotten my 900 baht worth many times over by just having her sleep next to me, naked nonetheless, and snuggling and hugging throughout the night. She was 19 rather than 24, and I could not even suffer the illusion of a relationship, but this was a moment in time that I knew I would hold on to for a long time. I will die with these memories. Maybe I have been kicked around abused much more than the average farang. I don’t know. But of all the meaningless shit one goes through in life, I was having my small little moment, my epiphany with a young Isaan working girl. My eyes are watering just a bit as I write this. Writing this is helping me keep the memory alive.
Throughout the night, my mind was turning. What if I were just to give Om the night off, no boom-boom the next morning? Little Om would be a bit more innocent for one more day…one more day before she became hardened. In my own little fantasy world, would that make me a better person? Would it make a difference to Om? Would she appreciate being paid just for her company, not for her body? Would it give her a higher sense of worth?
Or would I just be a silly farang who didn’t get his money’s worth? (Actually, I had already received full value and more, but that was besides the point.)
But I am no saint. I definitely desired her. She was absolutely beautiful, my dream girl, no doubt.
We got up the next morning, and I made no overt sexual advances to her. She took a shower, and the phone was constantly ringing….my phone, that is. She was patient and quiet while I took my calls. I appreciated that. I showered. And there I was in a quandary.
Like the old story of The Tiger or the Maiden, I couldn't decide which door to open. (The princess was caught having an affair with a commoner, and as his punishment, he had to choose between two doors. One held a tiger and one a maiden, whom he would be allowed to marry if he chose that door. The princess slipped him a message which door he should choose, but upon further reflection he still did not know which path to take.)
Was I going to give my Isaan sweetheart a night off and keep her innocent for one more day, and regret a missed opportunity for the rest of my life?
Or would I take her then and there, and have a moment of passion I would never forget, yet betray my own feelings of semi-paternal protection over this young girl who did not have the same opportunities as myself? Would I help strip off one more thin layer of innocence from my dear sweet Om?
I couldn't bring myself to leave for breakfast yet, even though we were both dressed, and I pulled her into my arms and we playfully hugged and kissed on the bed. I told her I wanted to have her children and get married and live happily ever after. That’s how all the fairy tales end. I love that. I was kidding, of course, and she couldn't understand what I was saying. I tugged very slightly on her lower garments, and on her own she got up, slipped back out of her dress and back into the towel, leaving her top on.
Still the shy, young thing, she kept her towel on 'til the very last second, and then I had my very first Isaan girl.
That was that. Love is a moment in time. Or is it sex that is a moment in time? I had my moment. I made my decision, and I will live with it. Was it the right one? Is it the decision I will least regret? I have no way of knowing.
She still seemed a happy camper, and I was generous with my tip, and I walked her back downstairs so she could receive her identity card. We took the stairs because we were “mai kee-kee-ot.” Not lazy. When I remembered she forgot her dictionary upstairs, we took the elevator back up because I was “kee-kee-ot” going uphill. That made her laugh. I read that’s a good thing to have a sense of humor to brighten up an Isaan girl’s day.
We went back downstairs again to retrieve her ID from the front desk, and they had to rifle through about an inch and a half of cards to find hers.
I walked her to the main street and gave her an extra 100 baht for the “taxi” (ya I know they don’t cost that much), and I got a smile and a precious little wai. She then jumped side-saddle onto a motorcycle taxi and started riding off into the distance. I smiled from ear to ear watching her ride off, as beautiful as beautiful could be, knowing I would probably never see her again. The other motorcycle taxi driver also had a silly smile on his face watching her take off.
I walk back to the hotel with my heart going pitter-pat. Every time I see a girl riding side-saddle now, I think of her. At the entrance, the bellman saluted me and I told him tuke yang sabai dee. (Everything’s good.) He just smiled and said: For you….yes.
I went back upstairs, packed, and left Pattaya hours later. At least my body did. I am not so sure about my heart and soul.
That ends my story. It’s just one of thousands of stories. It happened over the course of two nights in a string of nights occurring somewhere between the beginning of time and the end of eternity. It happened in the small town of Pattaya, one of thousands of cities located on mother Earth ….one planet among many in our great Milky Way Galaxy….one galaxy among billions of others…..in the grand scheme of things, insignificant, like a speck of dust floating in the wind, but it was my moment and my story.
Stickman says:
Nice story indeed.
