PATTAYA

by Suzy Devere

It had been so long since I’d left there; it was amazing to me now how the sounds outside a New York apartment building could mimic a car ride out of Myanmar; how the bleating rain slamming against our commanding brick building, our New York fortress, could confuse my body and make me feel as though I were back on that road.  Back through Laos, then Pattaya, then finally up to Ha Noi in that car; the bumps of the land beneath me becoming the bumps of his cock and girth pushing into me.  The wetness of my cunt the spilled bottles of endless nameless liquor flowing all over the proper yellow skirt I’d put on just for the journey, never imagining the trip would take me further, past anything known to me and into bombs underneath my feet, traps set out for soldiers and civilians now used against me and the other girls who could not figure out exactly how get away.  Then a smell interrupted the ride.  Fatty was breathing on me again.  Fatty who was sure he’d won me over completely this time.

We lay on the bed surrounded by piles of changes of clothes, forgotten ashtrays spilled to the left and right, and loud music repeating off in a distance—the living room?–maybe for days? dizzily fucking–trying to fuck–naked except for beads of sweat on week-old sheets. We’d been there, on those same sheets, since the Monday before.  Suddenly I remembered I’d forgotten to call her, Louisa, to tell her not to come to the apartment. To tell her again please not to come to work but that she would be paid.  Always she would be paid.  She was like our mother both making us feel guilt and power simultaneously.  She counted on us, mostly on Fatty, but me too, and…Shit.  Can I talk now?  Make any sense?  Shit.  Where is my phone? Her name escaped me.  Louisa.  Louisa.  What am I doing?  What will she say?  Will I be able to form a word to answer anything? 

These questions were the only fully formed sentences working in the left half of my brain.  On the other side I was still bumping along in that car, listening to rain as it took my eyes to the tracks of the cars ahead of ours, thick marks imprinted by rubber tires slogging through piles and mounds of Vietnamese mud…our cars movements splattering mud on to small children, red and green street-side vending booths, and empty bicycles laid by the roads, waiting for their owners to come back to them after a long day’s work. 

A moist fog of alcohol wafted in through my nose and out through my mouth with the smoke from my last cigarette.  I opened my eyes and the bedroom looked like somewhere I’d been before but couldn’t place.  Then something moved.  Beside me.  I was not in Vietnam.  Not in Pattaya.  Goddamnit.  Park Avenue.
 

He thought he’d won me because I was laying there with him in this posh place but my mind was back where I’d become myself, not with him.  Back in Pattaya where I’d excommunicated everyone else from my mind who had ever loved me so that I could be free.  How had I gotten there, to that deserted and leftover place?  Painted rooms and transactions, business deals and blowjobs I couldn’t recall.  Through many long bus rides and private cars, complete with drivers who wore cheap sunglasses and smelled of burned meat. I’d traveled under the watchful eye of my owner, which is how they referred to them there. Through needles and miles of longing I’d found my way there.  Finding my way out was another story.  It made me laugh out loud to think that all that wanderlust and other kinds of lust would just / had just landed me right back here, at the very fucking start.

My mind was off again so my fingertips reached out to feel the dirt of Pattaya—why was it not sand like they promised?—instead it was soiled sheets with blood and loud sounds.  Not beaches and fun.  Thirsty.  My tongue searched for a drink of something cold.  “Yes, please, with ice,” I said.  Fatty’s bloated face pressed his warm lips into mine, his own dry mouth tasting of leftover gin. Oh!  Cold!  I wanted something fucking C-O-L-D!  My gums smashed into his teeth; the empty bite of cocaine guided my head’s direction and dared me to chew off his face with compulsion.  He hadn’t won me!  I knew he was always ready to leave me for another girl and I wanted him to get it over with.  I didn’t want to love anyone or be hurt by someone or something lesser than me.
 

“I am too good for love,” I said.  Fatty moved away and pulled the dirty covers with him…
 

“Are you then, Pet?” he said, with more than a hint of drugged amusement.
 

“Yes.  Love is for people who don’t understand what humans are.”
“That’s what I love about you,” he said with that same asshole smile I’d seen the first time he’d cornered me alone, by the elevator, all those years ago.  “You’re an idiot savant wrapped up in the hot body of a whore.”
 

“So you agree with me,” I said, feigning pride.
“No” he said.  “You’re nuts. But you’re a great lay and easy to look at so I pretend you make sense.  Otherwise I’d have to tell everyone what you really are.”
 

Again I tasted the cocaine and freed my hand of his.  He was inside me and I didn’t even feel it, didn’t even know what was moving.  My hand looked like a primitive claw, reaching out to space.  I stared up at it for what seemed an eternity, the ceiling and its cream painted moldings just beyond.  Then I dropped it on his pale, clammy back and he pushed into me hard.  I hoped he would never let me go and got lost again in the pounding of the drops on our window sills, turned my head and saw that the dripping sound was coming from drops hitting a growing puddle on the floor, water streaming in from the window I’d deliberately left open.

 

 

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~ This piece was posted on Tuesday, July 15th, 2008 and was filed under Short Story, Writing. You can make comments on it below. ~