I was in the Wat Chai market looking for fresh shrimp. Those sold at the big stores (BIG C, Carrefour, or Lotus) are tasteless. After purchasing a kilo, I was heading back to my bike, when a voice called my name. It was Ort. Neither Jamie Parker nor I had seen her, since she hooked up with a farang at the Paris Go Go.
The Brit construction worker retired her from the bikini squad, bought a house in Prichit, gave her a brand new car and 10 baht of gold. “I thought you were going to England.” I glanced around the market for familiar faces. My wife was out-of-town, but she has spies or jah-rah-chon everywhere.
“No, my boyfriend leave me for a ka-toey.” Ort wasn’t wearing any gold. The odds were that she had hocked them to the jum-jam or pawn shop.
“Sure it wasn’t for seeing other men?” I had last seen Ort in the Marine disco. Her date wasn’t her muscle-building boyfriend. He had spies too.
“No, no, he leave me for lady-boy.” She seemed on the verge of tears and I led her into a t-shirt stall. I didn’t want people getting the wrong impression. “I not understand. I stop being pretty.”
Ort was never really pretty. But she was sexy with a sleek baby seal body. “No, you’re still beautiful.”
“Then why he leave me?”
“Your boyfriend goes to the gym?” I didn’t have the answer, but could with the right questions.
“Yes.”
“He use a needle?” I had seen him twice. Muscles like his didn’t come naturally in Pattaya. Ort nodded to admit he was a steroid juice junkie.
“He likes to have sex?” I felt like a palm reader divining the truth. “Many times.”
“And ate Viagra.” Most steroid muscle-builders can’t get it up without it, but also use ketamine to get a buzz. All too chemically ugly for an old stoner like me.
“Yes, and he want sex too much. He hurt me too much.”
“And that’s why he left you for a ka-toey.” Thailand unlike the States didn’t have a real hang-up about transvestites.
The Miss Tiffany World Show is televised live and the presenter is usually Miss World Thailand. The greeter at the biggest hospital in pattaya is a ka-toey and the most beautiful women on Walking Street are the lady-boys hanging out at the Jennie Star Bar.
“I not understand.” She wouldn’t because she’s a woman.
“Your boyfriend is a sex maniac. He wants sex all the time. But a woman can only have sex 3-5 times a week. Not so a ka-toey. A lady-boy can have sex all day long, because she’s a man and has man’s muscles and wants sex like a man.”
“How you know this?” All women are distrustful of a man wanting to tell them what he thinks of as the truth.
“Because I’m a man too.”
“And you’ve been with a ka-toey?“
“No.” I’ve drank with ka-toeys." They’re crazy, but funny too. Back in 1978 I had been at a Halloween party for Paloma Picasso. Black-tie. I was ordering a drink when a gay boy bumped into me. He was being bullied by a jerk from Jersey. Bigger than the fag and bigger than me. I said, “You mind not pushing him around, while I’m trying to get a drink.”
The Jersey boy turned his attention to me. “What are you going to do if I don’t?”
The little queer took this as his cue to stage exit in any direction. The jersey boy clenched his fists. I wasn’t going to talk about this and popped him in the face. Blood spurt from his lip. It has been my best shot but hadn’t stopped him. I weaved through his punches and counterjabbed without success. Luckily the bouncers broke up the fight and threw him out.
Two ballerinas toasted my victory and invited me to a party uptown. I escorted them outside and hailed a taxi.
I never saw the Jersey Boy’s sucker punch to the back on my head. KO. He beat me senseless as I lay on the street like a discarded rag doll. Only the entreaties of Marcus Leatherdale, a gay photographer, spared me serious injury, although my face was bloodied by the chain worn around the thug’s fist. The ballerinas had pirouetted out of sight and I weaving near unconsciousness like a Bowery bum.
A beautiful woman in a satin gown and spectacular high heels washed my face with her scarf. Her TLC ministrations stung, because she had wet the scarf with vodka. Once the angel spoke, I realized she was no woman, though she called herself ‘Dove’.
We became friends after that night and she was always asking me to go home with her. “Other men aren’t so picky.”
“I don’t want to ruin our relationship.”
“It’s only sex and no one has to know.” I wasn’t too sure about that and remembered the old line about riding a Vespa.
“They’re a lot of fun until one of your friends sees you riding one.” It was equally applicable to TVs.
On New Year’s Eve I attended the opening of a transsexual circus club outside Times Square. The main act was TVs on the trapeze. Dove was dressed in haute-couture. She was every man’s #1 pick, but she was determined to seduce me with a jar of cocaine. I remained strong until seeing the Jersey Boy with two gay boys.
One was the boy he had been pushing against the bar on Halloween. They looked like lovers. My heart pumped out a tattoo of vengeance and I grabbed a beer bottle to break and slash his face.
“Don’t.” Dove stopped me. “I’ll take care of this.”
She lit a cigarette and walked up to the Jersey Boy, bumping into him clumsily. He turned to face her, ready for a fight, but not the cigarette she stubbed in his eye. No one had seen a thing and she came back to me and said, “That about evens the score. Now what about taking me home?”
I couldn’t rightly say no.
Nothing happened. I was too loaded to have sex. Saved by my drive for excess.
So I’ve never really had a problem with TVs. I understand the medicines they take make them crazy. The psychological shift from man to woman isn’t easy either and I told Ort, “I wouldn’t trust one though. Not with money or your life, because they are between sexes and work with a different set of rules involving survival, but they tell me they can have sex all day long. Just what your boyfriend wants.”
“I hate ka-toeys.” Her eyes narrowed to daggers.
“You shouldn’t be too unhappy. You got a house, car, gold and let’s face you didn’t love him, right?” She was beyond listening to reason or excuses.
“Love him for what? He stupid farang.” Thai girls say that about a lot of men. “I go back go-go. Meet new farang. Not love no one. Only my baby. You want mia noi?“
Ort was 22. Her body was a solace for a middle-aged man search for youth. A fool I am, but not enough to fall for a girl thinking all men stupid. I wished her luck. Whatever man fell for her next would need it.
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