Wandering hands

A kathoey masseur with wandering hands called me yesterday. You would expect someone who gives massages for a living to have wandering hands, right? They need to move their hands over your body to massage it.

Yet this kathoey masseur's hands travel further than most. One day while I was talking to her in her massage shop, she slipped her hand inside my pants for a free feel.

Kathoey Ya liked farang, or at least liked me. The first time I went there for a massage, she was the one who guided me in to the ante room so she could watch me take off my shirt, singlet and belt - even though she did not, in the end, give me the massage. One of her colleagues massaged me instead.

I don't know what she thought when she grabbed my penis, as I detected nothing on her face. I was too busy trying to carry on normal conversation, because I didn't know what else to do.

After grabbing it and holding it a while, Ya took her hand out and resumed talking, as if we had just conducted a perfectly normal social transaction. Maybe she was taking its temperature, the way a doctor might. She refers to her colleagues as mor nuat (หมอนวด, or massage doctor), after all.

Somehow I don't think they had taught her that trick. On my first day, Ya asked me for my phone number, and of course she gave me hers, too. She was careful to do this when none of her colleagues were watching - though Thais are never too careful about such things, because they cannot keep secrets even when they try.

The personal always ends up being a shared, public thing, because to keep too much to yourself is just - well, unsociable and selfish.

Kathoey Ya invited me to return to the shop whenever I felt like a chat. I did go back, and at one point was dropping in every second day. Most of the time, I did not ask for a massage, but made sure I sat in the same room with everyone else.

We sat on the floor in the main part of the shop, where the masseurs sleep while waiting for customers. The shop is open on both sides to the street; in the entrance one one side, an old woman who lives upstairs keeps a pot of rice. She makes food, and sells it to people in the soi (street) who pass by on that side.

'Do you want a massage, ka?' the old woman would ask me, whenever I appeared. She was no doubt thinking about the rent. She must have known I had really come to see Ya for a talk, not a massage - or maybe she was oblivious to the fact that these two lonely souls were taking an interest in each other. Everyone is a potential customer, after all.

The massage shop was a gathering point for some unusual types. One day, a gay truck driver turned up. He had just completed a long-haul journey and wanted relief, he said. I was lying face down on one bed, with Ya massaging my back. He was lying on the bed next to me, while someone else massaged him.

'Ooooh...Aahhh...' he groaned. This guy liked to provide the sound effects as he was getting his rub-down.

'If you were to join me in the bed here for an hour, I would feel much better,' he told me, loudly enough for everyone to hear. Four of five people were in the room, including the trucker and me. We laughed at his joke, but I did not oblige.

Another time I was there, I turned on to my back to find a woman sitting on the empty trucker's bed. 'Where do you do your shopping, ka?' she asked, without so much as an introduction.

'At the mall,' I told her.

'Ah - well, did you know you could buy the same goods at much lower prices from the convenience of home?' she asked.

This was a rehearsed sales pitch, which went on for five minutes, and only petered out when I stopped responding.

Before she left, the woman gave me her business card. She is an agent for Giffarine (กิฟฟารีน), a company which sells consumer goods in the pyramid-marketing style, and which has an office nearby.

This woman had a peculiar knack for appearing out of thin air. I wondered how she was able to get in, if she was not there for a massage. The answer became clear later, when I turned up one day to find her and kathoey Ya exchanging money.

Evidently they do business together. The first day I went there, I recalled, the kathoey had tried to sell me a bottle of massage cream. Ya went on at great length about its health and beauty benefits, and looked disappointed when I still refused to buy.

Now that I knew she was a Giffarine girl, I told myself, I should treat any such advice warily. The cream might well have health benefits; but Ya stood to make a commission on the sale as well.

As they were exchanging cash, the Giffarine woman saw me walk in.

'When will you introduce me to your friends,' she asked. 'I want to expand my network.'

I ignored her, as I ignored her previous attempts to hook me in. She must get used to that, as she did not press me.

The other side of the shop faces the market, and is a popular meeting point for youngsters from a nearby school. As I sat in the shop with my masseur friends one day, a couple of kids passed by, whom I once taught English at a little email shop nearby. They are terrific kids; whenever I see them now, they stop to give me a wai greeting, and ask me how I am.

When we were not sitting in the shop talking, occasionally the kathoey masseur and I would take a little walk. She knew I liked to visit the klong (canal) nearby, to watch the boats. One day she took me from the shop to the klong.

Traders selling food in the area looked up. As we walked by, several men greeted her. 'Are you taking him home to bed?' one customer asked cheekily, while offering me a sip from his beer glass.

'We're just friends,' Ya replied.

I carried on visiting for a couple of weeks. Last week I did not go, as I was busy. I stopped taking Ya's calls until yesterday, when I finally answered the phone.

'Noo (หนู) has gone back to the provinces,' Ya told me, referring to herself in the third person. 'Where have you been? I thought you must have fallen ill.'

Ya must be approaching 40, but evidently still likes to refer to herself as a little mouse, a playful term which Thais on the whole reserve for their children. Some girls never grow out of the habit of referring to themselves as Noo, no matter how old they get.

I told Ya I had been busy.

'That's all,' she said, before hanging up.

I don't know if Ya the kathoey masseur will return, or if she has been tossed out of her job, and gone home to try something else.

But now that she's gone, the business of getting a massage at her shop should get easier. No one will try to sell me things, I hope. No one will try to take my temperature, either.