Saturday 22 December 2007

Making an impact (3)

'Why not,' said boyfriend Maiyuu. I don't believe it.'

At home the following day, I told Maiyuu about what Kew does for a living in Pattaya.

'Why, do you think he's gay?' I asked Maiyuu, who has met Kew before.

'No. He just tricks gays out of their money. He would also sleep with anyone, if they paid him.'

Kew maintains it is not so, though there was one occasion where he asked me for gay sex. I put that down to the fact that he wanted a comfortable bed to sleep in for the night.

However, the fact that he works in Pattaya does make him feel wretched.

'If you tell people you work in a bar in Pattaya or Phuket, they know immediately why you are there,' he told me, as we sat at Mum's place.

In Isra, Kew has a kindred spirit: she used to work in those places once herself, until she met her foreigner boyfriend.

'You can ask Isra about your hair. As a girl, she knows about such things,' I said.

Kew did. He took off his hat and asked her to feel his hair.

'I agree, it is too dry,' she said, before recommending that he let it grow out. He had dyed it gold, and then used hair forks to get rid of the kinks.

Kew refused to tell me how much he charges for a night between the sheets. 'If a woman customer offered me B1500, it still wouldn't be enough,' he claimed.

He says he makes B7000 a month working as a DJ, plus tips of B500 a day.

I am not sure I believe the figure about the salary, and many pubs appear happy to hire staff for almost nothing, and expect them to survive on tips alone. But then maybe being a DJ commands a wage premium.

'But I am getting too old for Pattaya now. I am 24. They don't want people my age,' he said.
In that case, Kew will have to reinvent himself again - as he has done so many times in the four years I have known him.

now, see part 4

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