The negotiations are very short, and he and Chanya close the deal with hardly more than a smile. Wan finds an excuse to leave them alone after about five minutes. It is such a relief to speak her own language and to be with a man who understands where she is coming from, she almost loses her professionalism.
There is no hurry to get her to bed. He takes her to a Thai restaurant off Chinatown, where he urges her to choose her favorite dishes. He orders a bottle of white wine to go with the raw prawn salad, and a bottle of red for the duck. He makes her laugh with some Thai jokes, but at the same time his sophistication is pretty intimidating. He not only speaks English perfectly; he owns a kind of smoothness that seems to impress, even frighten, the waiters. He is a master of both cultures, something that leaves her almost speechless with admiration. Best of all, they understand each other perfectly: there will be no misplaced passion and no offers of marriage with this guy. They will proceed back to his apartment at a leisurely Thai pace, their private party will begin with her massaging him slowly with aromatic oil, little by little intimacy will develop, he will not force the issue but will wait for her to signal she is ready. She will stay the night, they will breakfast together, perhaps they will have sex one more time before he pays her generously. She will allow herself to fall in love with him in a very controlled way. They are as far apart within the Thai class system as it is possible to be, so neither of them is going to develop unreasonable expectations. On the other hand, both of them will greet each other with affection and a degree of relief at their next assignation. She will almost certainly become one of his mia noi or minor wives in Washington.
Which is exactly how it happens, except that she quickly becomes his favorite mia noi. Indeed, Wan tells her he dumped all the others the same week he met Chanya.
Thanee’s wife number one, Khun Toi, the matriarch herself, spends most of her time in Thailand with their two children and only rarely comes to Washington. Of course, she knows about Thanee’s various mia noi. She would have laughed out loud if anyone had told her he was faithful to her. She herself, having been educated in the West and being as liberated as any woman in her own Thai way, has a regular lover in Bangkok whom Thanee knows all about. It is not out of the question that Thanee will introduce her to Chanya on her next visit. Everyone would know the rules: Chanya would show great deference toward Khun Toi, and Khun Toi in return would develop an affection for Chanya.
Which is exactly how it happens. Khun Toi stays for ten days, she and Chanya get along marvelously and go shopping together. Khun Toi buys Chanya some fine new skirts and dresses with the best designer labels, Chanya carries all their bags to the waiting limo. At the end of the ten days Khun Toi tells her husband how it is to be: Chanya is far too beautiful and valuable to be left to the mercies of the local sex trade. Thanee is to pay her a stipend every month, enough to live and dress well and to accompany Thanee from time to time on those few social functions where Americans will not raise too many eyebrows. Chanya will be invited to Thanee’s Asian-only soirées. They will not live together, and Chanya will be discreet about coming and going from Thanee’s penthouse apartment. Thanee must give her a key so as to make her comings and goings smoother. For her part, Chanya will dedicate herself to Thanee and not take on any other clients. That will take care of the risk of disease, which has been worrying Khun Toi for quite a while. Not that she and Thanee have sex very often these days, but she doesn’t want him to get sick and die.
“Three quarters of my money would go back to my parents,” Thanee explains to Chanya in front of Khun Toi. Everyone laughs, Thai-style.
Chanya thinks maybe Khun Toi gets off on arranging her husband’s naughty fucks. I could smell her when she hugged me tonight. She’s making him screw her while I’m writing this. She’s going to make him tell her what Chanya’s like in bed, what he makes me do. Well, we do everything, honey.
At first Thanee is too canny to give Chanya more than the tiniest glimpse of his professional life, and such glimpses as she is allowed come out of small talk among her new lover and his Thai friends. But although she left school at the age of twelve and has never spent a minute thinking about geopolitics, Chanya catches on fast. She is astonished and even a little dismayed at the unofficial view of this Saharat Amerika she spent so much time and effort to reach. According to Thanee and his Chinese friends, the world’s only superpower and its biggest economy is also old, gridlocked, overtaxed, overgoverned, more overarmored than Tyrannosaurus rex, and too hidebound for any dramatic expansion. Modern China is a young country that began life in 1949. It has only just entered the great period of wild entrepreneurs and robber barons, enjoys just the right balance of corruption and law and order that allows the strongest and most ferocious of its businessmen to cut through the red tape, while lesser citizens are kept under control. It approximates to the golden age of the Rockefellers, Joseph Kennedy, and Al Capone. China is also very close to Thailand. When the present phase of road-building projects in Laos is completed, there will be direct land routes all the way from Beijing and Shanghai to Bangkok. This seems to excite Thanee and his closest associates, both the Chinese and the Thai. China is already dominating the economies of Southeast Asia. Within twenty years it will be the world’s largest economy and the most important country in the world for anyone living in Thailand. With two billion natural capitalists, its potential for expansion is incalculable.
Understanding the subliminal message, Chanya realizes with sadness that she is Thanee’s last Washington luxury. He sees that she has understood. Perhaps he has deliberately allowed her to overhear certain conversations-he’s certainly smart and devious enough for that.
Career moves take planning, though, and with Asians an awful lot of wining and dining. He is out most nights in his tuxedo. The occasions to which he is able to invite her are few, but he buys her three evening gowns just in case. She causes a sensation in her long gowns with her shining black hair plaited and pinned up and the gold necklace he bought her glittering against her brown skin, large single gold-set pearls in her ears. She sees that not a few Chinese and Thai men intend to inherit her after Thanee’s departure. And so they might have done, were it not for a curious move by Thanee himself.