Like I say, not everyone’s cup of miso. Come to think of it, I do believe I prefer Pisit, but the Phra does have a point: take two steps in the divine art of Buddhist meditation, and you will find yourself on a planet you no longer recognize. Those needs and fears you thought were the very bones of your being turn out to be no more than bugs in your software. (Even the certainty of death gets nuanced.) You’ll find no meaning there. So where? Ah!
Back to the case.
Where does a smart man hide a leaf? the great Sherlock Holmes once asked. In a forest, of course. Where does a smart detective start looking for a talented tattooist with the eye of a Zen watercolorist? Not in Songai Kolok, that’s for sure. Soi 39, Sukhumvit might be a better bet. The clubs are all Japanese. Since we still enjoy freedom of speech over here, the notices on the door make explicit the management policy of not allowing entry to non-Japanese. I dress up in my Sunday best (it is nine-thirty on a Friday night) and stroll down the street until I come to an elaborate Buddha shrine bedecked with marigolds. I raise my hands in a wai and silently ask for guidance.
Trying for maximum emptiness, I stroll up and down the street a few times, then, guided by nothing at all (always the most reliable source), knock on a scarlet front door. A hatch opens, an overdressed Thai mamasan scowls, and I explain why it is in her and her boss’s interest to let me in. She tends to agree.
Within minutes I am in one of those hybrid sets so beloved of the pornography industry: dungeon from de Sade, papier-mâché rock formations (with plastic chains) from Disney, costumes from Geisha (let me be frank, our girls don’t wear them that well-they tend to resent the restrictions), whores from Isaan. I am led discreetly to the back of the club, where I discreetly observe the various states of passionate undress of both customers and girls on the benches all around.
The girl chained to the papier-mâché rock (a dragon lurks in a hole nearby) is quite naked and trying not to look bored while they whip her and drop hot wax onto her breasts. She smiles at me with a face serenely incapable of debauchery (she will sell mangoes from a market stall tomorrow with exactly the same happy smile) and with her eyes asks if I want her. I am about to signal no when I notice the serpent coiled around her navel. The club is gloomy, too gloomy to examine a work of such quality. Confident that I am not the first to make the request, I call for illumination. The mamasan obliges with a flashlight (Hitachi, rechargeable battery). Up close and without the need for a magnifying glass, I confirm my deepest forensic suspicions: this is a very superior snake: emerald green scales of variegated shades, an ink-blue forked tongue ravishing her belly button, brilliantly designed wings. (Not the huge clumsy things you see Saint George grappling with, but the delicate, diaphanous propellants of Oriental myth: I know I’m on to something here.) I demand that the damsel be released from her bonds immediately.
Once I confirm that I am willing to pay, the girl, whose name is Dao, slips out of her chains without need for assistance. She recognizes no social imperative to put any clothes on, so now she and I are sitting on a padded bench at the far end of the club, situated not far from other benches with other bodies in perpetual motion. The mamasan would clearly be happier if I conducted my interrogation while at least going through the motions of seduction, and Dao rescues me from professional restraints by taking my right hand and cupping it over her left breast, where I gently pull off the wax flakes. She checks my cock to see if her body is having the usual commercially desirable effect on my body (no comment), while I whisper my question lyrically into her right ear: Where in Thailand did she get such a marvelous tattoo?
She smiles gratefully, as if I have complimented her on a new dress, and reveals there is another. Kneeling on the bench and turning her back to me, I see that a couple of dragons (lightly done with considerable humor, hardly more substantial than clouds, masterpieces of the body artist’s craft-if I were to have dragons competing for my private parts, I would certainly choose these) are fighting for possession of the dark prize. “Fantastic,” I confirm as she happily straddles me and places my left hand directly on her vagina, which she informs me, in case I hadn’t noticed, is quite wet.
“But the tattoos?”
“Stroke me and tell me what you want me to do. I work much better when I’m horny.”
There is (let’s face it) a primeval signal sent to all parts of the male nervous system when direct contact is made in this way. It’s quite a wrench to pull consciousness out of the crotch area and shove it a little higher up the spine.
“It’s okay, you can fuck me here if you want. The boss is a rich Japanese-he pays off the police. We can do anything you like.”
“But the tattoo?”
“Ask me while we’re doing it. You’ve got me really horny.”
“I can’t-I’m shy.”
“Oh, you want to take me somewhere?”
“No, I… I can’t get it up.”
“You kidding? That’s one hell of a stalk.”
“I like to just pretend.”
Disappointed: “Oh.”
“Just go through the motions. That’s right.”
“What turns you on?”
“If you would just talk about the tattoos, that would be great. I’ll pay you just the same as if we were doing it.”
“Tattoos, huh? And you’re not even Japanese. A customer made me have them,” she confesses into my ear, working her loins with a feline motion I’m rather fond of. “He was Japanese, of course. He said he liked my body, but I was too naked without tattoos. He said he would want me much more if I had them, and then he’d pay me double, so I said okay. It worked. Without the tattoos he hardly lasted more than a couple of minutes. With them he could go on and on for ages. Every time he got tired, he would make me stand up so he could study them again and get horny. He said they were the best he’d seen outside of Japan -the guy who did it was a master.”
“What was his name?”
“You like the dragon who is licking my cunt from behind?”
“Very much.”
“That one took ages. He had to come back every day for a week. He sort of sketched it out first, then did the coloring. He had to be really careful-you know, to avoid infection.”
“Was it painful?”
“Not too much. He used some long Japanese bamboo needles that he had a special name for. I was terrified, but actually he was very gentle. He sort of turned me on in a weird way.”