Private Dancer by Stephen Leather Read Free Book Online

her bar fine wasn't paid, the mamasan would take the money off her wages. I knew she didn't earn a great living working in the bar, and it didn't seem fair that she should be penalised for going out with me, so I paid. I didn't feel good about having to pay her each time I made love to her, but I knew that she needed money. That was why she was in the bar in the first place. I kept asking her if she loved me or my money, which was a stupid question, right? She'd laugh and she'd say “I love you number one, Pete, but number two I love your money.” I really do believe that if I stopped giving her money she'd still see me, but I knew that that wouldn't be fair. It'd be the equivalent of me writing and not getting paid. I mean, I might do it for a friend, but I'd still have to work, I'd still have to find someone to pay me for what I did. So I guess I justified it to myself by thinking that if she was working as a prostitute, it was better that it was me who was giving her money and not a succession of strangers.
    The thing is, it didn't feel like prostitution. It didn't really feel like I was paying for sex. Well,
    I mean I was, but it was never as if she demanded money, or withheld sex if she didn't get it. But I'd always give her money after we left the short-time hotel. Sometimes two thousand baht,
    sometimes one thousand, but usually fifteen hundred, the amount she'd asked for the first time I'd slept with her. When I gave her less than fifteen hundred baht she never complained, but she always seemed extra pleased when I gave her more.
    I'd never paid for sex before I went to Thailand. The thought had never crossed my mind. It's not that I'm against prostitution, because I'm not. I believe it should be legalised everywhere,
    legalised and regulated. There are plenty of men around, the crippled, the old, the ugly, who probably have a tough time finding a sexual partner, so doesn't it make sense that such people should be able to purchase sexual gratification from medically-examined professionals? And wouldn't it give potential rapists and the likes a safe outlet for their urges? That's what I believed,
    though I never thought that I'd be the one to be paying for sex.
    With Joy, I didn't feel as if I was going with a prostitute, it felt as if I was helping a girlfriend who didn't have as much money as I did. I'd helped out girlfriends in London, paid their dental bills if they were short of cash, picked up the bill in restaurants and so on. I'd lent money to a couple - one had needed money to attend an interview in Glasgow, another never told me why she needed the money but said it was a matter of life and death - and both times I'd handed the cash over not expecting to see it back. Sure, I'd never handed them money after sleeping with them - God, I could only imagine what an English girl would do if I did that - but then they weren't as strapped for cash as Joy.
    And Joy never made me feel like I was a customer. She didn't hustle me for drinks, in fact sometimes when I offered she'd refuse. Generally I'd buy her three or four because part of her earnings came from commission, and obviously if she was sitting with me she was giving up the opportunity of earning money elsewhere. She never pestered me to pay her bar fine, either,
    though she was always pleased when I did. I guess on average I bar fined her twelve to fifteen times a month. Often we'd just go and eat, or visit another bar so she could see her friends.
    Sometimes I'd go and have a drink in another bar before going to Zombie, usually if I was with one of the guys from Fatso's - Jimmy, Rick, Nigel, Bruce or Matt. Whenever I did, girls would always come over and wag a finger at me and accuse me of being a butterfly, of being unfaithful to Joy. I'd always laugh and deny it. I knew better than to bar fine another girl in Nana Plaza -
    there was an underground communication system that worked at something approaching the speed of light. Early on in our relationship I'd