If Only for a Night

Author © Scott D. Zachary

       My travel agent informed me that I would need to transit Malaysia and Thailand since there were no direct flights from South Africa to Nepal. I responded with direction to include a two-day layover in each of these two countries on my way home to Johannesburg.

       My trek to Mount Everest unfolded superbly. I’ve now checked into a high-rise hotel suite with a spectacular view of Bangkok’s dazzling city lights. It’s midnight. I ordered dinner from room service. I couldn’t make sense of anything on the menu except “Cheeseburger.” Always ready for a new experience and rarely ever having found a flavor I disliked (other than goat’s milk beer), I chose from the unknown; but just in case, I ordered three numbers. All three incensed my taste buds. I stuck them out in the hallway and then ordered two cheeseburgers that were edible.

       Early Friday morning, I purchased a half-day package tour sampling the city’s attractions. The four most memorable sights were: the river that runs through Bangkok, the meat market, the ornate Buddha statues, and the flower market. Respectively, they were pitch-black gooey, disgustingly fly-covered, gaudy, and mesmerizingly beautiful. I lay around the pool for the remainder of the day drinking various international beers.

       My Saturday morning tour included riding an elephant and watching young snake handlers daringly taunt hooded cobras and coral snakes to please the audience. These same snake handlers cajoled me into letting them wrap a ten-foot-long, six-inch-diameter python multiple times around my neck and chest. I still can’t believe I let these boys talk me into kissing that python on its lips!

       I ate a couple more cheeseburgers at the hotel for lunch, took a long nap, and then hailed a taxi at the curb of the hotel. I regarded the driver’s fatherly smile and the twinkle in his dark eyes as we dickered over the cost of a twelve-hour ride. I handed him half of our bargained price in cash, and we agreed that I would pay the balance no later than 4:00 a.m. I introduced myself, and he responded with, “Boom.” I wasn’t entirely sure if that was his name, but that’s what I called him. I yenned to see the underbelly of Bangkok and do some bar-hopping. “Show me your city, Boom—the sights that tourists don’t see.”

        Boom snaked through the congested streets of Bangkok, and it quickly became apparent how Boom had interpreted my meaning. He stopped in front of a building arrayed with flashing, suggestive lights. I presumed it a stripper bar. Ready for a couple of cold beers, I obtained Boom’s assurances that he would wait for me. I walked through the door into a most unusual scene. Like fish in a big glass bowl waiting to be snagged, perhaps two or three dozen young ladies were sitting on bleachers behind a two-story glass wall. Dressed in cut-off jeans or short skirts, firm breasts stretching their snug blouses, they were interspersed randomly on the rows of wooden planks, displaying their best smiles.

       Before leaving South Africa, I had been warned numerous times about the rate of AIDS among sex workers in Bangkok, the speculative percentages ranging from 20 to 65. Even the lowest of these odds exceeded the peril of playing Russian roulette with a six-gun. I had rigidly implanted in my mind that I would avoid sexual temptation, no matter what.

       Off to my right on the first row, I spotted a tantalizingly beautiful girl whose beaming smile contrasted starkly with her sad, sad eyes. Delicate and vulnerable beyond description, this young temptress induced me to adjust my rigid guideline. Stretching my imagination, I guessed her to be eighteen years old. Possibilities blossomed in my racing mind—If only for a night.

       I waved to catch an attendant’s eye and pointed at the girl, nodding. Upon seeing my finger point in her direction, the young lady’s shoulders slumped almost imperceptibly. The attendant quickly handed me a ticket with a number on it matching the number hanging around the young lady’s slender neck. He motioned toward a clerk sitting behind a wire-mesh enclosure.

       I handed my ticket to the clerk. “How much?”

       “Currency?”

       “Dollars.”

       “One hundred and fifty American dollars for three hours.”

       “How much to keep her all night—until four in the morning?”

       “Four hundred dollars.”

       I paid the man in fifty-dollar bills, thanked him, and retrieved my purchase—the object of my newest burgeoning sparkle. The beautiful girl’s sad eyes would not connect with mine. I gently lifted her chin, smiled, and pointed at myself, saying, “Scott.”

       Pointing at her, she whispered, “Chailai.”

       “Chailai, this is going to be better than your wildest dreams.”

       I didn’t expect her to understand me, but she soon would. I escorted this precious young girl to my taxi and opened the rear door for her. Settled in, I ordered, “Take us to a first-class ladies’ clothing shop, Boom—first class.”

       “Yes, sir.”

       I introduced Chailai to Boom, and Boom told me that “Chailai” means “pretty” in English. I tried to speak with Chailai and gathered that she couldn’t speak a word of English. I used Boom as my interpreter to explain to Chailai what I wanted her to do in the clothing boutique. She had a delightful time trying on dresses. Chailai settled on a multi-layered, fuchsia- and lilac-colored chiffon, mid-calf evening gown. I paid for the dress as well as her choice of panties and shoes, none as expensive as I had anticipated. I handed Chailai the sack of clothing and perceived a slight change in her eyes. That improvement faded when she heard me tell Boom, “Take us to my hotel.”

       Immediately upon walking into the five-star hotel lobby, the manager confronted me. “Sir, I’m sorry, but women of that sort are not allowed in this hotel.” He looked down at Chailai’s cut-off jeans and revealing tank top with an air of condescension. “You cannot bring her in here.”

       I contorted my face into outrage. “How dare you?! This young lady is my cousin, Chailai!” Before the manager could recover from my succinct rebuke, Chailai and I proceeded to the elevator. As the elevator ascended the tower, I peered into her sad, sad eyes so I could gauge her ascension from the bedrock of her present mindset.

       I unlocked the door of my suite and guided Chailai through to my oversized bathroom. I turned on the Jacuzzi tap, tested the temperature, and added a shot of jasmine bubble bath. I gently removed Chailai’s shorts and top. Scooping this exquisite creature into my cradled arms, I lowered her into the churning bubbles. I kneeled, selflessly massaging soap onto her delicately sculptured features. The cute way she fingered the bubbles spoke the novelty of her first bubble bath. The noticeable enhancement in her eyes told me that Chailai had never been so tenderheartedly indulged. And I was just getting started.

       I placed the shopping bag containing Chailai’s newly purchased clothing on the vanity and patted it twice on my way out to communicate that I wanted her to put them on. I dressed in my khaki pants and a button-up shirt and waited in the lounge area of my suite. Shortly, Chailai pranced out of the bathroom in her lovely gown, presenting her immaculate self to me. Her eyes shone with yet a hint of sadness, although she gleamed a seemingly genuine smile.

       “Chailai is chailai!” No doubt, the copious admiration in my voice effectuated these words into my intended bouquet: You are the most strikingly beautiful young woman on earth!

       A starburst glimmer shone in her eyes.

       Chailai’s delicate hand rested on my forearm as we strolled through the hotel lobby, her transformation registering in my mind. My companion’s eyes glimmered ever so slightly as she proudly adorned my side, her shimmering black hair aesthetically mingling with the ruffles of her gown. As for me, I deceptively credited myself with exceptional handsomeness in those days; however, I did not entertain any delusion that I compared to Chailai’s level of attractiveness. In my world, a young woman with her radiant beauty would never have looked at me. Never mind that I was twice her age.

       My shoulders thrown back in an air of distinction, this fantasy gifted as much privilege to me as it did to Chailai. There should’ve been a red carpet. Perhaps there was—I wouldn’t have noticed.

       I ordered Boom to take us to an elegant jewelry store. En route, I told Boom about my sparkle to give Chailai a night in which her sad, sad eyes could always take refuge.

       Boom lamented, “Evil men purchase the prettiest girls from their desperately poor parents in the north of Thailand, and their parents sell them for money to feed the rest of their children.” He winced as he said, “The girls’ lives are doomed to prostitution until the owners discard them when the girls no longer attract men or they fall sick with disease.”

       I strained to brighten my sad, sad eyes as Chailai’s bedazzled eyes poured over the sparkling gems and gold of the bracelets arrayed in the jewelry store. I was relieved that I could afford her selection: oval opals entwined among 18-karat-gold links. I had to guide Chailai to the taxi because her glimmering jewels captivated her glowing eyes.

       “Take us to the classiest restaurant in Bangkok, Boom.”

       He smiled over his shoulder.

       I smiled back. “Would you please dine with us, Boom?”

       Boom stuttered.

       “I insist.”

       Boom reluctantly entrusted his taxi to the valet. Once inside, the tuxedoed maître d’ informed me that reservations are required. I gave him a hundred-dollar bill, and he looked at me as though I had insulted him. I handed him another Ben Franklin. He pocketed it and smiled. “You gentleman must wear a suit coat and tie, sir.” He led Boom and me into an adjacent walk-in closet where I rented a spiffy suitcoat and tie for each of us at another hundred dollars a pop.

       Whoosh—$400 and we hadn’t even sat down at our table yet!

       I could write for pages and pages about our three-hour dinner—the seven courses of ambrosial ecstasy, the half-century-old bottles of wine, the impeccably royal service, the dazzling view of Bangkok’s neon display, and our fantasy-laden chit-chat. But I won’t. Let’s just say our candlelit festivities untwined the essence of utopian dreams, the ephemeral substance that sparkled Chailai’s eyes.