Man Show

Still in Thailand on the great Drag Travel and here I am mailing Jo about a near-miss on the sex-front,- Bangkok Dear Jo, We’re now in Bangkok, and it’s a whole different world from India. We’re staying down-town in Silom which is one of the areas where they seem to spend all their time selling, and mainly selling sex. This is where Europe comes to buy its boyfriends and girlfriends. There’s a mad street market called Patpong where the stalls are full of all the things you need for a holiday, if you had the time and money to buy them, watches, skirts, tops, hats, sexy videos and VCD’s, jewellery, oh, the lot, and the stalls come out at night and you can hardly get down the street for tourists. Like India it’s very hot, you feel like you’re breathing water, or drinking air. Anyway it was time for some night-life so I set out for a disco and since I’m keeping you up with the highlights of this trip I thought you’d find this one amusing, particularly how it turned out. Oh, the shame, - still that’s for later. It was party-dress time but this time I wore the green plat-form sandals Jayne gave me, -not the glammest of footwear but the pavements around here are so uneven and a girl can’t risk going arse-over-tit in front of an admiring crowd. So it was the long blonde again and eyes well-lined, like the local girls, with a smudge of blue eye-shadow. I wore the necklace and earrings I bought in Bombay and since I’ve got a camera now, the throwaway type naturally, I took it along. Dropping the key at the desk – such cute bell-boys – I wandered out into the warm dark. I’d hardly got to the end of the alley than – “You, look sexy!” and “Oh, man-show!”, and hardly onto Surawongse Street then “Fackin’ ‘ell, what’s that?” That, needless to say, was some of our beloved countrymen but wearing my cool shades keeps me away from them. I know it’s a joke in this country, a lady-man out in lady-boy town, so I’m expecting smiles, and there is lots of noticing, the ladies selling food, the men wanting to give me a motorbike ride. But mainly they’re playing draughts with bottle-tops, or they’re European tourists trying to stay cool and detached and get a bargain by bartering, or they’re busy just selling or buying, - too pre-occupied to notice me walk by. Where does all this stuff end up, Jo,? There’s not enough of us to buy it ! and yours truly wouldn’t touch most of it. My dear! Maybe it ends up in the sea, or land-fill, or in the poorest country on earth, - I don’t know. And where does all this food come from? I can’t imagine what some of it is, - sharksfin, I think, and that of course is McDonalds. I turn off down one of the clear streets, - “Pretty lady!”, “Very sexy!” – where they’re selling suitcases alongside clubs where girls dressed as schoolies sit and you catch a glimpse through the door of thighs sliding up and down a pole, - it’s dark down here, away from bright Silom but I’m cutting through to Soi 2 and 4 where the gay-boys go, if I can get through the slow trail of girls, tourists carrying heavy bags, men pushing food-carts and getting under your feet – thank God I wore the sandals! – and men selling Boy-VCD’s in Snoopy covers, too busy to notice Mandy – their loss! – and into Soi 4, where two men are sitting outside a door. Here we are – “DJ Station” – the biggest, most famous gay disco in South East Asia! It’s two hundred baht to get in and you get two free drinks for that. with a red curly pass-out stamp on your hand, and, my luck as usual, it’s not busy yet. I’m on juices in this heat. I get lots of looks, but a bit embarrassed and confused – I told you it was different in Thailand – so I wander about, up to the top level, and down again, and it gets busier. There’s quite a few Anglos looking around, some with their boyfriends, young Thai lads mainly, some looking desperate in a detached way. I didn’t say but the “DJ Station” like a lot of the clubs has a lady-boy show and it was midnight and about to start so the place got full very quickly now. Everybody crowds round the stage and the edges of the balconies. There’s a fanfare and on come the boys, in streetwear, then the girl, she mimes, classic drag, loads of feathers and sequins, very nice! It’s a small stage. Then on comes this girl, oh, I’m going to call them girls, Jo, I mean they’re sisters aren’t they, and this one was so lovely. She was one of the funny ones, - she had a microphone with mirror tiles on it and a feathery top, a long pink skirt and a crazy face, a big mouth with such bad teeth and a bad red wig, huge eye-lashes, but such a style. She mimes to a song, yes, and lip-synchs to the intro-talk too, and we get the live sound-track applause as well – but the crowd loves her and I love her too, - because she’s in on the joke and so are we, she keeps breaking up the showiness by touching her nose, feeling her crotch, grinning, and they like it this crowd, she has their full approval. She gets Baht notes handed up to her, which she turns her nose up at, then dollars, which she doesn’t. She’s a lady, a lady-man’s lady, everybody’s mad kid-sister. After Kid Sister we get another funny-girl, this one roly-poly, a bit like Roseanne Barr, in long shorts and playing with the boys while she mimes to a Thai pop-song. It’s some kind of send-up – she rolls round the stage, like your shy, clumsy younger sister - and at the end she rolls off. She’s followed by a Madonna mime, not so convincing with droopy pointed bra and two girl sidekicks and a male in a long Kid Creole coat. Then it’s time for the talk-out. One of Madonna’s helpers comes on again, and pulls on Roly Poly, and they go into a joke routine which has them pulling off RP’s wig (she has cyclamen hair underneath), then pulling down her shorts, and after a bit of banter they go off. Lots of fun. Wish I knew what they were saying though. Now the dance-floor takes over. I wander around upstairs for a while – “Sexy!” that’s Why, a cute Thai boy with his older boyfriend Peter who’s going back to Germany in the early hours, - Why likes my hair. Why not? Then a fat Thai in shades with a goatee starts pawing me a bit and we dance sexy for a while. It’s a bit dark and moody upstairs, lots of looks but odd ones – I didn’t come here to be stared at in an odd way – and I look down at the dancefloor and decide I’ve got to be there. I need to be up on that stage, so I push through the crowd, up the steps and join the dancing. Two English women who like my shoes take a picture or two of me with boys in the background and it’s all a load of fun. But time’s running on, it’s nearly one o’clock and I’ve got to be going. Why so early? Well, Jo, I forgot to say but I have another reason for being out tonight. I’m going to get me a Go-go. So it’s back to the Soi, the main drag, and I cut up the Japanese street with car and bike headlights in my eyes and along Surawongse . Some of the street stalls are packing up, but I’m going to “Dreamboys”. Barbier, and boys. Up the stairs and I’m made most welcome, one of the waiters finds me a seat at the back, gets me a juice, lights my cigarette. Sorry, I need to explain. This is one of the clubs where you can go to see beautiful gay-boys dance, parade and perform sexually and then afterwards they stand around while you choose one to entertain and, if you like him, to take home to bed. I was in another night and they had a fine show, boys in neon body-paint of dragons and flames shifting about in the dark, mad comedies with big dildoes, lots of S & M action (mainly simulated), and at the climax, the “fuck-show” where as many as possible, all wearing condoms naturally, take their hard-ons to each other in as many physical combinations as possible. It was four-in–a-row the other night but now a lot of the more active ones must have been picked off because there’s only four on-stage wanking away then grinding away, in slings, from the bars, upside down, nearly inside out. Only the slim one who squeals a lot is there from the other night but they do circulate round all the go-go-clubs. Anyway, I’ve arrived as it’s all climaxing and then it’s time for the parade. First an ultra-violet light which picks out their white singlet-shorts, then the long shifting about from one platform to the next with a number each pinned on them while the disco-music plays. Who do I want then? There are big boys, serious boys, quiet boys, long-haired boys – which boy? I notice one, quiet, masculine, a touch of the Hollywood sensitive about him, De Niro but younger, I fancy a De Niro fuck, He circulates with the rest, takes a break at the bar, and the place is emptying, of boys and punters. “Which one do you want?” The under-manager is prompting me to choose, so I decide, give his number, and he is brought over to me. He gets his drink – my dear, the prices! – his singlet is tied round his waist which means he’s seen to. He doesn’t have much English, which is no problem for what we’re about to do – “Where are you from?” I compliment his body, touch him a bit, - but something’s difficult, he’s shy, no, he’s got a problem. The bar-boy tries to help – I say, “He doesn’t like me” – by looking at my nails, all glittery, so we all look at my nails and then at each others’ nails, and laugh a bit – but it’s no good. The manager comes over and I tell him my boy doesn’t like me. They talk a bit - no good – and I say if he’s got a problem, my boy, he can go, I wave him back on stage. He sips his drink, the manager talks, and eventually De Niro goes. “Choose another boy!” “No, he was my man,” I say, which is true, the excitement’s gone. I settle my drinks bill and go. The little bar-boy comes down to the street to get his picture taken with me, and then disappears and I’m just round the corner from the Hotel. The street is packed up now, it’s closing time. Oh, Jo, the shame of it, - being turned down by a go-go-boy for being a lady-man. That joke’s not funny. And he was a man’s man, a real lady-man’s man. Sorry, sis. Well, better luck next time I hope. How’s the writing going? Kisses Mandy