EXCERPT: Patpong Sisters

An American Woman's View of the Bangkok Sex World

by Cleo Odzer

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He led me to Soi Crazy Horse, a short street that connected Patpongs 1 and 2, and up a staircase into Winner's, a long and narrow bar. A naked Thai woman soaping herself in a shower caught my eye first. Then I flashed on the two stages on either side of her. On one stage, a naked woman danced with a Coke bottle in her hand. Fair-haired heads of Western men sitting at tables speckled the dark areas against the walls. All looked toward the other stage, where another naked woman squatted over her Coke bottle. I noted that the neck of the bottle was inside her vagina as a few of the men turned to notice me. Oh dear,how could I make my face look nonchalant? The tout bequeathed me to a hostess who directed me to a table on a raised platform along the wall. Applause followed a loud popping sound, signaling that the woman onstage had opened the bottle successfully.

Immediately after I sat down, someone in see-through lace slid next to me and offered her hand stiffly, as if about to make a karate chop. Shaking hands was not a Thai custom but Patpong men and women did it, thinking it was the farang greeting for all occasions.

"Hello. What you name?" she said.

"Cleo, and you?"

She let me shake her passive hand, then she laid her index finger along the length of her nose and said, "Pong."

She had a pixie haircut and small bare breasts above the skirt. But I still read "male." Very disorientating. It almost made me dizzy.

By this time I knew that laying one's finger along the nose signified "me"; I would have done it by pointing to my chest. At the beginning I'd had no idea why people were touching their noses and misinterpreted it as meaning either they were thinking about something or indicating a bad smell.

"Drink," said Pong. I ordered her one as I knew I was supposed to. A "drink" meant a cola or an orange juice. Alcohol was one of the pleasures Thai culture reserved for men. Though some Thai women did drink, they berated themselves for doing it. When I asked for club soda, Pong approved. "Cleo no drink whiskey, very good."

Pong had puffy, shoulder-length hair and a long, skinny body. Bright purple lips punctuated her sharp-angled face. We smiled at each other. Here was my first informant.

In Thai, I asked her, "How old are you?"

"Twenty-eight," she answered in an English no better than my Thai.

"Are you from Bangkok?" I asked in Thai.

"No, come from North," she said in English. Most Patpong women came from outside Bangkok, from the impoverished countryside. Their work often supported dozens of relatives back home.

Pong scooted over close to me. The see-through lace barely reached her crotch, leaving her legs bare as they pressed against mine. Between Pong and the women on stage, I felt overwhelmed by naked female flesh.

Somehow we managed to exchange morsels of information in the wrong languages. As facts piled up, I realized I had to write them down or they'd crowd each other out of my brain. "Where's the toilet?" I asked in perfect Thai grammar. That phrase was practiced often in the language class at A.U.A. (American University Alumni), where I went for lessons during the day.

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