EXCERPT: Patpong Sisters

An American Woman's View of the Bangkok Sex World

by Cleo Odzer

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Pong took my arm to escort me but detoured to the dressing room first to show me her shiny red dress. "Is pretty or not?" she asked, clearly finding it beautiful. She held it out. "Cleo try on."

"Oh no, no. That's alright. Thank you, Pong."

"PONG," she corrected me. I'd used the wrong P and the wrong tone. Thai was a tonal language, so saying the right word with the wrong tone could result in calling someone bad luck (suey, midtone) when you meant to say she was beautiful (suey, rising tone). "My friend," she said next, motioning to a naked person there.

The friend shook my hand. Female? Male? I couldn't decide. Completely naked in the dressing room, she was obviously a go-go girl on a break, but something in me said this was a male. Whatever she was, she was charming and modeled her own microminiskirt for me.

"Cleo try?" she also offered.

"No, no. Thank you."

Though I had no intention of buying sex or paying Pong for anything, I figured she'd be happy to get out for a night.

She was shorter and thinner than my five foot three, hundred and six pounds. She had a pixie haircut and small bare breasts above the skirt. But I still read "male." Very disorientating. It almost made me dizzy.

As Pong led me out of the dressing room, she whispered, "Katoey. Lady-boy," meaning a male who's had a sex change operation.

When we returned to the table, Pong had to leave for the stage. Following the pattern I'd noticed with previous performers, she danced one song nude and then prepared for a trick show. I hid my face behind a glass of club soda and glanced around. Not too many people were watching me watch Pong. I wondered if they thought I was gay. Onstage Pong wrapped a Magic Marker in toilet paper before inserting it in her vagina. Then she poised herself over a sheet of paper. One leg crossed over the other; her arms supported her as she swung her hips to and fro. She wrote, Good Luck to America. Pong had told me she'd had only one year of school. I knew she couldn't read or write more than her namein Thai. She had to be even less knowledgeable of English. The fluency of her "Good Luck to America" must have attested to years of those shows.

Back at my table, she handed me the paper. She'd written it for me. It also contained her name and number, 22. A government regulation required employees to wear number badges. The girls wore them on their lace coverings, making it easy for men to pick someone and order her a drink. I thanked Pong for the gift and folded it for safe keeping--my first artifact. I felt thrilled to have found myself a contact and envisioned a long-term close relationship with Pong, an anthropologist with her informant. I'd achieved a foothold in the project--now how to follow through?

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