Bangkok Days and Siamese Nights 1

In remembrance of those days and nights that are gone forever:

And then, just when I was looking particularly down at heel, feeling very sorry for myself, and having nothing to look forward to except a very early flight home to Singapore, I heard this voice, flutey and high, calling my name in the middle of a god forsaken, dusty Teochew woman-operated drugstore in Sukhumvit. A Singaporean voice. It was NN, peering nanny-goatishly over her huge sunglasses. "I thought it was you!" she said. "Lord... God-golly-gosh-ghouls galore don't you look a sad rag-tag railroad child? Whatever are you doing here? Xanax, I'll bet. Let's have tea! You look like you need some sugar and I know a sweet little cafe here, just around the corner; I knew I kept the car waiting for a reason. Whatever are you wearing?" gushed NN, as ever was her unstoppable way.
NN's car was throbbing at the curb, directly outside the shoddy shophouse, adding to the Tuesday all-day-all-night traffic jam Bangkok is justly famous for. Traffic jams, drugstores and baths for boys. It was a large hotel SUV (with driver), all black, with blacked out windows like a dictator's private tank, but covered with an icing of dust, like everything else in this lovely city. I climbed in, as I was still too weak from my recent bout of flu to protest.
At least, the good doctor Vih the hotel sent for thought it was flu. When he left he scribbled me his mobile number, and this being Bangkok, one couldn't be sure if Dr Vih was just being careful, or carefully flirting.
The cafe, hidden in Soi 51, was indeed sweet, and set in a private garden with a white wedding cake gazebo, like one of those surreal enclosed gardens in Spain. You'd never guess it was there, if you didn't know it was there. And just how NN knew it was there... Well, NN knew many things. And she kept an apartment in the city, though she still made the Grand Hyatt her home - she simply enjoyed the bowing and scraping and she said, the gym instructor there, named Bob ("Just Bob, not Bobby, not Robert. Just Bob") made room calls. Just how NN, who started her life a rubber tapper's love child, came to have an apartment, right next to Central Chitlom, was a matter speculated far and wide - it was the penthouse unit after all. I know it; I'd eaten dinner there. (It was an odd meal, not home-made: NN sent her cleaning lady who bought up a feast of street-grilled meat, chicken rice balls, and tart salad made on the back of a motorbike - and lots of duty free wine - was served on plastic plates laid on the Armani Casa dining table. NN's 'boyfriend' at that time, Jack, a gorgeous model, 22 yo 186 73 Thai Chinese, who was as silent as an Easter Island statue, solemnly ate with us. And when he had finished most of the Le Notre cake, burped loudly, and retired to play computer games.) NN looks like Diahann Caroll, but dressed like a D-List Italienne, like a De Caten, for instance. She peered over her aviator shades while getting all foamed up from the latte - iced - "such a haaawt day" said NN, pulling at her tight white dowager's DSquared shirt: "My poor titties are so bound up by this stupid shirt I feel like a bladdy bull dyke."
NN's story unravelled as the sun slowly set and I fed the ginger cats our cream cakes - the Thais know how to bake and the city is full of the most delicious pastries:
Now listen young lady, never let them do your nails here. Look at my toe now (she kicked off her pristine Converse designed by a dunno-who limited edition blah blah blah and nearly put me off my scones) Look. Got infected by some canker when I did my pedi out of boredom and now I can't wear sandals. If you're bored better just run down and buy yourself a DVD from Silom and watch Nozuki 17 rather than do a pedi and get crinkle fry toenails. I'm going home to see Dr Chong and pay him $120 to talk to me for 40 minutes.
Anyway, I'm done with Bangkok. I'm packing off tomorrow. Nothing ever works out right in the end for me here. Like yesterday. Bloody Mary, the lying bitch, tricked me into going to Aqua - you've never been? Good. Keep it that way - it looks like a dusty seafood restaurant that's seen better days. And I swear there's sperm flakes peeling off the plastic starfish decor - where was I? Yes. Bloody Mary. Ran away from her boyfriend (or was it the other way around?). Wanted to cry. But forced me to take her to Aqua instead. I thought, fine, cold comfort for a broken wrist. Well, it was hell right in there. I didn't even dare to shower, though I felt dirty enough - and so hot. I only lifted my arms dear, and cleaned under a little bit. And I kept retreating to the wall, so the water from the shower would not splash on me.
Remember that time I told you H only pretended to shower? 'Cos when I checked the floor of the bathroom after he got out it was dry as the Gobi? Now I understand completely how he did it. How can you shower when the idiot in the next stall kept pulling the dividing curtain to reach for the soap dispenser in my stall? They don't even have soap dispensers in every stall and this disembodied, but still femme, hand kept reaching blindly for it. Sister! I was so scared she'd touch me. 'Cos I'm fat, like Precious. Sigh. And then three drags stared at me when I was taking my 'complimentary' foot bath - and how was I to know my tawny brown paws weren't to be soaked in private, but out there by the lockers? Well, too late, I couldn't bolt as my feet were already in the tiny basin that was like something from Ikea. I was 'dressed' in a too-small green towel tied, empire style, at my ample waist and my buxom chest heaved with the extra exertion of having to suck in my tummy, and I nearly fell off the stool while trying to keep the towel from de-frocking when I tried to cross my legs and that's just the start of the nightmare.
Bloody Mary had disappeared without a trace the moment we closed the car door - she said she needed to pung sai. Aqua has the stupidest doorchime thing; As each patron enters the seedy establishment, sounds of birds chirping maniacally would twitter and cheep. It was horrible. But more horrors followed. The drag that massaged me simpered at me (she looked like Jerri Ng, my dear) and clawed at my buttocks. I was so angry at the idea of her simpering that I clamped my thighs tight so the drag could not give me a happy ending.
It was, my dear, a sad ending 'cos as you know I hate drags to touch me. I felt like farting loudly to spite her. But I didn't 'cos Bloody Mary might hear. The bloody walls were made of ... like cardboard?