Private Dancer Read Online Free PDF

the farangs, he'd kiss me all over and whisper stuff to me until I'd go all tingly.
    Anyway, Park went up to the VIP room with me and we sang duets together and everyone applauded. He saw the piece of cake with Pete's name on it and made a big thing about eating it.
    I fed it to him and then kissed him in front of everyone. I showed him the gold bracelet that Pete had given me and he wanted me to give it to him to sell. Every month he had to pay five thousand baht for his motorcycle and he was behind in his payments. I told him that I couldn't sell the gold because Pete would get angry, but I promised that I'd give him the money the following day and he said that was okay. He'd bought some yar bar tablets with him and I swallowed a couple because I was starting to get tired. They perked me up a treat.
    After we left the karaoke bar, Park and I went back to his room and passed out. It was a great night, my best birthday party ever. PETE Let me give you an example of the sort of girl Joy is. A month after the birthday party, I walked into Zombie to find her bursting with happiness. She was grinning from ear to ear, giggling, and bouncing up and down in her seat. I bought her a cola and asked her what she was so happy about. She held out her hands and showed me a gold chain. She told me it was almost two thirds of an ounce of Thai gold, 23 carat, and worth about 10,000 baht.
    Joy explained that she'd had a customer who'd paid her bar fine so that he could take her to dinner.
    “Are you sure it was only dinner?” I interrupted.
    She raised her eyebrows and sighed in mock annoyance. "Pete, why I lie to you? Only dinner,
    okay?"
    She started grinning again, and continued her story. After dinner the man realised that he didn't have enough money for the one thousand baht tip he'd promised her. She held up the chain. “But he had this around his neck and he gave it to me. He said he wanted to sell it, but didn't know how. Pete, he said I can sell it and keep half. He's coming here tomorrow for the money.“ She leaned forward, her eyes wide. ”Pete, I can keep five thousand baht.”
    She spent the rest of the evening showing the gold to all her friends and relating the story of her good fortune. She was like a little kid who'd been told that Christmas was coming early this year.
    The next evening I went back to Zombie and found her sitting in a corner, her eyes red from crying. She grabbed me tightly and put her tear-stained cheek against my neck. “Why farang lie?” she asked me between sobs.
    “What do you mean?” I asked. She felt so small in my arms, small and soft and vulnerable.
    “Gold not real,” she said, hugging me around the waist.
    She'd taken the chain to the gold shop and the woman there had laughed in her face. It was fake, not worth more than fifty baht. It wasn't even gold-plated.
    “Why farang lie?” she kept repeating between her sobs. I paid her bar fine and took her out for dinner at the German restaurant in Soi 4 and kept telling her silly stories until her smile returned. I didn't take her to a short-time hotel that night because I could see she was still upset,
    so I gave her two thousand baht and let her go back to the bar and her friends.
    I went back to the Dynasty Hotel to work on the book. It was going really well. During the daytime I was visiting hotels and getting their details, checking rooms, facilities and prices, and in the early evenings I was checking out restaurants, usually eating in one and getting menus from several others. Then I'd go and see Joy. Most evenings I'd pay her bar fine, but we didn't always go to a short-time hotel. Sometimes we'd just sit at one of the outside bars and talk, or go for a late-night Thai snack. She was introducing me to all sorts of dishes I'd never had before, the real hot, spicy food that most farangs don't get to experience.
    I still hadn't taken her back to the Dynasty. Joy was very pretty, but she dressed like most of the girls who danced in Nana