An Exciting Future. Owen Jones

she said as her hand moved up from his knee to his thigh and squeezed it. “I know Lek very long time and I love her friend, same she love my friend, neh, Lek?”

      Lek nodded enthusiastically, saying: “Mia and I know each other from baby school and we met Craig nearly one year ago.”

      That elicited another squeeze on the thigh, but higher up and a kiss on the cheek. Lek was sitting behind the bar, so she couldn’t really see exactly what was going on, although she knew from the direction of Mia’s arm where it was roughly.

      Bob knew exactly and he wasn’t too pleased about it.

      He realized that there was more going on than he knew about, but didn’t know what. Lek, for her part, could see the growing consternation on Bob’s face, but she put it down to jealousy – an emotion that she detested and had given up when she had left her husband more than ten years before.

      Craig had asked Lek before whether Mia was an exhibitionist, and Lek had reacted with surprise, but he knew from previous experience with Mia that she was ‘up for anything’ as long as there was a reasonable chance of not getting caught, although he suspected that she did want to be observed one day really.

      Mia was like a ‘shy’ convent girl who drops her towel while changing and is so flustered that it takes her three minutes to cover up again.

      The only one sitting there who knew that except Mia herself was Craig, because he had been on the receiving end. He would happily be there again, if the truth were known, but the stakes were higher now for him and he had had his fun.

      Still, she tempted him more and more as the drinks flowed and Bob was becoming more are more cheesed off.

      When Bob went to the toilet and everyone behind the bar was working because of the rush, Mia leaned over, put her hand on Craig’s bulge, slowly undid his zip and said in his ear:

      “Your trousers are open, do you want anything while I’m here?” and she stroked him inside his trousers.

      ‘Where was Lek and her guardians when you needed them’, he thought, ‘when resistance was low?.’ Bob came back and Mia said:

      “Craig you zip kaput Look!”

      Three or four by-standers looked and laughed.

      “The zip is broken, I’ll go fix it and go pee-pee,” he said in pigeon-English.

      Craig slinked off to the toilet with his hand over his crutch, trying to keep up the illusion than the zip was broken. Lek blew him a kiss from behind the bar. Once in the toilet, Craig did his business, zipped up and walked outside, only to be grabbed by Mia.

      She pulled him into a shadow, lifted up her skirt and put his willing hand into her knickers.

      “I shave my pussy,” she said, “but you think I do good job? You shave for much longer than me; can you help me learn to shave pussy good same your face? Have little bit hair here, by pussy, what you think? Feel here. Oh, too wet, not have hair here. Sorry, what you think? Cannot grow hair in there, eh?”

      After a fondle and with a great deal of will-power, Craig said: “Mia, you said that you had finished all this stuff because you had your own boyfriend. Bob, I suppose. If you are happy with him and I am happy with your friend Lek, what the hell are you doing?”

      “Nothing,” she said, “Just having some fun” and she walked back to the bar.

      Craig followed a few yards behind, but he was troubled.

      This was beyond his ability of deception. Not that he wanted to deceive Lek anyway. The problem was that he couldn’t help feeling flattered and attracted to Mia. In fact, this was the first time anything like this had ever happened to him. Mia was unique amongst his friends or even casual acquaintances.

      When he retook his seat, Lek smiled at him from where she was standing in font of the customer she was serving and Mia smile at him too.

      Bob was looking the other way quite studiously.

      Eventually, Lek tired of helping out and went to sit with Craig. Lek was on his left and Mia was on his right, so to talk over the din, they both had to lean across him and shout in one another’s ears. Lek put her hand on Craig’s thigh to steady herself and Mia put her hand about a foot higher on the other one.

      Whenever Mia thought that no-one was paying attention, she stroked Craig’s crotch lightly by wiggling her little finger. She pretended to be really drunk too, but maybe that didn’t take much pretence. Eventually, the night finished and everybody went their own way.

      On the way home, Lek said:

      “Mia likes you, I can see. If I didn’t know any better, I think I might have reason for concern.”

      “Ah, don’t worry.,” said Craig, knowing that he would never shag Mia or swap her for Lek in a month of Sundays.

      As much fun as Mia was.

      1 3 WHITHER NOW?

      One afternoon, while they were drinking iced coffee on the balcony, the conversation turned to the future.

      “So, Lek, we have had a bit of a holiday, so now it’s time to start making some plans. What do you think? What would you like to do?”

      “Well, first of all, I want to go see Soom and my Mum.”

      “Yes, OK, we’ll go in two days, if you like, but I mean longer term than that. Where do you want to live for a start?”

      “That is up to you, darling. I give you two choices: here in Pattaya or in my village, Baan Suay.”

      “OK, that’s a start. I must have the Internet, so if we can get the Internet in the village, we still have two choices, but if we cannot, then we live in Pattaya. We could buy or rent a condo or house here and have a small ‘hunting lodge’ affair in the village for holidays.”

      “Hunting lodge? What is ‘lodge’? No hunting in the village. Only hunt frogs, not tigers. Cannot hunt tigers now. Police take you and not have tigers any more. I don’t understand.”

      “Yes, all right, wait a minute, calm down. I don’t believe in hunting for fun anyway. I mean a small house. A hunting lodge is just a small house. Like a cabin. A small wooden house.”

      “Ah, I see! We have many hunting lodges in the village. Not many for chow though – I mean for rent. Maybe buy land and make small house. Can do?”

      “Do you have Internet in the village?”

      “I don’t know, telak? I think nobody has a computer, but I don’t know. We can go look in two or three days.”

      “Yes, good idea. I want Internet in our room too, so today I want to go buy a USB wireless modem. It’s a bit like a mobile phone, but only for the Internet. I saw one yesterday in Pattaya Klang for 3,500 Baht, so not too expensive. Then I don’t have to pay 20 Baht every hour in an Internet shop. Now I pay 100-160 Baht every day. Then I can work from the room or the beach or anywhere I like.”

      So, they drank up, grabbed the laptop and set off. Once in the shop, Craig spoke to the assistant:

      “I am interested in that wireless modem.”

      “Eh?”

      “That wireless modem there.”

      “Eh?”

      Then she said to Lek in Thai:

      “What is the falang talking about? I cannot understand him. Does he speak English? I can speak a little bit of English.”

      “He is speaking English, but I don’t know what he wants either. I don’t understand computers at all. Ask him again, but tell him to speak slowly.”

      “What you say? Say again, but speak slowly, please, sir.”

      “OK, I want that wireless modem there. That one, right there.”

      “Ah! Wi-Fi? Internet