Twenty-four hours later, Miles was in Phuket. The morning after his night out in the depths of Bangkok he checked out of the Oriental, found a stand-by flight and by early evening was weaving up and down the side streets of Patong’s Bangla Road with an enormous sense of relief. He felt much more at home here: tanned, slim posh girls on their gap years filled the streets alongside Aussie backpackers on their way to bar jobs. Were it not for the palm trees and the clear blue of the Andaman Sea in the background, it could almost have been a Saturday night along the Fulham Road. At a Thai boxing match he fell in with Tom and Zac, students who had graduated from Edinburgh that summer, and they spent the rest of the evening hopping from bar to bar, enjoying the easy camaraderie of young Brits abroad. Miles felt safe with these boys – they were straight, normal and predictable, exactly what he needed after last night. The thought of it set off a clash of emotions – shame, confusion and, most of all, desire. He pushed the feelings away and herded his new friends into the Disco-a-Go-Go bar behind Soi Seadragon, hitting a wall of neon and sound.
‘Welcome, boys,’ smiled a petite Thai girl in a tight T-shirt and micro-shorts.
‘Hell-oh, mama,’ said Zac, gawping at the girl’s breasts.
‘I hope they’re going to be filthy,’ said Tom as they ordered beers at the bar and clambered on to bar stools to watch a line of girls sashay out on to a runway. They were mostly Thai, slim and young, wearing an assortment of skimpy clothing – mesh cropped T-shirts, leather shorts, metallic bikinis. The room filled with a sexual charge as the girls danced, hips gyrating, arms circling suggestively. But Miles was only watching one girl. She was different, and not just because she was the only Western girl on the stage. Her long hair was dyed red, swishing back and forth across her curved back. A black crop-top clung to voluptuous breasts and stopped short of a slim, perfectly toned belly. She had spotted Miles watching her and strode over, grinding her taut tummy just in front of his grinning face.
‘Tuck a fifty in her bra, Miles!’ whooped Zac.
‘Pounds or baht?’ He smiled.
Tom sniggered. Fifty baht was worth less than a pound. Miles gave the girl a hundred-dollar bill, hard US currency. It wasn’t like he couldn’t afford it, was it?
‘Whoa, your round I think, Miles,’ said Zac, slapping him on the back.
The dancing girls came off stage to mingle with the crowd, draping themselves over the punters, flirting crudely, cajoling the punters to buy them drinks; small measures, Miles noticed.
‘Hey, cowboy.’
Turning, he met the piercing gaze of the redhead.
‘Shouldn’t you be checking out the dancers, not the bar?’ she said with amusement.
‘I was just working out how much money this place made a night,’ said Miles.
‘Fancy the Patong bar game, do you?’ She looked at his cream trousers and pink Turnbull and Asser shirt. ‘You don’t look like the type.’
‘Just curious.’
She nodded non-committally. ‘So are you going to buy me a drink?’
He smiled. ‘A watered-down one, you me
an?’
She twirled her finger around her belly chain. ‘Oh, I do miss the cynicism of Britain.’
‘Where are you from?’
‘Hastings,’ she said after a minute pause.
‘So what brought you here?’
‘Same thing as half the other people in Patong. Money, adventure, excitement.’
She gave him a suggestive half-smile. To his surprise, he found he was enjoying her attention.
‘And did you find it?’
‘Business is good.’ She smiled slowly. ‘I probably make a great deal more money than most people my age, even posh Home Counties ones with fancy educations like you.’
He smiled at her naïve suggestion that she somehow had more money than him. But she had a ‘screw you’ attitude that appealed to him. She wasn’t going to sweet-talk him just to get the commission for a few overpriced drinks. Still, he couldn’t help goading her.
‘So how exactly do you make that money?’
She visibly bristled.‘This is a decent place. The dancers here aren’t hookers.’
She waited, hands on hips, for a smart remark, but Miles just met her gaze.