Revision: Kirihito Hikami -> Kirito Hikami
The owner, a white man with a face like a rock, scowled me.
Right now, I'm in the center of Thaniya Street.
Inside the bar which is dimly lit before it opens, and there are a
number of dance poles propped up on a stage in the center of the bar, slightly
reflected by the light bulbs on the counter.
After the owner scowled me, he continued to spoke up in English with
a dumbfounded look on his face.
「A ladyboy, huh? I don't know if you're a man
or a woman, but it's the charm in the middle that counts. I don't know where
you had your surgery, but if you have a perfect body like a woman, you won't
get any customers. Are you kidding me?」
「I didn't
choose to be like this either」
「I don't give
a damn about your situation. I can't hire you. But I can introduce you to a
Go-Go bar in Soi Cowboy. It's run by my brother. You can work as long as you're
not a ladyboy and you're 100% female」
「As a
waitress?」
「Are you
nuts!? Did you leave your brain at home, little girl? Of course it's a
Sǒopheenii」
「Sǒopheenii?」
I tilted my head at the unfamiliar term, and the owner cowered in a
gesture of white exaggeration.
「A Prostitute.
Really, you don't know anything, huh? You dance in a Go-Go bar and take
customers when the stage is cleared. And Soi Cowboy is the only place for
foreigners who don't accept Thais (Krungtheph/กรุงเทพ). The customers are good.
It's close to Sukhumvit. There's also a lot of Japanese (Khn ỵī̀pùn/คนญี่ปุ่น) on
there」
After he only told me the name of the bar, I left the bar as if I
was being driven away, but it is already evening.
In here, the sun, like a rotten mandarin, mixed with the orange and
black of the tropics, is staining the cracked asphalt, and the flashy neon
lights, like those of a pachinko parlor or a famous supermarket in the Kansai
area, are beginning to glow.
There are also food stalls on the street.
But, next to a stall selling deep-fried sweets like Sata Andagi,
there is a wrinkled old woman selling adult toys.
（Adult toys
at a food stall...）
I couldn't help but laugh.
Here, anything goes, as long as it sells.
At any rate, I went into a convenience store and bought a can of
coffee and a cigarette.
But when the
clerk talked to me, he looked a little puzzled as I replied "I don't
understand Thai (Mâi Kôi Jâi Pursathai (?)", after all it was the only
Thai I could remember.
Anyway, I sat down in the back alley and smoked a cigarette.
「A
prostitute... well, I guess it's a little late for that」
That's right. It's too late. I don't feel much resistance to being
held by men anymore.
In fact, I'm glad I'm a woman if I'm going to be thrown into a place
like this alone. It is difficult for a person without a family register or a
passport to make money.
It's a completely different story if I have something to sell or
not.
In the case of the bar I saw earlier, I just entered a bar
specializing in ladyboys with a shallow idea that it would be more comfortable
for me to pretend that I was formerly a male so that I can do it as a male.
Well, whether I'm a prostitute or not, I don't care as long as I can
make money. After all, there's nothing good about being a man when I don't even
have the essential part.
As I thought that, I looked up at the sky.
The sky is a rectangle which has been cut off by buildings. And the
neon lights are so bright that when the sun goes down, I can hardly see the
stars.
I thought I could see Orion's triple star, but I didn't know if
Orion itself is visible from this country.
**a
「...How did I
end up in this mess?」
Before coming to this street, I found myself in a woman's body, in a
container bound for Southeast Asia. And when I arrived on land, I could smell
the slight smell of spices in the wind.
「You, this
way」
Then, I'm separated from the girls I've been transported with and
put in a separate car.
「We're going
to the auction. We have a buyer for you」
The nasty white middleman looks me up and down and then nods.
「You're
lucky. Rattori-san is good. He doesn't enjoy chopping up women, and if he likes
you, he'll probably take good care of you. He prefers white women」
That's what the middleman said, but a man who buys a kidnapped woman
can't be serious.
After arrived, I was taken to a reasonably large mansion and handed
over to the local old man, who looked like a fat man with a short beard and
bald head.
I couldn't understand a word he said, but he seemed to like me very
much, and as soon as the middleman left, he took me into his bedroom and
started having sexual relations with me.
「I'm a man」
I insisted in English, but he just laughed at me like a fool.
That's true. My body is completely female. I guess he thought I was
just telling stupid lies because I didn't want to be raped.
Anyway, why are women's bodies so weak? I can't push away even a
small fat man.
Kissing an old man who smelled of cigarettes was the worst. Being
held by an old bald man was hell.
Above all, although I had ripped girls' virginity membranes many
times, I never thought it would be so painful to have my membranes ripped off.
Every day, the old man spent a lot of time with me. And the only
thing that saved my life was that he gave me a pill, because he didn't want me
to pregnant.
I am put in a collar, dressed in a pretty see-through baby doll and
kept in a bedroom. Those are the days.
On top of
that, he forced a tattoist to tattoo a completely unreadable Thai word on my
back, claiming that it was "my love".
But, it must have been his name, but thankfully it was invisible
with my clothes on.
Still, habit is a terrible thing. After the first week, I started to
feel more and more comfortable having do it with him, and the sooner I could
make him come, the sooner it would be over. Thinking so, I continued to
actively serve the old man.
I think the reason why I began to feel more or less intimate with
the old man was because my mind was influenced by the woman's body.
But one day, after about a month of such a life, I was awakened by
the sound of gunfire.
In the middle of the night, a group of people with machine guns came
into the house. I myself escaped by hiding under the bed, but the old man, who
was trying to run for his life, was blown up like a firework by the limousine.
I found out later that the house I was brought to was located near
the border of Malaysia and Thailand, and the man who bought me was a rich old
man who had made a fortune in drugs.
**b
Apparently, he had been caught red-handed cheating on his sales and
had been purged.
And from
that time, from among the confused servants who had lost their master, I
seduced a young gardener who had been showing signs of interest in me and said,
"We're going to be killed too. Let's run away together" then he gave
me a pair of jeans and a T-shirt to change into and brought me to Bangkok.
Then, the night we arrived in Bangkok. While he was sleeping, I took
his wallet and ran away from the hotel.
It must have been all he had. But, although he had a good amount of
money in his wallet, it would not last long.
In fact, the contents of his wallet were about to run out.
I wanted to go back to Japan, but I had no money, no passport, and
no family register.
「If you don't
have a family register, you can buy one. A Japanese family register is so
expensive that it will make your eyes pop out of your head, but as long as you
have the money, you can get one」
That's what the bar’s owner said to me before, and I fully
understand that this is a place like that.
（Anyway,
money. All I need is money. Money is everything...）
「Well, let's
go to the bar he introduced me to...」
Soi Cowboy is a street right next to Asok BTS station. As the owner
said, it is a red-light district for foreigners.
The ridiculously bright neon signs are a mixture of English,
Japanese and Hangul.
There are almost no locals among the drunks who pass by, and many of
them are Japanese businessmen.
The sound of the Japanese language, which I had not heard in a long
time, made me feel a bit nervous, but looking at the Japanese people from the
outside, they seem to be full of good-natured atmosphere. There is too little
sense of crisis.
（No wonder...
I am a dupe）
For a moment, I thought of asking for help from some random
Japanese, but the best I could do was to be taken to the embassy. I couldn't
imagine what would happen to a person without a family register.
Then, feeling the stares of the women touting in broken Japanese as
they lined up chairs in front of the bar, I walked down the street.
The bar I
was introduced to is a place called "Paradise Tokyo" in the center of
the street. Very funny. Compared to this place, Tokyo may indeed be a paradise.
I told the door staff the name of the bar on Thaniya Street, tipped
them to call the owner, and soon a burly black man in a suit appeared.
「I'm here
through your brother. I want you to hire me」
Because of his brother's introduction, the bar serves Japanese
customers. I have to say, I'm quite beautiful as a woman. On top of that, I can
speak Japanese, so there's nothing to be said about that, and I was hired
immediately.
「So, what's
your name?」
「Kirito... Kirito
Hikami」
When I said this, the owner gave me a troublesome look.
「Japanese
names are hard to pronounce. Well, what does Kirito mean?」
「Meaning? It
means fog (mist)」
「Then your
stage name should be "Misty". I'll have you work tonight. Do you need
a place to live?」
「Yes, thank you」
That day, I became Misty of Paradise Tokyo.
- Kirito Hikami makes a surprise reappearance. It's a very typical interlude.
