Meeting Mr. Dantanavanawong

Finally, as you reach a district consisting of a combination of high-rise condominiums, parkland and embassy buildings ... including the US embassy, you notice ... Malee begins to speak to you.

"First, never try to touch me in public without my permission; I have a reputation to maintain."

"I'm sorry," you say, voice small and quiet, but she rolls right over you.

"Second, we are of different social stations, especially when we meet Mister Dantanavanawong. I will call him Kuhn Kulap. For YOU, however, this is a formal meeting. YOU will call him Kuhn Dantanavanawong unless and until he says otherwise. Understand?"

"Y - yes ..."

"Good. When you enter a home in Thailand, you remove your filthy shoes. Do not fail to do so again. You greet anyone in Thailand with a Wai ... a short bow with your palms pressed together at chest height. Try it now."

You do so. You think ... HOPE ... you see a small smile cross her lips.

"Good. Now, most people offered a Wai will return it, but those with great social status, like Kuhn Kulap, need not do so ... though he MAY, as you are coming to him as a guest. But do not be offended ... certainly do not ACT offended ... if he fails to do so."

"I understand. Malee? Are you angry with me?"

She turns to you and gives you a small smile. "No, baby," she says, filling you with relief and letting you release a breath you hadn't known you were holding, "Just giving you information you need to have if you're going to live and work here without embarrassing yourself or me." She reaches out and squeezes your thigh. "Now be a good boy, and make me proud. Here we are."

You enter an underground garage and follow Malee to a bank of elevators, where she takes a keycard from her purse and inserts it into a slot beneath the call buttons before pushing one. One of the cars immediately begins descending, and soon its door opens. Malee removes the card, motions you into the elevator car, giving your ass a playful slap on your way past, and enters behind you, reinserting the card on the interior control panel before hitting the Penthouse floor button. The elevator doors close, and the car begins accelerating upwards at an alarming speed.

This building has 44 storeys before reaching the penthouse level; the elevator reaches it in less than two minutes ... two silently uncomfortable minutes in which you can't suppress the idea that Malee might be angrier with you than she's admitting.

The elevator chime is silent as its doors open and you stagger out, a little muddled by the speed of your ascent. You appear to be in some sort of enclosed entryway or foyer, a pair of double doors before you, with a dark-suited, shortish (but taller than you) Thai man in a dark suit, his muscles making him look rather squat. Malee steps forward, speaking Thai, you think, and gesturing towards you. She then turns to you.

"This is Kuhn Veera," she says, "He's in charge of Kuhn Kulap's security. He doesn't speak any Englush, but if you speak French, Vietnamese, Jaoanese or, of course, Thai, you will be able to speak together. Why don't you come greet him, baby?"

You step forward and, of course not knowing any languages other than English and bad English, perform the Wai greeting.

Veera returns the greeting and looks over at Malee. "Kathoey?" he asks.

"Chi."

Veera smiles at that, and winks at you. You turn to Malee, confused but happy that the security man seems pleased. "What ... what did he say?"

She turns her head to you, saying, "It's not important. He likes you, though. You did well."

You smile at her praise, following her as she kicks off her shoes and places them against the wall, and then through the double doors. As you pass the threshold, you suddenly feel a hand ... a big, strong hand ... squeezing your right ass cheek. You turn in shock, already knowing there's only one person in the entryway, and there he is, hand squeezing almost painfully, winking at you again: Veera the security chief. "Kathoey."

You stumble forward, escaping his grasping hand, and almost run into Malee. "What are you doing?" she asks.

You place a hand on her arm and, leaning forwatd to get closer to her ear, whisper, "That guy just grabbed my ass!"

She giggles. "Come on! Really?"

"I could measure him for gloves by the marks on my ass cheek! Yes, really!"

She giggles again. "Well, I told you he liked you! Come on, sexy."

You follow along, seriously confused. You just got goosed ... by a MAN ... and Malee found it ... sexy?

She leads you through a living room bigger than some lecture halls back home and over to some sliding glass doors leading to a rooftop pool. Outside, you approach an older Thai man, probably in his late forties or early fifties, exiting the pool. Older he may be, but he's still more heavily muscled thsn you've ever been, and moves with the easy grace of a leopard. Malee approaches him respectfully, almost reverently, and performs thw Wai greeting. "Kuhn Kulap, good afternoon. Please allow me to introduce your contest winner, Aaron LaFleur."

She moves half a step to the right, and you take that as your signal, taking two steps forward and performing the Wai. "Thank you for receiving me, Mister Dan ... Mister Dantan ..."

The older man smiles and returns the Wai. "Mister Dan okay for now, Kuhn Erinn," he says with that same accent that seems to feminize your name, "Come, come. Sit. We talk."

He motions you to a trio of beach chairs by the pool, where the three of you sit. A maid - a pretty Asian girl in a "traditional" French maid's costume, complete to white stockings and garters - appears almost before your bottom hits the seat, carrying a silver tray that holds a pitcher and three tall glasses of lemonade, already beading with sweat in the warmth of the afternoon. She sets the tray down, curtseys to Mister Dantanavanawong, and then backs away without a word.

He places a glass before each of you before taking the last for himself, smiling and chuckling, and then says jovially, "American drink for new American friend. Drink! Drink to contest, to success! To new friends!" before taking a deep swallow from his own glass.

You follow his example ... and almost cough it back up immediately. The stuff must be half vodka! But even knowing very little about Thai etiquette, as Malee so recently demonstrated, you suspect that spitting your host's drink back in his face could be considered ... impolite. A faux pas, so to speak. So you control the reflex, swallow and smile.

Dant ... Dantana ... Mister Dan, still smiling, says, "Good, yes? Drink, drink," so you all take another drink, though this time you make no attempt to keep up with your host. Your head is already spinning as it is.

"Give hand," he says to you, stretching out his own hand. You place your hand in his, a little nervously for some reason you can't define. He examines it closely looking first at your fingernails, then looking at and touching each of your knuckles before turning your hand over and running his thumb over your palm, mostly near the base of each finger. What would have been ... was, only a day or so ago ... an intensely erotic experience with Malee only increases your discomfort, though you can't tell why and honestly, by the time he's done with his inspection, you're feeling a bit fuzzy-headed and ... divorced from your anxiety. It's still there, but it's as if it has nothing to do with YOU.

"No calluses, good. Listen, Erinn. Erinn?"

Your attention snaps back to Mister Dan's face and voice. You'd been enjoying the feel of his hands ... no, wait, that's not right, is it? You look at him in confusion. "Y-yes, Mister Dan?"

"Good. Listen. You pretty boy. Mister Dan want you. To work for him! Wear clothes, take picture. Enter ... entertain?" he asks with a quick glance at Malee. At her tiny nod, he continues, "Entertain at party. Keep guest and client happy. You do this for me, okay?"

You nod again, a bit distracted. You really do feel as if you're having an out-of-body experience, floating just above your own head. "I want to."

"Good! Very good!" He barks something in ... you assume it's Thai ... at the maid. "I give contract, you sign. One copy Thai, one English. One for you, one for me. Okay?"

You nod, barely aware of doing so. The maid reappears, bearing a stack of papers and ... is that a measuring tape?

Mister Dan signs each contract - they're only about three pages long each, which would surprise you if you were in any shape to be surorised - in both Thai script and an English signature before handing each to you. You sign each with the provided pen - the ink appears to be bright pink - before the maid collects them all from you, then redistributes them. There appear, to your currently uncaring eyes, to be two separate documents, which means that you sign eight times and receive four bundles of paper, two in English and two in Thai.

"Good boy," Mister Dan praises you, unrolling the measuring tape. You smile in return but can't seem to summon up the energy to form words.

"Good-good," he repeats, almost to himself, then, "Now strip, Erinn."

Wait. What?

"Wait, what?"

"Get naked. Mister Dan want to see you naked,"

A surge of adrenaline tuns through you, burning off a tiny bit of that mental fog. "WHAT?!!?"