Several years back Nick and I were watching the Hotspurs-Arsenal game at the Buffalo Bar. The girls avoided us, as we harangued the TV. Bad language and drinking Chang Beer. It was the equivalent of Stella Artois. Wifebeater beer. Even the bargirls at the Buffalo knew enough to keep their distance.

Nick was reared within sight of White Hart Lane. He had been a yid fan as a youth. A thug in his teens. He hated the Gooners. Patrick Henry might have been the best player in the Premiership, but Nick was my mate. Henry played for the ‘filth’.

“Could you keep it down?” A German client asked offended by our swearing.

“Piss off Arseloch.” Nick’s father was German. He had taught his son all the bad words of Deutschland. The mama-san sherried the client to the back tables. He was here for a week. Nick and I were in Pattaya until we blew our money. The Buffalo bar wanted its share.

The game ended in a tie. Nick was happy. It was an away game. We switched to black and coke. Our moods improved after the third glass.

Convict entered the bar. That’s not his real name. Craig was an ex-cop from Australia, but Nick calls all ‘Roos’ convicts and criminals. Convict had been last seen the previous evening on Walking Street in search of a one-night stand. Usually a fait accompli in the city of ‘yes’, yet this evening his face was long as a donkey’s nose and I asked, “Women problems?”

“Yeah, I don’t know how to say it, but I was blown off five times this evening?” Convict admitted without any shame.

“Five times?” Convict was in his late-30s. His beer gut wouldn’t win any prizes at the Wet Tee-shirt Beer Belly contest, however Pattaya offers almost 100% success ratio with women and I had to ask. “Were you drunk?”

“Not in the beginning.” He ordered a whiskey from the skinny girl behind the bar.

“Once or twice I can see, but five times.” I had recently been told in Phnom Penh by a woman with whom I had a number of drinks that she didn’t go with men. I accepted her excuse with disbelief, since she had visited the upstairs recreation room with another gent earlier in the evening. But I respected her prerogative to go with whomever she wanted, because it’s not like she was the only girl in Phnom Penh.

“The first rejection was on Soi Eight. I bought the girl a couple of drinks and then invited her back to my place. She said she had a sick aunt in town and couldn’t go.” He sipped at his whiskey with a wounded expression.

“At least she lied to make you feel better.” Thai bargirls were good that way.

“I figured I could right this situation by going to a go-go bar on Beach Road. A cute girl was dancing on the nearest steel pole. I asked her if she wanted to go home with me. She said she could go short time. Went to get her things, and then disappeared with a Japanese man.” Convict shrugged and signaled for another whiskey. The first one had gone down fast.

“That’s only because she wanted more money.” Not many girls would turn down a Jap, who pay more and come like a rabbit on crack. Quick. Working girls say only Chinese men finish faster. Koreans win the bronze.

“She asked for 2000 baht.”

“And you countered with 1500.”

“Yeah.”

Bargaining for a girl’s body always cuts against the grain. They know their price.

“So this was a financial disagreement. What about #3?”

“I went to a beer bar on Walking Street. There was a girl with nice eyes. I like bar girls better than go-go girls anyway.” Several of the drinkers were surreptitiously listening to Convict. “I bought her a drink and then after the appropriate amount of chitchat popped the question about coming back to my place to watch some movies.”

“Art films.” Convict’s porno collection was as legendary as his museum of dildos.

They help set the mood.” Convict smiled impishly. “She said she would love to, but she was working as the cashier and couldn’t leave.”

“Cashiers rarely go with ‘farangs’.” I’d hit on many without success.

Convict agreed that he had been fooled into thinking she was into the game.

“It was getting late and decided to go back to Soi 8. Maybe the first one would change her mind. She wasn’t there. The mama-san said she had a sick aunt. Another girl started talking to me. I popped her the question. She said she would, but had her men or period. I said I didn’t care if she was on the rag.”

“Rejection #4.” Convict’s night was like my trawling the bars in Manhattan. A land of No followed by a taxi ride to an empty apartment. “But you didn’t give up.”

“No, but I had one more try in me.”

“Where?”

“I’m not saying.”

Nick had heard about 80% of conversation and shouted, “The last one was at home. Even his hand wouldn’t fuck him.”

The bar laughed and so did Convict. There were plenty of nights I didn’t want to go home with me after drinking myself into near-oblivion.

“No, I’m not saying who #5 was.”

The bar begged for a confession. Convict locked his lips. “I’m not saying.”

I was the only one who caught the eye of the girl behind the bar. She was missing a front tooth, but was pretty in a bony way. This bar was on Darryl’s way home. She smiled and I knew she might be #5.

“Guess it’s over to Soi half-dozen.” Convict was headed to Pattaya?s notorious short-time bars. “No one gets shot down there.”

We wish him luck, but no one accompanied him to Soi 6.

Nick lifted his beer.

“Last thing I need is Convictitis. I get enough of birds telling me ‘no’ back in London.”

“And New York.” I didn’t hear any nos, because Mam was in love with me. I with her.

I wanted no one else but her and I thought she was the same way too, although tonight she had a headache and it’s never a good time to ask for sex when a woman has one of those.

Not if I know what?s good for me.