Chapter 9
A hot meal and a few hours of female company can do a lot for a man's spirit, and Tom Bailey was thinking precisely that as he lay on his straw mat, last night's episode in the village running through his mind like some corny B-rated movie.
Finding directions to the Da Nang prostitute's but was a simple matter, even for a man who spoke little Burmese, and when she greeted him at the door she seemed to know intuitively his wishes.
"Fuck?" she asked, and Bailey had repressed an urge to chuckle. To hear that four-letter word spoken with such honesty, was ludicrous.
"Yes," he'd nodded at her with a toothy smile, feeling desperately the need to communicate in his native tongue. "Yes, fucking . . . that's what I've come here for."
She ushered him into her meager surroundings and fed him first a meal of rice, vegetables and steamed fish. Later, he had handed her the jade rock which she fingered appraisingly, and apparently pleased with her assessment, she smiled and quietly undressed. Bailey watched, trying to feel turned on and not succeeding. His mind reeled back to Julie, remembering those heated nights back in Dayton when the sight of a bare thigh drove him wild with passion . . . now in the company of a naked woman, he felt nothing but confusion. Her breasts were small and firm, for a woman her age, but the pilot found himself wondering how many American men had kissed and fondled those brown nubby nipples. She's a whore, he kept reminding himself, but that did nothing to dissipate the sour memories of the Viet Nam war atrocities and his dead buddies rotting in their jungle graves not more than seven kilometers away. What threads of sensuality he'd managed to weave in those first expectant moments of meeting the whore, were swept away.
She stripped herself naked and lay down on her straw mat, glancing up at him with her slanted liquid eyes.
This is what you wanted, isn't it? He asked himself as he dropped his pants and crawled down on his knees beside her.
The small-boned tawny-bodied woman lay passively beside him, smiling that unchangeable grin as Tom stroked her breasts, enjoying the feel of human flesh but feeling no particular excitement. She submitted to a few random kisses and then took his flaccid penis in her hand and started to pump it skillfully. It felt good, being touched down there, and his cock stiffened slightly, but there was no passion, and the man knew instinctively that he was naked in bed with a woman but he wasn't going to fuck her. It wasn't that he couldn't . . . he simply wouldn't.
Perhaps any other man in that situation would have worried about his fading virility or a kink in his psyche, but Bailey had spent enough contemplative moments to know what the problem was. He could make love again when he found a woman who could make him forget about Julie.
The Da Nang whore looked up at him questioningly, her dark eyes sweeping over his face for an explanation. Bailey smiled back at her and put his arms around her softly receptive body, feeling strangely happy and wishing he could explain to this baffled woman what she had done for just being there. He had not wanted to make love to her in the first place, now that he thought about it. He had just wanted to be around a woman.
Tom strode purposely to the entrance of his hut and looked out through the canopies of teak branches filtering the morning sunlight in a hazy green. The man felt one with himself, calm and strangely happy, and above all, content to be alone. Perhaps the bustle of American life wasn't for him anyway . . . after living in this lonely uncomplicated stretch of forgotten land, people would only invite trouble, quarrels and fights.
He grabbed his fishing pole and headed out for his morning catch, burlap bag swinging over his shoulder which he would fill with driftwood for his fire. Whistling to himself, he ducked beneath the low hanging branches as he followed the beaten trail down to the river's edge, surveying the path for dried wood. He bent over, bracing his full weight balanced on one foot on a limb and kicked hard, crackling it when . . .
He stopped, squinting against the morning sun, when he spied what looked like a human body stretched out on the beach. For a moment, he had to force himself to go forward. The morning had been so pleasant and the idea of encountering a dead body would spoil his blissful mood. No doubt the body was dead and probably half eaten by rats and full of snake bites.
Decisively, he envisioned exactly where he would bury this corpse . . . alongside his burned up buddies back in the jungle. Maybe he'd even give it Last Rites . . . something he wished he'd done for his crew. Right now, to get the foulness, the ugliness off the river bank was his prime objective. He stepped a little closer and saw, as he approached, that it was a woman's nearly naked body and intact. The girl's feet were still lying in the water and little waves were washing up a channel formed by her outstretched thighs. Bailey stopped, feeling slightly ill and wishing that he did not have to go through with something that would upset him. He did not need to see another dead body ever again. Again, he squinted . . . the girl was beautiful, blonde and well proportioned like Julie had been.
Bailey swallowed dryly and looked down at the girl, wondering if someone had killed her and then thrown her into the river, or if she had drowned accidentally. The girl was definitely not Burmese, or even Oriental for that matter.
"Jesus Christ!" he gasped aloud as his eyes suddenly detected the slow, almost indistinguishable rise and fall of the blonde girl's breasts. She was alive! He bent over her quickly, touching her arm and feeling the cold clammy skin. He found her pulse, slow and regular. Certainly he couldn't leave her out on the muddy river bank with the snakes and gibbons.
Without thinking, he wrapped the bag around her unconscious body and lifted her into his arms. Eight years ago he would have been huffing and puffing, struggling with the dead weight of a woman in his arms, but these years of physical struggle had done marvels for his physical condition. It became harder trying to protect her from the low hanging branches slapping her in the face as he ducked under their obstructing weight, but he struggled valiantly until he reached his hut. Out of breath, he stretched her out on the straw mat.
"Oooooooohhhhhhhhh!" she groaned, turning her head to one side and spitting up a little water that joined the river mud in her blonde hair to puddle on the mat. Bailey stepped back and stared in confusion at the fantastic woman which fate had abruptly tossed in his lap . . . Fate or was it luck? The girl was beautiful, to say the least . . . probably in her early twenties, with high set breasts and long slender legs. The wet man's shirt that clung wetly to her body had hiked up above her naked loins and Bailey shivered at the sight of her blonde fluff of pubic curls as full and white as Julie's.
Just what I need . . . a woman to complicate my life. In two days she'll be well and out of here and 1'lli be left with a head full of haunting memories.
The girl stirred and moaned, indistinctly, her hand moving unconsciously to cover the golden fleece of her pubic region and Bailey felt an electric tingle in his cock, the kind of tingle he could have used last night with the Da Nang whore, if he'd wanted to get his money's worth. It struck him that the girl would feel shy and frightened, awakening in the presence of a strange man in a strange place, and he quickly pulled a blanket over her half naked body, rippling lushly with the effort of breathing. She was a magnificently put together woman and he had enjoyed staring at her curves and bumps, now that he knew she was alive. A few smudges of dirt muddied her satin cheeks, and Bailey stepped forward and kneeling down, wiped them clean, touching her resilient flesh. It occurred to him then, that he should remove her wet shirt and he deftly unbuttoned the cotton garment and pulled it from her arms, nipples stiffening automatically in the open air. Bailey felt a shiver of guilt, wondering if he'd done something shameful and despicable to the unconscious girl.
Don't fall in love, he told himself sternly. She'll wake up and walk out of here and you'll be left alone with more bad memories.
Still, he maintained a vigil. . . watching her every breath until her wakefulness came slowly and painfully.
Shirlee felt every muscle in her body limp with numb exhaustion from having been canned up in the steamer trunk, then poured into the river water where she'd fought against the Charlie horses to save herself from the snake infested river. Her mind was a swamp of confusion and hours passed before she dared to open her eyes. She lay quietly, trying to explore her surroundings by feel. She was laying on solid ground, covered with a scratchy blanket, the smell of moist earth and cooking fish mingling with the crackle of a warm fire not far away. Had Manchu's bodyguards fished her drowning body out of the water and revived her only to debase her again? No . . . she didn't feel drugged and she was not on a boat. Someone was in the room: she could hear the clatter of a pan and gentle breathing. Languidly, she opened one amber eye.
"Hello," a man replied in perfect English.
Shirlee's eyes popped open wide. He spoke English. Thank God!
"Are you okay?" He was tall and lean and very muscular, and couldn't have been over thirty-five years of age.
"I . . . I think so," she stammered and coughed slightly. "Oh . . . I can't believe I'm alive . . . or is this another lifetime?"
"Huh?" A whacko, thought Bailey. Just what I need . . . a dumb blonde. "I found you out on the river bank, half drowned," he said flatly. "You were unconscious . . . here, drink this. You'll need strength."
The tea had a nourishing affect on her and she drank it all down, grateful for the sensation of having something warm in her stomach. She eyed her rescuer quizzically. He was a strange one! He asked no questions and didn't seem at all curious as to how she'd ended up on that muddy foreign river bank half naked. She sat up, momentarily forgetting that she was naked and then blushed as she pulled the blanket up to cover her proud, creamy breasts.
"Am I near Wei Phu Long?" she wanted to know.
"Close by," the man answered carefully as if he were not used to the sound of his own voice.
"Oh . . ." She chewed on her lip, looking truly frightened for the first time since this whole crazy episode had begun.
"Have you seen any boats going down river?"
"No. .
"Then they're out searching for me! You see, I was locked up in this steamer trunk because they were going to . . . to do awful things to me and this man befriended me. Oh, God, they'll kill me if they find me!"
To her shock, he simply nodded, as if he'd heard this story many times before.
"Don't you want to hear the rest?"
"Not particularly." I've got enough drama in my life, he thought.
"They were criminals. . . jade smugglers working with the Karenni thugs that travel up and down the Pai . . ."
"Great . . . just wonderful," muttered Bailey.
To kill his bodyguard would have been a stupid move at this point of the game, but Bu Manchu was ready to do just that. "You saw her jump overboard and you didn't shoot her?" He pumped his fists into balls, his face livid with rage.
The long, low boat loaded with empty steamer trunks was anchored to the Pai River shores, Manchu scouring the banks with a high powered pair of Japanese binoculars, searching for the white skinned body of his captive on the muddy, bug infested banks. The deal was set up; the Karenni thugs were waiting for their arrival fifty kilometers down the river where Hiro and Kim would arrive via truck at the check point. Everything was perfect . . . except for this one loose screw that could blow the top of Manchu's well oiled machinery sky high.
Sam, the bodyguard, pumped his fists and gnashed his powerful jaws. He wished he'd kept his silence, but Ti's holier than thou attitude was getting on his nerves and now that Ti had rescued the English girl and let her go free, Sam's position with Manchu was in dark jeopardy. Worse . . . once the bond of trust had been broken with Manchu, he'd probably be lucky to get away with some broken bones. Still, he faced Manchu stoically:
"Chances are she's dead anyway, Bu. These waters are slimy with snakes. . . and if they didn't get her, the gibbons would."
"And if she isn't dead . . . do you realize what that girl knows?" Bu showed his teeth as he talked, his eyes bugging frog-like from his head.
The boat rocked gently as little waves slapped up on shore. Bu turned to his son. "What do you know about this?"
"Nothing, sir." Ti stared levelly into his father's eyes. "I know nothing."
Sam's liquid eyes were filled with hatred as he turned to Ti. "You said you heard rats . . . rats eating. You will pay for this."
Bu snapped his fingers. "Enough of this! Find that girl! I want that girl!"