‘Oh, handsome boy! I love you too much. You are mine for tonight!’

‘No way!’

I moved to the right, getting intimate with the railing, to allow her to pass but she opened her arms in a wide embrace and gave me a vampire smile graduated on sharpened teeth that never got close to reaching the remoteness of her eyes. Without even thinking about it, I feigned left and then bounced back to the right, missing her embrace by a matter of mere nanoseconds.

‘Menai, menai, menia?’

Where you go! I screamed above the torrent of abuse she poured forth whilst she glided past me, her high-heels going clack-clack-clack as she went down the stairs on her back, having lost her footing trying to keep up with my Ninja-like speed of movement.

Her face a picture, well worth framing, of utter confusion and bewilderment as she tottered past, fear added to the recipe as she was spirited out of my life. It was only afterwards that I realised how close I’d come to being battered down the stairs, raped and robbed. Some transmutation of my reflexes appeared to allow me to react much faster than I’d ever managed before.

The tout at the top of the stairs exclaimed that there wasn’t a cover charge, beer only 100 baht.

I entered the relative safely of the bar. Neon, noise and iced air bit deep into my mind as a squat Thai levered the hefty steel door open. The usual stage in the centre surrounded by stools and alcoves. I headed for a dark corner, hopeful that the only entertainment was going to be the brace of naked dancers on the stage. Another ice-cold beer but I didn’t touch it because there wasn’t an accompanying bill.

‘Where’s my bill? How much is a beer?’

The waitress walked off so I went to the bar to repeat the question.

‘200 baht for the beer, 800 bar for the show. 1000 baht total!’

‘No way, man. I was told 100 baht for a beer and no cover charge. I haven’t touched the beer, I’m out of here.’

I was hiked off my feet by a hideous creature and carried a couple of yards across the room until I was stopped by a wall. The katoey put me down with a thump,

‘Why you no pay,’ the monster screamed into my ear. “Only 1000 baht, not big money for farang.”