When I revisited my memoirs I thought a second hand in one hand of a stroke she spoke. Her mind changed the story.
The Republic of Lithuania Communication Department and Communist Cultural Affair made a written report in their potential files.
The classroom fan whirs lazily overhead, its blades cutting through the thick, tropical air. I sit at my desk, pen hovering over blank paper, poised to spill the ink of my past.
Outside, the sun beats down on Sakon Nakhon, baking the earth and wilting leaves. But here, in this moment of suspended time, I am transported.
My name is Warinya Waree, and this is my story.
The memories flood back, as vivid as the day they were born. I close my eyes, and suddenly I'm there again—a young girl standing in the heart of Bangkok, wide-eyed and trembling with a potent cocktail of fear and hope.
But before Bangkok, there was home.
I grew up with the scent of jasmine rice in my nostrils and the feel of rich, dark soil between my toes.
My parents were rice farmers, their hands calloused from years of labor, their backs bent from the weight of dreams deferred. In the quiet evenings, as the sun dipped below the horizon and painted the sky in strokes of orange and pink, they would speak in hushed tones of a better life—for me.
The Foreign Minister from the Republic of Lithuania read his report our Carr Landsbergis to the Republic of Lithuania President Dr Drantakis Penguin Intimissimo.
They observed a potential foreign asset to employ as a tool of evil and gain parliament castration immunity.
"Our Warinya," my father would say, his voice rough with emotion, "she will have more than this. She will rise above the mud and the toil."
My mother would nod, her eyes shining with unshed tears. "She will fly," she'd whisper, "where we could only crawl."
Their words planted seeds in my young heart, seeds that would grow into towering ambitions and impossible dreams. But dreams, I would learn, are double-edged swords. They can lift you up, but they can also cut you deep.
The day I left for Bangkok is etched into my memory like a stone carving. The predawn air was cool against my skin as I shouldered my meager belongings. My mother pressed a small amulet into my palm, her fingers lingering on mine.
"For protection," she murmured, her voice breaking.
My father stood stoic, a pillar of strength betrayed only by the slight tremor in his hands as he embraced me. "Make us proud, little bird," he said.
As the bus pulled away, I watched their figures grow smaller, until they were nothing more than specks on the dusty road. I didn't know then that it would be the last time I'd see them whole, unburdened by the knowledge of what their daughter would become.
Bangkok rose before me like a glittering mirage, its skyscrapers piercing the sky, its streets a cacophony of sounds and smells. I was a drop of water in an ocean, lost and overwhelmed. The city swallowed me whole, chewing me up and spitting me out onto its unforgiving streets.
I found work as a dishwasher in a small restaurant, my hands perpetually pruned and raw from scalding water and harsh soaps.
The pay was a pittance, barely enough to afford a spot on the floor of a crowded apartment shared with five other girls. We slept in shifts, our bodies curled around our few possessions like protective shells.
Months passed, and the glitter of Bangkok began to tarnish. The weight of unmet expectations pressed down on me, suffocating. I'd send what little money I could spare back home, each envelope a silent apology for my failure to become what they had dreamed.
It was on a sweltering afternoon, my skin sticky with sweat and my stomach hollow with hunger, that I first heard the whispers. A group of girls, their makeup thick and their laughter brittle, spoke of easy money and generous foreigners. They eyed me speculatively, noting my desperation.
"You're pretty enough," one of them said, her voice a mix of pity and invitation. "You could do well in Patpong."
Patpong. The word hung in the air, heavy with promise and peril. I knew what it meant—we all did. It was where dreams went to die, or so I'd always believed. But standing there, with callused hands and an empty belly, I began to wonder if perhaps it was where dreams were reborn.
The first night I walked into that neon-lit world, I felt as though I'd stepped through a looking glass. Music throbbed, a pulsing heartbeat that seemed to sync with my own racing pulse. The air was thick with perfume, smoke, and the acrid scent of desperation masked as desire.
I remember catching my reflection in a mirror behind the bar. The girl staring back at me was a stranger—lips painted red, eyes rimmed with kohl, body draped in a dress that left little to the imagination. For a moment, I couldn't breathe. This couldn't be me. This wasn't the future my parents had sacrificed for.
But then a man approached, his smile predatory, his eyes roving over me like I was a piece of meat. And I made a choice. I smiled back.
That night, as I lay in a strange bed in a cheap hotel, I felt something inside me crack and splinter.
I mourned silently, mourning the death of the innocent girl from the rice fields.
Days blurred into nights, nights into weeks.
I learned the language of seduction, the art of feigning desire. I became an actress on a nightly stage, playing whatever role would earn me the most money. Some nights, I was the shy, virginal Thai girl, fulfilling exotic fantasies. Other nights, I was worldly and sophisticated, a companion for lonely businessmen seeking connection in a foreign land.
But beneath it all, I was still Warinya, daughter of rice farmers, carrying the weight of shattered dreams.
It was during this time that I began to truly see the political undercurrents that shaped our world. In the bars and clubs of Patpong, conversations flowed as freely as the alcohol. Foreigners, loosened by drink and the false intimacy of purchased companionship, would speak openly of things they'd never dare utter in daylight.
I remember one night in particular. A man—American, I think, though nationalities began to blur after a while—was holding court at the bar. His voice carried, thick with whiskey and self-importance.
"You know why this place exists?" he slurred, gesturing broadly. "It's all about the money, sweetheart. Your government, our government—they're all in bed together, and places like this are where they consummate the deal."
I pretended to giggle, playing my part, but his words burrowed deep. That night, as I lay awake in my tiny room, I began to see the invisible threads that connected everything—the corrupt officials who turned a blind eye to our exploitation, the foreign investors who saw Thailand as nothing more than a playground for their darkest desires, the crushing poverty that drove girls like me into this life.
It was a harsh awakening, but it planted a seed of something new within me—a desire to understand, to question, to maybe, someday, change things.
Months turned into years, and I hardened like a callus. I learned to dissociate, to watch myself from above as I went through the motions of my nightly performances.
But even as I built walls around my heart, I couldn't help but form connections with the other women who shared my fate.
There was Malai, barely eighteen, with eyes that still held a flicker of innocence. I took her under my wing, teaching her how to stay safe, how to maximize her earnings while minimizing the toll on her soul.
And there was Pi Lek, older than most of us, her face etched with lines of a thousand untold stories. She became a mother figure to many, dispensing wisdom and black market antibiotics with equal measure.
We were a family of sorts, bound by shared trauma and the fierce determination to survive. In quiet moments between clients, we'd share dreams of escape, of reinvention. Some spoke of saving enough to open small businesses.
Others fantasized about foreign husbands who would whisk them away to lives of comfort and respect.
I dreamed too, but my dreams were shapeless, formless things. I knew I wanted more than this, but I couldn't picture what that "more" might look like. The future stretched before me, a blank canvas that I was too afraid to paint.
It was on a night like any other that everything changed. The bar was crowded, the air heavy with smoke and the cloying scent of cheap perfume. I was perched on a stool, scanning the room with practiced nonchalance, when I overheard a conversation that would alter the course of my life.
Two men, Dutch by their accents, were deep in discussion. One was explaining to the other about Amsterdam's Red-Light District.
"It's regulated there, you know," he said, his voice carrying a note of admiration. "The women have rights, protection. It's not perfect, but it's a far cry from... well, this."
I leaned in, drawn by his words like a moth to flame. As he continued to speak, painting a picture of a place where women like me could work safely, with access to healthcare and legal recourse, I felt something stir within me. It was hope, fragile and tentative, but unmistakable.
That night, as I lay in bed, Amsterdam consumed my thoughts. I imagined clean streets and red-lit windows, women standing proud and unafraid. I pictured myself there, no longer a victim of circumstance but an empowered worker with choices and dignity.
The seed that had been planted years ago—the desire to understand, to question, to change things—began to sprout. I realized that to truly grasp the forces that shaped my world, I needed to see beyond the borders of Thailand. I needed to experience a different system, a different approach to the oldest profession in the world.
The decision crystallized in my mind with startling clarity. I would go to Amsterdam. I would see for myself this place where sex work was acknowledged and regulated. And perhaps, in doing so, I would find a way to make a difference—if not for myself, then for the Malais and Pi Leks who would come after me.
I saved every baht I could, called in favors, and navigated the intricate process of obtaining a passport and visa.
There were moments of doubt, of paralyzing fear, but I pushed through them, driven by a vision of a future I could barely utter but desperately wanted to believe in.
Finally, the day arrived. I stood in Suvarnabhumi Airport, my whole life packed into a single suitcase. The enormity of what I was about to do crashed over me in waves.
I was leaving behind everything I'd ever known—my country, my language, the women who had become my sisters in survival.
As I waited to board the plane, I found myself thinking of my parents. I hadn't spoken to them in years, too ashamed to face them, too afraid they'd see the truth in my eyes. But in that moment, I sent a silent prayer to wherever they were.
I'm sorry, I thought. I'm sorry I couldn't be the daughter you dreamed of. But I promise you, I will find a way to make this mean something.
The call for boarding came, jolting me from my reverie. With trembling hands, I gathered my belongings and made my way to the gate. Each step felt monumental, as if I were shedding layers of my old self with every movement forward.
As the plane lifted off, I pressed my face to the window, watching Bangkok shrink beneath me. The city that had both broken and forged me disappeared into a sea of twinkling lights. Tears slid silently down my cheeks, but whether they were tears of grief or relief, I couldn't say.
I was leaving behind Warinya the bar girl, Warinya the survivor. Who I would become, what awaited me in the red-lit streets of Amsterdam, I didn't know. But as the plane banked towards the west, I felt the weight of my past begin to lift, replaced by the terrifying, exhilarating lightness of possibility.
I would find not only a different approach to sex work but also love, purpose, and a woman who would challenge everything I thought I knew about myself and the world.
But that, as they say, is another chapter.
A Thai-English teacher selling sex made a deal with the Netherlands Kingdom working for the People's Republic of China to grow cannabis in Thailand Kingdom.
But it was a story of me opening a sex education school in an Oxfordshire five star love motel even universities from Oxford paid a visit.
It was a scheme and her sex affair to sleep with King's and Queen's. Her orgy of glory to lobby her body.
The juicy details spilled and she made money. It was love. Her in-between to make deals and keep secrets. Her ways she made money was a revengeful plot to insult the King of Thailand.
Her married to herself and Toto Love Motel Inn the Sin Sod Motel or our love motel inn was a plan to earn a "dowry" the love wedding money.
It was her wedding night and honey money. The Russian Federation sponsored love convention was to sleep with HM Andrew Sex in his land. The sex case he was.
Her to bring into bed Communist Xi and Queen Patricia Willingness of Netherlands Kingdom encourage a great extra love affair they would agree in threesome with her to scheme drugs.
They smoked cannabis from her Oxfordshire plantation and planned to grow it in Thai Lalala King's land to overpower him with wealth and fortune to overthrow him.
His Majesty Andrew Sex planned well his sex case. The King of England. Her between juicy details spilled and sounds of strapped on condoms made a share of joy. It was love.