Hi everybody. I am back again with third part of the story. For those who missed the first and second part, you can go to the blog archive on the right and under January 2010, you can click on the first part to read or alternatively you can scroll down (might take quite long!) to part 1 and 2. Anyway this part is slightly longer due to a request from someone to include himself in the story. So instead of putting it in part 4, I included it in part 3. So you know who you are, you better read it.
The story continues....
“Arthit, why are you here? Oh my god, how did you find me here?” I felt delighted that I saw my childhood friend in Singapore.“Your mother gave me your address in Singapore. I am here in Singapore for a short holiday and I decided to look for you,” Arthit’s voice was something I missed after not seeing him for two years.
“I managed to see your mother for a while when your father was not at home. Your mother was ill-treated by your father because she did not tell your father that you left home to come to Singapore. Your mother is in serious condition now and your father goes out to drink almost everyday,” his solemn tone made my heart drop.
“I wanted to help your parents but your mother insisted that I should not interfere in her family matters and she said the only way to help her is to tell you what is happening and pass me your address in Singapore,” he continued sometimes stopping to check whether I was alright.
My conversation with him was a long one before we had to end it as it was getting late.
“Mr. Lee, I have to go back home to see my parents,” my words spilled out the moment I saw Mr. Lee the next morning.
“Tassa, do you think you can leave anytime you want? You got lots of work to do. Don’t forget everything on you is sponsored by me. How can I let you go?” Mr. Lee uttered his words with a snicker.
“I heard my mother is in serious condition, I must go see her,” my emphasis seemed to have fallen on deaf ears.
“I said NO! N O. NO! Go back to your work!” Mr. Lee yelled at me for the first time.
“You said you want to establish my singing career, produce albums and such, but in the end you brought me here to be someone’s mistress…”my words were interrupted by a slap across the face by Mr. Lee
“You bitch, your father owe Mr. Thaphorn so much money. Do you know that if you didn’t choose to come to Singapore, you would not even see your father anymore to begin with? Don’t blame me, blame your father,” Mr. Lee turned around to face the window, a sign of wanting to ignore me.
I ran out of his office and to the studio crying. As I sat at a corner, Keith approached me.
“What do you want?” my defensive tone came with stammers due to my tears.
“Nothing, I just wanted to comfort you that’s all,” his casual tone seemed to be always the same, hiding his emotions if there were any.
I explained to him what had happened and about my past.
“Although I cannot truly understand how you feel, if you do need a listening ear, I would be there for you,” his casual tone seemed to be the same but yet I felt slightly better.
As I got busy with my work, Mr. Lee’s voice suddenly interrupted my concentration.
“Tassa, I did not mean to shout at you. I would want to establish your name slowly before we can go into recording and the release of your albums,” his apologetic tone hardly moved me as my blood started to boil the moment he spoke.
“Mr. Lee, tonight there is a performance. I need to be focused and prepare for this performance,” I tried to act professional even though my voice quaked a little.
As I went up the stage, the choice of songs I sang was in tandem with my angry and disappointed mood. Although my mood softened a little when I glanced at Keith, my mood returned to the same levels when Mr. Lee was sitting at the corner of the pub with Mr. Thaphorn.
After my performance, I tried to avoid Mr. Lee and Mr. Thaphorn and walked the other way. Mr. Lee approached me and grabbed my arm.
“Come with me,” Mr. Lee’s lips were near my ears.
As he drove me to the direction of the studio, my mind was muddled with question marks. I did not know what he was trying to do and that the rest of the crew had not packed their stuff.
“What is the hurry? Tell me.” my worried tone seemed not to reach to his ears.
As he grabbed me to his office, he pushed me towards the door and started to put his lips onto mine.
“Tassa, don’t resist. I want you!” his words were muffled as he attempted to kiss me.
I was in a state of shock when he did that.
“Tassa, I really like you from the start when I saw you, I told the rest of the crew to have supper before coming back. I want to spend some time with you together,” his words seemed to be like a metal pan which smacked me hard on the head.
“No….you can’t do that. Please stop what you are doing. I would tell Mr. Thaphorn about this,” my resistance seemed to be futile as his whole body was pressing against me. His hands locked my arms firmly on the door.
“I am jealous that you are Mr. Thaphorn’s mistress. Don’t forget that I was the one who found you, not him. I was the one who indirectly helped you, to get you a better life and you went to become his mistress and you never even showed a single bit of gratitude towards me,” his hissing was disgusting as his saliva sprayed all over my face.
As he attempted to kiss my lips, I managed to muster all my strength to release his grip on my right hand as I used every ounce of my energy to slap him across his face. His eyes were wide open with the surprise slap. He shook his head a little as he felt the area on his cheek that was slapped.
“If you don’t give in to me, your parents would not survive the next sun rise,” his threats were shocking and I could not believe my ears when he said that.
As I attempted to get out of the office, he twisted my arm and turned me around. The pain shot from my arm was too much as I screamed in pain.
As he covered my mouth and nose, I felt a bit faint and my resistance to him became weaker and weaker. As I collapsed onto the floor, I could only feel that my dress was literally torn away. I felt very filthy as I was groped and kissed everywhere. My sobs projected out my extreme pain and sorrow from within as the thoughts of being forced to give in to somebody meandered around my mind not being able to be gotten rid off so easily. As his hand was covering firmly on my mouth and nose, I struggled to breathe, not caring what he was doing to me but shortly I fainted.
As I woke up, my first reaction is to run away as I struggled to see where I was.
“Lie down! You are very safe now, you are in the hospital now,” I could not make out who he was until when he went closer towards me. The sight of Keith made me more relieved.
“Mr. Lee is not here. Don’t worry I realised you were missing when I was packing the staff and so I went back to the studio to check things out, then I saw Mr. Lee trying to take advantage of you. I was in the nick of time to prevent him from raping you.” Keith stopped as I covered my ears.
“Keith, thank you so much,” I finally spoken as I uncovered my ears.
As Keith left, the mental pain and torture was tremendous. Previously when I was in Thailand, I was disturbed often by the villagers, being given indecent remarks. It was nothing as compared to the incident which happened last night. In my thoughts, I just wanted to go home. If I was destined to live from hand to mouth, I would prefer it this way to being a toy for the rich.
Mr. Thaphorn came in shortly after Keith left. When I saw him, I did not know how to feel. To me, I was confused to whether he was good or bad. I did not care what he did, but I hoped that he could treat me well.
“Sorry about last night’s incident. I did not know that Mr. Lee did such a horrible thing to you. So far the police was not contacted about this incident. When Keith called me immediately after he found you, I told him to cover up for Mr. Lee. When the hospital asked why you are in this state, I told him what to tell to the staff in here. I explained to him why and I know he was very reluctant to accept the reason,” Mr. Thaphorn’s explanation seemed to be memorised before hand as his explanation was perfectly systematic.
“I know what you are thinking of. I would let you rest at my home for the time being and you shall not be under Mr. Lee anymore. You would work in a pub as a singer. I promise you that you would not see that bastard anymore. I have terminated my contract with him for his band to sing in my pub. Mr. Lee would give you a hefty compensation if you do not report him to the relevant authorities,” he continued, his statements did not bring about any consolation to me.
“I would think about it,” my whisper was hardly audible as I turned my head away.
“I understand,” Mr. Thaphorn put the cheque in my hand as he left.
As I looked at the cheque, I could not believe my eyes. It was not $5000, but it was $50,000. A note was clipped at the back.
It read, “Tassa, This is the amount to be paid to you for your work in my pub and on behalf of Mr. Lee, your compensation from him for the harm he caused to you. I truly regret such a thing had happened to make you like this. My heart aches when I see you in this state too. From Mr. Thaphorn.”
I did not want money to cloud my decision. But even if I were to successfully bring Mr. Lee to justice, it would not do me any good. I would not know who else to approach to work in here. If I go back to Thailand soon, I would never be able to achieve my aim to get my family out of poverty and I would be back to square one.
As I tossed and turn on the hard bed, I could not make up my mind. I tried to shut out the thoughts of that faithful night when Mr. Lee tried to take advantage of me. My tears flew out of my eyes uncontrollably as the thoughts managed to come into my mind although I tried to filter them out.
The next morning, Mr. Thaphorn came in to visit me. He smiled at me and announced,
“You can be discharged. Let’s go, let me send you to my home.”
As we headed to his home, I did not know how to show my gratitude towards Mr. Thaphorn. I did not want to think too much to whether he had an ulterior motive or not, but currently he was treating me very well.
“You go rest early ok? I would ask the maid to send up your dinner,” his voice seemed like a lullaby to make me sleep as he tucked me to sleep.
“About the cheque, I …” I hurriedly spoke before he left the room
“I would give you more time to think about it, you need not answer right now,” Mr. Thaphorn punctuated his sentence with the soft click of the doorknob as he closed the door behind him.
A month has past. Within this month, I had decided to accept the compensation. Mr. Thaphorn was very nice to me as he tried his best to help me recover from my mental scars. For nearly five weeks, I rested at his home not doing anything until I was too sick of doing nothing. I decided to start on my work again.
It was very different working with Mr. Thaphorn as I did not have the studio’s facility to practise my singing. I had to go to the pub in the early afternoon with the band employed in there to practise my singing without much professional advice. The advice from Mr. Lee’s vocal trainer still stuck in my head like superglue as I re-memorised the lyrics of the songs and tried to catch up with what I had lost for the past one month or so.
As I reappeared on the stage for the first time in two months, I felt a renewed confidence as I saw a lot of familiar faces smiling at me. Some waved at me and I acknowledged. As I sang my songs, I glanced at William, the guitarist, and smiled. Although William helped me quite a lot in getting me back on track, he still could not replace Keith. My set of songs was a far cry from the last time I sang as my songs projected happiness and joy. It was the most ecstatic moment after so long as I enjoyed singing and dancing along the tunes. I did not realize that time had passed so fast, and my performance had finished.
As I got down the stage, I decided to mingle with the customers. As I walked by the tables to leave the place, a hand grabbed my arm. As my eyes scanned his features, I found him familiar. Even though his eyes were small, it complemented his facial features. His fair smooth complexion and his neat wavy hair gave me a superficial good impression.
“Hi. My name is Mr. Ng,” he offered to shake my hand.
I shook his hand and smiled at him.
“You have disappeared for so long. Where have you been? I saw you regularly last time in here and after you disappeared for two weeks, I had decided not to come for a while. I heard from a friend that you would be coming in today and so I came today to see your performance,” Mr. Ng’s sincere tone gave me a reason to sit down with him.
“Thank you very much for supporting me,” I replied as I sat down on the sofa seat beside him.
As we spoke, we seemed to have a lot to talk in common. From the way he expressed himself, his confidence and his sincere made my level of good impression of him go down a notch or two below skin deep.
“Can I send you home?” his offer came as no surprise to me as I had numerous offers last time from strangers to send me home., but I rejected.
Knowing that Mr. Thaphorn went up to Malaysia for an urgent matter over the weekend, I accepted the offer willingly.
I felt very free when I sat in Mr. Ng’s Mercedes sports car. As he opened the top, I felt wave after wave of fresh crisp air blowing past my face. I did not realise that Mr. Ng’s left hand was on my thigh as I was enjoying the ride. Knowing that Mr. Ng’s hand was on my leg, I made pretence not to know as I continued to look away from him smiling.
“You can stop here,” I looked at him as his eyes seemed to look intensely at mine.
“I think your eyes are very beautiful, you are very beautiful. I like you,” I was quite startled when he spoke in Thai although his pronunciation was a bit off.
As I took a few seconds to figure out what he was trying to say, I smiled at him and I thanked him.
As he went closer towards me, I did not try to stop him. I did not know why. He was so romantic and eloquent with his words. He was charming and his sweet-talk stirred my emotions a little. As our lips were just a shy apart, I felt my heart pounding faster as the anticipation gave me a tingling feeling all over my body. My body shook a little as his hands rested gently on my bare shoulders. His hands were so soft and smooth to the touch on my shoulders that I felt that I could melt under his touch. As the distance between our lips were a hairline away, ……..
The end of part 3! Oops, someone might have gotten carried away. Look out for part 4 soon!
Till then, appreciate all readers for putting aside precious time to read the story. Till then, have a nice day!
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