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man's wallet and we all went to the Chicago Karaoke Bar and drank three bottles of Black Label between us. It was a great night.

Private Dancer
    PETE One night when I arrived at Zombie, Joy had three red slashes on her left wrist. I could see them from more than ten feet away, and Joy made no move to conceal them. She smiled and waved and as soon as her dancing shift was over she rushed down from the stage and sat next to me. I held her arm and looked at the cuts. They were deep gashes, a vibrant red against her brown skin. She smiled.
    “Why?” I asked.
    She shrugged as if a suicide attempt was of absolutely no importance.
    “Come on, Joy. What happened?”
    “My brother crashed motorcycle,” she said.
    “Was he hurt?”
    She shook her head.
    I nodded at her mutilated wrist. “Why did you do that?”
    Tears brimmed in her eyes. “Motorcycle hurt a lot,” she said. “Very expensive.”
    “How much?”
    She sniffed. “Six thousand baht,” she said.
    I was astonished. “You cut your wrist because your motorcycle needed repairing?”
    “Pete,” she said. “I have no money.” I put my arms around her and hugged her and her tears fell on to my jeans. I couldn't make sense of it, why on earth would she cut her wrists because of a bike? Besides, she'd said the bike was still up in Surin.
    “How did you know what had happened?” I asked.
    “My brother telephone me. He say he very sorry but he have no money.” The tears started again.
    “Joy, don't worry,” I said. “I'll give you the money.”
    She sat up and looked at me in astonishment. Then she threw herself at me and wrapped her arms around me. She stayed like that for several minutes, her soft, wet cheeks pressed against my neck.
    I bought her a cola and then went down the road to the Thai Farmers Bank ATM. I withdrew seven thousand baht on my Lloyds Visa card and gave six thousand to Joy. She dashed off to her locker and didn't come back for ten minutes. When she did return, she'd redone her make-up and the tears had gone. She squeezed up next to me and put her hand on my thigh. I was happy that I could make such a difference to her life. A relatively small amount of money to me, but to Joy it was a month's wages. It was worth it to see her smiling and laughing with her friends.
    I took her arm again and looked at the cuts. There were no stitches, but they weren't as deep as they'd looked at first sight. Next to the fresh cuts were three old scars. I ran my finger along the raised scar tissue. “When did you do this?” I asked.
    “When I fifteen,” she said.
    “Why?”
    “I not happy,” she said.
    I smiled at the simplicity of her reply. Her honesty was sometimes so childlike that I had an overwhelming urge to protect her from the world. Of course she'd been unhappy, why else would she have tried to kill herself?
    “Why weren't you happy?”
    “My mother die. I want to be with my mother,” she said.
    “Why did she die?”
    Joy patted her own stomach. “Something wrong inside,” she said.
    “Cancer?”
    She frowned, then nodded.
    “Wow,” I said. “I'm sorry.” I put my arm around her shoulders. A stocky Thai guy with pockmarked skin thrust a bunch of roses in front of me but I shook my head. “My mother died when I was young,” I said.
    She looked at me, horrified. “What happened?”
    I tapped the side of my head. “A brain tumour,” I said.
    “I not understand,” she said.
    “Brain tumour,” I said. “Something wrong, in her head.”
    Tears brimmed in her eyes again. “Pete, I sorry for you,” she said.
    I paid bar fine for her, and we went for dinner. She came back to the apartment, but all I wanted to do was to hold her in my arms, to show her that I cared.
    Extract from CROSS-CULTURAL COMPLICATIONS OF PROSTITUTION IN THAILAND by PROFESSOR BRUNO MAYER Self-mutilation is a common phenomenon amongst the girls involved in prostitution. Many have scars on their wrists, not from serious suicide attempts but from superficial