Sakrapee possesses the face of an oriental angel. He sits before a mirror spider-webbed with cracks. He stares at dark eyes that possess much more than the thirteen years of the rest of his body.

If Sakrapee stares hard enough, he can make the mask he wears slip away, revealing the pale, frightened face of the boy he ought to be. A child scampering around the ever-burning mounds of rubbish, the 'smoky mountains' a stone's throw from Chiangmai. How his hopeful fingers would dig amongst the hot ashes, frantically searching for some discarded item he might exchange for a handful of rice. Sakrapee's treasure-seeking days ceased the moment he set one foot into Chiangmai.

Sakrapee snatches his gaze from the mirror. He picks up a pin and presses the point against a fingertip. His skin is callused and the pin has dulled. It takes too many pain-filled moments for his skin to break. A shiny red bead of blood swells up. The blood is thin - Sakrapee hasn't eaten for two days.

Sakrapee rubs blood into his pallid cheeks. The natural make-up accentuates his sharp cheekbones. It raises his angelic beauty one level further.

He stands. His shorts are creased, but are clean. He picks up his shirt and wraps it loosely about his bony shoulders. He pushes toes into his sandals, then steps out of the door.

"They come, a quarter of a million, every year.

They come for a taste of forbidden fruits, to appease desires dictated by their poisoned minds. They come to sate their passion for illicit flesh.

Their eyes remain blind to the mysteries of The East; of a culture established over thousands of years, untainted by Western denature. There's no place in their black hearts for golden beaches and tranquil islands. It is of little consequence to them if the air is as hot as dragon's-breath or the rain paints a glossy sheen to the flesh they so desperately seek.

They are an infestation; a rabid ichor spreading from the polluted shores of Europe and North America. They blemish what was once pure.

In their homelands they live like despised parasites. They tunnel beneath the city streets, burrowing sick paths through the decadence that exists wherever civilisation plants itself. They gorge themselves on pornography; home-scratched videos of their prey wide-eyed and stripped of innocence disbelieving the hellish world they've been coaxed into.

Here they walk the streets as if human. They sit in bars; eat noodles in restaurants; sip Chianti in cafes.

They pick a number; their victims are delivered.

They come, a quarter of a million, every year.

They come to the hunting ground."

Tony hits the 'suspend' button on his laptop. His words fade like ghosts from the grey-green screen.

Yes, he thinks: The Hunting Ground - I like that. Going well, so far. Perhaps a tad flowery, here and there. In need of a little pruning.

He places the PC onto the bathroom floor, then looks up.

The boy, he's been told, is eight years old. His skin is the colour of peanut butter. His frame is slight, though not painfully thin. Each rib clearly defined. His thighs are firm, his chest sunken, his shoulder blades protrude like knives. His hair is the shade of the darkest Asian night.

Tony cannot believe how a quick search of the Internet resulted in this. How a few keyboard strokes uncovered link after link, site after site - an electronic labyrinth to which he discovered the key.

The boy rubs soapy water over his chest. The shower rains down upon his black-topped head. His eyes, too old for such a frail body, display bemusement. Tony thinks: perhaps this is all he thinks I want him to do. Perhaps he thinks: Easy money.

A gift - that is what the fat German man who greeted him at the hotel said. A freebie to be enjoyed both at leisure and with pleasure: fuck him or suck him he'll suck you if you want. He'll take you into his lower-case-o of a mouth and transport you to heaven.

Tony reaches out a hesitant hand.

Researchers estimate that of the three hundred and fifty thousand tourists to Thailand each year, about fifty to seventy per cent of the men are looking for sex.

Sakrapee's feet stir up lethargic whirlwinds of sand as he drifts down Bo Sang-San Kampseng Road. His shirt, a violent green peppered with abstract yellow flowers, billows like a sail in the breeze. The air is cool though not chilly, and the sky is cloudless.

The towering menace of Doi Inthanon, the mountain that dwarfs the city, catches his gaze. Here he was born, a struggling infant into a hostile world; a member of the Akha people. His family tended long fields of Opium poppies, until a government anxious to scrub clean their public face, burnt down both fields and homes. Their income snatched from them Sakrapee's parents cast him and his brothers out into the world.

Sakrapee extends an arm and waves at a friendly face. The girl he recognises as Concordia waves a slender arm in acknowledgement. She stands at the window of the back room of a bar. She no longer works the streets. A brutal raping by six German tourists butchered her vagina beyond surgical repair.

The bars are open, but few souls have ventured out into the harsh morning sun. Sakrapee watches three boys gang eagerly about a fat-stomached white man. One boy leaps into the man's lap, like a nephew into the lap of a much-loved uncle. The fat man worms his fingers up the leg of the boy's shorts.

Sakrapee turns away. A fist of sadness dulls his heart.

"They come by air; by sea; by land.

They come on organised trips; as innocent as a family of four travelling to the sun on a package deal.

The excursions cost top dollar. They accumulate pennies until their bank accounts burst; buy a once-in-a-lifetime ticket to open the gates penning their perverse yearnings.

Their hands are grasped and shaken as they arrive. A quiet ushering to a sympathetic hotel follows. Their anonymity is assured. They could be businessmen, arriving for babble-laden chats over cholesterol-laden lunches. They could be intellectuals, busily scribbling an appreciation of Buddhist temples.

Once at their hotel, they may be offered a 'mini' - a boy between eight and ten - or a 'boy-girl' - a prepubescent child tantalisingly treading a tightrope of gender.

Once these appetisers are consumed, they are free to wander the stained streets.

It's a market - all wares readily on display. The open-air pubs and go-go bars swell with the bare flesh of native children all prepared to perform to any script for the exchange of a few bahts.

The boys with their slender waists and pouting faces, the girls with skimpy bikinis barely hiding their undeveloped femininity.

They will snatch these tender souls and further pollute their innocence. They may even video the performance - a ready-made source of finance for their next trip to the hunting ground."

With confident strides Tony leaves his hotel. One night into his obscene vacation and already he possesses the assuredness of a native. He reaches down and tugs up a descending sock, then trips lightly down the whitewashed steps fronting the building.

The heat that wafts over him is scented with honey. Glassy beads of sweat form on his forehead. They break and paint salty trails down his face. Flies cluster hungrily around his eyes. Tony wafts them away.

How my life has altered, thinks Tony. Last night I took a boy into my bed. My tongue tasted the dry saltiness of his skin. My lips planted lover's kisses onto his small mouth. I toyed with him like a plaything under the covers. All for one purple, five hundred baht note.

Those wasted days wandering around rain-sodden beaches, staring at half-naked boys from behind the safety of mirror-lensed sunglasses; splashing around council swimming pools hoping for the accidental brush of hand against flesh; coaching local boys' soccer clubs, casting longing gazes at showering players under the misnomer of supervision. Why have a slice when you can eat the whole pie?

With a gambolling spring in his step, Tony makes his way to one of the locations specified on his specially provided map of Chiangmai.

In Thailand officials estimate over two hundred thousand children work as prostitutes.

Sakrapee strides listlessly up Bo Sang-San Kampaeng Road for the third time. He has yet to find a customer to his liking. A haggard-looking Scandinavian tailed him for a few minutes, but he looked gaunt enough for Sakrapee's alarm-bells to sound. He of course has no taste for AIDS-infected blood. Such an infection would toss him back to the smoky mounds of rubbish, where he'd spend his remaining days watching rats gnaw off his numbed fingers.

Sakrapee understands his worth. He's desirable enough to be able to select his clientele. His body is lean and firm; small muscles precisely defined under bronzed skin. He prefers to hunt by day; by night his frame will start to sag and his face will develop a bloodless hue.

He sees him. It's as obvious as if he wore a sign round his neck labelled 'English.'

Sakrapee laughs inwardly. He loves the English. They demand little and pay over the odds, travelling to these shores on guilt trips. Several times he's been paid just to stand naked, or perform lewd acts with other boys. The Englishmen sit and watch, afraid to touch, as though Sakrapee's skin drips with poison.

This Englishman notices Sakrapee looking at him. As though an identified felon, the man hastily snatches his gaze away. Sakrapee, a bemused smile on his lips, snatches off his shirt and tosses it casually over one shoulder. He rubs light fingers over his chest as he walks forwards.

The Englishman looks up.

"The seeds were sown thirty years ago.

American GIs, exhausted by their pointless Vietnam War, journeyed to Bangkok for a little rest, recuperation and of course, pussy. They injected poison into a naive land adhering to a strict code of morality as preached by an enlightened being. They were taught a capitalist ideology: Why work more for little when you can work less for more?

So the streets became lined with enticing female bodies, willing to exchange their innocence for a few dollars. As the exotic tastes of the Western male became known, young males took their first steps into prostitution. By the middle-eighties, fifteen-year-olds found work in night-clubs and bars. Still customers required further variety, and eventually boys and girls were shoved into the fray.

A cancer spread from Bangkok, winding tendrils of depravity northwards to grasp Chiangmai and to the South to pollute the golden beaches of Phuket.

Soon the cancer broke down impenetrable borders. The evil found passage across the ocean, touching the Philippines, then followed the currents down to Sri Lanka, where thirty thousand or so 'beach-boys' tread the sands, searching for custom.

And like cancer, there's no cure."

Anger at his impotence fills him. Why does he deny himself? He's taken the first step, why make the second so difficult? He's not at home now!

Tony sits on a stool at the bar of an open-air pub. His backside is numb; his head is woozy from the three vodka-and-oranges he's knocked back.

He watches as two tall, swarthy-looking men cast appraising glances at the boys and girls who parade themselves before them. One man waggles a finger at two girls, sisters if going by appearances. The men throw several baht notes onto the bar, then depart, thick arms clasped around the tiny waists of their companions.

Tony slams his empty glass onto the bar and launches himself off the stool.

Why can't I cast off the shame?

He begins down the dusty street named Bo Sang-San Kampseng Road.

He's taken but three strides when he sees him.

A boy, twelve or thirteen.

An oriental face of angelic sharpness, almost feminine - perhaps a 'boy-girl?' An expression of innocence behind which lurks dangerous knowledge. The stare between them is painful - Tony quickly averts his eyes.

This, his mind tells him, is what you want.

He lifts his eyes. They boy is walking towards him; he's removed his shirt and is casually stroking his chest.

Tony is bewitched; feels himself stiffen.

The boy reaches him.

'Engleesh?' the child asks in an oriental slur. Tony nods, nervously, as if the boy might spurn him because of his nationality.

The boy smiles, then takes Tony's hand.

In Chiangmai police found that seventy-two point five per cent of all prostitutes under the age of sixteen were HIV positive.

Sakrapee watches from the corner of the shadow-filled room. The Englishman lies unclothed upon the bed. Negligence has damaged his body far beyond simple repair. Sakrapee doesn't see how people can treat the gift their god has bestowed upon them with so little respect. Why they do not understand their physical self is but a vessel for their soul as they journey upon the great voyage towards enlightenment.

The Englishman's stupidity causes Sakrapee to smile. He understands, because he's been granted the ability to see beyond.

Sakrapee steps towards the grime-coated window; pulls together the flimsy curtains. A premature dusk falls across the room. Sakrapee stretches upwards, fingers grasping for the stars. He watches as the Englishman runs desired-filled eyes up and down his exposed flesh.

The man's face courses with blood. Sakrapee can sniff the hot scent. The man is ashamed of his desires. Sakrapee imagines the battle between ego and superego waging inside the man's soul. Strip anyone of years of enforced morality and base desires will shine through like an eclipsed sun.

Man, despite the act he insists on portraying, remains an animal.

Sakrapee smiles reassurance at the man. No words of communication have passed between them; none are required.

He lets the loose cloth of his shirt slide from his slight shoulders. It floats to the ground like an autumn leaf. Then his fingers search out the clasp to his shorts.

"Soon their passage will be less easy. Already their governments, under pressure from campaigners against child prostitution, have passed legislation allowing courts to prosecute citizens who commit sex crimes abroad.

The figures, though, are a cruel parody.

In four years, an estimate places the number of Western tourists who have committed sexual offences upon Asian children at one million. During the same period, those held on sex charges in Asia and Europe number less than a hundred.

A fruitless process; witnesses quickly scamper underground whilst the victims themselves are too terrified to lose their means of living to testify. It is hard to convict a sex offender when no-one is willing to step forward.

And say a solution is found, what then?

What becomes of the tens of thousands of abandoned children? Do they return to homes they no longer possess? To families who have long since vanished? Will starving children litter the streets? Will death-squads, so commonplace in South America, round up these unfortunates to be stripped of life then burnt like refuge?

And so they will continue to arrive on the shores and airports. The demand will remain and the supply will be as bountiful as ever.

And the hunting ground will continue to reek."

Tony watches from the bed as the boy undresses. He swallows; his head is throbbing.

Why am I so blighted? Why must my desires be directed towards the taboo?

The shame swells inside him. He feels sickened by his lustfulness, yet can't help himself.

The boy steps out of his discarded shorts. The light is dim but Tony sees enough. The boy is indeed a 'boy-girl' - he possesses no external genitalia.

Desire overwhelms him. His head spins as though caught in a whirlwind. His throat burns with dryness.

The boy steps to the bed; mounts him; legs astride his swollen stomach. The boy has changed. The darkness has stripped his face's angelic quality.

Alarm comes too late to save him.

The boy falls to Tony's neck. The deadly bite is exquisitely painful; a lover's kiss.

Tony feels the icy fire of venom flooding his veins; a poison tracing a route to his heart. He tries to rise but his body suddenly feels incredibly heavy. His muscles spasm with the strain, then he collapses back onto the bed.

The boy sits upright. Tony watches his blood dribble down the child's chin.

He becomes aware of movement. He tries to look, but his eyelids feel the weight of The Earth. Shadows move from the darkness; a dozen or so, child-sized.

Tony's body stiffens. His immense head sinks deeper in the pillow.

He feels the first few bites; tiny mouths tearing chunks from his flesh.

Then feels nothing more.

They come, a quarter of a million every year, to the hunting ground.

Some fail to make it home.

© P C Attaway 1998.

This story first appeared in Dark Eyes #2.

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