He was looking to fire off a complaint to the Thai company that owned the thing, was trying to get a decent picture of the smeared scanblock on its battered dash, when a man stuck his head under the ’tuk’s awning.

The man unfolded a cheap palimpscreen upon which a series of images of girls flirted: A tub with two girls smiling from behind bubbles that clung to their skin. A girl wrapped in a towel, leaning against the frame of a doorway, wreathed with steam, shimmying her torso a little from side to side. And a price list. Cheap, by Japanese standards. Cheap, and right here in front of him.

Eiko wasn’t thinking of anything like this. Or did not think he was. But now he found himself nodding. Found it was exactly what he had been looking for. Found the man’s arm on his, found himself in a staircase, cooler than the outside.

He remembered the lobby of the place—cracked tile the color of cheap mint candy. Then his hands shaking as the girls stood in front of him, lined up in sashes of almost the same cheap mint color, with numbers at their shoulders. He chose two of them. What were their numbers? That was gone now. He even forgot, now, what stood out about those two. What was he looking for? Judging by? Their cheekbones? The curve of a hip beneath their sashes and swimsuits? He had been nervous. His nervousness smeared the memory the way intoxication would, made it hard for him to return to it and make out details now.

They went up in a cramped elevator, the girls chatting with each other in Thai, then turning to him with questions in English. What was his name? Did he think they were pretty? He seemed tired. Was he nervous? He should not be nervous. Had he traveled far?

One of them carried a small plastic crate, like a miniature shopping basket. He glimpsed shower gel, condoms. They told him their names, but he wouldn’t have remembered even a second later. Their names were just sounds, as alien to him as the thing he was doing. More alien.

In a white-tiled room, they slid out of their sashes and suits, then undressed him. Under a shower they soaped him up. They laughed, bantered with one another. One of them, her body covered in suds, rubbed her curved length against him, slid a hand up his thigh …

The dizziness caused by the yellowfin histamine stink in the room was making Eiko nauseous. He nearly threw up into the water. Bjarte turned his bearded face toward him. Throw up, Eiko told himself, and he would be comforted with the butt of Bjarte’s rifle.

The girls had probably been slaves, like he was now. A part of him understood that and abhorred what he had done.