Chapter 3
Saigon, March 30, 1975
The ensign was drunk beyond reason. His khaki jacket was as rumpled as his hair, a tangled mess of strawberry blond locks that went in all directions. His pants and underwear were tossed over the back of a nearby chair. His forearm, currently on the doorpost was keeping him standing but at a dangerous angle. Gravity might win at any moment and he could easily go tumbling onto the floor without much provocation. Despite that, he brought the tumbler of whiskey to his mouth and threw the last of it down with a noisy gulp before speaking to the Vietnamese whore on the bed.
“Thish kud be the very last time for me…us, Linh Mai. Lez make it gud, huh?”
“You too drunk. No fuck decent. Come back tomorrow.”
“No can do, Linny Pooh. I could be shipping out tomorrow. Saigon is in deep shit.”
“No matter. You not hard enough to do nothing.”
“So work with me here. I got many dollar, right? We can have a good time.”
“Not with that rope. Come back with stick. We see.”
“We see now. I know you can get me goin’,” barked the ensign, lurching forward angrily. This was his last shore leave and he didn’t know if he’d ever be back. Or even alive tomorrow. Saigon was under siege by the North Vietnamese and things weren’t going well. He’d be damned if he’d be denied sex in possibly this last opportunity in this city... a city that could fall any day now to the North Vietnamese at long last.
Linh shrieked as the drunken seaman’s body fell on the lower half of the bed, pinning her legs down, making it difficult for her to move. Slowly, the besotted man grabbed his way north, up her body even as her hands slapped futilely at his head and shoulders. His hands shoved the red and gold silken robe away and took hold of her dark nylon stockings. The hands didn’t stay there more than an instant. His inebriation and the sheer material caused his clutching hands to slide down to the bed coming to a rest under her thighs.
“Get off me, you pig. We done here. I will call Madame,” the young prostitute’s eyes glared up at the young man’s shocked face. “Have you thrown out by bouncer. On your head!”
“..thought we had something…” mumbled the distraught drunk who was trying to read the situation through a fog of alcohol.
“Only thing we have is cash transaction all this time. You make mistake. All you GI’s make same mistake.”
“I’m not a fuckin’ GI and you know it. I’m Navy. Or do you only see green American dollars and not the man?”
“Finally. you get big picture,” spat the whore, lying back on the bed, almost smirking at the drunk. “Now get off me!”
“Not yet!” The ensign yelled and waved the money clip in the air that he’d ripped from his now torn pants pocket. His left hand now pressed against the defenseless girl’s pelvis, keeping her in place with his huge weight advantage and his leverage. He slammed down the full clip on the table by the bed. A wolfish smile grew on his face without reaching his eyes.
“You want a transh..action. You got one!” He felt himself getting hard now at last.
“NO! YOU GO!”
The command didn’t come from the young whore. It came from behind him. But the voice wasn’t that of the bouncer nor the madame, nor anyone he recognized. Swiveling his head, the ensign was shocked to see a two-year old girl with straight jet-black hair in a robe that matched the one barely covering the whore beneath him. The girl was standing near the end of the bed with her finger pointing directly at his face.
“You go,” the girl repeated, more softly this time but with no less urgency.
“That your brat?” The ensign nodded at the girl and turned to the whore, their two faces only two feet apart now.
“Minh. Go back to your room. You know better.” The whore’s eyes flickered with a combination of shame and worry. The situation had shifted with her daughter in the room. A first. And not a good precedent.
“Man go away first,” the adamant girl declared firmly, shaking her head at her mother’s command. The willful two-year was already smart beyond her years. Her name Minh meant clever and was she ever, much to her young mother’s consternation.
“Go away, little girl, me and mommy are condoosing…ducting…business.”
“You stop. Fun time over. You know this.” The girl’s voice was incredibly calm considering the circumstance. And she wasn’t totally wrong. The ensign suddenly felt all his anger drain away. He certainly wasn’t hard anymore, that was certain.
Slowly, working hard against his befuddled brain and questionable balance the ensign dragged his body backward off the quiet stone-faced whore and shakily rose to his feet at the end of the bed. He looked at the girl and then back at the whore who sat up and gathered her robe around her, defensively clutching it to her chest with her fist. He quickly slid into his pants, grabbed the money clip off the table and headed out, turning at the door frame in a final gesture and looking back at the twosome glaring at him.
“Guess this is it then, Linh.”
“Yes,” she replied.
“And don’t come back,” the two females said simultaneously.
The seaman hastily left the room, noisily clomping down the whorehouse hallway.
The girl quickly hopped up on her mother’s bed to be held and cuddled close by the amazed young woman.
“How on earth did you do that, Minh? You made him leave. I thought he was going to hurt me.”
“So did I, mommy. I used my thoughts. Told him what to do. He believed me. People always believe me.”
That was true. People had “believed” Thi Minh Bao and continued to do so for all of the 44 years she’d been on the planet. Her thoughts had the power to influence people. Even the most stubborn ones. From the bedrooms of the whorehouse in which she and her mother eventually worked together to the boardrooms of Asian companies to which she soon had ready access.
Her powers had made her very, very rich...as had her intelligence and her drive to succeed, to improve her language skills and everything else about her. She'd remade herself and had achieved much success. And yet that wasn’t quite enough. She wanted something and Susan Richards, the famed Invisible Woman, was the one person who would be able to give her what she wanted most at this point in her life.
Minh, or Madame Minh as she was now known, looked down at the unconscious blonde beauty on the steel table in the middle of the large spare room and smiled. Things were going just as she planned. Her palms cupped each other, pressed together with satisfaction as she admired the needlework on the Mexican blouse Sue wore and the close fit of the jeans covering a pair of long lean legs.
“Pretty blouse there, puta. Shows off those tits very nicely. I can work with it,” Minh grinned, parting her hands with a sweeping gesture at the senseless form. “Guilford, prepare the chair,” she ordered her bald second in command. “It’s time for Phase Two.”
“Very good, Madame.” Guilford Jones, as he was known in this setting, bowed graciously.