DING.

  The soft chime overhead rang out like a starting pistol. A polite voice echoed in multiple languages, telling everyone they were now free to unfasten their seatbelts, stretch their limbs, and begin the noble international ritual of elbowing each other down a narrow aisle like caffeinated cattle.

  Svetlana Orlova

  Seat 1A in First Class hadn’t so much been a seat as it was a cocoon—a lie-flat sanctuary wrapped in whispering silk and Champagne dreams. Scarlet stirred from her rest like a cat uncurling in the sun. She’d slept like a baby on melatonin and mild sedatives, her eye mask lined with silk, her neck supported by a pillow engineered by German scientists.

  As the lights came up and flight attendants began their dance of “goodbyes and garbage bags,” Scarlet didn’t flinch. She reached into the side compartment of her seat and retrieved a small mirror, flicking it open with a snap. Her reflection greeted her—flawless. The crimson lipstick hadn’t smudged. The lashes hadn’t lifted. Her skin glowed like she’d just returned from a spa in Monaco, not a 19-hour transcontinental haul over three oceans and several regimes.

  She adjusted her pearl-studded cuffs and glanced briefly at her watch. The driver would already be on the tarmac. Her passport—one of many—was tucked in a designer clutch beneath a boarding pass with the name Elena Durova. Business. Always business.

  She rose smoothly, her heels thumping softly against the carpeted acoustic floor of the cabin. She did not need to rush. People moved out of her way without being asked. It was a talent. Or perhaps a warning. Regardless, as she was sitting in the first row, she was the second one off of the plane.

  Meanwhile…

  Snoopy Taylor

  Seat 42E was a war crime.

  Snoopy sat crumpled in the absolute center of the universe’s worst geometry: the middle seat. To her right, a large man in a fishing hat and an “I Survived Branson, Missouri” T-shirt had been using her shoulder as a pillow for the last seven hours, breathing like a malfunctioning Roomba. To her left, a woman with aggressive elbows and a toddler balanced on her lap was finishing level 306 of Candy Crush at full volume.

  Snoopy looked like she had survived something. Whether it was turbulence, grief, or emotional dehydration was unclear. Her lipstick was smudged, one eyelash was mostly detached and hanging on for dear life. After trying, unsuccessfully, to find a comfortable position to sleep for the past 19 hours, her neck ached in places she didn’t know had nerves.

  As the seatbelt light dinged, she reached up to the overhead bin with the desperation of someone trying to claw their way into heaven. Her carry-on was, of course, behind her—somewhere several rows back, since there was no space in the bins anywhere around her seat.

  And now the mosh pit began. The entire plane seemed to erupt in a collective panic, everyone trying to escape the metal bird like it was sinking. Snoopy was sucked into the fray with a startled “Oh, lord!” as someone’s backpack smacked her in the face and a stranger’s armpit introduced itself without consent.

  By the time she stumbled down the jet bridge, hair frazzled and skirt askew, she looked less like a glamorous drag emissary and more like a Walmart bag caught in a strong gust of wind.

  The sprawling city of Bangkok stretched out beneath the golden haze of dawn, a chaotic masterpiece of tangled highways, glittering rooftop shrines, and neon signs that blinked defiantly in the daylight. From above, it looked like a fever dream designed by a god on no sleep—vibrant, relentless, alive.

  Jets cut through the clouds, their fuselages gleaming like knives.

  Snoopy Taylor: Now, y’all, let me tell you somethin’. I have been inside a Bass Pro Shop, a megachurch, and once—once—I got lost in the Birmingham Galleria for three hours, but not a single one of those places prepared me for what hit me when I stepped off that airplane into Bangkok’s airport.

  First of all, it was like steppin’ into the future. Not the good kind of future with robots that fold your laundry—more like the confusing, neon-lit kind where everything beeps, signs talk at you in six languages, and everybody walks like they know exactly where they’re goin’ and you’re the only one who just realized you forgot to wear pants.

  There were more people in that one terminal than my whole hometown, and none of them looked stressed about it. I saw monks in robes, men in suits, girls with pink hair and Louis Vuitton luggage, and one fella wearin’ what I think was a kilt, bless his heart.

  So I’m standin’ there with my little pink suitcase, tryin’ to remember what direction the little cartoon man on the customs sign was pointin’, when I see ‘em.

  Three of the most naturally beautiful drag queens I have ever laid eyes on in my life. I mean stunning. One of them was pencil thin. Like supermodel thin. Like she’d been put on one of those torture stretching machines and pulled like taffy. But these Thai queens all had legs for days, hair all shiny and swingin’ like it was unnaturally perfect. Their clothes weren’t trying to be elegant or sexy. It was as if they went shopping for some non-brand random outfits, bought off of a sidewalk vendor. But they made it all look couture. One of them *gasp* wasn’t even wearing makeup!

  Now, I ain’t shy, so I walked right up, gave ‘em with my biggest Southern smile, and said, “Well hey, y’all! Are y’all drag queens? Do y’all do shows anywhere around here?”

  They stopped mid-strut and turned to me, just beamin’—like I’d told ‘em they’d won a prize. One of ‘em put her hand to her chest, the other touched my arm, and they all started gigglin’ in that way where you know they’re delighted, not makin’ fun. Just sweet, warm laughter like sunlight on sweet tea.

  Then one of them, the super thin one, leaned in and said, “No, no—not drag queens. We’re ladyboys. Kathoey.”

  I blinked.

  “Oh!” I said, noddin’ like I knew what that meant, even though my brain was scramblin’ like Waffle House eggs.

  “We don’t perform,” she added, her voice soft but steady. “We just… live like this. This is who we are.”

  And y’all… that hit me. Like, real hard. Not in a bad way—just in that warm, glowy way when someone tells you somethin’ true you hadn’t considered before. I’d spent so long thinkin’ about drag as somethin’ you do. A performance. A show. But for them, it wasn’t a costume or a stage—it was their life.

  “You’ll see us everywhere,” the smallest one said, grinnin’ with the kind of joy you can’t fake. “Thailand is full of kathoey. If you ever need help, just find one of us.”

  Then they waved, wished me luck, and disappeared into the crowd like sparkly angels at a truck stop rave.

  I just stood there, dumbfounded, clutchin’ my poor suitcase. Then I cursed out loud because I should have asked them if they knew where I could find the Lotus House. But I’ll tell you what—I felt safer, somehow. Seen. Like Mama had sent me a lil’ welcome committee just to say, “You’re on the right path, sugar.”

  And I hadn’t even made it to the dang taxi stand yet.

  Inside the gleaming cathedral of Suvarnabhumi Airport, steel arches curved like skeletal wings over the flood of jetlagged humanity. But Snoopy finally makes her way outside.

  Snoopy Taylor teetered off her flight in kitten heels, her light blouse clinging in the humidity and her pastel pink suitcase wheeling behind her like a disobedient toddler. “Good Lord,” she muttered, fanning her face with a crumpled map. “It’s hotter than a goat’s butt in a pepper patch.”

  She squinted through the intensely bright sunlight up at the digital signage, completely baffled by the sea of Thai, English, and arrows pointing in every direction.

  Just yards away—unseen, but not unfelt—Svetlana Orlova strides across the same terminal like a bullet with lipstick. Her red leather jumpsuit gleaming in the sterile light. The clack of her boots echoing sharp and certain, a predator’s metronome. Her black suitcase rolls silently behind her, perfectly in sync.

  At the immigration line, Snoopy clutched her used boarding pass and passport tight enough that her fingernails were leaving little crescent-shaped dents in the paper. She was about to be processed from one government to the next, and the very thought of it made her stomach twist like a funnel cake on a Tilt-a-Whirl. The idea of being interrogated under suspicion—like she was smuggling wigs or hiding false eyelashes in her shoes—sent her heart racing.

  Her palms were sweaty. Her lashes had started to lift on one side. And her dress, which had survived a church pageant, two weddings, and one unfortunate fondue incident, now bore a mysterious new blotch across the chest that she swore wasn’t there when she left Alabama.

  She kept rehearsing her line in her head:

  “I’m here for an inheritance.”

  Simple. Honest. Mostly true.

  Snoopy straightened her spine a little, smoothed her hair with one clammy hand, and took a deep breath that smelled faintly of airline peanuts.

  The immigration officer didn’t even look up right away. He was flipping through passport pages. Finally, he glanced up at her over the rim of his reading glasses.

  “Purpose of visit?” he asked, in the exact tone of someone who had heard every possible answer, including a few delivered through tears or karaoke.

  Snoopy blinked.

  “I—I’m here for an inheritance,” she said, voice wobbling somewhere between a confession and a question. “My drag mama left me somethin’. I think. Honestly, I’m not entirely sure what I’m doin’ here. There was a will. A mystery. A ticket. And now I’m here.”

  She gave a half-hearted shrug that looked more like a seizure.

  “I brought snacks?” she added, holding up a sad little Ziploc bag of melted peanut M&Ms, as if this might somehow make her more trustworthy.

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  The officer stared at her.

  Snoopy stared back.

  There was a long, uncomfortable silence in which an entire family of German tourists passed through the next booth with military efficiency.

  Finally, the officer sighed and stamped her passport with a dismissive thud.

  “Welcome to Thailand,” he muttered, already calling the next person before Snoopy even stepped away.

  She looked down at her passport like it had just given her a high-five.

  “Well I’ll be damned,” she whispered. “I’m international now.”

  Then she walked forward in a daze, dragging her poor suitcase—which had lost a wheel somewhere—and whispering to herself:

  “Okay, Snoopy Taylor. You survived immigration. You can do this. You just gotta find one woman named Madame Noi, in a city of ten million people, with no address, no contacts, and no clue. Easy.”

  Snoopy’s suitcase veered sideways, bouncing directly into a pair of black leather boots. Scarlet looked down, just long enough to catch a blur of chiffon and pink wheeling away.

  They passed again at the currency exchange. Scarlet collected crisp baht from a silent agent in a nondescript suit. Snoopy fumbled with her wallet, apologizing three times and accidentally tipping the tray.

  A near-brush at the airport cafe. A passing glance at baggage claim. A universe away, separated by five feet and fate.

  Outside, Bangkok breathed fire—thick with exhaust, heat, and the kind of humidity that sticks to your bones like syrup.

  Snoopy tumbled into a battered yellow taxi, the driver’s grin wide and betel-stained.

  “Where you go, lady?”

  “Umm… I’m looking for a place called The Lotus House? I need to meet a Madame Noi? It’s some kind of club?”

  The driver nodded enthusiastically, “OKAY! Yes, I know!”

  He didn’t really know.

  She tossed her bags in the back, and the taxi crawled forward through airport traffic. Ten full minutes of inching passed before they even made it to the highway on-ramp. With the windows up and the A/C blasting like a Walmart freezer aisle, Snoopy finally let herself sink into the sticky backseat.

  But the moment they hit the expressway, the driver transformed. The car peeled off like a carnival ride on loose rails. Snoopy shrieked, clutching the armrest.

  ‘Jesus, take the wheel—he sure ain’t usin’ it!

  Meanwhile, Scarlet slid into a black sedan that purred with air-conditioned menace.

  “Khlong San,” she said.

  As the taxi lurched forward, the city swallowed her whole.

  The cars zipped onto the elevated expressway where the skyline looked like it had been constructed by several competing architects, each of whom had only seen a city once in a dream. Glittering temples poked between malls, billboards, and LED screens the size of basketball courts. Snoopy watched as tuk-tuks darted beneath them like neon insects, their drivers weaving through traffic with the joyful chaos of a street racer possessed by a demon of mischief.

  “Good Lord,” Snoopy muttered, forehead pressed to the window. “This place got more wires hangin’ in the sky than my uncle’s illegal cable setup.”

  Below them, narrow alleyways flashed by—markets with buckets of live eels, noodle carts steaming like magic spells, motorbikes stacked with three generations of passengers and maybe a chicken. The air was thick with gasoline, frying oil, incense, and tropical humidity so oppressive it felt like God had turned the world into a rice cooker.

  They passed a golden shrine perched beside a 7-Eleven. Monks in orange robes walked barefoot beside billboard ads for collagen drinks and whitening creams. A woman on a moped wore a full ballgown and helmet like it was the most natural thing in the world.

  To Snoopy, it was a collage of contradictions: ancient and modern, sacred and profane, chaos and choreography.

  She clutched her Polaroid tighter.

  “Mama,” she whispered, “where the hell did you send me?”

  The driver turned up the radio. Thai pop blasted through the speakers, so aggressively cheerful it could raise the dead—or at least cure mild depression. Snoopy bobbed along as they raced past a parade of mystery and motion: a man dancing with a rubber duck, a street vendor selling grilled scorpions, an entire sidewalk full of Barbie dolls without heads.

  Every block was a new fever dream.

  And still—no sign of The Lotus House.

  30 minutes later, in a narrow alleyway behind a closed massage parlor, Scarlet leaned against a crumbling wall. A man slumped at her feet, whispering something in Thai between panicked breaths.

  Scarlet cleaned her blade with the corner of his shirt and slid it back into its sheath.

  She tapped her earpiece. “First contact complete.”

  The voice replied, “Move to Phase Two. Nana Plaza.”

  Scarlet didn’t nod. She just vanished into the street crowd like smoke.

  The city unspooled around Snoopy Taylor in a blur of neon and tuk-tuks. Snoopy gripped the back of the driver’s seat, Polaroid of her drag family in her hand like some lucky talisman, all while her eyes scanned every blinking sign hoping one might spell out Lotus.

  “Lotus House?” she asked again, hopefully.

  “YES! Yes, yes, coming soon!” the driver chirped.

  They did not arrive at the Lotus House.

  Stop 1: Silom Road

  Their first detour was to Silom Road, Bangkok’s financial district by day and rainbow-glittered chaos by night. Snoopy found herself standing at the corner of Soi 5, a very gay street with bars running down both sides of what was little more than a dirty alley with blaring club music. Yet even in this back alley scene, everyone looked like they had their eyebrows done by robots.

  She approached a group of business gays sipping lychee martinis.

  “Excuse me—y’all don’t happen to know a Madame Noi, do you?” she asked, holding up her mysterious note like it was crucial crime scene evidence.

  One of them blinked behind his fake Gucci frames and replied, “Is she a DJ?”

  Another said, “Try Patpong, darling. It is just a few blocks over. That club sounds noir. Very vintage.”

  As Snoopy turned to leave, someone slipped her a flyer for a “Sky-High Kink Brunch.”

  She didn’t know what that meant, but it sure didn’t sound like hash browns were involved.

  Stop 2: Patpong – Snake Shows & Accidental Fame

  Her driver nodded again—“YES, YES, Patpong, very good!”

  They swerved into Patpong, and the car was almost immediately surrounded by a thick herd of pedestrians.

  Wedged between Bangkok’s business towers, the infamous red-light district came alive after sunset like a neon fever dream. The street throbbed under a canopy of tangled wires and plastic tarps, each one dripping condensation and mystery. Bars lined the alley like open mouths—blaring music, strobe lights, and promises of unspeakable pleasures in five different languages. Go-go dancers beckoned from glass stages, their silhouettes framed in electric pinks and radioactive greens, while barkers hollered show menus with a grin that knew too much. Every footstep was a gamble. You might land on a rat, a flyer for “Ping-Pong Madness,” or a memory you’d try to forget in a club that was literally called ‘Super Pussy’.

  But right down the middle of this riot of lust and lasers, the Patpong Night Market had the feeling of the most oddly placed farmer’s market in the world.

  A tight artery of chaos, it snaked between the bars like a retail fever dream: counterfeit handbags, knockoff Rolexes, bootleg DVDs, and “designer” underwear. Vendors shouted over each other, haggling in rapid-fire Thai and English with tourists clutching Chang beers. The scent of grilled meat battled the perfume of clove cigarettes and sweat. And somehow, amidst the sex shows and snake handlers, you could buy a Mickey Mouse backpack or a Samurai sword—because Patpong didn’t care what you were here for. It would give you everything, and dare you to leave with your dignity intact.

  Snoopy wandered through a haze of bootleg DVDs and knock-off designer purses until she found a bar with drag queens.. or ladyboys at the entrance.

  Inside, she met a queen named Ping, who wore a headpiece she had made herself, composed entirely of compact mirrors, her outfit was nothing more than a string bikini.

  “Madame Noi?” Ping repeated, fanning herself. “She don’t come here, honey. Too classy. You want real info, try Soi Cowboy. But watch your wig—last time I went, a tourist threw a beer at me.”

  Soi Cowboy? A western themed street in Bangkok? But the wild west sounded a lot more familiar and comforting to her than ‘Super Pussy’. So Snoopy eagerly made her way back to the cab and set out for this new destination.

  Stop 3: Soi Cowboy – Neon, Nip Slips, and Negotiations

  The driver—who by now was either deeply confused or simply enjoying the scenic route—crossed town to Sukumvit Road and headed to Soi Cowboy.

  A short strip of street barely 150 meters long, but louder than sin on Sunday, Soi Cowboy flashed like Vegas got drunk and hooked up with a rodeo. Fluorescent signs buzzed overhead in every shade of desire—pink, red, ultraviolet—casting everything in a futuristic neon glow that looked like something out of Blade Runner. Girls in cowboy hats and thigh-high boots leaned from balconies like fluorescent Juliettes, waving at passersby with the kind of smile that came with terms and conditions. Music poured from every doorway—thumping bass, 80s throwbacks, Thai rock ballads—and mixed into a soundtrack that felt more like a dare than an invitation.

  Bars with names like “Rawhide,” “Lucky Star,” and “Long Gun” lined the street like themed temptations, each one promising a different flavor of debauchery. Inside, women danced under blacklights, their skin glowing like spirits caught mid-rebellion. Drinks were poured fast and strong, deals were struck with nods, and tourists staggered like moths too deep into the flame. It was wild west, but in more of a robotic Westworld sense—drenched in sex, sequins, and second chances. And for a lost Southern drag queen like Snoopy Taylor, it felt weirdly familiar. It was chaos—but it wore a cowboy hat.

  Snoopy stepped out cautiously and immediately got pulled into a bar called “Cowgirl Galaxy.” A woman dressed as a sexy astronaut offered her a menu with “drink specials” and “mystery shots.” The house special was “The Uranus Rocket.”

  She showed the note again. “Madame Noi? Lotus House?”

  One of the dancers squinted. “Lotus? You mean massage? Or flower? Or club?”

  “I think… maybe all three?”

  “Try Nana. Real old ladyboys near there. Maybe they know.”

  Snoopy left quickly, muttering, “I just wanna find an old drag queen so she can tell me what the hell is going on, is that so much to ask?”

  Stop 4: Nana Plaza – Finally, a Lead

  The taxi pulled up to Nana Plaza. A U-shaped complex of debauchery stacked three stories high, tucked just off Sukhumvit Road, it looked like a parking garage repurposed for lust, lit entirely by strip club signage and bad intentions. The entryway glowed red like the mouth of a devilish funhouse, and once inside, the air vibrated with bass, perfume, and the electric tension of desperation. Bars with names like “Spanky’s,” “Butterflies,” and “Rainbow 4” perched on each floor, competing for attention with blinking lights and half-dressed dancers dangling from poles like gravity was optional. The balconies above swarmed with girls, kathoey, tourists, and hunters of all kinds—each level a new circle of Bangkok’s own neon inferno.

  It was Disneyland for the damned.

  Everywhere Snoopy looked, there were stilettos, leather, LED halos, and the thousand-yard stares of men making questionable life decisions. Staircases led to bars that led to backrooms that led to rumors. Laughter rang out over techno beats, and drink specials promised eternal love for 300 baht and a generous tip. It was seedy, sweaty, seductive—and strangely theatrical. To a queen like Snoopy, it didn’t feel like danger. It felt like the world’s most chaotic pageant, and she’d just stepped onto the main stage.

  She asked around. Most just smiled, shrugged, or tried to sell her a drink. But finally, at the second-floor bar named Angel Cake, she found her miracle.

  A kathoey in a velvet dress and rhinestone boots gasped when she saw the Polaroid of her family. “Big Mama!” she said, eyes lighting up. “You’re her girl?”

  Absolutely shocked that this was the way she would find her lead, Snoopy screamed “Yes! Yes, I am! I’m lookin’ for the Lotus House.”

  The ladyboy leaned in, suddenly serious. “It’s not listed anywhere. No signs. No GPS. But I know the neighborhood. Very near here. One block. No neon. Just plain sign. Be careful, Bangkok only danger in tourist area. We are in tourist area.” And she finished with a smile and a wink.

  Snoopy nearly cried. “Thank you, thank you so much.”

  The queen handed her a drink. “You’re welcome, baby. But first—relax. Have a lychee daiquiri. You smell like America and sadness.”

  Snoopy went back to the taxi, paid for the ride, which was surprisingly little considering they have been on the road for more than two hours. And she headed back to club Angel Cake for that cocktail and for a moment to catch her breath before she made the final move to find the Lotus House.

  With the kathoey recognizing Big Mama, Snoopy was certain that hear search was nearly over. And she REALLY needed that cocktail.

  Also on the second story of Nana Plaza, but all the way on the other side of the courtyard, Scarlet watched the chaos below. She too needed a cocktail. A few shots of something strong to wash away her indifference to the lives she had taken today.

  She was a ghost in red leather, sipping whiskey, her eyes trained on a grainy photo.

  Last Stop: The Lotus House – Doorway to Destiny

  The Lotus House wasn’t inside Nana Plaza. That is too commercial and touristy.

  The clients of The Lotus House are much more discreet. The same guests have been returning to the Lotus House for many decades. There was nothing personal about a night out in Nana Plaza. But a night out at the Lotus House was a night out among trusted confidants.

  Snoopy stood before it—The Lotus House. The weathered wooden sign was there for no reason. It certainly wasn’t an advertisement to come inside. The steps were cracked. The wood-paneled door looked like it hadn’t been opened in a decade.

  But something about it whispered, This is where it starts.

  She clutched the photo of her drag sisters. Kissed it.

  And she stepped inside.