Two Places at One Time

I have two wives in Thailand. Two kids too. One with each woman. This situation was manageable over the last year, since I was in New York and they were in Thailand. My predicament became more convoluted the day I took a flight to Bangkok. I would have to be two places at once and these two places in Thailand were 300 kilometers apart. The first week was easy. I told wife #1 that I was in New York. For week #2 I left wife #2 to see wife #1. Not the most ideal solution, but one wife #2 accepted for the short run. I thought to myself this commuting between wives might work like it had when I was living in Thailand.

Wishful thinking, for wife #2 objected to my second trip up north with the vehemence of a burning viper.

"Why I waste time wait for you? You go see another woman."

"I don't sleep with her." Wife #1 and I haven't experienced conjugal relationship for over 5 years. No one believes me. Not my friends and certainly not my mia noi.

"You not sleep with her. Why you stay with her?" Nothing like anger to make a beautiful woman get old.

"Because I don't want to hurt her."

"You hurt me." This assault continued throughout two days without stop and I looked back on my stay in Palm Beach last year with fondness, but not because I was staying in a mansion or driving a Benz. The house was empty of food, the car was a gas guzzler, and my finances were shot. Instead this was a period of peace and calm. No one yelling in my ear.

"I meet you I young. Now you make me old." Wife #2 was acting shrewish with good reason. She had been the Belle of Soi 6. Men threw money at the feet of her bed. I asked her to be patient, as I was packing my bag. "Everything will work out."

"Everything work out? How? My young years going fast. Where they go?"

"I wish I could tell you." In truth I forgot where my youth went, I'm more concerned where my middle-agedom has disappeared in these times. Still I refuse to think of myself as old. That is something I'll never call myself. I leave that term up to wife #2. She knows how it cuts the skin. At 25 she is right. Young is going fast, but that isn't a problem for me. I still think of her as young and always will. What else can a man my age do?

Find someone younger?

Too tired for that task.

I walked out the door and said I'll be back.

"Maybe I not here."

"Maybe not, but I doubt it." It was low season and low season in 2009.

No one was going anywhere this year, except me to visit wife #1 and my daughter.

Ban Nok here I come.