Things in Bangkok had gotten out of control. The red shirts controlled the city. The police did nothing. People called them daeng moh or watermelon. They were red on the inside. Thaksin was a fellow cop. The Army was in the hands of the old elite or phuu laak maak dee. Bloodshed was a daily occurrence. The government was planning a nationwide curfew. Shut down everything.
Even in Pattaya.
Sam Royalle called me from his house on the other side of Sukhumvit.
"You want to go out tonight. Last night. After tonight all the bars and go-gos will be shut." Sam was recovering from a nasty lung infection. His doctor had advised rest. There was only so much staying at home for Sam. "We haven't gone out in ages."
"I know." I spent my holiday with Mam and our son Fenway. "Let me ask Mam."
Mam trusted me as far as she could see, however Sam had helped me on many occasions.
“It’s holiday. Go out with friend. Don’t come back until you mao kah.”
Basically meaning get legless.
Mam knows that I like drinking. We made love before I left the house. My libido belonged to her. I was late to meet Sam.
By an hour.
Mam had made sure that I had no desire.
Sam and his friends were waiting at What’s Up a Go-Go. The go-go was packed with farangs looking for a girl to barfine for the duration of the upcoming curfew. Sam ordered a round of tequilas. Low-quality. I squinced after my shot.
"What wrong?" the manager asked tossing back her tequila.
"Tequila very good."
"Strong." Oi is a tomboy. Twice the man I'll ever be. Several of her dancers are lesbians. Few of the male customers notice this, because near-naked girls dancing to techno appear straight to a drunken farang, however several girls were glaring at a bald-headed German with jealousy, as he barfined a pretty girl in her late teens.
At first I thought it was envy, but realized the vicious looks directed at the male was that of a lover. The Jefferson Airplane once sang. “Saddest thing in the whole wide world, see your baby with another girl.” Same goes for a girl going with a man.
I asked Oi, the manager, if her girlfriend gets jealous.
“Huung like a snake.” She rolled her eyes mentioning the real Thai word for jealous. “My girlfriend thinks I have sex with every girl here. But not true. I only love here.”
“So you don’t look at any other girls?”
“Looking not same as making love.”
“So when you look, you don’t think about making love with the girl.”
“I not say that.” Oi ordered a round of kamikazes to shut me up.
My friend’s girlfriend was cuddling with another friend’s wife. The two appeared comfortable and when the wife went to the ladies room, I asked the girlfriend, “I know you like girls. Why you go with my friend?”
“He has good heart.” Cher looked across the bar to where he was buying a dancer a drink. She raised a thumb to approve of his choice. They would share the performer for a ménage-a-trois later. “But if I not have him, then I stay with lady. Better than man. Lady love you. Man only want to_____you know. You not think girl love girl bad.”
Bad?
North Hollywood sells several billion dollars worth of DVDs dedicated to lesbianism. I wrote a novel about it. NORTH NORTH HOLLYWOOD. Men fantasize about a love triangle incessantly, only this egoish equation doesn’t run true to the dream. Girls who like girls like boys only because they really like girls. At best you’re a man-slave. At worst you’re a spectator.
In 1975 I was hitch-hiking in Big Sur. A hippie. It was getting dark in the forest on US 1. Cars were few. The trees were huge. Camping solo seemed my only option, until a pick-up truck stopped. Two men scurried from the flatbed and ran into the forest like they were wanted fugitives. Tow women were in the front. Both cute in a rubenesque fashion.
“Where you going?”
“LA.”
“We’re going to San Diego. What you think about getting some wine and camping with us tonight?” The cuter one asked from the passenger seat.
“Cool.” And I jumped in the back.
1975. Over thirty years ago. Long hair. Hippie girls. Big Sur. We bought a jug of wine and drove off the road to a grove of redwoods stretching into a cobalt blue sky. Stars were glowing above the treetops. We exchanged names. Theirs were Flower and Sammy. I gave mine as James.
“James Bond?” Flower was older and had long brown hair.
“James reefer Bond.”
Both of them laughed and Flower tolled a joint. She wore overalls without a bra. Her breasts were big. Sammy’s were small. We started a fire and ate fruit, smoked pot, and drank wine. Within 30 minutes we were naked on a scratchy blanket. They called my cock 007, even though it wasn’t that long. We had sex throughout the night. Flower could take everything I gave her, but the second I entered Sammy my pleasure reached a climax like a storm wave.
Hardly one in-and-out.
Flower didn’t like this. I was supposed to be a tool. As the dawn broke over the redwoods they withdrew began a long sumo-wrestling match into a 69 Death Grip excluding any male touch. Flower sneered at me, as if her groans were merely a subterfuge to entice Sammy into this embrace.
They had pulverized my libido and I understood why the other two men had fled the truck. I crawled away from the redwood grove and caught a ride south, knowing that girls like girls and that was it.
Same in Pattaya.
My friends think these girls are experimenting. Most are tom-dee or lesbians and like Gore Vidal said, “Once is experimentation. Twice is perversity.”
They’re only playing a game otherwise.
I left my friends that night and returned home. Mam and Fenway were asleep. They smelled god. I lay on the bed and read a little. Ezra Pound. Within a few minutes I was asleep, because Mam is the only girl in the world for me.
And she's no lesbian.
At least as far as I know.
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