Passion Week Pattaya 2008 - Five Excuses for Sin

Back in 2008 on Good Friday morning in New York Christians prepared to commemorate the crucifixion of Christ at churches throughout the city. Catholics will chant the Rosary during the Stations of the Cross, as incense fumes from holy thuribles. I shall attend none of these rites and neither shall any atheists in Pattaya, for while I might be on the other side of the world, I have lived long enough in the Last Babylon to know that Friday night was special for wicked residents of that tawdry beach resort and most will be heading down to Walking Street for fun and games.

The crucifixion of Christ was the last thing on their minds, since most of their week had been spent recovering from the previous weekend.

On Saturday and Sunday every time you mentioned you were feeling like ten pounds of shit in a one pound bag, your Thai wife muttered, "Som nam nah." or "Serves you right."

Tuesday was wasted in a vain attempt to find your cell phone, with which you vaguely recollect a go-go dancer girl photographing you nude onstage and you judiciously decided that it was better to leave your phone lost. After you purchasing a new cell phone, your drinking partner called to say you didn't look too fat completely naked. 

He had photos. 

You whisper into the phone, "Speak to you later."

Wednesday your wife has stopped staring at you like she wished you lived in a two-story building so she can push you down the stairs.

Thursday evening you treated her to shopping at largest beachfront shopping mall in the world and dined at her favorite restaurant. She ordered the most expensive food on the menu. Things were almost back to normal, but tomorrow is Friday and there was no way you intend on staying in the house.

You could be a real man and say, "I pay for everything. I'm going to do whatever I want when I want wherever I want."

But you better be prepared to sleep with one eye open for the next few nights.

Personally I opted for the coward's way out and used one of following five excuses.

"My friend is having trouble with his girlfriend and needed to speak with someone."

In order for this excuse to work, you had to prep your wife by telling her various tales of friend's woe. Even better if the two women don't like each other, since your wife will be pleased at her counterpart's misfortune.

Of course your wife will understand why your friend was having trouble. He went out every Friday night and got you drunk. 

Always blame the person not in the room. Believe me, he will do the same.

Excuse # 2 "It'll only be for an hour or so."

Thai women understood that when a farang said an hour he meant an hour, unless it had anything to do with drinking while looking at naked women. Then the farang's time reference was distorted by the international non-time zone.

This time warp was most apparent on your night out, when you looked at your new cell to discover that it was almost midnight and you had only drunk five drinks. 

If you left now, everything will be perfect, except your friend, who's having all the trouble with his girlfriend, ordered another round of tequila and pushed you on stage with three go-go girls with whips.

You calculate. 

"One drink. One dance. Another fifteen minutes."

Next thing you know it's 3am and you have no idea how you got to this hotel room.

When you stumble through your house door, your wife will ask, "Do you have any idea what time it is."

Once more blame it on your friend.

"Billie kept saying it wasn't late."

Blaming him is fair, because as previously stated he's not in the room and can defend himself later. All you need is enough time to get to bed.

Excuse # 3 "It's business."

Anytime you walk out of the house with 10000 baht it most certainly was business.

Especially since you invested every baht in booze and women.

Hopefully there was no return on this investment.

Excuse # 4 "It's my friend's last night."

This was maybe three times a year occasion.

Your best friend was either going home to replenish his financial coffers or else on a visa run to Malaysia. Your wife doesn't need to hear the whole truth. She knew you two together were no good, but at least there was only one more night of the guy who made you lose five cell phones in the last year.

Excuse # 5 "You can come with me if you want."

This one threw them off balance. 

Your wife will say, "Okay." 

But as the clock ticked down to blast-off she will realize that you'll make her miserable by taking her to farang pubs where Filipino bands do covers of dinosaur rock bands and the only food was burgers or sizzling steaks, and every man in the place was over 250 pounds and sweated like a Bengali laundryman.

One night like that and your wife will never come with you again. This way you can be free to get drunk, dance naked on stage, and lose your cell phone, because that was what a Good Friday night was all about in Pattaya.

As for Saturday.

That was the day of repentance and saying "Never again."

But your wife knew better and so did that go-go dancer with your new cell phone and so had Jesus on the cross.

GIRLS LIKE GIRLS by Peter Nolan Smith

WRITTEN Sep 19, 2010

The political situation 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 planned 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. 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 had 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 knew 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 waited 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. I winced after my shot.

"What wrong?" the manager asked tossing back her tequila.

"Tequila very good."

"Strong." Oi was a tomboy and she only hired girls who liked girls..

Few of the male customers noticed the dancers' sexual preference, because near-naked girls dancing to techno appeared straight to a drunken farang, however several girls glared 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 and I recalled the Jefferson Airplane once singing, "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 got it-sah or jealous.

"My girlfriend thinks I have sex with every girl here." She rolled her eyes mentioning the real Thai word for jealous. "But not true. I only love her."

"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 eyes roamed the club. Sam's girlfriend cuddled with tall dancer from Isaan on the banquette and I sat with her. The dancer went to the ladies room and I asked her, "I know you like girls. Why you not go with your friend?"

"He has good heart." Dtum looked across the bar to where Sam was buying a dancer a drink. She raised a thumb to approve of his choice. They would share the performer for a menage-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 sold 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 solipsical 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 had been 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 on the shoulder. Two men scurried from the flatbed and ran into the forest like they were wanted fugitives. Two 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. Longer hair. 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 glowed 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 took everything I gave her, but the second I entered Sammy my pleasure reached a climax like a storm wave.

One in-and-out.

Flower didn't like this. I was supposed to be a tool. As the dawn broke over the redwoods they 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 finally stopped the orgy. Sleep.

They had pulverized my libido and I understood why the other two men had fled the truck. I crawled 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."

I left my friends that night and returned home. My wife and daughter were asleep. I lay on the bed and read a little. Ezra Pound. Within a few minutes I was asleep, because these two girls are the only menage a trois in my world.