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.