Several years ago my good friend Jamie Parker was seeing a go-go girl from the Paris A Go-Go. Ort was skinny and crazy. The ex-con from the Bronx was smart enough not to have Ort as a girlfriend. The twenty-three was better as a geek, but the 52 year-old from the Bronx couldn’t resist the siren call once she mentioned ‘ice’. Jamie liked his drugs. He liked his sex too. The two of them went on a binge. A month later Jamie developed a heart murmur. His lungs were shot with holes. The New Yorker had dropped twenty pounds.

“I had to let her go.” Jamie had changed his telephone and was planning on a trip to Laos. His survival was at stake. “She’s a sweet girl.”

“Sweet.” I wouldn’t have described Ort as sweet. I knew the temptress from Soi 6. We had had an affair that lasted more than a year. She had been my geek too. Ort had several other men at the same time. Her drug habit was voracious. She was irresistible and I feared a phone call.

I could not say ‘no’ to drugs and sex either.

Ice, sex, more ice, and more sex were 21st Century formula for disaster.

A day went by and then two without a call from Ort. It appeared I was off the hook.
Several of the dancers at the Paris A Go-Go said Ort had traveled to Singapore with a Chinese businessman. Jamie canceled his trip to Luang Prabang. I offered a silent prayer for her good luck and thanked the stars that she was gone.

Ort was nothing, but trouble and we all loved trouble.

Three days after her disappearance Mam returned from seeing her children near the Cambodian border. She checked my phone. No calls from strange girls. I didn’t go out to the bars, because during low season the clientele tends to be as old as extinct creatures and I’m scared shitless of catching olditis, if these wizened geezers farted dust in my direction.

I played good man or poo-chai di. Mam got my undying devotion and I drank 3-4 Leo beers a day instead the usual onslaught of 10-12 Changs at the Buffalo. Sleep came early like in the country with a book lulling me in the direction of Nodville.

Several weeks later I lay in bed. Mam was downstairs preparing us food. The phone rang in my pocket. I answered without hesitation.

“Hello tee-lat.” It was Ort.

“Where are you? Singapore?” I cupped my hand over my mouth. Mam has good hearing, even from five stories below.

“No, can’t get a flight. I in Pattaya. You have time for me?”

“No, I’m with Mam.” I had told Ort about Mam.
,p.”Come see me. I have Ice and want you to play my master.” Ort was also a masochist. She didn?t know why other than to say that she liked it rough.
,p.”Sorry, I don’t have any money.” The 10 K in my pocket was for Mam and me, not a dirty weekend in a cheap hotel. There was also another problem.

“You see Jamie. He is my friend. I don’t do that to friends.”

He not know. Same your wife. She not know. She not care. Have Ice. I want you. Not have to have sex. Can only talk.”?

“Talk?” The devil was trying to buy my soul for a free night of sex with a demon. I sat up in bed. I was hard. ‘Ice’ and Ort tempted my soul.

“I talk to you and you talk to me.” Ort’s third language was 69.

The DVD of her plans played within my brain at thirty-two times the speed of light. She would smoke her pipe and then mount me cowboy-reverse, telling me not to move until she finished with brown eyes rolling into her skull. I was as hard as a 40 year-old on Viagra.

“You know you want it.”

Ort knew how to sell the truth.

I’m fairly sure my final destination is down rather than up and I’m sure that on my death bed I would be ruing refusing Ort this favor, but I said, “Sorry, I can’t, Mam is coming. Bye.”

I shut off my phone and went to the TV room.

Mam looked at me with a smile.

“Good movie.”

“Okay. You watch with us.” She had my son on her lap. Fenway was my little superstar.

“Why not?” It was a Thai soap. Thais loved the story. Poor girl. Rich Boy. Love. Someone get hurt. Go hospital. Get better. Love.

It wasn’t like I had a choice.

I was a man in love.