My Discovery

Sloe eyes and quick smiles take their turns to circle. I tether myself to a bar-stool, the centre of the hunt….their prey. Any glance away from my glass draws immediate eye-contact, and I have a split second then to decide: do I hold these eyes invitingly, or evade capture and gaze distracted and unseeing through them? How do you decide when you know that back home, any one of these women would draw a long, low whistle from unreconstructed male lips…like mine? Yet back home these women wouldn't even see me, back home I've reached the age of invisibility! But here, now, on Soi 7 I have a choice to make.

I check my watch… It's just two hours since I touched-down at Don Muang.

Routine had been …'same-same'… Hand-luggage only, nodded through customs, take stairs up to departures two-at-a-time, hail taxi dropping off a hollow-eyed farang, (recognise in his 1000 yard stare. the 'look' I'll be wearing a week from now). Kind traffic sees me quickly to the hotel, shower, change…here!

I make my decision: tall, slender, smooth, feline. As we leave I spot another half-dozen to return for…later. They smile, registering my interest…..They know I'll be back.

Leaving the bar, I know that this pace, this urgency must be maintained for as long as my body will allow. The need to compress as many 'experiences' into these eight days and nights is compelling. I can sleep on the plane……I can rest when I'm dead!

….As the week passes, far from abating, the search for pleasure becomes obsessive… Impatient of congested walk-ways and crowds choosing their watches, mine's ticking! Angry even with the hotel elevator and the seconds wasted waiting for it!

I fill the days and nights…as my body…slowly empties!

Too soon it's the dawn of departure. Eyes aching, money and body spent. I've done all I could do, been the best lover I could be…And now it's over!….. lay in bed, stroking the cool marble skin of last nights 'seduction'.

Four times before I've felt this powerful, engulfing, un-named sadness. A sadness I could not put my finger on, could not name or capture. Once or twice I thought it was love. It's not love. I'm not a romantic man…I could not fall in love again. Yet here, on the verge of tears I recognise for the first time the cause of my sorrow….that leaving Thailand is…. a little death. That I've fallen, not for a girl but for 'Her'….Thailand…. And there will be no tomorrow for me here! I will leave this all behind for others… The party will go on but without me. Others will take my bar stool!….And be hunted. And I will remember but be forgotten.

'You only live twice Mr. Bond…Once when you are born and once when you stare death in the face'

In this little death I'm given a chance to know life!…I'm glad I found Thailand before I died!

Stickman says:

Sounds to me like you are addicted!