Life's a bitch

[snotface]

This is a sad story. Read on only if you like sad stories. I first set eyes on him at one of the Dongtan beach concessions. He was sitting two or three rows in front of me with some of his friends. I found myself attracted to his handsome face seen at different angles, sometimes animated as he chatted with his friends, sometimes thoughtful as he withdrew into himself. That was my chief impression – of a private, self-enclosed person. His every movement began to seem terribly important to me. But such descriptions are always inadequate. Ultimately it's a mystery why one person attracts us over another. I know I couldn't stop looking at him.

At one point he got up to go on some errand. As he trotted past me in the aisle, small-framed, wearing tee shirt and tight shorts, my goggle eyes zoomed in on his wonderful bubble butt and I was hooked. Not normally the most adventurous of predators, upon his return I caught the eye of one of his friends, beckoned him over and asked to be introduced. A huddle ensued and the message came back that he worked at Cats bar in the Day Night area. It was left at that. He may have stolen a quick glance at me, nothing more.

Guess where I made a beeline for as soon as I had had a hurried meal that evening? I entered that small, now-long-gone bar and there he was right in front of me on the stage, just radiating sexual charisma in his skimpy white undies. He recognised me without apparent surprise and I called him over with a smile the moment I had sat down. My arm round his shoulders as we chatted, I felt almost intoxicated with desire. His was a mild-mannered but highly charged presence and I just wanted to devour him. He told me his name and that he was 21 and nodded without emotion when I asked if he was prepared to bottom. I recall not much more of the preliminaries.

Back at my condo there were no disappointments, the way there sometimes are, when he joined me naked on the bed. Soft honeyed skin, washboard stomach, lovely medium cock, perfect globular arse. He lay there calmly, like a good soldier ready to do his duty. I could have hoped for a bit more involvement, but the truth of the matter was that I was too excited myself to enjoy the occasion fully, though at least he shot his little load just before I did, which was encouraging.

I knew I wanted to see him again and soon arranged to remove him from the bar altogether into a rented room with a monthly 'salary' thrown in. This suited him just fine since he hated working in the bar; he hadn't long been in Pattaya he said. I would visit him every couple of days. Sometimes we had a meal together, though with little conversation. It was on one of these visits that I happened to see his ID card on the table and picked it up. To my amazement it indicated that he was actually 28, not 21 – he didn't look it at all. He tried to convince me at first that there had been a mix-up when the birth was registered, but he could see I wasn't bothered at all and soon gave up trying. We had an argument about another matter after a few weeks – he was no angel – and I told him angrily that our arrangement was off and that I wouldn't be seeing him again.

A couple of weeks went by and then he phoned me, as I thought he might, asking to see me again. I was missing him, on the verge of phoning him myself, and agreed to do so. We got into a routine after that of him coming over to my condo every couple of days, usually late at night. He pushed all the right buttons for me sexually. I couldn't get enough of that compact body and its feast of enchantments. At the same time there were none of the emotional entanglements I was used to with other young men. He was prone to occasional temper tantrums but I felt in control. He was basically a submissive type. When he wasn't with me I hardly gave him a thought. He didn't give much of himself in bed but it didn't seem to matter much, so strong was my lust for him. Often, though, I felt dissatisfied and empty once he had left.

I told an American friend how it sometimes felt as if I was having sex with an inanimate sex doll. 'That's disgusting,' he said, 'how can you have a relationship with someone who cares so little for you and you for him?' 'He just really turns me on,' I replied, privately acknowledging that he had a point.

We'd been seeing each other in our own sweet low-key, business-like fashion for almost a year when I half-heartedly suggested a car trip to Isaan for a few days. Somewhat to my surprise he was all for it. He took me to see his home near Sa Keaw, close to the Cambodian border. A humble, ramshackle wooden building surrounded by junk and weeds. Mother dead, father long gone. A female relative split open a coconut for me. My abiding memory is of a giant frog staring at me glumly from a cage, probably its last resting place before the dinner plate.

My companion, when he wasn't on his mobile chatting to Thai friends back in Pattaya, confided in me more than was customary between us. He admitted that he had hoped to find a farang who would take him to live abroad (the bar boy dream) but thought it unlikely to happen now that he was nearly 30; he seemed resigned to growing old as a poor farmer. I reminded him that he wasn't doing too badly out of me, but he laughed that off. Clearly I didn't count at all. We stopped at a small waterfall and, while I sat primly on a rock, he stripped to his underpants and swam and bathed in the pool. I'd never seen him looking so spontaneously happy. He said it reminded him of his childhood. One night, in bed together in a nondescript motel room, he let out that he had been married at 18 and had two children. I was initially stunned, then intrigued and full of questions, but he said with rare steel in his voice that he didn't want to talk about it, it was too painful. In my experience he had always seemed 100 percent gay.

Back in Pattaya after our shared trip, our relationship went up a notch or two, actually became a bit more human. He took a job as a bellboy in a hotel and I began idly to imagine a possible future for us. Then he missed one of our appointments, and another. I wasn't particularly fussed. I knew he was on Gay Romeo and occasionally saw other farangs. I sometimes saw other young men myself. When he finally turned up he was in a much more buoyant mood than usual and had love bites on his neck. He joked that mosquitoes had caused them! The absences grew longer and an unaccustomed jealousy possessed me. I was off my food, a sure sign of inner turmoil. How ridiculous after taking him for granted for so long!

Finally, after a gap of nearly three months, he reappeared one day looking decidedly sheepish. He admitted that he'd been seeing some middle-aged German guy but said that it was over now. He even showed me emails in which the German ('Otto'), in response to persistent requests for money (haha), announced dramatically that 'my love for you has died'. I bore no grudges, I was all forgiveness. He was back with me and I liked it. For the first time ever he stayed with me in my condo for a few days. He was prepared to kiss during sex – another first. We went swimming in the condo pool where he got chatting with a Thai woman who knew his sister. He told me he had to go home for a while to plant some rice. He left and that was the last time I was to see him.

I made no attempt to contact him. He'd gone home on rice missions before. He'll be back in his own good time I thought in my usual rather fatalistic way. After five months I finally got a call out of the blue. He'd been unwell, he said, but was coming back to Pattaya soon. Great, look forward to it, I said. I felt a surge of happy expectation. One of his familiar text messages quickly followed ('I miss you so much,' blah blah). But he didn't return. His mobile went dead. As the weeks dragged by my sense of foreboding increased. I asked the Thai woman by the pool if she could contact the sister to find out what was going on. She made the call in my presence and I knew from her face what had happened before she told me. He had died of Aids. 'German guy,' she said, giving me a significant look, perhaps to make me feel better.

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