Meeting James (revised)

[MrX]

The night after the Isaan Princess had ordered me out of the bar in the twilight of our evening so as to go fuck another customer I came back at opening time. I had already telephoned her early enough to be sure to catch her in bed even if I did not know with whom and told her I was coming at seven. ?No? she said urgently across the ether, ?Come ten o?clock like you say before?. With a harshness I could hardly recognize as my own I quickfired, ?Cannot, come seven o?clock or no come.? Though the ultimatum was rudely undisguised, still she didn?t hear it. ?Why?? her voice-tone between anxiety and pain yanked at my heartstrings yet hardened my resolve. I thought I carried the big guns of separation and abandon. ? ?I have problem 10 o?clock? I lied, daring her to resist and knowing she was starting to feel which way disaster lay. ?OK? she whimpered and resigned. As to why she didn?t want me to come at seven, I neither understood nor cared.

 

But later, confronting our demons in the short-time room, wearing a long black Ophelia dress which was lacy and difficult to slip on and off she was director, even though I hadn?t realized it from the beginning. Her fidelity that night was evident and unassailable and her mistake forgivable she argued and I remembered our talisman talk: ?I customer? I always say, meaning who pays the piper, to which she replies ? yes but I boss? What could I do but acquiesce?

 

Back at the bar we were infused by that bruised, joyful, melancholic energy, like bee-stung lips on a beautiful face, which is peculiar to moments of post-traumatic love Just about everybody seemed to notice us though perhaps this was illusion. We sat down, and unusually she held my hand, caressing my arm gingerly while half-naked girlfriends jostled us, talking with her in machine-gun Thai, knowing, I suspect, it was too fast for me to understand. How much she had shared with them of the difficulties we faced I couldn?t know, yet around us there was a curiosity and camaraderie I had not quite felt before and which strangely did not exclude me.

 

It excluded the other customers though and I was thinking this when I noticed James. He was sitting on the next stool, alone, no more than a metre away but with his back half turned toward me covered in a cloak of privacy. Actually I had already seen him once before in the bar about three weeks ago. That time he was far away on the other side of the stage and feigning non-recognition was obviously the best thing to do, but this time with him nearby I was not so sure. What would he think of me being here and would he even realize that I was with IP and what did it matter anyway? What harm, after all, could he do? Anxieties flooded my brain, just as an image of my wife and her colleagues crowded in among the girls. I bent low towards IP?s ear and said hissed, ?Man sit next to me, he work my wife university,? I twisted my neck trying to indicate him to her unobtrusively. ? Yeh I know him? ..you tell me before? she seemed to drawl. Her hesitation making me think they might have fucked already. Would she understand the need for discretion I wondered forlornly? And then reassuringly: this might be Ok, after all he doesn?t work there any more and is guilty too. Men in glass houses.

 

 

 

?Hello? I said

 

He turned round slowly and in a way that I could not tell what game we were playing.

 

?You?re James who used to work at Thammasat with my wife Catherine, Right? I am Romp her husband, do you remember me?? I hoped he didn?t feel he was pinned but how else could I have done it?

 

?Oh yeah??. I think maybe I do. How is Catherine anyway?? He said slightly stiffly even a little drunk or hostile. We were treading on eggshells. ? Y?know, I?ve been taken on there again, part time, starting next semester? he went on, as my heart missed a beat.

 

The music was much louder now as the sound system cranked out ?Highway to Hell? and somehow IP had got up onto the stage and was in front of us gyrating in svelte jeans and T-shirt. How had she managed to change out of the black dress I thought inanely? She wasn?t alone. Tik and Miss Surin were fooling around lesbian-style beside her and James appeared transfixed by the three of them. They were beautiful, they knew, and were my friends. I could feel their intrigue over me, talking to a falang, after all my solitary visits to the bar. They can?t help but provoke, I suddenly knew hopelessly.

 

?Some of these girls are so young? I said to James, trying refuge in our common middle age ?Those two are only twenty and Tik is twenty-one? I said waving my hand at them but I knew dully it only seemed like bragging. He didn?t answer and kept looking at the girls. I felt him though beside, keenly aware of me in a way I only half liked. Meanwhile IP was fixing us with an exhibitionist glint in her eyes and Tik had all but pulled off Miss Surin?s bikini bottom.? I saw you in here once before? I said, wanting to keep everything out in the open.but James feinted ? This is the first time I have been here? he said pausing, ?tonight? unnaturally emphasized. By now IP had undone her jeans and pulled them down so far that she was shaking her naked arse inches from my face and James was frankly staring, , quizzical and confused, first at her, nearly nude, then back at me. I felt the flaws in my whole life as I felt the tumult of my present.

 

The song having finished, IP came off the stage and just stood beside me unmistakably. Ready to go. ?Where black dress?? I asked, now ignoring James, ?upstairs? she said ?no problem ?

 

As we left together, I was sure I felt his eyes boring into my back across the bar. I suppose he was thinking we were going off to fuck somewhere, not know that we are already doing so much more than that.

[Nervous_Dog]

heheheh - I was in the after school bar once, sitting in the naughty boy corner, getting blown, when a prick I had to occassionally work with came in!

 

A real pretentious, I dont fuck whores kinda guy.

 

And there I was with my pants around my ankles!

 

I am desperately trying to get the girl to

 

1 - stop blowing me

2 - pull my pants up

3 - not get noticed

4 - leave!

 

I succedded at non of them!

 

JB