Butterflies Are Free to Fly - part 17

Greg awoke with a start a few hours later. Nit was snoring lightly next to him. For a minute he couldn't remember how the hell he'd gotten home, nor remember bringing a woman home. The last thing he could remember was talking with Nit in the Corner Bar, and the farangs getting into an argument over something and nearly having a fistfight in the bar. Everything else was a blank.

His heart pounded as he lay in the bed trying to remember what he'd done last night, and a sick feeling came over him, a feeling of panic. His stomach roiled and burned with acid, and the panicked feeling made him nauseous, to the point where he jumped from the bed and raced to the bathroom, just barely making it to the toilet before he vomited last night's alcohol and food. His head felt like a Roman legion was marching through his skull. Greg ran the cold water in the sink, flushed the toilet, and looked in the mirror.

"My God," he thought upon seeing his reflection, "I look like hell."

His usually clear eyes were shot with red blood vessels, there were bags under his eyes, and stubble of beard darkened his chin and cheeks like a Bowery street bum, or a fashionably cool unshaven male model with toussled hair. He felt more like a bum than a model. His mouth tasted like crap. He splashed some cold water on his face, then grabbed his toothbrush from the holder on the sink, applied some toothpaste from the tube of Darlie nearby on the shelf, and proceeded to brush away the foul taste his night of drinking, debauchery, and the morning's vomiting had gathered in his throat. The taste of the toothpaste made him gag again, and he nearly puked. Fighting down the reflex to regurgitate Greg leaned his forehead against the mirror and felt its cool smoothness against his skin; suddenly a thought occurred to his muddled hung-over mind. He hadn't used condoms during last night's marathon sex with Nit.

That did it. He rushed to the toilet and puked again, over and over, until there was nothing left but a few long retching dry heaves, which felt as though he was going to rupture something if it didn't stop soon. He'd always used condoms before when playing with bar girls. "Damn it!" he thought to himself, "Now I'll need to get tested at least twice in the next few months, and worry the whole time if this one slip will maybe cost me my life with a lethal infection of a disease for which there is no known cure, and none in sight for the foreseeable future." Greg groaned outwardly as he hung his head over the toilet bowl, and retched again at the thought of this.

A noise in the doorway alerted him to Nit's awakening. He looked up and saw Nit standing in the door to the hong nam. She grinned at him, saying, "You okay, Gleg?"

Greg groaned again, and said, "Oh yeah, just fine, Nit. Good morning. I think the last few whiskeys were more than over my limit last night. My stomach doesn't feel very good right now."

He hauled himself off his knees from his prayers to the ‘Porcelain Goddess’ and asked Nit if she needed to use the toilet.

"Nit make ab nam (shower), okay?"

Greg noticed she was wrapped in a towel, looking like a child getting ready for bed after a cleaning up. "God she is so tiny!" he thought to himself, and so damned sexy. He wanted to ask her some questions as to how often she went with other men, and if she usually used condoms when she did, but decided now was not the time to do so, and threw the thought from his mind, afraid he'd again start retching if he dwelled on it at present.

"Sure," he said, "Take your shower. I'll start some coffee. Would you like some, Nit?"

Nit smiled demurely and chimed, "Yes. Kup khun ka."

Greg left to start his breakfast of coffee and toast, hoping it would soothe his roiling stomach. "Why the hell did I drink so much last night like a damned fool?" he thought to himself. Then he remembered why. "Ah, shit." he thought miserably. It all came back to him as he prepared his toast and coffee. Other things also came back to him from the night before, steadily leaking into his consciousness a bit at a time. He had to admit to himself as these other thoughts, memories, temporarily knocked out of his brain by the over consumption of liquor of the night before, came to him. He couldn't remember any woman ever giving him such a pleasurable evening, not even Joy, who he'd thought to be a very admirable partner in the horizontal boogie. Nutty Nit blew all the previous bed partners away; it was like comparing the great Mohammad Ali to some amateur club fighter in a boxing match. Nit had a natural ability and sexiness, an almost unnatural flexibility, and an appetite and vigor and downright innate love for the bed games that just blew all the others away, as if they hadn't a clue to what they could truly do with a man.

Nit came out into the kitchen and he gave her a cup of coffee. She refused the toast he offered, saying she had to go now, and that she'd grab some breakfast at a noodle shop on the soi near her room. Greg quickly excused himself and left her to her coffee, went into the bedroom and grabbed 2,500 baht from his wallet and stuck it into Nit's pocketbook, which was sitting on the floor by the bed. "That amount should suffice. Actually overtipping really." he thought. He couldn't remember if he'd paid a bar fine before leaving the bar last night, or if they had even discussed any amounts for the evening's pleasures. It was time to get Nit out of the house before someone saw her, or his wife called him, or something went haywire and further complicated what was already bound to be a complicated and trying day ahead for him. Greg wanted to call his wife at her parents and see what she was planning to do, and if he could see his daughters and work out what was going to go down in the immediate future. Plus he needed to call work. Things were so fucked up now he needed to get his shit together and get on with it. There were things to be done, and they needed to be done quickly.

He still couldn't believe his wife Noi had cleaned out their joint accounts of all cash, and he wanted to confront her with this theft quickly.

As he stood there in the bedroom deep in thought about his troubles and how to deal with them, with Nit's pocketbook still in his hands; Nit walked into the room.

(To be continued)

Cent
(The Central Scrutinizer)