Raw Hide

I met Dune on the internet. Her profile picture showed a tall Thai-Chinese girl in a cowboy outfit (red checked shirt, leather waist coat, 10 gallon buffalo hat) holding a rifle diagonally upwards towards her lips. The photo caught her as she blew the smoke away from barrel. The gun was probably not real and she probably hadn’t killed anyone or anything, but it was a hot picture. And she was flirting with me. Online. I guess we chatted for four or five days. The usual bullshit that strangers talk about. The weather. Bangkok traffic. Preference in cheesecakes. The loss of Michael Jackson and the birth of a baby panda in Chang Mai Zoo. We both said that we had never done internet dating before. We were both liars. She said she was an accountant and I said I was the director of an international export company. She did the books for her Mum’s noodle stand in China Town and I sold shit on eBay. As I say, we were both economical with the truth.

We decided to meet. She wanted to meet in Khao San road in a Starbucks. I hate Khao San road and I hate Starbucks. I agreed to meet her nonetheless. That cowgirl picture was making me do strange things. I must have whacked off over that picture least a dozen times. That picture was causing to me to move in directions I wouldn’t normally travel. I kept thinking of that Thai cowgirl every night for a week.  

I arrived there about twenty minutes late. She was seated with a large cardboard cup filled with what I imagine to be coffee. She didn’t look happy. My cute little cowgirl wasn’t wearing a cowgirl hat. And she certainly wasn’t happy. Must be one of the punctual types, which is rare for a Thai. She looked taller, leaner than in the picture.

‘Sorry Bangkok Traffic,’ I explain as I sit down.

‘You don’t look the same as in your picture.’ She told me.

“Well, the picture wasn’t life size. And if you don’t mind me saying you look a little different than your picture.’

‘It was a cowboy theme night. I don’t always dress as a cowboy, you know.’

She raised the coffee cup to her mouth. As she did I noticed the hands. The hands were large and the fingers were long like that of a pianist’s. My gaze moved upwards. There were two small mounds where they should be, but that meant nothing. Tissue paper, chicken fillets, or a course of hardcore hormone tablets could have created the same effect. I moved up to the neck and could see the slightest hint of an Adam’s apple. The cowgirl fantasy was immediately replaced with shocking images from ‘Brokeback Mountain.’  My cowgirl was a cowboy.

But I had made it this far so I would see how things progressed. Plus I needed a drink.  

‘Okay. Let’s get a real drink somewhere. I know a blues bar not far from here.’ I had a small bar the other side of the klong in mind. Small, narrow, with good musicians and healthy measures of the G and the T. I was going to need it,

‘I don’t drink alcohol. It makes my skin all itchy’

Things were going from bad to worse. Only I could end up dating a dry Gatoey.

‘Okay. We can get a coffee there instead. Are you allergic to music?’

‘No,’ she said in a voice an octave higher than Chris Rea.

‘Ok. Let’s go.’

‘But I still have my go-go,’ she says, shaking the half-full cardboard coffee cup.

‘Your what?’

‘My go-go. My take away coffee’ she says waving the coffee cup in front of me. ‘You never had a go-go before?’

‘I’ve had a few,’ I admit.

‘I can take it with me?’

‘That’s the general idea with a go-go, isn’t it?’

We make it out of Starbucks and hit the blues bar. The seats are dirty and the place is cramped. I can tell from the look of disgust on Dune’s face that the venue is the wrong choice. But I decide to ride it out. Plus, the band has an exceptionally good jazz guitarist. He plays a white Fender Stratocaster with amazing fluidity. The bass player was average and the drummer terrible. The guitar man carried the band. He was playing a deep soul blues that could soothe the most pensive soul.

‘I wonder what he is thinking about when he plays that,’ Dune asked.

‘He is thinking about life,’ I told her.

‘What do you mean?’

‘That thing between when you are born and when you die. That thing that is both the simplest and most complicated thing we will ever encounter.’

I drank a few Gins and Dune had two coffees. As we got up to leave I noticed that she had no ass to speak of. She was just straight all the way down. She was also very tall. Taller than my 5’8. But she had a pretty face and that cowboy image kept replaying in my mind. Boy or girl the picture was hot.

She invited me to her Banglampoo apartment and I accepted more out of morbid curiosity than anything else. I had never been with the third sex before. It was strange that I might intend to start now, with a cowgirl fantasy. But it was more a sense of intrepid anthropological research than any real sexual desire that led me up the steps to her apartment. Were men who went with Ladyboys homosexual? On the one hand they were as they were sleeping with a biological man. On the other they weren’t as the man was intended to be born a woman. It was all too much to think about. It was all a psychiatrist’s wet dream.

She had a small one-roomed apartment. It had a bed, a fridge, a TV and a small balcony and a door which I imagined led to a bathroom. The bedspread was pink in colour and a few soft toys and cushions were sitting randomly on the bedspread. It was all very feminine. I sat down on the bed and she/he stood in front of me. 

Without comment (s)he began to undress.

The blouse and bra came off first. The small breasts appeared natural enough although very small. There was a slight inward curve to suggest a slightly feminine waist to hip ratio. Next she removed her jeans. Her legs were good. Long and shapely the way they should be. There was no visible bulge beneath her knickers. But I had heard about tricks with scotch or duct tape to hoist up the undercarriage. I held my breath as she slowly peeled those black nylon knickers south. And there it was…

A dark black hairy mound. A black hairy mound with nothing dangling below. No cock. No balls. No duct tape. She was all woman.

“What’s the matter?’ She asked looking at my shocked expression.

There are some things you just can’t say to a lady: “I thought you were a man” is one of them.

I didn’t know if I were relieved or disappointed.

I’ll leave that one to the shrinks.