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Ae had a complexion like a perfectly brewed cup of tea with a dash of cream. Her wide set eyes glinted darkly and mischievously above high warm cheekbones. Curled within her musical soft voice was a sexual power that would melt most other women into insignificant drag acts. Her small frame lacked any sharp angles. Despite very little body fat she was all feminine curves. At nineteen she seemed to have hit a peak and she gloried in her ability to own every man who glanced at her. She loved the attention that came to her when she walked through Bangkok with the swing of a Roman whore on a catwalk in sheer cut lime green hot pants and small cotton vest that left nothing to the imagination. She spoke English with a casual assurance. It was an English peppered with phrases like "man" and "bullshit" as if her teacher had been a Sixties rock star. She was lovely to be alone with but a nightmare to be out with. It was impossible for her to stop flirting. And she would eye almost every reasonably attractive man she saw with the same playful eroticism. I tried to be coolheaded about her. Play the distanced reserved Englishman. But it was impossible. The heat from her skin radiated an energy that pulled me into her like a moth to a flame and it hurt to be away from her for an hour.

At the time of this story I had been wrapped up in her for a full two days at a Chinese run short-time hotel in Banglampoo called the Gao-sip. In the street outside there was a big illuminated sign with a red 90 in sharp tall letters in case there was a cab driver in town who might have trouble finding the small soi that led to the entrance. I say it was a short-time hotel but to tell the truth there were quite a few people in residence. It was modelled on a typical American motel with a horseshoe shaped court but with three tiers of rooms. We were in one of the ground floor. There were towels and bars of soap and changes of sheets. It was okay. For the past two days we'd left the room about twice for not more than half an hour. The rest of the time we spent in the room like a honeymoon couple. Just sleeping, taking showers and fucking. We talked sometimes but not too much. Talking seemed like a waste of energy. Talk for what ? Everything that I'd known before seemed irrelevant to me now. Everything. I thought I could spend the rest of my life with Ae just drinking her in, never needing anything else in the world. Every time we finished having sex we'd shower and every time we finished in the shower we wanted more sex. If I looked as though I was taking a rest she 'd take my penis into her warm mouth until I was ready to fuck again. If she started to look overtired I'd kiss her cunt, which had a sweet aftertaste almost, like Pernod, and her tiredness would transform into a languid lust for more.

I hadn't seen anyone. I hadn't paid my guesthouse bill. I hadn't phoned the people I was supposed to phone. I'd left everything on hold indefinitely. This was the best of times. I found myself wishing I'd lived in Thailand for my whole life. All the wasted years struggling with ambitions. Years spent having brief and half-hearted affairs with western women who found it hard to let a pleasant word leave their lips. I had spent time chasing women who weren't even the same species as someone like Ae. It was all time wasted. But I was in the here and now, and the here and now was a kind of Paradise, so the past could get fucked.

This day, Friday 14 December 1991, was tinged with sadness. We had to leave the room and go somewhere. Ae had made a commitment to go to her friend Noi 's birthday party. So we pulled ourselves together and took a shower... together. This wasn't going to help us set off any quicker. Her soapy body was sliding up against me as we washed each other. She turned her back to me and I washed her. Soaping over her shoulders and down her arms. Soaping up her hips over her stomach and to her breasts, the hardness of nipples poking into the palm of my hand. She pushed her whole body against me as if joking but I just got this lightness in my head and it was too much to bear. I spun her around and we held each other under the smattering water. We kissed. The taste of the water mixing in with the taste of her mouth. I could feel her cunt pushing into me. I didn't want to go anywhere. I didn't want to be anywhere but here. She pulled me out of the tiled bathroom and within a second we fell on to the bed. She seemed to feed on me, nibbling at me, tasting me as we fucked.

Sometimes sex can be a desperate rush to a climax but with Ae there was never any rush for it to end. When we did finish the sheets were just a tangled wet mass on the floor. We lay very still for a few minutes and I looked into her eyes. She had a glow and there was a sense that in a few minutes she would start up again but she smiled and slid out from underneath me. She pulled on her knickers without washing up. I must have looked puzzled because she smiled at me and said. "I want to keep it inside me. Maybe we make a baby."
There was a part of me that would have been fine with this. But I laughed, maybe a little nervously, and said "What ?" "If your wife find out you have a baby with me what she do ?" "I don't really have a wife."
She stared me out.
"I know. I'm married but it's not like she's my real wife with..." She mimed a throat cutting and laughed silently. When she laughed you could see there was a tiny gap between her two front teeth. She pulled on a pair of fashionably tattered faded jeans that fit her snug as a glove.

As usual she checked the look in the mirror that ran the length of the bed. She loved the look of herself, and I loved the way she loved the look of herself. She didn't put any make up on but just brushed damp curls back from her forehead while she held hairgrips in her teeth. Once a section of hair was back she pinned it and repeated about five times. "Come on man." She said. "Time to go. We late already." She straightened my collar and brushed creases out of my shirt, then took me by the arm and led me out. I didn't say anything but she justified us leaving saying "Noi's a good friend to me. I can't miss her birthday." The air outside was just as warm as the air inside but it was sad to step back into the world of other people.

We walked out past the reception desk, getting the usual disapproving glance from the aging Chinese lady at the desk. A lot of women seemed to dislike Ae on sight. I thought it might have been jealousy or that Ae didn't wear a bra under her thin chemises, T-shirts and vests, or that she flaunted her sexuality like it was a gift to the world. I didn't know so much about Thailand, Thai people and their prejudices back then. I'd find all that out soon enough. Holding hands we strolled out the soi and on to Ratjadamnoen Klang to hail a tuk tuk.
I knew Noi. I'd met her once or twice already. The first time had been after a kind of accident I'd got caught up in. I'd slept with this girl called Pow who I'd first met on the same night I'd met Ae. It sounds absurd to say it but I really felt that my sleeping with Pow had been a complete accident and I was in no way to blame. Ae had been away taking care of some business on Koh Samui. But that's another story. Pow had spoken no English and I had spoken no Thai. An easy way for misunderstandings to occur.

The morning after this misunderstanding Pow had taken me back to the place she was staying. It was a small room in an area of cheap housing just off Soi Ruam Rudi. Ruam Rudi, for anyone who knows this part of Bangkok is quite a plush soi with the odd colonial style mansion and a few expensive boutiques. But there is a point where the narrow street hits a sharp corner. If you walk across a small bridge over a tiny khlong at this corner you immediately get to see how the other half live. It's like a low rent village for people who have only arrived in Bangkok because of the availability of labouring jobs. It has it's own little provision shops just like the big fancy apartments. It was also one of the first places I got used to hearing farang spat with real racist venom. The room belonged to Nan and most of the stuff in it was Nan's stuff. I'd met Nan the night before. She had gone to great pains to tell me she was crazy and couldn't stop herself from saying weird things. Nan had suffered a lot in life and had taken self mutilation to a point where you could almost consider it an art but that, too, is another story. I liked Nan but she scared me. She resorted to violence easily when Pow stepped out of line and spilled over into a fear inducing passion about the hurt that was present in life after quite a small amount of alcohol.