More than Lust

April 1979

I was never quite sure what the Agency knew of my sexual preferences before the mission in Cambodia, although when Mike Mitchell, the chief of station at the Bangkok embassy, told me to cultivate the Cambodian expat Prince Sisowath Naradipo in any way it took, I knew that, for that source on Cambodia and its mercurial leader, Norodom Sihanouk, the U.S. was developing, they knew it be advantageous for me to be willing to service men. The expat Cambodian prince was a gay dominant and had made quite clear to my chiefs that he fancied me and that making me available to him would make him much more cooperative in sharing intel on the Cambodian leadership issue with the Agency. We had been in meetings together before, and he discerned in me, correctly, both an interest in men and an interest in him.

After talking with Mike that afternoon about a planned trip into Khmer Rouge-held Cambodia to offer Norodom Sihanouk an escape from the country, I knew that the visit arranged for me that evening to Sisowath Naradipo's nearby compound on Bangkok's Wireless Road, next door to the residence of the U.S. ambassador, would include sex. The prince, a cousin of Norodom Sihanouk's through the king's mother, was the linchpin in getting Norodom Sihanouk to listen to our pitch to have him come over to the West while he was still alive. Although he nominally was chief of state in Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge had been holding him captive and slowly butchering his family and all royals. It was only the protection of the Chinese and North Koreans that had kept him alive this long.

It wasn't that Sisowath Naradipo was a repulsive man. He wasn't. I had been trying to steep myself in the Cambodian culture and had found him intriguing and charismatic. He was in his mid-fifties, a contemporary of his cousin, and he was a handsome man, regal even, tall for a Cambodian and with a wiry, hard body, spare of any evidence of fat. He was intelligent too, more oriented toward Paris, where he'd spent much of his life as an architect, than to Cambodia, which the Khmer Rouge were busy reverting to the cave ages. If he had returned to Cambodia after they had taken over, as his cousin, Norodom Sihanouk, had in 1975 following his five years of exile in Beijing, Sisowath Naradipo quite definitely would be dead now. He was too erudite and cultured. The Khmer Rouge were no fans of Paris-educated, intellectual royals.

For my part, I had fallen into the position of budding Cambodian expert, having studied Southeast Asia for my masters at American University and coming on board at the Agency with the intent of becoming their man who knew everything about Norodom Sihanouk, a mercurial leader who was key to controlling Cambodia but who had changed allegiances and leadership positions already more often than the frenetic antics of a yoyo. Born early enough to be become king under French colonial rule and in time to tiptoe through the Japanese occupation during World War Two, he abdicated to his father in 1953 and reverted to prince status, only to run for parliament and retain power by becoming the prime minister. He had come under fire for being a puppet king for the Japanese during World War Two, although he actually was manipulating the Japanese to ease the effect of their occupation on his people as much as he could.

In the years following the war as colonialization in the region was being challenged, he allied himself with the communists and, when he was ousted in a coup in 1970, escaped to China, which had bolstered him and kept him alive ever since. He returned as nominal head of state under the Khmer Rouge in 1975, but it was only a matter of time that that brutal regime overcame China's protection for the mercurial leader and gave him the chop. He was under house arrest, moving from palace to palace in his country with Chinese bodyguards, and was signaling that he was ready to escape in some direction now. The United States wanted that to be toward the West.

At twenty-four I had been fast tracked in the Agency to get close to Norodom Sihanouk, a man who valued personal relationships, and thus had been shipped out to Bangkok as a junior political officer and introduced to his expat cousin Sisowath Naradipo.

That afternoon, having been told to appear at Sisowath Naradipo's home that evening to discuss preparations for a small team to make a foray into Cambodia to meet with Norodom Sihanouk—and to do anything it took to keep the man cooperating with our operation—I immediately took a tuk-tuk, one of the golf cart-like conveyances that served as taxis in Bangkok, to the nearby red-light district of Patpong. For the Cambodian expat's fetish—for being able to get it up and keep it up to service Sisowath Naradipo's need, I needed to work my way into the mood. For preparation, I didn't need full sex. I needed to save myself for that. What I needed was a blow job by a katoey, a willowy young Thai rent-boy crossdressing as female. The best Patpong katoey bar going in the spring of 1979 was the White Pagoda. So, that's where I went.

Two pretty, young katoey, Chai and Aroon, met me at the door of the White Pagoda. I'd been there before and they'd remembered me.

"Ah, the beautiful golden hair with the huge member," Chai sang out, putting his arm around my waist and pulling me into the bar. It was crowded that night and smokey with the aroma of something being smoked that wouldn't have been legal in the States. But this was hedonist Bangkok. Nothing was out of bounds here, certainly not tonight. "Come for the best blow job in Patpong?" he asked, giving me what must of have been his best Bette Davis eyes impression.

"Oh, no," Aroon simpered, encasing me with an arm from the other side. "Khuṇ bík t̂xngkār pāk nùm k̄hxng c̄hạn khụ̄n nī̂—Mr. Big needs my soft mouth tonight." They both were at least a head shorter than I was. They both had made their faces up to gorgeous and let their silky black hair down. They both were in slinky sequined shifts, Aroon in red and Chai in blue, with plunging necklines and slits at the thighs going all of the way up. Both expertly perched on impossibly high stiletto heels.

They guided me past two nearly naked slim katoey dancing on poles and a dance floor, where German and English tourists were draped with katoey who were doing everything just short of riding the farangs'—Western foreigners'—cocks on the dance floor. They guided me to a booth where I was out of the limelight but could watch a hefty German fuck a katoey on the stage who he'd pulled off one the poles. Aroon and Chai took their turns on their knees between my thighs under the table at the booth, with the other one sitting beside me working me with his hands and lips. Aroon had been right that he was the one with the softer mouth, and he was the one who ultimately made me tense and jerk and come—and then again and again.

Aroon took his mouth off me long enough to murmur, "N̂ảcheụ̄̂x s̄ảh̄rạb c̄hạn nāy bík—Come for me, Mr. Big." I had pushed Chai's bodice below his pecs and was sucking on one of his nipples as he puffed out his chest as best he could, and, giving a satisfied grunt, I did just that.

They had given me what I had come for—the capability of getting an erection and release under the attention of a male decked out as female. They had made me ready for an evening with Prince Sisowath Naradipo.

* * * *

In the mood and ready now to do my duty, I took a tuk-tuk back to Wireless Road and to the Cambodian prince's lush-foliaged compound, a touch of country in the middle of the city. Servants met me at the bricked area underneath the Thai-style teak house by the khlong, one of many waterways winding through the city and still, as in old times, functioning as roads for the inhabitants. The open area under the house, lit by smudge pots to keep the mosquitoes at bay, was set up for before-dinner drinks. The bamboo furniture here could be taken away up to the house proper when, as sometimes happened, the rainfall was so heavy that the khlong overflowed under the house.

Here I was divested of my Western clothes and given a brightly colored raw-silk sarong to wrap around my waist, Thai style, leaving me bare-chested. That done, Prince Sisowath Naradipo, tall, thin, hard bodied, and brown as a berry, came down the staircase, also in just a hip-hugging Thai silk sarong. Naradipo was, as I was sure he would be, going feminine tonight. His straight-silky, black, shoulder-length hair was let down and his face was made up in female beauty. He also was wearing a padded bra made of the same raw silk as his sarong, although I was to learn that he'd also had surgery done to give him breasts. He was not alone. A younger Asian man, handsome and sultry to the point of beautiful, also made up with cosmetics, if not quite as boldly as the prince was, came down the stairs behind him. Near the bottom of the stairs as Naradipo continued to descend, the other, younger Asian man paused, lifted a hand camera, and fired off multiple flash-assisted photos in my direction.

"So good of you to come, Gene," Naradipo said in a smooth but higher-pitched voice than his natural one. His English was flawless, though. I had already seen that this was to be transvestite night at his house—although they had all been once he had been assured I would work with that. "I thought we'd be joined by a Cambodian friend of mine from theater work, Hak Srea." Since moving from Paris to establish himself in Bangkok two years earlier after his controversial sex reassignment surgery at Chulalongkorn University Hospital in Thailand, Naradipo had moved from building architecture to stage set design and construction. He now was the designer of choice for Thai royalty-sponsored productions.

"I hope you don't mind if he photographs the evening for my personal albums," Naradipo said. "I will provide this half face mask for you to wear if you are embarrassed about being filmed with me." He handed the mask, a black silk mask that wouldn't cover much more than the eyes. But I took it and put it on, even though photos of me unmasked and only in a sarong at the waist had already been taken. His "with me" was a euphemism meaning that the prince and I would fuck that evening. He was telling me that this handsome young Asian man, surely not any older than my twenty-four, would watch and photograph us doing so.

"This handsome blond young man who will be so good to me is Gene Calvert, Hak Srea," Naradipo said to the young man with the camera. "He is a young diplomat with the American Embassy and has the job of becoming as expert in the 'everything' of the life of my cousin, the sometimes king of Cambodia. I am helping him learn that in exchange for using the magnificent cock he's been endowed with."

And there it was, as Naradipo guided us to rattan chairs around a drinks table underneath his Thai-style house. It was to be an evening of open discussion and demonstration, not only on the politics in the volatile Southeast Asian region, but also on sex and sensuality.

I was here to please and service the Cambodian prince, but I increasingly found discussion with the younger Hak Srea on matters of photography, regional politics, and cultural expression to be much more intriguing than just knowing I was expected to perform with Sisowath Naradipo.

"I invited Hak Srea for the evening not only because I wanted some photographs to savor," Naradipo said as we moved up the staircase to the series of pavilions connected by teak decks that made up the Cambodian prince's sprawling Asian residence. "I also invited him because he will be part of the team, with you, to go into Cambodia to talk with my cousin. Hak Srea is a talented interpreter as well as photographer. He also is a family friend of Norodom Sihanouk's. He will help smooth your path in your contact with my cousin. And I hope he will help you in other ways. He knows much of Cambodian royals. You must meet with him several times before the expedition leaves."

An hour and a half later, in the dining pavilion upstairs, having eaten what I was told was a traditional Cambodian meal, Naradipo and I had moved off to the side from the low table we'd sat, cross legged, at to eat, to a pile of silk pillows on a slightly raised teak platform bed. Hak Srea was off to the side, with his camera, occasionally firing off a shot.

Naradipo was wearing nothing and had transformed into a feminine form, pert but now clearly conical breasts and a cunt now where he'd had male genitalia before his Chulalongkorn University Hospital surgery. All I wore was the black silk half mask. The prince did most of the work. He was a royal. He wanted to dominate from the bottom. I was reclining back, legs stretched out on pillows and leaning back on my elbows, torso raised. Naradipo's surgically supplied cunt sheathed the erection that I had built up from my visit to the White Pagoda T-girl bar as well as by now, snatching looks at Hak Srea and dreaming that it was he riding my cock.

Naradipo was facing me, reclining back from me, his torso supported on his elbows, his legs bent on either side of my thighs, his feet on the pillows to give him leverage in rising and falling on my shaft, the connection between us being my cock buried in his cunt.

Off to the side, camera held to eyes with one hand, the other hand having reached into the fold of his sarong and brought his erection out to stroke while he photographed Naradipo and me in coitus, Hak Srea became a third in our sexual coupling.

As the fuck climbed the heights, both Naradipo and I raised our torsos to each other. I embraced him with one hand and slipped the other between us to caress his breasts and work his nipples, while he clutched and squeezed my buttocks in his hands and, with ever-quickening movement, rose and fell on my cock, until, giving a cry he collapsed backward from me and cried out his flow. Holding him loosely in my arms and dipping my head to take his nipples in my mouth, I jerked and came as well, seeding him deep in his cunt.

Across the room, Hak Srea gave a little cry and came as well to the stroking of his hand.

I looked at him and he looked back at me. We both knew that whatever indoctrination sessions we worked together in preparation for visiting Norodom Sihanouk would include sex.

* * * *

May 1979

The realization, or at least strong suspicion, hit me while we—Hak Srea and I—were in my Bangkok apartment, sifting through the background information on Norodom Sihanouk. It occurred to me why Hak Srea was agreeing to go back into Cambodia at a time when the Khmer Rouge were so brutally tracking down and executing on the spot Cambodians who were intellectuals or who had been abroad simply for that. As he was filling in my background information on the Cambodian leader who vacillated between being the father of his country and a toddy to communist factions, I had asked that question of him, "Why are you risking going back to meet with a man who you yourself paint as selling out to the highest bidder?"

That had angered Hak Srea, who said, "My country is a small one with a proud and refined history that has always been coveted and preyed upon by others—both the Vietnamese and Thai in ancient times. Then the French and the Japanese and now the communists. Sihanouk has done what he can to maintain that there is a separate Cambodia at all. He sacrifices himself for us."

As he was saying that, I picked out some photos of Sihanouk that showed him quite well-fed and seemingly well-pampered, but then I saw photos of him as a young, quite handsome man and I did a doubletake. These could be photos of Hak Srea himself, I thought, and then it hit me that Hak Srea certainly seemed to have a lot of very personal background information and memorabilia on the Cambodia leader. Prince Sisowath Naradipo had said that Hak Srea and Sihanouk knew each other. Could it be that the relationship between the two was about as close as it could get? I knew that, at one time, Sihanouk had more than one wife and he was known as quite a playboy. Could Hak Srea be from one of the minor wives or one of his by-blows and be aware that he was.

Hak Srea didn't put me off that scent when he went on to say, "I need to see him again. I need to know if he has changed or if he is still walking the tightrope for his people. And I need to decide for myself how much danger he's in—whether he needs to come out. Whether I should be helping with that effort. Not that I would want your superiors to know I have such thoughts, though." He smiled at me and touched my forearm with long, sensuous fingers. We had not coupled yet, but I think we both knew that was what to come in the near future.

"They won't hear it from me," I said.

"Good. It's good to share secrets," he said. "It will bring us both together." But he immediately broke that spell by dancing across the room and picking up his camera. "Come, enough study for today. I must capture Bangkok and you together."

He suddenly was all play. We'd had exchanged pleasantries about Bangkok when we'd first come together that day and were enjoying a beer on my balcony before going to work, and we'd touched on how both of us were engaged in the hedonist gay world here. We'd moved on to talking about his work with the theater, finding a shared interest, as I had been on the stage in Washington, D.C., at the Arena Stage during my university years, and, of course, while working into a deep dive on Cambodia and Norodom Sihanouk, we had talked regional politics. We could have been twins in our interests and beliefs.

And we'd talked photography, which was his obsession of the moment, although it wasn't an art I had engaged in yet. I was interested in it, though, and his enthusiasm for it had heightened and honed my interest.

"Come, we will go across the river and you will see a hint of where we are going to meet the Samdech."

"Samdech?" I asked.

"That is the Khmer word we use to address Sihanouk. It means 'king.' He held the title twice, showing how clever he is. The Japanese were more comfortable with his father as a less vigorous pawn for them, so Sihanouk abdicated to his father while the Japanese occupied Cambodia but retained actual power behind the throne, at least in the minds and hearts of Cambodians, and became Samdech—king—again after we were rid of the Japanese. But, come, while the light is ideal."

He took me across the Chao Phraya River to perhaps Bangkok's most important religious shrine, Wat Arun, which I had visited before, but this time he wanted to photograph me against the temple buildings, one of which, going up into a spire, was very unique—and that was his point.

"Where we are going in Cambodia is close to the famous ancient Angkor Wat temple complex. Perhaps my main reason for wanting to return to Cambodia even in current conditions is to photograph there. I never have done so and it is something I wish to do before I die."

"I can understand that," I said. "I've seen photographs of that complex. I doubt that we will—"

"We will have to go there. I have made it requirement for me to help with the meeting with the Samdech and I know that his guard, who are Chinese, not Cambodian, will take us there."

I let that drop, not really believing it would be possible, and changed topic. "You said that coming here would give me a hint of Cambodia."

"Yes, and, specifically of Angkor Wat. If you've seen many wats in Thailand, you will see how this one is special."

"You mean this central stupa, the wat rising into a spire?"

"Precisely," Hak Srea answered. "This is known as the Cambodian style. Seeing this is seeing Angkor Wat in miniature. It is good preparation for what we'll see in Cambodia. Once Khmer influence extended this far and even farther. Our leader Sihanouk does not covet expansion again as many in the Khmer Rouge do—and that is one thing I want to see him and gauge—but he is doing everything he can to preserve Khmer civilization in Cambodia."