Rob's Story Ch. 03: Dangerous

Rob's Story Part 3: Year of Living Dangerously

You don't need a history lesson. You are not reading this for some dry facts. If I was a betting man, and I am, I would say you are reading to see how fast I show what a shallow little slut I am, and how fast I wound up on my knees or on my back.

Be patient. There is plenty of time for that. I was still hanging around my mid-western college town in 1975. It was early in that year that President Gerald Ford asked Congress for nearly $500 million bucks to aid the government of Cambodia. Congress wanted nothing to do with the old war in Southeast Asia, either in Vietnam or any of the other ravaged nations in the region.

In mid-April of that year, a guerilla group calling itself the Red Cambodians- or Khmer Rouge, in the language of the old French colonialists- occupied the sleepy capital of Phnom Penh. The US-backed Lon Nol government surrendered the next day. The nominal leader of the Khmer Rouge was an old ideologue named Khieu Samphan. The real power was held by a fellow named Pol Pot, and he ended Cambodia's five-year war, and initiated the astonishingly brutal regime that murdered two million of his own people.

He renamed the country Democratic Kampuchea, and decided to start history all over. He expelled the people from the cities, forcing them onto countryside farm collectives. He purged the leadership of the old regime, and then his own.

The Khmer Rouge was utterly ruthless and employed a system of forced marriages to help engineer a classless society. No one here cared. They were tired of the war, and no one wanted to hear about it. Saigon fell on the 29th of April, and the last action of the war occurred with Pol Pot's thugs grabbed the American merchant ship Mayaguez on May 12th with 39 crew aboard.

Pres. Ford sent a company of Marines to rescue the ship, but it was a disaster fitting the end of the larger disaster. The ship was freed but 41 Americans were killed, 50 were wounded, and the Marines left three behind on an island called Koh Tang.

They were among the first to be murdered by the Khmer Rouge, but they certainly were not the last, not by several hundred thousand.

1976 was the year I lived dangerously. I was with the wire service in Bangkok, and though a little wiser, still a young buck with plenty to learn, not that you could tell me that then. There was just enough interest in the region for the wire service to pay me a pittance to be there, and it was far enough from my other troubles to be exactly the place I wanted to be.

Thailand was essentially untouched by the great war that had raged around them. The commercial sex business was in transition. The thousands of G.I.s who had once flocked there on R&R were long gone. Rama the Vth was King. The head of state in the re-named Kampuchea was a portly little fellow named Pol Pot. He was a first class asshole, it was widely known, and had taken his model for the new Cambodian society from the French Revolution, and proclaimed the year of his conquest to be "Year 0."

You would think that people would learn something about human nature, being human and all, but we keep trying this nonsense periodically, slaughter everyone who disagrees, and then do it all over again someplace else. It was in an out of the way place and no one back home seemed particularly interested in what was going on.

Pol Pot introduced something they called 'agrarian communism' in the old Cambodia. The population of the capital was resettled to the countryside, or just killed. Phnom Penh shrunk from over 300,000 inhabitants to around 20,000. Those who were suspected of having collaborated with the Americans were executed; the regime went full xenophobe. It regarded anyone capable of speaking a foreign language as either a collaborator or counterrevolutionary. An education or the ability to speak the language of the old Colonialists was almost a certain ticket to a brisk gunshot. We in Thailand watched thousands of refugees cross the border escape starvation and death.

There were stories every day, even if the editors back home did not care. The troops were not coming back to save anyone. There would be interest when the magnitude of the horror became apparent, but it was not when I was there, when it was happening. Vietnamese intervention in Kampuchea resulted in a continued flow of refugees into Thailand, as well as guerrilla fighters. Granted they were facing out, rather than in, but it was put on the spike back home.

Southeast Asia was so fifteen-minutes ago.

But it suited me at the time.

I was blue for three days after the night with Amazon. My physical woes were mostly mended and I was horny again. And I blush to say that the memory of that incredible cock still floated through my mind at times.

But to regularly love a cock that big would take some work, and some gentleness, to make it right for both lovers, and all I saw in Amazon was unresolved anger. Anger at himself, anger at everyone around him. I decided it might be amphetamines. I actually forgave him for the way he treated me. He had more demons than I did. And if he didn't turn the cheek the way I wanted, well, I was OK and was the wiser for it.

Speed was everywhere it town. It had become popular during the war, and it was cheap. It provided a lift from the mellow buzz provided by the Thai Sticks and the alcohol and let a man thrust hard all night. My butt still felt raw from the consequences of it.

So in the process of forgiving my enormous tormentor, I also decided that the contrast of artificial boobs and the rampant cock was something I couldn't resolve. Noy on the other hand was soft, soft skin and soft cock. But her eyes still glittered. Hang with the whores and you hang with the whores, I decided. Then the note appeared below my door.

It was on a heavy linen note-card. The words were few, and simple. "I am sorry." It was signed "Oy" in delicate calligraphy. I put it down. I was confused and I did not want to think about it. The nice thing about being young is that the libido always comes back.

I was jerking off the third night after the rape. I thought of that giant cock, of course, but I thought about my oldest fantasy. Joe. Joe with the soft sweet eyes, gentle, but I imagined him taut with desire, hard as a rock, spurting over my belly, spurting everywhere. Then melting together.

Funny. I had not seen him since senior year in high school. I wondered, as I drifted off, what had happened to him.

It had been an interesting few months since arriving in Bangkok to report the news. There was plenty of it, and despite the urgent nature of the horror in the country almost next door, no one seemed to care.

It was comfortable in Bangkok. Thailand had been a vital base for America in the Vietnam War. Thais always supported the winner. That is why the Japanese did not dethrone the King. So Thailand hosted dozens of US bases in the war. But to the west it was different. In 1964 Cambodia received military aid from China; the country severed ties with South Vietnam in 1963. The Viet Minh ran supply lines on the Cambodian side down the Ho Chi Minh trail.

I learned the history because it was my job. In 1967, the communist Khmer Rouge began guerilla warfare against the Cambodian government.

On Feb. 23rd of 190, Tricky Dick approved the 'secret bombing' of Cambodia; on April 30th, he announced that US troops were sent into Cambodia. Just before, on March 18th 1970, General Lon Nol staged a coup, sending Prince Nordodom Sihanouk to a well-heeled exile in the People's Republic of China.

From 1970 to 1973, Cambodia was a sideshow of the real war. In 1975, the Rouge was in, and it was the only war in town.

Three nights after I got raped, I read the note from Oy and decided I needed to get out again. I could not let this thing eat at me any more. I ventured out for a drink after I filed copy for the stateside market. There were disturbing reports about concentration camps and worse coming out of Kampuchea. I had learned to say the Khmer Rouge name and write it with a straight face, just like the wire service style book instructed me. The Khmer Rouge were absolutely unchallenged. There had been an awful sucking vacuum as the US pulled out. Now there was nothing to stop anything. The cops were gone.

This particular story I was working on was about refugees who had fled across the Thai Border. I thought I might have to go up there and get an exclusive by-line, and I rented a cab for the day and did it. On the way home I decided to stop at the Trocadaro Hotel. It had been popular with the R&R crowd, recharging from the war, and it had been on hard times since the bulk of the troops pulled out in 1973. Now, three years later, it was on hard times and trying to re-invent itself as a tourist place. It was as resolutely a hetero place as any in town, and I if I did any mental cruising, I wanted it to be on the low-down and not overtly looking for men who were comfortable as men. I wouldn't say I was a closet case- there was not that kind of stigma in Thai culture, but a guy has to be careful.

I was approaching the bar in the humid twilight of the hotel. Just as I was about to ask for a cold Amarit beer I heard an all too familiar chanting from the bar to my left. It couldn't be. Amazon was out in the afternoon, and she had apparently been here for some time.

She was a mean drunk. She was yelling at a tourist with a plump face and blonde hair. Amazon had apparently decided she had found a German. It wasn't hard. The Germans were here in a mob, and the Thais loved them because they were a replacement for the soldiers who were not coming back. So what if they were pigs. It doesn't mean they aren't nice people, right?

Amazon had a bar girl on either side of him and he looked like he might have been awake since she raped me. It looked like she was getting ready to hit the German, and he had no idea just how strong Amazon was.

The bartender was a middle-aged Thai who had stopped polishing glasses and turned his attention to the commotion. I should have turned and left, but I'm much smarter now than I was then. I didn't want those poor little girls to get hurt in his rage. I figured I had hurt enough for everyone, the German included. I walked down the bar to get the girls away from him.

Now, he was tall and he had a good reach, even if a lot of it was hair and heels. Just as she was rearing back to let a fist fly at the German on his right, I yelled out "Hi, Amazon! Let me buy you a beer. I forced myself in between the German and the girls on bar stools.

It took him a couple of seconds to recognize me and then I got a big wicked smile. He was really high. While this was going on, rather than gratitude the bar girl behind me apparently had been counting on the German for some serious Bhat if he went down, and wanted revenge for the almost punch and tried to smack Amazon on the back of the head with her pocketbook. I managed to lean out fast enough to prevent it.

But here was another lesson in life. The other girl joined in and succeeded in whacking her on the Afro, spilling the beer in her hand.

Things went downhill real fast then when Amazon elbowed the bar girl on his left in the face. The two of them and the German ran out of the bar crying and screaming in Thai. Amazon was fixated on the door where the girls left and I thought it was over.

I started to sidle out of the place and put it behind me when the Mamma San came in started screaming at Amazon. It was delicious, watching the little woman yelling upward at her. I should have left the place right then, but then I saw that she was carrying a large big black fan-shaped pocketbook. She was going to hit Amazon with it and that was not going to go down well.

In less than a second, Amazon turned and delivered a left hook straight to her chops and she fell back on her rather hefty butt with a very surprised look on her face that turned suddenly to tears as she got up and fled out of the bar entrance behind her.

Amazon's face screwed up in surprise. He must have been really gone. Instead of freaking out, he slumped down onto one of the barstools. Now it is time to go, I thought, and started to walk out and then there was a screaming Thai guy from behind us. Turning around I saw a very Mak-mak Mo-ho Thai in a white shirt, black pants and pointed plastic shoes about eight feet away.

But what is really drawing my attention was the .38 jammed in his belt.

I think he got out about two sentences before jerking the gun from his belt, but it may have been three. He stood with his legs apart, the gun cocked, holding it two-handed and shaking like hell.

I stepped off the bar stool and stood in front of Amazon. High and drunk or not he did not deserve to die for whacking a bar girl and this guy did not want to shoot me. I was counting on it. While this is happening all at once - suddenly there is a man standing next to me, shoulder to shoulder, blocking the Thai from having a clean shot at Amazon. He had wiry dark hair and a powerful physique.

I knew him. It was Rick. His katoy mistress Oy had got me into this. He was wearing one of those long formal au dai shirts and was a bit taller than me. I was pleased not to stand there alone. Neither one of us spoke a word to the Thai who then screamed a couple of more sentences and the ran out of the bar to summon reinforcements.

That was it. We took Amazon under the arms and those tits stood up erect even if he couldn't. We put him in a pedicab, and Rick gave some instructions in Thai I could not hear and a fist-full of bhat.

The cab pulled away into traffic and I saw the corona of Amazon's afro slump on the seat.

"Thank-you for your assistance," He said. "It is curious that you intervened, after what happened."

"What is curious is that I am here, and you are here and she was here. What does that mean? You knew? Are you following me?"

"Yes and no. Oy told me she was here and out of control. She asked me to take care of it for her, but unfortunately I was detained at the restaurant. Otherwise this unfortunate incident would not have happened. And as to her treatment of you, Oy was informed when she cooled down the next day she was quite contrite. She realized he had an opportunity to strike up a relationship with a handsome westerner that could have accommodated his time here and he threw it away."

He fished in his shirt pocket for a maroon package of cigarettes trimmed in gold. Dunhills, of course. He lit one and exhaled a blue cloud that mingled with the fumes of the buses outside and the odor of stale beer. "For what it is worth, this is probably a result of remorse as much as anything."

Handsome, I thought? "She is fucked up, big time. She needs help," I said. "I hoped I would never see her again. Not ever." Handsome? Maybe that accounted for the vibe I felt when I left the restaurant. It seemed like an eternity ago. Three days and a night can seem like an eternity in the big mud city on the river.

"I don't blame you. Perhaps I can buy you a drink as a small token of my regret. The Oriental Hotel is probably a good antidote to this place."

I was impressed. The Oriental had been the best hotel in town for over a century, treating guest and semi-conqueror with great luxury and dignity. I had been to a reception there the month before. The place was British Empire at its zenith. The accommodations and public rooms were supposed to be sumptuous. The spa was reputed to be one of the most beautiful in the world. Dignitaries and distinguished travelers have all followed the Chao Phya river through the heart of the brown city to The Oriental.

Now I was going there in a cab, with a restaurateur who served a good steak, and was maybe a spy. And not one of ours. His hair above his brow was crisp, and the gaze of his dark eyes frank.

Like I said, it was a year of living dangerously.

On My Feet, or On My Knees

If there is a nicer place in the world for an afternoon cocktail, or frankly, anything at all in the afternoon, it is the Oriental Hotel in Bangkok.

I was riding in a pedicab with Rick, the proprietor of the famous Ricks' Number One steak house. My adrenaline was still up. The little man with the gun had seemed very serious at the time, and I was grateful that Rick had appeared to help me extricate the drunken katoy Amazon from the bar before something awful happened. And that should have taught me a lesson. Don't get involved, particularly with large she-males who have recently raped you.

I still had mixed feelings about what she had done to me, and did not think that cruelty should be a component of love. And still, I wondered why that magnificent cock of hers still floated in my memory, detached from the pain.

They say that the body does not retain the memory of pain, and I had to accept it. The horror of the violation was fading. I was learning a lot of lessons in 1975, in a town that was supposed to be a backwater but was now in the middle of yet another war, this one without the Americans.

I wondered why I had acted so foolishly. In the future I was going to make a note about minding my own business. We rolled up Sukamvit Road. Rick was silent, and I looked at his profile: proud nose, deep smoldering eyes. Dark hair dusted with gray at the sides, swept back from his temple. Full sensuous lips. He turned to me and smiled. His teeth were even, but stained with the Dunhills he smoked.

"That was a narrow thing back there. If you had not acted, young Amazon might well have got the surgery she wants by gunfire. Not a happy thing." There was only a hint of his native Hungarian in his voice. He had been speaking English for decades, but the trace remained in his cadence and some of his consonants.

I told him I should not have gotten involved. Amazon didn't deserve it, I said petulantly.

"Amazon has more problems than you can imagine. My mistress Oy has been trying to help her through her transition, but it has been a harder task than we originally thought. We hoped that you might be a part of that, someone who could cool her down."

"So what are you running, Rick?" I asked. "Some sort of queer dating service?" My tone might have been more querulous than I liked, not the man of the world tone I had hoped for. But my encounter with Amazon had hurt, and I still could feel an ache in my ass where her tool had reamed me so thoroughly.

Rick looked at me levelly. "There is apparently much about this big brown city on the river that you do not understand, my young friend. And I hope you will consider me your friend. You need friends in a foreign land. Trust me, I know that well." He looked out at the gates of the Intercontinental Hotel where they had an elephant that lived in front. He fished in his pocket for the red and gold package of cigarettes. He offered me one, courteously, and I took it from left side of the divided package. He smiled and produced a heavy gold Dunhill lighter and lit mine, and then one for himself. His leonine profile was wreathed in smoke.

"Let me start by saying that there is nothing that happens in town that the Police do not know about. You may think this is a happy-go-lucky place of happy prostitutes and drunken tourists, but it is much more. The Monarchy is ancient, and the Thais were never colonized by any of the powers. They did it by being smart and crafty in their relations with the West. It would behoove you to remember that." We smoked in silence. It seemed like good advice, whether I wanted to hear it or not, and he had survived and flourished here for more almost thirty years.

You are going to think I am a slut, but my gaze wandered down from his handsome face, past his powerful shoulders and along the buttons of his loose shirt down to where it bloused over his belt. I imagine he had thickened a bit over the years, but he was solidly built and exuded power. I wondered if his body was carpeted with that wiry dark hair, and if his cock was nestled in a thick bush, waiting to be teased out. He had an air of authority and mystery about him, and I found myself wishing he did not have a live-in mistress. Of course, I thought, he is a European, and everyone knows they are more mature about affairs of lust.