You Should Find a Husband

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Soothing synths, waterfalls, and gong chimes sounded softly across the dim, rectangular room. A rosy aroma of massage oil wafting about. An overhead a/c was gently whirring, its icy blasts tickling at the tourist's skin.

"You should find a husband," said the tourist, his voice quietly breaking.

The young girl giggled, shook her head and furtively lowered her gaze, then went back to whipping her hands up and down the tourist's shin, seemingly using all the energy she could muster as she did so. Understandably, too, considering the tourist's size.

The tourist, compared to most of the slender Southeast Asians, was practically a Big Foot. He stood at 6'4, and was wide-bodied, with thick bones.

The tourist, despite his considerable mass, however, was not a young man. Far from it, in fact. And his countenance told of time's rough hands. The lines crisscrossing the folds of his face cut deep as dried riverbeds. Gathering time had also taken the tourist's color; his fuzzy coat of body hair, his neatly trimmed Hemingway beard, his wavy mop of hair... all had silvered.

That coat of silvery-gray body hair, along with his skin's pallor, and heavyset size, had the locals joking, nicknaming him, in Thai, "หมีขั้วโลก" (mee kohlok) - the "Polar Bear".

Despite the locals' barbs, which he didn't pick up on, the tourist certainly didn't lack self-confidence. Quite the contrary. He had a heavenly-high opinion of himself. Moreover, he looked down on many of the other farangs he'd see around Bangkok. He'd seen countless Thailand expats, around his age, that were, in his eyes, in far worse shape. Most of them far thicker in the waist, with big Buddha bellies far floppier than his.

Not to mention the clothes they'd wear... While the tourist was no fashionista, he was practically a GQ cover model compared to some of the losers he'd see around Bangkok. The fat, pathetic old men in their torn, tattered beer tank-tops, dirty cargo shorts, flannel shirts, corduroy pants and even a few in clunky, black, Velcro retard shoes...

And while most of the losers had fat heads, heads bald as a baboon's ass, some of those who did have hair, their hairstyles, for fuck's sake, the tourist would think, cringing just looking at them... Like the loser the tourist had been seeing on Sukhumvit Road, the raisin-faced skeleton, that zombie-looking creature whose scalp was eagle bald, yet this particular shitbird had a sloppy mane of silver locks flapping from the back of his skull, almost an "old man mullet."

Or worse, the "old man bun" Eurotrash. Those pitiful fucks with their gray hairs pulled into man buns.

What a bunch of losers, he'd think, glaring at them in disgust. How poorly they've aged... How poorly they'd endured the onslaught of time... Unlike him...

Damn right, especially compared to those fuckballs, he was a silver fox. And that's what he saw in his bathroom mirror, when he'd flex his biceps after a shower, admiring his reflection, thinking of how well he'd aged, how well he'd matured, just like a fine whiskey.

Whenever he'd shave, he'd stop to appreciate his strong jaw, his cleft chin, and he'd feel so handsome, so dashing. He was a proper gentleman. He was what every man should look like. Unlike those sad souls around lower Sukhumvit, who'd aged worse than milk. Some aging even worse than Axl Rose.

But not him, the tourist would think, running his fingers through his thick, moon-silver hair. And he'd grin, devilishly, happy to admire his reflection anytime he saw it, fancying himself as resembling a 1990s, early 2000s Sean Connery, or a 2010s George Clooney, albeit slightly more handsome...

"You are beautiful," the tourist continued, flashing a flirty, pearly white smile at the masseuse, "why hasn't any man married you yet?"

The young girl blushed again, keeping her eyes locked on the tourist's legs and feet, her slim body moving rhythmically as she kneaded and palmed at his plump thighs.

Her strength certainly surprised him, a girl this tiny, with this degree of power and a grip this tight. She really had a vise-grip. Might be from toiling in those rice fields, the tourist pondered, knowing that a lot of these masseuses were migrant workers, came from the countryside...

"Just how old is she?" a wispy voice inquired and faded away, echoing in his thoughts.

The tourist guessed the girl's age at about 25, though it could have been higher or lower. He'd always been bad at guessing Asians' ages.

Looking down, he saw his long feet cradled in the young girl's small, caramel-colored hands, and for the first time, he awed at just how white his body hair had become. Even his feet, the hair on his toes, had all gone white.

Another voice popped in his head, intruding like a loud, sudden TV commercial. This voice was an aggrieved one. It was accusatory. Full of guttural sounds and hisses. And it was castigating him, mocking his age, his weight, everything about him. But then familiar, comforting thoughts of football arose in his head, fogged in, and the aggrieved voice quieted, became a garbled hum, before fading to weakening bursts of plosive white noise...

It'd been years since the first gray hair had appeared on his head, atop his right temple. But he could remember it like yesterday. He'd found the gray hair one winter morning, after shaving. In the bathroom mirror, over the sink, he'd leaned forward, inspected his sideburns, spotted the lone gray and knew instantly, exactly what it was and what it meant. It was a message. A message from Death and Death's son, Father Time. A message that the clock was ticking.

It was around this discovery that he first started asking himself existential questions. What did he want? Beyond the superficial, the materialistic, the sybaritic... he was unsure...

๒

The tourist hadn't known exactly what he wanted. But he had arrived at a point where he realized that whatever it was that he wanted, he wasn't getting.

His life felt boring, meaningless. At his office job, every day was the same. Every day it was the same cold faces, the same packed subways, the same casefiles, the same monotonous meetings and memos. The same soporific whir of the central heating/cooling system. The same trivial conversations with coworkers about the same stupid TV shows.

Then he'd come home to watch those same stupid TV shows. Not so much because he liked them, but because he felt like he was supposed to. That if he didn't, he'd have nothing to say at the watercooler. Although the laugh tracks, canned applause, and one-liners did ease his mind, if nothing else.

While watching TV, he'd eat TV dinners, delivery pizza, and potato chips. He'd drink soda. Once, he was drinking the same soda as he saw on a TV ad. In the commercial, there was a man his age and build, also alone in an apartment. Then the man is cracking open a can of the soda and instantly is transported, beamed, ala Star Trek, to a wild beach dance party filled with scantily clad women and pumping loud music.

But that hadn't happened to him when he opened the soda. Or when he drank it. And on a quiet, intrinsic level, it bothered him that it didn't happen. He'd bought the same soda, but no girls in bikinis appeared. He wasn't beamed to an exotic island. It wasn't fair, he softly raged. But he let the feeling pass and forgot about it once the sitcom came back on.

The tourist's weekends weren't much better. He'd go to the same bar with his coworkers and occasionally he'd go on the same dates with the same boring women.

He started wondering what more was out there. He wanted to discover the world, to travel, to see distant, exotic lands while he still had time, before he got too old. While on the crowded subway, his face ruddy from the blustery cold, his fingers numb, the tourist suddenly had an epiphany. He happened upon the cruelty of life, that he'd slave away in an office, give a multi-national corporation his prime years, then finally, when he got to retire, he'd be a toothless, incontinent old man, wearing adult diapers and shitting himself.

Standing in that packed subway car, full of frowning faces, the tourist knew, he knew then and there, that he had to do something, he had to find something more...

That gray hair, that morning, had put his mind in motion, had put the fear of time in him. That gray hair had instilled in him the idea that time was tugging him further out to sea. And he knew he needed to fill a void.

One wet, cold and ugly fall evening, when he was half-drunk, sprawled out on the couch, the action movie Kickboxer came on TV. It was set in Thailand, which, to him, seemed like the farthest place away from his dreary, landlocked landscape. With its golden temples, sun-splashed beaches and bustling cities, Thailand, to him, was probably the most exotic place on the planet. He had to go there. It wasn't just drunk talk, either, it was an omen, a sign from the universe. He had to go there. He had to be there.

So it was decided. He'd visit Thailand during his next vacation.

And thus began his history of visiting Thailand. The 14-hour plane ride was a beast, but sleeping pills helped. He'd always be sure to book a window seat, and once airborne, he'd tilt his head and gaze down at the endless white patches of land and the bent spine of his boring city, watching with joy as they shrunk and then vanished beneath creamy, cottony blankets of clouds. Then he'd feel the euphoric rush of the pills surging through his bloodstream as he'd lean back in his seat and doze off, happily knowing he'd be waking up to palm trees and fun and sun in paradise.

๓

The tourist's every trip to Thailand was almost the same. But unlike the monotony of his job, the similarity was comforting rather than defeating.

His every trip to Thailand was like this: First, he'd stay a few nights in Bangkok, strategically near Nana Plaza, Bangkok's biggest red-light district. Then he'd fly south to a lush tropical island and stay at a seaside resort. There, he'd swim in the Andaman Sea, eat heaps of mangoes, and when the sun paled, he'd retire to his suite to sip cold beer and watch the stars from his balcony. Then he'd fly back to Bangkok, for a night or two, hit the go-go bars and massage parlors once or twice more, before finally flying home.

Every trip was practically identical. And that was the point. He didn't want it any other way.

And why would he? From the first time he'd set foot in Thailand, he'd loved it, had taken an immediate shine to the country, its warm weather, January sunshine kissing his skin, its friendly faces and easy living...

And he especially loved the affordable beautiful women.

The women were one of the biggest reasons why he kept coming back. The "bar girls," ladies at bars, who'd provide intimate companionship for a minimal fee, they became his fetish. They were the best-looking women he'd ever seen, too. Drop-dead gorgeous. With or without makeup. And they were almost all slender, with curves cut from stone and with jaw-droppingly sexy, exotic features, hyperborean cheekbones, upcurved eyes like temple eaves, and golden, honey-colored skin... Skin softer than the finest silks...

Better yet, the Thai women were outgoing, fun. Most spoke near-perfect English, could converse freely, and loved to joke around and have a good time. Unlike the escorts he'd hired in his home country, the Thai ladies weren't hurried, shifty-eyed, or nervous, and didn't make it feel like they were doing anything wrong...

Not that he cared if they really liked him. Although they sure acted like they did. The Thai bar girls were damn near Oscar-caliber actresses, smiling, nodding along, and laughing at all his corny jokes. And in bed, they were like porn stars, AVN Award-worthy, true professional fuck-machines easily capable of satisfying any and every carnal urge.

Not to mention the diversity... of pussy...

In Thailand, he could have a college-aged girl (18-23 y/o) one night, then a more mature girl (28-36 y/o) the next. A thinner girl one night, a thicker girl the next. Darker skin one night, lighter the next. Big tits, small tits, juicy butt, swimsuit model butt, tall, short, et cetera, et cetera... Thailand, to him, was basically one big buffet of beautiful pussy, a pussy paradise...

The tourist simply loved the ability to choose, being able to walk into a bar and pick whichever woman he wanted, rather than walking into a bar, in his cold country, hoping and praying he could find a lady who liked him.

In Thailand, all the women at all the bars liked him.

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And so he kept coming back, every year. Though he'd have a killer experience, every trip, still, there were a series of voices in his head, shrill, squeaky voices, that'd speak up, from time to time, during his visits to the Kingdom. The voices following him like a guilty conscience. The voices appearing as audio intrusions, in daytime, and at night, too. And sometimes in dreams. The voices sometimes manifesting in different stages of sleep. The voices sometimes personified and sounded by shadowy, veiled figures, with eyes like black pebbles...

The voices told of self-doubt. And hate. The voices whispering to him that the Thais were all fakes. That their smiles were an act, a pantomime. That behind their smiles, was only emptiness. And faceless greed. That everything in Thailand was fake. All the buildings, everything, it was a mirage. It was artifice. That it shouldn't be there.

Between barhopping in Bangkok, the tourist sometimes took the Skytrain, and he'd silently stand by the train window, watching the passing scenery of the city as if he were inspecting a painting in an art gallery. Here and there, with the city moving under his feet, the tourist would glance over at a vacant lot and see it reclaimed by jungle, tropical foliage, and the voices would fade in, tell him that Bangkok was a swamp. It was all a jungle. And that's what it's supposed to be. It's supposed to be a jungle, with crocodiles, snakes, silver streams, waterfalls, exotic birds...

"None of this... None of it... None of it... should even be here..."

From time to time the aggrieved voices would appear, in this way, and intrude on his holidays. They'd boo and hiss. Declare that he was a fraud. Declaim him a lecherous sex pest. Proclaim that he was exploiting people in a third-world country. And that even worse, he was being exploited himself.

When the voices got too loud, he'd quiet them with booze and soothing thoughts of football. But, like a cockroach, they were there, and stayed there, infesting, alive in the walls of his mind...

Back home, back in his cold country, the cockroach voices would normally quiet. Or, strangely, they'd shift their tone to saccharine, to nostalgia. The voices pining to be back in Bangkok, in Thailand, where everything was as it should be.

The tourist would fantasize, plan his next trip to Bangkok. Doing so would help him avoid lamenting too much about his unsatisfying job, unsatisfying local women...

The local women- ugh. He'd be perpetually disappointed that he couldn't find anyone comparable to the Thai ladies. The local women, Western women, to him, had become disgusting. Useless. They seemed so masculine too. They'd have short hair, talk like men, act like men, dress like men, and their noses were always too big, their frames fat as milk cows. The local women just totally, in every conceivable way, turned him off.

Worse yet, unlike in Asia, he'd found fat women being glorified, put on front pages of magazines, and even in lingerie ads. He'd gag, throw up inside his mouth seeing scantily clad, overweight pop singers, like Lizzo, wobbling their lardy asses on television. And he'd scratch his head as fat chicks, somehow, were proclaimed by the Western mainstream media as being "brave" for flaunting their flabby figures.

To him, there was nothing brave or sexy about a woman being a fatty. Nothing worth celebrating. To the tourist, fat chicks were just plain gross...

Back in the West, the tourist would miss the gentle, thin Asian girly girls, with their absurdly long painted nails, fake lashes, heaps of makeup and luscious lips always stretched into smiles. Their feminine, form-fitting clothes and shiny hair. Their super tight, tiny pussies and the certain silkiness, reactivity of their sugary skin. Eventually he gave up on dating local women and abandoned any idea of "settling down" in his native land and its icy, gloomy environs.

Thailand, his once, twice, or thrice-yearly trips to the "Land of Smiles," were all he needed.

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So it was natural for the tourist to decide to retire in Thailand. Once he hit retirement age, he decided to leave his home country, straightaway, for good, and he hopped the next plane bound for Southeast Asia.

The tourist rented a small but sunny, furnished apartment in downtown Bangkok, near Sukhumvit Road. It was his little chamber in paradise. And next to his new apartment was a massage shop, where he'd go, nearly every day, for a foot massage or Thai massage. One thing he absolutely loved about Thailand was its availability of affordable massages. Only 8 dollars for an hour of foot massage. With his body sore from age, the daily massages worked wonders.

Not to mention Thailand's tropical weather, humidity helped loosen his joints, alleviated his worsening arthritis. It was paradise, truly paradise, and for the first month, he'd felt like a new man. He'd felt young again and on top of the world. He was living the dream, drinking cold beer, every day, eating spicy food, popping dick pills, and boning bar girls half his age. It was his perfect life...

At the massage shop next to his place, he soon discovered one of the most beautiful girls he'd ever seen. A moon among stars. She had a face that was shockingly beautiful. Beautiful enough to shake mountains. And she was svelte, petite, and honey-skinned, with shiny, raven-black hair falling just past her shoulders. She wore heavy helpings of makeup, too, which he liked, and her ludicrously long fake lashes, sparkly pink eye shadows over her upcurved eyes were just... so mesmerizing... that every time he gazed upon her... he felt light-headed in love...

Even the dim lighting of the massage parlor reflected, like shimmering stars, off her figure, and simply seeing her brought a smile to his face.

Her English seemed minimal, though. As was his Thai, despite his visiting the country for over two decades. Although it was on his to-do list, he'd not gotten around to taking a Thai language study course. The vowels, and the tones, in particular, felt nearly impossible for him. Not to mention the indecipherable script of its alphabet.

Plus, most everyone in Thailand, in Bangkok, touristy spots, spoke "Tourist", a pidgin dialect of hand signals, body language, and Thai-accented English words, and he found himself speaking more and more in the pidgin syntax and frequently noticed himself saying English loan words in that same Thai fashion, always stressing the final syllable, like com-pu-TUH, et cetera.

However, now that he was living in Thailand, now that he was retired, perhaps he would do the Thai language course, he thought, envisioning chatting up the massage girl. Maybe being able to communicate with a goddess as pretty as her was all the motivation he needed. It's not like he didn't have the time. Time, finally, it seemed, was on his side.

๖

That massage shop girl soon came to occupy his mind. She'd flit through his thoughts and even appear in his dreams. She'd replaced the menacing veiled figures, and since settling in Thailand, the aggrieved voices had all but disappeared, become as distant as waves upon a faraway shore.

The massage girl... She'd set his mind in motion, lit a fire in his heart, and he'd daydream about her, then think of her at night before sinking into sleep, replaying comforting mental montages, vivid images of them, together, hand-in-hand, strolling along on an island in the Andaman Sea. Cerulean waters foaming onto a white sandy shore... The two of them sipping coconuts and spooning in a swinging hammock strung between two tall palm trees...