Gay Boy Thailand

Still, my friendship with the boy developed. Like cheeky kids we held hands when nobody were looking. The boy asked many questions about me and my life. He wanted to make sure I was not just a tourist that would leave soon. He began to ask if he could come and visit me at my hotel. But now I hesitated taking him there. I was concerned he looked so young in his village clothes. Sure, those orange short pants with big yellow flowers on that his grandmother had bought him were nice. But they made him look like he was fourteen.

I didn’t have the time to go visit the boy in the park every day. I had work to do, an unfinished project I tried to muster the self-discipline to work on in my hotel room. I had to write something, if only half a page, on my laptop computer daily to make progress I could email my boss. I told the boy this. He said never mind, he could come and visit me and promised to be quiet while I was “working business” as he called it.

I hailed a taxi outside the park and as the boy entered the back seat with me I saw he was excited. He was not used to this kind of luxury. The boy became even more excited when we drove onto the elevated pay road at Lat Prao, it was sunset and we saw the tall buildings and lights of the Bangkok skyline against a red and darkening horizon.

It was not without fear I took the boy to the Malaysia Hotel. I knew what kind of friends he could make there - rival gay farang, sex tourists waving large bank notes in front of him, or hardened moneyboys teaching him bad tricks.

The boy held my hand in the taxi. The air condition was too cold for him and he leaned against me for warmth. He is so innocent, I thought. He trusts me. He takes it for granted that I will not hurt him. What does he know about the heartless games that gay people play with each other in this city? People that use each other, lie and cheat, manipulate and deceive. I can’t disappoint him. He is too delicate, he deserves better. This boy is the real thing.

When we came to the Malaysia Hotel I didn’t take him to my room. We sat down by the internet computers in the lobby and I showed him a web site where I had posted pictures from home, of the landscape, of family members and even me as a kid.

I ignored the curious looks I received from other guests.

Then the boy and I went to the hotel restaurant to have dinner.

- So expensive, said the boy when reading the menu.

- Never mind. Have anything you want, I said.

- In the village this dish is twentyfive baht, said the boy. - Here it is a hundred.

I watched him chat in rapid Thai with the waitress. When he met women he would turn them into instant surrogate mothers by being charming and childish with them. Most Thai women would respond with enthusiasm to this ploy.

The boy had som tam and I had chicken cashew nut. At another table sat a group of moneyboys. I knew they were for rent since they would be at the hotel or in the Silom road gay bars with one tourist after another. Suddenly the boy got up and walked over to the moneyboys and sat down. I was shocked. How did he know them? Had I been wrong about his innocence?

He looked out of place with the moneyboys. They were older, more world-wise and better dressed. They had elaborate hairdos while his was simple. My boy was like their poor cousin.