Unforgiving Oceans of Laos: A Man’s Tale of She-Men
So this will paint a good picture of how strange this place, “the journey,” is. And to preface this story, for those that are weak-hearted, I must say this—Sometimes men look like women by choice, and sometimes they’re pretty, and sometimes, sometimes, you make out with them and it fucks you up.
Alright I said it, and it’s out there. It was a crazy night.
It all started one Sunday night in Laos, as many stories I’m sure start. My friend Tim and I were walking down the promenade and of course, there were many prostitutes, as there are in any capitol in any country anywhere, but especially in Vientiane. Now if you know prostitutes, you know that they are like Great Whites on the California coast line. They prowl around unnoticed, but aware to everyone. There fins lurk the waters, and prod the unwary.
So there was this girl and it got crazy and … I’m just kidding. I’m not going to talk about banging ladies for cash. That’s not this story.
So a particular great white had been prowling for days. She was a pretty mid-twenties Lao woman, and she wasn’t bashful, as no prostitutes are. Time and time again, as my friend and I walked around at night, she would ride up on her little scooter and get in our way. You want some boom-boom is a phrase you will always here in this land, from everyone—prostitutes, drivers, old ladies—everyone. It’s there, along with Cialis and marijuana. I’m serious, Viagra pills are now on the black market.
So this girl tried and tried and tried, and as she does, my stare and silence is growing more and more obvious. I’m a lover, damnit, and I gotta fill some urges. But oh! This was not the time. With all the HIV and other STD’s that float around the darker regions of Laos, I would not be getting off from any girl offering herself up too easily.
But this girl was relentless, to say the least, and continued to prostrate herself to us, and unbeknowest to the both of us, was packing the whole time.
We got fed up with the riverbank and wanted to hit the clubs hard, so we asked around. In no time, we found a traveler that knew where the bright lights were, and wanted to go himself, so we went.
At the top of the largest building in Laos, there lie a club fit for the three of us. Or so we thought. We paid the fees and got the padding down, but when we entered, realized we had gotten fucked the whole time. The place was empty other than a group of gay Laosians dancing in the back.
However, we don’t just quit, my friend and I, and the other guy, so we decided to stick it out, and bought a round of beers to stave us for the time being.
The foreign music drummed along with the time, and the place got crowded. And out of nowhere, the Great White pulled up next to us with a couple of friends.
Tim and I are easy-going and impartial, so we smiled at her and invited her over for laughs. She acquiesced unstrained, as we knew in our confident man-stance she would.
The other guy, a weak-looking British “gentleman” with a big mouth, glared at her and turned to us.
“Fellas, what you think yore doin?”
We gave him the What the fuck?-face and waited.
“That’s a lady-boy.”
I looked at him. I stared into his eyes, and my brow rose. I looked over at her, and back at him, and again at her. Tim and I looked at each other, and I said, “I-I-I-I don’t think so.”
“I should know. I took her back to me place, up to my gaw-dahm room, and she told me.”
Tim and I were speechless. I stared at her, and the hopeless fog inhabited me. I stared hard, at her neck, at her legs, at her hands, and finally at her shoulders. He was right. She was a lady-boy.
But she was so pretty. It would be later that a blog on the web entitled Lady-Boy Survival Guide would make everything clear, listing the means for lady-boy topographical identification. The first rule explained the beauty—they have a strange beauty—and that was it.
She was a pretty girl, a strangely pretty girl, and she was a man, and I looked at her … and momentarily shrank back in despair. She saw my face, and knew, and felt a kindred despair.
I didn’t know what to do. And the guilt piled on.
I started to feel despair over feeling despair for her, trapped in guilt over thinking at the outset that she was evil. She wasn’t evil. She was just a man with a desire to be a woman. Who was I to judge? So I threw away mistaken reactions and tried to make her feel better.
I smiled and punched her in the shoulder and joked and told her to be happy. Her introspective glare started to wane after a while and she became lively again, and the group was nearly back to normal. Tim and I were happy. The “girl” was happy. The other guy didn’t matter.
It was then that a storm came, a tyrant that would capsize me for days to come.
A group of girls pulled up near us, and we recognized them. We had met them briefly at a New Years bash in town and taken pictures with them. They liked us, and one specifically, had the lust for me hard.
She gave me the look, one I will forever remember and came up to me. She was attractive, my drunken stare deduced, and she invaded my space as quickly as I let her. The storm was so distorted that my senses didn’t even know to batten down the hatches.
In no time at all, she came on strong, and I allowed it. Hell, I’m a man. When a lady comes on, it’s not a question. There are no questions. There are only answers. And by God, as we danced and made out, I had one.
But something felt awry, for in all my days, I had never met a woman to match my insatiable appetite for lust. She was on her way, and it blindsided me a bit. I backed off, and got her off of me. Something told me to break off for a while and clear my head. So I joined Tim and we walked away to scope out some other chicks.
Now you might think -That’s fucked, man. You can’t just ditch a chick and go off with another.—but I acted innocently. I was merely looking for air, and helping my friend, who needed an Ice-man , a gunner at the wing to help his ass out in a dog-fight.
We walked around and he spotted a fine group of girls, so we walked up and started talking to them. I tried not to look too suspicious as I wing-manned my friend’s girl’s friend, but the glares started to flare from the horizon. The stormy woman I had been conducting myself with before was brooding, as I thought she would, and eyeing me with a heavy gaze that said everything. I tried not to let it affect me for now. I figured I could calm her down later, and let her know what was happening.
But she came up on my bow as I floated in the clear blue waters, and attacked me with my sails up.
“Don’t worry,” she started oddly enough to me.
“What?”
“I don’t care. I know you are not my boyfriend.” She has a point, I thought, but why come up and tell me that after throwing out those glares, so I answered warily, “Alright.”
“Just so you know. I’m a man. You make out with man! You are gay!”
Bass drops out, beat drops off, silence …
Aaaaaaaaaah shit! Fuck! What?-Fuck! What?-Fuck! I grabbed Tim.
“Dude! She just told me she’s a man!”
My friend said nothing for a second, then burst out laughing.
“What!? How do you know?”
“She just said it!”
My boat had capsized, I was drowning, and the deep blue darkness surrounded me as I fell deeper and deeper.
For a long time, my mind made circles and brooded and ruminated and thought a shit-ton about my situation. You just made out with a man. She’s right. For all intents and purposes, that’s as gay as it gets.
But then Tim’s advice pulled me out of the depths of my sinking introspection. He told me simply: It’s all good man. And that sucks. Oh, and shit happens.
The last piece of wisdom helped the most, and helps me to write this. The shit hit me in the face, and I swallowed it down good, and it’s done.
But the boat wasn’t turned over to greet the clear blue sky just yet, and I wasn’t quite right. Something like making out with a dude doesn’t just slip off as easily as standing up or getting on a great riding beast. My mind had to right itself, my mind being my cock.
I fished around, saw an attractive older woman, and decided to hit her up hard. She was pretty, and she was a she, or so she said after I asked her straight-up and she went as far as to tell me she was a mother of five. We laughed. I worked that shit like my life depended on it. At that moment, the life in my mind did. She wanted it. It worked in no time as if the fates were on my side once more, and she wanted to go. She asked me. I was thinking to myself, Fuck ya Mike. On form, brother.
We walked out holding hands and chatting lightly. I had an eye on the room and a good night, so the talk was light and broken, and all the while, I noticed a small Laosian creeping along behind us. I looked at him and asked, “Is that your friend?” She nodded, and they talked in the parking lot as I waited eagerly like a boy at the door of a pound on his birthday.
She pulled up with her scooter and I hopped on. The creepy friend followed behind, nearly clipping our heels. And still I held out with an aching pain in my loins, and a grin the size of Texas. She whispered in my ear as we drove along, and I gripped her thighs. I was feeling the mood hard.
We got to my hotel and I got off. After a second, the friend pulled up next to her. I was curious, to explain the obvious. What was this guy doing here? Did he want to watch or something? I looked at her and pointed at him with a rueful finger.
“Why is your friend here?” She smiled, but didn’t say anything. The little man did.
“You want her for the night?”
I let out a long, heavy sigh and dropped my head down. The great whites got me in the life-saver.
Tim pulled up with the girl he had been hitting on, and the little man spoke to him, “You want her?”-he said and pointed in her direction as she sat on the scooter. Apparently, they were partners in crime.
“Nope. I’m going to bed,” Tim answered politely and moved toward the door.
I stood up straight and stared at my girl. “You want me?”-I asked. She gave me a big grin and nothing else. I sucked in hard, looked at the man, and said, “I don’t pay, man. Sorry.” I smiled at the lot and walked off to bed.
The night was rough, as one can ascertain, and stuck with me for a while. I played it off, played it up, and am now ready to write about it. As far as I can tell, it is as follows: The seas bare down on you so hard sometimes when you’re out so far that you can’t smell the land. You can sense it before you push off, but you go anyways. As much as you want to predict what you will see, you can’t because everything is out there—whales, sharks, stormy weather—sometimes more. At times, it’s so mysterious that legends arise. This is my legend, motha fucka. I French-kissed a chick with a dick, then went home with a whore.
