“He want go bar.”

Amazing how much derision a non-native English speaker with a limited vocabulary can pour into such a short sentence. And never mind that the he in question was a she – though being the butch part of a pair of dykes perhaps that pronoun’s use wasn’t entirely off the mark. Even more amazing that the object of disdain was not so much the person in question as the place; because Noom, my bar boy friend and current love of my life, spends most of his waking hours in a bar. It is where he works. And feels most comfortable. But in this case the bar did not have a bevy of naked beauties on display, nor employees who could be taken off for a night of pleasure, offering instead only what most bars are known for: alcohol.

Or at least I assumed so: the bar was still hours away in our future and even then was but an assumption on Noom’s part. But then Noom reads people well. And his reading of Helena, after spending ten days in her company, was that out of all the wonders that Thailand held, a small, dingy bar filled with bottles of golden-brown elixir would be the site she would most likely favor.

We were in Chiang Mai, a city Noom feels he is an expert on having visited the sprawling northern town four times over the last two years. His familiarity with the several square blocks of the city where we usually play, coupled with his inborn talent of being Thai, bred a degree of expertise that in anyone else would come off as arrogant. Okay, even in Noom it came off as arrogant, his air of superiority only lessened by his ready smile and the fact he’s so damn cute. But tasteless displays of overconfidence are never a problem with Noom. As long as you accept his superiority without question, everything is cool. Challenge him, however, and the mild mannered Thai boy with the buns of steel quickly tempers his arrogance with a healthy dose of obnoxiousness.

In preparation for this evening however he was being neither. Just practical. There were still unvisited markets filled with treasures to discover, wats filled with Buddhist imagery that take on an entirely different feel when lit at night, and a bustling street scene alive with locals and visitors alike. But since it was Helena’s turn to decide what we’d do for the evening, Noom knew our night would be spent in some no-name dive bar. And he wasn’t thrilled with that prospect.

Noom does not drink. Or at least not much. And not with any regularity. When you spend your nights surrounded by those who do, I guess your choices are to join in and wake up every morning of your life with a fuzzy brain, or abstain and wake up every morning with a condescending attitude toward the fool laying next to you who decided instead to take the opposite path. Noom does condescension almost as well as he does arrogance. Though it is a more difficult read and you really have to be predisposed to feeling a bit of shame to pick up on it. Subtlety is not normally a Thai trait. Noom’s use of it just speaks to his mastery of being arrogant.

I can get away with a few beers when spending the night on Soi Twilight, wine with dinner and a cocktail afterwards when out for the night, and even several glasses of scotch on special occasions without crossing Noom’s line from drinking to drunk. It’s easy to tell when that line has been crossed because whether I am or not, with a touch of scorn he announces, “You drunk.”

He seldom joins me, though on occasion when feeling festive he’ll order a margarita. Which has more to do with the salt than the alcohol. And by the time he’s ready for a second drink his order is for a virgin version. Whether it was a case of nerves or just wanting to belong, on our first night together with the entire gang he’d thrown caution to the wind and had three cocktails, all with a full shot in them. And had, for the first time in our relationship, gotten quite tipsy. He was adorable. Even though his system is not used to that much booze the following morning he did not suffer from a hangover. But did suffer from having me cop a condescending attitude myself for a change, flinging back his often used morning refrain, “You drunk.”

Doubling down on that experience was not something he was looking forward to. Helena’s love for bars, however, was setting him up to do so once again anyway.

Sharing an aversion to ever just saying no with his fellow countrymen, when Noom doesn’t want to do something he opts for a less confrontational approach and slips into passive-aggressive mode instead. Generally, people who use that technique to manipulate me piss me off. As with all things Noom, when he does it I just find it adorable. Again. And on this night I was busy smiling in adoration at his reflection in the mirror as he primped for the hundredth time in an effort to put off leaving the room and facing Helena and her choice for the evening’s entertainment for as long as possible. I decided to help him in his efforts at procrastinating, stood up, and nonchalantly pulled his pants down.

As with alcohol, sex is a routine part of Noom’s nights. Though unlike with drinking he has little choice but to participate in the sex. Even then his Thai-ness and his OCD thingy rule. There is a time and place for everything. And the time and place for sex is in a bed at the end of the evening. Spontaneity, when it comes to sex, is not usually a plus in Noom’s book. Unless it is the lesser of two evils. And so with an embarrassed giggle, rather than mimic his subtle look of condescension over inappropriate alcohol consumption directed instead to inappropriate sexual advances, he melted into my arms. And we got busy procrastinating for the next 45 minutes. We could have easily avoided the entire night out with the gang except the girls had grown tired of waiting and Helena called to tell us they were waiting for us down the street. At a small, dingy dive bar.

“I tell you.”

Huh. An unexpected orgasm and the chance to be arrogantly right all before 8 p.m. Noom should have been tipping me.

The bar probably had a name but why anyone would care is beyond me. Typical of those catering to the touri trade in the old city, it was a shallow expanse open to the street, lit by the contrasting neon colors of jaundiced green and titty pink. The kind of place that flashes a promise of sin and of which you’re never really sure whether the girls working there are for sale or not (though this being Thailand the answer should be obvious). Dee, the less ‘he’ of the pair of lesbians, can be just as adorable as Noom when she’s in the mood, and since she was had been busy flashing her baby blues managing to charm the local girl working the bar in the process. Which just lends credence to my belief that while maybe every attractive man on the planet may not really be gay at heart, every woman, under the right circumstance, is more than willing to explore her lesbian side. Helena, happy to be her preferred setting was busy exploring a different angle of her lesbian side. Pool cue in hand, using the table for support, she was waiting for the right sucker to challenge to a game. Unwisely, when we walked into the place she chose Noom.

Noom’s English may occasionally fail him. A snort filled with contempt seldom does. Summing up his opinion of Helena’s choice of venue, activity for the night, and stupidity of challenging him to a game of nine ball, he turned to the bar and ordered a margarita instead. Even sated by our recent bout of procrastination, I still managed to summons up enough energy to throw out my own challenge to him, preordaining what was obviously soon to come, “You drunk.”

Destined to spend his night choosing between evils, Noom decided Helena’s company might be more bearable than mine and grabbing a hundred baht note off of the stack of change on the bar in front of me he turned toward her displaying one of those Thai smiles that any fool should recognize as having nothing to do with pleasure. At least not yours. “Oh, you want play pool?” he crowed in a voice that held an equal amount of challenge and pity for what was about to happen.

Helena, no slouch in the pride department herself, returned his wide grin with one as equally filled with menace. Game on. Dee, taking just long enough away from being adored to notice what was going on summed up their exchange perfectly. “Uh, oh.”

The challenge of whose dick is bigger is never a pretty sight, even more so when the contestants are a lesbian and a Thai bar boy. The outcome could easily go either way. Even though the sticks being used were of a less personal nature, Noom’s billiards skills honed through a misguided youth and an adulthood of hanging out in bars versus Helena’s Sapphic skills on the pool table looked to be an even contest. Noom, who may not approve of drinking and may only approve of sex at the right time and in the right place, views the vice of gambling is a different light. As do most Asians. He threw my money on the edge of the table with a nod toward Helena, setting the stakes. Deciding to edge in on the game myself, I upped the ante, “Loser drinks!”

Surely by now we’ve already established I’m headed for hell.

Helena, sure of her edge in both nine ball and alcohol consumption chuckled at my folly. Noom flashed me a look that clearly said he’d be beating my challenge too. And the two racked up the balls, chalked up their cues and prepared for battle. Noom had perfected his skills on rickety tables squatting in dive bars all over Bangkok. Lesbian bars, Helena milieu, had not quite prepared her for the Thai bar pool table experience. And if money, booze, and bragging rights are at stake, in Thailand you’d better be prepared to know how to take advantage of a table’s speed bumps and potholes as well as keeping enough of your senses on alert to remember which 3 ball is the 3 and which is playing the part of the 6.

Helena began whining within minutes of the break. Noom too was upset, unable to decide between a gloriously despicable smile of haughtiness or an equally glorious one of obnoxious arrogance. Regrouping, Helena decided to wipe both off his face by changing the rules to having to drink every time the other guy sunk a ball. I ordered a second margarita for Noom, throwing my own deplorable smile into the mix as I sat it next to him.

Needless to say, with the table’s terrain working in his favor, Noom won the first game. But had to move on to his second margarita to do so. Helena hates to lose and like fools everywhere immediately broadened her prospects for doing so by quickly calling out, “Best outta three!”

Noom recognized the taunt but not the meaning of her slurred challenge. He turned to me and I explained while signalling for another round for his next round. He pulled his crumpled winnings back out of his pocket with a shit eating grin plastered across his face, already envisioning the additional two C-notes that would be soon joining that pair. And then, being gracious in victory, discarded being obnoxious for being insufferable. “I tink you play like girl.”

I’ve never understood why dykes – women who love women and would gladly see the world free of men – get their panties in such a wad when you point out their girly traits. But it seems to be a universal truth. And Noom used it effectively to ruin Helena’s break. Another universal truth is that people who disdain alcohol are seldom treated well by the object of their derision when they finally succumb to its temptations. Or at least tequila is a bitch about demanding some payback. Helena got busy working on her own payback, allowing Noom’s margarita to take care of itself. And I gleefully ordered him his fourth cocktail of the night.

At least in Thailand, the gods Thais pray to are always going to claim victory over those that lesbians worship. Though in this case it looked like that in the process of doing so Noom would be soon adding a god made of porcelain to the array he usually honors. Even with glazed eyes and the need of the table to provide support, Noom won big. He staggered away 800 baht richer and put an early end to his unwanted night out at the bar. I’m sure he’d have liked to have taken a few minutes to savor his win, loudly braying some choice obnoxious taunt to add spice to Helena’s serving of defeat, but all of his energy was focused on putting one foot down in front of the other; Jose Cuervo had come out the bigger winner.

Drunks can seldom manage to successfully add arrogance to their act. Obnoxiousness, however, often comes easily to them. It turns out, quite fortunately, that Noom is a happy drunk. And becomes quite pliable. Back in our hotel room, taking my cue from his infectious mood, I decided another round of procrastination was in order, chalked up my own cue stick and then called my pocket.

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