the third sex

I was telling a friend how once, about ten years ago, I had lived for a few months with a ladyboy in Bangkok, and that the affair hadn’t lasted because she had such a hot temper that we were always fighting. “Didn’t you realise that before you moved in together?” he asked me. I said I had. “So why did you do it?” he asked. Well, I replied, rather lamely: she was so sexy.

He gave a snort of derision. “You were thinking with your dick,” he said.

I couldn’t deny it. But it was more than that. I genuinely cared for her. In fact, in the early days it was as close to the Real Thing that I am probably capable of getting.

Yes, I knew she was mad and bad. But we had also shared some beautiful times together, and I really thought there was a good chance that with a full relationship, plus the fact that she was only 18 and had some maturing to do, we could really make a go of it.

Of course there was the age difference, and the fact that ladyboys change immensely from their late teens onwards. But I just wanted to take the moment, selfishly. Later was later. I also knew I could help her in her ambition to go to university. Her family were dirt-poor, living off the land, and without help she didn’t have a chance.

She was from the Deep South, and Thais from the Central, Northern and Eastern regions are very wary of their Southern cousins. Ethnically they are hard to define: there is a fine cocktail of Malay and Indian mixed in with many Southern Thais, along with Burmese and Chinese blood. And of course, as events are currently illustrating all too well, the South is an uneasy place, prone to exploding into violence.

My ladyboy friend’s beauty was typically Southern, with big wide eyes that had a touch of Indian to them, and skin a perfect milk chocolate colour. But her hot temper was well and truly Southern also, and it was irrational. As for me, I had long gone past the stage where I was going to take nonsense from anyone, least of all an 18-year-old ladyboy. We fought, from the earliest days.

I rented a small apartment for us in a suburb of Bangkok, near a canal that leads into the city centre, so I was able to commute by boat every day. The building was a new one, nicely managed. I felt we had a pleasant home.

Her beauty was such that she could pass for a girl, without even wearing any makeup. I took her on holiday to a five-star hotel in Chiang Mai, and she attracted only awe-struck admiration. In fact at the airport, waiting for our luggage, a young guy tried to give her his phone number while I was collecting a trolley, but she regally ignored him. I took her to smart restaurants, and I carefully introduced her to friends. At least two of them fell for her, and one of them still asks me from time to time, “Do you still see that gorgeous Southern girl?”

But she was all mine. Back in the apartment she would strip slowly and parade in front of me completely nude, one of the most beautiful human beings I have ever seen, a slight figure with little hormonal breasts, a pert bottom, and something long and heavy that swung languorously between her legs as she walked. And of course those big, dreamy eyes, innocent yet lascivious.

Still, we fought. I discovered that she was the most selfish person on the planet. Any remonstration on my part, such as when she ran up a phone bill equal to our monthly rent, or used my cellphone until the battery ran down, or spent an entire allowance on makeup, would be met by an explosion of rage. This was followed by a period of sweetness, but soon the cycle became so predictable it was wearing.

Her temper went beyond words. I quickly learned to hide the paperknife. I developed a pattern of bruises on my arms from fending off heavy objects. After one argument I went and sat outside on the balcony only to find that she had locked the balcony door and gone out. Luckily there were window slats that I could remove and reach the key to let myself in, and I treasured her expression when she came back and found me inside again, nonchalantly reading a book.

But, as I say, it was all going too far. Once she threw a vase at me, and it bounced off my head. I’m not particularly into spanking, but I thought that’s what she might need, so I threw her face down on the bed and reddened her bare bottom. She went out of the room hissing with rage, and came back a bit later to throw my shoes out of the window (we were nine floors up). So it wasn’t that.

I think we lasted five months. By the end of that time we were becoming dangerous. The neighbours had complained, and the manager of the building was beginning to become considerably less friendly towards me than he had been.

I cursed myself for getting into the situation in the first place, but this was the time of the Asian financial crash and it was a bleak period in my life. So I ended the relationship and we moved out, and curiously my luck changed for the better immediately.

As for the girl, we became good friends, and remain so to this day. I kept my promise and put her through university: she kept her promise and got a good degree, and she now has a satisfying career. I’m happy I went through the experience, but I wouldn’t want to do it again.