The Beautiful Anthology Read Online Free

great high. And pretty soon there was nothing awkward or uncomfortable at all. There was no need for dancing or repartee and no shame in desire, and when Ghan said, simply, softly, “Zoo, come here and lie with me,” I leaped like a gazelle across the room and into his spoon. In between pipes, we kissed. Cushioned, blossoming kisses that lasted – literally, I believe – for hours. People left. The fire went out. I was unaware. When I opened my eyes at dawn, his lashes, against his cheek, were covered with white ash. The curve of the burnished cheek, the echoed curve of the lash, the gentleness of the ash: again with the symphony. The gray light of day only accentuated it. Beauty. And this time I could kiss it. There was more hacking around the fire as others awakened; there was open incivility between the Belgian and the hostess, but it didn’t touch me, and somehow Ghan and I were granted our own motorbike. I wrapped my arms around his waist and off we floated through the fog.
    We were coupled for the remainder of my time in Pai. We went to the market together, ran errands for the lodge, took scenic motorbike rides, drank banana milkshakes at cafés. We went to his friends’ homes. We spent a lot of time rolling around in my bungalow. It was all so sweet.
    But sexy is different than beautiful. Or it can be. It was in this case. One of the things we did together was drive out to the methadone clinic, where Ghan got his daily supply and where the clinicians also tended to his foot.
    Pretty much every young man in Pai – or at least every young man a grungy backpacker sleeping with one of them is likely to meet – was on either heroin or methadone. Pai is in poppy country, and this was back when Thailand was still a major producer. Around there, heroin cost practically nothing. Around there, tourism was the only growth industry. Many of the guys worked with backpackers for whom visiting the opium man and smoking white powder out of bamboo bongs was part of the package. And then, of course, we went away, to the beaches or the ruins or the Bangkok sex clubs, to the pot or the X or the mushrooms or the hashish that was the specialty of the next locale. While there the Pai-landers stayed.
    Ghan blamed his frequent impotence on the condoms I insisted on, but I suspected otherwise. While his erratic erections would have made me crazy in the past, would have driven me away in a fury of dissatisfaction and self-doubt, it didn’t bother me much with him. Nothing did. It was as if I were still high. We cuddled and lounged and explored each other. I loved to look at him. The way his hair swung when he stepped out of his sandals before crossing a threshold, the graceful wrap of his masculine muscles over his delicate frame. Sometimes I held his foot, feigning concern for its injury, wondering at how it could be continually exposed to the elements but remain so plump and fine. Of course, part of it was his youth. He was a tender shoot, bamboo that I could almost see grow. While I was there, he traded the embroidered hill-tribe sash with which he tied his trousers to a Frenchman in return for a logo tee from a windsurfing company, and without his plain white cotton and the smooth fold of fabric around his hips that the sash had allowed him to make, his beauty was shorn just a sliver.
    He’d been in Pai for less than a year. Before that, he had been at a monastery, where he had learned English. His family farmed rice. They lived in the jungle, he said. Not close to Pai; somewhere no tourists went. He wanted to take me there to see them. He planned the itinerary: first to Chiang Mai, then on another bus to the closest town, then three days walking. We would have to wait until his foot was healed. And then we would have to wait while he led a tourist trek, so that he’d have some money.
    In the meantime, he told me the story of the worst moment of his life. I feel it would be an invasion to offer it here, but it involved guarding