Chapter 14: Mai and Me, and Ben and Janey

MAI’S STORY

“I was born in a suburb of Bangkok. My father was an American who was the local manager of a U.S. firm that manufactured components for computers. His wife was a local Thai-Chinese woman who had been a secretary in the company where he worked. My mother was the amah – housekeeper – in their house. Her name was Mai, and she came from a small city in Malaysia – I don’t think she ever told me the name, or if she did, I was so young that I forgot it quickly. Her mother was Thai and her father was Malaysian, or maybe it was the other way around. Her family was poor, and they arranged with a wakil, a broker or agent who finds work for people, usually young women in other countries in Asia, and he found her a position with this Bangkok family that needed an amah.

“I think her work was okay, and they didn’t abuse her. So many amah are abused or exploited by their host families, but our family was good to her. But it’s not uncommon for the man of the household to feel that he is entitled to sex with the amah, and that is what happened to my mother. He didn’t physically force her, although I’m sure she felt it was important to ‘not displease master.’ Anyway, she became pregnant with me when she was 17 and was 18 when I was born. They called me Mai Mai – ‘Little Mai.’

“In countries like that, this is not uncommon, and the baby – me – was acknowledged and taken in as part of the household. Also, my father and his wife had been trying for several years to have a baby but they did not have any success, so they took care of me as if I was the child of the family. But a year after I was born, my father’s wife became pregnant, and my half-brother, Christian, was born. They raised him like my brother, and for all practical purposes we were brother and sister.

“A year later, it turned out that there were problems with my mother’s work papers and she had to leave Thailand and return to her home town. She wasn’t literate, and I never heard from her again. But my father and his wife were good to me and treated me like a daughter, and I loved my brother, Christian. There were no other children around, so we were each other’s only playmates and, for the most part, constant companions. I was crazy about my little brother, and he adored his big sister.

“Our life went on for years like this. But then one time, after he had turned 14 or so, Christian told me that our mother would sometimes put her mouth onto his genitals and lick him and suck on them, and that the last time, she rubbed his penis and it felt funny, and them he got stiff and squirted some out ‘white stuff.’ He said that it felt really good and that our mother licked up all the white stuff and said it tasted good, and he wanted to know if I wanted to do that with him. So I learned how to masturbate Christian and swallow his semen. As we got older and began to feel other things, it was natural for us to progress to intercourse. We both loved how it felt, but we didn’t do it a lot. We didn’t actually think of it as ‘wrong,’ but it seemed like something we ‘weren’t supposed to do.’ Anyway, our lovemaking made us even closer than we already were.

“Another thing that probably made a difference: It turned out that Christian was bisexual, so maybe his interest in having intercourse with me wasn’t as strong as it might have been if he wasn’t attracted to boys, too. But we still continued to have sex until I began dating Paul.

“My parents made sure that I got a good education, for a girl, anyway. However, boys like Christian went to better schools that taught much more than my ‘proper’ girls’ school did. Fortunately, Christian shared many of his books and lessons with his “big” sister, and, as a result, I was much better prepared for a business job than many of the other girls.

“My father contacted some friends, and I was able to get a very good job in the sales department of a major international hotel in Bangkok. And it was there that I met Paul. At that time, he was the chief executive of the commercial side of the hotel. He had noticed my work and promoted me to be his administrative assistant. And eventually, at the risk of both of our jobs, he asked me out. I won’t go into the details, but we were able to keep our relationship a secret until he asked me to marry him. Paul was able to secure an even better position at another hotel, so I could keep my job as assistant to Paul’s replacement.

“Paul was a wonderful, beautiful man, and we wanted to have children almost immediately. But after several years of trying, it turned out that Paul was sterile because of having mumps as a child.

“And then we got hit with another lightning bolt out of the blue. Paul was diagnosed with a rare blood disorder that left him with probably a year or two to live.

“This just intensified our desire to have a baby. We couldn’t bring ourselves to adopt a baby – we wanted one that was ‘ours,’ and especially, Paul’s. That left the possibility of artificial insemination. But, again, we didn’t want to have a baby from the sperm of some anonymous donor. Then Paul brought up the possibility of having my brother – my half-brother, actually – Christian, as the donor. Shortly after Paul and I became ‘serious,’ I had told him about my relationship with Christian, including the sexual part. Paul, the wonderful, dear man that he was, thought that our story was beautiful. We approached Christian, and we all decided that Christian should get me pregnant. But Paul was opposed to artificial insemination. He wanted our baby to be made ‘the normal way,’ by people who love each other.

“And so, because we wanted this to be Paul’s baby, all three of us would make love. Paul and Christian would both take me, with Christian in my vagina and Paul in my rectum, or both in my vagina at the same time. Because Christian was bi, to stimulate him, Paul would sometimes even sodomize Christian while he was fucking me. But we were determined that this would be our baby – mine and Paul’s – even if it wouldn’t be his sperm that caused it.

“Most times, we were very intent on our objective of making me pregnant, but sometimes we managed to forget this and just got lost in the sex, which, I have to admit, was often pretty wild. After six months, we got confirmation that I was pregnant with Ben. We cried and cried, the tension had been so great. But now, Paul and I were going to have our baby, thanks to my wonderful brother. Even though I was already pregnant, Paul insisted that Christian continue the sex with us, because he was the baby’s father ‘too.’

“I think that Paul had another reason for this. Although we didn’t talk about it, we knew that Paul would probably live to see our baby born, but not for very much longer, and I think that Paul was determined to cement Christian’s bond – to the baby, and to its mother. Paul was such a fine, beautiful person. I can’t tell you how much I loved him. I still miss him every day.”

I couldn’t help but think of our Paul, and how his world came crashing down when his wife, Sofia, died, leaving him widowed and with 12-year-old Lauren to raise. In fact, the way that Mai described her husband made me think of Paul in a number of ways.

“Paul lived to see his beautiful son, but he died five months later. Christian stayed on with us to be the man in Ben’s and my life. He would go off, sometimes for months, on adventures of his own, but he always came back to us, and when he did, he was a father to Ben as well as being both the man in my life and the little brother I had loved since we were children.

“But then, when Ben was five, Christian was killed in a motorcycle accident less than a kilometer from our home. I won’t even try to tell you how devastating this was, for both of us. Ben had no recollection of Paul, but Christian was the ‘Papa’ that he had known for all of his little life, and Papa Christian was now gone.

“We stayed in Bangkok for another ten years, and I continued working at the job where Paul and I first met. Then one day I was offered the chance to transfer to my hotel company’s real estate operation. There was a catch. I – we – would have to move to the United States. The two locations I was offered were in Seattle, Washington, and near Philadelphia. I thought that although Seattle was thousands of miles away, it was still closer to the home where I had lived my entire life. Also, the sizeable Asian population in the Seattle area might give me a bit of a business advantage, so we decided that Seattle would be the best choice for us.

“Ben and I were always very affectionate – not surprising, since we had been mostly on our own since Paul died. Since he was a young child, we often slept in the same bed, either his or mine, just so we could be with someone. There was nothing to it – it’s just that we didn’t want to be alone, and all we had was each other. Perhaps two months after we moved to Seattle, I’d had a difficult day at work. Not problems so much as just the strain of getting up to speed in a new job, in a business that was similar to the one I had worked in for 18 years, but not exactly like it, and in a new home, in a new and very different country. Ben was Ben. He had adjusted to his new home, and his excellent English and his quiet good looks helped him to be accepted by the kids in his new high school.

“Anyway, Ben came into my bedroom to talk a little before saying goodnight, and he found me crying. Now, he often caught me with tears in my eyes – I guess I’ve felt sad a lot of times in my – in our – lives. But this was the first time he had ever seen me out-and-out crying. It seemed to break his heart. He came over to the bed and took me into his arms – quite easily, as he was by then 16 years old and almost six feet tall – and he began to cry with me. He kissed me on my forehead, and then on my cheek. I turned to look up at him, and I kissed him on the lips.

“And that’s how we started. I was a lonely woman who found herself next to a beautiful half-dressed young man who looked so much like my lost brother and reminded me of my dear Paul, and he was a 16-year-old young man holding a warm, soft woman who was only wearing a silken nightgown. I felt his erection pressing into my thigh, and I reached through the fly of his pajamas and began stroking him, and he started thrusting against my hand. Without even thinking of it, I pulled him over on top of me and guided him inside me, and instinct took over – for both of us.

“Afterward, we just lay beside each other and looked at each other. There was no need for explanations or apologies or excuses. We had been each other’s whole lives for eleven years, and this was just one more way of us being together. I turned off the light and snuggled back up against him, with his arm around me, and for the first time in many, many years, I fell asleep feeling at peace.

“In the middle of the night, I woke up to feel Ben’s penis poking between my buttocks. I didn’t know if he was trying to get in my anus, but if he was, I certainly wasn’t ready for that after so many years. I guided him into my vagina and helped myself and him to another climax.

“When we woke up in the morning, I telephoned my office to say that I would be taking a personal day and wouldn’t be in. Then Ben and I spent the day just touching each other, and kissing, and holding each other, just so incredibly happy with this new development in our lives.”

When Mai told me this, I had to smile. I think she thought I might be laughing at her, so I quickly explained, “Mai, you’ve just described Janey’s and my first days together. In fact, just hearing how you describe you and Ben makes me feel some of that same happiness all over again.”

“It’s a special time – a special feeling, isn’t it, Matt?

“Anyhow, after that, we never thought about us being any other way. We kept our own bedrooms so each of us would have our own personal place, but we’ve slept together almost every night since then.

“About the same time that Ben graduated college, my company offered me a promotion, but that promotion came with a transfer here. Shortly after we moved here, Ben began working for your company.

And with a sigh, she concluded, “And I guess that’s how Ben and I got here.”

When she finished, Mai’s eyes were red and wet with tears. Her eye makeup was smudged from her repeatedly wiping her eyes with a napkin, and a few dark streaks had run down onto her cheeks.

I realized that I was pretty wrung-out myself. While Paul and I had had some difficult times in our lives, we’d never experienced anything close to the tragedy that Mai and her son had experienced multiple times in their life. But there were two good things to come out of it: Ben, and the fact that he and his amazing mother had found their way into our lives.

We arranged for the four of us to have dinner at Mai’s and Ben’s the next Friday evening. So we wouldn’t feel rushed, I told everyone at work they could go home at four o’clock that afternoon. Of course, that included Ben and me.

This was, basically, a “meet the parents” dinner. To lighten the burden on Mai and ensure that we all had plenty of time to socialize, Ben picked up a selection of cheeses, good bread, a terrine of duck, and some chilled white wines. Janey and I brought over two beautifully roasted chickens and some oven-roasted carrots, potatoes, and fennel. And, of course, a nice Chateauneuf de Pape and a modest Burgundy.

Mai had set the table, put out two wine chillers, and set out some beautiful fresh flowers which, as a guy, I couldn’t identify.

We had a great time. We controlled ourselves on the cheese, breads, and terrine so that we still had appetites left when we eventually drifted over to the large table for the chicken, et al.

And during dinner, we learned one valuable lesson: That even if the thing between Jane and Ben didn’t work out and was officially declared a bust, Mai is a delightful companion, and we would be seeing her a lot more, no matter what.

Conversation was lively and all over the place, but one thing was unusual: there were no “side” conversations – the four of us all talked about the same topic before we moved on to another.

Finally, the table was cleared and Mai brought out a pot of coffee and a beautiful lemon meringue pie. The slight tartness of the pie was the perfect dessert to cut through the aftertastes of the rich chicken and vegetables. We talked some more, maybe for an hour or so.

But then Jane and Ben put their napkins on the table, stood up, and, hand-in-hand, informed us, “We’re going to the bedroom now.” And, as they reached the door, they turned to us, and Ben said, “You’re welcome to join us,” and in they went, making no effort to close the door behind them.

Mai and I just sat there quietly for the moment, digesting the dinner and the parting message.

I spoke first. “You realize what just happened, don’t you?”

“Yes,” she said, “they just announced that they’re a ‘we’.” She and I smiled at each other, sat quietly. Well, this is what we said we wanted. Now we’ll see if we were right.

And then I thought of Lauren: If Lauren said this was right, then it was right. And at that moment, I felt extremely pleased with my life, and where it had brought me so far.