Soothing synths, waterfalls, and gong chimes sounded softly across the dim, rectangular room. A rosy aroma of massage oil wafting about. An overhead a/c was gently whirring, its icy blasts tickling at the tourist’s skin.

“You should find a husband,” said the tourist, his voice quietly breaking.

The young girl giggled, shook her head and furtively lowered her gaze, then went back to whipping her hands up and down the tourist’s shin, seemingly using all the energy she could muster as she did so. Understandably, too, considering the tourist’s size.

The tourist, compared to most of the slender Southeast Asians, was practically a Big Foot. He stood at 6’4, and was wide-bodied, with thick bones.

The tourist, despite his considerable mass, however, was not a young man. Far from it, in fact. And his countenance told of time’s rough hands. The lines crisscrossing the folds of his face cut deep as dried riverbeds. Gathering time had also taken the tourist’s color; his fuzzy coat of body hair, his neatly trimmed Hemingway beard, his wavy mop of hair ... all had silvered.

That coat of silvery-gray body hair, along with his skin’s pallor, and heavyset size, had the locals joking, nicknaming him, in Thai, “หมีขั้วโลก” (mee kohlok) - the “Polar Bear”.

Despite the locals’ barbs, which he didn’t pick up on, the tourist certainly didn’t lack self-confidence. Quite the contrary. He had a heavenly-high opinion of himself. Moreover, he looked down on many of the other farangs he’d see around Bangkok. He’d seen countless Thailand expats, around his age, that were, in his eyes, in far worse shape. Most of them far thicker in the waist, with big Buddha bellies far floppier than his.

Not to mention the clothes they’d wear ... While the tourist was no fashionista, he was practically a GQ cover model compared to some of the losers he’d see around Bangkok. The fat, pathetic old men in their torn, tattered beer tank-tops, dirty cargo shorts, flannel shirts, corduroy pants and even a few in clunky, black, Velcro retard shoes...

And while most of the losers had fat heads, heads bald as a baboon’s ass, some of those who did have hair, their hairstyles, for fuck’s sake, the tourist would think, cringing just looking at them ... Like the loser the tourist had been seeing on Sukhumvit Road, the raisin-faced skeleton, that zombie-looking creature whose scalp was eagle bald, yet this particular shitbird had a sloppy mane of silver locks flapping from the back of his skull, almost an “old man mullet.”

Or worse, the “old man bun” Eurotrash. Those pitiful fucks with their gray hairs pulled into man buns.

What a bunch of losers, he’d think, glaring at them in disgust. How poorly they’ve aged ... How poorly they’d endured the onslaught of time ... Unlike him...

Damn right, especially compared to those fuckballs, he was a silver fox. And that’s what he saw in his bathroom mirror, when he’d flex his biceps after a shower, admiring his reflection, thinking of how well he’d aged, how well he’d matured, just like a fine whiskey.

Whenever he’d shave, he’d stop to appreciate his strong jaw, his cleft chin, and he’d feel so handsome, so dashing. He was a proper gentleman. He was what every man should look like. Unlike those sad souls around lower Sukhumvit, who’d aged worse than milk. Some aging even worse than Axl Rose.

But not him, the tourist would think, running his fingers through his thick, moon-silver hair. And he’d grin, devilishly, happy to admire his reflection anytime he saw it, fancying himself as resembling a 1990s, early 2000s Sean Connery, or a 2010s George Clooney, albeit slightly more handsome...

“You are beautiful,” the tourist continued, flashing a flirty, pearly white smile at the masseuse, “why hasn’t any man married you yet?”

The young girl blushed again, keeping her eyes locked on the tourist’s legs and feet, her slim body moving rhythmically as she kneaded and palmed at his plump thighs.

Her strength certainly surprised him, a girl this tiny, with this degree of power and a grip this tight. She really had a vise-grip. Might be from toiling in those rice fields, the tourist pondered, knowing that a lot of these masseuses were migrant workers, came from the countryside...

“Just how old is she?” a wispy voice inquired and faded away, echoing in his thoughts.

The tourist guessed the girl’s age at about 25, though it could have been higher or lower. He’d always been bad at guessing Asians’ ages.

Looking down, he saw his long feet cradled in the young girl’s small, caramel-colored hands, and for the first time, he awed at just how white his body hair had become. Even his feet, the hair on his toes, had all gone white.

Another voice popped in his head, intruding like a loud, sudden TV commercial. This voice was an aggrieved one. It was accusatory. Full of guttural sounds and hisses. And it was castigating him, mocking his age, his weight, everything about him. But then familiar, comforting thoughts of football arose in his head, fogged in, and the aggrieved voice quieted, became a garbled hum, before fading to weakening bursts of plosive white noise...

It’d been years since the first gray hair had appeared on his head, atop his right temple. But he could remember it like yesterday. He’d found the gray hair one winter morning, after shaving. In the bathroom mirror, over the sink, he’d leaned forward, inspected his sideburns, spotted the lone gray and knew instantly, exactly what it was and what it meant. It was a message. A message from Death and Death’s son, Father Time. A message that the clock was ticking.

It was around this discovery that he first started asking himself existential questions. What did he want? Beyond the superficial, the materialistic, the sybaritic ... he was unsure...

๒

The tourist hadn’t known exactly what he wanted. But he had arrived at a point where he realized that whatever it was that he wanted, he wasn’t getting.

His life felt boring, meaningless. At his office job, every day was the same. Every day it was the same cold faces, the same packed subways, the same casefiles, the same monotonous meetings and memos. The same soporific whir of the central heating/cooling system. The same trivial conversations with coworkers about the same stupid TV shows.

Then he’d come home to watch those same stupid TV shows. Not so much because he liked them, but because he felt like he was supposed to. That if he didn’t, he’d have nothing to say at the watercooler. Although the laugh tracks, canned applause, and one-liners did ease his mind, if nothing else.

While watching TV, he’d eat TV dinners, delivery pizza, and potato chips. He’d drink soda. Once, he was drinking the same soda as he saw on a TV ad. In the commercial, there was a man his age and build, also alone in an apartment. Then the man is cracking open a can of the soda and instantly is transported, beamed, ala Star Trek, to a wild beach dance party filled with scantily clad women and pumping loud music.

But that hadn’t happened to him when he opened the soda. Or when he drank it. And on a quiet, intrinsic level, it bothered him that it didn’t happen. He’d bought the same soda, but no girls in bikinis appeared. He wasn’t beamed to an exotic island. It wasn’t fair, he softly raged. But he let the feeling pass and forgot about it once the sitcom came back on.

The tourist’s weekends weren’t much better. He’d go to the same bar with his coworkers and occasionally he’d go on the same dates with the same boring women.

He started wondering what more was out there. He wanted to discover the world, to travel, to see distant, exotic lands while he still had time, before he got too old. While on the crowded subway, his face ruddy from the blustery cold, his fingers numb, the tourist suddenly had an epiphany. He happened upon the cruelty of life, that he’d slave away in an office, give a multi-national corporation his prime years, then finally, when he got to retire, he’d be a toothless, incontinent old man, wearing adult diapers and shitting himself.

Standing in that packed subway car, full of frowning faces, the tourist knew, he knew then and there, that he had to do something, he had to find something more...

That gray hair, that morning, had put his mind in motion, had put the fear of time in him. That gray hair had instilled in him the idea that time was tugging him further out to sea. And he knew he needed to fill a void.

One wet, cold and ugly fall evening, when he was half-drunk, sprawled out on the couch, the action movie Kickboxer came on TV. It was set in Thailand, which, to him, seemed like the farthest place away from his dreary, landlocked landscape. With its golden temples, sun-splashed beaches and bustling cities, Thailand, to him, was probably the most exotic place on the planet. He had to go there. It wasn’t just drunk talk, either, it was an omen, a sign from the universe. He had to go there. He had to be there.

So it was decided. He’d visit Thailand during his next vacation.

And thus began his history of visiting Thailand. The 14-hour plane ride was a beast, but sleeping pills helped. He’d always be sure to book a window seat, and once airborne, he’d tilt his head and gaze down at the endless white patches of land and the bent spine of his boring city, watching with joy as they shrunk and then vanished beneath creamy, cottony blankets of clouds. Then he’d feel the euphoric rush of the pills surging through his bloodstream as he’d lean back in his seat and doze off, happily knowing he’d be waking up to palm trees and fun and sun in paradise.

๓

The tourist’s every trip to Thailand was almost the same. But unlike the monotony of his job, the similarity was comforting rather than defeating.

His every trip to Thailand was like this: First, he’d stay a few nights in Bangkok, strategically near Nana Plaza, Bangkok’s biggest red-light district. Then he’d fly south to a lush tropical island and stay at a seaside resort. There, he’d swim in the Andaman Sea, eat heaps of mangoes, and when the sun paled, he’d retire to his suite to sip cold beer and watch the stars from his balcony. Then he’d fly back to Bangkok, for a night or two, hit the go-go bars and massage parlors once or twice more, before finally flying home.

Every trip was practically identical. And that was the point. He didn’t want it any other way.

And why would he? From the first time he’d set foot in Thailand, he’d loved it, had taken an immediate shine to the country, its warm weather, January sunshine kissing his skin, its friendly faces and easy living...

And he especially loved the affordable beautiful women.

The women were one of the biggest reasons why he kept coming back. The “bar girls,” ladies at bars, who’d provide intimate companionship for a minimal fee, they became his fetish. They were the best-looking women he’d ever seen, too. Drop-dead gorgeous. With or without makeup. And they were almost all slender, with curves cut from stone and with jaw-droppingly sexy, exotic features, hyperborean cheekbones, upcurved eyes like temple eaves, and golden, honey-colored skin ... Skin softer than the finest silks...

Better yet, the Thai women were outgoing, fun. Most spoke near-perfect English, could converse freely, and loved to joke around and have a good time. Unlike the escorts he’d hired in his home country, the Thai ladies weren’t hurried, shifty-eyed, or nervous, and didn’t make it feel like they were doing anything wrong...

Not that he cared if they really liked him. Although they sure acted like they did. The Thai bar girls were damn near Oscar-caliber actresses, smiling, nodding along, and laughing at all his corny jokes. And in bed, they were like porn stars, AVN Award-worthy, true professional fuck-machines easily capable of satisfying any and every carnal urge.

Not to mention the diversity ... of pussy...

In Thailand, he could have a college-aged girl (18-23 y/o) one night, then a more mature girl (28-36 y/o) the next. A thinner girl one night, a thicker girl the next. Darker skin one night, lighter the next. Big tits, small tits, juicy butt, swimsuit model butt, tall, short, et cetera, et cetera ... Thailand, to him, was basically one big buffet of beautiful pussy, a pussy paradise...

The tourist simply loved the ability to choose, being able to walk into a bar and pick whichever woman he wanted, rather than walking into a bar, in his cold country, hoping and praying he could find a lady who liked him.