Marriage prospect

I have a new fan - a woman aged in her 40s, from Esan. She works at a food cart selling Esan food, close to my work.

I pass her place most days when I get off the bus. A few weeks ago, she started calling out: 'Where you from?'

I smiled, but kept walking. I suspected she was just trying out her English, or more likely, showing off to her friends.

However, the other day I made the mistake of stopping, as I contemplated whether to get something to eat. She called out, and beckoned me over.

At the foodcart, which has its own chairs and tables, she asked me to sit, so we could talk.

I answered all the usual questions, which foreigners can get here almost on a daily basis:

Where are you from?

How often do you go back to see Mum and Dad?

What do you do?

Where do you live?

How long have you been here?

Then she served me a couple of tricky ones:

Do you have a lover?

How much do you earn?

Thais do not think twice about asking how much you earn, though it is the last thing we would ask in the West.

I told her, but then quickly added that I also send money back to Mum and Dad overseas. That's a lie, but I do not want her thinking she can ask me for money whenever she likes.

'I live with a couple of Thai friends. We are all single, and help each other with everyday things,' I said.

That's another lie, but I didn't want to tell her I love a man. She had already set her hopes way too high.

Finally, my friend, whose name is Tor, asked for my phone number.

'I don't have a cellphone, as it was stolen,' she said.

At 2am the next day, she called me on a friend's phone, then again that evening as I was heading for work. I did not get the last call, which raised her suspicions.

'Why did you not answer?' she said, moments after we bumped into each other at the bus stop.

She did not wait for an answer, but grabbed my arm, and tugged me to a remote part of a fresh market - one of the city's biggest - about 50 metres away.

There, she introduced me to members of her family, a man in his 50s, and his son. They were drinking beers at a little table next to a 7-11 shop.

The boy was cute, but I couldn't say anything, or even look too hard.

Neither looked surprised, to see this tiny woman turn up with a panting farang stumbling in her wake. Maybe they had seen it all before.

'I want to take your photograph,' she said.

Tor told me to stand up. She pointed my body towards the 7-11, then posed next to me as the boy took our picture on a cellphone camera.

'I am drunk,' said Tor, as she wrapped her hand around my waist. 'I want to send these pictures back to Mum, in Esan.'

Picture taken, she told the boy to follow us back to the shop. There, she asked me to pose for more pictures - with a woman who runs the foodcart with her, and then with a nephew, aged about one. When he saw my strange farang face, the little boy started to scream.

Tor also introduced me to the boy's mother, a beautiful young creature in her teens. She was sitting with young friends, who looked at me curiously.

Tor was getting more daring, as the alcohol started to kick in. She was now kissing me Thai style - sniffing my cheek - and asked me to kiss her in return. I stood there, with a frozen face. I could not summon up a kiss, even for the camera, as we barely knew each other.

Before I left, Tor extracted from me a promise to return the next day, to inspect the pictures - then again, on my day off, to say hello.

'Can I have B100, to get the pictures developed?' she asked, with her hand out. I had to decline, as I had run out of money.

This cannot go on much longer, especially if she gets drunk often. I shall have to devise an alternative route to work - a quick dash across the road when I get off the bus, to avoid my new friend.

I suspect my plan won't work, as half her extended family seems to work in the area. But unless I can find a way out, I am trapped. We shall be destined to meet like this almost every day.