Mr Dribbles

I get to see my Thai friends as I suspect they really are. Seldom do I have to put up with any pretence. They are just natural, fun kids, who do not bother with the airs and graces. What you see is what you get.

So it was last night when young Paew turned up at Mum's shop. No sooner had he sat down than Paew - who smokes three packets of cigarettes a day, but yesterday noticed that up an extra packet to make 80 cigarettes in total - was seized by a violent and messy coughing fit.

The cigarettes appear to make his saliva thick and ropey. He is forever spitting on the ground, and wiping his mouth with tissues. By the end of the night a large mound of tissues and pool of saliva has gathered at our feet.

It is not an attractive sight, but Paew, I suspect, is unwell. He admits as much himself. Only someone bent on self-destruction would allow himself to smoke so much.

At various times last night, he looked as if he was having trouble breathing. His face was growing redder, and he was leaning forward against the table, as if trying to clear space in his lungs.

He was also having trouble controlling the saliva falling from his mouth. In the end, I took over the chin wiping duty, as it was becoming too much. He was routinely spilling saliva down his chin, under his nose, down his shirt, and onto his pants.

That spectacle was mild, however, compared to the initial attack. He had barely sat down, and not yet uttered a word, when he was gripped by racking coughing fit. Once he started, it did not want to stop. It was like he had lost control of his lungs.

Saliva fell from his mouth in long, thick, strands. His face grew crimson red. I mopped his shirt and pants, as if I was tending to a child.

'I am sorry,' he said, looking embarrassed. I once asked him what he does when he starts to cough after smoking too much. 'I just light another cigarette,' he said.

Paew travelled out to see me from Silom, where he stayed the previous night in a hotel. Earlier, he called me on the bus as I made my way home from work, and several times while I sat alone at the shop.

I did not expect to see him that night, as he said he was staying too far away, and had no money. But somehow he managed to get there.

Paew, however, was not in a happy mood. 'I love you, but you are too scared to try loving me,' he complained.

'It can't be love. We have known each other less than a week,' I replied.

I told him I have a boyfriend, but he was uninterested, which did not surprise me, as that is the usual reaction I get from Thais. That I already have someone else did not seem to bother him, as he was presumably a superior candidate.

'If we cannot be boyfriends, then we can be special friends, friends who know each other's heart,' I said.

Paew was once married, and has a child from that union. But he is so effeminate and dramatically gay in his appearance and conduct that I doubt the gay side of him is a recent discovery. This is not an understudy role, but the main act.

After an hour or so of this talk, neither of us was getting anywhere. He borrowed my telephone and called his Dad in Esan. 'I will get the bus home tomorrow,' he said.

'My father taught me to be tough, never to trust anyone,' he said defiantly, while opening his wallet for me to inspect. It contained several credit cards. 'I have plenty of money, and don't need anybody.'

Shortly after, he left the table, found a taxi, and departed for his hotel without saying a word, just as he did the night before.

I hope when he gets home, his parents notice that their son is unhappy and unwell, and can offer him the care and attention which he needs.

He evidently thinks I was not prepared to do myself, which is actually untrue - I just can't be his boyfriend.

It's not his fault that I am scared to try something different. But I am not about to repay the loyalty my boyfriend has shown me over many years, by ditching him in favour of a boy I have known barely a week - no matter how needy, unhappy or vulnerable he may be.