How much longer?

I am at home at night with the boyfriend, which is a rare event. He is making curry, then going out to work.

'Why aren't you going out for a drink, as you normally do?' he asked.

I want a rest first, I said. I am also hoping for a cuddle - which I probably won't get.

Maiyuu doesn't know what to do with himself when I show an interest in him. It is almost as if he would rather go back to the days when I barely noticed him.

Earlier tonight when I left home I hugged him. As I held him by the waist, my hand brushed against his bottom, and he backed away.

I have no sense of timing or place, he says, which means I ask for affection when he is too busy. As I show more interest in him, he becomes more wary.

He did agree to a parting kiss, though.

Last night, I went to my regular drinking spot in Thon Buri. At 3am, the owner and I visited a fruit and vegetable market below Siriraj Hospital. It is close to a railway line and appears like a well-lit beacon in a black desert.

We go there to buy ingredients for food which which Mum, the owner, makes for late-night customers at her shop.

Mum paid for our taxi there. I would pay for the return fare, we agreed - but being Thai, and not wanting to impose, she found a three-wheeled motorcycle, or tuk tuk, to take us back instead (they are cheaper than taxis).

The place was teeming, despite the unsociable hour. Men and women, boys and girls of various ages, most of whom are probably selling produce straight off their farms.

We passed row after row of shops where stallholders were busily selling meat, fish, vegetables, spices, herbs. Some family members sold produce, while others carted it around, cut it up, and sorted it, before putting it on display.

Men carting huge boxes of fresh goods or pushing trolleys wove around us in the aisles. We joined a long tail of customers, moving slowly from one stall to the other. With so many people selling the same thing, how do you choose where to go?

One man asked Mum if I was her boyfriend. 'No - a girlfriend,' she joked (เพื่เอนสาว).

Mum wants us to be together one day. 'We don't have to have sex, we can just look after each other,' she says.

Lately she has been telling me stories about her family and childhood growing up in Esan. She was supposed to go back there this week, for her first visit home in four years, but had to call it off, as the shop is so quiet at the moment that she doesn't have enough money.

'When I go back, my family expects me to pay, because I am from Bangkok, and they don't have much money.'

I doubt the traders in the market have much money, either. Who knows where they sleep, or even whether they get much rest. The place is full of 1000 stories, which I will probably never know.

I can't even get inside the head of my own boyfriend. Now there's a mystery.