Bottom spanker

I am starting to see my earnest friend Chin in a new light. I admire his determination to find a girl, even if I don't think it is right for him.

Who am I to judge? If he wants to find a girl, get married and have a family the way his Thai-Chinese parents expect, then that's his right, and his choice.

Never mind if I suspect he really likes men. That may be just habit. If a young guy spends more time in the company of his young male friends, and enjoys a deeper relationship with them than he does with women who play hard to get, then who can blame him if he gets confused?

I met Chin at Mum's shop again the other night. We spoke for four hours, and finally parted just as the sun was breaking on a new day.

He stopped his car opposite Mum's shop, and crossed the road to buy crabsticks at the 7-11. On his way back, he saw me sitting at the shop, and stopped for a drink.

This was just 24 hours after our previous unhappy encounter, where I left the shop without saying farewell.

That night, student friend Paew, the smoker from Esan, hit on Chin, without success.

I was talking to Paew at a table next to the street when Chin arrived. Chin sat at the bar to read a magazine. Naughty, flirty Paew decided he liked the look of him, and left my table to see if he could chat Chin up.

I obviously wasn't watching the action as closely as I should have been, because Paew also tried playing with Chin's feet, just to drive home the point that he was interested in a gay encounter - as if his sitting down and chatting up a perfect stranger wasn't making it plain enough.

'I don't like that kind of thing - it's too obvious,' Chin told me the next night, as he nibbled on his crab sticks.

That was a surprising response. From someone so set on being straight, I would rather expect to hear: 'I don't like that kind of thing, because I am a man, and not interested.' But then Thais are a tolerant lot. Next time I shall have to ask Chin if gays hit on him often.

Men are vain creatures: maybe he is flattered by the attention. Or maybe he was just giving Paew a chance to enter a normal adult conversation - but Paew spoiled it, by going straight for a flirtatious encounter with Chin's legs.

'I don't like it either. It's cheap, and crass,' I pronounced loftily.

Maybe the difference between me and Paew is that I am just more subtle. Later in the night, Chin ticked me off for getting too friendly myself.

'I don't like you touching me like that,' said Chin.

I can't remember what I did, but it wasn't much. I suspect I touched his arm a few times too many. I was talking him at the time, and must have become carried away.

'That's hurtful,' I said.

Chin crossed the road to urinate. While he was away, I thought about what he had said. Ouch! It stung, and I felt humiliated. I asked myself, not for the first time, why I was spending my sleeping hours talking to a young man about his girlfriend problems. What, really, was the point?

Actually, we talked about more than that. I talked to him about his poor diet - his previous meal was nine hours before - and his general welfare. I am getting to know him as a friend - and the more time I spend with him, the more I enjoy our talks.

I admire Chin's determination to build a future, to turn the world upside down, if he must, to achieve what he wants in life.

Occasionally I asked myself if I was building anything so ambitious. I hope so - for the moment we stop struggling, we die.

When he returned, I decided it was time to impress upon him just how much his remark hurt.
'Stand up - I want to spank you,' I said.

Obediently, he stood. Chin was wearing long shorts, loose around the waist, and a T-shirt.
I delivered two spanks to his firm bottom.

He laughed.

'Sorry.'

'You're forgiven,' I said.

Chin plays football with his friends, and must be used to such rough antics. In fact, I suspect he enjoys energetic physical play.

'Actually, close friends can touch me like you did, and I don't mind,' he said.

'Real' men can touch each other far more than gay men can touch straight men - but that's because they think they know each other. 'Oh, he's not like that,' they tell themselves. Until their friends surprise them, in some instances, and turn out to be the opposite.

Later, as we discussed his diet, Chin pulled up his T-shirt to show me his hairless chest.
'I am so thin,' he said.

He did this several times - but then we were just real men, right? Or at least men behaving like real men. Perfectly natural.

Towards the end of the night, Chin and I stood on the street corner next to Mum's shop, and surveyed the world around us, in the expansive way that men do. We stood opposite each other, talking.

We could have been standing like that anywhere in the world, with only the scenery around us changing, like one of those clever shots in the movies where the background spins around, but the characters do not move.

Yes, I told myself, this is the stuff of male friendship. Solid, honest, plain-spoken stuff.

Chin is now back in my good books. Before he left, I asked him for his phone number - the same one which, weeks before, I had deleted in a fit of pique, after he failed to keep in contact as attentively as I thought he should.

I haven't called him, and nor has he called me, because real men don't fuss. I suspect that next time we meet, we shall simply pick up where we left off, as that is what friends do.

As friends, we fill in the information gaps about each other's lives over time. If we never get to know everything, that doesn't matter, because we already know enough to understand that it works.

'You can spank me, too - any time you like,' I volunteered.

He laughed.