The complex was four stories of neon-lit go-go bars and fetish clubs, and I was instantly uncomfortable. My girlfriend was the only woman in sight who wasn't for rent, and the club's hostesses, uniformly dressed as schoolgirls or cowgirls or Robert Palmer back-ups, were working doubly hard to solicit us. "Hey mister!" they screamed through the crowd. "Bring girlfriend in here! We'll show her good-time!" There was something emasculating about barely-legal go-go dancers promising to show my girlfriend a good time, but worse were the looks we got from the johns. Pasty white men — dentists, community college professors and Todd Solondz characters — looked all the more menacing with slight, young Thai women at their side. They glared at me like a traitor for bringing my girlfriend to gawk. A German sexpat said something threatening (or just plain German) as he passed by with his "date," and spit closer to my shoe than I felt comfortable with. "These men are disgusting. They should be in jail." Tired and fed-up with me, Karen made no effort to keep her voice down. These men were disgusting. I offered to take us back to the hotel, but Karen wasn't having it. She didn't want me telling our friends that she'd held me back in our travels. She said she was fully aware that part of me was wondering if I would have had a better experience traveling alone. "Why would you say that?"
"Because that's what men with commitment issues do. They always compare what they're doing as a couple with what they could be doing as a bachelor." My surprised silence told her she'd nailed me. My head often projected a split-screen image: on one side the two of us following our itinerary, on the other my single self hitching rides, befriending strangers, country-hopping without a care in the world. I wanted to be a freewheeling traveler like Leo in the The Beach, but instead felt trapped and suffocated, like Leo in Revolutionary Road. Karen pointed out that if we'd wanted to be more adventurous we should done the homestay at the secluded Muslim fishing village she'd suggested, instead of the cheesy elephant trek I voted for. Suddenly we were Monday-morning-quarterbacking the whole vacation. It was the first fight of the trip, and a gaggle of hostesses in black latex and chauffeur's caps hooted and cheered as we bickered. Hastily picking a low-lit club that defied the alcohol ban, we grabbed a couple shots, a couple beers and seats in the front row. Thailand is appropriately nicknamed "The Land of Smiles," but you wouldn't have known it from this place. The sullen women had numbers clipped to their g-strings so customers could pick them out like lobsters. They played musical laps down the rows of seats, dry-humping for a few seconds here, a few seconds there as a way to drum up interest and tips. A few seats down from me, a guy was not-so-subtly jerking himself off inside his pants. A loud pop made me jump. I looked up to see a stripper shoot a dart out of her vagina to pop one of a handful of balloons held up in the audience. Queasy, I cringed and looked down at my drink before she did it again. Anti-climactic would be overselling the moment. "Satisfied?" Karen asked with a smirk. "Or does it have to be a live animal?" I felt like a moron. We should have had our faces splattered with blood at an underground Thai boxing match or gone into the jungle with rebel soldiers or just eaten a couple of fried cockroaches and called it a night. Anything but this. Besides being incredibly depressing, the whole scene was about as erotic as garlic breath. (And would've been easily viewable on YouTube from the comfort of my living room.) I'd dragged my girlfriend here to make our vacation feel less bourgeois and instead felt like Bangkok's ugliest American. A series of new inanimate objects were now being utilized on stage — ping-pong balls, whistles — loaded and fired into the crowd like freebies shot out of an air gun at a football game. I was ready to flee, but dinner was churning in my stomach and I had to go to the bathroom, urgently. I wished we were back at the hotel. It's hard being a spontaneous adventurer when you like a clean, private bathroom. "You're leaving me here?" Karen asked, motioning around. But I couldn't exactly bring her with me into the john — I'd already seen a few customers try that move with the dancers, only to have the bouncer jerk them back by their collars. And I certainly couldn't hold it for the long, bumpy tuk-tuk ride back to the hotel. I promised I'd be quick.
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