I have two wives in Thailand. Two kids too. One with each woman. This situation was manageable over the last years, since I was in New York and they were in Thailand. My predicament became more convoluted whenever I flew to Bangkok. I would have to be two places at once and these two places in Thailand were 300 kilometers apart. The first week was easy. I told wife #1 that I was in New York. For week #2 I left wife #2 to see wife #1. Not the most ideal solution, but one wife #2 accepted for the short run. I thought to myself this commuting between wives might work like it had when I was living in Thailand.

Wishful thinking, for wife #2 objected to my second trip up north with the vehemence of a burning viper.

“Why I waste time wait for you? You go see another woman.”

“I don’t sleep with her.” Wife #1 and I haven’t experienced conjugal relationship for over five years. No one believes me. Not my friends and certainly not my mia noi.

“You not sleep with her. Why you stay with her?” Nothing like anger to make a beautiful woman get old.

“Because I don’t want to hurt her.”

“You hurt me.” This assault continued throughout two days without stop and I looked back on my 2008 stay in Palm Beach with fondness, but not because I was staying in a mansion or driving a Benz. The house was empty of food, the car was a gas guzzler, and my finances were shot. Instead this was a period of peace and calm. No one yelling in my ear.

“I meet you I young. Now you make me old.” Wife #2 was acting shrewish with good reason. She had been the Belle of Soi 6. Men threw money at the feet of her bed. I asked her to be patient, as I was packing my bag. “Everything will work out.”

“Everything work out? How? My young years go fast. Where they go?”

“I wish I could tell you.” In truth I forgot where my youth went, I’m more concerned where my middle-agedom has disappeared in these times. Still I refuse to think of myself as old. That is something I’ll never call myself. I leave that term up to wife #2. She knows how it cuts the skin. At 25 she is right. Young is going fast, but that isn’t a problem for me. I still think of her as young and always will. What else can a man my age do?

Find someone younger?

Too tired for that task.

I walked out the door and said I’ll be back.

“Maybe I not here.”

“Maybe not, but I doubt it.” It was low season and low season in 2009.

No one was going anywhere this year, except me to visit wife #1 and my daughter.

Ban Nok here I come.