I could not have been in any steamier place or time for my sexual awakening. Bangkok, Thailand, in the eighties was sin city extraordinaire. Anything went there; everything was tolerated. It was a mai bin rai ("nevermind; whatever, it's OK") place, and everything was not only tolerated, but it also was on offer—and almost always for free or at a very good price. And it was an innocent time. The mellow follow-on years after the hippy era of "if it feels good, do it" and before anyone had ever heard the term AIDS.
The U.S. government was also partly to blame for my development of an interest in the gay life style. I was a young government pilot of the SR71 photo reconnaissance aircraft, and politics had shut us down for several months of my Bangkok tour and had allowed me to turn my interests elsewhere other than soaring higher above the earth than anyone else could at the time.
I had time on my hands, and, thus, when there was a casting call for the Bangkok Community Theatre's production of the new Ira Leven thriller Deathtrap, to be performed at the Bhirasri Institute off Sathorn Road, I auditioned and won the part of the young protagonist, Clifford Anderson. I had acted through high school and college, and exotic Bangkok had set my creative juices boiling. Opposite me, in the older man's role of Sidney Bruhl, was an expatriate queen in his late forties who I will call Ron (primarily because that was his name). Ron had taught English for years at the American University Association in Bangkok, banished from the United States by his rich family because he had the gall to be gay at a time when it wasn't fashionable, at least flamboyantly and in public. He had outlived his family, however, and inherited their money and was having the last laugh by living in style in a mansion near Sathorn Road with his choice of young men who were interested in his money (and in each other).
Ron had been attracted to me and he regularly gave me expert, soft-mouthed blow jobs in our shared dressing room throughout the run of the play to release the tension we both felt after an exhilarating performance. I also fucked him doggy style once at his request, but I'll have to admit that I found his blow jobs more satisfying. He asked me to move into the mansion with him and his friends then, but I didn't consider myself for sale—driving a stealth jet paid quite well—and not to mention that I had a wife and children I wasn't going to abandon.
At the time, Ben, a U.S. Army lieutenant assigned to the Joint U.S. Military Advisory Group was living with Ron, and Ben threw Ron a cast party at the mansion following the closing night of the play.
All of the woman and straight men involved in the play departed the party early, no doubt not all that comfortable with the special friends Ben had invited to Ron's party, but I stayed on. I had realized by this time that this was a special time and place for me, sexually, and I wanted to make the most of it. It wasn't long before my wish was granted.