Chapter Text
Paris, Spring 1968
The first thing Thirathorn, or Trin Suwannapas, noticed about Café de Flore in the distance was the smoke. Not the usual cloying cloud of Gauloises that hung over every café terrace in Paris, but something different, a merging of spicy and earthy smoke curling out from a side alley just off Rue des Écoles, where the narrow street overflowed with students. The air pulsed with chants in French, English, and something undefined but more alive than the words that hung in the air. Tambourines played, hands clapped, and a guitar thrummed beneath it all, held together by golden threads of laughter.
"Isn’t there another way around?" Trin asked his friend and roommate, Sarawut (Wut) Thepsatri, all the while adjusting the sleeves of his blazer like an armored plate. He always wore a blazer, even in the heat of a Parisian summer.
"No, and even if there was, man, this is where it’s at! The march is over, and parties abound," answered Wut, grinning like he’d stepped into a street carnival. The boy whose family had descended from Chinese textile merchants had thick, dark hair that stood straight up if he cut it too short, and happy brown eyes that crinkled each time he laughed, which was all the time.
They were supposed to meet a few friends from the Institut d'Études Politiques de Paris, or Sciences Po, as it was affectionately nick-named. It was meant to be a salon-like gathering full of discussions and debate, not a political protest. But somewhere between the Métro stop and the agreed-upon cafe, Trin and Wut had been swept up into a tide of slogans and stomped pamphlets and they were just extricating themselves from the dwindling demonstrations.
"Do you see them?" Trin asked, his voice raised over the sound of a beating drum.
"Over there." Wut pointed toward a small knot of about fifteen Thai students waiting at the designated corner. The Thai expat community in Paris was small—mostly students, some children of diplomats, all very privileged, most of them unbearable. Trin could count on one hand the number of people he would actively choose to spend his free time with. As a study-abroad graduate student of economics in the last year of his degree, he’d had the opportunity to learn who each one of them were
All except one.
Trin saw the unfamiliar man before he heard the voice that would later echo in his memory long after that day in Paris had come to a close. From a distance, he appeared endlessly tall, with messy, long brown hair that fought to escape from beneath a newsboy cap, and worn jeans wrapped around legs that seemed to go on forever. He carried a guitar in a case, slung on his back like a bayonet. His broad shoulders stretched a worn leather jacket to its limits, the open shirt collar undone just enough to suggest that rebellion wasn’t just a philosophy but a lifestyle choice.
And when his laughter reached Trin - because of course, a man who looked like that couldn’t help but laugh – Trin felt something inside him twist and fold in on itself.
"Who is that?" Trin asked Wut before he could stop himself.
Wut raised both eyebrows, as if Trin should know. As if Trin could ever forget anyone who looked like him. "Him? That’s Thanaset Chatbodi. His friends call him Thanwa. He’s relatively new. He arrived from the UK a couple of weeks ago. Some kind of music scholarship or something."
Music. Of course.
“Why is he on this side of town? Shouldn’t he be over at the 19th arrondissement with all the other music kids?”
“He’s here for the same reason everyone else is.”
“The same reason you are,’ Trin corrected. “I’m just an observer.” He narrowed his eyes, watching as Thanwa leaned into a conversation with one of the French students, gesturing with his hands, then laughing again as someone thrust a leaflet at him. He took it, neatly folded it and pushed it into his pocket, then waved at someone across the crowd. Every move he made had an unconscious fluidity that Trin envied.
“Ah, my upstanding friend,” Sarawut clapped a hand on his shoulder. "You’re staring."
"I am not."
"You are, too. Which means it’s time to introduce you."
Trin pulled a face. Great. Another expat brat he’d have to pretend to like.
He tried to stop Sarawut, but he was already weaving through the crowds to reach Thanwa. Trin followed, his leather shoes thudding dully on the cobblestone street. It was against his better judgment to follow Sarawut, the same way it was against his better judgement to obsess about his increasingly more forbidden impulses. Especially in this libertine city, where men flirted with each other as shamelessly as they did with women. Late at night, when sleep wouldn’t come, his thoughts led him down the dangerous, unlit alleys of possibilities he thought he'd long buried.
He was different from so many of his friends, whose need for women drove them to distraction. Trin was less inclined but tried to imitate them, aping flirtation and desire, and finding himself coming up empty each time.
What he wanted, what drove him to mindless need, was too forbidden to speak out loud.
"Thanwa," Sarawut called out, waving at him to catch his attention. This Thanwa had dark eyes which blazed in a face that looked like it had been carved out of pale marble and a smile as sweet as his eyes were fierce. "Meet Trin. Graduate student, future economist, and ministry golden boy in the making."
Trin wanted to shrivel up into the size of a pea from such an over-the-top introduction, but he offered Thanwa a wai instead, in the style of their people.
Thanwa's eyes scanned him so thoroughly, it felt like he’d run those enormous, guitar-calloused fingers over his body, though it couldn’t have lasted more than a few seconds. His scrutiny complete, Thanwa held his gaze and smiled. It was a slow thing, warm and amused, like he’d caught Trin doing something embarrassing and planned to keep it to himself until the right moment came to spring it on him. He hesitated for a moment, perhaps stuck between offering a wai, a two-cheeked kiss, or a handshake.
Thanwa held his hand out in greeting. "So, you’re famous, Trin."
Trin took his hand, gave it a brief squeeze without lingering too long. "I’m not famous."
"Only infamous, then?"
"Mostly unnoticed."
Thanwa smiled, a set of whisker dimples materializing at the tops of his cheeks. "That can’t be true,” He paused. “Not with eyes like yours.”
Trin had to take a deep breath to steady himself.
“We’re heading to Café de Flore,” Sarawut interjected, reminding Trin that an entire world, including his roommate, existed beyond the confines of Thanwa’s attention. “A meeting for coffee and conversation in the guise of preparing for oral examinations.”
“Are you attending one of the faculties as well?” Trin asked Thanwa, trying to chase away the effects of the compliment that the other man had paid him. It made him feel exposed and there was so much he was not ready to share with the world.
Thanwa chuckled. “I study music at the Conservatory. I just returned from a semester in London and took my last exam yesterday.” His near black eyes twinkled with a well-practiced humor. They moved towards the cafe behind the group with Sarawut at the head of the crowd. “My summer has begun. What about yours?”
“My last exam is this week.”
Thanwa nodded. “And after?
“After?” Trin answered, remembering his argument with his parents about taking a summer to rest before starting work and how decisively he’d been overruled. He buried his hands in his jacket pocket. “I will return home to start work at the ministry within the month.”
“Civil servant. Maybe you will become the darling of the ministry after all.” They stepped onto the sidewalk, out of the way of banner-carrying students making their way back from the center. “I hope you will consider staying for a bit. The weeks after the end of the semester are always the most…debauched.”
The concept of debauchery in the guise of Thanwa weakened Trin, drove him to images and thoughts he didn’t dare indulge in the light of day. He was worse than absinthe on an empty stomach. He was going to excuse himself and find Sarawut, but Sarawut appeared like a ghost at their side. “Come on. I know you like a good debate.” He elbowed Trin. “You should have seen him last week, arguing philosophy with Sakda. You know how insufferable he can be.”
Thanwa dipped his head, hiding behind the hair that fell forward, and Trin thought that maybe he, too, had trouble accepting compliments. “I’m here, aren’t I?”
They ended up inside the café packed with poli sci and philosophy students. The room was smokey and cramped, where chair legs scraped against the wood like out of tune violins. Someone had painted Liberté across the wall in red lipstick. True to Sarawut’s word, Thanwa was quickly enmeshed in an argument about free speech and military rule in Thailand, a position that might have gotten him arrested back home if the wrong person overheard him.
What would have instilled a sense of the transgressive in Trin back home translated into excitement in this small cafe in Paris, especially when Thanwa articulated his ideas with methodical finesse. Finally, after the sun had gone down and the discussions meandered to other topics, during one of which Trin contributed some useful facts in favor of economic expansionism that was not entirely popular with the monarchical sympathizers in the group, he found himself alone with Thanwa at a small table, nursing an aperitif while a shared plate of fries sat at the center of the table that neither touched.
"So," Thanwa said, leaning back, stretching his long limbs. "What’s it like being such a conventional, homegrown boy?"
“Conventional?” Trin scowled. "How do you know I haven’t been part of every single countercultural movement since I landed in Paris?"
"Have you?"
Trin opened his mouth. Closed it. Sighed. "Honestly? I’ve been moved to attend a few protests, but have discovered I’m more comfortable with listening and sharing what I learn."
"You’d be doing more than most."
The silence that followed wasn’t awkward. Trin found himself studying Thanwa in glances—how his fingers tapped the side of his glass in rhythm, how the hair near his temples curled under his cap with the humidity. Everything about him was careless and captivating. Trin wanted to be immune to it, immune to the promise of carefree and liberation that he projected, but he couldn’t. He was too comfortable with the boundaries his restraint created; boundaries necessary for keeping down those secrets he did not dare allow to spill out into the light of day.
Thanwa reached forward to slide the plate of fries closer. His fingers brushed Trin’s knuckles—just a breath of contact, like static snapping in dry air. Trin didn’t move. Didn’t speak. But something in him shifted, a subtle tremor that hit at the bedrocks of his self-control.
Trin needed to come up with an excuse to leave while he was still intact, but instead asked, "Why did you come to Paris?”
Thanwa toyed with one of the fries. "Besides music?” He took a bite, chewing thoughtfully. “I came to breathe."
Trin tilted his head. “How so?”
"Thailand’s air is thick," Thanwa said. "With rules. With expectations. Here, people scream in the streets and drink subversion with their wine. I like that."
It was the sort of thing that wouldn’t fly at home—street alcohol, bribes, quiet rebellion in a bottle. Back in Bangkok, he couldn’t imagine such casual lawlessness. Trin sniffed indignantly. "It’s chaos."
Thanwa’s eyes darkened, the humor evaporating. "It’s possibility."
"You sound like a romantic."
"You sound like someone who used to be one." Thanwa reached for another fry, held it up like a cigarette, and took a dramatic, slow bite. "You can call it chaos if you want. You seem like the type who would avoid it at all costs. But tell me something, Trin—when’s the last time you did something just because it felt good?"
Trin blinked. "Everyday. My life feels good to me.”
Thanwa shook his head. “No, I mean, do something that really feels good.” He dipped the fry in a light orange sauce that sat in a small, ceramic bowl. “Give in to something that you’ve always wanted to do, but never gave yourself permission to.
“That's a juvenile way to live,” Trin fired back, shifting uncomfortably in his chair.
"Maybe," Thanwa said, chewing. "Or maybe it's the only way to remember you're alive."
It struck deeper than it should have. Trin said nothing, staring into his drink like it might finally tell him which was the right way for him to feel, because he’d never once felt a strong emotion that he did not interrogate, put under scrutiny and conclude it was best left shoved in the basement of his heart.
"Did I offend you?" Thanwa asked
"No."
He gave a short laugh. "Then why are you blushing?"
"I’m not." Where the hell was Sarawut?
Thanwa grinned. "You are."
A burst of laughter erupted from a nearby table, loud and unfiltered. Thanwa flinched. He glanced over, then back at Trin.
"You don’t have to answer," Thanwa said, voice softer now. "But you should know—it’s okay to want something different. Even if you were never told how to have it."
Trin didn’t reply. It felt like too much intimacy for a person he’d just met. And yet it all made a kind of sense that he didn’t want to give too much credence to. Because if what Thanwa was saying was, in fact, correct, the entire foundation upon which he had built his life would have proven to be a deliberate, conscious lie. And the Trin of 1968 wasn’t ready to acknowledge the possibility.
**
The night dissolved afterwards, a small group of them deciding to take the Metro to a party near Montmartre. Sarawut tried corralling him, but Trin begged off.
“I have an exam. I can’t afford to get hungover before I’m done.” Trin said outside the cafe, just beyond the awning.
“Responsible Trin. You are right, of course.” Sarawut had no choice but to agree, as he himself had an exam coming a day sooner than Trin’s. “I won’t be back too late.”
Trin chuckled. He knew his friend would see the dawn rise over the Arc de Triomphe before he made it back to their flat.
“Are you far?” Thanwa asked when Sarawut regrouped with the students they’d come with.
“Not very,” Trin answered. “I’m in student housing a short walk away.
Thanwa nodded, looking up into the night sky. “It’s a nice night for a walk.”
Trin felt his stomach knot up. He had a daily schedule that he’d refined over years of study, which allowed him to maximize the most productive time of his day, attend classes punctually, and participate in the sports that kept his body fit and his mind sharp. A glance at his watch told him he’d stepped outside the allotted time for being out this late but he could not dredge up the willpower to turn down Thanwa and return to his safe, orderly home.
“Do you have a preference?” Trin asked, taking a mental inventory of the attractions located close by.
Thanwa took a deep breath, taking in the night air. “Let’s see where the night takes us.”
This did not surprise Trin, given what he’d learned about the man all night. Thanwa was barely a centimeter taller than Trin, but he took up space as if the outlines of his soul stretched and grew to surround Trin within its boundaries.
They walked quietly along the Rue de Ecoles, the street emptied of marching students but was surging with residents taking their evening stroll. Thanwa took out a cigarette and lit it, offered it to Trin.
“I don’t—”
“Never?” Thanwa said.
“Not never, just not often.” Trin said, suddenly feeling provincial and unsophisticated.
Thanwa offered it again to him. Trin gave him a sidelong glance before accepting it, sliding it through Thanwa’s fingers and taking a long drag. Thanwa watched him attentively, and Trin imagined the night slowing down, his lips curling around the end, the lazy flood of smoke in his mouth, uncurling in his lungs as he inhaled and eased it out again with an exhale. No one had ever looked at Trin that way, as if cataloguing every movement of his body, every consequence that the world had on him.
To Trin’s relief, Thanwa pulled a cigarette of his own, lit it and took a long drag. He noticed the calluses on his fingers. “How long have you been playing?”
Thanwa raised an eyebrow. “Not long, actually. My mother was determined that I should learn classical instruments as well as the piano and violin, but I fell in love with guitars when I first saw Lam Morrison perform in Bangkok. That’s when I knew I had to learn. I am still studying classical instruments, but the guitar is the one I keep returning to over and over.”
“How do your parents feel about that?” Trin asked, imagining how his father might react if Trin came home with a desire to play American–inspired music.
Thanwa took a long exhale of his cigarette. “My parents.” He shook his head as if the very thought of them was a joke he had no choice but to laugh at. “I haven’t been beholden to their opinion since I decided to attend the Conservatory and not pursue a “respectable” career of their choosing.”
“You mean, you were—”
“Nothing as extreme as that.” Shock turned to relief for Trin. Disowning a child was an unbearable stain that a person would find too difficult to overcome. “They are waiting patiently for me to come to my senses. Thankfully, my grandfather anticipated my quirks and ensured I had the funds to sustain myself.”
“How do you bear it?” Being estranged from his family was Trin’s greatest fear.
Thanwa shrugged. “Some things matter more than respectability.”
Trin felt those words land like the beating of a drum, steady and fierce. His entire life had been a sprint towards conformity, and wrestling down the parts of himself that wouldn’t fit what the world expected. He couldn’t imagine what it would be like to live differently.
They walked in the direction of the Seine River, the breeze off the water lifting the heat of the day and carrying it away. During the day, the Quai Saint-Bernard was filled with small markets, artists at work, and pedestrians strolling through. But at night, it was alight with dim electric lights as young people made their way up and down the promenade, buying wine from unlicensed sellers who were allowed to work with the silent complicity, and generous bribery, of local police.
Thanwa approached one of these tents, several young Parisians greeting him as he exchanged Francs for a bottle of red wine. He chatted amiably with them in French as they uncorked the bottle, which he tucked into his pocket. The baroque language was rendered luxurious with his Thai accent ornamenting every word. He waved goodbye to them and approached Trin, who watched the exchange with a kind of wonder.
“How do you know them?” he asked when Thanwa handed him the bottle. Not only did he never drink this close to an exam, but he was also fastidious about sharing food or drink in general. But the night sparkled with the surrealness of Thanwa’s company, turning Trin’s mood ebullient. This was a dream, a parenthesis from his life, and he decided to do what he never did, and indulge himself. He took a sip of wine as they walked further along the river.
Thanwa winked, whisker dimples appearing on his cheeks when Trin handed the bottle back to him. He took a longer draught of wine, hissing softly when he swallowed. “I came down the other night to play a few sets. They were kind enough to let me linger near their tent, especially since it helped draw buyers to their table.”
“Did you put a cup out for donations?” Trin teased.
“My guitar case,” Thanwa answered, tapping the strap that held the guitar against his body. He gave Trin a dazzling smile, and Trin felt himself getting a little lightheaded. Whether it was from the wine they kept passing back and forth, or the bedazzlement of his joy, he did not dare to dwell on it.
“I’d like to hear you play sometime,” Trin said.
Thanwa’s lovely face creased with mischief as he came to a full stop. Getting out of the way of other passersby, He twisted his case around before lifting the strap over his head. Carefully, he set it down in the grass and took out the instrument. It was a beautiful blonde wood with dark accents that shined as if it were new. After attaching the straps to the guitar and slinging it over his shoulder, hugging it to his chest. “What’s your pleasure, good sir?”
Trin blushed furiously, the wine and the company lifting his spirit all the way into the sky until he risked floating away. He had never felt so inebriated, but he could only blame the wine for part of it.
“Play something you love,” he said, uncharacteristically wild and bold in a way his life never allowed him to be.
Thanwa grinned, strumming a few tuning notes, the familiar opening riff of the Monkeys “I’m a Believer.” His voice had a sweet edge to it, each English word sliding into the other in a magnetic cadence that Trin wanted to drown in. Thanwa sang with such exuberance, Trin soon found himself clapping in time with the music as a crowd gathered around him. Soon there was a carnival feeling as everyone sang and danced along to Thanwa’s guitar and voice.
And no matter how many people surrounded them, Thanwa’s eyes always found Trin’s, bright with wine and excitement. He moved through the group that had collected around him, drawn to where Trin stood, the chords of “Brown-Eyed Girl” falling from his guitar strings. Someone passed him a joint, from which he took a hit, while other performers joined Thanwa, and an impromptu jam session resulted, a fusion of French, English and Thai rock erupting in a cacophony of music that, despite the disparity of each style, came together in a wild amalgamation of sound. Trin was talking to people he might never meet again, drinking and smoking until Thanwa’s music withdrew from the medley and he came to find him, leaning happily against a tree.
“Are you okay?” Thanwa said, holding half a bottle of wine that was not the original one they’d bought.
“I feel,” Trin inhaled, then laughed, “I feel free.”
Thanwa laughed along with him, adjusting his cap, giving Trin a glimpse of the thick hair he hid underneath. He pulled a bottle of water out of his pocket. “Drink. It’ll make you feel better in the morning.”
“I’m not a complete novice,” Trin retorted, downing most of the bottle despite his protests. He noticed that Thanwa didn’t offer him more wine and he didn’t ask for it, either.
“Okay, you bohemian. I’ll take your word for it.”
Trin giggled, leaning his head back against the tree. He could see the sky through its branches, hear the soft susurration of running river water beneath the sounds of music and talking. He looked up past the embankment, near the stairs that led to street level and saw two men in the shadows, locked in a passionate embrace. He stared, his heart shattering at the sight. He was compelled by the perfection of their bodies locked together, arms like vines holding the other tight. Trin’s heart pounded and for one terrifying, glorious moment, those men were gone and, in their place, stood Trin holding Thanwa, head lifted slightly as they kissed. Under his hand, he could feel the course strap of the guitar, against his hip, the supple leather of his belt. Their thighs would run the length of the other, and Trin thought he might feel, for once in his life, like a fully complete person and not one who had to expend precious energy squashing down the things he felt that would never make sense to the majority of the people around him.
Trin sighed before turning his head to see that Thanwa was also staring at the two men, his face a portrait, not of derision or disdain, as he might have expected from the vast majority of his peers, but of yearning and desire. For the first time since he saw Thanwa on the street earlier that day, it occurred to Trin that Thanwa might be like him, trapped with desires that society made a point of telling him were unacceptable. He suspected that Sarawut might also be like him, except that Trin had never dreamed of anything more than friendship with his roommate.
But Thanwa?
Thanwa had ceased staring at the men, who had detached and were moving toward the street, and was now watching Trin fixedly. He stepped closer, and Trin’s breath evaporated in his chest. It rose and fell with the panic of need that he had never felt so strongly with anyone else. He wasn’t certain that he could do the right thing and walk away.
The crowd had died down. Near the river, someone played a harmonica. A girl wept softly against a friend’s shoulder.
"Do you believe in revolution?" Trin asked, surprising himself.
Thanwa looked at him. Really looked, as he had the first time, appraising him as if he were seeing every shift of muscle and bone even as he stood still.
"I believe in change.” He said slowly. “I believe in people waking up to their true condition, and seeing the role that the powerful play in their oppression.” Thanwa stepped closer, his eyes sliding to where the two men had once stood, before holding Trin’s gaze again. “I believe in loving who you want, without shame."
The last words were a bell rung too close and echoed through to the core of who he was.
"What about you, Trin?" Thanwa asked quietly. “What do you believe in?”
The breath ribboned out of Trin’s chest. He felt hunted, a rabbit close to being caught and devoured. "I believe in… stability. In making change within a system using reason and reforms. I don’t believe in burning it all down."
Thanwa let out a short huff of air that was more disbelief than laughter. "That’s very economist of you."
"And this is all very musician of you," Trin retorted.
Now Thanwa laughed and it reached his eyes which sparkled like starlight in the night. "Touché."
The silence between them stretched, sweet and sharp, pummeling depths that went deeper than the currents of the Seine. Thanwa shifted them away from view of the river, his body crowding Trin’s until he’d created a private, intimate space among the trees.
When Thanwa leaned in just a little, Trin didn’t move. When Thanwa’s fingers brushed against his, Trin didn’t pull away. And when their eyes met again, something unspoken—no, unspeakable —passed between them. They were mere centimeters away, the distance finite and infinitely far from the things Trin wanted.
"Paris is full of firsts," Thanwa said softly.
Trin shivered. "Some are mistakes.”
"And some are beginnings.”
The kiss, when it came, began sweet and hesitant, like a question that had taken too long to be asked. Trin hadn’t expected any man’s lips to be as soft as this, like a dream unfurling in the darkest part of night, when sleep’s hold is nearly unbreakable.
Thanwa pulled back, but only a few centimeters, those vivid eyes that seemed to see everything now taking in the contours of Trin’s face.
“You are beautiful. Am I allowed to tell you that?”
There were so many things he wasn’t allowed, Trin thought he would sink under the weight of all the nos he’d told himself. This, for once, was something he could say yes to.
“You…you are beautiful, too,” he said in answer.
Thanwa gave him a smile full of sweetness and relief. He pressed his lips to Trin’s again, moving gently against the seam, tasting and searching, testing the boundaries of his lips until his mouth fell open. Trin’s world tilted and he whimpered against the kiss.
Thanwa groaned at the first wet taste of his mouth, the slick invasion that tangled and flailed in their eagerness to be close to each other. Everything ached and Trin wanted Thanwa so desperately, he almost forgot that he had spent a life denying himself this very pleasure, denying the very existence of it. But like a buried thing that refused to die, it burst out of him and refused to be put back down.
He reached out and pulled Thanwa close, cording his arms behind his back. He felt the uninterrupted line of Thanwa’s hard body against his, his erection hot and hard against Trin’s through the material of his clothing. Thanwa’s kiss grew rough and eager, like he couldn’t get enough of him. Thanwa’s hands fell to Trin’s bottom to drag their erections together, stars exploding behind his eyes from the intensity of it.
“I…I’ve never…” Trin murmured as Thanwa’s lips dragged their damp heat against his neck.
“I’ve got you,” Thanwa murmured, undoing the top button of his pants. “Let me show you how good I can make you feel.”
He took Trin’s hand and placed it on the swell of his erection through his jeans. Trin had never held a cock that wasn’t his own, but the shape of it felt right, like his hand was meant to hold it. He grew impatient and, kissing Thanwa again, tore open his pants and reached in to reach the hard heat of Thanwa’s erection. Their kiss fell apart when Thanwa took Trin in hand, pulling endless pleasure from him. Trin had never known it could feel this way and he let Thanwa’s strokes carry him away.
“Your face…you don’t hide anything…” Thanwa said, watching Trin with something akin to awe as he succumbed to a pleasure that had until now been forbidden to him.
Trin was speechless before the moment. He didn’t have Thanwa’s way with words, didn’t know how to convey how monumental it felt that he could have this, even if it was for one night. This couldn’t last. They both had to know it.
When Trin tried to match Thanwa’s strokes and rhythm, Thanwa bit his shoulder through his shirt. “That’s it. A little harder,” he said, drawing a map to his pleasure with his words. He shuddered in Trin’s arms as he crested wave after wave of desire. When Thanwa spit in his hand, he did the same, finding to his relief that it made his work easier. Thanwa held his gaze as he stroked him faster, harder, twisting his wrist, pressing his thumb into the damp that spilled from the head of his cock. Trin had jerked himself off when the desire became too great to ignore that the bodies of men were the only thing that could make him come, but he had never done this to another man. He watched Thanwa dissolve into surrender as Trin’s hand grew more sure, his strokes more sustained. It was a revelation to see all of Trin’s repressed desires bloom like a field of wildflowers across Thanwa’s beautiful face.
After a forever of kisses and strokes, Trin came with a shout of pleasure that painted seed across Thanwa’s hand. He shuddered with his release, very nearly collapsing, but for the fact that Thanwa had not finished and Trin’s innate sense of fairness would not allow that. Trin blinked his bleary eyes and worked Thanwa’s cock the way Trin knew felt good for him. He indulged in the pleasure of Thanwa’s body, licked his neck and bit his chin - all the things he’d imagined himself doing, and had promptly banished from his thoughts in the hopes that the day would come that he would wake up and not want to touch a man again.
Thanwa was the kind of man who could make Trin grow reckless and wild.
With one final stroke, Thanwa came, long spurts of heat exploding over the hand that still held his cock. Thanwa’s seed on his skin made him feverish with heat. When Thanwa had emptied his last drops, Trin raised his hand and licked him, eager to commit the taste of him to memory.
It tasted like all the things he’d ever wanted but had denied himself. And there had been so many.
Thanwa rested his head on Trin’s shoulder, breathing heavily. Trin glanced around them, grateful for the darkness and the remote privacy of their corner. He glanced at the stairs, at the men embracing in their own secret place and felt himself become a part of this silent community, of people who hid their natures and revealed themselves only when darkness became their friend and allowed to embrace a part of themselves that they could not express in daylight.
The brief peace that Trin had gained after his orgasm gave way to a teaming of voices in his head. His parents, of course, and his sister, his professor and his mentors. Friends and acquaintances and even the faces of strangers who in words and actions, he found condemnation in who he was. He was poised at the edge of a terrible shame that was familiar and suffocating.
Then Thanwa’s lips found his, and he opened as if on command, sought out the man’s mouth, accepted the press of Thanwa’s hard body, the rough skin of his jaw and the patchwork pleasure of his hands. The voices went quiet and he was yanked away from shame into a fresh tide of pleasure as deep as the waters off of the bay that they visited each year on family holiday. It was only a reprieve, he knew. Those voices and his shame would return again.
“I live close by,” Thanwa said.
Trin turned his face away, an instinctive no on the tip of his tongue. “I can’t. I have exams and it’s late.”
Thanwa turned Trin’s face to look at him. “We’ve done nothing wrong. Desire is natural.”
The breath that shuddered out of Trin ached and burned its way out of his lungs. “I don’t know about all that.”
Thanwa pushed away from the tree, wiping his hand on its rough bark. Trin followed suit, trying as best as he could not to soil his clothes. He picked up his blazer where it had fallen to the ground and scooped it up, shaking out the dust before slipping it on, hands diving deep into its pockets. Thanwa was quiet as he adjusted his guitar and slung it over his shoulder, and Trin was prepared to fall in line beside him when he paused.
“We’ve done nothing wrong,” he repeated, with more emphasis. “That’s society’s condemnation.”
“We live in society,” Trin retorted.
Thanwa’s face grew dark. “Society makes laws, but it does not create morality. Any 100-level philosophy student can tell you that.”
Trin stepped past him and moved in the direction of the stairs where the men of earlier had ascended to street level. “Those sound like pretty words, but when society does not allow you to realize yourself, your morality means nothing. And I mean to make my way in society.”
Tanwa grabbed him by the arm and pulled him back. “Make your way in society and do what? Live half a life? Smother your true nature to satisfy someone else’s conception of the world? You asked if I believed in revolution. Well, here it is - accepting yourself and others is the most revolutionary thing we can do without picking up arms.”
Trin yanked his arm from his grasp. “It was a crime only a decade ago to be who we are.”
“ Was ,” Thanwa mimicked. “ Was . Now it’s not. That’s how change happens.”
“It will take an eternity for anyone to look at what we just did and call that revolutionary. All they see is deviation.”
Thanwa stepped away from him. “I’m not going to let you make me feel ashamed of what we just did. You can hate yourself, if that’s what you choose, but that can never be me.”
“I’m not like you,” Trin said quietly.
Thanwa nodded, though the corner of his mouth tightened. “You are exactly like me. You just haven’t learned to live with that.”
Thanwa stepped past him, heading not toward the street, but along the river’s promenade, weaving his way through groups of people. He wanted to follow him, call him back, apologize to him for what he’d said. He hadn’t wanted the night to end this way. He’d wanted to hold on to the communion they’d found for as long as he could. If he ran after him, he might be able to make amends, at the very least. He could have built a friendship with the only person he’d ever allowed to see this part of him.
But Trin didn’t. He smoothed his clean hand through his hair, his body sated and hungry and aching for more. An overlay of guilt and longing fell over that memory and when he thought back to it, many years later, it would be that feeling that he would remember, more than the pleasure and possibility that the night had held.
**
It wasn’t the last time he saw Thanwa in Paris. After his exams, he and Sarawut attended a goodbye party for all the Thai students who would be returning home from their studies, which also included Trin. Trin didn’t remember much about the party, something about Sarawut saying it was a miracle he’d passed his oral exam when it had felt like his head was going to explode from his hangover. Trin had listened with only half interest that turned to zero when he walked in and saw Thanwa, sitting on a makeshift stage in the corner of the flat. He was providing part of the entertainment, playing the guitar while admirers surrounded him. He was magnetic even from across the room, his leather jacket and flared jeans, boots that made him even taller than usual. He took up all the space in the small flat, the music from his guitar stealing up the rest.
Trin’s body reacted to him, ached with arousal and longing. He had to shore himself up, make himself impervious, but all he could do was stand and stare at him as if he’d been struck by paralysis.
He’d been laughing at something one of the young men hovering nearby had said. Several women sat at his feet, nursing bottles of beer. When he looked up to see Trin, he strummed a close to the song he’d been playing, the opening strum of notes that led into an uncannily sweet rendition of Bob Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice It’s All Right” fell from the strings. Much as that night on the Seine, Thanwa held his gaze as he played, as if Trin was part of the performance, the muse, the interlocutor, the song itself.
You could've done better but I don't mind
You just wasted my precious time
Trin’s veins iced over.
Don’t think twice, it’s all right.
He turned around, and without saying a word, walked out of the flat.
Trin returned to Bangkok that very same week, determined to bury that night – and the memory of Thanwa’s hands and mouth - and never dredge it up again