the third sex

There is a girl, a little dumpling of a country girl, who works at a restaurant in my apartment complex. She is, I think, a school leaver, as she is too young to do the waiting at table: she just brings the food out from the kitchen to the serving staff. But she is fascinated by me.

I watch her coming out from the kitchen area carrying a big tray full of Thai food, and I see her eyes light upon me. And she looks, and looks, and looks.

Now, normally I would put this down to my devastating handsomeness and personal magnetism. But even I have to admit there might be a darker reason. I am sure that this little girl – a GG, by the way – has heard that I am a pervert.

This is not fanciful thinking. Within this very large complex there have been a good many ladyboys over the past few years, and I have photographed them all. That kind of story spreads. In addition, of course, I have a revolving door of ladyboys for photography and for fun, and if I were to imagine that the people who work in the building think I just have rather a lot of girlfriends, I would be fooling myself.

In other words, everyone here knows what I do. From this little girl’s restaurant alone I have taken two staff members who went from being rather gauche young boys into fully-fledged, gorgeous ladyboys. So they all certainly know me, and what I am.

The girl isn’t afraid of me. In fact she delivers takeaway food to the apartments and we occasionally share a lift. She beams at me. But anyway, I’m a non-threatening type of person, and my reputation as Mr Nice Guy seems pretty assured around the complex.

I think she simply regards me as a friendly neighbourhood degenerate. The kind of person that she has heard about, and been warned about. And now here is one of them! And he is eating in her restaurant! Who knows what might happen!

Or maybe I’m just being paranoid. Well, you would be paranoid too if everyone was talking about you. But although the local people in my complex might know about me, the people I work with or hang out with donít. There is this fact that I do lead something of a double life, because I necessarily have to keep a low profile, doing what I do. Pornography is not allowed here. So on the one hand Iím a normal outgoing kind of person, but on the other hand there is an enormous depth that I have to keep hidden.

I get invited out to receptions and dinner parties, and I usually go on my own, not from lack of company but from lack of the kind of company that would be acceptable. People must assume Iím a bit of a loner, or even that Iím gay, but Iím neither.

Then again, Iím sure a lot of people wonder why I appear to be so busy. Iím always rushing off somewhere, always spending hours in front of the computer screen, always getting calls on my mobile, always having people to meet. Yet I canít talk about any of it.

I get old friends coming up to me and asking what Iím doing these days, and I just say, oh, the same old thing. Havenít seen you around much recently, they say. And I reply that things have been pretty hectic, a lot of travel, and so on.

This strange double life extends even to outward appearances. To the casual observer, the man sitting in his local Starbucks with a laptop computer and a mug of cappucino is an ordinary businessman, albeit a devilishly handsome one, no doubt working on a new contract or emailing his corporate headquarters. What they donít realise is, that Iím using the coffee shop wi-fi system to transmit pictures to the website, and that a few hundred photographs of ladyboys doing the most disgraceful things are passing through the air around them.

Many years ago, when I was living in England and going through a failing marriage, I started an affair with a married girl living in the neighbourhood. On the surface we were just good friends, but at night I would slip out and under the cover of darkness, away from the prying eyes of the community, approach her house through the back paths. I found all this very nearly as exciting as being in bed with her. Heh, I suppose Iím just naturally duplicitous.