Grandad, Thereэ's head on the beach

'What do you want?' he asked.

'Just to visit,' I said.

'How did you know I was here?'

'I asked at the boat dock. They laughed mischievously when they told me. Honestly. Men.'

There was a long pause.

'That's a very nice fitted wardrobe,' I said. 'I had no idea you were so good with your hands.'

He nodded.

'Do you want to take a break?' I asked.

'I don't know. I have to get these frames done by four. They're bringing in mirrored doors.'

'Just a quick break,' I said, and licked my top sensual lip. 'A break…to remember.'

He put down his chisel at last.

'Remember what?'

'Remember the time, not so long ago, when you came to me with a proposal.'

'Is this about when I almost asked you out?'

'Almost, yes. Rudely interrupted by me. You see? It was too soon, Ed. I didn't know you then. Ha, I barely knew myself.'

'It was seven weeks ago.'

'Time enough for me to let down my defenses. It was so obvious you found me attractive. I wasn't ready then. But, Ed…'

'What?'

'I'm ready now.'

'What for?'

'For you.'

I reached out my hands to him. It was the moment. Our fingers would touch and the electricity would course through us. I could already feel a tingle.

He just stood there.

'I'm engaged,' he said.

'What?'

My hands dropped to my sides.

'I found somebody. We're engaged.'

The cement floor beneath my feet gave way, and I dropped fifteen floors to the nuclear bunker. I landed on the wiring board of the strategic defense system and started a war.

'What?'

'You've said that already.'

'I know, but. .. not even two months ago you were suffering because your wife ran off with a glazier and you wanted me.'

'And you said no.'

'You give up that easily? How can you be so…indiscriminate?'

'I didn't want to be alone.'

'So you ask everyone on your list till you get a yes?'

'It's a bit more complicated but, yeah, something like that. But thanks for thinking of me.'

'Thanks for…?'

I burned off a lot of frustration on my pedaled escape from that unfinished house but not nearly enough to prevent a slideshow of Hong Kong and Taiwanese male movie stars flickering in front of my eyes. I even looked sideways at an elderly farmer with no shirt who was tugging his cow beside the road. I might have even stopped and talked to him if my cell phone hadn't sent out a chorus of 'Mamma Mia.' I stopped the bike under a tree and looked at the screen. It was Sissi.

'You not left yet?' I asked.

'Jimm, listen. Whatever you do, don't open that packet of trial antidepressants I sent you.'

I was exactly in the mood for the teens at the Pak Nam Internet shop. They could obviously tell I'd have gladly bumped them on the head with my personal mouse if anyone had attempted to stop me getting on to my regular computer. Even the craggy-faced shop owner desisted from his preachy 'We do have a queuing system here, you know?' The last time he'd tried it I threatened to call the school board and tell them about all the young boys here who spent their homework time surfing for big-eye-contact-lens Japanese idols in bikinis. That had shut him up. Just about anything I needed a computer for would have been more important than that. And this evening I had two very important reasons for getting online.

First, I sent an e-mail to my friend Alb in Bangkok. He ran a sort of unofficial Australian news agency. He made big bucks out of those scandalous Aussie celebrities arrested in Thai resorts. He specialized in drug orgies, but he had a nose for all kinds of sin. I'd first met him when we were both investigating a pop singer pedophile holed up in a five-star hotel in Chiang Mai. We staked him out together and kept in touch as we followed the subsequent trial and suicide. We were good friends.

Alb, I wrote. What do you know about slave ships in the Gulf of Thailand?

I pressed SEND. He was an e-mail addict. Even if he wasn't at his desk, he'd have his iPhone set on Taser buzz. He kept it in a small pouch hanging from his belt, like a sporran, so I knew there was something kinky about it. While I waited for an answer I Googled FLIBANSERIN. I got eighty thousand results almost immediately. The first site I clicked had the headline VIAGRA FOR WOMEN. I said 'shit' eleven times in English, but the word was obviously on the high school vocab list because everyone looked at me. I read on.

AFTER THE FIRST ROUND OF TESTS THE BOEHRINGER INGELHEIM CORPORATION HAD BEEN DISAPPOINTED THAT ITS WIDELY TOUTED ANTIDEPRESSANT FLIBANSERIN HAD NO ANTIDEPRESSANT QUALITIES WHATSOEVER. THEIR CHEMISTS MADE SOME SLIGHT ALTERATIONS AND SENT THE DRUG FLIBANSERIN II FOR A SECOND ROUND OF TRIALS. BUT UNEXPECTED FEEDBACK BEG-

Alb had answered. He could wait.

UNEXPECTED FEEDBACK BEGAN TO FILTER IN FROM WOMEN WHO'D TRI-ALED FLIBANSERIN I. THEY WERE CLAIMING THAT SINCE THEY STARTED TO TAKE THE DRUG REGULARLY THEY HAD DEVELOPED RAVENOUS SEXUAL APPETITES.

'Oh my word.'

WOMEN AS OLD AS 76 WERE…

I couldn't read any more. I was so embarrassed. I was a love junky. I'd thrown myself at a gay policeman, a happily married man, and just a few hours earlier I'd forced myself on a grass cutter. The story would have made the rounds of the entire district by now. They'd write things about me on the walls of public toilets. Fathers would bring their teen-aged sons around for their first experience. I'd end up an old hag in mesh stockings and a push-up bra beckoning passing drivers into the resort. What had I done?

I clicked Alb.

Lots, he wrote. What do you want to know specifically?

I typed Everything and sent it.

I looked around the Internet shop. Some of the boys looked away embarrassed. They'd heard. I was dirty laundry.

'We saw the harlot in the Internet shop last night,' they'd tell the teacher in the morning.

Alb replied. We should chat.

And we chatted on Gmail for half an hour. Alb had heard all the same rumors. On the Andaman coast out west he said there was indisputable evidence of kidnappings and failure to pay salaries. There was an island, he said, that a bunch of Burmese fishermen had escaped to. They'd been there six months. Nobody knew what to do with them. They didn't have papers. They were illegal aliens. The Burmese junta wasn't about to send a pleasure boat to pick them up. Nobody else wanted to take responsibility. Now, if they were Swedish, he wrote, then we'd have a story. But what you've got is disposables. It's like the big tsunami that hit Thailand in 2004. If it had just swallowed up Thais and Bangladeshis, there'd have been a couple of days of press in the West. '100,000? How tragic. Anyone know what the cricket score is?' But that same