Harmony and Dissonance

"Are you sure this is the address?" Lars Krieger asked, as the hotel car stopped in front of a massive, carved-wood, two-panel door in an otherwise blank concrete wall on Bangkok's Soi 51 Sukhumvit. The road was narrow, almost an alley, it seemed, to the young German engineer, with one, long stuccoed wall running down its full length on each side with doors like this and wider garage doors at distant intervals.

The driver merely nodded his head vigorously and smiled a silly smile.

The door was opened by a slim, young Thai man, who was bare-chested and wearing a cotton sarong around his waist that reached down nearly to bare feet. Lars never ceased to be amazed that Thai servants of the wealthy and titled continued to dress in this traditional style, which was highly provocative, at least to a Westerner like him. As the hotel car driver was doing, the servant was showing a silly grin. Lars had been in Bangkok long enough—nearly two weeks—to know that this was a sign of slight nervousness in a Thai.

If it was any consolation, he thought, he felt as out of place here as they were thinking him to be.

"I am Khun Krieger," Lars said. "I was given this address to meet Mom Rajawongse Amnad Pramoj for consultations. Is this the residence of Mom Rajawongse Krit Thanawat?" It was a mouthful, but Lars had no idea how to address these Thai royals. He only knew that they were touchy that way until they told you otherwise. He was on a first-name basis—and more—with Amnad, the architect he was working with in Bangkok to construct sets for a royal command performance of Verdi's

Rigoletto

. But he didn't know how he should address him in public. Amnad had explained that a Mom Rajawongse was "just the son of a son of a king," which had still sounded impressive until Amnad had smiled and said that his grandfather, King Chulalongkhon, had sired more than a hundred children. "MRs have fallen on Thailand like raindrops in a monsoon," Amnad had said.

But so far Lars had found the few MRs Amnad had introduced him to to be filthy rich and to be treated like gods by the general populous.

"Khunchai Amnad and Khunchai Krit are within," the servant said in a soft voice, as he lowered his eyes and gave Lars a

wai

, which was a hand palm-to-palm greeting of respect, accompanied by a bowing of the head. Ah, "khun" is good enough for me, but an MR gets to be called "khunchai," Lars thought. How much of this would he have to learn—and use—for the short time he would be in Thailand.

Also, the lower the bow, Lars had gathered, the greater the respect. The servant was bowing a bit from the waist, so Lars assumed he was being given a great deal of respect—even if he was only a "khun." The sidelong glance he got from the young man indicated hints of interests of another sort—like maybe the respect was more for Lars' physique, rugged good looks, and blond curls than for his possible station in life.

Lars knew he looked good and squared away, although he was somewhat uncomfortable in the traditional long-sleeved creamy silk Siamese-style shirt he was wearing over black tux trousers. Amnad had invited him here to consult over an early dinner with Krit Thanawat on a sound shell and backdrops for a concert for the royal family and their summer court in their seaside palace at Hua Hin, the royal enclave on the Bight of Bangkok, to the southwest of the capital.

Lars had quietly been wrangling for an introduction to Krit, and he'd thus been willing to have this formal Thai wear whipped up on short notice. He normally was a shorts and T-shirt sort of man who worked hands-on in primitive conditions—and his muscular physique reflected that—but he was here on a favor owned to someone he couldn't say no to. Connecting with Krit was key to accomplishing that favor.

Once inside the compound, Lars felt he had been transported back to modern-day Europe. They entered a covered passageway with a square of lawn on the right, a burbling fountain in the middle, and flower beds in a riot of colors around the periphery. The house, obviously large, ran around from the left of the loggia to two stories of modern stucco and large expanses of tinted glass facing him. Beyond the grassed area to the right was a large parking pad now accommodating two Mercedes sedans and a BMW sports car. Both Mercedes were yellow, which Lars had already learned was a car color reserved for royalty in Thailand, so he assumed that both MRs he was here to visit were present.

The automobiles were facing into a three-car garage with another story on top of it. Tucked behind the garage was a circular swimming pool surrounded by a stone patio. And the compound was unearthly quiet, save for the soft gurgling of the fountain. He felt like he had been transported a thousand miles from the noisy, dirty, and bustling Thai capital, but, in fact, he was in the middle of the city's sprawl out toward the east.

As they drew nearer a set of carved wooden doors at the end of the passageway, the quiet floated away on the wings of a lovely, lilting soprano voice, singing in, to Lars' great surprise, what sounded like Polish.

The music, underscored by an intricate piano accompaniment, grew louder as they entered the house. The servant led Lars down a passageway to the left, opened a door in a blank wall to the left, and he found himself in a sound booth facing a wall of glass. Beyond the glass, in a large music room set up as a TV studio and concert room combination, he could see a young, extremely handsome Thai man sitting and playing at an ebony black grand piano, with its lid lifted. The young man was dressed casually in Western style, in black trousers; a billowing white cotton shirt, open half way down his chest; and sandals on bare feet. The piano he was playing sat on a semicircular stage raised a couple of steps above the ground floor, which supported three tiered semicircular rows of substantial, matched dining room chairs curving around the stage. Standing in the curve of the piano was a beautiful young Thai woman, dressed in a creamy-white sarong. She was the one who was supplying the lilting soprano music in the incongruous language.

Recording was in progress—both audio and via TV cameras. Two Thai men in T-shirts, showing the face of some composer or other in black ink who Lars nearly recognized, and short sarongs around their waists, were operating the cameras beyond the glass wall in the music room. Two sound technicians were sitting inside the sound booth at a console set against and facing the glass wall. They were similarly dressed and were giving their full concentration to the performance in the music room.

Amnad Pramoj, a tall, lithe, berry-brown Thai in this late thirties and elegantly dressed in traditional Siamese-style formal wear as Lars was, was standing behind the sound technicians and watching the performance.

Lars entered the room to stand at Amnad's side as the door gently closed behind him.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" Amnad whispered without turning, but obviously being aware that Lars was at his side.

"Yes, they are," Lars answered.

Amnad turned his head toward Lars, raised his eyebrows, and gave Lars a little smile. "I was referring to the music. Chopin's

16 Polnische Lieder

."

Ah, that's the composer depicted on the T-shirts, Lars thought. He'd been around Heinrich enough that he should have recognized that right off the bat.

"I was referring to that as well as the couple themselves." And to all of the other people in the two rooms, Lars thought, including Amnad himself. These people had surrounded themselves with beautiful people.

"Yes, they are a handsome couple," Amnad said. "The toast of the city. Perfection itself. It was a celebrated marriage. Both MRs. The style magazines can't get enough of them. Story after story about their fairytale marriage. They broadcast a weekly television show from here, you know—Krit playing and Somsri singing. It makes young woman sigh all over the city."

"Formidable," Lars whispered. It was his assignment to do something about that.

"What was that?"

"She's singing in Polish, isn't she?" Lars said, purposely not answering the question asked. "The harmonies are wonderful—even an unrefined engineer such as me can tell that. But a Thai singing in Polish? That seems incongruous. Or isn't it Polish?"

"Yes, it's Polish. Chopin was Polish, although the French have tried to grab him. And I'd hardly say you were unrefined," Amnad said, reaching out and touching the sleeve of Lar's silk jacket-shirt in a gesture meant not to be seen by anyone else in the dimly lit sound booth. He didn't pull his hand back, but left it there, rubbing the rich silk fabric between his fingers."They are producing a video to send to the palace. The project I'm trying to interest you in at the Hua Hin palace is a Chopin concert. This is to give the palace staff an indication of what the program will be."

"Chopin wrote songs? I thought he was strictly piano."

"Yes, he wrote this collection of sixteen songs, and one other. But you seem to know something of Chopin. So, you needn't try to tell me that you aren't a man of refinement. He wrote this ensemble from works by Polish poets set to Polish folk tunes—although one of the songs is Lithuanian."

"And the concert is all Chopin? And Krit will be playing in the concert? Will be there beforehand as we construct the set?"

"Yes, He'll be playing in the concert, and he will be there in Hua Hin with us a few days before the court arrives for the concert so that we can coordinate the performance sound. Krit is president of the Bangkok Chopin Society, and the royal family is entertaining the Polish ambassador in Hua Hin. He was asked to whip something of Chopin's up for them. In addition to accompanying Somsri, Krit will be playing Chopin etudes."

Of course then, Lars thought. If he and Krit would be in Hua Hin for a few days together, then he most certainly would help with this project.

"And you? You'll be there? And you are a better pianist even than Krit. I have now heard both of you play. Will you be playing as well?"

Amnad turned his face to Lars and smiled in recognition of the compliment. "Yes, I will play Chopin sonatas—the

C minor, opus 4

and the

B minor, opus 58

."

"I would like to hear you play those."

"This evening, perhaps, after the dinner with Krit and Somsri?" Amnad was trembling. The hand that had been toying with the silk of Lars' shirt was now gripping Lar's arm above the elbow.

"Yes, I would like that."

Amnad moved the hand to the small of Lars' back and started to say something else, but the recording session had ended, and Krit was standing from the piano and motioning Amnad and Lars to join them.

The introductions were pleasant, with Lars

waiing

and bowing low and Somsri gathering his palmed hands in hers and, with a lilting laugh and a winning smile, telling him that there was no need for such formality. That both of them had largely been raised in European boarding schools, where no one paid a bit of attention to anyone's comparative pedigree.

Yeah, I'll just bet no one in those schools treated you like a princess, Princess, Lars thought.

Beautiful people themselves, both Krit and Somsri warmed immediately to the handsome, muscular German who had made the effort to wear traditional Siamese formal wear.

The dinner, served in a large dining room, at one end of a table that would accommodate twenty and swarming with beautiful and attentive Thai servants, was convivial.

Somsri couldn't seem to take her eyes off the German and was enjoying teasing and flirting with him. Krit also was thoroughly enjoying himself up to the point when they were talking about possible mutual acquaintances in Europe and Lars mentioned that he had become involved in the engineering aspects of stage design through his good friend, Heinrich Heller, conductor of the Cologne Symphony.

As soon as he said that, Amnad said, still looking at Lars, "Why that was the conductor who mentored Krit as a concert pianist, isn't that right . . .?" He had turned to Krit and hadn't finished the sentence, because an expression something between distaste and fear had floated across Krit's face.

"Krit, are you all right?" Amnad asked.

"Yes, yes," Krit said, changing his expression back to something congenially handsome—but perhaps a bit forced. "I think perhaps that this shrimp has gone bad."

He was suddenly inundated by an army of concerned servants, who whisked his plate away and told him another plate of food would be coming out immediately. He waved them away, though, and reached for the wine decanter. From then on to the end of the meal, he was only half in the conversation, although as charming when he was engaged as ever. He reached for the wine decanter appreciably more than he had been doing earlier in the meal.

With that one little glitch, dinner was declared a success by all. Lars agreed to accompany Amnad to Hua Hin to help construct the sound shell and backdrops for the royal concert, and Somsri saw Amnad and Lars to the side of one of the Mercedes sedans in the autocourt, holding Lars' hand and smiling at him coyly perhaps a tad longer than was necessary.

It was dusk in the music room of Amnad's Thai-style house on the banks of the San Saep Klong—

klong

being the Thai word for canal—behind what was now the Siam Paragon shopping mall but what had once been one of the central-city royal palace grounds, the Sra Pathum Palace. Amnad's house, a series of teak rooms set on a continuous platform supported by teak tree trunks, was all that was left of the original palace, which had been where his father, a prince, had lived in near poverty before selling off most of the forty-three acres between the house compound and Ploenchit Road for what was then the Siam Intercontinental Hotel grounds, a financial transaction that had made him—and, eventually, Amnad—very wealthy.

Amnad was seated at a Petrof grand piano, now dressed in a silk sarong wrapped at his waist and bare-chested, and finishing up the

Sonata in B minor, opus 58

. Listening to him with an amused expression on his face and a nearly empty brandy snifter was Lars, sitting cross-legged and naked on a nearby raised platform covered with a silk coverlet and a smattering of Jim Thompson silk pillows.

They had already fucked once.

"That was very nice," Lars said when Amnad's hands came off the keys. "And you know what would be very nice after that?"

Without answering the question, Amnad rose from the piano and walked over to the platform. Lars reached out and undid the knot of the sarong at Amnad's waist, watching it fall in folds around the lithe Thai architect's feet; encircled Amnad's waist with his muscular arms; and pulled the trembling body to him, opening his lips and closing them over the bulb of Amnad's erect cock.

They fucked once more, sitting on the platform, facing each other, Amnad's legs straddling Lars' hips, his torso arched back, and Lars' arms encasing his waist, slowly pulling Amnad's passage forward and back on his cock.

Amnad moaned softly at the thickness and length of the young, virile German, as the cock slowly moved in and out, to great depth.

How could he say he wasn't refined, Amnad, thought. Amnad had never met a Westerner before who could perform the Yin and Yang male Kama Sutra position like this or would have the patience to fuck him slowly to full fulfillment—repeatedly. And he'd met no man whatsoever who was as perfectly formed and horse hung as Lars was.

It was well shy of midnight when Lars left Amnad's compound, and he was in the mood for more, so much more. And something quite different. All of this refinement had left him keyed up.

He let Amnad send him back to his hotel in the Mercedes, begging off spending the night, saying that he needed his sleep and couldn't have slept with Amnad in the bed with him—that Amnad was too enticing. As it was, they had fucked twice, the second time in the Butterfly position, with Amnad suspended above him like a crab and doing all of the work—Amnad vocally appreciative that Lars knew it was the Butterfly position.

The chauffeur didn't go directly back to the hotel. He stopped in the lane between the palace compound walls and the loading docks of the shopping mall and climbed into the backseat and sat on Lars' cock, as he had already done twice since meeting Lars' arriving plane after a long, and tension-filled flight. But even his wasn't enough to calm Lars' nerves tonight.

After he returned to the hotel, Lars went to his room and changed into a tight short-sleeved cotton shirt, open almost to the navel, and jeans and caught a taxi to Soi Cowboy, where he entered a bar and picked out a lovely and curvy young Thai, who said that, yes, "she'd" love to go to the Thai boxing stadium with him near Lumphini Park. Cockatoo was what was known as a Ladyboy bar, the "girls" being what the Thai called katoeys, better known in English as transvestites.

Lars knew exactly what kind of bar he'd gone to and what kind of hostess he'd picked up. The katoeys of Thailand were the more exquisitely beautiful of any who could be found in the world. He still was jittery and tense from a day of behaving. He wanted to let loose.

They first went to Lumphini Stadium, where he watched, licking his lips and slitting his eyes, as two young Thai boxers in skimpy shorts beat each other to a pulp in a no-holds-bar kick boxing match. The katoey sat beside him, snuggled up to him and rubbed Lars' cock through the tight material of the jeans. As the katoey got the measure of Lars, the German whispered in his ear what was going to happen after the boxing match, which made the transvestite moan.

In the nearby Boss Place hotel, where "anything goes for as short a time as you want," Lars rough-fucked the katoey hard and fast after pushing "her" onto the bed on her back, pulling her skirt up around her waist, ripping her panties away, and thrusting strongly and deeply inside her.

With visions of the vicious blood sport he had just indulged in watching coursing through his brain, Lars had his hands around her throat and was coordinating squeezes with thrusts of the cock, while the katoey gasped for breath, eyes bugged out, but, when able, squealed for more of the long, thick cock.

* * * *

The king's Hua Hin summer palace was a surprise to Lars Krieger. The engineer in him was fascinated, as he followed Amnad Pramoj from one parallel building complex to another, followed by small, but strong, male servants lugging their suitcases. Walking through the palace was like peeling an onion of history.

The first bank of buildings from the auto park was a string of painted teak pavilions, with shining orange, red, yellow, and green roof tiles set like snakes' scales, on a long platform raised off the ground one story by pillars. Behind this, connected by a covered corridor, was a early nineteenth-century style rambling two-story wooden building that was austere in appearance, a marked contrast to the ceremonial buildings in front of it. It appeared to have been built quickly and cheaply to accommodate the maximum number of rooms for the cost. When seeing this, Lars thought back on being told about the large number of children Amnad's grandfather had fathered by multiple wives. Beyond this, though, against the shore of a shallow cove off the Bight of Bangkok, perched a modern steel and glass building Lars was to find housed an entertainment complex, including the small concert hall he was to be helping Amnad to prepare for the Chopin performances.

Walking to the curved floor-to-ceiling windows at the back of the concert hall that overlooked a cove, with crystal-clear water over gleaming white-sand, Lars saw that the complex didn't stop at the water's edge. The luggage bearers passed him by, though a door out onto a deck, and then down a pier out into the water bearing platform pads on pillars along its sides.