The Exchange Student

After his “no problem” response, we were off getting him enrolled in the local community college that would take anything that was breathing as long as it had the up-front tuition fee. And then we were negotiating with the folks behind the service, who, of course took an enormous up-front cut and then another cut off all of the legal and documentation fees to get Dao into the States on a student visa and cleared to live with an American family under an exchange student program. Everyone understood that there would be some exchange of services for hosting the exchange student—but the authorities had no need to be told that those services involved the “student’s” spread ass.

When the customs area at the airport was emptying out, Max and I got a double surprise. All along we’d both thought this just wasn’t going to happen—that it was a con—but the whole idea had made us hard and the great fucks we gave each other while contemplating it were well worth the expense—it had rejuvenated our sex life. So, our first surprise was that there was a young Thai guy coming out of Customs and signaling at the sign we were waving with “Dao Chula.” on it. (There hadn’t been room to run the tongue-twisting Chulalakornampat segment of his name.)

The second surprise—although we should have taken that possibility into account too—was that Dao wasn’t the robust Dao of the pictures he’d sent. He was a very nice-looking young man, but he couldn’t have been much over five feet tall and he was as thin and willowy as a seedling.