The Greatest Lie

by Alexandra Rios

 

Part 16

 

As soon as we were safely back in our hooch, I retrieved the iBook from its hiding place under the floor and opened up Spartan's main Excel spreadsheet. I re-sorted the list against the data from the last three weeks of our frustrating field work, by district, language group, age, and every other category on the spreadsheet, working methodically from left to right.

By the time I reached the mysterious A's, B's, C's and D's, I was so frazzled that I was ready to chuck the whole project. But when I sorted our interviewees by letter category, I was stunned. Of the twenty-five subjects from the initial list we had found and seen in Chiang Mai, seventeen were A's, five were B's, two were C's, and only one was a D. Yet the original list had divided the Chiang Mai subjects amongst the four categories evenly.

"There's something strange going on here," I said with alarm. The alarming infection rate in the study, Pranatop's e-mail, the sudden clampdown by Third Army security on CMU's farang students, and even our own weird reactions to sex while using Spartan's products formed an alarming pattern: but of what?

Tran studied a map of Chiang Rai Province against the spreadsheet on the iBook and observed, "Three of these disappeared C's and D's are from Hmong hamlets near Cheng Meng. I'll have Liang's guy take me there, and a couple of more places," she said, changing into her Hmong ethnic costume and sandals.

"OK, then Nancee and I will check out the few remaining names we have in town, then go to the Baan Pewan Cheewit AIDS hospice and see if anyone ended up there, and talk to Lin about what's going on with the A, B, C, and D categories. After that, we're done here. We'll pack your stuff, Tran, and you can meet us at the place Eddie got us in Pattapong." I was looking forward to getting out from under the thumb of the Third Army.

Nancee and I hugged Tran good-bye. I stashed the iBook and our necklaces in their hiding place, and Nancee and I set off carrying the rest of the vouchers, to use today or throw away as far as possible from the hooch.

As we sought out the few remaining names from Spartan's study list, we had our worst day ever. The landlady of our first interviewee, Nung, told us tearfully that Nung had been hauled away by police only minutes before we arrived. "They never bother the streetwalkers that call out to my children, but they take away my most valued tenant, who never sees anyone outside her home. What is the matter with this country? It's madness," she cried.

We continued on the remaining names from the Spartan list. The next names we checked were Golf and Gigi, who lived together. When we got to their apartment, frightened neighbors told us that they had just been arrested by grey-green clad anti-narcotics police. The neighbors complained "Sure, they were somsee, but they never took drugs, or did drug deals. This drug war is getting worse than the drugs!"

We called the cell phone of our next subject, Joy, and got no answer. Fearing the worst, we crossed town to visit her, only to find yet another ransacked apartment. Her roommate would tell us only that Joy had been arrested the drug police early that morning. Then she threw us out. She was clearly scared to death to have us around.

My anxiety mounted as we approached the Baan Pewan Cheewit hospice. Madrana, the head nurse of the hospice, met us with angry tears. "The drug police took away my patients Gee, Nata and Ooh this afternoon. Those poor girls were too sick to take yaba. Everyone here is too sick for that drug, but they took them away to die." She regarded me angrily. "This is your fault, farang, for bringing us bad karma!"

"I'm sorry, but where is Lin, I need to see her." I feared the worst.

Mamasan Madrana brightened. "She bought medicine with the papers you left for her. She felt better and left with her sister."

I realized it was time to catch up with my sisters at Rosepaper.

I stuffed most of the remaining vouchers in Madrana's hand, and said "Take these as my offering to restore the good karma of Baan Pewan Cheewit. May your patients live long, and die at peace. Sawat-dee ka."

Madrana said, "Sawat-dee ka," back, and to my surprise and delight, gave me a wai for doing the most decent thing I could think of doing with our remaining vouchers.

Nancee and I slogged through Chiang Mai's tumultuous traffic toward the CMU dormitory that Rosepaper's sao praphet song had taken as their unofficial home. When we arrived, we found Chris, our hostess at Fascination, was on duty as dorm monitor, sitting at the front desk.

"Sawat-dee ka. Are we welcome here?" I asked, noting that she had greeted me with a standoffish glare.

"You never come to visit us, and your project has created turmoil for our community. The Third Army security forces have been here asking questions about you. Rosepaper forbids drugs."

"I am sorry we have been such inactive members, but our research program has been more demanding than we expected. As far as drugs go, we're not involved in that," I lied; Nancee nodded in support of my little prevarication.

"I think there has been a very serious misunderstanding about something related to our research. I'd like to talk with Gift's sister Lin, as I think she might be able to us clear things up."

"Shhhh," Chris hissed with alarm. "They came looking for her, too, and she's staying here with us. But don't tell anyone."

"We have to talk to her," I begged.

"OK, come with me," Chris agreed.

We walked to the back of the dorm, to a utility room. There, hiding beneath the meters and cables, we found Lin and Gift. But instead of the near-corpse we had seen four weeks ago, Lin was clear-eyed and healthy. She jumped up and hugged me.

"I can't thank you enough," Lin said as Gift repeated her embrace. Lin smiled through tears of happiness. "I thought I was about to die, and now I feel alive, and want to live again for the first time in years."

Gift had bartered the vouchers that I had left with Lin for protease inhibitors, antibiotics and antifungal drugs, and Lin's seemingly terminal AIDS had disappeared. The taut, deathlike mask of her face had been replaced with a warm, though still weak smile, and smooth, resilient skin.

Lin spoke clearly but softly. She reported, "My strep throat and thrush are both gone. I'm still weak, but I feel better every day now. Before you gave me the vouchers, every day was worse. Thank you for giving me the time to rectify my karma before I leave you."

"Thank God that at least one good thing has come from this misbegotten trip," I said. "Really, I am so happy for you. But everything else has gone wrong.

"The Spartan list turned out to be a complete disaster, and now the police are harassing everyone on it, including you and us. Lin, you have to tell us what's going on. What have we gotten ourselves into?"

"I couldn't tell you everything. It has been a source of great shame.

"The study was of the usefulness of Spartan's spermicidal product, nonoxynol-9, N-9 for short, as an inhibitor to the transmission of HIV.

"Another study had suggested that N9 increased rather than diminished HIV transmission, but Spartan had been selling their more expensive N9 condoms and lubricants as beneficial against sexually transmitted diseases.

"The idea of the study was to prove which concentrations of N9 worked best. They wanted to prove that N9 was beneficial in AIDS inhibition."

"And why did Spartan terminate the study?" I demanded.

"The first round of follow-up HIV tests showed the opposite of what they had expected: the subjects who used the more highly concentrated N9 products contracted HIV the fastest and their infections progressed to frank AIDS the quickest. The healthiest subjects were the ones who used the non-spermicidal products.

"They terminated the study before they got statistically significant responses, and so they kept advertising N9 as preventative because they had no statistically significant evidence that it was not—at least, no evidence that would withstand scientific review. They just stopped selling the highly concentrated products. There's corporate ethics for you."

"Oh my God, and the highly-concentrated N9 group was the D's?"

"I was in the D group. Look what happened to me!" Lin cried.

"The D's have been annihilated, and the C's and B's have been decimated. The only group that has anything close to a typical incidence of HIV are the A's," I exclaimed.

"I'm so sorry. I deserve to die," Lin said, hanging her head in shame.

"No, you have to live," I replied. "We all have to live so that we can expose the truth about those bastards from Spartan."

"You're forgetting, Alexandra, that the main bastard is the commander of the Third Army," Nancee reminded me.

"Shit," I said. "No wonder Third Army security forces are looking for us. What the fuck are we going to do?"

"Call Eddie," Nancee said, pulling out her cell phone and handing it to me.

Eddie answered, and said, "Thank God you're OK. What did you girls do after I left? General Riap ordered you, Tran, Nancee, and a couple hundred katoey added to the drug blacklist. Exactly what have you crazy Americans been doing?" he demanded.

"I think I discovered that Spartan's products are spreading AIDS. Spartan did a study and I got a hold of their subject list. They stopped the study because the early results looked not-so-good. By the time I followed up two years later, the results were like, totally horrible."

"How did they find out about you and the list?" Eddie wondered.

"That cunt Pranatop!" I shouted. "I e-mailed her for permission to use the Spartan list, and three weeks later, the lazy, stupid bitch forwarded my e-mail to Spartan.

"Then the shit hit the fan! The roadblock, the requirement that all farang students report their residences, the disappeared girls, and the visits to Rosepaper—they all came from Pranatop giving my e-mail to Spartan.

"Eddie, can you help us get out of here?"

"Smuggling is my specialty," he said cheerfully. "Get yourselves some hses and flip-flops and whatever you girls need for a long camping trip in the jungle."

"God, just what I needed, the hike from hell," I said.

I had hated the time I'd been forced to spend in the Boy Scouts, and I think that roughing it is staying in a Motel 6. For Nancee, it was a journey to her past, and she seemed almost excited.

Eddie continued, "The three of you meet me in Somphet Market at 18:00, by the fish stalls."

"O shit! What about Tran?" I exclaimed. "She's God-only-knows where in Chiang Rai Province!"

"She'll have to come out later. It's OK, she's with my guy. And unlike you, she more-or-less fits in.

"You, my little blonde friend, will make rather conspicuous contraband."

"But she doesn't even know what's going on, and her cell phone will never work until she gets back to Chiang Mai."

"So leave her a voicemail. She'll probably check it.

"Now just cover your hair, wai frequently, and stay away from your house, or anywhere else you see a police checkpoint.

I called Tran's number and chose my words carefully, not knowing who would be the one to listen to it first. "Tran, something has gone wrong on our project and we three and all of the subjects were mistakenly added to the drug blacklist. Until we can get this straightened out, Nancee and are leaving Chiang Mai with some of our mutual friend's guys.

"If you can, FedEx our stuff from its hiding place back to my Mom's house, and then go with our friend's guys.

"Stay safe and do as they say. Good luck, and sorry for all of the trouble. Good-bye." I struggled to hold back my tears as I spoke. To my relief, I managed to keep from breaking down on the spot—I did not want to make Nancee any more nervous.

We told Chris we needed to leave for the countryside. After she protested against our disloyalty to Rosepaper and CMU one more time, she organized some rap nong to shop and scrounge for Nancee and me. A rap nong with a motor scooter came back with some sunscreen and instant deep tan for me, and for both of us, Halazone water-purification tablets, mosquito netting, two plastic tarps to sleep on, and two complete Karen outfits including two big, colorfully-woven Karen handicraft tote bags of the sort we could loop over our shoulders—we would use them to hold everything that wouldn't fit in our shoulder bags.

By then, the Rosepaper girls had organized us toothbrushes and toothpaste, shampoo, Neosporin, a single, slightly-used vaginal stent, a box of condoms—non-spermicidal, of course—to make sharing the stent more sanitary, bottled water in reusable plastic bottles, and insect repellent. We exchanged our Western clothes for Karen garb: the Rosepaper girls were thrilled to get hand-me-downs from the beautiful American celebrity and her friend.

Nancee and I each got a young Karen woman's hse: a simple, loose, ankle-length V-necked shift. Each was mainly white, but decorated with Job's Tear seeds and red embroidery at the seams and with an embroidered red appliquŽ band around the midriff like a belt. My hse was rather more severe then Nancee's, and my outfit was completed by a white headscarf with red cross-stitch embroidery and a pair of "practical" sandals like Tran's—the low heels I had on were too "city."

I cherished hopes that I would blend in better with a dark tan, no visible blond hair, and sunglasses to hide my blue eyes. In truth, I was taller than most Karen and Thai women, tall enough to be read as sao praphet song if not read as farang. Still, I was determined to do my best. There was just enough time for me to put on dishgloves, slather myself with instant tan, wait for it to dry, tie my hair up into a bun and hide it all under my Karen headscarf.

Then we bade Lin a tearful good-bye.

Before I left, I asked Lin whether she needed more vouchers to buy diflucan or cephalaxin or azothymidine with lamivudine, but she insisted she still had plenty of drugs from her voucher swap and knew where to continue her antiretroviral treatment—some nice farang doctors from France had just set up a clinic on the edge of town. Still, I stuffed the remaining vouchers under her futon while Nancee was telling her good-bye. We parted after begging her to keep herself and Gift well, safe, and out of the sight of the Third Army.

"After I get back to America, I'll figure out a way to get you out of here," I said as optimistically as I could, despite my doubts that I or any of my friends could escape the death trap I had lead us all into.

I tried to keep my voice optimistic as I finished with: "Keep safe until we call for you. We need you to tell this story in America." Then Nancee and I went to the chaos of Somphet Market.

It was nearing closing time when we arrived. The local merchants had been starved of tourists by the triple curses of terrorism, recession and the panic over SARS. All around us, the remaining desperate merchants were aggressively hawking their unsold wares. The more resigned among them had already closed for the day. We spent most of our soon-to-be-useless baht on as much food as we could carry and then tried to look as inconspicuous as we could while we waited for Eddie to show up.

Eddie appeared dressed in a longyi and a Ralph Lauren polo shirt accompanied by a couple of dangerous-looking ethnic Shan. He addressed them sharply in front of us and then translated: "I told them to take you to the Shan State Army's base in Shan State of Myanmar. I told them if you didn't arrive safely, and untouched by their filthy bodies, they and their families would be ying ting.

"I'll meet up with you there after I've found Tran and figured out how to get her up there." As he finished speaking, Eddie pointed towards the Thanon Thongchai Range that loomed above Chiang Mai to the northwest. Then he helped us up onto the covered bed of an old Mitsubishi diesel truck. We spread one of our tarps on a dirty sleeping pad we found in the back, and tried to make ourselves comfortable as our Shan drivers tied the curtains at the rear of the canvas awning. As soon as we were hidden from view, they got into the cab and started off.

We discovered that the rear window of the cab had been removed to improve the ventilation in the cab; although our drivers only spoke a rather rough approximation of Thai, Nancee could understand them. We could peer through the cab at the road ahead, at least until the driver warned we were nearing a checkpoint.

Nancee and I cowered under the tarp as we passed through the first checkpoint that the Third Army had established around the outskirts of Chiang Mai. We peeked furtively through the window at the following checkpoints, and noticed the driver passed the Thai security men closed envelopes bearing the seal of the Shan State Army. We passed through the checkpoints unmolested and uninspected. It seemed Eddie had wired the lower ranks of the Third Army as thoroughly as he had wired the Thai civil police.

We drove all night and through the next day, climbing the mountains on roads whose quality declined as our altitude increased: tarmac gave way to untarred macadam, to loose gravel, to packed earth, and finally to a pair of ruts in the earth. The truck swayed and rocked through a moonlit night and an overcast day, as patches of terraced rice paddies appeared less frequently amidst the dense hardwood forest through which we drove.

We huddled under our tarp against the cold of high passes and sweltered under mosquito netting as we descended through steamy, insect-infested valleys, where the surrounding forest seethed with the sounds of predators and their prey. The drivers were indefatigable: more than once we noticed the vanilla fumes of yaba as they drove through the night and the following day.

By the end of the second day of our hejira, I was exhausted but couldn't find rest. I felt tormented by guilt and remorse. My ambition and drive had outrun my luck and ability. I had wanted to soar, but instead I had crashed and burned. As the truck lurched through the gathering twilight, I flayed myself mentally for my recklessness and vainglory.

My Thai Transsexual Sex Worker study was a hopelessly flawed, incomplete disaster. Its truncated remnants existed precariously on a lost iBook that would soon be found and confiscated by the goons of the corrupt commander of the Third Army. Then my findings, whatever little they were worth, would be lost forever to science.

I had misjudged my capacity to understand and operate in this complex land. The methods of science and analysis in which I had been trained, and in which I believed, were foolish ideals in a place where one's place in society, even those of the sao praphet song, had been established, understood, and accepted by all, long before America had even been founded.

It had been sheer madness for me to have taken on Spartan and General Riap with nothing more than a handful of katoey comrades and an iBook. If I had only known, if only I had studied the situation more carefully, then I, Nancee and my beloved Tran would not have been placed in mortal danger. My boundless desire for fame and glory had led me to gamble for stakes I had never understood, much less considered. Under the pretext of providing for Alyssa, Marta and Li, I had ruined all of us utterly.

My bitter musings were interrupted quite abruptly: the truck stopped short, jerking Nancee awake, and I heard commands barked in a strange tongue. Nancee looked at me in startled fear: "Shit, I can't tell whether that's Burmese or Wa!"

"So good, we're across the border," I said complacently.

"Borders don't mean anything here. It depends on whose territory you land in," Nancee replied. "If that's the United Wa Army out there, we're screwed."

We waited under the tarp as our anxiety mounted. After what seemed hours, a glaring flashlight was shined under our tarp, followed by an incomprehensible, but obvious command. "It's them. Get out slowly with your hands up," Nancee advised.

Covering my eyes from the blinding light, I struggled out over the tail gate of the truck and was pushed at gunpoint towards a group of soldiers on a hillock by the track. Our Shan guides were already hog-tied there, their faces averted from our captors.

Suddenly, the commander uttered an order, and two fighters sprang forward and hacked the Shan across the backs of their necks with machetes. With a horrible thud, the guides' heads flopped over as their bodies hit the ground. Blood started to spray from their partly decapitated bodies.

Our guides were decapitated with second or third blows; their headless bodies twitched uncontrollably against their bonds as more and more of their blood poured downhill, staining the jungle scrub scarlet. The fetid jungle air was filled with the stench of urine and blood.

Now the commander screamed and pointed at us.

"Tell him we are costly concubines on our way to the commander of the Shan State Army," I hissed to Nancee. She said something in halting Burmese. He snorted in disbelief.

"He thinks we're Karen village girls," Nancee said, terrified.

"Tell him that we'd be delighted to prove otherwise, if he would honor us with a private audience. Tell him he could bring great honor to himself if he presented the Shan State Army commander's new concubines to his commander."

Nancee translated, and the commander rewarded me with a predatory smile. He ordered us searched for weapons, and then directed us to the back of the truck. The commander and his lieutenant got in behind us.

I pulled off the tribal headscarf under which I had hidden my hair, tied up in a tight bun. My blond hair floated down over my shoulders as I started to pull up my hse. I slipped it off over my head while giving my underwire bra-clad breasts a provocative shake in his direction.

I gave him a lubricious smile and bade Nancee speak for me: "Tell him if he takes good care of us, we can offer the commander and his lieutenant greater pleasure than they have ever known."

Nancee got into the act, and translated with greater assurance and a lascivious tone of her own, as she bared her breasts, which thanks to silicone, were unusually bountiful for an Asian girl.

The commander reached for me hesitantly, as if he were afraid to touch a sacrosanct icon. I nodded encouragement, and then gently took his trembling fingers in my hand and pressed them against me. "Nice?" I inquired with a friendly smile.

"Nice," he answered with a shy grin. I looked over as Nancee made the lieutenant fondle her, and then we gestured to suggest that they change places.

"Ask him if he doesn't think we wouldn't make a fine gift for his general." Nancee translated, in a now almost haughty tone, and the commander and his subordinate nodded enthusiastic approval. "Tell him we are not common village girls, that we are fragile and delicate princesses, and need careful attention. From no more than one man each!" Nancee translated, but the commander shook his head and began arguing.

"He says we must each allow two men to have us." I tried to hide my disgust and exchanged a revolted glance with Nancee.

"OK, two and no more, and both must use condoms, to keep us safe and clean so we may be concubines for his general." He nodded assent, and left, to be replaced by a guard, who kept his eyes away from us, even after we had pulled on our hses once again.

We heard the commander give a loud order, and immediately heard a mutinous outcry. The commander barked another command, and when the angry complaints continued, I heard the crack of a pistol shot. The guard peeked out the rear of the truck, and responded to our quizzical looks by pointing an imaginary pistol at his head and saying, "Pow!"

Nancee gave me an admiring look and said, "Alexandra, you are truly brilliant."

"Thanks, necessity is the mother of invention. I just remembered that in Asia you bargain over everything."

"You learned the lessons of the Thai marketplace very well," Nancee said admiringly. "I think you saved us from a deadly gangbang."

"For now, at least. As to the future, let's hope."

The truck started moving again. We bumped up the track more slowly now, to let the soldiers of this detachment of the United Wa Army keep up with us.

As the three of us bounced around in the back of the truck, out of sight of the rest of our captors, Nancee whispered with our guard. After a while, he became more and more forthcoming with answers to her questions. Nancee finally turned to me and filled me in on what was happening.

Our captors were indeed part of the United Wa State Army. They were returning, I learned, from a massive smuggling voyage that had brought millions of yaba pills into Chiang Mai Province.

I thought ruefully of the small, but vital role that I had played in this murderous enterprise. Without hedonists like me, there would be no addicts, and without five million addicts to demand more and more drugs, there would be no raison d'�tre for this ragtag army of scoundrels. Without hedonists like me, there would be no cause for this drug war; General Riap would neither be able to enjoy and abuse his position of privilege nor be able to hound and persecute those who might expose his corporate malfeasance.

I had made a critical contribution to the enterprise that now threatened to destroy me and my friends. I would pay the price soon enough, when I would play the role of whore for two smelly, filthy, and probably diseased cutthroats of the United Wa Army, the biggest drug gang on the planet.

I would have to play my role as if my life depended on it; considering in whose hands I was, though, I was most likely wasting my time: I was already probably as good as dead.

We continued on the long bumpy ride in the twilight. As night fell, the convoy stopped, and after a few minutes of waiting in the ominous silence, there was a furious consultation by the side of the truck.

"What are they saying?" I demanded of Nancee.

"Their scouts have spotted a Karen village. They are going to attack and loot it, and take the women and girls to be sex slaves for the men. That way, the officers can keep us for themselves, and they can make a even bigger gift to their commander."

"That's horrible. These people are beasts. Nancee, how are we ever going to survive this?" I asked.

"Our problems are nothing compared to those of the people in that village," Nancee said sadly.

After a few minutes, we heard the booming of grenades and a rattling fusillade of gunfire, followed by screams of agony and pleas for mercy, followed by isolated snaps of rifle shots echoing from the hills surrounding the village near the valley floor.

The affray ended quickly—automatic weapons are like that.

Within the hour, the triumphant Wa battle party had returned with captives: seven women and girls that they captured from the village, several of them bleeding from recent wounds. The Wa gunmen looked cheerful and expectant: now they, like their commanders, would have fresh meat for their sexual appetites.

The Wa fighters tied the women up and loaded them into the truck with us: the Karen women cried miserably and looked at us piteously.

"What are they saying: do you understand them?" I asked Nancee.

"They speak a different dialect, but I understand that the Wa shot the few old men in the village and slaughtered their children, except for these few young girls. They want and expect to die themselves. I think I shouldn't talk to them. I don't want these Wa pigs to think I'm a Karen."

It was a brutal calculation, but she was right. We had bartered a better way to die than these poor creatures would suffer. But the cruelty that we had seen from the Wa made our fate all too clear.

We rolled to a stop in a foggy mountain pass. The Wa soldiers routed the terrified Karen girls out of the truck and herded them into the mouth of a cave or bunker in the side of the mountain. The officers came for us, and we stepped down from the truck bed. The officers helped us down with faux gallantry.

I had known the limestone mountains of this region featured many spectacular 'thum' or caves, but I had never entertained the slightest desire to visit any of them. From the mouth of what was now clearly an extensive cavern, we heard renewed cries and savage shouts as the soldiers began their debauch of the Karen girls. I wondered how many of them would survive this night of rape and abuse, or how long we could survive amongst these butchers.

For now, we could only try to prolong our survival by offering these commanders sexual experiences worthy of the "Thousand and One Nights."

"Nancee, tell the commander that we wish to get ready to receive our conquering heroes." I handed her two condoms, and she handed me a tube of lubricant, which I hurriedly spread under my mons and ass. I whispered, "I'm going to try to do these pigs two at a time. Then they'll never forget us!"

Captain Rap, the commander, and Lieutenant Gurp guided me through the meandering cave to a vaulted chamber that, by its odor, had been used as a shelter by the Wa bandit army for many years. As my eyes became used to the flickering light from their hurricane lamps, I noticed a pair of dank sleeping pallets lying off to one side. I kicked the pallets together and spread my tarp and mosquito netting over them as best I could.

The two Wa leaders passed a plastic bottle of some foul-smelling alcoholic drink between them. When they offered me the cloudy dregs, I declined.

The air in the cavern was rank, damp, and cold, and I made an exaggerated shiver. Rap barked a command to Gurp, who assembled some wood, and sprayed it with some gasoline from a bottle carried at his belt. Gurp followed up by tossing a match onto the pile. It burst into flames with a pop and a petroleum smell that managed to overpower the musty, earthy smell of the cave. As the fire grew, the cavern was filled with dancing light from its flames, which flickered in heartrending syncopation with the cries of the Karen girls echoing from a distant chamber.

I pulled off my hse with an erotic shimmy, and beckoned Rap to me. He approached me warily, as if he were unacquainted with the notion of a willing sex partner. I pulled at the rope that held his trousers at his waist, and slipped off his stiff, filthy clothing.

Third World rustics like Rap don't bathe much in the best of circumstances, and Rap's occupation, smuggling drugs across one of the most dangerous and wild frontiers in the world, gave him little motive or opportunity to maintain even the most rudimentary standards of personal hygiene. He reeked of sweat of sweat, filth, and God-knows-what else.

I circled my fingers around his stiff, but small cock, and rubbed him with Neosporin, and inspected him in the firelight. Although his penis appeared to be free of any visible lesions, before swallowing him I used my well-practiced lip-slide technique to put on his condom.

He recoiled in protest against the condom initially, but after a few seconds of tongue-trilling and deep, quick head lunges of my hot, wet lips over his cock, Rap was unable to resist the pleasures of one of my well-practiced blowjobs. Within moments Rap was, like most of my lovers, more my captive than I was his.

Gurp watched intently, and I gestured to him to come near. Rap's eyes widened with offense when he saw his subordinate pull off his uniform and join us on the pallets, but I nodded my head vigorously in assent. Rap was too preoccupied with his own pleasure to protest the Neosporin-lubricated hand job I started giving Gurp, as I continued sucking Rap's cock.

I sheathed Gurp's cock with a condom, and then began alternated my lips between their modest, but intrusive cocks. Then I threw myself down on the pallets, tilted my head over the back and invited Gurp to my head, and threw my legs apart for Rap.

If Rap had ever had sex in a setting other than rape, he had forgotten how, for he entered me in a single, painful lunge. He was small even for an Asian guy, and I handled him easily: my vagina had fully recovered from the exfoliation caused by my encounter with the spermicidal lubricant and Eddie's much larger cock.

I moaned and ground my pelvis with mock pleasure, and wrapped my hands around Gurp's skinny ass to press his cock into my mouth. Now both my Wa barbarians were captivated: their initial inhibition had been overcome by their drinking, and the intensity of my mock passion for them. They accepted my moans and cries of feigned pleasure as the real thing, and smiled smugly at their virile performance.

My own nerves, which had exploded to orgasmic life with Eddie, were completely quiescent: I experienced motion and penetration, but no pleasure. Rap was energetic but artless in his fucking, and his cock was not big enough to batter through the emotional defense of loathing that I had established.

Gurp made a servile request to Rap, which Rap repudiated, and then pointed to my ass. With that, he rolled me on top of him, and pulled me forward onto his chest. I braced myself for the anal penetration that I knew would come.

Like his superior, Gurp had not mastered the subtle art of entering a woman, as soon as he had pressed his cock's tip against my rectum, I felt him wiggle it in a millimeter, and then bull forward as far as he could. I knew that the initial shock and pain would soon subside, so I bit my lip and forced myself to accept the burning blast through my nervous system.

They seemed to enjoy the sensation of one another's penises thumping at each other through the thin layers of tissue between my ass and vagina. I was surprised at how easily I accommodated them, and by the pleasant buzz that emerged from my vestigial prostate, now squeezed between their plunging penises.

My senses began to be flooded with warm, building sensations from that forgotten corner of my male past, and despite myself, my feigned vocalizations of pleasure were supplanted by the real thing.

I laughed to myself and cursed Sanguan for the efficacy of his work with my nerves: even when raped by two violent, filthy land pirates, I could not prevent myself from having an orgasm!

I abandoned my righteous obduracy, and let my fantasies go wild. I was a Spanish countess, traveling by a golden galleon to reunite with my true love, the prince, and my ship was taken by a crew of heartless pirates. After they slaughtered the crew, they took their turns with me, fucking me from stem to stern. Though I tried to be faithful even to point of attempting to take my own life, I could not and instead, after a protracted debauch, melted into a delicious orgasm.

And with that, I began cumming, my face contorting with pleasure, and my body growing taut and spasming as I begged, "More, more, more!"

Rap and Gurp, astounded by this passion, responded with more, reaching climaxes while my body was still throbbing from my own pleasure. Afterwards, Rap pulled the mosquito net over our slack bodies. I fell asleep guiltily to the hideous cacophony of pain echoing from the distant chamber where the Wa soldiers were tormenting the Karen girls.

Rap and Gurp were still asleep when I awoke. Alcohol, sexual satiation, or death had stilled the voices that had filled the cave with eerie echoes through the night. I inspected their kit: they had machetes and pistols, and I fantasized a bloody double assassination. But what would I do afterwards? There were two more leaders, and over a dozen more men.

God only knew where I was, and where I would go from this godforsaken spot. I put on my hse, threw some more wood on the embers of the fire, brewed a pot of tea, cooked a mess kit full of rice, and sat by the fire, waiting for my captors to awaken.

When Rap and Gurp awoke, they sipped the tea and ate my rice gratefully, and said something I took as thanks and a compliment. Then we went to make reveille to the rest of the troop. I feared the worst when we went to Nancee's companions, but she was already dressed, looked fresh and healthy, and gave me a furtive thumbs-up, to which I replied as discretely as I could.

The soldiers' vault exceeded my nightmarish expectations. One of the Karen girls, a skinny twelve year-old, lay crumpled and twisted, and the soldiers ordered the other Karen to carry her out.

Under the harsh commands of Gurp, the Karen girls dug a shallow grave for their dead fellow villager by the mouth of the cave, and Gurp kicked at the battered, forlorn corpse until she rolled in. Then he ordered the surviving Karen to cover the pathetic, broken body with jungle dirt and foliage.

Once the grave was hidden in foliage, Rap ordered his men to tie the Karen girls' hands and herd them into the truck; Gurp helped me and Nancee up with ostentatious gallantry. Then we resumed our laborious ride up and down the winding track.

Nancee and I sat in stunned silence. "I heard their screams, but I had no idea how bad it was for them."

"I feel like such a whore. I actually enjoyed myself with those two pigs," I said.

"I heard, and wondered how you could act so well. You drowned out the torture for a few minutes, and that was a welcome relief."

"My two used condoms, did yours?" I asked anxiously.

"It was a negotiation, but yes," Nancee responded. "I guess we'll change partners tonight."

"I hope you can do double penetration," I said grimly.

"Alexandra, you always set expectations so high," Nancee said.

I surveyed the bruised, weeping Karen girls, and felt rage boil within me. I wished I had gone on a killing binge in the night. We were all dead anyhow, I mused.

Then I heard ripping sounds from the canvas that covered the truck, followed in a fraction of a second by a loud crackling sound from the side of the road. I grabbed Nancee's arm and flung myself flat against the bed of the truck, dragging Nancee down beside me.

We were buried under a pile of Karen women imitating me. Amidst the booming clatter of automatic weapons, I heard the roars of several nearby explosions, and then after a moment of silence, the sounds of voices shouting in a new language.

I looked up anxiously at Nancee. She smiled and said, "They're Karen."

I wouldn't haven known them from Wa at first. They were dressed in sandals, shorts of various colors, and same sort of green military shirt the Wa wore. The most noticeable difference from our Wa captors was that a number of the men had black tattoos on their legs, some in quite elaborate swirling geometric patterns, and that the smokers seemed to favor short little wooden pipes over cheroots.

We watched in horror as the armed Karen shot the wounded Wa as they lay splayed on the ground, and rounded up and hog-tied a handful of prisoners.

Nancee surprised the Karen commander when she addressed him in his native tongue. After a brief exchange, she explained that a troop of vengeful soldiers from Karen National Liberation Army of the Karen National Union had tracked our Wa captors from atrocity to atrocity.

Now the KNU force exacted a terrible revenge for the slaughter at the Karen village and the murder of the Karen girl in the cave, and the savage rapes of the others.

The Karen girls had denounced us, believing that we were the privileged whores of the Wa commanders, and deserving of the same fate as their hated Wa captors.

"Tell him that we were kidnapped by these swine just hours before the Karen girls got snatched and that we are very thankful to him as our liberator. Tell him that the Karen girls are mistaken," I said.

Nancee translated my argument and listened to his, and then said "He suggests that we repay his service by executing the judgment of the KNU tribunal against the Wa commanders."

She pointed through the scrub to the circle of Wa prisoners, who awaited their fates with hung heads. "They have been sentenced to die, and we are asked to execute the sentence."

"You mean, shoot them?" I asked in disbelief.

"Yes, to prove that we are not their allies," Nancee replied.

"Both of us?"

She nodded.

"Do you even know how to shoot a gun?" I retorted. I hadn't shot a gun since I'd been shown how to shoot a .22 caliber rifle in target practice at a Boy Scout camp eight years ago.

The memory of my murderous fantasy the night before came back to haunt me. Could I do this? Surely, Rap deserved to die for his crimes, but not by my hand.

"They'll shoot us if we don't," Nancee said nervously. "They're going to shoot them anyhow, and it's not like they don't deserve it."

I had to live. Not just for my own sake, but for Alyssa, Marta, Tran, Nancee, and Lin: people whom my overreaching ambition had placed in jeopardy, and whom I was obligated to help.

To do that, and to salvage my own tarnished reputation, I had to unravel the Spartan/N9 scandal and expose the devastating truth about the lethal spermicide and Riap's cynical, brutal cover-up: trying to ying ting me, my friends, and our pathetic AIDS-infected interview subjects. I didn't want to die an undeserved death at the hands of angry hill tribesman as a pawn in a border, drug, and clan war.

I followed the Karen leader to the hillock. The Karen commander placed us each next to a Wa leader; I stood beside Rap, Nancee by Gurp.

Rap smiled obsequiously, and began uttering fawning words in Wa. His demeanor transformed to nervousness and then jabbering, pants-pissing fear when the Karen commander loosened a catch at the bottom of the pistol in his hand, pocketed the magazine, and then put the pistol in my hand. I noticed that it was the same sort of pistol as the Wa used, Makarov 9x18mm, as I learned later. I looked back at Nancee and asked, "Is this thing even loaded?" as another Karen did the same thing to his pistol and handed it to Nancee.

Nancee spoke briefly with the Karen leader, then told me there was a round of ammunition inside the top part of each weapon. The Karen leader took my left hand and wrapped it around my right hand to steady my wavering grip on the sweaty plastic handle. I saw Nancee copied my grip, and noticed that other Karen with rifles in their hands were giving us hard, apprising glances.

Then the Karen leader barked an order that Nancee didn't bother to translate. Nancee and I lowered our pistols and aimed at the begging, pleading men. I closed my left eye, got a sight picture the way I remembered from those awful days with the Boy Scouts, and started to pull the trigger.

Pulling the trigger seemed to take infinitely longer than I remembered from Boy Scout riflery. I couldn't bear it any longer, and closed my right eye as well. The blast and recoil took me by surprise. I felt a mild shock in my hand, but only thought I heard a door slamming nearby, not a pistol going off. Then I felt droplets of something wet landing on me, and recognized the smell of blood in the air, together with something else, perhaps a note of sawdust, and perhaps hot shortening, or maybe beeswax. I bit my tongue. I must not cry, or even cry out.

The Karen leaders did not give me so much as a look. They just collected their pistols, reloaded, and went among the others and killed them with quick, one-handed single shots to the back of the neck. I noticed they stood further back than Tran and I stood. They must have known about the backspatter. I wanted to wash my face, but I was afraid to move. I stood there, frozen to the spot until we were ordered back into the trucks again.

Once we were back in the trucks again, we retraced our journey of the previous days, heading back down the trails toward Thong Pha Phum, back towards the Myanmar-Thai border. The closer to the border we got the greater my anxiety grew.

"Nancee, you have to talk to them. I didn't commit homicide for them so that they could give us to the Third Army."

Nancee replied with a note of urgency in her voice: "The KNU hates the Third Army as much as we do, but we have to get out of Myanmar. If the Third Army intercepts us, they'll send us back into Myanmar to be slaughtered by the SPRC or the Wa. The Wa are united with the SPRC against the KNU, and this troop was probably already being hunted by the Tatmadaw, the SPRC's official forces, when they found us. We're even more screwed than before if we fall into the hands of the SPRC: that's the criminal gang that runs Burma, or Myanmar as they call it now."

We reached the Moei River, where the Karen camouflaged the Wa trucks and hid them off-road. We forded the muddy Moei, bags, packs and weapons held high, alert for predatory aquatic life and Thai or Tatmadaw patrols. On the Thai side, we crept through the jungle slowly but purposefully: our Karen guides knew where they were going and what to avoid.

We marched over ten kilometers through dense rain forest. The Karen soldiers hacked a trail with machetes for us, avoiding the winding tracks that we occasionally crossed. When Nancee asked why we kept off the beaten path, she was told something which she translated into two words: "Land mines."

"God, what horrors does this hideous place lack?" I wondered. Then, just when the forest seemed as if it could not become more dense and impenetrable, it ceased abruptly; we broke through a tree line to a broad expanse of rice paddies. We hiked down a dike toward a collection of neat, whitewashed buildings, next to which we saw a shiny red and white single-engine Cessna. Were we saved, or ruined?

That question was answered when a white-shirted, blond Caucasian bounded out of a building to greet us with a smile, and, noticing my European features said cheerfully, "Bonjour mesdemoiselles, comment allez-vous?

"Tres bien, et toi?"

"Oui, �a va. Tu est fran�aise?"

"Non, je suis amŽricaine et ma amie et thailandaise."

"Well then, hello American girl, will you come in and have a Coke with Dr. Alain Richard?" His English was flawless but with that 'je ne sais quoi' that only a French accent can convey.

"That's the nicest thing I've heard in days," I said. "My name is Alexandra Rivers, and this is my Karen friend Nancee. She's Thai, but Karen too. These Karen rescued us from a group of Wa bandits. We weren't sure where they were taking us. Are we safe here?"

"'Bienvenues a Camp du Mer, so named after the ocean of rice paddies around us; we also call it 'Cap du Merde.'" I giggled, because I realized that meant 'Cape Shit.' Nancee looked bemused, so he explained his little play on words to her and continued: "You are most fortunate to be alive, and you are both welcome and safe here. This is a compound of 'Medicins Sans Frontieres.'"

"'Doctors Without Borders?' What does that mean?" I asked.

My French "Lord Jim" smiled and chuckled. With strong, suntanned arms around our fragile shoulders he guided us to a neat, tile-roofed residence. "You Americans are so provincial in your own way. If you didn't invent it, it doesn't exist in your world."

It was a putdown, but he said it with elegance, gentility, and such a dazzling smile I could hardly care. I rejoined, "But we are very quick studies."

"I'm sure you are, but first you must bathe. We must find you some clothes, and we should examine you. You were how long in the bush?"

"Four or five days. I lost track."

"The Karen brought their women here for examination and treatment after their ordeal with the Wa. Have you been violated, too?" he asked matter-of-factly, but with a sympathetic look.

"We convinced the Wa commander that we would make perfect concubine presents for his commanding officers, and that kept the rape within bearable limits, if that makes any kind of sense at all. I mean, we even got them to use condoms," I reported with a sense of unreality in my voice. I was not five minutes out of the jungle, and I was already trying to distance myself from my memories.

"You are fortunate; the likelihood of HIV transmission from those soldiers is, sadly for your Karen companions, quite high. And even more fortunate that you were not delivered to the United Wa Army commander, who is a notoriously sadistic killer."

"Tough neighborhood, this is," I said.

Alain nodded and said "This is an island of tranquility in a turbulent region. You'll be safe here. There's a shower, and I'll bring you some nurses' uniforms, while we wash those." He pointed to our filthy hses. "And will you join me and my colleague for dinner? We rarely see outsiders in this outpost, especially ones as lovely as you."

"Merci," I said with a smile, as he left to retrieve clothes for us.

When he was out of earshot, I turned and smiled smugly to Nancee, who said with mock disapproval, "I can't believe I associate with such a slut. First you seduce the Wa war criminal, and after you kill him, you move on to the French doctor saint!"

"I'm sorry, but he's adorable. And maybe he can help us get out of this godforsaken shithole. Think about it, Nancee. We're on the blacklist in the land of ying ting. We've still got to scheme our way out of here."

"What's your plan?" Nancee asked.

"None, yet, but he said 'without borders.'" That gives me hope.

We showered under the blue sky in a bamboo enclosure. We had no make-up, blow dryer, or perfume, so it seemed fitting to be dressed in simple white nurses' dresses that clearly had been cut for the traditional Asian physique, rather than Nancee's and my upgraded models. They fitted very snugly against our more adventurous curves. We made an attention-grabbing sight when we hailed Alain.

I said, "We're starving."

"Have some soup at the kitchen. I must still treat more of the Karen girls, and then I must insist on examining you and Nancee as well," he replied, as his eyes drank our figures in hungrily. "This was a particularly brutal encounter with the Wa."

"OK, if it's the doctor's orders," I joked, but internally, I froze with apprehension. When he was out of earshot, I whispered to Nancee, "I think he liked me, but if he's going to examine me, then I have to tell him, you know, that we're post-ops. He's going to figure it out when he examines us."

"I can barely tell now, with you," Nancee said with a touch of envy.

"It's very obvious inside," I said grimly. "I hope he's open-minded."

We had a few spoonfuls of some sort of local soup—it tasted loathsome. Then I waited with dread for my least favorite moment in a new relationship.

As we left the kitchen, we noticed the airplane climbing high into the sky. I idly wondered where it was headed, but didn't think more about it. We strolled about the compound a bit, then returned to the medical building and Alain.

Alain summoned me to his examining room, asked me to undress, and left for a moment. I cowered beneath a sheet awaiting his return. He asked briskly "Tell me, how did you end up on Thailand's frontier with hell?"

"It's a long story, but the first part is that, I was in Thailand for a follow-up to sex-reassignment surgery."

Alain looked dumbfounded. "I had no idea. You look and sound perfect, right down to your use of the masculine and feminine 'en fran�ais!' Well, let us inspect your surgeon's expertise." He peeked under the sheet, and examined me with a speculum, my very least favorite medical instrument. Still, I felt a twinge of pleasure as this handsome doctor examined me, murmuring "incroyable," and "c'est merveilleuse" beneath his breath.

"Quite indistinguishable from a genetic girl, until we inspect deep within you. What was the most recent surgery?" I explained Dr. Sanguan's technique, and the treatment of the resulting ring. "You, and your lovers-to-be, are quite lucky that you had such a skilled doctor." I had the impression that he put himself onto that list.

"So you chose to take your convalescence amongst the Wa?" he asked with ironic humor.

"That's a long story: one that demands dinner and a bottle of Meursault," I replied.

"Very impressive, you know your Burgundies. Let's have your friend and my colleague Jacques join us and dine on the cuisine of Tak Province."

Thai food is one of my favorites, as it is served in L.A. or one of the big cities. The cuisine of Tak was simple: boiled chicken and fish with rice noodles. And the Meursault of my fantasies was Maekong, a mediocre whiskey that Alain cautioned me to go slowly with.

Alain and Jacques sat in rapt, and astounded attention as we unfolded our tale: our lucky encounter with Lin; our discovery of the Spartan list; my e-mail to Pranatop asking permission to use the list; the devastating AIDS epidemic among the Spartan subjects; the strange correlation of disease with alphabetic coding; Pranatop's belated but urgent demand that we abandon using the list; the sudden emergence of security checkpoints and demands on farang students; the disappearances and arrests of the last subjects, and then our being added to the drug blacklist, along with many of the Spartan subjects; our escape, and the disappearance of Tran in Chiang Rai; the lost computer and data; and our kidnapping by the Wa.

When I had finished, Alain said, "Mon dieu, c'est incroyable, fantastique. I drink a toast to Alexandra and her brave friends." He and Jacques raised their glasses and solemnly drank a sip of Maekong. "It's so obvious that you have uncovered a sordid corporate scandal and cover-up. And did you say your advisor was Pranatop?"

I nodded.

"I remember her from a conference in Tahiti. She's the charlatan girlfriend of a Thai Army bigshot who is probably in on the Spartan venture. But it is such an irony that an American should explode this cesspool of corruption when it was America that built the structure for these corrupt tinpot gangsters."

"What do you mean?" I asked innocently.

"Only the muscle half of Spartan is Thai. The money half is red, white and blue. That's why we Europeans are reluctant in your imposition of your "freedoms" in places like Iraq. Your corporations, under the protection of your government, propped these gangsters in power in the first instance: Saddam in the eighties, the swine of the SPRC in the present Myanmar; and of course, both were petroleum or rubber providers to your SUV culture."

"Sorry to be me," I said, feigning insult.

Like most people from West L.A., I really have more in common with Chirac than Bush. But I pretended, "I don't really know about all that political stuff. I was only trying to do comparative research on Thai and U.S. transsexuals, and now it's ruined. My grant is wasted, and my research work is unfinished."

"Alexandra, you have done something far greater than a cross-cultural study. This is the public health scandal of the decade. You, Nancee, your friends Tran and Lin, and your computer are the sparks that will burn Spartan and its charlatan science of AIDS inhibition to the ground."

"But we're outlaws in Thailand, and I never want to set foot in Burma again. What shall we do?"

"We've got an airplane at our disposal, and I can make you employees of MSF. That will get you entry into Switzerland. I will make it my duty to bring you safely out of Thailand. But the question is how to get past the checkpoints and through immigration at Bangkok International? Let me think it through overnight."

I smiled conspiratorially at Nancee and she nodded assent. I would make it my duty to give Alain a lot more than immigration to work out overnight.

After dinner, we walked hand-in-hand around the compound. I asked Alain, "What makes a handsome, brilliant young doctor like you travel to an impoverished and dangerous corner of the world?"

Accepting my characterization as accurate, he answered, "My parents and my old girlfriend asked me as much. We Europeans live in a cocoon, even more than you Americans. Our grandfathers made empires of blood and loot in these jungles, and left a legacy of chaos, which you have experienced for yourself. My generation seeks to experience the same adventures as our grandfathers while healing rather than destroying the world we inhabit."

I hugged him and said, "That's a really beautiful thought. I'm glad that I came here, if only to hear you say that."

"And the big pharmaceutical company in Lucerne that I work for pays us to take sabbaticals with MSF. But anyhow, you're a brave, brilliant and beautiful girl, and I am happy that you are here with me."

"Are you comfortable with my being who I am?"

"I wouldn't want you to be anyone else. You are a fantastically brave and beautiful girl, and I am privileged to know you."

He gathered me in his arms, and caressed me with his skillful, sensitive surgeon's hands. My lips melted under his, and I instantly felt a warm energy growing within me.

Eddie had been a drug-buzzed social obligation. My intercourse with the Wa had been an act in which I had gotten caught up, to the point of accidentally being brought to orgasm. With Alain I felt the real thing, an overpowering desire to be loved and to love in return.

"J'ai envie de faire l'amour avec toi," I whispered.

"Moi aussi," he managed between desperate kisses.

We strolled, arm in arm, to his hut, and the stars of the moonlit mountain night seemed to be twinkling messages of approval. Alain was handsome, passionate, intelligent, and seemed smitten not only with my looks, but with me as a whole person.

Not only was I needful of a lover to purge me of my filthy Wa captors, but I needed one who regarded me a something more than a pretty face with a tight ass. Eddie, Rick and even Alec enjoyed me as arm candy and as a sex object; my intellect was unnerving and off-putting. My mind raced ahead of my body, imagining possibilities.

He came to me by his simple bed, and said, "I want to drink in this vision of you, so that I may never forget anything about you." He rubbed the arches of my feet, which ached from the jungle march, my calves, thighs, and buttocks, working the sore muscles as he studied my sinuous curves.

"Mmm, that feels good. More there," I said, as he rubbed circles on my buttocks. "Three days in a truck will do terrible things to a butt," I said jokingly.

"Nothing that some loving, gentle care can't cure." The circles of relaxation spread from my bottom to my lower back, up my spine, across my shoulders and down my slender arms, and out the tips of my fingers. Then again, the waves of relaxation surged straight up the ladder of my vertebrae, up my neck, across my cheeks and forehead, and then, with a pop of fingers, out the top of my head.

"Mmm, do they teach that in French medical school?" I asked dreamily.

"Ah, no, an old, er, friend," he said with embarrassment.

"That's OK," I said with an indulgent laugh, "As long as she's a really old friend. Because I want you to myself!" I kissed him passionately, and he got on top of me, and I felt his cock pressing against my pussy. I touched him: he was circumcised, which I prefer, and of medium length and width, which is perfect for my new anatomy. He gently opened my outer lips with his fingers and entered me, patiently and slowly.

I said, to encourage him, "I'm OK."

He whispered, "I want to experience every millimeter of you as if it were new."

"That's OK, too," I said with a cry of pleasure. Putting overblown descriptions of unbridled passion aside, a gentle, careful beginning is best with a new lover, for it is the fire that is kindled most carefully that burns the hottest.

His careful, gentle entry first relaxed me, and then had my body craving each further entry expectantly. When after fifteen careful strokes, Alain was fully inside me, my body was already throbbing with an electric charge of sexual energy. His hands, well trained and experienced in the healing arts, were well versed in the architecture of sexual pleasure. His movements, sensual and languid to begin, enticed rather than demanded my response. And as I responded, he responded in kind, his caresses and thrusts growing more firm and potent as my pleasure was manifest in murmurs, moans, and writhing motions of ecstasy.

Alain was an existentialist's lover: one whose only demand was for both lovers to maximize their exercise of free will. Freed from all earthly connections to my past, my present self, or to my wishes for the future, I felt my body go thermonuclear and explode in an orgasm that made me cry, "More, more, more!"

Now Alain responded with thrusts that were superhuman in their speed and power, and I orgasmed over and over again, finally slowing only when Alain came and his frenzied pace gradually slowed. The last words I heard and spoke before drifting off into a dazed sleep were, "Je t'aime."

When I awoke in the gathering tropical heat, Alain was gone. I ran into Nancee in the bathroom. She said, "I was happy with Sanguan's work, until I started sleeping in the room next to you. I want to get myself rewired like you," she complained wryly.

"Sorry, I hope I didn't keep you up," I said laughingly.

"No, Jacques and I thought it was charming," Nancee replied ironically.

"Where are our French lovers?" I asked.

"I woke up when the airplane landed about an hour ago, and they took a stretcher in there," Nancee said, pointing to the medical building.

We showered and primped as best we could under these austere conditions, and then we investigated the medical building. Jacques was outside, lighting a Gauloise. "I never smoke anymore, but we have a very difficult case: one of our backpack nurses, Lizette, has come down with SARS, Sudden Acute Respiratory Syndrome. We have to stabilize her and repatriate her to Switzerland: her father's the boss, and he thinks Thailand's SARS treatment facilities are inadequate.

"He's right. Thailand had only a few cases; Prime Minister Thaksin declared SARS defeated on April 28.

"Because the Thais were so successful in preventing the spread of SARS by imposing strict quarantines immediately, they are way behind on treatment. Worse still, there are no negative-pressure isolation rooms in any hospital in Thailand, which makes treating the sickest patients risker not only for their caregivers but for the other hospitalized patients as well."

"I've heard about this disease, but I haven't seen anyone with it," Nancee said.

"The government only admitted to eight cases, and they were mostly infected abroad," Jacques commented.

"I guess Thaksin's drug war was the perfect training ground for a repressive quarantine regime." I added. "How did Lizette get it?"

"Lizette's contracting SARS upcountry is really quite alarming. She probably from someone she treated, but we can only guess the source: probably a smuggler from South China. SARS emerged in South China a few months ago and has leapfrogged from region to region, primarily through carriers with airline tickets.

"Wherever it has landed, it has found fertile breeding grounds in hospitals and clinics, including ours. It is the perfect virus for a massively destructive epidemic: its onset is rapid enough to spread quickly, but it sickens and kills slowly enough so that one victim can easily infect a hundred others before succumbing.

"We risk Lizette's life, and infecting the entire, extremely vulnerable population of this region, if we treat her here; it would be better for everyone to get her proper care and isolation, in Switzerland."

"Can you take a contagious patient on a commercial flight?" I asked.

"Of course not. But she is the daughter of the CEO of our employer: not MSF, but ICF, the pharmaceutical maker that is sponsoring us here. If she dies?" Jacques made a throat-slitting motion.

Alain emerged, looking fatigued and stressed, and said, "I got Lucerne on the satellite phone again. They have just sent the company plane—it was laying over in Singapore; the company bigshots aboard will fly home later or some other way. We must move Lizette to Bangkok International immediately."

Then he said, "Ah, bon, that's it! We will disguise Alexandra and Nancee as her attendants. We can't afford to send anyone else: with Lizette sick, and a potential epidemic of SARS in this province we will need every nurse we have and more. And it is a perfect cloak for your escape," he said, turning to me. "The immigration police at Bangkok International don't want to get close to SARS cases or their health workers."

"How do we avoid getting it ourselves?" I asked.

"Surgical masks to cover your beautiful faces. Tant mieux, for now you will have a perfect excuse to travel in disguise. Medical staff must wear masks at all times while attending to SARS patients."

I was half-tempted to reject this plan and spend a few more nights with Alain, but the escape plan did sound promising. And I had many reasons to want to leave Thailand.

We gathered the scant remains of our personal belongings—all that we had left that we needed to take with us was the stent, a few days worth of hormones, our toiletries, and the now washed, but rather worn hses. Everything fit into a single tote with room to spare.

Inside the medical building, Alain watched us swallow our first doses of a prophylactic cocktail of ribavirin and oseltamivir.

"Your CDC thinks these drugs are ineffective against SARS, but then again, you are going to Switzerland, and most specifically to ICF's research facility. These drugs may not shorten the course of the disease, but they could shorten the length of your quarantine," Alain commented.

"What quarantine?" I asked innocently.

"Alas, you are trading one kind of prison for another. Switzerland will require that you be isolated for at least ten days after your exposure to SARS. With this treatment, you may be able to shorten that quarantine."

"Do you have to tell them?" I asked.

"I am afraid that with this poor girl in your care, it will be all too obvious. When you get to Bangkok International, the representative of the Swiss embassy will provide visas for you and Nancee and transit documentation for Lizette's transport via a quarantined flight back to Lucerne. You won't be allowed off the plane at any of your stops.

"I must tell you that this diseaposes a terrible dilemma for us, the caregivers. On one hand, we must be very attentive and responsive, and on the other hand, we must be very cautious in our contacts with the patient. It will be your duty to balance your safety against Lizette's survival. But you two are experienced in the art of survival."

He gave us each something that looked like a contractor's dust mask and a wad of throwaway surgical masks.

"This is the best preventative we have, a particulate mask called the N-95, for the size of the particle it removes. You should cover it with a surgical mask to avoid surface contamination, and handle the N-95 only after removing contaminated gloves. Equally important: you must practice rigorous 'hand hygiene.'"

I looked at him quizzically, and he clarified "That means 'Lave tes mains!'—even though you will double-glove. You must dispose of your outer glove after every contact with Lizette, you must also wash your hands and reglove completely after every contact with her bodily fluids. As there is no sink on the plane, to wash your hands, use this." He handed us bottles of alcohol-based disinfectant gel.

"She has a fever of 38.9, that's over102 degrees Fahrenheit, but her lungs are still about 80% capacity. We must hurry and move her before her disease advances and her lungs fill with mucous. This plane is not pressurized, so breathing will be difficult for Lizette. She will wear an aviation oxygen mask during the flight, which will provide you with some protection as long as the mask covers her nose and mouth. But if her cough becomes productive, she will need to remove the mask to spit, and you may need to assist her in replacing the mask. It is then you will be in greatest danger."

"What are those medicines you gave us?" I asked, as I recalled unhappy memories of the side effects of antivirals from my HIV prophylaxis.

Alain replied "Ribavirin is a neucleoside analogue with broad antiviral activity, clearly useful against respiratory syncytical virus and the hepatitis C virus, and oseltamivir is a flu drug also known as Tamiflu. Ribavarin is hemolytic—it destroys red blood cells—we are not sure yet whether it is efficacious in curing SARS, but it is useful against other respiratory viruses; it may help protect you, and it will certainly appease the Swiss Health Ministry.

Alain brought out the oxygen tank and mask, showed us how to connect the system, and explained the valves and gauges. "This is the most important thing," Alain said. "All contaminated gloves, masks, and wipes go into these red medical waste bags, and you must keep them sealed at all times. Now, let me show you how to wear these surgical gowns, gloves and sleeve guards."

Before we all gowned and gloved to take Lizette to the airplane, Alain embraced and kissed me, and said, "I'm sorry you must rush off like this, but there will be no better opportunity for you to escape this hellhole.

I replied, "I felt so safe and happy here. I'd rather stay here with you."

"HŽlas," Alain said, "It is better that you should take your chances with disease, rather than death by the blacklist. From the disease, I can protect you. From the drug blacklist, I can do nothing. And you must be free to live your life and to tell your story."

We gathered up our equipment and our pathetically light baggage and walked out to the airplane. Nancee and Jacques stood off to one side, and spoke quietly together.

Alain belted Lizette to her stretcher, and looked at me and said "You must loosen these as soon as you have begun level flight. Her breathing is weak, and these belts may interfere with her breathing." Lizette's eyes looked glassy, but they followed what we were doing.

"Thank you for helping us; I love you and I will never forget you," I said as I fought back my tears.

"I won't let you forget me," Alain said with a confident smile. Alain lifted me from the ground with a final hug. His firm, strong chest pressed against my breasts until they ached with longing for him, but there was no more time to linger—we bade one another farewell under the wing of the STOL air ambulance. Three feet away, Nancee and Jacques were hugging as awkwardly as we were, bundled up in all our protective clothing.

Nancee and I climbed through the big double door on the right, sat ourselves in the two seats behind the pilot's seat, then steadied Lizette's stretcher as it was pushed in and locked down where the three seats on the right side of the cabin used to be. The pilot, masked and gowned as we were, locked our doors, climbed up through his door, and started the engine. We taxied down the gravel almost to the grass runway, turned our tail away from the compound and did a noisy, dusty engine run-up check. The pilot partially extended the flaps, advanced the throttle to full power and noisily rolled us onto the grass.

Takeoff was absolutely petrifying. Rather than the lumbering but steady takeoff and climb out of a commercial jetliner, our pilot held the controls back all the way as the plane bounced down the rough grass field. After a very short roll, the airplane lurched into the air with a dreadful shriek; when I yelled, "What's happening?" our pilot replied calmly that it was just the stall warning horn. As he spoke, he abruptly relaxed the back pressure on the yoke. We hadn't climbed more than ten feet, and now we seemed to be heading back to the ground. Instead of slamming back into the grass, we leveled smoothly about a yard above ground and accelerated toward the line of trees at the end of the runway. I couldn't bring myself to speak again; I was sure we would smash into the trees in an instant. After gaining speed flying just above the grass, the pilot suddenly but smoothly pulled the nose up and up and up until we were climbing away from the jungle strip at a frighteningly steep angle.

Nancee's appearance mirrored my own feelings; she was speechless and what little I could see of her face looked deathly pale.

Noticing our apprehension, the pilot, completely calm and irritatingly cheerful, explained that he'd performed a standard soft-field takeoff followed by a best-angle-of-climb departure to clear the trees. "Enjoy the ride," he said as he lowered the nose and banked the plane at a scary angle. The pilot turned the plane again and again to follow a gradual climbing path over a series of low ridgelines. We seemed to barely clear the trees atop each successive line of hills.

Nancee whispered, "He's going to kill us all!" as we bounced around in the bumpy air.

Lizette was uncomfortable lying down. We loosened our seat belts and then loosened Lizette's belts and raised her back. She seemed more comfortable with her shoulders up, but her speech was almost inaudible and not very coherent.

We were climbing much less steeply than before. We were almost out of the hills at the western border of Thailand. Just as we cleared what I hoped would be the very last ridgeline, the plane was caught by a very strong slopewind and got bounced around in the updraft so vigorously that first Nancee and then Lizette vomited in very quick succession. I handed Nancee a wad of paper towels and a surgical mask. Then I replaced Lizette's mask with a nasal cannula, cleared Lizette's mouth and wiped her face clean, feeling acutely all the while that her fluids and my hands were now one big deadly culture of SARS virus.

Nancee managed to get her masks off with one hand, wipe herself with the same hand, and then hold a surgical mask over her nose and mouth with her clean hand until I was finished with Lizette.

When I was done, I covered Lizette's mouth with a surgical mask while Nancee masked herself again. Nancee's N-95 was ruined, but luckily we had a spare, which she put on as soon as she had changed gloves. But she couldn't avoid breathing in unfiltered cabin air as she changed masks. We traded apprehensive glances as she red-bagged her old masks.

I cleaned Lizettes's oxygen mask thoroughly with alcohol gel, then threw away her surgical mask and cleaned her face. I replaced her cannula with her breathing mask, pulled off both my gloves, red-bagged them and then smeared my hands with anti-bacterial gel. I rubbed my hands together as I sang two choruses of "Happy Birthday" to myself to calm my frazzled nerves and time my hand hygiene. But even after I wiped with a paper towel, I could just feel my hands buzzing with viral infection, no matter how often I told myself it was only my nerves.

Suddenly I noticed another smell in the cockpit: the pilot had lit a rather rich-smelling blunt and was starting to smoke it through his mask. Didn't he know he was risking a fire by lighting up around oxygen? And how could he even think of smoking weed here? I was about to lose it. I tapped him on the shoulder and shook my head vigorously, but he just grinned and offered the blunt to me.

I declined, saying, "It just makes me tired and hungry, and it's too noisy to sleep and there's nothing to eat." Nancee also declined with a dismissive wave of her hand and an angry glare. I pulled at her gown and whispered, "Don't worry. He's such an idiot, he probably flies just as well baked as not."

After he smoked the beanie down so far it burned his thumb and forefinger, the pilot shouted, "I can't stand the stink of this plane another second. Secure all the loose shit in the cabin." I hurried to do so, but before I had half finished, he abruptly opened his window to pitch his blunt out. The red bag upended in the gusting wind that engulfed us, and vomit- and phlegm- stained paper towels flew out of the bag and swirled about the cabin: a cyclone of fomites leaving smears of disease wherever they touched. I imagined myself in a midst of a cloud of SARS virus, and imagined the virus coating my skin and lungs. "Oh, joy," I thought. "If this idiot doesn't kill us now, we can die of SARS later."

"Close the fucking window!" I screamed; and the pilot nodded and complied. The cabin was cooler and less rank with the smells of vomit and the pilot's rather resinous weed, but I felt certain that we must have been exposed to massive quantities of wind-whipped, aerosolized SARS virus.

We were now flying over less hilly country. The air became much smoother when we got about four thousand feet above ground level; the alarming way we changed direction at low altitude was replaced by mostly straight and level flight.

Lizette's and Nancee's nausea seemed to both improve as we headed over the lowlands to the south by southwest. Lizette became thirsty, and I removed her oxygen mask and fed her a few spoonfuls of that awful Tak soup from one of our thermos bottles. She seemed to doze off shortly afterwards.

After dozing about a half hour, she woke and needed to use the bedpan; she produced a mess of nasty-looking diarrhea. As we cleaned her and one another up, Nancee and I exchanged frightened glances. "God, by now we must have been thoroughly contaminated," Nancee groaned.

"Better this than death by Wa," I reminded her. I screamed to the pilot over the roar of the prop, "Don't even think of opening that window again." He nodded in agreement.

I had programmed my cell phone to vibrate when it was time for Lizette's medication. When I woke her to give her the Tamiflu and ribavarin, she spoke coherently for the first time.

"Nurse, I'm so sorry for having made such an awful mess for you. I just couldn't help it. I felt as helpless as a baby."

"It's OK, you'll probably be doing the same for us in a few days," I said grimly.

"I have never seen you before, and you look so young to be nurses. Where did Alain conjure you up from?" Lizette asked.

"Alain recruited us straight from the KNU," I replied mysteriously.

"Alain is helping us get out of Thailand. We got wrongly accused of drug crimes but found out we on the blacklist before we got ying-tinged. We need to play nurse to get out of Thailand—you are our exit visa."

"You're not nurses, but are really on the run?" Lizette exclaimed. "God, but I do love an adventure! Were you and Alain lovers?"

I shook my head in denial, but Lizette exclaimed,"Of course you were. And then, as with me, he sent you off to save the world for him! And to make way for the next girl!"

I wondered whether this was just jealous gossip, or a sisterly warning. But for now, we needed Lizette as much as she needed us.

"When we get to BKK, Bangkok International Airport, can you play really sick again?" I requested.

"It's the least I could do for you," she said conspiratorially. "I feel a little better now," she added, but when she struggled to rise, she collapsed. "I really am still sick."

For the rest of the bumpy voyage, we entertained Lizette with an account of our disastrous Spartan study, our flight, abduction, and rescue. She told us of her own adventures in the bush, living amongst the harried Karen, dodging Tatmadaw patrols and Wa marauders. (2)

Lizette told us of her work as a backpack nurse. She explained that malaria was still endemic in Tak and Chaing Mai Provinces, and especially prevalent among the most downtrodden of all—the refugee populations moving this way and that across the border. Lizette had mainly followed groups of displaced Karen, but she had attended members of other ethnic groups 'en passant.' She had been resigned to the risk of contracting malaria from constant exposure to her patients, and was surprised to have developed 'la malade du jour,' SARS, instead.

"It will be boring for us to go back to our classmates, and those silly boys who think they are brave when they play their silly games!" Lizette said.

"I don't know—maybe I could get used to a little boredom!" I argued.

When we touched down at BKK, I was struck by how the runways seemed to dwarf our little airplane: we could have landed across the runway more easily than we had taken off from Cap du Merde. A jeep with a sign saying "Follow Me" over its tailgate was waiting for us at the first runway turnoff, what seemed an absurdly long distance from the runway numbers we had touched down on. We followed it to a group of buildings far from the passenger terminal. The lineboy in the follow-me jeep stopped, got out, and used hand signals to wave us to a spot on the general aviation tiedown area. The lineboy made a throat-slitting gesture and the pilot stopped the engine, cut the master switch, set the brakes, locked the controls, and climbed down to the apron.

As the pilot finished securing the airplane, a customs and immigration officer approached us accompanied by another lineboy pushing a wheeled stretcher. Both wore masks and gloves; the lineboy brought the stretcher up to the plane, then turned about and walked back to the general aviation building stepping very quickly. Nancee and I struggled to get out of the airplane while the pilot argued heatedly with the customs and immigration officer beside the engine cowling. With the help of a big push on the backside from Nancee, I finally managed to swing around the pilot's seat without stepping on Lizette. I had just sat down in the pilot's seat and was about to open the left side door and step down to the apron when the customs and immigration officer noticed me and barked an incomprehensible command in Thai. I paused and looked at him quizzically as he walked forward to the cabin windows.

The customs and immigration officer peered cautiously into the filthy cabin. After he took a closer look at our supine patient and our vomit-stained gowns, his eyes opened wide with fright. He waved at us dismissively and stalked back to our pilot, who handed the immigration officer Alain's letter and spread our passports open and held them down on the flat top of the engine cowling. The officer glanced at the letter from Alain and stamped our passports without paying any attention to our names, much less asking us to get out and peering under our masks. He turned and strode away without having set foot inside the airplane.

The pilot helped me step down, opened the right hand doors, and helped us lift Lizette down to the apron and transfer her and her oxygen tank to the the wheeled stretcher. Then he put his stretcher back in the Cessna, turned to us and said "Good flying with you ladies. Come back and fly with me soon."

"Oh, we can't wait," I assured him. "It was an exciting flight that we will never forget."

"Thank you, I will never forget traveling with such beautiful passengers," he said, bowing idiotically. He beamed when I blew him a dramatic kiss from the general direction of my masks. At least SARS had excused me from doing the real thing, I reflected gratefully.

Less than a hundred yards away, a dark blue and red twin-engine jet the size of a small airliner waited next to a low-slung piece of airport equipment. Other than its dramatic paint job, the jet was unmarked except for a small Swiss flag and its national registration, HB-xxx, on the engine cowlings.

We rolled Lizette's stretcher across the apron to the waiting scissors lift, lowered her stretcher to the ground, and pushed her up the ramp onto the bed of the lift. We piled our baggage beside her, and the operator raised us to the cabin door of the waiting Gulfstream IV. The polite but nervous steward ushered us aboard and advised us, "The nurse that has been engaged for this flight should be here shortly." He was masked and gloved as we were; as soon as Lizette's stretcher was in the cabin, he removed his outer gloves and regloved. Then he sealed the pressure door behind us and showed us how to settle in without touching any of us or anything of ours again.

He showed us to a wardrobe where fresh masks, gowns and drapes were stored, right next to a lav whose gold-plated fixtures contrasted oddly with the hospital germicides arrayed by the vanity mirror. Then he made himself scarce behind the forward cabin door as we draped the seats nearest us, changed Lizette and then changed ourselves out of our vomit-stained gowns. After the soiled clothing and disposables were safely stowed away, he told us where to find a locker full of medical supplies, half of which I couldn't even recognize, and asked us whether we thought we needed anything more. I said I couldn't imagine what more I could want, and returned to Lizette.

We transferred Lizette to a convertible sofa that took up less than a third of one side of the main cabin; it was now a bunk bed, made up with crisply-ironed linen decorated with the company logo. At the steward's direction, I plugged Lizette's oxygen mask into the airplane's oxygen system while Nancee folded the stretcher up and pushed it aft, past the main galley, through the posh aft lav and into the main baggage compartment.

There were two big swiveling recliners facing each other across the aisle from Lizette; Nancee and I sat down and waited nervously for the nurse to arrive.

We waited for half an hour, as the fidgety steward repeatedly came and went from his hiding place behind the cockpit. He would bang numbers into an air-to-ground telephone on the table next to Lizette's bunk, then keep himself as far away from the three of us as he could while he talked. He seemed to be trying to deal with an agency for English-speaking private-duty nurses.

Each time he called, he would grow more and more impatient. After each call, he would disappear behind the forward cabin door for a few more minutes, then reappear to call again. At last, he realized he was getting the runaround, said a few harsh words into the handset and slammed the phone down.

He turned to us and said, "The nurse I arranged is refusing to take this flight. She doesn't want to be exposed to SARS, and quite frankly, neither do I. Since your exposure has already occurred, you have nothing further to risk, so I am leaving Lizette in your competent hands.

Nancee and I looked at each other with horror. "You can't do this," I exclaimed to the steward.

The steward said, "I must also advise you that our flight plan is only valid for another half hour, and the pilot has intercommed me that he sees police activity around nearby aircraft for some reason or other. We don't want to get involved in whatever police activity is taking place at this airport and we cannot file a new flight plan now that you are on board. We have to leave now.

"Remember, in the aft locker you will find plenty of medical supplies. You said they were sufficient for Lizette's needs yourself."

Nancee and I shot each other glances of pure horror. "But we have no idea what most of these supplies are for, or how to use them," I wailed. I was starting to feel panicky.

"If you have any medical problems, you can ask for a phone patch to MedAire. A doctor will talk you through whatever you need to do. Au revoir," he said with a shrug and a nervous wave good-bye. He walked through the door to the front lav and auxiliary galley area behind the cockpit and shut it behind him.

"I guess this is not a very popular flight," Nancee said.

"No one wants to fly on Air SARS," I replied. "I wonder if we'll see him again before landing."

Lizette looked up from her bunk and said in a weak voice, "What a bunch of cowards. They all have yellow fever!"

Nancee gave Lizette a blank look. I'd grown up around doctors and knew what they thought about health workers who got cold feet when they suddenly discovered that it's actually possible to catch something from a patient. I explained Lizette's rather sarcastic diagnosis to Nancee.

Looking at the eight plush doeskin swiveling and reclining armchairs in the main cabin, I asked Nancee ironically, "What would you prefer, Ma'am, a window or an aisle seat?"

"Both," Nancee replied. As we sat down, the pilot intercommed that we should buckle up—we were cleared to taxi.

Although I was nervous that there was no real medical help on board, I consoled myself with the thought that Nancee and I had managed to keep poor Lizette alive up until now, and that the antiviral drugs seemed to be working. I only hoped Lizette would not worsen, and that Nancee or I would not contract SARS on our long flight to Lucerne.

After we reached altitude, I went aft to the main galley and discovered an espresso machine and a refrigerator full of food and wine. Lizette requested her favorite fromage du ch�vre, and I poured her a glass of Meursault.

I perused the DVD library, selected "Chocolat," and set it to play on the plasma screen television in the cabin wall opposite Lizette's bunk.

Recalling how long it had been since my last Starbucks latte, I made a cup of delicious-smelling French roast, fortified it with a little cognac from the bar cabinet, then walked up front to the group of four facing recliners ahead of where we had changed Lizette. I pulled out a table, sat down, and tore open the envelope Alain had given me before we left Cap du Merde. I sipped my coffee and read the note that Alain had asked me to read once we were safely under way.

Alain had scribbled his note half in English, half in French, proclaiming his love for me in two languages, and telling me that he would arrange an air ticket home to L.A. through ICF's travel office in Lucerne as soon as the Swiss health authorities allowed me to travel. He gave me the number of the MSF satellite phone, and begged me to call soon and tell him how I was getting on.

Nancee sat down in the seat facing mine, looking apologetic. She couldn't read her note from Jacques, and asked me to read it to her. Jacques promised to call her by satellite phone and to make arrangements for her to get a temporary visa, work permit, and a job at ICF. His posting was ending in six weeks, and he would then return to Lucerne and be with her. She could stay in his parents' guest room in the meantime. To work out the arrangements at ICF, Nancee was to talk to his boss at ICF: Dr. Eduardo Rios. Jacque's note explained Nancee, Lizette and I would all get to know Dr. Rios in any case—ICF had arranged to have our quarantine and Lizette's treatment all take place at Dr. Rios' research institute at ICF's laboratory in Lucerne.

I burst into tears, unable to read on.

"What's the matter, Alexandra?"

But I could not answer. I was convulsed with tears of disappointment and frustration. The vengeful specter of my father had re-entered my life to thwart my hopes and dreams once again.

 

Postscript:

On January 16, 2003, the United States Food and Drug Administration issued a propose rule that would require vaginal contraceptive products containing nonoxynol 9 as the active ingredient that are sold over-the-counter in the United States to be labeled conspicuously with the following warning labels:

For vaginal use only.

Sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) alert: This product does not protect against the AIDS virus (HIV) or other STDs.

Ask a doctor before use if you have a new sex partner, multiple sex partners, or unprotected sex. Frequent use (more than once a day) of this product can increase vaginal irritation, which may increase the risk of getting the AIDS virus (HIV) or other STDs from infected partners. Ask a doctor or other health professional for your best birth-control method.

Stop use and ask a doctor if you or your partner get burning, itching, a rash, or other irritation of the vagina or penis.

Studies have raised safety concerns that frequent use (more than once a day) of products containing nonoxynol 9 can increase vaginal irritation, which may increase the risk of getting the AIDS virus (HIV) or other STDs from infected partners. Vaginal irritation may include symptoms such as burning, itching, or a rash, or you may not notice any symptoms at all. If you use these products frequently and/or have a new sex partner, multiple sex partners, or unprotected sex, see a doctor or other health professional for your best birth control and methods to prevent STDs.

Comments were due by April 16, 2003. As of this writing no final FDA rules have been promulgated.

 

Footnotes:

(1) - Rudyard Kipling, "The Ballad of East and West."

(2) - Start at http://www.ibiblio.org/obl/docs/KW35.htm for more on the behavior of the Tatmadaw vis-ˆ-vis minorities and Karen resistance.

(3) - The author acknowledges and thanks the editor of this and prior chapters, riottgrrl, for countless invaluable contributions of research, ideas, and creativity. A truly great editor, like riottgrrl, is truly a collaborator. Thanks as well to our rŽdactrice fran�aise, Debra.

 

End of Chapter 15 — To Be Continued

  

 

 

*********************************************
© 2003 by Alexandra Rios. All Rights Reserved. These documents (including, without limitation, all articles, text, images, logos, and compilation design) may be printed for personal use only. No portion of these documents may be stored electronically, distributed electronically, or otherwise made available without the express written consent of StorySite and the copyright holder.