A STRANGE MAN

Everything was great and lovely and oh so wonderfully teenagerly-like. I felt sixteen going on seventeen and swirling and dancing and floating above the whole people who went to work with their dull and bitter expressions. I was full technicolor in a black and white world. I was Dorothy landing in Oz. And of course I crashed.
As soon as I got into the office he ignored me. I went to my place and waited for him to come and say hello. He never did. Same happened at night. No more chance encounter in the lift. I walked sadly and lonely to take my bus. Again I joined the sad and bitter faces. No, again my face contrasted with all the other working-people faces. They were tired but happy going home. I was sad and lonely... again. With a hint of puzzled.
About Friday he went by my place and asked to talk to me.
"What's going on?" He asked.
"That's exactly what I'd like to know." I answered.
"¿Excuse me?" He asked puzzled. "I thought you were mad at me and that we had ended all this affair.
"Well, I am not mad at you. You just ignore me and I thought you were mad at me."
"Oh, no, I'm not mad at you. ¿You see? I'm a strange man. I don't want to be with the same people all the time. Sometimes I want to be left alone. I've been having problems at home."
And then I entered "the other's" field. That part where you receive all the complaints of the wife and the family.
There had been a party with people from the office. I hadn't gone. His daughter had come. They both had ended up dead drunk. His wife went to fetch them, or rather her daughter. She left him there on the street. He managed to get to the nearest subway station, took a train and head home. He was so drunk and sleepy he had travelled three times the whole subway line. When he finally got home, he was sent really far away. He went to his parents for shelter and his father sent him away. He wandered for a while and then went back home. His wife told him to take his things and leave. He pleaded for shelter, for a time until he could find another place. So, he explained he had to be careful or his wife was capable of coming to make a fuss of the whole situation. He said he had to be a nice boy and behave properly.
I didn't know what to do or think. When my former husband had decided to play with another woman, he couldn't care less for my opinion. Why was this man giving his wife so much credit? Why was he so afraid of her? Why was he so interested in keeping her calm? Where was I standing?
No, he was very strange. He really ignored what he wanted. He just tried to avoid a problem. He wasn't interested in me.

THE CAT IS OUT OF THE BAG

My boss went on holidays. He took advantage of it and was constantly on top of me. He would spend a lot of time on the chat and then really at my place, on her vacant seat chatting in person with me. He said things that brought out the red in me. Things I hadn't heard in many, many years. It helped he was older than me, he saw me as someone younger. I was so used to be looked at as someone older. I was really flattered. He made me feel rejuvenated, better than any cream with hyaluronic acid or antioxidants, or Omega-3 oils. He made me feel more energetic than the endorphins generated when running or exercise. I started to stop sleeping because I would think of him. I started actually skipping out of bed, like Cinderella, almost singing to the idea of getting to work and pass by his place to see him smiling at me. More than him I was in love with life again.
Then one day, it happened. He got pretty intense on the chat. He sent me lyrics of songs he liked. His musical tastes were far different from mine. I didn't know any of those songs. They said nothing to me. I mean, they did, but as I didn't relate to them I just read them as something read for the first time, void of any real meaning. He sent about four different songs. They were quite confusing. They were very sexy, asking me to have "something" with him. Literally. It was not clear for me what "something" meant. Now I know he meant just nothing really serious. Then, he went to my place and kissed me, right there, in the mouth, quite passionately and then he suddenly stopped, leaving me breathless and wanting more. I was very confused, embarrassed, wanting more, wanting to talk and clear what was going on. He left and then it was time to leave and I also left. It was weird how we ended up together in the lift, both of us only, alone, no one else. He said, "See? Destiny wanted us to end up together!" and he kissed me again. I didn't refuse. He walked with me for three blocks. He lifted me in the air and he kissed me and he was really romantic and he said beautiful things that I'm sure came from somewhere inside him, although I'm not exactly sure where from. He left and I stood there, stupidly staring and dreaming. I was so happy and so illusioned. So hungry for love.

FLIRTING TIME

Once the interest was blatantly expressed, there was no longer doubt to what was going on. We started spending time together, just lunch time, and not always, maybe three out of five weekdays. It was three out of four persons who regularly met, the odd one out was him. We tried different places around the office. Small restaurants, stands, the market, different kinds of Mexican street food - tacos, tortas, sopes, quesadillas, fast food, nothing romantic or extraordinary. Different ways of cooking the same by different vendors. After that, we would return to the office to chat in one of the meeting lounges in the floor. It was fun, he loved telling stories, personal anecdotes that let one learn about him a lot, his likes, dislikes, way of being, education, values, family life, many things. He was very much like a teen ager, a weird mixture of innocence and malice. He couldn't get my sarcasm and often I thought if he really didn't get it or if he was stupid. He is a very simple man, no pretense nor ambitions. One day he asked what the ideal couple was for each. I couldn't answer. It had been so long ago I was just focused on work that I had forgotten that. I started searching. After long, many days, I remembered. The question had vanished into thin air, no longer important for him. But he posed these sort of questions which made me think many things. I started questioning what I wanted from life, from him. I was in a relationship before it was acknowledged. I started preparing myself for the moment.
His smiles were more open day after day.
He  would fire questions at me on the office chat.
He would go to my place and ask me directly questions he had no patience dealing with on the chat.
He would go to my place to chat with me. Period.
I grew embarrassed. I was not used to receiving such attention. I started to act reserved. But I was delighted. I needed the attention. I so much needed it.

THE INVITATION

So, days went by and he was there, day after day watching me walking by, always smiling, maybe gathering courage to speak, or just calculating his best time and approach, like a prowler approximating its prey. One day I found myself thinking, "Gosh! When are you going to invite me out?" and it was like magic, not long after that thought he did.
I went out with a work mate with whom I always went to have lunch and he was there, with his friend waiting for us. He approached me and asked, directly, "Where are you going? Having lunch? Can we join you?" Kind of cute, kind of teen-ager like.
I always laugh and make fun of when I'm kind of scared, so I replied, "No, we're not having lunch, we were just walking by. Of course we are having lunch! We still don't know where."
They suggested a taco place and we went. He interviewed me quite directly. He asked if I had a boyfriend, if I was married, how long ago I had been in a relationship, etc. He talked to me while his friend talked to my friend, suddenly we were two couples, not four friends. It felt nice, it had been a long time since someone had been interested in me, his eyes, his words, his intentions, were flattering. But I remembered, I had been warned. Of course he said he was married and that he had two grown up children; like a good married man he said he loved his wife, BUT that they didn't get along anymore, that she was troublesome, that she never listened, that she was always nagging at him, that she was always in a bad mood and that they had married just to give his mother a grandchild, which I considered quite a stupid reason and of course a lie. I knew everything was a lie, I knew he was trouble. I had been the wife, my ex had said the same things about me, to many other women and to me. I knew what he wanted long before he told me. I knew what would happen long before he asked me. I just needed a reason, I was not in love, as I said before, I didn't even find him attractive. But, I'm a writer and I needed the experience, that's how I convinced my decent self to be indecent for this time.

THE WARNING

Just a few days after I entered the new job I was warned, so I cannot claim I was caught unaware or an innocent prey to the mean wolf. However, as my habit is to blame others, I'll blame Hollywood chick flicks. They always show adultery as sexy, incredibly romantic and the real pinnacle of love (what is pinnacle anyway? ) as in The Bridges of Madison County, something to keep to yourself, written in a diary until your daughter is old enough to read or until you die and she discovers it. Whatever, I'm rambling. I was warned. I was told, "Be careful of that man, he loves to seduce women, but he's married and he loves pornography." Being used as I am to be ignored olimpically by men I shrugged my shoulders and threw the warning to the wastebasket.
But I was not ignored. The first Christmas party of the office I went to, he invited me to dance twice and he was drunk as a sailor... or a musician. Since that day he used to smile at me each time I walked by his place, which was often because he's on the way to the drinking fountain. He started saying good morning and I replied.
We happened to be invited to a couple of gatherings with work mates and we would exchange a few laughs. Nothing really important. I started looking back. I started noting he checked me out each time I walked by. Each time. I didn't really like him. His face seemed like that of a little blackish bat. All pushed-like with hardly a nose sticking out of it. But I was intrigued. I wanted to know what would happen next.