Two
"Buenos dias", the young girl said as we stepped into the tiny elevator. I'd seen her in the lobby before, a pretty girl wearing the obligatory school uniform: dark purple skirt to just below the knee, white blouse and tie.
"Buenos dias", I said, pushing Atico and waiting for her to tell me which floor she wanted. When she smiled, lowered her head and said, "Yo tambien", it took a moment to hit me. Impossible, I thought, she can't be more than fifteen.
We didn't speak or look at each other until the car stopped. My heart was pounding; I could feel the blood collecting in my cheeks. No way, I told myself again, beginning to feel dizzy, she must be a friend of the family. Taking a deep breath, I held the door open for her as she took out her keys and walked slowly to the door across the hall.
"Como se llama?" she asked without turning around.
After a long pause locating my vocal cords, "Henry", I managed.
"Soy Remedios", she said and closed the door quietly behind her.
I knew it was her and she knew it was me; and of course she had already known for some time. And, of course, I would be there again tonight. Maybe her father would be there too, gun in hand. What the hell was I doing? This was a child, I kept telling myself, but it was no contest. I would watch her tonight and the next night, and dream of the time when she would come to my bed. I was powerless; standing at the threshold of an event horizon beyond which my life could never be the same again.
I fumbled with the keys, dropped and picked them up again, certain that this time she was watching me. Hands shaking, palms sweaty, I finally got the door open and closed it quickly. I could hardly breathe and was quite sure that I was about to throw up. A weird vibration passed through the back of my neck, my head was swirling and this strange gurgling sound was coming up from deep in my throat. It was like wet purring but with a spooky edge to it.
Returning to work hungry and crazy I hardly spoke to anyone for the rest of the day, and that night I was in the appointed spot starting on my fifth glass of Rioja and sucking deeply on a Marlboro (my first in over eight years) when the light came on.
She still behaved as if she hadn't seen me, putting her hair up as usual while waiting for the water to warm. But this time she came directly to the window and casually opened the curtain before stepping into the shower. This was my first look at her without the blur and distortion, and without the anonymity. There she was, Remedios, washing herself for me, and only me.
All too soon the darkness returned. Is it overly melodramatic to say that the window had become the only light in my life? That without it I was a shell, a ghost, seeking only silence and solitude until it returned? Perhaps; but seeing Remedios without that curtain in the way, and realizing that her passion ran at least as deep as mine, had pushed me completely over the edge. Sweet Jesus, I thought; what had I done to deserve such reward, or such punishment.
For three nights in succession she returned to me and each night I moved a little closer to the window, so close finally that my breath was fogging the glass. I wanted her to open the window, to come out so that we could consummate this...whatever it was that we'd been having. But instead, the bathroom door opened followed by a man's voice, deep and harsh, and I dropped flat on my stomach driving my face into the gravel rooftop. Waiting in that position for what seemed liked hours, I crawled back to my kitchen and waited for the banging and screaming that never came.
Over a week passed and, like a werewolf avoiding the full moon, I never once set foot on the roof. I was, however, in the lobby every day at lunchtime where I saw her shotgun wielding father behind every bush and column. There was, however, no sign of Remedios. At the office, people told me they were worried about me, that I always seemed to be in a daze. I stopped talking to my friends, especially Dave, afraid that it might slip out and kill the magic. But where was she? Had her father sent her to ‘los abuelos’ while he determined where to dump my body? Or, worse yet, did she have a boyfriend; some zit faced little prick with a hard-on and no idea what to do with it? I was losing it.
Then, Friday night, October the fourteenth, at just past ten she knocked on my door. I did not think for a second that it might be her father or Dave or anyone else. It was Remedios, her parents were out and we were finally going to...I had already imagined this night in complete detail at least a hundred times.
"Hola.", she said.
"Hi." I looked across to her door and around the hallway.
"Fuera.", she whispered.
My response was meant to be a smiling, "Hmmmm", meaning well, what are we going to about that? But instead, what came out was that wet purring sound again. Embarrassed the hell out of me, but she didn't seem to notice and stepped inside. I closed the door and from behind put both hands on her shoulders while tenderly pressing my lips to the side of her neck. As she tilted her head back, I put my arms around her waist holding her very gently. Neither of us spoke, but the voices in my head were getting louder and louder.
A while later, still only kissing and touching, I had my first chance to look closely at her face. It was perfect; the perfect face of a child the voices roared as morality, conscience and self-loathing attacked me from all sides. Though they would return with a vengeance later that night and work on me until morning, the heat of the moment brought me back to that face; and that fragrance. I can smell it right now. Never in my life, before or since, has there been such a fragrance. An intoxicating blend of hair, skin, sweat and breath combined with that ever so subtle hint of something else. There was no defense. Man is, after all, a beast.
"Tengo que irme.", she said suddenly, "Mis padres."
"Remedios, wait." The question had to be asked, even if I already knew the answer.
"Sabado, vamos al campo, si?" she blew softly into my ear while buttoning up and tucking in. "Por favor?", she begged, putting little kisses here and there. Could I say no? Should I even bother to ask the question? My brain was completely homogenized. I was in mad mad love and so was Remedios. If she had told me she was twelve it might have stopped me.
Middle aged voyeur peeps, meets and falls in love with...a schoolgirl. Yes, I knew exactly what I was doing. The voices kept calling me a sick puppy, telling me I needed help. You are corrupting this innocent child, they screamed, maybe ruining her entire life in order to satisfy your beastly hunger. I was nothing less than a vampire, they told me, feeding on her youth. But the window always won. Follow your heart, it said. Something like this happens once and only once. To say no to the window is to say no to the magic of life. I may have agonized a bit, quite a bit, but there was never really a serious doubt in what was left of my mind.