Mean Voyeur

Cappy Jack ©2003

I saw a mean and nasty look looking at me across the room. My own look must have been one of surprise. I didn’t see it coming. But the hallmark of a good voyeur is to look away immediately when your scrutiny is noticed. Not just continue staring. I felt uneasy now and unprepared when she got up and walked towards me.

“Do you mind if I sit down?” A wan smile escaped her lips, her slight lean forward making her look up mischievous. Penny red hair and green eyes, my favorite, and a scent like an elixir made my mouth turn up and forget the moment I saw her. And I was not to see her mean voyeur looks at me again but others did.

“Hey, man, she looks at you when you’re not looking like she wants to kill you or something.” I forgot warnings like this as I stumbled into her existence. I was thirty-two at the time and as entranced by this beautiful woman as I still am this day twenty years later. Standing at her grave I felt the tears well up, cloud my vision, bring her memory up sharply for the umpteenth time. Every year now I stand here with flowers in my hand and my heart throbbing when my groin used to.

“No, go right ahead. My name’s Jack.” No offer of a handshake, a haughty shake of her mane and she sat across from me at the Green House. Now I don’t know if I have described the Green House to you before but it is in the heart of the red light district in Amsterdam. I hung out in coffee shops, bars, concert halls, museums, everywhere; I was a real social animal then.

 

“Ma, call me Ma.” A lilting voice, a small scotch roll but strong, I liked her red lipped smile, her rosy cheeks for real, no plucking those wild brows, I stared for too long. She had a drink, must be pink gin, what could I offer her?

“Hit of some good red hash? Mixed with tobacco, I’m afraid.” My joint pointed at her right breast and I looked at her torso thinking I was cool enough to get away with it. She shook her breasts no, which surprised me. She laughed at my funny, flustered look. A long moment with our eyes locked together in what felt like an embrace to me.  A mauve silk blouse was all that swayed with her and her nipples scratched the surface almost whispering. A red French tipped hand took a graceful path to touch my fingers briefly before grasping my joint. I felt a deep stirring in my soul for the first time.

 

“My name’s Billy.” Everyone at the window seat with me wanted to introduce them selves to her. What a bunch I was hanging with. Everyone was an artist like me, not all living large at it, but that was new to me at the time. My first sold out show just closed in New York. I was flush with more than just cash and resting on my laurels at the moment. Late November and the Green House was buzzing over the Cannabis Cup. Great dope abounded and everyone in there was stoned or high, even drunk, the heart of Amsterdam offered anything and everything seemed OK. I put my foot up on the picture window ledge and leaned back and watched her. She caught my eye a few times as Billy, Larry, Nurse Henry and even Manon took turns making her laugh. It was pure melody. I took her home.

 

The taxi ride to the Oost , slow enough for causal conversation, didn’t reveal anymore about her than the long evening in the coffee shop had. She seemed to speak in riddles and parables, double-dutching all the way with a smile. I had given her enough information about myself that I felt comfortable with, which wasn’t much either, but that’s the life in a coffee shop. There were as many people in there that would hurt you as help you. Life in a trader’s village was one where you got to know each other slowly and with great care. I just felt lucky that she would come home with me. She expressed enough interest about art to impress me and I couldn’t decide if she was coming home with me because she was interested in me or my painting. And I couldn’t decide if my interest was in taming this wild creature or just capturing her image on canvas.

 

My penthouse apartment was dark and showed the skyline reflected in the canal outside of unblinded floor to ceiling window walls. “No privacy,” was all she said until I darkened the glass, bring up the table lights low. Then, “ooooo,” softly said with pursed lips looking at me. And as I showed her my recent series and a few portraits scattered around the great room, she didn’t comment at first. Then she said she wanted to see more but later, she was tired, past two, so was I. She said she had a boy friend and would only “be platonic” with me. I accepted that and she accepted my offer to sleep in the loft bed, my cozy retreat for the tired painter. We walked around getting linen and towels, staying out of my bedroom.  When she saw I had a complete bathroom, she asked if she could soak and sauna.  I was surprised when she said I could join her, if I could keep my hands to myself. That’s when I swallowed the hook, I think.

 

I set the heat lamps to warm the room. In the bright light her body was flawless. Pale blue veined skin, her breasts were wall eyed with pink perks and milk full hardness. No tattoos, nothing pierced that I could see, her jade pendant, a tail shape it seemed to me, hung as her lone adornment. She stood with her fists on her hips, her full flaming pubis rocked out to me, ”Well, what about you? Are you going to bed dirty? I’m not looking.” And her gaze went away, her ablutions letting me stare at her body long and hard, my own hard on out of sight and aching.

I eased into the hot tub at full mast and her long look at my midsection made me think, ‘Maybe she can forget her boyfriend tonight.’ We even scrubbed each other’s backs. But when we got out to go into the dry heat, she slapped it once, hard, and Willy went down. I didn’t say anything, didn’t even wince, it sorta felt good. Strangely quiet we were and lethargic, her languor splayed her legs on the cedar shapes, limp wrists occasionally up under pencil tucking fun bags, spreading the sweat and smelling like a ripe woman. I didn’t care, I was so tired by now, so many cognacs put to rest, Willy didn’t care either, I said, “Last man standing puts out the lights”, and went to bed. No ‘good night’, no ‘thanks’, no nothing, came back that I didn’t even look at her when I closed the door.

 

What’s that? Is it a beautiful pink sunrise? No, no it’s a reflection of a gorgeous sunrise on the tossing ocean. Wait! What’s that? What’s that mermaid doing? She’s in the air, like a jumping fish, all tension and twisting, a smile of ecstasy looking up; arms akimbo, delicate fingers twirled as well, red hair following her tail. Not all sunrise as it dawns on me that a giant squid is about to break the surface of the roiling water, about to catch a tasty immortal. The beak is the beckoning sun, the mermaid the vast sky filled with clouds, and I am God. “Hello, hello, is there anybody home?

Wake up. I want to eat.” Snapped awake like that has never been my idea of fun and it usually gets a surly mood from me. She was dressed in a pair of wool trousers with the legs rolled up, a pair of my boxers on the outside and a favorite thermal undershirt. “Aren’t you itchy wearing that stuff?” I sat up sweeping my long hair out of my face. She jumped on the bed, straddled my leg and ground down on my thigh, put both hands on my shoulders forcing me back down and rubbed her chest several times on mine saying, “Oh! I just scratch.”

 

Once I got to know Ma I realized her mystery was magnified by her zig zags, by her freshness, I was entranced. I must have painted the look on her face when she fell a hundred times from conscious memory. All of the paintings sold at show after show but I didn’t care. I had Marilyn Monroe grief after losing her. Looking all around, I saw looks back that make voyeurism pale by comparison. Mean by many, most with pity on me with my own pitiful look. Mirrors showed stares and disturbed my anonymity, by far what got me in this shape. Where once I saw a smile shown back at me, now I see my own wan slack mouth in faces familiar to me. I stopped looking for a while, made my peace, moved on to a routine worshipping Ma.

“Not your Mother, you fool!” Her smile slipped over to my face, the breeze broke my grin, the ferry was there. Chance meeting going to the Nord. I said, “Tout Zeins!” and biked away. Didn’t look back then but I looked often. Found her routine and followed it. Watched from the corner, from a distance, drawing away like any good voyeur confronted with the truth. Mean? “ Didn’t mean to.” was my mantra just after Ma lept us, I mean left us. But she did leap, right?