| Biographical Non-Fiction posted November 27, 2016 |
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The Big Bad Wolf strikes again in San Francisco.
My Stalker: Part 2
by Sis Cat
The author has placed a warning on this post for language.
The author has placed a warning on this post for sexual content.
END OF PART 1
Oh, he’s serious. How do I get away from him?
In a split second, I thought of my partner who waited for me in the audience and of the pain I had caused him when I had an affair seven years earlier. I vowed to myself never to do that again, to never put our relationship and our lives at risk. Never.
In that same split second, the man exerted his own resolve. His grip tightened on my shoulder as if to say, “You’re mine.” He held on in desperation, realizing that if I walked out of that men’s room, I would walk out of his life forever.
Never in this situation before, I used the only weapons at my disposal, not muscles nor insults, but courtesy and kindness. “Thank you,” I said.
Disarmed, the man released his grip, or perhaps I pulled away, or perhaps his release and my retreat happened simultaneously. In a fraction of a moment before I turned and rushed out the door, I glimpsed the man’s empty hand suspended in midair and drifting downward. Loss and rejection replaced the hunger in his eyes.
I had spent less than a minute in the men’s room, but it felt like it took me hours to escape that man.
#
I rejoined my partner in the theater. My biggest fan, Rob, attends as many of my events as he can. He films my performances with a shaky hand, cooks so I can write, eats alone when I perform weeknights, listens to first drafts, and hears my punchlines and laughs.
A casualty of an affair is not only trust but truth, and a drawback to marrying a storyteller is you never know if the person is telling the truth or telling a story. Folktale anthologies remind me that people used to call stories “lies.” When I call Rob to tell him I am rehearsing or attending an unscheduled storytelling event, in the pause over the phone I can hear his mind wonder, “Is Andre telling a story, a lie, or the truth?”
I allay his fears that I would cheat on him again—I call at intermissions from my shows and when I am on my way home. Any misstep on my part, he will assume the worst.
That night in the Black Box Theatre, I brushed aside the incident in the men’s room, sat beside my number one fan, held his hand, and squeezed. Even in the distant glow of the spotlight on the performer onstage, I saw Rob smile and I smiled back. We relaxed into our red velvet seats and enjoyed the poets, storytellers, musicians, and comedians who performed in front of a microphone stand placed on a floor painted black.
The open mic ended and the theater lights brightened, revealing an audience which stirred from their seats, blinking. Rob and I stood. He scanned the dark corners of the lobby behind the last row. “Where’s the bathroom?”
Chills shot through me. My feet froze to the floor. Should I warn him a man cruises the men’s room? If I warned him, would he ask, “How do you know? What were you doing in there during the show?” If I explained, “A fan bothered me,” using the archaic term for “molest,” would he believe me, or would he believe I schemed to have another affair like the one seven years earlier? Before I could calculate the awards and penalties of divulging, I pointed to the black door in the lobby’s shadow. “Right over there.”
Rob lumbered up the aisle toward the door. Would the man who accosted me accost him, too? Would Rob run from the bathroom a minute later and say, “A man just flashed me,” making me feel guilty for not warning him? Would he even tell me? What if he remained in the men’s room for twenty minutes? Would I believe his explanation when he came out? Paralyzed, I tightened my hands into fists and watched him recede from me.
He had not yet reached the men’s room door when I heard a voice beside me. “Are you dateable?”
I spun around. A man had leaned out from his aisle seat like a gargoyle on Notre Dame’s rooftop. The man. The man from the men’s room. Next to me. Again. His brows raised in hope. His shoulders hunched in secrecy.
My mouth dropped and my eyes widened as much from the man’s sexual proposition as from his proposition within earshot of my partner who had yet to enter the men’s room. Couldn’t this interloper see that Rob and I are a couple? But then I realized, He knows we’re a couple. That’s why he waited for Rob to go to the men’s room.
The men’s room door closed behind Rob. How could you leave me alone with him?
Except for the time I performed onstage, the man had watched us all night, anticipating our next moves, so he could have an opportunity to approach me alone. His first opportunity came after my performance when I went to the men’s room and he followed me. But when I fled from his flash and his grasp, the man had followed me back into the dark theater and positioned himself nearby in an aisle seat along the route he knew I would take to exit the theater. After the show, Andre wouldn’t go to the men’s room again because he just went but his partner would.
My heart raced and I recoiled in revulsion. Finding the man next to me again was like watching a monster movie. The theater lights came up and I discovered that the onscreen monster now sat beside me in the theater. Who let him out of the men’s room? I thought, as if I expected him to linger, loiter, and lurk forever among the toilet stalls and urinals.
When he had asked, “Are you dateable?” the stranger clarified that he liked me, wanted me and not my stories. He confirmed my suspicions that he had shifted his eyes to watch me urinate in the men’s room. He inspected my “goods” before he proposed a date. I saw him not as a threat to my body, although he may injure me. I saw him not as a threat to my life, although he may kill me. I saw him as a threat to my relationship with Rob, which the man will injure or kill to have an affair with me.
My eyes scanned the theater. Everyone seemed to watch me—to watch us. My mind screamed, I can’t be seen talking to you! People walked around us in the aisle.
I regained my composure. With a forced smile, I shook my head and answered his proposition. “No, thank you.”
“Have a nice evening,” he said with a growl, like the Big Bad Wolf to Little Red Riding Hood.
My feet thawed and the crowd carried me forward, but I looked back. The man retracted his body from leaning out in the aisle and rested back in his seat. He placed his hands on his lap and stared at the empty stage where I had performed an hour earlier. His gray head remained immobile on his shoulders while in the theater all around him people rose from their seats and ascended the aisles.
Through the screen of people jostled behind me, I lost sight of the man and returned my gaze to the men’s room door. Rob exited and smiled with relief. “Okay, let’s go.”
My eyes glanced at the floor, so he would be unable to read them and ask, “Have you been talking to someone?”
We hooked arms and toddled together, passing the snack and ticket counter on our way out the door into the San Francisco night.
I avoided a second backwards glance at the man in the seat, and he, I knew, avoided a backwards glance at me. For him to leave then would risk running into my partner and me outside the theater. Instead, with a faculty more psychic than auditory, he listened through the din of noise—through audience footsteps, people’s chatter, and lobby music. He listened to my footsteps, my heartbeat, my breath fade farther and farther away. Like a hunter, he waited in a deer blind. One day, a black deer would cross his path again.
TO BE CONTINUED
END OF PART 1
Oh, he’s serious. How do I get away from him?
In a split second, I thought of my partner who waited for me in the audience and of the pain I had caused him when I had an affair seven years earlier. I vowed to myself never to do that again, to never put our relationship and our lives at risk. Never.
In that same split second, the man exerted his own resolve. His grip tightened on my shoulder as if to say, “You’re mine.” He held on in desperation, realizing that if I walked out of that men’s room, I would walk out of his life forever.
Never in this situation before, I used the only weapons at my disposal, not muscles nor insults, but courtesy and kindness. “Thank you,” I said.
Disarmed, the man released his grip, or perhaps I pulled away, or perhaps his release and my retreat happened simultaneously. In a fraction of a moment before I turned and rushed out the door, I glimpsed the man’s empty hand suspended in midair and drifting downward. Loss and rejection replaced the hunger in his eyes.
I had spent less than a minute in the men’s room, but it felt like it took me hours to escape that man.
I rejoined my partner in the theater. My biggest fan, Rob, attends as many of my events as he can. He films my performances with a shaky hand, cooks so I can write, eats alone when I perform weeknights, listens to first drafts, and hears my punchlines and laughs.
A casualty of an affair is not only trust but truth, and a drawback to marrying a storyteller is you never know if the person is telling the truth or telling a story. Folktale anthologies remind me that people used to call stories “lies.” When I call Rob to tell him I am rehearsing or attending an unscheduled storytelling event, in the pause over the phone I can hear his mind wonder, “Is Andre telling a story, a lie, or the truth?”
I allay his fears that I would cheat on him again—I call at intermissions from my shows and when I am on my way home. Any misstep on my part, he will assume the worst.
That night in the Black Box Theatre, I brushed aside the incident in the men’s room, sat beside my number one fan, held his hand, and squeezed. Even in the distant glow of the spotlight on the performer onstage, I saw Rob smile and I smiled back. We relaxed into our red velvet seats and enjoyed the poets, storytellers, musicians, and comedians who performed in front of a microphone stand placed on a floor painted black.
The open mic ended and the theater lights brightened, revealing an audience which stirred from their seats, blinking. Rob and I stood. He scanned the dark corners of the lobby behind the last row. “Where’s the bathroom?”
Chills shot through me. My feet froze to the floor. Should I warn him a man cruises the men’s room? If I warned him, would he ask, “How do you know? What were you doing in there during the show?” If I explained, “A fan bothered me,” using the archaic term for “molest,” would he believe me, or would he believe I schemed to have another affair like the one seven years earlier? Before I could calculate the awards and penalties of divulging, I pointed to the black door in the lobby’s shadow. “Right over there.”
Rob lumbered up the aisle toward the door. Would the man who accosted me accost him, too? Would Rob run from the bathroom a minute later and say, “A man just flashed me,” making me feel guilty for not warning him? Would he even tell me? What if he remained in the men’s room for twenty minutes? Would I believe his explanation when he came out? Paralyzed, I tightened my hands into fists and watched him recede from me.
He had not yet reached the men’s room door when I heard a voice beside me. “Are you dateable?”
I spun around. A man had leaned out from his aisle seat like a gargoyle on Notre Dame’s rooftop. The man. The man from the men’s room. Next to me. Again. His brows raised in hope. His shoulders hunched in secrecy.
My mouth dropped and my eyes widened as much from the man’s sexual proposition as from his proposition within earshot of my partner who had yet to enter the men’s room. Couldn’t this interloper see that Rob and I are a couple? But then I realized, He knows we’re a couple. That’s why he waited for Rob to go to the men’s room.
The men’s room door closed behind Rob. How could you leave me alone with him?
Except for the time I performed onstage, the man had watched us all night, anticipating our next moves, so he could have an opportunity to approach me alone. His first opportunity came after my performance when I went to the men’s room and he followed me. But when I fled from his flash and his grasp, the man had followed me back into the dark theater and positioned himself nearby in an aisle seat along the route he knew I would take to exit the theater. After the show, Andre wouldn’t go to the men’s room again because he just went but his partner would.
My heart raced and I recoiled in revulsion. Finding the man next to me again was like watching a monster movie. The theater lights came up and I discovered that the onscreen monster now sat beside me in the theater. Who let him out of the men’s room? I thought, as if I expected him to linger, loiter, and lurk forever among the toilet stalls and urinals.
When he had asked, “Are you dateable?” the stranger clarified that he liked me, wanted me and not my stories. He confirmed my suspicions that he had shifted his eyes to watch me urinate in the men’s room. He inspected my “goods” before he proposed a date. I saw him not as a threat to my body, although he may injure me. I saw him not as a threat to my life, although he may kill me. I saw him as a threat to my relationship with Rob, which the man will injure or kill to have an affair with me.
My eyes scanned the theater. Everyone seemed to watch me—to watch us. My mind screamed, I can’t be seen talking to you! People walked around us in the aisle.
I regained my composure. With a forced smile, I shook my head and answered his proposition. “No, thank you.”
“Have a nice evening,” he said with a growl, like the Big Bad Wolf to Little Red Riding Hood.
My feet thawed and the crowd carried me forward, but I looked back. The man retracted his body from leaning out in the aisle and rested back in his seat. He placed his hands on his lap and stared at the empty stage where I had performed an hour earlier. His gray head remained immobile on his shoulders while in the theater all around him people rose from their seats and ascended the aisles.
Through the screen of people jostled behind me, I lost sight of the man and returned my gaze to the men’s room door. Rob exited and smiled with relief. “Okay, let’s go.”
My eyes glanced at the floor, so he would be unable to read them and ask, “Have you been talking to someone?”
We hooked arms and toddled together, passing the snack and ticket counter on our way out the door into the San Francisco night.
I avoided a second backwards glance at the man in the seat, and he, I knew, avoided a backwards glance at me. For him to leave then would risk running into my partner and me outside the theater. Instead, with a faculty more psychic than auditory, he listened through the din of noise—through audience footsteps, people’s chatter, and lobby music. He listened to my footsteps, my heartbeat, my breath fade farther and farther away. Like a hunter, he waited in a deer blind. One day, a black deer would cross his path again.
TO BE CONTINUED
Oh, he’s serious. How do I get away from him?
In a split second, I thought of my partner who waited for me in the audience and of the pain I had caused him when I had an affair seven years earlier. I vowed to myself never to do that again, to never put our relationship and our lives at risk. Never.
In that same split second, the man exerted his own resolve. His grip tightened on my shoulder as if to say, “You’re mine.” He held on in desperation, realizing that if I walked out of that men’s room, I would walk out of his life forever.
Never in this situation before, I used the only weapons at my disposal, not muscles nor insults, but courtesy and kindness. “Thank you,” I said.
Disarmed, the man released his grip, or perhaps I pulled away, or perhaps his release and my retreat happened simultaneously. In a fraction of a moment before I turned and rushed out the door, I glimpsed the man’s empty hand suspended in midair and drifting downward. Loss and rejection replaced the hunger in his eyes.
I had spent less than a minute in the men’s room, but it felt like it took me hours to escape that man.
#
I rejoined my partner in the theater. My biggest fan, Rob, attends as many of my events as he can. He films my performances with a shaky hand, cooks so I can write, eats alone when I perform weeknights, listens to first drafts, and hears my punchlines and laughs.
A casualty of an affair is not only trust but truth, and a drawback to marrying a storyteller is you never know if the person is telling the truth or telling a story. Folktale anthologies remind me that people used to call stories “lies.” When I call Rob to tell him I am rehearsing or attending an unscheduled storytelling event, in the pause over the phone I can hear his mind wonder, “Is Andre telling a story, a lie, or the truth?”
I allay his fears that I would cheat on him again—I call at intermissions from my shows and when I am on my way home. Any misstep on my part, he will assume the worst.
That night in the Black Box Theatre, I brushed aside the incident in the men’s room, sat beside my number one fan, held his hand, and squeezed. Even in the distant glow of the spotlight on the performer onstage, I saw Rob smile and I smiled back. We relaxed into our red velvet seats and enjoyed the poets, storytellers, musicians, and comedians who performed in front of a microphone stand placed on a floor painted black.
The open mic ended and the theater lights brightened, revealing an audience which stirred from their seats, blinking. Rob and I stood. He scanned the dark corners of the lobby behind the last row. “Where’s the bathroom?”
Chills shot through me. My feet froze to the floor. Should I warn him a man cruises the men’s room? If I warned him, would he ask, “How do you know? What were you doing in there during the show?” If I explained, “A fan bothered me,” using the archaic term for “molest,” would he believe me, or would he believe I schemed to have another affair like the one seven years earlier? Before I could calculate the awards and penalties of divulging, I pointed to the black door in the lobby’s shadow. “Right over there.”
Rob lumbered up the aisle toward the door. Would the man who accosted me accost him, too? Would Rob run from the bathroom a minute later and say, “A man just flashed me,” making me feel guilty for not warning him? Would he even tell me? What if he remained in the men’s room for twenty minutes? Would I believe his explanation when he came out? Paralyzed, I tightened my hands into fists and watched him recede from me.
He had not yet reached the men’s room door when I heard a voice beside me. “Are you dateable?”
I spun around. A man had leaned out from his aisle seat like a gargoyle on Notre Dame’s rooftop. The man. The man from the men’s room. Next to me. Again. His brows raised in hope. His shoulders hunched in secrecy.
My mouth dropped and my eyes widened as much from the man’s sexual proposition as from his proposition within earshot of my partner who had yet to enter the men’s room. Couldn’t this interloper see that Rob and I are a couple? But then I realized, He knows we’re a couple. That’s why he waited for Rob to go to the men’s room.
The men’s room door closed behind Rob. How could you leave me alone with him?
Except for the time I performed onstage, the man had watched us all night, anticipating our next moves, so he could have an opportunity to approach me alone. His first opportunity came after my performance when I went to the men’s room and he followed me. But when I fled from his flash and his grasp, the man had followed me back into the dark theater and positioned himself nearby in an aisle seat along the route he knew I would take to exit the theater. After the show, Andre wouldn’t go to the men’s room again because he just went but his partner would.
My heart raced and I recoiled in revulsion. Finding the man next to me again was like watching a monster movie. The theater lights came up and I discovered that the onscreen monster now sat beside me in the theater. Who let him out of the men’s room? I thought, as if I expected him to linger, loiter, and lurk forever among the toilet stalls and urinals.
When he had asked, “Are you dateable?” the stranger clarified that he liked me, wanted me and not my stories. He confirmed my suspicions that he had shifted his eyes to watch me urinate in the men’s room. He inspected my “goods” before he proposed a date. I saw him not as a threat to my body, although he may injure me. I saw him not as a threat to my life, although he may kill me. I saw him as a threat to my relationship with Rob, which the man will injure or kill to have an affair with me.
My eyes scanned the theater. Everyone seemed to watch me—to watch us. My mind screamed, I can’t be seen talking to you! People walked around us in the aisle.
I regained my composure. With a forced smile, I shook my head and answered his proposition. “No, thank you.”
“Have a nice evening,” he said with a growl, like the Big Bad Wolf to Little Red Riding Hood.
My feet thawed and the crowd carried me forward, but I looked back. The man retracted his body from leaning out in the aisle and rested back in his seat. He placed his hands on his lap and stared at the empty stage where I had performed an hour earlier. His gray head remained immobile on his shoulders while in the theater all around him people rose from their seats and ascended the aisles.
Through the screen of people jostled behind me, I lost sight of the man and returned my gaze to the men’s room door. Rob exited and smiled with relief. “Okay, let’s go.”
My eyes glanced at the floor, so he would be unable to read them and ask, “Have you been talking to someone?”
We hooked arms and toddled together, passing the snack and ticket counter on our way out the door into the San Francisco night.
I avoided a second backwards glance at the man in the seat, and he, I knew, avoided a backwards glance at me. For him to leave then would risk running into my partner and me outside the theater. Instead, with a faculty more psychic than auditory, he listened through the din of noise—through audience footsteps, people’s chatter, and lobby music. He listened to my footsteps, my heartbeat, my breath fade farther and farther away. Like a hunter, he waited in a deer blind. One day, a black deer would cross his path again.
TO BE CONTINUED
 Recognized |
|
I based "My Stalker" on my 2014 diary entries which document a fan stalking me at several open mic events in San Francisco over the course of several months. This is the second of a three part story. The first part is in my portfolio. I am safe now.
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