[Enters stage woman, sits in a café table (maybe in the patio) and talks straight at the audience]
I haven't always respected myself. Some times its hard, you know? Sometimes you price yourself too low and that causes the cheap asses around this world to think "awesome, there is a bargain. I will threat her just as she thinks she is going to be treated, not how every woman deserves to be treated". I am to blame too, I reckon. That's why you say that people "take" shit. You don't have to take it. Some people don't. But sometimes you do take shit, you take a shit a day back home, and them you place them all in your bath tube and take a shit bath. And them you get really serious about being convinced that you only deserve shit, since you're all covered in it already.
Well, as in any relationship, being it normal or sick, it began all to well, promising in fact. It began with a meet cute. And isn't it adorable when relationships begin with meet cutes?
Boy enters in the elevator, girl runs towards the elevator, carrying way too many books in her arm, and boy stops the elevator door, so she can enter, like any normal nice person would do. But they look at each other and they feel attracted.
[Enter stage man and woman, dressed in red. They don't talk, just act as described by narrator. Plain stage. Focus of light on narrator in the café all the time. Focus on the couple when relevant]
I read in a magazine once, possibly Scientific American, that all women picture the possible babies she would have with all and every guy she sees. And that's how she decides which men are attractive and which are not ( I imagine that men you find disgusting would spawn deformed babies, with legs between their eyes and such ).
Well, if that's true, the baby the girl picture was the most adorable baby this world will never see. She was definitely attracted. Although her skin was olive, and it was barely possible to see, she could feel the hot blood flooding the veins on her face. He was tall, with at least one foot on her, beautiful blue eyes, like those ones that look very clear, like a quiet lake in a summer day and a face that looked mature and serene.
They small talked. They basked into the heat exhaled by each others bodies, and when the elevator opened its door, she though the moment had past. Except he left the lift on the same floor that she did, and the small talk was resumed. All the while she was expecting and dreading the moment when their paths would diverge and the connection would vanish. Their little attraction was one of those, that happens everyday but is doomed to die young. Feeble as a garden rose kept in a jar of water.
Except, he never left her side. What a lovely meet cute, what an heart warming coincident when they found themselves in front of the same door. Calculus I.
The door was opened and he waited for her to pass by him, lady's first, like a gentleman would. She sat in the second row. Hoping, praying for some faceless goddess called desire that he would sit by her side, and he did.
If that was a love story, then they could get to know each other, he would ask her out, their first date would be memorable, with a goodnight kiss at her doorstep, he would call her the next day, arranging a new date. She would say yes to him. They would grow in love. He would propose, she would say Yes again. And then, at the engagement party, she would tell the elevator story to all their friends, and he would kiss her tenderly. On the wedding again, she would say Yes. End of story. Isn't that how stories end now-a-days?
But that's not a love story, and he was not the one for her. Her stars were aligned with another man's, way before she met the American in the elevator.
They talked alright, before the professor arrived. They were early, what a coincidence. Between copying what the young lady lecturer wrote in the board and making extra notes, she would make remarks. He would answer. When the class ended, he asked for her phone number.
He never called, thought. He texted. What does texting means, she wondered? He texted a lot, so she assumed he liked her, or why else would he lose his time with her. But there was never certainty. He was never clear, did he like her or not, she asked herself? Had he felt the spark, the heat, the beginning of something?
She never knew that for sure.
They kept talking in class. She would share her notes when he missed class. She got accustomed to the texts. She though it was the normal thing for Americans. She was a foreigner, a stranger to that country where she was living, so she took his attitude for the way of that land.
One day she shared with him that her bicycle was broken. She had been hit by a car on the day before. He offered her a ride home, asked if she was well. She was well and her heart melted a little bit more. Now they were friends, that's for sure. Every day, after class, they would walk to his car and he would drop her off at her doorstep. They would talk about school, music, movies. They had a lot in common. She sang. He played the guitar. She was smart, he was almost as smart.
Every time he dropped her off, though, she waited for something more. A kiss, an invitation, a word that mean more than the words a friend would say. That never came.
She convinced herself that they were friends. Just friends. The class ended. She got a B+, maybe because she spent more time trying to concentrate while the feeling of his warm body overwhelmed her, than actually on what the young lady lecturer said.
They stopped talking for a while. She though it was over. But after the break, when she was away visiting Florida with her family, he texted. Not called. He never called.
She answered. A conversation was started. She felt that maybe he wanted her. Maybe he was just shy, maybe he was afraid she would reject him. There was hope, at least in her mind.
She was lonely too. She was living by herself, had no friends besides him, she talked to herself, because there was no one else to talk to. And she waited, and hoped, and prayed to that goddess called desire.
Well. One day he said he would visit her. But it wasn't like she would have wanted it. He came as a friend, not a date. They stayed at her house, talking nervously. She didn't wanted him to get into her room, but he stayed there when she gave him the 2 room house tour and she didn't had it in herself to invite him out to the living room.
Well. That was one of four times they saw each other after Calculus I was done with.
All four times, he treated her as a lady friend. He called late, on the times he felt like seeing her and she always said yes. The third time they saw each other, she kissed him. They drank. She fell asleep in his bed. He didn't sleep. He stayed awake playing games. Nothing else happened. She thought it was for the best. He didn't wanted him to be too close to her, not that way.
When she woke up the next day, he walked her to her recently bought car. He didn't kiss her though. He man-hugged her.
On the fourth time they saw each other, he was taking her to the airport. She didn't had anyone else to call for a ride, so she called him. He drove her. She didn't prayed for the god of desire anymore. She had stopped after the third time.
He was beautiful in the summer. Even more than she remembered. His light skin seemed eery. His eyes were the blue of that long lost lake where loves that will never be happen.
He pause a hand on her tights half the way to the airport. His hands were more than halfway between her knee and her crotch.
She said nothing about it. She wasn't a believer anymore. She was a cynical. The heat that she felt in her leg from his hand just made her uneasy. It wasn't the hear of passion anymore.
He didn't parked to escort her but at that point she really didn't expect him to. The warmth she felt from his body on the first day they met was long forgotten. She only remembered the disappointment, the desire never fulfilled, the ripe fruit rotten before the first bite.
When he took her bags off his trunk, she hugged him, with a certain distance and then crossed the street, toward the check-in point.
But then she though: "All is lost. When I fly back home he will be less than a stranger".
She left her begs at the curb, and walked back to the car, decided. She owed him nothing. She wanted to take something.
She walked, firm steps to the car, opened his door and kissed his mouth as if it was the last time. She tasted his lips as if it was the sweetest fruit. The fruit of desire, the fruit no gardener can ever harvest.
Maybe he though that was just a continuation of a trend. Maybe he though that kiss was just one more kiss he could ask from her every time he wanted and she would always concede. The smug smile in his lips after she parted told her that.
[Exit stage woman.]
[Exit stage man through the opposing side of the stage]
Except he was wrong.
That was her kiss of goodbye.
While she left him that white man, she prayed for the goddess of love, and the goddess conceded a fruit she had never imagined existed, so marvelous and pure was its taste, the taste of true love.
She met another man in her travel home, a real man. She was taken when the flew back and she never called the American to pick her up from the airpot. In fact, she never called him again or look at his number, although it was still there, in her phone.
And the meet cute was forgotten. His blue eyes were forgotten. The white man-child was forgotten. That kiss was the last kiss. He never knew it, but she did.
[Exits stage woman narrator]
"
Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
