the Justo Experiment

I have stalked before, but not for my own crush, only as an assistant to stalking; an accessory. You see, my friend Claire once, crushed hard for a much older South American man named Justo.She used to work at the library in our small town, it was the summer before our first year of college, I think. Anyway, she would read all the books Justo had checked out, watch the films he watched, finally she got bold and snuck a peek at his address. We started taking huge armloads of gladiolas, angel food cakes and gumball machine toys to his doorstep under cover of darkness. Claire and I would meet outside her parent’s house, I’d park down the street, and find her in the yard. We had to have been 18, I was free to do as I pleased, but she still had to sneak out. I think I was even driving my dad’s van for part of that time so, being really terribly conspicuous, she’d sneak out we’d meet in the fragrant summer night with our nightgowns on and long impractical strands of flapper beads, the silliest silky nighttime get-ups, too much perfume, all around the eye pink and gold glittery eye-shadow. Equal parts comical and glamorous. We’d go to the grocery store (which is now the Christian teen center) and buy flowers and cakes, laughing like fools and then we’d walk to his house, crickets harping and stars dropping out of the dark sky. His place was actually very close to hers, in a bank of condos a few blocks away.In Justo’s neighborhood, we’d traipse around the man-made frog ponds trying to peek in his windows, giggling soundlessly with smiles crushed into one another’s shoulders, it was the most fun two straight-edge girls could have in a small town at the witching hour. We did it for a long time, Weeks? Months? I tried to imagine him (I’d never actually laid eyes on the man, I was just in it for the adventure). She described him as lush and warm looking, bittersweet chocolate hair, dark-honey skin. What must he have though in the morning as he discovered mysterious gifts on his doorstep? I can only imagine.I recall one night when a random teenage ruffian, who we later discovered was Claire’s sister’s friend’s brother called Chet, chased us through the neighborhood in his car: us hiding behind fences and trees, climbing huge fences in the aforementioned impractical long nightgowns and flapper beads, him revving the engine and inspiring quickened heartbeats and thrilled terror. Oh, the feeling of being safe at home after the chase through dark dewy lawns with motion-detecting lights turning on and alerting him to our location, causing us to run hand-in-hand to the next potentially safe shadow, while he revved and flashed his brights at us.Claire went away to school and we continued our Justo experiment when she was home at the weekends. Eventually, (though, I cannot recall the details of how) Claire actually met the man and confessed that we had been leaving the gifts for months. He was obviously mad about her, she was young, impossibly bright and terribly lovely and had been enlivening his lonesome life for months. Giving him odd surprises that no-doubt filled his days with mysterious joy. We began going to his house and lounging around on his couch, like a couple of drowsy kittens, over-perfumed, heavily costumed, late at night. He must have been going wild with desire but we were unaware of our power to captivate and torment, it was not yet obvious to us that as we hugged and kissed one another’s glittery powdered cheeks, ran our fingers through one another’s hair in the dim light of that new-smelling condo, that Justo must have been near-crazed with desire. We were decidedly oblivious to the idea that our sweet and perfect Siamese-sister adoration of one another could be misconstrued as some kind of erotic posing. We must have brought such strange excitement to his nights, when I imagine the scenes from his perspective, our silly stories and playful word games must have seemed otherworldly. I'd play my favourite character: the pretty jaded girl who was comically unlucky in love, telling dismal tales of betraying boys as Claire cooed and tangled my curls around her fingers letting her long straight lashes fan her lightly freckled cheeks. We’d come to his place dressed up like 50s housewives in false eyelashes, aprons, fishnets and crinoline and make elaborate meals for him. We’d weave tales that could not have made sense, but must have been enchanting. I seem to recall Claire sitting on his lap Lolita-style, though I am not sure if this really happened. I see her pulling at a lock of her soft golden hair blinking those enormous Scorpio eyes. Him looking fatherly. Watching her with enthralled fascination. Justo was rather short, with glossy black curls, beautiful beetle-dark eyes and ridiculous tan plastic boots. His accent was luscious. Lulling. It seems obvious to me now that this could not have ended well. Adults expect that this sort of play will end in sex, and I suppose that we knew this on some level. I had a lover of my own and I know I spoke far too candidly of my pervy poet and our tangled romance to truly believe that Justo thought we were innocent girls. We must have simply been fantasizing ourselves innocent, because neither of us actually was. Still, when Justo began to expect sex from Claire we both bristled, the fun was over and he had become a predator. She was insulted that he’d become lecherous and I believe that I too, was genuinely surprised that it had come to that, though it seems so natural now. Eventually the whole thing ended when Justo was leaving to move back to South America. We went to his nearly-empty condo to say goodbye and found him pacing nervously. The atmosphere was tense and unpleasant, none of the warmth of the early times. He seemed angry that I had come and Claire became convinced that he had planned to rape her or kill her and that my presence had come as an infuriating intrusion. We left feeling that dark feeling that comes from walking, unharmed out of a situation where things could have gone very badly. We left feeling disturbed. And to this day, when I think of that phase, it seems like it was golden and sweet at the onset but chilly and disturbing at the end. I never asked her if she heard from him after that night. I don’t recall her ever mentioning it.