Posted by Will on September 5, 2005, 9:04 pm, in reply to "I’ve done that (Part 2)"
Board Administrator

(Originally posted on May 15, 2003, 6:07 pm) When I came back from the “U” to stay at home with my mom for a little while, I found that she had hired a Mexican girl to come in and clean the house once a week or so. She was a really pretty girl. She had light-tannish skin, with big brown eyes behind oval wire-frame glasses and long, curly, brownish-black hair held in a clip forming a “V” on her back. She had a slender, petite figure, which her V-formed curly hair accentuated. Very cute, kind-mannered, and innocent looking. She could only just barely speak English, so I was going to have to struggle a little bit to communicate with her. In the morning while I was still in bed, my mom knocked on my door and told me she was going to be gone most of the day doing errands, and that she was leaving the girl there to clean the house while she was gone, “so don’t be alarmed when you see her there.” She was some of my mom’s friends’ regular live-in maid, so she could trust her to leave her alone in the house. So then, my mom was gone for the day, leaving me in the house alone with the pretty Mexican maid. Maybe the warning should have been to her, not to be alarmed when she... uh... sees me. After my mom left, I got up, put on my robe and went out to the kitchen where she was. “Hi,” I said to her. “Hi,” she replied, smiling kindly. “Do you understand English?” I asked her. “Yehss,” she replied, holding up her thumb and index finger together with a small space between them. “A lee-tle.” “My mother says you are our new maid,” I said, speaking slowly so she could understand. “Yehss,” she nodded, smiling. “I’m her son,” I said, pointing at myself. “Do you understand? Son? She nodded. “Yehss.” “My name is Will.” (Not really, that’s a board pseudonym.) “What is your name?” I asked her. She understood. “My name... Elsa.” (Also changed.) She said something in Spanish that I couldn’t understand and she held out her hand to me. I shook it. She had well-manicured fingernails, polished red. “I am... so pleased to meet you,” I said, a little nervously, holding her lovely hand in mine for a moment, then letting go. “Are you... cleaning the house?” (Duh....) Oh, she was so pretty, and she was beginning to attract me already. How I would have liked to be able to ask her out, to take her out on a date, to be her boyfriend, to hold her, to love her, maybe... but shy me, I didn’t have the nerve. All I could do was.... “Uh... I... uh... have to take a shower,” I said. I gestured my hands across my body. “Understand? Shower?” I made a sound of “Psshhhh,” gestured water coming out of a nozzle, then rubbed my hand on my chest, pantomiming rubbing soap on me. “I take off my clothes and...?” “Yehss,” she nodded. No, no. It’s not that easy. I couldn’t take any chances on any behavior for her to possibly end up mentioning to my mother. When I was at the U, I had learned quite a bit. I had gotten in with a group of new friends who, shall we say, specialized in all such techniques and how to... “pull things off” skillfully. Oh, there are scads of secret societies at the U—for people of every kind of variation in thought-processes, orientations, situations—if you know how and where to find them when you’re attending. You have to learn to do things artfully. Sometimes it requires acting, choreography, caution, timing... and precision. You can’t just be a reckless mowk, not if you don’t want to spend your life in and out of jail—and with all your career opportunities ruined all your life. If you’re going to make it in life, you can’t just be a dumb jerk... raincoat flapper, whatever.... Milk. This C-maneuver required milk. All right, there was some in the refrigerator. I went over, opened it and took some out. “I drink warm milk,” I said to her, setting it down on the counter, then going over and taking out a pot from under the stove. “It is good for the... health.” She nodded as if understanding. “Before I take a shower, I drink... warm milk.” She nodded again. I poured some into the pot, put it on the stove, then turned it on high. I held my thumb and index finger together the way she did. “Wait,” I said. I left the milk in the pot on the stove, then turned and went to my bedroom, and as quickly as I could, stripped completely naked. (I left the door partway open just in case she might walk by for some reason, but she didn’t.) I took a towel, wrapped it around my waist and came back out to the kitchen. She looked at me, bare-chested, then took a glance down at my towel, making no expression on her face. “What part of Mexico are you from?” I asked her. She made a curious look, cocking her head and squinting her eyes like she couldn’t understand. I enunciated the words slowly. “What... part... of Mexico...” I pointed my finger at her “...you from?” “Oh,” she replied, and said something in Spanish I couldn’t understand, probably the name of her town. “Oh. I see.” She nodded, then turned back to wiping off the counters with the sponge, as she was doing. We were communicating, and now the only thing between me and those beautiful eyes of hers was that towel around my waist. Now the question: how do I get it off without it looking like it was done on purpose? Well, that’s what the milk is for. I went over to the stove and looked at it, heating up in the pot. Now you have to time this all just right. Who likes to drink warm milk? Well, I don’t particularly, but as part of the choreography for this little C-maneuver, I had to pretend liked I liked it, because you see, when you heat milk up to a boil, it suddenly creates a froth and starts rising up fast, and if you’re not watching it carefully to run stop it, it will spill over, making a big mess all over everything—and we don’t want that, do we? I went into the other room and stood there for a few moments. Was I going to be able to get this timing just right, now, I wondered? Next: olive oil. I went back into the kitchen, opened the cupboard and took out a bottle of it. “Olive oil,” I said to her, opening the lid and pouring a little onto my hand as she turned and looked. “Olive oil... good for skin.” I started rubbing some of it into my arm. “Healthy.” She nodded, and as she watched, I poured some more of it into the palm of my hand, purposely tilting the bottle a little too much so that it came pouring out quickly, running all over my hand and spilling onto the floor. “Oh!” I exclaimed. “I spilled it!” “Oh...” she replied. “I clean.” She picked up a rag from the sink and knelt down to start wiping it up. “No,” I said. I knelt down and gently took the rag from her hand. “This rag...” I wagged my finger sideways, though in a kindly tone of voice, and explained, “...not for the floor. This rag... clean dishes.” I pointed to the dishes in the rack on the counter by the sink. “Oh.” She put her hand over her mouth, as if realizing she had done something incorrectly. “Mop,” I said, standing up as she stood up. I gently took her by the elbow and led her over to the laundry room where the mop and bucket were. (It wasn’t that I cared about her using that rag on the floor, I just needed an excuse to stop her from cleaning up the olive oil.) “But not yet,” I said, waving my finger sideways. “First... when my milk heats up...” pointing at the milk on the stove, “...I will drink it... then I go... to take a shower. After that... then you... clean it...” pointing at the olive oil on the floor and making a gesture of wiping it with the mop. “Okay?” She nodded. “Okay.” I went to the sink. Now I had to stall for time. Find something to say. Anything. I held the rag out in front of her. “Uhh... do they have... uhh... rags... in... uh... Mexico?” She made that curious look again, cocking her head. She must not have understood. (Fine.) I took another quick glance at the milk. Getting warmer. I stood there saying a few other pointless things, then took another quick glance at the milk out the corner of my eye. It was time! It was going to boil over any second. I quickly walked over to the refrigerator and opened it as if I were looking for something in the refrigerator (in order to position myself on the other side of where I had spilled the olive oil on the floor). CONTINUED