Damn -- my legs look good

About 20 years ago, I lived in this gorgeous condominium building called the Waterford.  The building itself was not actually beautiful -- it was built in the 1960's and had that funky angled architecture that is so common throughout the capital of Brazil.  What was gorgeous about this building was living there, being inside it.  Because the building was so old, the rooms were big and there were lots of them.  I lived in a 3 bedroom apartment that had 2 bathrooms and 4 walk-in closets.  It was luxurious.  One of the best things about the Waterford was that there were no outside walls -- it was completely glass -- floor to ceiling and wall to wall.  And each room opened up onto a huge frigging balcony that ran around the entire outside of the building.  It was fabu.  Between each apartment, there was a little lacy filigree divider so your neighbor could not easily pass from their balcony to your balcony.  Many people had hung bamboo shades or other wall coverings on the dividers so that the neighbors could not see into your balcony or your apartment.  Why they did this, I do not know because the average age in the Waterford Condominium at the time was about 85.  They weren't doing anything secretive or embarrassing except the occasional changing of medical catheters.  Whatever.  I was easily the youngest person in that building then by at least 25 years -- if anyone was doing anything embarrassing, it was me and I am tame and mild-mannered by most standards.

Anyway, one night -- around 10 pm or so -- I was lying on my bed talking to my dear friend Barb.  If I have not mentioned her before, let me do that now.  She is my guardian angel.  She is a delight, she is smart, funny, clever, and has just about the most lovely eyes I have ever seen on a human being.  She was once asked to model eyeglasses by some dirty old man who recognized how beautiful her eyes were but was, I am quite sure, focusing on something decidedly south of the facial area.  To this day, it is a supreme disappointment to me that she never took him up on the offer to model those eyeglasses.  Barb also has great hair which has gone through many different looks, lengths, heights, colors and architectural formations.  My favorite is the "Barb V" so called because, when you looked at the back of her head from behind, her hair-do looked like an inverted pyramid.  It was stunning and very flattering to her Italo-Germanic bone structure.  She has never recreated the Barb V because you can never really re-visit perfection.  It's just a rule of life, isn't it?

So, Barb and I were talking about many things while I lay on my bed -- how she hated her job, how I hated my job, how she adored me, how I adored her, how Bill Clinton's nose was big and bulbous and stippled like a cauliflower -- you know, just the usual.  We talked for hours back then.  We were young and needed less maintenance.  At some point, I was lying on my back with my legs up in the air (unconsciously mimicking, I suspect, the Barb V).  Anyway, suddenly there was a flash of light -- lightening, a light bulb, no, a camera bulb going off.  I quickly turned over and turned around to look out the floor-to-ceiling window in my bedroom -- but there was nothing and nobody there.  "What happened" Barb asked.  "I think Mr. Yu just took a picture of my legs!"  Well, how the hell could he do that?" she gasped.  "He shimmied around the filigree divider and took a picture of my legs, the sick bastard."  It was the only answer.  After all, my legs were stunning at the time.  I had a stair machine in my apartment then and was regularly working out on it for 45 minutes or longer each day.  Anyone who saw me in shorts during the late 1980's and early 1990's would agree -- damn! Lew's legs look good.  Surely, my neighbor, Mr. Yu, had seen me in shorts on my way to the trash chute and he simply couldn't get the vision of those muscular stalks of hairy man legs out of his mind.  Pop, pop, pop went my leg muscles with each confident stride toward the trash chute, my garbage bag swaying to and fro with wild abandon.  Often, on the way down, I would run so that the trash would not leak onto the fleur de lis carpet.  This would draw even more attention to me.  There was no doubt in my mind that Mr. Yu had plotted some way to get a good photo of my legs for some sick little Taiwanese reason.  I can only imagine why he wanted that photo -- neighbor porn has no boundaries, you know -- but the fact is that he wanted it, he planned it, and I fell easily, voluntarily and almost deliciously into his little trap.  I bet he couldn't even have imagined how successful he would be -- to see me, on my bed, on my back, legs spread wide and pointing my toes.  I tell you, it must have looked like a pose right out the Vargas Girl playbook -- only different.  I bet Mr. Yu was proud of himself.

In fact, Mr. Yu was proud of himself -- and for good reason.  He was an elegant man in his late 70's, young by Waterford standards.  In good shape.  Articulate but with a heavy Taiwanese accent.  He was exotic in a short, slow moving, shuffling, scary kind of way.  He frequently wore what can only be described as an adult diaper -- and nothing else.  I think that this was some sort of Taiwanese lounge wear because he did not seem the least bit disturbed by it.  Once, he invited me over for tea which I gladly accepted (the wardrobe alone was reason enough).  His house was like a museum.  I felt like I had walked back into time -- Taiwan style.  I expected Lady Chiang Kai-Shek to walk around the corner and start a boxer rebellion.  I also expected to catch him sneaking glances at my legs, now safely concealed inside trousers (I'm no dummy).  But, instead, he was very interested in only 1 thing -- telling me that he had been crowned as Mr. Taiwan in 1949.  He brought out picture books with lots of photos of him on the winner's stand, I saw medals and awards, I saw some lycra man panties that I was so glad he didn't wear anymore.  On the whole, I had a delightful afternoon.

We traded little gifts of food back and forth after that but never again shared an afternoon tea or another photo session.  I think it had something to do with the unfortunate dildo incident.

Let me describe the dildo incident to you.  One of my exes had left a dildo at my house for some reason.  Please don't ask.  Anyway, as I was cleaning one of my walk-in closets, I came across the said dildo.  It disgusted me.  It reminded me of my ex.  It reminded me of agreeing to do something that I never ever wanted to think of again and had ultimately and thankfully, decided NOT EVER TO DO.  It was, for God's sake, a dildo.  Still shrink wrapped in plastic, I would like to add, for the obvious reasons.  Anyway, I wanted it out of my apartment and out of my life.

Unfortunately, it was after 11 pm -- after trash chute hours -- so I could not, according to Waterford Condominium rules, throw my dildo down the trash chute at that time.  Rules are rules.  I placed it on my kitchen counter near the front door where I was sure to see it the next morning on my way to work.  I could then discreetly take it down the hall and dump it into the trash chute.  Well, things being what they usually are in the morning, I woke up late and  -- yadda, yadda, yadda -- I made a mad dash to work and forgot the dildo on my kitchen counter.  Sitting there balls to the countertop.  Well, isn't that just special?  I could just get rid of it when I got home from work.

Until I remembered that today was the day my cleaning lady was coming.  YIKES!!!  I panicked, I was apoplectic.  I left work immediately without an explanation.  You know, it's awfully hard to tell your boss that you need to go home and throw away your dildo before your cleaning lady finds it.  I made a frightful drive at supersonic speeds home.  Alas, she was gone -- but so was my dildo!  What the fuck had happened to my dildo???  It was not on the countertop in my kitchen where I left it.  The cleaning lady was a bit freaky but let's be real here!  Maybe I was dreaming?  Maybe I was out of my mind?  Maybe I had flouted Waterford Condominium rules and thrown it down the trash chute after legal trash chute hours?  Not likely.  Well, that god damn dildo did not just get up off its balls and walk out of my kitchen on its own.  What the hell happened to it? 

I had to let it go.  I had a drink.  I had 2 drinks. I had dinner.  Then it was time to go to sleep.  I walked down the hall, feeling a little buzz and quite tired.  I couldn't wait for this stressful day to be over and get some rest.  I took my clothes off and put my pajamas on.  I scratched myself for several minutes then went into the bathroom.  And there, much to my horror and dread, was, oh yes, the dildo.  Sitting all alone, by itself, in the bathtub -- the clean bathtub.  Cleaned just that day to be exact.  Balls to the porcelain.  Right underneath the faucet.  Like a monument to my stupidity and . . . what else?  My dignity.  Or lack thereof.

Well, I was not going to let this sort of thing happen to me again.  No way.  In my pajamas, way after the 11 pm trash chute prohibition time (screw the Waterford Condominium rules), I walked right out of my apartment and down the hall with that dildo clasped in my right hand.  Shaking it all the way down the long hallway -- past Mr. Yu's apartment door -- and talking to it, NO, yelling at it, all the way.  Of course, I meant the dildo no harm and I was not really mad at the dildo.  I was actually mad at me.  Stupid dildo!  Stupid me!  No, stupid dildo!  But it's so much easier to yell at a dildo than at yourself.  I only wish that Mr. Yu's understanding of the English language was better than it appeared.

I moved out of the Waterford Condominium shortly after that.  I said good bye to my wonderful apartment and the intriguing Mr. Yu who thought my legs looked good.  He was right about many things -- including my legs -- but I was so, so wrong.