Silk Stalkings 2: Dedicated Reporting

It may be merely a side effect of my early inexperience with women, or it may be, as some people have recently claimed, something about my personality, but I have accumulated four stalkers in the past few years. This post covers the second one... the first one is described in a previous posting: Endless Love.

About a year ago, my rich and powerful friend Michael introduces me to a circle of his friends. They belong to an exclusive club in Asia. No, not the kind of club he introduced me to in New York. This is a social supper club of younger up and comers, that include people in line to inherit their parent's corporate conglomerate, rising academics, and political and diplomatic movers behind the government.

There is only one woman in this group, recently invited. She is also young and looks even younger. Many would guess her to be under twenty-five and some might even guess under twenty, although she is over thirty. Even among Asians she is surprising. She is a branch reporter in Asia for a very well-known international weekly. You'd know it if I named it. And she's quite cute. I can see why she is granted otherwise hard-to-get interviews. She was culturally raised in the US starting from the age of six until sixteen, and then moved to Asia for her last years of high school and university.

Michael makes a quick introduction to Haley, maybe ten minutes tops over dinner at a big table. She doesn't make a very big impression, other than the fact that she stands out among the 40-ish year old men in the group, and by being by far the most junior in achievement (although she did collaborate on an article that was on the short list for a Pulitzer, but did not win).

Later that year in Manhattan, in fact during a trip I documented, I meet Micheal again in New York. He has arrived separately and asks me to meet him at the Four Seasons lounge. There he is sitting with two Asian women, a tall art dealer, and Haley. Haley, as it turns out, has been pulled into the New York office by the editor in chief, and is scheduled to spend at least a year in New York. Since she doesn't know anybody in the city, Michael is hoping I can be a resource to her. He is also hoping the tall art dealer will help out Haley, but I can already tell that they don't get along. If only I was as sensitive as the art dealer...

Michael and I take her out one night to Hiro's, a Japan-themed bar, in the basement club. She gets a little drunk. She dances provocatively. She wants E badly, but I figure that's up to her. It was a nice evening, nothing special. After that night we go our separate ways.

She uses SMS and email copiously. So on my next trip to New York, I arrange to meet her at 3 AM, after my other activities, at a late night eatery. We have a good discussion where she confesses that she hates New York, cries almost every night, and doesn't understand why anybody would rave about it.

Then and there I make it my mission to show her that New York isn't so bad. That involves a Broadway show, a visit to the Met, a few museums, a few clubs, and so on. She is favorably impressed. Later on, while I am in China, she has a friend coming over to visit in NYC and can't obtain tickets to Avenue Q (which I had seen with Paulina). So I obtain them for her, long distance. The day is saved and she is grateful.

Before Thanksgiving, I go to New York again. I am very busy, but Haley wants to take me out to dinner in recompense for the tickets. I agree. We go to dinner at Spice Market and have drinks at the Ritz Carlton. Haley is adjusting to New York, but still longs to return to Asia, where she finds people to be friendlier and life to be more convenient.

I start to notice that she enjoys complaining a lot, and whining a lot, but doesn't seem to do much about it. So I point this out. Although I thought she might find that rude, she takes the feedback well and solicits more.

Meanwhile, she gets a bit drunk.

We backtrack to a club kitty corner from the Spice Market that she insists I visit as recompense for my showing her some interesting places. It becomes clear at the club (and perhaps at the lounge as well) Haley has spiked herself on E. She becomes increasingly dreamy and affectionate. She also continues to drink beyond her capacity (and complain of overheating.) So although she is dreamy and affectionate, she also shares a lot of opinions on life that make me think she is unrealistic and self-centered.

Now at this point I have had an experience with E, but it seemed overrated in general. And I really don't like recreational drugs on principle. To get to the point, I do not indulge with Haley, and perhaps due to resulting the surplus of E, Haley, I think, overindulges.

Since she is in no condition to go back home alone, I put her up in the spare bedroom in my place. I myself am a bit tipsy from drink, but put her to bed and then put myself to bed.

I wake up a few hours later. Haley is still sleeping. I do a little work, and then go back to sleep to try to fight the jetlag.

A few hours later, I wake up to a pleasant sensation and see that a naked Haley is all over me. I am aroused, I'm human after all. I'm a little fuzzy, but I have sufficient wits, even with her mouth enveloping me, to know this is not what I want. I tell her that. Given my condition, I'm not about to orgasm quickly, so there'll be no Single White Female scene. So I have time to gather my resolve and push her off me.

She is incredulous. And a little pissed. And then a lot pissed. She leaves in a huff.

And I'm relieved. You know that feeling of relief when that police car is parked at your parent's house, and you think the jig is up, and you are filled with dread, but then it turns out they are there for your sister instead? No... neither do I. But I imagine that's what that feeling is like.

But then the nightmare begins. It starts with lots of email and SMS. Sometimes I would receive more twenty per day. They would start apologetic, then go to conciliatory, and then to demanding and manipulative. Then it would cycle. She wanted to meet. I owed it to her. I was a bastard for not meeting her. She was sorry. She needed my help. I was her only friend. She wnated to meet. I owned it to her... you get the idea.

It was so weird it was scary. Meanwhile, she admitted that she was on a veritable cocktail of drugs ranging from Xanax to Halcion, all self-prescribed and filled by a friend. Great. Another thing to add to the profile of things to check.

Before the New Year she moves back to Asia, fed up with New York. She has been booted from the club, but that's okay with her since they are "all arrogant and conceited bastards" (not entirely untrue, I admit), and she doesn't need them.

Well.

Meanwhile, she is bugging Michael about me. And other contacts I have made in Asia that are part of the club. Not to mention the concierge at my Manhattan place, as well as my driver. Several of the club members outright apologize to me for introducing her to me.

Meanwhile, she "keeps the cards and letters coming" with her torrent of SMS and emails. This all culminates in a phone message where she refers to me using such a rich library of invective so artfully arranged, that I cannot doubt that she is capable of Pulitzer material. Her single minded pursuit also demonstrates her drive for a story, all good attributes for a reporter.

Eventually her obsession subsides, as she claims to have found Christianity. God apparently has no block blacklist. But I do. And I've used it.

One interpretation of how this happened: Clare Boothe Luce's quote, "No good deed goes unpunished." (She has many great quotes, I'll start using them more.)

The other one: I am the bug light for psychos. Not the knife-wielding Glenn Close boil-your-pet-rabbit psychos, but a gentler, less harmful kind. More like potato-peeler-wielding boil-your-chia-pet psychos.

What do you think, dear reader?