As you remember, I was getting kinda comfortable with the intermittent and random text messages the Gabonese pilot was sending me. If you read previous posts, you’ll see that this guy – a pilot from Gabon who traveled regularly to Libreville, Beirut, Paris, Rome, and Malabo- had been watching me for a while during his stays at a hotel I was living at long-term for work. Then, he pinned me down on Valentine’s Day for a date (which didn’t happen). Later, I found out he was married and told him I wasn’t interested. But, then we fell into this casual texting relationship.

I liked the light friendship. The male attention. It was harmless. Nice.

Then the other day I saw him come up on Skype on my computer screen:

“Are you there?”

“Yes, I am,” I replied.

But, now that I’m back in my home country, looking at my watch I realized that it was 2:30 am his time.

“It’s 2:30 am. Isn’t it kind of late?” I queried.

“It’s not that late,” he replied.

“Odd,” I thought. My guard was down. I only had innocent thoughts.

Then, he slyly asked, “What are you wearing…?”

Hmm… “What’s that supposed to mean? “ I asked on the defensive. “What kind of question is that?? What are you wearing…?!” I charged.

“A shirt on top,” he responded…”and nothing on the bottom.” Okeydokey… So, that’s the way he plays. This is how he rolls. How did this creep up? Can’t a man and a woman have a playful, platonic relationship without it going “to the other side..???”

“Go back to your wife,” I cried. “That’s what she’s there for! I’m not into any porno texting.” I said. “Uh… at least not with married men,” I was thinking, but left out. Of course, he said I had misunderstood. That he was innocent. Why did I think badly of him… Yada…yada… yada…

I thought we would build a nice friendship. See each other casually between our international trips we had for work… How did I so easily fall into this…?

Seemingly not satisfied with that new bone for me to chew on, what does he do today…? He texts me in French: “Peace. In the Name of Christ.”