Bujanda got out of the elevator with me on the 10th floor. He told me he was there for a meeting and was already late, but that it was okay because they knew no one else could do what he did. He said he worked undercover but didn't give details at that moment.
He wanted to give me his phone number and asked me to go out with him for coffee. I didn't tell him anything about myself except that I was filing something. I opened up my purse to find a pen after he asked me for one. I noticed he was trying to look inside my purse. I got a pen and handed it to him. He wrote 3 numbers on his FBI Special Agent business card. His cell phone number, his house number, and his work number. Everything but his email address.
He wasn't wearing a wedding ring. I had no reason to think he was married.
He was about 6' to 6'2" and had a lighter complexion. His hair was dark brown and his eyes were a kind of amber brown. I think maybe he wore contacts but I don't know. He said later that he did, that he wore contacts. He stayed until I was walking to the judge's chambers door. He went to the elevator but the doors didn't close until I spoke into the intercom, asking for the judge. Then I heard the elevator doors close.
I went about my usual business, but was thinking it was strange I had just met someone who worked for the FBI when I had just expressed an interest to Christa about doing the same. At some point when I was home, I'm sure I called her and talked to her about it. At the time, I was dating a "boy toy" of sorts. This was the same one a total stranger bartender told me to dump because I deserved better and he was a jerk (and increasingly, he was). He was probably 21 or 22 and I was 30 by then. I met him at a dance club after trying to get Christa to go out with me to no avail. When my cases were being dismissed, she suddenly lost interest in taking me out or getting me out of the house. Now I look back and think she figured they'd accomplished what they needed and their work was done, or close to done. When it was important to try to distract me from my research and writing motions, she was calling at all the right times. I turned her down usually, in favor of finishing my work, but sometimes I threw in the towel to let out stress.
What's crazy to me, now, is that I even crashed at her apartment and slept with her in her bed. It was always platonic, but still. I was sleeping with the enemy. Like the lawyer I allowed into my house, though, I guess you have to make others sometimes believe you trust them a lot more than you really do.
So this guy was there, with his sister, and he was coming onto me. I drank too much and told him I wasn't going to have sex with him, but I went home with him. And didn't have sex with him. I don't even think I let him make out with me much. Then, the next morning, things happened, and at the same time I discovered he was only a couple of miles away from where I lived. We were neighbors. This was when I had my apartment near Lewis & Clark college, off of Terwilliger, next to a muslim mosque. It was odd though. For me, it was only physical, and I think he knew that. We laughed and joked around, and went out dancing, but it wasn't a big deal. I knew I could show up at his door. He knew he would go home with me. He started to get weird though, towards the end and started asking me tons of questions, Christa-style, and about drugs and everything too. It was just weird, and he started acting like a jerk, and asking me if I bought clothes and returned them with the tags still on. It was like he was hunting for dirt on me and I don't know why. After I had coffee with Bujanda, I was done with him.
It's not that I found a replacement, but I didn't want to waste time. I remember he was really pissed when I wouldn't let him into my apartment after a night of dancing, after he treated me like a jerk and didn't even tip the cab driver. I just thought he was thoughtless and stingy. I met his mother a few times and had dinner with his family, but then things went downhill. He was very upset when I refused to let him in the last time.
I talked to him a couple of times after that. He wasn't serious about me anyway, I thought, and I'd found out he was bisexual and he'd never told me but I guess I should have known the tight leather Versace's were a dead giveaway. He said I was the only one who could make him a straight man. He did tell me he'd never done, well, you know, with a man, but had done other things, like oral, but I was totally shocked when he told me all of this. It's not why I broke up with him. It was because he was treating me like a jerk and I was tired of it. All the questions were weird too. So I did tell him about my coffee date with Bujanda, and asked him what I should wear before meeting up with him the next time I was going to see him. I remember telling him I was going to meet Bujanda at a Burger King parking lot and joked maybe I'd get "a Whopper" out of it.
My first coffee date with Bujanda was in a fishbowl. It was a Starbucks close to all the federal buildings and we went in and it was packed. I felt watched. A lot of people were staring at me and it seemed like more than passing interest. We got our coffee and then Bujanda wanted to go someplace else. Somewhere where, he said, "they have really good chicken." Chicken never seemed to be far from Bujanda's mind. It must be one of his favorite foods.
So we went to some out of the way deli where we were the only people there. While I was chatting, Bujanda seemed visibly nervous, in a datish way, and forgot to stop the ice as it was pouring into his cup for his Coke. The ice bouldered all over the counter and floor and he tried to push it out of the way. When we sat down, he told me he worked undercover to "infiltrate the Mexican mafia".
He said he'd worked as a science and math teacher and then got bored so he applied to work for Border Patrol. After he was working for them, he decided to go into the FBI as an investigator or special agent. He said he liked it. He made some to-do about how they needed him because he was the only one who could do what he did. It sounded like most of the mafia stuff had to do with drugs. That's what he said. He asked about me and what my interests were. I didn't realize until a phone call with him later, at least this is what he said, he thought I was a U.S. attorney. I corrected him on that. He asked about my romantic life and I said I'd never been married and had no kids. He said the same. He asked why I was single and I told him I'd been very religious most of my life. He asked, in a sort of turned-off tone, "What do you mean? Mormon?" I said no and he acted relieved, but it all could have been an act, and then he said he had thought about bringing his boss to meet me but didn't want to intimidate me. I wasn't sure why he would want his boss to meet me.
After the coffee date, he walked me to my car, which was full of junk. I mean, papers and scrunched up fast food bags and cups. I noticed his expression. He gave me a kiss and opened my car door for me. Then he said, after I was in the car, that he didn't think he'd given me a very good kiss and he leaned over through the window and gave me another kiss. Then he walked away and I could see his expression and he seemed distant.
Then he started calling me all the time. Half the time I wasn't home. He left a lot of messages on my phone machine.
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