Voyeur

by Kismet

 

It was a lazy Saturday morn and, as I am want to do, I was spending it frivolously. I was imbibing a strong coffee, quaffing down some Eggs Benedict and passively spectating upon my fellow patrons in a trendy but altogether forgettable little café as. This altogether pedestrian voyeuristic preoccupation is amongst my favourite of vices. In fact it has become a weekly ritual to which I have become addicted.

As a rule I rise early on each Saturday, carry out my toilet, dress smartly but casually and walk from my Victorian Townhouse to one of the busy strip shops on the St Kilda foreshore. I roam aimlessly, my feet leading me where they will until I ultimately arrive at one of the many cafes that populate the area.

There is an altogether sameness about these cafes and as such they tend to blur into one. The decor is generally striving for a look, whether it be a derivative of a specific art style or the latest embodiment of some obscure subculture. Personally I care not at all for the look, only for the comfort.

New cafes are constantly opening, closing, moving, changing ownership or employing new staff making it much too taxing to keep abreast of them all. Hence I patronise none exclusively and judge them only by their diversity of clientele, their outlook onto the bustling streetscape and their coffee. I rarely return to an establishment if it serves poor coffee and will do so only if the cafe has a roaring trade of interesting clientele. As poor quality cafes do not last long and do not attract a regular clientele, this is not a dilemma that I often entertain.

Once I seat myself in a location with ample viewing opportunities available, I ensconce myself for a hearty brunch. Whilst ostensibly I immerse myself in the daily paper and lazily consume a new and unsampled morsel, I in actuality spy upon people.

I should clarify that Fitzroy Street and Acland Street in St Kilda are amongst the most diverse in the cultural melting pot of the Great city that is Melbourne, although Brunswick Street, Smith Street, Chapel Street and numerous others provide similar diversities and a macrocosm of this diverse city in which I live. They are all old parts of the city, first established last century and have a varied history of growth, decay and regrowth.

The great boon of all these aforementioned streets and their immediate surrounds is that one can find there the extremes of all walks of life. Old, young, rich, poor, gay, straight, crooked, belligerent, repressed, educated, uneducated, smart, stupid, beautiful, ugly and everything in between. The architectural styles present are equally diverse with every style of building from the past century being represented. Mansions sit inexplicably next to tenement houses, blue stone alleys join with concrete and lush gardens stand side by side with dried wastelands.

These unique locales are all sadly dyeing bastions, fighting a losing battle against the bland homogeneity of gentrification. I see it around me every day and I am a part of it. The novel and unique is a commodity. The once poor young students who love these places now have money, want trendy houses and desire activities more suited to their newfound affluence to while away their spare time upon. Astute business men see this and the speculation begins.

Dilapidated old buildings are ripe for plunder being very cheap and ideally situated. Renovations are carried out transforming ancient, crusty buildings into resplendently refurbished shops and apartments. Real estate prices rise. The derelicts are moved on. New developments spring up taking advantage of the burgeoning redevelopment and the great ocean views. Rich people move in. Poor people move out. Tourists and families start to visit the shops and restaurants. Those damnable parking meters are introduced and permit parking areas appear. The area loses its original character.

I do sigh with relief when I consider that the complete gentrification of these areas is a long way off and may never occur. Old and embattled residents steadfastly refuse to leave their homes and the trade in prostitution, drug dealing and crime still thrives regardless.

I am no hypocrite and readily admit that I am amongst this bland gentrifying element, although I am loathe to see these places forever perish. I consume them regardless, whilst trying to step as lightly as possible. I suppose I am an ecotourist of my own neighbourhood. How novel buzzwords are.

 

Now where was I?

Ah yes. The task which I entertain myself with involves watching people and categorising them. I focus my complete attention upon one or two individuals, listen to their conversation, watch their interplay and summarise them as best I can. I note their general physical appearance, age, nationality, creed, descent, dress, grooming, health, body language, facial cast, tone of voice, vocabulary and so on. It is a mental exercise whereby I use all the information I gather to create a profile of a person. Rarely I find a particularly strange and complicated individual, but this is what I search for. This and the challenge they present in determining their id, ego and background with what limited information I can garner through observation. I am rather fastidious and fickle, and unless I find a person genuinely interesting I move my attention elsewhere.

I am a voyeur, for lack of a better word, although there is nothing sexual about my pastime. I am only mentally stimulated by the activity.

Another great passion of mine is wine tasting. Whilst my pallet leads me to prefer reds, I happily try whites and fortified whines without reservation. I intend to never shy away from sampling something new, the more obscure the better. It is not so much that I enjoy all wine, more that I enjoy tasting as much as possible. I am not a glutton, a mere sip will satisfy my curiosity. Exactly what I am looking for I do not know until I find it but the pleasure is in the looking, not necessarily the finding. I love to rummage, delving deeply to ferret things out. My other loves include antiques, music, writing, architecture, poetry and food. I love to search for my own view of perfection. I could spend all day in a book shop, a record shop, at a market browsing and sampling or looking at old buildings.

My cacoethes of watching people is similar. I derive great pleasure from searching for the allusively unique person. All ego aside, whilst I pride myself upon my deductive abilities, I would never presume to be correct in my glib summaries of people. However when I have had the opportunity to verify my profiles, I have discovered that I am generally accurate. That said I have never been confronted by a person who is a complete anathema to my dianoetic skills. Never, that is, until I found her.

On this warm summer morn I was seated to the rear of a café in a remote and inconspicuous alcove, my attention travelling lazily about the room. The front of the coffeehouse was open, looking out over a few seats nestled about shaded tables on the pavement. There was only one waiter in attendance and he was a busy fellow. The walls of the coffee house were covered with layers of posters and placards and books, pamphlets, papers, fliers and all manner of written paraphernalia sat upon a mesa table along the wall. Chrome tables and stylistic wooden chairs lined the floor. It was early yet and few patrons had arrived.

My attention briefly resting upon a doting middle class couple, aged in there early twenties. Both seemed to be at university, judging by their attire. No doubt both had just risen after a long night of revelry. The nauseating way they were focussed upon each other indicated that they had met the night prior. I took him to be studying commerce and her, by her dress, looked to be doing arts although perhaps specialising in some area or another. I did not know, nor did I care to know. I grimaced inwardly as I turned my gaze towards my paper and ate a mouthful of my brunch. Some people are so ordinary as to make categorizing a chore rather than a challenge.

A shadow passed over my paper. I looked up again and my eyes were drawn wholly to a lone woman who was at that very moment seating herself. She took a table directly in front of me but one removed, facing perpendicular to me so that I saw her in profile. Truthfully, I don’t know what drew my attention to her so completely. She was not overly remarkable of appearance, not in her current state at least, although she did have a rough earthiness about her that some might find alluring. Her hair was somewhat messy and her clothes, whilst not overly voluminous, were certainly large and ill fitting making it difficult to determine the shape of her body. There were dark rings under her eyes suggesting that she had not slept well for some time and In her current position I could only see her torso up, the rest of her body was obscured by the intervening table and chairs.

I observed her covertly with surreptitious glances from the corner of my eye, sipping occasionally from my coffee and holding the paper aloft before me in a pretence of reading. Initially my surveillance was quite reticent as the woman seemed to be acutely aware of her surrounds and the attentions of other people. After some time I came to the conclusion that she was not aware of my presence in such close proximity to her and I became bolder in my attentions.

After observing her for a minute or so I decided that it was not her appearance which attracted my attention so much as her manner. Her movements were decidedly slow and considered, almost ginger as though she were injured, although she suffered from no apparent malady. Altogether she seemed to be completely self conscious, of both her actions and the attention they might illicit.

She lifted the menu before her ever so carefully, adjusting her shirt sleeve when it traveled down too far over her palm. Her face flashed irritation as she put down the menu and commenced to roll her sleeves up. Her nails were unpainted, long and well manicured. Her hands seemed to bother her, not just the overly large shirt. I looked at that top, a rumpled men’s business shirt. This was at least the second days wear for the article of clothing, so crumpled was it.

Judging by it’s size and make, the shirt was not hers. A boyfriend's perhaps? It seemed possible, although usually such an ill fitting shirt would only be worn in the confines of one’s own home, in the comfort of the partners company. Perhaps there had been an argument and she had stormed out. This would also explain the state of her hair, her lack of makeup and her somewhat agitated state. Maybe she was unsure if people guessed why she was here, hence her paranoid disposition?

I could not altogether rule out drugs, but despite her strange movement, she seemed altogether self aware and in normal health. Her pallor of skin was not flushed or pail, her breathing seemed regular and from what little I could see her eyes were not dilated. Her movement was by no means clumsy, just slow and very self conscious.

Finished with her rolling up the sleeves of her shirt, she took her hands from the table and hung them by her side. She then read the menu. Her face was racked with indecision when a waiter approached her from the side.

"And what would madam like to order?" the waiter asked.

The woman veritably jumped out of her skin as she turned towards the waiter. There was a long pause where I half expected her to take flight before she said, "Dry white toast and a long black." She turned away, once again self composed.

I was truly intrigued at the woman's restiveness. This woman may well have been on some drug. Either that or she was a little unhinged. Whatever the case, I wanted to know. My instincts told me that I was only seeing half the picture, that something very important was missing or had been overlooked. Whatever it was I could not put my finger on.

Then a question came unbidden to my mind. Did I know this woman? There was something vaguely familiar about her. The voice. The tilt of the head. The way she rolled her sleeves. She seemed so familiar. I felt frustrated, searching my memory. As far as I could recall I had never met the woman. In fact the more I though about it, the more certain I became. But a strange feeling in my stomach still lingered.

As I said before it was her manner that had drawn my attention. Any professional poker player will tell you that he can read an amateur by his body language and facial cast. Well my pastime is similar. I have carried out a long and informal study of the nuances of the body and have learnt that the most amazing things can be telegraphed by the body. The muscles around the eyes, the way someone smiles, where hands are, how people sit and an infinite array of minor details subconsciously broadcast what a person is thinking. A person skilled at interpreting body language can use a reading to their advantage.

People are also unique. No two people laugh or frown or smile or cry in the same way. It creeped my flesh just how familiar she looked.

Movement from elsewhere attracted my attention briefly. The young student I had dismissed previously flagged down the busy waiter, mimed writing, then turned his attention back to his new found love. I grimaced as my stomach rebelled at the cloying love I saw there. I turned my attention back to the woman lest I be sick.

The strange woman sat there for a long time thinking, her head resting on her hand, staring off into space, contemplating god only knows what. Then the waiter appeared and deposited her coffee and toast. Her reverie broken, she thanked the waiter and turned her attention to her plate.

I watched her take the first bite of her white toast. She chewed normally for a moment then paused. Her face wore a quizzical frown as though she were slightly perplexed by the foods taste. She put down the toast and lifted her black coffee, taking a tentative sip, her face taking on a faraway look as she evaluated the taste. With a sigh she reached for the sugar and doled out a single spoonful.

I mused over this, quite intrigued by her reaction to the food and drink. At the risk of sounding redundant, I'll spell out what bothered me. People know how they like toast and coffee. Toast is toast the world over and the amount of sugar and milk which a person has in their coffee rarely changes, regardless of whether it is instant or fresh coffee. These are not things that you even think about. They just are.

Her espresso had been prepared by the same waiter as mine and, as a consequence, I had little doubt that the coffee was appropriately brewed. I was certain that it did not require extra sugar to take off the bitter taste that burning engenders.

She was stirring her coffee, her eyes fixated on it. It seemed that the woman had expected the coffee and toast to taste differently. I assumed that she had recently cleaned her teethe and this had altered the taste of her food or perhaps she was on drugs. Still I was becoming increasingly bemused by the compounding eccentricities of her actions and temperament.

She drank her coffee and ate her toast, savouring and evaluating each mouthful. She picked up the menu and read it slowly with great interest.

At this moment the young couple chose to depart. They arose, leaving with hands firmly clasped, the boy leading the girl. I had a sudden image of a paper clip chain as they departed, limp and dangly metal, a pointless diversion. I shook my head to dispel my obtuse thoughts as the waiter converged upon the vacated table and commenced to clean it, moving with an almost frantic pace. As he commenced to make a tower of crockery, I turned my attention back to the girl.

Pushing aside her empty plate, she hailed the waiter. The industrious attendant turned as he slung his tea towel casually over his shoulder. He approached and bent his head, turning his ear to listen as she imparted her request. Moments later the waiter departed for the counter, dodging amongst the tables and seats, plucked something from behind the register and returning posthaste with the utmost of practiced ease. He proffered a pad and pen to the woman which she graciously accepted, upon which he pulled his towel off his shoulder and resumed his interrupted task of cleaning the vacated table.

As she finished her coffee, the woman made quick notes, jotting down items, pondering them and then crossing them out or altering them. Her focus was solely upon the paper and her expression indicated that whatever she was debating was quite important.

I positively itched to see what she was writing. I cannot say why, but firmly entrenched in my mind was the notion that her notes contained at least a part of the solution to her mystery. Her hunched posture, guarding hand and regular furtive glances up and about broadcast very clearly that she wary of anybody reading her jottings so I decided to maintain my safe and anonymous distance.

I don't know why, but as she worked I was struck with a sense of de ja vu. As though I had been here before and seen this all before. It was a dim and unidentifiable recollection. No matter how hard I dredged or tried to kindle the image, the exact source of the memory alluded me. I had never before met this woman or to my knowledge seen her, yet the way in which she was focussed upon her writing was very familiar. This all seemed to have happened somewhere before, the exact time lost in my distant memory.

She put down the pen. Her debate seemed to have reached a conclusion. She looked at the piece of paper before her, tore off the note and casually discarded the pad as she folded the single piece of paper. I was so excited at the prospect of collecting the embossed pad that I nearly failed to notice her put money on the table and prepare to leave. It wasn't so much that she put the money on the table, more that she took the money from what could be nothing but a mans wallet. As she stood and left, I noted that she wore ill fitting men's pants and shoes.

I had little time to ponder this as I stood, reached into my pocket, extracted and flipped through my wallet. I only had a fifty dollar note. I shrugged as I threw it onto the table. Hurriedly I went to her table, grabbed the blank pad, slipped it into my jacket pocket and made my exit.

"Hey the pad -" the waiter yelled as I made my exit onto the street.

I looked up and down the busy thoroughfare, searching for my quarry. I spotted her head, bobbing slowly in the morning pedestrian traffic and followed at a discreet distance.

Please do not misunderstand my actions. I do not habitually stalk the people I observe. In fact this was the only occasion I have done so. My reasons for doing this I am uncertain about, only that the woman seemed so familiar and I felt as though the answer to all my questions was infuriatingly close, within my grasp, if only the right trigger prompted my memory.

The subject of my attentions had now become my quarry. As I closed upon her I realised that she was window shopping. She paused in front of a voguish shop, her face bordering between confusion and a grimace as she regarded the clothes displayed upon the wooden mannequins. She seemed once again to be split by indecision. She looked up and down the street, embarrassed, as though entering an adult book shop, took a steadying breath, then entered.

I considered entering the shop but decided that this would bring attention to myself. Instead I decided to find a place outside where I could view inside. I did so and watched.

The woman walked from one stand to another, holding up the arm of a shirt or other such garment, rubbing it in her fingers, frowning and moving onto another rack. There was an altogether fickleness to the way she examined clothes, almost as though she were not really enthused about shopping. Shortly a saleswoman approached her. There was a smile pasted on her lips and I could imagine I even heard her ask "can I help you with something?"

My quarry was almost relieved at the salespersons attention. She talked animatedly for a moment then disappeared from view. The next I saw of her she was emerging from the shop with a new outfit and voluminous bags in each hand.

I must say that the outfit she had chosen was bland and perhaps a little too conservative for my liking. It consisted of a pair of dark pants, sandals and a plain blue silk shirt. Staid would be most appropriate term to describe her dress, although I had little doubt that the labels were name brands. Given the warm weather and the state of undress of most of the pedestrians, she was conspicuous in her long sleeves and pants.

She walked briskly down the street, no longer looking in windows. I crossed the road and followed her. She rounded the corner and strode down a side street. I hurried my stride then watched from the corner of the intersection as she approached and entered a hairdresser. Still on the main thoroughfare, I was about to follow when something made me turn.

Exiting from the woman's clothes shop was the store steward. In her hand she held a plastic bag, laden with clothes. She was looking up and down the street, searching for someone. Obviously not finding the person she was looking for the steward returned into her shop. My intuition told me that the woman I was trailing had left the bag behind so I retraced my steps and entered the shop.

Normally I am the most honest of people, but I was in a strange mood today. And I had a burning desire to satisfy my curiosity, apparently at any cost. A smile formed on my face. "Hello," I said pleasantly, "my girlfriend was in here a moment ago and left a bag behind… you haven't seen it have you?"

"As a matter of fact." The woman passed the bag to me.

I felt daring. Mischievous. "Thankyou. You're a life saver." I said, taking the bag and exiting the shop. It took all the self control I could muster not to leap into the air and click my heals together. I composed myself and strolled casually down the street rounded the corner and crossed the road, searching for the woman in the hairdresser from the other side of the road.

She was still there. Relieved, I opened the bag and looked through the contents therein. I found the ill fitting shirt, shoes and pants which the woman had worn. I wondered if the woman had left them on purpose and was suddenly disappointed. I was about to return the bag to the woman's shop when my quarry suddenly exploded from the hairdressers shop, her hair incomplete. She sprinted down the street, turned the corner, barreled up to the woman's clothes shop and charged inside.

Moments later she exited with the store steward, face bright red, tears on her face, yelling hysterically. The Steward talked animatedly to her. I chose this moment to slink back around the corner lest I be identified.

The woman had reacted most violently at the loss of her boyfriends clothes and I suspected that there was more to this than just the clothes. Patting down the pants I found something. I put my hand into the pocket and felt a jewelry of some sort. I removed it and found it to be a bracelet. It was a finely crafted silver chain link band. I finished a search of the clothes and found nothing else. Pocketing the bracelet I dropped the bag into a bin. I don't know why I did this, why I didn't give myself up. Some strange demon had possessed me this day and I was letting it have full run of my reason.

Half an hour later the woman returned to the hairdresser in a most agitated state and completed her hair cut. Once she exited I not that like her clothes, her haircut was most severe. Short and almost masculine. She looked almost butch when she left the hairdresser and walked away from the shops down a residential street. It was more difficult to follow her but I succeeded without her noticing me.

I expected to follow her to a car, instead she led me to a house. She walked through the gate, checked the mail box, collected the Saturday paper, walked up to the entrance and opened the door casually with a bundle of keys.

I didn't follow her in. Didn't approach the door. I was too surprised. Actually stupefaction is the best term for it. I knew the owner of the house quite well and stood there dumbfounded for a moment as I considered this piece of the puzzle.

The owner of the house was a fellow named John Thoroughgood. I did not know John intimately and was not amongst his cadre of close friends. However John was more than a casual acquaintance and we had a longstanding history together. We both had a similar upbringing, attending the same school one year apart and for most of our lives we had moved in the same social circles, attending the same parties, weddings and events. We shared numerous friends, both had parallel interests and had even worked together on occasion.

I turned and slowly made my way back to my own house, reviewing this new development in my mind. It was a most perplexing conundrum. I say conundrum because this puzzle was decidedly more complex than it had first appeared.

I knew for a fact that John was currently single and had been for some time. I also knew that he was an only child and that his parents had passed away when he was nineteen leaving him an ample inheritance. In fact John was something of a tragic figure as he had no family. No cousins. No uncles or aunts. Only some grandparents overseas in England.

I considered that the woman was one of John's many brief sexual conquests but I promptly discarded the notion as I knew for a fact that John would never give his house keys to a one night stand.

More likely the woman was a relative, a cousin or some such. But why would the female cousin would be wearing his clothes? Unless the clothes belonged to her boyfriend. Maybe his cousin and her partner were staying over?

Then there was the physical disparities between the two. John was tall and stout with olive complexion and dark thinning hair. This woman was short and lissome with fair skin and strawberry blonde hair. There was absolutely no physical similarity between the two. Was she adopted? Who raised her? The grandparents in England?

I considered the way each acted, their manner and way of talking. I was struck with the undeniable similarity. Actually the more I thought about it, the more certain I was that John and this woman shard a similar upbringing. Just as John and I had. So why had I never met this woman, never heard of her?

Now I was even more confused. The pieces refused to fit. Every new piece of information created new questions. The fact that I had a wealth of information to draw upon about John muddied the waters rather than cleared them. I reexamined everything about this woman from when I first saw her in the café.

No answers were forthcoming.

I arrived at my house and produced the pad. A collected a pencil and rubbed it gently over. The jottings came to the fore. They read as follows:

"1) This state appears to be permanent. Can the bracelet reverse it's effects? Where is the bracelet from? Check with historian / witch?

2) Must create a new identity ASAP. Need a name, past, birth certificate, Tax file number, bank account. See Paul. How does JT know this woman. Relative, friend, old lover, pen pal? Other people must know her as well. Name? Janice? Jan? Jane? Fuck!!! Joanna? Joe?

3) Change my will so that I retain my assets. Need an executor and witnesses. Need to find people to trust with secret. Approach them ASAP. Craig. Terry. The less the better. They can corroborate new identities history. Age? Same. Place of birth? …. Australia? England. Keep local. International is messy.

4) dispose of "JT" - maybe he just disappears? Missing person? Suicide - bad. Diving - accident. No body. Need corroborating witness? *Avoid authorities / investigation*. This may uncover fabricated past. Speak to Paul.

5) Keep myself clean from now on. Move out of home. Let no one see me. JT is missing. Do not want to implicated in this. Crash with Paul? Must find someone to trust ASAP."

 

I put down the pencil and laughed out loud as all the pieces of the puzzle fell into place. I have a most furtive imagination and will entertain the most marvelous of fantasies. Every piece of evidence I had gathered indicated that John Thoroughgood had become the woman I had followed last night.

The woman's male clothing. Her reactions to the taste of food. Her consciousness and irritation at her body. Her confused shopping manner. Her choice of clothes. Her hair cut. Her complete dismay at the loss of the bracelet. All of these things suggested a mind that was male newly trapped in a female body.

I sighed as I put the damning evidence down. This physical transformation was clearly an impossibility. Looking at the piece of paper before me I could come to only two conclusions.

The first was that the "evidence" was nothing but finely crafted fabrication. Imagine looking this ludicrous farce full in the face. If this is not fiction then what is it? It can be nothing but fiction. Laughable, poorly conceived, fanciful and ridiculous fiction. But why would the perpetrators of this hoax even bother? It served no purpose. If anything it was a joke in the poorest of taste. Was someone trying to make me the butt of some elaborate joke? No this was not a joke at all.

The second alarming possibility was that this woman was completely insane. She may well intend some harm upon John Thoroughgood if she hadn't done so already.

Mulling over both conclusions I came to the realisation that the woman was clearly mad. Obviously a consummate actor but also clearly so immersed in her role that she was deluded and could not differentiate reality from fantasy.

Reading over the note again I could not overcome the feeling that there was a great finality to John's predicament. He most assuredly was gone for good.

I reached into my pocket and extracted the small silver bracelet. The woman no doubt believed that this bracelet was magical and possessed the power to transform a person. I shuddered as I tried to imagine the type of mind that could let the veil that separated reality and fantasy slip from their grasp.

I put down the bracelet and wondered whether I had any concrete evidence. No. everything was circumstantial. I rewrote the note.

Taking the letter I walked from my home and down to Acland Street and to a public pay phone, put a handkerchief over the receiver to muffle my voice. Dialed the police. "Hello. I'd like to report something strange. I believe a man named John Thoroughgood has been murdered. There is a strange woman. Short, five foot three, strawberry blonde hair, pale complexion at his house. I think she killed him."

I hung up the phone before they could question me, wiped down the phone and note and left the note in the phone book. I left quickly.

As I returned to my house I tried to imagine John locked away for the last week or so. This strange woman practicing his mannerisms and speech patterns. Then finishing him off. I shuddered but the image was … incongruous.

I returned to my house. Walked back to my desk and sat down. I slipped my fingers through the band lifted the bracelet looking at it. I believed the police would check up on John. Whether they would find him alive or dead, I didn't know. But if anything was amiss they'd check the phone booth and find the letter. If it was murder then I would come forward.

Looking at the bracelet I idly wondered what life would be like as a woman. Would things taste different? Obviously my crazy female friend thought so. I shook my head. I hoped that I was wrong. That John was alright and this was just some silly joke at my expense. I could imagine the laughing faces at the next party. After all I'd bought the story hook line and sinker and John's friend Paul was a police officer.

With a sardonic grin I turned the bracelet over in my hand lifted my arm vertically and slipped the wrist band on.

 

 

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© 2002 by Kismet. All Rights Reserved. These documents (including, without limitation, all articles, text, images, logos, compilation design) may printed for personal use only. No portion of these documents may be stored electronically, distributed electronically, or otherwise made available without express written consent of the copyright holder.