But she had. There was the bad-tempered girl — Karinne, I was supposed to call her Karinne; besides, I didn’t have anything else to call her — looking into the camera and wearing exactly the same expression of feigned boredom I had seen on her the first time, on the other side of that cracked door.
I hardly recognized her; she looked prettier than she had at the time. Prettier, or simply more Karinne-like. I couldn’t say why or how the photo of this Karinne looked more like Karinne than the girl herself. It wasn’t because she looked better in the picture, and it wasn’t because the girl I imagined was disappointing in the flesh or because her memory was now permanently tainted by the photograph. It wasn’t that — because that always happens, it’s a given. People are always disappointing in comparison to their photographs.
I got tired of thinking about it. I’m starting to realize that growing accustomed to the mysteries of her site is so similar to solving them that it’s easy to be content with the former alone. I moved the mouse and dragged the cursor over to Karinne’s miniature head. The little, white arrow slid along smoothly and silently. It still amazes me, all this deftness in stringing together a series of silent consummations.
It eventually turned into a small hand that I settled over her face like a false nose. To buy some time — for what, I wonder now — I played around with it, touching each eye with the tiny index finger, tracing the outline of her lips with it. I waited a few more moments, and then I clicked.
Many more photos appeared on the screen, the entire series. And the accompanying text: something like a very short story, with just the right dose of a vulgarity that may not have been ironic. It reminded me of the subheads they write for my reviews at the paper — the same forced jocularity, the same robotic, disingenuous goodwill. I refused to write them at first. But eventually I gave in, and sometimes I’ll send one in already finished, mimicking their style. It’s an act of revenge that they may not even notice and certainly don’t mention.
I wonder if she, too, writes her own texts.
It may come as a surprise, but beneath Leo’s muscles and angelic face there lies a timid soul. And who would have guessed that the sweet-natured Karinne could get so angry … So this time around, things took a while to heat up between our two new recruits.
It went on to explain that Karinne had just fought with her boyfriend, that Leo had been anxious to play his role well, and that in the end he decided he’d like to perform a solo session. A “session filled with fits and starts,” it said, giving no other explanation.
As I read it, I felt like I was back at the Imperial, once again breathing in its carpeted air, which would forever be the perfume of the woman in the next room over. I wonder if that phrase “fits and starts” included me, or if it might even have had me in mind as a possible reader. I liked to think that it was a joke at my expense. She seems like the type who would make them like that: sharpened so finely as to be almost invisible.
I looked at details of the girl’s body (she seemed taller again, as she had when I first saw her, in her panties, sitting on the bed): draped over his body; lying on one of his arms, up on her hip; a single hand; a forearm and a dark biceps.
I could also see a corner of the bed, and the beige bedspread on the floor, tangled around the girl’s feet. There were photos of scenes reflected in the entryway mirror. The room that could be mentally pieced together from these fragments looked very different from the one I remembered. I changed positions in my seat and waited for the videos to load.
“Good evening.”
I’m not sure whether I really jumped in the chair when I heard the voice behind me. But that’s how I remember the scene. The cursor, suddenly rebelling at the worst possible moment, took an eternity to obey me, to move to the upper corner and close the window. My heart was pounding, and I must have been either very pale or else blushing brightly when I turned around. Standing in the doorway, smiling at me, was a man I hadn’t seen before around the hotel. But his face was familiar. He could have been an unhealthy sixty, or else an enviable seventy. He had a dark silk scarf tied at his neck under a white shirt and a V-neck sweater. All respectable clothes, of course, although their years of wear were evident. I found the scarf disconcerting and even a bit suspicious: a silk scarf around the neck always is. In his case, it exaggerated his get-up almost to the point of looking like the costume of a film director or a hotel manager or even the owner of the whole place. He hadn’t stepped into the little room, but he gave the impression of being able to do so without asking permission, of being at all times the legitimate master of or imminent heir to everything around him. In fact, he dressed as the retired Englishmen bumbling around the place ought to have dressed: with the air of an autumnal summer vacationist, inhabiting his role almost to the point of looking misleading.
“They told me at reception that I’d find you here.”
He was still smiling, without looking at the computer, which (possibly already too late) was displaying a harmless screen saver with an old sepia- and blue-toned photo of the hotel. It showed the facade overlooking the garden, with a man at the window. At the time, I had no doubt he had seen the porn site perfectly well. Although, thinking it over now, I may be wrong. Rather than tact, his vague look may just have signaled the slightly coy technological confusion that afflicts people at his age.
I was surprised that they should be so well informed at reception of the comings and goings of their guests. They hadn’t given that impression, and the lounges and the bar aren’t exactly overstaffed with employees keeping tabs on everything. There was an awkward silence. It may only have been awkward for me — he looked unflappable. There was something a little threatening about his sangfroid. In the end, I got up and asked him if he wanted to use the internet.
“No, no, not at all.”
I thought this man might be some new breed of hotel detective, charged with keeping a moral eye on the webpages visited within the establishment. Another unlikely profession, of course; but then, I had never looked at porn sites in a hotel before, either.
My first reflex was the guilt of a child caught red-handed. Then I forced myself to adopt the opposite attitude: to defend — like the responsible adult that I am, or that I at least have the right to appear to be — my right to visit whatever sites I like. He spoke before I could say anything.
“I gather you wanted to visit my room.”
I moved to sit down again, taken aback. Then utter confusion descended when, as I was taking my seat, I noticed his shoes. Now I think I ought to have examined them the moment I saw him. I always forget to look at people’s shoes, and that’s a mistake. They save time: they tell us everything.
He wasn’t walking around in socks, but he wasn’t far from it: he was wearing felt slippers. Perhaps by sheer chance — but perhaps not, and the detail was moving — they matched the scarf around his neck. These slippers were practically from the post-war-era, the backs collapsed inwards by years of use. He must have realized I was looking at them, but he was in no hurry to allay my confusion. That, or he didn’t notice it, or else didn’t even imagine I could feel any. In the time we spent together, he gave the impression of having forever lost his capacity to feel surprised, as well as the ability to recall or recognize the feeling in others. It transpired he was staying in the famous Scottish poet’s room. The truth is, I had completely forgotten I had asked at reception whether I could visit it. When they told me there was someone in it, I didn’t want to insist, so I left it at that. I could have pretended I was a student or a devotee of the poet, but the thought of piling another lie on top of all the others that come with this job wearied me.