I didn't know her name and that was driving me more crazy than sitting there watching her through my telescope. All I knew about her was that she lived on the sixth floor of an apartment building about half a mile from mine, and that she was unbelievably erotic.
We met, sort of, though it was her that made the initial advance, not me. That bothered me at first. It still does because she keeps making the first move. Well, I suppose I made the first one, but it seemed innocent enough at the time.
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When I was a kid, I wanted a telescope. I got one, but it was just one of those that collapses into the body, like you see pirates using in the movies. It magnified things about five times, so it was a real telescope, but things very far away were still too small to really see. I wanted to be able to see planets and stars.
As I got older, my interest in the stars and planets grew stronger. There was just something about "out there" that wouldn't let me go. My high school physics teacher also had that drive and introduced me to his personal telescope, an 8" refractor he'd built himself. On clear nights a couple other students and I would go to his house. While his wife made cookies for after we were done, he'd let us use his telescope.
After one such night, I was permanently hooked. It was fascinating to look at Venus or Mars and then hear Mr. Lang explain what we were seeing. I wanted to learn more and he did his best to teach me, but he could only go so far. He said I had an aptitude for astronomy, and that when I went to college, I should study physics and astronomy if I wanted to really understand the planets and the stars.
I read everything about astronomers and what they did that I could find, and by the time I was a senior, I'd decided being a physicist/astronomer would be my life's work.
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For the most part, I was happy going through high school. Mom and Dad were supportive of my longing, though Dad was worried I wouldn't be able to find a job as either a physicist or as an astronomer. It wasn't his fault. He was a car mechanic and had a very practical outlook on life. If he could touch it, he could understand it, work on it, or improve it. He couldn't touch a planet or nebulae, so he couldn't really relate.
He also couldn't afford to drop the cash for a really good telescope, but I had Mr. Lang and his so I didn't really need one.
The only problem with being like I was, was girls. I liked girls. They just didn't like me. They were all into the guys with hot cars or guys who played sports. I didn't have a car and I didn't play any sports because I couldn't afford my own car and sports seemed like a waste of time. I mean, what good did it do a guy to be a quarterback once he graduated? Sure, a few might get scholarships to some college where they'd study to be PE teachers and coaches when they weren't practicing. A very, very few more might end up as professionals, but their careers would be over by the time they were thirty or so. After that, what would they do to make a living -- coach some high school ball team for less money than most factory workers would make?
The girls in college proved to be no different than the girls in high school. Those who weren't out to have a good time or who weren't looking for a rich husband weren't very feminine. I suspected the three in my physics classes were really lesbians because they dressed more like men and didn't seem to care about dating at all. I know because I asked each of the three out. I'd always get the answer that they had to study or they were busy with something else. I know Samantha was a lesbian because she told me she was when she turned me down.
After leading a celibate life for five years while I got my master's, I decided the Ph.D. could wait and went looking for a job. I found one working for a company that made optical sensors for use in industry. I was using my physics education, but not my first love of astronomy. It did pay very well though, and the work was interesting. I rented an apartment before my first week of work, and after I'd gotten a few paychecks bought my own telescope.
It wasn't as large as Mr. Lang's, but the small patio outside my living room on the sixth floor wasn't large either. The telescope I bought was small enough the tripod would fit on the patio with enough room left over for my chair and a table. It had a two-axis computer control on the mount to compensate for the rotation of the earth and keep whatever I was looking at in the field of view. I also bought an assortment of lenses that let me range the magnification from 100x to 400x.
It took me a week of evenings to figure out how to use everything, but after that week, I was ready to begin looking at the stars again. That's exactly what I did on every clear night. I'd take my telescope out to my little patio and set it up, then use the computer control to locate Venus or Saturn or Mars or something else. It was fun and gave me something to do at night besides watch television. The women at work weren't much different from the girls in high school or college. They considered me interesting, but too much of a nerd to be serious dating material, so I didn't really have a social life.
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One night in July I was enjoying the sight of the moon through my lowest power eyepiece. The moon is pretty fascinating even though it's a common sight. Even with the 100x eyepiece, I could make out some craters and other surface features. I was getting ready to put in my 2x Barlow when a big green blob of light appeared on my patio door.
At first I was a little stunned. The blob wasn't very bright and it was almost a meter in diameter. It looked like somebody had shined a weak, green flashlight on my patio door from a few feet away, but since I was on the sixth floor, there was no way that could have happened.
A few seconds later it dawned on me that the light must be coming from a laser. A lot of my job involved lasers and so it didn't take much thinking to realize that. Even a small laser pointer can be visible on an object from over a mile away. The beam won't really be a beam and it won't be very bright, but it is visible, just like the one reflecting off the white drape liners behind my patio door.
It took me a few minutes to find the source of the laser light, but I finally did. The tiny pinprick of light was barely visible to my naked eye, but there it was at about the same height as my patio and way across town. It was only because my building and that one were taller than the rest that it made it at all.
I wasn't stupid enough to look at that point of light through my telescope, but I did turn it and focus on a lit up window just to the right of it. What I saw was a guy sitting on his couch watching TV. Slowly, I used the computer control to inch my telescope to the left in hopes of seeing whoever was shining the laser at me without actually seeing the laser beam.
A balcony patio just like mine came into view and as I inched the telescope a little further to the left, I saw a another telescope. The telescope was pointed in my general direction. I inched my view a little more and saw a person sitting down and looking through the telescope while they held the laser pointer. I couldn't tell much more than that until the person stood up and walked back through the patio door and into what I figured was the living room of the apartment.
Once she was inside in the light, I could see that person was a woman. I knew that because she was wearing a very well filled bikini. That's about all I could tell because she was wearing one of those feathered Halloween masks and her dark brown hair was done up in a bun.
She left for a few seconds and then came back to her patio door holding a sheet of paper. When she held it up, I about fell off my chair. In big, black letters on that paper was written one word - "HI".
The woman put that paper down and held up another that said, "If you see me, tell me Hi".
It took me almost a minute to pull a sheet of paper from my printer, find a marker, and scrawl "HI" on it. I went back out to my patio and held it up in the direction of the other building for a few seconds, then sat back down and looked through my telescope again.
She was sitting back down at her telescope, and a second later, she stood up and held up another piece of paper. This one had the numbers, 801-6669 and the words, "CALL ME".
I pulled my cell phone out of my breast pocket and tapped in the number, then watched through my telescope again. A couple seconds later, the woman picked up her cell phone from the table beside her chair. I heard a soft, low alto voice coming from my phone.
"Hello. Are you the man with the telescope?"
"If you're the woman I'm looking at with a telescope in front of her and her cell phone to her ear I am."
She giggled.
"That's me. What are you doing on your patio?"
"Well, I'm watching you. Before that I was looking at the moon."
"Do you like watching me?"
"Well, I don't know. I just saw you and it's pretty dark so I can't see you very well."
I heard her giggle again.
"Would you like to see more of me?"
"Well, sure, I guess."
"You guess? That's all? You guess?"
"No, I would. I just said I guess because nothing like this has ever happened to me before."
"That was the right answer. Now, you move your telescope back inside your apartment and leave your drapes open while I move mine. Tell me when you can see me again."
Five minutes later I was sitting in my living room and looking at her through her patio door. She was standing there beside her telescope and had one hip cocked. I lifted the phone to my ear and said, "OK, I can see you now."
Her soft voice came back at me.
"Well, what do you think?"
"I'm not sure what you mean."
Her sigh sounded like she was getting frustrated.
"I mean how do I look?"
"Oh...well, you're a pretty woman."
She sighed again.
"Are you really a guy?"
"Yes, I'm a guy."
"Whatever you say, but if you are, why don't you tell me about my boobs or my ass or something?"
I could see where she was going but I'd never done anything like this so I wasn't sure if she wanted me to say nice things or sexy things. I wasn't sure what sexy things she'd like either.
"Ma'am, I've never done anything like this before. I don't know what to say that you'll like hearing."
"You've never looked at a woman before? Are you gay or something?"
"No, I'm not gay. I just don't have much experience with women."
