2022: Meeting Marta

After almost four years of stalling by Susan, who absolutely did not want a divorce, the legal process had finally completed in April of 2022. At that point, I thought that I was somewhat lonely and unhappy with the logistical requirements of parenting the children alone during the weeks that I had them. For me, it's very hard to meet good women my age in Portland. After my failed marriage to someone I met online, and based on things I had heard about the process, I was not interested in online dating.

At this time, my relationship with Kham was very bad. She probably resented me for various things, but mostly because I couldn't come to Laos because the border was closed. She would occasionally send me pictures and videos of Wendy, but no photos of herself, and very little text. I honestly thought that our relationship was over and that I might never see my daughter again.

I knew that I wanted to sell my house, but I had a lot of work to do first. Partly, I had to liquidate a huge Lego collection, but also sell some old BMW M3s, my furniture, and everything else. It all seemed overwhelming.

In an attempt to find someone to assist, I posted a job opportunity to craigslist, but I think I wrote it almost like a personal ad. Unfortunately, by now (as I write this), it seems that this post has expired from the craigslist archive, so I can't paste the original text here.

I was honestly mostly looking for someone to help with chores around the house, especially shopping for groceries and cooking. I was also hoping to find something more like a personal assistant that would help me get started on some of my personal tasks. Secretly, I was fantasizing about finding someone with whom to exchange love. There were some clues in the post, such as I think mentioning my age, gender, marriage status, and so forth.

I think I screened about 25 people, including several young women and a black guy. Actually, that reminds me of a story that is kindof funny. I am not very good at managing my calendar, so I accidentally scheduled two interviews on my property at the same time. A young woman whose name I've forgotten and a young black guy named Theodore showed up at the same time and seemed to be competing for the job. If I remember correctly, this was around the time of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion investments after Black Lives Matter, and Theodore's job was to review text for newspapers or something to ensure that it didn't contain any language that would offend someone.

I had them wash one of my cars together, and I ended up hiring both of them, the woman mostly to help with Lego sales (because she sold Legos in a store that she managed with her boyfriend) and Theodore for outdoor work because that seemed to be his interest. Neither worked out for very long, but I kinda stayed friends with Theodore, who rode a motorcycle and eventually sold me some used riding gear. Because I was kindof doing this effort just to meet people, I took him out and paid for an Indian lunch for him once. He connected me with someone else that sold psychedelic mushrooms.

At one point when Theodore was working on my property, my friend Judah, who is another young black guy, came by the house to drop off some borrowed tools. Judah definitely recognized Theodore and made it clear that he didn' like him. I don't remmber much of what they said about each other. Theodore seemed to respect Judah, whether for his music production skills or his status in whatever social networks they shared, but Judah seemed to think that Theodore was fake somehow. To me Theodore felt like a whitish black dude, like he had been adopted by white parents or something, where Judah was more from a truly black culture.

Another young woman shopped and cooked dinner for my boys once or twice, but whatever she bought and prepared semed pretty white-trashish. I had lent her a credit card and I found a small suspicious charge (I think for sushi) that I did not remember making myself and had not approved for her, but I think I would have let her go anyway.

Around the time that Susan had moved out, I contacted Shannon on LinkedIn. I have always actually liked Shannon and was hopeful that we could get back together. She worked at Humboldt State University, where we had met, on the northern coast of California. I think I went there to see her and rented an AirB&B for us, and we were intimate. This happened at least twice, and then I also visited her at her apartment a couple of times. I wasn't misleading her, but she seemed to expect that we would remain a couple, and I might have made some statements that could have encouraged those thoughts. Though she had aged and gained weight, I could still see aspects of the young redhead that I thought had looked something like a fairy or nymph when we had met. More importantly, she had developed some mannerisms that I didn't like, and she had also been with a lot of guys since I had known her, and not for relationships. The guy with whom I assume she cheated on me, and who had ended up marrying her, had been physically abusive and also ripped her off in their divorce. It might have been another trip, but we drove down to California together, went to visit her mother, and saw some grouper friends on the way up. I also flew Shannon to Portland once.

In my email exchanges with another woman - a name I've forgotten - seemed more interested in me than the job. The night after Shannon left my house, she came over and slept with me, but we didn't have sex.

For me, the most important part of 2022 was that I met Marta (not her real name), I think in May or June of 2022. I feel like I was in love with her as soon as I heard her voice on the phone. She had a latina accent and seemed very professional. I don't remember how I asked - probably in the same awkward way that any white guy might - but I learned that she was Mexican.

We arranged for an interview in the evening. I had forgotten that I had to pick someone up at the airport that night and hadn't eaten dinner. She came to the house and saw the layout, and I confirmed physical attraction. Then we tried to go to a restaurant nearby to complete the interview. It was closed, so we ended up at a dive bar not far from there. I think I had a beer and a salad; I don't remember what she had. She certainly passed the interview and I left for the airport.

She started working at my house, mostly organizating paperwork. I trusted her with access to some confidential information, so she probably got some idea of my good financial position, though the house and the cars probably made that somewhat obvious. I asked her to bring dinner once. I hope she didn't take offense, but as I am probably composed of about 25% Mexican food from growing up in California, I asked her to make dinner for me and the boys. It was literally some of the worst Mexican rice I have ever eaten, and I think we made gringo tacos to go with it. The tacos she has made since then have made up for that disaster of a meal.

While Marta was there, she saw shannon leaving my bedroom. Then she saw me take the other woman from that bedroom and head to the bar closest to my house, where she had left her car.

On maybe her third or fourth day of work, Marta was leaning over my dining room table arranging some papers. I had a feeling that she didn't really need to be leaning over or doing that, but that she wanted me to see her ass. I stood relatively close next to her and asked what she was going to do with the weekend. She immediately responded something like, "hopefully spending time with you."

I don't remember the exact sequence of events from there. She was living in Vancouver, Washington, which is about 30 minutes from my house in Portland, Oregon, if there is no traffic going up Highway five and then crossing the bridge over the Columbia River. At rush hour, traffic in both direections can be terrible.

I think that the first time we arranged to meet, I was going to take her to a Primus show at Edgefield, which is a Mcmenamins property pretty far east of Portland. I had taken my boys to the previos Primus show there about a year earlier, partly because I have a history with Primus, but also because this was the Tribute to Kings tour where they played Rush songs, and I really like Rush. Fun fact, the cymbal hits at the start to the Primus Frizzle Fry album are the Rush YYZ tune, which Neil Peart devised based on something like the morse code signal he heard while flying into Toronto, which has airport code YYZ.

I remember that I had kindof warned her that I don't like people prioritizing other people over me. She had agreed to go, but then decided or realized that she was going to work instead. I was pretty upset. I offered the ticket to Judah, but he also said he wouldn't be able to go, so I went to the show alone. I had a few drinks and almost got into a fight with a guy in the pitt that was being too aggressive. At the end of the show, I thought the set was too short, so I was yelling at the band and got escorted out of the venue. I talked to some people near my car and then drove to Portland. I think I was driving fast and recklessly. Because nothing else is open that late, I tried to go to the drive through a McDonalds that was closed. Backing out, I hit the curb with one of the wheels on what was actually a Subaru Outback that was new that year. I'm probably lucky that I got home safely and without another DUI that night.

In one event, we met for in Portland, on the East side of the Multnomah River. She had another job working for a charity on the East side, and there are generally better restaurants over there. For whatever reason, she chose to meet at another Mcmenamins location. Most Mcmenamins are basically just bars, and not very good ones (in fact, my boys and I have a running joke about how bad it is and never wanting to go there). From there we went to an Italian restaurant and I was physically all over her, which she seemed to enjoy, but I'm not sure that our waiter liked it.

I think I texted her something nasty in the middle of the night. At this point it wasn't clear whether we were dating or if I was her employer. She kindof wanted both, because she really didn't have much money and if I didn't support her, she had to work. We discussed various arrangements where I would compensate her for her time with me, but nothing ever worked out. In general, I just gave her small somes of money from time to time, which probably felt like large sums to her. I wasn't trying to take advantage or control her; I honestly cared about her and wanted to help.

I think we went back to my house from there, but I'm not sure. One of the things about Marta was that she was really fun in bed, especially compared to the relative cold fish that I had been with until then. We did all sorts of things that I had never done before, including making porn movies. She also liked to send me sexy photos of herself or the filth in her panties, which I enjoyed.

I don't know exactly when, but we discussed porn. By that time I had seen basically everything, which meant that the "normal" stuff had lost all of its appeal. I had developed some aggressive sexual habits from my time with Susan. Marta was a bit concerned about these facts, but again, she and I did more perverted things than I'd ever done with anyone else, and she encouraged a lot of that behavior in me.

We also went on hikes together, which was one of her favorite things to do. I found that she talked about her past boyfriends too much. To be honest, our relationship was never stable because of this and because she would talk about going doing OnlyFans or going to Seattle to be an escort and things like that. We "broke" up several times in those first months.

Other than the commute, her situation in Vancouver was pretty good. We both would have preferred to live in Washington because Portland has various disadvantages and Vancouver has lower population density and easier access to more natural open spaces.

I think I told Susan about Wendy in the fall of 2022. I didn't say it directly at first - I hinted at it and let her read between the lines. Eventually I talked about Wendy, Kham, and Namneung openly with Susan. She never gave me a hard time about what I had done. I don't think this had anything to do with her reasoning but at one point my divorce lawyer had told me that the children having a sister in Laos could entitle me to a greater share of parenting time with them, including trips to Asia, which would have worked against Susan's interests.