All About Gisele

Joe Neon

© 2006 by Argon; ©2025 by Joe Neon

Summary

Thomas Bergmann, a divorced IT specialist in semi-retirement stumbles upon a few video clips of a stunning adult actress from Brazil. Little brain overrules big brain, and he sets out to find the girl, changing his and her life more than he thought possible. Originally posted in 2007, but withdrawn from the site. Edited and re-posted with permission from the original author.

In 2021, Argon had this story deleted from SOL since he felt that it was not his style and genre anymore, much to the chagrin of some readers who asked and ask for it to be reinstated. As a compromise, it is now being reposted under a different pen name and after a re-edit. It is still the same story, but with a little less Kraut English.

Prologue: Joe

August 2006

The plane was finally at cruising altitude, and all around me, I heard people open their seat belts. With ten hours of boredom before me, I decided to get something done. The young blonde in the seat beside me seemed to be dozing off, and anyway, I wasn't going to write any steamy scenes. I opened my laptop, plugged in the auxiliary battery back that would give me an extra ten hours of charge and started the text program. Suddenly, the young woman next to me spoke up.

"Are you a writer?"

There was the impulse to close the laptop. When I write, I don't like people looking at what I type. But it was my own fault, typing away on a plane. I tried to be graceful.

"I'm just an amateur. I like to concoct these little stories and I post them on story boards."

"I'm sorry, I don't want to be nosy. What type of stories?"

I laughed. "That's awfully close to nosy already. Well, I dabble in historic fiction. Early 19th century, mostly."

She grinned. "Do you write under the name Jane Austen? I think I may have read some of your works."

"You mean "Sense and Senility? That was my best," I joked.

So, for the next hour and through the 'dinner' we chatted. I learned that she was a lawyer from the Hamburg area, and that she was travelling with her father and stepmother. My eyes bugged out a little bit when stepmom greeted me. Stepmom was a stunner. Early twenties, black hair, black eyes, wonderfully tanned skin. The father, at least, was in the age bracket that can have lawyers for daughters, about my age I guessed. I learned that the beauty was a native of Brazil, but attended law school in Hamburg. There was also a husband to the blonde lawyer, and another young couple, the three of them sitting two rows back. One thing led to the other, and I learned about the way the two had met. I thought it was a pretty amazing story, worthy of being told. There was a speculative look in the blonde's eyes, and she suggested that I write the story. I told her it wasn't my regular fare and that I would have to get a lot more information. The three conferred with each other, and we sort of reached an agreement that each of them would write down the story as far as they knew it, and that I would try and concoct a story line out of that.

When we split at Frankfurt Airport, I did not expect to ever hear from them again. I was surprised, therefore, when I received a thick envelope seven weeks later. It contained two CDs and a small diary-style book. The first CD, it turned out, contained a text file, written by the father of the blonde. The second contained the story told by the blonde lawyer, but recorded onto a tape recorder and remastered to CD. And the hand-written story was told by the black-eyed beauty. Over the next days, I read and listened to these stories, told from their individual view points, and I made a decision. Rather than trying to create an amalgam of their individual takes, I would tie their separate stories loosely together and translate and post them with a minimum of editing. And this is what I did, and I hope you will like this tale as much as I did.

Of course, the names aren't real, the locations were changed (Ubatuba really is a coastal resort, but the story never took place there), and some of the particulars about the father's career were altered to protect the family's privacy. The story as told by the blonde daughter, I have re-christened her 'Stephanie', is quite racy, but that is the way she appeared to be. I envy the lucky bastard she married. She really is a lawyer, but in a different field than indicated.

 

Book 1 - Thomas

February 2003

Chapter 1

Gisele. Gisele was the name given to her for one of the hundreds of newbie porn flicks, posted on a web site by one Rick in Brazil. I stumbled upon a video clip featuring her when I scanned the 'net for images for a supermodel of the same given name. This girl looked even better. Light brown hair framed a bronze-complexioned face with high cheekbones, dark eyes, and a thoroughly kissable mouth.

And the body! Our good Lord must have truly put all his attention to sculpting her forms. Praise him! Her bikini tan lines highlighted conical breasts, tipped with silver dollar-sized nipples, as close to perfect as possible if you have to work with mortal flesh as material. A flat tummy continued into slightly flaring hips and legs that would have given a Greek goddess an inferiority complex. Even the jaded guy who worked the camera could be overheard and man, even he sounded awed by her sight.

I was able to find eleven QuickTime clips and four FlashVideo files of her before I gave up, and I compiled them into a six minute movie, using a movie app. Over the next days I perused them time and again. I had become a bit jaded over most internet porn, but this girl caused instant anaemia in a man's brain. I just could not get over her. I even did something I had never done before: I logged into the site where I had seen her clips and paid for full access. $ 10.95 for three days, non-renewable. It took me almost half an hour to find the movie with the girl in it, and another 20 minutes to download it in high resolution, 800 megabytes of heaven. I burned a DVD and then popped it into the DVD player.

It started with the ‘interview’ part, what’s your name, where do you come from, do you swallow or spit? She was standing in a private swimming pool, some lucky bastard holding her from behind and pressing against her panty covered ass, her breasts still in a bikini top. Then a cut, and the guy had her lying on a towel and on her side, his hands roaming over her tummy and breasts. Next she was lying on her tummy, facing away from the camera. The guy pulled down her bikini bottom, and then she turned onto her back.

“Jesus fucking Christ!” the cameraman voiced his admiration in the background, and indeed, the sight was awe-inspiring.

The movie continued with her giving and receiving oral and then being fucked doggy style and spoon fashion. Either she was stoned or she really went with the flow while the guy fucked her brains out for almost fifteen minutes. The cum shot over her breasts was almost anti-climactic. What man with any appreciation for women would shoot off over such a lovely body, I’m asking you? Or jerk himself off in the first place with a babe like this two feet away? Pearls before the swine!

I edited the lousy cum shot out and burned another DVD. This enhanced version I played for another six or seven days at least twice a day until I began to worry over my mental health.

As a matter of fact, I got an appointment with a therapist and I told her about my fixation with that girl. Of course, it took us three sessions and four hundred fifty Euros to get my background explored, the childhood, the failed marriage, my almost non-existent love live since. Looking back, she was worth that money. Because, after the third session, she sat back on her upholstered chair and gave me a smile.

“Mr. Bergmann, Thomas, I don’t think there is anything wrong with you. I my view, you have just developed a normal healthy crush for a very beautiful young woman (I had given her a copy of the DVD). The only problem is that you cannot meet her in person to see whether she is really a woman you could fall in love with. I would suggest that you stop tormenting yourself by watching her in these movies. You have to accept that she is unattainable. Go out again and find real life women. You are in good shape and a wealthy man, enjoy life before it’s too late.”

“I could fly to Brazil,” I blurted.

“How would you find her? Posing as porn producer? Auditioning hundreds of poor girls? You cannot be that shallow.”

I had a brilliant idea.

“No, I’ll hire a private investigator to find her and identify her.”

“Careful, that’s awfully close to stalking.”

“Where there is no plaintiff.....”

“I don’t want to hear anything more, My advice is, go and throw the DVD away and forget her. She can’t be much older than 20, and you are, what, 45 years old?”

“I know, I just have to meet her once. Thanks for setting me straight, doctor.”

“I’m afraid, I did anything but that ...”

—————

The porn distributor had his office in Miami, and that is where I flew a week later. You may ask, with some justification, whether I had no job, and the answer would be, not really. I still do some consulting and work for certain organisations, but I mostly live off my savings and my portfolio. Hey, I bought a load of AAPL when they were $ 14, back in ‘98. They were over $ 40 now, even after the 1:1 split in 2000. I also had a hunch and sold my Yahoo shares and switched to Google before the Dotcom bubble burst. I can afford a ticket to L.A. anytime.

I met with a P.I. who specialised in movie people. He looked at me a little bit condescending, but he accepted my down payment, and three days later, he delivered. I came to his office, and he let me see his results.

“Her name is really Gisele. Gisele Cuzmao, of Rua do Campo in Ubatuba, Brazil. It’s all here in the filings they have deposited here. All legit porn outfits file proof of age and consent at central repositories here in the US. I have access. It was just a matter of going through 300 or so files before my man found her.”

“Is her profession listed?”

“Yes, student. Now, that can mean anything. The thing that counts is that she’s 21. Here, you can have the Xerox copies of her ID. What are you planning to do now? Go to Brazil, find her?”

I answered cautiously.

“Do you happen to know a trustworthy colleague down there?”

He laughed.

“No, and nobody is trustworthy in this trade. Get that into your head.”

—————

I was lucky. I found a direct flight to Sao Paulo, and there was a vacancy in business class. 48 hours after I talked to the PI, I was in the small coastal town of Ubatuba, some 130 miles east of Sao Paulo. I checked into an old-fashioned tourist hotel and went out for dinner. The restaurant was named Bailey’s. It had been founded by a stranded Irishman and was supposed to be the best eating place in town. It certainly charged prices as if it were. As a matter of fact, the food was really good, and I spent two hours, eating leisurely and contemplating my next moves. I figured that the girl Gisele was a local girl, working at a shop or restaurant, dreaming of a break that would get her out of her dismal situation. Hence the movie. The PI in Miami had told me that the girls were usually paid a hundred dollars for a video. Perhaps she would be willing to be my companion for a week if I offered the right amount of cash. It would be nice to walk the beaches with a pretty young woman, it would be nice to give her presents, and it would be nice, if we clicked together, to spend a night in her arms. There was a nagging worry though, that she would be all greed. If that happened, I swore to myself, I would leave.

The next morning, my first priority was to get a trustworthy cab driver who spoke English. The receptionist happened to have a cousin who had a cab and spoke English. For the equivalent of 100 Euros per day plus gasoline, the cousin was mine. Joao really spoke very decent English, and I had him drive me to the Rua do Campo first, to check whether the address was real. It was. It was not the best part of the town, but neither was it a slum. Working class people lived there with their families in four story tenements. The houses and the street in front were kept clean, there were drapes behind the windows, and the hum of air conditioners filled the air.

“Good neighbourhood,” Joao agreed. “Workers, nurses, good people.”

‘How come a girl from a good neighbourhood would do a porn flick?’ I asked myself. ‘And how can I find her?’ The filings did not give the house number.

I had a brainwave then. I went into a department store, and with Joao’s help obtained a huge yellow cardboard box. I put in a box of fairly expensive sweets and a simple cell phone with a prepaid card, taped it shut and had Joao write the address: Gisele Cuzmao, Rua do Campo, Ubatuba. We posted the big parcel, and the next day I sat in Joao’s taxi, waiting for the mail to arrive. It was three in the afternoon when a mail truck came along, stopping in front of Nº 14, Rua do Campo. And yes, he carried the big yellow parcel. At my sign, Joao drove the taxi up to the mail truck. The mail man walked the external stairs to the third floor and delivered the parcel to a young girl. In my binoculars, I saw a likeness to the girl in the video, but I did not think it was her. I decided to wait. Joao took a nap while I watched the street. It was three hours later and close to darkness, when a young woman approached. I knew it was her, although the light brown hair was darker now, and tied into a braid. She wore some sort of a uniform. likely from a fast food place, and her gait was tired. I quickly climbed out of the taxi to intercept her.

“Por favos, senhorita!” I addressed her, keeping a distance.

She looked up, alarmed, and turned to check her rear before looking at me.

“Do you speak English?” I asked, and she nodded.

“This may sound strange to you, but I travelled from around the world to see you. I would like to talk to you, but I understand if you are afraid of talking to a stranger here on the street. A parcel was delivered to you by mail today. You will find a box of sweets and a cell phone with a prepaid account. I am staying at the Tropicana hotel. Please call me with the phone and I can explain the purpose of my visit. My name and the number are in the parcel, too. Thank you for listening to me. I will leave you now.”

I could tell she was apprehensive.

“I will not play in movies again,” she suddenly said, her eyes hard, although her voice was cracking. This was not what I had expected.

“I certainly hope you won’t, Gisele,” I answered. I gave her my friendliest smile. “Just call me, and I can explain.”

—————

She called me a little after nine.

“Gisele Cuzmao,” she said. “What do you want of me?”

I had to clear my throat.

“Will you promise me to give me five minutes, no matter what I say?”

“I can do that,” she said with a small chuckle. “The sweets were great.”

So she was a sweet tooth; that was useful information.

“I am glad you liked them, Gisele. Now, I have the impression that you played in one or more videos and that you are not happy about that.”

I heard her gasp on the other end.

“Please, don’t hang up. Hear me out. I admit that I saw you in a movie. That was over four weeks ago, and I cannot get your face and your body from my head. I want to meet you in person to resolve my fixation. That is why I am here. I retrieved your name and address from an adult movie industry repository where your age certificate and consent documents are stored. Then I flew here, and I had that big yellow parcel sent to you. I watched the street until the post man delivered it at your house. Then I waited for you.”

“You came here for nothing,” she said, her voice sounding hard. “I will not sleep with you for money.”

“Please wait! This is not what I came here for.”

That was a lie. That’s what I had come for, but I was really interested in this girl who did not fit my preconceived concept at all.

“What else then?”

“I would ask you for a chance to meet you and to speak with you. Perhaps in a restaurant of your choice. I will invite you to dinner, and you will be free to leave at any time.”

“You come all the way from Almanha to speak to me?” she asked suspiciously.

“You checked me out? Smart girl!” I said appreciatively. “I would like to get to know you, I admit, but if one dinner is all you are willing to grant me, I will be grateful all the same.”

“I have to think about it. I also must ask my mother. Can I call you tomorrow?”

“Yes, of course. My visa is good for ninety days, there is no hurry.”

That made her laugh.

“You would wait ninety days? I am not that pretty.”

“No, you're not, Gisele. You're that beautiful.”

“If my mother agrees, I will eat dinner with you tomorrow. It is my free evening. I will call you and give you the name of the restaurant. I warn you. I will pick the best and most expensive restaurant.”

“You do that, Gisele. It may be better for me to have good alcohol available when you'll shoot me down.”

“If you are honest and nice to me, I will be nice and polite, too,” she said earnestly.

“That is all I can ask. Prepare to be nice and polite, then, for I have no plans to be dishonest or mean. Good night, Gisele. Thank you for calling.”

—————

It was almost 8 pm the next evening when she called. I had not expected her call anymore and I was just about to leave my room and have dinner by myself.

“I’m sorry, I just got back from work,” she said. “Can we just meet in the restaurant of your hotel?”

“That’s not the best, nor the most expensive,” I reminded her.

“But there are many people, and they have security.”

I laughed at that. “When can you come?”

“I’m already there. I’m at the entrance. They won’t let me in though.”

“I’ll be with you in a second,” I assured her and quickly put on my shoes. Running down the stairs, I was down at the reception in a few seconds. There she was, outside the restaurant door, where a Cerberus of some sort stood watch, lest the underprivileged may have a taste of the overpriced food they were selling.

“Senhorita Cuzmao!” I called, and she turned to me. “How nice of you to come. But why are you waiting here?”

The guard dog looked at me uneasily, but stood his ground.

“We do not allow local girls in here,” he said. The way he pronounced ‘local girls’, he could have called her a whore right away.

I shrugged.

“Your loss, not mine,” I answered lightly. “Let us go some place else, Senhorita. The food here is not that good anyway.”

I offered her my arm which she reluctantly took and led her over to the exit. I steered Gisele outside to the taxi stand and guided her into a car, one of the ubiquitous Volkswagen beetle.

“Bailey’s!” I told the cabbie.

Gisele looked at me strangely.

“This is against our rules,” she said. “I was to pick the place.”

“Yes, I know. But Bailey’s is close to your home and I will give you money for the taxi ride home right away. Have you ever been into Bailey’s?”

She snorted and shook her head. I believed her. I had eaten there the past evening, and the place was frequented by rich Paulistanos and tourists like me. I noticed that she looked down at her dress self-consciously. It was a pretty dress, but it was cheap. She wore simple sandals and no adornments, safe for a small black purse.

“You will do fine, Gisele,” I assured her. “They are nice at this place, you’ll see.”

The cab pulled up at the restaurant, and I helped her out from the cramped back seat. I paid and tipped the cabbie and then offered her my arm again. The maitre d’ looked at us only briefly, but he remembered me, and showed us to a nice table in the back. Gisele sat, flustered by the attention of a waiter who held her chair. She was at a loss what to say when the waiter came with the wine menu.

I ordered a light Chianti wine and a bottle of mineral water. When I asked Gisele what she would like to drink, she smiled self-consciously and asked for a coke. I also ordered a mixed barbecue plate for two, with French fries and croquettes.

The waiter soon came back with our beverage order and placed wine glasses both for me and Gisele. She looked at the glass suspiciously.

“Only if you want to try the wine. It’s a light Italian wine, a Chianti, and it goes along nicely with red meat,” I explained. “If you are not accustomed to wine, you may better stick to your Coke.”

She nodded. “Maybe a small sip to try,” she said cautiously, and I poured two fingers into her glass.

“You don’t have to drink it all,” I said, “but if I pour less, it will become stale.”

Again, she nodded. She had emptied her Coke rather quickly, and I ordered another glass for her. She smiled shyly at me, but then she gathered her courage.

“Thank you for the dinner. But I would like to know what you want of me.”

I looked straight into her eyes, trying to look as sincere as I could.

“I realise that I won't get what I wanted. I have met you, face to face, and I have spoken to you. Now, you have agreed to have dinner with me, and I will get to know you a little bit. That is nice too, I want to learn more about you.”

“But why? There are hundreds of girls like me on the internet.”

I shook my head emphatically.

“No, Gisele, there is nobody like you. You are the one I cannot get out of my head. I made a fool of myself travelling around the world to meet you. I realise how stupid and insensitive that was. But you are unique, at least to me.”

“But this whole movie thing, it’s over. I will never do it again. It was a huge mistake. This is not me.”

“I see that, and I am glad for it now. You seem to be a bright young woman and you should rather try and get a good education.”

That was absolutely the wrong thing to say. She turned pale, and I saw tears forming in her eyes. I took hold of her right hand on the table.

“Gisele, I’m sorry. I don’t know what I did wrong, but I did not mean to hurt you.”

I gave her a handkerchief. She used it to dry her eyes, and then she looked at me.

“The movie clips you saw on the internet, one of my professors saw them, too. I was attending a Catholic college in Sao Paulo, on a scholarship. They threw me out. That was my chance, and I ruined it with this damned movie. We cannot afford the tuition for State University, let alone the room and board in a big city, not without the scholarship. They also said that my sister will not get a scholarship, because our family is not morally proper. I ruined my own life and my sister’s. Now I work as a waitress to save some money, so at least my sister can go to a good school. And now you come and tell me to get an education!”

I briefly closed my eyes. Damn, that had been the stupidest thing to say. Or maybe not?

“How many years would you need to finish your degree?” I asked her. At this moment, the food arrived and we had to sit back for the waiter to do his job. Gisele looked at the huge plate incredulously. When the waiter had wished us a good appetite and left us, she cocked her head.

“This is for the two of us?”

“Sure, eat as much as you like. But you did not answer my question.”

She loaded some filet of chicken on her plate, along with string beans and croquettes. When she was finished, she answered.

“I needed only another year. Why do you ask?”

“Is there a state university in Sao Paulo that would accept you if you had the money for the tuition and housing?”

“Yes, but I still do not understand.” Then she understood where I was heading, but she misinterpreted me. Her eyes filled with horror. “Please, don’t make me such an offer. I could not do it. But it would tear me apart.”

“What do you mean, Gisele?”

“You want to offer me the money for the school?”

“That came across my mind, yes. What is so bad about that?”

She smiled a bitter smile.

“You would want something of me in return, wouldn’t you? Don’t you think I had such offers? I told you, I am no puta.”

Now I understood. I shook my head.

“Gisele, this is not what I meant. I want to help you, but I don’t want any payment from you. How much money will it cost to get you to your Bachelor's?”

“At a state university, 2,500 Real for tuition,” she answered, breathing out, and it was clear that this was a number that had been on her mind for weeks and months. “It’s a lot of money, but I would pay you back. I can get better jobs with a degree and I would save the money.”

2,500 Real, less than a thousand Euro, I thought. Back home, that was a weekend trip for two to London, here it meant the future of a person, the difference between spending a life in poverty and moving up the social ladder.

“I could afford that easily, but will it be enough? You will need books, housing and food.”

“My mother is a secretary, she earns enough to feed us, and I can still work on the side.”

I gave her an approving nod. “Let me suggest a deal. I will pay the tuition, and I will pay for housing in a dormitory. You can pay me back when you have finished your degree, but I have a few conditions.”

Suspicion was obvious in Gisele’s eyes. I continued.

“I want you to write me letters, one every month, to report on your progress. And I want to come back here for your graduation, and I want to throw your graduation party.”

“Are you serious about that? I mean the money plus another trip here? What do you get out of this?”

I allowed myself a smile.

“I very much like to look at you, but I also want to make an atonement for the way you were treated and for my own motives to come here. I am not proud of them. I also missed on the graduation of my own daughter; she accidentally gave me a wrong day and time.”

I could not quite hide the bitterness that had crept into my voice, and Gisele noticed. For the first time, she touched me. She just briefly put her hand on mine, but I felt the shock. There was a sad smile on her face.

“I never really knew my father. He left us before my sister was born. I would give a lot to have a father at my graduation. If you want to come, I will be happy, too.”

“It’s a deal, then?” I asked.

She shook her head.

“I have to speak with my mother first. Please understand that I caused shame and trouble for her. I don’t want to hurt her again. Would you be willing to speak to her and tell her what you offered me? And assure her that I did not offer you anything in return?”

“I can do that. Why don’t you talk to her first and set up a date, maybe on Sunday, where we can meet?”

She smiled impishly.

“Could we come here again? I have never eaten that good.”

I looked at her plate and my jaw fell. She had contrived to polish off a full plate of food during the rather brief conversation.

“Of course,” I grinned back. “this way I am sure you will come.”

Her smile slowly vanished and she looked at me wistfully.

“Thomas, I hope you are aware what you are doing. You are giving me new hope. Please, please, don’t let this be some ploy to set me up!”

I was unable to answer. When she looked at me like that, I was putty in her hands. I opened my mouth, but somehow the words did not come forth. It was not necessary, thankfully. After a few seconds, she nodded slowly.

“I will trust you,” She said simply, and I felt ten feet tall.

I tore my eyes away and cleared my throat with an effort.

“With this out of the way, why don’t we enjoy the food a little more,” I suggested to change the subject. She smiled gratefully and loaded some more meat and fries on her plate. I followed suit, and for a few minutes we ate silently. When we were finished, she rose the glass with the small puddle of wine in it.

“To a wonderful evening,” she said.

“And to good company,” I answered.

We drank.

“Do you like ice cream?” I asked and was rewarded with a big smile.

“I LOVE ice cream!” she declared.

I let her order ice cream and settled for a cappuccino myself. All too soon it was time for her to go home, and I asked for the check. I took care to tip the waiter generously. I planned on coming back, and a well-tipped waiter will look after you the next time around. We asked for a taxicab, and the doorman blew his whistle. Fortunately, the taxi was a four door VW Parati, infinitely more comfortable than a Beetle. We drove to her house, and I asked the cabbie to wait while I escorted her to the door. She opened, using her key, but before she stepped through, she hugged me fiercely. I was left rooted to the spot, still feeling the soft swell of her breasts pressed against my skin when the cabbie honked his horn impatiently. I sighed inwardly and walked back to the curb.

Back in the hotel, I relived the evening in my thoughts. I had behaved like a complete sucker, pledging good money without any compensation in sight, but somehow, I could not feel bad.

—————

The alarm clock went off, and I could not find it. Where the hell had I put it? But then I saw the flashing light on the telephone. Two or three fumbles later I had the receiver at my ear.

“Yes?” I croaked.

“Senhor Bergmann, there is a Senhora Cuzmao to see you.

Senhora Cuzmao, that must be Gisele’s mother.

“Can you ask her to wait in the breakfast room? And make sure that the man at the door lets her in? I will be down in ten minutes, okay?”

“Yes, Senhor. I will arrange.”

“Thank you.”

I hopped from the bed, fully awake now and looked at the clock. Damn it. It was just 7 o’clock. I’m no morning person, never have been. The hot shower helped me get awake to some degree and, after brushing my teeth, I threw a lot of cold water in my face. That helped, too. I threw on a polo shirt and dockers, slipped into sandals and ambled downstairs to the breakfast room. I did not have to ask for her, I just saw her and knew it had to be Gisele’s mother. She was a good-looking woman, not older than late thirties, and I enjoyed the view while I walked over to the table.

“Senhora Cuzmao?” I asked. “I am Thomas Bergmann. Do you speak English? I am afraid that I have no Portuguese.”

She rose and looked at me for a moment. Then she nodded.

“Yes, I speak English,” she answered. “I am a foreign language secretary.”

“I did not know that. That explains Gisele’s good English, I suppose. Will you join me for breakfast?”

“I am not sure ...” she said hesitantly.

“You are not sure whether you want to be invited by a man you may want to kill?” I asked.

“Yes. What are you playing at with my daughter? She already made a mess of her life because of another man who made promises.”

“But she learned from it, didn’t she? This time, she spoke to you before she committed herself. And I am not playing at anything. Let me be honest. I saw that video. And I became obsessed with your daughter. I spend time and a lot of money to locate her. And I did that, expecting a loose woman, a woman I could have some fun with in exchange for money. I’m guilty there. But what I found was a good girl who may have made an error in judgement, but who was given a raw deal because of that. A girl who told me right away that no amount of money would make her repeat that error. I was impressed with her face and body, yes, but now I am impressed with her as a person. And I want to help her out of the bad situation she is in. A bright girl like she deserves a second chance.”

“Maybe we need to talk longer,” Gisele’s mother said. “May I have coffee?”

“Sure!” I signalled the waiter and ordered coffee and a breakfast for me.

“And what is it that you expect from this?” she asked me when the waiter had left.

“A good feeling?” I offered. “Monthly letters from a delightful young woman? And, perhaps one day, her friendship. I can imagine what you are concerned about. That I somehow may try to make her do things that she should not do. But I can assure you, not only that I will never try that, but also that she will never do it.”

She nodded silently when the waiter returned with our breakfast. We were silent while we started to eat. I could tell she was mulling over the right thing to do. Then she took a bite of bread and looked into my eyes, chewing. When her mouth was empty, she spoke again.

“I work at a law firm. I trust my boss, and he will help me. Would you be willing to talk to him, to discuss assurances for your good intent? Please, I am very thankful for what you offer. But Gisele is my daughter, and I could not bear it if she were hurt again.”

“Should I come to the office?”

“No, no, that would be too official. But could you have lunch with us on Sunday? In our apartment, of course. I would ask my boss to come, too.”

“With pleasure,” I answered.

“I need to go to work,” she said, emptying her coffee cup. “Will you see Gisele before Sunday?”

“I will not seek her, but if she tries to contact me, I will not deny her.”

“That is enough for me. Thank you for your patience. Please, believe me that we are thankful for your generous offer.”

“But you have the well being of your daughter to consider,” I grinned.

She smiled back. “Yes. Thank you for being understanding. Can you come at 1 o’clock, Sunday?”

“Yes, I am looking forward to it. Could you tell Gisele that I may be gone for the day tomorrow? I need to make some purchases in Sao Paulo. I did not bring suitable clothes.”

She nodded and left me to finish my breakfast. I was impressed with Gisele’s mother. I would not have taken much prodding to take in interest in her, I admitted to myself.

After breakfast, I packed my belongings and checked out. I had found out about another hotel, the Agua Doce, near the beach, and that’s where I checked in. The pool was inviting and I swam a number of laps before lunch. In the afternoon I used the internet access in the lobby to gather information. Then I made an appointment with Joao for the next day. I wanted him to drive me to Sao Paulo to make my purchases. I wasn’t into public transportation, and Joao was happy for the business.

The next morning at 7, he was waiting for me in the drive way of the hotel. We took off, and in a little over three hours we reached Sao Paulo. I directed him to a trade centre on Rua Itapicuru. I knew there was an Apple retailer in that centre, and I wanted to purchase a laptop. If I had to stay for a week or more, I better do some work. I got lucky. They had an iBook with English keys, and a special deal on an Office package, and they let me hook up to my .Mac account where I retrieved my current work projects. I also got a cheap ink jet printer plus generic ink cartridges and a stack of blank CDs.

A clothing store was next, and I purchased a cream coloured suit, a number of polo shirts and some extra underwear. This whole little adventure had already cost me a bundle. Oh well, what’s the good of money if you don’t spend from time to time? It was early afternoon when we headed back to Ubatuba. We arrived at my hotel around 5 p.m., and I paid Joao and carried my purchases up to my room.

After taking a swim, I had dinner at the hotel restaurant. I was sitting back, enjoying a cafe espresso, when my cell phone went off. It was Gisele.

“Hello,” she said hesitantly.

“Hola, Gisele, that is a nice surprise!”

“Yes, well, my mother just told me how she met you yesterday. I’m sorry, I did not know that. I would have warned you.”

“It was not bad. Your mother is a very nice woman, and she cares for you. So you could say that we have a shared interest.”

“It really did not bother you?”

“Not at all. She invited me to lunch on Sunday.”

“I know. You won’t mind, will you? It’s only a small apartment, and we cannot afford the things you are accustomed to.”

“Get that out of your head, Gisele. I wasn’t born in a luxury hotel. In fact, I was rather poor as a young man. And I’m not judging people by their wealth or lack thereof. I really appreciate the invitation because it is a personal gesture.”

She pondered this for a few seconds.

“Mother said you will not contact me until Sunday?”

“That is what I promised.”

“But if I want to meet you, you can see me?”

“I told her that I would not deny you.”

“Have you been to Itamambuca yet?”

“That’s a beach, isn’t it?”

“The best we have. Tomorrow is Saturday and I have the afternoon off. Would you like to see the beach with me? It is okay with my mother. But I would have to tag along my little sister as a chaperone.”

“I’d love to. But I have one condition.”

“What?”

“No string bikini. I don’t want to embarrass myself more than necessary.”

She actually laughed, a rich throaty chuckle.

“I have a one-piece suit, but you will embarrass yourself anyway.”

“I’m certain, I will,” I sighed. “Should I pick you up in a cab?”

“That would be nice. At 1 o’clock?”

“All right. Thank you.”

“Good night!”

She hung up, and I sat, desperately trying to will down the unholy pictures of Gisele in a bathing suit. I spent the next two hours on the small hotel beach, staring into the night sky and imagining Gisele on the beach. I knew that all I said about appreciating her as a person was true. Yet there was no denying that I coveted her physically with an aching intensity. Tomorrow would be hard, very hard! Pun not intended, but inevitable.

Chapter 2

After waking up, the images of Gisele were in my head again, and I did some work on the new laptop, trying to get my mind off our afternoon rendezvous. Joao had his day off, but he agreed to drive us to the beach and pick us up in the evening. One o’clock found me waiting in Joao’s cab outside Gisele’s tenement house. She came down with her sister right on time. Joao’s eyes bugged out when he saw the girls. I jumped from the cab to greet them.

“Hola,” Gisele greeted me with a blinding smile. The girl had me figured out. She knew how to push my buttons. “This is Alicia, my sister.”

I looked at a slightly chubbier version of Gisele, knowing instinctively that she would be just as beautiful in a year or two.

“Hola, Alicia. It is nice to meet you. I hope you speak English?”

She nodded. “Yes I do. Mother taught me, and I like it.”

“Great, shall we put your bags in the trunk?”

Joao saw to that, and I moved to sit on the front seat, but Gisele stayed me.

“The back is roomy. Come sit with us.”

Who was I to contradict her?

The drive took us close to 30 minutes, and Joao dropped us at a beach restaurant that also had changing cubicles for rent. I paid for one and had the girls use it first. I held my breath when they emerged. True to her word, Gisele’s bathing suit was a one-piece. However, it consisted mostly of entry ports for the sunlight, and nothing about her physical appearance was left to my imagination. She shot me a devilish smile when I rushed into the cubicle to change. I was happy that I had brought baggy swim shorts. The girls waited outside, and we carried our bags and towels to a spot roughly two hundred meters to the North. Only a few young people were near us and we settled on the sand. Alicia was off into the water immediately, while I applied sun block and Gisele watched me.

“You are in a good shape,” she said judiciously. “How old are you?”

“Forty-five,” I replied with a mock sigh.

“You are taking care of your body, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I like to stay trim. A few years ago, I was a bit chubby, and I hated it.”

“You also trim your body hair?”

“I have to. It’s turning grey and I look like silver back gorilla when I let it grow.”

She giggled at that.

“So what do you say about my bathing suit? Is it modest enough?”

“You know perfectly well what you are doing to me,” I grumped, causing a self-satisfied grin on her part.

“Should I rather cover myself?” she inquired slyly.

“Are you kidding me? I flew halfway around the world in the hope of seeing you like this.”

“And was it worth it?”

“Every. Single. Mile.”

“You know, this is all you'll see,” she said, almost apologetically.

“I know that now, and I accept that. I can feel better about myself when I will leave.”

Just then, Alicia came from the water. Wrapping herself into a towel, she dropped the wet swimsuit and rummaged in her bag. She carefully inserted one foot after the other into a black bikini bottom and pulled it up. Dropping the towel, she reached down to retrieve the top from her bag and put it on.

“Stop teasing poor Tomaso, Alicia,” Gisele laughed. Alicia looked surprised, then she blushed.

“I’m sorry,” she stuttered. “I was not thinking and ...”

“Don’t apologise for that. I shall lie on my stomach for a while, and it will be okay,” I joked, causing a furious blush on Alicia and a throaty chuckle on Gisele’s part.

To cover her embarrassment, Alicia went to wash her bathing suit.

“You should have relieved yourself before we came here,” Gisele offered with a cheeky grin.

“Who says I didn't?” I answered with mock exasperation, setting off another laughter.

She could not stop laughing and actually doubled over. When she caught her breath, she wiped her eyes, looked at me and started laughing again.

“What is it?” I asked.

“You must be really in good shape!” she squeezed out before the laughter started again.

This set me off, too, and still laughing when Alicia came back, her wet suit over her shoulders. She spoke to Gisele in Portuguese. Gisele shook her head and answered.

“She wanted to know whether we were laughing about her. I told her that we laughed about you.”

“That’s right, Alicia. Your sister has been making fun of me.”

Alicia said something else in Portuguese, in an admonishing tone of voice. Gisele became serious.

“Tomaso, you are not mad at me for making fun of you, are you?”

“Are you kidding? It’s fun to be silly with you.” I turned to the younger girl. “Alicia, I laughed because it was funny. Just don’t worry, okay. This is a beautiful day, and we have another three hours before Joao picks us up again. Now I will go swimming, and you two girls can laugh about me undisturbed.”

I got up and jogged over the sand to the surf line. There was a decent surf, and I enjoyed the play with the breakers. Suddenly I noticed that I had company. Gisele was at my side and for a few minutes we just jumped into the breaking waves.

“So you decided to join me?” I shouted.

“Yes,” she shouted back, jumping high over an approaching roller. “It’s more fun to make fun of you when you can hear it.”

She did not notice the next wave and it broke right over her head. Coughing and sputtering she came up. I laughed at her.

“I thought you would not show me more?”

The breaking wave had dislodged the thin material of her bathing suit and her left breast was on display in all its glory. Wham! The next roller had caught me unaware while I stared at Gisele’s tit. I came up gasping to see Gisele laughing her head off. She had not even bothered to cover her breast. When she jumped into the next wave, her breast performed an enticing movement. I could not keep my eyes from her and was promptly dunked by the next breaker. When I got up again, Gisele had covered up.

“I cannot have you drown. Who is going to pay my tuition when you’re dead,” she shouted, jumping into the next roller. With my mind on the waves, I was able to hold my own again in the surf. That is, until she shouted my name. I looked at her and froze. She had bunched the material of the suit between her breasts and flashed me both tits!

Wham! The next wave washed over me. I had trouble getting up, the back-eddy tearing at my legs, and before I was really up and could clear my nose, the next one hit me from behind. I felt hands at my arms, lifting me up, and this time I caught a breath and was able to jump into the next wave. Gisele was at my side, supporting me, and grinning sheepishly while we waded into shallow water. I plopped down into the low surf and tried to get the water out of my sinuses.

Gisele sat beside me, stroking my back and shoulders.

“I’m sorry,” she said apologetically, “I should not have done this.”

I got clean, dry air into my lungs again and drew a deep breath. I looked at her worried face and tried a grin.

“That would have been a news headline. ‘Tourist drowned while staring at girl’s breasts. Picture on page 3!’ The papers would go gaga over this.”

“I’m really sorry for teasing you like this. Please don’t tell my mother.”

“Gisele, you can tease me like this all you want, but only in shallow water. Deal?”

Gisele looked around and I followed her gaze. Her sister was lying on her stomach, her face away from the water. Gisele grabbed the bathing suit’s halter and pulled the elastic material over her head. The front of her suit dropped to her waist, exposing her breasts.

“What are you doing, Gisele?” I asked, my voice cracking with excitement.

“Penance,” she smiled.

“You are very beautiful,” I marvelled. “I don’t think I will ever forget this moment.”

I reached out with my hand and pulled her head closer. I placed a kiss on her forehead. On impulse, she took my hand and placed it over her left boob. I felt the soft texture, the elastic tissue, and the small pebble of her nipple in my palm. She looked up into my eyes, and no power on earth could keep me from kissing her. Well, no power on earth tried, anyway. When our lips touched, time stood still. My hand left her breast and found its way up over her shoulder, to her neck and then into her hair. We broke the kiss after a while, and I looked into her dark eyes for a long time. There was no fear, no reservation in them.

“Thank you, Gisele,” I whispered. “Thank you for this wonderful moment. Thank you for being alive.”

She choked a little.

“We must not go further, Tomaso. Not today. I am not saying never, okay? But if we go any further, we may ruin everything.”

I pressed her small hand and kissed it.

“Let’s go and join your sister again.”

While we walked up the beach, Gisele did not release my hand. We plopped down on our towels, and Alicia looked up.

“I can’t believe you showed your breasts, Gisele!” she chided her older sister.

“Don’t be a spoilsport, little sister!” Gisele laughed. “Besides, who started this?”

“I did not think,” Alicia defended herself.

“Well, little sister, neither did I, and it was fun. Tomaso nearly drowned while he stared at them.”

“He did not!”

“You bet I did,” I admitted, laughing along with Gisele.

“I should tell Mother, I really should.”

“Then, Alicia, I cannot finish my bachelor's. Then I cannot earn enough money to get you into university. Which will not matter anyway, because I would kill you right away,” Gisele explained in a conversational tone.

“I guess I better not tell her,” Alicia admitted.

“Smart girl. Tomaso, don’t you think it would be helpful to bribe my little sister with a big bowl of ice cream?”

I laughed again. “If it does not take more to ensure her silence, we can do this every day.”

“You wish!” Gisele grinned.

I turned and waved in the direction of the waiter who oversaw the beach. He trudged over the sand toward us. The girls saw to it that they made the long walk worth his while, both of them ordering huge bowls of ice cream and Coke. Myself, I ordered a mixed fruit bowl and coffee. While we waited for him to return, I tried to get to know Alicia. She was seventeen and in high school. She read voraciously, and she wanted to become a veterinarian. All this I learned before the waiter returned with our order on a large tray that he placed between us.

The fruit bowl was delicious, and the girls enjoyed the ice cream. When we were finished, the girls stretched out on their towels, and I signalled the waiter again. He came to take the tray and a generous tip for his troubles. For a while, nobody spoke. I was lost in thought myself, my mind revolving around Gisele’s behaviour. She was certainly more open than before, and I could not help but feel that there were future possibilities. The question was how far was I prepared to go? Was it possible for me to start something serious with a twenty year-old? She was certainly mature enough for her age, she was smart, funny and gorgeous. And then I realised that I would go as far as she would let me. There was no way I could refuse her. I realised something else: Gisele had figured out that I was eating out of her pretty hand, that’s why she had opened up towards me. She knew that she had control over the situation.

“You should put sun block on your back, Tomaso,” Gisele interrupted my musing. “Or should I do it?”

“That would be very nice of you. And if you want me to return the favour, just let me know.”

“You wish,” she laughed. “That’s why I brought along my sister.”

I heard a clap and a squeal. Obviously, Alicia had objected to the task allotted to her. Meanwhile, Gisele had squeezed sun block on my back and started to massage it into my skin. For better leverage, she squatted over my buttocks. As soon as I felt the soft skin of her thighs against my sides, I developed a painful erection.

“Does your offer to do my back still stand?” Gisele asked. “My regular sun block applicator is on strike.”

Alicia giggled.

“Maybe in a minute, Gisele. My offer isn’t the only thing that is standing,” I quipped, receiving a stinging slap on my butt for my effort.

“Does everything I do get you excited?” she asked, exasperated.

“Based on my limited experience, yes,” I answered truthfully.

“Alicia, please do my back. This dirty old man cannot control himself.”

Alicia giggled and rose to a sitting position. Gisele lay down on her stomach and removed the halter string of her suit from her neck, causing the top to fall away from her upper body. I could not see much, but it was better that she had her sister apply the sun block, considering that we were on a public beach. Gisele stuck out her tongue while Alicia worked her back. The sight of the young girl working the naked back of her sister did nothing to abate my problems, and I shifted my body cautiously to lessen the pressure. Gisele winked at me and giggled. Alicia was finished now and sat back on her haunches, slapping her big sister’s butt.

“I’ll go swim,” she announced and took off.

“She can be a pain in the butt, but I love her,” Gisele remarked absentmindedly. “Never once was she mean to me, although I may have ruined her future along with mine.”

“Yes I like her .... Aaiiiah!”

I jumped up from the shock of the cold sea water that Alicia had dumped over me from a plastic bag. Well, it was South Atlantic water, and it wasn't really cold. Both girls were rolling in the sand with laughter now. Too late I realised that my predicament was on full display, tenting the swim shorts. It did not help either that Gisele’s exposed breasts jiggled while she laughed her head off at my expense.

“Alicia, get another bag and douse his front,” she managed to say between snorts.

I quickly covered my front with my towel and tried to salvage the shattered remains of my dignity while Alicia was fighting a violent hiccup. Finally, Gisele noticed her nudity and pulled up the front of her suit. She grinned sheepishly. When the girls had calmed down, Alicia had a slightly worried look on her face.

“You are not <hick> mad?” she asked.

I shook my head.

“Girls, I cannot remember the last time I had so much fun. But I will have to think of a way to get even.”

Gisele batted her eyelids.

“You would not spank us, would you?”

Unholy thoughts, originating in the back of my brain, wreaked havoc in my midsection. I tried to be serious, for once.

“Gisele, if you want this thing to work out, you must not act like this tomorrow. If you do that, and I make a fool of myself like I’m doing this afternoon, your mother will throw me out and will not allow you to accept the money.”

She nodded, suddenly serious.

“I know that, and I will behave. Believe me, I don’t want to mess up my second chance.” She batted her eyelids again. “But it is very hard.”

I tried not to groan. Luckily, I was able to steer the conversation towards education. She told me of the things she had learned so far, and it appeared to be a solid base. Curiously however, she had never had computer courses. Small wonder that she did not realise how quickly movie clips can travel over the net.

“You don’t know much about computers, do you?” I asked.

She shook her head. “Our teachers were very old, and they knew nothing about computers.”

“You know, Gisele, that is something we will have to work on. These days, it is impossible to get good jobs without knowing about computers. I bet your mother knows a lot.”

She nodded. “She has to. But we are not allowed in the offices, and we cannot afford a computer at home. Nobody in our neighbourhood can.”

“And you, Alicia?” I asked.

“We had a few hours of theory, and then we were allowed a few minutes on a computer. But we have only two computers in our school, and the teachers use them mostly.”

“I will get you a used computer for your home. Internet will not be possible, I’m afraid, but you should learn to use text programs and database programs. And presentation software. Is there an internet cafe in town?” I had not seen one yet.

Gisele nodded. “There are two, and one is in our neighbourhood. But the people in there are bad. The one in town is better, at least during the day.”

I nodded. “Then we will set up an account for you in the better one.”

Alicia’s eyes lit up. “Could I go there, too?”

“Certainly. We can set up web mail accounts for you two. This way, it will be easier and cheaper to stay in touch with me.”

“You mean the reports?” Gisele asked.

“Those, too,” I answered. That made sense. I did not know how long it took for snail mail to reach Europe, but e-mail was the better option. I looked at my watch. It was time to break camp.

“Girls, we need to go shower and change. Joao will be here in half an hour.”

There was an open air shower stall near the changing cubicles, and I let the girls have first dibs on the water. Thankfully, both of them were quick about it. After I rinsed the dried salt from my body, I quickly towelled and dressed. When Joao pulled up at the driveway, we were ready.

During the ride into town, Alicia rode shotgun. She claimed to prefer to sit in the front, a claim that I doubted when I saw the conspiratorial grin that passed between the sisters. Gisele looked lovely in her summer dress of blue denim and her sensuality again cast a spell on me. Now she wanted to know more about me, what I did for a living, how I lived, had I been married, how old were my kids, the whole nine yards. I answered openly, there was nothing to hide anyway.

I had married right out of high school, mostly because of a mishap involving a faulty birth control device. The kid, a girl, was born while I did my mandatory 15-month stint in the Armed Forces. We had a second kid, a boy, while I was at university. I finished with a diploma in informatics and got my first job with a company specialised in teller machines. The money was good, the work dull. I was working on security aspects mostly, but the internal structure and hierarchies of the company drove me up the wall. Our work, our goals, were cut out for us by the money people, and the projects were uninspiring. I began to work on some things myself, spending nights in front of my IBM PC. The first viruses had appeared, and together with a friend I tried to develop algorithms for the search for malware.

With all the time spent before a computer display, both at work and at home, I wasn’t a really considerate husband or father. In short, I was an egocentric asshole who regularly forgot the birthdays and school events of the kids, plus the wedding anniversaries. The upshot was that my salary allowed us to have a nanny, and my wife, Inge, was able to go back to school and earn a teaching degree. She also secured a job for herself in a local high school. I guess, it was at that point that we realised how different we were, and from there it was only a short step for her fall for somebody else.

It was a colleague of hers, and even I have to admit that they are perfect for each other. We got a clean, friendly divorce, and she married Holger, that’s his name, within weeks after that.

The divorce was liberating for me as well. I quit my job and set up shop as an independent security consultant with my friend and partner. We got lucky with our virus search algorithms and were awarded three patents, two of which are still in use in popular antivirus software. This also helped our business, and for a while, six to seven years, we were in big demand. Our little business expanded to a point where it outgrew our abilities as a businessmen. Personally, I also suffered from burn out. Therefore, when a competitor offered us a buy out, I happily agreed. I retained a sizeable stake in the parent company, and I sit on the board, but with concern to real, regular work, I went into retirement at age forty. And for the following five years, I have been playing with the money, losing some and winning some, mostly the latter.

This I told Gisele and she listened quietly.

“Are you very rich?” she finally asked.

“You mean Bill-Gates-rich? No. I guess you could say that I am well off, that’s all.”

“But the money you offer for me, this will not hurt you or your children?”

“I want you to get the correct perspective here. I would never give those 2500 Real to just anyone who asked, but for me, it is less than a week's income, not even counting what I earn in the stock market. I do not sacrifice anything; I will hardly feel it.”

She motioned for me to come closer and bent over to whisper in my ear.

“If I had known that, I would not have shown you my breasts!”

She leant back, a cheeky grin plastered across her face, but her eyes conveyed something vastly different. I motioned for her to bent over and put my mouth to her ear. Her smell made my heart go faster as I whispered.

“Then maybe I should pay for Alicia’s education, too, to fully compensate you for the view of your magnificent breasts?”

She put my arm in a vice-like grip.

“You don’t mean that, do you?”

“Why not? If I can finance the education of a brat like you, why not that of a modest, sweet girl like your sister?”

“Modest? Sweet? Hah! She was the one who splashed the water over you!”

“Well, yeah, I guess I’ll have to pay for two brats then.”

Our whispered conversation had not gone unnoticed with Alicia.

“What are you two whispering?”

In response, Gisele whispered in my ear again.

“Will you tell her?”

“Not yet,” I answered in my normal voice.

“Tell me, what are you two up to?” Alicia demanded.

“Not yet!” Gisele and I answered in unison. We looked at each other and burst out laughing.

Alicia hurled her wet bathing suit at her sister, but Gisele deflected it, and the wet suit ended up in my face. Even Joao, who had seen this in his rear-view mirror, laughed now. I made a show of sniffing at the suit.

“Stop that!” Alicia shrieked, tearing the garment from my hands, and turning red. “You are a dirty old man,” she huffed.

“Yes, but he is my dirty old man. So don’t you throw your panties at him!” Gisele retorted.

“If you don’t stop it, I will tell mama,” Alicia threatened.

Gisele laughed. “Then you will never learn what we whispered about.”

I noticed that Joao slowed down from his usual breakneck speed and looked up. We had reached the Rua do Campo. We got out of the taxi, and, to my surprise, Alicia gave me a quick peck on my lips.

“Thank you for the trip and the ice cream!” she said, casting a triumphant grin at her sister. Uh-oh! I knew what was coming, even before Gisele launched herself into my arms and gave me a toe-curling, open-mouthed kiss.

“Thank you for everything,” she said sweetly. “Até amanhã!”

Dragging Alicia behind her, she disappeared in the tenement house.

“Now you have two girls fighting over you, boss,” Joao grinned.

“Yeah, right! Just bring me to the hotel and go home to your family!” I grumped. And that’s what he did, albeit with an insufferable grin. When we drove up to the hotel, he turned to me again, and the grin was gone.

“Boss, you ever had a Brazilian girlfriend?”

“No?”

“You mark my words, stay with the older one. You touch her little sister, and she will kill you.”

“I am not touching either of them.”

“Sure, sure, boss, just mark my words and stay with the older.”

A sound piece of advice, I thought, while I watched him drive off. I went up to my room and showered quickly. I decided to try the restaurant in the hotel lobby, and I was not disappointed. I was not too hungry anyway, but the three or four beers helped me replace what I had sweated over the afternoon and gave me the right level of sleepiness.

I slept late the next day, and I skipped breakfast. I had asked the reception to get a flower bouquet from a florist, and it was waiting for me when I came down. I also had a large box of sweets that I had bought in Sao Paulo. I was wearing my suit. I figured that she would put a lot of effort into the lunch, and I wanted to show my respect.

It was Gisele who opened the door and showed me in, but her mother emerged from the kitchen to greet me. I could tell that the flowers were well appreciated, as was the box of chocolates. She showed me into the living room. The flat was maybe 500 square feet, all told, with two bedrooms, a kitchen, a bath, and a dingy living room that barely contained the table we would sit at. There was a small balcony in front, though, and the view from the third floor was quite nice. The room was neat, if sparsely furnished, but the few items showed taste.

“You have a very nice apartment, Senhora Cuzmao,” I complimented her, inducing pleased denials. She went for a vase, and I was surprised when she came back with a mighty brass shell, probably from a four inch-gun and polished brightly. She noticed my look.

“We have to make do with what we have. Life was not easy.”

Her look showed some defiance.

“You can be proud of yourself. You did an admirable job of raising your two daughters.”

“I could have done better,” she sighed, looking significantly at Gisele who blushed. “I wish I had looked out for them better.”

“I beg to disagree,” I said earnestly. “I am biased, I know, but had things been different, I would have never enjoyed the pleasure of meeting Gisele.”

She squinted her eyes. “What exactly does Gisele mean to you?”

“Her image set me off to travel halfway around the world to follow a dream. I don’t even remember the last dream I had before I saw her. It must have been 20 years ago. That’s what she is to me, an inspiration to follow my dreams again.”

“Do your dreams still involve my daughter?” she asked, her eyes boring into mine.

“It would be dishonest to deny that. But they are dreams, and where they do not match Gisele’s plans and wishes, they will remain just that.”

“At least, you are honest. When do you plan to return to Germany?”

“When everything is settled and I am satisfied that I will not be needed anymore. This trip has already given me more than I could hope for.”

Just then, the doorbell rang, and Gisele’s mother rushed to the door. Gisele quietly moved to my side and took my hand.

“Do I mean that much to you?” she asked in a halting voice.

“That much and more. But please remember that there is no obligation for you when you accept my help.”

“Yes there is. Even if you don’t want it to be there.”

She pressed my hand once more and let go of me. It was good timing. A dignified gentleman entered the room, tall, slender, bald, but with an aura of friendliness. He greeted me with a handshake. Gisele’s mother busied herself setting the table and then urged us to sit. There was a white wine on the table, and we toasted Senhora Cuzmao. She had prepared a breaded fish which I did not recognise, and it was simply delicious. There was a friendly conversation going on while we ate. Senhor Morenho spoke very good English. He confided that he specialised in real estate, and a lot of English speaking clients were interested in this beautiful coast line. I resisted the urge to ask him about available water front properties.

For desert, we had a sweet cake and strong coffee, and after that, Senhor Morenho and I talked business. We quickly agreed on setting up a trust fund, to pay for Gisele’s tuition and, on my insistence, on an emergency fund to cover unexpected expenses. This town being a resort for rich people, the banks could handle wire transfers, and we set up an appointment for Monday to wire the money and open an account for the trust fund. Senhor Morenho agreed to act as trustee. Finally, he looked at Gisele’s mother.