#462 Perception?

Dinner in Rhinebeck last night, then to Woodstock, arriving just in time for the dancers. Piper enjoyed it very much. The Gypsy and the Pixie didn't make it, although both had intended to, but there were other people I knew, and it was nice to see them, and in that context.

It was a good show (although one of the dancers was definitely NOT ready for prime time, and she happened to be the one smack in front of us the whole time). Then I wanted to walk around the village, but by then all the carolers and whatever else was happening was over, and the temperature had dropped a lot, the wind had picked up, and it was obvious Piper was freezing his ears off, so we took a short walk with stops in a few stores, and then home. Well, back to my car, which was parked in front of his office.

I was very happy with the way it went. He used the words "although this is not a date" as he was insisting on paying for both dinners, and later called me a "friend as well as a client". That's good. I like him as a friend. That could work. I am content.

There is something sort of troubling, though. At lunch a few weeks ago, he used some names that someone not "in my life" would be extremely unlikely to come up with, and when I asked him where he got those names, he said "I had you investigated", and then he laughed it off and claimed it was just coincidence. Then he sort of warned me about a situation I was into, about which he should have known nothing, and since then, I have finally learned what he was referring to, he could have not have been more specific, and he was absolutely correct. And the specifics were not mine, but those of another person with whom I am involved. That would be scary enough, but last night, some of the topics he brought up could have come straight from my journal. He doesn't know about my journals. My real name and real email address is not connected with this journal. He doesn't even know my email address or AOL screen name. And yet I'd swear he's read them (this one and the previous one). (Later update - Agh! He knows I use "S........m", and Google would send anyone looking for S.........m right here. On the other hand, he is computer illiterate, beyond what is required for his business. On the third hand, he hires people who do know the internet. The Angel? Hmmmmm. Interesting. But that still doesn't explain the other stuff.)

Either he is extremely perceptive, or he really has had me investigated. And is continuing to get reports. I had told him on Wednesday, when he asked, that I was cooling it a bit with Roman. But he seemed to know last night that it wasn't nearly over at all, not as anyone else might define it. (Nothing specific, more an attitude, a skirting of the issue, a lack of curiosity perhaps.) That's scary.

I am entirely open, I have nothing to hide, I would tell him the truth about anything he asked about, so his knowing these things doesn't bother me. But he seems to know too much that didn't come FROM me, and that DOES bother me, because I don't know where he's getting it.

Can he really be that perceptive? Is this entirely innocent, and I'm being paranoid? He may look like a cherub, and talk like an excited kid, but I have a feeling there's some cold hard steel in the core. A look in the eyes every so often. "Business is Business". A cherub is not going to go into billion-dollar business dealings with Arab states and come out smiling.

Or maybe only a cherub could.

~~Silk