Green Tea Won't Help You Now! (5 page)

"Oh, is that so? I hadn't heard."

"Yes, my Lady of Malibu."

I stuck my tongue out. "I get into a lot of trouble speaking British English here, actually. There can be embarrassing misunderstandings."

"Like what?"

"I recently asked a student whether I had knocked him up."

His eyes went wide.

"I had meant to ask him whether I had woken him."

"Ah, I see your point. But you haven't answered my question."

"I already told you in the car."

"Did you travel the world and stumble over it? Bam? This is were I stay? Backpacking or something like that?"

"Yes, more or less."
Or
something like that...

"Man, I wished I could have done that. All I ever saw were ski resorts."

The pizza came and, what can I say, for a while, all conversation stopped because we were stunned into silence by its taste.

"This must have been the best pizza I have ever eaten in my entire life..." I sighed once the plate was empty.

"I hope you're happy to have shared this experience with me." Alex reached over and wiped a pizza crumb from my jaw.

I knew that instance that my eyes were lighting up with a sensuous glow, they always do when I am going into seduction mode. I pouted ever so slightly to give him a certain idea of what my lips might feel like when he would kiss them in the not so far away future. He took the bait and his thumb touched my mouth ever so gently, in passing, as if it was an accident. My lips split into a broad smile, rewarding him for the gesture.

"I don't know yet, I'll have to think about it."

"Would you think about it over dessert or would a coffee be more the thing? Or both? Since I can't enthuse you for a grappa or a digestive and I can't order one for myself because I have to safely drive you back home."

I arched my neck into a swanlike curve. Crazy how these things come back to you, even after three years of abstinence. "What a responsible man you are."

"Most of the time, yes."

"I thought a racing guy like you would be a real risk taker."
 

"Strangely enough...", a muscle was twitching in his cheek, "I'm not... at least not most of the time."

The waiter was back.
 

"You must try the panna cotta," Alex commanded.

"I must? You rather seem the dominant type, ordering me about like this?"

He lifted his eyebrows.

I lowered my head and spoke in a small voice, "Panna cotta, please."

"Certainly."

"Espresso for me. What about you, Beatrix?"

I looked at him blandly. Who was Beatrix?
 

Oh, Christ, I was of course! That's the trouble with fake names, if you only ever use the diminutive, you forget that there is an actual— what is the word for non-diminutive..?

 
"Sure. Espresso."
 

The waiter nodded and disappeared.

"Are you really not mad at me?" Alex asked. "I was afraid you'd come along on this date only to bite my head off."

"Maybe I'm just waiting for a better occasion. Maybe I'm only making you feel safe to bite you at a more poignant moment."

Suddenly my hand was in his, he had reached over the table and had just taken it. "I hope that will be soon."

I blushed. I mean, I am certainly not shy, the opposite rather, but I am all for pretence until the knickers come off. He, on the contrary, went straight to the mark.
 

"The night is long..."
 

"I'm sure it won't be long enough—here comes dessert."

I spooned down the heavenly panna cotta rather hastily. I wanted to leave this place. I wanted to get down to business. What was the use of waiting now? Alex seemed to feel the same, because he asked for the bill as soon as he could get hold of the waiter.
 

Hand in hand we bustled out of the restaurant. Being so close to him, I could feel the warmth radiating from his body. He really
did
have a gravitational field!
 

We reached the parking lot and he held the car door open for me. I was just about to sit down when he took hold of my arm and pulled me against his body. His mouth took hungry possession of mine and I folded my arms around him, letting him have it without resistance.
 

"When I saw you this morning I thought you had stepped out of my dreams," he breathed against my neck.

I was shuddering with pleasure. "Take me home."

He gave me a gentle push and I landed in the soft leather seat.
 

Not a minute later we raced along the coast, neither of us speaking, neither of us moving except for Alex's hands on the wheel. The rush of anticipation mingled with the warm night air and feelings almost forgotten emerged from their hiding places. The ecstasy of knowing what was to come, the urgency, the sudden loss of all shame, I dove into this whirlwind, wanting to be completely swallowed up by it.

We flew into Venice on the wings of passion (sounds mega-cheesy, right?) and the car stopped in front of my studio with shrieking tyres. Alex did the reverse motion he had done on the parking lot: he got out of the car, walked around it, opened my door, took me by the arm and pulled me up to get back to where we had left off twenty minutes ago.

He pushed me against the brick wall, where the wooden sign was leaning, the one he had taken down only eight hours before.

God, he was so strong and so hard, like the wall itself. Being caught between those too massive barriers was beyond exhilarating. I felt his hands linger on my hips, holding me firmly in place. I moved my legs slightly apart, to have him closer, to make him melt into me.
 

He reacted immediately and his hands slid onto my behind.

I gave a little moan.

Without a warning, he moved away.

"I'm sorry," he said hoarsely. "I shouldn't have, I'm so sorry."

My eyes went as round as UFOs.

"Wh- what?" I managed to chirp.

He leaned forward and kissed me softly on the cheek. "Good night."

Before I even had the time to blink, he was back in his car and had started the engine.

"What?" I croaked again, but the car—and in it the gorgeous athlete I had only just pressed my crotch against—disappeared into the night.

Six

What the fuck was that?

Was I really left standing in the middle of a hot hanky-panky?

What on earth had happened? Why had he stopped?
 

Was it something I said? Something I did? What had I done, anyway? Had he suddenly decided he was not into me anymore? Had I smelled wrong? Had I felt wrong?
 

Oh my God, he must have thought I was a slut because I spread my legs!

Come on, I did not spread my legs, I only moved them slightly apart to accommodate him better while I was still wearing knickers and he was still wearing his chinos and whatever he wore underneath... hopefully boxers. Such a little motion in the heat of passion could not turn a man off from one instant to the next, or could it? Gosh, had I forgotten all the dating rules I had learnt? Of course, he now thought I was a whore, a cheap slutty bird, not fit to bear his golden haired children and to sing and dance to godly songs on the pastures above Lake Tahoe! But even if he thought I was a floozy, why not benefit from my flooziness and use me for one night to leave me in disgust? I had known several men who had done that to me in the days when I still believed a man was in love with me, only because he kissed me.

Dammit, I had been so horny I had completely ignored all the warning signs! Asking me out on a date just like that, wining, dining, fancy talking,
"when I saw you this morning yadda yadda yadda..."
, holding my hand. What else had it been, other than a lousy attempt to get me to bed? Wait. But he had not taken me to bed. I was standing on the pavement, all alone, unshagged since 1492!

"Bloody wanker!"
 

I unlocked the door and stomped into the studio. The yoga mat was still rolled out on the floor and I slumped down on it. "Mofo, who does he think he is?"

He had not even asked me for my phone number! He never wanted to see me again!
 

I rolled onto my back. I fumbled my sandals open and violently kicked them off. I held onto my toes and rocked about in the happy baby position but it did nothing to make me happy. I tried breathing, too, but I was so angry and confused, I did not want to feel any better. I wanted to go on feeling angry and confused and rejected and insulted in my femininity.
 

"Grrrrr!" I raged and jumped up to perform a few kickboxing moves. "Asshole! Disgusting, deceitful asshole!"

I tore my phone out of my handbag. One call: Dad. One voice message: Dad.
 

"
Cállate Papa
!" I barked at my phone, without having actually called my father. He could wait. I needed to talk to people who could help. I dialled Lilly's mobile, but I only got the mailbox. I tried Nicky, but it was the same. Next, I tried Jude. Nothing. They were most likely in the middle of the Mediterranean without any cell phone reception. What time was it over there, anyway? I looked at the clock. It was 11 pm, which meant it was 8 am in Europe. No problem then. I punched the touchscreen until I found, "Myrtle SAT", and pressed.
 

I heard a beep. "Thank God..."
 

There was a rushing noise, a dog barked, then there was some rumbling, then I heard Jude's voice from far away shouting... "—will you ever learn to turn down the volume of that bloody phone, do you want me to go into shock discharge?"

My brother sounded much closer, but he was obviously not talking to me. "Darling, don't run away. You know I didn't—"

 
A door slammed. Jude had left the master's cabin. It was not an unusual occurrence.

"Who the fuck's this?" My brother's crisp voice drawled into the speaker.
 

How did he manage to sound so infuriatingly languorous all the time? I sometimes thought my brother was not a real person, but invented by a 1920s author of society novels, maybe Evelyn Waugh or F. Scott Fitzgerald. Right now, I pictured him with a cocktail glass in his hand, recumbent on a
chaise-longue
, resting his feet on a kneeling slave's spine.

"Hullo Ryan, it's Tish, I need to speak to Lilly."

"Are you out of your mind to call this early in the morning? Did you hear what just happened? Poppy Jude's in a bloody rage!"

"Poppy Jude's in a rage all the time. Get me Lilly, please."

"I can't bloody get you Lilly because you called the sat-phone and it's fixed to the wall and anyway, they're still asleep."

I growled. "They have a two year old child, they're most definitely not asleep. You're only too lazy to get your ass out of bed."

"No, actually, I just don't want to have Lilly
in
my bed. Why don't you call her on the mobile, for heaven's sake?"

"You're all out of range."

"Marvellous, isn't it? Nobody bothering me all day. Except you, of course. By the way, you're supposed to call our dear Papa and you're also supposed to call dear Jacob, if you can be bothered to leave the Lotus position for half an hour or so."

"Yes, I know, let me handle my own business. If you can't get me Lilly, get me your wife."

"As you just witnessed, she's not here anymore. Might have jumped ship. Threatens to do so repeatedly."

"Get. Her. BACK!"

"Why would I? She hates my guts right now. You know her, no reasoning with the beauty before breakfast."

"Because I need to talk to somebody, somebody intelligent, somebody with empathy, somebody with an understanding of the world, somebody one can actually communicate with, to make it short: I NEED TO TALK TO A WOMAN!"

"My, Titia, I haven't heard you as excited as this since you went off cocaine. Did you have a backslide, my dear?"

"No, of course not. I'm perfectly fine. I just need to talk to Lilly or Jude immediately."

"Haven't you made any girl pals in America yet? I thought everybody was so very open and so very welcoming over there and the people in Venice were far less prejudicial than us trashy Anglo-European types."

"Gaaah! I hate you. Crap... I just don't know what to do..."

"What is it. Got in trouble? Is the money gone? Did you break a fingernail in a handstand?" He sounded more sympathetic, though and I knew he was going to be less of an arse from now on. He was my big brother, after all.

"Nooo," I wailed.

"What is it. Is it a boy?"

"Yes," I sniffled.

"Oh dear. What did the bastard do? Do we need to send him a professional killer? Got to check if I still have one on speed-dial."

"No."

"Well, what is it? Has he compromised you? Robbed you of your virtue?"

"No, he hasn't. That's just it."

"What?"

"He didn't sleep with me."

"Huh?"

"I said, he didn't sleep with me!"

"Never?"

"Not tonight."

"Has he before?"

"No, I only met him today."

Pause.

Ryan cleared his throat. "Well, then of course he did not sleep with you, when should he have? Ah, yes, I forgot the time difference. It's still yesterday where you are."

"Right now. He just drove away in his stupid Cadillac."

"Let me get this right, hon. You went on a date with a guy you met today, he brought you home in his car and he did not go to bed with you and now you're upset."

I sniffled some more. "Yes. More or less."

"Did he kiss you?"

"Yes, but then he suddenly broke off and fled!"

Silence. Only a rambling noise. He had probably kicked the kneeling slave.

"Ryan?"

"Who's the happy groom? One of those actors slash models slash musicians who populate Venice in the hope of becoming a rich cougar celebrity's boy toy?"
 

"No, and I'm not a cougar, neither am I a celebrity."

"Rich, though."

"He doesn't know that."

"Who is it?"
 

"I won't tell you, he's just a normal man."
If one could call a multiple Olympic gold medallist normal...
"A normal asshole."