Love Struck (5 page)

Gloria strolled along the resort's
plaza, engulfed in the centre of the rows upon rows of stores, it was her
adored hot spot anywhere on the globe, it was her favourite place to pass some
time and find all sorts of gifts that took her fancy, it had everything a young
woman could want, and more to spoil herself. There wasn't a single plaza that
wasn't explored to the fullest capacity when she was around, and there never
would be. Plazas were meant to be seen, who knew what treasures were just
waiting to be found, she could not afford to miss out.

The same enthusiasm for shopping
plazas could not be said for Paulo, her boyfriend tagged along behind, he was
struggling to carry the amount of shopping bags she had assembled from her
spree, hauling it along was strenuous on his shoulders, they were giving in to
the weight, it was taking its toll on his weakening arms, he could not hold
onto the sagging bags forever, each step added more numbing pressure on his
reddening hands and blistering fingers.

“Nothing beats a little vacation
shopping.” Gloria was pleased with what she had purchased, she wasn't coming
home empty handed. She couldn't stand it when she did, it made her feel like
the day had been wasted. Today had not been the case, it had been the most
prosperous.

“A little?” retorted Paulo with a
touch of justified sarcasm in his outburst as he strived to keep a hold of the
multitude of bags housing all sorts of items clustered in an intense pile. “I
think you bought from every store.”

“Don't exaggerate.” laughed Gloria,
indifferent to the herculean task of carrying the bags “We haven't been to
every store. If we did that, we'd have nowhere to go next time.”

“Next time?” Paulo was taken aback by
her comment. “There's a next time?” It was bad enough slogging around her
luggage all afternoon, he didn't have it in him to do it again. The very idea
of having to go through the excruciating trial a second time overwhelmed him.

His balance faltered, he tumbled onto
the terra firma. Gloria heard the thudding sound of the her boyfriend and bags
crashing. She halted on the spot, turned to find Paulo and the bags sprawled on
the concrete.

“What happened?”

Paulo looked up at his girlfriend
standing over him. “I just tripped.”, he couldn't tell her the real reason that
Gloria and her addiction to shopping were responsible, he'd never have any
peace from her for the rest of his life.

Gloria shook her head, “Oh you.”, he
was so hopeless when it came to carrying her bags. She was contemplating on
suggesting he worked out, if he was in greater shape with some muscles on his
sleek body, he could hold her shopping with no problems, there would be less
accidents for him and less risk of her purchased goods getting smashed.

Paulo got himself up onto his feet.

“Are you hurt?” she asked, concerned
for his safety. Despite her love for indulging on goods, he was more important
than any superficial things in the world. She could buy them again, there would
never be another Paulo.

“Yeah, I'm fine.” he was grazed on
his knee and his elbows, it was nothing serious, Paulo would survive.

Gloria pulled him close to her, under
her nurturing and caring wings, she would aid her wounded hero, “Let me kiss
you better anyway, just to be sure.”

Paulo didn't have a problem with
that, he did not mind having a little fuss made about his minute injury from
his gorgeous nurse and her sexy healing. “Lay it on me, I could do with your
booster.”

Gloria planted a kiss on his
expecting lips, it energized him back to his full strength. His throbbing arms
and sore hands gripped by a heaviness were healed, the arm muscles could have
picked up held a tons of weight and his fingers could have held onto its
gravitational pull without any unwarranted crashes to earth, Newton's laws of
physics would not be triumphing over his appendages, they could handle it.

“How do you feel?” Gloria questioned
her handsome patient, judging by the bloom in his lively blue eyes, the
treatment was a huge success.

“Like a new man.” he gladly claimed.
For his girlfriend, he would hoist up the weighty obstacles and overcome them
with the greatest of ease like the great Hercules himself to his fair, divine
maiden.

“Once we get back to the hotel, you
deserve a reward for carrying those bags.” his maiden was presenting him a
token of her gratitude for his noble and heroic deed in her honour.

Paulo liked the sound of that, it was
an incentive to keep his eyes on the tantalizing prize and never waver from his
imperative objective of making his girlfriend happy.

She leaned close to his ear, what she
had in mind was not for eavesdropping, it was for his ears only. She whispered
with a low, racy voice, it send tingles throughout his male body, titillated by
her feminine words and promises that only a woman could do for a man. Paulo
loved what he heard.

Gloria leaned back, the personal
stuff had been said, there was no worry of prying ears now. “What do you say?”

“I say, what are we standing out here
for?” Paulo's calm stance was hit with a burst of energy. “Let's go.” he picked
up the bags with energetic zest.

There was no time to lose, every
second squandered would be less time to absorb themselves in the steamy and
sensual action taking the suite and hotel at a forceful velocity and never let
it go until the late hours of the night.

The staff and guests were in for
another noisy and adventurous day. Any hoping for a quiet and serene break
would have no such alleviation. Not until they checked out. Until then, nothing
and no one on earth could have stopped the throttle or cushion the force of
that youthful couple.

Gloria and Paulo ventured down the
side-walk across from the enticing beach on the other side calling out to
everyone who walked on by, beckoning them to frolic on its smooth bed of sand
and bathe in its cool vast seas. The youthful couple would be answering its
impulsive call and bask in its harmonic beauty in good time, at the moment they
were occupied by more prior commitments.

Paulo's casual eye turned to the
docks to observe the ever sparkling ocean, it always managed to catch his
attention and compel him to spend a minute or an hour of his time admiring its
pure sheen. It soothed him, drew him in with its mesmerizing waves. He would
have lost himself in its clear blue splendour had his eyes not spotted
something even more dazzling than the sea itself: Sara Sarracini.

“No way.” he muttered to himself, his
mouth hanging wide open upon speaking the last intoxicating syllable.

Paulo stopped in his tracks, he could
hardly believe what his eyes was seeing, the woman walking along the docks was
the one and only Sara Sarracini. He had marvelled at her beauty, studied every
last detail of her visage, knew her to the point of identifying her in  a
crowded scene crammed with other actors on the frame or distant in a long shot
without a second thought.

While she may have been older than
when she appeared in those movies, she was still the same woman he adored with
an aching passion in his rhythmical heart.

He recognized her flowing golden
locks of hair billowing softly in the ocean breeze, her eyes full of emotion
and expression breaming out her aquatic blue spheres, her cheekbones holding a
strong firmness that made her features stand out, her soft lips full of
tenderness widening out to form a breathtaking smile that could warm the hearts
of even the coldest, her body was as feminine and elegant as all those years
ago, she had preserved her sacred temple and kept it in a perfect condition.
She was beautiful as beauty was, everlasting throughout any day, month or year,
never to be lost in the ravages of time, beauty was exempt from it, as was Sara
Sarracini.

The more he looked at her, the more
he was enthralled by her spellbinding grace. No angel depicted in the greatest
murals on the earth could convey the true angelic vision that was her. He was
filled with a fuzzy solace, she was a blissfully beautiful and a blissfully
radiant angel of sheer enveloping divine light that reached out to the whole
universe, overshadowing all the stars, suns and moons while illuminating all of
the cosmos and its billions of planets with the true face of true heaven.

It was like a fantasy coming true,
his wish had been granted, after numerous excruciatingly long years of waiting
and dreaming of meeting his beloved Sara Sarracini. He had considered it the
impossible, the opportunity of coming face-to-face with a movie star like her
was reserved only to his imagination. It distressed him to think reality was so
restricted that he could not even speak to a woman on the same planet he
thought about every minute of every day.

It was not true, everything was
possible, even the improbable. The timing had to be right and the planets had
to be aligned, when the elements were in one's favour, it triggered miracles,
and there the individual would be treated to the reward of life's big surprise.
Patience paid off with riches the likes of which no one had ever perceived.

She was there, on the same island
resort, like a miracle, heaven sent for her biggest admirer throughout her
entire career. She had never met a fan like him, not until today.

Sara Sarracini would learn of Paulo's
existence in the world they shared, and remember him well for the rest of her
eventful lifetime.

The sensation of his dream made real
sent him in a state of shock, his hands lost their strong grip on the bags, and
once again, they crashed onto the ground.

Gloria stopped upon hearing the
cacophony strike twice, she rolled her eyes and sighed in a huff. “Not again,
what am I going to do with you?”

She turned around to see what mess
her boyfriend had caused this time. He may have managed to avoid breaking any
of her more fragile purchases previously, but no one dodged striking lightning
forever.

Her playful smile quickly changed to
a look of intrigue as Paulo overlooked the docks, his eyes staring in amazement.
She was halfway along the path, she had no idea she had been leaving him
behind. Whatever was out there, it had the soles of his shoes glued shut to the
concrete ground.

“Paulo?” she called out as she headed
to the idle statue in her boyfriend's clothing.

Gloria stood beside him, looked
closely at his face petrified like stone. “Hey, Paulo.”

He did not say a word to his
girlfriend, he was completely transfixed on the wondrous sight ahead.
Everything and every one else was muted and invisible to his eyes and ears.

“Earth to Paulo.” she said louder
into his ear hole, sending her sharp words down there to beat at his drums,
that would get his attention, no doubt, she figured.

Surprisingly it did not, Paulo still
did nothing. It was like he was temporarily outside his own body, roaming
around in an astral form while his physical shell was unoccupied for the time
being. All that was missing from him was a sign saying 'Back in five minutes'.

“Come in, Paulo.” Gloria increased
the volume in her voice to no avail.

He remained locked in his trance. She
was losing her patience with him. She could not stand being ignored, she
loathed it when he did not listen and respond to her vital words. She would get
a response from him if it killed her, or him.

“Paulo” she balled at the top of her
lungs, there was no possibility of him remaining entranced after that
ear-splitting outburst.

Surely enough, it worked wonders. The
deafening sudden boom shooting down his ears and through his body sent Paulo
almost jumping out of his own skin.

His neck whirred to the source of the
commotion: his fuming girlfriend Gloria. Her rising temper simmered at the fact
she was victorious, she had triumphantly put a full stop to his trance. The
drastic measures always did work the best.

“Nice to have you back.” Gloria
remarked with a hoarsely dry sarcasm. “What's got into you?”, she demanded an
answer, if he was ogling another woman who resembled Sara Sarracini, there
would be trouble and the entire island would know about it from here to eternity.

She was half right about one thing,
he was spellbound by another woman. The one and the only. Paulo could accept no
imitations when it came to the real Sara Sarracini. As she was about to
understand.

He looked over his shoulder to the
docks, directing her to see for herself. “It's her.” Paulo spoke in a slow,
dazed voice like he was deeply hypnotized. In a way, he was. The minute he laid
eyes on the illustrious diva in the flesh, Paulo was placed in her powerful spell
with no means of breaking free from it. Not that he had any intentions of
freeing himself from the starlet's enigmatic attraction, pulling him towards
her.

“Her?” asked Gloria with a grit of
the teeth, she could see a scene on the verge of being acted out. He was glued
to another woman, that was the last straw. Their little session in the suite
would be postponed permanently. When they returned to the hotel, the only noise
that would go on behind closed doors for the rest of the occupants to hear would
be a long heated argument about his obsession with Sara Sarracini and habit of
prying on any woman who had a passing resemblance to her.

She would bring
a case of tough love down on him, he would have to give up watching, reading
and thinking of his infernal diva, otherwise she would leave him and he could
spend his days obsessing over a woman he would never have, not in a million
years, he was out of her league, not to mention age group. Then with realizing
he was a fool to put an actress before his own girlfriend. He would regret his
mistake of taking Gloria for granted, come crawling back to her, begging for
her to take him back and she would refuse him several times to make him suffer
and pay the severe consequences for being an ungrateful boyfriend, and then
when he had endured the penalty of his crimes enough to the point of becoming a
broken shell of a man, she would consider having him back.

And then she would lay down her laws
that had to be upheld without any questions asked, otherwise she would leave
him in an instance and not take him back. There would be no third chance, one
wrong move and that was it. Gloria would have control over her boyfriend, he
would see she was the one holding the leash around his neck and like a loyal
dog, he would have to do everything she commanded.

Gloria was a control freak and was
content with that, she relished everything going her way since she was a little
girl, anything else could go down the highway for all she cared. Her parents
had to get used to it, so would Paulo.

For the present time, Paulo was
unaware of her dominating plans over him. He was far too invested in a more
pressing matter of importance to him. “Her.” he said, sharper and intense, it
was all he could say in his bewildered state.

“Who?” snapped Gloria, she was
growing tired of his nonsense, she had some disobedience she had to attend to.

“Sara Sarracini.” he brought himself
to speak her immortal name full of divinity, it sent his heart to rise to his
neck. Saying her name filled him with euphoria.

“Another look alike?” just as she
thought. Paulo would be in for an earful when they got back, there was no hope
for him. She would see to that.

“No.”

Gloria stalled to reply, he had to be
imagining things. She was starting to change her mind. Perhaps he needed
medical help to get him over his frenzied addiction to the actress.

“The real Sara.” his hand floated
outward, it almost had a mind of its own, he had no control of it, he was lost
in a dream, his body was acting on its own by pointing at the heavenly docks
where his angel was seen.

“Where?” sneered Gloria, looking at
the docks. She couldn't see his adored diva anywhere, as she was starting to
think, it was all in his deluded head. Some therapy to heal his mind from Sara
Sarracini would do him a huge favour, and herself. She had it up to the high
heavens with hearing endlessly about the obscure movie star.

“There.” he directed his finger at
the radiant beauty walking down the dock.

“The lady in the hat?” Gloria spotted
the so-called superstar. She didn't seem so super to her.

A charmed smile curved on Paulo's
adoring lips. “Yes. The lady in the hat.”

Gloria watched the supposed diva
sceptically, she wasn't at all convinced. “Are you sure?”

“Positive. I'd recognize her beauty
anywhere.”

Paulo's expression and tone in his
voice said one thing: he was smitten by her. “Amazing, isn't she?”

Gloria spotted it in a flash. Her
jealously returned with a vengeance, if it was the real Sara Sarracini, there
would be much more than a argument going on between them. She would have him
thrown out the window if he dared try anything. And it was not a bluff, her
parents knew how ferocious she could be when her temper was at its boiling
point.

Gloria looked back to Sara, her
biggest rival. “I guess.” she said unenthusiastically, she was trying her
hardest to hide her envy, lure him into a false sense of security then let him
have it back at the hotel.

“I can't believe she's here.” Paulo
could barely contain his excitement. “It's like a dream come true.”

Resentment burned fiercely in
Gloria's glaring eyes. It may have been a dream for him, but it was a nightmare
for her.

It was the last thing in the world
she wanted to have happen during their romantic summer holiday, having to deal
with a obsessed boyfriend focusing his energy on a superstar instead of his own
girlfriend.

Had she known Paulo was crazily
infatuated with a movie star when they met during a party in her room-mate's
flat, she may have not been so quick to jump into the sweet talking, charming
stud in the cool and stylish gear's arms after being introduced to by her
friend during a dance shared between the pair and into his bed in the same
night after the party ended at the late hours of three in the morning.

But what was done was done, she was
in love with him and would have to fight to keep him. She would let no one take
her stud from her, not even a diva. Nothing could be out of her controlling
hands, it was not probable.