When Dreams are Calling (14 page)

With him, I was the sexually-obsessed one, the
princess of madness
and change, the one who loved all men, made love with all, and still
remained a
virgin. I was the tree of all that is feminine and all that is not. I
was the traveler
who left home just to find him.

I was finding my own balance in the pure bliss
of temporarily loving
a man until exhaustion. But I knew that, for each chest we lean on,
each lips
we touch, each eyes we cherish, there is a price to pay. And I knew his
price.
I knew one day he would vanish, disappear, the same way he came:
unexpected. I just
hoped that time would come late, if ever.

In that last day, when pleasure would turn into
poison, all I wanted
was for us to make love again with the same passion the prey fights
against the
predator, knowing it’s her final act. At the end, before him opening
the bra of
another and me unbuttoning the shirt of another, I wanted to feel him
inside me
one more time, let ecstasy rule my world and then I could let it all
go.

That last time came at Uluru.

Dora’s
Journal Notes

• Feel the
  Lust
  ,
  get
  Lost
  in it, hope it will
  Last.
  
• If sometimes less
  is more, there are
  times when more is better.
  
• Lust alone cannot
  sustain a
  relationship, but you need it in order to start one.
  
• When love pales,
  break free before
  hates sneaks in.
  

23
Uluru: A Trip to Australia's Red Center

When
in Trouble scream and shout,

Don’t
be shy, let it all out,

But
if Trouble screams at you,

Run
as far as Uluru!

If you never
dreamt of traveling to Australia, then you’re not dreaming properly.
But, if
you did, probably the first place that comes to mind is Uluru.

I wanted to see Uluru though the eyes of an
Aussie, my Aussie, him.

We arrived in Alice Springs in May, late at
night, a few days before
his birthday. We were not impressed.

“Wow! That’s a small city, more like a village
really.”

“Yes, it’s going to be a bit difficult to get
lost in it, even for
us,” I joked, thinking of our long history of incidents.

“Want to bet?”

“No, I don’t!”

“Too late! I cannot seem to find the hotel. In
case you didn’t
notice, we’ve been driving in circles for quite a while.”

“Were we?” I said, surprised.

He looked at me, I looked at him, and we both
started to laugh. Then,
he assured me:

“It’s just us, baby. We’ll make it till dawn.”

In the morning, things got a little bit clearer
and we soon realized
that in Alice Springs all the streets lead to a big main one where you can
find
everything and everyone: the grocery store, the police, the hospital,
the post
office, the lawyers, the homeless, the tourists, the residents. Some
will say it’s
quite boring. But, we found it quite charming in all its simplicity.
And I
believe another two thousand Americans who choose to call Alice Springs
their
home will agree with me.

After having our breakfast in a barred
restaurant preventing the Aboriginals
from breaking in during the night, we left for Kings Canyon.

With only one main dirt road and desert all
around us, this time we
were on the right track. Hopefully…

All the way, it was just us, the red dirt, and
the radio. No worries
in the world, no clouds in the sky, and no cars passing by for miles
and miles.
 

When we arrived at the Kings Canyon Resort, it
was pouring rain. The
locals were happy, saying they didn’t see that much rain in years. We
spent the
first two days inside waiting for the rain to stop. On the third
day we
awoke to beautiful sunshine streaming in through our French bedroom
window.

“Happy Birthday, Stallion!” I said kissing him
softly. “Congratulations,
you made it another year! So, how do you feel? Wiser, older, or just
both?”

“None. Just a bit exhausted after two days with
you in bed!”

“Lucky, ungrateful bastard!”

“Just speaking the truth…”

“Let this be your only complaint for the next
year! But for now,
let’s make this day one to remember! We’ll go for a hike at the Rim
Walk at Kings Canyon, watch the sunset over the red cliffs, have a
lovely dinner, and as for the
rest, let’s just wait and see how good of a boy you are! So, get ready!
We are
leaving in ten minutes. And don’t forget: slip, slop, slap!”

“Yes, sir! Sorry, I meant Madam! Miss Dora!
Baby! My baby!” he exclaimed
all naked, bowing down before me like a clown.

“You may raise now, and please get dressed.
Your lady is waiting.”

Despite starting with a heart attack-inducing
hill, the walk was one
of the most beautiful trails I’ve ever been to: sandstone domes, rocks
dropping
sharply three hundred meters, crevices and bizarre animal-shaped
mounds, were
all a sight to behold. It was hard to decide whether to stop in awe or
to
continue exploring, carried by the magic of the place.

Then, hidden in the middle of huge sandstone
cliff, we found the
Garden of Eden, a spectacular oasis where the natural spring waterhole
was
surrounded by greenery no one would expect to see amongst such a rocky
and
harsh landscape. We were blown away by the beauty of it all.

“Let’s jump in!” he said enthusiastically.

“The water is freezing. I’m not jumping!”

“I’ll warm you up. You know I always do. I’m a
hottie!”

And before I could respond, he took off first
his T-shirt, then his
shorts, his boxers, and naked in all his splendor, jumped into the
water, screaming:

“Come on, gorgeous! Splish-splash,
splish-splash!”

“Crazy guy!” I jumped screaming. 

Completely naked in the deep blue cold water,
surrounded by hundreds
of meters high red cliffs, ferns, and palm trees, I forgot who I was
and time
stood still. For a moment, I was Eve embraced by Adam in the Garden of
Eden. It
was a surreal feeling.

On our way back, as darkness fell, we stopped
and looked at the sky.
From time to time, you could see shooting stars, more than anyone could
ever
count. In the pitch dark, freezing cold temperatures, in complete
silence, we
made love. And for the second time that day, the time stood still.

Back at the resort, we went for dinner at the
local restaurant.

“So, what are you going to have for dinner on
your birthday?”

“A kangaroo steak or even two after such a day!”

But, before we could decide, the playing band’s
singer shouted,
pointing at us:

“This song is dedicated to the lovely couple
over there.”

Then, she asked him:

“Is she your wife?”

“Yes, we’re on our honeymoon,” he responded,
laughing.

“I know someone will get lucky tonight,”
she went.

Everyone laughed looking at us with even more
interest than before.

“Your wife is very beautiful. You’d better take
good care of her,
before someone else does.”

And then, the
song came:
Give me a home
among the gum trees…

He was right; it felt like a perfect day of a
perfect, unreal
honeymoon. Unfortunately or who knows, maybe fortunately, it was not.
Everyone
sang happy birthday to him and there, in the middle of nowhere, we
danced,
surrounded by a big happy group of French tourists singing along.

Slowly but surely the beauty of the outback
Australia and its spirit was catching up with both of us.

“You’re drunk,” I said to him back in the room.

“Love drunk,
you mean. I want you! I want
you! I want you!  Do you hear me? Tonight, I want to fall
asleep inside you.”

“The last
bit…can we change it into
something a little bit more exciting than falling asleep?”

“How many times
did I fall asleep
inside
you baby? Never! I cannot even fall asleep
beside
you! You are a
devious, mischievous, sexy creature who likes to squeeze every drop of
energy I
have in the most pleasant way a man can dream of! And I want you so
badly!”

“I’m all yours,
Stallion!”

“Do you think
we’ll always be together?” I
asked him just before drifting off to slumberland.

“Who cares?
Maybe yes, maybe not.”

“How I love
your sincerity!” I said,
feeling suddenly mournful. Why he couldn’t say
I love you and
nothing will
change that. We’ll always be together?
What was so damn hard?
Why we
couldn’t end a dream day in a dreamy manner? My heart sank.

“And how I love
your serious tone, little
planner!” he went on, almost asleep.  

The next day we drove to Uluru, the famous
Australian icon. More
majestic than one could imagine, more beautiful than all the postcards
in the
world show it, Uluru was spectacular. Seeing Uluru was a long time wish
coming
true.

Around the base, we could see the sacred caves
where the Aboriginals
lived and prepared for the ceremonies. Unfortunately, the walk was along
the bush,
in full sun, and we were entirely at the mercy of millions of flies.

“That’s why you’re flies, to fly, not to sit on
top of my nose!” I
screamed, annoyed.

“The flies like you, baby!”

“You like me too and you’re not always on top
of me.”

“Now tell me that’s not a shame!”

“Ha! Plus, I'm afraid they like everyone! If
we stopped for a few
minutes, we’d be covered in them in no time!”

“Welcome to Central Australia. Human
population: sixty thousand; fly
population: a few billions, and still counting.”

We watched the sun going down on this
magnificent three hundred and
forty eight meters rock, higher than Tour Eiffel, on one of the
watching
platforms, with a beer in our hands. It was spectacular: the
reddish-brown
monolith surrounded by red dirt changed its color from flaming red to
orange
and slowly into purple. We felt blessed to be there.

“All my life I chased time just so I could see
places like this one.
All unique in their own right, all having a story of their own, all
beautiful
and waiting to be discovered layer by layer. Some places stroked me
with their
beauty, like Queensland. Others, like Uluru, challenged my mind, my
senses and
waited to be found, understood and ultimately loved.”

“Tomorrow, when we’ll go back home, we’ll miss
it,” he said and I
could sense both fear and regret in his voice.

“Yes, I’ll definitely miss this land where the
dingoes roam freely
and the wild brumbies reinvent the notion of freedom.”

“I’ll miss the red sticking dirt, the
multi-colored, layered mineral
ochre pits, the Gouldian Finch hidden in the bush, and gum trees.”

“There is so much you can hear in the silence.
So much you can see
in the dust. There is so much more than meets the eyes in this arid
desert.”

“We’ll come back.”

“Perhaps,” I said softly.

My short trip to Central Australia became a
reminder that true
beauty can be found even in the most arid and unwelcoming places and
that
attaining true happiness is entirely within our power no matter if we
are laying
on a beach in Hawaii, in an expensive resort in Tahiti, or just hiking
the
Kings Canyon and having a simple dinner at a local pub.

I broke up with him at Uluru. Back then, he did
not know that. Why
should he have known? I did not want to give a tragic endnote to a
beautiful
relationship. Our story together ended as it should have: at midnight,
passionately making love in a huge indoor spa, intoxicated with love,
champagne
and lust and surrounded by red rocks. Uluru was my goodbye gift for
him. 

Dora’s
Journal Notes

• The best things in
  life are free, they
  happen when you least expect them to, and can be found in the most
  unusual
  places.
  
• Let men know you
  from neck down and you
  will be safe from the neck up.
  
• Without passion,
  making love is a
  simple exercise to maintain possession of an already dead relationship.
  

24
Because it Has to Feel Right

Each
story has to have an end,

It’s
useless otherwise to pretend.

If
it is merry or a bit sad,

It’s
pointless if the story is bad.

Enjoy
the tale, make it matter,

And
if it’s love, it’s all the better!

“Are you out of
your mind? What’s wrong with you, girl? Why do you want to leave him?
He’s a
stallion, for God’s sake!” Robert asked me half serious, half joking.

“Something doesn’t feel right.”

“Here she goes again: choosy, choosy…”

“You can call me choosy, spoiled, fussy, picky,
or whatever. And you
can be right. But this won’t change how I feel. And we have to go with
what we
feel, not with what we wish we would feel or even worse with what
others think we
should feel.”

“Can you imagine? As we speak, millions of
people are having sex, thousands
of them kiss and hundreds of them cuddle. And what am I doing? I am
talkin’.
Sure, that’s nice too. But only ‘cause I’m talkin’ to you. It’s not
only that
something doesn’t feel right, something is definitely not right.”

“You’ll get your turn.”

“If each time I’ll have to wait that long, I’d
better learn how to cut
the line. But when I’ll get it, trust me, I won’t complain
something
doesn’t
feel right,
like you do now, missy,” he said, laughing.

“Sure, make fun of me now.”

“He went to great lengths to charm you,” he
teased me.

“Great lengths indeed,” I responded cracking a
smile.

“You didn’t lose your sense of humor, sweetie.
Now, what do you mean
it doesn’t feel right? You gotta have some logical reasons.”

“No, I don’t have to have logical reasons. You
don’t stay in a
relationship because logically speaking it makes perfect sense. You
stay
because you
feel
it’s the right thing for you. The
relationships based
only on logical reasons are the first ones to turn sour. Why is that?”

“Because she’s crazy. Women are all a bit
crazy.”

“Maybe…but, most likely, it’s because something
is missing and has
been missing ever since the beginning. But, they denied it. They chose
to
listen to those logical reasons. It really doesn’t matter what it is.
It could
be anything.”

“I bet this is how she thinks. After a while,
all women look for
trouble.”

“Sure… When I get married I want to get married
for life. And to
have a chance for this to happen, I want to give it my best shot.”

“And how do you propose to do that?”

“For a start, I’m not going to walk around with
a qualities check
list he must have and start ticking them off one by one. Handsome? OK.
Good
family? OK. Stable? OK. And, after adding and subtracting, say the
magic word: sold.
If I were to do that, Stallion would be my guy.”

“A woman without a hidden agenda? Wow! That’s
somethin’!”

“Thanks for the compliment, Robert,” I said,
feeling mocked.

“Now, don’t flip out. You’re part of the nice
but still crazy ones, the
ones with no hidden agendas, but with no logical reasons either. Go on,
you
have my full attention.”

“His bank account, his mood and even
his
pride and glory
could
go up and down.”

“I’m afraid if you leave him, you might be the
one going up and
down, thinkin’ of him going up and down on you. But if you stay…Oh, if
you stay,
don’t worry, his challenge with you will always be, the same that it’s
now: to
go down, not up.”

“Envious?”

“You bet. Me and another few million men on the
planet. But please,
continue.”

“His eyes will get wrinkles and I’ll get both
wrinkles and
cellulite. What’s going to happen then?”

“A detox clinic and some Botox?”

“You miss the point. What I’m trying to say is
that all those logical
reasons for which you stay with someone now, might change over time. On
the
other hand, if it feels right, you’ll always be there, next to him, no
matter
the tide.”

“That’s noble of you!”

“I’ve been with rich, well-off, and just
regular guys, handsome or just
plain, some were more my friends than my lovers, like you are, others
were more
my lovers than my friends, like Stallion is.”

“And none of them felt right.”

“Exactly. You don’t know the winning
combination. But the only way
to find it out is to trust your gut feeling and go with the flow; have
patience, confidence rather than ticking off lists; more than anything
else, have
the courage to keep looking.”

“Don’t you forget something? What if time is
running out? You’re getting
older, you might wanna settle down, make it easy on yourself.”

“That’s like asking someone if they want to
have a long but
monotonous life or a short spicy one that feels right for them. I don’t
think
there is a universal answer to this question. But whatever answer we
decide to
give, we have to feel comfortable with it. This should be our only
concern.”

“And you gave your own answer. You want someone
who just feels right,
even if this will mean you’ll look for him your whole life, eh?”

“Yes. That’s right. Remember? I’m a dream
chaser. I’m not a comfort
lover. And I know, like with any other dream, if we don’t give up too
soon or
too fast, it will come true. When it will feel right, I will know I
found my
man. The rest will be just details.”

“Wow! Even his best huge ‘friend’ will be just
a minor detail?”

“Even he. True love beside lust should also
bring me confidence in
the future, peace of mind, and a sense of belonging. That ‘one and
only’ will
not only make me feel dizzy with desire, but will also be someone I can
rely
on, trust, someone who will want to be part of the team called ‘Us.’
Stallion
doesn’t want that.”

“So size doesn’t matter after all. Yay! That’s
a relief!”

“No, it doesn’t. But, ask me again after a few
months of not being
with him. I might reconsider.”

We laughed.

“A stallion is always in high demand, sweetie.
He’ll be snapped from
the market as soon as you set him free. Don’t tell me I didn’t warn
you.”

“It’s a free market…”

“And too damn volatile…” Robert added.

Dora’s
Journal Notes
 

• The more you
  please others, the less you
  will please yourself.
  
• If you can always
  see when a man
  wants sex, you can always hear when a woman doesn’t.
  
• Isn't it ironic that with a stallion you cannot have a stable relationship?