The One - No one said it would be easy (13 page)

Not bloody likely! Apparently, what was needed now was my social-workerly best-encouragement talent. Instead of saying embarrassing things, I kept quiet and snuggled up to him. And stroked him, gently. So, there was my teen dreamboat, lying in my arms, cuddling me like a little boy. Quite sweet, really. But definitely not part of my script for tonight! Where was the cool seductive guy from the wine bar? Where was the guy who’d just now had ripped my clothes off and breathed his hot breath all over my body? The guy who’d held me hard, who’d pulled my hair, who’d touched and kissed me in exactly the way that was responsible for the deluge between my legs that could pass for the Nile Delta? So was this supposed to be it? No way!
And so I started a new attempt at getting him going again. I slithered down and took up the good work with my mouth. Usually, this works every time. I always wonder what men actually find hotter – blowjob or in-and-out? What would a guy choose if he was asked? Number Thirteen, in any event, enjoyed what I was getting up to down there. However, the way he communicated his pleasure was absolutely not to my liking. What the hell was the matter with him all of a sudden? He didn’t simply groan or mutter “whoa that’s sooo hot” like your average guy would, when his Johnson is subjected to oral attention of the sexual kind. No – Number Thirteen completely freaked out. But in a way that was so totally crackers that I almost burst out laughing, even though I really felt more like crying. Number Thirteen yowled and yipped like a puppy left behind on the moon – full blast and extremely loud! At the same time he jerked about in a bizarre manner and threw himself from side to side as though he’d been bitten by a rabid fox. In-between he shrieked – staccato fashion – “oh-that’s-hot-hot-hot-hot” sounding like Beavis & Butt-Head. Every so often he omitted a high-pitched “ooo-eee-ooo-eee-ooo-eee” straight out of Sesame Street. Unbelievable! Regarding my idea of the least erotic screen characters ever, Beavis & Butt-Head and the cast of Sesame Street would be topping the list, and now I had the lot of them right here in my bed, hidden within the body of an alleged sex-god, whom I had paid homage to much too early, and much too much. Wonderful!   

The performance rendered by Number Thirteen was so ridiculous that I actually felt embarrassed. The walls were paper-thin, you could hear people coughing next-door, and I could well imagine how entertaining this was for my neighbors! I just could not believe my bad luck – there had been none of this yowling and whining and twitching in my best-sex-in-a-lifetime fantasy! I just wanted it to be over. As he was back in working order now, I mounted him, successfully this time, and after a few up-and-downs he finally came. I’d held his mouth shut, mercilessly and rigorously. It wouldn’t have taken much more for me to put a pillow over his face – his bizarre sound effects were really unbearable. In addition to the yowling and yipping, he was now grunting, too. I was so turned off, I couldn’t be bothered trying to come. Frankly, I had no intention of giving him one of my orgasms – he really hadn’t deserved it!

Dawn was breaking and Number Thirteen had to rush to get to his plane on time. He thanked me for the wonderful night, we kissed, and he was gone. Reality check: that’s that! The night of passion with the idol of my adolescent years. Quelle grande catastrophe, I thought, my brain cells having acquired quite a habit of thinking in French. How can something that starts up so brilliantly end in such a disaster? I was overcome by a deep sadness. I didn’t regret the night at all, no way, but I was just so infinitely sorry that my teen dream guy, whom I had elevated to sex-bomb status (somewhat prematurely!), had turned out to be a howler-yowler who’d made a right mess of my best-sex-ever expectation! In spite of it all I couldn’t help a great big grin spreading across my face: after all, I’d finally been able to push my teen idol off his pedestal – the very pedestal I’d worshipped right up until tonight. Over and done with! And good riddance!

However, as it turned out, things weren’t quite over and done with quite yet – there was a rather unpleasant epilog. Time passed and I heard nothing from Number Thirteen. The matter was over with for me, and of course I didn’t mention it to my boyfriend. If you cheat and confess, you only have yourself to blame! In brief: the little adventure with Number Thirteen ended in disaster. Number Thirteen couldn’t keep his yowling mouth shut and blabbed about it back home. Somehow the news made its way across the big pond all the way to L.A. And from there, all the way back to me in Bordeaux. Delivered by my boyfriend. The shit, as they say, had hit the fan. Well and truly! I picked up the phone, not a clue that anything was amiss, purred “hallo sweetie” and pow – the hammering started.

Sweat poured out of every one of my pores. No time to come up with any plausible lies. I felt like throwing up. I was furious and horrified at the same time – how did he know? Panic engulfed me, was he going to dump me now? He sounded unbelievably cold, I’ve never heard him like that. And of course, everything he said was absolutely right. He was disappointed, hurt, he’d never have thought I’d do this, and especially with THAT guy, and so on and so forth. I couldn’t say anything. And what could I possibly have said? I put the phone down. And cried. From one second to the next, the rug had just been pulled out from under me. Yes, it was my own fault, I’d brought it all on myself and without a doubt, no compassion will be flowing my way. I rang Number Thirteen and screamed at him so loudly that I’m sure his ears still ache to this day. We had agreed that no one should ever know what we did. Meekly, he admitted that it had just slipped out. Just slipped out?!!! I slammed the receiver down. But never mind how mad I got, it didn’t matter – it was too late, the cat was out of the bag.
My boyfriend wanted nothing to do with me anymore. I cried my heart out, day and night. And it was all my own fault. When in actual fact, it should have been me who was in a huff, feeling most neglected by my boyfriend who was living it up in L.A. He should have fought for me. And now it was up to me to try and straighten this goddamn mess out again. I wrote to him, long emails, trying to explain. But what’s to explain when the end result still is that some guy has stuck his willy into your girlfriend. The only remaining option was to beg his forgiveness. Because, regardless of how messed up things were between us, I didn’t want to lose him under any circumstances. And since it was several months before we’d meet again in Britishy, and there was no way I could wait that long, my only chance was this: I had to fly out to see him, never mind the cost. I scraped together all my money (of which there wasn’t a lot) and borrowed from friends, all of whom were torn between compassion and it’s-your-own-fault. I got in touch with my boyfriend’s roommates and, luckily, they were on my side.

Everybody there had kept quiet and so, when I finally stood in front of him after a veritable Odyssey, his jaw practically hit the ground. The surprise was so great that suddenly nothing else mattered. We fell into each other’s arms, sobbing and crying. What followed were several wonderful days in L.A. and suddenly we were closer than we had been in a very long time. I was so happy that I hadn’t lost my Number Ten after all, and I could barely wait for us to be back together in Britishy. There was of course some hard talking, but Number Ten forgave me. And I swore that I would never mess up again, this time for real, absolutely really for real! Honest!  

Number Fourteen: Princess for a summer

I shouldn’t swear, really. Had I sworn by the life of my grand-aunt, she’d be dead by now. Luckily though, I have no grandaunt. I was simply faithful to myself and to my way of being. Which is exactly why I wasn’t faithful. My study year abroad, in the land of wine and stick-shaped white bread, was coming to an end. I needed to gain some more practical experience but, by now, was quite sick of the silly French, which is why I added a few months at a small advertising agency in Luxembourg. In the meantime, Number Ten, my boyfriend, had returned to Britishy and we’d be able to see each other every weekend. I was very much looking forward to this and was so pleased that an end to the long period of relationship starvation was finally in sight.

I enjoyed Luxembourg very much. People there were nothing like the crotchety, cagey, idealistic and slightly untidy Southern French. The inhabitants of Luxembourg were cosmopolitan, charming and open-minded. I loved working in the advertising agency and all in all I was much happier and much more content than I’d been in Bordeaux. A friend from university wrote to tell me he’d spent time in Luxembourg and put me in touch with a very good friend of his, who would surely be happy to show me the tourist trail around the little Duchy. Not a wise move by my friend from university! Because the oh so helpful tourist guide became – you guessed it! – Number Fourteen. My friend gave me Number Fourteen’s email address and told Number Fourteen about me, presumably something like, “hey mate, there’s this nice new British girl in town, just keep an eye on her”. I wasn’t all that keen to be ferried around Luxembourg by some stranger. But my good friend from university had gone to all this trouble, and I didn’t want to be ungrateful. And so I did him the favor of writing a brief mail to the unknown Luxembourger. The friend from university was quite a handsome and cool sweetie himself and I assumed that his Luxembourg friend was unlikely to be the last of the local imbeciles.  

My new and as yet unknown tourist guide replied to my email by return and he was so sweet and charming that my interest in this stranger suddenly escalated somewhat. He wrote (in French) that he was a noble knight, that his entourage had already announced that a British princess was in town, who was somewhat lost and in urgent need of a guide, and that he felt it was his duty to rush to her and acquaint her with the unknown territory. Was that romantic or what? We girlies may strut around tough as hell, but when it comes right down to it, we’re really all hopelessly in love with pretending to be fairytale princesses holding our starry scepter and wearing pink flouncy dresses and glittery things. If I weren’t so embarrassed by it, I’d truly buy all the Princess Lillifee stuff ever made. I was also somewhat intrigued by the stranger’s name. My friend only knew his first name and his email address didn’t give anything much away, either. But his signature consisted of a very long name, French, with a “de” and a place name in it, and it seemed awfully posh, chic and aristocratic. I kept whispering this mysterious name to myself; I was extremely impressed. What’s in a name – indeed! There’s LOTS in a name! Curious as I was, I googled this particular name and guess what – there were quite a few hits. Amongst other things, I found out that the noble knight owned and ran an Internet-based delicatessen, that he frequented the illustrious circles of Luxembourg high society – probably was part of it – and I found out what he looked like.

Yes – from somewhere in the depths of the Worldwide Web, I dredged up a photo. He was handsome. In fact, he really quite looked like a member of the polo-shirted elite. And no, I didn’t turn my nose up like I’d normally do – I was actually very pleased. Well let’s face it – we love those guys! He had blond hair, a snooty snobbish golfer’s haircut with a cute parting, and blue eyes. Absolutely my kind of guy. A few butterflies started up in my stomach. Somewhat taken aback by this physiological reaction, I told myself that it is entirely normal to find out all you can about some stranger before you meet up with him. Yeah, right!   

The noble knight and I sent a few more funny princess-type emails back and forth and arranged to meet a few days later. I was excited. Much more excited than I should have been, given my relationship status. I was a few minutes late, on purpose. It would have been unbearable to be standing there, waiting, while he’d have had the opportunity to study me at his leisure without me even knowing. I recognized him immediately. First reaction: disenchantment. The result of way too much advance idolization, yet again. He was much shorter than I’d thought and at first impression nowhere near as handsome as his photo had suggested.

He seemed quite shy and excited, with not a trace of the authority and forcefulness his emails had suggested. His voice, too, was nothing like I’d expected it to be, it was a tad too soft for a guy. Oh great, I thought, disappointedly. Super-snob was in fact super-shy. Which had never been my thing, and I proceeded to make fun of him when I realized how out of his depth he was with the situation, and with me and my assured and charming behavior. Yes I know it’s mean but it’s also really good fun! And besides, I was very much relieved because that had put paid to any untoward thoughts and desires. Or so I assumed!

My tourist guide and I went to a very quaint, very rustic and very dimly lit restaurant. Amazingly, Number Fourteen regained his composure and relaxed more and more. I mellowed, too, and since after all those months in France I was perfectly fluent in French we were soon chatting as though we’d known each other forever. Wow, I thought, I’m talking about all and sundry in a foreign language and for the first time ever I didn’t have to search for terms and sentences, they were simply just there, fully formed. I was so delighted, I just couldn’t stop talking! We drank fruity beer from neighboring Belgium and since beer is scientifically proven to – after consuming a certain amount of it – make your companion suddenly appear decidedly more attractive, I suddenly decided that the noble knight was after all rather cute, despite the sobering reaction at first sight.

Later, the nobleman drove me home. In an Opel Corsa. How very uncool. I thanked him for the nice evening and flitted out of the car. He asked whether I’d like to accompany him to a party at the weekend, it would be out in the sticks and require an overnight stay. Sounded like an adventure. Sure I’d like to! Grinning, I disappeared into the house. Who knows – after all those miserable and boring months in France, I might actually have a really exciting time in this tiny country! Only one small problem: I was supposed to spend the weekend in Britishy with my boyfriend. I solved this by lying to him. Again. And I must say, I was getting exceedingly good at this. My excuse was that I had to work. He was disappointed. And I was relieved to find how easy it still was to twist your world around to suit your every requirement.

The day after our first date, I received another very cute email from Number Fourteen. How stunned he was that the British princess was so bubbly and witty and full of energy, and how pretty she was, and how nice the evening had been, and so on. I blushed, I flushed, and I grinned most stupendously, like the Cheshire Cat. I appeared to have no control about my physiological reactions to this email. My facial expression disintegrated and my pores opened wide. Just like that. And I thought I could see a rainbow, somewhere out there. And were those violins I could hear just then? Damn and blast! No! Falling in love with a Luxembourg snob is not exactly part of my current life plan, I reminded myself.

But he had other ideas. The party turned out to be a rather illustrious gathering of well-mannered and good-looking young people from Luxemburg and Belgium’s best families. How on earth did I end up here, I kept thinking. Everything seemed so surreal. I pretended to belong and, to be fair, they made it very easy for me. All the young ladies and gentlemen were very friendly and seemed really interested in me. They wanted to know who I was, where I came from, what I did, how I knew Number Fourteen, and so on and so forth. And me, proud as anything to be able to hold a dinner conversation in perfect French, I chatted happily and volubly. I felt massively flattered to be so popular, felt quite cosmopolitan and kind of elitist. Nobody believed that Number Fourteen and I had only just met a few days ago, everyone said how close and comfortable we seemed to be with each other. I could see how Number Fourteen loved the kudos he received from his mates for bringing me, his little British mascot, to the party. And as for me, I adored all the unaccustomed attention, and also the unexpected insight into the life of Europe’s young elite.

I had no idea what plans Number Fourteen had concerning the approaching overnight stay – I simply let it all unfold. That’s pretty much what I did throughout this Luxembourg summer, letting it all just happen, which was an absolutely exceptional state of affairs for me. I was allowed to be a princess, and I loved it! When the party finished, Number Fourteen and I drove off. I had no idea where to. I had assumed we’d end up on some air mattress at the party host’s house. I couldn’t have been more wrong! We kept driving through the dark night and suddenly arrived at a ginormous gated entrance. Number Fourteen pushed a few buttons and the gate opened. You couldn’t see that much in the dark but it looked to me like a huge park. “Where one earth are we?” I asked, astonished. “We’ll stay the night at my grandparents’,” Number Fourteen stated matter-of-factly, like it was entirely normal to have your grandparents lording it in a park.

Holy shit, I thought, panicked. When, after a drive through the landscaped park that lasted forever, we finally reached the house, I was speechless. This wasn’t a house. It was an estate! A veritable Lord-of-the-Manor type estate, the likes of which I had never seen before. A mixture of an English stately home and a castle. I felt like I’d stepped onto the set of a British costume drama. Number Fourteen took me to my room. Aha, I thought with some relief. At least he doesn’t expect us to spend the night together in his room, like a gentleman, which saves me from having to come up with awkward excuses. What little I could surmise about the interior of the house in the dark was film set material, too. Dark wood, creaking stairs, heavy carpets everywhere and huge oil paintings that wouldn’t have been out of place at the Court of Louis XIV. My room was small and modest, a little bed with flowery bedding. Everything was laid out for me. My noble knight took his leave, gallantly – kiss-kiss left and right. Of course nothing happened that night – it would have been impossible in that place, severe and stately as it was.

Waking up the next morning: utter confusion. “Where am I?” Looking around the small guestroom with its nineteenth century style furniture, rubbing my eyes while memories of the massive gated entrance and the estate in the park came bouncing back into my brain, jumping up and looking out the window. My jaw hit the floor. The sun was shining and my tired eyes could barely believe what they saw. Forests, green pastures, horses, a state-of-the-art landscaped park, grey-pebbled pathways, perfectly clipped box trees, elegant old luxury cars. Wicked, I whispered to myself. I could hear noise from somewhere in the house, I was quite unsure what to do. Should I get up? Was there anyone about? If yes, who? What should I say? Was Number Fourteen awake yet? I got dressed and walked – no, strode! – down the stairs, aiming for the kitchen-type noises. Couldn’t see Number Fourteen anywhere. I looked around in utter amazement. It hadn’t all been some weird dream – I really was in a small castle. In the kitchen I ran into the lady of the house, Number Fourteen’s grandmother. She was very nice and also very discreet. She wasn’t sure who I was in relation to her grandson; apparently it was a rare event to have friends of grandchildren come to stay. Which I suppose is quite normal. So what do unfamiliar females do when thrown together by circumstance? They get busy in the kitchen! A feast was being prepared and I helped wherever I could. At least I could make myself useful instead of just hanging around.

At long last Number Fourteen turned up. He grabbed a hold of me and pulled me out into the lush gardens. And out there he sat – oh cliché of clichés – the Lord of the Manor. Number Fourteen introduced me and said a polite “good morning” and just about managed to refrain from curtsying, such was the power that still emanated from this old gentleman. He looked me over suspiciously with his dark eyes as though he could tell that his grandson would do better to leave well alone. What do you say at moments like this? The old guy didn’t look like he would be impressed by chatty girlie talk. Number Fourteen defused the embarrassing silence by proposing a walk before lunch. Oh yes please – anything to get away from this father of all grandfathers and his skeptical attitude and apparent apathy towards me!

And now we were walking through the little park. We sat in the grass on a secluded little hill and let the summer sun warm our bellies. We talked and talked, we just didn’t run out of things to say. By the bright light of the sun I noticed how amazingly blue this young man’s eyes were. I’ve always been a sucker for blue eyes. I looked at him and suddenly more and more of those naughty thoughts popped into my dirty little head. What might it be like to kiss him? What might it be like to – right here, right now - ?? I looked at him some more while he kept talking, and I thought his hairy lower arms were incredibly sexy. Which I found bemusing since I’d never been keen on hirsute men before. But suddenly I was massively attracted by this manly peltiness. Naturally, I didn’t let on about these musings. But there was a definite electrical charge in the air between us. And I realized that he was looking at me far longer than appropriate, and that he had similar thoughts. We were lying next to each other in the grass, and every so often our arms would touch. These tiny inconspicuous touches set off veritable flashes of desire through the entire body.