man who had sat beside me.
I knew that
later you told me that you carefully followed me as I tried to make
my escape from you, but I can not tell you how shocked I was to see
you, coffee in your hand, walking towards me. How the excitement
that had begun to subside in my chest began to gather pace again,
as you planted your cup on the table and asked if I minded if you
sat beside me.
Strange this‚
Freddie, but it neither seemed arrogant of you, or forward, or even
audacious that you should approach me, a stranger in an empty room
and ask if you could sit beside her. It seemed such an unaffected
action, so natural. Your voice was calm, the expression on your
face placid.
"Please do," I
answered. Oh please do! Please come into my life, make me wet
between the legs, show me my true self, and turn my world upside
down. I knew then, I suppose, the moment that you sat beside me
that my world had changed irrevocable, that nothing was ever going
to be the same again.
I must have
looked so English to you as I pretended to read my newspaper and
sip on my coffee, the restrained upper-lipness of it all, as my cup
rattled onto my saucer. I was waiting, waiting for your advance,
waiting, perhaps even then for my future, for my new life to
begin.
"It's a
beautiful work," you said interrupting me, smiling, "the cartoon,
Leonardo, such beauty, such tranquillity. Every time I see it, I
feel overwhelmed. There is something about Leonardo's work that is
so exquisitely beautiful, that stands at the pinnacle of all the
best that we can achieve, and in that there is something almost
sad, tragic..."
From another
man it might have sounded calculated, or worse, pretentious, but
not from you, Freddie. There never seemed anything contrived about
you, and you knew that you were intelligent enough not to have to
show off about it. As you spoke, your piercing eyes stared into
mine, burned into me with their dark intensity.
"Sorry, excuse
me, my name's Freddie."
Freddie! What
an inappropriate name for you! When I thought about Freddies, I
thought about retired gardeners, those backbone of England types
that nestled in bar snugs or on park benches, not a dark Latin type
like you, not with all that virility, those eyes, that sensuous
mouth.
"Alfredo
really," you laughed, but everybody calls me Freddie here. The
English and their insistence on assimilation!"
"I'm Helena."
I held out my hand. It was the first time that I permitted myself
to smile at you broadly. Even though you disturbed me, Freddie,
shattered something inside me, something like the protection, the
self-preservation that I had built up inside me for so many years,
there was something calming about being in your company, that no
matter how dangerous it was, nothing could be really destroyed if
you were there.
"Helena, it's
a beautiful name."
"My father's
love of all things ancient Greek." How did you make me so open to
you? Why should I begin telling a perfect, so perfect, stranger all
about my father's love of Hellenic culture? You were so disarming,
Freddie, always.
"Where are you
from, Freddie?" My usual strategy of trying not to give too much of
myself away: ask questions.
"I'm from
Italy, but I'm doing some research here, before I take up a post at
Boston in autumn."
I loved your
accent, your accomplished, almost perfect English enunciated with
all those Mediterranean cadences. It so stirred me.
"And what is
your subject?"
"European
literature. And you?"
"Oh I'm a
teacher. I teach disabled children."
"Do you like
your job?"
"Yes, most the
time, but it can be very tiring..." You'd managed to do it,
Freddie, turn the conversation around so that I was again at its
centre and I had barely noticed, as I began to ramble on about the
trials and tribulations of my chosen profession, and from that
moving on under your gentle interrogation to tell you all about my
childhood, my family, my husband. I assume I was betraying my raw
sexual need with every word, proclaiming in my
I knew that
later you told me that you carefully followed me as I tried to make
my escape from you, but I can not tell you how shocked I was to see
you, coffee in your hand, walking towards me. How the excitement
that had begun to subside in my chest began to gather pace again,
as you planted your cup on the table and asked if I minded if you
sat beside me.
Strange this‚
Freddie, but it neither seemed arrogant of you, or forward, or even
audacious that you should approach me, a stranger in an empty room
and ask if you could sit beside her. It seemed such an unaffected
action, so natural. Your voice was calm, the expression on your
face placid.
"Please do," I
answered. Oh please do! Please come into my life, make me wet
between the legs, show me my true self, and turn my world upside
down. I knew then, I suppose, the moment that you sat beside me
that my world had changed irrevocable, that nothing was ever going
to be the same again.
I must have
looked so English to you as I pretended to read my newspaper and
sip on my coffee, the restrained upper-lipness of it all, as my cup
rattled onto my saucer. I was waiting, waiting for your advance,
waiting, perhaps even then for my future, for my new life to
begin.
"It's a
beautiful work," you said interrupting me, smiling, "the cartoon,
Leonardo, such beauty, such tranquillity. Every time I see it, I
feel overwhelmed. There is something about Leonardo's work that is
so exquisitely beautiful, that stands at the pinnacle of all the
best that we can achieve, and in that there is something almost
sad, tragic..."
From another
man it might have sounded calculated, or worse, pretentious, but
not from you, Freddie. There never seemed anything contrived about
you, and you knew that you were intelligent enough not to have to
show off about it. As you spoke, your piercing eyes stared into
mine, burned into me with their dark intensity.
"Sorry, excuse
me, my name's Freddie."
Freddie! What
an inappropriate name for you! When I thought about Freddies, I
thought about retired gardeners, those backbone of England types
that nestled in bar snugs or on park benches, not a dark Latin type
like you, not with all that virility, those eyes, that sensuous
mouth.
"Alfredo
really," you laughed, but everybody calls me Freddie here. The
English and their insistence on assimilation!"
"I'm Helena."
I held out my hand. It was the first time that I permitted myself
to smile at you broadly. Even though you disturbed me, Freddie,
shattered something inside me, something like the protection, the
self-preservation that I had built up inside me for so many years,
there was something calming about being in your company, that no
matter how dangerous it was, nothing could be really destroyed if
you were there.
"Helena, it's
a beautiful name."
"My father's
love of all things ancient Greek." How did you make me so open to
you? Why should I begin telling a perfect, so perfect, stranger all
about my father's love of Hellenic culture? You were so disarming,
Freddie, always.
"Where are you
from, Freddie?" My usual strategy of trying not to give too much of
myself away: ask questions.
"I'm from
Italy, but I'm doing some research here, before I take up a post at
Boston in autumn."
I loved your
accent, your accomplished, almost perfect English enunciated with
all those Mediterranean cadences. It so stirred me.
"And what is
your subject?"
"European
literature. And you?"
"Oh I'm a
teacher. I teach disabled children."
"Do you like
your job?"
"Yes, most the
time, but it can be very tiring..." You'd managed to do it,
Freddie, turn the conversation around so that I was again at its
centre and I had barely noticed, as I began to ramble on about the
trials and tribulations of my chosen profession, and from that
moving on under your gentle interrogation to tell you all about my
childhood, my family, my husband. I assume I was betraying my raw
sexual need with every word, proclaiming in my
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