Too Much of a Good Thing: A Fantasy of Excess
Chapter V Diana!
Angel did not call. I called. About three hundred times, or so it seemed. But whether at the boutique or at the house on the hill, all I got was Angel’s sweet answering message promising to return the call, endless ringing, or a busy signal. I left messages galore, but no call was returned and in the end even my male ego was convinced! Angel had meant what she had said. It was over.
Never in my life have I experienced such a combination of helplessness and despair. In such circumstances, the male makeup calls for action. Do something, anything. So I tried to find out where Angel’s boutique was --- she had never told me and I had never thought to ask. Since I was not even sure in which district of LA county this was, it was not too surprising that my search rapidly became untenable. I tried to locate her apartment --- thank God for the internet, thought I --- but it became clear rapidly that she had either given me a phony name or all her numbers were unlisted. The third weekend I swallowed my pride and headed up the hill to the house. On Friday evening no-one was there. I went again Saturday, only to find the black limo parked in the drive. Clint was not in it. Was he within? Was Clint my replacement? Or another? What was going on in there? I dare not ask. I did not ring the bell. I did not scale the wall to peer over at the swimming pool. I wimped out big time, got in my car and drove meekly away.
The next few weeks were quite awful. How can one return to a life as a 9-5 accountant in a staid downtown LA financial services company after an experience such as I had just been through. Every evening I went home hoping -- for what? I tried hitting the bars, but the few attractive women I encountered were surrounded by a swarm of suitors obviously much more in their element than I was. I am basically a loner and definitely not the type who can trot out appealing opening lines to women in bars! I went to a few office parties, thinking perhaps to meet Angel, or perhaps that lightning would strike twice. I did date a couple of women. One from the office and one I got talking to at one of the parties. But neither showed much of a spark. Their idle chatter about clothes, what ‘people’ were doing and about the movies they had seen irritated me to the point where it was on the tip of my tongue to ask them whether they had ever been cunt whipped! Of course decorum prevailed. Also boredom to the point that even if they had been willing to stay over with me, I found myself disinterested and didn’t even bother to ask. I still thought of myself as a rather staid, conventional guy, as I had indeed been pre-Angel. And I thought that some day soon, I would revert to this former self, be comfortable with it and be ready for a ‘normal relationship’, whatever that was, with an ‘average woman’, whomever she was. But this time was not there yet! I had experienced excess and, unknowingly, embarked on a journey from which there is no easy return to ‘normality’, whatever that is!
It must have been six weeks, or perhaps even a couple of months after the ending of my association with Angel that I bumped into Diana. Literally! She was sitting on the doorstep of my apartment building and I ran into her on my way out heading for the office. Of course I did not immediately recognize her. The two worlds, my day to day routine of going to the office and whiling away my evenings in whatever fashion I could, and my weekends at Angel’s place on the hill, were totally disconnected in my mind. Also, Diana was not stark naked, was not heading down towards my ‘chaise longue’ by the pool with a gleam in her eye and her nipples prominently and fully erect atop their firm, perfectly proportioned and deliciously supple supports. She was dressed in street clothes --- teenager gear, blue jeans and halter top --- carried a small rucksack on her back, seemed dejected and looked disheveled. One of a thousand young things you run into every day on LA’s uncompromising streets. Yet, through what aspect of her being I do not know, I recognized Diana instantly. And a flash of remembrance, and improbable hope! coursed through my brain. Hope? Yes, hope that something, anything was about to happen to allow me to break out of the depression that my current life was pressing upon me.
‘It is Diana, isn’t it?’ I asked, hesitatingly but unnecessarily.
Diana nodded but did not speak. She seemed disoriented and it looked as though she had been crying.
‘What are you doing here?’ I asked gently.
‘Oh! Nothing!’ was the reply, literally truthful, but obviously irrelevant. Bit by bit I wormed the story out of here. She had been holed up with a boyfriend, but they had a fight and he threw her out on the street. Twenty years old and out on the street at 2am in LA! What a rat!
‘He was from the studio,’ she said in a monotone. ‘Bastards all of them!’
‘So what are you doing here?’ I asked again. ‘I mean, is this an accidental meeting or did you know……’
‘I knew you lived here. They told me at the studio…….’
She looked up at me with those azure eyes and long lashes.
‘I liked you. Somehow I knew you were different. So here I am. No money, nowhere to stay, nowhere to go…..’
‘Don’t say that!’ I interposed quickly, afraid she would begin to cry. ‘Look, I have to go to the office now, but you are very welcome to stay at my place. Get freshened up and get some sleep. There’s food in the ice box. It’s quiet. No-one will disturb you. I’ll be back around 6 this evening and we can discuss how to get you fixed up. How does that sound?’
Again those cow eyes raised up to me. ‘Do you mean that?’
‘Of course!’
‘You’re so kind.’ She lowered her eyes. ‘I really do have nowhere else to go.’
‘No problem!’ I said breezily. ‘I’m really glad to see you! And only too happy to help out.’
And, God be my judge, I was in no way lying!
Well that was that for me for the day. I went through the motions but God help anyone who had to rely on any of the accounts I went through. My thoughts were on one thing and one thing alone. Diana! And I became increasingly anxious that when I got back to my apartment she would be gone. It had not seemed so when I left her, crumpled up in a heap on the bed, too exhausted even to undress. But my anxiety rose steadily anyway as the day wore on. I thought many times of making an excuse to leave early. But we were under a ferocious work load and many of us had been working late into the night to make up the backlog. My boss was one of those career females with a sharp edge to her tongue who one did not approach with such requests at such times. Truth to tell, she was something of an advertisement for the ‘Peter principle’ and was herself under the continuous stress that devolves from not being quite on top of things in one’s revere. There were the usual rumors as to how she had gotten where she was, but I paid these no attention. I quite liked her, she seemed to like me, we got along fine. I had never had a day off through sickness since joining the firm, I would not be able to fool her that day if I tried, and of course I could scarcely tell her the truth --- that I had the hots for a young chick half my age who at that moment was lying on my bed asleep. So I sat fidgeting on my paranoia and left matters to the hands of fate.
I left at the earliest decent hour. Never has the downtown LA traffic been so roundly cursed! I made it nevertheless in record time and arrived at my apartment just before six. I parked the car askew, raced for the elevator -- never has that damned elevator taken so long to arrive ---- and, trying to be calm, let myself into the apartment. My relief can scarcely be described. There was Diana stretched out on the couch with the TV on and just finishing a sandwich she had made from the bits and pieces in the ice box. She greeted me with a big, seductive smile.
‘You’re early,’ she said coming over and giving me a peck on the cheek. ‘I wanted to be ready for you.’
She took me by the hand and squeezed it gently.
‘I’m glad to see you’re feeling so much better,’ I managed, trying to appear nonchalant.