II. A Detour to Journeys Past
As there were no direct flights, my itinerary required that I first board an Air France flight to Tokyo, Japan, where I would then have to catch a connecting flight to Manila, the capital City of the Philippines. A journey, that would take me thousands of kilometers to the other side of the world and around eighteen (18) hours of flying time to complete.
No, I was not able to get myself off at anytime during the trip since, to my chagrin, Robert had booked me to fly economy, and the cramped conditions there simply did not afford the privacy it required. I knew I should have just upgraded my ticket to Business Class when I first saw it, but did not do so, to my present regret.
A couple of hours into the flight I I started to get restless, as I was not used to just sitting around for a very long time. Standing up, I began making my way up and down the aisles of the plane, determined to get as much exercise while on board.
Just as I was about to make my turn when I reached the partition dividing the Business Class section from that of Economy, the curtains suddenly drew open and out marched a tall, dark haired woman with a fluted crystal wineglass in hand, who barreled right into me. She obviously watching where she was going , since she was looking over her shoulder at the time, conversing with someone behind her. Luckily I was able to avoid getting splattered by her drink when the collision occurred.
At first shaken by the encounter, I failed to immediately give her a piece of my mind for her inconsiderate behavior, as I would have normally done under the circumstances. Instead, I just managed to stand there dumbly looking at her. On the other hand, far from being contrite, the other woman had an irritated and bored look on her when she slowly turned to face me.
For a time, we just stood there, sizing each other up and staring the other down, in silence. With me, impatiently expecting no less than a sincere apology from her for almost bowling me over; whilst she had nothing but the most confident and smuggest look on her, as she stood before me, with hands on hips, defiantly awaiting my next move.
(For all those movie buffs out there who may want to set this on film, this scene would probably be reminiscent of the final showdown between Charles Bronson and Henry Fonda in the cult spaghetti western classic “Once Upon A Time In the West”, but you must make sure to get much prettier to play our parts than them, especially mine. You should also consider retaining the same skirling background music in the movie’s soundtrack, rather than the jazzy tune wafting over the plane’s sound system at that time. )
It took about a minute into our Mexican stand-off, before I realized that I knew the woman confronting me. Although years may have passed since I last saw her, I was finally able to recognize her beautiful face.
It was Monica Carstairs. The one person in the world whom I would have least expected to see on this trip, or ever wanted to see at all, for that matter.
Monica Carstairs. The most self-centered, selfish and egotistical bitch of a slut on the face of the earth, and my former best friend and sometime lover.
Her sudden appearance before me in no less than living color, brought back distant memories from the past.
About four years ago, Monica and I worked in the same company I am still employed in. She was a ravishingly beautiful girl with luxurious black hair and enticing green eyes. She was also very tall (standing 1.78 meters in her stocking feet) and had the svelte body of a super model like Rebecca Romjin (although I think she looked more like Elizabeth Hurley in the face), which made her the object of every man’s fantasy and the envy of other less fortunate women, present company included.
From what I about her life, she came from a very wealthy English family that spent most of the summer months in the continent. It seems then that Monica loved her sojourns in Paris so much while she was young, that she decided to live here as soon as she came of age, to her parents’ displeasure.
Like me she was assigned to public relations. And, being English, she handled most of the company’s English or American clientele.
Despite our similarities, Monica and I had one basic difference when it came to our attitude towards work. Whereas I would try my utmost to remain strictly professional and maintain a distance between myself and the client; Monica had no qualms about getting intimate with them and do whatever it would take to keep them happy, including bedding them, if necessary; which she willingly and often did.
On some occasions we even got to handle a client together, with me providing the professional services required by his business; while she concentrated more on providing the “professional” services his personal needs required. We made a pretty good team and had a lot of fun in the process.
As a result, it was through Monica’s efforts that a lot of foreign contracts were landed by the company and in appreciation thereof, a number of bonuses and promotions made it easily her way.
I too was no slouch either, by the way, and was able to keep pace with her, despite my not having to do some of the things she did with clients. Pretty soon, we became the company’s top two public relations officers, always garnering the highest points in customer satisfaction ratings.
Just for fun, Monica and I sometimes even engaged in a little friendly competition of our own to see who would score higher during in our performance rating; with the loser having to treat the winner to an evening out. Again we almost seem to always come out neck and neck, as we totally dominated the chart, and alternately took first place. We eventually decided to drop this pointless contest and agreed to just share all expenses equally.
Despite all the competition, Monica and I have remained the best of friends and even maintained a close social relationship outside of work. We were always seen doing the clubs and other party scenes together, that friends and colleagues started referring to us collectively as EMINEM, as we were that close and inseparable.
At times, when we were joined by Monica’s childhood friend Melanie Rhys - Williams, another equally tall, fiery red head with a voluptuous figure, we three came to be known as the “M & Ms”, not so much for our sweet dispositions; but I think it had something to do more with the hairs on our heads coming in different colors ( yellow for Monique, black for Monica and red for Melanie) just like the famous candy of similar name.
Monica was also the first and only woman I ever made love with. Having always been into men, I had never shown any interest whatsoever in another woman until Monica came along. For some strange reason I found her beauty and bearing simply beguiling the moment I first saw her.
