JUST A LITTLE MAGIC Chapter 8
Sammy and Trish started dating right after the pool party. They both seemed to be happy. She was great for him, and he was constantly going out of his way to do nice things for her.
Sammy had done something wonderful for me, too - something I hadn't been smart enough to do myself: he'd taken a photo of Sophie talking to me. I only looked at it a few thousand times.
I sent it to her immediately, attached to a short email, which took me four tries to write. I didn't want to be smarmy, but cool and distant sounded worse. Why not just admit that I'd been really struck by her, and that the pool party was still on my mind?
She replied with a link to the video of me working my magic.
I'm sure you've seen it. I've watched it three times, and I still have no idea how you did it. It was a very memorable night for me, as well. Good luck on your upcoming tour!
Ah - Sophie had been checking our webpage. We had a six-week tour of the Eastern U.S. seaboard starting in the middle of August. We had new material to try out, and some pretty famous venues to perform in. We went from Vermont to Florida.
The shows went well. Sammy was missing Trish, while Janine was ticked off at having to spend so much time with the two of us. She was seeing some tennis player while we were in New York. Maybe that was why she wasn't getting on my case for not going out with groupies every night.
That's not to say that I didn't go out with women at all - because I did. But after a couple of times, I discovered that my heart just wasn't in it. It might have been a case of 'been there, done that'. You may find it hard to believe, but near-anonymous casual sex just wasn't the be-all and end-all for me.
Part of that might have been because of Danielle. I knew the difference between fucking a groupie and making love to a woman who really cared about me. I'd spent quite a few hours trying to figure out what had gone wrong between us. The more I thought about it, though, the more my head hurt - literally.
And then there was Sophie. Was there something there, between us?
Could
there be more? I couldn't quite see how, since she was tied to her job, in one place, while my career meant frequent travel.
I understood that we needed to make money. This was Sammy's sole source of income, and we were still trying to amass a war-chest for the future. Nor had I forgotten what this whole thing was all about. It was getting closer all the time: the 12 women that I would have to seduce, and then impregnate.
But my thoughts still kept turning to Sophie. The temptation was there to phone or text her, to send her clever or funny links, just to remind her that I was thinking of her. Instead, I wrote myself little notes on hotel stationery, and turned those into a well-thought out email (okay, a
better
-thought out email) every week or two.
I asked how her new job was going, told her how well Sammy and Trish were doing, and mentioned some of the highlights of the tour.
She responded. Her replies told me a little about her job (including the fact that she was too busy to have much of a social life -
that
was good news), and she asked about me.
We got home at the beginning of October. That, I decided, justified a phone call.
- "Pete? How are you?"
- "I'm well. I just wanted to check that you were still coming down for Thanksgiving."
- "Of course I am. I won't get in until late Friday night, and Sunday is spoken for. But maybe we could get together on the Saturday?"
- "How do you feel about Dim Sum?" I'd learned a great deal about Chinese food from Danielle.
- "Sounds wonderful." said Sophie. "I'm looking forward to it, Robin."
- "How long do you plan on calling me Robin?"
- "Probably forever. Just to remind you of how we met."
I had most of two weeks to wait, and to think of Sophie.
Chinese food for brunch. I'd given the matter considerable thought. A light meal, early in the day, was an opportunity to talk, to get to know each other, without any pressure or expectations. It most definitely was
not
a prelude to seduction.
I was being especially careful. I didn't want to mess this up. Maybe it
was
serendipity, or Fate. I felt something special just hearing her voice. And I wasn't about to rush
anything
. That might sound strange for a guy who'd been with as many women as I had. I wasn't lacking in sexual experience; it was my dating experience that was severely limited.
Somehow, though, our first date was ... epic.
She already loved Dim Sum - I'd chosen well. We talked throughout the meal, without the slightest awkwardness or hesitation.
I learned that her parents had divorced when she was only 6; she'd grown up in Montreal with her father and his second wife. Her mother (and her second husband) lived in Toronto, as did her Aunt, the only member of her extended family who'd kept in touch with her through her childhood and teens.
Sophie wanted to know more about my family, and especially about Sammy, who was now dating her friend Trish.
- "Do you think it's serious?" she asked.
- "I sure hope so. He was crazy about her
before
the pool party."
You might think that I was reading her mind the whole time. I wasn't.
For one thing, mind-reading is very taxing. I couldn't possibly have kept up that kind of effort for a solid hour. It also requires concentration. In order to 'hear' Sophie's thoughts, I would have had to stop paying attention to what she was actually saying. It's also near-impossible to talk and mind-read at the same time.
More importantly, though, I wasn't approaching Sophie as a one-night stand, or like a groupie. With those women, I read their minds to make sure that they truly wanted to have sex. Once that was confirmed, I only had to pick up enough of their thoughts so that I could impress them a little more, and 'seal the deal', as Janine put it.
After that, I read their minds during sex, so that I could amaze them by providing exactly the kind of stimulation they were looking for, at exactly the right time (or just a little later - teasing and delay are powerful weapons).
But I was hoping for so much more than that with Sophie.
With Danielle, I'd been at ease. It wasn't necessary to try to impress her all the time. We were comfortable in each other's company. I could relax, with her, and just be myself.
Of course, that didn't mean that I wasn't picking up surface thoughts here and there - I was. But I wasn't snooping in her mind to find out everything about her, or exactly what she thought of me.
I didn't have to do that with Sophie, either. She had the refreshing habit of telling me exactly what she was thinking.
- "This was a wonderful idea. I'm sorry that the meal has to end. I just don't think that I could eat another bite."
- "Or drink another cup of tea."
- "But I don't know if I want to go straight home." she said. "Do you think we might ...?"
- "Would you like to see High Park?"
She smiled, revealing all of her dimples.
We walked through the park, visited the animals, and sat on the grass near Grenadier Pond. She took my hand. It was only then that I realized that neither of us had spoken for some time. We'd been walking in companionable silence, without feeling the pressure to come up with a topic of conversation.
- "This is lovely." she said, finally. Sophie turned and looked me in the eye. "Thank you for bringing me here."
- "Thank you for coming." I said.
After a couple of hours, I could tell that she still wasn't sick of me. I raised the possibility of getting a drink.
- "Oh? Is there a good pub nearby?" she said.
- "More than one." I took her to St James Gate (named after the Guinness brewery in Dublin).
To my amazement, Sophie was perfectly happy to order a pint of Guinness.
- "You drink beer?"
- "I drink
good
