Perceptions (19) We both laughed. He was a nice guy. I liked Paulo. ‘Has our guest arrived, Paulo?’ Roy inquired, breaking in. ‘Si, si, she is there, Signor Branca. Come.’ Paulo looked round, spotted young Vicente, and signalled for drinks on the house as was his custom. Other diners watching us over their meals acknowledged me as Paulo guided us to our table. I waved back at them. ‘Grazie, Paulo,’ Roy said, as Paulo backed away. The instant I saw her I was shocked. I needed no introduction to tell me who she was. She had the face, the eyes, the hair, the smile - she was Teri Linden. My Teri. Or should I say, Mark Draper’s Teri? Dressed in a flowery blouse - all that I could see of her seated at the table - she watched us approach, and shot us a smile, rising to shake Roy’s hand. ‘Hello, Roy,’ she said, her genial French accent an instant magnet to me. ‘Hello again, Teri. Wonderful to see you. Here he is - the young Englishman making all America’s headlines.’ Roy glanced at me. ‘Wes Lyle: Teri Linden. Wes?’ Pole-axed, I was slow to react. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, taking her warm, beautiful hand, and not letting go. ‘Don’t we already know each other?’ Her smile was radiant. ‘I was warned about your charm… Wes,’ she responded, feeling the tender squeeze of my hand. It was more of a caress than a handshake, an acquaintance that earned me a scowl from Roy. ‘Oh,’ I replied, and hastily let go. Roy was still looking at me as he spoke to Teri ‘Well, now you’ve been introduced, I’m afraid I have to leave the two of you in a hurry. My apologies. I’ve another meeting to arrange. If you’ll excuse me, Teri. Wes, I’ll be back for you in a couple of hours. Carlos will drive me.’ ‘Sure, Roy. Bye.’ I was equally abrupt, but although puzzled, he didn’t hang around to question me. Teri and I seated ourselves as Vicente brought us a jug of Italian red and three glasses, staring at the departing Roy. ‘It’s just the two of us, Vicente. Grazie.’ Dark-haired Vicente with his brown eyes, reminding me of a young Pacino in his early Godfather days, smiled at us and filled both glasses. ‘Would you like the menu immediately?’ Gazing intently at Teri, my appetite for food amazingly vanished. ‘I’m easy. How about you? Teri?’ My composure and charisma were about to go AWOL, along with a great many other things. What was wrong with me? As Vicente left us, Teri said: ‘I’ve read and heard a lot about you. You’re driving all the young girls crazy in France, even some of the not-so-young.’ Teri was driving me crazy, here. ‘Which part of France are you from?’ Her soft red lips parted to speak. ‘No, don’t tell me. Let me guess. It’s Paris, isn’t it?’ ‘Very good.’ ‘Now, how did I know that?’ Her cheerful eyes ensnared me. ‘It wouldn’t happen to coincide with the magazine Paris which I represent, would it?’ We both laughed. ‘Seriously, though: it’s as if I already know you from somewhere. It’s kind of… thrown me off balance. You don’t happen to have an Irish husband, do you?’ ‘No. Why do you ask?’ ‘I’m curious. Do you?’ I couldn’t let it drop. She was probably thinking I was nosey or too forward. It was none of my business, and anyway, she was the one who should be asking all the questions. ‘No. I don’t have an Irish husband. My father is Irish.’ She paused. ‘I’m single.’ Goosebumps ran down my back. ‘Do elevators mean anything to you?’ It was a bizarre question, sure, and she stared at me as if I’d suggested that she dance naked on the table. ‘Are they not little cubicles one uses to go up and down tall buildings?’ I laughed. ‘Apart from that.’ She frowned; a corner of her mouth delicately inclining upward, as if about to smile but keeping it in check, suspicious of my weird questioning. ‘I think, Wes, that you’re confusing me with the actress Françoise Hibbert, who played Teri Linden in your movie Perceptions.’ She shrugged, having made the connection astoundingly quickly. ‘But we look nothing alike.’ ‘I can see that, but you look remarkably like the Teri Linden in my dream.’ ‘I am the woman in your dream, now? I am flattered.’ ‘No, no, you misunderstood.’ I hesitated, realising that I was making an idiot of myself. But that wasn’t going to stop me. ‘I had a dream last night; this morning, actually.’ ‘And I was in it?’ ‘Someone bearing an amazingly striking resemblance.’ I could see it in her eyes: ‘You’re probably thinking I’m making this up - Wes Lyle, the ladies man trying it on. But I swear I’m not.’ ‘I don’t believe anyone could make up something like this. What were we doing in your dream, or shouldn’t I ask?’ ‘You were my - uh…’ Blushing, I picked up my wine glass in order to cut a path towards another subject. I was giving Teri plenty to write about, but all the wrong things, and that was the last impression I needed to give to a foreign magazine, especially as I couldn’t read French. ‘Why don’t we start again?’ I said, holding my glass as if about to make a toast. ‘Maybe I should say: welcome to the USA, or something. This is your first trip, isn’t it?’ ‘No.’ ‘I’m doing well today, aren’t I?’ Her laugh was like music to me. ‘We all have our off-days.’ ‘I bet you’ll write down: Wes Lyle - nice guy, for an Englishman, but a little bit eccentric. Steer clear of this man, girls.’ ‘On first impressions, maybe; but I’m sure there’s more to you privately.’ Teri smiled openly, seductively. ‘There are a lot of things that you never talked about in your past interviews. Do you have any skeletons in your cupboard?’ That was a hell of an opening question! ‘Of course,’ I replied, taking my time to think of a safe answer. ‘But they wouldn’t be in a cupboard anymore if I told you.’ Teri smirked. ‘Whom do you confide in when you have something… confidential to offload? Your manager, Roy Branca, perhaps? Your dog?’ ‘I don’t have a dog, but Roy substitutes sometimes. Don’t print that, Christ, he’ll bark at me!’ I beamed, having elicited another of her musical laughs. ‘I’m forgetting,’ she said. ‘Everybody in America has a therapist.’ ‘Not me,’ I interjected. ‘I have my mum.’ ‘Your mother?’ ‘Sure. We always talk, but I try to steer clear of anything related with sex.’ ‘Perhaps that accounts for your dreams.’ ‘I don’t think so, Doctor Linden. I don’t need dreams to help me in that department.’ ‘Your publicity certainly confirms that.’ ‘I know. I can’t even bump into a girl in a mall without some sneaky journalist having something suggestive to invent.’ ‘Does being labelled a ‘sex-icon’ bother you?’ ‘Sometimes. It all gets a little too much at times. They build you up, you know, and some guys - not me - get ideas above their station, and think every girl they see is going to throw themselves at them. But it makes relationships - true relationships - harder to form.’ ‘You’re how old now? 27? 28? Are you looking for a stable partner?’ I had to laugh. ‘I’m not going to join a Dating Agency or anything, but one day, sure, when I’m a little older and wiser I’d like - I’d hope - to meet the right woman for me.’ ‘Do you have a vision of what she looks like?’ Was that a question alluding to my dream woman? ‘No,’ I stated, flatly, saved further incision by Vicente’s timely return with the menu. We ordered a couple of pizzas and some more wine. The interview progressed until we began to eat, with Teri’s line of questioning going from sex to my films and, gently, back to sex. It made me wonder which one of us was the more infatuated - me with Teri, or Teri with sex? Either way, the atmosphere surrounding our table, fortified by the innuendos, maybe, was sensually engulfed. Questions and answers became twisted, sexually oriented, somewhat detached from the origins and purpose of the interview: in a phrase - unprofessional. And was it my imagination that the restaurant had become a distant blur, a background haze of entities? Across the table, Teri was glowing. Whether it was true or a figment of my over-active imagination, I wasn’t sure. One or both of us were excited, aroused, or both, and maybe the wine, on top of all that, was having an impact. I was losing control, or maybe we both were, and I had deep-set feeling that my dream was in fact a premonition. ‘The pizza was good, Wes?’ Paulo was standing beside me, and I hadn’t even noticed until now. ‘Excellent, Paulo, as usual. One of these days I’m going to steal your chef and he’ll cook Italian food for me every day. And I’ll get fat, of course.’ We all laughed, and Paulo went away after we’d declined anything further. I looked at the time and realised that Roy would be back very soon; too soon for my liking. I was more than enjoying Teri’s racy company. ‘Do we still have a little time?’ ‘That depends on what you want to do,’ I replied, smoothly, before I could hold my tongue. ‘How about a walk? Helps the digestion.’ Why not? What could be wrong with that, except for an unscrupulous journalist hiding behind the nearest bush? ‘Let’s do it,’ I agreed, sliding my chair back and rising quickly to assist Teri, as a gentleman should. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Most kind of you.’ Some women would have bitten a man’s head off for that, grumbling about age and invalidity. Not Teri, though. Picking up her handbag, she smiled at me, failing to notice that my eyes had traversed the length of her beautiful legs as she stooped. ‘Excuse me a moment.’ I whipped out my cell phone and dialled my car-phone. Carlos answered and told me he was on his way. ‘Is Mr Branca with you?’ ‘No, he wanted me to drop him off at his office.’ ‘Okay. Don’t rush back. Pick me up from Bella Nova’s in about an hour. I’m taking Miss Linden for a walk.’ ‘Okay, Boss. One hour.’ I slid the phone away, and turned to Teri. ‘You’re free for an hour, I hope?’ ‘Sure.’ We bade our farewell to Paulo as we were leaving. Roy had earlier informed me that Paris would settle the bill for lunch, so I didn’t bother to raise the subject with him. Besides, I had other things on my mind. Teri and I stepped out into the sunshine. I was feeling great. Our walk had been stimulating, and so had our hyper-charged conversation. By the time we returned to the Bella Nova, where Carlos was waiting, I knew that I couldn’t let Teri Linden go so easily. I wasn’t about to regret it this time, even if I had only met her in a dream in the first place. Looking profoundly into her eyes, I asked her straight: ‘How about coffee at my place?’ ‘No thanks,’ she said, plainly. ‘How about sex at mine?’ That was how we ended up in bed, at her hotel, scorching the sheets with our passion. The tiger and tigress: we both wanted to dominate. We both wanted to be controlled. We pawed, we bit, and we rolled around. We kissed and we laughed. We groaned and we writhed; we came. We both remained flat out and exhausted. Teri rose first and propped her head on an elbow. Her other hand reached out and tweaked my nearest nipple, giggling as she noted the effect on my penis. ‘You’re insatiable,’ she said. ‘Your reputation is not exaggerated.’ ‘You’re not so bad yourself. The earth moved for me.’ I looked into her face, studying her attractive features, her expression, wondering how many other men had had the pleasure, all the while restraining my urge to pull her lips to mine, even as her hand slid provocatively to the base of my abdomen. ‘I wanted to interview you,’ she went on, ‘truly believing I could resist any temptation you could throw at me. Overrated English playboy, I thought: I’m not going to let him dazzle me with his charm. What do all these women see in him?’ ‘I’m normally a shy guy, you know.’ She burst into laughter. ‘Of course!’ ‘Really!’ I exclaimed. ‘I found it very hard to get girlfriends when I was younger.’ ‘Sure.’ ‘I think they only want me now because I’m a big film star, with money.’ ‘And not because you’re unfathomably handsome and sexy?’ ‘That might come into it a little bit.’ She slapped my thigh and came down on my lips with a kiss that left me gasping for air. ‘That’s for being wicked,’ she declared. ‘What do I get for being hideous?’ I asked, launching myself powerfully at her and pinning her to the bed by the wrists. ‘What do I get now?’ ‘Your way with me?’ I grinned, acknowledging the intimation. ‘Let’s see who’s boss, shall we?’ ‘Oh yes, please.’ Stifling the desire to laugh with a kiss, I initiated another bout of torrid intercourse. Beneath me, happily vulnerable, Teri reciprocated. Hours later, on the road back home in the rear of my Aston, my head was still floating in the clouds. Fortunately, I wasn’t driving, because my mind was squarely on one thing - one woman. Teri Linden. I couldn’t help indulging my sexual fantasies even after the physical event. Still basking in the aftermath, I barely noticed the other car veer onto our side of the road, out of control. Are you exorcising all your demons on me? Teri’s words, as I ended my thrusts with a final, climaxing stab, rang a bell in the cave of my vacuous mind. When Carlos reacted with a swerve, I was drawn to the impending horror, and the realisation. ‘Look out!’ I hollered, automatically preparing myself for the smash. The noise was awesome as we collided head-on. Terror and pain in equal proportions filled me violently; just before I blacked out. I jerked with a start, opening my eyes to a shadowy dimness, and threw myself forward into a sitting position, taking several rasping deep breaths to fight off the clinging grasp of panic. A murmur beside me, and the soft, clammy touch of a hand secured my awakening. ‘Are you okay?’ asked a voice in a timid whisper. Regaining control of my reflexes, I turned my head, and cleared a little sweat from my brow. ‘I think so,’ I said. ‘You scared me,’ she said, worriedly. ‘I thought you were suffering a heart attack.’ ‘Nah. I’m okay. Nothing so severe.’ ‘You were dreaming, I think.’ I rubbed my mouth. My lips were parched. ‘It ended in a nightmare,’ I replied. ‘Sorry, Lizzie, I didn’t mean to wake you. Go back to sleep.’ I lay down, and as she turned her back to me, I snuggled up to her and kissed her on the back of the head.
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