Love & The Goddess (10 page)

I took another look at his picture and wondered was he too good to be true. At least he didn’t play golf. I read his email to me complimenting me on my hair and my dress sense. He asked
what subject I taught and was my username related to my interest in mythology. He signed himself “Ray”. I wrote back thanking him for his compliments.

The final email was from “the diver”, another businessman. He didn’t have a photograph but his message captured my interest and aroused my curiosity.

Hi Persephone,

Toot… toot! Hoot… hoot! What a foxy red head you are and you sound like a gal who knows what she wants out of life! Fair play, I’m all for a gal who knows her mind and
seduces me with her brain as well as … oh you know! Why call yourself Persephone, when you’ve got the body and tresses of Botticelli’s Venus lol? With your Taekwondo, scuba
diving and interest in Incan and Mayan civilizations, I can picture you as a female Indiana Jones. Better than tomb raider any day, I say! Definitely with that red hair, you’d put me in my
place … quaking in my boots while hot under the collar lol! No seriously … you demand respect, even from a messer like me! If you want to get in touch send me your phone number and we
can arrange to chat.

Steve

I wrote back to Steve asking him had he a photograph. I was more interested in “Elmtree” aka Ray, yet decided not to invest too much hope in him after my previous two experiences. If
everything worked out, I could meet him the coming Friday. Meanwhile I was in a mood for experimenting, so two days later I agreed to meet “the diver”, Steve. We had spoken on the phone
and he told me he was a representative for a company fitting aluminium windows. I asked for a photograph, and he sent one right back. He was rugged looking with heavy facial furniture, a rather
large nose, heavy jowls and a thin line for a mouth. Not exactly my type, but I was sure a lot of women would find him attractive. I found his humour hilarious, even if his hooting and tooting
sounded more like a siren call for Jessica Rabbit. No matter, I needed a good laugh. Emails went to and fro and I agreed to a lunch date rather than risk another evening fiasco.

I was beginning to see this as Ella had suggested, “an exercise in dusting off my disused dating skills.” Smirking to myself, I decided to call her and fill her in on my
progress.

“Same as you, lovey. I’m in need of a laugh and an ego boost so I’ve two dates arranged for today. First a lunch date and then meeting another guy for coffee at four.” We
agreed to keep in touch throughout the day and meet up later to discuss the dates. I felt like a woman on a mission, preparing to take note of all the details to report back to HQ afterwards. It
added to the excitement, that feeling of being an intrepid reporter working undercover.

In the Meyrick Hotel foyer, at a table to the right of the central table, which was adorned with a huge floral arrangement, Steve sat folding papers into a briefcase. I recognised him
immediately. Hmm, not bad looking, although a little older than his photograph (I was beginning to think that was par for the course) and somewhat untidy, with shirt buttons straining over his
mid-section.

He looked up. “Kate?” His eyes took me in. “Hey, you look great! Know something? I’m not very hungry. How about you?”

“I could eat the legs from under the table. I’ll get weak if I don’t eat something soon.” The aroma of garlic, tomatoes and peanut soy sauce wafted past him and my
stomach grumbled.

“Yeah?” He looked disappointed. “I suppose you can get some bar food.” He ushered me towards the bar, where the barman came over and handed each of us a menu. I searched
for the choice most resembling the aroma that had greeted me.

“Just a glass of wine, please,” Steve said to the barman.

“I’ll have the chicken satay and a bottle of still water, please.”

When the barman left, Steve turned to me asking: “Is there a problem with the drinking water in Galway at the moment?”

“No. Why do you ask?”

“I always drink tap water.” His face changed from concerned to animated as he launched into the conversation with: “Well, Kate, we’ve certainly had great chemistry with
the banter in our emails! It’s been fun! You have to have a sense of humour otherwise life could really get you down!”

“Yes, you’re very humorous …”

“Now, I want to be open and honest with you from the start, so I need to tell you a few things. How are you with that?”

“Absolutely. I agree one hundred per cent. Honesty all the way.” I put on a chirpy voice to deflect from my sudden sinking feeling.

“First, I have to tell you a bit about me. My wife and I didn’t have sex for the last eight years of our marriage. Now I’m not going to crib about her because she’s a
lovely woman, but that’s very hard for any man to put up with. And I remained faithful to her while some of my buddies were off having affairs. But I respect women and I didn’t do that
to her, even though she often came to bed with her hair in rollers and would turn her back on me for fear I’d suggest anything.” Too much information and this from the person I’d
expected to entertain me with his mad-cap humour. I was embarrassed and confused. Nothing seemed to add up.

“I can understand that was difficult for you.” Was that what I was supposed to say?

The waiter arrived with drinks and lunch. The chicken satay came on four skewers and was served with french fries. I was ravenous. “Would you like some?” I pushed my plate towards
Steve. Without any hesitation he helped himself to a skewer of chicken, continuing to talk as he did so.

“Now, I was good to my wife in every way and in fact I still do more than my share of parenting, though the kids are fairly independent at eighteen, nineteen and twenty-one years
old.” He fiddled with the skewer, his eyes transfixed on the remaining two cubes of chicken as though he were forensically examining them. Why was he prattling on in such a defensive manner,
unable to make eye contact?

“How long are you divorced?”

He launched back into chewing the chicken from the skewer. “Just separated six months.” His mouth was full as he spoke. “Now the point is, I’m very attracted to you but I
could never enter into another relationship like the one with my wife. Do you understand?” He grabbed a handful of French fries and tossed them in his open mouth. What a barbarian! What had
happened to his inimitable sense of humour? I was beginning to find him common and coarse. Was he unaware he was wolfing down my lunch? The lunch he didn’t want? I was annoyed that he
presumed I would consider a relationship with him. His other hand sneaked towards a second skewer of chicken. I moved my plate away from him.

“It seems a bit early to be thinking about you and I starting a relationship – you live quite a distance away and we’ve only just met.”

“Yeah …” He stuffed down another handful of my French fries. “But I would need to know right from the beginning that the relationship would include sex. Do you
understand?”

“Yes, I understand – but it’s a bit early. We don’t know if we even like each other yet.” I signalled to the waiter. “Could you please bring me another
portion of chicken satay?”

“Certainly, madam. Will there be anything else?”

“Not just now, thank you …”

“Do you eat this much all the time?” Steve asked. Before I could answer, his phone rang. He pulled it out of his shirt pocket and looked at the screen. “Excuse me. I need to
answer this.” He got up to walk out of the bar.

While he was gone, I checked my phone. A message from Ella read: “Just met Mr Loves Himself.”

“Eejit here just ate my lunch,” I texted back.

“Make him pay. This guy runs 5 miles & cycles 8 miles a day!”

I acknowledged the waiter as he delivered a second plate of satay, then resumed texting: “Forget him. No time for a woman!”

“Yep. haf 2 go.”

Steve arrived back and slid in beside me, nonchalantly helping himself to another full skewer. “Kate. Of course we’d get on great,” he said, again with his mouth full. “I
just have to have this issue out in the open before I get involved with you. I’m a very giving person and I wouldn’t like to be taken for a fool.”

I looked at him, stuck for words. Then cleared my throat. “To be honest, I find this line of conversation a bit over the top. You have no guarantees with any relationship that you will get
every aspect right. I’m sure some women have similar complaints about men.”

“Exactly my point.” Glancing at his mobile phone, Steve assumed a harried expression: “I need to leave for a meeting. Phone me when you’ve thought all this through. Maybe
next time we could meet in the evening?”

Stealing the final skewer of chicken, he vanished before I had a chance to comment. Flabbergasted, I sank back into my seat, feeling the wind had been knocked right out of me. Calling over the
waiter I asked for the bill along with a stiff brandy. I felt I needed it.

Ella arrived to my apartment at six, as planned. Her effortless glamour, in shades of eau de nil and cream, contrasted with the grey leggings and long printed t-shirt I’d
changed into for lounging around. Ella had a knack of co-ordinating outfits in soft jersey layers, always in cool toning colours. The end result looked thrown together but I knew a lot of thought
went into getting it just right to best compliment her figure. She often said style was more about posture and the balance of clothing shapes than it was about someone’s figure or budget. Yet
this evening, I could see there was something wrong the moment she stepped through the door – she looked somehow ruffled despite her chic outfit.

“Are you ok?” I asked as she headed for the living room.

“No, I’m livid. Absolutely livid. I’ve just been stood up by a fellah from that website.”

“Didn’t he text or call you?”

“Only after me waiting forty minutes for him in a café. He sent a text to say he was sorry he couldn’t make it.”

“What’s his username? Does he have a photo?”

“He calls himself “movielover”. And no, no photo. You know, I’m sick of blind dates.”

“Ah look, I don’t know why we bother with the no-photo guys.” Then I laughed. “Maybe he went to the movies instead.”

Ella relaxed and began to smile: “You could be right. I’m only in foul humour because of the Mr Loves Himself guy this afternoon. What are the guys like that you’ve been in
touch with? Maybe you’re doing better than me.”

“Come on, I’ll show you, I’ve got the computer on.” I led her through to my bedroom.

“First I’ll show you the artist, Geoff.” I clicked on his username, “luvpicasso”.

“Oh he’s gorgeous. Very sexy!” She almost salivated as she sat back in my office chair against the background of white-painted walls and lavender bedroom furnishings.

“Hmm … dangerously so. The funny thing is we’ve been emailing each other and it feels like I’ve know him for ages. He told me some of the women on the site were crazy.
Bunny boilers, he called them. He seems very busy and content that we have a friendship, neither of us has hinted at meeting up. I like the fact that I have made a platonic friend. At least I have
something real after the other eejits I’ve met.”

Ella shook her head at me, blue eyes incredulous.

“What?” I aked.

“He doesn’t look like the platonic type. I know I’d certainly like more from him than that. But each to their own, I suppose,” Ella said.

I laughed, moving the mouse to the next picture. “And this is the flute I met today. Calls himself ‘the diver’. Knows how to dive in on a plate of food after saying he
wasn’t hungry and didn’t order anything.”

“Did he pay or go dutch?”

“Neither. Disappeared before the bill arrived.”

Ella read through his email and studied the accompanying profile, grimacing at the photo. “He’s a messer all right. I should have realised when you rang – I met him two years
ago, when I first started dating. He was on another site, calling himself something different, but the photo’s the same. I just met him for coffee but he had a big sob story about not having
had sex with his wife for so many years and how faithful he was. I saw through him immediately, just got up and walked out.”

“Well, I endured him for a bit longer than you.”

“You did well. After I met him, I was chatting to a nice guy on the site and he told me his sister dated him for two months. By the time she broke it off, she felt he had used her for sex.
Worse than that, he sent her invoices for every meal he had ever paid for along with a receipt for the flowers he had sent her on Valentine’s Day.”

I was incredulous. “No! The cheek of him.”

“Worse again – the poor girl paid him.” Ella rolled her eyes. “He seems to think he can use women like prostitutes.”

“Unpaid prostitutes, at that.”

“Anyway, enough about him. Another one bites the dust,” Ella said, as I blocked him from further contact.

“What happened with the exercise guy then – Mr Loves Himself? The one who exercised so much he couldn’t possibly have time for a woman?”

“Another eejit. He had a great body but he was so conceited about it. I’ve developed a questioning technique where I get information out of them – I pretend to prattle on about
myself, disclosing loads of useless information, give the impression I’m real chilled out and anything goes. Then when I know they’ve fallen for it, I’ll say something like:
‘You know I’m a bit psychic?’ ‘Really?’ they say, wondering if I’m bats or for real. It confuses them and that’s where I’ll slide in something about
it being obvious they’re married, but I’m cool with that.”