G is for Gentle

Dear diary,

Enough reminiscing over Aldous, it hasn't always been bad. We had our good days too. I will write more later. The most important thing is that I've been my own woman for five years, and I don't depend on any man. Now, as I wrote the words, I realized that I've never said it out loud. And not so sure how I feel about it. Do I want to be my own woman? Do I need a man to lean on? Feminists, don't listen. I'm joking, no one will ever get their hands on this diary, it's my private vault. 

Fast forward to yesterday. You will never believe whom I met yesterday. That's another thing to keep in the vault, no one will ever know about us. It can ruin his life, he's married, my life, it will be a ginormous mess. Besides, what ‘us’? He's a unicorn, a true unicorn. You don't get to keep him. It's a catch and release kind of a situation. Enjoy every second of it, and voila, he's gone and nothing but a memory.

I met him last night in our bar downstairs. Can you believe it, Nick X. himself in this hole in the wall, sorry Senor Pereira, hotel bar? That's not his initials but his real name is Nick. And he spent the whole night in my room, in my bed, doing all kinds of gentle things to me. He confessed that in college his nickname indeed was Gentle Nick. He's so fucking awesome, I've been fangirling for a while but, seriously, how a man, in flesh and blood, could be so awesome? Every single inch of him. Smell so good, look so good, taste so good. That million dollar smile. He can have any woman in the world, but he chose me, even for a night or a weekend, who cares. I'm not exactly a nobody myself, but he doesn't know who I am, and I like to think that the world forgot about me. 

And that goofy English accent, he can switch back and forth. You know how I love accents. Stuart was Australian, that was golden. Bobby was Italian, their English is ridiculously funny. I had to pinch Nick to switch to that posh Londoner lilt. I noticed he winced every time, same as when I bit his finger. There is something wrong about it, I will probably not have time to figure it out. 

You know how the celebrities wear hats and sunglasses, so no one would recognize them? He had glasses on, a simple pair of  black Wayfarers, he usually wears contacts, and no one recognized him. One guy in the lobby asked if he was him. Nick laughed it off dismissively. Said, I get it all the time, I'm his doppelganger. I saw it on TV recently at some tennis tournament. Yes, I still watch Bobby's matches. Ok, short version, if you insist. Bobby wanted me to go on tour with him, which meant to sit in his player's box for the whole world to see, with a camera in my face. I said ‘no’ and stayed in Ibiza, and we left it at that. Bobby was nice to me, another gentle giant.

Back to the story, at that tournament, for fun, a few tennis players acted like they were parking attendants or security at the gate. All on camera, of course, and if someone would recognize them and ask for an autograph, they laughed it off, no, I just look like him. Pure fun. No one knows how little time for anything resembling fun these winning machines have. I do. And in a tournament of sixty-four players, there is only one winner and sixty-three losers, that's tennis for you. 

With Bobby, it was getting serious, and I got to the point, I felt I needed to scratch the old itch. Not by myself, but with someone I could trust. I trusted Bobby, but he was undeniably vanilla. That was the deal breaker for me, and, of course, to come out of a five years of hiding.

But there was one time, when I got to scratch the itch. It was way before Bobby, maybe my second year living here. Summers are always hot, even hotter in the kitchen. I finished my shift at eleven, and went upstairs to my room to take a shower. It was a weekday, I would usually go to bed but I was really craving an affogato or just a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Silly, isn't it? Me, craving vanilla ice cream. I picked up a sundress or oversized top, I could never figure it out. It was too short to be worn on its own, without shorts or tights. And I grabbed a pair of clean shorts in the dark. Hint, that was a crucial moment in this story that defined the course of the evening.

So I went downstairs, the bar was still open. I've already been friends with Diego the bartender, who kept my personal stash of ice cream in his freezer. And here he was, an English gentleman, white beard, thick cigar, nursing his G&T at the other end of the bar.