I walked into the 1st Santa Barbara International Film Festival Gala and quickly scanned the room. Between my 4 inch stilettos and my enormous hair I must have been more than 7 feet tall! As such there was nothing obstructing my view of “HIM” on the opposite side of the room. He was tall too and VERY attractive albeit in a rather sinister way (hindsight=20/20) and the immediate magnetism reminded me of that camera trick used so often in romantic comedies and horror movies (coincidence? I think not!), where the heroine is suddenly sucked through space and finds herself standing toe to toe with her greatest fears and most overpowering desires. He was a writer/actor/photographer, so how could an actress/writer/model possibly resist?
That first “date” lasted three days and, yes, the sex was insane! He had plied damn near every cinematic love-scene cliché in existence but I was simply too intoxicated by his presence to realize it. He insisted I call in sick on Monday morning (the “day” job…) but by Monday afternoon I really needed a breather from all that intensity. He only allowed me to leave once I had promised to call him the moment I got home. It hadn’t even dawned on me that I didn’t have his number. We had finally gotten around to exchanging names though, he the son of a well known novelist no less.
I had just walked in my door when the bell rang, a floral delivery (tiger lilies, had I actually told him? Ah yes, between the chocolate covered strawberries with champagne and the sensual massage…) and a card “CALL ME!” with his number. I didn’t know whether to be flattered or freaked-out so I just put the flowers in a vase and jumped in the shower. By the time I was washed and dressed there were five messages on my machine (these were the days before cell phones and e-mail). It did seem rather pushy but my ego was eating up the attention, he was really crazy about me!
Now of course, being a wee bit older (ahem) but worlds wiser, I can distinguish between “crazy about me” and just plain crazy! It took me two weeks to realize that something was seriously amiss, a month to convince myself that I really had to end it, somehow, and another six weeks to execute the meticulous plan my best girlfriend helped me devise in order to extricate myself from his stifling embrace (literary term for emotional hammer lock). During that time I discreetly found another apartment and applied for a new telephone number, splurging on that little extra charge to keep my new number blissfully unlisted.
After that experience my best girl and I found a term for all freaky beaus: beware, The Gorgon!
Ladies, take it from me, Victoria King-Voreadi : “too good” is ALWAYS too good to be true love. “Less than perfect” on the other hand, with proper training of course, can often be sublime!
