(The following cautionary tale has been vetted and approved by Diana herself)
It has been a quiet week since our trip to Venice and area. We have not been doing much but trying to stay cool in the hot summer heat. Our main diversion and entertainment this week has been the ongoing adventures of our American friend, Diana.
Diana has been trying to keep cool in a different kind of heat wave. Diana if you all may recall was my partner in crime with the ‘Lady’ in the Sunflowers episode.
Diana and a visiting friend from the States were in a small town in the hills north of Lucca. Her friend was looking at some clothing in a shop and Diana struck up a conversation with the owner. ‘Lui’ races cars and owns a home on the sea. ‘Lui’ sounds pretty good on paper so far. Well, one thing led to another and they exchanged cell phone numbers.
This led to several days of intense texting with Diana trying to translate his messages into English. This then led to setting up a date. At certain times she thinks they are either meeting at a school or they’re walking past the school but he may be picking her up at the apartment or she might be walking to the train station and they may be eating dinner or he may be eating dinner before he comes. We talk of contingency plans, should Dwayne and I be at these various but potential meeting points, should I hang out at the restaurant with her, should I take the train to this town and check him out?
When the day arrives, we discuss what she is wearing. Should she wear sort of sexy wedge heels or flat sandals? Should she wear the pink pullover with the three-quarter sleeves and pretty neckline or go for the slinkier raspberry top with straps so it shows shoulders and neck? Dwayne wades in and states it should be the raspberry top. Collectively we opt for sexy wedge heels. She decides at her age (late 50’s) there is no reason to be coy.
When I check my email the next morning I see an email she sent the night before at midnight. ”It was ‘in toto’ a disaster.”
Apparently ‘Lui’ had come ‘for love’ and a helluva lot more. He was all hands from the moment they met at her apartment. She convinces him they should go for a walk, and then she agreed to having him back at the apartment after she made it very clear that it would be for strictly conversation. Absolutely NO sex she tells him. He agrees, probably too readily she realises later. When they get back to the apartment the first thing he does is remove his shirt. Then he starts unbuckling his belt, while she is shouting at him ‘No No No!’ His pants fall to the floor, she tries to pull them back up. He thinks that she is finally on board, she indicates she is anything but on board with the situation.
Resignedly, he sits and they finally get to talk awhile. Then she said it was time for him to leave. This again propels him into a frenzy of groping as she is physically pushing him out the door. In the end she gets him out the door, but he seems to think he will be coming back next week for round 2. She texts him to say FINITO! Exhausted she fixes heself a strong drink and contemplates giving up on men completely, especially the Italian ones.
The next day we meet at a cafe for a post-date-mortem. We laugh about the ridiculousness of the previous night but yet we are completely cognizant that this date could have gone even worse than it did. Diana promises, if she ever decides to date again, never to bring them to her apartment. ‘Lui’ has sent her a text that she wants me to read first in case he is coming to kill her or something.
It is in Italian and with the dictionary I piece together that he thinks he was not all that bad, that she exaggerates, I mean you get a man and a woman and things get a little sexual, a little friendly, he gets happy, she gets happy, after all he is not ‘gay’…
No, he is not gay, but he is not a gentleman either.
”Acknowledge him when you see him if he comes crawling with gifts, flowers, money, car, villa etc. Of course, once you get all that, feel free to dump him.”–A friend of Diana’s
“Sex: the thing that takes up the least amount of time and causes the most amount of trouble.” — John Barrymore
“Women need a reason to have sex. Men just need a place.” — Billy Crystal
“Is that a pistol in your pocket or are you just glad to see me?” –Mae West
“Why don’t you come up sometime ‘n see me?”–Mae West
Mae West