Angelika alit from her cab outside the Richard
Rogers – designed, Thames
Reach apartment complex which
was situated directly upon the river’s edge. She’d rarely seen an edifice quite
like this, what with it’s dizzying expanses of reflective glass and shiny cold
metal beams. It was a modernist’s wet dream, and although not exactly to
Angelika’s taste, she had to concede that she was suitably impressed by its
dazzling light and its pure unadulterated lines. After being buzzed into the
lobby by Rafaello, she took a few relaxing circular breaths and endeavoured to
find the flat, which wasn’t easy given that modernists apparently prefer to
camouflage everything which they deem superfluous, which includes such
fripperies as apartment numbers, elevators and doorknobs.
Angelika
was wearing a pretty, easy-access summer dress and kitten-heeled sandals in an
attempt to look girlishly feminine and a touch more innocent than she actually
was. Having a straight man as a best friend was proving an invaluable
motherlode of insight into the machinations of the male psyche, and Luke had
told her that all men are suckers for a delicate summery dress. Plus, Rafaello
was only twenty two years old, and she didn’t want to scare him off with too
much hard-edged sophistication. Samantha couldn’t understand Angelika’s
penchant for younger men, but Angelika didn’t believe that men improved with
age. To her mind, they just became balder, grumpier and doughier with no visible
increase in maturity, just a sad middle-aged penchant for very young,
dangerously insecure women and phallic red sportscars.
By
process of elimination, Angelika eventually found Rafaello’s third–floor
apartment, as a sappy Italian ballad could be heard playing loudly from within.
Although the music made Angelika inwardly cringe, she decided not to be
judgemental and to go with it, as this was after all, her long awaited l’esperienze
italiana and it just wasn’t the
moment to unleash her inner musical Nazi.
Rafaello
opened the door, smiled sweetly and bade her enter. Angelika tried to overlook
the fact that he was wearing pressed jeans that were way too tight and belted
painfully high above his waistline and that his neatly ironed silk shirt was
tucked inside the waistband. This sartorial faux pas would, under normal circumstances have sent her
screaming for the exit, but she decided to put aside her fashion prejudices and to concentrate on his beautiful face instead.
The
apartment resembled something from out of the glossy pages of Architectural
Digest magazine, and with its blindingly white furnishings and an incredible view out over the River Thames
through the flawless glass wall at one end, Angelika had never been on the
interior of any place quite like this in London before. She immediately felt
like she was on some kind of an expensively spartan retreat, but she also felt
rather intimidated by all the whiteness. Being myopic and hopelessly clumsy, the snowy furniture and sneakily clear glass represented a potential
minefield for her and Angelika silently resolved not to drink any red wine at
all, no matter how fine the vintage.
Angelika
and Rafaello sat down to dinner at the long, clear lucite table. He poured her
a glass of icy Prosecco in an
angular crystal wineglass and served her homemade ravioli stuffed with foetal
wild boar on an angular metallic platter which was undeniably delicious. The
boy could cook, it was clear. He also spoke at great length about his mother,
which although sweetly charming did seem to be bordering on the weirdly Oedipal. Apparently, Mama was the most beautiful, kindest
Mama, and she was also the bestest cook in the whole wide world and Rafaello
wanted Angelika to meet her pronto.
Angelika’s heart sank as she truly believed that if one tries really, really
hard, one can avoid meeting one’s beloved’s family for years, or at least until
after one breaks up with them. She’d never met JC’s folks which she supposed
had been a tiny bit of a red flag, but it had suited her just fine. Angelika
simply didn’t do family. She smiled noncommitantly at the boy and uncomfortably
sipped her pointy glass of sparkling wine while trying unsuccessfully not to
drool.
Once
the dinner was over and with the sun sinking romantically in the west beyond
Heathrow Airport, Rafaello made his move. He wasn’t as aggressive as Angelika
would have preferred, but he was a tender young thing and he was no doubt
nervous, so she let that one slide. He led her into the bedroom where they
kissed gently on the huge white bed. Christ he’s pretty, I wonder what kind of
conditioner he uses? mused Angelika as she ran her fingers through his soft,
silky curls which smelled strongly of freesias in the springtime. Rafaello carefully
unbuttoned his expensive shirt and hung it up lovingly, while Angelika watched
him impatiently from the bed. She had never found that particular
anally-retentive trait sexy at all, but she had to concede that Armani was Armani after all.
His
jeans and Versace boxers
eventually came off and were in turn folded up neatly and placed on a chair by
the side of the bed. Angelika was having a desperately hard time retaining her
desire by now, but she found that concentrating on his backside helped matters
no end. It was a perfectly domed thing, utterly smooth and hairless and
Rafaello was justifiably proud of it. He caught her staring admiringly at his
bum, which is when he uttered the words that produced the same result as would
have drenching Angelika with a bucket of ice cold water.
“My
haerobics teacher calls me ‘Buns of Steel!’” he announced, in smug seriousness.
“Really!”
replied Angelika, with an ironic lack of enthusiasm. It was at this point that
she determined never to let Rafaello speak aloud again, so she pulled him down
to her and willed him to get the fuck on with it.
It
was hopeless. Rafaello had no clue what to do. He lay on top of her like a
gestating otter that couldn’t support it’s own weight and pushed himself
unimaginitively back and forth. Where had all the propoganda about Italian
Stallions come from? Angelika wondered, while groaning encouragingly in the
hope that he’d come and sharpish. She’d never been so bored in her entire life
and found herself sneaking furtive glances at her watch over his perfectly
defined shoulder. Please wake me up when you’re done, she willed silently.
Finally,
it was over and he lay staring rapturously at Angelika while she half-heartedly
attempted to look like a woman who’d been blissfully satisfied. Rafaello
appeared extremely pleased with himself and his performance, as he patently was
completely out of touch with anything other than himself.
“You
are the most beautiful woman in the world, apart from Mama!” whispered Rafaello, girlishly batting
his long black eyelashes at Angelika, “I ham so crazy in love with you.”
He
was in love with her? Now what was she supposed to do? Angelika felt sick.
They’d known each other approximately one hundred and eighty two minutes by
this time. It was ridiculous. Help! she thought, how long did he say he’d be in
London before he had to go back to school? Could she possibly drag this out
that long and then pretend to be devastated when he left her at the airport?
Maybe she could train him to be a better lover. Doubtful, as he really had no
basic feel for the thing.
“But
you have to go back to school soon,” whimpered Angelika, as sadly as she could
muster, “how long would we possibly have together?”
“I
leave at the end of August. But I will write to you every day and we will see
each other at Christmas.” simpered Rafaello. “You will come to Portofino and stay with la ma famiglia at the palazzo.”
Hmm,
thought Angelika, bucking up slightly, as she’d always quite fancied visiting
Portofino and staying in a palazzo,
but the thought of Mama was not entirely enticing. Rafaello wasn’t exactly
macho when he was away from her, one could just imagine what a total girl he’d
morph into once Mama was in the vicinity. Angelika could clearly picture Mama’s
withering look of disapproval as her caro bambino introduced her to his disgustingly debauched
Mrs. Robinson of a girlfriend who had so clearly violated her golden child.
Plus Angelika wasn’t even a Catholic. It would be unendurable. Angelika
shuddered.
“Let’s
not think so far ahead, darling. Let’s just enjoy the little time that we have
together.” Angelika stroked his
ebony curls, thinking that she could probably pull off three weeks, as long as
nothing better appeared on the horizon; he was lovely to look at, he really could cook
and the apartment was pretty damn cool. Angelika decided to think of it as a
socialogical experiment.
Experiment be damned, it was a living nightmare
of a three weeks. It transpired that Rafaello harboured an unhealthy obsession
with becoming a supermodel not a businessman and he strutted around the London
streets to that end as if on Lagerfeld’s catwalk. Angelika cringed as he swivelled his hips around Soho like
Naomi Campbell on crack, pouting invitingly at every man, woman or dog that
crossed his path, in an effort for them to turn and admire his unparalleled
pulchritude. It was like owning a vintage Ferrari, thought Angelika, everybody wants to admire it
and to drive around the block in it waving at one’s envious friends, but nobody
actually wants the upkeep of the fucker.
Angelika’s
mates all sniggered openly about Rafaello’s trousers, which he point-blank
refused to wear any lower down on his hips. She realized that she was being
supremely superficial but she had nothing on Rafaello, who was patently only in
love with Angelika for her looks, as they made a perfect counterpoint to his.
They did look a lot like brother and sister, only he was actually the prettier
of the pair. It was driving her insane the way he rated everyone solely on
their appearance, and by the time he tearfully left for Roma, she knew that she’d learned a valuable, albeit
embarrassing lesson. Next time, she’d go out with a man, a proper manly man, one
who’d throw her up against the wall, shag her senseless and never once ask to
borrow her Clarins
moisturizer.
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