Alternative Torture

Hello, Buddha? I was just wondering, you wouldn't happen to have Krishna and Jesus' phone numbers, would you? You do? Could you please pass a message along to them? Actually, while you're at it, maybe send an e-mail out to all your buddies if it's not too much to ask, because HELP ME!

I may not know what it's like to be held in a filthy underground prison for no good reason, my family and friends having no idea what's happened to me, and having various appendages cut off slowly with blunt instruments. However, I have experienced the urban version, albeit for 120 excruciatingly sublime minutes.

The scenario:

It's Friday night, I'm freshly showered and shaved after a good day at work and an invigorating first-swim of the season; I smell lightly of musky aftershave and my hair is still slightly damp when I step out into the crisp evening air. We meet up for the last screening of La Bestia nel Cuore, and she looks ravishing even though she's dressed simply in slacks and a scarf; I stop breathing for a moment when I see her walking up the street towards me. She's seen me waiting, tickets in hand, and her eyes light up; she comes up to me, takes my shoulders and we kiss on the cheeks, three times, the last one lingering a little longer than the ones before. God, she smells heavenly; fresh and sweet, with only the slightest trace of perfume that teases my sanity long after she pulls back. Always elegant and delicate, always refined.

We exchange pleasantries as we walk up the stairs, and she asks if I want anything from the snack bar. I say no (I always carry a little bottle of water with me), but ask if she'd like anything herself. She says no, and we discover that we both prefer experiencing movies without the sound of rustling plastic wrappers and crunching popcorn. I hand the usher our tickets, and we walk towards Cinema 2 where I wait for her to walk through the doors ahead of me. As she does, I have to resist the instinct to lead her by the small of her back, reminding myself that she belongs to someone else. I follow her through into the darkened cinema, but she's stopped and turned around, and when I'm level with her, she takes my arm and we walk through to the top of the stairs, looking for some good seats. I ask where she'd like to sit, and she says for me to choose, so I lead us to some seats two-thirds of the way up from the screen. As she walks along the row of seats, my eyes focus on her wavy brown hair that cascades down to her shoulders and my mind wanders; I imagine what it would be like to gently draw her hair back and brush my lips against that little place behind her ear...

I shake my head slightly, almost as if I'm trying to physically shake those thoughts out of my head. She stops several places short from the centre, which is exactly where I usually sit in cinemas and theatres, and we settle down into the plush generous seats. I check my mobile phones and make sure that they're set to silent as she unwraps herself from her scarf. The theatre fills up quickly as we continue our conversation, mostly catching up on what's been happening in the last week. The lights dim before long and we briefly see some ads for the sponsors of the film festival before the feature begins.

In the solitude of the darkness, I settle down and am pulled in by the movie. Giovanna Mezzogiorno comes on screen and she looks exactly as I remember her from years ago, she's hardly aged at all. Between her and Stefania Rocca (albeit as pale as she was for this movie) I grow increasingly agitated as the movie goes on, and by the time we're treated to a scene involving their bikini-clad selves reclining in the mediterranean sun about three-quarters of the way through, I am fully aroused and intensely conscious of the gorgeous woman sitting next to me. My hormones are raging through my body, and the fingers on my right hand tingle when I think of her own hand, a mere 2 inches away. It takes every fibre of my being to resist bridging those 2 inches, to resist brushing her little finger with mine. Is this the right moment? We've hardly known each other, have I been reading the signs right? Surely, if I was ever going to let her know that she occupies my thoughts day and night, that I want to take her in my arms and make everything right, that this would be the perfect opening. In my state of alertness, I momentarily catch a faint hint of her perfume that quite nearly makes my brain explode. If she took my hand...

I chicken out. The flood of adrenaline abates, and I feel a little less overwhelmed by my need to take her face in my hands and kiss her, completely, passionately; to breathe in her essence as I feel my lips against hers. We come to a light moment in the movie and I shift in my seat as we laugh, adjusting myself discretely; if there's one thing to be thankful for, it's that I am at least spared the humiliation of a pants tent despite the state I've been in. The movie ends shortly and we sit in silence through most of the credits. As the audience thins out, she turns to me and asks if I liked the movie. We gather our things and head up the steps as the lights come on and the seated silhouettes gain faces and characters. I hold the door open for her, and she takes my arm again as we walk through the lobby, down the stairs and into the street. My face feels red as a beet, and I ask if she'd like a coffee to round off the evening. We walk 20 metres down the road to a nice restaurant that I used to frequent several years ago when it had another name, but had only dined at for the first time under its new name just 2 weeks ago. Luckily, the waiter who greets us recognises me (and remembers the large tip I'd left the last time), and promptly gives us an excellent table even though we're only having coffee and possibly dessert.

We have a couple of excellent coffees and complimentary dolci even though we'd declined the dessert menus, and continue our conversation. We never run out of things to say, and our conversations are funny in that we tend to flit from one topic to the next, never really finishing one thought before getting distracted and moving on to the next. We sit for an hour longer than we'd intended to, and I finally (reluctantly) ask if she'd driven here. She hadn't, and I tell her that I'm driving her home. She puts up no resistance, and we continue to talk as I lead her to where I've parked my car.

We get in, I remember to turn down the stereo (which had been set to "anti-eardrum" level) before I start the engine, and replace the Neffa cd with a Bossa-Nova / Música Popular Brasileira one. The drive is not a long one especially with the sparse traffic on the roads, and we're soon stopped outside her place. She thanks me for the lift and for the bellissima serata, then places her left hand on my face, her fingertips reaching behind my ear to pull me in towards her. She kisses my left cheek, and I'm surprised to feel her lips against my skin instead of her cheek. If I hadn't turned bright red earlier in the evening, surely I had now. I say goodbye, watch as she steps out of the car and wait for her to get safely inside before driving off. One final wave goodbye and that's the end of our evening. Now for the long drive home...