Star Woman in Love (7 page)

Yet there was a familiar je ne sais quoi in that sensation. What was it? Who was it? As soon as a sense of recognition registered in your mind, the impression was gone and all you could hear was the rumbling of your stomach. You’d not eaten since lunchtime on the day before. Noon was approaching again. A coffee shop came into the focus of your glance: “Soul Food.”  Heaven-sent, obviously. It was a picture of prettiness made of lime green tables and pink chairs. You stepped in and sat at the only vacant table. That’s when you saw me. Months later, on a romantic night, you told me that your heart had barely beaten in my absence up until that moment.

* * * *

“Oh my God! Cassie, can you see him?! He’s sitting in front of me, and he’s looking in our direction... Oscar O’Leary... I can’t believe it... he’s so gorgeous... I think he saw me looking at him... am I blushing? Incredible, he’s amazing, he’s just so sexy!” 

I was only half-listening to Polly’s ramblings on this painter who was supposed to be the most spiritual artist who’d ever walked the planet, a person who brought art alive with his drawings, who’d awoken magic into the eyes of those who beheld them. On first impression, you seemed a bit too self-conscious. Handsome? Well, very. Your black curls had hints of blue in their natural wave. Your eyes were the colour of amber and your face was chiselled and yet as gentle as an angel’s. You were so young then.

Somehow you didn’t make a massive impression on me. I thought you were the kind of man who expected the world to revolve around him. The fact that then I was myself a girl who wanted to be the centre of attention probably confused me. I thought Gordon’s muscular body was more manly and powerful than yours. What I found appealing about Gordon was his obliviousness to his surroundings and his mindlessness of fans, although he was a celebrity in his own right. My ex was self-involved at best and self-centred at worst. Or perhaps he was just too thick to realise that there was a world around him.

But I was still intrigued by you. I studied you as you sat two tables away from ours. Unlike the majority of people, you were paying attention to every single detail in the café, as if your penetrating eyes were marking the territory. There was a lot of purple in your aura, together with gold and emerald green. You were very charismatic: your presence filled the room. I knew you were Irish by descent and had also Japanese blood in your veins. Your maternal grandmother, Yoshiko Suno, had been an acclaimed actress in Yomasami’s plays. Her affair with the great Irish mystical poet was a scandal in the 1930s. Your mother was the love child of the east and the west. That’s why your looks were unique. I stared at you as you kept sketching on your notepad. Your movements were composed and relaxed, as if you were drawing something from memory, channelling all your awareness into those gentle strokes.

You raised your head and looked at me for half a second. Our eyes met for the first time. Time stood still and expanded. Everything around us disappeared into a background of nothingness. You had magnetic come-to-bed eyes. They were drawing me into your world. You wanted to enlist me in your collection of women, among the notches on your bedpost. I looked away. I wouldn’t fall prey to the ego of a Casanova. A part of me was still in love with Gordon. My human self needed a little more time to be distracted from the pain of my loss.

You smiled. At me. I didn’t bat an eyelid. Instead, I said to Polly: “He likes you. He’s winking at you, woman... come on, do something!”

I was only trying to deflect your attention, your energy. I wasn’t ready yet. I was afraid of you. At the same time, I was in awe.

“Go ask him for his autograph... or his room number,” I said. “They say he’s a slut, and he’s definitely taking a shine here... you should use this opportunity!” 

I knew full well Polly was a very shy girl who would never approach him without my help. I only said those words in an attempt to side-track my eyes from wanting to meet yours. I intended to eat my scone and get out of that place. I was uncomfortable and under scrutiny. Your glance stuck to my skin like honeydew. It made me feel exposed and vulnerable.

As a displacement activity, I started reading the newspaper which was lying on the empty chair at our table. I opened it at a random page. Fate has a strange sense of humour. Gordon’s face was staring at me from the ‘gossip’ column. It was official: he was going to become a father. The short article referred to Linda as his ‘girlfriend’. My heart sank in that coffee shop. I’d not got over him as completely as I had assumed. My mind had, but not my body. My blood ran cold. I had to leave that place and be alone. I rushed out and started running down Buchanan Street like a headless ghost from somebody’s past. Polly understood what had happened as soon as she saw the article. She paid for our coffees, cast a final longing glance at you and then followed me to the street. By the time she’d got out of the café I’d already disappeared into the maze of my desperate thoughts. Not a place for the uninitiated to venture.

* * * *

We had been in the café for a while as well. We didn’t miss a second of what had gone on. Particular heed was paid to the silent interaction between Cassandra and Oscar. They had met, at last. We spied his sketchbook and were surprised at the remarkable resemblance of his portrait of Cassandra. The way he had depicted her hinted at her secret. He’d stumbled upon it so effortlessly. He would disclose it to himself very soon.

Their encounter went as we had planned it. He fell for her the moment he laid his roving eyes on her face. What we could not get over, however, was the fact that she had not been impressed by him. Did she not recognise him? We had raised her frequency so that he could detect her more easily. Or at least his subconscious mind could. It had worked very well. He had been brilliant at following the signs. He was a good, attentive listener. And true to his well developed earthly nature, his stomach had taken him to the café and right next to her.

Cassandra disappointed us with her lack of sensitivity to the Plan. We had sent her all the signs towards Oscar along the way. Of course, she was young and still a bit incredulous. Nonetheless, her disregard for her mission was preposterous. Gordon had definitely dented her purpose. She had never misbehaved like that before. This had nothing to do with the quickening of her transformation, or the effects of the change in her body at the cellular level. There was something more worrying and sinister in the way she had refused to listen to her destiny. Her reverting to the past had nothing to do with her nature, with her True Identity: it was completely out of character. The seed of doubt had been planted in her consciousness. We feared the worst. There was only a group of people capable of piercing through such a crystal-clear mind. We feared they had found out about Cassandra. We had to find her as soon as possible. She could even be in danger. Or worse: she could be lost somewhere in space-time.

We left Oscar and his sketchbook in “Soul Food” and set out to follow Cassandra. Trying to tune into her frequency proved useless. Nothing. We tried looking for her through physical eyes. Zilch. She was nowhere to be seen. Her Core signature and Light were undetectable. That was the first time she’d disappeared from our radars during the twenty-five years of her life. Dark clouds loomed in the distance.

We returned to the café. From his table, Oscar had watched the scene of Cassandra’s sudden departure. What happened to the girl whose portrait had occupied him for the past twenty minutes? Where had she gone? He had been too busy sketching and familiarising himself with the new feeling in his heart. He couldn’t even articulate what this sensation was, and why he’d associated it to that lovely woman in the cream and beige dress, and the long brown hair, and the amazing suntan, and those big green eyes that pierced through his consciousness like embers. He was in love. Simple. Just like that. She was an enchantress. He could tell the type very well. Her latest antics had also revealed her as an eccentric and a bit of a drama queen. What an exit she’d made! It wouldn’t deter him from wanting the spoils of her heart all the same. He liked her quirky style and those emotions she wore on her sleeve. A crystal clear bundle of feelings, she was. Of the purest, deepest, most aware kind. He breathed in deeply, finished his coffee and kept at his drawing for another quarter of an hour. He had always maintained that longing is the stuff art is made of.

Why didn’t he make a move on her? Why didn’t he run after her and try to save her from whatever cloud was crossing her sky? His face darkened.

“Of course I shouldn’t get too close to her, or anyone for that matter, because of what happened in the past.”

He didn’t want to think about it. The wound he kept running from, the mark imprinted on his life forever. He couldn’t get close to her or it would burn her too. He was a hurt-generating machine that might never change. He couldn’t get involved in committed relationships for fear of reducing the other party to pieces. It had always ended like that. Whenever he had shared his heart with a woman. Whenever there was real intimacy. Truly, the only intimacy he’d ever experienced was with a bottle of vodka, a line of coke, and drunken strangers who disappeared from his memory and his life the day after.

Things had changed in Australia though. Healing had started there. He continued pouring his thoughts into the drawing of that angelic vision in the café, but the veil of defeat was descending upon him. No, that wasn’t the way! He slammed the palms of his hands on the table, took some change from his pocket to pay for the coffee, packed his sketchbook into his canvas sling bag and left. The other punters in the café turned their heads to watch. He didn’t care. He had to catch up with the beautiful girl. He wouldn’t give in to his shyness. Or his wound. His heart would guide him this time. We were glad of his decision and followed him in his roaming. He was the only one who could find Cassandra now, at a time when she was lost even to her own self.

* * * *

Outside the rain had stopped and the clouds had parted, letting gentle sun rays filter through. I don’t really know what had come upon me in the café. I felt humiliated. Perhaps I was scared. I was certainly angry now. I was experiencing stage fright at the new chapter in my life’s adventure. I didn’t want to embrace change: I resisted it with all of my soul’s might. I walked from Queen’s Street to the docklands in a complete daze. I sat on a bench and stared at the water. My inner dialogue was nonsensical and far from holy.

“Who wants to be the prisoner of some hypothetical higher plan that is starting to choke my freedom and kill my gut instinct? I didn’t like that guy. That sexy, attractive, mysterious-slash-familiar guy sitting in the café. There was something odd about him. Do the Masters think so little of me? Do they rate me this low? They must know that I think they sent him to take my heart off Gordon? Of course it’s not going to work. I still want my golf-player. They think I’m wrong and they’re right when it comes to matters of the heart. But it’s my heart, not theirs. And it’s my body, too. My body is Gordon’s. I want to feel his hands squeezing my buttocks, his fingers teasing my nipples, his manhood rubbing inside me, wanting me, releasing his essence. I so want to make love to him...  

I want to fucking kill that ugly woman who has trapped him into fatherhood in the way only desperate old women do. Stupid hag. Equipped with a hag’s big, crooked nose. She doesn’t deserve to have that treasure-trove of a body for herself. That body. Muscles, nerves, tautness, sweat, a statue of perfection. An erection that can go on for hours. I want it. I own it. I know that body like the back of my hand. I know he’ll always want my body too. What man wouldn’t want it anyway? I even turn myself on when I catch a glimpse of my reflection in the mirror...”

My ego and my hormones had taken over my thinking process.

“I am a real flirt and I want men to desire me. I find the power I have on them inebriating. And all the Masters can do is tell me that this type of power is an illusion which I will outgrow one day. They insist I’m still in transition, in a chrysalis. They are adamant that my physical body is that chrysalis. They say my psychic body is merging with it to create a new, finer one. What they don’t get is that I don’t want to shed my human body as it is, made of flesh and blood, in favour of an upgraded vessel tuned to higher frequencies and made of more enduring, self-healing matter. I am tired and heart-broken. I want to be an ordinary woman. I want to have a mundane life and a normal relationship with Gordon. I couldn’t care any less about evolution and the Plan.

I can’t wait to go to that opening tonight. My love will be there: Mr. Gordon Stewart in all his glory. He will want me back when he sees me. He will realise the mistake he’s made and I’ll forgive him in a second. We’ll end up in bed and forget it all. It’s going to be a sex marathon, I know... and that Linda... she’s going to suffer. I’m sorry for her baby but what can a woman do? As for that poncey type in the café they sent to tempt me? I hope I’ve reduced his ego to mince!”

I was really off the mark, Oscar, wasn’t I? In the middle of my river of rantings, my mobile went off. Polly was calling me from a phone-box.

“Where are you?! Are you okay?” She yelled.

“I’m fine. I’m in the docklands. Sorry for leaving like that. I’ve calmed down now. I didn’t know I still had so much pent-up pain in me. And anger. I just needed to be on my own for a bit. Wanna join me?” 

Her tone was calm again. “No, Cassie, I’m on my way to the hotel now. I’m just ten minutes away from it. Glad you’re okay. You’ve made me worry. Let’s meet in our room when you come back. Be there before 4 so we can have a good chat while we get ready for tonight. I’ve run out of change here... See you in the room, bye!”