Chapter One

8/14/2008

 

Before the play started, as the house lights began to dim, Phillipe Williamson first encountered Bella Lisa Mauricio through his sense of smell. The alluring, feminine scent came from the lovely pink skin of the diminutive young woman seated in the row directly in front of him. In the fading light Williamson saw her look up at the stage and close her program. He followed the curve of her neck through the long silky strands of her light brown hair, from the pale white nape to the tantalizingly thin straps of her red evening gown. In his imagination, she preferred not to be confined by panties or a bra, so when he stretched the tight straps over her shoulders, the loose delicate material of her gown slipped away, falling like a feather to the floor, completely exposing her. Rather than covering herself in shame, she looked innocently over her shoulder at him with trusting eyes, keeping her hands and arms compliantly at her sides. She arched her back, allowing his shaft to slide in easily from behind, her moist lips opening for him like a flower in the morning sun. His palms caressed her quivering thighs, her firm torso and up and over the mounds of her soft ample breasts. His hands lingered there, his thumb lightly brushing the tips of her sensitive erect nipples. His hands came to rest on the smooth skin around her throat as his shaft slipped deeper and deeper into her womb. In the dark of the theater, he became immediately aroused.

As the house lights faded to black, he leaned forward and breathed in deeply, his lips only inches away from the tiny hairs on the back of her neck, drinking in her fragrance. Bella Lisa flinched slightly, tensing her shoulders. She thought she felt a wisp of breath on the back of her neck and could smell the strong musky aroma of men's cologne. As she turned to glance behind her into the dark, Williamson had leaned back into his seat and glanced downward. As the stage lights reached full illumination, Williamson looked up directly at her with unsmiling and smoldering eyes. Emerging from the shadows, Bella Lisa saw a powerfully built, sharply tuxedoed, black haired man with a handsomely chiseled virile face. She guessed his age to be in his mid to late thirties, much older than herself. The sensual aroma of his cologne lingered in her nostrils, disorienting her, and she caught herself involuntarily breathing it in.

Looking back into those cold hard eyes, Bella Lisa lost herself for a moment, as several thoughts flitted through her mind. At eighteen years of age, she was by now used to the gazes of lustful men everywhere she went. All the boys in high school gaped at her cleavage, face and behind hundreds of times a day, it seemed. Having the combination of a sexy beautiful super model for a Mother and a famous attractive television actor for a Father made her popular and free-spirited at school, with the very pretty face of a young girl but the sensual and responsive body of a well-endowed older woman. She really didn't mind the sneaking glances of all the boys, or even the salacious looks of the older teachers. As she matured, Bella Lisa became flattered by all the attention men gave her with their hungry looks. Whenever she caught men staring at her, she would always smile graciously and demurely or even perhaps a trifle flirtatiously at them, secretly excited by how much they seemed to want her.

That's why God gave men eyes. And staring never hurt anyone.

As Bella Lisa got older, she dressed a little more provocatively, wearing sexy tight fitting clothes that showed off her well-proportioned body. She knew the attention she received from men made her feel a little less alone. Her parents were quite busy with their careers and rarely at home growing up. Since her father was cast in the play, she was able to spend her last summer in Seaside City with him before going off to the University. At least Dad has always tried to be there for me, she thought.

The cold haunted eyes staring at her in the dark theater were intriguing, but she didn't want anything to distract her from missing the start of the play and the entrance of her father's character. Ordinarily she would've responded to the man's gaze with a gracious and innocent smile, but this time she raised her eyebrows to the gentleman in a disapproving if slightly fetching manner and turned back around.

"Pervert," she whispered, loud enough for him to hear.

Bella Lisa turned her attention back to the stage and waited for her father's character to appear.

One look was all it took and Williamson was literally stung by her beauty. In that brief moment his heart raced wildly and his breath stopped as he gazed into her face.

Her watery eyes were wide, light brown and invitingly vulnerable. Tendrils of her long curling brown locks fell past her high cheekbones and over her shoulders, coming to rest on her fully developed young breasts. By the look of her smooth teenage skin and visage, he estimated her to be seventeen or eighteen at the most, making him more than twice her age. Her slightly parted lips were full and bright red, glistening with a sheen of wetness.

When he heard her clipped, feminine, unintentionally flirtatious voice call him a pervert, it was as if some sort of poisonous creature had whipped its sharp tail into his groin, stinging his inner thigh. It didn't seem like it was just his overactive imagination acting up again. He could actually feel some kind of sharp pointed object, like a scorpion's barb, enter his skin and sting him in the pelvis, causing a painful swelling there. He wished he had an aisle seat so he could slip away without disturbing the other patrons and go check himself in the men's room. I'll just have to wait until intermission, he thought. Luckily she had turned away so he had the chance to instinctively rub the area around the stabbing pain, feeling his hardness against the back of his hand. Glancing to his right and left, Williamson adjusted himself in the dark of his theater seat and rubbed the strange, rather painful inguinal ache. Caused by what?

An insect? A spider? An enchantress in the dark?

At intermission Bella Lisa remained in her seat, reading the program notes. Williamson could hardly concentrate on the first act, the area of his pelvis throbbing with pain. He slipped out of his seat and up the aisle, unnoticed by her. He crossed the lobby, waited for a stall to open up in the men's room, went in and shut and locked the door behind him. He removed his pants and observed his groin area in the bright florescent light. The skin was red and swollen, perhaps from how he was rubbing it, but he could find no evidence of the bite of an insect or spider. He did notice that the blue veins running across his pelvis seemed more pronounced. That seemed to be where the pain was coming from. He tried to recall if he may have pulled a muscle doing squats, leg lifts or running vigorously on the treadmill during his last work out session. Though he had worked his body into a lathering sweat, he didn't remember injuring himself there. Williamson used the facilities, zipped up, washed his hands and walked through the lobby, looking at photographs of previous theatrical productions mounted on the lobby walls. When the house manager rang the bell signaling the beginning of Act Two, rather than returning to his seat he decided to go to the courtyard outside the theater to get some fresh air and try to walk off the pain.

As he walked further away from the theater and the young woman, the pain thankfully subsided a bit. He watched as the courtyard was being set up for the opening night catered party, with each table adorned with fresh flowers and champagne flutes on top of elegantly pressed white linen, just as he requested. Williamson picked up a glass of champagne from a silver tray on the buffet table and took a sip. He decided to take a walk through a grove of trees to wait for the show to end, trying to calm his throbbing pelvis and beating heart. He shut his eyes, resting the back of his head against the smooth bark peeling off of a eucalyptus tree. He loosened his black bow tie slightly. Breathing in the tree's fragrance, he was surprised, despite the dull ache in his groin, to feel a sense of lightless or even an expectation of happiness creep into the dark and deadened core of his soul. Williamson felt the wisp of a cool ocean breeze come off the Pacific Ocean as he sipped his Moet. He leaned back and tried to calm his mind with the visage of the unknown woman's lovely face.

As the lights faded on the final scene of the play, Bella Lisa was the first to begin the applause, her face beaming with pride for her father's performance as he took his bow with a flourish. She wanted to give her dad a standing applause, but felt a little embarrassed that she would've been the only one standing, since the applause had quickly died down and became tepid. As the house lights came up she stood, clutching her purse against her side. She inadvertently shot a quick glance behind her at the strange man, but the seat was empty.

Where was he? How rude of him to leave before the end of the performance.

Bella Lisa brushed her fingers through her thick hair and inched up the steps of the aisle with the crowd. She looked up toward the back of the theater and saw a man standing at the top of the steps. She focused her eyes and realized it was him, gripping the railing tightly with his fists and staring over the crowd and up and down each aisle with that same burning intensity in his eyes. Bella Lisa watched him surveying the theater with his mouth slightly open and lips parted, as if he was looking for someone or something he had lost.