Sexy Serena

The problem with the Tomato Tsunami, as it later became known in the office, just seemed to resolve itself. Jim, the client, had appeared back from the kitchen with Patrick Pelinni thirty minutes later with his shirt amazingly clean despite the wave of sauce which had engulfed it. The open-neck shirt however indicated that the pink Hermes tie was not so easily restored to its former glory.

But it was clear that Jim’s demeanour had changed and he refused dessert, gathered his gofers up and off they went, refusing my offer of a couple of limos to take them wherever they were heading. Thereafter I didn’t see Jim for several months, but incredibly, the prat who had ordered a burger that night at dinner turned up the following week with five cheques, each made out for $400,000 and a request to cash one each week. I’d long since learned that there are various ways of doing business in NYC and not to question any of them too closely.

Samantha, of course, was delighted that her unfortunate accident hadn’t killed the deal and was totally insistent that the Chablis throwing was purely to dilute the tomato sauce covering Jim and nothing to do with the obscenities he screamed at her. Somehow I believed her, particularly when, later that week she went off to Brooks Brothers a couple of blocks away and managed to get an identical Hermes tie which she had one of our drivers deliver to Jim Levinski’s office along with a small olive tree – a symbol of peace! Samantha could be a bit of an airhead at times but then she’d surprise everyone with her ability to think of things that none of us would ever have dreamed of.

When I asked her why she’d been so forgiving towards Levinski, she said that she’d have been mortified if her simple but stupid mistake had killed a $2 million deal. ‘In any case’, she continued, ‘I’ve had your clients’ hands all over my boobs and down my knickers last week so a bit of bad mouthing isn’t something that worries me unduly’.

Samantha had also shown a much more vulnerable, but from my point of view, frustrating side since the ‘Tsunami’ incident, preferring to sleep upstairs at the Chambers on at least four nights a week and when she did slide into my bed, it was generally for a cuddle rather than the wild sex which was the norm.

-------------------------------------------------------------

They say a man thinks of sex, on average, every 10 seconds. Well I must bring the average way down. It’s a constant. Even when I’m scouring several screens for the information which tells me if there’s a deal to be done, lurking in the background is the constant nagging that I might not get any that night.

For the past few weeks, Samantha had taken care of those needs but now because of the Jim Levinski incident, she’d withdrawn her services, not out of any issues with me per se – it just seemed like she’d retreated into a professional shell. She worked hard during the day, refused all offers to go for drinks after hours and headed straight back to the Chambers at every opportunity. This had an effect on me, not just in that I was unfortunately celibate but I actually began to feel sorry for her and worse, began some self-critical analysis of my life. Mummy would have been impressed. Daddy would have been worried!

This self analysis and slowly diminishing desire for the opposite sex came home to me with a bang one night (no pun intended) when I was having a few cocktails at Métrazur in Grand Central. A five minute walk from the office, Métrazur (pictured) was handy, was always full of gorgeous women (not that I was interested that night) and was expensive enough to keep the ‘pond life’ out of the place and further up 42^nd Street.

I’d gone there on my own. I was in a reflective mood and was sipping my second Golden Millenium (gold leaf, champagne and Cuarenta y Tres) when there was a tap on my shoulder. I turned and my immediate thought was that the girl I was now facing simply could not be that beautiful. But she was – and better than that, I knew her.

Serena had been an intern at Daddy’s Barclay’s office and I’d seen her a few times in passing when I’d popped over to their magnificent building located just across from the Tower of London. She’d completed her degree in the US but had come to London as part of some intern exchange programme and as usual, was given crap jobs which nobody else wanted to do. I’d sympathised with her a couple of times and eventually I’d managed to get her out on the town where we both got completely rat-faced. Nothing was said but we eventually headed back to her place in Bayswater snogging like mad in the back of the cab but when I got out to follow her inside, she’d pushed me back into the cab and made it quite clear that her boyfriend would not be too pleased to see me in her bedroom! Damn! What a crushing blow that was, but at least I’d had a great snog.

Five years on and she was again facing me, smiling that enigmatic and very alluring smile. Two bottles of Bollinger later and I was consoling a tearful Serena who told me that she was getting married in three weeks time but she didn’t really want to but felt that she needed to get married, ‘to get it out of the way’, as she put it. It was all a bit confusing for a simple ‘wham, bang, thank you maam’ boy from London.

We were attracting a fair bit of attention as I stroked her tears away, so I suggested a little bar near the Chambers which would be more private. Fifteen minutes later we opened the thick, heavy black doors and entered Bar 27. It was dark inside and it was difficult to see if anyone else was there so Serena and I grabbed a corner seat, ordered yet another bottle of Bolli and snogged like mad. Memories came flooding back. God, that woman could kiss.

A DJ in the far corner was playing an 80’s selection and Serena grabbed me up to dance but all she got was a staggering, swaying Nigel who just managed to stop himself falling over the DJ’s station but nevertheless managed to knock his drink all over his decks.

That was it. A couple of burly black guys grabbed me and threw me out of the doors and across the sidewalk. Luckily, a stack of full, black plastic bin bags had stopped me rolling into the street which, even at that late hour, might have been a problem. I lay there for a second or two wondering what had happened and then I saw Serena, laughing her head off, running from the club’s doors, fly through the air and land in the bags beside me. We both lay there laughing at the absurdity of it all. It was raining now and in addition to small pools of water which had gathered in folds in the plastic bags and which was now seeping into our clothes, there was the unsaid invitation to lick the raindrops off of Serena’s face.

We lay there for what seemed like ages just kissing and licking each other’s faces until Serena spotted a cab and waved him down from her semi-prone position. In London a cab would just not have stopped in those circumstances but here in NY, they stopped for anyone, in any state. We piled in and without even looking at me she told the cab driver to head for Greenwich Village where she had an apartment.

‘I’ve got tomorrow off’, she said. ‘Why don’t we spend the night together making up for lost time?’

I looked at this gorgeous girl and could not believe it when I heard myself say, ‘Sorry Serena but you’re getting married soon and much as I’d love to, you’ll regret it first thing tomorrow, so I think I’ll head back to the Chambers’.

And that was that. The cab stopped, I gave her one last kiss and I got out and headed off in the opposite direction. As I walked the few blocks to my hotel I felt a strange set of emotions. Stupidity and frustration - Serena had offered it to me on a plate and I’d refused. Smugness – I’d turned down the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. Dampness – my clothes were soaking!

I didn’t see or hear of Serena until several years later when she contacted me out of the blue and suggested we meet at Zuma, a sexy new Japanese restaurant in Knightsbridge, London. Over seared tuna and salted sea bass she told me that she’d got married as planned but had then divorced the guy after exactly one year. She’d ‘gotten it out of the way’ and had moved on. She was still utterly gorgeous but we never did have that night together. Do I regret it? Yes and no!