by Paul Preston
“Where are you going, Stephen?” Laura asked.
Laura watched as Stephen tossed the collar in a trash can a few feet away. He walked back to Laura and reached out to her. They embraced and walked off hand in hand toward the ocean.
Bella Lisa & Her Beast
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.
When their eyes met, she could see him release his grip on the railing and the furrow on his brow became smooth.
Was he actually looking for me?
She stared up into those hard brown dead eyes and responded to the man’s attentions without her usual warmth. Instead, Bella Lisa shivered. She broke off eye contact for a second to wrap a thin black silk shawl around her bare shoulders. When she looked up again he was gone. She slowly made it to the top of the stairs, chiding herself for giving him the cold shoulder again. After all, he was only looking at her as every other man had done. But there was something in that look that disturbed her, as if she was looking into the eyes of a caged and hungry animal.
Lurking in the shadows of the trees, Williamson watched Bella Lisa make her way into the courtyard, gracefully sipping a flute of champagne. She greeted several people, mostly men, smiling at each one pleasantly and flirtatiously. She chatted in a charming and open manner with each gentleman who greeted her, wrapping the silk scarf tightly around her white shoulders, causing her breasts to press upward and outward, allowing more of her deliciously abundant cleavage to spill out of her loosely fitted red gown. Williamson’s pelvis once again began to throb painfully at the lovely view and he rubbed the sore spot, hidden in the dark of the trees. Other men continued to notice her and make ever decreasing circles around her like a school of tuxedo clad sharks, smelling blood. He could see her occasionally looking through the crowd before another man would demand her attentions, hoping to make her his mistress. After a few minutes her father came out with the other actors from the dressing rooms to join the opening night party. Bella Lisa immediately ran over and gave Marc Mauricio a warm embrace and kiss on the cheek. Mauricio smiled, grabbed a champagne flute from a silver tray and took a long deep drink from it.
Of course. What good luck. She’s the daughter of Mauricio!
The resemblance was unmistakable. Williamson immediately felt a rush of excitement, his heart pumping, his blood surging through his veins. Now he would be able to see the beautiful young woman again, and soon. He remembered publicity shots of Mauricio’s ex-wife, a brown-haired slender super model, whom Mauricio had married and quickly divorced at the height of his popularity during the five year run of his popular TV show.
That’s where she got those stunning looks from.
Williamson never felt his cold heart pound so powerfully in his chest. Though he was immensely successful in all facets of his professional life, he still felt empty inside and alone. He smiled, looking down at his feet, chuckling out loud at his folly, as if he had cast himself in some seedy romance novel in the role of the dashing rich entrepreneur who had found everything he wanted in life, except love. He rubbed his eyes, trying to shake off the effects of the champagne.
There’s no way a woman of her age would want anything to do with me. What do I have to offer, other than money? I’m just another one of the desperate sharks, circling the waters.
Glancing through the trees at his limo, idling in the parking area, Williamson fought the instinct to slip through the grove and disappear. He would’ve gone off to his club to try to forget her, but he knew the Artistic Director expected him to make a fundraising pitch in a few moments.
As Williamson remained cloaked in darkness, he saw Bella Lisa sidle through the crowd to stand in the front row as the Artistic Director of Seaside City Playhouse began his speech to the assembled crowd of donors and media, introducing the playwright, director and actors. As the Director spoke, Williamson’s mind wandered back to the moment he gained access to the theater’s inner circle. It was his good fortune that he answered his phone when the telemarketer called his condo, asking for a donation to the year-end fundraising drive. The theater got his private number when he bought tickets to support a wealthy client whose stock portfolio he managed, whose son was cast in a show. Williamson was reading the earning results of the fourth quarter when the phone rang. The combined net profit from Williamson Investments, Inc., Williamson Real Estate Holdings, Inc. and the A and E Club had risen over 25 percent, reaching the fifty million dollar mark for the first time. He answered the phone as he was going over the numbers. After listening patiently to the earnest young man’s long monotonous scripted pitch asking for a $150 dollar donation, Williamson spoke up.
“Excuse me for interrupting, I know what you’re doing is tough. I started out as a telemarketer, just like you.”
“You did, sir?”
“Yes. And I understand what it feels like, people hardly listening to you, saying rude things, hanging up on you all the time.”
“You got that right, sir. You’re the first person all night that’s even talked to me.”
“Is that right? Well, you gave a very convincing presentation and because of you I want to help support the Arts. I’d like to donate $25,000…”
“Wh… What did you say, sir?”
“$25,000 dollars. You get roughly 10 percent, I would guess? That’s $2,500 in your pocket. Not bad for a two minute phone call. Merry Christmas.”
“I… I can’t believe it! That’s so generous of you, Mr. Williamson.”
“Are you ready to write down my Amex number?”
The impulsive donation turned out to be one of the best business decisions Williamson had ever made. It put him on the Board of the theater and gave him instant access to a new potential pool of wealthy patrons of the arts, their families and their friends who may be in need of his investment and real estate services. The donation also allowed him to sponsor one show per year out of the season. When Williamson found out the wealthy actor, Marc Mauricio, had been cast in the show he was assigned to sponsor, he tried to get to know him by attending a few rehearsals and giving him encouraging comments. One evening they decided to meet for a drink to get to know one another. When Mauricio told him that he dappled in the market, Williamson offered to do an analysis of his investment portfolio. The subject also came up that Mauricio was looking to move away from the noise and traffic of Los Angeles, so Williamson showed him a few days later a three bedroom condo with wrap around views that was currently on the market in the oceanfront building Williamson owned and lived in. Williamson closed him on the deal that day.
The escrow period passed smoothly and his home loan was approved easily. The key exchange was scheduled in two days for Sunday afternoon. His assistants usually did such menial tasks, but perhaps he could shift some appointments around and do it himself. Williamson wondered if Mauricio’s daughter would be there when he dropped off the keys.
As if on cue, Williamson stepped out of the shadows just as the Artistic Director looked in his direction and continued his speech.
“Ah, there he is, always lurking in the sh
adows, watching us, behind the scenes, like the Phantom of the Opera, pulling all the strings! So at last but certainly not least we wish to give a big shout out to our board member, successful entrepreneur and philanthropist, Phillipe Williamson, for underwriting this production. Without his generosity, all this would not have been possible. He’s notoriously shy and elusive, hiding over there in the trees, the handsome devil, and by the way ladies, Seaside City’s most eligible bachelor, but maybe if we put our hands together we can encourage him to come up here and say a few words.”
The audience applauded warmly as Williamson made his way to the platform. As he passed through the crowd he playfully arched an eyebrow at Bella Lisa, observing her surprised expression with a half-smile meant only for her
Bella Lisa watched Williamson stepped up on the platform, greet the Artistic Director, shake his hand and put his arm around the shoulder of her father. The three men posed for a photograph and the light flashed, momentarily blinding Bella Lisa.
Who is he? And how does he know my father?
Williamson looked out at the crowd and made his speech.
“Good evening, Ladies and Gentlemen. Thank you for coming tonight to attend the opening of “The Last Petal of the Rose”. I won’t keep you from enjoying the buffet table, catered by Wolfgang Puck. Just one thing. There was an envelope placed in your program this evening. As you leave the opening night party I ask each one of you to consider making a donation to help Seaside City Playhouse continue its mission of premiering original and audacious new plays and musicals, as well as to support the theater’s education programs for our Seaside City schools. There is a box on the pathway leading to the parking area you can drop your donation in. Now let’s raise our glass to the success of our play!”
Williamson raised his champagne with the crowd and took a sip, staring at Bella Lisa and smiling. Bella Lisa responded with a quizzical little smile of her own and tentatively joined him in the toast. As the crowd started lining up at the buffet tables, Mauricio touched Williamson on the elbow and spoke to him. Bella Lisa tried to listen in on the conversation.