Operation Soulmate (16 page)

     “Chinese alright man?” He said, riffling through a drawer in the immaculate, Japanese-inspired kitchen.

     “Cool,” said Ben, staring out across the river and the city, through seemingly endless windows, and blinking several times, for no good reason. Why did he feel as if he wanted to cry? "I'm not all that hungry."

Danny ignored him and ordered a selection of dim sum and various dishes, carefully observing Ben intermittently, as he spoke decisively but cheerily into the phone. When he finished the call, he threw it onto one of the many white sofas, and reached into the enormous metallic refrigerator for a couple of icy beers. He opened them and handed one to Ben in silence, watching him carefully as he pensively, rubbed a finger through the cool condensation on the bottle.

     “Ok,” he said, throwing his taut, deep brown body into the chair opposite and hurling a leg over one of its arms, his glistening, well exercised skin stretching snugly over his muscular limbs, a playful smile lighting up his face and creating dimples seemingly everywhere. “Hit me. I’m all ears.” He said, reaching for the remote and deftly silencing the life-affirming salsa music that seemed to be discreetly emanating from the walls, with one hand and tidying away a copy of
The Autobiography of a Yogi
with the other. . Ben looked up and shook his head slowly. How could he even begin to talk about everything he was feeling, about her, about ...
it
.... that curious blend of deep, contented, excited satisfaction and soulful vindication or completion, mingled with deep, deep regret and uncertainty about the future of his friendship with Geraldine? “Oh, my God, you slept with her... You did the deed...!!!!!!”

      Ben tried really hard not to break into a smile but it was just too hard under the inexorable spotlight created by Danny’s unbridled jubilation. “Dude, that’s beautiful man,” Danny was struggling, now, to reconcile the incredible news with Ben’s generally sunken demeanour. “Dude, you should be ecstatic!! How long have you been taking cold showers now? Come on Ben, that’s it now, you did it? You crossed
over
.”

      “Yeah, I just wish it was that simple...” said Ben, taking several gulps of his beer. Danny tried to remember the bits of the story from the previous afternoon’s Geraldine intensive.

      “Toby, right?” He said, nodding sympathetically. Ben nodded along with him.

      “Dude, she’s known the guy for five minutes, they’ve been out on
one date
and she thinks he’s like this dating God! I don’t even think I can be her friend anymore. It’s too hard. I don’t even think she
likes
me anymore. She tried to blame the whole thing on me, like I set it up. And the weird thing is, it was all her,
she
did it
all...everything
. It was a classic seduction scene, she totally went for me. I was prey, man.”

       “Cooool!” Said Danny. He liked it when women knew what they wanted and went for it, and after weeks of Gerry-talk, he really liked the idea that Ben’s crazy obsession was perhaps,
potentially,
at least, a two-way thing.

       “No, it’s
not
cool. It’s
horrible.
She wants to just pretend it never happened. Can you believe that? So now it’s back to business as usual; hapless, love-lorn Gerry and good old Ben, her trusty super-coach BFF and all round
nice guy
. I’m sick of it. She’s completely in denial about everything that happened, and thinks this Toby guy - this one date guy - is her soulmate! Some guy she met at some seminar and had
one date
with!! And the thing that really,
really
gets me is...wow, last night. I mean, I can’t even
begin
to tell you.” Danny nodded sympathetically. He could just imagine what last night had meant to Ben. “Danny, I can honestly say, with no exaggeration what...so...
ever
, that last night was the most incredible night of my life!! And she was right there with me every step of the way. I mean
every
step; you know what I mean?”

      “Yeah, I hear ya man,” said Danny, shuddering slightly from the vicarious intensity of the experience.

      “ And do you know how she described it? And wait for this.. She described it as ....a
complete
disaster.” Danny drew a sharp intake of breath.

      “Ooooh, man! That’s very cold man.” They sat in silence, acknowledging the chill-factor. Danny shivered slightly and Ben shook his head slowly. Somehow hearing the story out loud did absolutely nothing to help him make sense of it, or to diminish the impact of the violent rejection.

     “The thing is, Dan ...I
know
she’s crazy about me. I
know
she felt that magical
thing,
that...
thing
that happened, you know? That...inde
scribable
...
thing
...But then this morning she was like this other person...”

     “Yeah, I know man,” said Danny nodding sagely. Chicks can be weird like that; you just gotta deal with it. Stay with it man; stay in the game, wait this one out. Wait till this Toby thing blows over; be a friend, carry on as normal, forget about what happened. Pretend it
didn’t
happen, like she wants you to...and wait. You
have
to be the bigger man here bro.
Trust
me on this. When in doubt, do nothing.” Ben bowed his head and stared at the soggy label on his bottle. He really couldn’t see how he and Geraldine were ever going to get back to normal after what had happened or how he was going to learn to deal with his feelings towards her. “You are not leaving,”
said
Danny, quickly and firmly, just in case he hadn’t made his point abundantly clear.  “Remember, defeat is temporary, quitting lasts forever. If you move out now, you might as well just say ‘goodbye forever, Geraldine.’ Goodbye friendship, goodbye any chance of ever getting back into the love zone...goodbye to all of it! Is that what you want?! Listen, forget about pride. Pride won't get you the love you want. That's a quote from one of your books by the way!" Ben grimaced slightly. He was getting a bit tired of being called out on his own crap. It seemed to be fast becoming everyone's favourite hobby.

      "Look, all I'm saying is, don't see it as being taken for a fool. Just remember
you
have the higher perspective here. You know what the truth is in this situation, and you're the one who's in it for the long game. You're not just some fly-by-night Toby! This is all just a part of the dance. Where does this Toby live? I say we go kick his ass!”

      Ben laughed out loud, and it felt good. Good to know that at, all joking aside, at least one person was looking out for him. Danny was a hopeless romantic. He’d often said he thought Geraldine was a goddess, through and through. He knew all about her past from Ben’s frustrated reports over the last couple of years. He couldn’t stand it when men didn’t respect women. As far as he was concerned,
all
women were potential goddesses, and what they did
with
that potential was often, to a large extent, dependent on the quality of men they’d had around them. Of course, he’d spent plenty of time in his younger days sowing his wild oats, out there on a crazy ride, only to eventually come home to what was truly important. It had taken him years to realise the part he’d played in the success or failure of all his past interactions with women and to understand them from a place of maturity and respect. He knew, only too well, the chasm of misunderstanding that could easily open up between two people if someone didn’t take the initiative to see past their differences. Someone always needed to have the guts and the vision to see the bigger picture, a picture that could manifest into a world of magic with just the right blend of compromise and self-awareness. And in the past few years, he’d come to see it as a necessary part of his education, to become the kind of man who could allow a woman to be all that she really was on the inside. He also believed that if you were ever lucky enough to find one who could fully embody that presence regardless of who or what came in or out of her life, it was worth sticking with her through a little bit of crap, to get to keep her.

     “But what if this Toby thing
doesn’t,
just, blow over? I can’t just wait around indefinitely. And I’m not gonna sit around hoping it all goes wrong for her. It’s against everything I believe, spiritually, ethically...whatever. I know it might sound crazy Dan, but
want
her to be happy, whatever that means... as a coach
and
as a guy.”       

     Danny smiled. That was what he loved about Ben, he was one of the few, genuinely good people he ever came across these days. He kept him grounded. Not guarded-grounded in that dog-eat-dog, kill or be killed, survival of the fittest kind of way but in the right way, in the way that kept him believing in the brightest of all possibilities inherent in human nature. Danny prided himself on the fact that, even the desperation and malice he’d witnessed in his job hadn’t changed his opinion that people were inherently good and love was always well worth the testing that sometimes came with it. “Dude, you know you’re always welcome to crash here if it all gets too much, but trust me on this, do not leave that flat, do
not
leave that woman. She’s the one for you, and you know it. Anyway, you don’t know how she’ll be when you get back home. She’s had time to think it through, talked it over with her girls, had some space to let the dust settle, Toby probably still hasn’t called...”

      Ben suddenly felt a wave of guilt wash over him, as he suddenly remembered some of the more controversial terms of Operation Soulmate. He hadn’t even told Danny about those! He was having trouble even admitting them to himself. When he’d originally made the promise, he’d genuinely had no idea of the depth of his feelings for Geraldine. There was no way he’d have made the offer if he’d known,
consciously,
how he really felt about her. That would just be immoral. He thought, now about the loveless and resentful marriage they were bound to have, if she married him just because she felt bound to it by some coaching contract!! It was supposed to have been just one of those friends’ back-up plans, almost a joke. Of course, he’d have seen it through if it ever came to the crunch, if she’d held him to it. But sitting there weighing up that grim possibility in the light of all that had happened in the last 24hrs, he knew there was no way he could ever go through with it, now. He jumped eighteen years into the future to an image of his own daughter asking him, ‘So how did you propose to Mum then Dad? How did you two get together?’ What was he going to say to that?
‘Well you see, it’s like this sweetie, your mum and I had a ...kind of agreement...I was her best friend at the time, hehehe, and she was hopeless with guys, you see. But I was also hopeless with women. Anyway, eventually, when every other guy on the planet had proved his unworthiness as a potential suitor, your mum had no choice but to turn to me. It was kind of a bet, honey’
Ugh!   

    Ben shuddered. It was all too much to bear, and did absolutely
nothing
for his already fragile sense of masculine pride. In fact, he was almost rooting for Toby now. If Toby was,

in fact, what she
really
wanted... “I seriously need to just get a life,” He said. “I need to get back out there on the dating scene, for
real,
this time.”

       “Sure,” said Danny, sounding utterly unconvinced, “That could work too... That could work.”

Geraldine was tidying up when Ben came in at around 11p.m. “Hi,” She said nervously, as he entered the living room, where she was busy fluffing cushions for the tenth time.

    “Hi,”

    “How was karate?”

    “Didn’t go. Went round to Danny’s to just, well...to just ..shoot the breeze...”

    “Ben, I’m really sorry, about...what I said about last night. It was a really, really awful thing to say. It wasn’t a disaster...It was lovely... I just got all worked up about the whole Toby thing and, well, I didn’t mean to imply...”

     Ben's heart leapt. Was this really happening? “Hey, it’s okay.” He said, walking towards her and suddenly remembering why he loved her so much.

    “I suppose I've just been angry with
myself
really. I mean I finally meet a great guy, a really decent guy, one I’m already hopelessly in love with, and here I am trying to mess things up, just like you said I always do. I’m so sorry Ben. I don’t know what got into me, but I accept full responsibility for everything that happened last night and I...well, I’m just going to try not to take everything so seriously for a while.” Ben wasn’t sure he knew exactly where the conversation was going anymore. Was there
any
chance at all that he was the guy she was already hopelessly in love with.....?!

      “O...kay,” he said, tiptoeing through a field of unbroken egg shells. “But I wasn’t completely blameless, in this, I suppose. I’ll take my fifty per cent of that guilt, easy.”

     “Anyway,” she continued, “I realise now, that the most important thing is. I mean, what I really want
you
to know, is that, this isn’t just about Toby anymore. I really, really don’t want to lose
you
, Ben.” Ben could feel his heart racing. What was she saying?
Was
he that guy? Was he actually, finally,
that guy
?!

     “The thing is, I don’t know what I’d do without you and, you know, our
amazing
friendship. You’re the only person I can really trust with all this stuff. You know me better than anyone. I, I just don’t know if we can go back to things the way they were before...But, what do
you
think, Ben?” The word that really leapt out at this point was,  “
friendship.”
That word certainly cleared up any lingering ambiguity, and once again, Ben felt himself surrendering all hope, and mentally returning to his own personal dating plan. He was so over this BS!!! He was going to get out there and date up a
storm
!!   

     As it turned out, Geraldine was, thankfully, happy to put Operation Soulmate on pause for the time being, and that suited Ben just fine. After all, he was only human. On some level, he was relieved she wanted to just see where things went with Toby. No more thumbs up, no more ring-warnings, no more Detective Brogan. It was time for him to put the focus firmly back on himself and his own life for a while. And thanks to Geraldine, he had all the tools he needed to help him ward off any possible threats to his impending and unassailable launch into the, erstwhile, mysterious love-zone.

     “Gerry, whatever we do, whatever happens between us, we’re always going to be friends.” He said, silently thankful that, at least, he still had access to that warm, aromatherapy-scented hug, even if it did come from someone who was... just a friend. So what if the rest of his body hadn’t yet, caught up with his current thinking. That was just a guy thing. That was just the memory of last night anchored onto the geranium fragrance. He could collapse that baby in five minutes flat. Most guys would
love
to find themselves in the situation he was in. He’d slept with his gorgeous best friend and still managed to keep her in his life... and was now free to date other women. He was living the dream... So why did it not feel so great?

     Geraldine curled into Ben’s strong arms and suddenly felt all the doubt and anxiety of the last 12 hours drifting away. Ben always made things feel right again, however horrible they’d seemed before. Last night had really gotten to them both, but here they were dealing with it like the mature adults they were. It was just amazing, Ben’s capacity for understanding and communication were just astounding. Geraldine couldn’t help thinking that the two of them could probably get through anything, together. That was one of the things that made their friendship so exceptional. At least this was what she told herself as she breathed in the familiar scent of Ben’s shampoo, a smell, which had now taken on a very different meaning. In fact, wasn’t there just the slightest hint of residual uneasiness about this hug? The gorgeous, big, warm and reassuring, tingly Ben-hug she’d grown to treasure so much. Tingly!! That wasn’t right, was it? Should she still be feeling tingly?? She pulled away from him quickly and turned away in the direction of her room. If ever there was a time to retire to bed early, this was it. “Night, hon...” She called back over her shoulder, trying to sound as nonchalant and cheery as a best friend should.

     “Night G,” He said, trying to suppress a smile and deal with an ancient and unknown sadness, all at once. Why did he get that sinking feeling every time she left the room now..

    Before she disappeared into her room, she turned to look at him. “Still love you,” She said, smiling as she might smile at a stray puppy.

     “I know." he said, smiling sadly. "I love you too,”

As soon as he heard the door to Geraldine’s room closing, Ben went to splash cold water all over his face and neck, then proceeded directly to his office to spend a couple of hours, just  

thinking about Ben for a change. He reached into his desk drawer for one of those absurdly- optimistic bright, yellow files and began to type up a label on this lap top.

Ben Wright

Operation Soulmate

Page one was, of course, Gerry’s love-zone list of do’s and don’ts, and despite himself, he smiled as he inserted it carefully into the file. Page two was a list of all the places he might meet the kind of woman
he
was really interested in meeting, and page three was the Soulful Speed-dating flyer.

     Ben was out a lot over the next few weeks, and Geraldine reasoned that he was only going back to the way things had been before Operation Soulmate. It kind of made sense really. After all, wasn’t Ben entitled to a life as well? Dating with Toby was going well. It was almost October now, almost their month anniversary, and as usual, he had called on Tuesday afternoon to see if she was free for a date on the coming Saturday night! With all guilty thoughts of that fateful night with Ben carefully tidied away on Brogan’s seasoned advice, Geraldine was ecstatic! Work was going well, her readings were alarmingly accurate and filled, somehow, with an even deeper insight and compassion. The connection with Toby was obviously having a wonderful effect on her psyche.

      Ben continued to rush in and out of the flat, more or less back to being the Ben she knew and loved, only very busy. Yes, he was still funny, affectionate, and considerate, as always, but he was, now, also resolutely hard to pin down! By the time Saturday arrived, Geraldine could honestly say she’d only spoken to him, properly, twice that week. In fact, since Monday night, he’d actually been out
every
evening.

      On Saturday evening, he came home, looking more chiselled than ever with a new haircut that made him look even more, sharp, smart and sexy. Geraldine was dressed up and waiting for Toby to arrive but gasped loudly when she saw him. He always looked so good with a haircut, and whatever else he'd been doing to himself seemed to be working wonders for his general appearance and demeanour. She hoped he was going to all this effort for someone who truly deserved it. As she stood nervously by the living room window, Ben whistled appreciatively and winked at her as he quickly dashed into his room to throw his things down, and then disappeared into the shower whistling happily. He re-emerged, thirty minutes later, wearing a tuxedo and fiddling with silver cufflinks.

      “Wow, where are you off to?”

      “Oh, just another coaching special,” he said, disappearing into his room again for what seemed like ages. Geraldine had never seen him like this before. So ...jumpy.

       He re-appeared again, just as the doorbell rang.

      “Oh, that’s Toby,” She said, nervously.

      “Okay,” Ben said, moving quickly through the hallway. "I’m off. Don’t wait up.” He almost collided with Toby as Geraldine answered the door. “Hey, Toby,” he said jovially.

      “Hey, man” said Toby, briefly looking him up and down. He still just wasn’t sure about this Ben guy at all ....or his and Geraldine’s slightly unorthodox living arrangement, or their obviously very close friendship. Something about it just made him feel very uneasy. In fact, if Geraldine hadn’t told him Ben was gay, he’d be
seriously
concerned by now.

      “Hey sweetness,” He said, kissing her on the cheek. “Shall we?”

       Geraldine’s forth date with Toby was even better than the previous three. This time they spent the entire evening, just talking. They had a long and languorous meal at a cosy, late-opening Italian restaurant and then went on somewhere else for coffee. The whole experience of being in town felt so different with Toby, he made her feel safe. He’d laughed empathetically when she said she wasn’t generally a fan of Central London, and suggested effortlessly that they should just drive down to Brighton for the day, the following weekend. Geraldine was in Heaven. All confusing thoughts of Ben and his silver cufflinks and shampoo scent drifted into insignificance as she held her arms around Toby’s thick waist and chatted happily with him on the way back to his car.

      Back at her flat, Geraldine hesitated for a second or two, before asking him to come in. For some reason, it still just didn’t seem right, yet. She wanted to wait until it did. It wasn’t a lack of chemistry. There was plenty of chemistry there....sort of... She just didn’t feel ...
ready
. Toby looked into her eyes and placed his lips on hers, more decisively this time and she felt herself battling with feelings of guilt, once again, as recollections of her night with Ben came back to haunt her.

       “Toby, I ...er...had a wonderful evening,” She said, backing away slightly, and deftly  avoiding another kiss. “Thank you...” Toby took hold of one of her hands and stared at it for a very long while. He seemed to be thinking very deeply about something. He lifted the hand up to his face and gently kissed, first her palm and then her wrist. She could feel his desire, both, physically
and
psychically through the burning intensity of those kisses. He gazed into her eyes but saw her hesitation and noted her hasty retraction of the hand.

     As much as he wanted the evening to continue, Toby certainly wasn’t one to be pushy. He quickly picked up on the unspoken signals and, stroking her cheek softly but respectfully, simply said, “So, I’ll see you next Saturday then, Gerry.”

     “Okay,” she said smiling and reaching out to gently stroke his arm. The lights were on inside the flat.

     “I suppose your friend ...Ben.. is at home; probably with a new boyfriend,” he said inquisitively.

     Geraldine laughed, nervously. “Knowing Ben, anything’s possible.”  She said, quite truthfully.... One lie was more than enough.  

    “Goodnight, Toby.”

    “Goodnight Angel.”

     Toby was really enjoying getting to know Geraldine. He liked her style: her refinement of character, her sensitivity and her smart, understated and slightly wacky sense of humour. He even quite enjoyed her slow and thoughtful approach to relationships. After all, there was no hurry. She was such a great woman; she was probably going to be well worth waiting for. He could wait. He was definitely going to have to break it to Indira, sometime soon, though, that he just wasn’t on the market anymore. He was wildly out of practice with the whole dating thing. When exactly would be the right time to do that? When did a date become a girlfriend? Was it the sex and intimacy that made it official? What if Geraldine was one of those women who wanted to wait for months? What would
that
mean? What if Geraldine wanted to wait ...but Indira
didn’t?
What would
that
do to the whole, multiple-dating mix?
When
would he officially cross over from simply being a good guy, doing some good, honest, dating into the murky netherworld of the practiced player? He decided to go with the flow, just a little bit longer, and see where it took him. There was no doubt that if he had his way, he’d
definitely
been spending a lot more time with Geraldine, but Indira could be so....persistent and ...unreasonable.

       Just as he was about to start the ignition, his phone rang. The display seemed to almost scream,
INDIRA
. Toby sighed. Didn’t that woman have a life?

      “Indie,” He said, trying to sound as relaxed and platonic as possible.

      “Hello daaaahrling,” She said, “I’m not checking up on you. I just wanted to see how you were. Did you have a nice evening?”