Scorpio Tango - Part 1 of 3 posted 9/23/2007 9:00:36 AM | 8 kudos what's this?     report abuse tagged: story, creative, love

lacyvsq

A short story in the style of Love's Many Dimensions.

I walked up to his house with some trepidation. I was a self-invited guest – or maybe just an intruder.

I had met him online. When he first emailed me with a short message offering to send a picture if I could suggest a way for him to get it to me, I thought he was a scammer, out merely to get my email address and sell it to spammers. I suggested that he post a photo on a public site and send me a link. I might not have given him the time of day, but he made a point of telling me he was a fellow Scorpio and that he liked opera as well. He claimed to be ignorant of the means to load a picture on another site, so he sent me a link to “his” website – a website complete with his name, a resume of sorts and pictures – some from much younger days.

He turned out to be a minor celebrity. (Is that an oxymoron?) The boy was silly. He had not posted a picture on the dating site because he wanted to be appreciated for who he was and not what he was, but he lacked the confidence to sell himself only on who he was, so in the end, he fell back on his star status.

I was not totally convinced he was genuine. After all, what would a semi-famous person be doing looking for love or friends on a dating site? I figured he must have women falling all over themselves to meet him. Maybe he was just a poser…someone who had picked out a website and adopted the personality as his own. But I wanted to believe badly enough that I got sucked in, and after a time and some messaging, I became convinced he truly was the person featured on the website.

At first, though I tried to be cool, I was enamored of the star more than the man – blinded by the light. It was hard not to be drawn more toward what he was. It was out there for me to Google and see. Finding out who he was presented more challenges. He was incredibly stingy with me, giving me very little of what he thought about and what he did outside his public life. Only occasionally would I seem to hit a chord with him and he would open up almost accidentally and spill something personal…and the things he spilled generally hit a chord with me. So little by little, I became more drawn to the man, though I continued to admire the mask his talent provided.

He claimed that trust was difficult for him, but that he was worthy of time invested in getting to know him. Sometimes I believed the claim and sometimes I felt I was being played – that I was, and would only ever be, a fan to him. It seemed that every time I learned a bit more about him, he would shut me out for a time.

We had chatted on occasion about getting together, but he had been very elusive when it came down to actually setting up a date and time. He claimed to be shy – particularly about meeting women – though he said that he did not think he would feel awkward meeting me. That whole shyness thing seemed so incongruent, given that his success was predicated on fame, adoration and public exposure.

We had not been communicating regularly, but I had decided to push things anyway. I had not made the trip exclusively to meet him, but it was my major focus. We had never exchanged telephone numbers, so I had emailed him the prior day that I would be arriving at his door.

With his full name, finding his address online was pretty easy. I had even viewed it on Google Earth, so finding my way there from the airport had been easy. It looked much as I had imagined it. His vehicle was parked out in front. The make, model and color was one of those details that I had correctly guessed at (or intuited?) in email. I wondered whether I would be welcomed, incite anger or discover that the occupant here knew nothing of me and had unwittingly lent his name as an alias to someone with inside knowledge of him.

As I considered the alternatives, I realized that truth is most often stranger than fiction and the outcome possibilities here were just too numerous to ever imagine. I had come this far, I would play out the hand.

continued...

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