After going through a few months of rebound, I came down to earth. Then one day, all the endless dating scenes just stopped.  One day, as I was driving down on US 1 from Miami to Key West alone, I realized that I've been alone for a while now, and those random scenes with random men had lost their appeals long before I made this conscious decision of staying single.  And I also realized that I was indeed over that man who haunted my soul for years, the love affair I made up in my mind had finally left me, set me free, and I was able to give and to love again. It was a raining day, I felt wet all over my face, I couldn't tell whether it was the rain, the humidity, or my tears.

Later at the dinner over smoked Salmon Ravioli and baked Halibut, you said, “we live in such a strange arena, having sex isn't going too fast but making dinner for someone is.” I thought about what you just said for a second and burst out laughing.

The night before I was out with a bunch of my girlfriends, I mentioned that I was going to make dinner for you. They went into a mild interrogation process with me.

“Making dinner? Are you sure? Isn't that going too fast? You should tell him to take you out for dinner instead. Has he mentioned the yucky R(relationship) word? Is he assuming that you guys are dating exclusively? You got to slow down. Don't go there (making dinner/dating exclusively) yet!” My girlfriends concluded for me. Two minutes later, the conversation shifted to their getting laid stories.  Indeed, the late nineties is a strange time. Getting laid is applauded and congratulated amongst the girlfriends, but boy, cooking dinner for a guy is a major sign of the ugly word called Commitment, and these girlfriends of mine (possibly me included) are in major fear when it comes to that.

For a very long time, I have been the designated single woman. Early this past summer quite a few of the girlfriends of mine had broken up with their significant others and joined the still largely singles crowd. Living in the San Francisco bay has provided single young professional women plenty of opportunities to “scope” out the scenery. I had decided that I would float around this singles’ scene, do my own things, develop my career and leave the dating scene for a while.

I drifted in that mode for months and months. Occasionally, someone mildly interesting would show up, but they either overwhelmed me with their intense interest or they lost interests in me after finding out my traveling schedule. So I put my longings of being with someone worthy up in the winter closet, and set my emotions on cruise control. It was a comfort zone I liked, or at least I've convinced myself that I’d like that. Only in those late nights, after working long intense hours and dragging my feet into the large lonely hotel suite, just for a second, I’d think, what it would be like - to hold someone again.

There is this girl, my best pal in the whole world, we grew closer when she attempted the first break up with her then boyfriend, also a good friend of mine. As time went by we became really good friends. We both share the same energy level; we are exotic in appearances; we are rebellious to our mother culture; we are diligent in doing what we do at work; we are both active and can be extremely devoted when it comes to relationships.  We explore the world via our own experiences and learn each lesson through our own mistakes. Without her, I wouldn't be where I am today.

Then there was this other Berkeley chick. Her presence is so strong, within two months of conversing via emails, we finally met. And the rest was history. We talk about work, life, relationships, we talk about the boys - the new wealth accumulating young frat boys turned into computer geniuses and their months on long vacations traveling around the world. We talk about lots of stuff - including marriage, family and kids. And we sort of formed a support group – she's dating someone who's a good friend with someone whom I suppose to be seeing. Complicated? Maybe. Sure it provides me comfort level as well.

Intelligence, senses, and sensibility. You add the three ingredients together and you get the three coolest chicks in the whole damn bay area. So we claim.

You were tired. Your eyes were half closed. So I joined you in bed. Your tight body hugged me, your arms reached over, and your hands holding my own. I couldn't tell if it was the Chianti, or my extra vulnerability on Sunday nights, my heart skipped a little then, when I felt your eyes on me. I turned off the lights, I closed my eyes, but still I could feel your stares, those intense, green eyes, I couldn't bear the thought of you looking at me like that.

So I brought up a conversation by discussing about a friend of yours whom was to get married soon. She had recently developed second thoughts. Somehow the conversation went into a deeper level than I first anticipated. You asked me what love was to me. I've never talked to a man who sleep with me about love. Though plenty of times, I thought I knew what love was.

Years ago, I thought I loved someone. The last night he spent over in my place, I remembered that I was crying, for the first time and the last time I cried in front of a man, and all I really could do was crying. I didn't know what else there was for me to do, I had loved him so much, so much so deep, yet he was leaving me for good. I remembered him saying, in a careless way his sexy voice was ringing, “Oh but I love the San Francisco fog, I’ll think about moving back next April.” His longish hair mixed with the club cigarettes, his voice carried over, sounding hollow. I knew that he wouldn't return - I had no faith for his return. So all I could do was crying, wetting my ivory pillowcase. That night I witnessed my heart break again, for the same man, for the third or forth time, those little pieces of hearts, I didn't know how to put them back, I didn't think I could.

I thought love was devotion, loyalty, and self sacrifice. You told me that to love someone, is to want to see the other person happy, to put his/her happiness above your own happiness.  But you wouldn't stop just there. You wanted to know more.

“What is that you want?” You asked me.

“To feel alive again.” I told you.

“What is that you want?” I asked you back.

“I want you to care about me.” You told me.

“But I do care.” I answered in defense. “I care about you.” You won't agree or disagree, instead you looked into my eyes, it's dark then, I forgot to lit the candles and burn the incense, but I still could sense your eyes, those deep green eyes of yours, so unusually intense. I felt something in my heart - it was sending panicking signals all over. I dreaded that feeling, I didn't know being alive meant feeling, feeling something unusual, something so sensational, something long forgotten by this woman/child who had let her heart die. I took a deep breath. Fearing your stares, I turned my back on you. You wrapped your arms around me, turning me around so that I could face you again. I closed my eyes, counting my heartbeat.

“Tell me that you want to be loved.” All of sudden you spoke, broke the silence.

“Say ‘I want to be loved.’ That's what you want.” You decided for me.

“But we all want to be loved.” I played it cool and casual.

“No, say ‘I want to be loved.’” You spoke again slowly, emphasizing on the ‘I’.

The room became quiet, and I tried to look elsewhere. You were looking down on me, your eyes were fixed on my face, your words echoed somehow in the bedroom, overwhelmed my ears. I couldn't believe you were putting me through this. Your persistent inquisition was beyond my imagination, your understanding of who I was and what I was about, and your observation and your clarity shocked me a little.  I had no where to hide. Part of me wanted you to drop the topic, part of me wanted to talk some more. I've never met anyone like you, someone who could carry on this type of conversation with me, someone who had somehow broke my fences and forced his own entrance.

“Say it, Victoria, say it. Say ‘I want to be loved.” This could almost sound corny, I've decided to not play your game. I laughed. But it was awful. It was painful. And worst of all, I regretted my laugh. There was nothing funny about it.

“You've been hurt before so many times. It's OK to be vulnerable.” You lowered your voice. You put your hands on my face, lifting some loose hair up; you slowly caressed my bare shoulders, your boxers brushing against my thighs, you eyes were inches away from my face. I started to feel panic.

I tried to laugh. I tried to say something funny. But something stuck in my throat, making a ball and it was going to make me cry. I took a deep breath, and noticed that my nose was stuffed, so I broke away. Just when you decided to give up on me, I escaped from your vision, and this time when I turned my face away from you, you didn't resist me. At the same moment, something wet and warm came out of my eyes. I had no clue where those big drops of tears came from, hitting my pillow. In the darkness of the room, my mind went into complete frenzy; clumsily I regained my composure back fast, cleared my voice, and pretended that the whole episode never happened. I was relieved that you didn't see my tears or my lost of composure, and even if you did, I was glad that you didn't mention anything.

My sarcastic self took a look at the situation. “You were being weak.” I spoke to myself. “This is ridiculous. Don't let him.” I reminded myself that.

You claimed that I wasn't ready to open myself up to you just yet. “What do you mean by that?” I pretended that I didn't know what you were referring to. I remembered this little episode took place recently.

A few weeks ago, when you were coming back from Europe, I was waiting for your call. The night when you returned home I didn't receive your call. So I panicked. (I had decided, ever since giving out my emotions too much too soon to those who didn't care about me back, long ago, that I wouldn't call a guy. It was one of the silliest rules, but by following that rule, I was able to cope with myself, and when I didn't have any expectations, I found that I was not as easily hurt.) I wasn't going to call you to find out. Instead, I forced myself to bed, after taking a few sleeping pills. I woke up first at 2 am. I was woken up by a dream. In this dream you had called my home phone number, a number which I've not given to you, and left me a message. You said that you were fine, and you would call me later on. I wondered why you didn't phone my cell phone direct, even it meant that you would wake me up. At around 4 am, I woke up again, this time I dreamed that you had called me and I was telling you how worried I was, but thank God you've called and now everything was fine. But when I realized it was still only a dream. I felt worse. Where were you? I wondered. Did you know that I was getting worried about you? And damn it, why couldn't I stop thinking about you? This time I felt back to sleep but only to be woken up by a nightmare I had – the third dream took a drastic turn - your plane had crashed and you never made it back. I woke up in cold sweat, headed straight to the bathroom and threw up.

The next day I picked up the phone and rang your home. I was, however, a bit uneasy. It was against my principle to call you up, it was one of the strange rules I’d made up for myself. Yet I couldn't help it, I needed to know if you were OK. You answered the phone and was surprised that I’d called. All I wanted to do then was to hang up. I was feeling guilty, ashamed and vulnerable all at once. I felt naked under the circumstance, or worse, I felt my soul was bare, and I realized, how easy it was for you to hurt me, had you decided to ask me why I called. But you never did. Instead you said, “it was so nice that you cared. I'm OK. Thanks for the call.”

I listened to your stories at night. I didn't make judgment. I understood your pain, your regrets, and your experiences. I wanted you to be happy. You simply wouldn't have an idea. You asked me, “Do you want me to be happy with you?” I told you, “happy with or without me.” It's not conditional. For whatever I felt, for the short few months I've come to know you, I never wanted anything more than seeing you happy, I cared about you too much to demand that your happiness was contingent upon me.

I never imagined someone like you existed, someone who would listen to me, who would talk to me, who would hold my hands, and who would kiss me so tenderly. Whether it was under millions of stars in San Marco square, or the quiet Firenze river; whether it was on the crowded Columbus Ave, or the steep Montgomery street, whether it was in your Telegraph Hill apartment, or on the sandy beach of Santa Cruz, you were there, with me. You taught me, when your lips touched mine, how to feel, not with my body, but with my soul.

How could I then, walk around with wounded heart, for so long; how could I then, trade my body with three minutes of attention, from men who I could careless the next day; how could I then, be as blind as a bat, not know what it was like, to feel alive again?

For a long time, I forgot how to ask for love. I loved men (purposely or subconsciously) who wouldn't know how to or want to love me back. I longed for their attention, I created stories in my head, and I even made up excuses for them when they disappointed me. But you were different. From the very start, there was something frighteningly similar about you and me that made me uncomfortable and excited all at once. You were a thinker. My friend warned me. You had integrity, she said. And you surprised the hell out of me.

But that wasn't why I was attracted to you, nor was your blonde hair, your green eyes, your boyish looks, where you went to school, or what your friends said about you.

You had faith - a rare sense of faithfulness. You lacked the pretentiousness, and you still believed love prevails. You had the key to my soul, when the first time you looked into my eyes, I knew I couldn't escape, I couldn't lie, I could only surrender, and mumble my way through this one.

But I was freaking out. I freaked out when I realized that I cared, when I realized that I didn't want to push it too fast, when I realized I wanted to take my time and really get to know you first. When all I could really think about, was to be close to you, to call you every day, to hear your voice, and to touch you, to make love to you, to be obsessed about you, to indulge my crush / infatuation with you.  I freaked out because I knew my impulsiveness was from the days of lavish, out of control, self-destructive life style, and I wanted to handle you, me, us with the maturity of an adult.  I wanted this - you, me, us, to be the still water that runs deep.

How could I possibly ask for more?

I remembered that night in Paris, in a smoky restaurant, my good friend Gregoire and I were treating ourselves with one of the best Parisian desserts. Gregoire had asked me, as the always the concerning big brother he was, how things were going in the emotional end. I told him a little about you.

He sank into deep thoughts, and after a while, he said, “Vick, I knew you might not want to hear this, but your heart is still so fragile, and maybe you are not ready just yet, you still may need sometime. You tend to give out too fast too soon. Do you know what I mean? You still have to grow up a little first to know what is that you want.”

My first instinct was to say – “No, of course I've grown up. Of course I'm ready to love and to be loved back.” But instead I just sat there, digesting his words. And I thought much more later on that night, knowing that you were probably sleeping in a youth hostel in Prague that same night, and I wondered, if I was indeed ready for you to enter into my life. I couldn't find my answers...

Could I live up to myself? I ask that question constantly. Could I? Could I? Could I???

I hear echoes, echoes from the space, and I search for an answer, but all I can see, are your deep green eyes.

Your knowing eyes surround me, you won't let me go back to the cage, I know you have all the answers in the world to solve my problems, but you won't tell. You are waiting for me to say the magical words...