Her Desire
By
Laura Hageman
Introduction
'Her Desire' is a romantic comedy about two friends who embark on an adventure between two countries, England and Spain. The friends, Beth and Angie manage to meet some of the most unusually interesting people during their trip. Some of them include a man of many disguises whose habitual stuttering seems to be his main giveaway, CJ the detective who's in pursuit of a man in a wheelchair, and the man in the wheelchair finds himself in the hospital experiencing near death revelations and is able to walk again. A love affair occurs when Beth meets a Moroccan man, Abdul who works in a pizza shop. Their relationship is an emotional roller-coaster ride and how it develops and resolves itself is the heart of the story. Beth finds herself battling with her friendship with Angie along with her love for Abdul.
Copyright2007LauraHageman
All rights reserved. No part of this creation may be copied electronically or otherwise, without written consent from the author.
Acknowledgements
I want to thank the following people for inspiring me to write Her Desire; Kingsley Ogbogu, Chris Gerke, Michael Pomenea, Cindy Pratt Frye, Colin Menefee, and Mr. Gouglou. I would also like to thank Juan Rocha for assisting me in getting Her Desire out to you to read.
I dedicate Her Desire to all of the people mentioned above along with my best friend Sam and my father. My father has been a hard worker throughout his life and deserves so much more than he has gotten. Her Desire is also dedicated in memory to Saul Aranda. He will never be forgotten.
Chapter One
It was a damp springtime evening in the city of Chicago. O'Hare airport was crowded with wall to wall people of cancelled and delayed flights due to the rainy weather. The heat inside the airport was excruciating from the body heat alone. Lines of people waited like herd of cattle for their flight number to be called. Flight number 47 to DFW was the next to leave at 7:15pm. Passengers started to board the plane with eagerness to arrive to their destination. Each individual found their seat quickly and dispersed of their carry-on luggage.
After the pilot announced for everyone to fasten their seatbelts to prepare for lift-off, the stewardess walked down the isle to assure everyone was ready to go. She stopped by a girl and a young man that were sitting next to each other, laughing hysterically. The girl's eyes were tired and her hair and clothes were wrinkled from the long day of travel. The man she sat next to was someone she just met by the name of Colin. He was a big man with a burly laugh. The stewardess had to ask them what was so funny. The girl stopped laughing for a moment and said she was telling the man sitting next to her about how she hadn't eaten in 30 hours and hadn't slept due to traveling all day from England.
"Well, what is so funny about that," asked the stewardess.
"He told me that after paying over 800 dollars for this flight that all we are going to get for a snack during this flight is a small bag of pretzels," responded the girl. "And what makes it even worse is that you will present it to us like it is a gift given upon us and that we should be grateful."
The stewardess apologized and awkwardly went to her seat in the back of the plane.
Colin smiled at the girl next to him and said, "I am so glad you're sitting next to me on this flight. I had introduced myself to you. How about telling me your name?"
"My name is Beth," the girl replied joyfully.
"So tell me about why you traveled to England," Colin said.
"Well, it is a long story," Beth giggled.
"I have about two hours," laughed Colin, "so I would be interested in hearing about it."
"I will have to start the story from about two years ago," Beth said.
"What happened two years ago," Colin asked.
"I met a man at a university that I was working at. He was studying in the U.S. for a couple of months" Beth began. "He came from Spain. We started e-mailing each other once he left to return home and basically we got closer by talking on the phone about once a week. Eventually, I decided I would go see him in Spain. I spent two weeks visiting him and returned back home. It was a wonderful trip."
"How long did you two know each other before you went to see him," asked a female passenger from across the isle.
Beth looked around and was surprised when she realized that there were more and more people on the plane that were becoming intrigued in her story. She continued telling her story again by explaining, "I knew this man for about six months before I went to see him. His name was Alberto and he was very mature for his age."
"Was he good-looking," asked another female passenger.
"Yes, he was very good-looking. He was tall and thin with dark eyes and hair. He had a beautiful smile that could make a girl melt," Beth explained.
Colin started laughing which interrupted Beth's thoughts. "What's so funny," she asked.
"You should see the look in your eyes when you describe this man," Colin responded. "Were you in love with Alberto?"
Beth became embarrassed, but answered with confidence, "No. I loved him, but I don't think I was IN love with him."
Beth's friend, Angie blurted out loud with a sturdy Ha! She was sitting in front of Beth and was listening to the entire conversation. She had many insecurities men being one of them. She hadn't had a decent relationship in years and was very hardened by how she was treated by other people.
"What do you mean by ha," asked Beth.
"You were in love with Alberto and you know it. Admit it. You couldn't wait to talk to him and you couldn't wait to read his e-mail. Furthermore, you couldn't wait to see him. Did I mention you couldn't wait to see him? And you wanted to have his baby. If that isn't love then what is it," mocked Angie.
"Anyway," Beth continued, "he told me several months after I arrived back home in the U.S. that he was going to England to study for five months. I was bothered by this because I realized I wouldn't be able to talk to him by phone as much as I had. So, I made a decision to go see him for two weeks while he studied in England. He said he was going to study in Wolverhampton which wasn't too far from Walsall which is where I was planning to stay at."
The woman sitting across the isle interrupted, "It sounds to me that if you were willing to go to Spain and then to England to see this man you must have been in love with him."
"Exactly," Angie agreed.
"No, I wasn't in love with him as much as I was in love with the idea of a long distance relationship working," Beth responded. "It's a romantic idea I suppose. What woman wouldn't want a man to fall in love with her and do anything he can to see her no matter how far he would have to travel? The only problem was I was doing all of the traveling and he wasn't doing any traveling."
Colin asked, "Why couldn't you find someone at home?"
As the questions pursued Beth she became more and more agitated by the questioning, she spoke out abruptly, "I have not been attracted to other men as much as I was attracted to Alberto at that time. I didn't choose to have a long distance relationship either. It just happened. Now, do you want me to continue with what happened or what?"
Everyone who was listening simply nodded their heads, except for Colin. His eyes widened as he leaned his hefty body towards Beth. "You mean to tell me you never met any other man that you liked or was attracted to at home? And what about Alberto? I am sure he must have found other women he was attracted to. Being away from each other is just about impossible to have a relationship work. How did it work out for the two of you?"
"Our relationship didn't work out," Beth answered quickly. She flipped her long auburn hair over her shoulder as she looked downward in shame. She clinched her hands together as the plane started to have some turbulence. The pilot announced that the turbulence shouldn't last for too long and for everyone to remain in their seats until the fasten seatbelt sign was off.
"I didn't mean to upset you," Colin said. He tried to comfort Beth by putting his hand on her shoulder.
Angie abruptly laughed out-loud, "Tell him how many men you have met while you were still seeing Alberto."
"Well," Beth continued shyly, "I met many men that I was attracted to, but it was the same situation. They were all leaving back to their country once they were done with their studies. I didn't want to get attached to anyone else, but I did. It was difficult, but I just wanted to remain friends with them."
A girl from across the isle asked, "Were they all exchange students."
"Yeah," Beth laughed. "Pathetic isn't it? I guess that's what could happen when you work in a college."
Colin asked with a wink, "Did you sleep with any of them?"
Beth laughed out loud. "No, I didn't, but I could have. There were several that were quite hot and made it quite obvious they wanted to, but I was afraid to do the wrong thing."
The turbulence stopped and the fasten seat belt sign went off. Beth started to look sad again as she continued with her story. "The friendships didn't last too long either."
"Why do you look so sad," asked Colin.
"I hate meeting people, getting attached to them, and then they leave to never be seen again. I hate goodbye's and that seems to be what continued to occur for many months for me. It's just really sad," Beth confided.
"So tell us how your relationship ended with Alberto," asked the girl across the isle.
Beth pulled her long hair back as she gulped before answering, "He just stopped talking to me. He never left a number for me to contact him at and I tried e-mailing him, but he never responded." Her eyes drifted downward again. "I guess he just didn't want to talk to me anymore. I assume he found someone else, but I will never really know the truth."
"It's really sad when people aren't up-front about how they feel. It only hurts the other person more in the end" claimed Colin. He put his hand on her shoulder to comfort her. "Please go on," he encouraged. "Did you go to England anyway? Did you see him again?"
"I never spoke to Alberto again nor did I see him. I did go to England. I did have a great time too. And while I was there I met another man," Beth responded with a half smile.
