On my third day in Florence I met John. There was a conference in the city of oil industry executives and some of its men and their wives were staying at my hotel. I would later learn that John was considered the "closer" in multi-million dollar oil deals. He was an American of Irish descent, who sometimes lived in a Boston, but spent most of his time traveling the world at large or wherever he was needed to broker a deal at its crucial last minute. He worked for a company out of Switzerland, and loved Florence most of all the cities in the world. He had been divorced for many years; had raised his children overseas; and had recently lost a son, who was a successful CEO in America, to a brain tumor.
John always wore cheap three piece suits, and he was always concerned about getting a bargain, even though he was rich enough to do as he pleased. He spoke to me many times about trying to find a deal on an apartment in Florence as he most often seemed to be in this city that was responsible for producing some of the equipment used in the oil industry.
To be honest, I was not in the mood to date in Florence. I travel to get away from it all -- lovers, family, children, work, friends, etc. My need to travel alone also fulfills my need for solitude and quiet. When I get away during the holiday season -- when the children are away with their father -- I recharge for the coming year. Anyway, I just had a broken up with a lover and was not in the mood to entertain another relationship, if only for a few days. But, John insisted. He was a powerful man who got what he wanted. He waited for me in the hotel lobby. Invited me to dinner. Strolled around the city with me at night. Called my hotel room. And occasionally knocked on my door to see what I was doing.
I love powerful men - their chase, their complexities, their strengths, their burdens, their pain (I once dated a commissioner who worried about a mother who was certifiably insane; and the well-known writer who suffered from writer's block; the flight captain who was mortified for being so sensitive that he cried at romantic movies). John had recently lost his oldest son to cancer, and he wanted to talk to me about it. I imagined that a man like him - a man who worked alone; a man who was the "go-to" man in intensely complicated deals; a man who was expected to have all the answers -- was a lonely man. I listened to him talk about his son's final days, his greedy daughter-in-law, and the children his son left behind. His blue eyes were always pained, and he drank a lot. I listened to him, and that was all I did.
John also wanted to have sex with me. He had recently broken with a Chilean woman who was his traveling companion, a woman who had been a guaranteed source for intimate relations. He said that the women in Florence were not easy to seduce or open to one night stands. He thought I was, and for a minute I entertained the idea of sleeping with him. But, I have learned that in order for me to sleep with a man I must feel a connection with him. I must feel that he knows and understands the one thing about myself that I have shared with him -- nothing overwhelming or baffling but a simple observation that he must acknowledge in order for me to confirm that he will be present in a very physical act. The only time I spoke to John about myself and an eccentric childhood with a father who at one point was married to two women, he smirked, laughed it off, and told me that what I said was the most ridiculous thing he had ever heard.
When he knocked on my hotel door the next day, and asked if he could come in, I told him I was exhausted and refused to let him in. I never saw him again.
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