‘Where has Natasha gone?,’ her new man Paul asked, starting to panic because she’d disappeared with a man dressed in white tie, smoking a vintage white pipe. We were at a 1920s-themed party at a private mansion, beautifully furnished with antiques. The man in question wore more eyeliner than any of the ladies and whisked (or tap-danced – he had embraced the Jazz Age mood completely) Natasha away to give her long hair a flapper updo so Paul needn’t have worried.
However, I probably shouldn’t have teased Paul to stay away from the basement (where the remnants of a 15th century cemetery can be seen) where male-on-male bondage had reportedly taken place at the previous party…
Paul goes to events to discuss the business world with the people he meets. Business is his passion but it isn’t Natasha’s. This means she hardly speaks to him during parties.
Over dinner at an Indonesian restaurant following another event a few days later Paul asked his friend Ernstjan whether Peter had been chatting Natasha up (which Peter had been accused of during a previous party). ‘We were talking about his girlfriend; there wasn’t any flirtation; Peter was merely talking to me. Which you do little of at any event,’ Natasha interrupted.
‘But he was talking to you for more than five minutes,’ Paul countered. Merely talking to a woman constitutes chatting her up according to Paul and Ernstjan, who then discussed another friend’s girlfriend whom Peter had recently ‘chatted up.’
This has irked Natasha somewhat. Does this mean that Paul believes that men and women are so different that they can’t have regular conversations? Do they have nothing in common outside the bedroom? She tactfully brought it up with him. ‘At least you don’t have to worry about me chatting up other women,’ he responded and they both laughed. It reminded her of a quote from screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, ‘Constantly talking isn’t always communicating.’
