by Ava Zavora
This second one. You look as though you would have rebuffed or shrugged off anyone who wanted to help you. Would anything have worked with you, you think?
Yes.
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From: Adam -
Date: Sat, Aug 11, at 10:06 AM
To: Eden E
Strange?
Worked with me?
I sense that you are still looking at them.
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From: Eden E
Date: Sat, Aug 11, at 10:10 AM
To: Adam -
Yes I'm still looking at them. My first look at you and you don't think I'd pore over every detail?
I don't know why I assumed the fights were initiated by you. I'm sorry. You got in fights because you got picked on. I assumed that you were very angry as a child.
Yes, this whole thing is strange. You don't agree?
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From: Adam -
Date: Sat, Aug 11, at 10:12 AM
To: Eden E
Strange, but I wouldn't change it.
Of course.
No, rarely initiated by me. I wasn't picked on per se.
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From: Eden E
Date: Sat, Aug 11, at 10:15 AM
To: Adam -
So would you have rebuffed or shrugged off anyone who wanted to help you?
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From: Adam -
Date: Sat, Aug 11, at 10:16 AM
To: Eden E
I don't know. Perhaps.
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From: Eden E
Date: Sat, Aug 11, at 10:17 AM
To: Adam -
You don't ever let anyone take your picture now.
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From: Adam -
Date: Sat, Aug 11, at 10:18 AM
To: Eden E
Not in about 8 or 9 years.
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From: Eden E
Date: Sat, Aug 11, at 10:18 AM
To: Adam -
And what excuse do you give? Or people just instinctively know not to insist?
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From: Adam -
Date: Sat, Aug 11, at 10:20 AM
To: Eden E
People either know me well enough not to, or instinctively know not to. There have been a few that have tried, and I've politely asked them not to. And I've lost it with a few people over the years who wouldn't let it go.
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From: Eden E
Date: Sat, Aug 11, at 10:21 AM
To: Adam -
You've become angry and you don't usually lose your temper?
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From: Adam -
Date: Sat, Aug 11, at 10:26 AM
To: Eden E
Yes, I have become angry. I don't usually lose my temper, indeed. I have a high threshold of patience.
I think we are moving in leaps and bounds now every day, at lightning speed. That would normally concern me, but with us, it doesn't.
I've always thought, in a truly trusting and loving relationship, a man could show real vulnerability behind closed doors with his woman, and it not affect her vision of him. I've never been in this situation, and the one time I did show it (I mentioned to you already), she decided to sleep with a mutual close friend.
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From: Eden E
Date: Sat, Aug 11, at 10:41 AM
To: Adam -
We are moving very fast and that's why I was having such a hard time earlier this week. I was resisting. And now I'm not.
When I'm in, I'm in.
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From: Adam -
Date: Sat, Aug 11, at 10:52 AM
To: Eden E
Attach: AP.jpg
What do you think of these panties from Agent Provocateur?
Eden downloaded the photos. They were of a pair of black silk panties, high cut with a heart-shaped cutout in the back.
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From: Eden E
Date: Sat, Aug 11, at 11:00 AM
To: Adam -
No need to tell me, I will delete these images immediately.
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From: Adam -
Date: Sat, Aug 11, at 11:01 AM
To: Eden E
Stop being silly, and just tell me your opinion please.
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From: Eden E
Date: Sat, Aug 11, at 11:03 AM
To: Adam -
Why?
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From: Adam -
Date: Sat, Aug 11, at 11:05 AM
To: Eden E
I consider that a more classic style, forgetting the window in the back. I like said classic style. I thought I might send you a pair and you can see if you like them.
Eden went to the Agent Provocateur website and was appalled. Every pair of panties cost at least 50 sterling pounds, approximately $75. And she thought that springing $30 for a lacy pair at Victoria's Secret was a splurge.
From: Eden E
Date: Sat, Aug 11, at 11:09 AM
To: Adam -
They're really not my style, to be honest. Besides I have plenty of KNICKERS.
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From: Adam -
Date: Sat, Aug 11, at 11:11 AM
To: Eden E
Why do you insist on torturing me with that word?
I've been looking at this. I'm really tempted. I keep thinking, behave, Adam, then I find myself going back to the link and looking at it. http://goo.gl/Q23H0. I wouldn't be able to do anything with it now, but it's such a good price and has so much potential. Another blank canvas. What do you think?
Eden clicked on the link, which led her to a UK realty website. It landed on a page for property in Siracusa, Sicily. It was of a very ancient-looking cottage in disrepair, with a clay roof and boarded up windows. Other pictures showed green fields and rows and rows of olive trees. The asking price was 87,000 sterling pounds, approximately $137,000.
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From: Eden E
Date: Sat, Aug 11, at 11:18 AM
To: Adam -
Why aren't there photos of the inside? Does the property include all that land?
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From: Adam -
Date: Sat, Aug 11, at 11:20 AM
To: Eden E
It does include the land. I imagine it's a tragic mess inside. Thoughts?
And regarding what I said about vulnerability?
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From: Eden E
Date: Sat, Aug 11, at 11:25 AM
To: Adam -
Well the Google images for that town look gorgeous, especially of the water. But from the Google maps it looks like it's in the middle of farmlands. What would you do with it? Live there sometimes? Or are you just simply enchanted with its potential? From what you've said, you haven't even begun with the ruin you have now.
I think that vulnerability should be present and equal between the couple. You were so forthcoming with your answers to my endless questions that that led me to let myself be vulnerable with you. It wasn't completely eas
y for me, again why I was so resistant earlier.
And I am vulnerable to you, I hope you know that.
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From: Adam -
Date: Sat, Aug 11, at 11:41 AM
To: Eden E
Sorry for the delay darling, was doing a meet and greet.
Enchanted with its potential really. It could serve a number of purposes. It would have to sit empty for at least a year, but that's no reason not to consider it.
I didn't really know that to be honest. I've tried to be forthcoming.
Thoughts on the property??
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From: Eden E
Date: Sat, Aug 11, at 11:42 AM
To: Adam -
I'm uncomfortable telling you what to do with your money. But if you want me to dissuade you, I'll do my best.
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From: Adam -
Date: Sat, Aug 11, at 11:43 AM
To: Eden E
No, no, not at all. I'd like to know what you think of the idea in general?
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From: Eden E
Date: Sat, Aug 11, at 11:44 AM
To: Adam -
It's hard to say without seeing it in person. I go by intuition a lot whenever I make important decisions, and being there would guide my intuition. Is it easily reachable from where you are right now? You should at least go over there first before seriously considering the matter. If this is a bargain, would it soon be snapped up? Is the real estate market booming in that part of the world? It does look like a lot of work. But the land. How much land is it exactly?
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From: Adam -
Date: Sat, Aug 11, at 11:45 AM
To: Eden E
4 hectares. Why such interest in the land?
It's not booming at all, but I think it will get snapped up quickly
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From: Eden E
Date: Sat, Aug 11, at 11:48 AM
To: Adam -
Because there doesn't appear to be any close neighbors. And personally I like the idea of land. I live in a townhouse so I'm jealous of so much acreage.
It does look very lovely and rustic. The pictures were probably taken in spring, it looks like. So it's been on the market for a few months. I say make a visit. You cannot think on this without seeing it first.
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From: Adam -
Date: Sat, Aug 11, at 11:51 AM
To: Eden E
I will visit then. See, teamwork.
So now just send your son off to college, and then we'll make babies and renovate a house. I jest.
I like the idea of land too, for deeply thought out reasons. There is quite a bit of land with my current home as well.
I think so much could be done with it. Hmmmm.
Does property development interest you?
The reason I told you about this property is that I thought it would be nice to include you in something like this that I'm thinking about.
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From: Eden E
Date: Sat, Aug 11, at 12:06 PM
To: Adam -
I don't really know anything about it.
Is it usually the case that the woman you're with has to change, transform, become more like you are than the other way around?
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From: Adam -
Date: Sat, Aug 11, at 12:07 PM
To: Eden E
I don't think anyone should change, but people should compromise.
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From: Eden E
Date: Sat, Aug 11, at 12:13 PM
To: Adam -
Very true; however, any woman who wants to be with you has to arrange her life a certain way or change certain ways of thinking in order for the relationship to succeed. It's not a very flexible, fluid situation with you. ***This isn't an accusatory statement.***
You have such strong opinions on everything. And you know how you want things done and how things should be in your life. That's all I was thinking. To be with you, a woman has to accept those things or else the two of you would be butting heads all the time.
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From: Adam -
Date: Sat, Aug 11, at 12:14 PM
To: Eden E
I think on some issues, you have to be in harmony to be together, but I think that is either the case from the beginning, or it just doesn't work. I think in other matters, you meet in the middle.
I don't ever want to change someone, and in the past I've never done that. The foundations need to be there before things even get off the ground
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From: Eden E
Date: Sat, Aug 11, at 12:14 PM
To: Adam -
You've never wanted to change anyone. But has anyone ever made a drastic or significant change to be with you?
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From: Adam -
Date: Sat, Aug 11, at 12:15 PM
To: Eden E
No I don't think they have, maybe that's why it didn't work, ha
Would you ever leave the US?
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From: Eden E
Date: Sat, Aug 11, at 12:20 PM
To: Adam -
Okay, I'm leaving now. I look halfway decent and don't smell. Yet. I'll wait for your call at 3?
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From: Adam -
Date: Sat, Aug 11, at 12:21 PM
To: Eden E
3-4. Have a good time, darling.
Be good.
x
Eden was nowhere near ready to go out. She wasn’t dressed and her hair was still in rollers. Adam’s last e-mail stopped her in her tracks. He was asking her opinion of properties, wanted to buy her expensive underwear, and now wanted to know if she would ever leave the United States. He didn’t appear to be the kind of man to say these things lightly.
Things between them were moving lightning fast. She had no confusion about how she felt about him or why. What confused her was how fast it was for him. He was not sentimental or overly emotional, yet it sounded like he was thinking of a future with her. She scrolled back to his earlier messages that morning: "I wouldn't, not if we were at home." “So now just send your son off to college, and then we'll make babies and renovate a house.” He wrote that it was in jest – but was it?
She liked that he was trusting her with details of his life and sought her opinion, but the possibility of a very real future with this man she had never even met scared her just a little. Not because she didn't want it, but because the idea of being with Adam, as wild and too-soon and unwise as it was, was something she wanted very much.
Eden started to get dressed, still preoccupied. It was strange that although Adam wouldn’t see her, she still thought of him as she put on makeup, chose jewelry, styled her hair. She knew that he would like how she looked today, wearing a dress and heels, and it excited her. Someday it could very well happen. He’d be out at a meeting and she would sit at a café in town, all dressed up and waiting for him to finish.
