I went to the kitchen to make myself a cup of tea. Passing by one of the mirrors I laughed at myself seeing my whole hair and shirt covered in different-colored threads from the different fabrics. I was barefoot, my hair was messy and had pencils stabbed in it all over. I looked perfect for a Christmas card photo to my friends and family, so they could all have a good laugh at me.
Waiting for my water to boil and enjoying the kids playing outside, I felt peaceful. I was startled to hear the doorbell. The doorbell?! I wasn’t expecting anybody at three in the afternoon on a business day. I didn’t have any contact with my neighbors other than an occasional “Hi” and a “Have a nice day”, so I didn’t expect any of them to just think about me and come over. I guessed it must be one of those annoying sales representatives going from door to door offering something, or maybe someone had just pressed on the wrong doorbell, or maybe someone who wanted to read the electricity or water meter, or something like that. I decided I didn’t want to open the door, I didn’t want to show myself in front of whoever was at the door, especially given the way I looked. I was going to act as if I wasn’t at home, which would actually be the most normal thing at this time of day. I didn’t even want to courteously chat with anybody at the moment, I wanted to be all by myself. The doorbell rang a second time. And then again a third time. A very persistent person, whoever it was. It started ringing louder and uninterruptedly. Now, that was weird. I figured that maybe I had forgotten to charge my phone, my parents had been ringing since yesterday and I must have brought them to a nervous breakdown, having them come all the way home. If that was the case, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the door coming off its hinges. I rushed to open it and, seeing there was nobody there, I just pressed the button to open the main entrance and stood at the doorstep, expecting someone from my family to burst in furiously. I saw my phone not far from me and pressed a button, expecting nothing to happen, since it had no battery, and I was honestly surprised when its screen lit up and displayed the time. I just turned to the door and there was Phillip at the doorstep.
There was no turning back now!
‘What are you doing here?’
As I was saying it he had already shut the door and was on his way toward me. In less than a second, he grabbed me with his strong arms and pressed his lips against mine. My whole world turned upside-down. I couldn’t fully realize what was happening. I was incapable of reacting. The only thing I could do was surrender to his kiss. A passionate, burning kiss. And that seemed to be the most natural thing. I just let myself go. I surrendered myself in his arms. I surrendered myself to his hands. To his embrace. To his lips, eager for my skin. He kissed me everywhere. Insatiably. Devouringly. And this was the most incredible feeling. My senses were sharpened to the utmost. He was holding my face and had me cornered against the wall. I had no way of moving. And even if I had had a way, I don’t think I would have done it. That was all I wanted at that moment. I wanted him. I wanted his lips. I wanted his hands all over my body. It was an explosion of senses, of tastes, of aromas. And all this seemed to be created to give an even greater intensity to the moment. I felt his stubble against the skin on my neck, I felt the taste of his lips, the smell of a man. His smell. And all this devoured me. I couldn’t take a breath. I was going to faint any moment. Then he lifted me up in one motion, I wrapped my legs around his waist, he went into the living room, the first room he saw, with one hand cast to the ground all fabrics and papers from the couch and threw me on it. In a split second he looked into my eyes and I saw an ocean of emotions in his eyes. I saw passion, pain, desire, desperation. I saw many more things I couldn’t easily define. He looked away from my eyes and looked me from head to toe, just like a predator enjoys its prey. And then he began to come closer. Slowly. Yes, he was the sexiest sight in the world. And although deep down in my soul I realized I was starting a very dangerous game, that was exactly what I wanted at this moment. I wanted him. And I wanted him so badly.
Chapter 10
It was one o’clock at night. I woke up and looked around. I had fallen asleep in the sitting room and I was aching all over. Why did I fall asleep in the sitting room? Then I started to remember. Lord, it must have been a dream! In a flash, images and sensations flowed through my mind but as much as it seemed unrealistic, the pain in my body spoke differently.
‘You look confused,’ then I saw him. He was standing by the window, looking into the darkness outside. Despite the dimness revealing only a silhouette, I knew he was perfect. Chills crawled up my spine and I was ready to do again all those things that we had done a few hours before. I was speechless, I didn’t know how to behave, so I just curled up under the blanket that he had probably dragged from the bedroom to cover me. I didn’t even remember going to sleep. But then again, he knew how I was feeling. He was a smart guy and was no coward, for sure. He had come to my place to do precisely what he wanted. Straight through the darkness I could see that he had something to say. He slowly strode towards me, sat on the sofa opposite me and hugged me.
‘Don’t do this ever again!’
‘What?’
‘I know you’re scared. I’m scared too, like I’ve never been before. I don’t know what happened exactly and I don’t know where we are heading. The only thing I know is how you make me feel. I could feel a change of attitude towards me after you met Daniel. I would have sworn that he must have told you something to scare you. I didn’t know what to do. I panicked more and more with every passing day. I saw that I was losing you and was afraid that it was irrevocable. I could see that you were distancing yourself from me and I was terrified that we would grow further apart. We had made such immense progress during the past few weeks. You had conquered my world with such ease. I wanted you. Insanely. You had just begun to allow me to get closer to you.’
Once again, this man surprised me with his candidness and sincerity. And his sense of responsibility. He spoke so clearly and openly about his feelings, as I could never have done. My strength lay elsewhere. I was good at entombing my feelings in the darkest corner of my mind; I was good at running away and finding ingenious ways to escape, unintelligible to most. I was good at finding excuses, at deluding myself, at hiding, at barricading myself in and doing anything just not to come face to face with any other but my own emotions. During the past year I had progressed a great deal, but I was still greatly lagging behind. This person, this man stood in front of me and spoke openly about everything he had experienced without a hint of embarrassment or fear of being rejected or feeling vulnerable or anything else. He was saying all those things not for my sake but for his own. And it was done with such confidence and calmness, worthy of envy. I could only listen and learn.
‘I wanted you. I wanted you every minute and every second. I wanted to share so many things with you. To live through different moments together. You made me lose my mind so quickly that I didn’t even bother to ask myself how you managed it. I could see that you were unaware of what was happening. I knew from Daniel that you had a fear of commitment, as he likes to call it. And when you started to alienate yourself from me after your meeting, naturally I wanted to kill him. I gave you a couple of days to be sure that you were not avoiding me, but that you were indeed busy, that you really had problems at work, that you needed more time and after that you would come back to me. By yourself! But when you stopped texting me, I went crazy. I found Daniel and told him everything. He was shocked, to put it mildly. He couldn’t even remember what you had talked about. He started rambling about how I shouldn’t play with your feelings. The more protective of you he was, the more I realized that I wanted to be your champion. Don’t you get it?! You’re so petite and sweet. I want to protect you and care for you.’
I was shaking. I was shivering, but not from the cold. I didn’t know what to say. I had lost my power of speech. I wasn’t even sure how I felt. He knew so well what his words were inflicting on me. I could see it in his eyes. He squeezed me hard towards himself. Then he leaned down and
kissed me on the tip of my nose. Although his speech made me anxious, this calmed me down. I felt at peace.
‘Then, when Daniel started to argue with me, I lost my temper in the ugliest possible way. He had never seen me like that before. I scared him. He was startled by everything I told him, my whole attitude.’
‘What exactly did you tell him?’
‘I told him exactly how I felt and that convinced him to make an effort at remembering what he had told you previously to make you withdraw from me so suddenly. Then everything became clear in my mind. The puzzle was solved. I could see the entire picture as if from a bird’s eye view. And I knew what I had to do. First, I went to your office and when I heard that you were home ill, I didn’t even bother to phone you. I knew you wouldn’t pick up the phone and that I could scare you even more, although right at this point it was hardly possible to scare you additionally. I called Daniel directly, who had lost his desire to argue with me and to contradict me, and he gave me your address. I knew what I had to do, and if you hadn’t opened the door, I would have kept on ringing the doorbell until all your neighbors were driven crazy. Honestly, I was a bit surprised when you opened the door so quickly.’
‘It never crossed my mind that it could be you!’
‘I know! It was pure luck. I don’t know what you feel towards me just now, but I do know that you’re not indifferent. I know that there is an enormous attraction between us and when I saw you with your hair all messed up, entangled with threads, wearing only that sexy shirt, I could not control myself, although my initial intent for coming over was completely different.’
‘Perhaps, you are the only person who could call a man’s shirt sexy.’
‘Hear me out. I know that you’re scared and that it’s much easier for you to flee, and that would be a much more familiar thing to do, especially for you. According to Daniel, this is what you have been doing your entire life. But I think that it’s time to see this as a challenge. You’re probably the most capable person I have come across to cope with challenges, who’s not only fearless of them, but even relishes them.’
I had never been provoked in this way before. Indeed, I did love a good challenge. They were my passion. It was something similar to the process of creating clothes. Challenges charged and inspired me. I loved challenges, especially the hardest ones, which most people tried to avoid. Exactly those I was ready to embrace and to find a solution for them. The best possible one. If this relationship, or whatever it was, could be seen as a challenge, then I was the perfect person for the job. I wasn’t sure whether Phillip knew me so well already or right then I was being manipulated by a professional. But it didn’t matter because in fact I was ready to take on the challenge, I was ready to leap. And when I was making a leap, I was certain that I would find a way to fly. I looked him straight in the eyes and kissed him. I wanted him. More. And more. And more. I didn’t want him to leave my flat for at least several days. I continued kissing him more eagerly and ardently.
Chapter 11
Indeed, we didn’t leave the flat for several days. We had created our own haven. We slept, we hugged, we had the most amazing sex. In fact, it wasn’t sex, it was so much more. Union, abandonment, quest and discovery. We ordered supplies over the phone because we didn’t want to waste time shopping. You could say, I was pleasantly surprised at the sight of his shocked face after tasting my dishes. I was famous for my culinary skills. He told me what he felt like eating, and I was more than happy to cook for him. One evening, he decided to pamper me and told me to sit back and enjoy the wine while he made dinner. It was dramatic, catastrophic. And as funny as hell. The spaghetti he tried to make was absolutely insipid and he almost lost a finger in the process, but I liked the idea that he wanted to do something more for me and indulge me; this was incredible. In fact, he was one of those men whose main goal in a relationship was to spoil the girl. I surprised myself, slipping day after day into the game of being pampered and finding it to be enjoyable.
I was never that type of girl who succeeded the easy way or through girly tricks. Just the opposite, I always fought hard, like a man, for the things I wanted; I always stated my desires clearly and achieved them. Truly, I often heard remarks that this was not right and that we, women, should have it the easy way and enjoy it. That we should not give a bad example to men and do everything ourselves. I knew all those things and even agreed with them. But at the time I had become used to living this way and had embraced wholeheartedly the idea of independence, for which I had been fighting since childhood, that I didn’t know how to change, even when I wanted it. And I could not stop competing with the men in my life. It was difficult to readjust and simply forget about it. One more thing to be left in the periphery.
But everything was so easy with Phillip. He was a real man and would not let me do anything difficult. Definitely, he enjoyed it when I wanted to take care of him but mostly in the sense of pleasuring him. And as much as his kitchen experiment was unsuccessful, it gave me true delight and I tried to show it every moment possible. He enjoyed it.
It was as if time flew when we were together. I felt as if I had known him for years. We could talk about anything. We didn’t argue. So far, we had not encountered a topic that we found difficult or unpleasant. We talked about things that I knew were painful for him, but he could trust me. He was relaxed and could speak openly about everything. We talked about his childhood, his school years, his successes and difficulties at work, his values and moral standing, we even talked about ex-girlfriends. He didn’t experience any difficulty in talking openly with me about all these things; I was the one with the inhibitions. He really was an intelligent man. Intelligent and very sensitive. He knew how difficult it was for me to cope with certain things and that he had to tread carefully in those fields; very carefully, so as not to get into unwanted trouble. Therefore, every time he felt that I was getting tense and having difficulty talking, he always found a way to ease the tension – whether with a joke or sudden change of the topic of the conversation without any further ado or needless explanations. After three days without any separation, before I could realize it, I began slowly and gradually to expand my comfort zone and be more relaxed while discussing things that until then I had not discussed even with my closest friends. This surprised even me, but at the same time I felt very proud. During these three days I made enormous progress in my personal relations and I fully realized that this was entirely due to Phillip.
On Saturday morning we awoke to the wonderful sunbeams shining through the window. Autumn started as rainy, but the week that we spent cooped up in my flat with Phillip was showing signs of a pleasant Indian summer. I woke up with the strong desire to go out for a walk. Phillip was still sleeping. I saw this as a great opportunity for me to be alone with myself. I carefully crawled out of bed, trying not to wake him, and went to the kitchen to boil water for tea. I looked through the window. It was still early. There were very few people in the streets but there were birds in abundance. They too were enjoying the pleasant weather. Although I had managed not to wake Phillip, I did not have the same luck with Murry, the cat. She could always sense when I was awake and got up with me. She came up to me and rubbed up against my leg. I leaned down to stroke her and she started purring. I was happy. I was truly happy in this single humble moment. The kitchen was filled with the scent of the mint tea, the rays of the sun warmed my skin, I opened the window to better hear the birdsong and I felt a slight chill on my skin, still warm from the slumber. Murry was purring and nestling up against my hand. Although I had just woken up, I could feel all this with amazing clarity and fullness. I was filled with immense gratitude for this exact moment. I thought over the many things I had experienced in the past few days. I considered the fact that I had opened up to a man that I had met only recently, but yet I felt as if I had known him my entire life. I reflected on how close we had become and how much we opened up to one another without fear of being hurt or rejected. Or at least without such fear
on his behalf, while I still had such moments of doubts. But despite all that and despite all the fences that I had built around me over the years, despite all the inhibitions regarding love and relationships, this man had found a way in, he had found the right way to put me at ease and to make me trust him. I contemplated how I had actually started trusting him and that I had never in the past made such progress with anyone else before him. Why were things so different this time? Was it possible that he was the One?
Never before had I asked myself this question. Never! Not about anyone! For me this was a cursed waste of time and energy. And it really amazed me that so many women around me continued to ask this question. And about anybody who entered their lives. I had always wondered why it was so important to find an answer to this question. Why was this answer of such importance? Was he the One? Or not? What did “the One” mean? Whilst you were with a particular person together in a concrete moment, why not enjoy it? Take what was there to take, give what was there to give…and that was that. Until now I had never felt the need to ask myself this question. This surprised me and I kept going through the various situations in my head when I was very pragmatic in my relationships. Where did this question come from? Was I in love for the first time in my life, only now at the age of twenty-eight?
I Choose You, Love Page 9