Strangers in the bed - Part II

Part II

I pushed her onto the bed and undressed her in a hurry, without passion and without looking into her eyes, only to rammed her angrily, she was just my revenge. I met Mercedez drunk on my last night in Berlin after arguing with Arika.

She spoke English with a Spanish accent. The following day she told me she was from Terragona, a small town near Barcelona.

I had spent the whole day thinking about Arika: what I have done wrong, why she had treated me like a perfect stranger, deciding whether to write to her or forget it. I even talked to God that day, it was a life I have not done. But even he could not give me an answer, maybe he was busy with more important things, after all he was always busy when I needed. Suddenly I found the solution: the wine. But at one o'clock in the morning, my only hope was the Bangladesh shop I had seen coming back to the hostel. God bless them, they are always open! At 1.14AM I came out of the Bangladesh shop just at the corner of the hostel, and I saw two girls in their twenties coming toward me, one tall and slender, the other short and plump.

- Hey you! - the tall one told me shouting - I want to fuck tonight! -.

I answered sarcastically - Come on, love! It’s only 100 euros for the whole night -. She laughed. Then she left her friend who was holding her and went in my arm. With one hand I was holding her, with the other I was holding my wallet (the money first of all). Mercedez was not a prostitute even if she did some high-quality blowjobs. She was tall, with reddish hair, with small tits (I was always unlucky regarding tits), but her ass was nice, firm and big as I liked. The butterfly tattooed on her right wrist, was suggesting that she had others tattoos scattered over her body, and later I had confirmation: a large phoenix with wings spread at the end of the back just above the ass and a floral pattern rose up from the ankles.

That night I also took her to the hostel, I had booked a double room in the hope that Arika would be together. It was not a big fuck, but at least I vented. The rickety and unstable bed seemed to come down under my blows. I penetrated her until she told me to feel pain. I stopped, pulled him out and stood on one side of the bed, looking at the white wall. Sad, angry and still full of thoughts. I felt asleep exhausted after a few hours.

The next morning, we had breakfast together and, as I expected, it was not an interesting person but she did some high-quality blowjobs, it was worth taking the mobile.

I arrived at the Tegel airport in Berlin at 3:00 pm and with my feet over my suitcase I drank my delicious long coffee. Beep Beep! It was a message.

- I'm sorry - Arika wrote to me - I did not want to end this way ... I'm going to Paris to study next month; do you want to come and see me? -

This is crazy! It was my first thought. I did not understand! After having treated me like a pervert there in front of the cafe, we had sat down almost without speaking. We did not even look at each other anymore.

- Arika what happens? Why do you treat me so? - I asked her in a low voice and without crossing her gaze.

-    Nothing! -  She answered dryly.

- Arika, I do not know what you're taking, but it's better to close it here. -

I had left without turning back and without paying the bill. I was nervous, and I do not like it. I wanted to scream and I would have even insulted her for how much I was angry.

My answer to his unexpected request to see each other again was a straight: - No, thank you. -.

Marco Tullio Cicero found refuge in philosophy after the death of his beloved daughter Tullia. Marco Magrildi preferred to take refuge in the alcohol and drown his pain in the arms of other women. And in fact, Saturday night invited Ania, the Russian girl with whom he met from time to time and without too many expectations. After the usual pasta with pesto and two bottles of wine, the two went to bed and began to touch with the scent of candles around. He was lying on his back and Ania had gone down, taking off his pants as usual. With her mouth she began to massage it. Marco immediately felt something strange. Ania had a sublime technique of light strokes alternating with deep dives in her throat. She used her mouth and hands with sensuality and eroticism, she could reborn dead. Marco's bird shyly gave signs of life after the poor girl almost fainted out of breath. Ania put on the condom quickly (safety first of all) but Marco was not excited and lost pressure. He tried to resist, he thought of the best porn movies, the girls who had most excited him, and finally, Arika. Suddenly the blood went back to the brain, passing through the heart. He pulled the condom away and moved Ania to a side. He ran into the bathroom, looked at himself in the mirror, took a cold shower in a desperate attempt to revive and revive him. No way! He had a big problem, he really felt in love.

He went back to bed and Ania hugged him, he pushed her away. He turned from the opposite side, staring at the white wall with the picture of Frida Khalo and after a few hours slept.

- Is the invitation to Paris still valid? - I wrote to Arika just after saying goodbye to Ania and apologizing for the technical inconvenient.

-    Sure. - Arika replied enthusiastically.

A month later I was at the Charles De Gaulle airport in Paris. The night before I had worked until two o'clock to finish sorting out most of the papers and that day I had taken the plane at 20.35 immediately after work. It was the price to pay for going on holiday at the end of the year and immediately after the Christmas holidays.

- No expectations - she told me - We'll see each other as friends and then we'll see what happens. -

Arika and I had travelled for three weekends in a row and everything had been perfect: time, chats, sex. But after Berlin, I was afraid something would go wrong again.

We could not stay with her because she shared the room with Marie, a girl from Lyon. Arika had booked and paid a Bed & Breakfast on a small street in the Moulin Rouge area. It was a studio, with a small, narrow bed between the two walls. It looked like a prison, but it was the cheapest thing we had found in Paris. Arika came with a small bag and jumped on me. He had put on a few pounds and some tits that made her even more sexy and curvy. In embracing her, I felt a shiver of serenity mixed with fear. It was half past night and we immediately went to bed. I hugged her, shifted her golden hair, and kissed her between her neck and shoulder, as she liked.

- I do not want to have sex with you! - she said in a serious and angry tone, looking at the ceiling. - Je suis vulnerable (I am vulnerable) - she told me in tears like a child who wakes up at night and goes to the parents' bed looking for a safe port. She had insisted on getting a room together, sleeping in the same bed. I did not understand.

I was tired and sleepy, I felt asleep smashed against the white wall to avoid accidentally touching her during the night.

The next morning, we went to have breakfast. The sky was grey like our mood. We met an artist friend of mine at the Cathedral of Notre Dame. Gerard lived in the area and painted paintings along the Seine. We had lunch with him and Arika was enthusiastic about it. Gerard offered to go to his studio to see his paintings and why not to picture her. I do not think he was trying to flirt with her, he was gay.

We passed the Louvre, but we did not enter because the line was too long. At sunset, I suggested to go up to Montmartre. I love to see the sun coming down from the steps of the Church of the
Sacré-Cœur. I wanted to take her hand and walk through the narrow streets, the little bars with tables outside and the boulangerie like two lovers, as we had walked through Rome, Florence and Venice. The chemistry, however, was not the same: now our eyes crossed and kissed each other frightened and formal, as if they had never seen each other before. We climbed the stairs that lead to the Basilica of the Sacré-Cœur in silence, looking straight up. I told her - Are we getting married here again? - She smiled. It was great to see her smile again.

We took the subway to the Arc de Triomphe and continued along the Champs-Elysées stopping to drink a few glasses of wine (perhaps too many). Arrived in the square under the Eiffel Tower, I found the courage to take her right hand and gently touching with the other hand the left side, I tried to dance a tango with her.

-    What are you doing? You took the wrong hand if you want to dance tango, you must take the left. - she told me and pushed me away without emotion.

I had spent the last month to follow a tango course on Youtube, obviously it was not usefull. Even in the office I walked trying the basic step, my colleagues thought I was crazy, and maybe I was. Dancing alone is much easier - I thought - the mirror never told me I was using the wrong hand.

The sky had finally cleared, and the gossiping stars were joining us at home. I imagine their speeches: - Look at these young people today, they do not know what they want. They fight and make peace. Once it was all easier: marriages were combined - old Dubhe said while the others stars nodded. The polar star, instead, observed in silence; for her it was only a matter of time and those two guys would have found their way.

That night we were drunk unhappy, with tears of wine in our eyes and the sadness drowned in beer.

I was confused, sleepy and I could barely stand up. Akira walked fast and I lost her in a small square near the Montmartre funicular, while I felt myself turning around. I stopped to release some of the accumulated liquids that evening and then ran down one lane and then up another to look for Arika. I ran like a drunken man, with big steps, stumbling and rubbing against the walls.

Here she was at the end of the street. I joined her and held her gently, without pressing too much for fear of a new over-reaction to a gesture of simple, sincere and inflexible tenderness. I concentrated and looked for a little lucidity. "Arika," I whispered in her ear as she cried, and I held her to my chest - it's our last night together. I doubt we'll see each other again. Just you and me in Paris in a small room is a mistake, but you and I love each other, I am sure of that. On average, humans have 29,200 days of life, the sad days are lost days. - A boy more drunk than us fell down in front of us and helped us to break that moment of sadness and laugh together again like when we were happy.

We went to bed. We hugged each other serenely for the first time. I kissed her forehead and said goodnight, turning to the white wall. I woke up a few hours later and our hands touched - I love you. - I exclaimed instinctively like a child who cannot lie.

I went to the bathroom and came back. She also went to the bathroom and came back - Cold, cold! - she said as she came to bed with her tiny white dressing gown. I hugged her again to warm her up without malice and without any second purpose. She drew back once more and wrapped herself in the blankets.

I turned again to the white wall, this time I could not hold back the tears. I took a blanket from the closet, wrapped it up and put myself on a chair, then I thought it would be more comfortable to sleep on the floor or in the bathtub. I tried both, but, finally, I went back to bed and turned to the white wall.

The sun came up from the window behind the bed, Arika slept curled up among the blankets with her pointed nose popping out like a bunny from the den. How I wished I could kiss and say - Good morning, love! -. I, Marco Magrildi, had more than a hundred girls in my life and rarely did I said "I love you" and now I wanted to say to Arika ... I had to get away, before things get even worse.

I left the house in silence and I stopped to have breakfast at "Le Chat Noir", the only bar open on Sunday morning in that area. After all, I was hoping that even Arika would come and have breakfast there. And indeed, she entered an hour later.

She looked at me with an expression of disdain, turned and disappeared behind the windows of the cafe.

9 months later ...

Arika Lepetit was not a bad person and she was not crazy either, or better, no more unbalanced than others.

Arika was sweet and affectionate, interesting, full of energy, sometimes as weak as a child, others as strong as Giovanna D'arco.

About 9 months later, Marco received a letter. Inside was Arika's photo with a new-born baby. In the order Marco was taken by panic, joy and concern as he stared at the picture with his eyes shining. In the letter Arika explained everything to him.

Something had happened in Berlin that had unsettle her, that would have changed her life. The night before Marco arrived in Berlin, there was a party in the Arika hostel. Arika had drunk or had made her drink. A German boy in his thirties had followed her all the time. Taking advantage of the confusion and her condition, he had taken her to the bathroom. Arika did not remember well what had happened there, but the result was clear.

The child could not be of Mark unless he was born seven months (which was somehow unlikely according to the doctors).

The next day I took the 6:30AM flight from Rome to Bordeaux and even this night I did not slept. Arika had returned to live in Bordeaux with her mother helping her with the baby.

I arrived with a rose and a pajamas for the baby. His name was Gerard, she had called him as my gay friend. It was a very white little bean of 3.5Kg with light hair and his mother's pointed nose.

I stayed in the city for a week and asked her to take the DNA test. She accepted. She took me to meet her relatives, we saw the city, we took the child to the park as if he was my son. We did not have sex and it was not a problem. On Friday the test result arrived. Before opening it, I took out the ring I had bought in Rome, I knelt and offered to marry her. She cried. - Maybe it's better to wait for the test result ... - she said, looking at Gerard, who she was holding in her right hand.

- I want to marry them both! I answered her. -

A few months later we were married and this time for real, they came to live with me in Rome. We moved to a flat in the suburban where there was an elevator and a nice big garden. Our marriage lasted 59 days, it cost us more the divorce than the marriage itself. We were not meant to be together: maybe I was not ready to have a family and she…I do not know. I do not know why it did not work between us, but after all, I do not even know why it started.

Gerard was not my son, but in those months, I had loved him as if he had been. And I also loved Arika, even now that I'm married to Marie, Arika's roommate I had met in Paris who I met again some month after breaking with Arika.

- I do not want to be with anyone, I do not belong to anyone. - she told me when I took her to the airport showing me the bracelet she had bought in Berlin and on which was written "I belong to no one".

Now I live in Lyon with Marie for 5 years and we have a 3 year old daughter, Alexia.

When I bring her to the "Enfants Heureux" kindergarten, I wonder if she will make someone lose his head for her as Arika had done with me.

Relationships between adults are complicated, it seems that the older we get, the more our heart gets complicated, closed, making a thousand thoughts. It would all be much easier if we were like children: a piece of paper, a straight sentence "do you want to get engaged with me?" And two small tick boxes "YES or NO". But also between the little ones, after all, there is always a loony girl who writes on the paper "MAYBE".

N.G.G.