212 Chapter one, 2016, rainy days: 4 (1/2)

Ulf couldn't remember when he had last been welcomed that way. Whenever it was, if it had ever been, it lay more than half his life in the past.

Before he managed to break free of that last kiss he felt a burning desire to undress her. She had been anything but shy, clinging to him suggestively enough that they could as well have been naked.

'It's been more than half a year.' He'd never been together with a girl for that long before sleeping with her before.

”Should we get inside?” Ulf suggested.

”Uhum?” Christina answered, but she didn't let go of him.

”You're getting drenched,” Ulf tried again. ”Like really drenched.”

”Uhum,” she offered, this time a statement rather than a question.

'I guess I'm not going home tonight.' It scared him a little, because it meant taking yet another step away from his previous life. 'But damn I want her!' Which scared him as well.

Whatever mind-reading techniques Christina used must have worked, because she finally let go of his body and pulled him inside her tiny flat.

He had been here a few times. More often than the friends he visited, but still not as frequently as he remembered from his earlier girlfriends. Now as in his previous life that word resonated strangely in his mind.

'Girlfriend.'

After close to a quarter of a century spent married to Maria that word only represented a very scant part of his life. Marriage was the normal state, but for the friends he had made in this life marriage was an abstract thing in the distant future.

Looking at Christina's back as she hurried to the small stove he realised that despite being his age she couldn't share his reflections. To her marriage was just as much an abstraction. In her case probably more a matter of a lingering question and possibly regret as she was bound to have wondered when she saw those around her get married and raise children.

The smell of food brought Ulf out of his meandering thoughts and he went to the cupboard and helped setting the table.

As usual her cooking showed more signs of gusto than any real ability.

”It's good,” Ulf said after they sat down to eat, but he knew Christina was well aware of her limits in the kitchen. Hers hadn't been a life where she could indulge in domestic chores. ”It's really good,” he said when unexpected flavours mixed in his mouth.

”It is, isn't it?” she said and beamed at him. ”I might have overdone things a bit, but I wanted to give it my best shot.”

'How long did you spend learning to cook this meal?' ”I'm honoured you'd do this for me,” Ulf said. He heard how hollow his words were. Rather he would have preferred to tell her how the warmth in his stomach had less to do with the food he ate than the feelings burning him from within. 'I love you, I really do love you, but I can't tie you down with those words.'

”Happy to oblige,” she grinned. She still had some food in her mouth, and when she giggled some of it threatened to come out.

Ulf stared at her when she blushed violently with both hands clasped to her mouth. Her sudden poor table manners just made him ache for her even more.