‘Are you sure you don’t want to come inside me?’ I asked when it was almost light.
‘I do, but you don’t,’ he replied. ‘And I don’t mind at all. This was a night to remember.’
In love with a corpse
I was almost 18 years old and in love. I was in love with him, like my peers were in love with footballers, actors and singers. Unfortunately, I couldn’t show off my idol. He was a dead author, who most likely had also been gay. But I didn’t care: I’d rather have a platonic relationship with Oscar Wilde than a passionate relationship with the prettiest guy in town. I hadn’t only fallen for this English author’s charming quotes, but also fallen in love with the bourgeois’ lifestyle that he described and was so abhorred in communist times. His works were not dry philosophical works on love and life. They were pearls of competing and provocative thoughts.
My circle of friends did not show any interest for Oscar Wilde’s literature. Except for Anton. That was no coincidence because his courtliness and good manners made it seem like he was partly living in the 19th century. Anton was very smart, so smart that he didn’t have to prove himself to anyone. ‘Extremely smart people seem difficult, but you can actually control them better than stupid men,’ Olga had once told me. I didn’t doubt that. Stupid men always wanted to prove themselves, which always caused problems. Smart men knew what they were made of and didn’t need to rub your nose in it.
I was torn by an inner battle. I wanted to have an intelligent husband. Anton was the only one my parents would approve of and yet I was hesitant. What worried me was that I couldn’t picture my friend as a passionate lover. He brought me red roses, gave me nice compliments and always came when I needed him, but it seemed to be more courtesy than passion. He never showed in any way that he fancied me. We only looked each other deep in the eyes when we had passionate discussions.
Anton knew that I was constantly on the lookout for new adventures. Why did I deliberately choose to ignore an intelligent and charming man and throw myself in the arms of men I knew beforehand wouldn’t be right?
As usual I found the answer in one of my idol’s books. ‘Most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one's mistakes.’ Even though it was strange, I did not regret any of the mistakes I had made. And if I did, I could again find solace in Wilde’s literature: ‘It is not a bad thing to regret the things you have done every now and then. At least it is better than regretting the things you did not do.’
Towards the end of my grammar education communism started to show visible cracks. The regime was a bit less strict. The national school uniform was suddenly done away with. Our Director immediately introduced a new one, to emphasize that we were an elite school. But no one commented if you shortened your long skirt. One friend of mine cut it that short that it became a mini skirt.
Most of us didn’t dare go that far. I was happy that I could wear larger earrings and that I had no longer had to see the Director to explain why I wasn’t wearing a bra. I was certain that my breasts didn’t need any support, because I used Anton’s ‘pencil method’. If the pencil that I had placed under my breasts fell on the ground, then they were still fine. If the pencil stuck, then my breasts were saggy.
Our many years of friendship kept on balancing on the edge of intimacy, even when Anton started a steady relationship. Nothing pointed to the situation changing, until one night when we were playing chess and enjoying a good bottle of wine. I was winning and when I managed to promote a pawn to a queen, the outcome was obvious. He sighed and shook my hand.
‘It’s as if I see you on the chess board, Mer.’
I looked at him questioningly, but suddenly I realized what he meant. Anton had seen me change from a girl to a lady in the course of time. Not that I considered that to be a compliment, because that was a natural development, but I did like to hear that I had turned into a lady.
‘Do you want to play another game?’ I proposed.
‘No, I would rather chat with you on the sofa,’ Anton replied.
He suddenly put his arms around me and tried to find my lips. I wanted to pull back just as much as I wanted to taste him. My mind hung somewhere undecided in mid-air.
‘Don’t you have a girlfriend?’ I mumbled.
‘We ended our relationship a few days ago,’ he said without any emotion in his voice.
I didn’t have much time to think. I had to make a quick decision whether I wanted to jeopardize our friendship. Could someone who had been a good friend for so many years suddenly become a lover? Was that a smart move or a stupid one? I would have rather had a few more minutes to think things over, but Anton pulled me towards him. His tentative kiss made me dizzy. The cogs in my head were working overtime, but the whole thing only lasted two minutes before I pulled away. The kiss was a big mistake. It was just strange that it didn’t feel like a mistake.
Anton also took a breather. For the first time, I noticed how sexy my friend of many years was: his expression, his muscular body, his obvious bulge in his tight trousers. My body trembled with lust, but my brains were still protesting.
‘This is happening too quick,’ I said, although that cost me a lot of willpower. ‘Maybe you are my true love, but you need to prove it first.
Anton didn’t answer. Instead he dropped his trousers and underpants in one fluid movement. I stood still and stared at his perfect masculinity. I felt a shiver rush through my body when I stroked his muscular chest down to his flat stomach. He stroked my hardened nipples, wet them and softly blew on them. I gasped in surprise at this new sensation. In self-defence, I grabbed his penis tightly. His groaning told me he was losing self-control. My heartbeat was galloping away. Was there no middle ground between the mind and emotions?
I tried to say something again, but Anton claimed my lips.
‘I like women who kiss, because then they have to be silent,’ he whispered.
I silently thumped him in his stomach, but I instinctively realized there was no point in fighting him. My body was apparently following a different logic from my mind. His experienced hands blocked every escape route.
The next few days we spent enjoying every nuance of desire, as if we were swept away by a wild river of passion. Every nerve in our bodies vibrated from excitement and the journey always ended in a waterfall, in a spectacular fall in the depths. Anton always waited until I had lost control before he let himself go. He had surpassed my expectations and I had no regrets at all that we have turned our friendship into pure lust. In the meantime, we tried every possible position from the Kama Sutra book, but then without the accompanying penetration. Some complicated positions gave us cramp, a stiff neck or the giggles.
Even though I was nearly 18 years old, my mother wouldn’t let me wear make-up. She called that natural beauty. Natural no way! My beauty had to be emphasized and if I got spots, the blemish had to be covered up.
One day I left home and walked towards a parked car as usual to put on my make-up in front of the wing mirror.
‘You don’t need that.’ The window suddenly rolled down and I was startled that there was someone in the car, and I hadn’t seen them.
‘Oh yes, I’ve heard that before. You sound just like my mother,’ I cheekily retorted.
‘Is that why you don’t put on your make-up at home, but use my mirror instead?’