Dad is sitting in front of TV, but it seems that the day tired him and he´s sleeping now.
Mom is watching some romantic movie next to him, drinking a glass of wine. She´s got a cat on her lap and she´s stroking her back attentively.
I ask her to check up on Davie from time to time. She promises to do it and winks at me with a smile. She knows that I’m going to Tom. We have a lot to talk about and we need quiet time together.
I go and pull the blanket over Davey, who has kicked his duvet to the foot end of the bed, and then I knock on Tom´s door gingerly.
When a quiet „yes“ is heard coming from inside, I gather up the courage and enter. Only two burning candles illuminate the room, they stand on the night stand and emanate a flickering light.
Tom´s leaning against a headboard of the bed and strums gently his guitar.
When I enter the room and my eyes adjust to the weak flickering light, I notice a smile on his face and I feel more at ease immediately.
I´m going to need to explain myself, holding probably the longest monologue of my life and I´m a little bit scared whether I will manage to explain everything to him without making any more mistakes. His smile calms me down though. I lay down on the other half of the big bed and I just listen to his playing for a while.
He finishes one of his improvisations, of which most of our new songs originate from, and he puts the guitar down, placing it back in its stand attentively. I´ve never seen him just prop it against the wall, his instrument is way too valuable for him to do that. He always used to have much better relationship with his guitar than with his lovers. His women he just used to leave, putting them aside like objects anywhere, not caring really.
He settles next to me, rolls over to one side to be able to look into my face and stuffs his white pillow under his head. He strokes my face and covers us with a blanket. „It´s cold here,“ he says quietly. We both wear the cloths we usually sleep in, in which case that means only boxers. I take a deep breath, and when I finally dare to utter the first word, the nervousness is long forgotten and I start to speak slowly.
„Everything started when I was sitting in the hairdresser´s chair. Memory flashes of Karin surfaced for the first time. I didn´t understand the flashback at all, it was all incomprehensible to me. I saw myself in her disgustingly dirty flat, she was drunk in her bed, and I brought her some money. I didn´t know what to think about that, so I didn´t bother to think about it anymore.
The next time I got into contact with her was when she called me in the middle of the night. She called me at three o´clock in the morning, saying that she was feeling bad and that I should come to see her. I had no idea who she was or where she lived, so I didn´t go anywhere, but I had this persistent thought that I shouldn´t ask you about her. I listened to my instinct, as always,“ I talk slowly and the nervousness is gone. It´s like at a concert; the first two songs are horror and then everything is already OK.
„The next flashback gave me some new information clearing certain things up about her which stunned me, and I realized that I was reluctant to tell you because I didn’t want to hurt you for no reason. In another of flashbacks I saw that a few years ago, on a day of the party in the Hilton hotel, you and I argued and I went there alone. There, Karin managed to get me drunk out of my mind, tricked me into going to her hotel room with her and… first in the morning I realized what had happened at night. I ran, I felt terribly guilty, but I didn´t remember any of it. The day I saw that flashback I was also called to the police. There I found out that Karin died the night before after she had called me. She overdosed on alcohol and pills. Actually, I relaxed and I thought that the worst was behind me.“ I stop at that memory.
Tom is still in the same position and listens to me carefully.
„That time I lied to you for the first time intentionally, but it was because I didn´t want to cause you the pain of his infidelity. I thought that everything had ended with her death, so there was no reason to tell you. Our relationship was beautiful and I didn’t want to ruin it. For me it was something new and fragile which could break with this kind of information. I didn´t feel exactly guilty for the old Bill, but I still couldn´t understand why you had such a strained relationship with him lately, because this thing happened four years ago. It didn´t make any sense to me.“
The moment I finish the sentence, one of the candles dies out. Its wick drowned in the melted wax. It grows even darker in the room and Tom´s face almost disappears, only little fires in his eyes are burning, luring me with their light. Suddenly I long for his touch, searching for his hand by memory. It is leisurely laid on the sheet between us, so I squeeze it and continue talking.
„When it looked like the worst was behind me, that Friday with Sabine came. We went to the children’s center and I thought that it was just some ordinary charity visit. We played with children, handed out some toys and went home. I saw him there for the first time without even knowing who he was. He was sitting alone, hiding in a corner and when I put him on my lap and played a song on the piano with one finger he asked me if I was his new daddy. It shocked me, I didn´t know what to tell him to not hurt him, but one nurse luckily saved me. She told him that I was just a visitor. Before we left, I gave him a Pooh teddy bear, which he hasn’t let out of his sight since then. He looked so familiar… that little loner, who didn´t want to talk to anyone. He reminded me of my own childhood, I also used to like to be left alone. I knew that I had to come back, but I wouldn´t even dream about being it so soon.
While you and Gustav spent the whole night in Berlin’s pubs, I was sitting with Sabine in the living room, listening to a long story of her friendship with Karin, of which I had no idea. Sabine arranged for Karin to be able to attend the party at the Hilton. According to her story she had absolutely no idea that Karin planned to get me in bed. Karin believed that I would stay with her. Sabine said that they both loved us from the time they were our fans. Sabine was crazy about you, Karin about me.
When she found out that I disappeared from the hotel room the next morning, she understood that nothing would come out of it. But after a few weeks she found out that she was pregnant with my child. We met and I gave her cold shoulder, trying to make her understand clearly and harshly that I didn’t care about her at all; I even gave her money for an abortion. She asked for it, but that wasn´t everything. From what had happened that night she understood how it really was between you and me. I called her by your name when we had sex and she used that for her extortion. That´s why I used to give her money time after time when she called me.“ I sigh unhappily.
I turn on my back because my hand in which I am holding my head is starting to hurt. Now I have Tom´s face right over me and our entwined hands on my chest.
„After a few months Sabine found out by chance that Karin had kept my child. She didn´t want to confess because she was afraid that I would take him from her. Sab promised Karin that she wouldn´t tell me, but after her death she realized it was the only way to save Davey from being adopted by total strangers. She told me about him and at the same time revealed that I had just seen him that morning at the children’s center. It came as a total shock to me but at the same time I´ve never been so sure of anything before in my life as wanting to take care of him.“
I clearly saw tears glancing in Tom´s eyes. I clutch to his hand but I must continue. I want to have it all behind me as soon as possible.
„That evening you came home drunk, so there was no way to talk to you about something like that. I had a free day to start dealing with things. On Saturday morning I went to visit Davey and the same afternoon I had a meeting with Mark. Not until I had called Mark, did I find out from the next flashback that I discovered my fatherhood a year ago already and my legal case at the court was already being handled. I searched for any documents all over the flat and I found them in an envelope hidden in my underwear drawer. Everything was there, including the invitation to come to the court on Monday for the first hearing.
Everything happened so terribly fast. I called Mark and from the conversation I had with him I found out that the old Bill hadn´t planned on doing the same thing I did. He wanted to take Davey away from Karin, but only to spite her. He planned to hire a nanny and hide him somewhere, so that you wouldn´t find out. Mark was to arrange for all of it. When I told him my own opinion on the subject, at first he tried to scare me with all possible scenarios of what could happen, telling me that I would lose you, jeopardize my privacy, that maybe they could even charge me with murder of Karin, but I didn´t care. I was afraid that all of that might happen, but Davey waited for me, all alone in that corner by the piano, and I couldn´t leave him there. It just couldn’t happen. I had to risk it.
When I came home that evening, I experienced the most beautiful lovemaking of my life with you and I was considering a possibility that it may have been our last time,“ I confess quietly and get a fright when one of Tom’s cold tears falls on my forehead.
„Sorry,“ says Tom and wipes the proof of his sadness, then gives me a slight kiss on that same spot.
„I was thinking the whole Sunday afternoon about how to tell you in the best possible way, but how it all ended you already know. You got to know from television. Everything was lost and I knew it. I was lying on the floor in the hall with Scotty and I had no power to do anything. I just heard the bang of your door and your car starting. If I didn’t call mom and she didn’t come to my rescue, I would probably suffer so much more. She saved me and helped me through the worst,“ I finish my confession.
I cuddle into Tom´s embrace and kiss him on his neck. „I love you, and I don´t want to lose you,“ I sigh into his hair.
„Don´t worry, you will never lose me,“ Tom whispers back and pulls me closer to him. „I´m so happy that it’s you who is here. You saved our relationship by coming. When I make a connection between all pieces of information you gave me and the stuff I knew already before I am positive that the only possible outcome coming out of it would be our break up. We would have broken up with old Bill, because if he had done with that child what he was planning on doing and I had found out, it would have been the end of us. The way he was behaving and treating me for the last two years, how cold and mean he was, it would have just been the straw to break the camel’s back,“ he says determinedly and the severity with which he talks about him surprises me.
„But you are someone else. You are nice, tender and you love me the way he never did,“ he adds and starts kissing me slowly and tenderly.
I really needed it and I eagerly kiss him back.
„And I love you more and more every day…“ he adds and then nothing more disturbs our long lip connection and our tender play of tongues, which turns into a slow, passionate battle, which has neither winners nor losers.
