A Neverending Affair Read online

  And, for sure, when they finally reached the penthouse, he agreed. It was not big, but it was lovely, and there was a view both from the front and the back. Even the bed had a solid wood frame and a good mattress.

  “Wonderful, how did you find it?”

  “A friend recommended it.”

  “Is that also a friend that has a secret lover?”

  “No, he isn’t, and you are no secret lover anymore. From now on, you are my official lover,” she said. “Kneel!” He obeyed. She put her hand on his shoulder. “I hereby dub you the ‘First Lover of the Fair Lady Ronia Davla.’ I even told my father about you.”

  “First in the sense that I am the first lover you ever had, or first in the sense that there is a row of other guys there, getting some crumbs now and then when you feel like it, or when I’m not around?”

  She ignored his question, but moved her hand to his lower parts and said, “I hereby dub you the ‘First Maker of Love of the Longing Cave,’” She squeezed him gently and crooned, “Hey there. Time to show your tricks.”

  He spooned her from the back, in a position that he knew she liked and that he liked himself. He marveled that they fit so well like that. He whispered again that he loved her, and he bit her ear, kissed her neck, and came back to whisper in her ear, “And now I want the whole of you, right now, right here.” As he said it, he moved his hands to her breasts. He could never fully understand what it was with those breasts that made him marvel. Sure, he’d always liked women’s breasts, but those two mounds just made him wild. To hold them, to squeeze them, to circle the unusually big and brown areola and the nipples, to feel the nipples stiffen, he felt himself stiffen. And she liked it as well. He had heard some women mocking men about being obsessed with their breasts; but at least for Ronia, she was as obsessed as he was.

  She moaned and pressed her buttocks against his groin. She felt his arousal and observed, “I think somebody missed me.”

  He responded, giving her a squeeze, “I think someone missed me too.” She turned, took his head in her hands and kissed him. First slowly and cautiously, licking, tasting, smelling and trying. His response was as she liked it, not delving too quickly into deep kisses, giving back the same intensity she did, doing the special things that only he did, like how he sucked her lip, just a bit, just enough to raise the stake and not so much that it became vulgar. “Honey,” she cried out, and took his tongue between her lips and sucked it.

  “Food is never as good as it is just after making love,” Olaf said. “An old Swedish proverb.”

  She laughed and strolled towards the shower, inviting, “Will you come and brush my back?” He obeyed and followed after her into the blue-tiled bathroom, which was as tasteful as the rest of the room. “Hm, there is no brush,” he said and used his unshaven chin to scratch her back. He soaped her back, let his hands slid in between her buttocks and around her belly and groin, teasing the cleft of Venus. Then he worked up a great foam between his hands and applied it to her breasts with a gentle touch, and then to her pubic mound.

  “This is a Turkish olive soap massage,” he informed her. And he tapped her gently over the foam.

  He took the shower handle and rinsed off her breasts and then he took one nipple in his mouth, circled it with his tongue, and sucked it. When he felt it harden, he took it gently between his teeth. After a while, she said that he was filthy and that she would clean him. She showered him, soaped him, rinsed him and took his balls one by one into her mouth and squeezed them, squeezed them to the brink of pain.

  She left the bathroom before him. When he came back into the room, she was crying. “What is it, honey?”

  “It will never be better than this.” She was silent for a while. “I mean, it’s fantastic. I love you so much. Whatever we do, we will never have it better than this. From now on, we will just try to repeat what we’ve already done and felt before, again and again. And of course it will never be as great any other time,” she said.

  “For me, it is good enough,” he said with a question in his face. “If it can be like this the rest of my life, I won’t complain or show any regrets. It’s more than enough—it’s heavenly, it’s magic, it’s true, full love. As good as it gets, and that’s a lot.”

  “Don’t feel sad, honey. I really worship our love, and I love you so intensely,” she assured him, looking into his eyes. ”Perhaps that is the problem, you know. My love is so strong, so consuming, so full, and I can’t possibly see that it can ever be better than this. Maybe it’s like a midlife crisis, when you realize that you have the best behind you, and that the future will be repetition, endless efforts to do more than before, but in the end failing, leaving you more and more frustrated.”

  He was taken by aback by this. He had been looking forward to talking about how they would live together. For him, that was the real step forward, the real development of their relationship. Finally together, and now this? He didn’t know what to make out of it and what it meant.

  As with most of their discussions, she took the initiative again and said, “Sorry, those were silly thoughts. It will be wonderful to live together with you. It will make our relationship deeper, our love fuller and I’m sure we’ll have as good love making or even better many times to come, if only your rod keeps up his good spirit! And now I know it is high time for you and him to get a massive five-course meal, and also for me, the tiny sparrow, it is time to eat. Let’s go.” It was left at that.

  Rome, April 2013

  He was in Rome on a business trip. Two main things were on his agenda. One was to present a report on human rights in Northern Italy, in the area known as Padania. This would be done in three steps: a meeting with representatives of the government of Padania (an informal meeting that would officially never take place), a workshop for some core stakeholders and a press conference. He would also have a meeting with their local group here in Rome. It was very active since a new leader, Diana, had taken the helm. He looked forward to meeting her, as their communication via email had been engaged and witty. He had tried to call her a few times in conjunction with his visit, but for some reason, he always ended up speaking with the vice president, a not so stimulating old lawyer.

  When he arrived the day before, he noted that he had to get his European Union passport stamped, but otherwise there was nothing at the border that gave the impression that Italy’s departure from the union was imminent, even if de facto it had acted as if it were not a member for almost two years.

  He wondered about the hotel management. Ronia’s art was not really the thing that you would put in a hotel dining room. It was unsettling. In addition, even if she was no mega-star, those paintings would cost at least ten times the total art budget of a small hotel like this, which typically has a nice set of reproductions in the main areas, and some Mediterranean landscapes and Roman ruins in water colors in the rooms. It was a nice hotel, he thought, one of those old “Roman villas” in three stories, with a couple of extensions here and there, which created a maze that made guests get lost even if there weren’t more than perhaps twelve rooms. He asked, in his rudimentary—and probably quite flawed—Italian, at the reception desk for the manager. The manager was not due in at all today, he was told.

  “Do you know anything about the paintings in the breakfast room?” he asked.

  “I am sorry, sir. I don’t know anything about those paintings.”

  “Will the manager be here tomorrow morning?”

  “I don’t know. He is not often here,” he was told.

  He managed to get the manager’s telephone number. He looked at his watch and realized it was ok to call at this time, eight-thirty. He greeted the manager in Italian and then asked if he could speak English, to which the voice responded, “Yes.”

  He explained he was interested in some information about the paintings, and the manager said he would come in for breakfast the next morning. When he hung up, Olaf realized that perhaps he had given the impression that he wanted to buy them. Neve
r mind, he thought. I will set that straight tomorrow.

  The first meeting was with the representatives of Padania, the part of Italy north of Bologna. The area had pushed for autonomy for decades, and its final goal was independence from Italy. However, its strategy had been set back by the virtual collapse of the European Union after the crisis in 2010. Before, Antonio Prieto, the leader of the main political force, Lega Norte, had seen the EU as something that took power from the Italian state, but also something that left more space for the region to develop. It made the people feel less worried about being “left alone.” Prieto himself didn’t care at all for the EU as such. He saw it purely as a vehicle, but he realized that many of the ordinary citizens in Padania didn’t have the confidence to believe that they could manage. At least, that was how Olaf interpreted the situation.

  Padania had pushed ahead with a lot of steps towards independence. As mother Italy ignored the EU and disregarded most of its obligations, Padania acted the same towards Italy. It was not yet an independent country, had not declared its independence. Prieto’s strategy seemed to be to not do it until he was one hundred percent sure that it would be successful. And he wanted to act from a position of strength, where independence was already a fait accomplit, rather than risking a violent conflict. Most importantly, he had taken command over the taxes, and only minor flows went to Italy. Secondly, he had taken over the police and the judiciary. The Italian laws were still the laws of Padania, but they were enforced by his police force and interpreted by a judiciary of which the most vocal opponents were sacked, and a few of them had even disappeared. The police were known for their brutality and they were heavily armed, to the extent where they felt more like a militia. Unfortunately, their idea of justice and police work was also more of a militia’s. And that was the background of the report that Human Rights International was about to present the next day.

  Olaf was the Secretary General of Human Rights International, HRI or “hurray,” as they called it internally ever since Romas, a Lithuanian intern, once pronounced the acronym like that. Also with him on this mission was Sandra, the researcher who had written most of the report on Padania. Sandra was one of the most committed and loyal staff persons he had. She was completely committed to the cause and completely uninterested in other things, or at least that was the impression Olaf had. He remembered asking her once if she had a husband or a boyfriend or any other kind of partner. First she said a plain “no.”

  “Sorry, I didn’t want to pry. It’s up to you how you live,” he responded.

  “Oh, no offense,” she said and fell silent. After a short pause, she added, “Once I had a partner. We even lived together for half a year.”

  Olaf sat silently, leaving it up to her if she wanted to tell more.

  After some minutes, she continued, “After that half year, he told me that it was either human rights or him. I couldn’t do both. He said I was so committed to my work that there was hardly any space for him in our relationship. I asked him what he wanted me to do instead, not that I really cared much about his response after that first remark. Do you know what he asked me?”

  “No, I have no idea.”

  “Maybe we could have children. ‘You like children so much, and I also like children,’ he said. I responded: ‘Having children is no job, Jeremy’—that was his name, Jeremy. How can one talk about children like that? It was like it was some kind of project that would make things good between us.”

  “Would you ever say such a thing?” she continued after a short silence.

  “We humans say all kinds of stupid things all the time,” he said.

  “You don’t,” Sandra told him. “That’s why I respect you.”

  “I guess you’ve only seen my professional side,” he answered, and fell silent.

  Arusha, April 1996

  He had smiled and said, “You really are an artist!”

  “Why?”

  “Only an artist would see the beauty of this. Anybody else would just see the neglect.”

  They had been sitting in the café inside the Simba hotel: Gladys, the local project leader; Janat, the project secretary; Selma, the UNESCO officer; him, Olaf, the “business man”—he always felt a bit embarrassed by that term. He just happened to buy and sell things and move them from one place to another; Ronia and perhaps someone else. It was the evening before the first workshop for the EFFAA project, Export of Fair Female Art from Africa.

  Hard to think of something that could be more politically correct than trying to help female artists from Africa through fair trade, isn’t it? Olaf thought sometimes. He believed in what he did, but in cynical moments, he questioned the value of his fair trade engagement. Was it really anything more than window dressing, making some engaged people in rich countries feel a bit better, just enough that they would not take any further political action? They were changing the world with consumer choice, weren’t they? Isn’t that a nice thought?

  His friend Bo and his wife Liv often questioned the relevance of fair trade and rejected—well, that’s perhaps too strong, let’s say questioned—the mere notion of fair or green consumerism, seeing them as window dressing to keep capitalism going. The idea that “markets” should shape society was awful in Liv’s view.

  “Do you want society to be shaped and ruled by enlightened cybernetic dictators? Is that really better than markets? It’s no coincidence that cybernetics is a pet of dictators, is it?” Olaf once asked her when they discussed it. Liv studied cybernetics and this was a way for him to give back. Mostly they didn’t discuss those things any more.

  Ronia was invited as an artistic adviser to the project. She had made a positive comment about the interior design of the café.

  “I hope our Tanzanian hosts were not offended by my remark,” he said and looked at Gladys and Janat.

  “What can I say?” said Gladys. “I must admit that I didn’t think a lot about the interior design. You know these places are designed for you guys and not for us. They’re supposed to inspire some kind of African feeling, but I think they are mainly demonstrating what you expect to find. But I also agree that the upkeep here is pretty awful.”

  “Perhaps I am a bit carried away,” Ronia said. “You know, this is my first time to Africa.”

  “Ah, that explains it,” Olaf said. He looked at her and took a deep breath. “Do you know my first African experience? Of course you don’t. Let me tell you. I landed here in Arusha. At the airport, there was this Bahindi guy, a Tanzanian Indian, that is. They run most of the business. Anyway, I had been put into contact with him as a person who should be able to organize things locally for my fair trade business. He picked me up, and we went straight into the field. It was a four-hour drive up into the Lushoto Mountains. Everything was new to me. Everything was strange, and this Indian guy, Feisal, was talking and talking. I tried to understand the situation of the female artisans with whom we were going to trade, or so I thought. That was the deal, wasn’t it? Perhaps it was back in Europe, but here the deal was quite different. Yes, there was a female. Mama Pata was her name. She was the one. She was Fair Trade Incorporated in Lushoto,” he said with a laugh.

  The story went on, and the bottom line was that he had been quite fooled by this Indian guy and Mama Pata. They sold him a story where all the money went to the women, and they were just the conduits for the business. He had insisted on meeting some of the women, but as they spoke no English and he no Swahili, there was no possibility for him to check anything. In essence, his first fair trade business was somewhat of a scam. He told all this with a self-mocking style and Ronia thought it was mainly intended to make her feel good about being new in Africa.

  At that moment, she decided that she liked him. There was something there. He seemed to be a friendly, humorous and playful fellow. His looks were nice, not stunning in any particular way, but his face matched those characteristics. His eyes were gleaming blue and there was this twinkle in his eyes, even if they were deeply sunk in his face.
This actually made his gaze even stronger. His frame was rather normal and his height average, on the slim side, but looking as if he was in the process of getting a tummy already. Age? Well, most likely the same as her, a few years above thirty.

  The rest of the evening was pleasant, and they spent most of the time planning the workshop. Ronia didn’t feel a lot of confidence in what she could contribute. Leaving for the evening, Olaf looked at her and said, “Don’t worry. It will be fine. Also, don’t have too high expectations. Things are rather slow down here, so take it easy and slowly. Make sure everybody follows and be prepared to repeat some things a few times. Throw in a few jokes.”

  “Thanks for the advice,” she said. “I’ll try most of it, but not the jokes. I’m simply not a jokey person. It never comes naturally for me and therefore they are never successful. I have stopped trying, as a badly delivered joke is such a turn-off.”

  The following night, Ronia realized that her feelings for him might be more than “like” as she woke up from a dream in which he had just touched her breast and said, “Let’s do it.”

  But then, she had similar dreams about all kinds of men. She even remembered having such a dream about a drunkard she once met in Paris. He was a really filthy old man, who had asked her for change. She had given him a ten franc note, and he had gone down on his knees, saying, “Mademoiselle, you saved my life.” In the dream, he came to her saying, “It is payback time,” and he sported a rather thin but very long and bowed cock that was bursting out of his pants. He reeked of alcohol, urine, and sex. To her relief, or perhaps out of agony, she woke up before he came into her. So dreaming about Olaf didn’t mean a lot, she thought. How she fooled herself.

  The workshop was good. The purpose was to set up the work program for the project and also to define the proper organization of the female artists. There were about thirty people, the group from the previous evening and a number of invited artists and artisans. Ronia didn’t speak much during the workshop. After all, it was her first time in Africa and her role was to be an adviser to the artistic content and not the organization or the finances.