Hello my friends ! First of all I would like to wish all of you a very Merry Christmas 🙂 I hope you are spending a marvelous moment with your families and friends. Christmas usually means gifts ! And precisely, I have a beautiful gift to offer you : Chapter 9 of Free Fall : Renaissance 😀 It is really the Chapter I was waiting to be able to write, because it is finally the moment for the true « reunion » of Marc and Kay ! What is going to happen ? Read and discover ^^

Chapter 9

Kay and me leave the train station silently. My heart is racing. I still can’t realize he is finally here, for real, by my side. Not somewhere else. Not in an altered state of mind. Not unanimated. He gives me a little look sideways and smiles at me. I answer him by a hidden smile, almost embarrassed.

We walk for several minutes and got to the banks of the Rhine, where we take advantage of the sun to site on a bench facing the river. I was sure it would be necessary for us to speak, at least to explain things to each other, because Kay has probably suffered a lot. He will want to talk about it.

– I never thought I would see you again, Marc, he begins. I had scrapped you after I left. You were the only support I had in the Task and you abandoned me. I know it was not an easy situation for you. You were taken between Bettina, your son, your job, your obligations, and me. Maybe I have asked too much from you, he throws at me. But I was at least hoping to have a shoulder on which to rest a little. Yours.

I feel the weight of responsibility and fault falling on me. He is not wrong. I look at him straight in the eyes.

– Kay, I … it’s true, you’re right. I didn’t know how to get through. I’m gonna be honest with you : I decided to break off all contact because I thought what I was doing was a mistake. That you were just an affair. This is only when Bettina came back that I realized how much I was wrong.

I mark a pause and contemplate the river again. I feel Kay fixing his gaze upon me.

– Why did you come back, Marc ? he asks me.

– I understood it was not only that. That it was so much more. You opened something in me Kay. Something I didn’t know about. You freed the real Marc. My life was so dull, so morose, so monotonous and so uniform. The only thing that motivated me, was to know I was about to be a father. Then you appeared. You changed all that. With you I was feeling myself. But I didn’t handle the situation as I should have. I was incapable of assuming. I didn’t admit things. And finally I have tumbled in free fall. Kay, if only you could know how sorry I am. You were right, when we argued in your apartment. I have only been a careless selfish. I only thought about myself. And when I finally realized all of this, I wanted to come back to you, I went to your apartment, but your were not there. You were gone. Kay, I felt so alone, so lost without you. I realized I loved you. Yes, that I was deeply in love with you. And that I didn’t want to leave you anymore.

Tears reach my eyes again.

– Hey, Marc, says Kay softly to me while taking my hand. The fact that you’re saying me all of this, it’s already resolving a big part of things. Why didn’t you confess all of this to before ?

– I didn’t have the nerve to do it. It was impossible for me at that time.

Kay brushed my face with his fingers. It gives me shivers all around my body.

– I also have something to admit to you, he announces me. I want to apologize too. I asked you too much. In a way, I have also been selfish, because I wanted you only for myself. I didn’t consider the fact that you already had a family. I thought I could reap you from your wife and your son, and it was not fair. I was furious. Furious not to have you by my side every night. I almost screwed up your carrier, because if someone had learnt for the both of us, goodbye the police.

His speech makes a world of good to me, because I feel that an abscess is burst. He gets up from the bench.

– Come, I take you, let’s continue this discussion in my home. I want to be alone with you.

Twenty minutes later, we arrive in the new apartment of Kay, located in the town centre, in a beautiful area. He goes directly to the fridge and grabs two bears, which he uncaps. His apartment possesses a small balcony on which we head. It reminds me the good old time.

– Why did you leave ? I finally dare to ask.

– You forget you are the one who advised me to get away, he answers me with an accusing tone.

– It’s true but … I didn’t think what I was saying.

– Anyway, I didn’t have much choice. As soon as Gregor Limpinski and the others learnt for me, I was fucked up. Gregor has started harassing me. After the little party at your house, he has found me and beaten me up, as you have noticed the last time we have seen each other …

I suddenly feel a lot guilty. I don’t know what to answer. Kay does it for me.

– But it has not stopped there. I have learnt few days later by Britt that he had been fired. For having assaulted you. I had taken a room in a small seedy hotel outside of town. Someone had given him my phone number. First, he called me. He was threatening me, saying that everything was my fault, that if I had not joined the team none of this would have happened. He has clearly made it clear to me that he wanted me dead. He was totally disturbed, crazy. I have shut down my phone line.

This explains why I have not been able to call Kay when I came back in his apartment.

– And I don’t know how, one night, he has found my hotel. He was vociferating outside of my room, completely drunk. I acted like I was not there. The next morning, I have fled somewhere else, hoping he would leave me in peace. I was not really afraid, I was just wishing to forget everything, including you, because it was too hard. Anyhow, no one was able to help me. In this story, I was alone.

I can’t believe it.

– Kay, I am so sorry. I didn’t imagine that this had come to such disproportionate consequences. We had not heard of Gregor anymore after Werner Brandt fired him.

– This is not your fault. So after that, I have moved to a new city. The fact remains that he has, I don’t know how, managed to trace me back. He had the address of my new apartment, and I have been forced to flee in haste, once again. It seemed like he wouldn’t stop until he would be able to destroy me. He shifts all his miseries upon me. So I have decided to go away even further, here, in Düsseldorf. I have not heard of him since two months now, I’m finally free.

Without warning, I seize him and hold him tight in my arms, as to protect him. He plunges his face in my shoulder.

– Kay, I am there now. And I promise I won’t let anyone hurt you from now on.

I take the photograph where we are together out of my pocket and show it to him.

– I’ve been there, I say, in this studio. I didn’t even know you were drawing. I realize I was ignoring so many things about you.

– We ignored a lot of things about each other, he adds. Stuck in our hidden relationship, we didn’t really have the time and opportunity to get to know better each other. Now we will be able to make up for the lost time. Drawing allowed me to keep a fragment of you by my side. But it was just an illusion.

We continue to discuss about everything and nothing, to look back on the good moments of the past, while trying to avoid the bad ones. Then we realize that several hours have passed. It is almost 8pm.

– Come, announces Kay. I invite your for dinner. I’m starving.

– With pleasure.

We go out in an Italian restaurant from town centre. We spend most of the meal to observe each other with knowing glances, as if the last three months where we haven’t seen each other had disappeared from our memories. I feel an unreal joy invading me. All I have ever dreamt of since Kay has gone is happening. I finally find him again, and we laugh together.

After the diner, we head back to Kay’s place. The night has fallen. The atmosphere is calm, serene and relaxing. We go on the balcony to smoke a cigarette. The moon is full.

– Kay, you scared the hell out of me last week, I can’t prevent myself from saying. When I found you in this bar, I really thought you were dead. Why have you done such a thing ?

– I was desperate. I was feeling like my life had no more meaning, no more sense. I have gotten out as I usually did, and I have drunk. Too much. Mixed that with pills. I don’t know what the fuck I was doing. Thanks for saving my life by giving your blood. The entire week I have felt miserable. Pathetic. I have really hesitated to come find you at the railway station. I was ashamed by what you could be thinking.

Kay gets closer to me and nestles in my arms. I feel he needs affection. He who could sometimes seem so detached. I embrace him.

– It’s a fortunate thing that you found me, he continues. Think about it, how many chances was there that you discover me there, at this place ? I think it is fate that has reunited us. If two persons are meant to be together, eventually they find their way back.

– Do you really believe that ? I ask.

– Yes.

– So do I, I admit. When you were not there anymore, it is my faith in you that has helped me resisting against chaos.

I approach my lips near Kay’s and kiss him passionately. He answers my invitation, and I feel both our tongues joining together tastily. My hands go down along his body. I take off his t-shirt, and I feel he is doing the same thing with mine. Little by little, we go back inside the apartment while leaving the doors of the balcony wide opened. We throw ourselves on the bed and remove tenderly the rest of our clothes. No light is opened. Only the moonlight illuminates our naked bodies, stuck against each other. A little breeze fills in the room and the transparent curtains of the balcony’s doors float in the air. The place is plunged in a bluish, nocturnal atmosphere.

I hold Kay so tight against me, I contemplate his eyes and his magnificent body. I don’t want to release him. His soft hands are caressing my legs, my back, my chest and my face, propelling me in a kaleidoscope of unimaginable sensations. I also kiss Kay’s body. I savour every bite, every inch of his porcelain skin. I feel the excitement of my senses rocketing.

We start to make love in a delicate back and forth, full of tenderness. Kay grabs my hand. He gently deposits a delicious kiss over all my fingers. My mouth nibbles and titillates his chest, his nipples, his neck, his cheeks, and his ears. I can’t stop myself from breathing the exquisite perfume of his golden hair. Waves of intense pleasure go throughout our two bodies, both merging and melting into one another.

All notions of time have disappeared, as when we met up again at the train station, and I ignore how many minutes, even hours, lasts our delicious embrace, until we reach the point of no-return where we come together at the same time while kissing each other.

A few moments later, shut-away in our bubble of affection, where we feel like nothing can affect us, we fall asleep peacefully in each other’s arms.

We are awakened the next morning by the first beams of the sun, which come tickle our faces. I realize I am drowsed on Kay’s torso, my hands around his stomach.

– Hello you, he whispers while plunging his hands in my dishevelled hair.

I lift up, approach my face near his and kiss him.

– I feel like I’m waking up in Paradise, I say while smiling.

We stay in the bed lazing one more hour, enjoying the present moment. Then we finally decide to get out of the bed. We take a shower together, the occasion for us to spend a new complicit moment, and for me to admire the beauty of Kay. I massage and wash carefully every part of his body which seems fragile. I feel the deep need to protect him. I discover on his right arm the scar of the transfusion from last week. As to erase a bad memory, I pass my hand over it with some soap.

After having washed and prepared ourselves, we get out to have breakfast outside. We spend the rest of the Sunday in Cologne, near Düsseldorf, to walk, discuss, laugh, as if nothing had changed, as if it was like a first love, innocent and pure. We don’t give a damn about the look people may give on us. We visit the Dom, Cologne’s huge cathedral, and finish the day by going to the beautiful zoo of the city.

Then it is time to come back to Düsseldorf, and for me to go home. On our way back, we remain silent in Kay’s car, hand in hand, because we know that in less than one hour, we will no longer be together until next time. Back at the apartment, I pack my stuff and Kay escorts me to the train station. I feel sadness rising up in me. The kind of sadness that is gut-wrenching when you have to leave a person you care a lot about before a long journey.

– I don’t want to leave, I say silently.

Kay joins me and takes me in his arms. I put my head on his shoulder. I savour this last moment we have left before my departure.

– And me I wish so much that you stay. But you have to leave. Your son is waiting for you.

– I come back next weekend, promised.

– Marc, I have spent two formidable days by your side. I would have never imagined before last week that we would find back together. I had abandoned so much hope that I had forgotten the possibility that it could happen. For me it was just an illusion. I have not even tried to come back to you. Thank your for having had this courage, this strength, to find me. It means a lot to me, more than you can imagine. No one has ever done this for me.

I deposit a kiss on his lips, then get into the train which just arrived. I turn back..

– See you next week, I throw at him.

– Hurry up to come back, he answer with his malicious air.

Then the door closes. When the train starts to move, he shouts at me :

– Pussy !

I laugh and give him a finger. As I move away, I observe him through the window. Little by little, I see his silhouette growing shorter, until he disappears from my sight. I thought I would be terribly unhappy, but I surprise myself to smile, because I know I will see him again very soon. See you in one week, Kay.

Chapter’s Song