Chapter 29: As the Hourglass Empties, Part II

May 1980, Hovås/Göteborg, Sweden

On Saturday, I chatted with Lotta again while Katt and Mikael skated. Her mood had not improved, but I didn’t expect it to. Mikael would be leaving her in four weeks, and there really wasn’t anything I could say that would help her. I picked up my book to read but kept one eye on her. She kept her gaze on Mikael and Katt. When I saw tears run down her cheeks, I put my book down.

“Lotta, slide over closer to me.”

She did, and I put my arm around her, like a Big Brother would, and just comforted her. She rested her head on my shoulder and continued to watch the pair on the ice. Mikael’s ankle had healed completely, and they were back to dancing their usual practice routines, and working on new choreography. I didn’t know much about the sport, but they looked pretty good to me.

When they finished, Lotta and I got up to go meet them.

“Thanks, I needed that,” she whispered as we walked down to the ice from the stands.

I squeezed her shoulder and dropped my arm to my side, and went to hug Katt and give her a kiss.

“What’s up with you and Lotta?” she asked with an arched eyebrow.

“Nothing, I was just helping her out the way a big brother would. She clearly needed a hug, so I gave her one.”

“She is super cute!” she giggled.

“And she’s thirteen. You know all about that!”

“Don’t remind me. Five months of lost sex; I mean really!” she frowned in mock anger.

“That’s all it is to you?” I chuckled.

“No, you know better than that. But still!” she giggled.

“Go shower!”

“Want to help?” she smirked.

“At home if you need it, but here, well, as much as I would like to be in there with those twenty hot skaters, I’d get kicked out or arrested!”

“Promise?”

“Anything you need. You know that.”

“I do. And anything you want. You know that!” she declared.

She went to shower and change. We went home, ate lunch and came back to meet my regular skating friends.

I was surprised when I saw Sofia, but didn’t see Jöran with her. Katt and I skated over to her.

“Sofia, you’re alone?” I asked.

“Yes. Jöran couldn’t come skating today,” she said with a smile, “Don’t worry, there’s nothing wrong!”

I took her hand and the three of us skated carefully around the rink, because three-wide we blocked a good portion of the skating area.

Katt was clearly in a playful mood.

“Hey, Sofia, this is fun, but you could come back to my house and the three of us could have even more fun!”

Both girls giggled, and Sofia blushed.

“First of all,” I said, “Sofia and I are friends; second, she and Jöran are together and I won’t interfere in that; and third, you need to ask me first!”

“Oh, so you wouldn’t do it?” Katt giggled.

“Under the right circumstances, of course I would! But I also know that Sofia won’t, because she passed up an opportunity like that with Petra and me!”

Sofia blushed even more, “As tempting as Steve is, no, he and I are much better off as friends.”

“I agree with you, Sofia,” I said. “I love having you as my friend, probably my best friend, here.”

Sofia gave me a quick peck on the cheek and had a huge smile on her face as we continued to skate around the rink. After we finished skating, I went with Katt, Sofia, Tomas, and Anna-Carin to our usual café for coffee and a snack. I asked Tomas how Petra was doing and he said she was OK, but he was pretty sure I was right that what she needed was a regular boyfriend instead of just having fun at parties, as she had called it.

When we finished, I hugged Sofia, then Katt and I went back to her house. We went to her room and sat in the chair with her curled in my lap.

“What was that thing with Sofia about?”

“I thought you wanted to do stuff like that?”

“A better way to put it is that if the girls I’m with want to do those things, I’ll do them. I’m pretty conventional, just like you, Pia, and Sofia are. Now, if you want to get crazy, you just ask. But only if you want to, not because you think I want it.”

“You’re a strange guy.”

“A lot of people say that!”

“So if I wanted to do something wild, I just have to ask you?”

“Yes.”

She smiled and got up off my lap.

“I need to do some homework.”

She went to the desk and sat down and I grabbed my book from my bag and read and watched her out of the corner of my eye. After dinner, she still had homework to do, so we went back to her room rather than spend time with her parents like we usually did. When she finished, we lay in bed cuddling and fell asleep without making love.

In the morning, Katt grabbed my hand and led me to the bathroom.

“Let’s take a shower together!” she giggled.

“It would be more fun with like twenty other girls around!” I teased.

I picked up the shampoo bottle and gently washed her hair, then picked up the bottle of liquid soap and lovingly washed her body. I paid special attention to her extremely firm butt, caressing and washing it several times.

“Trying to tell me something?” she smirked.

“Just that I can’t believe how firm those muscles are!”

After I helped her rinse, she washed me and rubbed my butt several times.

“Not nearly as firm,” she giggled. “You’ll have to work on that!”

“I swim, Katt, I don’t have to do triple-toe-loops or whatever jumps you do.”

“At least you got the name right!” she giggled.

I turned off the water and dried her off, and then she dried me off. We wrapped towels around ourselves and walked back to her room to dress. We ate breakfast with her parents and then she walked me to the bus stop to catch the bus to Hovås.

Just before I boarded the bus, she kissed me hard and said, “Thanks for the shower. That was really enjoyable!”

That afternoon, I played my first round of golf of the year with Patrick. I was really too busy to golf much, but I wanted to play at least once before I went home. I did OK, but I clearly needed practice.

On Monday, Sofia came over after dinner as usual.

“I’m really glad you think of me as your best friend,” she said. “I’ve never even had a friend that was a guy! It’s so amazing.”

“My best friend back in the US is a girl, in fact, my two best friends are. Jennifer was my best friend before we became lovers, the opposite of how you and I started.”

“Interesting,” she said with a smile. “And I was really tempted yesterday, Steve. Jöran and I aren’t intimate and I don’t know when, or even if, we’ll be, but I have an itch that needs scratching. And that’s your fault, you know!”

“Yes, I’m sure it is,” I chuckled. “But we both know that as much as we want to rip each other’s clothes off and make passionate love, we’d both regret it afterwards.”

She giggled, “So true! Thanks for understanding and being my friend.”

“You too,” I replied. “I’m going to miss you when I go home.”

“I’ll miss you too! You have to write to me or call me. I still want your advice!”

“I promise to keep in contact, after all, I’ll want your advice as well!”

When she left, we hugged, and she gave me a soft kiss on the lips, then whispered, “Friendship, Steve.”

The rest of the week flew by and on Friday, it was time for my final weekend trip to Helsingborg.

May 1980, Helsingborg, Sweden

The train ride on Friday afternoon was the same as always. I’d become very familiar with the route and so I could tell where we were with a glimpse out the windows. The reality that I would soon return to Milford was hitting me hard as the train pulled into the station in Helsingborg. The next time I took this train from Göteborg to Helsingborg would be my last, and it was only 6 weeks away. I had only a couple of days and nights with Pia left, and then I might never see her again.

Lisbet and Pia were waiting on the platform, and I quickly stepped off the train and went right to Pia’s arms for a hug and a kiss.

“What about me?” Lisbet pouted.

I looked at Pia, who smiled and shrugged. I turned to Lisbet and hugged her, making as if to give her a proper kiss. She trembled as my lips closed on hers.

I took a quick glance at Pia, her eyes wide with surprise, her lips forming a silent ‘Oh!’, but at the last second I moved my head and kissed Lisbet on the cheek as I would a friend, and let her go.

“Argh!” Lisbet groaned. “No fair teasing me like that!”

Pia stuck her tongue out at Lisbet and giggled.

“See, I told you Lisbet. He’s mine, and he knows it!”

“Ugh!” Lisbet groaned again. “You are both impossible!”

I shook my head at the constant teasing between the girls. We rode in silence back to the Sandbergs’ apartment. Pia fixed me a snack, and we sat in the kitchen while I ate.

“What are your plans for the weekend?” I asked. “We can do whatever you want to do.”

“We have to make love!”

“Anything else?” I smirked.

“Oh, I suppose we can take time to talk in between!”

“Whatever you need,” I said with a loving smile. “Anything. You just tell me. I know it’s almost the last time we’ll see each other.”

“Yes, it is,” she said sadly.

“Can I ask you a question?”

“That is part of talking,” she said.

“Were you testing me with Lisbet before?”

“No, I wasn’t. And it wasn’t teasing either. I knew how you would respond to her request, so I just let her see.”

“You were that sure?” I chuckled.

“Absolutely, even if you surprised me with how you teased her back!” she grinned, “And I also know if I told you it was OK and I wanted you to do it with her that you would, just because I wanted you to.”

“You’re a pretty smart girl.”

“Not smart enough to not fall in love with you,” she sighed as a tear rolled down her cheek.

“You regret that?”

“No, no, Steve, I don’t regret it. It just makes things so difficult now. I broke my own rules and now I’m paying for it. The thing is, it was worth it. Every single second that I’m with you makes it worth it.”

“I’m glad you did, because I treasure our time together. You’ve helped me immensely by just being here for me.”

“So what now?”

“Well, I think you had some ideas!”

“Yes,” she smiled, “but I meant where do we go from here. And don’t say bed!” she giggled.

“All I can say is that I’ll write to you and we’ll see where we end up. You’ll always be welcome to visit me and, as I said, I’m going to try to come back. If you’re asking about us, I can’t promise you anything.”

“Do you love me?”

“Yes, I do. I’m confused about that word, but I do love you.”

She smiled broadly, “Then I did the right thing, no matter how this turns out years from now. I broke all of my own rules by going to bed with you at the party and then continuing to see you, even when I knew you were with other girls.”

I smiled as well because it made me happy that she had made peace with her decision from eight months before.

“I’m glad,” I said. “I really am.”

“Can I ask you something?”

“That is part of talking,” I chuckled.

She slapped me gently on the shoulder for mocking her and said, “Tell me about the other girls here, and how you feel about them.”

“Well, you know that Sofia and I are best friends now, nothing more. She couldn’t break her own rule of not sharing me. And we’ve stuck to that, too, despite the obvious mutual attraction. I’ve been encouraging her to find a guy, and she’s got one she’s seeing regularly now. A nice guy from her class.

“As for Katt, well, she’s emotionally needy, and she’s using me for support. I spend a lot of time with her, but she’s not someone I could see having a long-term relationship with. She’s so driven by her desire to win skating competitions that everything else takes a back seat. She also can’t provide me with emotional support. With her, it really is a friendship and physical thing, but nothing more.

“As for others, there have been a few here and there, but nobody that I’ve fallen in love with. In other words, there has been nobody like you.”

“Even though I don’t like you being with other girls, you just made me feel really good about us. I know, I know, no promises, but you aren’t ruling it out, either, even if it’s a remote possibility.”

“All we can do is take one day at a time and see where we end up. If we stay in touch, who knows what might happen. It’s also possible that you’ll find that Johan is the guy for you and when I come back, we’ll be friends, not lovers.”

“All true, but I’m grateful for what we’ve had, no matter what happens. But that’s enough talk. Take me to my room and make love to me!”

“Nothing would make me happier right now!”

We walked hand-in-hand to her room, past Lisbet, who was on the couch. Lisbet smiled and shook her head, knowing that an all-night lovemaking session was in store. And it was. Pia and I made love until four in the morning, resting between times, just holding each other and kissing until I was ready to go again.

We woke when Lisbet knocked on the door to the bedroom and, like usual, stuck her head in. I had purposefully not pulled the duvet over us when we finally exhausted ourselves and we fell asleep, so my dick and Pia’s battered pussy were on full display.

“God, you two are impossible! How can two people screw that much?”

“I’m just that good, Lisbet. And if Pia wants, I’ll make love to her all night again tonight!” I chuckled.

Pia got out of bed and took my hand and we walked naked past Lisbet to the shower.

“Now you’re just rubbing it in, Pia!”

“You opened the door, Lisbet!” Pia smirked.

It struck me that this was like what I had done with Anna’s sister Gina. I found the entire thing amusing. Of course, one main difference was that in the right circumstances, I would have sex with Lisbet, whereas nothing on this earth would have ever convinced me to have sex with Gina.

Pia and I washed each other and had fun rubbing our wet bodies together, but I didn’t try to give her an orgasm. She’d had more than a score during our marathon lovemaking session, and I figured she might be a bit tender. It turned out I was right when Saturday night, after a day of walking around Helsingborg, she elected to just cuddle and sleep spooned together rather than make love.

On Sunday morning, Lisbet drove us to the train station and Pia hugged me as tears streamed down her face. I kissed her softly, and we said our goodbyes. We both knew the next time we saw each other would be the last. I boarded the train and selected a seat where I could put my head out the window to wave and watch Pia until the train rounded the bend, where I always lost sight of her.

On the ride back I wrote letters, closing most of them with a note that they shouldn’t write me in Sweden after June 25th because there was a chance the letter wouldn’t arrive before I left for home. I answered another letter from Tina Hoff, the young girl from Alingsås. I detected signs of a crush in some of the things she wrote and so I was careful in how I answered her. I got the idea that I’d hear from her quite a bit after I went back to the States.

May 1980, Hovås/Göteborg, Sweden

I stepped off the train from Helsingborg and walked to the trams, boarding one for Västra Frölunda rather than Linnéplatsen. I walked from the tram stop to Katt’s house and rang the bell. Her mom greeted me and let me in. I went to Katt’s room to find her sitting on her bed, hugging her cat.

“Hi, Katt!”

“Hi, Steve!”

“What are you doing with your kitty when you go to the US?”

“He’s going to live with my mom’s sister. I’m going to miss him, but it’s too hard to take him to the US. I hope I can get another kitty there!”

I switched to English and snickered, “It’s not every day I come into a girl’s room and she’s playing with her pussy on the bed!”