Tender Feelings

Diana

A certain uneasiness accompanied me throughout breakfast, because of the way he had cut short our previous meeting, although I couldn't say that the food was bad, as Michael seemed to have the skills of a professional chef. We chatted just enough during the entire breakfast and then I excused myself and went to change my clothes.

Back in my room, I took a moment to sigh, feeling deeply exasperated. I took a hot bath and tried to erase the sensation caused by his skin coming into contact with mine, but it was impossible, and no matter how hard I tried, my thoughts kept returning again and again to that point of our encounter until I went mad.

After showering, I dried my hair and put on my clothes, the same ones I had been wearing for days, but which he made sure to keep clean so that I felt as comfortable as possible.

Anxiety ran through me, and although I had promised myself not to go through this man's house in search of what I hadn't missed, there came a point where I couldn't resist anymore, so I opened the door and decided to go downstairs, surprising myself the moment I did it because I immediately heard the melodies floating in the air, attracting my attention completely.

I followed the music once again to the living room, while I reached Michael, who was sitting on the sofa, immersed in the reading of a book that seemed to be very old, but was still in good condition. The melody floated from somewhere in the room, and although I couldn't define where it came from, I could identify the album and the composer, knowing beforehand that it was the same repertoire as the song I was playing before. He had done this for me.

"Do you know Yimura?" I asked, at the time of approaching Michael, and at the time sitting next to him, on the sofa, leaving some distance between us so as not to make him uncomfortable.

"He is one of my favorite composers," he said.

"He's also mine." I smiled at the thought, and he returned the gesture, making me feel for a moment as if that connection we had hours before had not faded.

"What are you reading?" I asked then, and he smiled in a sort of mockery.

"Myths and legends of local folklore," he stated mockingly. "I wanted to see if, by any chance, I could find a description of your werewolf."

"Very funny," I told him sarcastically, but the red-covered volume caught my eye. "Can I see it?"

He nodded and handed me the book, and I began to leaf through it. Michael was reading about an ancient legend of ancient warriors, and how they allowed the souls of wolves to dwell in their bodies so they could change their skins and protect villages from attack.

"I'm sorry if you can't understand much of what it says. The German in the book is a bit out of date."

"Don't worry, I understand it well," I said. "I understand German well."

He raised an eyebrow, curiously."Did your mother teach you to speak it?"

"In part. I took a few lessons when I was little too, but I quickly became familiar with the language. Actually, I'm good at languages."

"How interesting," he commented playfully, with his face resting on one hand, and soon started asking me all kinds of questions, as if my past was something most attractive, and not a series of boring facts that could correspond to the life of any city-bred girl of my age.

But his interest pleased me and gave me time to be curious myself too, so I couldn't help but ask him certain things about himself, about his life. Contrary to what I might have thought at first, Michael seemed delighted to tell me certain aspects about himself, and although he always answered in a punctual way, at least in that aspect he didn't dodge me.

"Have you lived in Bamberg all your life?" I asked.

"Most of it. I lived away for a while, but it's always for a short time. This is my home. I can't help but come back to it," he said. Michael seemed to be a man of the world; he dressed elegantly and simply, but it was obvious that his clothes were expensive, as was everything around him. It was obvious that he was rich, a businessman probably, the kind of men you see in the city, busy all the time between meetings and lunching to close deals, but instead, he seemed to prefer the solitude of the forest that surrounded him.

"What do you do for a living?" I asked, full of curiosity.

"I make a living," he answered, amused by the vagueness of my question.

"I meant what... Well, do you work?" I said curiously, not knowing if perhaps I was going too deep with him. Maybe he was just a man who had grown up having money because of the family fortune or something like that.

"I have several companies if that's what you're asking," he stated. "I'm in the renewable energy business. I don't work in a specific branch, but I invest a lot in the development of sustainable materials, in environmentally friendly manufacturing. I own a few companies that work with clothing brands, and I also have an architectural firm that is in charge of developing properties made only from renewable materials."

"Wow, that's... impressive"

"How about you?" he asked with interest.

"I'm a music student. But in comparison, it's nothing memorable."

"Don't talk nonsense. Music is emotion printed in melodies," he said. "Without music, life would be meaningless."

"I think the same," I affirmed with a smile on my lips.

He smiled back at me, and little by little, the conversation began to flow between the two of us, taking on more personal overtones. Michael asked me about my life in New York, my friends, and my aspirations. He asked me about the things I had seen in Bamberg, and told me about his favorite places in town, while internally promising myself that I would go visit each of those places when the snowfall was over.

Spending time like this, in his company, was not complicated, and it almost came as a surprise when I noticed that the afternoon sun had fallen behind the forest, tinting the grove with its reddish tones which vaguely crept through the thicket.

I felt that now, at least, I knew him a little more, but that only made the situation more difficult, because talking with him had shown me that I was not only attracted to him physically but also mentally.

Michael was a smart, cultured man, a man of the world. He knew a thousand things about a thousand subjects, and he spoke about everything naturally, without pedantry or egomania, but with the clear tinge of someone who had lived a lot.

And watching him, noticing how he looked at me when I answered one of his questions, it was easy for me to believe that I was also of interest to him in some way, or at least in a few ways. His hand always stood close, stretched out on the back of the couch, and though he never touched me, I felt that at any moment he might reach out his fingers and just caress my face, outlining it with his slender fingers, and even reaching my lips.

The thought made me blush, and inside my chest, I felt my heart starting to race.

"Do you want something to eat?" he asked then, almost sweetly, interrupting a conversation that had been going on for hours. "I haven't been a very good host. I've had you sitting here all this time talking to me without stopping to think about whether you were hungry or not."

"I'm sure I am. I could use something to eat." I offered a smile on my lips and we both stood up.

I followed him into the kitchen, his distracted, almost vague voice still questioning me in the middle of the way, a warm feeling spreading through my chest, like when you drink something hot and feel your body become warm, even if it's cold outside.

He turned, smiling at me with confidence, with a glimpse of something unknown in his eyes, and as I watched him, I knew that what I felt for him went beyond anything I had ever felt before. It was something else, something that gripped me inside, and that, like music, felt capable of erasing the rest of my senses, leaving him as the only memory, as the only presence of him, and the awareness of his blue eyes on mine.