Chapter 28 Contract of Love

Contract of Love

Arriving at the hotel room they made themselves comfortable and David approached her as she packed her luggage. She was pacing back and forth gathering her belongings as if on the verge of missing a plane home. He stopped her, held her by the shoulders, and kissed her on the forehead, leading her to the bed. They sat on the edge of the bed and he soothed her with a strong hug. After a while, they were both lying cozily looking at each other. David resumed the conversation he wanted to have with her. He wanted an honest conversation with an outcome to their situation, but this time without fighting!

After some time in silence, David began to speak: - I'm sorry for what I said in the bedroom. You make me lose my head sometimes. I'm not like that. I don't want to break up with you. - He said as he smoothed her face. - Was all that crying because I said I was leaving? - Again she was silent, even though she knew that her not answering was the reason for his irritation.

- Nina, what must happen for you to admit everything I want you to admit? You're in this state when I leave, you don't eat, you don't sleep, you're a zombie? Everything you feared would happen when you fell in love with someone, happened to you when you left me. Yet by running away from it all, you only attracted more of it. Everything you wanted so much to avoid you got twice as much. Everything is more intense when you're fighting against it. Can't you see that you can't go on with this pride, with this stubbornness? - Nina listened attentively and swallowed his words dryly.

- Besides, it's not only you who are suffering. You are also causing me pain. How can you love me so much that you suffocate me, but you can live with the fact that I am also suffocating and yet you do nothing?

A soothing silence filled the room for a moment.

- You only say that I caused all this for both of us. But you never put your cards on the table either. You never set the record straight. I was just trying to protect my sanity against a story of this magnitude. We lived together for a few months knowing that you would have to leave at some point, so I fought not to go crazy. I fought with the psychological weapons I had. Don't blame me. You vaguely proposed to me to be a friend, a lover who would meet you whenever, if, wherever...

...Do you think that if I had said yes I would suffer less? Every time you went away you would take a piece of me with you. In the end, there would be nothing left! Do you think that every time you went weeks without calling me I would resign myself? Do you think that if I met you once a year I would be content? Do you think I would have stayed with another man and gone on with my life, as usual, waiting for you? - David denied each question by shaking his head silently. - What kind of lukewarm love do you think I have, to accept an arrangement like this?

- Your love is lukewarm, Nina! You don't give yourself completely, you're always on the defensive. It is self-sabotaging!

- Look who's talking! Your love is also lukewarm. When did you declare yourself to me? When did you ask to stay or for me to come with you to the airport farewell? Dirty talking about the unwashed!

- I made you an offer...

- It wasn't enough! It wasn't what I wanted to hear. This proposal of yours could have worked, David. We could have tried it if I didn't feel anything for you. If you were an affair among so many others, or if you were a ticket to fame, if you were someone I was interested in taking money from, or advantages from, or even just to use sexually, as many independent women do with men nowadays?

... Then maybe it would have worked out. Eternal while it lasts! Not like this, not, after all, we have lived through. You know that I have never been in love with anyone. I would have suffered as much as I did, or even more, if I had accepted to be your fuck buddy. Maybe I would have become jealous, maybe I would have become even more schismatic. No. My answer was the most sensible one a person in my position could have given.

- Do you know that what irritates me the most about you is seeing you diminish yourself? As if you don't deserve the love of a rich and famous man because you're not rich and famous. You've told me enough about how I live with beautiful models and actresses, with women from famous families in the upper echelons of society, and you always point out that I could have any woman in the world, right? Because if I have been living for years with this kind of woman, princesses with their gifts, who don't need my fame or my money, and I haven't married any of them, it must be because they were not really the kind of woman I was looking for. Have you ever thought about that...?

...Maybe I wanted a Nina, stubborn, sassy, and bratty, but who spends eight hours a day caring for sick people, studying and specializing more every year, and who in December will work on the Covid-19 vaccines. Very proud of you. You should be a scientist! - And he kissed her on her forehead after insulting her. - Maybe I wanted an anonymous one, to break all these standards imposed by society in people's heads, who live as if everyone was brainwashed.

- Just like a nerd who likes video games doesn't have to be a fat, lazy guy who does nothing with his life and only eats crap?

- Yes, like in this case. I am an avowed gamer. I am a nerd who prefers to stay at home assembling and disassembling things. And that does not mean I am fat, antisocial, or lazy. I like both worlds. I like the hectic, over-produced parties just as much as I like being left at home. I like to dress up elegantly and take a girlfriend to see behind the scenes of everything that is only seen in famous magazines. Yes, I like simplicity and glamour! Nobody is just one.

- Am I more of a project, then? Do you want to be with me to prove that a man like you can be with a woman like me? Just like you stand up for women, children, animals, and everyone who has ever suffered bullying? Do you want to be an example, to slap the face of high society? Do you want to cause a stir?

David remained silent, staring at her. He measured his words so as not to make things worse because she had the knack of making him want to scream, even though he didn't, she made him angry when she questioned him like that. No woman had ever challenged him before, but she often did.

- No, Nina. I want to be with you because I liked being with you. Because I didn't pick you out of a ready-made catalog. You are not a profile that fulfills all the requirements in a list of the perfect person I am looking for. I just found you, fate brought you to me, and unlike you, I'm not afraid to face people's opinions. I would just like us to try. I know you want to be with me, but there's this whole female struggle inside you, Aryan dressed in your bronze armor, fighting so that you won't accept to be beneath a man of power, I know?

...I support your cause. There were years of machismo against women, years of suffering, generation after generation that reflects this day. I know that there was and still is a lot of machismo in Brazil and the world and that Norway is an example of a country that is engaged in the fight against inequality between women and men. I know that you have been molded this way over the years, but it will not be this way with us. There will be no struggle!

- And how will it be? I can't live next to you and pay for the luxurious life you lead.

- I live a simple life. And when I appear at lavish events, I am being paid for it. In fact, I only spend money on travel, with friends, my house, my car, and my family. The basics. Even my clothes I prefer the older ones and the ones that make me feel more comfortable. You know. As for the fact that you don't want me to support you, that only makes me more proud.

- Yes, I don't have the "princess syndrome" that thinks that there has to appear a man who is going to fix my life, who is going to give me everything I want and make me happy. I think that a woman can achieve everything she wants, can study, work, be self-sufficient and stop saying that the things that men do wrong are acceptable because they are men, and that they have always been like that, and that women can't do the same because they are women.

- I agree with you. I think that way too. The only differences between men and women are the physical and many emotional parts. I want to court you, flirt, be a gentleman, be kind, protect you, take you to dinners, to the movies, because I am an old-fashioned person like that. I think that a woman has to be treated very well, not because I think that a woman belongs to the weaker sex. Women are the pillars of the world. You are the ones who educate men until they become adults. You have the power to change generations regarding machismo, implanting in the heads of sons and daughters from the first year of life, that there is no gender difference.

After a while in silence reflecting...

- So, David... Back to the "syndrome" of the princess lying in her castle waiting for the prince on his white horse... What am I going to live on? I will move into your house and do what afterward? Our story will be told as if I had won the lottery for having found a man of power. Like the Cinderella story... One more time.

- Our story will be told as we want it to be told. What others will think or say is none of our business. The moment we are public people we have no way to control what people will think or say. But we can control what we say and think by setting good examples. We can shape the people who are interested in our story, and you will always be able to influence people who feel diminished, with low self-esteem, who mirror themselves in you. you will be able to support women all over the world.

- Are you saying that you think I have no self-esteem?

- You can hardly even take a compliment!

- Neither do you!

- I only compliment you because that is what I really think. A beautiful, intelligent, good, and very special woman. You have a very special character, but you don't accept what I tell you.

- You are like that too, don't you realize? I say that you are a God on a pedestal and you get angry. But that's what you are too many, that's how I see it! And you don't accept it either. As I said: the dirty talking about the unwashed... - And they both laughed!

- Another thing, David. I don't have low esteem or didn't use to. I was never insecure with guys, I just didn't have the patience to deal with them. I was single by choice. I thought I was too rigid with men, it had always been that way since I was a teenager. And it wasn't because I felt incompatible or anything like that, I just didn't feel the least bit like wasting time with futilities, trying to convince most men that we are in the year 2020 and that women no longer need a marriage or a pregnancy to survive?

...We don't need to accept humiliation, we don't need to live in an abusive relationship, we don't need to fit into any standard. If we don't feel good where we are, we can just leave. Nowadays a woman who has her house, her car, her job, a woman who travels, drinks, parties, has friends, this woman will not accept just anyone in her life without love, just to maintain status. It takes more.

- I am your more.

- You are. And what am I?

- My plus!

And the two kissed many times between one conversation and the next...

- You still haven't said you love me, Nina. - David charged.

- Neither have you. - she retorted.

- You made agreements and pacts so that we wouldn't be hurt by false promises, you made me promise not to swear eternal love, you made me agree to this world of nonsense...

- You never told me: Drop everything and come with me, Nina, never.

- As if this would do any good after everything you made me promise! You had already decided for both of us! Be fair! Don't blame me.

- No. Both of us are to blame... Or neither of them... You kept your unknowns pointing out that I could be more, that I couldn't continue in the life I was in... Let's get this straight David. Everything I did wrong, you did wrong. And I was really protecting myself. If I wasn't honest with my feelings, neither were you.

David held her, came close to her face, looked her firmly in the eyes:

- Do you love me, Nina? he asked, suddenly surprising her.

- I do. I love you very much, more than anything I have ever loved. I love you more than anything in the world.

David waited for her to ask him the same question. He looked at her smiling, studying the movement of her shoulders shrugging, scanning the expression in her eyes, then when he saw her ready, she asked:

- What about you?

- Me what?

- What do you feel for me?

- Say it, Nina. Ask the question: Do you love me, David?

- Do you love me? - Nina asked, her heart nearly bursting out of her mouth.

- I do! Woman, of course, I love you! Or I would never have been so patient with you! Look at all that had to happen for you to admit your feelings for me! Jesus!

- I'll say the same for you. This is who I am, David, I will never change? I'm not playing a game, believe me when I tell you!

David hugged her tightly. Kissed her hair, squeezed her tightly in his arms as he spoke:

- That's what makes me want you, even more, the fact that I know you'll never have to change anything to please me...I love you just the way you are...and the fact that I know you'll always be your old self comforts me. I believe in you, Nina, I know that nothing will corrupt you, nothing will dazzle you. I feel it in you... You will not change! There's only one in the world like you, and I know there's no way they could have made two. So tell me once and for all, that you'll stop pretending not to care, and that we'll never be apart again! Say that you won't go away! Tell me! I need to hear it...

- It was you who left, not me.

- Just say it... stop stalling! Stop reluctant!

- It's not just like that! I'll say anything you want me to say when you're clear and sharp. I want details. No more texts without context. If we're going to be together, then let's get it right! If you're going to ask me something, specify it.

David turned to her again, and they both lay on the bed facing each other, lying on their sides holding their heads.

- Nina, now let's get serious. - She confirmed, shaking her head.

- I already told you that I love you, I don't want to be away from you again.

- I've already said that I love you too. I don't want to be away from you ever again either.

- So, I ask you: Will you stay this time?

- Yes.

- Are we together?

- Yes, we are.

- Are we a committed couple?

- Yes, we are.

- No games, no hidden feelings, no frustrations, ok?

- Okay. - Answered Nina, monosyllabically.

- Will you drop everything and be with me?

- Yes.

- We will move in together from now on.

Nina spent some time in silence thinking... both of them were already lying on their backs looking at the ceiling...

- May I at least know where we will live? Where is your fixed address, if that is where I will move if I will be alone there while you are traveling and recording, how will I support myself? We have to talk about all these things first of all. Everything is out in the open. Everything that has to be said has to be said now.

- Of course, you will have your address at my London address. No, you will not stay at home alone, you will stay with me wherever I am. Let's see how we will arrange for you to have your work and your money. I stay in one place for months, even years, depending on how many seasons a series has, etc. So it won't be too difficult to get temporary jobs for you where I am. I'll help you with that. You rent your house in Norway and then we'll see. You use your money for your expenses, and the time you use with me without being able to work because you have to accompany me, it is only fair that I pay our expenses. There is no reason to feel offended. It is what is right. Besides, I want you to let me court you. Not to show off male power, but to please the woman I love. We will have all the time in the world to see this. What matters is that we will be together. Do you agree?

- I agree. Will you at least sleep with me every night?

- Every night I can't promise 100%, but when I have to record in the middle of the night, or have to travel, or for whatever other reason I have to be away, you will be with me, if you want me to be. As long as we can be together. I never got along with anyone before because there was no way I could have a firm relationship with a woman I hardly saw, hardly kept in touch with because of my work rhythm, my routine, my day-to-day life. It was very difficult to maintain a long-distance relationship with me. I won't let the same thing happen to you this time.

- Are you sure about this, David? Are you sure that this is what you want?

- I only take a step forward in a matter like this if I am sure. We've been together for months. I really want it to work out, Nina. I want to take care of you forever!

- I also want to take care of you forever.

Nina hugged him and kissed him gently. He quickly attacked her and laid her on the bed and the two of them began to tickle each other. Suddenly they both stopped in time looking at each other, caressing each other, kissing each other hard, with desire, with tenderness, and with a hint of despair. It was the longing manifesting itself after months away from each other. David felt his skin burn when he touched hers, how great was his desire to have her back in his arms, and his bed, after three long months of waiting? The two of them made love for the rest of that night. No amount of time would be enough to make up for the time they had spent away from each other suffering from longing.

The next day the phone rings and Elena makes an appointment with the two at the hotel. She and Marcus meet them for a drink and to discuss the program that would be aired the next day. Elena wanted confirmation about which parts of the interview she would be showing. Nina wanted many scenes to be canceled but was convinced that it would be very good if they aired. She didn't want the world to see her freak out at the sight of David on the stage of the show, but Marcus had a power of persuasion that even Nina couldn't resist:

- That was the best part of all! You can cut all the parts except that one! This scene was the end, it was the symbol of all the suffering caused by digital violence, everybody could feel how much you were suffering because of the media pressure. There will be a thousand buzzers, but none of them can beat that scene. A true fairy tale of modern life! - Chattered Marcus euphorically!

Nina and David looked at each other and laughed. They were remembering that this was precisely what Nina had feared most. Being compared to the real-life Cinderella...