Love in Theory and Practice: Chapters 1-13

There’s a different bounce in her step as we leave the museum. Somehow the place has invigorated her. It’s almost as if the business exterior she presented in the office has melted away. She is talking about a few of her favorite pieces and asking me what I liked best. I fill in the blanks of the conversation for her as we make our way to the car. While there were many beautiful pieces on display I’m trying to focus my mind on something other than her smile.

“Is there anything you want to see?” She asks as we get into the car. She checks her Blackberry and smiles while replying to a text message.

“I hadn’t really thought about it. I had planned on lying around my hotel room and reading.” I say with a laugh. Her face falls a bit.

“Do you want me to take you back there?” She asks, looking a little bit like a hurt child. For a moment I’m struck by how young she looks. She can’t be more than 25 and probably isn’t more than 22. Suddenly I feel much older and a little silly.

“Oh no, it’s better for me to be out and doing something. I’m too much of a hermit for my own good.” I say.

“I’m like that sometimes. But sometimes I can’t stand to be in the house. How about the Eye?” she asks. I love the movement of her arms and hands as she busies herself in the car. She puts her phone gently on her leg after checking it one more time. She puts the keys in the ignition without turning it all the way on.

“The what,” I question. I’m not sure I’m supposed to know what the Eye is.

“The London Eye, you know that giant Ferris Wheel type thing? It goes up and you can see almost all of London.” She suggests while starting the engine. “I don’t really want to go to the palace or anything like that.” She says and wrinkles her nose in disgust. She’s obviously not a royalist.

“Neither do I. Let’s go to the London Eye.” I agree. She smiles brightly and the sparkle appears in her eye the same way it was in the picture on her computer. I want her to smile like that all day long every day. There’s something about it that just draws me and makes me never want to let go.

After a car ride and ticket purchasing, we ride the London Eye. She’s afraid of heights but I can tell she has too much pride to admit it. She sits as close to the middle of the seat as she can without being in my lap and cranes her neck to look out rather than being against the glass. I casually slip my arm around her when I lean in to hear what she’s saying about the Parliament building. Either she doesn’t notice or doesn’t mind. Her breath is warm on my ear and the knowledge that her lips are only inches away from mine is exhilarating. It’s taking all my will power not to get a hard on.

I cannot deny that over the course of the day there has been attraction between us. We’re standing near to each other, touching each other’s arms when we talk. I can’t take my eyes off of her and when she looks at me she smiles. In the museum she would pull my head towards her mouth by guiding me with her hand on the back of my neck, and then she would gently whisper in my ear. I’ve never been more thrilled by the simplest of touches.

After the London Eye we meet up with the rest of the band. They’ve had a few drinks and want to get some dinner. Elin agrees to come along and my heart soars. We drop the car off at her hotel before walking to a nearby restaurant.

“So why is it that you don’t drink?” Linde asks during dinner. We’re sitting around a round table out on the patio of a café. She is between Linde and I. On my other side sits Gas then Mige and Burton.

“I had a really hard time with it in University. All I did was drink. I’d go out every night of the week if there was something going on. I put on a lot of weight. When I went to school I was 100 lbs and by my sophomore year I was around 135 lbs from drinking. When my grades started to suffer and I’d made enough bad decisions I quit, dropped the weight and graduated. I will still have something occasionally, usually only wine, but most of the time I just avoid it.” She explains. I have a really hard time picturing her at 135 lbs. She looks like she’s no more than 110 now.

“Well that’s fair enough. Ville recently quit drinking too.” Linde says.

“I have to admit I knew that. My best friend is a huge fan of the band and I remember her telling me about it. She was really happy to see you healthy.” She says with a half smile before taking a sip of her water. “I don’t really like to get into people’s lives like that but Callie just loves you guys.” She laughs. “She’d probably die to be here right now.”

“Why didn’t you bring her along?” Gas asks.

“She’s been so busy with her own work lately. Besides, you guys will be recording in Los Angeles so she can meet you there if that’s alright. Give me some time to calm her down first. She’s a sweetheart but very…I don’t know what the right word is…” she trails off and begins chewing her lip while looking towards the ceiling. “Vivacious; that’s the word I want.”

“You seem fairly vivacious yourself.” Mige says with a wink.

“Not really.” She answers shortly and I can’t suppress my smile. I love how blunt she can be. “Callie is very outgoing and loves meeting new people. If Eric hadn’t said anything I would have walked out of the office without so much as looking back. I tend to be more solitary than her.” She explains. I look up to see Linde looking at me with another one of his knowing smiles.

Dinner is full of entertaining conversation. She fits in really well with us and doesn’t seem to mind our obscure and somewhat obscene sense of humor. When she gets really into a conversation, she’ll lean forward towards the table and brace herself with a hand on my knee. It feels so natural that her hand would be there, so natural that she would be here at the table with us.

After dinner we take a walk around the area and continue our conversations. She and I both stop and pull out cigarettes. Luckily I’m well skilled at lighting cigarettes for others and manage to smoothly light hers before she can get her lighter out. She winks and says thank you.

Linde and I fall behind the group.

“Well,” he begins. “She seems to favor you.”

“That’s only because she’s spent more time with me.” I reply, exhaling my smoke.

“No, I think she just favors you. And you like her too. What’d you do today?” he asks. Up ahead she is talking animatedly with Gas. I wonder what they’re talking about that has her so excited.

“We went to the museum then we rode the London Eye.” I say absentmindedly. My attention is mainly on her.

“Have you kissed her yet?” he asks, taking me off guard and redirecting my focus to the conversation at hand.

“No, why would I have done that?” I have to admit I’m a little slow on the relationship track. I always feel deeply about what I’m doing but sometimes it takes me awhile to do anything. I know that we’ve been fairly close to each other all day but that all happened naturally.

“You obviously like each other and I can see how you’re looking at her. And I know you well enough to know that you won’t do anything then just pine for her for months. Besides you were on the Eye together. Is there a better place?” He says with a smile.

“I guess I missed the boat on that one. Think she’d still go for it?” I ask, putting out my cigarette.

“I think so.” He replies. I just shake my head with a smile. It feels like I’m 20 again. A man in his early 30s shouldn’t have this much difficulty with women.

At the end of the night, I offer to walk her back to her hotel. She gladly accepts the offer and we spend the walk talking about what kind of music we listen to. She has some similar tastes but some completely different ones as well. She listens to Black Sabbath, Depeche Mode and other bands that we heartily agree on. But she also listens to more popular songs that I’m not familiar with.

When we arrive at the hotel the lobby is quiet. The only person around is the woman at the front desk. Elin suddenly gets a mischievous glint in her eyes.

“Do you want to come upstairs?” she asks. There is nothing shy about it. She is looking me dead in the eyes and I can’t say no, I don’t want to say no. So for the second time today I follow her into the elevator. When the doors are shut, she pulls me towards her the same way she’d done in the museum but instead of whispering in my ear, she presses her lips to mine. My response is immediate, no hesitation. I pull her into me and she willingly lets me wrap my arms around her.

The walk to her hotel room isn’t much of a walk as more of an entangled stumble. Neither of us is willing to let go of the other long enough to walk down the hallway properly. There’s nothing on my mind but her. I have no thoughts about music, morality, tomorrow morning, just her.

She manages to get the key card in the door with her back pressed against it and pushes it open with the weight of our bodies. From there on it’s a flurry of removed clothing, shoes, and hats all the way to the darkened bedroom. I can’t remember who pushed who but we end up on the bed. We can’t get enough of each other. At moments I can’t distinguish where my body ends and hers begins. We talk and laugh, we explain our tattoos, and we listen to music before finally falling asleep.

…….

I wake up the next morning in her hotel bed. One of the double doors leading from the living area into the bedroom is closed but through the open door I can hear her speaking in rapid German. I sit up to see her with her phone, once again, held between her ear and her shoulder while she types on her laptop. She’s wearing my shirt. The sun is shining on her and her hair glitters and shines in the light.

I let myself fall back into the pillows and sigh. This is not something I normally do. I’m not a promiscuous person, no matter how many people think or want to think otherwise. But something about being with her feels natural, real. There’s no struggle to please the other person, there’s no awkwardness or tension. It just comes to us like it’s always been there, like it’s always been known. I roll over and end up on her pillow. It smells like her and I’m transported back to last night.

I’d watched her sleep for awhile before I fell asleep. Her lips had been parted slightly and her breath was silent. The fringe of her eye lashes and the flawlessness of her skin made her look like an image of sleeping beauty, pristine in sleep.

When she comes back into the bedroom I see that my shirt reaches to the top of her thighs and she’s left it unbuttoned in a dangerously low v. The sleeves are rolled up and I can see her tattoos. She explained last night that she covers them up with makeup when she’s in ‘business’ mode.

It’s strange how similar we are in some ways. On her right arm she as a collage of faces just like I have. Different faces, however, but it’s strikingly similar. She has art historians, theorists, and scholars. She also has a star on the flesh between her pointer finger and thumb on her left hand and an anchor on her right.

“Hello,” she says quietly. I turn my face to her as she slips back under the covers beside me. She’s removed her makeup and her hair is in disarray around her face. “Don’t look too close or you’ll see all the things that are wrong with me.” She jokes.

“You look perfect.” I say without thinking. She just smiles and shakes her head.

“I’m flying out today.” She says, her face is suddenly serious. I can’t think of anything to say but my mouth forms the shape of “oh.”

“What time does your flight leave?” I ask. I roll towards her and she moves into the space between my outstretched arm and my body. Just like I’d hoped she would. She wraps her arm around my back and slowly winds her fingers in circles on my skin.

“I don’t leave until about 6pm.” She says into my skin. The sensation of her lips on my skin, even just talking, is unreal. She’s warm from the sun. We just lay there quietly for awhile.

“Elin, how old are you?” I ask, breaking the silence. I feel her smile against my chest.

“I’m 23.” She answers.

“Shit,” I mutter it before I can think to stifle it. “Please tell me your birthday is coming soon or something.”

“My birthday is in a few months. Then I’ll be 24. Does that suit you better?” she says with a smirk. She’s propped up on her elbow beside me now and is gently tracing lines around the features of my face.

“I’m quite a bit older than you.” I say.

“So?” she counters softly.

“That doesn’t bother you?”

“Well how old are you?” she asks, she’s moved on to tracing the lines of my collar bone.

“I’ll be 33 in November.” I answer honestly. The corners of her lips curl into a smirk.

“That doesn’t bother me. That’s what? Nine years? Practically nothing,” She says and presses her lips to mine before rolling herself on top of me.

We agree to spend the rest of the day together. We talk while we shower, while she packs her suitcase, while she gathers her papers and other various things and gets her purse ready to go. We have breakfast, coffee, and cigarettes.

I have to admit that there’s a sick sensation in the pit of my stomach. I barely know her but I don’t want to be away from her. I don’t want her to be in Los Angeles while I’m in Helsinki. I just want to pack her suitcase with everything she owns and fly her away to Finland with me.

We exchange phone numbers and email addresses and promise to keep in touch until August. She quickly types my information into her Blackberry. She’s standing in the sunlight. She’s wearing the same black leggings from yesterday and a big sweatshirt with UCLA across the chest.

She waves to me from the door of the room as the elevator doors close; she’d given me the sweetest kiss before letting me walk away. When I make it back to my own hotel I feel nothing but anger and sorrow. How is it that I find the most captivating woman of my life and only get to spend roughly 27 hours with her?

My mind races over things that could happen between now and August but it also struggles with how different things could be by then. I rarely ever sleep with someone after knowing them for such a short time. I can count those occurrences on one hand. What kind of error have I made, if any? What does she think of me? Was it just a one night thing for her or, like me, does she wish it didn’t have to end?

She’s the light at the end of my tunnel but is it the brilliant warmth of sunlight or the impending doom of an oncoming train?