Note: this is a sweet and smooth romantic story, nothing edgy or forbidden. Just a story of how it can take decades for some people to truly fall in love. Also, if you've read some of my other stories, you may have already met Milla. But this story isn't related to any of the others. Just another fantasy based on the same person.
*****
As I saw my house through the trees, I sighed nervously. I then shook my head with a slightly nervous smile. I shouldn't be so nervous. Really not, damn it! After all, I was only expecting an old friend, someone I loved with whom I had no tensions or any issues whatsoever. I took a deep breath and sighed again as I climbed up the stairs and walked in. I was glad to be back before the rain came.
The house was clean and well maintained, not at all like the stereotypical bachelor house. I have been single for almost a year now, after having lived two years with my girlfriend in this very house. Because I had built the house by myself and the fact that we weren't married, I got to keep it. But when Jodie and I separated, it had suddenly begun feeling too big and empty for me. Still felt that way most of the time.
Looking through the patio doors at the back yard, I could see the hot tub, the pool, the shed, my two bikes and the forest's edge. I had been lucky when I bought the lot. There had been a lot of price inflation on it based on rumors of further development into the forest. But when those plans fell through, the value of all the lots on this street tanked. I bought three of them and built my house on the middle one. I was thus free from immediate neighbours and enjoyed relative peace and quiet. Especially with the high fences. Jodie and I had both enjoyed our privacy. In fact—
My train of thought was cut short when I heard the door bell ringing. Milla. She was here. I was suddenly breathing faster as I walked to the door, cursing my nervousness again. I saw her slim silhouette through the frosted glass and took one last breath as I opened the door. She looked up and smiled at me and I felt my heart thumping hard in my chest. Gods she was gorgeous!
I smiled at her as she walked in. She was wearing a white summer dress, quite thin and short and most of all breathtaking. Before I could take a good look at her though, she wrapped her arms around me and hugged me hard. In her peculiar French accent, she simply said "Hello old friend." As I closed my arms around her, the rain finally began pouring down behind her. Briefly I wondered what she would look like right now, in that delicate white dress, had she been drenched on the way from her car to my door.
I tried to clear my head. I hadn't seen her in a very long time and I knew that she wasn't doing so well. Nevertheless I was a man, I had been single for a year and she really was a very beautiful woman. She could still take my breath away even though neither of us were really young anymore. As this delicious hug lengthened, I though back at how our lives had brought us both here, right now, to this warm hug.
I first met her back in my first year of college, a sprightly French literature major, a stunningly beautiful and sexy girl who had already known exactly how beautiful and sexy she was. She had lots of men wrapped around her little finger, as she'd had all of her life since. As soon as I saw her I knew both that I wanted her and that I had no chance. For one thing she was already in a relationship and for another, she had what I teasingly called a gaggle of fawning guys around her.
I still remember how she had laughed the first time I had used that phrase while talking to her. One day, after having met her only a couple of times, I we accidentally found ourselves in the same cafe one afternoon. For some mysterious reason she was sitting alone. And for some even more mysterious reason she decided to invite me to sit with her. We ended up spending three hours there together. I still remember how pleased I felt when she laughed full throated at the "gaggle" analogy.
Even though we never hooked up, not even once in twenty years, I had the unique chance of developing a very deep friendship with her. How did our friendship manage to survive my hidden love and lust? It didn't. In the sense that it didn't have to. I think I told her that was madly in love with her the next time we met after that afternoon. Just to clear the air. She was briefly annoyed at my raw proclamation, used as she was to having men just blurt out that they wanna fuck her. But she became puzzled as I immediately told her that I didn't want to fuck her, or try anything, or even be in a relationship with her.
That took her by surprise and led, once more, to another hours long conversation. By the time we moved on to another subject, she had a half smile on her lips, still surprised but convinced that I was just being honest. Over the following years, most of the people that knew us both, that saw us talking to each other for hours during parties, at coffee shops, or saw us watching movies alone together, were convinced that we had secretly had sex, or at least kissed. But we hadn't.
At one point though I was sure that I things could happen. Ever since I've known her, she had been in what I thought was an awful relationship with an abusive boyfriend. Psychologically abusive, mainly. I never learned if he ever hit her. But the psychological persecution could get really bad for long periods of time. About a year into our friendship, she broke it off. Finally! But any hopes I might have had were dashed when she ended up in the arms and bed of one of my friends, Alec. Not a very close friend, but still. It lasted about three weeks. Three weeks before she went back to her abusive boyfriend.
I admit that I have been angry through those three weeks... and many more afterwards. My pride had been hurt, and I had then been sorely disappointed by her decision to go back to that monster. The worse part of that was that I knew we wouldn't make a long lasting couple. Great friends, yes, but not a great couple. Too different. That's why even though I loved her, I wasn't really pining for her. That made my frustration even more... well, infuriating!
After a few months though, our friendship grew again for many years. Later we both moved away from the town where we had studied and met and eventually lost touch with each other. Through those years, I've had my fair share of girlfriends, one with whom I spent 7 years of my life. I was with that remarkable woman when Milla finally broke it off with her boyfriend once and for all. When she called me, in tears, our friendship and intimacy bloomed back to life despite the few years of drought. I spent quite a lot of time on the phone, on the chat or in person with Milla to help her through the break-up and the painful realization that she had spent all those years with such an awful man. It had dramatically hurt her self-esteem.
Eventually, she chose another man from her gaggle. A much better man. The year after that it was my turn to become single again and I cursed the damn bad timing. Not that I thought that Milla was interested in me in a romantic way, but well, you never know! And even though I still believed that we wouldn't make a great couple, I was still in love with her... While she was with that man, I met Jodie, fell in love, lived two years with her before our relationship fell apart. Milla helped me through that separation all the while her own relationship waned.
A few months later it was over for her as well and it was my turn to be there for her as she cried through her breakup. Once again we spent hours on the phone together over the course of many months. I invited her to come and spend time at my house instead of camping on the couches of her many girl friends. She never agreed. I was puzzled about that. I was sure that she wasn't afraid that I would make a move. After twenty years, our relationship was firmly in the friendship category.
Even my damned mistake didn't have any negative consequences. I usually used the phrase "my dear" when I wrote to her. Either on emails of chats or even on plain old paper. She did as well. But one time, as her relationship with her last boyfriend was beginning to crack at the seams, I accidentally wrote "my love". I immediately apologized for the mistake, but she didn't seem to mind. She wrote back "Don't worry about it. I call one of my friends "my love" from time to time anyways..."
"A girl friend?" I wrote back.
"Yes."
"But that's not the same thing between a man and a woman..." I wrote.
"Yes. You're right. But I don't mind, really."
I remember relaxing after reading this, but I never called her "my love" anyway. It just felt strange. I did love her, and she knew I did, but still... I had told her that I loved her a few times by email during the darkest moments of this last breakup, but it wasn't something that I said often or lightly. And I had always said it in a non-romantic way. A quick and casual "My love" somehow felt completely different than selecting a truly appropriate moment for a real "I love you".
Also, at that time, she was still months away from a clean separation. I just remember thinking how bad it could have turned if she had taken it the wrong way, as if I was trying to take advantage of her vulnerable situation. But thankfully she knew I wasn't the sort of man to prey on broken-hearted women. Then again, the nonchalant way with which she had moved on to another subject had, somehow, stung. As if the possibility of the two of us hooking up was just negligible.
