This part is not so sexually explicit, since it's dedicated only to the day I've met Helen, and how things have happened...
*****
My watch shows that Brad is late - we've recently finished our military service, where we've been colleagues, so I'm confused - we don't use to be late, or not keep our word...
We're supposed to go have a beer.
The moment I'm wondering about it, I see him hurrying across the boulevard...
He has a plastic bag in his hand with some stuff in it...
Finally! We salute each other.
"Sorry I'm late, but my sister has asked me to go and buy her something, since she has some sensitive food in the oven, and she needs to watch it"...
"OK, fine! So, what now?"
"I hope you don't mind if we first go at my place and let her have what I've bought"...
"Of course not! Let's go!"
His apartment is quite close from the place where we were supposed to see each other, so that in less than five minutes we arrive in front of his door.
He rings the bell, and, in less than ten seconds, a young woman, with dark hair, quite petite, opens the door.
I'm a little confused, since Brad is a blond guy...
"Sis, here is the stuff that you've asked me to buy"...
She grabs the bag, than, looking at me, she asks: "Now, little brother, aren't you going to introduce me to your friend?!?"
"Oh, sorry! Of course!" He makes the introductions - she's Helen, his older and only sister.
During the military service, he's never mentioned, to anyone there, that he had a sister, just to avoid the rude jokes between comrades...
She smiles and says: "Now, since I know that you're only going out to have a beer, you surely can afford to be a little late - the table at the terrace won't hate you for being late"...
She smiles again, and steps back from the frame of the entrance door: "Now, come in! I'll make you a coffee."
Brad shows me in. Helen is already gone towards what I am soon to find out, the kitchen.
Than, we hear her in a loud voice:
"Little brother, since you will surely want to smoke, either you and your friend go on the balcony, but you will find tons of dust over there, either you come here, in the kitchen!"
Brad mentions: "Our parents are committed enemies of smoking, so we are not aloud to smoke in the apartment!"...
The apartment is old, so the kitchen is way much larger than the usual kitchen dimensions that we used to have here in the seventies...
I see a table for four in the middle, take a seat, grab the pack of cigarettes from the pocket of my shirt, take out a cigarette, light it, and try to relax.
"Boys, you better take off your overcoats - if you don't, by the time you finish your coffees you will be so hot, that when you go out you'll surely catch a cold!"...
Helen acts like a hen toward her nestling when she's speaking to her brother, and, somehow, I see that she tries to have the same attitude towards me...
I don't have any brothers or sisters, so that I'm not used to be treated like that, excepting, of course, my mother, and, also, looking at her, she really doesn't look older than Brad, her brother.
I'm not shy, so I just ask directly - she's only one year and a half older than Brad...
We conclude that I am also younger, one year...
Helen serves the coffee - it isn't good or tasty at all, but, fortunately, the cups are tiny...
"Some time, you'll have to take your sister and have a coffee at my place - you know what I'm talking about"...
I've had the opportunity to learn how to prepare coffee from an Arab guy...
After we smoke two or three cigarettes and drink our coffees, we're getting ready to let Helen mind the oven - the beer is awaiting!
Helen tells her brother: "Little brother, will you please go and bring from my room my purse?"
Brad looks a little bit confused, but just goes...
Helen makes sure that her brother is really gone, than she whispers to me: "Take care how much you drink, and, at ten o'clock sharp, just make sure that you are at the corner of the street! If you're late, be sure that I won't be waiting for you - even if we are in the core of the town, there still are some rolling stones around, ready to make trouble to a single woman!"...
By eight o'clock in the evening, Brad and I are already leaving the terrace - honestly, I hate myself for not telling Brad that at ten, I'm supposed to meet his sister...
And, at ten o'clock in the evening, it's quite clear that his sister didn't ask me to see her, just to take a stroll in the park...
