This is the first fanfiction i never wrote, before i was even aware of what
it meant the word. I finally worked up the courage of traducing it in
english.
WAITING FOR MICHAEL
Without You (by Erich Fried)
Not nothing
without you but not the same
Not nothing without you but perhaps less
Not nothing but less and less
Perhaps not nothing without you but not much more
*****************************************
Nikita walked with quick steps toward the third bench from the park entrance and sat down. They had agreed to meet here and she was ten minutes late on purpose.
She looked around, looking for someone she hoped was already there.
In the distance children played in the snow, happy as they can only be on the morning of Christmas Eve, throwing snowballs at each other and making fat snowmen.
Of him, there was no trace.
It was cold and as she sat rubbing her gloved hands, she could see her harsh breath condensing into small, pretty clouds.
Winter was always cold in Ontario, and she could think of better ways to spend her Christmas.
He probably wouldn't come.
Nikita shook her head. Getting angry required strength she didn't have right now.
Right now she was just tired. Tired of fighting to keep something that didn't belong to her and could never belong to her.
Tired of believing she was close to her aim and then crashing back to reality.
For every step forward in their relationship, there were always two steps backward.
Like on the night of last New Year's Day, when he let her read the intensity of desire in his gaze and then proceeded to dance at length with another, as though to show her that he could have anybody he wanted.
As if she hadn't been aware of that from day one.
It had taken him so little time to start plaguing her like a deadly disease that she could not be healed from.
Nikita knew he was sincere when he said he needed her, but Michael no longer knew how to love nor if he even wanted to love again.
Simone had done this to him by abandoning him after two months of cohabitation without bothering to explain why. She simply disappeared one morning, accepting a job offer miles away.
Simone and Michael had loved each other very much. Nikita could see it in the photos hidden in a drawer in Michael's home. The frames they previously occupied had not been set aside though they remained empty. She wasn't sure if the pictures would ever be replaced.
Like the space Michael had reserved for Simone in his heart.
Yet he had been with her for one year. Was it possible that during all this time he had been thinking of somebody else, that she had left no impression on him? Was it?
The thought made her feel cheated.
Had she wasted one year, one entire year with him, only to have to return him to Simone?
From what she knew, they were two very similar people: same interests, same friends, same dangerous tendency to keep things under control.
The difference was that Simone had always known that for just one of her smiles, Michael would hand her the moon on a silver platter.
When she realized that she had the same feelings for him, she became afraid and ran. This was what she confessed to Michael when she came back looking for him one month ago.
Nikita believed her.
She couldn't imagine anybody being loved by him and being able to stay indifferent. It was certainly not because Michael was a romantic man. She supposed he could be if he wanted to, but he never showed her that side of him. He was cynical and disenchanted, yet there was a charm about him, a certain something which people were attracted to.
Maybe it was the way he could look at you and make you feel like you were the centre of the universe. He was good at understanding other people's psyche and it made her wonder if sometimes it wasn't just a game to him, like most things.
After Simone left him, he would often drink and would bed a new woman every night. Nikita knew this because people talked, and because she had witnessed it herself.
From the first moment they met, Nikita had been aware of his intense dislike for attachments of any kind. Besides the appeal of his flawless physical appearance, she had seen nothing in him which could justify the effect he had on the female species.
It was beyond her how women could seek him out so passionately when he treated them like dirt.
Or at least it had been.
* She hadn't wanted to learn kung-fu, if he hadn't been her instructor, she wouldn't be here now with a broken heart. Funny how the most casual choice or meaningless coincidence can turn your life around.
She would probably be enjoying Christmas Eve with her family, or buying gifts with Terry as she did every year, rather than being surrounded by snow as she sat mumbling and reminiscing about a selfish jerk.
Ah! Insulting him felt good even as she remembered the way he looked clad in his combat gear.
From experience she knew that strong physical attraction was seldom accompanied by strong affinity at a personal level. She had not had any intention of deepening their relationship beyond the teacher-trainee status, but things hadn't gone as she wanted or expected. In fact, they had went as far from that as they could.
Later, she would joke with herself about it. It was as if the Universe itself had been plotting to get them together. Entering a bar one morning, Nikita practically fell over Michael. He helped her up and after they finished laughing, he offered her a coffee. She accepted and they went on to talk at length with each other.
At first, she had been surprised that they had anything in common and that they could chat so easily despite being so different. It came up that they were both interested in watching ''The Sixth Sense'' so they agreed to see it together.
The contact they established at the time had nothing to do with sexual chemistry, or so she had thought then.
Although she knew she was beautiful, Michael had never made her feel like he found her attractive. It had reassured her as she was going out with someone else, namely Gray.
She had told Michael about her boyfriend once. He had not seemed very interested, but days later he asked her point blank if she loved him. Nikita told him that she didn't know yet, a little taken aback at not having considered it herself.
Then he kissed her for the first time. His lips had felt soft upon hers and then hot, almost too hot, hot enough to be suffocating, as his tongue slipped inside her mouth. Unlike anything she had ever felt before in her life. When he moved his lips from hers, her head had followed him by instinct.
They had been standing before her threshold and parting from her he told her, ''Think harder.''
*
strange, disrespectful thing to say in that situation, but she had not been able to avert her eyes from his all the same nor give him the answer he seemed to be expecting. She had only been able to invite him to come in for a coffee.
Of course, coffee had been the last thing on her mind as one of his hands rested on her back while the other one rhythmically caressed her shoulder blades and her spine. She had never known that one kiss could set your body tingling or that one caress could make your skin feel like butter, before then.
He had smiled at her invitation, his pale green eyes lighting up mischievously and his mouth crooked in that _expression he had, she would learn later, whenever he was looking forward to something really tasty.
She would now give the moon and the stars for his refusal on that night, but Michael had said ''Yes.''
Once they entered, he sat on her couch and waited while she tried to forget him and focus on the damned coffee she needed to make. Michael had looked perfectly at ease there, as if he belonged on that place on her couch for eternity.
He had made some comment about her home and asked curiously about the photos on display, all so naturally that Nikita later wondered more than once if she had not dreamed it all.
Michael drank her coffee and stayed a little and then he took his jacket and left saying it was late.
Leaving her confused and feeling guilty for forgetting her boyfriend and unable to sleep because her heart beat too fast.
In the following days, having received no attention from him, she obstinately tried to block him, and his kiss, out of her mind pretending that it didn't matter.
Thinking she would have, perhaps, let him make love to her made her sick to the pit of her stomach.
Sleep seemed to elude her and the last illusion of having forgotten about him was shattered by a dream where they were together and which she awoke from with her heart in her lungs. Nikita had gotten up, repulsed by the very idea of staying in that treacherous bed where the intimacy of her thoughts had been violated.
She could clearly remember the physical fatigue she had felt as she calmed her breathing and the time she had nervously read on her alarm clock. 06:30. It was a Sunday.
She had examined the large variety of teas on her kitchen shelf and chosen the mint-flavored one.
The water was boiling when her doorbell shrilled. It had surprised her at such an hour, but not so much since her neighbor Mick Schtoppel had this weird habit of stopping by at the strangest hours to ask for favors. The man was always short of something, whether it was sugar or condoms.
It wasn't Mick Schtoppel at the door that morning. It was Michael she saw through her peephole. Hellish timing, come to think of it.
*
Before she opened the door for him, Nikita had made sure to assemble some level of control on her emotions. The next thing she knew, he was offering her a bag of croissants.
''I thought we could have breakfast together, if you'd like.''
Such polite words to justify a purpose that was from polite.
She had wanted to slam the door on that indifferent, arrogant face of his or to slap it until it bled.
Instead, she had pretended nonchalance and imposed one condition.
''If you like mint tea. I'm making some.''
"Whatever you have will be fine,'' he had answered.
Even then, Nikita had smiled and complimented herself on her show of indifference as she talked with him about tea and about nothing at all. She had felt a little shame, fully aware of the complete disarray of her blonde hair and the immodesty of her apricot pajamas.
Nikita had been pouring the tea into two cups when she perceived Michael's breath on her ear. She had not felt him coming closer before she found him there, touching her wild mane and using his hands to venture into places he shouldn't . While a weak voice inside her head had repeatedly told her that she should feel offended by his boldness, every fiber of her body had felt an electrical discharge too strong and entirely too pleasant for her to refuse him. She had waited all her life to feel this way about somebody.
His fire had fed hers, but not any less than her determination had inflamed his.
Helping him undress, she guided him toward her bedroom. Despite the short distance between the two rooms, it had been a long journey , neither of them being patient enough to keep their hands and lips off each other.
Lunch time had found them still in bed. She watched him as he lay on his side, observing her with a gaze which made her feel more than beautiful, more than happy.
"What will you say to him?" Michael had asked as he played with a strand of her hair.
"The truth," she had answered effortlessly.
*
Afterwards, distracted by the kisses he was showering upon her like blessings --- on her forehead, on her eyelids, on her chin --- she almost did not hear his next question, "Which would be?"
Nikita had not wanted to give him so soon nor so easily the words he desired. They were supposed to be a gift to be received, not asked for. But feeling his lips descending on her breasts and then moving downward and hesitating on her tummy, there had simply been no other sound she could emit.
"I love you."
The meaning of those words hadn't become any less true with the passing days and weeks. If it were possible, she had only learned to love him more.
Even dragging him with her on a shopping trip, cooking for him, and going for a walk with him infused her with inexplicable good humor. Maybe it was why it hurt so much to be in his apartment and why she couldn't get the notion that it was where they had lived, laughed, and slept out of her head.
Michael handled her bouts of jealousy without quite resolving anything, without ever admitting the only truth which would put an end to their problems, to her insecurity.
Yet, Nikita had been sure that at the right moment, Michael would be ready to say he loved her, just as she had found she was ready to say she loved him. So she had waited and while waiting, had taken what was freely offered.
To think that Carla had warned her and Carla had experience in these matters. Carla was always seeking comfort because of a recent breakup.
Naturally, Nikita had not listened. She had defied everything and everybody she knew in order to be with him.
Even Gray had warned her. Nikita had been sincere in explaining the reasons why she needed to end their relationship. He had not provoked a fight and had been exceptionally collected as he dismissed her with a few words.
"I suppose I should be angry, but really I should be more sorry for you. He can't give you what you're looking for. He will only hurt you. There's no need for me to add to the pain."
The bitterness Gray's words had held then was much like the bitterness she was feeling now. Losing somebody you love for somebody who can't make them happy and knowing that you would have.
*
Now, Nikita could no longer justify to herself why the hell she had wanted to go ahead with the relationship notwithstanding everything.
No, that was a lie.
She had done it because she had believed in him, had wanted to believe in him. Michael had never made her unhappy.
Quite the opposite, she had never found in herself a greater beauty than that which she saw through his eyes.
It was the weight of the unsaid which poisoned her serenity. Thus, killing it.
Michael seemed to be determined to keep one foot in her life and the other outside of it.
But --- and it was the reason she had waited for him --- there had always been a gesture which revived her hope that he loved her, if in silence.
Like in the evenings, when he would lay his head on her chest as they watched TV on the couch.
Or like his bringing her to a special place just to make her smile.
Or like the projects they made together. For their future.
Or... too many images too often evoked came to her mind, and they had to be banished or Nikita wouldn't be able to go through with what she had decided.
Michael wasn't coming. Therefore, he didn't love her. It was as simple as that despite the various complications of their history.
Simone had proven that to her. Waltzing back into Michael's life, that woman had managed to shatter every illusion of progress Nikita had cherished.
Since they frequented the same places, they inevitably bumped into each other quite often. Michael's attitude had been clear. His voice, his looks, his measured gestures had all hinted at discreet seduction. Nikita would have given anything to know him less well than she did, so that she would be able to convince herself that Michael wasn't looking at Simone the same way he looked at her when he wanted to convey his desire.
Simone had long feigned indifference, waiting for Michael to fully digest her return before confessing the reasons behind her departure, her immutable love for him, and her certainty that nothing was different between them.
Ironically, Simone had even had the gall to ask for Nikita's approval before her final talk with Michael about their relationship.
That talk was supposed to have taken place today.
Nikita still had some difficulty admitting that she had actually consented to Simone's plans.
*
WAITING FOR MICHAEL
Without You (by Erich Fried)
Not nothing
without you but not the same
Not nothing without you but perhaps less
Not nothing but less and less
Perhaps not nothing without you but not much more
*****************************************
Nikita walked with quick steps toward the third bench from the park entrance and sat down. They had agreed to meet here and she was ten minutes late on purpose.
She looked around, looking for someone she hoped was already there.
In the distance children played in the snow, happy as they can only be on the morning of Christmas Eve, throwing snowballs at each other and making fat snowmen.
Of him, there was no trace.
It was cold and as she sat rubbing her gloved hands, she could see her harsh breath condensing into small, pretty clouds.
Winter was always cold in Ontario, and she could think of better ways to spend her Christmas.
He probably wouldn't come.
Nikita shook her head. Getting angry required strength she didn't have right now.
Right now she was just tired. Tired of fighting to keep something that didn't belong to her and could never belong to her.
Tired of believing she was close to her aim and then crashing back to reality.
For every step forward in their relationship, there were always two steps backward.
Like on the night of last New Year's Day, when he let her read the intensity of desire in his gaze and then proceeded to dance at length with another, as though to show her that he could have anybody he wanted.
As if she hadn't been aware of that from day one.
It had taken him so little time to start plaguing her like a deadly disease that she could not be healed from.
Nikita knew he was sincere when he said he needed her, but Michael no longer knew how to love nor if he even wanted to love again.
Simone had done this to him by abandoning him after two months of cohabitation without bothering to explain why. She simply disappeared one morning, accepting a job offer miles away.
Simone and Michael had loved each other very much. Nikita could see it in the photos hidden in a drawer in Michael's home. The frames they previously occupied had not been set aside though they remained empty. She wasn't sure if the pictures would ever be replaced.
Like the space Michael had reserved for Simone in his heart.
Yet he had been with her for one year. Was it possible that during all this time he had been thinking of somebody else, that she had left no impression on him? Was it?
The thought made her feel cheated.
Had she wasted one year, one entire year with him, only to have to return him to Simone?
From what she knew, they were two very similar people: same interests, same friends, same dangerous tendency to keep things under control.
The difference was that Simone had always known that for just one of her smiles, Michael would hand her the moon on a silver platter.
When she realized that she had the same feelings for him, she became afraid and ran. This was what she confessed to Michael when she came back looking for him one month ago.
Nikita believed her.
She couldn't imagine anybody being loved by him and being able to stay indifferent. It was certainly not because Michael was a romantic man. She supposed he could be if he wanted to, but he never showed her that side of him. He was cynical and disenchanted, yet there was a charm about him, a certain something which people were attracted to.
Maybe it was the way he could look at you and make you feel like you were the centre of the universe. He was good at understanding other people's psyche and it made her wonder if sometimes it wasn't just a game to him, like most things.
After Simone left him, he would often drink and would bed a new woman every night. Nikita knew this because people talked, and because she had witnessed it herself.
From the first moment they met, Nikita had been aware of his intense dislike for attachments of any kind. Besides the appeal of his flawless physical appearance, she had seen nothing in him which could justify the effect he had on the female species.
It was beyond her how women could seek him out so passionately when he treated them like dirt.
Or at least it had been.
* She hadn't wanted to learn kung-fu, if he hadn't been her instructor, she wouldn't be here now with a broken heart. Funny how the most casual choice or meaningless coincidence can turn your life around.
She would probably be enjoying Christmas Eve with her family, or buying gifts with Terry as she did every year, rather than being surrounded by snow as she sat mumbling and reminiscing about a selfish jerk.
Ah! Insulting him felt good even as she remembered the way he looked clad in his combat gear.
From experience she knew that strong physical attraction was seldom accompanied by strong affinity at a personal level. She had not had any intention of deepening their relationship beyond the teacher-trainee status, but things hadn't gone as she wanted or expected. In fact, they had went as far from that as they could.
Later, she would joke with herself about it. It was as if the Universe itself had been plotting to get them together. Entering a bar one morning, Nikita practically fell over Michael. He helped her up and after they finished laughing, he offered her a coffee. She accepted and they went on to talk at length with each other.
At first, she had been surprised that they had anything in common and that they could chat so easily despite being so different. It came up that they were both interested in watching ''The Sixth Sense'' so they agreed to see it together.
The contact they established at the time had nothing to do with sexual chemistry, or so she had thought then.
Although she knew she was beautiful, Michael had never made her feel like he found her attractive. It had reassured her as she was going out with someone else, namely Gray.
She had told Michael about her boyfriend once. He had not seemed very interested, but days later he asked her point blank if she loved him. Nikita told him that she didn't know yet, a little taken aback at not having considered it herself.
Then he kissed her for the first time. His lips had felt soft upon hers and then hot, almost too hot, hot enough to be suffocating, as his tongue slipped inside her mouth. Unlike anything she had ever felt before in her life. When he moved his lips from hers, her head had followed him by instinct.
They had been standing before her threshold and parting from her he told her, ''Think harder.''
*
strange, disrespectful thing to say in that situation, but she had not been able to avert her eyes from his all the same nor give him the answer he seemed to be expecting. She had only been able to invite him to come in for a coffee.
Of course, coffee had been the last thing on her mind as one of his hands rested on her back while the other one rhythmically caressed her shoulder blades and her spine. She had never known that one kiss could set your body tingling or that one caress could make your skin feel like butter, before then.
He had smiled at her invitation, his pale green eyes lighting up mischievously and his mouth crooked in that _expression he had, she would learn later, whenever he was looking forward to something really tasty.
She would now give the moon and the stars for his refusal on that night, but Michael had said ''Yes.''
Once they entered, he sat on her couch and waited while she tried to forget him and focus on the damned coffee she needed to make. Michael had looked perfectly at ease there, as if he belonged on that place on her couch for eternity.
He had made some comment about her home and asked curiously about the photos on display, all so naturally that Nikita later wondered more than once if she had not dreamed it all.
Michael drank her coffee and stayed a little and then he took his jacket and left saying it was late.
Leaving her confused and feeling guilty for forgetting her boyfriend and unable to sleep because her heart beat too fast.
In the following days, having received no attention from him, she obstinately tried to block him, and his kiss, out of her mind pretending that it didn't matter.
Thinking she would have, perhaps, let him make love to her made her sick to the pit of her stomach.
Sleep seemed to elude her and the last illusion of having forgotten about him was shattered by a dream where they were together and which she awoke from with her heart in her lungs. Nikita had gotten up, repulsed by the very idea of staying in that treacherous bed where the intimacy of her thoughts had been violated.
She could clearly remember the physical fatigue she had felt as she calmed her breathing and the time she had nervously read on her alarm clock. 06:30. It was a Sunday.
She had examined the large variety of teas on her kitchen shelf and chosen the mint-flavored one.
The water was boiling when her doorbell shrilled. It had surprised her at such an hour, but not so much since her neighbor Mick Schtoppel had this weird habit of stopping by at the strangest hours to ask for favors. The man was always short of something, whether it was sugar or condoms.
It wasn't Mick Schtoppel at the door that morning. It was Michael she saw through her peephole. Hellish timing, come to think of it.
*
Before she opened the door for him, Nikita had made sure to assemble some level of control on her emotions. The next thing she knew, he was offering her a bag of croissants.
''I thought we could have breakfast together, if you'd like.''
Such polite words to justify a purpose that was from polite.
She had wanted to slam the door on that indifferent, arrogant face of his or to slap it until it bled.
Instead, she had pretended nonchalance and imposed one condition.
''If you like mint tea. I'm making some.''
"Whatever you have will be fine,'' he had answered.
Even then, Nikita had smiled and complimented herself on her show of indifference as she talked with him about tea and about nothing at all. She had felt a little shame, fully aware of the complete disarray of her blonde hair and the immodesty of her apricot pajamas.
Nikita had been pouring the tea into two cups when she perceived Michael's breath on her ear. She had not felt him coming closer before she found him there, touching her wild mane and using his hands to venture into places he shouldn't . While a weak voice inside her head had repeatedly told her that she should feel offended by his boldness, every fiber of her body had felt an electrical discharge too strong and entirely too pleasant for her to refuse him. She had waited all her life to feel this way about somebody.
His fire had fed hers, but not any less than her determination had inflamed his.
Helping him undress, she guided him toward her bedroom. Despite the short distance between the two rooms, it had been a long journey , neither of them being patient enough to keep their hands and lips off each other.
Lunch time had found them still in bed. She watched him as he lay on his side, observing her with a gaze which made her feel more than beautiful, more than happy.
"What will you say to him?" Michael had asked as he played with a strand of her hair.
"The truth," she had answered effortlessly.
*
Afterwards, distracted by the kisses he was showering upon her like blessings --- on her forehead, on her eyelids, on her chin --- she almost did not hear his next question, "Which would be?"
Nikita had not wanted to give him so soon nor so easily the words he desired. They were supposed to be a gift to be received, not asked for. But feeling his lips descending on her breasts and then moving downward and hesitating on her tummy, there had simply been no other sound she could emit.
"I love you."
The meaning of those words hadn't become any less true with the passing days and weeks. If it were possible, she had only learned to love him more.
Even dragging him with her on a shopping trip, cooking for him, and going for a walk with him infused her with inexplicable good humor. Maybe it was why it hurt so much to be in his apartment and why she couldn't get the notion that it was where they had lived, laughed, and slept out of her head.
Michael handled her bouts of jealousy without quite resolving anything, without ever admitting the only truth which would put an end to their problems, to her insecurity.
Yet, Nikita had been sure that at the right moment, Michael would be ready to say he loved her, just as she had found she was ready to say she loved him. So she had waited and while waiting, had taken what was freely offered.
To think that Carla had warned her and Carla had experience in these matters. Carla was always seeking comfort because of a recent breakup.
Naturally, Nikita had not listened. She had defied everything and everybody she knew in order to be with him.
Even Gray had warned her. Nikita had been sincere in explaining the reasons why she needed to end their relationship. He had not provoked a fight and had been exceptionally collected as he dismissed her with a few words.
"I suppose I should be angry, but really I should be more sorry for you. He can't give you what you're looking for. He will only hurt you. There's no need for me to add to the pain."
The bitterness Gray's words had held then was much like the bitterness she was feeling now. Losing somebody you love for somebody who can't make them happy and knowing that you would have.
*
Now, Nikita could no longer justify to herself why the hell she had wanted to go ahead with the relationship notwithstanding everything.
No, that was a lie.
She had done it because she had believed in him, had wanted to believe in him. Michael had never made her unhappy.
Quite the opposite, she had never found in herself a greater beauty than that which she saw through his eyes.
It was the weight of the unsaid which poisoned her serenity. Thus, killing it.
Michael seemed to be determined to keep one foot in her life and the other outside of it.
But --- and it was the reason she had waited for him --- there had always been a gesture which revived her hope that he loved her, if in silence.
Like in the evenings, when he would lay his head on her chest as they watched TV on the couch.
Or like his bringing her to a special place just to make her smile.
Or like the projects they made together. For their future.
Or... too many images too often evoked came to her mind, and they had to be banished or Nikita wouldn't be able to go through with what she had decided.
Michael wasn't coming. Therefore, he didn't love her. It was as simple as that despite the various complications of their history.
Simone had proven that to her. Waltzing back into Michael's life, that woman had managed to shatter every illusion of progress Nikita had cherished.
Since they frequented the same places, they inevitably bumped into each other quite often. Michael's attitude had been clear. His voice, his looks, his measured gestures had all hinted at discreet seduction. Nikita would have given anything to know him less well than she did, so that she would be able to convince herself that Michael wasn't looking at Simone the same way he looked at her when he wanted to convey his desire.
Simone had long feigned indifference, waiting for Michael to fully digest her return before confessing the reasons behind her departure, her immutable love for him, and her certainty that nothing was different between them.
Ironically, Simone had even had the gall to ask for Nikita's approval before her final talk with Michael about their relationship.
That talk was supposed to have taken place today.
Nikita still had some difficulty admitting that she had actually consented to Simone's plans.
*