Forever Yours Read Online Free PDF

three-course menu as quickly and as feistily as she spoke, washed down with cola and green tea. All the while she allowed herself to be venerated by Hannes, who picked at a dry rice dish without any real appetite and never took his eyes off her.
    Besides the usual compliments – which hardly omitted a single facial feature, body part or inner quality of Judith’s – she felt flattered by the warm sparkle in his gaze, which settled on her lips the moment she opened them to say something, no matter how inconsequential. She could have gone on like this for hours.
    But, with a surprisingly jerky movement, Hannes grabbed her hand, yanked it across the middle of the table and buried it in his huge fingers, unleashing a strange feeling inside her. For all of a sudden he looked more serious and fiery than ever. And, in a very different, far more solemn tone than that with which lovebirds on their first rendezvous usually swap innocuous stories from their past, he said: “Judith, you are the woman I have always longed for. I want to give you every ounce of my love.” As this was not a question, Judith didn’t know how to reply. And so she left it at: “Hannes, you’re so lovely to me. I still can’t take it all in.”
    She wanted her hand back beside the teacup. But Hannes wasn’t finished with it yet. With a particularly firm grip on her fourth finger, he slowly pushed something over it. Judith couldn’t pull free in time. But then Hannes let go of her hand and, wide-eyed in astonishment, she was free to look at what was different about her finger. Her reaction was not an instinctive one; she’d watched scenes like this too often in films. So she stuck to a script which befitted the occasion: “Hannes, are you mad?” “What on earth have I done to deserve this?” “It’s not my birthday.” And there was an “I can’t possibly accept it” thrown in too.
    “Just see it as a little memento of our early days together,” Hannes said. She nodded. “Do you like it?” he asked. “Yes, of course, it’s wonderful,” Judith replied. That was her first lie, flung right into the middle of Hannes’ rapturous face.
7
    To get over the shock of the ring, she suggested they move to the Triangel, a bar behind the Votivpark. She’d been there a few times with Carlo. Hannes had every opportunity to make amends. The sparing beams of the yellow and red ceiling spots reflected off opaque glass walls, blurring the faces of the guests in the half-light. In here people were transformed into beautifully coloured, shapeless figures, hard to tell apart. Whenever Carlo had urged her to pop back to his place (which meant, of course, popping into bed), it was the Triangel where she’d usually given in and said yes.
    Hannes was not the type to capitalise on the mood of a bar designed for the purposes of seduction. This earned him volumes of respect in her eyes; she even found it attractive. All the same, he had succeeded in putting his arm around her shoulder, holding onto it like a powerful guardian. The two of them stood at the bar like a couple in folk costume who’d lost their way, relaying trivial details from their lives.
    In the end Judith needed a couple of harder drinks to summon the courage for the question: “What about a kiss?” She shot an inviting look right into the centre of his startled eyes, and knew that at that moment she must look stunning. She would have kissed her, at any rate. At least he said “yes” without hesitation.
    “But not here and not now,” he added, to her bewilderment. “So where then, and when?” she asked. Hannes: “My place.” (Without mentioning a specific time.) Judith: “Your place?” With the tip of her thumb she caressed the angular surface of her new ring. She hated amber. Maybe his entire flat and all its furnishings were made of amber. “No, mine,” she said, astonished by her assertiveness. “O.K., let’s go to yours then,” Hannes replied hastily. He smiled with every