“Good.” He gives me the tiniest smile, and I wrap my arms around his neck, covering his lips with mine.
His arms close around my waist, and his tongue enters my mouth avidly. His kiss is a consolation amid chaos, warmth in a freezing world, light on a dark road. With some reluctance, I detach my mouth from his after a few seconds, afraid to go too far in a public place, but I smile and pull him by the hand.
“What are we doing?” he asks as I make him follow me.
“We’re alone in a nice playground after dark,” I say, expecting him to catch up with my excitement. “In fact, the nicest playground I’ve ever been to. Danish kids must be very happy.”
“Happiest country in the world.” He shrugs.
“If I showed you the playgrounds I played at when I was a child, you’d cry. Broken swings, rusty slides with missing parts... Whenever I ran to a playground, my mom panicked, and my dad tried to direct me to a field where we could play with a ball instead.”
“He would probably like these courts then.” Erik points at the lovely basketball court to our left, and the small fenced soccer field with artificial grass and two well-kept goals.
“Yes, he would have loved to come here with me...”
I often have these moments when cultural shock kicks in with full power. I think of all the ways my life would have been different if I had grown up in Denmark. I look at the people here and think, Damn, they’re lucky.
I sometimes feel like I’m inside a dream, and my past of hardship and deprivation crawls up to the surface, reminding me that life is never this perfect. That this is what you see in movies, not what happens to real people. That all of this—clean streets, beautiful buildings, polite citizens, happy children playing in public wonderlands—must belong in someone’s fantasy. My own fantasy. I think of all those days in Brazil when I struggled or saw everyone around me struggling and imagined a world like this.
After being in Denmark for so long, I often find myself so caught up in my new life here that I sometimes complain about a minor thing and realize I’m having first-world problems. Then I laugh, and oscillate between feeling happy for myself and bad that my family is not here and will never be, and I’m the only one who will experience this side of reality.
“What are you thinking about? You look so serious suddenly.” Erik embraces me from behind, resting his head on my shoulder.
“Just that...when I’m with you, it’s like a story someone is telling me.”
“Is that good or bad?”
I smile. “I don’t know, it’s just that... I often look around and have the strange feeling that everything is made of cardboard. That I’m in a movie set. Someone is going to pull me out at some point. I’ll hear a ‘Cut!’ and the lights will dim, and I’ll go back to the real world.”
Erik turns me to face him, holding my waist. I put my hands on his chest and look up to see his eyes. They are loving.
And there the feeling is. A pressure in my chest, a voice in my head saying everything is fine now, but it won’t last. It will fall apart. He won’t be by my side forever.
I blink slowly and take a deep breath, fighting against the thoughts. I can’t let them ruin this moment.
“I know what you mean,” Erik says. “It happens when everything feels too perfect. Then I start to imagine the whole set crumbling until I’m buried under the wreckage.”
I lean my forehead against his mouth, and he kisses it.
“But this is real, Erik, isn’t it?” I whisper, very low, almost afraid to let the words out, because if said too loud, they might have the power to start the demolition.
“Yes,” he whispers back against my head. “It couldn’t be more real.”
I pull his head down and kiss him with fervor. I need his skin, his essence, his love. I need to feel his soft hair between my fingers, the scent of his masculine shampoo stirring my butterflies. I need to taste his mouth—his soft lips, his coffee-stained tongue chasing and capturing mine. I need to be scratched by his beard, my fingers getting lost in its rough paths.
His hands are on my neck, and I let him bite my lip and turn my head from side to side to enjoy every bit of my face. I stop him before he gets hard in the playground. That must be a sin. I’m already burning, but at least I can hide it easily.
We could run to the apartment, but there will be plenty of time for sex later. I’m not done with my childish dream yet.
“Hey, are those trampolines?” I detangle from Erik, and from the way he adjusts his pants, I realize I pressed the brake right on time. I get closer to the circles I spotted on the ground, confirming my suspicions. “They are trampolines! Are you kidding me?” The floor around them is rubbery so kids won’t get hurt. “This is so cool!”
I jump onto the nearest one, happy like a little girl. Erik laughs at my contentment and starts jumping on the other circle next to me. I laugh, forgetting everything. For a moment, I’m eight years old again.
“Let’s see who jumps higher.” I climb on one of the cubes near the trampolines, and Erik does the same. “Ready? Go!”
We jump, and Erik’s propulsion is so good he flies up. We trip out of the trampolines, laughing. I hug him by the waist, and he kisses me. We back away together, bodies and mouths connected, until my leg collides with a net swing that looks like a hammock, and I lie down, pulling Erik with me.
We lie side by side, looking up. It’s a full moon tonight—a beautiful, sharp silver circle glowing in a clear navy sky. We spend a few minutes admiring the beauty above us, the textures on the lunar surface clearly visible.
“It will all be fine, won’t it?” I ask Erik, turning my face to admire his moonlit profile.
“It will,” he assures me, trying to convince himself.
I interlock my fingers with his and pray to the skies, Don’t take this away from me. Please, make it last forever.
The silence is complete and absolute.
Are you hearing me, Odin? Do not take him back, or I’ll have to start Ragnarok myself.
“My back hurts.” Erik winces. “This is not a comfortable place to lie down for long.”
“Then let’s find another fun thing to do.” I rise to my feet and offer Erik a hand.
We fool around a little. Then I scale the mini climbing wall, making Erik laugh when I say, “Take this, George and Alex!” Then I almost get stuck inside the slide, and Erik pulls me by the leg, which results in me falling on him, both of us rolling ungracefully on the rubbery floor. He chases me, and we play hide and seek. The last time he catches me, he tickles me until I’m crying with laughter. I ask for a break, and we kiss with burning passion in the middle of the dark playground, his hands on my waist, my arms around his neck.
“I miss having this much fun,” I say, the butterflies in my stomach as active as the endorphins running through my veins, making me pulsate with life and passion.
“Having fun together is what it’s all about, right?” Erik kisses me under the ear, and as I’m feeling goose bumps, his words sink in, triggering an unexpected but welcome chain of thoughts.
