A Homecoming

CHAPTER 1

Except for the name shield, the railway station looked unfamiliar. Now brightly painted and its hundred-year-old shell refurbished with wide doors and much glass, it seemed not the place where Ben had taken the train to leave home more than twenty years earlier.

It was then six-o-clock in the morning that he waited for his train, two suitcases at his feet. It was just dawning, cold; Ben was on his own. His mother was unwell, his father on nightshift, his sister, offended, possibly hated him. Tony, his closest friend, had not managed to get out of bed to see him off.

So, nobody was there to farewell him. And Ben was not just leaving home to work in Salzburg or Vienna as many of the young locals did. He was leaving for Australia, the other side of the world. True, Ben had assured his mother that it was only for a two-year working holiday.

Now, twenty-and-a-half years later, as the train that had brought him pulled out, Ben stood again on the platform of that same but so different seeming station. Nobody had come to welcome him home. And he questioned for a moment, was it that still?

His mother had died many years ago; his father had remarried a woman he had never met. His sister had divorced her husband. Ben and his brother-in-law had liked each other. His sister, Ben was sure, had never forgiven him for leaving his then already sick mother to go to Australia. And Tony, well, Tony was dead. Was it really fourteen years ago that father had written that Tony had lost his life crashing his motorbike? So, Ben was just like the dozen or so other arrivals that milled now through the station: A short-stay guest arriving in a holiday destination.

Like them, he took a taxi to his hotel. Unlike most of them, Ben had not made his booking on the strength of a brochure or web information. He had always known the Hotel Diana, having grown-up nearby. Linda, the daughter of the owners, was in the same class as his through eight years of schooling. He, Linda, and her tagalong, three years younger brother Gerd had been on/off playmates into their early teenage years, before drifting apart.

Linda's and Gerd's parents, the hotel's owners, had not paid much attention to him. They probably never knew his name. In choosing to book in at the Hotel Diana, Ben did not expect to be recognised or given special treatment. For Ben, it was, mostly, his sentimentality that he had chosen the Hotel Diana for his stay in Gastein, and with it the familiar surroundings of his childhood.

The Hotel Diana, when the taxi pulled up, had changed as much as the railway station. Its granite stone-walls fashionable at the turn of the last century had been rough-cast and painted white. It had now modern, double-glazed windows, and large, glass-double doors leading into a bright reception lounge.

When Ben stepped up to the counter, a tall, slim woman rose from her desk in the adjoining, glassed-in, office. She came out, greeting him with a welcoming smile. She was beautiful; tall and slim, a natural blonde, with just a suggestion of lipstick and no further need for make-up. Her age, beyond the twenties, Ben could only guess. Returning her greeting, Ben gave his full name and told her he had made a booking.

As she typed the information he had given on the computer, she suddenly paused. A smile began to spread over her face, as her eyes glanced between Ben's face and his details on the screen. With a much broader smile than the earlier, more formal one, she said: -

"I'm so sorry, Ben. I should have recognised you immediately. I'm Christine. Remember - the sister of Erika and Tony. You dinked me and taught me to ride your motorbike."

Then, bursting into a laugh, she hurried from behind the counter with her arms stretched out all ready to hug Ben.

At the last moment, Christine regained a degree of self-possession and only grabbed the two hands of the amazed and speechless Ben. He had half-expected to meet Linda or Gerd. But Christine? There certainly had been no connection between Erika - his then, long ago, first-ever love - and her kid-sister Christine with the Hotel Diana.

And now Christine, pressed and shook Ben's hands and apologised for not having recognised his name. She had, she said, completed his web-booking. After registering his Australian address and Dr. title, his not uncommon name of Hofer had not alerted her that she knew him.

All bubbling with excitement, Christine dragged the unresisting Ben into her office. She quickly made them on a handy little coffee-maker two espressos, joking that she needed to settle her excitement about meeting him again. Now, almost at ease, Ben and Christine began to exchange bits about their respective lives since they had parted.

Ben did not talk at length about all the things he had done in, for Christine, unfamiliar Australia. He told her that, after deciding to stay in Australia, he went to night-school while he worked. Then he went to University with a scholarship, became a teacher, and studied some more. Now he was a lecturer at the large University where he had been a student. He had also married. It had not lasted, and he was divorced. After his visit here, he would spend three months at two universities in Germany as a guest lecturer.

In the tone and way Christine told her story, there was a suggestion of wistfulness. For Ben, it contrasted so noticeably from the joy she expressed about their meeting again. She had, on leaving school, completed a diploma in Hospitality Studies. She started work in the Hotel Diana. Christine grinned and, with a shrug of her shoulders, continued: -

"As you see, I'm still here. When the original owners retired, the new one took me over with the hotel and inventory. It was Gerd, the son of the owners. He married me eventually - now four years ago. So, you see: The manager of Diana became the wife of its owner."

As Christine got up, she added as a throw-away line: -

"Not very exciting, Ben, is it, compared to your life? But I have a surprise for you."

Reaching for the phone on her desk, she pressed a button. When it was answered, Christine just said: -

"Could you come to the office, please?"

She listened for a moment before cutting the other party off with a brisk: -

"No! Right now. It's important."

Ben read Christine's smile as apologetic, as she said: -

"Sometimes you just have to show your staff who is boss."

CHAPTER 2

The woman who entered the office a minute or so after was, like Cristine, also beautiful. Wearing the same outfit as Christine - black, hip-hugging trousers and a bone-coloured blouse - she was not as tall as the latter. Also, a blonde, her hair was a shade darker and left longer. Her alluring figure, while more womanly in hips and bosom than Christine's, was firm and well proportioned.

On stepping into the office, she gave Ben a sideways glance. Confronting Christine, she asked: -

"What is so urgent now?"

Christine smiled, reached for a key-card, gave it to her and, very business-like, said: -

"Erika, could you please take Doctor Hofer to his room. It's 403."

Erika turned to Ben. She gave him an appraising look which then slowly turned into an open-mouth stare of amazement:

"God, it's you, Ben! What brought you here? I can't believe it ... seeing you again! How long has it been? More than twenty years?"

Then, like her sister before, Erika stepped up to Ben opening her arms. But she, unlike Christine, embraced Ben in a no-holding-back, lengthy hug. Ben, afterwards, could not remember; they might even have kissed.

Eventually, Christine visibly amused, broke the silence: -

"I see, first love never fades."

With a grinning wink at Erika, she added: -

"Not with you, Erika, I know! ... Can I trust you to take Ben to his room?"

Quickly responding, Erika poked out her tongue at her cheeky kid-sister. Ben grabbed his suitcase; Erika took the lead, and they escaped from Christine's mirth.

At the door, the fourth-floor corridor was empty of onlookers, Erika gave Ben another hug and said: -

"I won't come in now, Ben. I am all shaken up and have more work to do. If you are not going out, I'm free at five. Can I come and see you then?"

Not waiting for an answer, Erika turned and rushed off.

The room was large, well furnished with a king-size bed, inbuilt robes, a coffee-table and two lounge chairs, and a desk and chair. The bathroom was modern and large. Obviously, the Hotel Diana had been thoroughly modernised from what he remembered. Ben wondered to what extent this was Christine's long-term achievement.

While Ben unpacked and settled in, he thought about himself and his past with Erika and Christine, now twenty-three years ago.

He had met them through Tony, their brother. Ben and Tony had become friends during their eight-month conscription in the Austrian military. They were nineteen, Ben was a qualified cabinet-maker and Toni, was an Electrician. Both of them rode light-weight, two-stroke motorbikes which they liked to tune-up and modify to race on little-used dirt-tracks. Tony's father had a garage. So, Ben began to spend much time there and also in Tony's home.

Tony had two sisters: Erika, was eighteen, and Christine, fifteen. And Ben, with Erika, fell for the first time in his life seriously and painfully in love. For him, Erika was the most beautiful, most desirable, most perfect girl alive. She was so different from the two girls he had had a short and limited amorous experience with. He found it hard to believe that she seemed to be interested in him.

One evening, when they were momentarily alone, Erika drew him into their first, chaste kiss. From then on, her untutored but more than willing kisses and the feel of her firm young-girl tits pressing at his chest robbed Ben often of his sleep.

Falling in love with Erika confronted Ben with several quandaries. For a start, he was a tradesman from a working-class background. Erika's parents were business people, and she had successfully completed a business-studies diploma. It had secured her a trainee management position in the local branch of a national travel agency. In Ben's mind - formed in the context of their small town's class consciousness - he was not a suitable boyfriend for Erika. But her interest in him, and her seeking Ben's company and closeness showed him that for her, this constraint seemed not to matter.

What left their love for each other finally unfulfilled was not due to external hindrances. It resulted from the combined youthful inexperience of both of them. For Ben, Erika's natural beauty and sweetness of nature had - if he had known the word - an angelic purity. He felt, therefore, that the arousal her nearness evoked as sinful. Yes, he wanted to slide his hand under her top, down her panties, undress and fuck her. But he could not do it and detested himself for having such thoughts! They violated Erika's purity and betrayed his love for her. And Erika, in her inexperience, expected that Ben would sense her sexual desires. She hoped that he would take the lead in making love to her after she had made the first move in kissing him.

The consummation of their love remained, therefore - almost as traditional morality prescribed it - between Erika and Ben in suspense. Although Tony and Erika's parents gave no signs of disapproval, being always with Erika in her close and loving family circle inhibited Ben's courting behaviour further.

A further restraint on Ben's often wished for more amorous behaviour was Christine, Erika's younger sister. Christine was fifteen, already taller than her sister. Tom-boyish lanky, Christine displayed little of Erika's softness and feminist allure. Nevertheless, the sisters were closely attached to each other. Theirs was not, as is often the case, a companionship forced on siblings by shared rooms and the obligations of their relatedness. The fondness between Erika and Christine seemed to Ben, with his strained relationship with his older sister, such a given between them. Ben thought it was the reason why Cristine so readily showed him that she liked him too when he paired-up with Erika. She happily accepted that there were now three of them; naturally united like peas in a pod.

Ben had genuinely liked Erika's tom-boyish sister from the beginning. He joked and talked to her a lot, even when Erika was not present. It became a paradox that Ben almost spent more time alone with Christine, than with Erika. He took her, for instance, riding pillion on his bike to their race-tracks in the forest. And there, he also taught her to ride his bike.

Still, for Ben's romance, Christine's continuous nearness was a problem. Not so, it seemed to Ben, for Erika. Not once did she ask Christine to leave her and Ben alone. She seemed not at all disturbed that her sister was an obviously interested observer of her, admittedly, only warming-up petting with Ben. Doubting that Erika wanted him as much as he desired her, Ben suspected that Erika used Christine as a chaperon to keep his advances in check.

What followed seemed to confirm Ben's uncertainty about Erika's feelings for him.

In the summer holidays, the two sisters spent three weeks with relatives in a house on a lake in Carinthia. On returning, Erika had changed. While she told him nothing, her behaviour convinced Ben that it was over between them. Deeply hurt, he could not bring himself to ask her why, or continue to be near her.

His friendship with Tony survived. They worked on their bikes in Tony's father's garage, but Ben avoided visiting him at home. It meant that together with loving Erika, Ben's friendship with Christine also ended.

A year later, Ben left for Australia, leaving his home-town and the hurt of Erika's nearness behind. Over the years of being far away, the bitter-sweet memories of his first love faded into something that no longer hurt.

But now, Ben's meeting Christine and Erika so unexpectedly had brought his long-submerged memories again to the surface. And their so openly shown joy in meeting him was an unexpected and revelatory surprise. In his confusion, Ben's response to Christine's and Erika's unrestrained show of delight was wooden.

Ben had, despite the long delay in his homecoming, expected to find some continuity in the relationship with family and friends he had left behind. This was even true regarding his hostile sister. His relationship with Erika and Christine, however, had cruelly ended. For the year after the breakup, Ben had avoided all contact with Erika. And Christine had not tried to stay in touch with him. Ben had always believed that they had found him wanting and had rejected him.

But now, it was Christine and Erika that welcomed him home with shared and undisguised joy. It dawned on Ben that in Christine's and Erika's mind and memories their caring for him - or was it more - had never wavered?

CHAPTER 3

Erika came to his room as she had promised. She made it easy for Ben. Smiling, she took his hands. Ignoring the chairs opposite each other across a coffee table, Erika pulled him to the bed to sit down. She was determined to be close to Ben, brought his hands to her lips, kissed both of them, and said: -

"Ben, you have no idea how happy I am that we meet again; after all these years. I've never forgotten you. Always hoped we'd meet again."

Ben looked down on her hands, holding his and quietly said: -

"Erika, I tried for a long time, very hard to forget you. You know why!"

As soon as it slipped out, Ben regretted it. He was afraid that he had spoiled the new beginning he suddenly wanted. And now he had stupidly reminded Erika of their past. But Erika since leaving him at the door had prepared herself. Taking a deep breath, she calmly answered: -

"I know, I hurt you then. You were my first love, but I was stupid. I betrayed you. ... I did not know how to make it good. So, I lost you, let you go. It was easier than telling. ... It was all my fault ... then. Don't make me tell you why it happened, Ben."

Suddenly, an embarrassed giggle escaped her. She moved closer to Ben and added: -

"I might not have to. Christine will. ... My bolshy sister loved you. She never forgave me for our breaking up, and she losing you when you stopped coming to our house."

The change in mood which Erika's comment about Christine introduced made it easy for Ben not to probe further into the hurtful past. So, he smiled and said: -

"I really liked Christine. She was a lovely girl. I wished then I had a kid-sister like her."

Erika grinned and leaned back on the bed on her elbows. She looked at Ben, shaking her head: -

You didn't notice? ... Christine didn't think she was a kid. And she did not want you then as her brother! She had one with Tony. ... I better say no more."

Erika slipped off her shoes and settled comfortably on the bed. Christine had obviously shared with Erika the little Ben had told about his Australian life and his immediate plans. Erika wanted to know more about Australia, why he had stayed, his career change, his broken marriage, and his plans for the future. Ben talked at length. In concluding he told Erika that he was only - he avoided the word 'home' - in Gastein for three weeks. Erika's reaction let him know her regret that it was not longer.

Ben was equally curious about Erika's life. She was - feeling the need to be so with Ben - unflinchingly honest about her marriage. She had, at nineteen, fallen in love with a nine years older, recently transferred to Gastein, policeman. In looking back, she suspected that it was the uniform and the acclaim Heinz enjoyed as a top-class skier and mountain-rescue expert that had attracted her most. At twenty she became his wife, and at twenty-one, Erika was a mother. Her husband, Heinz, was very much a man's man. He was also becoming more and more a public figure, with less and less time to be a sexually and emotionally engaged marriage partner.

And Erika accepted it. They were respected in their community. Heinz, on the strength of his achievements in alpine rescues, was rapidly promoted. With a position, first in district-command, and later in the capital, he was not home much. And Erika did not want to leave Gastein. They were financially secure, had a healthy, intelligent boy, and were, in appearance, a happily married couple.

The way Erika shrugged her shoulder and smiled indicated that she considered her marriage neither unusual nor a failure. What she did stress was the importance of her close relationship with Christine. They maintained over the years a practically daily contact. Joining up with Christine and her circle of friends, together with all the family responsibilities that fell almost totally on her, never left Erika lonely or bored. Eventually, when Christine married Gerd, the owner of the hotel, Erika joined her on more than a part-time basis in running the Hotel Diana. With Gerd, a disinterested owner, it was an arrangement that suited them both

Regarding Gerd, Erika was uncomplimentary. He had never shown any interest in the hotel business and joined the regular army at eighteen. His parents, the owners, expected that Linda, their daughter, would inherit the hotel. When she fell in love with a guest, an Englishman, married and moved to the UK, their plans were upset. When they retired, therefore, their son, Gerd, had to resign from the army and take over. By then, Christine had already effectively managed and overseen the modernisation of the Hotel Diana for the previous nine years.

More out of indifference than good sense, Gerd, as the new owner, gave Christine a free hand to continue as manager for two years. He never showed any sexual interest in her. But then, almost out of the blue, Gerd proposed. Here Erika laughed, stretched out on the bed, which made Ben's eyes run approvingly over her tempting figure, and declared: -