It was a typical October Friday evening - that is, it was wet, cold, miserable and windy outdoors, while indoors, the wood burning stove season had just started, making our house warm and comfy despite Mother Nature's best efforts at telling us that winter was indeed coming, and that whichever ancestor of mine had decided this was as good a place to settle as any had been the clan dimwit.
I loved the warmth of a good fire - the house felt warm in a whole different way than it did from any other kind of heating; besides, the faint smell, the occasional wisp of smoke and crackle from the fire - I'd been conditioned all my life to equate it with 'cozy', so I thoroughly enjoyed myself while the rain kept lashing against the windows, underscoring how fortunate I should consider myself to not be outdoors.
I caught myself almost hoping for a power outage, prompting an occasion to bring out a few candles as well - but shrugged the idea off. Much as I enjoyed the quaint charm of an open fire and reading by candlelight, I didn't really long for waking up in the morning to find the house chilly, having to get a fire going to heat it or, for that matter, to brew my morning coffee.
As usual on weekends, our next-door neighbour and favourite babysitter Ella had come over to put my four-year-old Thomas to bed - this time, she was dressed rather peculiarly for the occasion; a short faux leather skirt, heeled boots and something which was supposed to look vaguely like a biker jacket slung over her shoulders, a rather skimpy, grey tank top with a pink unicorn on it and a small purse with an RAF symbol on it completing the outfit. A girls' night out was coming up, and she had just dropped by to see my son off to sleep before heading to the nearmost -well, this being rural Norway, the only- disco for a few hours of dancing, drinks and fun.
Ella had been looking forward to this for months - seeing as she had only turned eighteen in late August, she was one of the last girls in her class to reach that magic age where the bouncer instead of ogling your tits, then telling you to get lost until you were of drinking age, ogled your tits, then nodded politely and invited you in after thoroughly looking at your ID - oh, and your tits.
Hence, for months she'd seen her options for weekend entertainment dwindle as friend after friend turned eighteen and started going out, leaving her to while away the weekends from home while getting a barrage of snaps from her friends, really rubbing in the fact that they could and she couldn't.
Until a month and change ago, of course, when it became Ella's turn. To her dismay, her birthday had been on a Sunday, so she just missed out on a weekend and had to wait for a full week before she could take advantage of her new-found freedom. She was still busy making up for lost time, so I was quite pleased that she made it a priority to come by to see us. Not that people tended to head for the disco until well after Thomas' bedtime, anyway - but still, usually they got together for a few beers at someone or other's place before heading out, yet Ella gladly skipped those gatherings to play around with a four-year old going on five. Oh, and with his dad.
She was a saint.
I smiled to myself as I sat there in the living room, playing one of my all-time favourite records, Keith Jarrett's Köln concert, at muted volume while listening to the soft murmur from Thomas' bedroom where he no doubt filled Ella in on all his doings since he'd last seen her a couple of days ago.
I leaned back in my chair, enjoying Jarrett's sometime rambling, sometime inspired evening in the Kölner Oper all those years ago. Heck, I loved him even when he was clearly rambling, biding for time until another lightning bolt of genius struck him and took the concert to new heights. I smiled faintly to myself. Jazz was kind of, sort of, like sex, I mused. If it just went from climax to climax, you'd be worn out in no time at all. Instead, the performer must give his audience time to collect itself, recover from what they had just heard, before again starting to build momentum, striving for yet another peak...
I shrugged. Good thing I hadn't thought of that during my student days, I would have presented the insight if given half a chance, trying to sound profound and trying to get laid at the same time. I'd have been pathetic. At least in the eyes of myself, fifteen years my own senior. Might have impressed some gullible first-year student, though.
I smiled at the thought, eagerly grasping the opportunity to reminisce of my student days. While I was quite content with my life right now - doubly so in the last few weeks, when sex had suddenly been on the agenda again, courtesy of Ella - there was quite a lot to be said for the carefree student life, where I had no obligations to anyone but myself, and at times hardly even that.
The murmur from Thomas' room had died down. I glanced at my watch. A quarter past nine. That still left me with a couple of hours to kill before bedtime - not that I needed much more than I already had by way of plans - my stereo and perhaps a little helping of scotch from my drinks cabinet and I'd be good. A minute or two later, Ella entered the living room, tiptoeing out of Thomas' room so as not to wake him.
I winked at her, suggesting her attire was somewhat unorthodox for a babysitter. She giggled and sat down on the armrest at the far end of the sofa. "Judging from what little I've gleaned from Pornhub, I thought all babysitters dressed like this. Well, maybe with even skimpier tops and higher heels, but the general idea is the same, methinks."
I laughed. "There being a lot of babysitter videos on that site doesn't surprise me in the least, but you watching them, on the other hand..."
Ella rolled her eyes in feigned - I hoped - exasperation. "It's not like I've studied the topic with great interest, it just so happened that there was one on the landing page one day, and..." She rolled her eyes. "You wouldn't believe how terrible the acting is." Then she glanced over at me and smirked. "Come to think of it, you probably have a pretty good idea."
I blushed. Of course I'd had my fair share of visits to Pornhub over the years, though I wouldn't say it was the acting skills which made me return to the site over and over again.
"So, obviously, you're going out tonight?" I asked, eager to change the subject. Ella nodded.
