She came closer again, staggering towards me. She kissed me hard, lifted me up and started swinging me around. A stinking vapour came from her mouth.

“Whoa!” I said, causing her to put me back down. “You’ve been drinking!”

“Maybe a little,” she giggled, signifying how much with her thumb and her index finger. “I ran into Shaney-Waney and she had some booze for me in the café in the street of the miller, you know, next to Hellry the guy who wants to shag you all the time, the guy I’m gonna kill if he casts one more look on you and boy is he gonna be killed by me because I won’t have a gun and I will strangle him and he will scream like a pig on Christmas Eve only it’s far from Christmas now, because we just had Christmas a couple of weeks ago and it’s January and Christmas is in December, but he’s gonna scream sooooo loud if he looks at you like that again.” She burst out laughing.

“Bette! You’re really scaring me. Why don’t you have a shower while I make us dinner?”

I knew I didn’t have to try and talk sense into her when she was this drunk. She just said weird stuff and found everything funny, acting rather childish.

“Oh shower yayie! Will Tinawina come in shower with Bette and rub her back? Got it? Bette’s back? Bette’s back is back!” She laughed really hard again. The more she talked, the crazier it got.

I supported her and led her to the badroom where I made the bath ready, so maybe she could relax. I would ask questions on this one later.

I thought she would undress herself while I was preparing her bath, but when I turned around, she stood in the middle of the badroom with all her clothes on. She pouted like a child, her arms helpless along her sides.

“Undress me puh-lease.”

I sighed. She really had drunk a lot. I started unbuttoning her shirt and her amazing body was getting more and more naked.

“Lift your arms, honey,” I said, feeling more like her mother than her lover. She obeyed and I pulled the shirt over her head. I unzipped her jeans and she stepped out of them.