Cold water and hunger was eventually what drove them out of the bath, they both looked the same as when they went in but they were both very different people when they got out of that water. Benny was happy to stand in front of Frida as naked as the day he was born when he wrapped a towel around her and Frida was finally complete for the first time in decades and absolutely secure in Benny's love for her. Benny bent to let the water out of the bath and Frida couldn't resist touching him. He jumped and bumped his head on the shower screen and laughed "it's been a very long time since anyone has touched me you know" "You need to get used to it then" Frida whispered gently and then commented in a louder voice "I do believe that nowadays I would be called a cougar, you are still younger than me. I think my inner cougar might want to come out and play later my love" Benny had heard of the term and chuckled. "I think you might be right" he buried his face in her neck again and squeezed her tightly to him "I really hope she does want to come out and play. It's been too long since I've known her" he said gently. Frida grinned and said "Enough Benny or I'll jump your bones right now and you won't get to eat for hours. I can hear your poor starved tummy rumbling and before you worry mine is nearly as loud. This cougar needs food darling"
They went and found their robes and Benny lit the fire in the lounge and turned the heating up. This was turning out to be the coldest April he could remember for a while. Frida rescued the abandoned coffee pot and wiped up the spilled coffee then made them massive cheese and onion toasted sandwiches. They sat eating them in front of the fire. There was a comfortable silence that Benny broke as he finished his sandwich "it's the simple things I've missed most you know, I miss your laugh, I miss you yelling that you've lost something before you look, I miss your smell, I miss falling over your shoes when you just kick them off wherever you fancy" Frida laughed and said "it used to make you angry when I left my shoes all over the place and you tripped over them, but I know what you mean "I miss your smell too, I miss your bits of paper all over the place when you've got melodies roaring round in your head, I miss your beautiful eyes when they twinkle just for me and I miss the constant piano playing." They both laughed and Benny put both their plates down on the floor and pulled her towards him. "I'll never get cross about such nonsense again" Benny said earnestly "I didn't know how much I would miss it all, even the arguments. I love you very much" she settled in his arms and admitted "more than anything I've missed this, the cuddles, knowing that someone knows you so well you don't have to talk and I love you very much too" They grinned at each other and snuggled, the conversation that they had for the next couple of hours bought tears and guilt on both sides but it also bought laughter and healing. Benny was brutally honest about the depths of alcoholism that he had plumbed, he hid nothing from Frida, he did not want to anymore. He wanted to be like Anna and Bjorn and start again with a clean slate with no secrets between them. He held nothing back when she asked him to tell her about Mona. Frida for her part shared with him her agonies through their divorce, her fight to rebuild her life in Switzerland and the unexpected grief that had hit her later that she didn't have any children with Benny. She finally admitted that she HAD wanted them with him but she had wanted to wait until ABBA was on a break. She told him that she knew him and Bjorn were destined for bigger things and that she had thought ABBA would pause long enough for them to get pregnant. She went on to share with him her relationship with Russo and her grief for her daughter and Russo but left Benny in absolutely no doubt that he was indeed the love of her life and she had been at her happiest with him. There were tears on both sides as they grieved for the lost years and anger from Frida as she processed the damage that Mona had really done to Benny and how deep that damage truly went, she found that hard to move along from if she was honest and she hoped that she would, at point have the chance to set Mona straight on a few things. She would do that for Benny if it was the last thing she ever did.
That first day that they spent together was beautiful and on the one hand lasted an eternity and on the other went far too fast but they were both happy and it didn't matter. They watched a DVD towards the latter part of the day and when Frida asked Benny if he was ok and whether he needed a drink he stared at her and said with some surprise "I can feel it Frida, I want it a lot but I'm not desperate, I mean not like I normally am" he looked confused. Frida smiled satisfied, Bjorn was right Benny needed love, her love and the love of his music, he needed Anna and Bjorn and he needed ABBA. They would heal him.
Dusk threatened when Frida climbed off the sofa and even though they had been there all day Benny grumbled for he did not want to let her go "Why can't you stay? When I'm holding you nothing hurts" he said honestly. "Benny, I need a wee, I need food and then I'm taking you to bed. Is that ok with you?" "It's only 1900 Frida" Benny protested "Benny I'm not going to bed to sleep. I'm taking you to bed because I want you and one day very soon you're going to be the one that takes ME to bed" she told him.
Now that the time had come Benny felt the weight of their mutual expectations bear down on him and his remaining insecurities battered him hard. He sighed and tugged Frida back down. "Frida, I want too more than you know. You know I do but what if I can't? What if I let you down? Will you hate me? I can't remember the last time I managed to have sex. I don't know when it was but I can tell you that it IS decades. I'm not sure I can cope with yet another failure, especially with you" Frida's heart broke for him again and she tucked her feet back under her and wrapped her arms around Benny "Benny I don't care, I just want you darling. Making love can be so many different things and nothing for me will be a failure and neither will it be for you. Let's just see where it takes us hmm? Whatever happens is a bonus and you KNOW you turn me on with just a look. All you have to do is touch me, nothing else and I react and the other week you reacted to me, I didn't really do much and you had an erection. You did, we both felt it" Frida told him gently. "I did but that was the first time in decades, what if I can't do it again?" he was agonised. "What if I'm not enough for you either?" Frida made him look at her and said "Benny, you will ALWAYS be more than enough for me. We were always creative, brave and passionate when we were together. I want to explore our new world with you, it was always going to be different from our old one, let's embrace what we CAN do. I just want you and whatever comes with that. You could NEVER disappoint me or be a failure. I love you and that means I love everything about you" She ran her fingers gently through his hair "Benny, after all these years apart just being able to share a bed with you, to have your company, to be able to freely touch you and not have to love you from a distance is enough to keep me for the rest of my life. We will find our own way" she left it at that and kissed him, he sighed and said "I'm sorry, you're right, I'm sorry I've ruined the mood Frida" "You haven't Benny, I have issues too you know, my legs are not what they were, maybe I won't be able to wrap them round you like I want to, maybe you'll find my wrinkles a turn off, maybe you'll be horrified that my boobs have sagged and they aren't where they were when you saw them last. I don't know Benny and I'm scared too but I want to try. With you." Benny pulled her into his arms and said "How could you even think that?" he was shocked. "Same way as you think the way you do, I have insecurities too Benny. I'm not the girl I was all those years ago and you might want her" Benny thought over what Frida had said and said "yes, I do want her, she's in there somewhere inside you but I want all of you, every bit of you. I want to get to know everything that you are now. I've missed a lot" he told her gently. Frida smiled and snuggled back in to Benny and closed her eyes. She would not make the same mistake again tonight, now they had talked she would wait until Benny made the first move.
Benny for his part was confused when Frida settled back down on the sofa with him and was smiling as she burrowed back into his chest. What was she doing he wondered, not that he was complaining at the contact but he wanted more, he DID want more. He absent-mindedly ran his fingers through her hair as he reflected on their conversation and he realised that everything she had said was right, she wasn't Mona. She was his Frida and she loved him, it didn't matter HOW things happened, it was their journey, Unique to them. He loved his Frida too and she had seen him at his most vulnerable and hadn't run, she hadn't been disgusted by him or his impotency, she was willing to find other ways with him and he found that he desperately wanted to explore every option with her. He shook his head with genuine admiration as he realised what she was doing now. He kissed the top of her head and said "Come on, my clever, clever girl. I know what you're doing" he got up out of the sofa and pulled her to her feet "I was comfy" she grumbled but he spied the laughter in her eyes and another part of him settled as he accepted that he was still able to read her, that he wouldn't get it wrong. Just like Anna and Bjorn, love had never, ever been the issue.
Frida had been thinking long and hard about how she could help Benny, she knew him and she knew that his impotency was a scar upon his very soul that needed to be fixed and she had absolute faith that she could do it in her own way and in his own time. She took the pressure off and said "I fancy chocolate, have we got any?"
Benny looked at her with great surprise and said "Yes, I think so, do you really want some?" "Yep" she went off to the kitchen to rummage in the cupboards leaving Benny confused but before his insecurities had chance to take hold again Frida was back triumphantly waving a bag of chocolate around "Benny, I'm off upstairs. I'd like to share my bed with you with no secrets and definitely no clothes. Let's just start with that, there's no one here but us this time and we have all the time in the world. Come up when you're ready darling" and with that she sashayed off up the stairs leaving Benny open mouthed and wanting. He recognised that she was putting her faith in him and giving him total control of what happened and suddenly he wondered what on earth was wrong with him, why was he hesitating? This was everything he'd prayed for and never, ever thought he'd have a chance of having. If he was ever going to succeed he knew it would only be with her. He grinned as he acknowledged there would never be true failure with Frida.
He caught her before she even got to the top of the stairs.
