After Lisa had hung up the laundry that morning, she went to the attic room where she had only stayed for such a short time. She put her things in the boxes she had left on the attic landing. Sjaak would come soon. He had one more plant to put in the ground, then he would come over to help her lug it. It was not very much, and not heavy either, so she thought they could do it on foot. Once the stuff was transferred from here, she would look in the barn to see if there were any things there that she wanted to move already too.

She heard Sjaak on the stairs. "Is it all working out?"

"Yeah, I was just thinking about my stuff that's still in the barn, but I don't think I'll take much of that with me now, not until later, when the upper floor is built. I am thinking about taking the clothes boxes with me, so I can sort out what I want to get rid of. So we will have to walk up and down a few times. I can do that myself by the way, I don't want to burden you with it."

Sjaak put his hands around her face, "Look at me, Liesel. You don't burden me with anything, not with yourself, not with your stuff and not with your request for help. This is what people do for each other when they love each other. This is living together. And this is beautiful!"

Lisa looked into his eyes, saw the love that radiated from them, love for her, and answered with a still slightly uncertain smile. "I understand... here," she pointed to her head, "but my gut doesn't understand much yet."

"One thing at a time girl, we're not centipedes," Sjaak smiled. "Did you pack everything already or do you have more?"

"No, this is all, I didn't bring much upstairs, only the most necessary."

"That's fine then, so we don't need to take much downstairs. I took the handcart out of the barn and put it in the drying room, that will save us a lot of energy of walking back and forth and lugging." He winked at her. "Handy family here huh, fully equipped!"

"Really!" Lisa glowed, "to be honest I'm secretly very happy about it, I don't have much energy to walk up and down a few times with boxes. I would have done it though, because..."

"... because you always did everything, whether it was feasible and convenient or not, things just had to be done." Sjaak complemented.

"Hmm, that's kind of like hitting a nail on the head... you know me pretty well already..." Lisa muttered, as they went downstairs with the boxes. From the shed, they pulled out the boxes of clothes, put those on the cart as well, and then walked home with the cart behind them.

They put all the boxes in the living room. Lisa looked at them: "We still have an hour before lunch. Now if I tidy up the stuff I had in the attic first, I'll sort out those boxes of clothes after lunch."

"Sounds like a good plan. Just see how far you get, you're not in a hurry are you?"

"No, I don’t think so, but I don't really like clutter. And those piles of boxes...they look like clutter." She grinned at Sjaak, who stood there for a moment, taking her in with a tilted head.

"That might not be so bad. I think we're going to find out sometime that you quite like it when the house is a bit messy. Anyway, we'll see about that later!"

Lisa looked at him with a questioning face. "I can't imagine that yet, so I'm going to tidy up anyway." She opened the first box. Piece by piece, and surprisingly calm, she gave her things a place, wondering if it would be true, that she would like some mess. Would it be imposed, that everything had to be neat?

.

After lunch, Sjaak and Lisa walked back home.

To our house, Sjaak had said emphatically when Lisa stubbornly kept saying Sjaak's house. With a mischievous face she had pointed at her head and her belly: "Mind and emotion are arguing about it, they don't agree."

Annerieke had laughed about it and had said, that the two would learn to understand each other as she continued to heal emotionally. "In fact, they will be like two hands in one, completely united!"

"They don't agree on that yet either, but I know it's true. I see it in you and the others, that you live from that kind of unanimity, so it must be possible!" Lisa had responded.

At home, Lisa grabbed the first box of clothes and set it near the bed. When she opened it, she saw that it was the box that contained all the clothes she had had to use for Henk's friends. She took out the first dress and put it on the bed. The second and the third she put next to it. She stared at it, stiffened... She felt exactly what she had felt at the time. The desire to be the best, the fiery woman for Henk, but also the fear and loathing, the pain and frustration of the abuse and her being caught up in Henk's web.

This is how Sjaak found her, after he had been pacing restlessly through the kitchen and living room. Stiffened, petrified... With big, frightened eyes she looked at him. Her lips went up and down gasping for breath.

Sjaak looked at the dresses on the bed, and understood that she had gone into some kind of reliving. He didn't dare put his arms around her on his own accord. He did not know whether she would become even more frightened, whether she would realize that he was not Henk but Sjaak, and that she was safe with him. But his heart went out to her, he wanted to help her so badly.

He opened his arms invitingly, so that she could choose for herself if she wanted to be comforted. He could see that there was a huge struggle going on inside her, a struggle to accept or refuse comfort. Her hands reached out to him, but withdrew. Her one foot took a step in his direction, but also went back. She wanted to, but she couldn't. It was heartbreaking to see!

Sjaak felt so powerless, didn't know what to do. Suddenly he experienced an urge to snatch the dresses from the bed, and he immediately complied. In his hands he made a big wad of it and held it out to Lisa. "Lisa, can I put these dresses in the garbage?"

Miraculously, he saw her face relax. A deep sigh escaped from her mouth, "Yes..."

"Good, then I'll do that right now. I'll be back in a minute." Sjaak walked to the side of the house and tossed the loathsome dresses into the trash can. It felt as if a great burden had been lifted from him.

Back at Lisa's side, he opened his arms again. She came, she fled to him, and he took her against him in silence.

When she had calmed down quite a bit, Lisa told him that there were more dresses and also lingerie in that box. "Will you please help me sort through everything?"

Sjaak nodded, "Of course! I'll get a roll of garbage bags, then you can throw everything you want to get rid of in there."

As soon as he opened the first trash bag, she pulled dress after dress out of the box. She held them in front of her for a moment, looked at them, and just like Sjaak had done with the first dresses, made a wad of them and violently threw them into the bag Sjaak was holding open for her. She did so with every dress.

After a few dresses, she looked at Sjaak smiling: "It feels good, like I'm throwing that period away, throwing it off me."

"That's a wonderful start, Liesel, there will be more to come, but this first step you're already doing amazingly well!"

"And now the lingerie... I don't know if I should throw those away," she said, laying the first panties and bras on the bed, "maybe you'll actually like it if I use them for you too."

"I don't think so, my desire is for you, not for sexy lingerie. My heart doesn't need you to challenge or seduce me with it. You are attractive enough yourself!"

"Okay," Lisa nodded. She began throwing the lingerie in a pile on the bed. "I have regular underwear too you know, so this sexy stuff can all go, if you're really sure..."

"Totally sure, throw it in the garbage bag! This lingerie is connected to your abuse past, you can really banish it from your life completely."

"Is sexy lingerie then wrong Sjaak?"

"Oh well, it has nothing to do with wrong, I don't really want to classify anything into right and wrong. But it did hurt you, it didn't show you who you are, but it showed you to Henk and to outsiders as a sex object. And that’s not who you are, you are so much more! Just wear what you're comfortable with."

Lisa threw the entire pile of lingerie into the garbage bag. Sjaak looked at the other boxes. "Do you want to go further? Or rather another time?"

"Rather later," Lisa thought, "for now... I... I want to know so much... I want..."

"Just say it darling, what do you want to know?"

Lisa sighed deeply, "What do you think sex should look like? What would you like to do with me then?"

Sjaak thought deeply for a moment, wondering how he wanted to answer those questions. "You know what I find tricky? I don't blame you, I understand where your question is coming from. But what I find difficult is your question about what I would like to do with you. Somewhere that evokes a feeling with me, that I should do something with you to be satisfied myself. Is that what you mean too?"

Lisa nodded shyly, "I think so, because that's what it's all about, isn't it, that I satisfy you?"

Sjaak grabbed her head with both his hands and looked at her lovingly. "That's what you were taught, I understand how you think. How I think about it myself..." For a moment he looked up at a thoughtful slant, then let his eyes land in her eyes again.

"Lisa, I have no experience. There has never been a girl or a woman who wanted something with me, except for that group of former classmates I told you about. But that situation was not normal. And from me... I didn't have any relationships. I was an outsider, from childhood. I didn't belong anywhere, I was bullied, and I became shy of people. So I wouldn't have even been able to ask a girl out. And I didn't want to, because I never met a girl or a woman to whom I wanted to give myself. That deep connection just wasn't there. I never made a decision about it, it just became my attitude: live, wait and see, who knows if my soulmate would ever come my way, I would see.

And now, now there you are, my soulmate. The deep click was there, and love grew at an incredible pace. So you are my first love, my only love, my everything. And how it will work in practice with sexuality, I don't know, I want to be very honest about that.

What I do know is that I prefer not to talk about having sex, but about making love. It seems like just a word, and that seems unimportant, but it's the intention behind it. I love you, with all that is in me, and if we are going to have physical contact, then I want to look for how I can please you, how I can make you happy, how I can touch your heart through my touches.

Again, I have no experience, I know nothing about it. But I do know this, and this is what it is all about: through everything I do, I want to touch your heart, to love you. Can you do anything with that, with that answer?"

"I find it a little difficult, because I don't know this at all, but I vaguely sense what you mean, your intention, so to speak. So yes, in that sense I can do something with it. And then we'll see in practice, how that is... But the other side... I love you too, how can I make you happy?"

"I don't know that either. We will have to discover that too. In any case, I am already happy with you myself, just because you are there, because you exist, and because you love me too."

"But how will we discover it then?"

"I think... step by step..."

To chapter 102. First exploration

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