She called.

"I'm just about to walk out the door," I said in answer to her question.

"How long is the ride?" The need in her voice was unmistakable.

"If the train is on schedule, about four hours. So I'll be there about eight." During the ride, I thought almost exclusively about her. I began to imagine how she would greet me, how she would look, what she would be wearing. But there was really no question about that. She'd be wearing her robe, because she knew I liked it so much. And I would take it off her...

I ran my things home quickly. Then I whistled all the way to her place. In the elevator, I closed my eyes and pictured her face. Her lips came nearer... The elevator stopped.

When I was almost to her door, it opened. Aha, she'd heard me coming! I almost collided with someone. A large woman in leather came out of her apartment. A large woman in leather. She had to stop as well. At first, she looked at me with surprise, but then she grinned lewdly. "She's in good form today," she said. "I'd take advantage of it." Then she laughed maliciously and walked past me.

I was stunned. It was as if a bomb had exploded next to me and I hadn't yet noticed that I was dead. The other woman had left the door open. I entered, still numb, and shut the door behind me. She stood in front of the bed with her back to me. When she heard the door close, she said angrily, "For the last time: no! Go away!"

"But I just got here." I was still so stunned that I answered her outbreak automatically, as though she'd spoken to me.

She spun around. "You?!" she said, horrified. She looked hot under the collar. Obviously, she'd been b.u.t.toning her vest. The two top b.u.t.tons were still undone, pushing her b.r.e.a.s.t.s up over the top in an obscene manner.

This was not the woman I'd expected. She'd known that I was coming, and she'd still "worked" up to the very last minute. Her whole spiel on the telephone and before had only been an act. She just wanted to keep me ready as long as possible. A stupid, infatuated fool who'd do anything for her. An attractive diversion from her routine!

"Yes, me," I said, still dazed, but beginning to feel the anger growing in me. "We had a date. But you've apparently forgotten that."

She stood there, speechless. Of course she was horrified. I'd obviously caught her at the game she was playing with me.

I took a step back. "There's no sense in me staying." I started to turn around.

"Wait," she replied dully. "This is all a misunderstanding."

"A misunderstanding? I believe we had one of those before, or do I not recall correctly?" I laughed aloud, full of scorn. "I may be dumb, but not so dumb that the same trick works twice with me."

I turned around. I almost had the doork.n.o.b in my hand when she said, "This isn't a trick." She sounded like she'd been completely destroyed. But I was already quite familiar with her abilities as an actress. I wasn't about to fall for that again. Now she wanted me wrapped back around her little finger, and if I let her, she'd be able to make me believe anything she wanted. No, I won't do that! I turned the k.n.o.b.

At the same time, I felt her hand on my shoulder. "Please, don't go," she pleaded.

Yes, she was really good at this! The right tone of voice for every situation. "Why should I stay?" I asked bitterly.

"I want to explain..."

"We've had enough explanations already, don't you think?" My whole body rejected her. I shook her hand from my shoulder and turned back around. She'd put on a robe, a kind of kimono in black. It looked particularly sleazy to me.

"It's not because you slept with another woman. I know that's your... job." I could imagine better than ever that she really did her job with zeal. "But you knew I was coming. We just spoke," I looked at my watch, "not five hours ago on the phone. And you told me some lie along the lines of, *I'll be waiting for you.' Was it taking too long for you?" I was so wrapped up in my anger, I could barely stop. Still, I was curious how she intended to straighten this out.

"I didn't lie to you," she contradicted dejectedly. "I waited for you all afternoon." She tried to look me in the eye. I dodged her. "Alone," she continued earnestly.

"How thoughtful of you!" I replied sharply.

She recoiled, hurt. But she still didn't want to give up. "She," she nodded toward the door, "came here an hour ago, unannounced. She was here once before, but I didn't like her. I had told her that I wouldn't make any more appointments with her."

I was astonished. That happened too?

"She wouldn't leave. She tried to... She tried to take it by force." She turned away and took a few steps. Then she turned back to face me.

"Yes, I'm strong enough. She didn't succeed. But she didn't go away easily, either. What was I supposed to do? Call the police?"

Now I understood. This was all supposed to be an excuse for the fact that she'd misgauged the time. "So you did do what she wanted."

"Not everything," she qualified.

"Sure." I was completely cold now. "Why should you pa.s.s it up? Such an opportunity? It's not exactly pocket change, now is it?"

Her eyes blazed. Was she furious now? Was she going to hit me, after she'd so clearly resorted to violence with the last woman?

"It's still my profession," she stated extremely calmly.

"Oh, yes," I replied caustically. "I'd forgotten about that." A thought came to my mind, and I spoke it aloud. "And I'm sure she tipped well for the good service, am I right?"

She trembled, unblinking. "She paid more than the usual price," she confirmed. "That is true."

"Well, then," I jeered. "Then at least it was worth the trouble."

She didn't answer. Her expression was unreadable. I couldn't have guessed what she was thinking. But I didn't care, either. Now that everything was over.

I left her standing there.

Chapter 17.

Since meeting her, I'd thought about nothing else. At least, as little as possible. I noticed this now. I worked late into the night. My colleagues were beginning to joke that I should bring a bed to the office, since I never left anyhow. It was fine with me. I repressed the slightest hint of regret.

If ever a thought of her entered my mind, I hunted it promptly to extinction. I rea.s.sured myself again and again - when it came to that - by reminding myself that a relationship with a prost.i.tute (I could say the word now) was doomed to fail from the very beginning. Sure, I was still in love with her now, but how would things have looked in a year or two? She'd never even hinted that she might give up her trade and do something else with her life. And I'd only been denying that I was jealous of every one of her clients. I wanted her for myself alone.

So? That's normal, isn't it? A relationship with a woman who definitively did not live in the "normal" world - whatever that meant - who sold her body like a commodity, was a contradiction in itself. From the very beginning, we'd had completely different views of the world.

Did we? So what had we laughed about together? Oh, that was just ba.n.a.l stuff! Things that anyone would laugh at.

I became more hermitish every day. I was rarely home, and when I was home, I never answered the telephone. I'd long since taken it off the hook. I went shopping in another town, or at least another part of town. As close to each other as we lived, the danger of meeting her accidentally was much too great if I did such things in my own neighborhood. Back when I was looking for her, it of course hadn't worked out. But now when we'd rather avoid each other - I would, anyhow - we certainly would've run into each other.

After a couple of days, an old girlfriend of mine called me at work. When I answered, she said, "Well, at least you can be reached here! You don't seem to have a telephone at home anymore. Or don't you still live there?"

"Oh, h.e.l.lo Karin," I greeted her weakly.

"And you don't seem to be doing terribly well, either." She was right about that. "Are you in love?" she asked curiously. She knew me well.

"No," I denied disapprovingly.

"Mm-hmm." She'd known me much too long to be satisfied with that. "Did she leave you?"

I laughed scornfully. "Leave me? I left her."

"But you're not happy about it." That wasn't a question. She was simply stating a fact.

"No," I contradicted defiantly. "No, I'm very happy about it."

"Mm," Karin continued. "Then it's worse than I thought."

"Nothing is bad." My stubbornness grew. "I'm doing very well!"

"Yes, I can see that," said Karin, without any particular inflection. Changing the subject entirely, she continued, "Do you still have some vacation time left?"

"All kinds of comp time," I reported, surprised. "Why?"

"The reason I'm calling is that I want to go away for a couple of days, and I'm looking for another woman to go with me. And I thought about you right away."

"But Corinna -".

"Corinna doesn't have time. She's right in the middle of final exams. And really, I'm just disturbing her studies. That's why I wanted to go away - so she can work in peace." That sounded entirely logical.

"Yes, but..." She'd always caught me off guard with ideas like this. Now, the effect of the surprise was even greater than usual.

"Corinna doesn't mind if you come along. She knows there's nothing more going on between us." She didn't seem at all like she was trying to convince me of something. She just listed one fact after another. I'd always been amazed by her powers of logic.

This was all moving too fast for me. "Still..."

"No excuses! We're going up into the mountains. Do you still remember the cabin?"

I remembered it well. The cabin had been our first lovenest together. We'd spent our best times together there. I felt a tear in my eye when I thought about it.

"Yes." I swallowed.

She ignored my dismay. "How soon can you get out of here?"

I glanced across my desk. "Actually... Actually, I have an awful lot to do. I'm a little behind."

She laughed. "I understand," she thought aloud. "You've always been that way."

I was insulted. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Oh, come on." She brushed that off. "When can you go? Tomorrow, the day after tomorrow?" Words like "next week" or "next month" didn't seem to be part of her vocabulary.

I surrendered. When she wanted something, she got it. In the end, I knew her well enough. "In two days," I supposed, "I could have most of my work either finished or delegated."

"Very well then," she confirmed, as if she'd already known it. "So Wednesday then. I'll pick you up at 8 a.m." She already had the whole thing planned.

"At eight?" I echoed.

"I know you're not awake yet then. But it takes two hours to get there. I'll drive. And then we still have to hike up another half hour." It sounded like a firm itinerary. Changes not accepted.

The cabin was really quite remote. There wasn't a paved street up there, or even a pa.s.sable dirt road. "Fine." I admitted defeat. "If you drive."

She laughed. "Didn't I always?" She waited a moment to see if I had anything else to say. "Well, then, until Wednesday. And be punctual. Otherwise I'll toss you out of bed myself!" She was laughing when she hung up.

All that threw me for something of a loop. I'd gotten so used to my solitary melancholy, it seemed like someone had suddenly shot me out of a catapult.

Chapter 18.

On Wednesday, we almost left on time. Karin really did make enough of a racket to drag me out of bed at eight in the morning. She even forbade me my morning coffee - despite my forceful protests - and we hit the road as soon as I was decently dressed. I grumbled about the lack of coffee for awhile, then fell asleep in the car. When I woke up, we were already heading through the pa.s.s. She noticed that I was awake. "We're almost there, you see? - You really love to sleep, don't you!"

"Yeah, yeah," I mumbled again. She made me nervous with all that energy. It reminded me of... Stop it! That was no longer an issue!

She parked the car at the trailhead, and we loaded up the backpacks.

"I thought we were only going to stay a couple of days," I protested when I felt the weight of the pack she gave me.

"You can't have forgotten that we have to carry up everything we need for the whole time," she explained cheerily, handing me yet another bag. "And back down again, too. There's no supermarket and no garbage service here."

"That always did annoy me," I grumbled crabbily.

She looked at me coquettishly. "I don't remember you ever complaining about it back then."

I dismissed that. "That was something entirely different."

She was not to be deprived of her good mood. "The longer we stand around down her, the longer it'll be before you get your coffee. As a matter of fact, you're carrying it in your backpack."

I sighed. "That's why it's so heavy."

"Now, then!" Happy as the leader of a girl scout troop, she marched on. I tramped along behind her.

Up top, we had to prepare the cabin for use first; it was apparent that no one had used it in some time. That meant starting everything up - heater, boiler, gas. By the time I got my coffee, another hour had pa.s.sed.

When we finally sat down, she cornered me. "Now then, tell me all about it." She was totally serious.

"There's nothing to tell," I deflected brusquely.

"Of course there is," she persisted calmly. "Otherwise, you wouldn't be so guarded."

I shrugged my shoulders. "It was just an affair. A rather short one at that. It's not that important."

"So unimportant that you retreat to a hermit's existence? Or were you planning to enter a convent all along?" She looked at me. She knew. She knew me too well to believe anything I was likely to make up. She gave me a foothold. "Not too long ago, you fell in love with a woman."