hotel hessischer hof, franfkurt, beginning of december 2002. the last night

i put on a dress and some make up and then up and down and out we went. not that any of the bars we visited would ever enter our list of all time favourite hangouts, the alcohol did its job in camouflaging the complete lack of style and atmosphere nicely. bottles. the men liked ordering bottles of stuff, that was a thing i instantaneously noticed. bottles of cremants as starters. not champagne, R. explained. champagne was only for those who didn't know or care. a good cremant, of the right winery, could be so much better than most of the sparkling wines sold anywhere. and it should be drunk by the bottle, otherwise there was no way knowing what the winemaker had it intended to be about. The true tale of each winemaker could be distilled if one drank his best sparkling. to the bottom. so there we went. i was this nights guinea pig to prove R.´s empirical research of bottle drinking. i was to learn the winemakers stories behind their great grapes.  a cremant de Loire, pink. bottle. drink. glass filled, i drink it up, and more glasses, same routine. bottle empty. new bottle. just one glass each, and off to the next place, leave the bottle behind, even though only halfway emptied. More sparklings. i would say half a bottle each, and then some, as the bottom needed to be reached. cocktails too. those, that goes without saying, did not go by the bottle. mojito, b52, the bar´s own martini, mixed with conversations. questions asked to and fro. nothing worth remembering, neither the questions, nor the answers given by any of the three of us. Oh what fun we had. we did. i started to relax a little for the first time that week, as a matter of fact. I laughed. I had fun. all was good. I liked the city, afterall. maybe i needed to know this city by night only. And both R. and Maiko were actually quite funny. i think. i did laugh at their jokes, but maybe they weren´t telling any jokes. we did laugh a lot. we ate i think, we went to macdonalds or something I had insisted on it. the lights in the fast food restaurant shone bright, but in the pink bubble of yet another bottle of cremant purchased someplace, it was a nice bright. It had taken some negotiations to get the men to accompany me, but  i needed food too. badly. too much alcohol in my blood.  i ate my veggie burger, the two guys watching me chew and swallow. now, our venture was to go on. the bars were to be left behind, we could always return to one later. first, we would go dance. 

we went into the first club we found, but it was still very early for any nightlife to happen. with the exception of the odd customer, no one there.  it was sufficient for us however, we had our private little party. we sat down next to the dancefloor. the dj and the light technician pretended that it was full house, loud music, strobelights, smokemachine in full action. without any customers it looked completely meaningless, all smoke and mirrors for nothing. but that is how nights work. good clubs are the perfect nothing, the guest are what make the night, they are the circus artists, but instead of being paid, they willingly leave their money to be a star in their own show for a couple of hours.  we sat on our plush chairs and looked around, at the lights, the bar, the staff and at the freak: no matter where you go, every night has one fixed parameter. before the night really starts to take off, there is the freak. the freak is a guy, at first glance harmless, but deadly to nightlife if given too much space. usually not very handsome, clothing and hair look like they have not been washed for at least three weeks. the freak dances without limitation. what i mean is that he has no inhibitions, no shame. he moves just the way his feelings tell him to, and that does not have to be anywhere close to the beat of a song. if you go to a club, everybody dances in codes. like in the old days, the court days. it is not so apparent any more, the steps seem more random, but do not let this superficial observation fool you. trends do happen, every social layer has its own movement. every music scene their own steps. except for the freak: he juggles his body in a spastic fashion, reaches his point of exaltation within ten minutes, and stays on his peak from there on. as long as the freak dances, no one in their right mind will dare step on the dancefloor, as if his socially unadapted behaviour is contagious, the social status the professional party goers have will be diminished by mere proximity to the freak. then, by some kind of unspoken rule, the freak disappears, he never stays late. the real party may begin. bottle. vodka. i said i could not do vodka. or, so i explained, i could do vodka but the night would, i predicted,  change soon. it would be like this: me, hanging over a toilet-bowl. the one in my or R.s hotelroom. throwing up. R. would have to lean over me and would have to keep my hair from getting into my face. i hate it when i throw up and my hair gets in my face or wet by the vomit. R. looked at me. an expression in his eyes i had never seen before: "oh, i would love to do that for you, that would be so beautiful." i stared at him, not quite sure how to interpret this. neither of us said a lot after his statement. So it was another bottle of sparkly, for me, and  vodka for the guys. The club was  no longer as desolate as when we got in. and we had our fun anyway. the dj was spinning and concentrating on mixing the minimal records in such fashion that they sounded like one boring track. a group of girls dancing, looking our way, the guys smiling back. i smiled back as well. i found it funny how the girls were so interested in two men at least twice their age. they looked nice, the girls. fresh., lipgloss, a little blusher. they were somehow untarnished. happy. Maiko looked at the girls and said he needed a refreshment. he went to the mens´ room. when he came back R. went to the toilet as well. Maiko had a chewinggum in his mouth and was gnawing on it. he started talking to me. The nights he and R. had were always so special he confided, but now, here, with me it was even better, i did bring out the best in R. did i know that? I shouldn't look so surprised, i must know how much i meant to him. "He really cherishes you. you are so special to him, you help him so much with whatever that little thing the two of you do is, I should have seen him during the negotiations today, he was a monster! brilliant! R. tore the  opponents apart without them realising it. Tore them apart, and they were saying thank you and please can we have more of his batter? they would have loved for the assault to go on and on, and would have kept smiling at it, begging for more. it was hilarious" he said.  i should have been there, telling me in hindsight it surely must sound stupid.  next time i had to i simply had to accompany them, i could go as their secretary or something. R. was back from the restroom. Maiko shouted at him: "next time she will go as our secretary or something!" R. nodded and stared at me, blank. Maiko looked at the dancing girls, they were something special he said, he really cherished girls like that.  R. kept looking at me. Then, Maiko asked if i wanted a refreshment. i understood. coke. I did not want to do cocaine. not in Frankfurt, this city had somehow frightened me, and even though i was really having a good time or maybe because of it, i dared not take the risk of the drugs not working the right way.  the days i had spent here had been worrying. and i did not like the way coke makes your heart pound, nor the fact that the effect never wears out on time it keeps on long after you have become bored by it,  when you just want to lie down and sleep.

in the ABC of drugtaking i was surely no novice. at 14 i had started experimenting. these were really sweet naive attempts that lead to nowhere. for instance, in history class i had learned that the Greek oracle of Delphi chewed laurel leaves to go into a trance. if she were capable of babbling like that, i had to try it. One Thursday afternoon when my parents were gone, i closed the curtains in my room. lit some candles and incense and put on an old pink Floyd record of my brother, i was sure that the psychedelic music would enhance the experience. i chewed the laurel leaves my mother kept in her kitchen cupboard for her soup and goulash. I sat on my bed in my room, looking at posters in which i was expecting something would occur soon, movement maybe, a hand sticking out, or at least the colours changing. but nothing happened. The leaves tasted dull, i kept chewing, hoping for this ultimate trip to start, like christiane F. described in her book, but there in my room at my parents house, none of this presented itself. After an hour or so i gave up, opened the curtains, turned the recordplayer off and started doing my homework. I did not give up that lightly however. I would take drugs. My friends had  heard of more culinary drugs: nutmeg, we tried, eating, rolling a joint with it, making tea, didn't work. certain mushrooms, the skin peeled off, were supposed to create some sort of effect, but we didn't remember whether it was the skin or the mushroom we should eat. one part was lethal so we did not dare. after i graduated highschool  came the usual drugtaking of that era: speed, weed, opium, or whatelse was on the menu. recreational use, every three or four months. It was all rather innocent, never too much, not too often. we all had at least one friend who did too much on a daily basis, and seeing them go cold turkey or just loose their minds ending up in an asylum was so not cool.  i had an upstairs neighbour who worked in an institution for the criminally insane. thanks to her employer, she had the most amazing supply of all kinds of prescription drugs. happy times they were. or, rather, happy minutes. i really liked that stuff. the feeling would start with a light urge of giggling. a sense of elation and happiness would tingle into the core of my bones. all is good. all is fine and nice and isn't the planet a good place, and i am a a good person. all is good, my body is warm life is safe. conversation is only possible the first five minutes, slowly i have more difficulty of finding the right combination of words to make a coherent sentence. but i dont feel the need of forming a sentence anymore. talking is just too exhausting. one vodka would be nice. drinking the vodka is the plus to the drug. now all speeds up. for three minutes i am completely transported, a little horny and just at harmony with earth and the universe. then they dont matter either. all that matters is me. my ego and i are one, complete. downside of the medication was that i would fall asleep about ten minutes after taking them. no matter where i was. at home, in a club. sound asleep. it became my own secret contest: to  take the pill, and then stay around at a party just long enough not to crash there but to make it home on my bicycle.  i would award myself with a gold medal if i even managed to take my clothes off before zoning out. but the ten minutes, half an hour most between the intake and the coma were worth it every time. 

but now, here tonight, not the right moment. how to politely decline? i could think of no excuse which would take me off the hook lightly. R. would make fun of me, and if he wouldn´t i was sure Maiko would.  i decided i would fake it. i took the little parcel, went to the bathroom, took a little bit out and flushed it. just put an fraction of it on my left nostril, and then wiped it away to make it appear realistic. when i came back the club was even more crowded. boys and girls had joined the dancefloor. Maiko was gabbing at R. And R. just looked at me. Coming from the bathroom towards him. sitting down next to them. folding my hands in my lap, then, being so uncomfortable by the constant scan of R, i took another glass of cremant and lit a cigarette for my other hand. 

The music became louder, the beat paced up. Maiko got up and started dancing, chatting to no girl in particular, whilst moving.

I smoked. R. said: "the meeting has gone really well."

"yes, Maiko told me."

"he and i really work well together."

"i am glad to hear."

there was some kind of rupture in the movements on the dancefloor. all of a sudden a group of people disentangled themselves from the crowd: one guy smashed another guy on a table next to where we were sitting. a girl was cheerleading the guy who had pushed the other. Maiko rushed to us, exited: "A fight!" we looked at the fight, as if it was none of our concern at first.  i just sat there and let it all happen.  i saw the guy just going on in a frenzy, pounding, pushing hitting. He looked like a regular office clerk, wannabe yuppie, dark hair, normal height. the guy on the table had a blue and white striped t-shirt on. a sort of sailor shirt. his ear was bleeding, the blood drizzled on his shirt. His head was turned facing us. i saw his fear. 

i wondered when the security would come to break this mess off. no one came. the audience had turned away from them, apart from the girl who was now hysterically encouraging her boyfriend to kill the victim. Maiko had returned to the dancefloor. R. looked at the whole scene with disgust. The guy on the table still had his face towards us, one eye was closed, bleeding. the other eye was looking just passed us. The girl took a glass and smashed it, she gestured with the broken glass to her boyfriend, for him to take it. 

I jumped up, ran to the girl and took the glass out of her hand. I heard myself shouting at the two of them that they should stop immediately that i was so shocked that i had never ever seen such a brutal misbehaviour. i wrenched my body between the two guys. it seemed to help, but then the girl started accusing me of being a complete idiot and i should mind my own business. her boyfriend told her that it was ok. i said they should really just stop and leave.  another girl came standing next to the girlfriend and started screaming at me as well: how on earth did i get the idea of defending that bastard? i became  scared. what if they would use the glass on me? i tried to keep talking in a clear voice, not having them sense my fear. I said it was an outrage, that they looked like sensible people, how could they do such a horrendous deed. Then  Maiko was beside me and said: "guys, you have had your fun, now just go home ok?" they were silent, as if thinking, then decided to actually listened to him and left. i was trembling all over. maiko lead me to our table.  the guy with the blooddrenched shirt got up and stumbled to the bathroom without looking at us. i wanted to go after him to ask if he was ok but Maiko pushed me down into my chair. "just a ballroom brawl, they are drunk." R. said: Why did you jump into that fight?" 

"i don´t know." 

"you should never do that. it could get you into trouble." 

The crowd partied on and i sat there.  Maiko went back onto the dancefloor, to sometimes come back for another go at the vodkabottle, joking around with R. who would amicably reply. I did not want to talk, but i was not asked anything by either of them. Finally their bottle was empty and i was allowed to go back to the hotel with them. we picked up our coats. I saw the guy with the striped t-shirt leave. he had washed his face, but still looked terrible. his left eye was shut tight and had some kind of sachet of blood hanging underneath, or maybe it was his eye, it looked as if it was cut loose. he rushed by us, didnt acknowledge any of his surroundings, as if he was ashamed.  Maiko tipped the wardrobe girl and tried to chat her up. We waited until he was finished trying and then left.

It was freezing outside. we liked the cold air and decided we would walk to the hotel, unless we would get too cold. We would go and eat wurst. that was what the Germans do afterall, eat wurst. Frankfurter wurst. But they are called Wiener wurst in Frankfurt. We went to the wurst stand. we heard the shouts. It was so strange, i recognised the voices immediately. the guy was shouting: "how does that feel? huh? you know what it feels like now?  you will never forget." the victim was howling in pain. i heard a crashing sound. we ran towards the noise. The guy in the striped t-shirt was on the pavement. The other guy was jumping on his knees. his girlfriend standing beside him, she was silent, just looking. her expression was almost of a sexual delight. i got a feeling that beating people up and watching it was some sort of a nihilist cult for them. i froze up. i couldn't handle it anymore.

this time R. shouted. just one word. "hey!" he walked towards them. slowly. the couple looked at the three of us and ran away. R. stopped a cabdriver and told him to call an ambulance. he then continued to walk, halted another cab and told me to get in. 

"what about that guy?" 

"Maiko will stay with him, dont worry, we just have to go home now." 

in the taxi i said that i was sorry. 

"what are you sorry about?" 

"i dont even know. i think i just say Imo sorry because i dont know what to say." 

"so no story tonight then?" 

"would that be allright?"

"no story tonight.  i will call you when i need you next time ok, should be some time in the new year, January, February."

we took the elevator to our rooms. when i walked to my room R took my upper left arm and pinched it. he smiled.

I packed my luggage and waited long enough to be able to halfway breathe, took a taxi to the airport and waited for 4 hours until i could board.

trafficjamslambang, hotel hessischer hof, frankfurt, 2002

the car ride back was exhausting. R. was driving, i could overhear the conversation he and maiko were having. it was scattered over the insanely loud techno tracks that maiko put in the cd player. they were shouting to one another, recapturing the day. it was dark outside, the lights of the other cars shone into my eyes way too brightly. R. was speeding. at some moment we just dashed by every car that was ahead of us. i had to convince myself that we would not crash into a truck or slip over to the other side of the highway. i had to keep my eyes on the speedometer, to try to make it go under 200 with my sheer will. Under the 200 we would be safe. i wanted to be safe. R. and maiko were elated, apparently the meeting in cologne had gone well.  i kept counting the distance we travelled in my mind, to figure out how much longer i would be stuck in that car with them. the speed we were going, it should not take any longer than an hour.  towns i used to pass with my parents in the seventies and eighties, back then, in our Simca, slowly getting along in the traffic jam, now just seemed to vanish before i even knew we had reached them. i kept begging for the car to slow down, i tried to imagine that R. had to go to the toilet or something, so that i just could get out for two minutes and regain my breath. the air we slid through seemed to congest my lungs, it pushed itself onto my sternum, the sound of it drumming into my ears, in a counter-beat to the drums of the house music that pumped through the speakers.  that whole journey we were only once taken over by another car. The men seemed duly impressed by that driver. R. turned to me: "did you see that guy, crazy, i say crazy. cool!"  i did not have the courage to ask R. to slow down, he would have surely found it amusing, and would have only sped up even more. i tried to smile, and counted the distance passed, deducting it from the distance ahead of us. ignoring all the traffic we passed. 

i had once heard that BMW had a special treat for rich Chinese customers: after the purchase they are allowed to do a test drive in Bavaria. no speed limits there on the highways. one road is called the panorama highway. it is leading through a fairy-tale landscape. The main asset of that highway is the road as such. it folds itself like a garland around the mountains.  curves, bends, tunnels in abundance. The clients are accompanied by a professional rally driver. They can speed along for as long as they like, as fast as they want to. not even a speeding ticket, just good clean high-speed fun. I even had to think of a movie i once saw, or maybe i only saw the opening scene. it was a baptism. of BMW´s. by a priest. a long line of cars, one after the other having sprinkled holy water onto them after leaving the factory doors for the first time. a welcoming of the new generation. i just hoped this car had been baptised too, and that we would make it. and on we drove. 

when we finally reached the hotel i wanted to just lie down and go to sleep, but R. had other plans. he wanted a story. and afterwards he said, we would go out. there i sat, on my chair. in Frankfurt. again. i gave him the only story i knew about a highway.

hotelroom on the highway (trafficjamslambang) 

Schiphol hotel van der valk, the Netherlands.

I know this guy who works with the technical department on many filmsets. I was working on the same set as he was, and since we lived in the same neighbourhood we started commuting together that week. Every day we would pass schiphol airport and the motels just behind it. On the third day, out of the blue, just after our first coffee he started telling me that this was the hotel he took girls to fuck. I knew he was a married family man so I was rather confused about the announcement. But, then, as it was obvious he was not intending to take me there, for if he were that surely would have been the absolute worst pick up line I had ever heard, I was ok with it for now. We just talked about the day ahead of us, the filmschedule. All day on the set I found myself looking at the guy and wondering who it was he took there, and how he invited the girls, and then what he would do with them.

On our way back home, about half an hour before we would pass the hotel, my curiosity won.. I just had to know. So I asked him: Who are the girls you fuck there, not your wife, I suppose? He answered, no, it was definitely not his wife, it were girls from filmsets, mostly the make up or clothing department, they were the most fun, and if not available he would take the production girls, who were always very much available, but less fun. Actresses, he said, where out of his league, they where for the directors of photography or for the directors themselves. I was a bit baffled by the very soberness and earnestness of his answer, I remember looking at him to see if he was kidding me, but obviously, he was not. His nose did not wrinkle in the way it did when he was joking. Plain, that was what his statement was, just like I had asked him whether he had sugar in his coffee or not, and today I even wonder if that question might not have puzzled him more than the very personal one I had just asked him. I wanted to know whether his wife knew about it, but the more pressing question on my mind was whether it was always this hotel or whether he had places all over the country where these fucks would occur. He really started enjoying our conversation at this point. He had several hotels, this one was ok, but actually not quite cheap enough, he liked the really cheap formula one motels even better, the ones where you just needed a credit card to get into a room. Right. ..but this one is ok too, if I really like a girl, and think we can have big fun I might even take the swimmingpool room, you know, it has its own swimmingpool, but mostly I just go for a standard room. Swimmingpoolroom is good to impress a babe. And you know, it is not always on my mind, but then, if there is a traffic jam, I think to myself, we can sit here, frustrated about the traffic not moving, or we can really have a ball in a sleazy room, and then I know what I like best...

We were silent for about five minutes, I looked out of the car, at all the passing cars, wondering if the people inside those cars would ever have a trafficjamslambang. Looking at the characterless faces wearing their dusty blueish grey suits sitting in their nondescript cars, I was quite sure that even in their dreams they would be too penny-pinching to indulge themselves on such a highrolling fantasy. One driver looked at me when we overtook his car, and for a second I was scared that he read my mind, so I looked in front of me again. My expression must have been rather weird.

Then I made the decision to ask the technician to join me in one of the rooms. I told him I would pay for the room, and not have sex with him, but asked him to go through the details with me. I wanted to know what he did inside one of those rooms. He thought about it for a second or two and then said: OK.

We got off the highway and went to the motel. The reception was incredibly plastic, but the kind of plastic that is meant to look like something else, and therein, completely fails. There were would-be leather chairs and couches, the wooden floor was laminate, and the greenery was made of polyester. There even were plastic victorian lamp posts with real fake gaslight in them. My colleague told me that we were too late for the dayroom rate. Turned out, your could get a room for just daytime and that it would be much cheaper that way. So maybe my traffic jam bores did go to such a place afterall.

There were still a lot of rooms available. I could choose between: the Mexican suite, of which the only Mexican seemed to be in the name, it was terracotta and blue coloured, as far as the leaflet told me. That would not do, I wanted cheap overindulgence. The technician said I had to pick the room I liked best, he knew most of them anyway. The swimmingpool suite of course sounded brilliant: ..feel like a millionaire! unique in the Netherlands! a double bedroom and a swimming pool to yourself!.. my friend smiled. But that one was above my budget. The Jacuzzi suite seemed to have his approval too, when I glanced at that one, but in the end I decided to take the jungle suite, as the catalogue told me that this was the room you needed if you wanted an adventure. And this was surely going to be a safari into a another man´s sex jungle for me. The suite was not taken, so we took it.

It was hideous. My god. I had to laugh out loud. The walls were covered in a murky greenish paint, and all the furniture was actually made out of plastic bamboo, and so horribly done, with no adventurous imagination what so ever. Some of the palmtrees were real though, to say something nice about it. There even where these scented candles, tangerine flavour, the ones that make you carsick immediately once you light them. My friend pointed out that it had a waterbed. He sat down on it, all of a sudden he became real shy in his movements, now, being here not to fuck he must have felt more naked fully dressed than he ever had before, there was not a trace of the filmset tarzan left in him. He sat, his hands folded in his lap, slightly bend over.

And then I started asking the questions, for I wanted to go all the way now. This was exiting!

..so, you get in to this room, do you first pour her a drink, or do you throw her on the bed immediately?.. ..depends on the girl.. he said ..I mean, as soon as I make the suggestion of going to the hotel she knows what is going to happen, but every girl needs a different approach... I wanted to know how he brought up the idea with the girl in the first place. ..it usually starts on the set, you know, making compliments all day, tease a little, and then make sure you have to drive her home at night. And then, when we are driving, I mostly tell her that it is so odd, that I heard that couples sneak into this hotel to have sex, if she reacts right, she´ll say something like, really, wow. Then I know I just have to wait a little and say that we could just have a look at the hotel bar and check the couples out that have their secret sex dates there and have a drink. The girls always want to. So then I take her in, and if I want it to be this room I would give her a strange tropical cocktail, you know, a ´sex on the beach´ would be too obvious, so mostly it will be something like a ´southern peach´ or a ´pink Chevrolet´... So I suggested we would go to the bar and have one of those then. He sort of felt uncomfortable. He asked me whether I wasn´t  trying to seduce him now or anything. I reassured him that this was not the case. I really just wanted to know. That seemed ok with him. We went over to the bar, and I had my southern peach and he had a beer. ..so now what?.. ..well, there usually should be a business meeting with at least one businessman flirting with a girl, and then I would tell the girl: see, there they go, they´ll take a room, and ask her which room she thinks they will choose. The girl always chooses the room for them that she herself does not want to have. So then I know which room she probably likes. And I start to do the flirt thing, but now more obviously, and they always respond, putting their hands on my leg, things like that. I then say I should really be getting home. They are always so disappointed when I say that, but I insist. Then I look into her eyes and say, what the hell, one more drink is ok. The relief on the girls´ face is what you should see. I have her right where I want her. We´ll have another cocktail.. (So I ordered one for both me and him) ..and then I say that we could just take a room for an hour, tell her the discount story and that it would be fun to see such a room. They mostly giggle at that point, trying to look sexy at the same time, you know, throw their hair back, move their fingers up and down their cocktail glass real slowly, and if it..s a really trashy one, she´ll start eating the cocktail cherry whilst looking at me... I picked up the cherry and swallowed it in one piece. ..not that way, they make an effort to make it look really sexy. I then say, oh well, it is expensive you know.. I stall. And then I tell them, but with you it should be fun, you are such a nice fun loving girl.. And then we book the room... 

Back in the room, he asked me if I really wanted to know everything. And I said yes. Everything. What would be next? ..Well, the Jacuzzi is always good, you know, leave your underwear on, it should not become to sleazy to easily... So I went over to the Jacuzzi, filled it, and asked him to sit in it. I told him he could leave all his clothes on, for all I cared, I had no desire to see his body. He said that would be difficult, he had no spare clothes with him. So I agreed on the underwear part. He sat in the Jacuzzi. He looked rather silly, all by himself there in that bubble frenzy. I asked him what happened in the Jacuzzi. The obvious stuff he said, the fondling, the kissing, the touching. And then what? They would go to the bed, they would have to take their underwear off because it was wet. So nudity then. I suggested he put on a bathrobe in this case. He gladly agreed. But he was real cool, he went to the bed, lay down. I sat on one of the disgusting bamboo chairs. And I asked: And then you fuck?.. ..Yes, then we fuck... ..are it good fucks?.. ..mostly, yes, depends on the girl, on the room... And they never fall in love with you afterwards?.. ..Some do, but never for long... I found that I was not able to go into the details of the actual fuck, that would have been too uneasy for me. The last thing I wanted to know was whether he smoked an after sex cigarette. And yes he did. So I sat next to him on the bed, and we both smoked a cigarette. He then put his clothes on, without the wet underwear, and we checked out. 

It is only a twenty minute drive from the hotel to my home, and we were rather quiet on the road. Eventually, I thanked him, for sharing this intimacy with me. He hoped I didn´t think he was a complete freak, and I said that I thought quite the opposite.

Very fascinating to have been part of somebody else's hotel. Whenever I see him on the set now, flirting with one of the make-up girls, I just give him a big wink, and he smiles back. I know then that I will have to find myself another ride home.

R. laughed. "and you want me to believe you didn't have sex? come on! you fucked the guy and because you don´t want your boyfriend to know you you turned it into this figment of yours." 

"i didn't have sex with him, i didn´t even go into the hotel with him. the only thing he said is if i figured a little date there, and he was joking." 

"really, is that how your stories work?" 

"no, but as all i have done today is hang out in a church filled with bones and skulls and then drove home with you guys and nearly got killed this is all i could think of."

"how did you get killed, nearly?"

"well you drove like a couple of maniacs"

"we just had fun, girl. for crying out loud loosen up a little, you are always so tight. did you get me the present?"

i had forgotten. it was still in the safe. i went up into my room and got it for him. I needed cold water on my face. I kept rinsing my face and my wrists. i felt dirty. when i came back to R. i handed him the necklace. he put it into his suitcase. 

"don´t you want to see if it is what you wanted to get her?"

"ah, i am sure she will like it. now, let´s get drunk, we really need to celebrate."

the three of us went through at least five bars, and drank indeed.