the first night.
i sit down on a chair in the room. he is on the bed. he looks at me. "are you relaxed?" i answer that i am far from it. "do you trust me?" i answer that if i would not trust him i would not be there. the question makes me nervous though. even if my friends know exactly where i am, they can do nothing for me now if he turns out to be a complete maniac. i have chosen a chair that is closest to the door. just in case. my phone is on my lap. i take a cigarette out of my bag and light it. "would you like something to drink before you start, or shall we just begin?" i tell him that i could do with some tea. he slowly walks over to the desk, and makes one cup of tea. he brings it over to me and smiles.
"so, have you already thought of a story?" "i have thought of many, what kind of story would you like to hear?" "well, it should be true. and i want it to be about you. maybe about when you were a little girl." he lies down on the bed again, crosses his legs and folds his arms around his chest, as if he is hugging himself. i can hear the sounds of the street outside, cars, people talking. i have seen nothing of the city. i arrived at the airport, was picked up by a carservice and driven directly to the hotel.
he looks at me, encouragingly. "well, start telling me, please."
so i tell him a story about a hotel
hotelroom 1: bliss.
about seven years ago I had booked a hotelroom for me and my love. I know
where your thoughts are going now, but i must say: No. It is not the
carnal bliss that you now think I mean. The happines I mean is something
very different.
At two o clock in the afternoon I checked in at the Park Hotel in the
Hague. First things seemed to go terribly and utterly wrong: I had
specifically asked for a room with a bath. The staff at the hotel however,
had tried to convince me that a room with a shower would be sufficient. It
was, of course, not.
Bliss came at the moment whereupon I demanded my room with the bath, and
got it.
The bathroom was bigger than the bedroom, about 25 square meters. It was
made of a whitish grey marble, floors as well as walls. The bathroom was
completely empty. The only available light was from a greenish neon tube
above one of the mirrors. The whole athmosphere was very benumbed.
As i let myself sink into the tub, after having it filled with hot water
-that goes without saying- I got the feeling I had ended up in some sort
of morgue. It was all so chilly, so cold, so desolate, impersonal. There
was absolute quiet. The only sound I would occasionally hear was the sound
of the hot water that I let flow into my bath. I felt dead. But not in a
bad way. This was sort of the waitingroom for afterlife to me.
after weeks and months and days of turmoil and hard work this total lack
of stimuli turned out to be the one thing that made me happy.
Just before I had gone to the hotel I had bought a small bag with very
expensive chocolate bonbons in the innercity.
After my two hour bath session I made myself a cup of tea and lay down on
the bed. A typical luxury business hotel kind of bed it was. Clean sheets,
two bedstands with identical lights on each side of the bed, and of course
the obligatory bible. I had closed all the curtains as soon as I had gone
into the room. There was no light in the room anymore, but for the eerie
green light coming from the bathroom, that grey mortuary hall. I lay on
the bed, sometimes forcing myself to make a decision between the various
chocolates to be put into my mouth next.
That was all there was, except the thought that I had never in my life had
done such a remarkably well purchase as the acquistion of four hours of
complete nothingt.
it was then that I decided I would more often spend money on lonely
hotelrooms......
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