himself. As she lay over him, she let her tongue run over his face.
“I like your taste,” she said, and when she spoke, he felt the noise go from her ribcage into his. “I like your smell, and the softness on your chin… right before the stubble starts coming out.”
He stroked her back and ass and the soft skin in the crack right where the legs meet.
“Know what?” he whispered.
“Mmmm.”
“I want you to know that I didn’t come here just to sleep with you.”
“You didn’t?”
“You shouldn’t think that I came here for a quick fuck…”
Justine giggled.
“You didn’t?”
She rolled on her back and took his hand with her, moved it over her stomach. The hair down there was soft and curly. He desired to look at it; he sat up. It was blonde like the hair on her head. His fingers were in all that blondeness; she was wet. Those strong, substantial legs. She was big and swelling with the waving lines of a real woman. She looked like one of the models for one of the old master’s paintings. Venus, the Sabine women, stolen and hanging from the horses, their veils and pale flesh. He drew off his clothes and lay naked beside her on the floor. Then she came up and he saw her stomach from underneath; sitting on both feet, she sank over him. He thought about her foot, he thought about HIV, he thought the hell with everything. She was warm and steaming. Her insides gripped his member, massaged it, those strong, joyful muscles; he saw the fleshy walls, how they embraced and sucked. He grabbed her hips and he came into a cramp that brought tears to his eyes. Somewhere far away, he heard her scream. She was riding him like an animal, pressing her heels into his sides, screaming right at the ceiling.
They were lying in her bed. She had covered them with her blanket; she held him in her embrace, stroked him closely over his head. The bird sat on his tree branch with one foot raised. He would sometimes make a little noise, but he wasn’t paying any attention to them.
“Just hope he’s not jealous,” whispered Hans Peter.
“No, he wants me to be happy. If I like someone, so does he. He feels what my feelings radiate.”
“And if you don’t like someone?”
She chuckled.
“Well, then really bad things can happen.”
“Justine,” he said, and he realized that he wanted to say her name again and again, say her name to make it a part of himself.
Her lips against his neck, against his spine.
“Justine, you were so wonderful… You made it so good for me.”
“You, too.”
“How much of your life do you want to keep for yourself?”
“What do you mean?”
“I want to get to know you. I long to find out about you. I am so light and happy. I can’t remember ever feeling like this before.”
“Sure you have,” she said. “You certainly have.”
Inside himself, he would have chosen that she would have answered differently, that she also had never felt like this for another man. He remembered what she said about a relationship that ended.
“To be here at the very beginning…,” he whispered. “To have everything still in front of us… wishes, desires.”
She didn’t answer. He was lying in her arms, but she didn’t change position. He got loose so that he could contemplate her. Those blonde eyebrows, the line of freckles over her cheeks and nose, those small, childlike breasts. His hand slid down her ribcage; her skin was damp with both his and her sweat.
“Justine, dearest… am I being too hasty? Taking things for granted?”
“No,” she mumbled. “I don’t think so.”
He kept talking.
“This desire, this craving… not just that. There’s something else, a sense of belonging that I never felt with anyone before, not even my ex… certainly not with her. From the minute I saw you in the snow, already then I knew that there was something about you that I couldn’t let slip away from me. Could you let me into you, into that essence of you, and I don’t mean just physically.”
But even while he was speaking, he felt how his muscles were getting ready, how his flabby penis was now beginning to fill with blood again. She felt it too, and she looked down and smiled carefully. Her hand placed in the right spot, he grew against her palm. Do it like that, yes… do it… again.
She said that they had to eat. He borrowed her robe; she put on her long, green, knit dress and nothing else. In the kitchen, she fried some bacon and eggs.
“You get hungry after a hangover,” she said. “Of course, I try and diet, but right now I am so hungry, I can’t help myself.”
“Don’t diet,” he said. “You are exactly how you need to be.” The bird flew down with them. She gave him the same food they were eating, and he swallowed it with greedy bites. She poured some beer for them. They sat at the little kitchen table and looked out at the hill. It had stopped raining. He heard himself say something about the weather. It sounded so banal, but he couldn’t help himself.
“It looks like winter is over for this year,” he said. “Even though there’s still some ice, it’s going to break up soon. The papers said a man had drowned in Lake Malar.”
“They were looking for him yesterday. They must have found him.”
“I don’t get how people can take risks like that.”
“Me neither.”
“I’m just wondering… did you live here with that man? With the one that you’ve broken up with?”
“No,” she said. “No, I didn’t. He had an apartment in the city.”
“Were you together long?”
“More than a year.”
“Why did it end?”
She poked at some crumbs, drew them together into a small heap on the table.
“Hmmm… something happened to him… we went to the rainforest together, to the jungle. He had so many ideas, he wanted to start adventure trips for Europeans, you know, with long stays in the jungle. You were supposed to eat and live out there, great hardship. I went with him. He was going to create the trip route and make contact with the people living there who could be helpful and maybe work with the hikes and things. But then… something happened… Actually, I don’t really want to talk about it.”
part two
Chapter ONE
A noise woke her. A knock. She was wide awake right away. She had slept stiffly and straightly, arms down her sides. Sweat covered her body, gave her goose bumps.
She looked around in the room. Nathan wasn’t there. Another knock, then the door opened.
A woman stood next to her bed. She wore a scarf which covered her forehead and even her shoulders. She stared at Justine.
“Cleaning!” she said, loudly in English.
“Cleaning? No, you don’t have to clean up; it is not necessary,” Justine replied in English. She sat up, leaning against the wall, with the sheet up to her chin. The aroma of curry swept in through the doorway. From the street,
