You

“A few months?”

“What did you think?”

About a year was what you thought, but it probably isn’t.

“And quanta costa?”

Schnappi rolled her eyes.

“No idea what it costs. You think I own the shop or something? Ask for yourself.”

Epolotion’s out, you’ve checked. Incredibly expensive and incredibly painful. Two incrediblys too many. And anyway you like shaving. It takes a long time, but your legs like the feeling and your skin prickles afterward. You could get Indi to do it. It’ll be like in a movie. Pretty Woman II. Indi sitting on the edge of the tub, your foot in one hand, the razor in the other, desperate to suck your toes. No, Indi, you’ll say, shaving first, then sucking. And Indi will say, Okay. And then he will shave your legs, making you completely nervous with his touches as you doze in the tub and sip your champagne, all queasy and woozy and—

“Hey, are you awake or what?” Ruth wants to know.

“’Course I am.”

“Then take your stupid head off my shoulder.”

“Okay, okay.”

“Slobbermouth.”

You wipe your chin. No dribble, what a bitch! You narrow your eyes to get a better view of the screen. Stupid cinema. Stupid seat. Stupid movie. Come on, who wants to sit at the back? You can hardly see a thing. Stupid eyes and stupid half-price Tuesdays. Next time you’ll pay two euros and watch a DVD. More fun anyway. If you have to pee you don’t miss the whole story.

“Stupid movie,” you mumble.

Schnappi jabs you with her elbow.

“Bitch!”

Nessi sits next to Ruth and bends over and hands you her Coke. At least there is one person thinking about you. You drink and clink the ice cubes. Again Eric turns around and gives you the Look. Zombie.

“You a Nazi or what?” you ask.

“Dyke,” he hisses back and turns away.

“Could you shut the fuck up,” Schnappi whispers, drumming her feet on the floor so people can feel it four rows down. Every time things get exciting Schnappi turns into Speedy Gonzales. An Asian girl on speed, you think, and it makes you laugh and you say, “Speedfreak.”

“Are you having fun?”

“Shut up, Ruth.”

“Come on, if all you want to do is get on our nerves, just go to the can and talk to the toilet,” Ruth tells you without looking at you.

“Or the soap dispenser,” says Schnappi, and they giggle together like two little girls on the way to the candy store.

You look at them. They don’t look like sixteen.

“I’m leaving,” you tell them, mature and grown-up as you are, and then you leave.

The door shuts behind you, and you inhale with relief. The air in there was horrible. As if everyone had farted at the same time and then fanned it around. You fumble your cigarettes out of your jacket, a new pack, fresh out of the machine, you’ve never liked bumming from the others. You take off the cellophane and pull out the silver paper, tap one out and stick it between your lips.

“Oh, come on.”

You hammer your lighter on the palm of your hand. The flint crunches, there’s no spark. Great. Now what? You can’t just go back in there and ask for a light, they’ll lynch you. Go to the counter, they’re bound to have a light.

You’re half the way there when this guy comes from the bottom of the stairs. He was probably in the john, hasn’t missed anything anyway.

“Got a light?”

He takes out this enormous golden flamethrower.

“It’s my dad’s,” he tells you, as if he’d inherited it, as if he had to explain it, as if you’d asked. He probably swiped the lighter when his dad was looking the other way, wanna bet? Guy as tall as a basketball player, much older than you. Mid-twenties. Gives you a light and smiles. Nice.

“Thanks.”

“You don’t like the movie?”

“Boring.”

“That’s the word.”

That smile again; you smile back. It’s better than standing around on your own anyway.

“How about an ice cream?”

You tell him you’re waiting for your friends. You’re not that easy. He looks around, probably checking that he’s not dreaming and he really has met you. Hot mama that you are. Then he winks at you. He really winks. Maybe he’s gay or something.

“We could wait outside and eat our ice cream. My treat. But only if you want to,” he adds, with a big fat question mark at the end. He’s actually really friendly, but let him twitch for a minute or two. Friendly’s only half the battle. You’re not naïve. Don’t trust strangers who offer you candy, Aunt Sissi drummed into you, and if you’ve grown up without parents you listen to your aunt.

“Hm,” you say and pull in your stomach and check the guy out—black T-shirt, jeans, Doc Martens, leather bracelet, ponytail. No, he’s not gay, you’ve never seen a long-haired gay; and if your nose doesn’t deceive you he’s got just as much perfume behind his ears as you do. Smells good. When he glances at his watch, you see gold again. You could bet that when he laughs the sun comes out.

“Why are you laughing?” he asks, and you just grin and he says, “We’ve got an hour, what do you think?” Questions about questions. Come on, Stink, behave yourself, he’s not going to go straight for your shorts, and if he does, you’ve put up with worse. So just be cool, go with it.

“Ice cream sounds great,” you tell him and your heart starts to flutter loudly.

Before you leave the foyer, you buy ice cream from the guy behind the counter. Of course you choose the most expensive one, you want to do this in style. The guy says Go for it and you laugh, and he laughs too, then you’re standing outside nibbling at your ice creams and glancing at each other. These are really flirty looks, they fall like a veil over your eyes and make your vision a little blurry. Leaving the cinema wasn’t such a bad idea after all. From a certain angle the guy looks like Alberto. Alberto wasn’t an Italian, you just wished he was. Alberto came from the East and his real name was Albert, but what sort of a name is that? Alberto sounded miles better. That guy, oh hell, he could really turn you on. He was wild about you. Wanna eatsch you up, he said. Stupid lisp, but at least it made you laugh. And you didn’t want to talk to him anyway. He made out with you wherever you were and nibbled away at your lips as if they were pink chewing gum. And once at the bus stop he shoved his hands down the back of your jeans and grabbed you by the ass. Alberto, what’re you doing? you asked him and he pressed himself closer to you so that you could feel his erection, massaging your ass as if it were an overripe peach and breathing heavily. I’m anath fetishist, he muttered in your ear, almost blowing your head off. And you weren’t cool at all by then and murmured back: Whatever that is. You had no idea what an ass fetishist was and you didn’t have much time to think about it, because Alberto was pressing and kneading your cheeks till you thought: Help, he’s going to tear me in two! It didn’t come to that, though, because Alberto suddenly went quiet and rigid and stopped breathing at all while having an orgasm pressed against your belly, and that happened all at the bus stop on a lovely day in May.

“… never seen it. I went to Berlin a lot as a child. My father lives in Friedrichshain, my half brother in Zehlendorf. But my mother lives in Hamburg, that’s where I grew up …”

The guy talks and talks and smiles at you and you think: How long’s he been talking? You smile back and lick a bit of ice cream from your wrist and wonder if he’s an ass fetishist as well.

“So you’re just visiting?” you say, picking up the end of his last sentence.

“Right.”

“Cool.”