I have had rotten luck this week. It really, really could not have been worse. All my plans to organise sexual encounters went so finally wrong, and I spent a night in tossing, panicked despair. It was a defeat born of nothing but bad luck, and I was seized by frustration of an intensity enough to split my skull and the stone inside it. There’s so much I could have done last night! All just because of bad luck. Nothing else. It was all there - all my charm, my magic spray, my new second-hand leather jacket. Just bad luck. Why does organising time in grown-up life have to be such an awkward negotiation of egos, convenience and consequence? It’s bad enough anywhere, but add to this the Berlin travelling distances and the fact that girls are always tired, cold or “busy” (spit that word like a bad seed. That’s girl-busy – meaning they can’t cope with their affairs), and a fellow’s odds for a normal week are cut very, very short.

Jesus!

And Uschi! Uschi! She was so damn blasé about it. Goddamn it! It just did not matter to her. “Next week!” Yeah, next week. Next week my head will be a boney mush, babe. And that’ll be it. No more Ben.