Taxi to Paris Read Online Free PDF

the intensity of my work that day, I hadn't noticed that my appetite had also fallen off considerably - but now it registered that I hadn't even gone with my colleagues for our usual lunch together. No food, no sleep - how long could a person live like this? In the insane hope of meeting her "coincidentally" this evening already, I left at five o'clock to run aimlessly through the streets. I ate the banana split as well - even fate must be given an opportunity.
    When the sun went down, I gave up. At home in bed, I tossed restlessly. It seemed like I'd only just shut my eyes, but suddenly it was morning. I made coffee, drank it, made more coffee, and drank it too. My nerves thanked me with uncontrollable shaking. Since the day before yesterday, I'd had nothing but the banana split to eat. I picked up the phone and called in sick. In this condition, I'd never get any work done. I didn't want to go into town; that would induce me to go looking for her again. So I paced in my apartment like a caged wild tiger: from the balcony to the window, from the window to the balcony.
    I looked at the clock. It was eight o'clock in the morning. Much too early to call someone like her. I held out until nine. Then I got out the card with her phone number. At a quarter after nine, I called her. She was probably still asleep, with long nights like those... She answered with the number. She sounded wide awake. I announced myself with my name, somewhat less wide awake.
    "Yes?" she said, expectantly.
    "I'd like to ..." What should I say now? "Can I...?" I didn't want to make an appointment with her, at least not officially.
    "You want to come over?" she asked quietly.
    "Yes." That was the hardest part. I exhaled heavily.
    "When?" she asked, in the same quiet tone.
    Preferably right now! But of course I couldn't say it like that. "Today?" I asked for that reason, trying to imitate her tone of voice. But she could do it much better.
    "Yes, that's fine. At eleven o'clock?" She awaited my answer.
    "Actually, I was heading into town just now..."
    "No," she declined firmly. "I don't have time before that."
    That meant she probably had a customer with her, or was waiting for one! Can one be jealous over a prostitute? I could! To be able to answer, I swallowed the lump in my throat. With a halfway normal voice - so, at least, I hoped - I said, "Good, then. Eleven o'clock."
    She hung up. Without a word. She was definitely not alone! My imagination tortured me with scenes of her room. While she was talking to me, perhaps another woman had undressed her, caressed her, and kissed her. But wouldn't I have noticed that? Her voice had sounded so calm. That doesn't mean anything! She's a whore; she doesn't feel anything during... Really? I remembered it much differently!
    The minute hand on the clock seemed to be counting hours instead. Every time I looked up, it seemed hardly to have moved at all. I changed clothes at least five times, although there weren't all that many possible combinations in my closet. Shirts and pants in different varieties. I didn't have any skirts or dresses. First the jeans seemed too casual, then the pleated pants too formal. The plaid flannel shirt was too rustic and the silk too sensitive to sweat spots.
    What do you think this is that you're going to? Really, now! You act as if you were headed for some sort of rendezvous. Oh, yeah? I couldn't decide how I should categorize this meeting. I seemed to behave myself as if before a romantic rendezvous, and I felt like it as well, but my head was right: it was no such thing. This was an appointment for paid sex.
    Finally, it was quarter to eleven. She wouldn't particularly like it if I got there too early, and she lived right around the corner from me. So I waited another five minutes. When I arrived at her door, it was one minute before eleven. I rang the doorbell. For one brief, horrible moment, I thought she'd stood me up and wasn't home. Then I heard footsteps. What if that was another