You

Never.

Take a look at him, how peacefully he is sleeping there on that stupid leather armchair as if he hadn’t a care in the world. It’s eight o’clock in the morning, and you wouldn’t be surprised if he was drunk.

“Wake him up.”

Leo bends over Oskar and shakes him. No reaction. Leo slaps him in the face with the palm of his hand. Once, twice, then he steps back. It doesn’t suit him. When Leo takes a step back, it means there’s a problem. You react immediately. Your bodily functions are shutting down. The breathing, the heartbeat. Your blood is flowing slower, your thoughts move like molasses. Reptile, I’m turning into a fucking reptile, you think, when Leo confirms what you were thinking: “He’s gone.”

A few steps and you’re beside Oskar, crouching down in front of him. His skin is pale and shiny in places. It reminds you of dried sushi.

“What’s up with his skin?”

“That’s ice.”

Leo holds his hand out to you; his fingertips are damp.

“He must have frozen to death.”

You want to laugh. It’s over twenty degrees down here, and out there it’s early summer. No one just freezes in the summer, you want to say, but not a word comes out. David comes and stands next to you. You’d rather he kept his distance. It’s your own fault. David is anxious for your acknowledgment, and you aren’t making it easy for him.

“May I?”

You nod, David crouches beside you and taps Oskar’s forehead, there’s a dull tok. David looks for a pulse and then shakes his head.

“Leo’s right. Oskar’s gone.”

You feel Tanner’s and Leo’s eyes on your back, and David is looking at you too. There’s nothing to say, your mind is blank. Oskar deep-frozen on a chair, the vanished merchandise, and then this fucked-up swimming pool. When you can speak again, you say, “I want her to suffer.”

“I’ll see to it,” David replies.

The answer comes too quickly. David wasn’t thinking, even though an order like that doesn’t call for much thinking. He reacted automatically. You hate that. Your men should think and not react.

Both of you get up at the same time; you’re close to one another, so that you can smell his breath.

“David, what did I just say?”

“That she—that she should suffer?”

You grab him between the legs. He tries to move away, thinks better of it and stands still. Only his torso bends slightly forward, that’s all that happens. You press hard.

“What is that, David?”

Sweat appears on his forehead; his answer is a gasp.

“Suffering?”

“No. This isn’t suffering, David. Suffering is when I pull your balls off and let you dive after them in the pool, that would be suffering. Now do you understand what I meant when I said she should suffer?”

“I understand.”

You let go of him. His nostrils are flared, a tear runs down his cheek, his chin is trembling. David is twenty-four, you’re nineteen years older. You understand each other.

“Bring me the boy.”

“But where are we supposed to—”

“Ask Darian,” you interrupt. “He’ll know where you can find him. And David, this is serious. Leave no stone unturned and don’t even think about coming back here without the boy.”

You turn to Tanner.

“Go with him. Leo and I will wait here. You’ve got an hour.”

Tanner nods and leaves with David. You tell Leo to get two chairs. Leo disappears too. At last you’re alone with Oskar, and the tension leaves you and is replaced with a heavy weariness. It should never have come to this, you think, and although you are weary you still want to yell at Oskar and behave like an idiot. He’s gone. Leo couldn’t have put it more appropriately. Once you’re gone, it’s final. It has no beginning, it just has an end. You put your hand on Oskar’s head for a moment. His hair feels greasy; through his scalp you can feel the cold emanating from his body.

What on earth happened to you?

You lift one eyelid as if his gaze might tell you what’s happened here. Come on, talk to me. Nothing. The gaze of a dead man is the gaze of a dead man. It isn’t the first time you’ve seen it. When you let go of the lid again, it closes very slowly.

Leo comes down with the chairs and says, “Christ, it stinks up there.”

You sit down opposite Oskar. Leo’s bulk obscures the chair next to you. Eight years ago, he was still in the ring and it was shaming. As a young man Leo had been national champion twice in a row, then the fire went out, and everyone apart from Leo noticed it. He kept going. When a man turns forty, he can stand wherever he wants, just not in the ring. Leo was one of those stubborn guys whose brain can come trickling out of their ears and they just pull back their shoulders and go on boxing. His second passion almost cost him his life. His gambling debts were in six figures, and if it hadn’t been for Tanner, Leo would have had to go on tour—Thailand and Indonesia loved European flesh. Fights without rules, but the money was good. Tanner bought the aging boxer’s freedom and saved him. Since then Leo’s been working for you and he is at the same time Tanner’s shadow. You don’t know what kind of aftereffects boxing left him with. His face is scarred, most of his nerves don’t work, the hands are deformed paws. He is married to a former model. She treats him like a god. You know you can always rely on Leo. He’s loyal and he can take a beating like no one else. And he hardly misses a thing.

“There’s no TV.”

“So?”

Leo points at Oskar.

“If there’s no TV, then how come Oskar’s holding a TV remote?”

You’re surprised; you hadn’t noticed the remote control. It sticks out from his fingers like a black popsicle. Focus—how could you have overlooked something like that? You bend forward and take Oskar’s hand in yours. For his last birthday you gave him three watches and a watch winder. Oskar was allowed to choose the watches, the watch winder was your department. Its frame is covered with black piano lacquer, and as soon as you touch it, four little lights come on inside. You remember Oskar calling you up after his birthday party and telling you he’d spent an hour sitting in front of the box looking at the watches being rocked to sleep.

There were days when Oskar was like a ten-year-old. What he hadn’t been able to experience as a child, he’d more than made up for as a grown-up. And you were always by his side, like a proud uncle with an overflowing billfold.

The watch on Oskar’s wrist cost you ten grand, but it’s still not cold-resistant. The date tells you that Oskar was deep frozen on Saturday. The watch stopped at twenty to twelve.

Leo asks you if you have any idea what might have happened down here.

“Not a clue,” you answer, and let go of Oskar’s hand. “But if we wait till Oskar’s thawed, I’m sure he’ll tell us.”

Leo doesn’t laugh; even though he knows you were making a joke, laughing would be a mistake. You ignore him, just as you ignore the vaulted basement and the swimming pool and stare with a full focus at your brother’s frozen body, as if it could suddenly give you answers to all your questions.

STINK

Stink you got from your brother. It’s miles better than Isabell. As if you were like from Spain or something. Not normal. Like that girl in 9C, the one with the braids. Like a hippie, except a techno one. Wall. Why Wall? As if there was something wrong with her. No, you’re Stink and you want to stay that way. The name stuck, even though your brother left school four years ago. You thought they’d give it a rest after that, but that was wrong, everyone went on calling you Stink, so you started getting used to it. Stink’s okay. Nobody ever says anything about toilets or whatever. And why should they. You smell nice. Perfume is a protection against the outside world.

Protection against guys like Eric, who turns around two seats in front of you and looks at you as if you’re naked from top to toe. You shut your eyes, you really don’t want to see him. Hairless ass. Of course you don’t mean his ass, just his dumb shaved head. As if he’s a soldier on the way to the front, acting cool and shaving his head twice a week, though he’s only got fluff on his chin anyway, he’ll never have enough for a goatee. He’d need to drink more coffee. At least that’s what your aunt says. Aunt Sissi. Drink a lot of coffee and you’ll grow a beard. Hormones and crap. Thanks a lot, Auntie. That’s exactly what you don’t need. Hair all over the place. The only thing that works is Epolotion or whatever it’s called. You’re sure Schnappi can spell it, Schnappi’s always up-to-date like a radio station without ads that collects all the important information and feeds it back to you.

“That hair thing doesn’t take a second,” she explained to you all, “a hot needle goes in”—she showed you and poked it around in her wrist. “It goes into your pores, you know? Or you do it with wax, but the hot needle lasts longer, right? So it goes in where the hair is and then burns your roots and it hisses and it hurts like fuck.”

“Ouch!” yelled Ruth, blond, almost transparent and with no visible hairs on her legs.

“Stop wriggling,” you told her and asked Schnappi how long it would keep working.

“A few months.”

“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 an ath 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.”

“What about you? Still at school?”

You show him your wrist. There’s a little tattoo at the spot where they take your pulse. The writing’s tiny, one word, not more.

“Gone?”

“Right, gone.”

“School?”

You nod.

“High school graduation?”

“Nah.”

You roll your eyes and laugh. Be honest, you don’t look like graduation. You look like a wildcat in a petting zoo. But don’t tell him that. And watch out, here comes the next question.

“And what are your plans?”

“We’ll see. Maybe I’ll open a beauty salon. Something like that. You?”

“I don’t know where I want to go.”

Funny answer, you think, and pretend to study the movie posters. Let the guy look at you in peace. Maybe he hasn’t got a girlfriend, you could be with him for a while. But guys like him always have girlfriends. One of those smoothies who never have to go to the bathroom and in the morning they smell like flowers. That’s the kind of girl he would have. He’s much too nice for this world—he speaks nice, he smells nice and seems to have money. Maybe he’ll lend you ten euros, then you’d have to see each other again so that you could give him the money back.

You feel him looking at you. His eye wanders up from your platforms up to your worn bell-bottomed cord jeans, the belt pulled tight, narrow waist, blouse under your velvet jacket, long pause on your breasts—of course he lingers there, he paid for the ice cream, he can linger. Perhaps he’s noticed that your red hair makes you look a bit like the actress Kristen Bell, but he’s probably never even seen Veronica Mars or Heroes.

“How old are you?” he asks and his eyes are on your mouth.

“Seventeen,” you lie, adding a year. “You?”

“Too old.”

“Come on.”

“How about twenty-seven?”

“Definitely too old,” you say and laugh.

He laughs too, takes a breath and tells you his name.

“Nice to meet you, Neil. I’m Stink.”

“Funny name.”

You wave dismissively.

“It’s because of the perfume.”

“You named yourself after a book?”

“What book?”

“You know, the novel.”

“No, it’s because I always smell so nice. Here.”

He bends forward and sniffs your wrist.

“Smells good.”

You look at each other. He knows there is more to this name.

“And because I’m mostly in a bad mood,” you admit. “Mostly always.”

“A real stinker, then.”

“Better believe it.”

He thinks for a moment, he looks to his left, he looks to his right.

“I have an idea,” he tells you. “Will you come with me?”

“Now?”

“Now.”

Now it is your turn to look around. Your girls will be gone for more than an hour. You could die of boredom or you could go on an adventure.

“You lead, I will follow,” you say to Neil.

So he leads you down the street and stops next to a Jaguar, smart and red and with Hamburg plates.

“Wow, where’d you get that?”

“Swiped it off my mother,” says Neil and opens the door for you.

RUTH

Once upon a time there were five girls and I was one of them. The fairy tale could start like that. One of them. That’s exactly how you feel, lying on your back, above you the moss-green ceiling that you painted one afternoon with your girls because the pink was getting on your nerves and you needed a change. You’re living with your parents in an old stylish apartment block they bought when you were born. Your top bunk is six feet up. Every morning it’s like waking up in a forest. Now the green reminds you of the sea that you saw while traveling around the Bahamas with your parents. Of course you had to dive, and it nearly happened there in the water. You lost yourself for a moment. You were part of the deep and you didn’t know what was up and what was down. It was the best experience you’ve ever had, and since then you’ve been wondering what would have happened if you’d made the wrong choice and gone on deeper. How do you lose yourself? Do you disappear or do you become part of the water?

Now you’re lying on your bed, and the moss-green ceiling is within reach of your hands. Even though you’re sure no one can just go missing like that, you’re not so sure what’s happening between your legs. Is it his tongue or is it his finger? You look down, his head is moving, so it must be his tongue. God, he’s taking his time. You’re sorry it has come to this. Why did you just let yourself go like that?

He asked so nicely.

That’s all?

That’s all.

You tug gently on his hair. Eric looks up. His lips glisten. He gives you a quizzical look, and you wish he would make another face.

“What are you doing?”

“What does it feel like?” he asks back and disappears between your legs again.

You wish it was his finger and not his stupid tongue, then you’d definitely be more aware of it. There are boys who don’t know how to kiss. They swap gallons of spit with you and want to hear you gasping with passion. You want to be kissed so that your lights flicker. Flicker and not go out. Boys should learn from girls. Nessi kissed you once. It was New Year’s Eve, you were sitting drunk on Taja’s bed, and suddenly someone suggested making out and your mouth landed on Nessi’s mouth and it was the hottest french kiss you’ve ever had.

Eric definitely doesn’t know how to kiss, and you’re annoyed with yourself for not telling him on the very first day. Now you are in the second week and he goes at it like a heartsick frog. Taja warned you, and this is what you’ve ended up with—a guy who busies himself between your legs as if he is working with his tongue on a scratch card.

You count the books on the shelf, you tense your belly and admire your belly button with its little ring. You wonder which pizza you’ll have afterward and whether the movie will really be as weird as everyone says. Then you say the alphabet backward and at F you’ve had enough and drag Eric up to you by the ears. After a certain point enough’s enough. You kiss him, and he does his frog face again, but it’s better than all that fumbling. You taste yourself on his tongue, and your own arousal arouses you even further, and it’s like something coming full circle. Eric’s leg slips between your thighs, the pressure is good, you push back, your lower body twitches and it happens so fast that you have to grip the back of his neck so that you don’t lose yourself completely. His mouth lands on your neck, you want to warn him that if he gives you a love bite he’s dead, but you can’t warn him, because all your lights have blown out, no flickering, just lights out, as the orgasm glides through you like a red-hot knife through a block of butter, without getting stuck once, and that happens twice in a row.

Eric isn’t aware of any of that, he’s too aroused to notice anything. He kneads your breasts and breathes in your ear. You let go of his neck and sink back. The knife has disappeared, now you’re nothing but melting butter. It would be perfect if you were alone now.