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morning.”
    Her boss looked gaily at her. “Hang the report. Tell me what your first-hand impression is.”
    His whole demeanor was of someone who would not let any trifle ruin his mood. After all, he was almost seventy, had two heart attacks, and was now more or less succeeding at taking it easy, in spite of running a formerly minor, now an up and rising, market data agency.
    He rummaged in his desk drawer and took out a small, black wooden ashtray. “You can smoke here if you want to,” he said and after a jolly wink, his face smoothed out into his general amiable countenance.
    Natalie cursed him silently. In the last two weeks, she had managed, after reading
Also Sprach Zarathustra
, to cut down from two packs to seven or eight cigarettes a day, and here was Blonski, tempting her to up her daily dose.
    She shook her head vigorously and opened her notebook. “It looks like they most liked the black Gothic logo, and hated most the red and round logo.”
    â€œHm, hm.” Blonski nodded. “What about the colors themselves, do they want a black and white newspaper?”
    â€œEither a black and white newspaper, or full color. They hated the two colored version.”
    Blonski looked at Natalie in mock surprise. “Why, in my day we were happy when there were two colors in a newspaper.”
    â€œWell, now we are all spoiled by glossy magazines and colorful websites, sir,” Natalie answered. “It’s either black and white, or full color.”
    Too late. Her boss fixed his stare on something beyond the room’s walls, and began telling a long and complicated story of what newspapers were like forty years ago, what someone had once said to him concerning a certain article, and what he had answered.
    Natalie resigned herself and delicately drew flowers and eyes in her notebook as her boss rumbled on and on.

    * * * *

    When she returned to her home in the evening, she was wrung out as usual, and her vision was a little blurry from all the work behind a computer monitor. Although it was supposed to be radiation free and magnetically contained and whatnot, it still strained the eyes.
    She put on her home gown, switched on the TV, and poured herself a glass of red wine from a half-full bottle—followed, very soon, by another glass.
    Forty minutes later, she was quite relaxed, or at least as relaxed as she could reasonably expect to get, for she could never completely unwind after work, nor did she try to achieve total unwinding.
    To the contrary, on some unconscious level she enjoyed being highly strung, for it gave her a feeling of focus, of strength and of purpose.
    She
did
need to let off steam from time to time, and as she gently touched her thighs, she suddenly remembered the touches of the two gigolos, Archie and Rafael, who had done such a perfect job half a year ago. She had solemnly promised herself to never stoop to using their services again.
    That was then and this was now.
    She had deleted the number of their firm from her phone, but had neglected to throw away their business card.
    It was a matter of minutes before she found the card in a drawer with other odds and ends and soon she was talking to the operator of the ‘Salt and Leather Lonely Hearts Club.’
    Rafael was still working for them, but Archie had left. They did, however, have a wonderful new guy named Shane, who would come with Rafael. They would be over in an hour, and the whole thing would cost only a third of her monthly wage. Natalie wished the operator a good evening, hung up, and lay back on her sofa with a dreamy expression.
    â€œFace me, face me, I want you to face me...” she sung softly to herself and giggled. She decided to allow herself a ninth cigarette.
    After that, she would put the special sheets on her bed.

Chapter Four

    Anton stood on the corner of a bakery, hands in pockets, shoulders hunched. It was a pretentious bakery, naturally. Only pretentious bakeries may