Tour

Her body was perfect. I was skinny. She was only enough-ample to intimidate my love of inferiority. She was dark with eyes invisible. She spoke of places I could not imagine. At the same time, she was a down to earth woman, getting the job done, getting herself to Istanbul.

The incongruity of it. Just as well I didn't know. These were dangerous times and places. I was fearless, probably because I didn't know where I was. She was fascinating, as to watch the way people especially-men reacted to her. It was different than the way people reacted to me alone. For men she was magic. For men you could see on their faces, the exact attitude of lust they carried and would show to her if she was alone, but with me they must freeze half-lusted in the portraiture of their inappropriateness. But they liked her. They knew she was a never-never princess. She was their fantasy of not-and-never-nohow. She was not-quite that kind of a not to me. She was not-yet determined.

I think it was the first night in Yugoslavia. She sprang for a hotel room, with one double bed. I simply assumed we would be staying in hotels the whole trip. Was or was-not, that part of the bargain ? Here we were. Was I to perform a service over-and-above driving ? In the bed - I was with her. What happened of a-sudden ? I could not bare the cross. I could not cross the east-west Rubicon. My soldier was shot-down at the border. It was the first failure of my young life. I died a death of I-love-you dreams.

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