Four-fifteen in the morning. Paddington Station. I am sitting in the train. Here and there, sprawling youths are dozing restlessly. Many of them have had too much to drink. We will leave in ten minutes or so. It will take us more than an hour to get to Reading, the final destination of this commuter train. It will stop practically everywhere on the way. I left the London home after the last calamity, the final blow. While I was asleep on the livingroom sofa, Lauren tiptoed in, got my knapsack, found my notebook, and read much of it in the bedroom in spite of my atrocious handwriting. I am now writing into the notebook again, but it is in shambles. She tore it to shreds, mangled it, ripped it into several parts with her teeth. She woke me up a couple of hours ago demanding to know who Anita and Nada were. Lesley’s name she could not decipher. Helen’s name she failed to spot. “Tell me, you bastard, who are Anita and Nada?” She was violent and vulgar, demanding the truth then and there. She even told me she had fucked someone once. She wanted the truth from me, too. “Who are Anita and Nada?” I did not say a thing, though. I kept repeating this was not the way to the truth. She called me a coward, demanding the truth ever more aggressively. Hateful and spiteful, she punched the air in front of my chest with her index finger. She threatened to hire a private detective to get to the truth. She insisted to know why I was still with her if I had other women. “Is it because of my money?” she yelled several times. I tried to calm her down, pleading with her not to wake up the children, who should not witness such a violent scene. After about an hour, when she calmed down a bit, I got up from the sofa, collected my things, dressed hastily, and left for Reading. We are finished. We are indeed finished. The final blow. The train will start moving any moment now.

Addendum (October 15, 2000)

Why was I sleeping on the livingroom sofa? Lauren and I had dinner with her brother Greg and his wife, Regina. We met in a restaurant. This was the first time Lauren and I saw each other after my three days in Reading. After dinner, which was rather uneventful, we all came to our place, where a babysitter looked for our children and their two-year old daughter, Zoe. When everyone left, Lauren let Dorian and Maya watch television. The atmosphere between us was not bad, but it was not good, either. I am not sure what she was doing in this period, but she was most likely on her computer dealing with electronic mail. Sipping wine and listening to Italian Baroque music, I sat alone in the livingroom. At some point children fell asleep and Lauren came to me. She was naked. She was demonstrative, even vulgar. “Why don’t you fuck me?” she demanded coarsely. She sat in my lap and started fondling me. She was rough. Although I felt repulsed by her, I eventually got undressed. Sitting astride me on the chair, she inserted my penis into her vagina. I was not fully erect. “What’s wrong?” she kept asking gruffly. “Not interested in me, huh?” After a brief while, Lauren pulled herself away and got up. She got up so quickly I swear I heard a faint pop as I slid out of her. I am not sure what happened next, but I ended up on the sofa and covered myself with a blanket. I think she tried for a while to get me to join her in the bedroom, but I am not sure about that. The last thing I remember is that I left all the lights on, so that I would see her better if and when she decided to come back. When she burst into the livingroom, having read my notebook, Lauren turned the lights back on. She must have turned them off after she picked up my knapsack.