[Author's Note: - for those who are confused, I had to delete the special announcement chapter to maintain the continuity of the indexing of story chapters. I am sorry about the confusion. The story will continue from here on with its regular indexing.

Thanks again to all those people who read this, it is a very big deal for me and I will be forever grateful to you all.

Hope you are all safe and having a nice day

Love,

Norma Jeanne]

The hours I spend in bed in the mornings with my eyes wide open and staring out the window are only punctuated by the periodic occurrence of a Sikh man jogging on the lane which my bedroom window overlooks. At first I thought he must be in his 30s but the white in his beard points to a middle aged man who has been motivated enough to look after his body. His hard-core discipline can be ascertained from the fact that exactly at 6:10 AM he crosses my window with a sprightly jog and re-crosses it at precisely 6:55 AM. Once I worked out this pattern I used it to mark the passage of time every morning as I struggled to get out of my bed. For the first three days it was on account of the London weather: sluggish and grey and cold. But when it changed into a miserable sunshine, I found myself even worse off. I didn't escape California to have the sun scream at my face every morning. My eyes faced the burden of every new day with swollen lids and the marks of dried tears high on my cheek bones added an extra layer of lazy heaviness. I would smell the breakfast everyday at the same time and use that as a sentinel to determine the departure of papa for his office.

It was around 11 I would finally take some pity on myself and heave out of the blankets. Usually it would be because of a strong urge to pee, but pity was always there.

I felt a bit better, even when I had nothing better to do now. Maybe it was a consequence of being in close proximity to the place of your birth, but my mind was too cynical to believe in something like that. I rationalized it me finding comfort in running away from something that I don't understand.

Once I was over the regular morning routines, I would pack a couple of sandwiches and just walk around the city. I would hail taxis, board the overcrowded tubes, aimlessly order myself around to new randomly generated destinations with not a shred of plan. I wasn't worried about getting lost in this dense nucleus of a city because I have spent a lot of summers here for as long as I can remember. Even though I was here after 2 years, and London is a city that is always under excruciating construction, I had a bizarre sense of confidence in my ability to navigate new roads, or I just didn't care much. I would take taxi rides from one corner of the city to diametrically opposite one. Travel the longest possible route of tube, or at least attempt to. Slip into side-alleys and narrow lanes until they produce some grimy bricked wall. Even then I would pause there and consider if I could smash through this wall and keep going on. In hindsight this behavior of mine surprised me a little, because it never crossed my mind that I was very vulnerable to become a crime statistic from the way I went about roaming the city. Maybe I didn't think about it much because these excursions were always in broad daylight (if you can call it that in London), and I naturally avoided lanes with less than 5 people in it.

But walking around a musty city wasn't all I did. This urban hermit would sit for hours in sunshine-deprived libraries, reading and re-reading the same 5-6 books, or just sitting and looking at the people around me. At first it seems like they all changed every day and no person frequented the library for two consecutive days and to an extent this was true. But soon enough I observed, like with the jogging Sikh, a pattern. There were 2-3 college boys diligently bent over their books and notebooks with headphones on. There were another small group of men laboring over their laptops wearing cheap yet crisp formal wear. The latter never stayed for more than 30 minutes while the former were almost religious in the way they visited the library. One could tell very easily that this was one of the few, if not only places in their lives where they had the luxury of uninterrupted silence to study or meditate. I always felt like a fraud there. Like the runaway convict who takes refuge in a simple church of a small village to avoid consequences for his actions. The worst part is that he never does.

When this would turn morbidly boring (or painfully self-conscious), I would hop around the cafes and restaurants where I would spend endless humid afternoons downing cups of coffee into my bottomless empty dark soul. I would after a few days carry my laptop around for the off chance that I might be struck by a lightning flash of creative inspiration. The libraries proved to be impotent in this respect but a crowded café with loud over-excited tourists and the jaded domiciled ended up being my comfort zone for typing. It was in many of such cafes where the embryo of this text itself was conceived. I would spend 4-5 hours without moving typing away my experiences of the past one year. It was of course extremely unorganized and the opening sections of the texts seemed like the pages of the diary of a bratty teenager writing her diary for the sole purpose of someone reading it. But after a few days I would get rid of the judgmental voyeur living rent free in my head as my thoughts started to be more and more streamlined and natural.

After spending long daylight hours in such a facsimile of productivity, I would go back home, stow my laptop and after a quick shower leave home again for a drink. After a few days our housekeeper stopped asking me if I would stay for dinner because I almost never stayed for dinner. I would start initially with a couple of beers and something light for dinner. The crowds and noises were weirdly calming to me senses. But this lasted barely for a few days. Soon enough my body, with its intellectual and physiological needs somewhat satisfied would seek a different kind of gratification. I tried to lay off the cigarettes but progress there was very patchy and uneven. I tried to be a little bit optimistic about romance but all such notions were thoroughly sanitized courtesy whiskey and tequilas and the monster that fed on it.

My initial insistence on keeping it romantic would make the first two dates one of the most deadening experiences of my life. I can't even tell them apart because they both were essentially interchangeably bland. Even the way they thrusted themselves inside me seem too similar- I remember lying down on my back with the second guy, staring at his bedroom ceiling and wondering if this wasn't some preordained psychological torture where I was doomed to live the same awful and uneventful day over and over again a la 'Groundhog Day'.

I would thereon decide to dispense away with anything that had to do with the severely outdated norms and convention of courtship and just jump right into it. I didn't had the energy to allot even the smallest amount of mental real estate to any man that didn't intrigued me. I mean, Aidan did intrigue me but even that ended up in a disaster. I deleted my tinder during my walk of shame back to home (this one conveniently lived near Islington). I would also reduce my frequency of visiting bars to twice or at most thrice a week as I was slowly and gradually making progress with my manuscript. I would try to limit my alcohol intake but in hindsight I wasn't as strict in enforcing that limit as I should have.

But the one thing I definitely do not regret is the regular inflow of one-night stands that I had. So fundamentally different were they from the disastrous effort in technology-driven matchmaking that I still consider them as one of the healthiest exercise my libido ever undertook till that point in my life. With every pianist, theatre actor, banker, blogger, sailor, coder, chef, salesman, guitarist, cricketer, surgeon, indie-movie producer, make-up artist, model etc I found myself in bed with; my longstanding and unquestioned belief in monogamy and romance would sharply strip away. I was initially a bit scared about coming clean about my intentions but the alcohol fuelled my bravery and I surprisingly found majority of them quite understanding. Once the elephant in the room was acknowledged and shown the exit, the resulting trysts would be one of the most intense meditative experiences of my adult life. I was able to focus on the man of the moment in a way that didn't overpower my soul and yet was quite respectful and friendly of him. No matter what backgrounds they came from, what jobs, religious beliefs or opinions they held, once stripped off of their clothes they would be at the same level as mine. And in that moment I felt a gratification that I have not felt in a long time. It was then that I realized how stupid I have been regarding sex, conflating it with the illusion of romance, a consequence of being fed the rom-com drug since girlhood. I was disabused of the notions of 'love at first sight' and 'soul mate' in my late teens itself but I didn't realize that I still held onto many unfair expectations in a very unconscious manner. I was making incompatible associations between what I really wanted and what I thought I wanted. In these one-night stands I found the romance of a thousand lifetimes without any pretensions of fake emotionality and skewed power dynamics. I would no longer wait coyly for the man to take initiative as I was rarely patient enough. When anyone would show reluctance or downright rejection, I would thank them and move away- I was functioning with a bizarre sense of discipline and felt like I couldn't waste a single second of this English summer on someone who was not going to be interested because at that time I thought that I will have to go back to California after mum's wedding. For some reason I thought that I wouldn't be able to continue these trysts of mine in America. I would say that it was the disconnect of the place that made me so engaged, but I am no psychologist.

All this to say that these endeavors were not completely risk free. The biggest threat to this all was the dirge of the married man. I was again lucky enough to spot them early on, when a flirting stock broker one night was whispering drunken passions in my ear while I spotted a tan line on the right finger of his right hand. I remember practically jumping out of my bar stool and splashing his large face with the remainder of my red wine. I even paused to consider smashing the glass on his face but I remembered the owner of the bar who has on multiple occasions helped me into a taxi in my very inebriated state and gave very precise instructions to the driver, and the thought of damaging his property on the account of a scum bag seemed unfair.

Another potential threat that loomed over me was that of the psychopathic rapist and/or killer, the various descendants of the very British Jack the Ripper who believed in inflicting a very inhumane 'punishment' for what is a very humane aspect of society. There would always be the threat of some predator noticing me leaving the bar every night with a strange man and never being seen with them again and perceiving it as the perfect guise for his monstrous urge to punish a basically innocent woman by projecting his unfounded ire onto her.

This is tried to remedy by employing an algorithm wherein I would try not to frequent the same bar twice in a row. I was very proud of myself over this but I soon realized that it was too rudimentary- the bars and pubs were not geographically scattered enough for a local to not notice this pattern and honestly, nothing that we do as humans is as random as we would like to think.

I therefore applied some more precautions on the interactions that I was having with potential lovers of the night. I would focus all my attention towards the body language of the man, every little movement he made every nervous tick he had in response to any of my question- I would quite meticulously make extensive mental notes of it and run multiple analyses to try and figure out the status of threat he might pose. I was of course, wrong many times. Not in a tragic way but rather in a funny way. I was extremely wary of one ginger lumber-jack type man, 6 feet 5 inches with the built of a jacked whale. His eyes were always wide open and seemed to never blink. I to this day don't know what kind of death-wish gripped me because I remember going to his flat despite all these signs that my senses were very loudly warning me against. I have to be a very outrageous kind of lucky because the red-haired monster of a man broke down, quite in conjunction with his ejaculation and when after giving him a few moments of dignity to compose himself back I tried to get up from the bed he held me down with surprising gentleness and requested that he let me cuddle for a while.

"I like the lavender smell of your hair" he murmured a few minutes before he was softly snoring.

All this was of course more than just fun and games. One night late in July I met Dean, a literary agent from Canada who was a far better listener than he was a kisser. The one and only time I hooked up with him was positively boring but I still decided to stay overnight owing to a particularly interesting conversation we were having pre-coitus. I waited around for morning and made two omelettes and a jug of coffee. He was probably roused by the smell and was pleasantly surprised by seeing me standing in his kitchen while I welcomed him to the day by restating an assertion I made last night over the last pint of beer I was having with him. He sat down at the dining table while continuing the conversation with the same energy and enthusiasm as last night's.

Our conversation went on as he didn't even noticed that he was putting another jug of coffee into the machine as both of us were utterly engrossed in it. He dropped me off at my home and while I was fulfilling the formalities of a singularly pleasant one-night stand, he said

"I really enjoyed your company Lizzie"

"Yeah me too" I replied smiling.

We both sat there wondering what physical action would be appropriate to append onto this civility. I don't know about him but I remember the long winding conversations more than the sex, which didn't last beyond 7 minutes. He has just been divorced a few months ago, was it because of that? When I tried to picture him in the virtual harem of my previous partners, I felt the bitter pull of sadness and potential regret. I didn't want to date him; I just wanted to have more conversations with him.

I tried to massage these feelings into a coherent sentence that would serve the purpose of me showing interest in him but not as a lover. God, not at all as a lover. I dread the mere thought of kissing him again ever.

He probably saw this see saw of emotions reflected on my face as he gently pressed my shoulder and said,

"Hey, don't stress about it. We don't have to hook-up. I would love to see you soon anyways."

It was such a simple thing to say, and he said it with such an ease. I recalled the last 12 hours I spent with him and felt like in a very, very long time I talked to an old friend. Even if the circumstances in which we met weren't exactly, shall we say, ideal, I still wanted to see him. Not have crazy adventures with him or indulge in gut-wrenchingly emotional moments, but like two old friends sit on a park bench with him like two bookends and enjoy a balmy summer evening.

I hugged him and gave a quick peck on his cheek after giving him my phone number and ran inside the house. I joined papa for breakfast for the first time since I arrived here.

The ordeal continued after that but my visits to the library became less and less frequent. Also was reduced the range of cafeterias I used for my writing. I now alternated between 2-3 cafes as all the outdoors one were rejected in favor of a more quieter, office like character.

It was in one of these cafes when I got a call from Dean after a few days of our first meeting, asking where I was and if he could meet me. I got a bit nervous as I thought that he has changed his mind about our friendship and wanted to pursue something that I didn't want. But on the basis of the goodwill established between us I agreed and sent him my location.

He arrived within an hour and my doubts were promptly assuaged as he seemed to be in a very professional mood. His face was flushed and despite having that welcoming smile he had a very stern expression.

"You want some coffee?" I asked as soon as he settled.

"I don't think I have the time" he said while gazing in his wrist watch, "I will keep it short."

"Okay" I said nervously smiling as I started to shut my laptop down but he interrupted that motion of mine.

"Actually," he continued holding the screen of my laptop, "it is about your writing. You were telling me the other day that you are working on a couple of manuscripts?"

"Oh," I was bewildered, "yes I am but… I don't think the one about the Jazz age is going anywhere and…"

"What about the one you're working on now?"

"Well…" I hesitated as this was very embarrassing for me, "I don't know about this…"

"What is it about?" he asked in a very serious, straightforward manner, looking intently into my eyes.

"Umm…" I felt like the biggest idiot on the planet in that moment, "it has barely been a month since I'm working on it… it is about me.. sort of I suppose… about my experiences…"

"How much have you written?"

"Let me see" I said as I scrolled up frantically. I couldn't even believe that I never paused to went back and see my work for the second time.

"Some 200 pages, I suppose?" I replied nervously. He knitted his brows and thought about something.

"Why do you ask?" I said with a nervous laugh to kill the awkward silence.

"How would you like for me to represent you as your agent?" he said.

"What?" I said, very visibly surprised by this proposition that came out of nowhere.

"I googled you after our meeting and read all your articles you wrote for that magazine. I think you are really good at what you do and if you would like I can get you in touch with some book editors who might be interested in your work."

"But my current manuscript is very different from my financial articles" I said, "it's not even non-fiction, technically. It is fiction"

"How about this," he said calmly, "you email me the manuscript and we will see what we can do with that. If it is something doable then we will continue. If not, we will work on something else. Deal?"

I wondered whether I should. He and I were talking as partners in that café that day but I still had my apprehensions about someone who I met barely a week ago to trust my manuscript with. But on the other hand this newfound opportunity would have been a godsend for me had it come my way a year ago.

"It's okay" he said finally smiling in a long time, "I get it, you have your doubts. Don't worry; take your time to think over it. If you decide to send me the manuscript, I will test you my email. In case you don't, it's okay too" he said as he stood up and looked at his watch again. Before he turned around to leave, he paused for a few moments and said, "I hope to see you soon Lizzie"

I had my dinner at home that night in a very long time as it sat on my table while I kept staring at the open doc file on my computer. After what seemed an eternity's worth of time, which was enough to make my dinner cold, I finally leaned forward and opened my mail.

I typed in his email and the subject but before attaching the file added a watermark, you know, just in case.