In the kitchen, the onion soup was steaming on the stove. I stood in my small bathroom and brushed my hair through, absently looking at my reflection in the mirror. Asuma Sarutobi.. How long had I not thought about him? Actually, he had already stolen enough time of my life and I really shouldn't deal with him any further, but I just couldn't get him out of my head. Just like back then. I had wasted three months with him, during this time I was indulging in the idea of how lucky I was to complain that a guy like him wanted a girl like me. Shit, what a crush I had on him. And not even just a crush, I'd been obsessed with him until my feelings had ended in an unhealthy mania that had dropped me much deeper than I needed to in the end.

Sighing, I tied my short hair into a shaggy ponytail, which really did nothing more than just stick out from the back of my head like a fluffy dumpling, and poured the onion soup into a cereal bowl. I put it on the coffee table in my festively decorated living room and turned on my TV, where I started some YouTube video that one of my subscribed channels had uploaded today, and just as I was about to dedicate myself to the hot soup and the quiz show of my favorite YouTuber in my plush rotten clothes, I paused.

Shit.

He just didn't let me rest. Was worse than every ear worm.

I put the bowl back on the table and crawled over the large stool, which contained bedding for any guests, to the high cupboard, in the lower door of which I found a box. There was everything in there that I had used to consider valuable, and that nowadays only gave me a strange nostalgia boost, which I've actually had enough of today. Immediately, the plastic horns I had worn at Konan's 25th birthday party fell towards me and elicited a short, memorable smile from me. Welp, that had been an event in itself...

The object I was looking for, however, was directly underneath. After all, it hadn't even been a year since I had dug it out, only to bury it again after a few months in shame. But as was so often the case, you never dug deep enough.

It was an old notebook that I had covered with colorful paper at the time, creative as I was. Between artfully scribbled butterflies on the cover were the words, "The Book of Harlots, by and with Anko Mitarashi" At least I had a certain sense of honesty even then. How right my 19-year-old self had been.

I flipped through the front pages documenting my first time with Pain in the twelfth, the sad date with Shikamaru at the prom, and then my excessive trial and error at the university, until I came to an entry that I had only defaced more than four and a half years ago. There it was,

ARSE-BIRTH

December 21, 2019 to 3/28/20 FUCK YOU!

Asuma, 30 years old

Oh Sensei, I'll do anything for an A~

9/10

The little crown above his entry and this unspeakable "9/10" only made me shake my head. How stupid I had been. He had just fooled me. After only three days he had already confessed his love to Kurenai, another student of his, and after that he slept with me for three months until he broke up with me out of the blue. What a bastard. Arse-birth, as past Anko had so correctly described him.

I struggled out of my crouch, went to my desk in the other corner of the living room and dug out a red pen. Together with my cereal bowl, from which I spooned the hot onion soup, I cowered back on the sofa and while the guys in the video were already at question 4, I started to scribble around in my Book of Harlots again, although I had actually sworn to myself in June that I didn't want to take it out anymore. I scrawled on the crown until it was barely recognizable, and just as pissed off by me and my delusional obsession with this man I crossed out his rating and corrected it with a "3/10". He had a nice body, but otherwise?

I stared absently at his name. Asuma.. Did he actually know what he had done to me? Did he suspect how much I had loved him?

Pah, love..

I slurped some broth.

That had not been love. He had hurt me, sure, but love? Just because he looked good? And – for my completely veiled opinion at the time – had been good in bed? Just thinking about him starting a relationship with Kurenai three fucking days after he finally got involved with me made me sick. And she apparently didn't even know anything about us. Or she completely ignored the fact that he had been unfaithful to her at the time. Or it was okay for her.

Oh, what did I know.

The fact was, Asuma "Arse-birth" Sarutobi was just that, an arse birth. A pile of shit, nothing more. A stinking mountain of excrement that made me sleep with two guys just one day after we broke up, only to get my mind off things. How pathetic was that? How.. pathetic was I, for fuck's sake? In retrospect, it had been pretty stupid to throw myself at Sai and this Shino-dude at this frat party, completely stoned. But now, what should I say? It was still less bad than my equally completely drunken fucking around with random fellow students before or my dissolute, sometimes at least heavily drunk Tinder phase at the beginning of this year, after I had to discover my fucking daddy issues after three years of self-imposed celibacy. "Dissolute sex drive" was honestly still an understatement.

And yet I sat here. Alone, with a cereal bowl full of onion soup, spent my evening watching strangers on the internet as they miserably wanted to answer some questions.

Lost in thoughts, I looked at Sai's entry, which was directly below Asuma's. At least I could say that I felt like I was acting as a springboard for love. Ino, whom I begrudged all the happiness in the world, simply because she was such a kind-hearted and open-minded person, had met the love of her life just three days after my emotional crash. And somehow.. Yes, it hurt me, but fuck, Kurenai really couldn't help what an arse birth her husband was. She also deserved to be loved.

I turned to the first page, where was written at the top,

September 15, 2015

Yahiko, 18 years old

for a first time really no shit

6/10

I smiled a little and wrote next to it, "7/10". No, for a first time it really hadn't been shit. I also found it mean to Konan to rate her husband so comparatively badly. Asuma gets a 9 and Pain a 6? No, that wasn't fair. I wondered how Konan would rate him. She had never been the person for it, neither for a lot of sex or many friends in general. Somehow clichéd that she finds her love at high school. And furthermore, in her closest circle of friends. And EVEN furthermore, also in someone with whom her whoring best friend had to fuck.

With another spoonful of onion soup in my mouth, I leaned back, crossed my arms and tilted my head back.

It was amazing that our friendship had survived that. Usually, you broke down when your best friend started something with your ex. Whereby.. "ex" was too much. Pain and I had fucked only once. It had been shortly before the end of the graduation trip and then, on the way back to Suna, there had been a spark between him and Konan. So I wasn't even angry about it, after all, I didn't feel anything for Pain except platonic love. And it only worked so well between Konan and me because we wrapped the fact that Pain and I had lost our virginity to each other in a cloak of silence.

My head jerked up again. I felt my pulse quicken and the spoon slipped out of my mouth, which landed clattering on the laminate.

Out of a strange impulse, I wrote to Konan,

{ Stiffy, since when have you and Pain been together? }

Not to forget it, because honestly my memory wasn't too reliable, I wrote next to Sai's entry, "4/1/20" and next to that of ass-cramp-cunt-birth Asuma "fucking Christmas 2019".

Konan answered,

{ September 18, 2015 }

I loved this woman. She never questioned anything, was already used to my quirks after all these years. But I could only be happy about her cold-blooded nature for a short time, because the date she had sent me made my heart skip a beat. September 18..? EXACTLY three days after Pain and I had sex?!

And Sai and Ino had met, EXACTLY three days after I had given in to my despair because of Asuma?

And Arse-birth had confessed his love to Kurenai EXACTLY three days after my fall into his and at the same time my hell...?

That..

What kind of weird coincidence was that?

I laughed out loud. Guess I really was the springboard of love. They all fucked me and immediately afterwards enjoyed Cupid's arrow?

Wild.

Could I also find out such a coincidence from the other shameful entries of my long-gone self-destructive rage?

I hated everything. That honestly couldn't be true!

With an unhealthy frown, I hung upside down on my couch, my legs crossed against the wall. The quiz show was long over, my internet stick had switched to stand-by mode and showed me beautiful landscape shots. I didn't care at all. Nor who had won the quiz.

Something was bubbling inside me that I couldn't even name. It was once again a mania that had taken possession of me.

Deep in my thoughts, I stared at the red scribble in my Book of Harlots, which I had artfully put on the lined pages for the past few hours. First of all, based on my rather poor memories, I had adjusted a few of the ratings, which had turned out to be somewhat different than I would see today due to euphoria or the influence of drugs. I had also commented on myself from the past, because honestly, as a young and completely naïve thing, I had been disgustingly superficial and impressionable. But all this was incidental.

Each entry, all fourteen of them, now had another date and small outbursts of my thoughts next to them. There were some that I couldn't be exactly sure about, two I hadn't found on social media and therefore couldn't confirm my theory, but with seven men I'd slept with in the past, I knew when they had found their partner:

Pain, Sai and Asuma, obviously. Hayate on Halloween 2016, Sasuke on October 3, 2017, Naruto on April 19, 2019 – he seemed to be really proud of his wife – and finally Shikaku, who had given a long speech at his second wedding, that he had realized on June 17 of this year that he had had happiness in front of him for a long time. Yes, the speech was on YouTube, after all, it was a big event when a rich and successful businessman like him marries his own ex-wife. And shit, yes, I had first slept with the son and then years later with the father. What did that make me..? Was there a term for something like that I could put in my sticker book of shame with disgusted pride?

They were all proof that coincidence could no longer be a coincidence. It was irrefutable, I was cursed. When I slept with someone, he found his love exactly three days later. Or discovered it. Or whatever. Some got to know her for the first time, some only realized it. Anyway, it was three days for everyone. Even for those about whom I had only been able to obtain vague information, the beginning of the relationship they had maintained since then fell in the period shortly after their sex with me.

With one man? Happened.

With two? Funny coincidence.

With three? Even funnier coincidence.

With seven confirmed and five suspected? Hello?!

Outside, the church bell rang in the distance, announcing midnight.

Groaning, I sank to the side and looked around my living room with a buzzing head. The dregs of the onion soup had become cold and in the meantime my TV had switched off automatically. I wouldn't turn it on again. In six hours, my alarm went off and I had to try to gather as much focus energy as possible to reduce the mountain on my desk in the office, but I should have guessed it, I lay awake all night without even closing an eye.

The results of my insane research haunted my head and robbed me of any faith in any stupid coincidence or whatever. I didn't want to admit it, but it was true. Well, at least that's what I feared right now. There was only one way to be completely sure, I had to check it.

As I stepped out of the elevator in the morning with a completely absent-minded look on my face and my personal arrival melody – 'tell everybody I'm on my way~' – and headed purposefully for the coffee kitchen on my floor, I thought with a completely exhausted brain about what I could do to test my theory. But before I could come to a decision, I ran straight into my dearest favorite colleagues.

"Morning, Beanie," Izumo grinned at me as soon as I had stepped through the open door.

I groaned, but ignored him. It was clear that he only wanted to provoke me. Even without the discovery of my sexual curse, I had no nerve for him and his equally disgusting entourage this morning. Kotetsu sneered at me as well, visibly enjoying the way his bestest buddy teased me, and Kakashi eyed me with a feigned worried expression. "You look like you haven't slept much last night."

I blinked at him with twinkling eyelashes. "What's next? Are you telling me you'd like to be responsible for my lack of sleep because you're so great with your wimp? Hatake, do me a favor and come up with something more creative next time, honestly." Ha, despite overtiredness still quick-witted enough for such fops. I was on fire!

Izumo and Kotetsu bawled in the background as if they were pubescent gun-jumpers and I had said "penis" in class. Kakashi smirked slightly. "Okay, apparently there is no need to worry about your physical condition if you can still open your mouth so wide."

"For you, even a narrow lip opening is enough, if you understand." Actually, I had never wanted to move down to their level of lewd insults, because a healthy working atmosphere was always more important to me than my ego, but today those guys got on my nerves more than usual.

But.. fops? Fucking seriously? Maybe I wasn't THAT much on fire. Sleep, folks..

Kakashi's smirk turned into an almost sly grin. "In the beginning? Certainly. I don't want to get hurt. I'm very sensitive, you know?"

"Awww, is poor, poor Kakashi sensitive?" I teased in an exaggeratedly pitying voice. I shooed him away from the counter with a rude wave of my hand and took my cup out of the wall cabinet. "I'm honestly, really honestly sorry for him." I pushed my lower lip forward, frowned, and rubbed my fists over my cheeks before firing up the kettle and hanging a bag of my beloved fruit tea in the cup. "Turn down your lachrymose volume, others still want to sleep inside."

Kakashi let out a few "kst", shook his head exaggeratedly and leaned backwards against the countertop with his arms crossed, bumping his elbow against my upper arm – certainly intentionally. "I wouldn't have expected that from you, Beanie." I moaned in exasperation and rolled my eyes, he continued to talk undeterred, "Not only do you not want to be helped and you prove once again that you need a gun license for your mouth, no, now you also show how lacking in empathy you are. A shame, really. An angelic person has been lost in you."

My brain worked so sluggishly this morning that I could hardly respond to his side blows, but I took in a detail that made me raise an eyebrow. "You and helping me? Why and to what extent? Where does this amiabilaty suddenly come from? Did I miss something? Has a heart grown in there since yesterday?" I stabbed him in the chest with my index finger.

"Oooh, you don't want to know how big my heart can be," Kakashi purred and tilted his upper body a little to the side, causing him to get much too close to me with his face for my taste. Did Covid teach him nothing?!

I backed away, brushed my hair behind my left ear and devoted myself to my tea by pouring in the water. "As big as other parts of you? Mh." I put my left foot on my toes, braced myself on the countertop with one hand and held the steaming cup in front of my face with the other one to blow into it emphatically while fixing Kakashi's dark eyes over the edge. "That could only disappoint, Hatake, you should stop claim more than you have to offer."

Kakashi's grin widened. "You know, Beanie.." He emphasized this name in a particularly stretched way. „.. I just wanted to offer to make you a coffee because – to put it mildly and forgive my directness – you look like absolute shit. If you don't want to, oookay, okay, but you don't have to aim below the belt right away."

With my eyes narrowed, I blew hard into my teacup once, so that some of the hot liquid spilled out and landed on Kakashi's sleeve. He looked at the damp spot on the coarse knitted fabric, but as I spoke, he raised his eyes again. "Hatake, we've ken each otha fur two years noo, dinnae we? You should know by now that I never drink coffee, not even when it is offered to me so lovingly and big-headedly, oh, of course I mean -heartily, sorry for that fatal mispronounciation."

"Why not?" he asked immediately.

"Why should I?" I replied.

"Because it could help your dark circles, which would be better off in the southern hemisphere if they continue to grow."

"Wow, racist too."

"Black humor, nothing more. You probably heard about it, don't you?"

"I'm familiar with it, yes."

"I thought so."

I snorted contemptuously.

"So?" he asked, frowning.

I knitted my eyebrows together. "So, what?"

"Why don't you drink coffee?" he expanded his question.

"Hatake, honestly, if you're so itchy, you should go to the doctor."

Kakashi grinned again. "You're avoiding me, interesting. Do you have anything to hide, Beanie?"

I snorted again and said, rolling my eyes, "Just me behind a pile of work. If the gentlemen would excuse me now..? I have work to do. And you certainly do too. Just as a reminder, right? After all, you don't get paid to squeeze out." I blew Kakashi a kiss, winked and disappeared from the kitchen. Good Lord, how annoying were these.. jerks? Nah, too hackneyed. I still needed a powerful name for them.

But I couldn't deal with that now. I had work to do, the tower didn't get smaller by itself. So I set about working through it. I actually managed to get through some of the cases, went back to the kitchen two hours later to make another cup of tea, and while the tea was simmering on the counter, I took the opportunity to go one room further and make a few copies of the larger claims. Any insurance sum above $3,000 had to be kept on file in physical form in case of a technical blackout or hacker attack. In my eyes, this was a complete waste of paper, but it was commandment.

On the touch panel of the thick scanner, which I had for some reason named "Olga", I selected the print job of my PC and Olga then threw up two copies each in a hypnotizing rhythm of "Bzzzz-krrchhh". Yeah fuckery-doodle, maybe I should do that more often now and then, in the last week I had accumulated no less than 122 such disbursals. And the guild auld Olga was pretty easy to look after for a printer, which wasn't all that common, but she was also slow as shit, it felt like she was putting each letter together individually. I sighed and fetched my tea from the kitchen.

With my life-affirming "nope. just nope."-cup in hand, I watched the percentage on the screen increase by one every few copies. "Boiiii," I groaned, sipped, grinned and muttered softly, singing, "My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard and they're like, it's better than yours, damn right, it's better than yours..." I blew and took a bigger sip. "A know you wannit~" As if I was at the club, I raised my arms, careful not to shower myself with the scalding hot tea, and gyrated my hips to match the tune in my head. "The thing that makes me~" Olga punctuated my mental concert with her "Bzzzz-krrchhh", I snapped at her as if she were a loyal fan. "What the guys go cra~zy for~" I bit the tip of my tongue. "They lose their minds, the way I wind, I think it's time lala-lalalaa... warm it up lala-lalalaa, the boys are waiting..."

Someone clapped behind me. I flinched, narrowly avoided my death aka a gush of tea and turned towards the door. Leaning in the frame, Mr. motherfucking Hatake had a stack of papers clutched in his armpit and was applauding with a wry grin. "Wow, Beanie, your performance is breathtaking! Do you practice that secretly in front of the mirror at night?"

"Stop bitching on your cheap seat," I nagged and turned my back on him. Olga was already at 86%.

"Heh, I'm serious." His sarcasm reached me before he did. He stepped up next to me, leaned back against the narrow wooden table, which often had messed-up copies flying around because people couldn't be bothered to dispose of them directly in the paper shredder underneath, and crossed his arms, clutching his documents to his chest like a shy schoolgirl. Did he actually think he could impress me with this pose? He never stood any other way. "Can you be booked? I bet you go down well at stag parties, eh?"

I gave him a raised eyebrow before turning my gaze back to Olga. 87%. "You can't afford my person anyway, Hatake."

"How much do you cost?" he asked bold as shit.

Whit the fockin' heck?! I scrunched up my face. "Your soul is the minimum." Come on, Olga, I want to get out of here!

"I'll even give it to you voluntarily, it's worth nothing after a line like that anyway."

"I'm just defending myself here."

"I meant mine," Kakashi replied and when I looked up in surprise, he smiled at me with a twisted mouth. "A question like that is inappropriate, sorry 'bout that."

"You're absolutely right." I turned my attention back to Olga's display. 89%.

Kakashi leaned forward a little and I flinched backwards again. DISTANCE, FOR FUCKS SAKE! His eyes slid up from the screen to my face. "Do you need much longer?" he asked in a neutral tone.

"Why are you pestering me like that if you keep on asking anyway? I understand you quite well from further away," I huffed and drank some of my tea – but had completely forgotten how hot it was and burnt my throat. I swallowed reflexively, tried to catch my breath at the same time, got spit in my windpipe and started coughing uncontrollably. The cup was taken from my hand and I was hit hard on the back. I pushed his arm away from me, held my own in front of my face and turned away from Kakashi to avoid accidentally spraying him with drool.

It took a good twenty seconds before I could breathe freely again and no longer felt like I was choking.

"Is everything okay?" Kakashi asked.

"Mh-hm," I wheezed and cleared my throat. "Everything's fine." My voice sounded like my lungs were about to collapse.

"Sure?"

"Yah, for heaven's sake," I hissed, still with my back to him. I had felt a few tears welling up in my eyes and my mascara wasn't waterproof. I certainly looked unnecessarily stained. I sniffled and rubbed under my eyes. There was indeed a black streak on my finger. Nopes, he shouldn't see me like that. "I'm goin' to be here for a while, so get lost and come back later," I croaked, waving my hand in his direction.

Behind me, Kakashi sighed soundlessly. "You know what? I'll just leave my stuff here, maybe it'll copy itself."

That made me forget any shame. I whirled around, stared at him and asked irritably, "Are you subliminally telling me that you want me to copy this shit for you?"

Kakashi grinned and narrowed his eyes. "Wow, I warned you that you could change nationality soon." Abruptly, I turned around again and tried to rub away my mascara. "But if you're offering yourself like that.. I'll gladly accept the offer, Beanie. Two copies of each, please, that would be fabulous. You'll find me in my office." I heard him click his tongue, loudly compress the pile of paper on the table top and then the soft crunching of the felt carpet as he left the room.

Stunned, I turned around again. Sure enough, the not exactly small pile of sheets was lying next to my teacup. The bastard was out of his fucking mind! I stuck my head through the door and saw Kakashi's wine-red knitted sweater disappear into his office at the other end of the corridor. What an oppertunistic son of a bitch, honestly! He can go whistle hard for it that I was dragging his copies after him just because Olga couldn't get her fat ass up. No, not like that!

With a final "Bzzzz-krrchhh", my print job was finally done. I took out my cell phone, cleaned up my make-up and took a selfie where I winked and kissed my middle finger while his fucking originals smiled into the camera in the background, completely untouched. I sent the picture to Olga's IP, selected it on the touchscreen and had five copies made. However, before the second printout could be ejected, I opened the flap and placed the top sheet at an angle, which caused an artificial paper jam. I then placed Kakashi's documents in the feeder as an alibi, took my own, nodded proudly and left the copy room with my teacup.

Back in my office, I dialed Kakashi's extension with a diabolical grin and when he answered with a curt "Yes?", I simply said, "Job done, boss." and hung up again immediately. Sometimes revenge could be sweet.

But before I could get back to my work, my phone rang. The display showed the five digits I had just called. I rolled my eyes and picked up. "Yes please, busy Anko Mitarashi speaking?"

"Beanie, you know that I was joking."

"Who's talking?"

"Have you seriously copied my stuff now?"

"Why are you asking me when you can make sure for yourself, Hatake?"

"Ey, you sure are something..." Kakashi laughed softly and hung up. Yeah, your fucking perfect office girl. Bastard.

Not wanting to miss his reaction, I scurried to the door, opened it wide, sprinted back to my desk chair and pretended to be engrossed in something on my monitor, although out of the corner of my eye I saw Kakashi's red sweater appear in the doorway, stop briefly and then disappear to the right. I grinned inwardly, but tried not to let it show on the outside. I listened with pricked ears. Most of the staff on the floor kept their doors closed and so it was quite quiet. I could clearly hear the flap of the photocopier opening and closing and then Olga's unmistakable "Bzzzz-krrchhh". Then nothing happened for a while.

I waited expectantly, but Kakashi didn't take too long. That ghastly red color on my retina told me that he was standing in the doorway again. He cleared his throat suggestively.

I raised my eyes, blinking innocently.

"Nice," he nodded and held up my photo. "Did you use this for your application here?"

"Maybe I should have, then at least I wouldn't have had to meet you."

"Hah, always a riot," Kakashi sighed. "Honestly, Beanie. You're wasting good toner on such a silly prank. What will the management think of that?"

"Go ahead and tell on me, Hatake, I have no problem with that. After all, I know in advance when I'm crossing a line and I'm emotionally prepared for it. Can you say the same for yourself?"

"Touché," he grinned, bowed deeply and made a hand gesture as if he were tipping his hat. "I deserve that, I admit. But what do I do with this now? It's hard to put a work of art like this in the waste. Otherwise the color printing was all for nothing."

I repeated the gesture from the photo. "Do what you want with it, Hatake. As if you'd ever give a damn about my opinion."

Smirking, he held up the sheets as if he were comparing the picture on them with the motif. "Yep, I see: almost as graceful as the original. You know what? I'm going to frame one of those and hang it in my office, then I'll have your positive charisma in front of me at all times."

"Don't you do that!"

"Why not? You just told me I can do what I want with it."

"What were you saying earlier? 'You know that I was joking'. If I find even one of these on you, I'll shove it up your ass."

"Hm," Kakashi said, looking at the pictures as if he was seriously considering it. An immense rage was building up inside me again, but then he said, "You talked me into it," came further into my office and threw the sheets into my trash bin. "Next time, just think of something that doesn't waste so much material, Beanie. And don't look so grim, it'll cause wrinkles." I groaned in annoyance. He winked and asked before turning to leave, "Shall I close your door again?"

"Do whatever you want," I growled.

"Don't say that too loudly or I'll listen to you one day." He paused again in the doorway. "Ah yes, before I forget: You still have something under your eye." And with these words, he gave me one last grin and pulled the door shut behind him.

Grimacing, I threw all the middle fingers I could muster towards the door. This bastard was driving me nuts! And then his stupid grin all the time, as if he really enjoyed teasing me. Grumbling, I dug my powder mirror out of my handbag, removed all the mascara residue from my face and returned to my work, which urgently needed to be done. It was just pretty shitty that today, due to my lack of concentration after a sleepless night, this new clash with Sir Fancy-Pants and the uncertainty still nagging at the back of my mind, I couldn't find any energy to help me tackle my tower. It absolutely sucked. I filed all the big applications in their folders, but when I tried to deal with the open ones afterwards, I could barely get a sentence into the keyboard. And when I then heard the pattering of my colleague's feet in front of my office door, who were on their way to their lunch break in small groups, I decided that I wouldn't get any shit today anyway, signed off with my boss and took the bus home.

I desperately needed rest and sleep, but more importantly, I needed clarity. I couldn't be honestly cursed. Right?

As I walked from the bus stop directly through the narrow alley to my neighborhood, I had an idea of how I could get that clarity. I had to use my power or my curse or whatever I wanted to call it in the future, specifically on someone for whom a committed relationship was completely absurd. Aka I had to sleep with someone I knew was a mattress jumper. And I could only think of one man, Genma Shiranui.

That guy was exactly what you imagined by "womanizer", handsome, successful at work, a perfect mix of decent and dirty, basically the best son-in-law material you could find. If only he weren't a dick-controlled narcissist who was so convinced of himself that he single-handedly overshadowed the squish-squirted self-love of my most hated Office-Mares. Yes, that name was quite good, fitted those smooth-crotched windbags. Lovely.

Contrary to all expectations, I had never slept with Genma before. He would be exactly my type with his dark hair, not too defined muscles – I knew from Instagram – and this playful grin, but I had been told that he didn't treat women too well. In bed, yes, no question, but he pissed off afterwards faster than he had even been able to learn their name. At some point on a girls' tour with Konan across a few bars and clubs, he had approached me and given me his Insta profile. We had followed each other, but when I saw that he was a policeman, all interest in him had waned. A cop and such a reputation? I had put my own value above a cheap fuck for once and never contacted him further. However, he didn't have it either, which made it clear to me that it was nothing special when he whispered his in your ear.

But now I opened the chat with him for the first time, in which there was nothing else except the security message at the beginning.

{ Hi, you certainly don't remember me. We once ran into each other in a bar. Would you like to meet me at the weekend? }

Subtle enough? Too subtle? Shit, I've always found it difficult to take the first step in chats. It was so much easier to respond to the men's start – especially when you could break up the match right away, when nothing witty came after a classic exchange of "Hi – Hi – How are you – Good and you – Me too".

But Genma was either polarized to exactly this wavelength or there was a magical connection between us that could make my heart flutter. I guessed strongly on the former.

He wrote,

{ Heeeyy, how could I forget you? ;) }

{ On Friday night I am in the Backroom, the rest of the weekend unfortunately on the road. }

{ But you can join in if you feel like it ;) }

Huargh. Wink smileys. They were on the same level as lung cancer and child poverty. My anticipation of the implementation of this plan did not get any better when I found out after a short Google search that the Backroom was a strip club. Was he fucking serious? So, if I wanted to find out as quickly as possible whether there was something to my jinx, I could go to a strip club and let him fuck me nonchalantly against the wall of a filthy toilet. Did I really want to sink THAT low?!