About the Author

First Chapter

It was a dark and rainy day. Perfect for a romantic beginning in a novel. But even though I was an author I was just working at a newspaper here in London. "Thirty minutes, half a page, about the accident yesterday. The one with the white girl. Hurry, hurry, little monkey." Ruby, my boss, left my office right after interrupting my conversation with Peter. The old man and I sighed. This woman was such a racist. I was still wondering why she let me work here, although she didn't like me. At all. Not only was I a Filipino, but she also didn't like me for being asexual. To her something like not wanting to have sex at all didn't exist. The fact, that I am homo romantic, just seemed to make her think of me as a "faggot" even more.

"I hate... no... I don't like this beast of a woman!" Peter rolled his eyes and stood up from the desk he was leaning on.

"Tell me about it", I laughed.

"Seems like you have got some work to do. I guess, this is where I leave. See you at break." Then he left.

I finished the article with ease. The fun fact about our newspaper was that it just stole the information from other newspapers by hacking into their system. Not as if I was unhappy that I just had to open some sorted files and got the information I needed, but I definitely feared the day they'll find out about this. Later on, Peter came in and brought me some coffee.

"Extra strong and extra hot, just how you like it", he winked at me.

"Was this an allusion to Chris?"

"Maybe."

Chris was our trainee at Sports. He was a trained young man, twenty years old, really kind and his skin was just as dark as my coffee. The only reason why Ruby let him work here was that she didn't have much sex lately and was very impressed by his muscular structure. I totally understood that. Guys like Christian were somehow the reason why I am not aromantic to be honest. But I didn't know if he was into men too or if he even was a less sexual person.

"Sporty men are mostly very into sex", said Peter with his strong German accent as if he could read my mind. "Don't let anyone force you to do things you feel uncomfortable with."

"Uncomfortable like working for a racist beast?"

We laughed and I sent the outcome to my boss -she loved correcting my articles as every mistake I made was a better reason for her to dislike me. Peter and I left my office talking about nonsense when a woman ran into me, grabbed me and cried on my shoulder.

"Veronica?" The blond haired women looked up to me. Her make-up was ruined and her hair was just as wet as her face. "I'm pregnant, Ian!"

"Wow! Wait a second! What!? Did you talk to Nick?"

"No."

"Why? And why are you telling me? You know I need to tell him now. He's my best friend!"

Veronica cried even more. Hoping that Ruby won't hear her whining, I told Peter to go and grab some lunch with Chris and took the desperate woman to my office. She sat down on a chair in front of my desk and cleaned her face with a tissue as decently as this was possible without a mirror.

"Do you think he's going to be very mad at me?"

I didn't try to hurt her or make it even worse. To be honest, I really liked her for some reason. She sure was a prostitute but she didn't consume drugs and she was an exemplary vegan. But most important she donated money for modern researches about medicine for people suffering a pet allergy. [A pet allergy is a hypersensitivity reaction to proteins of domestic animals.] No wonder that she was so sympathetic to me, as I am allergic to pets, or more exactly, to their proteins. But I am a very honest person too. At least most of the time.

"He would totally freak out. I mean... You're sleeping with a lot of men for money and then you come back from work and you're pregnant from a stranger. How would you react?"

She stared at me with an expression that said: "I know you're right. I'm fucked." Literally. "Should I tell him? Get a abortion? Commit suicide?"

"First of all calm down!"

Gosh, why are all the women I know so overly dramatic? I tried to think of something that might help her.

Someone knocked at the door. It was Chris. He came in with a towel and two cups of coffee. I smirked. He was always there for everyone. So innocent and naive, thought he was like four inches taller than me, I felt like I needed to protect him from this cold world and all the people out there sexualizing everyone and everything. Christian gave Veronica the towel and one cup of coffee. The other one was for me.

"Thank you." She seemed so glad that I was afraid she would start crying again. But she didn't. I asked Chris about Peter and what he told him. "Actually nothing. I just saw her running towards you and she was so wet and cold, I thought it might be a good idea... You know?"

"It was a very good idea", I admitted. After he left the room, I looked at Veronica seriously. "Are you sure?"

"About what?"

"Being pregnant."

"No. But I am late with my period..."

"How late?"

"Two weeks."

"Shit."

Again, she had tears in her eyes and tried to hide them by blinking them away. I felt kind of sorry for her and even more for Nick. He really loved her and it would definitely break his heart, if Veronica really was pregnant. But I bet she knew this. I just didn't really get why she came to me in the first place. It's not like we had much contact before. I only saw her when I picked up Nick for playing cards and drinking beer.

"I can't go home like this", she whispered and looked so totally helpless that I couldn't resist inviting her to my place. Later on I would definitely regret this, but for the moment it was the best thing I could think of.

~

Veronica told Nick she was going to spent the night at a friend's house and came to my place after I finished work. While I took a shower, she volunteered to cook dinner and I was not opposed to it at all. We watched a movie together and drank some wine while she told me the whole story about how she realized that she was very late on her period. I could not help but realize how attractive and smart Veronica actually was. I would not say that she was extremely intelligent but we all know jokes about fair haired women or women in general. She was definitely not that way. She wasn't of the girly kind either, not even lady like. Veronica really was cool, had a lot of self-confidence and was a brilliant cook. I started to think about the fact that she came to me in the first place as something good. Not only, because I got to know her better as a person, but as my best friend's girlfriend. We never really talked much before and this time she told me everything. From her bad childhood to her parents death just a couple of weeks after she turned nineteen. Now she was twenty nine and had undergone a lot of shitty relationships before she got to know Nick. Actually, the only reasons why she started prostitution were that she couldn't stand to be alone at night and that she loved the thrill of having sex with strangers. For a moment I was very worried about all the bad things that happened to her and nearly wanted to tell her to go and talk to a professional about how her slight addiction to sex and her traumatic childhood are responsible for each other. But she assured me that she was totally fine. That's all I remember of that night. We talked until 2am and then I got so drunk - I nearly drank two bottles of wine - that I woke up, with a severe headache and a pretty strong black out about what happened, the next morning. I knew, I was right about regretting this.