I was still a long way from my apartment when I became too exhausted to go on walking, and so like an idiot I ended up taking a taxi back. And then I dropped off into a deep sleep, I was sucked into a darkness that was perfectly black, in which I had no thoughts at all. A sleep so profound it was as if some switch had been flicked off.

Nothing exists in this world but me and my bed. . . .

*    *    *

Suddenly the telephone rang, jolting me from sleep. Already sunlight was streaming through the window, and the room was bright.

It's him. I lifted the receiver.

“Have you been out?” he asked immediately.

His voice sounded strange, different from usual.

“No.”

I glanced at the clock. It was two in the afternoon. I couldn't believe how soundly I'd slept. I'd gone to sleep long before midnight the night before.

The voice that came through the receiver sounded unconvinced.

“You've really been there all along?”

“I really have. I was asleep.”

“I called a few times, but you didn't pick up. It seemed kind of odd.”

He sounded as if he still wasn't quite sure what to think. I was pretty surprised myself. Here I'd been thinking I had these supernatural powers . . . maybe they've started breaking down? It had never even occurred to me that things might progress to the point where I'd no longer be able to tell when my boyfriend called; that hadn't even seemed like a possibility. I started feeling extremely uneasy. But I spoke cheerfully even so.

“God, I didn't even notice. I just went right on sleeping.”

“Oh. Anyway, you and I didn't get to talk very much yesterday, so I thought maybe we could get together again tomorrow. . . .”

My boyfriend was generally pretty blunt, but he'd never come right out and suggest that we go spend the night somewhere or say that he wanted to have sex with me or anything like that. That was another thing that I kind of liked about him.

“Okay, that'll be fine.”

I never tell my boyfriend that I'm busy when I'm not. No matter how effective they are, cheap techniques like that just don't agree with me. So it's always okay, it's always all right. In my opinion the surest way to hook a man is to be as open with him as possible.

“I'll get a room, then,” he said, and hung up.

Once again I was alone in my apartment. It was late in the afternoon. Too much sleep had left me feeling a little dizzy.