What makes me wake up in a sweat in the middle of the night and keeps me awake for an hour until I read a few pages to make myself tired, or I even have to resort to more drastic measures? What makes me lie there like paralysed and I start racking my brain to come to terms? It's not my love life, not at all, it's my drama project which will end soon with three public performances. How much I am afraid of failing, after all these years of success. The only thing I can do is hope for the best - and lie awake.

"Timo seems to be an ideal companion for you at this time, so much so that some may say "where's the catch"?", is what a good, very experienced friend wrote to me in his most recent comment. Yes, if you know what life is like, this is a good, appropriate question: where is the catch? Because it becomes more and more obvious to me that there is one. Have you noticed, too? What is the catch?

What I like a lot about Timo is how he behaved back in school yesterday, because he neither treated me overly familiar nor did he always stay close. He just behaved like a friend, greeted me with a warm smile, but in a way that noone could have guessed that there was a more intimate relationship between us. I was very greatful for that, because there is nothing more unnerving than a colleague you have had sex with and then he starts behaving as if he is family, mixing himself into conversations, touching you whenever he can and even starting to make decisions for you.

A question which seems of general interest because I was asked it more than once: Is he a good lover? Yes, he is. He is certainly patient, enduring, he can enjoy without becoming frantic and exalted. Like a good meal, slowly, quietly, savouring all the various tastes and textures as a sensual pleasure. And after the act he does not roll over and sleep, or start yawning like most, or talk about anything irrelevant, but he makes the good vibes linger for more than only a moment, which I like very much. What I particularly like about him is that he does not seem to be too much spoilt by pornography: he has not got a hundred porn films in his head which he wants to reenact like so many, and he did not insist on a series of different positions one after another.

In other words: he is a nice, lovable man - and he is single, was never married before and he seems to be open for what his future is presenting him with. Before someone asks: No, his cock is not particularly big, about average I would say, but he knows what to do with it and where to put it to give the right kind of pleasure. And because he is a healthy non-smoker with moderate drinking habits, his cum just tastes wonderful.

Oh how I enjoyed these two wonderful days. The sun was shining from a dark blue sky and although there is precious little snow on the slopes this year, the conditions were just fantastic. On Saturday night we were out; it's been a long time since I was dancing so tirelessly half through the night. And I admit it was me who was making the first step towards a wonderful second part of the night when I told Timo that I would not lock my door later.

Yes, Timo, and you might say this went pretty fast - but it didn't really. We had already been talking all day Friday during this further education day, and again in the hotel on Friday evening after arriving. (For those who have asked: he is 42). The others had said they wanted to go partying already then, but Timo and I just felt like a meal so there was enough time go on with our conversation, and it kept us awake until the hotel bar was closed.

So when he came into my room, undressed and lay beside me at three o'clock early on Sunday morning, he was not a stranger any longer but a dear friend about who I knew quite a lot and who knew even more about me. And I don't know if he would have done anything more than snuggle agaist my back and and hold me in his arms if I had not turned towards him and dived down under the counterpane to give him an good long blowjob, after which he said that now we were bonded for life, because it was the first time ever a woman had done this to him.

I won't be long tonight. In a few moments I'll go over to Elsie's for Thursday Jacuzzi (it does not seem dead yet). Tomorrow I will be in school all day: it's a special further education day for the staff while the students are off because it's carneval. Some of the colleagues said they'd come in disguise directly from the parties. As the weather report for the weekend is very good, I might go off skiing with some colleagues (not the party lot!!)already tomorrow after school. So don't be worried if you don't see me around here until Sunday night or Monday morning - I'll be enjoying snow and fun and I'll be with you again soon.

I went next door at school yesterday afternoon to ask Annalena's substitute if he had any news of her, but he said he was sorry he didn't even know her. He had been asked to take over the job at very short notice, about three days before the end of the holidays, and as he had had time, he had agreed. It seems he's a distant relative of our headmaster's wife - that's how you usually get jobs: they try to find someone at short notice because some space has opened, and if you do well, they may keep you later. It seems that he usually does not teach and hasn't had a regular committment before.

Well, he seems pleasant enough; he said his name was Timo, and when I introduced myself he said with a smile that he knew and that he had heard a lot of me already (whatever this may mean ...). But he seems to be a guy who can look straight into your eyes when he talks to you, and I quite like that. I will phone Annalena later and ask her if she cares for me to see her over the weekend. If yes, I will visit her maybe on Saturday.

"Postinor" is the name of what we call here "die Pille danach", which just means "the pill after" in German and is designed to stop you from becoming pregnant after unprotected intercourse (see www.pille-danach.at if you want to improve your German). So much I found out early on Saturday morning, together with the information that it was most efficient when taken withing 24 hours. I also found out that Austria is one of the very few countries in Europe where you only get the magic pill on a doctor's prescription.

Now it was Saturday morning in winter, and I soon found out that both my family doctor and my gynecologist were away skiing for the weekend (and if I could come again next week). So I thought that because I couldn't wait any length of time, I'd go to the emergency ward of the local hospital. There I came across a fairly young woman doctor who was on duty maybe because all the other more senior and experienced doctors also wanted to go skiing, one of those insecure, though haughty half-godesses in white who you find in every hospital aplenty.

When I told her that I needed a prescription for Postinor, she started to lecture me about contraception and that I had better use a condom during sex than come for the "pill after". She made me look as if I had had sex for the first time in my life and had no idea how to deal with it. In my impatience with her I told her I was fairly familar with sex and had it regularly, but that it was kind of an emergency because something had happened against my will.

This was obviously a mistake, because she said she was obliged to report all cases of to the local police, and that she would phone them at once to discuss further measures and examinations like looking for the DNS of my attacker and vaginal injuries. She didn't want to believe me that I was not really a victim, because she could not imagine how else then anything could have happened against my will.

So I finally had to tell her what exactly had happened. And I found out that she was much more than only a doctor as I had thought, but also a judge, a priest and a guardian of public morals. How very, very disgusting: an almost middle-aged, unmarried PhD, teacher and educator of innocent little children fucks around in a swingers club. Tut, tut, tut - where has this world come to ...

So I finally told her that I had not come for a sermon but for a prescription, and it was not my fault that she was such a skimpy, sexless thing without imagination, and that I knew a few important people (oh my God, Alpina!) who would make her feel sorry for ever being on emergency ward duty on a Saturday morning.

And so I got my pill - and took it.

Elsie says I'm crazy to feel responsible for what has happened to me in the club, after I echoed depotguy's opinion that "we teach others how to treat us" and added that I possibly just did this on that night. Because up to now I have never had any problems with people sexually trying to take advantage of me. So I possibly am to blame: if you behave like a victim, you're bound to be treated like one.

Elsie thinks this is just hogwash: there are strict rules in a club and if someone violates them so flagrantly, he should be tarred and feathered in any case, if not castrated. It is typical female behaviour in such a situation, she says. While a man will direct his aggressions outward and attack whoever is violating his integrity, society has educated us women to direct our aggressions towards ourselves and feel guilty. It is time for me to seek professional help, or I will soon start cutting myself or stop eating properly or do any other thing psychologically harmed people come up with, and this would be no fun.

You notice that Elsie can be quite a psychologist at times, particularly when she is not personally involved. But am I also a good patient?

The morning of a new day: Morning routines. I get up, switch on my Italian espresso machine, slip out the front door still in my panties to get my morning paper (remember the day last year when I fell on the ice and almost got hurt, and old Mr. Schneider - may his soul rest peace - was looking on?) Then I have my coffee, read my paper, and I turn on my computer to see what's gone on at NN. This morning I found three very thoughtful comments referring to poor Annalena; they touched my heart. There were also two wonderful messages by some special friends - I am awaiting them particularly eagerly because they are experienced and wise and help me see myself in a clearer light. I should not have left for two weeks - I am sure you could have helped my better than anyone else.

"For your friend with lung cancer, the most you can do for her is to visit her as often as you can. Too often people desert their friends because they can't stand to look at their emaciated bodies and feel awkward about them having a death sentence while you are alive and well. Alpina, it is most important that you visit her now, more than ever", one of them from far Australia wrote. Yes, I will do this, it's so important not to forget. How many of those who heard yesterday that she has left our school will bother to ask why? I fear very few - life goes on mercilessly. I will try to do my best, even if this is little in her situation.

Only now I'll have a shower and get dressed and I am ready to take on my day.

Annalena - I have never mentioned her in my blog so far - has been teaching the same subjects like me for many years, just next door from my classroom. We have been good colleagues, which means that we talk almost daily, mostly about professional matters, and a private word now and then. She is in her forties, married, but without children.

She stayed home about two weeks ago because of a backache and couldn't teach the few days before the holidays. I didn't think much about it at the time. This morning I heard a male voice from her classroom. Someone else has taken over her lessons. Annalena has been reported to have left the school.

I phoned her during the lunch breach. The person who answered the phone only distantly sounded like ever-cheerful Annalena. She had gone to the doctor immediately because of her backache. He x-rayed her and then sent her to the local hospital for some extra examinations. A biopsy was performed. At the beginning of the holidays she got the doctors' verdict: Lung cancer. Her back aches stem from matastases which have already reached her spine. She is considered beyond surgery.

Radiation and chemotherapy set in at once. It reduced her to a constantly vomiting wretch, she told me. Her hair is falling out in tufts. She has begun to feed on morphines, of which she can get as much as she wants. There will not be enough time for her to become addicted to it, according to the doctors.

The phonecall left me sad and speechless. Poor Annalena. And I thought I was having problems. And now it's too late for me to do anything for her - like being a better friend, or invite her now and then, or even listen to her more attentively when she tells me this or that in the staffroom. Just too late.

In the end I put on a pullover and some jeans all the same in the late afternoon, as Elsie phoned and then came over to my house. We didn't speak about my predicament too long, she is still too full of what she experienced in the club. I saw her almost daily in the week following our visit, because she wanted to make sure that all was well with me. But now it's alright that she and her own adventures take up centre stage - and all is still so very much alive in her memory. After some initial awkwardness, she had thoroughly enjoyed the evening - until it was interrupted by the before mentioned unfortunate development.

I had to smile about Elsie - she reacted so differently to the events in the club. While for me it is basically an introspective experience - I just let myself fall and passively enjoy being played with by many people at a time - it was much more of a social event for her. She remembers everything and everybody so vividly and can speak about their physical assets and what she did with who for any lengths of time. She said that when she looked over she was sometimes almost afraid for me, how much they were tearing into me just lying there, helpless with forlorn lust, one instigating the others to collectively victimize me even more.

She didn't say that I was calling for what happened - but I had thought of this long before. If you become a thing for someone, you might get treated like a thing. And that's what the guy had said, as his woman was grinning on the scene: that I was just a dirty fuckhole that he had filled. Of course other people told him off and reported him to the management. He was not a regular and will not be admitted there any longer, but I was there for the last time, too. Just a dirty fuckhole - how terribly awful - any yet how close to what makes my dark Sister Hyde lose her mind ...