10 pm - today's work is done - 10 hours since noon, during which I ate once and wrote my blog. The rest of the time was: correcting the last few of the texts of the finals, re-reading all of them, changing a few comments, making a nice parcel to send them to the experts, preparing my three lessons of tomorrow, designing a grammar test for one of them - eight solid hours of work.

Which is now done. I put my things away, walk through my house, It's dark outside. The fire in my living-room has burnt down. I feel drained and empty. There is no sound.

In my bedroom I undress. But instead of under my counterpane, I go through the house again, consciously feel the soft carpet and the cold stone floor with my naked toes. Switch on my computer. Sit down. Write this.

What will I do against that cold feeling inside? Is it a Warm- pullover- night? Or is it a My- fingers- play- with- my- genitals- until- I- fall- asleep- night? I think I'll better make it a Hot- coffee - and- milk- and- then- drop- dead- night - I am so exhausted. My shoulders ache, my thighs and even my breasts are tense. I massage them gently.

My fingers like what they feel. My breasts like what touches them. Make it a My- fingers- night all the same? No, the alarm is due at 5.30 tomorrow.

I'll turn off my computer now, get my milk, walk to my bed with it, lift my counterpane and slip under. Then I'll turn off the light and lie in the dark. I 'll finish my milk - and sleep. Good night.

According to communication and game theories, most games we play are zero-sum games: the winner wins as much as the loser loses, and if you add it up, you will get zero. So someone's profit is another person's loss. There are now games in which both parties can win or both parties can lose: they are called non zero-sum games, and according to theory life is such a game.

I was reminded of this theory when I was sitting together with Elsie last night and having coffee. She had come over to personally invite me to Jacuzzi on Thursday and tell me that they would of course not expect anything from me which I didn't want to do myself. Soon she started again with Joerg and how wonderful a time they were having at the moment, how their sex life was like never before and particularly how Joerg felt like a happy, younger man.

Poor Elsie. Poor Joerg. He thinks he is in a win-win situation, from which all can profit: Tanja gets laid, he can prove how much of a man he is, and Elsie feels good with his good mood. But how close they are to disaster. If Elsie just knew .... she would feel insulted, pack her suitcase, drive to her sister in Klagenfurt and stay there for as long as she felt it was necessary. And she would insist on making all people miserable around her. It takes one word from me, or from someone else who knows, and their whole world collapses for some length of time. Worse, whatever happens, I am the one who should have told, or alternatively should not have told.

So actually I am in an unpleasant lose-lose situation - whatever I do, the result will be sub-zero, and I do not like this at all.


PS: If you're interested in such game theories, read the works of Paul Watzlawick. Although he lives in the USA now, he was born in Austria.

"I have always believed your blogs exude lots of class and come from a very well educated lady, so please don't lower your standards to the lower level that most who post here seem to attain", is what a good friend wrote to me in his message - and he sounded honestly worried about the standard of my last two blog entries. First it is of course always lovely to get attributed class - it's a pleasure for any woman to be told that she is special and distinguishes from - well from what? From the ordinary, the unintellectual, from the things which are not usually connected with the mind, but the lower part of the body?

It is true, I am an educated woman. And I could write my blog for the readers of an intellectual or artsy newspaper or mazagine. I could write about politics and history, or society and religion, I could show how artsy I am myself and how full of wit. I could give people glimpses of the inside of my beautiful mind - but nothing else: like in all other situations in my life, the physical and spiritual rest of my existence would not be mentioned, and therefore it would not exist.

So I have come here, and all my other favourite blog writers have come here, too, to the pornographic site, to Wanker's Paradise, to write their texts - and I am sure they also do it for a reason. It allows us to be closer to our real selves, to our whole selves - being here is definitely an exploration and a borderline experience.

In simpler words: NN is the only place I know where I can write "My pussy is wet" without it being a scandal and immediately purged by people who are in a position to tell me what standard is. And yet, having a wet pussy when your lover is due is such a wonderful, essential feeling. Here at the porn site, so called good taste is out of order for some time of the day - and people are just the way they are - it just feels so good. This does to my mind what a nude beach does to body: it sets it free.

So let's not come here and do as if we were somewhere between "Time Magazine" and "Vanity Fair" - let's not build ourselves a little arch of bourgeois respectability in a sea of baseness - let's just jump in and swim along, and get wet.

No, my dear, my pussy is not loose like a flapping shirt on a bloody clothes-line from overuse. I must give you zero points out of 100 for very, very sloppy thinking: first it's not the number of people that counts, but the number of copulations (I know married couples who've done it a million times - almost), secondly I have never given birth, which spared me from unwanted side effects, and thirdly when you use a muscle often, you train it - which allows me to make myself felt considerably during sex - so it's rather the opposite of what you think. I have never had any complaints in that direction so far - on the contrary. But you are forgiven - I think you just lack the practice to know what you're talking of. Tough luck, sweety ...

I have promised to answer all questions which I am asked truthfully, even the tricky ones. So I am trying to do this one, too. Now the term "lover" is not very fortunate, because it contains the word "love", and not all my encounters had to do with this - they were often plain sex, I have to admit. So the question might be better: How many men did you have sex with?

Now I am looking back on a timespan of 20 years as a sexually active woman. In this time, I very rarely had a lasting, monogamous relationship. So how many men would you allow me - without starting to think badly of me? Would 20 be a good number? That would be one a year - no, you'd certainly allow me more. One a month? This would already be 240 - my God, and I guess even this is less than I had. But 20 years is a loooooooooong time, isn't it? One a week: stop, stop - this would make 2000 - the population of an entire village, all the football teams in all Austrian leagues ....

But when you consider that I also used to go to swinger clubs a few times, and to student parties when I was young .... The truth is: I do not know, I have never counted my men. And I didn't keep trophies.

But I have been writing a diary since I was 14, with only few pauses. And I noted down pretty everything which I did. I have not gone back much so far, and very rarely read my records. But I think you might find there a pretty exact number, and usually with names and specifications. Would there be a potential for blackmail? No - I didn't collect evidence, just memories.

So let's just say - there were a loooooooot of men, many more than is good for the reputation of a good girl, whose very best state would be that of a virgin anyway. A lot of men - and one woman.

It's time to take my head out of the clouds where they have been in the last few days and get used to real life again - like work. I have not yet finished marking the texts of the finals which I am supposed to mail to some experts as soon as possible. And I ought to think what I am going to do in today's lessons. So I better get dressed, have some breakfast and jump at the day head on.

But before, as a first of the day, it's always so good to come here to NN and see what has gone on in my sleep. Sitting here the way I come out of bed - which means wearing little more than my silver fingerring - I click through the page, read comments to yesterday's blog and messages of people who contact me regularly and to who I feel close. I always feel bad about not messaging them back so often, but then I think my message is my blog. But I know it's not enough for what I owe them.

After this, I read the blogs of people who mean a lot to me, it's not so many, I must admit, but a few I do not want to miss. It seems to me that lately there has been a wonderful development, as there are more and more people who have started to write about themselves and their own lives and whose aim is not only networking and entertainment. So I love to be updated on the lives of gio, quarterinch, glassdick, missp, seshat, tilac and others - they are all such authentic voices here, and although I do not know them face to face, they matter for me a lot.

Then I have a look if there's anything interesting in the forum section. I lately took part in Acey's Limerick thread - and some time I started my own thread in which I interpreted dreams for some people. But otherwise I do not participate much there - for non-insiders it's like shouting into empty space. Now and then I even look at what people think are the best photos here. It's not so often that I would agree with their choices.

When I have time, I then write a new blog, like this one, or I postpone it to later. I always try hard to give the texts about my everyday life something a little literary, so that I like reading them, too. And then life goes on.

I have made a fire again on this cold and rainy day, although I am home alone. It's good to be like this - it allows me best to feel the lingering atmosphere of the room. The warmth of the same flames, on the same sofa, with my head on the same cushions. If I die tomorrow, I will not have missed anything, went through my head this afternoon.

Does my experience make me a "bloody lesbian" as I was told here today? I do not allow my love to be categorized and called names. First and foremost I have made love to Maria - this wonderful, strong and beautiful friend. That she is a woman, and that it was my first time with a woman - comes only second, although I must admit it makes me wonder. What does this mean for my future?

I found what we did so incredibly wonderful. Hardly ever in my life have I felt so elated: this tenderness, this calm, this wonderfully quiet surge of emotions to a peak that stayed for so long. This feeling of forming a perfect unity with someone who quintessentially does not want to enter my body and leave himself inside me, but just stimulates me to absolute and infinite bliss.

Was it my Sister Hyde side which brought me to this point? No, glassdick, there was nothing dark, and I did not feel driven - it was pure me, and it became pure us. With Phillip I would agree to saying that we fuck - with Maria I made love, nothing more, but nothing less, if you understand what I want to say.

Thanks all my friends who wrote messages and comments to me today and yesterday - you were so positive and understanding, you encouraged me to what you felt - it seems - was inevitable. You might be the only people in the world who have ever known of it. Thanks for being at my side and thinking of me, even keeping your fingers crossed - during one of the most special days in my life.

When I look outside I can see the rain - it's been pouring down quietly all morning. I am alone in my study, and all is very still. Saying goodbye to Maria was a quick affair. The limousine was waiting, the driver impatient. He held his big umbrella while Maria took her suitcases and followed him. Before we had kissed.

I think it was in her eyes all evening, and it must have been in mine, too, that after dinner, and sweets, we made love and spent the whole night in my bed. I needn't have worried that I didn't know what to do - everything just came to me, and we were close, and we explored each others bodies, and it was good, so very, very good. I can't say much more at the moment - while the rain is falling - but that it was a miracle.

Before I had promised that on a sunny day in summer, I would meet her and we would fly together. It's called a tandem in paragliding - two people at the same parachute - I would be tied to her and she would be behind me, and together we would fly. Fly over glaciers with the eagles. Did I tell her I am terribly scared of flying? - No. - Will I ever do? - No ....

I will let her take me in her arms again. I will feel how we lose the ground beneath our feet. I will let go completely, and entrust my whole being into her expert hands - and we will fly - again. Fly over glaciers with the eagles. And beyond.

After a late breakfast we went to town by bus and bought lots of things for the meal tonight, vegetables, and herbs, some fine leg of lamb, and strawberries. It's already going to be our final dinner together. When we came home Maria jokingly said that at that time on Saturday she usually had a massage to brush off last week's stress, and I jokingly offered to give her one.

And so I found myself kneading Maria's bare shoulders and her back, while she was lying on my bed and trying to relax. I first hardly dared touching her, but when I felt her yield to my hands, I grew more courageous and gave her a massage as good as I could. And she liked it. Her wonderful suntanned skin is very smooth and her flesh firm, not like mine, or Elsie's, who have this fluffy stuff under the skin that makes it soft to touches. I could feel the outlines of her every muscle, and I could feel them twitch and relax. I could feel Maria.

And I felt so warm for her at that moment - her friendship, her cheerfulness, her devotion to her work, her beauty. Her flying over glaciers with the eagles. I can tell you here - and I would deny it vehemently in any other company: I felt drawn towards her. Also now as she is reading downstairs and I am supposed to mark some texts of our finals. I do feel drawn towards her.

I maybe feel like you, my dear male friends, I don't know: If you are with a woman you like but who is your friend. You do not expect physical contact, though what would you do if she gave you the sign? Give in? Fear about your friendship? And: am I crazy to even think this sign might come? And still be so ready for it? For the impossible to become real? Should we believe in instant miracles? What exactly will I do when the sign comes? And what I am expected to do then?

In an hour we will cook dinner - our last for I fear a very long time.

Yesterday the clouds suddenly disappeared and the sun came out, and Maria and I decided to go hiking together. There is quite a lovely mountain restaurant about two hours walk from here, and I suggested going up there and enjoy the view. Some of you might guess which way it is - yes, the path I went with Leon (see April 25) on that day we made love.

And how Maria was fit: I am not a slow hiker, either, but she could walk and talk lively at the same time, while I had had to join the heavy breathers long ago. She told me of her favourite activity: paragliding from mountain tops, with her special parachute, feeling the ground drop from unter her feet, and then flying with the eagles over glaciers and rocks. Her eyes had a special glint when telling, and when she took my hand to pull me up a steep passage in the path, I felt her physical energy enter my arm and my whole body like electricity. But I let go again when the path was flatter.

We had lunch, and then we walked down, yes - to the platform on which Leon had stood behind me and given me so much pleasuse. We were standing side by side and looking at the wonderful scenery. It was less colourful than last time, the darker greens of early summer have taken over by now - in a celebration of excessive fertility.

Back at my house we decided to have a dip in my pool. What to wear was my problem, as I can't remember when I did not swim naked in my own garden. Maria appeared in a wonderful, exquisite swimsuit, black and cut very high on the legs and very low at the sides. It looked like a second skin on her slim, suntanned body. She could have worn it in Monte Carlo anytime and compete favourably with all the rich and the beautiful there. I put on the yellow baggy job which I already wore at Joerg and Elsie's the other day - and when the sun hid behind some clouds again, we got dressed, started cooking together and had dinner.

We didn't talk as long as the day before, but I found it so pleasing to have someone with me I could confide in, so I opened up to her completely (I told her of Leon then) - and it was very, very good.