Read Online Love Virtually by Daniel Glattauer - Free Book Online Page B

man with your sensitivities should know that a woman with my sensitivities would feel sorely rejected after a last-minute ex-girlfriend-motivated cancellation like that. Yes indeed, Leo, I feel I’ve been horribly rejected by you. I’m not just anybody, not even to you.
    Yours respectfully,
    Emmi
    The next day
    Subject: Emmi
    No, Emmi, you’re not just anybody. If there’s anyone who isn’t just anybody then it’s you. Not to me, at any rate. You’re like a second voice inside me, accompanying me through the day. You’ve turned my inner monologue into a dialogue. You enrich my emotional life. You question, insist, parody, you engage me in conflict. I’m so grateful to you for your wit, your charm, for your spirit, even for your “tastelessness.”
    But Emmi, you mustn’t try to become my conscience! To go back to one of your favorite subjects, it should be irrelevant to you when, how, with whom, and how often I have sex. After all, I don’t ask you how things are in bed with you and your Bernhard. To be honest, I’m not the slightest bit interested. It’s not that I never have erotic thoughts when I think about you. But I’m keeping them well away from you; I want to spare you these thoughts. They’re inside me and that’s where they’ll stay. We mustn’t start intruding into each other’s private life. It won’t get us anywhere.
    Exchanging a few seemingly irrelevant words with you about my mother’s death has done me a world of good, Emmi. That second voice was there again, asking “my” missing questions, finding “my” answers, always breaching and overcoming my loneliness. All of a sudden I had this pressing desire to get closer to you, to have you right beside me. And if you’d had time that evening it would have happened. Everything would now be different between us. All the secrets would be gone, all the puzzles solved. We’d no sooner have met than I’d have offloaded a heavy sack full of my family burdens, and both of us would have sunk to our knees. No more magic, no more illusions. We’d have talked and talked and talked until we were all talked out. And what then? Nothing but disenchantment. How do you handle the immediacy of a meeting if you’ve never had any practice? How would we have looked at each other? What would we have seen in each other? How would we be writing to each other now? What would we write? Would we still be writing to each other? Emmi, I’m just afraid of losing my “second voice,” the Emmi voice. I want to keep it. I want to treat it with care. I can’t live without it.
    Yours,
    Leo
    Three hours later
    Re: Emmi
    Just to come back to one of my favorite subjects: I’m sorry to say IT DOES MATTER TO ME WHEN, HOW, WITH WHOM, AND HOW OFTEN YOU HAVE SEX! If I am indeed somebody’s chosen “second voice,” then I should also have the right to judge (if that’s what we’re talking about) whether it’s appropriate when, how, with whom and how often that person has sex. (I should admit I haven’t until now been especially interested in the “how” bit, dear Leo. But we can catch up on that another time.) Now I’m going to leave you alone with your own voice. More tomorrow.
    Kiss kiss,
    Emmi
    An hour and a half later
    Re: Emmi
    May I for once be cynical too, my dearest Emmi? Let’s say the “hairy beast” in Café Huber had been me. Would it then have mattered when, how, with whom, and how often I have sex? Or, to put it another way, does it only matter to you when, how . . . and so on, because in your emails you’re in search of an ideal man, and it can’t be irrelevant—in spite of your marital bliss with Bernhard—when, how . . . and so on? This would confirm my theory that each of us is the fantasy voice of the other. Is this not wonderful and precious enough to leave it as it is?
    The