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A moment later he wrote the same thing adding, “PS You’ve probably not eaten yet.”
    He put the phone away and strode briskly ahead. “It’s only a game, we’re not really doing anything.” He slowed his breath. The wind tore at the flags overhead as he crossed to the other side of the arch. The beep of a message. Andrea had written, “I bite but not too hard …”
    Stefan lifted weights with loathing. He was sceptical about physical exercise but liked women and that was what brought him here, against his hedonistic nature. With uncomfortable movements that didn’t seem to belong to an intelligent human being, he lifted barbells to prevent an invisible wall building up between him and the opposite sex, like a Venetian mirror used by the police to help victims identify their assailant while remaining unseen by him. Stefan was the victim, beautiful girls his assailants. They tempted him, showing off their suntanned legs, flat bellies, and cleavages while he trembled lest excess kilograms hide him from their sight.
    Jonathan sweated on the treadmill next to him. This cheered Stefan, gave him someone to talk to and allowed him to maintain some remnants of dignity in his own eyes.
    “And so, did she get through to you?” he said from beneath the barbell.
    “Who?” Jonathan roused himself from the stupor of his warm-up.
    “Andrea Kunz, the chick from Swedish television.”
    The treadmill ran away from Jonathan. Despite the rising temperature of their text messages, he hadn’t yet asked Andrea how she had got his number; one doesn’t ask women such questions.
    “She said she was doing a program about house husbands,” panted Stefan, lifting a weight. “Did she ask you?”
    Jonathan stepped onto the treadmill and fell into a brisk stride.
    “No, we’ve only spoken over the phone. She needed a pithy quote.”
    “She’s pithy herself,” Stefan puffed and put the bar-bell aside. Jonathan was still striding with the springy pace of a stroller in a hurry.
    “Remember when we just finished college?” Stefan wiped the sweat from his brow. “There were so many pretty girls around! I fucked them but what I really dreamed about was a flawless beauty. There were a few. They flashed by as if they’d arrived from another planet. The better ones didn’t come to the Kic. They were somehow inaccessible. Like the chick who later emigrated to France, remember?”
    Jonathan nodded. That was before he had met Megi. The girl had been phenomenal. He’d even managed to get hold of her phone number but when they’d met – he was passing through France – he’d been disappointed. He’d forgotten to tell Stefan.
    “I approached her once, after a couple of beers,” continued Stefan, “and said, ‘You probably think I’m too short for you’ …”
    “Were you mad?”
    “… and she looked at me like this, up and down, and said through her teeth, ‘I do.’
    Stefan smoothed his fair hair until Jonathan stopped laughing.
    “Then I avoided beauty,” he went on, “and screwed girls who were simply pretty but had small flaws. But they immediately wanted to get married!”
    Jonathan slowed the treadmill.
    “I remember,” he muttered. “And then there were only ugly and desperate ones left.”
    “You were already living with Megi while I had just met Monika for the second time,” sighed Stefan.
    Jonathan bit his lip.
    “And a good thing too, old man,” he assured him, accelerating.
    Stefan looked at him blindly.
    “I regret – to this very day – that I didn’t really go all out to get a perfect chick.” He made his way to the rowing machine.
    Jonathan stopped and again the belt nearly threw him. He gave up with the rest of his warm-up, followed Stefan and squatted next to him.
    “How’s that?” he asked.
    “Be happy you’ve got Megi,” Stefan murmured, struggling with the adjustable saddle. “You don’t have to think, ‘I’m nearly forty and still up for it.’ ”
    “How’s that?” Jonathan