The Reality Master And A Threat To The World

many memories in little more than a second; he set aside all of it and replied cogently that he was on his way. And he remembered when only Americans said guy as she had just done. He didn’t know if Caroline started to use it due to British influence or his. Most likely it was from watching or hearing BBC broadcasts, because she never watched any American tv or radio programming – nor did Dayton, for that matter, even when he was home in Connecticut. BBC hosts not only picked up this word from the Americans, it seemed to him they oddly reveled in saying it. But he never criticized, either openly or mentally, any Brit language customs including this relatively new one because he adored British English – anything they said was perfectly all right with him. This could be a bias similar to his mental labeling of many Asian women as beautiful even when he objectively knew some of them weren’t even pretty: he had a self-admitted bias for Asian women. Likewise, he had a special place in his heart for the Brits.

“Okay love,” she said, wrapping up their phone call. “See you soon.”

Dayton retrieved Caroline’s building and apartment keys from where he stashed them near the airport when he last flew out of Paris; he was pretty confident they would still be there, and they were. He had decided the building key was too bulky to carry around with him – it was one of those weird keys he previously only saw in Berlin; almost comically large because it was the type that once you entered and turned it to open the door of the apartment complex, it could then be removed only from the inside, not from the street side, so it couldn’t be inadvertently left outside for burglars to grab. He didn’t really know what there was about its shape or mechanism that prevented it from being removed from the outside, but that’s how it worked nevertheless. He grabbed a taxi to Caroline’s home, entered her apartment and found her lying in bed watching the Gerard Depardieu classic Le Retour de Martin Guerre, also well known in the U.S. with the English title, but unfortunately less appreciated there. It had just started, so after kissing her he lay down and watched it with her. By the time it ended he was so primed to make love to her he had completely forgotten what he was going to tell her about Senegal. His rustic condition without a change of clothes or a shower for a couple of days if anything enhanced their experience rather than detracting from it, and after their long coupling they both fell asleep almost immediately. When he woke up the next morning Caroline wasn’t in the bedroom, so he thought she must have gone to work. He was dying for a shower and went straight into the bathroom without checking around the apartment to see if she was in one of the other four rooms.

First he opened the bedroom closet just to see if his two shirts and one pair of shoes were still there from his visit with her several weeks back, and was pleased to see both that they were and by the fact that they were unaccompanied by unfamiliar men’s clothes. Her repeated assurances about the exclusivity of their relationship had never quite convinced him, perhaps due to his slightly paranoid tendency. After showering and dressing with just a change of the same – but from dirty to clean – wrinkled safari fashion that he had rolled up in his duffel bag, he entered the living room and saw that she was sitting beyond it on the balcony with her plate and porcelain containers for food on the small table in front of her, as well as two small pitchers for water and coffee. He already knew from past experience that there would be bacon, eggs and croissants in the porcelain bowl; after he kissed her he opened it, served himself breakfast and poured a cup of coffee. He could see across the courtyard beautiful, large potted plants and another couple likewise consuming a repast. Dayton loved the Mediterranean lifestyle with its rooftop gardens and balconies for enjoying outside meals even in ordinary, middle class apartment buildings. But here he was, still in the same type clothing that was the first change from the sweaty rags he was wearing since he arrived in Dakar – an outfit that was unsightly by her urbane Parisian standards. Fashion was a bit more of an issue all over Europe than it was in the U.S. But Americans living in Europe were notoriously iconoclastic in that regard and were generally accepted for it. But more importantly, Caroline accepted it, judging by her reticence, never even hinting that he should upgrade his wardrobe. He was unconcerned about her reaction to him disregarding his street clothes that were in her closet and donning clothes for desert