She felt numb. Tears were streaming down her cheeks. Everything in her ached as if her body, her soul and her heart were one big wound for whose healing there was never any medicine, ointment or balm. Time did not matter. Improvement was far away. It just hurt, so much pain. She had no idea how to deal with this deep, painful injury or how and when to recover from it, if there was ever any improvement. At the moment she doubted, too present were the events of that magical night and the vile deception that followed.
She wasn't just a woman for one night. Couldn't Michelle have found someone else to satisfy her needs, someone who was easier to have and had less to lose? She was in a rut. She kept falling back on these meaningless thoughts. There really were a lot of decent women out there, and I'm sure Ella could have found her a suitable test person, a playmate who could have met Michelle's requirements, even though Adolé had to realize that it was certainly more attractive for a woman like Michelle to fish for a difficult target like her.
Yeah, so it made sense, of course. The hunting instinct. She was an attractive prey, after all. Adolé shook his head, got up and sat on the edge of the bed. She shook her head in disbelief, as she had been shaking her head a lot lately. Of course, some willing woman did not have the special booty potential that she, Adolé Varell, pop icon, pop queen and crowd-puller, Michelle offered. Yes, I'm sure there was no denying that. Adolé sighed.
Her thoughts went round and round, over and over again and around this one thing, this one seductive, weak, sensual night and around this breathtaking woman. A solution had receded into the distance. Probably there was no explanation at all.
Adolé got up. It was still early in the morning, but there was no point in staying down any longer. She preferred to take a shower and then go to the studio as usual. She wanted to finally end this unspeakable undertaking and leave it behind and return to her normal life. That was the only way back to normality and away from this madness.
19.
After Michelle apparently continued to refuse to participate in the studio recordings, Roswitha's collar burst at some point. Three months had now passed. She had really tried everything to save the recordings, had talked to Ella with angel tongues and tried to bring her to her senses. However, it soon became clear that Ella was not the source of the problem - on the contrary. She was extremely cooperative, but had lost control of her pupil.
While Roswitha vehemently insisted on continuing the studio work and at the same time finally finishing it in the foreseeable future, Ella wriggled back and forth with flimsy excuses and finally agreed to the only reasonable proposal and interrupted the recordings. Roswitha had actually tried by all means to prevent exactly this last consequence, but in the end she had no other choice. Studio musicians and technicians had other engagements as well. And Adolé herself also had public appearances and other obligations, which she now had to fulfil more and more often. After all, at some point it was also necessary to promote the upcoming CD release in a sensible way.
In fact, the most sensible thing to do was to put the whole undertaking on ice and wait until the stubborn pianist had finally come to her senses and the recordings could be resumed under the original conditions.
Adolé had moved out of her usual hotel and got into her tour bus. It was always a comfortable home for her during the touring time of the year and equipped with all imaginable luxury, just as she was entitled to as a superstar.
She resumed her usual doctoral appointments, tinkered all over Germany and the bordering countries and behaved as professionally as she had always been. Those who didn't know what had happened - and that was everyone except Roswitha - couldn't tell the difference to her usual impeccable behaviour.
But secretly, questions remained unanswered, and Adolé continued to be upset, no matter how much she concentrated on her appearances, and the distraction this offered her was welcome. Again and again her thoughts wandered to this extraordinary night, which simply had to mean something! She couldn't push aside the same painful questions for good and found herself again and again desperate in thoughts in the mask or other quiet moments, in which she sat unobserved, left to herself, absent in a corner and stared at herself.
Roswitha rolled her eyes each time and kept saying sentences like: "Child, don't torture yourself like this. Stop that. Understand that you were just one of many. It had no meaning. Don't make it so difficult for yourself...
Adolé had no more tears. She felt weak and powerless and had given up resignedly to trying to convince Roswitha of something else. She was probably right. Adolé knew she just wanted to make things easier for her. That's why - so what - she pushed thoughts of Michelle aside more and more often. A quarter year was now really enough sadness. After all, they hadn't been a couple. So why all the fuss?
More and more often Adolé called herself to order, if only to get her daily life under control. She had no opportunity to give herself over to her grief and despair. Even Julius, after all, was not allowed to notice any difference to the "normal" Adolé. She realized that it was better to keep her composure and simply concentrate fully on her career again, as Roswitha prayed to her over and over again. She finally had enough to do.
So she gave Roswitha's concept a chance and did several other performances and interviews.
When she was a guest at a well-known German talk show in Cologne on a Friday evening in September, she enjoyed the creative atmosphere of this relaxed live event. She felt comfortable, had checked into one of Cologne's better hotels in the early afternoon and was driven to the studio early.
The hostess greeted her personally and then discussed with her some of the topics she wanted to address in the show. Other interesting guests were invited, some of whom Adolé knew but of whom she had never heard of before. But exactly that was the attraction of this entertaining evening show.
She liked the concept of this entertaining show and did well. She talked entertainingly about her unusual everyday life and gave the viewers and conversation partners in the s
tudio an insight into her interesting life. Time flew by and before she knew it, she was already back in her hotel room in the south of Cologne.
When she came out of the shower and turned on the TV in her room, her cell phone beeped. She threw the obligatory glance at the display and was actually expecting a message from Roswitha when her gaze and movement froze to ice.
"Can I see you?"
These four words jumped at her after all the weeks and months of waiting that had passed since then. Four words from the sender "MM".
Adolé couldn't believe her eyes. Who did that woman think she was?!! Her pulse was racing, she got up and walked restlessly around the room. Again and again she sat down on the comfortable hotel bed, only to jump up again shortly afterwards.
How was she supposed to react to that now?!?!
After all, this woman had not only exploited her feelings, she had also disregarded contracts, harmed the crew and finally brought the recordings on her CD to a standstill. She obviously didn't care about her responsibility towards the musicians and everyone involved in her project. Social behaviour seemed to be a foreign word to her.
Adolé decided not to react to this news. Who would expect her to do anything else?!!!
She pushed the message away and deleted the corresponding chat history. With a snide movement she moved her phone to the empty side of the bed next to her and lay down. The TV was babbling to herself. She looked up at the ceiling again, as she had done so often lately. Her gaze looked for support up there, her thoughts racing.
Who could possibly understand that stubborn, opaque woman? Why did she make life so difficult? While she was thinking about it, her gaze slipped back to her phone from time to time, but it lay silently where she had peppered it.
Should she answer? Should she really make it that easy for her? Or would Michelle possibly write her again? And indeed. It did not take ten minutes before the display of her phone lit up again. It showed only one word: