We spent the better part of the night making love. It wasn't like in a porn movie where the actors work their way endlessly through all the position the Kama Sutra offers. It's funny how you don't need that. It was just the same gentle touching, the same gentle kisses, the same gentle love making every time. And it just wouldn't get old. We slept in between and woke up again and made love again. When exhaustion finally took its toll the sky had already started to turn pale.

When I came from the bathroom, dressed again in my blue silk dress from the night before, it was about 8:30 am, and Michael was fully dressed sitting on his bedside, leaning against the head piece with eyes closed. Hearing me, he opened one eye, then rubbed his fingers across them and pinched the bridge of his nose.
"Tired?"
"No, I'm just pretending." He made a face and rose. "But I'm really in for a big cup of coffee today! So let's go and hunt it down!" Smiling he reached for my hand.
"Why didn't you go ahead already?"
He shrugged. "I didn't want to."

We had breakfast at a round table in a small alcove next to the kitchen looking out at the front yard of the house. The sun in the east made golden patterns on the gravel. The lady from the night before served pancakes and sweet bread rolls with coffee and fresh fruit and seemed to make no observation as to where or how I had spent the night.

We ate and exchanged information concerning our day ahead. Michael talked about a dance rehearsal for a video that day, and I told him about the Secret Service's wire search that morning, and how it had left me with a free morning to eat breakfast with him. Somewhere in the house a clock chimed nine, then a quarter past.

Suddenly the door to the landing opened, and after two quick steps a blond woman appeared down the three stairs to the breakfast room.
"Good morning, Michael, ..." then she saw me sitting by the window and stopped short. "I'm sorry, I didn't know you had company."
"Karen." Michael stood as if he'd been ordered to, then covering his mouth with one hand broke into a fit of giggles. It made her blink and look from me to him and back to me.
Clearly not dressed for a morning appointment, I smiled politely. "I'm sorry. Yes. I wasn't planned to be here. It got too late last night." I wasn't sure what to make of her, if she was a member of his personnel, a business partner, a friend - or maybe more. So for the moment I chose to assume the role of a lady and remain seated where I was, continuing drinking my coffee.
"Karen. She does my make-up." Michael introduced. "Anna," there was a tiny break before he continued. "She's a lawyer at the West-German Consulate General in LA. - We met at the hotel opening party last week," he added, met the blond woman's gaze, smiled brightly, then looked first at the floor before looking up at me.
"Nice to meet you," blond Karen smiled.
"Yes, it's a pleasure."
"Did he show you around Neverland? Did you like it?"
"Oh yes, it's beautiful!"
"Is there anything you like in particular?"
I looked into my cup, took the last sip of coffee, and placed the saucer and cup onto my plate. Then I rose and smoothed down my dress. "Actually, I think I've taken a special liking to the carousel," I said nonchalantly, not looking at Michael. But in my peripherical vision I saw him gape before he broke into another fit of giggling. Karen gave him another smile, of which I wasn't sure if it was confused or knowing. The lady came and took my plates.
"Well, it's getting late. I have to get going. It's two hours drive to LA." I picked up my purse and rounded the table. "It was very nice to meet you, Karen. Good-bye," I said with a slight bow of the head, a motion I had never been able to get quite rid of ever since I had been a university student in Japan, and which tended to surface particularly at times of insecurity.
"It was."
"And thank you for your hospitality," I said to Michael. "But I must be on my way, now."
He took my hand as I passed him, gently stopping me. "I'll take you out. Karen, why don't you take a seat and have some coffee," and louder, to the kitchen, "Could we have another cup of coffee, please?" Then he walked me up the steps and out the room.

"Why are you leaving so suddenly?" he asked as soon as we had entered the next room.
"Well, your morning appointment is here," I indicated Karen who could be seen through the open door sitting down at the table. "And it is two hours drive to LA."
"She's my make-up artist!" he said exasperatedly. "Remember?" He pointed to his face. "I look like a panda bear."

The panda bear remark left me speechless for a moment. Then I cupped his face in my hand, feeling the stubble on his cheek.
"I just don't want to make a mess of your routine, Michael. I'm not jealous."
"You have no reason to be."
"And no right, either," I pointed out.
"You have no reason!" he repeated, and his voice sounded deeper as he spoke. Then he looked back to the breakfast room. "Let's go somewhere else."

We resumed walking through the dining room towards the entrance hall.
"Will she shave you, too?"
He nodded. "Yes."
"I hope, she's careful with the blade."
"I hope so, too!" he smiled.
"So, she did your make-up for the hotel opening party?"
"Yes."
"And for yesterday, too?"
He nodded.
"She must be close to you."
"She's close to me physically."
"How close?"
"You've been a lot closer."
"I didn't mean that."
He took a deep breath. "She is close to me. She knows when I'm tired, she knows when I'm sick, she knows when I'm sad. She has to make up for it all - literally. We are working together."
"How long have you been working together?"
"A couple of years. She's my friend, in a way."
The heat outside hit us as we left the air-conditioned entrance hall and crossed the yard to where my car stood parked.
"Is that why you let her in on us?"
"I didn't let her in on anything."
"Oh, come now! You've been giggling like a school boy from the moment she entered that room. Unless somebody dropped her when she was a baby, she knows full well there's been something going on. So, why'd you do that?"

He looked at the ground, the tip of his shoe digging in the gravel of the yard. Then he glanced up at me. "'Cause I was happy," he said in a small and toneless voice. "You know, I don't have many friends I can talk to about... about personal things. - I'm sorry if I upset you."

I looked over to the windows of the breakfast room that could be seen through a bit of greenery. "When you go back in, will you give her an account of..." my voice drifted off.
"An account of what?"
"Of fucking me." Being aware of the extreme rudeness of the word, I looked at him with total calm allowing the word to ring.
I could have hit his face; he could not have displayed more shock. "No!" His eyes were wide.
"Because I think I would have a problem with that."
"No! I would never do that! Never! I was just showing off a little..." Then his brain seemed to step in. "If I wanted to tell her... details, I could have just waited to be alone with her! No point in..."
"Giggling?"
"Yes!"
There was some logic in that. I said nothing, just looked at him, then smiled. "You were showing off?"
"Yeah. I'm a kid, hm?"
"That's kinda cute, actually."
"Yeah?"
I nodded. "M-hm."
"So is it okay if I call you?" he tried with a boyish smile.
"M-hm." I returned his smile.
"'Cause I'd be really upset if it wouldn't be!"
"Is that so?"
"M-hm!"

I drew out of my parking space backwards, then suddenly heard some sound against my car. In dismay I brought it to a standstill. For some reason I thought I might have hit him. But he just stood near beating his hand gently against my window. I cranked it down. As I did he leaned in and kissed me. And there on the sunbathed gravel of his yard the thought of having a plane ticket booked for Japan lost all its glory.

I keep dreaming about that night on the carousel. It's always the same dream. It's night and I'm standing in the middle of the carousel. I'm standing on it, and somehow I'm not really standing on it. The horses are passing me by, but behind them Neverland, also, is turning. I watch the horses as they go, moving up and down, the next one more beautiful than the one before. The music is playing.

Then the horse Michael is leaning against comes by. At first he's looking somewhere else, then, as the horse draws near me, he looks up and breaks into a smile, a laugh even. I want to go with him, but the horses move on without me.

As he leaves my sight I feel sad, lost, disappointed. I watch the empty, moving horses anxiously, waiting for him, fearing he might never come round again. But he always does. Smiling. And so the dream goes on. Nothing ever happens. Just the horses and Neverland turning, and Michael smiling at me as the carousel carries him past me.

One day, long after Japan had come and gone, and so had the Bench Exam, I told him about my dream. We were walking in someone's private garden, his fingers interlaced with mine.
"So I've been wondering, Michael. At what point did you think we were going to be more than a polite dinner?"
He laid my arm behind my back drawing me near.
He laughed.

And he didn't answer.

The End.
(But there's a Sequel: Merry-Go-Round!)

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This is the last time for 'Carousel'.
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