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Dialogue translated from German.

Here's the thing about living in the same city as your ex-boyfriend; ex tends to be a somewhat fluctuating term. Especially when you started dating in the first year of high school, and are still working to get over the first-love butterflies during your second year of University. Deidrich and I had been going through an off period recently, which might explain why I was dressed in a deep-blue silky coverlet, which I pulled down around the left side of my breast to reveal a lace-linen bra of the same color, decorated with crème-beige toile that vaguely resembled the shape of curling palm fronds. It was a set of Lise Charmel lingerie, which I had bought for... too much money from Feine Wäsche in Berlin, during my last weekend trip.

Technically, Deidrich and I didn't actually live in the same city any longer. He lived in the old area of what had once been downtown Eastern Berlin, while I rented a two-bedroom apartment in southern Zeuthen. It was about forty-five minutes, by train; thirty-five by car. Currently, my house-mate was an electrical engineering student from Canada named Thomas. It worked out, because I was attending the Technical University of Applied Sciences Wildau, working my way slowly through an engineering degree which focused on kinetic lock-motion of locomotives. In layman's' terms--how the hell does that train stay on the tracks? Thomas was attending the satellite campus about half a mile away from my campus, the Wildau Institute of Technology.

We'd discussed it a couple of nights, when we happened to run into each other in the living room or meet up for dinner, but I still can't quite get a handle on exactly what his international co-op is meant to be. The best I can figure is that it has something to do with how the magnetization in the inductive loops of traffic lights act on the controllers; different sciences, but similar enough degrees that we can geek-speak to each other quite comfortably.

I'll be honest--Deidrich and I probably shouldn't have worked for the last six years. It wasn't really a surprise that we didn't. Or, maybe we did, but not fully. Not the entire time. Like traffic lights; on and off again--green, yellow, red. Right now we were yellow at best, but seeing as he hadn't texted me back in going-on four days, I figured the crossing-hand had gone solid and we were heading toward another month of red.

That was why I was standing in a hundred-seventy dollar set of lingerie, desperately trying to get the light from the window to make the sheet of dark hair which fell over my shoulders to appear anything other than washed out. That was why I looked at my own eyes in the mirror and put on a small, almost pouting expression. I didn't know what it was about that particular look that men found so seductive--truthfully, I felt like a complete idiot. But I had done this once or twice before, and when everything else failed it tended to be at least a decent way to make Deidrich text me back.

Goddamn. Why was that so hard? Not just taking a picture where my round-rimmed glasses didn't completely block my eyes attempt at looking seductive, not holding the fabric of the bralette just-so, so that the corner of my nipple was peeking out from beneath the navy-blue fabric, not just finding a pose that managed to make me look sexy, and young, and suggestive--but just getting a boy to text me back? Not to talk myself up, but I was a bit of a catch. Of course, none of it translated even once through the camera lens into the screen of my phone, but I had shoulder-length brown hair that fell around a pair of sharp shoulders and a face which had grown well into womanhood without losing the roundness of youth.

When I say that Deidrich and I shouldn't have worked, at least not in high school, I say it because he had been the outgoing soccer-scholarship captain and I had been, well... bookish. Not exactly geeky, but definitely the most scholarly of my friend group. I could fully admit, and often laugh about, the fact that I'd been an ugly duckling growing up. I especially noticed it going through photo-albums with my mother. Lots of kids were. My teeth had been too big for my mouth, my face appearing constantly squeezed by its own roundness, my body managing to be both too squat and too spindly at the same time. The first year of high school had seen some of my proportions smoothed out, but I still had a face that was just slightly too round for the length of my neck, breasts just slightly too small for what the width of my chest promised, shoulders which peaked just slightly too high and arms which were just slightly too long. A pair of round, brown-rimmed glasses didn't help the studious look, but I'd refused to trade them out for contacts. Probably because Deidrich had always pushed it. Not forcefully, just little hints through the years. So the glasses stayed--mostly out of stubborn rebellion than anything else.

Now, two years into a kinetic sciences degree, I knew I was eye-catching. I still had a look that belied my twenty-one years, I still had the glasses and the touch of roundness to the tops of my cheeks, the bottom of my chin, the swell of my breasts. I'd grown into it. A pair of soft, flat cheeks ran down to a small, slightly pressed mouth. My dark hair fell in straight waves over delicate shoulders, the length of my arms and legs and neck made me appear elegant, rather than gawk-ish. So why couldn't the camera of this piece of shit phone figure that out? It was almost as if it was trying to take a picture of a body that was five years behind me.

Tucking my hand down against my hip, I turned over so that the mirror had a good view of my left butt cheek, the silk end of my coverlet draped slightly down to either side of it from my waist. Turning over my shoulder, I bit my lip and stared into my own eyes against the clear glass. The phone made a sound slightly like a candy-wrapped being crumpled in somebodies hand as the picture saved. I glanced at my phone screen, then tossed it away into my bed with a sound of disgust. Whatever. Stalking across the room, I pulled off the coverlet and tossed it on top of my dresser drawers. There was a pair of jeans and a grey tee-shirt, already on the ground. Pulling them on, I walked out of my room. I was feeling annoyed, and a bit low on myself at that exact moment.

Which is why I might not have greeted Thomas with my usual enthusiasm when I found him making a bowl of cereal in the kitchen. Pulling open the fridge, I pulled a glass down from the green-painted cupboards and searched for the milk. I didn't even think about it, until I saw Thomas' hand holding the carton up to my around the door of the fridge.

"Thanks," I said, taking it from him and pouring myself a glass before replacing it on the fridge shelf. The door swung closed.

"Everything alright?" Thomas' voice asked, in accented and slightly uncertain German. We both spoke English perfectly well, but I knew that he wanted to practice as much as possible while he was in the country.

"Fine," I answer, dropping onto a leather-backed stool on the far side of the kitchen island. He was leaning against the counter across from me. I watched his jaw move while he chewed a mouthful of cereal, swallowing and setting down his bowl before speaking.

"After a month, I think I can tell when something's wrong." He blinked at me, "If you don't want to share, you don't have to. I'm a pretty good listener, though."

That was true, I knew. I set down my glass of milk. It was still cold, and a thin sheen of condensation clung to the outside of the glass. I wiped my hands on the thighs of my jeans a couple of times, staring down at them, before raising my eyes to meet Thomas'.

"Just Deidrich," I admit.

He makes a sound from low in his throat; it might have been sympathetic, or displeased, or just a sound to tell me that he was listening. A little bit of all of these, I thought. He'd heard about Deidrich and I nearly once a week, since he'd moved in. Okay, maybe twice a week. The two men couldn't have been more different, the thought hit me suddenly. They were both tall; and that was where the similarities ended. Deidrich was dark and lithe and strikingly handsome, the image of a front-end soccer player. Thomas was about three inches taller, standing nearly the same height as our refrigerator; six-four, maybe six-five. A young-looking face didn't quite pass the clean-shaven look off, little bits of blonde stubble showed around the bottom of his chin and the sides of his face. It was invisible, until he turned his face just so in the light from the window or the overhead half-circle. His body was strong. Not quite in-shape, but holding a layer of fat over the large dimensions of his uppers arms and the barrel of his chest. He was wearing a black tee-shirt today, slightly too large, but which hugged around the bottoms of his biceps when he crossed his arms and peaked down below his chin, giving the hint of a pushed-together chest. I knew that Thomas was handsome--he just wasn't my kind of handsome.

Which is why I found it strange that I couldn't take my eyes off the front of his shirt, where his neckline went down to reveal a couple of small golden-blonde hairs against his bare skin. I raised my eyes to his, trying to pretend that I hadn't been staring. Even if he noticed, I knew he'd let it pass without saying a word. When I looked up, I found a pair of watchful grey-blue eyes blinking back a tme. He didn't wear glasses, but I found myself thinking that they'd suit his face.

"What's dick-dick done now?"

I couldn't help but grin at that unflattering nickname. It had only come about because Thomas' English-speaking tongue had tripped over the very German-syllabled Deidrich the first few times he'd tried to prounounce it. And so dick-dick had been born. Sighing into my glass of milk, I shrugged.

"Nothing. That's the problem. He hadn't texted me back in four days."

"Idiot," Thomas rolls his eyes, "Sorry, my gender sucks."

"Even you?" I ask, slightly teasing.

"Especially me," his voice trips slightly over where the accent on insbesondere should be, but I know what he means. I smile.

"Boy advice?" I make my voice slightly pleading. It's something else that we do, Thomas and I--boy advice. As in, please translate what's happening in the male brain on the other side of my cellphone.

"Have you tried ignoring him?" Thomas asks.

I nod, "I haven't texted him in three days. My last text was you up?" I feel myself blushing slightly with embarrassment at those words, "I mean, how much more desperate do I have to sound?"

Thomas chuckles, shaking his head.

"Ah, there's the problem."

"Problem?"

He nods back, "Boys like it when a girl seems desperate, but only a certain kind of desperate." I pull my face in a way that mimics a pained smile, holding up my empty hands in helpless confusion. Thomas laughs, "Okay... You know when you've been away from somebody for a long time, and you can barely keep your hands off them?" I nod in return, "Like that. I don't know if there's a German word for that."

"Das verlangen."

"Verlangen," he repeated, a touch off but pretty good, "Yeah--that. That's sexy." He closes his eyes, tilting his head slightly and then shaking it, "God, a month--I need to..." he opens one eye at me and makes a slow, wincing expression, "Sorry. Okay. You up, can be good. It can be that. But if you haven't spoken to somebody and they're obviously ignoring you, you up just sounds..."

"Bad desperate?" I fill in, hoping against hope that I'm wrong. Unfortunately, Thomas is nodding.

"Bad desperate."

"Fuck," I moved the glass of milk out of the way so that I can fold down over the countertop, pressing my nose and forehead into the smooth, cool granite. I lay there for a moment, then roll my head so that my cheek is smushed down and I'm staring at the stove. "I hate boys," I say, quietly but at a volume where I know he can hear me.

"Saucy picture," he says, alternating English and German between the first two words.

"Saucy?" I repeat the word slowly, "Like.. A booty picture?" My voice stumbles slightly over the foreign English word. He'd used it before, and it had made me laugh then. Bottom picture, just didn't sound quite right in German. Booty pic, though...

"Uh, no." He shakes his head, "Kind of. Like the difference between verzweifelt and verlangen."

I frown, slightly confused. Raising my face, I smooth my features as I stare at him. Thomas and I have a good relationship, but we've never really discussed sex. Not in itself. We've talking about past partners, and little stories, but never just... sex. It wasn't because either of us felt uncomfortable about the subject, it simply wasn't something that had ever come up between us. Honestly, I'd told Thomas some things that I wouldn't have felt comfortable sharing with any other roommate, male or female. He just had a kind of stoic, thoughtful energy about him that made him easy to talk to. He was grinning at me, now. A considering, slightly hidden grin.

"Not a booty pic. A... saucy picture." He clears his throat, and I can tell he's trying not to laugh, "Porno?" His voice does a pretty good job pronouncing the German there, probably because it's so close to English.

"A porn picture!" I throw up my hands, "What the hell does that even mean? Aren't all of your American booty pictures porno?"

He thinks about this for a moment. Glancing down at his bowl of cereal, he makes no move to touch it; instead, he tucks his hands into the pockets of his jeans and leans backward slightly further on the counter.

"No," he shakes his head, "Well.. not really. It's just different."

"Boys," I roll my eyes at him, "Useless." He laughs. After a moment of hesitation, I decide to commit. After all, he can't help me unless he has all of the facts.

"Well," I lift my eyes for a brief moment and press my lips together, "I did buy some sexy lingerie. I took some pictures."

"And he didn't answer?" Thomas' eyebrows pushed up his forehead, causing small lines to crease its broad length, "Well--he's dead."

I laugh, "What?"

"No man receives a picture like that from you and doesn't answer immediately with nothing but a time of arrival. He's dead."

"I didn't really send it," I admit, quietly.

"What?"

"I didn't send it," I said, slightly louder.

"Guter Herr!" Thomas growls, throwing his hands up in a gesture which matches mine from earlier. Good lord! It's a gesture of such complete, friendly exasperation it's almost enough to make me forget about my embarrassment, "A booty pic might be all you need. But you actually have to send pictures, if you want other people to reply to them, Grace."

"I know!" I cry, "But... He hasn't answered me for four days! Does he even deserve one?"

"Absolutely not," Thomas shakes his head, "But that doesn't really matter, does it? You want him. Who cares what he deserves? You deserve to get what you want. Boy advice--easiest way to lead us around is by our dicks. If you want to be with dick-dick, start there and work your way toward the brain," he pauses meaningfully and rolls his eyes, "if you can find one."

I can't help but smile. This is what makes Thomas one of the good ones, I think. I know he's thought about me... that way, because I've thought about him that way, once or twice, over the last month. Right now, at this moment, it doesn't matter. He's set aside whatever personal feelings he might have to help me work through this problem. When he meets my smile with one of his own, I can tell it's genuine. In fact, if I had to describe Thomas in a single word, that's the one I would have chosen.

Genuine.

"Thanks," I say, "That... almost helps."

"Then my work here is done," he picks up his bowl of cereal and makes his way around the kitchen counter toward his bedroom, which is down the hallway adjacent to my own, "Give me a shout if you need any other boy advice."

Twenty minutes later, I'm back in my bedroom. My jeans and the grey tee-shirt lay on the floor beside the bed. The navy-blue lingerie, bought for exactly this purpose, lays in a crumpled heap on top of the shelf. Instead, I'm wearing a black bodysuit. It's short-sleeved, and high enough on the bottom that it leaves my thighs and the long indents between my legs and pelvis exposed. It's not even really lingerie; it was just the first semi-sexy thing that I'd bought, in my third year of high school, and the first thing besides clothes or a bathing suit I'd let a boy see me in. I knew that Deidrich would remember it. Walking to the mirror, I tossed my phone in my hand. Turning my head slightly, I studied myself.

The mirror's the problem, I decided suddenly. I could hear Thomas' voice in the back of my head. Like the difference between verzweifelt and verlangen. I hadn't understood at the time. Now, standing in front of my full-length mirror, I think I did. Moving to my bed, I crawled backward onto it. I tried a few positions, first laying on my left side, and then laying on my back. I brought my legs up and then back down. There was something about this action--laying on my cool, slightly mussed sheets, moving slowly from one position to another, that was doing something positive for me. Pulling a pillow under the back of my head so that one of my shoulders was propped up on it slightly, I tilted my head down against my raised shoulder, widened my eyes, lifted my phone, and took a picture. Flipping my phone over, I stared at the screen.

Not a booty picture. A porno picture. I almost laughed. On the screen of my phone, my expression was simmering and seductive. My body was loose in the sheets. I could feel the fur blanket that covered the end of my bed, under my legs. Pulling the black fabric of the bodysuit down, so that it hung over the side of my arm and just exposed the side of my right breast, I turned slightly and raised my phone again. I didn't both checking the phone, this time--I knew it was good, without looking. Still holding the phone in one hand, I changed the angle ever so slightly and pressed my teeth against my bottom lip, staring at the camera from the top of my eyes. This time, I checked. Oh--yeah.

Truthfully, I don't know if they were any better than the pictures from the mirror. It might have been all in my mind; partially because I was more relaxed now, and partially because I was now definitely, profoundly aroused. This was a new experience. I'd taken pictures of myself before, and obviously I'd been turned-on before, but never one because of the other. I'd never turned myself on, thinking about somebody else looking at pictures of me.

I could feel my nipples standing up now, pressing against the age-softened, slightly elastic material of my bodysuit. My breathing is slightly more shallow than it was even a moment previously. Without lowering the phone, I lift myself slightly tug the top of the suit down over my chest. In the still air of my bedroom, the action seems particularly improper. Another new experience. I'd always, despite my studious, almost chaste appearance, felt pretty comfortable when it came to sex. Maybe because I'd waited until I was almost nineteen, to do it for the first time. It had always been an act of passion; hot hands and warm mouths and a kind of grabbing, desperate desire. Something pressingly hot, personal.

It had never been like this; never the slow exposure of my own body. Never in front of the eye of a camera, with slow movements controlled entirely by my own desire. Raising my hand, I tease my fingers over the hard knots of my nipples. The camera makes it's crinkly click. Maybe because my bedroom is so still, the movements of my body feel particularly lewd. I can hear my own breathing, light and fast in the otherwise motionless silence.