I was invited for a soirée by a woman I didn’t know -- actually this woman had sent an invitation to my assistant and he had forwarded the invitation to me.
I have become slightly more suspicious of entering a stranger’s home (although the experience of couch surfing helped me to get used to the idea of the suspension of distrust), so I insisted on meeting the lady first in a public place.
She seemed friendly, educated and not dangerous at all.
Yesterday afternoon I took a car service to her apartment in Red Hook, Brooklyn.
Within the framework of something I call “positive decadence” I asked the driver to wait for me.
When I came out of the building after two hours the driver smiled and asked me: “So did you have a good time?” (Nudge nudge wink wink.)
He seemed to be convinced that I had asked him to drive me to Red Hook so I could engage in lewd behavior.
So I answered: “The soirée was perfectly beautiful – Duras was being discussed and social welfare for artists in Belgium.”