Heat of Summer

Summer is in full swing here in Budapest.  It's been very hot throughout the day and night for a week or so.  Thursday evening I went to Franz List Square and sat at one of the many outdoor cafes which were all quite crowded. I met with the filmmaker Katalin Krammer who told me of upcoming projects she has planned starring the likes of Penelope Cruz and Nicole Kidman.  She also fed me several Marlboro menthol lights cigarettes.  I had funny pains in my chest the next day and swore I would never smoke again.  Katalin drove me across the Margaret Bridge into Buda so I could make my way home.  She was on her way to a date.  She met with me because she seeks my services as a publicist.
 
Yesterday I finished an article on information technology outsourcing.  While I was working on it a tall, slender short-haired brunette photographer came into my office to make conversation.  I got the sense she was horny.  That evening we met at the Shark Beer Garden on Margaret Island.  It turns out she's first generation American of mixed Bolivian and Hungarian parentage.  She's twenty-nine and recently returned from a two-year stint in China where she learned Chinese and rode her bike 3000 km.  She also smokes.  She smokes in the style of a bygone era, deep inhales and second-stream exhales - the kind where the smoker first blows out a long stream of smoke and then after a short pause blows out a second, smaller stream as if emptying a reserve tank.
 
I probably could have got her home and taken her into the realm orgasmic ecstasy which she clearly desired, if the way she chewed on her nails was any indication.  But I didn't.  Instead I wussed out and said goodbye to her at the mouth of the bridge to the island.  "Let's do this again sometime." She said.