Joy [antikvár]

JOY'My name is Joy, I am twenty-two, tall, slender, and a natural blonde. Being blonde I attract men - but why do I never get the nice ones? Once I submitted eagerly to the homage paid to my beauty - but then I was just a fool strutting about on the edge of an abyss CHAPTER ONEI have never understood men at all. Fve confused things as in a badly learned lesson, without reflecting or paying attention, and so Fve blundered along making mistakes and ruining everything. I used to be the life and soul of the party, Superwoman, sweety-pie, everyone's favourite, the pre~ destined winner, quite the little treasure I was absolutely oblivious of the pain that brutal, bruising lőve can cause. As for middle-aged passión, late loves whether sad or perverse -all that sort of thing provoked my derision and I gave it short shrift. Attractive as I was, I couldn't have been more stupid. Yet I was happy, happy and empty.Now I live in the past, scared of saying goodbye to the soothing green pastures of adolescence. I can still taste the tang of those days and savour the bitter-sweet quality of those youthful floods of tears. If I close my eyes I can rediscover my mother's softness: my nose is buried in her pullover, while the pink glow from the lamp-shade lends my room the colour of an acid drop. That was the era of vanília, chocolate and blackcurrant syrup, of teeth proudly and individually lost. There were sugár mice, caramels, the enticing aromas of jams in glass jars with handwritten labels. Hours passed wonderfully slowly then, ambushed only by a large brass pendulum shining through the half-light of those drowsy summer afternoons, when shutters were closed to trap the coolness indoors and I would usually be found lounging on