Teaser Tale

How Cathy Came To Berlin

Cathy never thought she would end up in Berlin working as the assistant of an erotic photographer.

First there was Amsterdam. I came there to escape briny, stifling Whitstable. Sure, the sea was fine, especially when it was rough and the beach empty. But after Ella died, our house felt like a cocoon spun to keep mum, dad and me stuck in grief and self-blame. After a year, I couldn’t breathe anymore, and although it felt like abandoning them, I knew I had to find a place of my own. Siobhan was studying in Amsterdam, so I went there.

I got high for weeks on all the weed they sell there in these so-called coffeeshops and I met Peter. He was nice and I enjoyed making love to him. But he nor any relationship was what I was looking for. Did I know what I was looking for? I guess not. Did I discover my body as a vessel to satisfy my needs? I’d say I took the first steps in Amsterdam, but nothing like what I got into in Berlin.

There was this party Siobhan took me to. Fellow students of hers had decided to rent a holiday home outside of the city for the weekend. I’d never seen so much free booze and drugs. We got wasted and we kissed for the first time. And not just each other. It was crazy. I think I was naked the whole Sunday. Looking back, we took quite a risk throwing ourselves into the arms of so many strangers. But the Dutch are clean people—no STD’s—and most of them are quite civilised.

After Siobhan went back to England, and I had ditched Peter, Amsterdam felt like another trap I’d fallen into. People said Berlin was a better party city, less clean, more rough. Someone told me it was like going back to the eighties. I was born in the eighties, so it sounded like the place to be. I took a train and ended up in an apartment of someone whom someone in Amsterdam knew through a friend who was travelling. Or maybe that someone from the apartment was travelling. I don't remember.

I met Alexander within a month. He liked the pictures I took with Dad’s old Leica. He said I looked like Francesca Woodman. I didn’t know who that was. Later, I found out she was an artist who killed herself by jumping out of a window in New York. Like Ella. I guess that’s just a coincidence.

I got a job at the studio of a well-known erotic photographer. That’s how I ended up in Berlin. And slowly but surely found my own way.

This is a prequel-teaser for the 25 episode erotic serial The Leatherbound Diaries.