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21 July 1983

Winnie Maas died because she changed her mind.

Afterwards there were those who maintained that she died because she was beautiful and stupid — a combination acknowledged to be risky.

Or because she was gullible, and relied on the wrong people.

Or because her father was a shit who had abandoned his family long before Winnie had stopped using nappies or a baby’s bottle.

And there were others who claimed that Winnie Maas used to wear skirts that were rather too short and blouses that were rather too tight, and that in fact she had only herself to blame.

None of these explanations was totally without justification; but the thing that clinched it was that she changed her mind.

The moment before she hit the ground and smashed her skull on the steel rail, she even realized that herself.

She wiped away a tiny bit of extra lipstick and contemplated her image in the mirror. Opened her eyes wide and wondered if she needed a bit more eyeliner. It was a nuisance to have to keep remembering to open her eyes wide — easier to apply a bit more liner underneath. She drew a thin line with the pencil, leaned towards the mirror and checked the result.

Pretty good, she thought, and transferred her attention to her mouth. Showed her teeth. They were even and white, and her gums were hidden behind her lips, thank goodness — not like Lisa Paaske’s, who was very pretty with her green, slanting eyes and high cheekbones, but was condemned to wander around looking serious all the time, or at best to give an enigmatic smile, all because her upper gums grew down so far. Huh, Winnie thought. That must be hard to keep up.

She checked her watch. A quarter to nine. High time she was on her way. She stood up, opened the wardrobe door and checked how she looked in the full-length mirror. Tried out a few poses, thrusting out first her breasts, then her pelvis. She looked good, both high up and low down — she had just plucked out four strands of hair that had been sticking out dangerously close to her bikini line.

Perfect, Jurgen had said. I’ll be damned if your body isn’t perfect, Winnie.

Smashing, Janos had suggested, she recalled that clearly. You really are smashing, Winnie — I get a hard-on every time I walk past your house.

She smiled when she thought about Janos. Of all the boys she’d been with, Janos was the best. He’d done it in just the right way. He’d somehow managed to combine sensitivity and tenderness, just as they said it should be in Flash and Girl-zone.

Janos. In a way it was a pity that it wasn’t going to be Janos.

But so what? she thought, slapping her buttocks. No point in crying over spilled milk. She dug out a pair of lace panties from the dressing-table drawer, but she couldn’t find a clean bra and so didn’t bother. She didn’t need one, after all. Her breasts were quite small, and firm enough not to sag. If there was anything about her body she would have liked to improve, it would be slightly bigger breasts. Not much bigger, just a little bit. To be sure, Dick had said that she had the prettiest titties the world had ever seen, and he’d sucked and squeezed them so thoroughly that they’d hurt for several days afterwards — but let’s face it: a few extra grams wouldn’t have done any harm.