"Ecstasy and existence have the same root." Michel Serres

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"Seduction is the true violence." Friedrich Schiller

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"Under certain circumstances, my body is a ticket. It grants me access to the most exclusive spheres. I dress myself, maybe I undress myself ... and I never lose the feeling that I am using and developing my personality, which is first and foremost a sexual personality. As paradoxical as it may sound. For me, this always has something to do with my intelligence." Persephone von Pechstein

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In collaboration with Christine Zarrath.

An interest in significant losses

"But you're going to nail me differently than you originally imagined in your own thoughts. It won't be your cock that penetrates me, but your fingers. After your eyes and your fingers have had all of me, you will leave without having achieved anything."

Ned reads this message with a certain sense of perplexity. A contract is concluded through offer and acceptance. Persephone makes her offer. That's the deal.

Persephone's thoughts are clear, her argumentation is precise. She wants Ned as a man who will devote himself to her completely, who will chase her to the highest heights with complete concentration and quiet words - while he sits at the wheel, self-confident and unsatisfied. When a man is coitally exhausted, Persephone has always had the feeling that he is losing sight of her in the context of his post-coital fatigue. And how can she surrender to someone who is not leading, who can't control himself and her? She would not admit this to Ned, but she knows from painful experiences how devastating the first male orgasm can be for the process of approchement between man and woman. Persephone doesn't want to be whistled back to the starting line, endure a shabby distancing and talk herself into a fresh start. She has absolutely no desire for this shower of exhaustion that extinguishes the flames.

Persephone and Ned have only known each other for a few weeks as campus colleagues. Persephone also works at an AI start-up whose boss, a braggart called Marcel Grass, stalks his most beautiful employee. 

She texts Ned the location of the former church, which will the spot of their first physical interaction. No penis penetration, but something nearby. Ned gives a thumbs up in return. Persephone finds that disgusting. But she also knows that Ned will keep stepping on her toes just like she did to him. It's a battle that Persephone sometimes hopes Ned will win. That would be a kind of comfort for her, something we'll talk about another time.

Our novel starts in an small Hanseatic and university town in the former GDR. In anti-religious real socialism, with the slogan Religion is the opium of the people (Karl Marx), churches were secularized. Persephone's aim - once the most impressive church in the city - now functions as a rehabilitation center for troubled youths. A friend works there and has given her the key, as Persephone likes to stage her semi-formal improv theater sessions there.

Why doesn't she settle for a secluded room in the dead wing of her university? The ancient building with the shape of a castle has never lost its medieval character. It is suitable as a Gothic and mystery setting. Nevertheless, Persephone wants the first physical act with Ned under the most dazzling circumstances she can imagine.

Persephone knows the rules, and although she hates them, she knows what will happen to her if she breaks them too obviously. Of course she has read Pierre-Ambroise-François Choderlos de Laclos. Even if a woman like her is not banished to a monastery to die like Madame de Tourvel in "Dangerous Liaisons - Les Liaisons dangereuses", Persephone rightly fears, that a too obvious display of her seductive ambitions can still lead to social isolation that blocks doors that she still wants to go through. So she tries to play a discreet game of hide-and-seek for her excursions. What suits her are selected locations that are charged with meaning, with romantic props for her little chamber plays - like this former church. The building offers a severely neglected example of Romanesque architecture. It features round arches and fortress-like wall. Persephone can't imagine a better setting for her initiation, or at least the imitation of an initiation. Her anticipation is so strong that she can't clearly distinguish between excitement and the urge to urinate.

Choderlos de Laclos serves Persephone as Keynote speaker and as an ideal of a master of ceremonies. His most successful novel, first published in 1782, caused a scandal with European format. Persephone hopes with physical fervor that Ned can be for her in flesh and blood what de Laclos is in her imagination.

There have always been blasphemous tests of faith. Here, too, Catholicism provided the more interesting variants. Anyone who burdens the foundations of the Church with their extravagance must be immune to the fears surrounding the theme park of desecration. Remy de Gourmont demonstrated this in his Poems of the Oraisons Mauvaises. The fusion of suffering with lasciviousness goes beyond blasphemy.

Ned appears in Persephone's back. She looks like an icon in the backlight. She is standing in front of a stained glass window, her red dress screams sin and yet is of a suitable length and high neckline to be worn safely in any kind of social context. Persephone looks exactly like the model in a romantic painting that was painted in this city. She does not turn around. A tension keeps her trapped in immobility.