Shortly after his discharge from the army, back in Frankfurt with his parents and a senile grandfather, Walter looked for his first real job since his apprenticeship. Andreas told him about a small advertising office in Bockenheim that was looking for someone. Walter made an appointment, had an interview with the office manager and the owner, and got a job in administration. The work description included being a “guy Friday” person, checking newspaper ads, billing, and providing customer service.
Walter liked Hilde from the start. She was friendly, sweet, intelligent, lively, and sexy, with dark hair, brown eyes, and an exquisite body. They worked together for some time in different departments of the small office. Hilde had been hired straight out of advertising school, thrilled to be on her first assignment as a creative copywriter. Walter found out she had a boyfriend, who was a medical student, and never had any second thoughts about her. He respected Hilde for her honesty, directness, and refreshing style.
One evening, when it was just about time to go home, Walter entered the front office and found Hilde sitting and crying on a file cabinet.
Shocked and very concerned to see her like that, he asked, “What happened to you?”
She told him between sniffles that she found out her boyfriend had a lover.
Walter instantly tried to console her. “Hilde, I am very sorry, I do not like to see you suffer. Would you like to go to the movies?”
She said yes, so they drove downtown in his Volkswagen Beetle to a movie cinema and watched Clint Eastwood in A Fistful of Dollars. During the show, Walter noticed Hilde’s mood change; she became more relaxed.
After the movie, Walter suggested going to a disco. Hilde agreed but said, “I can’t dance.”
“Well, let’s see, it does not really matter, we shall have some fun—let’s go.”
The disco he had in mind was in the basement of a building near the university, the Brueckenkeller in the Westend. On a Wednesday night, the place was half-empty and the disc jockey turned on top forty Motown and some of the bands from England: the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. Hilde conquered her initial dance shyness, and the couple continued to dance for quite a bit. After a couple of hours, they somehow ended up in Walter’s room and made love.
It was a kind of love he had never experienced before: fully developed physical adult love. For him it was like making love for the first time—exceptionally sensual and lewd at the same time. Hilde undoubtedly liked it a lot as well; she screamed into the pillow, panted, gasped, and welcomed him inside her as they melted into each other. They did it repeatedly, and soon morning arrived. The new lovers, working in the same office with only a handful of colleagues, made sure not to arrive at work at the same time.
After the first night together, Hilde and Walter started to see each other almost every day. First, he stayed at her place and then went home, pretending for his parents that he slept in his bed. Gradually, he stayed overnight in Hilde’s studio on the top floor of a nearby apartment building. There were issues with Hilde’s boyfriend and another lover, but they all smoothed out. Soon they were a couple and moved together into a rented two-bedroom apartment on the third floor of a building in Frankfurt’s Westend.
Walter began to learn more about the office in which he worked. Behind the scenes, it was a place where individuals plotted plans and political maneuvers to gain influence and insert people into key positions, a second-tier think tank and organization that engaged in power manipulations for a specific group inside the liberal party of Hessen and Frankfurt. The advertising agency made money from and for small and midsize clients.
Walter ran into his friend Andreas frequently in the office because of Andreas’s meetings with the agency boss and others. Walter found out that Andreas was very active in the liberal party, as well as the youth organization Young Democrats. He introduced Walter to Denise Hauck, who had just obtained her high-school diploma and enrolled in college to study journalism. At the time, Denise had attained a certain degree of prominence. The contents of her farewell address from high school attracted media attention. She was praised as a citizen with civil courage. A major magazine featured an article about her, and she was also active in the liberal party and the Young Democrats.
Office gossip persisted that the much-older owner of the ad agency served as more than her protégé, that Denise thanked him with sexual concessions in return for him helping her with her speech and career. Andreas told Walter that he valued Denise a lot. The young men talked a great deal about women, and when Walter mentioned what people in the office said about Denise, Andreas did not believe it.
The two met frequently for a beer at either Andreas’s place or the Club Voltaire, where the student elite met to discuss current events, which happened in an increasingly intense way. People on the streets demonstrated against the Vietnam War and against nuclear power and the garbage it produced. There were daily sit-ins and meetings protesting student fees, the ministry of interior and its miscellaneous security agencies, and the exploitation of the masses by the bourgeoisie. Citizens occupied vacant houses in the Westend and other districts to live in them for free. Being young and in Frankfurt, or any other big city in Europe during this time, one could not avoid witnessing or even participating in heretofore unknown events, which spread out and motivated many people. Whenever he wanted and was able to, Walter joined a rally or demonstration.
Sometimes Andreas invited Walter into his basement rooms to play chess or listen to classical music and have a bottle of beer. Both liked strong filter-less French or German cigarettes.
During one of these visits, Andreas said, “Why don’t you lay down on the bed and relax?”
Walter did, and Andreas joined him on the bed as well. After a while, he casually put his arm around Walter and kissed him on the cheek. Walter froze; he did not know what to say or do. Apparently, this hesitation encouraged Andreas to kiss Walter on the mouth. He tried to stick his tongue in it, but Walter did not give in and wanted to get off the bed.
Andreas said, “Please stay, it is OK. I just love you.”
Walter, quite shocked, tried to ease up and keep his guard at the same time. Then Andreas started to caress him and went down to his private part, which hardened, and started to massage him. Walter did not interfere at this point, and after a few moments, he came. It was an embarrassing moment for him, and he made sure it never happened again. Afterward, Andreas told him that he had sex with other men but also liked women, especially Denise Hauck, who soon became his girlfriend. Though he had no confirmation, Walter suspected that Denise had affairs with other women in the office and in the party. He made sure to be always vigilant around Andreas.