Whiplash travel always feels so dream-like. Your head is hazy. Every conversation, every excursion feels a little surreal. And then you return, you take that cab back into the city and it’s just as you’ve left it. You’re left wondering how much of that trip was real and how much is just warped memory.

I had one gig in Berlin that felt and feels like an hallucination. My client stayed on New York time when he traveled, so he wanted me to fly to Berlin to meet him at 2am each night for three nights. I got by on three- and four-hour naps spaced about six hours apart, so I’d wake up, roll out of bed and stroll through the city until my body screamed for sleep. Then I’d head back, nap, wake up and embark on the ultra-feminine regimen that typically transforms me from into the hired girl that I am. Then I’d engage in some S&M-tinged play in the middle of the night, while the rest of Berlin slept (well, most of Berlin), until my client felt satisfied. I’d silently tiptoe back to my room, strip down, and sink into another few hours of sleep. And then I’d do it again.

That Berlin trip was tough. The client was the quintessential Republican.

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The other night, I had to forego my plans to revisit Les Chandelles and went to the Opera to see the ballet production of Orpheus and Eurydice, choreographed by Pina Bausch. The extraordinary thing is that the performance was set to Gluck’s 18th-century opera, and both dancers and singers shared the stage. But what’s most striking about the performance was how spare the production was. The storyline was epic, the opera was eighteenth-century and full of flourish, but the set, costume, and choreography were all very clean, even austere. And a bit dark. Very German. The movement was stunning.

By the end of the production, my feet were shot. I’d been wearing stiletto boots for two days and I’d worn the heels down to the steel spike so that I clacked against every surface. I developed blisters somewhere on the Left Bank, those blisters started bleeding sometime on my way back into the Marais, so hitting the ballet that evening was tough. I bandaged my feet and slid them into the stiletto’d fuck-me heels I’d brought for the gig, and it took all my composure and a fistful of Tylenol to walk without a limp. After the performance, I was ready to hail a cab, get back to my room, and get the heels off my bruised feet.

While I was battling the fur-clad elderly for the attention of oncoming cabs, I met a boy. I wasn’t really in the mood to chat since I really just needed to get out of my shoes, but he was charming. And good-looking. And I’m shallow that way. He lured me into a cafe for some wine.

He looked great. He was somewhere in his thirties, a writer. Parisian. Dark-haired, a little scruffy. Kissable. Had a large silver band on one of his thumbs and it distracted me when he talked. I’d asked him if he’d heard of Les Chandelles and he hadn’t. I let the subject drop.

I didn’t sleep with him. I thought about it, but I was too eager to get out of my shoes, take a long bath, and decompress. I thanked him for the wine, took his number, and hailed a cab back to the hotel. The moment I flung open the door, I kicked off my shoes, stripped down to my underwear, and stretched across the bed with a kilo of clementines, a small plate of raspberry macaroons, and a bottle of wine. I stared at the ceiling for about half an hour.

Sometimes I need to be alone.