Ten holds one and zero, the harmony between opposites. Nine embraces three triangles: body, mind and spirit. Eight lies down in the infinite. Seven is heaven - seven musical scales, seven colors in the rainbow, seven virtues. Six contains the two triangles of dialectics. Five adds up the senses that capture matter. Four calls God's name with the elements of nature, the seasons and cardinal points. Three brings the synthesis of father, mother and offspring. Two is me and you. One is the genesis of everything.

A minute point suspended in the multidimensional space, the starting point for all lines of creation: the number One.

Marco held the ivory die between his thumb and index finger. Pensive, he contemplated the small white square with the dark dot in the center.

The game was a living organism. The rules and number of tosses changed, combining to create from simple to the most complex variables. Each toss affected the next. The first tossing could also happen to be unique, locked within itself with a categorical meaning. With no escape.

That had been the case the previous day, before he cheated. Marco took a deep breath. No. He would't cheat. He was tired of subterfuges.

He knew exactly what he had to do.

Marco put the die back in the nightstand drawer and began preparations in an elaborate ritual-the devil, as they said, was in the detail. Diligence became a trance. His mind wandered, making plans and anticipating, while his hands worked in an uninterrupted flux as if someone else directed them.

The valise with accessories remained forgotten under the bed while Marco arranged the bedroom. This time there would be no incense and port. Or whiskey, for that matter. He changed the linens and opened the window to invite in the fresh air. When everything was ready, he undressed-the odd sensation of peeling off an old skin-and stepped into the shower. Closing his eyes, Marco let the water run over his body for a long time. He felt all of a sudden exhausted.

Once he was done washing, he wrapped himself in a towel and proceeded to the bedroom. The ring of the cell phone on the bed yanked him off his thoughts with a startle. He dried his hands quickly and answered it. It was her.

"Hi. I just wanted to hear your voice... I can't explain. You're different this time." She made a pause. "Are you already taking care of preparations?"

"Yeah," Marco answered in autopilot.

"Did you stop by the sex shop?"

"No. And I know exactly where you're heading with this talk." He couldn't help a smile.

"Hmm, coming from you, should we infer the plans for tonight involve an erotic literary classic?" She gave a wicked chuckle.

"I generally don't use work material for leisure."

His cheerful tone sounded contrived. She didn't grasp that and tried guessing: if it wasn't a classic, then surely it was one of those dirty books... No, not a dirty book. A film? Neither. Her strident curiosity was starting to get on Marco's nerves. When she finally gave up the guessing game, he remained quiet. And she, assuming he was too busy to talk, cleared her throat and awkwardly said goodbye. Marco hung up and took a deep breath. He didn't like to admit it, but he was anxious.

For the first time in quite a while, expectation dominated him. He hadn't the faintest idea of how that evening would turn up. It was not his partner's reaction that made him uneasy though: he knew how to maneuver and lead her precisely where he wanted her to go, predicting her resistances and needs, guiding her sensations to wake up dormant instincts she hadn't even dreamt of. He could carry out effortlessly. It was relatively simple to deal with the other, for he was able to step back and see in perspective. The problem was when he had to predict his own reactions and come face to face with this other that was himself.

What he planned to do deviated from his usual procedure. Now he was the one exposing a vulnerable flank. He hadn't done it since Vegas. But then he was drunk, so technically it didn't count. Now, choosing that route led to a peculiar intermission: neither master nor disciple. Then what? The master dictated the rules and knew intimately their dynamics and goals, aware he could change them any time-and there resided the difficulty of it. The disciple would trust the master and follow the rules without questioning, therefore being spared from the pains of free will. It was a fair exchange.

Safe.

Well, not this time.

Marco thought about the die. Would it be pulling a prank? The memory of that night in Vegas taunted him.

He and Jeff had raised the first toast, the Scotch went down burning their throats, and the friend asked about the die.

"Why don't we roll it? See what happens," he poked.

"The clerk said the second die is missing from the set. The results are truncated."

"So what? It's just for fun." Jeff reflected for a moment, smoothing out his blond curls. His blue eyes glinted. "We can improvise. We ask a question. If an even number turns up, the answer is yes. Odd number, answer is no. The higher the number, the stronger the prediction. C'mon. It's not every day a two-thousand-year old die shows up."

"It's not two thousand years old. It's a replica."

"Still. It's antique and has a certain mysticism to it. Imagine Romans throwing a die just like that in biblical times."

With a sigh, Marco laid down his glass. He groped his pocket for the package and opened it.

"You do the honors first," the friend said with a bow. "After all, it's yours."

Marco's brain remained empty. The only thing that occurred to him was the same thing that had been occurring for the past year since the divorce. Lorena. A longing tainted with anger. Where would she be now? Maybe married to the rich heir that her family was so eager to applaud with a standing ovation. Love was ironic. Before, she made him happier beyond his dreams. At the mere thought of Lorena, happiness expanded within him. After the separation, he began associating her with pain and the memory of her brought a bad aftertaste to his mouth. Psychologists stated that it was a normal reaction, that it was necessary to be angry at the other person so to survive the breakup.

The last time he saw her before the separation was the worst. No quarrel, no indifference, and yet infinitely more hurtful. He returned earlier from work and she startled. Soon Marco understood why: Lorena had packed her belongings and planned to leave without saying goodbye. She wanted to shake his hand, but he refused. The relief Marco caught on her face, which she attempted to disguise with a solemn expression, was worse than anything. Lorena was relieved that she would no longer be sharing that roof with him, that her family would accept her back and life would return to normal. From then on, intead of facing difficulties, she would be able to live her dream. Behind the mask, Lorena's face was radiant.

"Did you ask the question?" probed Jeff.

"Yes," Marco lied.

He rolled the die half-heartily, and they followed the pirouette of the ivory cube.

"Ah, six. Then the answer is definitely yes, Marco. Satisfied?"

Even if Marco knew what to respond, he didn't have a chance: she sat by his side before he could utter a word. Blondish straight hair, a siren's body and brown eyes shifting into green according to the light. A deluxe escort inside a red halter-neck minidress lacking many yards of fabric. She introduced herself as Stefania and started to chat, telling it was her night off and she wanted to have a good time. She was sick of love for rent, of old men gushing money proportionally to their impotence, and spoiled brats who didn't know what they were doing. Sick, sick.

The two drank the first glass together. Then another and yet another. Stefania said she liked him. She wanted to have a good time with him. She spoke as she nibbled on his lips, one careless hand on his thigh. Oh, it was nice groping him. What about the rest? Levitating in a cloud of Scotch, Marco ran his index on her neck and descended until parking where the low cut neckline ended. Between her breasts, he traced a spiral with his fingertip. Stefania held his hand, brought it to her lips and slowly inserted his finger in her mouth.

They left Jeff throwing the die with a drunk saxophone player, and the last thing Marco heard was the friend attacking La Marseillaise. His room was on the seventh floor, and inside the elevator time became elastic, running slow and fast at intervals: for hours his hands felt Stephania's body parts that mattered, and in less than a minute they arrived at the carpeted corridor. Suddenly they were in the room. And Stefania had a good time, her eyes a green mist, a wavering striptease, and then her hands, experienced despite the alcohol, removing his clothes.

She began to ride him with might and main, her firm hands on his hips, mouth ajar, dreamy expression. They shifted, he knelt and she suspended her lower body to press her feet on his chest. Then they were at the TV rack, her sitting on the edge with both legs around him, and him deep into her soft inside. Maybe it had happened that way. Marco couldn't remember the sequence of it all, only the torpid urgency and the smell of sex in the stuffy room. He recalled vaguely she'd nicknamed him hottie and praised his size before inserting it into her mouth like she had done with his finger. He said she was hot too, but he was almost sure of not reciprocating the courtesy due to a lack of inclination. The images flashed and faded to black until the next scene. She spreading out like a starfish against the wall and lifting her buttocks to him. Then again on the bed, on all fours. Until the last scene. They were lying amid the upheaval of sheets and he looked at the smoke alarm on the white ceiling, his body and thoughts vacant.

Stefania drew her lips close to his ear.

"I really like you, Marco."

"Me too," he said without paying much attention, his hollow stare still on the ceiling.

She laughed.

"You really like yourself?"

"You're right. Let's say it properly." Marco turned to gaze at her. "I like you too, Stefania."

"Oh, I guess we're intimate enough for you to call me by my real name. Lorena."

He was instantly sober. The name invaded each fiber of his body, shaking it with the echo of a dream that carried a nightmare. The clerk's words came back to him. The die sometimes produces strange results. He looked at the woman sprawled next to him, the perfect breasts pointing at him, the parted lips in an invitation, and didn't know what to do with her. That was the problem of bringing unknown women into his territory. He couldn't stand to his feet and depart. What he had left was the shower. Then a feigned sleep while the name still reverberated inside him. Lorena, Lorena, Lorena...

Marco turned into a prisoner of the memory. It wasn't him who couldn't forget it. It was the memory that wouldn't forget him: Lorena-Stefania evoking Lorena-Lorena, the contrast between the colors of an amusement park and the barrenness of an industrial park. Love ends one day and his finally wore out. But the mark she had left, that never wore out. It was buried in time, but when he least expected it found a way of making itself visible. I'm here. Remember me. Yes, the mark was pain, and also the symbol of a dream. Marisa once told him she became attached to the pain because it reminded her of her dad. In Marco's case, forgetting the mark was the same as betraying a dream. Maybe that's why he couldn't forget-maybe that's why the mark wouldn't forget him either.

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What is Marco up to? Guesses, anyone?