The last thing Ι thought Ι would stumble upon when Ι got home on that Friday night was my summer girlfriend. Actually, I'm not a man who has a lover for every season. I just call her my summer girlfriend because we meet only once a year for a week or two on a small Greek island called Gavdos. It's pretty hard to get there because you have to travel to and through Crete first and take a ferry, which is why I hope every year that she won't come.

I love spending the entire summer on Gavdos because it is so far away from civilisation that I can focus on my writing. In the past I used to camp on the beach, but I bought a small house two years ago when it had become clear that our arrangement would become a permanent one - and making love on the beach is not nearly as much fun in reality as it may have been for Meggie and Ralph on The Thornbirds.

It was actually her idea to keep our arrangement a secret so that we would be able to go on with our lives as if we hadn't discovered that awesome chemistry between us. So we are only a couple on Gavdos and if we are not on the island, we act as if we don't know each other. Even when we bump into each other around town, which happens from time to time, we behave as if we are strangers.

Her name is Kendall because her mother named her after "Erica Kane's" daughter. But it would have been more appropriate if her name had been Emma as in "Emma Bovary" or at least "Anna" as in "Anna Karenina." Kendall has a husband and two small children, who she says are two young to grow up in a divided family. On the other hand, will they ever be old enough? She tells me every summer that she isn't happy with her life, but she isn't ready to leave the husband who allegedly bores her to tears - unlike me, with whom she leads an exotic life on Gavdos. I'm aware that I'm being abused as I'm her ticket to freedom and being herself for a while.

On the other hand, it's comfortable to have her around for a while. As I tell my undergraduate students in our first course session for "Creative Writing 101" every year, writing is not a glamorous affair. I know no female writer who does it while she is wearing a hairspray can on their head and is ready to have her picture taken, nor do I think that the few fortunate ladies in our business are looking like the picture on the dust jackets of their books all the time.

But now it seems as if our deal is off and she has gone completely crazy. Why is sitting on the pavement with her head in her hands? Doesn't she realize that it's raining cats and dogs and she could catch pneumonia, dressed as she is in a flimsy top and shorts? I'm actually too tired to talk to anyone, least of all to a drama queen like her. But apparently, I don't have a choice. 

"Kendall, are you okay?" I ask her as I get out of my car. 

She looks up at me as if she hasn't heard my footsteps approach before. "John, I've been such a fool!" she says and continues when she realizes that I don't know what to make of her statement, "I thought we could go on like this forever and there would be no consequences!"

"Why don't you come into my place, and we'll talk about it?" I suggest as I don't think we should talk about our affair here in the middle of the street on a rainy night. If we do that, then there will be no telling who can listen in, and I don't want my entire neighborhood to find out that I've been caught up in an adulterous affair. 

However, she doesn't seem to care about that as she is shaking her head. "No, I can't do that! I'm here to tell you that we cannot see each other again and that this has to end!"

I couldn't agree with her more. But what I still don't understand is why she is here tonight. 

"I'm pregnant again, you know," she reveals as if she can read my thoughts. "And I don't know whether the baby is yours or Alex's." 

I feel as if someone has hit me with a baseball bat on the head. She has to be lying, and this cannot possibly be true. After all, we've always been careful, and she's assured me she's on the pill. If she is really pregnant, it has to be her husband's baby. 

"Is that all you have to say? Nothing?" 

"Well, congratulations to you and Alex then," I volunteer as I still cannot believe the very unreal thing she has just told me. 

She looks at me quizzically. "But won't you mind losing me?" 

"How can I mind losing something that I've never had in the first place?" I ask somewhat exasperated. 

Now she seems genuinely upset. "So what we had didn't mean anything to you?" 

"It will always be a beautiful memory. But aside from that, we had agreed that it could never mean more than that to either of us," I remind her, and I sincerely hope she sees it the same way.

That is not the case apparently. Although it's dark and raining, I can see her eyes fill with tears.

"Hey," I say and lean in closer so that I can assure her that everything is going to be all right.

"You don't care! You don't care about me or that baby I'm carrying!" she exclaims.

"As you said, it might not be mine, and I don't think it is," I maintain. "I will take on full responsibility if it is, however. But as for now, I think you've made your choice to stay with your family and end our affair."

"So it's really goodbye then?" She is looking at me as if she cannot believe it and wants me to stop her from going back to her husband.

I nod as I'm far too tired for this and just want to get this over with. I can still feel upset about it later. "Goodbye, Kendall."

She grabs me by the shoulders and kisses me passionately for one last time before she walks off and leaves me behind. I keep on thinking that what has just happened is the opposite of the ending of Breakfast at Tiffany's, and it could be a swell beginning for my next story. But I'm too tired to think about this now. There will be a time to do so later.