Judy, who was in the front seat of the cab, turned around and said, We would like to have a sex party. I am amazed at my good fortune. Every time I wrap up an affair with someone I’m certain it is the last time I will ever have sex, and each time someone reveals that they’d like to get with me I’m astounded at my luck and flooded with gratitude. This could only seem desperate or insecure or otherwise unattractive, deadly to groovy sex vibes, so I play it cool.
Yeah, sure, totally.
You’re going to fuck a Christmas tree tonight! Judy cheers.
She played a Christmas tree in one of Louise de Ville’s earlier numbers. In a green strapless dress, wearing a plastic icicle as an earring, she was roped by the burlesque performer in garlands of tinsel and, once immobilized, left at the edge of the dance floor for the duration of the performance. For three songs she stood there, her hands tied in front of her, looking absurd and endearing.
The cab lets us off at Pigalle and we stumble into a bodega—I can’t remember the French word for it because I can’t remember any French words, but the first part of it is the word for spice, which my useless Rough Guide Phrase book doesn’t list, just like it doesn’t list the words for scandal or honor. Killer and Antoine get a giant bottle of beer and I get a pack of cigarettes. At the apartment I make coffee with the little stovetop espresso maker and Antoine pulls out a bindle of MDMA and arranges some lines on the counter. The first night I met Antoine he was on MDMA. I learned this the following night, at another party, when he seemed to be crying on the couch. He’s crashing from MDMA, someone said. Oh, totally. Later I ran into him snorting more in the kitchen when I was fetching French Diet Coke with lemon. Why don’t they put lemon in the Diet Coke in Estats Unis? This makes three nights in a row that Antoine is on MDMA, and he plans to do some in the catacombs tomorrow, so Antoine is just pretty much really really high all the time. When I comment on this he inquires, Can you tell the difference? and I honestly can’t, except maybe his English is a little better when he’s sober.
Killer eats the gooseberries in the cardboard boat that I bought at the quaint fruit stand around the corner. I offer him cheese as well but I only have camembert and he only eats chevre and I don’t know if this is because he is a cheese snob or is lactose intolerant. Then he informs me that my camembert is actually brie and tells me he will show me true, quality French cheese. I’m sort of delighted that the dirty broke Parisian queers who sneak onto the Metro and get kicked out of bars for using the bathrooms but not purchasing drinks have high taste in cheese. They also instruct me to choose juice over Diet Coke, for the vitamins, and urge me to eat salad, to ease the affects of my Parisian diet of chocolate and fromage.
Oh my god is this story ever going to get to the catacombs? Wait, I’m having sex with Antoine and Killer at the same time while Judy smiles on like a benevolent angel. No way, man. This is easily one of the best nights of my life. Like real French people, they barely stop smoking to fuck. Antoine is putting his cigarette in my mouth and exhaling in my face. It would be gross in any other city.
Afterwards we hang out and cuddle. I am told by Antoine that the rumor among the queers was that I didn’t fuck. I am aghast to have such a horrible rumor spread about me! Lies!
That’s Insane! I sputter. Everyone Fucks!
Soon I understand that they weren’t suggesting I don’t make sweet sweet love with my life partner d’jour, but that I don’t fuck in the sporting way they do, taking a lover here and there, this way and that, Monday Tuesday Wednesday with a night off Thursday and a new body on Friday. I am humbled. I guess I don’t fuck. I’m disappointed in myself, but play it off like there’s been a terrible misunderstanding, easily disproved with my presence at this very sex party. Judy has my back, anyway. I told them, have you read her books! Then we go into the bedroom and do it again. Killer’s cock is cotton-candy pink, because queers in Paris who prefer a phallus they can both wear in their pants all night and put to use in the boudoir have only two choices, pink and blue. This makes me sad for all the butches, and I resolve to send them a care package of dildos with more dignified hues. After we resume cuddling.
Oh my god I want to move to Paris and live here forever. I want to have a Henry and June and Anais relationship with Judy and Killer, I’m in love with both of them. I want to be able to mosey up to cute Antoine and just make out with him whenever I want, with the casual elan of Judy the nineteen year old French porn star.
