When people would ask me, why I was flying to Paris, I’d answer them simply: To fall in love.

But I wasn’t going there to fall “in love,” because, I thought, I’d already fallen “in love.” But I hadn’t. Hadn’t really fallen “in love.”

I’ve been living in Paris for almost a week. “Living in,” was a distinction pointed out by my Parisian last evening over dinner.

We’ve constructed a certain degree of routine: We grace each others’ presence over breakfast and dinner. Most of us think that there is a normal cadence of life between the hours of 9:00 am to 5:00 pm, but the night requires bed time. Well, yes it does. But why do we all assume that the hours between the end of dinner and the start of breakfast would consist of a great degree of personal compromise? Frankly, I find constraint very sexy! Why would two strangers strangle a budding friendship with debauchery?

I really care for my Parisian. He allows me to be me. He enjoys my company, my writing, my conversation. The longer the restraint the greater the degree of longing. My Parisian said to me last night while our entree plates were cleared, “It’s almost as though you’ve been here for longer than a week.” And then, while looking down at his lap, he admitted, “I’m going to miss you terribly when you leave.”

I’m not one for goodbyes, especially premeditated ones. What he said continues to reverberate in my heart, causing an ache which is so painful, it’s as though God himself was wringing it out like a dishrag.

This morning I said, “You know, I don’t have a home. This hotel is my home. This garden is my garden; this dining room is my dining room; the hotel staff greet me every morning and evening as Mr. Didrickson; after you leave for work, they know that I retire to the garden for a cigar, and they’ll bring me two triple espressos while I ruminate about my afternoon’s writing; and they know that you and I dine every morning and evening. I’m treated as an expat writer, living in Paris, and enjoying the intimacies of a younger Parisian. And like all top-notch personal service, they are committed to Our happiness, which, by the way, is seen as natural and lovely.

“Do you know why?” I asked my Parisian.

“No,” he replied while shaking his head.

Leaning toward him I whispered, “Because what they see is a very special friendship, and they are so pleased to be a part of something so magical.”

I’m a fool.

Or perhaps, foolhardy.

Yesterday and today I tried to distance myself from the two men which have burrowed into my soul. I lashed out in anger and in disbelief. And now I sit in my Parisian hotel room and wonder if I’ll ever enjoy their precious company again.

One, Artem, is still moored in South Africa. The other sits a short distance away. But in arrogance they’re no nearer than the moon. Yet both hold my heart in their hands, and, I fear, have placed it on a tabletop, picked up a ball-peen hammer, and are about to crush it like a walnut.

Why do we proffer our hearts to those who even own ball-peen hammers? Why do I ache when all I’ve ever wanted is closeness? Is love such a tasteless commodity that people drink it’s nectar only to spit it out? Then why even take that first bite?

Artem most likely has been a fantasy. I doubt that I’ll ever hold him in my arms. And the other is certainly physical, very physical, and of whom I’ve held in my arms and tasted and felt every inch of his intoxicating flesh. Why then have they chosen to distance themselves from me? Have I become so needy? Needy isn’t sexy. Not even to me. Confidence is sexier. Confidence brings with it the ability to be alone, untethered, a freed balloon floating high above the city. Young men love balloons. They chase them. But no one loves pigeons. No one loves the pecking of pigeons for indistinguishable morsels of discarded bread.

I’ve never been good at waiting. I’m impatient. I have a certain degree of wanting. Yet, I’d always thought that longing was a handsome trait. But perhaps longing is like a poorly camouflaged trap. Every creature on earth knows how to avoid a trap. Even I.

So to the two most important men I know, know this: I want you in my life. But I don’t need you. I need to breathe. I need to live. But love? I want love. I want men. And if this all sounds too needy know one thing: I was born into this life to live. I have lived before you and I will live after you. You’re but a wayside I’ve chosen to steer into. And you can join me on my journey if you so desire. But you’re free my darlings. Free to climb out of my car whenever we no longer serve us.

In life there is both fact and fiction  As a writer my job is to live life, experience it, and then manufacture stories that are palatable for my readers. If I don’t have an actual experience about something I conjure it up like a well rehearsed sorcerer. So when my close friends posed the question as to whether my relationship was fantasy or reality I answered it as honestly as I could: Reality.

But is it? I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking. I think about things, I think about people, and I think about fantasies. I dwell on ideas until they’re curdled in my mind. I tend to second-guess my instincts, and alas, I have learned recently that I often shoot myself in the proverbial foot.

Artem was the first to challenge my caution when he said, the now infamous question, “do you really give up so easily?” Yes. Precisely at the worst of times. Christ! I don’t even wait for the bell to sound the end of the round. I mean, I don’t have any problem pursuing whatever it is that I want. But Jesus, just when it’s right in my god-damned hand I throw a wrench into the whole gear assembly bringing my machination to an abrupt and screaming halt!

But not yesterday. Or last night. Or this morning. Working off a prompt from Scott, an old and trusted friend in the states, I decided to venture out into Paris and experience it first hand. But you see, it wasn’t Paris that I ventured into. No, Paris came to me.

Last evening I invited an extraordinarily handsome man with an enchanting smile and deep blue eyes set amidst a boars hair beard to dine with me in my chic hotel in the 8th arondissment of Paris. This striking young buck cleared an already scheduled dinner to dine with me. I was still unable to understand why men, and especially younger men found me so attractive, I was wholly unable to own my own attractiveness.

And so we dined, he and I, languidly, closing down the restaurant, reminiscent of that scene in Pretty Woman where Richard Gere was quietly playing the grand piano in an otherwise closed restaurant when Julia Roberts walks in. I love that movie! I think I love it so much because they too, found love in the most unlikely of places. But here we were, he and I, surrounded by waitstaff preening the tables for tomorrows morning rush while we talked. And talked. And talked some more. And like Guiseppe to Pinnochio I promised my guest that there were no strings attached. That both he and I could be normal boys. That I had boyfriend moored in South Africa that was a rich and gorgeous male model, and I was simply awaiting his arrival in Paris before we jetted off to Salzburg or Santorini or Milan to shop, then headed back east to Chicago where we’d select a second residence yada, yada, yada . . .

But were we? Really? I mean really? Or was this whole “relationship” just one more catastrophic illusion fueled by my hope and ignorance? To quote the American adage, Isn’t one bird in the hand better than two in the bush? I was so conflicted I ached. I had to use the restroom as did he so I suggested that we return to my room to evacuate our bladders and that nothing would happen to compromise our integrity.

But to quote Steinbeck, “the best laid plans of mice and men oft goes astray.”

Sigh.

And soon it was morning.

Sigh.

But before you begin to question any motive, implied or otherwise, we conducted ourselves in the most gentlemanly of manners. Things did happen of course. Magical things. I grew into myself. For the first time in decades I finally owned, wholly, unfettered my attractiveness. I saw it in his eyes. I felt it on his lips. My hands touched. My hands caressed. And once, before drifting to sleep he placed my hand on his hardness and it felt so magically natural, it was as if it had been made precisely to fit into my hand.

Sigh.

Upon waking there were his blue eyes and his smile. His naked chest and wave after wave of chest hair which lead to the tiniest trickle of dark brown hair which trailed to his navel; legs which peaked out from beneath the summer’s comforter; feet which tickled my feet; hands which held my hands; lips were as soft as the velveteen found on rose petals.

Sigh.

So now what?

To quote my new friend when I asked why he kissed me: “I think you think too much.”

Indeed.