I'm a fool for your lies
Writing for the 8th Annual "River of Mnemosyne" Challenge. Improvised dance as an accompaniment.
I haven’t dated many gentlemen in my life. There was one not so long ago, and I think perhaps that made me realize exactly why I’d steered cleared of them the whole time. And it didn’t start in a particularly classy fashion. Maybe that was the first sign.
Le Coeur de Rosemont is one of those bars that epitomizes the feel of Montréal. Dim lighting, 90s rap (only the good 90s rap, of course), drinks served in mason jars, and cheeky bouncers at the door. It was a Monday night, and a few workmates and I had a particularly hard shift, so subsequently decided to reward ourselves with a cocktail. Or two.
Iza was a stunner. She had big blue eyes and a coy smile, and if she were to wink at a man – well, she didn’t often need to. So it was no surprise when she attracted the attention of a male who wanted to buy our table a round of shots. I’d convinced the girls that I was just having one, but having rushed home in between our little date, they were already close to finishing their first by the time I arrived. Ordering a second with them became non-optional.
“What do you think?” the man asked the rest of us, as Iza wasn’t taking the bait.
“Go on, Iza!” Lilia hit her shoulder playfully and Iza feigned exasperation and eventual persuasion as she nodded and accepted his offer.
The work girls were lovely, and I enjoyed working alongside them, but we socialized relatively rarely. I think if anything, it was something on my end. I felt a little out of place amongst made up faces and perfect bodies. Maybe I’d succumbed to that grad school mentality and was just a snob.
It’s possible that one round of shots turned into two that evening, because before I knew it, I was a little light headed.
The man-who-bought-the-shots (as he shall henceforth be named) didn’t succeed in wooing Iza. His friend, Francois, however, somehow made it back to my apartment.
Just the previous week, I’d been grilling my roommate on how to tell if someone was asking me on a date.
“Monday to Wednesday is usually pretty safe non-date territory,” David had replied with a faux-sage nod, “Thursday to Sunday evenings are definitely date material.”
The next morning, he caught me kiss Francois as he made his way out the door. David shook his head and pretended to look thoughtfully into the distance, “Perhaps I have to revise my Monday to Wednesday theory.”
What followed was 7 dates in 4 days before Francois returned to France.
I was amazed about how much of a non-event he seemed to find sex – not in that he seemed bored (far from it), but that it just wasn’t a big deal to him. He was the first man I slept with that didn’t make me feel guilty in anyway. Boyfriends never had, but the flings, the one night stands – there’d always been this underlying hint, this unspoken assertion that (even though they were coming back for more) I wasn’t girlfriend material, or I was dirty for having given into the very same temptation they did.
When Francois and I had sex, he treated me like he was in love with me. The way he held my body, the look in his eyes, the gentleness of his touch.
After The Break Up of a year or so prior, I had been convinced that I would never enjoy sex to the same extent as I had with The Love of My Life. Until Francois.
The night before he left, he took me out for dinner. It was a classy joint – I think I felt like an impostor here too. Dressed in one of my few figure-hugging dresses and even in a pair of heels (Francois had only known me four days, so I doubt he ever cottoned on that I spent most of my days in jeans and band t-shirts), Francois wined and dined me, silver cruets on the table and all, tiny spoons for crème brulée cracking, and (of course) bottles of French wine.
At one point, he reached across the table and took my hand gently. I took a mental note of his eyelashes in response to the text from Iza that morning (“So, did you go home with the man with the eyelashes?”). They did indeed put my own lashes to shame.
“Laurelle,” he started softly. Everything about Francois felt soft. Well, not- but that’s beside the point.
And then I wish I could tell you how he continued, but it was all in French. That’s not to say I didn’t understand, but it was so romantic in French that English simply wouldn’t do it justice. After telling me that our “fleeting love” was worth more than a thousand sex-fuelled nights, he kissed me gently and smiled again.
Two months later he sent me a text to tell me to cancel my flight to France.
Fleeting love, indeed.
I haven’t dated many gentlemen in my life. There was one not so long ago, and I think perhaps that made me realize exactly why I’d steered cleared of them the whole time. And it didn’t start in a particularly classy fashion. Maybe that was the first sign.
Le Coeur de Rosemont is one of those bars that epitomizes the feel of Montréal. Dim lighting, 90s rap (only the good 90s rap, of course), drinks served in mason jars, and cheeky bouncers at the door. It was a Monday night, and a few workmates and I had a particularly hard shift, so subsequently decided to reward ourselves with a cocktail. Or two.
Iza was a stunner. She had big blue eyes and a coy smile, and if she were to wink at a man – well, she didn’t often need to. So it was no surprise when she attracted the attention of a male who wanted to buy our table a round of shots. I’d convinced the girls that I was just having one, but having rushed home in between our little date, they were already close to finishing their first by the time I arrived. Ordering a second with them became non-optional.
“What do you think?” the man asked the rest of us, as Iza wasn’t taking the bait.
“Go on, Iza!” Lilia hit her shoulder playfully and Iza feigned exasperation and eventual persuasion as she nodded and accepted his offer.
The work girls were lovely, and I enjoyed working alongside them, but we socialized relatively rarely. I think if anything, it was something on my end. I felt a little out of place amongst made up faces and perfect bodies. Maybe I’d succumbed to that grad school mentality and was just a snob.
It’s possible that one round of shots turned into two that evening, because before I knew it, I was a little light headed.
The man-who-bought-the-shots (as he shall henceforth be named) didn’t succeed in wooing Iza. His friend, Francois, however, somehow made it back to my apartment.
Just the previous week, I’d been grilling my roommate on how to tell if someone was asking me on a date.
“Monday to Wednesday is usually pretty safe non-date territory,” David had replied with a faux-sage nod, “Thursday to Sunday evenings are definitely date material.”
The next morning, he caught me kiss Francois as he made his way out the door. David shook his head and pretended to look thoughtfully into the distance, “Perhaps I have to revise my Monday to Wednesday theory.”
What followed was 7 dates in 4 days before Francois returned to France.
I was amazed about how much of a non-event he seemed to find sex – not in that he seemed bored (far from it), but that it just wasn’t a big deal to him. He was the first man I slept with that didn’t make me feel guilty in anyway. Boyfriends never had, but the flings, the one night stands – there’d always been this underlying hint, this unspoken assertion that (even though they were coming back for more) I wasn’t girlfriend material, or I was dirty for having given into the very same temptation they did.
When Francois and I had sex, he treated me like he was in love with me. The way he held my body, the look in his eyes, the gentleness of his touch.
After The Break Up of a year or so prior, I had been convinced that I would never enjoy sex to the same extent as I had with The Love of My Life. Until Francois.
The night before he left, he took me out for dinner. It was a classy joint – I think I felt like an impostor here too. Dressed in one of my few figure-hugging dresses and even in a pair of heels (Francois had only known me four days, so I doubt he ever cottoned on that I spent most of my days in jeans and band t-shirts), Francois wined and dined me, silver cruets on the table and all, tiny spoons for crème brulée cracking, and (of course) bottles of French wine.
At one point, he reached across the table and took my hand gently. I took a mental note of his eyelashes in response to the text from Iza that morning (“So, did you go home with the man with the eyelashes?”). They did indeed put my own lashes to shame.
“Laurelle,” he started softly. Everything about Francois felt soft. Well, not- but that’s beside the point.
And then I wish I could tell you how he continued, but it was all in French. That’s not to say I didn’t understand, but it was so romantic in French that English simply wouldn’t do it justice. After telling me that our “fleeting love” was worth more than a thousand sex-fuelled nights, he kissed me gently and smiled again.
Two months later he sent me a text to tell me to cancel my flight to France.
Fleeting love, indeed.
Comments
And what's this girl doing? There's a dangerous superficiality in her "adventures" that betrays the intent (or what I'm assuming is the intent) of the narrative.