Paris, France
Voulez-vous coucher avec moi?
Age 16
I am sixteen yearsa old and it is Christmas
and I am all alone in a budget hotel on the Left Bank.
My father has rushed off to meet a friend
in another country and left me alone with botched plane reservations. This family mix-up will later cause my mother
to argue with my father for some time to come.
I like the hot chocolate in a pot for
breakfast. I like the croissants and the unsweetened butter, and the rickety balcony on our bedroom, and the plaintive
sounds of jazz as I fall asleep dreaming of quietitude and adventure.
An older American man, old to me and
probably only in his mid-twenties, asks me to his room the next day to have a glass of Christmas wine. He is from NYC
and wears glasses. I accept and sit delicately on a wood chair by the window. It is snowing lightly.
There are French people all around to
hear us if I scream and I feel lonely away from home.
Would you like to spend the night, he
asks.
Do you know how old I am? I am only
sixteen, I say. I smile slightly. He smiles slightly.
You look much older, he says regretfully.
This is only because I am tall and study the pages of Mademoiselle and Glamour to see what the latest fashions are.
Already I have bought French shoes, French hand-bag, and a black flower-sprigged slip. No one accept my mother will
ever see me in that slip!
We continue our drinks peaceably enough.
I am impressed with my calm and sophisticated handling of this overture. At high school, I am known for sophistication.
He is not that type, but then again,
most men are not that type. However, some men are that type, and I would never be as lax with my own children as my
parents have been with me.
I never tell my family about this adventure!
