When In Paris (portrait of the artist)

There are so many great hookers in literature. How was I going to visit Paris, innocents abroad, and not experience Rue Saint-Denis? The second time I strolled down the boulevard d triumphant boys I didn’t bring my camera. I noticed the first time when I put my camera up to my eye the observant ladies would step back into the darkness of the alleys and doorframes they were peaking out of. I even got some aggressive cat calls, that I didn’t understand.

I came back, ready for my adventure. She led me back through a labyrinth of back alley pathways, and stairs, and up into her tiny apartment with Playboy centerfolds thumbtacked to the wall above the bed. It was clean with the curtains drawn and several candles flickering. One on the bedside table and one on the small sink, en-suite. She spoke very little English, enough to negotiate my rude proposition. I’d gotten one hundred dollars worth of francs. She took the largest bill and left me with the rest. Then she took my twenty-year-old cock in a warm washcloth.

Once we got started I was trying to concentrate on something different, I wanted to last. The playmates beckoned me to let go. And it was over, I was given a warm washcloth this time as she stood in front of her tiny closet and chose new clothes. I was certain if she hadn’t led me back to the street I could’ve gotten lost or died back there in the dense neighborhood of Saint-Denis. It had started raining and the street was slick when she released me back into the light of my middle-class American abroad life.

Read more Short-Short Stories from John.