Une liaison dangereuse

For the whole week following the MSN conversation with W, I was looking forward to our rendezvous in Paris enormously. I'd only been back to Paris once since my long weekend there with ex-boyfriend S two years ago, so a visit was long overdue. W warned me that he might have to cancel the trip at short notice because of work commitments, but with everything looking good with two days to go, I confirm our hotel booking and the reservation that I'd made for dinner at a smart restaurant on Saturday night.

When at last my train pulls out of the new Eurostar terminal at St Pancras on Saturday morning I'm feeling very happy, so I send W a quick txt msg:

Bonjour W! My train left on time, and I'll let you know if we run into any delays. A bientot :-), GB xxx

A couple of hours later, just under an hour before I'm due to arrive, I get his reply:

Just got to the Gare du Nord – send me sms when you get here – I am now drinking coffee in the bar on the second floor.

The train is slightly delayed but not massively so, so about an hour later I send him another txt msg:

I should be arriving within the next 5 minutes or so, let me come and find you on the second floor. GB xxx

but his reply makes it even easier for me

Ah, am in the relay bookstore right next to the eurostar arriving lanes

I spot the Relay bookstore as I'm walking towards the platform exit so I turn towards it as soon as I'm past the barrier, and almost immediately a guy comes up to me looking slightly unsure of himself.

"Are you GB?" he asks.

"Yes :-)! You must be W :-))," I reply with a huge smile on my face, "Really good to meet you! Wow, I can't believe that we're really doing this!!"

Looking at him in the flesh for the first time, he's a reasonably attractive guy who's slightly shorter than me and very casually dressed. From the way he looks, I get the impression that he's quite a kind and gentle guy.

"Did you have a good journey?" he asks me, smiling slightly now.

"Yes, it was OK!" I reply, "I guess the delay wasn't too bad! Shall we go and get a taxi?"

The taxi queue is quite short so before too long we're getting into a taxi together. I use my best French to tell the driver where to go.

"Wow, you speak French well!" says W.

"Not really," I confess, "I'm not too bad at simple things like that, but I couldn't hold a real conversation or do a business meeting in French."

While we chat and start to get to know each other, I try to read his body language and assess what will happen later when it comes to bedtime. I'm still keen on my plan to cuddle up to him, but now that he's seen me in person, will he want to put up a barricade down the middle of the bed? Hopefully not, because it would be nice if we're able to get to know each other a bit better :-). Some of his conversation is a bit business-like, however overall he seems very relaxed about the situation, which makes me feel relaxed about everything too.

We arrive at the hotel slightly before their official check-in time, but none the less the room is ready for us so we head up to drop off our bags.

"Actually, this is the same room that I stayed in the last time I came to Paris, which was with ex-boyfriend S," I tell him once we're inside, "I hope you don't mind!"

"But don't you mind? I mean, memories of him? I'm sure they'd have another room!"

"No it's fine, actually I requested this room purely for convenience reasons! This is the best room that's close enough to the lobby to be able to connect to their wifi network, because there's a blog posting that I want to do tomorrow!"

We'd tentatively planned to go and see the exhibition of Yves Saint Laurent's art that was due to be auctioned by Christies the following week, however I also want to go shopping. When we check with the hotel staff though, they tell us that unlike London the major department stores still stay closed on Sundays, so we agree to go shopping immediately and try for the exhibition tomorrow.

"Let's go and get a taxi up to Boulevard Haussmann then," I say, "Printemps is always a good place to start!"

"Just so you know," says W, "anytime you want to walk anywhere, I'll be fine with it. It's nice to see cities on foot sometimes :-)."

"It'll be about a 45 minute walk from here," I reply, "is that OK?"

"Sure, if you know the way?"

I do indeed know the way, and several hours later we arrive back at the hotel feeling quite exhausted. I'd managed to buy a shirt and some nice new Prada shoes, but we'd walked all the way! After Printemps, we'd taken a scenic route back to the hotel via Concorde, then through the Louvre and finishing off with a walk along the Seine.

"Paris is a beautiful city :-)," says W, "but I could really do with some rest. What time do we have to be at the restaurant?"

"Not for a couple of hours," I reply, "so there's plenty of time for a nap :-)".

While I'm checking my new shirt and shoes, W turns on the TV and takes his shoes off so that he can lie on the bed. Soon I join him on the bed, and just for fun, I move over to lie next to him so that our bodies are touching.

"Hmmm, that's cute :-)," says W, without objecting or making any attempt to move away from me.

Once the news program that's on the TV is finished, W turns over to face away from me for a quick nap. Feeling a bit tired too I decide to do the same, and since I'm lying next to him I put my arm round him for a cuddle. Again he doesn't object, so we both lie there dozing together for maybe an hour, before I check the time and realise that we need to get up.

We decide to walk to the restaurant, taking a slightly long way round so that we can stroll across both the Île de la Cité and the Île Saint-Louis. We have a great leisurely meal together, marred only by the fact that the Sommelier talks me into having a 1993 Clos de Vougeot when I'd asked for the 1996, but when we taste the 1993 it seems to be past it's best :-(.

"Do you believe in Conspiracy theories," asks W as we walk back to the hotel.

"No, not really," I reply, "do you?"

"Well, I guess I do a bit."

"But they're often mentally corrosive!" I argue. "If one believes that other people are covertly controlling things, it can make you feel 'How come I'm not more important?', or 'How come I'm not the guy making the decisions?'. Actually there's a South Park episode that neatly sums up my views on this subject :-)."

"You should always base your opinion on the facts," counters W, "I'll give you a web site that's got a lot of convincing evidence on it, then we can have a real debate about it all!"

On the way back to the hotel, we stop off in a gay bar, but after all the travelling and walking we're both feeling quite tired so we decide to hit the sack.

Back in our hotel room, W uses the bathroom first. When it's my turn, I don't take very long, and when I come back into the bedroom I find W lying bare-chested in bed watching TV. I start wondering whether he's wearing any undershorts, or whether he's decided to sleep nude like me. He doesn't take any notice of me while I'm taking off my clothes, but I hesitate to strip off completely because I need to walk in between the bed and the TV on the way to my side of the bed, and walking across the room naked seems unnecessarily exhibitionist. So I decide I leave my undershorts on to walk across the room, but I slip them off at the last minute before just getting into bed :-). Once in bed, I move across to the centre to lie next to him, just like I did earlier.

"What are you watching?" I ask.

"Oh nothing really, I was only watching it while you were getting ready for bed, let's turn it off!"

He turns off the light too, and in the darkness he turns away from me just like he did when he was having a nap earlier, however he manages to maintain a bit of contact with me. I turn towards him, and put my hand round his chest to hold him, and I feel him nestle into my cuddle. We lie there for a while, just enjoying the warm intimacy of the situation, but soon I can't resist feeling his body a bit more. As I'd expected he is wearing his undershorts, and even though I don't put my hand under the fabric I can still tell that he's a man, albeit a tired one. It somehow feels inappropriate to pursue further activities, and in any case I'm feeling tired too, so eventually we both fall asleep.

Throughout the night, there's a lot of body contact between us. Some people find it hard to sleep in such situations, but in fact I much prefer sleeping with another guy and waking up with him :-).

I'm feeling quite awake by the time there's daylight coming round the sides of the curtains, however W still seems to be dozing. Deciding that I hadn't finished exploring his body, I put my arm round him again, and a little later when I feel down to his undershorts there's almost something poking out the front! Slowly I start playing with him, and at first he seems a bit reluctant. However a little later I manage to get his undershorts off, and taking things slowly, eventually things reach their natural conclusion :-). Afterwards we doze a bit more, but soon it feels like time to get up.

"Do you want to have a shower first?" I ask him.

"Um, err, yeah sure :-)," he replies sleepily.

A little later when he comes out of the bathroom, he looks noticeably more relaxed than he did the previous night, and I can't help thinking that it's probably a consequence of the recent activities :-).

With a blog posting to do, W's ready before me, but before too long we're heading out to have breakfast together.

After breakfast, we walk over to the Grand Palais where the Yves Saint Laurent art exhibition is being held. Starting at the front of the queue, we walk for ages attempting to reach the back of the queue, and without doubt neither of us has ever seen a queue so long.

"I'm sure it's a great exhibition," says W, "but we're going to have to wait hours to see it once we've found the back of the queue!"

"Yeah, there are plenty of other things we could do."

We get half-way up the Champs-Élysées before deciding to head back to the Musée de l'Orangerie. With eight big water lily murals by Monet, the Musée de l'Orangerie is one of my favourite Parisian museums.

Emerging from the museum, we take the metro back to within walking distance of the hotel, and find a small café for a late lunchtime snack. And after a leisurely stroll around a few of the neighbouring streets, it's soon time to go back to the hotel to pick up our bags and head off to catch our trains.

"It's been really good meeting you GB :-)," says W in the taxi on the way to the station.

"Yes, likewise :-)," I reply, "we must do this again sometime! Perhaps Amsterdam or Prague next time?"

"Or how about New York?"

Even though he's still in the back of the taxi, he's slightly uncomfortable when I kiss him goodbye. But as he walks off towards the entrance to the station, leaving me in the taxi to go on to my train station, he turns round to wave goodbye to me. He smiles back at me when I smile at him and blow him another couple of kisses.

I think he's got a few personal issues to resolve, because he didn't seem very comfortable with his sexuality, however underneath all that I could tell that he's a good guy. Hopefully the time that he spent with me did him some good. If we're able to meet up again sometime, I’m sure that we'll enjoy ourselves :-).