Hungry Woman in Paris (11 page)

The pub was hidden away in an alley. A couple French-kissed —or should I say kissed, since they were French—under a streetlight,
and watching them got me horny. I hate it when that happens. Especially when I enter a bar. I swear men can smell it on a
woman, so I tried not to be too obvious. I entered and I was one of the few Le Coq Rouge students already there. There was
a group of female pastry students in the back room comparing the horrors of yeast; they sounded like they were in a gynecologist’s
reception room, anxiously waiting for their friends.

I smiled at them and killed time by making conversation with a woman from Portugal. She was an American who had come to Paris
to study French and ended up falling in love with a Portuguese man and moving there. This was a very common story. It seemed
Paris was the place single women came to find love or have a midlife or quarter-life crisis. I was not original calling off
my wedding and coming here alone to find myself, but I was unique in one way: I wasn’t looking for love. Maybe I would be
like Audrey Hepburn in
Sabrina
and return from Paris all “ladylike” and unrecognizable. Maybe Paris was a finishing school for wild women like me.

Bassie walked in with a Band-Aid on her forehead. She had tripped and fallen at home and almost set her apartment on fire,
but she was happy to socialize with her peers. She kept talking about her dysfunctional relationship and how many boyfriends
just didn’t understand her. I was listening sympathetically when I noticed Henry out of the corner of my eye. I looked over
to him and we shared a glance, which then turned into a long stare. I wanted to look away and hide from any male attention,
but because I was almost drunk I just stared right back and, using my feminine superpowers, hooked him like a savage swordfish.
Henry, a couple of drinks already in him too, approached me. “You look so beautiful with your hair down. It’s always in a
bun, hun,” he said, and I could tell he was fishing for a way into my panties. Normally when a guy came up to me with a line
that came from horny desperation, I would give him one cold look to freeze his action, but the nights in Paris had been cold
and lonely, and if it snowed that night I wanted the extra heat.

“You look sexy out of your translator’s uniform,” I whispered in his ear.

“You look very nice without yours on… I bet you look beautiful with nothing on.”

“I do,” I said and walked away to another part of the pub, hoping he would follow like a little puppy. He did. We went to
the end of the bar and I asked for a margarita; dumb place to ask for a margarita, but the little scenario about to unfold
required tequila.

As the night went on, all the students in my group slowly said their good-byes. Around closing time Henry and I were some
of the last people there. I debated whether I should take him home or go home with him. We walked out of the pub and he kissed
me under the same streetlight where the other couple had kissed. I kissed him back and we smelled like drunks.

The taxi dropped us off at Henry’s building on rue du Seine, a street full of galleries. Since there was no elevator, Henry
helped me up the stairs by carrying my breasts. We kissed on the staircase and disrobed each other. He was so white he glowed
in the dark. I followed this ghost of a man and pretended he was whipped cream when I buried my face in his hairless chest.

“You are so… so…” I was about to say “white” when he interrupted me.

“Don’t believe all the rumors about me… Okay, they’re all true, but you haven’t heard my side of the story.” I didn’t
know how to respond to that, but I followed him into his tiny apartment. I could smell all the women who had been there before
me, but I got closer to his mouth and his beer breath silenced all my inquiries about him. I told myself, don’t try to psychoanalyze
them, just fuck them.

We gave each other sloppy kisses until he pushed me onto his bed and I felt the toughness of his hard mattress.

“Oh, I love your round face. You’ve got amazing luscious lips.” He showered me with compliments like only a drunk, horny man
could.

He licked my nipples and I began to giggle. Never giggle when a man is making love to you, I told myself. It really makes
them self-conscious. He was too drunk to care about my giggling. He giggled with me and we went under the covers. I wanted
him to turn on the heater, but I figured things would be getting hot enough soon. I took his penis in my mouth. My fingers
smelled like onions and garlic. That smell was so hard to get rid of with just soap and water. I held my breath and took him
in all the way. My coordination was off and I took him in too far. So far I had to gag.

I ran from the bed and vomited into his kitchen sink. I was sure he’d be so disgusted by this, he would not want to continue.

“Hurry back, love!” he shouted.

I rinsed out my mouth with tap water. It tasted dirty, so I opened his refrigerator and looked for bottled water. Searching
for a napkin, I opened all his drawers. In one drawer there were many small silver cans with no labels. I finally found a
roll of paper towels on the floor.

I drank from the water bottle and brought it back with me to the bed. I continued with the fellatio and he purred when my
cold mouth touched his penis. He begged me to do it again. I drank more cold water each time I licked him and he would let
out a moan. I drank some more water and I spat the water at his chest. He moaned harder. I finally just threw the whole bottle
of water on him. He grabbed me and poured the remaining water on me. It was so cold it instantly made my nipples and clitoris
hard. We wrestled for the bottle and flapped like fish out of water on the wet bed. We continued wrestling and fell off the
bed. He kissed me, but my buzz was wearing off and his breath was stinky. I slipped away from him and ran to the refrigerator
to get ice. I put an ice cube in my mouth and we kissed. He grabbed some ice and slid it down my body to my vaginal lips.
I moaned. He put an ice cube inside me and I yelled and moaned. He licked the ice wedged in my vagina. I melted and came all
over his face. He pushed me onto the bed again and shoved the tiny melting ice inside my vagina with his penis. Each time
he humped me I could feel the ice getting smaller and smaller, until it became water. Minutes later he fell over to the side.
After we caught our breath he grabbed my hand and we decided to make the carpet our bed. He pulled a throw blanket from his
sofa and covered our naked bodies with it.

“With American women you have to beg them to show you their titties or to do anything… But you’re different. You don’t
tease or play stupid; you just get to the meat of things.” We both laughed.

“I didn’t know Englishmen could be so nasty and rough,” I confessed. “I always saw you guys as so polite and with no penis.”

“May I fuck you again, please,” he said in an overly exaggerated, polite British accent, making fun of me.

“You may, mate,” I said, imitating him.

An alarm went off and I saw my naked butt by Henry’s hand. He slapped it and told me we had to go.

“Aren’t you in Group B?” he asked me.

“Ah… Yes… I think so… ,” I answered, trying to hide my morning breath.

“You have a demonstration in forty-five minutes,” he said in a serious tone.

“Oh, I can’t go, I’m so tired. I probably can’t make it,” I whined.

“Yeah, you can. If I can make it, you can make it. I’m supposed to be the translator for that class. Come on, mate, get up.”
Henry said, pulling me up from the carpet. He threw me my dress and I got my clothes on in a second. Thank God for polyester
dresses that don’t wrinkle. I was freezing as I tried to get my coat on, and I wondered if the ice inside me had completely
melted or had turned into a Popsicle.

“Do you have your knickers on?” asked Henry. I looked down and realized I had forgotten my panties. He threw them at me and
I slipped them on over my tights.

We jumped on the metro, then off, and I followed him. As we approached the school he told me to cross the street so we wouldn’t
be seen coming in together and have people make the connection. I wanted to ask him why, but figured either the administration
had warned him not to mess with the students or maybe he was messing around with too many female students and he didn’t want
to make them jealous. Whatever the reason, it was none of my business; I didn’t care. This was just a one-time-thing fling.

I changed quickly in the locker room, then ran into the demonstration room, arranged my tie, and sat in the front row. Henry
passed a hand through his hair, combing it down. He called names on the roster and I said,
“Oui,”
looking down, so as not to make eye contact. Ten minutes into the demonstration my mind began to wander. Chef Chocon was
carving and boiling artichokes that would soon contain hollandaise sauce, like tiny saucers. Being hungover and about to catch
a cold made it impossible to concentrate. I felt like a sundae melting in the sun.

“Is everyone sleeping all right?” the chef called loudly in French to wake me up. I did everything I could to write the steps
down, but I couldn’t keep up. I just wanted to survive the class. I felt bad for Henry, who not only had to translate but
put up with Chef Chocon’s mediocre jokes.

Before practical I drank a caffè latte from the vending machine. It woke me up and I told myself I would just have to follow
Francis or Ale, but an hour of trying to follow Ale and Francis just got me lost. I looked at the recipe for hollandaise sauce
and didn’t remember the demonstration. I figured that I would just mix in all the ingredients and it would magically turn
into hollandaise sauce. I poured the water into the eggs and Chef Papillon, a giant of a man who looked like Popeye, stopped
right in front of me and asked in French, “Were you paying attention in class?” I wanted to tell him “NO! I want to go home”
and cry in his arms like a baby, but I just stayed quiet. He mumbled things in French. At least I didn’t hear him call me
an
“idiot.”

He commanded me to follow him and said, in his limited English, “Look me,” and pointed to his eye. I watched closely as he
set up a bain-marie, a metal bowl over boiling water, to whip my eggs over it. He told me to whip for six minutes nonstop,
then to add the melted butter slowly. Then, finally, salt and pepper and cayenne.

“God, this is like jacking off a guy,” complained Becky as she took a little break from whipping her eggs. “Why don’t they
just let us use a blender? They come out just as good.”

Despite my horrible experience with hollandaise sauce, I managed to finish second. Chef Papillon gave me a good note for my
filet mignon and boiled artichokes and then gave me a hug. I was embarrassed by the attention, but maybe he felt bad about
losing his temper with me.

Thankfully, the next morning was Sunday, our day off, because I couldn’t wake up. I felt so tired I just wanted to sleep and
rest. I wasn’t looking forward to school the next day; I was tired of screwing up recipes and feeling like a loser. If this
was only the first week, how was I going to make it to the end?

I
tried not to look at Henry. When no one was watching he would slip me a dirty look—an invitation to his apartment for another
night of wine and roses… or at least wine.

The admissions counselor walked in and dropped a letter in front of me. I quickly opened it and could make out an appointment
for my
carte de séjour
. I had to bring a lot of documents, including proof that I had enough money to stay in Paris for a year. My appointment was
tomorrow morning, and I could not miss it.

I got up very early the next day and presented myself at the police precinct. I approached the African-French receptionist
and told her I was there for my appointment. She didn’t know a word of English and had no patience for my lame attempt at
forming a sentence in French. She pointed to a chair and ordered me to wait for my name to be called. I sat there looking
at the many foreigners, all equally mistreated by the receptionist.

As I waited, my mind wandered off to the time when I had to wait many hours in line just to get an appointment to come back
another day. Thousands of Latino immigrants waiting like cattle to be allowed into Plaza del Sol Immigration Center for a
chance at the American dream. When I finally got to the front a woman not in line wanted to ask a question, and the white
security guard ordered her to go to the back of the line. He didn’t speak Spanish so he assumed she was trying to cut in,
and when she tried explaining he couldn’t care less about her sad story. I shook my head at him for being an asshole and he
threatened to kick me out of the line too. I kept quiet and felt sorry for him. Here he was, the powerful, big man among all
these helpless undocumented immigrants, but I bet he would go home to his boring apartment to wallow in his mediocre existence—to
a life not worth documenting. I’d always found it peculiar that the immigration officers at the INS I encountered had thicker
accents than I did and had been in the United States for less time than I had, and yet I was the one who had to prove my existence
in the United States, my qualifications to become a resident, and my English-language ability to eventually become a U.S.
citizen.