Jason Myers

Paris, SF

by: Jason Myers

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“I wanna take you to Paris with me. For at least a month, which isn’t a long time if you think about it but it’s always enough time, ya know. Thirty days gets you a pretty good feel about everything. About all of this... and sometimes that.”

I was trying my hardest that night to talk her out of breaking into my eyes and drawing herself on the inside of them.

“I’ll rent us a flat in Canal-Saint Martin or maybe an apartment. I think my agent still owns a villa somewhere under its bleeding tissue and antique black lamps.”

Her hair rose off her skin and poked into mine. “I’ll write a novella while we’re there. On a typewriter too. I swear. I’ll use one this time.

That’s what’s next.”

Truth is, I wasn’t even sure that I still had my agent’s phone number. Perhaps he’d gotten a new one. And perhaps, I wasn’t sure if she’d known this already or not.

Either way, there was a time-a lot of nights back to back to back and more-when I forgot to dream about anything at all and woke up in the middle of steamy afternoons still stuffed inside my flannel shirt and my black jeans.

Never any cigarettes left. “And during the day, while I’m writing, I’ll give you money. Like as much money as you want or maybe just as much as you need instead. Or maybe we’ll work out some kind of daily amount. It’ll be very fair too. I’ve always been very fair to you. But anyway, you can go out shopping up and down all the excruciatingly gorgeous streets of Paris with whatever amount of money we both find agreeable.”

There was awhile too, this was before I banned the damn thought from my head-but nonetheless-there was awhile when I wondered if she did in fact know how I wished she hadn’t answered her phone when I called.

If she’s ever known actually.

About that and about how her number’s been deleted from my phone since forever ago.

Which never changed a goddamn thing. Since of course, even though I don’t know how it could still even happen, I found myself knowing it. Somehow, those digits assigned to her in a previous life I don’t think ever got close to even touching how fucked up this one got to be, were locked away inside of me, and she became my prisoner.

“Then when you get back from shopping, I’ll cook you fantastic dinners and we’ll drink fantastic wine and on some nights, we’ll get dressed up and go dancing in hidden clubs and alley basement spaces and on the other nights, we’ll simply stay there, we’ll stay inside, cos it might be raining and the order we play the records in might be something too fantastic to not explore all the way through.”

Underneath the forever cracking ceiling stained yellow from thousands of cheap cigarettes smoked in total ambivalence, her heart tapped against my arm as her hands tied themselves into a knot on the boney edge of my hip.

“We’ll make love in every room and on every surface of our flat and we’ll only stop to drink more wine and dance to more records or when I need to start writing again.”

Her warm breath blew like flames against my old neck and her young nipples hardened, pushing into the top of my embarrassingly, expanding stomach like fingertips pressing against the surface of Caucasian J-ello.

“This is what’s next for us.” “Okay,” I heard her whisper. “I promise you.”

“I know.” “I’m going to take you to Paris with me, Penelope.” “But-“

“And I’m gonna type a novella there on a typewriter.” Her body began to retreat from mine.

“It’ll be fascinating,” I told her. “I’m not Penelope,” she said. “In Paris,” I went. “I’m Morgan.”

“Okay,” I told her. “It’s fine though.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“I know we’re gonna be amazing.”