A new secret

He catches me off-guard in a lenient Champagne haze outside Les Deux Magots, it keeps me warm in the light afternoon rain (I'm wearing a cream white babydoll underneath my coat like a prostitute) and the high-pitched rush hour voices around us. "I love you" he says outside the bubble, methodically penetrating the membrane and the state I'm in.

He follows my stiletto footsteps down the Boulevard Saint-Germain to the open space by the river where the wind catches my coat and rips it apart. A family of Chinese tourists gasp at my nakedness, he laughs softly and it sounds like music. His arm around my waist and the concrete paving beneath us.

Eventually we get back home, the silence reminds me of childhood and his eyes glow like fires in the dark. I tell him not to turn on the lights, he carries me into the bedroom and there on a rococo bureau lays the letter I wrote to him. "Read it to me" he says.