Le Rendezvous Noir

Le Rendezvous Noir

By Andre Parker

It must have been an extremely lucky day for me. I was having a simple cafcre at the CafDeux Margott in the heart of the Latin Quarter, when the most beautiful creature to ever have been made real passed before me. It was late but not too late in the evening. The weather was a bit cold but not too much so and the streets where bathed in a beautiful residue of a light rain. Maybe it was a mixture of the gaslights outside and the light mist of drizzle on her hair but I thought I saw a halo around her. Her eyes where the shape of almonds and the color of chocolate, and her hair of a dark chestnut brown. Her Spanish eyes where beautiful in a way only reserved for one of god's most precious of people.

She walked up to the counter and asked for change for the telephone, Leon, our friendly neighborhood bar tender didn't understand her, she was speaking English.

"Je suis desole." "Eurh, aves vous de change, si vous plait?" she asked in an intelligible but broken French.

"Ah, you need change." He replied in English.

Her full and pouty lips shaped one of the most extravagant smiles imaginable. It made me crave the taste of that fruit. Leon, quickly gave her change and she immediately turned to walk out of the caf and my life forever, I had to do something! Closing my journal and quickly leaving the appropriate changed for my drink I started for the door.

As I exited into the late November night I looked left, then right for her as I had lost track of her while settling my bill.

Where was she?

She hadn't stopped at the telephone in front of the caf It was for pure luck that I caught a glimpse of her rounding the next block. I followed, catching up with her quickly. As I was within a few feet from her, a ghastly thought entered my mind. What if she had a man in her life? What if she was married? And more importantly what the hell would I say to her?

She noticed me.

As she stopped and turned, the glow from the gaslight shimmered off of her gorgeous visage I was stunned by her beauty once more. I almost didn't hear what she had said for I was lost in a dreamworld of joy, happiness and pure astonishment.

"Can I help you?" "Esc que je pouvre te auder?" she started

"No, no I speak English" I replied.

She smiled again; I was once more lost within it.

"Can I help you?" she repeated again.

I froze, I couldn't speak.

"I, I, ..." she started to turn, "Wait!" she turned back again with that smile of hers.

"I am condemned man." A look of concern took over her face.

"No, not like that."

"I am condemned to forever be in love with you."

"Ok" she stated with no trace of that lovely smile anywhere. "Just hear me out, I know it sounds crazy but please." She didn't move.

"Where both in Paris, are we not?"

"Yes" she replied.

"Then is it not unfair to withhold anything from your heart or soul in a city such as this? A city that demands the truth from every being in it, a city where we all fall in love with either it or some part of it?"

"Maybe." She replied with an inkling of the smile coming back.

"Then why not do something crazy?"

"Fall in love with me, fall in love with everything that I am, a simple man on a street in a city talking to a woman."

"You are crazy!" she replied half giggling and laughing.

"Yes, I am crazy, completely crazy, I'm crazy for coming after you, I'm crazy for being in love with you and I don't even know you, but most of all I'd be crazy not to be true to the feeling that I have and the crime would be not to tell you about it."

She only stared in disbelief.

She started to walk on in the direction she was originally headed. Not because she didn't want to hear me but because she didn't know what else to do. I followed abreast of her.

"I don't know you and I sure as hell don't know why I feel this way about you but that's not what were here to discuss. It is what it is and I'm happy about that." I stepped out in front of her abruptly cutting of her path and faced her. "What do you think?" she stopped and stared at me for what seemed like minutes before she spoke.

"I think you are crazy."

Putting her hands on inside of my coat, which I had left open in my hasty departure form the caf she put her hands on my chest leaned in close to my neck and took in a deep inhale before she continued.

"I think you are crazy for being in love with someone you have never met before, and find it strange that I'm now talking with a man that I noticed sitting in a cafand made the excuse of going in to make some change for a telephone, and then hoping that you would come out and talk to me. I'm crazy for listening to this man and hopping he would say what you have said. I'm crazy for falling in love with this man."

She smiled that smile, and I reflected mine.

We turned for one last embrace, I kissed her supple lips with gentle passion. She held me closer, the heat of her body warm and inviting. I slipped my hand up her blouse and felt just under her breast, slightly fingering the soft spot between her 4^th and 5^th rib. The nine inches of steel slipped in gently between the parted skin. I pulled back slowly from our kiss and watched her eyes as they first displayed ecstasy, then surprise and finally her death. My steel rod had tickled her soft wet heart in a way no other man would ever do so.

"Oh, how I love you."

I held my hand in hers and I walked her down Rue St. Jermain de prez happily ever after.