Thus in the beginning of September, I received an email from the Sauvage, and I, who thought I would be ok never hearing from him again, suddenly felt like I could breathe again. Emails turned into IMs which turned into conversations that lasted for the entire afternoon, well into the night-particularly impressive considering my limited French. I bought a camera for my computer and soon we were video chatting.

When I got the cam, everyone assumed it was so we could have hot, insane, transcontinental video sex, but in those four long months he never NEVER asked me to do anything more than blow him kisses. Occassionally, he would ask to see the outfit I was wearing to work. But that was it. Period. Our cam conversation such that even a Mormon would have approved. And while some of you may find that disappointing, it reassured me that he actually did like me as a person and didn't just want some hot young piece of ass. On the other hand, it was very frustrating because flashing your tits doesn't require a giant french english dictionary.

He could moon over me on the cam for hours. It was enough for him to stare into my eyes asking me to blow kisses and asking me why he was so lucky to find me single. We would make tea and sit and have our tea together-him before bed and me after work before I commenced on several hours of non-stop grade-o-rama. He would leave me messages before he went to work so that they would be waiting for me in the morning. I would leave my computer on all the time waiting for that tell-tale flash of the IM box. It was uncommon for me to wake in the middle of the night and seeing the IM box open would dash from my bed half awake to have 10 minutes of conversation with him. It was the closest thing to living with a man I've experienced since the Idiot Formerly Known as My Fiance left.

But four months is a long time. The Sauvage told me that last night we spent together in Frehel that he would come to NYC in October. I was excited. I had never had anyone who was willing to go as far for me as I was for him. Despite the fact that I play the jaded, cynical, martini swilling, quip snapping, heartless femme fatale, the truth is I'm a romantic. But I'm a very wounded romantic. I've been promised so many things in this life by men. In fact, the second week I was with the Idiot Formerly Known as My Fiance, he told me he wanted to take me to Paris. We talked about it often-eating bread and cheese on the banks of the Seine, kissing on the Pont Neuf, exploring the Louvre. In two years, he never came through on that promise and so many others. And he's not alone. I could fill an ocean with the broken promises of men-with lost opportunities and stolen hope. How many times have I been disappointed by my own naive belief that a man wouldn't offer something unless he had the intention of actually giving it to me?

The french have a saying: that there is no such thing as a promise made in love.

Or to rephrase-essentially lovers promise a great many things, but one can not expect them to live up to their words. Only a great fool, like myself, would. Because only a great fool like myself does.

Still while I was excited for him to come, I was also fearful. I couldn't translate menus for him nor did most of my friends speak even the smallest amount of French. There were all kinds of problems-keeping him happy, making sure my friends didn't hate him, trying to help him navigate NYC and, of course, I wouldn't be able to take time off from work. How would he survive on his own the three days a week I needed to go teach my little monchichis? Predictably when October approached, he claimed that he couldn't take the time off. Yet, at the end of October, he took his daughter to Frehel for two weeks. I tried not to be angry. I tried not to be resentful. And I managed to convince myself, almost, that I wasn't disappointed, but rather that this was a relief for all concerned. A way of dodging the bullet.

And the whole time, I was rushing home to chat with him online, I was telling myself this relationship was only temporary. That I was waiting for someone else to come along. I wouldn't turn down dates or offers. Yet there were none. On the other hand, it's hard to get offers when you are spending what few free daylight hours you have sitting in front of a cam or waiting desperately for emails or IMs. If I remained faithful to him, it wasn't because of my fidelity but more because the opportunity didn't present itself and yet I simulateneously behaved in a way that would prevent those opportunities from arising.

OK that is not entirely true. There were men who hit on me-as always-but these were purely sexual come-ons. I was no longer interested in just sex. If I was going to leave the Sauvage, it wasn't going to be for what I could get any night of the week before last call at the local bar. It was going to be for something special, something real.

I would not trade a shaky love for definitive lust.

I told the Sauvage I would come to see him at the end of December for the New Year. It would be hard enough getting through so many holidays without a boyfriend in the flesh. I figured what better way to ring in the New Year than in Paris?

Yet, I hestitated. I could have bought the tickets on sale early in December, but I put it off. There were reasons. Preparing Bakerina's surprise birthday party, preparing my own, the holidays, exams. But, still, there was something in me waiting....waiting for him to say-don't come, it's over. Instead, he kept asking me when I was coming. And I kept lying and saying that I was waiting for my mother to buy the tickets (she offered to buy them as a birthday present). Finally, I had to either buy the tickets or tell him I wasn't coming.

I bought the tickets.

More disturbingly I found myself avoiding talking to him online. I told myself it was because I was so stressed, so tired. I didn't have the energy to translate. Wanted to spend what little free time I had genuinely relaxing instead of schlepping around my gynormous Larousse dictionary. Still, it was clear something in me had changed-yet when or why was unclear even to me.

But, I always put my faith in Paris before all else. I thought that this was just pre-trip jitters and once there, in the arms of my Parisian paramour that all would be right again. We would kiss in the light of La Tour Eiffel, I would remember what life and love was all about. Thus Thanksgiving, Bakerina's birthday, final exams, my birthday, christmas all quickly passed. And suddenly it was upon me again...I was going to Paris.

Labels: paramour, paris