eighty-four

03:36:06

I’m sleepless in Beirut.

From the right corner of my eye, a male figure claims twice the space needed, flailing his limbs inarticulately, bellowing above the general hum of the place.

Attention-seekers, I’ll deliberately ignore you. If you’re a suicidal glass cup, you won’t get beyond the skin of my eardrum. If you’re a neon tracksuit, you won’t contaminate my retina. If you’re dancing like a failed audition, my neck will stiffen in the opposite direction. Keep your issues to your journal and your signals for the helpline.

I’m not heartless nor cruel. If you want to talk about it, I’ll seat you on my lap. Sorrow laced with outburst, troubles cast in plastic, tears made up with glitter; the truth is, you aren’t ready to.

He’s dancing against a woman, seeing how low he can go. Yamamoto and I are in deep conversation, wading through spiritual swamps, while the Messiah on the right clearly wants to descend from his divine kingdom unto our table. He even stops and stares, but we hope for once we’d resemble old lesbian spinsters.

“You don’t dance? You are very serious.”

“Yes we are.”

I finally look up. He looks like an I-lived-abroad-all-my-life-but-now-I’m-back-to-see-what-the-fuss-is-all-about type. Not having that conversation tonight, no thanks.

Minutes later, his head blocks the light again.

“Why are you so serious?”

Well, because for the past two hours I was immersed in a future of impending loss and confusion, discussing fight or flight, standing on the verge of a famished black hole.

“We are having a conversation.”

“I see. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

Too late for that. Roll our eyes, psssht, pfffff. But then he’s back.

“Where are you from?”

“Here. You?”

“I recently moved to live by the sea, but now I’m renting an apartment here in Beirut. I love to dance! You want to dance?”

“No thank you.”

I look at my friend and daymn that girl has got the iris-kill-you vibe nailed to the eyelash. Immediately, I soften.

“What are you guys celebrating?”, I ask. Out of courtesy? Out of dire need to balance this moment? Most likely to avoid aggressive confrontation.

“We’re just out. I love dancing. We’re going to Behind the Green door in a few moments, you want to come?”

“Oh it’s very late, we’ll be going home soon.”

“Come on! Have some fun! We’ll dance! By the way, I’m not drunk, I know you think I am, but I’m drinking water. I promise.”

“Aha. You are very hyper for a water drinker.”

“Yes, and I pee a lot. It’s a big problem.”

Mhm. This interaction is going down the drain…

“What do you girls do?”

“Very serious things. You?”

“I have my own business.”

It was said with a confidence half a syllable short of arrogance, but then again, it could have been my jealous ears lusting for that kind of freedom in my own life.

“Shall we order the bill?”, leaned forward my unimpressed friend.

I handed the waiter my card, upon which Kavinsky exclaimed,

“You’re with X bank? Respect. I like you.”

What the hell dude, mellow down on the affiliations, I thought.

“Listen, I’m having a party at my house next week. You should come. You’ll love my home. It’s beautiful.”

To be honest with you, myself included, I only asked for more details in the hope of bumping into the cute guy, he had introduced me to moments earlier, at the said party. And that I could see the "beautiful" for myself.

At the time I was ashamed to admit it, for fear of appearing shallow or opportunistic, but why would somebody cast golden hooks if not to attract chrysophiles? 

Was he ignorant? I think not. But I was. I was ignorant not to ignore him. For the second time in my life I allowed myself to be intrigued by shiny things.

Intrigued by shiny! It was the very same intrigue reserved for tinted window panes. You're sort of curious, but helpless. Thus, even though you know he/she knows you can't see them, you stare back long and hard nonetheless, toy with their minds with a smile, or even a wink. Whatever it takes.

Kavinsky knew that there was no reason for me to accept his invitation other than for what he so blatantly represented, and I knew that he knew, so the plan was to stare back hard and pretend that there was nothing shiny blinding me.

I thought that after Clooney I'd know how to play this game, but to my surprise, this chocolate egg came not only with an unfamiliar toy but with bitter aftertaste.

I should've known, I should've known just as I know about suicidal glass cups, neon tracksuits and murders on the dance floor. 

sixty-eight

16:23:34

I'm sleepless at CDG.

It can be argued that no matter how good a movie is, the ending makes it or breaks it.

The time I have thus spent in Paris has been everything, but what I had anticipated. I thought I would arrive, break out of my shell, blossom in a thousand colours, write countless romantic stories, and emerge as a full and complete woman.

Not quite.

As much as I'd like to think of myself otherwise, adapting took some time, not a few days, nor a few weeks, but a couple of months.

Instead of abusing my liberty and anonymity, I shrunk further back as though afraid of what I would discover. Ultimately, I convinced myself that I just wasn't interested to go out of my way, to meet people, to make things happen for me, to find the doors I needed to open.

As for romance...it said peek-a-boo and disappeared in a cloud of indigo.

And then came my final week. Suddenly, I was putting myself in precarious situations just...out...of...plain...curiosity. I wanted to meddle, to rip apart, to tinker with possibilities. As soon as I began to do so, it felt like a rush to the surface, all my frustrations bubbling up alongside me until we all shot through the thin fragile film dividing ocean and air. The blue, blurry environment of lonely whales calling immediately receded into a faraway cove of my mind. Now, there was colour and warm temperature and sticky skin and tension and anticipation, feelings of weight and body, concepts that were not heard of in the universe of slow and buoyant, where collisions seem oiled and apologetic, because with miles of marine blue distance, meetings were avoidable.

My first date was with Nice (boy for nice girl). Yes, an online find. No, I'm not proud of it. In fact, I knew very little about him except for minor details: early 30s, French, decent-looking, his written English was commendable, he had lived in the States for quite some time and when Googled, banking and private investment pages would pop up. Surely, he was not a freak...although after Clooney, I had pretty much sworn off anyone with "private investments" on their CV.

We exchanged several messages and seeing that I was travelling soon, we set up a date not long after. Sunday, 15:00 at Place Saint-Sulpice.

I had not been out on a conventional date for years now. I was nervous and I had to take necessary precautions. I asked Laydi to be my private detective. Not only would she help commemorate such a "milestone", but she would be there in case I needed an emergency exit card. Better safe than sorry.

I arrived there on time. To avoid looking like a nervous first-timer, I sat down at an outside table at the main cafe and ordered a glass of orange juice. And waited.

Fifteen minutes went by and I was still waiting. I had, of course, yielded into looking around for someone who looked like him. I only saw extremes: too good looking to be true, too unattractive to give me enough enthousiasm to look back. I began feeling silly.

"Are you late, hiding or at the wrong address?"

"Sorry...I thought you received my e-mail. I will be late. Should be there in 20 minutes or so."

(Wrong. He was there in double the time.)

"I would advise you to sit at the cafe, drink a glass of Chablis and enjoy the view while you're waiting."

He called a few minutes later.

"I'm so sorry is juss zat I needed to go to a pharmacie and today is so hard to find one, it's Sunday, so I had to go out of my way...I will not be long, 15-20 minutes..."

What could I say. I was there, I had nowhere to rush to, I told him it was fine. I'd wait. In the meantime, I moved into the cafe as suggested, it was middle of June, but as cool and overcast as though it were March, my hands were blue by now. But already, from the sound of his voice, I knew it wasn't going to be referred back to as Saint Dating Day.

"Almost at Concorde, then I need to take the line 12 for 4 stations."

"Don't slip while you run :p"

"I'll do my best :-)...shouldn't be much longer. Thanks for your extreme patience."

I called Laydi.

"Hey, he's running late, where are you?"

"In front of you."

I looked around, no sign of her.

"I'm looking, I'm looking....hold on...what are you wearing?"

"My trench coat and hat. I'm right in front of you, come on."

I stood up, stretched my neck...nothing.

"I think you're in front of the wrong cafe...can you see me?"

"Of course!"

The figure sitting next to the entrance, just outside the floor-length window turned around. It was wearing Lennon sunglasses, a hat and a beige trench coat.

"Damn you're good!!!"

She laughed and then turned back.

"I thought that the last guy to enter was him. I'll keep looking out for him. Good luck!"

He arrived not long after. Just-about-scarily tall, in dress shoes, jeans, striped white shirt and black blazer. He was so clean shaven I thought we'd squeak as we kissed bisou bisou. I knew then and there that this was going to be a not-my-kind-of-date.

He was a nice guy, he hadn't lied, he did everything right, asked the right questions, slipped a "pretty eyes" compliment, told a humorous anecdote or two, cited interesting facts about this and that, had something to say on a variety of subjects, but all this had me on the brink of boredom.

We sat there for an hour or so, I had to discretely look at my watch to believe it. While we ran self-commercials, Laydi managed to steal a few photos of us advertising to one another.

Finally, he suggested we go for a walk. I just wanted to go home, but considered it as my afternoon's worth of exercise. He let me lead and I took the liberty of walking in the direction of my house. As we both blabbed, I wondered whether I was difficult to please or whether attraction was as simple as it used to be when we were short of Sapiens. Had he been someone else, someone more like Jeremy Irons for instance, I would have been hooked to his every word...or would I? Had I finally become picky?! Had these months of single life paid off for my own good? I had always thought they would. With so much time spent away from the distractions of infatuation, I was better aware and perhaps better equipped to single out the people with whom I could really connect.

If it takes effort, it's not worth it. When you know what could be, it's lazy and sad to compromise.

Nice (boy for nice girl) asked whether I'd like to have dinner with him after I returned from vacation. I pondered whether he did so out of courtesy. Surely, he must have been bored by me too. Or maybe it was the pressure of being from a traditional background and going on late thirties. I answered with a vague perhaps. I was certain that the impending summer heat would bring along with it a nicer girl for this perfectly nice boy.

I went up to my home and sighed relief. This dating thing is not for me.

As with most things, I was proven wrong.

thirty-nine

03:13:55

I'm sleepless in Dubai.

I left everything for the last minute. I packed my bags three hours before my flight, called a cab, picked up a package, picked up an envelope and stumbled into the airport, through the metal detectors, through the cloud of perfume in the duty free area, through the echo-friendly corridors and unto the plane. The urgency of those couple of hours distracted me from the obvious: I was reluctant to leave.

I had no reason to leave Beirut. The trip came to me like a sudden jerk pulling me out of bed two hours before the alarm was due. I wanted to sleep in, to snooze, to let the dream of being back-in-Beirut develop and suck me into a deceptive reality. Instead, an intermission was imposed upon me. 

To help me better remember the dream, I left Beirut as one would leave their room in the morning. Undone, unzipped, unmade. The strings of the last few days I left, untied. I did not sleep much either. An hour, maybe two.

"Ah, I would've joined you"

"Hmm am still here, my 3rd drink, a bit dizzy..I told you I'm here the minute I arrived"

"1. I wouldn't want to intrude 2. I am uninvited 3. You should shout louder."

"u won't intrude my solitude anyway. Told you "indirectly", I never shout loud :)"

I had to. I rummaged through my drawers. There was nothing relevant, nothing sleepless, nothing Beiruti, so I went for the bright and conspicuous: my favourite red die. I threw on some clothes, jumped into the car and went off into the night.

This is where Serendipity started to get creative. My phone buzzed. Unknown Dubai number. 

"So...yea...you know Mr.Keller?"

Worrying at first glance, transparent at second. I was sure this was Capitalyst exploiting his new foreign number. 

"I'm wondering how you made the connection. Till when are you in Dubai?"

"Well, he recognized me as someone you'd once spoken about...and I'm here wondering WTF did you tell him? Until Saturday morning."

"Plans tomorrow night? Pick you up from where?"

I hadn't seen him in a long while now and the fact that we would both happen to be in Dubai at the same time was a fun enough coincidence to call for a reunion. We had a very nice evening together, extricating the Mr. Keller factor, filling up the gap between now and when we last bumped into each other in front of the traffic light in Downtown and discussing possible adventure ventures.

My phone was ringing. Imaginary Extraordinary Him. Wow. The familiar ringtone, his photo, his name, two weeks of dead and bitter silence and the need to sweeten it. I answered.

"I thought you wouldn't pick up."

"What's on your mind?"

"I've been so busy. I've only just had the opportunity to digest what happened in London."

Soon enough, the connection started to break up. Call ended. 

"Don't do this. Don't fuck with me. No, no, no. This is not happening", I said out loud into the shell of my car. Sometimes, strength needs to be punctuated and weaknesses punctured.

I parked. It was a two minute walk from the pub. As I swam through the humid air, a rumble and a shine caught my eye. Non! Clooney's delicious coupe. I recognized the number plate and he sure as hell did not recognize me walking in my jeans and flats in the shadows of Gemmayze. Glad to see he is still roaming the night! 

I climbed up the stairs and walked into the pub. I immediately spotted Lumière to my right, even though he was half hidden by the potted plants. I sat down at the bar and ordered a glass of white.

It so happened that there was no WiFi and I could not come up with a good enough opening line to interrupt his conversation. I called up Belle and she took it from there.

"I left you a red die on the bar", she sent to him.

I waited impatiently. Those five minutes felt like hours. I could not hold it much longer and I was running late as it was. I motioned to the waiter, "Could you do me a favour?"

At that point Lumière got up and went to the bar. I watched the waiter approach him and turned for the exit. As I walked out of the building, Tinkerbell from Peter Pan flashed before my eyes and at the thought of having sprinkled some magic dust on another stranger's evening, I skipped out of the alley and unto the street. I never stopped to look back, but my ears were fine-tuned for the most distant footsteps. His shadow never appeared.

"U could've stayed..."

"I told you I was slippery. I'll want it back soon."

"y did u run?"

"I didn't run, I walked. Are you still there?"

"Nope, am home stranger. U back home I suppose?"

"I'm at a friend's. That's why I left, I was already late! Goodnight?"

"Shower then goodnight. y?"

"I'm getting ideas. Ignore them."

"Such as? Now that u ve told me, how can i ignore them?"

"I want you to be sleepless with me."

"I can arrange that I suppose..."

"So unsure. So hesitant."

"Come on..."

"?"

"not unsure. not hesitant."

"Are you sure? So far, I've been moving the world all along. Your turn."

"yes"

"Move the world."

"i am at this moment."

"I don't see it moving. Roll the die. If it's 6...   If not, it's not time yet."

"it s 2"

"7ayete! I love the honesty."

":)"

"Truth hurts."

"y? I disagree."

"I have a big flaw. When I want something I want it NOW. Hence the comment. But ultimately, truth is the healthiest thing one can pass on to someone else."

"it's so much easier than that"

"How easy?"

"as much as you can think of...believe me"

"I think you just beat me in "slippery". Why didn't you follow the strange rabbit down the rabbit hole?"

"u were a few floors down..and i wasnt sure it was u..( now i am)"

"Anyway, I was hoping to add a little magic to your evening, nothing more. I was hoping you would react quicker, but my wine finished, my friends were waiting, and the clock was about to strike midnight...so I left my "glass slipper" and slipped away :D"

"maybe u were just making a new post who knows..or maybe...ur sleepless...u should come"

"Wrong. I'm hungry."

"I have labneh :p"

"Do you have tea?"

"Yes"

"Put the kettle on, quick, I'm sleepy. How do I find you?"

It's 03:00. What the fuck am I doing? But I'm doing. I get in the elevator with Diagonal. There's a wad of $1000 and a Mercedes car key resting on the hand-rail. 

"Non! Let's just count the money for the sake of it."

The lift stops at the 4th floor and a certain Miss Lebanon X opens the door looking distraught.

"That's a whole lot of money. You should be more careful.", I said.

She takes the money and the keys and closes the door.

"What the fuck was that? A transaction?"

Diagonal and I come up with a number of alternatives to explain the story, but seeing that the subject is already under public scrutiny, we settle for the crack cocaine one.

I'm doing. I'm actually doing. 

"I'm in front of... Now what?"

I sit in my car. Something moves in the alleyway, a figure. I'm doing? Doing. I get out and walk towards him. There's something cosy in the way we move towards each other. His cheek is warm.

I step into his apartment, out of the darkness and into the light. Lumière. I look at him. In the light, away from his FCBK discretion. I look at him, from up close, without leaves in the way. He has a smile that transforms his face into a second face that speaks of different things. I remember that, but the memory of his face is lost. And with that, everything that took place is fading into a select catalogue of details and exchanges. There was a labneh sandwich and lukewarm green tea and relief when he pulled out his Lucky Strikes and his height and his quiescence and the yellow light in the room and the familiar feeling of being in Beirut but a thousand miles away. His lovely apartment quickly took on the quality of a sealed, safe bubble, a quality that I first came to know at Botticelli's. But unlike my visits to Botticelli's or Hugg's or Pope's or insert-name-here, there was no music playing in the background. Lumière was a minimalist in speech as he was in his messages, but his comfort with silence blew me away. We spent more than two hours in that room and there was no music, no television, no computer screen, no telephones ringing and no uncomfortable silence, no dead air.

On the contrary, the air in the room stirred like a dialogue between the sea and the shore. My uttered sentences crashed into the space between us with exaggerated confidence, the sprays of animated intonation and residual gestures trying to gnaw at the smooth surface of Lumière's glistening sands. Impenetrable. With every burst of conversation, the precariousness of the situation and his manner of speech, would send my mind thrashing as my words splashed the room, dissipated, curled up in apparent failure and were then beckoned back into the deep blue sea by a stealthy pull that was discrete, but definitely his.

I loved listening to him speak. His words were nothing poetic, nothing exceptional, but meant for me. They felt precious. Whether timid or skeptical, or intentionally minimalist, his quiet presence came off as soft and sincere. I could've stayed there till dawn and past sunrise, but I considered the possibility of being unable to read him well, that even though he wasn't fidgety or yawning, he might have had enough of this particular dégustation. I didn't want to impose, even though I was close to certain that I wasn't.

I snapped my fingers. I needed to hear a cue. He accompanied me to my car. His cheek was still warm.

These moments are delicate. They are beautiful and refreshing and unexpected. They are light. So light in fact that they have no place on the ground. Like clouds. Ephemeral, unearthly, ethereal. Perfectly intangible. Easily inflatable. DIY castle in the sky.

I've been revisiting that moment. I can remember the room. I can see the outline of Lumière. But I cannot see his face. He cannot see mine. He cannot say my name. I try hard to remember and everything sinks in deeper, but still no face.

I've been back too many times. And it's a long trip from there to Dubai. I wish I stayed.

sixteen

02:10:09

I’m sleepless and on my way back to Beirut.

While I was waiting in line to board the plane, I noticed a young couple just ahead of me. He was clearly Lebanese, and she, an assumption I made once I heard her speak, was French. She kept on running her fingers through his hair, kissing his ears, his cheeks, so on and so forth. The Arab business man standing in between us ran out of spots to look away at. I smiled at the thought of what he must have been thinking.

I thought of Hugg. He had proposed to meet me at the airport, and I had to refuse his offer, because I had already asked somebody else to come and pick me up. I wished I hadn’t. I imagined myself coming out, seeing his smile, looking away, smiling, and letting my bags drop to the floor so I could hug him. I would be home again.

Wow. Did I just write that? Excuse my mush.

I am not particularly fond of mush, and when things ended with Mr. Keller, I explained it as my inability to handle him and his mush. The mush factor was so strong, that it was close to becoming a third person in our relationship, the golden tip of a love triangle.

Mr. Keller was a gentleman. He would leave the car, walk around it and open the door for me. He would stand up when I’d leave or come to sit at the table. He would settle the bill. He would hold the door open for me. He would call me “lovely”.

To be honest with you, I found the whole spectacle to be over the top. There has to be a limit somewhere, and I felt that somehow, somewhere, he had crossed it. It made me feel uncomfortable. Maybe I didn’t feel I was the kind of woman who deserved all those grand gestures? Maybe I was used to a wrong way of being treated? Or maybe he was just flat-out weird?

But this must be said: better a gentleman, than a pig.

Speaking of pigs…

How would you feel if you were taking a romantic evening walk and suddenly heard the gorgeous man you were walking with pass wind? You might raise an eyebrow, frown or even chuckle; shit happens, we’re human after all.

How would you feel if that same person farted again?

How would you feel if the entire evening walk was punctuated with little rectal explosions?

He failed to apologize, and instead explained that his doctor had recommended him to let it all out, “Better out than in”, he said.

Wasn’t that a quote from Shrek?

How would you feel like if the exclamation mark of that evening, the highlight of the walk, was him unzipping his pants and peeing into a flower pot in the middle of Achrafieh?

And how would you explain your presence next to such a pig? How could you have ended up with someone like that in the first place?

Appearances can be deceiving. The pig I have just described to you was no one other than Clooney. Yes, the very same Clooney with the suave walk and talk. The very same Clooney who had made romantic literature come to life only a night before. Yet, there he was, acting half my age, fourth his age, farting, pissing, yanking out his beeper thing (or whatever little device it is that updates the pocket owner with soaring and plummeting stock rates) and shouting at the top of his lungs that he had “to buy gold, now!”, letting me know that he had “slept with all those whores at Shah” and then ramming his tongue down my throat in the middle of a busy intersection. Oh, oh, that’s not even it. The overly nice (that episode put an end to it) person that I was, I dropped him off to his car, while he kept on inviting me back to his place, “Don’t worry, we will not have sex” and I kept on refusing. When we finally arrived, he asked me for the final time, I said “NO!”, and he called me "rude".

For a month now, and exactly a year after I last saw him, I’ve been seeing his delicious car candy parked outside his workplace, the only one in the street, absorbing the black of the late night sky and reflecting the yellow of the overhead street lights.

And I wonder, whether the window in his office has been left open...

And I hope, for his and her sake (probably another “whore” from Shah), that he had quit smoking and she hadn’t taken it up for this particular occasion to appear seductive, because surely the entire building would burst in a violent blast if someone were to strike a match in their room.

And I would be the only one aware that the wind wasn’t capable of carrying the heavy aroma of the Qarantina slaughterhouse all the way to the middle of Downtown. I would be the only one in the know.

PS – How would you explain this 360degree change of character?

ten

09:19:01

I'm sleepy in Beirut.

My phone rings: Hugg.

"Where are you? Come and pick up your things from my car. I'm tired; I need to go sleep, yalla. Where are you? Hello? Hello?"

He's standing on the corner as I come out of Huvelin Street. He sees me, turns around and starts walking. "How old do you think I am? Never do this with me. Yalla, come take your things, I want to go home."

I was walking a few meters behind. His walk was brisk and punctuated with nervous shoulder shrugs. My shadow was long, and he would occasionally step on my head.

The cruelty of a teddy bear.

I felt silly and spoiled. I didn't intentionally walk away to get a reaction from him, but I was acting out against something that had happened that evening.

He spoke of his ex-girlfriends, girls I knew, the type of girls everyone knows, popular girls, personalities. My jealousy didn't come as a thought, but stealthily, in the way I held my chopsticks, the way I was searching for something to say, pretending to try to keep the conversation afloat. I knew jealousy was irrational, because it was a jealousy of shadows, of ghosts. Those girls, they were crazy, mad, he said, and I couldn't imagine him with none of them: with me he's so calm and contained, but maybe that is a sign of…

Boredom?

We left as the restaurant closed. I wanted to take a walk – the weather was lovely, and we were in Achrafieh, a place that I loved and was familiar with. He obliged.

At about the same time last year, Clooney and I walked the exact same streets, at about the same time, in about the same weather. And it was during that walk that I swore to never go for the good-looking ones, ever.

The crowd at Crystal was dispersing, my friends were busy dancing and I relished sitting by myself, observing the people from high above. I was tired, the alcohol, the high heels and the dancing had worn me out.

Suddenly, an apparition: Clooney. What a face, what posture and what a smile! I couldn't but smile back. He was moving towards me, I looked away so as not to jinx it.

"How can I not do something when I see a smile like that?"

He was still very good-looking from up close. He looked like a Hollywood star playing the charming Italian: clean shave, neat short hair with a slight peppering of white, a set of perfect teeth, tailored suit, crisp white shirt and a gorgeous laugh (the kind of laugh you'd hear over the phone and think of elegant cocktail parties in some penthouse overlooking Central Park).

We spoke for a while. He was in his early forties, though he didn't look it, called his father "Pappy", nearly got married at a very young age to a European girl and was suggesting we go have a cup of coffee some place.

My friends were getting ready to leave and I wasn't leaving without them. I didn't want to make it too easy for him; he must be used to instant house calls.

"I'd like to see you again"

I took his number. The act of someone taking down my number at a nightclub really puts me off. It's cheap. He walked out in front of us, like a teaser for a blockbuster movie. His walk was suave, well-paced and intriguing.

By now we were in the car, waiting for our drunken friend to finish his conversation with the little warde boy. Clooney approached the car window, drew his number in the air with his index finger and motioned for me to call him.

I got home at sunrise. It must have been a very beautiful, fantastical spectacle because I was inspired to live life to the fullest, to grab it by its balls, to seize the day and all that jazz.

What I did instead is send Clooney a message, suggesting that we go abroad for the weekend, a strange trip with a perfect stranger. At that moment, it felt like something beautiful and sincere.

Right now, it feels more like the past-tense of a DIESEL ad.

That afternoon, he replied, very enthusiastic about the idea and very keen on discussing it over dinner: tomorrow night, Centrale.

I was, indeed, very excited.

He picked me up in his delicious coupe, we both looked the part and it felt like a chapter from The Great Gatsby.

"I didn't want to call you, to hear your voice. I like the idea of not knowing."

He spoke my mind.

We turned heads as we arrived and the heads kept on turning back towards us throughout the night.

He talked a lot that evening, apologizing here and there for speaking too much, and then talked some more. He spoke well and of interesting things. I was charmed, except for his frequent bathroom breaks. That was when I thought of coke…maybe?

He kept on saying that I was cute. Cute. Cute. CUTE.

"What a cute little young thing. I find it very exciting."

"Gosh, you're cute."

My friends were out in Gemmayzeh, and I wanted to show off my arm candy (my arm candy, for a change). I got us lost, he took the wrong turn, was obliged to turn around, and while looking me in the eyes, stepped on the pedal to reverse. I felt so beautiful as I heard a scratch produce itself all along the left side of the car. He waved it off, smiling, and that right there was the most original romantic moment of my life.

My friends thought he was cute, but perhaps a little too old for me. I thought that they couldn't be more wrong.

He dropped me off to my car and then followed me until we had to split ways. I used to find the whole I-will-follow-you-in-my-car-even-if-I-live-on-the-other-end-of-the-world and call-me-as-soon-as-you-get-back thing really silly. It wasn't as though they could stop the world from being a nasty place. But with Clooney, I couldn't but appreciate the gesture.

Hugg is a little bit like that too. He gives the evil eye to guys who look at me, he calls me to make sure I get home safe, he tells me off for walking away into an empty street in the middle of the night…

Having walked half the distance to his car, I apologized. I could see he was smiling and my sense of relief was a huge wave breaking. He scolded me for a little longer, but it was just long enough to not become a lecture.

In fact, I appreciated his reaction; it's exactly what I need, a little bit of self-respect from his part and a lot of unwillingness to take my shit. Had he not reacted the way he did, he would have gone straight into the folder along with Mr. Keller.