Indiscretions a l'etranger

Now I know I mentioned indiscretions before but first I suppose I ought to talk about how the Redhead and I settled in. It really wasn't too hard - we basically went to lots of bars. The town we were staying in happened to have one street in particular which was just lined with them on both sides. There were so many different clubs and bars that you could probably spend ten years there and never tire of places to go. On the very first night we moved in we dragged my reluctant English boyfriend, who had helped me move my stuff, to the nearest bar where we met a lot of The Redhead's friends who just happened to be studying at the business school there. They were all French and The Redhead and I were in our element. A few glasses of wine and cidre soon helped loosen our tongues and improved our confidence in speaking no end. Unfortunately my poor boyfriend was not impressed and ended up flouncing off early in a huff.

I actually feel rather bad about him now as he really did care for me and I did for him for a long time (I actually took his cherry!). I just wasn't ready to settle down and several months into my French sojourn we split up. He was a country boy from the Welsh valleys where it was expected to marry young and pop out a few children, have Sunday lunch together every week and live not more than two miles from the rest of the family. I, however, wanted to go to France and let my hair down. In the end I felt suffocated by his constant attention - the more I distanced myself the more he called demanding to know who I was with, what I was doing, what I was discussing and when I would be home. It got to the point where he would be crying on the phone to me and The Redhead would pull the plug out the wall so we could get on with going out. It seems pretty selfish now but at the time I just felt like I was struggling for breath. I haven't seen him for many years and often wonder what happened to him.

Anyway I digress. As I said The Redhead and I set about making friends by basically drinking lots of alcohol and visiting lots of bars. I think she lasted about three weeks before our faithful intentions all went to pot, I managed about four or five. One night, we went to a rather notorious and seedy nightclub, which we ended up frequenting on an alarming basis due to its proximity to our apartment. On this particular night it wasn't long before we were approached by two lovely French boys - Arnaud and Air Force One (well at least that's what we called him because at the time we couldn't catch his name)and it sounded like the American presidential plane. In typical wooing Frenchman style they bought us drinks, rock and roll danced with us and lit our cigarettes until the early hours of the morning. When the club finally chucked us out we staggered home inviting them back for a nightcap which seemed like a good idea at the time. Drinking more alcohol was clearly the last thing on their minds and barely had the front door shut before Arnaud was closing The Redhead's bedroom door, on my fingers which bloody hurt, and Air Force One was ushering me into mine.

At this stage of the game, having never been unfaithful before I wasn't about to start then and as Air Force One turned towards me and lunged clumsily at my mouth I swiftly moved to the side, pointing at my boyfriend's picture and uttering: "Je suis desolee, j'ai un copain." To be fair to him he took it on the chin and left quickly while I settled down to sleep for what was left of the night. However, it is fair to say that sleep eluded me for many hours due to the paper thin walls of our rooms. I was treated to or endured, depending on which way you look at it, the dulcet sounds of The Redhead being banged senseless by Arnaud. Every oui, every yes, every flesh slapping flash moment could be heard in my room. To this day I swear they were doing it doggy style and The Redhead never did make it to lectures the next day.