“Wanna fuck?”

I had just ambled my way up from the platform at the Place des Arts Metro station and was waiting for the bus in the warmth just inside the double-glazed glass doors, peering at the snow-laden outside. That’s when the rather runty fellow with the somewhat shifty eyes and definitely shifty gait had inched over to me.

“Haven’t we met?” he asked, smiling.

I would’ve remembered if we had, though not for the reasons so often vomited forth by Messrs. Mills and Boon. He was about my height, so not very tall, especially for a North American male. His hair was a mess of mousy curls, with just a hint of winter dandruff; his moustache was, well, barely the beginning of one, and his smile revealed a gap between his front teeth that I could imagine shoving a sizable toothpick through. But I truly am not a lookist so I smiled back.

“I don’t think so.”

“Are you sure?”

“Mm hmm.”

“Isn’t your name Lucia? We met in Toronto.”

Lucia?