This afternoon I saw a young man trying to buy sex from a prostitute twice his age. Not so unique an occurrence in my life at this point, since I’ve been living in the not- so-former red light district of Paris. Super central, and right next to cute bars, fancy and not-so-fancy restaurants, cute cafes, shops, boutiques, and well, hookers. But these are not your ordinary prostitutes. While there are a younger group of ladies as well, most of the women of Rue St. Denis are very “well seasoned”..and I’ve seen 2 or 3 that look as though they have been doing their thing since the time the Eiffel Tower was built. How, exactly, they are still “doing their thing” is a mystery to me… but there are always customers knocking on the doors.

Usually I see some type of discussion taking place, morning, afternoon but evening..less. I never would have thought rush hour for paid sexy time to be during daylight hours, but then again, it’s Paris…maybe a different set of rules apply here? What are they discussing? Price? Position? The weather? Sometimes these discussions are not related to the deed at all! I hear catch-up sessions with delivery men and old friends? Okay, maybe old customers, but, really…who knows? Only the ladies themselves. So many questions… so little time. And unfortunately not enough time to get answers (not sure if or who I’d ask anyway). I’ll be moving away from these lovely ladies of the 2^nd arrondissement and into Montmartre in a little over a month, so many of my inquiries will go unanswered. Then again, if I travel far enough in the 18^th, I’m sure I can find some new “girlfriends” (near Pigalle?) who might be in the know.

This move is part of the reason I’ve decided to finally share a bit more of the experiences of my current ‘hood…seeing as the end of this specific chapter is right around the corner.

Anyway… all of this to introduce a deal I saw going down I saw this weekend. It was morning, and my street was bustling with strollers and hookers and I saw in front of me on the sidewalk this young man. He had left his backpack unzipped at the curb, and he was carrying a TV monitor. When I say carrying, I mean struggling to carry across the sidewalk, and presented it to a prostitute that was just as old as it. I was unsure at first as to what was happening. I thought he might be moving in, or helping her move in, or returning something after their break-up. It was unclear. Then I hear something like: “Non, non, il marche pas comme ça.” It doesn’t work like that. And he replied with a rebuttal. So you understand, this TV was about 1 foot deep, and with manual channel-turny and other buttons. Also, there was writing “For sale” written on it. So, from what I gathered.. he was either a) trying to buy sex with a 50-year old TV that he had tried to sell, when he realized.. “nah I’d rather get laid than have an extra 50 bucks (euros).” or b) he had just bought this secondhand TV set and then regretted his fiscal irresponsibility when his nether region called for company c) it was never his TV to give, but rather he actually stole someone else’s for-sale TV because it had been too long and he was super sad and lonely and desperate. Either way, I kind of wanted to help. Needless to say, I didn’t, lol. Also… I didn’t stick around to see how the end of the story played out, but I have a feeling he wasn’t successful in his endeavor of sexual favor for piece-of-shit-television-set. But, I will say this…definitely should have gotten points (or a discount) for originality…Am I right? 😛

Filakia from Paris,

Steph