She had no idea that she was beautiful. Ripe, with the glow from twenty-three year old hormones that were swirling and dancing throughout her system like dust caught in a golden sun.
She was taking the train from London to Paris after arriving from New York. It was 1973 and the fast train was in the planning stage, still not built and not to be built until 1986. She was off to Paris to meet her lover whom she had met through a college friend.
Her lover had moved to Paris to set up a life for them there. He had left the year before and they had sent fervent telegrams back and forth, long distance calls that couldn’t end, and numerous trips back and forth when the yearning became too much. She was coming to him against her father, liberated and flying forward in a rebellious ecstasy. They had money. Her lover’s dead father had left him a small inheritance that they would consume in a year.
She was guided onto the train by a porter who carried her two heavy suitcases. She found her seat, and was instantly noticed by a number of excited men whom she ignored. She turned to the window, brimming, burning, knowing that this journey was to take her into a next future that would reinforce the way she wanted to live.
A man entered and sat opposite her. A seemingly quiet man. Elegant, handsome, monied. Quite older, but so attractive. She was never interested in older men, so it was only an observation. But he caught her looking at him and placed his blue eyes on her like a man, not the boys she was used to.
She read to avoid him, but he was intoxicated and couldn’t stop himself from drinking her in. There was a palpable tension in the compartment until he asked her if she was hungry and if he could treat her to a meal in the dining car. She was hungry and curious, and it was good to break the silence, so she agreed.
He wore an exquisitely cut steel gray suit. She wore a blue dress, slightly off one shoulder, and high beige heels. His hair was cut impeccably. Her hair was a wild blonde gypsy-burst around her head and shoulders. The dining car was in first class.
They ate and talked. He asked many questions and she was flattered, flushed, young, a blossom to him. He became awkward, stricken by her unconscious allure… the scent of promise, the deep fragrance of hope and possibility.
They went back to their seats, she, shaking a bit in her high heels, slightly drunk from the crisp white wine and self-conscious, realizing her power and not having the grace of experience to support it.
She dozed in her seat over her book. The man read his paper, attentive to her, watching and remembering his youth. He breathed in the scent of her and it hurt.
They arrived at the Gare du Nord. She was to stay with a friend of a friend as her lover was out of town until the next day. The man offered to help her with the taxi, and she accepted.
They arrived at the building and were buzzed in. It was a walkup, with steep stairs. Gallant and expectant and wanting to be with her until the last, the man took the suitcases and they began the journey up to the waiting apartment. It was on the forth landing that he began to feel faint. His heart was beating too hard. The feeling in his right arm was fading until he felt the sharp pain leading from it to the center of his body. In panic she ran up to the apartment for help. He was gasping for breath.
It took her so many years to realize the cost of her allure. That the trail of her scent could kill a man.
But he didn’t die. His wife was called and he was rushed to a nearby hospital. He went alone in the ambulance. He had just been helping a tourist who didn’t know Paris. His wife would understand.
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