The crying game

Thursday, I went out on a date with a nice young American.  

Well I say 'date'.  He's a friend of a friend, in town for a couple of weeks with his job and desperate for some help with the city.  Seems it's the first time he's left the US, first time he's travelled on his own.  First time he's stayed in a hotel on his own.  

I've been stuck, bored and miserable, in enough foreign hotel rooms to know how bad that can be, so I was happy to help out.  The fact that he is cute and gay and funny also helped my decision making process along.

So we went out on Thursday night and it was fun.  It was a lot of fun.  We got dinner, had a couple of drinks and I returned him to his hotel safe and sound.  As I left the hotel Friday morning (come on, what else did you expect?) we agreed that we'd see each other again that evening.

Friday evening started well.  We met at his hotel in the early evening - he hasn't yet gotten brave enough to use the métro alone, so I had to go and collect him.  We left the hotel a while later (uh-huh) and went to meet up with a couple of my friends at the Freedj - my usual bar, the regular hangout.  

Leaving the hotel, I noticed that the American Guy had gone quiet.  I looked at him and he surreptitiously wiped a tear away from his eye.  

"Are you ok?" I said, nervously.

"Sure," he responded.  "I'm just a little homesick".

Swearing that going out on the town was the right thing to do, he dried his eyes, I put my arm around him and we walked to the métro.

At the bar we met the boys and had a great time.  AG really got on well with them and became animated, lively and seemed to be enjoying himself.  

We headed off to get food and then decided we'd go the Depot - the infamous nightclub/sexclub - purely for research purposes, you understand...to show AG the seedier side of the Paris scene. 

As we walked to the Depot, AG started to slow down a little.  He was crying again.  I pulled him in towards me and gave him a good old bearhug.  He sobbed and said 'thankyou' over and over again.  He said that this was the best night, and that he was so happy to be there after how awful he had felt earlier.  Having cried, he seemed to cheer up pretty quickly.  He told me that he definitely wanted to go on to the club and so we carried on our way.

So, we go to the Depot.  We dance, drink, laugh at the awful porn on the TV monitors.  We take a tour of the labyrinthine cruising area and giggle with each other at the guys standing in cubicle doorways, waving their erections at passersby.  

One of my friends loses his cell phone, but we all - his husband included - put this down to the fact that his trousers were, at the time, around his ankles and so he deserved to be robbed.  He he.

Anyway, at 6am, we leave the club and AG says he wants to come back to mine.  Luckily I'd done the housework that afternoon.

I close the shutters and as the city turned light and woke up, my bedroom went dark and we were able to think about sleep.

After a bit of a passionate moment, we were both fit to drop.  I lay next him and started to sleep.  He put his head on my chest and clung on like a limpet.

And that's when it happened again.

He cried.

He sobbed.

I held him tightly and figured it would pass.

I offered soothing words of comfort and told him it would all be alright.

I fell asleep.  So did he.

We slept until the late afternoon and went for dinner together.  We followed it with a walk down the Champs Elysées and a movie.  Not once did we speak about the crying.  

After the movie, I pointed him in the direction of the métro and told him how to get back to his hotel.

"You're not coming with me?" he said.

"Not tonight, no"  I said.  "I need to wake up on my own tomorrow".

"Ok" he said, looking hurt.  "But let's do something tomorrow together, yeah?"

So, I'm sat here, fully expecting him to call at any minute.  I'm not sure my nerves are up to it.