Paris is a magical city. Parisians boast about the French capitol as ‘La Ville-Lumière’ or City of Lights as much for its illumination as its well-deserved reputation for thought. I was lucky enough to have lived in Paris during the 80s. I learned the language, I ate the food, and I slept with the women. Some of my friends have opined that I was following the footsteps of Hemingway’s Lost Generation, but the writer of THE MOVEABLE FEAST was not a city boy and I was not the writer of THE MOVEABLE FEAST. I worked at a nightclub as a physionomiste. I was part of the scenery. I knew the names of many women.

Mira Tibblin was a Swedish model. The tall brunette worked for Paris Planning. She had small breasts and a wicked laugh. We were intimate on more than one occasion. Her top-floor apartment in the Latin Quarter was a renovated maid’s quarter with a view from the tiny window of other tiny windows.

Mira and I were not boyfriend and girlfriend, but we share a mutual attraction to the good in life, even if some of them were bad. Neither of us asked too many questions. She traveled most of the week and I worked most of the weekends. Her friend, the model from South Africa, said that we made a good couple.

“How can we be good, if both of us are bad?”

“Simple math. Two negatives make a positive.” The model from South Africa had more going for her than beauty as did Mira.

One winter night we returned to her apartment late. It was cold and she turned on the electrical heater before we buried our naked bodies underneath a thick duvet. Mira wanted me bad and I wanted her the same. Our foreplay lasted less than a minute and the heat of our passion made me throw off the duvet. I repeated my thrusts with the speed of a 78 rpm record skipping a beat. She cried out for more. I gave it to her, then she started screaming. I tried harder to please her, except she pushed me off her, for the duvet was on fire. I put it out and she held the charred remains in her hands.

“That was an 8000 francs duvet.”

“Oh.” Something told me that she expected me to pay for it.

I never did, but she said nothing bad about me and today I was saddened to hear that Mira was remaining behind in the Here-Before, as her friends and family forge through the Here-Now into the Here-After.

“Hyvää onnea!”

She was a true princess of beauty.

The photo of Mira, Lagerfeld, and me is by Dustin Pittman