The first time was only two nights ago when I stumbled into my apartment at four o’clock in the morning after a long night of drinking. Earlier that night I was at a bar on the Lower East Side, experiencing what I called a "Tom Waits Night," which basically meant celebrating my loneliness with a lot of alcohol. At the bar I met a man who's an A/V guy at the Four Seasons Hotel; he's the guy who comes to your hotel room when your VCR doesn't work. I don’t remember his name, but in my mind I see him as a Bob; fast-talking and sweet, harmless like a thick fly buzzing in cold air. He wore a three-piece suit and his head was close-shaven as a response to early balding.

After three beers and two shots of tequila, I followed him into the bathroom to smoke what was left of his joint. "I got this pot from my friend Rick," he said, holding the roach as I inhaled, his salty fingers brushing my lips. I wondered what Rick was like and if we would get along and if maybe Bob was the right guy all along and someday we would have a really weird story to tell our grandchildren. I imagined myself in forty years, knitting an afghan as I spoke to little Bobby the III: "It was the end of the millennium. In those days marijuana was illegal. Your grandfather and I fell in love as we smoked pot in the bathroom of a dive bar..."

"You live in the neighborhood?" he asked. The fantasy didn't seem right.

"No," I lied. I didn’t want him to follow me home like a stray dog might, staying close by in the hopes of being taken in. "You don't mind if I kiss you, do you?" he asked, brushing my hair behind my ears as I smiled a stony smile. It didn't seem too much to ask. What was one kiss? He bent his head and leaned into me like a plane coming in for landing, his sour breath bathing my face.

When we kissed it felt mechanical, two strangers who were trying to prove that we know how to kiss well. Look at me, I know how to Be Sexy. Look at me, I’m Up For Fun. He lifted my tank top, his calloused hands scrubbing my breasts. I thought about stopping him, but I didn’t want to be the girl who couldn’t finish something that she had already started. I left my body, only feeling Bob trail his tongue up my neck until he pressed it into my mouth, which made me want to throw up. When I opened my eyes I started to get the spins. I pushed him away and leaned over the toilet just in time to throw up the spicy-chicken-extra-guacamole-burrito I ate for lunch. "Oh god," he moaned, softly like he was cumming, not like he was disgusted as he surely must have been. I yanked the rough toilet paper off its roll and wiped my chin. "Sorry," I murmured as I unlocked the bathroom door. When I stumbled out of the bar I never looked back to see if Bob was following me.

When I walked through my apartment door, François lay on the couch with my roommate, Matthew, and Matthew’s Filipino fashion-designer girlfriend named Alexia. Alexia’s warehouse-turned-loft in Williamsburg had burned down four months before; she had been living with us rent-free ever since.

"This is Alexia’s friend from Hawaii, François," Matthew said in way of introducing us. I tried to straighten my shirt, stand still and pretend as if I didn't just make out with a complete stranger in the bathroom of a dive bar that serves PBR for two bucks and Cheetos for free. François lifted his heavy arm and waved at me. "Come smoke with us," Matthew said. The three of them were lying on one another, smiling faintly and giggling about something they'd probably already forgotten. I leaned over and shook François' hand, "It's nice to meet you," I said. As I walked into my bedroom, I heard Matthew say to François, "Justine's the greatest." I shut my door, stripped off my cigarette-soaked clothes, and passed out.

The next morning I met François for a second time. As I walked into the kitchen, I was surprised to see a stranger standing at our stove cooking crêpes. I had been so wasted the night before that I had forgotten all about him. But there he was, wearing boogie-board shorts that hung low on his waist, exposing a tattoo of a fleur-de-lis on his right hipbone. His fuzzy blonde hair stood on his head, his tan skin looked polished like a shiny figurine. He glowed.

"Crêpe?" he smiled, flipping one in the air like Jean Georges on Iron Chef. I shook my head to say, "no thanks," and hurried through the kitchen to the bathroom, my robe twisted around me and last night's makeup crusting my face. In the bathroom I scrubbed my teeth, remembering suddenly last night's "Tom Waits Night", remembering Bob. I looked at my reflection and could easily see every pimple, every dry patch, every wrinkle on my worn face. I slicked back my hair to make it look sexy. A just-showered look.

"You’re much cuter in the morning," he said with a slight French accent as he bent over to adjust the burner. I could faintly make out the dip in his lower back that lead to his crack. "Did you want a crêpe?" he asked again. I nodded yes as I sat at the kitchen table and studied a Chinese food flyer that had been sitting out since March. A pint of hot and sour soup for $2.50. He was too gorgeous to look at, a rare and dangerous sight like a blinding eclipse.

"What’s your name again?" I asked nonchalantly, "I’m afraid I’ve forgotten." I really had. He set down his whisk, wiped his small hands on his shorts, extended his right hand to me and said, "I’m François. We met last night."

It was my opportunity to get as much back info on François as possible. He told me that he grew up in France for the first twelve years of his life. After that his parents moved to San Francisco, where his father was the head chef at some posh French restaurant in North Beach. After dropping too much acid and failing out of high school, he opted for culinary school. At present he was a chef at The Ritz Carlton in Maui, surfing every day and cooking every night. He flipped a crêpe onto a plate, placing it in front of me. "And you're Alexia's friend?" I asked. "Yeah," he said, he used to work with her at a restaurant in San Francisco when she lived there, too. I wondered if they were ever lovers. I pictured their sweaty bodies intertwined, her flimsy Asian figure wrapped inside his arms like dim sum.

"So is this your first time to New York?" I swallowed the last bite of my crêpe and licked my fork. Butter and sugar, sticky jam.

"Yup."

"And what d’you think so far?" I said, forking crêpe number two onto my plate. A car honked below my kitchen window and then a man yelled, "Yo mami!" Everything was happening right outside our window, but inside François remained quiet. He leaned against the kitchen counter holding a FREE MUMIA coffee mug and smiled down at me.

"So far, so good," he said.

That day was a Sunday and it was François' first real day in the city. I had made plans to go to Central Park with my friends; we were going to have a picnic in Sheep’s Meadow like other dignified New Yorkers do. But the rain was torrential so our plans got botched. Instead, I sat in the living room and watched François get dressed in piecemeal as I channel-surfed. His luggage was sprawled on our living room floor as he walked to and from the bathroom, coming back to his suitcase for this and that, initially only wearing a towel. I pretended to be watching T.V., not noticing his rippled stomach or the drips of water on his back. Bit by bit, he'd come from the bathroom with one more piece of clothing on. It was like reverse strip poker. "What are you doing today?" I asked, flipping the channels until I landed on The Way We Were on TBS. Barbra Streisand was ironing Robert Redford's pants. François walked back into the living room while he pulled on a T-shirt. "I don't know, what do you think I should do?" Alexia and Matthew were at work, so François was without a tour guide. I flipped the channel. An ab-flexer commercial where everyone was oiled up. "If you had only three days in the city, what would you do?" he asked. Flip. A re-run of Little House on the Prairie. Half Pint has her first kiss. "I'd hang out with me," I said. I looked over at him as he pulled on a sock. "O.K.," he said, "let's hang out."

I'm not proud to say, or maybe I am, that it was a whole half hour before we were in my bedroom, making love. Or maybe I should call it having sex. Or maybe, it was just plain fucking. I must learn to control myself. Next time, in the face of a man who bears an uncomfortable similarity to Brad Pitt, who’s visiting for only three days from Hawaii, who’s French and is a chef at The Ritz Carlton in Maui...I must remember to control myself.

Or what? Lose the opportunity of my legs being flung over his shoulder, the Astroglide that he said would "tingle a bit" but didn’t, his pooka shell beads touching my breasts, the feel of his tan back under my manicured nails, the force with which he tosses me from my back to my side to my back to my front to my knees to my back to my front...?

I digress.

It was a rainy Sunday in New York, and while the rest of the city posed in coffee shops or sat in movie theaters under drafty vents or argued Guiliani’s latest coup, François and I lay naked under my cotton sheets, telling secrets that strangers share. He hated his father, he said. He came to New York because he'd been evicted from his apartment in Maui and he wasn't sure his job would still be there when he got back. Last month his best friend hung himself. He was telling me so much, I tried to think of what I could tell him. My mother committed suicide too, I could say. I could say that my father was abusive and that I feel reckless and starved. I could tell him about last night’s "Tom Waits Night", about Bob and all of the other ‘Bobs’ before him. "I just don't want to be boring," I said flippantly, "I don't want to be a nobody." I could have told François everything, but I didn't. Instead, I moved closer to him, placed his hands on my round hip, moved his fingertips down my thigh and then up, leading them between my legs. I liked being his confidante, I liked not appearing broken. "I feel so comfortable with you," he said as he moved closer to spoon me. I smiled. Little does he know that I am a shark, swimming in deep waters, simply opening my mouth to let smaller fish wiggle down my gullet.

We spent the entire afternoon in the confines of my bedroom, cocooned in my sheets. It wasn’t until night that we emerged like nocturnal cats. We hadn’t heard from Alexia or Matthew, so I decided to bring François to the Brooklyn Bridge. I was too busy tossing caution to the wind to think about work the next day.

As we walked toward Brooklyn, I wouldn’t let François turn around to see the view of Manhattan. Along the bridge we held hands like normal couples do. Finally we reached the bridge’s first set of archways whereupon I covered his eyes, turned him around, and then let him feast on Manhattan’s bright lights, its man-made gorgeousness that defies everything that is Hawaiian.

"This is how you do it," he said, "This is how you seduce men."

"Yeah," I said, "and it works like a charm." When I laughed it came out like a snarl.

"I will cook for you," he said, his accent peeking through, "that will be my gift to you." A gust of wind slapped through the bridges’ intricate lacing of cords and cables, I could hear cars speeding below while the Manhattan skyline towered above. I half-expected someone to yell, "Cut!" at any moment. Mon chèr François et moi: together we were a movie scene, only we were at the top of the film and at the end of the third act all at the same time.

The next morning I almost tripped on François’ Astroglide. I picked the bottle off the floor and noticed not only that he paid $18.59 for two fluid ounces of the stuff, but only a pinch was left in the bottle. I tried not to think of where the other 1.98 fluid ounces had gone. Masturbation maybe. I held the bottle as I stood naked in my bedroom. I watched Francois sleep. He looked so little, so plush; a toddler’s toy that easily withstands pulling and biting. He was a perfect stranger who had plopped into my small life like a baby delivered by a stork. François was a gift. Maybe we were meant to be.

I focused on getting ready for work, where I would have to play it straight; make phone calls to agents and play along with the d-girl game -- laugh at the right jokes at the right time, get in on the hot script that’s circulating around town, pretend as if my company has actually made a film in the last five years. At night I would be Up For Fun, but during the day I would lunch with other d-girls using phrases like, "That’s so arch or where’s the narrative?" when discussing their latest shopping spree at H&M.

It was a dual life I had begun to lead.

En route to work, I sat on the subway and read the minutiae on the walls: "Dr.Z wants to cure your rash!" and "Charity is good. Just don’t give on the subway," and "Ever considered lasik surgery?" An old woman sitting next to me bounced a fat baby on her right knee. I thought about Maui sunsets and real life luaus; François’ and my baby swathed in a beach towel.

That morning my boss caught me skimming a script in my office. "I thought you were going to read that this weekend," he said. "I'm just re-reading," I lied. He rolled his eyes. "Where is the development report for this morning’s meeting?" he asked, "Didn’t you do anything this weekend?" I did François, I thought.

Most Mondays I walked into the office, sure that it would be the day that that my boss would finally realize that I wasn’t worth the money he was spending on me. But nothing fazed me that day, because inside I had a secret that no one else knew. At home, I had a Frenchman who was going to make me steak au poivre, baby potatoes, sautéed spinach, and his very own crème brulée (his specialty, he said). Perhaps he’s at Essex Street Market, negotiating strawberries and thinking of me, I thought. He is being kind to me. He is kind that way.

That evening I left work while my boss was on the telephone with his agent. "Listen, Jack, Artisan is just a bigger indie company than mine. Why wouldn’t they want a film version of Homer's Iliad? I’m telling you, it’s a buyer's film!" I slowly turned the knob of the front door. "Hold on Jack -- hey Justine!" he hollered, straining his neck out his door. I was caught. "What are you reading tonight?" I held a pile of scripts in my arms as if they were a display of my dedication to a life in the movie biz. A campaign button he liked me to wear. "The William Morris submissions," I improvised. "O.K., well," he looked at his watch, "let's be sure to get a fresh start tomorrow."

The door slammed behind me as I walked out.

On my way home, I got off the subway two stops earlier than usual so as to enjoy the weather that had finally cooled. My favorite part of living in New York is falling in love several times a day. They are all men who pass me on the street: maybe it’s the way their hair falls into their eyes or the bounce of their walk or their bed head that they wear with pride. Walking east on Houston, I fell in love with a man who stared back at me as we approached each other. I could instantly foresee our future together: long walks in Central Park while he carries our baby on his back, I am sipping from an ‘I LOVE NEW YORK’ paper cup, while he defends Ian Parker’s latest contribution to The New Yorker. But instead he passed me and I suddenly felt lost, sure that the man for me just slipped through my fingers like a slippery bottle of Astroglide.

I opened the door to my apartment and was enveloped in the smells of a confit of onion, bouillabaisse, a reduction of port and mushroom. François was in my kitchen with a spatula in hand and vegetables swarming about him like Hugh Heffner’s playboy bunnies. I added to the mix.

"Âllo ma chèrie," he said. I dropped the scripts on a counter and hugged him from behind. "How’s my surfer boy," I whispered as I snuggled his warm neck. He turned around and grabbed me around my waist, kissing me deeply. Matthew walked into the kitchen and gawked. "God Justine," he said interrupting us, "do you have to corrupt everyone?" François was no longer my little secret.

"I quickly walked into my bedroom to change out of my stuffy black pants, my sweater that didn’t show enough cleavage, my shoes that showed no ankle. It was François' last night in New York and I wanted to look right. I changed into a snakeskin skirt and a black tank top, tossed a sweater over the ensemble to make it appear natural, not thought-out.

When I returned to the kitchen François and Alexia were kissing. He had her pinned against the counter as her hips rose to meet his. Their eyes were shut, and apparently they were so involved in what they were doing, they had no idea that I was standing there, under my doorway, at the cusp of my kitchen, wearing my pathetic snakeskin skirt, and watching them. François stroked Alexia’s long, silky hair as they kissed tenderly, like only good friends who are old lovers can do. Their touch was right, it was real. Alexia pulled away playfully and started to laugh, holding mon petit François' delicate face in her breakable hands. "I’ve missed you," he said to her. She pulled him into her and hugged him tightly, not saying a word. Suddenly Matthew walked into the kitchen from the living room. "Hey, when's dinner?" he asked. He was totally oblivious. François casually pulled away from Alexia like he wasn’t just kissing Matthew’s girlfriend, like he didn't just get a piece of what he came five thousand miles for. Instead he simply said, "Dinner is served."

At dinner we sat at our rickety kitchen table that was candlelit and quaint. Billie Holiday crooned softly as we ate a meal in relative silence. We were four people who had everything -- and yet nothing -- in common. François didn't put his hands on my knee like he did just one day before. In fact, he didn't look at me with much regard at all.

After dinner he announced that he wanted to go dancing, and asked if any of us could suggest some cool clubs. "Go to Shine," I volunteered, probably too quickly, knowing by his tone that I was not invited to join him. I saved him from the embarrassment of having to tell me that he wanted to go solo. I saved myself from the humiliation of being told "non merci."

I knew that he owed nothing to me and that I owed nothing to him. I knew that I had created him -- the idea of him -- and that from day one I was a girl who played along with a boy who packed Astroglide all the way from Hawaii. We were a match in more ways than I had expected. We were the same breed walking the earth, pretending as if we were charming, roping innocent creatures into our worlds of Brooklyn Bridges and French cooking.

I sat at the kitchen table as François got up, throwing on a jacket and saying his good-byes. His flight was the next day at one o'clock, but by eight a.m. I would be out the door, trudging along past Katz’s Deli with its dusty salamis hanging in the window, walking toward the ‘F’ train to the same life that I live everyday. "Justine," he said, his arms reaching out for me. I stood up and put on a happy face. Look at me, I’m Up for Fun. As he hugged me tightly I could smell salt air, mai tais, macadamia nuts, crème brulée, and red wine. Nothing made sense anymore. He pulled away from me and whispered in my left ear, "You will never be a nobody."

At that moment, I knew that he would go to Shine, and that while on the dance floor his boyish good looks would attract a young woman who loves his accent and his pooka shells, just as I did.

I knew this just as I knew that as François was headed back to Maui the next day, I would fall in love with yet another man who passes me on the street. Perhaps he would be tall this time, brown-eyed, or maybe pockmarked and sad. When I watch him pass, I will be half-tempted to follow him into his favorite diner, sit at his booth, and order a piece of pecan pie as if it is nothing at all. He will know my name, will hold my dry hands, and order a cup of tea for me just as I like it.

In truth the man will pass me, despite the fact that I have fallen in love with him. He will walk by me, looking stupidly beautiful as he carries his worn briefcase, staring at nothing.

And then, like François, he will be gone.

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