The scent of fresh bread and pastries is everywhere. So are slim girls wearing slinky dresses. Crop tops and yoga pants. Or little leather jackets with skinny jeans. That much hasn't changed since I visited with my bohemian aunt Bea last Summer.
What has changed is that Bea booked us into the Georges V on the Champs Elysees, perhaps the grandest of the world's grand luxury hotels. Our little suite was around 2,000€ a night.
Bea passed away over the winter, so I'm on my own this year. I found a hostel known by the acronym HIJ that's located in an old medieval monastery just a few blocks from the Seine in central Paris. The dorm rooms, which are mixed-sex, start at 50€.
I'm not sure Bea would approve of my frugality, but I know she would admire the tall gothic windows, rooftop spires, and massive oak doors that greet me as I brake my bike on the cobblestone street in front of HIJ.
The French guy at the desk speaks English better than I do, or at least he does it with a classy Oxford accent. He immediately notices my watertight bike panniers.
"Ortliebs?" he asks. Which is exactly what they are.
His name is Robert and he's a cycling enthusiast. In the nation that's home to the Tour de France, I'm learning, a lot of people are serious about biking. He wants to know about my kit, and offers tips about the Paris bike lanes. But it's been almost 24 hours since I've slept, and there's no hiding my exhaustion.
"You just rode from the airport?" Robert asks when he notices my struggle to stay awake. "So, you need a rest before beginning the nightlife."
"Exactly!"
"I have a bed in the quietest dorm at the back," he tells me, peering into a computer monitor. "And there's one empty bed in a front room. That's with 'The Twins!'" he exclaims with a meaningful look. "Norwegian girls. Not real twins, distant cousins or something. But they look alike."
"I'll take the Twins," I reply without hesitation.
Robert checks me in and shows me a room that's slightly larger than a walk-in closet with two sets of bunk beds. There are backpacks on the upper and lower bunks on one side, along with a lot of girly items like hair brushes, makeup, and what looks like crumpled pink panties. On the other side, a neatly packed and buttoned down backpack sits on the lower bunk. Only the upper bunk is free.
"Looks like you're on top tonight," Robert quips as he turns back to the front desk.
I shuck off my khakis, toss my bedroll across the top bunk and about 10 seconds later, I'm sleeping the sleep of the just. The just plain exhausted.
I awaken to muffled giggles and peek over the bunk rail to see two pairs of slender, naked legs ending at bikini panties on the lower bunk opposite mine. Since the girls are sitting with their backs against the wall, my view of the rest of their bodies is blocked.
You'd think two highly erotic sexual encounters in the last 12 hours would leave me indifferent to the sight of silky smooth inner thighs and pussy lips pressing against thin cotton panties.
You'd be dead wrong.
I doesn't work that way. Quite the opposite. As in "the more you get, the more you want." The chime of feminine laughter and a peek at sexy legs in pretty panties do exactly what they always do. They make me hard.
I roll onto my back to catch my breath, but the bunk creaks louder than Dracula's castle door. The girls go silent, followed by movement on their side of the room.
"Hello?" one of the girls asks as a shock of strawberry blonde hair rises into view above the bunk rail, followed by a pair of large and expressive emerald-green eyes. Eyes that don't even pretend to look at me, but remain fixed on my lower torso and my briefs.
After a long and careful inspection, she finally glances up at my face with a devilish grin.
"Hey, Raven," she calls out in slightly accented English, "come see what I found." An instant later a second girl appears beside my bunk, she has huge doe eyes framed by curly black tresses.
"Jason!" they exclaim in unison.
"Ummmm... Yes... The Twins, I presume."
Like Robert said, not real twins. But not that many gene pairs removed either. Different hair and eyes, but the same high Nordic cheekbones, heart-shaped faces, and petite bodies with small breasts and slender waists.
Place both girls on a scale, and I doubt they'd match my 200 lbs. They are 18, maybe a little older, but still have that glow of eternal youth that's so common among fair-skinned Scandinavians. And despite their forthright appraisal of my barely concealed erection, there's actually a charming bashfulness in their demeanor.
The blond, especially, has a subtle shyness in her eyes that reminds me of Waterhouse's "nymph paintings," like the Ophelia portrait owned by Andrew Loyd-Weber.
"I'm, Runa," the strawberry blond says. "This is my friend, Raven."
They've been in Paris for a couple of days, so we chat about the neighborhood bars and cafes. Robert, the front-desk clerk, is mentioned a couple of times, and when Raven tells me with a dreamy look that she's going to his apartment for a home-cooked French dinner, I understand why Robert enjoys his job so much.
I haven't eaten since breakfast, and wouldn't be surprised if they can hear my stomach growling. If Raven has a date with Robert, maybe Runa is own her own?
I ask her join me for to dinner. Runa glances at Raven, who seems to respond telepathically, since I don't see so much as a blink. Still, she must approve because Runa turns to me with beatific smile and says, "That would be the best!"
"Have you ever been to a Paris art opening?" I ask, remembering my plan is to attend group exhibition in the the Marais this evening.
