It was a long time before I saw Gilbert again.

We hadn’t parted on bad terms that day, far from it, we’d even spent part of the afternoon walking around Old Montréal, laughing, with me muffled up in my winter coat because the severe cold, the real thing, the kind that you think will hang around for six months, had come back overnight, and with him clapping his hands together or putting them over his ears, his clothes inadequate for the cold, but he insisted he was too happy and excited to go home. I’d put my yellow shoes back on so I could hear them click along the sidewalk again, but my feet were so cold that I soon regretted it. We didn’t mention the fantastic night that had just ended, but each of us must have been thinking about it nonstop. Something sexual, something very exciting was still passing between us whenever we touched, and his tight jeans let me confirm the effect I was having on him. I was amused and, even more, flattered.

He hadn’t mentioned my three roommates and I, thrilled as I was to have him next to me, was afraid to broach a subject that might possibly come between us, so I took full advantage of these extra hours of bliss I’d been granted.

Just before he disappeared into the Place-d’Armes Metro, Gilbert kissed me in front of everybody, crouching down on the sidewalk as he’d done the night before on St. Denis Street. And again I wasn’t brave enough to ask him not to. To my surprise I even felt a kind of pride at the thought that people could see us. Above all I didn’t want to admit that I was starting to like it. But when I saw him from the back going down the stairs into the Metro station, I had an odd impression. The thought, fleeting yet precise, that I might never see him again went through my mind and somewhere deep inside me I think I actually bade him farewell. It was ridiculous, we’d spent a fantastic night, we’d exchanged phone numbers, we’d promised if not sworn that we’d see each other again – to “do it again" in his words – so why was this mild anxiety choking me? The fear of losing the first man who had introduced me to sexual pleasure, the fear of not finding another? Yes, without a doubt, but something else was bothering me, a hazy thought that I couldn’t put into words, a still-vague risk of danger that I was afraid would become clearer.

What then? The fact that he was the son of Madame Veuve and was reputed to be horrified by transvestites? Because I was determined to stop thinking about that, I was trying hard to look elsewhere, but when that thought crossed my mind, I told myself that I might be very close to the heart of the problem. How could I reconcile all that? On one hand, people whose joys and sorrows I’d been sharing for nearly two years now, whom I’d come to adore; on the other hand, the arrival of a man I’d stopped waiting for, convinced as I was that I was unworthy of anybody’s love, who was liable to change my life dramatically. It was too soon to talk about love though, I was well aware of that, I’d known Gilbert for less than twenty-four hours, but his obvious sincerity when he said that he wanted to see me again had filled me with hope – I who had always struggled to turn away any positive thoughts about the future because I’d been told too often that I didn’t have one. Especially with men who, as my mother kept saying throughout my teenage years, would never be interested in a midget.

As for my roommates, without urging me never to see Gilbert again while he was taking his shower, they had nonetheless drawn a portrait of him dark enough to discourage me. I don’t think it was lack of goodwill, jealousy or bitchiness that was coming out, no, at first they’d been too excited by the presence of a man in my bed to be malicious afterwards. But they knew Gilbert, by reputation in the case of Mae and Nicole, personally for Jean-le-Décollé, and they obviously wanted to protect me from the dangers he might represent. Jean-le-Décollé had been categorical: Gilbert was an unstable man with a changing nature and mood swings as spectacular as they were unexpected and frequent, and he often took refuge in drugs while passing himself off as a musician, no doubt to disguise his lack of composure when his talent for the guitar was average at best, an aging spoiled brat who was used to people being utterly devoted to his precious person – and charming, yes, but also, and inadvertently, a deadly poison as is often the case with men who are too good-looking and who always get what they want.

“Do as you please, Céline. It’s your life. And I know I’m the last person to give you advice, I have scars on my heart to show what I’ve been through. But listen to what I have to say and believe me, please believe me: that guy is not for you. He’s bad news …”

Right away, I believed Jean-le-Décollé. And I’d almost decided to say goodbye to Gilbert before it was too late, before I grew too attached and did something stupid, but when he stepped out of the shower smelling of my lime blossom body cream, his smile broad, his movements affectionate, my negative thoughts all left me, I was thrilled again to be appreciated, complimented, and right away I forgot my friend’s warnings.

Turning my key in the lock late that afternoon, after my enjoyable walk with Gilbert, I intended to ask my three pals for more precise information, but the apartment was empty, there was a smell of pot in the parlour and a note for me on the door of the fridge: “See you at the Sélect after your shift tonight, we’ve got a lot to tell you.”