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Strangest Thing Really

In Strasbourg, France, on business, with a free evening, manage to get a ticket to Gonaud’s Romeo et Juliette, truly splendid production, music full, big, fuller than life. Juliette is gorgeous, not one of those robust, portly sopranos, that’s a nice bonus. The seat next to me is empty, until intermission, when a beautiful blonde sits in it, her silky hair flowing like rivers of melted butter down over her neck and shoulders, in a long black gown, with pink beads, and dark nails like Medusa. At the end of the performance I let her out ahead of me, of course, (trying not to stare at the thin black straps crisscrossing her smooth white back), and as she brushes past me delicate as a cloud in a tree, she says, more of a whisper really, glancing into my eyes, “thank you” with this pretty French accent, making me feel (romantic idiot that I am) as if I hadn’t been alone at the opera after all.