“Everything has to do with sex,” she said, staring into his eyes.

Thus provoked, the Veuve Clicquot tingling like a brilliant isotope in his veins, he ran his hand up the inside of her thigh, stopping only at the border of her tight short skirt. Holding his gaze, she opened her mouth with her tongue and moistened her lips.

“This is shit,” said Frederic.

Although Alex was certain the other man couldn’t see his hand, the subject of Frederic’s exclamation was worrisomely indeterminate.

“You think everything is shit.”

“That’s because it is.”

“You’re an expert on shit.”

“There’s no more art. Only shit.”

“Now that that’s settled,” said Tasha.

A debate about dinner: Frederic wanted to go to Buddha bar, Tasha wanted to stay. They compromised, ordering caviar and another bottle of champagne. When the check arrived Alex remembered at the last moment not to throw down his credit card. He decided, as a first step toward elucidating the mystery of his new identity, that he was the kind of guy who paid cash. While Alex counted out the bills Frederic gazed studiously into the distance with the air of a man who is practiced in the art of ignoring checks. Alex had a brief, irritated intuition that he was being used. Maybe this was a routine with them, pretending to recognize a stranger with a good table. Before he could develop this notion Tasha had taken his arm and was leading him out into the night. The pressure of her arm, the scent of her skin, were invigorating. He decided to see where this would take him. It wasn’t as if he had anything else to do.

Frederic’s car, which was parked a few blocks away, did not look operational. The front grille was bashed in; one of the headlights pointed up at a forty-five-degree angle. “Don’t worry,” Tasha said. “Frederic’s an excellent driver. He only crashes when he feels like it.”

“How are you feeling tonight?” Alex asked.

“I feel like dancing,” he said. He began to sing Bowie ’s “Let’s Dance,” drumming his hands on the steering wheel as Alex climbed into the back.

Le Bain Douche was half-empty. The only person they recognized was Bernard Henri Levy. Either they were too early, or a couple of years too late. The conversation had lapsed into French and Alex wasn’t following everything. Tasha was all over him, stroking his arm and, intermittently, her own perfect left breast, and he was a little nervous about Frederic’s reaction. At one point there was a sharp exchange that he didn’t catch. Frederic stood up and walked off.

“Look,” Alex said. “I don’t want to cause any trouble.”

“No trouble,” she said.

“Is he your boyfriend?”

“We used to go out. Now we’re just friends.”

She pulled him forward and kissed, slowly exploring the inside of his mouth with her tongue. Suddenly she leaned away and glanced up at a woman in a white leather jacket who was dancing beside an adjoining table.

“I think big tits are beautiful,” she said before kissing him with renewed ardor.

“I think your tits are beautiful,” he said.

“They are, actually,” she said. “But not big.”

When Frederic returned his mood seemed to have lifted. He laid several bills on the table. “Let’s go,” he said.

Alex hadn’t been clubbing in several years. After he and Lydia had moved in together the clubs had lost their appeal. Now he felt the return of the old thrill, the anticipation of the hunt- the sense that the night held secrets that would be unveiled before it was over. Tasha was talking about someone in New York that Alex was supposed to know. “The last time I saw him he just kept banging his head against the wall, and I said to him, Michael, you’ve really got to stop doing these drugs. It’s been fifteen years now.”

First stop was a ballroom in Montmartre. A band was onstage playing an almost credible version of “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” While they waited at the bar, Frederic played vigorous air guitar and shouted the refrain. “Here we are now, entertain us.” After sucking down their cosmopolitans they drifted out to the dance floor. The din was just loud enough to obviate conversation.

The band launched into “Goddamn the Queers.” Tasha divided her attentions between the two of them, grinding her pelvis into Alex during a particularly bad rendition of “Champagne SuperNova.” Closing his eyes and enveloping her with his arms, he lost track of his spatial coordinates. Were those her breasts, or the cheeks of her ass in his hands? She flicked her tongue in his ear; he pictured a cobra rising from a wicker basket.

When he opened his eyes he saw Frederic and another man conferring and watching him from the edge of the dance floor.

Alex went off to find the men’s room and another beer. When he returned, Tasha and Frederic were slow dancing to a French ballad and making out. He decided to leave and cut his losses. Whatever the game was, he suddenly felt too tired to play it. At that moment Tasha looked across the room and waved to him from the dance floor. She slalomed toward him through the dancers, Frederic following behind her.

“Let’s go,” she shouted.

Out on the sidewalk, Frederic turned obsequious. “Man, you must think Paris is total shit.”

“I’m having a good time,” Alex said. “Don’t worry about it.”

“I do worry about it, man. It’s a question of honor!’

“I’m fine.”

“At least we could find some drugs,” said Tasha.

“The drugs in Paris are all shit.”

“I don’t need drugs,” Alex said.

“Don’t want to get stoned,” Frederic sang. “But I don’t want to not get stoned.”

They began to argue about the next destination. Tasha was making the case for a place called, apparently, Faster Pussycat, Kill Kill. Frederic insisted it wasn’t open. He was pushing L’Enfer. The debate continued in the car. Eventually they crossed the river and later still lurched to a stop beneath the Montparnasse tower.

The two doormen greeted his companions warmly. They descended the staircase into a space that seemed to glow with a purple light, the source of which Alex could not discern. A throbbing drum and bass riff washed over the dancers. Grabbing hold of the tip of his belt, Tasha led him toward a raised area above the dance floor that seemed to be a VIP area.

Conversation became almost impossible. Which was kind of a relief. Alex met several people, or rather, nodded at several people who in turn nodded at him. A Japanese woman shouted into his ear in what was probably several languages and later returned with a catalogue of terrible paintings. He nodded as he thumbed through the catalogue. Apparently it was a gift. Far more welcome-a man handed him an unlabeled bottle full of clear liquid. He poured some into his glass. It tasted like moonshine.

Tasha towed him out to the dance floor. She wrapped her arms around him and sucked his tongue into her mouth. Just when his tongue felt like it was going to be ripped from his mouth she bit down on it, hard. Within moments he tasted blood. Perhaps this was what she wanted, for she continued to kiss him as she thrust her pelvis into his. She sucked hard on his tongue. He imagined himself sucked whole into her mouth. He liked the idea. And without for a moment losing his focus on Tasha, he suddenly thought of Lydia and the girl before Lydia, and the girl after Lydia, the one he had betrayed her with. How was it, he wondered, that desire for one woman always reawakened his desire for all the other women in his life?