We’re different people now, but back then, we were foreigners. To the world. To each other.
We came. We saw. We loved.

Paris, France, 1966

There was something inexplicably fascinating about hundreds of juveniles dancing rock as they listened to jazz on Saint-Germain-des-Prés. Perhaps the strings of their hearts were played as a guitar and the thoughts in their minds sounded like drums, creating a new melody that they preferred to follow instead of the begging sound of the saxophone. I don’t believe I’m able to explain why, but I’ve always thought that the saxophones’ sound was a desperate begging, and the French, they didn’t like to beg, they liked to take, especially when permission was denied. And they screamed. Mon Dieu¹, they screamed at the top of their lungs as if there was no tomorrow.

“Faites l’amour pas la guerre².” – they said as they interlocked lips, sharing with each other the smell of burnt tobacco and the taste of cheap alcohol, but in their passionate kisses you could see the burning desire for revolution.

It mesmerized me the first few months, but as days chased each other and I started getting used at the stars aligning differently in the sky of France, the extraordinary nights spent at Saint-Germain-des-Prés were monotone.

I came to Paris in 1965, kissing Korea goodbye at the age of 27. When we’re young and beautiful, shy and luminous, we believe we can reach the stars if we jump high enough, or at least the clouds, so I took a deep breath, tied the blue ribbon around my blonde hair, and then jumped. I was five foot tall and weighted around 44 kilograms, a paper human as others define me, so the wind blew me away on all the wrong directions. An unfortunate being I was.

The city of love. The city of lights. I should thank you for being so gentle to my soul as you ripped it apart.

I arrived in France with the great idea of becoming a painter. Being blessed with a curse since the first day I was born, I had the privilege and the misfortune to become Pablo Picasso’s student, but the only thing I got from him were the crazy eyes of passion.

It took me two months to adjust to his lessons, bodies and lipstick stains, broken bottles of paint and alcohol, liquid mixing together on the wooden floor of his attic, as he smoked the cigarettes on his table and the girls on his bed. They both burned for him and I laughed my way out. That went on for a while, but during the second half of the sixth month, as the mornings at Picasso’s place became as monotone as the evenings on Saint-Germain-des-Prés, I decided that floating among cotton candy clouds wasn’t as great as I thought it would be.

I became a photographer for a local magazine and as much as I tried to keep time by taking pictures, a year went by quickly and so did my film rolls. I realized I had mostly wasted time instead of keeping it, so I promised myself that that night, as the great Yves Saint Laurent was exposing his new designs, I would capture the essence of this moment, instead of details that would be dusted off in a week or two.

There are a few extraordinary things you could only have the great opportunity to see once in a lifetime. The 1966’s Paris roads were showered with these things. The jazz, the cinemas, the art… And I, l’étranger³, was easily dazzled by them. Temporarily, of course. After a while, the more you get used to things, the more you learn about them, they lose their charm, their gem, their hypnotizing beauty.

Saint Laurent’s designs had been for the past years one of the most extraordinary things, but only to those who could easily be blinded by shiny buttons and colorful patterns. The event was called “Le Smoking” and those six other photographers of those six other newspapers that existed were lined up on the front row, waiting for the models to walk the runway. I stood among them half frozen, half bored, patiently waiting for men with sharp jawlines and predator eyes to make their way out, radiating confidence as they fixed the cuffs of their shirts, earning the naïve “Oh la la, what a mister!” from the women of the audience.

I stood there half frozen, half bored, not knowing that what was about to happen could break my existence in two.

To give you the perfect image of my heart breaking, we’d have to start from the needle of her heels that clacked on the runway as she took the first step, making heads turn and jaws fall. You see, the high heel wasn’t really invented, it evolved over time thanks to Venetian es, British queens and French designers. Sin, grace, elegance, all in one, shaking the place as she approached.

I have never imagined that secrets could be gasoline for fantasies, but I also never imagined that there were extraordinary things that instead of temporarily dazzling you, blinded you for eternity.

The model was wearing a suit, feminine collar, the curve and the shape of it being more subtle. The waistline narrowed and the pants adjusted to help elongate the leg. It was new for the public eye, to see a woman dressed in something that was considered to be menswear. There were gasps, whispers, shocked expressions as judgmental eyes fell on the model, but she only smirked, red lips curving upwards, allowing her cheekbones to pop up.

With a swift, elegant move her fingers twisted the gemstone that served as a button for her pastel pink jacket, exposing nothing but skin underneath, a pearl necklace falling on her chest. Carelessly putting her hands in her pockets, she stopped at the end of the runway, flashing a 24-carats smile that could easily be Marilyn Monroe’s best friend, eyes resembling a crescent moon where stars hung tightly hoping to get as much light from her as possible.

She was beautiful, my God, how do I put her beauty into words. However, now, I finally understood.

I understood that all those careless days I spent with Picasso, which I considered to be pointless, have taught me the true meaning of art. The crazy eyes of passion defined the boiling blood, the dry lips and the cracking veins. They defined fascination and obsession at their purest form. They defined sailing under the bridge of Seine as the sun was setting and along with it, you were desperately falling in love with the person sitting on the other boat. The bohèmes singing melancholic songs as they waited for you to stop sailing the waters of sorrow.

Turning around, her hair flipping in the air and then carelessly falling on her shoulders, she walked back, heels clicking as another model owned the stage. They were all black, the costumes that followed, but each and every one of them had something different, something unique, except the fascinating raven-haired model to wear them.

I walked away from the photographers. My film roll was probably about to end, but I didn’t care as I took another picture of the girl’s back figure when she left. And another, and another, and one more. If I was wasting time, she could have it all. I could waste an eternity on her. Ma chere, qu’as tu fait de ma vie?⁴

As she disappeared, I found myself waiting again, eyes wandering around to capture the woman’s figure, as the models came and left, clicking their heels, but the melody they made sounded the same, the gasps of the public were a bit quieter, their whispers less buzzy.

“Elle est très fragile⁵...” a male spoke, his voice cutting through the music and the crowd and ringing in my ear, snapping me back to reality.

I turned around, facing a smudged smile and hazel eyes hidden behind glasses. He had a cigarette dancing between his long, thin fingers, puffs of smoke playing in the air as he spoke.

“You see her. She’s special,” he continued. “That’s why you’re not only giving a brief look at her as she passes by. You’re seeing her like a painter sees his paintings, with admiration and fear in your eyes. She’s got beauty, grace, control. You should be a fool to not see her like that. Each person would’ve been a fool if they didn’t admire and fear a woman in power. ”

“Yves,” Another male called and for a moment the features of the man standing in front of me were familiar. The name was too familiar. “Yves?” he called again, but the man didn’t break the contact he had with me, the eyes being pierced with mine, looks meeting right at the thick lenses of his glasses.

“…Être une femme libérée, tu sais, c’est pas si facile.⁶”

“Yves,” the man called again and I repeated the name, tasting it in my own mouth. That’s when it clicked.

“Monsieur Saint Laurent,” I bowed down quickly to the designer, but he waved his hand and laughed, cigarette dancing in his thin lips.

“Monsieur?” he laughed again. “Did you hear Gilles, or am I going crazy again?”

“Yves, come. Let’s go home,” the man said, hands standing firmly on the designer’s shoulder.

“I’m no monsieur. I draw and sew, but she gives life to clothes,” his laughs turned into tears and he cried out the words as the other man’s grip tightened, pulling him away, saying things I didn’t comprehend.

After staring into nothingness for a while, my attention drifted back to the runway, the models were still walking in and out, but she was nowhere to be seen.  Except behind my eyelids of course. I felt like each time I blinked, the image of her appeared and without noticing it I kept my eyes shut for a longer while, almost drifting off into a new world.

But as the music snapped and the lights became brighter, I had to let my soul come back into my flesh and bones. Dragging myself out, I saw people shaking hands, smiling at each other emotionlessly, as if they were forced to do such a thing.

“Mademoiselle,” a voice called, but I kept walking, the idea that the person was directing his words at me not crossing my mind, “excusez-moi de vous déranger⁷,” he continued, firm hands pressing on my shoulders.

It was the same men from earlier. Gilles was he called? He had a worried look in his eyes, a Cuban cigar was standing between his lips. He asked me if I was a reporter and then started rambling about Saint Laurent being consumed by anxiety since “Le Smoking” was an unknown concept for the world. He wanted to make sure that the designer’s name wouldn’t turn into a joke in tomorrow’s newspaper.

It was grotesque in its own way, tragic even, that these people only cared about their title and fame, the cigarettes they smoked and the love they made. Dirty and raw, emotionless, but full of passion. What a headline! But honestly, who am I to judge? The last time I checked, I was mesmerized by a stranger whose suit was made of Asian caterpillar’s silk and had Morganite stones for buttons. Diamonds for a smile and the velvet sky of a summer night for her hair.

Letting the camera hang on my shoulder, I made my way towards Saint-Germain-des-Prés. I realized that that was the only place where my days ended, no matter if they were good days, or bad days, or even mind blowing and heart wrenching days like this one.

I wonder what other unexpected turn my life would’ve gotten if today I had decided to go straight home. Would’ve I found her again? In the streets of Paris? In the libraries and cafés? The chances are small, but the stars have a very unique way of chasing and crashing with each other, writing our broken fate with their mystical dust.

As I sat and sipped on my drink, eyes wandering off to the empty tables and the dancing crowd, I was hit with the thousand reasons why I shouldn’t be getting up and making my way towards the model who was sitting all alone. I wonder how she hadn’t gotten into an argument yet, or how she didn’t have drinks spilled all over her fancy suit, because form the beginning to the end, she was a puzzle with all the right pieces put at all the wrong places.

You could sense she was a dangerous woman from the way she had her left leg thrown over her right one, a silver bracelet wrapped around her thin ankle exposing right where the pants ended. A cigarette was between her fingers, but she wasn’t smoking it, she was just letting it burn as time passed by, as if it was her only companion. Her bloody painted bottom lip was captured between her teeth as her eyes roamed around the yellow pages of the book she was reading.

It was normal – no, in fact – it was the norm for everyone to read Sartre and Camus, because they were the French pride, the revolutionary ideas printed in black ink over white sheets. Une pétition est un poème et un poème est une pétition⁸. That’s how our brains were made to work, so it was strange, challenging, the way she stood among Parisiens reading Bukowski, not giving a damn about the world and the way it kept spinning and somehow, to me, that was more revolutionary than people repeating the same issues and not doing anything about them.

With the dizzy head and blurred vision, drunken mind and bumping chest, I stumbled my way towards the pearl skinned girl, brighter than a jewel, more mesmerizing than a thousand stars, she had undressed me from common sense and had stolen each and every bit of rationality I had in me.

“Pardon,” I approached in Korean, a language that seemed foreign after not speaking it for so long, but still felt like home.

“May I help you?” she asked, eyes widening and filling with curiosity, the spark in them becoming brighter.

“You may,” I mumbled, my vision capturing as much from the woman’s features as possible, as if I couldn’t get enough of her beauty. “I believe you may,” I spoke a bit louder, taking her hand in mine, looking at the soft skin, cured nails and silver rings. “I’d love to paint you. If I’m allowed, I’d very much love to paint you, mademoiselle…” I dragged my words, realizing I still didn’t know her name.

She pierced her look with mine and then burst out into butterfly chuckles, cheekbones showing and eyes brightening. She chuckled and ignored my questions, setting down the book she was reading and pulling me towards the crowd, our hands still lightly holding onto each other.

That’s when I realized that girls like her don’t answer questions. Girls like her, they don’t talk. They laugh. They live.

Her long fingers played with the collar of my shirt, opening and closing the first two buttons as she furrowed her eyebrows in a thinking manner.

“These don’t fit you,” she said in half a whisper when she leaned in, her lips so close they touched my earlobe, her eyelashes tickling my temples whenever she blinked. “You’d look much better in a V-neck. Collarbones popping out of porcelain skin. Much better indeed.”

Her fingers then travelled to my camera, taking it in her hands and giving brief looks at the few buttons. The object looked foreign, out of place, as she held it with her delicate touch, as she caressed her index finger across every curve it had. I wondered how her touch would feel against my skin. Would I be as foreign as the object? As out of place? I believed I would.

My stranger, the difference between you and me is the difference between prose and poetry. Where you’re golden, unexpected, star dust and shattered dreams, I’m following my future like lines follow each other in a story, slowly, colorlessly. But however, as you finally discover the secrets of that camera and give me that 24-carats smile, the magic, the desire, the moon, they whisper closely:

“It’s alright.”

A snap, the flash was brighter than I expected it to be, putting me in haze, but then she chuckled again and took my hand in hers, leading me in a drunken dance that didn’t follow the saxophone.

“Petite Baby Doll,” she said between her butterfly laughs as she hung the camera back on my neck and started playing with the collar of my shirt again, “comme tu dansais bien le Rock ‘n’ Roll⁹”

“I’d love to paint you,” I mumbled in half a voice as she pulled me closer, her hands twisting the third button of my skyblue shirt. Her laugh got louder, dizzier, making its way inside me and lifting my heart on my throat, burning and chocking me as I desperately started craving for her, for the pearl skin underneath the silk tuxedo.

There hasn’t ever been something as attractive as hidden beauty. You see, elle est si belle, si jolie, mais moi, je suis une cigarette, rien de plus.¹⁰ She sets me on fire and I slowly burn.

It felt like the air around us stopped, along with it every single move and the sounds were silenced. It was all an empty echo when I pierced my eyes with hers, jaw clenched and eyebrows furrowed, stopping myself from my desires. She had that playful Cheshire smile plastered on her face and her bottom lip trapped between her teeth, eyes like a crescent moon. We stood there until she released her lip from the grip, making my heart skip a beat and my eyes fall on her left hand that had once again found mine.

“Stephanie,” I mumbled as I caressed the embroidered cuff of her jacket.

“My love,” she replied, tightening the grip on my hand as she took the black handbag and her book from the table she was sitting earlier, leading me outside.

As she was cracking her heels behind me, following my directions, it felt like I was the one following her steps, going where she wanted me to be. She had exactly what Monsieur Saint Laurent said: Beauty, grace, control. And oh God, she had passion.

How hadn’t he noticed such passion coming from her? But maybe, as I liked to believe in that exact moment, he didn’t get to have my privilege, didn’t get to have her crack her heels inside his apartment, carelessly throwing the handbag, thousands of drawings scattering on the floor.

They were designs of suits, looking so alike and yet so different, all starting and ending with the same curve, having a Morganite stone for a button. One line, hell, even one single dot made the difference between one sketch and the other, as if perfection was shattered by one small mistake that didn’t fit the idea she had of beauty.

I felt her finger trace my jawline, her nail lightly scratching it as she lifted my head and pierced her dark eyes with mine. The suit she was wearing, it was final sketch, the one, and it took me so long to realize that it was pink instead of black because it was hers, because it wasn’t Saint Laurent’s design. She wasn’t a mere model, she was a designer. She walked in on the runway once and never again, because all she has and all she is, was poured magnificently in one perfect tuxedo.

“I’m no monsieur,” Saint Laurent’s words ringed in my head as she leaned in, breathing the same air as me. “I draw and sew, but she gives life to clothes.”

Then my mind went blank, red lips crashing against mine, taking my soul out of my body. The tension was built and set on fire as she bit my lower lip, forcing herself in my mouth, tongue clicking as it explored each and every inch, providing me with the sweet sensation of tasting strawberries and chocolate in the kiss.

Then she laughed again. Butterfly chuckles erupting between the kiss and tickling my lips, messing with my insides. Taking one step back, her vision stuck in mine, melting between the space that the heavy air was filling, she drew her hands from the collar of her jacket down to the Morganite button, undoing it with a swift move.

There was still nothing but skin underneath, pearl skin that had the same aura as the moonlight, cutting through my dimly lit apartment and blinding me. Slowly she proceeded to strip off of her clothes in front of hungry vision, eyes shut and bottom lip between her teeth, a playful smile drawing her teasing features.

As air hit back my lungs, snapping me out of my overdriving thoughts, the pink suit was carelessly thrown on the floor next to the scattered design papers. She still had her red lipstick on, her high heels and her pearls, her silver bracelet and her butterfly chuckle.

“You expressed the desire of loving to paint me,” she said, her voice low, husky, stuck in , however it still had the power to come and smash against the walls of my skull, so hard I believed my whole existence was torn apart. “Well,” she added in fake annoyance as I stood frozen in front of the God-like creature, but light laughter was still heard in the way she pronounced the words, as if the situation was a source of entertainment for her, “won’t you?”

I searched between canvas for an empty one, for my brushes and paint tubes, but my hands were shaking and everything I touched collapsed and fell into the ground. She laughed and I heard her body slam on the bed as she let out a high pitched scream and laughed again and again and again. And those laughs, they were the main source of my insanity.

She exists before my eyes, she lives and moves and I am desperate to know her more, through all five senses. To admire her each and every detail, each and every flawless flaw she had, to touch her crystal features, even if it meant getting cut at the edges, to bury my sanity in her scent and flavor. I want to hear her say my name, whisper it, scream it, beg it like a saxophone in Saint-Germain-des-Prés, when it’s just me and her dancing to a song the crowd can’t hear. I want to have her burning my heart and my shirts, because maybe I’d look better wearing her heart and V-necks.

The city of love. The city of lights. So cruel while ripping my soul apart, leaving me unprotected as I stand in front of a diamond that is crushing my bones under the moonlight. God knows what it could do to me as sunrays caress her skin.

Ask me what this is and in a heartbeat, as she is kissing me senseless I will tell you it’s love. Not love at first sight. Not love beyond eternity either. I’ve never asked for that. I’ve never asked for much, just a bottle of whiskey and a blank page, paint and brushes, and maybe, if it came around, some rough kisses and soft touches.

With her, it’s all a disaster and there’s nothing natural about it. Passion, destruction, danger… How do I give her that? Tell me and I’ll align the stars if that’s what it takes.

“You know,” she mumbled, her hand taking the brushes and canvas away, fingers then tangling in my hair, pulling me over her body, heels scratching my skin as she wrapped herself around me, “you said you’d love to paint me.”

“Stephanie,” I started, but was quick to cut short my sentence when I felt my voice crawling from my throat cracking and burning, weak as she led my head to the crock of her neck, making me get lost in the soft flesh.

“Paint me,” she said, voice so faint I could’ve missed it between the heavy breaths. “Fill me with love, or at least with galaxies. I don’t want to be empty anymore.”

All she had given away to the world, I wanted to give back to her, from gentle kisses and slow touches into a burning fire with teeth and tongue fighting to own every bit of hers. I wanted her to feel that violet pleasure tear through her body as I discovered all her secret spots, as I travelled in the depths of her being like a lost astronaut in space. Crashing waves. Murderous ecstasy. I wanted her to fall in love with me, for I had already fallen for her, deeply, with all my being.

I wanted the night to go on. I wanted to draw my lips on each and every part of her skin. I wanted to travel her blue veins that looked like the streets of Paris on a rainy night, with the lights of street lamps falling in them. I wanted to kiss her red knuckles that resembled roses blooming. I wanted to keep time, but my film roll had already ended long ago and all I could keep were faint blurry memories of silk costumes and pearl necklaces, high heels and butterfly laughter as I gave her my all.

We’re different people now, but back then, we were foreigners. To the world. To each other.
We came. We saw. We loved.

A/N: Sorry in advance to all French people. I might have ed up a lot, but I'm not French, I just really really love french culture. 

¹ My God!

²Make love, not war.

³The stranger

⁴My dear, what have you done to my life?

⁵She is very fragile

⁶Being a free woman, you know, isn’t that simple

⁷I’m sorry for disturbing you

⁸A petition is a poem and a poem is a petition.

⁹ Cute baby doll, you danced so well on rock 'n 'roll

¹⁰She is so beautiful, so young, but me, I’m a cigarette and nothing more.