Monday morning I woke up with the most heinous hangover and to make matters worse, it wasn’t in my own bed. Instead, I found myself trying to pry open my eyes in Claire Burns’s hotel room. How did this happen? One word: alcohol.

I like kind women, women who treat me right and don’t fuck with my head too much, women who are sensitive and warm and good-natured. I like women who simply can’t hide their sweetness, even if they sometimes feel the need to try, women whose big heart prevents them from stomping all over mine. But sometimes, just once in a bleu moon, I like to get ripped to shreds by a stone cold bitch. Sometimes, seeing a tiny glimpse of tenderness escape from a woman who appears self-absorbed, ruthless and pretentious at first sight, can just floor me. That’s the other thing that happened, I think.

When Miss Burns finally joined me at the hotel bar, I was already half plastered. I had decided that the only thing that was going to make the night bearable, as in lessen my growing anxiety, was copious amounts of wine. And then she made me wait for more than an hour. It’s pretty amazing how much wine you can consume in that amount of time. When Claire − even though I wasn’t allowed to call her that until later that night − noticed the almost empty bottle she said, “Oh, I see you’re planning to keep things professional tonight. What a splendid idea.” That’s when my defences began to crumble and I started thinking she was kind of hot, in a cold Botox-ed kind of way.

Obviously I did some informal research on our Paris VP before meeting her at the station. I found out that she was originally from New Jersey, fell madly in love with a German NYU exchange student when she was in her early twenties, settled with him in Paris, started working in advertising, divorced the German, developed a close but strictly professional relationship with a plastic surgeon, spared no one on her way to the top, and, in her forties, became a single career woman with a penchant for boy and girl toys − there’s really nothing like an ad agency’s gossip channels. From what I could see, the plastic surgery part was definitely true, as was the career woman bit. It wasn’t my plan to verify the girl toy inclination rumour, but she didn’t exactly leave that up to me, I think.

We never left the hotel bar, we did manage to eat some dinner in between emptying way too many bottles of red wine. I only have a very vague recollection of what was said and done after the second bottle, though. There must have been advances and innuendo, and the desire and decision to go to her room, but the next morning, it was all one big blur. Surely, I had had drunken sex before, but I was never so intoxicated that I didn’t remember. Either way, there I was, awakening in the cold, harsh light of the morning after, naked, sick and feeling somewhat dirty. Claire was already up and dressed, and when she saw me open my eyes she sat next to me on the bed, stroked my face and softly whispered, “Good morning, sunshine. Take the morning off, I’ll handle Theresa.” She then kissed my forehead and smiled. As she walked out of the door I felt something, maybe it was nausea, maybe it was my brain that regained some basic function, but I could have sworn it was something else entirely. Whatever it was though, it was a bad idea.

To be continued..