I wanted to believe Claire’s apology but by then my trust in her words and actions was pretty much non-existent. I pushed her earlier voiced regrets to the back of my mind and focused on moving house. Sure, she was my landlady, but I regarded that as a minor detail because how often do we actually see our landlords? Meanwhile, I had a place to live and a brand new affair to invest myself in. Louise reminded me so much of Liz, my friend from London, with her infinite kindness and soft words of encouragement. She was the perfect antidote to Claire’s venom. I chose not to share Claire’s guilt-ridden confession with Louise. We decided to waste as few words as possible on the subject in light of our common history with her. It was not the ideal start to a fresh romance, heartbreak and remorse seldom are, but we turned our heads and looked to the future.

In the course of two months we transformed our initial hesitance into an orgy of love, lust and endless nightly walks through the backstreets of Paris. I relished that she was the complete opposite of Claire, in both appearance and character. Claire was a non-monogamous Botox-loving middle-aged woman with only one goal: become the big boss of her agency. Louise was a delicate primary school teacher whose sole ambition in life was to teach children as best as she could. Being with her was a nice break from waiting for Claire to return from lunch, breakfast and board meetings. Gone was the dread I felt every time Claire came home from a business trip or cocktail party, anxiously waiting if she would have a confession to make, and trying to find ways to deal with it if she had. Monogamy was not up for discussion in my relationship with Louise and that’s how we both wanted it. Sometimes it takes a younger woman to be old-fashioned with. It was all going pretty well and I even took Louise to the UK to visit my parents and my friends. Formal and less formal introductions were made and before I knew it, we were a happy couple.

It was all rather ironic of course. But we somehow managed to forget that Louise had slept with Claire as part of Claire’s retaliation plan after I told her I had a crush on Louise. It was a messy start, but we untangled it by means of ignorance. A little ignorance can go a long way. I did ask Louise once to give me some details on her night with Claire. We had been drinking and that is of course the perfect time for repressed questions to rear their ugly heads. Louise was very adamant in her refusal to talk about it. So we moved on, and continued basking in our superficial glory. That was the other big difference between Claire and Louise. No matter how ugly or painful it was, Claire and I talked about everything. The darker it was, the more we discussed it. Louise, on the other hand, was more a let’s-swipe-it-under-the-rug kind of person. We created a comfort zone and we never left it. First I thought I had died and gone to heaven, finding myself in this place with no confrontations, no nasty fights and no sex with strangers. Then I started catching myself missing the fiery passion of the arguments I had with Claire. Louise and I never disagreed, it was as if we were put on this earth to consent on everything. Louise may have been a teacher, but I had learnt all the important lessons in life from Claire. And I missed her.

To be continued…