Stalker, Part 2: New Year's Eve

Continued from here.

Thursday, Dec. 31, 1998

At work I had a terrible time concentrating. Between the lack of sleep and the thought of what had happened the night before, I could barely stand to sit there and pretend to do the busywork tasks that I was supposed to be pretending to do. I left work a couple of hours early because a lot of other people were leaving early as well, and because I wanted to make arrangements with my friend So- to stay at her apartment for the night. (So- was a Parisian friend I had met Rutgers who was kind enough to help me out during this problem.)

I figured that since they hadn't given me any real tasks to do anyway, no one was going to care if I went home early on New Year's Eve. In fact, they wouldn't have even noticed if it weren't for the fact that after I left, St- called my work several times, which made them have to look for me, which got me in trouble later.

I agreed to spend New Year's Eve with St- partially because that had been part of the deal we had negotiated when he let me leave the apartment, and partially because he felt that it wasn't right for me to leave him alone for the holidays. Personally, I am very sentimental about the holiday season, so even after the traumatic scene the previous night, I couldn't bring myself to leave him alone for New Year's, as long as I was allowed to spend the night at So-'s. Of course it meant leaving E- to spend New Years' alone -- he just went to a movie and then slept alone at a friend's vacant apartment -- but for him there would be plenty of holiday seasons to come.

For New Year's Eve Dinner, we went to a nice little restaurant called La Bonne Table which was about a block north-west of Porte d'Orleans. We were a bit early, so we started with an apéritif at the little tabac next-door where St- knew some of the regulars. At this point we were avoiding the Terminus because St- had had a severe falling out with the owner, J-, essentially over not paying his tab.

The food and ambiance at La Bonne Table were lovely, as usual, but by dessert I was literally starting to fall asleep. It made St- angry that rather than actively having a fun time with him I was dozing off. His irritataion annoyed me in turn, because it was his fault that I had stayed up all night the night before, and he knew it.

When the dinner was completely over, there were still a few hours left before midnight, so we went to a brasserie-restaurant just across the street to the east from the Porte d'Orleans bus terminal.

We stayed there for about an hour, but eventually they either started closing or I was just too tired to stay up, so I went out to the taxi stand and got into a taxi. St- unfortunately got in as well, and when I said "rue S-", he said that, no, we would rather go to avénue d-, Montrouge.

Without pausing an instant, I got out of the cab and started walking to So-'s. As I recall, he followed me all or at least part of the way, but I wasn't particularly frightened because it wasn't that far, and the streets were well-lighted, and alive with law-abiding citizens going about their New Year's Eve revelry.

The whole time that our evening together was degenerating, St- was getting more and more upset because he had hoped for so much more. He kept repeating that "on allait s'eclater," which I took to mean that he expected that we would have a fantastic time partying wildly.

That he could seriously expect such a thing -- considering the circumstances -- led me to start wondering about how firm his grip on reality might be.

Once I got inside So-'s apartment building, there was no further problem.

to be continued...