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After saying goodbye to the bear with a truly Gallic kiss, I wandered into the youth hostel feeling strangely ok. I had a text from Marjorie, and suddenly life looked like it could be ok. I also found I was feeling better about being lost, or at least temporarily misplaced. Part of that of course was the anticipation of seeing Laerke again; the Danish mare had intrigued me, in ways that were not even sexual. Something about her, though she also was beautiful, but that wasn't it either. A self-contained sense of intelligence and detachment, as if life was something she understood, and could take or leave at her leisure. A strong female, my personal nemesis, but Laerke was different to Sabine's more physical and sensual strength. And I was fascinated, even on short acquaintance.

I had managed to coax a phone number and email address from Henri before he left me. Our kiss was suddenly familiar, more like what I remembered feeling with Jaxson. All three of the guys would remain in my mind the whole time I was away, and they still do. I have met them all a few times since, and Thierry even came to Australia. They hold a special place, because I learned more from them about how to be a stallion than I ever did having sex and playing up and getting drunk. I learned a bit how to live, even when you haven't got a clue; from three gay guys in a club in Le Marais who I didn't sleep with. Life teaches you strange lessons sometimes.

I didn't sleep much that night, between thoughts of Laerke, unsettling dreams involving Henri, and the noise from my fellow roommates. A six bunk youth hostel room is nice and cheap for a reason; don't expect much sleep. The snores, endless phone conversations in Swedish at 3 am, and finally, a drunk Russian wolf in his mid-20's brought a younger tigress back at 4:30 and proceeded to fuck the remains of the night away.

We had my first fight the next morning, by which I mean, not yelling, but actual fists. The ass hole Russian was rude as a cunt to an Italian doe in the kitchen the next morning, stealing her food and slapping her ass while his girlfriend snored on in our all male bunkroom. I decided to be as diplomatic as I could, in true Aussie fashion, given his fuckwittery and my lack of sleep, which meant I called him a cunt and told him to stop it or I would make him.

I did manage to ruffle his headfur a little. Proud of that; of course, my bleeding nose and aching gut and the scratch across my forehead meant some thought he got the better of the exchange, but I was just waiting for him to tire of bitch slapping me before I brought out my best moves. We were separated by staff and guests, and then I got to enjoy the experience of the French Police.

In high school French classes, we often learned conversational French by taking it in turns to act out the roles in various scenarios. Shop assistant and customer, railway ticket clerk and passenger, and of course, police officer and passer-by. I couldn't believe I was actually going to get to use all that, and tried hard not to remember how much I sucked at it at the time. One thing I remembered above all though.

Do not call them Les Flics. Do not call them Les Flics.

So of course, when it came to it, and I tried to remember the word for police officer, out came le flic.

The frown would have curdled milk in Melbourne. And it took me the rest of the day to sort out the mess with the help of my fellow travellers, who were secretly cheering me on when the Russian swung at me, to spring me from the clutches of the cops. Another day wasted; and I feared I might have missed my date with a certain mare.

Cobblestones echoed to the clop of hooves as I sprinted down the road. I had ditched the hoofboots in favour of speed, so I was freezing cold and my feathering threatened to fall off, but I would get there. I crossed the river, past the bustling brasserie on the corner, and up the stairs. Kitty was there as if waiting for me, and he raised his head to glance in my direction as I stood panting for breath after my gallop. I took up the seat next to him, and he delicately lifted onto his paws, stretching luxuriously and flicking his tail at me before mounting my lap as if I was a purpose made cat throne and began working his claws into my thighs to make sure I was properly tenderised.

The mare wasn't there, but I was patient. She would come. I was confident. In the meantime, I opened the paper bag I had purchased from Hure just North of the river on my way there. The last one.

"There you go."

Kitty managed a sound like a gate creaking as he accepted the first piece of pain au chocolat as his proper due.

I managed to get into Frederick Forsythe this time, ironically Day of the Jackal. It was a while before I realised how late it was getting, as I mentally compared all the locations in the book to places I wanted to see while I was in Paris. It was ten o'clock, and no sign of the mare. I began to fret, and Kitty gave up on me and my complete lack of backup croissant and stalked out of the room trailing crumbs. Now I was hungry as well as depressed. Even the cat didn't want a bar of me.

When I finally trudged out into the cold close to closing, I felt as low as I had the previous night, probably lower. I thought about putting an emergency call to Henri for bear hugs and sympathy, but the bear had his own life and his own problems. I also felt unsure of the connection between us, and whether a repeat would be a good thing this soon, for either of us.

It began to rain like a bitch, so I decided against walking back and took the Metro. It was so bloody cheap, and frequent even this time of night, and I wanted back to the warmth as soon as possible, and possibly a large beer. When I got through the doors of the hostel, I headed for the common room and the heat and light of activity.

I couldn't believe it at first, when I saw her. On a couch, calmly reading a magazine, was the mare, Laerke, sipping something warm. My mane dripped into my eyes, and I was breathing a cloud of steam like a dragon, and she looked so calm and comfortable. I didn't know whether to swear at her or hug her for warmth.

Eventually she looked up, and I got some answers in her look. I could see surprise at seeing me; I could see embarrassment too, and worry. Something else too, an almost fatalistic look. She waited for me to come to her, the magazine forgotten, and part of me wanted to turn around and leave but instead I trotted right up to her and sat down on the couch. She had that power over me even then, and probably still does. If she had a bridle and some reins I would happily put them on for her. Embarrassing I know.

"Hello Paul."

"Bon soir Laerke. Comment ca va?"

"Your French is improving."

"Blame three gay French guys. My French is better than your appointment keeping it seems."

She blinked a couple of times, probably once for the gay French guys, and once for the wounded emo angst. She did manage to look repentant though, for which I fell a little more in love.

"I am sorry Paul. It was wrong of me."

"So why bother telling me to meet you there if you never meant..."

"I did. Sort of. Yes and no. I was wrong, I admit. Then I thought I would not see you again, but Paris has this way. So you are staying here non?"

"Yep, in a shared room."

"Ahhh me too. Very noisy. I was thinking of moving hostels, did you know there was a fight here this morning? Some crazy Russian wolf and an Australian equine and..."

She stopped suddenly, staring at my face finally. Her lips made a sort of puckering shape, and she brushed a hand across my forelock, checking out the damage.

"Oh poor horse. The wolf...he was uninjured I was told..."

"Yeah"

"Oh poor horse..."

Her puckered muzzle began to break into a smile, then a grin, then a laugh. I was laughing too. We seemed to have broken the ice. One layer of it anyway; I sensed more still under the surface.

We shared a mug of hot chocolate, and talked finally, no books, cats, or interruptions. It was 2:30 am before I went to sleep, still smiling, and we had made plans to explore together tomorrow. I was content. Of course, if she stood me up again, I was going to become a monk or throw myself in the Seine or possibly both.

She was there though, and that was the start of the happiest week of my life till then. Paris is romantic after all; don't let the haters fool you otherwise. But you need to be with someone, or you feel it worse than anywhere else on Earth.

With Laerke as my guide I came to know and love Paris. We climbed the steps to Sacre Coeur and looked down on the city and Montmartre, avoiding the watersellers and trinket sellers as best we could. We climbed the towers of Notre Dame, hand in hand, and the Arc de Triomphe, and walked back down the Champs Elysee still holding, and I watched her face and her smile and when she looked back and smiled at me I felt warm all over in ways I never had, even while fucking up a storm with Sabine or Denese or Sharon. This was different, and I thought she felt it too. Her smile told me so.

For the first time in my life, I let a different part of my brain have some air, and liked it. I used to rag on the nerds at school as much as anyone, I was the big football hoss who was into sport, drinking, babes, and fun. Not books, definitely not books, or art, or anything that wasn't concrete and easy to comprehend. The humanities freaks always intimidated me, if I was honest. Anything I didn't understand always intimidated me. With Laerke as my guide, I suddenly found a different world.

We went through the Louvre, after avoiding the trinket sellers and water sellers again, this time thronging the forecourt around the pyramid. They were becoming a remarkably familiar sight by now, a more reliable signpost to major attractions than anything else. Every now and then les flics would arrive on bikes and they would pick up their unauthorised souvenirs of the Eiffel Tower and leg it with a chorus of insults in French. More than once I was grateful for the water though; the French seemed intent on overheating every museum to the maximum, and decked out in cold weather gear I was usually dehydrated and panting by the end. I guess the watersellers knew their stuff; maybe it was an in joke between the Parisians and a subtle revenge on tourists.

The Louvre was like nothing I had ever seen before. There is nothing like it in Australia as a building or a museum. To actually see the Mona Lisa (small, but at least there), is just an indescribable feeling. All of it worked on my brain, and a little on my heart already in turmoil thanks to Laerke. We wandered the magnificent halls, and all the way she talked, telling me about what we were seeing, and I found I loved hearing it from her muzzle.

Late that night we sat in one courtyard admiring sculptures. The Marly Horses pranced and whinnied before us, and they were beautiful, and I stared at them in all their power and beauty, held in check by wolves hauling on their reins. Someone brought that out of a block of marble, centuries before. Laerke was looking too, and looking at me, looking at the statues.

"You are changing Paul."

"Nope, still little old me. Nothing doing."

She only smiled and stroked my mane.

"Magnificent stallions."

"Hmm..."I had to agree.

"I do like the look of a stallion."

I looked sideways, and she gave me a "oh you" look.

"Feral. Like these. Don't get too excited Paul."

There was a smile though, a different smile, and it made my whole body feel warm and my mane twitched and I let out a nicker and flicked her with my tail by accident. I apologised of course as she laughed at my lack of control, but I forgave her for the laughter. I was just intoxicated by the sound.

Every night we would end up back at the hostel and talk and eat. We could not afford to eat out, Paris was the only place almost as expensive as London. Instead we would by a fresh warm baguette, and a packet of soup from Franprix supermarket, and microwave it in the common kitchen and munch the delicious bread and gulp down vegetables and pumpkin and carrots. Ahhhh carrots. And finish with apple galette. We were equines after all; some French specialities worked just right.

On the Thursday we went all Impressionist. I had never looked at art, voluntarily, before. And I did not have an artistic bone in my body. My one claim to fame in school had been a raku fired pot that almost but not quite was round. My mother had accepted it with pride and used it to store pencils, ignoring the dodgy centering and the interesting choice of glaze. I think I spent most of art class trying to get Sally Jervis to like me; my pottery was more successful than my flirting.

Sitting in the oval rooms of the L'Orangerie, surrounded by Monet's water lillies, something finally clicked. I sat, and stared, and felt. I never felt before with art, but now I did, and I got to do it sitting next to a beautiful Danish mare. She could tell too.

"What is it Paul."

It reminded me of too many things, to be honest. Near our house were a garden and a lake. The lake had a collection of water lilies, swans, ducks, and European trees. I liked to retreat there sometimes and think when life got a bit too much; after Leesa, after Sharon, after Jaxson. After school. It's many moods through the year were a reflection of mine, mostly troubled. I would bring my dog, Archer, and throw a tennis ball, and then sit and talk to him. Other than Jaxson, probably the only being on Earth who knew how fucked up I was inside.

I tried to put that into words for Laerke, failing dismally. The colours on the oval walls talked better than I could, as did the tear that I was horribly embarrassed to find was trickling down my cheek. She bent forward and I felt her hot muzzle close and she kissed it away, and I shuddered all over. Then we went to the Musee d'Orsay and I got the rest of my introduction to Impressionism, a la Laerke. She wasn't even an arts major, instead she had studied Economics, I was to find when I probed her background over a pichet of red in a bar off the Place de la Bastille. She could have studied washing machine maintenance for all I cared, I was hooked.

Days passed in a sort of winter bliss. Sitting in the Luxembourg gardens, under a grey sky with nobody around. I embarrassed her terribly, by insisting on renting one of the little sail boats from the kiosk. I didn't care if it was for kids, I was still a big kid in a lot of ways, and I would stare down the passing of my adolescence until it took me bodily. Besides, one of the little boats had an Australian flag. I had to have me some of that.

She shook her head and smiled indulgently as I used the big stick to push my boat into the big central pool, watching it fly before the wind. I had to trot fast to intercept it the other side and send it tacking across at an angle. My mare sat on a green chair by the pool and watched me being a big kid, and I no longer cared to impress her. I just hoped she could hack being with the real me.

We had agreed to go to Versailles together, one of the must do moments. That would be Sunday, and before that, we would explore the surrounds of our hostel. I didn't know much about that area, far away from the rest of the tourist centres, so I let Laerke guide me. I trusted her now, implicitly, even after she stood me up that night.

We walked hand in hand along the Canal St Martin heading North, and I stopped at one of the iron footbridges across the canal. I had managed to get a padlock from a footpath seller near the Musee d'Orsay, and I hadn't had a chance to put it on the usual bridge over the Seine. This would do just as well, and there were only a few here anyway. More unusual, more special.

Laerke watched me puzzled as I took it out and scratched our initials on the metal.

"Something of us left in Paris. Do you mind?"

She didn't nod, she didn't shake her head, just watched with a kind of pained look, as I attached the padlock and threw the key in the canal. Probably just another tourist vandal, but at 18, you don't see it that way. Then we kept on and wandered around the Bassin Vilette before heading for the Pere Lachaise cemetery. I was not convinced, and she could tell, but she just kissed my nose and told me to follow her. I think by then I would follow her anywhere.

It turned out to be beautiful, and sad. So many graves, so many of people I had heard of. Jim Morrison, way to go dude. My dad loved The Doors; I was looking forward to telling him I had been there. Maybe it was something we could finally share. Edith Piaf, her grave looking kind of boring. Oscar Wilde, now cordoned off because guys kept kissing it and damaging the stone with lipstick.

Then one strange one with a young stallion statue lying down on his back on a gravestone with his bronze crotch all shiny and bulging. I couldn't stop laughing, even when Laerke kicked my fetlock.

"Monsier Le Noir. A famous Lover. Did you know, they tried to keep people from his grave, and the women of Paris rebelled? They have been coming here for a century to rub his groin for good luck. Some habits die hard."

She reached out and gave the bulge a good long stroke as I let out a whinny of embarrassment. Then she gave a snort and she looked at me.

"What you would prefer it was your groin I was stroking?"

"Yes!"

I had admitted it, and I bit my lip a second too late. She gave me a look, not an unkind one I thought, and I mumbled an apology and left it at that. Still, she knew, though in hindsight, she had to have known before. Girls do know, even when we think we are being mysterious. Turns out, guys can't do mysterious. We suck at it.

The next day was Versailles; we headed off early, finding our way to the RER station to catch the train out to the chateau. I had no idea what to expect, but it was even more than I could have. Like the Louvre but more so, the apartments were surreal. And even more were the gardens; acre after acre of manicured perfection, with dozens of intricate hedgerows to get lost in. Which I proceeded to do, with Laerke at my side. We came upon a fountain, and I held her, and we kissed. Finally, and completely, and I was in heaven. Versailles is a pretty good place to fall in love.

When we got back, Laerke was quiet, and I thought I had done something wrong. She kissed my nose though, and took my hand, and led me back to her room. It was a six bunk arrangement like mine, but for now nobody else was there. She kissed me again, hesitantly, and I realised that here was a girl quite different from the others I had been with. So in control, and so self-contained, but here, she was shy and at a loss.

Laerke was closer to my age than Sabine, but still a little older. She was a world away in confidence though, and when we started undressing she hid her eyes behind her forelock and blushed, though she still reached for my cock, already fully hard and swaying in the cold air of that hostel. I thought if we didn't get to it soon my flare would drop off.

It was my first time really thankful for what Sabine had taught me. I took her cheek in my hand, and kissed her, and confessed I wasn't that confident either as I'd only been with four girls in my whole life. I think she was suddenly grateful to know she wasn't the only one a little hesitant, and I took my time, just learning her body until she was ready to take the lead.

A girl sometimes likes a guy to admit his vulnerability. If he shows her he is in command enough to know how to make her feel great, but still with the edge of the novice, she forgets to be nervous and just enjoys. That was how it was with Laerke that evening, as she got used to the attentions of a slightly young and uncertain Aussie stallion, all shy blushes and apologies for his callow carelessness, but I found her body reacting to each new touch just right anyway.

We made sure to put a blanket over the side of the bunk above, and made our own little cocoon for the two of us in that small space. We kissed for an age, almost naked, down to our underwear but keeping that last line of defence up for now. My emotional defences had long since been breached though, and as she looked into my eyes and said my name, I surrendered.

I licked down her body, exploring every inch, and finding her sex so warm and beautiful. I spent an age just giving her pleasure while she held my mane and let out soft whinnies, and when I finally entered her, I took it slow. Her cries and sighs filled me with warmth, and I gave her my own as we began, hesitantly, as my confidence was still mostly for show. I wanted so much to be good for her though, and I listened to her to know what to do.

A girl tells you, if you listen. Every sigh, every nicker, every flick of her ear or tail, when she wants more, less, something else, only that until she blossoms like a flower. Laerke put herself in my care, something I had never had before. All my previous partners were more confident, and probably more experienced than me, and dragged me along for the ride. My beautiful mare looked at me with such trust and I wanted to repay that, and show her how I felt with my body. Like the water lillies, it had to be felt. Words would not do it justice.

It was like that all night, as we stared into each-other's eyes looking amazed as if this could not be happening. We made love, for the first time in my life, really. Not keeping score, not thinking of anything, just experiencing in the warm glow of a torch behind the blanket. When we fell asleep, I dreamed of running along the paths of Versailles, with a beautiful mare running before me laughing and teasing. It was a happy dream

When I woke up the next morning, tired but happy, I found no sign of Laerke. Instead, a pair of Japanese tigresses kept giggling at me from the other side of the room, hiding their mouths behind their paws and pointing at my crotch before launching a torrent of rapid Japanese and giggling some more. I dived behind the blanket again, letting my hand out into the open to grope around for my clothes and getting dressed badly in the confines of the bunk bed.

When I emerged, the two tigresses stared and laughed again, and I realised I had my clothes on inside out and back to front. There was still no sign of Laerke though, her stuff was gone. My wallet was still with me, nothing taken or anything, and as I rummaged around I found a small slip of paper.

It had a perfect little pencil drawing of a stallion's head in profile, mine I realised in shock, and the remains of a kiss etched in lipstick. The only words were, "Take care Aussie, I'm sorry. Laerke", no phone number, no email address. My Danish mare had vanished like a Parisian waiter when you need more water on your table.

I spent hours roaming looking for her. Back to Shakespeare and Co, even back to Pere Lachaise. I rang Henri and arranged to meet in a bar, the understanding bear agreeing when he heard my story. I managed to down four beers and cry a lot while he rubbed my back and made sympathetic noises.

"Women."

"Women."

That did the trick, and I burst out in giggles, remembering the guys back in the club in Le Marais. I just hoped he didn't break into Le Marseilleise like Thierry.

"So Paul, what will you do?"

"What I always do Henri. Run away."

It was a mark of his understanding that he didn't tell me off, or yell, or anything. Just nodded and patted my mane.

"Like me. When the straight stallions break my heart. Once I went to the beach for a whole week. I hate the beach, the sand, the water, this bear is not for the beach non. But I needed to be somewhere else."

Somewhere else. Where else?

I thought about London, but the wounds there were still fresh, even after Marjorie's text. She had been full of apology, tellign me I would be more than welcome back in her flat in Notting Hill Gate and she wanted to talk. I was not ready for that, yet, and like a coward I had not rung. That made me think of my timee with Sabine, and her stories of her home. Maybe that would be a better idea, for a while.

"Do you know how to get to Berlin?"