COLD SKIN IN PARIS By Peter Nolan Smith

COLD SKIN IN PARIS

The top-floor room's only window was open to the winter January slashed my bare skin I rolled closer to Mirabelle The blonde mannequin had stolen all the duvet. My hand reached over the mattress

I pulled the covers over me

Her skin is cold as the gray dawn of Paris

Below freezing and I imagined her dead

My penis hardened to steel on her frozen flesh

The aristocratic junkie drew a shallow breath

I parted her legs.

She liked it this way

"It is like I crawl from the grave."

We fucked

She moaned at the end like a beautiful corpse

"You think I look like Nico?"

"Different."

Every schoolboy in the 60s had fallen in love with the Velvet Underground's ice queen

"Show me."

I shut my eyes and Nico sang I'LL BE YOUR MIRROR

I didn't need a mirror with my eyes shut

Mirabelle was Nico was Mirablle was Nico and winter was warm under the sheets with Mirabelle.

Especially since she looked nothing like Nico.