“Fucking<i>hell</i>,” exclaimed Arthur, realising only a few moments away from their destination drop-off point that he was probably going to have to pay<i>cash</i>for this taxi ride. He’d forgotten what it was like: now, everything was organised ahead of time via an app on a smartphone. Actually catching a taxi was an antiquated activity.<br/><br/>“What is it?” Mary fired back, roused from her apathy by Arthur’s apparent eureka moment. “Do you have money?” She added, a few seconds later, as if she’d read Arthur’s mind. There wasn’t a single time Arthur could think of where he had appreciated that quality. His gaffe was now out on full display; and there was no chance of hiding it. Sheepishly, he nodded his head. He should have used an ATM at the airport, but the two of them wasted no time between disembarking and getting the fuck out of the terminal. Staying any longer inside an airport terminal was equivalent to Dante’s purgatory.<br/><br/>“Surely they take credit card here,” Mary reasoned, trying to steady the ship. Arthur had no idea. Maybe he did know. Had he read that? It was almost one in the morning, and he didn’t care anymore whether he had, or he hadn’t. He was stressed either way. Could he suggest holding his girlfriend ransom while he searched for an ATM on the street? He groaned, a low, guttural sound that clearly articulated his frustration. They’d have to wait and see. He glanced back down at his phone— they were just waiting at the traffic lights outside the Havre-Caumatin metro station. Three minutes until destination.<br/><br/>The radio from the front of the cab cut out as the driver pulled from Rue Tronchet off to the side where the T-intersection met Rue de Castellane, indicating it was time for the two foreign stowaways in the back of the car to pay up. The driver, remembering his two captives didn’t speak French, held up eight fingers. Eight Euro! For a drive across Paris! They really knew how to shear a sheep in this country, Arthur said to himself— he would have said it aloud if he was confident that his credit card would be accepted as a form of payment.<br/><br/>“Guess we’ll find out,” he whispered softly to his partner, turning his head aside to ensure the words fell easily into Mary’s ear. He didn’t want anything untoward to come of his quip; reaching into one of the pockets of his military-surplus style coat for his wallet. The driver seemed to realise what was happening, muttering a rhetorical question: “Carte?” He said, almost like a bark, and reached for the EFTPOS terminal, hidden in the centre console. Thank<i>fuck</i>. Mary, realising that they had worried about nothing all along, made tracks in opening her side-door and escaping onto the footpath. Snow crunched beneath her feet once again; the taxicab ride a welcome reprieve from the cold… that was now unfortunately over.<br/><br/><b>Carte approuvée</b>flashed across the terminal, signalling that the emotional roller coaster that Arthur had been riding was well and truly finished. Arthur stepped out to join Mary on the sidewalk, reaching out his right hand to interlink it with her own. The snap of the cold retreated as their hands joined, fingers weaving in with their opposite number’s. The cabdriver waved a hand out of the driver’s side window to indicate the trunk had been opened; and more importantly, that he had no intention of leaving the comfort of his vehicle’s interior to help them with their luggage. They were staying at Number 4, a short walk from the intersection where their driver had abandoned them.<br/><br/>Rue de Castellane was littered with typical French cafés, and strangely enough, tourist hotels. The location was great: close to the Élysée Palace, the top of Paris’ most decadent shopping street, Rue Saint-Honoré, a short walk to the Louvre… it was no surprise to find the area around them littered with available accomodation. Arthur flicks open his phone as the pair, still linked with their right-to-left hands, rolled their suitcases through the snow on the pavement to the large green door that kept the inner courtyard free from pedestrians. He was looking for the door’s pass code, hidden away somewhere in the AirBnB manual provided for them by their host. It was a few minutes of painful scrolling through all the useless nonsense before he found it.<b>8824</b>. That would be easy enough to remember, but to be sure— and to save future-Arthur from having to deal with finding it again, he used his thumb and forefinger, pressing down on the lock and volume buttons simultaneously to take a screenshot of the number. “8824,” he called across to Mary, who was loitering expectantly by the keypad. She punched in the numbers with ease— rewarded instantly with a buzzing sound and the audible click of the lock relaxing. Arthur leaned heavily into the green door, pushing it open and holding it in place to allow the two of them through. “One down," he breathed, a large sigh of air (also known sometimes as relief), departing his lungs and joining the cold, Parisian air.<br/><br/>“We’re over there,” he pointed with his left hand, lifting it away from his suitcase for a moment to stretch out his fingers; the digits tired from being clenched around the suitcase’s handle. A small little blue door, framed by two windows on either side, was the last obstacle between the couple and their picturesque French courtyard apartment, for lack of a better word. Their lodgings were originally designed for the housekeeper of the complex, but that position had fallen vacant long ago, and now was simply rented out as an additional property by the landlord. “The keys are in that lock box, right there,” Arthur finally released Mary’s hand, pointing now to a small lock box attached to the bars that prevented entry into the front windows. It would appear Arthur’s hindsight was much better than his foresight; as he had forgotten to inspect the AirBnB house page for the code to that.<br/><br/>“One second”, he says, holding up his hand to indicate that he was working on it. “It’s… here… somewhere,” he mumbles, talking more to himself than anyone else as he scrolled back through the immense list of information the landlord had provided. Most of it was complete nonsense, anyway… there! “2176.” Mary nodded her head, “Got it!”, before quickly working to unlock the box. It was clear that they were both feeling the cold; the tiredness; the jet-lag that came with such a long plane trip. Both of them just wanted to be inside<i>and</i>asleep. The lockbox clicked; a sound of approval and acceptance that offered up the front door keys to Mary’s eagerly awaiting fingers. She took them and tossed them across, floating them through the air, to Arthur, waiting by the front door.<br/><br/>The key slotted easily into the lock, twisting in the mechanism to grant these new intruders access. Arthur rolled his suitcase inside, holding the door open for Mary before entering in her wake. “Fucking<i>finally</i>,” he exclaimed, his voice hoarse, a clear indication of his tiredness and frustration. He had been awake the entire flight, after all. He had no intention of even bothering with the lights; but Mary moved across to the switch on the other side of the room and blessed him with the light bulb moment: the room bathed in a dim, yellow hue of light. “Let’s deal with all this shit in the morning,” he offered, shrugging his shoulders. His suitcase tumbled from his hand as he released his grip on the handle, letting it fall on the floor with little regard for either the hard case’s exterior, or the floor it was falling onto.<br/><br/>“Where’s the bedroom?” Mary said, probably more awake after her long slumber on the plane than she’d like to be. That wasn’t Arthur’s problem: he was exhausted. “Follow me,” he said, something akin to a chuckle rolling from his lips as he finished speaking. There was nowhere else he’d rather be. Attached to the main room through a doorway with no door, interestingly, was the bedroom section of the studio, if one could call it that. A mattress on an IKEA bed frame— well, at least with linen manchester— greeted him. It didn’t matter by this stage: he’d have slept on the floor if he had to. His hands moved to his belt, unclasping the metal buckle and whipping the leather strap out in one fluid motion, tossing it down beside the bed. His military surplus jacket followed, and his shirt soon after. He reasoned internally that the only time he’d ever undressed quicker than this was having sex— and if he could even move after the day he’d had, he’d be surprised, let alone fuck. Pressing the front of his right foot to the heel of his left shoe, he’d flick the derbies off, left shoe and then right; joining the heap of his clothing at the side of his bed like a lion marking his territory. His eyes rose from his own mess to Mary; now lifting her dress over her head and making a similar pile on her side of the mattress. His pants; the final piece of his beautiful bedside still life composition; fell easily from his waist as his fingers worked feverishly to unbutton the fly, pushing them down over his thighs and stepping out of them as the fabric bunched up at the ankles. “Not sure about Paris yet,” he says, warily; remembering for a moment the reason why they’d come: Ryan’s funeral. He was surprised Mary joined him— their connection together wasn’t anything special. Camilla, on the other hand, had known Ryan just as well as Arthur had until their break-up. What kind of sick destiny had organised it that they’d now all happened to be in the same city? Arthur flopped back onto the mattress like a failed Olympian high-jumper, minus the dramatics. Lazily, he crawled underneath the thick duvet and sprawled out beneath the covers, his arm extending out to his right and offering space for Mary to crawl in beside him. She didn’t take the offer; rebuking him to turn on her side and leave him there, with nought but a sigh to keep him company instead as his heavy eyes closed… waiting with whatever patience he could muster for sleep to arrive.<br/><br/>Three days from now was Ryan's funeral: the whole reason they'd come here, in the first place. He could disconnect from it all, the loss and grief, tomorrow-- Arthur would be able to roam the city at his leisure. He doubted that Mary would wake up before ten in the morning anyhow. She rarely did when they travelled: it was the appeal of sleeping in and relaxing that drew her in on weekend trips away from their city-based office jobs. Arthur was the complete opposite: he wanted to see it all; all of the time. Visiting a city like Paris for a funeral was a morose endeavour... but he was intending to at least make the most of it. He wondered what hand fate would deal him, tomorrow-- what would he say, if he saw Camilla? What would he... what would... those thoughts never eventuated as the sleep he had been longing for claimed him.