Shopping is easier in the winter. The stores stay open long after dark to cater to the evening crowds. Frazzled christmas shoppers hunting for last minute bargains, tourists trying to find voltage adaptors to run their hairdryers and electric shavers and the small children who don't know the meaning of the word bedtime and spend the entire shopping trip whining about the gifts they want from Santa Claus. Not that they call him Santa Claus, but since Père Noel is apparantly a child eating demon anyway, it seems absurd to get hung up over his name. Sometimes I like to tell kids the truth about Santa Claus, just to see how they react. Other times I think it's kinder to let them believe the lies right up until the end. Mostly I don't tell them anything. The stores are crowded at this time of year and the parents are way anal about letting the kids out of their sight. Sometimes it feels like Santa Claus is the only guy who gets to eat children during the festive season.

We steal more stuff than we buy, usually. I'm good at that. It would probably be easier to break in after the stores close and take what we want, but both of us prefer the current setup to breaking and entering. I like the challenge of walking into Xuly Bët and sneaking out whatever hideously ugly outfit she's set her mind on this week. Of course, acting inconspicuous is made doubly difficult by the fact that she likes such bright colors; some people shouldn't be allowed to dress themselves. I try to talk her into wearing less striking clothes, but she says the whole point of clothes is to make people look at you. We've never talked about it, but I think that might be another reason we shop while the stores are open. All the people milling around, talking to one another, staring at her criminally bad outfits... it's reassuring. Sometimes you need a reminder that the world's still turning and you're still here.

As a rule, make-up is way harder to steal than clothes. The counters are covered with mirrors and the way they're set up means we usually have to pay for things. One of us will run interference while the other tries stuff on. If we distract their attention a little, people never even notice that we don't reflect. It's amazing just how much people don't notice, when you stop to think about it, which we don't, not really. Stopping to think leads to remembering stuff and remembering stuff is of the bad, so why would you encourage it?

Sometimes we cry. Not always over sad things, either, one time it was a shampoo commercial! There was this semi-nude model doing her shampoo commercial thing. You know? She was taking a shower and acting way more excited than having shiny, volumized hair strictly warranted and we were kicked back on the couch kind of digging the model, but making fun of her at the same time, because she was cute but so very clearly brain-dead. Then a blob of foam slid down her forehead and she sort of squinched her face up to watch the foam as it fell and for just a second she looked familar and it made me tear up. I know I wasn't the only one crying over the dumb commercial, but we didn't say anything or even look at each other, because it was so embarrassing. It's sort of stupid to be so upset by a few shampoo bubbles, no matter how traumatic a past you have. Plus there's sort of an unspoken assumption that if you're immortal you should be over that sort of grief, so we just sat there on the couch trying not to see each other crying and pretending to be engrossed in the TV. 'Friends' is even lamer when it's dubbed into French, by the way.

It isn't always angst and depression here. I wouldn't stay if it were. There are good times, mostly in the early mornings, when she works me into a dripping sweaty mess and her tongue is tracing my spine and it feels like I should be panting for breath. I defy anybody to bother themselves with thoughts of homesickness when she's determined to get a scream. Sometimes, when I'm twisting in her arms, I can feel for a while that this is my home. Like this is love and not a last resort. After all, we really do have some stuff in common, which I would honestly never have believed at the start. Besides, she needs me and that's a warm, home feeling. She's sort of neurotic about needing to be in a relationship, so in a whacked sort of way I'm boosting her self esteem. Plus her French isn't exactly stellar, she gets by, but occasionally she'll ask shop assistants for a raised red rose instead of pink lipstick or tell a victim to race the miller. Then there's the fun of the city itself; Paris is lovers central and it was built to be shared. We do a lot of goofy tourist stuff together, even though she's not really interested in museums and cathedrals. She prefers the Eiffel Tower and The Moulin Rouge, stuff she recognises from movies and TV. We visited the catacombs one time for the sake of completeness, but neither of us were impressed. All those caves are kind of icky and if we want dead bodies we can always provide our own. There are so many people wandering around that it doesn't exactly take a lot of effort. We just turn off the main streets into one of those little alleys that always smell of pee a little and there'll usually be a couple of tourists, necking. One for each of us.

Paris is way beautiful. Everything is old and all the buildings are that little bit fancier, they hang christmas lights in the trees year round and sometimes it snows. It's old and cold and very beautiful and we walk through the streets at night, holding hands and talking about how hard it is to apply eyeliner without a reflection or trying to pinpoint the exact moment The X-Files began to suck.

We never talk about California.