Luc’s account of his sexual escapades has always made my head spin. Ever since we split up it’s as if he’s chosen me as his confessor, his confidant at any rate, so he can hold on to at least some of my attention, stay in my life to some degree, as if he were refusing to let me completely ­disappear. We don’t go out together at all any more but I regularly see him turning up with the latest gossip and, in particular, his latest exploits, all aflutter to tell me who in the artistic circles is sleeping with whom and serious as a pope as he describes his own latest conquests. I hear it all: the roundness of their asses, their experience, their kicks. Sometimes I find myself blushing when I watch TV, I know so much about the sexual proclivities of some of the young actors on the soaps. Most of the time, though, he just gets me down, because he reminds me of a miserable period in my life—I was the most naive cuckold in Montreal for so many years I’m still humiliated by it—but that afternoon, in the unseasonably sweltering October heat, I pitied him, and that got to me.

Pity is a terrible sentiment, I know, but Luc was truly ­pitiful, with his contradictory convictions and his fears that were both hideous and legitimate. I could understand his fear of AIDS because he’s been screwing all over the map since the beginning, and his frequent trips to New York are still the hottest—as my own used to be—but I was in no mood to console him because he was still reacting to a problem like a stubborn adolescent.

I watched him age before my eyes as he told his story: his face lost its attractive tan and became gray, his back hunched and frequently his hands would start to shake; I didn’t forgive him for that either.

I did nothing for him. I left him in his slough of despair. But I wasn’t sure he’d actually come for help in any case: maybe he just wanted to wave his unhappiness under my nose as he’s so often done with his good luck. I know him well enough to realize you should never take what he says literally. He really was scared, that was clear, but I thought I also detected some morbid pleasure under the first layer of fear and that made me want to hit him. Perhaps he was still playing with fate. And the worst of it is, he has every chance of winning, because he’s the luckiest man I know!

But I couldn’t really be sure his cynicism went that far, so I didn’t know what tack to take. Actually, that’s often the problem with Luc: he throws you so completely that in the end you don’t know what to make of him.