What’s always surprised me about that sort of open-air cruising, whether it’s in the Tuileries or Central Park, on Mont Royal or the Plains of Abraham, is the total silence in which it takes place. You don’t even dare to come out loud, whereas elsewhere, especially in the bars, sound is the ­natural element for the winking and groping, the propositions and assents. Here, along little paths where every tree risks being turned not into an Iroquois but into a sexual partner who can be effective or not, but always discreet—silence is as much part of the game as the darkness. Something like the backrooms but without the stifling atmosphere, the suspect odours, the dirt you expect to find on the walls and especially on the sticky floors. The underbrush is strewn with Kleenex, granted, and empty cigarette boxes form paler spots on the more secluded paths, but it’s still the open air, almost rural. In moments of irony, in the days when I still indulged in such practices, I’d named the bushes on Mont Royal my “outdoor backrooms” or my “dangerous resorts,” because along with everything else, you never know what’s going to turn up. Unpleasant ­surprises are many and varied, more so than pleasant ones, but then pleasant surprises are generally worth the trouble. That’s why hundreds of men of all ages and all ­convictions climb the steep slopes of Mont Royal every night, in the hope of ending up either as part of the wildest group of the century or in the most discreet, romantic spot in town, in the arms of a partner they’ll never see again, who’ll fuck as if he was doing it for the last time in his life.

A lot of them fuck that way every night, as if it was indeed the last time, but they’re already speculating about what their luck might be the next day. It’s sexuality marked by despair at ever finding another guy who’s worth the trouble, and by the hope of being surprised again, one final time—the ultimate time.

A few silhouettes were moving around us, even on the main road where it’s bright enough to distinguish faces. I recognized a few, the same old companions in cruising I always thought I knew, they’d become so familiar, but I ­pretended I didn’t see them, as if they’d never existed. Phantoms for whom I too am only a phantom, whom I’ve watched grow older, fatter, thinner, worse or better looking, never knowing who they were, but well aware of what they were looking for . . . and it wasn’t me. At one point Mathieu moved closer and wrapped his arm around my waist.

“It’s not what you’d call a romantic stroll but it’s nice ­anyway.”