Late afternoon with a bone-dry Chenin Blanc

Late afternoon, I pour a glass of bone-dry Chenin Blanc while Chet Baker croons from the phonograph; rain lacquered the windows of the atelier and a scaffold across Rue Oberkampf made the street look like an unfinished drawing. A junior handed me a stack of sketches — neat folds, obedient lines — and for a moment the world reduced to paper and the soft brass of the trumpet.

Back at the Pigalle duplex, a single cedar lamp burns low; I prefer partners who read the rules before they arrive and keep their phones silent after ten. Discipline has its own beauty — measured, precise — and when someone meets the margin you drew, the reward is always the same: a slow glass, a warm meal, and the quiet afterward.