THE WORLDPEACE ADVOCACY
Novel One - Phoenix Rising

by John WorldPeace

The WorldPeace Advocacy - Prologue
The WorldPeace Advocacy Novel One - Phoenix Rising
The WorldPeace Advocacy Novel Two - Paris 2009
are actually one novel that introduces the primary characters and lays the
foundation for a evolving series of political suspense novels.

The main character in the novels, John WorldPeace, has a factual history in
the Autobiography 1948-2007 of the author, whose legal name since 1988 has been
John WorldPeace, and a Prison Journal 2008 when the author was a political prisioner
of the United States of America and earned his bona fides as a real life Peace Activist.

JohnWorldPeace.com
Email: JohnWorldPeace@gmail.com

Copyright 2010 John WorldPeace All Rights Reserved

Cast of Characters

       The following are photos of actors and others faces I found on the internet who I feel look like the characters in my novel. I will add more as I find the photos that remind me of the other characters.

Dr John WorldPeace JD USA	Dr Mir WorldPeace Russia	Francois Dubois France	Dr Cathy Lyne France
India Celeste TinTy Psychic	Dr Debra PaixLaFleur Fontaine USA	Dr Rebecca Shalom Solomon Israel	Dr Choden Norbu Pema China/Tibet
Dr Kathleen Ellis USA	Janice Quinton CIA Liaison USA	Alicia Downey FBI Liaison USA	Countess Karen Chirac Benefactor France
Dr Marshall MacPherson JWP son USA	Jeremy Renoir Fund Manager France	Tom Wentworth Director CIA USA

THE WORLDPEACE ADVOCACY – NOVEL ONE

PHOENIX RISING

Chapters 1-18

CHAPTERS ONE THROUGH EIGHT ARE THE PROLOGUE.

NINE – A NEW LIFE NOW BEGINS

In late April 2009, I left for Paris. I had considered having my cousin Doug go with me but then I decided I should go alone. That way I could be completely free to do whatever I wanted. Traveling with another person would mean that I would have to consider what they wanted to do during the trip and I did not want to take a vote about anything on this trip. I wanted the freedom to be spontaneous.

I arrived in Paris about 1000 on Monday, April 13th, and was checked into my hotel room by noon. I decided to take a nap because I thought there was a possibility that I may be up all night. I fully expected to meet someone of interest right away. I counted on the fact that most Europeans, Parisians in particular, did not hate Americans even after eight years of George W. Bush as president of the United States.

As per usual, the visions I had been carrying in my head for nine months came true. I was sitting at one of the outdoor cafes at about 1400 when two women in their mid to late twenties took a seat at the table next to me. After they settled in a bit, I noticed that one kept looking at me. So I said hello and introduced myself. The one I had been exchanging eye contact with told me her name was Cathy. Her friend’s name was Gigi. After introductions, they asked me to join them. Surprisingly, both of them spoke flawless English. They both worked for a large insurance company and had taken a day off in the middle of the week to relax. They said they had no real agenda.

The conversation first covered the fact that I was an American from Texas and then the conversation moved to a discussion of my name. As is sometimes the case, I had to show my Texas driver’s license to prove that my name was in fact John WorldPeace. Then I gave them my main website address, which Gigi immediately brought up on her iPhone.

After verifying my claims, mainly by seeing my photo on my website, they wanted to talk about politics and Iraq and George Bush and so on. After about an hour, Gigi called some friends and they arrived at 1630. One was a fellow named Jeremy and two additional attractive young women. Jeremy was more politically active than the others. I had fun answering their seemingly endless questions. I was sort of shocked that they all spoke English so well.

The conversation continued on for hours. I was alternating between coffee and red wine until they decided to order something for dinner. We had moved to a larger table inside the café. I noticed that a lot of people around us were listening to our conversation. I was just smiling to myself. I felt like an anomaly or some kind of alien and they were debriefing me. They all had questions. Some verbalized them, some didn’t.

About 2100, four other people arrived and the conversation became more animated. Sometimes they would get excited and would speak to each other rapidly in French and then apologize to me for doing so. I just smiled. I love to hear the French language. It is a language that flows like silk.

About 2200, I began to wear down but I just ordered more espresso and kept on going. All these people were politically active. They were into politics, art and discussing the current bestsellers. Most of the books they discussed had not been published in English so they would have to explain the themes before they asked for my opinion. I realized that I needed to learn to read French as soon as possible and Cathy volunteered to begin my lessons as soon as the impromptu gathering broke up. I smiled and everyone else paused their conversations and looked at Cathy and smiled.

I was not embarrassed and said, “Sure, if you are serious.”

She said, “Absolutely.”

I had heard that the French were sexually liberated but I never realized just how much. There seemed to be no questions in anyone’s mind about the true nature of the French lessons that had just been entered onto my agenda.

About 0130, everyone decided they needed to get home because the next day was a workday. Gigi decided that she would go with Cathy back to my room and spend the night. Cathy said she was going to give me a tour the next day and had decided to call into work and say she was sick. Gigi said she needed to go to work but that she did not want to take the time to go home. So she would get up early the next morning and go to work. She had a change of clothes in her locker in the company gym.

We all had big smiles on our faces as I paid our bill and began to walk to my hotel. Cathy was on my right and Gigi on my left. Both pulled close to me as we walked. The evening was cool but not cold. I took a deep breath of what I considered true freedom. I also took pleasure in the streetlights and the music coming from all directions.

Before we had ended our little gathering, Jeremy suggested that we all meet at his house on Sunday night. He would invite some more friends and we could have an expanded “WorldPeace” conversation. I agreed. Cathy said she would give me the details.

I awoke the next day about 0630 when Gigi slid out of bed to take a shower. I grabbed her hand and she leaned over and kissed me and then went to the bathroom and closed the door. Cathy seemed to be asleep next to me and I did not want to wake her up so I laid still going over in my head the events of the last twenty-four hours. In about ten minutes, Gigi exited the bathroom fully dressed. She came over to the bed, gave me a deep kiss and said she would see me later after work. I smiled and watched her quietly leave the room and pull the door closed.

At the same moment the latch on the door clicked, Cathy crawled on top of me. She had obviously not been asleep.

About 0800 I woke and called room service to bring up some pastries and coffee. I then got out of bed and went to take a shower. I had just gotten the water hot and stepped inside when Cathy came through the door and joined me.

I thought to myself, “Welcome to France, John WorldPeace.”

I took a cinnamon roll with nuts on it from the cart and sat it down next to my coffee on the antique table in the corner of the room next to the window. As I was staring out the window thinking about all that had happened since yesterday as well as the last eighteen months Cathy had sat down next to me with her coffee. I was so distracted that I had not even noticed.

“Good morning,” I said. “How are you today?”

Cathy smiled but did not speak immediately. I had the feeling that she was processing as much information as I. Eighteen hours ago we did not even know each other and now we had been intimate.

“I’m fine,” she said. It was obvious that her mind was in deep thought.

“Life is strange,” I said.

“Oh, that and some,” she said in English with a very slight French accent as she looked into her coffee cup and then took a sip.

Cathy was twenty-five. She had a beautiful figure but people would not classify her as a beautiful woman. I thought that make up would make a significant positive change. But this is the kind of woman I had always been attracted to. I call them women of substance. Women who were motivated, even driven, and who had achieved success in life based on intelligence and hard work and not on their appearance.

Cathy was what I would call a workhorse as opposed to a show horse. She had a very pleasant personality and I could tell she was a philosopher. She thought about the global aspects of even mundane things the same as I did.

“You know what?” she questioned still looking into her coffee.

“No, what?” I responded.

She paused a bit, then said, “You know I had a dream about you a long time ago.”

I thought, Looks like I have connected with another New Age woman or even worse a hippie chick born out of time. I fully understood the mindset because of the fact that my art and writings and poems were all pulled from that metaphysical ether. The problem was whether this young woman was firmly grounded in the real world unlike the majority of New Agers.

I had found over the years, all the way back to 1984, when I was around a whole lot of very gifted psychics, that the more psychic a person was, the less grounded in reality they usually were. Many of these people, mostly women (I think because women deal with the miracle of conception and birth so they are naturally metaphysical) cannot keep a job. They live in the spiritual world of metaphysics but their bodies are trapped in the reality of the earth were they have trouble adjusting and staying grounded.

For whatever reason, some psychics have proposed that I have a right brain – left brain fusion. I can dedicate myself to the most abstract reality yet at the same time fight toe-to-toe in a vicious court battle. I usually refer to myself as a warrior artist.

I waited for Cathy to speak but not impatiently. I wanted to hear what she had to say. If it was too far out or if I found her unable to hold a steady job, I would have to disengage from her.

“How long ago?” I asked, trying to let her know I did not think she was crazy. Intuitive people have to be careful who they reveal themselves to. The majority of people can’t understand people who have psychic visions and thoughts and dreams; especially if those revelations come true. And to some degree, fundamentalist and archconservative people fear and attack those with psychic abilities. I wanted Cathy to know her thoughts were safe with me and I would not demean her if she verbalized them. I wanted to let her know that I was psychic myself but not until I heard her response.

“I saw you sixteen years ago in a vision,” she said looking deeply into my eyes.

“Really?” I said.

“Actually, I did not know it was you but I had a very vivid vision or dream of a man your age who shaved his head. I had seen him in a sidewalk café wearing a starched white long sleeve shirt,” she related.

I remembered that back in 1984, a woman I met though a psychic I knew, had said the same thing. Back then, all I wore was long sleeve white cotton shirts and blue jeans and cowboy boots. It was unusual for me to dress like that now but I had done so yesterday.

“OK,” I said.

“That is why I could not take my eyes off you. I kept reliving that vision,” she said.

“OK,” I said and waited for her to continue still wanting her to feel safe. This conversation was very common for me. Not the specifics, but strangers relating to me that they had experienced a psychic vision or dream about what I call the shadows of me. Shadows would be the vague image of me that appears to others. Generally, I felt these others were persons who I was destined to connect with in this lifetime for some reason. Some connections would be for very short periods of time and others for longer periods of time; most were positive, some became negative.

“I understand,” I said looking at her until her eyes rose from her coffee and met mine.

“This happens to me often,” I said. “What I find is that when it happens, I am supposed to connect with that person. I seldom know why. Generally, they don’t either. But there is always a reason that becomes obviously sooner or later.”

“I really did not think we would end up sleeping together,” she said. “Especially so soon after we met. But I immediately felt safe with you. I knew you from my vision, which seemed more significant than meeting you in person with no dream or vision to cloud my mind.”

“Do you regret last night?” I asked.

“No, not at all,” she said. “In fact, I have never felt as much at peace around a stranger as I did in your presence. The whole experience was blissful; almost perfect. Only when I deal with it logically does it confuse me. You were wonderful in bed,” she said meeting my eyes. “I knew you would be. You are more than just a wonderful lover. You made me feel like you really cared for me and about me.”

“I do,” I said. “I don’t do one night stands. There has to be the potential of more. Casual sex has not been my habit. The few times it has happened, I have always felt used; like a machine, a bionic man.”

There was a long silence between us as we both became lost in our thoughts.

Cathy then stood up and let the hotel robe she was wearing fall to the floor. She looked into my eyes and I met hers as my peripheral vision enjoyed her fit and shapely body. She came to me and pulled my robe off my shoulders and straddled me as I sat in the armless chair. She pulled close to me and laid her head on my shoulder as she used her feet and legs to gently rock back and forth on me. We kissed deeply and I placed my hand firmly on her rear as she wrapped her legs around me and I stood up holding her body without disengaging from her. I walked to the bed, turned and sat down, laid back and slowly centered us in the bed maintaining our connection. We kissed deeply as we increased our rhythm.

We were both lost in that beautiful space where the bliss of sex rumbles across thoughts that only come in deep peaceful meditation. I felt that we had both reached that perfect place where you can gently rock for hours in the intimacy of touch as your mind goes to the most beautiful and serene places, drifting until sleep overtakes one’s consciousness.

TEN

At noon, we woke. It had been a very long time since I had felt this relaxed and at peace. It reminded me of those Saturday mornings in my first marriage. The week was over and finally I had been able to disengage from business and relax without guilt and lay in bed half asleep.

We got dressed and Cathy called Gigi and Jeremy and set up a rendezvous in a different café for about 1630. It would be 1900 before Jeremy’s friends arrived.

Cathy decided that we would go to a cozy café for lunch that most tourists to Paris never discover. It was about a mile from the hotel in one of the oldest sections of the city. We decided to walk; actually take a leisurely stroll in that direction.

It was unseasonably warm with a perfect blue sky overhead. About a block from the hotel, I bought a vanilla and chocolate ice cream cone that Cathy and I shared. I had burned up a lot of energy making love to her and I needed some sugar. If the sugar started to crash my system, I would stop and get an espresso. Coffee was available on almost every corner in this part of the city.

We took our time. Cathy was aware that I was taking in all the sights, sounds and smells trying to get familiar with this magical ancient city of Paris. She held my hand and leaned on my left shoulder. I am sure people thought I was an old man with his granddaughter. Then again, maybe not. This was Paris, the city of love. What they did know was that I was an American. I loved my short brim Stetson but I just did not want to stand out that much even while wearing something so distinctive.

We came to a long avenue for pedestrians only and the trees were just budding green. In a few weeks they would have created a beautiful long canopy of trees. There were benches on both sides of the avenue in line with the trees. About half way, we stopped and sat down and shifted into the role of observers as opposed to the observed. I could tell Cathy’s mind was blitzing through the events we had shared, as was I. But I had 35 years more of being alive than she and that allowed me to more quickly process and relate to what had happened between us.

I tend to see everyone as an old soul, so physical age in this reality does not impact on me. I felt like I had known Cathy for ages, not hours. Sure, she was a young woman barely out of girlhood. Yet there was an old soul understanding about her that I easily connected with. Being with me, she was simply awakening those ancient memories.

Every real psychic whom I had encountered over the years assured me of two things: 1) I would be a teacher of teachers, and 2) I would be very rich with money in my old age. I wondered what I had to offer to Cathy. After two nineteen-year marriages and the fact that I was sixty years old, I doubted that I would meet a true Cinderella. Not only that, my life was way too tense and hectic for most women; a personal chaos that was self-imposed by what I considered my purpose driven life.

“A penny for your thoughts,” I said.

Cathy looked up at me still lost in thought. “What?” she said.

I said, “A penny for your thoughts.”

Like a person just awakened out of a daze, she said, “I am just spinning. There are a lot of things going on in my mind. You have bedazzled me, John.”

“I am just a crazy old man named WorldPeace,” I laughed.

“You are funny alright,” she said, “but not in a comic way. You are funny interesting, as in enigmatic.”

I’m a good listener. I waited for what she had to say next.

“I wonder if you affect all women you meet the way you have affected me,“ she said.

“Hey, the truth is that I don’t choose women and American women know to stay away from liberals, especially someone with a name like WorldPeace. That is why I came to France, to be with my own kind. I was suffocating in America,” I said.

I could tell she was listening very carefully to me. “So what’s the plan?” I asked.

“I just want to stay in this dreamscape,” she sighed.

“Life is but a dream my dear,” I said. “This old man needs to get up and move before my bones freeze up. I am in good shape for the shape I am in but I have some muscles and joints that have been dormant for a few decades.”

“You are something else,” I said. <isn’t this her speaking?>

I stood up and she followed still holding onto my arm.

“What are we going to do tonight?” I asked.

“We are going to meet up at the Red Dragon Café. Jeremy will be there and maybe Gigi. But Jeremy is bringing five or six people he wants you to meet and them to meet you. You know how it is though; six are invited, three show up,” she said.

“Well, whoever is supposed to show up will be there,” I said.

“These people are a bit more active in political matters and issues relating to social change than most of Jeremy’s friends. They are networked into a lot of peace, political and art related circles. Jeremy is sort of presenting you as the messiah,” she laughed.

“I hope not,” I said. “That is a way to get me arrested or killed in America. I am just one simple man with one simple message; WorldPeace,” I said concerned about anyone referring to me as a messiah or avatar of any stripe.

She looked at me and said, “Were you a hippy?”

“No, I am afraid not,” I replied. “I was there on campus in the sixties but I was too busy to participate in the rallies because I was working and going to the University of Houston full time.”

I wondered if she was surprised by my answer. I continued. “I have never used illegal drugs. In fact, after being in jail, I try to stay away from people who even use drugs. It is not easy because the people I feel most connected to tend to abuse one substance or another. I just try to be careful who I associate with. It is a bit scary here because I don’t know anyone who can help me avoid getting into trouble. I just want to paint, write, and run my web design business and associate with my own kind,” I said.

“I think you are well on your way already,” she said. “These friends of Jeremy’s you will meet tonight seem to know everyone of importance in Europe. They are excited about meeting you,” she added with a smile.

“Yeah, they want to see the American pariah or anomaly,” I said. “Like going to a human zoo and seeing what an American liberal looks like. They probably think I am a middle of the road Republican when the truth is that I am probably the most liberal human being on the planet. But I am looking forward to being with you and meeting new people with interests similar to mine,” I said as we exited the budding canopy above us.

Even though there were tons of things we did not know about each other, we did not really talk as we strolled along. I felt like I was in heaven. I was breathing a new kind of air. I felt safe in Paris. Not safe from American violence but safe in that I did not have to watch what I said. I felt I was free to have open discussions about most things about which I am interested. And I was excited about getting a first hand view of what Parisians thought about America. Everyone was fascinated with the wealth of America and at the same time they were frustrated and confused with its politics.

We arrived at the café’ and I thought, I am home. It was 1630.

ELEVEN

The Red Dragon Café was not a Chinese restaurant as I thought it would be. It had two beautifully carved mahogany doors, one dragon on each. Once inside, it was very dark and open. There were booths along three of the walls and in the center there were open tables that could be pulled together to accommodate any number of diners. There was a hallway in the back that appeared to lead to other private dining rooms. I was new to France and new to meeting people in cafés, bars and restaurants. It is not something I did in America.

So I could not determine if this was a typical café or not. The walls were decorated with various pictures and reliefs of dragons but not that many really. At this time of day, few people were eating. Most were drinking coffee, wine and hard liquor.

Jeremy was waiting for us in the back left of the open area in one of the booths. There was some kind of extension from the booth and it would seat about six to eight people easily. The noise level was not that bad. I could hear pretty well in this place and thought I would not have to put in my hearing aid. I had an eighty percent hearing loss in my left ear. My right ear was normal.

Because of my left ear, sometimes the acoustics in a restaurant or bar make it impossible for me to hear anything very well; not so in this café. I shook hands with Jeremy and then moved into the booth such that I could sit with my left ear to the wall for the best chance of hearing what was being said. I ordered a regular coffee and Cathy ordered a light red wine. Jeremy had a local beer.

Jeremy and Cathy hugged but it was interesting to me that no one commented or even looked like they noticed the fact that I was much older than Cathy. They seemed to ignore that she was sitting very close to me and was constantly touching me. This definitely wasn’t America.

“How was your day, John?” Jeremy inquired.

“It has been very pleasant. I love it here. I was in Paris in 1972, when my first ex wife and I came here just before New Years. I was in the Army and stationed in Vicenza, Italy. The ex and I took some money from our small budget and came here with my first child who was only five months old at the time. I somehow knew that I would return. I just did not know it would be thirty-five years later,” I said with a smile.

Jeremy returned the smile. “You know, I have a thousand questions to ask and I feel a bit guilty about it,” he said. “My friends also have their questions. I hope we won’t come across like the Inquisition to you.”

“Jeremy, I love questions. I am a very open person and will answer almost anything you ask. I like questions that relate to my ideas and philosophy because they allow me to constantly check my beliefs to see if they are in harmony and coherent as a whole. So much of life for most people is adopting conflicting beliefs. Like supporting a televangelist who makes millions promoting Jesus, who was not materialistic. There are Buddhist monks traveling all over Asia who live like Jesus even though their religion teaches something very different from what Jesus taught. And by the way, it is very hard to irritate me with questions. The only thing that makes me mad is being lied to or deliberately lied about,” I said.

“Well my friends have lots of questions and are excited and eager to hear what you have to say,” Jeremy said in a very upbeat manner.

“Who are your expecting?” I asked noticing that Cathy was quiet like the night before except today she was lost in thought. She was hanging on to me to keep from falling off into whatever thoughts were possessing her at the moment. She made me smile.

“Rene, Henri and Francois. They are my closest friends. We all met in college at the University of Paris. We are all in our early thirties and finding that even though we were determined to change the world ten years ago we have not found a satisfactory vehicle we could support or endorse whole heartedly,” he said eager to tell me more about his friends.

“So what do these friends of yours do to earn a living?” I asked.

“Rene and Henri own a very successful pastry shop and Francois is a commercial artist who works for herself on contract. Francois went to college to become an artist but Rene and Henri have accounting degrees. Rene and Henri have been friends since childhood. I always knew their personalities were too outgoing to be ‘bean counters’,” Jeremy said with a chuckle.

I said, “I have an accounting degree along with my political science and law degrees and I had a bookkeeping and tax business until my first divorce. My problem was boredom. I was not really bored with accounting and taxes, but I wanted a more dynamic business career. It is hard to run a large successful business without a significant knowledge of accounting. So I did that work as an easy source of income but more so to learn how to value businesses and to make them successful.”

“I see,” said Jeremy. I noticed that he did not expect me to come from that kind of educational and working background. He like most people who hear my name did not think that I might be a professional businessman because general business and conservative mindsets go hand-in-hand and are contrary to liberal thinking.

Before he could speak, I said, “Yes, most business owners who meet me for the first time expect to see an old burned out hippie. They are always taken aback when I appear at our appointments dressed like a successful banker. It always makes me smile.”

I could tell that he had an agile mind and was absorbing everything that I had said.

“What do you do for a living, Jeremy,” I asked.

“Well,” he said still processing my business background, “I essentially manage my family’s assets. Both my parents’ fathers were in the real estate business as were their fathers. My mother’s father also owned a bank. I, like you, have accounting and law degrees as well as an MBA from Howard. I guess you could say I was trained to manage the family assets after it was determined that I was the most qualified of all my cousins. Qualifications are not the right term. I seemed to have had an aptitude for business even before I was qualified through education.”

He continued. “It used to embarrass me that I managed my parents’ wealth as opposed to having been like my grandfathers who created a significant amount of wealth starting from nothing.”

“Jeremy, we all have different financial talents and many times entrepreneurs, that’s a French word isn’t it,” I paused to smile, “take a few too many risks to be good preservers of wealth. You obviously have your family’s respect and trust and are well suited for your profession.”

“Thank you, John. I never really thought about it like that. You are right. But you have been able to deal with the boring discipline of business and at the same time found time to work for peace and write and paint,” he said.

“I consider myself an advocate for peace and WorldPeace but at the core of me, you will find a businessman. Unfortunately, due to my ex wives and one of my sons and my inability to see their shortcomings and treachery, I reached age sixty with nothing to show for all my hard work in the sense of significant assets. But that is all about to change,” I said.

“John, I was excited and eager to discuss WorldPeace with you but now I see we have other things in common as well. I just tripled my reservoir of questions,” he said still trying to process the reality of me as a businessman.

“Jeremy, you will discover that I have come to the conclusion that the best and most practical way to increase the peace in the world is by creating jobs; more specifically, using Third World labor to create products to sell at significant profit in the First and Second Worlds. And I intend to use the profits from all my endeavors to create even more jobs. So my vocation and advocacy for WorldPeace are one and the same,” I said.

“Actually I think I have created the world’s first ‘for profit’ charity,” I said laughing out loud.

I saw that he followed exactly what I was saying and was to some degree, momentarily speechless. I smiled.

“Oh, here come my friends,” he said as he stood up and waved them toward our booth.

TWELVE

As Jeremy went over to greet his friend, I asked Cathy, “What do you think?”

“John, you overwhelm me,” she said. “I don’t know what to think. I know men your age at work and my grandfather is a strong personality but I don’t know anyone like you. Your knowledge and experience are so dynamic. I don’t even know if my brain will hold as much knowledge as what you have already acquired and you seem to be just starting your life. It is like you are still in your thirties. I am just trying to take it all in.”

“Cathy, neither one of my wives had more than a high school education. Both marriages lasted nineteen years. I don’t expect you to function on my level even with your education. But the truth is that we just met a few days ago. The time we have had together has been great. Just relax and don’t try to look too far ahead. All we ever have is ‘now’ anyway. We can talk about it later. Right now I am the freak show that has come to town and all this is refreshing to me. So everyone comes away with something, you see?”

“Don’t worry, I am not going anywhere right now,” she said. “I have a front row seat to the most dynamic man I know,” Cathy smiled, squeezed my arm and reached up and kissed me on the cheek.

Jeremy arrived with his friends and I started to slide out of the booth to get up.

“Don’t get up, John,” Jeremy said.

I relaxed back into my space and Cathy moved closer to me to make room for someone to sit next to her, which it seemed would be Jeremy’s female friend Francois. I smiled because she moved closer to Cathy than necessary in what I felt was a claiming move.

“John, this is Rene, Henri and Francois,” Jeremy said.

I reached out to shake each one of their hands as they were introduced.

Francois sat next to Cathy and Rene and Henri took the seats across from me with Jeremy at the end of the booth. As the evening went on, I realized that Jeremy was the host and his end position allowed him to get up and take care of our needs. It also became obvious that Jeremy was going to pay for everything and this appeared to be a habit when he got together with his friends.

I could also see that Jeremy had a wide circle of friends by the number of people he acknowledged in the restaurant as the evening progressed. No one needed to do anything. Jeremy kept the drinks coming (coffee, wine, beer, soda water) and kept appetizers on the table until we were ready to order dinner about 2000.

“How are you enjoying Paris, John,” Rene asked.

“Well, it has been a non stop ride since I landed; in a wonderful way. The truth is that I love America but I am too liberal to really fit in. Also, living in Texas, that was part of the Confederacy and still part of the Southern Christian Fundamentalist Baptist belt, has been a challenge to me all my life. Most people outside of my business were sure that I was from another planet. I love rural Texas. But don’t try to talk about anything other than the weather, the price of beef, football, soap operas or Jesus in the country. Paris has a world reputation for attracting the radical painters, writers and political exiles and other misfits. I guess I feel akin to all of them in a much less notorious and as yet infamous way. I wanted to come here when Bush was intent on starting a war in Iraq. At that time, I wished I had been in France where people said ‘hold on, let’s not go to war so fast’.”

Everyone was nodding and smiling. I suddenly realized I was twice as old as nearly everyone at the table.

“What kind of businesses were you in, John?” Rene asked.

“Insurance, accounting, tax, law and web design. I have been self employed ninety percent of my adult life,” I replied.

“What are you doing now?” Francois asked.

Francois was an unbelievably beautiful woman and it was hard to think when looking at her; even harder when making eye contact with her.

“A lot of things actually. Business wise I am restarting my web design business but I am also negotiating with Harper Collins with regards to publishing my books; The WorldPeace Advocacy. In fact, I hope to have a decision before I leave here in about ten days,” I said.

“You’ve written books?” Francois asked.

I noticed how Jeremy was allowing his friends to ask the questions. It was like these were all questions he would have asked if we were alone but he seemed to be trying to let his friends arrive at their own opinion about me. He did this by letting them ask the questions. I felt his questions had already been placed in some kind of hierarchy. He was evaluating me in a curious friendly way. I just did not know why. But I understood because I immediately saw we were both alike in how we gathered and processed information. I knew he had to have a keen mind if he was managing his family’s fortune at his age.

“Yes, I wrote 3000 pages last year as I sat in prison, mostly in solitary,” I said knowing this would wake everyone up. Cathy already knew the story because she saw the tattoos on my right shoulder. ‘WorldPeace, U S Army ’70-72’ and Prisoner for Peace Federal BOP ’07-08’ I waited for a moment because this information left everyone speechless. They were trying to figure out how to ask why I was in prison and afraid I had killed someone. That made me smile.

“Yes, I was punished for my only criminal act. I allegedly resisted arrest by a Deputy Federal Marshal on a civil matter. And I let my enemies in the Texas political and judicial systems get some payback for my attacks against their corruption in both arenas. I pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor Federal charge of resisting arrest. The cop that tried to arrest me lied and said I knocked him down and kicked him when I never touched him. But even with a guilty plea and no criminal history, the judge, my enemy from 2002 when I ran for governor of Texas, gave me the maximum sentence of one year in jail. It was wrong but that is Federal justice Texas style.

“I refused to come out of jail without accomplishing something, so I began to write my autobiography almost immediately. I have done a lot in my life. When I finished writing my autobiography I had almost eight hundred pages. I called it The WorldPeace Advocacy 1948-2008. It is a non fiction book.”

“Then I decided to write fictional novels projecting the next forty years of my life. At first, I thought it would be another eight hundred pages. But after thinking about it for a month or so, I realized it needed to be more of an epic with unlimited sequels.”

“There are too many areas of society that politically impact on the level of peace in the world human society. I felt that I would finish the books about the time I was supposed to go to the halfway house in November 2008 to serve my last month in jail. So the last week of May 2008, I began to write The WorldPeace Advocacy 2008-2048 and that would take me up to my one hundredth birthday.

As I spoke, everyone was absolutely quiet. I even noticed that the people in the booth next to us had quit talking as had the people at a freestanding table right behind Francois. I did not think I was talking that loudly. I guessed it was just my Texas accent and not what I was talking about.

“Wow, John, that’s a lot for us to take in. It is hard to imagine writing 3000 pages in less than a year,” Jeremy said.

“Well, consider book one was just my biography and it flowed pretty easily. And consider I had been writing a long time. One thing the practice of law did for me was to teach me how to focus my thoughts. I had been a salesman in all my businesses so between my selling experience and the practice of law, I had developed an effective method for organizing and presenting my thoughts.

“Also, I had been experiencing and studying politics, law and religion most of my life. So I had had the content in my brain. Once I found a way to organize it all, the writing came pretty easy. It was a lot of work physically because I had to write everything the old-fashioned way with pen or pencil on paper. I had no computer or even a typewriter available to me. I could have completed the manuscripts in no time if I had had access to a computer.”

They were all listening with rapt attention.

“And jail is very boring. That is what I realized above everything else. There was minimal harassment from the guards. And I was in a protective custody cell block in Harris County because I had been an attorney and because my son was a sergeant with the Houston Police Department. So I had my own cell. I did not have to share.

“In addition, I realized that had I not been jailed I might have never written the books. Outside jail there are too many distractions. So all I had to do was to write my books and read novels to understand how to put a story together. I also spent thirty minutes to an hour reading the Bible each day. I have a book about the Apostle Paul and one about Jesus in the works. Most of this you can find on my web site at www.johnworldpeace.com.”

Francois spoke up and said she had already been to my website and that is why she came this evening. She wanted to see me in person.

“And so what is your feeling at this point? Did I disappoint you?” I asked looking around Cathy at Francois.

“Really, John, you are too much for someone to define in a short period of time. I was impressed with your art as well,” she said.

“You are a serious painter too?” Jeremy said stunned. “I thought you just dabbled in the creation of art.”

“Yes,” I said. “I have been an artist wannabe all my life. But I really just developed my style in 1986.”

After this exchange, the conversation turned to more personal matters like personal histories and questions about Texas and if I could ride a horse. They could see the Stetson and my cowboy boots. However, I never wore cowboy suits with yokes.

I wanted to leave by 2300. I wanted more time with Cathy. She had called Gigi and asked her to bring some clothes for her to work the next day. She would shower in my hotel room and change when she got to work.

It was obvious that Jeremy and I would talk more and I felt the same with Francois. By the end of the evening she was trying to figure out what my relationship was with Cathy. Francois I intuitively knew was a very artistic and intelligent woman and I began to believe that she knew Jeremy through an association of wealth. They did not flaunt it, but you could see it in the way they carried themselves. I felt that Rene and Henri were like Jeremy’s fishing buddies. Guys he could relax with. I would categorize them as normal people.

Francois seemed to me to be someone who was trying to sniff out what is referred to in Texas as ‘bullshit’. I just smiled. I had heard all these questions before. I had seen all the looks over the twenty-two years since I changed my name to John WorldPeace.

All I really knew for sure was that my excursion to Paris was right on. This would be my new home. I belonged here. I loved it. This place seemed like heaven to me.

We all left about 2300. The meal was wonderful as was the entire evening. I thanked Jeremy and he said he would call me in a few days. He wanted to have an expanded gathering in his home for me but after what he heard tonight, he wanted to visit my website to decide exactly what mix of people he should invite.

Cathy and I caught a cab back to the hotel. When we got into the cab, she pulled me close to her and gave me a very passionate kiss as she moved my hand to her breast.

“I guess this means you are not going to run away and abandon me,” I said.

“Not in this lifetime,” she said.

We went to my room and right to bed and eventually to sleep. I loved the way she felt next to me. I thought of Linda and Rose back in America.

THIRTEEN

I spent the next week walking around Paris and making a few bus trips to see the countryside. Cathy went to work each day but she spent all her time outside of work with me. She did not impose on me or smother me. She just devoted all her free time to me.

I was to leave on Wednesday, April 22, 2009. Jeremy wanted to have a gathering of friends for me on Sunday, April 19th. I had visited him several times after the evening at The Red Dragon Café. He was a very busy young man and I had a lot of exploring I wanted to do before I went back to America. I would be back in five weeks and every four or five weeks after that until I moved to Paris. I hoped that would be by the end of the summer.

Cathy and I had a lot of long conversations about an ongoing relationship. I was honest with her and told her I was seeing two women back in America but did not feel either relationship would develop into a full time husband and wife marriage or anything close. Essentially they were friends with benefits.

Linda and Rose and now Cathy came to understand that I had twice failed at marriage. Granted both marriages lasted nineteen years but in the end both wives left me. I had little real hope that I would find Cinderella at my age and live happily ever after. But at the same time, the only kind of relationship I knew and somewhat understood was a long-term marriage. I never really dated so I did not understand a relationship with a woman who was not a hundred percent connected to me.

I also knew that my future was questionable. I had no idea where I would live or how I would make a living for sure. I was not concerned about making money in my web design business. I was just not sure what I was going to do to integrate the other parts of my life; art, writing and my WorldPeace Advocacy. I did not know if my books were going to be the last non traditional effort I was going to pursue in my life. I felt I was still on my WorldPeace agenda even with all the other chaos around me. I knew I had to finish my books and try to find a publisher if Harper Collins did not pick me up.

This is one of those things in life you have to take on faith. My logic kicked in and I realized that at least for 2008, I was going to be in prison. I had nothing better to do than to write. And I had a great idea for this epic novel, so why not write?

It became clear around the sixth month of being incarcerated, that by the time I left prison, I would have a very set habit in my daily life. I would pray and study each morning. I would have my diet under control, eating better and only at certain times. I would be exercising once every other day. I would write a certain number of pages per day. When I exited prison, I would expand on that routine to include going out to eat, getting into distance horseback riding, join a biking club, go sailing and so on. But all these things would be scheduled into a fixed routine. The reality was that I could see myself relaxing more into a routine that was less hectic than the chaotic life I had been living for four decades.

It was acceptable to Cathy for me to continue seeing Linda and Rose since she could not come to America and stay full time. She even understood that I may become involved for a short time with other women as I traveled the world. But she also knew it was not my nature to achieve any satisfaction with a relationship based on nothing more than sex. She also knew that I would have my home base in Paris and I would be there more than anywhere else. And she knew she was twenty-five and there was no way she intended to marry until she settled into some kind of career probably after age thirty. By that time, I would be almost seventy. And she knew I had no intention of having any more children.

So Cathy and I were taking things day to day. She filled a lot of my emotional needs even though she was so much younger than me. We had a great time when we were together and ignored the people watching an old man and a young girl carrying on like young lovers.

Cathy took care of me in many ways. And unlike the Snake and Kay, she was always coming on to me. With the Snake and Kay both, I initiated sex ninety-nine percent of the time throughout the entire marriage. I came to find out later how empty that had made me feel. Also, Cathy was not afraid to make a decision or give me feedback on something I was considering doing. Neither the Snake nor Kay did that either. I was the husband and they followed me. Both had fathers that expected that and received it from their mothers. I did not realize this until I was in prison and had a lot of time to think about it.

So in the morning, Cathy would leave for work and then I would begin my day of exploring. I enjoyed the outdoor cafes. I met interesting people in these cafes almost every day. After work, I would meet Cathy somewhere or I would just wait for her at my hotel. During my first visit to Paris, I did not meet her parents and I did not meet her at work. That way she kept our relationship secret and avoided any nonsense from family or co-workers.

We also spoke French as much as possible and I studied it for a half an hour or so each day. I wanted to become as fluent as possible as soon as possible.

FOURTEEN

Jeremy had called Cathy at some point and verified that he had set up a gathering for Sunday night at his apartment in Paris. He has invited about ten people expecting five or six to attend. As it turned out, all ten came. The dress was to be casual, and we were to arrive around 1900. Dinner would be at 2000.

Cathy said she had been there several times over the years so I was comfortable that I would dress properly and be given a ‘head’s up’ by Cathy regarding how to not offend my host or his guests.

Cathy was about as close to a shadow as I could have. When she was not at work, she was with me. I was amazed how close we had become in less than a week. It was going to be hard to leave her when I returned to America but she said she had neglected a lot of things since she met me and it would take a month to catch up. By then, I would be back in Paris. She was going to try to have better cheaper accommodations for me when I returned. I was happy to let her take care of it.

Cathy and I had discovered the fact that she would have to give me some space at these gatherings because I did not want any women who wanted to become involved in one of my many WorldPeace endeavors to hesitate to approach me because Cathy looked too possessive. She understood and agreed. Also, she was confident in the truth that I had not come to Europe to have sex with as many women as possible. She saw and began to help me organize the growing amount of paper I was accumulating; despite having a computer. I was collecting as much information as I could because I wanted my eventual move to Paris to be with as little chaos as possible.

A lot of email I received was printed out for different reasons. I had gathered a lot of information on adapting to the French Internet connections and the electrical outlets that were different than those in America. There were a lot of notes I had made with regards to things that Cathy said she would look into while I was gone.

I had not wanted to make this a business trip so I spent much of my time with Cathy having fun and seeing the sites. But she did ask questions about what I was doing and she was becoming more comfortable offering her opinions and suggestions. I found this aspect of our relationship refreshing. The Snake and Kay had never done this. They were both hard workers but not participants in the decision making process on any real issues. This was their choice and had to do with their having been raised in the 1950s when husbands ruled the family.

There was a lot I did not know about Cathy. I had not asked very many questions due to the time constraints. I knew the basics about where she worked and where she lived and so on. She told me that she had been with women sexually; it was not her lifestyle but something that just happened. It did not bother me. I did not ask about it in detail. I thought it may just be part of the Paris culture, where a much more liberal attitude about sex existed as opposed to the attitude about sex that Americans in the mainstream tolerated. I had decided that my next trip to Paris would be for at least two weeks and there was plenty of time to go into many other issues I was wondering about. My main objective on this trip to Paris was to get a feel for the city and to try to determine if I could in fact make it my home. So far, everything looked positive.

I believed that Jeremy was a very valuable contact and that through him I would have a good start at integrating into Parisian society.

We arrived at Jeremy’s at about 1845. He lived in what I would call a condominium in the older section of Paris; older as in 200 years old. Most of the buildings in the area were late eighteenth century. The condo had four-stories with the front door opening up to a set of stairs leading down to the sidewalk in front. He also owned the basement. His housekeeper lived there. Her name was Jean. She was a widow who I estimated to be about fifty. Her children were grown and lived in southern France.

Jeremy traveled a lot and lived alone. Cathy said she thought he had several female companions who lived in various places in France and one in Spain. Jeremy was hard for me to read. He was no doubt a private man in many ways.

It seemed to me that Jeremy had some ideas that he wanted to discuss with me but he wanted to have a cross section of his friends give him their opinion about me first. To Jeremy, as with many people, I was an enigma. I think he just wanted to know if I was for real. I thought that once he read my books, all his questions would be answered. I felt he had paid someone to do a background check on me. The nature of rich Europeans as well as Americans was to be cautious. It was important to know someone’s political preferences and prejudices. It was a dangerous world and someone like Jeremy with a lot of financial responsibilities had to be careful for the sake of his family’s wealth.

I did not discuss this with Cathy because it did not matter. She essentially vouched for him. I did not feel she was one of his closest friends. But he was someone she could call on if in need. I was feeling more and more comfortable with her so I considered her a strong reference for Jeremy.

As paranoid as I had become in America, especially after being wrongfully sent to prison, I did not ignore the possibility that Cathy was with the CIA or some similar European governmental agency. My books were being considered for publication by Harper Collins. I knew they were interested but the books were radical in many areas. Controversy would help sell books but too much controversy could cause trouble.

I believed that Harper Collins like Jeremy was checking me out. I knew the CIA and FBI had been watching me since I changed my name in 1988. There was extreme concern in the West, especially in America, about anyone who looked in any way like a messiah wannabe. That is the main reason I never intended to have an organization of any kind; no followers, disciples or adherents much less any card carrying members of my WorldPeace Advocacy.

Cathy had dressed up more than I had ever seen her before, expensive and revealing clothes and some makeup and a few items of tasteful jewelry. I began to think there was more to Cathy than I had initially thought, like she came from a very wealthy family and that is how she and Jeremy knew each other. I asked if Gigi would be here and Cathy said no. It was like Gigi was not as strongly connected to Jeremy as were Cathy and Francois. Just minor thoughts I had that I felt in time I would have answers to. I was in an unfamiliar city, socializing with people I did not know in a culture that I did not really understand. I stayed moderately paranoid but not fearful. I sent a lot of information to my son Marshall by email just in case I disappeared.

Cathy and I exited our cab. I paid the fare, turned and squeezed Cathy’s hand and gave her a kiss on the lips. We then went up the steps to the door, which opened before I could knock. Jean greeted us and took our coats. I could tell she knew Cathy well. I even thought maybe Cathy and Jeremy were ex lovers. I asked and she smiled and said no. She had a devilish look in her eye.

Only Francois had arrived ahead of us. She and Jeremy were standing by the fireplace, each with a glass of wine, when we came in. They both walked toward us. I shook Jeremy’s hand and as he gave Cathy a hug, Francois gave me a stimulating hug as well and a kiss on the cheek. She had a more relaxed air about her than she had displayed at the Red Dragon.

“How has your stay in Paris been, John?” Francois asked.

“Actually, it could not be better,” I said. “I had no idea things would go so well considering that I did not know anyone when I arrived. I have accomplished much more than I expected. A lot of that has to do with Cathy. Because of her, all the mundane things like where are the most significant tourist attractions, how to act in Paris indoors and out and where the best cafes are located and help with menus and street signs, etc. She has been wonderful. She has made me feel at home and comfortable here,” I said.

“Wow,” Francois said with an interesting look on her face as she maintained eye contract with me.

Cathy said nothing.

“My second ex wife, Kay, and I moved from Houston to Colorado in 1993,” I said. “We had a couple thousand dollars in our pocket, no place to stay, no jobs, no friends or family there. We just packed up and left after selling and storing our personal things. When we arrived in Colorado, everything just fell into place. We found a nice apartment within a few days. Kay found a job immediately and during our three year stay there she had five jobs all within a block of our apartment. In fact, that experience made it easier for me to come to Paris under almost the same circumstances. I felt I would meet the people I was supposed to meet and the rest would take care of itself. I guess the same was sort of true when I was stationed in the Army in Vicenza, Italy, in 1971. When my first wife came over, an Italian soldier named Tony took us under his wing, found us an apartment on the economy and made us feel welcomed in Italy.”

“Wow,” Francois repeated.

“Yes, when a person is on his or her path or destiny things happen. In fact, it is a way of confirming that you are on the right path. I feel certain now, that Paris is where I was supposed to come and establish myself and launch this phase of my life,” I said.

“You are an amazing man,” Francois said.

“Not really. I just have very little fear and a boundless amount of faith in the future and in God.”

“Well said,” responded Jeremy.

“What would you like to drink?” Jeremy asked.

“I think I would like some coffee to get this chill off my bones,” I replied.

“Is it cold in here?” Jeremy asked.

“No Jeremy, it is just fine. I am just cold natured. A cup of coffee will make things just fine along with that nice fire,” I said as I moved toward the fireplace.

“And you, Cathy?” Jeremy asked.

“I will have some red wine, thank you, Jeremy,” she said.

Jean, who was standing by, attended to our requests without Jeremy saying a word to her.

The apartment was very nicely furnished with French antiques, paintings, rugs and so on. I felt like I had stepped back in time; two hundred years.

“This is a very nice home you have, Jeremy,” I said as my eyes moved around the room.

“Thank you, John. My mother took care of decorating most of it. She used to live here. When she moved, she took some things with her and then replaced them with other things. It feels good to me,” Jeremy said with pride. “My office is very contemporary, so I feel like I am connected to the historic and modern France through my home and office.”

“It feels very comfortable,” I said.

“There is not much history in America compared to Europe,” I said. “That is what I love about coming to Paris. The fact that it is a very old city and you can see that history everywhere. History is destroyed on a regular basis in America. Neighborhoods that are less than a fifty years old get scrapped house by house as the property values rise. Most of the history is in the rural areas but even there it only amounts to old farmhouses that are rotting away.

“In another fifty years, most of them will be collapsed due to the weather. Even in the heart of the city, relatively new buildings are demolished and new buildings put up. Very few things are as ornate as what you see in Europe. Most of the buildings are pretty boring. I love the sense of history I feel here in Paris.”

Jean returned with a coffee tray and proceeded to serve me. I thanked her.

“So who are you expecting this evening, Jeremy. Are these business people, artists, peaceniks?” I asked with a smile.

“Well most of them are long time friends who I wanted to meet you. People who I think are in harmony with your experiences and philosophy based on the things we have been discussing,” he said.

“I want to thank you for sharing your friends with me, Jeremy, and making me feel welcomed in Paris,” I said sincerely.

“John, I think we have a lot in common. I believe we have similar philosophies. Most Americans I talk to are pretty conservative. I was very interested in talking to someone as liberal as you. I did not know there were any liberals in Texas,” he said as he smiled.

“Well there aren’t any there now because I am here,” I said and we both had a good chuckle.

“I have some books that I hope to finalize into a publishing deal with Harper Collins in a few weeks. It is one epic with many volumes, some written and some in my head. The first eight hundred pages are basically my autobiography. When you read that, if you have the time, you will know about all there is to know about my past. It is pretty candid, I think.”

“Really, you have written that much,” he said with an incredulous look on his face.

“Yes,” I said.

“What are your other books about,” he asked.

“The first part is my autobiography as I said. It is titled, ‘The WorldPeace Advocacy 1948-2048’. There are a dozen themes running through it: peace, politics, justice, religion are the core themes. There is love and romance and family matters in it as well. Then there is also my prison journal that I think I will call The WorldPeace Advocacy Prison 2008. Then there are two completed novels centered on a peace story line. I would classify them as political suspense novels. I feel certain that I can write an unlimited number of these novels in a series that will continue as long as my life.”

“You were in prison last year,” Francois asked with a stunned look on her face.

“Yes, I was in prison for peace. That is what I tell everyone. Technically, I was charged with a misdemeanor resisting arrest based on the affidavit of a lying Deputy U.S. Marshall named David Pyka who said I knocked him down and kicked him. The reality is that I served a year because I am John WorldPeace. Anyone else would have received a lighter sentence. I should have not been in jail but for a couple of weeks were I not John WorldPeace. I have no criminal record other than this incident, no history of violence, no arrests, no indictments, nothing. I had a problem with the Federal judge assigned to my case when I ran for governor of Texas in 2002 and he gave me the max sentence of one year. It is what you call Texas justice,” I said with a laugh.

“Amazing,” she said.

“Francois, had I not been jailed, I would have not written my books I think. The boredom in jail for someone like me is the real punishment. Out of that boredom came the books; a positive thing,” I said as I took a sip of my coffee.

No one spoke. Of course, Cathy already knew the story of my imprisonment. I assumed she had already told Jeremy but I think I was wrong about that.

“The judge actually gave me my peace credentials. Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, the Apostle Paul, all went to jail and all wrote in jail. So I now consider myself a bona fide advocate for peace,” I said.

Jeremy and Francois were still silent. So I continued.

“The second phase of the epic are fictional novels that project forward the rest of my life as a peace advocate. In those books, I weave together story lines about increasing the peace in the world human society and specific issues that impact on peace, like divorce, global warming, politics, justice, religion, genetics and so on. Actually about fifty peace related issues. I tried to make the novels interesting reading by telling stories as opposed to preaching. It turned out to be an epic story in the making. At least that is how the potential publisher refers to it,” I said.

I could tell by the look on his face that Jeremy was caught completely off guard.

“So you see, Jeremy, I am not just some burned out hippie who changed his name to WorldPeace. I have a very deep intense commitment to increasing the peace in the world human society. I feel my first sixty years were just training for this part of my life,” I said.

“John, I really want to read your books,” Jeremy said.

“Hopefully the publishing deal will be closed shortly and I can pass out copies,” I said.

“Is there any way I could see a copy sooner than that,” he asked. I could see his mind processing the things I had just related.

“I don’t know. There are all kinds of decisions being made on how to market the books. They seem to want to bring one out every six months or so. They don’t want anyone to see the entire story. I can discuss the contract but they really want to keep the negotiations confidential until we have a deal,” I said.

Jeremy seemed speechless.

“Jeremy, the most obvious is the most hidden,” I said with a smile.

“What do you mean?” asked Francois.

“Well, a real radical revolutionary like me hides behind what appears to most to be a frivolous name change,” I said.

“Oh,” she said deep in thought.

“This is no ordinary person you are dealing with,” I said still smiling.

“Obviously not,” said Jeremy still in a minor state of shock as he looked at Cathy who acted like she did not notice his stare.

About then, the other guests began to arrive; Richard, 25, an MBA and student, Ryan, 35, an insurance salesman, Sam, 45, a Chemical Company VP, Will, 30, an Engineer, Ann, 30, an Architect, Melanie, 22, a student and Otto, 48, an art dealer.

The conversation was casual through dinner, which was over about 2100. I was not able to find out exactly how everyone was related to Jeremy or each other. But about two thirds appeared to know some of the other guests. Everyone knew at least one of the others.

After dinner, everyone went into the living room with the fireplace; some with coffee, some with liqueur. Chairs were arranged around the fireplace. I was directly opposite the fire with chairs extended to my left and right toward each end of the large mantel. A few people stood and a few sat on the floor.

Jeremy asked me to repeat what we had been talking about when the guests began to arrive. I did as he asked. The reaction was varied. Cathy stood behind me holding on to the back of my chair. It felt like a protective posture to me. As before, around a group of people she stood near me and said little. She seemed to be watching everyone.

“My core philosophy is that the best way to increase the peace in the world human society is through jobs,” I said. “It is more efficient than funneling money through charities. People have all kinds of secular and religious institutions that hand out charity but nothing gives someone as much peace as being able to support himself or herself and providing for their families. Providing jobs also helps to integrate the world human society economically and I believe that the sooner the world is economically dependent globally, the sooner wars between nations will end. You don’t tend to kill your suppliers or your clients. So let people in the Third World produce goods and services for the First and Second Worlds and use the profits to create more jobs in the Third World. This is what I am trying to do as I restart my web design business. I will build web sites in the Philippines and sell them in America. I really hope to be able to employ Palestinians in the near future in order to move money into their economy.”

“John, you really have a large agenda. You want to coordinate the peace organizations to create WorldPeace beacons, murals, shrines all over the world, travel promoting your books, and so on. Don’t you think you would be better served by limiting your agenda?” asked Otto.

“I may have to do that, but I have no wife or children or family really. I stay busy eighteen hours a day. So I think I can keep all these projects moving forward. Most of them are based on very simple concepts. I just have to find the right people to take charge of the various endeavors. Then I will manage the VPs and managers through daily reports. I expect to have about three or four personal assistants. I don’t expect anyone to work eighteen hour days, seven days a week as I do,” I said.

“I don’t know anyone who works that much,” Sam said. “And I know a lot of CEO’s.”

“Sam, the key is loving what you do. And for me it is a matter of shifting gears during the day to keep things interesting and my mind stimulated and excited. I may work on my web design business for ten hours and then move to communicating with various peace groups. My work is my joy. I have set up a plan that is perfectly tailored to my personality. So I don’t feel like I am working. My personal assistants will keep me organized so I do not waste too much time,” I said.

“I notice most of your intended employees are women,” Francois said.

“That is true,” I said. “The reason is simple. Women are undeniable second class citizens in the world human population and I want to help empower them to rise up to a truly equal status with men. It is a significant WorldPeace issue. The masculine mindset that dominates the planet is a big cause of conflict and disharmony in the world. When half of the world’s politicians and executives are women, the feminine side of the world human population will temper and balance the masculine side and the peace in the world human society will increase significantly because there will be balance. And I would like to add, I want women to be free to be women and not have to succeed by acting like men,” I related.

“Well, it makes people wonder about you creating a harem,” Francois said in all seriousness.

“There is some truth to that. But I can’t give that misconception any energy. People are always there to criticize no matter what. One of the reasons I did not emphasize sex too explicitly and in too much detail in America is because people there have a lot of sexual hang-ups and taboos. It is unfortunate. One extreme is the gay issue. Another issue is that the Apostle Paul promoted the second-class nature of women. Another is an anti polygamy bias which carries over to single men like myself. Sex is a volatile and deep rooted emotional issue in America.

“That being said, we still have the reality that women are second class citizens all over the world and I feel changing that one bias just a bit will change the world society into a more peaceful reality; more than any other issue. And it is the easiest one to change. Just open up all jobs to women if they are qualified and give them equal pay. I am even radical enough to advocate women fighting in the field as infantry soldiers. Very little combat is hand-to-hand anymore. If a woman can perform as well as a man in training and she wants to be in the infantry, then let her have that career. Making it work would be a challenge but virtually everything in the world human society now is a challenge. Things are moving very fast,” I said.

“So how are you going to begin?” Ann asked.

“First, I have to move here to Paris. I can no longer live in the United States. I need to be here in Paris where there are more people like me as far as my liberal mindset. I know that all of Paris is not liberal. But overall it is much more so than America. You have no idea what it has been like for me to find almost no one to talk to where I have lived. And even though there are some, there are not enough to really accomplish much. I believe that here in France, I can connect with others like myself and I can feel like I belong here. Who knows, I may be too radical for even Paris,” I said to almost everyone’s chuckles.

“There is no doubt that I am not in sync with most people. But I am absolutely committed to the idea that we can increase the peace in the world human society. That is what I am about and I have dedicated my life to it. I know of no other city on the planet that is better suited to send out messages of peace and WorldPeace. There is no other intellectual city like this in the world. Why do so many governments in exile come to Paris? Because here they find a receptive and supportive population.

“I have a global mission; a WorldPeace mission, a WorldPeace Advocacy. You tell me where else can I go to establish a home base to better pursue my mission. What other city is better suited? America would seem like the place but I am an American and I know that America cannot disengage from it elitist mindset and embrace true peace. An American peace is a Christian peace. And a Christian peace will never manifest WorldPeace.

“You know I really did not expect to be having this conversation at this time. I came to Paris to find a place to live and work. I really did not expect to have this conversation with people like yourselves this soon after my arrival.

“I feel handicapped because I have my books at a potential publisher right now and I therefore cannot pass out copies of what I have written. I can talk about the content, but the books cover so much. And the books show how my ideas all come together into a working model for increasing the peace in the world human society. It would be nice if I could give each of you one of my books and we could meet again in a month to discuss them. But I just cannot do that.”

“What can we do now?” Francois asked.

“I guess I would say to help me meet others who you feel are interested in supporting and participating in a peace agenda on a global scale. I am willing to meet at any time or in any place. Much of what I expect to do will come about as I have discussions just like I have had tonight. I have no perfected agenda. No one has tried to do what I am trying to do. There is no template.

“I am trying to get people to see each other as human beings first and this or that race, nationality, religion and gender second if at all. That is a radical idea. Human beings rely on their group associations to define and distinguish themselves from others. I want people to release their distinguishing and judgmental attitudes. I want them to acknowledge that when you don’t distinguish race, religion, nationality and gender we are all just human beings doing the best we can; trying to live in peace and enjoy our families and provide for them. People everywhere love their children. That is what we all must acknowledge about every parent in the world. Then we have taken the first step toward a more sane and harmonious society.

“There will never be a perfect peace because of change. Everything in this reality changes. Whatever manifests eventually disintegrates. That includes rocks and it includes every human organization. So there will never be a perfect peace. If the Christians think about if for a minute they would realize that a heavenly peace would be a resurrection of granite or marble statutes. This would be a heaven of perfect peace. But if God raises human bodies and reconnects their souls such that the risen humans, now residents of heaven, can think, then heaven will be just a more dynamic earth. The Bible discusses wars in heaven. Satan rebelled. Heaven it seems may not be a totally peaceful place.

“The point that I am making is that I am fully aware that a perfect Jesus peace will not happen on earth without Jesus. I am not Jesus, so I am not advocating that. What I am advocating is that we can increase the peace in the world human society. We can make the world more peaceful in thousands of ways. We can change the family law and the criminal law. We can make people know that you cannot successfully make war in the name of God. We in the advanced economic nations can quit exploiting the Third World unfairly and unjustly. And on the most basic level, we can refrain from making negative personal statements to each other. If everyone just held their tongue once a day with family, friends or co-workers, the level of peace in the world human society would undeniably increase immediately.

“One of the realities I had to acknowledge when I was in my mid fifties was that there are people who given the opportunity to do the right or wrong thing with absolutely no consequence to themselves, will choose to do the wrong thing. And there is nothing so tragic as to know right and not do it. All human beings have a soul and they each know right from wrong. But on earth the acts of the soul through the human body are so often corrupt. Humans look out for themselves first and that is a very positive thing but it usually degenerates into a very negative thing. I don’t like to use the word ‘evil’. I prefer to say that people are confused in the manifestations of this reality in that they believe that this finite life we live is more important than the life of our infinite immortal souls.

“So even though I advocate peace, it is a practical peace and not a messianic peace. I fully understand the confusion in the human society that creates so much unnecessary pain and suffering.

“My goal is to present something, inject some words of truth and wisdom into the world human society, that will have the effect of permanently increasing the peace no matter how marginally.

“Yet, know this, all that really matters to me is that at the end of my life, as I am drawing my last breath, I can at least say I tried; that I tried to increase the peace. That is how simple my goal is. I chose this WorldPeace Advocacy twenty-two years ago because I knew it was the most difficult undertaking possible. I knew it was the only truly worthy goal for me. I knew that almost any other goal I focused on, I could achieve. Most human goals are about wealth, power and sex.

“When I was eight years old, I realized that I had an innate determination to make a difference in the world. When I was about to turn forty, I realized my vehicle would be to advocate peace as a way to make a difference.”

I allowed a moment of silence as I took a sip of my coffee. No one spoke.

“I can see I have everyone spellbound,” I said with a smile. “Let me shut up and see if anyone has any questions. I feel like a college professor trying to foist some lessons on you. I don’t want to sound preachy and I surely don’t want to bore you to death.”

Everyone was silent and so I waited. Then I asked Cathy if she would make me another cup of coffee from the tray Jean had left. That broke the tension and several people headed for the bathroom but still no one spoke.”

Then Francois said, “Wow” and everyone laughed.

“I think wow is an understatement,” Jeremy said. “What I am thinking is that you have only revealed a very small fraction of what is apparently in your epic; what your WorldPeace Advocacy is really about.”

“Well, I have been hitting some of my core global issues. But yes, this is just the basics of what I have written,” I said with a smile.

For the next thirty minutes everyone refreshed himself or herself and began talking to each other. This group was more cohesive than I realized. I began to believe that they had known each other a long time and had regular gatherings to discuss these kinds of issues. I asked Cathy about it and she said I was right but there were no set meeting dates. Jeremy would just call everyone together periodically.

I hugged Cathy lightly and without thinking kissed her on the lips. The room went silent. Nothing was said but later on when everyone was leaving, Francois kissed me on the lips and I kissed her back.

“Does anyone have any questions?” I asked.

After a half a minute or so, Jeremy said, “John, we are all a bit stunned. We are trying to process all you have said. Please continue if you like.”

“Jeremy, I like to talk and I love to answer questions, especially ones that challenge the coherence of my philosophy. So please if anyone has a question, just ask. In the meantime, I will rattle on a bit more.

“First, you have to realize that if we were in America all of you would have left after the first fifteen minutes. This is what is interesting to me; that you are all still here and attentive. And for that, I thank you.

“In the beginning, I realized there were two ways to become an instrument of peace as St. Francis of Assisi requested in the poem wrongly attributed to him.

“One, I could because a priest or minister or monk and pray for peace and help people work their way through difficult times peacefully. This seemed to be a vicarious approach to things and after millennia had not really made that much difference.

“So I took the second path. That path was one of practicing law, running for political office and confronting the church. I have a political science degree and I ran for governor of Texas in the Democratic primary in 2002. I obtained a law degree and practiced for twenty years and then challenged the State Bar’s corruption and lost my law license in 2003. In religion, I have interpreted almost all the primary sacred texts of the world’s major religions and I have sued the Presbyterian Church on behalf of my mother. So in the key areas that have a mandate to increase the peace in the world human society, I have the formal education and some experience with reality. In a word, I look for answers as to why there is no peace by being engaged in conflict as a participant. So I have learned a few things and my books relate what I have found to be true in these areas with regards to conflict fomentation and resolution.

“I have been impressed with Joseph Campbell’s book ‘The Hero with a Thousand Faces’. It is about people like me who go where angels fear to tread. They go on what conventional wisdom says is a fool’s journey. Yet what often happens is where the fool expected death he finds life and enlightenment.

“Now once the fool returns, one of his choices is to tell his story; to tell what he found in the deep dark forest where smart people choose not to journey. And that is what I have chosen to do with my books.

“I have been on the path of my WorldPeace Advocacy for twenty-two years and I have learned a few things.

“Now there really must be some questions,” I said.

“When are you going back to America?” Otto asked.

I laughed and was joined by others.

“My first invitation to go home,” I said to more laughing and an embarrassed Otto.

“I am leaving on Wednesday, the twenty second. I will return in about four and a half weeks,” I said. “I have accomplished much more than I expected on this trip thanks mostly to Cathy. I have to leave Wednesday because my tickets are non refundable and can’t be changed. But more importantly, I have a lot of loose ends to tie up back in America. I have about three to four more months of things to do before I can move here. I have to put everything in order. I have to decide whether to maintain two apartments, one here and one there or if I will be spending so little time there that it would be better to stay with my mother or father when I am in America. I am sure I will go back to America every five or six weeks as long as my parents are alive,” I said.

“When do you think you will be able to let us see a copy of your books?” Melanie asked.

“I think the first volume which is basically my autobiography will be available within a month. I am not sure. So many things are printed and copied now and the publisher wants to protect the income stream as much as they can. It may be possible for me to bring a copy with me when I return and if you are interested, if anyone is interested, you could come to my hotel room and read it there. I feel that would be OK. I am sure I will carry a copy with me to edit the next time I come.

“I want other people to read it so I can have some feedback. The universal themes in the books are such that they should sell worldwide. So I would like to get an idea what the French think about them and I am sure the publisher would be interested in that feedback as well. Sorry, as per usual, I probably just told you more than you wanted to know.”

“No, not at all,” Ann said. “I want to read them myself. I feel I already know you but I would like to read the details.”

Ryan and Michael said they wanted to read it as well.

“What about the rest of the books?” Jeremy asked.

“The big questions seems to be whether the publisher is going to divide the second part, the novels, into four or five volumes or not. They would sort of serialize them, publishing a volume every six months. They feel that would dramatically increase the sales. They are not inclined to publish everything I have written all at once. Also, serializing the books would keep me on a promotional tour for about three years. That appeals to me because I look at the books really as a door opener to peace groups, politicians and other groups of people all over the world who are receptive to talking about peace. As each volume comes out, there will be sub tours as the books are published in different languages.”

“So they have really decided to go forward with publishing. They are now working on a very complex marketing plan,” said Jeremy.

“Yes, that is true I think. Most of the time they don’t get this many books from an author all at once. They test the market with the first book and then gauge the market for a sequel. In my case, I have already written several sequels.

“Another thing is that these books are unique because they begin as non fiction and then shift to fiction. Yet even the fictional books will seem like non-fiction. They also think I will win a few literary awards and that will further drive sales. In some ways, it gives me a headache. But all these dynamics will effect how much I make from the books and small decisions now can potentially turn into significant money later. It is just hard to project all this out because there really is no precedent for what I have written. They have also come to a believe that I will do well promoting the books.”

“I agree with that,” said Francois. “You certainly have all of us very eager to read you books.”

“I hope I did not come off as a book salesman this evening. But the truth is the books are a revelation of me and my life. It is the me I have always been but more importantly it is the me I want to be over the next forty years,” I said. “I want to give people a workable vision as to how to increase the peace in the world.”

“You do not come across as a salesman, John,” Jeremy said. “We can all see you are committed to increasing the peace in the world.”

“There is one more unique aspect of the books,” I said. “You see, part two is about the future, essentially year by year. But as the future unfolds, I will be writing an annual supplement to the non fiction first part. Over the next forty years we will see how close my reality matched my fictional future. The sequels to my autobiography I guess will be more of a journal. Maybe titled ‘The Adventures of John WorldPeace’,” I said with a chuckle.

“Now I begin to see the challenge for the publishers. What you just said makes this a very unique project,” said Jeremy thoughtfully.

“Yes, all I have to do is live another forty years,” I said.

“John, I can’t imagine the world without you,” said Francois.

“Thank you, but I can assure you there are a lot of people who will try to call me the antichrist and others who will want to harm me or just kill me because I am different. That has already happened more often than I like to admit,” I said.

“Really?” said Ann.

“Yes, but to counter the negativity foisted on me, I tell people I have no organization, no followers, no adherents, no disciples and if they read my books carefully and what I have written, they will see that I am really suspicious of all organizations. So I will not be creating another world bureaucracy. I do not advocate that anywhere in my writing. So I refer them to the Book of Revelation and point out that I don’t fit the profile of a bureaucratic antichrist,” I said.

“What is the connection between you and the antichrist?” asked Francois.

“Well, it seems to be a belief among fundamentalist Christians that the antichrist will gain power by advocating WorldPeace. Which is what I am doing,” I said.

“I see,” she said.

“That means you could be in constant danger from some lunatic,” she said.

“Yes,” I said. “I think anyone who challenges conventional wisdom and traditions and religions and governments is subject to danger. When it runs so close to what two billion Christians believe about the antichrist, it makes things a bit tricky. But I don’t worry about all that. I have little fear and infinite faith. I have no fear of death. I realized that when I almost died of a heart attack in 1997. But I want to finish my work before I die and that work will take forty years, I think.”

Everyone went silent. I knew I had said enough so I said, “Jeremy, friends, I hate to leave but I have a lot to do tomorrow and before I go back to America. So I will ask if Cathy and I can be excused. Thank you all for such a wonderful evening.”

Everyone still seemed a bit dazed as they slowly got up from their places to say goodbye. Everyone was pleasant. I found it interesting that Melanie and Ann hugged me and kissed me on the cheek but Francois kissed me on the lips again. Francois also slipped a business card in my shirt pocket.

Cathy and I left, everyone else stayed. They would be free to talk now that the freak show was over. Sometimes I feel like I am so out of sync with everyone else that I am like a freak in the old Barnum & Bailey Circus. I liked everyone, I hated that I did almost all the talking after supper but I conversed with everyone prior to and during it. This was an example of what I had hoped my life in Paris would be like. I was off to a good start with regards to my intended move to Paris.

I wanted to go to a small café and come down from the evening, so Cathy told the cab driver the name of some café.

“What did you think about tonight?’ I asked Cathy.

“I think you know it was a complete success. Not only for you but for everyone there as well. I overheard nothing but positive things as I moved around during the evening. Everyone seemed fascinated but after dinner I saw you really touch these people. Maybe touch is not the right word; made them think. You challenged their realities. You opened their eyes. I was impressed at how you controlled the after dinner discussion,” she said.

“Really?” I asked.

“I think every day you touch me more deeply,” she said. “I am becoming more attached to you. Each day it has been harder to leave for work than the day before. I have been attracted to you from the first time I saw you,” she said.

“Why don’t you tell the cab driver to take us back to the hotel,” I said.

This pleased her. She gave the cabbie the name of our hotel and then sat back leaning close into me and holding my arm tightly.

She looked into my eyes and said, “I think your life is about to change more than you ever imagined.”

I said nothing. But I agreed with what she said. Nothing much was said until we entered the hotel room. As soon as we entered the room, we both embraced and kissed like we had just come up from a deep dive with our lungs screaming for air.

We made love more intensely, more deeply and more passionately than anytime since we had met. I did not know what was happening here. I just knew that she was twenty-four and I was leaving within forty-eight hours. I knew we would have to define our relationship logically before I left. I was still confused as to what I wanted and needed out of a relationship. I had been married for thirty-eight years of the forty-two years of my adult life and I knew I was not going to get married again. I know that the thought of giving my all to one woman again scared the hell out of me. This was the one area of my life that I had been unable to define even after a year in prison; even considering that Kay had left me nine months before that.

We fell asleep and as far as I know we did not separate all night. We slept in each other’s arms. She was taking possession of me and I was scared but not resisting.

FIFTEEN

We both awoke about 0700 the next morning. I ordered breakfast at 0800. Nothing was said until we finished breakfast. We both knew we had to discuss our relationship.

“Do you think you are falling in love with me?” I asked.

She did not answer immediately but looked into my eyes. “I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t know what is happening to me. I know that I am refusing to allow myself to think about your leaving tomorrow.”

“You already have my heart, Cathy,” I said. “When someone treats me the way you have, even for this short time, it is hard for me not to connect deeply with that person. Yet I have had no success in affairs of the heart. I don’t know why my two wives both left me. They refused to tell me. The Snake is the devil’s daughter and Kay is an angel. But both left me. And it hurt unbelievably. Over the years, I have come to believe they never loved me. They were good wives. The problems with the Snake were all post divorce problems related to her ego due to her abandoning our children.

“I want you in my life but I have nothing to offer you right now. I will not have anymore children because with three of my four children I am a failure. I don’t talk to those three and I have no regrets about it. Those three each literally tried to destroy me in their own way. They are dead to me. And I have no desire to be connected to them. I was not the father to my children that my father was to me and I have not been the grandfather to my grandchildren that my grandparents were to me. So I have little doubt that I would screw up child raising again if I were to try it. Do you understand that?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said. “I know what you say is true. And I thought I wanted children but I am not really sure.”

“You know I have two relationships in Houston. They are significant but they are not full time and never will be. We have an understanding. And they know about each other and there have been times when we were all three together. Do you understand what I am saying?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said not looking up.

I have been honest with you about this since the first night when you and I and Gigi were together,” I said.

“Yes,” she said quietly.

“And you saw tonight that Francois wants to be with me, didn’t you?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said.

“And you know that there will always be women around me, don’t you?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said still not looking up.

“But you also know that I am not looking for another companion. You know that I just take things as they come in this area. You know that two wives have permanently screwed me up psychologically, don’t you? I am damaged in a way that can’t be fixed. I have scars on my heart. I never want to be alone again. So for me, there is safety in numbers but even as I say that, I don’t know what it means,” I said.

“Yes, I know,” she said softly.

“Tomorrow, I leave but before I leave we must come to some understanding. I don’t want to hurt you and I don’t want to not see you again. I am an old man by most people’s standards. So I must leave these decisions to you because you have any future you want waiting for you. So tell me, what does a relationship between you and me look like from your perspective?” I asked.

“John, what do you feel about me?” she asked looking into my eyes.

“Cathy, I am as sexually and emotionally connected to you as I can be. But I am capable of feeling that with other women I think. These intimate feelings for me are compartmentalized. That means that no matter what goes on between us as we work or play together, those intimate feelings are not affected. I know this is hard to understand.

“Women, some special women, are loved by me in the same way a parent should love his or her children. You can have ten children and love them all one hundred percent. Love like that is not proportionate or logical or mathematical. In that scenario, each child does not get ten percent of your love but one hundred percent; a mathematical impossibility,” I said. “Love is not a logical math problem. This is how I relate to women who are special to me.

“Yes, I may prefer one or the other more or less than the others. But that is hard to say because you cannot compare a woman you love to ride horses with to a woman you love to sail with. So each woman is loved in the capacity in which we interact. It is so complicated that I don’t even know what I am talking about,” I said.

“I am as connected to you as much as I have been to any other woman who has become special to me,” I said. “We are connected as strongly as I was to my wives. That is complicated but it is how I feel.

“I know that because of my past I will never put all my love with one woman again,” I said. “Over time, I will have a stronger deeper love with some as opposed to others. But I will never be alone again. That pain of aloneness is carved deep into my heart. So there will always be other women ready to fill the void should anyone leave me. But don’t take that to mean I need a hundred women to feel secure. A few will be very close to me, a few fairly close and others will be there who can count on me and me on them and whose company I enjoy when we are together,” I said.

“And there will be women like Francois always. I will see where things go with her. But that does not mean they will go anywhere at all. I may never be in a position to connect with Francois,” I said.

“You also have to understand I met you and Gigi because I knew no one in Paris. But if I had been in America, I would have been with Linda or Rose or both. I would not be out looking for someone else.

“At the same time, I will be more socially active than I have ever been in my life because of the book tours and the WorldPeace Advocacy and hiring women to work in my web design business. So there will be continuous encounters with women but only in a small percentage of those situations will there be intimacy. But I will never devote as much time to seeking women as I do working at my business and my WorldPeace endeavors.

“I believe this is why my two marriages ended with the Snake and Kay leaving me. I loved what I was doing more that they felt that I loved them. And the businesses did not provide the money and security they demanded to be guaranteed.

“Now I have an even more focused agenda. You have seen how I was last night. Think about an endless string of meetings on all kinds of subjects all over the world. You may always be present but you will not have my full attention. Yet we will go many places and do many things. You can become a part of many of these endeavors if you chose to do so. I will always be open to hearing what you have to say. You will never be bored with me.

“I have learned that for me, it is critical to be absolutely candid with a woman up front. No lies, no hidden agendas. Ask me and I will tell you anything just like now. Any person generally, and specifically any woman I am intimate with, will always know exactly where she stands. I believe there are plenty of women in the world who desire to have a relationship on the terms I just related.

“The number one reality is that I have used up the future that you have before you; the future of a loving husband, children and happily ever after. I lived that future and it is now in my past. I am not so foolish as to try to live it again in order to do a better job. I lived it and it is what it was.

“I will never sleep alone by choice. But I will not pick up just any woman for a one-night stand. I get nothing out of that. I must feel an emotional connection or I will not become intimate with a woman. I am sorry to unload sixty years of relationship reality on you after just eight days. But there it is. Surely you have a good feel for me from our conversations, my conversations with others and even from seeing me with Gigi. And by the way, Gigi and I would not have connected except for you. One on one, Gigi and I would not have connected. I am not sorry it happened with her and it may happen again but she and I alone would not have had a strong enough connection to become intimate.

“When you and I are together and alone, you will have all of me. But you will never have all of me all the time. Again it is not other women but my destiny that I perceive that defines the relationship between you and me.”

“I am staying,” she said as she moved toward me after dropping her robe. She wrapped her arms around me and kissed me deeply. “I am staying,” is all she would repeat as she pulled me toward the bed.

SIXTEEN

About 1300 Cathy and I got out of bed, showered and dressed. The plan was to tour Paris for the rest of the day and the evening. I wanted to use the map I had purchased and take a taxi to the various places I had marked on the map so I would have a working knowledge of the city to study when I got back to America.

Cathy and I had a fantastic time just seeing the sites, stopping here for a coffee and there for an ice cream and somewhere else for a piece of very rich chocolate candy. Paris is a magical place. We went to the Eiffel tower of course but did not ride the elevator to the top. We decided that would be on the next tour when I returned to Paris.

Cathy brought along her digital camera as usual. She had taken a thousand pictures over the last week, including some at Jeremy’s last night. I was gong to have a lot of memories to review when I arrived home.

Cathy really is a joy and a pleasure. It was almost springtime in Paris and love was definitely in the air.

About 1600 Cathy received a call from Francois. She gave me the phone. Francois had been to my art web site and was excited about what she had seen. She and Otto, Jeremy’s art dealer friend, had talked last night and he seemed to be interested in seeing what kind of art I created. He and Francois were not in business together. Francois wanted to talk to me and she wanted Cathy and I to meet her at a condo that she and her parents owned. They rented it out during tourist season. I agreed after asking Cathy if we had anything else on the agenda to which she replied, “No.”

I gave the phone back to Cathy to get directions and so on. As it turned out, Cathy had been to the apartment and remembered its location well. When I asked her what is was like she just smiled and said, “You will see.”

We were supposed to rendezvous at 1900.

“You know Francois wants a piece of you,” Cathy said to me with a smile.

“Was it those two kisses on the lips last night that clued you in on that?’ I asked.

“Yes, and some things she said about you and some things she asked me,” she said.

“Really, like what?” I asked.

“Dr. WorldPeace, don’t act so naïve around me,” Cathy said with a smile. “I think she is too old at thirty-five to give me any competition.”

When we were at the party last night the question came up as to what people called me. I said that most just called me John. Informally most called me WorldPeace. Jeremy suggested that I should use the name Dr. WorldPeace as much as possible. I have a Doctor of Jurisprudence degree so it is a legitimate title. I doubted that there would ever be a time when everyone addressed me the same way. Personally, I really like being called WorldPeace; most people who did, said it like two words; World Peace.

We arrived back at the hotel about 1730 and began to leisurely play and get bathed and dressed. Cathy said our destination was only about twenty minutes from the hotel. Normally it was about ten minutes but this was Saturday night in Paris she said.

SEVENTEEN

At 1830 the taxi picked us up and we headed for Francois’ apartment. It was evening and the air was chilled and the café lights along the boulevards were all on. There is something magical about Paris. The café lights gave the street a Christmas effect.

After a few minutes, we were traveling down the boulevard next to the Seine. I told Cathy I remembered this place from 1972, when I was here with the Snake, while on leave from the Army. At that time, there were artists on both sides of the Seine selling their creations. She said it was still the same during the day. I suggested that we have a walk along this area in the morning. My plane did not leave until 1630 tomorrow afternoon. She said she was all for that.

The cab pulled over and stopped in front of an apartment. I asked, “Francois has an apartment on the Seine?”

“Yes,” Cathy said.

“I think your friend has a lot of money,” I said.

Cathy smiled.

I paid the taxi driver and we walked up to the apartment and rang the bell. Within a minute Francois opened the door.

I felt like I had stepped back into the eighteenth century. The apartment was amazing. There were very real and very expensive antiques, furniture, paintings, oriental rugs and so on everywhere. I had no idea how much the rental was but I thought of that saying ‘If you have to ask the price, then you can’t afford it’.

Francois hugged and kissed Cathy lightly on the lips and then took her coat. She gave me a much more intense kiss and hug and took my overcoat as well. The air smelled of fresh coffee and potpourri. Francois hung our coats on a period hall tree and escorted us into a sort of parlor with gas logs in the fireplace.

“This is a magnificent home, Francois,” I said.

“Thank you,” she said as she excused herself to get the coffee. There was an open bottle of wine on the buffet and the ever-present pastries and chocolates there as well.

Francois returned and made me a cup of coffee. Obviously she had paid attention to how I had asked Jean to fix my coffee the night before.

“I thought we would chat a while and then go to dinner about 2000. The restaurant is just two blocks away and I have reserved a table. The owner is a dear old friend of my family’s,” she said.

“Sounds great to me,” I said.

“So John, you really made an impression last night. Everyone stayed at Jeremy’s for a couple of hours after you two left. They talked about all you said. Everyone is eager to get together again when you return to Paris but I think there will be three times as many people present,” she said.

“Just to hear my Texas accent,” I said.

“Yes, that is it,” she laughed.

“We are a group of old friends with boring lives and you excited all of us talking about WorldPeace and your vision. We want to hear more and we want to help you as much as we can,” she said.

“Really,” I said.

“Yes, really,” she said. “I feel as confident as you that you belong in Paris and so do the others. We are going to put you on the fast track and introduce you to a whole lot of people who can help you. That is if you want our help.”

“I will take all the help I can get,” I said. “I feel energized by all the people I have met so far.

“And by the way, Francois, you look very lovely tonight,” I said, smiling.

“Thank you, Dr. WorldPeace,” she said, returning my smile with an impish wink.

The conversation continued on for another thirty minutes about mundane things. Then we put on our coats and began to walk toward the restaurant. Cathy was on my right and François was on my left. Both women were holding tightly onto my arms and walking very close to me. Francois was quite an elegant woman. She carried herself like someone much older. She said her family had lived in Paris for over three hundred years. I told her I’d be fascinated to hear about her family when she had the time.

It was icy cold to me but the wind was not blowing. None-the-less, I was glad to get inside the warmth of the restaurant. The Blue Canary was its name. It seemed that almost everyone there said hello to Francois. There were not that many tables so I again assumed this was a very exclusive place. Francois said hello to several of the diners as we were escorted to our table. Cathy as usual kept quiet but was totally comfortable in this environment. We were seated in a cozy round booth; Cathy on my left and Francois on my right. Cathy knew I had trouble hearing out of my left hear and had learned to squeeze my arm to get me to turn to be able to hear her. Francois was on my right so I could best hear her. Even with my hearing aid in my left ear, it was sometimes difficult to hear what someone to my left was saying.

Francois had planned this dinner so I relaxed and allowed her to take care of everything. After all the preliminaries were accomplished and the appetizers were brought to the table, Francois settled back and took a sip of wine. She looked over her wine glass and eyed me with a knowing smile.

“John, I find you fascinating, an enigma,” she said as she put down her glass.

I said nothing. I learned many years ago selling insurance that silence was a powerful communication tool.

Still maintaining eye-to-eye contact, she said, “I am trying to figure out your real agenda.”

“The most obvious is the most hidden,” I said. “I am exactly what I appear to be; an advocate for WorldPeace.”

“Are you rich, John?” she asked.

“No, as a matter of fact I am at this moment essentially devoid of any significant assets. But I consider my potential to be great. I have my experience and my education and my health. That is all I need to create any kind of fortune I desire.

“I like your directness,” I said. “I find people who are not afraid to be candid to be the easiest to talk to. But I have also learned not to allow a conversation to be one sided. So, are you rich, Francois?”

“Very,” she said. “As is Jeremy and most of the others you met last night and Cathy also.”

“Really,” I said. “That subject has never come up between Cathy and I so I would not know. And, I might add, I don’t really care.”

“Why is that, John? Everyone cares about money,” Francois said.

“My father’s parents lived on a sixty-five acre farm and raised cotton on another forty acres they rented. They had nothing. They loved each other and were totally committed to each other. They lived a quiet, hard life but raised six children, all who are successful in their own right. I spent a lot of time with my grandparents and I was deeply influenced by them.

“So much of the time I spent in the summer on their farm was spent daydreaming as I walked their land. Inside my head is a wonderfully serene and dynamic memory of that place. My visions and my peace are my true wealth. And it is something no one can take from me. Money has its place and I feel that shortly I will begin to accumulate a lot of it but it will be as a result of me doing what I enjoy doing; doing what I have a passion for and not working for the sake of making money.”

“What do you think about very wealthy people, John?” Francois asked.

“I deal with who people are, not with what they have as a measure of worth in society if you will. Being a kind person attracts me more than being wealthy. Being intellectual and engaged in life is more valued by me than wealth,” I said.

“I see,” she said not believing anything I said.

“One thing we found interesting last night was that you never really talked about money,” Francois said.

“What is there to talk about?” I asked. “I have no organization. I have no need for more than enough money to pay my bills. I have a minimum financial plan that really only includes me. But I hope to create a lot of jobs worldwide. I expect to be very rich. I am going to try to set an example of how a person can create peace in the world in many different ways.

“I am not going to ask anyone to give me money. Not to my organization because I don’t have one. Go to the church you feel comfortable in and contribute there; contribute to whatever charity you feel inspired to support. There is no John WorldPeace charity and never will be I think. As I said last night, virtually all the profit I make from my endeavors will go to creating jobs. So most of my companies will probably never show a profit,” I said.

“My father says that all they teach in seminary is how to beg for money. I don’t want anyone to ever say that about me. I don’t want people to feel uncomfortable when they see me coming because they think I am going to hit them up for some money.”

“These are some pretty unique thoughts and philosophies,” Francois said.

“Well maybe,” I said. “But so far nothing has really made a dramatic impact on increasing the peace in the world human society. The way politics, religion and the law work has created chaos and confusion and pain and suffering more so than peace in the world human society, which is their true mandate. So it is time to try something different. I have some alternative ideas in these areas that I am trying to present. That is all. I am just having a conversation and experimenting with ideas and activities that I think will foster peace.”

“So do you have a question for me?” Francois asked.

“Your questions to a large degree are answers to my questions about you,” I said.

“So you are evaluating me by the questions I ask?” she said.

“Actually no. We are having a conversation in a very nice restaurant. That is all that is going on,” I said.

Francois sipped her wine but continued the intense eye contact.

“My feeling right now is that you decided to find out who I am,” I said. “You probably ran some initial background checks on me starting last night. And now you are looking for the real John WorldPeace.

“For your information, the real John WorldPeace is an intelligent, driven, enigmatic individual who is determined to spend his life trying to increase the peace in the world human society. Right now, I have no distractions; no wife, no children at home. I have no job but I have a web design business that I expect to become the flagship of whatever empire I create. But I will not give up my art or my writing for the sake of building a financial empire,” I said.

“Do you want to fuck me, John?” Francois blurted out.

“Francois, you can’t rattle me with statements like that,” I said. “Just put the games aside and ask me what you want without trying to shock me. May I have a cup of coffee?” I asked.

“Absolutely,” she said as she called the waiter.

“So let’s just start over again,” I said.

“Hello, Francois,” I said as I extended my hand. “My name is WorldPeace. Very nice to meet you.”

She took my hand and said, “Pleased to meet you, Dr. WorldPeace,” never disengaging her stare.

No one said a word for about five minutes. The coffee came. I prepared it and took a sip.

“Very good,” I said.

The silence continued but Francois slowly reduced the intensity of her stare.

“You are very controlled, John,” she said. “But you do turn red and that gives away the fact that you are reacting.”

“Sure,” I said. “I can’t stop my face from flushing. Why don’t you just relax and cut to the chase. What is it that you want to know?’ I asked.

“The question is do you want to fuck me,” she repeated.

“I don’t know. The way you are acting is overpowering your beauty in a negative way,” I said. “So right now, I would say no.”

“So what would make you want to make love to me?” she asked.

“I don’t know. Even after we have a wonderful evening, I may simply not be attracted to you enough to want to make love to you,” I said.

“Fair enough,” she said as her entire demeanor changed.

“I am sorry if I offended you, John,” she said. “It is just important for me to know who and what I am dealing with. I have had a lot of relationships over the years. And I, like Jeremy, am in charge of my family’s assets. So I have become calloused and skeptical especially when I meet someone like you. I want to believe but my experience has taught me to be cautious. I decided last night I needed to find out more about you. I realized that you are extremely intelligent and very in control of everything in your environment. So I decided to bring you to me and then assault you in a non physical way.”

“Why is that important, Francois?” I asked.

“There is no money on the table. Nothing is at stake. Why is it so important to learn about me immediately?” I asked.

“John, my friends and I are all very rich and very well connected. Yet we find that we are not individually as savvy to the ways of very unique people like you. So we gather together and try to come to a community decision about someone like you. Before we go forward with even a casual conversation, we must find out who and what we are dealing with,” she said.

“Again, Francois, I am nobody. So why the effort?” I asked.

“Well John, let me say we have all been expecting someone like you to come into our lives for about ten years,” she said.

“That is interesting,” I said caught a bit off guard. “So now I have to ask Cathy, ‘Are you part of this evaluation?’”

“Normally, I would be but not really in your case,” she said.

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“It means that I have not participated in this evaluation. I have not allowed them to tell me anything about you and I have not told them anything about you or us,” she said.

I could not help but believe the CIA/FBI and who knows who else was behind all of this. I now wondered if meeting Cathy was by chance or by design. So I asked, “Cathy, was our meeting by chance occurrence or are you working for someone?”

“John, it was by chance. I promise you. I had a vision about you as I said. But when you said your name was WorldPeace, I contacted Jeremy. As Francois said, we have been expecting someone like you to come into our lives.”

“Come into your lives for what purpose?” I asked.

“We don’t know except that we all expected someone with a global agenda; and WorldPeace is a global agenda,” she said.

“After meeting you, we all felt maybe you are the one we have been anticipating,” Francois said.

“Have there been others you thought were THE ONE,” I said with a laugh.

“Yes, about a dozen. All wrong but some better con artists than others. But you appear to be the real deal,” she said.

“Why is that?” I asked.

Francois looked at Cathy questioning. “Well, Cathy does not know this but we got a copy of your books right after you left last night. We were amazed that it was five thousand pages just like you said. So we divided it up and we all read most of the night. It blew us all away. John. Really. Your books are astounding. Cathy did not know we did this,” she said.

“Go on,” I said with a serious look on my face. I could not believe these people had a copy of all my books; especially on so short a notice. These people had to be very well connected, I realized.

“Well, since you are leaving tomorrow, we needed some more information. So here we are having dinner,” she said.

“What information?” I asked.

“Just a better feel for you. That is all,” she said.

“If you are real, John, you will have all our support. That is all I can say,” she said.

“I see,” I said. “I think I will have a glass of wine now. Red please, white is too sweet for me generally.”

After Francois ordered the wine, I said, “Francois, I don’t know what I am doing. God is writing the script day to day. There is no template. I know I had to come to France and here I am. That is it. Very simple.”

“What do you mean no template?” she asked.

“There has been no other person named WorldPeace with my background and with a global WorldPeace agenda. Gandhi, King, Mandela, Rabin, the Apostle Paul, etc, all had localized agendas. I have a global advocacy with regards to race, religion, politics, the law and gender issues. I have no mentor or example, saint or hero, to pattern my life after,” I said.

“I understand,” she said.

“Tell me how many of the people I met last night are married,” I asked.

“None right now,” Francois said. “However, most of us have been married at one time or another. Why do you ask?”

“Many times one spouse is for something and the other is against it. In those cases, there can be problems. Have you been married?” I asked.

“Yes, once for ten years. I have a daughter who is twelve. I found I am not the wife type. I have too many interests and too much energy. I don’t think there is a man who can keep up with me,” she said.

“I fully understand that,” I said. “It took me two nineteen year marriages to figure it out though.

“Tell me, what does the composite vision look like with regards to the person that all of you are expecting?” I asked.

“That is an interesting and perceptive question,” Francois said. “We have all had our visions, dreams, feelings at different ages. It was just by accident that we realized this about four years ago. I think Otto brought it up casually one evening. We all were kind of individually at a dead end until we realized we all had experienced the same general visions more or less about someone enigmatic who would come into our individual lives. Then we were really at a loss for words when we realized we had all had this sort of common dream.”

“Interesting,” I said.

“What we seem to agree on is that this person is an American, white, very liberal, very intellectual and has a lot of energy. We thought he would be an artist, writer or lawyer but probably a businessman; definitely anti establishment or anti bureaucratic in many ways but not an anarchist. We all saw a shepherd’s staff but could make no sense of that,” she said.

“I have a monument I made right after I changed my name in the shape of a shepherd’s staff,” I said.

Cathy and Francois both jumped a bit.

“You have a monument in the shape of a shepherd’s staff?” Francois asked, her eyes widening.

“Yes,” I said. “So what else?”

After a moment of silence she said, “Nothing really. We sort of logically inferred that he would be probably be an older man. No one felt we were looking for a female. We could get no feel about money. We sort of expected a marital history and children; someone who looked as if he was living a normal life but was not. We sort of thought he would have been in the military and that he had almost died more than once during his life.

“These kinds of things would come up when we all focused once in a while when we were all together,” she said.

“Anything else?” I asked.

“We got the impression that he wore boots but that confused us because all we could think about was military boots. Then we figured it out last night when we saw your cowboy boots. We would have never associated boots with cowboy boots,” she said chuckling. “No one was expecting a real Texas cowboy.”

I laughed.

“The only other thing we seemed to get was a beacon like a lighthouse. We felt that meant that he lived by the water or maybe was associated with shipping. We have never really written down all the details. I am sure there are some more smaller things,” she said.

“That is really astounding. I am so astounded that I feel like you all did a psychic profile on me personally. All that you have said applies to me,” I said.

“I have been a lawyer and I am a writer and artist and businessman. So you were not looking for one or the other but all in one person. The boots you figured out last night. I always wear them. I was in the Army during the Vietnam era,” I said, “but I served in Italy, not Vietnam.

“When I changed my name in 1988, I wrote a poem called The WorldPeace Beacon. It speaks about me traveling the world creating art to be publicly displayed. Each work of art was to be viewed as a WorldPeace beacon. Over time, that has expanded in my vision to include outdoor murals, sculptures, shrines and so on created by people all over the world; not just me. Beacons are guiding lights. These would be beacons that cause people to think about peace. Public works. All donated,” I related.

Both Cathy and Francois were stunned; speechless.

“Lastly, with regards to the shepherd’s staff,” I said. I drew a picture of the WorldPeace monument on the back of a business card I had in my pocket and then slid it toward them to see.

“I made this in 1988. It is about ten feet tall and made out of steel. I call it the WorldPeace Monument,” I said.

“Oh my God,” Francois said in French.

The waiter at that moment brought us our food.

I could feel Cathy shaking next to me and I saw a tear in her eye. I reached across the table and took her hand.

“Francois, I am having a wonderful evening with two attractive French women. This is my last night here until I return and it has been a very very fulfilling and productive trip. But I have to go home tomorrow afternoon,” I said.

“Paris is your home, John,” she interrupted.

“Yes but I still have to go back to America tomorrow. I want to just enjoy this evening,” I said.

“John, I have to call Jeremy,” Francois said.

“Why not wait until dinner is over and we get back to your apartment. Please,” I said not wanting to break the energy with a phone call.

“OK,” she said. “You are right. It can wait.”

The dinner was great. Neither Francois nor Cathy ate much but I enjoyed everything and I took my time because the food was superb.

Francois and Cathy relaxed. I am sure it was due to the fact that they drank several glasses of wine and hardly touched their meals.

I convinced Cathy to let me tip the waiter and we left the restaurant for Francois’ apartment. The wind had picked up and it was chilling me to the bone. Cathy and Francois held my arms tightly and snuggled in close to me. We were all feeling good.

After we arrived at the apartment and rushed in out of the cold, we headed straight for the fireplace. Francois threw off her coat and came over to me and put her arms around my neck and pulled her body tightly against mine and gave me a deep, passionate long lasting kiss. Then she fell back into one of the chairs in front of the fire.

I bent down and warmed my hands before the fire. As I stood up, Cathy grabbed my arm as she gave Francois a deep intimate kiss. She then took me by the hand and led me up a flight of stairs to a very large bathroom with a hot tub in the corner. Francois was close behind. They began to remove my clothes like two hungry she wolves.

They put me into the hot tub and began to take off their clothes and then got into the hot tub with me. Francois had a perfect body. She pulled close to me and kissed me deeply. She pulled away a bit and whispered softly in my ear like the siren she was, “I want you to make love to me, John.”

Cathy and I and Francois spent an indescribable night together. I remember thinking, So this is France, just before falling asleep.

EIGHTEEN

I woke up at 1000 to an empty bed but I heard Cathy and Francois laughing in the kitchen. I looked around the room and saw a brown cotton bathrobe on the chair next to the door. I used the bathroom, put on the robe and headed downstairs in my bare feet.

The fresh coffee smelled great. I entered the kitchen to find Cathy and Francois both in bathrobes and sitting at the kitchen table that had a tray of fresh fruit and pastries on it.

Cathy got up and gave me a hug and then began to prepare me a cup of coffee. I leaned over and gave Francois a light kiss on her beautiful smiling lips.

“Morning, John,” Francois said.

“Is it?” I asked.

Both of them laughed.

Cathy put the cup of coffee in front of me. I took a sip and savored it. The coffee I enjoyed here in France had always been the best.

“So what is going on?” I asked.

“Nothing,” Cathy said as both of them giggled.

“OK, what is so funny?” I asked.

“Nothing,” Francois said. “You just have two happy little bunnies on your hands.”

“Funny,” I said.

After a minute of everyone smiling and exchanging glances at each other, I asked, “So what is on the agenda?”

“Nothing really,” Francois said. “I called Jeremy this morning and told him about our dinner conversation last night. He insisted on coming to the airport with a few of our friends who you have not met. He wants to see you off. I hope you do not mind.”

“Of course not,” I said.

“I am taking very little home with me as far as my clothes and such. Cathy agreed to keep them for me. No point in carrying laundry back and forth,” I said.

“So all I guess I need to do is to go to the hotel, get dressed, do a bit of packing and go to the airport. I think I should be at the hotel by 1400. What do you think, Cathy?” I asked.

“That sounds about right,” she said smiling.

“OK, something is going on here,” I said. “What is it?”

“Nothing, we are just in a very good mood,” Cathy said.

“OK,” I responded.

“And we are trying to decide how to divide up your time between us,” Francois said.

“Funny,” I said.

“John, my dear, I think your life is about to change dramatically. Some of the others have read more of your writings and looked closer at your art. Everyone is excited about getting with you when you come back. We want to help you in any way we can,” Francois said.

“So, I passed the group’s test?” I asked.

“John, there was no test really. We just want to help you if you are who we have been expecting. You have laid out a lot of things in your books. It is a map for peace; a peace plan of action. It is what we were lacking. And in addition, we have you to direct it. We are all very excited about our association with you,” a smiling Francois said.

“I see. You know all this seems like a dream to me,” I said.

“It seems the same to us as well,” Cathy said.

“John,” said Cathy, “Francois wants to spend some time with you to talk about some things. So why don’t I go back to the hotel and pack your things and bring them back here. It should not take more than an hour and a half and then we can decide on how to spend the time before we go to the airport,” Cathy suggested.

“Are you sure?” I asked.

“Yes, of course,” she replied.

“OK,” I said.

“Let me go ahead and get dressed then. I should be back about noon,” she said putting down her coffee.

She kissed me and then went upstairs.

I looked at Francois and asked, “Is it safe to be here with you alone?”

“Safe? Yes,” she quipped, smiling a devilish grin.

I was starving and began to concentrate on the fruit on the breakfast tray.

“You know there is so much going on in my head and so much I want to talk about but so little time before you go,” Francois said. “I do not know where to start.”

“I wish I did not have to leave but at the same time, I think it is good. We all need time to reflect. I have a very defined schedule for closing out all my loose ends in America. My next trip here will be two full weeks, actually sixteen days I think.

“John, when you come back, I want you to stay here,” said Francois. “In fact, I want you to stay here until you find a place to live.”

That may be four or five months and you will lose your rental income during the tourist season if I do that,” I said.

Cathy came into the kitchen.

“That was fast,” I said.

“I want to get there and back before noon. The cab is already outside. I will see you shortly,” she said as she kissed me and was out the door in a flash.

“Do not worry about the rent,” Francois said as she got up and dead bolted the front door.

She returned to the kitchen without her robe and smiled, took my hand and led me back upstairs.