In Over Her Head by Elsie Russell - Parnasse.com

the studio. If he was in a decent mood he would be there, if not he
would be drinking himself into Mr Hyde back home. She rang the bell,
but no one answered. About now he would normally have been
preparing his "palette" for the day's work.
It was a fine day for walk in the Marais. Ula could walk for days
in strange cities, or in familiar ones, absorbing the atmosphere, turning
ideas over and over in her head. The obsessive mind is never at rest.
She still had doubts about those Chinese immortality disciplines. At
least she could forget abut the divine whoring at 'CyberSin.' What a
downer that had been, after having such high hopes. She was the
Invisible Muse, the angel of the modulating signal that transmutes
men's masturbatory experience, their fantasies made real, enhanced
exponentially through her mastery of the apparatus, now turbo charged
with the E.L.F. infused music. It could have worked.
Once on the Place des Vosges she felt much better. Nannies
pushed prams, pigeons chased sparrows, dogs chased all of them and
the abundance of life swirled around her, taking her with it, and she
swirled and twirled around the park. What freedom! She threw the
tricorn into the trees and crossed the Rue de Turennes. She got to the
Cathedral of St. Eustache and the giant head. That hat had been a
mistake, too ancien règime, and now her head was getting cold. But
there was Yohji's on the corner, so she stepped down into the boutique.
Just inside the window on the faceless mannequin was a piece of winter
headgear inspired by a medieval helmet. More of the moment than the
tricorn, for the dark ages were back, with the crusades in full swing.
Ula turned at the Rue de Rivoli that flanked the Louvre. She
could check out the sculptures of sixth century mathematicians in the
palace. She walked along the gilt spiked fence of the museum and
turned in at the Passage Richelieu entrance. Waited for a brief moment
with a busload of Japanese tourists who identified her in her Japanese
costume as a particularly offensive subspecies of Gaijin. After the
requisite inspection, she flashed her multipass and stepped onto the
escalator down into the glass Pyramid where she removed her helmet,
stuffed it into her bag and rode up another escalator into the Sully
wing.
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