In Over Her Head by Elsie Russell - Parnasse.com

"Shut up! What's so funny?"
"Your face. You look like I give you a diamond! But you say do
not like diamonds so I give you this. It is not the strongest element
though."
"Neither is diamond, osmium is."
"Okay, okay, so I will get a forty karat osmium for your
engagement ring!"
He looked over her shoulder at her book. "What is that?
Another book on immortality? Drugs! Yes! Drugs are so good for
relaxing, for finding yourself, for love."
His hand slipped under her jacket, under her shirt, his cold
hand on her breast, his fingers tweaking her nipple.
"Cut it out! This is important. There might be corollaries, drugs
or no drugs, okay?"
He leaned into her against the bookcase.
"Okay, but you know, someday we should get stoned together
and make love. It would be paradise!"
"It already is paradise."
"O! I could 'fuck you' right here in the books." He looked like
he just might.
Those words in English! A tweedy bearded gent gawked in their
direction.
"Will you shut up? They understand English in here."
"Oh, 'lighten up'! They are not going to arrest us!" He sighed
and separated himself and leaned back against the bookcase. "Did you
know that in Italy the police can arrest you for kissing in public?"
"You're kidding, right?" Penny flipped though her book, and
remarked without looking up, "We kissed a lot, and we never got
arrested."
"Not around the carabinieri. Paris is different, you can get away
with anything here." He watched a girl with violet hair and studs poking
from different parts of her face climb the narrow stairs to the inner
sanctum, where the tearoom was.
"Okay, let's go, I think this'll keep me busy for a while." Penny
shut the book and wound her way to the paying pit, manned by the
studded girl's greasy Anglophile boyfriend.
The Quais were quiet now except for a swirling wind and the
evening traffic. At the Pont Neuf they went down the stairs to continue
their journey the edge of the water, crossing to the Right Bank on the
Passage Solferino then past darkened houseboats that were all trussed
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