“Uh?”

That was the start of a relationship so torrid, so deliciously wicked that even today I experience chills whenever I think about the girl, the shows and the fruit. Country after country, city after city, Ani DiFranco after Manic Street Preachers after Divine Comedy. No matter where we were or whom we were seeing, the game plan was always the same; fruit, show, and then more fruit. I never knew that a lime could be its most seductive at a Frank Black & The Catholics show, or that bananas and elderberries jammed up both nostrils made for the perfect erotic mix while at a Dido concert. When she called me her little buck-toothed fruit bat, I knew it was more than just excellent roughage. I was in love.

Our lusty quest for fruit and concerts took us to France, and eventually, Paris. I still remember that last night. It was right after a Joe Jackson show, and we had retired to our hotel room in one last attempt to capture the pure sexual ecstasy of the moment. I remember diving upon her yellow-orange fruit with all the passion my soul could muster. Little fruit bat, indeed.

The next day I returned to America. I never saw her again.

But I remember those nights of fruit and concerts. I can still picture her the night of the Eminem show when she tongued my lemon while I groped her berries. I can still recall her feeling my kiwi right before we saw The Offspring, and afterwards when I spent hours tasting her citrus. Ah yes, those were the days. The days of melons in Monaco, cherries in Cherbourg and grapes in Granada. The days when all you needed to reach Nirvana was fresh fruit, good music like P.J. Harvey or Deftones and a willing partner.

And that is why I will always remember our last mango in Paris.