It began, as these things always do, with misplaced confidence. I decided to try a new butcher for the hell of it, and asked for un poulet entier—an entire chicken—because I’m a grown woman living in Paris, and asking for whole birds at the butcher feels like the sort of thing someone who really belongs here does. I wanted to be one of those women. I was not ready for what came next.
The butcher—a 30-something with dark brown waves and the sort of cheekbones that only exist in questionable Netflix adaptations of Paris—nodded and grabbed a bird from behind the counter. And not just any bird: a bird with its head, neck, and claws all still very much attached, as if it had walked here on its own volition to make me confront my choices.
And boy, did it. It hit me immediately. The guilt. The heebie-jeebies. The EYES. My vegan friends materialized on one shoulder whispering about how chickens are gregarious creatures who enjoy hugs and friendship. On the other shoulder loomed every French person I know over 40, glaring silently, daring me to infuse this transaction with anything resembling an emotion.
But there was no time for crisis. The butcher looked up. And reader, this man was making VDEC©—Very Direct Eye Contact. This wasn’t “Oh, you caught me looking” eye contact. This wasn’t even flirty eye contact. No, this was something else entirely—too steady, too deliberate, and far too present for someone currently handling a dead animal.
“Do you want the head?” he asked, his voice slow and sloped with just enough French affectation to make me feel like a dilettante.
No. Absolutely fucking not. (I said it much nicer than that, though.)
Chop.
The head rolled somewhere out of sight, and I knew I’d be seeing it again in a stress dream.
“How about the neck?”
I looked down. It was long, thin, and cylindrical, hanging grotesquely from the bird’s body—like something that belonged on a different animal entirely.
“Non merci,” I said, politely refusing as if he’d just offered me a second helping of gratin dauphinois.
The butcher shrugged, eye contact notwithstanding. Chop.
The feet? Chop, chop.
I looked up again, and the VDEC© resumed—unbroken, unwavering, somehow more intense now that he had fully dismantled the bird in front of me. He smiled—a slow smile. A deliberate smile. What in the Marius-Pontmarcet-and-Sweeny-Todd’s-love-child was happening?
“Do you want…zee organs?”
I had asked for an entire chicken, and by God, I was getting one.
“Non, merci,” I said, my voice now operating independently of the rest of my body.
But he wasn’t done. Without breaking eye contact—without blinking—this man shoved his hand up into the bird and yanked. YANKED. He pulled out an unholy tangle of viscera, holding it aloft like he’d just removed Excalibur from the stone.
“Zee lungs,” he said, suddenly sounding a bit like Kathleen Turner.
Slow motion. Everything was in slow motion. He wiped something unspeakable off his fingers—second finger, third finger—onto the side of the counter. He licked his lips. Licked. His. Lips.
This was not the Amelie experience I’d signed up for.
The head was gone. The neck was gone. The feet were gone. The Very Direct Eye Contact? Still very much here. Why wasn’t he blinking?
I shifted on my feet, trying to look anywhere but his face, failing spectacularly. I’ve been out of the dating game for the better part of seven years, but surely this wasn’t normal. Was I imagining things? Was I so unused to flirtation that I now mistook blatant poultry dismemberment for seduction?
No, this was real. He was testing me. Or maybe…maybe this is just what Parisian butchers do. A rite of passage. A staring contest disguised as food service to see which foreigners will crack first.
I wasn’t cracking. But I was sweating.
The butchers I normally go to—two old men a couple of streets over—flirt in that harmless, grandfatherly way where you can tell they’re just trying to gauge if you deserve their wisdom about how long to cook your boeuf bourguignon. This guy…this guy was something else. He wasn’t thinking about recipes. This man was sleeping with half of the Right Bank and plotting out the Left.
And here I was, standing in front of him like a clueless extra in Call Me By Your Butcher.
I didn’t want a fling. I wanted a chicken. And yet somehow, I was leaving this shop feeling like I needed a cigarette.
Ten minutes later, I walked through my front door clutching the bagged chicken like it might fly away.
Thomas looked up from his laptop, glasses sliding down his nose. “Hey babe! How was work?”
“Nothing!” I blurted out—too fast, too loud.
His eyebrows knitted together. “What?”
“Nothing happened. Work was fine. The butcher was fine. I bought a chicken, okay?” Nervous laughter hiccuped out of me. “You?”
He looked at me and blinked a couple of times. “What’s wrong with the chicken?”
“Nothing is wrong with the chicken!” I said defensively, clutching the bag tighter. “It’s a completely normal chicken. Look at it.” I held up the plastic-wrapped bird like it was exhibit A in a criminal trial.
Thomas peered over his glasses, squinting at me like he was waiting for the punchline. “Did you… steal the chicken?”
“No! I didn’t steal the chicken!” I cried, louder than necessary. “Why would you even—”
“Then why are you acting so weird?”
“I’m not acting weird!” I snapped, 100% weirdly, shoving the chicken onto the counter. Because how do you explain to your husband that the butcher didn’t just sell you poultry—he disarmed you? That you went out to buy dinner and came back feeling like a character in a French art film about sexual repression and chicken sadism?
I glanced at my bookshelf and Simone de Beauvoir’s The Woman Destroyed glanced back. Not now, Simone.
A robust glass of wine later, I cooked the chicken with fennel and oranges and it was wonderful. However I decided to stick with the two old butchers down the road on rue Custine going forward. Not only did the sexual butcher’s bird cost me nearly 40€ (!), but I decided I’ve accumulated enough weird encounters with men that I don’t need to actively seek them out anymore, even if it makes for interesting content.
I hope the chicken was as good as this prose. Excellent writing.
Mon Dieu. Hilarious.