They met by divine coincidence one night at an empty fish restaurant in Bilbao, and felt at that very moment something in the universe shift. Perhaps it was love at first sight, perhaps it was bigger. Phone numbers were politely exchanged over seared scallops in a raspberry vinaigrette sauce, ensuring a professional alibi for hopes far more interesting. A cautious flirtation the next two days led without effort to more dinners and museum visits to talk about art and to look at each other. When geography once again separated them like it had for their entire lives up to that point, robust online flirting followed. But neither of them were looking for a relationship. Both were occupied with life as it stood prior to their chance encounter and neither were good at affairs. So, it was decided that their legs – two pairs: his and hers, left and right; four limbs in total – would be sent to rendezvous for a long weekend somewhere to fully enjoy something partial. Paris seemed like a natural choice, and any risk of the city appearing cliche for a "rendezvous" was decidedly mitigated by the novel choice of sending only legs. The fact that this had not been done before didn't bother either of them. And perhaps just because the plan was executed without any hesitation, it got off to a beautiful start.

Her legs met his legs at a quaint hotel in the 6th arrondissement, half way up Rue Monsieur le Prince, a few blocks from Odèon. It was late afternoon. Although they were scheduled to land at a similar time, they had decided not to share a taxi from the airport blaming unreliable airlines, although the real reason was to ensure that the potential of what might play out over the next few days wasn't colored by anything trivial or mundane, such as the realities of logistics. In the same spirit, as her legs happened to arrive first to the city, they rubbed against each other to build up a nice shine, put on expensive stockings along with Italian but sensible shoes, crossed over one another, placed a folded newspaper at the top so as not to show too much skin, like they do in films, and waited in the lobby. They looked great. These two legs now out and about in Paris were not dressed to compliment the person they belonged to. No, these legs dressed for themselves, determined to look ravishing for what they were: legs. When his legs appeared at the entrance a few moments later, hers got up with anticipation. One leg stayed back making sure the newspaper didn't fall to the floor, and the other leg moved forth to greet the newly arrived. Knees touched. Then touched again. The fourth leg joined, and they all felt excitement. In order to drop things off at their room before walking to dinner, they had to navigate the practicalities of the elevator, holding and supporting each other acrobatically to first count the buttons, then find the right floor, and eventually – but now already much better at it – find a similar solution to use the large key and open the door to the room. Lights were left off because legs don't need them. They instead moved closer to the enormous soft bed, bolstered by how well they had navigated recent friction and turned their shared obstacles into a new shared world, a language that only legs speak. 

Adorned with pillow marks and over an hour late for reservations at Chez Pauline, located right around the corner from Place St. Germain, they conquered jet lag and planned the rest of their days together. Four legs, four wills to be brokered. Walking, of course, more art museums, naturally, but certainly none of the touristy banalities. This encounter had no place for the established. During dessert, one of his legs borrowed a pen from the hostess (Pauline?) and sketched her left foot roughly and endearingly on the stained paper table cloth. Her right leg, not busy modeling, leaned in without incertitude and dipped a toe in wine to give more life to the illustration, adding depth with a blood red coloring that spread across the feet, up the ankle, and filled the thighs with blush life. They were a good team: a good pair, and a natural quartet. The model leg, seeing itself singled out and portrayed, wanted to take the paper cloth. The other three advised against it and promised that there would be as many more drawings as any leg could want - and of any part of it, his right leg added, and they were all back in the large soft hotel bed in a matter of minutes. Here, everywhere, when it was just them, they felt safe, saved from a deep and newfound loneliness. They were equals and completely unique in this strange corner of the universe now discovered - or was it created? 

It was of course true that it did happen: they did visit all the museums they set out to, took the late night jet lagged walks and stopped for drinks to let the feet rest on top of each other under cafe tables wobbling on cobblestone streets. Sometimes only the left legs would veer off as a pair, stretching the idea of what belonged where, but for the most part, all four of them together seemed like the natural constellation. The legs, having created enough of a bubble to shield themselves from the outside world and what others might deem banal, even ran through the Louvre together - although you are not supposed to - reenacting the scene from Godard's Bande à part that was then reenacted in Bertolucci's Dreamers: their version of the art dash clocking in at almost an hour in contrast to the cinematic record of 9 minutes and 43 seconds. 

The legs instinctively knew this: that the space between them was liminal. And they did suspend doubt as the moment compelled, sharing impossibly passionate explorations of each other and indirectly of themselves. For example, there is a spot at the back of the knee where the skin is thinner. It is part of neither the upper section of a leg nor the lower, and therefore more open to define itself in the moment. They gave this particular spot a name: Grinta!  For them, it was all there, for now. And, as the inevitable end to their weekend crept closer, it was this expression of leg that gave shape and meaning to their existence and formed a vernacular they suddenly mastered fluently. 

And so, when our legs reluctantly returned to rejoin their respective bodies on different sides of a continent, it all went back to normal and nothing would ever be the same. Even someone who did not know them well would, in a familiar park, notice a different stride on the usual morning walk, a more confident posture and a realized complexity of motion and purpose that was not present prior. What they saw was the result of one language now embodied inside another that cannot help but birth a third to be seen fully, and to be in the world as one. It was both inevitable and surprising at the same time, because that is how all stories work: an echo of the original trickster and the irreversible shift in the universe that they had felt on that first night they met at the fish restaurant, that distinctive tingle or ache in one part of the body demanding a genesis of story. They just didn't know it yet.