“But it’s not safe. Anything could happen. We’re just looking out for your best interests.”

“‘Anything could happen’ is the entire point of a gap year, mom. It’s meant to be life changing.”

“It could be life ending!”

Jacob rolled his eyes. “Why do you have to be so controlling all the time? It’s my life. I can do what I want with it. And if I want to get mugged or stabbed or whatever in Paris, that’s my choice.”

I wish those hadn’t been our son’s parting words before he grabbed his suitcase and headed for the airport. My wife is anxious and overbearing at the best of times. She didn’t sleep for three days. I’d find her obsessively checking our son’s instagram feed, checking his location against news reports and travel guidance. One night she shook me awake at 3am.

“-monkeypox cases are up 14% in Berlin,” she uttered in worried tones, the laptop on the bed open to BBC news.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Mary! He's a grown man - he’ll be fine.”

“How do you know that?” She gnawed her nails. “You should have gone with him. You could keep an eye on him. Keep him safe. Out of trouble.”

“We both know he'd never tolerate that. He’d run a mile if I was there.”

I rolled over and went back to sleep, thinking nothing more of it. But when I woke in the morning, she was still tapping away on her laptop. I could tell she hadn’t slept.

Dark bags under her eyes, she beamed victoriously as she turned the laptop monitor where I could see. “What if he didn’t know you were watching over him?”

I stared at the screen. “Clinique de Chirurgie… Réparatrice” I recall my limited French. “Clinic of Reconstructive Surgery?!”

“It’s amazing what they can do these days. He’ll never know it’s you,” she pleaded. She slipped her hand under the covers to play with my cock, knowing that was the best way to get me to agree to anything. “He’ll never suspect you’re his father. You’ll just be another face in the crowd, another Parisian girl among hundreds."

"A girl?!"

"Of course," she said, her soft touch extremely distracting. "I told him to be on the lookout for strange men following him. But like this... you can get close. Please? If not for him, do it for me.”

"I don't... I don't know if we can afford this."

"So you'd put a price on our own son's life?" she gasped in outrage, her stroking ceasing. I sighed, knowing her mind (and by extension, mine) was already made up.