Louis Mésange

Louis portrayed by Odette A.Bach.

**Louis Mésange** is the protagonist and sole narrator of ***I Want To Kiss You In Public***. Born from French parents, he attends Colette International to perfect his English.

Louis calls himself Lou at the beginning of the story, but gradually comes to prefer being called Louis — the way Michael calls him.

Louis suffers from anxiety and a lack of self-esteem, which often clouds his thinking. He's very misguided about his sexual orientation, but he comes to identify as gay at the end of the book.

## Appearance

Louis has fair skin and blue eyes. He's 5'9" (179 cm).

Louis is described as good-looking by many characters. He has shoulder length hair — sometimes shorter in later works — and a slender build. In *He Looks So Fine: Part One,* Alberto describes him as *"*having large rings on his fingers and an angular jaw", and he even calls him "handsome".

Lucie believes he looks like Kurt Kobain, but in Louis's own words, he "vaguely" resembles him. Louis notes he and Kurt only share “the same shoulder-length, unwashed blond hair, bright blue eyes, and grunge style of clothing”.

Louis wears a pair of vintage sunglasses given to him by Tony, until he breaks them at the end of the book. Michael replaces them with a model of Wayfarers he chose himself in the second to last chapter. Louis is often seen wearing a black leather jacket.

In the extra *I Know What You Did Last Christmas*, set two years after the events of *I Want To Kiss You in Public*, Louis says dressing in black is "his idea of festive". In the same extra, we learn Louis spends a lot of time at the gym to deal with his anxiety. He's so fit he almost makes François faints when he removes his jumper.

## Personality

Louis tends to get on people's nerves — Yasmine calls him “The worst — but he's handsome enough to make people forget about his flaws. Once he stops performing in order to conceal his anxiety, he’s a laid-back, understanding kind of person. He does things for people they tend not to notice, as Michael mentions in *I Know What You Did Last Christmas*.

## Relationships

Louis has a tense friendship with Tony and Lucie. Though he loves them, he also exhibits signs of being fed up with them. Tony often mocks him, but provides little support. Louis also seems to be mildly frightened by Lucie. In the novel, he's afraid of telling her he's not a virgin.

Louis falls in love with Michael in *I Want To Kiss You In Public*, notably because Michael is kind and understanding and doesn't try to change who he is. Michael finds Louis perfectly likeable the way he is. In return, Louis acts more naturally around Michael.

Louis is very close to Miss Eugénie, his seventy-year-old downstairs neighbour. With her, he has long conversations. They also watch a lot of TV together, and they drink tea, wine and gin.

## Sexuality

At the end of the book, Louis clearly identifies as gay. Though his story begins with him dating Lucie, and he comments several times on how beautiful she is, he was not sexually attracted to her. Louis confesses in chapter 27 that he did notice good-looking men before — like the employee at the ice cream shop. Zelda French said heteronormativity is the reason Louis never questioned or explored his sexuality before meeting Michael.

## Trivia

* Louis's surname, *Mésange*, means blue tit in French.
* His favourite band is Kaiser Chiefs.
* His favourite animal is the rabbit.
* His favourite alcoholic beverage is a pint of lager.
* His favourite dish is a breakfast burrito.
* Louis really likes money. When he learns that students at Colette International place bets on the size of a certain part of his anatomy, Louis asks to be let in on the bet to earn himself some money.
* Zelda said Louis did get the chance to hang out with rockstars, as he became a band manager, and he got to travel around the world.
* As of December 2011, Louis was living in London with Michael, as stated in the extra *A Very Victorian Christmas Nightmare*.