TORONTO Night after night, Kate had perched on the rim of the bathtub in her cramped 11th Street Manhattan apartment while the director of the film she was producing lay on the couch in the kitchen opposite the tub and moaned about the corruption of his vision. Three months of this had paid off. She'd gotten her prize. The film was going to the Toronto International Film Festival. She was on the plane with it.

Her other prize stirred beside her. Alex, about to be anointed the "it" boy of independent films, perhaps even just a few movies away from dethroning George Clooney as America's biggest sex symbol; Alex the boy-toy that was the lead actor in her film.

From her window seat, Kate looked down on the Toronto landscape that made visitors wonder why they'd bothered. This wasn't a town that knew how to greet guests. New York skyscrapers pulsed through the air, promising, seducing. Toronto seemed flat, quiet, clean in comparison; the land where wine would never be sold at the corner store. Square.

But Kate knew it was a bad illusion. Toronto the good was a distant nightmare from her adolescence at the suburban Don Mills mall. In Toronto now, she would find everything Mayor Giuliani had just about exterminated out of the old New York. The strip clubs that had made Yonge Street such an eyesore to prudish urban planners -- places like the Zanzibar, Remington's, or around the corner from the Eaton Centre, Filmore's -- had competition. From $750 a day, Madame's House happily served breakfast and bondage right in the heart of gentrified Cabbagetown, nudists could sunbathe and cruise at Hanlan's Point on Toronto Island, and women were more likely to buy their lingerie from sex stores like MissBehav'N as from the kindly ladies at Holt's. Kate herself always stocked up on full-body fishnets from Northbound Leather.

Better yet, Toronto's sexy spots are not just an adolescent's dream. Many are cosmopolitan, sultry, adult. On her last visit home just a couple of months before, she'd talked financing with a Los Angeles exec and an independent Toronto producer over drinks at a bar in Yorkville called Amber. Beautiful women were having their cigarettes lit with slim silver lighters by beautiful men. Some of the women wore broad rim hats. She and the jaded Los Angeles exec then spent the night dancing to the sounds of Aretha Franklin at Revival on College. This was the Toronto she wanted Alex to see. This was going to be their long and dirty weekend. The couple arrived in Toronto to find Four Seasons Toronto had made an excellent mistake. They had given them a honeymoon package instead of a basic room. A bottle of champagne was chilling by the side of the bed. Every floor of the hotel was packed with stars and wannabes. Nanni Moretti had slipped into the room next to theirs. "What if Nanni hears us?" Kate asked Alex, who'd already changed into a white terrycloth bathrobe and was drinking the Moet straight from the bottle.

"Nanni. That's an Italian name. He'll understand," Alex said. "But I hear David Lynch's room is on the other side."

The champagne and the apres-champagne tousle blurred the movie they went to see. It was something about couples who break up called Last Wedding. Not quite the sexiest way to begin a sexy evening.

But Kate was determined to fix that. She pulled him urgently out, through the crowd amassing by the side of the red carpet and into a cab. They sped along King Street, passing the marquee for Mamma Mia, perking Kate up enough to break out in a rendition of Dancing Queen, then to Richmond Street where they were deposited in front of the opaque glass windows of LoveSexxy. Kate liked that it was small, unlike dance clubs on the strip. It reminded her of the harder-edged Bovine Sex Club, just a few blocks to the west on Queen, except with the rock stars cleaned out and the tequila-fuelled sharp edges smoothed over. Otherwise, the same crush of people, the same possibility of a quick getting-to-know-you in the bathroom.

"Queen and Ossington please, to Oyster Boy," Kate directed the next cab driver. The car turned up on Peter and left on Queen. Girls in tight jeans and belly-baring tops paraded on the street competing with women in slinky glittery T-shirts and micro-minis and men in loose black linen suits. Punk rock kids lay in doorways holding hands, making out or playing with their dogs. Kate nodded a silent hello while passing the purple velvet curtains hanging in the window of Come as you Are, the sex toy store where the staff knew her by name. The other place she liked was on Harbord Street. Called Good for Her, it had great movies she occasionally bought.

"They have live models in the window there on Saturday afternoons," she said to Alex, pointing to MissBehav'N further along Queen. "See, there's always a job for us baby," Alex said.

Every place around the Queen-Ossington intersection was packed. No seats anywhere at the pale wood design dream of Bar One and not a chance of a table for an hour at Swan. They rushed for the two bar seats at the Oyster Boy's counter. Each Nova Scotian Belon glided down Kate's throat. With each one Alex looked more and more like Benicio del Toro. Another bottle of wine followed and more oysters.

"Yes, it's the same woman who has that sex column in Eye," Kate overheard a blonde woman behind her explain to her friend. "They strip down to pasties and put on a real cabaret, like really old-fashioned, really Moulin Rouge," she continued. "And it's at Lee's Palace?" said her friend, a brunette dressed in a striped black and white top, jeans and silver stilettos.

"Where is this?" said Alex, turning around to look at the two. They stopped talking and frowned at him. "I'm here from New York, for the festival," he said.

"It's just this troupe of dancers, the Dangerettes, who put on a cabaret at Lee's sometimes," the blonde explained. "That's a dance club, concert place up on Bloor Street. Sasha -- she's one of our sex advice columnists in town -- is in it. You probably have that sort of thing every night in New York, but it's pretty good."

The next day was a long one made up of trying to convince film distribs to come to their screening. It was made somewhat better by a great transparent baby doll number Kate snapped up from Secrets From Your Sister while she went for her daily meditation walk, this time along Bloor Street. Its black feather boa trim screamed Liz Taylor yelling at old Rich for more g&t's. Alex had been quite pleased to find her trying it on when he came in after his last interview with a critic from a Calgary paper.

He grew morose over a drink at the Roof Lounge at the Park Hyatt, though.

"This guy didn't even get that my character is redeemed at the end," he said.

"Critics," Kate shrugged and dove into another handful of constantly replenished almonds in the silver bowl on the table. "Do you know who these people are?" she asked Alex, pointing to the caricature drawing of Margaret Atwood and Mordecai Richler on the walls.

"No, the only literary guy I know of yours is the man who went up the mountain," Alex said. "And she fed me tea and oranges . . . ," he sang, ". . . that came all the way from China," Kate continued for him."

"Shall we go try out the Jacuzzi?" she asked.

"Or we could go to Vazeeline," Alex said. "You couldn't stop talking about the club before we left. 'It's so glam, everyone's so free, you're bumping and grinding against bisexuals, transsexuals and everyone in between.' And you said you love the music. Remember? Gonna rock 'n' roll aaalll night? And what about that other place you said you like? With the great name? Ciao Edie?"

"Boy-toy in Jacuzzi," Kate said.

Saturday night found them celebrating. The movie had been sold coming out of the industry screening. And later on that day the rest of the audience gave them a standing ovation. They could have gone to Sotto Sotto, or Bistro 990, or Rain. The door would be open for them that night. But as Alex had said, they now had to be careful. Soon enough people would want his autograph. He wanted to savour his last moments of anonymity. So Kate took him to funky Julie's, an off-the-beaten-path restaurant which was a favourite with her friends. They toasted each other with the best mojitos this side of Havana and spicy, fresh ceviche. Afterwards, they dropped into Hotel on Peter. Someone asked both Kate and Alex for an autograph and, signing the poster of her movie under the glittering light of the chandeliers above the bar, she felt like a star.

They got home by the early light of dawn. They'd gone dancing with the rest of the cast and crew at Matador,an after-hours place just off College St. The director had gotten very drunk and thanked Kate for "putting up with me" over and over again.

On the long walk home Kate felt like she was in the ending scenes of Bright Lights, Big City, when Michael J. Fox looks out over New York and for that moment, owns it. Another bottle of champagne, this time with a card -- "From your neighbour, Nanni" -- sat chilling by the side of the bed.

They opened it and headed for the Jacuzzi.

Simona Chiose is the author of Good Girls Do: Sex Chronicles of a Shameless Generation, published by ECW Press this July. IF YOU GO Accommodation:

• Four Seasons Toronto, 21 Avenue Rd., (416) 964-0411
• Park Hyatt, 4 Avenue Rd., (416) 925-1234
• Madame's House, 159 Gerrard St. E., (416) 413-0827. Bars and Dance Clubs:
• Amber, 119 Yorkville Av., (416) 926-9037
• Revival, 783 College St., (416) 535-7888
• Lovesexxy, 222 Richmond St. W., (416) 599-5683
• Bovine Sex Club, 542 Queen St. W., (416) 504-4239
• Matador, 466 Dovercourt, (416) 533-9311
• Lee's Palace, 529 Bloor St. W., (416) 532-1598
• Vazeeline, at the El Mocambo, 464 Spadina Ave., (416) 968-2001
• Ciao Edie, 489 College St., (416) 927-7774;
• Hotel, 77 Peter St., (416) 345-8585. Restaurants:
• Bar One, 924 Queen St. W., (416) 535-1655 -- Swan, 892 Queen St., W., (416) 532-0452
• Oyster Boy, 872 Queen St. W., (416) 534-3432
• Julie's, 202 Dovercourt Rd., (416) 532-7397
• Sotto Sotto, 116-A Avenue Rd., (416) 962-0011
• Bistro 990, 990 Bay St., (416) 921-9990
• Rain, 19 Mercer St., (416) 599-7246. Adult Entertainment:
• Zanzibar, 359 Yonge St., (416) 977-4642
• Remington's, 379 Yonge St., (416) 977-2160
• Filmore's, 212 Dundas St. E., (416) 921-2191. Stores:
• MissBehav'N, 650 Queen St. W., 416-866-7979
• Northbound Leather, 586 Yonge St., (416) 972-1037
• Come as you Are, 701 Queen St. W., (416) 504-7934
• Good for Her, 175 Harbord St., (416) 588-0900
• Secrets from your Sister, 476 Bloor St. W., (416) 538-1234