Circle Two: LUST

CIRCLE TWO LUST

the act of walking is so well practiced (overlearned) that you can do it without thinking. You program yourself to walk to another room, then your mind

wanders, and when you get there you no longer remember why you started the motor program.^^^^^^^^^^^^

As I opened the door, waving my final goodbyes for the evening, I was rather surprised not to be greeted by a gust of wind or the slap of a rain pellet

rather to find myself entering another room altogether. I stopped. I looked behind me. Had I, in a slightly enebriated state, exited out the wrong door

into another antechamber of the previous pub?

But the door had already closed behind me. Locked behind me. Odd, I thought. A hallucination? Yet I was indeed inside rather than outside. My eyes grew

accustomed slowly to the dimness of the tawdry red light of the interior, the red velvet covering on the sofas.

A pale blonde woman, a woman one might consider as having alibaster skin if one could have made out such distinctions in such light, touched my elbow gently.

"May I take your coat?" Her voice was a gelatinous ooze of sensuality. All in a simple query. I looked at her, dressed in sequins, or perhaps merely a

sequin robe made of nothing but sequins, her nudity clearly visible even in this light behind the thread-bare cover of a sequin outfit.

She was already in the act of helping me out of my coat before I could think long enough to reply. I slipped out of it readily once I became accostomed to

the idea of taking it off. She disappeared into the shadows. I became aware of a gentle, pulsating bass eminating from a distant corner. A thin girl

dressed in a black satin negligee appeared.

"May I offer you a drink? A glass of champagne, perhaps?" she suggested without preamble. It's normal that a server would not introduce themselves before

taking your order but there was something distinguishable in her manner that led me to the misperception that if we didn't know each other already surely we

should and thus I was surprised by my own disappointment that she hadn't introduced herself. The question, on the surface innocent and normal, seemed

inexplicably weighted by an odd intimacy.

"Champagne?" I managed to stammer, indecisive.

"By the glass, we have Bollinger, Delamotte and Gosset. If you would like a full bottle however, the possibilities are unlimited..." She smiled like what I

could imagine to be an Eden snake, or THE Eden snake, her tongue lingering on the very edge of her lower lip, capped by her upper lip. Both were lightly

painted in a plum hue. How could I make such distinctions in the lighting? Well of course, because of the occasional flickers of bright light that now

emitted from what I could see was a stage in front of me. A stage decorated by a single pole.

"Just a glass of beer for the moment..." I finally replied. "Until I become better oriented."

Her expression did not change.

"As you wish," she replied perhaps robotically. "Please take a seat and I will retrieve the drink for you."

Jean François de Troy's 1735 painting Le Déjeuner d'Huîtres (The Oyster Luncheon) is the first known depiction of Champagne in painting

After primary fermentation and bottling, a second alcoholic fermentation occurs in the bottle. This second fermentation is induced by adding several grams of

yeast (usually Saccharomyces cerevisiae, although each brand has its own secret recipe) and several grams of rock sugar.[14] According to the Appellation

d'Origine Contrôlée a minimum of 1.5 years is required to completely develop all the flavour. For years where the harvest is exceptional, a millesimé is

declared and some Champagne will be made from and labeled as the products of a single vintage rather than a blend of multiple years' harvests. This means

that the Champagne will be very good and has to mature for at least 3 years. During this time the Champagne bottle is sealed with a crown cap similar to that

used on beer bottles.[1]

I sat down at the nearest table. The room was scattered with single men at tables surrounding the stage. How do I know they are single? I do not. One

imagines in such a situation that only a single man would frequent such a place yet the reality might well be the opposite. A wife loses her shape in these

parts rather quickly. Desire dissipates into a kind of malevolent paste of apathy. These men may merely be searching for a jump start to their own limping

libidos.

A thick woman in tightly wrapped clothing revealing far too much of her fatty countours, leaving one to imagine every starch-laden meal she'd consumed in a

lifetime, from childhood to the present, approached with a friendly smile. "Drink?" she asks me amiably. "Yes, beer." I recite, wondering if these drinks

would be part of the price of the show, if in fact there was a price at all. And in turn she goes to each man, takes each order.

The room is small considering the pole and the possibilities it suggests. I stare into space undistracted by what soon becomes a series of women in various

states of dress each approaching asking if I would like a drink and to each I reply yes, a glass of beer. No beer arrives. Not one of them. I grow

thirsty. I am disappointed bordering on angry. This would be the sign of poor management, this pointless repetition. Or perhaps layers of bureaucracy,

like filling in the same form in triplicate. I calm myself by taking a deep, slow breath. Eventually one of these beers will arrive.

In the meantime, the dim lights dim further still.

A small spotlight focuses on the pole. Yes, we get it, I want to say, impatient still for my beer.

A very tall woman appears. Her orange ponytail is the first thing I notice because it is long, down to the hem of her red leather miniskirt which admittedly

is rather high on her body to begin with. But perhaps this is because her legs are so long. Longer than her pony tail. There are two long, long legs, a

short torso, artificially enhanced breasts which are housed in a white cloth halter top. Her face, predictably, hidden by shadows although it is thus

impossible to tell if the shadowing is a clever stage trick to mask an inevitable horror or merely the anticipation of a beauty to be unleashed.

"The perfect face," the man beside me whispers suddenly, "has been pscychologically identified by the perimeter to area ratio, cheek to jaw ratio, the

preception of weight in the face..." he falls silent again. I remain silent wondering if there will be more.

There isn't because by then, the woman had turned her back to us, standing in front of the pole, her hands grasping it tightly. She nods forward and a song

is cued.

We are immediately transfixed. She seemed to perform a mixture of gymnastics and ballet. She mounted the pole, pulled herself up and spun. And when she

spun in our direction we collectively flinched. Some covered their faces because those long legs were swinging in a wide arc closer and closer to our faces

peering out near the edge of the stage. Soon she was upside down at the top of the pole doing splits and holding on with one hand.

"It's true," I muttered to the man beside me when her legs were in a backward arc and further from our faces. "The symetrics of her face are too beautiful

to be seen."

Eventually she dismounts and strides purposefully away from the stage. A man stands and follows her. He will negotiate a price.

The buzz in the room is nearly audible and to take matters to further levels of excitement, a swarm of women in varying states of dress and undress,

beautiful and hideous, fat and skinny, appear in the room serving drinks everywhere. I receive three glasses of beer.

How do I even know I want beer?

The lights brighten significantly, nearly to the point of being able to make out the faces of each man in the murk.

"What are we doing here?" I ask the man beside me. I turn to face him only to see that he has disappeared. The curtain behind the stage is still rippling.

I feel lost again, panicked. I drink the beers, all three of them in rapid succession, barely tasting them.

I stand up. What is behind the curtains?

A woman appears before me, blocking the path. "How about another beer, mister? Or perhaps a bottle of champagne?" I look her over. She is young. She has

thin, stringy blonde hair. Her face is thickly layered in mascara to mask the youth but the youth is evident in that it is too youthful. How do I know what

is too youthful? She does not bear the hallmarks of innocence. Her eyes, even through the mascara, are cynical, tired. I have seen my own face which is

just as cynical and tired without the mascara. I wonder what horrors she has experienced. Does she remember them?

"Can we talk if I buy a bottle of champagne?" She smiles, confident again. There had been a brief period of uncertainty of course. She feels this in every

encounter. She is being weighed, assessed, judged on the only thing she has in her own eyes of merit, her sex.

"We can do whatever you like if you buy a bottle of champagne, mister. Follow me."

I hesitate. Kinderton gave me money. He is always appearing to dump cash in my hands. But I'm not sure how much I have, how much it is worth. I don't

know this or any currency. I check my pockets.

I pull out what he gave me, a thick wad of multi-coloured notes with numbers on them. And faces. Faces of dead people. You cannot have your face on

currency unless you are dead. How do I know they are dead? Because they do not look like anyone around me. They are clearly from another age.

She removes it all from my hand, smiling all the time, even beginning to hum to herself.

She signals to someone I cannot see and then takes my hand. "Come with me." she whispers.

******

We enter another room, this one with a door. She uses a pass key to open it, there is a little click and we enter. She turns flicks a switch and the room,

dominated by a large bed, is illuminated by vague red light.

I sit at the desk immediately. I want to create some space between me and her and the bed. My intentions are still innocent. I want to know primarily if

she remembers the horrors.

"What horrors?" she asks, wrinkling her nose in befuddlement. Her nose is tiny. Is it proportionate to the rest of her face? I wonder if the ratio between

her cheek to jaw is correct. I realise I don't know what the correct ratio. Do I find her face beautiful, she asks.

"Whatever horrors brought you here." I explain slowly, unaccustomed to having to explain what is evident. She wrinkles her nose again. This is not normal,

I can tell. I'm supposed to grab her and let my lust run free. There is a knock on the door.

"Champagne!" the male voice announces. The door opens and a bucket of ice with a bottle of champagne nestled inside of it is placed just inside before the

door is shut again as quickly as it was opened.

She clearly wishes to ignore my line of questioning. She marches to the bucket, picks it up and brings it to the desk where I am sitting.

"Please. Open and pour. Please."

*****

We each have a glass of champagne. It registers in the back of my mind that despite the consumption of alcohol I feel relatively nothing with respect to

effect. It is as though I have been on a steady diet of juice rather than beer.

"So," I begin again after a mouthful and a swallow. "What horrors brought you here, to this place at this hour?"


"Would you like to touch me?" She moves to start unbuttoning her blouse but I hold her hands gently to stop her. I see that there are tears forming in her

eyes. "Don't you like me?" she asks, innocent for the first time, the professionalism of her ego exposing her. "Are you some sort of freak?"

Her words hit me then, like a fist in my stomach. Or perhaps she had in fact hit me in the stomach. I double over and retch on the purple shag carpeting.

"This is not appropriate!" she shouts angerly at my display and lack of proper conduct. I was supposed to undress her, paw at her, beg to get my money's

worth.

There is another knock at the door.

"Is everything alright in there?" a deep male voice queries.

"Yes" we both say simultaneously.

We laugh at this for some reason because it seems for a second even more absurd than being in this room with her. A private joke shared between us suddenly

bonds us.

"I'm sorry I punched you in the stomach." she says.

"Perhaps I deserved it."

"No, you are probably a nice man. But you ask too many questions. Why don't you want to fuck me?"

I say nothing and take another swallow of champagne to clear the taste of bile in my mouth. The pathetic accumulation of vomit is still steaming on the

floor between where I am sitting and where she is standing. The difference between room temperature and body temperature. I am wondering what the correct

answer is. Why don't I want to fuck her? Why am I supposed to want to fuck her?

"Are you nervous? Is that it? Wait. I will turn off the lights. We can sit here in the dark, or better still, we can move to the edge of the bed and sit

for a moment in the dark. Perhaps then you will feel normal." She moves quickly, almost as quickly as when she'd seized the bucket of champagne from beside

the door, and snaps the lights off. We are completely in the dark. She takes my hand and guides me wordless to the edge of the bed. We sit.

"You are a lovely man," she begins, reaching out to caress my face. "You do not have to be nervous. I am gentle."

"I'm not nervous." I explain, taking her hand from my face and placing it to where I think her lap is. "I do not know who I am or where I am. I am lost. I

am looking for answers. I am hoping that if I ask you some questions, something will provoke a memory."

She says nothing for a moment.

"You do not find me beautiful?"

"I cannot judge beauty. Beauty requires perception, a memory. I have neither. I am looking for answers. I am trying to find out who I am."

"I don't understand you." she moves slightly away from me and I can sense her hurt in the darkness. For a moment, I consider touching her if only to pacify

her, put her mind at ease.

"From bitter searching of the heart we rise to play a greater part." I say suddenly, surprised that a phrase from somewhere enters from my memory. "Leonard

Cohen." I explain. I am encouraged because this is one of the first inklings of a past that has embraced me. Why do I know it? What does it mean?

"You are hurting me with words." she sniffles.

"Do you remember how you got here?"

"Yes, by taxi, as always."

"No, I mean how you came to be in this position. Not here in this room but this establishment, this, let's say predicament."

She is silent but I cannot tell if she is merely waiting me out or if she is pondering my words, weighing whether or not to answer them.

"Listen mister, I don't know what is the matter with you. You pay money, you buy champagne, we come to this room and we are supposed to fuck. Everyone is

happy. You are fucking with me and I don't like it. You are making me feel bad. Why don't you touch me? I can give you wonderful pleasure." She tries to

touch me again and again, I remove her hand.

She curses in a language I don't understand and I feel her get up from the edge of the bed.

"Get out!" she shouts. "Get out!" she shouts again.

The deep male voice is at the door again.

"Is everything alright in there?"

This time we do not share a private joke and laugh.

"Get out now or I will tell them to come in and remove you." Her voice betrays no innocence. It is so cold that it is apparent we are strangers and have

always been strangers and will always be strangers and that this professional interlude was just that.

I stand up and leave.

*******

Kinderton is chuckling to himself, drinking a bottle of champagne, dangling it by the neck and taking liberal swigs.

"All that money for nothing." He shakes his head. "Good thing there is plenty more."

"I don't understand what happened." I begin to explain.

"Of course you don't, Marsaw. Follow me."

******

We enter a larger room which is entered into from a hallway leading away from the previous room but it appears we are still in the same building.

THIS WILL LEAD TO THE SCENE EXPLAINING THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE IMAGES OF THE NUDITY OF FORMER LOVERS WITH THE NUDITY OF PORNOGRAPHY, THE OBLITERATION OF THE BEAUTY OF THE SOUL.