Blood and passion... chilled stone and bubbling cabernet... far below the foundations, in the sanctity of soil, this blasphemy to nature hides, soulless death preserved in alabaster and rose perfume, surrounded by the teeming erosions of life...
True to form and preference, a coiled staircase descends into the bowels of the earth... the steps are flanked on all sides by walls of granite, carved into dungeon squares and stacked together like children's blocks... the pitch of the curve is so sharp that the stretches of grey seem endless... dizzying... spiralling out of control...
Until the end comes, the abrupt incision of black marble against dull stone, a seam razor-fine and scalpel-thin...
To the untrained first glance, the marble appears a pool of oil, black as evil and none too solid, wet enough to swallow you whole if you dared to step into it... but that's just an illusion, after all... The whole of the surface is veined with spiderweb capillaries of charcoal, so fine as to be hidden from the naked and seem no more than a cloud on the oil's top.
(with a smile)
From somewhere in the distance comes the sound of industrial chugging, the grinding of gears and the squeal of unoiled wheels... but it could just be the seepage of air, whispering the ghosts of a memory and praying profanities...
(I slice off those rosy cheeks)
This river of coal travels, like those veins, in all directions, and the paths disappear into underground midnight... some circle back and cross over each other, some dwindle down to dead ends... eventually, the marble tapers at the extremities of all of them, assuming that such ends exist, replaced by common limestone rubble... an eternity would not be enough to travel all of these tunnels...
(because I feel so thirsty)
But, thankfully, she has all eternity...
And only one of these tunnels merits her concern at the moment...
But how do you get to this place, this haven of debauchery? ... The only clue is in the deep green of dried leaves, strewn carelessly across the floor and disturbed into lazy circles by the draft... and perhaps the bit of mud grafted to a steel heel in the moments past entering...
Moist electronic suction behind the walls... squealing, beaded and nervous, the grinding of gears jumping their tracks and showering the hidden recesses with sparks...
One turn, then another, a sudden sharp corner, and the playing field is awash in blood.. rivers of it, coating the walls and spilling into pools of half-hearted desperation that seek shelter in the crevices where even the shadows dare not go...
But it is merely an illusion, cast by the magic of three crimson drapes... no solid barriers, these... what need has she for bars and bolts, when the conundrum of hallways is lock enough? One to the right, one to the left, both fluttering uneasily at the slightest infringement of draft, dull and seductive...
Part the center curtain, step onto the stage... This place is clothed in the skins of phantoms, bathed in the elixir lies of angels... and made more potent by the haze of lipstick kisses, rouge on velvet... The journey over the threshold is a scream to a whisper, the chiming of ominous church bells to the low hum of a pipe organ...
 A chamber fit for an empress, an empress flirting with black abandon... the oval could be a cavern, for all its darkness, rough-hewn edges finessed smooth, mud-brown ruins masked behind lush folds of velvet... and by the same token, it could be the center of a military camp, command tent and whore's pavilion rolled into one...
Supporting posts between the draped fabric walls hold up a ceiling of abstract gold loops and spirals, circles and arabesques... above the Empire bed, piled high and luxuriant with claret cushions, is a round canopy and lambrequin, crested with an imperial eagle from days of old... the ghosts of Ney and Marmont gallop through the shadows, and a faint current of gunpowder underlies the perfume of roses...
Pay special regard to the portable writing desk at one side, just another element of the military illusion... blood red cherry, polished and crisp, with a plume of snowy white extending from the obligatory ink well, and sheets of onionskin strewn pell-mell across the top...
Lazy serpentine curls, of blush and navy, sanguine and sable, wind from the threshold to the borders, the weavings of a massive Oriental rug... an armoire, of course, resides in one corner, and peeking from its parted doors are the jarring contradiction to this regal realm - hints of latex, nail-polish red and oil-slick black, the occasional glint of silver or steel, the fringes of decadent gunmetal grey... and everything shines, shines, shines... shines so loud it screams, even in the brief glimpses that spill, carelessly kept, from the cabinet...
An Allegory
Charles Baudelaire
Here is a woman, richly clad and fair,
Who in her wine dips her long, heavy hair;
Love's claws, and that sharp poison which is sin,
Are dulled against the granite of her skin.
Death she defies, Debauch she smiles upon,
For their sharp scythe-like talons every one
Pass by her in their all-destructive play;
Leaving her beauty till a later day.
Goddess she walks; sultana in her leisure;
She has Mohammed's faith that heaven is pleasure,
And bids all men forget the world's alarms
Upon her breast, between her open arms.
She knows, and she believes, this sterile maid
Without whom the world's onward dream would fade,
That bodily beauty is the supreme gift
Which may from every sin the terror lift.
Hell she ignores, and Purgatory defies;
And when black Night shall roll before her eyes,
She will look straight in Death's grim face forlorn,
Without remorse or hate - as one newborn.
(as translated by F.P. Sturm)
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