Conquest

Be Young Forever

Think of the most beautiful bad ass Latina chick possible. Give her long lustrous hair and shave the sides so she has a mohawk mane. Now pull that hair back into a long flowing horsetail and puff up her bangs in the front. Her eyes are big and cat-eyed with black liquid eyeliner. Her lips are licorice red. She wears a black leather bustier, tapered at her tiny waist, and tight black leather pants that hit her ankles and show off her curves. On her feet she wears six-inch red stilettos, and when she turns away you see black angel wings tattooed onto her shoulder blades.

This is Monica, and you do not want to cross her. If you're beneath her, she doesn't acknowledge you. If you're above her, she condones you because you will pay her lofty prices for Infinity.

This is what it feels like. It hits your bloodstream cool then warms, effervescent in your veins. Don Ho singing Tiny Bubbles. Your body rattles and hums in a fluid, slow motion ooze. In a moment you will begin to taste flowers. Indigenous Amazonians say this is the essence of every flower that every bee that touched the Brazil nut seedpod ever visited. A bouquet on your licker to tell you the real fun has begun.

The lights are sparkling. The air smells like flowers, too. Some say this is the odor of sanctity. Your body feels buoyant, like you are a ball undulating on the surface of the ocean. Breathing is an incredible experience. Inhale—the universe encapsulated in a gust of breath. Exhale—goodbye sorrow, so long pain. Your eyeballs go goosy, but that's all right. What matters is that you can now see a person's aura. Radiant soft colorful light emanating from the skin's edge. This is the astral body, your subtle material. This is your soul extending beyond your physical form, which feels super ooey gooey good by now. Orgasmically good, but it's a languorous lead up. A delicious simmer. You can feel your organs working, pumping, cleansing, cleaning, breathing, a well-oiled operation. Here at The Fountain, this is the aspect of Infinity that Monica emphasizes. Sit down. Close your eyes. Go inward. She will now guide you to the place inside your body where time is a construct and the body can be atomically healed.

Brie stands in her red dress leaning against the cold stone of the wine cave, watching Monica inject Mr. Sandro. Marian appears in the doorway looking like a million bucks and cured of all her ills. Her eyes are glassy and unfocused as she glides past Brie. She stops for a moment, touches Brie's lips with her fingers, and says, "You look so pretty. Like the daughter I never had."

Marian brushes past and lowers herself onto a leather couch, untying the black ribbon that is tied around her left elbow, where the IV port is still connected to her vein. Monica doesn't look at her. Brie can sense tension between them. Monica pulls a syringe from her black leather case, plugs it into Marian's IV port, and walks away.

Monica steps to the front of the room. "I met an old man in the jungle," she begins. "He told me he thought he was one hundred and thirty-one, but he couldn't remember his birth year. He looked like he was eighty. He said the key to his youth was that he understood the oneness. That everything is everything. There is no then or now. There is no life or death. All is one. The entire universe is encapsulated in a single cell of your body and the difference between a cheetah living three hundred years ago and a hummingbird alive today is a trick of the light." Monica paces over the cold stone of the wine cellar. Her heels click and echo. "Right now you have the power to understand the oneness. Go deep inside your mind until you find the cell. When you find it, I want you to purify it of the misconceptions of time. I want you to make it perfect and whole. You are everything, and everything is you. Find the oneness. It's right there. Just turn the corner and you will find it. What adulterates your blood right now, at this moment, is as close to God as you will ever come." The room is silent. Monica looks at all the faces. "Did you find it? Your place in the oneness? Good. Now clean it. Scrub it of all time. Make it new again. Be young forever."