Fewer people were now in the park. The plump orbs of the streetlamps prepared for their looming night shift as they began faintly emitting their warm white lights dotting the spaces between trails and trees. The trees at High Park cast their swaying shadows every which way. And as the sun moved across the sky, the shadows grew longer. Until at sunset, the trees were transformed completely into their own silhouettes juxtaposed onto a marmalade orange sky.
Elias was floating through the city in the wake of his cannabis high while Wayne was walking with purposeful and eager strides next to him. Both men were carving their way amid a sea of fleeting faces on the sidewalk; bodies and faces disappeared in the backdrop to a cacophony of sounds. Sounds that seemed to reverberate in the background; the homeless man's guilt-inducing "can you spare change?" falling on deaf ears ...the Red Cross volunteer's "would you like to make a donation to so and so" being dismissed by middle-class penny-pinching savers ...and the young professional girl's weekend exultations to her friends "everyone's coming to pre-drink at my place tonight."
Wayne and Elias carried themselves on the sidewalk with what can only be described as stoic masculinity. Women would notice them with a seductive look followed immediately by a flirtatious smile before they quickly, and perhaps unconsciously, preened their gentle wind-blown hair.
Both Wayne and Elias were well-dressed and each of them exuded their own manifestation of the intangible things that make men seem attractive to women.
Although Elias was a handsome young man, his charm and intrigue rested mostly upon his seeming indifference to his surroundings. It was as if he hadn't a care in the world...and was simply living for a living. But there was also loneliness in his eyes. The loneliness of being charming and lovable but being incapable of loving. Emotional unavailability had its attractive qualities. It was like the asymmetrical mystique of an invite that is vaguely untroubled by external cues...a handsomely expressionless face that was unfazed by the vagaries of the world. And hence it was an unimpressed face that left passersby wondering about the source of such confident nonchalance.
These delicately devilish, sidewalk encounters with fleeting women, who perfectly balanced mischief and innocence were short-lived romances...romances, however faint, that both Elias and Wayne were nonetheless consciously and proudly attuned to.
"Is this the surprise?" Elias asked quizzically as they approached Wayne's gallery.
Elias was transfixed by the Gothic nature of the building. It seemed to not only harbor art, but by virtue of its fantastical architecture, it also appeared to radiate art. There was something inherently sinister about the sharp edges and pointed angles of its Gothic architecture. Moreover, its eerie design was melodramatically accentuated by the foreboding background of the dusky sky. It stood as an architectural intimation of sins and passions, glories and disasters.
At the gallery's entrance stood a luxurious placard that read: "Private Gala."
Elias lingered for a few moments on the sidewalk as he looked at the dapperly dressed crowd. Patrons of tonight's exclusively lavish event had an elite air of privileged sophistication about them. This scene disquieted Elias before he took solace in reasoning that ostentation is often misconstrued as sophistication. Elias deduced that they were a medley of the who's who of the city's art scene, as well as, the city's political class, and the plutocrats who funded their campaigns.
Pulled by the gravity of his mounting curiosity, Elias drifted towards the door to sneak a peek at the exclusive event. Inside, the gallery was not too crowded. The warmly lit ambiance created a comfortably embracing air. Sufficiently embracing for a person to feel safe enough to embark on an artistic exploration in the wilderness of his own imagination.
Although the people had the appearance of confidence and entitlement, Elias sensed the subtleties of something else in the wake of his cannabis high. They all looked dapperly dressed. But they did not seem to have dressed up to look well, rather they seemed to have dressed up to avoid looking bad. At first glance, it might seem that both are the same. But each motivation has its distinct psychological pathology – the former springs from self-love while the other comes from self-doubt... desiring the desirable was the city's way of life.
Standing there, Elias smelled a spectrum of fragrances of acrylic and oil colors saturating the gallery. The potency of the odors left Elias, who was still fairly high, wondering whether the blind can discern colors from scents. "Does the scent of red elicit the same sentiments of danger and caution in a person who has never seen colors?" he mused to himself.
His mind, riding on the last remnants of the weed high was uncharacteristically taking him to philosophical places the more he stared at the paintings. Although he'd seen them before, it was as if he'd seen them through a haze. 'Woah...how important art is' he started musing for what felt like an eternity to a stoner. Where language ended, art began. What a song was to emotions, a painting was to mood. Art was the visualization of an emotion that could have just as well been expressed in a medium of sound – music. All art are emotions struggling to find a medium of least expressive resistance. To each painting there was a unique melody of sentiments – some art looked like how a violin sounded and could leave you with the same sense of melancholic reverence. Yes, there was music in art just like there was music in words of fine literature. A perfect combination of words – just like sounds and colors – can have a special cadence that resonates like the harmony of a vibrating chord echoing long past a person has read them.
"Are you sure this is isn't the surprise?" he asked Wayne.
"Nope, this isn't the surprise...not by a long shot, young man!" he said as they continued to walk past his art gallery which was rented out as an exclusive venue for tonight's prestigious event.
After walking for a few blocks through the downtown core, the men finally came to a stop. They stood in front of a glassy grand entrance of a lofty condominium tower. Elias looked up with searching eyes trying to locate the end of this seemingly endless castle. But it was fruitless. The tower was one of the tallest buildings in the city; its top pierced the sky and disappeared out of sight, way above the nighttime clouds. Although the clandestine building did not seem to emit any lights from inside, the cleanliness of its glassiness reflected all of the shimmering illuminations of the city at night.
"A rooftop bar?" Elias asked, half to himself, half to Wayne who simply grinned and replied: "On most nights it is."
They walked through the grand lobby that was ensconced in more glass and mirrors than a carnival funhouse.
"Good to see you, sir." The watchful security guard at the reception greeted Wayne in an all too familiar manner. Wayne did not reply but simply smiled and nodded in recognition, in a proud display of class dichotomy.
As they waited for the elevator, Elias's anticipation grew to intolerable proportions.
"Where are we, Wayne?!" he asked just as the elevator doors flung open.
"Patience, young man," he replied through a smirk and in a manner of a sagely elder of the tribe
Entering the elevator, Wayne pressed the penthouse button
It was an arduous ascension into the heavens,
Until the elevator's ding upon reaching the penthouse filled Elias with both relief and exhilaration. The doors opened unto a dimly lit foyer luxuriously overlaid with a continuous sea of red carpeting. The extraordinarily high and decorated ceilings looked like the elaborate frosting of some royal wedding cake.
At the end of the foyer, stood an enormous entrance barred by equally massive, doors. well-suited to have been borrowed from the Pearly Gates themselves.
Standing in front of them, were the shadows of two Herculean figures in black suits. The broad-shouldered and massively built security guards stood haughtily with inscrutable facial expressions.
Wayne led the way. And there was a shared nod of recognition between him and one of the security guards before the door was pushed open for him.
"Surprise..." Wayne said.
The vivacious red light suddenly rushed out from inside the penthouse, flooding the dimness of the foyer burning the stagnant air with scarlet eroticism that was, at once, inviting and arousing
Inside, it was a lively and fantastical place. The extravagant spaciousness of the multi-story penthouse was a sanctuary for a rowdy crowd of dapperly dressed gentlemen who perfectly portrayed power and purpose; the city's 'work hard, play hard' crowd.
Beautiful women, stunning women, some of them naked, some of them almost so, dotted the unruly crowd of expensive suits and fashions. Circular trays of glitzy cocktails and hors d'oeuvres floated about the sea of gleeful faces of women amidst the swirls and eddies of all too eager gentlemen. With every drink consumed, laughter and debauchery were becoming easier and rolled more effortlessly off loosened tongues.
Everything was playfully alive...everything was in hedonistic motion...everyone was delightfully animated to the modern sounds of electronic music playing faintly in the background.
Gorgeous women clung to the arms of inebriated gentlemen...some were playfully thrashing in their laps...some were happily thrashing alone on the lavishness of modern furniture...while groups of merrymakers swooned into the arms of embracing men...others were disappearing into a number of the countless rooms of this grandly extravagant penthouse. There were more rooms than Elias could possibly count in a single survey.
Although it was rumored in society that intimacy required time to cultivate, for men, this place of self-satisfying depravity disproved that theory. Long ago, men realized how primitively simple and innately vulgar they were when they discovered that, for them, intimacy can be transactional. Thereby making prostitution one of the world's oldest professions. And many millennia later, in twenty-first century Toronto, business was still booming.
Elias and Wayne sauntered in. They took their time as they walked slowly in front of the transparently glassy floor-to-ceiling windows that looked onto the enormous terrace where garden lights, warm and cozy, slithered around the balustrades like serpents twinkling in the October skies.
Elias and Wayne were like silhouettes set against the interminable night sky. The floor-to-ceiling windows imparted an ambiance of exulted openness to a majestic carnival that roared among the sparkling stars in the navy-blue sky. It was like the fizzle of celestial champagne bubbles.
Wayne derived tremendous pleasure in observing Elias taking it all in with big wonderous eyes. He was revaluating his experience of the brothel according to the degree of response it aroused from Elias's indulging first impressions. It was the same pleasure you derived from sneaking furtive peeks at a friend's reaction to the exciting scenes of a movie that you have already watched. Elias did not disappoint. He was stunned silent and taken aback by the sudden rush of colors, sounds, and the aliveness of it all.
Charisma was palpable in the air. The entire atmosphere had an exquisite French ambiance and was decorated based on the Parisian cabarets of the bohemian revolution; Paris's most notorious dens of passionate sins. The entire scene was an arousing onslaught of crimson and gold cascading down drapes from the high ceilings like a waterfall of red, white, pink, and crimson. Valentine colors.
Every single detail in the brothel was designed to effectively tantalize and captivate eager patrons and Elias was one of the latest captive audiences.
He walked behind Wayne into the living room, slowly trying to absorb the environment, while mindfully attempting to avoid overwhelming his senses and sensibilities.
"May I take your coats, messieurs?" a chirpy young voice said through a faint French-Canadian accent. "Ah. Monsieur Wayne!" the server cried as she landed a kiss on each of his eager cheeks.
The server was a beautiful brunette brimming with starry-eyed youthfulness. Her supple petite body looked not a day over twenty. She was wearing a lacey hot pink bralette and satin black panties strapped to her high see-through fishnet stockings...all perfectly adorning her smoothly freckled white skin.
"How are you, honey?" Wayne asked.
"Very good, now that you're here," the server replied with a subtle wink.
Elias looked on as he handed her his coat. She reminded him of Tilly; in both form and substance. Both men took a seat on the grand divan in the living room.
"The Madame will be right with you. What would you like to drink?" the server asked Elias.
"It's a special night," Wayne said as he handed her his platinum AmEx card. "My young friend here needs something to fix his mood. Get us two shots of absinthe please, my dear."
"Don't worry. We'll take good care of him. I'll be right back with your drinks," she said as she playfully pranced behind a bar packed with an abundance of glitzy glasses and high-end bottles of spirits. The bar was the only place in the lively cabaret where men could linger without seeming lost, purposeless, creepy, or alone. Elias followed her with his fervent eyes before he suddenly exclaimed:
"Jesus...is that the mayor?" He gestured in the direction of a stout old man caressing the naked body of a strikingly gorgeous brunette by the bar. The Toronto mayor had a history of flirting with scandal; from getting caught doing crack cocaine to sexual harassment allegations; none of it seemed to matter though to the Toronto voter base.
"Ah yes," Wayne said as he waved a jaunty salute to the mayor. Upon seeing Wayne, the mayor immediately returned the greeting before he began to approach them...completely and shamelessly unembarrassed to have been recognized in a den of sin like this.
The mayor was smoking a cigarette while chasing it down with a glass of whisky neat. His eyes were reveling in the stupor of an epicurean man who had been well-lubricated. The mayor had a notorious reputation for corruption. But to know about him was one thing, to behold his person was an altogether different experience. His eyes were bloodshot and violently possessing. He seemed to be an ill-willing soul whose lips had a persistent curl of disdain perpetually disgusted by his surroundings...bitter, begrudging, and forever unimpressed.
"There's nothing like the sweet burn of whisky to wet the saliva in your mouth to balance the delicate play of acrid smoke," the mayor said as he enunciated each syllable with great joy. "There's something charming about things that leave us ungratified and wanting more and this is a perfect example," he exclaimed indicating both the cigarette and the young brunette on his arm.
"Mayor, nice to see you again..." Wayne said as he embraced him. "Doing the lord's work I see."
"Ah Wayne, nice to see you," the mayor replied boisterously in a tone that revealed how much he had had to drink.
Under the incessant pressure of the young brunette who was tugging impatiently yet spiritedly on the mayor's arm, the mayor hastily added: "My wife's hosting a dinner party next week..."
Wayne interrupted with a smile, "I'll be there...give my regards to Wendy," he said as the mayor nodded before disappearing into one of the countless rooms.
It was a testament to the man that Wayne was to be able to inspire affection in those who found too little in this world to be affectionate about.
Upon seeing this interaction, Elias's face betrayed its usual lack of expression. He was simultaneously looking up to and looking at Wayne with jaw-dropping astonishment. Wayne had always seemed to him to be a smooth operator who was on more than good terms with life. But was now quickly growing in his eyes to proportions larger than life itself. Sensing the vicariousness with which Elias was gazing at him, Wayne flashed a mischievous wink at him, at which point he could not help but laugh.
The bass of the electro-swing music boomed louder and louder. The repetitive electronic rhythm of snare drums, off-beat hi-hats, claps, and rhythmic snaps grew rowdier and rowdier and intensifying in tempo...gold and silver confetti glittered like stars in the ceiling of the dynamically electrified air... the beautiful women began appearing like exquisite Greek sirens, swinging, romping, and pirouetting to the sprightly rhythm of the night... boisterous laughs, lively chatter, suggestive innuendos, and the clanking of champagne glasses filled the air in contrast to the howling cold October night outside.
The scene had magically transformed before Elias's mesmerized eyes into something dazzling, something natural, important, profound...elemental.
Reaching his apex of elation, Elias finally exclaimed: "This is exactly what I need!" as he inhaled the carnality and passion of the prolific indulgence that filled the air. Wayne nodded in agreement pleased to see his young friend embracing the verve of it all. The simple cure was to make him want more wants.
The server came back with a meticulously prepared tray on which she had two extravagant cocktail glasses, a green bottle of absinthe, two unblemished sugar cubes, some matches, and two silver teaspoons.
"In France, they call this the green fairy," Wayne said as the server set the tray on the coffee table in front of Elias. He gulped down his eagerness in a show of restraint. It was the restraint borne of the self-consciousness of a person still figuring out the proper way to behave in a situation unfamiliar to him; unfamiliarity added the awkwardness of new frontiers. Especially in the presence of people whose beauty makes you care about what they thought of you.
"Why is that?" Elias inquired.
"It's 110 proof, and rumor has it that the Parisian bohemians used to drink so much of it that they began to see the green fairy on the label come alive." Wayne held out the bottle to show him the French Tinkerbell-looking mascot on the bottle.
The server bent over seductively to prepare Elias's drink. She carefully placed the teaspoon horizontally over the rim of the empty glass. Then she placed the sugar cube on the spoon and began pouring the green liquid over the sugar cube until it filled the glass. She then sparked a match and lit the absinthe-soaked sugar cube.
The sugar cube began to melt and drip into the absinthe as the flame swayed sensually from side to side. Like the voluptuous hips of the gorgeous young server did whenever she walked. Everything in the brothel was meticulously designed to tantalize...everything. And the devil was truly in the details...to which Elias had completely surrendered.
As soon as the sugar cube had melted completely, the server stirred the spoon to dissolve the remnants of sweetness into the drink and then began the same performance to prepare Wayne's drink.
Elias was spellbound by the entire spectacle but more so by the server's graceful movements that were as effortless and as dawdling as slowly dripping honey. He took a nervous gulp to swallow his arousal.
"Salut!" she said with smiling eyes.
"Salut!" Elias and Wayne rejoiced harmoniously before picking up their glasses.
As soon as Elias took a sip, he instinctively needed to clear his throat. It tasted like sweet licorice fire that beautifully burned his throat and chest with the sweet flame of sin. Wayne laughed teasingly at Elias who was visibly trying to cough away its burn. He was pleased to see the elevation of Elias's spirits.
As Elias eagerly waited on the divan, he admired the pictures of Parisian courtesans and the Cancan dancers that hung all over the walls of the living room. Under the influence of the green fairy, the Cancan dancers began to move, their long legs in fishnet stockings and high heels kicking the air as they ruffled the feathers of their French-maid skirts. It was like low-intensity psychedelia without the total loss of control.
Finally, the Madame who owned the brothel ambled into the living room with an air of erotic assertiveness. She seemed like a self-assured gazelle who subdued lions under her dominion to become the queen of the jungle. She was a beautiful brunette in her mid-forties who was wearing nothing but a crimson corset and high-heeled leather boots.
"Ah, Wayne!" she exclaimed with a soft-spoken French-Canadian accent, greeting him with the usual two gentle kisses – one on each cheek.
"My dear, I want you to meet my young friend, Elias..." he exclaimed as his excited hand directed her by the arch of her lower back.
"Enchanté!" she said as her genial face brushed Elias's. Her enticing perfume left him panting and breathless. Just another subdued lion.
The Madame's wine-dashed smiling lips captured the attention of her audience before it sent their imagination spiraling into reveries about her. And only her. Her penetrating eyes would fall on you with feminine grace and genial intensity. Once these beacons were transfixed upon you, you would feel that nothing else in the world existed but this moment. She was a savvy entrepreneur and a mistress of hospitality.
Elias was all too eager to passionately reciprocate the embrace. He wanted to match her adoring warmth and the geniality of the place in general. By comparison, he felt so stiff, so robotic, lacking fluidity. The Madame imbued a presence that made him feel lesser-than, but it was one that made him delight in wanting to prove to her some quality of himself. It was a raw feminine presence that momentarily returned life to you or killed you with pleasure.
"Look how young you are!" she said, sizing him up with her mascara-drawn catlike eyes that were both intense and joyful.
Words seemed to sashay from her cherry lips into Elias's all too eager ears. She spoke sensually, in a slightly breathy voice that accentuated the s's, b's, and p's of her words. Elias was the youngest man in the penthouse, not by a margin, but by a landslide.
"I want you to give him the tour and show him the first-time experience. He's very dear to me," Wayne said while flashing a grin at Elias who was silently mesmerized. "You're in good hands now...I'll leave you to it," Wayne said encouragingly before their young server as if on cue, came and took him by the hand and they disappeared into one of the rooms. Elias felt emboldened by Wayne as if to empower was simply to encourage.
"Come with me, my handsome young man...the girls will be in for a treat..." she said with genuine delight as she took Elias by the hand. "Come, let me show you, my beautiful girls."
Elias tugged on her hand. His primitive nature, long thought to have waned, was suddenly reawakened...and found itself in the perfect place to express itself freely. She turned around to face his mischievously smiling face and intense eyes that were aroused by desire.
"What if I just want to take you?"
A sly smile drew itself on the Madame's face as she leaned in closer, putting her lips as close to his ears as possible without touching them. Purposefully. Devilishly.
"Come with me upstairs," she whispered in a breathy voice that blew each syllable into his ear. A shudder went through him. Elias's lungs were panting with lust and his throbbing heart felt like it had skipped a beat as they rambled upstairs to one of the many bedrooms.
Sex that resulted from the pursuit of passion, for passion's own sake, manifested something truly magical. As in, it manifested something spectrally abstract and ephemerally intangible, yet, palpably real. The whole was greater than the detailed sum of its parts and the devil was truly in the details.
The Madame lay on her back. Elias was on top of her, holding himself up by resting his elbows on the bed around her head, but carefully, to avoid tugging on her untied brown hair flowing underneath his forearms and elbows. Her long, sharp, and red painted nails anchored themselves deeply in the perspiring flesh of the back of his shoulder blades...to fasten herself tightly during the violent ruckus of their passionate embrace.
He smiled and gently lowered his face for a kiss. She pulled her head away from the impending peck, and then devilishly smiled and seductively bit his lower lip. Sly. Elias smiled back appreciating her rascality, then firmly centered her head with his forearms and swooned in again. No escape this time, second time's the charm. They were both smiling through the playful kiss, as their naked bodies glistened with the faint beads of sweat.
Suddenly, something happened...their eyes locked contact intensely; iris to iris, pupil to pupil – human awareness imposing its existence unto the person perceiving it...
Nothing else existed. Everything in the background – everything beyond the boundaries of their own two bodies – faded into unnoticeable darkness. As if the cocoon created by the tight embrace of their naked bodies was all there ever was in the vast expanse of nothingness. No bedroom, no building, no city, no sky, no earth... just them. Time dilated in a strangely new and splendid experience of complete surrender to come what may. The borders of who they were as separate beings began to blur. The violent rocking of their two adjoining bodies kept intensifying. It was like sticks rubbing over each other with the intensity of some friction that kindles a blazing flame. A flame that was the spark of the consummation of two consciousnesses in a carnal embrace. And during that fleeting split second of some rare warmth in the boundless companionship of an exploding orgasm, he felt that no-one truly ever died alone...
The Madame laid in bed in the dimly lit bedroom as beads of sweat slowly dripped over her panting body. Her slenderly searching hands reached over to the nightstand for a pack of cigarettes before she gently sparked one lit. Draped in nothing but blankets, she took a slow and deep drag. She paused before she blew it out with great gratification while she silently stared at Elias with salacious eyes as he was getting dressed.
In the dark pocket of his pants, his phone buzzed with a text message from Tilly that was faintly glowing, unread, in his jeans to no audience, "Hey just wondering where you are xoxo."
"That was fantastic," Elias exclaimed with a satisfied grin.
"It sure was..." she agreed coolly as she folded the collar of his shirt and dusted off his shoulders. She then wrapped her arm around the back of his head to sensually caress the back of his neck with the tip of her nails. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on command before she landed a soft, wet kiss on his all too eager neck...a lady's choice and a gentleman's agreement.
Elias left the room in a newly found state of tranquility. The evil he harbored had been purged. But a spark of passion that breaks two hearts in tandem, merits fearless pursuit borne of reckless abandon...or so he thought.
Checking his phone, he saw a message from Tilly Billy. The pangs of guilt were like a punch in the gut. More so than the actual act of cheating, he felt guilty about having had so much pleasure without her. It made him think, reexamine. To his surprise, guilt gave way to strangeness. For the first time, he was at a brothel. At most, Elias and Tilly would go to a pub on weekends with friends from work or the gym. Friends, who are as close as Instagram friends in real life – those who you can't answer honestly when they ask hey how are you? – bodies to fill the void. But that was their community and as an adult, he had lost the ability to make new friends. Living in the grind, there was no time to learn how to make new friends, to catch feelings, to read all the books on his to-read list.
This night was a detonation to his routine weekends. All of this deviation from a trodden path made him unfamiliar to himself.
Elias had been in a relationship with Tilly for three years now. Before tonight's shenanigans with Wayne, he had never cheated on her before; not physically at least. This was a general principle of his. But in their long-term relationship, familiarity and apathy seemed to go hand in hand. And for Elias, apathy was the antithesis of intimacy...apathy made everything more surreal...it made apparitions of all things under which they virtually did not feel real...it was the stuff that death was made of.
Still, it wasn't Tilly's fault and he was adamant about making it up to her.