Charming Lies

answer to a Paradise challenge... a little dark for me... but great fun. I'm still looking for this club.

“You’ll love it Sassy said.  It’s in the hood.  It’s called the ‘Midnight Telling’ and the coffees good.”  With reluctant trepidation, I accepted the invitation.  

 

She reached across and opened the door to her black Mini Cooper and I slipped in.  Soon we were rolling through dark, quiet, unfamiliar streets.  I love this strange girl, with her black curls, black snug turtleneck. and white pearls. Her floppy beret was about the same color as her perfect butterscotch skin.  Her eyes glowed in the light from the dash.  She was 20 years younger, and always brought out my hunger. 

She was excited and beautiful.  I hid my lust-filled adoration behind a relaxed smile.  In the warehouse district we parked with a dozen other cars and walked to a large brick wall.

A blue light above a heavy wooden door lit a serpentine sign etched with a sharp blade... “The Midnight Telling is a masquerade.”  The door opened with creaking hinges and we entered a vestibule.  A person with beaded face mask, a shiny vermillion suit, and white gloves sat in a high perched wooden chair with big cushions and accepted admission money.  I stood at the top of a circular waterfall of stairs that were narrow at the top and wide at the bottom.  People sat on the stairs like bleachers leaving only a serpentine path to the bottom.  The whole room was visible from those stairs. 

The atmosphere was stirred by big wicker woven-bladed fans.  Here and there hair was stirred by breezes.  The walls were 15 ft, high masonry graffiti artist billboards with various displays of artistic decadence and self-indulgent creativity dotted around the room.  Many small tabletops were net access screens with holo projection keyboards.  While I watched, they all synchronized and interjected a short video message from a costumed motley fool in heavy makeup, then returned to whatever the residents were doing.   

A roaring crimson fire display behind glass featured a wide row of narrow flames reaching almost 8 ft. high and disappearing.  A blasphemous consumption of fuel, or an optical illusion?  People stood on a podium in front of the display without seeming to be overly warm.

We picked our way down through the people.  It was a smoky cavernous room filled with tantalizing artwork and smaller personal spaces.  Hanging from the ceiling at the foot of the stairs a sign read “Ye Enter Perdition.” 

In the opposite corner was a bar like an altar. Tiers of candles interspersed with colored, tiny, bright-colored glass totems stepped up from the bottom and in from the sides.  The back and ceiling were mirrors adjusted to focus on the observer standing on a raised platform. The effect when a person faced the rest of the room was that they had a sparkly aura-halo.

Coffee was free and a variety were dispensed from a row of spigots along one wall.  I recognized none of the names.  The one I chose was pungent with an odor reminding me of sulphur.

A man sat behind a tall drum in another corner beating a spontaneous complex beat.  Beside a heavy lady in a black body suit blew stretched sweet notes on a flute over the drum beat.  Her long blond hair had sequins sparkling.  As their combined rhythm and notes grew more lively, many in the room turned to focus.  

As their music paused, the motley fool came on to a small stage to announce an attraction, and an elderly man with long pointed white goatee mounted the dias in front of the candles and mirrors. The drummer accented his steps and concluded the motley fool’s short performance.    Near silence and all eyes in the room focused as a curtain rose on a wall niche scene behind the fool. 

The man began a deep barritone recital:

“Oh angelic mephistophelian reptilian consort!

binding the True Will of Thelema

The Book of Law guides you from creation

to do as thou wilt, to Love all under will

you dwell in Limbo use deception and falsification to worship Dagon and Moloch

your body beautifies this world 

your face lies in the veil of nether

belonging to the holy serpent”

The vignette glowed red and yellow with hanging, draped red gauze and crepe slowly undulating with the gentle breeze. A luscious feminine form with oiled skin faced away.  A’6’ was shaved into the back of her head and long tresses hung from the center.  Her face mask lay on the red gauze with a snake coiled through.  A trickle of blood oozed down along the veil.  A King of Spades character in tricorn hat moved through the lower level swinging a silver pot and sprinkling a dark red liquid over everyone.

The baritone turned to kneel at the altar.  A slender tendril of white hair hung down his back.

The drummer was accelerating his beat.  It was a stellar performance, perfectly timed to capture the audience and catapult them into a frenzy.

I was more than ready to go.  Sassy was no where that I could see.  I felt a fear to the marrow of my bones.  I was witnessing blasphemous spirituality.  We are what we think. We become what we repeat.  I felt I would strangle on the hollow twisted, and devastated truth I was witnessing.  Repeated consumption of this environment would surely form a disastrous callous on one’s soul.

 

Suddenly, Sassy came up close behind me, knowing my thoughts.  She was aroused and spoke with ardor.  “Let’s leave this place.” she said.  I felt my body catapult up the stairs and out the door.

 

The air was cool.  Distant city noises seemed foreign and angry.  Lunar light was blue grey and reflected bright points from the surrounding vehicles.  We headed away in her little car and my heart began to slow.  

 

She finally spoke. “It’s a wonderful place, isn’t it?”

“Thanks for sharing it with me, I had a great time.” I lied.  We’re both good at charming lies.