⏤ ACT I, SCENE I.
ENTER DANTE AND HADRIAN, IN THE GALLERY.
There is no greater sight than beauty engulfed in beauty. The helpless reaction that overwhelms the body is exquisite in its ferocity; pupils greedily blown, a futile attempt to gorge on every detail while maintaining a safe distance from the trap of allurement; the sprit of ear-stuffed sailors bewaring the fatality of magnetism dense in the air. And yet, closer he goes - Dante has never been one to back off from a dare, much less one promising oblivion.
Portraits proudly bejewel the walls, inviting wanderlust-sore souls into Wonderland through the portal of an enamored gaze - peek inside the Looking Glass, into hidden lands that live between the domain of reality and the Devil’s hedonistic kingdom; please, jump head first into his stack of playing cards, shuffled cleverly between universes, and get stuck in the molasses of your own pleasure. Its Queen of Hearts looks, but doesn’t touch - rare for those rapacious hands to still in their desire, but even Dante can take a knee in respect when faced with such majesty. A gaze can weigh more than a touch, anyway, if you angle it right.
He can feel Hadrian’s on his neck, the gravity of his looking imitating the hands that used to sit on his skin like a necklace of pearls does now, each dose of pressure mapping an ambitious trail of pleasure points.
Dante wonders, when he turns, what those eyes would look like in their consumption; would they be blown black from beholding the mesmeric pageant of beauty within beauty within beauty (a matryoshka doll: this ornate shadowbox of a room hiding the gilded frames of Giorgione hiding Dante), or black from the Devil’s seed spilling excess in that lithe frame, oily and hot against the lake of ice.
Does Hadrian have the will to stuff his ears and turn away? Dante can sing such a pretty song.
“Shall I await a greeting from that tenacious assistant of yours, or is there a string I can pull to activate the chainsaw you call a voice box? One hiding in your ass, perhaps? I have a knack for finding hidden treasures in there.”
There were no words to describe him. In any sanctified court, it was no doubt that he was nothing less than a heathen. In all defiance and masochistic revelry, Dante was quite something else, so very other.
He stood like a sculpture of his very own making. Perhaps that was what had caught Hadrian’s glance - a kind of walking art that was mesmerizing as it was odd, nothing quite explainable. Good or bad, maybe a little bit of both. His gaze had almost entranced his own eyes - unwavering where his mind began to drift off into another realm of thought. He hadn’t realized he hadn’t budged from his position, watching as if he had true interest in the subject.
It is when his voice cuts through that Hadrian awakes from whatever spell had befallen him. His jaw tightens once more, posture refined as he looked toward the other. Always offering himself to the chaos, to all the madness with the sinful delight of mischief and undeniable wayward terror. All the same, whisperings of eroticism coaxed again, as if they had stepped foot once more in Verdamme.
“I’m afraid the doors to my ass are shut today,” he almost laughed. Dante hadn’t changed - ever so exquisite in his poetic rambles of doing the dirtiest of things. Filth recognized filth.
“But hello to you too. It’s been awhile hasn’t it.” A courtesy response, a practiced speech that was said ever so often on repeat. As if he were a broken doll of his very own. “While my treasures can not be touched, there have always been others to take from, wasn’t there one in particular that you’d always wanted a key to.” The name doesn’t dare fall from his lips. But it’s in Hadrian’s eyes that he knew who exactly.
And upon God’s righteous name, he fucking detested them.
