Carrion: A Story of Passion Read Free Page B

are about to consume enough to...
    I'm distracted by the giant fibreglass Zebra head protruding from the wall and I guess that this is our destination. We stop outside the black painted Georgian frontage. The name 'Exhibit' has been painted in gold flowing letters across the signboard. A bell tinkles over the door, and a waitress pulls back the heavy velvet door curtains. 
    A glimmering chandelier hangs low over the reception table, sending out prisms of light. Underneath it, two entwined stuffed swans wear golden crowns and swim on waters made from blue hyacinths. It is hard not to gawp; the whole restaurant is full of taxidermy, and flowers, and crystal.
    I wonder if there is a secret guide book to this London; the London that hides behind the Gap stores, the Pret a Manger sandwich bars and the glass corporate temples. It's as if a ribbon of timeless decadence runs playfully through the alleyways and under the railways, down the stairways and behind the shop fronts. It's intoxicating; it's a drug all of its own.
    The maître de comes forward and holds out his gloved hands to remove our coats before handing us a plastic tablet printed with our cloakroom number.
    "Mr and Mrs Hughes?" The reception asks and Alexander nods his head, gifting her his smile. I play the sound of Mrs Hughes over in my head on loop. The girl next to her glances down at the reservation book and invites us through the dining room to a small table in the back corner. As the waitress prepares me for dinner, it gives me the opportunity to study the innards of the glass dome that decorates our table. It contains three tiny humming birds, skilfully arranged around a wire and wax tropical flower. The candlelight reflects off the green and blue feathers giving the impression of petrol. I look intensely into their glass eyes and see nothing but death.
    Two glasses of champagne arrive and Alexander hands me the menu.
    "So what do you think, darling? I thought we'd better put some research into this whole taxidermy thing before our lesson on Wednesday."
    I clear my voice and nod. "Well it's certainly different. Have you been here before?" 
    He nods his head but doesn't elucidate. I stop myself thinking about whom he has brought here before; the poisonous thought that maybe this is just another scene in his well-rehearsed play flutters in my thoughts but I do not let it fully form. Instead, I focus on the menu and laugh at the collection of dishes; crocodile wrapped in vine leaves, honey poached plums and pickled Samphire, Zebra Jerky and Serengetti mix, Marinated Kangaroo skewers with candied beetroot & guindilla salad, and so on until the menu begins to read like a perverted guide to the London Zoo animal houses. Twice in my dating history I had been taken to London Zoo. Both times my date had thought himself very avant-garde: at the time I guess I had thought so too. The danger of tasting divinity is that it makes you feel newly made. There is nothing of value from the time before.
    We eat, we drink, we talk, we laugh, we flirt - I take another step into love. At half past eleven we ask the waitress to organise a cab to take us home.
     
    Alexander pours shots of almond liquor over ice. I light the candles. We sit on the Chesterfield and I do not think of work, or clients, or projects - or of the confrontation I had with the new intern, Marcia that will need sorting out tomorrow. I am soft with alcohol, with love, with desire.
    "Would you like to watch something?" Alexander asks, pulling the MacBook onto his lap and flipping it open. I nod, curious to know what it is that he should want to bring into this moment. The sounds of moaning and pleasure are the first things I translate, then the images on the screen. I realise that Alexander filmed us last night – with Celia. I should be appalled. I should be ashamed, but it's all far too sublime: it's like watching fallen angels fuck. We are young and we are free, and we are screwing the world. I am captivated.