«No, no.» The handsome stranger leaned forward. «Not
«Twenty-nine was your target?»
«How clever you are!»
«And once you became twenty-nine you were fully elected as-«
«A Friend to Dorian! Bulls-eye! But there is
«I'm still puzzled!»
«Child of my heart, you might possibly be another Friend. Come along. Before the greatest revelation, let me show you the far end of the room and some doors.»
He seized my hand. «Bring your wine. You'll need it!» He hustled me along through the tables in a swiftly filling room of mostly middle-aged and some fairly young men, and a few smoke-exhaling ladies. I jogged along, staring back at the EXIT as if my future life were there.
Before us stood a golden door.
«And behind the door?» I asked.
«What always lies behind
I reached out to print the door with my thumb.
«What do you feel?» my host inquired.
«Youngness, youth, beauty.» I touched again. «All the springtimes that ever were or ever will be.»
«Jeez, the man's a poet. Push.»
We pushed and the golden door swung soundlessly wide.
«Is this where Dorian is?»
«No, no, only his students, his disciples, his
I did as I was told and saw, at the longest bar in the world, a line of men, a lineage of young men, reflecting and re-reflecting each other as in a fabled mirror maze, that illusion seen where mirrors face each other and you find yourself repeated to infinity, large, small, very small, smallest, GONE! The young men were all staring down the long bar at us and then, as if unable to pull their gaze away, at themselves. You could almost hear their cries of appreciation. And with each cry, they grew younger and younger and more splendid and more beautiful…
I gazed upon a tapestry of beauty, a golden phalanx freshly out of the Elysian fields and hills. The gates of mythology swung wide and Apollo and his demi-Apollos glided forth, each more beautiful than the last.
I must have gasped. I heard my host inhale as if he drank my wine.
«Yes,
«Come,» whispered my new friend. «Run the gauntlet. Don't linger; you may find tiger-tears on your sleeve and blood rising.
«It's been written that H. G. Wells attracted women with his breath, which smelled of honey. Then I learned that such breath comes with illness.»
«How clever. Do
«I didn't mean-«
«Quickly. You're rare meat in the zoo. Hup, two, three!»
«Hold on,» I said, breathless not from walking fast but from perceiving quickly. «This man, and the next, and the one after
''Yes?!»
«My God,» I said, «they're almost all the
«Bull's-eye, halftrue! And the next and the next after that, as far behind as we have gone, as far ahead as we might go. All twenty-nine years old, all golden tan, all six feet tall, white of teeth, bright of eye. Each different but beautiful, like
I glanced at him and saw what I saw around me. Similar but different beauties. So much youngness I was stunned.
«Isn't it time you told me your name?»
«Dorian.»
«But you said you were his
«I
«Is that why I was invited? To sign
«I saw you in a bar across town a year ago, made queries. A year later, you look the proper age-«
«Proper-?»
«Well,
''Well.''
«My God! Are you
«It'll do.''
«That time's over.»
«It's
«Curious about
«This.» He bared me his neck again and flexed his pale white wrists. «And all those!» He waved at the fine faces as we passed. «Dorian's sons. Don't you want to be gloriously wild and young like them?»
«How can I decide?»
«Lord, you've thought of it all night for years. Soon you could be
We had reached the far end of the line of men with bronzed faces, white teeth, and breath like H. G. Wells' scent of honey …
«Aren't you tempted?» he pursued. «Will you refuse-«
«Immortality?»
«No! To live the next twenty years, die at ninety, and look twenty-nine in the damn tomb! In the mirror over there-what do you see?»
«An old goat among ten dozen fauns.»
«Yes!»
«Where do I sign up?» I laughed.
«Do you accept?»
«No, I need more facts.»
«Damn! Here's the
He swung wide a door, more golden than the first, shoved me, followed, and slammed the door. I stared at darkness.
«What's this?» I whispered.
«Dorian's Gym, of course. If you work out here all year, hour by hour, day by day, you get younger.»
«That's some gym,» I observed, trying to adjust my eyes to the dim areas beyond where shadows tumbled, and voices rustled and whispered. «I've heard of gyms that help
«I read your mind. For every old man that became young in there at the bar, is there an attic portrait?»
«Well,
«No! There's only Dorian.»
«A single person? Who grows old for all of you?»
«Touche'! Behold his gym!»
I gazed off into a vast high arena where a hundred shadows stirred and moaned like a tide on a terrible shore.
