Wealth Cannot Buy Good Taste

Romulus was a Forbes endowed, all-powerful, worldly rich individual, who, with his immense holdings, managed to interfere in the lives of millions of people, for better or for worse - his influence was everywhere. He considered this to be his right, and with his notion of supreme entitlement he had suppressed and overtaken the wishes of his heart and soul lifetimes earlier. His commonsense of spirit had left him entirely, along with his angel that he had repelled forevermore.

“I want that bear!” he snapped at Mercedes, who was adjusting her bra around swollen nipples that were tender from the rings Romulus had insisted she have pierced with. 

“I want that fu’kin Bear”, he snarled angrily to Alex, who had just received a heavy beating, and no amount of coke could mask the pain this time ... his groin was purple from that contraption. He looked over to Mercedes and with the solidarity of the oppressed; they understood one another completely in a very meaningful moment.

“Why is it the guy never sleeps?” she complained shortly after Romulus had left the apartment.

“I know - I sure would like to see that” agreed Alex, slowly sitting himself down on the edge of the bed; its black satin sheets crumpled into a small pile waiting for housekeeping to come and collect them.

The entire floor was one enormous room situated high in the clouds on the seventy-eighth. Its windows however, were filled with decorator landscape views, scenic photographs of country USA - it was impossible to tell the time of day or night by looking at them or to take in the sky or the scenery beneath. Some of the panes doubled as video screens also. Alex always assumed there might be recording devices imbedded in them as well.

This enormous room depended therefore on artificial lighting, which if anything was always far too bright and uncomfortable for normal eyes, except for those places in the recessed spaces that glowed a dull dark red.

There was also a sunken lounge and a small bathing pool tiled in black and a circular bed. The decor was bad taste 60’s and actually designed by Romulus himself, whose primary objective in both life and design was to put one’s teeth on edge. Even the latrine and bidet was exposed, being behind just a single glass partition, for he liked and insisted on being able to see his companions at all times, and as far as he was concerned, the more uncomfortable they were, the more excited he became.

The only exit from the apartment was the lift that had bronze gargoyles positioned at each side of the doors, with sensors hidden within their gaping mouths. Only Romulus held the card key for this lift and to the hotel’s switchboard; and so Alex and Mercedes were dependent on him for them to be able to leave. There was no fire escape; at least not one that they knew of. No escape was at all easy. 

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Finding Self - Second Guesses- Azlander Series