The Gardens of Fleschimor were a fabulous creation aimed at the hearts, minds, and bodies of sensualists. Curved, perfumed, voluptuous, the flowers looked like women, while the women, also curved, perfumed, and voluptuous, looked like flowers. Young men with faces like the fabled Adonis were available to those with deep pockets. To fully relish the pleasures of this artificial paradise for voluptuaries to the full, extraordinary sexual stamina was but a base requisite, for desire alone was insufficient – the psyche must be vigorously attuned to all the nuances of a subtle lubricity and an ingenious hedonism. For those who immersed themselves in its holy delights, the erotic quotient was compulsorily ionospheric, and the body needed a surgical makeover.

Despite being a dedicated hedonist and a militant pagan who loved to conjure up arcane sorceries and enthusiastically decamp in sensuality for as long as it took to obtain a temporary nirvana of the flesh, the Dark Magician’s more sombre magicks periodically chanced upon an eager vacation in a virtual Tahiti. When this epicurean vacuum instantly engorged with a lather of guilt, he felt compelled to blubber to Uranian beggar boys that he, the worst of sinners, had committed unspeakable deeds in full sight of the rings of Saturn and as a consequence must now humble himself before superior gods as though he was an acolyte eagerly knuckling the adamantine doors of heaven. The abasement of guilt and the shame of sorcery mingled in a jetty entrepot of regret that left his limbs shaking like a committed drinker afflicted with a king-hit of tugga tugga hangovers.

Begone guilt! Return desire! The Dark Magician shook his lean but muscular shoulders like a bull sea lion emerging from a cold rinse of liquid salt so dense it was impossible to drown in its Dead Sea sludge except by fatalistic resolve. Many a time and oft, he had indulged a wallow in the amnesiac pleasure domes of rare device. Like many an intergalactic aristocrat, he knew that continuous pleasure dragged a person through a spinning vortex down into a bottomless maw –

“Courtesan Veronique!”

He stood outside the filmy membrane of rubied lace that masked the entrance to the Gardens of Fleschimor.

“Courtesan Veronique!” he repeated, louder this time. “Where is my favourite odalisque?”

The courtesan, pearled and pomegranated, pale belly undulant, appeared like a sanctimonious apparition that could work a miracle if the prayers of entreaty were sufficiently well-intentioned and passionately uttered.

“I’ve come in quest of a nor’-nor’-west,” the Dark Magician announced.

“What does that encompass?”

“I’m sure Madame knows my tastes by now.”

“Ah taste… it is a wondrous thing. Some have it –”

“Some do not,” he said with a smile.

“And to which camp do you aspire to belong?”

“I would never dream of joining any camp that would admit such a degenerate as myself.”

“Your modesty, sir, is only succeeded by your –”

“Good looks?”

“The Gardens of Fleschimor keep complexions tastefully well-shadowed.”

“Madame’s is an adornment seldom if ever exceeded.”

She laughed softly. “I am not immune to those with a silver tongue. However, a nor’-nor’-west is out of the question.”

“Sou’-sou’-east?”

She slapped his face. “All points of your compass are off limits with me.”

“What seems to be the problem?” It was Madame Court, tall and erotically elegant, imperiously beautiful, the very incarnation of delectable carnality. Her lips parted like small, wet animals, her smile megawatting the chamber like a Christmas tree on steroids. “What doth his lordship seek?”

“I am no lord, but assuredly you are the finest of ladies.”

“I see the Dark Magician has lost none of his swarthy charm.”

“Your Ladyship is most gallant.”

She bowed slightly. “We could compliment each other all night, but what is your desire, sir? The ordeal of the ten petticoats, perhaps?”

“A nor’-nor’-west.”

“I see no problem – providing you are hygienic.”

“How about a sou’-sou’-east?” Lord Maledor said, a dapper ghost appearing from the shadows. His adventurous though expertly barbered moustache had never looked more sinister. His air of refined aristocratic confidence had never soared higher into the empyrean of conscious superiority – he looked as though he expected empires to cringe at his feet, queens to suck his toes, young girls to garland his taut neck with spring blossoms, and archbishops to sprinkle him with holy water. His face, as glorious as a Renaissance tableau, sheened by the aeons of centuries, looked like a visage chiseled by Phidias when he took a moment from creating his ivory-clad masterpiece of Zeus.

“Why not?” smiled Madame Court, ever confident of her gifts for osculation and the handling of unorthodox requests.

Lord Maledor nodded slowly. “How about if I join forces with the other gentleman?”

“Fine with me,” said Madame Court.

“You’ve recovered from our little duel, I see,” said the Dark Magician, a single eyebrow raised.

“I never unleashed my full powers,” said Lord Maledor.

The Dark Magician let his eyebrows reply.

“Are you game for a trio?” Lord Maledor asked.

“The Dark Magician never declines a challenge.”

And so the two sensualists, both tall, both goatee of beard and coat hanger of build, both lordly in their demeanour and self deceit, took their pleasure. During this lively congress they shouted encouragement, criticism, and ironic entreaty of each other’s performances.

“Don’t climax yet, old boy!”

“Is your member as grand as your reputation?”

“How say you to a simultaneous little death?”

Truly, Madame Court decided, boys will be boys.

Not bad for a lovebot with a fifteen-hundred-word vocabulary, thought Lord Maledor.

Meanwhile, the Dark Magician, who despite an outer cool was in fact a clandestine romantic, concluded that Madame Court was the best of all possible ladies and perhaps, in some forbidden zone of the psyche, wished she was the daughter he had never had. Apart from such divinations, intuitions, and machinations, she reminded him of a misspent youth to which he no longer seemed father.

Ensconced at the sou’-sou’-east location, Lord Maledor mumbled to himself – whether in truth, in rort, or hopeful desire, only the gods can decide – and deployed a scarcely audible though not untuneful ululation, that these were his finest creations so far.

“You’re wasting time, Maledor!”