Dancing with a Dandy

Dancing with a Dandy

What an age to be alive! A time when swains can sway with the ballad of transposing their daily life upon romance. Modernity, having invented commercialism, offers a variety of means for one to pluck and choose what lover seems most desirable to them. If pondered over, dating applications are akin to pottering through aisles in a supermarket. The discrepancy being that the purchase here is what divertissement is gained, fire is eroticised, or love is blossomed. The genius of it all is how, sans leaving home, one can twiddle away a whole day scrolling at virtual delectables on their screen. 

This is how our heroine, Minerva, enters the narrative. After severing ties with her former flame, Minerva’s womanly angels whispered in her ear to rummage elsewhere - explore the fauna and flora of amour. Indulge in nights of salacity that are foredoomed to end the consecutive morning. Minerva at length refused these temptations, till she relented at last, and delved into what she could net, praying she would not stumble on some loathly catfish. Her profile on Licence To Swive (an application for courtship) was humble, with images where she smiled at innocuous activities, ate a range of succulent foods, and stood before paintings, monuments, and other marvels besides. 

Alas, this is how Minerva lumbered upon Dandy, a man of suasive conversation. Over the course of a fortnight, they had frisked through the lea of laughing at pixelated jests, waltzed atop their woes and insecurities (Dandy embellished his to the maudlin hilt), as well as discussed aestheticism in their favourite artists. Being a dilettante, Dandy leveraged her more artistic interests, warping them to his benefit; all whilst Minerva was unaware of him doing so. When literature was mentioned, Dandy would sophisticate a casuistry that purported to be fascinating, however, it was always hollow. He would misappropriate styles of music by misplacing them. Once, for instance, Dandy pontificated on a composer, Clara Schumman, a musical area that Minerva had little knowledge of. He glozed to assimilate as a feminist, blathering that Jean-Philippe Rameau had purloined from Schumman. The irony being that, if Minerva had researched Rameau, she would have read him to have anteceded Schumman. On occasion, Minerva would doubt these fanciful statements, but Dandy’s rhetoric and beauty would beguile her astray from her intuition. 

A month flew by, when Dandy invited Minerva to come and enjoy a repast at his house. He told her that she need not lift a finger, for he would cater to her every whim, as if Dandy was slavish Serevin from Venus in Furs. Minerva asked what cuisine he had in mind, to which Dandy replied:

“‘Tis a surprise, though satisfaction is guaranteed.” His message was punctuated with winking coquetry. Blushing from the insinuation, Minerva agreed, and a date was arranged. 

If ever a fallacy was pathetic, then it was on that Saturday eve where Minerva and Dandy were to entwine: azure veins ran through the heavens, whose blues were at odds with the pink from a shepherd in delight, like salmon and anchovies shoaling abreast a westering sun. Minerva strode to Dandy, propelled by the ribald wind winnowing through her flaxen hair, and, as if Marylin Monroe, blowing her ivory dress upward, defiling Minerva of her modesty. His chateau was sited on the summit of a cobbled hill, where Minerva saw the grandest of mansions. Gloating, she sped along the path leading to the door. Before Minerva could knock, however, the argent latch unhinged, revealing Dandy in all his pomp.  

“Rejoice! for the lady doth grace mine eyne!” exclaimed Dandy, grabbing Minerva’s right hand so as to sodden it. Seeing Minerva be moonstruck, Dandy condescended her by simplifying his compliment: 

“Your pictures did you an injustice - you are twice as gorgeous and voluptuous in the flesh.” 

Wincing within at such visceral imagery, Minerva chuckled in discomfiture. “As do you.” This was a gross cozenage, for it unnerved Minerva how disparate Dandy was to what he had masqueraded himself as online. His hair, receding as Napoleon against Russia, thinned and silvered. Where the photographs had shown him to have youthful vivacity, Dandy now had signs of him antiquating, with his skin wizening - jaundicing even - and a rheum thickened under his eyes. Minerva felt swindled, though, despite his defects and deceits, Dandy still attracted her in an outré fashion. His pristine moustache, his raiments being debonair - khaki poet’s shirt, maroon moleskin trousers - and his odour was of frankincense (woody and earthy). These, and his evident wealth, redeemed him by lessening her aversion. Dandy, nonetheless, looked like a venerable peacock that was humanised as an effete pirate. 

A silence had meanwhile prevailed. Minerva, embodying herself anew, thought of something to say, but was interrupted by Dandy chaperoning her shoulder to careen down his spacious corridors. On the enamelled walls were paintings, freaked and streaked with inexpert lines and shapes, by contemporary madcaps. Classical melodies echoed from a speaker, advancing toward them as they progressed. Glancing at Minerva, and noticing her wry confusion, Dandy modernised what was playing to: Physical by Olivia Newton-John. 

“I believe this song better suits the eve ahead?” 

Minerva detected a subtle lisp from Dandy. He had tried to muffle it by hovering his hand over his mouth, however, that proved unfruitful to Minerva’s acuity. As is wont with our imagination and hopes, Lada had prevised an idyll, which reality was now disillusioning her of. The jury in her consciousness quarrelled over how, after all, Minerva had rolled this dice by volition. She had thrown a coin into the well, when prowling dating applications, and must now thole the consequences. Her tergiversating was further trammelled by her conscience, that chided her for being so superficial. For all she knew, Dandy could be a gentleman, and have a kindly soul. Besides, appearance is not what quantifies love; at least, not the only ingredient. 

Debouching out from the corridor, they arrived at a vaster chasm, in the kitchen: the floors, motlied with agate, quartz, and lapis lazuli, spanned an illimitable breadth, ceasing but when the vitreous door to the balcony enforced so. The origination of those melodies now defogged, as a huge sound system, with its speakers resembling insectile eyes, predominated a purpureal wall. 

A sultry draught, immixing with the stench of garlic, wafted from a fervent fireplace. There was an island for cooking, on the left side, where miscellaneous knives were ensheathed in armour, a multifaceted Aga where some comestible wraith was poaching, a desolate pizza oven with its yawning gorge, and - strangest of all - was a Japanese Kotatsu, with silken drapery enwombing around the floor.  

“What is it that I smell?” queried Minvera. 

Instead of liberating her curiosity, Dandy fornicated with her rouged lips. “Nestle yourself over there,” said he, motioning to the Kotatsu, “whilst I fete you with what speciality I moiled for you.” Simpering as he headed for the Aga, where the garlic effused from, Minerva disentranced her awe of such opulence. It daunted her to see how lavish Dandy lived. 

Sitting, and fleecing her knees with the drapery, Minerva resumed her perusal of the kitchen. The Naked Maja by Goya hung adjacent to the island; Minerva found it improvident for the painting to be approximate to where the smoke from the Aga, and general cookery was done. 

As Dandy prepared their entrée, which he cached from Minerva by dint of his spine, she began to converse: 

“I am admiring your Goya - is it genuine, or a replica?” 

With a contemptuous hauteur, Dandy guffawed at the question. “That is not Goya, that is Sorolla. In response to its authenticity,” Dandy assumed gall at Minerva having impugned him, “I daresay you misvalue me. I shall never soil my repute by buying a facsimile.” 

Startled at both his avowal of it not being Goya (for she knew it to be so), and how facile it had been to pique Dandy, Minerva thumbed at her fingers from chagrin. 

“I am adamant that it is not Sorolla,” rejoined she, gentling her tone with tact, “It is far gloomier than his art.” 

In an extemporary moment of violence, Dandy hammered his iron fist upon the island, quacking from how he had been defied. Minerva ingurgitated a mound of angst at this inflammation, wondering all the more whether she ought to disembroil before it was too late. All the while Barry Manilow intoned lachrymose chivalry.  

Shuffling with an argent platter, some claret and two glasses, Dandy approached Minerva as he balanced the tray to flaunt what he considered to be dexterous strength. “Trust me, dearest, that is Sorolla. It is a part of his Blue Period.” As Minerva abstracted over yet another idiocy from Dandy, for she ascertained that he now thought Sorolla was Picasso (their sole commonality being their nationality), Dandy commenced philosophising: 

“I adore how he has canonised such a beatific sylph,” with his arms flailing to and fro.“The Rubenesque woman sheens gainly lacquer - her iridescence is of a Venerean oyster - traversing up her Junoesque thighs, with her dun hair coiling to a manful length. She reclines in bliss, with her aquiline nose and prideful smile, silhouetting the bluest melancholy.” 

Suppressing how soporous she stooped, Minerva had been so embedded in ignoring Dandy, that not once had she glimpsed at the atrocity he expected her to eat. Oil, from defunct snails spuming, glistered upon the platter in her fore. 

“Les escargots!” shouted Dandy, as he licked with lechery. “From our discussions on Licence to Swive, I presumed your refinement to be fond of snails. I have not been rogue, have I?” 

Before formulating a sentence, Minerva gazed again at their shells lathered in vomitous green, and scented what should have been redolent, but was mangled to a mephitis. She had never tasted this French delicacy, and nor had she wanted to. Ever and anon, Naked Maja would further befoul the prospect of dining off these monstrous molluscs. 

Dandy, though, wasted no time in gourmandising, and employed the most supercilious manner of doing so. Fastidious was the method wherein, ungraving a herbaceous mollusc, would transpierce it with his petite fork (more akin to a trident), to then deposit it into his gape. Upon finishing his first, he magicked a diaphanous handkerchief to cleanse the sluggardly mucus encompassing his moustache. Remarking on how Minerva famished herself, Dandy interposed why she acted the suffragette, and the drunkard for she quaffed at the claret. 

“They would not sit well with me.” 

“O’ be not a common nymph!” riposted Dandy, patronising her more by ferrying a mollusc of especial grease towards her. 

She parried his audacity by cementing her lips, and bidding him to refrain from sullying the already pleasureless ambiance. 

“Sulk in a mard all you like,” swirling his vinous glass. “It means I can have them all for myself.” With her teeth levigating her topmost gums, Minerva was strained to manducate for the remainder of this abhorrent entrée. Beholding the grotesquerie of Dandy inhume all of this, invoked a caprice in her to run - escape from his maws. Alas, that bashful knave, which we call our conscience, forbade Minerva from fleeting down the corridors.  

Replete, Dandy alternated what melody unsettled for Kiss by Prince. Impromptu arising, bewildering Minerva to spew some claret upon the silk of the Kotatsu, Dandy danced to the Aga. His feet, moving with what miscarried as abortive seduction, banished the molluscous reliquary hence. Contrariwise, Minerva cowered in uterine disrelish at this farceur. 

Still in unprepossessing rhythm to Prince, Dandy harvested what had been poaching, sautéed it, and adorned it with stilton, beurre noir, and capers. He then conveyed this successive abomination thitherwards: cervelle de veau: calf’s brain. Dandy had favoured an eve of anomalous dishes, with the theme being inspired by the French of yore. 

“I am afraid it is mandatory that you try this,” jiving with arrogance as he neared her. “All of yesternight I slaved, being meticulous with changing the water every few hours, so as to gratify us.” 

From Dandy’s commandment being officiated - thou shalt not fast - Minerva heaved neuroticism from what rancidity was to come next; she redoubled her inebrious penchant, consuming so much that the bottle of claret had been depleted to a quarter. A fictitious vigour enheartened Minerva for what was unconjurable. 

Dandy rested a rubicund plate in front of Minerva. Perplexed and alarmed, she analysed the membranous, pinkish substance before her. Hoisting the matter up, and throttling it, she discerned it to reel to and fro, as if a jellyfish embowelled, striated with varicose intestines that writhed when pressure was applied. Dandy had almost triumphed in veiling the cranium, however, Minerva was thrice as alert after the first, culinary mishanter. 

With her face thrawn, she demanded to know what perversion he subjected her to. Spurning her as having exaggerated, Dandy gulled her of it being from the neck of a calf, and was so softened that it had now lamed. After coaxing Minerva into assaying it, through unremitting entreatance, he watched her complexion envenom from how it deliquesced, as the skin of a leper, from her saliva spindling it in gangrenous gossamer. As the cranial fibres dissolved yet fluider, Dandy interjected: 

“Pardon my deceit,” burrowing a forkful of it into his mouth, “but what you are devouring is, in actuality, a calf’s brain.” Revelling in its savour, Dandy was amused by his debauchery of Minerva. 

Revolted, she purged her palate of the blasphemy, and drowned her lamentation in claret. “That was vile!” 

“If you insist on discrediting my earnest apology, then so be it. Be childish, but know that the sager person is the one who forgives and forgets. Besides,” manipulated Dandy, with a sullen, “you ought to thank me.” 

“What for!” 

“Why - civilising you! A woman that rebukes such distinctions,” pronounced Dandy, with imperious scorn, “is slatternly enough to jilt an urbane lover, such as I. Dolour betide for I had believed you to be courtly, alas, how erroneous I was. All the same, you shall suffice.” 

Dandy ensued by ordaining the speaker to rotate through all of Barry White’s unwonted concupiscence. 

From his libellous temerity, Dandy must have been benighted of the proverb: hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. He would rue having wronged Minerva, for now, renouncing her forbearance, she quested to redress this unregenerate, rude poseur. Revenge, however, is best havocked once having been rimed awhile. After this ludicrous train of mishaps, and dousing her in candescent gaslight, Minerva letched to humiliate - nay - desecrate Dandy’s pride, confidence, and egotism. A roseous, murdersome, and conscienceless war began. 

“Shall we dance?” suggested she, with insidious intent fuelled by her intoxication. 

“We are yet to have dessert.” 

“Are you shying away?” Minerva affected her most lascivious voice, and stabbed at his virility. “Embarrassed?” 

Irked, Dandy clasped Minerva adroit, and started to mimic that laughable swaying that all fathers attain when dancing. Minerva lumbered to and fro, before signalling that Barry White was unbefitting of their present milieu. Soughing from her request, Dandy handed her the device to scotch Barry. Multiplication by Bobby Darin bellowed as Minerva loudened the volume. Dandy, interfused with a pretence of suavity, swaggered in cyclical steps of romping backward and forward. He bragged from his emboldenment: lolling his tongue agape, contorting his shoulders, and convulsing his legs as though smote by paraplegia. Minerva chortled in mischief, rendering the conceited Dandy as impotent. Clambering for a reprisal of honour, Dandy swiftened the pace whereof his feet lurched, and unawares succumbed to the perturbation swathing him. In the throes of wretched Dandy, Minerva now dashed forthright for his crotch, and cascaded off. Fumbling for his manly dignity, Dandy allowed her this impertinence. Smirking, he beckoned Minerva interweave with his refluent poet’s shirt, undulating as of tempestuous waves, and outspread for her to be encased in. Inbreathing intangible prowess, she zigzagged over to Dandy like a feral meteor. Upon collision, Minerva harrowed her knee into his Achilles’s heel with barbarity. Agonised, Dandy empurpled with both rage and obloquy. This endamagement was insufficient, so Minerva waxed superlunary thew by diving sheer into his phallus, cowping Dandy upon the floor. Tremulating, he crouched in prayerful discomposure, and gawked at Minerva whose eyes fired unequivocal complacency. Wetting him with a kiss, she bade Dandy adieu, and made for the corridor. In a trice, Dandy, embalmed in enmity, wrenched her left arm, beslavering as he did so. Minerva threshed as hard as she could, but Dandy was imbued with indomitable avengement. 

“Not so fast, dearest,” lisped Dandy. 

Incensed, he relieved himself of his moleskins. Dandy demonised a scurvy that decayed him to a carious goat. At the mercy of his libido, Minerva was submerged to annex his nefandous, lower extremities. In these perilous moments, Minerva fretted over how she could evade such perdition; before conceiving of a path to pursue, her face was rammed against his execrable pizzle, where he prescribed her to lap it up. Having to endure the most nauseous taste yet, Minerva retaliated by arresting his phallus, compressing, narrowing, goring, and rending it asunder, causing Dandy to cowp aground once more. Ensanguining and caterwauling, weltering and jerking in moonlit blood, Dandy thrashed his head from side to side. 

Joyed in a depraved way, Minerva, still dumb, seized the device for the speaker to have a tune coalesce with piteous Dandy, whose pupils guttered as a candle squalled by Hurricane Wilma. These Boots Are Made For Walking by Nancy Sinatra flouted at Dandy, and sans tarrying, Minerva departed - however, suborned by Nancy’s song, she bequeathed an ultimate decimation to Dandy by trampling his wound. 

Walking down the corridor, Minerva attuned to the wailful anguish from her Dandy unmanned, smiling all the time. 

Not much is known of how Dandy’s phallus fared thereafter, save that surgery did naught but further mutilate its already decrepit wilt. In the end, Dandy reaped what he had sown. 

All ape the fool, but being cruel is a step closer to perpetual ridicule.