The Minotaur - A Dream.

The dream unfolded in this manner. I was caught in one of those eternally empty hallways in the nether regions of some casino, somewhere between the great gambling caverns and the actual hotel. There's always a faux marble alcove fountain dribbling away and always some drunk taking a drink from it just before he stumbles onto the elevator. There are too many mirrors, too much gold leaf, Vikki Carr's "It Must Be Him" piped in, cubist carpeting.

Perhaps I was on the second floor, looking for a certain room, or a lingerie store that hadn't been built yet. But I was by an elevator and I'd watched a tourist slurp from a Parisian-style alcove fountain and board the lift. He grinned at me as the doors closed and suddenly I was surrounded again by my own reflection in a million kinds of gold, silver and glass mirrors. Everything shone and reflected at once like Mod advertising from the 1960s. I turned around and around and realized that the reflections on these shiny surfaces had nothing to do with this hallway or with me. The reflections were erotic atoms. Imagine standing in a forest in Colorado, the quarter-sized aspen leaves quaking in a winter wind and now imagine each of those leaves reflecting random parts of women and men you'd found attractive all through your life.

On one shimmering bit of silver there's a breast, a breast making a scimitar shaped shadow between the heft of it and the body. It wouldn't be attractive to everyone, as it's not pert. In fact, it's nearly cub-drawn. But something about that scimitar-shaped shadow always aroused you. Well, now, all of this gold leaf, and all of these spangles reflect the atoms of my erotic imagination. But I can't face the elevator, or it's no good. The elevator is just a funhouse mirror, where I'm distorted, fattened, aged, stunted. But the smaller surfaces -- the copper and bronze-colored autumn leaves on a metallic plant in the corner, the gold lame and brass door to the restroom, the silver asps that climb the wallpaper every time the novelty lighting flickers in the hallway -- all these surfaces flash portions of my sexual memory back to me and then dissipate to emptiness in the blink of an eye. But it's constant and the hallway lights begin flashing and in each spangle there is a breast or a nipple or a rough devil's beard of pubic hair, or a cock just rising, or the bruise on the dimple of a recently-taut ass as it slackens and ba-bumps into the bathroom to refresh itself.

And of course I'm swirling in this metallic concoction for what seems like ages, still listening to Vikki Carr. And then the elevator door opens and the lights stop flashing, but they remain dim, everything is burnished: time, breath, ego. And I stand before the Minotaur. He stands golden in the silver elevator compartment. His head is that of a black bull with horns still awash with gore, but his body is all brilliant gold aspen leaves, layered like chain mail, the cheapest, shoddiest gold and brass shaking on this heaving bull body like a million casino dancers shimmering under hot white light. His breath is so hot that it comes from his nostrils like angels made of steam, thick bodies rising into vents which slurp their praying bodies into nothingness. His eyes are black and reflect nothing. His frothy, stallion-black hair reflects nothing. But this glittering mail reflects every hour of bloodshed since the beginning of time in the most tawdry, brazen fashion. Like watching the throats of perfume counter girls slit over costume jewelry and beveled bottles of grotesque fragrances. I couldn't see one moment directly, but they were all reflected for a moment in the brass and sick, cheap gold. And then all the gold on him, all the silver, all the brass, turned crimson. Turned bright, saturated, technicolor crimson, and the Minotaur was clothed in blood...Huffing there in the elevator clothed in disco ball costume spangle brass lamp blow up chrome comic book long dangling uvula shaped South Dakota gold, the Minotaur felt soothed by my gaze and I watched each spangle on him turn back to gold and brass and crap silver. The elevator door closed and Minnie shook me awake to tell me my mouth was open while I slept and it was not attractive. She told me the tea was ready.