Sometimes he wonders if the painting can feel.
Time has not aged him. Decadence and sin have not weakened his body or marred his perfect flesh. No matter what he does- no matter how he abuses himself- he remains the same.
Outwardly, at least.
The portrait that Basil- dear, sweet, lost Basil- had painted of him bears the cost of his actions. Every sin, every vice, every act of self destruction- the painting pays the price of time for him. A thing of beauty made grotesque- tormented, tortured, turned into a mockery of itself.
If it can feel, it must certainly hate him.
If only he could hate himself … or love himself. Or feel anything at all.
Does the painting retain his capacity to feel? Is the soul- if he ever had such a thing as a soul- of the youthful Dorian Gray trapped in that poor debauched portrait? Does it feel guilt, regret- the emotional and physical anguish that Dorian himself never will?
He would like to think so … He would like to think that some part of him, however tenuous, however metaphysical … might not be empty ...
Sometimes … sometimes he does experience something like emotion. He treasures those moments like a miser hoards gold- treasures them, savors them, devours them over and over again in his memory until the moment is sucked dry of sensation and becomes just another gray thought, a dull echo of what it had been …
He remembers the girl, of course. He didn't when they first met. There were so many women, so many men. They tended to blur together in his memory. He knows just how to touch a woman, how to caress a man- how to use his mouth and his hands and his body to bring them to the heights of ecstasy again and again … but he forgets them almost as soon as they leave his bed...
But the girl … the girl Brona … when she had turned her face from him- when she had looked away from him- was that shame? He's forgotten shame … forgotten what it feels like … forgotten what everything feels like … when she had turned from him he remembered who she was …
And he had smiled.
And when she had left Ethan- left her American cowboy- he had not intended to seduce the other man. Chandler was connected to Vanessa Ives … and Vanessa had intrigued him … shown him that there were stranger things in London than even himself … she had made him curious … and unlike the pleasures- such as they were- of the flesh- curiosity did not fade into the gray emptiness that he felt about everything else ….
He wanted to know more about Vanessa … so he had befriended Ethan, taken him into the darker parts of the city to perhaps allow him to forget his heartbreak …
But he had not intended to bed him … not at first.
No, he had been enjoying the novelty of being with someone that he wasn't expecting to sleep with. He had not friends- or anything like friends- in such a very long time … it had been interesting …
But after he had pulled Ethan out of his battle … after he had taken his new friend to his home … he had felt the currents of fate drawing them towards an inevitable encounter. It was not seduction; it was fate. He is Dorian Gray, no man's friend, no woman's husband- he is Dorian Gray and he can use and abuse others, be used and abused by others, but he can never be valued …
He can never be loved...
Ethan is asleep now … worn out by their exertions, lying on top of him … wrapped around him …sleeping as though he's safe in the arms of a lover ...
And Dorian Gray is left to wait for what the morning will bring.
Ethan may pretend that what happened between them never occurred. He might blame the absinthe, he might blame Dorian … he might even blame the girl herself …
Will he get up and walk away without a word? Will he beat Dorian in an attempt to excise the memory of last night from his brain?
Or will he stay in Dorian's arms … stay in Dorian's bed …?
Will he care? Will he feel?
Dorian doesn't know. He doesn't know this man. He has no idea how he will react … and that pleases him … it makes him curious ...
And curiosity is the one vice that he still feels …