The Price Of Decadence

"Life is like a box of chocolates," are some of the lady's first words to him.

The boy watches her swallow a chocolate after she speaks. She has a pleasant face. She has pleasant lips too, he notices. Carnation-pink, smiling widely.

"Oh?" he says, and takes a chocolate of his own. Hazelnut prailine. She turns the smile on him and he feels himself flush, deeply, in places he's never flushed before.

"A simple bite of the wrong one can put you off forever," she continues and licks her lips. He follows the path of her tongue across her teeth.

"And the right one?" he asks. He bites into his second chocolate. Coconut. Not his favourite, but he is hardly paying attention.

She pauses with a chocolate halfway to her mouth, lips pulled back, teeth poised to take a bite. "The right one can be worse. Addiction is a most dangerous poison." She sinks her teeth into the chocolate.

"I suppose it depends what you're addicted to." He reaches for another chocolate but a slender hand rests atop his and he pauses. There is a clash of instruments in his head, a sonata accompanying the loveliness of the face in front of him. The music dims when she leans close.

"Not that one," she says softly, pulling his hand toward another row of chocolates. She plucks one from its mold and places it in his fingers.

This one has a sweeter taste, tart like raspberries, bitter like wine, bubbly like champagne, rich like dark, dark chocolate. He tastes sunlight and shade and long nights and velvet and whispers.

She is whispering. Running her tongue across her teeth. She is close. He feels her body heat. Her face swims in and out of focus. Perhaps it is her nearness that makes the world appear as though it were on the other side of a distorted glass. Perhaps it is his vision that makes her teeth appear just a little too sharp.

The discovery of her breath on his neck arrests his thoughts.

"I am addicted to life itself," she says. Her voice is the most decadent thing he has tasted all night. His sudden sharp breath is the last thing he will taste, and the first thing she will taste of him.

Text by Lucie MacAulay

Art by Ludovic Jaqcz