[In Rapture, beauty is terror. And men quiver before it.
Booker leans against the counter of the bar, waiting on a refill (a lagavulin, neat). People pass by him in crowds but he remains a still point in time, unmoving. His eyes are chilled and clear, taking after the shape of gems and everything about him seems at least mildly chiseled: movie-idol face and cut-glass architecture, angled like a Wyndham Lewis portrait. He wasn’t an unattractive man, clearly, though for some reason one could never quite guess his age, his sentimental eyebrows making the shape of two separated sides of a steeple, always gently perplexed. Tall and whip thin and sharp as a flash of lightning, a tapered black tie collars him now, tames him for the remainder of the evening.
Part of his face is obscured with a mask. It is uncomfortable, but he had little choice in the matter.
The banquet hall looming in the distance is an odd bare thing, sprawling and rococo and skeletal and strangely human. Within, stained marble floors and already someone has broken a glass, champagne bubbling and wasted out of its confines, sticky and ruminating in the dry air. Every piece of décor seemingly more rigid and unforgiving than the next, a stark contract to the rush of water curling by across the clear, windowed ceiling.
Boring, boring. All of it -
But then, he sees him. Looking furious and debonair in a tailored (of course it is tailored) suit. Booker does not know his name but he knows that look. A quiet rebellion. A horror masquerading as a man.
Booker likes him immediately. His smile is predatory.]
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Booker leans against the counter of the bar, waiting on a refill (a lagavulin, neat). People pass by him in crowds but he remains a still point in time, unmoving. His eyes are chilled and clear, taking after the shape of gems and everything about him seems at least mildly chiseled: movie-idol face and cut-glass architecture, angled like a Wyndham Lewis portrait. He wasn’t an unattractive man, clearly, though for some reason one could never quite guess his age, his sentimental eyebrows making the shape of two separated sides of a steeple, always gently perplexed. Tall and whip thin and sharp as a flash of lightning, a tapered black tie collars him now, tames him for the remainder of the evening.
Part of his face is obscured with a mask. It is uncomfortable, but he had little choice in the matter.
The banquet hall looming in the distance is an odd bare thing, sprawling and rococo and skeletal and strangely human. Within, stained marble floors and already someone has broken a glass, champagne bubbling and wasted out of its confines, sticky and ruminating in the dry air. Every piece of décor seemingly more rigid and unforgiving than the next, a stark contract to the rush of water curling by across the clear, windowed ceiling.
Boring, boring. All of it -
But then, he sees him. Looking furious and debonair in a tailored (of course it is tailored) suit. Booker does not know his name but he knows that look. A quiet rebellion. A horror masquerading as a man.
Booker likes him immediately. His smile is predatory.]