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On my seventeenth birthday, I finally heard from Vittorio. He sent me a box of chocolates, accompanied by a picture of him on a rooftop, with a spectacular view of a colourful city easily recognizable as the fabled island state Venera and, beyond, the Mediterranean. In the four years since I'd last seen him, my best friend had hardly changed. Or at least he looked the way I still imagined him. On the back of the picture, he'd scrawled "Buon compleanno!"—nothing else.

Had Vittorio been in Venera all this time? Was he there now? Alas, the return address on the package was too smudged to decipher.

The list of ingredients had been peeled off the box. It was easy to guess why. In the privacy of my bedroom, I opened the box and bit into one of the sweet and spicy delicacies. That first taste of vermilion—the Veneran export was barely available in Canada, and then only at tremendous cost—was so intense that I experienced a tactile hallucination of Vittorio kissing me, of his hands fondling my erection. Not the first time I'd had such a fantasy, but it had never so consumed all my senses, surprising me with a sudden ejaculation. I was still dressed, but my cock had wormed out of my underwear. My jeans were sticky and uncomfortable. The orgasm had been bittersweet—as was the memory it had awakened: my first kiss, that time Vittorio's mouth had tasted mine, so briefly, in the school library, two days before his abrupt departure.

One morning, a mere three months after Vittorio and his parents had immigrated to Canada, Mrs. Dorchester, our sixth-grade teacher, announced that Vittorio would no longer be in our class, as his family had moved away. How could that be true? Vittorio would never leave—never leave me—without at least saying goodbye.

I went to his house. There was a For Rent sign on the front lawn. I rang, but there was no answer. I broke the basement window and went in, hoping to find some clue, some reason why my friend had abandoned me, some way to contact him. But the place was empty, as if no-one had ever lived there; so bare and lifeless that I could no longer visualize the hours we'd spent sequestered in Vittorio's room, conspiring against the monotonous conformity that constantly threatened to extinguish the fire that we, and no-one else, saw in each other's eyes.

* * *

I graduated high school, although I forgot each day as it was over. Several of my college applications were successful, but I never bothered replying to any of them. My father threatened to throw me out unless I either went to school or paid rent. My mother stopped talking to me entirely.

I didn't care about any of that. All I wanted was to reach Venera and find my friend. After receiving that package from Vittorio, I read countless books and articles on the mysterious city-state. The best that I could conclude from this miasma of contradictory information was that almost none of these writers had any direct experience of the decadent metropolis. And then I hit on Petra Maxim's 1001 Days and Nights in Venera—a gorgeous coffee-table book filled with breathtaking and surreal pictures of the mysterious city. One picture depicted a party at the Velvet Bronzemine ballroom—so extreme in its gaudiness and tastelessness that it achieved an unexpected beauty. Among the partygoers, there he was: Vittorio—dancing, arms enlaced, in a trio with the massive Tito Bronze himself and a petite but voluptuous nude girl with dark chocolate skin and long, braided hair.

My father was careless with his PIN numbers, keeping a list of them in his sock drawer. The day after my eighteenth birthday, I stole one of his bank cards while he slept. I took out all the cash I could—two thousand dollars—and booked the cheapest flight to Europe.

* * *

Located on Rue de Seine, just north of Boulevard Saint Germain, Venera's Parisian embassy betrayed nothing of the city-state's celebrated decadence, at least from the outside. Its facade was a dull greyish white, like most Parisian facades, and lacked any distinctive details. A metal plaque next to the door announced, in both French and Italian, what was housed in this drab building.

A short dark-haired man with a comically large nose welcomed me in French with disconcerting warmth. After only a few days in Paris, I had already grown accustomed to the French capital's oppressive sterility. He led me to a small office—unadorned, save for a modern ergonomic desk, a computer, and a filing cabinet. At the desk sat a taller, German-looking man who immediately picked up on my accent and switched to English.

The embassy's austerity shocked me. Where were all the erotic paintings? The gaudy colours? The outré architectural embellishments? Most of all I was surprised that everyone I had seen so far was male—ordinary men in dull business suits. Venera was, after all, a city ruled by women, its population reputed to be more than seventy-five percent female.

I had an appointment with a Mr. Sangralia, who handled all visa and immigration requests. The receptionist asked to see my passport. He inspected it with much greater care than the customs official at Aéroport Charles de Gaulle had when I first landed in Europe. After a few minutes of scrutiny, the receptionist was satisfied and returned it. He nodded; his gaze focused past me. I turned my head, noting the dark-skinned giant behind me; more suave than his colleagues, he wore his black business suit as comfortably as a second skin. The receptionist shook my hand. "Vincent will take you to see Mr. Sangralia."

Vincent led me up two flights of stairs and down a long hall. Now, this floor reflected more closely my idea of Venera. The doors and doorframes were sensual, ornate wooden sculptures opulently gilded and adorned with precious gems. On the walls hung portraits of famous Veneran women from throughout history against surrealist backdrops—the work of the notorious Errata Maximilia, whose torrid affair with the even more notorious Tito Bronze had been conducted with exhibitionist glee across all of Europe, providing juicy fodder for the rapacious paparazzi.

We stopped at the very end of the hall; Vincent opened the door, and immediately I was hit by a cloud of smoke. The tangy fragrance was unmistakable: vermilion. Vincent gave my shoulder a gentle nudge, and I entered Mr. Sangralia's office—although office was a misleading word.

Sangralia, sprawled among cushions on the floor, greeted me in English, but forming each syllable as if it were in Italian. He motioned that I join him, then handed me a smoking tube. I hesitated a moment, afraid of how the spice might affect me and thus my chance for permission to enter Venera. But I also feared that refusing would guarantee my failure.

I breathed in the aromatic smoke—and the strength of the blend, much more intense than the small dose in Vittorio's chocolates, hit me like an orgasm. Then everything got blurry. I floated on smoke and swam in voices—Sangralia's and my own. But I could make sense of neither his words nor mine.

. . . I awoke in a plushy armchair in a nook adjacent to the embassy's lobby, my head pounding. Vincent towered over me. His musical voice, tinged with unexpected softness, surprised me. "I am sorry to inform you that your application has been rejected." Not so softly, he took me by the arm, raised me up, and escorted me outside.

Under the glare of the harsh early afternoon sun, I felt exposed, shamed, ridiculed.

* * *

In London, atop the Serpentine Bridge in Hyde Park, under the damp cover of a light, misty rain, I pretended to stare at the water below. The woman I had been shadowing for the past three weeks stood only a few feet to my left. She appeared deeply lost in thought. I should have talked to her last month, when I first spotted her coming out of the Metropolis Now offices, but the merciless cut of her severe Slavic features and the determined, military stride of her long legs had shattered whatever courage I could muster.

I turned to look at her now. The rain had flattened her hair, accentuating the aristocratic beauty of her cheekbones. She turned her head and locked her eyes with mine. Her stare paralysed me as she walked up to me. She leaned in, brushed her lips against my ear, and said in an icy, commanding voice: "It's time you told me why you've been following me."

Without planning to, I grabbed hold of her and kissed her—hard, pushing my tongue deep into her mouth. She tasted like vermilion. Her fingernails dug into my cheeks, tethering her, as her knees buckled. She kissed me back, drawing blood as she bit my lips. Eventually, we gasped for air and laughed. She whispered obscenities in my ear, then took my hand and led me to her apartment, a luxurious flat only a few minutes' walk from the park.

I never answered her question, and she never asked again. Without even discussing it, I moved in with this woman: Petra Maxim, author of 1001 Days and Nights in Venera; a Russian expat who had abandoned her real name along with her past. She was currently a photojournalist for Metropolis Now magazine, but, to be able to afford to live in such luxury in this city, she clearly had other sources of income—I never inquired into her affairs, and she never volunteered anything. Petra was not one for conversation, and we were never close emotionally. Often, I felt like nothing more than a sex toy, a prop in her vermilion-enhanced debauched fantasies. Nevertheless, she was kind to me in many ways: besides making available all the vermilion I could crave; besides her casual, animalistic eroticism; besides allowing me free entry into the elite world of London chic; more practically, she also helped me get a gig at the magazine, copyediting and occasionally interviewing emerging artists for a series of sidebar profiles. It was an easy life, too easy. Too comfortable to shatter with the truth. Instead, I avoided dealing with my cowardice by wallowing in self-loathing, absenting myself with increased frequency from Petra's bed, losing myself in vermilion binges and anonymous sex with the all-male clientele of The Adonis Baths.

The next spring, Petra was granted a two-month visa for a return trip to Venera, in order to complete an architectural photo-essay for Metropolis Now. She refused to even try to see if she could bring me along. I finally told her about Vittorio, showed her the picture in her book, and asked if she knew him. She looked straight into my eyes for a few seconds, weighing or judging . . . something, but I wasn't sure what. Then, abruptly, she laughed at me and told me that she would not be sleeping at home that night. I had until morning to clear out and get out of her life. "And you will be quitting your job at the magazine tomorrow. Or should I have them fire you?" She turned away from me and left before I could respond.

Everywhere in that apartment her cold stare mocked me. I didn't wait till morning. I packed my bag and took the next train to the continent.

* * *

Tito Bronze's Roman extravaganza, the Festival dei Sensi, provided a glimpse of Venera for the pleasure of the outside world. The festival snaked its way into and infested all of Rome, tapping into the simmering paganism that growled beneath the city's twin veneers of tourism and Catholicism.

Desperate for any clue to Vittorio, I took in as much of the festival as I could: films, gallery hangings of paintings and photographs, theatre, performance art—all the works of Bronze and his Velvet Bronzemine entourage. But neither Vittorio nor his image were anywhere to be found.

If only I could go backstage, speak to someone, perhaps even to the imposing Bronze himself—he had, after all, at least one time danced with my Vittorio. But then I realized that it might be possible: I still held my press ID from Metropolis Now. I hurried to the festival's publicity office. After examining my card and passport carefully, the festival's press coordinator asked me to wait a moment and excused herself. She came back within a few minutes, and to my surprise informed me that I would be allowed a fifteen-minute breakfast interview with Bronze, at his hotel room at 6 a.m. Coffee and croissants would be served.

A feeling of accomplishment surged within me. It was an unusual sensation. I savoured it, treasured it. I could almost feel Vittorio's skin on my fingertips, hear his laughter tickle my ears. Vittorio. Venera. Bronze was the key. I knew it for certain. Under no circumstance would I allow that key to slip from my grasp.

* * *

I showed Tito Bronze the photograph in Petra's book. The snapshot of him dancing with Vittorio.

"Yes, I remember that boy. Tragic."

Tragic.The word hit me like a punch in the solar plexus.

"You're not really here to interview me for Metropolis Now, are you, young man?"

I stammered: "N-n-no."

His face betrayed not the slightest hint of disapproval. Instead, he spoke to me slowly, empathically: "You knew this boy, this Vittorio?"

Knew. Nononono. Bronze could not be telling me this.

"I think I shall spare you the details. I, certainly, am in no mood to dredge up the past. Perhaps we should end this conversation now. I'm sorry.” He snapped his fingers, and a naked girl—that lithe gymnast's body told me she was, at the very most, twenty years old—slithered into the room with inhuman grace. "But it may be that our acquaintance is only beginning. Sherry—would you . . . ?"

She circled behind me and blew into my ear. Far from aroused, I was frozen with fear and dread. Something sharp stung the side of my neck.

* * *

I awoke on a park bench, under the glare of a bright, hot mid-afternoon sun. A half-dozen large dogs—obviously strays, or even feral, judging from their gauntness and the state of their fur—lazed about not far from me. Some children were playing a little farther off, totally unconcerned by the presence of the animals.

I took stock of myself. I was wearing clothes I did not recognize, but they fit me well enough; in my pocket was a wad of bills (several hundred euros!), a new passport with a new identity but my own photo (I was now an Austrian citizen), and a small plastic bag of vermilion snuff. My skin felt raw, and when I ran my hand under my shirt I discovered fresh scars, welts, and bruises. My arms had been shaved and were covered with bright, erotic tattoos.

What had happened to me? Where was I? How much time had elapsed since my meeting with Tito Bronze? I was not so concerned with the abuse I had no doubt suffered under the notorious Bronze's direction. I was much more intrigued, and even moved, by Bronze's gesture—that he had granted me the opportunity to start my life anew. I was reborn, and, if I wanted, I could be free of my past desires. I laughed at the naivety of such a romantic notion, so at odds with Bronze's reputed elitist egotism and chic, hedonistic nihilism.

Disoriented and wobbly, I wandered out of the park and noticed that all the street names were spelled in both Roman and Cyrillic characters. I was in Greece. Athens. Farther from Venera than Rome had been, but what did it matter? There was no longer any reason for me to seek access to the debauched city-state.

* * *

Using up almost all the money Bronze had left me with, I booked passage on a boat that was to circle around the south of Greece and then eventually travel across the sea all the way to Barcelona. But I had no intention of reaching Spain.

A little more than two full days after we left Greece, as the sun set among the clouds gathering from the west, I finally caught sight of Venera, far in the distance. Save for the lights from the city-state, once the sun was completely swallowed up, darkness enveloped us like a cloak. The first hints of rain brought with them a chill that cut me to the bone.

Rain was good. It hid tears so well.

From my jacket's inside pocket, I drew the last of my vermilion snuff. Up my nose it went. The euphoria was instantaneous. So why was I crying even harder?

The rain had driven the other passengers inside. I was alone on the deck. I climbed over the rail and without hesitation jumped into the Mediterranean. I was so deeply under the spell of vermilion that I didn't even notice the impact; but, completely submerged, I choked on the cold, briny seawater. I had never been a good swimmer. This would be over quickly.

Nevertheless, I was buoyed back to the surface. In the distance, I glimpsed the lights from Venera—the lights of unrequited dreams. I let myself sink. Deeper and deeper. The underbelly of the great Venera revealed itself: glowing with colours I could never have imagined, shimmering, pulsating, undulating—as if it were alive and in constant metamorphosis. A glorious, farewell hallucination, courtesy of the vermilion tingling through me? Or was I being allowed to perceive an aspect of the true, perhaps unfathomable, nature of this strange metropolis?

My lungs clamoured for air. I almost opened my mouth and swallowed; almost let water fill my lungs. Ignoring the pull of both life and death, I closed my eyes—and the afterimage of Venera lingered, its intensity growing instead of fading.

Again I surfaced, gasping and shivering. Once my breathing settled back to normal, my gaze locked on the distant Venera.

Claude Lalumière is the author of the collection Objects of Worship, the editor of eight anthologies, including the Aurora Award finalist Tesseracts Twelve: New Novellas of Canadian Fantastic Fiction, and the co-creator (with Rupert Bottenberg) of lostmyths.net.