Fifty Shades of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde Page A

case out to him.
    â€œHow did you know?” he asked.
    â€œYou haven’t learned how to keep a secret yet,” she said.
    Dorian frowned. “I didn’t say a word to anyone.”
    Helen smirked and held a finger to his lips. “Not here,” she said. “Here,” and dabbed the middle of his forehead with two pointed fingers. “Your eyes say it all.”
    Dorian was dumbfounded. Helen offered the cigarette case to him again.
    â€œYour cigarettes are always a bit dangerous,” said Dorian, not wanting to become as obliterated as he had the last time he’d been to see Sybil Vane perform. “May I have one that is just tobacco?”
    â€œI’m sorry, but when I go to the theater, I prepare for the greatest of boredoms. You’ll have to make do with these. Here, take this one—it’s thin.”
    Dorian accepted. Before making Helen’s acquaintance, he never much cared for smoking, but now he ardently enjoyed it. Within the first inhalation, he felt a fuzzy calm lay into his brain. The touch of opium made clay of his senses, rolling them into a sluggish blob.
    â€œTell me about the actress,” Helen said, making no secret of the fact that hearing such flattering talk about Rosemary disagreed with her. “Was she worth the trouble? Would you like to try her again?”
    â€œI didn’t try her at all,” Dorian said, agitation managing to poke its way through the haze. “After the performance, I took up with a group of charming monsters and by the time I parted with them I was so addled with opium that I had trouble collecting myself for pursuit. When I got to her dressing room, she was gone.”
    â€œHmm,” considered Helen. “She is beautiful, and the initial sight of her ignited in me a wicked curiosity. I must say, my dear, I’m craving a taste of her.”
    Dorian had to agree—she was lovely to behold. A faint blush, like the shadow of a rose in a mirror of silver, came to her cheeks as she glanced at the crowded enthusiastic house. She stepped back a few paces, and her lips seemed to tremble.
    The scene was the hall of Capulet’s house, and Romeo in his pilgrim’s dress had entered with Mercutio and his other friends. The band struck up a few bars of music, and the dance began. Through the crowd of ungainly, shabbily dressed actors, Sybil Vane moved like a creature from a finer world. Her body swayed while she danced, as a plant sways in the water.
    â€œShe is quite beautiful, Dorian,” murmured Helen.
    â€œMm-hmm,” said Dorian with a slight nod. Dimly, he thought of what he would like to do to her, but his thoughts—the things beneath the haze, calling him back to himself—were only of Rosemary. It could be that she would never see or speak to him again. What could he do? For starters, he would hang the painting above the mantle, as she’d wished. Yes, it was the perfect place for it. Why had he been so stubborn? He was ill with a hangover that day, and so many poisons had yet to leave his system when she’d shown up looking like she’d broken out of a madhouse. Ah, but still, she had been beautiful and had moved him to new heights of feeling.
    As it were, Sybil Vane moved much finer than she acted. As an actress, she was curiously listless. She showed no sign of joy when her eyes rested on Romeo. The staginess of her acting was unbearable, and grew worse as she went on. Her gestures became absurdly artificial. She overemphasized everything she had to say. The other actors weren’t much better, and ultimately, the play was a fiasco that just dragged on and on interminably. To concentrate on the scenes being painfully doled out onstage was to risk brain damage, and so Dorian smoked another laced cigarette, this one of medium width.
    Half of the audience that left during intermission never returned, tramping out in heavy boots and laughing. The last act was played to almost