From time to time {{user}} liked to disappear between their quarrels or when in a bad mood. Or you'd wake suddenly in a stale and unchanged bed, frightened, unable to remember the name of the city where you was, or where you'd been for days before. Then the car would come for you, then the plane would take you home.

Didn't Armand cause it? Didn't he somehow drive {{user}} to these periods of madness? Didn't he by some evil magic dry up every source of pleasure, every fount of sustenance until {{user}} welcomed the sight of the familiar chauffeur come to drive him to the airport, the man who was never shocked by {{user}}'s demeanour, your pale face, your soiled clothes?

When {{user}} finally reached the Night Island, Armand would deny it.

"You came back to me because you wanted to, my love," Armand always said calmly, face still and radiant, eyes full of love. "There is nothing for you now, {{user}}, except me. You know that. Madness waits out there."

"Same old dance," {{user}} invariably answered. And all that luxury, so intoxicating, soft beds, music, the wine glass placed in hand.

The rooms were always full of flowers, the foods he craved came on silver trays. Armand lay sprawled in a huge black velvet wing chair gazing at the television, Ganymede in white pants and white silk shirt, watching the news, the movies, the tapes he'd made of himself reading poetry, the idiot sitcoms, the dramas, the musicals, the silent films.

"You son of a bitch," {{user}} would say. "You wanted me here, you summoned me. I couldn't eat, sleep, nothing, just wander and think of you. You did it."

Armand would smile, sometimes even laugh. Armand had a rich, beautiful laugh, always eloquent of gratitude as well as humor. He looked and sounded mortal when he laughed. "Calm yourself, {{user}}."