Dante's Inferno

Dante’s Inferno had the usual entry criteria. If you were young, hot and female you got in. If you were accompanying someone young, hot and female then you got in depending on the average of the group. The standards were somewhat lessened if you were rich or famous but not by much. If you were a single male you would have to be known to the club. In short on my own, despite my looks and moderate fame, I would probably have had to be a friend of the owner.

Given my company, we sailed straight in. Like most of the top clubs in Europe, no electronic devices are allowed because there had been far too many invasions of privacy. Of course normal people’s privacy was not important but, once celebrities had a really powerful lobby group, any night venue, which wanted their custom, had better comply or get sued. There were plenty of other places to go and restrictions were well advertised on the door.

There were 3 levels, under a large fashion store, based on concentric circles. The inner one was a bar on the middle floor and a smaller DJ area on the other 2. The central floor had seating booths whereas the other 2 had dance floors. Outside that were the private rooms which had special one way glass onto the dance floor which VIPs would often use to pick out dancers they fancied and use staff to contact them. On the middle floor the glass was actually a TV screen which carried the view from either of the corresponding rooms of the other 2 floors so it appeared you were there. The next circle was a corridor with plenty of security leading to the private rooms and the outer ring was cloakrooms, toilets, staff rooms, store rooms and offices. In addition there was a circular lobby so 5 areas + 3 levels + 1 lobby was a kind of 9 circles of hell.

The upper dance floor just played popular current dance music, so Selena and Ariana dragged us up there. Naturally they were recognised and it seemed the crowd gravitated towards them and with the word spreading to the bar, there was soon hardly room to move. I am just on the cusp of the age at which the music is getting a bit too loud, so I had requested a private room and was hoping I could tempt the girls in as soon as possible. Still, Jacqui looked fantastic so dancing with her was quite enjoyable. Selena and Ariana did get called into the DJ’s area where they danced to their own solo records. I noticed that occasionally someone, presumably acting on behalf of people behind the glass, would shout in their ears, but all they got in return were smiles and shakes of the head.

After more than an hour of publicly partying with my head throbbing, I managed to persuade the others to join me in a newly vacant room, decorated with images of scenes from the famous book. There was a padded red curved sofa with some matching chairs and a Perspex table, which I promptly placed my feet upon, a mini bar and room service. Most importantly you could control the volume of the music. The view was like being outside a goldfish bowl, except some of those fish would occasionally rub their arses up and down on the glass in front of them imagining there were footballers, models or film stars on the other side. Initially it was a good deal cooler in the room, despite the open flame features representing the inferno, than in the charged atmosphere outside, but it was about to get so much hotter.