THE DIETRICH BAR, LAND OF NOD

Since the day she first showed up, Eve had always had a soft spot for the idiosyncratic yet intimate Dietrich ‘occasional restaurant come bar’ within the vast ‘Casino Eden’. Later, after I had won her body, if not yet her soul on the spin of the roulette wheel, we would regularly dine together there, although less so of late due to the circumstances born of the rise of hard right factional politics that, by way of ruthless disapproval, coupled with bona fide threats, had blunted Bohemian merrymaking.

Unlike the larger, brassier, showy dining rooms throughout my casino complex, the Dietrich had that certain undefinable magic feel about it only the free-spirited would understand. Discreet with a pinch of clandestine decadence summed it up.  I, to the annoyance of others, habitually referred to it as my contradictory provocative overt hideaway. Overly wordy yet true. Defused illumination, under a still-life haze of…