I hate the idea of natural. For example, I prefer gardens to

Host:
The city was alive with neon light, trembling reflections rippling across wet pavement like broken jewels. Midnight had painted everything in shades of silver and sin. Paris, perhaps, or New York — a place where beauty was engineered, sculpted, deliberately arranged.

Through the tall glass windows of a dimly lit boutique café, the world outside shimmered in fragments: heels clicking, headlights slicing fog, perfume smoke trailing like memory.

Inside, the atmosphere was different — velvet darkness, low jazz, and the faint scent of roasted coffee mixed with the ghost of expensive cologne. Jack sat at a corner table, one leg crossed over the other, his suit jacket draped carelessly behind him. His grey eyes reflected the candlelight like steel polished by curiosity.

Across from him, Jeeny leaned back in her chair, her black hair cascading over one shoulder. Her lips were slightly parted, her eyes burning with something unspoken — not desire, but defiance. Between them stood a half-empty bottle of red wine, its glass glowing crimson in the low light.

Jeeny:
“Christian Louboutin once said,” she began, her voice smooth as velvet, “‘I hate the idea of natural. For example, I prefer gardens to wild nature. I like to see the human touch. High heels are a complete invention — an extravagance. They’re far from natural, but it’s the impracticality that I adore. I prefer the useless to the useful, the sophisticated to the natural.’”

Jack:
He tilted his head, intrigued. “Of course he did. The man built an empire on artifice. He worships invention over instinct.”

Jeeny:
“Or maybe,” she said, “he just understands that creation is humanity’s truest nature.”

Jack:
He smirked. “You’re saying artifice is authentic?”

Jeeny:
“Maybe it is,” she said. “The garden isn’t a lie — it’s our dialogue with the wild. We shape, we refine, we exaggerate. It’s not rejection of nature; it’s conversation.”

Host:
The light flickered over their faces, splitting them between shadow and glow — the eternal aesthetic argument: what’s real, and what’s designed.

Jack:
“I don’t buy it,” he said, swirling his wine. “People hide behind the word art. They build walls of sophistication to protect themselves from chaos. Nature terrifies them because it doesn’t care about beauty — or perfection.”

Jeeny:
“Maybe that’s exactly why we sculpt it,” she countered. “Because we do care. Because chaos without beauty feels meaningless.”

Jack:
“But beauty doesn’t need permission,” he said. “The sea, the stars, the curve of a mountain — they’re flawless without a single human hand.”

Jeeny:
“Flawless?” she asked softly. “Or indifferent? Nature doesn’t care if you exist, Jack. Art does. The red sole of a Louboutin, the structure of a symphony — those are acts of attention. Proof that someone wanted the world to notice.”

Host:
Her voice grew quieter, yet sharper, like silk drawn across glass.

Jack:
“So you’d choose the synthetic over the organic? The mask over the face?”

Jeeny:
“I’d choose the mask as the face,” she said, her eyes bright with defiance. “Because what’s so noble about being natural? The animal eats, sleeps, survives. But we — we adorn, invent, dramatize. That’s what separates us from the wilderness.”

Jack:
“Or disconnects us from it.”

Jeeny:
She smiled faintly. “Connection is overrated. Reinvention is divine.”

Host:
A waiter passed behind them, his footsteps soft, the faint clink of a glass marking the moment like a cymbal strike in a song. The world outside glowed — shop signs, lipstick smudges, a woman’s heel breaking slightly as she crossed the street. Impractical, yes. But beautiful.

Jack:
“You sound like you’d burn down a forest to build a chandelier.”

Jeeny:
“Maybe,” she said, sipping her wine. “But it would be a beautiful chandelier.”

Jack:
He laughed. “You know what’s funny? The people who chase sophistication always end up worshipping it. They make art their god.”

Jeeny:
“And you’d rather worship mud and rain?” she asked, amused. “Rawness for its own sake?”

Jack:
“At least mud doesn’t pretend to be marble.”

Jeeny:
“But marble used to be mud. The difference is intention. We took chaos and carved it into something immortal.”

Host:
The room hummed — a low jazz note, a heartbeat of tension. Two philosophies, equally proud, circling each other like dancers.

Jack:
“Still,” he said quietly, “there’s something sacred about imperfection — the wild edges, the things untouched by us. High heels may be elegant, but they’re also prisons for the body.”

Jeeny:
“And yet women choose to wear them,” she replied. “Not because they need to, but because they want to. That choice — that assertion of artifice — is its own kind of power.”

Jack:
“So pain becomes fashion?”

Jeeny:
“Pain becomes declaration,” she said. “We’re not made to be practical, Jack. We’re made to be expressive. High heels, poetry, perfume — they’re the rebellion against nature’s indifference.”

Host:
He looked at her then — really looked. The curve of her wrist as she lifted the glass, the subtle architecture of human design in her presence. The argument wasn’t academic anymore; it was alive in front of him.

Jack:
“You know,” he said slowly, “you talk like artifice is liberation. But I think it’s just another cage — only this one’s gilded and adored.”

Jeeny:
“Maybe,” she said, “but it’s a cage we built ourselves. And that makes all the difference. Nature traps us by design; art traps us by choice.”

Jack:
He leaned forward. “So you’d rather live in illusion than truth?”

Jeeny:
Her smile deepened. “What if illusion is truth — just refracted through beauty? You call it falsehood; I call it style.”

Host:
A pause, heavy and electric. The candle flame flickered between them, casting shadows that shifted like thoughts.

Jack:
“You know what this reminds me of?” he said. “That quote from Oscar Wilde: ‘It is through art, and through art only, that we can realize our perfection.’ You and Louboutin would’ve gotten along.”

Jeeny:
She laughed softly. “Of course. We both believe in the theater of life. That everything — every gesture, every heel, every word — can be crafted into something exquisite. Nature gives us the clay, but it’s art that gives it form.”

Jack:
He studied her, a faint warmth in his tone. “You’re a dangerous kind of romantic, Jeeny.”

Jeeny:
“And you’re a dangerous kind of realist,” she said. “But tell me, which is worse — to worship what we made, or to ignore what we could have made?”

Host:
Outside, a car horn cut through the quiet — then silence again. Somewhere, the city exhaled, and the candle between them burned lower, a single drop of wax sliding down like time itself.

Host:
They sat there, two architects of perspective, watching their reflections blur in the café window — the real and the ideal merging until they were indistinguishable.

And in that blurred mirror of light and artifice, Christian Louboutin’s words seemed to shimmer like a credo carved into the night:

“I hate the idea of natural. For example, I prefer gardens to wild nature. I like to see the human touch. High heels are a complete invention — an extravagance. They’re far from natural, but it’s the impracticality that I adore. I prefer the useless to the useful, the sophisticated to the natural.”

Because perhaps, at the core of civilization,
we are not animals seeking survival,
but artists seeking meaning.

To sculpt the wild,
to gild the ordinary,
to turn pain into poise —
that is our rebellion against chaos.

Host:
And as the candle finally went out, Jack looked at Jeeny and whispered, almost to himself,
“Maybe beauty isn’t truth after all.”

She smiled in the dark — a small, dangerous smile.
“No,” she said softly. “Maybe truth was never beautiful until we made it so.”

And beyond the glass, the city lights shimmered —
unnatural,
impossible,
and utterly magnificent.