The Bargain part 4

“WHOOOOAAAAA! Get on in here and dance suckers. Last week of party, last week of joys, last week we party, last week girls and BOYYYYYYYYYYS!” The floor rumbled again. It was coming from the speakers. The sound engineer was doing something to mimic the death of earth.

Rabbit was laughing pure. She had seen the joke coming but the payoff was that Puppy didn’t and the childish chagrin on his face only fuelled her enjoyment of the played joke. Before Puppy could come to understand the whole theatrics taking place, Rabbit took control and dragged him gently on to the dance floor. Rabbit’s movement was quick on to the floor and she found a hole amongst the throngs for the two to move together. Puppy’s quick eyes and jittery movements gave him the appearance of a man who felt uncomfortable and lost in his surroundings. His face had become an ugly pale and dour and if he wanted to speak his lower-lip tucked under his front teeth had made it more difficult to do so. Rabbit was moving as a snake after its prey, her sensuous moves had Puppy digging his heels in to match her moves but his awkward steps were no match and soon he made his move, his face now the colour of tomato, to the bar.

“Where are you going Puppy?” she asked still laughing and enjoying the rhythm of the song. Puppy didn’t hear her or didn’t want to since he made no gesture of having heard her words and didn’t stop to look back at her. He moved very directly off the dance floor and even more directly to the bar where he found by luck Thor waiting to serve.

“I guess we didn’t need to wait till next week, huh bub?” said Thor laughing.

“No one wants to drink anymore, Thor?” Max asked meekly. He gave the bartender a weak smile and leaned over the bar waiting for Thor to finish pouring the Oban Puppy never asked for. “You know me so well.

“When do we finish?” Max asked.

“When Earth lies down for its final rest,” Thor answered. “Until then it’s a party.”

“Puppy! Why did you run off like that?” Rabbit asked pushing her way to the bar.

“The name is Max Jefferies,” Max said sternly asserting his real identity by shaking his full rocks glass at Rabbit. “You thought it was real funny the way I reacted to everybody running back inside. But MY NAME IS MAX JEFFERIES. Let me tell you I, MAX JEFFERIES, didn’t find it all that funny. The world is coming to an end and people like you are making jokes and in the next breath complaining about the chaos on the streets. It’s time you got real with all this.” Max turned his back on Rabbit and took a sip of scotch.

“Real with all this? What about you, Max,” Rabbit said emphasising Max’s name like a 10-year-old girl does when making fun of another kid for having ugly shoes. “You act like nothing else matters but getting your ding-a-ling hard and having some poor girl do something about it. Am I off base?”

Max said nothing feeling lost yet again in the presence of Rabbit’s voice.

“I didn’t think so. You know what? I can take you somewhere where all this angst of yours will disappear but you have to trust me and you have to be understanding. It isn’t for the weak. That is if you want to get real with all this?”

Max threw back his scotch and hoggishly wiped his mouth. His eyes were glazier than morning dew and his chest trembled. Max offered his hand to Rabbit, which was quickly accepted. He was back to being Puppy and he knew it.
“See you soon, Thor.”:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::;
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
;;;;;;
;
;

The car ride had been uncanny. Music poured out of the radio but it sounded like white noise to Puppy’s throbbing ears. Rabbit drove her sedan demonically through the city streets burning past brawls and debauchery. The mixture of quick turns and old alcohol turned Puppy’s stomach in to a cement mixer, heavy and dirty. In order to pace himself he would periodically look out his window and what he saw made his stomach even heavier. What the kids were doing, Puppy thought, was unspeakable and silenced him throughout the whole ride. Rabbit did all the talking pointing out all the horridness humanity had become and it was an ugly sight to behold. As Max, Puppy always thought that if the apocalypse came it would be bad. He never prepped his mind for this. It seemed too awful for human thought. It was sick. He was sick.

“Pull over,” he demanded.

But Rabbit didn’t pull over instead she sped up and the torturous ride continued for what seemed like hours. It had in fact only been 20 minutes.

Puppy began to believe that he was forced to follow a trail but he did not know to what end. When the car finally pulled up to a derelict house, Puppy assumed it was another of Rabbit’s examples of human degradation. He was about to tell Rabbit that he got the point and to take him back to The Pavilion where he could finish his evening – and maybe his life – in the throws of a full depression. Rabbit never gave him the opportunity. She opened his door.

Puppy was fully pissed and not able to walk properly. He stumbled on to Rabbit, bulling her over and knocking both to the ground.

“What’s love?” he asked again “Is what love you to?” His punch drunk words were poor in grammar but obvious in their intention.

“I don’t believe in love at first sight,” Rabbit said shoving Puppy off her rising to her feet.

Puppy looked up to see her walk off in to an orange-glowing twisting home……………………………………………………………………………………………… He vomited and then the next thing he saw was total blackness… someone had turned off the lights.