disease and gunk inside him. Then he tilted his head slightly to the right and asked in a raspy voice, “What the fuck are you looking at, priest?”
I opened my eyes a little wider and looked at his filthy face, but I didn’t say anything. I just hoped that he could have seen through my calm demeanor and noticed that the stew from hell had started boiling in my veins. But, unfortunately, there was no chance that he could have noticed anything in his current state of mind. His brain was fully occupied with other things; things like drooling Komodo dragons feasting on a slimy buffalo leg, an onocentaur with Lieutenant Columbo’s torso, and silver birds with shark fins and lemur tails.
“I am going to cut you now, priest,” the slim bastard said and pulled out a rusty knife and slammed it hard on the bar counter.
I looked at him listlessly and said, “I would try to talk you out of it, but I can see that your rat’s brain is not going to take any commands from me tonight, all right? I don’t want to waste my time by even attempting to address you because I don’t talk rat and you don’t talk human.” Then I moved quickly behind him and choked him unconscious. He was out in a few seconds, and his rodent’s eyes started spinning like a malfunctioning merry-go-round at Tbilisi city fair. I squeezed his testicles as hard as I could for about ten seconds because I wanted him to feel some real pain the next day. He needed to know there was a price to pay when you messed with a man who didn’t need to be messed with. Then I raised my finger and paid for my drinks. It was time for me to go home.
The next day, I woke up on the living room carpet without any major hangover or guilt. I hadn’t gotten very drunk even if I had consumed close to a quart of whiskey at that cursed bar. I figured that my body didn’t allow alcohol to control me anymore, and it had just decided to suck all the pleasure out of the whiskey and coldheartedly kick the negative side effects to the curb. My garter snake’s skin was shedding faster than I thought, and I was getting stronger mentally. There was not a trace of fear left in my body, and all things that used to frighten me seemed completely meaningless and silly. I was powerful, dangerous, and calm, and I respected no one. I was in total control.
The mattress guys arrived at 4:00 p.m., and I asked them to put both of the kings in the master bedroom. It was a somewhat peculiar request, but the deliverymen did what I asked, and they managed to squeeze the two giants into the room without any major difficulties. There wasn’t, however, much empty space left around the mattresses, but that was the way I wanted it to be. I wasn’t going to settle for just a room with a bed in it. I wanted a room that was a bed.
After I had removed the tags from the mattresses and put the pillows, the sheets and the comforter on the bed, I rested in my perfect human cocoon for a couple of beautiful hours and enjoyed the rejuvenating company of the young kings. There were no bedbugs, no filthy odors, no suspicious stains, or signs of old sex and faded love on their delicate skin—just softness and heavenly comfort, all for me alone. I soon drifted into the soothing world of hypnagogia and found myself masturbating softly.
The hours flew like in a forbidden dream, and my brain waves were moving slower and slower, but then the dark part of the twilight arrived like a thief from the thick pine forest, and hunger started moving restlessly in my gut, telling me to wake up and feed the master.
I got up reluctantly, took a quick shower, and put on a new T-shirt and the same Nike pants I had worn the night before. Then I hopped into the Econoline and started driving toward the town center with growing hunger burning in my empty gut. I didn’t even know what type of food I was in a mood for, but I figured that if I drove past several different restaurants, my brain would finally make the choice for me. I
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