Read Previously on Confessions

“No words, I have no words, just fear. And to that I have no shame,” Kot said softly, as he walked through the dungeon. “So, you decided to do it, despite my abhorrence of this partnership!”

“The world is a dark place, and everybody is chasing a dream,” I replied, swirling the bourbon in my glass and taking a seat in one of the enclaves.

“And if no one wakes up, who will face the shame?” He countered, cracking one of the whips.

“I guess that will have to stay in the dark for now. I don’t want us to fight over this, for there will be no victory,” I replied, walking up to the bar and pouring a glassful of whiskey.

 “Come, dream with me, for if it's so, there will be no one to blame,” I went on, handing him the glass. “Furthermore, you’re anonymous in this portfolio, just one of us!” I said reassuringly.

“Bad, Obi, bad,” he replied, accepting the glass.

“I know, brother, I know, but we’re doing it anyway,” I replied, raising my glass for a toss.

“To more paper in our pockets,” I said.

“May the devil never locate us as we taunt and play his games,” he replied, raising his glass to mine and downing half of it in one gulp.

“Pace yourself, I know the liquor is smooth, but be careful, it's aged. I don’t want to carry you up those steps,” his eyes were glistening.

“So, tell me, how did Darce convince you to do this?” He asked, settling in an enclave across from me.

“She didn’t have to convince me to do anything,” I replied, gesturing to the expanse of the room.

“Well, what made you execute this for the Amadis despite my constant appeal to you not to?”

“You must be forgetting yourself, Kot. This whole Amadi was your idea; all I did was follow along.”

“And now you’re so far gone, you don’t see we’re marching deeper into Modor!”

“What? Modor surely!”

“Yes, he is the dark one, and we need to think of our way out of this partnership. I can still hear the screams of that boy in the quiet of dawn. I haven’t slept through the night since,” he replied, shivering with dread at the thought.

“I know….”

“No, you do not know, Obi. You know nothing of my terrors!”

“Sure, I know nothing of your terrors, but the glimmer of your eyes at the bank notifications, that I know,” I replied, sipping my liquor.

“You still haven’t answered me,” he said, sipping too.

“What was your question, Kot?”

“Don’t try to be sleek with me,” he said as a matter of fact, sitting up.

“Alright, do you want the short answer or the long one?”

“Knock yourself out, unless you’ve got someplace else to be,” he replied curtly.

“Well, the short answer is that Darce promised to leash him,” I replied.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Look around, what do you see…..ah ah ah, don’t talk yet. This is hers. And as for Amadi’s morbid impulses, one of the conditions for creating this was that she wouldn’t let that happen again. ‘I’ll arrest his impulses,’ that’s what she said,” I replied.

“That’s what she said,” he drawled, each syllable slow and deliberate. “I’m afraid for you, Obi.”

“You don’t have to be. You know I can take care of myself,” I replied, smiling.

“I know, that’s why I am afraid. I know you’re a scoundrel, base in every imaginable way. The filthy back-alley and the she-devil.”

“Ok. You know me now, a scoundrel, an avowed scoundrel. Strike me, crush me like a beetle, don’t spare me!” I knew a lashing was coming. Kot loved to talk, if only to paint my baser characters.

 “This thing you have with Darce, it’s just a matter of time before it comes out, and when it does, I wouldn’t want to be caught anywhere near it. Ballistic is an understatement,” he said despairingly.

“I don’t kiss and tell, and I know you won’t talk about it to anybody,” I said.

“What about her? How sure are you that the breach won’t come from her, in a heated exchange with him? What makes you sure she won’t use it to try to hurt him? We both know, Amadi is an insecure brute with nothing besides money and influence to go with it.”

“And we’ve already agreed that I’m a scoundrel,” I countered.

A silence followed.

He scowled, clenched his teeth, and his fixed stare became more rigid, more concentrated, more terrible, when suddenly, his wrathful savage face changed, lips parted, and Kot burst into uncontrollable spontaneous laughter.

He literally shook with laughter.