Those Bygone Dog-Star Days - Chapter 12 of 37
~ Chapter 12 ~
A steady beat and counter-beat throbbed throughout the dance-floor of Infinitá as countless bodies gyrated and pulsed to the music through a thick, smoky haze.
An arabian wolf with his tail tipped in black was among the throng, his limbs all akimbo; his head smoky and dull from the night's imbibitions.
His attention focused inward and his body numb, through the obscurities of the dance-floor approached a golden glow.
His name was Bo, said the golden glowing dingo. His brilliant ocean-blue eyes met the honey-yellow of the arabian wolf named Aaron. His sandy-blond fur was painted in a multitude of colors from the club's spotlights.
Their eyes locked, their gaze focused, their minds deep in a drunken, lustful stupor, they danced. They twisted upon each other; their breath and bodies consumed the other. From the bar a watchful leporan eye belonging to the English Angoran named Tiffany kept an eye on her boy, Bo, and his new beau.
The music drifted far away. Aaron closed his eyes and felt the Bo's radiance against his skin, through his fur. If a substance on Earth was more intoxicating than Bo's essence, Aaron would surely meet his demise. This newcomer in his life was a spirit that felt naturally a part of him as breathing. As Aaron leaned, Bo steadied him. As Aaron swayed, Bo's own movements complimented his. The alcohol and scent of the dance-floor overtook Aaron's blood and he reveled in ecstasy. He writhed in love and lust.
They drank the drinks Tiffany provided them, something-Russians. Aaron didn't pay attention as he and Bo sat at a booth of a Mom-and-Pops-turned-dance-club-establishment. They talked. They philosophized. They flirted. Each debate met with conjecture. Each drink they matched wits with the familiar leporan who brought it. Bo would introduce Tiffany, Aaron kissing the hand held out to him. Tiffany would then laugh off of the courtesy and return to her duties, recharged, from the night's flirting.
Bo would then lead the younger wolf out of the place, giving the waitress a goodbye hug with a "See you tomorrow." Of course Aaron's ears were deaf to anything around him and his eyes blind to all but the lips of his Bo.
They would walk for... who could remember how long or where. They would talk about subjects that fleeted away like birds taking to open skies. There wasn't anything else on Earth, in the sky, in this world except for the two of them and the electricity that flowed through them, over them, around them, between them.
Sickly yellow lamps highlighted slate-gray concrete along the harbor in which Bo and Aaron found themselves. A confident and convincing Bo reassured a cautious Aaron that the night was early and the routine patrols had just passed through. What lay ahead of them in the warehouses around them were hidden gems and treasures - not for the taking, but for the private admiration of their own soiree.
Along train tracks, over fences, across roofs, and through windows long broken past disrepair and abandonment did the couple crept. A sense of adventure and wonderment accompanied the heightened awareness of danger and fallibility. The purple and gold world was meant for them alone as the constant rhythm of the shoreline pressed them ever onwards in their curiosity. "Don't worry," Bo clasped Aaron's hand, " just keep walking forward. I'm not going anywhere."
The damp, moisture-filled smell of mold and rot brushed the inside of Aaron's nasal cavity as Bo guided him down a series of metal steps. The window in which they crawled into this warehouse seemed high above them; broken glass coolly glittering like newly formed frost on a bright christmas morning. The white glow of the glass contrasted against the yellow of the lamps outside, separating one world from another.
With a swift flick and pull, Bo opened up a box. He and Aaron peeked at the contents inside. There was nothing more insidious inside the boxes than office furniture or toys. Careful to reverse his actions, Bo closed the box with barely a scratch. With a smile and a wink, Bo produced packaging tape. And from either of Bo's paws, he mended his wounding strikes. The box was once again sealed.
Hidden treasures. Objects of discovery, these were. When one belongs to the night, only the darkness told what one should do and where to go.
But the darkness didn't conceal their entrance. Not from the vulturous eyes that preyed upon these buildings, keenly aware of the canid couple's oblivious perception.
The vending-machine-man stepped forward followed by a smaller man endowed with early balding. Behind them came a third man and with them all came foreboding.
The hulk grabbed Aaron, flinging him away. Aaron felt a sharp pain in the back of his head followed by a warming trickle. He fell to his knees with his vision tunneling. Lying on the ice-cold concrete and gasping for a breath that wouldn't come, Aaron looked up.
Two of the men held Bo at bay. Like a caged dog, Bo fought and snarled. A meaty thump from a fist the size of a ham sent Bo reeling backwards as Aaron looked on.
"Faggot" and "Bitch" were spat upon Bo as the dingo was held in place. Each snap that Bo gave was met with another meaty thump of a fist. The one free man, in his suit, flicked his right hand and Aaron saw a glint as a blade snap to life. A hand clutching Bo's throat choked him and well-placed kicks and punches brought Bo to his knees. The blade flew and Bo's fur flew in clumps. Bare, bloody flesh glistened like wet tar as Bo was shorn.
Aaron gasped, his breath returning with stabbing pain. He fought off vertigo, nausea, and unconsciousness. He could barely croak out a whisper to the one he had just met, but meant his whole life.
"Bo..."
The dingo turned to face the bleeding, crying arabian wolf crumpled on the ground. Screams and howls escaped his mouth in a flow of incomprehensible agony as his fur was cut away and his skin was cut. Muscles strained futilely against their bonds. But through the pain his eyes still shone a coruscate blue. They spoke a single word that none of the captors heard but Aaron, in his daze, fully understood:
"Run."