"It was all split fifty-fifty, but that wasn't good enough for you, now was it, dear?" Bubba said, having to clear his throat to snag Zamara's full attention. "Well, you've already taken more than your share. You stole my heart straight out of my chest, and you're not getting a single thing more from me. Not today. Not ever!" Bubba's scowl loosened as the rumbling intensified. China pieces rattled in the cabinets, and the ambient temperature elevated twenty degrees.
"Bubba, what did you do?"
Bubba strapped on a devilish smile and lowered his shotgun. "Let's just say this dormant volcano ain't so dormant anymore."
"Come on, Bubba. Let's talk this through."
"There's no talking that could make me whole again. Only a virgin sacrifice could stop this puppy from erupting, and I'm afraid I'm fresh out."
Two teacups dropped from the cabinet like twin bombs, smashing into the floor and spraying the kitchen with porcelain shrapnel.
"A virgin sacrifice? Really?" Zamara said, raising a skeptical brow.
"This from a woman who breaks razors on her leg hair?"
"Touché."
"Looks like we'll be spending the last moments of our lives together. 'Til death do us part, like it should've been."
Rusty lowered his eyes and stared at his feet. "Um ... "
"What is it, Rusty?" Zamara demanded.
"Well ... "
"Rusty, what?"
Rusty's voice quivered with an unsure timbre. "I've never been with a woman."
"You're a virgin?" Zamara and Bubba screamed simultaneously.
"Most women are turned off by all of this hair. But I've got to be me, you know? Sure, it was lonely, not having any companions in my life besides Whinny, but I knew the right lady would come along eventually. You're that woman." Rusty wrapped his hand around Zamara's paw and pressed his forehead against hers. "I'd do anything for you."
* * * * *
Zamara looked over the edge of the volcano into the molten soup that was pacifying by the second. He'd done it. He'd really done it. Rusty had given his life so that hers would be spared.
Bubba laid a soft hand on her shoulder. "I'm so sorry."
She pulled away.
"I know there's nothing I could say that could possibly make things better, but I really am sorry. All of this bitterness ... look where it's gotten us."
Tears warmed Zamara's face. Bubba sounded sincere, but she'd fallen for his syrupy apologies more times than she cared to admit. She and Bubba had loved each other once, but had neglected their relationship until there was nothing left to salvage. And now an argument over old plates she'd never even used and a scratched up record collection had cost Zamara her one chance at true love.
Boiling tides of lava began sloshing against the volcano's walls and ash shot from the mouth like a cannon. "Bubba–" Zamara ducked as a fiery rock flew past her head. "I thought you said a virgin sacrifice would stop this thing!" Zamara's mind traced back over her brief relationship with Rusty ... how he'd sounded so unsure when he'd claimed to have never been with a woman – with a subtle emphasis on the "woman." Not to mention his eerie fixation with that goat of his. And come to think of it, what kind of man puts "open to inter-species dating" on his personal profile anyway? "You don't think he and Whinny ... "
Tiny bits of ash filled the sky, persuading light to perform strange tricks in the atmosphere. Zamara's last earthly thought was of how beautifully blue the moon looked tonight.
###
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Delightfully Twisted Tales: Volume One – Close Encounters of the Worst Kind
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