A Night at The Underground (Part 2)

(Work Warning: Contains some profanity. I really wouldn’t want you to be caught reading this!)

(This is the second and concluding part of the story. For the first part click here.
A quick gist of the first part so that you can start on this. But please do read the first part, as the fun of writing is more in the language than the plot itself...like the "Fun is in the journey rather than the destination" cliche in tourism.

In the first part, Victor Banks goes to his favourite bar, The Underground. There he meets the usual characters:
Des, the Floor Manager of the bar and casino
Steve, the reired Champion swimmer,
Natasha, the Mayor's perfect wife,
And then, after all these year he sees Alexandra in the bar...)

Victor felt a sudden knot in his stomach. Alexandra meant bad memories. He gulped down his drink and ordered one more. The memories overwhelmed him. To cut a long story short, Victor had been head over heals with Sandra (Vic’s name for her) and had thought that this was it, until one day she had just disappeared from the city. Mystified he made enquiries to find that she had left with a millionaire from out of town and worse, he, Victor, had been just one of the many guys she had been moonlighting with. Turned out that she was a gold digger and had simply used him as a “hedge”. Once she had found someone richer, she ditched him. Simple.

Then, they had started; the voices in his head. “It doesn’t matter, you are being a sissy, she is a gold digger you don’t want her”, one voice told him, “You were just a contingency, a just in case”, sneered another. The days after the break up the voices in his head took full control of him. They gave him a mindfuck. “How could you have allowed yourself to fall for a Player like that, you gullible arse? How could you? Clearly you were not good enough” After that, he would suddenly stop what he was doing and just look blank, a prisoner of wandering thoughts, centered on her. What was bad, he thought, as he gulped down another drink was that he had hinted often enough but she had led him along, waiting for what? “Waiting for someone like Briggs”, jeered the voice. And now after these years, the voices were back again!

He snapped out of his reveries. He looked again in her direction and much to his surprise Briggs had left. Why would he leave and that too at the moment when their game was reaching it’s peak? To the toilet, Vic thought to himself mockingly. It didn’t make sense but that was that… and there was Sandra perched gracefully on the barstool. He decided that he would confront her. Mustering his strength, for he was quite drunk, he tottered up to her chair.

“Hello! Ms. Alexandra Walker. Remember me?”
“Oh! So nice to see you! Obviously I remember you! How could I forget? How have you been?” she asked as she flashed a thousand watt smile. So fake, thought Vic, as he could detect a look of nervousness in her eyes.
“So you remember me? What do you remember?”
“Of course, I remember you Victor Banks, you darling you. Manyata would not have been such fun without you”, she smiled and hugged him.

He inched closer, and whispered to her “You people always have such good memories. Tell me is it some sort of racket or was it just a one shot thing? Do you go from city to city trying to lay the richest man or just go for the one big jackpot? Looks like a high return business”

She turned away from him. She swallowed hard and tears welled up.
“Oh! You are so cruel. What do you mean? You are so drunk, I am scared”, she said as she stifled a sob
“Bah! Don’t try that old trick. Where is Briggs?”
“That’s none of your business.” she got up to leave.
“Hmm… so mission failed. What will you do for tonight?”
Sandra slapped Victor. “You bastard! What has happened to you? You disgust me!” She started walking away.
Victor felt subdued by the slap. But the memories still rankled.
He ran behind her and said, “Then, tell me why did you leave without telling anyone?”
“I got news that my father died. I had to run home, when I learnt my family had been plunged into a financial crisis. We recovered just now… Trust me Vic”, she said.

Bunkum, he thought. But the outburst had mellowed him and he thought, what the heck, what is done is done. “Whatever”, he said dismissively.
She sidled up to him, gave him a coquettish look and caressed his shoulders. “Shall I get you a coffee, Vicky baby”, she cooed.
“No, some water would be fine”, he said as he sat on the nearest cushion.

Victor felt a sense of exhilaration. He had actually confronted her, he had dreamt of this for so many days and now he just felt release. Sandra was chatting away but Vic didn’t pay any attention. After all these years, his head felt empty no voices. He drifted to a dreamless sleep.

Victor awoke. He found himself on a hospital bed. His hands were tied to the side of the bed. His legs were tied to a pillar by the side. His posture was like that of a patient with a fracture in his legs. He struggled out, but he had been securely tied with roped around his stomach binding him to the bed. Vic couldn’t move. As he looked around the whiteness of the room scared him. It was a smallish room perhaps fifteen feet by fifteen feet in area, but the whiteness gave an impression of infinity. He felt that he was in heaven and half expected angels to fly in though he didn’t even believe in all that bullshit. The lighting was perfectly uniform. The room was perfectly white! He wondered about the lighting. It must be a technical marvel to achieve such uniform lighting. As a kid, the uneven lighting in his room had greatly irritated him.

Suddenly he noticed an oscilloscope to the side of his head. It showed his pulse rate. It was steady. He just couldn’t make sense of where he was. Had that bitch Sandra popped a pill and kidnapped him here? It looked more like a hospital. Had he gotten into trouble and been admitted here? Why was he bound up this? He didn’t feel pain. Sandra meant trouble. Why the fuck hadn’t he just avoided her?

Then he heard footstep. He suddenly saw two small black lines walking to him. Then the oscilloscope started flickering and the cartoon Powerpuff girls appeared on the screen. What the hell? Meanwhile the black image got bigger and bigger and gave the impression of a ghost. What the fuck was wrong with this place? The footsteps got louder. He made out that the black object was in fact someone’s hair. A woman was walking to his room. Must be a nurse, thank God he thought. Then he slumped back. It was Alexandra. He felt bile rising through his body, half a millmeter a minute. He wanted to shout at her and spit the bile at her. She opened the door.

Alexandra was dressed... differently. She wore a perfectly white nurse’s dress with the skirt going upto her knees, exposing the legs between the knees and the ankle and then... perfectly white shoes. Also, she wore a pirate’s patch over her left eye. Why the fuck was she dessed like Elle Driver in Kill Bill, Vic thought?

She came in, glanced cursorily at him, pulled a chair by the oscilloscope and started watching Powerpuff girls. Victor pushed against his bonds and shouted at her,”Why are you doing this to me you? What is this place? I will not leave you for this!”

She continued watching, unaffected by his delirious ranting. Powerless, Vic turned to the screen and watched. The show got over. Sandra got up, stretched herself like a kitten and said,”These Powerpuff girls kick ass, don’t they? My favourite is Buttercup. What about yours?”
“Oh, I forgot we removed your voice box, you can’t speak”, she grinned, the corner of her lips curved mockingly.
"Is my outfit cool or what?" Sandra asked. "Wonder why I am wearing the patch? I lost an eye. But I got this artificial eye made for me. It is detatchable" She lifted her patch and took that eye out. Victor felt a feeling of nausea overpowering his body. He wanted to spit his kidney at her.
"It really freaks people out when I do this", Sandra giggled and put the eye back. She lit herself a cigarette.

The door opened and suddenly Natasha walked in. Victor couldn’t believe his eyes. Could this be the infallible Natasha? So both of them were in this racket together (whatever it was)? Who else was there? He had always suspected the Oh-So-Perfect Natasha. Now his suspicions were confirmed.

“Come Tasha”, Sandra said with a flirtatious look and led her into the room. She passed the half smoked cigarette to Natasha.
“So Vic is the Day’s Special is it? I feel bad for Vicky baby. But business is business, we got to meet Dr.G’s target…sigh”, Natasha said.
What was the fucking business these clowns were talking about?
“Let’s get done with this loser, before we start with our own work baby”, Sandra cooed and winked at Natasha.
She went out and brought a huge syringe, as big as a two Cuban cigars. It contained a fluorescent fluid with a huge needle. He squirmed. He had a phobia for syringe needles and this was one was big. “Nooooooooo”, he screamed tears welling up his eyes. Were they in the organ business? Would they kill him and take his organs?
He felt sick.
“Looks like we could use something as big as this” Natasha sneered, as she examined the syringe.
Sanda took the syringe and squirted some of the liquid on to his face, inched closer and placed the tip of the needle on his shoulder. She bent so that her face occupied his whole vision and said, “Tch tch, Vic you were always such a naive arsehole”. She plunged the needle on to his shoulder.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

Consciousness came slowly back to him. He was in a dark dungeon and he saw a sliver of light through the space between the door and the floor. His hands were tied to a bar above his head and he was suspended such that his toes barely touched the floor. Pieces of clothes were clinging onto him but he was practically naked. It looked as if he had been whipped but Vic felt nothing. He was too tired to feel pain. Suddenly he saw a snake sliding up the pole towards him.

Suddenly the door opened and the light blinded him. Steve and Des came in. By now, Vic was so emotionally overwhelmed he didn’t care. Everyone was a bastard. Suddenly, Des said, “Hey man! What the fuck? This is Vic? We can’t do this!"
“Shut the fuck up. You want to get sentimental go fuck yourself in an old age home. We got to meet Dr.G’s fucking target, remember arsehole”, snapped back Steve.
“But this is family you motherfucker”, replied Des.
Steve caught him by the collar and pushed him onto the wall.
“Listen he knows about us. We got to kill him anyway. So shut the fuck up and let LeBrand do his job”
Suddenly, a barbaric figure entered the room.
Vic looked at it startled for it sounded like a familiar name. The figure seemed familiar. He seemed to be a torturer of some sort. Interestingly, he resembled Vic’s teacher at school, the one whom he hated so much, the one whom he considered his greatest tormentor.

Suddenly everything came back to Vic, this dungeon resembled something he had seen in a film, Sandra looked like Elle Driver, Natasha and Sandra in his favourite fantasy, there WAS no snake, it was a Fredian association! Fuck… Fuck… he was dying in his own fucking dream.

He wanted to shout but his throat was blocked. Someone needed to help him. He could feel the vomit stifling him. He was choking in his own vomit!
Suddenly, he felt a slap. The dungeon was engulfed by a flood and he floated out of it like a rubber object rising through water. As he floated up, he saw a giant porthole. This was sucking everything into it. This must be the porthole out of the subconscious he thought. He must get out...

Vic got up with a start and puked all over the sofa. Des, Natasha, Steve and Tom the waiter were around him, looking at him anxiously.
“Just take me home”, Vic croaked.

(Obviously “inspired” from many sources. If you find that objectionable, well, as they say, imitation is the best form of flattery!)