Strange Conscience

I went around to get coffee beans, cherry muffins and some pot.

Max had laughed down the phone when I'd called him earlier. "What's happened to you, luv?" 

“Nothing. Why?”

“I thought you were swearing off the stuff?” 

“No.” 

So, I stopped off at Guido’s warehouse, where they were house minding, well, more than house minding, empire minding, I guess you might call it. 

And then I got a drug dealer with a social conscience. "I've got half bags for fifty, or I could even do a twenty dollar bag, just for you." Max's green eyes sparkled at me. "If you just want a couple of smokes.”

Max's boyfriend Tiffany, said from under a geometrical blonde bob, from the other couch. "Having a bad day, doll?"

When is Guido coming back, I thought, as I hesitated in indecision.

"No, not a bad day." I could feel my face spread with a fake smile. "No." I could feel butterflies in my stomach. "It's just my weekend off... and I just feel like it." Maybe you should change your smoking habits, if you are now justifying them to a man who can only have sex with other men dressed as Barbra Streisand, I thought. 

"I'll take the twenty dollar bag."

Straight out of Guido’s mouth. “Max can only cum if Tiff is singing People.” I smiled at the prospect. I looked at Max.

"You were doing so well," said Max's handsome Italian face looking up at me.

"Yeah, well," I said. "I still am."

"I can see that," said Tiffany's baritone voice. Then she did that annoying you-are-kidding-yourself laugh. You know that self righteous high ground they have no business occupying. I could see the track marks in his arm. 

“Yeah, well, I’ll have the usual bag, thanks.”

Otherwise, I'm just gonna be pissed off that I had come home with a bag with a few crumbs in the bottom. What was I thinking, listening to these two clowns? 

“Ah Guilt, god love it,” said Tiffany. Whatever that meant.

“Doing well,” said Max in a matter of a fact tone. Whatever that meant.

Are these two really the best people Guido could get to look after business while he is away god knows where, I couldn’t help but think. “So, $200?” I asked. I don’t know why I asked, I am fully aware of the cost of it by now. 

“Yep,” said Max. 

“Okay, let’s go,” I said. Even I heard the tone in my voice.

“Listen to her,” said Tiffany. “I’m surprise she isn’t clicking her fucken fingers at the same time.” Then he laughed a I’ve-smoked-too-many-fags-today kind of laugh.

“Oh, you sick of our sparkling company already,” said Max.

“No.” I couldn’t get these two bozos off-side, Guido was away for months, if I remember rightly. “You guys are great, always a pleasure.”

I ate the cherry muffin as I walked home.