LOSING MATE

2- A NIGHT WITH BEASTS

I thought to give space for my life. My parents didn't follow me or even look for me. But the timing is unpredictable. My unusual feeling is: why should I trust this guy named Kurt Urdanzo?

He took my arm, and he led me outside to a luxury red car that was parked on the second floor. This is a good way to make a new friend. While walking around, the city was alive with throngs of people, honking horns, and car exhaust. He opened the door, I slipped inside, and he got into the driver's seat. Once the doors were closed, the interior was as quiet as a tomb. The whole world could have been in the middle of a nuclear war, and we wouldn't have known. I'd never been in anything half as luxurious as this Almond hotel on wheels, and I squirmed in my seat.

"Do you mind to say something?" He asked me as the car jumped forward into the busy two-lane traffic.

"I think your car's monthly insurance bill costs as much as my apartment," I commented. He chuckled.

"Probably," he agreed.

"So what do you do for a living?" I wondered.

"Oh, I'm an errand boy. But I spend a lot of my time at home." I turned to him and raised an eyebrow.

"I'm living in the forest," he added. I don't think he tells me the truth. But his face seems to be serious this time.

"What are you doing here? Are you a drug dealer?" I joked.

"Not exactly. I'm sort of an on-call man for the people I'm taking care of. That's why I'm here in the city for some parting time while I am looking for my soul mate."

"Well, that's nice," I replied. He smiled.

We drove several blocks through fancy boutiques and shops that dazzled the tourists and partygoers. The mini-parks behind the crowded streets gave way to office buildings and hotels that towered over us like imperious overlords. Few of the buildings had garages beneath them. The garage sat below street level and was lit with sickly fluorescent lights.

There were two dozen other cars around the main stairs into the building above us. Many of them were long, black cars with chauffeurs at the wheel reading large books to pass the long wait. There were a few other flashy vehicles, and a group of men stood at the bottom of the stairwell, laughing and talking. Kurt helped me out of the low vehicle and led me over to the stairs.

"That's a nice one you have there," one of the men yelled to us. Kurt glared at him.
"Hold your tongue, you idiot," he snapped. He hurried us past and into the stairwell that led us up into the building.

"I have to apologize for my friend. He's a little drunk around this time of night," he told me.

"Is he one of the people I'm supposed to meet?" I asked him. Kurt smiled and shook his head.
"No, not at all. The people you're going to meet are near the top floor partying as we speak."
We climbed the stairs to the lobby of the building. It was a tiled-floor, echoing kind of lobby with a glass front and doors. Kurt led me to the elevators at the back, and we climbed in. Just as he said, there were fifty floors to the building, and he pushed the button for the forty-fifth. The elevator climbed the floors, and when the doors opened again, we were in a different world.

Before us was a large room with a little strobe of lights and flickering colors that encompassed all the colors in the rainbow. On the left side was a long table filled with food of all kinds, and in the back was a small stage with a door. On the right side was a DJ playing loud, fast music, and in the center of the room were round columns spaced evenly apart that supported the tiled roof.
The rest of the floor was taken up with people dressed in sleek red dresses with their hair done up in the latest fashions.