ocko and Bunny had been a couple since Bunny’s first year at Cimarron High School. No one was surprised when four years later they announced their engagement. Everyone including his and her parents figured Rocko had forgotten his protection one too many times and had finally knocked Bunny up. The truth was close; this was not the first or second time. What made this time different was that Bunny had rigidly refused to have a third abortion.

"I’m having this one, Rocko, and there’s nothing you can do or say to make me change my mind." Bunny sat in Rocko’s candy-apple red Corvette, her arms crossed tightly across her ample chest as she glared at him.

"But Honey Bunny," he began, thinking that he could charm and melt her resolve as he had twice before.

"Do not Honey Bunny me, Rocko. I’m not going for it," she snapped quickly, cutting short Rocko’s attempt to manipulate her.

Rocko could see that this time Bunny’s mind seemed made up. But he decided to try one more tack, one he’d never attempted before for fear that it would only make things worse. But at this point, Rocko thought he had little to lose by trying it.

"Well, then…I guess you can have it…alone. You don’t need me to have it. Your daddy can take care of you and your kid just fine." He added a smirk as he looked across at her. He thought he might have gotten to her with this one.

"Yes," she began quietly, "I suppose you’re right about that." Then she sighed, "And I suppose he can take care of you just fine too." Her eyes flashed victory as Rocko’s smirk melted into the fear she knew he was feeling as he began to fully comprehend the meaning behind Bunny’s thinly veiled threat.

Bunny’s high card was that her father been recently promoted to Chief Financial Officer of one of the huge mob-owned hotel/casinos on the burgeoning south end of the Las Vegas strip, while Rocko’s dad was only a shift manager in that same house. That wouldn’t have meant so much in the standard corporate world. But in Las Vegas, it meant that should Bunny tell daddy that Rocko was playing hard to get, daddy would make Rocko’s father’s life extremely uncomfortable, and shit always rolls downhill. Even the dense and posturing Rocko understood that, without Bunny having to put it right on the table.

It was to be a great occasion. Great for everyone but Rocko, that is. To any outsider, it looked as though the couple had it made. Their families had chipped in, proportionate to their abilities of course, and bought the couple a fabulous home in the Lakes Estates, west of town. They’d furnished the place and all said and done were probably in over a quarter million. Not too shabby a wedding present for a young couple just starting out.

In anticipation of the upcoming nuptials, Rocko promoted too. He was moved up to floorman, with a boost in pay from his job as dealer. Everything seemed to be looking up.

But Rocko was looking down. You see, what Rocko knew and what Bunny knew, but neither of them was saying one word about, was that this wedding signaled the end of Rocko’s relationship with Marjorie McQuaid. Marjorie knew it too.

Marjorie was a sweet little slut who Rocko had been banging on the side ever since he’d gotten his first job in the casino. Marjorie and Bunny had once been friends and neighbors back when they were in elementary school. However, the relationship was never in Marjorie’s eyes an equitable one. Bunny was always the cute blonde who seemed to get all the attention; Marjorie was the dark, brooding brunette in the background that felt herself to be only a companion to Bunny, but never an equal. No matter how many extraordinary gifts Marjorie got for Christmas, Bunny’s gifts always seem to trump hers. When, in second grade, Marjorie got the Easy Bake Oven they’d both longed for, Bunny had gotten a complete playhouse in her back yard, not only with the oven, but also with many other appliances. When Marjorie, only a high school freshman, started dating Bill, the half-back of the football team, Bunny announced, only a few days later, that she was now going with Rocko, the team quarterback and captain. They both made the cheerleading team, but Bunny was chosen Head Cheerleader. That was when Marjorie started truly hating Bunny, and when even the superficial friendship cooled.

For Rocko, having the affair with both of them was not only that he had two lovelies willing to ride his baloney pony at regular intervals, but that Marjorie offered far more a variety of copulation than did Bunny. Should Marjorie even hesitate to perform the latest of Rocko’s experimental kinky proclivities, all he’d have to say was, "Yeah, that’s what Bunny says too," and Marjorie would jump into the game with every orifice, which were two more than Bunny would ever allow Rocko access.

Besides the usually great sex and constant supply of lavish gifts, the only and perhaps best thing for Marjorie in this clandestine relationship with Rocko was the satisfaction that she was getting one over on Bunny, a big one. Now all that was coming to an end.

But Bunny, who never did grasp Marjorie’s true feelings toward her, thought all was as it should be between them. After all, everyone including Marjorie herself acknowledged that Bunny was the far more beautiful, attractive, and intelligent of the two. So to Bunny, things were as they should be between them.

Marjorie harbored fantasies of keeping the covert affair with Rocko going, even after he was sleeping in the new house with his new wife and no longer kept his bachelor pad in the Polo Towers. While he’d had the little condo right up the strip from work, it was easy to slip away at lunch breaks and sometimes before and after work to knock one off together. But that wasn’t going to happen any longer. Too many people were going to be watching now and Rocko’s new schedule was not going to allow for those extra curricular activities.

"Look, baby," Rocko had explained to Marjorie, "maybe after a year or two, we can get it going again. But right now the heat’s on plenty. If I try to slip around on Bunny, it’s not just her that’s going to be a problem." Rocko slowed and started again in a conspiratorial whisper. "You know how that whole family is connected. Hell, I think Bunny’s known about us since before last Christmas, maybe longer. If her old man was to find out, and Bunny was to ask him for the favor, we could both wind up a couple of lumps out in the Parump desert sand. You want that?"

Marjorie pouted, but was silent. She knew Rocko was right. Crossing Bunny was one thing, but crossing her family was another.

It was a fine Catholic wedding in the classic Italian style, held at St. Viator’s on Eastern Ave. Bunny’s family must have easily spent twenty-five large on the reception. Of course the wedding reception was held at the hotel, which had easily comp’ed an additional five figures, an amount written off to the IRS under the heading of promotion and advertising.

The wedding went well; both mothers crying the appropriate amount of tears, both fathers beaming with satisfaction that their money was being well-spent, and five hundred of their closest friends supplying gifts aplenty, not the least of which were those thick white envelopes.

The cake was a work of art. Bunny’s mother had made certain of that. She’d seen a picture of some movie stars’ wedding cake and had taken it to the pastry chef of the hotel, who in turn had it reproduced by the same pastry chef who’d created the one in the picture. He then took all the credit as if he’d done it himself. Why not? Then he proceeded to blow the $200 tip she’d given him at the Baccarat table.

Now the camera flashes were twinkling all over the place as the happy couple posed to cut the wonderful cake. Even the Review Journal had sent a team to record the event for the View section of the Sunday edition. Then holding hands together, they ran the blade down through the top layer of the cake, smiling as if they were having the time of their lives. Bunny was—Rocko wasn’t.

"Lighten up!" Bunny hissed at Rocko. "This isn’t your funeral, it’s your wedding!" Her cruel grin indicated that the interment reference was not accidental. Rocko decided she was right. He took a deep breath, let it out, and forced a waxen smile.

Each took a small piece of the cake and interlocked arms to feed it to each other, as is the ritual. First, Rocko started to put the piece he held into Bunny’s mouth. But as she opened up, he touched just a bit of the heavy frosting to the tip of her nose, leaving a daub hanging there. A moderate chuckle rose from the onlookers and the flashing of the cameras exploded once again in double-time. Rocko was starting to feel a little better and a large genuine smile grew on his face.

Bunny looked a bit perturbed, as to be expected. Bunny simply moved her piece toward Rocko’s mouth, which was not quite open wide enough because of his big smile. This was becoming the brightest part of the day for him.

Just as he thought he was going to get a bite of the cake, Bunny slammed it right in the middle of his nose. It exploded all over his face, leaving Rocko looking quite in shock. The roar of spontaneous laughter of the hundreds of onlookers that immediately followed was nearly thunderous. The flashing not only increased, but the photographers actually moved in on the couple to be certain to get a close-up of Rocko’s ridiculously comical cake-splattered face.

Rocko scraped cake from his eye and looked into the laughing crowd. He saw his best man, all his buddies, and even his own father doubled up in laughter. His face turned crimson. Then, at the back of the room, he saw the uninvited Marjorie standing near the door. She wasn’t laughing; the smirk on her face said all he needed to know about what she was thinking.

Rocko felt some emotional thing burst inside of him, something well beyond his control. The pounding of the blood in his ears drowned the sound of the laughing crowd out. His vision began to zoom in and out on Bunny’s laughing face. He snatched up the dull cake-knife and with a brutal thrust, stabbed Bunny right through the heart.

The laughing came to an immediate halt, except for one female voice back by the door, which began to cackle hysterically.