I HATE MY BOSS! #7
I sent the last message in error. It wasn’t meant for you. Please delete it and forget about it. Maria Gabara
Short and to the point. Just the way Engler likes it.
My face burns as if singed by fire. I send it.
Let the will of heaven be done. I’m going to be fired from my job on Monday anyway, so I’ll save myself the embarrassment and come to work not at seven, as the Stiff ordered, but at six.
I’ll have time to pack for forty minutes and that way I won’t run into my boss. And I’ll never see him again.
Yes, this is the perfect plan.
I glance at my cell phone. No message. He’s probably asleep.
And good, the more time passes, the more distance I’ll gain.
And this one will definitely come in handy for me.
Only now do I feel how tense I am. My neck hurts, my muscles are in agony, and so is my back.
I need a drink to somehow relieve my emotions.
I open the messaging app and type in the text:
I’m coming over to your place. Are you awake?
I make sure five times that the text message I’m about to send is addressed to Karol, then I press ‘send’.
The answer comes almost instantly:
I’m not sleeping. What are you wearing?
I smile to myself.
The right question is what I’m not wearing. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.
Looking forward to it!
Well, then I’m going! Only first I’m going to gulp another Fabulous Dream at the bar. And I’m hoping that with it, my brain will recognize that the incident of sending a nude pic to Jan was just a really bad nightmare.
*
I don’t know why I thought that since Karol wrote, “I’m waiting,” he would really be waiting for me.
And I’m not talking about a rose in his teeth, romantic candles and dinner for two.
But, for God’s sake, what I found in his house made my pussy clench painfully, whimpering, “I beg you, get me out of here!”
I don’t consider myself a clean freak, and often my apartment looks like a disaster area.
However, the sight of Karol sprawled out on the couch in a stained T-shirt, boxers, black socks, with a gamepad in his hands, surrounded by crumpled empty potato chip bags and the wafting stench of beer, is like an anti-Viagra and anti-ecstasy in one pill.
“Sit down, I’m about to finish.” He sticks out the tip of his tongue, staring at the TV, and moves his thumbs quickly over the gamepad.
I sigh heavily, pick up the trash from the couch, the coffee table, the floor, and carry it into the kitchen.
And get smacked in the face by an unholy mess of sticky goo and dirt.
The floor looks tacky, there’s a crooked tower of plates in the sink, dirty utensils, bread crumbs on the counter, scraps of sausage that has gone bad, spilled coffee, melted butter, an apple core and…
Good heavens, what is this bug doing here!
It is disgusting—brown, shiny, with long antennae. My skin starts to itch just from looking at it. Nevertheless, I feel a bit sorry for it. The poor thing has stuck to the spilled blob of jam and is waving its legs helplessly, trying to escape my sight.
“I’m done.” Karol approaches me from behind and puts his arms around me.
“You didn’t tell me you got a pet,” I say, staring at the arthropod.
“No pets. I only have you, kitten,” he murmurs and rubs his stubble against my cheek. I shudder, because he doesn’t smell like roses.
“And he won’t be jealous?” I point to the bug.
Karol sucks in air with a hiss.
“Fuck, a bug!” He jumps away from me, pulls off his sock and begins to pummel the cockroach.
He jumps on one foot (if I were him, I’d be disgusted to touch this floor with my bare foot, too), curses, hammers the countertop with the sock and gets crazy eyes.
He looks like a man possessed. It might seem that the bug has no chance.
And yet, when you know that the cockroach is a sturdy beast that can live for another fifteen days after being decapitated, you realize that your boyfriend is not actually killing it, he’s just doing a lame dance in front of it, combined with a relaxing massage with a stinky sock.
Jesus, I’m about to pee. I retreat to the bathroom.
And there is an even bigger mess than in the kitchen.
Dirty clothes are spilling out of the hamper onto the floor, the mirror looks like a store window festooned with fake Christmas snow, the sink and bathtub are as black as in a miners’ bathhouse, and a line of shit is visible inside the toilet bowl.
It stinks like the city’s piss pot. Apparently, Karol hadn’t flushed the toilet for a week.
I wrinkle my nose and traditionally pee standing up.
I didn’t think Karol could be such a pig. When he was working in the corporate world, he could afford a cleaning lady who cleaned his apartment twice a week. It seems that after he let her go, his true nature was revealed—Carolus slobbus vulgaris.
Damn, even the soap is gone! Sheesh.
“Karol, get your rubber gloves, we need to declutter your shack!” I come out of the bathroom and don’t believe it.
My boyfriend is again sitting in front of the TV playing some damn shooting game.
“Chill. I’ll just finish this son of a bitch, and we’ll have fun in the bedroom. It’s clean there.”
I walk quickly to the bedroom, swing the door open and the stench of jizz hits me. It makes me sick.
A creased battered quilt on the bed, three piles of clothes on the floor, with crumpled tissues among them… At least I know where the stench is coming from.
I throw up my hands!
“If you jerk off, at least you could clean up afterwards!” I fling the window wide open. “Come over here and get those cummy wipes out of here!”
Silence.
“Karol!”
“Yeah?”
“Clean up this mess! I’ll take care of the kitchen.”
No answer.
I leave the bedroom and go back to the room.
Karol is sitting on the couch. His gaze is fixed on the screen, he’s all tense, his fingers move quickly on the pad. He looks like he’s in a trance.
“Can you hear me?” I stand next to him and put my hands on my chest.
“Yep.”
“What did I say?”
“That… Oh fuck, the son of a bitch surprised me!” He jumps up on the couch. He starts moving his thumbs on the joysticks as if he had springs instead of phalanges.
Okay, I’ve had enough.
“I’m leaving. When you grow up and clean up, let me know.”
“Yep.”
Yep? Suit yourself.