BAD LAD

9. Chris

I quickly close the door of my room, hand on the handle, standing there for a few seconds. Damn... is that true, then? I need a reason to be nice? I can be if I want to that’s all. Just like I can be a huge asshole if the mood takes me. And that’s it. I take a last look at the door and suddenly realize that there’s a minor in there who’ll sleep in my bed tonight.

I immediately drop the handle as if it had become hot and then rub my sweaty palms on my jeans. I need a drink... or to release my excess energy by f*****g.

Suddenly, my phone rings: it’s Jo.

“Are you jacking, my little chicken?”

Kate’s face suddenly appears in my mind. Kate jacking off? I have neurons that are burning under the indecency of the idea.

“Huh?!”

The unusual high pitch of my voice flays my ears, but also those of my friend and he makes grunting noises on the other end of the line.

“Are you looking at p**n to sound so guilty?” laughs my future former best friend.

I clear my throat before answering.

“No, no. I just have a new roommate.”

“Oh?” he’s interested.

“Mel’s little sister.”

“Oh.”

Here he seems to be much less interested. This automatically makes me laugh.

“They’re not the same...”

“Ah?”

Renewed interest. Jo can’t stand Mel and this dislike is entirely mutual.

“Seventeen years, nearly eighteen,” I admit with a smile.

“Nice, my friend!”

I almost purr at the compliment. I see envy behind his words and, of course, I gloat.

“Yeah, well, keep your dirty ideas for your evenings alone. Don’t touch the kid. She’s a... well, she’s... well, she’s not a s*x toy, asshole.”

“Coming from you, I want to say that it’s the pot calling the kettle black.”

“Too young.”

“You were eager to learn when you were that age.”

I know he’s only joking but his insinuations resonated with a part of me, and it’s not exactly the friendliest. I sat down abruptly on the edge of the sofa, strangely nervous.

“Stop being stupid. She’s a kid looking for a way out.”

I’m trying to lecture while in my mind I get stuck on a possible teaching position with a potentially talented student, on a somewhat special topic.

Jo is still dicking me around: he’s dying with laughter.

“I’m not a f*****g p*****t satyr with a preference for lolitas!”

I gave an almost word-for-word replica of crazy spear and when Jo recognizes it... he’ll be slagging me about it until my final bodily death.

I rub my head with my free hand and tell myself that my confusion will pass, it’s temporary, and it’s just the novelty of the situation that excites me a bit.

When the novelty in question emerges from my room, I jump despite myself.

“You have a vacuum cleaner?”

“Huh?”

She gives me an anxious look from the doorway of my room, arms folded under her small breasts.

“A broom?” she insists.

“It still exists, this thing?”

“Are you kidding me?”

“No.”

Amazement is immediately displayed on her face.

“Trash bags?”

“I don’t know... maybe. But don’t ask me where.”

“You’re kidding?”

“No. And for the record and to avoid you wasting your breath unnecessarily: I don’t know where the sponges are, household products—if by the merest chance I have—and anything that looks like something to scour the house.”

“p**n movies, you have some?”

I almost fall off the couch when I hear that word from her mouth.

“Yes... yes, I’ve got plenty. Entire hard drives. You have a preference for a theme?”

I’m playing smart, but something pulses too fast in my chest and I bet twenty singles that my pupils are dilated.

She gives me a wry smile:

“Ah... intimate hygiene products, you’ve got!”

“It’s important, intimate hygiene.”

“I’m sure you don’t forget to brush it three times a day,” she whispers, mocking.

“Sometimes it’s not easy, but I do what I can, yes.”

Normally, I would have yelled for her to let it go—what I usually do with the girls when they begin to bug me. But with the freaky ideas that I just had because of Jo...

Damn, Jo!

Here I realize with horror that I was still on the phone with him and he hasn’t missed a single crumb of our exchange. I slowly bring the phone to my ear:

“Jo?”

“Yep?”

That bastard heard everything!

“I’ll call you later, I’m... I’m busy.”

“Yep, that’s what I understand, my little chicken. Lolitas, p**n movies, all that stuff... it keeps you busy, for sure,” he says in a syrupy voice.

I hang up without even answering him because I know he’s collapsed with laughter, and then I pass a weary hand over my face, disturbed for some reason. Oh, yes. I’m not a f*****g p*****t.

“I’ll go to the supermarket. Your room’s a pigsty, maybe, I’ll wash the sheets with the shower gel... and usually, I’m not against the shared system, except that there: no way.”

“What’s a supermarket?”

Kate pulverizes me with her pale eyes and I immediately get my hands in the air, laughing:

“All right, I’m joking! I’ll take you if you want.”

She pouts and I raise an eyebrow.

“Is it so far from the apartment?” Kate inquires.

“It depends on what you prefer: high-octane gasoline or walk.”

“Number of kilometres?”

“More than ten.”

I watch her visibly deflate and get up from the sofa.

“The Pontiac, it’s cool,” she murmurs.

Thinking about that still triggers a chuckle from me. It’s completely crazy! Or I never took the time to talk seriously with the chicks that I f****d, and I missed the hilarious conversations, or the one that’s in front of me is a rare specimen that can give me belly aches, not because of her incessant whining, but because I can’t stop myself laughing.