My Hot Roommate

The Cellar │Chapter 9 │

            ANOTHER SERIOUS ARGUMENT has, again and as always, break between us. But at this time, it happens in the parking space. And I will not be expecting this to stop in a matter of time. I must get used to this as long as I can. These sufferings are for my parents and what they wanted from me. Yet, how about what I truly desire?

            I see his face in disappointment. I think I have hurt him enough. By seeing his whole self, for the first time, I feel guilty and, suddenly, I want to say sorry to him. Yet after I hear his favour, my apologetic self turns back.

            “Fine! Do you want to go and get the f*****g fish? Then do me a favour! Carry me!”

            I know I said this before, but, really, I cannot take much more of this. What huge mistake have I made to suffer the foolishness of this annoying man? “Who on earth would do such an unvalued favour?” I pass him and gets up on the gator, commanding him like he is my slave, “Hurry up and drive. If you want to get a pair of something to wear, we’ll have to take the fish first at the pub.”

            “Did you say pub?” he asks dumbfoundedly, not moving his legs to get into the gator. Then he adds a question interestingly “Where the hell is this pub?”

            “Round the corner, if you take the second left then another left of this highway road,” I, truthfully, answer him.

            He quickly, seeming his feet does not hurt anymore, and take his seat. While starting the engine, he asks again more excitingly than before, “Are you serious? We’re going to the pub?”

            “Why?” I return a question boringly. “Does this place seem publess to you, knucklehead? Oh, I shouldn’t bother asking. It’s no wonder why you have brought a farm vehicle instead of a car.”

            “I think you’ve been living your life terribly and boring,” the neanderthal begin to drive. “Don’t you see what it means going to a pub?”

            “To get the stupid dead fish, I say.”

            “No, of course! Pubs means alcohols, and alcohols mean happiness! We’ll get to meet plenty of sexy girls and have them tonight on the bed.”

            “You’re insane, halfwit, are you? Let me remind your brainless head that we’re going to a pub to get the seafood your grandma and my mother had ordered. What I don’t understand about you is you easily choose happiness over something that really matters in certain circumstances like this,” I reply in his cheerful voice.

            “We’ll get them later after a few drinks,” he drives fastly, peeking at me once. It is interesting to go and get a drink in the pub with friends. I know it. But with him, it will only be a total disaster. And I could not imagine any worse than his drunk self having s*x with another man.

            My ill head starts to create erotic s****l fantasies with Liam on it and whoever his partner is. It is disgusting. How could I fantasise about him with someone else? And why did I detailedly saw myself in a quick second with him on the same soft, comfortable bed? 

            I shake my head without him noticing. Then I try to think of something else – photographs! Buildings. Buildings. Buildings. I never thought I would miss capturing these beautiful buildings here in San Diego. Though I already have lots of pictures of them, I want to take more this night. I will invite the OBALL Squad to have company and a chance to see them again.

            While I am settling my plans for tonight, I am unaware that we are already at the pub. Until Liam grabs my shoulder and points on sexy, white ladies outside with short shorts and revealing clothes, “Look! Chicks!”

            “Wow! Fish!” I imitate his endearing and exhilarating words with my face crumpling in irritation, reminding him of my words what we are really up to here. I open the gator’s door angrily. Admitting it, I love the pub soundtrack for today. It is attracting me for a couple of drinks.

            But I force myself to focus on picking up the fish. I see Liam walks straightly to the pub’s door. He looks like he does not need any feet protection anymore. I let him have his fun that will only last a mere second. I follow him.

            Without approaching or smiling at the ladies, continue walking to the inside of the open door, I seize Liam’s head while he is talking with his chicks and posing his body, “Hey, ladies, do you mind if I – ”

            “Hey, hey, hey!” he tries to get out his head from my arm, probably annoyed by what I have done. “I’m trying to have a casual talk here.”

            “A casual talk?” I question, acting in disbelief. I turn to the ladies and talk to them kindly, “Please, ladies, you don’t want to be with a fuckboy like him, do you?”

            “I’m not a fuckboy!” Liam raises a voice where everyone turns their heads at him. I can watch him like this with his public humiliation.

            Happiness.

            One second after, one of the ladies came marching to us. She is holding a glass of drink at her right hand while the other one is on her hips, stares at me for a moment, and move it to Liam, lasting more than a minute.

From up here, in my eyes, I can clearly see the division of her two huge cleavages and almost everything. She is a bit shorter than the average height of American women. I look away at it, hearing her say to Liam, “Sounds like something a fuckboy would say.”

            I laugh softly, hearing the lady pops the word fuckboy with her wet lips. Liam’s face turns red while facing the lady, then turns at me. His brows are meeting in his glabella, and I can feel nothing but happiness. Embarrassed in front of the ladies, he says at me with his grumpy voice, “Let’s go get that fish.”

            He marches inside of the door first before me. As I walk in, the pub’s crew is in chaos. Everything is a mess – literally, mess. While I stand here and trying to figure out what is happening inside, a good-looking man approaches me, speaking worriedly.

            “Louie! Good thing you’re here.”

            I look at him bewilderedly and ask him, “What is happening here?”

            “Hard to explain. A big, stuffed man on the loose! Anyway, the fish order is on its way to your home. The truck had just taken them a while ago. But can I ask you something to do?”

            Liam comes to us, and it is he who answers the pub manager irritatingly, “What? What is it? Let’s be quick. I want to go home.”

            Reading his face, I think I have done much worse to him. I mean, I should not tell those ladies that he is a fuckboy. Plus, I know what it feels like to walk barefoot. I ask the same question when the manager answers nothing to Liam’s question, “What is it?”

            The manager glimpse at Liam and looks into my eyes, “Pick me up four alcohol bottles. I have to manage this situation and need someone trustworthy to go in the cellar.” He puts his hands in his pockets and pulls out a single key, “Here is the key to the cellar. It is at the back.”

            Liam grabs the key furiously and immediately storms out of the pub. I run behind him to get the key, but he walks too fast. We pass the ladies outside, and it takes a minute to get to the pub’s back. There is nothing here other than the garbage containers, and a few feet away from it are two wooden doors slightly elevated from the ground.

            The pub’s noises reach here. I watch Liam unlocks the bilco doors with the key. Succeeding it, he opens the doors and takes the stairs down without looking at me. Me, who is partially panicking, has no choice than following him.

            Another door welcomes us a few inches away from the bottom of the stairs. But it is a somewhat rusting iron door rather than a wooden door. Using the key, Liam unlocks it. The door creaks when Liam push it open, and silence surrounds us as we enter the cellar. I have never been to this kind of place before.

            The room is enormous, cold, and filled with lots and lots of tuns arrayed in sequentially a to z. From left to right, and even in the middle, are walls of huge casks. Behind these casks, and even under and above, are hard stones that make the cellar a cellar. A few dim yellow light bulbs support the lighting of the room.

            We turn left and has our first examination on the tuns. Both of us has forgotten about the bottles to get. “This place is amazing.” It is Liam who whispers.

            Indeed.

            Like the tranquillity of the cellar, Liam and I steal our time admiring the tuns in orders. But after a long moment, when we almost reach the end corner of the room, we hear the iron door creaks and suddenly slams close. I instantly turn around and never think of another second to run, running to the door while shouting, “Hey, wait!”

            But all is late. From the little window with bars on the iron door, I see one of the pub’s crews. The man dances with the music on his headphone as he makes his steps up the stairs. Before he reaches the bilco doors, I shout with my enraging voice.

            “WAKE UP, STUPID! THERE’S SOMEONE HERE!”

            Still, he has not heard me. It destroys me when I hear the bangs of the wooden doors while watching the sunlight on the stairs gets cover by the door’s shadows. I fall silent for a moment, not knowing what to do. Not an hour ago, I planned on meeting my friends tonight. Yet, now, how can I put it into action if I am locked in this cellar.

            The worst is, with this poor fool, Liam! Again, I yell to the top of my lungs, not accepting the fact I am stuck here, banging the iron door with my fists, “HEY, COME BACK! YOU HEAR ME? I SAID, COME BACK! YOU LITTLE SON OF A MOTHERFUCKING, SWEET s**t FROM YOU BOL – ”

            “Whoah!” Liam tries to arrests my arms, but I continue to hit the door. Because he cannot grab any of my arms, he blocks the door from me. “Stop!”

            “Will you cut that – AHH!”

            “I’m sorry!” I automatically let out an apology.

            Accidentally, I hit Liam with enough force on the shoulder. I take a couple of steps backwards, seeing him covering his shoulder with his other hand, moaning in pain. He looks at me uncomfortably. Little seconds after, he exclaimed, partially angry, “That hurts a lot than you think!”

            “Are you okay?” I do not know why I am acting worried.

            He moves to the nearest tun on the left, bending his neck down. I answered my own question: Well, he seems okay. But I catch his eyes – it is watering. It must have really caused a lot of pain.

            While he stretches his left arm to reach the nearest tun, there is again another shout in pain from him – “AHH!”. It echoes, which gives me horror.

            I examine him. He falls on the hard stone floor. Without having a second thought, I come to help him lean his back on the front face of the tun. He folds his left knee after, and I notice a small stone moving with his feet.

            “I think you strain my shoulder,” he breathes out his words with ache.

            “What?!” I question, lacking in belief, standing up away from him. I give him a slightly disgusted look, adding, “It was a mild punch!”

            “Of course, you would say that! Because you don’t care! When I told you earlier that my feet hurt already, did you listen? You left me! And now I just stepped on that stupid stones! Would you care even less if I told you it hurts?”

            “No, seriously, why should I care? All of that thing is undoubtedly your fault anyway. I mean, what a simpleminded idiotic action of you to have this damfool gimmick of showing and walk ridiculously on barefoot in a f*****g public place and expect someone to give you a pair of bullshit?!”

            “That is why I told you to get back, right? In the first place, this is all your fault! If you have listened, then we will not be in this damn cellar!”

            “What?! You’re blaming me that we get stuck here? Isn’t it you who left the key on the door?”

            “It’s the stupid crew that locked us here!”

            “Because you left the key!”

            “Because this place is bullshit! Why would a crew wear a headphone at work?!” Liam has another point with the question. The fight inside of the pub might be the reason why the dumbass crew wear a headphone.

            After the silence between us, again, I come closer to him, bend my knee, taking his black sando while saying, “Wear this off.”

            “Oh! Are we going to do it here? Isn’t it uncomfortable?” his question is mixed with exhilaration. It makes me flabbergastedly asks.

            “What are you talking about?”

            “I thought we’re going to have s*x here. Since, you know, it’s getting a little bored here.” Liam’s smile curves down in total sadness.

            The i***t. Does he think I am into men? And mentioning the daunting, hopeless situation we are in, why would he think of something like that? I am expecting him to think of the same way I am thinking. And that is getting us out of here. But there is no other way out than the iron doors. “I’m straight. I’ll be giving you a shoulder splint, alternating the splint with your cloth.”

            He scoffs and looks away, whispering, “Even straights want my body.”

            Out of my irritation, I suddenly tear the side of his thin sando, making him jump in shock. I remove it from his body, tears other side, and put it on his neck like I am wearing him a necklace. Then, I tie both ends of the torn sando on his right wrist. I can hear his painful voice.

            I stand up and start strolling near to his feet. While doing so, I pull out my hoodless sweatshirt, which has a thin fabric and is stretchable. I tear up the long sleeves of this sweatshirt, sits on the stone floor, setting Liam’s right foot on my leg and start covering it with the torn sleeve.

            I do the same thing to his left foot, and, when done, I ask, “Feeling comfortable?” He nods and says, “Thanks, cellar mate.” The word displeases me instead of accepting his gratefulness. For the last time, I tear my sleeveless sweatshirt into two and wraps them around my palms and fingers. After hitting the door multiple times, I feel the pain I cause to my hands just now.

            Yet again, I stand up, then goes to the door. With both hands covered in fabric, I smash the door as hard as I can, attempting to create an earsplitting noise with my roaring voice.

            “OOOOPPPENN THHIISS UUPPPP!”

            Craving to get out of this wine and alcohol field cellar, I repeat doing these until I feel my sweats pouring. And until Liam talks, “No one can hear you from here. You’re wasting your energy. We wait ‘till someone comes to get a bottle of alcohol.”

            And, lastly, until my hands are wavering in pain and my throat dries out.

            Liam is right. I am wasting my energy, especially when there is no source of food or water here. All around are tuns, clouds of dust and spider webs. Feeling tired of what I just did on the door, I lean my back hard on it and slide down to sit, gasping for air, replying to him.

            “But – but we d – but we don’t k – but we don’t know when someone will come down here. And – and uhmm – and, look around. There – there’s nothing but casks. No – no bottles to – to get here.”

            “We’re doomed.”              

            “Say’s no one.” I look at my watch: 11:10 a.m. “An hour before twelve. Do you have a cellphone?”

            “No service,” Liam raise his phone for a second then pockets it.

            It is getting colder inside, and our bare chest can feel its strike. I stay my bare back leaning on the iron door while my eyes catch Liam’s gaze.  Leaving my right leg stretched forward, I bend my left knee, place my left elbow above, and rest my forehead, still breathing heavily.