Page 30 of My Boss

I contemplate, I think, I agonize. I have already bitten my lower lip with such anxiety that tomorrow I’ll look like a victim of a botched Botox injection.

In the end, I decide to write:

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 anotherFabulous Dreamat 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.

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