Page 94 of Back Room Host

“I don’t know if I’ll be coming next Wednesday,” I said. “I really don’t feel like partying.”

“Then let’s go get a drink,” Clé said in an understanding tone. “But don’t think I’ll let you work nonstop for the next few weeks. I won’t allow that.”

“You won’t allow it?” I asked, raising my eyebrows in surprise.

“No. Because we both know that would break you.”

I let out a humorless laugh. Clé was right—that was exactly what I planned. Work until I dropped. The plan for next week was already in place. As soon as I changed my profile picture, the requests came in. Somehow, I even looked forward to being able to slip into a role again tomorrow, distracting myself from my own self. Because right now, I couldn’t stand myself at all.

31

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Luca

I couldn’t bring myself to write to Juri. Not on the weekend, not even during the week. The “ready for orders” hit me hard. It felt like an arrow piercing my chest. The point must have been poisonous, because I was instantly paralyzed as soon as I saw the profile picture and the white font above it.

Instead, I worked like a maniac on what was to blame for the whole mess until Thursday. But I couldn’t just throw away the recordings of Juri. They meant too much to me.

All in all, I had collected about 15 hours of material. Of course, we didn’t talk constantly. In a three-hour recording, Juri’s speaking time amounted to just one hour, so in the end, I had about five hours. Sure, I could have made a 45-minute documentary film, but I wanted crisp 15 minutes of high tension, which I could also have used for my project.

I took a lot of time to listen to Juri’s stories again. And when I sat in front of the computer on Thursday morning and realized I was done, it struck me like a lightning bolt.

By constantly hearing Juri’s gentle voice over the past few days as he willingly told me about his life and became more open about certain things from day to day, I had only been fooling myself. It made me feel like everything was still okay. Ever since the conversation with Hector, it became clear to me that I was the one who had dismantled what existed between us. It was solely because I had been oblivious to the reality of our relationship.

God! He even allowed me to top him.

So, it was little wonder that as he left, he turned the tables once again and accused me of not paying him. I couldn’t even blame him for that.

But since he left, I felt alone. And I had never felt like that before. Not in my whole life. I, who didn’t even know the names of my fellow students, felt more abandoned than ever. Somehow, I was looking forward to the three days of work at the bar, which would at least distract me from my misery. But the thought of serving people who were in a party mood wasn’t appealing.

I scrutinized my bruise in front of the bathroom mirror. It hadn’t even been a week since the fight, yet my face appeared to be healing well. However, my flank told a different story. Swirls of purple and green dominated the bruise, with patches of yellow already appearing in some areas.

I would frequently return home bearing similar injuries, yet nothing ever changed. My parents had visited the school on numerous occasions, speaking with both the teacher and the principal, but their efforts yielded no results. According to Mrs. Schreiber, I simply needed to contribute more to the class. After all, I wasn’t the easiest child to deal with.

I reached a breaking point when I shoved one of my tormentors off the roof in a fit of rage. It wasn’t until a psychologist intervened that I understood there are various ways victims of bullying respond. I may not have been an easy child, but constant challenges pushed me beyond my limits. All I ever wanted was to be left alone.

After Jérôme’s death, I was put in pretrial detention. I was seventeen, and since there were no facilities for teenagers, they put me in the same cell block as the adults. I still had nightmares when I recalled that time. Although I was only there for three months, they had left their mark just like the five years before. The incident on the roof had blown a fuse in me, and I was no longer afraid of blows. But in pretrial detention, compared to the others, I was weak. Already on the first day, I was reminded that I couldn’t trust anyone there. And even when the guards came to help, I—as was expected—kept my mouth shut.

As the painful memories surged up in me, I leaned forward and splashed my face with cold water. No time for the past. I had to go to work.

Shortly afterward, I left the house and walked toward Langstrasse. It was only a twenty-minute walk. Of course, I could have taken the bus, but since there wasn’t one around the corner, I was faster on foot. Besides, it had finally stopped raining, and since I’d spent nearly all of the past few days glued to my computer screen, a bit of movement felt refreshing—even though I knew I’d have plenty of activity in the next three days.

I couldn’t resist the urge to keep editing the footage I had of Juri into a film. You never really saw Juri. The clip he had unfortunately seen was precisely the conversation where you saw the most of him. Sometimes I positioned the phone to film his swinging leg. At times, the ashtray filling up was the only thing you could see. There were also the recordings where I only filmed the living room ceiling, capturing his shadow. To make the film more interesting, I added a few of the recordings I made during our trip to the lake. There was water, a few ducks, and Juri’s shoes. But since I still didn’t have enough footage, I wanted to go back to the back room during my shift at Exil on Saturday and ask if I could take some shots there—of course, not with the intention of filming the guests. I wanted to capture the gloomy atmosphere and ask the host for a playlist. Because if I put music in, it would be Dark Wave.

My cock suddenly twitched as I thought of the back room. Juri had been incredibly alluring. The fact that he resisted kissing me only added to the intensity of the moment.

Juri.

I faltered. There he was, in front of a building on Europa Allee, smoking a cigarette. It seemed like he was waiting for someone.

My heart skipped a beat, and I gasped for air. He hadn’t seen me yet. I still had a chance to take a detour. But that was foolish. The bar where I worked was straight ahead.

Don’t be so silly! This is your chance!

I touched my head. Yes, my chance. For what? I still had no idea how to fix everything. Plus, I didn’t even know if he wanted to see me at all.

Simply walking past him would be stupid, though. You just don’t do that.

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