Total pages in book: 142
Estimated words: 138526 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 693(@200wpm)___ 554(@250wpm)___ 462(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 138526 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 693(@200wpm)___ 554(@250wpm)___ 462(@300wpm)
“Me too. Room service?”
“I should ask Mr. Conti if he wants to join us.”
“Mrs. Cuntyflaps!” she screeches, and I give her a stern look. “Sorry…”
“What did I say?”
“It’s not like I can help it,” she replies, laughing at my obvious annoyance. If she says that in front of Mr. C, I could lose my job. “Cunty up your bedroom and the windows…” Her hand reaches up and she yanks on her braid again.
“Are you okay? Should we do your steps?”
“Yeah, probably.” She glares at her hand. “Fucking hate this thing sometimes.”
“It obviously hates you too.”
We laugh together but my laughter dies when I kneel on the floor by my suitcase and see something poking out from under the bed. There’s a quarter-inch gap between the wooden floor and the bed base. I touch the lip of it, it’s see-through and squishy.
What is that?
Using the tip of my manicured nail I drag it out.
“Ew… ew, ew, ew, ew.” I stand up, hopping from foot to foot. “GET RID OF IT!”
“What?” Laurie asks, peeks around me, and then starts to make vomiting noises.
“I can’t, I can’t… I touched it…” I shake my hand as Laurie uses something plastic to pick up the used condom. “I touched it. I touched it. I touched it.”
“Wash your hands,” she instructs softly.
My eyes are hazing over. I’m having a panic attack. Can’t breathe.
“Wash your damn hands!”
I somehow get to the sink and turn on the hot tap, covering my hands with soap and then I start to scrub. Scrub, scrub, scrub, scrub, scrub, rinse. Five and one make six.
Repeat six more times.
My hands are starting to hurt, but I only have three more times to go and then I’ll be good.
Laurie drags me away from the sink and puts a stress ball into my hands. I squeeze it six times and calm my breathing. “You good?”
I nod. “I’m good.”
“Good. Let’s go to dinner.”
“Where is it?”
“I flushed it.”
“Why’d you flush it?” I panic. “Now I’m not going to be able to sit on the toilet.”
“It’s not a big deal, everybody sits on the toilet,” she answers. “You know this. You can handle it just fine.”
“You’re right…” I answer feeling like an idiot. “I’m sorry. I’m being stupid.”
“No, you’re not, I get it, you know I do. I’m just surprised to see you so jittery like you are. You haven’t been this crazy in a long time.”
She’s the only person that gets to call me crazy.
“You need a break from work.”
“Maybe,” I reply, looking at my wristwatch. “I’m going to see if Mr. C wants to join us for dinner.”
“You do that, I’m going to hang up my dress for tomorrow.”
I pull open the door with my red hand and head down the hall to his room. Knocking on the door, I tighten my dark ponytail and put on a smile so he doesn’t know I just had a near incontrollable meltdown just forty seconds ago.
The door swings open. He’s holding his phone to his chest and looking at me expectantly.
“Do you want to join us for dinner?” I ask.
He looks down the hall, likely for Laurie and responds rudely, “Definitely not.” Then closes the door in my face. Perhaps he’s more like his wife than I thought.
Wow.
“What an ass,” I whisper, offended on my friend’s behalf. I’m not going to tell her because she’ll probably start calling him, Mr. Cuntyflaps too.
Chapter Five
His dark moods.
“I BELIEVE I CAN FLY!” Laurie sings at the top of her lungs and falls into a plant pot by the elevator.
I grab her arm, giggling hysterically as I try to pull her out.
“I BELIEVE I CAN TOUCH THE SKY!”
“That’s not singing, honey, that’s shrieking.”
“Fuck you up your bum,” Laurie grumbles, still smiling. “I’m not drunk yet. Let’s go buy more drinks.”
“No more drinks,” I say, pulling her so hard she lands on me and we both fall to the floor. We are less than ten meters away from my door and she’s crushing me into the dirty carpet and snoring. “Are you kidding me?” I shove her and try to wriggle my body under hers. “Laurie… wake up.”
She mumbles something unintelligible and hiccups in my ear.
Oh bum cakes, as Laurie would say.
“Umm… help?” I squeak, using my chicken arms to try and roll her over but she’s a massive dead weight.
With grunting and exertion on my part, I wriggle myself free and click my back when I stand. I let her have way too many cocktails. Or maybe I just didn’t have enough. But I’m exhausted after the presentations today.
Mr. C almost fucked up in the middle and forgot his lines and I had to step in to help him remember, but then people started directing their questions to me. I saved his ass, but he was really annoyed with me for taking over.