Conrad Bells.
March 10, 2022.
My girlfriend broke up with me without any reason. We argued, and she threw her drink at me. It was expensive whiskey, and it hurt to see all my money and clothes drenched in it. Walking under the moon with the smell of whiskey and a broken heart is not the best situation I've ever been in. It's clear to see that she left me. I thought we could get married, but it wasn't meant to be.
I arrived at the restaurant as usual and told Kamila she looked beautiful. She was wearing a green dress that accentuated her curves, one of the perfumes I had given her, and some jewelry her mother had given her as a birthday present. Our relationship was unconventional, as my friends described it. They had come to know certain details about our sex life.
When we first met, I told Kamila that I liked extreme sex. She didn't understand what I meant, so she asked if it was similar to Fifty Shades of Grey. I thought about it and eventually nodded in agreement. It was similar, but not the same. I liked to have rough sex with her, to spank her, perhaps say some dirty things in her ear, and finger her until she cried with pleasure. I liked to do it hard without her consent until she was satisfied and begged for more. I told her all of this after our first kiss, and to my surprise, she wasn't shocked or scared. I thought, "This girl is amazing. She's one of the few who isn't scared by what I say." I thought we were soulmates. We were affectionate and at night, we were animals. Isn't that the perfect relationship? To me, it was a completely balanced relationship, something that I liked and filled me up inside.
Kamila was always a beautiful woman with many suitors. In contrast, I was a younger man than her. I had slightly long, wavy hair and wore black glasses because I was blind and hated contact lenses. My body was well worked out, and the hours I spent at the gym for a year helped me win the attention of the thirty-year-old woman. Currently, I am twenty-four years old, and she is thirty-two. We don't have that much of an age difference.
The fact is that this morning I invited her to dinner, and she happily accepted or so I remember. She was smiling, so I assumed she was happy to know that we would be eating together at a restaurant. After spending most of the day at work, I got home and changed, and she had already left, so I ran as fast as I could.
We were eating, and there was a moment when she sighed and told me to stand up. I didn't understand what was happening. She grabbed her drink, and I took mine, thinking she wanted to make a toast. I was so clueless.
The girl threw her drink at me and said we were through. Then she grabbed her things and left. She didn't even pay the bill! I was left speechless watching her leave the expensive place. I called her for a reason, but she didn't answer, and I stopped insisting. When I got home, my things were in a suitcase with a note. It turns out she was kicking me out, and her father had fired me from my job. I started working for her father shortly after we started our relationship, and I didn't know he was her father. When I found out, I was afraid that something like this would happen if we broke up. And I wasn't wrong. Moving in with her to her apartment and leaving mine was a bad idea. I'm homeless with a suitcase in my hand. Can my life get any worse? What will I live on now?
I continue on my way until I remember that Jeremias lives alone. If I go to his house, he might let me stay with him. We're not the best of friends; I don't have many friends. The friends I had were friends of Kamila's. Now that I think about it, I depended on her a lot. How stupid I've been all this time. For a man who likes to have rough sex, I'd say I'm pretty innocent when it comes to everyday life. Maybe too absent-minded. Whatever I am, I arrive at Jeremias's house, and the first thing he does when he opens the door is widen his eyes and spit, taking a step back so his disgusting saliva won't fall on me, and he grunts.
"What the hell are you doing here? Stop stepping on my lawn."
"It smells disgusting. Trust me, I'm doing you a favor."
Jeremias pushes me, and I fall on my butt on a beautiful ceramic frog, the sound of the little frog breaking reaches my ears and his. The guy screams in despair and pushes me again, but this time, to pick up the pieces of the frog.
"Damn, look what you've done. It's one of my favorite figures. Can't you be more careful with what you do? You broke it, Conrad."
"I've seen hundreds of them in the market. Don't try to make me feel guilty."
"She was special, she cost more than a thousand dollars," he whines.
"Don't try to scam me! They sell them for five dollars everywhere. Stop being stubborn. It's not like the frog was made of gold."
"You're an idiot," he mutters.
He gets up and dusts off his clothes, walks back to the entrance of his house, and I follow him so he won't leave me outside. As I said before, we didn't get along. We had been enemies since high school, always arguing over childish things. I went down the science route, and he chose to be an English professor at a prestigious university. His house and the clothes he wears show me that he's doing pretty well in that profession; at least he lives peacefully in a comfortable and peaceful home.
"Jeremias," I sigh resignedly. "I need your help."
"What did you say? I don't think I heard you."
"I need your help," I whispered even lower.
"I can't hear you. Could you speak up?" he said this time with malice.
"I want your stupid help!" I shouted.
"What do you want, lackey?"
"I have broken up with my girlfriend, and I don't have a job. I need a place to stay until I have enough money to leave again."
"Conrad, are you listening to yourself? The only way you'll get a job in this day and age is if you prostitute yourself, and with your taste in women, you'll end up fucking only two of them."
"I'm not going to prostitute myself," I frowned. "Are you going to help me, or should I leave?"
"You can come in, on one condition," he raised his index finger. "You'll work as a substitute science teacher at the university where I work. We need one, and you need a job while you look for another. What do you say?"
"I don't want to be a teacher. I can't deal with kids."
"They're all adults, Conrad. No one's going to kill you. If you go, you can stay, but if you don't, you'll have to sleep under a bridge and cry because you've lost me and the fabulous opportunity to see me every day. And then you'll want to die. It would be tragic," he nodded repeatedly.
"I'll go, but I want you to drive me every day."
"Fine," he smirked. "You can stay in the upstairs room. No one will bother you there. We both live alone. You have to go to the university tomorrow. I'll send you the address on WhatsApp later. I hope you rest, you piece of the animal."
"You're not far from being rage-personified, Jeremias."
"Sure," he clicked his tongue. "But no one's left me. Someone left you, though. I wonder why."
I climbed the stairs to my room and left the suitcase in a corner.