I said stop. Don’t push it.”
I didn’t feel like going at all. I was exhausted, I felt ugly and, worse still, I hadn’t shaved. Times like this I’m completely useless, and since I know nothing will come of it I always end up as smashed as a bomb site.
I know, I’m too sensitive but hey, I can’t help it. If I’m not looking my best, with my pussy all neat and tidy, I can’t just leave myself open for anything.
Never mind the fact I got in an argument with my dumb-ass boss while I was finishing my cages, and that really sapped my energy.
It was all over that new ProCanina line, Puppy Sensitive.
“I won’t sell it,” I said to him, over and over, “I won’t sell it. It’s complete bullshit. Enhances cerebral and visual development,” I read, shoving his bag of kibble back at him, twenty-seven euros for a six-pound bag, enhances cerebral development, tell me another one. Hey, if that were true, they should eat it themselves, assholes.
My boss walked off, yelling about his report, and my behavior, and my language, and how I’ll never get that permanent contract, yadda yadda yadda, but what the fuck do I care. He can’t fire me and he knows it as well as I do. Since I’ve been working there, profits have doubled and I brought all my former clientele from Favrot as a dowry, so . . .
Up yours, time clock, up yours.
I don’t know why he’s so antsy when it comes to that supplier. I suppose the rep has been promising him all sorts of things. Smartphone cases shaped like kibble, toothpaste for his poodle, weekends by the seaside . . . Or hey, even better, a weekend by the seaside masquerading as a sales seminar so he can go get his rocks off, away from his old lady.
That would be just his style.
I was over at my friend Samia’s. I was eating her mom’s pastries and watching her straighten her hair, strand by strand by strand. It took forever. Like, wearing the veil, in comparison, is women’s lib. I sat there licking my fingers—dripping with honey—and admiring her patience.
“But, uh . . . since when you sell stuff for pappies?” she asked.
“Huh?”
“That kibble, you said. Pappy Sensitive.”
“Nah. It’s puppy. Puh-peez.” Samia’s English is not great.
“Oh, sorry,” she laughed, “so what’s the problem? You don’t like the way it tastes?”
I stared at her.
“Hey, take it easy,” she went. “Don’t look at me like that. What, I can’t say anything anymore? And why don’t you come with me tonight? Go on, puh-leez . . . C’mon, girl . . . For once, don’t let me down.”
“Whose party is it?”
“My brother’s old roommate.”
“I don’t even know him.”
“I don’t either, but who cares! We go check it out, take our pick, go eenie-meenie, then talk about it!”
“Knowing your brother, it’s gonna be another one of those bougie things.”
“And so what? What’s wrong with bougie? The food’s yummy, honey! They don’t have to call everyone they know just to have decent stuff and in the morning you might even get fresh croissants.”
I really wasn’t in the mood. I wasn’t about to tell her but I had a whole stack of episodes of Sexy Nicky to catch up on and I was really fed up with all her crap plans for lonely hearts.
The thought of taking the RER depressed me, I was cold and hungry, I smelled like bunny shit, and all I wanted was to be in bed, alone, with my series.
She put down her hair straightener thingie and knelt before me, rounding her lips into a heart, pressing her palms together.
Okay.
I walked over to her closet with a sigh.
Friendship.
The only thing that contributes to my cerebral development.
“Take my Jennyfer top!” she shouted from the bathroom, “It’ll look great on you!”
“Uh, this really slutty thing?”
“What d’you mean, it’s really pretty. And there’s a little sequined animal on the front. It was made for you, honestly!”
Yeah sure.
I borrowed her pussy mower, took a shower, and practically dislocated my shoulders to get Messrs. Roro and Ploplo into her size XXS T-shirt with Glitter Kitty on the front.
Downstairs, by the mailboxes, I stopped and turned around to look at myself in the mirror, just to make sure you could see my Mushu’s little beard sticking up above my low-rise jeans.
Nah, you couldn’t, drat . . . I had to give a little downward tug on the waistline.
I love this tattoo. It’s Mushu (the dragon in Mulan) (no seriously I love that cartoon, I’ve seen it at least a hundred and fifty-six times, and cried every time. Especially during the training when she manages to climb to the top of the pole.).
The guy who did the tattoo swore it was a real one, Ming dynasty and all, and I believe him, since he’s Chinese, too.
“Wow. You rock.”
Since she was my best friend, I didn’t really catch her compliment, but when I saw the expression on the face of the guy coming out of the elevator I realized that, yeah, it worked.
He was helpless.
Sami pointed at the wall:
“Hey, M’sieu . . . There’s a fire extinguisher over there . . . ”
By the time it registered we were already running down the street toward the station, laughing and squeezing each other’s hand tight because with those heels we were wearing we might as well have been Thumper and Bambi in Holiday on Ice.
We took the 7:42 P.M. SCOP and we checked to make sure—in case the party got dicey—that there was a ZEUS bus to get us back at four minutes to one A.M. Then Samia got out her sudokus so she’d look like some rocking bluestocking otherwise they pester you on public transport, I swear, nonstop.