He looks like their manager.
But he seems to also be into classical music, as evidenced by a whole cupboard filled with sheet music, likely to be played on the violin resting on a table by the wall. It’s a shiny black color, has a lovely curve to its head, and, of course, has a yellow note stuck on it. It reads,Don’t even breathe on it.
I manage to pull my fingers away just in time. While a part of me wants to break the rule simply because it’s in place, I imagine this is important to him, so I’d hate to accidentally break something.
I write in one of my paper texts though, [You play the violin? You have to play something for me.]
I’m growing excited and intrigued that I’ve involved myself with such an enigmatic, multi-layered man. And out of all the hot guys in the world, he choseme. He letmeinside his body.
Since he doesn’t own an apartment, but the whole building top to bottom, he has more than one living room. The one downstairs seems to be more official—where you’d have guests. Something that’s apparently possible when you’re a millionaire with more than one room in New York. The whole room is bigger than the apartment I rent, and it’s adjacent to the dining room where we ate (and fucked) yesterday. My dining space used to be located by the counter of my tiny kitchen, so on warm days I preferred to eat on a bench in the nearby park.
The other living room, the one upstairs, is just as dark and moody, with a floral wallpaper, but has a more relaxed atmosphere. A plush velvet sofa stands in front of a large TV framed like a painting, andit’s more lived-in than the museum downstairs. Corvus is a very tidy man, but an empty cup stands on the coffee table fashioned out of one of those wooden stump slices, along with a block of the same Post-it-notes I’ve been finding around the house, and a discarded tie. A game of chess Corvus never finished with whoever was visiting him is set up on a small table with only one armchair next to it while in the large painting above, creepy women emerge from a deep darkness, jeering while their faces twist into crooked grimaces. I don’t understand why someone would want something like this in the living room, but it’s not like I’m into art.
I’m not a tidy guy by nature, but I can put in the effort. I want him to know I can be useful, so I go wash the cup, pick up the tie, and put the chess pieces back at the two ends of the board. If I had my phone, I would have looked up how they should be arranged, but since I don’t, I just go with my gut.
Once that’s done, I sit down on the plush couch in a deep maroon color, and damn if it’s not the most comfortable piece of furniture I’ve ever occupied. I need no instruction to switch on Netflix, and I snort at the sight of the smiling dog icon above my name. The other profiles are ones automatically generated for kids, and the main profile calledCrowNest, featuring a gentleman in a tall hat as its icon.
When did he have the time to setup an account for me? That’s pretty sweet, even though he’d never admit it. Still, I very much want to know what he’s watching, so I click on his profile, and… of course, it’s password-protected. Looks like he thought about everything.
Oh well, I can always later look through the collection of DVDs I found in the cupboard under the TV. Those I saw had mostly black and white covers, and not a single superhero in sight. He’s likely a bit ofa snob, but that’s hardly surprising going by the quality ofeverythingin this house.
Hell, if I had his money, I’d probably also enjoy the finer things in life.
As I sink into the sofa, mindlessly scrolling through the TV shows on offer, I do wonder what my life will look like from now on. Didn’t Corvus mention an allowance yesterday? Getting to live with him out of the cage will afford me more luxury than I’ve ever known. Will I go back to my job as a bouncer, or would Corvus prefer I become a stay-at-home husband? I don’t hate the latter, I could use a vacation after all the bullshit I’ve been through in the past week, but I’d probably get bored and want to dosomethingeventually.
Several hours pass by as I ponder all of this, my attention on the cage fighting documentary in three parts, but by the time I’m done with the show, my stomach is starting to growl.
I head back to the kitchen and snack on two bananas with some peanut butter. My first instinct was to browse the pre-prepared meals in Corvus’s freezer, but then my lips stretch into a smile when I get a brilliant idea.
Surely, after years of living here all alone, Corvus would appreciate a good homemade meal. If I showed him how nice it would be to come home to a loving husband and nice, fresh food, he would most likely not lock me up in the basement later tonight.
And, I suppose, be even more certain about marrying me. I smile to myself at the thought of me being an eligible bachelor.
I’m not that good of a cook, but I do make my own chicken, and a mean protein oatmeal, and I am perfectly capable of following recipes when I try to wow someone, so I end up by the shelf containing severalbooks. One of them, a thick diary with many bookmarks sticking out at the top, appears to be in more frequent use, so I reach for it (since there is no sticky note telling me not to), and open it right away.
Inside, there are instructions on how to make different foods, lists of ingredients, and other details, but while it’s tempting to look through everything, it’s now the afternoon, and I want to make sure I’m done with my surprise dish by the time Corvus is back. The marked recipes all look delicious at first glance, but each one turns stranger the farther down the page I read. But who am I to judge? If Corvus likes pancakes with pieces of raw chicken in the batter, and a sauce of roasted nuts, I am going to make them for him, especially that it so happens that I have all the necessary ingredients.
I turn the oven to maximum heat, lay out the walnuts on a baking sheet and pop them in. I’m pretty proud of myself, and the whole idea, as I mix the batter. I’m curious how the whole thing will taste since the recipe calls for both cinnamon and oregano. Not something I’d come up with as a combination, but Corvus is a fancy guy.
I do wonder if I bit off more than I can chew when the recipe calls for ‘burning the oregano in the pan’. Not a cooking technique I ever heard of, let alone attempted, but I’m committed now, so here we go. In one deep pan I have oil heating for the pancake batter, in a smaller one, I put four tablespoons of dried oregano.
I grab a lighter.
“Here goes nothing…” I whisper as I turn the gas on under the small pan as well and put fire to the oregano.
It goes up in flame in an instant, and I jump back with a yelp so fast my sleeve catches on the handle of the other pan andholy fucking shit,the oil is on fire!
I scream my head off, but this is not my first rodeo setting things on fire, so I’m not dumb enough to pour water on it. The fire alarm is already blasting in my ear, but I’ve seen a trick online that involves covering the pot with a metal sheet pan to smother the flames.
Sadly, the only one I can think of is in the oven, so fuck the nuts, I’m going in.
As soon as I open the oven, the smoke hits me like a wall, and I start choking. The nuts are charred nuggets. I forget to use the oven mitt, so I burn myself first, and send the tiny smoke bombs flying. On my second attempt, I successfully grab the pan, this time through a towel, and put it on top of the pot.
By now, the whole kitchen is a smoke inferno, I can’t stop coughing, my hand hurts, and I’m pretty sure parts of the extractor above the cooker have melted, so now the plastic is also producing toxic fumes.
I can’t see, but now that I’m pretty sure I’m not burning the house down, I run to the windows. The bars are a reminder that I can’t escape and in case of a fire I would have burned alive. But it’s when I can’t open the windows that panic settles in.
I can’t stop coughing, and in desperation, I hit the glass with the marble mortar, but this must be some bulletproof shit, because it’s no use, and only a small scratch appears on the glass, as if to mock me.
