The doorbell rang again. The fucking doorbell that kept me awake every single night. I opened my eyes to see nothing but darkness around my eyes, feeling around me with the tips of my fingers, I located my fairly new iPhone 4s and checked the time.
2:39.
Why in the holy hell did the doorbell ring at such an ungodly hour? Why did it ring at such an ungodly hour, every single fucking night in the first place?
I should probably explain what am I even talking about. I have a neighbor and his doorbell rang every night, at some point of the night sooner or later. Having developed a slight case of insomnia in my youth, the sound of the freaking doorbell kept me awake for the next two hours. Then, when I was slowly drifting to sleep-land, the doorbell sometimes rang again. I had slept so little during these few week, I was positive I was going to crash my car and myself in the process on my way to my stupid work-place. This neighbor was literally killing me.
I had never seen him, but I was highly suspecting that he deals drugs. Think about it. What else could it be, besides drugs or prostitution? Possibly both. I am guessing drugs, because from what I had gathered from the muffled voices I sometimes heard, he is possibly a guy. Being raised via my mom watching Pretty woman, I have also been raised to think that only girls prostitute, but I digress. What bothered me though, is why would he live in such a cheap place if he was dealing drugs? Wouldn't a place like this be the first place the cops would come looking?
I contemplated the different ways I could potentially get him to fucking stop taking visitors every... single.. night... Albeit the idea of dumping the innards of a cats litterbox through his letter-drop highly amused me, I suspected if it would get the message across. A note wouldn't be mean enough to satisfy my ever-lasting anger for him making me stay up for weeks. Then again, if I managed to be witty enough with the note, there is a possibility that he would stop AND post my note on tumblr, because he would think I will get him notes. On the other hand, that would satisfy his ego, which would not be satisfactory to me - therefore I returned to my idea of the litterbox.
Upon thinking this, I was painfully aware of the sounds in the next apartment. Usually their muffled, but now it was so loud I could make up the words, if I wasn't so tired. Someone is shouting. I would have possibly been worried about this, but I was so fed up with the continuous rude awakenings in the night, I decided not to bother myself with this.
That was until I heard a loud crash and the door slamming shut. Even though my red hair and facial tattoos might give you an impression that I'm cold at heart, I actually worry a lot for others. Even people I don't know. I got up and threw a pair of collegepants on myself - they were grey and they were disgusting in all their filth that I had gathered from never bothering to wash them. I walked up to my door and glanced at the mirror to see how horrid my eyebags looked. If possible, they were potentially more horrifying than I was expecting, but because I was pissed at hell at this neighbor, I didn't mind scaring his sorry ass with my eyebags. Even though I am smoking hot in a sufficient level on a good day, these eyebags paired with aforementioned red hair, facial tattoos and my considerably slender body, frankly, made me look like a junkie. Maybe he'd sell me drugs.
I opened my front-door and walked out in the hallway and blundered about for a few seconds trying to find the light switch. The floors were fucking cold, by the way. Soon afterwards my observation of the cold floors I realize that the light switch had grown a pair of legs and ran out, because I couldn't feel the switch anywhere. After wondering if this was really such a great idea, I decided that even if ignorance is bliss, further wreckage of my sleep-rhythm would ultimately result in my early death and took the necessary steps to my neighbors door in the pitch-black.
Ringing the damned doorbell and muttering to myself that the litter-box idea was actually a pretty good idea and therefore ignoring the steps heard, I had a miniature heart-attack when the door opened.
What I saw was a boy ( I suspected at least ), that, being pretty much of a short-stack and with his blue eyes, blonde hair and slightly feminine looks managed to give off a "Thai ladyboy at your service"-aura. He gave me a puzzled who-the-fuck-are-you-look, before flashing me a shy smile - which was kind of baffling to me, I mean I was ringing his doorbell in the middle of the night, looking like the grim reaper - and stepping aside to let me in.
"Hi. Come on in", he said with a weird purr. Quickly going back to my idea of prostitution, instead of drugs, I let out an "uhh, ok" and stepped into what must have been the insides of a room decor-magazine. Compared to my apartment, this one looked like a five-star hotels most expensive suite. I mean come on he had a white leather-sofa. Freaking white leather.
I heard him close the door behind me and he went to sit on his white leather-sofa.
"Before we start, I have a few rules. First, absolutely no fisting. Second, that first rule has no expections. Absolutely. No. Fisting. Third, that is all the rules. Also, it's fifty bucks per hour, from now... 150 for the entire night. So, do you have any wishes?" Wow, I was definitely leaning towards prostitution. What the hell was fisting anyway? And why didn't he ask me if I was a cop? This kid had no situational awareness. Or awareness of who the hell I was and why I was here anyway. I was confused as hell.
"Umm, I think you're mista-" I managed to let out, before he cut me off.
"Do you have any wishes?" He repeated, clearly impatient.
"I wish you would keep it down. I'm from next door and the constant doorbell ringing in the middle of the night is getting on my last nerve and also I heard some loud noises and a crash so I was wondering if you were awake and I'm really confused right now first off what the hell is fisting and besides what the hell are you charging for do I need to call the cops and seriously you should keep it the fuck down I mean prostituting is fine but at least do it by day so I can sleep" I was rambling on as fast as possible so he couldn't cut me off anymore "Please".
He looked pretty dumb-founded at my monologue and was silent for a moment. He hesitantly got up from the sofa and looked around himself for a bit. I took a good look at him, while he was fidgeting. Apart from his obvious ladyboy-ness, he was actually a looker. Definitely prostitution. His hair seemed to have a world of his own - definitely prostitution, hair like that had no choice to be created apart from having sex - and his eyes were the bluest I had ever seen. He seemed to have a good physique too, but because of the morning-robe he was wearing I really couldn't tell for sure. While my examination took place, he seemed to have gathered the information I had provided him during my monologue and now he was the one to look confused.
"Are you a cop?" There it was. Kid really should have asked this question the first thing he did.
"..no? I'm your neighbor. Axel Williams", what kind of a time was this for introductions? I mentally slapped myself for ever deciding on coming here instead of using the litter-box.
"...Oh. Uhh.. Roxas Strife. That's my name, I mean. Umm... I guess you're confused by that speech of rules and money and...", he clearly didn't know what to say. Couldn't really blame him, what was he supposed to say?
"Hi. My name is Roxas Strife. Sorry about the noise, but I openly prostitute and how should I know when clients arrive if they don't ring the doorbell? A man has got to make a living, you know. But I will consider your proposal of taking clients in - no pun intended - during the day. Thank you for your time, I will not be taking clients for the rest of the night, so you can rest. I apologise for the inconvenience."
"Well, yeah. Actually, I'm more confused by what the hell is fisting", I told him and rocked on my heels to calm down.
He looked a bit amused now.
"I basically just told you what my prices are and you're the most concerned about your lack of knowledge for the word "fisting"? That's a first", he chuckled a bit, before continuing "I don't think there's anyway I could come up with a believable lie, so I'm just going to tell you. I'm a hooker, basically, but you seem to have guessed. Fisting means taking the whole fist in."
Okay, so that was pretty close to my proposition on his explanation. I was seriously regretting not taking up the litter-box idea by now. I was not prepared for fisting to be.. well, that.
"Uhhh... I really don't know what to say to that. Okay, cool? I kind of want to get away from this situation desperately. I'm getting progressively more uncomfortable by the second. I just came to ask if you would possibly, um, not take guests by night? I work mornings so... You get the gist", I have a habit of spouting when nervous, by the way.
He laughed at my obvious uncomfortable fidgeting.
"Yeah, I get you. Sorry. Prostituting isn't my first choice on life, really. But I need to take the clients in, or I'm in some deep shit. I'm really sorry about it, honest", he was a bit too laid-back on this subject.
"Umm.. If it's not your choice, then... Why are you doing it?" I hit myself hard, because my idiotic curiousity took over and asked that. I was supposed to be sound asleep in my bed, not in my neighbors apartment having this highly weird conversation about getting into deep shit and prostitution.
"I just.. ran into some trouble and I'm making up for it", clearly I went too far with that question. He was dodging that, but he told me he was a prostitute with a straight face. This kid was something else.
And I was itching to get to know what that something else was and on the other hand I was dying to just get back to my bed and drift to sleep and forget that this conversation ever happened. While knowing full well, that this was the point where one should just back out the door and call the police, there was a part in me that was telling me not to. The same fucking useless part that got me into this situation in the first place. I can't believe that in the time-span of less than two hours I had gone from just being generally peeved at my neighbor to where I was holding the most oppressing conversation I had been in all my years. This just fucking didn't happen. The situation made me question my sanity. Maybe I'm dying and God decided to throw me a prank such as this, so I would die with so many question marks just gliding through the holy heavens, that I would soon appear in? Or perhaps I just fell to the depths of a psychosis, creating myself this parallel universe where my neighbor is a prostitute and I tip-toe to his apartment at around 3AM?
At that moment, I decided to find out what the fuck was going on.