My girlfriend can make me do anything. I'm her houseboy, her sexbot, her toy.
It started because I couldn't pay my share of the rent. Paul, our third roommate, left us in a huff in July. He was pissed at Julie because of her incorrigible messiness and mad at me because I owed him rent money.
Julie had only lived here since May. She was a friend of Paul's, or had been, at least until they lived in the same apartment. Julie and I hadn't talked much. I found her terribly attractive in a high-energy, skinny-girl, spiky-haired, punk-goth-feminist, graphic designer kind of way. I couldn't help looking at her whenever we were in the same room and thinking about her when I was alone in my bed touching myself.
But I didn't want to complicate our living situation. Besides, I probably wasn't her type. The truth is that I wanted her badly, but I had no idea how to approach Julie. In fact, most girls intimidated me. Julie just scared me more. Which attracted me more.
Paul made some choice final remarks about our faults before he left. "I hope you are very happy together, assholes!" he sneered, slamming the door and storming down the stairs.
"Well fuck him," said Julie.
"Yeah, fuck him," I joined in, relieved that Paul hadn't raised the matter of the money I owed him.
"Well, it's just us now," said Julie. "Rent's a bitch, though."
"Yeah, well, about that Julie... I can only pay $500 now.... can I owe you the other $250?"
"Like you did with Paul, you mean?"
"He mentioned that?"
"Oh, yeah. He more than mentioned it. He was really pissed! He said he was going to grab your laptop and phone as collateral. But I talked him out of it."
"Gee, thanks, Julie. How'd you do that?"
She pulled a grimy envelop out of her pocket. "I bought your IOUs from him. I paid him $300 for the bunch."
"Wow. That's amazing, Julie. Thank you." Shit. And I thought I'd dodged that bullet. "I'll get you the $300 by .... next month. I promise."
"It's $615, Andy. I bought your whole debt at a discount. You owed Paul $615 and now you owe me the same. Add another $750 for this month, plus interest at 10 percent on what you owe - add $61.50.... That's $1,421.50. When can you pay me?"
"Uh.... give me two weeks, Julie. I've got a gig coming up."
"OK, two weeks. But until then you do all the housework, understand?"
I agreed.
Over the next week, I got into the routine of cleaning up the apartment every morning after Julie left for work. I didn't have a lot else to do -- my writing gigs had all dried up.
I knew Julie was a slob, but it seemed she left particularly godawful messes in the kitchen and the bathroom after we talked that day. I had to scrub burned oatmeal out of saucepans, wipe her pubes off the toilet and erase toothpaste spit from the mirror every day. One evening when Julie came home I asked whether she could maybe be a bit more careful so that I didn't have so much cleaning to do.
Julie was only five foot two and maybe 110 pounds soaking wet, but she had a lot of edgy energy. She advanced to within inches of me and looked up at me with her intense brown eyes. She almost looked like a boy in her short haircut, jeans, boots and t-shirts. Up close I could see she used eyeliner and shaded her eyelids. She wore tiny little jewel stud earrings. She had a faintly earthy smell of sweat and herbal soap.
"Did you agree to do the cleaning or not?"
"Yeah, but, I mean...."
"Are you gonna have the $1500 you owe me for rent next week, Andy?"
"Uh.....OW!" She slapped me. Not really that hard, but with a lot of authority. I was stunned. Speechless.