Page 6 of His Sound
“Desolé,” I apologize. “Thought this was the shitter.”
I back out of the room and try the next door, hopping from foot to foot the whole time. I find myself looking into what has to be Stéphanie’s room and let out a bunch of curse words as I bolt for the last door in the place. I finally make it into a bathroom so tiny I don’t think I could fully extend my arms between the walls.
I don’t have time to find out if that’s true. I yank on my belt and drop my shorts to the floor. The ‘Hallelujah’ chorus starts playing in my head and I sigh as I raise my eyes to the ceiling, thanking the Piss Gods for getting me here in time.
“Tabarnaaaaak,” I groan in relief a minute later, as I’m pulling my shorts back up.
That’s the good thing about Quebec swear words—they’re very versatile. You can use them to get your point across in pretty much every situation. You can also combine them with other Quebec swear words to make even bigger swear words:tabarnakcan becomeesti de tabarnak,which can becomecâlice d’esti de tabarnak,which can then becomecâlice de criss d’esti de tabarnak.
Get more than one Québécois person in a room and suddenly you’ve got yourself a competition to see who can make the biggest chain of offensive language. It’s a very rich and vibrant culture we French Canadian people have.
I figure Stéphanie and Ace will be up here any minute, so I take a seat on the light blue couch I helped carry up here and wait. The place is so tiny that the living room is basically inside the kitchen, but with the couch facing towards the bedrooms, you can at least pretend there’s enough space to call this a different section of the apartment.
Door Number One is still cracked open, but I can only see a fraction of the room from where I’m sitting. There’s no sound coming from inside.
Did she leave?
I retie my hair into its topknot and then run my hands over the collection of tattoos that cover my arms, craning my neck to take another look around the apartment. I’ve just started to realize how hot it is in here. It’s not so bad outside—the final hit of summer September brought with it is nothing compared to the crazy heat waves last month—but being in this room feels like sitting in a sauna.
That would explain why the girl on the bed was in her underwear. Then again, if I had an ass like that, I’d walk around in my underwear all the time. Even through the haze of needing a bathroom, I couldn’t help notice how perfectly curved and smooth it was. There’s a reason the peach emoji means ‘butt,’ and it’s because of asses like hers. It was peach-fection.
I slump down even further on the couch and close my eyes. It’s almost too hot in here to be thinking about anything sexy, but I keep picturing her anyway, expanding my mental image beyond her butt and remembering the way her body sloped down to the curve of her waist, just peeking out underneath her shirt. She had her feet up in the air behind her, ankles crossed, her toes flexing and pointing in a teasing kind of way that would make any dude in their right mind want to give that ass of hers a good smack.
The floor creaks, and I open my eyes just in time to see the top of a curly-haired head duck back behind the bedroom doorframe. That’s when I realize who this girl must be: Stéphanie’s littlelapin. The rabbit girl.
That’s what Stéphanie calls her at least, and Ace has taken up the habit too. Apparently she hardly ever speaks and disappears into her room whenever anyone but Stéphanie shows up at the apartment. One of the few things Stéphanie knows about her is that she’s a huge Sherbrooke Station fan, and Ace confirmed the fact when he walked out of the shower here one morning and almost killed Rabbit Girl with the shock of seeing him shirtless. We all laughed about it, but I couldn’t help feeling bad for the chick. It’s got to be a pretty fucking awkward situation.
“You can come out if you want,” I call to her. “I’m not here to murder you.”
There’s a pause, and then the floor creaks again as she appears in the doorway. Her curly brown hair is so puffed up by the heat it looks like a lion’s mane and reaches almost down to her elbows. Unfortunately, she’s now got jean shorts on over her underwear, but I take in the sight of her exposed thighs. They’re pale as hell, considering it’s the tail end of summer.
“What’s up?” I ask, popping the ‘p.’
“Umm...” she mutters, before giving a little laugh. Her eyes dart between me and the floor.
“Your Stéphanie’s roommate?” I ask.
She nods at the floorboards.
“Sorry for barging into your room like that,” I apologize. “I really needed to piss.”
The floorboards get another nod.
“What’s your name?”
She looks up and makes that nervous laughing sound again before clearing her throat and coughing. I sit there waiting as she blinks at me a few times.
“It’s, um—Sorry. It’s Molly. My name is Molly.”
I scratch my chin. “You sure about that? You don’t sound so sure. Are you trying to hide your identity from the crazy man on your couch? I already know where you live, so I think it’s a little late for that.”
More nervous laughing. This time the sound is almost frantic. Right now I don’t know if she’s scared I’m going to stab her, or ifIshould be scared she’s going to stabme.
I decide to try putting her at ease. I get up from the couch and walk towards her, extending my hand.
“Forgive me for being rude,Madame. I am Jean-Paul Marc Joseph Bouchard-Guindon.” My hand hangs in the air between us. I wait until she looks up at me and then I smile. “But you may call me JP.”
Her eyes have gone wide—like, crazy person wide—but I can still appreciate how damn pretty they are: a steely kind of blue that’s almost grey. They make me think of sheet metal, rippling with silver strands.
