Chapter 8

I kept on screaming as I felt myself falling down a misty shaft back first. It was very cold. My arms tried to grab on to the sides without success. As I fell, I thought about my life and my destiny ... namely that jerk Chris. I kept asking myself, "Why? Why? Why?" I had so many questions that I couldn't even tell where I should start.

Suddenly the mist disappeared and I fell onto a semi-hard object on top of a very soft surface. Immediately, I heard a disembodied female voice saying, "What the fuck?!"

I opened my eyes and I heard that voice again, "Get off me, asshole!"

In my clouded mind, I thought, I've heard that voice somewhere, but I couldn't figure out who it belonged to. It didn't take long for me to find out though as my eyes registered the familiarity of the room I was in. I asked myself, "why am I in my guest room"? My wandering mind was stopped short as I was kicked away from the bed that I seemed to have fallen onto just now.

"Bloody pervert. What the hell do you think you're doing?" Little Tell asked as I got up from the carpeted floor.

Little Tell picked up the alarm clock on the bedside drawer and threw it at me as she cried, "Die, perv, die!"

My mind was screaming, "No! Not the limited edition Star Wars alarm clock!" as I lunged to catch the flying alarm clock.

I was too late to realise that another special edition projectile was being thrown at me. It missed, but gave me a feeling of loss as I saw one of my Macross Special Edition plate clock broke into a hundred pieces. Maybe I should never have treated the guest room as a storage area.

She was about to throw my Naruto figurine (made of terracota!) when I said, "No! Put it down."

When she didn't respond, I said, "Now, Tell. Put it down. I mean it."

"First tell me what the hell you're doing screaming and jumping on top of me," she said, the hand holding the fragile figurine still in the ready position.

I was sweating, that figurine could only be bought in Tokyo. "I ... I was sleepwalking?"

"Bullshit! I locked the door." she said, obviously still suspicious.

"Umm..." I was trying very hard to find a plausible explanation. Just as she raised her hand to throw it though, I blurted out, "I opened it!"

I mentally hit myself as soon as I said it, it sounded so desperate even to my own ears. Little Tell was cocking her head to the side, probably wondering what was wrong with that answer but couldn't figure out what.

Then she said, "Using the spare key? Why?"

"Umm ... I wanted to wake you up?"

"Why? We're going somewhere?"

"Yes! Yes, we're going to buy a tree. You still love large trees, don't you?" I asked as I congratulated myself on my quick thinking. I put the alarm clock down on the floor.

She dropped her hand. Holding the figurine with both hands, she jumped in glee while my eyes fixed on the up and down motion of her hands. I didn't want to see it fall. "Great! When do we go?"

"I was thinking of going shopping after work. That would be around 6, unless you want to find me at the office. We could go out at 5 if you did."

"Oh ... THEN WHY THE HELL DID YOU WAKE ME UP SO DAMN EARLY?"

I was barely in time to catch the figurine as it flew directly to my head.

"Oh, great catch! You must've improved sine we were kids. You used to suck at baseball."

I was breathing hard, glad that I had managed to save the precious figurine, "Don't ... ever ... do that again, Little Tell! I don't think my heart can take it."

"Oh yeah? Well, that should teach you not to mess with me. Hey, when did you cut your hair? Is there a 24 hour salon around here?"

My hands flew to my head. "What are you talking about? I didn't cut my..."

She was right. I have a much shorter hairstyle now, though what is this powdery thing in my hair? I looked down at the hand that was rubbing my head just now and saw something that looked like ash. Just then, I noticed a noticeable lack of mounds of flesh on my chest. What happened to my boobs?

My hands moved to feel around my chest and my crotch. Yes! I got my tools back!

"Ricky?"

I looked up, "Yes?"

"If you're trying to turn me on, it's not working."

"Huh? What are you talking about?"

"Oh whatever. Just get out my room, you smell like a forest fire."

She was right. I did smell like a forest fire. I had to spend an extra half an hour scrubbing myself with herbal aromatherapy bodywash just to get rid of the stench of soot and scorched flesh. I had to spend 20 minutes extra just to ensure that there was no more ash on my head.

I arrived at the office early for the first time since a week ago. The feeling was amazing! Okay, maybe not amazing, maybe more along the line of relieved. At least something went well today. I thought I was going to die when Mother skinned me this morning.

Tell the truth though, I didn't know why I even bothered to come to work today. I mean, I had already finished my work. What exactly was I going to do here?

I logged on to the intranet messenger system, "Sue, you busy?"

Shortly after, a message popped up, "not really, wanna grab breakfast?"

"Sure, my boss' not here today, where you want to go?"

"3rd floor."

"3rd floor? No way. The food there sucks."

"Meet me at the elevator."

Her last message gave me this weird feeling of ... I don't know how to describe it ... I don't know if there's even a name for it. The feeling was something like losing an argument, except that you don't realise you've lost, was wondering why you've lost and was at a loss as to how exactly you lost the argument. It felt like losing a nonexistent argument, as if you're destined to lose in the first place. Really weird feeling.

I must've spaced out because the next thing I knew, Sue was shaking my body like a ragdoll. She was asking me how long I intended to make her wait. She looked pretty pissed off.

Breakfast was pleasant. The food wasn't very bad, unlike the last time I've been here. It wasn't very good either. Only after the food arrived and I got a good look at the cook did it finally dawn on me why exactly Sue chose this place.

The new cook was really cute. To tell the truth though, he was no match for Sue, at least in the field of culinary skills.

"So, are you coming to the party tonight?" she asked as she took a sip from her soft drinks.

I asked her back, "What party?"

She gave me a glare and said, "Don't tell me you forgot. Because if you do, well, the outcome won't be so pretty."

"Kidding, kidding. Don't get your panties in a wad. Of course I remember." Sheesh, she could be scary at times, though I still don't have any idea which party she was talking about.

"Party starts at 9, don't be late."

"Where's the party?"

She gave me a suspicious look, "My house. You totally forgot, didn't you?"

I spent the rest of the morning playing Starcraft: Brood War. Sure, I could go and help the other guys finish their work, but it'd be counterproductive in most cases. I wouldn't know how their designs work, and I will only end up making it even slower for them. So, I tried to stay away from getting in their way.

I noticed Chris walking around from cubicle to cubicle talking to his project members. Chris was the project peon for a computer program project ordered by a prominent civil engineering company. The project was quite large and believed to be worth millions, if they could finish it. So far, they've taken 6 months just to decide how they wanted to do it. Today, I saw him carrying folders, papers, drinks, and lunch to the more senior members of the project, as well as getting some scoldings here and there.

I sneered. Exactly as you deserve, jerk.

I recalled my conversation with Mother this morning. You know, the one concerning him becoming my husband? The part where we promised to get married when we were older? As I watched his antics, I started mulling over the possibilities of him becoming my husband.

I snorted at the idea. Destined husband, my ass.

Ohhh, why does my sphincter suddenly quiver?

I watched as he walked nearer to my cubicle and I braced for impact.

I was barely in time to avoid the flow of coffee that he purposefully -accidentally dropped my way.

"Ha! Missed me," I said as I giggled a bit.

He frowned. Probably not expecting me to anticipate what he intended to do.

"Now clean this up," I said, referring to the coffee stain on one wall of the cubicle, "I want it spotlessly clean by the time I got back."

I smirked as I head for the gents. He was so predictable. I thought it would be fun to have him as my husband, I'd have a slave that I could bully everyday. My grin got wider with that last thought.

As I walked back from the gents, my mind was full of all the delightful ways of how I would bully him and basically make his life miserable for making my life miserable. I noticed that he actually did a good job cleaning the wall of my cubicle. The moment I sat on my chair though, my eyes suddenly opened wide as I heard a squishy sound from under my butt.

In reflex, I got back up and twisted my body to see what I sat on. I saw yellow liquid sticking to the back of my pants and the seat.

"Ahhh!!! Damn you, bastard! Where the hell did you get the mustard?!"

I heard a boisterous laugh of victory from the cubicle in front.

"Oh, you think you're so damn funny, don't you? This is not the end, asshole!" I yelled as I walked as fast as I could to the gents. I must've looked like a baboon from behind as my ass was the only part of my body that was yellow.

The rest of the day went rather quiet. After that prank, (which forced me to stay in the gents for an hour waiting for my pants to dry), Chris didn't try anything else as he was kept busy by the more senior members of his team. I was plotting so many things against that jerk that it gave me a headache. I ended up playing House of the Dead 2 to lower my stress level.

By 3pm, many people from my office went home. I was sure that Roger will be the punch-card slave again this time. People always went back early when Mr. Stuart was not around and Roger, being the one who always had to leave late was always asked to punch their card for them when he left. If Mr. Stuart found it weird that 20 people punched out at 8pm every time he wasn't in the office, he didn't show it.

Anyway, at 3, I received a mass invitation for a LAN Counterstrike game starting in a few minutes. They called it the Christmas Counterstrike. How appropriate. The people in server room have always been lacking in creativity.

I couldn't resist playing it though, it had been so long since I played Counterstrike. The last time I played was back in college. So I put on my headphone, started the game, looked at the LAN games and found a game titled 'We Wish You a Merry Christmas.' Someone needed to teach these guys some creativity.

As I logged into the game, I found out that there were actually many people playing. I thought many had left for home already. As expected, I sucked at it. I've been way out of practice.

A short while after the game started, an interteam message from Bladerunner appeared asking, "Is there a Patty from IT here?"

I replied with, "Yeah, why?" after killing one of the terrorists.

"Cabbage, Sue wants you to bring your sister along," he said right before I, Cabbage, got a headshot from Imagunnapwnjoo.

Once Bladerunner died, I sent a reply, "Yeah sure, I'll tell her about it."

I played until 4. I just had to leave the game because I very embarrassingly suck at it. Besides, I need to go home to my feisty little sister. So I gathered my stuff, turned off my computer and left my cubicle. On the way to the door though, I was blocked by Chris in the cramped lane between cubicles.

I half expected that he would try to pin me down with his weight advantage like yesterday, but he simply stood there calmly. After waiting for him to make a move, I decided that he was just trying to get a rise out of me. So I tried to skirt my way around him, which he moved to block. I tried to skirt my way around him from the other side, which he moved to block as well.

I put my left hand on my hips and said, "OK, what the hell do you want?"

He said in a whispering voice, "Nothing, just want to check on something".

"Check wha..." I was cut in mid sentence as his knee connected with my crotch. Oh, that really hurt. It felt like my balls exploded. I fell to the floor, my briefcase fell next to me as both of my hands covered my crotch.

"Hm, guess I was wrong. See ya later," he said as he left me crouched with aching balls.

"You ... freakin ... fuc..." I whimpered as the pain remained after he left.

That's it. Destined husband or not, no chance in hell I'm going to marry him. Not now, not in a million years, not ever! That geas thing can go stuff itself. I'm NOT going to marry that bastard even if the world falls on me!

Why was I even considering such nonsense in the first place?

"What's wrong, bro? You seem pissed off," Little Tell asked as I walked into the living room.

"Nothing to do with you. So you're ready to go?" I said as I pulled off my necktie.

"Yea, I'll just grab my bag. So where are we going?"

"There's a tree auction at Griffith Park starting around 7. We'll be going to the mall first before going there."

"Tree auction? What's that about?"

"Well, it's similar to buying trees, except that instead of just picking one and carrying it back home, you have to bid for the trees that you like."

"Would it end up being expensive?" Little Tell asked, while holding her handbag as close to her heart as possible.

I chuckled, "No, it was more or less the standard. The auction starts at a lower than average starting price. Bidding will be in increments of 5 bucks at a time. If there was a particularly beautiful tree, it may go higher than the standard price, but I've never heard of any tree being sold higher than 3 times its worth."

"What about defects? Maybe the tree has some illness or some flaws?"

"The auctioneer is a really honest guy. I've chatted with him before. He runs the convenience store at the edge of the city. If there were any flaws, he'd tell us. He insisted before that he only did this for families; his and others; to have fun and be involved in the spirit of Christmas. He said that he was a businessman, not a thief."

"Sounds like a nice guy. I can see why you wanted to go to this auction thingy."

"Oh I'm not going there to see him, Tell. I picked that place to buy our tree because of the atmosphere. You'll see. My friend, Sue recorded last year's auction. It was really cool."

"If you say so, bro. So are we taking the car or the transit?"

"The car. I have a feeling I'll need to juggle your bags."

She lashed at me with her handbag in reply.

"Here you go, number 26. Thank you for joining the auction, Mr Willows," said the cheerful faced Aaron as I signed the registration form.

"Oh please, Aaron. What's with the formality? It's not like I've never went to your store."

He grinned, "Just maintaining a sense of professionalism, Rick. Enjoy the auction".

"Thanks Aaron," I said as he continued with 'number 27'.

The auction place was a simple setup. A stage in the middle of an open park with seats placed in front of the stage. There weren't that many seats, probably no more than 50, but the area was brightly decorated. Unlike Central Park in New York, we never had much to worry about vandals or street thugs in this part of the city, or at least not as much. I assumed all the lighting was meant to give customers a sense of security as well as to attract people who didn't know about the event.

We arrived there rather early. There were plenty more seats available, so we picked the one at the front. Easier to see the tree and easier to leave once we were done with our purchase. Most of those who were already here were couples or a single family man looking for a suitable tree for their homes.

It was not until 8 when the auctions started to pick up in pace. The old auctioneer was very good at giving details of the trees on sale and as a result, many markers were raised and the prices skyrocketed to unbelievable levels. The auctioneer should be given credit for setting a limit to how much the price was allowed to rise though.

There was this one really large tree that Little Tell fell in love with and which she kept bidding for with this well-dressed man a few seats' behind us. The price had reached 3 times the starting price before the auctioneer put a stop to it. To make it fair and fun, he asked each of them to sing a Christmas carol on the stage. Whoever got the most claps gets the tree. The man went on stage first, his singing while wasn't very good, received quite a lot of claps for being a good sport. Little Tell bailed out of the competition when it was her turn to sing. She received a few claps anyway.

I on the other hand received a pinch on the side when I laughed openly at her bright red face.

To tell the truth, I didn't think the tree would fit in my living room anyway.

After losing a few bids, some of which we lost to 6 years old kids, we finally managed to get a tree that was large enough to keep Little Tell happy and small enough to fit into my living room. I paid for the tree, including the delivery fee and left with the receipt and a very happy sister.