Page 6

Chapter 5

Messages from FriendPay

Jemma

“B ugger it!”

I squinted down at the living room floor. Was it … moving? It looked like it was breathing.

“All wine and no donut make Jemma go something something,” I mumbled, a giggle bubbling up my throat. It stopped halfway, becoming a big, miserable lump.

Because Dad wasn’t around anymore to reply with, “Go crazy?”

When I was little, my dad introduced me to The Simpsons . It had become a special daddy-daughter event, sitting together on a Friday night, watching reruns on cable TV. My favourites had always been the Treehouse of Horrors episodes. Anything to do with frights, thrills and monsters, I just ate it up as a kid.

“Probably why I’m so into you !” I slurred, picking up my latest re-read, Devirginised by the Devious Devil . The cover was blurry, but I didn’t need twenty-twenty vision to know that it showed a big, red, horned beast, his giant clawed hands cupping the breasts of a nubile young virgin, who was gasping in delighted shock. I ran my finger over his broad shoulders. Well, what I thought were his broad shoulders anyway. It was all a technicolour splodge to me.

“Everyone’s getting some except me,” I moaned, eyeing the cover. “Ezra’s out canoodling with Hottie Potter, Mr Devious Devil here is popping cherry, and where am I? Home alone, with nothing but a lukewarm takeaway box of Thai food, too much wine for one small human, and monster smut to keep me company.”

I didn’t bother looking for my missing chopstick, instead picking out a rice noodle from my Thai delivery and slurping it up like spaghetti. Didn’t matter. No one was around to witness my drunken slobbery.

“I’ll need to be devirginized again at this rate!” I let my head flop back, staring at the water-damaged ceiling from when the washing machine had overflowed in the apartment above. “Where’s my hot red demon with a ‘ribbed for her pleasure’ wang?”

No one answered. Instead, I felt that weird prickling I’d been feeling on and off all day.

But that prickle was easily numbed by another generous slug of Riesling. I guzzled the rest of my glass like cordial, filling it from the cask I’d handily brought down to the coffee table, so I wouldn’t have to lift my sorry butt off the sofa.

Picking a prawn out of the takeaway container, I dangled it over my mouth, gripped it by its tail and squeezed. But instead of the prawn sliding gracefully out of its tail, the whole thing popped out of my oily fingers and skittered across the floor, landing under the TV cabinet.

“No!” I cried, falling to the floor and crawling over. “It’s still good! Five-second rule! Five-sec—ugh.”

The prawn was definitely not good. Neither Ezra nor I had cleaned under that cabinet in … well, since we moved in two years ago. The prawn was coated in a thick layer of dust, ferret hair and …

“Aaargh!” I screamed, leaping back and whacking my hip on the coffee table. “Cockroaches! Eww!”

I scrambled to my feet and scurried into the tiny laundry room.

“Luci, wake up!” I hissed, unlatching the cage and poking my drowsing ferret. She leapt into action as I scooped her out.

“Tasty roaches!” I crooned, stumbling back down the hallway. Was the floor on a lean?

“No more wine,” I lectured myself, setting her down in the living room. “Find the roachies, Luci-Fur!”

Luci, who was very well acquainted with roaches—the building was infested with them—immediately scuttled off, her little nose working overtime. She made a beeline for the TV cabinet, and I watched in inebriated satisfaction, massaging the sore spot on my hip.

“This is decidedly not the throbbing bump I’d planned to rub tonight,” I grumbled to the Devious Devil and his nubile wench. They didn’t bother to answer.

A hiss erupted from under the TV cabinet, and two filthy little roaches scuttled out, Luci bursting out behind them. I yelped, jumped onto the sofa, and somehow landed face-first in the cushions.

I squealed at a tickling feeling on my leg. “Eww! Are the roaches on me?” I cried into the pillow. I wasn’t about to put my head up to look. “Luci, get them!”

Something nearby clattered to the floor, and Luci’s claws dug into my leg. I shrieked, and she was gone, scratching her way up the back of the sofa. But at least the cockroaches weren’t on me anymore.

“Tell me when you’ve eaten them, please!” I begged, huddled in my safe place.

Hissing, scratching little ferret claws on hardwood floor, and … something smashing.

“What is going on?” I demanded, swallowing back my roachophobia and rolling onto my back. My eyes went wide at the chaos. Luci was at the door, the decorative vase that I’d bought from Humphrey last markets lying in brightly coloured shards all around her.

She was scrabbling frantically at the gap under the door, dooking like crazy.

“Oh, Lulu, did the roaches escape? Filthy little moving ferret dinners! How dare they deny my baby her special treat!”

I slid off the lounge, intending to get Luci a ferret treat to placate her. My foot squelched into something slimy.

“Eww!” I wailed, peering down at the upended remnants of my satay prawn noodles, where they oozed out around my foot. “For crying out loud, can this night get any worse?”

* * *

Cleaning up the mess of noodles and vase shards completely stole my buzz. Luckily, my cask of wine was still plenty full, so I set to regaining that nice, numb state I’d been in before the prawn/roach/ferret incident.

I was on my third glass in quick succession when my phone lit up.

Ezra: You ok if I don’t come home tonight?

I set it down, not trusting myself to reply straight away. Instead, I downed the rest of my wine and pinched the bridge of my nose. My phone buzzed again.

Ezra: Things are going great with HP

Ezra: That’s Humphrey Prince, not Hottie Potter, just FYI

Ezra: He’s PERFECT!

Ezra: He wants me to come to his for ‘coffee’ *winky face emoji*

Ezra: But I’ll totes come home if you need me …

I refused to let myself answer that honestly.

Jem: Have the best time

Jem: I wanna hear all about the stem in vase action tomorrow tho!

Ezra: Are you sure Jem?

Jem: enjoy yourself

I tossed my phone aside, pressing the heels of my hands into my eyes hard. “Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry.”

Tears leaked out, trickling down my wrists anyway. I gave into my loneliness, flopping back on the sofa and just letting those tears flow.

Sometimes it was the only way.

When I was done, I sat, blotting my eyes with the sleeves of my jumper. I poured another very large glass of wine. I’d had to throw my ruined dinner out. I really should get up and grab something to soak up all the spicy grape juice sloshing around in my belly, or I was going to be a mess in the morning.

“Eighty gluten-free cinnamon donuts would have done the trick,” I mumbled, sniffing and brushing at my cheeks one last time. “Hell, one would have been adequate … well, maybe six. Why did that gorgeous blond beast have to be such a shithead?”

The heat of my earlier rage over the oversized donut thief built again in my belly, burning outwards along my limbs.

Or maybe that was just the alcohol.

“No one needs eighty flipping donuts!” I snarled. “Especially not gluten-free ones! He could waltz into a random shopping centre and be bombarded with a dozen different options for cinnamon donuts. Meanwhile, little ol’ allergic-to-gluten me … I get to starve. Well, I hope he made himself sick … eighty bloody donuts!”

I reached for the cask tap, ready to pour myself another wine when my phone made a very odd, crackling sound. I peered at the screen. There was a message notification. But it wasn’t green, or blue … it was a purplish maroon colour.

FriendPay: Are you craving something that’s just out of your reach?

I covered one eye, attempting the words again. FriendPay? What the hell was that? Had I signed up to some subscription that I didn’t remember?

“Ez? D’you know what FriendPay …” I trailed off, because Ezra wasn’t here. I was alone.

But I had no more tears to cry.

My phone crackled again, zapping me with static electricity. I dropped it, shaking my hand out as another message lit the screen. Tentatively, I picked it up.

FriendPay: WE want to help YOU! Anything your soul desires, delivered INSTANTLY! No upfront payment required*

Another zap shot through me as I was reading.

“Jeez! Did someone turn my phone into the electricity room or something?”

FriendPay: To make a request, simply speak clearly into your phone speaker. You’ll have everything you ever wanted in the blink of an eye!

Another zap.

FriendPay: *Repayments made in four simple instalments**

FriendPay: **T&Cs apply

Huh. What was this? Uber Eats meets AfterPay? Because suddenly, all I could think about was eighty gluten-free donuts.

“I am waaaaay too drunk to read terms and conditions!” I wailed, peering at my phone screen as an image filled with the teeniest, tiniest writing appeared with another zap. “But goddamn it! I really, really want gluten-free donuts!”

My phone screen went black. I tapped it. Nothing. I shook the stupid thing.

“Did all that extra electricity use up all your battery?” I asked it, thumping it against the sofa armrest. “Or did I just forget to charge you last night?”

The doorbell rang. I froze. My heart worked its way up into my throat.

I did not like answering the door at night.

I especially didn’t like answering the door at night … when I was home alone … when my phone had just died.

But a smell wafted into my nostrils.

“Ooooh,” I moaned, my body lifting off the couch and practically floating towards the door, any worries in my wine-addled brain drifting away as the smell intensified.

I unlatched the door. It swung open of its own accord.

“Cinnamon!” I moaned, blinking down at the white box on the floor. There was a picture of a donut with the letters GF on the front and a technicolour logo that read ‘FriendPay’.

“It worked! No way!” I cried, falling on the box and dragging it back inside the apartment, plonking it onto the coffee table, almost knocking my empty wine glass in the process. Steam wafted from a vent hole in the top of the box, and I moaned again, the sound almost pornographic. I slowly lifted the lid.

The box was stuffed to the brim with the biggest, fluffiest, sugariest donuts I’d ever seen. I fell on them like a drunken fiend, grabbing the closest one and mashing it into my face.

“Oh. My. God!” The words were garbled around my mouthful as I chewed frantically. “Holy … this is the best!”

I chewed and swallowed and stuffed and chewed and swallowed and stuffed … until my mouth was so donutty that I needed to fill my wine glass and wash it down.

“Take that, douchebag donut dude!” I muttered, staring down into the empty box. I collapsed back against the side of the sofa, crumbs of dough and grains of sugar and cinnamon coating my fingers, face, and clothes.

My stomach was full, my brain was fuzzy, and I didn’t want to think anymore.

So I fell asleep.

* * *

I woke with a start. Early Sunday sunlight stabbed at my temples.

“Ugh!” I mumbled, rubbing my gritty eyes. I was sprawled on the lumpy rug, my head lolling at a strange angle against the sofa. I rolled my neck, looking around. The wine cask was on its side. I lifted it, shocked at how light it was.

“Wine headaches are the worst,” I grouched, rolling to my knees and stumbling to the kitchen. I filled a glass with water, popped two paracetamol and took a long drink, licking a drop off my lips.

Cinnamon and sugar.

“Holy shit. Was that real?” I squinted back towards the coffee table. There was no cinnamon donut box. I shook my head, then winced at the way my vision swam.

I’d dreamed it. I’d been craving those darn things so hard last night that I’d imagined up some weird heart’s desire delivery service, and I’d hallucinated a giant box of my favourite donuts.

“That’s really quite sad,” I muttered, rubbing at the hollow ache in my chest. “I …”

I looked down. My t-shirt was covered in granulated sugar. I pinched the fabric, brought it to my lips. My tongue darted out to taste.

Cinnamon.

“Oookaaaay,” I drawled, pinching the bridge of my nose so I could think without the headache being too overpowering. Trying to replay the night before.

“Thai food … cockroaches … Ezra’s texts …” My head snapped up. I winced through the hangover and hurried over to my phone.

There had been those weird texts from … what was it … FriendPay?

My phone screen was black.

“Shit.” I staggered back to the kitchen, plugging it into the charger. Returning to the living room, I wondered if I’d somehow knocked the box behind the sofa. I just needed some form of proof that I wasn’t going completely insane.

No box.

But there was a little, black business card with a vibrant, rainbow logo on it. I leaned down and plucked it up.

In a rush of heat, the floor beneath me disappeared.