C1: Poor Bitch Life

"Mmm~ morning, sweetie." 

"Hi, did you sleep well last night? I just wanna cuddle in your arms all day long." 

Sweet seductive whispers from the cute Korean girl filled his ears. His hands danced along her ample body, caressing every sensitive spot. 

She giggled. 

"Hey. Look at me, handsome." 

Her soft fingers danced along his cheek, turning his face toward hers. He smiled and opened his blurry eyes. They had just woken up. 

"Yeah, just like that, sweetheart," she moaned and giggled. 

Ah! 

The pillow flipped over the bed with Abel's arms still clinging onto it tightly. His head banged against the floor and his conscience returned. 

"Ow…" he groaned, sitting up on the floor. "You could've told me we were at the edge, June –" 

When he opened his eyes for real this time, he noticed the absence of another person in his room. Lying beside him was his pillow, which he had been drooling on and kissing simultaneously in his sleep. 

He narrowed his eyes, patting away at his own head where he felt a small bump. 

Everything made sense to him now. 

'It was too good to be real. Of course, it was a dream.' 

In his underwear, Abel Foster stood up in his jam-packed room which hardly allowed him to move. 

There was only one fresh-looking thing in the entire room. It was a piece of paper stuck to the door of his apartment. 

Narrowing his eyes, he stepped forward and plucked it off. 

"Dear Abel or Able… sorry if I spelled it wrong.

My mom's kinda strict about having a boyfriend with no straight job and an apartment smaller than our attic… I hope you understand because this might just be a one-night thing, you know. You are handsome and lovely. You would probably meet someone better. I'd write my number down here, but it would be fake anyway. So I'll save you the trouble. 

Love, June :)" 

Abel lowered the paper from his face and stared dead straight at the door. For a second, he continued to stare at it. 

"Now, that's the fifteenth in a row," he sighed, crushing the piece of paper in his hand. 

He threw it into the bin of folded paper balls lying next to his table. It was filled to the brim with notes from the 15 girls who had done this to him for the past two months.

Ever since he quit college, he had been living in this shit apartment. He'd been here for over a good one and a half years now. 

Abel Foster was a 6-foot-tall man. He had blue eyes, colored white hair with shaded sides, and a curly top. To top the eerily common look, he had his ears pierced with two dark earrings. 

In short, he looked like that one friend of yours.

Beep. Beep. Beep. 

His alarm began to ring, and it noticed him that it was time to get a shower and head straight to work. It was 7.30, after all. 

He couldn't be late and get fired from this too, could he? 

***

Wearing the weird white coffee shop apron with the kind of cute kitten that attracts kindergarteners, he continued to serve everyone who came in with a cup of espresso or black coffee, etc. 

His boss, Jenny Mittens, was reading an article on her phone. Her glasses were glued to the screen. 

"Can you help me out here, Jen?" Abel asked, gazing at the girl seated at the back of the coffee counter. 

She lifted her head and narrowed her eyes. Abel's charms never worked on her – she was a lesbian. 

"Why did I hire you?" 

Abel groaned. "Two people are waiting on me. You can help out once in a while, you know. What the heck are you reading anyway – you've been glued to that for the past 15 minutes." 

 She smirked. 

"So yah, this guy called John Toronto found out about this Invisible man in real life near the back alleys of Guston. He had all this footage and stuff. And Stacie mentioned to me that she saw some floating shit in the streets just yesterday – the dude might be onto something, right? Ugh –" 

She observed Abel's unimpressed face for a second. 

"Look excited. Give me a gasp." 

"Gasp."

Jen shot a bitter glance at her employee. 

"Sigh, why do you even believe in that crap, Jen?" 

"Oh God, here we go again. You are too unenthusiastic, Abel. Get a life, bro. And is that black coffee?" 

"Yeah." 

Jen grabbed the cup of black coffee and sipped on it. "Yeah. Thanks for the coffee, Abel," she grinned. 

"Are you fucking kidding me? I have to fuckin -- never mind." 

***

Back at Abel's apartment:

"You're going to quit smoking just for me, right? No more cigarettes? Pwease." 

Abel slowly brought the cigarette to his lips and savored that tip, breathing in that smoke. 

The old memory of Cara still lingered in his head, trying to snatch out the cigarette from his lips. Fortunately, she wasn't here anymore to decide whether or not he would smoke and die from lung cancer. 

Every time he took that puff, it no longer gave him that guilt. It just felt so… 

Satisfying. 

To know that there was no longer thay weight on his shoulders. To know that she was gone. 

To be an empty puff of smoke drifting with the winds. 

"Pfff…" he puffed out the smoke, leaning against the railing of his balcony. 

The night was cold. The cigarette warmed him up.

Another day of bullshit was over. How many of these were left in his life was the question? How is he going to cope with all that? 

How many cigarettes would it take…?

He looked at the gigantic building right before him. The two buildings faced each other. His building was called "Cheap Rooms for Debtors." The other one is called "SkyRise Heaven." 

It was ironic how close the rich and poor lived. Although, the difference was clear. 

Right in front of him was the apartment in which a fat rich guy lived. It had all those plants lined against the balcony. Suprisingly, there were none of those plants there today. 

He narrowed his eyes, pondering what had happened. 

"Hm. Where is fatso?" 

It was 8 PM. He should be back from work by now… but where was he? It was slightly uncanny that the lights of his room weren't switched on. The curtains were closed. And fatso's plants were gone. 

Could it be? 

Suddenly, the lights came back.

"Yeah, there he is," Abel chuckled. "And that robe. And that fat ass – wait. How did fatso get so long hair? And that ain't fat. Except for that ass…" 

Confused, he continued to stare at the silhouette traced against the curtains from the lights. Suddenly, the curtains pulled open and the glass door slid to the side. 

The cigarette dropped from his lips into the railing and bounced off of it into the alleys below. His eyes did not shift. 

The white hair waved from side to side and the amazing-looking lady stretched her arms, letting out a big yawn. 

Her hair was a mess, but she still looked better than half his exes just like that. Pulling up her robes to cover her cleavage slightly more but leave enough to seduce a man with one gaze, she leaned against the railing of her apartment. 

Her dark eyes fell upon Abel. 

"Evening, young man." 

Abel smiled. "Evening, Miss." 

She gazed into Abel's eyes and slowly drove her fingers up her chest, sliding her robes open slightly more. She was already comfortable. 

"So you're my new neighbor?" Abel asked, trying his best not to stare at her chest. 

"Yeah. You like your new neighbor?" 

"I have to get to know her first," he replied with a smirk. 

Now that he had a closer look at this extremely pretty woman, he saw that her face had that middle-aged mom look to it. She wasn't around his age, obviously. She was older. 

But still – that hotness she had couldn't be defeated by girls below that age. That mommy hotness. 

However, Abel didn't want to completely give in to the temptation. 

"So, you like 50 or something?" He grinned. 

She grinned back. "Oh? I'm 32, don't kill me so fast, man. So… you 12 or something?" 

Abel chuckled. He was already vibing with this new woman. For a replacement for a fatso neighbor, she wasn't bad at all. 

Little did he know… she was worse.