Page 96 of Double or Nothing

I pick up my phone again.

Open the app. Again.

Dark curls is still there. I want to be tempted. I squeeze my dick through my boxers and pray, and I’m almost there when the TV starts up another programme.

Some crap jaunty music plays. Too cheerful. Too daytime. The screen fills with a battered old sideboard, a woman in dungarees, and a man with a beard talking about the beauty of neglected furniture.

I freeze.

No.

Absolutely fucking not.

The upcycling show.

Bryce’s shitty beloved upcycling show.

The same sort of crap of his I was watching when I was eating a cheese toastie in his robe with my feet on his coffee table.

I reach for the remote.

I should turn it off.

I should put on anything else. Motorway services. Train hoarding. Some documentary about beetles contributing to the economy. Anything.

The woman onscreen runs her hand over the sideboard and grins.

“It’s got a stunning frame under the surface. It just needs someone to bring it back to life.”

Oh, for fuck’s sake.

I lower the remote.

It just needs someone to bring it back to life.

I look around my apartment again. The mirrors reflecting a man lounging on a sofa pretending he doesn’t give a toss.

Maybe Alice was right.

Maybe this isn’t a home.

Maybe I’ve been living in a showroom with nothing but a bed and a massive drinks cabinet.

The bearded guy on TV starts sanding the sideboard.

I watch.

Only for a minute.

Then another.

Fine. One episode.

The sideboard looks like absolute shit, but apparently that’s not the point. Apparently the point is seeing what’s underneath and helping it come back to the surface. To bring the beauty out in buried, battered treasures.

I hate that idea. I despise it. Pointless. Absolutely fucking pointless. Just buy new stuff and put the old in the skip.

But still, I keep watching anyway.