Chapter 28

"And you tilt the glass like this, at sixty degree angle, and pour it out. The mouth of the bottle should touch the brim of the glass, it is very important."

Dave pours out the beer in a glass with unnecessary precision. His face takes on a look of pure passion while doing something this boring, I mean, who the hell cares how beer is poured into a glass. And most importantly, who drinks beer in a glass?

"Seriously, Dave?" I scowl at him, "Channel this passion into removing your wife's clothes, it's just beer."

"Just beer?" His hand goes to his chest as he pretends to have a heart attack. Drama Queen.

"It's not 'just beer', you pig. It's the love of my life. Drinking beer is an art, pouring beer without spilling and without getting bubbles in the glass is an art. Also, I how could I love a woman more than I love my beer?"

I roll my eyes. "Yeah, you just wait. I can guarantee when you have a girlfriend or a wife, you will be like those Romeos on the streets, head on heels in love with them. I guarantee that you will be the most romantic person ever." I walk up to the glasses to pick one.

He kicks me on my bare butt. "Ow, you idiot."

"You think I would be romantic? Huh. I am not romantic, I'll never be. I will marry whoever my family chooses for me, and I will never change. I will always be like this."

"Always trying to kick others in the butt like a donkey?" I leave the glasses and jump on him, throwing him face down on the bed and pinning his hands over his head. He laughs, and tries to throw me off him, but I'm real big. I jump on his back and bring my hands down to slap him on the butt multiple times, and he finally manages to throw me off himself and tackle me with his torso and pin me down, his face inches from mine. We are both out of breath from laughing, and he looks at me, mumbles something, holds my wrists tighter when I try to wriggle out of his grip and brings his face to mine.

"No." I jerk my head away, laughing.

"Yeah?" he challenges, turning his head towards mine.

"I'm mad at you, you jerk."

"Are you?"

We keep this going on for a while, me rolling my face out of his reach as he try to kiss me, and finally he pushes his entire head on mine to stop the movement, and kisses me with so much vigour that I see stars. The beer bottle is sweaty by the time we reach for it.

"Ahem. So… Beer, huh? Why do you, why do you like it so much?" Even after two months of shagging him every alternative days, I have trouble talking to him about anything physically intimate. Apparently, he feels the same.

"Uh, yes. You, well, you need to drink it like this. You take a sip, swirl it in your mouth, feel it and then gulp it. Then have these snacks. It's heaven." He passes me the glass.

I try it, it tastes okay, but it's so cold and I feel like peeing more than often, and it takes one and a half bottle before I feel anything. I'm coming back from my fourth bathroom break in the last forty five minutes when I trip.

"Did you feel the hit?" Dave's eyes pop over his face.

"Yeah. I have drunk beer before, but this one is stronger, I think."

We laugh and talk as we gorge through the snacks. And then he orders food.

"I'm not eating anything." I tell him.

"You are eating half of the rice. I'll take the meat off your hands." Dave picks up my drumstick.

"Shut up. I will have the meat. You eat the rice. I'm not eating rice. And it's too much."

He looks straight at me, without any expression. "Eat."

I end up eating more than I have ever in my life.

Later, when I am snuggled in his arms, content with the alcohol in my system and the warmth of this beautiful person around me, I ask him, "When did you lose your virginity?"

He doesn't hesitate before telling me, "I was seventeen, and there was a woman who used to come to our house. She was about ten years older than me, but her husband was way too old for her. Apparently, he couldn't satisfy her, so she would come to me, and I didn't realise then, but she was probably trying to seduce me. One day I was alone at my home, and she came upon me, and started to undress. I was shocked, and scared, I think. That was then."

His casual tone takes me by surprise. "So, you didn't want to have sex with her?"

He thinks it over. "No, I think not. I mean, I used to think of her as a friend, and she was way older than me, so of course, I had no intention of sleeping with her. But it happened, and I was young…"

"You were underage!" I cut him off, "and that bitch forced you to have sex with her."

"I… I think so. Yes, she did… force me." He looks so confused and I feel myself losing control on myself with anger and pity.

"Az. Azalea, are you crying?" He looks at me with concern.

"No." I try to turn away from him, but he pulls me back and holds my face between his palms.

"What happened, pig? Why are you crying?"

"You were sexually abused at the age of seventeen," I choke out, "that is so wrong. Why didn't you tell anyone?"

"Az, I am a man. I can't go around telling people these sorts of things. And even if I had, everyone would have blamed me, they'd have said that I attacked her. If she cried, I would have been proved guilty. And it was long back, it doesn't matter anymore."

"Do you still see her?" I hiccup.

"Not really. She lives near my house, but ever since I moved to Holtshire, I don't get to spend too much time at my house, and I have seen her only once and twice in all these years."

"I wish I could meet her." I say.

"Why?"

"I would wring her neck and stab her and pull out her fingernails one by one…"

"That's enough, my little psychopath." He pulls me in his embrace.