Adam's Apple Pie

Five - My First Crush

You know how in films and TV shows when someone wakes from a nightmare, they shoot straight up in terror with a big gasp? Yeah, that doesn't happen in real life. Not for me anyway. In this case, my eyes opened and I went for my throat, feeling for a potential gash in my neck. Luckily nothing was there. I could see from the dim lights behind my curtain that it was morning. I reached for my phone and saw that I had 15 minutes before the alarm was due to go off, but I was awake anyway so there was no point staying in.

My lower back cried out as I tried to move – I really needed to get a better mattress! My head was swimming; I had some weird dreams before, but that was just... I didn't know what that was! Something was sticking up from underneath the blanket. As I tried to move out the bed, I found couldn't stand up without leaning forward. It was like someone had replaced my cock with a telephone pole!

Damn.

My bladder ached so I went to piss – though it was a challenge not to get it anywhere other than my toilet with the fireman's pole sticking out my boxers. Maybe the cold of the shower would help.

What a fucked up dream.

My first order at work was to check the boiler, which needed to be vented every so often. You might remember that I told Gayle that Eden's building dated back to the early 1800's – and I wouldn't be surprised if this boiler was as old as that. You had to vent this at least once a month or else it would build up – and probably explode. Seriously, this thing was a fucking death trap, if I forgot to do it one month the entire museum would come down in a blaze of fury. You may have seen a fire safety video about a football ground that burned down in the eighties when someone dropped a lit cigarette behind the seats – that's basically what would happen here. I'd been saying for years we needed to get this boiler updated, but they never listened to me. Cheap arseholes! I know the budget had been pretty stretched of late, but even so, surely you can't put a price on safety.

Sometimes, before I vented it, I liked to look at the boiler and watch it build up. The amount of times I held my wrench and thought – would it really be so bad? But I always fixed it, of course I did. So any pressure that the boiler wanted to release would have to be held in for a while longer.

I feel you, man, I usually thought to myself, I wish I could keep all that inside me as well.

On leaving the basement, I happened to bump into my boss, Lara. She could have used a few hours on the treadmill to lose the love handles and her hair always looked like she had just come out of the shower. She always came to greet me with all the gentility of a bailiff coming to collect debt.

"Is the boiler ok, Adam?" she grumped.

"Yep, all good, boss," I replied.

"Good," Lara replied. She always had a habit of turning up just as I finished the job; or was in the middle of completing it, like she had a sixth sense for these things. I saw she had a few pieces of paper in her hands, which she held out. "When you get a moment, could you put these out across the museum?"

When you get a moment was her code for do it now. And far be it from me to deny her a request – especially when she was paying my wages. "Sure thing," I said, taking the papers from her. I had a quick mosey on them, noticing that they were posters with some kind of bland, self-important messages on them. "Posters?"

"They're promoting our new mental health awareness program," Lara said. "I want you to put them all across the museum where they could be seen."

"I'll get right on it."

"And make sure you put some in the staff room as well," Lara said.

"Sure."

I didn't wait for Lara to thank me for doing this, because I knew now that would never happen. Once she told you so something, that was the end of the conversation – even if you had objections, which luckily I was smart enough not to have.