White Washed

Chapter Eight | Training

“You’re doing it wrong.” Cass stated smugly from the chair he was sitting in. He was grinning at me while I struggled fruitlessly to produce a flame on the tip of my finger.

We were in Cass’ training room. Cass had a house on West Broadway. It was huge, beautiful and Victorian. It had an asphalt roof and a small, attached garage.

The house was nicely furnished, immediately letting on that Cass was a closet homosexual with more money than I’d ever had  in my entire life. Or maybe he was just so rich that he could hire an interior designer. I was leaning toward him being gay since I desperately wanted a gay friend to go shopping with. Although, gay or not, Cass didn't really seem like the shopping type.

The living room was designed in a modern theme ­– a black leather couch that stretched around one wall and half of another, meeting in the corner to create an L. There was a huge flat screen television set atop a dark wood entertainment center and a rectangle glass coffee table big enough to be an actual table. There were two black and gray end tables beside the couch and a few gray standing-lamps in the corners. There was also a hanging lamp in the center of the room that had a metal, silver shade. The walls were a soft blue-gray and the floor was dark hardwood. It was simple but very elegant.

Off of the living room was the kitchen and dining hall. The kitchen was another simple room but it was even more beautiful. There was a black granite counter that ran the length of one wall and then split into the middle of the room, creating a bar. There were several windows, making it feel light and airy. There were cupboards and cabinets along the walls and two closets. There was a stove at the end of the counter and a fridge beside the door to the living room. The walls were light brown and the floor was also hardwood. The dining room, which was connected, was similar. The walls and floor were the same, there were cabinets and cupboards. There was a long oak dining table that could probably fit at least ten people and a beautiful glass chandelier above the table. There weren’t many windows so it was fairly dark but not too dark.

I was told that there were three bathrooms – one partial, (no shower or bath) that was downstairs, one full upstairs that contained a bathtub and another that had a shower. I stepped in to use the partial quickly but didn’t bother to look at the others.

There was a small hallway off the dining hall, which looped around to the living room and led to the main entry. It was where the stairs and front door were. Normally everyone would walk through here first but we had come in through the garage entrance. The stairs extended up both sides of the room, meeting in the middle and creating look that should have been in a Disney story book. There was a thick blue rug that covered each step.

On the upper floor, there were six bedrooms, a lounge, an office and the bathrooms. The office was average size. The walls were reddish-brown wood, the floor a lighter brown hardwood. There was a big desk and a comfy-looking black chair, an inviting fireplace and giant bookcase that covered all of one wall, from floor to ceiling. The lounge was the hangout, or game room. It was dark because the curtains were drawn but I could still see the ginormous plasma screen TV and stereo that probably cost more than my tuition and got better acoustics than an actual auditorium. Beside it was a few towers of CDs, ranging from Classical to Hard Rock and Screamo. There were two couches, (one soft material and one leather) a few bean bags, a recliner and a poofy chair.

We didn’t look in all the bedrooms, as that would have taken too long and been wholly unnecessary, but Cass did show me his. Unlike the rest of the house, it expressed his personal taste. It was, by far, the most interesting room in the house. Every square inch of the walls was plastered with posters, drawings, pages of lyrics, pictures, maps and more. But that wasn’t even the best part. Instead of having a normal bed, he had a tent-like heap of blankets over a king size mattress in the corner. There were many sheets that provided a canopy above the bed, all of them nailed up to the walls, and some Christmas lights were hanging off of them. Those lights were the only light in the room as the only two windows had their curtains drawn. On the mattress was an assortment of his stuff – his laptop, camera, guitar, a book, an iPod. There were normal lights on the ceiling but they were turned off and I had a feeling that Cass kept them off most of the time. It was such a cozy and ideal bedroom that I wanted to just curl up underneath that canopy and stay there forever.