Liuz would give that to me. He’d told me he would.
He’d promised.
A church spire in the near distance caught my attention, its bricks ancient, that dirty grey only old buildings can wear and still look good. Clouds hung around the stone cross on top, their bellies almost black, distended with rain that would pelt down sometime soon. I quickly checked in my bag, cursing myself for not bringing an umbrella. With no time to chastise myself any longer, I reached up to press the bell then gripped the blue metal pole until the bus stopped once again.
I stepped onto the pavement, its surface ravaged by cracked tarmac, and thanked my lucky stars I hadn’t opted to wear heels. I couldn’t cope with them on a day like today, where I’d possibly be doing a lot of walking and standing around. With the knots in my belly tightening, I made for the church.
The first address was quite close to it, and I arrived in short time. I stared at the house, one that didn’t fit my image of Liuz at all. It was clearly owned by someone well-to-do, all mullioned windows and a nicely tended front garden that spoke of the owner having fingers even greener than the short-clipped lawn and the animal-shaped bushes. He couldn’t live here, could he? He’d mentioned a bedsit not a home like this. Unless he’d been lying?
Taking a deep breath, I pushed open the white-painted gate and walked up the short gravel path to a front door that came straight out of a magazine I’d written an article for entitled Perfect Homes. It was a double effort, the glass panels diamond-leaded and coloured in transparent hues of red, blue and green. I reached the three steps in front of it and went up, nerves thrumming, my mind screaming that I could do this, that I could pull it off. I was a journalist, for God’s sake! I couldn’t begin to count the times I’d knocked on someone’s door in the hope they’d give me the information I sought.
But I hadn’t wanted to fuck those people. I hadn’t said rude things to them, exposed my disgusting desires. Exposed my nipple in a picture.
Biting my lower lip, I raised my hand and, before I could talk myself out of it, pressed the brass bell button. The chimes rang out inside, a melody only the rich could get away with without coming across as crass; the echo of each note indicating the house either didn’t hold much furniture or it stretched back quite a way, bigger than it appeared from outside.
A blur of movement behind the glass from the far reaches, and then a figure appeared, a slim female if I wasn’t mistaken.
Shit. What if he’s married?
The door swung open on silent hinges, and I saw I had been mistaken. A slight male, maybe mid-twenties, stood on the threshold, hair immaculate in a swept-back style that oozed hair gel and the obvious half hour it must have taken to achieve that look. His nose bordered on being too thin, and I quickly gave him the once over, noting he wore shorts that showed off a knobbly knee that was nothing like the one in Liuz’s picture.
‘Yes?’ he said, tilting his head.
‘Liuz?’
‘Yes?’ He frowned, his expression that of someone wondering how the hell I knew his name – puzzled confusion, lips slightly parted, tongue darting out just that little bit to wet the seam of his lips.
I hadn’t thought this through properly and had no idea what to say next. My mouth worked, no words of explanation as to why I was there emerging.
A surname. I needed a surname.
I eyed the brass doorbell. ‘Liuz Brass?’
‘Uh, no. I think you have the wrong person.’ He pursed his lips, cocking one hip to rest it against the door edge, his frown deepening.
‘Oh, I’m terribly sorry!’
Before he could ask me what I wanted with Liuz Brass and how I’d come to be at his house, I dashed down the steps and path, the gravel crunching obscenely loudly. The gate closed behind me with all the finality of a don’t-return-here-anytime-soon snap, and I ran down the street towards the bus stop. I only allowed myself to breathe once I got there, plonking my ass down on the seat beneath the rain shelter.
What the hell was I thinking?
I didn’t know. What I did know was that obsession drove me, obsession was my master, and that I’d get on the bus when it arrived and continue to my next stop. Although that first encounter had been a mountain-sized cockup, it could only get better from here on out. Right?
The bus came, and I perched on the seat nearest the door, determined to keep my attention on the road and not what lay ahead. I told myself off for losing my cool, for forgetting my journalism training. I was supposed to be fearless, able to work under pressure, and get any and all information needed for a story.
I needed to pretend I was just doing my job. Call on the next Liuz but don’t knock on the bloody door this time. Just observe.
Back on the street, I walked on uneven flagstones, the colour indiscriminate and without a name, glancing in my notebook to check the number I needed to find. 78 Woodstone Road. Stuffing the book back in my bag and casting a wary glance at the sky, I kept going until I came to a residence that perfectly matched my thoughts of where Liuz would live. Victorian, four stories, the dusty windows of the first floor visible through a black, high, rusty iron-railed fence with a matching gate. I peered at the front door, pleased to note a grey metal casement surrounding several buttons. This was obviously a set of apartments or bedsits.
Bracing myself for a bit of sleuthing, I walked through the gate and up the short path to the plain wooden door, painted sunflower yellow, streaked with swathes of dirt and a muddy footprint. I studied the name-tags beside each button. A couple of full names were there, but the rest were first-name initials with the surname. And only one initial was an ‘L’. The surname was Biros. Possibly Polish?
A quick movement inside to my right, behind one of two windows, snagged my attention. Bushes grew in a row beneath, stout, unruly branches decorated with an abundance of leaves. I looked at the small patch of grass in front of them, then at the bushes, trying to work out whether they would take my weight without me falling. The windows were too high for me to see through otherwise.
I moved in front of the bushes and gave a silent prayer. Before I could talk myself out of it, I scrabbled on top of them, my footing stable, if a little buoyant. I reached up and gripped the stone windowsill, pushing up to press my nose to the lowest part of the pane. A man sat at the back of a long living-cum-bedroom, at a desk boasting stacks of paperwork, a keyboard, and a large monitor that emitted the glow of a website I couldn’t make out. He hunched over, studying the screen, a lock of dark hair flopping forward to cover the eye closest to me. His jeans rode low at the rear, giving me a glimpse of a rather delectable ass-top, and his naked back tapered from a trim waist, expanding to broad shoulders, his muscles prominent and well-toned.
Was that my Liuz?
He reared back in his seat, lifting his arms to lace his hands behind his head, and swung his chair around so he faced me, eyes closed. I caught my breath as I scanned his sharply angled face, long and unshaven, his mouth soft and wide. I studied his chest, a scribble of black hairs at its centre. Straight hair covered his armpits, their direction every which way, and I found myself breathing deeply as though I could capture the scent of maleness just from my imagination alone.
And then, to my horror, he opened his eyes. After a brief flash of surprise he stared at me with a look of indignation that burned my cheeks with the shame of being caught spying.
I started, letting out an insipid yelp, and gambolled about trying to get off the bush. It had other ideas, the branches seeming to sprout hands that gripped my ankles and wouldn’t let go. To top it off, the heavens opened, a torrent that fell without mercy, uncaring that it peppered my hair with fat, bullet-like drips.
‘Fuck!’