Chapter Seven
Iris
Reid is quiet on the walk over to the fort Ric Liddell calls home.
To our surprise, Wynter accompanies us. He hasn’t said anything else about me leaving since the initial outburst. It seems the matter is settled.
The pair of them drop me at the door. They don’t even wait for the owner to answer before abandoning me in favour of studio time.
I hope they don’t resume arguing once I’m no longer standing between them.
The man who opens the door is older. Mid to late thirties at a guess.
His blond hair hits his waist, and tattooed biceps peep from beneath both sleeves of his band T-shirt for a metal group of old.
He’s not what I expected, not that I had any definite expectations.
Maybe a nondescript white guy in a turtleneck, or a deliberately quirky one, decked out in hippy motley.
He’s neither. He’s hot. And clearly a metal fan.
He’d make a good subject for one of his own photographic studies.
“Iris, I presume. Ric.” He shakes my hand and leads me inside. “Studio’s up top, so I hope you don’t mind a climb. Reid says you washed up on my shore the night before last. Most visitors use the causeway.”
“Sorry, yeah. I hope I’m not intruding.” I’m already conscious of disrupting Lucidity’s studio time, without adding wasting the time of my favourite role-model to my catalogue of disasters.
“You’re not. You’re saving me from paperwork. This afternoon was looking dire. Now I get to spend it doing what makes me happy instead.” I didn’t even realise that he had a camera in his hand until I’m the focus of his viewfinder. “Payment for the guided tour,” he says.
My entrance into his tower-like abode is accompanied by barking from within.
“Don’t worry, they’re fastened in the kitchen.”
A spiral staircase leads us up numerous levels to his attic studio.
It occupies the entire top floor, and it is fashioned into different zones, including an obvious chill out zone and an editing suite, alongside a plethora of lights and stacked canvasses.
There’s none of his work displayed, which is disappointing.
The walls are all pale neutral shades, except for one corner that’s painted black.
It’s a fabulous space, and I spend a good twenty minutes pottering about, taking it all in, and flicking through the canvasses that are stacked facing the walls. Turns out that’s how he stores them.
Most of his work is shot in black and white.
All of it is breathtaking. Ric blends into the background, so I’m only vaguely aware of him shooting me from every angle, while I ask mostly inane questions.
Every now and then, I unwittingly stare straight into the camera lens, and I hear a click and a whir of digital camera, and he’ll smile like he’s gained something.
People used to think that being photographed somehow trapped a piece of your soul. I wonder if that’s what prompts his smile. He’s just claimed a piece of mine.
“What have you produced so far?”
I use his computer to show him my online portfolio. He views without comment, leaving me to interpret the nuances of his expression for potential interest. At least he doesn’t tell me I’m rubbish and not to waste my time.
“I don’t suppose you need an assistant, do you?”
My time here is surely nearly up, so, yeah, I’m asking. It’d be a wasted opportunity otherwise, and I don’t want to live with that regret.
The blond vision before me laughs like I’ve said something utterly hilarious. “You offering?”
I nod. “I’d love—”
“Lady, you’d change your mind after five minutes. I’m what’s kindly referred to as a high maintenance hermit, or an antisocial arsehole, when people aren’t saying it to my face.”
He agreed to this meeting; he can’t be that much of either of those things.
“Worth the risk,” I suggest. I really would love to learn from him. “I’d be here to absorb your genius as well as make myself useful.”
“Flattery isn’t going to cut it. Although, I can’t say I don’t sometimes fancy a dogsbody. It’d mean you living here on the island…”
“Sounds great.” I need a new home.
He chuckles. “You say that, but… Maybe, I’ll consider it.” He does so for perhaps half a second before shaking his head. “Not worth the frustration for either of us.”
I’m not as ready to let the idea go. “I work hard, and I’m good at blending in.”
“I’m sure the first of those is true, the second…
” He rocks his hand indicating the jury is out on that one.
“What you are is a sweet young thing. What makes you so sure you can hack it? I know you’ve flicked through those.
” He gives the canvasses a nod. “But are you actually even familiar with my work?”
“I went to your exhibit at the Tate seven times, and I—”
He cuts me off. “Once it’s printed on a canvas, people call it art, but while I’m making it, it’s messy, it’s crude. It’s rude. It’s one hundred per cent real, and hence, pornographic. People have sex in this studio while I photograph them.”
“Yes, I realise.”
“Do you? Ever watched two or more people get that intimate. Photographers—we’re the ultimate voyeurs. For most people, what I do is way out of their comfort zone.”
I recall last night’s film, and how it made me squirm.
Maybe Ric has a point. With experience, I’d get over that though, wouldn’t I?
It seems to me that the thing to do here is to be honest. “I won’t lie and claim I wouldn’t be embarrassed.
I would, but I’d adapt, learn to distance myself.
And art is sometimes discomforting. Don’t I need to feel that, if I want to portray it? ”
“Here…” He hands me a camera. A camera so expensive I’m instantly terrified I’m going to drop it.
“I’ll be honest, Iris. I’m not really interested in whatever you have to say.
There are plenty who can talk the talk, but can you capture the essence?
Look, Reid obviously likes you. I like Reid.
That’s why I let you in here, and it’s why I’m giving you a chance to show me what you can do.
I’m not looking for an assistant, but I try to do my bit to sponsor young creatives. Give me a reason to invest in you.”
I clutch the camera, which now feels like a million-pound grenade. “What should I—”
He shakes his head. “Your vision, Iris. Not mine. Show me what you see. Show me what’s in here and in here.” He indicates both my heart and my head. “Let me see what makes Iris—”
“Allen,” I provide.
“—Iris Allen, tick.”
He snaps another candid shot of me. I expect I look like a kid who just met Santa for the first time.
“Happens I think I already know, but I could be wrong. You may yet surprise me.”
I want to ask what he thinks that is, but I don’t, and I’m ushered out.
My head’s in the clouds as I head back to where Lucidity are staying.
I can’t believe I have this opportunity, but now the pressure is on not to waste it.
I take a few landscape shots as I walk, but I already know that what I really want to do is photograph the guys.
Please let Reid still be into the idea of posing for me.
Although, I’m not so sure I want to capture anything so staged.
The polished poses that fill the media, while beautiful, aren’t nearly as intriguing as the candid shots of them behind the scenes.
Not to me, anyway. I think of the differences between the version of Reid the world sees, and the real man who dresses in odd socks and has more holes in his clothes than a sack infested with moths.
It’s not just him, it’s Max and Wynter too.
There are facets of them both that their fans don’t get to see, but which I have the means of capturing. If they’ll let me.
I really hope they’ll let me.
Doubts hit me hard as I get closer to the studio complex. What’s to say that in my absence, Wynter hasn’t persuaded the other two that it’s time I left?
I knock on the residence door, but no one answers, so I let myself in. No one’s home, and though I want to, I’m too afraid of causing a distraction to brave infiltrating the studio and risk precipitating a drama.
Max is the first to reappear. After taking a few photos around their living space, and raiding the cupboard for snacks, I’ve been chilling with a book in my room. It’s a spicy one, presumably left behind by a previous resident, where a group of old friends reunite and previous passions reignite.
I find Max in the kitchen.
“Iris,” he greets me, while rifling through the fridge-freezer. “I’m thinking pizza and salad for lunch, unless you don’t like that.”
“I’ve heard of mythical beasts who don’t like pizza, but I’ve never met one. Unless you’re covering it in banana and pineapple, then I’ll pass.”
“No fruity pizza, duly noted.” He starts piling ingredients onto the worktop, including three varieties of cheese, various forms of peppers, fresh spinach, and slices of pepperoni. Plus, a head of lettuce and olives… and more olives. Someone obviously likes them.
When he said pizza, I assumed he meant the pre-prepared kind you pull out of the freezer and throw in the oven, not that he was going to make it from scratch. He has fresh dough in a tea towel covered bowl.
“What did you think of Ric?”
“Intimidating.”
“Not sexy? When we all met him, we were like, ‘Fuck he’s hot!’ And loaded. How bloody unfair is that?”
“Hot in an intimidating way, maybe.” There’s no denying that Alaric Liddell is blessed in the looks department, but I’ve never been into the whole metal scene. I’m a pop punk girlie. “He’s not really my thing.”
“That true, Iris?”
I give a nod, and he seems pleased.
“He’s loaned me a camera and told me to impress him. Not sure I have that in me, but it won’t hurt to try.”
Without blinking, he says, “Of course you can do it, Iris. You’re gonna blow his socks off.”
“Do you think he wears them?”
“Every time I’ve seen him, he’s been in stonking great boots. If he doesn’t wear socks with them, he’s officially weird.”
“I think he was barefoot just now.”
“And that’s why you’re gonna nail this. You see details.” He extends an arm towards me. “Come here, let me give you a hug.”
“What for?”
“Assurance? And because it’s hug ’o clock.”
“Is that an official time?” I glance at the digital clock display on the microwave expecting it to be spelling it out. It’s a little after midday.
“Definitely.”
Max swaddles me. Being held by him is like being wrapped in a weighted blanket—calming, reassuring. All the pressure points in my body sigh as they’re stimulated.
“How are your bruises doing?”
“Yellowing. The cream helped.”
He keeps the cuddle going.
“You give great hugs, Max.”
“So do you.” He kisses the top of my head, which prompts me to raise my chin to look up at him. Our gazes meet, and there’s something… a connection.
He lowers his head and kisses my lips.
Oh, God. Oh, fuck. I don’t want it to end, but I ought to stop him.
I already kissed his band mate. Hell, I almost made it to third base with him.
But damn, the tingles kissing this gentle hulk of a man creates are too big a thrill.
He lifts me, and before I know it, I’m perched on the worktop, my legs wound around his hips and he’s rubbing against me, driving the seam of my borrowed jeans right against my clit in a way that creates fires that even icy water couldn’t put out.
“Max. I think you should know that I made out with Reid earlier.”
“I know that, Iris. He told us.”
He told them.
“It’s okay. It’s not a problem. We’ve all kissed the same girl before.”
I’m not sure what to do with that information. “You have. Doesn’t that cause—”
“We’re good at sharing.”
I believe that of Max. Can just about convince myself of Reid’s generosity, but Wynter? He seems the possessive type, who probably won’t even loan you a paperback, let alone contemplate allowing his bandmates to smooch a girl he was into. Not that he’s into me, just maybe no longer hates me.
Do they really not mind, or am I now at the centre of some sort of competition?
“Can I touch you, Iris?”
That yanks my focus back to the here and now.
“Well… Um…” His mouth is on mine again as he reaches for my fly, and while I’m sure I should stop him, I’m equally certain I absolutely shouldn’t. It’s only a day on from my close encounter with Reid, and I think I’d like to explore that chemistry further.
“Why have you all shared… kissed the same woman before?”
Max gives me a goofy grin, like I’ve asked something with such an obvious answer he’s flummoxed how to respond. “We all liked her.”
“Right, but…”
“It was on tour. She was part of the crew, and there’s not much time for external relationships when you’re moving about that much, so as we all liked her, and she liked all of us, we figured something out.
Happens there was some experimenting too.
Got to be a few perks of being a rock star, right? ”
“And it worked?”
“For as long as it needed to.”
“But she didn’t stick around?”
“This is a lot of questions, Iris.”
“I’m just trying to understand.”
“An opportunity came up with another band. She moved on.”
“Were you sad?”
“A little.”
“Reid and Wynter?”
“Never asked them. Iris, is this your way of saying no?”
Is it?