Chapter Seventeen
Iris
Ric Liddell answers his door wearing a pair of leather jeans, with his fly at half-mast and something that I suspect may be strawberry sauce smeared across his chest. “Hey,” he says.
I only mean to return the camera, not step inside, but he doesn’t take it when I hold it out. Instead, he about turns leaving me to follow. In his studio, there’s a man handcuffed to an overhead beam, turned away from me in a puddle of the very same sauce.
He waves a hand towards the figure. “This is my husband, Zach Blackwater. Zach, Iris, the fool who asked me about an apprenticeship.”
His ridiculously sculpted, very naked husband turns his head and gives me a nod, whereupon I realise that not only is he bound and gagged, he’s painfully erect. I’m not sure if I’ve interrupted a shoot, a make-out session, or a combination of the two.
“Zach owns Blackwater’s.”
“The food was amazing.” Eep, awkward! “We were there the other night.”
It’s interesting how much Zach manages to convey with just his facial expressions. Evidently, he’s aware of Reid’s accident with the candle. He probably wasn’t too thrilled to have his oysters languishing on the floor either.
“Lucidity are leaving today, right?” Ric drags my attention back to him.
“That’s right. I brought you back your camera.”
“With something to look at on it for me?”
I’d hoped to be far away before he judged my efforts.
Instead, I’m forced to stand as he flicks through a week’s worth of images.
It’s a toss-up as to whether Zach or I find this more excruciating.
He’s naked, gagged and chained in front of a stranger, and my innards are knotting themselves so tight I might need surgery to untie them again.
“There’s some nice shots of Reid. I like this one of Wynter. Is this the direction you’re thinking of pursuing—rock photography?”
“I’d like to—”
He’s connected the camera to his computer, projecting the images onto the wall.
He skims past most of them but flicks back and forth between five or six grainy, black-and-white images of the guys in the studio, eventually honing in on one of Reid playing, in which Wynter’s reflection appears to be standing next to him.
It’s the look on Wynter’s face that makes it interesting, not merely the effect.
Ric sucks on the edge of his lower lip.
He flicks through some more of the week. Pauses a few times. Eventually, he goes back to the studio photo. “It’s got good texture. It certainly captures a moment. Yeah, okay.”
Yeah, okay, what?
He hands me the camera back. “Keep it.”
It’s the sort of camera I’d have to take a loan out to own.
“You don’t own anything this good, right?”
I’m so stunned; it takes all my effort just to shake my head.
“I want to see more of this.” He nods at the wall. “If you go on the road with them, you stick like fucking glue to them. Be a fly on the wall. Give us all the moments that we’d never normally see. Show us the underbelly, the warts, the dark. Give us intimacy. Do you think you can do that, Iris?”
“I… I can try.”
“The correct response is, yes, sir.”
“Yes, sir,” I say. How can a man wearing strawberry sauce be so intimidating?
He nods his approval. “I can’t be arsed to fuck about with bank details at the moment.” He produces a chequebook, and a goddamned fountain pen. “Iris Allen, correct?”
“Yes.” He tears the slip from the book and waves it in the air to dry the ink, then puts it in my hand. “I’m investing in you. I’m expecting to see some output that justifies that.”
I look at the figure and nearly wet myself.
“That’s your cue to exit. Zach has human limits, even if he’s superhumanly sexy.”