People call me BC. Big Cat. A nickname I've had since I was a boy. However, during my years at art college I was known as 'Fluffer'. These are my diaries of that time. Fluffer's tales.
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Betraying Pearl had the unexpected consequence of leaving me skint. Of course, she'd told her dad about my behaviour, and remember he was the head of school. He didn't chuck me out but promised to forget the shameful way I treated his daughter if I devoted all my non-study time to: "repairing our relationship." Meaning his house. So all the time I'd usually spend working to pay my way through college went to The Professor.
I was still living in that fancy studio apartment that Anne-Marie enjoyed so much. The place was expensive even when I had a job, so I decided to earn extra cash by converting its utility room into a tiny bedroom for myself, then I could rent out the huge mezzanine bed area.
Good plan. But no-one wanted to share a studio flat with a massive sod who slept in a cupboard with the washing machine.
Except for Liv.
One dark winter's evening I answered a knock at the door and God reached right in and patted me on the arse. A girl stood there with a huge rucksack, gripping a trophy. Actually she didn't stand there. Liv never just "stood there." She reached around the door as I opened it to greet me quicker. Her smile was so big it lit up the room ten minutes before her face appeared. I think I might've even staggered from the force of her. The girl had Orla's cheeky grin on Anne Marie's over-scaled overbite. Her platinum bob and saucer eyes were Charlotte's, her radiant calm, Fleur's. OK, perhaps it was my state of mind, so guilty that I hadn't been able to come in months, not even solo, but the girl seemed as much a supermodel as Guapa and every bit as angelic as Mazzy.
"Ah... I'm here about the room?" Her voice was deep, husky, posh. "I expect it's gone hasn't it? I should've called, sorry it's so late, but I was just passing and, honest I'm sleeping in my car at the moment so—"
I threw the door wide. "Welcome!" I think I shouted that.
She moved straight in. And why was this room-hunter unphased by sharing a studio flat with a massive sod? Her trophy that's why: International Women's Karate champion.
I showed her round—this literally involved standing in the single triple-height space and turning round.
"All yours," I pointed at the mezzanine. "And underneath is the bathroom along with the utility room. And my room."
Liv clapped. "I love it!" I think she even thumbed a tear from her eye. "I can't believe my luck, thank you, thank you so much." She patted my arm. Squeezed it.
I stepped away from her. "I'm not around that much, I study architecture and work most nights and weekends."
She nodded. "Me too. Not architecture. Duh. I mean I study ballet. And drama. Then I teach a Karate class three evenings a week."
"Christ, are you training to be an assassin?" I blasted a laugh at my own joke.
Her shrug suggested this wasn't the original observation I thought it was. "Not an assassin, no. Avenger, maybe."
I laughed harder. Perhaps I should've laughed less and listened harder.
I was so flustered we didn't talk money until the next morning.
I was in my cupboard, naked but for boxers, ironing a shirt and some chinos. Call me old fashioned, but I liked to be smart at college.
A little knock at the door. Liv's voice outside. "You decent?" She didn't wait for an answer and flung the door wide. "Have you got— Ah!" She waved a wrinkled dress. "Yes! Can I borrow that when you're done? My rucksack's fucked my clothes and I've got an audition this morning."
She was bare-legged in a long (ish) T-shirt. Her thigh muscles softly bulged. I manfully locked my gaze to her face and clicked fingers at her dress. "Let me. I'm on a roll."
"Sure?" She handed it over, and sparkled. "Goodness you might be my favourite landlord."
I'd meant she could leave her dress, and leave the room. But she leant against the door frame, crackling with barely concealed amusement. She folded her arms, and let her eyes run around me while I ran the gurgling steam-iron around her delicate, purple garment. It released a musky, hot lemon scent. "So about the rent—"
"Yes! Sorry!" She palmed her forehead. "I forgot. Can we... come to some arrangement for the first month? I mean just this month?"
I hadn't even told her the cost yet.
I stopped ironing. My heart sank.
"Sorry, I should've said." She spoke to her feet. Unusually for a dancer, she had cute toes. Like Pearl's. My heart sank again.
She cleared her throat. "I thought... I wondered if..." She blatted her eyelashes up at me. "There was something else I could do for you?"
Really? I fiddled with the dial on my iron. "I don't need—"
"It's just a bloke like you, well..." She bit her lip.
I laughed. "This is a windup."
"Not at all! I mean look at you, you're a giant." Her eyes glittered. "A few Martial Arts lessons, and you'd get loads of doorman gigs. I could teach you?"
The room caved in. I shut up and finished ironing her dress.
I wasn't to know that Martial Arts would turn out to be the best investment I ever made, given how much work I got since she taught me the basics. As much as my fucking architecture degree, for sure. At the time, though I felt kind of mugged.
But as the weeks past, Liv was no trouble and incredibly laidback given she lived, literally, on top of me. If we ever had to squeeze past each other in the kitchen, or if we caught each other undressed there might be a cheeky comment or a roll of the eyes, but nothing awkward. Sure, she was relaxed because she could break my neck in a heartbeat—my heart too, probably—but we still had fun. She even met Sara, who didn't just approve, she announced to us both: "BC, this one is so out of your league, don't embarrass everyone by trying it on, eh?"
Liv never mentioned a boyfriend, and showed no curiosity about my emotional life either. Pretty much the ideal platonic flatmate.
Then one night I'd just had a bath and—hips wrapped in a big towel, drying my hair with another—was about to hit the sack when Liv let herself in. She was clutching a bottle of wine.
I passed her on the way to my cupboard. "I cooked too much sausage pasta," I said. "Help yourself If you're hungry?"
She grimaced. We laughed.
I nodded and stepped around her to get to my door. She smelled of hard work. She kicked off her trainers and padded into the studio with that relaxed prowl only dancers have. Even in her trackies her bum was—
She spun, and caught me ogling. She waved her bottle. "A student gave me this. Wanna share?"
I shrugged.
"Cool!" She bounced over to me, shoved the bottle at my chest. "Get some glasses. I'll grab a shower. Gimme a towel."
I proffered the one I'd used for my hair, but she yanked the one off my waist, chuckling even as she shut the bathroom door behind her.
I fetched glasses and a corkscrew. Then, from the bathroom: "BC! I'll eat your miserable pasta!"
A few minutes later I met her at the sofa. She wrapped the bath sheet around her, it almost reached her knees, and knotted it over her chest. I hadn't had time to dress and struggled keeping myself decent under the smaller towel. She grasped the pasta bowl and gobbled my reheated leftovers. I poured, the bottle going glug-glug-glug in the silence between us.