Asking For Trouble (2 page)

Almost everywhere you look, there are broken blinds and crap curtains: too short, too narrow, too cheap, too ugly. And those rows of once-elegant houses, with their peeling paint and mish-mash windows, all seem to declare: ‘Whoever’s inside me, they’re not staying long; they’ve got places to see, dreams to move on to.’

Although there are plenty of people who, like me, never actually get round to moving on. They didn’t mean to stay in Brighton. It just happened: ‘Sorry, forgot to leave. I was having too much fun.’

Anyway, who needs curtains? Brighton doesn’t stay at home. Brighton goes out to play.

But I was playing house. I was inordinately happy. I’d cobbled together some second-hand furniture from Portland Road and the Sunday market and I was delighting in the froth of ‘Where shall I put this, where shall I put that?’

But I wanted curtains. Before my muslin I’d had, for privacy’s sake, a motley arrangement of bedsheets, throws and sarongs nailed across the bottom half of my sash windows. During the day, I’d loop them up with
knots and scarves. They looked a mess and kept falling off the nails. So I bought my muslin.

It was night, past eleven, when I started to hang them. I had to stand on a chest of drawers to reach the rails, clamber off it when I’d done a section, shove it further along, then clamber back on. My bedroom’s at the front of the house and I did those windows first. Then I started on the living room, at the side of the house.

I remember I was doing the big central window of the bay and I was aware of my reflection in the dark glass. I was barefoot, wearing my beige combats and my navy T-shirt with the white stripes on the sleeves. I was vaguely thinking that I always look a little bit chaotic, a little bit off-beam.

Back then, my hair was a streaky mix of brass-gold – a sun-tarnished dye I was growing out – and natural light brown. It’s somewhere between wavy and straggly. That evening, it was more straggly, and I had it tied back in a loose, messy ponytail. My eyes are brown, almond-shaped, and my lips are full. To me, it doesn’t seem right to have sloping cat-eyes plus big fleshy lips. My nose is good: it’s small and straight. I like it so much that I had it pierced a few years back. A tiny diamanté stud glints there now.

I’ve got a small, heart-shaped face. I suppose I’m pretty enough in my own sweet way, but I’m not balanced. So I was idly pondering whether, given the choice, I would choose narrower lips or wider eyes, when I noticed someone in the house opposite; corner building like mine, first floor like me, just standing in his side window – a simple oblong window, not a bay like mine.

I stole a glance. The orange glow of a street lamp shone into his room and behind him was a paper lantern, a big ball of hazy yellow light. I could see him clearly – as clearly, I thought, as he could see me. He seemed to be looking my way and suddenly I grew self-conscious
about my belly button. Could he see it when I was stretching up? Was he interested in it?

I carried on with my task. It was fiddly because I was trying to do a fancy overlap thing and I had these miniature bulldog clips to attach to my muslin. I had to keep unclipping and reclipping when I spaced the fabric badly. Not enough curtain hooks, that was the problem. The guy across the street carried on watching.

I was convinced, at that point, that he
was
watching. My building’s on the corner of a small, quietish T-junction; to the right there’s not much to see except the other road and he certainly wasn’t looking left. Yes, he was definitely watching.

I completed a curtain and a half, then climbed down to heave the chest of drawers into a new position. Inelegantly – there was no other way – I clambered back, a swathe of muslin over one shoulder, a couple of clips between my lips. He was still there, unnerving me a little, but, more than that, annoying me. I made it to two whole curtains, aware that I was turning awkwardly, trying to use the muslin hanging from my shoulder to shield myself, to hide the stripe of flesh that peeped between my T-shirt and trousers.

This isn’t on, I thought. This really isn’t on. Why should I let him get away with it? Why should I let some nosy twat upset me?

So, in a swell of bravado, I stood rigid and met his stare for five or six seconds, challenging him to look away. He was tall and slender, olive-skinned, his head dark with close-cropped hair. He didn’t look away, and five or six seconds is a long time to confront a stranger with your eyes. I broke the contact, my annoyance simmering, and continued messing with hooks and clips.

I glanced across regularly. He didn’t move and I began to get pretty pissed off. Who the fuck did he think he was, invading my privacy this way? Entering my flat,
my
personal space, with his rude, brazen eyes? Anger
tightened my jaw, made my breath deep and heavy. I dropped a clip – not concentrating enough – and swore violently. It was too much. I couldn’t take any more.

I swished the curtain away from me, determined, this time, to stare him out. Thrusting a hip to one side, I put my hand there and glared.

He mirrored me; he actually mirrored me! He shifted his weight and camply placed his hand on his hip. I thought I saw him smile. Feeling a touch uneasy, I straightened my body. He did the same. I paused, then folded my arms in front of me. So did he.

I didn’t know what to do. For an eternity we stood there, strangers across a darkened street, one floor up and framed in boxes of light. If he moves next, I thought, I’ll mirror him. But he didn’t; he was stock-still. Maybe I should call it a day, was my next line of defence. I’ll finish the curtains tomorrow. But then, no, why the hell should I? I wanted the damn things up. Anyway, tomorrow looked busy.

Even now, I can hardly believe I did this, but I did. I checked quickly over the other houses, satisfied myself that no one was watching and yanked my top over my head. Beneath was just my purple bra.

I stood there on my chest-of-drawers stage, T-shirt in hand, my heart drumming wildly. Defiantly, I put back my shoulders. It was my way of saying with my body: ‘So you want entertainment? Well, here it is, mister. You don’t scare me. Now fuck off and leave me alone.’

It hadn’t occurred to me that he might copy me. But he did.

After several long, long seconds of looking, he swiftly removed his rollneck. The lines of his naked torso were lean and strong and his skin was nut brown – Mediterranean depth rather than summertime gilding. He held his sweater in his left hand the way I was holding my top in my right. I swallowed hard. My tongue felt thick and heavy. My knees felt watery.

What was he thinking? Had he done this before? Was this how he got his kicks? And more urgently: it’s my move now. What do I do? Is this dangerous?

I dropped my T-shirt. He dropped his sweater.

For some reason, this was worse than all that had gone before, more sinister. A moment’s acute terror crushed a hundred heartbeats into one. I rode the wave – act now, think later – and let my stubbornness surge again. Nervously, I cast my eyes over the high terraces beyond my glass show-case. Just above the rooftops, the sky was pale tangerine, a street-lamp sky. The trees were dark and the windows around me were calm. I had, as far as I could tell, just the one spectator.

I wasn’t going to be cowed. I was going to outwit him. With trembling hands, I reached behind, unhooked my bra and let it fall. My breasts are firm and high, nicely rounded on the underswell. When I remove my bra, they don’t drop heavily or anything. So I stood proud, my back arched slightly to give them that extra lift.

He can’t mirror that, I thought, triumphant yet afraid.

I saw his shoulders heave with a deep-drawn breath and I felt a rush of elation. I was a glorious, bare-breasted Amazon and he, my foolish foe, was awestruck, staring defeat in the face.

Then, deftly, the guy unbuckled, unzipped, pushed everything down and stood upright to meet my challenge. His cock was erect, angling high from a dark bush of curls.

I was no Amazon.

A taxi sped past the bottom of the road.

I was Beth Bradshaw – stupid Beth Bradshaw with her tits out.

And I was suddenly very, very frightened.

I whipped the curtains in front of me and scrambled down from my pedestal. Show over. Clutching my T-shirt to my breasts, I looked frantically around the room – searching for what, or who, I don’t know. Blood
pounded in my ears. My skin was on fire, hot with terror and shock. My legs were weak. I rested my arse against the chest of drawers then sank to the floor.

I didn’t dare move. Half my windows were still uncurtained. The lights were on. He would still be there, watching, waiting. Images of what had just passed churned in my brain. What on earth had possessed me? What the hell had I done?

For far too long I just sat there, hugging my knees to my naked upper body. Sweat prickled on my burning skin before plunging me into iciness.

I had to live here, opposite a pervert, a flasher, a voyeur, and I’d just egged him on. Would he be able to see me during the day? Would the muslin be too thin at night? Would he break in when I was sleeping?

I wished I was back in my old place, safe with Jenny and Clare. I tried to focus on them, probably in the big messy living room right now. They’d be doing ordinary things, perhaps watching TV, or maybe they’d been to the pub and had other people round. I began to feel slightly calmer. Jenny, plump and gorgeous on the sofa, would be skinning up – ‘one last spliff then I’ve really got to crash’.

Someone moved heavily in the flat above me. It made my ceiling bump, my pulses lurch, my panic rush. Get a grip, I urged myself, it’s only the couple who live there. Stop being foolish.

Shivering a little, I pulled on my T-shirt and crawled across the floor, switching off the table lamp and the angle-poise. Street lighting added an amber tint to my darkened room. I would be, I hoped, invisible to him now.

On my knees, I craned my neck, peering out to where he had stood. I sighed with relief to see that his window was a restful square of black. Like mine.

He’d got bored. It was over. Tomorrow would come and I’d reflect on it as just a weird bit of nonsense. Maybe
I’d feel nervy about the prospect of bumping into him, but nothing monstrous was going to happen. I’d just ignore him; no big deal.

I was about to draw the half-fixed curtains when a horrible thought occurred to me: A square of black –
like mine
. Was his unlit window more copy-cat stuff? Were we still playing our strange game?

Or could it be worse than that? Was it a sign that he’d left, not merely his window but his flat? Perhaps, right now, he was crossing the street, standing at the communal front door of my house, persuading someone else to buzz him in.

In the madness of a mind after midnight, in a dark silent room, the latter seemed all the more likely. I scuttled from the living room to my tiny hall. In my imagination I could hear him: ‘Really sorry to wake you . . . key seems to be stuck . . . can you buzz me in . . . cheers, mate.’

I checked the main door of my flat. Already locked. I double locked it and pressed my ear to the wood, straining to listen. I could hear nothing except, faintly, the noise of someone else’s television. No footsteps. No creaking stairs. No knife-wielding psycho coming to get me.

I drew steadying breaths, rationality filtering drip by drip into my brain. I was OK, safe. I’d been a bit stupid but there was nothing I could do about it. And I wouldn’t do it again.

In the kitchen, I poured myself a huge vodka and tonic, then breezed through my living room into the adjoining bedroom.

My flat’s pretty compact: one room leads more or less to another. In its former life it was probably one massive space – the Drawing Room or the Library, la-di-da. Then someone came along and stuck in lots of walls to divide it all up. They did a sturdy, seamless job, so you can’t tell an old wall from a new one. They’ve all got deep
skirtingboards, dado rails and cornices. It’s a good flat. I like it.

Anyway, I was tight as a coil and nowhere near sleepiness. My bedroom overlooks the other road and it had curtains.

I sat on my brand-new solid pine bed, resting against the wall, swirling and sipping my vodka.

Beth Bradshaw: everyone thinks she’s tough and sassy, an independent kind of girl who knows how to handle herself. And sometimes she is. And at other times she’s just a vulnerable nobody in a big, bad world who does some really stupid things.

The vodka softened my body and began to chill away my fears. Though I was no longer afraid and overwrought, I wasn’t quite relaxed. I was shot through with an undercurrent of energy, a strange animation – something like the feeling you have as a kid just before an exam, in a subject you know you’re good at: excited, nervous; you want it and you don’t.

I drained my glass and lay, hands behind my head, gazing up to the high ceiling with its blue globe lampshade. Over and over, I replayed the scene: two people swapping secrets in the public arena, stripping off –
for
each other?
At
each other? I didn’t know. Had we shared a naughty game, a bit of harmless fun? Or was it more aggressive, territorial, a drawing of swords? Or was it seriously sexy?

Christ, but he had a nice body. And, I thought smugly, he’d had a hard-on – for me, for whatever it was that had passed between us. With a slight shock, I realised I was aroused, had been for some time. A thrill born of terror was tingling in my cunt. Smiling gently, I nudged up my T-shirt and trailed idle fingertips over my tautly stretched belly.

I wondered who he was, what would happen when we saw each other again – at our night-time windows or maybe in the street, in a daylight, fully clothed,
workaday world. No, I didn’t want that to happen. I didn’t want workaday. It didn’t make sense. This was madness-after-midnight stuff; it didn’t make sense either, but then that didn’t matter.

My hand slid up and I caressed my breasts with firm self-indulgence. What had he done with his boner? I mused. Had he wanked while thinking of me, of that woman across the street with messy hair, good tits and a face that wasn’t quite balanced?