...2.23 am...

[AiRen]

I think I better introduce this ...whatever this is going to turn out to be - at the moment, you see, I am writing 2 wildly separate stories which draw heavily from the third - the source one, called affectionatelly "The Workshop", not because that is the title of the piece but because the story serves literally as the workshop in which I hammer out the ideas for the other two. Therefore I must apologize for the clumsy and crude style and rough-cut ideas - think of it as a sketch, rather than the full-blown render. OK, that out of the way, here's the intro to "The Workshop":

"So what's been happening with your masterpiece? Still in nappies or has it started walking about on all fours yet?"
Catwalk-hot red Laboutines, blending effortlessly into a pair of unfathomably long legs that ended up in a freshly cut 'n' blow-dried N. giggled through their skinny latte.
"Work in progress, you know I don't have the time..." I. was tired and not in mood for trying to find a creative new way around the fact "Cypher" had barely moved a page away from the title ever since she picked up the story in January.
"You should have left Channel 1 ages ago - I hate to be the one rubbing the poo into your nose but...
"If this is going to be one of those "I told you so" moments - spare me..." I. was in no mood to go down the uncomfortable memory lane. It has been over a year since N. has left the company to become a professional arm-candy and made a quite career move out of it. IF THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE MY BEST FRIEND, I AM IN DEEPER SHIT THAN I THOUGHT I WAS. I. thought blocking out the most irritating of the blonde's chatter while glumly stirring her lukewarm cappuccino.
"It's only a matter of time before even you realize this precious "book" of yours is just a waste of time. Nobody wants to read about it. Ever. The guy was a piece of human garbage and.."
"Dead. " I. interrupts. "He is dead."
"There you go - even worse - DEAD human garbage. I honestly don't know how you pick them but this one takes the biscuit. I'm telling you as your friend..."
I. winces
"There is a story here. A big story. Noone goes from choir-boy pinup to bloodhound from Hell in 60 seconds flat and then The End. There must be more to it."
"Yeah, sure there is," N. playfully chirped "...military poster - boy wakes up one day two sandwiches short of a picnic, gets all pissy over the wrong brand of cornflakes, and decides to do his bit for the control of the world population by disposing of his erstwhile comrades in a mucho effective fashion and then gets put out of his misery by a trainee sniper - there, that's your book. Done."
"You forgot THE END." I. quipped cooly.
"Honey, you know I care about you, sweetie, you know I do. But this is carrying the joke too far now."
"I am not joking."
"That's what worries me. You are squandering your life away on a project nobody wants, writing about the crazy guy who nobody cares about. Don't you have a mortgage to pay?" the sting has landed a bullseye. I. knew that N. couldn't aim for love or money but sometimes even the blind chicken gets lucky.
"Not everybody snares a Russian mafioso with the name like Igor, big car and a small..." I. narrowed her eyes.
"It's Zhenya, actually. And he is a property developer. And you better thank him nicely since he used his contacts to get a hold of this..." N. ceremoniously opens her handbag and the piece of paper settles in front of I.'s coffee cup.
"It's a phone number. The last one your dead guy was on. I don't want to go into what I had to to do to get it." N. nods.
"What...you had to swallow for a change?..." I. could not resist the dig, full knowing N. would either ignore it or fail to spot the barb quick enough to retaliate.
"Don't be a smartypants. You could have had the same lifestyle if you had used that pretty head of yours for something else except banging it on the wall." N. smiled.
"I doubt it." I. looked up as the pair of obscenely expensive peep-toes stretched into the awe-inspiring legs - N. was rummaging through her purse looking for a £10 note.
"I am not built the right way. Too many moral hang-ups and not enough cleavage."
"Oh, hun, don't be such a sour-puss. There." Landing a kiss with the sharpshooter's precision in the air just above the I.'s cheek, N. straightened the skirt and unlocked her mobile phone. "I must go. Give my love to R. He's a darling, you are one lucky cow."
As N. made her way out of the coffe-bar to the drizzling and cold December evening, I. thought HOW DOES SHE DO THAT? NOT AN INCH ON HER THAT DOESN'T SHOVE AT LEAST THE 3-DIGIT PRICE LABEL INTO ONE'S FACE.

Angel station was filling with people leaving work, and I. reluctantly made her way down the escalator. Timing her steps to the beat of "Closer" by Nine Inch Nails on her iPod she sunk into the comfortable numbness of the long train journey home.

People stared . They always did, and I. barely paid attention to them these days anyway.They looked at the petite, slim, long-haired brunette whose almond shaped hazel eyes, high cheek bones, sensual fleshy mouth and ivory complexion made up a striking though unconventionally and unsettlingly attractive package. She welcomed the non-time of commuting since it allowed her to re-charge and get ready for the home-edition. Bills, junk-mail, mind-numbing routine, husband, dog. IN THAT ORDER, I. thought. There was a time when her life seemed going somewhere but the directions to wherever she thought she was heading had been lost and forgotten. Things have turned around without her putting up a fight - from caring boyfriend to a stressed husband out of work, from her successful carrer in advertising to the soul-destroying shift drudgery in the News and Documentaries Department at Channel 1 , from a vibrant and go - getting twenty-something to the tired and permanently sleep-deprived 32-year old. I AM SO LOST I DON'T EVEN HAVE A CLUE WHERE TO START LOOKING FOR MYSELF. I. closed her eyes as the man sitting opposite her flashed a friendly, broad smile.

She grew to dread coming home, counting the hours to sleep with the desperation of a drowning man. R. has been out of work for months now and the once loving and laid-back man rapidly deteriorated into the hypersensitive bundle of nerves whose depressions and mood-swings were matched only by the speed of the free-fall his life has been taking ever since they moved to the white semi in Oakwood Close, the leafy suburbia little over an hour train journey from Central London. There were some good days , true , but they were getting less and less in number as the financial pressures and the growing fatigue mercilessly pounded their 7-year marriage. As she walked in R. drawn face told her what kind of day he had.
He complains about the lack of support, time, energy, money (WHY IS IT ALWAYS ABOUT THE FRIGGING MONEY?!HOW 'BOUT "HOW WAS YOUR DAY AT THE SHITTY OFFICE, MY DEAREST ONE WHO PUTS THE FOOD ON THE TABLE?"), how he cannot find the time to do this or that, how his day goes before he can finish anything, how he hates this house and the life they are living, how she's home only to change her clothes and pick up the mail...
She labours through the supper, closes the lounge door and switches her G5 on, listening for the footsteps in the bedroom quietening down.
It started raining again. She listens to the sound while cradling the mug of hot chocolate in her cold hands, looking absentmindedly into the flickering flames of the gas fire. After a while she turns to her computer screen and startes clicking through the countless of PDFs of newspaper clips and TV screenshots. A hazy publicity shot of a tall, handsome man in fitigues smiling for the camera as an uncomfortable looking government official pins another medal to his muscular chest. A decorated war hero, special forces top-ranking officer, national treasure and all round good sport turned rogue on a routine recon 5 years ago, moving through the research facility they were sent to investigate with the ease of the hot knife though butter leaving carnage and destruction in his wake until a shot in the back by some rookie ended it all. The kid was so shaken he vomited for days after the clean up crew got to him. WHY DO I GIVE TWO SHITS ABOUT THIS? WHAT IS THIS TO ME, ANYWAY?
She takes the piece of paper N.'s Russian boyfriend got the hold of and studies it for a moment. DEAD GUY'S PHONE . GEE, THANKS...as she dials the 0207......... number.
After the third ring there was a click and a deep, soft, cultured voice, all chocolate and crumpled bedsheets answered:
"Hello?"

02.23 am, and at 36 Oakwood Close the world has just stopped turning.

[AiRen]

The first watery light of the Thursday morning crept in and I. was shuffling thorugh the kitchen with the eyes half-closed , wrapped up in the oversized cream flannel dressing gown, rubbing her stiff fingers while making the morning coffee. The ritual had the soothing effect of an engine drone and the auto-pilot in her brain was about to engage as she walked in the living room.

And then she saw the note. "MUST TRY HARDER" written in elegant longhand, letters deliberate, large and precise, resting on the computer screen showing that first and only page of "Cypher" she had wrestled out of her writer's block.
The comfortable mind numbing routine had been shattered and she stared at the paper as the animal would at the approaching traffic.
WHAT.
THE.
HELL....
The handwriting was as unfamiliar as it was unashamedly intimate - I.'s mind was groaning in protest at being dragged out so brutally from under the duvet.
WHO.
THE.
HELL...
She looked around. There was nothing missing. They had been burgled before, but this was something else. SOME SON OF B... HAS PAWED AT MY THINGS...
She walked upstairs and dressed in hurried silence. WHY HASN'T THE DOG BARKED, DAMN IT.
I. grabbed the keys and her Oyster travel card and opened the front door to the snowed-in path. A handful of people in the street were trying to clear their car windscreens, the sound of ice-scrapers muffled in the chill of the 7.30am.
A tall man in black, all cashmere and leather, brushed past her. She watched with admiration the athletic figure effortlessly moving through the first December snow with the grace and elegance of a satiated tiger. She stopped, catching the falling snowflake in her gloved hand, pressing the cold crystals to her lips.
PERFECT BEAUTY. I. had just enough time to glance at his flawless features framed by long strands of ash-blond hair tucked under a black beanie, head ever so slightly bowed, thunderstorm-grey eyes smiling cryptically as he walked by.

She was not aware that - like every other soul in the street - her eyes followed him wistfully, letting out the pained, longing collective sigh as the beautiful beast silently disappeared at the end of the Oakwood Close, his dark bootprints erased by the falling snow.

[AiRen]

"Think about it. Please, promise me you will think about it, will you?" P.'s quiet persistence was beginning to wear her down.
"We need you on board, damn it - I need you. Think of the potential, the possibilities - sky is the limit..." P.'s voice faded as she stared somewhere past the young man's shoulders into the drunken melee of the office Christmas party. I. loathed the set up with so much visceral fervour it made her dazed with the nausea. P. was right. This could be the chance of the lifetime. If she would only allow herself to bite the bullet and get on with it. I HAVEN'T TAKEN THIS MUCH RISK IN YEARS. And there was no telling if it would be worth the jump.
"I promise, OK? I will let you know after the New Year." Not the answer, but the coping strategy, and they both knew it.
P. leaned back. "Let's go to S********. I could do with some caffeine kick."
She picked up her coat without a word and made her way downstairs to the street. P. followed , smiling the generic merry-christmas smiles to the faceless crowd left pulling the crackers and toppling the papercups half-filled with white wine and punch.
P. liked her - he liked her a lot. Ever since the young man arrived last summer filling in the curiously (and virtually permanently) vacant position of a peripatetic war correspondent his dignified but unrequited affections were a public knowledge in the News and Documentaries.. I. liked his subdued demeanor, goodnatured wit and the smart head on his broad shoulders, often spending an hour or so after work talking about everything and nothing with the quiet twenty-four year old whose blue-green eyes peered under the thick, irregular brown fringe. Reserved, almost painfuly shy, yet she could feel tough as nails determination and strenghth hiding behind the eye-contact avoiding face. He was cute, she granted him that, but not her type. MY TYPE? she mused looking at him as he ordered 2 skinny caramel lattes. I HAVEN'T MET HIM YET. HE EXISTS IN THE SAME PLANE OF REALITY AS UNICORNS. OR THE TOOTH-FAIRY. OR SANTA F*CKING CLAUS... She smiled the well practiced, dazzling smile to the waitress.
P. was not giving up. "This project is ideal for you. The studio will bend over backwards to get the thing moving if you just say yes and come in - Christ, remember what you were telling me? World Domination awaits?" THIS SHOULD HAVE BEEN MY LINE, I. thought. P. was radiating that sickly sweet mixture of enthusiasm and the awkwardly disguised desire.
"I am not going to sleep with you." her calm voice cuts through the easy-listening tosh in the background.
""I...what the ..." he stumbled, eyes widened in shock and pained rejection.
"I promise I will think about it but you are not getting into my knickers. Is that understood?"
P.looked at her, his face betraying confusion, hurt and surrender. "I see the Christmas spirit is beginning to get to you." "He bent over and quickly kissed her forehead. "We'll talk." As his slim figure disappeared onto the street , I. looked on. YOU ARE NOT THE ONE. She closed her eyes as her lips widened into a grin. NOBODY IS.

She mulled over the last few days. "Cypher". The phone call. MUST TRY HARDER message pinned to her Mac's screen. Her marriage at the melting point. A job prospect almost achingly too good to be true. MIDNIGHT AT THE CROSSROADS - WAITING FOR THE DEVIL TO DO SOME BRISK TRADE. STORY OF MY LIFE...

When she looked up again, straining to see past the cheesy Christmas decorations in the window, her gaze stopped abruptly on the tall, elegant man standing outside with hands in the pockets of his black alpaca coat, leathers neatly tucked in buckled black boots, a mischievous smile under the black beanie pulled low over his long ash-blond hair belying the icy glint in the thunderstorm-grey eyes. The waitress whispered into I.s ears "OMG..He is gorgeous. If you don't take him, I will!".
A conspiratory wink followed the suggestive flick of her tongue as she moved away carrying the trays laden with empty mugs and used tissue paper. As I. put her coat on and walked out the coffee-bar the man's handsome face lit up in a smug grin.
"You." Her voice felt shaky but defiant. She had idiotic and uncalled for bravery down to a fine art "You are dead."
"I know." Dark chocolate and honey tones as his voice hushed past her resolve. "How about Chinatown? This dead guy has worked up an appetite."

She struggled to keep up with his graceful, confident stride, his powerful figure cutting through the admiring crowds effortlessly, without resistance.