Baggage & Buttons by C. J. Fallowfield Page B

and up a
grand double winder staircase, which I noticed rose up to another level. The
corridor was wide and long with beautifully polished wooden floors, so I walked
carefully in my heels, so I wouldn’t scratch the wood. Gabe took me to the
first door on the right and into his bedroom. It was a huge room, with two sets
of rectangular sash windows overlooking the drive and had white painted
interior shutters pulled back into the deep walls. The room was painted in a
slate grey with brilliant white skirting, coving and picture rails. Like me, he
obviously disliked clutter so it was minimally furnished, with a large super
king black leather sleigh bed with white bedding taking centre stage. Above the
bed was a large black and white pencil drawing of a Lamborghini. I noticed he’d
left the original dark wood floorboards in here too and I turned around to look
what was behind me and gasped.
    To the right of the bedroom door was a large black
lacquer oriental chest and above it hung a big black and white portrait of Gabe
and I looking down at our entwined fingers smiling. It was the picture that
Doug had taken when we were outside the English room on Monday. The black and
white canvas on the left, above the flat screen TV was what really caught my
eye though and I walked over to examine it.
    It was a shot of me. I was standing looking straight
at the camera lens, my hair was hanging out of a messy up do, looking
dishevelled. My lips were enlarged, glossy and slightly parted. The kohl around
my eyes was smudged and I’d a slight dewy glow to my face. You couldn’t see
much of my body, the shot had been taken in a crowded room and it was a glance
of me through the people surrounding me, but the photographer had zoomed in on
me from the chest up.
    The thing that struck me most though was my eyes. The
sheer lust in them as I stared towards the camera lens was obvious. Where had
he got this picture from? I’d never seen it and couldn’t place it at all. I
could see I was wearing a spaghetti vest top trimmed with lace and a push up
bra, out of which my breasts rose like two smooth domes. I racked my brains to think
where I’d last worn this outfit. I turned to Gabe and he was smiling at me.
    ‘I don’t understand, I don’t remember this picture
being taken. I’m sure I’ve not worn those clothes since meeting you, how do you
have it?’
    ‘This was taken the night we first saw each other, the
night you don’t seem to remember, which by the way was like a knife to my heart
when you texted me that bit of information earlier,’ he said as he tilted his
head studying the confusion on my face.
    ‘But where? When?’
    ‘It was freshers’ week on the Monday. It was my birthday
so I went to one of the bars on Princes street with the Julie and swim team and
I spotted you across the room. You were talking to some guy and I couldn’t take
my eyes off you. Doug saw me staring and got his camera out and started taking
pictures of you. It was as if you knew I was watching you, you just turned to
look at me and we locked eyes … I just felt the connection immediately.’
    ‘Really?’ I had no recollection of this at all, but I
remembered going out that night and how sick I’d been in the morning.
    ‘Hmmm. You looked at me like you wanted to rip my
clothes off and devour me right there and then and Doug snapped it. I love it,’
he said as he looked back up at it, then back at me. ‘It was the first time we
saw each other and I have it captured and up on my wall.’
    ‘Gabe, I’m so sorry, I don’t remember. I was
completely wasted that night, in fact most of the week.’
    ‘I tried to get across the room to meet you, but by
the time I’d pushed my way through you were gone. I looked everywhere, but you
must have left. I even kept going back to the bar every night that week, thinking
you might come back to it, you’ve no idea how disappointed I was not to see you
again. So imagine my surprise when I looked up in English on