Chapter 1
Dan and Claire Ashcroft had fights. Many, many, many fights. From the day his parents had brought her home from the hospital, Dan had known Claire was going to be a handful. Straight off, she'd taken the house over with her dirty nappies and crying. At nineteen, she was still wreaking havoc in Dan's life. Dan had been living in London for all of two weeks when Claire showed up at his door with a suitcase and a refusal to listen to reason. She needed to get out of the house and out of Leeds, and that was that. He agreed to let her stay for one month. After a year, Dan reluctantly conceded defeat.
They fought about bills, space, privacy, and cigarettes. They battled over food and booze and refrigerator shelves. Dan's roommate moved out shortly after Claire's arrival, as did anyone else they tried to bring in to help with the rent. No one could tolerate the constant bickering. Claire was bossy and stubborn, while Dan was self-centered and self-involved. When Dan Ashcroft was offered a job as a writer for Sugar Ape, the only magazine that mattered in Shoreditch, he realized he would soon be making enough money to live on his own.
Instead, Dan and Claire moved to a larger flat, a place where they could have a little more space apart without actually being on their own. They never spoke of it, but they both knew they had moved beyond co-dependent to full-on enmeshment. Dan didn't know who he was without Claire yelling it in his face, and if Claire stopped yelling at Dan, she would have to worry about the course of her own life. Dan could get pissed every night and fuck a series of friendly strangers, and it only improved his career because he was such a 'character.' When Claire did the same thing, she was a 'problem' to be discussed in hushed tones (or yelled at in the street). Even at his most unbearable, Claire knew that Dan understood and accepted her. With the rejection she faced on a daily basis, Claire needed that support.
Dan needed to be needed. All his life, he'd been smart, popular, good-looking, and talented. Things tended to come easily to him, including friends, and yet - more often than not - Dan Ashcroft was lonely. He always felt out of step with the people around him, like they were all in on some big joke that he just didn't get. He could go to a different party every night and absorb all the free booze (and other intoxicating substances) like a sponge, but he felt most at ease when Claire was there with him - bitching and pointing out why everything was stupid. She was his anchor, and she kept him from drifting too far into the mindless buzz that was the Shoreditch nightlife. He sometimes fantasized about life without her, but never made a serious effort to be on his own. The world was lonely enough.
Xxx
Jonas Smith had never stepped foot out of Shoreditch. He was one of those people from one of those families. Everyone he knew and loved lived within cycling distance, and he knew which restaurants were good and which were well rank. He knew the layout of every local record store. Why should he leave his home? To look at a bunch of rocks or some tower? Jonas was happy where he was.
He wasn’t totally happy; he lived in a squat with a bunch of junkies, and if he tried to work on his music, he was shouted down by a bunch of surly fucks. His tables were collecting dust while he tried to make enough money to move out on his own. He had a job as a bike courier, and another one at a super trendy shop called “Sweet Pipes.” The problem was, the muscular legs he needed as a courier were making it harder and harder to fit into the kind of clothes they sold at “Sweet Pipes.” If he gave one job up, he’d never be able to get a flat, but it was only a matter of time until someone fired him. Faced with an uncertain future, Jonas relied on the parties in Shoreditch, where the booze and drugs were free-flowing, and there was always a chance of meeting someone ‘important.’ No one threw parties like Sugar Ape. The magazine threw legendary bacchanals, the kind that forced other magazines to give them free press. If you wanted a pic of Madonna pissing in a potted plant or a Spice Girl passed out in a puddle of her own vomit, you needed to be at a Sugar Ape party.
That night, the celebrity pickings were slim. There were a few of the more boring people from Big Brother and someone who claimed to be Elton John’s cousin. Jonas had a feeling he would not be making any life-changing connections that night, so he focused on the free booze and using his highly attuned senses to find someone willing to share their drugs. It was a tingling in the back of his head, saying, “Someone will overdose on coke tonight if you don’t help him out,” that led him to Dan Ashcroft.
Dan was leaning against a wall, surveying the crowd with disdain and boredom. He was a fixture on the scene, a hard-partying writer of some skill who could be seen in just about every shot taken at a Sugar Ape party. He was handing Madonna post-it notes to use as toilet tissue or turning one of the Mels on her side so she didn’t choke on her vomit. Jonas had never spoken to Dan, but he knew him by reputation and from a distance. Dan radiated a kind of self-destructive air that was exciting, but a little scary. Jonas liked to party, but he also liked waking up in the morning. He did not want to die young and leave a good-looking corpse. He wanted to be 100, wearing a mullet wig, and DJing trip hop at the nursing home between bingo games. It wasn’t cool, but Jonas liked being alive.
Dan looked irritable and unapproachable, but there was something that made Jonas want to get closer. Maybe it was the sadness in Dan’s eyes that didn’t fit with his hostile expression, or maybe it was the way he kept rubbing his nose, trying to make sure there was no residue.
Like a coke seeking missile, Jonas crossed the room.
Xxx
Nathan Barley had managed to get through the door, and he was feeling like a million bucks. Sugar Ape was the magazine, and they threw the parties. Nathan had a degree in marketing and a million great ideas; he just needed someone to realize he was the future of future-osity. He was there to make friends and influence people, but he couldn’t walk past the tasty brunette furiously trying to light a cigarette with a dead lighter. He was a man of great expectations, but he was only human.
Without saying a word, Nathan held out a light. He didn’t smoke (asthma), but he always carried a light for just such an opportunity. The young woman gave him a grateful smile before moving into a more defensive posture, possibly after noticing the tits on his lighter. It was Venus de Milo, so it wasn’t just tits. It was arty tits.
“I’m not expecting you to drop your pants for a light,” Nathan teased. “There are still gentlemen in the world.”
The dark-haired beauty laughed and her whole body relaxed. She was pretty in a healthy, not-at-all-trendy way. She was slim, but not stylishly thin. She wore no makeup and had her hair in a careless ponytail. She should not have been Nathan’s type, but there was something compelling about her dark eyes and big tits.
“I mean, feel free to drop your pants at any time, but I want it to be because of my charm and good looks,” Nathan explained. “Not because I have a lighter.”
She gave him a playful punch in the arm, and he couldn’t help but flinch at her surprising strength. As they chatted and he learned her name was Claire, Nathan absent-mindedly rubbed his sore arm.
Claire gave him a mocking stare and she feigned another punch, laughing when he flinched.
“If you’re afraid of a few bruises, you definitely don’t want me to drop my pants,” she smirked.
Nathan wondered if he was in love.
Xxx
Dan was still stinging from Claire’s accusations when he was approached by a strange-looking (even for Shoreditch) kid with hair that looked like a hat. It hadn’t been a spectacular fight, but Claire had been sober, while Dan had already started to partake in the evening’s festivities. It wasn’t a fair fight. She’d used her razor sharp insight into Dan’s weak spots while he made fun of her fat arms. When he made astute observations about her plentiful faults, Claire dismissed them as invalid, but she was self-conscious about her perfectly normal arms. It was hard to win a fight with Claire under any circumstances, but if she had an advantage, she would bury Dan and leave him feeling broken and exposed for a week. Even the cocaine he’d scored from fellow hack Jonatton ‘Yeah?’ Middleton couldn’t give him the much needed boost of baseless confidence that would buoy his spirits. Dan felt two feet tall.
“All right?” the kid asked. He had startling blue eyes, outlined with too much black liner. Dan wasn’t often attracted to men, but the kid was a mix of pretty boy and handsome woman that Dan found compelling in any gender.
Dan shrugged and offered the kid a bump, correctly guessing the reason for the stranger’s friendliness. Coke was de rigueur at Sugar Ape, but Dan really didn’t need something to make him more self-conscious and self-involved. Sharing was both a way to limit himself and make instant friends. Dan knew his eventual downfall would be liquor. People didn’t come out of the woodwork to take away his booze the way they did with drugs and cigarettes. No one wanted to drink his backwash, but they all wanted his fags and blow.
Xxx
“I’ve got this amazing space, some really amazing equipment…”
“How can you afford all that?” Claire asked, already certain of the answer. There was a poshness under the boy’s street act that screamed ‘privilege.’ She would have bet money - if she’d had any - that daddy was supporting Nathan in his artistic endeavors. While Claire’s family was far from poor, they wouldn’t give a penny towards Claire’s dream of being a filmmaker. They’d sent Dan to uni for creative writing, so he could write about the joys of puking in the streets and having it off with a stranger in a public toilet, but Claire’s dreams were impractical. Her parents wanted her to have a practical degree and a back-up plan for her artistic endeavors. Sometimes she wondered if they were grooming her to support Dan’s sorry ass when they were gone.
The rich kid stammered and lied through his teeth, but he was cute, and Claire needed to get her hands on some quality equipment.
And an editing machine.
Claire stored away that particular double entendre for when she told the story to Dan. He hated to hear about her sex life, and she loved to make him miserable.
“I have connections,” he said, with a weak attempt at bravado.
“Daddy has money?” Claire teased. When he looked offended, she backtracked. She did actually want to use his equipment. “There’s nothing wrong with having a little help. I wish I had some.”
Claire spotted Dan across the room, heading into a bathroom with a skinny kid in super-tight, super-trendy, god-awful clothes. Dan had always been something of a hetero-flexible, and he typically slept around when he was drunk, but it still made her irrationally angry to see him about to get off with some random guy after the argument they’d just had. Sometimes she wondered if Dan even cared about her, or if she was just something familiar for him to cling to - a bit of Northern grit to counteract the flashy, plastic world in which he lived. He’d certainly be dead in a ditch without Claire’s nagging, and he surely realized as much.
Claire was tempted to storm over to him and give him a proper telling off. Nine times out of ten, she would have followed that impulse, but her heart softened when Dan spotted her. He cringed and looked embarrassed. She’d thrown a few punches below the belt in her time (literal and metaphorical), and she had been hard on Dan during their spat. He was a gadfly, but the world needed gadflies. The world needed Dan Ashcrofts and kids like…
“What’s your name again?” she asked Nathan, leaving her brother to his nonsense.
“Nathan Barley.”
The world needed twats like Dan Ashcroft and Nathan Barley.
They fought about bills, space, privacy, and cigarettes. They battled over food and booze and refrigerator shelves. Dan's roommate moved out shortly after Claire's arrival, as did anyone else they tried to bring in to help with the rent. No one could tolerate the constant bickering. Claire was bossy and stubborn, while Dan was self-centered and self-involved. When Dan Ashcroft was offered a job as a writer for Sugar Ape, the only magazine that mattered in Shoreditch, he realized he would soon be making enough money to live on his own.
Instead, Dan and Claire moved to a larger flat, a place where they could have a little more space apart without actually being on their own. They never spoke of it, but they both knew they had moved beyond co-dependent to full-on enmeshment. Dan didn't know who he was without Claire yelling it in his face, and if Claire stopped yelling at Dan, she would have to worry about the course of her own life. Dan could get pissed every night and fuck a series of friendly strangers, and it only improved his career because he was such a 'character.' When Claire did the same thing, she was a 'problem' to be discussed in hushed tones (or yelled at in the street). Even at his most unbearable, Claire knew that Dan understood and accepted her. With the rejection she faced on a daily basis, Claire needed that support.
Dan needed to be needed. All his life, he'd been smart, popular, good-looking, and talented. Things tended to come easily to him, including friends, and yet - more often than not - Dan Ashcroft was lonely. He always felt out of step with the people around him, like they were all in on some big joke that he just didn't get. He could go to a different party every night and absorb all the free booze (and other intoxicating substances) like a sponge, but he felt most at ease when Claire was there with him - bitching and pointing out why everything was stupid. She was his anchor, and she kept him from drifting too far into the mindless buzz that was the Shoreditch nightlife. He sometimes fantasized about life without her, but never made a serious effort to be on his own. The world was lonely enough.
Xxx
Jonas Smith had never stepped foot out of Shoreditch. He was one of those people from one of those families. Everyone he knew and loved lived within cycling distance, and he knew which restaurants were good and which were well rank. He knew the layout of every local record store. Why should he leave his home? To look at a bunch of rocks or some tower? Jonas was happy where he was.
He wasn’t totally happy; he lived in a squat with a bunch of junkies, and if he tried to work on his music, he was shouted down by a bunch of surly fucks. His tables were collecting dust while he tried to make enough money to move out on his own. He had a job as a bike courier, and another one at a super trendy shop called “Sweet Pipes.” The problem was, the muscular legs he needed as a courier were making it harder and harder to fit into the kind of clothes they sold at “Sweet Pipes.” If he gave one job up, he’d never be able to get a flat, but it was only a matter of time until someone fired him. Faced with an uncertain future, Jonas relied on the parties in Shoreditch, where the booze and drugs were free-flowing, and there was always a chance of meeting someone ‘important.’ No one threw parties like Sugar Ape. The magazine threw legendary bacchanals, the kind that forced other magazines to give them free press. If you wanted a pic of Madonna pissing in a potted plant or a Spice Girl passed out in a puddle of her own vomit, you needed to be at a Sugar Ape party.
That night, the celebrity pickings were slim. There were a few of the more boring people from Big Brother and someone who claimed to be Elton John’s cousin. Jonas had a feeling he would not be making any life-changing connections that night, so he focused on the free booze and using his highly attuned senses to find someone willing to share their drugs. It was a tingling in the back of his head, saying, “Someone will overdose on coke tonight if you don’t help him out,” that led him to Dan Ashcroft.
Dan was leaning against a wall, surveying the crowd with disdain and boredom. He was a fixture on the scene, a hard-partying writer of some skill who could be seen in just about every shot taken at a Sugar Ape party. He was handing Madonna post-it notes to use as toilet tissue or turning one of the Mels on her side so she didn’t choke on her vomit. Jonas had never spoken to Dan, but he knew him by reputation and from a distance. Dan radiated a kind of self-destructive air that was exciting, but a little scary. Jonas liked to party, but he also liked waking up in the morning. He did not want to die young and leave a good-looking corpse. He wanted to be 100, wearing a mullet wig, and DJing trip hop at the nursing home between bingo games. It wasn’t cool, but Jonas liked being alive.
Dan looked irritable and unapproachable, but there was something that made Jonas want to get closer. Maybe it was the sadness in Dan’s eyes that didn’t fit with his hostile expression, or maybe it was the way he kept rubbing his nose, trying to make sure there was no residue.
Like a coke seeking missile, Jonas crossed the room.
Xxx
Nathan Barley had managed to get through the door, and he was feeling like a million bucks. Sugar Ape was the magazine, and they threw the parties. Nathan had a degree in marketing and a million great ideas; he just needed someone to realize he was the future of future-osity. He was there to make friends and influence people, but he couldn’t walk past the tasty brunette furiously trying to light a cigarette with a dead lighter. He was a man of great expectations, but he was only human.
Without saying a word, Nathan held out a light. He didn’t smoke (asthma), but he always carried a light for just such an opportunity. The young woman gave him a grateful smile before moving into a more defensive posture, possibly after noticing the tits on his lighter. It was Venus de Milo, so it wasn’t just tits. It was arty tits.
“I’m not expecting you to drop your pants for a light,” Nathan teased. “There are still gentlemen in the world.”
The dark-haired beauty laughed and her whole body relaxed. She was pretty in a healthy, not-at-all-trendy way. She was slim, but not stylishly thin. She wore no makeup and had her hair in a careless ponytail. She should not have been Nathan’s type, but there was something compelling about her dark eyes and big tits.
“I mean, feel free to drop your pants at any time, but I want it to be because of my charm and good looks,” Nathan explained. “Not because I have a lighter.”
She gave him a playful punch in the arm, and he couldn’t help but flinch at her surprising strength. As they chatted and he learned her name was Claire, Nathan absent-mindedly rubbed his sore arm.
Claire gave him a mocking stare and she feigned another punch, laughing when he flinched.
“If you’re afraid of a few bruises, you definitely don’t want me to drop my pants,” she smirked.
Nathan wondered if he was in love.
Xxx
Dan was still stinging from Claire’s accusations when he was approached by a strange-looking (even for Shoreditch) kid with hair that looked like a hat. It hadn’t been a spectacular fight, but Claire had been sober, while Dan had already started to partake in the evening’s festivities. It wasn’t a fair fight. She’d used her razor sharp insight into Dan’s weak spots while he made fun of her fat arms. When he made astute observations about her plentiful faults, Claire dismissed them as invalid, but she was self-conscious about her perfectly normal arms. It was hard to win a fight with Claire under any circumstances, but if she had an advantage, she would bury Dan and leave him feeling broken and exposed for a week. Even the cocaine he’d scored from fellow hack Jonatton ‘Yeah?’ Middleton couldn’t give him the much needed boost of baseless confidence that would buoy his spirits. Dan felt two feet tall.
“All right?” the kid asked. He had startling blue eyes, outlined with too much black liner. Dan wasn’t often attracted to men, but the kid was a mix of pretty boy and handsome woman that Dan found compelling in any gender.
Dan shrugged and offered the kid a bump, correctly guessing the reason for the stranger’s friendliness. Coke was de rigueur at Sugar Ape, but Dan really didn’t need something to make him more self-conscious and self-involved. Sharing was both a way to limit himself and make instant friends. Dan knew his eventual downfall would be liquor. People didn’t come out of the woodwork to take away his booze the way they did with drugs and cigarettes. No one wanted to drink his backwash, but they all wanted his fags and blow.
Xxx
“I’ve got this amazing space, some really amazing equipment…”
“How can you afford all that?” Claire asked, already certain of the answer. There was a poshness under the boy’s street act that screamed ‘privilege.’ She would have bet money - if she’d had any - that daddy was supporting Nathan in his artistic endeavors. While Claire’s family was far from poor, they wouldn’t give a penny towards Claire’s dream of being a filmmaker. They’d sent Dan to uni for creative writing, so he could write about the joys of puking in the streets and having it off with a stranger in a public toilet, but Claire’s dreams were impractical. Her parents wanted her to have a practical degree and a back-up plan for her artistic endeavors. Sometimes she wondered if they were grooming her to support Dan’s sorry ass when they were gone.
The rich kid stammered and lied through his teeth, but he was cute, and Claire needed to get her hands on some quality equipment.
And an editing machine.
Claire stored away that particular double entendre for when she told the story to Dan. He hated to hear about her sex life, and she loved to make him miserable.
“I have connections,” he said, with a weak attempt at bravado.
“Daddy has money?” Claire teased. When he looked offended, she backtracked. She did actually want to use his equipment. “There’s nothing wrong with having a little help. I wish I had some.”
Claire spotted Dan across the room, heading into a bathroom with a skinny kid in super-tight, super-trendy, god-awful clothes. Dan had always been something of a hetero-flexible, and he typically slept around when he was drunk, but it still made her irrationally angry to see him about to get off with some random guy after the argument they’d just had. Sometimes she wondered if Dan even cared about her, or if she was just something familiar for him to cling to - a bit of Northern grit to counteract the flashy, plastic world in which he lived. He’d certainly be dead in a ditch without Claire’s nagging, and he surely realized as much.
Claire was tempted to storm over to him and give him a proper telling off. Nine times out of ten, she would have followed that impulse, but her heart softened when Dan spotted her. He cringed and looked embarrassed. She’d thrown a few punches below the belt in her time (literal and metaphorical), and she had been hard on Dan during their spat. He was a gadfly, but the world needed gadflies. The world needed Dan Ashcrofts and kids like…
“What’s your name again?” she asked Nathan, leaving her brother to his nonsense.
“Nathan Barley.”
The world needed twats like Dan Ashcroft and Nathan Barley.