[DeepInnerFreak]

The Apartment

Chapter One

“There is something a little perverse about having a conversation with a pair of eyes”, Aimee pondered to herself as she sat nestled in between her suitcase and holdall on the back seat. “Yes”, replied Aimee, in response to the taxi driver's mutterings about the weather. “Only in England can you start the day wearing trainers, spend your afternoon in wellies and finish it with sandals”. The eyes looking back at her through the mirror in the cab seemed to bounce in agreement. “God”, Aimee thought to herself, “why did I mention footwear, he’s probably thinking about feet now. Oh, gosh, my feet”. She looked down at her phone to break the awkward glances before returning her gaze to the eyes staring at her, his eyes scrunching together slightly indicating a smile upon his face. “Yup, he’s definitely thinking about my feet”.

After a very boring six hour train journey from Scotland, Aimee was just happy to be able to speak with someone. The journey was miserable, the rain had set in only an hour into her travels and the early night sky had already drawn in. The sound of rain hitting the old black London cab filtered out most of the silences during the short ride from the train station to her new home.

As the cab pulled up, Aimee looked at the renovated, modern looking building she would be living in. It was hard to make out much detail in the night with the rain covered carriage windows but she could make out it was the right place from the pictures she had seen online when she applied for the tenancy. She paid the fare, stepped out onto the street, avoiding the huge puddle by the side of the road and with her luggage, made her way to the building's entrance before buzzing the apartment number. There was no answer on the intercom, but the magnets released on the main door, inviting Aimee to open the door fully.

Inside, the building was rather modest. No particular grand features or artwork “and no bloody lift”, Aimee noted to herself. She made her way up the stairs to the third floor and was greeted by her new flatmate who was waiting for her in the hallway.

“Hey, you must be Aimee”, said an excited voice.

Aimee looked up to see a girl, a couple of years older than her, casually dressed in blue jeans and a black hoodie.

“Heya, that’s me! I’m guessing you’re Bethany?”

The girls smiled at each other to acknowledge one another before Bethany helped Aimee with her luggage down the hallway and into her new home.

“How was your trip? Didn’t you come from Scotland or something, you don’t sound very Scottish?”

Aimee laughed lightly before responding - “I’m from the Midlands, I just graduated from St Andrews and the trip was boring as hell”.

“Oh cool, what did you study”?

“Computer Science”

“Ahh, computer geek, I gotcha”

“Something like that, I guess”. Aimee felt a little annoyed that three years' hard work could be summed up in such a disparaging way.

Bethany completely ignored Aimee’s disgruntled answer and continued with her questions. “So what brings you to London?”.

“I’ve been hired by a stockbroker in The City as a data scientist and needed somewhere to stay as the commute from my parents would have been impossible”.

“That makes sense”, Bethany replied, placing Aimee’s holdall by the front door.

“What about you, what do you do?” Aimee asked.

“I’m a manager of a high end jewellery store in the West End”

“Oooh nice! I would be way too tempted to spend all my money if I worked around jewellery all day” Aimee joked.

“The temptation is real, for sure”.

Aimee glanced around the apartment as she hung her coat on the rack next to the front door. It was fairly modern and nicely furnished. The layout seemed simple with a main living space which included a kitchen to one side of the room with an island which paired as a breakfast counter nicely separating the kitchen from the communal area. The main body of the room had a long sofa, two matching arm chairs, some bean bag chairs, a TV and coffee table. One wall running across the living area was a huge glass window looking out onto some other buildings. The walls were fairly plain with a couple of big pieces of art work to break up the white walls. In the corner of the kitchen were two doors and across the room opposite the kitchen space were three doors, one of which was the front door that she had just walked in from.

“That is my room”, said Bethany pointing to one of the doors leading off from the kitchen and that is the utility room pointing to the farthest door in the corner. “Then working down the other side you have your room, then the communal bathroom. I have my own en-suite bathroom so I suppose you will use this more than me anyway along with any friends we have over. The last door is obviously the front door”.

“That’s great, thank you”, Aimee responded as she smiled and continued to familiarise herself with the space. “It’s a really lovely apartment”.

“It has its good points and bad”, but overall I can’t grumble. The landlord, Nick, is pretty low key and you probably won’t see much of him”.

After two years of sharing a cramped three bed terrace house in Scotland, this felt like luxury to Aimee. “There is literally so much space and so open planned”, Aimee thought to herself before being interrupted from her day dream…

“Oh, the rain got you good Aimee. Now you know where the bathroom is, you must be wanting a shower before you settle in?”

Aside from the few steps between the taxi and the building, Aimee hadn’t really been in the rain at all. She looked down at her clothes and felt her hair and all seemed fairly dry. However it had been a long journey and she did feel like a shower would do her some good.

Aimee walked over to the door identified as her bedroom and searched for the light switch with her hand before illuminating the space. She pulled in her luggage and set it against the wall.

Her room was a decent size. It had a double bed with bedside tables either side. The walls were again painted naturally white and there was another door assumed to be a small built-in wardrobe. The window in the corner of the room looked so small in comparison to the huge glass wall in the main part of the apartment, but it was a normal size with a white roman blind.

“Here, you can have this, it’s clean”, said Bethany standing in Aimee’s bedroom doorway handing her a folded towel. “I can’t imagine you wanting to unpack right now. There’s shampoo and everything you’d need in the communal bathroom”.

“Thank you”, replied Aimee as she made her way out of her bedroom and into the bathroom, closing the door behind her.

Aimee closed the door, noticing there was no lock but it didn’t phase her. After sharing with two other girls the past couple of years in Scotland, she had become accustomed to just getting on with things. She placed her towel over the heated towel rail and turned on the walk in shower.

“Hey, Aimee?” The voice of Bethany carried through the bathroom door.

“Yeah”, Aimee yelled back to compensate for the noise of the shower as she sat on the lid of the toilet taking her shoes off.

“I was going to order us some food but the WiFi has gone down and my phone’s out of data. Can I use yours”

“Sure”, Aimee replied loudly as she battled getting out of her skinny jeans. “It’s in my coat on the rack as you walk in”.

“Great, thanks”.

Aimee was now naked, the full length wall mirror which ran across one side of the bathroom made it impossible for her not to look at herself. At twenty one years old, Aimee was slim but had decent enough curves. Her long brunette hair ran down between her shoulder blades to her mid back, her 36C breast size was modest but ample and her pubic hair was full but neatly trimmed.

Aimee walked into the shower, and had just slipped her hands under the spray of the shower to test the temperature before she heard Bethany’s voice bellowing out at her once again.

“What’s the code to get into your phone”

“Two, Zero, Zero, Two”, Aimee shouted before getting into the shower.

Whilst Aimee showered, Bethany sat on the big sofa in the main living space with a glass of red wine. After ordering food for the pair on her own device, she began scrolling through Aimee’s phone sending screenshots to herself of information she thought would be useful for what was about to go down that evening.