The Look of Love Read online

  DAVID GEORGE RICHARDS is married and lives in Manchester, England. He has been writing for several years on a regular basis. He writes science fiction, thrillers and romance stories with particular emphasis on leading female characters. Visit his website at www.booksandstories.com.

  Also available by David George Richards:

  Romance

  An Affair of the Heart

  The Look of Love

  The Dreamer

  A Fine Woman

  Mind Games

  The Friendly Ambassador Series

  The Beginning of the End

  A Gathering of Angels

  Changes

  Walking with the Enemy

  The Twelve Ships

  In the Shadow of Mountains

  The Lost Girls

  The Return of the Sixpack

  The Tale of the Comet

  The Dragon King

  The Althon Gerail

  The Sullenfeld Oracle

  The Look of Love

  by

  David George Richards

  Copyright 2012 David George Richards

  Smashwords Edition

  Licence Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  All rights reserved.

  You can’t win unless you play the game. The problem is knowing what the game is and who else is playing.

  Chapter One

  Wednesday

  Manchester Metropolitan University was a new start for Louise, a new beginning. She had even moved out of her parent’s house. They didn’t put up much resistance. Her mother and father both loved her very much, even though they knew about her sexuality. Louise was sure that they didn’t really understand how she felt, but they did their best, and they had accepted it. In a way she thought that her father was relieved. He often joked that at least he didn’t have to worry about her being made pregnant by some hairy git of a boy.

  Her parents had helped her set up home in a flat in Sale in south Manchester. It was quite big, really. Three self contained rooms on the top floor. At the top of the stairs the front door opened directly onto her lounge, inside there was only a small alcove to hang up her hats and coats. The lounge itself was quite large. She had carefully arranged a sofa and chairs around the fireplace, their focus being the fire and the television. There was a dining table and four chairs, and various cupboards and shelf units. On one side of the lounge were two windows overlooking the road outside, and at the back was a kitchen area with a cooker, fridge and a washer. On the other side of the lounge were the doors to two bedrooms and a bathroom. Both bedrooms were nice and roomy, and the bathroom had enough space for a bath and shower.

  She and her mother had spent ages rearranging and buying more furniture, and her father had done most of the decorating and painting. Now everything was just how Louise wanted it. It was home, and it was all hers. At first she was really happy, but then she began to feel lonely. It was that same familiar feeling. Her environment had changed, but her dreams and her yearning hadn’t.

  It was Wednesday, and she was on her way to the University. She had got off the tram in St Peter’s Square and was now walking down Oxford Street. Like usual her mind drifted to thoughts of companionship and her continued lack of success.

  Louise was sure that she was pretty, a bit plain maybe, but still pretty. She certainly wasn’t ugly. She paused to glance at her reflection in the glass window of the Box Office of the Palace Theatre. Louise was nineteen, five-foot-three, with shoulder length light brown hair and brown eyes. She had a slim, but shapely figure that was clearly visible in the jeans and tee-shirt she wore. So why couldn’t she find anyone to love? Why couldn’t she find someone to love her? What she wanted wasn’t so unusual was it? Other people found partners. There were lots of beautiful women and handsome men all around, and they all seemed to manage all right, they all found one another.

  And it wasn’t as if she hadn’t had any admirers, so she couldn’t be that bad. But they were always admirers that she didn’t want and had turned away. And whenever that happened she would often wonder if she was being too fussy. But why should she accept the advances of someone she didn’t like just because they made them? She had to be happy, too, didn’t she? It was only fair, wasn’t it? So why couldn’t she find somebody that she did like? Someone who she could love as well as being loved by? But Louise already knew the answer to that question.

  Louise’s problem was twofold: Firstly, she had a particular kind of companion in mind, and secondly, she was rather timid. If a situation did occur, she would hesitate, and it would be gone. And then she would play it over in her mind for days and days afterwards.

  Life wasn’t fair.

  By the time Louise reached the University, she was feeling really depressed. It was still the first year, and she had already made plenty of friends among the other students on her course. She had also quickly found out that none of them even remotely felt the same way she did. And so far, she hadn’t found anyone she fancied either.

  Louise retrieved her bag from her locker and went to her next class.

  She was the first to reach the classroom this afternoon, and had already arranged her books, notes and pens on the desk neatly in front of her by the time the rest of the class started to come in. She looked around at her class mates. They were a mixed bunch on the Degree course on Computer Graphics. There was Benjamin and Joshua who were both from Ghana, Jo and Chrissy who were both mad on boys and going to night clubs, and who both came from the same school, Mark, James, Nikki, Susan, and Jonathan who Louise didn’t know very well, but were all very nice and polite, Jason, Anthony and Gavin, who was the joker in the class, always quick to make comments and cause general uproar, Paul, Sarah, Dawn, Rebecca and Angela.

  Her closest friend was Angela. There wasn’t anything going on between them, they were just friends. Angela had also been at school with Jo and Chrissy, and the three of them often went out clubbing together. Angela would try and persuade Louise to go with them, but so far Louise had declined.

  Louise waved at Angela as she came in, and Angela hurried to sit next to her. Angela was the same age and height as Louise, she also had the same brown eyes, but her brown hair was shorter and curly. She dumped her rucksack down on the desk and began pulling all her books out. As she spread them over the desk, she knocked Louise’s carefully arranged books all out of place.

  “You’ll never guess!” she said hurriedly and excitedly.

  “Guess what?” Louise replied without thinking as she tried to return her books into some semblance of order.

  “Tori Canyon’s turned up!”

  Louise was confused rather than enlightened by the name. “Tori who?”

  “Tori Canyon!”

  Louise turned to stare at Angela with raised eyebrows. “What are you babbling on about? Have you, Jo and Chrissy been smoking funny cigarettes in the lunch hour again?”

  “No, we haven’t!” Angela looked slightly hurt. Then she smiled and nudged Louise. “Well, not this lunch time, anyway!”

  As Angela laughed, Louise demanded, “Well who, or what, is Tori Canyon?”

  Angela turned and pointed. “Her!”

  Louise looked round to see another girl she hadn’t seen before coming into the classroom. She was fairly tall, with tangled long blonde hair. She wore a pair of torn jeans with several holes in them, and a greyis
h looking sweat shirt that hung down over one shoulder. Her face was quite striking. She had a narrow jaw line with high cheekbones, and her nose and green eyes were perfect. She was definitely beautiful, but her expression and general demeanour was sullen. She walked into the classroom as if it was an execution cell. She kept her hands in her pockets as she dumped herself down at the back of the class and sat back, gazing around. Almost immediately, her feet began moving back and forth nervously under the desk.

  As Louise stared at her in fascination, the girl saw her looking at her and immediately tilted her head to one side, crossed her eyes and made a face. Louise looked away in embarrassment.

  Angela giggled. “She’s a laugh, isn’t she?” she whispered to Louise. “She went to the same school as me, Jo and Chrissy, but I haven’t seen her since we left. If you think Jo and Chrissy are nutters, wait ‘til you meet her!”

  Louise peeped around again as the lecturer came in and the class started. She saw the look of recognition on the girl’s face when Jo and Chrissy also looked round at her and waved. The sullen expression briefly left her face, allowing her beauty to show through as she sat forward over the desk and mouthed, “See you after,” at her two old friends.

  Gavin also saw the mouthed words and stuck his hand up. “Me too!” he said eagerly.

  The girl merely held up her middle finger and scowled at him.

  Gavin pouted, and turned away pretending to cry.

  The lecturer looked up at them both and said, “Quiet! We’ve got a lot of work to get through this afternoon, so let’s get on with it. You…” he paused briefly to glance down at his class list, “…Victoria Kenyon, now that you’ve finally decided to turn up, you better get yourself sorted out. If you can’t catch up on the work you’ve missed, you’ll be referred. Got it?”

  Victoria looked even more sullen. “Yes,” she said, and after a long pause, “Sir.”

  “Then you had better find something to make notes with, hadn’t you?”

  The lecturer turned away and put his first transparency on the overhead projector. He had just started to talk when, before Louise knew what was happening, Angela reached over and grabbed a pen from her neat pile, tore some sheets of A4 paper from her pad, and quickly turned and reached out with them to Victoria.

  As soon as Victoria saw Angela, her eyebrows went up and she whispered, “You, too? What is this, a bloody class reunion?”

  “Sort of! Here, take these and get your head down!”

  “Thanks, Angela. I’ll pay you back later.”

  Angela shook her head and pointed at Louise. “Not me, her,” she said.

  Louise looked round, expecting to receive some abusive comment after her earlier stares, but was surprised when Victoria almost smiled and said, “Thanks.” All Louise could do was smile back.

  The lecture went on almost as usual after that. Gavin kept everyone awake by passing some silly comments like he always did, some of which were aimed at Victoria. She looked bored throughout, and her only retort was to stick her tongue out at him.

  Louise did her best to concentrate, watching the lecturer and taking notes without really listening. She was getting that familiar feeling again, that feeling of urgency and the need to do something, say something, anything, so long as the moment didn’t pass with some effort on her part. But the moment wasn’t now, and her fear was that, like usual, she would miss it when it came.

  Chapter Two

  Introductions

  Victoria was already with Jo and Chrissy, the three of them making plans for Friday night, when Angela introduced her to Louise after the lecture. Louise felt even more uneasy standing so close to her. She needed to say something memorable, but like usual she couldn’t think of anything.

  “I’ll pay you back,” Victoria said to her, stuffing the notes she had taken under her arm and handing Louise back her pen. “I’ve got all my stuff in the halls of residence where I’m staying.”

  “It’s alright,” was all Louise managed to say. Even Victoria’s voice was attractive. “It’s only some paper.”

  “Yeah, but I’ve got to catch up, so I needed them today.”

  Jo quickly butted in, pulling Victoria away. “Where have you been, Tori? Why didn’t you turn up on the first day?” she asked.

  “I was busy doing other things. I wouldn’t have come today, but the registrar told me I had to start attending classes or flunk out.”

  “Don’t you want your degree?” Jo then asked her. “You got three A’s, and you finished top of our year. It would be silly not to do a degree after all that.”

  Victoria shrugged. “That’s why I’m here.”

  “Are you still with Zach?” Chrissy wanted to know.

  “Sometimes,” was the almost too casual reply.

  Then Angela remarked, “I thought you’d dumped him. It would be about time.”

  Victoria shrugged again, but didn’t reply.

  Louise stood by, watching but not really listening as the four of them went back to talking about going out in the evening. It was the first time Louise had been so close to Jo and Chrissy, and she took the opportunity to have a longer look at them. Jo was quite slim with long, light brown hair and brown eyes, while Chrissy was a bit shapelier, and she was the tallest. She had brown eyes and her jet black hair was held up with a plastic clip. Louise had noticed that she always kept her hair up like that. Both Chrissy and Jo were dressed in the usual baggy tee-shirts and jeans. They were both very pretty, but in the end, it was Victoria that Louise couldn’t take her eyes off.

  Even though she looked generally scruffy, Victoria was still quite remarkable. Her green eyes sparkled. In fact, all her features were so exquisite; her face could only be described as angelic. Her blonde hair was very long, reaching down to the small of her back. It was very shaggy and slightly matted in places, with lots of loose ends. Her sweat-shirt still hung over one shoulder and Louise stared at Victoria’s exposed neck and collar bone, admiring her smooth skin. She could see the strap of her bra over her shoulder, and as she looked down at the many holes in the sweat-shirt, she could just make out the edge of the white bra through one of them.

  As she chatted with her friends, Victoria stood with her hands crammed into her pockets, pushing her jeans down slightly over her hips. Louise could just see her navel and a narrow band of skin under the tattered hem of her sweat-shirt. Louise kept her eyes on that bare skin, contemplating how beautiful Victoria’s body was. It was then that a light bulb went off in her head and she suddenly looked up at Victoria’s face and announced, “You can borrow my notes if you like.”

  Her voice had been slightly too loud, and her remark had nothing to do with the current conversation, so there was a slight pause as Victoria and the other three girls all stared at her. Louise kept going. Now that she had started she wasn’t going to give up, no matter how embarrassed she might feel. “If you want to catch up, like you said, you can borrow my notes. I’ve been to every class; I haven’t missed a single one.”

  “Okay,” Victoria replied. “I’ll see you in the Library tomorrow, about ten. Is that alright?”

  Louise nodded. “Yes, I’ll be there.”

  “Okay.”

  Victoria moved off, still chatting to Jo and Chrissy. Louise was left with Angela. She breathed out slowly, surprised and excited by her own audacity. For once in her life she had acted instead of being frozen to the spot. She felt marvellous.

  Angela smiled at her. “We’re going out for a drink Friday night. Pub then club. Come with us Louise, it’ll be a great laugh.” She nudged Louise as she spoke. “You haven’t seen Tori until you’ve seen her strutting her stuff on a dance floor! She’ll cause havoc! Come on, what do you say? Or is there really something that exciting on telly?”

  Louise stared at Angela for a moment, and with sudden determination, she said, “Alright, I will!”

  They smiled at one another, and linked arms as they walked down the corridor together. As they walked along, Louise asked, “Tell
me, Angela, why do you call her Tori Canyon? It doesn’t sound very nice.”

  “It was Jo that gave her that nickname when we were at school. I think it was the name of some ship that sank years ago off the coast down south somewhere. It was a tanker that spilled its oil and caused a big disaster. So what with her name being similar and everything, it seemed to fit.”

  “Everything?”

  “Well, you saw what Tori’s like. She was the same at school. Always brainy and together when it comes to work, but everything else, including commonsense, and she’s a complete wreck!”

  Louise felt elated. For the first time in her life she had actually done something. She had seen somebody she liked, and actually spoken to them. Of course, she had to thank Angela for the introduction. If she hadn’t gone to school with Victoria it might not have worked out so well. But it couldn’t be better. Not only was she going to see Victoria in class, but she had already arranged to meet her on her own in the library tomorrow. And on Friday night she would be going out with her! Louise felt marvellous! It was like she was a different person.

  Her change in mood must have been more obvious than even she could tell, because no sooner had she got back to her flat than her neighbour from the floor below came up to visit.

  Louise opened the door when she heard the knock and said, brightly, “Hello, Rosie, how are you today?”

  “Gosh! What a change!” Rosanna Williams replied in amazement as she followed Louise into her flat. “I thought I heard you pottering about and humming to yourself. I said to Dave, that can’t be Louise, she sounds too happy! Dave suggested you had been replaced by a seed pod during the night. So what’s happened? Have you won the lottery?”