The sun was still high in the sky as Jenner was getting home, lost in the smell of neighbours barbecuing as his mouth began to water and images of searing meat filled his day dreams. Owned mostly by absentee landlords who collected rent through property managers, the majority of the houses in this part of town were separated into flats and completely neglected by their often times poor tenants. The measly stipends paid to the property managers never seemed to be quite enough of an incentive for them to take care of the old buildings either so their paint had chipped and their floor boards sagged for decades now.

Turning the corner to his street, Jenner was so distracted by thoughts of food that he didn't even realize there was a girl standing on the sidewalk outside his home. Music pounded through his head phones, his shoulders were bobbing and his eyes were on his keys as he stood by the front door, trying to remember which was the one that fit the deadbolt.

"Hello," the girl said, awkwardly adjusting her thick framed glasses. Jenner didn't turn around though so she reached out to tap his should.

"Shit!" Jenner spun around, his hands clenched into tight fists as he prepared to defend himself. After looking the girl up and down, taking in the two black braids which covered her ears, her big glasses and floral dress, he sighed and removed his headphones. "Oh...uh...hi, can I help you?"

"Yeah, um...sorry about that." The girl grabbed her elbow behind her back and looked away.

"No, no! It's fine, I'm just jumpy you know?"

"I didn't mean to um, scare you or what ever." She was looking more and more embarrassed as she stood there, not even daring to raise her eyes to meet his.

"What? No, it's fine, really."

"Okay...sure..." The girl took a deep breath and exhaled rather loudly, which was followed by a moment of silence where the two of them simply stood and stared. Jenner looked at his watch and nodded, rolling his eyes.

"Sorry lady, is there something I can do for you or what? I'm kinda busy."

"Yeah, there is something."

"Oh my God!" Jenner reached out and pushed the girl's shoulder with a grin. She looked frightened but he didn't notice, "You're that girl! The one who's going to look at the room today?"

The girl bit her lip and Jenner noticed a quick change of emotion in her eyes, like a flash of comprehension. "Yeah, that's me."

"I'm so sorry man, I totally spaced! Come on in!" Jenner tried a few keys before he got the right one and slammed his shoulder against the door to swing it open. "It kind of jams up a little."

"Yeah...I can see that." The girl stepped over the threshold to see two more doors inside and Jenner was fiddling with the locks of the one on the right.

"Sorry, what was your name again?" Jenner pointed back at the girl as he figured out the proper key for the inner door.

The shy girl seemed to wait forever before finally answering, Jenner wondered if perhaps she was having second thoughts about subletting the third room, but finally she said, "Matilda Mae Lockehart."

Jenner snorted and turned to look at his potential new roommate. "Well Matilda Mae Lokehart, I'm Carlos Juan-Pedro Costas." He held out a hand and winked down at her. "People call me Jenner though."

"Oh..." Matilda scrunched her brows, shaking his hand. "That...makes sense I guess."

"Does it?" Jenner finally opened the door and started to climb the narrow staircase that led to his upper floor flat.

"Well...no not really,"

"No, not at all!" Jenner laughed again before turning to look up the stairs. "Duchess! Are you home?"

"Duchess?"

"She's my roommate, possibly yours too if you so choose."

"And her name...is Duchess?"

"...Yeah..." Jenner blinked at Matilda, the look on his face clearly broadcasting to her that he felt there was nothing unusual about his roommate's name.

"Oh God, do you really have to be so loud so early in the morning?" Duchess came into view at the top of the stairs, showing off her mahagony skin in short black shorts and a bra. Her frizzy dark hair was tangled in a nasty looking knot on the left side of her head and she held a cigarette in one hand while the other reached up to light it.

"Duch, it's five pm."

"What?" Duchess cocked a brow and scratched the mass of hair on her head. "You don't say..." She took a long drag and began to exhale with a moan, her body seemed to become more relaxed and her head rolled back as she spoke around a mouthful of rancid smoke, "Who's the broad?"

"Duchess, this is Matilda Mae Lokehart, she's here to look at the room."

"Oh shit!" Duchess suddenly snapped to attention. "I forgot, gimme a sec okay? Don't move." She disappeared and Jenner could hear dishes banging in the kitchen. He felt cramped in the narrow space with Matilda; she was almost touching him and he could see that was making her a little uncomfortable.

"Is she...is she always dressed like that?" Matilda continued to avoid eye contact as Duchess flew past the stairwell with a rushed apology and a promise to allow them into the apartment soon.

"Well...in all fairness, yes. But only when she's in the house."

"One second! I'm almost finished!" Duchess called down the hall.

"Though...to be fair I don't really remember the last time she actually did leave the house..."

"What do you mean?" Matilda sounded suspicious but Jenner laughed.

"She just...likes it here...like, maybe too much."

"Oh..." Matilda said with a slow nod then the two went quiet again.

"Okay!" Duchess finally leapt back into view at the top of the stairs, she was breathing heavily and had put on a leopard print tank top. "I'm ready," she said as she tried to get a brush to tame her wild hair, cigarette still held tightly in her lips.

"Well, maybe I should reintroduce you. You're like a whole different person with clothes on," Jenner smiled.

"Ha ha." Duchess stepped aside to allow Jenner and Matilda into the apartment. "Don't bother, I'm Duchess, this is Jasmine."

"Um...Matilda, actually." The girl twisted one of her braids and Duchess squinted at her.

"No, I'm pretty sure you said Jasmine on the phone."

"I don't think so...because my name is Matilda."

Duchess' head twisted ever so slightly to one side, her cigarette gave her a smokey halo as she shrugged and finally extending a hand for Matilda. "Either way, it's nice to meet you."

Matilda quietly shook Duchess' hand, and the three of them stood awkwardly staring at each other for a second.

"I guess you'd like to see the place?" Jenner finally said and Matilda nodded, "Great, we'll start with the kitchen then?"

Jenner was shocked at the state of the kitchen, every last dirty dish had disappeared and he knew that Duchess couldn't have cleaned them all so quickly

"Um, is that mould?" Matilda pointed to a black stain on the ceiling and Jenner cupped the back of his skull with his right hand.

"Yeah, probably, but I mean there are plenty of things that make up for that in here...like the cupboard space!" Jenner gestured to the line of old cupboards on the wall, some of their doors had fallen off and as Jenner reached out to open the nearest one Duchess screamed out in protest. Dirty dishes tumbled from the cupboard and cascaded over Jenner's head, he shielded himself with his arms as plates and pots bounced off of him and onto the counter. A glass landed on the floor and smashed while Jenner and Duchess smiled awkwardly at Matilda.

"It's not normally like this." Duchess took one last drag from her smoke, tossed the butt in the sink and exhaled with a sigh.

"Sure..." Matilda nodded as Jenner pulled her into the living room. All over the walls were paintings; a still life of fruit here, a nude man over there, plenty of canvases covered in abstract lines and blocks of colour. "Who's the artist?"

"Me," Duchess grinned, "I mean, that is if you count these pieces of shit as art."

"They're beautiful." Matilda moved towards one painting with red oil paint splattered over top of a black and grey background. "I love the colours of this one, and the way this red kind of suggests some sort of movement you know?"

"Uh, yeah sure." Duchess shrugged her shoulders as Matilda was shown to the empty spare room.

"And this is your room!" Jenner presented the space with his arms open wide and a goofy grin plastered on his face.

"It's a little...small." Matilda chewed the inside of her mouth as she looked around the empty room. The walls were a faded beige, the grungy looking carpet was thread bare and spotted with old stains.

"Yeah, I guess so." Jenner shrugged.

"But the closet!" Duchess sprang into action and threw the closet door open. "Look at how big this bad boy is!"

Matilda didn't say a word, she simply stepped out into the hall to go examine the bathroom. Jenner gave Duchess a look that seemed to say 'We're blowing this,' but to his surprise Matilda's voice rang out from down the hall. "When can I move in?"

"When ever you want." Duchess' tone was flat and bored, but she flashed an excited smile towards Jenner.

"Maybe next week? I don't have a lot of stuff, but I need to rent a truck to move my bed."

"Yeah, that's great!" Jenner nodded. "Feel free to ask for help if you need any."

Matilda nodded and the three of them stood in the empty room for a little while, not saying anything. Matilda smiled awkwardly at Duchess, then in Jenner's general direction -- though still not looking him in the eye. "I should get going I guess, I'll see you guys next week?"

Duchess and Jenner nodded, playing it cool until Matilda was out of the apartment. Duchess then leapt into the air with a squeal and landed in Jenner's arms as she wrapped her legs around his waist. "We finally found someone! This is so great!"

"Yeah, it's awesome, here's hoping SHE has a job."

"Hey, I'm looking okay? I'm just too much of a free spirit for the lame jobs in this shit hole town."

"Yeah, just keep telling yourself that." Jenner put Duchess back down and disappeared into his room.

"Where are you going?" Duchess asked, using a tone similar to that of a whining dog.

"I have work to do, you'll never guess what happened today!" Jenner told Duchess the story of the car accident as he sat at his desk. While he waited for his old PC to boot up, he fidgeted with a pocket knife that sat beside the monitor.

"That sounds intense, anyone die?" Duchess called out from her own room.

"Yeah, the driver of the mini van, and the passenger in the sedan."

"No way!" Duchess came into Jenner's room with a multi-coloured glass pipe in her left hand and a lighter in her right, "And you were just sitting there drinking coffee with your bitch mother when this happened?"

"Hey!" Jenner slammed the blade into a chipped off corner of the desk.

"What, you know it's true, she's a bitch! Even you call her that."

"Yeah, but I came out of her, I'm allowed to call her what ever I want."

Duchess threw herself onto Jenner's bed holding her lighter over the pipe and inhaling the burning smoke. "You wanna get high?" She asked, holding her breath.

"Nope, I gotta post this quick, people have been waiting for an update. Every time I get stoned with you I just forget everything else in my life."

Duchess laughed and thick clouds of fowl smelling smoke billowed out of her mouth, "Funny, that's why I smoke so much."

"To forget?"

"No, to read your crappy blog posts!"

"Shut up!" Jenner shook his head while Duchess laughed, then he turned back to the glowing monitor of his computer. He noticed three new messages in his inbox, and lazily browsed through them before getting to work. The first was a poorly spelled letter from some young fan who just wrote to say, 'i luv ur blog 2 much'

Jenner rolled his eyes and deleted it without a second thought then stopped at the second one, smiling to himself. "Hey, I have another secret admirer."

"That doesn't surprise me, half the trashy bitches reading your blog get wet at just the thought of blood. You're giving them a whole new outlet for their perversion."

"I don't think this one's like that Duch, listen to this, 'Although I've never seen your face, I think your style of writing is beautiful. I can spend hours reading your words and imagining you're here beside me, whispering your stories from my pillow until the sun comes up.'"

"Creepy!" Duchess pretended to wretch and laughed as Jenner blushed.

"It's not creepy, she actually sounds really nice."

"'Nice'?" Duchess scoffed, "Jenner I've lived beside your bedroom long enough to know that 'nice' is NOT your type."

"Yeah, well, people change." Jenner turned back to his computer, hearing his mother's words in his head as he scratched his scraggly stubble. The last new message wasn't anything surprising, some crazy fanatic begging for more information about a murder he'd blogged about two weeks ago. People loved to pump Jenner for more information, as if he was in on some juicy secrets he withheld from the public for fun.

Duchess put her pipe on Jenner's bedside table, pushed his dirty laundry onto the floor and rested her head on his pillow while he typed away. He uploaded parts of his video, careful not to include anything that would reveal the identity of the onlookers, and grinned at the finished product.

"Another grizzly car wreck presented to the fans, another day complete!" Jenner smiled and turned to look at the mess of his bedroom. "Now, I could clean up this sty, or go cook something for dinner."

"Oh! Oh! Cook dinner! I vote for dinner!"

Jenner stared at her with blank eyes, "You think if I cook something you're getting any of it?"

"Oh please? You know you're a way better cook than me!"

"Yeah, I also know I'm the only one who pays for any of the food around here."

"Please?" Duchess pouted at Jenner and he sighed.

"Fine, we'll eat dinner...I'll just have to clean up later."

"I don't even think it's that messy in here..." Duchess said as she stood up and stretched.

"Well, I've seen the mess you live in, by your standards my room is like a five star honey moon suite."

"Well, it's definitely seen enough action to be classified as one."

Before Jenner could head to the kitchen he heard a sound from his computer alerting him that he'd received an instant message. "Go start chopping some onions okay? I'll be right out."

"Oh, not onions again!" Duchess sighed as she walked with heavy feet out of Jenner's room. "They always make me cry, then my mascara runs and you know that's not a good look on anyone!"

Jenner ignored Duchess as she disappeared into the kitchen, he sat back down at the computer and read the IM from someone who's username was 'vampstorian17.'

"Have you received my private message? Please, can you provide me with anymore information on the Rutledge murder?"

Jenner realized this must have been the fanatic and shook his head. "Sorry man," he typed, "I don't know anything that I haven't already posted."

After a short wait, a reply jingled through his speakers and Jenner read it impatiently, "Please, this matter is of a most pressing nature! I must know more about Mr. Rutledge's death. The scene you described seemed quite gruesome and bloody, have you learned of any other such murders? Was the body arranged in a suspicious way? What about his neck and wrists, were they intact when the body was discovered?"

Jenner didn't quite know how to respond to this guy, his grammar and spelling were much better than most fanatics he came across, but his curiosity was also much more intense. "Dude I already told you I don't know anything else about it. You'll have to go get your jollies off somewhere else."

"Please, if you hear of anything like this happening contact me right away!"

"Yeah, sure, have a good life man." Jenner quickly switched off his computer and shook his head, his skin crawled a little as he thought of the creepy fanatic but he pushed his anxieties aside as he went to join Duchess in the kitchen.