Heller’s Decision (4 page)

Creaking
unpromisingly under our combined weight, the rung
on which Warren stood, that in a fair world would have held up for
just five more measly minutes, buckled and broke. So did the next
one, and the next one, Warren dropping through the air so rapidly
that I overbalanced on his shoulders and fell off him. I headed
into a frightening free fall only to be pulled up sharply by the
harness. That set off an uncontrollable pendulum effect, the
harness cutting into my groin and squeezing my butt cheeks so hard
they were pushed up and out. Warren slipped safely down the ladder
by holding on to its sides, avoiding the need to tread on any other
rung.

Twisting
up high, I swung from one side of the studio to
the other like an overgrown Peter Pan on steroids. I curved through
the air past Trent’s desk, everyone in the room, including Pei Pei,
tracking my trajectory, their heads moving in synchronicity. Though
I’d ended up facing the opposite direction and couldn’t see where I
was going, I could tell it was probably straight towards one of the
cameras.
Of
course
, I thought with
resignation, because it would be too much to expect Lady Fate to
allow me to land without causing maximum drama and cost.

The impact wasn’t good for
either the camera or me, but I
felt pretty sure I’d escaped without causing any damage to the
expensive piece of equipment. What I hadn’t expected though, was
for the impact to create a bounce-effect, causing me to swing back
in the other direction. Brady clearly hadn’t expected it either,
because he was in my way and I bowled him over with my feet from
the momentum of my arc.

“
Sorry,” I said over my shoulder, only
half-regretful – he
was
a bit of a
jerk.

Wondering
if I’d stop swinging one day or if I’d now become
a perpetual motion machine, I realised that when and if I ever did
stop, I faced an intractable problem. The length of the harness’
supporting wire still meant that I’d be dangling well above the
ground.

Warren and Chase came to my rescue for a
second time. On my
third
pass across the room, Warren reached up and grabbed me by the
ankle, jerking me to a halt. They hovered beneath me, linking
hands. My toes brushed their shoulders.

“
Unhook the harness from the wire and fall
forward. We’ll catch you.”

“Are you crazy? I’ll fall flat on my face.
I’ll break something.”

“Trust us,” said Chase.

What choice did I have?
I debated with myself. Unless I
wanted to spend the rest of my life literally hanging around this
studio, I had no choice but to trust them. And besides, who could
possibly say no to Mr October?

My hands shaking, I unhooked my harness. I
fell towards the ground, my arms out in apprehension as I did.
Between them they caught me, but as I fell, I accidently slung an
arm around each of their necks. The force of me doing that caused
them to stagger clumsily in Trent’s direction, propelling me
forward until I slammed into him, toppling his chair backwards to
the ground. I finally came to a stop straddling Trent’s neck, my
skirt still hiked up well above my thighs.

He raised a well-groomed eyebrow, his
nostrils crusty with dried blood. He held my eyes with a steady
gaze. “This will certainly be a show to remember.”

Scrambling up, red-faced, I
slumped against his desk,
rather traumatised from the whole situation and fumbling with the
harness. Warren and Chase assisted Trent to his feet, while the
cameraman did the same for Brady. Eventually freed from the
strangling straps, I pulled my skirt down to a more decorous
length, ignoring its crumpled state. I rubbed my temples, feeling a
major headache pressing in. This hadn’t been my finest moment
working for the network. In fact, judging by the thunderstorms
crossing Brady’s face as he glared over at me, I’d be lucky to be
working here tomorrow.

A screeching above us reminded us that there
was still wildlife on the loose in the studio.

“
Get down here now, monkey,” ordered Warren
in
a big, booming voice.
Pei Pei climbed down in a blink, jumped over to Julian to snatch
the melon from his hand before settling herself on Warren’s
shoulder, alternating between nibbling on the melon and nuzzling
his neck.

“She’s never done that before with anyone,”
said Julian, hurt in his eyes.

“
Must be love at first sight,” said Trent.
He glanced over to where Brady stood, glowering at me still and
rubbing the back of his head where I’d crashed into him.

“
She’s never acted so strangely before
either. My Pei Pei’s usually very calm and well-behaved, even with
sudden loud noises,” Julian added, his hurt tone increasing, but
taking the time to shoot me a dirty look. “I just can’t understand
it or explain it.”

That reminded me of the empty energy drink
can, but I had no
opportunity to retrieve it. I had to wait nervously until
eventually everyone dispersed. That had taken a while as they stood
around discussing the afternoon’s events over and over, until I
could scream. Trent insisted on carrying on with the interview with
the firemen, after a bit of non-urgent medical attention and some
much-needed concealing makeup. Viv was taken away for a scan on her
back, Seamus limped from the studio muttering about lawsuits, and
Julian had to drag a recalcitrant, clingy Pei Pei away from
Warren.

I sidled over to the can, planning on
ditching it in the bin before anyone noticed. But it was no longer
where I’d left it. Puzzled I looked up, straight into Brady’s cold,
unfriendly eyes. He held
up the can and waggled it from side to side in front of my
face.

“
Looking for this
by any chance?”

Chapter 3

The rest of my day at work was miserable.
As I always stayed until the show was a wrap, it was a long time to
endure Brady’s hostile eyes on me. He couldn’t prove anything about
the energy drink, but he clearly had weighty suspicions. Unless
Trent needed me for something, I usually paid no attention to his
live commentary, but spent the time going through possible stories
for the next week’s shows. Pumping out five half-hour shows a week
was no picnic and one show had barely finished before everyone was
thinking about the next five. But tonight I found it hard to
concentrate with those beady eyes on me and that irritating
gum-masticating, smacking noise pounding into my head with every
one of Brady’s languid chews.

When I finally arrived home, I bustled
directly to my flat. I didn’t want to speak to anyone. I just
wanted to eat, shower and settle down with a good book and a couple
of glasses of wine.

It wasn’t to be. I opened the door to my flat
to find Daniel and Niq sprawled across my lounge, feet up on my
coffee table, laughing their heads off at something they were
watching on TV.

“Guys,” I remonstrated, throwing my handbag
on the dining table and kicking off my shoes.

Daniel checked his watch. “You’re a bit
earlier than normal tonight.”

“I had to make a run for it. I was in trouble
again.”

“
With that guy Brady?”

“How’d you guess?”

“
I don’t know. Maybe it has something to do
with the fact you’ve been in trouble with him every second day
since you started there.”

“
Tell me about it.” I wanted to
lie down on my lounge, so I
threw myself across both of their laps, making them moan about my
grinding weight. “What are you watching?”

Then I noticed the familiar music of
the
People’s
Pulse
theme song and
groaned. They both laughed again.

“We recorded the show for you,” laughed
Niq.

“You shouldn’t have. Really,” I said
drily.

“
We’ve watched it seven times now,” joined
in Daniel.
“It’s just so
good!”

“
Please,
please
tell me that nothing that happened to me today was on the
show tonight. I haven’t seen the final edit yet.”

“
Let’s just say that there’s a new villain
in the world,” smirked Daniel. “The Flying Buttocks of
Disaster.”

“
What are you talking about?” I asked, my
heart sinking.

I snatched the remote control from his
hands and sped up the footage through the first few stories to the
panel discussion. Except it hadn’t been presented as a panel
discussion on animal rights. It was now a story about the chaos
that ensued when animals went wild on TV. Seamus had been
completely edited out. I clamped my hands over my face, barely
daring to peek out between my fingers at the screen.

“
Oh, my God. Mum and Dad watch this show!”
I groaned again as I watched. “That damn Brady could have turned
the camera off at least.”

My heart sank down into my shoes when the
highlight of the segment was shown. It appeared to be footage from
the camera into which I’d crashed. My butt, barely encased in those
ridiculous panties, slowly swung towards the camera, its pace
deliberately decelerated for maximum voyeuristic effect. My butt
grew larger and larger as it came closer, finally filling the
entire screen before it collided with the camera and the screen
went fuzzy for a few seconds.

“
Lucky you have a widescreen TV to show all
that,” joked Daniel. I thumped him.

“
How am I supposed to face everyone
tomorrow?” I
complained,
flopping back on the lounge.

“It’s not your face everyone’s had to look
at,” Niq laughed, earning him a thump as well.

My phone rang. I answered, realising I had
thirteen messages blinking at me. I picked up reluctantly, knowing
who it would be and whom all the messages were from.

“
Tilly, it’s Mum,” she spluttered. “What .
. . How . . . I mean . . . Tonight . . . Your father and I . . .
Our
neighbours
watch
that show!”

I waited for a moment, but she didn’t say
any more. I believed that might have been the first time in my life
I’d rendered my mother completely speechless. The only thing I
could think of that would have the same effect on her was to tell
her I was ‘involved’ with Heller, but as I still hadn’t worked up
the courage yet to let her know, that was only a suspicion of mine.
I wasn’t quite sure how she’d take that little nugget of
information. I think, as with a lot of mothers, she liked to
imagine I lived a life of innocent purity emulating the most
saintly of nuns, while I waited for Mr Perfect to appear. I’d found
Mr Perfect all right, but Mr Perfect had some major flaws that I
could never tell my mother about.

She rang off, not becoming
even the slightest bit more
coherent during our brief conversation. My mobile phone immediately
rang. It was my best friend, Dixie, and all I heard down the phone
line were peals of laughter. She didn’t say a word, just laughed
and laughed and laughed in my ear before beginning to choke on her
own spit. She hung up without saying anything. She’s kind of
empathetic like that.

Miserable, I
went to my small kitchen, dismayed to find nothing
in the fridge for dinner except some withered carrots. Since I’d
stopped working for him, Heller wouldn’t let me access his
generously stocked pantry, and as I never found any time for
grocery shopping, my pantry was frequently bare these days. It was
like being impoverished all over again.

After a lot of persuasion,
Heller had allowed me to
continue to use the small car he’d bought for my exclusive use when
I’d worked for him, but I had to fork up the dough for
registration, maintenance and petrol. If I’d thought that sleeping
with him would change his mind about supporting me as someone who
didn’t earn him a profit, I was soon disabused of that crazy
notion. But although he was a hard man in many ways, some of those
ways could be very good indeed.

After much cajoling and threatening to sit
on him and kiss him if he didn’t, Daniel finally agreed to make me
some dinner. We trooped over to his flat across the hallway and I
stayed there until I couldn’t fight off my
sleepine
ss.

Heller
had told me earlier he’d be detained by a late meeting with
the night shift foreman of a huge construction site for
which
Heller’s
had
been contracted to provide security. So I didn’t bother heading up
to his place. It wouldn’t kill either of us to spend one night
apart, and, to be honest, I needed the sleep – the man was a beast
in the bedroom. As I snuggled into my own bed, I knew that he would
probably seek me out. On the rare nights where I decided I needed a
break from his intensity and didn’t visit him, he would track me
down regardless. He was insatiable.

I was fast asleep when Heller finally
arrived home. He strode into
my bedroom, pulling off his
Heller’s
shirt as he approached me and flinging it over his
shoulder. He kicked off his boots and kneeled heavily on the bed,
yanking down my pyjama boxers. He pulled my top over my head,
leaving me naked and blinking with sleepiness.

He unbuckled his belt and unzipped his
cargo pants, pushing them and his boxers down just far enough to
free his erection. He pushed my legs apart, slicked me up with his
spit and drove his hugeness into me in one hard thrust.