Heller’s Decision (9 page)

Bick hung up eventually, having organised
a date with Dixie for that night. A huge grin spread across his
face that stayed there for the rest of the day. He wanted to see
more photos of her, so we sat on the lounge together, flicking
through the photos on my phone until Busty and Roger came out of
their bedroom, rubbing their bleary eyes. Remembering how awful jet
lag could be, I suggested we go for a stroll to give them the
opportunity to stretch their legs and catch some sun. They dressed
casually in jeans and t-shirts, as inconspicuous as they could be
considering their glamorous appearances.

“
How did you choose your professional
names?” I asked them as we
sauntered through the city’s extensive botanical gardens,
enjoying the afternoon sunshine.

“Roger Harder is my real name,” said Roger,
smiling. “I was born with it.”

“Really?” I asked in disbelief. “You must
have copped it at school!”

“Sure did.”

“
And o
bviously, Busty isn’t my real name, but Biggen is. I’m Barb
Biggen to my family and friends.”

“
Maybe you were attracted to the adult
entertainment industry because of your names?”

“
Nah,” said Roger. “I discovered I had
special talents, which made becoming an adult entertainer seem like
a logical choice.” My mind boggled at the thought. Perhaps he meant
his incredible endurance or his massive todger?

“
I suffered from a terrible learning
disorder when I was younger, resulting in me being a virtual
failure at school,” admitted Busty. “That ruled out a lot of
careers for me. I kind of fell into the industry when I was
eighteen as a way of making money, and I’m still doing it fifteen
years later.
I’m too
short to be a model and I’ll admit I’m not that great an actor, but
I do have a hot body and I’m very, very good at fucking.” She
shrugged. “So it made sense to me to earn a living from
that.”

Okay
, I thought, trying not to look shocked by her
blunt self-assessment of her talents. Bick was less successful in
that respect, his eyes almost boggling from his head.

I burned with curiosity. “Do you think you
need to be somewhat of an exhibitionist to work in that
industry?”

The married couple smiled at each other,
their fingers entwined. “It probably helps,” said Roger.

“
You certainly have to be proud of your
body and not be shy. You’re performing one of life’s most intimate
acts in front of a production crew for the whole world to view and
judge.”

“
So you have to be able to distance your
emotions from the action.” Roger
said. “Sure, it’s sex, but it doesn’t mean
anything. It’s almost clinical. Even when I’m doing Barb in a film,
I’m usually quite detached about it.”

“
As am I,” she confirmed. “We’re not
thinking about pleasure
or intimacy, but about getting a good scene in one
wrap.”

“
It’s all about professionalism for
us.
We want as much bang
for our buck as possible,” Roger grinned, causing Barb to groan at
her husband’s terrible joke

I mused for a while as we strolled. “I
don’t think I’d be very good at
doing what you do. My –”
Partner? Boyfriend? Man? Lover?
“My um . . . my
thing
, Heller,
thinks the physical and emotional are too closely entwined in me to
ever be separated.”

“
Then he’s probably right. It’s really not
a career for everyone,” Roger conceded.

“
It’s amazing how many people attempt and
fail to become an adult star, thinking it’s an easy way to make
money. It’s not. It’s just as much hard work as any job,”
said
Barb. “Particularly
for the female stars. Some of what we have to do is very physical.
You really find yourself being surprisingly stretched as an
actor.”

Roger laughed heartily. “In more ways than
one
. Especially during
those multiple partner movies!”

“
Darling,” Barb remonstrated, laughing too
and swatting his arm playfully. “Don’t be so crude.”

The conversation drifted on to other
general matters. They’d certainly given me plenty to think about,
and Bick was greedily soaking in every bit of information they
shared about their unusual jobs. I didn’t know about him, but I
sure wasn’t going to be quitting my job anytime soon for a new
career in the adult entertainment industry.

Back at their hotel, they said we could
leave for the day, as they wouldn’t be going out again, planning on
grabbing room service and going to bed early to be ready for the
start of
Seductively Sextravagant
the following day. Gleeful at his early pass, Bick
drove us back to the Warehouse, and logged the vehicle in before
bounding off home, evidently eager to prepare for his date with
Dixie. I wished him luck, wondering if I should have warned him
about her predilection for taking snaps of the men she slept with
when they were naked and asleep.

I thought about that for a
while
, but decided he’d
find out for himself sooner or later.

Chapter
6

“
What’s he so excited about?” asked a voice
from behind me. I spun around, coming face to face with Farrell. I
tried to look casual,
shoving my hands into my pockets, making sure to keep my
distance. I was only too aware of the cameras above our
heads.

I
leaned my butt against the nearest vehicle. “I just fixed
him up with a date with my good friend.”

His gre
y eyes rested on my face steadily. “How are things going
between you and him?” We both understood which ‘him’ he meant, and
it wasn’t Bick.

“Good,” I said quietly, thinking sadly that
it was the longest conversation we’d had for a while.

“Is he treating you right?”

I glanced up at the cameras discreetly
positioned on the ceiling. They’d be easy to overlook if you didn’t
know they were there, but I wasn’t making that mistake again. I’d
made it a task to find out exactly where every camera was in the
building.

Farrell’s
eyes followed mine upwards to also fix on the
cameras.

“
Yes,” I answered, edging towards the
stairs. “I better go.”

“I’m here for you if you ever need me,
Chalmers.”

Our eyes met again. “Thank
you.”

My heart thumping, I scurried upstairs to
my place.
I made a quick
phone call to Dixie to warn her to play nicely with Bick, something
she, laughing down the line, categorically refused to
promise.

“He’s a big boy who can take care of himself
and I’m looking forward to finding out just how big he really is.”
She growled, an animalistic noise that didn’t make me feel any
better about Bick’s chances of making it out alive.

Later that night, after
I had slipped into Heller’s bed and he had
slipped into me, taking me without uttering one word, I drowsed
against him with happy contentment.

“
Did you enjoy meeting the adult stars, my
sweet?” he asked, gently stroking my back.

“
They’re surprisingly nice people. Very
down-to-earth. Not at all what I’d expected. And they shared lots
of really interesting information about their job.”

He laughed softly. “I hope you’re not
thinking of a career change
.”

I laughed too. “No. I don’t think I’d be very
good at that.”

“
I disagree. I think you’re very good at
that.” He leaned down to trail his lips around my breast in
increasingly smaller circles until he took my nipple in his mouth,
rolling his tongue around it. And even though I’d just had the
pleasure of a very satisfying orgasm, I arched my back towards him
to provide him with easier access. Everything he did to me always
felt so damn good.

He released my breast and sat up, looking
down at me. “What were you and Farrell talking about in the garage
this afternoon?”

I stopped yearning towards him and let my
body slump to the bed.
I
should have known better than to think that he wouldn’t have found
out about it. There was always someone in this building willing to
go running to him to tell him what I was up to every second of the
day. That, in combination with the cameras everywhere, made sure he
didn’t miss out on much that went on in the Warehouse.

“
Nothing,” I said flatly, all my desire for
him fleeing in an instant.

He grasped my chin and immobilised my
head, drilling down at me with his cold blue eyes. “What were you
talking about, Matilda?”

“
We were
just talking about Bick,” I lied. “Now, let me go.
You’re hurting me.”

“I don’t want you to be alone with him.”

That set my hackles rising. “We were just
in the same place at the same time. We exchanged a couple of words
and then went our separate ways. That’s
all
that happened. Back off, Heller.”

“
Why were you both looking up at the
camera
?”

“
Because I wanted you to know that I knew
you were spying on me,” I snapped angrily, struggling to get out of
the bed. “I guess Farrell felt the same.”

He gripped my arm and pinned me
down, looming over me. “I
wasn’t spying, Matilda. I was monitoring my property, as is my
right.”

That stung me.
“You better not be including me in any definition
of what is your
property
.”

“
I will watch over
everything belonging to me,” he said
coldly.

Inflamed
by his imperiousness, I pushed him away and
scooted out of his bed, dragging on my pyjamas as I left the
bedroom. I stomped down the stairs back to my place, flinging
myself on my bed and staring up at the ceiling, wondering if there
were cameras here inside my flat. Heller had told me that there
weren’t, but I wasn’t sure whether to believe him or
not.

Heller didn’t come down to join me, as I
half-expected him to
,
though I would have sent him immediately packing. I tossed and
turned for the rest of the night, barely sleeping a
wink.

The next morning, the first day of
Seductively
Sextravagant
, Bick and I
arrived at the hotel at nine o’clock, leaving enough time to ferry
his clients to where it was being held, ready for the doors to open
at ten. He spent the drive over telling me all about his date with
Dixie, which sounded as though it went well judging from the
incessant smile on his face.

“She’s a lot of fun,” he grinned.

“
Did you . . . you know, get it on?” I
asked, not that I had any doubt Dixie would have ravished
him.

He threw me a glance of faked virtue. “I’m
too much of a gentleman to ever reveal that.” Five seconds later,
he added, “We sure did. Like I said, she’s a lot of
fun.”

“
Geez, on the first date?
What a slut you
are.”

I thought his face was going to split in two
he was smiling so broadly. “She’s not shy about taking what she
wants.”

“
She sure isn’t,
” I agreed, remembering all the things Dixie had
‘borrowed’ from me over the years. Somehow, none of them had ever
seemed to make their way back to me.

“
And she just happened to want me. I wasn’t
going to turn that offer down, especially considering what a
chick-drought I’ve had lately.”

I shrugged.
Who was I to judge? It wasn’t as if I’d never
slept with a guy on the first date either and they were both
consenting adults. Dixie wasn’t the type to let the world slip past
her without grabbing what she desired most, and usually that was
men.

We ran out of time to chat, arriving at
the hotel. My eyes nearly popped out of my head when I saw Roger
and Barb step out of the lift to meet us in the hotel foyer. Barb
wore towering red stilettos, dressed in a very revealing skin-tight
backless, almost frontless, knee-length blood red dress, split on
each side high up her thighs. Her boobs looked like a potential
wardrobe malfunction, straining dangerously at the flimsy scraps of
material that were barely keeping her decent, her nipples clearly
discernable through the thin material. Her hair was piled casually,
but artfully, on her head, soft black tendrils escaping to brush
her bare tanned shoulders. Her makeup was trowelled on, with heavy
emphasis on her pouty lush red lips. Roger was equally dramatic in
black, pointed crocodile skin shoes, his shirt unbuttoned to his
navel, tight black leather pants snugly cuddling a highly emphatic
frontal bulge. They made a very bold and attractive couple. People
gaped at them, including the normally poker-faced, professional
hotel staff.

Bick raised his eyebrows at me and rolled
his eyes towards Barb’s cleavage, obviously deeply impressed by its
magnificence. So was I, but more with the science behind her
gravity-defying boobs, despite there being no visible evidence of
any kind of support. If I’d worn that same dress, my boobs would
have jiggled and jumbled like two rockmelons in a cycle of a
front-loading washing machine, but hers stayed pert and perky,
pointing straight ahead at all times. Perhaps she’d had some steel
girders installed when she had her boob job.