Heller (23 page)

“We all do in
this place. I can usually control mine, but late at night when I’m
by myself, they haunt me.”

“Demons about
what?”

“What I’ve
done, what I should have done, what people have done to me.”

“This job
might give me demons, though. Dixie said I’m becoming hard
already.”

“Dixie’s
wrong. And we’ll have to be vigilant to make sure you stay away
from the side of this business that does give you demons. I
wouldn’t want that for you.”

We didn’t talk
for a while, enjoying the warm water until I couldn’t hold my eyes
open any longer. Heller, sensing my tiredness, helped me from the
hot tub and dried me off carefully.

“I’m afraid
I’m going to have nightmares tonight,” I confessed sleepily.

“I’ll stay
with you then.”

But instead of
taking me back to my flat, he took me to his. He rummaged up some
dry clothes for me, one of his t-shirts and a pair of cotton boxers
that were far too big, but which had a drawstring I could tighten
enough to stop them falling off me. I changed in his bathroom,
which was reached by walking through his large walk-in robe. I
glanced quickly at its contents while I passed through, noting its
neat military orderliness. His bathroom was also spotless and
luxuriously fitted out in black and white marble tiles. I left my
wet clothes in a messy pile on his bathroom floor and climbed into
his bed, too tired to argue when he climbed into the other side. He
slid his arms around me and pulled me to him. I relaxed in his
arms, drinking in the faint remnants of the cologne he had applied
that morning, a heady masculine scent. He moved against me,
settling himself, and I was struck by a disturbing thought.

“Heller?”

“Mmm?”

“Are you
wearing anything?”

Without
another word he released me and slipped out of bed, padding into
his walk-in robe. I heard a drawer opening and closing and a slight
rustling of cloth before he rejoined me.

“Yes,” he
finally answered. I reached out hesitantly to touch his hip, now
safely encased in a silky material. He laughed softly. “I haven’t
worn anything to bed since I moved out of home.”

“And when was
that?” I was always eager for any details about his life.

He laughed
again and kissed me on my forehead. He wasn’t going to tell me.
Neither of us said anything for a while. I thought about the day’s
events again and shifted uncomfortably.

“I hurt
everywhere,” I mumbled.

“I know, my
sweet. The pain will pass eventually.” He gently stroked my hair
and kissed me on the forehead again.

It would be
nice to be his woman
, I thought drowsily.
Maybe I should
think about it
. I tried to stay awake as long as I could to
savour the experience of being so close to him, but the warm jets
and the glass of wine had done their job and I quickly fell
asleep.

I woke once
during the night, sitting up, heart pounding, panting with fear.
I’d been dreaming about Bourbon-Breath and the sickening feel of
his hand down my pants. Panicked, I didn’t know where I was, but
then felt strong safe arms around me pulling me back down to the
bed, holding me close. I heard the reassuring murmur of Heller’s
voice in a language I didn’t understand, felt a shower of soft
kisses on my face and fell back again into deep slumber.

When I finally
awoke, I was alone. There was a note on the pillow next to me.

Don’t forget about Mrs
Hayek. H.

I groaned to
myself and gingerly got out of bed. Everything still hurt, even
more than yesterday. I limped out to Heller’s living area, taking
in the tasteful muted decor dominated by his black European
designer furniture. I went back to my flat, showered and ate. I
dressed carefully from my depleted stock of clothes and applied my
makeup, leaving my hair loose. I found an old shopping bag from
some boutique and gathered up the scarf and earrings that Lily had
bought me, the tags still intact. I was returning them to her, not
wanting to keep any memento of our relationship. I figured that my
nightmares and scars would be enough.

I rang Rumbles
and he knocked respectfully on my door after ten minutes. He
enthused about my role in what had happened yesterday, and I was
surprised to find out that Heller had been only partially teasing
me last night. His team really did give me credit for my capsicum
spray stunt, and that gave me a warm glow that lasted the rest of
the day.

Mr Hayek had
not left for his meetings when I was admitted into the suite. His
eyes grew large with interest when he noticed that I had my hair
long and loose. I forced myself to be polite and professional. Once
again he thanked me warmly for my role in Lily’s rescue and assured
me that such an incident would not occur again, because he was
sending along his faithful servant who would be in attendance at
every moment. The servant stepped out and nodded briefly, a smug
smile on his face. I nodded back, without smiling.

Lily came out
of her room, dressed very modestly, no jewellery and wearing flat,
sensible shoes. She stared at the floor for most of the time. Mr
Hayek questioned me in great detail about our proposed itinerary
for the day and I told him of the shopping we would do and the
dinner and show that Daniel had booked for us. He nodded in
approval. On our departure, Lily timidly leant up to kiss her
husband goodbye.

He grabbed her
by her upper arms and spoke sternly to her. “I want to hear that
you have behaved yourself today, Lily.” She nodded submissively and
I almost felt sorry for her. Almost.

The day passed
at a tedious pace for both of us. Lily found it slow because she
was completely restrained by the eagle eyes of the faithful
retainer who no doubt had orders to report on any transgression.
And I found it slow because I was in considerable pain and found
walking around, standing or sitting for long periods very tiresome.
At the restaurant where we ate, she made the servant eat at a table
by himself. He glowered at us throughout the meal.

“I hate that
man!” she whispered fiercely to me, careful not to look in his
direction. “He will tell my husband everything that I do. I’m
suffocating.”

“That’s for
you and your husband to sort out, Lily. I can’t help you with
that,” I said coldly. “I want to return the things you bought me. I
haven’t worn any of them. I will take them back for a refund for
you, if you like.”

“Do you hate
me that much?” she asked, a plaintive tone in her voice, eyes
sad.

I shrugged,
bored. “You’re definitely not my favourite person at the
moment.”

“Please don’t
be annoyed with me, Tilly. I really like you. And besides, I got
enough grief from Heller yesterday. Was I ever wrong about him,”
she said sullenly. “He’s nothing but a fucking arsehole.”

The servant
glanced over sharply at her heated tone. She glared at him.

“You mean when
he slapped you? He told me you had said something disgusting about
me and that you had a foul mouth. What did you say?”

She fidgeted
in her seat. “You’ll be angry with me.”

“To be frank
with you, Lily, I couldn’t possibly be any angrier with you.”

She peered up
at me, looking like a naughty child. “He was raging at me, telling
me I must be insane to slash your arm and drink your blood and that
I should get some help. It made me so angry that he thought he
could talk to me like that! I’m his client!” I didn’t bother to
interrupt to remind her that it was actually her husband who was
Heller’s client. “He’s so arrogant. I wanted to shock him.” She
paused and took a deep breath, staring at me with an uneasy mix of
defiance and guilt, then lifted her chin with renewed boldness. “I
told him that I loved drinking your blood, that it tasted as sweet
as honey, and that I couldn’t wait to taste your pussy too, because
I thought that it would be even sweeter.”

I gaped at
her, my mouth open in revulsion, then stood up, threw my napkin on
the table and stalked to the ladies’ bathroom. There, I looked at
myself in the mirror, willing my anger to subside.
Come on,
Tilly, be professional
, I coached myself. I splashed some water
on my face, patted it dry, adjusted my hair and picked a bit of
spinach off my tooth. When I felt calmer, I went and sat back down
at the table. I plastered on a game-show host, fakest-of-fake
smiles for the sake of the servant. He was watching us intently,
ready to pounce on any commotion.

“Ready to go,
Lily? I hear that the costumes in this show we’re seeing tonight
are spectacular. We won’t want to miss a moment,” and I hooked my
arm through hers and walked her outside to await a cab, leaving the
servant to pay for dinner. The show was very impressive, but I was
relieved when Rumbles picked us all up afterwards, dropping Lily
and her watchdog at her hotel and driving me home. I popped some
painkillers and went straight to bed.

The rest of
the week with Lily passed in a similar fashion. She was completely
restricted in her movements and had to tone her behaviour down
considerably. Finally, I delivered her back to her husband for the
last time, the couple due to fly out the next morning. I tolerated
Lily’s clingy and over-emotional farewell, shook Mr Hayek’s hand,
nodded briefly to the servant and went home. It was late Saturday
afternoon and I was in the mood for relaxing.

I knocked on
Daniel’s door and found him with Niq, playing a blood-splattered
shooting game on the Xbox. I cringed as I watched Niq blasting away
someone’s head into a bloody pulp of sinew and bone, Daniel
cheering him on.

“Yuck! That’s
disgusting,” I complained. “I don’t think you’re old enough to be
playing games like that, Niq.”

“Geez Tilly,
lighten up,” he moaned, eyes fixed on the TV screen as Daniel threw
a cushion at my head. I caught it and chucked it back at him.

I plonked onto
the lounge between them. “I’ve finally ditched the crazy woman. How
about a movie night at my place?”

They readily
agreed, but only if I promised to cook them dinner. I protested,
pointing out that I had been working all day and they should make
me dinner, but it was two against one so I gave in graciously.
Daniel and Niq finished their game and went to choose some DVDs
while I went to the pantry for food. I decided on lamb cutlets with
sweet potato mash and sauteed vegetables. Some fresh mango with
vanilla bean ice-cream for dessert and I grabbed some microwave
popcorn for the movie. Some juice for Niq and a couple of bottles
of shiraz for Daniel and me.
Perfecto!

I cooked
dinner and they entertained me with all of the office news. It felt
like years since I had met Lily, but it had only been a week. She
had drained the life out of me.

“I forgot to
say,” Daniel said later, his mouth full of ice-cream. “We ran into
Heller when we were going up to the library and he said we could
watch the DVDs at his place. He’s got the biggest TV you’ve ever
seen. He said to come up after dinner.”

“Excellent!” I
smiled and yes, I would be lying if I said that the thought of
cuddling up with Heller on the lounge watching a movie didn’t cross
my mind. Niq and Daniel washed up for me while I drank more shiraz
and amused them with heavily censored tales about Lily. I would
tell Daniel the whole truth later.

My place
pristine, we trooped up the stairs to Heller’s place. Niq set the
DVD up ready for watching while I cooked the popcorn. Daniel turned
off the lights and the movie started.

“Shouldn’t we
wait for Heller?” I asked, having anxiously watched for him.

“Heller’s not
here tonight,” said Daniel, reaching for a handful of popcorn. He
glanced at Niq. “He’s, er, gone out.”

“He’s
what?”

“He’s gone
out,” repeated Niq loudly, as if I was hard of hearing.

I relaxed back
on the lounge. “So he’s gone to meet a client?”

“No!” said Niq
scornfully. “He’s gone
out
!” And boring of my inability to
understand the simple concept of ‘out’, he headed to the kitchen to
pour himself another juice.

Daniel sighed
and paused the movie, before lowering his voice so that Niq
couldn’t hear, “Heller’s out on the prowl.”

“Out on the
prowl?” I felt particularly stupid tonight because I was struggling
to understand anything they said.

“He’s gone out
looking for female company. Heller’s a man. He has a man’s needs.
You know what I’m saying.” He blushed and went to restart the
movie. I stopped him with a restraining hand on his arm.

“How do you
know this? He might have gone to see a client?”

He looked at
me with pity. “Because he
told
us that’s what he was doing
tonight. He does it all the time. Every couple of weeks or so,
Heller goes into the city. It’s no secret. He lets us know what
he’s doing. He goes to one of the top hotels and picks up a woman.
Someone in town for a conference or business or just a lonely wife.
He doesn’t care. It’s all very casual. He doesn’t want a
relationship. It’s just a night of sex.” And he blushed again.

“And he brings
her
here
?” I cried in disbelief.

“God no! He
uses her room. That’s why he goes to the hotel bars. Heller would
never bring a stranger here. I thought you knew him by now?”

“Apparently
not,” I whispered to myself and poured myself yet another glass of
wine.

Niq returned
and the movie commenced, but I couldn’t tell you anything about the
plot, the actors or the special effects, of which there were many.
I was dumbstruck, my head spinning from the shiraz and from what
Daniel had told me. Heller was out getting laid with a complete
stranger. His life consisted of a steady stream of one-night
stands. He didn’t care about me. I thought that he did but I was
wrong. God, I was mortified. I had completely misread him.