Heller’s Decision (8 page)

We chatted about nothing much in
particular until we reached the arrivals hall at the airport.
There, he held up a
greeting sign with the wording, ‘
Biggen Harder’
, which regrettably made me giggle every
time I glanced at it.

“
It looks as though you’re advertising
yourself,” I sniggered.

“
I don’t want to sound conceited, but big
and harder is probably a good description of me,” Bick said, trying
to look modest. That set me off into uncontrollable gales of
laughter that made people turn around to look at us in
surprise.

“
Tilly,” Bick reproached, embarrassed by
the attention. “Try to be at least a little bit professional,
please. I have
Heller’s
good
name in my care.” I rolled my eyes – he’d clearly bought into the
Heller worship virulent amongst the men. “Not to mention Clive to
worry about if you turn out to be some kind of liability for
me.”

Now
that
, I
could appreciate. The last time I’d let down Clive and Heller, I’d
been suspended from the business.

“
Stop making me laugh then,” I said, trying
to rearrange my face into a more sober expression.

I struggled mightily and finally managed
to get myself under control, but avoided all eye contact with Bick
and his
boastful sign. I
had just quelled my last renegade giggle when I saw Heller’s new
clients walking towards us. There was no mistaking the pair for
anyone else.

She was thin, medium height,
with long straight black hair,
a hard over-made up face and stunningly enormous boobs barely
contained in a white front-zippered leather top. She wore a
matching white leather miniskirt and knee-high white leather boots.
He had a sharp-featured face, sensual lips, bedroom eyes,
slicked-back black hair, tight black leather pants, black boots and
a white shirt unbuttoned to his navel, flashing tantalising
glimpses of extremely cut abs and large biceps. They were buff,
exceptionally well-groomed, smooth and tanned. They looked like
porn stars.

Noticing the sign, t
hey walked directly over to us, ignoring
the curious, admiring and envious looks thrown by the mere mortals
surrounding them. The woman looked Bick and me up and down, her
almond-shaped, topaz-coloured eyes widening with interest as she
took in Bick’s muscular body, wavy black hair, midnight blue eyes
and cheeky grin.

“
We’re Biggen Harder,” she purred, and it
was almost more than I could bear.

I pinch
ed my thighs viciously, my eyes watering with the effort of
not sniggering. But it was no use – the laughter erupted out of my
mouth and I tried to cover it by coughing, turning away.

“
Back in a sec . . .
” I gasped and ran off to find a water
bubbler, laughing all the way, tears streaming down my face. By the
time I had a few sips of water, splashed my face, thought of
something sad, thought of Heller getting angry at me for spoiling
Bick’s professionalism, and walked back, I had myself under control
and presented a calm demeanour.

“
My apologies for that. Annoying tickle in
my throat,” I said as charmingly as I could, introducing myself to
them both, still careful not to look at Bick. After all the
handshaking and ‘pleased to meet yous’, Bick hunted down a trolley.
We helped the married couple with their enormous pile of luggage,
more than anyone could ever possibly need for a visit of less than
a week. They’d brought at least four suitcases each.

It was hard to tell
if they’d expected any fans to be at the
airport to also greet them, but they’d have been disappointed if
they had, because there were none to be seen. They didn’t appear to
me to be too bothered though, probably content enough with the
attention they attracted from everybody in the vicinity. The Biggen
Harder roadshow was not something people saw every day.

We barely managed to squeeze their entire
luggage into the back of the 4WD. Bick had to push hard to fit it
in while I quickly slammed the door. We crossed our fingers that it
wouldn’t burst open while we drove, spraying unsuspecting drivers
with Busty and Roger’s probably rather exotic undies. Bick and I
took the front, leaving the backseat for the clients. After
chatting for a while, we found them surprisingly likeable –
friendly and down-to-earth. If I closed your eyes and just listened
to them, not seeing their erotic personas, I would have sworn they
were Mr and Mrs Average from London.

“
Either of you s
een any of our work?” Roger casually
asked.

“
Yes,” Bick and I said
simultaneously.

“Great. Did you watch it together? Are you
two . . .?”

“
Definitely not,” Bick assured with
indecent haste. I shot him an offended glanc
e. “Tilly and my boss are . . .” He
searched his mind for the right term, coming up with nothing better
than a generic, “You know.”

“
Involved?” suggested Busty, with
surprising tact.

“
That’s the word. Heller and she are very
involved.”

“
I can speak for myself, Bick,” I snapped
at him, annoyed. “Especially about my personal
relationships.”

“
Whoops,” laughed Roger. “Looks as though
you’ve been put in your place, mate.”

“
So how did you meet Heller, Tilly?”
asked
Busty, showing
what seemed to be genuine interest.

“I used to work for him.”

“
She was suspended for twelve
months.”

“
Bick!” I hissed at him. “They’re not
interested in my life history.”

“So working for Trent Dawson isn’t a
permanent job for you?”

“
No. I’ll return to
Heller’s
at the end of the twelve months.”

“
Won’t that be rather awkward for you?”
asked Roger, clasping his wife’s hand. They exchanged a glance. “I
know we found it difficult sometimes working together on the same
movie when we first started going out.”

“
It probably will be awkward,” I conceded,
although as most of the men had assumed I was Heller’s little
bed-buddy right from the beginning, I didn’t think it would make
too much difference. “But I’ll worry about that when it happens. I
really wanted to thank you for agreeing to be on Trent’s
show.”

“
Thanks for asking us!” laughed Roger. “We
looked up his website. It seems as though he has a huge audience.
It will be good publicity for us personally,
but also for our action group.” Busty
nodded in enthusiastic agreement.

“Action group?” I queried.

“
Yes, we set up an action group a few years
ago called Halt Unethically Made Porn, or HUMP for short. We even
called our company HUMP Productions.”

“Wouldn’t a lot of people say that all porn
is unethical?” I asked, curious.

“
We’re not talking about the morals of it,
Tilly. People really shouldn’t have any beef with material that’s
made with willing adult participants who are being reasonably paid
to perform. In those situations, it’s just a job like any other.
And it’s an occupation that suits a lot of people, because it’s
mostly well paid and flexible. What we campaign against is adult
entertainment that breaks the law, for example, material involving
underage people or sex slaves. Or violent, non-consensual porn and
snuff porn. Any kind where the participants are being coerced to
take part and are not being compensated either fairly or at all. We
want to stamp out that whole side of the adult entertainment
industry.”

“
Sounds like a worthy cause,” I commented.
“Is there much unethical porn available?”

“Unfortunately, there is. And with the growth
of the internet, it’s easier for it to be distributed and
accessed.”

“
Is there really such a thing as snuff
porn? That’s very disturbing to think about.”

“
Again, unfortunately there is. You
wouldn’t believe what we’ve seen in our research. It’s absolutely
sickening.”

“
We work with the police and other federal
agencies and pass on any information we gather,” explained Busty.
“We’re not very popular in certain sections of the industry, as you
can imagine. There’s a lot of money to be made from some of this
illegal stuff. Even by companies that appear to be legitimate on
the surface. Sometimes they have shadow companies that make and
distribute unethical material. It can be quite a tangle to sort
through the connections. They can be very unscrupulous.”

“
Trent’s going to love this,” I said,
delighted with my catch. Their story would be a guaranteed high
rater.

“
We love any opportunity to talk about this
issue. We’re very passionate about it.”

“I can see that,” I smiled.

Bick pulled up outside their hotel and we
helped them haul their vast amounts of luggage to their room.
They’d chosen to stay at one of the city’s nice five-star hotels,
happily confessing that everything, including the cost of Bick’s
services, was being paid for by the organisers of
Seductively
Sextravagant
.

While they
showered and freshened up, I rang Trent, luckily
catching him first try. He could sometimes be a hard man to track
down.

“
Hello there, beautiful,” he said. “How’s
it going?”

“
Great,” I told him. “They’re very
interested in being interviewed by you. They campaign against
illegal and violent sexual material, so are keen to publicise their
efforts. Their action group is called HUMP.”

“
HUMP, huh? Figures.
This will rate through the roof! Anything
to do with sex is a winner on the show. Tell them I’ll take them
out to dinner afterwards as well. They’ll be fascinating dinner
companions.”

“
I’m sure they’d enjoy that. See you
later.”

Roger poked his head out
of the bedroom briefly to let
us know that they planned to nap for a few hours. He invited us to
help ourselves to anything we needed.

Bick and I lounged around with nothing
much to do. I rang Heller to give him a progress report.

“Did you know that some people make snuff
porn?” I asked him, not able to get the horrible thought out of my
head.

“Yes, I’ve watched some.”

“
Heller! That’s appalling. How could
you?”

“I didn’t say I enjoyed it, Matilda.”

“
T
hen why did you watch it? It’s sickening.”

“I had no choice. It was part of my
training.”

“
Training to be what?”

He didn’t answer me directly.
“In some jobs it’s necessary,
even essential, to be able to witness anything without being
affected. It was merely a method of desensitisation. One of many
different methods used.”

“Sometimes I think I’m better off not knowing
anything about you at all.”

“
That’s what I keep trying to tell you.
Look, I really have to go. I have an appointment with a client. You
can berate me further tonight, okay?”

I turned to Bick. “Heller is one scary,
scary dude.”

“
I’m not going to argue with you about
that!” He eyed the closed bedroom door speculatively. “What do you
think they’re doing in there?”

“Sleeping. What else? They just got off a
long-haul flight, remember?”

“Maybe they’re having sex. Really dirty, hot
sex. Do you think they film themselves? Or maybe watch themselves
in the mirror?”

“
Bick!’ I looked at him, aghast. “I think
you should mind your own business. You sound like a desperate old
deviant.”

He exhaled heavily and ran his fingers
through his hair, “Aaargh! I
am
desperate! I need a girlfriend, Tilly. I haven’t had one
for ages. Do you have any single friends up for some
fun?”

My best friend
, Dixie, flashed into my mind immediately. “I do,
but she’s a bit of a man-eater.”

“
She can munch on me to her heart’s
content. Is she cute?”

“
Very.” I showed him one of the pictures of
her from stored on my phone. He grinned and nodded approvingly. But
then a frown puckered his forehead.

“
She looks
petite. I might be too big for her.”

I snorted with laughter. “She’s never met
a guy too big for her yet.”

“
Does she like black-haired,
blue-
eyed
men?”

“
She likes anything with a
penis.”

“
In that case, I definitely qualify! Give
me her number and tell her I’m going to ring her.”

Instead, I took a quick snap of him with
my phone and sent his photo to Dixie with the message,
he’s gorgeous &
he’s desperate to get laid!!
, giving her his number. Five seconds later Bick’s phone
rang. He raised his eyebrows and answered cautiously. I could tell
from the smile on his face that it was Dixie. Flattered at her
interest, he was soon laughing and flirting outrageously with her.
I leaned back on the sofa, feeling proud. I had just introduced a
horny man to a horny woman, hopefully stopping them from sexually
harassing the rest of the populace for a while.
There ought to be some kind of
award for that type of public service
, I thought to myself.