Heller (40 page)

“I tried to
have relations with –”

I punched him
again, even harder this time, merciless, not caring for his choice
of words. He sobbed piteously, tears, blood and snot streaming down
his face, more vomit dribbling from his mouth onto his shirt.

“I tried to
force myself on Miss Chalmers,” he admitted weakly, slumping
heavily. It was all I could do to keep him upright.

The wives
gasped in horror, buzzing with shocked commentary.

“But Husband,
you’ve always told us that it is a deadly sin to seek relations
outside a marriage,” voiced Mary hesitantly, confused.

“And that it
is a grave sin for a man to force himself on a woman. That is why
you always instructed us to come willingly to your bed,” said
Rebecca in a near-whisper, tears forming in her eyes.

“I am a
terrible sinner and a hypocrite. I have sought relations outside my
marriage and I have tried to force myself on a woman,” he confessed
sobbing, without even any more fist-in-the-stomach prompting from
me. His words had an immediate effect on his wives. They visibly
lost respect for him and stared at him in hurt bewilderment.

There was
utter silence in the room, except for his snivelling.

“Does one of
you wish to tend to your husband?” I asked.

There were no
takers. I didn’t blame them.

“You’re on
your own, sport. Get ready for the airport,” I spat at him, letting
him go. He collapsed onto the floor and lay there quietly sobbing.
We filed out and left him lying in pain, each of his wives throwing
their disgraced husband a look of open disgust. I took the ladies
back to the other bedroom, putting the chain on the door, where I
told them the whole sordid story. They cried piteously, all of
their illusions about the holiness and righteousness of their
husband destroyed in a few minutes. I made them hand me the
conjugal nightgown, which I ripped into as many pieces as I could,
almost frightening myself with my rage.

“You never
wear that again, okay? You have to stick together about things you
hate or that make you feel sinful. You’re six strong righteous
women against one puny sinful man. You know better than him and
you’ll win every time as long as you stick together. And no more
wives in this family. He’s got enough wives and children for any
man. Any more would be greedy. And that’s a real sin.”

They all
nodded in fear, but I could see I’d given them much food for
thought.

I mended my
appearance as much as possible, called a maxi-taxi and accompanied
the family to the airport. There was a distinctly frosty silence
between the wives and their husband. He was very subdued, walking
carefully, his nose bruising up nicely. He was going to have a
horror trip home on the plane, confined to a seat for hours. I
hugged each woman warmly and hoped that they would make some
permanent changes to their living arrangements on their return
home.

I stayed to
watch their plane take off before gratefully caught a taxi back to
the Warehouse.

First thing I
did back home was have a long, hot shower and change into some
fresh clothes. Then I cooked myself a real meal with lots of fresh
vegetables and headed down to the office. I turned on my computer
to check my emails and laughed out loud as soon as I saw its new
desktop wallpaper. It was the newspaper photo from the lecture,
with angry me in the middle of the soft, pliant wives. But Niq and
Daniel’s faces had been photoshopped onto two of the wives’ faces,
so it appeared as though they were with me, also wearing the
hideous dresses.

“Nice one,
boys,” I said appreciatively, and they both grinned in
response.

Heller was out
all day, so I didn’t see him until later in the evening, after I
had cleared away my dinner plates. I’d showered and changed into my
pyjamas and was lying on the lounge watching some mindless TV show,
ready for my own soft, quiet bed. I can’t even remember what the
show was, but it involved beautiful and serious FBI agents solving
weirdo murders in less than an hour. Brian would have laughed in
derision at the prospect. I wondered if he even watched those
shows. Then I realised that I didn’t know much about my brother at
all. He was a closed book to me.

Heller let
himself into my flat after a token knock, plonked heavily onto the
lounge beside me and heaved a huge sigh.

“Busy day?” I
enquired sympathetically.

“Very busy
couple of days. And I had to somehow fit in the rescue of an
attractively dressed staff member as well.”

“Who rescued
herself,” I reminded him.

He leaned over
and kissed me on the cheek. “What a clever woman you are, Matilda.”
I leaned against him and he put his arm around me.

“I didn’t even
use any capsicum spray either.” He laughed. I looked up at him.
“The wives wanted to know if I’m having relations with you.”

He laughed
again in surprise. “Depends what you mean by relations.”

I glanced
away. “Your men think we are. Sleeping together, I mean.”

“No, they
don’t. Why would they?”

“I overheard
some of them calling me your little fuck-buddy.”

He was
immediately angry. “Who said that?”

As if I was
going to tell him. They were my colleagues, and I’m not someone who
goes running to the boss telling tales. “What’s the point in
knowing? It’s my problem, not yours. They probably think you’re a
legend. Anyway, you can’t change what people think.”

“I can,” he
said grimly. I was pretty sure that I didn’t want to know how he
could, so I tried to lighten up the conversation again.

“I told the
wives that we weren’t having relations. Because you’re my
boss.”

“I’m happy to
change the status of that at any time.”

“What?” I
said, deliberately misunderstanding. “You don’t want to be my boss
anymore? Are you firing me?”

“No, my sweet.
That wasn’t what I meant, as you well know.” He kissed my forehead
and stood up to leave, stretching. He glanced down, noticing the
bruising on my thighs that was visible in my boxing shorts pyjamas.
I hadn’t planned on mentioning what the Pastor had tried to do to
me to anyone, but I hadn’t been expecting visitors, otherwise I
would have covered up until the bruises had faded. His face
hardened. “Matilda? How did you get those bruises? Did something
happen when those men kidnapped you that you haven’t told me
about?”

I was ashamed
to tell him, secretly feeling that I had brought it on myself
somehow with my clothes or my behaviour, even though I knew that
wasn’t true and I shouldn’t think like that. I knew that rape was a
power act, a dominance act, a hate act, not a sex act, and the
Pastor couldn’t stand to have a woman around him who wasn’t
subjected to his control over her body and her behaviour.
Nevertheless, I couldn’t face Heller and spoke down to the
floor.

“No, it wasn’t
Alan and Jonno. They’re nice guys. It was that Pastor. He tried to
force himself on me this morning. He said I was a temptation sent
by God and that he had to conquer my sinfulness. It was such a
frightening experience. I lost control of the situation for a
while. I always thought I’d be able to fight back if someone
attacked me like that. It was terrifying to be overpowered so
quickly and to feel so helpless. He almost raped me! I was lucky I
caught a break and was able to fight him off in time.”

He stood as
still as a statue, fists clenched, his face forbidding. His whole
body was coiled tight with incredible anger.

“They’re on
the plane back to the States, Heller. He’s gone. And in a lot of
agony too, I hope. I gave him a lot of pain to remember me by.
There’s nothing you can do about it now.”

His voice was
harsh. “Why didn’t you call me? I would have dealt with him.”

“I know and I
thought about it. I thought about ringing the police too.”

“Never ring
the police about my business, Matilda,” he rebuked instantly, in a
voice that warned me that he was not joking. “Always ring me or
Clive and nobody else. We’ll decide if the police need to be
involved.”

I thought
about that for a moment and nodded to show that I’d heard and
understood, although it worried me. I realised that he’d had an
unpleasant experience with Brian, but I’d come from a middle-class
background where I’d grown up thinking of the police as people to
trust and the ones to turn to in times of trouble. I’d never really
met anyone before who had such an ingrained distrust of them and I
wondered if Heller ever took on assignments that weren’t quite . .
. legal.

Pushing those
concerns to one corner of my mind for now, I realised that he was
watching me closely as if trying to read my mind, so I pressed on
with my story. “Relax, I didn’t ring them. Instead, I decided on a
different plan of revenge, one that I think will have longer-term
repercussions for him than you beating the crap out of him.” And I
told him in detail about what had happened and what I had done. He
smiled grimly when I mentioned the half-arsed marriage proposal,
but didn’t interrupt. “Is this going to keep happening?” I jumped
up in sudden agitation and started pacing around the living
room.

“What?”

I stopped
pacing and turned to look at him. “I’ve only been working here a
few months, and twice already men have tried . . .” I took a deep,
shuddery breath, “have tried to assault me. That’s not going to
happen with every job I do, is it? Because I can’t handle that,
Heller. It’s such a frightening experience to go through.” And I
had to sit down again, my legs trembling, the day’s events finally
catching up with me.

He sat down
next to me again and took my hand gently in his. “I don’t know. I
hope not. This line of work can be dangerous and we’re frequently
dealing with people who don’t believe that laws and social rules
apply to them, because they’re rich or famous. You’re an attractive
young woman, Matilda, and you’re going to draw the attention of a
lot of men.” He smiled at me in an appealingly self-deprecating way
when he said that. “Some of them aren’t going to be decent or
reasonable. Some of them aren’t going to care if they hurt others
as long as they get what they want. And sometimes what they want
might be you. If you’re very concerned about your safety, perhaps
you shouldn’t get your licence? Maybe stay with the softer client
work instead? I didn’t hire you for this kind of work anyway.”

I didn’t want
him to think I was a wimp. “No, I want to get my licence. I want to
be a security officer. But keep me away from the perverts.”

He smiled
again, regretful. “I’ll try, but they’re not always easy to spot.
You’re an intelligent and resourceful person but I worry about you
a lot, Matilda. There’s something about you that attracts trouble.
I’m going to book you into those courses straight away. I’d feel
better knowing you had some good training in self-defence. And I’m
going to have to watch you even more closely from now on.”

“You don’t
need to do that. You don’t do it for any of the other staff. I can
look after myself. Haven’t I proven that? I bet you don’t ring any
of the men ten times a day to check on them.” I was becoming
seriously annoyed with him, so he cleverly changed the subject in a
very effective way.

“That’s quite
bad bruising,” he said, looking down and gently running his fingers
over my thighs. I bit off my moan of pleasure. “Do you want me to
kiss it better?”

I thought for
a second about Heller’s head down in my lap, his lips on my thighs.
Oh God! What a temptation. But no! I stood up so quickly I felt
dizzy.

“I’mreallytiredgottagotobednow,” I shot out rapidly in one word,
ushering him to the door with indecent haste. He turned at the door
and smiled down at me in such a knowing, arrogant way that I was
glad I had sent him packing.

The next day I
at last plucked up my courage and rang Will. He was flatteringly
pleased to hear from me and promptly suggested that we meet for
coffee that afternoon. I agreed and we arranged to meet at a cafe
in the city after school had finished. I managed to cadge a lift
with a couple of the security guys who were going off to a job, but
arrived far too early and whiled away the time with some idle
window shopping. It was something I’d done a lot of when I was
‘between jobs’ and as I gazed at the luxurious goods displayed
enticingly in the window of a smart boutique, I realised with a
shock that I was now flush enough to buy those things right then if
I wanted. It was a great feeling.

After forty
minutes of time-wasting, it was respectably close to our meeting
time and I walked briskly to the cafe. I spotted Will already
sitting in a booth, looking as nervous as I felt, his curly brown
hair as wild as I remembered. He stood up when I approached and we
kissed each other on the cheek in an awkward, self-conscious way.
We ordered our coffees and hesitantly conversed. It wasn’t long
though before the comfortableness we felt together the other night
returned and we were chatting and laughing with ease.

“You look so
different today than you did the other night,” he commented at one
point, his chin on his hand. I liked the way he gazed at me, his
soft brown eyes showing his strong interest. “You looked incredible
that night, very sultry. But today you look so sweet, angelic
almost. Like a different person altogether.”

“I’m two
personalities for the price of one,” I joked lightly.

“I’m having
trouble deciding which one I like more,” he smiled. He had a lovely
smile.

We had long
finished our coffees and he suggested we take a stroll around the
city’s botanical gardens. Somewhere in the rose garden, he captured
my hand in his and smiled at me, and we held hands for the rest of
our walk. We talked about everything and found similar preferences
in music, movies and books.