Heller's Regret (35 page)

He looked over his shoulder at me, as if
begging me to free him, but I just smiled and waved my fingers at
him. Served him right. If a person were to go looking for a very
desperate virgin, they’d have to suffer the consequences of that
virgin’s needy hunger. And this woman appeared to have moved on
from desperate to frenzied. She had a man in her grip and she
wasn’t going to let him go, no matter what. After all, we’ve all
heard that old saying,
a man in your bed is worth two on the
street
, or something like that.

The dinging brought a rush of people to the
door and I lost sight of the Old Dude and his new sweetie in the
distraction of ticket inspecting. When I glimpsed them again, she
was offering their tickets to Farrell for scrutiny. Ms Lusty had
control of both tickets, the Old Dude pale and dazed, not knowing
how he’d got to this point so quickly with her. I wondered if she’d
make him show her his Elvis moves tonight, an unfortunate thought
leading to more salacious and nauseating scenarios in my mind.

“You okay?” asked Farrell, checking me out.
“You look a little green.”

“I just thought of something that disagreed
with me.”

“Indigestion of the brain?”

“Something like that.”

He confirmed the time on his watch. “It’s
about to start soon. Do you want to go inside while I wait for any
dawdlers?”

Tom and Miriam repeated the housekeeping and
safety information, in case any attendee had suffered an attack of
amnesia overnight. They were ably supported in this noble task by
good old reliable Bobbly-Head. I wondered what it would take to
make Harriet say something – a fire in the building? Tom and Miriam
catching fire? Her own pants on fire?

The first quarter of the day was taken up
with personal testimonies from life-long virgins and born agains, a
group of people with vastly differing skills in public speaking. I
quickly grew bored of listening to endless stories about visits
from angels sent by (insert preferred god of choice) to declare
that person’s virginity now belonged to (preferred god of choice).
It sounded supremely unfair to me not to have any say in the
decision.

I would have been more interested in hearing
stories from people visited by such angels forced to regretfully
advise them they were too late because they’d already donated their
virginity to the spotty teen sitting in front of them in their
history class. Or people who said they weren’t interested –
thanks very much anyway for taking the time to drop in,
angel
– suggesting that perhaps the heavenly visitor might like
to extend the offer to whiny Gidget next door who was always
moaning about not having a boyfriend.

And why was it always angels who delivered
the momentous news? Why not a regular mail person popping in your
mailbox a package from your favourite deity containing a letter and
a chastity belt? Or a courier, not even bothering to check if you
were at home, carelessly throwing the message on your front porch,
where any of the neighbourhood scamps could steal it? Then you’d
never find out about it and would go on your merry way through life
shagging everything you could get your hands on, blissfully unaware
of your intended higher calling to purity.

I spotted poor Old Dude eyeing the door to
freedom with great longing. Ms Lusty, not one of the world’s shyest
creatures, draped herself all over him to the disapproval of many
of the virgins around them. Nobody liked PDAs at the best of times,
but they were rather inappropriate at a virgins’ conference. It
would be incredibly difficult to concentrate on resisting
temptation when the lady sitting next to you was jamming her tongue
deep in a man’s ear. Or maybe that made it easier to resist
temptation, considering the couple in question.

The last person visited by an angel rounded
up their long, boring story and the room broke for morning tea.
Farrell and I had to hasten out of the way to avoid being crushed
by the crowds fighting politely to get through the doors for a
coffee or a pee in the limited time provided.

“Geez,” I complained to him afterwards. “I
was nearly trampled to death then.”

“Don’t you know never to get between a
conference attendee and a cup of coffee?” he asked. “Haven’t you
ever been to a conference?”

“Me? Nah. Who’d waste money sending me to a
conference? Have you been to any?”

“Yep. Heller’s sent me to a couple on
security management.”

“Really? He must be grooming you for greater
things.” I was a bit peeved. Heller had never sent
me
to a
conference.

“I wouldn’t say no to a promotion at
Heller’s
.”

“What would you like to be there? There
aren’t many vacancies,” I said, though I believed the men were
sorted into senior and junior staff and paid accordingly. By now,
Farrell would have made senior officer.

“Rumbles is retiring at the end of the year.
Being Clive’s second-in-charge would suit me very nicely.”

“Rumbles is retiring? Nobody tells me
anything.” Now I was doubly peeved at being left out of the
loop.

“It’s hard to do a job like this forever.
He’ll probably get a desk job as a loss prevention officer in a
ritzy department store. With his amount of experience and skill, it
won’t be hard for him to land something cushier than the work we do
at
Heller’s
.”

“I’ll miss him. I’d love to be invited to his
retirement party. He was one of the first men I met at
Heller’s.”

“I’ll make sure you’re on the list, don’t
worry.”

“Thanks, Farrell. You’re an angel.”

“Speaking of angels, I hope that’s the end of
those stories.”

“Me too.” I checked the crumpled program I’d
shoved into a pocket. “Next they’re moving on to a debate between
that Griffin, the keynote speaker we heard yesterday, and a
champion of the non-virgin lifestyle. That might be slightly
interesting.”

“I doubt it.”

“I wonder who they convinced to take the anti
stance? It’s not going to be popular with this crowd.”

“Don’t know, but whoever it is, they’re
cutting it fine. It’s almost time to reconvene.”

Tom came over to us. “Has anyone turned up
asking for me?”

“No,” said Farrell.

He tutted in irritation. “One half of the
debate guests hasn’t arrived. This is most annoying. Griffin’s here
waiting.”

“Can you ring them?” I suggested.

“I have, but I keep getting his answering
service. Most annoying.”

“We’ll keep an eye out for him, but you may
need to rearrange your program.”

“Most annoying,” Tom muttered again, hurrying
to confer with Miriam and Harriet. When the last person slipped
back inside the hall, we faintly heard Tom announce to the crowd
that there would be a slight change in the program with the
breakout sessions beginning earlier than planned.

There was a scrabbling and scraping of chairs
as the hall was hastily rearranged to accommodate the four breakout
sessions in each corner. Farrell and I could have gone inside to
help move furniture, but I couldn’t be bothered, so we stayed
outside and waited for the debate guest to arrive.

I wandered over to get Farrell and me a
coffee, grabbing a couple of the pastries leftover from morning
tea. I offered one to him, but he declined.
Hmm, I guess that’s
how he stayed in such great shape
, I thought, cramming one of
them into my mouth.

“Nobody’s going to take it away from you,
Chalmers. No need to gobble it down.”

“I’m worried you’ll ban it,” I replied, my
voice muffled by a good load of half-masticated pastry.

“I might if you spray me with pastry again,”
he said, brushing down his polo shirt.

“Sorry,” I said, sprinkling his shirt with
more.

“Oh geez,” he complained, flicking off pieces
of the flaky pastry. “You have all the manners of a person raised
by apes in an undiscovered jungle. Stand over there while you’re
eating that.”

I took a couple of steps closer to the doors,
away from him. Though slightly resenting my banishment, it wasn’t
enough to encourage me to forgo the second pastry, which I ate with
even more gusto and messiness than the first. Choking on the last,
too large, mouthful, I sipped my coffee to ease it going down. On
my second sip, the door opened forcefully, knocking me forward and
spilling most of the contents of my cup down my uniform.

“Shit.” Sopping wet, I rounded on the person
responsible. “What the hell are you doing barging through a door
like that? I just spilled my coffee all over me because of
you.”

“Oh, sorry,” apologised Ms Lusty, stepping
through the doorway, dragging an unwilling Old Dude behind her.
“Didn’t see you there.”

“Of course you didn’t!” I almost exploded. “I
was on the other side of the door, which you just barged through
without checking.”

“Guess we’re in a hurry, aren’t we, Lovebug?”
Old Dude offered some weak gurgling response that could have been
agreement, disagreement or a bad case of wind. He didn’t look very
well. “Lovebug’s taking me to his place to see his art collection.”
She winked lewdly at me when she said that.

“I’m going to try to salvage my uniform,” I
told Farrell, storming off to the bathroom. If Old Dude and she
wanted to spend the afternoon bonking each other like . . .
lovebugs, then good luck to them. I hoped he’d told her about his
dodgy hips.

Before the bathroom door closed on me, the
awful chimp screech of her laughter rang out across the foyer,
hurting my ears. You’d have to be a more charitable person than I
was to tolerate that for more than a minute.

The air dryer in the bathroom was low,
necessitating me standing in a half-limbo position beneath it,
killing my thigh muscles in the process. The smell of burnt-on
coffee filled the room. A couple of women came in, eyeing me with
curiosity.

“Coffee spill,” I explained.

Each expressed a knowledgeable, “Aah,” before
carrying on with her business. Unjustly cursing desperate virgins
all around the world, I gave up on the drying option after five
long minutes, deciding it was more comfortable to be damp than
contorted.

Not in the best mood, I returned to my post.
“Has that idiot second debate guest turned up yet?”

“Someone’s in a bad mood.”

“Like you wouldn’t be if the same thing
happened to you. My uniform’s soggy and I smell like I dunked
myself in a cheap coffee bath.”

“It could be worse.”

I was just about to argue with him when a
group of people, dramatically silhouetted by the glare of the sun,
approached the entrance.

Farrell and I both froze, rivetted to the
scene.

Through the centre’s entrance stepped someone
I’d never wanted to set eyes on again.

Malefic.

Chapter 26

“You have to be kidding me,” I said to
myself. What was this? A frigging family reunion or something? I
could not believe I was now lumbered with Old Dude and the
creepiest of creeps.

“Do you know that guy too?” asked
Farrell.

“That’s Malefic, not a dude anyone willingly
wants to know.”

“A one-name wonder?”

“Don’t underestimate him, Farrell. He exerts
a weird control over people, like he does with those women
accompanying him.”

“Who are they?”

“He calls them his acolytes. They’re young
women vulnerable to his type of hypnotic brainwashing. He seems to
have picked up a couple more since I saw him last.”

“Where’d you tangle with him?”

“When I worked for Trent Dawson, I covered
the Turbot and Tank trial for his show. Malefic came to support
them. They’d committed those horrific murders in an attempt to
catch his attention.”

“I remember that. Wasn’t there a brawl
between him and some religious guy on Dawson’s show?”

“That’s right and that religious guy ended up
shooting him.” And I ended up losing my job.

Malefic honed in on me as soon as he saw me,
his injuries visible in the cane he used to help him walk and his
noticeable limp. Otherwise he hadn’t changed his look – same black
jeans, high gothic boots and long coat over a black shirt. His long
black hair hung straight from his centre part, shiny and soft, his
nails long and painted black. He was thinner and slightly paler
(though how that was even possible made me scratch my head for a
while), probably as a result of his long recovery.

The same two spaced out women I’d previously
met flanked him, now joined by another woman and a man, all with
black hair and pale faces, all dressed in relentless black.

“My, my,” purred Malefic in his beautiful,
soothing voice. “Matilda. What a marvellous surprise for me.”

“Don’t call me that,” I warned, instinctively
stepping backwards and a little closer to Farrell, annoyed at
myself for letting this man affect me so much.

“That’s right. That name is reserved for
someone special. And how is Mr Heller?” He gave me a look of mock
concern. “It’s a shame he’s away for so long. Are you lonely?”

I didn’t know how he knew that, but it
creeped me out. “I told you last time to stay away me. I
don’t
want anything to do with you.” Farrell moved closer to
me, partially blocking me with his body.

The movement drew Malefic’s attention. “I see
you’re in a
Heller’s
uniform, Matilda. Change of career from
when I saw you last? And who is this protective man with you? Your
knight in shining armour?”

“I suggest you do as Tilly suggested and
leave her alone. Do you have any business here?”

Malefic’s eyes rested on me. “I certainly do.
Matilda and I have unfinished business for one thing.”

“We do not. I don’t want anything to do with
you,” I repeated fiercely.

“But alas, I have more mundane things to deal
with first. I’m part of some debate with a laughable person who
mounts flimsy arguments in favour of virginity.”