Authors: JD Nixon
I went to the
library, but all the books and DVDs were stacked away in their
proper places and I couldn’t even find one dust bunny under any of
the recliners. I popped my head into the pantry thinking that
surely there would be something to straighten in there, but the
cans and packets were neatly arranged on the shelves, the fresh
food was appealingly presented and the refrigerator and freezer
appeared to have been recently wiped over.
Sighing, I
returned to my flat and began a cleaning frenzy. But it was only a
tiny abode, so that didn’t take as much time as I’d hoped. With the
floors mopped, carpets vacuumed, bathroom sparkling, fresh linen
everywhere and the lounge cushions plumped, I sneaked back upstairs
to the pantry to steal some ingredients, despite knowing that
Heller would be advised of my transgression within five minutes. I
spent the rest of the day cooking and baking, something which
Daniel and Niq took gluttonous advantage of later that evening.
Heller rang me
as I prepared for bed. “I miss you, Matilda. When are you coming
back to me?”
“It’s only been
one night. You can’t have missed me that much.”
“But tonight it
will be two nights. And the next night will be three. And before
you know it, I’ll never see you again and I’ll probably die of
loneliness here in my empty bed.”
I giggled.
“You’re such an over-actor.”
“Have you
noticed I’m being angelic and not bothering you at all?”
I giggled
again. “You’re talking to me on the phone right now.”
“But that’s
only so that you notice how considerate I’m being by not contacting
you.”
“Your circular
logic makes me suffer.”
“You make me
suffer by staying away, my sweet.” His light tone changed, his
voice becoming hesitant, as if unsure of my response. “Have you had
time to think everything over?”
“I’ll be okay,
Heller. I’m just so glad you made the decision you did about that
client. I don’t know what I would have done if you’d decided
differently.”
“You would have
left me. I see that now.” He hesitated again – so unusual for him.
“I thought you’d forgive me for anything because you love me.”
“Then you’d be
completely wrong,” I told him quietly. “I won’t forgive you for
anything. Did I forgive Will for cheating on me and breaking my
heart?”
“You slept with
him again.”
I laughed, but
there was no mirth in it. “That was a major error of judgement on
my part and I’ve admitted that. I haven’t forgiven him for being
such a bastard and I wouldn’t forgive you either. And that’s what
you’d be doing if you slept with another woman while we were
together. Cheating.”
“I’m sorry,
Matilda. I didn’t consider it that way.” I marvelled again that
someone so capable, skilled and smart could run a successful
business, but be so oblivious about the most obvious emotional
matters.
“You made the
right decision for our relationship.”
“Yes. It’s
important to me.”
“Me too.”
I was about to
say goodnight, on the verge of yawning, when he spoke again.
“Speaking of decisions, I’ve decided on something else that I’ll
tell everyone about soon.”
“Will it be
something that’s going to upset me again?” And I would have given
anything to read his face as I asked that.
That pregnant
pause yet again. I was beginning to hate it. “It will be good for
the –”
“Yeah, yeah.
Good for the business. I get it. The business is a high priority
for you.”
“It has to be,
Matilda. I have employees and more importantly, people I care
about, to support.”
“Not me at the
moment. I’m too unproductive to the business for you to
support.”
“Are you sure
about that? Have I mentioned you pilfering from my pantry earlier
today?”
“You have now.
And I wasn’t pilfering. I was cooking for Danny and Niq.”
“I’ll never let
you be without, my sweet. No matter what happens,” he said softly.
What was that supposed to mean?
“I don’t want
to be supported. I want to earn my own living.”
“Then you
better go to sleep now. You have a busy day ahead of you doing . .
. something.”
“Maybe job
hunting. I’m bored of being unemployed already.”
“I can’t make
your days more interesting, but I can certainly help make tonight
more lively for you. You know where I am.”
“Yes, I do.
Which is why I’m staying right here.”
He laughed
softly. “Goodnight, Matilda.”
“Night,
Heller.”
In bed that
night, I decided I’d go insane if I had to do the same things over
tomorrow just to keep busy. One person living by herself doesn’t
make
that
much mess and there were only so many times I
could clean my flat. Tomorrow I’d definitely look for a new
job.
Chapter
26
I stared at the
hamburger costume with below-zero enthusiasm. “I have to wear that?
I’m not good with costumes. And the ad said the position involved
marketing.”
“That’s what
you’re being hired to wear. And you’re going to stand there,” he
pointed to a concrete divider between two busy roads, “and wave
this placard advertising my burger business for drivers to
see.”
“I don’t think
that’s a great marketing ploy. Have you done any research on
this?”
“Who’s the
businessman here and who’s the hamburger? Do you want this job or
not?”
“Yes.” I hated
myself for saying that. “Especially considering the princely sum
you’re going to pay me per hour.”
“Exactly!” he
said with self-satisfaction, the sarcasm-detection gene missing
from his DNA.
I reluctantly
climbed into the unwieldy costume. “Yuck! It smells.”
“Oh yeah, the
last guy who used it had a bit of a flatulence problem. That was
okay though, because he was in the middle of all that traffic, so
nobody was bothered.”
Dear
God
, I thought in despair, lumbering out of the burger shop, my
huge costume squishing up to fit through the door. And for the rest
of the day I stood amongst the exhaust fumes, waving my placard,
enduring the catcalls, wolf whistles, honking horns and demeaning
comments about giving me a taste of their meat patties shouted from
passing male motorists.
When I returned
home, weary and sweaty, I met Daniel on the stairs.
“How did it
go?” he asked, giving me a quick hug.
“Just kill me
now. It would be kinder.”
“That bad,
huh?”
“Worse than you
could ever imagine,” I grumbled. “I’ve been spoiled by working here
and at the station. Interesting jobs where I used my brain. Today I
just stood for hours dressed as a hamburger, waving a stupid board
around. The costume stinks and you should have seen the size of my
buns! It made it hard to walk.”
He struggled to
keep a straight face, his lips contorting with suppressed
laughter.
“Don’t,” I
warned. “I’m really not in the mood.”
“Do you want me
to make you dinner?”
I kissed his
cheek. “Yes, please. I’m barely going to make enough in this job to
feed myself, especially as it’s only for a week.”
“Heller won’t
let you starve.”
“Maybe not, but
he demands a high price for that indulgence.”
“He wants
loyalty and a family. You help give him both.”
“That’s not all
he wants from me.”
“I don’t want
to hear the sordid details, but I know he won’t let you starve. And
neither will I. Go have a shower while I make you dinner.”
The evening
with Daniel and Niq proved to be a great stress-reliever. I
collapsed into bed that night, my belly full of good food. Just as
I was about to drop off, right on cue, Heller rang.
“You’re not
coming to visit me tonight?”
“I’m way too
tired to contend with you.”
“Matilda, I’m
dying up here without you.”
“I highly doubt
that. A big, strong man like you?”
“I’m as weak as
a baby when it comes to you.”
I giggled.
“You’re so silly.”
“Can I at least
stay the night? I miss being with you.”
“I guess so.
But I’m warning you that I want to sleep. I’m exhausted. It’s
surprisingly hard work being a hamburger all day.”
He laughed
softly. “I’ll try to control myself. Thinking of you as a hamburger
will help.”
I was asleep
already by the time he joined me, so it was a nice surprise when I
roused during the night to find myself snuggled in his arms. I
wriggled backwards until we made full body contact, spooning. His
physical response was instant, urgent and very noticeable, as he
was naked.
“Matilda,” he
whispered, kissing my neck, his hand cupping one of my breasts.
“Stop squirming against me or I won’t be able to control
myself.”
“Maybe I don’t
want you to anymore,” I whispered back to him. I flipped myself on
to my other side so we were face-to-face and pressed myself against
his hardness, kissing him.
His voice was
husky. “Maybe I don’t want to either.”
And control was
the very last thing on our minds for the next while as we
rediscovered each other as if we’d been separated for months or
years, instead of a few days. I performed my hamburger duties the
next day with a dreamy smile that not even the crudest comments
about my ‘special sauce’ thrown at me from motorists could
dispel.
And so the week
slowly passed – hamburger by day, over-worked lover by night.
“When are you
going to tell us about your other big decision?” I asked, only
half-awake after one particularly rigorous lovemaking session.
“Soon, my
sweet. I’m hoping to finish my negotiations tomorrow.”
“I’m finishing
my job tomorrow. Then I’ll be unemployed again.” I sighed. “I’ll
have to find another crappy job. Are you sure you won’t take me
back yet?”
“I couldn’t
possibly. It would undermine my authority with the men. A
punishment must be a punishment.”
“You’re a hard
man.”
He took my hand
and placed it on his rod. “Doesn’t feel too hard at the moment, but
you could work on it.”
I snatched my
hand away and slapped his bare chest. “You’re such a sex
maniac.”
“You say that
as though it’s a bad thing to be.”
“It is for your
poor, exhausted partner. I need to sleep. I want to be the best
hamburger ever tomorrow.”
He laughed.
“And how do you plan to do that?”
“I don’t know.
I’ll be extra cheesy, I suppose.”
“I think that’s
meant to be some kind of a joke, but as I’ve never eaten a
hamburger, I’m not really sure.”
“Never eaten
one? Not ever?”
“No. Why would
I when there are many more nutritious alternatives available?”
“Maybe, but
they’re all boring. Hamburgers are yummy. Don’t they have them in
Norway?” I asked, trying to ensnare him with my cunningness.
What a futile
hope.
“Whoever
suggested I would know what they eat in Norway? Did I say I was
from there?”
I was about to
open my mouth to tartly say that Meili had told me it was a
distinct possibility, but I prudently thought twice. Meili wasn’t a
name welcome around him. So instead, I muttered a lame, “You don’t
say anything about yourself.”
“It’s better
that way.”
There was no
possible comeback for that, so I let it hang heavily between us,
the real weight in our relationship. How could I genuinely love
someone I didn’t even know? Or was it enough that it was Heller as
I knew him that I loved, and whoever he’d been or what he’d been
like in his other life didn’t matter? Too tired to try to sort
through that emotional minefield, I let it go. Again.
I gave it
everything I had on my last day as a hamburger. I waved that
placard so enthusiastically I thought my arms would fling from my
shoulders into a passing car, landing on the lap of an unfortunate
driver. All tired and sweaty at the end of my shift, I gratefully
peeled off the smelly costume and accepted tax avoiding
cash-in-hand from the burger shop owner, the paltry sum offered
barely even enough to cover my petrol costs for the week. He
promised me when he did his next stint of advertising, I’d be the
first one he’d call to be his hamburger. Though I felt a sense of
pride that he’d rated my performance higher than the farty man,
looking down at the pathetic amount of dollars clutched in my hand,
I thought I’d probably make myself scarce if I ever recognised his
number coming up on my phone. That costume
really
smelled
bad.
Back home,
freshly showered and fed, I checked my bank account. I’d saved up a
fair bit of money from when I’d worked for Heller, though not much
at all when I’d worked for Trent. I thought I could afford to give
myself a week off without taking too much of a financial hit –
especially if I sneaked food from Heller’s pantry and maybe even
siphoned petrol out of one of his fleet vehicles in the middle of
the night.
So instead of
trying to be industrious, I did nothing. I lounged around eating
crunchy cheesy snacks, drinking the cheap wine I had to buy myself
these days and watching
Judge Judy
and cooking shows on
daytime TV. I visited my parents four times during the week, an
unprecedented number that started making them suspicious that all
was not well with my employment situation, particularly as I –
somehow – managed to always turn up around mealtimes. So then I’d
had to divert my attention to my grandmothers, who were much more
likely to feed me without asking awkward questions about my
financial and relationship status.
I visited
Dixie, inadvertently interrupting her while half-dressed and
canoodling with her latest screw in her bedroom, a man who I sadly
noted was not Bick. I’d kind of suspected something had gone wrong
between them when I’d spotted his miserable face the other day when
he’d been leaving work and I’d just returned home, neither of us
having time to chat.