Heller Read online

  Heller

  by JD Nixon

  Copyright JD Nixon 2011

  Smashwords Edition

  Smashwords Edition, Licence Notes

  Thank you for downloading this free ebook. You are welcome to share it with your friends. This book may be reproduced, copied and distributed for non-commercial purposes, provided the book remains in its original form.

  This book is a work of fiction. All characters and locations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, or real locations, is purely coincidental.

  Please note that JD Nixon is an Australian author and Australian English and spelling have been used in this book.

  Discover other titles by JD Nixon at Smashwords.com:

  Heller series

  Heller (free ebook!)

  Heller’s Revenge

  Heller’s Girlfriend

  Heller’s Punishment

  Heller’s Decision (due 2012)

  Little Town series

  Blood Ties (free ebook!)

  Blood Sport

  Blood Feud (due 2012)

  Cover design by JD Nixon

  ~~~~~~ ###### ~~~~~~

  Chapter 1

  “I’m sorry, Tilly, but I’m going to have to let you go,” Barnaby said, not sounding nor looking particularly sorry at all.

  He’d asked me to stay behind after the show had finished and I’d agreed unwillingly, watching as my fellow cast members dispersed, laughing with each other and trading friendly jibes. He stood in front of me with his arms crossed, his doughy butt resting against the back of a chair. His bulbous swamp-brown eyes were flat and cold and his fleshy lips glistened as he ran his tongue around them.

  “No. But why?” I asked, bewildered and dismayed. There was still another two weeks left on my contract and I needed the job badly. It had been months since I’d had a paying gig.

  “You’re just not convincing in the role,” he shrugged with feigned disinterest, casually scratching his scalp, releasing a blizzard of dandruff. “The audience doesn’t believe in you. I can see it in their faces.”

  They were the worst words an aspiring actor ever wanted to hear. But considering the role I was currently playing and the audience, they were also unbelievably ridiculous.

  “Barnaby. I’m a piece of fruit,” I reminded him in a reasonable voice, eyeing him steadily. In fact I was a slice of watermelon, bedecked in an unwieldy, triangular-shaped foam costume. My green and white rind swung out wide in a semicircle past my hips and my legs were encased in green tights sticking through the bottom of the rind. The red foam wedge of the costume climbed to a point above my head and my arms poked awkwardly through its sides while my face showed through a hole at the front.

  It was an easy month-long gig – a series of short concerts across the city’s primary schools to promote nutritious eating for the under-twelves. Funded by the Department of Health, it paid well enough to keep my lecherous landlord off my back for a few months. And it didn’t involve me taking my clothes off, as did so many of the other ‘acting’ jobs that I applied for and consequently refused. So of course I’d been thrilled when Barnaby had rung to tell me that I’d auditioned successfully.

  I’d been cast in two roles in the show. Wearing a school uniform with my hair tied into two plaits, I had a starring role in the first half as a small girl who refused to eat her vegetables. One night in her sleep she was dragged away to VegieLand by a bossy, know-it-all carrot to personally meet and learn about the different vegetables. In the second half, I climbed into costume as the watermelon for an all-singing, all-dancing fruit salad extravaganza. Luckily for me it was an ensemble cast, because I don’t have a good singing voice and was happy to let the melodious, but overloud, pineapple next to me sing for both of us.

  Barnaby shrugged again. “Your little girl isn’t so great either. Let’s be honest – it’s a hard role for you to pull off,” he countered, deliberately lowering his gaze to sweep across my generous chest, mercifully hidden behind the bulky foam costume. I met his eyes at that comment, saw the spiteful gleam in them and suddenly understood what was happening. He had asked me out to dinner the previous day and I’d turned him down, finding him unattractive and dull. I was being punished.

  He was a community liaison officer with the Department (whatever that meant) and was the concert organiser. He had the ponderous manner of a born bureaucrat and the smug certainty in life of someone who could count on receiving a regular pay cheque. Pompous and humourless, he was full of an undeserved self-belief in his great artistic managerial skills. In short, he was a complete tosser and I had taken an instant dislike to him that I had tried to hide. I was struggling to hide it right then.

  I blinked my light brown eyes down at him, far taller than him even in my flat shoes, and relaxed my facial features into my sweetest expression. “Oh, but I really need the money. Isn’t there anything I can do to change your mind about letting me go?” I pouted at him, wondering momentarily how far I would go to keep a job.

  “Well, now that you mention it,” he smirked, placing his hand with caressing familiarity on my upper arm, running his fingers lightly up and down. “Perhaps I might be persuaded to reconsider. Why don’t you slip out of that costume and we can . . . discuss . . . it further in the dressing room.”

  I knew then that I wouldn’t go very far at all, because I couldn’t repress the shudder of repulsion that rippled through my body at his touch. He obviously wouldn’t change his mind about firing me if I didn’t give him some sugar, but my sugar-bowl was empty. I prised his fingers free from my arm.

  “If you touch me again the only fruit you’ll be fondling today is your own bruised plums after I kick them,” I said pleasantly, flashing him a brilliant smile and burning my bridges with him forever. I turned and walked backstage, my mind consumed with the sheer joyful thought of taking off the watermelon costume. I doubted it had ever been cleaned in its long life, redolent with the body odour of its many previous wearers. The incredible heat of the day had only added my own to the noxious casserole.

  I reached around to unzip myself. No matter how hard I tried though, I only ended up struggling uselessly, twisting myself around back and forth trying to reach the zip. But it stubbornly remained in the centre of my back, totally unreachable from either side. Someone had always been around to unzip me after the other concerts, but because Barnaby had kept me late, the place was now deserted.

  Damn.

  I heard footsteps behind me and spun to find that Barnaby had followed me backstage, bad-tempered rejection oozing from his pores, mouth sulky with petulance.

  “Can you unzip me, please?” I asked politely, showing the nice manners that my mother had taught me. Just because I thought he was a creepy pervert who’d been sickeningly turned on by my little schoolgirl role, didn’t mean I shouldn’t mind my Ps and Qs.

  He grunted and stalked over to me, yanking ungently on the zip. He was responsible for the costumes, so his irritation with me wouldn’t stop him from performing his duty as the brave protector of such important government-owned property. As if I wanted to steal an ancient, faded and stinky foam watermelon outfit anyway! I was equally amused and insulted at the thought. What on earth did he think I would do with it – wear it around town? I mean, how embarrassing would that be?

  The yanking continued for what I judged to be an excessive amount of time with no resultant zipping noise signifying any success at bringing me closer to freedom from the costume.

  “What’s the matter? Why are you taking so long?” I snapped at him, suspicious that he was using the exercise as an excuse to get his hands on me again. I hoped he realised that I had meant it about kicking him in his plums. My foot was primed and raring to go.

  “Your little thingy’s broken
,” he said, frustration clear in his voice.

  “I’ll break your little thingy in a minute if you don’t hurry up,” I threatened, throwing away any pretence of being civilised with him. “It’s frigging hot in this costume. And it reeks. I have to get out of it urgently.”

  “The little thingy,” he repeated sullenly. “You know? The little bit you hold to move the zip up and down. It’s snapped off. And now the zip won’t budge at all.”

  I spun around to face him. “Are you telling me the zip’s broken?”

  “Yep. Looks like it,” he informed me blandly, his features expressionless.

  “So I can’t get out of this costume?”

  “Mmm, it’s not looking good,” which was said with the definite hint of a bitchy smile.

  “Barnaby, it’s forty-one degrees today,” I reminded him.

  “It is a very hot day,” he agreed, fanning himself briefly with both hands, suddenly cheerful.

  “Barnaby, I have to catch the bus home.” His smile widened.

  “Sorry Tilly, there’s nothing I can do. These costumes are old. I guess the Department should think about retiring them and buying some new ones.” His accompanying smile brimmed with schadenfreude. “Tell you what. I’ll let you go home where you’ve a better chance of finding something to help you undo the zip. Maybe some pliers might help?”

  He gave me another fleeting flash of his pearly whites, except they weren’t white at all, more of a weak pee yellow. I was seriously starting to hate him.

  “But you have to return the costume tomorrow to my office downtown,” he ordered, abruptly aggressive. “Any damage to it will be docked from your pay. You understand?”

  I stared at him angrily. I hadn’t even been paid one cent yet for the two weeks I’d already worked and there he was, threatening to take some of that much needed money away from me. Didn’t he realise that my landlord had exorbitant rent and busy hands?

  “Your costume will be returned in pristine condition,” I promised, with all the frostiness of a snowman sucking on a snow cone during a snowstorm in Siberia.

  He snorted at me rudely and carefully scooped up all the other discarded foam fruit and vegetable costumes while I stood immobile at the back of the stage, the full awfulness of my plight slowly sinking in. I’d been counting down the minutes until I could remove the hot and smelly costume for the day. Guess I’d have to restart the timer.

  Shoulders slumped, my small backpack of clothes and belongings dangling from my hand, I left the school hall and trudged to the bus stop. Dark thoughts swirled around my mind as I tramped the streets. I’d enjoyed the rare experience of having a job, had liked the work and the regular hours and had been looking forward to receiving some pay. But now I was fearful of my immediate future, not so much because of the penury, but because of the boredom. I wanted to have a job. I wanted something to do in my life. I wanted to earn some money. And I really didn’t want to have to move back home with my parents because I couldn’t pay my rent. I had turned twenty-five a month ago, for God’s sake! It was humiliating to still be so dependent on them at my age.

  By the time I reached the bus stop I was drenched in sweat. The stop had no shelter and was situated on a busy road, so I was forced to stand in the blistering sun, inhaling exhaust fumes while I waited. And waited. The bus was twenty minutes late and I was the only passenger waiting for it at the stop. But I didn’t feel the slightest bit lonely, accompanied the whole time by a barrage of horn-tooting and catcalls thrown from the vehicles zooming past me. Very funny everyone, I thought sourly, let’s all make fun of the poor, unemployed piece of fruit.

  I was in an exceptionally foul mood when the bus finally arrived, struggling to even get through the door in the stupid costume. The driver didn’t bother to hide his gales of laughter when he set eyes on me. I was a surly piece of fruit by the time I paid for my ticket, deciding to hide at the back of the bus so as not to attract any more attention.

  Too late, I realised as I clutched my ticket and manoeuvred myself in that direction. Every pair of eyes on the bus was glued to me. That was when I also noticed that the entire bus was full of males, every passenger either a student from the local private boys’ high school or a construction worker knocking off for the day from a nearby building site. I groaned to myself, because we all know how sensitive a bunch of teenagers and labourers would be towards a young woman caught in such an embarrassing situation.

  I lumbered my way down the narrow aisle, accidently knocking the hats off every schoolboy with my wide rind butt, causing a commotion as I progressed. Even if there had been a spare seat, I wouldn’t have been able to sit down, my butt was so big. I had to stand sideways in the aisle just to fit, clinging to a pole as the bus lurched back into the traffic.

  Soon enough, I became fed up with the staring and the snickering of the other passengers.

  “What’s the matter?” I demanded angrily, looking around. “Haven’t any of you ever seen a slice of watermelon before?”

  My mistake for engaging them.

  “Not as sweet and juicy as you, sweetheart,” quipped one labourer, and the whole bus erupted into laughter.

  “You look good enough to eat,” said another, sniggering.

  “Too right she does! Darling, I would give my right nut for the chance to munch on you,” piped up a third.

  “In your dreams,” I told him sullenly.

  “Geez, I wouldn’t mind getting two pieces of fruit into me every day, if they looked like you,” said one man.

  “I’d rather get me into a piece of fruit, if it looked like her,” laughed his mate, and there was much hilarity between them at that crude comment.

  “I’ve got a banana and a couple of kiwifruits here,” said another, grabbing his crotch. “We could make a beautiful fruit salad together.”

  “More like a baby pickle and two cherries, if you ask me,” I retorted scornfully. “And you can keep your produce to yourself, thanks very much.” He licked his lips and made a slurping noise. More laughter. I rolled my eyes and returned my gaze to the ad for haemorrhoid cream plastered on the wall of the bus, trying valiantly to block them all out.

  On and on they went though, throughout the whole nightmare of a journey, all the way across the city. Casting my eyes to the heavens in suffering silence as I clung on, I realised that I was experiencing what had to be the absolute nadir of my life. And there had been a few low points already along the way for comparison, but that bus trip beat them all by miles.

  When the bus finally reached my stop, I shambled my way to the exit, receiving a friendly cheer from the remaining passengers. I gave them a sarcastic royal wave in return and almost fell out of the bus when I propelled myself forward after discovering that my rind was wider than the door. Stumbling as I stepped out onto the footpath, I fell flat on my face because fate had obviously decided that my day hadn’t been humiliating enough already. I staggered to my feet, dusted myself off and rued my grazed and stinging knees and hands. Ignoring the shouts of laughter from the bus passengers and the curious glances of passers-by, I straightened up, mustered as much dignity as I could, and made my awkward way down the three blocks to my home. I reminded myself that I was proud to be an actor and that no matter what Barnaby had said, I knew that I’d made a convincing piece of fruit.

  I lived with my best friend, Dixie, and two nerdy male engineering PhD students, Jon and Don. The four of us crammed into a poky two-bedroom flat located in a distant western suburb still waiting for the housing boom to arrive. Our slummy unit block was squeezed between an illegal rave club and an all-night kebab shop, which made sleeping every night quite a challenge. There wasn’t a lot of privacy or space available in the flat, especially as Jon and Don’s main goal in life appeared to be to ‘accidently’ brush up against Dixie or me as often as possible. They had the social niceties of league players and the hygiene of cockroaches, but also the family means to pay more than their fair share of the overpriced rent, so we tolerated them. Wel
l, Dixie tolerated them. I couldn’t stand them, or tell them apart.

  By some small miracle the lift in the building was actually working so I caught it to the seventh floor. Once inside though, I pinched my nostrils closed with my thumb and index finger to avoid smelling the putrid mix of body odour, urine, hot chip grease and dirty nappies that permanently hung around. The lift doors opened to a dim and dingy hallway, fronted by four closed doors. Our flat was at the end of the hall and as I passed the other doors I noted the familiar sound of the Samadi family’s screaming twin babies from behind the first door, the thumping bass and marijuana smoke of the two stoners from behind the second door, and the eerie silence of the unsmiling, shadowy loner who never made a sound or said a word, from behind the third door.

  When I unlocked the door to our tiny flat, it was soon apparent that nobody was home because it was so quiet. Damn! Who was going to help me out of this costume? I was beginning to think I would be stuck in it forever. Of course I could have asked a neighbour to help me, but the Samadis didn’t speak any English, I wasn’t confident I’d make it from the stoners’ place unmolested, and I simply didn’t want to know what the loner was doing so silently in his flat.

  I decided that I had no option but to wait until Dixie came home from work, so poured myself a large glass of chilled water, the only thing in the old, cavernous fridge. Gulping it thirstily, I scavenged in the pantry for some food. I was starving, having had nothing to eat since breakfast when I’d scoffed a tub of yoghurt that was worryingly past its expiry date. After a thorough search, my available choices appeared to be a couple of stale crackers or a small shrivelled apple.

  I chose the crackers, but spat them out after my first mouthful. They were really stale. Optimistically, I checked the food kitty, an old cracked pottery jar we used to store our pooled grocery money. Totally empty – not even five cents to spend. It was so empty that a spider had built a web inside. It glared up at me with hostility when I picked up the jar, so I hurriedly put it back down on the bench again. I don’t like spiders.