Events Out of Control (Holly Craig Erotica)

by Jodie Halliday

  She had dinner with Sean and Andrea that evening, used the gym for an hour then went to bed after sending a picture of the vast Suite 2203 to Ricky who was back home. They had toyed with the idea of him coming to Atlanta with her but decided that they both needed to concentrate and that being apart for almost a week wasn’t anything new. She missed him though, more than she had expected, especially now that they were almost living together.

  On Sunday morning Holly had breakfast at around eight, then continued her walkthroughs of the rooms and main hall. The local event labor had arrived and were setting up their sections of the exhibition. She was introduced to Tommy and his manager Ken who were setting up the digital systems and audio visual along with a growing team of engineers. As she came out of the room designated for Track 1 break-out sessions she saw Ken several rooms away up the corridor. He saw her, waved and shouted “Looking good. Haven’t found the PDF but it’s all coming together Hol! Projectors are all good. Sound is excellent!” She gave him the thumbs up which is what she thought he expected and carried on to the next breakout room.

  Maggie and Andrew arrived towards the end of the afternoon and must have gone up to their suite first as they met Holly in the registration area with notepads and conference literature at around six fifteen.

  “Holly, so good to see you again and thanks for the regular updates!” said Maggie, hugging her. “And this is Andrew, my husband,” said Maggie. She shook his hand and smiled at him. He was older than she had expected with dark hair and small, greying patches around his temples. He reminded her a little from his demeanor of Ricky’s father, John Millsum. Andrew Johnson was fit, healthy, tanned and wore well-tailored clothing. His shoes in particular looked expensive yet comfortable and appropriate for touring the event on a Sunday afternoon. He looked like a manager who would guide people to do things correctly, his way, based on his successes of the past.

  “Great to meet you Mr. Johnson,” said Holly, turning to lead the way. He caught her arm.

  “Holly, it’s Andrew, please. And Maggie has told me great things about you. Thanks so much for all your hard work, it has gone far more smoothly this year than last.” She felt his eyes on her, gauging her and knew as she turned towards the first breakout room with Maggie that he was looking her up and down, just as his young wife had done.

  “We’re a good team, I think,’ said Holly, grinning at Maggie. They headed to the main ballroom which would be used for the keynote speeches. Sound checks were underway and the lighting gantries were up and operational, along with the projectors for the stage and part way down the room.

  “This looks like it’s ahead of schedule, good job Holly,” said Andrew, nodding and waving at someone he recognised. “Yo Bri, did your son get into that college?” he shouted. A response of ‘yeah, thanks’ came back and Holly was impressed that he had remembered such a fact from a past event. They toured the breakout rooms and Holly noted anything that didn’t look quite right on her legal pad. Back at the registration area, Holly pointed to a long rack of sponsor literature.

  “I had that moved from the hallway. It was in the way and I think people are going to take more of the literature if it’s here where they’ll be relaxing, rather than where they’re walking. Hope that’s OK?” she said.

  “Great idea, thanks for that, should have done that last year. Everyone just used it to put empty cups on,” said Andrew.

  “Registration looks nice Holly. Did you get some extra black drapes for this area, seems like it?”

  “Yeah, you could see the feet of the desks and it looked cheap so I asked the production crew to bring some extra and we fitted them this morning.”

  “Nice,” said Maggie, nodding happily.

  “Gonna look great girls!” said Andrew happily. They went behind the registration desk, wondered about leaving the laptops and printers for the individual passes out all night then decided that Security would be tasked with making sure they were all there in the morning. The Speaker Ready room was just behind registration and they filed in. There were four sofas, some low coffee tables and a bank of desks for presenters to connect to wired internet service. Coffee and tea facilities looked like they were planned but not yet installed which was to be expected. The reception desk was where presenters were expected to sign in and deliver any last minute versions of their presentation. Boxes were stacked up around the room ready for removal into storage for the duration of the event. On the wall behind reception was a bank of network switches with a mass of cables hanging out of the wall.

  “What goes there?” asked Andrew, pointing at the cables.

  “The PDS, just hooks up into one of the switch inputs,” said Maggie.

  “Shouldn’t it be here?” asked Andrew, looking at Holly.

  Her heart beat furiously. She had no idea what the PDS was but the sight of dozens of hanging wires gave her the impression that it must be big and important. She glanced at Maggie, then to Andrew, then back to the hole in the wall.

  “It’s probably in one of these boxes, let’s take a look,” said Maggie. Holly felt dizzy and weak at the knees. She floated from empty box to empty box and knew in her heart that whatever the thing was called wasn’t there. She analysed every word that Andrew and Maggie uttered for tone, implication and severity of the shit that she thought she was in. She recalled what Ken had shouted earlier which she thought was about a PDF, and now she knew it was about this PDS thing. She wanted to sit down and take some time to breathe but had the presence to pull out her cellphone and call Sean. He picked up and she walked to the side of the room to converse quietly with him.

  “Hey Sean, I’m down in the Speaker Ready room and we’re looking for the PDS. Have you seen it?”

  “No, did you order it?”

  “Did I order it? No, you’re in charge of technology, right?”

  “It had your name against it on the minutes so I left it up to you,” replied Sean, a twinge of accusation in his voice.

  “How did you remember that all of a sudden, that it had my name on the minutes?”

  He was quiet, then simply said “It’s your event, I’m just following your lead Holly.”

  “That’s crap and you know it Sean! We’re a team and we look out for each other at all times. If I didn’t know better I might think you had deliberately allowed this to happen,” she hissed, utter disbelief growing in her mind as she felt increasingly weak and sick. “Where can we get one?”

  “I can give you a list if you like, you can call for one tomorrow.”

  “I need you, Sean, to start calling right now. Email me the contact information in the next 5 minutes. I’ll talk to the presentation guys to see if they have any ideas.” She rang off and turned to Maggie who was trying hard to smile at her. Holly knew full well that her body language told her what had happened.

  “Well, Holly?” asked Maggie, her smile fading fast. Andrew stood over by the door, watching silently.

  “It wasn’t ordered. My team was responsible for ordering it, so I’m accountable for it.”

  “Fuck!” shouted Andrew. He kicked one of the empty packing boxes across the room and kicked it again as it teetered on a corner. “You have to be fucking joking Holly. No PDS, no presentations for any attendees.” He was seething, almost foaming at the mouth and she wanted to keep some distance from him so he was out of striking range.

  Maggie joined in the fray. “So, Holly. What do you intend to do? Perhaps we can print out six hundred copies of each goddamn presentation and hand them out, then ask them all to follow along?”

  Andrew strode towards her and she backed up towards the wall. “Without the PDS there’s no keynote content, no breakout content. The only thing we could do is run around like savages with USB sticks and load the presentation PCs with the most up to date content.”

  “Yeah, but that won’t help the signage outside the breakout rooms, they’ll be showing black screens,” said Maggie. “We’re fucked, Holly, do you get it? It’s fucking Sunday night and we s
tart testing with final content tomorrow morning.” Andrew kicked another box out through the door.

  “Andrew!”

  “What? Fucking Millsum, always something, except this time it’s like eight years bad luck all in one freaking go!” He glared at Holly and she felt tears coming. She swallowed and looked at her phone.

  “I’m sorry, I’ll work with Sean to get a PDS for tomorrow.”

  “Call John Millsum,” shouted Andrew. “Tell him we need a replacement manager!”

  “No! Please, I’ll sort it out!” shrieked Holly, gasping for breath as she tried to stifle her tears.

  “You can’t, stupid girl. It’s too late!” he shouted. He turned away so that he didn’t have to look at her.

  “Andrew! Enough!” Maggie shouted, glaring at them both. “Holly, go get your laptop, meeting notes, any planning documents that you have and meet us in suite 2215 in twenty minutes.”

  “That’s seven o’clock in case you can’t work it out Holly,” said Andrew quietly as she left the room.

  She got to the elevators before she burst into tears, knowing that there was no way the conference could be stopped and no way that the equipment would make it in time for any testing. Her stomach felt queasy, super-active and she knew she was going to be sick. She squeezed her buttocks together as pressure developed and held her hand to her mouth, breathing in deeply as the elevator passed the fifteenth floor. Her guts were rumbling and she heaved as the keycard slid into the door lock for room 2121. She ran to the left, found herself in the kitchen and threw up in the sink, shaking wildly as she leaned on the marble counter to keep herself from collapsing on the floor. Her stomach shifted treacherously again and she ran to the toilet, ripped her jeans off and knew that she had soiled her underwear. With seconds to spare she pushed her knickers down just before her diahorea streamed out into the bowl. She was sick again between her legs and cried with great heaving sobs at the total reversal of the day.

  She peeled the jeans off her legs and carefully removed her underwear which had indeed caught the beginning spurt of something yellow and brown. The sight and smell made her throw up again and lumps of her lunch dripped down the inside of her thighs. She shuddered with the vile taste in her mouth and flushed the toilet, breathing deeply to try to avoid vomiting again. She was still crying and feeling cramping in her bowels as she strained to find anything else to eject from either end. Holly wiped herself down and stood uncertainly in the doorway to the toilet, miserable, cold and trembling with fear as the enormity of the disaster sank in. She cursed Sean and tried to think if she could have known that he hadn’t ordered this PDS thing. She had heard innuendos around the office that she had taken the job which he thought was rightfully his, but what he had done was self-destructive and affected everyone in the office. She knew though in her heart that she was accountable, as she had said, for everything at the event and that included technology just as much as it included catering. She ran to the sink, turned on the taps and threw up again, coughing and gasping as tears rolled down her cheeks. She squeezed her buttocks together and prayed that nothing more would shoot out.

  She dropped her shirt and bra in the little bathroom and walked naked through the lounge area, passed the large boardroom table which she had laid on a few hours ago, naked and gleefully touching herself while imaginary board members watched. She flopped onto her bed face first and sobbed uncontrollably, great gasps of anguish filling the room. The clock by the bed said six fifty so she slowly hauled herself up and went into the bathroom, turned on the shower and picked out new clothes to wear for her execution at seven.

  Chapter 8

  Andrew opened the door for her and pointed towards their lounge area. Maggie was sitting at the desk using her laptop.

  “Bring your laptop here, plug it in to the power,” barked Maggie, not even looking up. Holly did as she was told and powered it up. She saw that Andrew was sitting on the sofa to her right and watching them both. “OK, now, let’s talk.”

  Maggie went over to Andrew and sat next to him. Holly went across to a comfy chair but Andrew shouted out to her. “No, stop. Stand there Holly so you can hear what we have to say.” She stopped about ten feet from them and looked down at the carpet. She felt tears returning and did her best to conceal the shudders that were the prelude to what promised to be hours of continual crying.

  “Holly, do you remember how many years Andrew and I have been married?” asked Maggie, holding his hand.

  Holly frowned at the question but was pleased to be able to reply. “You said almost ten,” she replied, her voice shaking with her utter dismay at letting them down.

  “Correct. Guess what today is then Holly?”

  She stared at them aghast, again knowing the answer but aware that she had now piled further agony on one of Millsum’s best clients. “Your anniversary?” she asked in a tiny feeble voice.

  “Our tenth wedding anniversary,” said Andrew with disgust. “Today. Thank you for making it memorable Holly.”

  “Holly, we’re going to work through the night to get the PDS online for the morning,” said Maggie. “But first you need to understand what you have ruined for Andrew and me. The conference will be attended by over 600 world-class bankers and technologists. Many are our friends and have been for years. They have given up their time, paid airfares, conference fees and hotel charges to attend. Our reputation is on the line. If this conference is a joke, as it is destined to be, then next year will be poorly attended or cancelled. If that’s the case then Millsum won’t be managing it. Our business will suffer. Do you understand?”

  Holly muttered a quiet yes but was crying quietly. All she wanted to do was to sit and put her head in her hands but daren’t annoy them anymore.

  “I had booked a surprise dinner and night tour for Andrew and myself which will have to be cancelled.” She handed a piece of paper to Holly. “Sit down there, call those numbers and cancel our wedding anniversary celebrations.”

  Holly took the paper bit couldn’t read the words or numbers because of her tears. She wiped her eyes and took the phone from Maggie.

  “Holly!” said Andrew suddenly. “Why are you sitting like that?” She looked down and simply shook her head.

  “Did you poop yourself Holly in your room?” asked Maggie with a sarcastic tone. “Did you throw up at the thought of what you’ve done?” Holly gave up all pretense of being in control and nodded.

  “Both.”

  “Well, so did I and I feel as frightened as you do about what the outcome might be. Do you need the toilet now for anything?” She shook her head and looked again at the phone and numbers. “OK, get on with it, then we’ll try to repair the damage you’ve done.” She wiped her eyes, dialed a 9 for an outside line and placed the first call.

  “Hello? I’m calling for Mr. and Mrs Johnson. They have a dinner booking for eight o’clock which I ..” Holly’s voice faded and she gasped for air as a wail left her lungs. She covered the phone and breathed hard through her nose, twice, then valiantly continued. “Sorry, I need to cancel the booking, sorry. What? Yes, everything’s OK thank you. I’m so sorry!” She disconnected the call and sobbed, shuddering on the floor in a heap in front of Andrew and Maggie, the two people who had been so delighted to see her only hours ago.

  “Next!” said Maggie.

  “Hello? I’m calling for Mr. and Mrs Johnson. They’re booked for a massage and sauna at ten tonight. I need to cancel it. Sorry. OK, thanks, and sorry again.”

  “Oh that was a nice thought Mags!”

  “I know. They were highly recommended by some people last year. Next!” Holly dialed the last number but could hardly control her fingers. Her sobs were erratic and rasped in her throat.

  “Hello, is that the scenic tour company? You have a booking for a night cruise for Mr. and Mrs Johnson and ..” Holly dropped the phone and curled up on the floor, crying and shaking.

  “Sit up girl, pull yourself together!” shouted Andrew as he stared down at the writhing
heap in front of him. “Finish the goddamn message and cancel another of our anniversary surprises. Jeez.” Holly slowly rose up, grabbed the phone and stuttered to the end of the message. She confirmed to the tour operator that she didn’t need the police and dropped the phone on the floor.

  “Holly. That was good, you did well. You can go and sit on that seat now,” said Maggie, returning to the desk. I want you to listen carefully Holly. This was supposed to be a wonderful night for us, our tenth. You ruined it. You have also put the whole conference in jeopardy. You don’t know how to fix it. I think I do and can in time for the event. But I’m going to have to work through the night instead of being with my husband and being a loving wife to him. Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” said Holly, breathing in deeply as she continued to sob quietly. Maggie’s words brought it all back again and underscored the primary cause of everyone’s pain. Her stomach still felt off colour and she wasn’t sure that she had finished vomiting. She stared at the carpet, afraid to make eye contact with either of them.

  “We expect you to do whatever is required to get the event configured correctly and to protect the reputation of both Blockchain Banking and Millsum. If we go down so do Millsum, is that clear?”

  “Yes, I understand,” said Holly with a firmer voice than she had expected. She swallowed hard and clenched her buttocks as her anus felt like it was winking with constant threats. She shuddered, knowing there was only the thin strip of her knickers protecting the carpet.

  “Very well, come over to the sofa and kneel at this end, facing me” said Maggie as she tapped away at her keyboard. “Hands on the armrest so we can talk.” Maggie opened her browser and a spreadsheet. Holly frowned at the unusual position and wondered why she just didn’t stand next to Maggie or kneel by her. Maggie then reached over to Holly’s laptop and tapped ‘return’. “What’s your laptop password?”