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amount of nudity... Ooh, Mr Bunt, no one’s ever touched me like that . Instead, when Amanda walked from his class, the screen faded quickly to black.
    Perry taught the remainder of the day’s classes in a depressed fog. At the end of his last class, a student found a blue jacket on the floor behind a computer station, and Perry immediately recognised it as Amanda’s. In her haste to escape him and his class, she’d left it behind. Improbable hope filled his heart. He would return the jacket to her personally and prove himself worthy of her love.
    This, Perry knew, was the Redemption Story, another of the seven story templates from which all Hollywood movies were constructed. And no, it didn’t stop him from believing it.
    Not even for a second.

CHANNEL 4
    GALAXY ENTERTAINMENT
    The secretary in the college’s administration office glanced sceptically at Perry Bunt.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, in a clearly unapologetic tone. ‘I’m not at liberty to give out an address or any personal information about any currently enrolled student.’
    ‘I just want to return her jacket,’ Perry said.
    ‘Leave it in the lost and found, two doors down.’
    ‘Thank you,’ Perry said, in a clearly ungrateful tone, and turned towards the door. Then he had an idea. Using Amanda’s blue jacket as cover, he reached into his trouser pocket, surreptitiously pulled out his house keys and slipped them into one of the jacket’s pockets.
    ‘Oh no,’ he said, turning back to the secretary. He pulled his keys out of the jacket. ‘Must be her house keys. She’s going to need these tonight.’
    The secretary reluctantly gave him Amanda’s work address. Perry looked at his watch: 4:30. He might still find her there. Clutching the blue jacket under one arm, he ran to the faculty parking lot with an energy he hadn’t felt in years outside of a coffee cup.
    Minutes later, he pulled up to a large windowless office building on Ventura Boulevard. A large sign in front was already lit, the letters glowing an eerie blue: GALAXY ENTERTAINMENT .
    Perry knew Galaxy as the cable monopoly in the area; when he’d moved into his apartment, he had been given two choices for cable provider: Galaxy and none at all. Since he was strapped for cash, he’d chosen the latter.
    He wasn’t at all surprised that Amanda worked for a company like Galaxy. His students were often from the fringes of the entertainment business, clerks and bean counters desperate to be perceived as creative. Perry stepped out of his car, retrieved Amanda’s jacket from the back seat and walked towards the main entrance.
    In a neighbourhood that was home to a mind-boggling variety of ugly office buildings, the Galaxy Entertainment building more than held its own. Its concrete bunker-like design (it seemed to have been poured rather than built) was topped with a thick steel roof painted the garish blue of the company’s logo. Perry walked to the one opening in the foreboding exterior and through swinging glass doors into a large lobby. Beyond a receptionist’s desk and a cluster of low-slung modern furniture was a metal door with a sign on it: ‘Employees Only – No Unauthorised Personnel’. The receptionist, a disarmingly clean-cut young man, ate popcorn earnestly from a red-and-white striped paper bag. He wore a blue jacket like the one in Perry’s hands and a name tag:
    D ENNIS P ERKINS
    Our Service Is out of This World!
    He looked up from his popcorn and noticed Perry. ‘No bills here,’ he said. ‘Please use the entrance on the other side of the building.’
    ‘I’m here to see an employee. Amanda Mundo.’
    ‘I’m sorry. Amanda just went out.’
    Perry shifted the blue jacket between his hands. He had to deliver it in person. ‘I’ll come back tomorrow.’
    As he turned to go, the glass doors clanked open. Amanda entered the lobby, saw Perry and stopped. He held up her jacket.
    She laughed. ‘I’ve been looking all over for that,’ she said. ‘I thought