by JD Nixon
I edged over to the chair just as Julian edged closer to Pei Pei, intending to snatch her off Trent’s head, where she continued to cling tightly.
“Keep your head still,” Julian instructed Trent as he reached his hands over at a snail’s pace, ready to grasp Pei Pei around her tiny body.
Checking over my shoulder to see if anyone was watching me, in my haste to reach the drink can I tripped over a power cord lying neatly coiled on the floor. I stumbled wildly forward, hands out in panic, running headlong into a spare spotlight. It crashed heavily to the floor, the loud noise reverberating around the studio.
Pei Pei, frightened by the sound, bolted from Trent’s head, ripping at his nose on the way. She jumped hard on to Seamus’ stomach, an emphatic oomph gushing from his mouth. He jerked back in his chair in horror and it tipped over, spilling his large mass on to the floor.
“Pei Pei!” shouted Julian, lurching over to grab her. She evaded his grasp and shimmied up the nearest piece of stage rigging. There she perched far above our heads on a steel beam, barking down at us.
Trent sat dazed at his desk, his hair a mess, blood dripping from his nostrils on to his impeccably tailored white shirt. Seamus floundered on the floor, trying to right himself. Julian stared up in horror at his monkey.
Brady turned to me, still flat on the ground tangled in the spotlight and power cord, his eyes cold. His mouth twisted with dislike. “I just knew this would have something to do with you.”
“Pei Pei,” wailed Julian, wringing his hands in despair, craning his head back so he could peer up at her. She nimbly scampered back and forth across the beam, stopping at the end of each run to stand up, bark and screech.
Viv held a terse and brief conversation with Brady, ending with that man’s curt, dismissive head shake. It appeared as if he refused to cut the cameras, obviously smelling a ratings landslide, even at the cost of Trent’s embarrassment. So poor Viv crept into the line of the camera over to Trent, who sat staring at his bloodied fingers in disbelief. She handed him a wad of tissues, then went to the rescue of Seamus. That large man was slippery with sweat under the hot lights and as she yanked on his arm, she suddenly cried out with pain. “My back! Oh God! I’ve just done my back in.”
“Someone get up there and rescue Pei Pei,” demanded a tearful Julian. “I would, but I’m afraid of heights.”
Nobody rushed to volunteer.
“Don’t look at me,” snapped Trent, holding the tissues to his nose.
“Can’t. I have a dodgy knee,” said Brady, totally uninterested.
Viv clutched her back, agony imprinted on her face. She wasn’t going to step forward. Neither was Seamus, who’d at least managed to roll himself over and push himself up on to his hands and knees.
One of the camera crew had his wrist in a cast and the other was seven months pregnant.
I glanced around the studio for the two firefighters, but they’d wandered off at some stage, perhaps to get a coffee before they were on. With doomed resignation, I struggled to my feet and dusted myself off.
“I guess I’ll have to be the one to try,” I sighed, but I held no particularly optimistic hopes about how all this was going to end.
Chapter 2
I assessed the tiny iron ladder situated to the side of the permanent studio rigging with a heart not just sinking, but also drowning. There was barely space for one foot on each rung. You’d have to be a monkey reincarnated to human form to gain any enjoyment from climbing that thing. I turned around to see if anyone would dissuade me from this rather insane activity. Nope. Nobody.
I placed my foot on the first rung and tested my weight on it. It creaked ominously. Geez, maybe I did need to lay off the snacks a little.
“How old is this rigging?” I threw back over my shoulder to anyone who’d listen.
Brady shrugged, his jaw moving languidly from side to side. “The station’s been using this studio for twenty-five years. Never had any issues with it before. I’m sure it’s fine.”
“Get my Pei Pei down,” entreated Julian.
“Okay. Geez,” I grumbled under my breath, carefully placing my other foot on the second rung. “What do you think I’m trying to do? I’m not doing this for fun, you know.” I climbed higher. “In my opinion, people should look after their own stupid monkeys and not send innocent young women up into the stratosphere to imperil their lives.”
The ladder made a strange squealing sound, which I echoed in fear.
“Put on the safety harness first, Tilly,” advised Trent, the tissues muffling his voice. “And Brady, for God’s sake, turn that fu– . . . that darn camera off.” Trent smiled weakly into the camera, always the professional, even with a tissue stuffed up each nostril.
“I’m not missing this,” Brady snapped back at him. “It’s ratings gold.”
Trent shot him a glance loaded with loathing, promising that the debriefing session after the show was going to be particularly fiery tonight. The two men had a reputation for not seeing eye to eye on a lot of things such as . . . well, everything really.
I searched the studio fruitlessly. “Where’s this harness?”
Trent pointed over to a tangle of nylon straps hanging from a hook and connected by a wire to one of the ceiling beams. After five minutes of puzzlement, and with Brady growling out impatient directions, I managed to figure out how to put it on. I slipped my legs into the lower loops and fixed the other loops over my shoulders, clipping up the clasp across my chest.
“This isn’t very comfortable,” I whined, not happy at how the crotch-hugging, butt-cupping straps forced my short skirt to ride up my thighs. I squirmed around trying to adjust it to a more modest length, a difficult task as it was a rather teeny skirt and hadn’t been particularly modest to start with. Let’s just say that I was showing off a whole lot of leg.
“Better to be safe than comfortable,” intoned Trent with muffled piousness. “We wouldn’t want anything happening to you.”
“Well, don’t send me climbing up some rigging chasing a frigging monkey,” I muttered darkly under my breath again.
Securely fastened in the harness, I recommenced my ascent up the dodgy ladder.
“Pei Pei,” I coaxed in a singsong voice, stepping higher and higher. “Come to Aunty Tilly. That’s a good girl.”
She sat on the beam staring down at me in bemusement, her head angled to the side, as if she couldn’t quite work out what I was doing up here in her neighbourhood. I climbed a few steps higher, trying not to look down at the ground as I did.
“Come on,” I said, daring to stretch out one of my hands to her, holding tightly to the ladder with my other.
Pei Pei scampered over to me, leaned over to look at my hand and then, insulted that it didn’t hold any sort of treat for her, sank her teeth into the fleshy part of my palm.
“Hey! That’s not nice!” I squealed in pain. Pei Pei barked at me and scampered back to the far side of the beam. “Get back here, you horrible little monkey. You need a good talking to, young lady. You just can’t go around biting people.”
With impotent futility, I reached as far as I could towards her, but didn’t even come close to being able to grab her. The ladder screeched again and with an indescribable tearing noise, the rung I stood on collapsed underneath me. Alarmed, I leaned over to grasp the beam, when the rung under my other foot also collapsed, leaving me dangling with no foothold, clinging on to the beam.
“Shit! Someone help me!” I screamed down at the small group of people watching me from the safety of the ground. In desperation, I thrashed my legs out in all directions, trying to locate something, anything, to stand on.
Trent jumped up from his seat and searched around him frantically. “Someone find something to put under her!”
Not caring for my rather precarious situation, I made a valiant effort to pull myself upwards with my arms, cursing my lack of exercise over the last few months, especially my lack of chin-ups. With some extremely unladylike grunts and ine
legant moves, I managed to swing one leg high enough to throw over the beam, wishing again that I hadn’t worn such a tiny skirt today. To be fair to myself, I hadn’t expected to end up flashing my underwear at work, but there was no denying that those on the ground were copping an extended view of some of my skimpiest underwear, a pair of panties that barely covered my most important bits. Why on earth didn’t I wear sensible undies today? I despaired silently.
When I’d worked for Heller as a security officer, I’d always worn practical, comfortable underwear, not knowing what would be in store for me on each job. But since working for Trent, I’d become a little riskier with my choices. I suppose that was bound to happen when you’re screwing a man like Heller, a man more than a little appreciative of sexy lingerie. But sometimes lingerie like that didn’t survive his appreciation for long. Sometimes he was so impatient to remove those flimsy scraps of delicate lace, silk and gauze, they tore under his strong, demanding fingers. One night, gazing in sorrow at yet another pair of shredded panties, I’d queried the extravagance of him having to replace such expensive lacy nothings so regularly. He’d merely lay back in bed, crossed his arms behind his head, half-smiled in that lazy way of his, and drawled that it was worth every single dollar to him. Then he’d pulled me towards him, proceeding to demonstrate very thoroughly again exactly how much he thought it was worth. And by the end of that lovemaking session, I could only agree with him that sex that good was worth any amount of money.
Realising that now was probably not the most appropriate time to be fantasising about Heller, after much adjustment and wriggling around, I found myself lying prone on top of the beam, hugging it with my arms and legs with great neediness like a . . . well, like a monkey, I guess. Except that the real monkey sky high up here with me wasn’t clinging to anything. Instead, she danced up and down on the beam, supremely confident in her balance and skills. She scampered up close to examine me and plucked at my hair before scuttling back to the far end again.
“Be careful up there, Pei Pei,” shouted Julian in concern.
“Oh gee, thanks,” I snarked to myself. “Don’t worry about me at all.”
“Tilly, are you all right?” asked Trent, craning his neck to look up at me.
“No, I’m not,” I squeaked, trying not to panic. “I’m stuck up here. That ladder’s falling apart. It’s not safe to use.”
“There’s one on the other side of the beam. Can you make it over there?”
“I’ll try.” I shuffled forward on my belly across the beam, not making much progress, but managing to drag my skirt even higher up my thighs. At this stage I was beyond caring about whether anyone could see my panties. I just wanted to be back safely on the ground.
“Don’t be afraid. You have the harness, remember?”
“I’m sorry, but after seeing how that ladder collapsed under me, I’m sure you’ll understand why I’m suffering a small crisis of faith in the integrity of this harness!”
“You’ll be fine,” Trent assured unconvincingly.
I inched forward again, still clinging to the beam. Pei Pei decided that what I was doing looked like a lot of fun. Without any warning, she sprang on to my back for a free ride, jolting a very loud and rude word from my mouth. I sure hoped Brady had stopped filming, because my mother was a regular viewer of People’s Pulse. I didn’t think she’d yet acknowledged that her only daughter, her baby, could be a little mouthy on occasion. Pei Pei gripped handfuls of my hair and yanked on them, all the while jumping up and down on my back.
“Ow! Pei Pei, stop pulling my hair!” I squawked. “You are the naughtiest monkey I’ve ever had the misfortune to meet.” And considering that she was the only monkey I’d ever met, my standards for exemplary simian behaviour hadn’t been set particularly high in the first place.
As if she could understand my words (and who knew, maybe she could – I’ll admit my knowledge of spider monkeys would barely fill a thimble), my scolding enraged her. Fuelled by her caffeine high, she screeched and danced on my back, wrenching on my hair. It was the worst – the only – monkey tantrum I’d ever experienced.
“Pei Pei! Stop that!” yelled Julian sternly.
It worked for a minute, Pei Pei halting her tantrum and peeping down at her trainer, her fingers still gnarled in my hair. But then she barked again and leapt onto my head, leaning down to cover my eyes with her paws. Oh, just great! I was too afraid to let go of the beam to prise them away, so lay there, scared and now blinded.
“What the hell’s going on here?” called up a different voice that I recognised as belonging to one of the firefighters. “We go away for a few minutes and now there’s a woman stuck up in the air in her panties.”
“And my monkey,” wailed Julian. “My Pei Pei’s stuck up there too.”
“I’m wearing a skirt!” I insisted hotly, worrying about just how much of my undies were now showing and really, really hoping Brady had turned off the camera. “It’s just ridden up a bit.”
“Can you guys rescue Tilly?” asked Trent. “You’re firemen, after all. Isn’t that kind of your job?”
“I don’t need rescuing. I just need some . . . assistance. That’s all,” my voice floated down to them from above, like some rather inept angel who’d fallen from the sky and managed to get herself caught on a steel beam on the way down. With a monkey on her back. And her undies on display.
Someone, who I presumed was one of the firefighters, strode purposefully across the studio floor. I secretly hoped it would be Mr October to the rescue – he was really cute. But then I heard noises indicating he was about to scale the very ladder that had failed me so badly.
“Not that one!” I joined another five voices in simultaneously shouting out the warning to him.
“That one’s broken,” Trent explained.
Footsteps moved over to the other side and noises came to me of someone skillfully and swiftly ascending the other ladder.
“Keep sliding over to me and I can help you to the ladder,” instructed one of the firefighters, and it was Mr April. “We met before. My name’s Warren. You’re Tilly, aren’t you?”
“Yes. And I’m sorry, Warren, but it’s a little tricky for me to move at the moment. I’m sure you’ve noticed that I have a very badly-behaved monkey covering my eyes and I’m kind of afraid to move while I can’t see.”
“Hey, monkey!” he demanded, his voice authoritative, demanding to be heard. “Stop harassing the poor lady and go back to your trainer. Now.”
Pei Pei freed my eyes and sat up on my head on full alert, all of her attention directed towards Warren. She abandoned me to scamper to the end of the beam, her head on one side, observing the firefighter on the ladder with curiosity. I wasted no time to scoot to the end of the beam on my tummy to join her.
“Good work, Tilly,” soothed Warren. “Now comes the tricky bit. You need to reach your left foot down to me and I’ll help it to the ladder, so come as close to the end of the beam as you can.”
As Pei Pei refused to budge, I wasn’t able to move right to the end, forced instead to stretch one leg out towards the ladder from where I was. Warren clasped my calf and guided my foot to a rung higher than the one on which he currently stood. I spent an uncomfortable minute or so split, with one leg straining to touch the rung, the other still wrapped around the beam.
“You’re doing great,” Warren said when my foot secured its position on the rung. He spoke in such a warm, comforting voice, I wondered if he was the one they sent out to coax people down from high ledges. “Lean down and grasp the ladder with your left hand. When you’ve done that, reach out your right hand to me. I’m going to hold it and help it to the ladder too. You won’t fall because you’ll have hold of the ladder and I’ll be holding your other hand. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
I nodded, barely able to articulate even a squeak.
“Okay, so when you’re safely holding the ladder and your other hand is in mine, you’re going to unwrap your right leg from th
e beam and I’ll assist you to the ladder with it as well. Remember you’ll be holding on to something at all times, so don’t be afraid. You won’t fall. But you have to keep your foot on the rung at all times.”
“Are you sure about this?” I asked faintly, perturbed. Frankly, it all sounded a little too complicated, coordinated and acrobatic for me to ever accomplish successfully.
He didn’t respond, not pandering to my well-deserved doubts. But then he didn’t know my limits as well as I did. I hung down, stretching out my hand towards the ladder, my fingers eventually closing around the rusting metal of its strut, my right arm and leg still slung over the beam. I felt as though I was being ripped in half between the ladder and the beam. The view of me from the ground must have been unedifying for everyone.
In the next terrifying part of his plan, I released my hold on the beam to squeeze his huge hand in a death grip that would probably leave it aching for an hour. Having successfully completely those two manoeuvres without killing myself or anyone else, my confidence rose a smidge. This might just work, I thought with grateful surprise.
But of course, it didn’t.
Pei Pei chose that exact moment to spring from the beam directly on to Warren’s face, wrapping her limbs around it like the creature from Alien.
“Bloody hell! Get off me!” he spluttered, releasing my hand to pull her off his face. “I’m being smothered by a monkey!”
“No,” I panicked, having already unfurled my leg from the beam and left holding on to the ladder with only one hand and one foot. Without my other hand supported by his, I swung wildly on the strut of the ladder until I managed to plant my second foot on the same rung as my first. It promptly collapsed under my full weight and I crashed downwards on to Warren, sprawled across his shoulders.
“God, what’s happening?” he yelped, trying to dislodge Pei Pei with his one free hand, his other clinging to the ladder, unexpectedly forced to now support both our weights.
“Pei Pei, I have your favourite treat,” cajoled Julian in desperation, holding up some melon. “Yummy, yummy.” She climbed off Warren back on to the ladder and peeked down at Julian. “But you have to come to me to have it.” She disdained his offer, climbing up to the beam again where she perched, shrieking shrilly at him.
