Heller’s Decision (3 page)

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 inelegant 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.

Someo
ne, 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
the 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.

And that was when Warren, straining under
my weight and struggling to maintain his grasp on the ladder and
his balance, made his unwise crack about me being rather hefty. I
tried to accommodate him by wriggling around and distributing my
weight more evenly. As soon as he felt more stable he told me he’d
make his slow, careful way down the rungs with me draped over his
shoulders. It seemed like a good plan to me, as it meant I’d soon
be on solid ground again. I decided that Pei Pei could just look
after herself from now on. I’d done what I could.