Entrapment

My friend Patti.

She gets me into more trouble than I can get myself into, that's for sure.
We'd decided to paint our offices at work. We needed to do it together, it was matching paint. But we were both tired afterward, and couldn't finish. “Let's come back tomorrow,” she said, a sneaky look in her eye.
I gasped. We had strict instructions not to paint on a Sunday. Sunday's were double-time.
But I was hot and sweaty. And starved. We could go home early today and tomorrow, well tomorrow we could pretend it was Saturday all over again.
Not a bad idea.
“Hmm,” I said. “If we don't punch in our time card, the clerk will never know what day it is. We can just write our time on the back.”
“Exactly,” she said.
So the next day, we had a repeat of the Saturday before. But this time, Patti called me from her office.
“I think there's someone in the building.”
My office is located near the front of the building, overlooking the parking lot. I could see the cars. There were none familiar.
But an idea took root.
“Yep, it's Kevin,” I told her.
She gasped.
Her favorite director, because he was directly in charge of her. Very proper, he made you stand straighter whenever he walked by.
“Not to worry,” I said casually, trying not to laugh. “He'll never walk down the hall to see who's here.”
“Easy for you to say,” she said. His office was just down the hall from hers, but two key-code locked doors from mine. “I'm turning down my radio just in case.”
I refrained from mentioning it was off hours and we could blast as loud as we wanted to.
Instead, I picked up the intercom system and paged her.
“Ms. Patti Greer, please come to the waiting area. Mr. Dick Tator would like to see you.”
My phone immediately rang. I could hardly understand her, she stuttered so bad. “You mentioned my name!” she yelled. “Now he knows who all's in the building.”
“Not exactly,” I said. “He never heard my name.”
The intercom system sounded again. “Ms. Rena Marks, your friend Wanda Wunderlich is on line one.”
But she ruined the page by laughing so hard over the intercom, I could hear when she sprayed the receiver.
“Patti Greer. Mike Hunt is holding.”
I heard her scream down the hall, and then footsteps running down the long path, avoiding Kevin's office, to my office. She burst in, wet paint dripping down her legs and barefoot.
“Okay, okay,” I laughed. “I was joking. Kevin's not in, I swear. Look out my window, there's no cars here.”
She didn't take my word for it, she looked out the window. “Yeah,” she grudgingly replied. “I'm exhausted. Are we about done?”
“Yes,” I laughed, “Let's clean up.”
Cleanup took longer than the painting did. Once again, we were hot and sweaty. And four flights of stairs up. We met in front of the stairwell, turned to look at it, and instead took the elevator.
We knew better. The elevator in the old building isn't the most reliable. At the last minute, I decided to grab my time card to write my hours down for Monday morning.
I inserted my key into the elevator lock and unlocked the third floor.
“Hold the elevator,” I mentioned, leaving my keys dangling. The third floor hallway was pitch black. I hate to admit it, but it was creepy down there. Images of walking corpses entered my head.
“Okey, dokey,” said my happy but weary, Kansas-accented friend.
I raced down the hallway, and punched in the code to the door in the dark. The door opened easily, though I'd never before noticed the creaking.
Gulping, I grabbed my card and raced back down the dark hallway.
The elevator door was closed.
“Patti!” I snapped as I punched the button on the outside.
“Yes, dearie?” she called from inside the elevator.
I blinked. Right there, in the dark. “Why didn't you hold the door?”
“It kinda closed by itself,” she called out again. “I think it might be stuck. All the buttons are lit inside.”
I glanced around the creepy third floor. What was she whining about? At least she had light.
“Ok,” I said calmly. Patti can get a little emotional and she's stuck in an airtight elevator. She's also a smoker, who must be needing one right now.
Sure enough. “I need a light,” she called out. “You think I can smoke a couple of ciggies and no one'll notice?”
“No!” I snapped. It's a non-smoking building. Let's not break the law on purpose. Again. Technically, we weren't supposed to be in on a Sunday. Do we need to break the smoke-law too?
“We can't call anyone,” she was saying from behind the closed doors. “We can't both pretend we thought it was a Saturday,”
I took a deep breath. Think clearly. “Okay,” I said. “My keys are still there in the elevator lock. Turn them, take them out, and then put them back in.”
I waited a few minutes.
Impatiently, I screeched through the doors. “Anything?”
“Nope,” she said. “But I still need to smoke.”
“Is there an emergency button there?”
Maybe it would open the doors enough that she could crawl out between floors.
“Nope. But there's an emergency phone.”
“Well, call out!” I said, exasperated. I listened through the doors as she explained to the emergency person on the other end that she was stuck in an elevator. I heard her politely thank the person and hang up.
“Now what?” I said.
“I don't know. They didn't say. I guess we wait for the fire-hunks,” she said. “But I really need a smoke.”
“No,” I said patiently. “We can't have the firemen show up and open the doors to get blasted in the face with a puff of smoke-cloud.”
“Why don't you run downstairs and see if they're here yet?”
I sighed. Run? Three flights down. “Okay, I'll be back.”
I went down all three flights. Walked to the glass front doors. Nothing. Ran back up the three flights of stairs. Panted to the elevator, “No, not yet.”
“Well, how bout now?”
If she was out of the elevator, I'd choke her. But because she was helplessly locked inside, I reminded myself to be patient.
So I ran back down the stairs, and hobbled over to the front door. Nothing.
Back up the stairs, over to the elevator.
“Nope,” I panted.
“I'm sure they're here now, dearie. I'm starting to panic. I don't think there's any air in here.”
“They're not here yet,” I snapped, still breathing heavy.
“I think they are.”
“They're not!”
“Shhh,” she said. “I hear sirens.”
Sirens? The last thing we needed was sirens screaming through the quiet neighborhood on Sunday morning.
“No,” I assured her. “They wouldn't do that. Not sirens.”
“I hear them.”
“I'll head downstairs to be sure.”
I heard the wails as soon as I entered the stairwell. Sure enough, they had sent screaming sirens.
But Holy Jesus, the sight that beheld me when I turned the corner and peered out the glass doors. Eight uniforms clinging to young, sexy muscles; they bounced off the bright red truck and ran up to the building. Some brought out axes, some used their bare hands to pry apart the doors.
I stepped on the trigger that opened the automatic doors from the inside. The boys raced right to my side.
Wow. I felt like Jezebel at a dance hall.
But alas, I was hot and sweaty, which makes my hair frizz and curl in its ponytail. Hell, I hadn't even washed my hair from the Saturday before. It still had sea-foam colored paint dripped in it. No makeup. And Daisy Duke cutoff shorts that had torn clear up the crotch. So technically, it was now a mini-skirt.
Just to make sure, I looked down. Ugh, I was a month overdue for a pedicure. Paint spattered my legs. My arms were covered too.
Along with one left boob, which was painted green. And the color looked so much better on the wall.
One of the firemen was staring right at it. And he was cute as hell, which surprised me.
Now, I know I'll take a lot of heat for this...but it's been so long that I even glanced once at a man in uniform, I couldn't believe I'd noticed one was attractive. Married to a donut-eater for twenty years, all I ever heard was a clucking of the tongue and a muttered, derogatory term “Hose-dragger. Who wouldn't be buff? All they ever do while at work is work out. It's not like us,” he muttered, pieces of potato chip flying from his mouth, “Cops are the law. We're the ones who earn our pay.”
It was that attitude I divorced. And the reason why I refuse to look at another uniform, no matter what the occupation.
As far as poor Patti, I didn't mind if she stayed stuck a bit longer. I mean, come on, it's not like she could get into any trouble on a stationary elevator, right? And it's not often that an erotica author is sandwiched between two yummy, muscled men.
“Ma'am?” the cute one asked. “Does your friend have any medical conditions?”
A devil sat on my shoulder. Patti couldn't hear my answer. If I said yes, would we get more individualized attention? If I said yes, would she be upset?
“Please...help...me...” she called from two floors up, her voice fainter than ever.
Three men raced up the stairs, and two men raced into the electrical room, turning off the power and waiting a few minutes for it to reset.
I stood between the two firemen, looking up and blinking innocently. “Does she have enough oxygen?”
Both men smiled at my caring attitude. I turned it on a bit more thick, wringing my hands. “The poor...dear...she must be worried sick...she's fragile, you know.”
The elevator doors opened slowly.
“Hallelujah, thank the Lord!” I praised, impressing the hunks with me.
Both firemen and I peered inside anxiously, awaiting the condition of my poor Patti.
She stumbled drunkenly, looking a little frazzled. Spiky, sea-foam painted hair standing on end.
She'd interrupted my damned caring mood. Now what? Should I throw my arms around her? Sob out my thanks that she's okay? If only to take the guilt away that I wished she'd have stayed in a little longer?
Patti was awestruck, staring at one of the buff, handsome hose-draggers. Unconsciously, she posed. Hand on one hip, other hand twirling her sticky hair.
Then she said, “My. What a big... ax you have.”
Tramp.