The Subterranean Simian Encounter
By goodlycreatures
"Hey, Wendy Watson."
Wendy rolled the elevator door back down. "Hey, Noser."
"What is this thin gruel of heart and bone left to me this last day of Fall?" enquired Noser, his hands finding and not playing the lost chords of a vanished song.
"Mostly pain, but also blood and life, says the last king in town," replied Wendy, pausing a moment in the hallway.
"A lonely king?"
"Alone and afraid, or so says the Green Man."
"Too true, dawg; too true," mused Noser, lapsing into quiet contemplation.
Strangely and indefinably moved and calmed by Noser's lyrics, Wendy opened the door to the illegal sublet she shared with her photogenic young artist and friend, Lacey.
"Dub-Dub!" cried Lacey from her supine position on the couch. "I've reached for and found that moment for which every woman strives but so-seldom gains: I have replaced erotic experience with a deep and abiding passion for Monkey-Love Ice-Cream with Waffle Pieces. Join me in my Eros-free zone of comfy-couch and creamy monkey-love."
Wendy screwed her nose, scrunching her glasses up her face. "Is this another ludicrously convoluted but strangely charming art-attack project you are embarking on, or has it just been a really slow afternoon?"
Lacey perked up even more. "Since I renounced all thoughts of affection or wandering hands with Sexy Boss-Man, I have diverted my bounty of libidinous energy into this love of frozen milk products and upholstered furniture. My way of life has much to recommend it."
"I am intrigued by your message of love," Wendy mused as she strolled behind the ever-present clothes rack, stripping to boxers and baby-tee. She emerged from the rack. "Tell me more of your philosophy and chosen life-style."
"We the chosen-few worship upon the frozen alter," gabbled Lacey, eyes sparkling with mischief as her mouth started running with the idea. "Ours is a capricious god, and only to those marked with the sign of the Monkey – a mighty clenched paw in the act of hurling faeces at a cruel anti-ape world - may approach and accept offerings-"
Wendy's watch abruptly made its familiar blarp chime.
Lacey threw a pout. "I know what that means. You can tell him I now reserve my love alone for creamy monkeys, and think nothing of his pillowy lips or duvet eyes. Neither his bedroom fingers nor broad quilted chest will tempt me now." She threw a clenched fist in the air. "Monkey Love!"
Wendy reached for her watch. "He has a complicated relationship with our simian cousins, Lace. Mentioning your creamy monkey-love to him could throw open a whole unwelcome carton of damn fine cow squirt," Wendy's voice had dropped momentarily in an approximation of the Middleman. She smirked. "Let's keep things post-homo erectus." She addressed her watch. "Hey, Boss."
The Middleman straight-arrow voice shot from the communicator. "Dubbie, a matter has arisen requiring our immediate and undiverted attention. A mission of extreme peril and certain doom has developed and I fear we may even now be too late to avert this looming tragedy. And though not wanting to further deepen and shore this mine of the apocalypse, I must caution you in the extreme: there will be monkeys."
"There always is, Boss. There always is."
Ida butted in on the watch-based communication. "So get your skinny ape-descended ass down here in triple-quick time, or are you too busy trying to figure out a way to turn more of your life into a cloud of reefer juice?
"Yep: it's a regular morality tale down here with our sweet pills and bitter lives," said Wendy, calmly taking Ida in her stride. "I'll be there in three puffs."
"Hippy!" snapped Ida.
"Mysterious alien object in trunk of car!"
"Just get down here before White-Bread here looses another button from his starchy shirt." Ida shot back, before cutting the connection.
Wendy sighed, and looked imploringly at Lacey. "Looks like my religious conversion will have to wait: there's a big temping emergency down town. Reckon the couch will wait up for me?"
"Reckon it will, my young acolyte," grinned Lacey. "Now get those oddly boyish hips of yours into that cute uniform and go temp your little ass off. The Monkey God wishes you safe journeys and many bananas." She raised her clenched fist again. "Monkey Love!"
Wendy saluted in turn. "Monkey Love!" She stepped behind the ever-present clothes rack, emerging moments later clad in the familiar Eisenhower-green threads of the Middleman. She passed Noser in the hallway just as he was in the middle of not playing Death on the Mainline (The Theme from Datsun's Boy), and as she stepped into the elevator her Communicator blarped once more. It was Ida.
"Here's the sitrep, Train Wreck," snapped Ida.
"Wait," Wendy frowned. "It's a monkey-train wreck?"
"No – that's what I'm calling you from now on. And if it hasn't happened yet it soon will."
Wendy rolled her eyes. "Sitrep…?"
"The Monkey Lord of the Underworld has declared war on all humans. Since I lack any form of human-affiliation, I couldn't give a rat's ass for all this monkey business, but I guess in the long run it would be bad for business if all you stinking humans got yourselves wiped out."
"Wait: there's a monkey underworld?"
"Yes!" Ida snapped. "Try reading the Middleman histories sometime instead of filling your pie-hole with Honduran pharmaceuticals."
Wendy had reached her Middlemobile. The Middleman's voice crackled over the communicator. "What Ida is trying to say is: Please hurry, and do not spare any time admiring the scenery. We may be in a bit of a pretty pickle, and I currently lack a taste for this style of condiment."
"Gottya, Boss!" Wendy keyed the ignition, activated the MiddleScramJet, and lay down a line of smoking rubber the length of the block.
Middleman HQ
"We have a what with the whose-now?"
"It's simple, Dubbie. The Monkey Grand Vizier has granted us an audience with the Monkey King, in order to negotiate the terms of our surrender, and from this the entire human race. Which of course we will not allow to happen." The Middleman frowned. "I'm not sure which part of this you failed to understand the first time. It was neither complex nor unnecessarily polysyllabic."
"That wasn't the bit that confused me! Explain again why this audience has to be conducted naked!"
The Middleman's mouth quirked into a half-grin that meant he was about to give a high-minded lecture, and his hands moved in a pacifying motion. "You see, Dubbie, Apes don't wear clothes. To them clothes symbolise a hiding of ones true self. Clothes remove one from contact with nature. Now imagine what they think when they see us dress chimpanzees in adorable little butler uniforms and roller skates. Adorable to us, maybe. But to a Great Ape of the Underworld, we just spat in their face and threw our metaphorical faeces at their grandmothers. Apes have a saying. It's rather wordy, as is their way, but in essence it says: "Clothes Maketh the Man."
Wendy wasn't done. "But: Naked! And there'll be lots and lots of monkeys watching."
"It would be rude to go in any other manner. Never fear, Wendy. I will preserve your modesty at all times. My gaze will remain averted and strictly monkey-philic. And anyhow, do what I will be doing. Always ensure your areas of femininity are aligned with appropriately shaped objects scattered about the room. I myself will being keeping a sharp lookout for bowls of fruit, spears, short clocks and tall stools."
"This has a very high potential of going all NC-17 on our asses, you know. Can't we keep it PG13? In fact, I'm all for a U-rating. Gotta love that Universality."
"Nonsense, Dubbie. We've got three minutes until our royal escort arrives. I don't want to see you wearing anything but a smile in two."
Wendy started to unbutton her shirt. "Trust me: you're walking in front."
Throne Room of the Monkey King of the Underworld
"How did I know it would end up like this?"
The Middleman slapped Wendy heartily on the back, whilst modestly keeping his eyes admiring an attractive piece of monkey bas-relief, and his hips held at a peculiar angle similar to that of a nearby vase. "Single hand-to-hand combat to decide the fate of the world. In many ways, Dubbie, I would have it no other way. As Sensei Ping always says, when you have exhausted all other avenues of negotiation, kick the [bleep] out of the other guy."
"You do realize that wrestling nude with an ape is wrong on so very many levels. Not wanting to get all Oliver Reed on you here, but this ain't gonna be flattering to you or the ape."
The Middleman leant closer. His breath swayed her bangs. This fight will be a distraction. That lumbering oaf I'll be fighting is not the Monkey King. There has obviously been a coup de ape. Find the one true Monkey King and restore him to the throne. Oh, and Wendy."
Wendy gulped. "Yes, Boss?"
"Find him before I get the [bleep] kicked out of me."
Throne Room of the Monkey King of the Underworld, 33 minutes later
"Jeez, Boss: I really thought he had you dead-for-rights in that death grip."
"Precisely what I wanted him to think, Dubbie. All that physical grappling had left me slick with man-sweat. I was more greased up than a pig in a poke. Why, there wasn't a square inch of me that wouldn't have gleamed with oil and sweat. He had no chance of keeping hold of me, giving me a chance to unleash the awesome might of the Strangulated Rabbit. It's one of Sensei Ping's most legendary moves, but requires full skin-to-skin contact and full use of every one of my extremities."
Wendy ran a barely shaking hand through her hair and double-O'd her eyes. "You don't say. Is it getting hard in here or was it just your penis? Um, by which I mean, your penis."
"What was that, Dubbie? I'm still cleaning monkey juice from my ears."
Wendy struck a quirky smirk. "Just saying glad Lacey wasn't here. Lord knows, the woman's not made of stone."
The Middleman struck a gleaming, sweat-streaked heroic pose. "So the rightful Monkey King has been restored to his throne, the pretender is under heavy baboon-custody, and you appear to have forgotten you were worried about being naked. Which is as it should be: modesty has no place in matters of negotiation. Though one more thing."
"Yes, Boss?"
"You may wish to tell that young ape who is so assiduously grooming you to perhaps, well, head north a little. About two-and-a-half feet north should do it."
"In a minute, Boss. In a minute."
End