"Whoever had the brilliant idea to hire two female anchors, should be taken out and shot," Sue Marshal said, as she watched the two women storm off to their respective dressingrooms. Sue was the producer of the late night K-U-N-T Channel 7 TV news program the two women were supposed to co-host, and had been dealing with their temper tantrums for over six months now.
What had started out as a simple dislike had now escalated into full-scale warfare. Sharon Daniels and Lisa Moore had disliked each other from the very beginning. At first it had been some catty comments behind each other's backs. That had progressed to name-calling face to face. Then the pushing and shoving had started. At times the crew had to, reluctantly, pull the two beauties apart to keep them from tearing each other's clothes off.
Slowly over time the hostilities began to spill over onto the air. While they were warned to keep their dislike for each other to themselves, secretly the owners of the TV station dared not take them off the air, as the ratings had climbed higher than they had ever been, as an eager audience tuned in each night to see what would happen next. The eleven o'clock news had become more popular than the steamiest soap opera.
Sharon was the older of the two women at 34 years of age. She had long shoulder length hair that framed a model's face. Not only that but she worked out on a regular basis, and had the body to go with the face, although she usually dressed conservatively on the air. She had been at K-U-N-T longer than the other woman and had felt that she should have been considered the senior partner, but management had chosen to make them equals.
Lisa was the fresh face the management had been looking for. She had long dark hair, that she always wore pulled back in a ponytail. Just like Sharon, she had a killer body, and wasn't afraid to show it off, wearing snug fitting outfits with low cut tops, even on air. She was only 25, and this was her first professional gig since getting out of college, but she had been the anchor for her college TV news and had been highly regarded by her associates and the instructors. She was anxious to advance her career, and was not going to let some over the hill spinster, as she thought of Sharon, since she had never been married, hold her back.
Sharon slammed the door to her dressing room. She was so angry she immediately began throwing things around. This was the last straw. She had gone too far tonight, and Sharon was not going to let her get away with it, even if the powers to be were. The snide comments had been one thing but tonight when she had read the lead-in to the story Sharon had worked all week on, about local prostitution, she had handed the camera over to her by saying, "It seems prostitution is on the rise in our area, and here is our KUNT reporter Sharon Daniels with the details."
There had been an audible gasp from the small crew. All on air personnel had been warned to never pronounce the station's call letters, but to always spell them out, due to their unfortunate connotation. Attempts to get the FCC to allow them to change their call sign had failed, and it was just something they had to live with.
At first Sharon had been happy, feeling that this would be enough to get the little witch fired. She was unbelievably shocked when Sue had simply given her a warning not to do it again. The girl had had the audacity to bat her eyelashes at her, and say, in a southern drawl, "Oh, did I do something wrong? I'm ever so sorry. I assure you it won't happen again."
From Sue's comments and the looks from the other crew, she knew nothing would be done about this. It was up to her to get back at the girl. If this was the way she wanted it, then this was the way she was going to get it. But, how?
She sat down at her desk trying to come up with a good plan. She idly tapped her fingers on a stack of papers, as she thought. It took her several minutes to realize what she thumping on. It was the file for her story on local prostitution. She smiled to herself as a plan began to form in her mind. It was oh so naughty, but it might be what the little bitch needed. She started humming to herself as she opened the folder, found the number she was looking for, picked up the phone and started dialing the number.
"Hello, Monique?" she said, when someone finally answered the call. "I need to hire your services for a night."
***
It had been almost a week since Lisa's crude introduction, and still no vengeance. The crew had started a pool as to how long it would be before Sharon got back at her younger rival. No one had any idea of what it might be, but they knew that Lisa had crossed a line, and whatever Sharon came up with it would be a doozy.
It was time to get started. It was an extra small crew tonight. There was Jane, the camera operator, which wasn't unusual, and Sue in the control room with Jim, the engineer. Bill the sports reporter had had to leave for a family emergency, so his part of the show would be a prerecorded version of his six o'clock report. The only other member of the crew was Roger the weatherman who was as gay as the day was long. Lisa found Sharon already sitting at the anchor desk when she walked into the studio. The older woman nodded politely, but that was all. Lisa was getting more and more nervous wondering what Sharon would do to get back at her. She had tried to apologize, but Sharon had blown it off, saying not to worry about it.
Lisa climbed onto the dais that the desk was mounted on, sat down and slid her chair forward. As she got into position her chair made a little jerk, and seemed to drop a fraction of an inch as if it had dropped into hole. She started to look down, and saw a couple of wooden wedges nailed to the floor. They were very similar to the edging on the dais. Being wedges they would allow her chair to roll one way over them, but she would have to physically lift her chair to back up. As she wondered about the wedges she was distracted by the signal from the camera operator to start the broadcast.
