The Firefighter's Ball

1.

"Interesting showerhead," he had just muttered to himself. And it was. It was two showerheads, actually; turning a spigot by the main outflow would divert the surprisingly powerful stream to the shower-massage hose and wand at the opposite end. And the tub was huge. He had decided that his hostess was quite the sybarite when the lights went out.

The bathroom was plunged into absolute darkness. Naturally, he was momentarily disconcerted, but saw no particular reason not to continue showering. He groped around a bit and found the bar of soap.

"Girl soap," he said to himself. It smelled of vanilla, and something flowery. "Honeysuckle? Whatever." It wasn't bad or anything, but he wouldn't want the guys back at the hook & ladder company to get a whiff of him at the moment. Certainly not these first few days.

It wasn't until he'd rinsed the soap from his eyes that he noticed the globe of light. It seeped golden thru the translucent curtains, and floated and wavered in midair. It got bigger as he looked at it, and then the curtain was flung aside.

She was holding a candle up in front of her, illuminating only her face. Its tremulous flame threw nervous shadows and coquettish light. Her straw-blond hair, lit from below, was a wild halo. Aristocratic cheekbones shaded her temples, and her perfect nose cast an odd triangle of darkness to divide her forehead. Her lush lips were parted in a wicked smile, allowing the flame to glint off her bared teeth.

He had little time to catalog such details, because she had, in one motion, thrust the candle into a niche in the tile wall, pulled the curtain closed again, and flowed up into his arms. Her blue eyes (he remembered they were blue; by candlelight they were deep black wells with a glimmer dancing in their depths) half closed, and she tipped her head back and to one side in an unmistakable invitation. He did not hesitate to accept.

2.

She realized it was mainly because he had no idea how adorable he was.

She had gotten tickets to the Firefighter's Ball from her Secret Santa at the office Christmas party, who had turned out to be Norbert Puffer from her IT department. He had revealed his erstwhile identity by the sadly unspiked egg nog and, while fidgeting with his clip-on bow-tie, made it clear that the cosmos required that he be her escort to the soiree in question. She had already turned him down for New Year's Eve, and he wasn't a complete creep. And he had, quite against Policy, installed unauthorized RAM in her laptop, the mad impetuous boy. She sighed inwardly, said "shit" to herself, and agreed. Prolonged datelessness does strange things to the mind sometimes.

At the Firefighter's Ball, held this year at the Marriott out on Rt.19, she had spotted him leaning against a fake fireman's pole. Not Norbert -- definitely not Norbert -- but a suitably tall, rawboned and awkward cowboy in a brand new JC Penney micro fiber sports jacket and a pair of 501's that fit... VERY... well.

She knew right away. "Oh, my, yes," she said to herself, "In a New York minute."

Norbert returned with her sloe gin fizz. He had managed to carry it and his Grasshopper without spilling but a few drops on his shoes. They stood by the sofa-size art near the swinging kitchen doors for a while, sipping their drinks and blathering between silences. Her eyes kept snapping back to the... yeah, he's a fireman, she speculated. I imagine asking to see his hose would be forward of me. Norbert thought she was smiling at his wacky server-malfunction anecdote, and he was quite pleased and wrong.

Eventually the band returned and launched into a limp rendition of a Huey Lewis cover, so Norbert asked her to dance. Quite deliberately, she spilled her drink on his Dockers. He apologized and excused himself to the men's room. "Nice guy," she thought, as she set down her drink, peeled off her cardigan, and crossed the dance floor to her fireman.

He was by now peering up into the darkness by the acoustical tiles and wondering what the top of the fake pole was attached to. She stood beside him and looked up too.

"I've always wanted to slide down one of these," she said. "Boost me up."

3.

He was no longer sure what 'irony' meant, but he was pretty sure this qualified. He had gotten home from the Firefighter's Ball - well, he had given that nice blonde a lift home first. Apparently her date, the gleep in the bow-tie, had gotten upset about something and left her there. Go figure. Turns out she lived two streets up the hillside, on Vista View. He'd turned down her offer of a cup of coffee; it'd just keep him awake. Anyway, he'd gotten home to find his apartment gutted by fire. The crappy wiring in these old postwar tract duplexes, Hannigan had said. The guys in B unit from out in Creekdale got there in time to keep it from spreading to adjacent units, but that was about it.

Well, now he needed a place to sleep. He thought he had a Motel 6 discount card in his wallet - which was in his sports jacket - which he had last seen draped over that blonde. "Well, she shivered," he thought. "Damn. Hope she's not asleep already. I need that wallet."

She wasn't. The peephole in her door darkened, and after a couple seconds she opened the door to reveal that she had changed out of her pretty dress. A dark blue silk robe covered flannel pajamas. She was blushing, furiously, for some reason. He explained about the fire, and she apologized for giggling, explaining that it was just so ironic. So, yeah, he was right about the definition of ironic. Then she explained about the jacket; she forgot she had it on, there it was on the back of the rocker; what is that, suede? No, it's micro fiber. It feels nice. Did you get burnt? No, why? Well, you're all sooty. Oh, I was digging around to see if I could salvage my laptop. Could you? No.

Her top pajama button had come undone. She didn't seem to notice.

"Well, look," he said, "I gotta get going. I gotta find a place to crash tonight."

"Well, look," she said. "That's crazy. I've got a guest room. I've just got to get the Christmas decorations off the...off the bed and it'll be fine. No, I insist. You're a fireman --"

"Firefighter."

"Whatever. You're a hero. You deserve no less. Shut up. Besides, you lived in an apartment my company owns. That makes me responsible. Shut up. Say yes. It's that door."

"Yes, ma'am. Thank you."

"Oh. Just a second. I'll get you a towel; you better take a shower. And don't call me 'Ma'am.'"

4.

She deliberated for three and a half minutes, by candlelight, as she listened through the door to the water hissing and splattering on the porcelain. She wanted him. She was burning. He had wrapped his big calloused hands around her waist and hoisted her up that stupid pole as if she weighed twelve pounds. She had managed to slide down, somehow, without her skirt up around her ribs, but she was pretty sure that the leg she'd wrapped around the pole had looked fetching as it parted the side-slit of her skirt. As she hit the ground she pretended to stumble and, laughing, put both hands on his chest to regain her balance. It was like a rock. She thought about knocking on his bedroom door later and asking if he needed anything at all. She thought about slipping into the room after dark, leaving her PJs in a flannel puddle, and ravishing him. She thought about his long, cut fireman's body all soaped up, and turned the knob.

He didn't know what had hit him. She had made her decision, and was going for broke. He was beginning to respond to her kiss, and his arms had started to envelop her, but she giggled and slipped under his arm around behind him. She shoved him from behind up against the wall under the showerhead and, going up on tiptoe, she whispered in his ear, "Don't move."

"Yes, Ma'am," he said.

She took his earlobe between her teeth and nibbled, perhaps a bit harder than necessary. "Don't call me Ma'am."

She reached up and got the shower-massage pumping. It sputtered; began chattering. She had the bar of soap now, and she wasn't afraid to use it. Leaning with his forearms flat against the tiles, he gripped the showerhead pipe. Still from behind him, she slowly and thoroughly ran the soap bar over every inch of his back and chest. She had a bath-puff thing in the other hand, and she lovingly lathered him up. Then she reached up and over his broad shoulders, grabbed his wrists, and pulled him back upright.

"Turn around," she commanded. He turned. "Sit." He sat. Her tub had a very broad rim. She dropped to her knees in front of him.

5.

She began at his feet. Methodically, she soaped and scrubbed them, not neglecting between the toes. He managed, through a tremendous effort of will, not to reveal that his toes were extremely ticklish. Then she grasped one of his ankles and slid his leg up her arm until his calf rested on her shoulder. She lathered up the one leg, then did the same for the other. She worked slowly, and he noticed she had a solemn look of concentration on her face, like a little girl intent on not coloring outside the lines.

Occasionally she looked up to see what effect she was having on him. He appeared to be enjoying it.

His eyes had long ago adjusted to the dimness of the single candle through the steam, and he was admiring how lovely she was. She was quite brown all over, with a near-invisible dusting here and there of freckles, except in pale, triangular areas the sun hadn't seen This highlighting of forbidden zones excited him. And he found that she looked good even when she hunkered over; no awkward folds or pouching. Her breasts would gently sway from time to time and, watching, he felt like someone being put into a hypnotic trance. "Keep your eyes on ze vatch...You are getting horny... very, very horny... "

She had finished up to his thighs, and said, "Stand up." She rose as he did, and she batted away the hands that began to reach around her. "Did I say you could move, Cowboy? Keep your palms on the wall behind you."

He smiled.

She resumed her task. She re-lathered her bath-puff and washed his stomach. Oh, she had been saving this up. It had that six-pack that, back at the Marriott, she had imagined it had, and she savored running her fingers across the smooth, hard ripples. She had to get up very close to him to reach around so she could soap up his butt, and she was thorough enough that his eyebrows rose.

Needless to say, that's not all that rose. She noted, with great satisfaction, the warm hardness that pressed insistently, first against her leg, then her abdomen. She had to rub up against him in her labors; up and down; side to side. Yes, I know you're there, she thought. Be patient. It's your turn next.

And it was. She locked eyes with him, and held his gaze for 8 seconds. She gave him a big smile. Then she put a hand on his chest and reached down with the other and touched the puff to his scrotum. He gasped.

She kept his eyes on hers while she worked. When he was completely soaped up she let the puff hang by its band from her wrist. She encircled his penis lightly, three fingers, thumb on top, and ever so slowly slid down its length, from the tip to the base of the shaft, and back. And again. She was delighted that he grew in her fist, harder and bigger than before. She made the circuit again, increasing the pressure. His eyes closed and he said "nguuh." Again. Again. She slid the hand on his chest up and across and back, brushing her fingers across his nipples. Her fist slid slowly back from base to tip, and with a fingertip she traced along the inverted V that saluted her there before she let go.

He drew in his breath in a hiss through his teeth. She gave a low chuckle in her throat. Then her fingernails touched the hindmost region of his sudsy scrotum and drew fine lines through the lather as she trailed them lightly from back to front. She made a lacework pattern as she tried various paths. She liked seeing the shaft bob up a little straighter with each pass, like it was nodding 'yes.' She liked how she was making him breathe so heavily.

She grabbed the shower-massage hose off its wall-mount and began rinsing him off. It was on the Pulse setting, the one she referred to as the Thrustmaster setting. She dialed it to Spring Rain before she rinsed his balls, which he appreciated. She saw how the candle's flame made little points of light on the rivulets and tiny beads of water on his skin. When she was done with the rinsing, she hung up the wand, bent down, and kissed the tip of his cock. Then she pulled the puff off her wrist and held it out to him. "Now you do me," she said, and turned her back.

6.

"He'll rue the day he messed with Norbert Puffer," Norbert Puffer had said, his head bathed in the cathode ray glow of his PC screen. He had seen his date leave the Firefighters Ball with that tall bastard, and using the ninja skills he'd learned at night school (his screen-name was 'Ronin'), he'd shadowed them out to the parking lot and tapped the guy's license number into his Palm Pilot. On his cell he had called a buddy at the Police Bureau, another night-school ninja, who worked in Records and could run the number.

He'd found the burnt apartment, but not the car. He had a horrible hunch, and drove his Jetta by her house, outside of which he'd sat many a night, unavailingly, with night-vision goggles. The plates checked. That was the car. Bastard!

The Jetta's dash clock said he sat there for 12 minutes. Then he started the engine and drove off. He made two consecutive rights and parked on the next street over. He got out of the car and quietly closed the door. He rummaged through the duffle bag in the trunk where he kept his gear and selected his equipment for the evening.

There was a vacant lot that adjoined her back yard and two of her neighbors'. Again employing the ancient stealth skills of the mercenary assassins of Nippon, Norbert stole from tree to pile of junk to shrub and made his way undetected to her back fence. In absolute silence, mostly, he hoisted himself over the top and dropped lightly to the grass on one knee and his fingertips. He was just wondering what that was that his fingertips were in when he heard what sounded like an idling Harley. It wasn't. He hadn't known she had a dog. Huh. A Rottweiler.

7.

She admired his restraint. She had been trying to whip him up some, and she knew that it had worked -- that nudging from behind her would not be denied for long -- but he was as slow and thorough as she had been. A form of revenge, perhaps, but revenge was sweet. She felt tiny in his arms, and she relaxed against him and sighed as his big hands lathered and scrubbed every millimeter, paying perhaps more attention to certain areas than was absolutely necessary.

He had dispensed with the bath-puff; he loved the silkiness of her wet and soapy skin under his hands. She was soft and slippery and would squirm a bit from time to time, and press her tight little ass against his loins. He kissed the side of her neck and slid his soapy hands up her back to her shoulders, then down to cup her breasts briefly before continuing down across her belly, down, twirling her pubic hair and trailing his fingertips along the sides of her outer labia before sliding back up again to lightly tweak her nipples. He did this again and again, a thrilling stroke, with variations on the theme, and she hummed and moaned and her breathing deepened.

He turned the valve that controlled the water flow and set it so water sprayed their bodies simultaneously from both fixtures at either end of the tub. He spun her around to face him. He wet down her hair and shampooed it. She looked at him with a question in her eyes. "It was already clean," she murmured.

"I know," he said. "I love doing this, though." He paused. "Can you keep a secret? If I hadn't been a firefighter, I would have been a hairdresser."

He silenced her laughter with a kiss. While he plied his fingers through her thick mane she did a quick job on his short buzz and washed the vestigial soot off his face. He rinsed them both off and turned off the water. She pulled a couple of big, fluffy towels into the tub and they dried each other off. That was a great deal of fun. Then they stood for a moment, face to face, and made each other wordless promises.

He picked her up, cradled her in his arms, and carried her into the bedroom. He tossed her lightly on to the bed and she rebounded about a foot. He crossed to the foot of the bed and stood above her, studying again the wonderland of curves. She struck a sexy pose: hands behind her head, head back, lips parted, eyes half-closed, back arched, one knee bent and crossed in front of the other.

He climbed onto the foot of the bed. He reached out and put a hand on each knee, then slid his hands in and up her inner thighs. Gently, but irresistibly, he spread her knees apart.

He began at her feet.

Beginning with the left, he kissed the sole, then every toe, one by one but out of sequence, for the surprise value. He pressed the tip of his tongue against her right anklebone and ran it up her calf to her knee, then kissed her there and flicked and circled his tongue in the hollow behind her knee. He moved his head up and around to her inner thigh, and she gasped as he gently nibbled it. He switched to the other leg and gave it equal time. Lingeringly, excruciatingly slowly, he kissed his way up her trembling thighs. His hands, meanwhile, pursued more random courses, stroking the tops of her thighs, her tummy, her hipbones, her breasts, her ribs; but he left her vulva untouched.

Her breathing was like the cooing of doves, and she made occasional incoherent noises: "Ooh. Uh! Mm. Ai! Oh, I swear to God I'm going to come as -- mmuh-ahh! -- as soon as you touch me there!"

"Do you want me to stop?"

" Nn!... no."

He ran a fingertip along her razor-sharp hipbone.

"As soon as I touch you where, now?"

From cheeks to chest, she blushed through her tan. "You know. Where you're going."

"Whoa. When did you turn shy? Come on now." He nibbled the tendon at the top of her inner upper thigh. "I don't know what you mean. You're going to come as soon as I touch...? "

He waited.

Very quietly: "My pussy."

His grin was wolfish. "Ah," he said. "Well then."

He wrapped an arm under each thigh and lifted her legs up on to his shoulders, and then resumed his slow kissing, nibbling and stroking progress. He continued, maddeningly, to take his sweet time about it. She was dripping wet. He tickled the downy hair, which she had sculpted into a neat little racing stripe - and she sent a silent thanks aloft that those bikini-wax speckles had already healed - and deftly spread her bright pink lips apart. He kissed her there, softly, over and over, each kiss like a schoolboy's first tentative kiss with the girl next door. He put his nose in the cleft and inhaled deeply through it. A sigh escaped her like a soul released from purgatory.

With no warning, he wetly lapped his tongue, like a Labrador Retriever, the full length of her pussy, perineum to mons. She let out a sound between a sigh and a sob, and her whole body shook. He began in earnest. He licked her labia minora from the inside out, as if to lay the petals of the orchid aside. He pushed his nose inside her and again pulled her scent deep into his nostrils while he licked her; here, there, everywhere. Sometimes he would stop, and she felt his hot breath on her as he chose his next taste; where, when, how gently, how long, how slow, how wet? She loved that his entire focus was on pleasuring her, and that it seemed that he'd never tasted anything so sweet. Finally, he curled his tongue into a U shape and plunged it deep inside her, probing under the hood for her clitoris.

He found it. Her breathing was very rapid now, and spasms of trembling coursed through her body. His tongue flicked and twirled and caressed, and he made sounds like a gourmet with a great dessert. She felt a tremendous warm tickling spreading out from her womb to her every extremity. He kissed her clit. She sighed. Licked it. She moaned. Sucked it. She cried out, loud, "Fuck YES that's IT," and jackknifed and convulsed in a shattering orgasm.