by Teagan Kade
“Are girl firefighters, like, a thing?” Nancy Stewart asked, as if it were the most natural question in the world. This from the girl who thought you could use a plastic bag for a condom.
“What about the scholarship?” Mom continues. “Was that all sorted when you arrived?”
I hate lying, especially to my own mother, but it was a necessary evil. “Yes. Everything’s being looked after.” I can’t handle any more questions. “Class is about to start, Mom. I’ve got to go.”
“You’ll call me at the end of the week, as we agreed?”
I roll my eyes. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
“Alright then. Stay safe, pumpkin.”
“You’ve got to stop calling me that.”
She either ignores me or is too busy sticking to her agenda. “Call if you need anything. There’s no shame in backing out.”
Such a pillar of support. “I will. Love you, Mom.”
“Love you too.”
I end the call and slowly remove the cell from my ear.
I stand and take a breath.
Back to business, Lace.
*
We’re standing out in the open, partnered and geared up. I expected the breathing apparatus to be heavy, but it’s like carrying a sack of concrete on my back. It’s hot out, too, the bunker suit, thankfully as unflattering as all get out, even hotter.
Payton leans over to whisper, “Don’t worry. You still look fucking incredible.”
I stand there shaking my head. I see Ryan down the far end of the group eyeing me.
The Captain points up to a blackened skeleton of a building behind us. It has to be a good ten or eleven stories high. “That,” he announces, pausing for dramatic effect, “is the Tower.”
Payton whistles, hands on his hips.
“Do we get to set it on fire, Cap?” asks Jackson.
The Captain walks over to him. “Say what, son? Jesus H. Get down and give me twenty.”
“Now?” Jackson protests.
“No, tomorrow,” replies the captain, still shaking his head. “Get on with it.”
The Captain’s smiling while he addresses us. “The Tower is going to break you, recruits. You’re going to know every step and corner of it as intimately as your mother’s womb. You’re going to sweat and bleed getting to know one another.” He points to the roof. “The elevators aren’t working and the ladders can’t reach, so what are you going to do?”
He’s met with silence even though the answer is obvious.
“That’s right,” he smirks. “You’re going to hoof up the stairwell and retrieve a body each from the roof.” He takes out a stopwatch. “You’ll go up in pairs. The last of each pair down gets to do it over. Nelson and Cox, you’re up.” He clicks the stopwatch. “Go.”
For a split-second Payton and I look at each other… and then it’s on.
We sprint hard for the stairwell, Payton managing to get there first, swinging the door wide. It almost collects me on the way through. I whip it open and start up the stairs right on Payton’s — admittedly attractive — tail.
By the third floor we’re both breathing hard, Payton using the railing to pull himself around the corners. “Why don’t you drop back, take a rest?” he shouts, his Halligan bar bouncing by his side.
“Why don’t you shut the fuck up?” I call back.
He laughs and continues upwards.
By the time we come out onto the roof I’m sweating up a storm. I may as well be wearing a raincoat. My heart’s hammering, but I’m feeling good, pumped.
We race to the pile of dummies side by side, Payton elbowing me out of the way to get there first, tossing the first over his shoulder with ease as we were shown yesterday and already heading back to the stairs.
Shouts come from down below.
Not on my watch.
I heave up a dummy, an arm between its legs, taking the weight of it with my hips, and dash for the stairwell, just managing to squeeze through the door before it closes.
“Give it up, goldilocks,” Payton laughs.
I take the stairs two, three at a time to close the gap between us, Payton’s head craning back to see where I am.
“It’s going to suck ass doing this again,” he shouts.
I can’t close the distance, the dummy increasingly heavy, my knees jarring with every step.
“Tell you what,” he says. “I’ll let you win in exchange for a blowjob. You don’t even have to swallow.”
“You can suck my dick for free,” I reply, huffing from the strain.
“Don’t say I didn’t offer,” comes the echo.
There are only three flights of stairs to go. There’s no way I’m going to beat him. Unless…
I lift the dummy off my shoulders and toss him, or her, down the middle of the stairwell. It lands with a thud at the bottom.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Payton calls.
“Winning.”
Freed from the weight, I leap down complete flights, rounding past Payton on the second to last and just managing to sling my dummy back over my shoulder before heading outside ahead of him
“The fuck!” he yells.
My legs are burning as I head back to the Captain, but Payton’s hot on my tail.
“No. You. Don’t!” he shouts, the effort clear.
The rest of the class is jeering and shouting.
It’s close, but I manage to make it to the Captain first, dumping the dummy on the ground and collapsing, breathing up at the sky.
Payton arrives beside me, letting his own dummy down slowly. “That was low,” he says, “really fucking low.”
I cup my ear. “What’s that?”
Jackson wolf-whistles. “Yeah, boy. Schooled by a girl. You need a tissue, Cox?”
The captain’s smiling. “Nelson’s the winner… but…”
I don’t like the sound of that.
“…you don’t dump your dummy on the ground like that—ever. To you, that’s a real flesh-and-blood victim. You treat them with respect, which means you two are both going up and down again.”
Payton looks over at me. “Don’t worry, Captain. I love going down.”
I roll my eyes and lift myself up, pressing onto my heel. “Best of two?”
“No dirty tricks this time?” smirks Payton.
“I can’t make any promises,” I reply, taking off before he makes it to his feet.
*
I’m completely exhausted come day’s end, and I’m pretty in shape. Some of the others looked ready for a grave rather than a bed.
I decide on a quick shower before dinner, grabbing my clothes and toiletries bag.
It is nice having a bathroom to myself. We only had one growing up. Given my mother’s propensity for make-up and her obsession with her physical appearance, I almost had to make an appointment to use it.
I stop by the bathroom counter and dump my bag, stripping down.
Naked, I leave my towel behind and head around the corner to the showers.
But I’m not alone.
I freeze when Payton comes around the corner instead, towel around his shoulders, his hair wet, and, yep, that on show.
Given the way he flinches, he’s clearly as surprised to see me as I am him. He manages to correct and straighten back up in an instant. “Fancy meeting you here.”
I suddenly realize he’s not the only one standing there in his birthday suit.
I cover my breasts with one hand and my crotch with the other, awkwardly pressing my legs together like my bladder’s about to burst… or my face… from embarrassment.
He’s smiling. “A body like that shouldn’t be hidden away.”
“What the hell are doing in the women’s bathroom?”
He looks around. “I figured no one was using it.”
“I am using it.”
He’s loving this. “Seems a waste, though, doesn’t it, when we’re all squashed in like sardines next door?”
I nod downwards. “The only
thing around here about to be squashed is your balls if you don’t cover that thing up.”
He pulls his towel off his shoulders and ties it around his waist. “Better?”
I cautiously reverse back to the bench, but I’m going to have to let go of myself to pick up the towel. “Turn around,” I tell him.
He does so and I release my hands, picking up my towel and wrapping it around myself flustered, my cheeks the color of ketchup.
When I look up I notice he’s looking right into the vanity mirrors.
Oh, come on.
I point to the door. “Leave, please.”
He starts to walk towards the door. “You owe me a blowjob, by the way.”
I eye him carefully. I keep a firm grip on my towel lest it float away like some Jedi mind trick given Payton’s apparent animal magnetism. I go to retort, but I’ve got nothing, standing there stuttering and gasping for air, a fish out of water.
He winks as he passes. “That your gag reflex?” he laughs.
I flip the bird at his back, angry and irritated and sweaty and sour and so sick of this guy.
Which is why, when I step into the shower and my hand starts to slide south, I’m as surprised as anyone else.
CHAPTER FOUR
PAYTON
Our little meeting in the girls’ bathroom was no coincidence. I thought for sure the ‘dick in face’ routine would work the second time around, exposure is key, but it seems Lacey Nelson doesn’t adhere by the teachings of the Bro Bible. Hell, she might even have standards, all of which is new and all of which is making my cock hard.
I sit on my bed and breathe out, looking down at my swollen erection. “Sorry, bud. We’re going to have to get creative.” It twitches back in response.
I look over to the desk in the corner of the room where an assortment of notes and course textbooks lie abandoned. I can handle the physical side of things here, but I never counted on the homework being so fucking difficult. Community risk reduction, codes and systems, exit protocols, incident response… My head’s spinning already and we’re only two days in.
Only one hundred and ten more to go.
‘Application’ was the issue at Brown as well. Dominating on the field was easy. I was destined for the NFL, “as sure as the sun rises,” Coach told me, but then my grades started to slip. Being balls deep in cheerleaders twelve hours a day didn’t help, and then there was the Incident That Shall Not Be Named. That fucked up any chance I had for good. The look on Dad’s face… Almost as good as the one that followed when I told him I was off to fire academy.
“You want to be a what?” he asked, his face a muddle, like I’d just driven a knife into his gut. His great son wanting to take up a common occupation, not wanting to become a Brown football star like his grandfather or Wall Street douchebag like himself. I should have doubled down and become a janitor. He would have been exiled from the family for good.
Maybe it’d be better that way without this stupid surname and its many unwanted attachments.
Then again, it does have its perks—private jets and apartments all over the globe, service at a snap of your fingers, not that any of that matters here with Captain Kick-Ass breathing down your throat.
Lacey’s different. I have a feeling she comes from the other side of the spectrum. I could play that to my advantage, but something tells me she wouldn’t go for it. If I want to get with her I’m going to have to rethink my strategy.
Later, the campus is all quiet and I try to sleep, but it’s fucking impossible. Each time I close my eyes I’m picturing Lacey’s sweet, fuckable curves, her pouty pillow lips. I want to wrap my arm around her, her taunt nipples stabbing into the underside of my arm, her pussy hot and wet around my cock. I’ll fist her hair in my hand while I pound into her, and then she’ll scream my name, beg me for more, for all of it. And I’ll give it to her—all ten, rock-hard inches of Cox.
I consider knocking on her door, maybe kicking the fucker down and storming in caveman-style, but brute force is the wrong approach. A special case requires special measures, so I lie awake staring at the ceiling planning, my erection refusing to abate.
Come midnight I can’t take it any longer.
I knock on the wall…
…and receive silence in return.
*
“You’ve met the Tower,” barks the Captain. “Now meet the burn room.”
There’s a murmur of wonder, but my attention’s being pulled away by Lacey. She yawns wide, covering her mouth. “Big night?” I query.
She turns to me, eyes flecked emerald. “I’m just tired.”
“Less drinking, more sleeping—that’s my motto.”
She laughs. “I thought it was ‘bros before hoes,’ or is it ‘sky’s out, thighs out’?”
“You will crawl inside in full PPE gear following the hose line and cuddle up real cozy to the fire inside,” the Captain says. “You will wait crouched there until instructed out. Simple, right? Let’s get going.” The Captain points to us. “Romeo and Juliet, apparatus on. You’re up.”
Even with my BA gear on, I can smell smoke. The burn room’s basically a concrete bunker with a lit fire in the corner, the flames licking over the roof.
I crawl through the doorway behind Lacey, thankful for yet another glorious view of her ass in those bunker trousers. She stops for a moment, hesitates, before continuing on towards the fire.
That’s my girl.
We crouch together close to the flames.
It’s fucking hot, that’s for sure. I’m thankful when the Captain waves us out.
I take off my apparatus and breathe in, my suit more or less a swimming pool, I’m sweating so hard.
Lacey’s golden hair is matted to her forehead and the side of her face when she removes her mask, her cheeks flushed and lips parted. I’m betting that’s exactly how she looks after she’s come.
“Hot enough for you?” I ask.
She’s breathing hard. “Nothing I can’t handle,” but I sense she was struggling in there.
Not as much as my good friend Ryan Fielding, though. He was in there for less than a minute before backing out.
He’s bailed up by the Captain as soon as his mask is off. “You going blind, Fielding. Did I wave you out?”
“No, Captain. Sorry, Captain.”
The Captain lets it slide, but from the clip of his voice I know I’ve found Ryan’s weakness. He was scared in there, shaking in his fucking bunker boots.
Jackson, however, spends a little too long inside, seemingly hypnotized by the flames. Eventually, the captain has to send in Hernandez to pull him out, a big, goofy grin on Jackson’s face when he takes off his mask. “The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire!” he bellows… to mutual eye-rolling all ’round.
I sit with Lacey and a group of others in the cafeteria. She’s earned a certain respect from the guys over these last few days, proved she’s more than a cute face. She’s even been showing me up, which is un-fucking-acceptable, but I’ll let it slide if it means I get to slide into something else.
I shake my head at Hernandez, who’s busy shoveling food into his face at an alarming rate. His hair has been clipped short, inky eyebrows always up. “You all right there, Hernandez?”
His fork stops mid-air. “Hey, I’m from a big family, bro. You learn to eat fast or not at all.”
I look around. I’ve established myself as the alpha without even trying. It’s always been that way. For better or worse, I’m a people magnet. I think it’s a Cox thing, the power of persuasion, not that it’s winning me over with Lacey.
Fielding sits with another group loudly boasting about his Porsche 911 back home.
Fuck him.
“Where you from, Lacey?” asks Manners.
She places her water down and brushes her hair back behind her ear. “This tiny mining town, barely a blip on the map.”
“So what are you doing all the way out here? You click your heels together three times?” laughs Manners.
The group laughs, Lacey smiling along with them. “Something like that, but Dorothy I am not.”
“You’re fucking GI Jane is what you are,” notes one of the others, a burly individual by the name of Dunn.
She looks at me. “It’s just what I do.”
“The fucking Captain, man,” adds Hernandez. “He’s breaking our balls,” noticing Lacey, “or ovaries or something.”
I nod with the sentiment. “The academy’s basically a military institution. You didn’t think there would be a drill instructor?”
Hernandez pushes his plate aside. “I just didn’t expect to feel like tenderized meat when I hit the sack.”
Nature calls. I stand. “Just as long as you’re not tenderizing your meat when you hit the sack.”
The laughter at my back is nice, reassuring.
I round the corner and enter the men’s bathroom, about to pull down my fly when I’m reefed backwards against the wall. “What the fuck?”
It’s Fielding, a hand against my chest. “You and I have to talk, Cox.”
I swipe his hand away and shove him back. “So fucking talk?”
We’re the same height, a similar build.
He smiles. “I did my research on you.”
I hide the moment of fear I feel. “Should I be flattered you want to suck my dick?”
The smile grows, lifting at the corners. “Oh, yeah. I bet that shit was real funny at Brown.”
Fuck. He knows. “You going to let me piss, or you want to hold it for me?”
“Stay the fuck away from her,” he says. “She’s mine.”
“Who?”
“Nelson.”
I laugh in his face. “Are you for fucking real? What are we, in junior high here?
“I’m serious,” he says, stepping closer. “I get what I want, and I want her. She’s spoken for.”
“She’s my partner. Didn’t you hear the Captain? We’re going to be spending a lot of quality time together.”