Flirting with Danger part 3
Roy arrived at the shop, and just like the previous time, she was waiting outside for him. He felt honoured, despite himself. He knew that most men would be jealous of him being wanted by this woman. And she had proven that she wanted him, without question, no matter what. He parked the car as she started walking towards him, and got out. "Susan…." he began, but she put her fingers on his mouth.
"Shhh. I have something for you."
"What?"
"Hold out your hand." He did and she placed something in it and closed his fingers over it while kissing his mouth. That fire of desire licked at his lips and traveled down his spine – a painful pleasure. Involuntarily he responded; his mouth and arms took on a life of their own whenever she touched him. No. Stop, a part of his brain called out feebly. As he released her from his embrace she murmured in his ear, "There. Take a look."
He opened his hand and in his palm was a key. "What's this?" he asked.
She smiled and said, "I've booked us a room." Her hands started moving over his chest again, but this time, mixed in with the rush of desire that threatened to overpower him, he felt sick to his stomach, and seriously thought he was going to throw up. Oh. My. God.
"No," he croaked, and tried to put the key back into her hand. She looked at him with a half-smile, genuinely confused. "No, Susan, I will not do this." He tried again to give her the key, but she shook her head that she didn't want it.
"What do you mean?" she asked, suddenly not as sure of herself.
He saw himself as she saw him, how he had never really protested her advances, how he had responded to all of her caresses…it was natural for her to think that he was going to do this. At that moment, he hated and despised himself so deeply that if the earth would have swallowed him up and taken him straight to hell he would have said it was only what he deserved.
He fought to get his nausea under control and removed her hands from his chest, holding them firmly at arms' length. "This ends now, Susan. I am sorry my actions led you to think differently, but I love my wife. Don't call me. Don't come to my work or anywhere where you know I'll be."
Her beautiful eyes filled with tears, and he wanted nothing more than to take her back into his arms. He had nothing to offer her but, "You deserve a man who can be there for you completely, and I can never be that man." She shook her head, but he was adamant. He dropped the key onto the sidewalk at her feet, and walked back to his car.
"No, Roy, please, I'm sorry, we can take it slower, I don't want to lose you…"
He opened the driver's door and said, "You never had me to lose, Susan. But my wife does."
When he got home, he sat in the car without moving. He was there so long that eventually Joanne came out to find him. "Honey, you all right? Why don't you come inside?"
He forced himself to answer her, but could only say, "I'll be in soon."
She came around to the other side of the car and opened the door. "May I sit down?" He just shrugged. "Can you tell me what's going on?" He shook his head 'no'.
"Has something happened? You're scaring me."
He cleared his throat. "I, uh, had a rescue a while ago that's, uh, kinda bothering me."
"Do you want to tell me about it?"
"Not yet."
She didn't look at him when she asked, "Does this have anything to do with that woman in the park today?"
He looked at her with surprise, "What?"
"I was wondering if the reason…I mean, if there was something about her that…I don't know, Roy…"
He tried to be kind but there was no way he could talk to her right now. "Please go back inside the house, Joanne. I'll be in. I just need some time – alone."
She nodded sadly and got out of the car. She looked at him wistfully over her shoulder as she went back inside, saying, "Don't be too long. Remember, we love you."
He sat there doing some real soul searching. He had never once even thought about saying no to Susan when she was calling him and trying to get together with him. He used Johnny's incredulity to fuel his inclination to see her, and claimed his right to privacy when anyone even looked at him funny regarding his relationship with her. He treated the situation like it was a gift, and left it up to Susan to decide where it would go, without any regard for his family, friends or colleagues.
What a selfish, self-centered bastard he really was. Was his ego really that fragile that he had to prove himself a man by having an affair? No, that wasn't it. It was the drug-like attraction that over-rode all his common sense and decency. Apparently it was a façade that he had built up – that of being an honorable family man – and it took hardly any pressure at all for everything to come tumbling down.
He had been sitting in the car so long that soon Joanne would be coming out looking for him again. He sighed and slammed the car door as he got out. The rest of the evening he despised himself even more for treating his family as if they were the cause of his withdrawal and short temper. He couldn't wait to get back to work.
Was it Roy's imagination, or were there a lot of serious fires around the area lately? He'd have to check the stats, but it sure seemed like every other shift in the past month involved a structure fire with at least two alarms. While his partner was working hose with Marco nearby, he was checking the ancient porch of the old farm house, testing the floor boards with his feet. Without warning the whole thing collapsed into the stone basement that was already weakened…and the wall fell onto Roy, pinning him down and ripping off his face mask. The building immediately became destabilized, and in danger of collapsing as well.
Marco and Johnny called for him repeatedly, but they couldn't get to him – in order to get to where he was trapped, they would have to shore up the foundation nearby and prevent the rest of the floor from joining the porch in the basement. The stones were very large and heavy and Roy couldn't dislodge them off his legs and lower body. The stone that had ripped off his mask had landed on his shoulder, and he could tell by the way it hurt that his upper arm was broken. Timbers and boards lay on top and all around him, mixed in with the stones. He couldn't get to his face mask where it lay beside his pinned arm – it was cracked anyway. He would just have to wait to be dug out.
He hurt in a lot of places, and thought he might pass out from the pain, but he fought the feeling with all his might – there was hardly any breathable air due to the fire raging above his head in the part of the house that had not yet collapsed – he needed to keep his wits about him, to be able to call out to his rescuers and let them know where he was, what he needed…
On the other side of the collapsed porch, the men of Station 51 were joined by their brothers from stations 35 and 110. First a plan had to be made that would ensure the safety of the rescuers, and stabilize the faltering walls. Johnny was itching to get in there and start digging, but Captain Stanley was adamant – there would be no additional trapped or injured firefighters due to carelessness or being unprepared.
Roy tried to distract himself from his pain and anxiety by imaging the operations up top. They would be meeting to make a plan, they would be securing the unstable structures, they would be assigning tasks…the air was getting very thin of oxygen. He was finding it difficult to focus…he recognized that he was starting to have bronchospasms and had to concentrate to slow down his breathing; the pain was coming in waves and it was getting harder to fight the need to just let go and succumb to the darkness that clawed at the edges of his eyes…as the minutes ticked on he began to realize that this might be it – he might not make it out this time…
They say your life flashes before your eyes, but it wasn't his life that started to arise, it was the feeling of Jenny's little arms around his neck and her saying, "I love you, Daddy." It was sitting with Chris on his lap reading a story about cars and trucks with his son's small head sleepily leaning on his chest…it was Joanne holding their newborn child in her arms, her face flushed from labour and her eyes full of love… whispering that she loved him as she lay in his arms…
The only thing he wanted in the whole world was to be able to see her and their children, to hold them once again. Nothing else mattered. '…from what I've tasted of desire…the world will end in fire…' It looked like his world was about to end, in a fire. 'Jo….I'm sorry…' he thought but then he coughed spasmodically and involuntarily his eyes closed…and they didn't open again.