Everything in me cracks and pops as I rise slowly, pushing off the flimsy mattress with my hands, feeling my wrists buckle and creak under my weight. It’s painful, but as I stretch out, bending my back and twisting my neck, things start to loosen up. In the matter of a minute I have my shoulders moving almost normally, except for the pain that stabs into my chest with each rotation.
A small tapping sound and feeling on my foot takes my attention off the discomfort and my brings my gaze down to the floor. A small card lays on top of my toes, teetering like a seesaw off my biggest one.
“What do we have here?”
It’s the ID of the woman I chased, the woman I’d forgotten about except for in a few of my dreams.
Phoenix.
She stares back at me from her license photo, her cat-like eyes judging me, as if she knew what I did to her picture right before I went to hell and back again. She knows I did dirty things, and the evidence is still on the laminated surface as I turn the card over in my hand, feeling the dried cum on it.
“Don’t you look at me that way.” I mumble to the license, tossing it back on my bed, running my fingers through my greasy, unwashed hair, smelling the odor from my armpit with the raising of my hand. “Okay fine, but only because I stink.” I chuckle looking back down at her picture, giving it a slight wink.
I do stink, like something homeless, just how I was before Pete brought me into the firehouse after years of living on the streets, fending for myself. The smell of my rancid body odor brings me back to the nights sleeping under the overpasses of the blue route, eating anything I could find when I made my way back in to the city. I would go days, sometimes weeks without the opportunity of a shower, bathing only with a tiny scrap of soap I carried in my torn backpack and the rain.
“Hey, the dead has risen.” Joe, one of my brothers says as he trudges sleepily between bunks, looking for his.
He smells of smoke, his t-shirt is wet from perspiration, and his dark brown hair is plastered to his forehead.
“You on a call?” I ask as I grab clean clothes from my little dresser, draping them and a towel over my arm.
“Yeah, you slept right through the tones. A bitch of one too. Three alarm, with two other companies.”
“Damn. Sorry man.”
“Nah, it’s all good, you needed your rest, mister hero.”
“I’m no hero.” I say shaking my head, looking down at my bare feet, avoiding eye contact like I always do.
I try to keep their eyes from mine, afraid that they will see the psychopath that lies behind them. They might think I’m a hero for my actions, but they know I’m not right, even though none of them ever say anything about it, at least not to my face.
“Yeah? Tell the little boy that. He was asking about you at the hospital when we dropped off our lone survivor.”
“He was?” I ask, my voice an octave too high and cracking.
“You sound surprised. You saved his life. Without you he would have burned to death like his mother. Damn shame we couldn’t get her out in time.”
Mumbling under my breath I turn from him, giving him a little wave. “Yeah damn shame my ass.”
“Huh?” He calls out after me.
“Nothing.”
~~~
The shower renewed me a little, even if the steam made me lurch and cough like a madman, and as I swing my leg over my bike, pulling on my helmet, I take as deep of a breath in as I can. I need a ride, to clear my head, and to fix what’s wrong with my body. My bike is the only thing I have that has always been there for me when nothing else was, and time spent with her is what keeps me sane. Well, as sane as possible for a freak like me.
My sleek black R3 with red streaks on the fairings fires up like a roaring beast, echoing around inside the garage. Her growls bounce off the sides of the firetrucks, coming back to me with vibrations in my chest that make me calmer. The engine vibrates under me, the seat massaging my ass as I twist the throttle back and rev her up.
“I’ve missed you baby.” I say to her, petting her gas tank before I slip on my riding gloves.
The smooth feel of her paint is nice under my calloused fingertips, and the encasing of my hands in the soft leather makes my eyes roll back better than if I was slipping my cock into something hot and pretty.
“Ready to go?” I ask her, clicking up the shifter to first gear and bringing her to the garage doors.
The city flies by as I take her out on the streets, weaving in and out of traffic, splitting lanes and moving between vehicles. I go to the front of the line at every traffic light, careful to avoid being rear ended by careless drivers in cages. It’s not that I worry about my own safety, if I died today I really wouldn’t give a fuck, but I worry about her. I could never afford to replace her, and another bike just wouldn’t be the same. She’s my only emotional attachment in this godforsaken world.
People stare at me, the muscle-bound man in half of his riding gear. It’s daytime and I’m not on the hunt for my next cleansing, so there’s no need to cover myself completely from view. My leather pants are more for keeping any road debris from hitting my legs, but my arms are bare in a white, wife beater tank. Ladies notice me way more than I notice them, probably because I’ve never been interested in the opposite sex, or any sex for that matter, that is until the pretty little Phoenix, whose ID is in my pocket, saw me and ran from me.
