Jenny and the Fire (Humil)
Jack
By "Jack"
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Jenny was exhausted. After nearly twenty-four hours on the road, she
simply
couldn’t keep going, no matter how eager she was to join her husband at
the
end of his sales convention in Houston. The idea of driving down to join
him,
then taking some vacation time for a leisurely drive home together, had
sounded good when they planned it. But too much time behind the wheel
was
making Jenny start to wish they’d found a different way to spend some
time
together.
After she changed lanes without really looking and nearly ran a large
blue van
off the road on the outskirts of Dallas, Jenny decided she needed a
rest. She
left the interstate at the next exit and picked the first hotel she
spotted, a
rather run-down brownstone building with a sign proclaiming it as The
Lone
Star Tower Hotel and Restaurant and advertising "The Best Chicken-Fried
Steak in the State of Texas!"
Jenny wasn’t interested in something to eat. She wanted a few hours of
sleep
in a nice, soft bed. Yawning mightily, she stumbled into the lobby,
checked
in, and let the bellboy take her bag and lead her to room 404. Inside
she
tipped the young man, stifling another yawn, and waited for him to leave
before
looking around at her refuge.
Like the rest of the building, the room was shabby and faded, but the
decor
didn’t matter to Jenny in the least. The bed looked inviting, and that
was all
that mattered to her. Jenny found the Do Not Disturb sign and hung it
outside,
then paused in the middle of the room trying to decide what to do next.
In her
foggy state, it took an effort to make the simplest decision.
She considered taking a bath, or perhaps just a shower, but decided to
postpone that until she had caught up on her sleep. It would feel good,
she
thought vaguely, to hit the road again fresh and clean, but right now
she was
afraid she’d doze off in the tub.
Instead she started getting undressed. She kicked off her shoes and
dropped
her socks on top of them, then undid her jeans and pulled them down. The
room’s air conditioning felt good on her bare legs, and Jenny sat on the
edge
of the bed in her tank top and white panties for a few minutes just
enjoying the
feeling of freedom from tight pants, a cramped car, and the hot Texas
sun
beating down through the windshield all morning. Finally she roused
herself
enough to stand up and pull the light blue top over her head and toss it
in a
pile with the jeans.
Jenny looked at the bed again and thought about crawling into it as she
was,
in her bra and panties, but shook her head firmly. No, she had been
wearing
these things far too long, and she would sleep far better in something
fresh
and clean. She walked over to the dresser where the bellboy had left her
suitcase and opened it up. Right on top was a lightweight robe, and just
below
that was one of the two nightgowns she had packed for the trip.
When Jenny had been packing, she had tried to be practical and bring
only
what she would need, but she’d made a small exception in the matter of
sleepwear. She’d brought her favorite nightie for ordinary use, a long
football
sweatshirt that had belonged to her husband back in college, bearing his
name and number from the year he’d been on the team. But there was also
that negligee from Victoria’s Secret he’d given Jenny on her last
birthday, a
risqué little number cut to show off legs and chest, and made of a sheer
white
fabric that left hardly anything to the imagination. It had been a gag
gift, the
kind of thing Jenny was just too embarrassed to think about wearing
normally.
But it had been a couple of weeks since their busy schedules had left
them
with any time for romance, and Jenny had thought it would give their
first night
together on their little vacation that little extra sexy edge that would
make
things memorable.
It was the sexy nightgown with its matching g-string she pulled out of
the
suitcase first, and Jenny automatically started to set it down and root
around
in the bag some more when she yawned again and thought how tired she
was. She didn’t want to keep searching through a stack of clothes, maybe
make a big mess as she searched for her old reliable football shirt. She
just
wanted to get some rest. And, scandalous as it looked, the nightgown in
her
hand looked loose, cool, and comfortable. Who would know, or care, what
Jenny wore for her nap?
With that thought she put the nightie down just long enough to undo her
bra
and slide her panties down her legs. Then she donned the g-string and
pulled
the top over her head. A glance in the mirror made Jenny blush; she
looked
like a hooker getting ready to party. She was glad no one could see her
like
this.
With that thought she started for the bed, stumbling once from sheer
exhaustion. She dropped the robe across the foot of the mattress, where
she
could grab it if someone ignored the sign on the door and knocked. Then
Jenny crawled under the covers, turned out the light, and laid her head
on the
pillow.
She was sound asleep in seconds.
Jenny came awake with a start, groggy from sleep and feeling as if she
was
still trapped in a dream she couldn’t quite recall. A strange noise she
couldn’t
place made an insistent bid for her attention, but Jenny was too groggy
to
place it right away. After a few long moments with the shrilling sound
hammering at her eardrums she sat up in the bed, looked around blearily,
and
said, "Would somebody turn off that damned beeper?" Then she laid down
again and tried using her pillow to smother out the ululating screech.
Another few moments passed before she woke up all the way. Beeper? That
was no beeper. That was some kind of siren . . . .
Smoke alarm? Fire siren?
Jenny was out of bed and across the room to the window in a flash.
Peering
outside, she blinked at the glare of the late afternoon sun pouring in.
She
must have slept three or four hours at least. She gradually made out
milling
figures down on the ground, four stories below.
A crowd of people were in the parking lot, many of them pointing up at
the
building. There were some large red fire trucks down there, two, and a
couple
of helicopters circling the building like vultures.
Fire! That was a fire alarm that she was hearing, and if the building
was
already evacuated and the Dallas Fire Department was already on the
scene it
must have been on for quite a while. Jenny had managed to sleep right
through it. She fought back a wave of fear. Surely there was still time
for her to
get out of here and down to terra firma. All she had to do was move
quickly
but calmly, not give in to panic. Jenny had dealt with plenty of
difficult
situations before – maybe nothing quite so dangerous as a fire, but
tight spots
nonetheless.
Control . . . that was all she needed. Control.
Jenny started for the door. Her eyes lit for a moment on the clothes
piled by
the dresser, but she knew it would be foolish to stop and dress. Every
second
counted. Instead she scooped up her robe and slid it on over her
shoulders,
covering up the flimsy see-through nightie. Thank heavens she’d had the
foresight to lay it on the foot of the bed! Otherwise this could end up
being one
of THOSE situations . . .
She felt the door handle, just the way she’d been taught to check when
there
was a danger of fire, and when it seemed cool to the touch she opened
the
room door and peered cautiously out into the hall. Looking both ways,
she
couldn’t see anyone. With a firm step that made her robe billow out
behind
her, Jenny moved out into the hall, then paused as she tried to remember
which way she had come from when she’d first arrived. She’d been so
tired
she had barely noticed her surroundings. Did she want to go left? Right?
No,
the elevators and the stairs were to the left . . .
The door behind her clicked firmly shut.
And when Jenny started to the left she found she couldn’t take more than
a
single step. Her robe was caught in the door.
She tugged at it, but it was made of sturdy material, and it was
certainly
stuck. Jenny muttered a curse and fought to maintain the calm and
control
she was trying so hard to cultivate. Her mind flashed back to a
humiliating day
at one of her old jobs and a skirt trapped by a security door, but she
pushed
that thought from her mind. Then she tried the door knob.
Locked, of course. And the magnetic card key that unlocked it was . . .
On
the dresser. In the room.
With a resigned sigh Jenny tugged at the robe one more time and then
gave in
to the inevitable. She squirmed and shifted until she could slip her
arms out of
the robe and left it dangling there. Feeling a chill that was only
partly caused
by the hotel’s air conditioning, Jenny padded down the hall in bare
feet, arms
crossed over her breasts. The nightie and matching panties had seemed
revealing before. Now Jenny felt almost worse than she would have naked
– a
condition she was all too familiar with, which gave her a fine point for
comparison – with the see-through material serving to enhance rather
than
cover her body underneath.
It was an emergency. She couldn’t worry about it now.
Jenny hastened into the waiting area by the elevator bank and looked
around.
She knew better than to call an elevator when there was a fire somewhere
about. That left stairs . . . if she could find them. The first door she
started for
turned out to conceal a little laundry area, but in an alcove close by
she finally
spotted the arrow and sign that she was looking for. Jenny hurried to
the door.
. .
It was hot. She snatched her hand back and realized that she could
actually
see smoke billowing behind the window set high in the door, and more
smoke
seeping through the bottom of the door itself. The fire was here!
Jenny took a few quick steps back, once more trying to hold back the
panic
that threatened to grip her. What to do? Was there another way out? She
should have taken the time to read the little set of emergency
instructions
posted in her room, but she’d been so tired . . .
As she stood and dithered, a new and louder siren went off just over her
head.
That must be the smoke alarm for this floor, reacting to the wisps of
smoke
rising from the stairway door. Jenny had almost gotten used to the other
alarm, but this new noise was louder and even more shrill, and it made
clear
thinking even harder than before. She pressed her fists to her ears and
tried to
focus.
That was when the sprinkler system cut in.
Water cascaded from the ceiling-mounted sprinklers, like a waterfall
pouring
down on Jenny. In seconds the flimsy nightgown was soaked and plastered
to
her body, and her hair was a dripping blonde disaster area. Still, the
shock of
the water did help her concentrate, once she was over the initial
surprise, and
Jenny found herself remembering that the halls running in each direction
ended with windows where she thought she had glimpsed some kind of fire
escape.
She ran down the hall, with water still pouring on her as one set of
sprinklers
after another cut in. About halfway to her goal she felt an
all-too-familiar
tugging sensation around her hips, which made her reach for the
waistband of
her panties. The gesture came too late. Soaked with water and weighing
about ten times what they were supposed to, they just weren’t up to the
demands being placed on them. Before Jenny could grab them, the
underpants were sliding down her legs. She barely stopped running in
time to
keep from tripping and falling, and she only caught herself by leaning
heavily
against the wall. Jenny yanked the water-logged panties all the way off
and let
them fall. She couldn’t trust them to stay on and she didn’t plan on
being
tripped up by her own lingerie.
Then she started running again, feeling considerably more agile now that
she
was free of the wet undies. Jenny reached the window and looked out.
There was a small balcony fitted out as a fire escape there, just as she
had
thought. Jenny strained to open the window, finally getting it to raise
high
enough that she could squeeze through. Standing on the uncomfortable
criss-crossing metal in her bare feet, she leaned on the rail to catch
her
breath and get her bearings.
Wind whipped at her hair, and Jenny looked up to see a helicopter
emblazoned with the letters KDLS-NEWS dropping down even with her
balcony. A bearded young man with a bulky video camera was leaning out
the
side door of the chopper, his lens trained right on Jenny.
She had a momentary mind’s-eye view of what his camera would be picking
up. Jenny was standing there in the bright Dallas sunlight, wearing a
nightgown that barely came down over her upper thighs, with no panties
underneath. The nightie, none too modest to begin with, was now
virtually
transparent after having been soaked by the sprinklers, and was clinging
wetly
to her nude body.
Jenny blushed crimson. She considered taking her chances with the fire.
Then reason prevailed and she cast around for the way down from the
balcony
and the prying eyes of the Fourth Estate. It was one of those
old-fashioned fire
escapes, with heavy metal ladders that were normally retracted but could
be
swung into place by pulling on them. Jenny used her bare foot to try to
push
the ladder from her level down, but it wouldn’t budge. She bent over to
grab it,
uncomfortably aware of the exposure that gave to her bare ass as the wet
nightgown rode up, but determined to get through this and escape.
The ladder still wouldn’t move. The ancient thing was rusted, and
nothing
Jenny could do was likely to make it come free.
The helo had thankfully moved off while she was wrestling with the fire
escape,
but now the steady beat of the rotors was replaced by another mechanical
sound. Straightening up, Jenny realized that it was the extension ladder
from
one of the fire trucks, slowly maneuvering toward her balcony. A large
fireman
in a yellow slicker stood in the basket, operating the controls. The
ladder
wobbled for a moment when the fireman first looked up and got a good
view of
the damsel in distress. Then he managed to wrench his mind – and his
eyes
– back on the job and bring the ladder right up against the metal rail.
"Come on, Miss!" he shouted. "Get aboard!" Jenny hesitated. Climbing up
over that rail and into the basket didn’t look very safe . . . and she
was sure it
would rob her of any last vestiges of modesty.
As she wavered, the fireman shook his head. "Now’s not the time to
panic,"
he said harshly. "Don’t worry. I’ll watch out for you!" That, of course,
was a
large part of Jenny’s problem, the fireman watching. But she gathered
her wits
and her courage together and started to swing one leg over the rail and
into
the basket. The fireman encouraged her, but thankfully kept his hands to
himself. She could still remember a policeman who hadn’t been so careful
in
carrying out his duty . . .
Then Jenny stopped, halfway over into the basket. It wasn’t that she had
frozen up again, or that she didn’t want to finish the maneuver and get
down to
the ground. Straddling the railing and the top of the basket half-naked,
with her
nightie now bunched around her waist and her pale bare ass sticking up
in the
air wasn’t Jenny’s idea of a good position to stay in for any length of
time. But
she didn’t have much choice.
Her nightie had snagged on something.
She felt the surface of the rail quickly, found the problem. The fabric
had hung
up on a bolt that projected from one of the supports below the rail.
Jenny
started trying to work it free, trying not to think of the eyeful she
was giving to
the Dallas fireman.
"Oh, for God’s sake!" she heard him say. "Come on!" Suddenly he had his
hands on her, lifting her up and over. Jenny started to scream for him
to stop,
but it was too late.
The thin straps of the sodden nightgown gave way as he pulled, and then
the
whole back of the flimsy garment tore. The fireman set Jenny down on her
feet
inside the basket, stepped back to look at her and make sure she was all
right. . . .
He stared at the nude blonde woman, his jaw going slack and his eyes in
constant motion as he tried to take in the view. Jenny quickly tried to
cover
herself with her hands, knowing it was too little, too late.
Finally, he recovered enough to turn away and reach for the controls of
the
extension ladder. But he did keep darting little glances at her all the
way
down.
The ladder touched down in the middle of the crowded parking lot, and
Jenny
stepped down to the ground surrounded by a crowd of people who gave her
appreciative stares, cat-calls, whistles, and shouted phone numbers. A
pair of
fireman came up with a blanket to wrap her in . . . slowly.
The fire at the Lone Star Tower Hotel consumed most of the third and
fourth
floors before it was finally brought under control, doing hundreds of
thousands
of dollars in damage though no one was killed or even seriously hurt. It
proved
to be a real bonanza for KDLS-TV’s Eye On News show during sweeps
month, thanks to the live camera footage of a dramatic rescue on the
fourth
floor. Even after the blue dots were added in, the helicopter camera
shots
were easily the most exciting things any male in the city could
remember.
For Jenny, though, the fire was really only the first of several
problems she
had that day. She had lost her luggage, all her clothes, her purse and
money,
and her car keys in the fire. And though there were plenty of Native
Sons of
Texas who seemed eager to help, she had trouble convincing herself that
they
were really just being good Samaritan coming to the aid of a distressed
traveler.
Some things didn’t change no matter what part of the country Jenny
happened
to be visiting.
End