by Carina Alyce
They call it the Pile now. It stretches for blocks, and Manhattan is closed.
I spent the first night on the floor at St. Paul’s, and now I’m staying at a synagogue with other clergy that found their way here. The news told us the head Chaplain of FDNY died along with much of the emergency response leadership.
We're on our own.
Or maybe not.
They found a cross in the rubble yesterday, and I heard the President might be coming today.
Chapter 8
Four hours later, it was after midnight, and Hank, dusty and dirty, returned to Abby at St. Paul’s Chapel. Abby’s pink flannel wasn’t much cleaner thanks to the new sign she carried.
‘Free hugs! Free snacks. Free Twenty Questions.’
The firefighters behind him, bone tired, accepted hugs. Judging by the dirt on their faces, most of them hadn’t worn their paper masks full-time. Three volunteers, including Abby, used a massive set of paper towels and diaper wipes to remove as much dust and grime as possible.
Firefighter Nate Smith asked her, “Did you drive from Cleveland like Finny said?”
‘Finny’ must have been Hank. Abby carefully used a little alcohol to clean an abrasion on his cheek. “Yep, Cleveland.”
“You should get some sleep,” Nate suggested, too tired to keep his eyes open even when the alcohol stung him.
“Where are you guys sleeping?” Hank was getting his face washed by another volunteer. He was comparatively cleaner since he had an outline around his nose, mouth, and eyes, which she guessed was from a respiratory and safety glasses.
“Here in the pews,” Nate said. The team was already stripping down to their undershirts to bed down in the closest open ones.
Abby turned to Hank, trying not to expect too much. “Did you find him?”
“No. There's so many people, Abby,” Hank admitted, his face gray with exhaustion.
She nodded because not finding Noah didn’t mean anything. “He could be with the morning crew. I’ll look in the morning.”
A yawn snuck over her unexpectedly. The batch of firefighters were instantly on her. Their lieutenant, Taggert, gave her an order, “You need rest.”
“Okay,” she noted, “I can crash here in a few with everybody else.”
The looks in the firefighters’ eyes said no such thing was going to occur. Nate said, “Hell no.”
“Why not? You guys did the real work on the Pile. I served granola bars and cookies.”
“No offense, Mrs. Finny, any asshole can haul a bucket… but hugging you was the first time I almost felt human in three days,” Katz said.
She craned her neck upward. “There might be cots in the balcony.”
“You ain't sleeping here. You get to be safe in a real bed. We couldn’t protect our own, but there ain’t no fucking way we’re letting you bed down with a group of dudes here when we can protect you,” one of them said.
Abby crinkled her brow. The guys at St. Paul’s were rightly obsessed with returning to the Pile. She could have been the hook-handed murderer sleeping in the next pew, and they wouldn’t have blinked. They made her sound like their only link to humanity. “Don't worry.”
“No way. Give me your paper and pen,” Nate said, taking the pad Abby had been using to keep track of requests and information. “I got a cousin, Barry, Wall Street type, in Tribeca. I have an open invite to crash there.”
“Tribeca?” Abby remembered it was one of the neighborhoods they had walked through.
“Yeah, nice neighborhood. Hook and Ladder 8 from Ghostbusters is out there. Here's the code for the door and the apartment.” He wrote down the number.
“Is Barry gonna think he's getting robbed by two gas mask wearing weirdos?” she asked, taking back the paper.
“He worked on the 106th floor of the North Tower.”
Abby blanched. “Oh, I'm so sorry. Is he—”
“No. He was late getting into work and was two blocks away when the South Tower collapsed. He got evaced with the boats.”
“The boats?” Abby asked. There was so much news, she had no idea what had happened where or when.
“Yeah, Giuliani evaced Manhattan around eleven. You could either walk a bridge or boat out of Battery Park. Phones were down. He ended up in fucking Staten Island.”
“How'd you find that out?” A small flutter of hope was rising in her chest.
A different firefighter answered, “The cell network went down. Too many phone calls. Then you had to wait in line to get a pay phone after they decon'ed you.”
“Decon?” Abby asked.
“They had to decon everyone caught in the dust cloud. When you get to Barry’s place, shower three times. Get the dust out of her eyes.” That last comment was for Hank.
“So, Barry, who's not dead, is going to let us use his apartment?” Abby asked uncertainly. These tough firefighters seemed at ease with Hank, but they didn’t have a reason to lend her an apartment because she hugged them.
“Yeah, but the place is like worth two million so don't burn it down, Pink Lady.”
Abby did have one more question. “Your cousin… when did he get ahold of your family? Or at least when did you find out?”
“Yesterday afternoon. My captain called my sister by dinner on Tuesday to let her know I was alive, but they hadn't heard from him yet. I kind of shut down between the missing guys and him only being on the 106th floor and all. He might have been in the top layer….” His voice cracked on the last note.
Without thinking, Abby gave him another hug. She'd been doing that. People weren't robots. A person could only control their fear for a limited amount of time. With Wisconsin on Central Time, she was twelve hours behind him on her fear, and she'd slept once.
“You sure?” Hank offered one more time. “You met us like five hours ago.”
“If you weren't good people, you wouldn't be here.”
That was enough to convince Abby. “Okay, I'll be back tomorrow. If you see my brother, his name is Noah Baker. He hangs out with a big Black guy with an Afro named Wills. They're from Cleveland and were here on vacation.”
“Noah looks a lot like her only taller and a dude in his twenties,” Hank said. “Eyes same blue as hers—where the sea meets the sky.”
“You're lucky to be married to a woman like her,” Nathan said. “Keep her safe.”
Hank fitted her mask back on, his chestnut-colored eyes close to her blue ‘where the sea meets the sky’ eyes.
Did he really think that about her or was he playing the part?
Their walk could have been a most romantic stroll through a silent city. Minus the gas mask, overnight duffel bags, terrorist attack, and the destruction of a way of life.
“For the city that never sleeps, it must have taken a big Valium,” Abby said when they reached the apartment building, the only two people out after midnight. Even though it was difficult to talk through the mask, she had to fill the air. If they destroyed every shred of normalcy, then that meant the terrorists won, right?
“It was the evac,” he said. “No one is supposed to be in the Frozen Zone south of 14th Street. The boats evacuated anyone who could flee.”
“For all we know, Noah caught a boat to the Bahamas.” Hank gave Abby a shrug, and she corrected herself, “He went back to Jersey. Then he forgot to buy a cell phone and forgot to call home.”
“I’m sure he wasn't a fan of early morning skyscraper tours. There are so many people working at the Pile, we might not cross paths,” Hank said.
He put in the code at the entrance where the doorman should have been but wasn't. They took the elevator to the tenth floor and found the fifth door on the right. One code later, the lock box delivered a key.
The door opened into a two-million-dollar version of Noah’s apartment. It was almost a similar size but with higher ceilings. It had a kitchenette, living room, couch, and a door to the bathroom. Rather than a pull-up bar in the ceiling, there was a sturdy set of steps leading to a loft overhanging a
small home office.
“Two million for this?” Abby observed. “Location, location, location. Noah always wondered how much rent Ironman paid for Stark Tower, as if anyone cares about a lame superhero like him.”
“Everything in here is top dollar.” Hank examined the caked-on dirt on his hand against the pristine hardwood steps and then the white leather couch.
“What did you do with the firefighters? You’re really dirty.” She scraped the hand on the back of his now filthy flannel covering his Cleveland Fire Department t-shirt.
Hank sat down tiredly on one of the stairs. “I’m sorry. I just… I just can't.”
“Tell me,” she said. He shook his head, and she persisted. “Tell me. Everybody tells me.”
“I don't have anything good to tell you,” he said. “I’ve only been here for a couple hours, and I can tell you there is no light. The places I went had no light. We went under the Pile. We didn't find anybody… or not anyone in one piece.”
“I heard. Everyone's feeling this.” She helped unhook his mask and her own and set them to the side. Hopefully, it wasn't ruining this stupid one-million-dollar couch. She brought her arms around him and gave him a hug as she'd spent all evening giving. The same hug he’d given her yesterday.
She was tempted to initiate a repeat, but he pushed her back gently. “I'm getting you even grosser. Let me go get a shower. Three times and then you.”
She let him go, and he stumbled off to the shower. Shortly after, she heard the water turn on, and his clothes landed outside the door.
She opened up the kitchenette and found another stacked washer and dryer, definitely newer than the one in Noah's apartment. There was detergent nearby, so she loaded in Hank’s clothes. Then she took off her flannel shirt and stood there trying to make a decision.
The windows in the kitchenette were covered with thick gray film. At least they were intact and none of the dust had gotten in. She could barely make out a few lights through the window.
Once again, the logical part of her brain asked her what she was doing. This was a wild goose chase. She was crazy. She knew nothing about construction job sites, collapses, or terrorist attacks. She was one person and only one person.
And Noah…
No, she would find him. He had to be among the rescue workers. That's exactly who he was and what he would do. Abby rolled off the rest of her clothes, added them to the load, and started the washer.
Naked, she opened up the door to the bathroom and walked in. Hank was leaning against the wall with his eyes closed, letting the warm spray hit him. His brown eyes opened when she pushed past the art-deco shower curtain and stepped into the tiled shower. “What are you doing?”
“Stress relief.” She pressed herself against him, joining him under the water cascade.
His strong arms plastered her to him, and he gave her a warm, needy kiss.
And boy did she need. It didn't matter that it had been less than two days since they had met. There was something between them, and the world might be ending. No better time.
“Stress relief?” he confirmed, moaning because Abby ran her hands down his chest and to his groin. She stroked his hardened cock with one hand and grabbed what had to be a thirty-dollar bar of soap.
“Yes, stress relief, and we wouldn't want to use up all of his expensive New York products. You should share them, especially if you're going to shower three times.” She sudsed up her hands and began to work him.
It didn't take very many seconds before he was bucking against her. She stepped closer and wrapped one leg against around him, trying to line her hips up with his.
His hand stopped her suddenly. “No. No condoms. Not without them.”
“I'm clean. No one for over a year.” She tugged on his cock. He had told her ‘no’ to the sex but not to a hand job.
“It hasn’t been nearly that long for me. I'm clean, but let's not tempt fate.” He tilted his head back against the wall, thrusting slightly against her palm.
“Okay, I guess its impolite to riffle through Barry's things for his fifty-dollar condoms. For now, what’s a little stress relief between friends? New and very good friends.” Abby licked his flat male nipple, nipped at his chest hair, and kept going. She used one hand on his shaft, focusing on the crown with its sensitive underside. Her other hand teased his balls, stretching them and cupping them.
“Abby… don’t stop… I’m going… I’m going to…” He pulled away from her with a hoarse cry and finished toward the wall, not hitting Abby. The water washed it away as Hank sagged against the wall.
“See, you feel better,” Abby said. This was absolutely crazy, but she was running with it.
Now he pressed her against the other wall. “My turn. The guys said three times. I’m going to get you very, very clean.”
Hank was more than as good as his word. First, he washed her hair above her shoulders and below her waist. Three times, he soaped her and rinsed her, never opening her inner lips, rubbing the hair from the outside. Then he scrubbed her top half off, using his tongue to confirm her nipples had been thoroughly washed and were very, very clean.
Effectively reduced to a moaning set of hormones, she couldn't stand. He knelt and set one leg over his shoulder. From that position, he finger-banged her with two fingers and used his thumb to rub the hood of her clit. Hank bit her thigh and held her butt with the other hand to keep her from collapsing on the crest of a screaming orgasm.
It wasn't enough. She needed more. He was intent, it was hot, but she wanted… She wanted him and his body on her—in her.
“Hank, please. Can’t we—” Abby asked, but he folded her in a towel and maneuvered her up the stairs to the loft.
His eyes had never seemed so black or his muscles so taut as he pushed back the bedspread, leaving her on the sheets. “No, we can’t. I’ll give you as much as I can, but it’s time to get you dried off.”
Dry wasn’t possible because he used the towel to pleasure her again and bring her off a second time.
Abby stared at the blank ceiling in boneless appreciation that this man was a ‘man’s man.’ He wasn’t perfect, scars, and scrapes, and calluses against the steel of his muscles. She wanted to climb him like a tree. Ride him like a bronco… and a lot of other analogies she’d have made, but her brain stopped working every time he touched her.
It wasn’t lost on her that Hank was hard again, having skipped bringing a towel for himself. Abby had plans for that erection. She licked her lips, flicking the dripping tip with a single finger. “Let me suck you off. I promise I’m very good at it.”
“With a dirty mouth like yours, I’m sure you are.” He was panting, his body creeping closer with each breath. “We can’t, but I have an idea. You stay there and be naked.”
He left for a minute and returned in a pair of clean blue jeans from his duffel bag. Based on the tenting of his fly, it was a tight fit. However, he seemed more than happy with his pleasure muted by pain because he lay back and urged her on top of him.
As if she was going to refuse.
She climbed eagerly on, willing to take dirty dry humping if that was the offer. It took her a few seconds to open her legs wide enough to fit around him. He was broad and muscular, and it was a good thing because he carried her long body like it was nothing. He gripped her hips and guided her through the maddening friction of a bouncing gallop. Abby ground herself into the bulge of his crotch. Hank, who didn’t seem to mind her lack of bodacious boobs, fastened his mouth over her left nipple, the sleek pressure of his suction matching the pressure between her legs.
The world fell away, and briefly, nothing existed except the drive to fall over the cliff. She only lasted thirty more seconds before she came apart for the third time in an hour. As she shrieked his name, Hank surged up against her, rolling her onto her back.
Releasing his zipper, he pointed his cock, pulsating and pink, into the sheets. His face dark and carved with transparent hunger, he shot his load all over the shee
ts, missing Abby completely. He took a moment to tuck himself back inside his jeans before laying back on top of her, his head nestled into her neck.
In addition to being built like a tank, he was also an excellent blanket on her damp skin. No chills here when he made her hot inside and out.
In situations such as these, it was best to break the silence in her customary manner. “So another load of wash? Bet these are five hundred thread count sheets.”
“Utilities are probably the cheapest things about this place.” Hank slid to her side and covered her with the bedspread.
“Oh, I'd say the girl is cheaper. I was free.”
He shucked off his pants and began to peel off the top sheet, working around her. “You are not cheap.”
“Weird. It's been thirty-six hours since we met. I'm not sorry, but—”
He lifted her chin up. “You said it's been over a year.”
Her heart did some type of obnoxious happy thump, which it had no business doing. “Well, I was wrong. It’s been eighteen months, and thirty-eight hours since we met.”
His face was serious. “Abby… I’m not sure that actual sex between us is a good idea. It’s a really weird time, and I don’t want to confuse sex for genuine emotion.”
She dropped a kiss on his open mouth. “Don't say more. No sex. This can be zero regret ‘not quite sex’ stress relief. How about we cocoon ourselves in the here and now? Forget for a minute that tomorrow we're going back to hell.”
“I can do that,” Hank agreed and took the top sheet and his jeans down to the kitchen.
And somehow, she spent the night clothed but dreamlessly sleeping against his equally clothed body in their stress relief cocoon.
Chapter 9
Today, she wore another pink flannel shirt and avoided using Noah's Cleveland Fire shirts. No reason to muddy the waters when everybody thought she was married to Hank.
