Fire & Flesh: A Firefighter Romance Story

by Kerri Carr

  *****

  Aileen, Bearyan, and Raegnor were set to land on Woes Ëan in less than 48 hours. The first 72 hours with extraterrestrials went a lot differently than Aileen imagined. Bearyan was nine feet tall with pale white skin and a long, lion-like mane. Aileen couldn’t tell if it was a long hair and beard combo, or actually a mane—because Bearyan also had slightly pointed teeth and nails. His white hair was thick, and the few times she caught him sleeping in the cockpit it took everything for her not to reach out and pet him.

  Raegnor was the one with crazy blue glowing eyes. He looked like an ordinary man, save the neon-bright eyes, foot-long tongue, and tail. At first glance Aileen thought he was a Caucasian man—but up close she could see that his skin was actually a series of miniscule, stone-hard scales. His tongue wasn’t always hanging out—it only stretched to a foot long when he wanted it to, which was mainly during meals. As for the tail, Aileen thought it was kind of like hanging out with someone who had a third arm. To her surprise, the tail was not lizard-like, but more feline in nature. She had never seen anything that had scales, fur, and hair.

  The first hours in the ship were the most awkward, simply because the two extraterrestrials refused to stop poking fun at Aileen’s intergalactic naiveté. Around Bearyan and Raegnor, Aileen felt more like a little sister than their pilot. After the twelfth or so ‘take me to your leader’ joke, she set the Tower Cadet on autopilot and locked herself in her bunk and counted the minutes until their arrival upon the desert sands of Woes Ëan.

  It wasn’t Aileen’s fault that the people of Earth were severely undereducated in terms of extraterrestrial forms of life. For having learned all this new information in less than a day, she considered it a miracle her head hadn’t explode. The way Agent Hendricks explained the true nature of the universe just made sense. He had said that the human race wasn’t ready for the information, that it would create fear, which would lead to a world war. Aileen learned that for centuries, men like her father and other hard working citizens were secretly assisting in outer space missions by designing machines with alien technology.

  Minutes after the Tower Cadet hovered over the Earth, Bearyan and Raegnor popped open bottles of a purple liquid they called fizzure, which sounded to Aileen a lot like whiskey. While sweat dripped off her brow from the pressure of the initial launch, her crew treated the occasion like it was New Year’s Eve 1999.

  From her bunk, Aileen could not drown out the ruckus of Bearyan and Raegnor yammering. With Raegnor on his second bottle of fizzure and Bearyan on his ninth, the two friends grew louder with every mile of space they traveled. They had prepared only thirty bottles for the entire trip. Were they planning on making a pit stop at some point?

  Their voices bellowed with laughter over a strange continuous plethora of sounds that Aileen couldn’t make out. It sounded like radio static and beeps but with dubstep bass, and she thought she heard animal noises being played backwards. She unlocked her bunk, climbed down, and walked briskly to the cockpit. Aileen was going to show these guys that she was commandeering this ship and this mission, and that no tomfoolery would be accepted. There hadn’t even been a free moment for her to properly mourn her father. It was her ship now, and they would travel by her rules.

  When Aileen entered the cockpit, Raegnor and Bearyan didn’t even notice her standing in the doorway. The god-awful noise blared from a device hanging on the wall to her left. It’s music, she thought, whatever the hell this noise is—to them it’s music. She pressed the red button on the device, instantly ceasing the garble.

  “What in the void?” Bearyan growled, turning around with his bushy white eyebrows arched and his gigantic hand pressed firm over his heart. Was that where his heart was? Aileen wondered. Raegnor nearly fell out of the pilot’s chair with laughter at Bearyan’s fear.

  “I didn’t mean to frighten you, Bearyan,” Aileen said with a calm smile. “I need to speak to both of you. You are being quite loud. I understand that this is our first night on the mission, but I need you to keep quiet. There is a lot weighing on my mind right now and I need to rest.”

  “Oi, we’re sorry, ain’t we, Bear?” Raegnor said sarcastically, slapping Bearyan’s trunk of a shoulder. “It’s just been ages since we been off Earth together and we got a little preoccupied with the fizzure, is all.”

  “I can see that,” she said. “How much of that stuff have you two had?”

  “Not enough,” Bearyan chuckled, taking a swig. Watching him was like watching a regular sized person drink from a toy teacup.

  “Well, I’d call it enough,” Aileen said firmly. “You both should call it a night.”

  Raegnor rolled over again with laughter.

  “You’ll have to excuse him,” Bearyan said. “He’s had a little too much, and he gets too entitled when he drinks.”

  “Well maybe Raegnor should learn how to handle his fizzure a little more responsibly,” Aileen said, beaming at Raegnor.

  “Right, I’ll listen to you when the moons of Draithrlen hang over Ky9!” Raegnor emptied another bottle and threw it under the control panel where it landed, shattering.

  “You’d think they’d learn to manufacture this stuff a little more safely,” Bearyan said. “Listen, Captain. I’ll clean that mess up in the morning. And excuse my counterpart, here. It’s best to just ignore him, really.”

  When Bearyan stood up from the co-pilot chair he had to crouch about half his height, and still his back was against the ceiling of the cockpit. “I’m going to get some shut eye,” he grumbled, his mane grazing against Aileen as he passed the doorway. Would it be impolite to reach out and pet one little tuft?

  She resisted her urge and instead watched Bearyan slowly creep down the ship’s hallway, careful not to hit his head on stray pipes. With the co-pilot chair open, Aileen took a seat, and she felt the rush of heat left over from Bearyan. Sitting across from her, Raegnor reached over, hit the red button on the music device, leaned back in the chair and pressed a fresh bottle of fizzure to his mouth.

  Okay, so this one was more resistant than Bearyan. Still, she needed to gain his respect and show him who was boss. If the authoritative method wouldn’t work, she would try mimicry. “What’s that stuff taste like, anyway?” she asked, leaning back in her chair, trying to enjoy the scrambling noises.

  Taking his time with one big gulp, Raegnor let out a raspy breath and said, “Grapes, bubblegum, motor oil, and tar.” Aileen expected a laugh but he was more serious than she’d ever seen him. “And it’s voiding delicious,” he continued, licking his lips. He extended the bottle out to her and said, “Like to try a bit, Captain?”

  While she could have lived without the smug intonation of her title, she took the bottle up from him, accepting the fact that if she were to gain his trust she would have to buddy up to him eventually. With the bottle inches beneath her nose, she got a strong hit of the tar and motor oil Raegnor spoke of.

  “Well, bottoms up,” she said, wrapping her lips around the mouth of the bottle. She swallowed the purple liquid in gulps. The effect was instantaneous—not only did the fizzure burn her tongue, cheeks and throat, but a sensation like fire singed her fingers and toes. It was like taking 151 to the face only tenfold. Releasing the bottle from her mouth, some of the purple liquid drizzled down her chin.

  “Easy, Ai,” he said. Nobody had ever called her ‘Ai’. She would have retorted but she was trying put out the fire burning in her veins from the fizzure.

  “Water,” she said, gasping. Raegnor reached under the control panel and fetched one from the cooler. She tore the cap off and poured the entirety of the bottle down her throat.

  “Ain’t no joke, is it?” Raegnor smiled.

  “No,” Aileen answered. “Ain’tno joke.” She handed the bottle back to him. Well, handed wouldn’t be the right word. He took the bottle with his tail, wrapping it around the nose and carrying to his own hand. Raegnor’s bright blue eyes sparked white after each pull from the fizzure bottle.

 
Agent Hendricks failed to properly introduce her to the duo, who seemingly worked as a pair for decades. Would it be rude to ask personal questions about them? What even constituted ‘personal’ with extraterrestrials? They both wore clothes like humans did, they could both speak English (and several other languages) like humans did, and their had distinct personalities like humans did. Why was she so shy about the whole thing? Fuck it, she thought, I’m drunk, or wasted from whatever stuff is. Just ask.

  “Okay,” she said, “So are you both from different planets? Are you from the same planet? Are you the same species? How did you meet Agent Hendricks? What was the evolutionary process like to get your tongue that long?”

  Her questions were completely serious. At least she thought so, until Raegnor blew up with hysterical laughter. This guy really needs to stop drinking, she thought. Then again, she had barely heard him make a peep before they busted into the fizzure. Maybe it was his one way of breaking out of his shell. Everybody had his or her vices.

  “Slow the train, Cap,” he said. “There’s enough about the galaxy to learn in a lifetime, let alone one night. Long story short, yes Bear and me are from different planets. No, I ain’t never seen a brute as big as him, either. I am from Ůndradandrů but when pirates murdered my parents I was taken to the planet Ky9 and raised there. Agent Hendricks recruited me and I’ve been residing on Earth for three years.”

  Holy shit, Aileen thought. She really needed to go to sleep. “I’m so sorry,” she said, not knowing what to say.

  “Sorry for what?” Raegnor asked.

  “Sorry for your loss,” Aileen said.

  “Ah,” he understood. “My loss. And I too, am sorry for yours.”

  They both went silent. Her eyes were locked in the hypnotic ray of blue coming from Raegnor’s face. There was one thing Aileen could count on: pain was universal.

  “As for the lug,” Raegnor continued, referring to Bearyan, “He’s from Fulgurator—or Jupiter, in your language. It is why he wanted to take this job—because you are from the same solar system, you and him.”

  “How many solar systems are there?” she asked, shaking at how much more expanse existence as she knew it was.

  “Oi, in this galaxy?”Raegnor asked, looking up calculatedly. “Billions.Many billions. I mean, we’re talking a hundred thousand light years here, right?” The way he spouted these facts made it obvious that it was all common knowledge to him. Meanwhile, Aileen sat clueless, wondering if she could handle some more fizzure.

  “My point,” Raegnor continued, “is that if I start going into the scientific details of all this, it will be a data overload. Trust me.”

  He stretched back in the chair, taking in the jumbled warble from the music device. His blue eyes closed and he opened his mouth to sing along. Aileen couldn’t identify the language but she was certain it was not of Earth. When the chorus of the song ended, there was a chain of repetitive noises. This is like techno-jazz from the future, Aileen thought. Raegnor opened his mouth and stretched out his tongue, waving it to the rhythm of the harmonic static.

  Its serpentine movement entranced her—the control he had over that thing was incredible. He hadn’t yet answered why his species from Ůndradandrů need such a long tongue. She found herself sticking out her own tongue, giving Raegnor another smirk.

  “You are one silly Captain, Ai,” he said, his tongue still floating to the music, his words barely more than mumbles.

  “You may address me as Captain Miroki,” Aileen said sternly. Raegnor rolled his eyes. She had to stop barking orders. It was like he ignored that form of communication altogether. “My tongue doesn’t do that, see?” she asked, sticking out her tongue again. “And I don’t have a tail,” she said, jumping up and sticking her butt in the air. She shook her hips and tried moving to the music.

  Raegnor stood up, sucked his tongue back into his mouth, and held his face with both hands. Shaking his head, he walked over to her. “I really think you should go to bed, now,” he said. “Even for a human, you are acting pretty weird.”

  “Lighten up, stiffy,” she said, poking him in the chest, continuing her hideous dance. “This isn’t weird, this is funky.”

  Funky?Seriously, Aileen?she thought. The fizzure was doing a number on her nerves. She felt an intrepid vibration from all things around her.

  “Right,” Raegnor said. “Funky.” He tried to lead her out of the cockpit and to her bunk, but she refrained.

  “My ship, my rules,” Aileen said. Raegnor’s blue, luminescent eyes rocked back and forth with the sway of Aileen’s body.

  “You want to know the use for the Ůndradandrůan tongue, Captain Miroki?” Raegnor asked. Could he read minds like Agent Hendricks?

  “I’m just fascinated by evolution,” she answered.

  “I can show you,” he said, “but there is one important thing you must understand about this organ.”

  “Tell me,” she said, her eyelids wide with excitement.

  “If this organ is handled improperly, I could die,” he said. “So the fact that I let it out around you means I trust you.”

  “Wow,” she whispered. “I see. I had no idea. Well, thank you, Raegnor. That means a lot to me.”

  “But that is not the use for the organ, Captain,” he continued. “Now that you understand the fragility of this organ, it is important that you understand why we Ůndradandrůans also have this appendage.” His tail drifted behind him.

  “Please, Raegnor, show me,” she said. “You don’t understand; I’ve spent my life studying the physics of Earth life. Your very existence and everything about you baffles me.”

  “I see,” Raegnor said quietly. “Well, in that case I will show you. However, you need to take a seat first, Captain.”

  “Okay,” she said, seating herself back into the co-pilot’s chair. “Is it a fighting tactic to knock predators off their feet?”

  “Something like that,” Raegnor said, dropping to his knees in front of the chair. He placed his hands on her pants and tugged softly.

  “What are you doing?” she yelped, jumping up, unprepared for his action.

  “I’m showing you, like you asked,” he said. “Please hold still, I have done this before. You are perfectly safe, okay?”

  “Sure,” she said, never having second-guessed her safety during this demonstration. When his hands returned to her pants, she felt something tickle the back of her hair and neck. She realized it was Raegnor’s tail, circling around her neck, tighter and tighter with each curl. “Are you trying to choke me?” she gasped.

  “No, Captain, I’m not trying to choke you,” he whispered, her pants halfway down her legs. “Ůndradandrůan males must secure the recipient because once the muscle is inside, I am not safe. So if you try to kill me, I have the upper hand.”

  This was all taking a turn she did not expect.

  “What do you mean ‘once the muscle is inside’?” Aileen demanded.

  The tail around her neck was just tight enough to keep her still, but she could feel the strength behind it. He could strangle her if he wanted to. “My tongue, of course, Captain,” he said, smiling. Once the pants were off, all that remained between Aileen and Raegnor were here soft, white cotton panties. She could feel that they were already moist from her genitalia.

  “Raegnor, I don’t know about this,” she whimpered. “I didn’t expect you to take off my clothes. On my planet, this type of thing is frowned upon.”

  “But Captain,” he said, the fur from his tail tickling her neck. “I can smell the increase of sodium between your legs from here. That means you enjoy the experience, am I correct?”

  “I—I—,” she stammered as the enormous tongue grazed her leg; she couldn’t stop her eyes from rolling back. The connection of his muscle tissue against her flesh released a chemical in her that made her brain feel high.

  “I will take that a yes, my Captain,” he hissed, his tongue caressing her skin in one long trail from her knee to her labia.

  �
�Wait, Raegnor, please, this a direct order, I…” she moaned. But it was too late. With his edged face grazing her inner thighs, his tongue had already made its way deep into her pussy. He looked into her, unblinking, with his iridescent eyes, his mouth open wide and pressing his rough lips to the outside of her groin.

  The force of the tongue in her was immense and with every tiny flick from the muscle a spasm coursed through one of her limbs. First her legs kicked, then her arms wrapped around the co-pilot seat like a pretzel. Raegnor released his finger from the panties he was holding back and took one of Aileen’s feet in each hand. While he unlaced her boots, she looked down and was lost in the wave of blue filling the dark cockpit.

  His tongue filled her deeper then anything she had ever taken inside her hot sheath. After her boots fell off, the socks came next, and soon her bare feet were in his jagged hands, high up in the air. Raegnor spread her legs wide, his tongue pressing against the edges of her orifice.

  As soon as her nipples got hard and the goose bumps rose up her skin, she knew her orgasm was approaching. Raegnor tightened his tail around her neck, making it more difficult to breathe, but not too difficult. She embraced the tension that he applied, letting her know that this torrential orgasm was in safe hands—and tail.

  Aileen screamed—there was nothing less she could do as her hips throttled, releasing a fountain of thick liquid onto Raegnor’s tongue. The secretion dripped down his tongue, and Raegnor smiled as it went into his mouth. Meanwhile, Aileen held on to the chair tight while his tongue swam in circles inside her—the power of the orgasm sending her body into wild flailing motions.