The Fireman by Joe Hill Read Free Book Online Page A

the tub while he lathered her in soap. He soaped her breasts and the small of her back and her neck and took time soaping between her legs and when she couldn’t stand it anymore he smacked her bum and told her to get back into the tub and she obediently sat.
    The night of the hospital fire, Jakob said, “It’s so fucking cheap when people say I love you . It’s a name to stick on a surge of hormones, with a little hint of loyalty thrown in. I’ve never liked saying it. Here’s what I say: We’re together, now and until the end. You have everything I need to be happy. You make me feel right.”
    He squeezed out the washcloth and hot water rained down her neck. She shut her eyes, but saw the red light of the candle flame through her eyelids.
    He went on, “I don’t know how much time we have left. Could be fifty years. Could be one more week. But I do know that we’re not going to get cheated out of one second of being together. We’re going to share everything and feel everything together. And I am going to let you know, in the way I touch you, and the way I kiss you”—as he said it, he touched her, and kissed her—“that you are the best thing in my life. And I’m a selfish man, and I want every inch of you, and every minute of your life I can have. There’s no my life anymore. And no your life. Just our life, and we’re going to have it our way. I want birthday cake every day and you naked in bed every night. And when it’s time to be done, we’ll have that our way, too. We’ll open that bottle of wine we bought in France and listen to our favorite music and have some laughs and take some happy pills and go to sleep. Die pretty after the party is over, instead of going down screaming like those sad, desperate people who lined up to die in the hospital.”
    It was like hearing his wedding vows all over again, only better and sexier, and she was turned on, the way he was still moving the soap on her in the water, the way he kissed her right earlobe, which tickled her but aroused her as well. So that was all right.
    Except it wasn’t, not entirely. There was something wrong about calling the people who came to the hospital sad and desperate . There was something immoral about mocking them. Renée Gilmonton had not been sad and desperate. Renée Gilmonton had organized story hour for the kids in the ward.
    But Jakob had the gift of confession, could talk about how he wanted to touch her and be with her, with all the daring and athletic skill he brought to riding a unicycle or walking on a tightrope. He was small and compact and muscular, and also intellectually muscular, mentally something of an acrobat. Sometimes she felt that those intellectual acrobatics were a bit tiring; at those times she felt less as if they were feeling everything together, more as if she was simply his audience, someone to applaud his latest leap through the burning hoop of existentialism and his backflip onto the trampoline of nonconformity. But then she was opening her legs to him, because his hands knew how to do things she could hardly bear and needed to feel. And anyway, all his talk just meant that he wanted her and she made him happy. She had to kiss him again, and she did, twisting in the bathtub and flattening her breasts against the cold porcelain, and holding the back of his head so he couldn’t get away until she had a good long taste of him. Then she broke free and yawned once more and he laughed and that was all right.
    The night of the hospital fire, she rose from the water, and he handed her a glass of red wine and then wrapped a hot towel around her. He helped her out of the tub. He walked her into the bedroom, where there were more candles burning. He dried her and guided her to the bed and she climbed across it on all fours, wanting him to pull off his clothes and push himself into her, but he put a hand on the small of her back and made her lie flat. He liked to make her wait; to be honest, she liked to be