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completely revised & hotter
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Date Posted: 22:54:54 03/23/01 Fri
In reply to:
BonnieBo
's message, "Bolt From the Blue" on 22:53:55 03/23/01 Fri
Oakland, California 1906
Accidents always happened to Nikita. She never meant for them to happen, but they happened all the same. Things were always crashing, spilling, or going up in smoke. She couldn't help it. It just happened wherever she was: at home, on the farm, or in the workshop. Now she was almost nineteen, and she always hoped she'd outgrown those misfortunes which had plagued her since childhood. The school kids had been merciless in that cruel clever way kids find until Bubbe Adriana had finally kept her at home, away from those "no-goodniks and hooligans."
"Nikita Kirov, you are the walking eye of a storm. Wherever you go, it is sure to follow," her bubbe had always said, right before lighting another candle to her patron saint and muttering another prayer on her behalf.
It wasn't prayer she needed. It was energy. Ten more megavolts, to be precise. Nikita thought she knew how to get it but unfortunately she couldn't take care of it now, because there was a small matter of a fire. Well, maybe a large matter, she thought, as thick black smoke poured out of the transducer on the workbench. Flames shot through the seams of her neat steel box, and greedily licked up the gray sides of her instrument, shiny and bulging from the heat. And those flickering yellow fingers of heat were beginning to reach across the bench. Just a few more feet and the fire might catch her notebook. Not again ...
Sweat filmed her forehead as she smacked a wet towel against the growing flames, not feeling the heat or caring about anything else. Eyes watering, she fought even harder. She flailed the towel like a mace, bringing it down again and again, trying to beat everything back. The smoke only grew thicker, oilier; clogging her nostrils. Grimly she threw away her towel and picked up the red pail on the floor. She tossed out the sand, but the flames spread. They scooted and danced around it like mischievous hellish sprites.
Joules-us Christ!Look at that. Now the fingers of fire grew into waving orange arms that embraced her work. There was no help for it. Nikita snatched her smoking lab notebook and reached overhead for the chain. She yanked it, then turned and dashed through the wall of smoke as water began to sprinkle from the ceiling pipes. Hot metal hissed behind her. She crouched down, pressing her skirt over her nose, and ran over the threshold. She slammed the lab door.
Squinting into the bright sun, Nikita ran out into the surrounding fields, the sweet grass crunching under her feet. Fwo-o-o-oop.All of a sudden, she could feel the hot draft and she hoped it wasn't her sketches igniting. That would set her back a few weeks. She'd barely gone a few steps when a lean muscular body crashed into her. They fell heavily to the ground, rolling over and over the packed dirt and the pebbles. And when at last they stopped, she couldn't breathe at all. Every molecule of oxygen had been extruded from her body, which must account for why she felt so lightheaded. She stared up into a hard long-jawed face with even harder green eyes and a thin, unsmiling mouth. His auburn hair was longish at the back and blew about in the stiff breeze. And gradually she became aware of the long coat and the longer legs in leather breeches that straddled her. His hands were touching her waist, her hips, then her legs in a way that seemed too methodical and familiar and firm. Very firm.
It suddenly occurred to her that there was no one else for miles around, and that he was ... touching her. He was touching her all over in places that you never were supposed to mention in mixed company. Maybe what this stranger was doing was exactly what Miss Madeline called "taking liberties with a young lady" in that mysterious undertone of hers. Nikita wasn't exactly sure what that meant. It wasn't in the encyclopedia or the bible, but none of the good things ever were. "Liberties" had sounded horrible and exciting. Maybe Nikita should tell him to stop patting her calves.
"Ouch! ... Do you mind?" she coughed out at last. Her chest burned as if she'd swallowed the fire whole instead of running away from it. Every exhale ached. Pressing one hand to her side, she tried shallow breaths instead. There. That was better.
"No. Not at all." He gracefully swung his leg over her until he knelt by her side. One hand slid along her back and slowly helped her to sit up. "Your skirt was on fire," he added, as if in after-thought.
Her knees drew up, and she leaned over, hacking some more. When the last fit subsided, she spoke again. Her voice sounded raspier than usual. "That's impossible ... Completely impossible."
The man's eyebrows snapped together into one thick line as if he wasn't used to being contradicted. His mouth tightened in one corner. There was a brief silence. Whatever he was thinking, he wasn't going to share it.
"It's not possible," continued Nikita, "because my apron is fire retardant. It's something I made up myself. And I've tested it. Thoroughly. Goes to more Kelvin that you've ever imagined. You bet it has."
He glanced down at her dress which was rucked up to her knees. The sun-faded chambray skirts had turned into burnt rags, and underneath that, gaping charred holes here and there had reduced her black stockings into something that could pass for fishnet.
"Oh, I guess I turned around when I ran out so the apron didn't protect my back. I didn't think of that. Maybe I should make a two-sided smock. Or I could try treating the dress directly with Fire B-Gone. Hmmm, except it makes the fabric stick out like briar bush and it's about as uncomfortable too. I should make a note of that." Nikita fished around inside her apron pocket, which was still smoking a little. She came up empty. "Nuts. Do you have a pencil I could borrow?"
He looked puzzled. "Fire B-Gone?" was all he said.
"Yeah, that's what I call it, only you really shouldn't bother with the name. I'm going to come up with something better. I usually do. The pencil? I hope you're not one of those forgetful types, are you? My pop is like that. It makes me nuts."
"No, I'm not. And I don't. Have a pencil, that is. Sorry." He spared another glance at her legs as if he couldn't help looking.
"Oh. Well, okay. Maybe they arejust a little singed." She pulled what was left of her skirts down.
His hand stopped her. "Are you hurt?"
Laughter pealed out. "What? No. No way! This happens all the time. I'm used to it. Say, let go." She lifted her leg and shook him off. "Who are you, anyway? Do I ... know you?"
"No," he said, "but you will."
###
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