Jake stood in the middle of a bar, the front of his shirt soaked in beer, pondering How on earth did I get here? Then his arms shot forward like pistons, burying his hands into the chest of the braying jackass in front of him. That’s when all hell broke loose.

Had he had a more than that fleeting second to think about the question, he might have recalled that his journey to that saloon, which smelled of fifty years of stale beer soaked into the floorboards, had begun more than a year ago. That was when his girlfriend announced that she was breaking up with him to date a football player. So horribly cliche was the breakup that one might imagine that it couldn't get any worse. Except that the football player in question was a backup quarterback on a Division III team that hadn’t won a game in three years. So yeah, it was worse. 

That sent Jake into a downward spiral. Well, not everything went down. His beer consumption certainly went up. But his mood, his determination, and his grades all plummeted as he tried to cope with what had happened. By the end of the fall semester, he was on academic probation, and by the time May arrived, his academic scholarship had been yanked.

While college was much less expensive in 1981, tuition at his small, private liberal arts college was still much more than he could afford and, frankly, he didn't think his focus would improve at a large state school. Unsure of what to do next he decided to head west to chase a childhood dream spurred by a series of books he had found in his middle school library. He was going to become a smoke jumper. Somehow, the prospect of leaping out of an airplane and into the heart of a wildfire in the Rocky Mountains seemed less daunting than facing the disappointed looks on the faces of his parents. 

So he scraped together what little money he had and bought a ticket on a train headed west, where he quickly discovered that the smoke jumpers had no need for out-of-shape twenty-year-olds with a beer gut and little experience in the great outdoors. 

But he managed to catch a break. While they had “little interest” in him, it wasn’t none. Recruits tended to wash out of the program in high numbers, so they needed a supply of warm bodies to keep up appearances, and that was enough to get him through the door. 

Realizing that he had backed himself into a corner, Jake threw himself into the program. He replaced nights spent boozing with extra hours of physical training so that he could better compete for one of the coveted spots on the plane. Of course, before he got anywhere near that, there were weeks spent learning about forestry, chainsaws, and the wonder that was the Pulaski, a half-axe-half-hoe implement that was expected to become an extension of every smoke jumper’s arms.

And that meant very sore arms. Hours of digging simulated firebreaks and cutting up and dragging away deadfalls were dreadful, exhausting work. But in it, Jake found an outlet for his frustrations. His anger melted away, as did his soft, flabby middle revealing actual abdominal muscles! His non-descript shoulders and arms also grew more muscular and more defined as the weeks went by.

In the end, though, it wasn’t enough. Not quite anyway. He missed the cut for the smoke jumpers program but had exhibited enough grit and gumption that he was offered the chance to man a fire tower for the summer, which came with a chance to re-enroll in the program the next spring. Fresh out of other options, he leapt at the chance.

Yes, the job of sitting atop a tower scanning miles of the Rocky Mountain landscape for signs of fire would mean weeks of isolation but if it got him closer to a seat on the plane, it was worth it. 

In his downtime, Jake committed himself to more physical labor to increase his odds of making the cut the next year. He cut, hauled, and split more firewood than he could burn through in a year. With no weight room within fifty miles, he took to spending afternoons hauling the biggest rocks he could heft up the hill to the tower and built a low rock wall around the base. Throw in a daily five-mile hike, down and up the peak, and hauling water from the stream two miles away, and he often found himself so tired that he struggled to stay awake some nights to see if the Northern Lights might put on a show.

He quickly settled into this solitary pioneer lifestyle, but eight weeks in he jumped at the chance for a brief furlough when it was offered, which is how he found himself in Libby, Montana. While small, the town qualified as more than a wide spot in the road, and after two months alone in the mountains, its main street looked like Broadway to him. 

With only seventy-two hours in town, Jake set his sights on finding decent food, cold beer, and enough books to fill his rucksack. Catching a glimpse of himself in a storefront window, he realized that he also might want to buy some new clothes. The jeans and t-shirt he wore had fit when he headed west, but the figure in the window had broader shoulders and a narrower waist than the college dropout who had shoved them in his backpack months earlier. He admired how the shirt stretched across his pecs and how the sleeves could no longer contain his biceps. However, the stains from sweat, food, and a bit of blood here and there, were less impressive. His jeans looked no better. Ripped and torn, they hung from his hips. 

He spotted a thrift shop two doors down where he quickly secured a pair of “well-loved” jeans that fit like a glove, a couple of shirts, and directions to the only motel in town. He checked into a room and immediately treated himself to the first hot shower he had had since he took his post. The shave with a fresh razor and an actual mirror was almost as glorious. But those things paled in comparison to a cold beer and a burger at the bar around the corner.

By the time he wandered into the library, he didn’t have a want in the world. That is until he laid eyes on Brooke. As he walked in, she was stranding on tip-toe, shelving a book. Backlit by a window, the pose showed off a stunning silhouette featuring full breasts, a shapely ass, and strong calves. It also set afire the long chestnut hair bound up in a French braid that hung down to the middle of her back. The attraction was instant and magnetic.

After briefly psyching himself up, he worked up the courage to approach her and ask where he could find biographies and fiction. It should have been easy, but when he got within five feet of her, the scent of her perfume was intoxicating and the glimpse of her cleavage that he got as she bent over to shelve a book on a bottom shelf in the children’s section caused a reaction that threatened to shred, or at least stain, his new jeans. 

Composing himself, Jake managed to get out his question without too much stammering. In the process, he casually mentioned that returning the books on time would be almost impossible since he was manning a fire tower on a remote mountaintop. She was not nearly as impressed as he had hoped, distractedly pointing him in the right direction. Feeling disappointed he went to browse, but he felt better when he caught her stealing glances at him as he prowled through the stacks. At least he convinced himself that was the case. Based upon that flimsy, possibly imagined evidence, he steeled his nerve to ask her out…sort of.

“Um, so, I’m not in town for long. What do folks around here do for fun on a Friday night?” he asked in a voice that he hoped sounded more confident to her ears than it did to his own. 

“Well, Chuck’s is fun, and since it attracts a younger crowd, I think it would be more your speed,” she replied, hesitating before adding, “I’ll probably wind up there eventually. I have a bachelorette party, but all roads tend to lead to Chuck’s with that group, so…”

“Chuck’s it is!” he said, and quickly gathered up the books and headed out the door. 

At 8 p.m. he took up a spot at the bar that had a good view of the entryway and sat down to nurse a couple of beers and watch whatever ballgame was on the television. Looking in the mirror behind the bar, he was once again impressed by the image that looked back at him - even if it was wearing a second-hand shirt that was a bit too thigh through the shoulders.

Brooke had been right. Over the next couple of hours the bar filled with a crowd in their twenties and early thirties, but there was no sign of the bachelorette party. By 10 p.m. he was about ready to give up hope when a half-dozen girls poured through the door shrieking with laughter, with Brooke in their midst. At least he thought it was her.

Her conservative librarian attire had been swapped out for a sundress that fell just above her knees to showcase a shapely set of legs. It was also cut low enough in front to reveal much more than the glimpse of cleavage he had stolen that afternoon. Her hair was no longer bound up in a braid. Instead, it flowed down over her shoulders in waves of chestnut that caught the light. It was nearly the death of those second-hand jeans. 

It was his turn to get caught staring as Brooke’s eyes caught his from across the room. A little smile lit up her face, but she coyly turned away. Her air of composure was shattered, however, when one of her drunken friends looked over and said, loudly enough to be heard over the music, “Damn, Brooke, if you don’t want him throw him my way!”

Encouraged, Jake finished his beer, took a deep breath, and looked for an opportunity to reintroduce himself. When he did, the rest of the bachelorette party reacted like a pack of high school sophomores, letting loose with a chorus of “oohs!” and “He’s cute!” pushing Brooke in his direction as they went to claim a table in the corner. Her cheeks burned with embarrassment. 

“Excuse my so-called friends,” she said rolling her eyes. 

“No problem,” he replied and offered to buy her a drink. They quickly grabbed a table in the middle of the bar and commenced the ritual that is the first date. He shared the story of how he wound up sitting atop a seventy-five-foot tower on a mountaintop (leaving out the part about the girlfriend and the second-string quarterback). She countered with the tale of how she had grown up in Libby and couldn’t wait to leave. She went off to college in Seattle but got roped into coming home for the summer when her aunt, the librarian gave birth to twins. Much to her chagrin, it looked like she might have to stick around through the fall. 

After about an hour she excused herself to use the ladies' room while Jake got drinks. When he sat down he heard a ruckus across the room and saw Brooke trying to move away from a drunken cowboy who wasn’t taking no for an answer until she ended the conversation by yelling, “Fuck off, Brad!” which could be heard throughout the bar. She returned to the table trying not to look cross.

“Um, would you like to go somewhere else,” Jake offered. 

“No!,” she replied. “That’s Brad. Every time he gets drunk, he forgets I broke up with him over two years ago. He can find somewhere else to go - hopefully to hell.” 

They laughed off the interruption and soon were again lost in conversations about jobs, books, music, and what they wanted out of life. Things were going well, and Jake was starting to believe that fate had finally done him a favor when a shadow was cast over their table by a swaying Brad.

“Come on, Brooke, it’s our song. Let’s dance,” he insisted. 

“Brad, maybe you didn’t hear me before, I said, fuck off!”

“Yeah, well maybe you didn’t hear me when I suggested that there were better uses for that dirty little mouth of yours than being rude to me!” 

Jake’s chair squealed as he slowly pushed it away from the table and prepared to stand, but Brooke, told him to stay put, she could handle this.

Uncomfortably, Jake sat listening to Brooke fend off Brad's advances. Finally, Brad said, “Is it this guy here that’s in the way? I can fix that,” he said as he flung a full beer that hit Jake in the face and chest. “Looks like you need to go home and change,” he said, bursting into laughter at his wit.

Gasps and “ooohs” came from surrounding tables.

Jake looked across the table at Brooke, he gave her a look that said, “Hey, I’ve been trying to stay out of this…” She returned the glance, shrugged, and crossed her arms in a manner that indicated that she agreed that a response was in order. 

As Jake stood, Brad kept laughing and trying to give him directions to the laundromat. When he stopped for a breath, Jake calmly asked. “Are you done?”

And that’s when his arms shot out like pistons, rocketing Brad backward three feet into a pillar, his head thudding against the wood. Before the sound had dissipated, Jake took a step forward and drove his fist into Brad’s solar plexus causing the air to leave his lungs in an audible woosh. As Brad doubled over, Jake’s left hand delivered an uppercut to his jaw followed by a right cross, which was probably unnecessary as Brad was already falling to the floor, but the asshole had just soaked his new favorite shirt, so Jake didn’t feel too badly about landing the punch. 

Jake turned to Brooke, preparing to ask her if she was ready to leave when she screamed a warning.

Out of the corner of his eye, Jake saw a man running at him. He deftly stepped aside and then shoved the would-be attacker as he went by, sending him sprawling headfirst into the base of a high-top table. There was a sickening snap (probably a collarbone) followed by the thud of the table hitting the floor and the shattering of glass beer mugs.

Then, from Jake’s right came a slurred, “Fuuuck you!” He turned just in time to see a pool cue being swung at his head. He ducked and the cue struck the same pillar that had taken out Roy, The cue clattered to the floor. Crouching Jake quickly picked it up, then swung it at the ankles of his would-be attacker sending him to the ground howling in pain.

Jake put his knee on the man’s back and pinned his arm behind him. “I ought to shove this cue right up your ass, you son of a bitch,” he growled. “But I’m not going to, because I want you to tell your friend over there to listen to Brooke the next time she tells him to go to hell.”

Jake released the arm, stood up and turned to walk away. Thinking better of it, he turned and gave a swift kick, burying the toe of his heavy boot into the man's ribs, which gave way with a sickening crack.

“And don’t ever swing a fucking pool cue at me again,” he said.

As it turned out, if you hung out with a bunch of roughnecks who wanted to jump from planes into forest fires, you had better learn how to fight, and Jake had learned quickly and well.

A silence had fallen over the bar during the fifteen to twenty seconds that the fight, such as it was, had lasted. Then suddenly laughs and hoots erupted. Apparently, Brad and his friends were not very popular. Even so, Brooke suggested to Jake that they should leave. Jake threw a ten-dollar bill at the bartender with instructions to buy a round for those whose drinks had been spilled. Brooke grabbed his arm, dragging him through the door, down the stairs and around a corner into an alley, where she promptly pushed him into the wall and kissed him deeply, ignoring the beer seeping from his shirt through her dress.

When their kiss broke all Jake could find to say was, “You’re getting all wet.” to which Brooke replied, “Oh, you have no idea!” 

With that, she grabbed his hand and they began running down the alley with Brooke explaining that it would be best to get out of the area in case anyone called the local sheriff, who happened to be Brad’s uncle. A couple of doors later she led him down a short flight of stairs, pulled keys from her purse, and opened the door. “It’s the basement of the library, nobody will think to look here,” she said.

By now Jake’s head was spinning as the reality of the last few minutes sunk in. An avalanche of words poured from his mouth as he simultaneously apologized while cursing the assholes he had dispatched. After about thirty seconds of this, Brooke put a finger to his lips.

“Shhh,” she whispered. “Just shut up and fuck me.”

Certain he had misheard, Jake started to let loose with another adrenaline-fueled barrage of apologies and explanations, when her hand cracked against his face. Stunned, he stood silent. It was the hardest he had been hit all night.

“Exactly what part of shut up and fuck me do you not understand?” Brooke said, this time not in a whisper.

In a moment of clarity, Jake understood completely. She had scarcely finished her sentence before he grabbed her and kissed her roughly, pushing her a few steps backward across the room until her backside ran into an old desk. Grabbing her by the ass, he lifted her and sat her on the edge of the desk with her legs straddling him. His growing hardness ground against her as they engaged in an awkward bit of hand-to-hand combat, each desperately trying to remove the other’s clothes while not breaking their fevered kiss. Ever the gentleman, Jake relented and helped her remove his beer-soaked shirt, freeing her hands to undo his belt and yank down his fly. 

His manners did have limits and his impatience soon won out. He roughly pulled her sundress down setting free her breasts, each tipped with a nipple as red and as hard as a ruby. As they kissed, she screamed into Jake’s mouth as he pinched and twisted one of the nipples, which sent a shock wave directly to her now throbbing clit and set loose a fresh wave of wetness, which seeped from her pussy and soaked her panties. It didn’t much matter as were gone moments later as Jake spun her around, pushed up her dress, and yanked them down her legs to her ankles in a single motion.

Shoving down his boxers and jeans he pressed his rock-hard cock forward, tracing down the cleft of her ass to the warm wet lips that waited just beneath, pausing only momentarily to gauge her wetness, he plunged his cock home in a single thrust. They howled in unison, and for a fraction of a second, they paused. He marveled at her warm, wet depths and she reveled in the feeling of being impaled on his hardness and then all reserve was abandoned. The room was filled with the sounds and scents of feral fucking. He pounded at her relentlessly, grunting with each thrust and she gasped as he bottomed out deep inside her. 

This was not lovemaking or even sex. This was fucking, pure and simple, just as she had demanded. And it was precisely what each needed. The only respite came when, Brooke’s body stiffened, every muscle in her core contracting at once, squeezing his cock from her pussy, followed by a tremendous gush of fluid that ran down his legs, splashed his jeans, and pooled on the floor beneath them. Jake paused, uncertain what to do until she let out a scream of frustration and said, “Don’t stop!”

Needing no further instructions, he flipped her over, re-positioned her ass on the edge of the desk, and reburied himself in her. As she wrapped her legs around his back a look was exchanged that made it clear to both that the First Law of Quickies was now in effect: everyone was in charge of their own orgasm. So as he resumed his pounding of her pussy, her left hand flew to her clit and began making frantic circles.

As climax inched closer for both, the world around them shrank. Both were focused on a singular purpose. Moans and grunts punctuated the sound of their bodies slapping together, with the volume creeping ever upward until she finally slipped over the edge. A strangled, stuttering scream poured from her as her body convulsed around him. With a roar he followed suit, barely able to pull out before erupting all over her sundress bunched around her waist and in her pubic hair. 

Like the fight that had preceded it, the encounter was brief, violent, and memorable. 

As the rush of the moment wore off and their breathing came back to normal, the two of them burst into laughter, falling into each other's arms, convulsing at the ridiculousness of what had just transpired. When the laughter ended, they kissed again.

“Well, what now,” Jake asked.

“When do you have to get back to your tower?” she asked.

“My ride comes through Monday morning,” he said.

“Well, you’re all mine until then, and other than some laundry,” she said, looking first at her dress and then at his drenched shirt and pants. “I need a whole lot more of whatever that just was!”