Chapter 11.1 – December 2023: part I – A disaster and a disastrous date...

It was the first day of december, outside it was another rainy morning, inside Bhavan and Beate was sleeping quietly dreaming about what was perhaps most important to them right now...

 

Bhavan needed to sleep in after an exhausting day averting a potential disaster over at the military base, but Beate had another idea..

 

She wasn't just singing and playing the piano, she was also a drummer. She wanted to understand music fully – to learn what she could about every instrument, so that she would hopefully be able to craft the best possible songs that she could, and... to wake up her boyfriend on a lazy friday morning...

 

"Beate, what the ****!? You can't play drums in the morning in my bedroom when I'm trying to sleep! Stop that! Immediately!"

"..but atleast it woke you up, didn't it?"

"It's not funny... don't do that again..."

Though in spite of the initial bout of rage, Bhavan wasn't to angry about having his girlfriend over, as he let out a little cheer to himself once she was out of the room to go outside to recycle some old newspapers..

He quickly forgave her for this incident as he went into the kitchen to make breakfast for both of them.

 

Beate was a little more adventurous-ly minded and during breakfast she suggested they should go away somewhere far away on vacation for a while, but Bhavan wasn't quite up to that. He would rather just stay where he was, and not venture to far out into the world. Beate tried to convince him by mentioning all the fascinating sights to see and people to meet, but this didn't convince Bhavan at all.. especially not the part about meeting new people... Beate didn't say anything in response for now, she thought it wouldn't be beneficial to start a big discussion about it, but atleast she had now planted the idea in him...

 

The reason for him being lukewarm to the idea at best wasn't because he didn't want to spend time with her, and this she kind of knew... after breakfast he had something to show her, as he kissed her and invited her upstairs to show her his brand new jacuzzi upstairs... She said she would join him shortly, she just had to try and strum a few notes on his guitar first..

Bhavan wasn't afraid to get naked in the jacuzzi as long as he knew it would be just them, but Beate who was the most outgoing of them in any other setting felt a little more self-conscious there, and wanted to keep her bikini on..

 

..but she was nonetheless excited about the jacuzzi and they got to cuddle for a while, but not making it any further, because Bhavan had to get up and go to work.. she did her best to look away as he got up from the jacuzzi so as to not stare to much at his... equipment..

 

At the fire station it was as usual, with Bhavan working to maintain the fire truck and the alarms, while his colleagues were gossiping about whatever.. until the alarm went off, and our hero once more had to hop into his.. erm, the fire stations fire truck and rush to the rescue.

 

This time the emergency central said it was a house fire, and Bhavan feared for the worst because he thought he had heard the adress somewhere before...

There was no time to think to much, he had to get there quickly! The caller was a very distressed teenager who was babysitting a little toddler. During feeding the toddler had soiled out all her clothes and the poor babysitter just meant to clean them in the washing machine.. so far so good, but it was after she had put the babys clothes in the tumble drier and then forgotten all about it that things went wrong...

Bhavans heart sank when he got his worst fear confirmed and saw that the house on the adress was his sister Udishas house.. which could only mean that his niece Madhunisha was now in great danger! This was terrible, but he had to keep his cool and get the job done! The emergency central had informed him that there was a fire in a laundry room located in a garage, and since this was his sisters house, he knew immediately where it was.

 

Meanwhile at his house Beate, who was in the dark about the danger her boyfriend and his beloved niece now found themselves in, had to get up from relaxing in the jacuzzi and go to her own job at the theatre..

 

Once he ran up to the backside of the house, he saw that there was a fire in the bathroom too. This puzzled Bhavan, because as far as he knew they had nothing in there that could catch fire... what he didn't know, was that the babysitter had gotten distracted as she went into the bathroom to take a bath after which she had used a hair dryer she had brought with her from her parents house.
    At first she thought it was due to the hair dryer that she could smell something burning, because she knew it was a little old and untrustworthy.. often times when she plugged it in an electric fuse would go out, though it didn't happen this time, so she continued using it until her hair was dry....

It wasn't until she turned it off and something still smelled like it was burning she got a little worried.. so she went outside to check and that's when she panicked as she saw all the smoke coming out of the garage.. ..unfortunately she also forgot to pull the plug on the hair dryer, which ended up short circuiting and then it too caught fire!

After having put out the fire in the bathroom, which was a piece of cake compared to the scorching fire that awaited him, he ran over to the garage to find the fire having spread from the tumble drier to the nearby washing machine, a treadmill and even threatened to engulf Dudleifs police car!

 

Madhunisha who was presumably still inside the house was relatively safe for now, but he couldn't watch the garage and the police car go up in smoke! A car on fire was especially dangerous, because the fuel tank might explode, so he had no time to waste! He prayed in his mind to all the Gods he knew that Dudleif had been sloppy and ran the car dry and then forgotten to refuel....

 

Maybe that was the case, or maybe the fuel tank was just resilient to fire.. whatever it was, Bhavan felt relieved to have put out the fire in the car, and it was now time to focus on what he assumed was the source of this mayhem – the tumble drier.

 

He let out a sigh of relief after having put out the fire in both the tumble drier and the laundromat! That was close he thought... but he couldn't stop to think to long, there were still a teenager outside in distress and a toddler inside the house to be saved!

 

The teenager was already outside, so he went for the house first. Somehow the door had locked itself and wouldn't open, so he had to bring out the axe to chop his way in! He hoped his sister would forgive him, but right then and there, he thought that the toddler was more important than any front door could ever be...

 

After having broken the lock, he kicked the front door open, and was ready to rush in to search for Madhunisha.

 

He was surprised to not find Madhunisha, but instead a complete stranger, a woman dressed in an air force unifrom. "Who are you? Where's Madhunisha!?" he shouted at the woman.

    "The toddler? Oh, she was taken care of by the neighbours!" the woman replied, still in panic unaware that the fire was put out.

    Bhavan was relieved. This strange woman turned out to be a hero too, as he later learnt that she had just been on her way home from work when she saw the fire. Immediately she stopped her car to run inside the building to find Madhunisha plonking away on the xylophone. She had picked her up and handed her over to a concerned neighbour who had also spotted the fire, before she rushed in again to see if there were more people in the house.. unfortunately she couldn't keep her calm anymore and had began to panick, and so she needed to be saved herselves.. nonetheless, Bhavan was thankful to the woman for having saved his niece, as he shouted to her that the fire was over and that she could safely exit the building.

 

Then there was a teenager in distress that needed someone to calm her down..

"The fire is over! You're all safe now!"

    "I'm so sorry! I didn't mean too! I was just doing the laundry..." the babysitter explained. She was in great shock, and Bhavan and the woman from the air force had to stay with her and talk to her for a while before she would calm down. Bhavan had to commend her for keeping her head cool enough to dial the emergency number and for doing the right thing by getting out of the building as fast as possible.

    The poor babysitter was in tears afterwards, because all this time she kept thinking about the baby whom she was set to look after, but the woman from the air force comforted her with a warm hug while saying that Madhunisha was safe, she was being looked after now by a neighbour, and everything would be alright.

 

Bhavan and the woman from the air force thought they couldn't leave the teenage babysitter at home until either Udisha or Dudleif had returned from work. Dudleif hadn't heard the news of the fire, as he had been busy at the office investigating yet another criminal case, and was shocked too when he saw the fire truck and Bhavan telling him there had been a fire in his garage and in the bathroom.

    Dudleif then quickly rushed over to talk to the woman from the air force and the babysitter to hear if they were ok and what had happened. He didn't carry grudges towards the poor babysitter, she was still very upset about it, and it was pretty clear she had learnt a pretty hard lesson here, as she swore that she never again in her life should leave a tumble drier unattended and never use a hair dryer ever again!

 

Now finally Bhavan felt his mission was done, and he could safely return to the fire station.. well, phew...

Luckily there was no paparazzi there this time to snope around asking question and things were by the usual.. only a broken computer, a fire alarm that needs maintenance and useless colleagues doing nothing worthwile at all...

After all this Bhavan wanted to relax and celebrate by taking his girlfriend out on a date again.. This time he called her to hang out at the fanciest place in town, "The 1912". Surely this had to be a successful date..

So he put on his finest wear and left his colleagues behind...

 

"See you later guys! I'll be off duty now so don't call me in case of emergency..."

It's probably due to the relative proximity to the county capitol of Cyme Ixotic (formerly known as Bridgeport) and a more recent influx of rich people and celebrities that this small coastal town has such a rich night life for it's size. Though this club is called "The 1912", it didn't actually open in 1912. It's much more modern than that, however it does pride itself on pertaining to a slightly more retro style than the more modern dance club right next to it...

 

This was the gathering place for the elite in town, the celebrities and those with money, so it remains to be seen if they would even let Bhavan and Beate in through the doors..

 

Well, of course they would, because Bhavan is an involuntary celebrity in town for his bravery and, according to some women in town who prefer to be anonymous, his good looks and charm.. and as expected for a friday night, the place was packed with people who wanted to see and be seen..

...which made Bhavan instantly regret choosing to go here as he walked over to the bar to order a plate of shrimp cocktails for each of them.

 

The bar, atleast on the lower floor, was so crowded there was no space for them to sit right next to each other, so they had to eat their meal at each end of the bar disk..

 

Beate was bored with this, and went to converse with the pianist instead. A fellow musician and colleague, she wanted to know what it was like to be an entertainer at a bar, if it was a good career and perhaps if the pianist was into making her own music sometimes..

 

Bhavan then finally finished his shrimps and then flirtingly suggested to Beate that they should head out of there and instead go back to his house to have a glass or two of sparkling champagne in the jacuzzi, to which Beate agreed.

 

The pianist was a little sour to hear this... she didn't want to know about their plans in the jacuzzi, and less guests also meant less tips for her at the end of her workday!

 

So off the young turtle doves went, but.. Bhavan must have gotten a little forgetful, because, in spite of inviting Beate over to his house, he drove off leaving her behind! Inhaled a little to much smoke there or what happened..?

 

This naturally left Beate sour and disappointed, whereupon she thought to herself that she's had coitus that lasted longer than this date! Next time he should try to actually spend some time with her... so now, both of them went home, alone and to each their own, thinking this was a disastrous date...

 

Well, I hope you can do better next time, but for now...

 

Good night...

 

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