Sequel to:
Growing up with a SUB-using fireman for father was awesome. It was like having a dad, superhero and pet all rolled into one. Four days out of eight, he’d be at home, just regular dad. Then he’d go on his four-day shift, and they’d swap him into the SUB. They kept him in it during the off-hours for any unexpected on-call emergencies, so for those four-days I'd have my very own catgirl around the house
He became something of a local hero. The things he could do with the half-cat SUBs were amazing - he could clamber up the side of a burning building before his colleagues had even started winching out the ladder.
Somewhere around the age of 9 or 10, I stopped being allowed to pet him, and whined at mom and dad for ages wanting to know why, until a few years later when puberty hit and, yeah, obviously figured it out myself. They’d usually give him female SUBs- they were dextrous and slim, and just generally better suited for getting into the tight spaces his work demanded- and, man, some of them were cute as buttons. Every few years he’d come home in a new one after a bad accident.
Most of the guys in my year crushed on him hard after 'Katie the Fire Safety Kitten' came in to teach us all about carbon monoxide. The CPR demonstration was wild. So many of them were calling in fake emergencies just for a chance to be rescued by him, the joke became we were the only town where the cats saved men out of trees.
I guess you don’t get to pick your first crush. In my head, I started thinking of that body as 'Katie'. I had to seperate them out for my own sanity. There were days when he'd get home unshowered and sweaty, exuding all sorts of animal pheromones, and I'd need to lock myself in my room and open a window just to get my head on straight.
I think I cried for a week after Katie got retired.