I cried out into her mouth as my mind convulsed. The waves arrived, brushing up against my nerves, and left to give me refuge from the next as it came in and touched me, then left, then came, then went, subsiding a little each time we met, until it was not so strong that my mind was gone, until I was fully aware of what I had done. I removed my mouth from hers and whisper-asked, “(What the fuck did I just do?)” I would have blushed in shame were I not already flush from my recent climax.

“Dry humped me to orgasm.”

I brought a hand to my temple. “(Oh, God…)”

“We didn’t get caught, so you have nothing to worry about.”

Right then, the doorknob turned and a young man in his late teens or early twenties came in with a basket full of laundry. I watched in terror as he did his laundry. He shoveled clothes into the machine, added detergent, and started the wash cycle—with just one hand, his eyes never once parting from his phone in the other—then leaned against the machine and waited. ((Is he pretending he didn’t hear me moaning out of courtesy or embarrassment, or is he really so buried in cyberspace that he’s cut off from the real world?)) I quietly dismounted her and took my seat next to her.

“See? Nothing to worry about.”

I gave her a pathetic frown.

“You didn’t get caught. That’s what matters, Andy.”

“(I lost control,)” I hissed.

She pulled my ear to her mouth. “(And I like that.)” I shivered at the soft rasp of the throaty voice that not only made my eyes roll back and my scalp buzz as usual but, unusually, made my cunt throb and beg for more of her. “(You’re an animal who wants to fuck. You get sexier and sexier every day.)” She released me and patted me on the back. I whined wordlessly. “I thought you weren’t ready for public stuff, but you proved me wrong.”

“I just… want to get out of here, Judith.”

At some point during my animalistic humping my dryers had all buzzed to signal that their 45-minute cycles were finished; it was anybody’s guess how long I had been grinding on her after that.

We returned to my apartment with my laundry and stowed all my clothes in my closet and drawers; as Judith hung up the last shirt, she remarked, “You look so confident in that dress, Miss Bachman.”

“Confident or not, it isn’t the most appropriate for investigation. I’d stick out like a sore thumb if I wore this on a case.”

“Au contraire, you’ll blend right in with that! You’re practically wearing the uniform of the drive-thru sex worker.”

“Oh. Uh. So, I… uh… like… look like… a… sex worker?”

“The spitting image.”

My eyes lost focus. I sighed quietly. I nodded slowly.

“Andy?”

“I guess… blending in could be advantageous…”

“That’s the spirit!”

((On the bright side, my cleavage might distract people from my face. But on the off chance they look up from my chest, did I do a good job covering up my less-than-attractive countenance?)) “Judith… would you look at me and describe what you see? Be honest.”

She eyed me carefully. “Well, the first thing that pops out are them eyes. Deeper and more vivid than the most flawless of emeralds. Then comes your nose, which is a cute little thing.” She kissed the tip, and a smile snuck out through my surprise. “You have nice, full lips, and soft cheeks, and a dainty chin. You’re a very conventionally pretty girl.”

“Real—ly?”

“Really. I’m surprised strangers aren’t coming up to you out of nowhere to ask for your number.”

“I actually get that a lot at work. I mean, got. It annoyed me. Tommy…”

{“Hey, Red! Fancy seeing you around here.” You dismount your trike and stroll up to me like we’re the bestest of besties.

{I tense up. You’re close. I could touch you—not that I want to touch you. “Of course I’m here, Tommy—Tom. This is my beat.”

{“Do you like it?”

{I shrug.

{“Just a shrug?”

{“It’s okay.”

{“You do like it?”

{“No-one else likes it, so I’m happy to take it.”

{“Why settle for an old rundown neighborhood when you can be working in luxury?”

{“Because if I settle for something nobody’s gonna fight for, I don’t have to bargain and argue with people to get my way.”

{“You could have Balboa nights, Sweetheart. Very romantic.”

{“I don’t want romance. I mean—I like romance, but I don’t… want…” My voice trails off. I pray you don’t pick apart my words.

{“We could team up and tackle all those meters together. Hundreds of one-hour-parking spot, loading zones from horizon to horizon, more handicapped spots than there are handicapped people in the city… My turf’s a gold mine.”

{“I’m not after your gold, though, I’m after your—I mean, I don’t want—anything you have to offer.”

{You tip my chin up and bend your spine until your nose touches mine. I can smell… just a hint of booze, sweet and floral, but it isn’t on your breath. You aren’t an alcoholic, I know so from personal experience with addiction. It’s so… soothing—and exciting, at the same time. It must be your deodorant. I resist the temptation to plant my nose in your bouquet and breathe a little deeper. I want to know your brand, so I can buy a stick and sniff it whenever I’m feeling lonely. Whenever I want to think of you. “Not even with your Tommy?”

{I freeze. My uterus wrings itself like a towel embarrassed by its dampness. Just like every other time we touch. “Not even with… I mean—especially not with you.”

{“You can’t help but break my heart, Red.”

{I fight the increasingly violent expansion and contraction of my chest. “G—get used to it… Tom—Sergeant Forrester.”

{“I already am used to it. I have a million more hearts to give you. Keep on breaking them. Feel free to keep one for yourself when you figure out your feelings for me.”

{My heart pounds. My mouth is open, my chest is heaving, your eyes look into my soul, your soft lips wait inches from mine. Don’t you dare bring them closer. Don’t you dare embrace me with your strong arms. Don’t you dare kiss me passionately. Don’t you dare catch me when I swoon. And once you haven’t done any of that, don’t you dare take me home and let me make wild love to you.}

I shook the memory away. “Um… Tom… Forrester was the worst. He never left me alone. He was a—a—a despicable… vile, wretched pest. His touch always made me feel…”

{Your touch… your hand in the small of my back, slipping down, down, down, just short of my ass, while we stare into each other’s eyes, waiting for something to happen. Me, waiting for you to cross the line I’ve drawn in the sand. You, waiting for me to give you permission to make your move.

{You’re so close to your destination, Tommy—won’t you take this step?}

I shivered.

“I’m sorry about that.”

I shrugged and smiled palely. “C’est la vie. You… aren’t the first to tell me I have a pretty face, but—you’re the first I’ve ever liked to hear say it.”

“Your face isn’t your only pretty part, though.”

“Oh? What other nice things are you going to tell me?”

“You have beautiful tits. I haven’t seen very many racks as impressive as yours, even in porn, and none as nice in person.”

“They aren’t too big?”

“Breast size is an extremely subjective preference. But I like yours, big enough to really squeeze, but also small enough that my hands aren’t completely overwhelmed. I’ve never touched a pair of boobs quite this perfect for me.”

“So… d’you think they look good in my dress?”

“Calling you ‘Elvira’ wasn’t a joke, it was a compliment. Your tits look amazing in that dress. I hope we find lots of occasions for you to wear it.”

“Wow. I’m… honestly, having a hard time believing you, I’ve never seen myself as attractive. Even if what you’re saying about my breasts is true, I’m still fat.”

“You have a lot to love. Curves more elegant than a statue of Aphrodite herself—and certainly softer.”

“‘Curves’ is just a euphemism for ‘fat rolls’.”

She regarded me warily. “‘Curves’ is my way of saying I like the way your body looks and feels. Whether anyone would think to call you ‘fat’ is irrelevant. If you’re concerned about your weight for health reasons, by all means enlist the help of a dietician—but beauty does not care about a person’s weight, it only cares about the desire burning inside the eye beholding it. Take a look in the mirror and examine why you think your weight is a problem. Challenge your existing opinions. Go ahead.”

I hesitated—I don’t know why—before approaching my closet mirror.

((Red hair.))

{“I heard Redhead fucked the entire AV club, made them film the whole thing with their camcorder… then she hid the tape somewhere in the library!”

{“You remember how the marching band wasn’t in the stands during the first half of last year’s homecoming game? Well, Titty Curls lured them under the bleachers and let all 76 of the horn players take turns with her mouth! She licked all of their ‘tromboners’ for good luck…”

{“You know how Baby-Got-Bachman always wears long sleeves and high collars? That’s because every Saturday night she goes to a frat party at SVSU, and lets the guys pass her around, drawing their dicks on her body in Sharpie after they’re finished with her. The outfit’s to cover up their John Hancocks.”}

((Kids called me a slut in high school just because I have red hair. But… I don’t really care about that anymore. They were right, I’m a slut.))

((But is it anybody’s business what I do with my body? It’s my choice. Besides, Judith is okay with it. I’m happy to be with her. I’ll be a slut with her as much as I want, and I will only allow being a slut around her to make me happy. Being a slut is—))

((Being a slut… is… a good thing.))

“(Well?)” whisper-asked Judith, gently breaking me out of my meditation.

“(Being a slut is… okay,)” I replied under my breath.

She smiled widely. “Okay, maybe even great. How about your fluff?”

“Hm.” ((I have a lot of fat on my body. I’m obese, according to the doctor’s infallible equation. Do I really care about the health implications, though? My liver and arteries are the least of my concerns right now, because I’ll never be able to stick to a diet if I don’t do something drastic about my mental health. So I guess… those labels— ‘overweight’, ‘obese’ —are moot. My organs are a low priority, my BMI is irrelevant, my weight simply does not matter as long as my physical health remains beyond my control.))

((So that leaves aesthetics. Short and fat. The worst shape to be as a woman. Short and fat with tits that are just a little bit too big for my body.)) “My boobs are way too big for my tiny body.”

She shrugged. “Personally, I think they’re magnificent. Big, but not snap-your-spine-like-a-toothpick big—still, maybe some back support might be nice to have. I like big titties, though I don’t like it when they cause my partners pain. Yours are actually on the smaller end of my inclinations.”

I glanced at her skeptically. “‘The smaller end’. My boobs are on ‘the smaller end of your inclinations’.”

“Yes. I like honkers, huge swinging bazongas. Yours barely qualify as ‘big’, in my book.”

“So… my E cup breasts… aren’t enormous?”

“Far from. If you really don’t like them, though, you could get a reduction.”

“A reduction… Hm. I’ll give it some thought. But they’re only kinda big?”

“That’s just my opinion, and my preferences usually skew a little larger than what you have. But yours are still my favorite pair, out of all the titties I’ve touched.”

I turned to the side and inspected how my bust projected. ((I’ve been blessed with an unusual lack of boob-induced back pain. They don’t stick out nearly as much as they usually do. Are they… smaller than I’ve always thought they were?)) I cupped them and gave them a jiggle. ((They aren’t… massive, I guess, just… kinda big. Hm…)) I gave them a squeeze. ((If anything, they could actually stand to be a bit bigger.))

My eyes grew a few sizes. ((They could be… bigger. I would… be… okay… with them… being… bigger?)) I jiggled them again. ((I’ve seen porn stars and hentai)) women with bigger, bouncier tits than mine, and enjoyed what I saw. Why do I feel like mine are too big? I felt their curves with my hands. ((My tits… are normal. Bigger than average, sure, but normal.)) I stroked a finger between my cleavage. ((I have cleavage. People like cleavage. I like cleavage. And my cleavage… is the kind of cleavage I like to see on other people, ink or pixel or flesh. The tops of my tits have pleasant curves. The other parts of them…)) I removed my dress. ((They’re actually… kind of perky?)) I lifted them and let them drop. ((That’s actually a nice bounce.)) I squeezed them again. ((Not too firm, not too soft. Areolas are big, but… little nipples never really did much for me. I imagine big ones are easier to suck on, too.)) I stroked them with my fingertips, electrifying my bust until they were fully erect. ((They’re kind of… interesting. I wish I could… Maybe I can try to…)) I lifted my breasts up to my face and wrapped my mouth around my nipples and aggressively teethed them, sending a whip-crack from my chest down to my cunt and forcing a moan from my mouth.

“Wow. That’s hot,” said Judith with a grin. “I wish mine were big enough to do that, I’d never stop sucking them.”

((That… was sexy. My… My breasts… are… sexy? And I’m only noticing now? After two decades of hating these fuckers, I’m just now figuring out that they’re worthy of my esteem? That I have nice tits?)) “My boobs are hot,” I concluded.

“Very.”

“I… love my tits. They’re sexy. They’re pleasing to look at, pleasing to touch, pleasing to jiggle and suck… I have beautiful tits.”

She patted me on the back. “I’m happy you’ve finally accepted that indisputable fact. Now you know that when I’m playing with them, I’m having a very good time.”

“I want… to show them off. I want people to gaze upon them longingly. Be enchanted by them… enchanted into doing my bidding. And I want them to want to touch them. But I won’t let them—look, don’t touch.” I shrugged. “Okay, fine, everyone can touch them; what’s the fun in having perfectly squeezable tits if nobody actually gets to squeeze them? My tits are fit for a goddess. They ought to be worshipped as such. Like a statue of Aphrodite, tourists from around the world visit me to touch my breasts.”

“Yes! I love worshiping beautiful, confident bodies.”

“I’m talking about just a pair of beautiful tits, not a whole beautiful body.”

“I’ve already told you, you have a nice body.”

I ran my hands down my sides, bust to waist to hips to thighs. “I’m stout.”

“I like feeling so damn big next to you. I’m blessed to be as tall as I am. And I’m blessed that you’re as tiny as you are.”

“I’ll admit that I like being smaller than you—almost a foot, that’s a lot. I suppose… if I was taller, you wouldn’t be as impressive to me.”

“Would you also admit that you like being small for the sake of being small?”

((From a purely practical standpoint, I’ve never been seriously bothered by my stature. Stools and step ladders exist for a reason. I can jump pretty high, I can reach the top shelf with ease. From an aesthetic standpoint—well, tall is sexier than short. Supermodels are proof of that.)) I shook my head. “Short is… not attractive.”

“I beg to differ. Your shortness makes your boobs look all the more luscious and your curves all the more intimidating.”

“You’re just telling me I’m your ideal to make me feel better.”

“My ideal height for a partner is actually four-foot-eleven, and you’re a few inches taller than that—and yet you’re perfect as you are.”

((I like me being a lot shorter than her. She likes it, too. Neither of these preferences change the fact that I’m wider than I am tall.))

((I have nice tits. Big deal.)) I sighed and put on my dress.

“What kind of sigh was that?”

“Frustrated.”

“What’s wrong?”

“You’re telling me nice things, things that I’m not seeing.”

“You finally like your tits.”

((Well…)) “I don’t know if… why… how I…. for so many years thought—that my tits were too big. It turns out they’ve been beautiful all along. But the rest of my body isn’t.”

Her lips turned down in dismay and she shook her head. “Maybe someday you’ll learn to love yourself, body and mind.”

I scoffed. “That’s a lost cause.”

She winked… “And I don’t know when to quit.” …and patted me on the back. “I’m sure we’ll find an excuse for you to take that dress off again, later.” I pursed my lips in an attempt to hide a smile. “Witnessing you fall in love with your breasts was a wonderful experience.” The attempt was in vain. “Besides, I’m sure you’re happy to be wearing something that is about as far from a uniform as your current wardrobe can take you.”

“Yeah, it’s nice to distance myself from looking like a cop, but… even without wearing blue, I’m certain the sex workers are gonna know I used to be one on-sight. I’m certain they will.”

“Not only are they gonna know, you’re gonna tell them yourself. But you’re gonna lie your ass off about why you left.”

“And what exactly are you suggesting I tell them?”

“That you witnessed some real shit, but when you tried to speak up, they fired you.”

“I will not claim that I was fighting the system when I didn’t actually witness anything unethical from my angle. And not only did I not catch anyone doing anything truly awful—except the sexual harassment, I got to experience plenty of that—they were actually very accommodating of my disabilities. Possibly to a fault: my depression caused me to be extremely disruptive throughout every one of my twelve-and-a-half years on the force.”

Judith narrowed her eyes. “And what’s wrong with disrupting police operations? That’s praxis.”

“Well… yeah, it was a good thing, and you could make the case that it was praxis. But I wasn’t doing a bad job intentionally, I was just depressed and I’m not very good at anything when I’m in that state.”

“But you were aware at the time that you were impacting the department’s operations, and you fought tooth and nail to keep your job in spite of the damage you knew you were causing.”

“I guess you’re… kind of right… from a very forced and misleading perspective.”

“You know right from wrong, and you want to do the right thing. You’ve got a good heart, kid—even if you were by definition a bastard.”

“Oh. Thank you.” I hated myself a little less. “Coming from you… that means… a lot.”

“You’d’ve been a better person if you’d deliberately caused trouble for all the other pigs, but sabotage can still be helpful even if it’s unintentional.”

My soul drooped. “I think you’re right. If I had really cared, I would have done more to muck up the works.”

“No-no, you have me all wrong. Don’t be so harsh on yourself. Your career was complicated. You were too depressed to actively orchestrate anything, and you did your best not to cause harm to the public. Forget all that though, focus on the present. Starting with this case.”

“If you say so.”

She sighed. “It’s 5 o’clock, we still have a coupla hours till the employees open up shop. What would you like to do to pass the time?”

“I dunno. I feel kinda lost.”

“Then let’s get grounded, chill on the couch with me.” So we sat. “Have you decided on a favorite movie?”

No longer under pressure to answer her right away, I was finally able to come up with an answer. “The Princess Bride.”

“Because it has Peter Falk?”

I nodded.

“Are you, like… a super fan or something?”

((Where do I begin?)) “I would have liked to be his friend. Maybe more.”

“How much more?”

“He’s the only man I’ve ever found attractive.” A half-truth, at best. “Until I met you, I thought he was the only person I could ever be with. The word ‘fan’ fails to communicate my feelings for him.”

“So…” She was silent for a few seconds, the way Shosh sometimes fell silent when I regaled her with my fantasies of having dinner with him or going on walks with him or watching his favorite movies with him or bringing him flowers after a stage performance or having his children. And just like Shosh always did, she changed the subject. “Now that you’ve told me your favorite movie, I can officially finger you and make you cum a few times in a row.”

The mere mention of sex prompted my vagina to ready itself for anything she might have in mind; and yet, as physiologically horny as I was for her touch, after discussing my lack of leftist praxis I was no longer there emotionally. “Uhhh-hhhmmm… I need to… Um… I still haven’t filled out my retirement paperwork.”

She looked at me critically. “You haven’t done that yet? Get to it! Go!”

I quickly dressed and logged into the SVPD Human Resources Retirement and Workers’ Compensation site, uploaded a picture of my social security card, and clicked submit—not for the picture, but for the whole retirement application. I still felt emotionally unprepared for sex by the time I was completely finished with the single step I needed to complete to secure my retirement income, 7 minutes after starting the process.

To be clear, this was a fantastically low investment of time and effort for even the simplest of government applications, because HR had kindly filled out most of the forms and uploaded all the necessary documents for me, most likely because they wanted me out the door and onto the street, never to come back again to ask the department for just one more thing. I took some pride in the realization that I must have been a real nuisance if they had gone out of their way to streamline my exit, though it wasn’t enough to quell my self-resentment.

“How close are you to being finished, Andy?”

“This is going to—um—take a couple hours.”

“Are you gonna be able to finish before we need to leave, or can you save your progress and pick it up again later? We should get to interviewing the workers before business picks up and they start receiving solicitations.”

“It’ll be done—I’ll be finished by then.”

I stared at the screen, obsessing over my failure to single-handedly dismantle the department down to the molecular level and replace it with… whatever it is antifascists plan to render police obsolete with—universal basic incomes, free healthcare, decriminalization of narcotics and sex work, more accessible and higher quality behavioral health services—and some kind of apparatus for catching the remaining few unapologetically bad people then persuading them to be good people, because I understood that in the future there weren’t supposed to be prisons to keep bad people from doing bad things. (I had only a limp grasp on how criminal justice reform was supposed to work, partly because any solution to antisocial behavior that didn’t employ physical coercion as well as punishment in the form of incarceration had been rendered counterintuitive to my demented cop brain by nearly 13 years of overt indoctrination as a law enforcement officer as well as two-and-a-half decades of covert indoctrination as a fan of the [notoriously fascistic] genre of police procedurals. Nonetheless… I had faith that some combination of non-punitive measures such as these—and, perhaps more importantly, the overhaul or abolishment of a wide array of other oppressive institutions—had to be better than the prevailing system of corruption and cruelty I had from childhood till my antifascist awakening worshiped as my destiny.)

((I could have talked to people about what I could do to make a difference, I could have investigated public complaints that were never addressed, I could have worked my way into IA to pick out the parasites with a fine-tooth comb and cull the predators with every weapon in my investigative arsenal. Instead, I wallowed in self-hatred and accomplished zilch.)) I sighed in dismay.

“Everything okay over there?”

“Yes.”

“A lot of reading?”

“No. What?”

“I noticed you aren’t clicking your mouse or typing.”

“Oh, I, uh…” ((Shit.)) “Yes, it’s a lot of reading.”

“Interesting. You’ve been ‘reading’ the same screen for an hour.”

“I’ve been…” ((She’s already figured it out.))

“What’ve you been doing for the past hour, Andy?”

“Hating myself.”

“Still thinking about not doing enough damage to the Man from the inside?”

“Yes.”

“Listen… Nobody is perfect. Plenty of leftists start off as libertarians or even fucking neocons—until they have a come-to-Jesus moment when they figure out that their principles are falling short of their consciences, until they examine their own beliefs and find that they’re pointing in every direction that their moral compass isn’t, until they realize the harsh truth that they aren’t the good people they think they are.

“So they start their journey with a big leap of faith in what they hope is the right direction, then they make little changes, they take little steps, they get better gradually. Nobody’s born perfect, and nobody gets better overnight—and no matter how diligently and incessantly they may toil to become a better person, nobody dies with a pure heart. It takes time and experience just to become a decent person. I didn’t actually get my shit into gear until I was about your age, and even after 2 decades I’m still far from enlightenment, despite having a head start in the form of being raised by a pair of hippies who spent more time reading theory than they did high on reefer or acid. You’re doing better right now than I was at your age, and you’re not only willingly and actively trying to improve yourself but also trying to help the community rescue one of its own in the process. Do you understand the significance of that?”

“Oh.” ((So… it doesn’t really matter anymore that I wasn’t actively trying to do good until this morning. What matters is that I’ve finally started my journey of self-improvement. I’ll get better. I’m getting better.)) I nodded and allowed the corners of my mouth to turn up just a little. “Thank you, Judith.”

“You’re welcome. Are you finished with that yet?”

“Yes, it took me like 10 minutes. The hardest part was taking a picture of my social security card that didn’t come out blurry.”

“Want to play some Martian Marine to pass the time?”

I was feeling better, and I was still… well, intimately lubricated. “Actually, my mood has improved since you offered to finger me.”

She smiled. “You want to go ahead and do that?”

“I don’t know if—maybe—just—I think we could make out. I like the idea, I’m feeling better, but I’m not quite ready for more sex.”

“Then come on over to the couch.”

As soon as I was sitting next to her on the couch, she grabbed my chin and brought me in for a gentle kiss. I kissed her back, and she snaked her hands through the deep neckline of my dress and cupped my tits.

I placed my hand on her chest and squeezed through her shirt and bra; she did the same to my bare flesh, drawing a moan out of me as her fingertips brushed against my nipples. I caught a whiff of her coffee-weed musk and suddenly found myself wanting to fuck her.

“(Pinch them,)” I whispered between kisses.

She squeezed my nipples between her fingertips and I whined between her lips at the tension they injected into my body. Warmth built up down below, until thinking became so difficult that my actions became automatic.

I hastily removed my dress, then grabbed her hand and forced it up a leg of my panties.

She got the ‘hint’ and began gently playing with my clitoris. I moaned quietly as I bit her lip and squeezed her tits. This continued for several minutes, until I noticed that I wasn’t entirely satisfied with what she was doing.

“Put your finger inside me,” I demanded. She inserted just the tip of her middle and stretched me just a little, amplifying my libido. “(Ahhh…) Like that.”

I rocked my hips as she fingered me, at first gently teasing the first inch, then reaching further inside and pressing against something, a magic button whose effect was subtler than rubbing my clitoris but no less satisfying, a button that also made me jerk and groan. “Ohhh…! Right there. That, yes. Fuck yes.”

She continued stimulating that spot, and my body was compelled to synchronize with her movements. I wrapped my arms around her neck and pulled her in closer so that I could kiss her even harder.

I wanted to tell her that she was doing everything exactly right, but I had forgotten how to talk. “Are you enjoying this, Andy?” she asked. All I could do was grunt and kiss. “Are you going to cum for me?” I grunted again. She placed her other hand up the other leg of my panties and gently tweaked my clitoris. I gave into her touch and cried out quietly into her mouth, and my moans grew louder still. I kissed her ravenously. “We only have 5 minutes till we gotta leave.” I ignored her words. “We’ve been at this for a whole hour. If you don’t cum soon, we’re going to have to stop and pick this up later.”

I was dimly cognizant of the meaning of her words, and managed to say, between kisses, “Please—don’t—stop…”

“Are you close?”

I definitely felt the pressure of orgasm building within me. “(So close!)” I whined. “(Keep going!)” Static built up inside me, charging me, and I sighed as she pushed that charge to the breakdown voltage of the air separating me and Earth— “(Ah-h-h-h-h…!)” I hugged her tight as my body became—