((Red and ripe and juicy with lust amidst the rest of her complex scent.))

“(Yessss…) Tease it.”

I dragged my nose between her butterfly wings and breathed in. ((God damn. How the hell can a pussy taste and smell like pure ripe strawberries?)) I licked everywhere except her clitoris. ((Are there people with hint-of-pineapple vadges? Apple pie? Pepperoni pizza? Tequila? I could get addicted.))

“Are you gonna suck my clit or not?”

Her scent had spiked my libido—albeit not so intensely as Judy’s or Diane’s musk—but I contained it so that I could give her a hard time. “You wanted me to ‘slow down’, though.”

“Not glacier slow.”

I gave her what she wanted. I licked her clit, inducing her to moan quietly. I wrapped my lips around it and sucked gently, stroking the shaft with my tongue, causing her moans to grow louder and her breathing faster. I stopped.

“Detective, why did you stop?”

“Call me Andrea. Do you like fingers up your pussy?”

“I prefer dildos because they’re thicker, but I certainly don’t mind the occasional Girl Scout salute up the puss.” I probed her sheath with the suggested three fingers until I thought I found her G-spot, then abruptly pressed it, causing her to clamp her hands on my head and whisper, “(Chee—zuss!)”

“Did that feel good?”

“Yes, you found my G-spot, good job. Now would you get back to sucking?”

I gave her some gentler suction while I massaged her G-spot, and she moaned for me; and as I maintained the stimulation her moaning intensified; and with each lick her throat grew lewder, her calls more passionate, her movements more needy, to the point her sounds began to deafen and with rebellious vigor she yelled, “More, more, more!” So I gave her more, and as soon as she had it she wrapped her legs around my neck and shouted, “Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me you whore, fuck me…” And when I doubled down she cried, “Yes, yes, yes, fuck me—ah!” until she unleashed a gentle, sighing moan cute enough to piss me off, and writhed on the bed in a puddle of ecstasy, moaning, panting, humming contentedly, too adorably for someone so abrasive.

Once her legs released me I crawled on top of her and planted my mouth on hers, and she kissed me back. “Can you taste yourself?” I asked.

“Mm. Yes. Just like I said,” she replied, her eyes still shut, “like taking a bite out of a fresh strawberry.”

I fetched another 20 from my purse and placed it in her hand. “You did some excellent work of the sex variety, Georgina, here’s a tip.”

“Thanks.” She continued to relax with both her eyes remaining shut in peace.

“And, by the way: welcome to the club.”

“Hm?” Her eyes opened to just a squint and she stared at me like I was speaking gibberish. “What ‘club’?”

“The sex work club.”

Her eyes opened just a little further, now confused, and a little concerned. “What are you talking about…?”

“20 bucks to taste your pussy and make you cum was a bargain. You’re the cheapest whore to work on Adams—ever, if you adjust for inflation.”

Her eyes spread all the way. “The fuck are you saying?” she asked, frantically.

“I offered to pay you 20 dollars to let me eat you out. You accepted my offer and rendered the services I hired you—‍”

She sat up. “No, no-no-no, I am not a hooker!”

“You let me fuck you for money. How is that not sex work?”

“Fuck you. Fuck. You. You tricked me. I didn’t agree to prostitution.”

I grinned as I mercilessly explained, “I told you I would ‘pay’ you 20 for the privilege of making you cum, and you used the word ‘pay’, too. You agreed to those terms, and you fulfilled your end of the bargain. Everything was in plain language. There was no trickery. You were simply so eager to prove how sexy you are that you hired out your own body without a second thought.”

She understood, and as she understood, died inside. “(Oh, God. I’m a…)”

I laid down next to her. “You would’ve become a sex worker anyway, if you accepted whatever deal Diane offered you.”

“I’m a whore!”

I twisted the knife. “And, damn, were you cheap! With a pussy that tastes like actual strawberries… you could probably be charging hundreds—or even thousands of dollars a pop! And your regulars are going to want to do all the work, all you’ll have to do is lie there and let them sniff and lick like I did right now.”

With tear-glazed eyes, more pathetic than furious, she glared at me, and with the last mote of her pride hoarsely begged, “(Please…) shut the fuck up.”

And with that… I suddenly felt very sorry for her. Positively horrible, in fact. I had swindled her out of every drop of her self-respect, even if I had been obvious about it from the inception; in the heat of the moment in which I made my offer it had not occurred to her that by accepting payment she would be performing sex work—because she was stuck in the mindset that she had to be the best. “I enjoy it,” I told her.

“I know you’re enjoying this.”

“No, I’m not enjoying this, not anymore, I feel like an asshole for doing this to you. I’m trying to say that I enjoy sex work.”

“That’s because you’re a slut.”

“I am. And I used to hate being called that. But ever since I discovered sex, I can’t help but glory in being a whore or a slut or a skank or a floozy or a woman of loose moral character.”

“You… are perverted.”

“And you are way more worked up about this than you ought to be.”

“You don’t understand. Your kind are incapable of comprehending how disgusting you are.”

“I’m trying to fucking console you, and you’re calling me ‘disgusting’. Do you enjoy being reminded that this ‘your kind’ you refer to now includes you?”

“I am not a prostitute,” she insisted with tears on her cheeks

“Fine. You’re not a prostitute. Are you going to get over your self-loathing now that I’ve told you that you aren’t one of us?”

She curled up, tucked her head behind her bare knees, and started sobbing.

I didn’t like seeing her miserable, but neither was I inclined to try to help someone who countered my every attempt at comforting her by degrading and dehumanizing me and my fellow sex workers. I waited, and her sobs turned to silence. I waited longer still, and she turned her head up and stared at or into the mirror above the dresser across from us. I kept waiting until she asked, weakly, “Don’t you feel any kind of shame about what you do?”

((Finally, she’s civil.)) “I don’t know about other sex workers, but I feel it. Eventually, though, I figured out that shame, when suffered under the right circumstances and while in the right mindset, can be enjoyable… extremely enjoyable, even an aphrodisiac.”

She shook her head just a little. “That makes no sense.”

“I guess it’s not for everyone. You’re a very proud woman, of course this isn’t going to make sense to you.” I dwelled on the idea of someone with so much pride allowing herself to enjoy humiliation and shame. ((Like trimming a German Shepherd to look like a poodle or some other frou-frou variety…)) “What’s your favorite dog breed?”

“What?”

“Your favorite dog breed.”

“Wha—what does that have to do with anything?”

“Please. Humor me.”

Annoyance shrugged her shoulders. “Great Dane, if you really need to know. Why do you ask?”

“(Hmm…) What’s your opinion on… Chihuahuas?”

“Yippy, shivering, useless. They’re lame. Why are you so obsessed with my opinions on dog breeds?”

“Do you think you would enjoy being groomed and petted and fed, in the lap of luxury?”

“Of course I would. Where are you going with this line of questioning?”

“And if you could literally sit in someone’s lap while they touched you and made you feel good, would you do that?”

“Yes. That sounds great. What’s your point? I’m tired of playing 20 Questions.”

“Imagine being a Great Dane, and you want to sit in your owner’s lap and receive pets and cuddles and brushings.”

She sighed in frustration. “That wouldn’t work out well. Are you ever going to tell me why we’re talking about dogs?”

“But if you were a Chihuahua…”

Something clicked in her eyes. “…it would be easy. They’re lap dogs. Being held and spoiled is the whole point of their existence, their only reason for living.”

“Do you understand yet?”

“I’m… not sure.”

“I’m a lap dog. I’m happiest when my owner is cuddling me and petting me and telling me I’m cute. Or when she’s calling me a hopeless, destitute, desperate, slutty whore—I’m happy to be called just about anything as long as it’s said affectionately. Maybe… the more incongruity there is between what she says and the way she says it, the more exciting it is.”

“I’d rather be a cat, maybe a Siamese, than a Chihuahua—or even a Great Dane.”

“And cats like sitting in laps and being brushed.”

Her eyes grew as she murmured, “(Oh…)”

“My point is, I enjoy pretending that the only reason I exist is to please others. Diane seems to appreciate my desire to play along with her desires. If you’re not into serving her whims unquestioningly, you shouldn’t go to her for a leg up climbing your career ladder.”

“It sounded too good to be true.”

“It probably is.”

She stewed in her thoughts for a couple of minutes, then said, “I’ve been at this job for 10 years, waiting for the next promotion for too long. If the only way to pierce the brass ceiling is to get my chin wet…”

“Are you sure about this?”

“I want to work towards becoming a medical examiner—but there are never any internships or autopsy technician openings for would-be med students, and med schools aren’t accepting my applications.” She sighed glumly. “I’ve been trying for a decade and a half to get into my dream field. I’m tired of waiting. I don’t have a choice.”

“Are you sure about this?”

“Yeah. Like I said, I don’t have a choice if I wanna get out of this hole.”

“Very well, then. Meet me at my desk once we get back to the station. I’ll try to arrange an appointment with her. Take your time, I need to gather some testimony.”

“Roger. See ya, Detective.”

“Later, Medical Examiner Dominguez.” I winked and she smiled. Her crew was waiting for her at their van, and I overheard her invent some bullshit excuse for taking so long to show up, something about ‘assuaging the detective’s concerns about the quality of our work’. I didn’t appreciate her insinuating that I had any doubts about her team’s ability to identify, record, preserve, and collect evidence—even if in truth I was wary of their competence… and their trustworthiness… and their professionalism, given Laskey’s tragic ineptitude and damning attitude.

I checked the clock—3:05 PM; I was now working overtime.

As far as I could tell, the faces I had seen before were still assembled on the sidewalk, joined by unfamiliar ones; among them was Yesenia. “Have you made any progress on your case, Sex Cop?”

“Some! We got the evidence I wanted, and the hotel should be safe for another… 18 hours. Now that I think about it, that could’ve been 72 hours, but I made a bad call. So… we’re still running low on time.”

“Relax, things are looking up. A judge granted the Commission for Historic Buildings an injunction against the demolition because they’re considering having our dear hotel conserved at the owner’s expense.”

“Oh, thank God, that’s wonderful! I was so focused on gathering my evidence that I forgot about the hotel itself, so that’s a huge relief.”

“The little bird who spread the idea of conserving the hotel let slip that it was a certain sketchy pig’s idea.”

“Well, I might have had a moment of inspiration while chatting with a colleague.”

She kissed me well. A solid, thankful kiss, and friendly, even if it was on the mouth.

I blinked my big, surprised eyes a few times. “Wow.”

“Smart thinking. The hotel may yet be saved.”

“Somebody else would’ve had the same idea at some point.”

“Perhaps—but would it have come to this ‘somebody else’ in time to save our skins?”

“I guess we’ll never know.”

“We won’t, but we don’t need to. Keep up the good work, ’kay?”

“You got it.” And she disappeared into the crowd.

I opened KeyWitness, the app that SVPD officers used for recording interviews in the field. “Good afternoon, ladies, gentlemen, and peers. We’ve finished with the crime scene investigation, and the Old Torrey Pines is safe… for the time being.”

The crowd whistled and cheered…

“And the guild at least has a chance of buying it now!”

…and then hollered and hoorayed.

“Now, I need to gather some witness statements. I understand most of you won’t be eager to testify in court, though it will probably—but not certainly—be necessary if we’re going to hold the kidnappers accountable. Any volunteers willing to chance being subpoenaed? No pressure, staying off the record is a perfectly valid choice if being in court has a chance of putting you in danger. You are all sex workers, your job can be dangerous—but you couldn’t handle it if you weren’t braver than the pigs.” More people than I expected stepped forward—the whole damn crowd. “Oh. Wow. Thank you for your help, all of you!”

There wasn’t much to gather—I recorded their statements about the raid, then interviewed everyone who saw the blue sedan and was willing to show their face in court, then finished with Yoly, my only witness who might have seen Alex. “Thank you, all of you. The defense will do their best to undermine your character, but I know all of you are strong, you’re used to being belittled and stigmatized, and I know for certain that your testimony will hold up in court, given your sheer numbers. Stay safe, and if you need to get a hold of me, I’m on Hootr, @LouPeckinpaw, P-E-C-K-I-N-P-A-W.”

“Are you a furry?” asked Keira Knutley, the actress whose girl-on-girl-on-girl three-way videos I had watched through many a lonely night.

Just a little starstruck, I blushed and chuckled nervously. “I’ve never given the question any thought. When I figure out the answer, I’ll hoot it. Take care, friends.”