I spotted a bush and vomited behind it. (While the vegan food wasn’t to blame, it didn’t help.) Once I had control of my digestive track I got into the Shark, rested my head against the steering wheel, and cried. The previous 45 minutes replayed in my aching head in excruciatingly vivid detail, over and over again. Lying to Geraldine about Alex’s non-existent odds of survival, failing to disclose to her that I was a pig, being rejected by major figures within the local activist community… being rejected by Geraldine herself even though I had comforted her while her friends were indisposed or pending arrival. And I was fully aware that, as much as I felt like the victim, I was not. Geraldine would have been the biggest fool alive to trust me over her gut. In the end, my fit of frustrated anguish uncovered nothing I didn’t already know and hadn’t already expected.
My tears dried up eventually, and once I was back in the office I drank a quart of water one coffee cup at a time (I wished that it could have been a quart of mezcal) to replenish the water lost through shedding them and disposing of the (if I may be frank, overspiced) frittata.
My next lead was the camera footage. Any other request would require an interoffice information request (I2R for short) signed by a supervisor—but this request involved Officer Safety Sensitive Information (OSSI), which meant I needed a captain’s blessing. Nichols would be a tough sell since I had no evidence linking the raid with either of the cases on my desk.
But there was no regulation requiring that the person signing the I2R had to be my squad’s captain for it to be valid.
I called Diane from the CAP squad’s gender-neutral restroom. “Hello, Sweetie,” she greeted warmly.
“Good afternoon, my love,” I responded as my mood improved from hearing her voice. “I have a few favors to ask of you.”
“You get 3 wishes. Anything more than that will require sexual favors.”
“I wish for you to get me a list of vehicles and personnel involved in the raid, I wish for you to submit an I2R for their cam footage from ignition to noon, and I wish for a single kiss from my lover to soothe my hangover.”
“Your wishes shall be granted. Give me 5 minutes to fill out the request, then you can go pick up the video. Once you have taken care of that, you may come to me to collect your kiss.”
“Thank you, Mistress.”
She gave me a kissy noise. “Anything to be of assistance, Sweetie.”
I checked social media for a few minutes before receiving a SecreText from Diane that said only,
I proceeded to the Safety and Accountability Office and approached the front desk.
“How can I help you…?” asked a female officer in her early 30s, last name ‘Buchanan’ according to her name tag, ash blonde hair in a tight bun, and an intense stare that bordered on rude.
“Detective Andrea Bachman. I need you to pull some video.”
“Could I see some ID?” I showed her my badge and credentials; she gave them greater scrutiny than was customary among law enforcement before returning her eyes to mine. “Thank you. Do you have an I2R or subpoena, Detective Bachman?”
“Dia—Captain Somers filed one on my behalf a few minutes ago, I was hoping to expedite it.”
She squinted suspiciously. “Your creds say ‘CAP’, not ‘Vice’. I would expect your request to come from Captain Nichols. Would you care to explain this discrepancy?”
“Right. That. Captain Somers putting in the request is… unexpected.”
“Yes. I would like to be able to explain to my superiors why I fulfilled an unusual request.”
“Well… I had to… Captain Nichols… was occupied, when I—went to ask him to sign off on it—but Captain Somers had a minute to spare so she offered to help.”
Her stare intensified. She didn’t believe my story—but went along with it anyway. “Let me check…” She focused on her computer screen as she clicked around. “Yes, she sent it 2 minutes ago. For… 24 officers and 12 vans, all from boot up to 12:00 PM. This is a big order, so it may take a while.”
“How long of a while?”
Her eyes snapped back to mine. “With our current backlog, I’d say… 20 to 21 days.”
“Ah…” ((My God.)) “And if you… didn’t have a backlog?”
“Theoretically? We could process a request this size in 3½ hours, but that would never happen.” She was still staring inscrutably; I thought I could see little glints of curiosity or wonder, but I couldn’t be certain.
“Why not?”
“We prioritize on a strict first-come-first-serve basis—no exceptions.” We had been staring into each other’s eyes for so long that I had memorized the many-colored striations of her hazel eyes.
“Your eyes… are hazel,” I pointed out, on an impulse.
Caught off guard, her no-nonsense attitude fell away. “Ah—yes—and—yours—your eyes are—green. So… incredibly… green.” The hint of wonder in hers morphed into rapture.
I leaned over the counter, to be closer to her. “Yours have an interesting texture.” She blushed. “Varied and vibrant. I’m enjoying looking at them.”
“(Ah…) And yours are—so… bright, they’re like the sun shining through a forest canopy.”
It was my turn to blush and return her forehand volley. “And yours glimmer… like emeralds… among dunes.”
Her breath was temporarily stolen. “Ah… Your… Your…” She was now at a loss for compliments, but I doubted it was not for lack of physical admiration. As for me… an aroma, once distant, had approached swiftly, eagerly, coming intimately close—
That both of us had been so easily swept up by such an adolescent exchange of compliments was more than a little embarrassing, but I was hooked on her and I was going to make the best of our flirting.
So I changed the subject. “I like your hair. I like the way each strand is a slightly different color from all the others, as though your head can’t decide what color it’s supposed to be.”
“Oh. Um. I like yours, too. It’s shiny, like… polished copper. And I think your curls are… elegant.”
“Do you want to touch them?” She nodded, so with a smile I lowered my head; her hand caressed my hair reverently. She fondled my curls for an alarming length of time, but I let her go at it until she withdrew her hand and remarked, “It’s so soft, I want to touch it all day.”
I lifted my head and glanced at the name patch and the respectable butter bar on her chest. ((Lieutenant A. Buchanan.)) “What’s the ‘A’ stand for?”
“Andrea.”
I smiled. “You didn’t mention we have the same name.”
“I never know what to do when it happens, like, do we call each other by the same name? It’s a little weird. Not weird in a bad way, just kind of awkward, in a way that’s… a little too much.”
“Did meeting me overwhelm you?”
“Yes—I mean—maybe. A little.”
“Are you still overwhelmed?”
“Yes,” she admitted bashfully.
“But… is something as small as this same-name thing really what’s overwhelming you?”
She turned even redder, but kept her eyes fastened to mine. “Well…”
My smile curled a little bit tighter. “I see. Are you unused to talking to pretty women?”
“I—I—I’m not used to them—complimenting my appearance. Or me… complimenting them back.”
I combed my fingers through her hair. Her eyelids fell, finally breaking her stare. “If you left the front desk to accompany me someplace private, do you think anyone would notice?”
“You’re the first person I’ve seen all day. For the past few days. I’m actually… the only one who works this job, under the captain, so there’s rarely anyone around. That’s why the backlog is so bad.”
“Do you have an office?”
Her eyes snapped open, leading me to believe she might have understood where I was going. “Yes…” Despite her outranking me, her eyes were a little bit frightened… but one brow was raised in intrigue.
“Show me.”
“Come with me… Andrea.” As she stood I noticed that she was exactly my height and build (to the best of my ability to measure her vital statistics with my naked eye). She led me down the hall into a small office, which fortunately had only one window with a view of the hallway, which I obscured by drawing the blind.
She watched as I set the two guest chairs in her office side-by-side and sat in one of them. She looked a little lost so I patted the seat of the other, and she joined me.
“So… what d-do you do for a living?” she stuttered. I chuckled softly, and her laugh complemented mine—it was lovely.
“Your laugh is like a mug of fresh champurrado on a cold winter night,” I said as confidently as I could. Cheesy worked on her, so cheesy is what I gave her. It was about all I was capable of after waking up in hell.
“And yours is like freshly-squeezed lemonade on a balmy summer afternoon.” Though neither of us was demonstrating anything resembling a finesse for flirting, her line came out more smoothly than mine did. “You’ve come to me right in the middle of July. If I could drink you up, I’d…” She cut herself off, clearly caught off guard by how aggressive her own remark had been. Mesmerized by it, even.
I stroked her cheek with the back of my hand. “You have such soft, pretty skin.”
Hesitantly, she reached for my cheek and felt it. “So do you. I wonder if it’s soft everywhere.” This time she was shocked by her own comment. Horrified, even. “I mean—”
“It is.” She froze. Carefully, casually, I reached for her collar button. “I’m wondering just how much we’re alike.” I unbuttoned it and she inhaled sharply.
“And I’m—” I undid the next. “—wondering—wondering—” And the next. “—the same thing.” Her breathing quickened as I untucked her shirt and undid the fourth and final button.
“I have a hunch about the answer.” I reached inside her shirt and wrapped my fingers around one cup of her sports bra.
She sighed quietly, anxiously, then said, “I think I have the same hunch.”
I rested my other hand on her lap…
…and the hand on my cheek hooked around the back of my neck and pulled a little, so that she was hanging her weight on me.
“I’d like to hear it,” I replied.
“I think the—answer—is ‘a lot’—but…” I slowly crept my hand up her leg, and she responded by placing her free hand on it—but again, didn’t stop me.
“But?” I was almost at the intersection of her thighs. She breathed heavily.
“You have—this air of… ‘experience’, that I—I don’t—have.”
I moved my hand the rest of the way up her thigh until it was right at the crux of her legs; she squeezed my hand, but still showed no resistance. “Andrea… are you interested in learning the kinds of things I’ve learned over the past few days?” Her eyelashes fluttered; I brought my mouth slowly toward her neck…
“I love to learn. And… I’m thinking you might be a good teach—(ahhhh…)”
…and interrupted her with a kiss on her throat, forcing a sigh from it. “Then pay attention,” I whispered. I gave her another kiss a little higher and she whimpered, then one just under her ear and she took a sharp breath in, then with a nibble on her earlobe she moaned quietly, then a kiss upon her cheek brought a little hum. “Can you tell where I’m going?” I asked, softly.
She nodded.
“Do you want me to reach my destination?”
She bit her lip and nodded enthusiastically.
I kissed the corner of her mouth, and it opened for me, so I gave her what she wanted: my own lips. She let me take the lead, but I didn’t take advantage of her by proceeding too hastily—I waited a minute to insert just a little of my tongue at a time, until it was fully submerged; and she gradually returned my gesture by inserting hers and playing with mine. I reached down and her hands didn’t stop mine from gingerly undoing her belt and fly, instead lifting away to cup my jaw as her kissing became more aggressive. I gently spread her legs, then walked my hand down her pants to just under the waistband of her boxers. She stopped kissing me to stare into my eyes and ask, “You’ll be gentle, right?”
I smirked. “Is that what you really want?”
My reply surprised her, and she struggled to form an answer; the best she could do was “I—I—I’ve never done this. I’ve never done… this before. With… another woman.”
“The first time I had sex, I had to beg my partner to finger me. The second person I was with inflicted some very unusual abuse—which I enjoyed. My first time being penetrated involved unintentionally recreating my lover’s—well, it was a specific kind of fantasy, but I’m not getting into details, just that it was risky. Another experience involved my sexual partners calling me a whore and treating me like a sex toy while I reveled in being dehumanized. I am somebody’s sexual submissive, and somebody else is mine. I’m the wrong girl if you want something ‘normal’, and I’m not sure I can do ‘gentle’. Do you still want me to give you your first time with a woman?”
“I… don’t… know… what to do. Right—now, I want—so much for you to—but—I need… to be eased into it.”
“Let me take care of everything. I can’t guarantee gentleness, but if at any point you want me to stop or slow down, just say so. Does that work for you?”
She nodded again, fear marring her hazel eyes—but around her pupils, within the sandy brown, was a ring of resolve, and a curiosity that would stop at nothing to be sated.
I pulled her head close and brushed my lips against her neck, causing her to shiver. “I’ve never given anyone a hickey before.” My mouth closed the distance, and after a few seconds without objection from her, like a leech hungering for love I sucked her skin. She sighed delicately, and when I moved an inch over and sucked again, she sighed again. Before I could repeat it again, though, I slipped my hand down her boxers then, while rubbing her clit, I bruised her neck a third time, causing her to lightly convulse and quietly cry out. She moaned as I rubbed her clitoris, and sighed with each new bruise. “Do you have any lovers?” I asked.
She was too absorbed within her clit play to talk. I kissed her and she reciprocated. When I doubled the intensity of my rubbing her hips began to buck into it and she groaned quietly. “(More,)” she whispered. I could tell my hand wasn’t sufficient. I stopped everything, stood, and knelt before her.
“Why… why did you… stop?” she asked with a mixture of frustration, anger, disorientation, and concern.
“I need better access down there. Sit on the edge.” She scooted forward and I pulled down her boxers. “Are you okay with things in your vagina?”
“My husband and I have been trying to conceive, so…”
I raised an eyebrow. “So… would that make you bisexual?”
“Well, um, I’m married to a man, so…”
“Are you enjoying having sex with me?”
She nodded shyly.
“And do you enjoy sex with your husband?” She put a suspicious amount of thought into her answer. “Oh. Do you… not enjoy sex with him?”
“He’s never made me feel the way you’re making me feel. Something inside me is building up right now, and—I don’t want to talk anymore, I can’t bear waiting for you to do more things to my body, I want you to keep going until that feeling is gone. (Please.)”
“As you wish. But I’d still like you to give me a yes or a no—do you enjoy having things inside you?”
She shrugged. “It’s the only part of sex with my husband that I actually enjoy. And we’re trying for a baby, so I like it when he… leaves his… ‘seed’ inside me. It gets me so excited at the possibility of children. It’s a huge rush.”
((Wow. We are a lot alike…)) And then I remembered the multiple deliberate inseminations I had experienced in the previous few days. I took a deep breath and pushed aside the mental reminder that I still had a pill to take.
“Are you okay? You look anxious.”
“Yes, everything’s fine, there’s just… something I forgot to do last night. But I can take care of it after work. Let’s get back to it, I don’t want to keep you waiting any longer.”
“Oh, thank God, please, keep going.” I planted my mouth on her clitoris—