I woke up at my leisure, still blessed with the seemingly-endless afterglow of the previous night’s sixsome. I didn’t feel sore or tired, I just felt good, as the early morning sunlight filtered through the blinds. The three other women who shared my bed throughout the night were at various stages of dressing for work. I sat up and admired the parts of their bodies that were still exposed. “Good morning, Andy,” greeted Regina in a suspiciously sweet voice. ((Get your own nickname for me.))
“Morning, Prax.”
“Good morning, Drea.”
“Good morning, everyone,” I said, cheerily and with a stretch. I checked the time—5:56 AM on Wednesday, July the 20th—I had time to spare. I went straight to brewing a pot of coffee; as I clicked the ‘on’ button, there was a knock at the door. I jogged halfway there, at which point I announced, “I’ll get it.”
The two pets suppressed some kind of reaction, and as Diane said, “Drea—wait—Drea—you really should put something—”
“Don’t worry, I’m already halfway to the door, I’ll get it,” I insisted.
“—on.”
I opened the door and encountered Judy (in a pristine Mastodon T-shirt and a far-from-pristine pair of jeans), whose eyes ballooned as her gaze traveled down. “Andy… this is the second time you’ve displayed all of yourself on our balcony for the public’s enjoyment.” I looked down (with a thrill that reminded me of having sex in my car) to see my bare breasts and stomach shining in the glorious, invigorating early morning sunlight. “Do you do this exhibitionist bit with just anybody who comes a-knockin’, or just me?”
“Um.” I no longer had the instincts to cover myself up or hide behind the door. I just stood there, visible head-to-toe to anyone who cared to look at the second-floor balcony of the east wing of Matteo’s. And if they did look… and enjoyed the view… then I would be happy for them. I shrugged.
“I’m not judging you, just wondering if this way of greeting people is normal for you.”
“It is now, I guess. Come in, we can talk while I get dressed—assuming I don’t decide to go to work in the buff.”
She came inside and—along with everyone else—admired my body as I put on my clothes. By the time I had my pants on, Georgina announced, “I have to buy coffee on the way to work, so I’m afraid I can’t hang out.”
“I just put on a pot, and I have disposable cups if you need it to go,” I offered.
“I want Jack coffee. You’re going through Jack, Georgia,” ordered Regina.
“Geor-gi-na. You could get your own coffee, Reggie,” Georgina pointed out. “Y’know, if you maybe wanted to be polite to your new underling.”
“You’re the Autopsy Assistant. You assist with the coffee.”
“Ugh. I might as well get a meat lover’s burrito for myself, I’m starving.” She let herself out. “See all of you later, I love you, Mistress.”
“I love you even more, Mistress,” interjected Regina. I glanced at Judy and mouthed, “Sorry.” She replied with a resigned shrug.
I had a juvenile impulse to express to Diane that I loved our mistress more than either of them, and realizing how childish it would have sounded… decided it might amuse the others. “I am devoted to her with all of my soul, more than either of you can give, you cannot conceive of my devotion for her, I would write a poem comparing her to—”
I watched as Dee slowly lost control of her face before breaking out into laughter; Judy joined her, while Regina looked offended. “That’s enough!” cried Diane between guffaws. “That’s enough, Drea, yes, you love me very much.” I grinned. She made her way to the shoe rack and put on her heels. “Come here, both of you.” Reggie and I came in close for a hug. “I love all three of you. Drea, I had a lot of fun, and I believe my other pets did too. I want you to host these little orgies more often. The more the merrier.”
“I certainly will.”
“Reggie, get Georgina up to speed so that she can actually assist you with your backlog, you need the womanpower. And don’t give her a hard time or saddle her with fool’s errands. Give her training germane to her tasks.”
The dominatrix’s miscreant pet sighed impatiently. “As you wish, Mistress.”
Diane patted us on the shoulder, walked over to my other main squeeze, and planted her lips on hers. They wrapped their arms around each other and kissed for a solid 8 seconds before pulling away with lust in their eyes. “Jude… I’m sorry I wasn’t able to spend more time with you last night. Prissy had you monopolized and I wasn’t selfish enough to separate two people united by such passion.”
Judy nodded her head slowly, with eyes that said, ((About that… There’s something I’d like to tell you, when we’re alone.))
Diane nodded back. “I was thinking… if you have a few hours some other day, we could get a cup of coffee or… pourrait rattrapar le temps perdu à… ‘la partouse’. Maybe borrow you from Drea and take you to Asmodeus, (just the two of us.)” This raised both of my eyebrows.
Judy smiled. “Je pourrais être disponible…” She pulled a book and pencil out of her pocket and flipped through it, prompting Diane to peck at her phone with her thumbs. “How’s about Lorenzo’s, my treat? 6 tomorrow, you pick me up.”
Diane tapped and typed. “An appropriate venue—you know well that I consider myself a sophisticated woman. I look forward to sharing an Italian red with you.” She left, but as she closed the door behind her, she blew each of us (dwelling on Judy) a kiss.
I wanted to talk to Judy about my emergency contraception… “Judy, there’s something I’d like to discuss.” …but I needed privacy. “Just a sec. Reggie?”
“Yes?” She was fully dressed, ready for work… and sitting on my couch playing Confection Convection.
“Um.” ((How do I tell her she’s cramping my style?)) “Those game noises are… kind of annoying me.”
“I can mute it.” And she did exactly that.
“I like to lie down on the couch and stretch before I leave for work each morning.”
She got up, walked to my bed while keeping her eyes glued to her game, and plopped her ass down.
“Andy and I have something we need to talk about,” said Judy. “In private.” She and I took the couch.
“Oh. Well, I need to head to work anyways, your apartment is like a bajillion miles from the station so it’s a stupidly long drive.” As she left, she told me, “Bye… second-favorite.” And so Judy and I were finally alone.
I took in a deep breath… and exhaled. “Judy…”
“If you’re wondering about me and Leigh—Diane… Yes, we have something… special, but Prissy kind of claimed my dick for herself last night.”
“At least you got her to stop and let you sleep.”
“She… never stopped. I didn’t sleep. And an interesting quirk of my dick is its tendency to get harder the longer I’m deprived of sleep, so I couldn’t convince her I wasn’t able to keep going. ‘You’re still hard,’ she said, ‘Just one more.’”
“‘Couldn’t convince her to stop’? You say ‘red’ and she’s supposed to stop. There isn’t supposed to be any ‘convincing’.”
“Well… Ah…” She rubbed the back of her neck. “She was so happy riding me, I didn’t have it in my heart to ask her to stop…”
“Okay. I was worried maybe she’d… crossed a line.”
“If I sincerely didn’t want her to fuck me, I would have used the safe word.”
“Okay. I’m relieved to hear both parties were consenting.”
“Y’know, I joked that she’s your clone… but that woman is even more sex-crazed than you are.”
I was… offended. “Are you saying I’m not the biggest whore you know?”
“No, no—you’re the biggest whore, but you aren’t a succubus extracting others’ life essence from dusk till dawn in the light of the full moon.”
My eyes narrowed. “Would that happen to be one of your fantasies?”
“Well… maybe.”
“You fucking loved it, she used your dick, ‘extracting your essence’ to impregnate herself and you know damn well that if she conceives, her husband will be a cuckold none-the-wiser.”
She turned red and looked away about halfway through my accusation. When the time came to respond, she wrung her hands and pursed her lips.
“Well?”
“Yes, okay, yes, the whole time she was doing it, I was thinking constantly about this poor fucker who has no clue that the kid he’s raising isn’t actually his because his wife attended an orgy, discovered one of the women had a dick, and fucked her continuously for 11 hours straight with the objective of conceiving a bastard child—and I was getting off on every second of her riding me, using me as her breeding stud.”
I nodded. “And have you scheduled an appointment to provide further ‘natural fertility treatment’?”
“Y—yes.”
“Ah. Of course. I was joking, but I should have known better. When?”
“Thursdays at 1:00… though admittedly, conception has… ceased to be the main goal, since she’s decided she wants to give the baby whatever time it needs—until then, her main focus is her sex life.”
((Your cock is mine, Judy.)) I knew that telling her would come off as possessive… which I decided she might find amusing. I hooked a finger down the collar of her shirt and pulled her closer. “Just remember… your cock belongs to me, Judith Éowyn Lucas.”
She smiled. “It sure does, my Lady. I figured you wouldn’t mind her borrowing it from you while you’re at work, when you’re unable to use it. And unable to stop me.”
“But if I’m in the mood for a little afternoon delight on Thursday…”
“As my domme, it is your prerogative to cancel my appointments with her at your pleasure.” I was joking seriously, she was playing sincerely. I was a little surprised that I couldn’t make a mountain out of this molehill, even as a gag.
“That’s… right. Um. But… you know, I wouldn’t actually get between the two of you, okay?”
“I know, otherwise I wouldn’t have bothered scheduling anything with her. And it’s also how I know I picked the right domme.”
“I’m… glad you think of me as a good domme. Even though we’ve only been doing this for a day.”
“If anything, you could stand to be a bit crueler.”
“Oh, really?” ((What’s something really fucked up I can tell her?)) “Hmm… Ah! It should please you to hear that I decided to flush the pill.”
Her smile disappeared. “Oh.” She grabbed her temples. “(Ohhhh…)”
“So if everything works out to plan, you’ll have two children out of wedlock!”
She looked up, eyes pathetic and pleading with mine. “Andy, listen, you don’t have a good income, your apartment is too small…”
“Diane said she will take care of those things.”
“She will? She will. But… you’re unmarried. You’ll be a single mother.”
“So?”
“You’ll be busy doing everything on your own. You won’t have any time to yourself.”
“Or with you. Or—I might develop such a strong drive to keep my children fed and a roof over their head that I become inspired to work harder and climb the cop ladder.”
She nodded and stared into my eyes worriedly.
“Oh, I’m sorry. This isn’t funny.” I kissed her cheek. “I didn’t actually flush it, I swallowed it after Diane convinced me a baby was a bad idea at this point in time.”
“Oh. You took it. Okay. (Whew.)” She leaned back into the couch and sighed a long “Chriiiist…”
“I just got jealous that you are busy intentionally knocking up other women, but I’m not allowed to have a kid of my own.”
“You are allowed. It’s your choice. I’m just giving (admittedly unsolicited) advice, because from my perspective you weren’t thinking straight.” She leaned back. “Damn, the whole world really felt… a little… scary, for a moment.” Having dodged a freight train, she relaxed a little.
“Are you relieved, Judy?”
“Yes… No. Only once you’ve taken a pregnancy test and get a negative.”
I kissed her again. “What if everything goes wrong—I get pregnant but I’m in a state or a country where abortion is illegal, and I can’t get home until the third trimester?”
“I’ll help you with the kid. Even if you aren’t deprived of access—even if it happens just because you change your mind and decide you want a baby too damn much to resist the call of motherhood, I’ll help you, I’ll change diapers, babysit when my schedule allows, drive the kid to school, help them with their homework, contribute financially if you can’t make ends meet, pay for their private school or their college, whatever I can do to help.”
“Do you feel responsible for my possible child because you might have knocked me up?”
“No. I feel responsible because—” She winced. “I… love you.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“You haven’t been enjoying the terror of pregnancy risk as much as I thought you would. You wish we hadn’t done what we did on Sunday and Monday, don’t you?”
“The suspense is like having half a dozen vibrators strapped to my dick head, two taped to my nipples and a ninth shoved up against my prostate. It’s an emotional high so intense that it’s become unpleasant…” She closed her eyes and forced herself to finish the sentence. “…but I have to admit, this has been the most exhilarating journey I’ve ever been on, and I still have days more of unbearable anticipation until we finally find out whether you are pregnant. And it’s taking all my capacity for logic and reason to remind myself that a ‘positive’ result is a bad… maybe not a bad thing, but… a major life event that isn’t entirely without its downsides.”
“So, all this time you’ve been trying to convince me not to have a child…”
“I’ve told you about the kinda shit that goes on in my twisted mind. The kinky part of me has been craving it. But the part of me that cares about your well-being and happiness is, fortunately for you, just a little bit stronger.”
I smiled as I stroked her hair, then kissed her for a couple of minutes, only pulling away to explain, “Diane changed my mind. I’ve been living this alternative lifestyle for not even a week and I’m already addicted to it. I love sex and I love obedience. And I want somebody to give me a good spanking every once in—”
Suddenly my stomach was on her lap and my ass was under assault. Every time she spanked me I giggled, or laughed, or groaned, or commanded, ‘Stop spanking your Lady, you naughty girl!’ or warned, ‘Your punishment will be severe!’ or cried out, ‘Yes! Harder!’
This went on until my alarm went off. “Damn! I have to start my morning rituals.” She let me up and I gave her a deep smooch on the lips. “That was very un-dommy of me… but I’ve been craving a sore bottom since Asmodeus.” I poured myself a cup of coffee and added milk and sugar.
“Did someone spank you there?”
“Tom did.” I sipped my coffee.
“I see. The guy you fucked after he tried to kill you. Would there happen to be any history between you two?”
I broke eye contact. “He’s… an old coworker.”
“Parking?”
I nodded.
She nodded apprehensively. “Did you know each other well?”
“Um…”
“Andy?”
“He… uh… slapped my ass at work.”
“You fucked a guy who once sexually assaulted you?”
“Well… it was… more… than… once.”
If she had a knife, she would’ve started sharpening it, then and there, and if she had a training dummy she would have started practicing various methods of killing a man with it. “This guy sexually assaulted you for the umpteenth time and then he penetrated you?”
“I… uh… consented. This time, anyway.”
She reluctantly sheathed her metaphorical knife, but kept it close. “So… you let a sex pest touch your ass and fuck you.”
“Yep. Before he spanked me in the club, he had slapped my ass on 57 occasions…” She had gone from surprised to unsurprised, and was now back to being surprised. “…called me ‘sexy’ 17 times, called me ‘hottie’ 25 times, and asked me out for drinks after work 11 times.”
“And you let this guy touch you?”
“I—I was desperate to be spanked! It looked fun!”
“That’s a terrib—” She sighed. “That’s as good a reason as any to ignore his past treatment of you, I guess. It’s your choice who you allow to do whatever to your body. As long as you consented, I shouldn’t care.”
“And I did consent. Thank you for understanding.”
“But I care anyway. I hope you’ll have the common sense to turn down any future advances from this creep.”
“Um…”
“Fess.”
“We’re… kind of… in a… a relationship.”
She pinched the bridge of her nose. “Christ, Andy… What kind of relationship? Fuckbuddies? Romance? Tell me.”
“We had… P-in-V sex.”
“Alright.”
“And… while I was sucking his dick… I decided I needed his dick.”
“And you let him cum inside you.”
“And after that we cuddled. And I confessed my love for him.”
“(Fuck…)” she murmured.
“He loves me.”
She shook her head. “Christ Almighty, Andrea, why did you do all this?”
“I was trying to seduce him into confessing—”
“His dark secret, right. Was it worth it? Was that secret you never got out of him worth fucking a creep and falling in love?”
“Is loving him a bad thing?”
She groaned irritatedly. “I can’t… deal with this right now, and you have to go to work. Just… go about your morning routine.”
My cup was half empty, and my time to leave was fast approaching. I gulped the rest down, showered, kissed Judy goodbye, and left for work.
To my satisfaction, I arrived at the station house 6 minutes early. On the other hand, those were 6 minutes I could have spent with my girlfriend, if only she hadn’t been in such a sour mood over my decisions—which I ought to have reminded her were my business, not hers. I chalked it up to jealousy and moved on from the matter.
I slinked through the Crimes Against Persons bullpen with my eyes scanning every other face, so close to the end of my investigation (or so I thought) but paranoid that someone might try to interfere with the success I was expecting as soon as tomorrow.
After I had cleared the lock screen on my laptop I set my eyes on the body cam footage, finding the raid’s prologue at 09:14:20, when the uniforms exit their vans; and the end around 09:25:24, when the last of them buckle up and leave Adams. Scrutinizing this interval within just the body cam videos, non-stop, without breaks, and in real time because I couldn’t risk missing any small-but-potentially-crucial detail: according to calculations I easily could have performed on a napkin but which took significantly longer with the calculator app that came with the computer… with 24 clips at 11 minutes per clip, this would have taken me over 4½ hours. But… I knew that I was imperfect, that I would face frequent episodes of distraction, forcing me to rewind 45 seconds for every half minute I was distracted; or I would think that I saw something important, forcing me to rewatch a segment several times only to find out it was a ‘compression artifact’—or, in the best of cases, I would actually find a clue and spend minutes to hours poring over it…
So I figured out before I had invested myself in such a project that, unless I got lucky with the first video, it was going to take a very long time for a single woman to get a good view of the blue Charger’s license plate so that I could be certain the police were involved. I pondered the issue for about 15 minutes before realizing I knew someone who might be willing to ease my burden. I dialed Georgina’s extension from the squad’s single occupant bathroom, and she picked up on the fourth ring. “’Sup, Prax.”
“Morning, Face Sitter. You busy?”
“‘Busy’? I’m fucking bored out of my pussy.”
“Ah-(haa…) Just as I suspected. So you wouldn’t mind helping me watch a bunch of 11-minute-long clips of the same event taken from 24 slightly different angles, would you?”
“When?”
“They’re from Wednesday’s raid.”
“No, I meant, ‘When can you send me the video?’”
“Um. Now, I guess?”
“Where’s the drop?”
“Your desk, if I share my CaseCloud with you.”
“Gimme-gimme-gimme! I mean—please.”
I suppressed a snicker at her desperation. “Let me guess, your ‘boss’ hasn’t shown up to work yet.”
“She came in, but when I asked her to give me some training she said she needed to get donuts because she never examines bodies on an empty stomach. Funkin is a 5-minute walk, round trip, she should be back by now, and she’s not answering her texts or her calls.”
“There could be a line.”
“Ugh! I hate waiting. Please, please give me something to do. I ran out of autopsy reports to digitize. I’ve descaled our coffee maker twice. I’m desperate.”
“I take odds, you take evens.” I added her to the ‘read’ group on my cloud, and I heard a Vistamail notification ring over her end of the call.
“Oh-my-God-thank-you.” I heard desperate keyboard clacking, then a dramatic “I’m in. What are we looking for?”
“How much time have you spent on Adams?”
“Business or pleasure?”
“Either.”
“Well, I seem to recall being entrapped into whoring myself out to a crooked cop…”
“Ha, ha. Sounds like you’re not upset about that anymore.”
“Nah, I have no business complaining about getting paid for receiving top-notch cunnilingus.”
“‘Top-notch’?”
“Yeah, it was good. I enjoyed myself so much that I decided to try it again last night, and that was good, too. Give yourself a pat on the back, you have a talented tongue.”
“Oh? Thank you. So… would you still be offended if somebody called you a ‘sex worker’?”
“How can I say that I’m not? If anything, I’m a particularly extreme type of sex worker. I leased out my pussy for a career. I’m a member of an elite group of 4 hardcore sluts who take selling their bodies literally.”
“3,” I corrected.
“Diane told me this morning that Prissy came to her with a ‘special request’.”
“Oh! No way!”
“Yes way, but she wouldn’t tell me what Priss asked for.”
“Wow. I’ll have to ask Doll to dish. Back to business, how familiar are you with Adams Avenue?”
“I’ve been there once, just long enough to satisfy my first customer, but I can still picture the landmarks in my head.”
“Good. I want you to look out for the license plate number of a blue Dodge Charger parked in front of the hotel, right next to the stairs.”
“I can do that.”
“Thank you, Koko.”
“Thank you for giving me a distraction. And… I’ve been thinking about your ridiculous idealism since we had that talk in the hotel room. This is my way of helping you bring Brookvale home—preferably with a beating heart. See ya.” Click. I got to work watching videos.
Body cam 1 of 24 gives not even a blurry view of the plate. I watched it twice, for a total viewing time of 22 minutes.
Body cam 3 of 24 passes the car on the passenger side, and I thought I was able to make out the numbers ‘8801’—after zooming in and staring at the pixels for about 5 minutes.
Body cams 5 through 17 (odds only) are too far away to resolve the numbers on the plate. I spent about 2 hours total watching them.
But body cam 19… The officer wearing body cam 19, Sergeant Theresa Malcolm, stops a few dozen feet short of the Charger as the raid ends, far enough away that I couldn’t make out the plate. I became very excited when she notices the parked vehicle. ‘Sanderson, you recognize that car?’
‘Which one?’
‘The blue one.’
‘I dunno.’
‘I think I’ve seen it before.’
‘Where?’
‘Hm. Don’t remember.’
‘Wanna run the plates?’
((Oh, please, Theresa, run the plates…))
‘Nah. We need to get back to the wagon.’
((Fuck!)) As you should expect, the rest of the camera’s footage revealed little of use to me. I watched it 3 more times, hoping to make out even a single number from the license plate. I found nothing.
After 3 views apiece, the remaining 2 body cams bore as much fruit as the others.
It was lunchtime. I grabbed some Del and went through the videos again and again and again until 9 in the evening.
Nothing. I had discovered nothing. After 14 hours of searching for clues, I was no closer to finding Alex. I was a fucking failure. Geraldine deserved to know as much, but I was ashamed to admit it to anyone, let alone the victim’s spouse, that I had wasted a whole day chasing red herrings.
I had promised her, though, that I would keep her apprised. I called her from my desk phone.
“This is Geraldine, may I ask who is calling?”
I froze.
“Hello?”
I was as cold as a Colorado winter.
“If you don’t tell me who you are, I’m going to block your number.”
“H—hi.”
“Who is this?”
“I’ve… been trying.”
She hesitated. “It’s 9 o’clock, who are you and why are you calling me so late in the evening?”
“Ye—I’ve been—going through videos—and—and—no luck. I’m not any closer to finding him.”
Another hesitation. “As a rule, I do not speak to police, Detective. Do not call me until you have found my husband.” Click.
I tapped the handset against my forehead and choked back tears. ((Fuck me.)) I hung up, put on my coat, went home, and fingered myself to sleep.