Hardboiled Whore

Hardboiled Whore © 2025,
a novel by Fannie Spanker,
is downloadable free of charge at
fanniespanker.com,
licensed (except fonts) under CC BY-NC 4.0 Creative CommonsAttributionNonCommercial,
viewable at
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This is a work of fiction, with neither nuance nor message.

It is not historical, it is not biographical, and it is not informational.

The characters, vocations, demographics, organizations, locations, municipalities, and legal entities; political beliefs, misinformation, and conspiracy theories; works of art, forgeries, and satirizations of AI slop; quotes cinematic, musical, folklorical, and literary; trademarks, copyrights, patents, and other forms of cultural theft; religious beliefs, scriptures, and discourse thereof; subcultures, scenes, kinks, fetishes, and perversions; events historical, contemporary, potential, or predestined; military or paramilitary procedures, agendas, and capabilities; claims factual, fabricated, and dubious; and all other matters or things or stuffs—tangible or intangible, published or unpublished, written or oral, concrete or abstract, enlightened or obscured, benign or malignant, portrayed or referenced herein; either are products of the author’s imagination, or—if having any basis in or bearing even the slightest resemblance to any reality, falsification, confabulation, or shared delusion—are portrayed fictitiously.

Beware, Dear Reader: nothing here is true.

First, a ‘thank you’ to Shiki Samekto for the cover—
the road to perfection is paved with the blood of artists;
‘thank you’s also to the Calibre developers
as well as Ray Larabie at Typodermic for
creating the wonderfully realistic Dealerplate fonts;
two more ‘thank you’s to my beta-readers, Effie and Jupiter;
but the most ‘thank you’s go to my cheerleader, writing coach, editor,
and spouse,
my dearest Adrian.

To Adrian, Mom, Dad, Mal,
Terry, Sheila, Murphy, Steve, Lisa,
Lell, Tara, Skye, Rachel, Effie, Cliff,
Chooch, Loamy, Dink, and Tim…
and Lexi, wherever she may be.

Tropes, Relationships, Kinks, and Fetishes

Extra-spicy polyamorous, kinky, bisexual romance.

Camp politically charged suspense mystery: repentant ex-cop sex worker infiltrates police department to save missing activist.

Gen X GILF next door in a May-December relationship with virgin Millennial.

Love at first sight/love at first fuck/whirlwind romance.

Multiple later in life romances (FFFFFF and MMF, all over 30).

Soulmates (complicated by past romantic trauma and fear of commitment).

Hurt and comfort.

Spankings and kisses.

Unprotected anonymous sex.

Lesbian sex party/gangbang (FFFFF on F).

Cunnilingus (on cis women—trans mascs to follow in future installments).

Fellatio (on both cis men and trans women).

Penetration (by trans woman, cis woman with strap-on, cis man).

Office romances (multiple).

Sexual quid pro quo.

Switch FMC engaging in dominance, submission, and competition.

Consensual ‘non-consent’ roleplay (with ongoing and enthusiastic consent, including safewords).

Ownership kink.

Degradation/humiliation kink.

Pet play.

Bondage fantasy.

Public sex and exhibitionism.

Masturbation and fingering.

Body scent fetish.

Cum fetish (creampies, swallowing, snowballing).

Pregnancy/impregnation fetish.

Biological clock running out.

Ugly duckling.

Love for gender non-conformity and androgyny.

Love for trans women’s bodies.

Love for fat women’s bodies.

Love for muscular women’s bodies.

Love for short women’s bodies.

Love for tall women’s bodies.

Height difference (11 inches).

Money fetish.

Millionaire partner.

Enthusiastic sex work (not sex trafficking).

Antifascist and sex worker activism and direct action.

Exploration of the concepts and praxis of justice, righteousness (tzedek), repentance (t'shuva), and reproductive rights beyond a Christofascist lens.

Content Warnings

While this story’s tone can be described as generally lighthearted, it deals with numerous topics demanding varying degrees of sobriety. The sensitive content in the following book includes but is not limited to:

Danger and Violence

A nearly lethal strangulation.

A death threat.

A dead bird.

A bloodless mass arrest.

Discussions of Christofascism.

Reproductive Rights

Sexual extortion.

Sexual harassment.

Whorephobia/slutphobia.

Chemsex (sex while under the influence of recreational drugs).

Mental Health and Substance Abuse

PTSD flashbacks.

Complex grief.

Mood disorders.

Fear of abandonment.

Impulsive and reckless sexual behavior.

Alcohol use disorder, relapse, and binge drinking.

Polydrug use (alcohol and MDMA).

Chemsex.

Seeing, hearing, and feeling things that are not there.

Body dysmorphia.

Internalized sanism.

Cumslut, P.I.

From the ashes of a parking Nazi
emerges an antifascist hero.
A very horny hero.

You Know
I Like My Girls
a Little Bit Older

Friday, July 12th, 2024

Content Warnings:
Depressive Episode;
Internalized Fatphobia;
Body Dysmorphia

Despite its lowest-bidder manufacturing and fascist symbolism, that shield-shaped hunk of brass had long propped up my last hope that I might find happiness. As I departed Chief Plaut’s office without it, I found myself lost. And as I approached the welcome mat of my own home, I still had no idea where my heart was.

An hour before my shift would have ended, I fumbled my key into the cheap lock with poorer hand-eye coordination than I’d have after a fifth of a fifth. I dreaded what I must do next to survive. I turned the key, pushed open the flimsy hollow core door, and edged the steel-reinforced toes of my boots into my dingy studio apartment.

I surveyed its unimpressive contents: an aughts-era plasma TV (with the Martian Marine main menu burned into the screen), an outdated PlayBox U game console (which had started having issues reading discs 8 months prior), plain wooden box containing the plastic-wrapped bricks of my mother’s ashes (which I had no idea where to spread), and my most prized luxury: my king-size bed (which I had cleared of clutter just the night before because the mess had accumulated to the point there was no longer enough room for me to lie down).

I considered the value of each of my possessions and tried to plan out which I could sell to stretch my funds. “(Couch…)” I mumbled, “(…20 bucks tops on DansForum; TV… might be able to sell it as an antique—let’s say 30; console… auction on Awkshion.stuff for parts, same for the laptop…)”

“How much do you think you could get for the ashes?” asked Shosh as she sidled up next to me. She had haunted me since I identified her cadaver.

“I am not selling those.”

“They take up space.”

“They’re the only thing I have left of my mother.”

“You got Banana Shark.”

“Fine, they’re the only thing I have left that fits in my apartment.” She pinched me. “Ah!”

“There’s me.”

“You aren’t always around for me to talk to. The ashes are there for whenever I need to… um…”

“Hold the door open? Fill a sandbox? Start a Zen garden? Replace the kitty litter?”

“Ugh.”

“Relax, I was joshin’ ya. Mostly.”

“I know. Please try to be serious and constructive right now.”

“Have you ever known me to be serious?”

“When you told me never to trust men and to always use a condom.”

“Those lessons are more important than deciding what to do with the ashes.”

“I don’t feel that way.”

“If you come across someone who collects strangers’ ashes, you could probably get at least 10 bucks for them.”

“They’re in my custody, not yours, I decide what to do with them.”

“Excuse me? Those are mine, Esti.”

I ignored her. “When I have the money… I’ll buy a nice urn.”

“Save your money. Spread them at ground zero,” she suggested in an accent cultivated in Brooklyn.

“I don’t think the City of New York would let me do that. And I would expect you to have a little more respect for the worst tragedy to hit your city.”

“Not ground zero of 9/11, ground zero of the place the accident happened.”

“In the middle of the street?”

“Exactly.”

“California Health and Safety Code Section 7116 specifies that scattered remains may not be ‘distinguishable to the public’—and a street is about as public as it gets.”

“Then pay your grandparents a visit and give the ashes to them.”

“I don’t have the patience for flippant suggestions right now.”

“I’m being perfectly serious. Let them decide what to do with the ashes.”

“No, you aren’t being serious. I don’t even know where they live.”

“I’ll tell you where they live if you promise to give them the ashes.”

I shook my head. “I thought the whole point of the cremation was to give them the middle finger and scare them away from us forever. And now you want me to hunt them down and rub salt in their wounds?”

“You could piss them off even more by using your dear old Mamaleh’s ashes as kitty litter.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose and groaned. “You are needlessly cruel sometimes, you know that?”

“Do you love me anyways?”

“In life and in death.”

“You swear?”

I raised my hand in oath. “I swear that I will love you until the end of time and since the beginning of time.” And then she left me standing in the doorway, half-in and half-out of my apartment. Here my mind wandered for several minutes as I tried to accept my new life without my livelihood and lifelong dream, tried to make plans for it… but the more I planned for my future, the more surreal my situation became.

I was lost, and there wasn’t anybody around to give me directions. I hadn’t had a tangible person to guide me since that Cadillac deprived me of the only one I loved.

After a few minutes of numb contemplation, I decided to kick off my shoes and lie down; the couch was the closest comfortable spot for that, so I chose it to flop onto. A few seconds later, the surreality of my situation came crashing down on me—and with it, doubt, self-hatred, and a complete absence of hope.

I became glued to the couch, immobile, for uncountable hours. I wasted away, the breeze from the air conditioner slowly eroding me one atom at a time, like wind chipping away at a mountain. At this rate I would be reduced to ash, just like her, in a few million years. I set my sights on joining my mother that way—but eventually my body begged me to get up and move around. I focused on wiggling my toes, first, then bunching my fingers into fists, then squeezing my core muscles in a halfhearted crunch; eventually, I was able to rub my eyes, twist my spine in a half push-up, and right myself onto my fat ass.

I was alone, and the longing for companionship I had felt in my now-leaking soul throughout the last twelve years and eleven months was no longer a dull ache but a searing agony. For the first time since Shosh died, I could not quell my need for interaction with another human being, a friend with a heartbeat. The psychologist who had evaluated my fitness-for-duty had forced me to realize that I needed friends, even a single pal to spend a little time with every other month, if I had any desire to ‘survive another year’ of my ‘self-destructive maladaptations’.

Bars overflow with people looking for friends but are radioactive for someone with my particular curse. Going back to college would be a great idea—except for the whole business of me paying tuition while I was on a fixed income, as well as the risk of developing a reputation as that 34-year-old square who’s awkwardly (or creepily) trying to befriend youths only a few years past half her age. That left me with… what? “How the hell do I make friends at 34?”

“You never played much with the other kids,” she reminded me. “When the two of us weren’t wreaking havoc, your eyes were glued to the tube, either a game or a movie or a show.”

“You know how much they hated me. You’ve been through the same shit I have.”

“Well… I actually haven’t. You were the only redhead at all of your schools. You stuck out like a smashed thumb. Me, though, I went to school with other redheads. I was ‘normal’ back home.”

“You were an atheist with a religious family in a religious community.”

“Yeah, but I kept that a secret, so no one picked on me or excluded me. I made lots of friends. You need to make some yourself.”

“I know I do, I can feel it. I just don’t know how.”

“Start with your hobbies.”

“I don’t have any.”

“You play games.”

“I play two games.”

“Can you play either of them with others?”

“I don’t know any others to play with.”

“Is there any way to find other people to play with?”

This question, my friend, was—if you have not already guessed—the moment my miserable life took a turn for the better. “Yes, actually. There’s a matchmaking system that will pair me up with strangers who like Martian Marine as much as I do.”

“Then get to it, Esti! I’ll step out and let you do your thing.” And then she was gone again.

So, I booted up my ancient PlayBox U, started Martian Marine, and entered the cooperative matchmaking lobby. Fifteen seconds later, the servers offered me a partner with zero ping, which I accepted without hesitation. HalenBunny entered my lobby, and I donned my headset (which was good for its microphone but no longer produced sound through the earphones, forcing me to pass game and voice audio through the TV).

“Which level are we playing, Lou Peckinpaw?” asked the sultry contralto of a woman much older than myself. “By the way, that’s an interesting gamersign.”

I was not expecting a fellow woman, let alone someone who had been around the sun at least 10 times more than I had. “Thanks. Hmm… ‘Terran Interloper’.”

“That happens to be my favorite. Difficulty?”

“Hmm. Can you handle nightmare?”

“That’s my setting of choice. And while you’re configuring the game… turn on all the skulls.”

I smirked. “Sure. I can chew a chili pepper without breaking a sweat.” I enabled all of the challenge modifiers—known colloquially as “skulls”—adding several unpredictable, frustrating, and perennially humorous tweaks to the game’s normal mechanics, such as grenades flying like bullets and ricocheting off walls like Superballs, enemies’ corpses exploding 3 seconds after death, vehicles always driving like they’re on ice, and so on.

“Very good. Let’s snuff out some Heavenly Lights.”

We launched into the middle of an orbital ambush on our scouting party by the luminous legions of the Heavenly Lights Alliance, a coalition of photon-based lifeforms religiously hell-bent on eradicating all matter-based life in the universe. Despite piling on a dozen challenge-multiplying game modifiers, we mowed them down left and right, above and below. We had each other’s sixes, we traded with each other for our favorite weapons, we carefully rationed ammunition and power ups… we were immortal, and we were in all respects a compatible and deadly pair of cybernetic space soldiers.

“You’ve been playing this game a long time,” she observed.

“I can tell you’re experienced, too.”

“I picked this game up a few summers back, but I can tell that you have much more than that under your belt—you’re practically carrying the game.”

“Well… I wouldn’t say that I’m ‘carrying the game’, though I have been playing since launch day.”

“That was about… 2000, or 2001, so assuming you came out of the womb with your fingers wrapped around a controller, you’d be at least 23 or 24 by now. But… you’re comfortable playing a game with someone older than yourself, so I’m guessing you’ve got quite a few more years than that, maybe… 35.”

“Close, 34. How old are you?”

“Guess.”

“Hm. 45.”

“Think ‘AARP member’.”

“You’re 55?”

“57, as of the last day of last month.”

‹She’s older than me,› I realized. ‹She… is a mature woman. Old enough to be a grandmother. Not old enough to be my grandmother, alas.› “Happy birthday, Bunny. Mine was today.”

“Happy birthday to you, too! It’s pretty rare for someone under 50 to make their gamersign a furry-flavored reference to a detective comedy from 1978.”

“What about it is ‘furry-flavored’?”

She chuckled. “Are you kidding me? ‘Peckinpaw’, substituting P-A-W instead of P-A-U-G-H?”

“Oh—well, I needed to shorten the name to fit the 12-character maximum, I never intended to make it ‘furry’.” Not consciously, anyway.

“I see… So you aren’t a furry.”

“You sound disappointed.”

“I might be.”

“Then I must presume that you are a furry.”

“Are you cool with that?”

“I’m cool. Fursuits, forums, art, cons, porn, whatever—have fun, explore your identity, express yourself wherever, however you want.”

“And how about… yiffing?” She stretched the word mischievously.

“Um… I don’t know how it works, but as long as it’s consensual and everybody is enjoying themselves, I’m happy for them.”

“I’m glad you see furrydom that way. You mentioned furry porn.”

“I’ve never seen it,” I lied as unhastily as I could. “I don’t look at it.”

“Never?”

“I’m not interested in anthro— I’m into human women. Exclusively.”

“Women only? Well, I just happen to be bisexual. Sooo…”

She didn’t finish her sentence, but I knew where she was going. “This is a very interesting direction you’re taking our conversation. You’re over one-and-a-half times my age.”

“I agree. It is interesting. So.”

“So…” I pondered to myself, ‹She’s 57. I’m 34. We’re both mature adults, we can cyber if we want to. Assuming I can figure out how it works.› “Bah,” I scoffed. “Age doesn’t bother me, and…” ‹57 divided by 2 plus 7 is… 35½.› I voiced my conclusion: “…I’m only a year-and-a-half under according to the half-plus-seven rule—close enough for hand grenades—we can lie about our birthdays if anyone starts asking questions.”

“I’m glad you’re so open-minded. I’m into some things, things that might be a little weird to some people—so if you’d prefer being the one who sets the pace, you can share your own kinks and we can explore those first.”

“Kinks? I don’t have any. I guess I’m… boring.”

“My girl, you are 34, and you’re telling me you haven’t done any kind of exploration? Are you still a virgin?”

I bit my lip and confessed, “Yes.”

“Would you like to ameliorate that?”

My rapidly mending heart decided to improvise a spirited drum and bass tune titled ‘Ameliorating Your Virginity’. I could only mumble, “(I-I-I… don’t… know if I…)”

“If we live close enough to each other… we could maybe meet somewhere in the middle.”

“Why are you so… interested in me, when we’ve just met?”

“Because you’re a girl gamer, and a very skilled one. I find that attractive. Hell, you’ve been playing video games for decades and you could probably stomp me in deathmatch. And that’s fucking sexy.”

“Wow. You… um… know how to flatter a girl.” I allowed myself to smile at the first compliment I’d ever consciously accepted as sincere flirtation.

Not that I accepted it wholeheartedly. I got up, approached my closet’s sliding door, carefully peeled away the Martian Marine and L.A. Noire posters which I had taped over the full-length mirror, and assessed my appearance for the first time in many years.

Red, frizzy, shoulder-length hair drawn up into a bun that met the bare-minimum criteria for professionalism—I pulled out my hair tie and let it down, admired it as soft, incandescent lighting played along my tight copper curls, combed my fingers through it to appreciate its texture and bounce. It needed a trim and some conditioner… but it was still pretty. Contrasting it were green eyes that alluded to something other than pure Ashkenazi, vibrant hints towards the ancestry of the man who my mother refused to talk about. Beneath those, freckles generously dusted my nose and cheeks—a nice bit of texture to break up the shocking paleness of my skin.

The shape of my face though… I shook my head. Shosh, despite having a nearly identical face… I had no idea how she could be so pretty.

Descending further, I examined my breasts; they were not at all flattered by my no-nonsense police uniform, so I undid a couple buttons to get a better look at my cleavage—and it became apparent that my breasts were more generous in proportion than the average pair found on a 5′2″ frame that modern medicine would consider obese. ‹Too big,› I thought to myself. They bounced flamboyantly when I ran, and at times I had to shield my cleavage to avoid distracting people. Shosh said they were better than hers, but I disagreed.

Even beneath my uniform, my hips and buttocks were visibly on the more expansive side, and after factoring in the generous fluff in all the wrong places, I had to avert my eyes because, I thought to myself, ‹That is the reflection of a hideous bag of lard and bones.›

Shosh had taken every opportunity to reassure me that I was ‘cute’, yet my clinical depression and general lack of self-love compelled me to believe otherwise. ‹Who could possibly find me attractive?› I thought. ‹She’ll be turned off when we finally meet. This is hopeless—but… I need a friend. I can be ugly and still be her friend.›

“Lou? Are you there?”

“Huh? Yeah. I’m… still here.”

“You weren’t responding, I was beginning to wonder if the connection dropped.”

“(Oh. Sorry,)” I mumbled. “(I was… looking at… reading a pop-up on the screen. Um.) Call me ‘Andrea’.”

“Nice to meet you, Andrea, I’m Judith. Would you be interested in meeting up?”

“I… guess. Sure. Definitely. But if meeting in the middle’s more than a day trip, I’m gonna hafta do some serious budgeting first.”

“I’m not opposed to working something out. How far are you from Santa Virginia?”

“Ah—Are you screwing with me?”

“No. What makes you think that?”

“I live in Santa Virginia.”

“That’s quite a coincidence… but it isn’t that strange. It’s a big city, and it makes sense when you consider the fact that our pings are zero.”

“True. Okay, what part of town do you live in?” I countered.

“I’m in Hillside.”

‹Okay… this is a little weird,› I thought to myself; to her I pointed out, “I’m in Hillside.”

“Um. Do you know where… Matteo’s Apartments are?”

‹And now it’s gotten plain spooky,› I wondered. “Yes. I rent… a room… here.”

There was a moment of silence as we both processed the cosmic coincidence, which she broke. “What’s your room number?”

“Two-oh-one.”

“Two… oh-one?” she asked incredulously.

“You heard me correctly.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake…” I heard her headset clacking on a hard surface through my television—then heard the thump of a door being shut in the next apartment over and, simultaneously, the same sound through the TV’s speakers. Three seconds after that, somebody knocked on my door.

“(No way,)” I murmured. “(No fucking way.)” With my mind clouded by wonder at such a coincidence, I answered the door and was greeted by a handsomely beautiful and (at 6′1″) very tall blonde with sharp amber eyes framed by defined-yet-soft and somewhat time-worn features; in agreement with her pinot-supple face were the gently-etched muscles visible on the parts of her body not covered by her Black Sabbath T-shirt, green boxer shorts, and Crocs painted to look like half-submerged sharks.

And then a quiet fragrance,
carried to

me on a subtle current
to my nose,

bashed in my skull with its
intensity

of character. It sang of
coffee, dark-

roasted and freshly ground,
squeezed
through French press

and poured while hot to be
consumed as jet—

and I for once enjoyed
my mug without

the cream or sugar
to adulterate.

‹It would seem,› I realized, ‹that I have what people refer to as a ‘type’.›

“You’re that redhead cop from next door,” inferred my new friend with a disdainful tone and a sharp glare.

“(Not… anymore.)” I continued to look her up and down. ‹I’m not intimidated by your height,› I thought. ‹I’m inspired.›

“You quit?” Her distrust was not going anywhere.

“(Let go. Unfit for duty,)” I muttered as I admired her shape and fantasized, {I climb you like a tree and get lost in your foliage…}

“You’ve heard of ACAB, right?”

The all-too-familiar acronym pulled me out of my reverie and caused me to kick into coping-with-humor mode. I nodded and chuckled. “Sure have! I’m a bastard who beats and extorts and kills—bloodthirsty, crooked, and heartless by nature. And I’ve always been this way, since the day I was born. A bad seed, evil by nature. People fear and hate me for being what I am, and they fear and hate me even more for being a vicious PEO. As they should.”

Her harsh expression softened into bewilderment. “I don’t see what’s so funny. And I hafta ask, PEO as in…?”

“Parking Enforcement Officer. It’s a more dignified title than ‘meter maid’. Not that we have any dignity.”

“Hm. Yeah, the most pathetic of all the swine, though hardly the most loathsome—that title goes to Vice.”

“Vice? The most loathsome? No, the most loathsome is definitely Parking. We’re the real bastards who work forces. We hold weekly cross burnings and write hate speech on the back of our parking tickets and choke people to death for parking 14 feet and 11 inches from a fire hydrant.”

“Do you think making light of your sins will absolve you of them?”

My smile dropped, my gaze dropped, my heart dropped. “Dogs go to Heaven. Bastards don’t. There is no absolution for the spawn of Satan.”

“You aren’t a cop anymore, which means you aren’t a bastard anymore.” Then she smiled at me.

I considered her kindness silently. ‹You… you gave me your smile. Even though I am… was a cop.› My eyes rose to meet hers, and I dreamed within them. {You sweep me off my feet, hold me up by my fat ass so that I can wrap my legs around your waist and cling to you and kiss you…} I replied, “That’s… the most reassuring thing I’ve heard in over a decade. Maybe I’m not a horrible person for having once been complicit in a corrupt and hateful institution. Just kind of… worthless.”

That precious smile disappeared— ‹Left me, abandoned me.› —to be replaced with her pitying stare. “You have some real self-esteem issues, don’t you?”

“Is knowing that I’m objectively lazy and incompetent a ‘self-esteem issue’, or am I simply being honest with myself?”

She rested a hand on my shoulder and gave it a couple pats. “It may take some time… but I’ll fix you up.” She took a seat on my couch.

“I don’t need or even deserve—‍” ‹Be her friend,› I commanded myself. ‹Doctor Huygen’s orders. Don’t question her kindness. I have no friends, I need a friend, she wants to be my friend, just be her God damn friend.› I corrected my response: “—I mean, I don’t need a lot of help, but—I’ll accept it—and I appreciate your kindness.”

“Oh, but you do need a lot of help. You’re an ex-cop—you need to be rehabilitated, and you need a new career, and you’re never gonna get a new job as long as you’re convinced that you’re good for nothing. This isn’t going to be easy, you understand?”

I joined her on the couch. “I guess you’re right. Thanks. But this is a lot to promise someone you met a few hours ago through a video game.”

“With a computer server as our matchmaker, yes—but you should know that I’ve been around the sun my fair share of times and I’ve learned to be an efficient judge of character. There’s something about you that I really like, and I want to figure out what it is. And now that we know we’re next-door neighbors, we can be friends!”

“‘Friends’…” I slipped into thought. ‹I did it. Now all I have to do is not drive her away with my pathetic personality and my hideous face and my grotesque body.› I asked her, “What would you like to do as… friends?” My imagination ran wild. {Like maybe draping your mass over me like a weighted blanket while kissing my entire face, my chest, my belly, my…} It was a good thing she couldn’t experience my fantasies.

“Depends on how far you want to take it. I have quite a few friends already, but I’m not super close to any of them, but (you…)” She smiled slyly. “I’d like to get really close to you—if you know what I mean.”

“Right. You expressed a certain interest in me.”

Her response was to spread her mischievous smile into a devilish grin.

“Well,” I explained, “I have no experience, unless you count having my ass groped by college girls in the showers after cross country…”

“Was it consensual?”

“It gave me funny feelings, but… I… liked it. The same thing happens at work all the time.” The echo of the sentence rang painfully loudly, so I quickly added, “But I don’t like it at work.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, but you didn’t answer my question. Have you ever consented to having your ass touched?”

“(No. Um—well… I guess… in a way…)” I muttered.

“If consent isn’t communicated enthusiastically, it isn’t actually consent.”

The episode in the showers played out in my head; I avoided thinking about the episodes at work. “It’s more complicated than that, and only just now did I start processing my feelings about being touched back then. It didn’t bother me at the time, though, and still doesn’t.”

“If you say you don’t mind, then I guess we can say that no harm was done—but it still doesn’t count towards your experience. So… would you be interested in an arrangement?”

I considered her offer silently. ‹This is happening so… fast. But… I am curious. I want to know what it’s like to actually be with a real woman. In many diverse ways.› Timidly (yet eagerly), I responded, “I would like to… try.”

“That didn’t sound very enthusiastic.”

“Do you want me to beg?”

“No. I just don’t want to hear any hesitation in your voice.”

I groaned. “Fine. I enthusiastically want an arrangement. I want you to make me into a real woman. Is that enthusiastic enough for you?”

“Much better.”

“Good. Now, tell me about this arrangement.”

“We’d be fuckbuddies.”

My head reeled. ‹But,› I wanted to point out, ‹I’m ugly as sin…› Instead I softly muttered, “(Fuckbuddies…)”

“Don’t tell me you’ve never heard of a ‘fuckbuddy’, pal.”

“Oh, I know what they are… It’s just that… all of a sudden, I have someone in my life who I’m going to regularly… engage in… sex with.”

“Deal?” She offered her hand.

‹You have a nice face,› I observed silently, ‹and rich eyes, and there’s an alluring heft to the muscles in your arms, and you… smell good, and I like how freaking small I feel next to you—I want to sit in your lap, or be picked up by you and cradled in your arms like a bride on her way to consummating her marriage. I should have fun while I still have a few years of youth left—and you’ve got the experience to help me make the best of them. Yeah, fuck it, I’m in.› I accepted her hand and gave her a healthy shake and a hearty “Deal.”

“Would you like me to take the lead?”

“For reasons I shouldn’t have to explain… yes, I would appreciate that.”

“You got it.” She leaned in; I closed my eyes and parted my lips, expecting hers to meet mine.

Instead of a kiss on the mouth, though, I felt a wet pressure on the side of my neck, and then a vibration in my throat, and I thanked God that I was seated because my legs instantly turned to jelly.

Best
Fuckbuddies
Forever

She pulled her lips away, but I remained gelatinous. “(That was such a cute noise you made,)” she whispered.

“(What… noise?)” I squeaked.

“Kind of a whimper-slash-moan.” She kissed my neck again, and this time I heard it. She moved to my throat, which caused me to make the same sound and feel even weaker.

“(Right there,)” I whispered as my chest began to heave. She kissed my throat once more, and I whimpered again. She kissed my chin, which was not arousing in and of itself, but made clear to me she was heading for my mouth, thus stirring my anticipation.

And then she really kissed me. I grunted between our lips and my instincts took over. I wrapped my arms around her neck, kissed her back for a while, then gave into the urge to shove my tongue into her mouth. She giggled, then cruelly pried her mouth an eighth of an inch away from mine.

“(Why—hah—did you stop?)” I whimpered while trying to catch my breath.

“I just wanted to point out that you’re a natural.” To my relief, she resumed kissing me.

Over the course of the next few eternal minutes of her touch, a need within me grew, a need for more which I was compelled to satisfy. With simultaneous reluctance and eagerness, I pulled away and told her, “If you don’t mind, Judith… I’d like to invoke the ‘fuck’ part of our fuckbuddy agreement. Right now.”

“I think we should take it slow, since this is your first time.”

“I’m ready.”

“You aren’t.”

My clitoris, vagina, cervix, uterus, fallopian tubes, and ovaries began conspiring to overthrow my brain. “You can’t know that. Only I can know whether I’m ready.”

“I’ve had a lot of partners. I’m pretty good at telling when people are ready.”

My reproductive organs began their assault, but with all my strength I was able to maintain control and force myself to reply, “Alright. Fine. You’re older but wiser—‍” She snorted. “What?”

“Nothing. There’s a song in a musical—never mind.”

“Alright… If not sex, what do we do next?”

“Foreplay.” She began unbuttoning my shirt—I took that as my cue to pull her tee up to her armpits; she took the hint and raised her arms, allowing me to pull it off and expose her toned-but-not-chiseled abs and her bare and surprisingly youthful breasts. While she resumed unbuttoning my shirt, I marveled at them, imagined touching them and feeling how soft they were. I spread my fingers out and held them inches from them, coiled tight and ready to spring forward and latch on. She giggled. “Damn, you’re eager.” I wanted to grab them, and I wanted her to grab mine and do things with them.

I grunted, and as she untucked my uniform shirt I hastily ‘unbuttoned’ (popped off) the last button and cast it away without care for where it landed before ripping open my tank top and disposing of it likewise. She pulled my sports bra up and over my head, letting my ironically more mature breasts bounce, and as soon as my hands were free, I grabbed her tits and brushed my thumbs across her nipples, causing her to gasp. I devoured her tender chest as she squeezed mine; she pinched my nips, forcing from me a yelp of pleasure. I wanted to rub my tits against hers but couldn’t quite get them to meet because of our height difference, so I leaned against her chest until she got the hint to lie down. Once she was on her back, I climbed on top of her and rubbed myself against her.

By chance I breathed in through my nose and caught a full blast of her scent—

Fresh ground

French roast

Hot pressed

Steamed milk

Go juice

Fuck her

All night

A dial inside my head turned from 9 to 10. “Fuck.” I hastily dismounted her, unbuckled, and undid my fly.

“Andrea, I don’t know if you’re ready…”

“I’m extremely ready, damn it.” She had been compelling before, but now she was irresistible.

I peeled off my pants, then tried to pull her boxers off while she was seated, but she gently curled her long fingers around my hands and told me, “I’m not ready, okay?”

My heart was beating faster than a hummingbird’s and my body was driving me forward at a mile a second and she was asking me to take a leisurely stroll like it was a balmy July afternoon— (And while it was July 12th in sunny Southern California, we were only a few miles from the chilly Pacific and the sun had set hours ago, so it was starting to cool off outside.) —whereas I was in the mood for a cross country sprint. On the brink of devastation, I stared. I gently, quietly, breathlessly explained, “(You… You said we were fuckbuddies. Fuckbuddies, they, you know… they fuck.)”

“I did say that. But right now I’m telling you I’m not ready to go all the way.”

I groaned and plopped down next to her. “I feel a need.”

“Horny?”

I caught my mouth before I could respond as I realized, ‹Wait. You know I’m a virgin, but you might be under the misconception that I’m one of those innocent virgins, rather than one of the pathetic femcel variety… and innocent is sexy.› As naïvely as I could, I asked, “This is what being horny is like? I’ve never felt this way before. It’s like… a… a strange kind of tension, almost like… anxiety, but different because… it has this extra physical aspect to it. My body is telling me, ‘Do something with your genitals,’ but I don’t know what it is I’m supposed to do until I’ve already started doing it. Is this what ‘horniness’ is?”

“Yep. And you’re not always going to have someone to help you resolve it, so you need to learn how to take care of it yourself.”

“Are you saying… I need to…” I dropped to a loud, scandalized whisper. “(…touch… touch myself?!)”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

“Alright, if I gotta solo this one… I gotta solo this one.” (Gently put, I had extensive experience in the subject. Bluntly put, I averaged about 3 hours and 30 orgasms per night to help me fall asleep.) I realized there may yet be a way to persuade her to touch me. “So… how exactly do I… do… (‘it’)?” I asked in feigned ignorance.

“You… did take sex ed, didn’t you?”

“They never talked about masturbation.”

She narrowed her eyes. “I’m not comfortable with going any further with someone who didn’t receive a well-rounded education in sex.”

“I know how sex works! But only straight sex. I know all the things, I know how to put a condom on a penis, I know about STIs, I’m not completely uneducated! I just don’t know about masturbation because—because I wasn’t paying attention during that part because I thought it didn’t apply to me.”

One of her eyebrows cocked up. “And why wouldn’t it apply to you?”

“Because… I wasn’t interested in masturbating. Um. I wanted to save myself for marriage.”

“Yet you aren’t saving yourself for marriage anymore.”

“Yeah, uh, no, um… but… when Peter died, I knew there was no way I’d ever get married. So I decided not to save myself anymore. But I didn’t—don’t know how to masturbate, so I’ve never tried.”

“Never tried…”

I nodded.

She stared me in the eye, stared through me like I was made of glass. For a moment I thought she could read my mind. Then she shrugged and smiled. “Alright. I’ll teach you how to masturbate, because despite knowing for decades that you had a clitoris, you somehow never managed to figure out how to use it.”

“Thanks. What do I need to get started?”

“You need either your hands, a dildo, or a vibrator.”

“The things lesbians use because they don’t have penises?”

I narrowly picked up on the mild annoyance she took care to hide behind a tutor’s encouraging smile, though it was hard to tell why my question bothered her. “Yes. Very good guess for someone who has no idea how masturbation works. Lesbians also use their mouths.”

“Okay. Out of those, all I have are hands and a mouth.”

“And while I would love to see you use your mouth…” she began; I suppressed a perverted smirk as I thought to myself, ‹Oh, who among us doesn’t find the concept of autocunnilingus extremely hot?› She continued, “…I’m not holding my breath that you’re one of the lucky few who are that flexible (assuming they exist), so hands it is. First, you want short nails—yours are already chewed smooth, so that step is taken care of. Second, you should wash your hands before you touch anything.”

I usually skipped the second step out of laziness, but figured following her advice would make her happy, so I washed in my bathroom then pretend-bashfully strolled up to her in nothing but my socks and panties.

“Now you’re gonna wanna get comfy.”

“Okay. My bed is the most comfortable spot in my apartment.” To myself I added, ‹And also the closest to being worthy of the adjective ‘romantic’.›

“Let’s go.”

I led her by the hand past my kitchenette to the area I called my ‘bedroom’… my apartment being a studio, it wasn’t so much a room as it was an area partially separated by my closet to give me a shred of privacy while I was jerking myself to sleep. I reclined on my flank so that she would have a good view of the show, and just close enough to the edge that she would be right next to me when she joined me. “Won’t you lie down? So that you can use your fingers… to point where I should put mine?” She shrugged, kicked off her crocs and took up that narrow space, her body inches from mine. “What now, teacher? Will you guide your student?” To myself I hoped, ‹Fingers crossed you’re into teacher-student fantasies…›

Sure enough, her eyebrow raised, piqued. “‘Teacher and student’, right… I’m assuming you don’t mind me seeing your pussy.”

“You need to see my… (p-pussy?) I… guess it can’t be avoided.” With less hesitation than would have been ideal, I yanked off my panties and handed them to her. “Can you toss those in the hamper?”

She sighed as she tossed them in the basket.

“Thank you. I’m ready for the next step.”

“You can figure out what to do from here.”

“No! I can’t!”

“It isn’t hard. Try experimenting.”

“I don’t know where to start.”

“Just do what comes naturally.”

“This is all very unnatural.”

“Then… maybe masturbation isn’t right for you. Maybe sex isn’t right for you. Maybe we’ll never be fuckbuddies. Oh, well…”

“No! I just need to give it a try! Teach me!”

She sighed. “Alright. I’ll ‘teach’ you. Start by inserting your finger.”

“(All… right…)” I had never bothered to experiment internally because I had read somewhere that clitoral stimulation was the only thing capable of bringing a woman to orgasm; nevertheless, I had to go with the flow. I considered asking her to take my hand and guide it… but decided that might be a little too bold. “Alright.” I placed my forefinger at the entrance of the place where only tampons had ever ventured before, then slowly slipped it into what turned out to be a very slick hole. “(Oh!)” The sensation was surprisingly pleasant, with a sudden and powerful rush as I crossed the threshold, as electrically stimulating as having my nipples abused. “(I like that.)” I repeated the motion while she watched, intrigued. “(Mm…)” I even uttered for her enjoyment the sounds people make in porn—it was my hope that she’d get off on my noises and maybe give into her horniness. “(Ah… Oh… Yes…)”

“Wow, um… So, you’re probably not gonna cum from just that, most women have to play with their clits. Pull out your finger.” I mentally cursed, ‹Well, shit.›

I removed it reluctantly, and a string of a substance resembling raw egg white stretched from my vagina to my finger, the stuff that would frequently overflow and soak my panties throughout the week following a bleed. “Can you grab me a tissue? I need to wipe off my finger.”

“Why? It’s lubricant, you need that—unless you have a bottle of lube lying around.” I shook my head in spite of the pint of Maude Shine I kept hidden inside my nightstand next to my Magic Wand. (It was just about empty, so I wasn’t being entirely dishonest.)

“I didn’t know this stuff was lubricant.”

“Okay… Andrea? You can drop the innocent ‘I don’t know how to masturbate’ act. I checked your drawer, you have a Magic Wand, as well as a bottle of Maude Shine, which I know you use because it’s empty.”

I grunted exasperatedly. “Okay, fine, I lied, but I really haven’t ever used this… stuff… on my clit. I’ve never stuck my fingers inside my vagina because I was perfectly happy just touching my clit.”

“So… you weren’t acting when you hesitantly inserted your finger and started making those noises?”

I nodded.

“Whew… Alrighty then. Get the other fingers on that hand wet.” One-by-one I moistened the fingers on my right hand, navigating each as far as it would go up the rainy season Nile between my legs and savoring the sensation of being spread each time. As I pulled out my pinky finger, I was overcome by curiosity—and an idea for how to turn her on.

I placed my pinky finger in my mouth and sucked it off.

The flavor was pleasant, albeit hard to describe beyond the notes of vinegar and olive, and there was something about consuming my own juices that appealed to my pervy brain, so much so that I found myself moaning as I slowly withdrew my moistened finger from my mouth.

Judith muttered, “(Christ.)”

“What’s wrong?” I think I managed to hide my satisfaction that my performance had the intended effect.

“Nothing. Well… The sound you just made… The look on your face when you did that… Are you sure you’ve never put your fingers in your pussy?”

I had seen many other women suck on pussy juice-slick fingers on camera, but I was being perfectly, sincerely honest when I replied, “Only tampons and speculums have gone in there before now.”

She shrugged. “If you say so. Try touching your clitoris.”

I hovered my finger over my clit, stopping an inch short. “(I’m… kind of afraid to do this, Judith,)” I pretend-whimpered, quite eager to ‘do this’.

She sighed. “You’ve already confessed to playing with your clitoris.”

“Can we just…. please pretend that I’ve never done this before, that I’m innocent and you’re gently corrupting me? If you won’t actually fuck me the way a fuckbuddy is supposed to, will you at least let me have my fantasy of being taught how my body works by an older, wiser woman?”

She blinked. “Um. If that’s… fun for you, I suppose… I don’t see why not. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve done something like this. Let’s pretend.”

“Alright. Thank you. Where was I?”

“You’re scared to touch your clitoris.”

“Right, right. I don’t know what’s going to happen when I touch it!”

“You’ll be fine.”

“Maybe if you… took my hand… and guided it?”

“You don’t need my help. You can do it.”

‹It was worth a shot,› I thought with a sigh before replying, “Alright. Here goes.” I spread my lips with my left hand and touched my clitoris with my right, exactly as I had 10 to 30 times every day since puberty. I felt a familiar, gentle spark shoot up my stomach. I pulled my hand back and gasped in feigned surprise. “Wow!”

“Try rubbing it.”

“Okay.” I touched it again, causing a shower of sparks to carve its way outward from my crotch and throughout my pelvis, then made a little circle with it—the sparks grew hotter and attacked me more fiercely. “(Holy—fuck,)” I gasped between machine gun breaths as I found myself overwhelmed by the pleasure, my habitual compulsion mindlessly accelerating my motions, jiggling my clit with my whole wrist, arm, and shoulder until every nerve in my body gently toasted beside the flames of excitement. I moaned continuously—until my mouth was smothered by someone else’s. I kissed Judith back as I thrust my crotch into my hand, eager, so incredibly eager to release that carnal energy that ever called to me from within—and even more eager to get her to do it for me. That energy grew and grew with each stroke, I felt my desire inflate, I grabbed Judith’s tit with my left hand and squeezed; I dragged my thumb across her hard nipple, causing her to shudder and moan into my mouth.

Then, unable to bear the thought of my first orgasm with a sex partner being at my own hand, I abandoned my clitoris, wrapped my fingers around her wrist, removed her hand from my cheek, guided it towards my crotch, and released it as I meekly whispered, “(Please.)”

So her fingers invaded my country and I surrendered to her every maneuver as she politely conquered me. She performed magnificently, vigorously ruling over my clit with a firm hand, and I let her know I was hers with my moaning and whining until time bled over into space, until I felt—

A fuse within me catches flame.

It burns and fizzes, throws its sparks.

As it grows shorter, closes in

To detonate my heart and mind

And spread my shrapnel ’cross the world,

Which folks make into effigies

To bury with their kin and pets.

I lived these lovely decades few

And died a million lives and am

Remembered by a billion more.

I rest, immortal as the earth

In which forever I’m entombed.

In my remains I plant a seed;

I germinate, extend my roots,

Foundation for self-masterpiece.

I sprout my stem into a trunk,

Proportions of which beggar awe.

My leaves spring forth

from branches high

And spread to eat the sun and moon.

My waist grows tall to reach the sky

Throughout a thousand years of life.

My cones will wait decades or more

To split and birth my progeny.

I am majestic, great and old,

I am Sequoia, Queen of Woods.

You laze within my shade, my child,

And marvel at my majesty;

So gaze upon this wondrous tree,

And know I am your Goddess.

My explosive death and gradual rebirth caught me completely off guard as it forced my back to arch, my legs to stiffen, and my toes to curl. Pleasure rained down like El Niño, flooding my mind with a euphoria that outdid tequila by a wide margin before slowly easing off, then dissipating, leaving me drenched but thriving beside a tranquil pond fit for dreaming, with a pleasant buzz permeating my body not unlike a very intense marijuana high. I sighed, perfectly content without alcohol for the first time in my post-pubescent life.

“Did you enjoy yourself?”

I smiled lazily and brushed her cheek. “All I can say is… I’ve been missing out half my life. I wish we’d met before I became a cop. Maybe you could’ve stopped me.” I softly dragged a fingertip up and down her cleavage as butterflies waltzed upon my skin. “Thank you, Judith.”

“You’re welcome, Andrea. Is this a queen? It feels bigger than mine.”

“King. I take up the whole bed when I sleep.”

“The size might come in handy.”

“For what?”

“I dunno, it just… might.”

A moment passed as I tried to figure out what she had in mind for the bed, but my mind wandered until I got to thinking about what my newfound sexuality meant, and how my frustration had been so easily released after a decade and a half of silent physiological readiness. But then, despite having so recently declared myself queen of my newly formed forest cult of bliss, I began to worry. Quietly, almost hoping that she wouldn’t hear me, I asked, “(Am I a… a slut?)” At that point in time, I still thought that sluttiness—like fatness—must be a trait undesirable to anyone and everyone who might get to know me.

“Not even 6 hours into our friendship you literally popped a button and ripped your shirt off in anticipation of having sex; when I refused that sex, you started vigorously jerking off in front of me… then grabbed me by the hand and begged me—with the saddest pair of eyes I’ve ever seen—begged me to finish you off. But you also have a very recent history of being a ‘chaste virgin’, so what happened now might’ve simply been a fluke. I would say your slut status is… debatable.”

“When you say it’s ‘debatable’, are you just being diplomatic, or is that your honest answer?”

She shrugged. “It’s my honest—‍”

I sat up and leaned over her. “Keeping in mind I was dead set on skipping the masturbation and just fucking you on the couch.”

“Good point. The evidence strongly favors you being a slut.”

I worried to myself, ‹I’m a slut. The rumors in school were true—it just took a couple decades for real evidence to surface.› Lightheadedness mixed with euphoria, yielding a short-lived anxiety. I wanted to tell her that I didn’t like the idea of being a slut.

My worries eased. ‹I asked for your honest opinion, and the verdict was ‘maybe’. But when you said the word…›

“Are you worried about being a slut?”

All the bullshit my classmates put me through in middle and high school floated in and out of my head before deflating and dropping to the floor, flaccid and impotent. I shrugged. “Eh. I’ll be fine, I guess.”

With concern she observed, “Based on how long it took you to answer that question… you don’t sound fine.”

‹In fact, your words hurt so little…› I realized silently, then concluded out loud, “Coming from you, it doesn’t bother me. I…” And so I asked myself, ‹Dare I say it?› then decided to admit to her, “I guess you’re just what I needed.” {‘Just what I needed…’}

“Is it the perfume that I wear?”

I grinned. “No, and ‘It’s not the ribbons in your hair.’”

She snorted and nodded with an appreciative smile, then sang, “Do you mind me coming here?”

I shook my head. “I don’t. And in case you’re worried about wasting all my time… my time has never been so well spent. You came along when I needed you most—‍”

Three words tickled my throat, three words that needed to hold their fucking horses… three words that would have better gone unspoken until much later in any other seemingly healthy relationship.

And in the case of our relationship, I could have avoided pushing Judith to run away—to abandon what we had made together, to leave me all alone with only tears for company—if only I had left those three small words unspoken till the end of time. If only—after those few days together, too beautiful to last and too brief to deserve import—I had held my tongue. If only—when her eyes caught fire, burning with fear—I had held back my emotions and refrained from speaking to her those cursèd words over and over and over again, driving her to flee from the woman I knew damn well she loved more than anything. If only—when she told me repeatedly that I was wrong about what kind of relationship we were in—I had closed my mouth and heeded her warnings, I could have saved myself from the greatest fear I had ever felt, which would also be the greatest despair I had ever suffered.

I hurt her when I finally said those words. I wish that I had found another sentence to tell her how I felt. Having in hindsight just an inkling of what she had gone through before me, I wish I hadn’t hurt her.

But the most horrible moment in our ephemeral romance did not yet come that night—a few fleeting days of bliss would pass before she threw open the door and took that single step without me.

“—though I wish you could’ve come to me sooner,” I said instead.

“Aw. That’s so sweet,” she said dearly, and… with… what I almost swore to myself was pity… and… sorrow… and… regret. “You’re… a very… sweet woman. I’m glad… I’m glad I came into your life at the moment I did, too.” She was silent, pensive for a few seconds, but then she looked like she had some kind of revelation and cleared her throat softly. “You know, I don’t even know your last name. Isn’t that crazy?”

“Bachman.”

“Lucas. So, it feels a little weird to be talking like we’ve known each other for months—and yet…” Even as she admitted this, she relaxed. She didn’t look or sound weirded out. The pity, the sorrow, the regret—all gone, replaced with the same sympathetic confidence she had maintained since the beginning. She seemed perfectly comfortable as we lay next to each other, our tits facing each other, my pussy out, one of my arms slung over her waist, the chewed-nail fingers on that hand gently ‘scratching’ her back, and the other five running through her hair, coating it with my juices; one of her hands cupping my face, thumb brushing my face cheek, the other hand squeezing my ass cheek—fingers feeling me, massaging me. Life had never been this good. I never would have imagined losing my job would bring me such pure and genuine joy. I never imagined losing her, nor the terror that would follow.

I kissed her for half a minute, then explained, “The shrink who told my bosses I was too disabled to work told me I needed friends and ordered me to befriend the next person I met… and that ended up being you.”

She stared into my eyes with a pale smile. We rested our lips for a moment, with only the jet-engine whir of my gaming console’s dust-clogged CPU fan to cut the silence. Then she hugged me tightly and sighed loudly. “I think that doctor was right. I think they were spot-on.”

Her embrace brought me comfort, of which I had both a cornucopia and a famine. “Definitely.”

She released me. “You need sleep. What time do you get up?”

I shrugged. “I don’t have a job anymore. What’s the point in having a schedule?”

“Schedules are good for your mental health. Do you take any medications?”

“Yes. Adderall.”

“Medicines like that work best when you take them at the same time every day. Having a schedule is imperative for you in particular.”

“Okay. I guess… 9 o’clock. I can get away with just a few hours of sleep, for a couple days at a time. One of the few things I had going for me in my quest to become a homicide detective.”

“A homicide detective?” Her face had changed. I asked myself, ‹Is that a twinkle in your eye?› It was. Excitement, curiosity, eureka—in her eye a puzzle piece slipped into place and completed a picture—a picture obscured from me. “Or any kind of detective?” she continued. “Might you solve… kidnappings?”

“Yes. I would prefer homicides specifically, just like Lieutenant Columbo, but he rescues his nephew’s wife from her kidnapper in No Time to Die. Not my favorite episode, but it’s fun to watch the lieutenant pull out all the stops and work at a breakneck pace and just be a hero in a way he can’t be if the victim is already dead. And… I really like seeing him in a tuxedo. Very handsome.”

“You really like Peter Falk. You got a crush on him or something?”

“He’s the only man I’ve ever had a crush on,” I told her, lying more to myself than to her.

She might have interpreted this as a joke, because she chuckled. “You think he’s sexy?”

“He was at his sexiest as Grandpa in The Princess Bride.”

At this fact she laughed with extra gusto, mirthful surprise pinching her cheeks. “Yeah, he was pretty sexy with gray hair! And in his trench coat I consider him a rare exception to ACAB. If you had become a detective… maybe I would have considered you an exception, too. Though I can’t say that any antifascist who takes themself seriously would agree with such an unorthodox attitude.”

“Well—I’m not a cop anymore, so it doesn’t matter what they would think about me hypothetically being a detective.”

“Well…” She curled a lock of my hair around her finger. “…you may find that a lot of people won’t agree with me that you’re not a bastard anymore, either. A significant minority might be of the attitude that ‘once you’re a cop, you’re always a cop’. But, in my humble opinion, that’s unfair. Nobody’s born perfect. People change.”

“I guess.”

She checked her phone. “That was a blast, but… it’s midnight-oh-six, and I set my alarm for bright-and-early-thirty.”

“Are you sure you can’t stay a little longer? We could maybe go for a quickie.”

She shook her head. “I’m still not ready. I don’t fuck until I know someone’s favorite song, movie, and book.”

“My ass you don’t! You just fingered me a few minutes ago.”

“I had a moment of weakness. The face you made was so… pathetically needy, I felt compelled to finish you off. I’m not letting that happen again—no more sex until you dish.”

“Favorite song: ‘Just What I Needed’ by The Cars; favorite movies: The Cheap Detective, The Princess Bride, and A Friend in Deed from Columbo (if you count feature-length television episodes as movies); and my dearest, most favorite book: Just One More Thing by Peter Falk.”

“‘Movie-s’? I said ‘mov-ie’, singular.”

“I like all three.”

“Singular.”

“Well, I like all three.”

A cruel smile danced across her mouth. “I guess we’ll just have to spend a little more time getting to know each other—and ourselves—before we take things to the next level. I’m going to bed.” She got off the bed and grabbed her shirt.

“Wait!”

“Gotta sleep.” She started putting her shirt on as she took a few steps towards the door.

“Give me a minute to think about it!”

“This is something you should know off the top of your head.” She took the last few strides to my front door.

“No, it isn’t! Movie lovers never have just one favorite!” She opened it and crossed the threshold, and I felt my compass begin to spin.

She asked over her shoulder, “But are you a movie lover?”

“I like a few movies, yes.”

“If you just like ‘a few’ movies, you’re just a casual viewer. And if you’re a casual viewer, you don’t have an excuse for not knowing your favorite. Bye!” She shut the door behind her.

I sprinted from the bed and flung open the door. She turned around and her eyes spread wide. “Coffee!”

“Uh-huh. You do realize that we’re on the balcony—and that you’re only wearing socks, don’t you?”

“Shit!” I ran back inside, wrapped a once-upon-a-time-white polyester-cotton blend Hallmart bed sheet I bought on clearance around myself like a cloak, and ran back out. “Well?”

“You’re getting up at 9, so… how about Holden’s Café at 10?”

“Works for me. Goodnight, Judith.” I waved with simultaneous unease and eagerness.

She shook her head and stepped most of the way into her apartment—but popped her head out and returned my “Goodnight!” before disappearing entirely.

I had been lost, but now was found—a firstborn wretch redeemed by a Providence that had been indwelling so close to me. For the first time in my life, I could see my path.

Coffee
and a Caper

Saturday, July 13th, 2024

Content Warnings:
Internalized Fatphobia;
Depression

As I woke and stretched, I decided I wanted to be prettier than I’d ever been in my entire life—a bar I estimated so low, given how homely I thought I was, that it should be trivial to clear.

I showered—and conditioned (for the first time in 9 months; I had to unclog the 6-year-old bottle’s nozzle with a floss pick)—I brushed and detangled my hair; I put on what I estimated to be a reasonable amount of makeup, including a bit of low-coverage foundation, rose eyeshadow, rouge, and my blood-red lipstick; I blasted myself with the (miraculously still-potent) perfume my mother bought me for my 21st birthday; I moisturized… I never moisturized, as evidenced by the hitherto factory-sealed container. There I was, incapable of working, yet preening myself like I was getting ready for the job interview of a lifetime, aiming to give my best possible impression. Because every impression I gave that woman mattered more than all its predecessors put together.

As ready as I was in body and in mind, my wardrobe was not. I hadn’t done my laundry in a month because I’d been in the midst of a moderate (verging-on-severe) depressive episode during which I worked, played Martian Marine, occasionally ate, and jerked myself off to sleep—and not a damn thing else.

Now that there was someone in my life whose opinion of my outward presentation I actually cared about, depression was no longer a valid excuse for skipping laundry. I needed all of my clothes to be freshly laundered from there on out. I smelled everything in my closet, and nearly all of it had a… let’s just say it had a detectable hint of sweat—except for the dress my mother had given me for my 21st birthday, the one I had worn only twice: first, on said birthday, when we both went to a bar and got plastered and remained plastered from noon to noon; and last, to her funeral a month later, because even back then it was the closest thing to a ‘formal’ outfit I had in my wardrobe. (In hindsight, I really ought to have bought something more appropriate for such a solemn occasion, but in my defense I was mentally disabled by my grief.) And since I hadn’t worn it since I last had it dry-cleaned a week after the funeral, it still smelled more-or-less freshly laundered. It was an off-the-shoulder knee-length black satin dress with a slit down the side that exposed my plus-size left thigh, and a plunging lace-up neckline that brought further unwanted attention to my already excessive cleavage. I dreaded all the eyes that would be wandering over my body, ogling all the fat stubbornly clinging to my skeleton, but I had no other options. I either wore the dress, or I wore my natural perfume.

What I did not anticipate was the opinion that it might have… somehow… actually… looked… good on me?

“Look at you! Ready for the show, Elvira!” Judith expressed her approval as she approached the booth I’d claimed for us, loudly enough for the entire café to hear.

“Um… ‘the show’?”

She sustained the unmasked part of her grin in the corner of her eyes as she took her seat on the opposing bench. “That’s a pretty fancy dress you got on, and it’s awfully flattering to your cleavage.”

I grimaced severely enough that it likely escaped my own mask. “I’m overdressed, aren’t I?”

She ignored her phone as it sounded, ‘(Hoot hoot hoot!)’ “I’m wearing my 1979 CaliFFornia World Music Festival tee, riddled with holes…”

Her shirt was so worn out and patched up that it was hard to tell that it had once upon a time been a concert tee—I was able to make out a crinkled blue orb covered in illegible cursive surrounded by four blobs of color that had once, long ago, been images of I-knew-not-what.

“…and the pants that I was wearing when I caught a mild case of bicycle-induced road rash 20 years ago…”

The knees of her subtly-flaring brown corduroy bell-bottoms had seen better days.

“…and a pair of Chucks held together by Shoe Goo and embroidery floss.”

Last of all, her faded red canvas high-top All-Stars looked cobbled together from multiple donor shoes.

(Her floral deodorant caught my nose, overpowering but pleasant—though I could still smell that espresso musk beneath it—and I would much rather sniff a big cup of Ethiopian blend medium roast than some sissy flowers.)

She looked and smelled magnificent in spite of how incredibly casual and beat-up her outfit was.

“So, with these duds, would you say I’m underdressed?”

“If you’d known today was Band T-shirt Day,” suggested Shosh, “you could’ve worn your Mötley Crüe tee, too.” I glanced over and saw that she was indeed wearing her own 2005 Carnival of Sins tour shirt.

I sighed. “I would have liked something a little more casual…”

Judith chuckled. “I can’t imagine being any more casual than I already am!”

“I suppose I can’t either. Me, on the other hand… I wish casual was an option, but all my T-shirts are dirty. This was the only clean thing in my closet. Everything else… smells like…” I finished the sentence with a shamed whisper: “(B.O.)”

“Did you forget to do your laundry?” asked Judith.

“Neglected to. Depression. Laziness.”

“Sounds about right.” Her phone hooted again. “Except your so-called laziness—don’t insult yourself.”

Our waiter arrived wearing jeans with gently torn knees and a T-shirt depicting a cartoonish (yet, nevertheless, revolting) The Human Centipede-inspired take on The Very Hungry Caterpillar, captioned ‘The Very Human Caterpillar’—further highlighting how overdressed I was. “Good morning, ladies, can I start you off with anything to drink?”

“Four shots of espresso in a coffee mug,” said my new ‘fuckbuddy’ who had fucked me but whom I had yet to fuck, “and… the senior biscuits and gravy.”

I was struck by the realization that ‹Christ, she’s a senior. I’m hanging out with an older woman. Most people would probably think I’m weird. But why should I agree? She’s pretty, she’s nice, I like her, and knowing that she’s more than two decades my senior doesn’t make me uncomfortable. I’m happy to spend time with her. Her age, if anything, means she probably has a personality that has aged like a bottle of The Last Drop No. 29 scotch, and lots of experience to share. Including sex experience. Sexperience.›

Shosh caught me admiring my new friend, then asked, “Is she your… type?”

I nodded. “An appetizing and satisfying dish.”

Our waiter examined Judith skeptically. “You’re 57?”

“She could be your age,” I couldn’t help quipping to Shosh.

The server raised an eyebrow.

“Ha!” Judith laughed and replied in amusement, “Nice compliment.” She showed our server her driver’s license.

“She’s youthful, yeah,” replied Shosh, “but I dunno about looking 40. Maybe halfway between that and her actual age.”

He looked at her license, nodded, and smiled politely. “A belated ‘happy birthday’ to you, Ma’am. And you, Miss?” He waited for me.

“Um…” I obsessed over his choice of words. ‹She’s a ‘Ma’am’ to him, I’m a ‘Miss’…›

“Bring me one-a everything,” joked Shosh.

I rolled my eyes. “Good luck eating all that. Hmm… Just a sec, almost there…”

“Nah, I’m kidding, I ain’t paying for that. I’ll take the Gouda omelet, French toast with strawberry sauce, maple sausage links and… I’m watching my carbs, so I’ll take a fruit bowl instead of the home fries.”

“Their Gouda omelet actually sounds pretty good, but I’m… thinking… a flat white, and… a short stack of pancakes. That’s all.”

Shosh quickly injected, “I changed my mind, I’ll have what she’s having.”

“You got it, boss.” He took our menus and left, and Judith’s phone tried again, futilely, to get her attention.

“What’s a ‘flat white’?” asked Shosh.

“Espresso with steamed milk.”

“Which I’m sure is delectable,” said Judith, “but I prefer my espresso unadulterated.”

My grin escaped my mask through my eyes. “I suppose avoiding adulteration is a safe policy. Though I’m not one to tell people what kinds of forbidden mixtures they may partake of when nobody’s looking.”

She nodded and her eyes grinned back. “Yes, very safe. But… I will admit to indulging in forbidden mixtures from time to time.”

I giggled. Shosh rolled her eyes.

Even though I was okay—if not pleased—with Judith being so much older, the age gap still seemed a little… ‘novel’ is a gentle word to describe it, albeit a misleading choice given the frequency with which the word ‘mature’ appeared in my search history and my browser homepage being set to www.NubileGILFs.vidz. I leaned towards her and smiled playfully. “Judith… I’m kind of reeling from the fact that I’m… special friends with someone mature enough to order off the senior menu.”

“I’ve had the right to order old people food for 2 years, now. I thought that wouldn’t bother you. Is the age difference suddenly a deal-breaker?” Her eyes and tone of voice were not playful, as mine had been—rather, they made it clear that I was welcome to say ‘yes’, and in that case, she would rectify the inconvenience of her presence by leaving me with the bill and the displeasure of never seeing her again.

I chuckled just a little nervously. “No, absolutely not! I was just saying that I find the age difference… amusing. I’ve been around the sun enough times to be with someone old enough to be my mother. I like you. You’re sexy. And you’ve done a lot for me in the few hours we’ve known each other.” I descended into thought. ‹I wonder if you realize just how alive you make me feel, if you realize that you’ve cured my depression, that you’ve brought out something that I never thought I had inside me. You probably have no idea. And I’m not sure I should tell you.›

“And I can do even more. I can help you with your laundry, if you’d like.” Another three hoots from her phone, quickly followed by more.

My insides tied themselves into one big knot. “You’d do that?”

“Sure.”

“I don’t want to inconvenience you.”

“We’re friends.”

“Yes, we are indeed friends…” ‹I wonder if things might be even better if we were more than friends…›

“Friends help each other out. And I’m guessing you’re feeling overwhelmed by how much needs to be washed.” ‘(Look at me!)’ cried her phone in owlish.

I nodded. “On the bright side, I don’t need to clean my uniforms, I can just burn ’em.”

‘(Read your hoots!)’ “No way! I’ll punk ’em up and wear ’em. Or buy a badge—or steal one—and impersonate a cop.”

Shosh cackled.

“The first idea sounds fun, the second sounds very, very poorly advised.”

“It isn’t ‘poorly advised’, it’s fucking hilarious!” opined Shosh.

“I could put on lots of makeup to hide my identity,” suggested Judith. “Who doesn’t find a clown dressed like a jackboot amusing?”

“It isn’t ‘hilarious’, it’s dangerous.”

“I’m joking,” said Judith.

I rolled my eyes. “Please promise me you won’t do it.”

‘(Hoo-hoo-hoot hoot hoot!)’ “Seriously?”

“Yes. Promise me.”

“Alright, I promise.” ‘(Hoot-hoot-hoot! Very urgent!)’ “Okay, my phone is driving me nuts.” She glanced at the lock screen. “I’ve gotten 67 hoots since last night. Gonna silence it.”

“I don’t mind you checking them.”

“We’re having a conversation.”

“About what?”

“Impersonating cops.”

“Which you’ve promised not to do, so the discussion is over. What else do you want to talk about?”

“Uhm… Well, everything that’s coming to mind is NC-17 or higher, but we’re in public.”

“I’d be delighted to talk about naughty things when we have some privacy, so hold onto them for later. If you’re getting bombarded with so many hoots, it could be something important.”

She shrugged and checked Hootr. “Buncha quote hoots tagging me.” Her eyes grew. “(Christ.) Andy, listen to this!”

I really liked her calling me ‘Andy’. “I’m listening.”

“This is coming from your ex-employer’s Public Information account. ‘Missing person, Santa Virginia: Alexander Brookvale was reported missing Wednesday when he failed to return home that evening.’ Holy cow! Can ya believe it?”

“Oh. Him.”

“So you’ve heard of him.”

“My coworkers never shut up about how much they hate his guts.”

She eyed me with what felt like an unfair amount of suspicion. “Do you feel the same way?”

“Nah, I hope he turns up alive and unscathed. I’m just sick of overhearing them badmouthing him. They think he’s the spawn of Satan, but to me his ideas seem perfectly reasonable, and his leadership and charisma is sort of… inspiring. I even follow him on Hootr.”

“Really? Would you consider yourself an antifascist?”

“I… guess… if I was allowed to call myself one? I’ve been thinking about going to rallies or marches, but I either don’t have the energy—or ‘the spoons’, I could say—or I’m anxious about the crowds. And when neither of those things is a problem, I remember that I’m a cop, and that if I’m found out I’ll be excluded from society the way anti-vaxxers ought to be.”

She shook her head. “How the hell does a decent woman like you become a pig?”

“Don’t call her a ‘pig’,” demanded Shosh. “Yeah, there are a few bad cops, but you know she was one of the good ones.”

We paused our conversation while the server doled out our coffee and food, then took off our masks once he was gone.

I blew on my flat white as he left, then explained, “We all know there are no good cops. I simply had delusions of heroism.” I took a sip…

…just as Judith put her espresso down. “And that’s your story?”

“The same as every other would-be good cop. Some of us want to do good, but we don’t know how. Or when we do realize we’re in the wrong profession to be doing good, we’re afraid to sacrifice something even more important than our incomes.”

“And what’s that?”

“The one thing more important than anything else, more than love or money or sex or drugs or sleep.” I nodded at her phone. “Is there anything else after the hoot?”

“Is there something you’re hiding, Andy?”

“Yes, but it’s nothing you shouldn’t have figured out by now. Let’s hear more about this disappearance.”

“Na-na-na, finish explaining yourself. What’s this thing that’s ‘more important than anything else’ you’re not talking about?”

“Our capital-I Identity.”

“Ego?”

I nodded.

“It’s that ingrained?”

“I wanted, more than anything, to be a real-life hero. Validation of our heroism is what we ‘good cops’ all crave. And even a lot of the rotten ones see themselves as heroes.”

“‘Wanted’, past tense—you don’t want it anymore?”

“I’m trying to change my Identity so that it doesn’t rely on being a cop.” She nodded. “That said, yes, my identity will be ‘cop’ for a while, until I’ve fully come to accept that I no longer have a badge and accept that I will never wear one again. As for wanting to be a hero… I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to let go of that, even if moving on is the only way to keep my sanity.”

“You have a rough road ahead of you—but you don’t have to give up being a hero. The fact that cops can’t actually be heroes doesn’t mean that heroes don’t exist at all. You just need to tweak your definition of ‘hero’ to include other possible careers.”

“She’s right,” said Shosh with a sigh. “Just because you don’t wanna be a police officer anymore doesn’t mean you can’t do great things.”

I shrugged dismissively. “Maybe y’all’re right. Judith, what else does the rest of the thread say?”

She (hmm)ed with a hint of dissatisfaction, but continued, “‘Brookvale was last seen Wednesday morning by his wife, Geraldine Pasteur, as he left their apartment in Sunnyvale to meet with an unidentified social justice group.’ Here ‘social justice’ is in skepticism quotes, of course. Today’s Saturday. The report was filed 3 days ago, and it’s just coming to the public’s attention this morning? That’s negligent.”

“That is extremely unusual. The first 72 hours of a disappearance are the most critical in finding a missing person alive and unharmed. SOP for these cases is to get the word out ASAP, in the news and on social media within minutes of the report being filed. Maybe the timestamp on the post is wrong, or there could’ve been some kind of computer glitch or human error to explain the delay. Let’s check for updates.”

We ate and drank as we scrolled through the SVPD’s news feed and social media accounts, looking for updates on Brookvale’s disappearance, but in the crucial 60 or so hours since the report was originally filed with the department, nothing else had been shared with the public.

“Alex hasn’t been seen for two-and-a-half days,” I pointed out. “His disappearance was announced as the survival window is hours away from closing, and there haven’t been any updates since then… This situation is very strange.”

Judith stroked her chin curiously as she hummed. “Hmm… Hey, Andrea…”

“Yes?”

“You like solving mysteries, don’t you?” she asked with a knowing glimmer in her eye.

“I’ve never had the opportunity to solve a real one, but I like to think I do.”

“Well, Sherlock… here’s your ‘real one’.”

An invisible tail, puffed up like a bottle brush, sprouted from my ass and swished side-to-side; my ears, like a sheep hound’s, swiveled the better to hear her; my pupils dilated in anticipation of the words that would give me an opportunity to earn me a bone—as I replied, not the least bit convincingly, “(This?) Oh, no, definitely not, I don’t want to interfere with an official investigation…” I sipped my flat white to force myself not to grin.

“What investigation?”

“Yeah, alright, that’s true, the cops aren’t doing jack squat.” I caught myself falling for the temptation. “But that doesn’t mean his disappearance will go unnoticed. SVPD probably just… hasn’t had a chance to… do anything… about it. Too busy with other cases. Inundated.” Alexander Brookvale was the very last person any law enforcement agency was going to put any effort into saving.

“Do you really believe that?” Obviously, to you, and probably to her, I didn’t, but I manufactured a naïve shrug anyway. “You are aware that Alex wants to defund the SVPD,” she informed the ex-cop who had an intimate familiarity with the culture of that very agency including its passionate and absolutely thorough loathing for our missing man because of his efforts to curb the department’s power and resources. “They do not want to save him from danger—we both know that they would actually prefer to leave him to his fate.”

I asked myself, ‹Should I be delicate?› I leaned forwards and explained in a low voice (with bated giddiness), “(You may be right. There are a few who might make the best of an opportunity to harm him… and they have made their presence known before. Last time I was doing my pistol quals, someone replaced all the paper targets with Brookvale’s mug shot. I had to schedule a make-up exam because—not only was I unable to pull the trigger, I couldn’t even point my gun in his general direction.)”

“Christ, they really did that?”

With a Girl Scout salute, I assured her, “I would never say anything about the SVPD that I didn’t know for certain to be true.”

She rolled her eyes. “Cops are fucking insane. Did anyone get in trouble?”

“Everyone except my old captain—Peter Hobarth—found it hilarious. I was the one who snitched to him, told him that it was disrespectful and unprofessional and that if the public caught wind of it, we’d have a PR nightmare. The targets were incinerated in 5 minutes flat, but the whole incident was swept under the rug.”

“The bastard didn’t get anybody in trouble.”

“Ehh… If he tried to get anybody in trouble, he probably would have faced retaliation. As for being a ‘bastard’, he was… kind to me. I struggled to meet expectations for 9 years, and doing my best for the next 2 burned me out for the last leg of my career. But he tried his damnedest to accommodate me the whole time.”

“Correction: considerate bastard.”

I shrugged. “I think he cares. If Hobarth was captain of the Crimes Against Persons Squad—they’re the ones who handle missing person cases, as well as criminal threats, assaults, sex crimes, homicides, harassment, stalking, and DV—I think our man would have been found by now. There aren’t any good cops, but there are a few with good intentions.”

Her eyebrows questioned my assertion momentarily, but she quickly shrugged her doubt away. “So he’s a good little piggy… Maybe they should fire him so he can stop being a bastard.”

I rolled my eyes. “If only he weren’t so damn good at his job, they might. He’s the reason I was able to hang from the department’s leg like a leech for so long.”

“Hmm. I’m loath to suggest that you continue associating with any cops, but this one shiny apple in the spoiled bunch… might be helpful. But back to Alex’s case; whadaya say? Our gone guy is hopeless without a citizen detective coming to his rescue.”

“(Citizen detective…)” I whispered, and the possibilities flashed through my mind:

‹Andrea Bachman, Citizen Detective—

‹Andrea Bachman, Investigative Journalist—

‹Andrea Bachman, Private Investigator—

‹Ah… Maybe something a little shorter, a little snappier… Even if it’s obvious:

‹Bachman, P.I.›

My diaphragm shuddered. “I dunno…”

‹If I take this path, my ego will inflate to outclass the Hindenburg.

‹But I want it. And if I want it, I must do it.

‹Yet… I want it for the same reasons I became a cop.› “(I’d be doing it for myself,)” I muttered.

Shosh nudged my shoulder and asked, “If you aren’t for yourself, who is for you?”

I replied, audibly only to Shosh, “(Judith…)”

“She’s a big help, but she isn’t gonna do everything for you. Who is for you?”

I quietly admitted to her, “(It must be me.)”

“Correct. When you are for yourself, what are you?”

I shook my head and mumbled, “(I don’t know.)”

“What do you feel you must do?”

I admitted, “(Someone needs to find him. But…)”

“If not now, when?”

I shook my head again. “(I don’t know…)”

“His life could be in danger. If not now, when?”

I cursed almost silently, “(Shit…)”

“How much time does he have, Esti? A lot, a little?”

I explained under my breath, “(Probably… days, hours, none. Every second counts in a missing person case.)”

“I’ll ask you again: If not now, when?”

The answers to her questions crystallized, and I could see the path I must follow. ‹Unless somebody else has already put in the effort to organize an investigation, I’m his only hope. My heart is telling me that finding him is what I was placed on God’s Earth to do. I cannot continue denying what I must become—what I am:

‹I’m a God damn detective.›

I feigned reluctance as I replied, “Oh, fine. I’ll do it, Judith. I’m really not qualified, and I’m still recovering emotionally from being fired. I’ll get started after I finish my pancakes.” I stifled my giddiness as I forced myself to take a bite—not too greedily, not too hastily, though a little too tremulously—and resolved to wait until the meal was over to get started on my new job.

“You’re not fooling me,” said Judith. “I know you want to do this more than anything else.”

“No, this mystery is really inconvenient. My detective days were over before they could even begin.” My heart vibrated in anticipation.

She shook her head and smiled. “Bullshit.”

“I’m supposed to be retiring, not chasing dreams. I’m not a hero.”

Visions from God smashed into my head, one after another after another. {The subject proves elusive as I tail them, taking circuitous routes and unexpected turns on the way to wherever it is they’re going—they lose me. But all is not hopeless. I skulk down a damp and dark alley to meet a self-proclaimed friend of the subject to find out where they go after work. They earn themselves a Benjamin for their trouble—a business expense the client will be covering when it’s time to pay the bill. I venture into the Blind Owl—a seedy dive bar on the East Side—where the subject orders a Boilermaker with a maraschino cherry on top. A ‘stranger’, already seated a couple stools over, abandons their drink, joins the subject, and orders the same bizarre cocktail—then almost at once departs for the back of the bar. Exactly 30 seconds later, the subject follows. I tiptoe towards the back door and crack it. It’s dark outside, and I don’t hear any people sounds. As I sneak around the corner, the subject and drinking buddy are quietly discussing prices. Once the deal has been settled, the subject hands over an envelope in exchange for a hundred stack. The two begin to go their separate ways. “Not so fast,” I tell them. They stop dead in their tracks. “I have some questions—for both of you.”

{The IP trace brings me to a Garlic router endpoint, which would normally be the end of the road for me—but one of my underground contacts owes me a favor, and I’m willing to spend it for the sake of such a lucrative case. Once they’ve cracked the entry point and given me the IP address of the client who tunneled through it, I’m able to trace it to an Internet service provider on the East Side. A little ‘gentle persuasion’ with the ISP—they wouldn’t enjoy a bunch of feds rifling through their records if I had to ask the FBI to investigate a breach of the CFAA—yields the physical address of the customer to whom they assigned the IP. I knock on the perp’s door and introduce myself: “Good evening, I’m a representative of one of your ‘customers’. My employers are willing to refrain from pressing charges against you if you hand over all your blackmail material.”

{“I’m afraid they don’t love me anymore. They spend all their time on business trips, they decline dates, we haven’t had a vacation together since our honeymoon. I’m afraid… I’m afraid they might be cheating on me.” “You just relax while I get to the bottom of this,” I tell them. I tail one half of the pair of suspected adulterers to their rendezvous place in a hotel. A Benny slid across the front desk earns me their room number. From a building across the street I snap lurid photographs of the lovers in media res through a telephoto lens, capturing every square millimeter of their passion. Careless, I think to myself, making love with the drapes open. I follow the other lover home, where I convince them to divulge their name with my census-taker impersonation. “I’m sorry,” I tell my client as I hand over the dossier. I rest one comforting hand on the shoulder of the crying spouse as the other hand greedily accepts my pay…}

I was ready to go off like fireworks dropped in a bonfire.

“Retirement is when people chase their dreams,” she pointed out.

I couldn’t keep up the façade any longer and my eager words tumbled from my mouth as one long word: “Good point we need to get to it right away work and eat at the same time we need to trace his footsteps from the moment he was last seen do we have any idea where he was going that morning?”

She blinked. “Can you repeat that?”

“We… need… to… retrace… his steps,” I explained at as moderate a pace as I could. “Do we have any specific idea where he was going that morning?”

“Ah. All we know is he went to a ‘social justice group’ meeting.”

“And the hoot said ‘unidentified’. Which group could it be?”

“No clue, there are like a million groups with a presence in this city.”

“And from what I’ve seen of his hoots over the years… our man has his finger in damn near everyone’s pie.” I mentally savored my situation: ‹Yes… This tangled tale is gonna take street smarts and elbow grease to unravel. Of which I must admit I don’t have much, but I can get some real quick if I put my nose to the grindstone.›

“He sure does, and people listen to him. He is, without a doubt, the most influential man living in this city.”

I spoke through a bite of syrup-drenched pancake. “Now I’m wondering about the fact that he has so many friends—and still nobody’s spotted him the whole time he’s been missing. Hmm.”

“Could have something to do with the fact he has just as many enemies.”

‹I shoulda thought of that,› I thought to myself; to her I observed, “With a résumé like his… I shouldn’t be surprised. We’re looking for a man who has a lot of anti-antifa anti-fans—I should just say ‘reactionary haters’—a man who said goodbye to his family then simply vanished without a trace. It smells like a kidnapping to me.” I kept my pessimism to myself, though. ‹Best case scenario. Worst case… we don’t think about worst cases until they’re staring us straight in the eye without blinking… even if those are more exciting and dramatic.›

“Crap. That’s what I was afraid of.”

“But we won’t know what happened until we dig a little bit deeper. And the most obvious place to dig is the spouse. 99 percent of the time, the spouse knows something that’ll change the rules of the game—if you can persuade them to cough it up.” I mused to myself, ‹I’m willing to bet it’ll be easy enough to find and get some kind of story out of them, but getting them to give up the real gems can often be a challenge.› “I imagine doing that might take a little bit of effort, though.”

She checked her watch. “10:40. Come on.” She got up. “Let’s get to it.”

I stood, plenty eager to get started, but before we departed I needed to know, “Where are we going?”

“To see Geraldine Pasteur.”

“We don’t know their address.”

“Sunnyvale.”

“There are thousands of houses in Sunnyvale, though.”

“She doesn’t live in ‘a house’.”

“Right, the PIU hoot mentioned an apartment. Good catch. Well, there still hafta be at least… Actually, I don’t think I’ve ever seen any apartment complexes in Sunnyvale.”

“There’s exactly one: Ingram Suites.”

“That narrows it down. I suppose if it’s small enough, we’ll be able to canvass the entire building in a few hours.”

“Exactly.”

“No time to waste.” I dropped a few twenties on the table to cover the meal and tip.

“I can pay for my own food.”

“You can pay for lunch,” I suggested.

“That works. You take the bus?” she asked me as we exited the cafe.

“No, I have a car.”

“Great! That’ll be way faster.” We made our way to Matteo’s parking structure and then my car. “What… is that?”

“She’s my car.”

“It’s ancient.”

“Older than me. Younger than you—by over two decades.”

Shosh bursted into laughter and I grinned as I unlocked Judith’s door.

Judith narrowed her eyes. “Ha. Ha. It’s obviously from the ’80s. I see from the trunk ornament that it’s a BMW… but what kind of BMW is it?” She appraised the immaculate cream interior as she took her seat.

“She’s a 1988 M6 with all factory parts—except the banana-yellow paint job…” I got behind the wheel and took a moment to appreciate her luxurious hand-stitched Nappa leather upholstery. “…for which she was dubbed ‘Banana Shark’.”

“How can you afford the payments for the massive loan you needed to buy this monstrosity—on a meter maid’s salary? You couldn’a been making very much.”

“She was my mother’s.” I twisted the key in her ignition and her Bavarian Mountain Hound 3.5 liter inline-6—as quietly, nimbly, gayly as a butterfly—growled to life. “She likes older cars. She saw the M6 in someone’s driveway one day, wanted to buy her, asked the owner, and he decided he didn’t want her anymore. He sold her to my mother at half the market value—which was way less than what these very rare beauties are worth nowadays—and hooked her up with a paint shop who gave her a deal on the… questionable coat of yellow.”

“‘Questionable’? What color would you have painted it?” asked an offended Shosh.

“I’d’ve left it black.”

“Black always looks good,” opined Judith.

“Black is boring,” insisted Shosh.

“Black is classy,” I insisted back.

“Exactly,” said Judith.

“It looks better in yellow.”

“The yellow is just fine, but I prefer black.”

“Yeah, it isn’t ugly, but it wouldn’t be my first choice,” said Judith.

“I’ll admit the particular shade of yellow your old lady went with wasn’t the best choice,” said Shosh.

“I never mentioned my feelings on the banana yellow in the past, that it might not be the most stylish shade, because I do think it has character, and while I would’ve preferred to keep the color the way it was, I’ve never given any thought to repainting her.”

“You promise not to?”

“I assure you, if the paint gets scratched, the new job will match what it is now as closely as the shop can get it. Anyways, Judith, back to her history… All of this happened a few weeks before I graduated high school, by which time the car was already 20 years old. My mother claimed that if she took good enough care of her, Banana Shark would outlive her.”

“And she… gave you the car as a graduation gift?” asked Judith.

“I inherited Banana Shark when she passed. 2011.”

With appropriate solemnity, she observed, “You were young. So was she.”

I backed out of my spot. “August 12th, precisely 2 months shy of the big four-oh. I remember receiving the news like it was yesterday.” I noticed Shosh sitting in the back seat in discomforted silence, doing her best to keep her mouth shut to avoid saying anything that might upset me. I was in a surprisingly good mood, so I smiled at her through my rearview mirror and told her, “It was a long time ago, you don’t need to be so serious about it. We can even joke about it, to lighten the mood. There’s no reason for you to be carrying my grief on your back.”

“Um. I don’t know if I’m comfortable…” replied Judith.

“Okay,” Shosh ventured cautiously. “Why did your ma cross the road?”

It took a little bit of thought for the punchline to burst from my mouth amid laughter. “To get to the other side!”

“Are you alright, Andy?” asked Judith, her voice thick with a mixture of confusion and concern.

“I’m just fine. She was killed crossing the street, so… ‘Why did my mother cross the road?’”

“I’ll bite. Why did she cross the road?”

“‘To get to the other side!’” I grinned.

“I don’t get it.”

“Here ‘the other side’ is referring either to the other side of the street, literally, or to the afterlife, metaphorically.”

“O—kay… The punchline is there, but my laughter isn’t.”

“Yeah—I—it’s a tough subject for me and I don’t want to be a downer about it, so—we’re trying to lighten the mood for once.” I shifted into first gear and departed the parking structure for a new topic before I could return to feeling morose about the death that had completely obliterated the remaining shards of my already recently shattered life, or guilty for laughing at Shosh’s joke about the most soul-crushing loss a human being had ever survived (or so it was in my opinion). “Let’s stop—‍” Two words into switching gears, I was already feeling like an asshole. “—let’s stop talking about it, let’s move onto something… not… something that isn’t making light of losing her. I got it. What do you do for work?” At that precise moment, we just happened to pass a Kismet Kush dispensary. “Oh! Lemme guess: a dispensary.”

“In a manner of speaking.”

“In what ‘manner of speaking’?”

“I’m an ‘independent’ dealer.”

“So… unlicensed.”

“Breakin’ the law, breakin’ the law!” she growled rhythmically.

“Having someone next door I can buy stuff from should be handy. Discount?”

“For you… free.” Quickly, while raising a finger with a caveat wrapped around it, she added, “Within reason.”

“Nice! I won’t be greedy. Just flower, or do you have pre-rolls and edibles? I’ve always wanted to get into edibles, but I want to try homemade brownies, not the factory-made candy crap they sell at dispensaries. They all taste like shit, and I want the classic ‘special brownie’ experience.”

“A cop who starts smoking pot as soon as she loses her badge? I shouldn’t be surprised.” I had started as soon as I lost the last of my self-respect, the day I was reassigned to Parking Enforcement, having flunked out of Patrol and Reconnaissance after 6 months of underperformance. “Well, you’re in luck. My supplier gives me exclusive access to strains stronger than anything on the market—some of them make Godfather OG taste like parsley—I roll joints and blunts to order, I make my own bubble hash and cannabutter, and I bake brownies from scratch—not from a box—and mix them to order, so if you like blondies—my favorite—or chocolate chips or butterscotch or walnuts or M&Ms or espresso powder or anything else added in, or if you have a specific strain in mind, just ask.”

“Would you cook with LSD?”

“Are you asking about using the cannabis strain named after LSD in your baked goods, or are you asking whether I would bake while becoming one with alien gods, or are you saying you want to meet the alien gods yourself?”

“Well, I was thinking of the strain, but now that you ask…”

She huffed in amusement. “I can procure a sheet for you—if you’re feeling super adventurous—but you don’t strike me as the hallucinogen type.”

We passed a Jack for the fourth time that ride, reassuring me I had not unintentionally left Southern California. I leaned towards her and loudly whispered, “For the past month, I’ve been microdosing shrooms.”

“Really? While you were still a cop?”

“Yep. I read they can help with depression.”

“Are they working?”

I shrugged. “I really can’t tell whether they’re making a difference. But, ever since my cubensis fruited, I’ve been tempted to… eat a whole mushroom, just to see where it takes me.”

“I’ll be damned. You’re full of surprises, Andy. If you ever need a trip sitter for your psychonautical voyages, I’ll gladly keep you entertained and safe from bad trips.”

“I appreciate that, and I do plan on taking you up on your offer, once I finally work up the courage to completely and irreversibly fuck up my central nervous system.”

“You’re welcome, and take your time. I suggest you wait until you’re at least my age to rearrange your brain cells. Keep driving past Orange, take a left onto Olive.”

I followed her directions, passing the third Del Taco of our journey, and we arrived at a 5-story building that ‘towered’ above the surrounding 1- and 2-story homes. “How come I’ve never seen this place before?” I asked as we got out of the car.

“Maybe you don’t explore the city enough.”

“Hm. Maybe. That’ll have to change if I’m gonna be a P.I.” The front door was sturdy enough to withstand the scratched and painted vandalism consisting of the usual racist, queerphobic, anti-Arab, and anti-Jewish symbols and remarks. “Based on all the colorful swastikas decorating the entrance, I believe we have found the residence of the city’s leading antifascist.”

“And this mess is fresh,” she observed.

“How would you know that?”

“I was here Wednesday morning, and the door was spotless then.”

“Delivery?”

“An astute deduction, Miss Bachman,” she said in a semi-convincing old boy English accent.

“Thanks! Well, from the looks of it, we aren’t the first to figure out where they live.” I checked the tenant call panel for either ‘Brookvale’ or ‘Pasteur’ and found both on the same label, next to a number. “Room 302.”

“Good work,” she complimented me.

“Not really, just looking in the obvious places first.”

“You’re on your first case. When you’re learning to walk, you need to give yourself credit every time you take a step, no matter how short the stride, no matter how easy it was, whether forwards or even backwards—you’ll keep yourself motivated that way. When you’re learning to run, then you stop rewarding yourself for the little things. Hmm…” She pondered the vandalism. “Based on the horrid abuse this door has suffered, I’m guessing Geraldine isn’t gonna be answering the door for strangers.” She selected one of the other call buttons instead… “So we’ll need somebody else’s help.” …and pressed it. “Hopefully my inside man is home.”

It rang 11 times before a sleepy voice answered. “Hullo?”

“Hey, Chance, it’s Lola. I have another client in the building, but he isn’t answering his intercom. Let me in?”

The door clicked and buzzed, and we made our way in and up to the third floor. Judith rang the doorbell to 302, and a minute later we heard the sounds of locks clacking and clicking before the door slowly swung inwards, stopping before the chain protecting the apartment’s inhabitant could be pulled taut.

“I’m not interested in joining your cult,” said a very shaky feminine tenor. “The sign says, ‘No solicitors’…” Indeed, it did. “…and that includes Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Scientologists, Amway, and Hare Krishnas.”

‹Could this be my femme fatale?› I tried to find the right words to introduce myself, strong words that would establish that I was serious and wouldn’t accept dishonesty or intentional omission or attempts to seduce or betray me or any other funny business, unless it was narratively compelling or the product of a deliciously devious intellect willing to engage me in a battle of the minds, clever fox against persistent hound… but I was too excited to think straight.

I choked.

Well-Read Means
Well-Worn

“Judith Lucas and Andrea Bachman, Private Investigators,” replied Judith, before I could find words to say or the composure to say them. It pleased me that she was calling herself my colleague.

“I didn’t call for you,” murmured a voice as exhausted as it was anxious.

At that very moment I observed that a private investigator’s reliance on government agencies for job-critical resources creates a major conflict of interest in a case where the missing man is hated by one of the agencies that provide those resources—so I asked, “Did you call for any P.I.s?”

She shut the door.

“We aren’t cops!” I shouted through the thick wood. “And we know better than to work with them!” A truth that—against our ethical judgment—did not survive the weekend.

The chain clinked and clattered, then the door opened all the way. Beyond it stood a woman midway in height between me and Judith, around 5′7″, hair shaved to fuzz, soft features fit for celluloid marred only by a hint of despair’s shadow along her jaw and upper lip, and a robe with red and orange flowers—straight out of the blessed ’70s—cinched tight around her waist. She might have been the victim’s tortured wife in a how-catch-em; she could be an innocent witness… or, just as easily, the devious guest star. Her thumbnail-chewing implied an excess of anxiety, and from her tense, pointed posture I inferred that she was no less prepared to slam the door on us and scream for help. If she was acting, she was very good at it. Most Columbo villains could fool the average viewer who missed the first half-hour during which the who, why, and how of the crime had been revealed. She couldn’t fool me, though. I’d seen every episode a hundred times, I knew every trick in the murderer’s handbook. I was an expert.

Of course… There was still the possibility that this had not been a murder, so all the investigative skills I had learned by observing the master sleuth’s work might well be useless.

Even so, I decided to treat her as an innocent witness for the time being. “None of the private investigators would work for you, would they, ma’am?” I asked.

Her feet shifted, opening her posture to us a little. With profound disappointment and excruciating despair she told us, “I asked for help… and they hung up on me as soon as I mentioned his name. Every detective agency in the state.”

“They didn’t want to risk the PD retaliating by withholding future assistance or interfering with their work. Your husband’s disappearance is a hot potato and we’re the only ones with the pain tolerance to handle it.”

“Smooth,” remarked Shosh.

Geraldine stopped biting her thumb, which was reassuring. After looking each of us in the eye for a solid 3 seconds apiece, she solemnly bid us, “Come in.”

And just like that, I had planted the seed of trust, the first factor in encouraging any witness to cooperate.

Or so I thought.

She gestured towards a vintage couch with modern upholstery and sat in an even older and even more anachronistic arm chair across from us. Her eyes danced between me and Judith, each saccade driven by the cruel spurs of hope.

I turned my memo pad to the first blank page, noted the date and time—10:54 on Saturday, July 13th, 2024—as well as the interviewee’s name, and initiated the questioning. “Around what time did he leave that morning?”

Before she could answer, a husky voice called out from elsewhere in the apartment, “Geraldine?”

“Yes?”

A person—about 5′6″, with short black hair and wearing jeans and a button-up cowboy shirt—came in from another room. “Ah. I see we have visitors. Goody…”

“Yes. Judith, Andrina, this is Harris, my cousin.”

“Harriet,” corrected the cousin. “Nice to meet you, Andrina and Judith. Are you friends of Geraldine’s?”

“Private investigators,” said Judith.

“Dicks.”

“You could call us that,” I admitted. “Though P.I. is a little more dignified, if you don’t mind.”

“I like ‘dicks’,” said Judith.

I raised an eyebrow at her. “I’ve known that for almost as long as I’ve known you.”

Her cheeks grinned past her mask.

Harriet rolled their eyes. “And what are you here to investigate?”

“Xander’s disappearance,” replied Judith.

Harriet nodded. “Alright. Please avoid upsetting her. She’s… delicate.”

“You got it, dude,” I acknowledged with an upbeat tone and a thumb’s up.

“Please don’t call me ‘dude’, friend.” They took a seat in the chair next to Geraldine’s. “Proceed.”

“Alright,” I said. “Um…”

“You were asking when he left,” Shosh reminded me.

“Oh, right. Thanks. As I was asking before the introductions: Geraldine, what time did your husband leave the apartment that morning?”

“Which morning?” she asked back lethargically.

“I should have specified ‘the morning he disappeared’—my apologies, ma’am.”

“Oh… That morning. That dreadful morning. The weather was actually nice, but—‍” She choked down tears. “—he left. He left and he didn’t come back!”

“He’ll come back. What time did he leave?”

“What does it matter?”

“She’s hiding something,” suggested Shosh.

I accepted her suggestion, and asked, “Geraldine, is there something you’re having a hard time telling us?”

Her eyes narrowed, and she inserted a dramatic delay before calmly growling, “Are you accusing me of withholding information from you? Of harboring secrets like a villain?” Calmly at first, but increasingly irate. “Do you take me for some half-rate wife who would sooner have him declared dead so that I can collect the insurance money than see his face again? Is that what you think I am?”

“No—not at all—but—could you please focus on the interview and tell me what time he left?”

“‘Focus!’ How can I focus when my other half is missing?!”

Their voice thick with suspicion, Harriet asked, “Do you two have licenses?”

“Probationary,” suggested Shosh.

“Probationary,” I repeated.

“‘Probationary’?” echoed the cousin skeptically.

I nodded as I insisted, “Probationary.”

“Could I have your business cards?”

“(Uh…)”

Shosh came to my rescue. “There was a typo, so you had to get them reprinted.”

“There was a typo, so we sent them back,” I quickly explained.

“Right,” muttered Harriet. “How inconvenient.”

“Geraldine, would you please tell us when he left?”

“It doesn’t matter. He’s gone!”

“Geri,” said Judith, “I know you’re strong. I know you’re able to gather yourself up to answer a few questions. You can do it.”

Geraldine sighed and calmly replied, “8:37.”

“Is that down to the minute?” I asked.

“‘Is that down to the minute—’ I gave you the minute, do you think I made up the last digit for spits and giggles? Of course it’s down to the minute!”

“Oh-kay, uh. You must have an impressive memory.”

“I remember numbers.”

“You remember things, too,” Shosh reminded me. “You could bond with her over that.”

I decided that was an excellent idea. “Wow! Me, too! And license plates and car models and lotsa other things. We could start a club.”

“A club. You want to start a club. A club for people who remember trivial details. What are we gonna do all day, see who can memorize the most digits of pi? Play card-matching games competitively?”

“(If… that’s what you want to do.)”

“I would never waste my time with a group of circle-jerking elitists who think they’re better than everyone else because they have an advantage in pointless parlor games, and I would prefer that you stop wasting my time by proposing such asinine concepts.”

Judith discreetly whispered to me, “You’re off topic.”

“(Right. Um… ) What was he wearing when he left?”

“I don’t see how his fashion choices are relevant.”

“It’s for identification. Clothes are easier to describe to potential witnesses.”

“‘Witnesses’?” she asked frantically. “Was there a crime?”

“We don’t—know—what happened—yet.”

“Please stop agitating her,” said Harriet.

“I’m sorry! She’s just so damn…” I groaned.

“This queen needs to suck it up,” said Shosh.

“I wish she would. Geraldine, would you please cooperate?”

“I am cooperating!”

Judith nudged me and whispered, loudly, “(Go easy on her.)”

“(I am going easy!)” I hissed quietly.

“(Relax, take it easy, go easy.)”

I huffed. “Geraldine… People who have seen him since he left the apartment might have an easier time identifying him by his clothing than by his face.”

“Is that it? You should have explained that earlier, we could have avoided a great deal of discord. You have a lot to learn about communication. You need to explain things before you go charging in with questions. Do you understand how important it is to get your point across?”

I took a deep breath to ease the stress of interacting with this woman. “Yes. I understand. I was a very solitary child, so I am aware my interpersonal skills are not… exactly… impressive. Would you please—‍”

“Your barren childhood isn’t an excuse for being socially inept. You need to get better, by interacting with people, by practicing, by reading.” She took in a breath.

“Her childhood wasn’t ‘barren’, and she isn’t ‘socially inept’,” growled Shosh.

Geraldine exhaled. “How old are you, Miss Bachman?”

“I just turned 34. But—‍”

“Thirty-four? You are thirty-four and you proudly admit to having the manners of somebody one-third your age? You should be ashamed.”

I concentrated on breathing, deeply, slowly, evenly. I managed to hold onto my sanity.

“I can’t believe this woman,” muttered Shosh.

“Geraldine,” interjected Judith calmly, “we’ve veered off-topic. We need to know what your husband was wearing at the time you last saw him so that we can ask people if they’ve noticed anybody matching his description.”

Geraldine glanced at me critically. “Is that what you were trying to ask?”

“Yes.”

“You have some serious communication issues. Did your mother neglect you?”

“Her mother did her best under the circumstances!” snapped Shosh.

“My mother taught me to be kind to others,” I told Geraldine. “I wish you could have been my sister.”

Geraldine scoffed. “I can’t say I would have had a very pleasant childhood with you microagressing against me at every turn.”

“What the hell is ‘microagressing’?” asked a very confused and extremely irritated Shosh.

“Geraldine… Could you explain what you mean by the word ‘microaggress’?”

“Merriam Webster defines a microaggression as ‘a comment or action that subtly and often unconsciously or unintentionally expresses a prejudiced attitude toward a member of a marginalized group.’”

“Thank you. Does knowing that clarify the comment about pleasant childhoods?”

“I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t think my meaning would be clear.”

“Nope,” admitted Shosh. “Sounds like mumbo-jumbo to me.”

I nodded. “It isn’t mumbo-jumbo… but I still don’t understand the intended message.”

Geraldine groaned irritatedly. “Like I said, you need to practice communicating, and the most important component of effective communication is listening to others. But it is not my job to teach you or tell you how to go about improving yourself. Besides, your underdeveloped social skills have driven us completely off topic.”

I nodded my numb head.

“But I will help you this one time. All you need to tell me is what you want to know. No details, no explanations, no qualifiers, just tell me what it is you want to know in the simplest language possible.”

“(I… don’t know if I… know how… to…)” I gulped.

“Esti, you know how to word the question. Just ask it.”

I began shaking. I opened my mouth. I choked.

“We’d like to know what he was wearing,” said Judith, to my rescue.

“Oh, what a simple question! I don’t understand why you have insisted on unnecessarily complicating this interview, Miss Bachman! He was wearing his Smash the Piggy Bank T-shirt, his new blue jeans, and his tan sustainable vegan sneakers.” Her face scrunched in agony. “And his vintage Casio watch that I bought for him at the thrift shop back when we were still dating—it’s an ‘old-fashioned’ digital timepiece with a metal band—a work of art, he’s very fond of it. It’s as valuable to him as his wedding ring. He proposed the next day. And now… Oh God…!”

“Geraldine, we’ll find him,” I said.

“He’s gone forever!” she cried out. “Him and his watch!”

“We’ll find him and his watch,” Judith assured her.

She calmed down instantly. “(Thank you,)” she murmured weakly. “(I’m feeling… better now. Thank you, Miss Lucas.)”

“(What the fuck is going on?)” whispered Shosh.

“(I need to work on my people skills, I guess,)” I mumbled. I had seen the shirts advertised in fundraisers on Hootr, so I already knew the color of the fabric (plain white) as well as the print (a cartoon piggy bank dressed in a police uniform being smashed by a hammer). I put on a strained smile and, in the happiest, most grateful voice, told Geraldine, “These are some great details that you’re giving us, ma’am. Where did he go?”

She sighed. “To ‘a meeting’.”

“A meeting with whom?”

“He didn’t say. He never says. Because he doesn’t want me telling anyone who has ‘no need to know’ where he is, especially if they try to ‘legally compel’ me.”

“You married a very smart man, although he’s making our job a little more difficult than I’d like it to be.”

“‘Smart’?” she yelled, suddenly hysterical again. “On a good day I worry about where he would be if something happened to him! Wednesday ended up not being one of those ‘good days’, and now he’s missing and I don’t know where he is because he never tells me where he’s going!” She choked back a sob.

“Ah…”

“If you continue to upset her,” warned Harriet, “I might have to ask you to leave.”

I blanched.

“(Sympathize,)” whispered Judith.

I thought his secrecy was perfectly reasonable given his relationship with the authorities, but I was not inclined to contradict a wife scared shitless and on the verge of what would be one in a long series of breakdowns while her cousin was threatening to kick us out. “Yeah, um. Good point. Effective OPSEC…” (short for Operations Security) “…can be inconvenient.”

‘On the verge’ of a breakdown one second, stepping into it the next. Her face scrunched up in despair and her tear ducts threatened to strangle me. “You come into my home and insult my husband!” Harriet gave me a death stare. “You insinuate that he is so inconsiderate as to inconvenience his loved ones for the sake of… arbitrary principles! Do you have no respect for pragmatism?”

My jaw fell. I froze. I didn’t know what to say. Even if I knew what, I didn’t know how to say it. And even if I knew how, I wasn’t sure whether trying to say anything would help the situation.

“Esti?” asked Shosh. “Esti, snap out of it.” She shook my shoulder. I remained frozen.

“She didn’t mean to imply that he’s trying to make your life difficult,” Judith interjected after several seconds of silence from me. “He’s trying to protect himself and protect you. But you can explain your feelings about his secrecy to him once he’s safe and sound at home.”

Geraldine nodded, apparently reassured, and calmly stated, “Yes. That is exactly why he does it. It’s a necessary sacrifice, not some unnecessary inconvenience. We’ll have a chat once you’ve brought him safely home.”

I decided I was no longer in trouble, and thus defrosted. The cousin, on the other hand, was scrutinizing my actions ever more closely, as though I was the one making scene after scene.

“The cousin looks close to calling it off,” said Shosh, “but she wouldn’t dare to kill this queen’s only hope of getting her husband back.”

Emboldened, I continued, “Missus Pasteur, I need you to buck up and take this investigation seriously. Did your husband say anything else before leaving your apartment?”

Bumbling thus, I pushed her towards the edge once again, undoing Judith’s careful diplomacy. The now very upset wife shouted at me, “All he told me was, ‘Geri, I’m going to a meeting, I don’t know exactly how long I’ll be out, but I should be back before seven!’ And of course he didn’t say where he was going! All this secrecy drives me crazy! I’m always worried about him when he goes out, but now…” And then she started to shake herself to pieces. “…this time, this time it’s finally happened! And I don’t know what it is, I don’t have even a tiny clue, he might have gotten lost, he might have been kidnapped, he might have—might have been kill—‍”

We didn’t want this woman falling back into the bottomless pit of despair she’d been trapped in before our arrival, and we also didn’t want to be kicked out, but I did nothing to catch her—my avoidance of human contact beyond Shosh had robbed me of all opportunity to learn the art of comforting strangers, so I had none of the confidence necessary to handle her reaction, and no clue how besides. Judith elbowed me, spurring me to… do something, anything, to leap the treacherous expanse separating me from this woman beset by terror and hopelessness, where I took her hand, squeezed it, and said the first thing that came to mind… “He’s still alive, Geri. He’s gonna be alright.” …with zero evidence to back my claim. “I swear, he’ll be back.”

“How can you know that?” Her eyes pleaded for me to give her a reason to believe…

…which I gave her… “If he were dead, we would know by now.”

“How could we possibly know that?”

“If someone went after him, an important public figure, they wouldn’t be keeping it a secret, they would have made a public example of him. And they would have done it by now.” …in the form of a big steaming pile of bullshit. “But that hasn’t happened, which means he’s alive, probably… I mean, probably stranded… maybe… without bus fare… or… he took the wrong bus… and got stuck… in the desert.” ‹Or buried in the desert.› I waved away the thought. “A town in the desert… and nobody will give him the bus fare he needs to get home. They’re too poor to afford to give it to him. Or they’re conservatives who hate him. But not enough to hurt him. Peaceful conservatives.”

“You gotta be kidding me…” muttered Harriet.

And yet… my convoluted lie seemed to peel a thin layer away from Geraldine’s anxiety. Her eyes dwelled on Judith, even as her head was pointed at me. I glanced at Harriet, who seemed to be one tiny infraction away from pulling the plug.

“Where were we…?” I puzzled.

“He said he was going to a meeting and would be back by 7,” resumed Judith.

“Ah. Can you recall his exact words, Geri?”

“Those were his exact words.”

“You’re telling me that he said, quote, ‘He was going to a meeting and would be back by 7’, end quote.”

“Yes,” she replied with a weak nod, clearly exhausted from her worrying and outbursting. “His words. Verbatim.”

I blinked several times in frustration, but decided not to explain to her that it would be very strange for him to speak in the third person past progressive tense. “You have an excellent memory,” I told her delicately, “and it’s been a big help, and it’ll continue to be a big help.” This seemed to encourage her a little. “Does he have his phone’s location history enabled?”

“No, we both keep it off. And also the GPS itself, which means half the apps on our phones are useless. And he turns his phone off when he goes to activist functions anyway, because the cell towers can track his location. ‘Can’t trust the cops not to hack into our data.’ More paranoia…”

I exhaled. ‹Shit. We only just started and we’ve already hit our first dead end.› “Do you know how he was getting to the meeting? Bus, trolley, car, foot, bicycle?”

“He either walks or takes the bus or trolley. I can’t tell you which it was this time.”

“Does he change up his routes,” asked Judith smartly, “or does he always take the same ones?”

“I haven’t a clue. I’ve never gone with him to a meeting or a protest. He keeps me out of his business. He wants me safe at home in case something bad happens at an event.”

“Of course,” I said. “If the bus or trolley was running late or was at capacity, would he have taken a Ridr or a taxi?”

“Neither. He boycotts cars. He would simply wait for the next bus with space for him.”

“Interesting, and very useful information, thank you. Does your husband have any enemies that you know of?”

She eyed me suspiciously.

“She’s pissed,” said Shosh. “You said something wrong. Not sure what, your question was straight from the textbook.”

Cautiously, I asked, “Please pardon me, ma’am… Did I say something to offend you?”

With no small measure of agitation she asked, “What kind of person asks me or my husband, ‘Do you have any enemies?’”

“Alright, yes, I realize it sounds like a stupid question, but I still need to ask it. Specifically, I need to know who comes to mind first.”

“They all come to mind first!” I had, once again, upset her. “Everybody hates us!”

“Of course, but it would be very helpful to us if you were to share your gut feeling.”

“I don’t have a gut feeling, I’m paying you to have gut feelings for me!”

“Yes, that is our job, I’m just trying to gather enough information to figure out what exactly my gut is currently trying to tell me. Have you received any threats recently?”

“I’ve already told you, Alex and I are the most hated people in the city,” she pointed out exasperatedly. “We get threats every day!”

My patience was at last wearing thin. “Could you please tell me whether you know who sent them?”

She shook her head and gave me an incredulous stare. “How many times do I have to tell you? Everybody’s got a bone to pick with us! Why do you keep asking me about this over and over again?”

I suppressed an irritated growl. “Can’t you just—‍”

Harriet opened their mouth, no doubt to declare the interview over, but before they could speak a word Judith interrupted diplomatically, “Geri, dear, we’re just trying to build a more nuanced picture, and that means asking questions that may sound very similar to each other which nonetheless have subtle but critical differences.”

“‘Subtle differences’?” Geraldine echoed calmly. “Alright. Nuance away.”

A relieved sigh forced its way through my throat. I gathered myself back into one piece and asked, “Alright. Any threats in the 24 hours before you last saw him?”

Her ire returned as quickly as it had left. “Did I not just tell you that we get threats ‘every day’?”

I used the pain from biting my tongue to distract myself from my frustration. “(Alright…) Were any of them unusual?”

“They’re all the same. They’re all the same! There’s nothing setting any of them apart from the rest. They. Are. Identical.”

“She’s a dense motherfucker,” opined Shosh.

“No comment. Geraldine, I get that most of the threats you receive are similar and nonspecific. I need to know if any of the threats you’ve received in the past have been specific about what they claimed they were going to do. Specific. Like, they have instructions, details, places, methods, etcetera. Can you tell me if any of them have been specific?”

“No,” she whined, “just ‘you’re going to pay’ and ‘watch your back’, that sort of thing. Like I already said: ‘They’re all the same.’”

“(Butter her up,)” whispered Judith.

I nodded. “I’m sure it must be difficult talking about these things, ma’am, thank you for pushing through this painful questioning. All of this is very helpful information.” Judith had a point: persuading a despairing witness—even an irritable one—into believing that they’re being the most helpful witness ever might be enough to pull them out of a rut. The perception that they can make a difference gives them hope, and hope motivates them to give up every piece of information they have, and some of those pieces are bound to be useful, thus proving that they can make a difference. Tell them that they’re the MVP you want them to be, and they will strive to become it. “Hm. You know what would be even more helpful to know? Whether he took anything with him. The things he brought along to the meeting could give us clues as to where he was headed. If you could tell us what he had on his person when he left, you’d be doing us a huge favor.”

And, sure enough, she perked up and eagerly yielded her investigative fruit to me. “Well, I can tell you that! His phone, his keys, and his backpack.”

“Did he pack his backpack himself?”

“No, I did.”

I did my best to contain my excitement to a level that wouldn’t put her or Judith off. “That’s very good to hear, ma’am, thank you! What did you put in it?”

“He gave me a list.”

“And…?”

“‘And’ what?”

“And what was on the list?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t bother memorizing a list. I don’t remember such trivial, ephemeral things as what my husband wants in his backpack.”

My heart fell a few inches. “And I wouldn’t expect anybody to memorize every list they come across, that’s humanly impossible. Do you still have it?”

“No,” she replied matter-of-factly.

I began very rapidly losing my cool. “What did you do with it?”

“I disposed of it,” she said, calmly.

I withstood a wave of anger before being walloped by a tsunami of depression.

“Why do you ask? I can’t see how an insignificant slip of paper could be important. It was trash. Trash belongs in the trash basket.”

Being a complete rookie, I had not yet mastered the art of tempering my expectations, which I had built up to metropolitan proportions. “And… you took out the trash, and the trash truck came and took it away forever.” Dismayed by my purely reason-based deduction that was not at all an aggressive leap in logic spiraling into a spiky pit of pessimism, I buried my face in my hands and resisted the impulse to cry.

“Well, there’s no need to get so worked up, Little Miss Drama, I haven’t emptied the basket yet!”

I lifted my head and, barely containing my irritation, exclaimed, “Then you do still have it! Why didn’t you say so?”

“I forgot because I’m not used to taking out the rubbish! Xander is responsible for it because I don’t like dirtying my hands. I’ve been hoping against hope for him to come home soon so that he can take care of it before I’m—God forbid—before I’m forced to do it myself!” Her voice cracked. Her soul shattered. Her hope evaporated. She wailed and moaned. “If my Aly doesn’t come back soon, I’ll have to touch trash!” I sat still, beyond words and beyond action.

Harriet stood, walked to the door, and opened it. “Please leave.”

But Judith rushed up to Geraldine and whispered gentle reassurances, giving me an expectant look and jerking her head towards the despairing woman.

I shook my head. ‹What do you want me to do? It’s over. My dream, like any other, will be forgotten by morning.› I got up to leave. “Come on, Judith. We aren’t welcome anymore.”

“Geri, could you please tell Andrea where you keep the can you tossed it in?”

“Ladies do not lackadaisically ‘toss’, we deliberately place,” the woman retorted. “You wouldn’t understand what it’s like to be caricatured as some clumsy oaf with delusions of being a real woman of sophistication and beauty!”

“Geri Berry, I’ve never wanted to be a lady… but I have carried, since I discovered my womanhood, the same burden that you have carried since you discovered your own. And you’ve carried that burden with you a great distance throughout a grand journey of deliberate, self-directed metamorphosis. In spite of society’s doubts and jeers, Geri… your body and your personality are beautiful.”

“I’m a mess!”

“You’re in rough shape because you’re going through rough circumstances. You just need a little self-care to shine again.”

“That sounds like a great idea, but there’s one little problem—I don’t know how to self-care.”

“Have you had your E?”

She cupped her eyes and groaned. “Oh, Lord. He was supposed to jab me Wednesday when he got home.”

“Maybe you should take it now.”

Geraldine sighed. “I suppose you’re right. I just… hate doing it myself. I can’t stand looking at the needle.”

She continued limply sinking into her chair until Judith interrupted her emotional decline by offering, “Want me to do it for you?”

She considered Judith’s offer briefly before nodding and replying, “I would appreciate that.” She stood. “Thank you, Miss Lucas.”

“Alright,” said Harriet. “Tall lady, you know how to calm her down. You can stay. Shorty, you make things worse. Leave.”

I wilted, but before all my hopes could desert me, Judith explained, “We’re a duo, a package deal. If she leaves, I leave.”

The cousin groaned. “Fine. I can’t stand needles, which means you have all the leverage.” They gently closed the door, and my dismay began giving way to triumph. “Make yourselves at home, but don’t rummage through the fridge—I just organized it.”

Cousin Harriet returned to the kitchen and Geraldine led Judith away. Without my hosts to show me where they disposed of paper waste, I searched the house for trash receptacles until I found a sheet metal can without a liner by their computer desk, nearly overflowing with dead trees, all crushed and crumpled to varying degrees. I peered inside with mounting eagerness, and discovered to my relief that, of what I could see from above, none of it was food waste or used tissues.

My mind was already fully aroused as my fingers were halfway inside—

My grin betrayed my swelling desire as I thrust my hands in and out and in and out, fondling and unfolding everything they touched—

Passion pumped my heart as I chucked aside the cardboard box for an LED light bulb sitting between me and the object of my desire—

My anticipation was as tense as the atmosphere between a buxom model and the novice artists sketching her nude form as I flipped over an envelope to inspect the other side for ink or graphite—

My breathing trembled with a passion that threatened to suffocate me as I checked the back of a receipt for writing—

My hopes ascended to their peak, pushing me to the edge of satisfaction as I uncrumpled a ball of printer paper with a speech rendered in toner on one side and on the other side penciled—

A list, such beauty I have never seen;

The recipe for a delicious dish,

Necessities to pack before a trip,

Or—breadcrumbs left for us

By our missing man.

I felt a rush of adrenaline, a surge in cardiac overactivity, and a flood of endorphins as the sustained stroking of my ego came to its climax in the wake of the delayed gratification of a quarter of a century of pent-up yearning. “(Holy shit,)” I whispered under my breath, struggling to keep my respiration slow and quiet, fighting the instinct to vocalize the sublime plateau of my satisfaction, with a wish in the back of my head that Judith and Geraldine hadn’t entered the room just as I entered my ecstatic fugue.

My shame didn’t matter, though. Not when I had found it.

‹My First Clue.›

I checked to see if the others were paying attention; to my relief, Judith was keeping herself and Geraldine—hair newly sprouted on her scalp and an absence of it on her face—distracted with her recollections and impressions of Alexander’s heroic exploits. I rubbed My First Clue between my thumb and forefinger and savored the sensation of the paper against my skin, then discreetly pulled down my mask and held her to my nose and breathed, admitted scent through my nostrils to let the volatile molecules circulate throughout my olfactory chambers, and etched within my hippocampus what would be an unforgettable fragrance—

Arborvitae pulped and bleached

Soft perfume of pear and peach

Sour balsamic vinegar

Earthy tannins, prize terroir

Brings to mind my well-worn tome

Just One More Thing, I read at home

Pages torn, spine cracked, ink worn

Words from which my dreams are born

I waited—for the high to wear off, for my muscles to relax, for my stupid euphoric grin to erode into a non-stupid euphoric grin—I waited to let them know, as I trembled under the influence of fading adrenaline—

“Ladies… I have found it.”

Breadcrumbs

“Yay!” cheered Judith at my exhilarating discovery.

I placed My First Clue on the coffee table with excessive delicacy and smoothed her out as best as I could without smudging the pencil. “‘2 extra N95s, 2 PBJ sandwiches, water bottle, flashlight, sunscreen, pepper spray, 1 jug eyewash, goggles, tracker.’” My eyes snapped to Geraldine. “What’s this about a ‘tracker’?”

“Oh, that?” she asked with a most blasé delivery. “He has me pack it every time he goes anywhere. I don’t know why.”

“What does it do, exactly?”

“I don’t imagine that it does very much. It doesn’t have a screen or any buttons, just a USB port. There’s nothing on it to do anything. It’s a Klondike bar that tastes like plastic and breaks your teeth when you take a bite. I shouldn’t have to tell you not to eat it, but I’m giving you that advice in case you need it to be explained.”

“Miss Pasteur… I’m not stupid. I know better than—‍”

“Did I use the word ‘stupid’?”

“No, but you implied—‍”

“Do not put words in my mouth, Missy, do not project your insecurities onto others. It’s very rude, not to mention manipulative. Tantamount to gaslighting.” I bristled.

“You have got to be kidding me,” growled Shosh.

“She was trying to say,” interjected Judith, “that she appreciates your advice.”

Geraldine scoffed. “Once again, the investigator’s poor communication skills lead to a misunderstanding. You are welcome for the advice, Miss Buckman.”

Shosh rolled her eyes.

“Gee… Thanks,” I replied sarcastically. “Anyways, I suppose a device without any physical features isn’t going to look very useful, my very learnèd and observant friend—but if this thing is what I think it is, it would actually be very useful for our purposes.”

“What sort of ‘useful’ gadget could you possibly think it could be?”

“A GPS tracker, a device that records its coordinates at regular intervals and stores them for later retrieval. Some models even upload those coordinates to their manufacturers’ websites with a cellular data plan.”

“Oh. That does sound useful,” she replied with a hint of curiosity. “Are you saying this thing can actually tell us where he’s been?” For once… she seemed impressed by my investigative skills.

“Yes! That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

“Why,” asked Judith skeptically, “would he go to all the trouble of turning off his location on his phone, only to carry around a device that collects and uploads the same data to the cloud?”

“Oh. Um… Let me think… Hm…” Half a minute of thinking later I explained, “I think, and don’t quote me, that if the tracker is on a prepaid data plan, there won’t be any records from the cellular carrier tying his identity to the tracker, so the police should have no idea he even has this thing and therefore no way of subpoenaing the manufacturers for the coordinates it’s uploading… unless they find it on him and from there figure out who owns the web server—and depending on the device’s design, that could be very difficult to extract.”

“I see.”

“Would you happen to know the brand of the tracker, Geraldine?”

“No, I’m afraid I don’t, it’s just a featureless black box. He would know. But he isn’t here… He’s gone… Maybe… possibly… (forever.)” She began to slip back into despair as she reminded herself that her husband was no longer with her.

“This list could make a huge difference, ma’am, a very big difference. Thank you for helping me dig it up. For helping us rescue him.” Thus I attempted to bring her back into the world of smiles and hugs and possibly hope.

“Oh. You’re welcome.”

I drummed my fingers nervously on my thigh, anxious to learn what the tracker might have recorded—if only we could access the data.

“The website could be in his bookmarks,” suggested Judith.

“Yes! Geraldine, do you know his computer password?”

“My memory isn’t that good—I don’t even remember my own password because he made me make it so long. I had to write it down.”

This time, just before driving into the deep end of catastrophization, I lassoed my despair, flanked it, tied its legs, and calmly asked her, “Would you happen to have his password written down, too?”

“Of course. He couldn’t remember his, either.”

“Can you get it for me?”

“You want me to give you his password?”

“Yes, if you don’t mind.”

“With all due respect,” she seethed, “I am not giving a stranger—who showed up at my door unsolicited mere minutes ago, who has repeatedly insulted me and my beloved, who has caused me great distress and worry—my husband’s computer password.”

“Ma’am… we are your only hope.”

“Yes, but—‍”

“If you want to type in the password for us, that would work just as well as you handing it over.”

“You would still have access to all his data.”

“Access we need if we’re to have any chance of finding him. Every footprint he has left behind is critical to our investigation, which means we need unfettered access to all of his data.”

“I dunno…” ‹She’s bending! She’s finally yielding to logic!›

“Ma’am… We have reached a fork in the road. If you want our help, you must let us access his account. If you do not help us, we will find ourselves coming to a dead-end, in which case we must take our business elsewhere. Do you understand what I’m saying, or do you require clarification?”

“There must be a better way. I refuse to accept that this is necessary.”

I sighed. ‹I gotta do what I gotta do.› “Missus Pasteur… your husband’s life is in danger. I want you to ask yourself, ‘Which is more important to me: his privacy, or his life?’”

She hesitated, glanced at Judith, paused, nodded reluctantly, departed, returned, and relinquished unto me a sticky note folded into quarters. (I did not question why it was folded into such a small square.)

“Thank you.” I memorized his irrationally long password as I logged him in, because I cannot stop numbers and letters from chiseling themselves into my gray matter. (License plates are the worst offenders.) “What browser does he use?”

“We use Garlic Browser.”

I rolled my eyes and, without thinking about what I was about to say, muttered, “Of course he uses the criminal browser.”

“‘Criminal’! You call his principles on the right to privacy ‘criminal’!”

‹Ah, fuck…› “I didn’t mean to say… I’m sorry, I misspoke. Please forgive me.”

“I forgive you.”

“Now that you’re a P.I. making friends in the seedy underworld, Andy, you’ll be using Garlic, too.”

“(Shit,)” I muttered. ‹It’s not enough that I put my nose to the ground and sniff with all my lung capacity—I’m going to have to change the way I think entirely. I need to be even more paranoid than I was as a cop.› I opened up Garlic Browser, and, with the others watching over my shoulders, browsed his bookmark list (disabled by default to protect the user’s security and left that way by truly security-conscious users) until—

—until I found it: Amphibipos GPS Portal. My mind raced so quickly I wondered briefly whether I’d accidentally doubled my Adderall that morning. I opened the link and was greeted with a login screen which the password manager (also disabled by default to protect the user’s security, and also never enabled by truly security-conscious users) automatically populated with his username and password. “Yes!” I shouted victoriously. Tapping ‘enter’ revealed to us a map centered on the end of the long wood-and-concrete walkway projecting into Santa Virginia Bay. I zoomed in. “Big Pier,” was all I could think to say. “Big Pier…”

“Looks like he’s waiting at the end of the Big Pier,” observed Judith.

“The error circle extends out over the water…”

Judith whispered, “You think he took a dip, Andy?” Her voice, close to my ear and extra quiet because Geraldine was right next to us, did that buzzing thing to my scalp.

“(Hah…)” Once I had recovered from the extra-breathtaking blast of sensation, I said, “Geraldine, we’re going to need to spend some time on this, it’s probably best if you don’t worry yourself about our work. Let us do our job so that you can do yours.”

“Okay.” She waited beside us.

“You’re kind of distracting us.”

“Oh I’m sorry, am I breathing too loudly? I have terrible asthma, my exercise regimen has been an absolute catastrophe, inhalers make me break out in hives. It’s genetic, or so I’ve been told. The reaction, not the asthma. The asthma is actually a result of—‍”

With the last of my patience I told her, “Geraldine, please go somewhere else so we can concentrate on our work.”

“Oh. Alright. If you feel so strongly about it that you believe it necessary to interrupt me. I’ll be waiting in the living room, trying not to cry.”

“(Don’t worry, we’ll find him,)” I flaccidly reminded her on her way out. I stared at the web app’s interface, wondering what to do—then saw a button that looked like a constellation or a connect-the-dots, an articulated zig-zag that screamed, ‘Click me!’ I hovered over it and a tooltip popped up with the word ‘History’, injecting a surge of anticipation into my nervous system. “Oh, wow. I think I found something useful.” I clicked the button… and was rewarded for my curiosity as the tracker’s every step was plotted out before us, dots connected by lines forming a trail from the Brookvale-Pasteur home to Old Town to the Bay. “Hot damn. Digital breadcrumbs.”

“Oh, hell yes. Good find, Friday.” Her commendation harmonized with the vibrations haunting my scalp.

I noticed a ‘play’ button and, tamping down my excitement, clicked it. I was very pleased with the resulting playback, at 10-times speed, of the journey the tracker took beginning a week ago. I scrubbed forward to Wednesday morning, and we watched the tracker leave the apartment, speed up slightly as it headed in the direction of Old Town with several stops along the way, slow down at Lemon Street, round the corner onto Adams Avenue, proceed down a quarter of the block before turning tail at double speed, about face again, and drag its feet a little ways before coming to a stop on Adams—in the heart of the Red-Light District.

“What’s he doing now?” asked Judith, puzzled.

“I’m still forming a picture in my head. Let’s give it a minute.”

At the end of that minute, she asked, “Is it glitched?”

“Maybe he abandoned or forgot his backpack?”

“Maybe.”

After 3 more minutes of motionlessness, the tracker suddenly picked up and accelerated, zooming over streets, stopping and going… “He took the bus, then had some back and forth and a rest, and then he went for a car ride,” I theorized.

“That’s a car, alright, no doubt about it—check out the speedometer in the corner of the screen.”

“45 down Ashland? That’s a 25 zone!”

“Taxi.”

“No, not even a taxi’s gonna go that fast, they’d be pulled over for reckless driving in a heartbeat and then it’s bye-bye license. We’re dealing with someone crazier than your average taxi driver. Someone who isn’t scared of being pulled over. Someone who isn’t scared of law enforcement.”

“They’d have to be a nutcase.”

“Assuming you don’t consider yourself a ‘nutcase’, are you admitting you’re scared of the fuzz?”

When she didn’t respond, I turned my head to see her face—plastered with a dour frown. “I’m not a pussy.”

“If I still had a badge… would you be intimidated by me?”

“No.”

I watched her face for any signs that she was lying, but saw none. So I doubled down. “How would you feel if I handcuffed you?”

Her expression softened into something inscrutable. “I was planning on asking you the same question someday.”

‹What?› “Why would you do that?”

“If you want to find out, just answer the question. How would you feel if I handcuffed you?”

“Well… I’d feel vulnerable, I think. Powerless. I’d be at your mercy.”

“And?”

“And what?”

“What kind of mindset would those feelings put you in?”

“I don’t know what kind of mindset it would put me in, but the mindset I’d need to already be in to let you put them on me would involve a lot of trust.”

“What would you be trusting me to do?”

“I wouldn’t be able to do anything for myself, so, if I was restrained for more than a few hours, I’d be trusting you to take care of my needs.”

“Like how you had me ‘take care of your needs’ last night?”

I blushed. “Ohh, that’s where you were going with this.”

“You’d have to rely on me to do everything for you. All you’d be able to do is suggest what I should do next… and beg me to keep going.”

I nodded nervously.

“Is this conversation turning you on?” she whispered straight into my ear…

…causing me to shudder pleasantly. “Hah…!” ‹If this goes on in any more detail, I’m gonna need a fresh pad to keep my panties dry.› “Um. We’re working on a case where a man may have drowned, so…”

“Good point. I’ll stop distracting you.”

“Thank you.” The tracker continued zooming around. ‹Shit, my pad’s soaked through and my panties are already wet.› I sighed and admitted, “But, yes, that idea turned me on.”

“Good. We might give it a try sometime.” My face turned red as a pomegranate seed. The tracker suddenly slowed down to only 2 miles per hour when it hit the parking lot by the pier. “He’s on foot again.” Before long the tracker was at the ocean end of the pier, at which point the web app informed us the signal had been lost. “Well, Andy? Whatcha thinkin’?”

“I’m thinking, on the surface, it’s supposed to look like he drowned himself.”

“But if we dig deeper…”

“It’s someone trying to pull the wool over our eyes… and that wool has a lotta big holes in it.”

“What gave it away?”

“For one thing, what’s up with the crazy car ride? Alex Brookvale is anti-car, and even if he broke his vow of celibacy, no Ridr or licensed taxi driver would go that fast down a residential street—except at gunpoint.”

“Excellent logic. I hope you don’t mind me asking stupid questions, I just wanted to make sure you’re thinking things through and not just jumping to the most obvious conclusions. It is fishy.”

“They aren’t stupid questions. I appreciate you keeping me on my toes.” I rewound the tracker’s playback to the timestamp where it didn’t move for 40 real-time minutes. “That’s where they took it off of him. That’s when he really disappeared. On Adams.”

“Adams Avenue. My old turf.”

I stared at her. “(You mean… you were a prostitute?)”

She stared back. “‘Sex worker’. Do you have a problem with that?”

Shosh appeared out of nowhere, startling me. Her wide-spread eyes darted between me and Judith. “Esti… this is weird. I’m not sure I’m comfortable with you being around this woman anymore.”

“Um. It’s… I’ll admit it’s… a bit of a shock. And I wasn’t really prepared for it…”

Judith was very clearly dissatisfied with my response.

“But I stand by my new friend. My past is my past, her past is her past. She doesn’t judge me, I don’t judge her.”

This did not pacify her completely, but her stare softened enough that I could tell that my ass was no longer in direct contact with the hot seat. Shosh just shook her head.

As casually as I could, I asked, “Judith… why’d you quit?”

“Because… as much as I liked my job—I really did, it was fun and emotionally satisfying and empowering—making money off of sex kind of took over doing it for fun. Any time I tried to just do stuff with partners who weren’t offering me money in exchange, I found myself reflexively tallying up how much I should charge them. I had to stop myself from giving them their bill afterwards, and I couldn’t help but feel like I’d been stiffed when they didn’t pay me. And I focused so much on satisfying my partners’ desires that I would forget to satisfy my own, to seek pleasure for myself. I have a strong attraction to profit, so I can’t let money get involved with anything I enjoy, or the money takes precedence over the pleasure. I don’t regret that part of my professional career, but I’m glad I retired before my hunger for the hustle turned sex in its entirety into a means to acquire wealth, and nothing more.”

“Wow. Does that happen to all prost—sex workers?”

“I dunno. Nobody I’ve talked to has ever mentioned having this problem. It could be rare, or it could be common. But I suspect it’s a me thing—like I said, I’m motivated by money to a pathological extreme.”

“Well… I’m glad you enjoyed it for as long as it was your job, but I’m also glad you moved on before it became too much.”

She smiled. “Are you curious?”

“About…?” I asked… fully aware of the answer.

{I’m standing on Adams, waiting for somebody. Nobody in particular, but a particular kind of nobody. A limo pulls up. A man seated in the back offers me a crisp Hamilton in exchange for something quick. Though I have no taste for men, this one’s different from the average fellow I might meet on the street… he has lots of money. I curl my fingers demandingly—I’m worth more than that. He pulls out another tenner. I snatch the bills with a greedy hand and shove them between my tits. He’s the wrong gender to speak to my love, but he speaks the ‘love language’ needed to convince me to make an exception. He opens the door and makes room for me, and I take my seat next to him. With restrained eagerness I gingerly unbutton his pants and—}

“Andy?”

I snapped out of the daydream. “Huh? What?”

“You are curious, aren’t you? You wanna give it a try.”

I felt that damn wet heat between my thighs. “You mean… (walking the streets?)” Shosh evaporated with a discomforted, apprehensive stare.

“Oh, hell no. The streets suck—unless, like, maybe you really enjoy being your own boss as a fille insoumise.”

{I burn the midnight oil for as long as I feel like working, making half a dozen new friends each night; free to make my own decisions as an independent worker, deciding my own hours, choosing my own workplace, handpicking my own clients, setting my own prices—I head home early to kick back with my girlfriend once I’m satisfied with my nightly take…}

“Other than that, the streets are the worst. Definitely not my bag. Anyways, I’m talking about being an escort. You can go the independent route if you want to keep all your earnings and are willing to manage your own business—in which case I can help you get started—or you can go the agency route and focus on the rest of the job—in which case I’ll help you find an agency that won’t bleed you dry with fees.”

I blushed. “No. Thank you, but—no. I’m satisfied with being a humble private investigator.” The mental image of me {carefully unbuttoning then slowly, sensually unzipping this stranger’s fly, pulling his pants down an inch, bringing my head down to bury my face in his lap—taking a moment to acquaint myself with his novel scent—before reverently retrieving his cock from his boxers and dutifully sucking it while savoring the sounds of his enjoyment and the taste of his sweat—the whole time anticipating the moolah, the dough, the riches I’m gonna rake in from all these attention-starved fellas—} was doing all it could to grab me and pull me back in.

“Think of sucking dick as a backup career, in case being a dick doesn’t pan out. Or a side hustle for when your caseload has a dry spell.”

‹No, thank you. It’s a really dangerous career. I shouldn’t—even if—›

{The stranger tips me an extra five for every time I made him cum, and one more for keeping anything from getting on his pants or matting his pubes. Another flawless, artful performance. Which comes as no surprise—everyone knows I’m the best damn cocksucker in the city. I count my latest paycheck—soft cotton paper lovingly tickling my fingertips—before I shove the wad into my cleavage. Another car pulls up to my curb. Time to blow another cock to blow another mind.

{I smirk as I realize something: earning a living was never this easy—nor was it ever so satisfying. Being a cop, being a P.I.… frustrating wastes of time. This was my true calling all along. I’ve finally found my happily-ever-after.}

I shook away the fantasy and the stupid dreamy smile on my face before I could change my mind and take her up on her offer to become an escort—or abandon the case in favor of the curb. “I’ll… take a rain check.”

She patted me on the shoulder. “It’s a huge career shift. Nerves are natural. Take your time.”

“(I just… need… to think about it, okay?)” I scrubbed back and forth through the GPS timeline, then noticed a tiny burst of speed as Alex reversed direction a third of the way down Adams, reaching an average of 12 miles per hour for about 2 seconds—over such a brief interval that the tracker barely had the chance to record it—before suddenly coming to a standstill. “Hm. That’s about sprinting speed. This is a strange place and time to be exercising. Given our kidnapping hypothesis, I’m presuming he was running from his would-be captors. Then he comes to a standstill as they grab him, and reverses direction as they drag him a little way back; his captors wait around for roughly 40 minutes doing who-knows-what… then they take his tracker and drive off to toss it in the bay.”

“Excellent deduction.”

“Thanks. The question that’s pestering me now is ‘Who was chasing him?’”

“We could make a list of all his enemies, but that would take all day—maybe longer.”

“Unfortunately, we may have to do exactly that. But not now. Let’s think about our other questions, in particular the big question: what happened to him after they separated him from his tracker?”

“Hmm.” Judith stroked her chin. “There are only a coupla ways for us to find out: one, eyewitnesses; and two, camera footage.”

I nodded. “And since it happened in the Red-Light District…”

“…no one in their right mind would have recorded anything, because they know damn well that they could end up incriminating themselves or their peers.”

“Of course. So that leaves us with eyewitnesses.”

“This all happened in the morning, so…” She sighed, and under her breath cursed, “(Shit.)”

I scrubbed through the tracker’s path to the last stop before his walk down Adams. “His bus stopped at Grover Cleveland Avenue and Lemon Street by 9:05, and he reached the corner of John Adams and Lemon by 9:10.”

“There wouldn’t have been anybody on the street in the morning. On summer weekdays, most street workers don’t start until 7 in the evening, and even on weekends the earliest birds don’t get their worms till noon—and never a second sooner.”

“In other words, we’re screwed.” I sighed.

“No footage, no eyewitnesses.”

“(Tsk.) You know what? Who knows. I’m not giving up. We’ll go there at night, and maybe we’ll get lucky and one of the working girls was there that morning. Which means asking every single one of them if they were there that morning. How many are there?”

“Do I look like a census-taker?”

“I figured it was worth asking you, seeing that you used to work there.”

“That’s reasonable, I guess, except I only walked the streets for a few weeks before escorting for the rest of my career. I only got to know a handful of streetwalkers while I was on Adams. And that was decades ago.”

“Oh. Well. However many there are, we gotta interview all of them.”

“You really wanna ask all of them a bunch of questions?”

“That’s what a responsible investigator would do.”

Her cheeks swelled as she puffed between puckered lips. “(Pffff…) Looks like we got our work cut out for us.”

“Yep. Alright, let’s escort this to a file so we can take it with us.” Sic.

She smirked. “Let’s what this to a file?”

“Escort.” She snickered. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“I don’t see what’s funny. ‘Let’s escort this—’” My cheeks turned red.

She slapped her knee and cackled.

I found the export button and emailed myself the file. “Alright, if we need to review it later, we can do it at my apartment. Let’s go and… do something else while we wait for the night shift on Adams.”

“If that’s your plan. Where you go, I will go.”

We notified Geraldine that we had tracked her husband to Adams and claimed that we had a plan that would tell us where to go next, which seemed to soften her mood to the point of tolerability—but as we departed, some questions popped into my head. “Geraldine, I have a few more loose ends to tie.”

“Could you hurry? It’s time for my nap.”

“Of course. Does your husband gamble?”

“No.” My question had irritated her slightly.

“Do either of you have any debts?”

“Student loans. No credit cards, no mortgage.”

“Are the student loans being paid on time?”

“Yes.”

“Any litigation, past or pending?”

“Plenty.”

“And who’s suing who?”

“We have a few cases against the police department, the police union, and several individual police officers. False imprisonment, death threats, police brutality, unlawful search and seizure, illegal wiretapping, First Amendment violations, attempts to coerce confessions. You know… the usual. As for him being the defendant, he’s on trial for assaulting an officer—but that one’s poppycock, he’s sworn himself to nonviolence.”

“Right,” I concluded nervously. “Thank you.”

“Keep your hopes up, Geri,” added Judith. “We have a strong lead. Take care of yourself.”

“Thank you,” replied Geraldine warmly, calmly. “I will.”

We headed back to my apartment and sat down on my couch, demoralized by the fact that Adams would have been a ghost town while the disappearance was going down. I felt lost.

This time, though, I had somebody to be lost with.

Dry Laundry,
Dry Humping

I had no idea what to do next. In the absence of inspiration, my eyes, stuffed nearly to bursting with dejection, grazed adrift over the worthless stuff scattered throughout my room. Judith broke the silence just as my mood hit its nadir. “We’ll figure something out, Andy.”

“Yeah.” With her encouragement, I renewed my efforts and asked myself whether we had found and covered every lead we could. After the better part of an hour of retracing and re-retracing our steps forwards to our future trip to Adams and in reverse all the way back to the moment we met Geraldine; and doing so with rapidly increasing frustration, I rewound past the moment I became a P.I. and arrived at the true inception of our case, the Public Information Unit hoot—and then I had an epiphany. “Judith.”

“Hm?”

“We checked the department’s social media for info, but we didn’t do a search for posts from the public mentioning our missing man.”

“Dude!” She whipped out her phone and started tapping away; I followed her lead, opened Hootr, and immediately came upon results—thousands of them, too many to comb through. “There’s a lot here, Andy… but it’s all people wondering the same thing, where he went. No info.”

I nodded. “Yeah…” Spurred by impatience, I rewound to Wednesday’s hoots. “Wait. I found the first one. Quote: ‘No meeting and no Brookvale. Today’s gone from bad to worse.’”

“‘Meeting’!” she exclaimed with a smile. “That’s the one word we wanted to hear most. Who posted it?”

“@FluffyFresh.”

“What’s in their bio?”

“‘Erica, he/they, pan. Bodypos. My body, my choice. Fighting the patriarchy since 2012.’”

“What are ‘body paws’? I know everything about being a furry and I’ve never heard of those.”

“Short for ‘body positive’.”

“Ah, but I know what that is. Did FluffyFresh say anything else interesting?”

“Yes. They added, ‘Fascists rounded us up for trespassing when we were minding our own business. #CashBailIsClassism’”

“Five-oh made a mass arrest, so the meeting was canceled. Maybe that wasn’t a coincidence… When did they post that?”

“Wednesday afternoon, 2:25.”

“Send them a message. We need to know more about this meeting.”

I felt a tiny bit threatened that she was the one issuing orders, but I decided to make light of my own insecurity with a healthy chuckle and a sarcastic “Good idea, boss.” I sent them a direct message asking for the name of the meeting’s sponsoring organization and the reason for its cancellation. “Done.”

“Now we wait.”

After 5 seconds of waiting, I pointed out, “I really hope we get a response, but… witnesses don’t always play along. This person might not respond. They’ll probably just react to a rando sliding into their DMs by blocking me on sight, without reading my message.”

“Even if they give us silence, now we know there were people in the area that morning, going to the same meeting Alex was supposed to be at, and at least one person knew he was attending. Response or no response, we’re going with your plan: visiting Adams and interviewing every one of its carnal entrepreneurs.”

“‘Carnal entrepreneurs’. That’s an interesting job title. If you ever did somehow convince me to try prost—sex work, that’s how I would identify.”

She beamed. “Thank you, and you’re welcome.”

“Let’s skim for more intel.” We scrolled through screen after screen of search results for ‘Brookvale’, but after combing through several hundred posts I concluded that there was nothing else to be found there. “I think we’ve exhausted Hootr. How’s your Headblog search going?”

“Helluva lotta nuttin’. Somebody started a Search for Alex page asking for tips, but it’s been flooded with so many thoughts and prayers that I don’t know if there are any actual tips to point us in the right direction. I also tried to check HiBall, but all of the chatter is just mutual aid stuff. I’m afraid Fluffy is our only online lead.”

“This sucks. I thought the Internet would have more to offer than two vague hoots and an army of thoughtful headless chickens. I guess we’ll just have to hope one of the folks on Adams saw something.”

“I sent a few texts to the escort agencies I’ve worked with in the past, but it’s been… a while since I was active, so some of them might not remember who I was.”

“It’s still worth a try. Okay, it’s 3:20. You said streetwalkers don’t start till 7 on Saturdays. We have 4 hours to burn.”

“We could pass the time with a little sex.”

‹S-E-X sex. I’d be hearing her groans, too, not just mine.› My heart rate spiked and my crotch jubilantly chanted, «Fuck her fuck her fuck her fuck her fuck her!» “Are you… saying… that—that you’re ready?”

She nodded. “Since I laid eyes on you in that dress… almost. All you need to do now is tell me your favorite movie and I’ll rip your bodice asunder and conquer your flesh.”

«Oh, God, yes,

please tear my only dress to shreds
and ravish me,

then bite my soul and chew it up
and spit it out!»

‹Though—I don’t know if I can repeat

my first performance of last night;

it could have simply been a fluke.

Perhaps you may be attempting

to boost my confidence when you

tell me that I’m a natural—

I know what you have planned for me,

you only tell me nice things so

I won’t feel bad about myself;

you’re kind and more experienced

than me. Oh, God, I suck at sex.

I just can’t do it well enough for you.›

In summary, depression kicked in out of nowhere, as it often did, I broke down, and I bailed. “I—need to do my laundry.”

“That’s right! Very responsible of you to put chores before sex; that takes a lot of discipline. 4 hours is plenty of time for a couple loads. Let’s get to it.”

She yanked me along to my closet and grabbed a shirt—then paused, held it up to her face, breathed deep through her nose and exhaled with… what sounded like approval. “Strange…”

“You don’t have to make a big deal about how smelly they are.”

“No, I just—I’m sorry, for some reason I couldn’t help myself—it actually smells… kinda good.”

“Oh. Still, that was… kinda weird.”

“Yes, it was, I realize that, but—I got just a little whiff of something—and I really needed to smell it. My sense of smell’s been kinda fucked up for a while, so it’s kinda weird that this new scent caught my attention. It must be very strong for me to be able to notice it.” I cringed. “What deodorant do you wear?” She sniffed it again. Very deeply, and very loudly, with the kind of whispered sigh one lets out after a satisfying swallow of a delicious, bubbly, cold beverage.

On one level her insistence on sniffing my smelly clothes disturbed me, but on another it was… satisfying. And in light of her admission that she liked my sweaty smell, the satisfaction was, to my bewilderment, more intense than the discomfort—and yet I felt obligated to entertain the discomfort. “Old Spice.”

“Oh. It doesn’t smell like Old Spice, so I don’t think it’s your deodorant. Oh well, let’s just call it an unsolved mystery.” She started piling clothes into my baskets, inhaling deeply the scent sticking to each garment—dwelling a little longer on my underwear—before tossing it in, then helped me carry them to the conveniently empty laundry room and start the wash on 3 machines at once.

“You know, Andrea… there’s nobody else in here.”

“Yes. And I prefer it that way.”

“We could make out.”

I swallowed. ‹God, yes.› That response alone would have been perfectly fine, but I went ahead and let my low self-esteem throw in some bullshit. ‹I may suck at kissing, but me being bad at kissing is nowhere near as unpleasant for you as me being bad at sex.› Fortunately, the bullshit wasn’t bad enough to completely dissuade me. “I suppose… we… could.”

“Or you could sit on the washing machine while I play with your tits and suck on your nipples.”

‹Christ, yes, but—it sounds foolish.› “You—co—uld—but—what if—someone came in while we were—were…?”

“Then we get caught. And depending on what kind of person they are, we might gain an audience member.”

“I don’t want to get caught. Or have someone watching me and judging my… skills, or the noises I make.”

{My stage partner is seated comfortably in an armless chair, his right side facing the audience. “Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome to the stage: Andrea Bachman, Queen of Cocksuckers!” The crowd claps and cheers.

{I enter stage left and bow, then ask my adoring fans, “Have all of you had the pleasure of meeting my dear friend Quincy Queef?”

{“Yes!”

{“Really? How well do you know him?”

{“Intimately!”

{“Then show him some love!” They do so, applauding him and calling out his name. I tease them, “Are you ready, my little perverts?” More cheers. “Then let’s get this show on the road!” My partner lifts his legs and I yank off his breakaway pants. The crowd goes wild. I slowly peel his ruby-sequined speedos down and off his legs, then swing them in circles over my head and sling them to the audience like little King David, inspiring a greedy frenzy over the shiny underwear. I kneel between his legs and lower my head—}

“I figured you weren’t ready for public stuff yet…” I snapped out of my newest fantasy. “I was just curious about how close you were to opening up to the possibility. Don’t worry your pretty little curls about it, it’ll happen in due time.”

I exhaled relief. “(Okay-thank-God.)”

She winked, then grabbed me by the plunging neckline of my dress. “So what would you say to a simple make out sesh?”

I couldn’t say ‘no’ to this woman while every organ inside me was screaming, ‹Acceptable risk!› “(Oh—okay.)” My heart pounded in my chest, driven one percent by fear, the rest by a need to become one with her.

She grinned as she deftly picked me up and plopped me down on one of the washing machines, then launched herself onto the one next to it. She pulled me in close, causing me to blush, and brought me in with coffee and—

                            More
      subtle              than the            coffee
       are the           notes of        cannabis,
         no stems,       all flow’r     reduced to
          resin, sticky   webbing    catching
            flies — I am her prey, tangled
               within her scent. It makes
me              want to puff and pass           a
 blunt, so          fat and dank,           but in a
    way somehow involving touching,  meeting
        genitals— to mount her, ride her, give
           her pleasure, dive into the Styx
             and have our honeymoon where
         she can          bite           my neck
      and suck            my                guts out
    through               my                   veins.

She was gentle at first, taking it slower than our first time, too slow in my opinion, pecking my lips, comforting me, luring me even further into lust than her perfume of coffee and cannabis already had; worked her way up to softly biting my lip, sending sparks throughout my mind, forcing a moan from my chest, giving me ideas about being nibbled elsewhere; grabbed my breast and tempted my surrender to the warmth flooding my panties; then finally snuck her tongue into my mouth and played with mine, kissed me dirty—

The machines stopped and buzzed in quick succession. She removed her tongue from my mouth and said, “Time to dry.”

Yet I was quite content with being wet. I groaned in frustration; I had been milliseconds away from ripping off her clothes and going down on her. I got off the machine after failing to get off on the machine and followed her lead in loading my damp laundry into the dryers. She clambered onto a dryer and helped me up into her lap, and when she brought her mouth towards mine, I eagerly bridged the gap with my lips and grabbed her hand and planted it on my chest. I caught a whiff of her and savored the scent violently breaking through her deodorant. I thrust my tongue into her mouth and moaned. I leaned against her, and she let me recline her until she was on her back and I was on top of her, straddling her waist. I grabbed her bra through her shirt and squeezed and massaged; she hummed and giggled as I lost control of myself and growled through the gaps between our lips… I was so overpowered by my desire that I began grinding my pelvis against her body, rubbing my crotch against her belly, harder and harder, moaning and moving my hips without conscious effort to bring me closer to what I needed, and closer, and closer, moaning louder and higher and louder and higher… until I felt a buzz like a—

Fluffy towel, soft and warm,

Soughs against my flesh as I

Dry my skin and swathe myself.

Jersey T-shirt, soft and warm,

Drapes upon my soft, dry skin,

Covers me, reveals my nips.

Cotton panties, soft and warm,

Hug my vadge, a treasure chest

For my love to plunder deep.

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 breaking point of the air separating me and Earth— “(Ah-h-h-h-h…!)” I hugged her tight as my body became—

            Electrified
       Black clouds above
   The arid desert
      Shoot tendrils down
          To massage the sand
              Into glass.
          They bring
        With them
     A precious
  Gift which
     Falls to earth
         Turns the dust
       To mud, fills
     The gullies
   And floods
      The valleys,
         Brings greenth
      To the parched
   Creosote and
      Ocotillo.
         And you
      Bring
   Me to
 Life
.

The euphoria flowed in pulses, a rhythm that seemed to last an eternity as my pubic nerves tortured my mind. I surfed the waves of pleasure, one then another, crest after trough after crest, excitement and relaxation in series gradually subsiding…

Alas, all orgasms eventually come to an end.

“Just in time,” she declared.

Relaxed and exhausted in the wake of overwhelming pleasure, I cuddled against her and through the haze of afterglow asked, “‘Just in time’… for what?”

She breathed in through her nose. “Hm. To go down to Adams.”

“Oh. Right. The case.” ‹Fuck, talking to them is gonna be awkward.›

She continued sniffing, waiting for me to catch my breath before remarking, “You are soaked.”

“You just fucked me. Of course I’m soaked.”

“I sure did.”

“That’s two fucks in one day,” I observed.

“Yep. And tonight I’m gonna eat you out.”

I felt like blushing, but I was already red. “I’m… looking forward to it. And now it’s the only thing I can think about. You’ve turned me into a sex-obsessed pervert.”

She grinned. “Can’t say I’m sorry, nympho.”

I gave her a dour look. “Don’t call me that.”

“Why not? You’re a sex maniac.”

“They called me ‘the nympho’ in high school.”

Her face screwed up with regret. “Sorry. It won’t happen again.”

“And ever since we started having sex it’s been an elephant in my mental living room, waiting silently for me to think about it, but I’ve been doing everything I can to keep my mind off the fact I’m an example where the stereotype about redheads’ libidos is true, and that’s made even worse because, based on how quickly we hooked up, we can infer that I’m promiscuous, to boot.”

“First of all, there’s nothing wrong with having a libido. Second, I feel the need to remind you that you yourself said there was nothing wrong with being a slut. You are not the villain for being who you want to be and doing what you want to do. The people mocking you and picking on you for being someone they don’t like or doing something they don’t like are the villains. If being a slut makes you happy, you should embrace it.”

‹It’s not that simple…› “People mock me and insult me for having hair of an uncommon color. They form these beliefs about what I am before they’ve even met me, and they think less of me because of those beliefs. That’s not the kind of thing you ‘embrace’.”

“Fuck those people. Fuck what they believe, fuck what they say. Follow your heart, not theirs, define yourself and don’t let them define you. Those bastards can go to hell.”

‹Does what she’s saying make sense? Sometimes they’re cruel, sometimes they’re inconsiderate, sometimes they’re merely rude—and sometimes they just… don’t know any better, because they’ve heard the same lies their entire lives, or were never taught how to be civil.› “Not all of them are trying to be mean. Some of them are just ignorant.”

“The ignorant ones are a different problem, but whether they mean to be cruel or not, they’re still doing harm, so they’re still in the wrong. I’m talking about the assholes who don’t actually care what the truth is or about how you feel. The rest, the ‘nice’ ones… if you don’t feel like telling them to fuck off, you can give educating them a try. But that’s a heavy burden to shoulder, and I honestly don’t think it’s fair to you or worth your time or your effort.”

“I don’t know if… if someone who’s willing to improve themself isn’t worth helping. I think people deserve second chances.”

She nodded. “For example… you. That’s something everyone has to decide for herself. In your case, I chose to give you that second chance.”

“And I’m glad you did. I’ll keep that in mind next time someone calls me a—‍” I nearly locked up—I was contending with a lot of trauma. “Like I said… If I want to be a slut, there’s nothing wrong with that.” I breathed deeply. “I’m a slut. And that’s valid.” Admitting this was still a little painful, but at the same time… every time I said it, I felt a little more liberated. Being proud of my sluttiness was counterintuitive, difficult to swallow, and frightening… but liberating. And once I had tasted the skin of liberation, I craved the whole fruit.

She smiled warmly and rubbed my back. “I’m glad you’ve been able to work through that bullshit to reclaim this part of yourself. How’re ya feelin’?”

I realized I had been shedding tears throughout the entire conversation and was relieved that I had chosen to skip the mascara that morning. “Um. Just a sec, my face is drenched.” I went and grabbed a tissue from my nightstand to dab my eyes and cheeks. “I think I need time to process; this new way of thinking feels unnatural, and getting used to it is gonna involve scraping away the old thoughts and old emotions, like chewing gum from the sole of my shoe.”

“Sounds like there might be some trauma.”

“Plenty, but… I’m not in pain anymore. The trauma’s still there but it isn’t crushing me. I feel okay for the first time in decades. I feel better about being a redhead, and about being one who enjoys sex. I’m a slut who wants to fuck, and… I’m… proud of it.”

“Good!”

“But I could maybe use a distraction while my ‘metamorphosis’ incubates.”

“Then let’s get back on the case.” She checked her phone. “It’s past time to leave. It’s 64 outside, so people might wonder why you’re covered in sweat.”

I sighed. “Shit. No one’s gonna want to be near me while I’m sopping wet.”

“You might be amused to learn that I find your post-sex sweat sexy.”

“Oh? Well, I’m always happy to be sexy to you, so you can make me sweat whenever you’re in the mood. Fortunately for you, we don’t have time for me to rinse off.”

She grinned. “Alright, Perspira, let’s get a move-on.”

Queen of Vice

We picked up ‘some’ cash (1,500 dollars) at the ATM next to the cafe, which I hoped would be sufficient encouragement for all the shy informants I expected to encounter. It was my idea—in some movies, the protagonist has no choice but to buy their informants’ testimony. In line with being the private investigator’s most coveted commodity (followed distantly by cigarettes and booze), information was scarce and therefore invaluable, and sharing or even being suspected of possessing it can be associated with degrees of risk ranging from social embarrassment to economic ruination to incarceration to certain death—so it ought to be obvious to even the least astute of lay people that it is only fair to compensate informants proportionately to the efforts they invest and the risks they shoulder in acquiring it.

“You really do have good instincts,” said Judith after I explained what I figured was a fair price to pay for interviewing the people on Adams. “And, yes, they will appreciate being compensated.”

I was nervous about parking Banana Shark anywhere near Adams—being, out of all the city’s streets, the one with the seediest reputation—but Judith assured me, “The workers prefer that their johns’ cars aren’t damaged or stolen while they’re rendering services. It’s bad for business. Your fancy car is safer here than it is at your old police station. Or home, for that matter.”

I decided to trust her in spite of my doubts. Traffic was bustling like any other night, yet the parking that was usually at full utilization was, to my continuing bewilderment, in use by only a couple of cars, so I was able to find a spot right in front of the Old Torrey Pines Hotel, which towered over all the other buildings at the block’s midpoint. I put 15 minutes into the meter to begin with (I had no desire to be there any longer than necessary and planned to fill the meter in the smallest possible increments until we were finished); and as I fed the machine, Judith observed (with mild amusement), “Ex-meter maid pays for parking.”

“That’s how it goes.” I pulled a leaf out from under her windshield wipers, gave her roof a gentle pat, and prayed to any god who may be listening for her safety.

“Have you ever spent any time here?”

The near absence of parked cars had unnerved me from the moment I rolled onto the street at the beginning of the night shift on Wednesday, and it was even more disconcerting now to see the curbs so empty on a Saturday evening. “I was assigned to this neighborhood July 5th, 2023, which means it was my beat for… a little more than a year.”

Her eyes widened with surprise. “No way…”

“Yes way. No one else wanted it, and no one wanted me, so I got stuck with it.”

“So you do know these people.”

“I know where all the metered spots, handicapped spots, fire hydrants, driveways, yellow curbs and red curbs are—and that’s it. As long as I didn’t have to leave my three-wheeler, I kept my plump ass planted in my seat.”

“Everybody on this street is gonna recognize your hair.”

“Which was what I was worrying about earlier, but you said I was going to be forthright about being—‍” I heard a familiar ‘rattle-clink’ and reflexively turned around to find the source of the sound. A woman in a pink mini dress with straight blonde hair—5′6″ or 5′7″ without her heels, mid 40s, athletic build, artfully shaped eyebrows, walnut brown eyes, delicate chin and cheekbones—had just fed a quarter (from the sound of it) into the next meter over. Her eyes, defiant and resentful, bored into mine, daring me to react to what she had just done in my presence. I froze like a deer that had just been licked by a wolf. “Judith…” I whispered, “I don’t know what to do.”

“Start making friends. I’ll introduce you.”

“Oh… kay.” I hesitated before approaching the woman—with the caution one might exercise while approaching a rabid dog (as opposed to a civil if admittedly oppositional fellow human being who had yet to give me any reason to fear for my physical safety)—and Judith followed.

The woman gave us each a suspicious look, and also gave my friend an equally suspicious “Evening… Judith,” then switched her stare to Judith’s eyes alone, ignoring me.

Judith took her cold greeting in stride. “Good evening, Yesenia. How ya doin’?”

“Well,” replied the woman who apparently knew Judith… coldly. “I’m definitely not breaking any laws.” And then to me, “This meter was fed by the person who parked here, Officer. I totally did not feed it any quarters without the driver’s written consent.”

“I strongly suggest,” I meekly suggested, “that you refrain from violating Santa Virginia Municipal Code Section 74.0382 in view of the new Parking Enforcement Officer assigned to this beat. They’re gonna be a lot less lenient than I was.”

She seemed to have missed my advice, because she focused on the “‘New’? ‘Was’? Is that to say that you’ve been reassigned?” She didn’t sound excited by this news—if anything, she sounded concerned.

“If you count being fired as a ‘reassignment’.”

She chuckled. “Serves ya right, copper.” But her satisfaction rang hollow—I could tell that she wasn’t happy to hear that I would no longer be patrolling the street—though I had no clue why.

But I left that observation alone. “I didn’t like fining people, and I’m glad it wasn’t my job to arrest anyone here.”

“Boo-hoo, you weren’t personally owed the blame for making our lives difficult.” Her remark would have pierced me lethally if she had stabbed me with the pointed end of her voice. “J, you with this pig for reals?”

“Ex-pig,” I reminded her…

…and my head fell as she spoke the words I feared most: “As the ancient adage teaches us: ‘Once a pig, always a pig.’”

“Well, fuck you, too, whore!” growled Shosh.

“Please don’t be confrontational,” I mumbled.

“I am not being confrontational,” replied Yesenia. “I merely speak the truth to pigs who live in ignorance.”

“Ugh… You’re right,” I moped. “I’m still a pig.”

“(Hey. What’s going on?)” whisper-asked Judith. “(Why’re you falling apart?)”

“Nothing…” ‹I’m hopelessly irredeemable.›

“I can’t help you if you don’t open up.”

“I’m a cop…” ‹No decent person will ever trust me. Because cops can’t be trusted, no matter how sincere their guilt may sound. Our apologies are all as empty as the space beyond the universe.›

“You’re trying to escape that.”

“I don’t know if I can.” ‹New acronym, ECIFAB: Every Cop Is Forever A Bastard.›

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know if I can get on their good side when I feel…” My lips puckered in self-resentment. “Please don’t judge me.”

“I won’t. What do you feel?”

‹I don’t want to tell her, I don’t want to hear myself confess it… But I must clear the fog around what has me so bothered.› “This place makes me feel… dirty… like being around… these people is enough to become tainted. It’s why I confined myself to my three-wheeler whenever I was on patrol. Just talking to her makes me want to run home and take a shower.” Yes, I admitted that to a sex worker, right to her face. Yes, I feel bad for having said it. But one must articulate one’s flaws before they can be corrected. An ailment cannot be cured without first diagnosing it.

She processed my confession carefully, patiently—and calmly, gently she replied, “Okay. Well. As a veteran sex worker, I find that offensive and dehumanizing.”

“No—no, you’re not like them.”

“How am I not like other sex workers? And how would me being ‘not like them’ even matter?”

“You’re…” I didn’t know how she was different. “Because…” And I didn’t know how being different would have made a difference.

“Alright, I’m going to be nice and help you instead of getting angry. You’ve been indoctrinated by police culture and our Christofascist society as a whole into hating sex workers.”

“I wouldn’t use the word ‘hate’…”

“What other word would you use?” she asked a little impatiently.

“I don’t know but—I’m just… a little… grossed… out.”

She sighed. “The distinction between hatred and disgust is not one worth making when it comes to viewing others as human, in my experience as someone who has been on the receiving end of both for just about my entire life.”

I grimaced. “If you say so…”

“I do say so. Inside your head there’s a tangled-up mass of bullshit tied up over the course of your lifetime, and you’re going to have to untangle it knot by knot, strand by strand. It’s gonna take a long time, it’s gonna require a lot of reflection and self-criticism, it’s gonna require a bunch of research and work. It’s gonna suck. But that’s the price of being a good person.”

“Ah. Okay. Well… fuck. My brain is messed up.”

“Put simply. And you are the only person who can fix it.”

I sighed. “No rest for the wicked until they’ve put back together their own shattered minds.”

“Part of becoming a good person is accepting that you’re imperfect.”

“I’ve already accepted that fact. ACAB. I’m bad. I’ve hurt people, maybe not directly, but indirectly, by being a part of the oppressor class. I want to be good. But the distance between here and my destination feels like infinity.”

“(Lord, forgive me,)” she muttered to herself as she glanced over at Yesenia in the distance, “for having parents who taught me about systems of oppression so I didn’t have to figure them out on my own… Alright. You know you’re bad. Let’s start unknotting your biases. You need to get to know these folks so that you can see them as human beings. Spend lots of time with the people who make you uncomfortable, be polite, follow their rules, internalize their values and let them reshape yours as you witness their humanity first-hand.”

“So I need to surround myself with prost—sex workers.”

“Exactly.”

“Okay. That sounds like it might help. But I will fuck it up somehow.”

“Do you know how to apologize?”

“I spent ten-and-a-half years screwing up at my job, and my bosses always seemed satisfied with my apologies.”

“Well, your bosses aren’t members of a marginalized group, and your fuckups probably didn’t hurt your bosses substantially, so knowing that you can soothe the porcine leadership doesn’t do much to bolster my confidence. That said, no-one learns how to fly without falling from the nest. Flap those wings, Andy.”

“And nosedive into the concrete.” We caught up with Yesenia, who had left us long ago and was trying to flag down cars by posing alluringly. “Do you think anybody here would mind if I hang out on Adams and get to know them better?”

She shook her head in disappointment while at the same time smirking in amusement. “You wanna use us for your exposure therapy?”

“Please, Seni,” interjected Judith. “She hated her job, and she hates herself for being a cop. Give her a chance.”

Incredulous that Judith would make such a perverse request, the woman laughed. “You’re asking me to give a cop—a bastard, one of our sworn enemies—a chance to earn my trust?”

“Yes. A second chance.”

“How do you fit those huge balls up inside your inguinal canals?”

“I use a sledgehammer. And I’m proud of them. I’m glad you’ve taken that fact to heart.”

“You’re welcome. Get this bastard out of here, and if you wish to remain friends with me, don’t let me see you with her again, here or anywhere else.”

“Well, fuck you, too!” snarled Shosh. “Like you’re some kind of morally upright—‍”

“What if,” I interrupted, “I did something to prove that you can trust me?”

“What could you possibly do to convince the people here that you deserve their trust?”

“Well…”

“Well?”

“Um…”

“Esti, you’ve got a plan somewhere in that noggin. Just relax and let it come to you.”

“You know what?” asked Yesenia. “You think about that for a long time. Maybe I’ll trust you someday, perhaps enough to talk about the weather. Not tonight, though. Please excuse me, Officer, I need to get back to my job.” With that she turned away and went back to posing pretty for the passing cars.

“I say again,” repeated Shosh, “‘Fuck you.’”

“We’ll figure out something, Andy.”

“It’s hopeless. The case is cold without the eyes and ears of the people on this street.”

“Well…” I could hear the hope draining from her voice. “If it ends up cold… I still think you could do sex work—though you should probably avoid Adams.”

“Don’t you think there’s a chance I’d maybe hate it?” I hoped beneath a veneer of skepticism.

“It isn’t a bad job—‍”

“It’s a terrible job,” countered Shosh with authority.

“—well, escort work isn’t, anyway—once you’ve learned how to manage a business, launder your income, and juggle flaky johns. Which sounds a little bit tedious, but these skills can be learned, and as I told you before, I thought it was fulfilling. So… I think taking a whack at it wouldn’t hurt. You can give it a single try and decide from there whether you want to try it again—and you don’t have to commit for life, you can quit whenever you like.”

My anxiety grew as she went on and on in a misled attempt to ease what she assumed to be my reservations. As she finished, I simply couldn’t bear to hear another word. “Damn it, Judith,” I whined. “I’m afraid that if I try it once I’m gonna wanna do it again and again and again—‍”

“What!” blurted Shosh, eyes wide.

“—so that I settle on being a dirty hooker instead of a great detective!”

“Woah, woah. Ignoring the ‘dirty hooker’ remark—why… are you nervous about that?” Then Judith noticed just how anxious I was. “Okay. Let’s suppose you did become a ‘dirty hooker’ because you decided you liked it even more than detective work. How would that be such a bad thing? If you want to do it and it makes you happy, what’s wrong with pursuing a career you never considered until now? If you like it enough, could you maybe just let it be your new dream job?”

“I don’t think—‍” I groaned exasperatedly. “When we were talking about sex work—earlier, when you were talking about why you quit—I had a fantasy. Multiple, actually.”

“Bye,” said Shosh as the breeze blew her mist away.

“Were they enjoyable fantasies?”

“In the first one, I was… (performing fellatio) for a man, for a chunk of change generous enough to… temporarily change my sexual orientation. And I was eager to please him, I enjoyed it because of the money, I got turned on by the thought of being paid for sex. Especially since it was with someone I didn’t find attractive.”

She chuckled, which hurt. “A straight-for-pay fetish. I’ll be damned. I hope you make the best of it.”

“I really hope I don’t, I’m already addicted to sex with you, I don’t need to be addicted to sex with men I don’t know.”

It was her turn to be hurt. “Surely wanting to have sex with me isn’t so… burdensome that you wish… that… we’d never met?”

“What? No!” I took her hands in mine. “I l-like you, Judith Lucas, I like being around you and doing things with you, and I have no regrets about spending time with you anyway we decide to. I’m just overwhelmed that I feel compelled by my lust every time you kiss me to mate with you like some kind of beast in heat, driven mad by its drive to reproduce.”

She blushed as she sucked a puff of air through her teeth and whisper-echoed, “‘Like a beast in heat, driven mad by its drive to reproduce.’ Hoo-boy. Is it really that bad?”

“I’m dry humping you in public places. Yes, it’s ‘that bad’.”

Silence followed while something circled the inside of her skull a few times, changing with each revolution, until out of somewhere she pulled out the words, “You’re beautiful. You know that, right?”

“You’re welcome to believe that.”

“And confident—maybe not at this very moment, but when it counts—which only adds to your charm.”

I blushed, and for just a moment her compliments stole the spotlight from my anxiety. “Well… I have on occasion felt confident, but… you saying that… still kind of comes off as… flattery…”

“Your passion and sincerity, even as you explore things you find unfamiliar or intimidating, makes you even sexier.”

Her praise, however, didn’t sit right for very long. “You’re only telling me these things to make me feel better.”

“What do I have to gain?”

“A lot of things, I imagine, or you wouldn’t be doing it.”

She frowned. “Gee, thanks for trusting me to be sincere. I helped you with your laundry, and with finding this case and encouraging you to take it on, and with untangling your internalized bullshit, for fuck’s sake.”

“(Ohh-whh…)” I lamented.

‹Something is wrong with me. One of many things. I’m pushing her away. Why? Why don’t I want to hear her say nice things? Why don’t I want to believe her? Do I think she’s full of lies? I have no reason to distrust her. I’m afraid. Afraid of something, I don’t know what. Everything. I’m all anxiety and fear and distrust. Paranoid. Like a cop. A depressed cop. Who wants to love but is afraid to say it. That needs to change.›

“I’m… sorry I was dismissive, Judith. You’re trying to make me feel better with the sincerest of intentions, and I’m letting my fucked-up brain get in the way. From now on, I won’t assume you’re motivated by anything other than my well-being.”

She smiled innocently. “Thank you. You are good at apologies.” It was a thoroughly sincere attempt, so I was certainly hoping she would be satisfied.

We returned to Yesenia. “So, Yesenia…” I asked, “Is there anything you’re willing to tell me? About you, about your job?”

She sighed. “Christ, fuck me. Fine. I’ll talk about my job, but nothing biographical.”

“Okay. Um…” On the off-chance I caved to Judith’s advice and decided to give it just one little (teensy-weensy maybe-waybe) try, I wanted to minimize the probability that I would enjoy working in the ‘service industry’—or at least the degree to which I enjoyed it. “Supposing I became a sex worker… hypothetically… how would I go about attracting only women, not men?”

A knowing glance passed back and forth between her and Judith; she explained, “It’s your right to pass on anyone for any reason, whether they want to do things that you don’t want to do, or you don’t find them attractive, or you aren’t in the mood… but if you want to make real money, you’re gonna need to acclimate to dirty-talk and touching skin and sucking dick with anyone who offers you the right money.”

I blanched, though a ‘sick’ part of me was relieved that having sex with men was more or less in the job requirements. “Right. Umm… How much should—would I charge?”

“Hm… Tell me: How much do you think you’re worth?”

“Um… 20… 30 an hour?”

Her laughter carried subtly the air of her experienced authority. “Oh, honey, you are selling yourself way short, and besides, the guild decided on a price floor of 50 bucks an hour for chaste company as well as whatever you decide to charge for any add-ons—BJs, penetration, and the like. You are very pretty, plus your fair skin and red hair will fetch a premium on top of that. Though you are inexperienced, you might begin at 60, 70 an hour—or more.”

‹‘Very pretty’? This woman hates my guts and yet she can tell me with a straight face that I’m ‘very pretty’?!› To my chagrin, I felt my ego swell with pride. “So I could be… the premium pussy.”

“I bet you could get away with a hundred,” said Judith. “You’re responsive if not aggressive, you’re a naturally talented kisser… and you have very nice tits.”

‹I do have nice tits… And Yesenia thinks I’m pretty… And I’m a great kisser… And I know how to fuck.›

The worker shrugged. “J knows what sex is worth, Ex-Cop, even after decades of retirement, so I would give her guidance weight. However much you charge initially, with a soft, curvaceous figure like yours, you could someday be as desirable as anyone—if we assume you stick with this long term…”

‹I undercharged the man in my daydream. My body is a valuable commodity. I should only lend it to wealthy patrons…› {and perhaps one of them, ooh, yes, the mysterious one who always wears a mask, who—

{Of course! Who, when I ask him to take it off, growls back that I am the last person he wants to see his face… and if I ever ask again, he’ll cease to love my body… He loves my body every day, 365 times straight, and then… he proposes!

{He proposes to me on the anniversary of the first night he used my body to pleasure himself…! And… and… oh my God, I accept! The wedding is beautiful, 10,000 kowtowing guests pooling their savings to shower us with lavish gifts, wishing us many happy years, arum lilies wall-to-wall, a cake the size of a car… but even as I marry him, even after we’ve said, “I do,” and kissed, he still insists on hiding something shameful behind that damned mask.

{He carries me from the wedding to and over the threshold of my new home—a massive castle with towers and turrets and tapestries, and maids and butlers waiting on us hand-and-foot—where we eat fancy foods and drink fine wine…

{After we’ve had our fill—it’s a light meal, and we have ‘physical activity’ planned right after—he carries me in his strong arms again, this time into our bed chambers, where he rips off my clothes and plunders my flesh’s every treasure with his rough hands and his long and girthy cock…

{But he’s still wearing the mask I loathe more than anything, the thing that keeps us from being truly together. I must see his face.}

I shivered in shameful delight and anticipation.

{As the sweat beads up on our bodies, our muscles grow sore but our passion only intensifies… as does my curiosity. He said I couldn’t ask him to take it off. He didn’t say that I couldn’t just take it off myself—

{I snatch the mask from his face and am shocked by what is underneath. This is not the face of a man.}

I gasped. I was shocked by what I saw, I was stunned by what I discovered, I was scandalized by the lie that had brought us together.

{This… is the face… of a beautiful woman.}

My fantasy concluded satisfyingly, and my attention returned (from the most flawless dream ever to have diverted my attention from the present) to Yesenia mid-lecture. “…been paying attention, you’ll remember, but it bears repeating: if your john has something hanging between their legs…?” She waited for me to…

“Then… um…”

“Almighty Lord, you had your head shoved up the ass of a cloud. Christ fuck me hard for trying to impart wisdom to a fool.”

“I’m sorry,” I whined.

“You pestered me until I acquiesced to sharing my wisdom with you and you’re not listening.”

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m just so distracted by—‍”

“Please, just…” She took a couple of seconds to cool off. “If you ever choose to pursue this line of work… please, use a condom. I want you to know that, as of two years ago, SB 233 took away the pigs’ ability to use possession of a condom as evidence of engaging in prostitution, so you can carry as many as you like without fear of being arrested. And if your john does something you don’t want them to, you have the right to tell them to stop, no ifs or ands or buts or whys.”

“And if they… don’t stop?”

“The answer to that question has two parts. The first: what they pay you up-front is yours to keep, whether you rendered all or none of the services requested.”

“That isn’t really what I was—‍”

“The second part… is a work in progress.”

“I mean if—I needed… (help…)”

“The guild has therapists on call 24/7 to help you through anything unpleasant that may happen to you. There are websites where you can report problem johns. If you want to press charges, California law says you can do so without worrying about being prosecuted, but we’ll hook you up with legal assistance just in case the pigs try anything funny.”

“Um. I know some self-defense moves from work…”

“We all do, thanks to training offered by the guild. I hope you never have to use them. —God, that was the most naïve thing I have ever told someone eyeing this career…”

A soft, droning growl languidly displaced the painful silence, eventually growing just loud enough for the back of my mind to identify it as the purr of a V8, somewhere around 4 liters. Judith’s face betrayed a crippling indecision as to whether she should say something to follow-up and what it should be—but the lull in conversation was no comfort to me at all.

I half-suspect Yesenia was not expecting a reply, because she was silent for a while—until the droning sound was close enough that I’d have recognized the license plate had my eyes been pointed its way—before she grumbled, “Ah, a shithead cometh. One more helpful piece of wisdom, sister: wealthy types prefer to employ sugar babies, trophy wives, and expensive escorts. Rich folk don’t drive down our street. So when they come to see the most despised and vulnerable…” She put extra weight on ‘vulnerable’ and threw in a pause for dramatic effect. “…of sex workers for something illegal, you gotta ask yourself, ‘what kind of illegal acts do they intend to commit with a body no-one’s gonna miss?’”

I nodded. “I catch your drift. But I think I would go the escort route if possible, in which case I wouldn’t need to avoid the wealthy ones.”

I turned away from her just in time to witness the flawless dark blue Mercedes Benz S580 coming to a luxurious stop alongside us, its oversized engine now very audible. The midnight-tinted passenger window rolled down and a sophisticated voice that defied the concepts of gender and dialect commanded, “Redhead.”

I froze. ‹Are they… soliciting… me?› I glanced at Yesenia for advice but received only a blank stare. Judith was too shocked to provide me with wisdom or encouragement. Deprived of guidance from my elders, I pictured a man with a deep wallet hoping for a moment of companionship… and stepped up to the plate.

I approached the Mercedes—hardly noticing the previously flush door handle popping out as I came within arm’s reach—and asked so innocently, so timidly, so naïvely, “So—(umh)—do you— Are you looking for something special tonight?”

“Do you render services to women?” I couldn’t see any of their face north of their razor-sharp jaw.

I tried to be confident. I reminded myself that I was worth money, that I was pretty, and curvaceous, and had nice tits… so they should be intimidated by me. “If—if you’re willing to pay extra.”

“I am willing to pay for quality. What are your rates?” I ducked down to get a better look at their face. It was a very memorable face—angular and authoritative, a suitable match for the voice. Indeed, it was so memorable that her name and vocation immediately popped into my head:

Captain Diane Somers,

SVPD,

Vice Squad.

Butch Fatale

Captain Somers, despite being only 5′10″, would have towered over me even more imposingly than Judith did. She was somewhere in her mid-40s, so, being a late Gen Xer, it would not have surprised the average person very much to meet somebody of her age maintaining a cherry red pixie undercut—assuming they were unaware of her workplace’s dress code. She also had an intriguing preference for well-fitted men’s outfits, and tonight’s jacket (though too dark for me to discern its exact hue within the indigo shadows of her car’s interior) was no exception. For a police captain, her hair and mode of dress were rather shocking to encounter at work, while her facial features, unique and strikingly polygonal, nevertheless managed to be more shocking still.

We locked eyes, and I could sense in hers that my own appearance was just as memorable.

I did a surprisingly good job of remaining calm and told myself, ‹Maybe she hasn’t noticed that I recognize her.› She breathed deeply in through her nose, and with eyes hungry as a wolf’s and a ‘come hither’ curl of her finger she demanded, “Closer, girl,” so—driven by some previously hidden inclination towards obedience—I leaned over the window’s threshold and into the cabin. She examined my bone structure, freckles, and eyes. Her nostrils flared as she took another deep breath, and she sighed in satisfaction and smirked—no less intimidatingly for having kept her teeth safely behind her lips. “Are you not that green-eyed redhead from Parking Enforcement?”

“Don’t do this, Esti,” begged Shosh.

‹The first precinct Vice captain is soliciting me. This situation is fucked up on more levels than I feel like counting—I oughta get myself the hell out of here.› “You have me mixed up with another redhead, Capt—‍” I said this as coolly as I could but winced and quietly groaned as the word ‘Captain’ half-slipped out.

“You are!” She flashed her teeth in predatory amusement. “Why are you patrolling Adams on the other side of the law? Was your pay raise not generous enough this year? Did you write too few citations to earn your bonus?”

My mind was busy searching for a polite way to escape while my mouth hung open, waiting for my mind to give it something to say.

“Would you prefer not to reveal your reasons for waiting on the curb instead of driving your little three-wheeler from meter to meter?”

“I… was… let go. Ma’am.” ‹I could just start running. Any second now, just run. Run. Like, now. Go. Fly away. Sprint to safety. For God’s sake, get moving!› I remained frozen. Like… vanilla ice cream… I waited, inanimate, to be gobbled down. I smelled vanilla, actually—the aroma held me fast, and with each sweet breath I was held faster still.

She nodded with more sympathy than someone with a base salary in excess of 7 times mine should have been capable of showing. “You were caught working your side hustle… or was it something else?”

“Something else, ma’am.”

She did not wait for the elaboration I was not prepared to give. “Tell me.”

‹I can tell her to leave me be. I don’t have to explain myself.› I explained myself. “The brass decided I was unfit for duty.”

“Tell me their rationale.”

“They couldn’t accommodate my disabilities.” ‹I’m sure the other two will agree that this is not a good situation to put myself in, and won’t blame me for sprinting away, screaming that a rich pig is trying to lure me into her car with money so she can abduct and murder me.›

“That is unfortunate. But I would be overjoyed to give my business to a former fellow LEO down on her luck. I find helping my own people quite satisfying, especially the ones who have fallen on hard times. What would you say to… 500 dollars for an hour of honest labor? All-inclusive, if that would be alright with you.”

That was half of a month’s rent earned in a single hour, over 20 times my hourly wage as a cop, 6 or 7 times the base rate for streetwalking, and 5 times what Judith said I could get away with charging. I knew damn well this woman was giving me a suspiciously generous deal, but…

‹Maybe… as long as she doesn’t make me piss in her mouth or eat her shit or anything gross or dangerous like that… I will satisfy every desire she has the guts to share with me.› Carefully I asked, “Are you into anything… interesting?”

“I am into things that would frighten, shock, and disgust you, but I would only ask you to indulge the very tamest of my predilections on our first outing.”

“That works for me, ma’am.”

“Do not call me ‘ma’am’ Get in.”

I grabbed the door handle, but before I pulled it I looked back one last time at Judith and Yesenia and Shosh. Yesenia and Judith looked like they were emerging from the wreckage after being T-boned by a fully-loaded clown car, while Shosh’s face was twisted by horror.

I pulled the handle… ‹Is this another fantasy?› …discreetly pinched myself… ‹Assuming the pinch test actually works, this is real.› …swung the door open… ‹How did I get here?› …climbed into the Mercedes… ‹I was propositioned, I accepted her offer, I got in her car, and now we’re going somewhere private.› …closed the door… ‹I’m gonna fuck her for money.› …buckled up… ‹I don’t know whether I ought to be scared shitless or jumping out of my dress from the excitement.› …and the captain drove us away. ‹Fear is good. Focus on the fear. Think of ways this could go wrong. Catastrophize. Invent the worst of all worst-case scenarios. Let my imagination run wild. Positively terrify myself.›

The luxurious all-leather femme-fatale’s-lipstick-red interior was illuminated by a violet band of light girding the doors and dashboard, and the cabin smelled of patchouli. (You may find it amusing to learn that the patchouli, in its sensual assertiveness, brought to my mind the imagined experience of strolling into a brothel.) I smelled something else, though, besides the patchouli and the vanilla. It was too subtle to describe, but that wispy cloud descended on my mind and gently fogged my thoughts—and changed me in some way beyond my understanding.

We rode in silence—apart from me reluctantly giving her my name when she asked for it—eventually arriving at the valet kiosk of the swanky Blue Agave Hotel. While my attempts to scare myself did not bear fruit, the whole drive had my nerves tight as suspension bridge cables for every conceivable reason, and as soon as we came to a stop I finally found myself silently panicking; she got out, but I stayed put, frozen by vague, confused thoughts about what we were about to do and the forces driving me to do it, mollified only minimally by her reassurance that we would be performing ‘the tamest’ of her ‘predilections’.

Then the car door opened—she was on the curb—the full ensemble of her sharp midnight-black three-piece suit, rich crimson shirt, and whimsical yet professional black necktie now visible under the hotel’s exterior lighting—waiting for me with a lethally sexy air reminiscent of a mafia hitman, offering her hand to me, ripping me away from my worries and stealing my breath. Calmly I extended my hand; she helped me disembark, then tossed her valet key to the person manning the kiosk.

“Notwithstanding the aggressive neckline, you are more ‘formally’ dressed than the other workers,” she observed as we approached the front desk, arm-in-arm. “That is a very nice cocktail dress for a job that involves a lot of stains.”

“My mother bought it for me for my 21st birthday,” I remarked absentmindedly, befuddled by my enchantment.

“It’s not too late to run,” suggested Shosh, startling me. “You have cash for a taxi.” I silently shushed her; she shook her head, said, “You’re on your own, Esti,” and took a disappointed seat at the bar.

“Your outfit is nice, too,” I continued. “Very dapper. Is that a vest?”

“‘Dapper’! That is precisely what I aim for. Yes, this is indeed a three-piece suit, complete with vest.”

“I have to say… I’m a little surprised to find a—a butch woman attractive,” I confessed with a giddy smile.

She chuckled. “I am not one for labels, especially since they never stick to me for very long.” She gave the front desk clerk a name, ‘Kate Fortune,’ and in exchange he handed her a pair of room cards with a warm if not knowing wish that we would enjoy our stay. “How would your mother feel about you doing the kind of work you are wearing that dress for?”

My mother had never in life explicitly voiced an opinion on sex work. However, in my youth she had insisted that I avoid Adams Avenue, especially at night, and if I absolutely must walk down that street that I cover every inch of skin in the least flattering clothes I had, and ‘for goodness’s sake, hide your hair’; she also said the people there were ‘unclean’, and I should give them a little money to distract them while I made my escape.

I glanced over at Shosh, who sucked down her double rum and coke as she judged me—then shook her head in controlled disbelief like a terrified, overprotective parent forced to keep her distance and trying her best to stay calm amid the worst crisis her child has ever wrought upon herself. ‹She isn’t acting like my best friend—she’s acting like a judgmental, nosy pain in the ass, like a controlling mother. As far as I can tell, she’s about as repulsed by sex workers as one can be while still seeing them as human.

‹Is that what I believe?

‹I’ve met sex workers. One of them is my best friend. They aren’t repulsive.

‹My peers, the media, and especially police culture, on the other hand, have painted in stark relief the prost—sex workers of Adams as unsalvageable lowlife scum selling their crack-addicted bodies to the lowest bidder and allowing johns to defile their sacred God-given flesh until their souls corrupt to the point of putrefaction, rendering them into husks missing some or all of their humanity—

‹Is that what I believe?

‹Even though I don’t believe in any God to give me flesh, this narrative has for years rooted itself in my skull and warped my mind without me noticing. Even Shosh—who told me everything I needed to know about sex (the penis-in-vagina variety, anyway) before I even had the chance to menstruate for the first time—isn’t immune to the fears forced upon her throughout childhood as well as the prejudices subtly introduced into her mind over the course of her entire life, as evidenced by the anger and despair and disappointment and shame on her face and in her body language and in her choice of a drink with a sweet mixer with a straw rather than neat liquor sipped from a rocks glass.

‹Can I disagree with my precious Shosh?

‹It wouldn’t be the first time. Maybe they have nuance, maybe sex workers aren’t disgusting, dirty, diseased leeches. Maybe they’re hard-working, productive members of society, laboring diligently to give others what they need in exchange for money. Just like any other worker. Compared to police, who abuse marginalized people and enforce property laws to the advantage of the rich… maybe… maybe sex workers aren’t just harmless—maybe they make the world a better place.›

The puzzle pieces were sorted into their general areas based on color and shape—so I was ready to put the picture together. “She… would not agree with me saying that it’s just another job that contributes to the economy and the happiness of the public.”

“That she would not approve of your new vocation does not surprise me,” said the captain, “so I promise I will not tell her.” She winked.

We were in the very nicely decorated room 502 in an instant, furnished with a table with a vase of red orchids and a king-size 4-poster bed, and as soon as the door was shut behind us she got to disrobing, shoes and jacket and vest first—as her jacket came off, she informed me with steely authority, “If I do anything you want me to stop doing, you need only say ‘red’, do you understand?” I nodded. “Say it.”

“Red.”

She smiled warmly. “Good. As pretty as that dress is, it needs to come off if we are to get anywhere within the next—‍” She checked her Rolex. “—50 minutes.”

I blushed. “Oh. Right.”

So I hastily removed my dress; by the time I had it off, she had shed everything except her lacy bra and dapper pants. “No bra…” she observed. “Very sexy. Leave your panties on, though. I want to take those off myself.” She claimed one side of the bed.

“If that’s what you want.” I waited.

“You could get into bed instead of standing awkwardly like a sexless mannequin.” I claimed my half of the bed, and she wrapped the curtains around us. We were enclosed, cut off from the world. It was just the two of us, confined within a space designated expressly for intimacy. Fear tickled the base of my brain, while lust tickled everything else. She scooted close and stared into me. “You have such lovely green eyes.” I reveled in her flattery, her words excited me and—

     A whiff of
     incense strikes my consciousness
 with hints of almonds, whole
 or sliced or meal or flour blanched,
 unsalted,  salted, baked into  sweet
 macaroons—and painted  marzipan!
  So fragrant, luring me to snack on
   replicas of colorful and cute and
   artistic shapes of fruit… I want to
      fuck the source of this
        confectious perfume. I want
          to kiss you madly. I want
             to get on top of you. I
                 want to ride your
                    cock—If only
                         you had
                             one.

I stared into her as I struggled to restrain my instincts.

“They always caught mine,” she continued, “whenever I saw you patrolling Adams at night. I wondered whether you might be the one to catch me engaging in my forbidden pleasures.” She chuckled. “And sure enough, you were.” She brushed a curl behind my ear; her touch made me shiver— ‹She’s going to defile my sacred flesh—but…› “But not until after they took away your badge. And your cuffs, which is a pity, because I find cuffs very entertaining.” She laid her hands on my shoulders and kissed me, and I responded pretty much the way I expected to respond—by immediately wrapping my arms around her and reciprocating with such aggression that I just about took the lead from her. Not far into our kissing, she asked, “What was it like, having it taken away?”

I did my best to concentrate on the conversation. “It was—(mwa)—the worst thing to ever—(mwa)—happen to me.” But I removed my lips only long enough to answer, then it was straight back to tongue fencing and fighting the urge to tear off her pants and ravish every square inch of her body. ‹She’s going to defile my sacred flesh—but ‘sacred’ according to who? It’s my flesh, not God’s, I have a right to do whatever the hell I want with it. Tattoos, drugs, prostitution—it’s mine to ‘defile’ in whichever fashions tickle me, whether planned or on impulse, be it for profit or pleasure or love.›

She moved her hand to my waist, brushing my tit on the way down; I wanted her to squeeze them both and bite my nipples. “‘The worst’? So you’ve never lost a friend or family member?”

“I lost my mother when I was 21, right after Peter Falk,” I said absentmindedly, preoccupied with her lips and hands and body; my knee-jerk moralistic thoughts on sex work screamed silently beneath all this, buried and suffocating beneath a majestic mountain of lust that made Everest look like a dung hill that had been smooshed flat under someone’s boot.

She pulled her head away to get a look at me, frustrating my desire. Curiosity twinkled in her eyes. “And losing your badge was worse than losing your mother?”

And then I realized how perversely skewed my priorities were. ‹She was everything to me. Or… was… she?› I ceased kissing Captain Somers as my brain seized like the Tin Man after an acid rain. “(Um.)” I would have been mortified had my mother been in the room to overhear this revelation. (Among other reasons.)

“Oh, my God. You are being serious. Was she not a loving mother?” Morbid curiosity and a hint of not-quite-judgment crept into her voice and face.

I was so overwhelmed by this self-revelation and my reproductive urges that I couldn’t think of a lie. All I could speak was the truth, and only with great effort. “Being… a homicide detective… was my lifelong dream.”

“Was your dream more important to you than friends or family?”

“I haven’t had either for the past decade,” I informed her. ‹Please stop asking humiliating questions and get back to passionately kissing me. Or fucking me. Preferably fucking.›

“I see. After you lost your mother, your job was the only thing you had left. After you lost that, you had nothing left at all. Is that an accurate summary?”

“Um. Yeah,” I admitted with token shame, rather less than she might have expected. It’s hard to feel shame when the only thought your brain is allowing you to think is ‘rail me hard and fast with your giant cock’ despite your sexual partner being a woman.

“So here you are, with absolutely nothing, no friends or family, no dream job, no reason to live—but living nonetheless, living a miserable, meaningless existence.” There was no pity or disgust or contempt in her voice or face, though neither was there much of anything else I could read, except a hint, a spark of intrigue within her eyes.

‹I have Judith, I’m not a meter maid anymore, I’ve started a career almost as desirable as my dream job, I’ve never been happier than I am now—by a wide margin.› But I took notice of the gently glowing coals of excitement I had somehow kindled within her eyes. I had a hunch, and without explaining itself that hunch took control of my voice. “I’ve…” I began timidly, before finding some melodramatic vigor, “I’ve never been more miserable than I am right now. And I’m terrified that it’ll only get worse. I’m doomed to be the most laughably pathetic person alive, a lonely virgin too incompetent to do the easiest job in the world, too poor to… drink or drug or whore away my sorrows.” ‹‘Virgin’… there’s no way she’s actually gonna believe that claim after I kissed her like that.›

A sharp-fanged smile slowly took over her face as she gently rolled me onto my back, mounted my stomach, grabbed my breasts, and squeezed them together. “You are desperate for money.”

I rested my hands on her hips, dared to stroke them. “I want… money.”

“Lots of money.”

I gently pulled her face down to mine. “Acquiring every penny within reach is all I can think about.” Kiss. “I crave the money that you’re dangling above my head just like a dog treat on my snout.” Her breathing quickened. “I need it so, so badly.” Kiss. “Not to spend. To have. To accumulate. To hoard, compulsively, like a feral dragon.” Kiss. “I want it.” Kiss. “More than anything.” Kiss. “I want your money so badly, I’ll do anything to persuade you to give me some of it.” She was panting like a rutting hound. “Getting paid is the only thing that matters anymore.” One more kiss, and I let go of her head.

“You would have let me fuck you for a Jackson.” She dismounted me and aggressively pulled off my panties.

“I’d service you sexually 24/7 for a month straight—a 31-day month, no union breaks, taking bites of my meals between sucks of your clit—in exchange for the smaller, worthless half of a torn Lincoln.” ‹Oh, but I’m getting a hell of a lot more than that when I’m finished with you.›

She took off her bra with crazed haste, then eagerly returned to my side and took my hands and placed them on her breasts; I gave them a squeeze and her nipples a rub, and she grunted in satisfaction. “You’d do it for the change under my couch cushions.”

“Oh, I’m worth a lot less than that. I’ll let you do whatever you want with my body, for a whole year, if you merely lend me, at a billion percent interest compounded by the second, an IOU for a one percent share in the ownership of a penny that’s been mutilated by one of those theme park souvenir machines.” ‹I’ll let you shove your coins between my cleavage, as long as I get to keep them.›

She pinched my nipples, causing me to gasp. “You’d do it for crumbs.”

“I’d do it for free, for the rest of my life, if I thought you could get me my boring, menial, despicable, demeaning, terrible…” I was running out of adjectives. “…horrible old job back.”

She kissed me deeply, then whispered, “I could never send such a beautiful girl back to Parking.” She reached down and stroked my clit, forcing my pelvis to thrust into her hand to increase the friction; I moaned between kisses. ‹Oh, I can’t wait to hold all that cash in my hands.› “Pretty people belong in Vice. Would you like to work there?”

“I couldn’t…” I whispered as I dug my fingers into her ass cheeks and humped her hand, wishing her to go faster, rougher, and to pay me in singles so that the stack of cash she handed over would be absurdly thick. ‹She might need a briefcase. That would be hot.› My humping sped up. ‹Fuck! Or a duffel bag so full it bursts when she zips it closed.› I moaned like the whore I was at the thought of a big bag, bursting at the seams, huge gobs of money spilling out of it and onto the bed and getting all over the sheets. ‹Stuff it in my bank account and overflow my purse!›

She stopped stroking me. “Why not?”

The unexpected suspension of stimulation left me momentarily disoriented. “What?”

“Why wouldn’t you like to work for me?”

I was still so caught up in unraveling my prejudices towards sex workers that I voiced my honest thoughts.

My honest thoughts.

On police/sex worker relations.

To the Vice Captain.

Sure, I was still experiencing very strong emotions over my increasingly complex metamorphosis into a decent human being, but I thoughtlessly spoke my mind rather than make up something that would satisfy a pig.

“Because… it doesn’t feel right to go after these people. Sex is the best way to make a living that these people have been able to find—which I kind of relate to, even if reluctantly writing parking tickets was nowhere near as challenging as pursuing a line of work where… where everyone… thinks you’re disgusting and immoral and a threat to society. Add in the fuzz prosecuting them or constantly shaking them down for free blowjobs and bribes—‍”

It was at that moment that I finally realized I was maybe saying a little too much.

“—Not that your squad is— I mean, it’s the Patrol Officers, not Vice Detectives, who do that stuff, Vice is fine, it’s a fine place to work, I’m not saying— They do good work— I mean, I am saying they do good work, when I said ‘I’m not saying’ I was about to say something else but changed my mind— Vice are good people, they do good work. Now that I think about it, I would maybe work there. I would definitely work for you, and I wouldn’t… I wouldn’t feel bad at all about—‍”

She placed a finger on my lips. “You are concerned about the unfortunate reality that sex workers often face persecution and maltreatment at the hands of the so-called ‘justice system’, and you wish to avoid inflicting upon them further harm. Your rationale for rejecting my hypothetical offer is compassionate, well-considered, and based in reality. I have no desire to offer you a counter-argument—because there are none that any well-informed person with a functioning moral compass would find persuasive or compassionate.”

‹On the one hand, maybe being frank to a paying customer about my reasons for not wanting to work in her unit was idiotic. But having been frank, she has thrown me for a loop by surrendering to my assertions.› “So… you… agree.”

“Your political beliefs would be at odds with those of your co-workers, possibly leading to hostility or retaliation; and working your assignments would cause you too much cognitive dissonance. You would be trapped in an unhealthy working environment, and you would suffer even more than you did while in Parking.”

Gingerly, I replied, “Um. Yes.”

“You really are one of u-them already.” I noticed but thought little of the half-spoken word she replaced with ‘them’. On the other hand, I noticed and thought very much of the lack of disdain in her tone, the lilt of wonder in her words, and the curl of curiosity in her smile. Alas, for all my thinking, I couldn’t make a lick of sense of her reaction.

“You lost all respect for the badge over the course of your time as an officer of the law. Do not regret your shame. Understand it. Appreciate it. Heed it.”

‹What the fuck?› She kissed me. Hard, harder than before, so hard that I became lost within the sensations overpowering the nerves of my lips and tongue, pulled from my confusion straight back into the action. And then she (gently) pulled on my clit, causing me to whimper and arch my back in appreciation. ‹Finally, back to doing my job. You didn’t hire me to talk politics.›

She interrupted the kiss to whisper, casually and without malice, “(You are pathetic. Your dream of being a detective has turned to vapor. You have no ambition. You have no self-worth. You are empty inside. You are a husk. You… are nothing.)” By the time she had finished and resumed kissing me, my lips were aching for hers.

My hunch had fully ripened by the time she said these words. I concluded that the very obvious motive behind her insults, which would have made me absolutely perfect for her in the few hours between being fired and meeting Judith: she enjoyed demeaning her partners. I had Judith, who brought me more happiness than anything or anybody ever had, so Somers’s game was laughable and not the least bit painful—but this woman was paying me half of a thousand dollars for a good time, so I had to pretend that I wasn’t the happiest woman in the world. Not convincingly, but with conviction.

I parted our lips just enough to speak. “All I have left,” I whispered as melodramatically as my feelings would allow while greedily massaging her ass cheeks through her pants, “is the fleeting satisfaction of pleasing my customers with my body, and the bliss of earning a wrinkled, coke-stained buck for my dangerous, backbreaking, underappreciated, unfairly demonized work.” ‘As melodramatically as my feelings would allow’ is to say that my act came out a little more sincerely than I had intended. ‹If I keep telling her such masterful lines, she might give me a tip…›

She kissed me, then grabbed my fingers and pinched them onto both of her nipples. I took her ‘subtle’ hint and with infinite eagerness did my best to please her. “It’s too bad that after so many—(ahh)—years at that job you hated, your—(hah)—eyes still have so much life in them. But it won’t—st-stay that way forever. I give you one—(hmm)—one more month at yet another job you h-(aaate) that doesn’t pay enough—(fffuck)—that gives you no opportunities to sate your lust for mystery-(eee)—until those eyes are dull and emp—ty.”

“I think you’re being optimistic,” I said with all the sensuality I could muster. “I give myself the weekend until I accept the fact that this is the only job I’ll ever be qualified for.” What I intended to be sensual ended up sounding more matter of fact than anything.

“Yes! And once you’ve arrived at the conclusion that sex for money is your only option, I’ll—(mhh)—hire you to be my sex slave.”

“I’ve already come to that conclusion, so if it means making more money, I’ll agree to your job offer without bothering to read the contract. I will gladly sell my body to you in exchange for a guaranteed source of money, the only thing I care about anymore.” I had ceased using my mind to gratify her, having switched to telling her what my heart told me to share, and my very satisfying reward for my effortless play was her ecstatic giggling. “Maybe I’ll do it in exchange for the scraps from your table and a place to sleep, sharing the doghouse with the dog. And to sweeten the deal and drive home just how desperate I am for the crumbs on your dining room floor, I would throw in my soul…” I licked her neck, causing her to gasp. “…if only I could figure out how to rip that out and put it on a silver platter with the nuanced presentation of a Michelin star chef.” These lines were particularly exciting to her—inspiring her to kiss me more aggressively and pant and grunt and dig her long nails into my back—and came very naturally to me.

I continued playing with her nips and kissing her mouth until she wrapped one leg around me. “Kiss my neck again,” she commanded.

I followed her order with gusto and she whimpered in delight, then I rolled her onto her back and laid my weight on top of her. “I would worship you, because I am nothing, and nothing desires beauty more than anything.” I gave her neck another lick and gave her nips a less-than-gentle twist.

“(Oh—fuck—)” Her legs wrapped around mine and she gasped to the rhythm of her bliss, “(Ha—ha—ha—ha…)” I continued playing with her nipples and kissing her neck to extend her orgasm when suddenly she… grabbed my head and shoulder.

Then bit the soft part of my neck.

Hard.

It hurt.

I tensed briefly, then relaxed. I let her do it. At first I thought it was the money that was encouraging me to accept her bite, but I eventually realized that it was doing something for me, deep down. It was calming… yet, somehow, at the same time, exciting. Intimate. I relaxed within the grip of her teeth, and my thoughts evaporated, leaving my mind blank except for my awareness of the pleasantness of the pressure.

Before I could be fully satisfied by the sensation of her teeth in my flesh, though, she pulled me away and exclaimed, “Oh, God! I am so sorry!”

“I enjoyed it.”

“Nonetheless, I… ought to have asked.”

“Really, I don’t mind. It was nice, actually. I wish you had kept going a little longer.”

“That does not change the fact that you did not consent.”

“Consider my consent retroactive.”

“Consent does not work that way.”

I shrugged. “All I can think to say is, ‘No harm, no foul.’ But I can’t stop you from beating yourself up.”

She sighed. “I knew this was an eventuality. From the moment I saw you in that dress…”

“Well, I’m glad you took the risk, because now I know that I’m into being bitten.”

“That does not matter. What matters is that—‍”

“I forgive you, okay? I don’t think that forgiving you should be necessary, but I’ll tell you it’s alright anyways; you made a little, tiny mistake, I wasn’t permanently injured, and it felt good. Very good. Don’t punish yourself. Just… let it go, and enjoy yourself. Can you do that?”

She nodded.

“Now, could you get back to biting me?”

“I would rather not.”

“Okay. That’s too bad. Are you at least enjoying yourself?”

“Yes,” she said with more sobriety than I liked. “More than I have in a very long time.”

“What’s so enjoyable?”

“You are cute and sexy. I find myself… wishing that you were being serious when you said that you would…” She sighed. “…sell your soul to me.”

‹Yep—I’m saving it for someone else. Unless…

‹If my body has a price, who’s to say I can’t put a price on my—my…

‹Well, that’s something to ponder when I’m not on the clock, maybe while I’m on the curb waiting for my next john to pull up.›

We laid there amid a pleasant silence that was interrupted only by the sounds of me kissing her face and neck and breasts and body and feeling her up and gasping in anticipation for the return of her libido and the eventual retrieval of her wallet from her pocket, wanting nothing more than to make her climax repeatedly, to witness her pleasure with my eyes and ears and hands, to tell awful lies about myself for her sexual gratification until her hour was up and it was finally time to receive my reward for all my hard work. Ten or so minutes of such kissing in anticipation of inflicting another petit mort upon her passed by the time she asked, “Why do you want to be a homicide detective?”

Kiss. “Justice.” Kiss.

“Even if it paid less than Parking did?”

Kiss. “I’d live out of a tent in the park and sponge bathe in the drinking fountain if it paid nothing and I was somehow unable to supplement my income with sex work.” Kiss.

“A vivid hyperbole.” She did not yet know me well enough to recognize when I was being hyperbolic—as opposed to when I was being perfectly bolic. “Would you also search for missing persons?”

Kiss. “Yes. And I think that everyone would agree that saving lives who still have a chance—‍” Kiss. “—is more important than avenging lives whose chances are gone.” Kiss. “So I would take that part of the job just as seriously.” Kiss.

“Would you rescue someone controversial, such as… and this is just off the top of my head… Alexander Brookvale?”

I couldn’t stop my muscles from tensing at the mention of his name, but I was able to relax and resume kissing her quickly enough that I figured she wouldn’t have noticed. “Yes.” Kiss. “Even somebody who would show me gratitude for saving his life by spitting in my eye then informing me, ‘All dogs go to heaven. All pigs go to hell.’” Kiss. “And then I would give him my smile and offer my hand for a shake as I replied, ‘Amen, brother, don’t you forget it.’” Kiss.

After a pause long enough to make me second-guess admitting that I would help a man who she—as a pig—had every reason to hate, she informed me, “Lovely. Assuming that working in Crimes Against Persons is still your dream… I can get you in.”

My heart skipped a beat. I stopped kissing her. I forgot what money was. I forgot what sex was. I remembered what my dream was.

“Detective. And if you are even halfway competent, I can have you promoted to Detective Sergeant early, six months in rank. Detective Lieutenant after six more.”

‹Lieutenant Bachman, SVPD Homicide.

‹Just like Lieutenant Columbo.›

My lips threatened to reveal my happy teeth. “And… what… will you… be getting… from me?” I asked while trying, and failing, not to let my eagerness show.

The vulnerable sweet side she had shown post-nut dissolved, replaced by her erstwhile superiority. She played with a curl of my hair as she told me, “You are a very pretty girl. And you are gifted with a nearly insatiable libido. I will have you whenever the mood strikes me, and you will have your dream job the rest of the time. When I summon you, you will bring your tiny, deliciously plump body to me, for me to utilize towards whatever ends I desire.”

‹She actually wants me to literally sell her my actual body… in exchange for my dream coming true.›

{Detective Bachman, on the scene of a murder picking out clues that CSI overlooked, gleaning motives and discrepancies in testimony from interviews with friends and coworkers and neighbors, building a case against the man she has a hunch is attempting to frame his stepson for the murder of his wife…

{A body turns up in the bay, waterlogged and next-to-impossible to identify. This wedding ring, though… a little research reveals that it isn’t a wedding ring—it’s the ring of a member of a secret society. Detective Bachman tracks them down to their meeting place and interviews the other members, and deduces that not one of them killed the vic… but every one of them did, Roman Senate style.

{A fatal car collision takes four lives. One of the deceased drivers is found to be at fault for the deaths in the other car… but a follow-up with their psychiatrist reveals that their newest medication has a few rare but debilitating side effects, including narcolepsy. They had been taking it without issue for the past month, but it looks like this one symptom snuck up on them at exactly the wrong moment. Though the dead cannot be exonerated, knowing the truth nonetheless eases the consciences of their loved ones, whom the scrupulous detective reassures there was no negligence or malice behind the crash; this blemish on the deceased’s reputation is wiped clean.

{And between each case she performs her other duty of touching her, kissing her, pleasuring her, fulfilling her every desire, with unparalleled expertise and overflowing passion…}

The hair on my arms and neck stood up, my face burned, and my clitoris throbbed painfully, but amid the storm of fantasies assaulting my mind I failed to notice what the thought of belonging to her was doing to my body.

4 words and a half eagerly burst from my mouth. “We’ve got ourselves a dea—‍” Then the tiny voice repeating that four-letter acronym finally broke through to remind me that the police were not the good guys. If I accepted her offer, I’d be back to square one in the lifelong process of redeeming myself as a former law enforcement officer, falling off the wagon for the first time in a way I hadn’t been expecting. On the other hand, I didn’t want to risk being uncivil by rejecting her non-hypothetical offer outright. I forced myself to tell her, “I—will—have—to—think—ab—out—it.” Or obsess. An obsession is nothing more than a thought taken a little more seriously than normal, when you think about it.

“I ought to clarify that I would not expect you to submit yourself unwillingly,” she explained, not at all offended by my diplomatic rejection, but rather intrigued. “If at any point in time you find our arrangement not to your liking, you may end it verbally or in writing—though in doing so you will forfeit my gift to you. Is that not a fair deal?”

The salient truth was that, despite her offering me both my dream job as well as a guaranteed stream of regular and pleasurable sex, I had just enough of my wits in working order not to trust a cop (and one I barely knew at that) to actually give me all these wonderful things.

But I didn’t tell her the salient truth—instead, I gave her an unrelated truth. “They let me go for a reason. I have depression and as a result I couldn’t handle the easiest job at the department. How am I going to be able to handle one of the most grueling?”

“The answer to that question is favoritism, and it comes with a few perks, including the expectation that you may, at your pleasure, sit in your chair all day—playing Sweet Smasher on your phone, or driving around affluent neighborhoods in a black and white smashing mailboxes, or hiring sex workers to eat you out from under your desk, or pursuing any other whim that might please you at the moment—without a single soul asking you to so much as lift a finger to do your job. But if you are convinced your sails cannot handle such a gentle breeze, if you truly believe that such a cushy take on the career you desire above all else is not ‘accessible’ to someone with your disability…”

My pride, resurrected from its decade of slumber by something, perhaps the same strange force from within that had transformed me from a hopelessly asocial masturbation-addicted virgin into a sexually aggressive womanizer over the course of a few hours with Judith, got the better of me. “I can do it—I’m smart, I’m persistent, I’m charming…” ‹Damn it, I’m persuading myself.› And, thanks to the rapid rise in pressure of my self-esteem, I was coming dangerously close to explosively succeeding.

She held my cheek and reassured me, “Then you are perfect for the job.”

“Well, um, see…” I figured it unwise to try to half-lie again, so I gave her something that wasn’t really false… so much as it was misleading. “I’d like to get on sex workers’ and other marginalized people’s good sides, and all of them sort of—y’know—don’t like law enforcement.”

Her face darkened. “Yes. I am aware. That is why I do not allow any of them to know that I am a pi—police captain.” She was acting a little strangely; the confidence and authority in her voice and face had deflated slightly. “ACAB. You cannot argue with such a compelling four-letter acronym, nor with the people who swear by them.”

“I convinced one of them to talk to me.” She perked up. “Guide me, even.” I couldn’t figure out why my words affected her so.

“Really?” she asked in surprise.

“Really.”

“I will be damned.” Her face became pensive for several seconds, then grew a bittersweet smile. “You know what? I present my offer without deadline; and though I do hope that you accept it, I will not be crestfallen should you ultimately reject it. Good luck to you, whether you find greener pastures in sex work or have a change of heart and decide to give your dream another shot.”

“Thank you.” She reached into my lap and began rubbing me. “Ah!” I exclaimed, immediately locked in, moaning, humping her fingers in pursuit of that vital orgasm, second in importance only to one thing. I figured she was doing this because she wanted to watch me cum, so for the sake of giving her that performance all the sooner I thrust my middle finger up my pussy, feeling around for the spot Judith had tickled… and knew that I had found it when, pressing upwards and forwards, I felt the tingling throughout the lower half of my body double. My muscles contracted semi-voluntarily and I groaned; I stretched myself a little further with two fingers, then three. I grabbed a nipple with my other hand and tweaked it, forcing a gasp down my throat; she did the same with the other nipple, unleashing yet another stream of throaty sounds from me. I continued massaging my insides and tweaking my nipple as the captain played with my clitoris and the other nipple, the two of us ascending from the sandy valley to the stony mountain, higher, higher, towards the clouds; until my legs turned stiff as granite, muscles of my cunt contracted greedily around my fingers, and with one last stroke of my—

Brush from side to side we
cleave

The sky and Earth in twain

With a pale horizon crenellated
by distant mountains

Made of cobalt-zinc

The perfect threshold between

Viridian growing

From the Naples sand

And heaven cerulean with its

Scattered scumbled clouds of zinc

Fragrant linseed

Fills the air

With earthy perfume

We leave it out to dry

Hang it in a gallery

Admire our creation

Convince some sucker

With too much money

To pay out the nose

For amateur work

The deed having been done, she removed her hand from my clit and scratched my back, sending pleasant chills down my spine. By the time I had recovered from my temporary departure from reality, my desire to confess romantic feelings had grown strong, but I knew that doing so, however sincerely, would be objectively dishonest and would make both of us uncomfortable—I was being manipulated by the afterglow of physical intimacy. “You are cute when you climax. You make an adorable little sound, and you have such a lewd face.”

On top of the sex flush, I blushed. “Thank you. Did you… derive any satisfaction from my orgasm?”

“I relished it.”

“Good.” I gave her a passionate thank-you kiss.

“Alas, my hour is up, and as much as I wish to extend our time together, I have some… matters… to contemplate. It is time for me to return you to your new beat.” She abandoned me and got to redressing.

I caught a frown by its corners and kept them from hanging too far down. “Oh. Right. Fun’s over.” The prospect of money added an additional, intriguing appeal to sex, something pleasurable beyond touching and kissing and orgasming, yet I nevertheless felt the need to lie there and savor the post-sex high until it was over, to be with her, to appreciate her, to kiss her, to love her, to have her inside me…

“500 is a lot for just an hour of my time.”

“It is, but the service was well-worth the money. I am beyond satisfied.”

“But was your mind blown?”

She bobbed her head side to side. “It was… excellent.”

“But I didn’t blow your mind.”

“You came close.”

“‘Close’ isn’t good enough. Give me another—I’ll give you another hour to make sure you get your money’s worth.”

She nodded slowly. “One piece of advice, Andrea: unless you are able to blow your partners’ minds regularly and consistently, save the very best of your performances for the people who are not paying customers. Only the ones you truly care about are worth your best. As for free service… that is bad business unless you are attempting to build customer loyalty—which is self-defeating when you have no established regulars.”

‹She’s right. My wallet being my newest erogenous zone comes with an important caveat: under no circumstances can I allow myself to set a precedent of giving out free time to johns—not half an eye blink of complimentary service, not even if I’m having the time of my life or feeling a deep and treasurable emotional connection.

‹To cheapen my services is to cheapen my pleasure.›

With my reluctance to wrap up the night overcome by the imperative of not screwing up my business model, I pulled on my panties and slipped back into my dress.

“Whether or not my mind remains intact, you performed admirably.” She pulled her wallet from her jacket pocket and quietly counted out some cash: “(1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.)” She held out the thick wad of bills, folded in half, and after a brief hesitation I delicately plucked them from her fingers. ‹She’s giving me ten…› Even though I had witnessed her count them, I unfolded them and double-checked… and there were indeed 10 virgin hundred-dollar bills, sequential. I ran my thumbs across the surface of a bill, smooth paper with subtly bumpy lines of ink. My head tingled, my skin buzzed, endorphins leaked out of my skull through my eyes and ears, and my clit swelled and throbbed. I looked up, incredulous as to her generosity. Sure, I had more than this in my bank account, 15 times over, but I’d only ever handled thousand-dollar transactions with checks and cards and electronic bill pay. Never before had I reason to hold so much raw cash in my hands.

“This is… a thousand. We agreed on…” It felt like a small fortune between my fingers. I wanted to hide it somewhere no-one else could find it—maybe inside a shoebox under my bed, or behind a loose brick in the wall of an unsuspecting neighbor’s house, or within a hollowed out book, or in a squirrel hole in a tree in the park. I wanted to kiss it and lick it and rub it against my skin and nipples and clit.

“I am feeling generous.” A manic grin slowly escaped on my lips, eliciting a matching grin from her. “You appear quite pleased to be compensated.”

“Yeah… I feel… good. Really good.” I knew that I had done a good job. ‹Maybe, just maybe, I’m competent at sex work… Ah, who am I kidding? I’m a God damn prodigy of pleasure. And at the rate I’m going, I’m gonna be filthy rich.› I refolded the bills and stuck them between my tits, which were being squished together tightly by my dress. I couldn’t wait to return to the street and hook someone else and show them a good time… and get paid again for being good at it.

“Maybe you are right about not becoming a detective. Perhaps you are truly a sex worker at heart.”

“Maybe.” ‹And a damn good one at that. And I’m gonna get better at it, I’m gonna be the best fucking—

‹Damn it. I can’t switch careers. Solving mysteries in the service of Justice has been my dream since I was a little girl. I can’t throw that away. I won’t feel complete until I solve my first case, and even then only for a short time… not long after that I’ll feel the need to solve a second, and so on, like chaining cigarettes. If I stick with sex work… that itch will tickle-torture me until the day I die, spreading and spreading until my entire mind is on fire.

‹I can’t be a sex worker… not full-time, anyway.

‹But I can’t be a cop, either. Never again.›

Yet the captain’s offer screamed for me to trust her and accept it.

‹N—Not ev—Not even an honest-to-God CAP Detective, saving people from danger and avenging the ones who couldn’t be saved.›

“Let us return to your new workplace.”

She drove us back to Adams and parked in the exact spot from which she had contracted my services. “Andrea, I want you to know that what we shared over the past hour was the most fun I have had with a stranger in years.” She reached for my hand, then stopped herself and withdrew. “So… I have another offer for you. Wait for me on Saturday nights, on this exact spot, between 8:30 and 9. I will always come for you. 500 for one hour… unless you make me feel especially good. You already know how generous I can be.”

I had already decided that sex work wasn’t the right profession for me, even if I took immense pleasure in the craft, even if I had a sweet deal that could pay my rent in a single hour, even if this was honest work that was addressing a real need that others have and thus felt like a positive contribution to society, even if spending time with and among sex workers would help me overcome the prejudices that our Christofascist society had coerced me into internalizing as deeply as my instinct to breathe, even if my first time was effortless yet physically and emotionally fulfilling…

‹And yet… assuming I can convince her to blab about the department’s secrets—getting into bed with a police captain on a frequent basis could present an endless stream of invaluable opportunities to gather intel.

‹And yet… she’s Vice, so she won’t have much reason, if any, to know about the goings-on in CAP, unless I can convince her to snoop around for me—a fairly absurd prospect.

‹And yet… as unlikely as it’ll be for the captain of the anti-hooker cop squad to start spying for the hooker detective, I still want to keep all possibilities, however remote, on the table.

‹And yet…

‹Actually, that’s where the whole line of thinking concludes. She’s an asset, both as a source of money and as a source of intel—at least from her own unit, but potentially from others. The correct choice is obvious.›

I smiled and told her, with sincere enthusiasm, “I’ll be right here, on this curb, waiting for you. I’m looking forward to our Saturday nights. And I want you to know that your offer is and will be at the forefront of my thoughts. I would never deny the fact that you are extremely generous.” I winked.

She smiled back slyly. “I am pleased to hear it. Enjoy your new job, Sweetie. But should you decide to give into temptation, you may give my assistant a call at any time to communicate your acceptance of my proposal.” She waited for a few seconds, then struggled to say, “I will see you in too long, Drea.” Once I had closed the door, she put her car in drive, hesitated, swallowed, and departed. As her ridiculously luxurious car cruised away breathing its own self-indulgent air of opulence to turn into posh carbon dioxide and sumptuous soot at 16 decadent miles to the exorbitant gallon in-city and 25 lavish miles on-highway, I thought to myself:

‹Damn. What a woman.›

Seagull

Shosh must have been waiting for me; out of nowhere, she asked, “Well? Scale of 10 to 10, how much do you regret that?”

I smirked, because I knew that I was about to blow her mind. “The lady I slept with is the Vice Captain at my old precinct.” Her eyes spread wide. “And she offered to make me into a Crimes Against Persons Detective.”

Her jaw dropped.

“Well?”

“Holy shit. Holy shit.” Her face looked like she’d just seen a unicorn piloting a flying saucer made of Lucky Charms marshmallows glued together with spaghetti sauce through a triple rainbow. “You took her up, right? You said ‘yes’?”

“It would be in exchange for her owning my body.”

Her excitement melted into disgust. “Well, fuck that.”

“I figured you’d react along those lines.”

“This is all kindsa wrong.”

“Yeah. It’s better if we don’t talk about it.”

“And that I forget you even mentioned it, if possible.”

I was not thinking about the bite mark on my neck, but it was on my left side, and she was standing to my right, so no controversy ensued.

Yesenia and Judith approached us—on their way back from Rene’s Liquor no doubt—with Pepino Limón Gatorade and Fuego Takis in hand. “So, Sex Cop,” asked the former, making no attempt to hide her amusement, “did you… get paid?”

“Don’t call her ‘Sex Cop’,” growled Shosh.

I ignored her and put on the most enigmatically straight face I could find in my wardrobe; once I had them wondering what kind of surprise I had for them, I removed the money from between my tits and fanned the stack.

While Judith stared in disbelief, Yesenia (for reasons beyond me) broke out into a hearty laughing fit.

“Seni. I know that’s… a lot,” admitted Judith. “But I hafta know… what do you find so funny about it?”

“Oh, nothing, nothing. She gave her a whole thousand is all I find amusing.”

“‘She’?” I asked. “How could you tell she was a woman from where you were standing?”

“I can’t say ‘woman’ is the right word to describe her, but I can tell you that I once counted her among my regulars.”

“Oh. So you knew what she was going to ask me to do with her.”

“Whatever my relationship with her had been, I knew for certain that she would do something different with you, my dear.”

“Okay. Is whatever weird shit she did with you the reason she stopped being your regular?”

She sucked spicy, blood-red dust from her pointer finger and thumb. “She did something to piss me off.”

“Was it something I should worry about her doing to me?”

“Hm. Maybe. Probably. Hell, maybe she’s already done it,” she grumbled, as she crumpled up her empty chip bag. “Reduced the output of your greatest passions—which through trouble, toil, and tongue of dog you’ve built from all the dregs and castoffs of your small, abysmal world—to naught.” ‹Oh, sounds like you did not take to the sexually charged shaming as gracefully as I did. I won’t pry.› She tossed the empty bag into the trash. “I might tell you about it, someday, if you earn my trust—when cops learn how to fly.” She snickered. “First, though, I must highlight your true mystery: ‘Why did she pay you so much for what you did?’”

“Well… I wish I could say it was because I ecstatically indulged her weird desire to treat me like a pathetic loser with no hope for a future and played her nipples like a virtuoso…”

“I’m outta here,” said Shosh, disappearing in a puff of smoke.

“…but she also told me she wanted to help an ex-LEO. Even if my willingness to do freaky psychological things with her was the primary factor, there was certainly significant preferential treatment.”

She snorted in amusement. “Yeah. All these years… she was a pig-fucker.”

I made the deliberate decision not to inform her that my client had been not just any pig-fucker but a pig-fucking pig captain; she didn’t have a need-to-know—in my naïve newcomer opinion—and I didn’t want the sex workers to have a reason to find a way to ban Somers from the street. I knew that an entanglement with her could be extremely useful to me—and maybe, if I played my cards right, beneficial to the sex workers. ‹Perhaps I could get her to go a little easier on the people working this street, or blackmail her into spying on the other squads for me… assuming she doesn’t have IA in her back pocket.› “Yeah.”

“If you’re willing to fuck pig-fuckers, I’ll let you have her as your regular. She’s dead to me. C’mon. Let’s pay your dues.”

“Andy,” interrupted Judith. “Is that a… bite mark on your neck?”

“Oh, yeah. But I don’t mind.”

“Did she ask?”

“No, but she wouldn’t stop apologizing. Almost ruined the mood. I liked it. Don’t worry about me. In fact… I’d like to try it in the privacy of my bedroom. Later.”

“If you say so…”

We walked down the street, passing the hotel, where Yesenia greeted a woman around her age. “Sex Cop, meet Gillian, Guild Treasurer; and Gillian, our new member, Sex Cop.”

Shosh reappeared and hissed, “(I said not to call her that.)”

Gillian—5′5″, blue bob cut, soft features, blue midi skirt and matching blue shirt, a gold hoop earring in each ear and two twisted gold bracelets on each wrist—looked less than pleased to meet me. I offered my hand, but she ignored it. “Good evening, I’m Andrea Bachman. I’m here to pay my dues.” I held onto the confidence instilled in me by my hour of ‘hard work’, and kept my back straight, letting only my neglected hand fall.

“Don’t use your real name, Sweetheart.”

“Oh. Um. Lou Peck—Lou—isa. Louisa.”

“We’ve already got a Louisa.”

“Peckin—Pequeña?”

“Taken.”

“Paugh—Pauline.”

“Also taken.”

“Shit. Hmm… Columb—ia?” Head shake. “Pet—ra… Fal—Falcon?” Another head shake. I tried several not related to my favorite people, eventually coming upon “Serena…”

“Try again, Freckles.”

“(Agh…)” I decided to stop trying actual names and move onto ‘things with positive connotations’, and having just said ‘Serena’, I was primed to find a word that started with the same first five letters: “Serendipity!”

She finally smiled and nodded.

Yesenia, with a delighted smirk, explained to Gillian, “Our Dippity’s a former cop.”

“Is she, now?” asked Gillian with pretend incredulity.

“Tell her about your career’s tragic ending, Dip.”

“I—I worked for Parking Enf—‍”

“You’re the redhead who drives around in that ridiculous little three-wheeled golf cart thing writing parking tickets.”

“‘Drove’.”

“I don’t believe the guild charter says anything about pigs being allowed in, Seni.”

Yesenia gave her a nod. “But she’s a good, kind-hearted ex-pig, and she’s shown an enthusiasm for plying our much-respected trade. Go ahead, show her the bread.”

I presented my folded-up wad.

“Bullshit,” said Gillian, and Yesenia burst out into laughter. “That’s a stack of ones with a hundred wrapped around it.”

I unfolded and fanned the bills.

“No. You did not make all that in the two hours since the night shift started.”

“I made it in one.”

“Fuck off. Come back when you’ve actually turned a trick, poser.”

“She gave me more than usual because I’m an ex-cop down on her luck.”

“Nah, I could see a john tossing in an extra twenty or thirty for fulfilling a special request or doubling your rate if you do a bang-up job, but this is grade-F baloney. We don’t make that kind of dominatrix money here on the street, not even from pig-lovers. You got that stack from the bank.”

“I saw her get into the trick’s expensive car,” Yesenia explained. “Ex-regular of mine. A major freak, and loaded. This is a lot of money, I won’t deny it, even for that nut job… but it’s not implausible for someone to be willing to pay extra for a batshit kink request.”

“Did you work the job with her?”

“No. I’ve had no business with her since she betrayed me.”

“Then with all the respect I owe you, Seni, you don’t know shit about what she did or did not do behind closed doors.”

“I really do believe Dip when she says she did as our freaky john requested, because I’m intimately familiar with her kinks, and Dippy wouldn’t have known about this lady’s fucked up love for degrading her partners had she not endured it herself.”

“We’ve all been insulted by johns and none of us charge extra for it.”

“I’m not talking about petty slights, Gill. The kind of shit she put her through would have made you refuse even a stack like that—this john gets off on psychologically vivisecting people to find their weaknesses and insecurities before she speaks to them the cruelest words you could ever imagine. Plus, her john’s a biter. Sex Cop is a special kind of hooker—‍”

“Don’t call her a ‘hooker’ and stop calling her ‘Sex Cop’!” shouted Shosh.

“—if she can bounce back from that hell with the shit-eating grin she was wearing on her face when she showed us what she earned from enduring it.” ‹I am… a super whore.› My head, by that point already fit to pop, grew a size or two more.

Gillian sighed. “If you’re gonna vouch for her… fine. If she ends up being a mole, you’re responsible for the damage she causes us and that means your reputation is on the line. Alright, Dippy Duck, monthly dues for those who wish to join the guild are 7 percent of gross earnings. I’m assuming you only dipped your toes in the danger canal for the membership and don’t intend to do any more work till the end of time, so you can just pay it now and be done with it forever. 70 dollars.”

“Can you make change for a hundred?”

“I could. But I don’t feel like it.”

“Andy, sidebar?” requested Judith, pulling me aside.

“Sure. What’s up?”

“I think you should consider donating your new fortune to the guild.”

“I earned this,” I whined. “It’s my achievement. It’s special to me. I can’t just… give it away. I worked hard for it.”

“Which makes giving it away all the more meaningful.”

‹Are you fucking serious?› “I’m on a fixed income, Judith. My pension is only gonna give me 800 a month, that’s 200 short of my rent, and I don’t know if I have the cojones to ask Geraldine to pay me for doing what the police should be doing for free. I need 3 years of investigative experience to get a private investigator’s license, and despite more than a decade of policing experience, none of it counts towards that requirement because none of it was investigative. I could go to jail for operating without a license, convincing people to hire me is going to be a bitch, and whatever work I can find is going to be under-the-table, which means the IRS might show up on my door one day and then I’ll be up shit creek. I can’t afford my rent without sex work. I need this money. I need it if I’m going to keep a roof over my head.”

“Andy, I…” She struggled. “I feel for you, and I’m not gonna… like, take it away from you. I wouldn’t say that you actually ‘worked hard for it’… but you did work for it, period. The only reason you got so much, though, was because you used to be a cop. It isn’t fair to everyone who’s been working their asses off and risking life and limb on this street for years and will never see that kind of money even after they’ve worked for years more, and if you go around bragging to everyone about how much you made in your first hour of work without any prior experience, you’re going to be even less popular than you already are, capisce?”

“I—I don’t know how I’m going to afford even the most basic necessities if I’m just gonna give the guild everything I make on this street.”

“Not ‘everything you make’. Just… the extra money you’re able to earn thanks to your privilege. Just what you can spare.”

I stared down at my shoes sullenly. “I’m white, so I get paid more than most people here, and I’m less likely to be assaulted. I’m an ex-cop, so the Law is gonna go easy on me, if not help and protect me. I have a desirable body and enjoy sex with strangers. I’m blessed with privilege.” I sighed. “You’re right—I can’t in good conscience keep this. Thank you for pointing this out. Ugh, I hate this…” I returned to Gillian. “Gillian,” I said with a reluctant (if not resentful) sigh, “I have decided to donate all of my earnings from tonight.”

“Wonderful. Are you trying to buy just my trust, or that of all the other sex workers, too?”

“I’m not—I’m not trying to buy anything.”

“You’re trying to wow everyone with your magnanimity,” she said with mock surprise, “and that isn’t just a barefaced attempt to buy popularity?” Deadpan, she added, “Of course it isn’t just a bribe.”

“Judith,” I growled in exasperation. “This was your idea.”

Judith nodded and meekly conceded, “The advice I gave you was solid… solid shit. I apologize.”

“(Thank you,)” I grumbled through clenched teeth.

“Money for followers was J’s idea?” asked Gillian with a sudden lack of condescension.

“If by ‘money for followers’ you mean ‘doing the fair thing—as an interloper who stole a generous john from a more-deserving sex worker to turn a ludicrous profit thanks to being a sister of the blue brotherhood—by relinquishing my earnings for the prosperity of people I was complicit in oppressing at my old job…’ then yes, it was her idea.”

She bit her lip. “Hm. If this was J’s suggestion… sure, your money is welcome in our coffers.” I forced myself to fork over my precious stack of hundreds and she stuffed it into a wallet she pulled from her purse. “Thank you. That leaves us with the matter of your dues.”

I stared. “What are you talking about? I just paid my dues.”

“You made a thousand-dollar donation.”

“Yes. A donation in lieu of dues.”

“Neither of us said the words ‘in lieu of dues’.”

“You want me to pay…”

“70 dollars.”

“…because we didn’t explicitly agree to my dues being included as part of the donation.”

“Precisely.”

“And you’re being serious?”

“I may be wearing makeup, but it is clearly not clown makeup.”

I groaned and rolled my eyes. “(Ah, shit…)” I searched my purse—which was a disorganized mess of multiple tubes of SPF 30 lip balm used down to the nub, the keys to my childhood home that I should have thrown away a decade ago, an empty bottle of sunscreen, a full bottle of sunscreen, pesos from the last time Shosh and I went to Tijuana, hair ties with strands of hair knotted onto them, and banknotes of various denominations including a two dollar bill I’d held onto because I’d drawn a perfectly curled handlebar mustache on the third president of the United States with an extra-fine point felt-tip marker the last time I’d had a good drink or 4—and managed to find a loose pair of emancipators, to which I added 3 irredeemable assholes from the ‘informant compensation fund’ for a total of 70 dollars. “Here.”

She stowed the bills in her wallet and pulled out a card. “It looks like a calling card for a social worker agency—‍” She studied the front, then handed it to me. “—but the phone number is actually your guild ID number.” I accepted it. “Don’t try to call the number, you’ll just get a random person or business. You don’t need your card to do work, but you will need it for benefits and functions—after your background check clears and you’ve survived your three-month probation.”

‹’Santa Virginia Social Workers Group, Membership services: 611-411-0579’, plus a red umbrella in the background.› With a brief glance I had the number stored in my head; the card itself went into my purse and became lost among the flotsam almost as soon as I had received it. “Got it.”

“Welcome to the guild,” she said. I smiled in relief that I had finally proven myself to them and earned their trust. “But don’t you get it into your head that everyone is just gonna trust you just because you turned your first trick.” I stopped smiling. “All of us know the police are allowed to break the law in the course of an investigation…” She leaned forwards. “…and we are damn good at sniffing out sting operations.”

“Do you trust me?”

“About as much as I trust any other pig… maybe less.”

“Why less?”

She shrugged. “I’m slow to trust. So slow that I trust in reverse.” Yesenia stifled a snicker.

“Well… What can I do to get you to trust me?”

“The harder you try to get on my good side, the more deeply you burrow yourself into the rocky soil of my bad side.”

I sighed frustratedly. “So you’ll never trust me.” I shrugged. “Well. Shit. Do you need to trust me to at least tell me whether you saw Alexander Brookvale the morning he disappeared?”

It was not suspicion that altered her face—rather, it was an intense confusion that knit her brow and narrowed her eyes and turned her stare sidelong. “Why… do you want to know?”

“I’m trying to find him. The police aren’t doing anything, so I’m doing it for them.”

“You’re trying to find him?” she asked skeptically. I had (as far as I could tell) surprised her. I nodded. Gillian pondered for a few seconds, then softly asked, “Wednesday?”

I nodded.

“I didn’t see him. But…” She glanced at Yesenia—who, eyes and teeth shining with satisfaction, winked back at her—then, with just a little curl of one corner of her lips, cautiously continued, “…he was supposed to be a guest speaker at the meeting.”

“So there was a Sex Workers Guild meeting on this street?”

“Yes. 9 o’clock.”

“Which explains why he was here around that time of day, and—‍” With superb professionalism I contained my excitement… “—it also means there should have been lots of people around when he arrived!” …or at least tempered that excitement a little.

She glanced back and forth between Judith and Yesenia. “A reasonable supposition, Sherlock,” said Gillian, the other corner of her lips threatening to join its sibling.

“How come nobody in the guild told his wife where he was going at the time of his disappearance?” I asked

Gillian’s eyebrow grew half an inch taller. “She… didn’t know where he was?”

“No. He didn’t tell her.”

Yesenia cleared her throat and very innocently asked, “And why, pray tell us, didn’t he tell his wife?”

“He never told her where he was going because he didn’t want the authorities to be able to legally compel her to divulge where he was.”

“‘Told’? ‘Didn’t’? ‘Was’?” I had used the past tense and therefore Yesenia was, at present, tense.

‹Well, I don’t actually know he’s dead, even if all signs point to him being murdered and his body discreetly disposed of.› “I mean—that’s just to say that he’ll probably keep her apprised from now on. Once we rescue him.”

She nodded skeptically. “Of course that wasn’t just a slip of the tongue.”

“I assure you, I believe he’s alive.”

She replied dryly, “I am assured.”

“He’s alive. I’ll rescue him, okay? It’ll be hard since he kept Missus Pasteur in the dark with regards to his operations, but I’ll find him.”

“I didn’t know he was so secretive,” Yesenia said, shrugging resignedly, “If I’d known she didn’t know, I would’ve told her then.”

“That would have saved us a lot of trouble, though the GPS data we uncovered in the process of addressing that trouble is going to be far more useful than just knowing which meeting he was attending. Where was it being held?”

“Gee. I dunno. Maybe it was held at the Torrey Pines. Can you think of anywhere else on this street suitable for a meeting of hundreds of people?”

“Ah. No, I have to admit that I can’t. It was hard to tell without labels for the buildings on the map, but based on his GPS tracker’s history, his last known position appears to be on the curb in front of what I think is the hotel’s entrance—which means somebody at or on their way to the meeting could have seen him. Yesenia, did you see him at all?”

“I would’ve told you by now if I had.”

“Crap. I need to ask everyone here to be sure.”

“Yeah, that would be a good next step to take. You may be helped by the knowledge that there was a raid at fifteen past nine.”

I nodded. “Ah. He might have gotten lost in the shuffle. But the timing… Hm.”

“Let’s think about it once we have more evidence,” suggested Judith. “Thanks, Seni. Let’s get to it, Andy.”

“Good luck, sleuths,” Gillian bid us with a shocking lack of sarcasm and a surprising amount of amusement.

“Let us know if there’s anything we can do to help,” Yesenia said. “Also, you’d’ve saved yourself a lot of pain by simply telling me upfront about why you came here. I’d’ve given you a lot less grief.” She kept her tongue in her cheek as she said this, and the other two covered their snickers.

I blushed, nodded, and tried not to think about how the four of us could have started our night off with a little less friction if only—if only, if only—I had started it by getting down to business and explaining I was looking for Alex Brookvale rather than flopping around hopelessly like a fish on land hoping to convince the seagulls to be nice to her.

Except… as a cop, I would be the seagull, and the sex workers would be the fishes. So… I was more like a seagull trying to convince a school of fishes to give her a chance to prove she was an ally who meant them no harm. But instead (surprise-surprise) a butch cop-witch turned me into a fish and I got to swimming with them.

It turned out that being able to breathe in the vast and fathomless ocean of the oldest career was exactly what I needed—and wanted—all along.

410 Gone

We started with the next closest sex worker. “Good evening, I’m Andrea Bachman—Serendipity when I’m turning tricks—and I’m a private investigator looking for a missing person.”

I received from them a polite and well-advised “No thanks, I don’t talk to the authorities without a lawyer.”

‹Well. Shit. Being a sex worker isn’t enough to gain their trust.› “That’s—well, that’s a very good policy. And I hope you never have to talk to the cops. But I’m not a cop anymore.”

“And why should I believe you?”

Shosh helpfully suggested, “Tell her we’ll turn her in for being complicit in the kidnapping after the fact unless she becomes a believer in the next few seconds.”

“Um. So—if you don’t believe me, you should… consider… that I could…” I stuttered and trailed off. ‹Is intimidation really the right technique?›

Judith, on the other hand, pointed out with a whisper, “(Now’s the time to apologize for being a cop.)”

“(—Uh)—You should consider that—I could—that if you don’t believe me, then you—then, well, that’s fine, that’s your right, and you have—you don’t have any reason to trust me, so that makes sense, you’d be crazy to trust me. All I can say is… I regret that decade of being a… pig. The department is abusive and hateful. I would—never go back there, even if—if I—even if I wanted to. And I don’t—want to. Nothing could ever make me go back there. I’m done with being a cop. Never should have joined the force in the first place. Bad people, bad institution. I’m trying to make up for my organization’s abusive behavior—that maybe I didn’t participate in, but I failed to fight. I’m trying to save Alexander Brookvale to prove to everyone that—that I regret what I did do and what I didn’t do, and to prove that I’m not a bad person—anymore. Well, I’m trying to stop being a bad person. But I can’t do the good things I want to do unless I have your testimony. Please. I need your help. I… can’t prove… that I’m a decent person… without it. At this point, all I can do is beg, and that’ll probably just annoy you, or make things awkward, or make you despise me even more. So… um… yeah. I’m—gonna shut up, now. Th-thank you… for listening.”

They considered me for a moment, first with pity, then with a more skeptical eye, then with beneficent acquiescence.

A red F-150 circa 2015 pulled up. “How much?” called out the driver.

“I’m busy,” replied my interviewee.

“Are you shitting me?”

“We’re having an important conversation, please wait.”

“I don’t have all night, whore.”

“5 minutes.”

“It’s now or never, lady.”

“5 minutes or no deal,” they replied firmly.

“Fuck you, bitch,” replied the would-be john as they shifted into drive and moved on.

The sex worker sighed. “Alright. I’ll tell you what I can.”

“Thank you. You didn’t have to turn down business for me.”

“I turned it down for Alex.”

I smiled. “He’ll appreciate your sacrifice.” They gave me everything they could—which was just about nothing—but I had their trust, and that’s what mattered in the long term. I asked for their name, and they reluctantly told me, “Lisa… Harris.”

From the moment the next sex worker stepped out of their john’s white 2021-ish Honda Civic and asked me suspectfully how they could be of assistance to me, the next interview went rather more smoothly—I opened with an apology for having been a cop and not doing anything to fight the system, and they agreed to hear me out. “Did you see Alex the morning of Wednesday the 10th?” I asked them.

“No.”

I sighed. “Another ‘no’. Alright. That’s all. Thank you for your help.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t help you.”

“He was kinda worthless,” remarked Shosh.

I nodded solemnly. “They can’t all be winners.”

“Andy, can’t you think of anything else to ask him? Any way he can help us?”

“No. But—well, people not seeing Alex tells us he might possibly have been hidden somewhere nearby before the meeting was interrupted. If everyone else has the same answer, we can safely assume that was the case. So… Thank you, friend. You may feel like you didn’t help, but you did. In fact, you made a valuable contribution to our investigation.”

“She’s right,” added Judith. “Any honest answer, even an ‘I don’t know’, is another piece of the puzzle.”

“Oh, come on,” groaned Shosh. “He didn’t tell you shit.”

“Judith’s right. ‘I don’t know’ still tells us something worth knowing.” I concluded the interview with, “Thank you. Seriously,” along with a smile pale with disappointment and germinating resignation. “I guess… if I can think of anything else to ask you… could I have your name?”

“Well, I already have an arrest record, and if you were Vice you’d already know everything there is to know about me anyway, so there’s no point in not sharing. Paulo. Paulo Rodriguez.”

“Thank you, Paulo.” I offered my hand.

They hesitated but accepted my handshake. “Anything for Alex.”

I nodded and smiled warmly. “That’s the spirit, Paulo. Have a profitable and peaceful night.”

The next several interviews—with Frederica, Joaquin, Lola, Sandra, Antonia, and Charlotte—proceeded with much the same results. However… as my desperation—climbing slowly, step by step—approached its unbearable peak, I finally—with smothered exasperation—clarified to one of the workers that Alexander Brookvale would have shown up between about 9:10 and 9:51—and I was reminded, “There was a raid on the hotel.” They then helpfully explained, in vivid and intricate detail, “I didn’t see him amidst the chaos.”

In that moment, as I approached my breaking point, my desperation and frustration planted within my brain a pseudo-epiphany. “He might have been on his way, tried to run from the raid… only to get lost in the chaos… and then was taken!”

“Okay, so, like… that’s a possibility,” said Judith doubtfully. “But remember: he froze about 5 minutes before the raid started, and the GPS was never inside the building. He was definitely outside the hotel when he was kidnapped, and I think he would have seen the raid coming and would have run if he was able to.”

“Yeah. Hm. And he sprinted and stopped 5 minutes before they arrived on the scene, which means he could have—for reasons I can’t imagine—could have abandoned his backpack and gone into the hotel before the raid.”

Her sidelong glance made her concern clear. “And… we both remember that… y’know… nobody at the meeting saw him. So we know that was not the case.”

“Ye—es. Right. Of course. I knew that. Him going inside definitely makes no sense. He had to be outside during the raid. Obviously.” ‹How do I make it sound like my dumbass thought was actually me being smart…?› “I was just… exploring our mystery… (um…) via the Socratic method.” I had read the phrase Socratic method mentioned in online discussions about Columbo, so I figured that—whatever it was—it was something that smart detectives used.

She nodded and smiled. “Oh, of course that’s what you were doing, obviously! That was a textbook example of the Socratic method if I’ve ever seen one. Very smart of you to use that investigatory technique. Very smart. Anyways… if he was outside—and free—in the minutes leading up to the raid, he must have fled into a nearby building before they could catch him.”

“Maybe… maybe. That might be when he was abducted. ‘Which building?’ is the next question.”

“How much time would he have had to react?”

“So—the police would have been out of their vans and inside the building without delay as soon as their wheels had stopped spinning—to make the best of the element of surprise—in 60 seconds or less. So the very earliest they would have arrived would have been 9:14. He would’ve seen them coming, though there would have been only about 5, maybe 10 seconds from the moment the police vehicles turned the corner to the moment their doors flew open, and the raid cops probably would have grabbed him as soon as the first boots hit the ground, so…”

She looked up and down the street, from property to property, which were for the most part vacant. “COVID wiped out a lot of businesses in the neighborhood—I don’t think there’s anywhere safe he could have made it to in just 10 seconds. Unless he was already hanging out inside the Sunrise-to-Sunrise convenience store all the way at the end of the block for coffee and a donut—but that’s doubtful.”

I huffed. “Good point; taking a detour for a coffee break when he was already running late to the meeting would be a little odd. Hm. Then there’s the question of what they would have done with him after grabbing him—theoretically, he would have ended up in one of the same paddy wagons they were loading the sex workers into before ending up in a cell, making his phone call, posting bail, and going home. And nobody saw him in any of those places.”

“Square one.”

“Yep.”

We resumed going up and down the block interviewing sex workers—this batch being Ximena, Eduardo, Felicia, Carmen, Olivia, Maria, Gilda, Elena, and Isabella. To our established routine Judith added, “Did you see anybody who resembled Alex?”

“No.” “Nope.” “Nobody who looked anything like him.” Interview after interview, no one had spotted even his doppelgänger.

Until—

“I saw a man in the back of a car who might, might have been him, right in front of the steps of the hotel.” I did my best to remain calm as they spilled sentence after sentence of beautiful information. “I barely got a look at the person’s face, the tint on the windows was almost black.”

“Could you pinpoint the time?”

“In the beginning I tried to hide in the broom closet, but the jackboots found me in just a few minutes. I think I musta been the last person they pulled outta the hotel—9:20-ish, maybe 9:25.”

“Did you see what happened to him after that?”

“Nah, I barely saw whoever it was for a second or two. They rushed me down the sidewalk past the car and threw me in a van.” My excitement leveled off.

“Alright. Were there any other occupants in the car?”

“I could just barely make out a driver and front passenger.”

‹Yes…!› “Did you get a good look at them?”

“Like I said, the windows were tinted. I’m not even sure the person in the back seat was actually Alex.”

“But you think it was probably him.”

“Maybe.”

“Would you say ‘more likely than not’?”

“Flip a quarter and cross your fingers it lands on its edge.”

“Oh.” ‹Well. Fuck me.›

While I moped in defeat, Judith asked them, “Do you remember any part of the license plate?”

“Well, I caught the last four numbers when I broke loose for a moment, halfway to the van: 8801. I was so far away I could barely read it, and I couldn’t tell you the state.”

I smiled wide as I was lifted high once again by a gust of good fortune, and the little hairs on my back and forearms prickled pleasantly. I logged the string of digits inside my mental automobile database. ‹All I need is someone willing to do a plate search, and this case will be half-solved.› “Just to be clear, was it a car-car, or an SUV, a truck, something else?”

“Car-car.”

“Do you remember the make, model, and color?”

“It was blue.”

“And the model?”

“Cars all look the same to me.”

“Manufacturer, at least?”

“Like I said, they all look the same.”

“They… don’t all look the same, though. They all look unique.”

“They all look the same to me.”

“She has no taste for automobiles,” scoffed Shosh. “Probably couldn’t tell a tailpipe from her own asshole.”

I sighed. “Yeah. And it’s annoying and it’s making my job harder. Friend, could you describe the car?”

They rolled their eyes. “It had windows and wheels. Like I said, they all look the same.”

I grunted. “Can you give me any details? The hubcaps or the grille emblem or hood ornament?”

They stared.

“Do you… know what I’m talking about?”

“No. You yourself admitted that cars all look the same and that it’s making your job harder.”

Hoping to vindicate my frustration, I looked to Judith for reassurance.

“What’s up?”

“Did I really say that cars all look the same?”

“You agreed with her to that effect and even admitted, ‘It’s making my job harder.’”

I groaned. “No, I was talking to—‍” I caught myself, hesitated, and course-corrected. “Ugh. Never mind. This investigation is a God damn disast—‍”

“(Shhh…)” Before my tirade could turn any sourer she shushed me and pulled me aside. “What’s bothering you?”

I explained, quietly. “We have gathered next to nothing from interviewing these people, and I am at my wits’ end… At this rate, we’re never gonna find him.”

She gently reminded me, “Being a detective is hard work, Andy. You gotta keep going, even when it feels like your wheels are spinning in the mud. Keep asking questions, leave no stone unturned. Don’t stop until you’ve accounted for every possibility. As the Master Sleuth himself once said, ‘When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.’ So, go on, eliminate the impossible.”

“Columbo never said that.”

“(Ah. Ummm…) I wasn’t… quoting… Columbo. I was quoting Sherlock Holmes.”

“Oh. Different ‘master sleuth’,” I replied with disdain. “That’s why I didn’t recognize it.”

She had no words.

“Judith?”

“Just out of curiosity… What’s your favorite Sherlock story?”

“I don’t have one—I’m not a fan, to put it gently.”

“Okay. Uh. When’s the last time you read Doyle?”

“Who’s Doyle?”

She cocked her head. “Sir Arthur… Conan… Doyle?”

“Okay, but who is that?”

She stared for a moment before replying, “The man who created Sherlock. Poe pioneered the mystery, Doyle perfected it. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is the biggest name in the genre. You hafta be familiar with some of his work.”

“Oh. Well, yeah, I gave Cumberbatch and Freeman’s genius performance a go, but I gave up after a whole season of their queerbaiting tango led us to nothing; I would hardly call the main character a ‘master sleuth’. It wasn’t very good in my opinion—don’t tell the Superwholockians I said that—so I never understood why people make such a big deal about the books.”

“You haven’t read any Sherlock Holmes stories… because you didn’t like the shitty BBC show or its interpretation of Holmes and Watson.”

“Yes. The way Doyle wrote that show…” I shook my head. “It was more about action and flashy visual effects and nonsensical melodrama and trying to make Sherlock look smart with cheesy mind palace animations and by withholding information from the viewer until the parlor room reveal to give the illusion of a mystery, rather than about actually presenting evidence to the viewer, to challenge them to solve the crimes—with their own theories and logic—alongside the hero, so that they feel like a junior detective shadowing an intelligent and complex protagonist instead of watching from a distance as some self-important know-it-all stumbles around the crime scene insulting people with half-baked attempts at wit. The audience’s participation in the mystery and anticipation of how the lieutenant is going to solve the mystery is what makes Columbo such a great show. Doyle could have learned a lot from Levinson and Link, and even more from studying Peter’s additions to the character.”

Her eyes detached their focus from the world and wandered lost as she retreated into thought.

“Is something wrong?”

“(…Didn’t like the BBC show…)”

“Judith?”

“(…So she’s never read the original books…)”

“Judith, are you okay?”

“(…She’s never read any Doyle…)”

“Why do you sound so worried?”

“(…A detective who hasn’t read Sherlock Holmes…)”

“Judith, please talk to me.”

“(…Thinks Doyle created the show, never heard of his books…)”

“Judith!”

She snapped out of it and—after a second of staring at me with a face that, aside from the pinch of horror in her brow, was blank as a fresh ream of copier paper—a smile broke across it. “The books and short stories are better than the 2010s BBC show. Way better than the BBC adaptation. You should read them.”

“I’m not much of a reader.”

“That can be fixed, just like everything else. We can read together. We can go to the library sometime. Call it a date.”

I shrugged. “Just One More Thing was romantic, why can’t detective books be romantic, too?”

“Good point. We’ll find you some mystery romances.”

“Raunchy ones?”

“Only the most tastelessly filthy.”

“Then I’ll give reading a try!”

After a few seconds of awkward silence, she asked, “Would you like to resume our investigation?”

Inspired by the logical wisdom imparted by my best friend and excited by our date plans, we tracked down our interviewee and I got back to our investigation by asking them, “Where were we? Ah! How many doors did the car have?”

“Four.”

‹Excellent.› “Do you recall what particular shade of blue it was?”

“Deep, kind of royal blue.”

“Great, great. Did you see it leave the scene?”

“No, I was in the van and on the way to the station before it left.”

“Could I get your name?”

“Uh.” They hesitated.

“You don’t have to tell me. Your testimony would be useful, but whether you make a statement now or testify later is entirely up to you.”

They gave my request some thought, then said, “If it puts the bastards in jail, I’ll show my face in court. Yoly Jimenez. Y-O-L-Y.”

I smiled warmly. “Thank you, Yoly. Your information is going to make a huge difference. I’ll try to find another way to sneak everything you’ve told me into the record so that you can stay out of it.”

“Thank God.”

“Wait, I just remembered—‍” I dug through my purse and pulled out 5 Jacksons and handed them over. “Ah, found ’em! Here.”

They accepted the money with some hesitation… and I felt a rush. I had to stifle a pleased gasp. “What’s this for?”

“For…” I said, struggling to catch my breath. “For providing information. Compensation for your efforts.”

They looked at me like I was a freak.

“You’ve really helped out my investigation, I want you to have it.” Really wanted them to have it.

“I can’t… accept this,” they said, handing it back. “It’s too weird. I’m already talking to a cop, I can’t accept a bribe from a cop.”

Frantically, I extended my palms in refusal. “Please, take it, you deserve a reward for your invaluable contributions to finding Alex. And you really have no reason to trust me with anything personal. This is the only way I can think of to express my gratitude for that trust, and to extend an olive branch to assure you I won’t stab you in the back. Please. You earned this. I want you to have it.”

“Alright… If you insist.” Pleasured that they had accepted my offering, I suppressed a sigh of satisfaction. They pocketed the money, and we parted ways.

Following Yoly’s critical testimony I asked the remainder about the royal blue car—Erin, Celia, Miranda, Valeria, Julia, Lucía, Alicia, Desiree, and Carlos—with only a handful remembering so much as spotting it in the corners of their eyes while being hauled to the paddy wagons or trying to escape, and fewer still having managed to seek refuge in Rene’s Liquor to notice it abiding amid the chaos, a sentinel impassively witnessing the mayhem of a one-sided but miraculously bloodless street brawl; even these had returned to their homes immediately following the conclusion of the raid, as soon as the last van departed and was out of sight, a few minutes before 9:30—and still the blue car remained as they left, immobile to the point of near-invisibility, impenetrable to the eyes, immune to analysis. In two words: an enigma. (That sentence would have sounded far more dramatic if only I could have said, ‘in one word’, but I couldn’t think of a way to word the answer so that it was just ‘enigma’.)

For the sake of thoroughness, I went back and asked each of them, ‘Was the meeting reconvened later?’

We received many variations on ‘no’. Judith suggested that I refrain from asking that question from then on but I insisted that there was a possibility that at least one of these people might have a new story to tell. After she tried to convince me (several times) that receiving contradictory testimony was extremely unlikely, I asked her not to tell me how to do my job. She nodded slowly and replied, “Whatever you say, boss.”

Next I would ask, ‘Could you tell me why not?’

Numerous answers along the lines of ‘We were locked out afterwards.’

‘Do you know why the hotel was locked?’

The answer was ‘no idea’ every time—until a single heavenly interviewee speculated, “My guess? New owners.”

I perked up at this new answer. “Oh? Is there a particular business or individual you suspect?”

“No fuckin’ clue, but I just can’t see another explanation.”

‹Pursuing this lead is probably a waste of time… but my gut says to keep going.› “Alright. So we’re looking at the possibility that someone bought a profitable business and just… shut it down without warning?”

“Right under our noses.”

‹Who would buy that dump and be foolish enough to turn away the few regular customers willing to rent out rooms at probably inflated rates? This is pure speculation, so for the time being this rumor ought to take a back seat to the facts… but it’s interesting enough that I need to hear more.› “When do you think they would have bought it?”

“I bet it was during the week, because all the hotel staff got termination letters telling them their last day was Wednesday. Hm. I think they got the letters the day before everything went to shit, so it might have been as late as when they sent the letters, unless they sent them before they made the purchase, knowing they’d own the place by the time they arrived.”

“That’s some very good reasoning. How did you find out about the letters?”

“I found out about the layoffs only after we tried to get back in, when I ran into Jodi—she was one of the staff who got swept up in the raid—and I asked her why it was locked, and she didn’t know anything ’cept that the owners had let everyone go.”

‹Hmm. This theory might have something to it.› “Do you know if anyone’s attempted to contact these possible new owners?”

“Nope. Like I said, I don’t know for certain who bought it—or even if that’s what actually went down. It really is just a hunch.”

“A hunch I will certainly look into. This could be big, so thank you for sharing your thoughts.” With bated anticipation I pulled out another hundred and presented it.

“Uh…”

“A reward. For helping me find Alex.”

“Okay…” They accepted the money; their reluctance did nothing to dampen the rush of paying an informant.

“Could I get your name? It isn’t mandatory, and I’ll do my best to avoid involving you in any trial that may come of this.”

“Ronnie Hernandez.”

“Thank you Ronnie.” I gave them a grateful smile as we departed.

“You’re doing great, Andy,” said Judith with a worried smile.

“Good work, Esti,” Shosh said, her discomfort still audible in her shaky voice and still visible in her awkward posture.

“Thank you,” I said in a bright, totally-not-sarcastic tone. “Your support has kept me going and all-in-all you’ve been a huge help.”

Shosh frowned, but kept her feelings to herself.

Judith, on the other hand, gave my hair an affectionate muss and pointed out, “You did most of the interviewing. And you did a great job. Very… thorough with the questioning.”

We wandered back to Yesenia and summarized our findings in hopes she might be able to fill in any gaps. “I think we might actually have enough to find him… assuming I can find somebody willing to run a license plate search for me.”

“You’re serious about this disappearance.” She sounded and looked genuinely mystified.

“Should I put on big shoes and white face makeup and a red rubber nose? It’s a missing person case, of course I’m taking it seriously.”

“A cop investing this much effort to find Alex would be… odd. You either sincerely mean to leave that life behind you, or you’re real damn good at undercover work.”

“As much as the idea of undercover work excites me, SOP for choosing operatives is to pick anybody besides the one redhead who every member of the organization being targeted for infiltration is going to recognize as a cop on-sight.”

“If by ‘SOP’ you mean common sense, I agree. My heart’s telling me not to trust you, and I must say my heart’s a pretty solid judge of character.” She shook her head. “But I’ve been following you at a distance, and you’ve been upfront with everyone, you’ve only asked for information relevant to your investigation, you haven’t tried to pry into their private or business lives, you haven’t attempted to coerce them into giving up anything sensitive about the guild or the meeting, you’ve left people alone if they told you they’re still not talking even after you’ve explained that you’re trying to find Alex—you have been respectful. And you aren’t breaking a sweat. A real pig would have struggled to sustain that level of civility for so long on this street.”

Hope filled my lungs, along with a healthy dose of disbelief. “So you’re saying I’m… not a cop?”

“You might not be. You don’t really act like one.”

I held back tears and the urge to wrap my arms around her as I asked, “Would you mind if I hugged you?”

She stared but said, “Um… Knock yourself out.”

I squeezed her tight-but-not-too-tight and tried not to cry as I asked, “Do you think I can be a good person?”

She gave my question thought, then said, “Perhaps?”

“‘Perhaps’ is good. It’s all I can ask for. Thank you.” I peeled myself off of her.

“And now that that is over… I’ve a bit of member-only info nobody’s supposed to share with you, because you’re still probationary. Do not speak of this to anyone who isn’t in the guild, you understand?” I nodded. “We had plans to purchase the Torrey Pines, then fix it up to run it as a co-op providing rooms free-of-charge to paying guild members. The closing was agreed upon at Wednesday’s meeting before the police raid interrupted the proceedings, but when we approached the real estate lawyer we’d retained to tell him to close the purchase, he told us that he was no longer representing us. The same thing happened with the bank we borrow from, and then the seller’s real estate agent straight up ignored us when we tried to get ahold of him. I don’t know whether our lawyer learned that the business we established for the purchase is a front for sex workers and got cold feet, or if he was aware and was planning to betray us all along.”

“Oh. Wow. That sucks. This really, really sucks. I imagine owning the hotel would have been a big help to the streetwalkers.”

“It would have been, and to nearly everybody else, as well. The hotel co-op project has been overwhelmingly popular among the escorts, webcam models, doms, pornographers, and streetwalkers—so that the final vote was near-unanimous, with just a handful of abstentions. I am certain that the deed would be in our possession had it not been snatched from us while we were putting the purchase to a vote.”

“I have a hunch… that this sniped purchase might be related to Alex’s disappearance—though I have no idea how… yet.”

She nodded, her eyes and brows lending the appearance of intrigue. “Y’know, I never made that connection. Very smart. You should see where that rabbit hole leads you, Miss Serendipity.”

“I certainly will. Anyways, thanks, Yesenia. You and your—‍” I smiled bashfully. “—our fellow sex workers have been a major help.”

While thanking her I thought she might correct my use of the word ‘our’, but she just said, “You’re… welcome, Sister Serendipity.”

“Can I ask you a personal question?”

She puffed her nose and considered her response carefully. “Ask, but bear in mind that I may not give you a satisfactory answer, or any answer at all.”

“If streetwalking is such a hard job, why do you do it?”

“It may surprise you to learn that there are advantages to working here. I have no boss, no agency to take a cut (just guild dues); I don’t need to confine my work to a brothel or follow the rules of a madam or an agency; I don’t need to give away my home address to johns; I have a hive of friends prepared to tail my ride to make sure I stay safe; I don’t need an escort agency to kick a new client my way when I lose a regular—there’s a constant flux of johns out here, as you can see by the hustle and bustle of our thoroughfare, most of them seeking nothing deeper than a blow job or some verbal intercourse to soothe the ache of loneliness—and… and this street is mine. I own it. We own it, this street belongs to us, whoever may own the Hotel Torrey Pines. The businesses on Adams all rely on us to bring them customers, the parking trolls…” She jabbed my shoulder playfully. “…rely on us to lure their victims across their bridges, the hotel… relied on us to fill its rooms. And when it reopens, it will still need us to stay afloat.”

“Wow. Thanks, that was educational. And I guess—if I do cave and decide to work here full-time—‍”

“I’d say it’s closer to part-time work. The hours are flexible, so I’ve been able to teach courses on the Bard and English Lit at a community college by day.”

“You’re a professor?”

“Yes, though you may be amused to learn that I make more off of streetwalking—I only kept my job as adjunct for the sake of feeding my scholastic passion for the English tongue.”

“Wow. That’s cool. Thank you. Where do you teach?”

“You’re welcome. Santa V Community.”

“I know where to go if I develop a taste for Shakespeare.” I winked and she smiled and shook her head.

“Adriana Valenzuela. I’d be happy to teach you.”

“She’s interested in Doyle,” interjected Judith. “I explained to her how he…” She cleared her throat. “How he wrote a lot of mystery novels and was extremely influential.”

“You… introduced her to Doyle.”

“Yes.”

“Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.”

“The Mystery Master himself.”

“She, a detective, had never heard of him.”

Judith shook her head, and Yesenia responded by slowly nodding hers. “She’s watched Columbo and the first season of BBC’s Sherlock,” explained Judith.

“I… see. Um. Andrea… How many Agatha Christie books have you read?”

“Who’s Agatha Christie?”

She grimaced. “Grisham?”

“Grish-what?”

“Raymond Chandler? He wrote The Big Sleep and Farewell My Lovely.”

“I’ve watched The Big Sleep, but I’ve never heard of Raymond Chandler. These are some very obscure screenwriters.”

“Have you read any mystery stories?”

“I’ve read the Columbo books.”

The two of them traded blank stares for a few seconds, then—with a smirk and a knowing look at Judith—Yesenia told me, “You will do fine, Andrea. I’m not gonna bother wishing you ‘good luck’ because you simply don’t need it. You are gonna blow this case wide open.” They both chuckled, Judith a little nervously.

“We sure will!” I confidently proclaimed. “Alright, Judith, I have another hunch—let’s check the front door to the hotel, on the off chance somebody unlocked it since the raid. There might be evidence in there.”

She shrugged. “It’s worth a try.”

As we walked up the stairs of the Torrey Pines, Shosh—relaxing now that we were putting a little distance between us and the other sex workers—asked, “You ready to solve a mystery, Esti?”

“I am very ready to solve a mystery.”

“That’s the spirit,” said Judith before Shosh could respond.

“So fuckin’ ready.”

“Me, too!” exclaimed Judith.

“Go find him, Esti!”

The outside of the building looked about the same as always, though this was the closest I had ever been to it: brick and stone that had steadfastly endured a century of architectural progress. Though the paint had seen better decades, underneath the top layer the stone looked like it had been chiseled only yesterday, all but a few bricks still in place, and all the original glass was miraculously well-preserved. If someone scraped away the paint and slapped a new coat on and rid the building of the gaudy neon ‘vacancy’ sign so artlessly bolted to the front, there was nothing preventing that ancient hotel from becoming a lovely place to stay for a weekend… or a night… or an hour.

“Windows aren’t boarded up,” Judith noticed, “and the lights are still on, so it’s not like they’ve decided to condemn it.”

I checked the front door. “Locked.”

“Smash the glass,” suggested Shosh.

‹People breaking the law to eke out a living freaks you out but of course you’re the first to propose breaking and entering… Death hasn’t changed you one iota, Shosh.› “I am not smashing any windows.”

“You’re no fun.”

“I’m not keen on damaging this place, either,” agreed Judith, “I respect it too much. It’s elegant, and has a forgotten prestige. Plus, we don’t know the guild won’t get the chance to buy this place after all. If we break anything, they might have to fix it. And these windows…” She tapped on one a few times, and it made a series of very full, very satisfying clinking noises that massaged my ears and tickled my scalp. “…look like they might’ve been made with some ancient craftsmanship that can’t be duplicated with modern techniques and technology.”

“All the more reason for me to respect the building’s integrity,” I added before tapping on the window several times to appreciate and derive pleasure from this new nerve-stimulating sound. For the first time in my life, I didn’t have to rely on somebody getting close and whispering into my ear to cause the effect. I only needed to come to this hotel and tap on the window whenever I was in the mood to feel it. Eventually the effect plateaued, then began to lose its intensity. I gave up on the tapping and decided to try again later.

“If you aren’t willing to break a few eggs, your omelet is fucked,” concluded Shosh. “On the bright side, we can finally leave and never come back to this cursed hellho— Um, what is she doing?” Judith had retrieved a pair of metal probes from her purse and inserted them into the keyway of the lock.

“(Hey Judith, are you really—?)”

“Picking it.”

“Badass!” exclaimed Shosh.

“Sure, it might be ‘badass’, but… it’s also trespassing, which might get us in trouble.”

“Do you see any cops here?” asked Judith. “Besides yourself.”

“No,” I admitted, “but…”

“You’re a P.I., now, you should learn how to do this yourself. I’ll teach you if you want.”

“I would appreciate that, except… that’s a Horton.”

“It is. Very observant of you. What does it matter?”

“You’re not going to have enough room for your rake while attacking with the tensioner top of keyway. And Hortons usually have enough security pins that a rake isn’t gonna accomplish very much.”

“Oh, so you’re an expert? You’re full of surprises. Wanna give it a shot, show me what you’re made of?”

I shrugged and I took her tools and got to work.

“So. What motivated you to learn the art of lockpicking, Andy?”

“It’s a useful skill for detective work.” ‹False set on four.› “Sometimes you need to break into people’s homes.”

“Just fuggin’ break in? To plant bugs?”

“To execute warrants when nobody’s opening the door and you aren’t in the mood to kick it in.” ‹Three’s good to go.›

“I see. Have you ever needed to pick a lock?”

“This is my first time picking a lock I don’t own.” ‹Five’s good to go.› “I never imagined I’d be breaking into a place without a warrant.” ‹Gah. Three has a spool. I’ll try again later.›

“Where did you learn?”

“Self-taught.” ‹Two is good.› “I pick every lock I buy to check how secure it is.” ‹One is good, now to take care of three.› “How about you?”

“I apprenticed with a locksmith.”

“You wanted to be legit before you decided on a life of crime?”

She grinned. “Nope. Just pretended to.” I lowered the tension a little to reset pin three, then lifted it again; the tensioner turned a quarter of a circle and the latch receded. “I wanted to break into places and steal shit. Good job, that was quick.” I pulled the door open and handed back her tools, and with a few brazen steps forward, we broke the law.

“(Oh, where-oh-where did the sex workers meet?)” I sang quietly as we passed the front desk.

“There’s a wonderful room in this place to hold a meeting.” She led me to a large hall with very nice wooden tables, 8 times as many equally lovely wooden chairs, a medium-ish stage, and a podium, all laid out for a congregation of sex workers. “This is the Torrey Pines Grand Ballroom. The hotel was built in the spring of 1929, and up through October of that year they put on plays, held dances, and hosted gatherings in this hall. You can guess what happened at the end of the month; the property values on Adams tanked like they did everywhere else, giving pimps and drug dealers a haven where police were mostly uninterested in protecting the assets of the wealthy or the morals of the community, because both the wealthy and the community got the hell out of here. This room didn’t see another gathering for nearly a hundred years, but the Sex Workers Guild broke that streak when they began organizing, a month before election day.”

“Great. Welcome to Hooker HQ,” quipped Shosh.

I shushed her. Judith perked her ears up, listened every which way, then whisper-asked, “(Did you hear something?)”

“(No, did you?)” I whispered back.

“(No… but you shushed me, so I figured you did.)”

“Oh. No, it was meant for—‍” ‹Shit, she can’t hear her, remember?› “I mean, I had a sneeze.”

Immediately obvious were the sheets of copy paper scattered across the tables and floor like debris flung to the four winds by a tornado.

“Three guesses what these are,” I said.

We each picked one up. “Agendas.”

“And… just like Yesenia said, ‘co-op initiative’ is the first item.” I left mine where I found it rather than take it home and risk evidence from a potential crime scene being found at my home in a surprise police search, instead opting for securely filing a snapshot in my mental evidence locker. “Let’s check the front desk and office for records, maybe we’ll get lucky and find something.”

“I doubt it.”

“Do you have a better idea of where to go next?”

She shrugged. “Yer the boss.”

Her words nearly stole my breath. ‹I’m the boss. I’m running a detective business, and she’s decided to be my partner—and she’s letting me be the boss.› “I’m… the… boss.” Another reminder of what I was becoming, of the accomplishments I had to look forward to, bringing me close to the edge once more.

We checked the front desk for clues, and the only item of obvious interest was the guest log. “Ryan Ryanson, Jennifer Jenniferson, Sheldon Sheldonson,” I listed off, “I refuse to accept these are real guests.”

“Yeah, they’re quite fake. I knew they would be fake.”

“Why didn’t you warn me?”

“I didn’t want to question your leadership so soon into your career.”

I groaned in frustration. “Next time you know something that will save us from wasting time, please… tell me.”

“I don’t want to discourage you from following your hunches. You’re an ex-cop, and for all their flaws, cops are instilled with razor-sharp instincts.”

“‘Sharp instincts’? Really?”

She guffawed heartily and gave me a jolly slap on the shoulder. “Hell no! Cops have shitty instincts! They’re constantly fingering the wrong suspects, they think everyone is out to get them, they’re paranoid assholes.” She continued giggling.

Shosh was unamused, to say the least. To say more than the least, she was fuming.

“Don’t get worked up, it was just a joke,” I told her. She shook her head, unswayed. “It might have been at my expense, but it wasn’t directed at me.” Shosh continued to hold her tongue even as she continued to be ticked off.

Judith wiped tears from her eyes as she confessed, “You’re right. I’m sorry, Andy, I didn’t mean to insult you personally. Thank you for being a good sport. In the short time I’ve known you, I’ve learned that you’re one of the most trusting and compassionate people I’ve met, and so far I haven’t known you to jump to conclusions without compelling evidence. You’re nothing like other cops. Your hunches are actually useful.”

“Oh. Thank—thank you. It’s all in good fun.” I smiled and Shosh relaxed. She was still annoyed, but her protective wrath had melted away. My eyes wandered absent-mindedly as the compliment continued softly stroking my ego, before alighting upon an anomaly. “Judith, we need to check room 410.”

“We need to check all of the rooms.”

“The key for 410 is missing from its hook.”

“Oh. Shit. That was a smart observation. You… are good at this detective business.” My heart picked up the pace, I shivered as her compliment touched me in exactly the right spot.

Shosh smiled for the first time that evening, and echoed her, “She’s right. All those Columbo episodes are paying off.”

We found room 410 in a hurried instant. As we approached the door, cracked just an inch with no signs that it had been picked or forced, I smelled just a hint of… something. Something foul. I whispered, “Don’t touch the doorknob—actually, don’t touch any part of the door with your bare hands. Do you have gloves or a rag?”

“I have my handkerchief.” She reached into her purse and pulled out a lacy square of fabric. I noticed an embroidered monogram: ‘J.E.L.’

“That’s your handkerchief?”

“Yes. Why are you so surprised?”

“It’s a lot girlier than I would expect.”

She wrinkled her nose. “It was my aunt’s. Jacqueline Edith Lucas.”

“Well, it’ll do the job. Without touching the knob, open the door, but just enough for us to listen before we go in.”

She nudged the door gingerly, silently widening the crack just half an inch. We listened for any signs of life, but heard none. I smelled something bad, but not enough of the odor was being carried on the draught for me to pinpoint exactly what it was. She pushed the door the rest of the way open, and our noses were assaulted by a weak but nonetheless offensive stench. My stomach turned as I realized what it must be. “What is that… smell?” she asked.

“Gee, what smells like shit and turns up in sketchy hotel rooms?” asked Shosh.

“I think it’s pretty obvious,” I answered.

“I got COVID a year ago,” explained Judith. “Tested positive the day before my vaccine appointment. My sense of smell hasn’t been too good ever since.”

“That sucks, but my nose is functioning exceedingly well at the moment and it’s giving me a very good idea of what the mystery odor is.” And yet, as certain as my nose was… I needed to verify with my eyes. “But we can only confirm it visually. I would rather keep it a mystery, but…”

“Must needs go that the devil drives?”

“Um. I’m just gonna assume those are the words I was searching for. Let’s proceed. Remember, don’t touch anything, and look before you take a step.” We stepped over the threshold and discovered that the room was a honeymoon suite, and that the bed was hidden behind a privacy screen. “Here’s your last chance to not be grossed out.”

“It can’t be that bad.”

“It’s gonna be gross.” We crept around the screen, me first, then her. “Yep,” I murmured, my suspicions confirmed as I spotted the pile of clothes on the floor. “That’s… what I figured.”

I checked on Judith; she was staring in disgust at the abandoned shoes, soiled underwear, and stained jeans scattered on the pale Berber carpet.

The mystery of where Alex Brookvale had been at the time of his abduction was solved, and the rush of triumph being injected straight into my ego filled my head with fuzzy fantasies of future mysteries and left my skin softly glowing.

And the best part about the mystery I was solving? The missing person case had turned into an honest-to-goodness kidnapping… if not a thrilling murder.

Forensics

Content Warnings:
Dried Blood;
Mention of Torture;
PTSD Flashback;
Cadaver Identification

I rested a hand on Judith’s shoulder. “You okay?”

“(Is that… his?)” she whisper-asked.

I was able to get a ‘good’ enough whiff of the lump of denim on the floor without getting any closer. “Almost certainly.” I pointed at the pile of white fabric next to it. “This looks like his ‘piggy bank’ tee.” I got as close as I could without touching it and was able to make out cuts on the sleeves (which I theorized were made to remove it while he was restrained or bound) and, with a lot of squinting, the shirt’s print: the words ‘Smash The Piggy Bank’ surrounding a piggy bank dressed in police blues suffering a blow from a hammer. “Yep. This is the shirt he was wearing. He was here, alright.”

“Damn. Whatever happened here, it was bad enough that he shat his pants.”

I examined a brownish-red patch on the carpet, mostly hidden under the pants. “Blood, at least a couple days old. They hurt him. That and the underwear are strong evidence of torture.”

She gasped in horror. “No! Don’t say that, it’s an awful image!”

“You have to be able to imagine horrible things if you’re gonna be a detective.”

“(Ugh. I don’t like this.)”

“It could be worse. We could have found something more exciting than some shit-stained pants. Such as a three-day-old decomposing carcass, which we would then have to get up close to inspect. And that would smell way worse than half-dried human shit.”

“You’re awful for suggesting that could have been a possibility.”

“Realistic, not awful. It still is a possibility. We have no idea if his captors have killed him. The next evidence we find could very well be his cadaver.”

“I’m not enjoying looking at evidence of a good man suffering inhumane treatment, and I’m enjoying speculating about his death even less.”

“She’s being a little bitch,” opined Shosh.

I gave her a dirty look. “There’s nothing wrong with being upset by human suffering.” I turned to Judith. “But, Judith, you’re gonna have to get used to this and worse if you want to be my partner in solving crime.”

“I don’t want to ‘get used to this and worse’. The day I see a dead body and don’t feel the urge to puke is the day I lose my humanity. Do you want to get used to that shit?”

{I touch my mother’s face, even paler than normal, as pale as the sheet the medical examiner has pulled back. As caked in blood as she is, I can still recognize her nose, broken, just as small and round as mine—she’d gotten it from her mother, according to her, and I from mine. Her hair has the same red curls, but it’s much longer—she swore she’d never cover or cut it above her waist. And her eyes, the only features unscathed by the hit-and-run—not green like mine, but a shade paler than sapphires, the stuff day skies are made of. Our eyes and our speech were the only ways anyone knew how to tell us apart. Even our freckles looked identical, but as I look down on her now… hers aren’t easy to make out among the lacerations and abrasions.

{“It’s her,” I tell the medical examiner coldly.

{“I’m sorry for your loss,” he says as he covers her back up.

{“You can’t imagine my loss,” I whisper, too quietly for him to hear. “Even if you lost me, you wouldn’t understand.”

{“I hope you never lose your daughter,” she replies, voice muffled beneath the sheet.

{“I could kill myself.”

{“You still have something to live for.”

{“What else but you?”

{“Your first homicide case, Esti. Which, yeah, happens to be none other than me.”

{The medical examiner puts her away and bids me, “Fare well,” and the detective who brought me here—the detective with my dream job—lets me out.

{The next time I see the woman who was my entire world, she comes to me in a box too small to hold even a bag of sugar.}

“I’m already used to it,” I informed my single and most important living friend.

“What do you mean?”

“When I identified my… my mother’s body in the morgue, that was enough for me. If getting used to seeing death means losing my humanity… then I lost mine thirteen years ago.” Shosh looked like she wanted to tell me something—something she had told me countless times, and desperately pleaded with me over just as many—but chose to keep her mouth shut. And I was relieved she did.

“When I said ‘lose my humanity’, I didn’t mean it literally.”

“Sometimes people mistook us for twins, and sometimes that’s exactly what it felt like we were. My twin was dead, so I was dead, too. Death, as much as life, became meaningless.”

“I’m sorry. I regret what I said.”

“Her parents, aunts, uncles, nephews, nieces, cousins—none of them came to her memorial service, none of them took any of her ashes home with them. I was all the family she had, and she was all the family—all the everything I had. When I fully accepted that I had lost her, I lost my humanity.”

“I’m so sorry you feel that way, but please don’t take what I said to heart,” she pleaded.

“That’s impossible. It’s simply the Truth, and a detective can never ignore the Truth or she ceases to be its agent.”

Judith’s face contorted in dismay, but she said nothing more.

“That isn’t the Truth,” murmured Shosh. “But I’m tired of arguing with you.”

“I don’t feel like beating a dead horse, either. We all need to look for more clues, however small. Just try your hardest not to touch or step on anything.”

“You got it, boss,” replied Judith, perhaps eager to move onto any topic besides my confession.

We poured over every nook and cranny of the room and adjacent bathroom for anything potentially valuable; we found a single half-inch-long blond hair in the sink, fingerprints on the sort of rocks glass typically found in hotel rooms, and a black backpack with all the items on Geraldine’s checklist—except, as we expected, the GPS tracker.

All told, there wasn’t much to go off of; with an “Esti, stop! Look closer!” Shosh concluded our search with the find of a fine, blue, helical, plastic fiber embedded in the carpet—which I had nearly stepped on—no more than a centimeter in length nor more than half a millimeter in diameter. “Rope. Tied up,” she suggested.

I nodded. “Yep. His wrists or arms must’ve been bound at some point.”

“What makes you think that?” asked Judith.

“This plastic fiber in the carpet, of course,” I replied. “Could be from a rope.”

She came over and had a look at Shosh’s find. “Wow. That… is an amazing find, you have excellent eyes. You’re surprisingly good at noticing clues.” Quickly, she added, “—I mean, not ‘surprisingly’, I meant to say ‘impressively’. I expected you to be good, but you’re even better than I expected.” She caught her breath. “Is there anything here that hints at this possibly being police work?” asked Judith.

“I don’t see any reason to…” I had been carefully avoiding this line of thinking. “Hmmm…”

“Be honest, Andy. You won’t be solving any crimes if you lie to yourself about who your suspects are.”

“…mmm— Okay. So, either this would’ve been a black op, off-the-books and out-of-uniform, so that if the operatives were caught the department had plausible deniability that the leadership was involved… or it was a lone wolf or wolves, possibly a police gang.”

“A ‘police gang’?”

“Oh, yeah, some police departments have gangs. They enforce blue solidarity through threats and violence, and they also intimidate marginalized officers into quitting. And sometimes they deal in drugs or gambling or sex trafficking. The officers in the largest of our local gangs call themselves ‘Castle’s Knights’, and the brass have done next to nothing to deal with them.”

“Christ Almighty, the police get worse and worse the more I learn about them.”

I nodded. “I don’t want to admit this, but… we cannot eliminate the police. Especially if they were acting without unofficial sanction from leadership.”

“I never thoughta them as rotten,” remarked Shosh. “Surely they aren’t as bad as she thinks they are?”

“I wouldn’t put kidnapping beyond their capabilities. — We should be photographing these items.” I opened my camera app and got to snapping the evidence we’d found so far.

Shosh summarized, “They grabbed him on the street, bound his hands, and dragged him here, where they did things to him until he crapped his pants, then they took off his clothes—whether they gave him new rags is anybody’s guess. And this all happened sometime between 9:30-ish and 9:51.”

“Yes. That.”

“‘That’?” asked Judith, who I just then remembered could not see or hear Shosh. “What are you talking about?”

“Right, that is, he was tied up somewhere else, brought up here, manhandled, stripped and possibly given new clothes, then taken away.”

“Yet no one witnessed him being brought into the building, just maybe sitting peacefully in the car.”

“Yeah, unfortunately.”

Our thoughts stewed just long enough for Judith to ask, “Are we done? I really want to get out of here. I know he didn’t die in here, but this room still feels haunted as fuck.”

“We need more clues,” pointed out Shosh.

“We do, but I can’t think of anything else to inspect around here.”

Judith gave me a puzzled stare. “Oh… kay, so is that a ‘yes’?”

“Uh—yeah?” We left the door untouched as we exited the room. “If only there were some cameras on this str—‍” And right as we began down the stairs, I had an epiphany that stopped me in my tracks. “Dash cams and body cams!”

Judith’s eyes spread wide. “Of course! But how do we get video evidence from the police?”

“Shit.” I sighed. “The only way I can think of would be through a Right to Know Act request, but we’ll have to prove there was ‘great bodily harm’ involved, and there weren’t any hoots indicating that the raid officers were violent enough to fulfill that requirement.”

“So we’re fucked.”

“Well…”

“Who watches the watchmen?” asked Shosh.

“That may be our only option.”

“What may be our only option?” asked a confused Judith.

“If somebody were to tip off Internal Affairs, then they could—‍”

“The cop-cops? Really, Andy? Those bastards aren’t gonna do shit!”

“They nab officers for taking bribes all the time, they’ll go all-in to solve something exciting for once.”

“What part of ‘All Cops Are Bastards’ do you not understand, Andrea? They aren’t gonna send a fellow cop to prison for that amount of time—they’re gonna sweep it under the rug.”

“Maybe, but—would you at least admit there’s a possibility that if they’re alerted, they’ll actually try to solve the kidnapping?”

“I’m feeling super confident about your idea,” she replied sarcastically. “We’ll just ask Internal Affairs to take over the case and let them do all the hard work for us. How do you know they aren’t in on it?”

“Okay, remember—we don’t know with a hundred percent certainty that the kidnappers were cops, in fact we have no convincing evidence implying that they were involved in the kidnapping in any way at all. I’ll admit I don’t know that IA wouldn’t cover up any hypothetical police involvement, but they would be our only option before we resorted to more extreme measures.”

“I don’t like involving any part of the fuzz, or Andy Griffith, or the Fuckwad Buttholes of Investigation, or Interpol. I say we keep snooping on our own terms and keep them the hell away from this scene.”

“I would want to keep this under wraps, too, but I need you to understand the cops are better equipped to police themselves than we are. Our only choice should we suspect police involvement would be to alert IA that officers might be involved.”

She shook her head. “If we report that room, everything inside it is gonna evaporate.”

“Maybe, maybe not. We can be certain, though, that it must disappear eventually, whether we report it or not. The carpet will be replaced, the clothes will be incinerated, and the room will be scrubbed clean to prepare it for its next inhabitants. We’re going to have to call this into the authorities before that happens.”

“Listen,” insisted Judith. I gave her both of my ears. “You should know by now not to trust cops.”

“The officers who rounded up the sex workers on Wednesday would have been acting on Vice’s orders, so assuming it was the fuzz, my money would be on Vice being the ones who nabbed him. Meanwhile, the people investigating his disappearance are gonna be from Crimes Against Persons.”

“What difference does it make?”

Shosh took this tangent as an opportunity to whisper into my ear, “(And who’s the gumshoe who’s gonna be investigating the crime?)”

“(Well…)”

“(It’s the only way, Esti. The only way to save Alexander Brookvale.)”

“Well?” asked Judith.

“(And solve the next part of this mystery.)”

“Well,” I carefully ventured, “the CAP Detective on the case could be… me.”

“Andy… I think you might want to examine what you just said and ask yourself whether it makes any sense.”

It was a stupid thing to suggest, but Shosh kept whispering my dream into my ear like a bedtime story we’d made up where I was the protagonist—one among a legion of variations—so I kept saying stupid things. “My john from earlier was Captain Diane Somers, First Precinct Vice Squad. And she offered me a job that I almost couldn’t turn down.”

She stared at me, a little shocked… but to a greater extent angry. “You’re kidding. You wouldn’t.”

“In exchange for me being her… ‘sex slave’.”

Her tone simmered. “Vice Captain’s sex slave! Are you seriously considering going back? After building trust with the people on this street, you’d betray them and go back to being a pig?”

“You said Columbo is an exception to ACAB.”

She explained with bated fury, “Columbo is a fictional character, Andy.”

“You also told me, quote, ‘And if you had become a homicide detective, maybe I would have considered you an exception, too.’” It was difficult to access such a low vocal range as I imitated her speech, but I dare say that my impression would have fooled even her closest friends and family no less spectacularly.

But my perfect emulation of her speaking did not persuade her to calm down and see reason—to the contrary, it pissed her off even more. “Are you mocking me?”

“No! I’m just quoting you as accurately as I can.”

“Sure. You should know I wasn’t being serious when I said that. Columbo is a bastard, and you seem to want to become a bastard all over again.”

“Wow. Is it just me, Esti, or did she just transform into a bitch on a dime?”

I wanted to tell Shosh that I needed her to keep her comments to herself because I sensed that I had just planted both of my feet right in the middle of the biggest, smelliest, deepest shit ever taken, and was desperate not to lose my only flesh-and-blood friend. I did the only thing I could do when faced with an impossible situation: delicately, and with as much sincerity as I could muster, accept all blame, regardless of whether I believed that I deserved it.

I chose not to tell her that I hadn’t considered the possibility that her ‘joke’ (if a joke it truly was) had been intended to be humorous. “I’m sorry, Judith. I misrepresented your joke as serious. ACAB has no exceptions, and that includes me. I will endeavor to be more careful in the future in distinguishing humor from sincerity.”

She cooled off a little, so I decided to continue navigating the minefield I had wandered into… but rather than retreat to safety, I decided to keep moving forward. “That said—the only way this investigation gets off the ground is with technology and techniques which we, as civilians, do not have access to. As a Crimes Against Persons bastard I’d be able to pull the video we need without justification, I could look up potential suspects and witnesses on NCIC and the various Person of Interest Databases maintained by the department, I’d have access to—though God forbid there is one—an autopsy before anybody else, I could have the latent prints we found run through IAFIS—that’s the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System, an FBI database that just so happens to contain the prints of every police officer in the country, so if by some twist of fate police were involved and they left behind those fingerprints we found, we are guaranteed to catch them. And if I catch the bastards who did this, I can have them arrested and tried for their crimes. I can’t do any of that as a humble private investigator.”

As I talked, Judith’s expression softened, until all that was left was worry and anxiety.

“I’ll quit as soon as I’m done, Judith.”

“Christ, fuck me, this is insane… You better.” ‹Yes! Yes-yes-yes-yes-yes!› I nearly failed to suppress the grin that attempted to usurp my face. “And we’re not gonna tell a soul that you’re a cop again. You leave your badge on your desk when you go home, you don’t go to cop retirement parties, you don’t talk to cops except to tell them that you don’t talk to them without your lawyer, and when you talk to anybody else, you act like you’re a fellow civilian.”

“So I’m permanently undercover.”

She nodded. “Exactly.”

I sighed. “That’s probably for the best. So you’re okay with me doing this?”

She groaned. “No, I fucking hate it, but you seem to think it’s the only way forward, and I can’t think of a single damned alternative.”

“Alright.” I paused my descent and looked back up the stairwell, in the general direction of room 410. “Once I’m in CAP, I’ll arrange for someone to send in an anonymous tip for a ‘large’ blood pool indicative of a potential assault or homicide—I’ll be fresh aboard with no caseload, so they’ll assign it straight to me, and I’ll have the room scoured from floor to ceiling. I’m hoping those doorknobs and that liquor glass turn up something good. Let’s go.”

We got into Banana Shark and headed back to my apartment in pensive silence—not even Shosh had anything to say throughout the ride.

Thus arrived the next stage of our investigation: sitting on my couch, fretting about my job prospects. “Are you sure this is the only way forward?” asked Judith.

“It’s the only path I can see getting us anywhere but backwards.”

“I’m just happy my Esti’s gonna have her dream job.”

Judith groaned. “I really don’t like this.”

“I know. I don’t like it either. I hate it.”

“Fuckin’ liar,” Shosh scoffed affectionately.

“I’m not lying, I really mean it,” I insisted as my tone of voice and facial expression reached enthusiastically into the forbidden cookie jar and scooped up snacks by the handful in full view of both of my best friends. “I feel good now that I’m no longer a cop—people like me, they trust me, they let me into their worlds and help me when I need it.” That much was true. “I don’t want to give this up. I’d… I’d rather be just a sex worker than a cop again.” And that much was not.

“Really?” asked Judith.

“(No,)” murmured Shosh in disbelief. “(My baby isn’t a hooker. You only did it the one time, and only to gain their trust, and never again.)”

“I would totally do it again. I had fun doing it. I enjoy sex work, it’s been a lucrative and satisfying gig so far, and I could still do private investigation during the day.”

“That’s certainly an option,” said Judith with a dash of relief. “And I would much prefer that. You have my blessing and full support if that’s what you decide to do.”

“Maybe that would be better. Maybe…”

Shosh shook her head. “Mishigas. Stop. Shut up, you’re a police detective.” She had never been like this to me, never told me what to do. And now she was using Yiddish words and acting like the bossy adult she had never been.

And I had no patience for her sudden rash of imperiousness. “I’m not finished. Notwithstanding my eagerness to moonlight as a sex worker… as a private eye without contacts inside the department, I simply don’t have access to the resources that a badge would give me. And I need those resources in order to solve the case. I need the dash cam and body cam and traffic cam footage, the fingerprints, the DNA from the blood, closed-source intel on all the organizations that could have done this, access to search warrants, and possibly the power to detain people. But… we must bear in mind, I’ll be selling my body.”

“Shit. I’m sorry,” said both of them in unison.

“Well—she’s handsome, which is a look that’s growing on me. I’ll survive.”

Judith sighed. “Christ. Just promise me you won’t fall for her.”

Shosh stared at her, then at me, in disapproval. “I can’t believe I forgot about that caveat. Are you gonna enjoy being someone’s concubine, someone’s fucking sex toy?”

“I’ll try not to,” I claimed. Shosh looked down and shook her head, trying but failing to hide what appeared to be mixed feelings. We sat in silence for a while, before I worked up the courage to ask, “Sleepover?”

Judith sighed. “You said you take up the whole bed at night, I don’t want to come between you and your sleep. Especially if you’re going to be working a regular shift again.”

“It’s fine. Sometimes my junk ends up piled up on one side of the bed and I only have half as much room—and I sleep just as well.”

“Nah. I really don’t want to get in the way.”

“Okay, you won’t take the hint, so I’ll spell it out. I’ve never shared a bed with anybody. I wanna know what it’s like to spend the night… close to another body.”

“I’m gonna give you two some privacy,” said Shosh before evaporating.

“Oh? If that’s the case, I can stay,” said Judith. “Let me go get my pie-jammers.” While she did that, I changed into the shirt I used to wear to bed while my mother was still alive. Judith returned wearing plaid flannel pants and an oversized T-shirt printed with Hello Kitty wearing a black bow on her head, black trench coat, ripped fishnets, black spiked collar, cross necklace, chains, and bold black eyeliner.

Judith looked me up and down and smirked softly. “Carnival of Sins. I never would have pegged you for a Crüe Head.”

{Vince Neil is saying something from the stage, but Shosh distracts me with a twisted-up sausage of very thin paper the size of my pinky finger, one end softly burning like the coals of a campfire somebody fed a dead skunk.

{“Shosh, is this…?”

{“Just suck it in your lungs, hold it for a couple of seconds, pass it to the next person, and let it out.” I timidly follow her instructions, and cough so hard I think my throat is going to rupture. “Try not to cough! The more you cough, the more you wanna cough!” I reel in the urge, and eventually regain control of my lungs. “Didja get any?”

{“A little,” I gasp.

{“Take another puff.” I manage to breathe it in, hold it, and release a sizable cloud. “That’s my Esti!”

{“Who do I pass it to?”

{“Me, duh.” She holds out her hand and I pass it back. She takes another lungful herself, then I take mine. The joint goes back and forth until all that remains is a nub of paper. By then I’m well and truly stupid. I don’t understand the music, I just enjoy it as I join Shosh in cheering and hopping up and down.}

“Not really. I got the shirt at a concert,” I informed Judith. “My best friend’s birthday.”

“That’s sweet. You wear that every night?”

“No, I prefer to sleep without clothes.”

“(Ohhh…?) Well… if sleeping over becomes a regular thing for us… don’t feel obligated to change your habits for my comfort. I have zero problems with you sleeping in the buff next to me.”

I smiled as I took it off. “Don’t mind if I do.” We got into bed and made ourselves comfy. I snuggled up with her and felt happy. And as her warmth touched me, as my breasts pressed against her back, as coffee and weed peeked through her deodorant… I wanted to be even happier. So I reached around and grabbed a tit.

“Andy?”

“Yes?”

“My entire brain is stuck worrying about Alex, so I don’t think sex is gonna be able to hold my attention long enough to satisfy you.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Any other day I would take you copping a feel as an invitation to start fucking your naughty ass, but tonight… I need to relax and try to empty my mind of my worries about where he is now and whether we’ll find him and the smell in that room and my fears about how horribly he must’ve suffered and how he might still be suffering. And you need to re-establish your professional sleep schedule before you can get back to working for the villains.”

“I guess you’re right.”

“Can you take your hand off my boob?”

I removed it. “Oh. Sorry.”

“We can have some sex tomorrow, ’kay? Assuming we don’t see another crime scene implying our guy suffered horribly.”

“Sure. Thank you.” In building up the courage to grab her breast, I had worked myself up to needing stimulation. “Since we’re not doing any sex things tonight, do you mind if I take care of… my…”

“Are you horny?”

“Every second since you gave me my first kiss. But, yes, especially right now.”

“Needs are needs. But be quick about it.”

Having perfected the art of masturbation, it didn’t take me long to speed through the process, and I fell asleep half an hour later, as I came for the seventh time that night.

Born-Again Bastard

Sunday, July 14th, 2024

A night of sleep revitalized me, and waking up that morning next to somebody who cared for me filled me with even more life. My phone told me it was 7:48 on a Sunday; Captain Somers and her assistant wouldn’t be in for another 23 hours and 12 minutes.

I put on a pot of coffee for us. The drip filled the air with the smell of cheap-but-palatable arabica, and as the brewing slowed down, Judith stirred, stretched, and asked, “How did you sleep, Detective?”

“I’ve never slept this good. I feel like Superman. You?”

“Fine. I started off with a nightmare about Alex being murdered, but I’m a lucid dreamer so I was able to change the subject. I’m glad you slept well. You’re gonna have a hard time once your return to duty starts fucking with your conscience.”

“Hm. Probably. Coffee? Sorry I don’t have an espresso maker or grind the stuff myself.”

“Drip from a can is fine—a fucked sense of smell makes it hard to tell the difference. Black.”

“You got it.” I poured us each a cup and we sat on the couch and sipped.

“So, I didn’t get a look at this captain lady. How much of a looker is she?”

“Well… She’s not a lot older than me, maybe 10 or 15 years, so she still looks kinda youthful to me…”

She smirked and shook her head.

“…which I don’t prefer over maturity…”

Her smirk morphed into a full smile, and her head shake turned into an approving nod. “Smooth recovery, Bachman.”

“…and her features are kind of severe, androgynous even—objectively speaking, she’s very striking, and her strange mixture of beauty and handsomeness has grown on me quickly, even if she’s on the edge of what I find attractive.”

“‘The edge of what I find attractive.’ That’s a mouthful. What’s the core of what you find attractive?”

“Um. Womanly? Nice hair, soft features; and she has lots of life experience, so that she can hold my hand while I learn how… how intimacy works.”

“Do you know anyone who fits that description?” she fished.

‹—If she’s going to feign ignorance, I should consider being coy—

‹—Or downright sarcastic—

‹—And yet I wish so much to be sincere with her—›

The wish won. “You fit my ideal pretty well. And you know it.”

She tried to keep a straight face, but pride oozed out of every corner of her mouth and eyes. “I drive you crazy, don’t I?”

“I’ve already told you, the only thing I’ve been able to think about since we met is having sex with you.”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sexy for an old broad, aren’t I?”

I smiled. “(Mm-hm.)”

“You really don’t think I’m too old for you?”

“Your age is a feature, as far as I’m concerned.”

“You are so sickeningly sweet,” she replied with mock disgust.

I winked. As we finished our coffee I pointed out, “The captain won’t be in until tomorrow, so I have a day to burn. How about some Martian Marine? Or… sex?”

“Gotta work.”

“Aww. When does your day start?”

“2 hours ago. Slept in.”

“You start at 6 in the morning?”

“Yes. And you are going to be expected to wake up at even odder hours as a detective. Get used to it.”

“Damn. You’re right.”

She washed her empty cup and said, “I’m taking the long trek home so I can change into my work clothes and grab the packages. If you want, I can give you a tour of my pad.”

“I’d enjoy that.” I put on my Hallmart jeans and a Blade Runner T-shirt, and she led me to the door neighboring mine, which opened into a very well decorated studio—the same layout as mine, but with infinitely more love put into its appearance. As I entered, I admired the neon signage—including a glowing figure of a nude woman reclining in an Adirondack chair and an illuminated Saint Pauli Girl sign—and gawked at several marvelous paintings portraying fantasy and science fiction subjects beyond just Martian Marine.

But what really caught my eye was the guitar nestled on a stand, its body scintillating like tiger’s eye, framed by a dark, amber-tinted edge, connected by a long cable to a series of small boxes and pedals, before terminating in the front panel of a big brown speaker box (which I thought might have been called an ‘amp’).

“Wow. I like your taste.” I took a seat on her couch.

“Thanks!” She reached for her waistband. “Andy… Would you mind averting your eyes? I’m a little shy when it comes to undressing my bottom half in front of others.”

“Of… course.” I turned my attention to the decor, brushing aside thoughts about the why of this double standard about nudity… and let my subconscious get to work figuring out a way to persuade her to «take off your pants and show me that pussy!» “These paintings, were they done by hand?”

“Yes—I commissioned them from breathing human beings, nunna that AI bullshit, and they’re all real paint, acrylic and oil, except for a couple of digital ones.”

One was a moonscape with what looked like a bridge to nowhere; another was a spaceship, a fighter perhaps, flying over a much, much larger ship or space station; and a very wide one had a man in red robes with a pointy hat—a wizard, perhaps—leading a column of various fantastic creatures through the jungle: a unicorn, a giant spider, a phoenix, a harpy, a cockatrice, a sphinx, and many others. “Original works. Very cool.”

“Yes. There’s some inspiration from books and movies, but they’re all bespoke. I’m done with my pants, you can stare at my tits for the two seconds it takes me to put on my bra.” I whipped my head around and caught one nipple in the brief moment between her removing her shirt and putting on her bra. She chuckled as she fastened it, then donned a Soundgarden shirt decorated with a yellow blob among a purple mess on the front, patched up with scraps of T-shirt fabric and embroidery floss of various colors, pairing well with the well-worn skinny black Levi’s she’d donned. “God, you’re funny. How did you remain a virgin this long with that sex drive of yours?” From the side, her butt looked superb in those jeans.

“(Uh… I… Well… Y’see… I, uh…)” Whatever my explanation for being a virgin may be, I also needed to contend with my claim at our meeting that I had never even masturbated. “(I didn’t know… that…)” ‹Ah-ha!› “I never realized that this feeling that’s been constantly gnawing at me since puberty was actually sexual arousal. I thought it was just anxiety—I generally avoided people and… and I never felt attracted to anybody, so I never realized that I was craving sex. If I’d figured it out earlier… I probably would’ve started masturbating compulsively to the neglect of the rest of my life,” said the woman who masturbated compulsively to the neglect of the rest of her life. “I suppose I dodged a bullet.” I chuckled unconvincingly. “Now, maybe, can you… turn around, so I can… ogle your butt from behind?”

“Sure.” She presented her ass.

I drew a breath between my top teeth and lip. “(Ah. Damn… I want to squeeze that.)”

“Knowing you, that would probably turn into sex, and I don’t have time for that. I’ll let you touch it later. — So even if you had known about your libido, you still would’ve stayed a virgin.”

“Without a doubt. Maybe I would have become a compulsive masturbator.”

“Heh. Alright, let me get my things, then I’m kicking you out. You mentioned shrooms, but I don’t fully know your history with cannabis, so I don’t want you to be tempted to sample my goods while I’m away.” She grabbed a spacious yet inconspicuous bag.

“You’re afraid I’m addicted to weed.”

She stopped short of opening a drawer. “N… no, I just…” She sighed. “This is very expensive, rare weed, with a very limited production volume, and I only have in stock the products that my clients have ordered, and not a gram more, so I can’t afford… anything… being… out-of-place. I don’t know if you might be tempted… to…”

“You’re afraid I’ll steal your weed.”

Guilt weighed down her eyes.

I shrugged. “Eh. That’s fair. I’ll chug tequila straight from the bottle if given the chance, so you can be assured that my self-control is far from perfect, and I also have a history of kleptomania… so I can’t deny that pilfering your stock would be uncharacteristic of me.”

“You’re a kl—an alcoholic?”

“Yeah, once upon a time I’d have a few shots before bedtime, every night, but when my shrink put me on welpropion, I started going to bars and drinking extra heavily, then driving home buzzed as a beehive.”

“(That’s… not… good…)” She joined me on the couch.

“It took me two weeks to realize that what I was doing was dangerous. I narrowly escaped getting a DUI by buzzing the officer who pulled me over—”

“‘Buzzing’?”

“Showing them my badge. I told my therapist, and she chewed me out. I also told my psychiatrist, and he said my binge drinking was caused by something else, because welpropion is supposed to discourage drinking by making you nauseous if you have any. I convinced him to take me off of it anyway.”

“When was this?”

“About a year ago. I’d had a couple of good years at work, then the drinking thing kind of ruined me. I never thought I was capable of being so careless, of getting plastered and stumbling into the driver’s seat of my car. I never thought I was capable of abusing my status as a law enforcement officer to get out of trouble. The situation wrecked me—my own actions wrecked me.”

“Do you still drink?”

“Vodka, vodka everywhere and not a drop to drink, for the past year and three days. Celebrated my 31st birthday with a new leash on life…” Sic. “…and some wonderful withdrawal symptoms.”

“(Leash on life…)” she muttered. “You’ve taken the steps to make sure you don’t repeat your mistake, and you’ve kept it up for a while. That’s good. That’s plenty. Don’t be hard on yourself.”

“I try not to be,” I lied through a fake smile. ‹Sometimes I can’t help but feel like I’m nothing but a fuckup. The rest of the time… I’m convinced.› I wrapped my arms around her and squeezed her for comfort, to ease the pain of being a failure, and she gave me exactly what I needed: a squeeze in return, and an olfactory reminder of how much I liked her. “That’s a pretty guitar,” I told her, hoping to distract myself from my self-hatred.

“’59 Gibson Les Paul standard, original issue, all factory parts except for the tremolo bar—and it was a pain in the ass to acquire, involving quite a lot of aggressive deal-making, and it’s technically hot, so given the trouble I went through to get it and the risk I’ve assumed by holding onto it, I hoped you might call it something more than just… pretty.”

“Alright… it’s gorgeous. It’s nice to just look at it. The orange part is very pretty—I mean, beautiful.” She chuckled softly. “What are those boxes on the floor?”

“Effects pedals: wah, fuzz, uni-vibe. They give the guitar a rich, psychedelic rock sound.”

“So you play rock?”

“To pass the time.”

“Can you play me some rock-and-or-roll?”

“I really have to get ready for work.”

“Just a few pretty notes…”

“Too busy.”

I expressed my disappointment in the form of an ugly, scrunched-up pouty face.

“Christ, you’re pathetic. You want a recital?”

“I don’t know about a recital, just… a demonstration. If you’re not willing to do it for me, maybe you could play a little something to show off for your own gratification.”

“(Hmm.)” She shifted in my embrace, so I let her get up. She strolled over to her musical equipment, strapped the guitar over her shoulder, and with her left hand gripped the long part, which had several narrow metal speed bumps spaced at gradually narrower intervals as they approached the body.

“What are all the different parts of a guitar?”

She indicated from top to bottom, “This is the headstock, this long part is the neck and facing you with the metal frets is the fingerboard; these are the pick-ups, bridge, and tremolo or whammy bar.”

“Thanks. A little ditty, if you please?”

She shook her head and muttered, “(A little ditty.)” She flipped a switch on the amp, and a gentle hum gradually built up and emerged. She rested her foot on one of the pedals and plucked one of the strings once with a guitar pick, causing the amp to emit a raspy but pleasant twang-buzz that warbled and wiggled in timbre; then twice, then continuously, tilting the other pedal back and forth with her foot as the buzz of the notes morphed between {bright and dark, a voice talking, singing, crying, laughing…}

A finger hammered another string against the fretboard, creating a softer but higher sound; she repeated this within the rhythm of her plucking, then alternated this with another finger hammering another string, then with a third finger and string, in rapid succession. Suddenly her fingers danced down the fretboard, stepping-leaping one over another, causing the tones to dance back and forth in their descent towards the pick-ups, before her fingers came to the end of the fretboard next to the pickups and dwelled there, rising and falling on the strings, spelling out a maze of sound with the fingers of both hands, a pushing-pulling wa-wa-wa-wa fractured into tiny, homogeneously diced but diversely voiced notes, an engaging and pleasing show of speed and precision and coordination—

Then she hit a high note—stretched the strings and strummed them violently, and pulled her fingers back towards the headstock until they and the strings’ frequencies bottomed out; at which point she slowly rocked the pedal back and forth and back again, causing the sound to smoothly dip and swell in brightness, while aggressively dropping the pitch by flexing the whammy bar, then slowly easing off of it so that the pitch returned… allowing her song to fade into a drawn-out wwwaaawwwaaawwwaaa of fuzz—with a smirk on her face. “Was that the kind of little ditty you were looking for?”

I was rendered speechless for a few seconds. I clapped slowly but firmly. “Wow,” was all I could say in the wake of something the likes of which I had experienced before only at Shosh’s birthday Mötley Crüe concert.

“If you’re impressed by that, you need to listen to better music.”

“That was amazing, though!”

“Trust me, there are musicians way more amazing than me.”

“But they aren’t you. Part of why that was mind-blowing was that it was you who did it, not some famous person I’ll never talk to face-to-face, let alone get to know intimately. Someone I know personally who’s good at something will always be more impressive than a celebrity who’s technically more skilled. Especially since you don’t have the time to practice all day, every day like they do.”

Her smirk morphed into something less cynical. “You get it.” She arranged her fingertips across the strings then plucked them all at once with a circular, easygoing flow, a laid-back chug-a-chug-a-chug-a-chug-a that turned into something bluesy as her hand shifted in a pattern that repeated in 12 sets of 4 beats, alternating between 1 chord for 4 sets of beats, then another for 2 sets, then the first for 2 more, then a third for 1, then the second for another, before finishing with the first chord for the last 2 sets. “I wanted to be a famous guitarist.” She plucked and hammered little flourishes on the higher strings and hummed along to her steam locomotive of a tune until she confessed, “But music doesn’t pay well, and despite my parents’ best efforts to teach me their hippie values, I very much liked money as a young woman. Still do, as a middle-aged woman. I like owning stuff. I like buying stuff. I like having money.”

“You’re a capitalist,” I concluded with disappointment.

She didn’t stop playing but continued onto the middle chord. “Hell no, I ain’t a fucking capitalist! I’m an ancom, through-and-through. But—!” Lower chord. “I appreciate the importance of financial security, and I like having nice things, just like anybody else.” High chord. “Working towards those things doesn’t invalidate my principles…” Middle chord. “…because whether you like it or not, under capitalism you hafta play by the establishment’s rules.” Low chord. “And if I’m forced into that game of theft-as-property, I figure I might as well do everything I can…” She played a little flourish. “…to cut down on the pain of living in this hellscape with a few harmless creature comforts. It isn’t capitalism, it’s survival with a cherry on top. Sure, economic materialism is self-defeating…” Middle chord. “…a downward spiral of dissatisfaction… but this guitar brings me happiness, so I carry on.”

Low chord. “Oh. I guess that… makes sense. It also sounds like bullshit—‍” She guffawed in amusement. “—but reasonable bullshit.”

She played the high chord as her amusement faded into a giggle. “Yes! Thank you. Finally, someone gets it.”

Middle chord. I narrowed one eye. “I get it, that doesn’t mean I think it’s good.”

Low chord. “It isn’t. And it’d be consumerism, which is even worse, if I didn’t insist on only buying second-hand.” She threw in a little ornamentation. “‘Good’ is impossible. You can be kind, you can be considerate, you can be righteous—but you can never be good, not when things are as shitty as they have been since we as a society started buying and selling bodies.”

Middle chord. “That outlook is so… cynical, though,” I observed.

She nodded. Low chord. “My parents went to peace protests when I was barely old enough to read…” High chord. “…and I wouldn’t see them for days…” Middle chord. “…while they waited in jail for their court dates.” Low. “They were idealistic hippies who loved me—‍” She hammered out a mini melody. “—but decided not to teach me how to survive under capitalism, because we lived in an intentional community where capitalism was against the rules.” Middle. “I was unprepared for life outside our little bubble…” Low. “…and it hit me hard when I went off to live on my own.” High. “I had to adapt to a culture that was hostile…” Middle. “…to sympathy, reason, and compassion.” Low. “I grew up during the Cold War, when everyone was afraid of nuclear annihilation and the destruction of the nuclear family.” She strummed a little flourish leading into the low chord. “I was queer and sexually active in the era of President Bonzo and miraculously escaped a certain venereal disease. I watched the Gulf War play out on live television.” Middle. “I witnessed Monica Lewinsky being slut-shamed and vilified as a conniving, slutty homewrecker by the media.” Low. “Those things are over, now, but have they really gone away?” High. “The bullshit’s been scooped up…” Middle. “…but the bull itself is still crapping everywhere.” Her guitar fell silent when there should have been a low chord. “Honey dear, tell me, why aren’t you a cynic, too?” She resumed the cycle of chords.

I sighed. “Okay. Yeah. Things suck.”

Her sour frown broke into sarcasm. “On the bright side, you can be glad you aren’t a cop anymore.”

I feigned displeasure. “Right… I was a decent human being for half a day before deciding to return to being a bastard. Play me another little something virtuoso-y to cheer me up.”

“You got it.” She kept up the bluesy sound as she tapped and plucked to produce a bittersweet melody, here and there bending the strings with her fingers to subtly raise their pitch, humming the notes as she played them, all to my satisfaction. “Like this?”

“Yeah.”

“You know I gotta get to work eventually.”

“Aww. If I let you go, will you play for me later?”

“No doubt.”

“Then you have my permission to stop.”

She chuckled. “Permission!” She finished the progression of chords then concluded the ditty with that classic blues downward march into a low string of notes and sustained the concluding low chord until it had faded into fuzzy obscurity, before turning off the amp and putting her hot guitar back on its stand. “I will play for you whenever you are in the mood to listen. Having an audience is nice.”

“So is being your audience.”

She blushed and smiled. “Okay, I need to pack my deliveries.” I toured her room and admired the decorations as she pulled opaque glass jars and packages wrapped in butcher paper out of drawers and stowed them in her capacious bag. “Alright, that’s everything. You don’t have a search warrant, leave.”

I stuck my tongue out. “Ha, ha. I’m not a cop yet, Judith.”

“Call me ‘J’, A.”

“How about ‘Judy’?”

“Someone… One of my exes called me Jude,” she informed me, ambivalently. “Which is very similar to the name you’re proposing.”

“Uh… Then J it is.”

“Our relationship showed a lot of potential, but her career was sending her to another city, and we both agreed we were too early into it for me to drop everything and commit to a new life with her. Go ahead, Andy. Judy works between you and me. May our friendship last longer than any of my past romances.”

I gave her a smile, and she returned it with one of her own. “Best fuckbuddies forever, Judy. Can I follow you around while you’re delivering?”

“Do you really think that’s a good idea? Think about it for just a couple of seconds.”

“Why wouldn’t it be? I’d learn more about your job, build my network of underworld connections, maybe see a side of town I’ve never seen before.”

“And these ‘underworld connections’ you’ll be making, Honey—my customers, who are for the most part upstanding citizens within their otherwise-crimeless white-collar worlds—will stop trusting me if they find out that the redhead bombshell I allowed to learn about them after having built with them a relationship of confidence and trust… is a cop.”

“How could they find out I’m a cop? We’re keeping it a secret.”

“Well… I know I made a big deal last night about you keeping your new badge a big secret, but I’ve given it some thought and I’ve concluded that working permanently undercover like that is actually impossible. Somebody will eventually catch you ‘buzzing’ your badge to get into a crime scene, and after just a few minutes of a single hoot incubating, the whole town is gonna know about it. It’s not a how question, it’s a when question, and my guess is it’ll happen when a sex worker witnesses you enter the hotel and flash your badge as you duck under the ‘police line do not cross’ tape, which they will see as proof that you’ve become a cop—if they don’t assume you were a cop the whole time, having pulled the wool over their eyes and convinced them they could see just fine.”

I considered her words thoroughly, then hissed, “(Fuck…)”

“Not only that, I had your back and held your hand, which makes me a Dirty Fucking Traitor, so they’ll never trust me again.” Guilt smothered my soul. “But that’s the price of justice, and I’m willing to pay it. The whole thing sucks, yeah, and—‍”

I processed and reprocessed her words, then yelled, “No!”

Once she recovered from her shock, she told me matter-of-factly, “It is what it is, Andy. Sacrifices have to be made.”

“She’s right,” said Shosh. “She’ll deal with the fallout so that you can deal with the kidnapping.”

“That isn’t fair, that’s unjust,” I whined. “I can deal with them hating me and treating me like I’m a traitor—but I can’t stand the thought of my best friend being exiled from the world she’s known since… probably since I was born. That isn’t dealing with the fallout, that’s living at the fucking epicenter when the bomb goes off.”

Judy nodded mournfully. “That’s… probably what it’s gonna feel like. Is there any way to rescue him that doesn’t involve you becoming a detective?” I thought and thought but had nothing by the time she reminded me, “You told me the only person you trust to be a good detective is yourself, and if there be such a thing as a good cop, you might—with a little self-reflection, self-control, and compassion—be one of them. You told me you needed to take this path. Is there any other way?”

“Does it matter?” asked Shosh. “This is everything you’ve wanted since you were a little girl. Who gives a shit what anyone has to sacrifice for your dreams? She wants you to have this, let her give it to you.”

“I want so badly to give into that way of thinking, but… it isn’t fair to put my friend through that, but… (I… can’t…)” I trailed off; I believe that I tried my damnedest to come up with an alternative.

Judy curled her hand around mine. “Can’t what?”

“(…can’t…)”

Then again, I really wanted this.

“Take it,” urged Shosh.

“(…think…)”

But can you blame me?

“Don’t think, just do!”

“(…of…)”

Nearly every book, movie, and television program I had voluntarily consumed from childhood up to that moment had centered on the exploits of one or more detectives—the most glamorous among them being the ones who were public employees with guns and handcuffs and plain clothes and authority and teams of officers under their command scouring their crime scenes for the tiniest clues and canvassing neighborhoods for testimony.

“C’mon, Esti!”

“(…any.)”

“Become a detective to save the day” was the only future I could conceive of… because it was the only future I was fed as a child—and it was the future I continued to cling to as an emotionally stunted adult who shrank at the mere suggestion of abandoning her childish dreams.

Judy waited a little for me to change my mind. “Not even something half-baked?”

“No.” I hung my head. “Nothing. I’m absolutely certain the police dumped this one in the cold case files as soon as the first 72 hours were up. We need somebody inside the department who can thaw the case and direct and supervise the investigation, who can uncover any deviations from proper procedure, who can gather and act on evidence without having to go through someone who will more likely than not refuse to help.” You can’t say that I lacked talent in the art of rationalization, to myself as much as to others, especially when it was to fulfill a desire so deeply ingrained into my capital-I Identity that rejecting said desire would have resulted in a slow ego death more thorough than the kind a pound of shrooms had to offer, and far less pleasant.

“Well. That settles it. You’re becoming a detective—may God have mercy on your soul.”

Shosh sighed in relief, smiled, and gave me a pat on the back. “Be more excited, Esti-Besty. Soon you’ll finally have that badge, and then you’ll be the real deal!”

Meanwhile, I was chewing on the stump of my thumbnail. “(There’s no cause to celebrate, this isn’t a good thing,)” I muttered.

Shosh shrugged dismissively. “Give it a little time, you’ll come to appreciate your choice.”

“Judy… I wanted to keep those connections. Sex workers can spot suspicious goings-on in their neighborhood, and they can gather intel from their johns, and…” ‹My plan, my world, is falling to pieces.›

“Easy there, Andy. The world isn’t falling to pieces.”

“A detective without informants is blind to the happenings around her. If I’m gonna hit the ground running with this case, I need friends on the streets, but after becoming a cop I’m gonna have no-one. This was a terrible idea. I shouldn’t have brought it up. I’m screwing myself, I’m screwing you, I’m dooming this case to the cold files, if it isn’t already on ice.” Even I couldn’t rationalize myself out of a downward spiral brought on by the realization that ‹the job I want so fiercely is, through Catch-22, going to be impossible to do because the people with all the information I need to do my job as a police detective aren’t gonna trust me because I’m a police detective.›

“Okay, okay, calm down, listen… Maybe my initial prognostication of how this is going to go down was too pessimistic—you might be able to have your cake and eat it, too. Besides, if they’re guaranteed to discover you’re a cop again, you might as well out yourself on your own terms.”

“It was hard enough getting them to trust me even when they knew I wasn’t a cop anymore. When I tell them I’ve become a full-blown police detective, they’re going to take away my membership card—even though I’m a sex worker—they’re gonna take away my guild card—I’m not going to be a sex worker anymore—they’ll never let me work that street ever again—the escort agencies won’t work with me—I’ll be blacklisted from acting in porn…” Hope was dwindling rapidly; I caught myself beginning to hyperventilate; through the torrent of despair I reached blindly for something to keep myself from flying away, exerted my will upon my diaphragm, and wrestled it for control of my lungs.

“You okay?”

“Just… need a… sec… ond…” ‹Slow down. Out four seconds, pause four seconds, in four seconds, pause four seconds, out four seconds…› After a minute of deliberate breathing, I nodded numbly and murmured, “Okay.”

“Andy, listen… There’s a chance they’ll trust you, as long as you’re open and forthright. You’re trying to rescue one of our community leaders, and that counts for a lot. You’ve shown that you respect our work by doing it yourself and acknowledging your complicity and privilege as a former cop. You asked all the right questions, questions that reassured them you’re after justice, and you didn’t ask any of the wrong questions, things that are none of your business. You worked for the trust they’ve given you, and they’re going to remember that when they’re trying to decide what to do about you. Okay?”

As I finished regaining control of my diaphragm, I nodded. “Alright. Okay. I guess that’s what I’ll take care of today.” I checked my phone. “In like half a day. Does anybody work Adams at this hour?” ‹In… pause… out… pause… in…›

“Nope. You’re gonna hafta wait till evening.”

“Damn it, I hate waiting. Fine. I’ll find something else to do.”

“Good. Let’s go, I was behind schedule when we came in here and I’m even further behind after the song and the chat.” She ushered me out and left for the bus stop, which was mercifully close—but as I was about to unlock my door, I had an idea. I caught up with her and tapped her on the shoulder, and she turned around. “Are you stumped about how to find allies, Miss Marple? You could go on Hootr and start friending nosy neighbors.”

“How long does it take for you to finish your route?”

“All fucking day, and as you are fully aware, I am currently way behind schedule. Why do you ask?”

“Would it be quicker if you had a chauffeur?”

She closed her eyes and sighed irritatedly, but when she opened her eyes, she said, “Fine.”

We got into my banana yellow M6 and took off.

“Left up here, down Reagan—” Under her breath she added, “(rest in piss)—keep going for a mile, take a left on Valencia, then stop at the corner of the first one-way street.” I followed her directions, and we arrived in front of a very nice house in one of those gentrified neighborhoods that occasionally metamorphoses from a row of old track homes on the East Side.

“What kind of fancy weed are you delivering?”

“I have a strict client-dealer confidentiality policy.”

“Can you at least tell me whether it’s flower or resin?”

With sobriety that rivaled my year and three days of teetering precariously over the side of the wagon, she told me, “I can tell you what I have to offer you, but I can’t tell you what’s in the packages meant for other customers. For both of our sakes, don’t ask questions about their purchases.” She got out and rang the doorbell. A man answered—to the best of my ability to discern his age from such a distance he was somewhere between 20 and 40, 5′8″, build on the slight side, brown hair cut short, jeans and a red T-shirt, no visible tattoos, and too far away to see if he had any scars smaller than a cigarette burn—and let her into his home.

I looked around the mildly affluent neighborhood while waiting for her to emerge and return to Banana Shark and decided to survey the neighborhood automobiles to pass the time. “Silver Acura Integra.”

“Blue Dodge Charger,” observed Shosh, “red Ram Longhorn; black Audi A4, plates FORTIORI. Sounds Italian.”

“It’s Latin. Probably a lawyer,” I suggested.

“Besides it being Latin, what makes you think the owner’s a lawyer?”

“A fortiori is a principle in argumentation, used by lawyers on a daily basis.”

“Oh. My Esti is so smart.” She tousled my hair. “Silver Lexus RX…”

We finished our census just as Judy got back into Banana Shark, three minutes later. “How’d it go, Scarface?”

She snorted. “I delivered, he paid. Ideally, that’s exactly how it would go every time, but sometimes a new customer will try something funny, which is why I carry a knife.”

“I didn’t see you pack a knife.”

“I shoved it in my pants when I was putting ’em on and you weren’t looking.”

“I wish I could have been looking,” I muttered.

“Get used to me keeping my pants on, buddy.”

I pouted.

“Don’t give me that shit, I have body issues,” she growled. “Don’t you fucking pressure me.”

Her aggression caught me off guard. “Okay…” I responded meekly. “I’m sorry. I’ll avoid exerting improper pressure in the future.”

“Thank you.”

“She’s scary,” observed Shosh. “Just when she was beginning to grow on me, she goes and impresses me even more. I’m gonna level with you, I was a little nervous about this lesbianism thing, but you picked a solid chick. Used to be a hooker, sells drugs, gets into sex-centric relationships with women half her age, carries a knife, and guards the contents of her pants like the Maltese Falcon. Very alluring.” It was among the most caustic of sarcasm I’d ever had to endure from her.

Her acerbity didn’t much matter, though, because I was still recovering from Judy’s outburst, and was only half-paying attention to Shosh’s comment. “(Right. Very…)”

“‘Right’…?” asked Judy, still on edge. “‘Right-very’ what?”

“(Never… mind. What are we…) Where next?”

She gave me directions, I followed them, parked outside an apartment complex, and let her out. She disappeared through the gate. We resumed our automobile survey; this time there were more on the curb: ‹red Honda Pilot, white Honda Accord, white Nissan Armada…› We poked our heads out to see further behind us. ‹Green Nissan Leaf—›

“Esti, didn’t we see a blue Dodge Charger earlier?”

I spotted the one she was pointing at, a couple cars back, then quickly got out to get an angle on the plate: W776BBO1. Not only had we counted a car of the same description just minutes prior, but I had also seen it weeks before that, in the garage down at the station house…

Since we had seen a car matching precisely that description behind us only a little while ago, I developed a suspicion that wouldn’t stop buzzing in my brain until it had been confirmed.

“Shosh… that was a very good catch.”

“What makes you say that? I thought it was just an interesting coincidence.”

“I’ll explain when Judy gets back.”

Judy returned 3 minutes later. “Next one is 2 blocks straight ahead.”

“We’re being followed.”

“Wait—really?”

“That blue Dodge Charger, two cars back, is an unmarked car. I recognize the plates.”

“You’ve seen it before?”

“Yep.”

“Where?”

“A few blocks back a few minutes ago, and a couple months before that in the HQ/First Precinct garage.”

“Do you normally notice random license plates?”

“I’ve been tasked with every semiannual inventory since I was sworn in because I was the only person who actually wanted to do it. I have a knack for remembering things pertaining to cars, so I had every automobile in the garage shared by HQ and First Precinct memorized—color, make, model, license plate, VIN, dents, scratches, aftermarket modifications. HQ and First Precinct together have more vehicles than the rest of the precincts combined, so as a result of being responsible for the chore that nobody else wanted to do, I have most of the department’s fleet stored in my head—as well as their personally-owned vehicles.”

“Wow. That’s… freakish. Alright. Why are they following us?”

“Well, you are a drug dealer.”

“I’m small-time though, and I sell weed, that’s six months or a 500-dollar fine—I’m small potatoes, they have no reason to be investing any resources to catch me. You, on the other hand, slept with a police captain for money. It could be an internal thing.”

“Could be. IA might be investigating Somers, and maybe they’re tailing me because they want to see if I have any seedy connections that extend beyond the sex industry. Or… they’re onto us.”

“Our investigation?”

“Yes.”

“(Shit.) Shit. What do we do?”

“I could… go over and find out why they’re following us.”

“They aren’t going to tell you just because you ask them nicely.”

“I won’t have to ask a single question, and they won’t have to tell me jack. I’ll be able to deduce why they’re after us based on which unit they’re from, and I’m as good at remembering faces and names as I am at remembering models and license plates and paint scratches. I don’t know all of First Precinct, but a good chunk of them.”

“So you’re just going to look through the window and immediately intuit their motive?”

“I’ll try, but they’re usually tinted nearly black on plain cars. I might need to get them to open up.”

“Andy, this sounds like a good idea, but I think it’s actually a bad one. You’d be poking the bear.”

“Do you have a better idea?”

“Well… no. Other than pretending they aren’t there.”

“And just let them surveil us?”

“I suppose that’s what willful ignorance would entail.”

“If you don’t have any better ideas, we’re going with mine. Well?”

She shrugged. “I’ve never been tailed before—that I know of—so I guess just spotting them makes you the expert on this stuff.”

“You’re damn right I am.” I got out and calmly strolled up the street to the blue sedan with tinted windows. I couldn’t see its occupants’ faces through the darkened glass, but I could tell that there were people in there. I knocked on the driver’s window and waited. No response.

I knocked again. Nothing.

I knocked again and threw in a friendly wave to sweeten the deal. I could see their heads move, so that I was barely able to make out two individuals—hair short, either shaved or buzzed, probably males. “I see you in there,” I yelled. “I wanted to say ‘hi’ to my fellow police officers.”

They ignored me.

“If you don’t roll down that window I’m going to take a picture of the car, the plates, and the VIN, and post them on Hootr, and you’re going to have to explain to your captain how you blew your cover so badly the vehicle’s status as an unmarked car became public knowledge and now they have to file off the serial numbers and get new ones issued by the manufacturer, as well as new plates and a paint job in a new color.”

If it had been an undercover car, the brass would actually care about me posting the plates and VIN… but unmarked cars are little more than police cruisers without the black and white paint jobs or the push bumpers. They’re even the same damn model as the standard issue cruiser.

The driver must not have known that, though, because he rolled down his window. “Really, Red?” asked Officer Samuel Prince, Parking Enforcement Squad, First Precinct.

Section 74.0382

Content Warnings:
Sanism (both externalized and internalized);
Complex Grief

I recognized his voice before his head was fully visible, but I had to duck down to see the other man’s face. ‹Damien Firth.› These men were among the last people I expected to be tailing me. “Really, Sammy,” I told him.

“Shithead. How’s civilian life treating you?” He was chewing on something, and I had a good idea of what it was.

“Not bad. Why are you following me?”

“We ain’t following nobody, Shorty,” he reassured me innocently through a mouth containing something crunchy.

“Then why do I keep seeing you in my rearview mirror?”

He spat a few saliva-logged sunflower shell fragments into a 7-Eleven coffee cup and placed it back in the cup holder. Shosh leaned forward from the middle of the rear seat and through the steel plate of the prisoner partition, picked up the cup, and showed me the contents; as I expected, it was filled about a third of the way with gray mush, and I shuddered at the sight of the chewed-up spit-soaked grossness inside. He dug into a red, white, and blue resealable plastic bag in his lap and popped a fresh handful of sunflower seeds into his mouth and crunched away. “You saw another car that looks like this one. Coincidence.”

Shosh dumped the cup out into his lap. I giggled. “Coincidence. Of course.”

He nodded with a solid poker face.

“Whiskey-seven-seven-six-bravo-bravo-oscar-one.”

“What?”

“W776BBO1. The plates on this car. I’ve seen this car twice today.”

His face remained unchanged, and his mouth remained silent apart from the shells popping between his teeth. Either he was good at keeping his cool even when he was losing or he sincerely believed he still had the upper hand. Which explanation was the more likely seemed obvious to me given that no-one in his squad had a reputation for smarts—bearing in mind I was a veteran of that same inane jackboot troop.

“I might be an incompetent cop, Chewy… but I’m not a stupid one.” He had a nickname which requires no explanation.

“If you’re such an observant smarty, how come you didn’t notice we were following you until today?” he asked smugly.

His question caught me off guard, shattering my composure. “You started following me before this morning?”

A silent, smug smile was all he gave me, but he didn’t have to speak a single word to worsen my unease.

“How long?”

More silence.

“Since last night?”

“Damien and I noticed your friends suddenly refreshing the meters as soon as you showed up on Adams.”

“People topped off the meters last night. Did the sun set at dusk, too?”

“Quarters started plinking the second you showed up.”

“So?”

“‘So’? We’re Parking Enforcement, Bachman. All of us take parking meter Good Samaritans seriously. All of us ’cept you.”

“If people want to help other people, they should be allowed to.”

“Is that so? Municipal Code Section 74.0382 begs to differ.”

“A bullshit reg designed to inflate the number of parking fines generated and intimidate bystanders into abandoning kindness to others.”

“Ya think?”

“Yes. I think.”

“Did you by any chance get yourself canned for failing to enforce that one?”

‹Technically,› “No.” The real answer was a little more complicated, and I didn’t feel like explaining to him that the reason for my expulsion involved frequent tardiness, a “pervasive pattern of unsatisfactory performance”, and an Internal Affairs investigation that could have resulted in me being permanently decertified as a law enforcement officer under Penal Code Section 13510.8(b)(6) thanks to the 16-plus infractions I had allegedly committed while in uniform. (The actual number of infractions committed throughout my last year on the force—consisting of 217 shifts after subtracting holidays and leave—totaled 1,211, an average of about 5.6 per shift, every one a violation of the same Section 74.0382 that I so despised.)

“You sure? Because ever since you left and they stuck me with mids on that dirty, disgusting dump of a street, I’ve noticed some pretty brazen meter loading by the whores who own the place. Organized, based on how efficient they are.” Then in a knowing tone he asked, “You wouldn’t happen to know who’s calling the shots, would you?”

‹‘Organized’? Is this a Guild thing?› “No.”

“You sure? Because we spotted you walking Adams last night, and your buddies started their routine of systemically topping off the meters as soon as you came by. We thought maybe you were the one going up and down the street giving orders to the hookers in your pretty black dress.”

“What? No.” I genuinely wasn’t sure about what to make of the allegation. “They’re doing it on their own.”

“We know you’re one of them,” interjected Officer Firth. “You arrived on the scene wearing that chesty dress and subsequently got into a very fancy Mercedes and came back exactly an hour later. We don’t know how long you’ve been a streetwalker, but based on how nice you were to them over the past year you were patrolling Adams, we can guess that it’s been a long time.”

“No, I’m—‍” I choked on my words as soon as I remembered that, as much as I simultaneously hated to admit it and wanted to shout it from a mountain top, I was quite literally a card-carrying streetwalker. “So what if I’m turning tricks? You gonna arrest me?”

“What?” they both asked amid hearty laughter.

Prince explained, “No. We ain’t Vice or Internal Affairs. We don’t care how you were supplementing your income. We’re only concerned with organized crime interfering with the proper functioning of the meters.”

‹‘Organized crime’? Are they serious?› “I had no idea they were doing this. What makes you think I have anything to do with it?”

“Because we analyzed your statistics and noticed that the meter loading started around the time you were assigned to Adams, early July of last year. And last night, as soon as you left the force, we spotted you walking the streets. Either you let it happen, or you started it. And we’re gonna follow you everywhere you go until we find out which.”

‹Shit, I can’t have police watching my every move, even if they only care about their stupid parking meters not being allowed to expire.›

So I decided to cut their mental masturbation short with a premature climax. With a dramatic fling I reared my head, thrust my fists side-by-side through the window frame, and closed my eyes, as though averting my sight from the hideous countenance of Death herself. “Alright. I organized it. Arrest me. Conspiracy to stuff the parking meters. That’s a felony, right?” I opened my eyes to drill into his pupils.

Prince, with sour lips, drew his citation pad and scribbled something on the top sheet, tore it off with a flourish, and thrust it towards me; I snatched it away defiantly. “Your court date is Thursday, July 18th, at 10 AM.”

The box for other regulation was checked and the line next to it filled out with… Well, it was filled out with something. I struggled to read what it said: “(‘Palxjhg nnctcr raexolccrjhg’)—what the hell does this say?”

“‘Parking meter racketeering’, smartass.”

“‘Parking meter… (racketeering)’?” ‹‘Parking meter racketeering’… I’ve never encountered this combination of words before.› “There’s nothing like that in the Municipal Code. That isn’t a real reg.”

“That’s for the judge to decide. And when he finds out you’ve been disrupting our ecosystem, he’s gonna flip his lid like a fresh tube of Pringles.” He started rolling up his window.

“Are you gonna leave me alone, now?”

His “Yeah” snuck out just as the window closed.

The blue Charger passed me as I returned to my car. “So? What happened?” asked Judy anxiously. “Why were they following us?”

After taking a moment to process the past few minutes, I burst into laughter.

“What’s going on? Are you okay?”

“Parking Enforcement thinks there’s a crime ring on Adams—that someone’s organized the sex workers to keep all the parking meters from expiring! They think they’re hot shit, going undercover and trailing me like I’m a mobster!” I cackled.

“So they think… you’ve been running some kind of operation. And they’re taking it very seriously.” Despite my mirth, she was on edge.

“I confessed to ‘parking meter rack—’” I couldn’t stop myself from laughing as I passed her the citation slip.

“‘Parking meter’ what? I can’t read these scribbles.” She was still worried about the trouble in which I had become embroiled.

“I can’t—ha!—either… ‘Parking meter racketeering’! He said that with a straight face!”

“That sounds… (kind of) serious.”

I sighed and started to come down. “Criminal profiteering, California Penal Code Section 186, is a felony per the California Control of Profits of Organized Crime Act.”

“…And yet you don’t seem to be at all concerned.” She started to calm down, but wasn’t entirely soothed.

“There are a total of zero infractions that fall under the definition of ‘criminal profiteering activity’ given in Section 186 Subsection 2. The judge is gonna throw this one out.” I allowed myself a couple more giggles. “Like an empty Pringles can!” I snorted as one final laugh escaped. “Let’s go.”

I pulled away from the sidewalk and proceeded until she told me to park again. She went inside and came out four minutes later, we drove, we parked, she went inside… Shosh and I kept an eye out for pig plates while we repeated this program a couple dozen times, before Judy declared, “Damn. I’m finished, and it’s barely an hour past noon.”

“And I didn’t get to watch any drug deals go down.”

“I sell grass, it barely counts as a drug.”

“Barely drug deals are still drug deals. I wanted to be there.”

“Stop complaining. You will get to witness them. Watching them go down is gonna be part of your job.”

“Only if I transfer to Vice, which I do not plan on doing. Our ‘justice system’ punishes users for having addictions they struggle to—‍”

“Yes, amen—but you’re preaching to the pastor, Andy, you don’t have to express every tangential thought in the form of an extended social justice sermon.”

“Sorry, I learned how to talk about these things on Hootr.”

“Oh, honey, we need to get you some books.”

“That’s probably a good idea.”

“How many followers do you have?”

“Five. My mother is one of them, and she’s, y’know, dead, so… I only really have four followers.”

“Christ. And while we’re at the library you need to make more friends.”

“She’s right,” interjected Shosh. “All because I monopolized your free time, you never had the chance to make any.”

Her candor disarmed me. “Um…” ‹Did she do me a disservice by spending every moment she could with me? We were inseparable, practically conjoined outside of work and school.› “I guess…” ‹She didn’t go to school with me, but she fought the school tooth and nail for the right to bring her Esti chili dogs from Berliner Weiner on Wednesdays, like a cool older sister.› “…maybe…” ‹That was the only time between the hours of eight and three that I ever said anything substantial—anything more than what you might say to a baker (or a barber or a butcher) toiling away the peak business hours—to another human being.› “…spending all my time with…”

As her patience broke a sweat, Judy finally cleared her throat and softly asked, “‘Spending so much time with’… who?”

I shook my head. “Not having time to spend with my ‘peers’ didn’t matter—they all hated me, they were never going to hang out with me in the first place.”

“I’m sorry. But I wasn’t suggesting rekindling old friendships,” explained Judy, “we’re making you some adult friends with new people.”

Shosh admitted something that once again threw me for a loop: “I shoulda admitted this a long time ago, Esti… I’m not everyone you need. I am so much less than that.”

It didn’t take very long for me to figure out she was right. Almost right. “Maybe you can’t be my only friend… but no matter how many friends I gain, you’ll always be worth more than all the rest combined.” Shosh, troubled by my stubbornness, frowned.

Judy took a few seconds to process what I had told Shosh then abruptly wrapped her arms around me and squeezed. “I don’t know the words I need to describe to you how that makes me feel. We met two days ago, but there’s no doubt about it, we have something truly special, something that only happens to a handful of people in the world at a time.”

“I won’t argue with you, Esti. But I’ll promise you that I’ll be here. I’ll always be here, even after the curtain drops. You’ll have endless time to spend with me after that, you don’t have to spend every waking moment in this life with me. Could you maybe stand me stepping outta your life for a day or two, here and there?”

The thought of her being away from me for more than a few hours at a time made me deeply uncomfortable, but I didn’t feel like unpacking that discomfort, so I simply pretended she hadn’t asked for what she had asked for. “Once in a very long time.”

Judy squeezed me tighter. “Maybe even… once in an eternity!”

“For so long a time to pass before we part… that is all I want. Judy… I’m hungry. Let’s get some Jack or something.”

“Let’s, but make it Del, it’s healthier.”

“I can do Del.”

We dined in; Judy ordered one each of the red and green bean burritos, I splurged on a macho combo burrito, and Shosh had a double Del. When Judy handed me money to pay for our food, I declined. “Lunch is on me. I’m going to be making the big bucks.”

“If you say so,” she replied solemnly.

“What’s wrong?”

She didn’t say what it was until we were sitting opposite each other; she leaned forward to explain. “Last night, while you were asleep, I looked up the starting salary for detectives in Santa Virginia.”

“How much is it?”

“64K.”

My face lit up. “That’s great!” She gave me a look. “It isn’t great?”

“64K is almost enough to scrape by in SV, in a much shittier apartment than what you have.”

“I’ve been ‘scraping by’ on just 48.”

“And I have no idea how. What do you eat?”

“Peanut butter and jelly at work, and at home I’ll have beans and rice, tuna noodle casserole, spaghetti and meatballs, cheesy chicken and broccoli, and vegetable stew.”

“Is that your entire repertoire of recipes?”

“Pretty much. When I want a treat, I make beef Stroganoff or have something off the value menu at Del Taco or Taco Bell.”

“You get more variety than the average person with depression, but not by much. You haven’t been living, Honey.”

“I have my PlayBox U.”

“That’s an investment well worth it for the sake of your mental health, but you honestly can’t afford even that. Where do you get your clothes?”

“I don’t remember,” I lied.

“Those cute jeans on you right now that accentuate your nice tush, do you remember when or where those came from?”

I blushed. “Hallmart. I’ve had this pair since—‍” ‹Shit, just be honest with her. She’s trying to help.› “—since… before my mother passed. I was wearing them the day she died, so I’m trying to keep them pristine, in her memory. Up until now I’ve worn my uniform pants off-duty, but… my special jeans are the only other pants in my closet.”

“That’s… very… um…”

“Choose your words carefully, Judith,” warned Shosh. With my eyes I asked her to please avoid making a scene. “What?” I shook my head. “She’s gonna say something judgmental, like you’re holding onto the past or some other armchair therapist bullshit. Although—it’s kinda true that— But I still don’t like that she’s…” She trailed off before she could actually say anything, and I pretended not to know where she had been headed.

Whatever Judy had been about to say, she decided to say something else. “So you musta gone through your navy blues pretty fast if you were wearing them all the time. How much did you spend on those?”

“30 dollars a month, including cleaning. I had an allowance that paid for laundering and replacements, though.”

“So you have no budget for anything.”

“Nope.”

“Do you have any savings?”

“I have about 15K, including the stack of 20s in my purse.”

She shook her head. “Shit, you’re living on a razor’s edge… though at least you have something to carry you through a few months. You deserve a better career than what you had or what you’re getting. Deal weed with me.”

“Hard pass,” said Shosh. “Too risky.”

I was a little nervous about the prospect of breaking the law as a career—sex work notwithstanding—but I was open to anything… because I was very nervous about how little I’d be getting from my pension if I changed my mind again about Captain Somers’s offer. “Maybe once I’m done with the case.”

“Seriously, think about it.”

We ate in silence for a moment; I could tell that something was bothering her, and I suspected she was still thinking about my income. “Whatcha thinkin’ about?”

“You promise not to hate me?”

“Cross my heart,” I said without hesitation.

“Those pants… I’m worried you might be trying too hard to preserve—‍” She cleared her throat. “I’m guilty of this myself—they’re—‍” Shosh had the words ‘I told you so’ tattooed on her forehead in crowded blinking neon, and was gesticulating towards Judy accordingly. “—very plain.” Shosh froze, and the neon went dark.

“What do you mean?”

“There’s nothing wrong with simplicity, but they’re—almost corporate in their utility. Maybe throw in some strategically placed rips and some patches and a little—or a lot—of embroidery to spice things up. The pants you intend to wear on special occasions deserve to be… well. Special. You should make people want to ask questions about them—then you can tell them all about your mother.”

Shosh was nodding her head eagerly, so enraptured that she struggled to tear her eyes away from Judy to tell me, “If you wanna make your mother happy, those jeans you’re wearin’ need to be the most fucked-uppedly beautiful pants anyone’s ever worn on their ass.”

“Alright. If that’s what you want…”

“N—no,” stuttered Judy, “I’m not trying to tell you how to remember her, it’s absolutely not about what I want, what you do with those pants is all between you and her.”

“Of course. I was telling her that if she wants—‍” I glanced at Shosh, who I remembered was not actually there, and realized that I had been talking to her like she was, and only for the millionth time in a decade. “Oh, fuck.”

“What?”

“I am so… fucked in the head…”

“I miscommunicated and implied that you were doing things wrong, I messed up, your head is fine.”

“No, you don’t get it—‍”

Shosh placed a finger on my lips and reminded me, “If you tell anyone about me, they’re going to think you’re insane.”

“Shosh… I am insane.”

“(Um.)” I followed Judy’s voice. “Andy… Do you have… a… friend with you… that I can’t see?”

My heart threatened to burst from my chest.

Invisible Friend

Content Warnings:
Sanism (both externalized and internalized);
Discussion of Modus Operandi of:
Christian Fundamentalists,
Right-Wing Extremists,
White Supremacists,
Police Black Operations,
and Police Gangs

My eyes took turns between my two friends. Shosh, with a finger pressed to her lips, was frantically shushing me, whereas Judy was patiently waiting for an answer. “N—no.”

“I won’t tell a soul about them if you do,” my new friend reassured me.

Shosh violently shushed once more then broke out into, “If she tells anybody, that’s it, they’re pumping you full of drugs and then your head’s gonna be even more fucked up than it already is.”

“I promise, Andy,” added Judy.

I swallowed. My heart buzzed like a hummingbird, and I found myself needing to slow down my breathing, in, out, in, out…

“I’m a drug dealer. Discretion is the foundation of my business.”

I looked to Shosh, who was doing the same breathing exercise I was, and struggling just the same. “Shosh?” I pleaded on an exhale.

“Is Shosh a friend of yours?”

“No—”‍ The word ejected from my mouth with a higher-than-expected velocity. “—I mean, yes, Shosh is my best friend. Was. My mother. But she died 13 years ago.”

“Is your deceased mother here, with you?”

“(I need—need a—)” I gasped; I took a deep breath and held it, released it. “(I need a few seconds to gather myself into one piece.)”

“Take your time, Andy.” I continued trying to do my breathing exercise. “Is this a bad time and place to be asking these questions?”

In. “There has never been—‍” Out, and in. “—and never will be—‍” Out, and in. “—a good time or place.”

“I’m sorry. This subject is your business and no-one else’s. Forget I asked.”

I was finally able to assert total control of my lungs. “Thank you.”

“You know where to find me if you’re ever ready to share.”

I nodded, too horrified by the fact someone caught me talking to my hallucination of my dead mother to thank her for being open and supportive and polite and sensitive as I let my most secret cat out of its highly classified bag.

We returned to eating; as I finished my burrito, I asked, “How much do you make?”

“200.”

“Oh. Wow. Why are you living in such a shitty apartment complex?”

“Because I’m saving up for my retirement. I have a 401K.”

I leaned forward and whispered, “Isn’t the IRS going to catch on?”

“As long as I give them a plausible gross income and proportionate contribution at the end of the tax year, they don’t care.”

“But you don’t get your money from legitimate sources.”

“They don’t care where my money comes from, as long as I give them an honest number and explicitly assert my Fifth Amendment right to avoid self-incrimination by not disclosing the precise nature of my work in line A of the Schedule C that I attach to my 1040. I’m honest enough with them, I give them the records and money I’m legally obligated to give them, and they leave me alone.”

“It’s that simple?”

“Mm-hm. Well, in theory it is. I can only know for certain either way if it turns out it isn’t that simple—in other words, if they audit me.”

“Huh.”

We chatted about nothing the whole way home—a deliberate choice on my part, as I wanted to take advantage of the car ride to clear my mind for a few minutes. As soon as we were seated on my couch, she laid her arm across my back and rested her wrist on my shoulder. I looked into her eyes and wondered, “Do you wear contacts?”

Caught off-guard, she replied, “Y—yeah. Why?”

“Your eyes have such a vivid color.”

“You think they’re fake.”

“I’m not assuming that, I’m just… wondering if maybe they might be… enhanced.”

She spread one pair of eyelids and extracted a lens. The hue was real.

“I’ve never seen that kind of brown before. Your irises look like they’re made of honey.”

“If the color was fake, would you have thought less of me?”

“No. Peter Falk had a whole glass eye, and I think it made him more attractive, if anything. His face had character.”

She smiled and popped the lens back in. “Your attraction to that man in spite of your lesbianism is fascinating.”

“Thank you.” She leaned in and kissed me. We locked lips until an itch began to spread in my brain, at first a quiet little tingle that I tried to ignore as she cupped my breast, gradually growing into a throbbing, torturous ache that grabbed every ounce of my attention when I wanted instead to focus on the hand she was snaking down my jeans— “Judy, I… need…”

“What’s wrong?”

“(I’d… rather not say,)” I muttered, feeling a swelling shame.

“You don’t need to be ashamed. I’m into some sick shit myself. I won’t judge you for what gets you off. Go ahead. Ask.”

“Hmm… Ah, screw it, fine. I can’t do this right now. I’ve been away from the case too long, and it’s bugging me. Driving me nuts.”

She giggled. “You really are a detective if you’d turn down sex with the woman you ‘can’t stop thinking about’.”

“Yes, you’re a regular femme fatale, and I won’t fall for your tricks.” She snorted with all the daintiness of a puppy sneezing, though with a little more bass. “Do you have a pencil and paper?”

“I have a tablet and stylus.”

“I prefer analog.”

“Alright, picky-picky…” She left and came back with what I needed.

The itch was quickly scratched as I started writing down social justice organizations with presences in Santa Virginia, and when I ran out of additions, I tapped into Judy’s mind for more. The list was 36 items long, and included the likes of Our Color Does Not Fade, the Santa Virginia Sex Workers Guild, Abolish Modern Slavery, Santa Virginians for Sane Drug Policy, Palestina Libre, Convicts’ Rights Now, and SVPDefund. The last entry, the Anti-Gentrification League, almost didn’t fit into the first column on the page, so I nearly left it out. “Alright. If there are any others that didn’t come to mind, they were probably too small for him to have substantial involvement.”

“Maybe. What now?”

“The fun part: we write down these guys’ enemies.”

The list I produced included the various white supremacist groups such as the Virgin Saint Purity Militia, racism-skirting fascists like the Loud Loyalists, and fundamentalist groups such as the Family Values Crisis Center.

“You forgot the police.”

“Oh. Right.” I jotted down ‘SVPD’, and, for the sake of thoroughness, included the Police Benevolent Association of the City of Santa Virginia. Counting everyone except potential lone wolves, Alex had 53 different opponents crammed onto the page, in 2 columns. “Is that everyone?”

“As far as I can think.”

“The next question is: out of all of these, which ones have a modus operandi compatible with what we know about the kidnapping?”

“Um. All of them?”

“Not the fundamentalists. They have specific kinds of targets they go after, and Alex doesn’t fall into any of their categories, plus I’ve never heard of them kidnapping anybody, so I’d say they probably aren’t responsible.

“White supremacist terrorists in the past decade or two have evolved towards being lone wolves radicalized online to engage in ‘hard’ or mass-casualty attacks with the intention of garnering media attention and resulting dissemination of their values and manifestos to the general public as well as further radicalization of—and thus further attacks by—other white supremacists. In this day and age they rarely kidnap except to kill, and the ones who do kidnap—the old-fashioned ones—usually leave bodies somewhere out of the way but still public enough that it’ll be discovered, to serve as an example—so we can mark white supremacist terrorists as ‘low likelihood’.

“Loud Loyalists… I could see a rogue Loyalist kidnapping someone, but they typically commit crimes in full view of every pair of eyes and every camera they can catch the attention of—they want to be seen hurting the people they hate, they want to be filmed, and they want that video to be spread all over the Internet, all over the media, everywhere—but at the same time they want to have a certain amount of political legitimacy, so they generally avoid anything worse than aggravated assault or property damage… except when they drive cars into protestors. This is the least doubtful so far, but still… not a strong case. Low-to-moderate likelihood.

“Moving onto the least likely of all, the sworn enemies of the Anti-Gentrification League, real estate developers and landlords…” I shook my head. “I’m not wasting our time analyzing those jackoffs, they aren’t violent, they don’t kidnap people. There’s no chance it was these people.”

Judy snorted.

“Did you find that… funny?”

“No, not at all. I agree a hundred percent, it definitely wasn’t property developers. You’re very educated about our enemies.”

“It takes one to know one—I was one, and I will be one again.”

“Consider yourself an undercover antifascist.”

“I guess…”

I weighed the ‘for’s and ‘against’s of the rest of the opposition groups for a while, but none of those seemed as plausible as what we had discussed thus far.

Then Judy cleared her throat.

“Hmm?”

“Aren’t you forgetting someone?”

“Who?” She tapped a particularly troublesome entry in our list of adversaries. ‹Police.› “Oh… Well, if they wanted to confine him, they woulda just planted some heroin or crack in his backpack and thrown him in jail for a month or so, and bury the body cam footage. They wouldn’t even have to conceal the fact that he was illegally detained.”

“What if they wanted to… kill him?”

“If they wanted to kill him… Well, they could… (Hm.)” ‹Christ, the possibilities are endless.› “Okay, they might accomplish that in any number of ways, and I couldn’t tell you which particular method they would prefer.”

“So you know the modus for all the groups except the police.”

“Um. Yes. They’re a, uh… wildcard.”

“It’s not the police,” insisted Shosh.

“We can’t say that. As much as I hate to say it, we don’t know that it isn’t the police. We can’t eliminate them.”

“Can’t say that… they’re a wild card? Ohhhh. Are you talking to… me?” asked Judy gingerly.

“Um.” ‹Am I always this obvious?› “I plead the Fifth.”

“So you take the defense lawyer’s advice to heart?”

“Yeah, sure. Never talk to the police, never let them into your home, never consent to a search, never discuss your case with anybody besides your lawyer, etcetera.”

She nodded. “And never admit to talking to your invisible friend.”

My face puckered. “Now you’re mocking me.”

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to. Please, forget what I said.”

I sighed.

“You were saying something about the police doing it?”

“Thank you for changing the subject. Out of all our suspects, the police would have the greatest desire to bury a murder—and the broadest array of means to do so. And if I had to boil down the possibilities, I would say that their modus is simply ‘whatever gets the job done quickest and cleanest, and leaves behind the least evidence possible’. Not because they’re smart enough to realize that simplicity is usually the most pragmatic policy, but because most of them lack the creativity to orchestrate a conspiracy with any real sophistication.”

“Well, considering the crime was simple enough that we were able to pick up their scent within hours of starting the investigation, I think it’s pretty fucking clear who did it.”

A part of me clung to my blue pride, torn and faded as it was, to the SVPD motto of ‘To Honor and Guard the People’, to the idea that Justice can be pursued in an organized and publicly accountable manner, to the belief that the governments of my city, of my state, and of my country were more good than evil. A foolish part of me insisted, “No. We don’t know for certain… yet. First of all, leaving behind blood stains, soiled clothes, and fingerprints in a sex work establishment is messy. Second, this chart is only meant to guide us in allocating our time and resources to various theories, not to determine right off the bat who did it. We need more evidence before we can come to a conclusion.”

“If you say so.”

“One last thing to consider: we might be able to get an idea of the strength of a group’s motive by estimating how consistently he’s been a thorn in their side. Then we can rank them and hopefully get a clearer picture.”

“I couldn’t tell you how long he’s been involved with any of these groups—except maybe the SWG—and I can tell this is the kind of research that takes more time than we have.”

“Ugh. You’re right. I’ll have to scrap or at least postpone the question. But… the kidnapping happened in sex worker territory, so now I’m wondering if there’s a connection.”

“Oh! That’s a very interesting idea, Detective! Please, go on.”

“Alright. Do you know if he’s been involved for very long with the guild?”

“Hmm. It’s only been about a year—yeah, I remember now, it was the fourth of July. He made this big speech about how conservatives say this country was founded on freedom but they’ve imposed their Christofascist beliefs on everybody else and taken away our freedom of bodily autonomy via the justice system, then he laid out a plan for how the SWG would act to fix that. It was pretty inspiring, but my memory of the plan itself is fuzzy. I was distracted that day. I was… hoping to see someone.”

“Thanks, and I hope you get to see this person eventually. I might have the Intel Squad look into his other groups to get a better picture of his involvement.”

“I think it would be better if you kept your Intel Squad out of other people’s business.”

I pursed my lips and nodded. “Yeah. Point taken. I’ll ask around on my own and keep anything I find off the record unless I’m given permission to put it on the record.”

“Good luck with that. I need to head home now. I’ll leave you to it.” She stood up.

“You’re leaving?”

“I need to pack tomorrow’s deliveries.”

“Oh. Alright.”

As the door closed behind her, the chill of loneliness tainted the air.

“Shosh?”

No response. Which was just as well, I was still ashamed of being caught talking to her, twice in one day.

I tried to think of where to go from there, but, having no evidence to establish affiliations, came up with nothing. Just as I was about to give up for the day and pull Helga from my safe for her long-overdue monthly cleaning, there came a knock on the door—and from its distinct rhythm, the same as that fateful night we met, I knew that Judy was back. Before I could tell her that I was glad to see her again, before I had opened the door all the way, she told me, “I realized, while I was packaging products, that you don’t have any clothing befitting a detective.”

I took a good look at my closet. ‹Nothing but uniforms. Detectives wear nice outfits. Except for the clever ones pretending to be buffoons—but who says I have to look frumpy to be underestimated? I’m a tiny woman, I just need to bat my eyelashes and throw a few ‘like’s into my speech and evil-doers will assume I’m vapid and infantile, and lower their guard accordingly.›

“Wanna go shopping?”

‹Perfect. Being image-conscious, and thus ‘vain’, will make my ‘dumb short bitch’ routine all the more effective.› “I would love that.” She flinched, but I thought nothing of it. I grabbed my keys and we gassed away to Rochelle’s Department Store.

We didn’t talk about the case on the drive or while shopping, only about which pants and shirts and jackets were most flattering on my body (Judy fixated somewhat on my hips, to my simultaneous discomfort and satisfaction), and I latched onto one coat in particular, which almost could have been inspired (if I may stretch the meaning of the word ‘inspired’) by the one worn year-round, rain or shine, by Lieutenant Columbo, LAPD Homicide Squad—in its bold lapel; in its massive buttons; and, to a lesser extent, in its voluminous pockets. This one was, however, navy blue, which contrasted nicely with my hair. It was the last one on the rack, and it fit me perfectly; with my new clothes, I no longer looked like a self-loathing slob.

Outside the changing rooms I struck a pose for Judy. She smiled… then—sending a buzz across the surface of my skull—whispered into my ear, “Wanna go in the changing room so I can ruin that beautiful outfit by tearing it off of your beautiful body before making love to you?”

I turned my back on her. ‹‘Beautiful body’! I’m not beaut—› I glanced past the door, up at the mirror inside the changing room. ‹But look at the way my ass curves in the mirror, and the way my E cups are begging to burst out of my shirt, and the way this coat makes my hair shine like fire, and—the way… my face… my cheeks… my nose… my chin… all come together… so… harmoniously…›

“Well?”

‹I’m not beautiful. Every time he sees me he tells me I’m—she’s told me I’m beautiful, but I’m not. But… my reflection…› I approached the mirror, slowly, one step at a time, until I was right before it, and touched the glass. ‹I’m not supposed to be beautiful. But my reflection is so—so hot. I want to caress your cheeks, I want to run my fingers through your hair, I want to brush my lips against yours, I want to tear your clothes off and—

‹Oh. My. God. I’m… hot.›

Judy followed me in, closed the door behind us, and kissed me on the neck, forcing a moan from my chest. “Whadaya say?”

“(Kiss me again,)” I whispered. She obliged, and I made my horny noise. ‹I don’t think we should…› I caught a whiff of her as I turned my face to whisper back, and that lovely scent turned me on a dime. ‹Well, maybe we can try it, but…› I swallowed. “How loud would you say my… moaning… is? Will we be caught?”

“Good point. If we’re gonna do it in the store… with how loud you are, we might as well host an orgy on the sales floor.”

“Ah.” ‹Would people care if we did it in the middle of the racks and shelves and registers? Probably. And we would be kicked out. Probably before we have the chance to finish.›

«But SEX. Sex is GOOD. I WANT sex. I REALLY want sex. I want to FUCK her.»

‹But what good is sex if you’re interrupted before you can be satisfied?› “I would rather not risk our fun coming to a premature end if we’re caught.”

“Another good point.”

I sniffed her armpit. «Columbian Kush.» “There aren’t any rules against kissing in public, though.”

“Well, technically you’re righ—(ah!)”

I stood on my tippy-toes, pulled her head down and licked her neck, and she moaned.

She held me at arm’s length. “Okay, wow, maybe… let’s get a raincheck for that PDA.”

“Aw.”

We brought my new wardrobe to the counter, and the cashier rang me up while I chatted with Judy.

And then… “Cash or credit, Miss?”

I stared in disbelief at the total on the display. ‹2,541 dollars… Why… is… number… big?› “I think there’s been a… a mix-up. I think I grabbed the wrong…” I checked the price tags for every item, ‹30, 43, 35, 72, 140…› “I just need a second.” ‹54, 25, 95…› And then got to the navy coat with the big buttons and the big pockets: ‹1,910 dollars. Christ on the cross. Why the hell is this so expensive?› Then I noticed the designer label. ‹Adrison. No wonder. This coat isn’t meant for poor losers like me. I’m not supposed to buy clothes this nice, upper-class garments that we proletarians are only allowed to admire and pine for from a distance, never to wear ourselves except when trying them on in the store while imagining how lovely life would be if we could afford to pay for nice things.›

I pursed my lips and, still staring at the tag, pictured everyone in the store staring at me, judging me for my poverty and mulling a guilty verdict for the crime of daring to dream…

Even Judy waited in my imagination for me to put my money where my heart was. She liked money and she liked nice things, so it wasn’t hard to picture her shaking her head and leaving behind the pathetic woman unwilling to make a wise investment.

That I was hesitating was bad enough; I was also holding up the line, inconveniencing people who knew damn well I had no right to be patronizing this store with such a pathetic checking balance. Judy had gone through all the trouble of helping me pick out and try on these beautiful clothes, carefully scrutinizing each garment for its ability to match my face, figure, and function; and now I was doubting the purchase, on the verge of throwing away all her hard work.

I couldn’t stand these thoughts, I needed to belong, I needed to deserve these clothes, I needed to reassure Judy her labor wouldn’t go to waste—so I withdrew my emergency credit cards from my purse… and prayed that their spending limits would add up to at least 2,541 bucks.

Car Sex

Judy whipped out one of her own cards and slipped it into the chip reader. “Yes, it’s a lot to spend on clothes, Andy, but you’re rebuilding your entire wardrobe from scratch, not just buying a garment or two to replace a few you’ve lost to wear and tear. You need this, and now.”

“This is very generous,” I informed her, relieved that my finances had dodged what would have been a very painful bullet, and shocked and overwhelmed that she would do this for me.

“Before you protest, consider this a job-warming gift.”

‹She cares about me. She’s already made that clear, but, damn, this is an extreme amount of money to spend on somebody you’ve only known for a couple days. But if she wants to express how much she likes me by buying me lots of nice things…› “I’m not protesting. I don’t have a lot of pride, so if you want to buy me anything, I’ll gratefully and gleefully accept. Thank you.”

“Really? You insisted on paying for lunch.”

“I wasn’t doing you a favor, I was just flaunting my future ‘riches’. And I hadn’t found out yet that you make quadruple what I was making at my old job. If you want to pay for my meals, too, I will never object. If anything, I strongly encourage it.”

She smiled. “Good. I intend to feed you, and frequently.”

She entered her PIN and handed me the receipt, and suddenly we were off to Matteo’s.

“Are you feeling confident?” she asked once Banana Shark was in motion.

“I’ve never felt more confident. Which isn’t saying much, so I’ll add that I never imagined I could feel like this. Having nice clothes feels so good.”

“I’m happy for you.” ‹Throughout the short time I’ve known you, my happiness seems to have been the one thing you desire most.› But I didn’t tell her that, because it felt reductive, it felt like I was breaking her down into a single dimension—me. So I realized, having felt her kindness and generosity, that despite my self-loathing, I had for a long time only truly cared about one person, as evidenced by my insistence on solitude when people invited me to functions I would rather avoid. Maybe they didn’t care who I was, maybe I was just one more guest to fill the room, but they still wanted me to be there. 5 and 10 and 20 year celebrations, retirement parties, Thanksgiving potlucks, Secret Santa gatherings… I avoided them, I avoided the people who went to them, and if even a shred of me believed that people might enjoy being around me, then maybe by being so avoidant I was doing everybody else a disservice. ‹The other people in my life have no love for me, but they certainly want me to show my face. Maybe they like how I look. Maybe I’m eye candy for the other attendees. Maybe I have something to say that they’ll find interesting. Maybe my presence can be pleasant. Maybe people can like me. Maybe other people will like me, the way Judy does. And she likes me in so many ways!›

I searched for and quickly found another dimension to her happiness. “Knowing that you’re happy to see me happy… makes me feel… worthwhile. You’ve made me feel worthwhile. Made me realize… I am worthwhile.”

“Aww. That makes me feel happy… but sad. Sad that you’ve been suffering for so long, but happy that I’ve been able to do something about it. Bittersweet… but more sweet than bitter.”

This, too, affected me, but I didn’t want to make things awkward. “I would respond with how happy hearing that makes me feel, but that might come across as masturbatory.”

She laughed softly. “Yeah, that’s veering into mutual masturbation. Which I’m not doing, but—we could pull over and give me jerking you off a try.”

“Wait, what?”

“Unless you want me to do it while you’re driving, but that can be a little dangerous…” I glanced at her to see if she was being serious—her mischievous grin led me to think that she might have been bluffing.

“I’d rather not take that risk, thank you.”

“Then pull over.”

I swallowed. “We’re in public, someone will see us…”

“Isn’t the possibility of someone knocking on the car door while my fist is up your pussy exciting?”

My heart skipped a beat, and my vagina clenched her imaginary fist. I eyed her again. “Well…”

“Have you ever imagined it?”

“No… I haven’t considered… it.”

We stopped at a red light. “Humor me.”

“Alright…” I closed my eyes. {You make your move, unbuttoning my shirt and sticking your hand up my bra. I gasp. You undo my pants next—slowly, forcing me to endure my anticipation—and right as you slip that hand down my panties, a man walks up and knocks on the window—I yelp quietly, and you quickly cover my mouth—but you don’t stop twiddling my clit. The lights are off, and we’re parked under a streetlamp—the reflection of the lamp casts a glare, hiding us from bystanders. I pray that he can’t hear me moaning like the whore that I am. He knocks again; if he could see inside, he’d witness my heart leaping out of my chest. You move your hand from my clitoris to my dripping cunt, and my moans become louder. He knocks a third time, and my pulse triples. Then… he tents his hands and holds them up against the window—to block the lamp’s glare—and brings his face up to the glass. I cringe, fearful that we’ve been discovered… but he shakes his head and resumes his walk. You double up your efforts to make me cum and before long I—}

“Andy!” I came-to amid angry honking. “The light’s been green for like five seconds!” I gunned it across the intersection, just in time for the light to turn yellow behind us; I quickly realized I was going 5 over, so I gently nudged the brakes to gradually bring us down to the limit. “You were distracted by something, my girl… Care to share?”

I turned onto Main Street, which had the brightest streetlamps in the city, and parked beneath one.

“Andy… why are we stopped?”

“You haven’t figured it out?” She shook her head. “Because you planted an idea in my head and I need to see it through.”

“What ide—(ohhh.) Oh-ho-ho! Were you actually fantasizing about us fucking in the car just now?”

“I have a very active imagination. And you know which buttons to press to turn it on.”

“Or to turn you on.”

I exhaled. “Both.”

“So what happened in this fantasy?”

“You… unbuttoned my shirt and slipped your—‍” She began unbuttoning my shirt. I felt a rush of heat below. “—and—and—slipped your hand under my bra…” I waited for her to gently pinch my nipple before continuing, “(…hah…) And… then you… undid my… (mhh…) pants…” She unbuttoned and unzipped me. “…and you… you can guess what came next.”

“Say it.” She played with the waistband of my panties.

“You put your hand down my panties… and stuck your finger up my pussy.” She pushed aside the waistband, and I held my breath until she inserted her finger, and moaned as she found the spot. “Ahh… Yeah…”

“Most of the women I’ve met get more out of clitoral stimulation than out of vaginal—‍”

“(Just fuck me so we can get going before someone catches us.)” She doubled her pressure on that sweet spot; I covered my mouth to smother my rather loud moaning.

“What happened next?”

“Just—(ahh)—a second—(hah)—can we just—(ahh)—do this for a—(mmh)—while?”

“Alright.” She continued playing with my insides, gradually driving me crazier and crazier with each stroke; eventually my voice may have grown loud enough to be audible outside the car, at which point she asked, “Tell me what came after that.”

“A man—(mhh)—found the car. And—(hah)—knocked on the window.”

“Oh? Did he see us?”

“I parked us under a—(hmm)—streetlamp for a reason. Oh—God, yes, keep doing that…”

“He couldn’t see past the glare, so he left,” she gathered.

“He—(ah)—knocked again. And again. And—then he—oh God, I’m getting close.” She backed off on the intensity of her fingering. “Don’t—don’t slow down!”

“I want to hear the end of it before I finish you off.”

I rushed through the rest of the story. “He blocked the light with—(mmh)—his hands and looked inside, but he—(ahh)—couldn’t see anything because the engine—(ahm—and all the lights—were off so he left-please-finish-me-off.)”

“Interesting. You had the foresight to turn off the car in your fantasy, but you neglected to do so in reality.”

My eyes grew a couple sizes; I reached for the light switch and ignition only for her to start on my clitoris with her other hand and resume fingering my pussy at full strength. My will faltered, and turning off the engine and lights became my lowest priority. The dome light lured me in with its gentle illumination, and when I arrived I basked lazily in the warmth of her touch and its soft glow.

I was oblivious to onlookers, voyeurs, and audience members. She had imprisoned me in paradise, where I waited contentedly for the rapture that would liberate me, a rapture that came ever closer with each moment, heralding itself with the fanfare of my rising vocalizations, until I was deaf from my own throat sounds and then suddenly my voice was quiet as I cried out and I was torn to shreds by my deliverance into a new reality—

A hundred motors growling harsh

I turn my key, she comes to life

I feel her humming through my seat

A beast of burden made for war

The red light tells me ’twill be soon

Clutch down, release the parking brake

The red light tempts my lust for speed

Foot presses gas down to the floor

Her engine revs beneath my feet

Select first gear, shift right and up

Green light gives me her consent

Clutch up, tires squeal, lift off, GO

Gas and clutch and shift and clutch

Pull ahead before the rest

Passing others on the left

Audience screams with delight

Like a bat from hell she flies

Shooting forward on the straights

Rounding corners, rubber burns

Tires exceed envelope

Yet continue to perform

Engine pushes needle red

Carries us through hordes of cars

Andy Bachman takes the lead

Leaves the others in her dust

Races forward t’wards the line

There’s no other neck to match

Checkered flag waves back and forth

Crowd goes nuts, a sight to see

A gilded cup and champagne bath

SV’s hometown hero wins

Mortal is this girl no more

All will call her from this day:

Greatest driver in the world

My entire body was pulled taut, and my chest vibrated in the wake of the traumatizing exertion of experiencing perfection. Once my orgasm had faded enough for me to engage in critical thought, Judy informed me, “You make the cutest little noise when you cum.”

I exhaled through pursed lips. “Captain Somers agrees.”

She kissed me on the cheek. “Who’s better at sex, me or her?”

“Well obviously it’s—‍”

“Don’t answer that question, it isn’t fair for me to make you compare your sexual partners.”

“I was going to say, you are significantly sweeter, and you know how to press my vagina button.”

“You mean your G-spot?”

“That’s what a G-spot is?” She nodded. “All this time it was right there, I coulda been… Hm. Well, I crave having fingers inside me, it’s… I don’t know how to put it. ‘Intimate’? I feel extra close to you when you finger me like that. So close.”

“You never cease to amaze me with how sweet you are, Andrea Bachman.” She kissed me oh-so-gently, filling me with such passion that I wrapped my arms around her and turned the kiss raunchy. She abruptly peeled her lips away. “Sorry to interrupt, but when I said your first and last name earlier, I got to wondering whether you have a middle.”

“‘Esther’. Like the biblical character.” I kissed her neck.

“Was your mother religious?”

“No. She grew up in a very religious Orthodox family and community, though.” Another kiss to the jugular. “She told me she was an atheist ‘from birth’ and that she felt outcast even before she came out to her family.”

‹I’ll nibble your earlobe…›

“Ahh… Orthodox… Greek, or Russian…?”

“Orthodox Jewish. I don’t know much about them, but they were very conservative and very religious. The most Jewish thing my mother did after leaving everyone behind was pick my middle name.”

‹…then suck on it.›

“I see. Mine is ‘Éowyn’.”

“‘Judith Éowyn Lucas’. That sounds made-up.” My amusement distracted me from her earlobe.

She laughed. “Yeah, it totally does. I chose it myself and I might have gotten a little carried away. Yours is a bit more natural.”

“Names are funny things.”

There was a lull, during which I resumed kissing her. Eventually, she pointed out, “Your clothes are in disarray.”

“Of course they are. We’re doing sex.”

“I think one fingering in public should be enough for now.”

“Two.”

“One is all you need.”

Horny entitlement scrunched my face.

“Andy, how many times will be enough for you?”

“I dunno—5?”

“How does 6 sound?”

“Yeah!”

“7?”

“I’m down!”

“8?”

“8 is great!”

“How about we go for 24 hours straight?”

“Yes! Let’s get to it!”

“A week in the car, together, no meal breaks?”

“Absolutely!”

She nodded. “Andy… you are the horniest person I have ever met.”

“Ha. Ha. There are people way hornier than me.”

She shrugged. “Well, it’s beautiful, don’t get me wrong, but we can’t be parked here forever just so I can finger you nonstop. The longer we’re here, the less likely we are to get away with our public indecency. Part of the fun of public sex is sneaking out before you’re caught.”

I stared at her.

“Andy, I promise I’ll finger you later. We need ta split.”

Disappointment anchored my heart to the floor. “Ugh. Fine.” I buttoned and zipped up. “I suppose… it’s about time I took care of a certain something before I’m officially a cop… all over again.”

“Delivering the news to Adams?”

“Yep. Even though reason dictates it’s gonna be a shit show… I have this weird feeling it’ll come out in the wash, though I don’t know how worn out I’m gonna be from soaking, agitating, rinsing and drying all their feelings.”

Her thoughts turned to something ponderous, then something conclusive, then something satisfied. “Andy… I think you can trust that ‘weird feeling’.”

One of my eyebrows perked up. “Do you put a lot of stock in paranormal cognition?”

“Not normally. But I think you should go with your gut. And if it fails you this time, teach it a lesson so that it gets it right next time.”

I chuckled. “If you say so.”

I pulled away from the curb and returned us to the place of my rebirth.

You Can’t Trust
an Ex-Cop

I drove us down to Adams, piecing together and rehearsing the right things to tell the workers to convince them I was doing the right thing. We parked right in front of the hotel and went to pay the meter only to find that it already had 23 minutes on it, and, with guarded hopes, approached Yesenia.

“What’s up, Dippy? Any luck in finding Alex?”

“Hey, Yesenia, I—‍” My confidence collapsed without warning. “I—‍” I trembled and my mouth ran dry.

Her head flopped sideways. “Oh, no… Please don’t tell me you have bad news.”

“One sec,” interjected Judy as she turned me around, laid her hands on my shoulders and squeezed. “You can do this.”

I shook my head, and kept my gaze away from hers to hide my fear, but she took me by the chin and drew my eyes into her own. “It was just a hunch,” I mumbled. “A hunch is just a thought. A thought without evidence.”

“Even if it goes tits-up, it’ll be worth the attempt. The alternative is guaranteed failure. The best outcome is only possible if you trust your gut and go all-in.”

Her reassurance helped… a little. Not a lot—but enough. I turned around. “Yesenia… I have some news that—well, it’s good news, but it’s also bad news. I’ve deliberated, I’ve discussed it with Judy, I’ve considered the resources available to me… and I’ve determined that I only have one option if I’m going to solve Alex’s kidnapping.”

Her eyes grew several sizes. “Kidnapped?”

“I—forgot that I hadn’t notified anyone here…”

“We hafta spread the news!” She grabbed me by the hand and tugged gently. “Come on!”

“We can’t! We need to keep it under wraps for the time being. I’m going to make the news public as soon as I’m—as soon as I’m in position.”

“And what ‘position’ would that be?” She asked this with an air of naïveté, which made sense considering she should have had no clue that I was planning the most ethically dubious scheme anyone claiming to be an anti-fascist had ever cooked up, and yet… I could swear that she knew, somehow, that I was dead-set on going back to the force. But… but there was no way for her to know our plan—only Judith knew that I was becoming a cop again. The only explanation for my eerie hunch was that she had never given up her suspicion that I had lied about being fired—so if my hunch had any basis in reality, there was no way she was going to trust me once I had spoken so much as half a sentence of my plan. I was about to completely obliterate all of her trust in me, as well as the trust of every sex worker in the city.

My face contorted; I tried to speak but only choking noises came out. I felt a squeeze on my shoulder, reminding me that Judy was with me, then one around my hand—Shosh was there, too. I closed my eyes for a moment and tried to remember what I was going to tell Yesenia, but my plan was a blur. I couldn’t stand in silence all night, though, I had to say something. So I said… something. And I decided that that something would be what she needed to know in order to cut ties with this traitor she had trusted and mentored in spite of her instincts. “I’ve… been… offered… a position… as… a detective…” Her lips turned down and her brow furrowed suspiciously. “…within this precinct’s… Crimes Against Persons Squad.”

Her brow was no longer furrowed in suspicion but in deep disapproval, and her lips slowly bunched up into a scowl. “And you…” She struggled to suppress her ire. “You thought you could just turn a trick to prove that you were one of us, so that you could pump us for info then stab us in the back?”

I shook my head vigorously. “N-n-no, that’s not at all what I’m trying to do!”

My answer failed to improve her mood, but she contained her feelings. “Is this about the dough?”

“The woman who hired me last night offered me 500 dollars every time I gave her an hour, or a thousand if I do a good job, every week, and who knows how much I could be making on top of that from my other johns. I’m going to be receiving retirement money at some point, so with these two income sources combined I would live better than I was as a meter maid or even as I would as a detective, and I’d prefer not to go back to the place that told me I sucked at my job and shat me out the second they realized I wasn’t going to play their games. I know I can do sex work, I know I have the potential to be good at it, and I sincerely enjoy it—unlike being a cop, which always took more of me than I had to give. I couldn’t handle being a meter maid from the beginning and it only became more of a struggle the longer I did it. Being a detective will be a thousand times more taxing than my old job was, so I might crash and burn even harder when I try to solve this mystery from behind a badge.” (Being an amateur sleuth had thus far required only a tiny fraction of the effort sucked out of me by meter maid duty, and it seemed reasonable to expect that being a police detective would be a cinch, too. She did not need to know this.)

My reassurance that it wasn’t a money thing did not sooth her sore throat, nor did it carry her away from the brink of tears. “I’m trying—real hard, cuz I—thought you might actually be a good person, a woman who only used to be a bastard, once upon a time, all water under the bridge—I’m—I’m trying with all my heart to understand your motives, Andrea. But I’m having a hard time. A very hard time.”

“I need the crime scene dusted for prints to find and convict the kidnapper, I need to grab video footage from the dash cams in the vans and the body cams of the jackboots who raided the hotel. I need to find out whether someone bought the hotel and who it was. And… I need to infiltrate the SVPD to find out if anybody there was involved. If I don’t have all of this, I don’t have a case, and Alex stays missing forever.”

My explanation troubled her—which was just what I was aiming for—and as I went on, I saw my argument erode her pain.

“And even if I did manage to gather all of that evidence as a private investigator… the DA isn’t going to file a criminal complaint based on the word of a civilian, they only listen to cops. Justice for Alexander Brookvale is impractical without a trustworthy detective working from within the system—unless you want me to give vigilantism a try.”

With each argument her distress softened; as I told her I wouldn’t have the power to bring charges except as a pig, the last of her disdain evaporated. “Shit. Alright.” I sighed in relief. “The rest of us, though… I doubt you’ll convince them to see things your way.”

“I’ll be lucky if just one of them tells me so much as the time of day after tonight.”

“It’s wise of you to bate your hopes. Come along.” She gathered up our colleagues on the street, warning them, “Sex Cop has bad news, I’m calling an emergency assembly on the steps of the Torrey Pines.” Once everyone was gathered before the steps of the hotel, Yesenia called, “Hear ye, hear ye! The ex-cop known as Serendipity has distressing news.” The workers chattered as she turned to me. “Lead with the kidnapping, then the practical considerations—by which I mean the collection of evidence and bringing of charges—and then tell them what you have planned.” She gave me a dissatisfied smile—that still somehow managed (or so I can’t help but intuit in hindsight) to contradict itself with just a curl of satisfaction. “May God have mercy on your soul.”

I nodded nervously. “My fellow workers,” I called out from the steps of the hotel, “assuming you’re willing to count me as your fellow after I tell you what I have planned. First, you deserve to know the status of my investigation, which I ask all of you to keep under wraps until I make my findings public.”

I breathed for a few seconds as I tried to remember the words I needed to speak.

They didn’t come.

“Esti.” She gave my hand a gentle tug. “‘He was kidnapped on Wednesday.’”

“Al—Alexander Brookvale was abducted on Wednesday—‍” The crowd became overwhelmingly fretful. I waited a few seconds, then pleaded, “I need you to listen, all of you! Please, listen.” They wouldn’t. “I’m trying to tell you something important!” I screamed. A few at a time, they quieted. “He was taken around the time of the Vice raid on Wednesday, probably in the half hour following its conclusion. He was bound with rope and carried into a hotel room, where he was injured. Please don’t go up there, I would prefer to have the crime scene undisturbed until I can arrange for a more thorough investigation.

“Next, my rationale for the decision I’m going to warn you about momentarily. First of all, I need certain kinds of evidence that I don’t currently have the ability or legal authority to gather. I need experts with the right tools to investigate a crime scene, I need to run fingerprints against databases, I need footage from all the police vehicles and body cams from the raid in case they can give me some insight into what happened. I need to pull aside the blue shield and find out when and why Vice planned this raid and whether it may have been a diversion, I need to find out who purchased the Torrey Pines—‍” The crowd whispered to itself in quiet shock.

Yesenia sent tingling waves across my scalp by whispering into my ear, “(That wasn’t common knowledge among the masses, Dippy.)”

“(Hah…) Um. Well, it is now.”

She shrugged. “What’s done is done. Keep going while you still have their attention.”

I continued, “—and—and I also need to investigate any possible connections to the perpetrators, their reasons for closing the hotel, what they intend to do with it—‍”

Then Yesenia gave me yet another piece of news: “I forgot to tell you, there’s a permit to demolish the hotel.”

‹Oh, God, no.› “(What? When is it scheduled?)” I hissed, panic audible in my voice.

“Tomorrow morning—I found out just this afternoon.”

“Christ. Fuck. I don’t know if I’ll be able to get my CSI team in before they level it.”

“Hence why I’m telling you. I’ve been sitting on this news for eight hours trying to think of a way to avert a panic, but… they need to know. I can no longer hold back the flood. Please, inform them.”

I turned back to the crowd, and with sudden doubt about my plan, announced, “The new owners are demolishing the Torrey Pines tomorrow morning.”

The crowd erupted into worried discussion.

“We need to protect that evidence, we need to—‍” My mind worked at a mile a minute. “We need to organize something to stall the demolition until I can start the next phase of my investigation.”

“We can form a human chain,” suggested Lola.

“And we could file a complaint about asbestos,” suggested Paulo.

“Yes! Good ideas! I want all of you to work on more strategies after I’m done telling you what I need to tell you. My job is investigating a kidnapping, your job is saving the hotel.”

“What is it you need to tell us?” asked Eduardo.

“Okay. Second-to-last, I don’t trust anyone but myself and Judy to handle this investigation, and we currently don’t have the resources we need. And I know of only one way to get what we need.” I took a breath, exhaled, and braced myself emotionally for the storm I expected to follow. “I’m about to tell you something you won’t like, but please have open minds and hear me out. I’m… going to become a Crimes Against Persons Detective at the pol—‍”

The crowd broke into an uproar. Voices spoke over each other, all discord and discontent. I decided it would be best to let them hammer things out and come to an agreement—even as I overheard such utterances as ‘Cop doesn’t know shit about how cops work,’ and ‘Is she really this naïve?’ and ‘Does she think we’re naïve?’ I reminded myself that unanimous rejection was the expected outcome, and ordered myself, unsuccessfully, not to be disappointed.

The arguments grew a little louder, and the accusations sharper— ‘backstabber’ and ‘pig all along’ and ‘probably working undercover the whole time’. I accepted them the way someone in stockades might accept rotten vegetables to the face—with eyes shut tight and a prayer that they would stop any second now. Shosh squeezed my hand, and I focused on that to the exclusion of the voices arguing over which indictment of my character was the most succinct. “Don’t listen to them,” said both of my best friends in unison.

Then Yoly emerged from the crowd and, ascending the steps, approached me—followed by Lisa, Paulo, and Ronnie—and reminded me, “You promised you would try to avoid roping me into the legal system.”

“And that’s still the case.”

“I can’t trust a cop.”

I nodded in solemn agreement. “And you shouldn’t. You shouldn’t trust me. There’s nothing preventing me from breaking my promise. I need your trust, but you don’t owe it to me. That’s my reality. All I can do is beg you to help me and hope that you take pity on me. If you can help me in any way that doesn’t give me leverage over you, I will get down on my knees and kiss your feet. I will kiss every foot on this street, no matter how little you have to offer—because every detail is vital to my mission.”

“I don’t want your groveling.”

I averted my eyes. ‹Shit. What can I do? I have her real name, she isn’t happy about that. She’s pissed that I have the ability to screw her over.

‹Wait.› I dug around in my purse and retrieved the two most important cards in my possession. I thrust them towards her. “Here.”

“Is that a… Social Security Card?”

“And my driver’s license.”

“Why are you showing them to us?”

“Take pictures. If I betray you, post them on Trollchan. The villainous scum that inhabit that website will burn my life down.”

She shook her head. “I don’t… want these.”

“I want you to have leverage over me. If I screw you, you screw me. This is insurance against me lying to you or breaking my promises.”

“No.”

“Please. I want you to have a reason to trust me. I want you to be able to punish me. I want you to have the power to ruin my life, so that you can be absolutely certain that I won’t ruin yours.”

“I’m not—‍”

“Yoly. Listen. This is the only way I can think of to assure you that I’m worthy of your trust. I need your trust, I need everyone’s trust. Please. Take pictures of them. Pass them around to everybody here—to every sex worker in this city—so they can, too. If I break any of my promises, if I betray even one of you, every one of you will have the ability to make me regret it.”

“I’m not doing this,” she told me forcefully.

“Me neither,” said Paulo, and Lisa echoed him.

“This isn’t right,” opined Ronnie.

“I don’t want to have control over you,” explained Yoly. “It isn’t the way to gain our trust. Stop trying to give us your personal information. We don’t want it.”

My eyes dropped to my feet. “Alright. I guess you’ll never trust me.” I retrieved my notepad and tore out the page on which I’d recorded her testimony and offered it. “I’ll remember your name and what you shared, but without a written record of it I would have a slightly harder time getting you subpoenaed. That’s the best I can do.”

She shook her head. “Keep it. Maybe I can’t trust you, but I can still… help. Other than becoming a pig again, you haven’t done anything to lead me to believe you actually intend to hurt me. And… you offered me the ability to ruin your life, so maybe—maybe I can afford to give you some leeway.”

I smiled. “Thanks. That’s all I should have asked for in the first place. Excuse me, I have to convince everybody else not to exile me from this street.” I went from sex worker to sex worker, showing them the cards, offering them the opportunity to destroy me, but none accepted. Every time they refused, I asked them, ‘Will you give me another chance?’ Most of them nodded silently, and a few replied, ‘Alright.’ Once they were all sated that I probably meant well, I returned to my team on the steps.

“Serendipity is planning to become a good cop,” announced Yesenia, “and as we all know there are no good cops. But she’s trying to do what’s best for Alex and for all the people who love him or look up to him, and she seems convinced that doing so will require a certain amount of ideological flexibility. I’m willing to consider what she’s trying to say from a pragmatic perspective. I hope she’s proven to all of you that such consideration is worth your while, but in case you’re still undecided, she has a few more words.” She nodded to me.

The sex workers listened as I said my piece. “The prosecutor is only going to charge someone with a crime if the police ask for it. That means the Santa Virginia Sheriff, the FBI, or the SVPD. Neither you nor I trust any of them, but the SVPD are the only ones with jurisdiction anyway, so only a CAP detective from the SVPD can bring justice for Alex—and as far as I can tell, none of the CAP detectives currently on the force give a shit about him. The only person I trust to put an honest effort into the case… is me. Now you get to decide whether you should expect me to go back to being a cop without drinking the blue Kool-Aid this time around.”

Amid quiet discussion I waited for someone to say something directed at me or my moral crookedness—but the only thing louder than the murmur of deliberation was a cough. I watched their expressions evolve through multiple emotions, until I could see that their apprehensive civility had for the most part been replaced with something more complex.

The lack of engagement was killing me, so I told them how to help me violate the Fourth Amendment rights of the hotel owners: “I can’t report the crime scene myself without raising legal questions that could compromise the case. I need one of you to file a report stating that you saw a pool of blood on the carpet in hotel room 410 when you were retrieving things you had left behind during the raid. If you’re worried about trespassing charges, report it anonymously. Can someone volunteer to do that for me?”

Yesenia declared, “We’ll all do it.”

Few-by-few, certainty emerged from doubt, and the crowd nodded and discussed how best to word their anonymous tips.

“Great. Thank you. I have to go home now and get some sleep. Don’t stay up too late.” The assembly got the joke, and a few even found it amusing, and with a tiny amount of levity to boost their spirits after such a stressful dilemma, they returned to their spots with feelings towards me that were clearly mixed but possibly leaning towards renewed acceptance. “Good night, stay safe, get laid, get paid.”

I watched them return to their spots in little clumps, still discussing strategies for saving the hotel. I turned around to ask Judy if she thought it went well and, based on her beaming smile, inferred that she was enthused and hopeful. She wrapped her arms around me and squeezed. “Andy, I think your hunch might have come true!”

“Maybe, partially… this time. I’m bound to have a bad one eventually.”

“Yes, and I’ll be there to cheer you up and remind you that it was merely an exception to the rule.”

I desperately wanted to kiss her, but not in front of the parting crowd. She must have seen it in my eyes, though, because she suddenly hunched over and planted one on my mouth. I swooned, and after the kiss was over, I had a fairly strong urge to rip off her clothes and go down on her—but I restrained myself.

“I’ll be damned.” Yesenia scoffed and shook her head. “From forth the fatal loins of vice and law / a pair of star-crossed whores seek Brookvale lost. / I should have known the two of them were close / but it was hard enough imagining / my buddy J befriending pigs, much less / romancing girls intending to work forces.” To my relief, she chuckled warmly.

“(Yeeeeah…)” I replied sheepishly. “Um… I need your cell so I can let you know when all of you can start sending in those tips.”

“I… trust you, Dip. In spite of what your plan involves, in spite of my experience with cops, in spite of the advice my own soul is whispering to me, I really do trust you, but I still hafta be careful with my private information. I won’t give a cop my phone number if there’s any possibility that her boss might search her phone. And it’s probably in your best interest not to keep records on any other people living less-than-legal lifestyles. Cough, J, cough.”

“Oh, I don’t bother with writing down contact info, I just memorize it. And I delete conversations unless they’re potential blackmail material.”

Her eyes yelled, [What?]

“Yeah, I memorize all my text messages, DMs, and email—not verbatim, but accurately enough that I can keep my phone nice and clean and empty.”

“Don’t you ever forget?”

“I have every desk phone in the department’s directory memorized, I remember my teachers’ numbers from college, I remember the numbers for the few classmates who bothered to share them with me all the way back to kindergarten. Email and street addresses, too.”

“That—and you must agree—is incredible.”

“I don’t usually tell people about it, because whenever I have told them they started asking me to summon things from the past like it’s a party trick.”

“I won’t do that.” She recited her cell number, I memorized it, and we parted with fare-thee-wells.

I drove us home, and when we got to my door, I told Judy, “So we’ve, uh, done it once in my bed…” Shosh disappeared without comment.

“Yes. And there’s plenty of other unclaimed territory remaining, as well.”

“I guess that’s true. But I was wondering if we could—maybe—have some sex that isn’t out in the open where a rando can just stumble in on us while I’m dry humping you, maybe? For once?”

“I’m awfully tired…”

“You can sit back and relax while I take care of everything. I’d like to try… (eating pussy.)”

“Don’t worry about me.”

“So far, you’ve never given me the chance to—‍”

“Okay, Andy, listen. I will sleep with you tonight on two conditions.”

“I’m listening.”

“First: you let me eat you out.”

“Okay. I’m looking forward to that.”

“Second: you don’t try to get me to show you my bottom half.”

“(Oh.)” I was frustrated by her secrecy, but I had begun to crave her touch. I powered through the disappointment. “(Oh…)” I acquiesced impatiently. “(Fine…)”

“I’m glad we were able to come to an agreement.”

Disappointed—but not defeated—I let us into my apartment so that I could be eaten out by my fuckbuddy—the first domino in the chain of mistakes that led to me losing her.

Ten-Ticket
Thrill Ride

Content Warning:
Discussions of Transmisogyny
and Fetishization of Transfemmes;
Accusations of Sexual Coercion

She gratified me without regard for her own gratification—but she seemed satisfied with the exchange she had arranged for us, which consisted of her pleasuring me and me impatiently wishing for her to «just let me have fun with your genitals already.»

And I say that she seemed ‘satisfied’ because she nearly severed one button on a brand-new shirt as she all but ripped it off and shoved me onto the bed, eliciting a surprised shout-laugh out of me, then yanked off my pants and then my panties, exposing my pussy—the whole time with a riveting, ravenous, serial-killer grin. She threw her purse on the bed and took off her own shirt, then unclasped her bra and freed her breasts. I ogled them as she crawled over me and dangled them over my chest. I chanced squeezing them and was rewarded with the satisfying sensation of pillowy flesh filling the gaps between my fingers.

I massaged them like a cat kneading her owner’s lap, simultaneously relaxing and exciting myself. “Having fun, Andy?” I nodded with the familiar smile of a drunkard. “You know, you’ve never sucked my nips.” I sent a kiss her way over-the-air and she caught it and put it in her pocket, then dragged her tits across my face. I gloried at their softness, and bunched them up so that her small-ish nipples were touching, and per her suggestion I nibbled both of them with my lips, a tactile pleasure I wished I’d tried sooner; and while I so entertained myself with her tits, she hummed contentedly and stroked my hair.

Then, suddenly, she announced, “Okay, I need to—I need to eat your pussy now.”

“‘Need’?”

“Yes. That’s how I get off.”

“Um. Okay, go ahead.”

“Before I start… have you been tested?”

“Yes, Friday, during my fitness for duty exam, all swabs negative.”

“Perfect.”

She backed up until her head hovered above my vulva and stared between my tits into my eyes. Thoughts flocked and flew and flung themselves about my head as I stared back at her, my neck bent forward at a ninety-degree angle; I wondered when she was going to start, what it would be like, whether I would enjoy it—when she answered all of these questions by bringing her head down and tickling my labia with a kiss, taking little steps upward with her lips until she arrived at my clitoris—

My head wrenched back into the pillows as she sucked, sending a buzz up my stomach and spine and forcing me to stretch every muscle in my body. I gasped at the force of the pleasure, and instinctively laid my hands on her head and followed its movements. I managed to gasp, “(Finger.)” She obliged me with a digit up my hole, completing my pleasure circuit. As she massaged my most vital organs, internal and external, every little push of her finger was a moment spent basking in the pure and peaceful meadows of heaven, and every swirl of her tongue was a moment of being ravished in the most sensual and decadent circle of hell. With each passing second living on both sides of the eternal world to come, my moaning grew in volume, and I felt the pressure within my loins build and build until—

“Stop,” I commanded. She stopped, just short of giving me my orgasm. Momentarily, I regretted the command, because it was agonizing to go from a hundred miles per hour to parked one sixteenth of an inch short of the finish line in less than a second… but I couldn’t stand being the center of attention any longer.

“Are you okay, Andy?”

I panted. “I’m fine.”

“No… problems?”

“Nope, I just…”

“So… Do you still want to have sex?”

“I do, but I want to be the one doing the pleasing. I want to… um… give you oral.”

“You don’t have to do that.” Her patience wavered.

“I want to.”

“I would prefer to be the one doing the eating.” She sounded irritated, but at the same time sympathetic towards my desire.

“Up until now it’s been all about my pleasure. You deserve some now. It’s your turn to feel good.”

“Just let me do all the work, Andrea,” she said flatly.

I was sick of not being able to pleasure her. “No. I won’t let you eat my pussy until you let me eat yours.”

“You’re so close, though—I need to finish you.” She seemed to be in as much pre-orgasmic agony as I was. Maybe more. Which gave me an idea…

“I don’t cum till you cum. If you don’t accept those terms, I revoke my consent until you change your mind. Your move.”

“This is sexual coercion, Andy.”

“Are you seriously trying to tell me… that I am sexually coercing you by revoking my consent? That, since you need so badly to make me cum, that I owe you consent?”

Her frustration dissolved into something only vaguely resembling resignation; I detected a hint of disdain. “Point taken.” She got off the bed, unbuttoned and removed her jeans. “Get ready for the best ‘pussy’ you’ll ever have.” Her words would have excited me were it not for their dark tone. She pulled down her panties without spreading her shapely legs. I savored the privilege of gazing upon her naked body.

But something was missing.

“Okay… Now, lie down and spread your legs. Show me your pussy.”

She turned around and fell onto the mattress, landed on her back, then scooted backwards fully onto the bed, all the while keeping her legs glued together.

I crawled to the foot of the bed, gently grabbed her ankles, and spread her legs—but I did not find what I had assumed would be at their intersection.

“Well? Are you going to ‘eat me out’?”

“Um.” I was not expecting what I found, and I needed to rewrite my entire script.

“No? Changed your mind? Can’t figure it out? Grossed out?”

‹I’ve seen this before, but not on a woman.

‹Hmm…

‹I wonder.›

“I guess I’m not eating you out.” I kept a straight face.

“That’s what I thought.” She started to get up.

I ran my hand up her ankle, dragged my grip up her calf, rubbed her inner thigh, and stopped an inch short of my goal. She froze, her eyes wide with surprise. I brushed my fingertips across her skin further up, eliciting a shiver, until they were right next to those floppy six inches of her. I unfurled it and gave it a gentle squeeze. Like her earlobes, it was soft and delicate and suckable. My lips turned up in a lustful smirk, and her expression of shock turned into an expression of pleased surprise.

“I’m not really sure how this thing works,” I lied, “I barely know how my own genitals work. Would you mind telling me how to… get it ready for my mouth?”

“Um… Shyeah. First… you can pull down the foreskin.”

I played with the skin on the outside, wrapped my hand around it and carefully peeled it back, and watched everything grow until the vaguely mushroom-shaped contents were wholly exposed at the end of about two stacked Red Bull cans’ worth of flesh. A wild, famished grin gradually parted my lips. “Oh, my! It’s way bigger than I thought it would be.” I gave the firm shaft a squeeze and giggled. “It was so soft but now it’s petrified!”

“That’s part of the magic of cocks.”

I rubbed the tip and listened to her quiet humming, then ran a finger along its soft underside. “Does this feel good?”

“(Mm.) Yes. It does.”

I noticed that a droplet of precum had pooled at the opening. I wetted the tip of a finger with it and tested its properties—thin and slippery, not unlike my own juices. I used it to lubricate her head, but there wasn’t enough of the stuff, so I reached inside my pussy and got some of my own lubricant and rubbed it all over the tip of her cock like it was a giant clitoris, starting at the hole and working my way down… “How about this?”

…and as I reached the rim, she let out the agonized breath she’d been holding in. “(H-h. Yes.)”

I brought my face up close to it, observed it, and in doing so, breathed on it. It replied with an eager twitch, a satisfying reaction. Her Burgundy-nuanced perfume sensuously assaulted me. I kissed the underside, and she grunted quietly. “Did that feel good?”

“Yes, but mostly because it was super intimate. And sexy.”

I looked her in the eye as I licked the little fold of skin on the underside of the head.

She whispered, “(Fuck.)”

I wrapped my hand around the shaft and gave it a gentle tug, like the piston of a steam locomotive just getting started. “And that?”

“(Yes…)”

I moved my hand up and down the shaft, just like in the straight porn I’d watched out of curiosity; I stretched the loose skin up and over the tip, and noted her pleased growl. “Why were you afraid to show me your cock?”

“It’s complicated.”

“I’m a detective. I eat complications like I eat Cinnamon Toasties.” I licked it between strokes, taking in her scent the whole time.

“(Damn, this is so fucking hot.) Alright. Long story short, whenever I have sex with cisgender people—outside of when I was doing escort work where my dick was the primary draw for men—they usually have no idea I’m trans, and I prefer to keep it that way because out of the dozen or so times the truth came out, ninety-nine percent of them either ran away or tried to hurt me on the spot, like I was the Creature from the Black Lagoon.”

“Or like a vampire.”

“Exactly.”

“I’m not that type of person. You haven’t known me long, but you should know that much by now.”

“(I… just…) have a hard time… trusting cisgender people.”

“Okay. I think I get it, so I hope you don’t feel pressured when I ask… Do you trust me now?”

Her reply was not instantaneous, but I didn’t expect it to be. I patiently pumped away at her cock, and tried to steel myself for a possibly negative or ambivalent answer. But it was neither. “(Absolutely.)” There was a finality to the utterance that I did not pick up on in the moment.

I smiled. “That’s a relief. And in case you haven’t figured it out, I trust you. But now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s get back to the sex.”

“I would appreciate that. Blow me.”

“Yes, ma’am!” She giggled. I placed my lips on the tip, then slowly accepted her cock until the whole thing stretched my lips and filled my mouth. She groaned the whole way, until my nose was buried in her bush…

A sharp aroma,
carried by

A subtle current
to my nose,

Which strikes me with
intensity

Of fragrancy
and heavy body

First sang the coffee,
roasted dark

And freshly ground,
put through the press

Then poured while hot
to be consumed

As black as jet—
and I for once

Enjoy my piping mug of
joe

No sugar to adulterate—

The cream, though,
I do so much crave.

My horniness rocketed to its peak. I pulled back until only the head was in my mouth and sucked. She whined. I sustained the vacuum while massaging the underside with my tongue. She placed her hands on my head and gave it a gentle nudge, so I gave her what she wanted and thrust my head back down, then up, then down, ad infinitum, eliciting heavy breathing and hums and grunts from her throat. I played with my clitoris, synchronizing the rhythms of my fingers and my head-bobbing, feeding my need for touch but failing to gratify myself even as I inserted my finger and rubbed my G-spot, only growing more and more unsatisfied with each touch of excitement; each time her cock filled my mouth, my nose was blasted with her scent—until her brand had boiled all my mind into steam as my pussy burned for her. Eventually my desire became so overwhelming that I couldn’t continue sucking. Reluctantly, yet somehow also eagerly, I took my mouth off of her cock.

I needed more.

“Andy—why—(why did you stop?)” she asked anxiously.

“(I… don’t… know,)” I murmured, hypnotized as I watched her cock bounce anxiously with each beat of her heart. It looked like it needed my pussy as much as my pussy needed it. And it was everything I needed.

“What do you mean? Sucking dick shouldn’t require you to think straight. Or think at all.”

“(I… need…)” I informed her in a monotone, mesmerized by her pulsating cock.

“You need what?”

«Cocks belong in vaginas. They’re designed for each other. It’s natural. It’s meant to be inside me. It must go inside me. I need it. I need what it has to offer me.» I crawled over her until our parts were right next to each other, separated by just a few inches.

“(Andy, what are you doing…?)” she asked, warily. I grabbed her cock and guided it as I lowered myself onto it…

I felt a rush like going 30 over the limit on the interstate explode in my vagina and shoot up my spine into my brain as the tip passed through my entrance, forcing a shrill sigh from my throat and encouraging me to keep going. It made a deliciously wet noise as it entered me, and I relished the feeling of fullness as I took in all 8 inches of her. We moaned in parallel as my pussy accepted her cock as the selfless heroine accepts her destiny for the greater good. “(Ohhhhh)—fuck… You dirty, sexy girl.”

I lifted my hips, then brought them down, grunting in satisfaction once it was all the way inside again. She threw her head back with a groan. “(Ahhhhh…)” With determination and deliberation I repeated the motions, over and over and over again, as we both moaned like whores. She asked, “Are you sure you—(mhh)—wanna do this—(hah)—raw?”

All I could think about was her cock being inside me, spreading me, filling me, completing me. “I just… need you inside me. To the very end.”

She lifted me by the hips then let me back down, and I swallowed her once more. “(Your pussy… God damn…)” We worked together to bring me up and down again and again—our love-making boiled over. “Oh, God, yes… (Fuck… fuck… hah… fuck… hah…)” Her limited lexicon gradually devolved into horny vocalizations. As she ceased using words, I lowered my chest onto hers, eased as far up her cock as I could go, until just the tip was tickling my entrance and I could feel that beautiful rush, so that my lips could reach her neck, so that I could kiss her gently on the throat; but I could only go so long without that feeling of fullness.

Our bodies resumed moving together, me rocking my hips against hers, her thrusting her cock into my pussy, both of us working towards the same goal. I remember her regaining a limited ability to speak, whispering between moans in the midst of our lovemaking, “(God… your pussy is… driving me… crazy, it’s… practically designed… for my cock… slick… and strong… and pretty… I just want… to… cum… inside…)”

As her movements became more exaggerated, she warned me, “Andy, I’m gonna cum—(mmh)—in a few seconds—(ah)—you need to get off of me.”

“I need your cock,” I insisted as I continued to ride her.

“You don’t need to do anything for me, I can finish myself off.”

“I need you to—(mmh)—be inside of me when you—(hahhh)—cum. I need it.”

“Oh, Christ, I can’t believe this is really happening—but—Andy, for your sake you—(mhh)—you need to get—(hah)—off of my—‍”

“Please don’t make me get off.” Up and down and up and down I went, impaled upon her cock.

“We need to pull out—if I cum inside you, you might get pregnant—but—but God I want to be—inside you when I—oh, yes-fuck-I’m—cummi—ah—hah—inside—you—yes—ah—O Ishtar! I must be dreaming…” She grunted and grimaced blissfully and her hips jerked greedily. I devoted every hungry joule in my body to riding her cock as her chest heaved and she breathed in aggressive gasps— “(Hahh, hahh, hahh, fuck, ah…)” —and her eyes rolled back and her fingers dug into the soft flesh of my hips and slammed me down onto her cock and held me there as she began to—

Spurt hot white foam

Hissing hot milk

Micro bubbles

Poured in layers

On espresso

Sipping gently

Acid tangy

Earthy nutty

Chocolate tones, with

Greed I swallow

Sudden changes

Flow from pelvis

Fibrillation

Bliss like morphine

Brew of poison

Drives me crazy

Cuts my brain up

Blends to liquid

Nervous smoothie

Now I cannot

Think of any

Person besides

You, my love, my

Universe

As someone chopped up my mind and fed it to a Magic Bullet one euphoric piece at a time, I was gradually overcome by a… need for her that transcended mere love. I pulled myself up to her tip and kissed her neck. ‹I want to be with you forever. I will be with you forever. We are one.› The only thing left on my itinerary was getting back to riding her until I climaxed.

I finished kissing her and resumed riding her, with her hands guiding me up and down, an obscenely contented smirk severing her chin from the rest of her face. We rode the rising and falling waves of my lust together, gazing desirously into each other’s eyes.

The tingling of the brushing of the crown of her cock against my G-spot on each stroke and the feeling of her filling me gradually magnified in their intensity as I—

sail closer

ever closer, ever closer

to the shores of God’s own promised country,

in which nothing’s worth a care,
and ev’rything is beautiful.

I run my boat upon the sands;

as five and five toes dip

into the soft warmth of the sun-kissed beach,

the forces trapped within me

in great waves mount higher,

drive me forwards

and into the garden at the center of it all

wherein I dance till I am famished.

when I bite the fruit grown in the garden,

it explodes between my teeth,

obliterating mind and soul and

seizing the remains of my cadaver in sheer ecstasy,

a blanket of euphoria atop me laid

whose gentle weight forces a smothered cry

from ’twixt my lips…

My muscles gave way and I collapsed on top of her, my chest heaving, my body buzzing, my lips smiling. I hummed as we cuddled atop my lumpy old king-size mattress, her arms wrapped around me, her fingers gently rubbing my back, her body touching mine, her cock inside me, her lips pressed against my forehead, every little aspect of my existence a perfect masterpiece of the art of living, the best and most beautiful moment of my existence spent with the best and most beautiful person who I loved more than anybody or anything.

After we had laid there for a while, she asked, very quietly, “(Andy… may I ask a somewhat personal question?)”

I kissed her neck; she sighed. “I will share absolutely anything with you, Judy.”

“Okay… Would you happen to be on birth control?”

“Oh, God!” I shot upright and yanked my curls. “Oh fuck, what have I done? What the fuck have I done? I’m due to ovulate today or tomorrow!” Her eyes spread, wide as the Grand Canyon, and she bit her lip. “I’m fucked, I’m so fucked! Judy! I’ve fucked up royal—(mf—)”

She took a deep breath then placed a finger on my lips, interrupting my panic. “(Shh.) You have options. Everything will be alright.”

My panic shrank just enough to be contained, but I was still not feeling that ‘everything’ would be ‘alright’. “I’ve fucked myself over, I’ve—and now you have to worry about a kid…”

She was calmly containing some kind of emotion which was definitely not anxiety. “I’m fine. I’m not… super jazzed about you having to deal with an unplanned pregnancy—so maybe we should… (fuck…) abstain from unprotected sex next time you’re fertile, instead of giving me the chance to… succumb to temptation.”

‹‘Temptation’… I let her do something she was trying not to do. I let her relapse, or… something like that.› “How can you trust me if I tempt you and succeed on the first try?”

She cupped my cheeks. “It’s not that big a deal, you didn’t hurt me—in fact, you made me feel amazing, so there’s no need to get worked up on my part. I… (trust) you, Andy. Even though… even though… I only met you two days ago. And I’ll still trust you even if you do way worse than something so innocuous as giving me the privilege of fucking you raw without pulling out.” She gently pulled me down so that we were chest-to-chest and kissed me on the forehead, and I let myself relax just a little. “As for why you don’t use BC… that’s none of my business.”

“But if we’re having sex, don’t you need to know?”

“No. I don’t want to risk unintentionally pressuring you into doing something you might not want to do.”

“Oh. Well. Um. I’m open to it now that I’m having sex, but… I won’t have insurance to pay for it after the end of the month. I can’t afford COBRA.”

“You can apply for Medi-Cal.”

“Okay. Sure. Duh. And in the meantime, I guess we can use… condoms.” The word was bitter and slimy on my tongue.

“But will you use condoms?”

“Y-yeah…?”

“Are you sure about that?”

I blinked. “Why… shouldn’t I be?”

“Are you going to keep condoms handy?”

“I think I can trust you to supply your own.”

“Well, you just happen to be correct.” She grabbed her purse off the nightstand and pulled out a plastic-film-wrapped pre-lubricated extra-large contraceptive. “But you can’t trust every partner to be so diligent. Are you allergic to latex?”

“No.”

“Have you been tested for latex allergy?”

“Uh… No.”

“Medi-Cal should pay for a test. Do you know how to put one of these on me?”

“While your penis is much straighter than the banana was… I think I could figure it out.”

“What would you say to me pulling out and you putting this on my cock?”

“(Um…)”

She held out the condom for me to take. “Go ahead. Put a wrapper on it.”

“(I don’t want you to pull out…)”

“You said you would use a condom.”

“Yes, I know I said that, but—(ugh…)”

“Come on. Take it. Open it. I’ll even help you put it on me.”

I very reluctantly accepted the rubber and pinched one serrated edge to tear the plastic.

“Go ahead.”

“What if I mess up? I don’t want to waste your condoms.”

“I get boxes of them from Family Futures. Let’s practice.”

That thing I held between my fingers felt so… unnatural.

“Open it.”

It took far less effort to tear it open than I would have liked—I wished I’d been unable to do it.

“And… take it out.”

I removed the condom from its wrapper. It was slick, slippery, slimy.

Then she scooped her hands under my ass to lift me. “Let me help you get off…”

My love high threatened to crumble. “Stop. Don’t pull out.” She took her hands away. “I want you inside me. From start to finish. And I… don’t want to use a… a condom. Or pull out.”

She nodded knowingly and (I suspect) with pity. “Just my luck: a woman who only likes to do it raw and insists on me cumming inside.”

“I’m sorry.”

She giggled. “Andy, there is absolutely nothing for you to be sorry about, trust me. I’ll go to the drugstore the morning after we’ve fucked and pick up the morning after we’ve fucked pill; it has a good chance of working. And, worst case, if Plan B doesn’t do its job, abortion can be your Plan C. You’re okay with either of those, right?”

“I’m not looking forward to an abortion, but if it ends up being the only way to dodge parenthood…”

“Would you like me to go with you?”

I nodded. “Yeah. I think that would make it a little bit easier.”

She patted me on the cheek. “You’ll be fine. You aren’t gonna be a mother.” I was caught off guard by an inexplicable nip of regret. “Everything will be fine.”

“Thank you, Judy.” I finally relaxed all the way, and those words I had previously decided to keep unsaid until the right moment decided that now was the right moment and rolled off my tongue: “I love you.”

As I added those three words, her face strained nervously.

Just Friends
With Benefits

Content Warning:
Abandonment

New anxiety filled the voids left by the old anxiety. And that anxiety quickly evolved back into panic. “I—I—I—I shouldn’t have said that.”

“We’re fuckbuddies, Andrea, not partners.”

I tried to wiggle my way out of the faux pas I semi-comprehended. “Of course. But we are friends aren’t we? Friends who love…” She flinched. “…each other.”

“Just friends, with a little something extra. And that ‘something extra’ isn’t—that kind of connection.”

“But friends sometimes tell each other that they love each other. ‘I love you’…” She flinched again. “…doesn’t always imply romantic attachment, it can be friendly.”

“Yes, but we both know when you used the L-word just now, you didn’t mean it in the ‘just friends’ sense, you meant it in the ‘maybe we’ll marry someday’ sense.”

She was right, and I considered myself honest enough to admit my feelings—but I lied anyway. “No. I did mean it in the ‘just friends’ sense, not in the romantic sense.” But I knew damn well she could hear my desperation.

One eye squinted skeptically. “I sensed that ‘romantically inclined’ vibe from you over breakfast at Holden’s. You’ve felt this way for most of the time you’ve known me, haven’t you?”

I panicked even harder. “I’m an idiot. I didn’t mean it. I take it back. I don’t love you, I just like you. We’re just friends, nothing more.” Wracked by terror, needing desperately to remain in her good graces, I begged, “Please—please, don’t hate me.”

“I don’t hate you, Andy.” Her words were reassuring, but her tone continued to be that of irritation. “I just need you to understand what our relationship isn’t: a romance. Please don’t cry.”

It was only with her pointing it out that I realized my eyes were watering and my lip was trembling. Which was fitting because—in spite of her reassurances—I had finally cracked. “You’re so beautiful. And perfect. And mature. And cool. I never thought anyone could be as cool as you. And even though you have so much more experience than me, you treat me like your equal. If that doesn’t warrant love, what does? And you respect me even though I used to be a cop, even though I’m planning to become one all over again, and you trust me to appreciate your body in spite of me being cisgender. Will I ever meet anyone who deserves my love even half as much as you do? Will there ever be anybody besides you who I’ll be able to sincerely tell, ‘I love you more than anything’?”

Like a punch to the gut, my words robbed her of hers—which was tragic, because she looked like she had something very difficult and very important she wanted to tell me.

I sniffed. “Call us ‘fuckbuddies’, call us ‘friends with benefits’, call us whatever you want. But the best word I can use to describe us is ‘lovers’.”

Momentarily squeezing her eyes shut in inscrutable pain, she found her words in time to reply, “You’re 34, so you’ve had some time to learn how life works, but you’ve only been experiencing sexual entanglement for a few days now. You’re still figuring out what a friendship is, what a romance is, how to tell one from the other, and when what you’re going through is actually just a friends-with-benefits situation like ours. You need practice and maybe a little bit of guidance to know enough about these things to understand when it’s time to settle down with someone or tie the knot.” I whined, and she hugged me, and then I broke down into sobbing on her chest. “Oh, Honey. You’ll figure it out, Andy. And when you do, you’ll hurt a lot less.”

I cried, gradually calming down over the course of several minutes. I dreaded the moment she would remove her cock from my pussy, because that would symbolize the live burial of the hope that she might love me back. And then that moment arrived. “Andy, I need to pee.” I clung to her more stubbornly. “I don’t want to get a UTI. You should go pee, too.” I didn’t budge. “Andy…” As gently as she could, she pried my arms off. I resisted at first, but quickly surrendered. Very reluctantly, I dismounted her, whereupon a glob of pearl-white cum dripped out of me and onto her abdomen, forming a pool about the size of a silver dollar pancake. She watched, wide-eyed, as the batter slowly congealed from the heat of her body, occasionally glancing at my drooling, dripping mound, as she muttered to herself repeatedly, “(Christ Almighty… Christ Almighty…)”

Eventually she got up and went to the bathroom with her beautiful cock still glistening with our juices and standing upright and proud and bouncing with each step, and I waited and tried not to hate myself for being such a romantic ingénue.

I was soaked in sweat, whose chilling properties were amplified by the airflow from the HVAC fan. I felt very cold. I felt very alone. I felt my heart crumbling to dust. I bundled up in my sheets and waited for the return of the woman who refused to let me love her. And return she did, sitting down on the edge of the bed, cruelly separating us with a vast expanse of sheets. “Andy, are you feeling better?”

“No.” I could never feel better than miserable so long as she was too far to touch or to be touched by her.

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“You broke my heart.” ‹I’ll never forgive you.›

“And I feel terrible for doing it. But I can’t lie to you.”

“You promised to help me with my mental health and with rehabilitating me after being a cop for over a decade. Even my best and only friend before you never promised anything like that, so these don’t strike me as things ‘just friends’ do for each other. These are promises partners make to each other.”

My argument must have impressed her, because she struggled to come up with a rebuttal, even though her eyes told me she was anticipating what was coming next.

“You’re devoted to me, aren’t you? You promised to help me get better as a person, and you’ve consistently followed through. You’ve encouraged me to follow my dreams. You stood by me when I made a decision that a lot of people would consider unethical, even though at best it seemed questionable to you—you chose to trust me. You put your reputation on the line for me. You’ve had my back when I doubted myself. You just now responded to my worries about parenthood by soothing and reassuring me, and you’re going out of your way to take care of me by getting me what I need to prevent a pregnancy. Doing these things requires love.”

“(I…)”

“You love me, don’t you?”

She looked like she wanted to hide under the covers. “(Andy, please… don’t…)”

“Are you afraid to say the words? ‘I love you.’”

Her muscles stiffened and her eyes bugged out.

“Judy?” She didn’t move. I shed my sheets and crawled up next to her. I reached out—slowly, lest I startle or scare her—grabbed her hands, and brought them together between mine. “If I made the kinds of promises to you that you’ve made to me, if you took the kinds of risks you’ve taken to help me, if I forgave you so easily for having been something I find morally reprehensible, if I cared for you the way you’ve cared for me, if I trusted you ‘absolutely’—wouldn’t you tell me that I’m showing you too much love for ‘just a friend’?” Her face turned into the portrait of Panic itself—and yet, desperate and driven to make her just see things my way, I pressed onward. “Wouldn’t you say that these were signs that I loved you the way girlfriends or even married couples love each other?”

Her breathing, heavy and already rapid, further accelerated.

“Judy?”

“(An—drea… these things I do for you are… just me being a decent person. A good friend. There’s nothing romantic about my respect for you.)”

“It is romantic! Only one person has ever shown anything resembling your brand of kindness towards me. Do you show everyone else the same kindness that you show me? Can’t you understand that you love me, that we are in love?”

Then—as the last domino fell into disaster—she cracked. “I can’t do this!”

“(What?)”

Her hands slipped out from between mine as she leaped from the bed and, skipping her underwear, hastily slipped into her pants.

“Judy!” She ignored me as she pulled one leg on and then the other. “Judy, are you leaving me?” She didn’t stop, and more than death itself I feared what she must be about to do. “Please talk to me!” She put her shirt on without her bra. “Judy!” She grabbed her purse. “Judy…” ‹It was only meant to last a moment. This is the end of us. We were meant to be, then we were meant to not be. My world is on fire, and the match smolders between my fingers.›

She hustled to the door and opened it, doing her best to ignore me, and a damn fine job of it was she doing. She was refusing to be part of my life. We were no more. It was over. Our beautiful relationship was dead.

Yet, though she had finally broken up with me, my desperation resurged, and, as her foot crossed the threshold and into the darkness, I grasped for the magic words that would win her back as I warned her, “If you leave me you’ll be breaking all your promises!”

They worked—well enough to buy me time to either pacify her or insert my foot into my mouth the last millimeter or so I needed to fully choke on it. She stood above the threshold between the love she feared and the solitude in which she seemed to find solace, her hand gripping the doorknob tightly, her figure stiff and motionless, halfway between escape and imprisonment.

The only way forward I could see was walking the long path hand-in-hand with her. But as to whether we had come so soon to a fork in the road… it might help my case if I reminded her just how bad I was at directions. “Remember how you found me. A clinically depressed, friendless, virgin ex-cop. Without you, I’ll go back to my old, lonely ways.”

She stood stock still.

Then I realized that this was a cheap and very dirty move. “Um. I shouldn’t have brought up my mental health. That was… manipulative. I’m sorry.”

She didn’t move a muscle.

I felt awful about mentioning my psychiatric bullshit. I didn’t know what to say. A minute or an hour of agonizing silence passed through us like bullets. Eventually, I found the first four of the thirteen words I should have said from the beginning, and then the courage to say them: “I need you, Judy.” She twitched. I said the remaining nine: “And nothing makes you happier than fulfilling my needs.”

She turned her head so that I could see one terrified eye in profile.

“Am I wrong?”

The eye closed, and her brow resigned, and she sighed deeply before shakily admitting, “No… I can’t deny that what you want has already begun. When you said that you needed me inside you when I came; when your response to me saying that we needed to pull out was to tell me ‘please don’t make me get off’ before I unloaded inside you; when you resumed riding me so that you could cum on my raw, seed-slick cock, when you made it clear to me that you’re only interested in unprotected sex… I knew you were perfect for me. But before that, even… at some point before that, I don’t know when exactly, I could tell there was something special between us. And I’ve been lying to myself about what exactly that ‘something special’ is.”

Her foot retreated from the threshold. She gently shut the door, paused to gather her strength, then turned around, came to me, and sat down on the bed, her leg touching mine.

“I’ve… been ‘in… love’…” She sighed in relief at her victory over some trial. “…before, though it never works out. It’s passionate, it’s messy, it’s shameful, it’s regrettable, something always rips us apart. I didn’t want this beautiful connection the two of us share to shatter violently the way all but one of my past relationships did. So I decided, no matter what, we were only ever going to be friends. But… like those of too many mice and too many men, that plan has gone spectacularly awry. So… I guess… after two whole days of knowing you… I am forced into my backup plan.”

She nestled a hand in the small of my neck and pulled me in for a kiss—soft, yet passionate—and, with it, breathed hope into my soul… but as she pulled away and deprived me of her lips, I fell slack, suddenly lonely. Abandoned. Desolate. Lifeless.

She told me, now without even an ounce of strain, the words she needed me to hear: “I’m with you, Andrea Bachman—brains, blood, and bone.”

Detective
Sperm Collector

In which our intrepid investigator
instigates a test of endurance,
a contest of strength,
a race to her fallopian tubes—
a matter of life and…
well, life.

Tracks 4 and 4
on Nevermind
and In Utero

Monday, July 15th, 2024

The early morning sunlight filtered through my east-facing blinds and cast a glow upon us as I woke up face-to-face with my One True Love. I couldn’t hold back a smile at the placid expression on her pretty face, slightly worn by time’s affection for her complexion. “(I love you,)” I whispered.

She huffed and, keeping her eyes closed and her semi-hard cock inside me, replied, “You’re gonna be telling me that every chance you get, now, aren’tcha?”

I played with a lock of her hair. “I never thought I’d ever fall in love, never even knew what bonding was, but now that I’ve done it… I can’t control myself.”

“That’s inconvenient. If you honestly mean the words you keep saying, you’d be doing me a favor by finding a way to tell me how you feel with another sentence.”

“You mean—you don’t like it when I say… (those three words?)”

“Unless you can find others to whisper into my ear every five seconds, I would prefer that you leave your feelings unsaid.”

“Oh—kay… Then I won’t say them ever again. But I think it would be fair for you to explain why you don’t like them.”

She sighed and grumbled. “Because… one of my exes, my first, would say those words every time he—‍” She shook her head. “I’ll spare you the details. He did something that was… that I didn’t like. Ever since, those words have had a tendency to reopen old wounds.”

“Oh, my God…” Her discomfort and panicked behavior the night before made more sense.

“Yep.”

“I hurt you last night.”

“The constant stream of declarations of your feelings for me ever since I told you ‘I’m with you’ have been… (hmmm…) hellish, to put it gently.”

“Oh, God… I’m so sorry.”

“I’ll be fine.” She breathed deeply, rearranged her pillows, laid her head back down upon them, and slowly unveiled a smile as she continued. “Because between you saying those cursed words over and over again, the sex has been absolutely heavenly.”

I smirked bashfully. “‘Heavenly’? I’m flattered, but that’s a very strong word to describe your experience with a complete novice.”

She stroked my cheek. “Andy, my dearest Andy… as the object of my devotion, you deserve to know something. As soon as you started lowering yourself onto my cock, I wanted nothing more than to pull you down onto it, hump you until my dick exploded, deliberately not pull out, and fill your pussy with my cum until it gushed like a firehose after I pulled out and you were guaranteed to conceive.”

My jaw dropped.

“Are you disturbed?”

“Ah—Uh—It’s—just—a little shocking to hear someone admit something like that!”

“I suppose it is. If it’s any consolation to your guilt-ridden mind, the sex that came last night more than makes up for the endless painful declarations…” And then she smirked lasciviously. “…and I’m trying not to think about how extremely fertile you are—about how I might have knocked you up last night—about how your pretty little body is going to look in a few months when you start to show and you can no longer hide the fact that you’ve got our progeny growing inside you.” She drew me in with her embrace and in the process pulled me down onto her cock—pushing a moan out of me, tickling my desires to kiss, to fuck, to mate—and pressed her balls—which I had over the course of seven more fucks the night before wrung for every sperm they could produce, each twitch of her cock sending a bolt of lightning to the pleasure center of my gray matter and inducing me to worship her with greater and greater fervor—and pressed her balls against my inner thighs, and sighed contentedly. “God, that would be wonderful. I’d fuck you harder and harder as your belly gets bigger and bigger… and more and more beautiful.” She was granite inside me.

Once again, I found myself panting speechlessly and digging my fingers into her luscious ass, fighting the desire to resume extracting her semen, a desire that intensified as her confession grew more shocking and as she slipped further inside me.

“If you were wondering why I let you say those words to your heart’s content for the past several hours, that should be plenty of explanation. But if you need me to spell it out for you: I have never wanted to get a person pregnant as much as I’ve wanted to get you pregnant, ever since you first displayed for my enjoyment your naked, petite, inviting, maternally ideal body within the intimacy of your bed. I’ve been fantasizing—obsessing—about fertilizing your egg with my sperm and watching your belly slowly swell as our embryo grows and grows until it emerges from you as a living child. Our child.”

I hardly noticed that my heart was racing or that I was struggling to catch my breath or that I had begun slowly humping her. ‹What… the… fuck.› And yet, in addition to panic and shock and concern, I felt something else I wasn’t ready to admit. “Uh—um—so—‍” I swallowed. “You—like—‍” I was blushing so hard that my face was developing a second-degree burn. I was confused by many aspects of this sudden and bizarre turn in our conversation. “Preg—nant…”

She giggled. “Do you still feel the same way about me that you did a few minutes ago?”

“I—I… don’t— Yes, of course—b—but—‍” My thoughts gradually caught up with my confused feelings. I turned my lustful eyes away from hers and towards the picture of Peter on my nightstand, in the hopes that he might bless me with his guidance. ‹She wants me to conceive. She wants me to get pregnant.› But I recalled my newly discovered instinct to ride her until she reached orgasm, I remembered what it was like for her to lay her body on mine all night, fucking me over and over again, her dick planted inside me from beginning to conclusion, never once leaving my warmth over the course of several mutual orgasms, inside me even after we collapsed and concluded our marathon of doing what came naturally to us because—

{You and me, baby, ain’t nothin’ but mammals…}

I had to admit… I already wanted her to plant her seed inside me, and pregnancy certainly followed as a topic if not a possibility. I wasn’t disgusted or insulted by the idea of her admiring my changing body—or of admiring it myself. ‹It’s so satisfying to feel her twitch-twitch-twitch inside me, so validating to know that my body fills her with such an overwhelming desire to reproduce, so empowering to know that my vagina feels so good to her that she won’t be able to stop herself from ejaculating inside me every time I tell her I want it, so exhilarating when it finally blooms within my loins… So why not enjoy the next step of letting my abdomen grow for a few months, one more sexy curve to add to all the sexy curves I already have? Why not embrace this quirky little hobby she enjoys? And yet… I don’t think I want… children… I certainly don’t want children, I definitely do not want children, I don’t want children, I don’t want children… Children are out of the question, seriously, so I’m not going to give us an actual pregnancy. I will not…› I swallowed, and every pore in my skin threatened to open up and pour like a fire hydrant as my humping continued to speed up. ‹It’s too early for children, we can’t have them yet, I don’t want children, I don’t want them, really, they aren’t for me… not… not quite yet…› My breaths and my hips quickened yet more. ‹I refuse to want children.› I tried not to panic. ‹Unless…› I swallowed. ‹Unless she asks for them. If she does, I must give her as many as she wants. Lots of babies. Not only that, I should go above and beyond and give her more than she asks for. Double—no, triple!—the babies she asks for. Mountains of babies. Yes. But only if she asks for them. Though… I could ask her to ask me for lots of babies…›

“Andy, other than your moaning, you’ve been quiet. Are you alright?”

“I’m… (ah…) fine… (hah…) You?”

“I’d feel better knowing how you feel about my breeding kink—as well as my pregnancy fetish. Does any of this make you… uncomfortable?”

“No. I’m… (hah…) fine.” I gasped and panted. “Everything is—(hah)—is okay. I feel the same way about you that I’ve—(mmh)—always felt—but I’ll admit this news—(oh)—is a little… umm…” I searched for a diplomatic word to express my shock while concealing my germinating enthusiasm. “…unexpected. But… if you were to ask for children…” If I had been capable of being honest with myself, I would have known that my enthusiasm was unmistakable in the ravenous thrusting of my hips.

“I just like the look of a pregnant belly. Another relatively common fetish. I’m not planning on having kids.”

“(Oh,)” I replied with an emotion I would not have admitted to feeling even though I knew damn well what it was. In case you’re wondering, it rhymed with ‘missed appointment’.

“Do you want children?”

“Oh, no-no-no, of course—(mmm)—not, I’m… (relieved…) you don’t want any. So relieved, not… disappointed. Thank God. (Oh, yes…) Whew. I… dodged a bullet.”

“If you don’t want children, then you shouldn’t have them, no matter what I want.”

I stopped humping her. “But I—I feel so strongly for you. If you ever do find yourself wanting to have children, I’ll produce them non-stop until either you say ‘when’ or my eggs run out. And I would be happy to bear them and give birth to them for you and raise them with you. We could have lots of babies… if—if that’s what you want, I mean. No pressure—I mean, not that I want to have them—but—I mean, if you want them, I want them.” I bit my lip anxiously.

An eyebrow slowly floated upwards. “I’ll let you know if I change my mind.”

“Thank you. Now, on the subject of me getting pregnant… I would rather avoid having children.” Nervously I added, “For now.”

She shook her head and smiled. “Then avoid them we shall. ‘For now.’”

I breathed a zero-hearted sigh of relief. “(However…) If you enjoy these fantasies of getting me pregnant as much as you seem to enjoy them… we could do it when I’m not ovulating and just pretend that I’m ovulating.”

“You mean, like, roleplay?”

“Is that all roleplay is? It’s just pretend?”

“Put as simply as possible, yes. But there’s more to it than simple make-believe.”

“Alright. Do a lot of people have this impregnation kink?”

“It’s relatively common as a kink, though you won’t meet a lot of people willing to admit they’re into it. Most anybody you might tell about it will find it stupid or weird or gross or uncomfortable or offensive. Or, at the opposite extreme, too vanilla, if you ask particularly snobby kinksters.”

“So… it’s a trashy kink.”

She nodded her head left and right in agreement. “Hmmm… yeah. I’m kink trash. And proud.” She beamed, and I smiled nervously. “Not a lot of people I meet are as proud of me, though.”

“You must feel lonely.”

“I actually know somebody with the same kink—though they probably wouldn’t admit it.”

“Maybe you should encourage them to be honest with themself.”

“Nah. You’re cool with me having the kink, and for the time being that’s enough honesty for me.” She patted me on the cheek. Her dig went right over my head. “God… I felt so satisfied, so triumphant witnessing my cum spill out of you and onto my stomach… I told you about this kink even though I was deathly afraid that you might reject me, that you might find it offensive that I would objectify your body as a baby factory. Because in a way, it… is objectification. Objectification of both of us, with the mindset that you and me are nothing but mammals, incapable of controlling ourselves.”

“I have no problem with you finding my reproductive system sexy, if that’s what pleases you.”

“I shouldn’t, though, if you don’t like it.”

I shrugged. “I’ve been objectified my entire life. Lately, I’ve been objectifying myself. I’ve been thinking about how sexy my body and face are, and how I would ravish myself if only my reflection was a real person, without giving a damn about her desires and dreams.”

Her eyelids spread wide. “Holy… shit, that is one of the hottest things I’ve ever heard anybody say.”

“Having let the matter steep… if you find my fertility alluring, then by all means, talk about how beautiful my pregnant body would be and jerk off to your mental image of it. Hell, Peter thought Demi Moore looked ‘fantastic’ in Vanity Fair’s ‘dazzling’ photo of her ‘in all her nude, pregnant glory’, and… now that I think about it, I understand where he was coming from. And I agree with him, 100 percent. So why not commission an artist to make a life-size, photorealistic oil painting of me, nude and pregnant, so you don’t have to use your imagination? You could hang it up on your living room wall for your visitors to admire—or lust over… Hell, I might even lust over it myself.”

She blinked. “Uh. Wow. So you… are totally unfazed by my fetish.”

“I’m not merely unfazed—I’m happy to indulge your fantasies.”

“Jeez, I… uh… thought I’d gone a little overboard while describing my fetishes, but I guess there was nothing to worry about.”

“Seriously, there’s no way you can fuck up so baby—I mean ‘badly’—‍” She giggled. “—uh… that I would be offended.” ‹Do I have any kinks?› I wasn’t quite ready to accept the answer. “But even if you were into something weirder, I would still lo—be with you, as much as I’ve been with you so far. I wouldn’t judge you. Not for this, not for yiffing—which is innocent enough—not for just about anything, I suppose. I might not be eager to explore every kink… but I’ll always respect you being into whatever you’re into, and I’ll try my hardest to work through my reservations to please you.”

For a few seconds she buried herself in thought, and as she eventually emerged she struggled with her reply. “Andy… for as long as you stick to that promise… I will trust you with my heart and my body. Which is to say, I…” She took a deep breath. “(…love you.)”

Her declaration that she would always trust me, compounded by her decision to speak the words she couldn’t bear to hear, affected me so strongly that I could feel my throat constrict and my tear ducts open up instantly; at the same time, her promise filled me with such intense satisfaction that I was unable to express myself with words. So I kissed her, and that kiss eventually turned into guiding her back inside. While she was on top of me, halfway through the second stretch of pumping away, while I was kissing and licking her neck, she sprung a doozy on me. “In fact, I trust and—feel for you so strongly, that if you ever hurt me, no matter how bad it is… I’ll forgive you.”

I stopped kissing. “That sounds… easily abused.”

“It is.”

“So I’ll have to try—(hah)—extra hard not to hurt you.”

She smiled a very innocent-looking smile, which grew more wicked over the course of the next few seconds. “Not (necessarily…)”

“Why shouldn’t I?”

“You might even… be a little (reckless.)”

“You aren’t—(mh)—making sense.”

She fondled one of my curls playfully. “To put it another way, Miss Bachman… it should be obvious to you that it would be unwise for me—a criminal who could face half a year behind bars for possessing more weed than the legal limit—to get the police involved if you persisted, in spite of my tearful pleas and terrified whimpering, in committing some horrible, cruel act upon my body. If you catch my drift.”

‹Is she really saying she wants me to…?› “I might—(hah)—commit the occasional infraction, even though I’m—(fuck)—going to try my best not to. But I’m not… comfortable with what you’re proposing—(if) I’m catching your—(mh)—drift. And if you don’t mind me being honest… I find your drift a little… bit… (hah…) disturbing.”

“You said you wouldn’t judge me.”

“Yes, but… I… can’t… do something you don’t want—(mh)—me to do, the concept of me deliberately hurting you makes me—(ngh)—want to put distance between us to prevent it from happening, to protect youuu from myself.”

“But I want you to do things I don’t want you to do.”

“I don’t know if I can…”

“You said you’d try to work through your reservations.”

“Yes—but—I—really don’t think—‍”

{I tie her down when she ‘isn’t in the mood’, wrap my fingers around the balls that are rightfully mine and, amid pleas for me to be gentle, squeeze an agonized yelp from her throat. She doesn’t get off on asking me to stop. “Please, Andy, be gentle…” Rather, it’s hearing me tell her, “I’ll play with my toys however I please,” that makes her agonized groans hornier.

{I tackle her and handcuff her wrists behind her back, then bring her to her knees. “Eat,” I tell her. She shakes her head timidly. In response to her flaccid refusal I yank her hair, and with “reluctant” obedience she aggressively gets to work on my pussy. She can’t help revealing that her so-called reluctance is actually restrained eagerness.

{“Please, Andy,” she begs, “I can’t take it, it’s too big.” “I know what I’m doing,” I ‘reassure’ her. The giant dildo doesn’t hurt her, but she cries out in agony anyway as I continue pushing it inside her. “Not so deep,” she pleads, even as her moaning betrays her pleasure. By “I can’t take it” she’s really trying to tell me I haven’t reached her prostate and need to go deeper.}

Fantasies flashed through my brain like a cluster of lightning strikes all hitting the same person—namely, me—one after another, each leaving me with cheeks glowing redder and redder and with sweat threatening to burst from my pores like tap water from a lawn sprinkler. ‹She wouldn’t tell me not to do something with the expectation that I’ll do it—would she? Maybe she would. Even so, I shouldn’t do it. ‘No’ means ‘no’. Even if she clearly wants it…›

“I don’t want to do anything with you that you tell me you don’t want,” I insisted, in spite of the heat building up inside me.

She hid her grin behind a sheer frown. With a nonchalant shrug she told me, “If you’re not comfortable with it, I’m not going to force you to force yourself on me. But we can still have something simulating what I’m asking for, if you don’t mind. How do you feel about roleplaying it?”

“Okay. Fine,” I replied, eager to please her—and relieved, albeit ashamed, that there was a way to ethically indulge these new fantasies she had smuggled into my mind. “We can do that, if you really want it that badly. Although you haven’t explained the differences between roleplay and pretend yet.”

“The important difference is that we discuss the rules, boundaries, roles, and stage ahead of time—the scene—starting with a safeword.”

“I’ve heard of safewords, but never had them explained to me.”

“The concept is intuitive enough. We pick a specific word that no one’s going to casually drop during sex, and if your partner uses that word you stop everything immediately and check in with each other. That way you can safely ignore the kinds of words that would normally revoke consent or modify its terms, like ‘stop’ and ‘no’ and ‘slow down’ and ‘pull out’. Make sense?”

“Like two plus two equals four. What’s our safeword?”

“I like ‘red’ as in ‘red light’, which keeps things simple so you don’t have to think about it, while not being the kind of word that comes up too often during a scene. Unless one of us is roleplaying as a firefighter or a fox.”

“Just like Diane said, R-E-D to stop everything immediately.”

She smiled. “Andy, what we did last night… That was the best sex I’ve ever had.”

I smirked. “Really, now… Would you care to explain how someone who was a virgin scarcely two days ago could possibly be that good?”

“Certainly. One of my most cherished fantasies, one which I assumed and despaired would never come true, has been having someone force me to cum inside their fertile body—bred against my will. You came as close to making one of my wildest dreams come true as you could get without committing a felony.” ‹Oh, I suppose that makes sense.› “You… are my soulmate.”

{Soulmate, soulmate, soulmate, soulmate…} That word echoed in my head forever. “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God—I’m so—I’m so happy! I’m overjoyed!”

She brushed her hand over my hair. “As am I.”

I sorely wanted to express my gratitude to her, so I pushed myself to please her. “Umm… So… Now that we have a safeword, we can… try this ‘bred against your will’ fantasy you’ve always had.”

Her smile bloomed into a grin. “That is exactly what I wanted to hear! I want you to shove my raw cock into your pussy and flood it with my cum while you talk about the thousands in child support I’m going to be paying you every month for the next eighteen years…” She sighed contentedly.

The idea intrigued me more than I was comfortable admitting. “Well—I don’t know if I—right away, can…”

“Only if you want to, though.”

‹I… might… be… a little… interested…› “I—um—may—be…”

“And I would enjoy it even more if I wasn’t expecting it.”

‹Ohhhh! You want it to be a big surprise, eh? Alright. I can tickle this desire unawares. You won’t see it coming.› “Well, if we’re only doing what I want to do, I’ll tell you now, ‘Don’t count on it, Judy.’”

“Oh.” Never had greater disappointment overshadowed a human face.

I felt horrible for disappointing her in the moment, but I figured it would be so much more pleasurable in the long run if I waited a little while before {I tie her down and interrogate her about her gross income and talk about paternity tests and court orders and sole custody while riding her red-hot cock ready to blow a load inside me and knock me up, and…} I opened my eyes and escaped the confusing fantasy before it could steal me away from reality forever. “I’m… sorry. Please don’t be excruciatingly disappointed.”

She spread a wan but reassuring smile. “It’s not a… big deal, I’m not used to my partners entertaining any of my fantasies. I’ve gotten gigaparsecs farther with you than with anyone else while discussing these things—before you, just calmly explaining the things I was into always ended in me being called a freak immediately followed by a breakup. I’m overjoyed that you don’t think I’m a freak for liking what I like, and on top of that, you said you’d act out one of my fantasies with me—and I would like to emphasize that this has never happened before. I can live without the child support gag if it makes you uncomfortable, it’s… just a minor detail, not… nothing important. On the whole, this morning has been very, very, very generous to me.” As she went on, her mouth went from smiling half-heartedly to beaming. She gave me a peck on the forehead and for some reason started to pull out.

“Oh-no-n-n-no, you aren’t going anywhere with that!” I wrapped my legs around her waist and squeezed tightly, aggressively grabbing her by the balls and forcing her back inside me with a shocked gasp from my mate. “I’m not finished with this thing, Judy. You aren’t pulling out until you can no longer maintain a hard-on.” With a pair of grins we resumed fucking.

After four more mutual orgasms, I checked my alarm clock. “6:38. Damn, with that heartfelt conversation and all that sex, we musta been up since 5 o’clock. I need to make a phone call.”

“I should mosey on over to Mercers Pharmacy while you’re taking care of that.”

“I appreciate you picking up the pill for me. But… I don’t want you to pull out, yet. I wish you never had to pull out.”

She kissed the crown of my head. “There’s nothing saying we have to start our days right away…”

“True.” I sighed. “But… I need to get in the habit of starting my day on time, and we’re already running late.”

“Alright, then. No choice. Gotta pull out.”

Fighting the desire to be one with her while clinging to my desire to be a genuine police homicide detective, I slid myself as slowly as I could off of her dick, eliciting a gasp and a twitch from her and a moan from me. As a waterfall of semen cascaded down and across my thigh and onto the sheets where it formed a pool the size of a melted scoop of vanilla ice cream, I muttered, “(Damn, I hope that doesn’t stain…)”

She whistled in amusement and began playing with the puddle. “God, what a beautiful creampie.”

“It feels like a part of me is missing,” I complained.

“What part would that be?”

“Your cock, of course.”

“You’re such a sappy romantic, Andrea Bachman.”

“I’m your romantic. And you shouldn’t make fun of me for being a romantic when you’re the one who called us ‘soulmates’.” The word excited me. I had my eyes on the future—spending time with her, having sex with her, doing things that weren’t sex but sex-adjacent, having more sex with her, carbo loading to restore our energy to fuel yet another sex marathon…

“You’re right. We’re both sappy romantics. Now, let’s get our days started.”

After a quick shower, I chose a cream shirt and a charcoal jacket and pants, and rather than put my hair up with the usual utilitarian black elastic liga, I elected for a blue ribbon I had purchased during our shopping spree. I looked in my closet door mirror and gloried in positively hazardous self-admiration for the sharp figure I cut.

‹What a sexy bitch you are, Andrea Bachman, how irresistibly beautiful! Those vibrant eyes, that cute little nose, those luscious lips, those perky tits, those hazardous hips, that bountiful ass…›

I imagined myself with child. ‹Bigger tits, bigger ass, curvy baby bump; I’ll need a second wardrobe for the half of the year that my non-pregnancy clothes don’t fit. I could experiment with different styles every time I get knocked up—though if our children are all Irish twins it might be simpler to just put these brand-new clothes into storage and wear maternity clothes until I enter menopause…

‹I’ll be like Demi Moore, so beautiful that all the magazines will be crawling over each other like crabs to put my nudes on their covers. All these decades I never shut up about how ugly and ‘stout’ I am, because something between my eyes and my brain was warping my reflection. Only now have I realized the obvious truth the mirror was trying to tell me:

‹I’m hotter than Hell in July.›

“Lookin’ good, Bachman. Going somewhere?”

“No, I’m just being fancy for the sake of being fancy.” ‹All these years, I’ve been so fuckable, but I never once thought to actually find someone to do the deed with. I’ve been missing out. On the other hand… I might never have gotten with Judy if I hadn’t been a sad virgin all this time.› “And maybe, y’know, thirsting over my own body.”

“Ha! It’s good to know your self-esteem is thriving, now.”

“‘Thriving’, hm? I suppose you can say it is.” I checked out my posterior—and was reminded once again that my new pants looked just as good at home as they did in the store. I put on my navy coat and continued admiring myself in the mirror; the way it sloped down my back and over my ass was just as pleasing as what my pants were doing, and the way it draped over my tits had a modest—yet aggressively feminine—allure. ‹Professionalism incarnate. Try firing me again now that I look this good.›

She checked herself out in the mirror, in her tattered-yet-stylish outfit, vaguely evocative of some counterculture of the last quarter of the twentieth century. “Lucky. I wish I was a tiny piping-hot tamale like you.”

“I think your body is magnificent—you’re tall and…” I groped her arms. “…I can feel your firm muscles…” I cupped her cheeks. “…yet your face is so soft and beautifully textured. I’m going to enjoy using it for my own pleasure.”

“Ah. You’ve revived my hard-on.”

“You’re welcome.” I glanced down at her crotch. “Are you tucking?”

“Yes.”

“Could you maybe… um… let me see what your pants look when you’re not tucking?”

She rolled her eyes, but obliged me by unfastening, rearranging, and refastening. There was a very noticeable bulge that ran down the right leg of her pants. As I stared at it I felt the flood I was expecting, but decided I would change my panties after I was finished with her very erect cock. I leveled my face with her crotch and rubbed the lump in her pant leg, squeezed it, and panted lustily.

“Andy…”

I unfastened her pants all over again, pulled them down to reveal her cock, and got to work with my lips and tongue. “Andy…”

“Whah’th uhb?” I asked through a mouthful of dick.

“You have a schedule.”

I removed my mouth and started stroking it. “We have a couple minutes to spare.”

She sighed. “Fine.”

“Yesss!” I just about tore off my pants and nearly knocked her over when I leaped onto her and wrapped my legs around her hips. I pulled my panties aside to let her guide herself in, and I sighed as she filled me. As she helped me ride her I told her, “Penetration—(hah)—is such an exquisite sensation.”

“I always—(mm)—imagined it to be.”

“Ah… If I could, I would—(mhh)—keep your cock inside me—(hah)—24/7.”

“I never would have guessed.”

I nodded. “Seriously! I really like your cock.” She chuckled. “What? It’s true! It’s my favorite thing in the world.”

“Your favorite?”

“Yes. I wish I could take it with me everywh—where.”

“There are kits for—(ahh)—making dildo clones of real penises.”

“Christmas present. N—no. Just get it now, so I’ll have something—ing to use if I get bored at work.”

“At work?”

“I’m joking! I know better than to—(ooo) do sexual things at work.”

“I should hope so, you don’t want to get fired again.”

As soon as we were both decent again—and the resulting puddle on the plastic ‘hardwood’ floor had been mopped up—I woke my phone. “7:08, Vice is open for business. I’m gonna make the call.”

She finished inspecting her hair as she replied, “Alright, you do that. I’m going to change into some fresh clothes before I pick up your morning after. Ta-ta.” She took her first steps across the threshold as a committed woman.

“Wait. Have you watched The Princess Bride?”

“Of course I have.”

“Watch it with me sometime?”

“As you wish.” She winked before softly closing the door behind her.

Suddenly I was the most alone I’d ever been. I wanted her to come back. I needed her. I opened the door and peeked my head out. She was gone. Without thinking to lock or even close my door I ran to hers and readied my fist to knock.

‹I can’t spend every waking moment with her.›

«But I must.»

‹I’ll never get anything done.›

«She’s mine.»

‹I have a life outside of her.›

«I do not. She has a life inside of me.»

‹I have a dream.›

«I have a delusion. Forget it.»

‹I have to rescue Alex.›

«He is dead. Forget him.»

‹I promised to find him, though!›

«Promises mean nothing, only she means anything. Forget heroism. Embrace love.»

‹There is more to life than love.›

«I am bonded with her. There is only love and devotion to one person. Forget the world.»

‹I love her, I am devoted to her, but I am a human being with other needs and dreams and desires besides her. A dream neglected dies a most tragic death—and the sharper the dream, the more deeply cuts its demise.›

«…»

‹Well?›

«Fine. I’ll live my life, if I must insist.»

I returned to my apartment and fought my grief over her departure for several minutes, until I was finally able to break through and remind myself, “I must get down to business. I must.”

Tits and Brass

I dialed Captain Somers’s office number and was greeted by a voice with a sensuous edge, leading me to imagine a pair of pouty red lips, purple eyeshadow, and a mink stole: “Good morning, Tricia Patton, First Precinct Vice, Alcohol and Tobacco Captain’s office, how may I help you?”

“Good morning, Tricia, this is Andrea Bachman, calling in regard to a discussion I had with Captain Somers.”

To my surprise, she asked, “Are you accepting her very special offer, Miss Bachman?”

“Um. Yes.”

“Do you still prefer CAP, or might I entice you to come over to the Vice side? We throw the most decadent parties.” She pronounced these sentences in the most provocative of cadences, invoking images of lurid celebrations led by Captain Somers dressed up as a maenad—or satyr—leading her cult as priestess or priest. Vice did hold an appeal…

…but I had my priorities. “That sounds lovely, but I still have my eyes on CAP. I like murders more than parties. I mean, I like solving murders.”

There was no recovering from such a gaff, no matter how quickly and adamantly I corrected myself; my cheeks heated up even before she giggled at my slip-up. “Of course, Miss Bachman. I’ll let the captain know you would rather party in the morgue with Regina the Death and Dismemberment Doctor.”

“Thank you, but—remember, CAP detectives also occasionally save people before they’re murdered.”

“Which you have made clear isn’t your priority.” I groaned, spurring a delighted laugh from her. “I’m sure you’ll manage to save more lives than you lose, Andrea. Try not to take me too seriously… except in matters involving Diane.”

“Thank you, and I’ll try to bear in mind that you have a sense of humor. Can you tell me when I can expect to be back on board?”

“Today.”

“Ah. Pardon me, the audio glitched, did you say ‘today’ or ‘Tuesday’?”

“‘Today’ as in ‘forthwith’. We’ll get a fresh set of quals on your record and administer the oath, then get you seated at your new desk.”

“Oh.”

“We have a batch of prospective officers coming in later this morning for onboarding, around 8, so it would be prudent to arrive within the hour to avoid a wait.”

“ASAP.”

“Like the man of the fables.”

I snorted in mild amusement. “Got it, I’ll be there soon. Where do I report?”

“The armory, of course, then the range.”

“Of course, thank you.”

“Is there anything else you require?”

“That’s everything for now. Have a good day, Tricia.”

“You, too, Future Detective Bachman. And—do not feel compelled to quit your night job, Serendipity.”

“Ah. Um. Why… by the way… did you call m—add the word Serendipity?”

“We’re Vice, Andrea. We know everything about everyone who works on Adams.” Goosebumps pricked my skin. “Ciao.”

“Um. Ciao.”

I dialed Judy as soon as we hung up. “Hey Andy! How’d the call go?”

“Great. I’m reporting for onboarding as soon as we say, ‘Goodbye.’”

“That was… fast.”

I grabbed my keys off the hook. “Yeah. They need to run me through quals—physical fitness and marksmanship tests—before they can swear me in, but those’ll be a breeze.”

“Good. Your pill will be waiting for you in my apartment after you get off work. Hopefully I can see you then.”

“As you wish.”

“Later, I’m with you.”

I waited.

“Andy?”

“Yes?” I asked, eagerly.

“Are you gonna hang up?”

I whined, “I don’t want to…”

“You have things to do.”

“I know, but I want to be close to you. I feel lonely without you.”

“Hmm… You need to be able to hang up on me, Andrea.”

“But… I want to hear your voice…”

“You’ll hear my voice after work.”

“Fine, but only because you say so.”

“Do it for yourself.”

“Okay, bye. As you wish.”

“As you wish.”

My thumb hovered over the ‘hang up’ button for a few seconds until I forced myself to press it. Once the call had ended, I exhaled, then realized that I had been holding my breath. “God, I hope she doesn’t make me do that again.”

I gave myself one last self-inspection, shoved my physical fitness clothes in my purse, prayed silently for a smooth first day at work, then headed out. The drive went smoothly, nothing but green lights the whole way. Out of habit I took a wrong turn into the police garage instead of the public parking on the street—but the gate guard recognized me from my ten-point-seven years on the force and waved me in with a smile; he probably hadn’t gotten the memo yet on my recent separation.

I found a parking spot right next to the elevators… and you can call me ‘Serendipity’ because God heard my prayer and sent me an elevator car to meet me before I could even press the call button, as well as an officer to badge me onto my floor—only after I stepped out of the elevator did I remember that I couldn’t have badged myself in without a magic card of my own. Things were going positively swimmingly.

I reported to the armory without receiving harassment; the range master checked my eyesight, and I was not surprised to learn for the twelfth time in my career that it was perfect. For my pistol qual she took me to the range and had me run the 50-round course. She called, “Make ready.”

you wait against my hip for me to take you,

wrap my hand around you and lull you from your leather,

my finger brushing against your guard, eager to slip it inside,

to stroke you, to squeeze you, to break you.

“Fire.”

You’re upright in an instant and once you’re ready,

once you’re pointed where I want your load to go,

I put my finger inside you and with so little effort

in the blink of an eye bring you to the edge, then just a little further—

you give into my will and a scream bursts through your mouth

as you punch your hole in my paper

again

again

again

again

again

until you’re hot and empty

and I’m satisfied with our performance

Over the course of 8 magazines, with the sum of all my bullets I filled a tight hole in every bullseye in my lane, target after target, whether stationary or mobile, in a mere 20.6 seconds total. “That’s the maximum 100 points, and just 2.4 seconds over the department’s best time,” indicated the range master. “And a tenth of a second under your previous best, Bachman. You’re a real gunslinger. I’ve never had the time to ask you between testing all these officers—when did you start shooting?”

“Ah reckon livin’ in a rural community plagued by cay-yotes mighta factored inta it,” observed Shosh in a thick SoCal country accent. “Ya proved yerself a fermidable nemesis to the varmint pop-ya-lation back in those days.” She turned her head and spat out a brown ball of chaw—and somewhere in the room an old brass spittoon rang like a gong.

“That was just a couple of years in high school, and I would hardly claim that I was ‘formidable’… I think I was just lucky.”

The instructor chuckled. “Yeah, well, it doesn’t matter how ‘lucky’ you are or how long you’ve been shooting, a pass is a pass. But I don’t see course times like this every day.” She tapped the shot timer for emphasis. “Maybe once a year.”

Shosh scoffed. “Once in a year, once in a million, Esti. You coulda been sheriff of Valle de Gallo. Big honcho with a big iron and a big posse.”

“Alright. Maybe I’ll run for sheriff someday. They don’t technically count as cops, do they?”

“Of course they do,” they replied in tandem.

“Damn.”

Following that, I ran 1½ miles in just 10 minutes and 42 seconds—well-below par, which for plain clothes detectives was before the cock crows or you have a heart attack. Finally, they had me lift some weights, nothing too heavy, just to make sure I was strong enough to work in an office environment, carrying boxes of files and moving computer equipment; I wasn’t expected to carry heavy pieces of evidence or dig bodies out of rubble—not that I wasn’t strong enough to dig through rubble. So that qual was a breeze. I was done after less than half an hour, so I finally reported to… the chief’s office.

Him I dreaded, but there was no way around seeing the big cheese. He was the one swearing me in. “I gotta admit, I’m nervous.”

“You’ve dealt with him before,” pointed out Shosh along the way.

“Yes. When he terminated me.”

“You survived.”

“I was terminated. He’s a heartless cybernetic organism who shot me with a shotgun loaded with unemployment.”

“You got a girlfriend out of it.”

“Your point?”

“Only good things’re gonna happen to you from now on.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“The bad ol’ days are over.”

“You said that when we moved to Valle de Gallo. The kids still made fun of me.”

“Were they as bad as the city kids?”

“I was the redhead gringa. I stuck out even more than I did at Harding High. Sure, I was the girl everybody asked out to prom—looking back on it, probably because I was the hottest girl in my class… but everybody constantly made jokes about my hair and my sexual proclivities. Some of them were admittedly kinda funny, but there was such a massive stream of them and enough of it wasn’t good-natured that it’s hard to say I felt any less despised.”

“I’m sorry baby.”

Missus Tia Reagan, the chief’s conservatively dressed assistant, recognized me and said, “The chief is waiting for you, Miss Bachman,” as she waved me towards his door.

I knocked. “Come in.” I opened the door and entered; seated were Chief Dennis Plaut, 6′3″, 62 years old, proudly graying black hair cut short and a color-coordinated walrus mustache, wearing a navy suit with pinstripes on top of a sky-blue shirt with a blue-and-red striped tie held down by a blue-and-brass SVPD badge tie pin; James Coburn, Assistant Chief of the Crime Investigations Division, who oversaw the units of Property Crimes, Commercial Crimes, Crimes against Persons, Vice, Domestic Extremism, and Organized Crime; and who, at 5′3½″ when standing with his spine stretched straight, was the shortest man in the entire department, 53 years old, graying black crew cut with a painter’s brush mustache; and Nathan Nichols, the First Precinct Crimes Against Persons Squad Captain, who—at an imposing 6′3″, 47 years young, with a serious face, aggressive bushy eyebrows, buzzed hair, clean-shaven face, and wearing a brown jacket over a blue shirt and sandy tan pants—could make a drill sergeant soil their pants with a friendly smile and a ‘howdy-do’… Of course, knowing that he had been a drill sergeant in the Marines should make his fierce appearance less surprising. (Missing from my prospective chain of command was Crimes Against Persons Unit Commander Wendell Lopez.)

“Christ, look at that guy’s jawline,” remarked Shosh. “A Greek sculptor woulda spent a lifetime trying to chisel a bust with a mandible like that. I wouldn’t mind a dinner date with him—HaShem knows how long it’s been since I geshtupt a looker like him.”

Despite my interest in learning the meanings of her foreign words, I told her with a dirty glance to keep her fawning to herself.

The brass arose all at once and flanked me in a half-circle to shake my hand one-by-one while the chief addressed me with a twisted smirk. “Miss Bachman, it is a pleasure to see you again! You’re back in the saddle much sooner than I had expected, an achievement worthy of a celebratory feast—if only we had the funds appropriated.” He laughed once with hollow amusement. “Did you find a cure or a… a treatment for your depression? I’m impressed by your gumption, and very surprised by your incredibly rapid rehabilitation. What is your secret?” His veiled sarcasm was as easy to see through as the sexy panties Judy had insisted on buying me, and I could see in the trio’s mostly polite eyes a hint that they all knew my new employment situation down to the whos, whys, and wheres—and each was making only a token effort to hide it.

I put on a smile, which I hoped would be convincing. “A better wardrobe, and a new, (ehem…) romantic partner.”

A switch flipped, and all three pairs of eyes, sharp as surgical obsidian, began dissecting my every movement, waiting for me to let slip a secret they already knew—and I imagined if they had cat ears they would have swiveled, the better to hear me let slip the wrong answer. “Well, congratulations. Is it someone I or A-Chief Coburn or Captain Nichols happen to know?”

With complete sincerity I informed them, “No.” I looked for skepticism in their eyes, and found plenty; and I paid attention to the pause and the exchange of knowing glances that followed my answer and preceded Plaut’s…

“Well, I sure hope to meet him someday.”

…and considering as well the emphasis the chief placed on the word ‘him’, concluded that he was not merely doubting my answer with absolute certainty—all three were seemed to be assuming that I had been talking about Captain Somers when I claimed that it wasn’t anybody they knew—but it was Judy who I had in mind when I gave my answer, because my relationship with Somers was, after all, purely sexual, not at all romantic, and would without a doubt never be romantic because I already had a girlfriend, and I was unswervingly faithful to her and couldn’t possibly be faithful to two people at the same time. No sirree, the idea of a romance with Captain Somers was positively absurd, fantastic, outlandish, farcical, comical, fit for a Monty Python skit! But I digress, as the fancy writers of yore would say.

The chief’s lip curled up in a sly smirk, while the captain’s polite smile was a little opaquer; the assistant chief stared inscrutably into my eyes. The only other ‘subtle’ social flourishes Plaut could have included in the conversation, in order to drive home the fact that all three of them were quite aware I was fucking Captain Somers, were a knowing wink and a pat on the back.

All this was (very obviously) a test. I knew that based on the mock surprise and straightforward probing, his overly familiar tone of voice, his token questioning of my psychological fitness and eager acceptance of my flimsy explanation for why I was ready to return—all to make it clear to me that I was being watched, but also to reassure me that, as long as I was careful about my relationship with Captain Somers, I would be allowed to live out my fantasy as a great detective.

“None of you will be meeting… him,” I claimed, boldly out-emphasizing the pronoun he had used merely deliberately. “And you might even forget that I’m in a relationship, because I prefer to keep my romances discreet, and I’m only disclosing the fact that I have one because you have an interest in your subordinates not being caught in compromising situations. I assure you, I will not be discovered in any circumstances which could paint this department in a derogatory light.” ‹Elegant. They’re going to appreciate the emphasis on discretion. Plus, higher-ups love fancy words like “derogatory”.›

And I was right. He grinned, and gave me my wink and my pat on the back. “I’m glad we have an understanding. You’ll be a good cop, Bachman; you’ve proven your ‘professional aptitude’ to a certain higher-up, a fact which your leadership will take into account when considering any requests you may have for us.” ‹Favoritism all the way up the chain!› I couldn’t totally stop the grin that came to my face, but I was at least able to turn it into a subtle smirk. “Captain Nichols, A-Chief Coburn, how about we waive all the formalities?”

“Agreed,” said Coburn, still expressionless, still owl-staring into my eyes.

“I see no reason to put her through all of that red-tape nonsense,” said Nichols. “This isn’t her first time working for the department, she’s read the book and regs, she knows the three pillars. The one thing we can’t skip is the oath.”

“Then we’re in agreement,” concluded the chief. “Bachman, do you by any chance have the oath memorized?”

I straightened my spine, raised my right hand, and recited the first thing they taught us at academy, before we got to the Legal Study and Physical Training and Arrests and Firearms Training: “I, Andrea Bachman, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of California against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of California; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties upon which I am about to enter.”

“Wonderful!” He handed me a wallet, thicker than the credential wallets given to the uniforms. I opened it, and inside were a badge, with a blue enamel background, and an electronic credential card with my pre-termination photo which said— “Detective Andrea Bachman…” These three names echoed throughout the vast (and mostly empty) halls of my mind, and sent a pleasant shiver up my spine and ignited an explosion of endorphins inside my head—casting a softly tingling glow upon my skin that would last several minutes. I nearly forgot where I was as I stood there dumbly (but far from numbly) absorbing the fact that after ten-and-two-thirds years of slogging through a thankless menial routine and suffering sexual harassment at the hands of all my coworkers—in particular that… that Thomas Forrester who… who groped me at every opportunity and ignored my many demands that he keep his hands off of me and sparked within me guilt over my reaction to his touch—

And after suffering through twelve fucking years of uninterrupted uncertainty that I could keep even the uncomfortable, hostile, abusive, pointless job that left me feeling perpetually estranged and threatened—

I was finally, at last, after nearly three decades of yearning, a genuine Detective.

I was a police inspector, a solver of crimes, an Envoy of Law and Harbinger of Justice. I was everything I had ever wanted to be. ‹And I’ll go down as the best damn detective in history, real or fictional. Peter is looking down from Heaven and shedding a single, joyous tear for the graduation of his protégé from meter maid to hero.›

I lustfully traced the edges of my precious brass-and-blue-enamel shield, engraved

Detective

Santa Virginia Police

01-4582

as Plaut continued from a thousand miles away, “…this is yours.” I was torn from my reverie as he added, very sternly: “Do not lose it.”

“I won’t, sir.”

“Bachman.” He stared me dead in the eyes and elaborated, “I can overlook the occasional ‘irreversible rule bending’ by those elite few who have ‘earned’ their place within the department the way you have, but lost property is a serious issue, and I will not hesitate to turn the thumbscrews if this badge turns up somewhere it shouldn’t be. You are a detective now, not a uniform whom everyone expects to make the occasional catastrophically embarrassing mistake. Your badge actually has significance, and with that significance comes a responsibility to ensure it is either on your person at all times or else in a locked safe at home—and nowhere else, not your desk drawer, not your coat pocket on the coat rack, not your gym locker. Am I understood?”

“Not even crystal is as clear as your words, sir.”

His stern, straight lips were overcome by a gentle smile. “Very good. Captain Nichols, would you do the honors of showing her to her new desk?”

“It would be my pleasure.”

Nichols led me down corridor after corridor—at first familiar, then progressively more alien—and gestured at an empty, unadorned desk—far away from Parking, far away from those creeps, far away from Tom Forrester and his… his… smooth, strong hands. “Make yourself comfortable.”

I nodded and smiled. “Thank you, sir.”

“I look forward to working with you, Detective Bachman.” Hearing those words again—Detective Bachman—this time in his manly, fine-grit-sandpaper voice—turned my knees to gelatin as he departed, and I had to collapse into my moderately comfortable chair before I could lose my balance.

But even as I felt the need to manifest the rest of my fantasies as realities and thereby, with each stroke of indulgence, extend my emotional plateau, brought on and sustained by the gratification of a quarter century of longing and desire and exertion and agonizing anticipation… I took care not to get lost in daydreams of grandeur, as I was prone as far back as I can remember—I needed to stay focused if I was going to meet my expectations of greatness. And, besides, I reminded myself, I was in theory there for Alex, not to live my lifelong dream. I had accepted this position as praxis, not pleasure. ‹That said… is there anything wrong with fooling around with my new job, as long as I don’t neglect my main objective or let on that I’m enjoying myself whenever my girlfriends are watching?›

I pulled my phone out and drafted a SecreText message to Yesenia, just a single telephone emoji, and tapped send. (I considered revising it to make it more cryptic, just in case her phone was seized for evidence and cracked by the Digital Forensics Unit, but decided that a search was so unlikely that such a degree of paranoia was counterproductive.) 10 seconds later, I received a reply containing only a thumbs-up emoji, and with confirmation that the plan was in motion I deleted our conversation.

But before I could slip my phone back into my purse, I noticed a red notification dot on my Hootr icon. I opened the app to discover that I had 2 unread DMs—I had neglected to turn on notifications! I read the replies from @FluffyFresh, sent the night prior, apologizing for the late response—they had initially thought I was a ‘Russian bot’ and thus ignored me. They then asked me if I knew about Sex Cop. I replied that I was Sex Cop; they congratulated me on my new job, and gave me an update: the demolition efforts were so far being effectively blocked by a human chain of sex workers and allies; to which I replied that the guild had my sincere gratitude, that I wished them luck, and—in a stroke of inspiration, suggested sharing a narrative on social media that the Torrey Pines was a historic building that deserved to be restored, not demolished. They replied that they thought this was a great idea, and that they would organize a task force to accomplish this. I let a smile escape; the day was going well.

I rang up my captain and asked, “Sir, do you recall who’s assigned to the Alexander Brookvale disappearance?”

“Freezer.”

“It’s already a cold case?”

“As of 72 hours after his wife filed the report with us.”

“Would you mind me taking it on?”

“Why would you want to waste your time on that sleazebag?”

“The way I see it, if we save an antifa’s life, that’ll remind them and the rest of the public that we take the high road by helping everyone, even the people who paint us as cruel and heartless. We’re bastards, Captain, bastards to the bone—in their eyes, I mean. We can prove to the world that their opinions are bunk. Saving ‘that sleazebag’ would be proof that we’re the good guys. And since I’m a special rookie, you won’t have wasted anybody’s time of real value in the event my case turns out to be a wild goose chase.”

The phone was silent for three seconds. “Good point. You have my blessing. But stop by my office before you go galloping after ganders, I have a fresh case for you taking up space on my desk, and I’d like to be rid of it.”

I pumped my fist triumphantly and—struggling to control my giddiness—replied, “10-4.” I walked to the captain’s office, resisting the urge to run there excitedly, and through the open door.

On his desk were a file folder and a rugged-looking QSeeker Digital Mobile Radio combination smartphone and portable land mobile radio transceiver in a matching hip holster. “Please, take a seat.” I did so. “You’ve been looking mighty bored out there spinning around in your chair while staring at your personal phone, so we have to give you something you can hold in your hands to maintain the illusion of productivity when you aren’t wasting the rest of your time out in the field chasing the ghosts of antifa.” He slid the phone-cum-radio towards me; there was a blue sticky note stuck to it with my last name and a phone number penciled on it. “If you’re going to fuck around, fuck around on this, it looks more professional.” I hit the unlock button and was greeted with a first-time login screen. “Since your separation wasn’t conduct-related, Data Systems Unit only disabled your account when you left, rather than delete it. I had it re-enabled after you were sworn in this morning, so your previous username and password should still work. You’ll also be issued your laptop once it’s done imaging. Any questions?”

“No, sir.”

“Good. We’ve received 57 anonymous tips in the past 45 minutes about a huge pool of blood in a room at the Old Torrey Pines Hotel, enough that the judge agreed to issue a search warrant.” I did my best not to grin. “Two black and whites have been dispatched along with the search warrant to cordon off the scene, CSI is following. I want you to go over there and not make a fool of yourself. Let them do their jobs, and don’t try to prove your usefulness by helping them—trust me, a rookie like you is just gonna ruin the crime scene. Your job is to build a case based on the evidence given to you, not to play Blue’s Clues. Am I understood?”

“Yes, sir. I won’t screw it up.”

“Eh. I don’t actually care if you screw this one up, it was probably just a junkie who broke in and ripped open a vein while he was shooting up. Or a hooker who did something similar.”

‹How does he figure it was a break-in? Was he aware the Old Torrey Pines was closed for business?› “That wouldn’t surprise me, sir.”

He leaned back in his leather desk chair and, for a long moment, bounced his fancy pen on his desktop, end over end, letting the barrel slide and fall between his thumb and finger as he troubled over something—something very important based on his pensive expression—then stopped tapping it, paused, and asked without a single microgram of frivolity, “Did you watch Blue’s Clues as a kid? My kids watched Blue’s Clues, and they’re about your age.”

“(Wh—?) Um—Uh—Well—I was… born a few years early to be a regular viewer, sir, but I’m having some difficulty… seeing how this… pertains… to… um…”

“It’s all about mysteries, just like our job. You’ve never seen it? It’s a millennial show. Of course you’ve seen it.”

“I’m an older millennial, sir, too old to watch the show while it was on the air.”

“Never watched it? Not even with younger siblings?”

“I’m an only child, sir, I’ve never had a reason to watch a show for preschoolers that premiered when I was—I dunno, 5, 6, 7? I was too old, the show came too late for me. Can I ask where this is going?”

“Oh. Well. That’s too bad. I was thinking about how it taught some fundamental investigative skills—evidence-gathering, note-taking, inference, deduction, narration. You should give it a watch.”

“Sir… are you suggesting that I need to learn the fundamentals of investigation from a show for preschoolers?”

“Tell me, Bachman: how many cases have you solved?”

“Well… none—this is my first day on the job, after all.”

“See? No experience. You gotta start somewhere.”

‹Oh. My. God. Is he being serious? Does he really think so little of me?› “Right. I need to learn how to be a detective… by watching a show meant for human beings who are still struggling to form complete, grammatical sentences.”

“Exactly. It should be easy for you to understand, millennial or not.” My eyes lost focus as I tried to think of an appropriate response for his slight against me and my entire generation. He made a sound vaguely resembling a dog bark. “Bur bur-bur! That damn cartoon dog is still invading my thoughts all these years later.” He shook his head. “The mysteries were insultingly easy to solve—but quality educational television is hard to come by, and that show was about as good as a show for toddlers can be. Lots of research and careful thought went into it, and it revolutionized children’s educational programming by inviting the audience to participate in solving the mystery. You’ll have fun. Barney, though… Christ. Did you watch Barney the Dinosaur?”

‹Oh, thank God he’s changed the subject to something else. Except it’s yet another show for babies.› “Yes, I watched that one.” The captain’s obsession with children’s television was only the first roadblock of the day. “But I stopped watching it before I turned five… so I don’t have any clear memories of it.”

“Good for you, because I do. The voices, the songs, everything about that show drove me up a fucking wall, but for 3 years straight it was all they wanted to watch, those 4 VCR tapes, over and over again. Sometimes, I swear this still happens, I hallucinate that Army Goes Rolling Along song from the space tape. ‘Flying high, in the sky…’ Did you watch that one?”

Under her breath Shosh cheerily continued, “We look back and wave goodbye, as our spaceship is flying away…”

“I don’t have any specific memories of the show, sir, just a general impression that I enjoyed it.” Shosh continued humming the melody until I sternly added, “And I’m not keen on revisiting the music.” She rolled her eyes, but I was grateful that she stopped… just as the song had rooted itself in my gray matter.

He chucked his pen into its jar and sighed. “Alright, alright, I’ll stop singing, cool your jets. What did you like about that show? What was going on in your kid brain that made you wanna watch that crap?”

‹Is he going to let me do my job or is he going to talk my ears off about children’s television?› “I don’t—remember very well, sir. Maybe it was for the same reasons kids like any other show, it was colorful and the lyrics were catchy but—I really think I should be goi—‍”

“And Wee Sing. Did you watch that one?”

“I think I need to go, sir.”

“Then go. Stop by the armory and pick up your piece and a Kojak. Giddyap, go on. Move ’em on. Head ’em up. Cut ’em out. Ride ’em out. Get to work. Get movin’, buster. Scoot your tush. Git along little do—‍”

“Yes… sir.” I jogged to the armory and picked up a ‘Kojak’ (a magnetized police beacon for plain cars) as well as the FN 509 MRD-LE newly assigned to me, serial number WY387462610, donned a cross-draw retention holster, then jogged to the Banana Shark—only to discover a police van parked right behind her, blocking her egress.

“Well, shit,” said Shosh.

I pulled on my hair and growled.

“Stay cool, Esti. What would I do to solve this little roadblock?”

“Probably something illegal.” I ran up to the driver’s window to have a ‘polite’ chat with the driver, but the vehicle was empty. The engine was running, and my veins were coursing with liquid panic, so I did the sensible thing—with a whispered push from Shosh—

“Might… hafta… find a way to move it.”

—and kinda-sorta committed a little bit of mild California Vehicle Code Section 10851… also known as joyriding, punishable by a 5,000-dollar fine and/or up to a year in county. But I swear there wasn’t any actual joy in it… except for the thrill of using my police powers to commandeer a vehicle.

‹It isn’t a Penal Code Section 487(d)(1) PC if I return the keys,› I reassured myself as I turned the key to the off position and removed it from the ignition. To save you the trouble of leafing through the California Penal Code, I will simply tell you now that Penal Code 487(d)(1) PC is generally referred to as ‘GRAND THEFT AUTO’ by laypeople and is a felony punishable for up to 3 years jail time.

Thus, I parked the van in what I thought was a more reasonable location. I was in a hurry, so I put a minimal amount of thought into what constituted a reasonable location, though I did make sure that it wasn’t blocking other vehicles from leaving their spots.

At this point you may be eager to ask me, “What did you do with the keys?” If you are indeed wondering that, then you are a very astute reader, and you deserve to know… However, you will have to wait to find out, because as soon as the engine had stopped burning fuel those van keys disappeared from my consciousness entirely.

I was a former parking enforcement officer who was incapable of fucking parking a van without it being the cause of a catastrophe.

With Banana Shark freed from her prison—and me having taken the first few steps towards mine—I attempted to arrive on Adams Avenue in a timely manner.

Every single intersection turned red at exactly the wrong instant for me, and even as the lights at the second-to-last intersection turned green, an elderly person decided to ignore the red hand telling them to wait their turn. At the last intersection, Shosh pointed out, “It’s too bad you can’t just run the light.” I groaned as I remembered I had a police beacon—though by the time I had slapped it on the Shark’s roof and activated it, the old person had reached the other side, and the light was green again.

As I finally pulled onto Adams, the press was already on the scene like flies on a dessert of honey and shit, interviewing the human chain of sex workers and demolition crew respectively. I squeezed between two news vans on the way to the front of the hotel, thanking God that I didn’t hear any scraping sounds because I was not keen on getting the paint touched up.

In front of the hotel was a parking spot that would have been available were it not for three people sunbathing on beach towels laid over the asphalt. I pulled up and asked, as sweetly as I could (given my mental state), “Hey, friends? I need a parking spot. I’m here to investigate… a pool of blood in the hotel.”

They immediately began to make room for me. “Dippy Duck, you’re here! I didn’t recognize your car in the daytime.”

“Sex Cop! Or should I say, ‘Sex Detective’?”

“C’mon, we saved this spot for you, Babe.”

They blew kisses as they hastily packed up and vacated the spot, and I blew a few of my own back at them. “Thank you so much!” I prayed that my string of bad luck had only been temporary, and that this was the beginning of a lucky streak.

Then the wrecking equipment started up, every engine cranking over within the span of only a few seconds, as though synchronized. They crept towards the sex worker chain, which shrank back in response. ‹The wrecking crew knows better than to run these people over—especially in front of a swarm of ravenous news crews. Although… they shouldn’t be getting ready for action if they’ve already seen the warrant. Have they… not been shown the warrant?› I looked around for my team. “Where are my uniforms?” I asked myself out loud. “Where the fuck are they?” I didn’t have time to find out. I ran out in front of the nearest dozer and clumsily presented my badge to its operator. “Off—Detective Bachman, SVPD. This building is a crime scene, I need you to cease all demolitions immediately.”

“Where’s your warrant?”

“It’s not here yet, my patrol officers have it.”

“We need a warrant to stop, Detective. Now get out of the way of my dozer.”

My head began to spin. ‹Oh, God, please don’t do this to my first case.›

Renegotiation
and Renegation

“Esti, you need to think quick.”

“I know I need to think quick!” I grasped for something, anything. My mind flipped through the days leading up to this crisis, I reviewed my contingency plans—and realized that I had not made any contingency plans. The plan was simply the plan.

“Keep cool, breathe.”

I took her advice as I mentally tallied up my surroundings: indifferent demolition crew and their menacingly yellow equipment threatening to destroy my crime scene and murder my fellow sex workers, no police officers to join me in standing in their way (fat chance of them putting their lives on the line for the Hooker Hotel even if they were present), no warrant to solve my problems; and spectators waiting for the good part.

‹Think outside the box.

‹Box.

‹…

‹Vagina.

‹Sex.

‹Bingo.›

I picked out the foreman from the crew—he was the only man wearing a retroreflective vest and hardhat who wasn’t piloting a vehicle—and ran under the tape and up to him, waving my hands and screaming, “Stop! Stop! Stop!”

He turned around and shouted back, “Get outta here, lady! This is a demolition zone!”

“Stop the demolition!”

“Get behind the tape!”

“Stop the demolition, now!”

“If you don’t get back behind the tape, girl, I’ll have you hauled away!”

“I’m a cop!”

“Bullshit!”

I showed him my badge. “See?”

He grunted. “You got a court order?”

“It isn’t here, yet.”

“Tough luck.”

“I have something just as good, though.”

“What’s that?”

“I need to whisper it.”

“It’s a demolition site! Nobody whispers at a demolition site!”

“Ugh, fine. I have a mouth.”

“So do I.”

“Can you suck your own dick with it?”

He had no words.

“Didn’t think so. Are you interested in stopping the demolition, now?”

“Honey, I ain’t stopping this demolition.”

“Could you at least postpone it in exchange for a little favor from a pretty girl?” As alluringly as I could, I pouted my lips and batted my eyelashes.

He gave my request a few seconds thought, then spoke into his radio, “Stand down, we have a problem with the paperwork.” The machinery turned off.

I breathed a sigh of relief. “Whew, thank you.”

“What are you proposing?”

“One blowjob in exchange for one hour,” I offered with a mountain of confidence.

“No.”

“Two blowjobs,” I offered, this time with a molehill of confidence.

“Three blowjobs, you get 15 minutes.”

“(Shit,)” I hissed without any confidence whatsoever. “I need to call dispatch to get an ETA on my warrant.”

“No. I don’t have all day. It’s 15 minutes or bust.”

“How about you let me suck you off over and over again for as long as it takes them to get here?” I offered from a valley flooded with doubt.

He pondered my proposal. “Alright. Follow me.”

‹This is gonna be… fun…› The thought lacked conviction. ‹I do so enjoy sucking strange men’s cocks in exchange for what I want.› I still wasn’t convinced. ‹What if he doesn’t uphold his end of the bargain?› That outcome seemed discomfortingly probable. ‹I feel… a little sick, actually. This situation is beyond my control. The dick I’m sucking has the upper hand. I thought I liked giving blowjobs to strange men. But in the fantasies, they’re the ones begging me for what only I can give them, not the other way around. I’m not looking forward to this one, I feel dread, not confidence.›

He led me into the nearby trailer and locked the door behind us.

There was a little desk and a little swivel chair, a little television, a little trash can, and a little tan love seat that had seen better days. “Cozy,” I remarked.

He looked me up and down. “Tits. Show them.”

I nodded, as though accepting his request, but when I started to take off my coat, I hesitated. ‹I don’t want to do this.

‹Can I back out?› I asked myself.

‹Yes,› I concluded.

‹Then I should back out,› I proposed.

‹But… the crime scene,› I countered; I finished taking it off.

‹I’m not sure I want to keep playing detective,› I admitted.

‹I’m playing detective to find Alex, not to follow my dream,› I corrected myself.

‹Shit…› I cursed as I started unbuttoning my shirt. ‹I have no choice; room 410 is my only lead.

‹And don’t forget the sex workers. They need this hotel to conduct their business,› I reminded myself.

‹Even if I give up on being a detective, Diane will be taking me to a nicer hotel whenever she hires me,› I figured.

‹I’m not only for myself. I can’t let myself be selfish. The sex workers need this hotel.

‹Fuck. God damn it.› I took off my shirt and reached for my bra band.

‹I don’t have any other options.› I peeled my sports bra off and his eyes grew ten sizes as my tits stood as proud as two perfect, perky mountains. “What do you think of them?” I asked.

“Whoa.”

He reached for them with both hands, but I slapped them away. “No. If you want to touch them, you hafta cancel the demo.”

“Not gonna happen.”

“Too bad. No tits for you.”

He held the radio up to his lips and keyed it… “About that paperwork, fellas.”

‹Fucker.› “Alright. I get it. Fine. Go ahead. Feel me up.”

“We’ve made some progress, but we might be a while. Take fifteen.” …then he gingerly clipped the radio back onto his belt. He strolled towards me on a gentle breeze of superiority, one slow step after another, until we were nearly toe-to-toe. He took each tit in one hand and squeezed. I felt a little sound try to wiggle its way between my vocal cords. He played with my breasts, kneaded them, jiggled them. I focused on keeping that noise inside my lungs. He grinned. I hated how he was making me feel. I could blame him for this situation, accuse him of violating Section 243.4 PC, Sexual Battery. The legal system would have my back. The blue shield would move heaven and earth to protect my honor, to put this man behind bars for the next 4 years and on the sex offender registry for all his years after that because he’d dared to touch a sister in blue. Being a cop had its advantages. I would have cuffed him and thrown him in the backseat of my car with a smirk if I was a lesser woman.

But the thought of using those supralegal privileges afforded to me as a member of the oppressor class for my own benefit filled me with greater dread than did whatever this man had in mind… and washed it down with a glass brimming with self-loathing.

“Are you… (ah…) having fun?” I asked as he thumbed my nipples, causing me to shiver.

I was in no position to smirk and lord my power over him. He smirked and lorded his power over me.

‹Every second he spends playing with my tits is a second the hotel stays in one piece,› I reminded myself. “Are they the best tits you’ve ever seen?”

He snorted amusedly.

“Would you appreciate some conversation, or are you content with having fun with my fun bags?”

He detached his fingers from my tits, then wrapped them around the button guarding my chastity. This I could not tolerate; I pulled his hands away. “The deal was fellatio.”

“Consider this a renegotiation.”

“No.”

He glanced over at the radio, then back at me. That smirk never left his face.

‹Hm. This… could actually work out for me.› I closed my eyes, sighed dramatically, and said, “Alright. If you agree to cancel the demolition, you can take a look in the basement.” He greedily unbuttoned and unzipped my pants and pulled them down. I stepped out and planted my hands on my hips. He made a move for the waistband of my panties. “Ah-ah-ah…” I restrained his hands once more. “You want to see the goods?”

“Of course I do.”

“If I show you, you leave the hotel alone.”

“Either you let me fuck you, or I give my men the signal.”

And in my frustration… I became a lesser woman. “Either you play by the rules, or I arrest you for ‘sextortion’. And, being a law enforcement officer, the legal system will have my back.”

“Are you gonna admit in front of a judge and jury that you offered to suck my dick in the line of duty, or are you gonna perjure yourself on the stand and say I’m the one who came to you asking for sex?”

‹If I lie about what happened, I’d be denying him due process. Just like any other corrupt pig.› I smiled. “Fine. Fortunately for you, I happen to like penetration.”

“Wonderful. Couch.” He pointed to the love seat.

“Excuse me?”

“I said, ‘Get on the couch.’”

“I don’t take orders. You get on the couch.”

“I’m in charge.”

“I’m the one who has what you want. Sit.”

He glared.

I stared.

His eyes narrowed to a squint.

My eyes gave him more than a hint that the glimpse of paradise he craved was far more valuable than what I was bargaining for.

He acquiesced and sat on the couch.

“Good boy.” ‹And now for the part I like least about this situation.› “Do you have… a condom?”

“Nope.”

‹Okay, this is fine, I don’t need a condom.› I took a step towards him, then stopped. ‹I have no idea what kind of diseases he might have, and no reason to trust him should he deny having them.› “Then I need to procure one.”

“You leave before I’m satisfied, we move ahead with the demolition.”

“Do you sincerely expect me to fuck you raw?”

“You’ll do anything to stop us. I see it in your eyes. You’re desperate. You’re a cornered rat whose hidey holes have all been trapped.”

My stomach plummeted and crashed through my pelvic floor. He was right. I had deluded myself into thinking I had the upper hand, but in my frantic rush to save the hotel, I had made it very clear to him that he had me by the ovaries. (The tingle of relief that I now had an ironclad excuse not to use a rubber, and the resulting eager clenching of my vaginal muscles, only further worsened my shame and guilt.)

I persuaded myself not to give into temptation, though. STIs can be really damn annoying, not to mention stigmatizing, and I wanted to keep Judith safe. So I had only one option, and it was a bluff. “I’m ovulating. You wanna pay child support?”

“No one will believe you when you claim it’s mine. You’ll never get a DNA sample out of me.”

«Well, there we go. I guess I should just start riding him raw. Creampie time!»

‹Wait. Wait, no. I can’t do that. I don’t want to catch anything I could spread to Judith. I must use a rubber.

‹Be a cop. Make something up.› “I’m a cop. Cops have methods of obtaining DNA. Some of them you’ll be completely unaware of. But the others… you’ll wish you weren’t aware. I’ll cast lots to decide how unpleasant your experience will be.”

He didn’t reply.

“You’ll get your sex soon enough, but you need to wait a minute. I’m getting you a condom.” I dressed and left for the human chain outside, and he didn’t so much as grunt in protest.

“How’s the investigation going?” “Did you get them to stop?” “Do you have any updates?” asked several of them.

“I’ve hit a snag. Anybody got a condom I can ‘borrow’?” Many purses unzipped and several pockets rustled, and a couple dozen condoms were presented to me. “Thanks.” I accepted the one that Sandra offered me. “Thanks, Sandy.”

“You don’t keep condoms handy?”

“I’ve never needed one.”

Sandra nodded. “I see. We noticed they shut down the equipment.”

“Yes. The foreman agreed to pause demolition if I… sucked his dick.”

Everyone within earshot cheered me and offered me a high five, each of which I accepted limply. “And I need the condom because… he’s willing to cancel the demolition altogether if I show him a good time.”

I received several pats on the back. “You’re a true sex worker,” said one, and another said, “Whore power!” Several of them insisted that I take some spare condoms ‘just in case’.

“Thanks. I need to get to work. Thanks for the wrappers.”

They bid me ‘good luck’ and ‘see you later’ as I returned to the foreman’s trailer.

“Alright,” I said as I disrobed. “I’ve got the condoms.”

“Took you long enough. Assume the position.”

“Do I tell you how to destroy a building?”

He scoffed. “A bimbo like you wouldn’t know how to tell C-4 from C-channel.”

“And a cis-het macho man like you wouldn’t know the difference between a dental dam and a beaver dam. Don’t tell me how to do my job.” After I shed my last garment, I handed him a condom. “Wrap it.”

He undid his pants and pulled his penis through his boxers. It was smaller than Judy’s, which (to my relief) led me to assume that the fit would be too loose for me to derive pleasure from him penetrating me. He tore the film and removed the condom. I resisted the impulse to pluck the condom from his hand and throw it across the room. He rolled it onto his hard dick, then relaxed into the couch and smirked.

“Now for a little foreplay…” I said as I approached him.

“Foreplay is for fags.” I rolled my eyes but decided not to correct his bigotry. I straddled him, held his tip at my entrance, and held my breath.

I fell upon him, sending that rush from my vagina and up my spine, a surprise that never failed to please me. I refused to breathe, I didn’t want him to know that I was already enjoying myself, I choked down a moan—but I couldn’t stop my back from arching. «Fuck me fuck me fuck me fuck me…» I began humping away, more eagerly than I had wanted. I dug my fingers into his shoulders and continued holding my breath. He grabbed my tits and squeezed, breaking my control over my diaphragm. I exhaled with a long, pleased moan. I covered my mouth in shame.

“Oh, you like that, bitch?”

I shook my head insistently.

He lifted me by the hips until only his tip was in, then thrust me down.

My elation escaped as a sigh of agonized bliss.

“You want my cock, don’t you?”

“(No,)” I squeaked. «Cock cock cock cock remove the condom poke a hole in the condom twitch twitch spurt spurt cum inside me CUM INSIDE ME…»

Each ride up his cock brought fresh air into my lungs, and each ride down forced from me an ecstatic moan. The world around me gradually dissolved into a pleasurable fog as I continued fucking him. My pelvic floor muscles tightened around him, increasing the splendor of my sexual donation. A word I had not been expecting up to that point escaped my mouth: “(Yes…)”

He scoffed. “The whore cop craves my cock.”

“(Whore cop…)” I was lost in paradise, strangled by awe, unable to form sentences. Judy was better, to be clear, but the fear and the ecstasy and the shame were mixing, overpowering me synergistically. All I could say was, “(Yes…)” and “(More…)” and “(Give me your cock, please, give me your cum…)” as my mind droned rhythmically, «Give me your cum, fuck me, fuck me, cum inside me, fuck me, fuck me until you shoot your load inside me, fuck me, fuck me and make me your whore, fuck me, fuck me and be my baby daddy…»

He panted and grunted as I begged for him to please stay hard and give me his seed. And then, without warning, he grunted several times. I felt him twitch inside me and I thrust myself down to swallow his cock…

Smash your hearty wrecking balls into the

Crumbling walls of my most holy temple!

Knock my columns down, crack my foundation,

Doze a fertile patch around my ovum,

Till and plow and mulch my hungry soil,

Spread your seed and plant a paradise,

You must cultivate your garden in my womb!

As the twitching ended, I planted my lips on his mouth for a few seconds, then pulled away with a stupid, lazy smile on my face.

“What a slutty cop you are,” he remarked with a victorious grin.

I hummed in satisfaction, and whispered, “(Sure am.)” As my panting subsided, I gradually realized I had taken pleasure in sex that I had in the first place wanted to avoid. My shame turned my face a brighter shade of red than sexual exertion alone ever could. ‹Oh, God, please, no. It felt good. I didn’t want it to feel good. It was supposed to be business, not pleasure. You asshole, you made me enjoy sexual extortion.› I grimly remarked, “I hope you’re satisfied.”

“Off.” I removed myself from his cock (reluctantly) and rolled onto the couch; he removed the condom and discarded it in the trash, and, to my great relief and dire regret, sealed his dick away inside his pants. I had been wary of an encore—there was a chance I might orgasm on our second go around, making the sex I had wished not to enjoy all the more enjoyable. “You’ve got the best pussy in town.”

“Premium.” God, I wanted that encore, and definitely without the condom this time.

“And you have the best moans, too.”

I sighed in despair. “High praise. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” He picked up the radio from the desk and keyed it. “The red tape’s cut, boys. Start your engines.”

I shot up from the couch. “What the fuck?”

“The deal was you suck my dick for 15 minutes. You never sucked my dick. Therefore, you didn’t uphold your end of the bargain.”

“Bullshit!” I leapt from the couch, closed the distance between us, and gently slapped him across the face, budging his head a millimeter and leaving him even more amused than he already was. “You—you filthy, slippery, crooked, two-faced piece of shit!”

And then… it hit me. ‹Oh. God. What have I done? I’ve assaulted a civilian! I’m engaging in police brutality!› As my mind raced I backed away from him and fell into the couch. ‹All Cops Are Bastards. And I'm no exception. We’re all just bloodthirsty, power-hungry fascists. I’m a fascist.› Horrified by my own violence, I curled up into a ball. “No, no-no-no-no, I’m a brutalist! I have no understanding of humanity or mercy and only appreciate totalitarian conformity while deliberately eliminating compassion in the name of economic utility! The Nazis would love me and call me beautiful!”

“I should report you to your superiors for assault.”

I was robbed of words.

With his wicked grin he took step after step towards me as he pointed out, “First, you falsely accuse me of rape and threaten to lie on the stand, then you injure me when I refuse to capitulate to your bullshit.”

The words he stole from me were his to keep. ‘Capitulate’ is a particularly fancy word in the mind of a cop, quite effective at instilling the fear of God (God in this context being one’s chain of command) in any rank-and-file police officer when used in the context of disciplinary proceedings.

“You really think you can coerce me into abnegating my duties with your police brutality?”

Having been struck again by yet another magical incantation, this one a double whammy of word wizardry— ‘coerce’ and ‘abnegating’ —I struggled for a few seconds to come up with a counter-spell… then gave up because, as a common cop, my grasp of the English language was simply too elementary to compete with such a masterly demonstration of the arcane art of sesquipedalian rhetoric. “I’m evil!”

His brow scrunched and his demeanor flipped. “Are you seriously upset?”

“I’m a fascist pig, oppressing civilians through violence to assert my authority. I’m a true bastard.”

“I think you’re overreacting.”

“I’m a bad cop. I’m everything I find abhorrent.”

“You slapped me. Big whoop.”

“I violated the law as well as my own personal code of conduct. I belong in jail. A lifetime in jail.”

“Calm down, lady.”

“I can’t calm down! I’ve just discovered my true nature! I’m a horrible, no good—”

He slapped me. Hard. My cheek burned, my skull ached. I was stunned. I shut up. “Get a grip. Slapping someone isn’t brutality. I screwed you over, it was justified.”

“Nothing can justify police violence.”

“You weren’t slapping me as a police officer, you were slapping me as a woman who just fucked a stranger for nothing. I deserved to be slapped. Hell, I deserve worse than a gentle slap; it barely hurt and the sting of it lasted only a few seconds.”

“It barely hurt?”

“I’ve been slapped on the ass harder by my coworkers. It’s no big deal. You can dispense with the hysterics.”

“It’s no big deal…”

“NBD. Get dressed, get out of here. I need to get back to destroying a historic landmark.”

I nodded. So reassured (but still shaky), I started putting my clothes back on. “I guess I get nothing for letting you use my body.”

“I sure screwed you, didn’t I?”

“You sure did. In one of the many senses of the verb. I screwed you in another sense.”

“You enjoyed it.”

I bristled.

“You moaned and begged for more. You told me you wanted to have my baby.”

My eyes grew a dozen sizes. “I… told you that?”

“Quote: ‘Please, Mister Foreman,’” he mocked in a falsetto valley girl accent, “‘knock me up with your fertile load so, like, I can mother your child.’” His impression of me was all the more insulting for its inaccuracy.

I groaned. “God, please kill me.” I finished buttoning up my shirt and grabbed my coat; as I stepped out of the trailer, I sighed and told him, “Thanks for the reassurance. I was falling, and you caught me.” I left without waiting for an answer.

I had been on this street nearly every day for the past year, but I was once again lost. I wandered over to my car, sat on the hood, and stewed. ‹Game over. The hotel is lost. Alex is lost. Everything I have been striving for is lost.›

“Well?” asked Shosh.

“No dice.”

“I’m sorry, Esti. I can’t say… that…” Her brow furrowed. “I can’t say that I’m proud that you tried to persuade that man that way, but… I am proud that you tried anything at all. You really care about the people on this street. I’m afraid to admit I don’t think they deserve your sacrifices, but… it’s very sweet of you. And they seem to appreciate what you’re—”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” ‹I’ve failed my fellow sex workers. If I hadn’t enjoyed it, he wouldn’t have screwed me over. If I’d fucked him a second time, he wouldn’t have backed out of our deal. If I’d sucked his dick instead, he would have honored our agreement. It’s all my fault. I’ve let my peers down for the last time. I am unworthy of the noble title of ‘whore’. I ought to excommunicate myself.› The wrecking crew crept inexorably towards the Torrey Pines Hotel, with a thirst for brick and steel matched only by the bloodlust of a pack of hungry hyenas stalking an injured elephant lagging behind the herd.

Oh, yes. ‘Inexorably’. That’s a 50-dollar adverb guaranteed to freeze the heart of even the most philologically minded of police detectives. I scared myself with such a frightful word. I trembled, but my fellow sex workers stood fast, as though some righteous goddess of love and war had personally revealed to each of them their imminent victory.

Competitive Cucking

A sleek white 2015-or-newer Dodge Charger with a decal on the side declaring it to be operated by ‘Santa Virginia City HIRT’ grumbled up beside me. A woman (5′6″, with brown hair even curlier than mine, in a no-nonsense navy pantsuit with a white shirt) and another (5′9″, with a bleached pixie cut, in a matching outfit, albeit with a more androgynous fit) emerged from the sedan with purpose and assessed me with authority. The shorter woman yelled over the noise of the equipment, “Would you happen to be SVPD?”

“Yes, actually,” I replied as I flashed my badge. “How did you know?”

“The Kojak on the roof of your car.”

“Oh. Right. What agency are you from?”

“Hazardous Incident Response Team, Department of Environmental Health—or ‘HIRT’ for short. We’ve had several reports that a building was being demolished without the requisite Legacy Structure Hazardous Substances Environmental Impact Assessment.”

“I’ve got a blood pool in that hotel and these hardhats are trying to bury it without a proper funeral. I’ve exhausted my options in delaying the demo; can you do anything to stop them?”

“Watch us.” They strolled over to that bastard foreman and showed him their badges and a piece of paper. He shook his head and spoke into his radio—and a moment later every piece of machinery fell silent once more. I relaxed. I had been beaten into despair, but the crisis had been averted. My hopes for this case and the hotel slowly rekindled.

“Hot damn,” remarked Shosh. “If I wasn’t straight, I’d kiss botha them.”

I raised my eyebrows in surprised agreement that ‹Yeah, the women are attractive, and since when did you look at women that way?›

She felt the need to add, “You already have a girlfriend, lover girl, is one not enough?”

“I didn’t say anything about kissing a couple of women, thus revealing possible hidden lesbian tendencies.”

“I said, ‘If I wasn’t straight,’ which was me explicitly maintaining my heterosexuality, the opposite of ‘hidden lesbian tendencies’. You, on the other hand… Well… gays are known to… um… have a habit of playing a little fast and loose with the definition of ‘commitment’, so… I’m wondering if you would, uh… ‘shop around’… to see if you’re ‘getting the best deal on the market’, maybe starting with these ladies—assuming either of them is gay.”

I huffed irritatedly. “Why would you want me to do that?”

“Well… um… I’m not comfortable with you betraying the people you keep close to you—but… smoking weed and dealing it are two different things. Her job security is questionable—which I say because I’m concerned that… your new friend’s freedom is… not guaranteed in the long run. These two, on the other hand, have government jobs. That’s about as much security as you can ask for.”

“Alright. Okay. I sympathize, Judy’s career used to make me nervous, too. For about 2 seconds. As for your wondering about me ‘playing a little fast and loose with the definition of “commitment”’… I don’t think that’s my style. If I weren’t already in a dedicated relationship, maybe then I would ask one of them out—after getting to know her better. I’m not so horny that I feel compelled to cheat on Judy or screw every woman I meet as soon as we have each other’s business cards. I need to spend some time getting to know my partner before I’m ready to get intimate.”

“But… the foreman…”

“For the second time, I really would appreciate it if you never mentioned him again. Got that?”

“Alright, alright. But how long was it before you and Judy… Actually, I don’t wanna know that.”

“Of course you wanna know, Mother! We had glorious sex after 4 whole hours of getting to know each other through a video game.” She winced. “While we’re prying into my sex life, how about you tell me about you and Mister Mystery? How long did you and Dad chat before fucking?”

“I said I didn’t wanna know about you and her, and you don’t wanna know about me and him, either.”

“Fine. You just need to keep in mind that Judy and I needed a few days and a few serious conversations before we told each other ‘I love you’, and I’m not going to risk compromising what we’ve built so far, because that foundation runs deeper than you’d think. We’re soulmates. Have a little more faith in me.”

She blinked several times. “‘Soulmates’… Um. Okay—I, uh… I’m… sorry for asking the wrong questions, Esti, but I’m just not used to you being in a relationship, and I don’t know what goes on between you two unless you tell me because I want you to have your privacy. I didn’t know how committed you are or how serious your first time with somebody has been.”

“How committed were you and Mister Right?”

She winced. “I don’t, have never, and never will regret what happened between him and me, because it gave me you, and if I had to relive that moment I would do everything exactly the same. But I wish I could’ve raised you with a man at my side.”

“You really wish I’d had a father?”

“Yes. I wanted to raise you with the love of my life. Not a single man I dated came close to meeting my standards for a father.”

“You dated? When?”

“You remember Oliver and Fred and Charles and Victor and Dennis and Jorge and Dennis Two and James?”

“Your special buddies.”

“I was dating them.”

“They were your boyfriends?”

She nodded.

{“Esti, this is Oliver. He’s my special buddy.”

{I quickly take in the new guy’s face… “Oh.” …then turn my eyes back to Prescription: Murder as Doctor Flemming dumps the ‘stolen’ goods overboard into either Bahía de Santa Lucía or the Pacific Ocean. “Hello,” I add absentmindedly.

{“Oliver, I’d like you to meet my daughter, Andrea.”

{“Nice to meet you, Andrea.”

{I glance at him to tell him, “Nice to meet you,” then return my attention to the boob tube.

{“Esti.” I pause the Columbo episode again and give her my attention. “Oliver likes cop shows, too. You might like to have a chat.”

{“Oh. What’s your favorite show?”

{He smiles as he too proudly admits, “The X-Files.”

{I couldn’t help but stare.

{“Is there something wrong with X-Files?”

{“If you’re into supernatural baloney,” I scoffed, “more power to you.”

{“It’s fun. It has mysteries.”

{“Mysteries with less believability than a Scooby Doo caper.”

{“I think they have ‘believability’, as long as you’re willing to ‘suspend your belief’.”

{“I can’t ‘suspend my disbelief’ in the supernatural. I can’t stand that ghosts-and-ghoulies ‘mystery’ crap. Ghosts don’t exist, and Scooby Doo knows that, which is the responsible position to take considering it’s a children’s show where fear of superstition is mocked as silly and self-defeating while skepticism is rational and rewarded with Truth and Justice—it isn’t an example of blind credulity towards the supernatural to be misinterpreted and perverted by adult television. X-Files is making adults dumber.”

{“Oh. Well. You’re entitled to your opinion. What’s your favorite show?”

{“Columbo,” I inform him in a tone that makes it clear that he should know that the show was one of a few elite works of art worthy of my attention.

{“Columbo! What a classic.”

{“Have you actually watched it?”

{“It was like sugary breakfast cereal, I ate up practically every episode.”

{“Which one’s your favorite?”

{“I don’t remember.”

{“Hm. Mine’s A Friend in Deed. Do you remember that one?”

{“Unfortunately, no.”

{“Columbo figures out how a corrupt police commissioner—his boss, no less—is trying to frame an innocent thief for the murder of both his friend’s wife and his own. It’s very satisfying to watch a powerful and corrupt man being taken down with hard evidence and cunning, especially by a subordinate who stands to lose his job if he presses on. Do you remember now?”

{“Doesn’t ring a bell.”

{“Can you remember any of them?”

{“Little bits.”

{Having lost all interest in this man, I unpause the VHS tape.}

I remembered the first time she brought a ‘special buddy’ home to meet me; the others weren’t substantially different from him. “Esti… I wanted you to have another parent who loved you as much as I do, and I wanted him and I to set a good example for a committed relationship—and because I never found the real Mister Right… you’ve never been exposed to a healthy romantic relationship.”

‹Maybe… maybe I should have gotten to know them before rejecting them. I could have had a father. I would still have family.›

“And I have no idea what to expect down the road given the fact that before now you never had any boyfriends… or girlfriends.”

“Are you satisfied with the job I’m doing right now?”

“I’m happy that you’re happy. Let’s just leave it at that. Meditate awhile on how happy I am that you finally have someone.”

“Thanks. I love you, Shosh.”

“I love you, too, Esti.”

I thanked the mystery women upon their return. “Thanks. You saved my crime scene.”

“You’re welcome. Where’s your warrant and your CSI?”

“Not a clue. They were supposed to be here before me. And yet they aren’t, despite a van trapping my car in the parking garage and me hitting 8 red lights in a row on my way here. They should be here by now.” ‹But before we get to talking, I need to know—who are you people?› “My apologies, I’m more than a little overwhelmed right now, I believe I neglected to introduce myself.”

The short woman stuck out her hand. “I’m Agent Jessica Carson, this is Agent Jacklyn Kerouac.”

“No relation,” the other woman added, offering hers.

I accepted both. “Offic—I mean, Detective Andrea Bachman, SVPD Crimes Against Persons Unit, First Precinct. If you’re from the Department of Environmental Health… would you happen to deal with asbestos?”

“It’s practically our speciality,” replied Jessica. “It’s like our bread and butter, except crunchy… and carcinogenic.”

I chuckled. “I used to write parking tickets all day. I think I’d rather eat an asbestos sandwich than write another one of those.”

“Trust me, you don’t,” she said, very seriously. “Mesothelioma is an extremely unpleasant condition. One that this demolition crew may have just narrowly avoided giving themselves and bystanders.”

“So you’re saying there is asbestos in the building?”

“Oh, a building of this era would have been built with tons of the stuff, but we need to know whether it’s been removed in the meantime before the demolition can proceed, and we especially need to account for loose fibrils out in the open. Concerning said loose fibrils, we’ve received anonymous reports. A lot of them, about 400.”

There were perhaps 40 or 50 people in the group of SWG members I had talked to on the street, which meant each of them filed 8 reports, on average. I was certain they had recruited allies and sex workers from beyond the street, escorts and strippers and pole dancers and masseuses and adult film actors and webcam models and the like, but I figured that even with so many reinforcements they must have gotten busy the instant I trumpeted the charge.

“When we received word that there was a demolition taking place, we made this our number one priority. If Jackie hadn’t been watching the local news… the demolition would have scattered asbestos fibrils to the four winds, and the whole neighborhood would’ve become a miniature Superfund site. An Averagefund site, if you will.”

All this talk about hazards was making me nervous that our bluff might have been called by fate. “Is it safe to go inside?”

Two HIRT vans pulled up next to their car and a squad of people in yellow HAZMAT gear filed out the rear doors. The two agents thought long and hard about my question, and even longer and harder about their answers. I waited for an eternity; after what must have been a minute, they shared a decisive glance before Jacklyn said, “If all the asbestos tiles in the ceilings turn out to be intact and all the insulation is contained behind drywall, we’ll consider the building safe. But the reports indicated free asbestos spilling out of holes in the walls and ceilings.”

The fraudulent asbestos reports, while effective in delaying the demolition, had also succeeded in delaying my investigation. I was desperate to move forward, so I asked the smartest question I could think up. “What if my people wear N95s?”

“Skin exposure can result in calluses,” explained Jessica, “and, more importantly, asbestos fibrils can stick to clothing and continue to expose the wearer even after they’re no longer in contact with the source. We can’t afford to expose the agency to either of those liabilities—no matter how minor either may seem to you. We can only let you in if you wear full HAZMAT PPE.”

“(Crap on a stick,)” I muttered. ‹I must wonder whether my people would be hesitant or even willing to work in an environment so hazardous that it requires full-body PPE, but a hunch is telling me they probably won’t be.› “How long is it going to take to inspect the building?”

“Between us and you, Gunther and Sampson—the new owners of this dump—are ‘special community partners’—by which I mean major donors to the mayor’s campaign—so we’re being pressured to take care of this with undue haste so they can get back to rebuilding this street.”

“Esti… If the owners were trying to rush this demolition, they might have something to do with the Vice raid.”

“Huh. You might be onto something,” I told her.

“What do you mean by that?” asked Jacklyn.

“Sorry, I was… thinking out loud.” ‹I wish I could extract some information out of Somers, anything about these developers, without potentially compromising our arrangement…› “So… since they’re pushing for you to be quick, the inspection will be in-and-out?”

The blonde assessed the building from memory. “5 floors, 15 single-queen rooms per floor at 200 square feet per room—that’s approximately 15,000 feet; 1 day of inspection per 5,000 square feet—gives us an ETA of 3 days.”

“I’m on a missing person case, where every second costs a fortune, and it’s already been next to half a million of them since he was last seen, so here on out I need to make the best of the ones I have left.”

“Our people will be working full 8-hour days, we can’t go any faster, Detective.”

“You really think he’s alive?” asked Shosh.

“I don’t think it either way… but I have to work under the assumption he can still be saved.” The agents shared a bemused glance. “Agent Kerouac, I would hardly call 8 hours a full day. If you work overtime, you could be finished in a third of the time. Work 12 hours, then bring in a fresh crew at the end of the day crew’s shift.”

They looked at me doubtfully, and Jessica informed me, “That wouldn’t fly with the paper pushers; they rarely approve OT, and our team only has 8 technicians, out of which the 2 of us need to hang back and supervise the perimeter—and County HIRT isn’t going to help us out since hastening this inspection is a favor to the mayor and is of no concern to anyone outside the city. Besides that, this team is our people; neither of us wants to tell them they hafta spend time away from their families or burn the midnight oil.”

‹Bullshit. Under late-stage capitalism, workers crave the money they can earn from overtime, especially with night differential. But these people don’t think that way, for reasons that are beyond me. I guess that’s good for them, though, for having healthy work-life balances and a rare pair of supervisors who respect their subordinates’ needs. I guess I’ll just have to upset that peace by playing the corruption card to force their hands.› “If it makes Mayor Kind and his donors happy, you might not have a choice. Gunther and Sampson are probably already complaining to the mayor that you’re not working fast enough, and when the mayor finds out you aren’t going the extra mile by requesting overtime… he’s going to assume you aren’t taking seriously his request to expedite this inspection.”

They discussed what I told them at first with their eyes, then in whispers with their backs to me. I waited anxiously to find out just how good I was at persuading people, and I was also anxious that my patrol cars still might not arrive with the search warrant before HIRT was finished and the demolition could resume—even though 24 hours was a ridiculously generous amount of time to get to the scene. In fact, I wasn’t sure ‘my guys’ were going to show at all, whether out of incompetence or apathy or neglect or mistake… or malice.

The HIRT agents broke their huddle, and Jacklyn admitted, “You make a good point. An obvious point, in fact… we hadn’t given enough thought to how impatient our ‘beneficent overlords’ might be. As a favor to you, we’ll do our best to get you and your team to your crime scene ASAP.”

I had not realized how tense my shoulders were until they relaxed. “Thank you. Oh, thank you. I owe you. I’d do just about anything to express my gratitude.”

Again, they whispered to each other with eye movements and smirks, then Jessica asked smoothly, “Would you consider yourself a ‘free soul’, Detective?”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you ‘live life to the fullest’?”

“Well…” ‹I humped my girlfriend’s leg in public, I let her jerk me off in in my car parked on a major street and would have jerked her off had she given me the chance, I rode her cock raw at the peak of my fertility before letting her ejaculate inside me then subsequently repeated the insemination process several more times, I enthusiastically fucked the vice police captain for money then sold my body to her in exchange for fulfilling my lifelong dream of becoming a pig all over again…› “Kind of. Yeah. I mean—I’m a respectable woman…”

“But you know when to make an exception when an opportunity comes along.”

“I suppose… maybe I’m the kind of girl who… in her free time, doesn’t bother considering the majority’s antiquated ideas about propriety.”

They glanced at each other, then back at me, devious smiles still shining on their faces. Jessica continued, “It’s an open secret in our office that, in spite of regs against partners getting too close, Jackie and I are… (partners.)”

“Oh? Good for you, for getting away with forbidden love in plain sight. I dig that.”

“Yes. We consider ourselves fortunate. Are you… fortunate?”

I hesitated, with only half an idea of what they meant by ‘fortunate’. “In the same way as you are?” They nodded. “Not… openly.”

“Your hesitation is good enough for me to presume you’re cool. You could make us more fortunate.” She winked.

I did not respond for some time, somewhere between an age and an eon. A hunch on its way to becoming a mature conclusion, and the wink she gave me, told me there was a subliminal message between her words, a euphemism whose very obvious meaning must only be deciphered by me if I was the type to agree to it—and if I wasn’t, I was expected to misinterpret, knowingly or not, what they were saying as something innocuous. But I owed them something, and this would not be my first time wandering beyond the boundaries of my established relationship. It would, however, be my first time being with two people at once, and my first time without Judy’s permission. (I had wiped the foreman episode from memory.) “If you want me to make the two of you more fortunate… we’re gonna need some privacy.”

Shosh shook her head but donned a conflicted smile more strained than an over-tuned piano wire, and with a pat on my shoulder bid me, “Good luck, Casanova,” as she departed for the hotel.

“Thanks.”

Both women shared the same mischievous smile, and Jacklyn said, “The van isn’t ideal, but my girl and I do get a thrill out of fucking on the job, especially with the risk of getting caught.”

I groaned.

“Too risky for you?”

“I wish I could say that, but, unfortunately for my mental and criminal well-being, cars parked in public places are some of my favorite places for sex.” ‹Though I would not be surprised to discover that anywhere public is a favorite place for sex…›

{On my back on a park bench with my tits out and jiggling as Judy pumps away at my pussy, passing joggers and cyclists and dog-walkers who stare at us before quickly escaping the scene—except the curious ones who watch and listen. The popcorn man wheels his cart next to us and starts selling bags upon bags at inflated prices to the crowd gathering to witness the spectacle of two women fucking in broad daylight.} I shivered. {Although the benches at Hillside Park might not fit Judy’s six-plus feet of woman. Perhaps a survey of the city parks is in order, to find one long enough to accommodate somebody of her stature.}

“If anything, the fact that there’s only one window for outsiders to peek through… is a drawback.” This elicited amused snickers. Jessica opened the rear door to the nearest van, and gestured, [After you.] I clambered in and waited behind the front seats. “There is not a lot of room.”

“We’ll make it work,” said Jacklyn as the two followed me in. “But before we get started… Have you ever been with a transgender woman?”

“My girlfriend—‍”

“You have a girlfriend?” they asked in unison—with mock surprise.

“Um. Yes.”

It is only in hindsight that I recognize that Jessica was being playful in chastising me. “You’re about to cheat on your girlfriend! Do you have any sense of propriety, any shame?”

“Y-yes, of course I do!” ‹Judy’s okay with me being Somers’ booty call… but is she okay with me servicing other people? Do I have a choice in being with Somers? Technically, yes—though if I break it off with her, I lose my job. And… if I stay with her, she might have more to offer, and future favors could save or advance my case. To these two, on the other hand, I am not so beholden, so this situation is less clear.› “Would you mind if I called her and asked if it’s okay to do this?”

“Is she the type to say ‘yes’?” asked Jacklyn, a hint of ridicule in her voice.

“I’m not sure. But she doesn’t mind the fact that I’m already in a relationship with somebody else.”

“This is not the sort of thing for which one asks permission beforehand,” explained Jessica, “but…” She shrugged. “Follow your conscience, if you insist on having one.”

I called and Judy picked up on the fourth ring. “Hey, girl! I saw on Hootr that Environmental Health stopped the demolition, congratulations on the victory!” I heard a man grunting and groaning in the background, and assumed I’d caught her in the middle of watching porn.

“Thanks, Judy. There’s just been one little hiccup…”

“Uh-oh. What happened?”

“They aren’t letting me investigate the scene until they’ve finished examining the building for asbestos.”

(Please,) moaned the masculine voice in the background, (please let me—) “Shit. God damn it. Is there any way to convince them to make an exception to the rules? A few pigs with mesothelioma is nobody’s loss.” (Oh, God, please…)

“No, but I convinced them to work on it 24 hours straight instead of 8 at a time, and at that rate they estimate it’ll take only a single day instead of 3. I’d like it if I could get in even sooner, but I don’t have any solutions.”

(Ahhh…! Just like… that…! Ohhh…!) “That sucks, but at least you’re handling the situation in stride. Tell them I say ‘thanks’.”

“My girlfriend says thanks for making my job easier,” I told them. “I was actually calling you about… (ehem…) giving them my own special thank you.”

(I want your mouth…) “Oh? Are they making you fuck them in return for the favor?”

“Hmm… Actually… that’s… exactly what’s going on.”

She snickered, “How many of them are there?”

“Two.”

“That shouldn’t be too hard, you’re a very lively woman, Bachman.”

“I’m inferring from your reaction that you’re okay with me having sex with other people.”

“As long as you’re okay with me fucking other people, too, and as long as you ask them when they were last tested and what the results were.”

The thought of keeping her to myself struck me like lightning. Jealousy seeped out of my veins. ‹You’re mine. You belong to me.› “I—I don’t know if…”

“Do you not want to have an open relationship?”

“Well, I wouldn’t mind… seeing other people, but…”

“But?”

“I—I don’t—want—you to.”

“You want to have the freedom to have other relationships, but you want me all to yourself.”

“(Um, well… Yes, actually,)” I admitted sheepishly.

“You realize how unfair that is?”

“Well—I can’t stop you from being with other people. I won’t hate you, I won’t get in the way if… if being with someone makes you happy. I—just—thinking about you being with someone else makes me feel… very strongly.”

“You wouldn’t stop me if I had sex with someone or started another relationship?”

“No. I wouldn’t like it, but if you do it, I’ll let you.”

“You sure you wouldn’t like it?”

“Would I like you being with someone else?”

“Yes. Would you enjoy knowing that I’m fucking someone in your bed while wondering who I love more, you or her?”

My brain began to melt.

“Andy? Did I cross a line?”

My clit throbbed. “Ahh… We can—‍” I swallowed. “—we can try—‍” I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “—try it out for a while…”

“You sound nervous.”

“It’s a cr—crazy proposal.”

“But you like it.”

My lips soured. “(Ohhhh…) Alright, yeah, I admit it. I like the idea. A lot. As much as I hate the idea of you sleeping around, it also… fucks with my head. In a good way.”

“That’s what I thought.” I could hear her grin.

“When you—when you use my bed, leave it unmade after you’re finished. And have them hide their underwear somewhere I’ll find it. Oh! Try to get the underwear nice and wet from their juices and sweat… and get their cum on it. I want to be able to smell them. And! They should leave their toothbrush behind! Come up with reasons for me to get out of the apartment so you can invite them over. They can sleep on my side of the bed and get their scent on my pillow and my bathrobe. Let them leave an article of clothing in my closet. And when I return, I want to smell them on you, their musk and their perfume—I want to know someone was in my bed. I want to be able to piece together their life despite never having seen their face, just based on the evidence they’ve left behind. I want you to tell me the two of you are just close friends, I want to meet them in person, even get to know them, become their best friend, all the while knowing what they’ve taken from me.”

There was a short silence. “(Wow.)”

“‘Wow’ what?”

“You do realize you have a huge cuckoldry fetish?”

It ought to have been obvious to me. I had an inexplicable interest in videos of people cucking and being cucked on PornTheater.vids. However, I had pretended with her when we first met that I knew nothing about the art of sex, so I had no choice but to lie, “I never heard of ‘cucking’ before now.”

“Of course you haven’t…”

I shook my head—then realized she couldn’t see me shake my head, so I said, “Nope.”

“You are so innocent, Miss Bachman.”

“Yeah… I sure am…”

“Anyway, I take it you’re happy to have an open relationship.”

“Oh, you bet your ass I’m looking forward to an open relationship, I’m gonna fuck more people than you are.”

She burst into laughter. “You’re on! Winner apologizes for being the most unfaithful by buying the other an expensive piece of jewelry.”

“God, I lo—I’m crazy about you. And you should start saving up for the grand prize. I will accept only the finest jewelry as consolation to me for being outcucked by you.”

She chuckled. “Of course. Expensive and beautiful.”

“I’m looking forward to kicking off this competition right now—with a double.”

“I apologize for stealing the honor of first out the gate by fucking one of my clients.”

I clenched my teeth and breathed with the forcefulness of a bull and felt the need to peek through the keyhole of their closet, possibly filming it to watch it later—though I would have to secure their consent first.

Either way, I was winning. I wanted that jewelry. I had never been interested in jewelry until the moment Judy suggested that the loser receive a material gift to heal their heartache and jealousy… It was such a weak salve against the gaping wounds in our relationship we were intentionally tearing as wide open as we could. The condescension, the impersonality, the absolute disdain one must have for one’s partner to think that gold and rubies could heal the wounds of adultery.

I fucking loved how sick it was.

“(So, you, uh,)” I seethed hornily, “(you’ve gotten a head start.)” My clit swelled.

“Yeah. I’m enjoying myself, letting him plead for me to finish him off. Orgasm denial isn’t one of my kinks, but this guy really likes being tortured.”

“Are you… using your hands?”

“Yes. And mouth. He likes it when I swallow his balls. Not both at the same time, of course, that’s dangerous.”

“Okay…” I tried to slow down my breathing. “I’ll let you get back to… swallowing his balls.”

“Have a good time being their unicorn.”

“As you wish. Think about my taste while you’re licking his cojones.”

“As you wish. Bye-bye.”

We hung up and I resisted the urge to reach down under my waistband and get to work on myself—I had an important job to do. I concentrated on leveling out my breathing, even if I could do nothing about the arousing effect of my jealousy. ‹If she’s gonna fuck other people, I’m fucking twice as many.› I was able to calm my breathing before informing the HIRT agents with a manic smile, “She’s okay with it.”

Love HIRTs

Content Warning:
Manic Episode

“Do my ears deceive me?” said Jessica with a chuckle. “You two are playing a game to see who can be the least faithful? Really?”

“Uh. Yeah. And—you two are going to help me take the lead.”

“Competitive cuckoldry! Now I’ve heard of everything.”

“You have a nice girlfriend,” opined Jacklyn with a giggle.

Jessica peeled off my coat. “And a nice coat.”

“Thanks,” I said, trying to contain my libido until we were ready to get started. “It was almost 2,000 dollars, she bought it for me.”

She spotted the designer’s label. “Holy shit, this is Adrison! Damn, she isn’t just nice to you, she spoils you. Does she own you or something?” She unbuttoned my shirt and removed it.

“No… my other lover does.” They laughed. I couldn’t tell whether they realized it wasn’t a joke.

Jacklyn took off her jacket and shoes then started removing her pants. “I was asking you about your experience with trans women when we got sidetracked.”

“My girlfriend is transgender,” I informed them, “and she was pleasantly surprised by how I handled the reveal.” Jessica got to removing my sports bra then her pants. “Surprised and relieved. I like her cock… a lot. I crave it, I can’t get enough of it, I never want her to pull out.”

“That’s lovely. We’re in for a smooth ride. Have you sucked it?” Jacklyn pulled off her panties then untucked, revealing a penis.

“Yes. But I like swallowing it with my pussy more than with my mouth.”

“I don’t do penetration, except with Jessica. I save myself for her in that way.” Once Jessica had removed her panties, they were both bottomless. “So you’re going to be sucking dick and clit.”

“Is there anything else you don’t want me to do?”

“That’s all.”

“Jessica?”

“Just like Jacklyn saves penetration for me, I save my holes for her, so watch where you put your fingers and tongue.”

“Okay, so… My jaw is going to be sore after this.” They both grinned. “Have you two been tested?”

“One month ago, all negative, and our single partner in all that time also tested negative.”

“Clean, now get to it.”

‹I guess I just… get down on my knees and go to town.› And that’s precisely what I did. Jessica looked moderately dry, whereas I had a hunch that I had enough lubrication for all three of us and a guest. I removed the rest of my clothes and fetched two fingers’ worth with my left hand, then touched her clit and made gentle circles. She gasped, then asked, “Is this your first time—(hah)—fucking two people at the same time?”

“Yes, so don’t expect a breathtaking performance.”

“Doing it in public’s—(mh)—more about the risk, the novelty, the taboo, than—(unh)—about the sex itself. I’d like to keep it going after—(ah)—you’re done with us, eat you out.”

“I don’t have any objections. If I’m going to be honest with myself… I’ll probably have sex with anyone, anywhere, anytime, if I’m horny enough.”

“Wow. You’re a slut.” ‹Don’t fucking call me a sl—wait. There’s nothing wrong with being a slut. It’s okay to be a slut, remember? There’s no shame in it.› “That’s pretty hot.” ‹Oh. Yeah. It’s… hot. Being a slut is hot.› “Don’t neglect Jacklyn’s needs.”

While maintaining circles on Jessica’s clit, I brought my head down to Jacklyn’s cock—and noticed that hers was not only shorter and narrower than Judy’s, it also didn’t have as much skin. “Jacklyn… Are you circumcised?”

“Obviously.”

“I’ve seen pictures, but this is the first cut penis I’ve seen in person.”

“It doesn’t take a rabbi to recognize a circumcision.”

“If you say so. Would it be rude for me to ask why you were circumcised?”

She rolled her eyes. “Maybe I’m Jewish.”

Her sarcasm went over my head; I grinned and exclaimed, “No way! So am I!”

She sighed in irritation. “I was joking. Circumcision is simply what they do to factory-fresh penises in this great nation. Just suck my dick already.”

‹Am I just an object to them?› I pushed the question to the back burner of my mind—where over the course of several minutes it would creep towards a boil—and returned to the matter of her cock. I slicked up my free hand and massaged her tip.

“What are you doing? Stick it in your mouth.”

“I’m trying to give you an erection.”

“You’re doing it the slow way.”

“(Ugh. Fine,)” I replied with frustration greater than hers, and wrapped my lips around her cockhead. I looked up and she was smiling smugly. I massaged the underside with my tongue, and felt the whole thing gradually fill my mouth.

Just then I remembered that I was supposed to be fingering Jessica, too, so I checked in with my left hand to make sure I was doing so; to my satisfaction, I was maintaining a consistent rhythm with her clit, and her eyes were closed. By the time I was done checking in, Jacklyn’s 6-inch cock was fully erect. I slowly pulled my head back, dragging my tongue along the underside, until her tip was just inside my mouth, then commenced the actual sucking, causing her to groan and snicker in delight. I pulled my head back a little further, so that my lips were just crowning the rim of her tip, inspiring another utterance from her. I thrust my head back down, as quickly as I could; a little too quickly, in fact, as I swallowed her cock so far that I gagged, but not before breathing in the—

Orchard vast and deep of root

Tempts the nose with tender fruit

Gorged with floral, sweet, and sour

Birthed and raised by mother flower

Pollinated by a bee

From the father’s leeward tree;

Meet they never all their lives

But make their love by honeyed hives.

Jacklyn cackled. “I love it when they choke on me, Jess.”

“I love the lewd sounds they make,” replied Jessica. “And she’s extra cute.”

‹This is humiliating… but I want to satisfy them, I want them to remember me later and be willing to help me again if I ever need it. I’m desperate. But desperation is a productive reaction to necessity, isn’t it?› Somewhere deeper in my mind I knew damn well that desperation was unhealthy, if not outright self-destructive. But I wanted this occasion to be memorable for them, so I decided to give them plenty of what they enjoyed most. I withdrew my mouth from her shaft and slammed her cock back down my throat with a gag and a cough.

“Sounds like she enjoys gagging on your cock!” observed Jessica with amusement.

“And, fuck, does her throat feel good!” admitted Jacklyn. She then grabbed my head and took control, moving my head up and down her shaft, choking me with each thrust—

I found myself slipping my free hand down and over my mound, curling my finger into my sopping-wet pussy and massaging my G-spot vigorously.

“Oh my God, she’s fingering herself!” exclaimed Jessica. “Look at her, listen to her.” Between choking sounds I heard myself moaning passionately.

“She’s a fucking whore!” shouted Jacklyn ecstatically. “Fuck, she’s—(ah)—the perfect sex toy.”

“I can’t wait to have her suck my clit.”

“(Oh…) Her mouth is—(Jesus)—so good, you’re—(fuck)—you’re gonna love it.” As she fucked my mouth, her groans grew louder—and so did mine. Then she grunted, and, one last time, planted her cock as far into my mouth as she could, and started to twitch, leaving something salty on the back of my tongue. Even as I struggled to breathe, my right hand massaged my G-spot as I thought to myself, ‹I’m good at sex. In fact, it’s the only thing I’m good at. And I’m a slut, so the natural thing to do is to let anyone who desires my sexy little body fuck me to my heart’s content.› And as I thought this to myself, my desire to be used grew stronger and stronger, and my self-stimulation grew more and more aggressive, until, as Jacklyn wrenched my head off of her cock…

Sweet nectar pooling ’pon my tongue stirs lust

Within my heart and brings with it a prize,

A jewel pearly white and rich with life,

Which eagerly I swallow with a gulp.

And as her seed travails my throat I cum;

My muscles taut, my dripping quiv’ring cunt,

Poor famished Tantalus of dainty flesh

Like fruit in reach my soul doth fiercely grasp.

I moan throughout each course of something more

Resplendent even than a queen-fit feast,

And thus till satisfied I stuff myself

Upon a single load of silken jizz.

“She swallowed!” announced Jacklyn ecstatically. As the orgasm ended and my muscles relaxed and her semen dripped down my throat, I collapsed against her leg, panting heavily, and tried to catch my breath. The pleasure, which still lingered as a gentle, calming buzz, had been so strong at its peak that in its midst I thought that my head might explode. She prodded me with her foot. “You stopped fingering my girlfriend. Get back to work.” I struggled to get back onto my weak, shaking knees, and could hardly move my hazardously relaxed arms.

“She came so hard that she can’t get up,” observed Jessica. “Hey, girl. Are you anything but a whore?”

‹That’s an insulting question, stupidly easy to answer.› “Absolutely nothing else but the sluttiest whore to ever suck a cock,” I said, stating the obvious for her. “You wanna know something?”

“No. I want you to suck my clit, whore.”

Drunk on pleasure, I admitted—proudly admitted—something that only someone with (temporarily) unshakable self-respect would admit: “Just a couple of days ago, I rented out my body for one hour for a thousand dollars, 20 times the minimum rate established by the Sex Workers Guild. I’m an expensive whore, and I expect the two of you to come up with a solution to my problem as fair compensation.”

“No,” said Jacklyn.

I stood my ground, sure of myself, confident in my power over them. “I’m not eating out Jessica until you two figure out a way to help me move forward with my job.”

Jessica threw Jacklyn an angry, if concerned, face, and they looked at each other, communicating wordlessly until silence was no longer the most efficient way to express their thoughts, at which point they switched to whispers. As I transitioned into the gentle tail end of my orgasm, I regained my strength and rose to kneel, shoulders squared, spine straight, chest proud, eyes sharp. They stole glances at me as they quietly discussed their quandary until, suddenly, they hushed. Jessica, as the one being deprived of oral sex, reported their decision: “We’ll clear a path to the scene—assuming you know where it is.”

I grinned victoriously. “Top floor, room 410, right next to the stairs.”

“Perfect. We can’t give you a precise ETA, but it should take less than an hour to beat the path. We’ll string red ‘danger asbestos’ tape along the path. If you need access to other rooms, ask first—do not cross the tape.”

I was supremely satisfied. “Thanks.” I then kneeled in front of her, gently spread her legs, dipped my face into her pussy—

Cod, fresh-caught

Dipped in flour

Tuber chips

Crisply fried

Piping hot

Malt brewed sour

“Mm,” I quip

(My tongue’s tied)

“There we go—‍” I sucked. “—‍ooo—‍!” She braced against the ceiling and squeaked, “(Hah!) —girl.”

I varied the suction, and played with her little nub with my tongue, causing her to vocalize more loudly. She wrapped her legs around me, then grabbed my hair and yanked on it, sending a shock through my body and a smothered yelp through my mouth. I had cum only recently, but I could feel my body reacting to the pain of having my hair pulled by readying itself for another round. I followed my instincts by wetting the fingers on one hand to rub my own clitoris and sticking a finger on the other hand into my pussy to resume playing with my G-spot; being extra-sensitive from my recent orgasm, the tactile response proved a little overwhelming—though that hardly bothered me in this moment of passion.

I struggled to keep track of what I was doing with my various body parts, but, hearing Jessica’s loud moans, I concluded I was doing just fine. She yanked my hair again, and I felt the same arousing shock as before. I couldn’t stop myself from briefly opening my mouth to demand, “Keep pulling,” before resuming sucking and licking her.

To my pleasure, she began pulling on my hair in a rhythm which I tried to match with the stimulation of my G-spot, and as they approached synchrony, the sensations interfered and amplified, bringing me closer and closer to orgasm… but before I could reach it, she cried out in ecstasy as I felt a stream of something moisten my chin. I continued sucking until she pulled my face off of her pussy, shouting, “Oh, fuck! Too much stimulation!” I felt myself close in on my orgasm—then

I splash my hands and legs, propel and drift
upon the ocean not too far from home,
a day trip undertaken, self-care gift.

Each stroke massages muscle, calming me,
an anxious being scared of loneliness,
estranged and yet at peace with privacy.

A dozen years without the calming mains
to ground me, help me find a peace within
a world designed to break its denizens.

My muscles, sore and sluggish, failure nears,
abandon me, betray me to the deep
where screams are trapped in bubbles no-one hears.

But here I find the peace I’ve craved so long;
I breathe the water, grow a tail, and join
the underwater creatures in their song.

Forget my life ashore, for here at hand
are all the friends and merriment I need
and naught that worried me while trapped on land.

My throat rasped, called out, signaled to these fellow libertines that I had finished myself. My face fell between Jessica’s legs, planted in her pussy. She unceremoniously pushed me off and onto my back with the same delicacy one might exercise in kicking aside a pebble in one’s path. I didn’t mind.

They chatted approvingly about how slutty and submissive I was as they put their clothes back on, and I savored their insults to my self-respect through the haze of my lingering orgasm, chest heaving, struggling not to smile. Once I had recovered sufficiently from my little death, I did as they did and redressed. As I donned my navy coat, Jacklyn complimented me: “Good job. You’re the best quickie we’ve had in months. Submissive and slutty—sooo much fun to use.” She gave me her business card. “Any time you’re in the mood to choke on my cock, give me a call.”

Jessica patted me on the back. “I had fun pulling your hair.” She gave it a gentle yank—a smile snuck out onto my face—then handed me her own card. “Where’s your card?”

“I don’t have any yet, I just started this job today.”

She unlocked her phone. “Then tell me your number so we can let you know when the route is ready. And maybe when the three of us have some free time we can have some more fun.” I gave them both of my numbers. “Thanks.” She poked me in the chest as she told me, “Next time, I want to eat you out.”

My skin had recently recovered from the flush of sex, but that was canceled out by the blush that spread across my cheeks. “I would love that.” We exited the van, sweaty and blissful.

Waiting for us outside was my CSI crew and the patrol officers in charge of the perimeter.

I froze like a deer, terrified that they heard us or would figure out through other clues what had gone down in the van while they were waiting for me, but Jessica gave me another pat on the back and a wink, before the two of them headed off to supervise.

I had successfully finished off two people in exchange for a victory, but I had no clue that my first day on the job had much, much more in store for me.

My day had gone from good to bad to excellent. I was thriving.

Field Promotion

Content Warning:
Manic Episode

Lead Crime Scene Investigator Peter Laskey—average height, 30 or so, balding jaundice-blond with emerging gray hairs and matching walrus mustache, wearing the same CSI polo shirt as the rest of his team, and blessed with an extraordinary number of forehead wrinkles for a man his age, whom I had never met in person but a few details of whose reputation preceded him—came out of nowhere and failed to introduce himself as he told me with not a milligram of cheer, “Congratulations on the express train promotion from fired to detective.” I immediately prepared to go on the offensive by scanning his face for anything that could shed light on his hostility. His eyes told me he suspected some kind of favoritism was to blame, but his mouth bore the frustration of not knowing the details. His failure to offer a handshake was redundant in signaling that he didn’t care for me. “We’re being denied entry until they’ve inspected the whole building for asbestos.”

“I’ve hammered out an agreement with HIRT. They’re going to clear a path to the room for us as quickly as they can.”

He shrugged. “Are they removing the asbestos from the route?”

As far as I knew, they were not responsible for removing asbestos, but rather for verifying its absence. This distinction, however, seemed irrelevant to me. “They’ll be verifying that there isn’t any asbestos along the route before marking it with tape.”

He shook his head. “I want verification that any asbestos has been removed before I send my men in there.”

“Peter… If they’ve verified there’s no asbestos, there is nothing to remove. If they say there’s no asbestos here, that’s just as good as them saying, ‘there used to be asbestos here, but it’s been removed.’ Does that make sense?”

His voice rose to a level of hostility that pushed the norms of civility. “You’re playing semantics, and in this situation that means you’re also playing with the health and safety of my men. If you continue harassing me about this…” He left the threat unsaid as my irritation made itself apparent through my expression.

‹Oh my God, he’s an idiot. I’m working with idiots. They gave me a team of nincompoops. Did they do this on purpose? Does the captain hate me? Is it because I’m the fuckup who he expects to fail miserably at her job and embarrass the squad, or is it because I’m Somers’s property?› Then, an infuriating possibility occurred to me. ‹Do they know whose body I’m looking for? Did they delay the CSI team intentionally, so that the demolition would happen before the investigators arrived? Did they send a bunch of incompetent slackers to thwart the investigation by fucking up the evidence collection?› I fumed, as my hastily formed hunches gave the same answer for each question: ‘yes’ after ‘yes’ after ‘yes’. Or, more succinctly, ‘all of the above’.

He somehow took on an even more infuriatingly defiant tone. “Bachman, are you angry? Because if you take your anger out on anyone here, we’re going to have a probl—‍”

‹He isn’t just an idiot, he’s an asshole.› “No,” I said, cutting him off. “I’m not angry.” I was doing a terrible job of hiding the fact that I was angry, but as long as I didn’t violate his contractual or civil rights, that didn’t really matter. “I am merely struggling to communicate with you.”

“Perhaps you should work on your communication skills, then. I would expect anybody else in your position to be competent in them, but I can’t say you’re inspiring any confidence.”

I managed to keep myself from scowling. I did such a good job that I was able to smile. A furious, jagged smile, full of teeth that probably looked much sharper than they were.

“Esti, this guy is an obstacle, and you need to eliminate him.”

“You’re right,” I told her. “And I will do so as soon as an opportunity presents itself.”

Laskey’s eyebrows popped up briefly in surprise, then relaxed as he smiled in victorious satisfaction.

“Peter, you’ve been on the force for almost 10 years, right? That’s coming up on August 11th.”

At first surprised, then suspicious, he replied, “Yes. How did you know?”

“I remember dates. You celebrated 5 years of service in 2019; there was a party, I was invited, I didn’t attend because I didn’t know you. Do you know how long I had been on the force when they let me go?”

“No.”

“Twelve-and-a-half.”

He scoffed. “Barely a year.”

“Years,” ‹dingus,› “not months. I just said I was invited to your party 5 years ago, which means I’d have to be around at least that far back. Twelve-and-a-half years.”

“So?”

“I’ve been on the force longer than you. I worked the one beat that no one else could tolerate for the last year of my career. I was miserable. You know what I got out of slaving away as a meter maid, the most hated kind of cop, the scum on the soles of the shoes worn by other scum?”

“An officer of the month commendation.” He was smirking. Smirking. I wanted to slap him, which was unusual for me, I had never been violent in the past.

“I was kicked to the curb,” I said, maintaining my strained smile, which had some authenticity to it despite my rage, because I had something delicious planned for him.

“I heard you were underperforming.”

“My talents were misallocated. When I was rehired, I was given a job that better aligns with my skill set.”

“You have skills?” He was trying not to snicker at his own wit.

“I wouldn’t have this job if the chief didn’t like me.”

He scoffed. “We both know his liking you is the reason you have this job. Everybody knows.”

I nodded, and in a low voice, replied, “(We’re finally on the same page. If I go to Dennis…)” By using the chief’s first name, I was implying that he and I were close. “(…and tell him that my CSI team is unable to start their investigation because the Lead Investigator refused to accept the green light from another agency, and that, after I tried to explain to him why proceeding would be perfectly safe, he called me a ‘fire crotch whore’…)” I paused for effect, and his smirk disappeared. “(…do you think you would keep your job for as long as I kept mine?)”

His eyes grew big.

“He likes me more than he likes you. I wonder… if I were to look into your disciplinary history, would I find anything derogatory?”

Higher-ups love the word ‘derogatory’—and the people at the bottom hate it. It is a particularly potent invocation, an arcane utterance that cannot be countered by the simple magics of rank-and-file police officers, a curse whose effects they must instead endure with patience and courage and emotional restraint, lest they fall victim to its career-ending effects. He was silent as he struggled to figure out his next move. I could see the fear growing, wrapping around his face, like a vine choking a tree, slowly lapping up his sap.

“They’re going to be working on that route for the next hour. If you’d like, that can be your deadline for deciding to follow my orders. Does that work for you? Yes or no.”

“You’re giving me an ultimatum? This is bullshit,” he hissed.

“That was not a yes or a no, so I’ve decided to change your deadline. You have until I’ve finished setting up my account on my G-phone to tell me that you’re going in there.”

I unholstered my work phone and typed in my username.

“Ma’am, I don’t—‍” ‹Oh, I’m ‘ma’am’, now? You’re scared shitless, ain’tcha?›

I shushed him and typed in my password.

“We can’t go—‍”

“‘Yes’ or ‘no’, Laskey.”

“But if they don’t fully—‍”

“Is that a ‘no’? Am I telling the big boss about your dereliction of duty, or are we doing our jobs once HIRT tells us it’s safe?”

My phone authenticated with the server and began configuring my email and apps. “Ma’am…”

“It’s gonna take a while for the contacts to load from the server, so at this point I would have to wait to call the chief, unless I knew his number by heart.” I opened the phone app and tapped in the chief’s number by heart.

He breathed an insignificant breath of relief.

“Unfortunately for you…” I showed him my phone screen, ready for me to initiate the call. “…I do know his number by heart.”

“Wait!”

I hit the ‘call’ button.

“Detective, please!” The phone rang once.

I reveled in his anxiety, my mouth stretching into a wide, satisfied smirk.

“Detective Bachman, I didn’t call you a— (fire crotch whore…)” He whispered ‘fire crotch whore’, fully aware that he shouldn’t be saying it. The phone rang twice.

“I didn’t understand you over the ringing, can you tell me what you didn’t call me a little bit louder?” The phone rang thrice.

“I didn’t say ‘fire crotch whore’,” he repeated a little more forcefully.

“You’re gonna have to say those last three words again.” The phone rang a fourth time.

“Fire crotch whore,” he enunciated, clearly, passionately, not shouted but plenty loud enough for all the other investigators to hear. The phone rang a fifth time as every head waiting by the hotel swiveled to face us, eyes wide with dreadful disbelief, darting back and forth between the man who had with frantic deliberation uttered those words and the tiny redhead woman at whom he had directed them. Under most conditions in that department, it was okay to say these kinds of things about a woman as long as either: A, only people other than her hear it, such that everyone can plausibly deny that it was said; or B, only she hears it, such that there are no witnesses to corroborate her claim. His sin was in allowing the two categories to mix.

Silence ensued, then, “Chief Plaut’s office, Tia Reagan speaking, how may I help you?”

Loudly enough for the other CSIs to overhear, I replied, “Hello Missus Reagan, this is Detective Andrea Bachman; I have a matter that the chief will wish to nip in the bud forthwith.” To Laskey, I whispered, “(It’s not too late.)” But he was frozen.

“Andrea… Oh! Of course, Detective, right away.”

Silence as I was placed on hold. “Laskey…?” I asked, giving him one last chance. But dread’s grip on his throat was so strong that he couldn’t speak.

The phone picked up. “Chief Plaut, what’s the problem, Detective?”

“Sorry to bother you sir, I would normally go to the concerned employee’s immediate superior, but this is a very delicate situation, and I believe you are the best equipped to deal with it.”

“Fire away,” he replied cheerfully.

“I’m putting you on speaker.” I tapped the button, then held the phone between myself and Laskey. “The Lead CSI for my current investigation, Peter Laskey, spoke a few interesting words a few seconds ago. Laskey, would you care to repeat them for the chief?” He was still petrified, unable to reply. “I’m sorry, Chief, he’s not complying. I suppose I’ll have to be the one to tell you what he said to me within earshot of his entire team.”

“Alright. What did he say?”

“‘Fire… crotch… whore’.”

His sigh was audible. “Can you take me off speaker, Detective?” I tapped and held the phone to my ear. “Andrea, this is… unfortunate, and unacceptable. Have him report to his superior immediately… one of the patrol cars can take him back to base. In the meantime, use your best judgment to pick a temporary Lead Investigator. If he or she performs admirably, he or she will take Laskey’s position permanently.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’m sorry this happened, Andrea, and on your first day back on the job, of all days. Have his words affected you?”

“It hurts,” I half-lied, “and I’m feeling somewhat unsafe now,” I lied, operating under the delusion that my work environment harbored no serious threats to my safety, “but I’ll be fine. I think a few days without the responsibility of a job did some good for my resiliency.”

“I’m glad you’re confident that you’ll make it through this, but even if the harm wasn’t permanent, we can’t tolerate Laskey’s sexual harassment. I’ll see to it this gets taken care of in a manner that satisfies the department’s standards as well as yours. In the meantime, continue doing your best.”

‹Laskey’s tongue is doggerel next to your eager hands, Tommy—but all my complaints were shredded before they could make it to the chief’s desk. I couldn’t bring myself to report you. It would make me a hypocrite. And I don’t want you to think of me that way.› We exchanged farewells and hung up. “Laskey, Chief wants you to report back to your supervisor. Immediately. Hitch a ride with one of the patrol cars.” He stood there dumbly, half angry, half scared shitless. “Laskey, I told you what the chief told me. Do you want to add insubordination to your growing rap sheet?”

He pondered his response, then, meekly, muttered, “(No, ma’am.)” He departed. I shivered. ‹God damn, I’m a motherfucking girlboss.›

“Who wants a temporary promotion?” I asked the CSI team with a less-aggressive smile.

Several raised their hands.

“If you do a good job, you’re looking at a permanent promotion. If you fuck up, you will answer to the chief. Unless you feel confident you can do the job competently, keep your hand down.”

All but one disappeared; the remaining hand belonged to Georgina Dominguez, who’d had her 31st birthday back in March, standing 5′5″, boyish features, black hair in a bun, wearing the same white ‘CSI’-emblazoned polo and navy slacks as all the other investigators.

What little I’d overheard about Georgina indicated a skillful and willful diligence, and a ferociously competitive attitude towards climbing the ladder—so ferocious that she had a reputation for not hesitating to reach for opportunities by stepping on others or destroying their careers, whether by snitching on others’ procedural mistakes or going for the juiciest evidence on the scene or downplaying the importance of her fellow officers’ evidence in court to make hers more important. Everyone in her team, including her lead (but, unfortunately for her, no one higher up), tried to stay on her good side. In other words, she was the perfect replacement for the oppositional dick I had just disposed of—assuming she didn’t try to cut my throat, too. “Alright. Dominguez, you’re in charge. Don’t be afraid to make that clear to anyone who questions your authority.” I thought perhaps a hint of a grin showed through her serious exterior.

HIRT successfully blocking the demolition, the very enjoyable threesome in the van, bullying Jessica and Jacklyn into giving me what I wanted, obliterating Laskey’s career with a bit of manipulation and abuse of the favoritism that installed me, finding a replacement Lead Investigator who I knew would do everything short of sexually pleasuring me to prove herself my equal if not superior to me… These accomplishments left my brain buzzing like I’d just taken a few dozen doses of Adderall and sucked every cock that cruised down Adams Avenue at a kilodollar per head; I felt like nothing short of superhuman. I was getting things done, I was asserting myself, I was a boss.

And I wanted the victories to keep on comin’. A quiet voice fluttered up to me and landed on my shoulder and whispered that I might be the greatest detective of all time. And it was so, so tempting to believe it. So I did, for the time being.

But… there wasn’t any more bossing around to be done until the path to our objective had been cleared, so I checked my emails. To both my relief and my annoyance, I counted only a handful to keep me occupied until we could proceed.

The first was HR asking me to fill out a survey which I ignored but held onto in case I became desperate for a diversion.

The second was Data Systems Unit letting me know that my laptop was waiting for me on my desk, and that I had been granted full access to the SVPD Offender/Suspect Database, the CAP Unit SharePoint intranet site, and the CAP Unit Person of Interest (POI) Database, as well as limited access to the POI Databases of the Organized Crime and Domestic Extremism Units. ‹Excellent.›

The third let me know that I had been granted unlimited access to the National Sex Offender Registry. ‹I do not give a damn.›

The fourth was a reminder that until I completed Criminal Justice Information Services (or CJIS) Security Awareness Training, I would have to ask my supervisor, Detective Sergeant Daniel Matthews, to submit my requests to NCIC (the FBI’s National Crime Information Center central crime database), but I didn’t trust Matthews. Then again, I didn’t trust men in general. The only man in that entire department who had ever treated me with anything resembling sincere kindness and genuine character was Captain Hobarth, back in Parking Enforcement. (Or so I told myself.)

The fifth was my good ol’ pal Peter Laskey informing me that the CSI team was having to load their equipment the ‘long and hard’ way (his choice of words forced me to snicker), because they had been unable to park their van next to their loading dock.

A yellow BMW had parked in the reserved spot abutting the dock. A yellow flag popped up in my head.

The car couldn’t be moved because the clearance for that section of the garage was too low for the tow truck; and to complicate matters further the van was moved further from the loading spot by an unknown individual—and to make things worse, the key had been removed from the ignition, necessitating that they hunt down the spare.

I had a hunch, a dreadful hunch, which guided my hand into my coat pocket and curled my fingers around a key that I had used only once before, in the recent past. “Well. Okay. I fucked up.” I could feel my high slipping away. “They were late because of me, this place could have been demolished because of my mistake. This whole case could have been ruined because of my carelessness.” I spiraled. “I’m not cut out for this.” I scrutinized my badge with wretched self-disdain. “I’m not qualified to carry this. I’m the last person who ought to be on this case.”

“Esti, don’t blame yourself.”

“I parked in the CSI loading zone and stranded their van. I fucked up. This case was nearly completely fucked because of me.”

“It probably didn’t make that big a difference in time. You… um… did your business with those people in the time it took them to get here, it wasn’t a huge delay. And if it was a big deal, they should have phoned you to let you know about the delay, not send the warning via email.”

“If they’d told me what happened… I could’ve brought back the van key.”

“See? It’s not your fault.”

“Not my fault… entirely.”

She patted me on the shoulder. “No one’s perfect. Not even me.”

“You aren’t quite perfect. I’m far from it.”

“You’ve been doing a good job. You made one little mistake. And what really mattered was the warrant getting here in a timely manner, which it didn’t. The patrol officers made a much bigger mistake. You saved the day by getting these people to stop the demolition. And now, apparently, they’re letting you in within the hour, I’m guessing that’s your work, too. Your mistake cost them a few minutes, while your quick wits bought you time, cut the wait by 71 hours, and saved the day.”

“Hm.” ‹It isn’t that simple…›

“Point to the part of my argument that’s wrong. Go ahead. Tell me I have no idea what I’m talking about.”

I thought about it. And I had nothing. She was right, my failure was outweighed by my success. “Alright. Thanks, Shosh. You saved me from crashing. But if I want to avoid future emotional catastrophes, I’ll need more victories. A string of them, an uninterrupted stream of success, to maintain my 737 MAX-worthy altitude. I need to be high-on-life at all times; if I allow my mood to falter for even a moment, I risk spiraling into oblivion. Eternal depression.”

“I think there’s something else wrong with you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Worse than just depression, and it’s gonna kill you if you don’t rein it in, or something else just as bad. Most of the time you’re down in the dumps, but sometimes you’re very passionate, sometimes you’re… kind of wild. But I could never put my finger on it. Still can’t.”

“Huh.” I needed to be able to land and refuel eventually, but I was afraid I was going to crash instead, and spectacularly. I stared at Laskey’s email, which had so easily cracked the foundation of my ego after so many other events had built that ego up higher and higher. ‹I’m so fragile. Not just depressive, I’m volatile. I need to see my psychiatrist. He’s kind of incompetent, though, he only ever responds to my complaints by filling out a sheet or two from his prescription pad.›

My purse was slipping off my shoulder, so I took it off to reposition it. And in the middle of the mess within the unzipped maw, I spotted a business card. I reached for it and read, ‘UCSV Medical Center…’ Two letters into reading the organization name, I remembered where it came from—the desk of the woman who had listened to me ramble about how horrible and hated I felt being a police officer then determined that I was unfit for duty. ‹Yes. I should see Doctor Huygen, instead. I checked the time. It’ll be another 35 minutes until we’re ready to proceed.›

I dialed the number on her card and navigated a couple of automated menus until somebody picked up: “UCSV Medical Center Adult Outpatient Psychiatric, this is Margie, how may I help you?”

“Hi, I’m Andrea Bachman, I’m calling to talk to Doctor Huygen, she said she was accepting new patients. And she seemed to really want me to be one of them.”

“Yes, she is currently taking on new patients. Let’s see what we have… Oh, you’re in luck! There’s a cancellation tomorrow at 3:30. Does that work for you?”

‹It’s after the end of my shift, so that should work for me. But…› “That would be—I’m kind of—I’m thinking really fast and I need to talk to her. Like, now.”

“I can transfer you to our access and crisis line.”

“No, I need to talk to her, she was able to analyze my problems and help me when I saw her.”

“I’m afraid we can’t discuss protected health information over the telephone without prior written consent.”

“If I don’t talk to her now, I’m going to fall from a cliff into a pit of despair.”

Her tone shifted, becoming saccharinely gentle. “Are you safe, Miss Bachman?”

“Yes, but I feel like I’m really high in the air and like I’ll fall if—‍” I heard indistinct chatter in the background of the call. “—if I don’t talk to her, if I don’t do everything I can to keep myself going. I’m like a bullet train at full speed and I’m afraid of being derailed by something.” I waited for her to reply. “Hello? I’m kind of… scared. I don’t know what’s going to happen to me.”

“Miss Bachman, Doctor Huygen just came out of her office and is able to talk to you.”

I heard the phone being handed over. “Andrea?” I felt comforted by her voice.

“Oh, thank God…”

“This is Doctor Huygen.”

“Yes, I recognized your voice.”

“You mentioned that you’re somewhere very high.”

“No, I’m sitting on the hood of my car.”

“Oh! So you’re safe.” Her voice swelled with relief. “Alright. You aren’t thinking about harming yourself, you’re simply feeling unwell.”

“I feel great. But that’s the problem. I feel good. No—better than good.”

“I see. That’s unexpected for someone with major depressive disorder. How long have you felt this way?”

“Since this morning. I officially have a girlfriend as of last night, I got my job back and a promotion to detective, my dream job… Getting my badge was absolutely magical. I got my first case, and I negotiated with some agents from the Department of Environmental Health to get them to make my job easier, I had sex with them to convince them to get them to work faster so that we can start our investigation, I—‍”

“I hate to interrupt you, Andrea, but did you say that you had sex with government officials for a favor?”

“Yes, in the back of one of their work vans. In exchange they agreed to prioritize clearing a path to the crime scene so my CSI team can do their job sooner.”

“Do you use sex to get what you want on a regular basis?”

‹Do I? I do, now.› “Before Saturday, no; and I only agreed to become someone’s sex slave to get my job this morning.”

“You’re saying… that you’re trading sexual favors in exchange for a career.”

“I don’t think the word ‘favors’ fully encapsulates the extent of my service to her.” There was silence on the other end. “Doctor?”

“Does any of this seem ‘normal’ to you, Andrea?”

“Um. It’s… not something most people would do as willingly as I have. Or… as enthusiastically.”

“I’m glad you still have a grasp on normalcy. Do you think that what you’re doing is healthy?”

“I’m happy. Well. For now, at least.”

“‘Happy’… Hm. Hopefully we can find a way to ensure your happiness is a healthy one. Have you ever felt this way before this morning?”

“The first time I took lomoxetine for a couple of weeks, about 12 years back. I felt like I could do anything I wanted to, and I started… (um…) stealing from people. Nothing valuable, just pencils and pens and sticky note pads and beverages and lunches. Just little things. I got a huge rush out of it. I thought I could be a great thief, with ambitions of someday stealing paintings and statues and fortunes. So when the time came to take the next step in my career as a thief, I started thinking about stealing people’s car keys and holding them ransom, and then maybe the cars themselves… but I blabbed to Doctor Freeman about my exciting plans before I did anything felonious, and he took me off the stuff.”

“Ah. I see. Have you been using any controlled substances as of late?”

“Other than Adderall, no. And—well, I’ve been microdosing psilocybin, but that isn’t doing anything as far as I can tell. But I definitely feel like I’m high on something right now.”

“Can you describe this high you are experiencing?”

“I have so much energy, and I feel driven. I have goals, not just dreams, goals that I know I can fulfill and I’m trying to fulfill them, and I’m good at the things I do so I know it’s going to be so easy to make them come true. My path has never been more brightly lit… and… the view from here has never been so beautiful.”

“That’s a pretty radical change in perspective from when we last spoke. I may have a new diagnosis for you, but the hospital’s HIPAA policies don’t allow me to discuss it over an incoming phone call. You and I and the rest of your care team will find a way to incorporate optimism and enthusiasm into your treatment, but with a little more moderation. And on the note of you receiving treatment, can you come in to see me, right now?”

“No, I’m at work. We’re inspecting the crime scene in half an hour.”

“Alright. Then we can wait for you to be finished with work. Can you spare an hour to talk with me in my office at the end of your shift?”

“I don’t really know how long this is going to take. It’s just one hotel room, but CSI could end up being extra thorough and send me into overtime.”

“Andrea, it’s very important that you see me as soon as possible so that I can help you land gracefully. If it’s at all possible, you would be doing yourself a favor if you were to wrap up what you’re doing as soon as is feasible, then come see me so that I can prepare you for a soft, cushy landing when you eventually come down. And if you can’t manage that before our office closes, you can come to our emergency department, where the on-call psychiatrist will give you the help you need.”

That last suggestion nearly sent me into a panic. “I’m not going to the emergency room! They’re going to think I’m crazy and they’re going to put me in a straitjacket and lock me up in a padded cell, and then they’ll take away my job again, my dream job, I don’t want them to take it away, I just got it, it’s been twelve years and just now I—‍”

“(Andrea, Andrea, you have no need to worry about any of that happening,)” she said softly, “(but I understand from experience that overcoming your fears can be an intimidating, complex, long-term process, and you don’t need to get started on it right away. So don’t worry about the emergency department unless you find yourself in danger. Just come see me right now so that I can help you.)”

“Okay, but… I can’t leave work right now.” My exact words earlier had been ‘I need to talk to her. Like, now.’

“Can’t you ask someone to take over your task?”

“No. I’m the only person I trust.”

“You’re not the only detective at the police department, I’m sure there are plenty of others with enough experience to fill in for the day.”

“I don’t trust them because—‍” I cupped my hand over the microphone and whispered, “—because the victim was someone the cops hated. And I have to be careful who I share information with.”

“There aren’t any other detectives you trust?”

“None.”

She sighed, then with muffled voices talked with the clerk for a couple of seconds. “Andrea, can you come in first thing in the morning? 8 o’clock?”

“That’s eating into my shift. I need to be here every moment of my workday to sift through the evidence.”

“What time does your shift start?”

“7.”

“Alright. If I come in at 5:30 in the morning to meet with you for an hour, will you be here?”

‹It’s going to be hard getting up that early if the overtime runs too late, but…› “I… guess I can do that.”

“Good. I’m relieved we were able to work something out that works for you. I’ll see you tomorrow at 5:30, bright and early. Stay safe. And remember, if you feel any urges to act on thoughts of harming yourself or others, please call 911 or have someone take you to the nearest emergency department.”

“Sure.” ‹Yeah, right. I’m not going to the ER, and if I was stupid enough to let them put me in a straitjacket, I’d save myself the cost of an ambulance ride and just drive myself.› We said our goodbyes and hung up. “(I am so fucked up.)”

The Catgirl
Who Tasted
Like Strawberries

Content Warning:
Dried Blood;
Manic Episode;
Whorephobia

With dread weighing down my stomach I stared at the early morning alarm I had set on my phone. After a few minutes of this numb detachment my phone rang, and I recognized the number.

“Hey, Jessica.”

“We’ve cleared a path, Sex Doll.”

My new nickname set off a chain of happy chemical reactions in my head. I checked my phone’s clock, and observed, “It’s only been 30 minutes.”

“Yeah, there’s no fuckin’ asbestos fluff or even dust lying around—this building hasn’t seen a saw or drill since opening day; the ceiling, walls, and floor are all intact and undisturbed. The people running this place were probably too cheap to remodel, which is good for them, honestly—it’s astonishingly well-preserved, and they avoided giving themselves and their guests cancer. We’ve been wasting our time on a formality. Your people are safe, go ahead, follow the red tape, Dorothy. And don’t worry, we left your crime scene pristine.”

“Alright! Thanks. I love—‍” ‹Fuck me, how the hell do I kill this ‘I love you’ reflex?› “—love it when things go my way. Ta-ta.” We ended the call. I didn’t care if I had any more emails, I needed to keep the air flowing over my wings, so I found (A)LCSI Dominguez. “They’ve cleared a path. Let’s get going.”

“Alright people, move out!” she ordered with confidence, no doubt savoring her newfound authority.

We followed the red tape through the hall, up the stairs, and to the room; on the way up, I told the new lead, “Dominguez, I want you on that knob.”

She snorted, then caught herself and blushed. “Of—of course, Detective.”

“Did I say something amusing?”

“No.”

“Because it sounded like you were going to laugh, but changed your mind.”

“It was nothing, Detective. I misunderstood your request.”

“Are you going to make any wisecracks?”

“No… ma’am.”

“Good. Well?”

“‘Well’ what?”

“Would you mind getting on that knob for me?”

She swallowed. “Yes, Detective, I’m on it.” She ordered one of the photographers to capture the door, and while they did so she grabbed a printing kit from the team’s toolbox before getting to work. Once she had the prints, she pushed the door open and gave the room a visual once-over. “Is that the blood ‘pool’?”

I looked where she was pointing. “I believe so.”

“It’s tiny. I’ve had peri—paper cuts that bled more than that.”

“Somebody thought it was scary.”

“Apparently.” Her team began trickling in, one at a time, sweeping for clues underfoot as they crawled in and spread out. “And I assume you want me specifically to lift the inside knob, as well.”

“Yes, if you don’t mind.”

While the team scoured the room, Georgina took care of the other knob. “Detective, may I ask why you asked your lead to take care of a couple sets of prints, when she could be, y’ know, leading?”

I bent down and whispered in her ear, “(You’re the most competent person here, by a long mile…)”

I thought… that I might have heard her… of all things… gasp.

“(…and I don’t trust a single one of the others to do anything right. Those fingerprints are gonna be my most valuable evidence in this case. I didn’t want any of them to fuck them up.)”

“(Ohhhh…)” As I pulled away, she was smirking self-satisfiedly. I watched her work—dusting the knob with black magnetic fibers, peeling up the print with lift tape, sticking that to a backing card, then filling out the card—all the while puzzling over the sound that came out of her when I whispered into her ear. The silence was just beginning to grow awkward when she asked, “Do you normally watch your leads so intently while they’re at work?”

‹Only the cute ones.› As shocking as it was to me, I decided to entertain that thought. ‹Maybe I should tell her precisely that. Or maybe that might be too direct. Ah, dammit… I gotta be professional.› “I want to know how confident you are under the microscope.”

She scoffed. “As a rule, I’m always confident.”

“You seemed a little flustered when I asked you to do the outside knob.”

She sighed. “Of course, every rule has its occasional exception.”

“How often do you make exceptions?”

“When they interest me.” Her eyes grew wide. “I mean—every once in a while.”

‹She’s not acting the way I expected her to act.› “What did you mean by ‘when they interest me’?”

“Nothing, I misunderstood your question at first.”

I nodded with a touch of concern. “Are you feeling alright? You don’t seem very confident, which, based on everything I’ve heard about you, is out-of-character.”

“I’m fine, I’m just… getting used to holding the reins as lead. Haven’t you been having any growing pains as a fresh detective?”

“Yeah… I’ve had my fair share, but I think I’m past all that. Let me know if you need anything.” I was tempted to find a place to sit while they did their jobs, but I didn’t want to be the absent detective, I wanted to see each piece of evidence as it was collected. 5 busy investigators and a detective hovering over their shoulders made for a cramped workspace, even if that honeymoon suite was one of the biggest guest rooms in the hotel; I tried my hardest not to get in the way or step on anything. For better and for worse, there was little to step on. They double- and triple-checked the floor, walls, and dressers, but other than the blood stain they came up with only the shirt, the boxers and pants, the helical blue fiber, and the prints on the highball glass Judy and I found in our initial search. I watched as an investigator placed a card next to the fiber, photographed it, and placed it in a small envelope. ‹Now we just need to find the bundle this came from.› With each piece of evidence collected, my excitement grew a hundred feet in every direction.

If the fiber on the floor was worth its weight in gold, the bathroom, on the other hand, was a comparative treasure trove: on the edge of the sink, waiting for us, was that singular hair, straight, blond, about half an inch long, with root intact. I was giddy, and the team noticed.

“Detective, are you feeling alright?” It was (A)LCSI Dominguez who asked.

“Oh! I’m fine, wonderful, never been better.”

“Can I talk to you in the hallway?” We stepped out and just far enough down the hallway to have a little privacy. “How many cups of coffee have you had today, Andrea?” she asked, softly.

“Just one, when I woke up.”

“You might have a caffeine sensitivity.”

“What makes you say that?”

“You’re very… chipper.”

“We found plenty of blood, twelve complete prints, a piece of what looks like plastic rope, and a fresh human hair. I think that’s cause for celebration—I’m gonna have a strong case.”

“That’s useful evidence, if—if you can find a match on the blood, and respectively the fingers, rope, and scalp they each belong to.”

I wanted to point out that it couldn’t be that hard to find those…

But she spoke first. “It’s great that you’re optimistic. Assuming this wasn’t just a junky ripping a vein and shitting himself over the pain, this musta been some kinda hazing or kidnapping, and the guy they did it to deserves justice.” She gently squeezed my shoulder. “And I hope this doesn’t turn into a murder—but if it does, I don’t want a fresh detective hyping herself up after they find a body only to come crashing down when the medical examiner flips a coin and decides ‘tails, it’s a suicide’, just like the Sergeant Rene Pines ‘accidental death’ case. Don’t count your chickens, Andrea.”

She was right. My world began to desaturate. “Do you think there’s any hope for my case, Georgina?”

“Hope? Hm. Maybe. You have evidence, but that’s never enough. You still need to play politics. If a body turns up, you might have to sleep with the medical examiner to guarantee a favorable ruling.” She chuckled softly. Perhaps she was hoping I would hear her words and cheer up.

I heard her words, alright, specifically the words ‘sleep with the medical examiner’, and I did indeed cheer right up. “I actually don’t know anything about the first precinct medical examiner. Are they a man, a woman, or…?”

“A woman, why?”

“What’s her name?”

“Doctor Regina Klein. Why the interest in her?”

“Do you think it would be difficult to get into her pants?”

She puzzled over my question briefly then blurted, “What?”

“You suggested sleeping with her.”

“I was joking! Oh—!” She giggled. “You like to take jokes as far as you can carry them. You’ve got a dangerous sense of humor, Bachman.”

“Are you willing to keep a secret?”

“Always.”

“I’m not joking.”

“Oh. Oh my God, are you really going to—‍”

“(Shh!) Yes, assuming a body turns up. Is she interested in women?”

“Uh. Well, actually…”

“Shit, she’s straight, isn’t she?”

“Actually, there are rumors that she and…”

“She’s gay?”

“Yes, but… she might be with… Captain Somers.”

‹Diane?› I burst into laughter. ‹Klein’s probably nearly as big a slut as I am.› “If the medical examiner is Diane’s type, she should be easy,” I explained, against my better judgment. It was against even my sub-par judgment, I was off my rocker, the little voice in my head that normally whispered wisdom into my ear was drunk on serotonin.

“And what exactly is Captain Somers’s type?”

“Whores who would sell their souls for a broken piece of costume jewelry and thank her for her saintly generosity.”

Her eyes asked, [Are you insane?] as her mouth asked, “How would you know what her type is, and why are you so comfortable referring to her by her first name?”

In my insanity, hungry for more of the gratification of shocking her, I had temporarily forgotten how to keep a secret. “Because I’m her other fucktoy.”

“You—and Somers—Somers and you?” Disbelief lifted her brow and plumbed her mouth wide open.

“Yep.”

“Oh, my God. Is that how you got this job?”

“I was let go for being incompetent at emptying the coins out of the parking meters, how else could I have gotten rehired the next business day?”

“Holy shit. That’s some USDA grade-A quid pro quo.”

“Yep!” And I was proud of it.

She thought something through in an even shorter time than I had, a certain desire in her eyes glowing brighter and brighter with each second, until she was blinded by it. “(Do you think she’s willing… to take on a third lover?)”

“Are you joking, or are you asking sincerely?”

She blushed. “(Um.)” I could see conflict in her face, a pinch of shame, a splash of greed, and a flood of ambition. “How the hell do I get what she gave you?”

“First of all, are you willing to fuck her?”

“She’s handsome and stylish. Tall and butch, but not afraid to wear a little lipstick when the mood strikes her, so she has a lot of variety to offer. Hell yes, I’d fuck her.”

“Are you willing to give her your body in exchange for favors and opportunities?”

“Eh… That’s a small price to pay for career progress.”

“Then meet me at my desk when we get back to the station, and I’ll formally introduce you.” One of the investigators carried out a foot-wide square of bloody carpet inside a giant sealable bag. “Is your team done? They’ve finished collecting the carpet square for my scrapbook.”

“It’ll be a minute while they comb the bed, but we’re almost ready to go. I’m sorry there wasn’t much to prove your case.”

“I’m happy to have the hair alone. I just hope it isn’t Alex’s.”

“You know of someone who was at the crime scene? Before you’ve even gathered any witness statements?”

I froze as I suddenly remembered the concept of secrecy. “Sli—ip of the tongue, I don’t actually know if Brookvale—‍” A very quiet groan escaped my throat.

“Brookvale?” she hissed. “As in Alexander Brookvale? You knew without a body to identify and before we’ve had a chance to test the blood or the hair that Brookvale was here? How?”

“It was just a guess.”

“What else do you know?”

“I don’t know anything. This is my first time at the crime scene.”

Before she spoke a word, her face made it clear that she didn’t believe me; she grabbed my hand and tugged me further down the hall. “You knew about what happened here before it was reported. Which, I should not have to explain to you, is pretty fucking suspicious. You should start talking before I invite Internal Affairs into our conversation about your special arrangement with Somers.”

‹Fuck, fuck, fuck.› “Shh. Please, quiet, I don’t want people to hear.”

She brought us farther still from 410. “Tell me.”

“I’ve already told you too much.”

“You don’t have a whole lot of options right now, Bachman. What were you doing at the scene?”

“I can’t…”

“Tell me, or else.”

“(God damn it, I have a huge fucking mouth…)”

“Well?”

“You’ll be spoiling your chances with Diane.”

“Do I ever bluff?”

She was hungry for both privilege and renown, so I figured that while she would happily take a shortcut for the former… she would just as happily burn that shortcut for a greater portion of the latter—and turning me in could mean receiving a lot of positive attention for being an upstanding whistleblower. “Only if no one in their right mind would call it.” (The fact that whistleblowers are generally disliked among law enforcement had temporarily escaped me.)

She grinned. “For once, somebody understands me. Start talking.”

Reluctantly—but frantically operating under the impression that she had me by the ovaries, that I had no other choice but to spill everything to her or else have my case ripped out of my hands by the brass and my life ripped to shreds by Internal Affairs for being a party to a quid pro quo—I explained my odyssey on Adams, from my hour with Somers to the discovery of the crime scene—though I referred to the sex workers as ‘prostitutes’ to avoid muddying the waters by revealing my political leaning, and carefully edited out Judy because Georgina didn’t need the additional blackmail material that I was in a committed relationship with an unlicensed pot dealer.

“I want to know: A, did you take pictures of the scene when it was a little fresher; and B, why the fuck didn’t you call it in when you found it?”

“To answer your first question…” I showed her the crime scene photos on my phone.

“Huh. Very thorough. All you needed were some evidence markers and envelopes and you’d be a one-woman CSI team.”

“Thank you. As for your second question: I don’t trust the other detectives with this case because everyone in the department hates the vic.”

She nodded. “Yeah, I dunno why you’d go through all this trouble just for that antifa piece-of-shit.”

‹Partly because I am a fellow ‘antifa piece-of-shit’… at least to the extent a cop can be an anti-fascist. But you don’t need to know that.› “Justice is blind. The job of a detective is to save lives or avenge them, no matter how much they hate me. I care about the people I’m trying to help.”

“Okay, you’re an idealist who actually takes the oath seriously. I respect that, I can work with that, I promise I’ll give this case 110 percent. But tell me, were you getting buddy-buddy with the hookers and fucking for cash because they had information, or because you sincerely want to be friends with them?”

“I wouldn’t mind Diane calling me a ‘hooker’, but the politically correct term for us is ‘sex worker’.”

“Oh… my God. ‘Us’. You’re seriously one of them.”

‹And if you sell your soul to Diane, you will be, too.› “Yep. They call me ‘Sex Detective’.”

“And Diane finds you sexy?”

“I’m ridiculously horny and I have no sense of shame. She finds me sexy as hell.” And then I had a devilish idea. As matter-of-factly as I could, I asserted, “Sexier than she’d find you.”

Her pupils combusted spontaneously and the flames of prideful superiority charred her judgment to dust. “How about we ask her who’s sexier, instead of jumping to conclusions?”

“Fine by me. Good luck, though, she told me the sound I make when I cum is ‘the cutest ever’.”

“Is that so? All my girlfriends have told me I make the cutest sound… and my pussy tastes like strawberries.”

I scoffed. “Bullshit.”

“Don’t believe me?”

“Not unless I tasted it myself.”

She smirked and took the last few steps towards room 401. “Well? Wanna wager that I’m making shit up?”

‹Shit, is she bluffing? If she’s lying, she gives me money, and it’s like I’m getting paid for turning a trick. If she’s telling the truth, on the other hand, I pay her to let me eat her out… almost like… I’ve hired her. Hm.› I stepped towards her as imposingly as my 5′2″ frame would allow me. “Tell you what. I’ll pay you money just for the privilege of finding out what you taste like… and what you sound like when you cum.”

Her smirk morphed into another grin. “How much’re you willing to pay?”

“20 dollars.”

She held out her hand and flapped her fingers to sign, “Gimme.” ‹Oh, you poor sweet neophyte, you are so much cuter than Andrew Jackson.›

I pulled a crumpled 20 out of my purse and handed it over. She accepted it as greedily as I accepted my own 50-fold compensation from Diane, and eagerly got to picking the lock. ‹Right out in the open. Even less shame than I have.› A bolt of fear struck my spinal cord as I realized what this could mean. ‹Diane might end up liking her more than me.› My jealousy flared up, but I was so intent on destroying this upstart that I was able to ignore it—never mind the revelation that I gave a damn how Diane felt about me.

The door opened. She kicked her shoes off, flopped onto the surprisingly clean and neatly made bed, and undid her pants as I walked in and shut the door behind me. Once her panties were hanging from a single ankle, I knelt between her knees and asked, “Have you ever tasted yourself?”

“I’m not that flexible.”

“Would you like to taste yourself?”

“If only it were possible.” I dove in without warning, wrapping my lips around her clit and sucking. She cried out and grabbed my hair. “Christ! Slow down!”

I picked up my head. “You mean a strong and ambitious woman like you needs her sex slow and gentle?”

“Not gentle—just—don’t be a psycho.”

‹She’s right. I am a psycho.› I buried my face again, and this time actually tasted her by thrusting my tongue up her hole.

A man propels an axe
towards a target,
hits the bullseye;
the crowd cheers.

A tractor putters by,
a trailer trailing
full of people
sitting on big bales of hay.
They watch the people in the fields
who pay to do the kind of labor
migrants sweat and bleed
to earn the privilege
of working for
a ha’penny
per fruit.

Beneath the April sun
I kneel and stain my jeans
with sandy loam
that cakes upon my palms.

I reach out for a morsel,
pluck it
gently
from its mother.

It is bright red.
Redder than my rosy cheeks,
redder than my curly hair,
redder than my monthly blood,
redder than I’ll ever be.

Beneath my nose
the fruit exudes
its sweet potential,
tempting me
with floral citrus
fruity pineapple
fresh vegetal
sweet almond, peach;
they call to me.

Greedily,
I sin as migrants never may
and pass the fruit between my lips—
its only match for ruddiness—
the whole thing, pedicle and all;
between my teeth the flesh is crushed,
upon my tongue its juices lap,
my taste buds feel that tickle sweet
embezzling my harvest ere
it has a chance to reach my basket.

Can they afford their labor’s fruit
as I may purchase by the pound?

‹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.”

Pleasure Bargain

Content Warning:
Manic Episode

I finished uploading all my notes for the Torrey Pines blood pool to the case’s CaseCloud right as Georgina asked me from behind, “Detective?”

I spun around. “Just Andrea.”

She smirked. “I’m ready, Andrea.”

“Alright, I need to check her availability.”

I dialed Diane’s office and Tricia picked up immediately and answered in her svelte, sensual voice, “Good afternoon, Andrea, how may I help you?”

“Hi, Tricia, I have someone who Diane might like to get to know better.”

“Business or pleasure?” she asked impishly.

“Both.”

“Ooo! Will this be a one-time appointment… or something involving a commitment?” I could hear her satisfied grin.

“A commitment, something similar to her arrangement with me.”

“She will be delighted, she’s wanted to become a collector for some time now. Let me check her schedule. — Alright, she has an appointment with the night shift supervisors in 5 minutes, but I can postpone that for an hour.”

“Uh, that really isn’t necessary, we can wait until—‍”

“She would insist, Miss Bachman. And I would not keep the captain waiting if I were in the kind of relationship that she and you are in.”

“Are you saying…?”

“If you were talking to her right now, she would be telling you exactly what I’m telling you… but it would be a command, rather than a strong suggestion.”

‹This is what I signed up for—total obedience.› “Right. We’ll be there post-haste.”

“See you in a minute, Copper Cutie,” she said flirtatiously before warning huskily, “Do not keep her waiting.” She hung up. Something about her parting words sent a shiver through my spine—dreadful, but not exactly unpleasant.

“Okay, Georgina,” I said, getting up. “She’ll be seeing you. Immediately. It would be in my best interest if we sprinted there… but I don’t want to cause a scene.”

“Then we hurry as casually as we can.” She tried to say this with resolve… but I could hear the trepidation on her breath.

We snaked our way through the hallways to the Vice squad room and met Tricia within her vestibule—about my age, 5′6″, long brunette undercut in a bun, almond face with a gentle sprinkling of freckles, piercing chestnut eyes, lips exactly as full and red as I suspected, wearing a puffy white button-up shirt with a big pink ribbon tied around her collar like an oversized bowtie. I surmised the vestibule, nonstandard for the captains’ offices at the station, gave Tricia privacy so that she could handle Diane’s extra-vocational matters without fear of eavesdropping. Georgina and I accepted Tricia’s hand as she rose and offered it to each of us in turn. “I’ve observed you at a distance, Miss Bachman, and I am pleased to finally meet you. And who would you be?” she asked Georgina, with a touch of intrigue in her voice, her eyes running up and down the new girl’s body, as though appraising her the way a cat fancier judge might inspect an exemplary Siamese.

“Georgina Dominguez,” she introduced herself, “Acting Lead Crime Scene Investigator for Team 8.”

“Charmed,” Tricia purred. From the mellowing of her purple-shadowed eyelids and the inviting twist in her bubbly lilt, I concluded that the new girl had passed the assistant’s initial inspection. She returned to her chair, propped her elbows on her desk, and smiled slyly as she pinched either end of a pen between thumbs and index fingers and rolled it back and forth. “Are you comfortable working on your knees, Georgie?”

“Well… um…” She blushed. “Half of my work is on my knees. Although I’m usually wearing knee pads.”

“Can you work without them?”

“I can… work on my bare knees, yes, but I would appreciate some kind of cushioning on the rare occasion the work takes me more than a few minutes to finish.”

“I assure you your needs will be accommodated. Diane does her best to ensure that her special friends are comfortable… unless they forget to say ‘please’.” She gestured towards the door behind her and ominously bid us, “Step right in, ladies.”

We entered Diane’s sanctum to discover her sitting on her desk in a very striking maroon Italian two-piece suit on a body I wanted to grope, a black fitted men’s shirt defined by a chest I wanted to touch all night, a pair of swanky black patent leather shoes at the ends of legs I wanted her to wrap around my head, a vivid scarlet tie around her neck I could yank on in a moment of passion, and black lipstick on a smirk that could have been concealing the sharpest fangs I’d never seen. “Good afternoon to the two of you. Andrea, would you care to introduce me to my next potential client?”

Georgina swallowed nervously as I acquainted them. “This is Georgina Dominguez, CSI, Acting Lead for Team 8. She… deduced that you and I have an arrangement, and expressed interest in having something similar.”

“Andrea, my dear… did you let slip our secret?”

“No. Maybe.” I clenched my eyes shut. “Ugh. (Yes.)”

“Tsk-tsk-tsk-tsk-tsk. If our meeting ends to our mutual satisfaction, I will spare you your punishment.” I swallowed nervously this time. “Georgina… how are you fairing?”

“Well, Captain.”

“You may call me ‘Diane’.”

“Well, Diane.”

“What is your modest wish?”

“I want to be a medical examiner.”

“So it must certainly be the case that you do not have a medical license, otherwise you would have applied for the job and acquired it without my assistance.”

“I don’t have a license… yet. I’ve hit a roadblock.”

“And that would be…?”

“Despite a 520 on the 2015 MCAT, every med school in the area has passed over my applications.”

“I do not know the significance of the number 520 or what this MCAT is.”

“The MCAT is the exam that med schools use for screening applicants, and a score of 520 was in the 99th percentile the year I took it.”

“Impressive. If you are such a smarty… why are they snubbing you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Maybe they picked up on your competitiveness,” I suggested. “Which, while arguably a virtue, might also be the reason you’ve been passed over for Lead for so long.”

“Which is just to say that everyone who gets to know me for more than a minute becomes jealous of my unparalleled competence, and intimidated by the possibility of me being their boss someday.”

“Obviously.”

Diane chuckled. “How very unfair. I have an insider at UCSV who owes me a favor. I am willing to spend it on you, for the right price.”

Georgina surprised me by not hesitating before replying, “Deal.”

“Well, well. I admire your eagerness, Georgina—but do you not wish to hear the terms of our business arrangement before we commit to it?”

“I already know. You own my body.”

“Though you are free to leave at any time.”

“And also my job, in the process.”

“And also your school, in the process,” she corrected.

Georgina smirked. “A fair stipulation to discourage your play things from dining and dashing. I accept.”

Diane elegantly dismounted her desk and semi-circled behind it. “Before you accept this gift, there is a rule all of us must follow without exception. If at any point one of us needs the action to come to a screeching halt, she needs merely to speak the word ‘red’. Does this work for you, my new friend?”

A puff of relief escaped her pursed lips. “Sure, I accept having a safe word.”

“Now we may say ‘deal’. Deal?”

“Deal.”

She opened a drawer and pulled out a tangle of leather straps and buckles; sticking out of it was something that looked like a black silicone penis, significantly girthier than Judy’s or Jacklyn’s, about half an inch narrower than a beverage can and a little under 3 cans long. Based on images I had purely by chance stumbled upon while researching something else, I concluded that the thing was a strap-on dildo. (I had been looking up dildos for first-timers.) “Then let us consummate our pact. Do either of you know how to use one of these?”

Before I could answer in the negative, Georgina proclaimed, “I’d recognize a Pole Position Power Stroke strap-on any day of the week. I use them all the time. All my partners have a great time getting dicked down by me, pussy or ass; I love watching them turn into screaming puddles of pleasure.”

Diane tossed the strap-on at her and she caught it awkwardly by the phallus. “Put it on. Andrea, strip down.” With zero hesitation, if not a little eagerness, I began taking off my clothes—coat, jacket, shoes, shirt, bra, pants, panties, socks, the last of my already meager shame. She retrieved a couple of yoga mats from the corner of her office and spread them out side-by-side. “Once you are nude, Andrea, get down on your hands and knees. Georgina, position yourself behind her.” Before long I was in position and ready for anything, and Georgina, fully clothed, had the strap-on secured around her hips. Our owner tossed her a bottle of something clear. “Don’t forget the lube.”

I heard Georgina catch it, and while she was following her orders I became wetter and wetter the longer I thought about the frighteningly proportioned dildo she was readying for penetrating me.

As I waited on the mat on all fours, I felt a finger inside me, prompting me to briefly tense and grunt in surprise. “She wasn’t lying, Diane, she’s like the Colorado down here.”

“Is she now?”

“And damn, is this a cute pussy. I’d like to eat her out.”

Diane gave my hair a gentle pet. “Later. Right now, I want you to fuck her with your cock.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Georgina eagerly.

“Just ‘Diane’, for now.”

“Yes, Diane.”

I felt something at the entrance of my pussy, and moaned eagerly and whined ecstatically as millimeter by millimeter it parted my lips and entered my hole and stretched me in a way I’d never been stretched before. “Oh, (f-f-f-fuuuuck.)” My eyes rolled up, my jaw fell slack, and my legs and arms shook like Jello.

“Does it feel good, my pet?” asked Diane.

“Oh… Oh, yes, it feels… amazing. Incredibly good. Very, very pleasurable.” Georgina slid in a little more aggressively. “(Mhhhhhh, yessss…)”

“You should see the wolfish grin on Georgina’s face, Andrea. And the lewd smile on yours.”

“God, this feels so good.” She pulled back a few inches, and the rigid silicone scraping backwards against my insides was a new sensation altogether. “I want this forever. I wish my girlfriend’s cock—(ungh)—was this big. I’d never get off of it.”

“Oh? You have another lover?” asked Diane curiously.

“(Uh. Um.)” Georgina tapped my cervix, sending a mild shock through my pelvis—which I did not mind one tiny bit—causing me to gasp and forget what we were talking about. “Ahhhh! That was nice, can you keep doing that? What were you asking, Diane?”

“Tell me about this girlfriend’s cock.”

“Um, sure. I like—(ah!)—riding it. I like it when she puts—(mh!)—it inside me and fucks me. And then when her gift spills out onto the—(mh!)—the sheets… There’s something beautiful about the sight of it. I like—(ah! yes!)—lying there with her inside me, not necessarily having sex, just… holding it in there, filling—(ah!)—my empty space, connecting us, making us whole.”

“Cream pies and cock warming, very intimate; one might call them ‘mammalian’ or ‘primal’. I am happy to hear that your sex life is flourishing. What does she do for a living?”

My mind was clouding with pleasure, but I had enough sense not to tell her about Judy’s weed business. So I told a half-truth while Georgina slammed my pussy. “Ah! Delivery.”

“What exactly does she deliver?”

‹Damn it.› “Cannabis.”

“Which dispensary does she work for?”

As she asked this question, a hunch began to grow in the pit of my stomach, hypothesizing that she was not interested in innocent getting-to-know-you conversation, but rather in interrogating me in search of my skeletons. “Um—(ah!)—an independent dispensary.”

“Give me a name.”

“It’s—(oh, yes, you’re so big)—uh, it’s hers.”

“Does her dispensary have a current license?”

“It—‍” It was becoming increasingly difficult to concentrate with each pleasurable thrust into my pussy. “—it does.”

“Georgina, pull out.” My worst nightmare ensued as her other servant, with a loud, wet sound, removed herself from me. Diane placed a finger under my chin and tipped my head up so that I was looking her in the face. “Tell me about her dispensary license.” My eyes grew wide, I swallowed. My thoughts were still hazy from the bliss; I craved the silicone cock, needed it. “Andrea, answering my every question is part of our bargain. Are you going to renege?”

‹Oh, God. She wants me to betray Judy. I can’t.› “Are you going to hurt her?”

“I would never. And if I did, you could retaliate by reporting me to IA for sexually abusing my fellow employees. You are recording our conversations as a contingency plan, are you not? That is the smart thing to do.”

I shook my head meekly.

She chuckled, “Really, now? Are you truly so loyal to me, so soon, that you trust me always to be fair?”

The truth was, I had never considered recording us—I had no interest in sending her to jail, because she was a potential asset in my investigation, whether as an informant or as someone with strings to pull for me… unless, being the Vice Captain and therefore in charge of the raid, she was complicit in the kidnapping. But she didn’t need to know that, and my uncritical loyalty had gotten her excited; the happier she was, the likelier she was to help me. “I’ve never considered betraying you, even to retaliate in the event you threw me under the bus. It simply doesn’t fit into how I want our relationship to work.”

She blinked, wonder glowing in one eye and ecstasy twinkling in the other. “So will you tell me the truth about the legal status of your girlfriend’s business?”

“You already have it figured out. To tell you the obvious would be an insult to your intelligence.”

“Very astute. Georgina, resume thrusting. Penetrate her nice and deeply, she seems to enjoy your brand of stimulation.”

Georgina followed Diane’s orders, and resumed pounding me, each impact on my cervix causing me to yell through my nose. After a while, I recovered a bit of my ability to think just long enough to ask, “Mistress, are you—(ahh!)—enjoying watching?”

“‘Mistress’! Oh, my God, I love it. Refer to me as such whenever no-one else is listening.”

“Yes, Mist—(ah)—Mistress.”

“And yes, you are performing admirably, pet. I would like to know: were you always such a good girl?”

“I suppose I’ve always been… what I am now, more or less.”

“Do you ever exceed the speed limit?”

“I unintentionally went five over just—(mmh!)—yesterday, but that’s the first time in a year I’ve—(hha!)—gone too fast.”

“Is there anything interesting in your disciplinary record?”

“N-no.”

“Pause.” Georgina paused with her tip tickling my entrance. “Tell me about your disciplinary record.”

Most of the blood that normally hung out in my brain had recently migrated to my reproductive organs, so I struggled to find words. “(Uh…) Late to work, malingering, (hm…) dereliction of duty.”

“Is that everything?”

‹Well this is weird, being interrogated about my past conduct. Can’t say there’s anything to be proud of, playing by the rules has never really been one of my hobbies. Still… perhaps she’ll find some of my saucier secrets interesting.› “IA had me pegged for multiple infractions I committed while on duty.”

“Oh? Catching IA’s attention is quite an achievement, they only go for the cases that threaten to severely embarrass the department. What came of their investigation?”

“I was fired before they could finish the investigation.”

“Scot free.” Her eyes, sharp and critical, examined every pore, every droplet of sweat, every vellus hair on my face. “Your brief notoriety, however, does not impress me. How about misdemeanors and felonies?”

“Nothing,” I assured her, choosing not to add, ‹that I’ve been convicted of.›

“Sex work.”

“If I were to do something illegal, but there aren’t any cops around to arrest me, did I actually commit a crime?”

She chuckled. “I am interested in every offense you have committed, even the ones that did not result in a conviction. Tell me about the times you’ve broken the rules without getting caught.”

“(Um.)”

“Do you want Georgina to fuck you?”

“Y—yes.”

“Then confess, my little lamb.”

“I was… pulled over for driving erratically.”

“Were you intoxicated?”

“Yes.”

“High or drunk?”

“Drunk.”

“How many?”

“At least 5.”

“5? For a woman of your size… that is a rather hazardous volume to imbibe.”

“Yes. It was. I flashed my badge at the officer who pulled me over and they let me move along.”

“(Hm.) Very naughty. Do you regret your actions?”

“I don’t think I’ll ever forgive myself.”

“Wear your albatross in whatever way feels most comfortable. How about high school? Were you by any chance a troublemaker?”

‹Is she disappointed that I’m so well-behaved?› “Tardiness and truancy.”

“Hm. It would seem you lack discipline as much as you lack any kind of rebellious impulse. Did you ever cause trouble as a daughter?”

“No, my mother and I have always gotten along very well, in every way.”

“Given your obedient nature, I am not surprised to hear any of this. Notwithstanding your incredibly reckless behavior and shamefully poor work ethic, you are a shining example of good citizenship. But that tardiness, tsk-tsk-tsk, I will not tolerate. You will be on-time to our engagements without exception.”

I nodded. “As you decree, Mistress.”

She petted me on the head. “Very good, Andrea. Cum for me.”

“Of course, right away, Mistress!” I focused on savoring the experience of Georgina giggling and bumping into my cervix. Each thrust was the swelling of winds and each collision of her dildo against the threshold of my uterus was the beat of a pleasure parade where—

Each impact heralds nearing thrill
As drums lead forth a marching band,
A fearsome column, dressed to kill,
Steps left and right, brass arms in hand.

They raise their horns for souls to bare,
Their trumpets swan and flutes go tweet,
And play a waltz for lovers pair,
For thrusting fiercely on repeat.

She has the lead, extract and pierce
With hands around each plump ass cheek,
She brings my end with swiftness fierce—
Thus I fall prostrate, muscles weak.

My mind gave into peaceful delirium and my muscles shook and my genitals and brain flooded with happy chemicals, causing me to make a little noise that I’d never noticed before amid the deafening, deadly waves of euphoria past.

Diane was gently fondling several curls of my hair as I finished coming back to life, panting deeply, crumpled with my cheek planted on the yoga mat. “So… damn… (cute,)” remarked Diane.

“That really is the cutest sound I’ve ever heard a woman make,” remarked Georgina, quickly adding, “but not cuter than the one I make.” I was too weak to get up.

“Andrea, my pet, that was very entertaining. And Georgina, my newest pet, you performed marvelously. It is unfair that you were not afforded the opportunity to climax, but you did exactly as you were told, so you will be rewarded accordingly.” My chest heaved.

“I don’t need to cum to have fun. Watching her melt into Silly Putty was very satisfying. I’d like to do it again. And again… and again… until I’ve fucked her into insanity and she’s addicted to me filling her cunt with my cock.” I felt myself getting wet and eager all over again.

Diane grinned. “That is the spirit. If her insanity is what the two of you desire, you shall receive opportunities in abundance. Andrea, are you looking forward to worshiping Georgina’s strap-on for the rest of your life?”

I found the strength to sit up, limbs still shaking, and with a sheepish smile I admitted, “It may already be my other owner.” They laughed. “This revelation about my cervix is life-changing.”

“Most women don’t like it,” Georgina explained, “but every body is different.”

“And I suppose mine is just extremely receptive to absurdly big phalluses.” I raised my ass and wiggled it. “I… wouldn’t mind another round, Georgina, if you’re up for it.”

“As much as I would enjoy watching you get fucked again,” Diane informed us, “I have a meeting with the lieutenant and sergeants in 15 minutes, which I have already postponed once this afternoon, so I am afraid we do not have time for another go. Whatever the two of you do on your own time—with each other or with other consenting adults—is up to you. Do not let yourselves be caught—I would rather not spend hard-earned goodwill with the higher-ups on bailing you out of trouble. But, before you leave… I want both of you to accompany me to a special venue this afternoon, 6 o’clock… sharp.” She gave me a glance as sharp as our appointment.

‹Shit, I was planning on getting in some overtime.› “What time is it now?” I asked.

“4:32,” replied Georgina.

“We have an hour-and-a-half. What’s the venue?”

“Asmodeus,” replied my mistress. I had never heard of it.

“Isn’t that place a…?” began Georgina, leaving her question unfinished.

“A… what?” I asked.

“Do not answer her question, Georgie,” Diane commanded quickly with a grin. “Let it be a surprise for her. Drea, I want you to remain ignorant. I forbid you from researching the venue, whether online or through word of mouth.”

“I… will refrain from inquiring, Mistress.” ‹Our mistress will have no way of knowing if I disobeyed her… Okay, maybe she would, seeing that she’s a detective. Plus… I find myself… well… I have to admit that I find myself wanting to follow her orders. But I’m not sure that entertaining that desire will be healthy.›

“And to save you from the temptation of looking it up on your map app in the process of finding your way there, I will convey the two of you myself. Georgie, what is your address?”

“408 Harding.”

“Drea?”

“2840 Arthur.”

“28th Street! You live deep on the East Side,” observed Diane, incredulously.

“Yes.”

“Then I must find you a place in a nicer neighborhood.”

“If you have the connections to get me something affordable…”

“You will pay much less for your new habitat than you do for your current one.”

“Nice.” Then my heart sank as I realized ‹I won’t be living next door to Judy anymore. I’d have to drive across town to see her.› “But…”

“‘But’?”

“At the moment, my girlfriend lives right next door. If I move to the West Side, the drive to her apartment could be 40 minutes or more.”

“So? Do you love her?”

“To use the very crudest word in the dictionary to describe my feelings for her… Yes, I love her.”

“If your feelings for each other are so great that they require a term more sophisticated than mere love, you will have an easy time making it work. True love transcends distance.”

‹She sounds right—but she isn’t taking into account the fact that Judy and I are soulmates, that we need to be near each other—the farther we are apart, the more my soul must stretch to stay in one piece.› “Would you… Mistress… be willing to find her an apartment next to mine, in her price range?”

She rolled her eyes. “I can arrange for her a habitation—but know that if your relationship cannot survive a measly 40 minutes of separation, it is not much of a relationship.”

‹You don’t understand how close we are.› “Yeah, uh… yeah.” ‹Maybe if I move I’ll ask her to move in with me.› The thought of living with Judy, not just under the same roof but in the same apartment, got me excited, but something in my mistress’ tone, her seriousness, worried me that this was not a game. “Is moving into this new apartment mandatory?”

Her stare told me it was a stupid question. “Of course it is. I would like to be able to visit you and fuck you with a view of the beach, if not a spot on the beach.”

“Okay. So if my girlfriend were to move in with—‍”

“Absolutely not. Your domicile will have a single bedroom, and the only people with permission to enter it are you, me, my other pets, and any guests I may bring. Am I clear?”

“You mean…”

“No-one else goes into that room. And that excludes your girlfriend.”

‹Even if she finds Judy an apartment next to mine, Judy’s clients are all on the East Side, within spitting distance of our apartment complex. If she moves to the West Side, either she’ll need to travel a whole hour-and-a-half via the (pathetically slow) transit system instead of the quarter- or half-hour it currently takes to start her day; or she’ll need a car, which is an expense I’m not sure she’s willing to shoulder; or in the worst-case scenario she’ll need to build up an entirely new clientele within her new neighborhood. None of this sounds like it will appeal to her, so… she probably won’t agree to the proposition. She can’t sleep in my bed, so I’ll have to drive to her place to sleep in hers. I really don’t like this. Although… making such a major sacrifice to please my owner… especially one that complicates what has been until now an effortless relationship… is making me feel a certain kind of way. It makes zero sense, of course, considering how much I love Judy, how much I need her, to touch her and be close to her, to become one with her.› “If… that is what you want,” I acquiesced, my heart weak with reluctance… and suffocated by excitement.

“Why are you acting so glum? I am paying for your new apartment, and it will be a nice apartment, professionally decorated according to your tastes.”

“That sounds awesome,” said Georgina. “Am I getting anything like that?”

“If you prove yourself loyal. This one has proven herself to be extremely enthusiastic about one of my crueler kinks, so much that I am excited to see just how far I can push her… Drea, bark like a dog.”

Broken and with no will to disobey—and every reason not to disobey, even if I had the will—with the entire bottom half of my heart, I barked, “Wuff.”

“See? She has no shame. Would you like to give it a try, Georgie?”

“I, (uh,)” she stammered. “Bark?”

“Bah—we will try again later, under the appropriate circumstances. Get dressed, both of you, get out of my office, go home, change into something nice—Drea, wear that pretty black dress. No panties, either of you.”

I pleaded with my eyes.

“Do not give me that look, pet. What did I say?”

“No panties,” we said in unison. I resumed dressing.

“Good. Georgie, what color are you wearing tonight?”

“I have a little black dress, I have a navy dress, I have a white dress—‍”

“Wear the white. Drea, I will pick you up at 5:15, Georgie, be ready by 5:50.”

We got back into our work clothes, and Georgina and I made ourselves scarce.

Asmodeus

Content Warning:
Manic Episode

Before entering my apartment, I stopped by Judy’s door and knocked and waited, then knocked again and waited more, then decided against further knocking and waiting. I decided to call her from my couch instead, as I should have in the first place. On my coffee table was a small box which I ignored as I dialed her.

She greeted me with an enthusiastic “Hey, bestie, what’s up?”

“Heya, soulmate dearest, I got off work kinda late… but I’m a detective now, so that’s kind of to be expected. I’ve been commanded to go somewhere with my mistress this evening.”

“Your mistress?”

“Diane Somers.”

“I figured you referring to her, but she’s your mistress now?”

“She owns me. What else do I call her, my owner? That word makes me feel like she has complete control over my life.”

“Then don’t use it.”

I sucked a breath in between my teeth. “I… (hmm…) do like it, though?”

“You do?”

“Yeah, she… treats me like a toy, or—a pet, in a way that… really turns me on. Like, sexually, but also… emotionally.”

“Hm. Very kinky. Wherever tonight takes you, I hope your time with her is fulfilling and fun.”

“With her… well, you know how to push some of my buttons, she knows how to push others. I brought her another woman for her to recruit into her harem, and she made the new girl—whose pussy tastes like strawberries, by the way—she watched the new girl pound me from behind with a ridiculously huge strap-on. Bigger than you.”

“(Oh—kay.)” She breathed out. “Wowwy… I’m glad—overjoyed you’re… (hoo-boy…) having fun with others… but remember your priorities. Don’t worry about getting too close to the captain—focus on making the her like you and I’m certain she’ll do you lots of favors to further your investigation.”

“My investigation? Not our investigation?”

“I’ll help if I have succor to offer, but you have all the resources to solve this case and I have none—so this show is yours now.”

“I suppose you’re right… It was nice working with you.”

“It was, indeed. Anyways, continue.”

“Right, so, Georgina kept pounding my cervix with that ginormous mock cock, and, even though it hurt a tiny bit, I really liked it, and being stretched made it even better. So that made for a nice afternoon.”

“So… you like ’em big, hmm?” Her lewd grin was audible as it warped her intonation.

“I guess. But I still like your cock more than I like the dildo. You don’t stretch me as much, but…” ‹What do I like so much about it? It’s flesh and blood…› “…yours twitches, and…”

“Oh? And?”

{… she spills her seed inside me…} “Well. A dildo can’t squirt cum inside me.”

“They can if you’re willing to pay a little more, but bear in mind it’s just cum-colored lube, not the real thing.”

{…and she pulls out and it spills everywhere and makes a big mess.} I smirked, which I thought had an effect on my speech. “And I have to admit that this… breeding thing has a bigger appeal than I first thought.”

“Are you admitting that you’re down with the sickness?”

‹It’s a little absurd, of course. Every time we have sex it’ll be a mystery as to whether we’ve conceived… I’ll have to wait, biting my stubby nails down to the quick, waiting for the pregnancy test to give me a plus or a minus… The suspense will be painful. And so juicily dramatic. Oh my God, I get it! It’s all about the suspense of not knowing! Judy gets off on not knowing what’s going to happen next, like riding a rollercoaster except you’re blindfolded and the lap-bar’s been torn out and the operator turned up the speed by 50 percent. Which is… fucking perfect for psychos like me.› “Maybe the idea of your sperm penetrating my egg and turning it into an embryo that’s going to grow inside me and stretch my stomach until I pop unless we do something to stop it… turns me on. Not knowing whether the morning-after pill is going to work, whether it’s going to implant, if and when I’m going to show…”

“Ah. I’m currently on my way to my last delivery and it is taking every milligram of my self-control not to find a hiding place to (touch myself.)”

I giggled. “I won’t judge you, but I’ll disavow you if you’re caught.”

She laughed. “I’m excited to have found another common interest.”

“Yeah, it’s a good development.” ‹Ah, damn it, she needs to know about the mandatory move across town.› “Um. I have something else to talk to you about, it’s more serious than kink.” ‹And it might take a while.› I checked the time. “Oh, shit, it’s 5:02 and I’m supposed to be ready at 5:15, I only have 13 minutes to get ready before she gets here!”

“Real quick, where are you going?”

“She ordered me not to look it up or ask anyone about it.”

“Now I hafta know.”

“I want to be obedient.”

“Okay, freak,” she said affectionately. “I promise I won’t tell you anything I might happen to know.”

“Hm. Alright. Asmodeus.”

She broke out into laughter. “Oh my God!”

“Is this something I should be worried about?”

“I promised I wouldn’t tell you anything. Be a good girl and don’t try to pry it out of me.”

“You’re mean.”

“I can try being mean, if you’re into it. Go, get ready, have fun. Be a freak with all the other freaks. Ta-ta.”

“Ta-ta.”

I put my police gun and badge in my safe, next to Helga the .32 ACP Walther PPK, then shed my clothes—remembering to skip my sexy panties—and put on my black dress. The breeze was stimulating, at first to the point of distraction, but quickly became comforting… so much that I considered going commando 24/7.

Taking for granted that I needed to be pretty, a little bit of violet eyeshadow complemented my irises and a thin layer of low-coverage foundation subtly evened out the darkness of my freckles. I also penciled in my eyebrows and added some mascara, because when I didn’t pencil my eyebrows or put on mascara, those hairs were just about invisible.

Of course, nearly invisible eyebrows and eyelashes weren’t undesirable to me—while I had been, from puberty, convinced that they gave me a freakish face, something had changed in me over the past 72 or so hours: I had learned that every part of me was attractive, including my ghostly brows and lashes. Looking back on the overwhelming attention I had received (both as an adult and as a child, for better or for worse), I knew that makeup merely helped to conform my already perfect face to society’s commonly shared standards of beauty. I wasn’t doing it to make myself feel prettier, I was only doing it to please others—specifically my mistress.

And also I was having fun playing with the makeup I hadn’t touched since I bought it at Christmastime 2023.

Just as I was finishing making myself more conventionally attractive, my phone rang, and though I didn’t recognize the number, I had a solid hunch about who it was. “Drea, I am waiting out front. Where are you?” asked my mistress in a very irritated voice.

“Just doing my makeup. And…” ‹One last stroke of the mascara brush, and…› “Finished. I’m ready.”

“Get out here.”

“Yes, Mistress.” She hung up.

I slipped into my new black ballet flats and hurried as fast as I could without tripping and breaking my face open. Down the stairs, down the sidewalk, and an inch from the curb was that same dark blue Mercedes she had been driving the night she first picked me up. She cracked the passenger window and told me, “Get in back.”

“Yes, Mistress.” I followed her command, and she set us in motion.

“Drea,” she began with steely calmness once we were rolling, “when I say that I want you waiting for me to pick you up, I expect you to be outside, on the curb, waiting for me, exactly as you were waiting the night we met.”

“Understood, Mistress. I’ll be ready on the curb next time.”

She gave me a very pleased smile through the rearview mirror. “Good. Let us hope Georgie does not make the same mistake.” She did, and our mistress gently reprimanded her with words mostly identical to the ones she used to reprimand me. “Am I understood, Georgie?”

“Yeah,” replied her third piece of property.

“‘Yeah’? Can I have a little more enthusiasm from my newest pet?”

“I’m soooo sorry! I’ll be waiting on the curb next time you pick me up. Is that better?”

I nudged her and whispered, “(She really likes being called ‘Mistress’.)”

“Mistress.”

“I do enjoy your calling me ‘Mistress’, but I ask that you only do so if it pleases you,” she said with concern and approval. But that approval suddenly dried up… “Your attitude, however, needs improvement…” …then just as suddenly returned. “…though at least you are willing to learn.” I realized then that we were fortunate that she was a patient owner; that could have been very awkward, and… ugly, for Georgina.

Diane found public parking that charged an outrageous 50 dollars an hour, but neither of us pointed out the price as she pulled in. She found a convenient spot in no time, among a bunch of cars equally as nice as hers, surrounded by high fences and cameras and guards.

Before we could open our doors, though, she surprised us with gifts.

“Drea, take this.” She handed me a black box about 2 inches wide by 8 inches long, with a black bow. “And Georgie, here is yours.” Georgina received the same thing, but all white. “Well? Open them!”

We opened our boxes, and inside mine was a textured strip of black silk with a shiny steel side-release buckle. In the middle was a silver heart-shaped medallion about the size of a quarter, suspended from a D-ring, with a phone number engraved on the reverse with room for more above that.

“That… looks kinda like a collar,” observed Shosh from the front passenger seat.

“(It’s… just a choker,)” I whispered.

“It has a name tag.”

“(Name tags have names.)”

“It has a phone number, though.”

“(Ah…)”

“It is no mere choker,” Diane informed us with a wink. “And you are correct, your name tags are missing (of all things) names.”

I glanced over at Georgina, who was staring—wide-eyed and wordless—at the narrow length of shiny white fabric on her lap. I looked back at mine; it was made out of what was no-doubt silk, and pretty besides the gaudy heart medallion; the color matched my dress perfectly. I smiled at Diane as authentically as I could as I wrapped the collar around my neck, thereby exorcising what remained of my humanity from my soul—and mated the two halves of the buckle, thereby sealing my soul so that my humanity could never return. “Thank you, Mistress.”

My ‘thank you’ very visibly pleased her. Georgina, on the other hand, was struggling to get hers on—by which I mean it was still in the box with her eyes fixed on the blank space where her name was soon to be engraved. I laid a hand on her shoulder. She broke her stare and slowly turned her head, her expression at first shocked, then pleading. I picked up the no-mere-choker, wrapped it around her neck, fastened it, and adjusted it to be snug while she silently panicked.

“Your names will be engraved later,” said our mistress with a smile. “Georgie, my dear, wearing a collar can be a little overwhelming at first, but you will find yourself acclimated to it sooner than you would imagine. It may help you to caress the fabric; my other submissives find the texture comforting, and the pressure of the collar hugging their necks to be soothing. Go ahead, touch it, feel it.”

With stilted movements Georgina reached for her neck and touched the fabric.

“Stroke it, stimulate your fingertips.”

She did so, for a minute, at first to no perceivable effect—then gradually her eyes and shoulders and breathing relaxed.

“Very good, that is a good girl. Let us be off.” Georgina and I were still unsure of what to make of our situation as we got out of the car. We crossed the street and walked a block-and-a-half until we came upon an older building—an old speakeasy, the Night Owl, whose exterior looked like it had seen better days. The unlit neon sign out front hadn’t seen maintenance in half a century, and the windows were boarded up with plywood—yet there was a line out the front and around the corner. We waited among people dressed about as well as we were, if not better, but Georgina’s white gown stood out, as it was the only one lacking hue. I was a little jealous of her—black was perhaps the most common color, so that the only thing about me that immediately caught other people’s eyes was my hair. Diane had surprised us with a blue velvet dress that shimmered in the late afternoon sunlight. ‹I guess she doesn’t mind switching between butch and femme.›

Out of nowhere, our owner exclaimed, “Oh! How could I have forgotten?” then reached into her purse and handed me a metal clasp attached to one end of a long black strip of leather. The other end of the strip was a loop which she held in her other hand. Horror welled up inside my chest as I finally realized what it meant to belong to someone.

“Oh, no, fuck that shit,” said Shosh. “Esti, this is sick. Tell her to fuck off.”

‹I will not be forced to follow somebody at their heels, tugged this way and that against my will, treated like an animal. Although…› “(The deal,)” I whispered.

“You don’t have to do this.”

“(She said I can stop anything if I say ‘red’.)”

“Drea, are you experiencing difficulty in speaking up, or are you simply talking to yourself?”

“Talking to myself, Mistress.”

“Esti. Get out of this. Tell her you’re taking a taxi home.”

“(I need her to like me,)” I hissed straight into her ear. Where that need came from should be easy enough to guess at this point. My hands shook as I accepted the clasp and hooked it into the D-ring from which my medallion hung.

“I can’t watch my little girl do this to herself.” And then she was gone.

I turned to see how Georgina was faring; she was staring in fear at the white leash our mistress was presenting to her, like a cat backed into a corner by a dog.

I gently sandwiched her hands between mine, and whispered into her ear, “How badly do you want to be a Medical Examiner?”

“(I need it.)”

“Would you do anything to have it?”

“(Anything.)”

“Then this should be a breeze.” I took one of her hands and wrapped her fingers around the pet-end of the leash, and brought it towards her neck. She took the clasp in the other hand and hooked it around her D-ring, then lowered her arms and looked to her mistress—with the most pathetic face I’d ever seen—for feedback.

Diane gave her some in the form of a smile, a pat on the head, and a “Good girl.” She smiled at me, too, and scratched under my chin. “And you, my well-behaved darling, are setting a very good example. I think I shall call you… ‘Eupraxia’.” She reached into her purse and brought out a Teddy Graham, which she held out in her palm. I took the hint and scooped it up… licking her palm in the process.

This amused her to the point of smirking. “It would seem I have a food-driven pet; no wonder you have been so eager to be trained.” She turned to Georgina. “You, Georgie… Well, I am still getting to know you, so I am still deciding on your name.” She gave her a cookie, too, which was accepted by hand rather than by mouth. “As for my name, I am Moneta for the duration of our visit.”

We pets were in such a strange mood by this point that we weren’t inclined to any sort of conversation, and to my relief Diane made no attempt to start any with us, though she chatted with other people holding leashes, many of whom complimented us for our beauty. The line moved, head-by-head, until we were at the entrance, guarded by a man, 5′10″, with a pencil mustache and black curls, in a dark purple two-piece suit with a magenta bowtie. “Mony! It’s been nearly a week since you visited your people, I am so glad to see you again! But why are you waiting in line like one of the plebians?”

I whispered to Georgina, “(Remember, her name is ‘Moneta’,)” just in case she hadn’t in her stupor been paying attention to our mistress. She nodded absentmindedly; I could only hope that she had absorbed what I told her.

“It is wonderful to be back, Frederico.” They air-kissed each other on both cheeks. “I believed there may be a lesson in experiencing what the less important people endure to get in; more importantly, I wished to show off my newest pets, and that is more easily accomplished amid a bored, slow-moving crowd in daylight than amid a preoccupied crowd blinded by darkness and alcohol.”

“Ahaha, I see! Any trouble getting these ones on the leash?”

“They put them on themselves, without my help, and on their first day no less.”

“Amazing. They must be naturally obedient.”

“Eupraxia here is a German Shepherd in spirit, that is certain, and a thousand times as smart, but the other is… Oh!” She turned to Georgina. “How about ‘Asta’?” Georgina was not impressed—she was hardly present.

“From The Thin Man?” I asked.

“Catch!” She tossed a treat at me and I managed to catch it in my mouth. “That one is for recognizing the reference. Well, girl?”

Georgina, unsure of what to do, nodded dumbly.

“I offered Eupraxia a business opportunity on Saturday, which she accepted this morning. I picked up Asta just two hours ago, Eupraxia brought her to me at the end of the work day. Prax is a fantastic pet, as loyal from the get-go as a veteran police K9, even beyond pet space. Asta is struggling, that must be admitted, but she is a fast learner, and strong-spirited, and, furthermore, has Eupraxia…” She petted me on the head, prompting an involuntary smile. “…to serve as her mentor.”

“Well, they are both bee-you-tee-full,” said Frederico. “I am certain they will be very popular with the other handlers and pets.” The two ‘humans’ grinned. He gestured inside. “The obedience test awaits them, but perhaps you wish to skip it…?”

“Freddie, would you kindly remind me as to whether the guests are allowed to skip this step?”

“Of course not, but… these girls are tenderpaws, and I would hate to see either of Moneta’s pets experience the disappointment of failing the test on their first visit.”

“If they fail, they fail. I have no qualms with supervising either or both.”

“Knowing you, you enjoy holding their leashes.”

She smirked. “You know me, indeed.”

“Very well. You know where to go, Madam Moneta.”

She led us into the front room, where a man, six foot even, shaved head and pencil mustache matching Frederico’s, in a dark blue suit, pale yellow shirt and blue bowtie, stood waiting. “Good evening, Mony! I see you have brought two new pets. Where is Blue?”

“Alas, her schedule clashed with my plans.”

“Well, I’m sure we will see her next time.”

“She is always eager. These two require testing.”

“As you wish. Which of these lovelies is going first?”

“Eupraxia.” Diane handed my leash over to the man, which set me on edge.

“Eupraxia? That’s a pretty name.” I stared daggers at the strange hand holding Mistress’ leash.

“She is the Greek goddess of good conduct,” she informed him. I continued to obsess over the leash, fighting the urge to rip it from his hand and give it back to her.

“Interesting. So is she particularly well-behaved?” ‹I don’t know if I actually trust her with my life, but I sure as hell didn’t sign up for anybody else to hold me by a leash.›

“Very. Is she not an impressive specimen, with such lovely hair and figure?”

Mistress’ compliments did nothing to calm me. I tugged on her sleeve, and once I had her attention whispered into her ear, “(I don’t like strangers holding my leash.)”

“(I understand your anxiety, Sweetie,)” she whispered back, “(but this should only be a moment. You need merely follow the commands he gives you, and your leash will be back in my hand in no time.)”

I continued whispering, “(I didn’t sign up to obey strangers, though!)”

“(If you wish to disobey, you will miss out on loads of fun.)”

I half-whispered, half-whined, “(Okay, but—it—it doesn’t feel right!)”

Her reply was as sharp as it was quiet. “(Do you recall what will happen should you fail to satisfy your end of our bargain?)”

With her threat gently tugging the hairs at the nape of my neck, I responded as calmly as I could, “Yes, Mistress.” She fed me a Teddy Graham and gave me her smile; these two gifts were sufficient to calm my nerves and bring back a little of my gumption.

“Is everything alright, ladies?” the man asked.

“Yes, Prax is rather shy when it comes to others holding her leash. She is very obedient—and very loyal, perhaps to a fault,” she said with a fond chuckle. She gently stroked my hair, calming me further. “Go ahead, she will not give you any trouble.”

“As you wish. Come here, Eupraxia.” Much to my shame, he made the kind of kissy noises people make to get the attention of dogs. I went to the pedestal he indicated, covered in the stuff yoga mats are made of. “Sit.” I managed to sit in a half lotus despite my dress. “That’s one way to do it. Up.” I stood up. “Good girl. Speak.”

“About… what?” And then it dawned on me. “Oh. Of course.” I sighed, then replied with annoyed resignation, “Woof.”

“Good girl. Shake.” I offered my hand and he shook it. “Good girl. Spin.” He made a little motion around my head, and I spun around—and was caught off guard by the breeze sucked up into my bare crotch by my dress as it billowed out. “Good girl. Play dead.”

Bored of doing stupid pet tricks, and still a little high on my morning hysteria, I decided to have some fun with it. I clutched my chest, doubled over, looked up at the man and laid my other hand on his chest, dragged my fingertips down his stomach as I fell to my knees gasping, “Call… nine… one… o—‍” before collapsing with my tongue hanging out of my mouth.

The ‘humans’ chuckled. “Aha! Well, that’s not what we’re normally expecting out of a pet, but you did obey.” I stood up and dusted my knees. “Good job, Eupraxia, very entertaining. Mony, you may take her off her leash.”

‹What? I only wore it for like an hour, most of that waiting in line.› She unhooked my leash. ‹Well, I won’t miss it,› I told myself. ‹Good riddance. I’m… free, I guess.› I touched the D-ring, now no longer attached to my leash. ‹Why am I not relieved to be off my leash? Why do I feel… disappointment, of all things? The leash is gone. I ought to be happy. I ought to be celebrating.›

“Asta, was it? Would you like to try, or are you feeling shy?” Georgina looked like she was still in shock from putting on her leash.

I whispered into her ear, “(If you do what he says, you get to take it off. Doesn’t that sound nice?)” She nodded absently. “(Just do what he says. Don’t even think about it. Think like a dog and do what a good dog would do. It’s like playing pretend, just like when you were a kid. You can do it.)” I gently nudged her towards the man. “(Just tap into your playful side. You’re a well-behaved and well-trained Great Dane, eager to please her mistress.)”

“You weren’t kidding about Eupraxia being supportive.” He commanded Georgina to do the same tricks, and she half-heartedly performed each of them to the man’s satisfaction. “She is not overflowing with enthusiasm, but she passed the test. She is free to wander from you—not that anybody would stop you from removing your leash from an unruly pet once you were inside…”

“I do not grant myself exemptions from the rules.”

“You never have, never will.” Diane unhooked her other pet’s leash.

Asta grasped her own neck as life came back into her eyes. She whispered to me, “(God, I feel like she just took a noose off of me.)”

“Yeah, I’m not a big fan of the leash, either,” I replied. “I don’t understand why dogs get so damn excited about them…” ‹…besides going on a walk with your owner and bonding over shared experiences of the beauty of Nature or the grandeur of the City or the laid-back quaintness of the Countryside, being taken to new places and meeting new people and pets, and smelling all of the weird and wild and wonderful things out there. —But, but—I definitely don’t feel any of that. I don’t have a canine sense of smell. I hate all of that crap. I’d never enjoy… getting closer to my handsome mistress… exploring the underappreciated corners of the world… her showing off how I’m such a pretty and well-behaved and overall good girl to the people we encounter in our wanderings… and making lots of new friends in the process…› “There’s absolutely no… no appeal to being on the leash.”

“Agreed.”

“Heel, Prax, Asta,” commanded Diane; we fell in line, and she led us through one set of double doors followed by another, into a bewitching atmosphere of colorful geometric figures of light that ensnared my eye, thumpy dance music that brought to the surface my primal need to move and groove with others, and a writhing mass of human animals calling for me to join them.

Sperm Competition

Content Warnings:
Manic Episode;
Pressuring of an Alcoholic to Drink Alcohol;
Recreational Drug Use (MDMA)

The crowd, dancing and drinking and fucking, was half men and half women as we entered, with many of the men crawling around in eerie leather dog masks and mitts, and many of the women strutting with cat ears and cat tails, all dressed to varying degrees, most of them to the least. “I don’t see anywhere those tails could be strapped to the bodies of the naked ones,” I wondered aloud.

“They are butt plugs,” explained Diane. “Would either of you be interested in trying one on? Or should I say ‘trying one in’?”

“Um. Maybe later.”

“I think the tails are sexy,” proclaimed Asta, surprising me with the return of her confidence, “and I enjoy butt plugs. So… sure, sign me up.”

“I shall bring one for you on our next rendezvous.”

“How about cat ears?”

“Of course!” Diane was delighted by Asta’s turn of enthusiasm. “You do seem more feline than canine. How about paws? A mask?”

“Maybe some furry gloves, but they should be fingerless so I can still use my hands. I’ll have to see what the mask looks like before I commit.”

“Splendid!” squealed Diane, giddily clasping her hands together.

“I’ve never been anywhere like this,” I admitted. “A genuine sex club.”

“That it is,” confirmed Diane. “For pet play. It stands out among pet play spaces in its unleashed decadence. This establishment is one of my greatest passions.”

“My girlfriend knew about Asmodeus, but she agreed not to spoil the surprise,” I admitted, clumsily giving away far more than I should have. “I wonder if she’d be interested in pet play…”

“I am tickled to hear that your girlfriend does not mind playing along with my games, and that she is not bothered that you are trying new things with a strange woman.”

“(Ah…)” I was not a practiced spy or actress; as honest with myself as I was about my lackluster ability to deceive—which was very little, but enough that I should know better than to try—I still managed to overestimate my ability to keep my mouth shut when possible and compartmentalize information when otherwise necessary.

“You… have my permission to have a second handler, and to bring her to this place whenever you are not here with me.”

“I don’t need your permis—‍” She glared sharply at me, waiting for me to finish my expression of disappreciation. ‹Stay on her good side now, reap the benefits later.› “I mean, Thank you, Mistress.”

Her expression softened. “You are welcome, Prax. I am sure you understand that even if you gain a second handler, I will always be your first, and will therefore always come first.”

“Yes, Mistress.” ‹Diane comes before Judy.› The colorful light show charged the crowd. ‹Judy, the love of my life, my soulmate, is my second priority, after Diane.› The strobes flashed like lightning on a dry desert night. ‹That means I’ve decided Diane is more important to me than Judy.› The music thundered in the near distance. ‹Judy has devoted herself to me, to her soulmate, and in return I have given myself to Diane for her pleasure, in return for a career as a pig.› People imbibed alcohol and popped pills. ‹How twisted am I?› Some led their less obedient pets around on leashes. ‹How sick am I that I would agree to such an arrangement?›

Frantically, I sought comfort in my rationale for my decision to sell myself. ‹I’m doing it for Alex.› People danced. ‹This is a sacrifice. I’m making a sacrifice.› People fucked on the periphery of the room… ‹A necessary sacrifice.› …and I wanted to join them. ‹But is it really necessary?› I followed Diane through the crowd, which gradually lost its male flavor, until it was all women. ‹Am I doing this because I need to, or because I want to?› Diane took her seat in a booth, away from all the excitement I wished to entangle myself within, and we joined her. ‹Before I can answer that question, I must remind myself of the awkward truth: I enjoy being owned.›

My thoughts were interrupted by a woman—wearing a taxi-yellow tuxedo with black-and-white checkered lapel and side stripes—warmly asking, “Welcome back to Asmodeus, Madam Moneta, may I start you and your pets off with something to drink?”

“I am thinking… champagne… No. Something fruity, something fun. Three strawberry daiquiris, blended.”

“Make mine a virgin,” I said.

“There are no virgins here, Prax,” said my owner, cheekily. “Loosen up, have some fun.”

Despite my strict sobriety, I found myself unable to override her irritating play on words. I tried to. The impulse to insist that ‹mine will be a virgin› ricocheted around the inside of my skull, never making it to my mouth—until something else just as good, and technically obedient, found its way out as I spoke a little more forcefully than intended over the noise of the club, “I have an alcohol problem, Mistress. If I drink, I lose control and do stupid shit. Unless that daiquiri gives birth to the baby Jesus himself, this night will end badly for me.”

She was shocked. I tensed as I awaited her reaction. I expected her to be offended by my diplomatic defiance, if not thoroughly pissed—so I steeled myself for a harsh reprimand by closing my eyes and offering my cheek for her to slap while composing something along the lines of ‹I’m sorry, Mistress, I lost my temper, it won’t happen again, I’ll drink whatever you tell me to drink—› but she shattered that expectation. “I am so sorry, Prax. I will take that into consideration henceforth. I should not be dictating which psychoactive substances others use, anyway, even if they have sworn to obey. I apologize for coercing you. Forgive me?”

I relaxed. ‹She bends. She’s reasonable. Her rule is not absolute.› “Of course, Mistress.”

“Make hers a virgin,” she told the tuxedo woman, then asked me, “Is alcohol your only no-no?” ‹She is not a tyrant.›

“Um… I can’t think of any others.”

“Have you ever taken MDMA?”

“No.”

“Would you be interested in giving it a try? It makes you want to hug, kiss, and/or fuck everything in sight.”

I was sorely tempted, but… “I already… um… do want to do those things. I’ll let pretty much any interested party have a piece of my body, anywhere, anytime, any position, any number of participants. I really don’t need to be any hornier than I already am.”

“Very well. Let me know if you change your mind. And I would like you to remember for later what you just said about letting any interested party have a piece of your body. How about you, Asta?”

“Aren’t we tested at work?”

“My pets are exempt.”

“Oh. I guess, uh, well… I’ve wanted to try Molly since college, but I couldn’t trust that any of the pills available on campus or at the clubs were pure.”

“Our tablets are custom pressed in-house, starting with pure MDMA crystals.”

“Then I’m in.”

“An 80 and a 120, and that is all,” Diane told the tuxedo woman, who nodded and left. “That should not take very long, the servers and bartenders are industrious. Now that we are here, pets… what do you think?”

Asta shrugged. “It’s loud, but I like it.”

“I like the vibe,” I said. “All these people walking around in collars and animal ears and paws is a little eerie, but… this is my life now. This is my community.”

“Yeah, I feel weird, but it’s not a bad weird, more like a new and strange country we have to explore weird. I’m looking forward to seeing more of it, now that I’m off my leash.”

Diane withdrew two strips of condoms from her purse and held them out to us. “Then go,” she said. “Set out into the unknown, meet new lovers, discover the pleasures Asmodeus has to offer you. Get fucked, let multiple people ‘have a piece of your body’, if it pleases you. You are off your leashes, you can run wild and misbehave.” Asta and I traded confused looks. “Get in trouble.” We hesitated. “I command you to go forth and entertain your every desire, no matter how twisted or lewd it may be.”

I didn’t question her. “Yes, Mistress.”

I laid my condoms on the top layer of junk in my purse for easy access, stood up, and curtsied. Asta followed my example, and we wandered off, dazed by the lights of freedom guiding us between the clumps of people making out or eating hors d’oeuvres or drinking or fucking or, as I suspected with at least two different individuals whose paths we crossed, tripping balls on The Good Shit. As much as I envied them, I felt a vicarious concern over their hangovers-to-come. But that concern soon faded, leaving me with only a craving… a craving that would herald the beginning of my end.

I recalled that day’s euphoric prologue to my current escapade, the force of my existence tearing forward through the mud and the undergrowth, fulfilling my own will at every turn as I convinced everyone to do things my way. I wasn’t feeling that right now, I was feeling… just a little higher than normal. Sure, I could have fucked anyone in that mentally metastable moment, but my senses would have been overloaded and I might not have enjoyed myself. ‹Maybe a fun-time gimme-hugs-and-kisses pill isn’t such a bad idea.›

“Asta… Do you still want to take that Molly?”

“Hm. This place is weird enough without hallucinating, so I’m thinking no. Are you finding yourself interested in it?”

“Yes.”

“It’s yours, Detective.”

“Do you mind if we split up, or do you want to stick together while I go back to take it?”

“I’m a little freaked out at the moment—I think I might be dissociating—but I’m a big girl, I’ll be fine on my own. I’m going to explore until I get bored or horny, maybe watch some people have drugged sex or ask a cat girl if I can pull out her tail then put it back in. And then fuck her. In front of everyone. And I’ll make her scream my name so hard people will come and watch me turn her into my devoted bitch. Man, tonight’s gonna be weird. And… if I roll the dice with enough skill, maybe a lot of fun.”

“Sounds like a plan. Enjoy yourself, Doc.”

I made a beeline for our table, where Diane was making out with a pair of somebody else’s pets. On the table were a cocktail glass half-full of frozen crimson fluff, two shiny steel pet bowls filled to the brim with the stuff, and a rectangular mirror dish upon which sat a single fuchsia tablet. I scooted in next to her and pinched the pill between my thumb and forefinger to inspect it; pressed into one face of the pill was an ellipse with triangles emerging from its upper right and upper left edges, and three short lines attached to both the left and right—put simply, a line drawing of a cat’s head—and into the other side was pressed the number 80. ‹If I were a Narcotics detective, I’d be having a blast.› I sniffed one of the pet bowls and—

‹Rum… Oh… I haven’t had rum in… ages.› I sniffed it again. ‹Asta won’t mind; she’s probably forgotten about it.› I breathed in once more. ‹Oh, God, send me an angel to shield me from temptation.› My heart cried out in eagerness and fear, seeking comfort that I was making the right decision as well as help to prevent me from making the wrong one. I picked up the bowl and brought its rim to my lips—

“(Put it down,)” said a whisper into both of my ears.

I froze. Not frozen like the slush of the daiquiri lapping at my upper lip, but solid as ice.

“(You shouldn’t be drinking.)”

“But I need it…”

“(No. You don’t.)”

“I’ve been drinking since I was twelve.”

“(And you shouldn’t’ve touched alcohol until you were old enough to handle it.)”

“Shosh seemed to think I was ready.”

“(She was a fool and a terrible mother.)”

“I love her. She loves me. I trust her. She guides me.”

“(You should, and she does. But she has made many mistakes, among them introducing you to booze at a young age. Undo the harm she has done to you. Put it down.)”

“She didn’t make any mistakes. She’s the perfect mother.”

“(You’re an alcoholic because she wanted to be a ‘cool mom’. Put down the rum.)”

I stared at the daiquiri. Each breath brought a fresh wave of euphoric vapors into my nose. The voice was interfering with my fun.

“(Esther bat Shoshanah… you are stronger than you think. You must learn moderation. Put the rum back on the table. You can have a drink another night, when you have friends at your side, watching you, ready to stop you when you’ve had enough.)”

Hesitating several times, I put it down.

“(Good. Have… have fun. And use a condom.)”

“I’ll try.”

“(Take care.)”

I fondled the tablet as I considered swallowing it. ‹It isn’t alcohol. I’m not addicted to ecstasy. I’ll be fine.›

“Are you sampling the drugs, my love?” asked Diane with a bubbly lilt.

“Oh. Maybe. I was thinking about rolling after all.”

“Is there something getting in the way?”

“Well… I’m not completely sure of what to expect, but…” ‹It isn’t alcohol. I can control myself.› “On second thought, I’m taking the dive.”

“Have fun, Party Girl.”

I popped the pill and washed it down with my non-alcoholic bowl. “There. I should be buzzing around in about 30 minutes.”

“This being your first time, you may not begin to notice the effects for as long as an hour.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. Thank you, Mistress.” She went back to kissing her beautiful strangers, both younger than me and wearing nothing but what looked to me like prosthetic dog snouts, floppy dog ears, droopy dog tails, and tight leather straps, with their breasts and asses squishing out between the leather.

I checked the time and slowly finished off my daiquiri, and while I knew the effects of ecstasy from illicit substances training in academy (and from reading virtually every one of Psilo Silo’s guides to tripping on a wide variety of substances), I nonetheless wondered how my subjective experience would present itself. After I reached the bottom of my bowl—giving into the temptation to lick it clean, because I might as well go the whole nine yards with the pet thing—I checked the time again: 7:45, about 10 minutes since I’d taken the pill. I still had 50 minutes to burn before the ecstasy kicked in. “I’ll make myself busy, Mistress,” I told her as I left; she lazily waved goodbye.

I resumed wandering past tables, peering at cocks and pussies as they strolled by or as they were stimulated by mouths, hands, dildos, vibrators, or other genitals (both matching and complementary), in the beds between the booths, whether in the ones big enough for four, or in the little ones peppered between them just big enough for two—or, for smaller folks, maybe three. ‹Three of me sharing a bed…›

The music was overwhelming but nonetheless pleasant; I surmised it might be EDM (with the assumption that I had an inkling of what EDM sounded like), though it was very different from all the electronic stuff I’d heard before—I thought perhaps the DJ was on the bleeding edge of sonic trends.

I strolled a dozen laps around the club, and worked my courage up until I found the will to leave the calm periphery, where people sipped their cocktails and made mammalian love, towards the bustling center of the room, wherein Lust’s congregation humped and hollered to the horny hymnals. I had never danced with anyone before, I never went to homecoming or prom, but—

Now at last I stole the dancefloor.

Some partners were fully clothed,
But—

By far most wore rather less than

That, and nearly all of them had

Sprouted fluffy, swishing tails.

They

Left me feeling jealous of them;

Diane’s pet but incompletely

Metamorphosed like the rest.

Thus I yearned for greater semblance,

Something from the furry art
I

Had perused for thirst of knowledge;

Lurid illustrations gave me

Feelings strange and hard to speak.

What

Anthromorphics chose to wear,
Their

Luscious coats both long and short,
Some

Patterned after German Shepherds,

Russian Blues or Siamese;
No

Matter how their ears may flop
Or

Stand upright, their shape,
Their

Tufts of fur that fluff their cheeks;

No

Matter how their tails articulate,

Flicking back and forth up high,
Like

Prideful flags or willow trees;

Or

Sweeping side to side down low
Like

Happy brooms… I love them all,
I

Want to fuck each dick and pussy.

Wandering, I met a dancing

Pack of feline femmes who shot me

Intrigued glances, waved me over,

Pulled me closer, brought me in—

When I started shaking ass, they

Cheered and laughed; unpracticed
As I

Was in dance, I had a passion

For the art of jiggling cheeks.

The

Music’s mood shifted from
Fourth gear to third,
And I

Paired with a pink furry
Felinic stranger—
Their

Ears were relaxed, their tail
Swished about gayly.

They

Wore an ensemble to
Match their bright coat:
From their

Head grew a bounty of
Harvest-wheat-curls;

And a

Dress without sleeves—also
Pink—matched their fur;
Sev’ral

Petticoats filled out their
Skirt very nicely;
Their

Face, quite androgynous,
Ranked high in cuteness.

We

Danced toe-to-toe as we
Clung to our partner;
We

Swished and we swirled and we
Thought of each other.

’Twas

Here I fell smitten, fell
Madly in love
With this

Kitten I’d met only
Minutes before,
Whom I’d

Shared yet a word with.

I gazed into them and I

Fucked their brown eyes with the
Subtlety I’d use to

Suck stubborn clits—and their
Gaze matched mine,
Watt-for-watt.

This one and I had been made
for each other.

And then they rent the wordless soundfield with a voice lower than most women’s. “You thinkin’ what I’m thinkin’?”

“I think so. I’m… also thinking of your cute pink dress—and curls of gold.”

“My handler likes to dress me up in women’s clothes. He thinks I look much cuter in them than in men’s.”

“Even though I prefer women’s forms… I bet you’re just as cute as any girl without your clothes.”

He blushed. “Aw, shucks.”

“I do so love your outfit. You are very pretty wearing women’s outfits.”

“It’s kinda shameful but…”

“But you still find it fun.”

“But I get off on it.”

I closed the narrow gap between us, pressed against him, to feel… him, poking through our skirts into my pelvis, very much prepared for action. And he seemed unfazed. “So’re you always hard while you’re wearing women’s clothing?”

He nodded.

“Wow, God, that’s so…”

“Shameful? Doubtless. Painful? I’ve gotten used to it.”

“I was about to say, ‘So hot.’”

“I guess it is.”

“Do you ever feel the need to take a break from being hard?”

“I like to keep it as hard as possible for as long as possible. A good erection’s just as good as sex.”

“That means no sex ever, though, right? I must admit I don’t have much experience, but I do know that orgasms make dicks go soft for a little while.”

“For penis-having folks, the time they stay soft can vary from a minute to a day or longer.”

“And how long is it for you?”

He shrugged. “I stay rock-hard even after cumming.”

“That’s quite a claim.”

He grinned… “Would you like me to prove it to you?”

…and my thoughts echoed his thoughts. “Maybe. Tested Friday, minus signs across the board, same for my partner. You?”

“All negative as of two weeks ago.”

I ground my pelvis against his cock through his dress and petticoats. “My pussy’s gonna turn your cock into pudding, Pink Kitty.”

“I’ve never had the opportunity to penetrate someone, so I didn’t think to grab any rubbers for tonight…”

I rubbed against him even as he worried about protection. “I have some.”

“Alright, let’s find a bed.”

The big round beds were roughly king-sized; but the small ones more resembled pet beds scaled up to barely fit a pair of humans. So I picked one of the big ones, but my future fuck friend informed me, “Those aren’t for unsupervised pets, only owners and their guests. Pets who wish to ‘mate’ without a leash hafta use the pet beds.” Hearing this, I grumbled; we continued searching till we found one just as it was being vacated. The fact that the fabric smelled of strangers’ cum and sweat evaded me because, much like a boy of 18, I had only one thing on my mind, and you should know by now that it sure as hell was not avoiding other people’s body fluids. Hell, the filthiness of fucking in a pool of strangers’ jism had a kind of sexiness—for as long as I didn’t think about how gross it was. (Even then, the grossness might… have its appeal.)

I pushed him down onto our bed of infidelity—aggressively, I need not say—and crawled atop him, kissing him from chest to neck, then neck to ear, then ear to cheek, then cheek to mouth, whereon I dwelled a while. As we kissed I felt around his skirt to find that ever-ready piece of him and played with it through several layers of fabric, panties, petticoats, and skirt. I squeezed and stroked him, made him moan, and louder as I lifted up his skirt and did the same through just his soaking panties. “Ah—! You’ve made me even harder, now my penis hurts so bad.”

I snickered. “Are you saying you want my cunt right now?”

“God, yes.”

I pulled his tenting panties off his giant steel-stiff cock and gently pulled the waistband down onto his balls, then straddled him—his bright pink fur was soft and warm against my inner thighs—and located my hips above—

“And what about the glove?”

“What?”

“The condom?”

“Oh. Right. Protection. To… keep your semen out of me. Yes. I have… some.” ‹But, God, I love it raw. And even if he gets me pregnant, Judy would have no way of knowing that her sperm have failed their mission if I don’t keep it.› “We’re both clean, though, is it really necessary in our case?”

“The club requires condoms to be used for any kind of penetration—anal, oral, or vaginal.”

“Do they have condom cops going around inspecting beds, making all the guests pull out to make sure they have a barrier?”

“Well, no…”

“I wonder, then, why we should care.”

“Are you at least on birth control?”

I hesitated—imperceptibly, I hoped—before telling the truth: “Of course I am.”

“Then I guess skipping the condom shouldn’t be a problem.” He believed me, by some miracle.

“Let’s go, Pink!” Inch-by-inch my hips descended till his cock was poised before my threshold, then I reached beneath my skirt and guided him inside, inspiring both of us to breathe in; my skeleton, in being pierced by autumn winds, squeezed my lungs and forced a moan out of them. As soon as he was knocking on my cervix, I asked, “How’s it feel?”

“Um… This is my… first time… inside… a vagina.”

“And how’s it feel?”

“My God, it’s beautiful.”

“And I’ve been told that it looks cute.” I noticed that my dress was hiding that which we were doing from plain sight. “But you won’t get to see it here tonight, I’m liking keeping everything down there concealed. A passerby can see our faces and hear our sex sounds, but they can’t see that we are one.”

“I’d really like to see it, though.”

“Alright, let’s spoil the mystery for everyone.” I flattened out his skirt and lifted mine so he could see where we were joined.

He stared. “It looks so sexy, being stretched out by my cock!”

I arched my spine forwards as far as it would bend to get a better view—but I couldn’t make out very well the part that he was stretching out, and my cunt had greedily engulfed all but an inch of his cock—half an inch more than Judy’s. “Pity, I can’t see it from here.” I feared we might bore of talking, so I rode him, causing him to resume moaning; rising, falling, going, coming, squeezing bliss into his cock until his climax sounded near…

I stopped.

“Please, why, oh tell me why—you stopped…” he whined.

“Cuz I’m not close to cumming yet.”

He groaned frustratedly. “Okay, then will you please cum soon so I can cum? My dick feels like it’s ready to explode. Perhaps there’s something I can do to help you get there quicklier?”

I grabbed his hand and snaked it underneath my skirt and placed his finger on my clit, which sent a tiny shock throughout my lower half. “Give this bad girl a stroke, and every now and then a gentle pinch.” He followed orders, touched and brushed my clit and gave it little squeezes, satisfying all my basic needs. I bent down, kissed him on the neck, and caught a whiff of—

Sweet bubblegum

I chew and blow

Your fruitiness

Between my lips

Your bubble pops

I suck you in

And blow again

My mind went blank. I humped him, so eager for his semen, up and down and up and down, I made him moan a whore’s love song… and suddenly I heard him grunt, and felt him twitch—

Inside my vadge a tempest brews

Torrential rain of milky dew;

It floods my mind with thoughts of child,

A life as wife from work exiled;

I relish it, this mother’s dream

Of working with my loves as team,

To raise a fam’ly as the queen

Of bloodline, spreading wide my genes

As the euphoria began to fade, I realized, ‹I now have two full fleets of semen vying for my egg. If I tell Judy I’d allowed some stranger to start a competition for my pregnancy… I don’t know how she would react. Would she be disappointed? Nervous? Jealous? Oh, for certain, she’d be jealous. She’ll be mortified and jealous and there’s going to be nothing she can do about it because she told me I can fuck whoever interests me. I haven’t had a solid opportunity to torment her… until this catboy came into my life. Oh, this one is the perfect way to tinker with her pride, and she’ll be chomping at the bit to fuck me extra hard to plant another load inside me, a fresh flotilla of sperm prepared to sink this tiny catboy’s little love boats. But… if I tell her I’m not letting her put her cum inside me in spite of us both wanting it just because I find denying her sex entertaining…› I had to admit, I had a mean streak. I could blame the happy pill for wanting to hurt her… except I took it when fully aware of its effects, so being drugged couldn’t excuse such cruelty.

My grandiose excitement about this game of consenting infidelity—this risky contact sport wherein my womb was where the players scrimmaged and my egg the ball they beat each other up over—caught me by surprise, but I was able to avoid revealing satisfaction upon being filled by my Kitty Pink. I then decided that there was no point in hiding my true feelings—he had not a clue what kind of freaky thoughts were going on inside my head and therefore had no reason to suspect I’d set my sights on gathering the cum of every willing donor in the city with a personality I liked—so I allowed myself a grin. “My Furry Pink Boy, you came first—and after promising it would be me that would.”

“Ahh… Oops.”

“Is my new lover proud of himself?”

“My husb—my handler doesn’t let me stick my dick in anything, not in his mouth, not in his ass, not in a fleshlight… Your tight pussy felt so good, I couldn’t stop myself from cumming! I apologize.”

“I won’t absolve you till you answer: Are you proud?”

“No. I feel miserable, wretched, and ashamed.”

“At least you had the fortune to ejaculate inside a pretty girl—without a glove, no less.” ‹Or any effective birth control, at that.

‹…Oh, God, I am a fucking freak. I wonder, my dearest, if you would share with me the time of day if you were to find out about the weirdo shit I’m into. Hell, I wonder if a single person here would share the time of day with me. If Judy’s past experiences tell me anything, the answer’s likely ‘no’. I need to tread carefully, lest you reject my love…›

(I’d later learn that roughly three-fifths of the people in that club were also into breeding; three-tenths weren’t but said they’d entertain a partner’s breeding fantasy; the rest said they wouldn’t explore a partner’s breeding kink but understood its allure. I’m speaking of the hardcore pet play devotees of Santa Virginia who roleplay animals for fun, and—while for a significant minority of clubgoers that day there was no sexual component to their play—for the majority of the rest, fucking like an animal was a crucial component of the overarching purpose of spaces such as Asmodeus.)

“Don’t tell my handler, but… that was the best my dick has ever felt. The sex was amazing.”

I wondered whether people were just saying that my prowess was amazing just to be polite, or if he was being sincere—and if he was sincere, I wondered at the possibility the average person was just miserably lacking in competence in the art of sex regardless of the practice they put in… or whether I had some special gift bestowed from Up Above upon my down below. “I get told that a lot… it seems I have a gift for sex.”

I figured my life was, at that point, as good as life gets. Everyone who fucked me told me they enjoyed it and they complimented my cute pussy and the sound I made when I came; I had three lovers, beautiful and handsome, one of whom would buy me fancy clothes and pushed me to pursue my dream of being a detective and then gave me carte blanch to fuck the strangers that I met; the second gifted me my dream job, brought me to an awesome sex club, bought me awesome drugs, and told me to get laid with any pretty soul who caught my eye; and the new guy was a gorgeous wildcard I looked forward to getting to know…

I realized then, with that cute stranger’s cock inside my pussy, that as of Friday night my life had been replaced by dreams, reality ex fantasy.

I kissed my new mate, then made out with him while he was hard inside of me, and gloried in how great my life was, till a thirst welled up within me. “I… would like a drink. A margarita. I’m craving triple sec and tequila… on the rocks. We need to flag down a yellow tux.”

“We pets can’t order for ourselves, didn’t you know that?”

“Oh. Ahh… No. I didn’t.”

“Yeah. The tuxedos only listen to handlers—even if you try to tell them you’re dying of thirst, they’ll act like you’re barking or meowing.”

“Oh. Jeez.” ‹I have to lean on someone else to satisfy my needs. Okay. It’s no big deal. If anything… I can’t explain it, not yet, but there’s something fun about that. But… I told Diane I have a drinking problem. Even if I’ve decided it’s fine to take a little break from my sobriety, she might not let me have the drink I need when just an hour ago I threw a fit in response to her playfully telling me, ‘There are no virgins here, so loosen up and have some fun.’ I won’t be able to get any cocktails out of her.› I assembled a new plan and put it into action. “I want to meet your man.”

“For real? You want to meet my husband after fucking me?”

I nodded. “Yes. I want to know more about the other half of the sweet, cute…” I gently tweaked his whiskers. “…catboy who I fucked till he left his cum inside of me… some kind of felinoid that bred me.” I was reveling in Judy’s kink a little bit too much… or rather, as I then finally admitted to myself, ‹It’s my kink, now… and I would like it to be his as well.› I was convinced that I would need to fuck him again to get a second load onboard; more sex with any given mate, I reasoned without any scientific data to substantiate, would mean a higher chance of their seed winning—thus the more I harvested, the more that Judy would need to dump inside me if she was to have a chance to win first place—the only place that mattered in a baby-making race.

I squeezed my cunt around his cock and verified that he was still hard. I got back to humping, then unbuttoned his pink dress and gave a shot at tweaking his nips.

“Ah! Those are sensitive!”

“Then I’ll go easier on them.”

“They’re too sensitive, don’t play with them.”

“That sucks, my love, they’re great for getting most folks horny.” Temporarily defeated, I went back to kissing him. I tried combing my fingers through his chest. It was wonderfully soft. “How do you like it when I brush your chest fur?”

“Eh. It’s alright.”

I scoffed. “‘Eh, it’s alright’? Okay, I’ve lost all will to find your feel-good spots, I’m playing with my clit instead.” I did so; with each stroke I brought myself closer, closer, closer to the end.

“Um—I don’t know your name.”

The ultimate was within sight. “My owner has de—(ahh)—decided my name is—(mhh)—Eupraxia.”

“Okay, Eupraxia, I’m almost there.”

It hovered close, close, close enough that I could touch it; so I turned my wits towards my fingers dancing across my clit and concentrated on maintaining a consistent pressure-rhythm-stroke. I pulled a tit out of my dress to twist a nipple—that sensation sent a jolt of chemicals into my brain, initiating the collapse of all my nervous system, pinch, twist, stroke, rub, pinch twist stroke rub pinch twist stroke rub PINCH—

My legs and toes stiffened beneath me; my back muscles tightened, causing me to arch. “Eupraxia, I’m cum—‍”

Squeezed between two furry women

Softly stroking me with paws, those

Beans of legendary softness.

Hairs emerge all over me—my

Body grows an amber coat, and

Black and tan bloom ’cross my muzzle

And my back’s a midnight saddle;

Short and plush my coat’s all over—

Pet me cat girls, touch me, feel me!

From my rump a tail emerges,

Worrisome to me at first but

Soon I like my new appendage—

Slowly sweeping left and right, it

Telegraphs my openness to

Any who would like to stroke me.

Cartilaginous projections

Next come sprouting from my brain bones:

Twin triangles, stiff but furry.

Fearless, loyal, smart, hard-working,

I am made of flawless substance.

With these pretty catgirls here I’m

Happily relaxing, basking

In the sun—I must be dreaming.

Wedding proceeds without hitches,

Drunken speeches there are none and

No objections spoken ’tween our vows.

Doves on cue emerge from cages,

Whiter than my dress (it’s crimson);

Bride and groom share tender kisses.

Catboy and his wife serve dinner:

Farmer’s Dog and Fancy Feast in

Celebration of our marriage!

My little cry of pleasure interrupted Pink Boy’s warning just as he began to twitch inside me. “—ming.” My legs shook as they lost all strength; I collapsed forward, in turn forcing me to brace my fall with all the strength remaining in my arms so I could gently lower myself onto him.

We laid there in that sweat-soaked, cum-stained pet bed for some minutes afterwards. I kissed his cheek and licked his neck. “I think we came at the same time. It feels a bit romantic, Pink.”

“Yes. You made a noise. A cute sex noise.”

“If ever I get into pornos, I’ll trademark all the sounds I make.”

“They’ll pay you out the nose in royalties.”

I nibbled on his ear. “Your hard-on’s gone.”

“You cured my priapismic Heaven-Hell with pussy power. My husband is gonna be… amused.”

“Because I succeeded where he failed? Am I the better mate?”

“Of course you are, but that’s not to say he hasn’t made me soft post-nut a few times by pounding on my prostate for two hours straight, even if it takes him half a dozen of his orgasms to get me there. But he has no idea I’m bi, so telling him a pretty woman made my boner take a break might go quite interestingly.”

“We have something to talk about while getting smashed!”

“We do. So let’s return to him.”

I lifted myself off of him—and as soon as he was no longer plugging me, something dripped out of me and presumably plopped onto his pelvis, and what remained trickled down my inner thigh. ‹I hope that doesn’t stain my dress.› It then proceeded down my calf, down my ankle, down into my shoe, and down beneath my arch. ‹And I hope that washes out as well.›

Our clothes in place, he led me across the dance floor, through the crowd, and in the general direction of a booth on the manly margin of the club… where, seated in the booth, was his division’s Officer of All the Months for as far back as my memory served, my dearest bosom buddy:

Sergeant Thomas Forrester,

SVPD First Precinct,

Parking Enforcement.

The Hand
that Spanks

Content Warnings:
Manic Episode;
Alcohol Cravings;
Alcoholic Relapse;
Binge Drinking;
Severe Intoxication;
Attempted Murder by Strangulation

At 5′8″, my buddy ol’ pal Tom—like most folks—towered over me, but only by half a foot. He had a few unavoidable wrinkles, but well-controlled fine lines and a lack of sun damage befit a man being gracefully squeezed out the ass end of his forties who wore sunblock religiously and adhered to a strict skincare routine. Give him twenty years and deprive him of his retinoids and I would have found his skin… somewhat more… appealing. Although… even at a scant 48 years, his face… was… not… bad looking. Not that I’d ever admit that I found him attractive to another soul in this life or the next.

Filling out his colorful, well-tailored suit was his physique, with that delicately balanced extreme of muscularity developed by pigs throughout the past few decades of our militarization, whose primary purpose is intimidation, a physique which simultaneously tries but fails to blend us in with citizens—good evidence that he wore that navy blue and brass to work.

Another feature of note: his blond crew haircut (roughly half an inch at its greatest length)—a not-quite-subtle hint he might have been a military man or possibly a law enforcement officer.

There was a ‘scar’ which hung from his left eye, which he claimed he had received while restraining one of Santa Virginia’s notoriously tough perps but which had been there since his first day on the force and looked more like a birthmark than a wound. But it… added a certain charm, a—God have mercy on me—a quaint ruggedness.

He also had a faded crimson snake tattoo on his left forearm. What it meant was beyond me. I had always been afraid to ask because such questions have a tendency to turn into full-blown conversations, and I did not wish to risk bonding with him—when he wasn’t nearby, anyway.

The only detail missing from his ‘definitely not a cop off duty trying to blend in with citizens’ aesthetic were the optional metallic wraparound sunglasses sometimes worn by law enforcement officers both on and off duty—inside, outside, lights on, lights off, day or night (we seem to think we can see in the dark while wearing these expensive, ugly, cyberpunk-looking things), because so many of us are afflicted with a strange aversion to the prospect of civilians being able to see where our eyes are looking—a prime example of the paranoia that we poor, hated, hounded, endangered, persecuted cops must suffer through each day. You never know when someone might try to spike your latte with fentanyl, so you need to be able to project the impression that you could have your eyes on anyone in the room, including (especially) the barista with piercings, pronouns, and a purple pompadour.

I prayed to God that my mate might turn us left or right or about-face, that he would lead me anywhere else, away from this man whom I perceived as… nothing… but… a piece of sexist… blue blood trash—but we continued to approach this… horse’s anus like a pair of hungry flies.

As we approached the man who had harassed me every chance he got, as he smirked triumphantly at his prey, my eyes remained locked with his. He stood to hug his husband, then slapped him on the ass, earning a smile from his pet.

To me, he whisper-asked (politely, though, to my surprise), “(How’s retirement?)”

‹I need tequila, so I need to be nice.› With every civil bone inside my body I told him, “It’s been a dream.” (My bones were more civil than they usually were, and I even gave him a genuine grin.)

He smiled back enthusiastically and patted my shoulder. “I’m happy to hear that! Any plans to find a new job?”

“I’m… satisfied with my employment status.”

“You like having all that free time, eh?”

“I’ve kept myself busy with the things I like.”

He took my hands in his and squeezed. “Excellent, excellent. I’m happy for you.” His hands engulfed mine; they were warm and soft, moisturized but not greasy, neither clammy nor dry. My breath abandoned me—until he withdrew his hands. “What’s your name?”

“Um.” I ripped myself away from the fresh memory of my hands in his—its overwhelming intimacy, its emotional warmth, its sudden absence—to play the question back in my head and come up with an answer. “Of course, my name, it’s—it’s Eupraxia.”

“Eupraxia: shake.”

I did not know what kind of row I could have caused by disobeying orders from another handler. While Diane exceeded Tom by several ranks… that only counted at our work, not at the club; as far as I could tell, she was just another patron, with absolutely no authority. I did not wish to start a feud between my owner and another cop—although I had a hunch she’d stomp him into hamburger if he complained about her pet—

But none of that mattered because I was high on Molly. The idea of refusing a handshake did not occur to me. I shook his hand and kept smiling while that man wore the vilest of grins. He changed our handshake into a hug and dusted me with just a (hint) of his natural fragrance—which was inoffensive enough, citrus and cedar and ethanol. It was… pleasant, if you’re a freak who’s into smelling people’s body odor. I was one such freak. My heart raced. I wanted to keep smelling him. I wanted to… I wanted…

No. I won’t say what I wanted. Eventually I won’t have a choice, but not now. I’m still not ready.

Then he smacked my ass (by many not the first of times) an act made all the more humiliating—to a lesser extent by the power imbalance between us tipping in his favor per the venue’s rules, and to a greater extent by the unexpected excitation it injected between my thighs—which smeared across my face a countenance of grotesquely thrilled horror. Missing was the guilt I had felt each time he’d done the same thing in the past, for… for not… being mad enough that he had touched me inappropriately. This time, spanking was acceptable, if not expected. This time, I didn’t need to slap his cheek. This time, there was nothing wrong with how his touch made me feel. This time, I didn’t need to feel that shame. For once, I could let myself feel… something positive.

Then he whispered, “(Looks like I’ll be having fun with everybody’s favorite juicy munchkin redhead ass.)”

That whisper—which could have torn a hole in my eardrum like a wadcutter ripping through paper—made my scalp buzz and my legs weak for a moment, even though he checked the box for all three of my turn offs: manly men, misogynistic shitheads, and pigs. (Though… calling him a ‘manly man’ is ignoring the care he put into maintaining his skin and his choice of a slim Italian suit in merlot, over a saffron shirt with hot pink hearts, topped with a silk cravat of silver carnations on turquoise; and as for his misogyny, beyond sexually harassing me he had never once to my knowledge made any statements implying that I or any other woman was undeserving of equal pay or reproductive freedom—to the contrary, he had (on multiple occasions) pulled me aside to express concern over whether I was being paid fairly and whether my lack of career advancement might have been due to gender-based discrimination—so it was really hard to say that he was actually a capital-M Misogynist, so I was able to tell myself that he was, at worst, simply a confident man with boundary issues.)

I glanced at my mate Pink, who had taken a seat within the booth and was occupying himself with reading from the cocktail menu. “Heel, Eupraxia.” My mate’s handler sat beside his feline spouse and pat-patted the empty cushion to his left. He told me, “Sit,” and I obeyed. “Who handles you?”

‹Tell this guy? Hell no. Lie.› “Moneta.” ‹Okay, don’t lie, Andrea. How about I tell him every detail of the three most thrilling days I’ve lived?›

“Moneta who?”

“Sorry, I don’t know if there’s more to her name.”

“I’ve never heard of her.”

Containing a sigh of relief inside my chest, I reassured him, “And there’s nothing wrong with ignorance.”

“It’s basic courtesy to get to know the handlers of the pets your pet befriends.”

The relieved sigh I had been holding in now evolved into a frustrated sigh I was holding in. “Right. Of course it is.”

“You’re new to this.”

“I’m learning.”

“I’d like to get to know her… well.”

“I’m sure she’d like to know a thing or two about you before agreeing to meet up.”

“Then tell her about me.”

“I barely know anything about you.”

“We worked in the same squad for over a decade. You know me.”

“Nothing that would interest her.”

“Well. What would interest her?”

“Uhh… interesting things.”

“Easy. Here goes: I graduated from clown college, I own a yacht, and I love this little guy more than anything because he’s the prettiest trophy husband around.”

I had no clue if any of these claims were true. The evidence I had, which was quite limited, told me that ‹they have a healthy sex life, though my Pink feels a need to hide the fact that he’s bi—an obvious red flag—but that doesn’t mean Tom is being insincere in saying that he loves his husband. The yacht, too, stretches his credibility, since things like that are out-of-reach of a lowly SVPD sergeant’s base pay… though it’s possible he receives enough in bonuses—courtesy of his assignment to the deluxe beat of beautiful Balboa Hills—that he could, in combination with a generous loan, acquire a modest leisure boat. As for the clown school question… that, too, is a ‘maybe’—though it would explain the tiny car he drives at work…

‹My God, that’s pretty damn hilarious!› I tried to keep myself from smirking back while asking, “Clown college? So you’re a clown?”

“Yeah. I graduated the year they closed.”

‹Perhaps he’s being truthful?› “Do you happen to drive a tiny car around all day?” I fought back snicker-laughs.

His eyes narrowed in irritation. “Ha. Ha. You drove one, too.”

“How many clowns can you fit into a three-wheeler?”

“Eight.”

I squinted skeptically.

“Two in the driver’s seat, one on each side, four standing on the trunk. Planning out how to pack a car with clowns is the first thing they teach you in Team Clowning 210: Driving School.”

I busted out into laughter. “Oh, Tom…”

He smirked mischievously. “I know how to make you laugh, Red.”

“In spite of my attempts to get you to leave me alone.”

“You know you love my attention, Miss Bachman.”

“Ah. Um.” My mouth and throat suddenly got very dry. “Could we get something to drink?”

“Sure.” He waved and a yellow jacketed woman trimmed in black and white checkers came to our table.

“What can I get for you?”

Tom asked me, “Whatcha want, Eupraxia?”

“A glass of tequila, neat—no, bring the bottle, lime wedges and sea salt. Reposado—no, extra añejo.” Two shots in one sitting and I’d be properly tipsy; after three my judgment would begin to rot; with four I’d struggle somewhat with my balance—but with five in me… I was God Herself.

“A bottle of tequila for the sexy girl, extra an-yay-ho, lime and sea salt.” ‹Uh…› I tried my hardest to ignore the fact that quite unlike the prior 61 times he had called me ‘sexy’, this one did not inspire me with guilt—though, as on those occasions past, I felt a sneaky blush stain my cheeks red. “And Cupcake, my dear?”

“A gin and tonic, please,” said Cupcake.

“A gin and tonic for the pretty boy.”

“Would that be all, sir?” she asked.

“That’s all.”

“Fantastic, I’ll be back with all your drinks in just a jiffy.”

As soon as she was out of earshot I asked, “So… How did you two meet?”

“My Cupcake was on Adams, turning—‍”

“Don’t!” interrupted Pink, just short of frantically.

“Be quiet, pet.” My Pink appeared to be in agony. “As I was saying, Cupcake was turning tricks when we met.” Pink made quiet sounds appropriate for someone in their final, horrid throws of dying. ‹Holy shit, he’s a fellow sex worker!› “We got along so well the first time, he enjoyed himself so much, he didn’t want to charge. I picked him up again the next week and we ate some hotdogs at the beach—we shared one, each of us at either end, we kissed when we met at the middle!” The sweetness of it sickened me—and—I felt—God save me—the pit of my stomach filling with… envy. (And mild disgust, because kissing with food in two’s mouths is gross—unless I’m doing it with someone, in which case it’s hot.) “Taking him to Sinuosa Beach instead of bringing him to a hotel was well worth it, and he had such a good time that he comped me again. Next time I saw him on the street, he looked depressed. I asked him what was bothering him.”

My dear Pink ceased his distressed noises and was now sitting straight, staring with expectant tears at Tom, as though enraptured by a story he had heard a hundred times but of which he had not grown tired, and would not grow tired for a hundred-thousand more.

“He said his landlord found out how he was earning his rent and kicked him out. I offered him my bed until he found a new place, and then… one-and-a-half years of apartment-hunting later, we had nada. And we’re happy we didn’t find anything. As cruel as it had been, him losing his apartment was the best thing that could happen to us! Every day that passed, the two of us grew closer, till we’d gotten close enough to take the plunge. It took a lot of psyching up for him to finally propose. He really caught me off my guard… that day was tied three ways for greatest day of all my life, alongside the day we met and the day we got married.”

Pink kissed him tenderly upon the cheek. “I don’t like the beginning of the story… but by its end I’m always glad you’ve told it yet again.”

On the one hand, I was moved. It was such a sweet story I couldn’t hold back a pouty smile. On the other hand, I was definitely high. This was the guy who slapped me on the ass on multiple occasions, called me ‘hottie’ in the squad room, pressured me day-in and day-out to have a coffee or a drink or two with him—despite my constant insistence that he desist and endless warnings that I’d tell on him to HR for harassment. This was also the guy who showered not just kindness, generosity, and decency upon a homeless sex worker but undeniable compassion, hospitality, and love. The question of how Tom Forrester could be both a wholesome human being and the unit’s Sex Pest of the Year for eleven years straight was not on my mind.

I did not question their saccharine story; I was high. I dismissed—too easily—my prior judgments of this man. ‹Maybe… maybe he’s not all that awful. Maybe I misunderstand him. Maybe I’ve been flirting with him without conscious effort; I was unaware that I’ve been inviting his attentions, so I hafta admit that he’s an okay guy… He’s a fine man. A fine, handsome man who knows how to make me laugh and blush.›

To ease my quickly dwindling doubts about Tom’s character, I looked to Pink for confirmation of this tale of knightly rescue of a catboy damsel from his homelessness, and their ensuing love and happily forever after… and I could not find a single sign within his body language (he was totally relaxed, his tail was swishing slowly back and forth contentedly) or his voice (his purr could well have deafened me) or his face (his eyes drooped like he’d found the perfect patch of sunlight, baskworthy) that he was being forced to go along with a lie—but, to the contrary, his restful eyes were full of hope and admiration and nostalgic ecstasy while they were focused on Tom’s, and Tom was looking right back at him in exactly the same way. Their relationship was not an act, these husbands truly were in love. I must accept his joy—to hear the happy ending—and the kiss he gave to Tom as proof that Tom, deep down, was good and wholesome as a human being despite all he’d done to make my work life deeply miserable, despite being a… a disgusting male.

‹Tom… you’re a good man, after all. But how about Pink? Is he worthy of such a fine and noble husband?› “So… Cupcake. Do you pull your weight walking Adams?”

“That life is behind me.”

“Then what do you do for a job?”

“I’m a househusband.”

“You don’t bring any money into the household?”

He shook his head.

“No more sex work.”

He shook his head again.

‹Is he actually finished with whoring?› “Do you… employ the Social Workers Group’s paid services at all?”

“What is… ‘the Social Workers Group’?” asked Tom—a little too innocently.

My investigator instincts turned on in response to what sounded like deception. For half a second my gaze snapped to Tom’s face and I reflexively reached for my Mental Scalpel of Interrogation™—honed by tens of thousands of hours of watching copaganda television and movies, my tool for psychological analysis of interviewees—and commenced dissecting his reaction to discern his thoughts. (I’d like to remind you that people who are high or manic occasionally develop delusions that they have fantastic powers—for example, reading minds.)

‹Your eyes look slightly bored now, invested just enough to be polite; but on the other hand, your facial muscles are taut, substantiating my inference that you’re hiding interest that your eyes aren’t letting on. You’d like to hear more, wouldn’t you?›

Pink’s tail puffed out straight as a brand-new pipe cleaner. “Just a… a nonprofit.”

“What kind of nonprofit?”

“Well, (uhhh…) The S—Social Workers Group… helps with… filing taxes… housing… job training… um… health insurance—that kind of stuff.” Pink kept his eyes on mine—they pleaded, [Can we change the subject?]

“I see.”

“Cupcake,” I continued, “I was asking whether you’ve used any of the organization’s benefits.”

He stole a quick glance at his husband, then admitted, “I was involved a long time ago.”

“Membership’s for life.” I pulled that fact straight out of my ass.

“Of course—I meant that at the moment I’m not… utilizing any benefits.”

“Do you still pay the fees?”

“I don’t work, I don’t pay dues.”

“Right. How about meetings—do you go to them?”

“No.”

“On Wednesday morning, did you leave your home for any reason?”

His right eye, hidden from his husband, squinted. “Yes…”

“To meet with friends?”

Suspicion crept into his other eye. “Yes. Friends. Why?”

I dug through my purse until I found my membership card. A subtle spreading of Tom’s eyes betrayed excitement, but he dared not speak his thoughts. I handed Cupcake the card.

He looked it over carefully for half a minute, then gave it back. “Now that I think back on it, I might have attended.”

“Did you arrive on time?”

“I did, but… it was canceled a few minutes in.”

A change flashed wide across Tom’s face, too quickly to decode. ‹What was that in your face, Tom? What did I just see? You look so normal now, almost disinterested, just like before, but I could swear I saw you make some kind of face for just a blink.›

“A meeting, Wednesday?” Tom asked nervously.

‹You knew your husband went there, didn’t you? You tracked his phone’s location, maybe, or you tailed him there. I suppose… you have some sort of justification for invading your spouse’s privacy. Please tell me you have a reason…›

“There… was,” replied Pink.

“What happened at this meeting?” asked his husband with a little too much curiosity.

“You don’t have a ‘need to know’, as you say whenever I ask you about your job.”

“You’re talking about the Guild.”

“I am not.”

“What happened at the Guild meeting?” insisted Tom.

Pink sighed. “I can’t tell you, Tom.”

“Could you at least tell me what happened afterwards?”

My Pink Kitty shrugged. “There was a raid.”

“Did you see anything suspicious?” continued Tom. ‹Why are you so interested in what happened at the meeting, Tom?›

“Police knew about the meeting. That was strange. They never raid meetings.”

The tension in Tom’s shoulders dissipated, and his face, for just the briefest of moments, smoothed with relief—though not the sort that brings celebratory laughter; rather it was more like what one feels when one finds out a family member has survived a brush with murder only for the would-be-killer to escape Justice. It was a very bitter relief, which looked not unlike regret. The relief suddenly evaporated, though, as his gaze pointed back and forth between me and Pink and asked, “So, Red, how did you two meet?”

“We danced,” I said.

“Then… (something else,)” elaborated Pink, playfully feigning innocence. He was clearly happy to switch topics.

“Does ‘something else’ mean… you two mated?”

Pink smiled coyly.

Tom glanced back and forth between us, the corners of his lips curled upwards slyly; for just a moment his eyes, bright with mischief, gave his mug a… dashing veneer. “Did you penetrate her?” Pink held his tongue. “My pet, the punishment for lying or withholding testimony’s double what you get for just the crime itself. I ask again, Cupcake: did you put your dick inside the Most Forbidden Hole?”

“Yes, sir…” replied his husband with pretend guilt.

“Bend over.” Cake eagerly laid himself down, his stomach on Tom’s thighs and his face buried in my lap, thrilling me. Tom lifted his husband’s skirt and petticoats, then brought his open palm down on his pantied asscheek, and a tiny, lustful yelp burst from Pink’s mouth… “One.” …followed by another slap and yelp. “Two.” And again. “Three.” Hearing the pleasure in Pink’s voice, I understood that this was not real punishment, but a game of some kind—so I decided I would play a slightly bigger part. I forced Pink’s face down in my lap to gently smother him, and his reaction was a playful struggle to escape my clutches. Tom delivered four and five and so on, all the way to “Ten. I have decided to be merciful, and stop at half of what I should be giving you, because I love you. Up.” I took my hands off Pink’s head; so freed, he righted himself. He tried and semi-failed to hide his grin. ‹I know that feeling.› Where he half-succeeded in hiding his secret satisfaction, I was unaware that my vicarious delight was showing through a smirk. “Did you enjoy watching him get punished, Eupraxia?”

“So much as I enjoyed imagining myself in his situation.” I should have been surprised by my own honesty… but I was high and enjoying myself.

“Is that your way of saying you would like to lay across my lap while I spank you?”

My words, to be clear, weren’t at all my way of saying that; yet my uncensored reply was, of all words, “Yes.” As soon as I had realized what had come out of my mouth I cocked my head and asked myself, ‹Did I really just tell him I want to be spanked? Well, I guess I gotta make it clear to him how important consent is to me.› “If you don’t mind.” ‹Better.›

He smirked so… roguishly. “I’ll give you a few trial slaps, then I can go till you say ‘stop’, how’s that?”

I nodded feebly, torn asunder by the mixture of attraction and revulsion that I felt towards him; by my disdain and curiosity for this man’s personality; by fear of possibly insulting him if I turned down his offer… any other day, that is. This day… I had an overwhelming desire to get closer to him. “Works for me.”

He pointed down. “Lap.”

I eagerly hiked my dress up to expose my ass and laid on his lap, and let my head fall upon the mountain of fabric that was Pink’s dress.

Tom massaged my cheeks, remarking, “God, you have the most beautiful fat ass.” The ass massage gave my vagina a heads-up to prepare for a (welcome) visit. “I gotta ask, though: No underwear?”

My face turned redder. “My mistress ordered me to keep them off.”

“How kinky…” he said approvingly, his tongue dripping with lust.

‹This is a pet play sex club, everything is kinky, nothing can be weird—not even letting this man, out of all the men in this world, touch me, it would seem.

‹I’m sick, there’s something wrong with me.

‹But he’s so handsome, I just can’t help myself. Grow out his hair and dye it brown and he’d look just like a young Peter.›

“You ready, Red?”

“I’m waiting for you to start.”

Clap, zap! The stinging in my ass sent sparks between my hips, a yelp between my vocal cords, a curl throughout my toes, and satisfaction inside my forebrain. “You good, Red?”

“Ah… Yeah. Continue.”

Another slap came down, which sent more shocks throughout me, causing me to yelp again… and heating up my pussy by a half degree.

“Another,” I told him.

He slapped again and left me with a lightly burning ass and an anticipation for the next.

“Just—keep going.”

“‘Keep going’ what?”

I groaned. “Keep going, please.”

“Good girl.” He slapped me yet again, and then I started feeling an excitement build up in my chest. Another slap increased it. And another, and another, and another, with each spank I cried out, for the first few in surprise, the rest in growing merriment. The thought that ‹I am being spanked, consensually, by a man who sexually harassed me non-stop the whole time I was in his unit,› drifted aimlessly among the shadows of my mind, where it was easy to ignore. The spanking, by its very nature, pulled in most of my attention with each blow. I had suspicions, even without sticking a finger in my vadge, that I was soaked. And if I had any uncertainty remaining, it disappeared as Tom remarked, “You’re drenched, Eupraxia. You’re soaking through my pants, my thigh is wet.” ‹Sex pest.› I shoved the thought aside. ‹I’ll have no shame this time.›

I thought I saw Pink’s fabric-covered boner and decided in my pain-induced euphoria to ‹do something about this thing,› and—as my closest orifice—my mouth was naturally the tool to use. I squirmed around till I could wrap my mouth around the fabric lump.

“Eupraxia?” asked Cupcake.

“I haven’t had a thing inside my stomach since this morning. Lift your skirt, so I can have a snack.”

He pulled his dress up, and I yanked his tenting panties down and spread his fur aside—

Leathery spiky exterior yet

Within your center, bombastic’ly sweet

Tangy pulp we cut in wedges or rings,

Exceeding orange in tropical zest—

Fruit salad, grilled, or a cake upside down,

Piña colada, tepache, Tajín,

Pineapple, princess of sour and sweet

I caught his scent and lost my mind.

He panted as I slipped my lips around his head and suck-massaged it with my tongue. I needed more; I struggled to accept it as deeply into my mouth as it could go—I choked on his impressive phallus before I could get the whole thing in my mouth—but I persevered in pleasing him with the rhythmic thrusting of my head. I relished every groan each time his dick went down my throat. On each upward exhaust stroke I added suction around the head, and on each downward power stroke I squeezed it between my tongue and rubbed it against my palate.

Then the Catboy’s moans grew wild and he grabbed my hair and violently thrust his cock into my mouth and twitch-twitch-twitched, blasting a mouthful of something salty-funky onto my tongue. “Oh, fuck,” he shouted. “Christ Almighty, that was good.”

My meal having been served, I slowly removed my mouth from him while sucking all the way up, being careful not to waste a single curd, and swallowed. ‹I’d have hoped for something more substantial, though I should’ve known it wasn’t gonna be much. I need a proper meal.›

The cop had stopped his spanking at some point—I’d grown so used to it that I’d forgotten that the pleasure spreading through my lower half was thanks to him. “Oh, Pretty Puppy, my hand hurts. If this was meant as punishment, I would’ve given up and taken you to the kennel. You’d wear a leash until the day you die.”

“I hate leashes,” I proclaimed, then (urgently dissatisfied with the strength of my conviction) decided to give it another try, insisting (with a supreme lack of confidence in what I was saying), “I… hate leashes.” I sat up and surprised myself by giving Tom a smile (thus drawing his attention away from my unintentional implication that I liked being led around on a leash).

“The SV Pride Parade is Saturday,” he said.

“Right. I saw on Hootr.”

“Cupcake and I will both be there.”

“That’s good for you.” ‹I would like to be there with my Pink… Maybe I could ask, but… they’re going as a couple. I would be some kind of third wheel. It would be weird. I want to ask, but… Ugh, I need to change the subject.› “How long have we been waiting for our drinks?”

The same tuxedo woman happened to arrive with them just then. “Here you go, sir, please enjoy!” She left us to ourselves.

“I hope that you enjoy yourselves at Pride,” I told them, staring at my bottle, wanting very much to chug it all but rather confused about how to go about doing so.

“We always do. Pet play is kind of on the para-ferry of the queer community, but we’re accepted as a Jason there.”

‹‘Para-ferry’? ‘A Jason’?› “Is that so?” I asked politely. “Um. Are other kinks attending the parade?”

“There’s leather, bondage, crossdressing,” he listed, nudging Cupcake and grinning, “and anything else that you can think of.”

“That’s lovely,” I responded, distracted by my bottle—I stared at it, still unsure of how to proceed with getting drunk.

‹Have I truly forgotten how to drink booze? Cork. Glass. Pour. Sip.› For the first time in a year I pulled the cork out of a bottle’s neck and filled my glass with golden tequila, a special nectar aged for ten or more summers, crafted for enthusiasts who’d rather let the flavors dance and mate and marry upon their tongues, against their cheeks, within their throats—not quite as aged a liquor as my partners human year-wise… in tequila years, though, in the same sweet late afternoon era as they were, and it would only get better as it approached its sublime sunset. ‹Here’s to you, dear Tom, you handsome sonuvagun.›

i sip at first, then
slurp the rest,

surrendering
to

sweet agave and crisp citrus
before savoring

these notes of

bright cedar

mellow-yet-spicy alfalfa honey
and

a hint of—

what is that? spearmint?

as earths and florals all converge

upon my olfactory bulb, I must say:

god, this is what I needed now, and
such a fine tequila
to fall off the wagon with

Each sip was as beautifully complex as the previous. By the thousands my brain cells were being strangled, giving me a creeping, miniature death.

Between each shot I sank my teeth into the firm flesh of a fresh, plump lime wedge and sucked the sour-bitter-sweet juice from its core, then licked the salt off of the web between my thumb and pussy-fingering finger. Drink by drink my head spun up; the ecstasy glow and the sex glow and the alcohol glow synergized. ‹Sobriety is stupid… I think I shall keep myself drunk 24/7 henceforth.›

I waited while Tom slowly finished his glass, by which time I’d gotten staggeringly sloshed, at least three if not four or even five drinks in; I had a fairly robust tolerance for alcohol, and I remained awake, alert, and capable of stumbling about with an acceptably low chance of falling—or so I assumed; in truth I had no concept of how drunk I really was since I’d lost count.

I wanted to know more about him, and the best place to start seemed to be the one thing we had in common. Between drinks, I asked him, “So… Tom. How many tickets do you write in a day?”

His smile twitched before he replied, “On average—788.”

“Holy cow. That’s almost 8 pads.”

“Yeah, Balboa Hills is the most busy, and it also has the most metered spots than any other neighborhood.”

“What’s that monthly?”

“23,990…” He was showing just a little irritation in his voice…

…but I kept going because I wanted to bond with him, and the most obvious way to accomplish that was talking about the things we had in common, which consisted of work and work alone. “That’s quite a lot. I only used to get 8 per week.”

“8?”

“Yes.”

“You had the Tango Papa Hotel zone, though.”

“Yes.”

“Tango Papa Hotel’s curbspace has almost as much demand as Balboa’s.”

“I worked mids.”

“Mids is when business on Adams peaks, when the sex workers show up. You shoulda been writing a fresh parking ticket every 15 seconds. You had the most profitable assignment next to mine and Jack’s.”

“Yeah, yeah…” I played with my hair nervously. “But—those… hookers are constantly topping off the meters, I could never find any cars to ticket. Um. (How…) do you keep track of 24,000 tickets on a monthly report?”

His face screwed up as if to ask me, [Why are you asking me about work?] “The same way you track yours.”

“Tom, the most I’ve ever dealt with in a month was 41. That’s not even a full-page report. Most months it was only half a page, and it wasn’t uncommon for my weeklies to be empty altogether. That’s why I wanna know how you, the best meter man in the unit, are able to manage the paperwork for so many citations. How do you sign damn near 500 pages at the end of every month without going nuts from the monotony?”

He sighed impatiently. “I sign the report electronically and the word processor signs all the pages for me automatically.”

“You sign everything all at once that way?” He nodded. “One click?”

“Yes.”

“And what do you do with the 500-ish pages that the printer spits out after that, just staple it and drop it on the lieutenant’s desk?”

“I don’t print it. I email it. It’s all electronic.”

“No paper?”

“No paper.”

“I’ll be damned.”

“It’s called ‘going paperless’, Bachman. It’s been SOP for as long as I’ve been here.”

“I’ve been printing and signing and hand-delivering reports when I could have been doing my job paperlessly! How inefficient and inconvenient and time-consuming for everyone involved. Especially the higher-ups, who have to copy my tickets into their spreadsheets by hand.”

“Can we talk about something else?”

“The tools I needed were all right there, in plain sight, the whole time. I’m all for reducing paper usage, but I suppose I’m just old enough to default to old-fashioned solutions to modern problems.”

I knew damn well, though, what going paperless entailed. I was actually trying to flatter him, you see, by making him think he was a million times better at his job than I was. The real reason I had chosen to relay my reports to my superiors as full-color ink on physical, easily lost or damaged paper—a format that has the drawbacks of being neither electronically transmissible nor machine-readable, and of taking up space on a desk or in a file cabinet—was to force them to copy, by hand, one keystroke at a time, all of my typo-laden data into their intricate spreadsheets, mission-critical databases, and law enforcement sensitive (LES) executive briefs. And sometimes—after that boss had painstakingly proofread what I had given them and manually copied all of it into their computer—I would come back with a document with several changes hidden among the many columns and rows and paragraphs and bullet points and tell them, ‘Oops, I gave you the wrong one,’ without telling them what exactly had changed so that they would have to search for and correct the changes, usually with minutes left till the deadline.

‘I’m older than I look,’ I insisted each time my supervisor asked me to please, please submit my reports electronically going forward. ‘Old enough to be a grandmother, in fact.’ The first time I gave Lieutenant Daniels this excuse, I was 25; as gross as it is to consider, I reasoned that—had I conceived the first time I ovulated and my child had followed my example—25 would indeed have been plenty old enough for grandmotherhood. ‘I’m not good with technology because I’m aged and wisened and these tools are made by young people with empty brains for young people with empty brains and designed to be hostile to older users who are set in our ways because our brains are full of useful information rather than all of that Internet crap. You’re already forcing me to use a fancy newfangled information processing system whose technomagical internal workings are only understood by a generation younger than mine; as a mature woman who grew up with technology far simpler than what the kids are using these days, I fear that your demand that I stop doing things the way I learned to do them—which is the best way, by the way, because us elders know best—could be construed as…’ I would then speak the magic word as quietly and as ominously as possible: ‘…ageism.’ Tom didn’t have a Need To Know™ about my crusade for zero percent efficiency, though; I just wanted to make him feel like he was the best damn meter maid on the force.

“I’d like to change the subject,” he insisted.

“Sure. But at some point I’d like to look at your reports and maybe learn from you how to be more efficient.”

“I can’t share them,” he said with unexpected firmness.

“Why not?”

“Need to know.”

I nodded. “Ah. Right. ‘Need to know’…” See? Need To Know™ works both ways. It is a tricky bitch when you have the nosiness of a basset hound.

“All the data you, as a civilian, are allowed to see is posted online, for the public to pursue.”

“‘Pursue’… Do you mean ‘peruse’?”

Irritation peeked through his pupils.

“Alright, alright. So you’re saying our stuff is viewable online?”

“Yes.”

“Since when?”

“For as long as I’ve been here.”

“Wow. Where’s the data hosted?” (I knew the URL by heart: ‘SVPD.SantaVirginia.CA.GOV​ /Records​ /Public​ /TrafficDivision​ /PEU’.)

He shrugged, probably because he had never had any interest in the department’s public records database. Which is fine, there’s absolutely nothing of interest in the SVPD public records repository, considering it’s totally anonymized and all the juicy stuff has been redacted into oblivion.

“Alright. Are you saying that if I Ask Jeeves for ‘Tom Forrester citations June’ I’ll find all of your stats for last month?”

“Ugh, no—” He glanced at Pink for just a fraction of a second, then, politely as he could, explained, “The information on The Web is aggravated by all officers.”

The next nail in my coffin hammered itself reflexively. “Did you mean ‘aggregated from’?”

His eyes simmered, but I had been soaking in the pot since the water was comfortably warm. “That’s what I said.”

I suddenly felt a little dizzy. I blinked. “Woah… Uhm. How about… What’s the fastest you’ve ever gone in your PEV?”

“The top speed’s 45 on a full charge.” His voice was parched of all amusement.

“I know the top speed, I wanna know how fast you’ve gone.”

“55. Downhill.”

“How often?”

He sighed again. “Every day, Red. It’s called ‘Balboa Hills’ for a reason.”

“Oh. Right. Is it scary?”

“It’s like driving fast downhill on a top-heavy electric tricycle.”

“I wouldn’t want to try it. It sounds dangerous. Also, the speed limit in most of the Hills is 35. How about your speed record in a real cop car? Have you ever driven a cruiser over the limit?”

His cheek twitched. “Are you gonna interrogate me about the manatees of my vacation all night like a little kid or are you willing to contribute to an adult conversation, Red?”

‹‘Manatees’…? Oh!› I giggled. ‹He means ‘Minutiae’!› “Mih-new-she-uh. Not ‘manatees’.”

Amused as a bull by a waving red cape, he acknowledged my correcting him by doubling the hostility within his eyes—but as I remind you that I was drunk and high, you will successfully deduce that I failed to deduce that I had touched on a particularly delicate topic.

“Alright. Where did you work before you came to Santa Virginia?”

“Thank you. LAPD.”

“Just like Lieutenant Columbo!”

He rolled his eyes. “Yes.”

“LAPD, LAPD… Did you ever hafta ‘physically persuade’ a combative driver into accepting their speeding ticket?”

His nose flared and his eyes latched onto mine like a leopard’s fangs onto the neck of its prey. I glanced at Pink, and saw that he was on the edge of freaking out, his eyes pleading, [What are you doing?]

‹What am I doing? Just asking friendly questions. These guys are acting weird.› “Well?” I gently, playfully punched Tom’s shoulder. “You ever needed to teach somebody a lesson?”

He was containing himself rather well, considering the emotions visibly attempting to wrest power of his body from his mind; the only thing escaping his face was the look of bloodthirst leaking from his eyes. This time I noticed. ‹Shit, why’s he suddenly upset? I just want to know what kind of cop he is.›

Pink rubbed his husband’s back. “Honey, relax… Eupraxia, can you stop asking quest—‍”

“Is it true that LA cops are corrupt and bloodthirsty?”

Tom didn’t say a thing.

‹Careful Andrea, try not to offend him,› was the last sober thought I had before I handed Fate the noose I had so expertly knotted. ‹But I hafta know if he has integrity as a law enforcement officer! I can’t stop asking questions, I need to ask more questions!› was my last inebriated thought as Fate slipped the noose around my neck and cinched it snug. “Have you ever shot anyone? Put someone in a chokehold? Violated their constitutional rights? Was it justified? Did you get in trouble or did the union protect you?”

And then I finally began to realize I was only feeding more fuel to the flames within his eyes. ‹Guilt.› I stared into them and saw that it was me who was burning in there. ‹Guilt… and… fury. Two emotions which are mixing… very… unpredictably…› His face adopted a hundred-thousand fierce emotions—damn near every one of them was screaming, [Kill her,] and each had in mind a different method for the task. His breaths, however, were deep and deliberate and single-minded, like a bull galloping full tilt down the street at a runner lagging behind the rest of the corredors.

At that moment it occurred to me that I had not brought us closer together but had rather insulted him beyond his limits. My eyes grew wide as realization of my self-defeat spread like a virus throughout my brain, from neuron to neuron to neuron, making copies of itself and flooding all my consciousness with a hundred-million panicked thoughts that stretched my eyes wide and drove my diaphragm into a frenzy so that my body shook with each wild breath. I leaned away from him, my plan being to make my exit by scooting one ass cheek an inch back and then the other, smoothly as I could, with hope that he’d be less likely to pounce if I kept all my movements slow and smooth and unpreylike.

He wrapped his fingers around my neck in response to the first twitch I made towards escape.

I tried to scream, but nothing came; a voice cried out in horror in my stead. I grabbed one of his wrists and tried to pull his hands away, then tried to pry his fingers off, then tried to scratch his eyes—having forgotten that I had by habit chewed my nails to nubs.

“Stop, Tom!”

I needed air, sweet air was all that I could think about. My arms lost all their tone, my hands fell away from prying off his grip. ‹Air. I need air.› The edges of my vision blurred and chewed their way towards the center like a burning frame of celluloid, the emptiness they left behind turning bright red, my ending coming sooner than I’d planned.

“Tom, please! Let her go!”

‹Please, God, please let me breathe.› I tried to move a muscle, any limb, but I’d been utterly deprived of all my strength.

“Let go of her!”

‹Air air air air… air… Why do I need air again?› My vision long ago had melted away, and in its place bloomed blind Euphoria, who reached for all the suffocating cells inside my brain and gave each of them a gentle, soothing hug. My fear dissolved, my need for air became forgotten; I accepted, without remorse or ill will, that my time had come—that now was when, that this was how, and here was where—I was to die.

And I agreed with Fate that the timing and circumstances of my murder were perfectly ideal.

“(Tom, please stop, please, I love her, Tom…)” The begging became muffled, then gave way to peace.

Oblivion was not a cold and dark and dreary place—instead it was illuminated by a warming light which disassembled me one atom at a time, which cut loose my privations and regrets and desires, so that I could evaporate within its warming embrace. I was nearly ready to move on.

But I could not depart quite yet, because one last concern still lived within my otherwise cleansed soul. With my last precious second of hypoxic, drunken consciousness I thought, ‹I hope my funeral is nice… though I don’t know who’s gonna plan it. I wish Pink or Judy could have been in my will.› This problematic thought was holding back my soul; I brushed it to the side, and brushed away whoever ‘Judy’ and ‘Pink’ were. While I was at it, I forgot who Diane and Georgina were. In the distance I saw Shosh by herself, sitting, brooding… worrying, though I knew not what for. I felt some unknown force pull me towards her, and her towards me. Her head turned my way; small as it was from so far away, I saw her face clearly, saw that her eyes were consumed by fear. I didn’t need to know her anymore, so I discarded all my memories of her as well. The last of my soul having been uprooted…

For the first time in my life—if easing into nonexistence can indeed be called a phase of life—I was free.

Kickstart My Heart

Content Warnings:
Manic Episode;
Coerced Alcohol Consumption

An agonizing shock speared through my chest into my heart, arching my back; a gale rushed through my sore throat and into my lungs; my eyes flew open, and I tried to make some sense of my surroundings as my abilities to sense and think and breathe great scoops of air with forceful lungs returned to me.

‹Colorful dancing lights, every color of the rainbow, shapes, circles, triangles, stars.

‹Multi-layered music, bass massaging my electrified heart, treble tickling my air-starved brain.

‹A semicircle of people standing over me—why are they here? They look so worried. Should I be worried, too?›

“How are you feeling, Miss?” asked a man with his head hovering over mine.

“Uh—fine? What’s—going—on?” I croaked between great, heaving breaths.

He offered me his hand. “Please, let me help you up.” He gently righted me, one hand in mine, the other supporting my shoulder. As he helped me up, I saw Tom being led away, arm-in-arm, by two burly bouncers. “Mister Forrester attacked you, so he is to be ejected from the premises—you’re safe from him. Would you tell me your name?”

“Andrea—um, my pet name is Eupraxia.”

“Would you like me to help you find your handler? I can summarize for him or her what happened, if you aren’t feeling up to it.”

“No, thank you.”

“I insist that we notify your handler.”

“That’s fine.”

“I will not release you until you have told me their name.”

“Moneta.”

“Moneta.”

“Yes.”

“I must get to work having this man prosecuted.”

“Wait.” ‹There’s something fucked up going on in Tommy’s brain… I want to know why all that guilt showed through the second before he attacked. And I don’t want him to get in trouble; he’s a nice guy. I did something to piss him off, he doesn’t deserve to go to jail for life.› “Don’t arrest him,” I demanded. “Bring him back here.”

“But—but he strangled you!”

“I—asked for it.” ‹Not literally, but certainly in the colloquial sense of the phrase.› “I asked for it.”

“From everybody else’s perspective, it looked like… he was trying to murder you.”

“Yes—maybe it looked that way, but—this was some extreme roleplay we were trying out. So real, exciting, dangerous… consensual, too, you should know. Murder roleplay. We’re both adults, we can do crazy things as long as we agree to it.”

“I see. We frown upon such edge play here, Miss.” He was indeed frowning. “We are a safe, sane, and consensual-only venue. You have heard of ‘SSC’. Madam Moneta would have explained it to you if you did not already understand.”

“Of course I’ve heard of ‘SSC’,” I lied. “We won’t be doing any more ‘edge play’ here, we can go—to—he can bring me to his place tonight and we can do it there. Please, bring him back.”

“If you insist there is no enmity, Miss… I will unban him.” Then his voice was deep with disapproval, if not disgust, as he lectured, “But if you two try your so-called risk-aware ‘consensual’ kink again within the borders of these premises, or even on the sidewalk or the street out front, you will both be banned. No-one in their right mind would consent to such dangerous acts, and we do not tolerate the risk of grave injury at Asmodeus. Madame Moneta certainly does not. Please wait here for the paramedics to examine you.”

He walked away to talk to Tommy and the burly men. I stood and took a seat within the booth, and there I waited and I waited and 5 anxious minutes later a trio of EMTs, led to me by one of the taxi women, took my vitals while insisting without pause that I needed to go to the hospital for ‘post cardiac arrest care’. They claimed repeatedly that I needed further medical attention and pleaded with me to go with them; and I repeatedly informed them that, on top of feeling fine, I had unfinished business here and would not be departing, till they understood their pleas were falling on deaf ears. They did convince me to let the team comprehensively monitor my recovery with every instrument that they could pull out of their ambulance that produced readouts or emitted beeps or buzzes till they received a call to save someone whose life actually needed saving.

They made me wait for 10 whole minutes, during which the man who’d been prepared to send Tom packing had an animated discussion about I-don’t-know-what with the man who tried to kill me. Throughout those 10 minutes, the 3 EMTs continued taking vitals and monitoring my EKG and shining a flashlight in my eyes and asking me every minute on the minute for my name, birth date, and address. “Same as the last time you asked. If you ask again after I’ve received a big fat raise, though, the answer might be different.”

10 minutes turned into 11 and my patience had worn thinner than a moth’s wings, so I asked them to wrap things up. They continued badgering me to the bitter end to come with them, but I had a neck so stiff not even God could bend it. “Alright, Miss,” the one in charge said as they disconnected my EKG leads, “if you don’t want to come with us, consider having a friend transport you to the nearest emergency department when you get the chance.”

“I’ll be okay.”

“I hope you are. Cardiac arrest is not a temporary issue without long-term consequences. Please, see your physician as soon as you can.”

“I’ll schedule an appointment first thing in the morning,” I lied, signing the refusal of care against medical advice form, after which they finally stopped pestering me and went on their merry way.

The man who had helped me up and chastised me for what I’d claimed to be nothing more than a little bit of harmlessly risky kink chatted with the EMTs as they departed, then had the bouncers release Tom. Pink looked more troubled than relieved as the two of them returned to the table, while Tom was clearly perplexed— ‹And… ashamed? Does he feel bad for hurting me? Oh, Tom… I’m alive, don’t worry about it. I’m alive, I’m fine, no harm, no foul. You can make it up to me by opening up about yourself and entrusting me with your darkest secrets.›

Approaching me with slow, timid steps, he said, “I’m sorry, Andrea. I lost my temper. And I just can’t figure out why…”

“Why what? What’s this mystery you’re investigating?” I asked him, sitting down and (in hindsight) scooting closer than might have been comfortable for him. “I love mysteries, and I would be delighted to help you solve one.”

“Why did you bail me out when I got angry—? —even though—well, I don’t ’member what went down, but—they accused me of—trying to—‍” His voice shrank. “(—to… kill… you.)”

I glanced at Pink, who looked like he had witnessed my actual death. Despite the liquor pickling my ischemic brain, I reckoned he might (out of jealousy or protectiveness or some other emotion) get in the way of my attempts to get to know his husband, so I had the sense to cut him out. “This is between you and me, Tommy.” I began to peel away my EKG patches and build a pile of them on the tabletop. “I’m not comfortable discussing this with somebody I only just met chiming in.”

Without protest or question Tom asked, “Nico, would you care to give us privacy?” ‹Pink Nico, oh, my love, my dear… forgive me for sending you away, but your husband and I need to discuss this matter in private.›

Hesitating with a pleading and protective glance at me, my Pink replied, “Of course, my dear,” and wandered off.

“Let’s go find another booth, I don’t want the tuxedos coming back to bother us.”

“Okay…”

We found another booth and this time we pulled back the privacy curtains before taking our seats. “What’s bothering you, Tommy?”

“Where were you going with your questions before I… ‘lost it’?” Tom asked. “The last thing I remember was—you asked me if I’d— Did you really ask me if I’ve ever killed someone?”

“I just wanted to know what your career has been like, the ups and downs, the trials and tribulations. I’ve only ever known you as the Parking King, but I thought maybe you’d held other titles in other units before you transferred to SVPD. I figured you might’ve gone on grander adventures back in LA.”

His guilt solidified, but thankfully his anger was absent this time. ‹But really, though, have you killed a man?›

“Blue is for life, Tommy, and after all the things we did in the time leading up to your pardonable mistake… I’m warming up to you. You can confide in me. The blue shield is inviolable.”

“‘In-vile-uh-bull’? What’s that?”

“It means it can’t be violated. If you did something that you wish you could share with somebody but are afraid of being judged, you can talk to me with confidence that I won’t tell another soul. Plus, we’re at Asmodeus. Whatever happens here, whatever you tell me here, is as secret as it gets.”

His chin trembled, his cheeks and brows pinched watering eyes.

I rested a comforting hand on his shoulder and asked him, “You doin’ okay, Tommy Boy?”

He broke down sobbing.

His pain spread to me and weighed on my chest like pneumonia; I felt compelled to comfort him. “We all do bad things, Tommy. The biggest advantage of being a LEO is you have the biggest, closest family in the world to share your feelings with.” I took one of his hands and squeezed it reassuringly. “But I can’t help you if you don’t share. You can tell me what’s bothering you.”

I let him sob it out; he regained his ability to speak after a minute or so. “I can’t… tell you.” A droplet of snot spattered on the table, and he sniffed wetly.

I wanted to help him—but I was also in detective mode, so I wanted just as much to know the reason behind his guilt. I poured him a tequila shot. “Here. Savor it. A little ETOH will make you feel better. Let it wash over your tongue and burn your cheeks.” He followed my advice then gingerly set down the glass. I poured him another, and I made him drink that, too. I waited till I figured he should be affected to continue, “Tell me what’s got you bothered, buddy.”

He shook his head again.

He wasn’t drunk enough, I thought, so I refilled his glass… “Drink.”

…and he obeyed.

“I gotta admit it was scary. Real scary. I thought I was as good as dead.”

He hiccupped and I smiled.

“My friends and lovers would have missed me very much.”

He whined.

“But it’s alright.” I rubbed gentle circles on his back. “I’m okay. You barely hurt me. I have no hard feelings, Tommy. I forgive you.”

His throat produced a quiet, agony-filled groan.

I continued to smile as I whispered loudly, “Whadaya wanna tell me, Tommy? Go on, I’m listening.”

He turned away from me. “I—can’t…”

“If I had died, you wouldn’a been able to confide in me. But I survived. You have an opportunity to talk with someone you’ve known for so long and now bonded with so closely, even in such a short time, an opportunity you nearly lost. You ought to take it before something else threatens my life.”

He whined and wringed his hands in his lap.

I poured him another, which he ignored. A hint of frustration escaped me in the form of a grunt, but for the most part I maintained my composure. “Tommy, loosen up. Just one more.”

He stared at his commingled hands, then in a soft tone he told me, “(I think I’ve had enough.)”

“I think you need another,” I said gently but firmly, nudging the glass towards him.

“No thanks.”

‹Alright. Tequila isn’t working anymore. What other assets do I have? Hm. Assets… Assets. Ass. I have a sexy ass he likes to touch. He wants to fuck me bad.› My curiosity was as disinhibiting as all the MDMA and alcohol pickling my brain. I placed a hand on his thigh… “You know… when you choked me…”

“I’m sorry…” mumbled Tommy, loathing himself into misery.

…and squeezed. “…it turned me on. A lot.”

That got his attention.

“I don’t like to let sexual tension go unresolved.” I crawled my fingers up his leg.

“Red, I’m kinda not—‍”

“If you’re feeling guilty, you can do me a favor… and unzip.”

“I don’t really…”

“Unless you want me to do it for you.” I gently squeezed his crotch.

He stopped and started several times as he unbuttoned and unzipped, but he danced to my tune. I pulled aside his underwear, found his flaccid penis, and rubbed it to encourage it to grow. He sighed.

“When did you last fantasize about me giving you a hand job?” I asked, a hint of smoke within my voice thanks to my bruised larynx.

“A couple of minutes ago… right before… I choked you.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself, Tommy. I enjoyed it,” I lied through a smile while stroking his penis, which to a massive size (at least nine inches) was (quickly, if reluctantly) growing.

“You… did?”

“Oh, it was so exciting and so pleasurable. I’d… consider asking for an encore, if not for the risk of getting booted from Asmodeus for being ‘risk aware’—whatever that means.”

“I’m not comfortable with doing it again.”

“Suit yourself, Tom.”

“I’m sorry, Red.”

“I’ll survive. How is my handiwork? I’m still very new to sex, so don’t expect to have your mind blown.”

“It’s… good,” he said while panting slowly, quietly.

“Is my hand making you feel better, yet?”

He nodded. “Yeah.”

“Relaxed?”

Another nod.

“Keep relaxing, and your guilt and worries will all melt away.”

“Mm-hm.” He shut his eyes and leaned his head back.

“Would you like to chat while I work on this?”

“’Kay.”

“I’ve noticed you and Cupcake are really close.”

“We are.”

“Do you tell him all your deepest secrets?”

He hesitated. “Yes.”

“There’s not a single thing you keep from him?”

“N—no.” ‹Liar.›

I massaged the head of his penis for a moment… “Your trust in him and his trust in you are admirable. I wish that… you and I had that kind of trust, Tommy. I want to get close to you. Let me know when you’re about to cum.” …then got back to stroking.

“Okay—(ah)—of—(mh)—course.”

‹He sounds like he’s having much less fun than I’d like… so now it’s time to draw the big guns.› Very cleverly (foolishly, in retrospect) I brought my head down to his crotch and planted my lips on his penis, took him into my throat, caught his scent—

Agave pays a surprise visit and

Cedar smoke tickles my nose.

Ethanol uplifts my mind as

His musk compels me to love him.

What are the chances I would meet

Two sexy men in one night?

More eagerly, more passionately, more zealously than I had at first intended, I worked to pleasure my workplace tormentor. My mouth sucked, his hips bucked—my tongue licked, his heart ticked—I stroked, he groaned, I choked, he moaned.

‹Stop.›

I pleasured him with all my passion and I fantasized about so slowly sliding his cock into my cunt—

‹Stop.›

In just a minute, Tommy’s breathing became rapid, deep. His end was coming—as was mine.

‹Stop, NOW.›

As soon as he said, “I’m gonna—‍” I tore my mouth and hands from him before he could say the next word, before… before he could… waste his semen in my mouth. “—cum…?”

I was as surprised as he was as I stared into his rich cerulean eyes, as my chest heaved to catch my breath, as I tried to parse my feelings… «Fuck him fuck him fuck him fuck him fuck him fuck him fuck him fuck him—!» …as straightforward as they were.

‹What? Hell no!›

«What am I accomplishing by delaying the inevitable?»

‹I’m avoiding fucking the guy I hate more than anyone else!›

“Red…?” I was with him, but I was elsewhere.

«Do I really hate him?»

‹Of course I—!› I took in his face—not a hurried, furtive glance at an individual feature here or there as in reunions past, but a good, long look to capture his entire face in my mind. He resembled a young Peter Falk, but with a few striking differences. His short blond hair should have clashed with his face, but… that soft yet masculine chin, that subtle, curving nose, those defined cheeks that framed his humble lips, those thick eyebrows that invited one’s eyes to his, that crepuscular crease in his right temple—the way his cheeks… and his forehead… and the corners of his eyes… (wrinkled…) when he smiled—had driven me mad ever since Captain Hobarth introduced him to the squad. My gaze locked onto his; the only thing missing was the glass eye, and I’d… once or twice I had… had imagined Tom with one. ‹Well, he’s handsome and he cares about his husband and he knows how to make me laugh and spank me just right…›

«Then put his cock inside my puss! Do it! Mate with him! I must have this man’s thick cum!»

‹If I do that, I’ll have his child!›

«Do the sex! Become his mate!»

‹I don’t want to! I don’t like him!›

«Liar! I must fuck him, be his wife!»

I found myself on the verge of hyperventilating. ‹I can’t!›

«Mate! Mate! Mate! Mate! Mate! Mate! Mate!»

‹I will do no such thing!›

«Fuck him fuck him fuck him fuck him fuck him fuck him fuck him fuck him—»

Trembling with every shred of my rapidly disintegrating volition, I told Tom, “The orgasm awaiting you is gonna feel a whole lot better with a crystal conscience, Tom. Fess up.”

He whined pathetically.

«Fuck him, Andrea, stop fucking WITH him.»

I scrambled to collect every crumbling fragment of self-control remaining within me. “Did you enjoy my mouth?” ‹…stop thinking about his cock stop thinking about his cock stop thinking about his cock stop thinking about his cock stop thinking about his…› I glanced down at it. ‹…cock.› I tried to avert my gaze. ‹Cock.› I was entranced. ‹Cock.› I turned my head away. ‹Cock.› I stared at it from the corners of my eyes. ‹Cock.›

He begged for more with a meek nod.

«Stop this nonsense, lift my ass to offer up my pussy for his PLEASURE.»

I felt like my frontal lobe was being detached axon-by-axon from the rest of my brain. “(Then I… will…)” I forgot the English language.

«It will feel like heroin.»

My loins overflowed with longing. ‹It will be the…›

«…most amazing thing I’ve ever felt.»

My pulse sped up. ‹It would feel very good—no, it…›

«…wouldn’t feel ‘very good’, it would feel the BEST.»

‹His giant cock…›

«…thrusting and pumping and dumping his cum inside me!»

‹Only need to lift my dress…›

I grabbed my skirt hem.

‹…hover over my man’s cock…›

I climbed on top of Tom. “Uh—Red?”

‹…lower myself down and guide him in…›

I grasped him and adjusted his angle and lowered my hips and he entered me and I felt the rush and we moaned in unison and—

‹…just… like… that…›

“Oh, Red!”

‹…then go up… slowly…›

My body lifted itself up till he was at my entrance and—

«Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes!»

‹No!› I stopped.

«Ah! Keep going! Make his cock explode inside of me!»

‹I will not have sex with this… creep!›

«Fuck him! I must fuck this virile mate!»

‹No!›

«Resisting this biological imperative is futile. Watch this.» Defying my will, my body fell, engulfed him once again— «Slowly…» —then floated up— «Inch-by-inch…» —only to come back down— «Drag it out…» —and up— «Rub it against my G-spot, Tommy…» —and down— «I’ll savor your girth…» —and…

‹Please, I don’t want this…›

«Am I truly so naïve I would believe I have a choice right now? I’m such a silly girl! My lust cannot be stopped…»

“Oh my God! You’re so beautiful, Red…”

‹Hey! He said the safe word, which means I hafta stop!›

«‘Safe word’? What’s a ‘safe word’?» I continued humping him.

‹A word you say when you want everyone to stop. So I should stop. Please.›

«That’s such a dumb idea. Hump, hump, hump, hump!»

So I continued riding up-and-down on the cock of the one man I hated more than any other, the man I had lusted after for as long as I had known him, the man I had pretended not to flirt with every time we were together, the man whose touch I had craved ever since he first accidentally brushed his hand against my ass, the man who brightened my darkest days whenever our paths crossed. I moaned, I gasped, I trembled. I slammed his cock into my cervix like a blacksmith’s hammer coming down on hot steel. ‹I have no idea how close he is to cumming, but if I keep going he’s gonna blow. Welp… I might be able to retool this shitty situation into an advantage.› “I… have a deal for you, my—(oh fuck)—Tommy: if you tell me—oh yes—what’s on your mind, I… won’t stop—(oh, God, I’m addicted to your cock)—if you—(ah)—if-you-tell-me-I-won’t-stop-humping-you.” ‹Please, may I stop humping you?›

“I’m… gonna… cum…”

“Oh, please no, no-no-no…” Another shock and shudder of pleasure as I brought my cervix down on the head of his cock.

“If you keep riding me…”

I shivered in panic. “I can’t stop!”

“Oh, God, it feels so good…”

“God, it does, but—Tom, Tommy, please don’t cum—but I want your jizz so bad…”

“If you don’t get off me…”

“I can’t, I need someone to stop me but-God-I-need-your-cum—‍”

“I can feel it…”

“Please hold it in, I wanna fuck you a little longer before you shoot your load…”

“Ugh—I don’t know how much longer I can—‍”

“Hold it in and slap my ass, Peter!”

“Red, this is—(ah…)”

“Spank me!”

He slapped my ass and sent my horniness up into space and flung it towards Andromeda.

“Fuck!” I grabbed him by the head and he moaned and whimpered as I kissed every square inch of his face and neck and rode him with every drop of the passion bursting from my love-slick loins like a thousand-year flood smashing through an abandoned beaver dam. I fucking—“yes, yes!—love your cock, Peter! Ah! I’m gonna fuck it till it blows!”

“(Ah! Ah!) I’m cum—‍”

“Cum inside me, Peter!” I screamed, throwing my arms around his neck and planting my lips on his as my lust struck the killing blow in its usurpation of my will.

“(—mhng!)” And he grabbed my waist and slammed me down on his cock and twitched inside me and began to—

  «Fill my pussy with your curd,
  Belly swells and breasts leak milk!
  Plant your oats, I’ll rear your ilk,
  Be your wife and serve your word!»

‹Though you call me Dearest Red,
I can’t take you for my own,
Pink loves you from hair to bone—
One more spouse you cannot wed.›

  «Love is not a game with rules,
  Grab whomever comes in reach!
  Cling to them and smother each
  With a love that never cools!»

‹I am with you, Tom, my love,
You who make me laugh and blush—
For so long it’s been a crush,
Now we’re one—thank Him above.›

Emerging from my reverie, I burrowed into his embrace, accepting my imprisonment within the cell of my insemination-mind-orgasm with nothing to sustain me besides hugs and cum.

‹God damn.›

I made no effort to escape his prison in light of all the pleasantness of being held as I held him back—I smiled dreamily, I relaxed, and I accepted the hand dealt me by my Creator.

‹Fuck me. Figuratively, of course, but also literally. I am sooo fucked… and happy.›

I gently scratched his back and savored the gently lapping waves of my orgasm.

“How did you know my middle name is Peter?” he asked.

“Uh. What?”

“You called me ‘Peter’ when we came.”

“Ah. (Shit.) Um. Well. You see… it’s because you look like Peter Fal—I mean, you look like a Peter. Just… a generic Peter. Not that you look generic, I meant to say that you just, have this ‘Peter’ look about you.”

“Oh. Well, I like you calling me ‘Peter’. You’re the only person who’s ever called me that. It can be your nickname for me. But I need to know… how was it for you?”

I sighed in relief as I ran my fingers through his tragically short and regrettably blond hair as I gently welded my lips onto his to soothe his concern, then… reluctantly… confessed, “I… I enjoyed it. All of it. Including… especially the part where you… came inside me.” I gave him another much lengthier kiss to prove to him that I meant it. “Call it the cherry on top.”

I’ve lied to you; there was no such ‘reluctance’ to confess. I hesitated because I was stunned that dreams beneath my conscious grasp were coming true, right now, at last. This creep I loathed so much resembled my Prince Charming when I first beheld his face—

I shook his hand one morning 9 years ago, and as we stared into each other’s eyes we became doomed to orbit each other, spiraling ever closer as instinct slowly eroded my will, until I had crossed his event horizon and was robbed of all chance of escaping.

I wish for you to understand, my dear, that the option of not loving him had been a delusion.

“I’m happy to hear that,” replied my man (my strong, stylish, sexy man) once I had pulled my lips away from his to catch my breath. “But it happened kind of fast. Are you okay with what we did?”

I leaned back and brushed my hands down his temples to cup his cheeks. “I’m fine. This was bound to happen eventually.”

“Us doing it?”

I nodded, [Yes.]

“I thought you’d never go for drinks with me. But here we are. Together. I never thought you’d ever have sex with me, but now you’re on my cock with my jizz inside you.”

I swallowed. “Yes. I’m on your cock, and my pussy is flooded with your jizz. And… what a lovely cock it is; of course, your jizz is lovely, too.” ‹And hungry for my egg, no doubt… Yes, every one of his sailors is eager to prove that it alone deserves the privilege of combining its genes with mine to form a human being…› I shivered in anticipation. ‹God, I’m such a pervert.›

“Thank you,” he replied.

I smiled. “You are most welcome, Tom.”

“So, uh… How long have you had feelings for me, Red?”

“I would say about… 10, 15 minutes.” It was a truth, sort of, a truth bent to the point of being unrecognizable. “Around the time I started sucking your cock.”

“Oh. That’s not… very long.”

My smile broadened but remained soft with a bittersweet triumph. “Not long at all, Tommy. Not long at all.”

“Move in with us?”

‹Moving in with them makes sense if the three of us are gonna be together. I’d like to live with Judy, too, though… but there’s no law saying I can’t take turns living with her and with my new men. And then there’s the gas savings from carpooling with Tommy…› “You have a motorcycle, right?”

“Sure do.”

“Is there room for a passenger?”

“Yep.”

I pictured {my arms wrapped around his waist, my breasts pressing through my leather jacket against his back, the wind caressing my cheeks and whipping my hair, the asphalt rushing inches beneath my toes fast enough to tear the flesh from my bones, the g-forces pulling us back and forth as our bike weaves in and out of traffic at high speeds, living with only whatever belongings we can fit in our saddlebags as we cross the continent on scenic highways and backroads, camping and fucking in national parks, plying my trade out of ancient motels to truckers and travelers to fund our adventures…} I gave his cheek a couple of gentle pats. “I wanna say ‘yes’ because I can see it working out and being exciting, but—but this is a very complicated decision—but I will say ‘yes’ eventually—but… not yet. Soon, though. It will happen, I just need a little time to get ready.”

“But I love you! I want to wake up next to you tomorrow morning!”

I shoved my nose against his neck and breathed in his deliciously boozy scent and sighed and savored it. ‹I hate myself for saying this, but I must confess the truth…› “I love you, too.” I squeezed him tight, then held his shoulders at arm’s length. “And I want just as much as you do for us to wake up next to each other tomorrow morning. But I need to come up with a plan before I can move out of my home and into yours. And you need to make room for me.”

“Oh.” His eyes briefly turned down in disappointment. “Where do we go from here?”

“Well… I’d like to know when you last got tested for STIs, to keep my other partners safe.”

“Friday, negative. Club rules require a test in the past week, though, so you can just… assume you’re safe with anybody here.”

“Oh. That’s good to know.” Not that I’m comfortable with ‘just assuming’ everyone I fuck is clean, but this bit of info would be peace of mind in the event I couldn’t remember whether I asked my sex partners about test results during a blackout. That said, I was drunk on alcohol and equally as drunk on that carnal obsession with Tom that I called ‘love’, so in that critical moment I would have been perfectly satisfied with his bill of health had he informed me that his genitals were being utilized as test articles in the development of top-secret venereal bioweapons. “Thanks. I gotta go.”

“Don’t go!”

“I need some time alone to process… us—and to get ready for the move. So do you.”

He laid his hands on my shoulders and massaged them, prompting me to relax and lean into his strong but gentle grip. “I need you now. I wanna fuck.”

“(Mmm, right there…) Me, too, so very much, it’s all I can think about, Tommy, you and your precious cock inside my cunt…” I squeezed it with my pelvic floor muscles and we sighed lustfully in harmony. “…and yet I’m stressing over this sudden change in our relationship. I… had some conflicting feelings about you before tonight. I need to learn to love you right before we try to share a roof. We need to take things slowly from here.”

“I would do anything to spend all of my time with you.”

I winced—because I felt exactly as he did. “And I would, too. But, please, do this for me at least, please let me have some time alone to meditate on us. I want to do this right. I want to do everything I can to make us work.”

“I don’t understand.”

“(Just…) please. Tommy. I love you and you love me, so do this for me. Please.”

He pouted, then made up his mind. “O… kay. But please come make love to me when you’re ready.”

I nodded mournfully. “I will. I’ll make time for us to make love, and I promise it won’t be too long before we do—I don’t want to wait any more than you do.” I gave him an aggressive peck on the lips, then started to pry myself off of his cock—but was hit by a wave of regret. I didn’t want to get off. I sighed. “Fuck it, let’s do it again.”

“Sure.”

I resumed riding him… right as my detective desires paid a surprise visit. “Tommy… are you… sure you wouldn’t like to talk about this secret of yours?”

He shook his head remorsefully.

“Not even for your Dearest Red?”

He turned his eyes down guiltily.

“Nothing?”

He said as much as he continued to focus on his belt buckle.

“Tommy. Give me something. Anything.”

He choked down the words clawing their way out of his larynx.

“Come on, talk to me, Tommy,” I whined as I humped his cock.

Tom at last outburst, “Captain Hobarth—‍” before cutting himself off.

I stopped riding, leaned back and sharply stared him in the eye. “What did he do?”

“He made us…”

“He ordered you and who else to… do what?”

His head shook for the umpteenth time that night.

“Tommy… You said you would do anything for your Red.”

He pursed his lips regretfully.

“You said you keep no secrets from your Nico, right?”

He nodded.

“Who do you love more, him… or me?”

His expression further soured.

“Tom… Be honest.”

“Y—you.”

“Who’s your one true love? Your happily forever after? The one you’ve been saving your heart for?”

“You… are.”

“I knew that, and you knew that I knew. And yet you tell him everything while you keep your Most Precious One-and-Only in the dark—‍” My throat cinched tight. “—blind to your life, to who you truly are… I want to know this hidden side of you so I can love it as much as the sides I have already seen.” Tears rolled down my cheeks.

A civil war raged in his mind, which culminated in a stalemate. “Hobarth… ordered us… to…” And that’s all he managed to get out.

“To what?” I teetered on the fence between my loyalty to Tommy and my loyalty to my own curiosity. I begged and yelled, “Tom… tell me… please!”

“I can’t.”

“Don’t you fucking do this to me, Thomas Peter Forrester!” I snapped. I shivered, balanced on the scalpel’s edge (which by the second grew sharper) dividing satisfaction and insanity.

“I’d be betraying—‍”

“God damn it, Tom!” I roared. “You’re supposed to love me, Tommy, confide in me, do anything for me!” I tried to remove myself. «Don’t even think of ending this session.» As I struggled to get off his cock I growled, “God damn it!”

“I’m sorry, Red!”

“Don’t talk to me unless you’re gonna spill those beans!” «I won’t get off I won’t get off I won’t get off I won’t get off!» I tried to psych myself up to dismount him with increasing desperation.

“Red, don’t go, please…”

“I said shut up!” I yanked myself off his cock with Herculean effort, whimpering at the fearful prospect of never getting to fuck his cock ever again, then stormed away—betrayed by my new lover’s reluctant lips—to lose myself within the crowd…

But not without a longing parting glance at the man I loved.

Exhausted, overwhelmed by curiosity, and troubled by my having fallen victim to my drive to mate with, of all the people, he whom I despised more than anyone or anything—that unnatural incarnation of the revolting suspension of grease and scum at the bottom of a dumpster, the source of all my misery at work, the man I told ‘no’ a hundred-thousand times knowing that he knew that—if—if in those days I had been a more courageous woman, I—I would have—I would have… pulled him into some dark and… (private) space… and… and kissed him… and (made beautiful love to him…)

Um… Oh. Right. I was leaving him behind—not relieved, as on occasions past, but reluctant.

Tired and troubled, I wandered aimlessly through the club, distracting myself with the colors and the music. Gradually my frustration waned until I was as relaxed as the MDMA would allow, and I found peace in the groove shared with me by the fluffy Technicolor crowd.

Who’s to Blame?

Content Warnings:
Manic Episode;
Alcohol Use Disorder Stigma

I lost myself on the dance floor for I-don’t-know-how-long before I realized that I needed to notify Diane of what had happened before word of my near-murder had time enough to spread across the club—no doubt distorted to the point of unrecognizability thanks to the game of Loud Sex Club Telephone—and catch her by surprise.

As I approached our table she rose and rushed to me and wrapped her arms around me, then held me at arm’s length. “Where have you been? We looked everywhere for you! Why did you redeem him, Drea? Why spare a killer his just deserts?”

‹Apparently you got the extra paper hot off the press. Shit.› “(Umm, so… It didn’t… It was…) wasn’t as bad as what you may have heard through the grapevine,” I explained—with just a (tiny bit) of hoarseness. (I considered, for just an instant, how the touch of smokiness in my voice made it a little bit… sexier.)

“Andre came to me directly and related the events surrounding your cardiac arrest. I trust his narration to be accurate and impartial; I expect yours to be equally so.”

“He probably exaggerated! We weren’t up to anything too crazy or unsafe.” My words, and certainly my slightly straining voice, did not convince her that the attempted murder was either safe or sane.

“‘Not too unsafe’? Your heart stopped, for Goodness’ sake!”

“I’m breathing and my heart is beating, you don’t need to fret.”

“Don’t tell me not to fret!” she snapped. “You could have died. Erotic asphyxiation is not to be attempted except by one whom you’ve built a deep trust. It can lead to brain damage or death.”

I figured I’d mix in a bit of ‘honesty’—an ever-so-slightly slurred attempt to reassure her what had gone down had been kosher, everything was copacetic, and that there was no reason to worry. “It was someone that I know.”

“Thomas Forrester.”

“Yes.”

“How do you know him?”

“We worked neighboring beats before I was let go.”

“Were you close enough to build a deep and durable connection before engaging in risky activities?”

“(Umm…)”

“‘Um’? I’ll let you have a moment longer to compose an honest answer to that question. Tell me this man’s patrol route—and do not so much as think about the concept of dishonesty in composing your reply.”

‹Okay, well, I’m not sure that I’m even capable of lying right now without getting into even deeper trouble.› “He’s a Parking Enforcement Sergeant. For most of the time I’ve known him, he’s been assigned to Balboa Hills.”

“Were the two of you fuckbuddies or lovers?”

“We used to—he used to—appeal to me. I… had feelings for him. And we’ve grown even closer, very close, very quickly.”

“How long have you been ‘very close’?”

“We’ve been… orbiting each other for the better part of a decade, and now, as of tonight, we’re finally, officially a couple. Tommy and I love each other. Deeply.”

“I am sure you do. When I asked whether your bond with this Thomas chap was deep, it seemed you had at first considered bending or breaking the truth. However… you have clarified for me your feelings for him, so you will be spared your punishment.”

‹You’re being very serious, which means my punishment would not have been the fun kind.› “Thank you for your mercy, Mistress.”

She lifted up my chin to examine my bruises, which I figured had turned deep red by now. “He was very rough with you. This wasn’t safe or sane. Shall I presume it was at least consensual?”

‹I’d rather not attempt a lie—you might allow me to compose a whole ass novel before telling me you don’t think a word of it is true, and I have no idea whether my punishment is based on narrative complexity or word count.› “I provoked him.”

Her eyes overflowed with tears of wrath that left her shivering. “You say you love him and yet he attempted to kill you! I don’t care if you provoked it, this man tried to kill the woman I l—care deeply for! I cannot abide such twisted evil, Andrea. I forbid you to love him.”

“He isn’t ‘evil’! He felt bad for doing it and he loves me and he loves his spouse and he’s respectful towards sex…” ‹Why should you give a damn about how he treats sex workers? You’re Vice. Real persuasive argument, Detective B.› “(…workers…)”

She stared at me, her rage restrained by her concern. “Andrea… You should not be loving or compassionate towards killers, no matter how kind they are to marginalized folks.”

‹What… the fuck? ‘Marginalized folks’? What kind of cop uses that terminology? Never mind that, whether you’re willing to use a ‘politically correct’ term simply for the sake of arguing with me, you’re still wrong.› “Tom hurt me, but by tomorrow I’ll forget about it. If he had drawn blood, though, the way Alex Brookvale’s kidnappers hurt him, I would’ve—‍”

Her eyes bugged open and she exclaimed frantically, “Xander? Kidnapped? Hurt?”

‹Ah, crap. I didn’t want you knowing I was on the case.› “I—actually—don’t know, I just… assumed it was a kidnapping—cuz—cuz of how long he’s been gone.”

She cupped my face between her hands and shakily informed me, “You are pathologically incapable of lying to me, Andrea. If you do not tell me what you know about his disappearance right now, our relationship is finished.”

I was now facing a dilemma that I had up to this point blocked from all my thoughts, which I could no longer ignore. ‹You might be an accessory to this kidnapping, you might even be the one who orchestrated it, so telling you the status of my case might leave it open to your interference—or that of the brass.

‹Then again, once I’ve reported my investigation, the department’s leadership is going to be scrutinizing it—Detective Sergeant Daniel Matthews will be scribbling on it with a red ink pen, Lieutenant Derek Hall will have to sign off on it, Captain Nichols has to read it and decide whether it meets the rigorous requirements set by the DA. Every link within the chain will be an opportunity to decide whether Alex deserves rescue. Even if it receives a unanimous thumbs-up from my superiors, there’s a possibility you or someone else will change a word here or there to cover your asses.

‹The only difference in outcome between clamming up or fessing up is whether you might interfere now, before my case has had a chance to get up off the ground—or later, after I’ve invested so much time and effort into it.›

Somehow in an even harsher tone than before, she warned, “Andrea Bachman, I mean it.” Harsher—but in her heart was a growing personal anxiety.

‹If I don’t tell you what you want to know, you’ll end my case before I’ve filed the charges, by disposing of your disobedient Eupraxia.›

“Andrea Bachman, you have till the count of five to provide clarification.”

‹I suppose it’s clear…› “One.” ‹…that telling you now…› “Two.” ‹…is the least risky…› “Three.” ‹…course of action…› “Four.” ‹…for this case.› “Fi—‍”

The answer burst from my mouth. “Alex was abducted. And I have proof.”

She did her best to maintain her composure—but anxiety still cracked her voice, and she looked to be on the verge of fainting. “Who…?”

“I don’t know who did it, yet.”

“(Shit, shit, shit…)” Her breathing became fitful and her voice, so fearful, trembled as she asked, “Have you at least narrowed it down?”

‹What’s up with you? God, I feel awful for upsetting you, but why would a pig be so worried about an antifascist?› “Not even enough to start guessing.”

She buried her face in her hands. “When was he kidnapped, where?”

‹Christ Almighty, what the fuck is going on? Is today Opposite Day? Are you fucking with me? Your attitude feels so authentic. Are you just a really good actress?› “Between 09:10 and 09:51 on Wednesday the 10th. I used the records from his secret GPS tracker to pinpoint his last known location to Adams, interviewed the people on the street, followed a hunch and found a bloodstain and his clothes inside the Torrey Pines Hotel… (within the only room whose… key… was absent… from… from the front… desk…)”

Up to this point I’d felt my own displeasure grow alongside her distress, but as soon as I had said ‘Torrey Pines’, her woe became so existential that I could not help but feel I was a horrible girl—awful, cruel—for hurting her, the worst, most treasonous pet to have been owned by another—though I could not comprehend just how I had effected a betrayal so malicious that, as she raised her face to stare into the distance, her eyes reflected a surprise foray into hell.

My devotion kicked in as soon as I saw she was drowning in her misery and self-hatred, compelling me to rescue her. I took her hands in mine. “What’s wrong, my Mistress?” Faintly she shook her head and said nothing. “Diane, please tell me what’s going on.”

“It happened on my turf, on my watch.” Her voice had the chilling timbre of finality that people adopt in the moment they’ve accepted as their last. If her display of emotion wasn’t real, she was a damn good actress. That, or I was easily fooled.

‹There’s something downright bizarre going on with you, Mistress.› “I don’t know what you mean by ‘my turf’.”

“Somebody used my stupid raid as cover for kidnapping Alex.” She sniffed wetly, further reinforcing the authenticity of her emotional display.

I handed her a tissue and told her, “It’s possible whoever did this waited until the hotel was evacuated to drag him in there, although…”

“Whoever grabbed him knew that he was forcing me to betray them.”

‹‘Betray them’? What the fuck?› “Betray who, how?”

“He used me to clear their hotel.”

“Which ‘he’?”

“Kind. The mayor.”

“Why would Mayor Kind give a damn about the hotel?”

“Campaign donations. Which is to say, bribes.”

My drug-addled brain crunched the numbers and ground its gears until I exclaimed, “Gunther and Sampson wanted the guild evicted so the workers couldn’t occupy the hotel to get in the way of the demolition—and they asked Kind to make it so.”

“The chief told me they had plans to ‘modernize’ the place, but demolition was what they had planned all along.”

“But you didn’t want to do it…”

“I tried appealing to their love of money… which was ineffective. I did not fight back with sufficient tenacity.”

‹The fuck is going on? The Vice Captain regrets the raid, and furthermore she fought it tooth and nail!› “How did you try to persuade them?”

“I informed them that if they shut down the hotel and all the workers left the street for other jobs, the department would lose millions in federal and state subsidies. I failed to warn them, however, about the human cost, the harm we would be doing to the hard-working people who keep that street alive. Though I am certain it would not have swayed them… I should nonetheless have brought the sex workers’ welfare to their attention. I fought back, but I did not fight hard enough.”

“I… see.” I processed for a moment the fact that she cared as much for sex workers as I did, couldn’t make sense of it, then continued, “I don’t think appealing to their consciences would have accomplished anything. It sounds like you exhausted all your options that had any chance of working.”

She shook her head. “I am complicit in the loss of a resource vital to the safety, operations, solidarity, and organization of all our city’s sex workers, and in addition have the kidnapping of the man most important to the local activism scene now weighing on my conscience, because I followed orders like a good pig and made this disaster possible.”

Her voice continued sizing itself up for swinging from the gallows. Tears rolled down her cheeks, her puffed-up face was scrunched in agony. ‹She’s wrecked. She actually, sincerely cares for Alex and the sex workers. I’m afraid to ask about the thoughts she’s having now.›

“Andrea… how much do you care for Xander?”

I gave her the truth. “Well… I became a CAP detective for the sole purpose of investigating—um—I mean to say—my primary reason for becoming a detective was investigating his kidnapping—because the police weren’t doing anything to find him and I don’t trust the detectives on the force.”

A bitter half-smile barely smoothed over the distress wrinkling her face. She wrapped her arms around me and kissed my forehead. “Bless you, Drea. You took me up on my offer to ensure someone who cares for Xander would be handling his case.”

“That’s true.”

“That was selfless.”

“Well… not… entirely. I told you when we first met that I’ve wanted, ever since I was a girl, to be a homicide detective. Being owned by you has been a worthwhile perk.”

“I hoped that the submission has been worthwhile, it was our arrangement’s raison d’être; I am reassured to hear you have enjoyed it, and am overjoyed to bring your dream to life; if only it did not mean you must become a pig, then what a noble dream it would be. That said, I cannot possess a woman with a good heart. You shall have your freedom while retaining your employment and my help.”

I sternly informed her, “Diane… I want you to own me.”

A hint of apprehension tinted her voice as she asked, “You… do?”

“I like being your property. It’s comforting, it’s degrading, it’s exciting. It’s rewarding. I do love my girlfriend and boyfriends, and they do things for me that you don’t, while you do things for me that they don’t. With them, I have the best of three worlds, and with you, I have the best of a fourth. My love life is perfect with all of you. Without your ownership, though… something is missing.”

“Oh… (oh…)” She squeezed me tight and perched her chin upon my head. “Oh, my dear Drea… You are such a sweet and beautiful creature—and I am but a wretch. My craven compliance enabled Xander’s abduction, and I yielded to the mayor’s demands far too easily. I was unwilling to sacrifice my power and my privilege. I am an accessory to kidnapping, Andrea. You should not desire my ownership.”

“I have a hunch you’re underplaying just how hard you fought the brass to safeguard the Torrey Pines.”

“The chief gave me an ultimatum. My job, or the sex workers’ hotel. I chose to retain my employment—despite being well enough off without the fortune it has enabled me to amass.” She gradually released me; I could see the self-hatred burning in her doomed eyes. “I am selfish. I have no backbone. I have no principles.” At last she let go, closed her eyes, and hung her head in shame. “Good women like you have no business being with such selfish scum as myself.”

“You aren’t selfish, though!”

“Oh, I am without a doubt a pig, down to my core.” She sniffed. “I thought I could be an exception to ACAB… but I became a prime example.” ‹This is so confusing.› “Drea, dear, I am a traitor, even less trustworthy than the average cop patrolling Adams, those collecting bribes and coercing sex workers into giving them sex. At least those pigs spare you the pretension of being on your side.”

“You care about sex workers, though.”

“Not enough, it turns out. I considered putting down my foot and telling my chain outright that I thought what they had planned was cruel and inhumane and violated the sex workers’ rights as human beings—but I chickened out, because I figured that appealing to their shriveled sense of justice would accomplish nothing beyond revealing to them my true colors, which would no doubt end in being ostracized and reassigned to Parking at best, stripped of my Vice powers. On the other end of the spectrum of possibilities, they would find a way to put me in a cell to retaliate for refusing to play along. I put my own hide first, before the guild.”

‹I’m still trying to figure out why the hell someone sympathetic towards sex workers would choose to be a Vice Captain, of all the jobs you could pursue.›

“You must be wondering why I give a damn about sex workers.”

“Ahh… yeah. I’m pretty confused.”

“The whole aim of my career was to climb the ladder to the roof and then knock that ladder away from the ledge and watch all of the boys in blue clinging to it tumble to the ground and crack their heads on the hard cement below so they would leave sex workers alone.”

“So… You infiltrated the PD to sabotage their operations targeting sex workers. Just how long have you been undercover?”

“Two decades ago I told my contact inside the guild, with whom I was for 28 years very close friends, about my plan to infiltrate and hinder this foul system from within; despite her doubts, she trusted me to remain loyal to my peers. And now we both know I was lying the whole time. To myself… and to her. I only hope she feels no shame for making the mistake of trusting me throughout the entire one-fifth of a century I was a cop instead of trusting in the acronym that every sex worker knows by heart. As cops we are all bastards, Drea, because no matter how hard we try to be good, the blue shield gives us power and impunity and thus the freedom to indulge in our darkest desires, inevitably transforming us into filthy, selfish pigs.”

I gave her a few seconds’ pensive silence to reassure her I was listening, though I sensed that she was only interested in self-destruction. If her emotional shape was as mangled as I thought it was—a shape that Shosh had struggled countless times to straighten out in me—my chance of getting through to her was slim. But for her sake, I had to try my best. “Diane, if you’d’ve fought them till they rid themselves of you, the best outcome for the sex workers would have been you being replaced with a cop who doesn’t give a single shit about sex workers; the more likely outcome, though, would have been the brass appointing someone who actively hates us all. By keeping your position, you’ll continue minimizing harm. So even if you feel you protected your job for the wrong reasons, having power to help them survive the fallout after losing the hotel could make a critical difference in their efforts to rebuild. No matter how disgusted you may be with your own motives leading to you making what you perceive as the ‘unethical’ decision, you should find some comfort knowing that you managed nonetheless to make the most pragmatic decision. For that I admire you.”

She straightened out her neck and opened up her eyes and let them wander over my face and cheeks before they settled on my emerald greens, her self-hatred rapidly draining from her coffee browns. “You may be right. Protecting the sex workers and their assets was my first objective, but failing that, damage control was the second. Perhaps I did not completely fuck this up.”

“Maybe you didn’t! Are you still able to do all the things you’ve done for them in the past?”

“Yes, none of that has changed, I have continued helping them to the best of my abilities, and have doubled down on finding more ways to help.”

“What do you do for them?”

“Just little things.” I handed her a tissue and she blew her nose. “I target pimps to cull them from our ecosystem; I schedule raids outside peak business hours; I promote the most incompetent officers to detective; I teach them how to articulate suspicion in ways that invalidate arrests and stops, and I teach them to write blatant lies in their warrant affidavits so they are rejected or so their searches are ruled unconstitutional; I have implied that reading people their rights is an optional formality; I delete small but key details and evidence from the more damning investigation reports so the DA turns away cases they perceive as weak; I coach the uniforms to collect less in bribes, and bench or relocate the ones who get too greedy; I fire anyone who my contact reports has assaulted workers; I over-classify intel beyond the access of detectives… Any measure within the capacity of Vice Captain to make the jobs of all my employees and the DA more difficult and the lives of our sex workers less so.”

‹That’s cool, but how in the hell did you climb the ladder all the way to captain when you’ve been intentionally worse than me at playing cop?› (The answer to that question would not make itself apparent for some time.) “Those little measures sound like they would add up to a big difference.”

She hesitated before nodding faintly. “On the Saturday before I betrayed them—perhaps I can say ‘was forced to betray them’—my insider reported that the workers’ quality of life was at its highest, and that if only my infiltration needed not be kept a secret she would have passed around a ‘thank you’ card for them to sign. But… late Wednesday morning, not long after the raid, she blocked me on SecreText—as I ought to have predicted. On Saturday evening I came to pick her up to have our weekly meeting and to pay my dues—and she flipped me off while you were looking my way.” ‹Wait, you pay dues? Never mind that— Your friend was there on Saturday, right beside me! Could your inside contact be…› “That was enough to tell me she no longer wishes to associate with me.”

“Yesenia is your contact?”

“Was.”

“Wow. I think she trusts me enough that she’d let me explain to her the rock and the hard place you were forced between.”

“She trusts you? I am… surprised that she would risk trusting yet another cop after my grand fuckup.” She seemed to wonder at this news for several seconds. “Wow. Of course. By all your means, explain my actions to her. I would very much appreciate you advocating for me, as long as you feel confident that in doing so you will not compromise her trust in you.”

“Of course, Mistress.”

“My Drea… You have no more need to call me ‘Mistress’. I no longer own you,” she reminded me with somber eyes and a joyless smile.

‹No. No, no, no. I will not let you break up with me.› “If you agree you aren’t as wretched as you thought you were, you shouldn’t have a problem owning me.”

She struggled through some mental debate before saying, “I suppose I just might call you ‘mine’ in one capacity or another. But do not talk to Yesenia out of obedience. Do not talk to her on behalf of your mistress. Talk to her on behalf of your dear friend and would-be ally in rescuing our precious Xander.”

I stroked her cheek. “Alright. I’ll do as you request… friend.”

She gazed upon my face and more tears gathered around her eyes. She wrapped her arms around me again. “You have saved me, Drea Bachman. You are such an awesome pet, an even better lover, and an absolutely wonderful best friend.” ‹Best friend! Can you be serious?› “Thank you for hearing my cries of distress and plucking me from Despair’s iron grip.” She kissed me passionately then rested her forehead on mine.

“I sold my body to you,” I reminded her as we stood face-to-face by our table, “and I thought I gave my soul to my first mate, but… I guess the two of you share ownership of that.”

The last of all her misery evaporated with a sincere laugh. “Like the prize trophy that the two winners who tied for first are passing back and forth.” She stroked my back. “I hate to cut our fun short, but this atmosphere is not conducive towards processing emotions more complex than lust. If you do not mind, I would like to return home.”

“You’re asking— You are asking me?”

“Yes. While at your insistence I will continue to ‘own’ you—in a way, inside this moment… you… own… me.”

My heart skipped a few beats… though this was not entirely the romantic gesture she intended it to be; I did my best to hide from her my disappointment. “If—you say—so. I… own you. And that means I’m responsible… for your well-being.” So I took her hand and sought some small comfort in our fingers intertwining. I tried to mentally rationalize my ownership of her as an obligation to do everything I could to comfort her, to own her through subservience to her. It sort-of worked, but I still felt a few too many shades of freedom. “Let’s find Georgina and go home. Don’t worry about driving, I can—‍”

“I smell the booze on your breath,” she said. “And that, as well as tonight’s strangulation episode…” The edge of discipline within her voice raised my hopes for just a moment… “…worry me that you may not have the self-control to safely enjoy Asmodeus.” …but her change in direction alarmed me.

‹Punish me for being a bad girl, but please don’t steal me away from Paradise.› “I’m fine,” I lied to both of us.

“You struggle with alcohol. I brought you to a venue that provides it in abundance, that has an environment that disinhibits its inhabitants and culture that encourages their irresponsible behavior… and you fucked up, and I fear that, given another chance, you would repeat your careless mistakes. I must cease bringing you to Asmod—‍”

“Diane.” Frustrated that she had reversed our roles as owner and pet, guilty from her excoriation, and dreading the horrible sentence she was set to finish, I cut her words short. “I took some Molly, it impaired my judgment. I will never again abuse drugs, from now until forever. It won’t happen again.” ‹I know how to persuade. I am high-functioning while drunk. Or, rather, drunk and functioning while high.›

“I have a strong suspicion that your abstinence will fail someday, and a twin suspicion that said failure will occur within the nearest of futures.”

“I managed to stay sober for a year and four days straight, tonight was just a glitch. Don’t worry, it won’t happen again.”

She shook her head and began to open her mouth—

“In the event it happens again, you can keep me on my leash around illicit drugs or alcohol. Would an arrangement like that work for you?”

“Maintaining your sobriety is entirely your responsibility. I am not your mother.”

“But wouldn’t it be fun to train me and discipline me until I learn to control myself?”

She sighed. “If you would enter into such an arrangement willingly… I suppose it could be entertaining. If you ever relapse again, you are on the leash until you provide a doctor’s note guaranteeing that you are able to maintain control of yourself around psychoactive substances. Do you accept these terms?”

“Yes, Mistress.”

“I have little tolerance for disappointment, so it would be wise to take this agreement seriously. Do you promise to make every effort to adhere to your goal of total abstinence from mind-altering substances?”

“Except for prescriptions, weed, and caffeine… with all my heart, Mistress.”

“Good. Now, let us find Georgina.” This was not the most becoming of arrangements in the history of substance use disorders, and yet I was desperate to maintain our status quo—and if that necessitated her being condescending towards me, then so be it. Hell, I was already thriving under her condescension, and it was my idea, besides; indeed, her gentle threat to leash me eased my anxieties that our relationship had lost its spice, and was perfectly in line with the spirit of my proposal. Being ‘ordered’ to find Georgina also calmed me somewhat, even though her tone and words were more befitting a request than a command.

We found her in a pet bed with a Dober-Man and a She-Tzu. Diane ordered, “Georgina, you must wrap up your current activity—we are leaving posthaste.”

With the She-Tzu’s gloved cock poised to pierce her entrance and the Dober-Man’s dildo sticking from her ass, Georgina grabbed somebody’s phone and woke it up. “It’s only nine, Diane!”

“Do not be a brat, Asta. We are leaving. Put your dress back on.” To hear Diane sling orders at the other woman kindled envy within my loins.

“But why?”

“Pets do not ask why, they do as told with a respectful ‘yes, my Mistress’.”

Georgina pouted even as the fleshy phallus slowly thrust in and out of her and the plastic one tickled her insides; Diane opened her mouth to scold with words I feared might be oh-so deliciously authoritative that to hear any of them would break my jealous heart—and so I stole from her responsibility for explaining the situation. “Georgina—Asta, I relapsed tonight, and now our mistress is displeased with me and concerned for my safety. She’ll be taking me back home to sober up. While we were searching for you, she expressed regret that she has to cut your fun time short, but I need to be safe at home more than you need fun. I’m sorry I spoiled your night.”

Georgina rolled her eyes, informed her partners that she had to leave, and left the sex pile. While dressing she remarked, “You offered her alcohol and Molly, Mistress, and let her off of her leash to roam, unsupervised, around a club that provided her with every kind of liquor she could possibly crave. What were you expecting to happen?”

Mistress, her razor-sharp tongue dripping fluoric acid, inquired, “Are you blaming me for Prax’s mistake, pet?”

“Oh, no, certainly not, I’m not blaming you for Little Lady Lush’s lapse in judgment. I’m just sayin’ you put her in a situation where her fragile sobriety would be stressed beyond its breaking point.”

“Your insolence does you no favors, Asta.”

“I’m not trying to do myself any favors. I’m trying to do her one, by reminding you that you’re responsible for the well-being of your pets while we’re under your control. You told us, and I quote, ‘Run wild and misbehave,’ and that’s exactly what she did, because she is dangerously obedient to you, and you are aware of that. She followed your command. She made poor decisions because you told her to.”

Mistress stammered, “She—You—‍”

“You fucked up, she paid the price, and you’re getting on my case for pointing out that you’re responsible for the harm that befell her. Did I miss anything?”

Our owner stared in livid fury at Georgina…

…and Georgina stared back defiantly as she asked, “Am I wrong, Mistress?”

“I shall take the two of you home now,” said Diane with zero patience, “and I do not want to hear another word from either of you.”

We did so as we returned to her Mercedes and left for Georgina’s apartment.

Friends and Allies

The drive, deprived of conversation, was tense. Once Georgina was out of the car and on approach to her apartment’s front gate, Diane broke the silence. “How is your throat? Is it still sore?”

“Nope. I have no idea how he managed not to fracture anything. It would seem I’m uninjured, notwithstanding the bruises.”

“It should go without saying—yet I feel that I must say—that I am relieved that you are okay.” She glanced at me. “I also must say ‘thank you’ for confessing to Georgina why we had to leave. You were under no obligation, but I do appreciate being able to avoid punishing Georgie on top of cutting short her fun because of factors beyond her control.”

“I thought you enjoyed punishing your pets.”

“As play, I do. I like to hear my subs yelp out their pleasure when I spank or whip or paddle them, and to see them wiggle their bruised asses and tell me they have misbehaved again and that they deserve more; I like to humiliate my pets in front of others, to watch them try to hide those sparks of perverse pride within their eyes; and I very much enjoy calling my pets ‘naughty’ and ‘whore’ and ‘little bitch’ when they are in the mood to be degraded—but when the offense is serious, if it crosses a vital boundary, I must resort to methods as unpleasant to me as they are to them. I may take away toys and ears and tails, I may take away collars, I may end scenes early or else cancel them outright, and ditto dinner dates or visits to Asmodeus…” She sighed. “My second-least favorite punishment is threatening to end a relationship.”

“What’s your first?”

“Following through on that threat. The bond between a Dominant and a submissive can be even stronger than your typical ‘vanilla’ romance, and the consequences of me severing it can, as you should expect, be devastating, often more-so than for a typical relationship.” My thoughts stewed as I thought more about how she had, in a way, ended our relationship; she noticed. “What is wrong?”

“When you said I shouldn’t want you to own me, that made me… upset. Refusing to own me felt like… like punishment.”

“Oh, Drea! I am ashamed of myself, that is not at all what I intended! It was simply the case that I felt unworthy of such a relationship.”

“Oh. Oh…”

“You helped me to get past that, though. I am as righteous as you are. We are equals, so there is nothing truly perverse about us pretending that I own you in your entirety.”

Frustrated, I reminded her, “Mistress. I don’t want to be your equal. I don’t want to just pretend to be your property. I want my body to belong to you.”

She stroked the corner of her jaw and pondered my protest. “That sounds quite sexy. But it would not work.” My frown dipped further. “I cannot consent to you making yourself my real estate—because I cannot afford the effort or the time to make your decisions for you 24/7; because you are a free soul who would in due time chafe beneath all the restrictions of such a relationship; and furthermore because the new dynamics might well threaten to destabilize your extant partnerships, which I wish to respect and I would not be comfortable showing such a Dominant/submissive dynamic in view of your other lovers before they and I have had opportunities to get to know each other intimately, or all of us to sit down and formally work out the details—in writing, if necessary.” ‹Damn it. God damn it.› “The greatest extent to which I can take our game is that which I am offering you now: a simple Dominant/submissive intimacy. You can either accept that, or reassess our viability as Domme and sub. Am I understood?”

“But I thought I was yours!” I thought I did a good job of not getting overworked as I continued whining, “I was supposed to be your property!”

Her sigh was delicate. “Andrea, even if your job was still in escrow, property free to cease being property at any time is not in earnest property. Instead we roleplay ownership, because the real thing is impossible. You may continue to refer to me as ‘Mistress’, we may put up a façade that I own you and even go so far as to have a calligrapher compose a deed for your whole body and for a fraction of your soul, but neither of us can expect that you will be unswervingly obedient to me forever, so ours will not in truth be—oh, I really do not like this terminology—a ‘Master and slave’ dynamic. I realize that this goes not even half as far as you would like—but is it not acceptable, at least?”

I grunted in frustration. ‹I want more. I want to be your property. I want that gold-embossed hand-written deed with my name scribbled in to really mean something—

‹But I don’t want you selling me to anybody else. I want to be for you and only you. (And Judy and Tommy and Nico, too, of course.) I want a contract to last my whole life…›

The word for what I actually wanted popped into my mind, which I pushed down back into its hole without a blink of hesitation. ‹Oh, no-no-no, we haven’t even said ‘I love you’, yet, it’s way too early to be thinking about the M-word. Perhaps I’m taking my desires too seriously. Maybe legal ownership truly is too much to ask of you.› I resigned with a sigh. “Dominant/submissive… but on equal footing, is that it?”

“Precisely.”

“Alright. But I demand that you have that deed drafted as soon as possible.” She giggled, and I couldn’t help but smile. “I want it decorated with gold leaf, embossed, and written in old-timey cursive with a quill like the Declaration of Independence—call it my Declaration of Dependence—and stamped by a notary.”

Her laughter was a flock of almond blossom petals in the wind. “Of course, my Drea. I am not so certain about the notary, but I will see if there is anybody willing to stamp such a document to make it look official.”

“Yes. That will make me happy.”

“Excellent.” She pulled away from the curb, at which point I suggested that we make our way to Adams, to which she agreed. In due time we reached the Red-Light District, and as we proceeded down Adams Avenue, we spotted Yesenia. “Good, she is at her normal spot.”

“Let me out next to her and cross your fingers.” By the time her car came to a rest, I was unbuckled and had one foot on the sidewalk. “Yesenia—‍”

Before my other foot could settle on the curb, though, she asked, “Do tell me, Detective: how did you come upon your brand new, shiny badge?” Her expression was blank, inscrutable.

“Diane got it for me.”

Her face remained unreadable as she nodded. “So, you knew that she was a pig.”

“Yes, actually. I recognized her from work when I saw her face.”

“Whose plan was it for you to win our hearts and minds?”

I shook my head. “It wasn’t planned.”

“Diane betrays us on Wednesday; then, just a few days later, another pig, this one conveniently between jobs and looking for a little cash to pay her rent, shows up and plies our trade, and in doing so gains our trust.”

“The chief forced her to do it; Gunther and Sampson bribed the mayor in exchange for a legally questionable favor.”

She cocked her head and hesitated before asking, skeptically, “Forced her to do… what?”

“To clear out the Torrey Pines. For all we know, the raid was a distraction to grab Alex, although my money is on the villains having operated independently.”

“I’d like for you to define the word ‘forced’.”

“She was given a choice between the raid or her job. If she refused, they would have simply replaced her with someone who would follow orders, and you would no longer have an insider at the department to make life less difficult for—‍” I thought better of using the word ‘us’. “—for sex workers.”

She pondered this a while. “Do you have any proof the pigs were in cahoots with G&S?”

“I don’t know… Maybe we can ask Diane?”

“I will not break our silence. You ask her.”

I knocked on the window and it rolled right down. “Do you have any proof the chief and mayor forced you into this?”

“I do.” She drew her phone and started tapping away. “I have a recording of the brief.” She handed it over and told me, “For your reference, ‘special community partner’ is code for ‘donor to the mayor’s campaign’, which in turn is code for ‘donor to his offshore bank accounts’.”

“Hm. I’ve heard the term before at work.”

I played the meeting for Yesenia. ‘Good morning, Captain,’ says the Chief’s voice. ‘How has your day been?’

‘Quite well, and yours?’ asks Diane’s, cordially.

‘Fine, fine.’

‘Are you in need of… “something special”, Den?’

‘Ah… As a matter of fact, yes, I am.’

‘Shall it be strawberry this time? Or might we give chocolate a try?’ Yesenia covered her mouth.

‘No, no, it isn’t that. I would—that would be wonderful, but, no, alas, I’ve an official task for you.’

‘You have… an “official” task… for me?’

‘Yes, Mayor Kind has a special request for you.’

‘You are asking me to do something for someone in a high place.’

‘Forthwith.’

There was an incredulous pause. ‘Right. Tell me about this “special request”.’

‘One of our special community partners recently acquired a property within First Precinct’s AOR which they intend to modernize.’ Yesenia nodded.

I paused it. “‘Special community partner’ is code for ‘they give the mayor bribes’.”

“Yeah, I figured.”

I tapped ‘resume’. ‘Unfortunately, their new property is under occupation by a group of trespassers.’

‘This sounds more like a job for Property Crimes than Vice.’

‘Another day, perhaps, but today, you are in a better position to leverage the department’s legal powers to their desired end.’

‘Dennis… If you do not mind me saying so… I find your request highly unus—’

‘Captain Somers, this is not a “request”. It is an order.’ Yesenia’s eyebrow popped up.

‘You are giving me an order? Have you forgotten your place?’

‘I have not forgotten that I am your superior. You seem to be the one forgetting things.’

Another pause ensued.

‘Captain Somers, your responsibilities as Captain of the First Precinct’s Vice Squad include the prosecution of those individuals who violate our community’s standards of propriety. I would expect you to take that duty at least a modicum in earnest.’

‘Is this a joke?’

‘No, it is not, so it would be a good idea for you to take your work a little more seriously.’

‘I can assure you I am being serious! But pardon me for finding myself caught off guard by a most bizarre order.’

‘Captain, do you question my authority as your superior?’

She stammers while she searches for the word ‘N—no.’

‘Good. Are you prepared to follow orders?’

Silence.

‘Captain?’

‘Um. Yes.’

‘I am very happy to hear that, and the mayor will be happy, too. Our sources have informed us that a gang of prostitutes are gathering at 09:00 inside the Torrey Pines Hotel. You are to time the raid for after the meeting has convened and any latecomers are inside. What has you bothered, Captain?’

‘H—…’

‘Please, speak freely.’

‘You want… me… to interrupt a meeting being held by sex workers.’

‘Precisely.’

‘To empty the hotel.’

‘That is the goal.’

‘So that this “special community partner” may vandalize a historic building.’

‘Your choice of the word “vandalism” aside, that is indeed our motive.’

‘Which will deprive sex workers of the center of their operations.’

‘As a necessary side effect of removing unwanted occupants so that the hotel can be modernized, yes.’

Silence, during which Yesenia remarked, “I see where this is going.”

‘Any questions, Captain?’ continued the Chief.

‘(I… This is… a lot… I…)’ mumbled Mistress.

‘Would a glass of water help?’

‘No… This… is a bad, awful plan.’

‘Hm. I’ll bite. What is so “awful” about it?’

‘If you do this, you’ll deprive the sex work—prostitutes of our fair city of their only reliable space to conduct their business.’

‘And… you’re saying that’s a bad thing?’

‘Well—if—they don’t have somewhere safe, convenient, and dependable for doing business, they’ll cease to engage in said business in the safety of broad daylight, so to speak.’

‘Once again, I fail to see how that’s an undesirable outcome. Must I remind you, Captain, that eliminating prostitution from this city is one of your unit’s primary objectives?’

‘But… bribes. The officers expect bribes.’

‘Which I consider, to my chagrin, a problematic vice—if you will allow me this play on words—in which too many public servants indulge.’

‘The boys in blue patrolling Adams will be displeased when their side hustle dries up.’

‘Purging the temptation to engage in such corruption will be serendipitous.’

‘You will lose grants and subsidies, dear Dennis. Millions of our state and federal funding to fight so-called “sex trafficking”, all vaporized if you eliminate sex workers from this city.’

‘And we will recover that much if not more if the coffers of our community partners prosper—they will pass on some of their profits to the city, and after they put in a good word for the department with the mayor and city council, those profits will trickle down into your paycheck.’

‘I am not doing this.’

‘If you do not… you may be staring down the barrel at insubordination charges and—depending on the Discipline and Sanctions Board’s conclusions with regards to your behavior—transfer to a different unit, or demotion… or removal from the service.’

Diane’s scoff is rich with indignation. ‘You do understand, Dennis, that consequences would follow from such a change in my employment—of which quite a few will, unavoidably, be less than pleasant for both of us.’

‘You are not an irreplaceable component in my operations.’

‘Not even in personal matters?’ she asks skeptically.

‘I am not the strongest man you’ve known, we are both well aware of that fact, but I do have an inkling of self-control, and you are not the only game in town.’

‘I am the only “game in town” who has the ethical flexibility to discreetly render services to a certain someone in a position of power, who is willing to accept those forms of payment in kind most convenient for him—while speaking not a word of it to any other soul.’ ‹What kinds of ‘services’ is she talking about?›

‘Ah. Your earlier words, “consequences will follow from such changes”, bear repeating. I would think twice and then a third time before divulging sensitive information to anybody without a need-to-know, Captain, lest you put yourself in a position far more troublesome than that in which you find yourself already.’

More silence follows.

‘Captain… will you follow orders, or will HR need to post a job opening?’

Yet more silence.

Patience dwindling, the chief says, ‘You know quite intimately just how long I am willing to wait for you to give me what I want—though I do not have all day.’

A sigh, so slow and agonized, escapes Diane. ‘Yes, sir.’

‘Good. Here is your briefing packet.’

The rest was Mistress walking to her office then having a sob-filled meltdown before stopping her recording app.

I turned to Yesenia to see her final reaction; she pursed her lips and gave a nod. “Alright.” I joined her as she walked up to the passenger side of Diane’s car, leaned in through the window frame and returned the phone. “Well, Money… I owe you dinner and an apology. And you still owe the guild last month’s dues.”

With a relieved smile on her face, Diane took her friend’s hand and squeezed. “And I will happily pay, Boss.” She pulled a stack-and-a-half of hundreds from her glove compartment, which Yesenia secreted into her purse. ‹Holy crap. I’ve never seen so much money beyond the silver screen. Everything I have saved in my bank account just changed hands like it was no big deal. How much does Mistress make? It’s gotta be…› I did the math in my head and my shock spread wide my eyes. ‹My God, she makes something like 2½ million a year off sex!› I bit my lip. ‹I wish I knew the secret to her financial success. My mistress is rich… Fuck, that’s… hot. Diamond necklaces, platinum tiaras, beaded silk dresses, jars of Strotta Bianco, and a black Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow of my own…! Money! So much money, gotta have her money…›

Yesenia stirred me from my fantasies with a question for Diane. “You wanna have a catch-up meeting right now?”

“We could—though it would have to be a summary, as I would like to have my Drea in her bed as soon as possible.”

“Eh. How about we catch up… Wednesday night, then we go back to meeting Saturdays?”

“That works for me.”

“Alright, I’ll see you on the morrow. Dippy, go home, sober up, you smell like booze and sex. Take care of your girl, Money. I love ye, sisters—keep up the good work.” She waved us goodbye and got back to advertising her services on the curb.

Some ten-ish minutes of her mostly cheerful driving and contented sighs later, Diane pulled up to my apartment and, before I could open my door, said, her voice taut with anxiety, “Andrea… it may be… too early in our dalliance for me to be expressing sentiments such as that which is to follow—but it comes from deep inside of me, where it first began to lurk when you entertained my degradation fetish, surfaced when you fished me from my bottomless sea of despair tonight, and surfed the waves after you rescued my relationship with Yesenia. Taking responsibility for your safety and health, as well as discussing with you what you want out of our relationship, are making keeping it inside more difficult. Perhaps even… impossible.”

I waited for her to say what she wanted to say, but she struggled with her mouth for long enough that I figured that she needed some encouragement. “Whatever you might want to say, feel free to say it. You cannot insult, offend, or frighten me, and I will still be yours.”

“Andrea, I…” She choked upon the words that struggled for release. “Georgina was right. I set you up to fail. And I feel terrible, I feel like I have betrayed you. Because…” Her sentence trailed off. I placed my hand in hers and intertwined our fingers. “Drea Bachman… we have only known each other for a few days, and yet…”

“And yet?”

“But I…”

I let her go at her own pace but gave her more encouragement with a squeeze of her hand.

“And yet I find myself enamored to such a degree that…” She sighed anxiously.

“I empathize.”

“Though our time together isn’t nearly long enough to say…” She froze.

‹Oh. That.› “If your heart wants to say it… it doesn’t matter how long you’ve been with me.”

“It’s so… wrong to admit this, with such terrible timing to feel compelled towards confession, but—(I-I-I—)”

“I’ll wait, my dear,” I told her softly with my other hand upon her shoulder. So, a minute passed. It was a very long minute, but I abided with the patience of a saint.

And once that long minute ended—softly, timidly—she told me, “(I… love… you.)”

I had been waiting for these words so I could say them back; without delay or effort I responded, “I love you, too, Mistress.” Nestling one hand within the small of her neck, I gently pulled her head my way, then brought my lips within an inch of hers, and waited; after hesitating only half a second, she met them in a soft kiss—which quickly hardened.

As we made out, I breathed in through my nose—

Clusters of globes,

Bright rosy red

I bite into one

They burst with their juice

Raspberries, fresh-picked

Cane sugar syrup and

Orange liqueur

Fed to the pan over

Medium heat

Reduce until

Bubbling and thick

Drizzle over cake

Almond, perhaps

Tangy and sweet

Dessert for two

(Or maybe more)

I am in love

With this confection

I liked her smell, I craved it, so I ran straight from first to third and reached between her legs and rubbed her crotch. She placed her hand on mine but made no attempt to stop me but, rather, began to kiss me more aggressively.

We panted in the wake of passion and she yearned, “Oh, Drea, I wish to join my flesh with yours.”

“My bed is fifty feet away.”

“Alas, I cannot share my bottom half, which everyday fills me with shame.”

“Whatever flaws you may see in yourself will be invisible to me. I love you far too much to fuss over anatomical minutiae.”

“A kindly sentiment, and yet it is not your opinion that beleaguers me. It is a fact that my body is not right for me. But I would speak of it no more.”

“Oh.”

“If you do not mind… I would like to resume our intimacies.”

“Sure.” I brought her back in for more kissing.

We basked in the glow of skin contact till she slipped my name between our lips, “Drea.”

Kiss. “(Mm?)”

“We will be here—‍” Kiss. “—till the sun kisses—‍” Kiss, kiss. “—the horizon if we do not separate our—‍” Kiss. “—lips.” Kiss.

“(Mm.)” Kiss.

She pulled away and, short of breath, told me, “As much as I enjoy this, I will remind you that you must rest and recuperate.”

I shook my head. “I want to have a lot of sex, right here, right now. I want to see you naked from head to toe and I want to use it to show the sun and horizon what true intimacy looks like, my love.”

“I want that just as much as you do, trust me, but you really need to rest.”

“Ah, damn it… You’re right.”

“I will see you at work tomorrow, Drea dear.”

I nodded reluctantly. “Night, Diane. I had a great time, and I’m looking forward to the next. Also—I’m thinking I’d like us to go to the Pride parade together. After all, we’re lesbians—well, I did fuck a guy today… or… two… or three… so some may question me when I claim to be a lesbian; that said, I think we should proclaim our love for all the world to hear.”

She cleared her throat and nervously explained, “I would love that, I really wish that we could go as one big happy family—you, Georgina, Regina, and myself—but, ours being legally precarious relationships, we must hide our love from all eyes, public and private.”

“We could wear masks—there is an epidemic, after all, no-one would question us.”

“You have a gorgeous face, my dear, and yet your hair, of all your features, is what would be most identifiable in news and social media.”

“I’ll wear a wig.”

She huffed contemplatively through her nose. “You will not relent. Alright, then. I shall pick out your wig and accessories tomorrow, to be delivered to you before the march. As for tonight: either the MDMA or alcohol alone will do a number on your body’s hydration, whereas together you should expect their effects to be formidable. Therefore, I ask that you promise me you will drink plenty of water before retiring to bed.”

“I promise I will, Mistress.”

“I love you,” she said with a soft smile.

I grabbed her by the head and smooched her before getting out. “And I love you, Diane.”

She waited till I let myself inside my place to drive away, but not before we shared a goodbye wave.

I switched the light on and surveyed my room before I kicked my feet up on the coffee table. I checked my phone’s clock—9:40. From the silence crept an ounce of loneliness into my heart. My lovers were away, so there was no-one around to love.

“How was your night?” asked a steel voice thick with concern… and disapproval… and Williamsburg.

Shmendrik

“Tonight was pret-ty crazy,” I replied; Shosh nodded, but her eyes told me she knew something was amiss. “Yours?”

“I just sat here. And waited.” Silence.

“Just waited, that’s all?”

{Flint strikes iron.} “I just… waited.”

“Anything to pass the time?”

{Sparks fly.} “I kept myself busy by worrying.”

“About…?”

{Lands in tinder.} “My daughter, who I love more than anything.”

My mother only spoke the words ‘my daughter’ on the very rare occasion she was feeling hyper-maternal. “I’m fine,” I tried to reassure her. “I’m… safe. Alive. And home. I’m safe.”

{Tinder burns.} “You had a night at the club.”

“I did…”

“I… trust you… to keep yourself safe—but I couldn’t shake this feeling that something… bad was gonna happen.”

I nodded. “You’re a mother, you have thoughts like that. It’s natural. Nothing happened, though.”

“You’ve got some red spots on your throat.”

“Yeah, I… (um…) do.”

{Fuel and oxygen together mix.} “You care to tell the story behind those, Andrea?”

‹Shit, she called me ‘Andrea’. She’s pissed.› “I, uh… got drunk.”

“Yeah? And then what?”

“I asked… a man about his job.”

“Tell me what happened, Andrea.”

“I made him mad.”

“What did he do?”

“He… choked me.” ‹Shit…›

{Fuel glows.} Tears in her eyes twinkled darkly as she nodded. “But you fought the guy off.”

“No… I… passed out.”

Trembling, she shrieked, “He killed you?”

“He didn’t, I survived, I’m alive as you can see, perfectly alive, heart beating, I’m here, I’m fine! You have no reason to fret, okay?”

But fret she did. “I saw you here.”

“You saw me… ‘here’?”

“Across the universe, I spotted you, I saw your soul on the loose.”

“I didn’t die, he just knocked me unconscious.”

“Bull. I felt your soul depart your lifeless body.”

“What can I say? You had my near-death experience for me. Any other questions while you’re in the interrogating mood?”

“Yeah. Did they catch him?”

“He didn’t try to run. I think they pulled him off of me.”

{Fire, dim, crackles.} “Tell me they beat the ever-living shit out of the guy who did this to my daughter.”

“They didn’t, but they were about to kick him out and ban—‍” With how her rage threatened to blaze I might as well—

{Squirt a little lighter fluid onto the flames.} “They ‘kicked him out’?! They didn’t call the fucking cops on him?!”

“I… I asked for them to… let him… stay.”

{flame leaps and lashes / it laps and it licks} “You what?”

“I convinced the bouncers to let him stay. So I could question him. I wanted to find out where the guilt in his face was coming from.”

{The jerry can tips over.} “Oy vey iz mir,” she murmured, placing her thumb and index finger on either temple. “Ikh hob geboyrn a koploz Shmendrik!”

“I don’t know what that means,” I mumbled, “because you never taught me Yiddish.”

{Gasoline drips, gushes, pours, streams into the flames.} “That’s so unfair!” she mocked. “You deserve to know how to speak it, too! Here’s your first lesson: ‘Ikh’ means ‘I’, ‘hob geboyrn’ means ‘birthed’ , and ‘a koploz Shmendrik’ means ‘a headless idiot’—therefore: ‘I birthed a headless idiot.’ You enjoying learning the language of your people?”

“I have a head, Shosh, my head is why I needed to know his secret, his secret that he wanted to confess, and I had to hear it, I need to know—you know I can’t stand not knowing secrets. Which is to be expected because—I’m a detective for God’s—!”

{Ignition.} “No more.”

“No more what?”

“Being a detective, Andrea.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” I asked, incredulous that ‹You, of all the people on this earth, dare to tell me I must wake from my dream come true?›

“If you can’t ask someone questions without them trying to kill you, I don’t want you risking your life for foolishness.”

“But Shosh—‍”

“‘Mother’.”

“Shosh, I drove him to violence—besides, detective is my dream job. All these years you’ve wanted this for me, and now all of a sudden you’ve decided it’s too dangerous for—‍”

{Fireball.} “I was wrong!” she screamed. “I was so wrong to put all these ideas of law and order in your head! By reading you those stories, by watching all those movies with you, by sending you to school for a degree in criminal justice—I was teaching you to throw caution to the wind! My child’s life matters, and I’ve seen you stoop to znus—to perverting your body, and now you’ve put your actual neck on the line for… for the sake of pretending to be a great detective!” She came down gradually. “No more. Find a new job. Even cleaning the toilets at McDonald’s for starvation wages is better than being ready at any moment to willingly throw your life away for a stranger who would sooner spit in your eye for being a peace officer than thank you for risking your life to save his ass. Your police career is over, you’re resigning first thing tomorrow morning. Seek employment elsewhere.”

I examined her face: dead serious, on the verge of tears, and more frustrated than I’d ever seen it before. “Are you… actually… (scared?)”

With the edges of her countenance tearing and crazing she cried, “Oy vey, you coulda died permanently! Of course I’m scared, you might die again any day now, and for the last time!”

“I’m fine. I lived. I survive—‍”

{The whole damn house catches fire.} “You’re all that’s left of me!” she cry-screamed. “I’m dead, I don’t have myself anymore, and you, my daughter, are all that’s left of my world, and I don’t wanna lose you, too!”

My mind struggled to digest her words, so (in order to distract myself from the impending mental dyspepsia) I asked, “Is there a Heaven?”

She remained silent.

“Mom. Why aren’t you in Heaven?”

{Ashes and coals, gray and black with a neon heartbeat crazed throughout.} “I… have no idea whether there will be anything more to my afterlife; Jews speak of HaʾOlam Haba— ‘the World to Come’ —but the details of what happens after we die generally receive little attention or discussion. If there is some form of paradise after death, I don’t know why HaShem would exclude me… unless I—did—something—wrong. Either I’ve sinned… or… or this… this is my eternal fate.”

With reassurance as my intent, in a naïve attempt to prevent the fatalism growing in her eyes from seizing her forever, I told her, “If there’s a Heaven, we can meet there—when my time comes. Would it be so awful for you if that moment came a little sooner than you were expecting?”

Her face scrunched in agony. Her body trembled. Tears poured from her eyes. Her arms wrapped around me. Her chest heaved. Her throat sobbed. ‹What did I say to upset her?›

Her death had changed her, somehow; she had never been this worried all the days she breathed. My Shosh in life had joked that she was Superman after we narrowly avoided running off Interstate 8 into ravines of giant fallen pebbles 40 feet below; she bandaged me and smiled and laughed after a .22 LR bullet ricocheted, ripped through my forearm, and left an impression in my bra band—had I aimed an eighth of an inch below the bullseye, it might have bypassed my arm and underwear to bury itself next to (if not in) my heart. And now, in her death… she was afraid for my life.

Her sobs had faded by the time I asked, “Shosh?”

She grunted pathetically.

“Are you a ghost, or a hallucination, or… something else?”

She wiped her nose on the back of her hand. “You won’t like my answer.”

“Okay… I think I know which it is.”

“No, you don’t know. Cuz I don’t know either.”

“Oh.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s fine, Shosh.”

She sniffed. “If you found out you were hallucinating… would you take the crazy pills?”

“Never,” I reassured her. “But don’t call them ‘crazy pills’, that phrase dehumanizes people with mental health disabilities.”

“If you say so.” She squeezed me, and I squeezed back.

“I don’t know how I’d handle losing what remains of you. Even if you don’t actually exist.”

“I’m sorry I died.”

“It wasn’t your fault.”

“I didn’t look both ways.”

“You did, though. You’re a New Yorker, you look both ways every time. You taught me how to cross the street safely.”

“I would be alive if I had used the crosswalk.”

“They were going 20 over the speed limit.”

“It’s my fault.”

“Will you please stop blaming yourself?”

She said nothing.

I closed my eyes and choked back hot tears. “Please? For me?” She made no sound; I could no longer feel her shirt beneath my hands or her arms around my waist. “It was my fault. I’m the one who asked you to fetch the bottle.” I peeked between my eyelids—she was gone.

Closer

I took a seat on the couch and tried to process what had just transpired between my BFF and me, but after a few minutes of confusion I concluded that this was some ‹real serious shit›—and there was still plenty of alcohol and MDMA in my blood, so I was more inclined towards doing fun shit.

I asked myself, ‹Is it too late to knock on Judy’s door?› before remembering I had a handy gadget which would let me leave a message which she could reply to once she was awake.

Me:

just got home , crazy might.. so ler me kmow when you want to hang our so i can tell yuo about it

I hit send without spell-checking, and 15 seconds later heard a rapping on my door. I opened it, and I was not surprised to discover who was on the other side.

She strolled in with a big grin on her face, pink sweatpants with a rainbow stripe around her legs and T-shirt bearing a word in a script I struggled to decode, alongside a Statue of Liberty altered to have a skull for a face and a pope hat for a crown. “Cool shirt,” I said.

Without a word she planted her ass on the couch—the corners of her lips curled mischievously, her eyes glowing with ecstatic curiosity—and waited for me to dish.

I joined her on the couch and poured her all the tea she could drink. “Before we went inside, she gave us pretty chokers.” She nodded, her eyes burning a little brighter. “With name tags. When we got in line, she showed me the pet end of a leash.” She nodded again, and her excitement grew more intense still. I waited because I wanted her to speak her mind.

My mate’s impatience won. “And…? Did she hook it on?”

“I put it on myself.”

“Oo-ho-ho-ho-ho! You are this lady’s loyal pet!”

“Yep. But… I haven’t gotten to the part that’s really gonna tickle you.”

“What can be more ticklish than a leash?” And yet her tone of voice should have been an indicator that she knew well that my night had been as stimulating as being tied up and having every square inch of my body tortured with feathers.

“She let me off my leash… and told me to go have fun with other pets… and I met a very cute one, who proved quite fun indeed.”

She leaned forward in anticipation. “How cute are we talkin’?”

“Enough for me to let him stick his thick cock in my pussy and give me…” I leaned in. “…a creampie.” Her broad grin evaporated. “Twice.”

She sat there, silent. An anthill of envy and a mountain of lust warped her face as her teeth dug into her bottom lip and her eyes stared into my own.

“No condom. You have competition, Judith Lucas. Fresh competition.” I placed a hand on her upper thigh. “My egg should be making her debut at the grand ball any second now.”

Suddenly she scooped me up, causing me to yelp and giggle, dropped me down upon the bed, took off her boxers, and lifted up my skirt. “My God, you dirty, dirty, slutty girl! No panties, for easy access!” Grinning wide, she got on top of me and kissed me, grinding her cock against my leg to drive me mad with hot anticipation. “Listen,” she explained, “every time you fuck someone else while you’re fertile, I demand that you let me fuck you afterwards so that my sperm can fight theirs to the death over your egg. And when you get pregnant, there’ll be a prenatal paternity test which will conclusively prove I’m the other mom. Unless it proves I’m not the sperm donor, in which case I will try extra hard the next time you give me an opportunity to get you pregnant, whether that’s one month later or nine.”

I chuckled. “Yeah! But don’t paternity tests cost a lot of money?”

“I will pay for one whenever you get knocked up. And we’ll make bets on who the sperm donor is. And if I lose the bet… I’ll change my legal name to ‘Cucky McCuckface’…” I laughed. “…and when I go out into public I’ll wear a sign around my neck proclaiming that my sperm are slower and weaker than those of my rivals, and it’ll have an illustration of a bunch of other people’s sperm, all muscular and attractive and dressed up as a mob of jocks, beating up one of my sperm, who’s ugly and weak and wearing a pair of coke bottle glasses and a pocket protector. And I expect you to belittle me for failing to live up to my end of the bargain we made as partners of fertilizing you reliably, as well as mock my tiny cock and pathetic, defective testicles and threaten to leave me over my deficient virility. Does that work for you, Andy dear?”

I giggled all along as she shared her elaborate plans for losing the sperm competition, and I cackled when she laid out my role in her kink. “Of course! Sounds like a blast, I’m all on board!” I kissed her briefly. “But if you want to beat the other guy’s sperm so, so badly, why are you delaying your attack?”

“You have a point.” She grinned and moved herself between my knees—then plunged her face into my puss and loudly slurped. More giggles came from me as Judy vacuumed what remained of the three loads of jizz out of my cunt, then brought her lips to mine and passed the snowball into my mouth—I swallowed it and hummed my satisfaction. “Delicious—too bad I haven’t tasted yours yet.”

“A failure we ought to rectify as soon as possible.”

“Certainly… but let’s save that for another day. You’ve culled their numbers, so now tell me: why aren’t you inside me yet?”

“Cuz foreplay makes it more pleasurable. Besides, I can’t touch my lips to yours when I’m inside you cuz you’re so damn tiny.”

I reached down and extracted a glob of my lubricant, and with it massaged the tip of her cock, causing her eyes to close and her teeth to clamp down on her lower lip. “The goal here isn’t pleasure, Judy, it’s to get your sperm inside me so you knock me up.” I stroked her tightly. “Shove your cock up inside my cunt… and fuck me till it’s so full of cum that when you pull out… white stuff gushes everywh—ahh—! Yes—! Fuck me—!” I had successfully persuaded her to stick it in me, and her humping proved enthusiastic and satisfying.

“Ah, this angle is a little awkward.” She pulled out to shove a couple pillows under my ass and we resumed our fucking the Catholic way while she held my legs up in a V—without kissing, without playing with each other’s nipples, without playing with my clit, without skin contact beyond the bare minimum required for mammalian copulation—there was no explicit intimacy or romance, only our instincts driving us to procreate.

And yet! It was the most exciting, the most intimate, the most romantic sex I had enjoyed up to that point, because the stakes were the highest I’d ever consciously played, because this time we were, with deliberate abandon, flouting the core goal of recreational coitus as blatantly as possible. Her humping did not taper in intensity over time, but remained consistent in the enthusiasm of her thrusts and length of her strokes as she plunged her tip all the way inside me then pulled back to my entrance, giving me that lovely body high as she rubbed the first inch of my cunt.

I watched her between my outstretched legs and thought to myself, ‹She is such a beautiful, magnificent, sexy beast. I really would like to bear her children…› Rather than shoot down that premature idea, I entertained it till she grunted and she panted, and I felt her twitch inside—

The wedding is so beautiful

My baby bump fills
my white dress

My fiancées and fiancés
are sharply dressed

The judge announces

We are wife one,
wife two,
wife three,
husband one,
and husband—

My water breaks, so
hastily we kiss
to seal the deal,

My labor starts

They drive me to the hospital
where

I give birth
to our first little one

On the drive home our child
cries

Confused and hungry

I hold them to my breast—

They feed

And peace becomes us both

Two weeks hence

The stick I’ve peed on

Shows a plus

We buy another cradle

Nine moons pass

Our firstborn looks
upon their sibling

Love inside their eyes

As bright as sunlight

A few years later

They all sit
on playground swings

To be launched up
into the air

By their fathers and
their other mothers

While I stand back,
record their play

With an old-fashioned
camcorder

I’m fat enough

Baby three
sneaks up on us

We bring our third kid home
to introduce them

To their older siblings

Elder children fawn
and fight

For the prize
of holding baby three

Our newest cries

Too stimulated

And, besides—

Their feeding time has come

I’m tired but I’m happy

This is motherhood

As soon as the euphoria had faded enough for me to regain my wits, I told her, “One down, two more to go.” I breathed deep and slowly let it go. “I’m cheering your sperm on, my Devotee. As intensely as the thought of forcing you to raise somebody else’s children tickles me, I wanna have your baby in my belly. I want you to fuck me till your testicles run dry.”

She blew a breath. “Whew. I am honored to be raising your progeny, even if they aren’t mine… but you’re a very demanding mate, Miss Bachman. Now, let’s see that creampie…”

“Not yet. Let it stew.”

“Aw. Fine. I guess stewing is sexy.”

“You really like to play with cum.”

“Or even cook with it.”

“You cook with it?”

“I have a cookbook, Natural Harvest. And then there’s Semenology for mixed drinks… Perhaps you’d like me to turn one of the recipes into a mocktail?”

“I’d like to try them all.”

“Andy likes her cream.”

“I do. I’d also like to try some special Judy-flavored ice cream, if you’re cool with that.”

She grinned. “I know someone with an ice cream maker—don’t worry, I’ll tell them I’m using an exotic ingredient. I’ll get the ice, salt, cream, and sugar tomorrow.”

“Don’t forget the pineapple.”

She laughed. “I’ll eat half and put the rest in the ice cream. Now, I can’t wait any longer. Creampie time.” As she pulled out, a big glob of something carved a river valley between my ass checks. She placed her mouth against my cunt and sucked until she’d had her fill, then flopped down at my side and sighed, quite satisfied. “Hahhhh… Gotta fill you up with cum, or else I’ll be forced to care for someone else’s children, who I will certainly despise and totally won’t love as dearly as my own genetic material. You’re one fucked-up, kinky girl.”

I scooted closer to her, traced a random pattern with my finger between her breasts. “My dear, you are patient zero with the breeding and cuckoldry kinks, I’m only telling you how to feed your fever.”

She pressed her thumb to my bottom lip and I sucked on it. “Do you think, if I had masked my ‘disease’ from you, you wouldn’t’ve caught it?” Softly, she made our lips touch.

“Masks don’t protect from sexually transmissible infections.” And I kissed her back.

“Perhaps I shoulda worn a rubber our first time.” She brought her mouth to mine… I bit her lower lip when she tried to kiss me. “Ah! You’re so rough.” She giggled blissfully.

“I like it raw. It feels too good.”

“You haven’t even tried it with a condom, yet.”

“I have, and it isn’t the same. Not knowing whether I might become pregnant is what makes it so exhilarating.”

She kissed me on my neck and sent my bones ashivering… “I’ve turned a perfectly respectable young woman—‍” …then she kissed me on the throat, which caused my heart and cunt to throb… “—into a carefree slut—‍” …then on my cheek, which caused me to yearn… “—who has unprotected sex—‍” …then on the corner of my lip, which caused me to go mad with lust… “—with strangers—‍” …and last upon the lips, chaining me to my desires. “—while fertile.” Then she placed a finger on my clit, causing me to jerk then grind against her hand. “How can I fix this problem, Dear?”

I smirked. “(Hah…) Are you asking me if—(hah)—you can make an honest woman out of me?”

She started back and her eyes spread in surprise; I waited for her response as I watched her cock transmute from stiff rubber into unyielding granite, throbbing with each beat of her heart. “Well…”

“If I get pregnant, won’t you want our child to be legitimate? Don’t you want their parents to be in a legally sanctioned relationship?”

“I don’t… know if… that is absolutely necessary…”

“People will want to ask, ‘Who’s the father?’ Would you like me to inform them that the other mother is you? If they aren’t yours biologically, wouldn’t you like to claim parenthood?”

“I… would… like that—‍”

“And if they find out the child was born out of wedlock…”

“I suppose that’s a concern, but I don’t know if—‍” I wrapped my hand around her dickhead and massaged it, extracting a sigh-moan from her. “(Ahhh…) I—I don’t know if we’re ready for… rings on our left hands.”

“‘Don’t know’? Are you admitting that you’re open to it—or perhaps… perhaps you’ve seriously considered it?”

Without a word, she invoked the Fifth.

“You’ve fantasized about our wedding!”

“The thought just popped into my head once…”

“Just once?”

“…or twice…”

“You thought about it for a while, too, you laid down for hours in bed imagining the proposal until you fell asleep and it transformed into a dream about the planning and the ceremony and the dinner and the honeymoon and consummating the marriage and life as wives.”

“Well… To be clear, it was when you called me for permission to fuck those Environmental Health agents. The whole time I was sucking on my client’s dick and balls and you said you wanted us to cuck each other… the only thing I could think about was who we should invite.”

“Diane, for certain. Who, I think you should know, infiltrated SVPD in a multi-decade mission to minimize the harm the department does to sex workers.”

“That’s good to hear.” ‹She seems like… maybe she wasn’t exactly expecting the news, I’m certain she had no idea what I was about to tell her, because—because she has no way of knowing anything about Diane—so… she must be surprised—at least, more surprised than she looks or sounds. Yes. She’s just feeling relaxed from the sex, that’s why she wasn’t bowled over.› “Now I feel a little less icky for agreeing that her job offer was the pragmatic course of action.” She stroked my cheek as though it really wasn’t all that big a deal, like it was old news.

“Finding out was a relief. I’m certain she’ll be eager to help, if she doesn’t insist on doing my job for me.”

“I’m glad she’s on our side.”

“Yeah. Also, she told me…”

“Based on your bashful smile, I’m guessing you have more good news.”

“She used those words that hurt you.”

This time her eyebrows lifted with more surprise than I had been expecting. “Oh. Wow. Okay. Uh. Hm. Well… How… how… did… you… respond?”

“I said them right back. I also told her I wanted to fuck her in her car, right then and there, till dawn… but she insisted that I should rest after my wild night.”

She chuckled. “Great! Best of luck to both of you. I’m really glad she’s on our side—I can imagine letting her down without compromising your case or your morals would have been more than a little awkward.”

“Um… yeah.” I realized I was not a hundred percent sure I would have turned down her advances if she had been on the other side… and felt an urge to change the topic of the conversation to another—any other. I was still quite drunk, though, so I grasped clumsily at the most exciting thing from recent memory—without a single neuron in my skull pausing to consider the consequences—hoping to distract both of us from such a dangerous line of thinking. “Yeah… I’ll admit that it might’ve been a little challenging. By the way—something interesting happened, something I haven’t mentioned yet…”

“Oooo, dish!” ‹Success.›

“There was… this guy there, Tom—a nobody, not important to me, I barely know him—actually, I forgot his name, let’s just call him ‘Tom’—nobody special to me, the two of us only met tonight—he had some kind of dark secret he wanted to share with me and I simply had to get it out of him…” ‹Oh. Uh. Diane didn’t like what he did to me, and neither did Shosh… and I imagine if Judith digs even a millimeter into my story, you’ll be just as mortified.›

“Hmm…” One of her eyebrows peaked. “What was he hiding?”

“Oh. I don’t—didn’t find out. So… That’s where the story ends. Now… let’s get back to doing it?”

“Andy… are you trying to roll back the conversation?”

“N—well, it was a dead end, he refused to say what was on his mind.”

“Are you sure nothing happened?”

“Well… like I said—‍”

She peeled my hand off of her cock, rolled onto her side, and demanded, “Andrea. Tell me what happened.”

“But…”

“Say. What. Happened.”

I froze.

“Soulmates don’t keep secrets, Andy.”

“(Shit,)” I hissed. ‹She won’t let me keep this to myself.› “I… I kept—kept pushing him, with lots of questions, I wanted to get to know him better but I guess my questions were annoying, maybe, and I think maybe he has some kind of disorder that affects his ability to regulate emotions—so it wasn’t really his fault that—‍” {Thumbs pressed against my throat, his eyes replete with fury—air, I need air.} I needed to run. Somewhere. Elsewhere. Anywhere. {Squeezed. My life is being squeezed out of me.} My breathing quickened. “—that he…”

Her alarm was palpable. “Andy, what did he do?”

{Pulling, yanking, clawing—futile.} “I was drunk, I—I—I wasn’t—‍” I was on the verge of hyperventilating.

“I noticed, and we’ll talk about that later if you don’t mind, but I need you to tell me what this guy did.”

{My larynx yields beneath his thumbs as they are pressing—pressing downwards—pressing down on bone and cartilage—to starve my lungs of air—} “So… He… He choked… me.”

She needed a moment to process. “Okay. Fuck. Are you okay?”

{I’m about to die. I’m ending.} “I—feel fine, my throat—my throat doesn’t hurt anymore.”

“Do you think you might be traumatized?”

{Now fade away… Forget the world and those I love… Surrender unto darkness…} “No. No. Of course not. I feel fine, really.” I tried to smile.

“Did they arrest the guy?”

“Two big men took—‍”

{big breath in

{eyes fly wide open

{see the world in Technicolor

{lights sounds faces all around me}

I came back from the floor of the club. “What—were we talking about?”

“Did they arrest him?”

“They—took him away.”

She waited for the second half of my story. “Andy… are you leaving something out?”

I grunted in frustration. ‹I’m alive. I’m breathing and I’m alive.› The memory released me, then evaporated. So I sighed, relieved by my escape—then I remembered that I was currently being interrogated. “Okay—so—I did something you would not have expected.”

“What did you do?”

“Please don’t freak out.”

“I’m cool as a cucumber. Go on.”

“I asked for them to bring him back to me.”

Her eyes grew too big to fit in their sockets. “Why the fuck did you do that?”

“You said you’d be ‘cool as a cucumber’!”

She sighed impatiently. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, you’re right, I said that. Please, tell me why you told them to let your would-be murderer get any closer to you.”

“Like I said, he wanted to confess some kind of sin, and I wanted to hear it.”

“Oh—kayyy… It’s very strange that you didn’t press charges, but I said I’d be cool and I don’t want to start an argument. What was he hiding?”

“I don’t… know.”

“You… didn’t get it out of him? After nearly losing your life?”

“He was like a safe, locked tight. I got him as drunk as I figured he could get while maintaining his abilities to think and talk, and he gave up jack all. All he mentioned was ou—his boss.”

I felt her eyes bore into mine, so naturally I turned my gaze away lest they betray the fact that there was even more to the juicy story. “Andrea Bachman… you are hiding something else.” The Fifth Amendment can save lives in criminal proceedings… but not in an interrogation by a loved one. “Spill those beans, my friend.”

“I… he and I… we… got a little closer after that.”

“How close?”

“I attempted to seduce him.”

“And how did that work out?”

“I got a little carried away.”

“Very far away?”

I nodded sheepishly.

She nodded back. “Does that mean he’s gonna be a father in nine months?”

Through timid vocal cords I squeaked, “(Only if your sperm don’t win the race.)”

Her cheeks puffed and she let out a gust between pursed lips. “You fucked your would-be killer for his semen. I have never met a woman who took breeding as seriously as you do. Never met a woman who took breeding seriously at all, actually. Well… What did you say to piss him off?”

“I dunno. I wanted to get closer to him, I wanted to bond with him over work stuff. Apparently I touched a nerve at some point.”

“You must have some idea of what set him off.”

‹No, I don’t. I just asked him about cop stuff, the kind of stuff civilians ask me all the time.› Then it hit me. ‹Like whether I’ve ever had to shoot anyone. Whether I’ve killed anyone. And it always makes me so uncomfortable, even though I’ve never hurt so much as a fly while on duty. If Tom has had to hurt someone on the job…› I closed my eyes and groaned. ‹God, I must have made him feel like shit, and seeing how I ought to have known how a fellow cop would receive such questions, he would’ve had good reason to suspect I was trying to get a rise out of him.› “Um. So. I might have asked him some… very insensitive questions, because… probably because my judgment was impaired thanks to the Molly I took.”

“You rolled tonight… That explains a lot.”

“And I had a few drinks.”

“And that explains the rest. Hmm. I noticed you’re a little shaky, but—glory be to COVID—I can’t smell the liquor on your breath, which means I had no way of knowing. Honey… Listen, I won’t judge you for relapsing, cuz I realize it’s a struggle, you can’t help it… but I really hope you don’t make this mistake—that an unfortunate situation like this doesn’t happen to you ever again.”

My fingers were clasped anxiously; I stared down at my twiddling thumbs while pondering, ‹Was it worth it? That was the best damn tequila I’ve ever had. And it felt so good to be plastered. I needed a little something to make the night even better—

‹No. I didn’t need it. That’s just the addiction speaking. I could have died. Shosh would have been heartbroken. Judy would have been heartbroken. Diane would have been heartbroken. Pink and Tom would grieve their mate; five people would have lost me forever. The case would have gone cold, and Alex would stay missing. The trouble wasn’t worth the pleasure, and it wouldn’t have been worth Tom’s secret, even if I had been able to extract it from him before dying.

‹This can’t happen again.›

“On top of alcohol, I’ve sworn off every recreational narcotic, so that I don’t compromise my judgment, so that I don’t get myself in trouble or killed. And if I relapse again, Diane will keep me on my leash whenever we’re at the club, until my doctor says I’m able to control myself. Which I don’t think I’ll mind, if that’s the way it has to be until the day I die. I… Well, I like being on the leash.”

“I could ask for more, but I don’t think it would be fair to you.” Her smile was mostly satisfied, but there was a little worry around her eyes. “You really enjoy being a pet, don’t you?”

“Yes. I like being her pet. Though…” I traced a random squiggle on her chest. “If you’re interested in giving it a try, you should know that she gave me permission to share my body and my soul with you, with my complete obedience and total loyalty—not that I wasn’t already totally loyal, nor that I wouldn’t give you my body without her permission, but this way it would be unconditional, eternal—still, we can say you have all of me, not she, more than just lust and trust…” I stroked her cock’s soft undercarriage. “…if you’re willing to take on all the responsibilities of owning me, all day and night… when I’m not with her.”

“Oh, wow. I, uh…” She was, to my displeasure, excessively conflicted—so I gave her a pair of puppy-dog eyes. “This is a lot. As in the most consequential decision I have made in my entire life, bigger than getting engaged or saying ‘I do’, bigger than my decision to share my breeding kink and pregnancy fetish with you. You don’t enter into that kind of relationship without sitting down and discussing a lot of boundaries and expectations. And I’ve got some hangups when it comes to being capital-D Dominant. I’ve had too many bad experiences.”

“Do you really need to be my Dominant to be my owner?”

“I find it hard to picture a submissive owner, the idea seems self-contradictory to me.”

“What if you’re gentle, and kind, and you spoil me, and you let me be a bad girl and I make lots of demands which you scramble to fulfill?” I wrapped my hand around her shaft and gently stroked—so that I might persuade her to see things my way, to keep her hard, simply because I was horny and skin contact made me even hornier—so there were countless reasons to be touching her while we were having a serious discussion.

“That might work, maybe, but—there would still be some domination necessary on my part, and I should emphasize that, despite dabbling in BDSM as an escort, I haven’t actually had a whole lot of experiences where I… performed satisfactorily. None, in fact.”

I pulled her foreskin up and over her head, and she sighed. “This will be easy. I’ll enjoy you spoiling me for being such a bad girl while Diane rewards me for being a good girl. Trust me, you’re gonna have fun, and you’re gonna feel your connection with me grow even stronger. We’ll only benefit from this kind of relationship.”

She thought about it carefully, facial expression changing every second over the course of a minute’s silence, chewing on her bottom lip. I gave her as much of my patience as I would give Diane. At the end of that minute, with middling confidence she finally said, “Oh… okay.”

I hugged her. “God, I feel amazing! Thank you, Mistress, I’m overjoyed!”

“I don’t want to start all at once, I need to ease into this stuff.”

“We’ll take a break whenever you need one. Just put my collar around my neck and call me by my pet name when you’re in the mood to be my owner, and then take it off and use my human name once you’re finished.”

“I also want to clarify my ‘owning’ you is just roleplay.”

I rolled my eyes. “Alright, okay, that’s fine, whatever. You don’t… really own me, after all…”

“Do you want to be ‘really’ owned?”

I gradually slipped into a sulk as I explained, “Kinda. Yeah. Diane doesn’t… want to own me anymore. Just roleplay it. The way you want to do it.”

“You sound a little… heartbroken.”

“A bit. I have strong feelings about her, but she won’t give me everything I want. And I have a hunch you’re just as hesitant.”

She played with one of my curls. “I’m sorry, but… We can pretend I own you, but no more than that.”

I gave her a pale smile. “It’ll have to do.”

“I’m sorry, Andy.”

“It’s fine. Forget about the ownership. Let’s focus on the good; we’ll pick a collar out for me after I get off work tomorrow.”

“Well, Tuesday is procurement day; I’m usually done by lunch, so I’ll be ready to shop by the time you are.”

I pecked her on the lips. “What color do you want for me?”

“Ah. Hm. I’m thinking… either green to match your eyes, or navy blue to contrast with your hair and match your coat.”

“Yes, I like those. We can buy some ribbons for testing the colors, then you’ll order me my choker.”

“Aren’t I supposed to be the one making all the plans and decisions? You’re supposed to be a mindless animal.” She grinned and kissed me with a little tongue.

“Are you saying that you wanna get to playing right away?”

“Maybe for a minute or two.”

I grinned back. “Would you care to finish breeding your pet?”

She scooted close and lifted my leg over her thigh. I hiked up my dress and reached for her slick cock to guide it in, but she said, “No, my pretty puppy, that’s my job.”

With her free hand she guided herself into me, thereby sending a breeze through my pussy while stretching, filling, forcing a gasp from me, deep breath through nostrils—

cedar burns

produces

fragrant smoke

white mallows

licked by flames

slowly turn

golden brown

choc’late bar

melting soft

crispy squares

honey touched

sandwiching

gooey crunch

sweet on sweet

on sweet

“Wouldn’t doggy style make more sense?” I asked.

She stopped and sighed. “Did you have to wait until I was already inside you to point that out?”

“I thought you had something appropriate in mind. Do you need advice on how to breed me?”

“Um… Andy… I think I, of all the people on this earth, know best the proper way to breed you.”

“Yet your first idea was not to Nine Inch Nail me like an animal? Come on, Judy.”

My punny criticism prompted contradictory emotions from her—a blend of amusement and frustration, as best as I could tell. “‘Nine Inch’—Well—I—‍”

Without warning I righted us so that she was on her back and I was on top. “If you’re gonna pick a sex position…” I lifted most of the way off of her, extracting a moan by squeezing her on my way up. “…for fucking your submissive…” I lowered myself slowly. “…I would think the best…” I rose. “…are those in which the dominant…” I slammed myself down, earning me a gasp from her. “…is in control.”

She shuddered as she whispered, “(Oh. My. Christ.)”

I continued humping her while lecturing, “I’m a little disappointed, Judy, because when you looked into my eyes just now I thought, ‘She’s gonna fuck me hard like I’m her property,’ but apparently you misread the situation because you went for something more ‘romantic’.”

“(Oops… Ah… You’re right… Hah… I made an oopsie… Mh… Sorry, pet…)” She grabbed my chest and played with my tits through my dress’ fabric, seeming to enjoy herself despite the perplexed look on her face.

I pulled her hair, and she quietly cried out. “Now that I think about it, Judy…”

Each time I engulfed her, she let out a cute noise. “(Ah… mh… hn…)”

“…you are even more loyal to me than I am to you…”

“(Hmm, hmgh… fuck…)”

“…and you’ve said before that you want me to use your body.”

“(Mmh… ah… just… hah… like… hm… that…)”

I stopped humping her. “I think the owner in this relationship might actually be me.”

I saw fear—and something else—evolving rapidly in her eyes. “(Oh…)”

I smiled like the devil on Fat Tuesday. “Which makes you… mine.” Her fear gave way to acquiescence. “Be a good girl: sit still, take your hands off of my tits, and don’t you speak a word, while I extract your seed.”

She failed to follow my command.

I glared disapprovingly.

Then she obeyed.

My pretend disapproval evaporated; I gave her a kind smile and a pat on the head. “Good girl. Just sit back, relax, and let me breed you like the prize stud you are.” She whimpered.

I laid my hands on her chest and enjoyed her tits’ braless softness through her shirt as I brought my pussy upwards, tickling my entrance with her head to give myself that

rush |
| like
an October |
| wind
cuts |
| through
my bones, |

then thrust myself downward to swallow her completely, striking her against my cervix, and pinched her nipples through her shirt—hard, harder than I ever had before, so hard she cried out. “Does this feel good, pet of mine?”

She hesitated—perhaps reluctant to criticize my prowess—but in any case chose honesty. She shook her head.

“Hmph! Alright, my pet.” I tweaked them harder and she yelled and covered her trembling mouth with both hands—but even as she whimpered she humped back. I let go of her nipples and she stopped making pathetic noises. I reached beneath her shirt and brushed my fingers over her abs, causing her to shiver and make horny noises. “Does that bring you closer to cumming?” She nodded. “Good.” I continued humping for a while, until her eyes glazed over, at which point I asked, “Do your nipples still hurt, Judy?”

Pathetically she told me, “No, but… please don’t hurt them again.”

“Did you feel yourself get closer to orgasm when I hurt them?”

She hesitated a little longer this time before admitting, “Yes… M—my Lady.”

Satisfaction surged within my arteries and flooded my brain. ‹I wish I’d done this sooner.› I grabbed her nipples and she tensed up even more. “For being honest, and for saying ‘please’, I will be gentle this time.” She relaxed a tiny bit and sighed relief—then I intensified her moans with modest torque, causing her eyes to close, her body to convulse and writhe, her thrusting to become increasingly desperate for release.

“I’m bound to end up pregnant at this rate… and as soon as the little fucker’s out of me, I’m suing you for child support.”

Her eyes shot open and her moans grew hoarse…

…and I stooped to her chest and brought my lips to her jaw and whispered, “And the kicker is… it isn’t even your baby in my belly.”

Suddenly—

she Grabs my Legs to Squeeze

and Grunts her Pleasure sought—

her Body starts to Seize

her Muscles drawn in Taut—

a Grin upon her Lips

forms as her Face Contorts—

she ceases Thrusting Hips

when Comes her Petit Mort—

she Twitches, Pours like Sin

her Cloud upon my Vale—

a Life inside Begins

to Write another Tale.

Everything’s
Gonna Be
Fine, Fine, Fine

Once we had returned from Paradise, she told me, “Andy—my Lady…” I grinned like a piranha as she spoke my newest title between heaving breaths. “I didn’t think it was possible… for you to top our first time penetrating… Holy shit, though, you are good.” She closed her eyes and sank into the bed. “Did you cum, too?”

“Kind of? It’s not quite the same as cumming… but continuing to ride you even as you grab my ass and thrust into me and freeze, feeling you twitch inside me, hearing you moan and grunt, watching your eyes roll back, knowing that my pussy is so damn good that your involuntary biological reflexes have taken over your mind and body and you just can’t stop yourself, and on top of that knowing there’s a chance we’ll make a child… is just as satisfying as any orgasm. But not satisfying in a physical way, it’s more emotional… and intellectual.”

“Wow. That is quite hot.” She sighed. “I wish we had something to smoke right now.”

“Nightstand, top drawer.”

She retrieved one of my emergency joints from the Altoids tin (with a label warning, ‘I do not consent to any warrantless search of this container’) in the drawer next to my vibrator and gave it a hearty sniff as she dragged it across her nostrils. “Hindu Kush! Perfect for winding down.” She lit it with all the finesse one should expect of a cannabis dealer.

“I smoke one of those whenever I’m having trouble sleeping.”

“A cop who smokes weed. You’re a bad cop. A bad cop who knows how to fuck like a pro. You should give porn a shot. Some people get off on blue uniforms and badges.”

“I may very well try it out, minus the uniform. I don’t know how I got to be this good, but I’m at least aware that I am.”

She giggled a cloud of smoke and offered me the joint. “You are so full of yourself.”

I defended my honor by twisting both her nipples…

“Ow!” She donned a hurt frown. “Why did you do that?”

…and plucked the joint from her fingers. “You just disrespected your Lady.”

“Oh, right.” She sighed and put on a regretful façade. “9,999 apologies, my Lady…”

It was then I realized being dominant could be a real challenge. I fought to contain laughter at her plastic sorrow and changed the subject to avoid breaking Dom/sub kayfabe, but an amused snort managed to escape scarcely a word into my question. “What—(snick)—color would you like your collar to be?” I took a draw off the joint and focused on my lungs, distracting myself from the urge to laugh.

“You’re letting me decide, my Lady?”

I handed back the joint and watched her draw a lungful as I released mine. “Of course not. I just value your input. If it’s a color I like, we’ll go with it. If not, I’m picking something else.”

She chuckled smoke. “Of course. Black leather and, if you don’t mind, spikes.”

“Sure. I’ll search for collars on Nile Traders once we’ve fucked a couple dozen more times.”

She passed it to me and I toked. “I’d… um… like it sooner rather than later, so, if you don’t mind me suggesting, we can buy a spiked choker locally and slip a D-ring on it for attaching the leash.” I passed the joint back.

“Where are you suggesting that we find a spiked leather choker… locally? Perhaps… at the mall?”

She knew where I was going with that question. “I’d have to think about that…” She sucked on the joint amid the silence that discomforted her more the longer it went on.

As my smirk grew into a grin, the concern on her face bloomed, and once I figured I had her about as worried as she would get, I whispered into her ear, “(Hot Topic?)”

Anguish descended on her as her fear came true. “Christ, no, I would never forgive myself. It’s bad enough I’m okay with buying something that isn’t used, if I bought anything from that place I’d have to excommunicate myself from all the underground subcultures in which I’ve entrenched myself.”

I plucked the joint from her hand and suggested, “How about… an actual pet store?”

“Are you serious?”

“Yes.” I took a long drag.

“That’s, like, for animals, though.”

I held the smoke in for a while to give her words time to leave their impression and to give my forthcoming response greater weight; when finally I spoke, my words came out as eerie wafts of smoke. “Judy… you are an animal.”

I returned the joint. “Um… (Yes)—but—wearing a pet collar meant for actual animals would be humiliating.”

“Isn’t that the point of pet play?”

She groaned. “You’re right…”

“You want it.”

“Yeah. True.” She sighed. “I want it. Pretty badly, actually. A real pet store really is the way to go if we’re gonna take this game seriously.”

“Tomorrow, after work.”

“I’m afraid you’re gonna make me regret letting you own me.”

I winked. “Not knowing whether I’ll make you regret this is half the fun.”

She groaned again. “Does pet play include euthanizing pets who are in terminal agony?”

“We can roleplay that, if it’s your kink.”

“Um. I was (joking,) but… oh—kay. Maybe.” She toked and passed.

“‘Maybe’? Is my pet implying she hasn’t decided whether to give me, her owner, permission?”

As I said this, she realized she had committed a faux pas. “No. Of—course not, my Lady. If you want to pretend-euthanize me, I’ll be a good girl and pretend-die.”

I broke out into laughter. “I’m messing with you! I want you to be happy. If you aren’t comfortable with something I’m doing, tell me.”

She exhaled relief as I inhaled some smoke… “Thank you. I do appreciate the reassurance that I didn’t give myself to someone who’s been hiding a tyrannical streak.”

…and spoke my smoke. “But isn’t tyranny sexy?”

She stared at me for a few seconds, then admitted, “Yes… in moderation.”

I nodded. “Tyranny in moderation is what I shall strive to give you, then.”

She prayed to the ceiling, “Dear Lord, please euthanize me if my Lady goes too far.”

I passed the joint and mussed her hair. “In case I go too far… we do have a safe word, Pet.”

“I guess, though there’s a possibility I might… ‘forget’.”

“Please use it if it’s called for.”

“Alright, (fine,)” she said reluctantly.

I slid off her cock (her cum rained down upon her belly) and laid next to her so that we were face-to-face and wrapped my arms around her neck. “Don’t you mean ‘as you wish’?”

She kissed me on the cheek. “Yes, I will do precisely as you wish. Because, as you have pointed out before, I am devoted to you.” She finished off the joint, then smokily sang: “But baby can’t you see—there’s nothing else for me to do; I’m hopelessly devoted… to you…”

“You’re quite a singer. What’s that song?”

“‘Hopelessly Devoted to You’, from the 1978 musical Grease. If you want a glimpse into my childhood, or if you’re interested in movie musicals, even in the slightest, you should give it a watch. Olivia Newton-John has pipes. For all his singing and dancing talent, though, John Travolta’s a Scientologist, so try not to fall for his charm.”

“We can watch it together, and you can cover my eyes and ears to shield me from the cultist’s siren song and dance. How about Saturday?” Then I remembered something. “No, wait—the Pride parade is on Saturday, and I wanted Diane to walk me on the leash. We can watch musicals on Friday nights.”

She made her own (very effective) attempt at puppy-dog eyes. “You mean… you don’t want to walk me at Pride?”

She was clearly kidding with me, but with those glistening amber orbs she had ripped the viscera out of my abdomen and stomped it to a pulp. I opened my mouth, then lost confidence in my reply, growled in frustration, then settled on whispering, “(Fuck.)”

She patted me on the shoulder. “I could go either way, you can always walk me next year—since this is your first time, it might be better to go as a pet, and, most importantly, she asked before I did.”

“I asked her. Begged her. She didn’t wanna do it cuz it’d be a bad idea for us to appear in public as a couple, but I told her I could wear a mask and a wig—and she said she’d get them for me.”

“Being the asker is all the more reason to go with her. You were insistent, she opened up her mind to give your request consideration; she’s setting aside time to be with you; and she’s going through the effort of procuring a disguise for you. So it would be better not to renege after she’s done so much to satisfy your wants when they conflict with her needs—and with yours. She’s doing something special for you, and you should communicate your appreciation by showing up with a smile and thanking her enthusiastically at least once before it starts, again somewhere in the middle, and one last time after it’s over.”

“You’re a very thoughtful woman, but you and I are close enough to talk about marriage, she and I aren’t. We’re soulmates. I’m closer to you than I am to her.”

“Parades aren’t my thing. Go with her.”

I nodded wistfully. “As you wish.” I kissed her, then reached down and fondled her balls. “Do these have any more in them?”

“For you… they’ll always have more.”

“Alright, let’s see if we can give you a numerical advantage over my dear Pink Kitty Boy and—the other guy I fucked earlier.” I got back on top of her and resumed riding her. “I don’t know what I should call you as my pet.”

“Do I really need a pet name?”

“It’s part of our agreement. Haven’t you given it a thought?”

“Shit, I dunno. I’ve never had a pet to name, I have no idea where to start.”

“I didn’t have any, either.” I played with her hair. “You’re into ’70s music.”

“And ’20s, ’30s, ’40s, ’50s, ’60s, ’80s, ’90s, aughts, teens, and the current ’20s, among other decades and centuries.” I didn’t think her sarcasm was really necessary, but I got the gist: I knew much less about my soulmate—in particular her taste in music—than I wanted to admit.

“Okay. Um. I shall dub thee… ‘Blondie’.”

She considered it briefly. “I like it. Thank you.”

I patted her on the head and winked. “It doesn’t matter whether you like it.” She shook her head but kept her smile. My belly gurgled pathetically, interrupting my cock riding, and I realized I was absolutely famished.

“Oh, my,” said Judy. “That one sounded despondent. Your stomach is begging for nutrition.”

“The only thing I’ve eaten since… this morning… was a couple loads of cum.”

“Okay, that’s sexy in a dirty way, but it doesn’t quite meet the qualifications of a snack or even a nibble. We need to feed you.”

“I could drive us to Del—‍”

“Okay, Andy, I will disobey you and stop you from getting behind the wheel if you’re drunk and high. Do you understand?”

“I feel perfectly sober…”

“How many drinks did you have?”

“Three. Four. No, five. Um. I don’t remember.”

“You haven’t been slurring your words or struggling with your balance, but five drinks should make somebody as small as you beyond plastered. I’m feeling icky after finding out the extremity of your drunkenness only after we had sex.”

“Would I ever turn down sex with you, my soulmate, to whom I am hopelessly devoted?”

“We aren’t having any more sex until you’ve sobered up. Same for next time I smell alcohol on your breath—if I ever get my sense of smell back. I won’t be taking any chances if you can’t remember how much you’ve imbibed.”

I grumbled. “Fine. Even though it’s completely unnecessary because I’m never drinking again… if you really care about not fucking me while I’m drunk, you have a right to set that boundary.”

“You’re God damn right I do. No sex and no driving if you’ve had even a single drop of alcohol.”

‹I guess it’s possible I’m unfit to operate a motor vehicle.› “Alright. I’m okay with that. I shall permit thy disobedience under the current circumstances.”

“I appreciate having your permission, but I don’t need it. Your safety always comes before our game of Domme and sub.”

I had no idea what to do. She was discounting my authority, but she was right. I nodded in a very un-ownerly way. “As you wish. Can you drive us?”

“I know how to drive, stick or automatic, but I don’t like either—besides, we just shared a joint, there’s no way I’m driving high.”

“Then let’s walk to Jack.”

“Let’s.”

I asked her about her favorite musicals, and she listed several—Grease, The King and I, The Sound of Music, Mary Poppins, Oklahoma—that she would like to watch with me. We each ordered two Breakfast Jacks because they were the cheapest sandwich on the menu.

While we waited for our food, I asked her, “Who’s that on your shirt?”

“Ghost. I bought it at the 2011 Maryland Deathfest. They are magnificent—but beyond their music I really dig their blending of Catholic and Satanic aesthetics. Here, listen for yourself…” She unlocked her phone and played the music video for ‘Square Hammer’ for my musical edification.

As the song ended, I told her, “I liked that, I liked the guitars and the drums and the lyrics, and the Satanic stuff is fun. Play me another.” We sat there in that Jack in the Box listening to the band’s songs and watching their music videos and clips from their concerts. There came a time my head and eyelids were drooping and I realized that I was close to passing out—and felt in most aspects of my existence like pounded shit. “Judy… I… am… so… (exhausted…)”

“Let’s go, my Lady.” She threw away our trash and approached the door, then looked back and saw that I was still seated. “Hey, Andy?”

I tried to stand but lost my balance; though I stopped myself from falling, my foothold was still precarious.

She rushed to me and wrapped an arm around my waist to prop me up. “Andy, are you okay?”

“I’m… tired.”

“I’m tired but I’m working…” she sang in a familiar melody, excavating from my hippocampus a quarter century of neurons to unearth some of my earliest memories—

{Running through the sprinkler while the radio blasts one of this year’s top 100 hits the day before I’m to be introduced to the tribulations and terrors of the public schooling system.

{Shosh spinning up a CD she’d purchased one or two years ago while I struggle to complete my subtraction homework; the songstress’ poppy post-grunge sound—sometimes vengeful, sometimes optimistic—takes the edge off my frustration as I push myself to master the fundamentals of arithmetic.

{Crying on the couch over a book about a boy and his two redbone hounds while one of Shosh’s favorite albums softly fills the living room; the song grounds me, helps me through my fictional grief.

{And as the chanteuse sings to her best friend with benefits, I sing to the ones I’ve yet to meet, just loud enough for them to hear, “Don’t be alarmed… if I fall… head over… feet…”}

“You couldn’t help it, it’s all my fault,” she replied melodically. “Let’s get you to bed, bestie with benefits.” Suddenly I was cradled in her arms, like a bride being carried by her groom over the threshold of their nuptial home. “I’ll take you home, my Lady.”

“(As you wish,)” I mumbled, as darkness gently drew me into a cozy dream of collars, leashes, butt plug tails, and dildos of all shapes, sizes, and colors.

Pierce
the Blue Shield

Orgies one day,
death threats the next.

Acetaldehyde

Tuesday, July 16th, 2024

I woke (with too much damn sunlight shining through the window, a sore everything inside and all over, a mouth dry enough to soak up the bay, and a God-awful throbbing behind my eyes) to the grating, headache-magnifying banshee scream of my Spartus 1121 alarm clock, a cursèd purchase from a flea market circa middle school. ‹Why am I in so much agony?› My night of MDMA and slow dance and unprotected sex and alcohol and attempted murder flashed through my pain-clouded brain. ‹Oh. That’s right. I fell off the wagon and landed ass-first in a blissful Hell.›

I tried to silence the alarm, but my arm refused to move. ‹Fuck me. Why do I have to feel so God damn shitty right now?›

My phone rang, but I couldn’t reach it with the limp piece of meat and bone hanging from my shoulder. ‹Is this what polydrug hangovers are always like? I swear to God, I’m never touching alcohol or ecstasy again.›

One-by-one I was able to twitch my fingers and toes, then flex my knees and bend my elbows, then finally roll over, reach for the clock, and silence the alarm. After managing to sit up, I clumsily swung my legs over the edge of the bed and set the room spinning around me like a speeding carousel—a very colorful carousel. I waited for my dizziness to subside before carefully placing my weight on my feet then standing with the grace of a newborn giraffe.

I checked the clock: 6:31. ‹Fuck, I’ve got less than 10 minutes to get out the door. If I don’t get dressed right now, I’m going to be late for work.› I whined at the shitty situation I was in. I worried for a moment that taking off my dress might be difficult before realizing I was already nude. I made a mental note to thank Judy for removing my dress before putting me to bed, while getting a little turned on by the idea of her undressing me while I was unconscious… though it was very un-petlike of her to do that and very unownerlike of me to get off on it. I would have to ask my owner about undressing me while I was asleep (or pretending to be asleep, anyway).

‹I have to get ready,› I reminded myself. I was able to keep my balance while putting on my charcoal pants by leaning against the wall. With those on, my greatest challenge was out of the way. I pushed my shoulders to their limits while bending my arms to hook my bra and don a green shirt, skipped the hair ribbon, struggled with dialing the combination to my safe to retrieve my cop things, strapped my piece on, nearly strained my shoulders once more in the process of putting on my dark gray jacket and blue coat, dropped my keys and groaned at the soreness afflicting my legs and spine as I squatted to pick them up, struggled through more pain as I stood straight, and shuffled out the door—nearly forgetting to lock it behind me. I pushed myself to get down the stairs as quickly as possible, nearly taking several ‘face-first shortcuts’, but made it down without injury. I walked to the parking structure as quickly as my wobbly legs would allow, thanked God the parking spots were assigned so that I didn’t have to remember where I parked my car, and got the hell on my way.

The drive was typical, except that even though there was nobody else in the car, for the first time on my way to work I didn’t feel lonely—because right now the last thing I wanted was someone next to me talking or breathing or merely existing in my peripheral vision. I kept to the speed limit like any responsible driver, in spite of the rush I was in, and checked the time obsessively, crimson numerals glowing to the right of the cassette player. I found a good parking spot in the garage and managed to persuade my muscles to jog to my desk. I collapsed in my chair and checked the clock for the last time before starting my work day: 6:59. I giggled a little, then leaned back for just a moment…

“Bachman.”

I awoke with a start. “Wha?!” I turned around to face the voice. Captain Nichols stood there with a rather thin folder under his arm, looking unamused. ‹Caught sleeping. I’m fucked.›

“I grabbed the Brookvale case for you,” he told me cheerily as he handed me the folder that (presumably) contained the original copy of the dispatched officer’s notes from their in-person interview with Geraldine.

“I’m—sorry for—sleeping…”

He surveyed the room, and I followed his eyes: empty desks all around. Without dropping his helpful tone or his gentle smile, he explained, “Detective, I do not care what you do at your desk. I do not care what you do away from your desk. I do not care if you actually try to solve your cases, because I do not expect you to give them even the most incompetent and half-assed of attempts. Your fellow detectives make a point of arriving at work half an hour early and leave the squad room for field work before open of business. You, on the other hand, can play hooky and I will look the other way. You’re a special girl, and you get special treatment. Have I made myself unofficially clear?”

‹They expect nothing from me.› The realization that they expected me to quietly fuck around and accomplish nothing even if I did try—on top of the fact that I had only gotten the job because I was someone’s ‘special girl’—compounded with the knowledge that I was inexperienced and incompetent and too wanting for professionalism and devotion to my work to arrive early like everyone else—left me in an even worse state than the hangover had put me in.

“Well?”

“I’m sorry, sir, I had a rough time last night, what was that last bit, the question?”

“I expect nothing from you. Am I clear?”

“To be honest, I wish you could have been a little more vague, so that I could continue to live with the fantasy that I’m actually here to solve cases.”

“If you wanna work, be my guest. I’m just letting you know I won’t be disappointed in you if you fail miserably, but ya aren’t getting any gold star stickers for actually doing your duties.”

“Thanks… sir.” He gave me a pat on the shoulder and left for his office. I leaned my head back and felt tears begin to flow. ‹As much as I love Diane, taking this job was foolish. No one expects anything from me, because no one respects me. I’m a joke.›

I picked up my personal phone to call Diane to tell her I didn’t want the job anymore, but saw in my notifications that I had a missed call and a voicemail. I dreaded informing Diane of my resignation. I justified delaying our conversation by checking the voicemail from earlier, which had come in at 6:01 that morning; I recognized UCSV psychiatry’s number and groaned. ‹I fucking slept through my appointment.› I sighed and tapped ‘play’. ‘Good morning, Miss Bachman, this is UCSV Adult Psychiatry calling to verify that you will be able to make it to your 5:30 AM appointment with Doctor Huygen. If you need to reschedule, please give us a call as soon as possible. You can reach us at—’ I deleted the VM and spent a few minutes loathing myself, but it didn’t take long for me to build up the resolve I needed to give up.

I dialed Diane’s personal phone. After one-and-a-half rings she picked up. “Good morning Sweetie, how are you feeling?”

“Honestly…” I didn’t want to tell her, it would just make her feel bad.

“Oh,” she uttered softly. “Go ahead, Drea. I’m here to listen.”

“I feel—‍” My throat cinched tight. “—pretty awful.”

“Oh, no. Come to my office.”

“Thank you.”

As I approached her office, Tricia told me with sympathetic softness, “Go right in, Andrea.”

I entered, and my Mistress-cum-partner was seated in one of her visitor chairs, with the other positioned opposite her. “Come in Drea, have a seat.” I sat down. “What is the matter? Bad hangover?”

“Well, yes, that, but also… I think if Captain Nichols hadn’t told me what he told me earlier, I would have gotten through my morning just fine.”

Her voice froze over as she commanded, “Tell me what he said to hurt you.”

I repeated his words, verbatim and in his voice, and her face grew vengeful.

“That insensitive—disrespectful—condescending—bastard!” Her fury was a novel and disturbing sight to behold—pitch boiling above silently crackling flames, ready to scald one moment, cool-to-the-touch and solid by the next. “This is hardly out of character, though, he treats all of his detectives like shit.” She crossed her arms. “I should have known that putting you in Crimes Against Persons was a bad idea. I will have you moved to Vice as soon as you are finished with—‍”

“I want to quit.”

Her anger rapidly cooled into tender concern, with a hint of shock. “I have changed my mind, moving you to Vice would be the wrong thing to do for you…”

“Thank you for understanding.”

“…but so would be allowing you to quit. You are the only person I trust to solve Xander’s case. If you quit, whoever inherits it will neglect it, because not a single one of the bastards in this organization cares what happens to the people on Adams, and if they knew whose blood was in that hotel room, they would care even less. Alex needs you to remain in CAP. I need you to solve this case, for the sake of my own conscience. Everyone who loves Alex needs you on it, so that they can have him back.”

“I’m not a detective.”

She stared at me like bugs were crawling in and out of my orifices. “That will be quite enough self-deprecation, girl. Listen. You have talent. You just need some experience to nurture that talent and make it bloom. Once Xander is safe at home and our perpetrators in custody, I will double-check your evidence to make sure you have a solid case against the people who have him, and I will also help you with your investigation report. You will learn. No, you are not a good detective, but no-one is good from the start. I sure as hell did not; it took me many weeks without sleep or progress to climb my way up to captain. Out of all my assignments throughout my first year as a detective, 56 cases spread across every investigatory unit in the department… Can you guess how many of them resulted in convictions?”

“Half?”

“None.”

“None?”

“Zero. Nada. Zilch. I sucked. Well—I was intentionally fucking up on most of them, but the 6 DVs, 2 sex crimes, and single homicide to which I was assigned—the only ones I gave honest tries—those were all rejected by the DA. If your case makes it to court, you can count yourself a better detective than I was after my whole first year on the force.”

“You’d be helping me, though. That isn’t a fair comparison.”

“My captains helped me on my first few cases. And they were better at it back then than I am now. But I think you’ll do better even without my help. You sniffed out a trail no-one else would have picked up. You have talent, Drea. Don’t squander it by giving into self-pity.”

Had the words come from anyone besides either her or Judy, I would not have been persuaded. But I loved her, and I trusted her, so… “Thank you, Mistress.” I smiled. My gratitude was strained by the dying tempest in my heart, but no less sincere. “I’m going to give it my all.”

“Good. I prefer you staying willingly over me ordering you to finish the case.”

“You would have… Oh.”

‹I didn’t have a choice in the first place.

‹—And yet… I know that I will do whatever she tells me to do, even when she doesn’t expect me to want to do it.

‹—If she doesn’t have the deed to my soul, there’s no point in following her orders.

‹—But I’m loyal to her of my own free will, and I would have followed her order if she had resorted to commanding me to stay on the case. The way I feel about her…

‹I’m not sure I know how to say ‘no’ to her.›

I nodded. She stood, took my hands in hers, and raised me up. “I am happy that you see things my way.” She kissed me, and what remained of the tempest cleared, and as the kiss carried on with our tongues intertwining, I thought my hangover disappeared as well. She pulled away too soon. “Justice, Andy. Pursue Justice. Don’t stop running towards it even if your legs fall off.”

At last, my smile was unstrained by suffering. “Yes, Mistress. I exist for Justice. Thank you for reminding me.”

She kissed me quickly and slapped me on the ass, forcing from me the first sound of happiness of the day—of many, it would turn out. “Go, Drea.”

With a pounding agony in my head and a misery-defying smile on my face I returned to my desk and opened the Alex folder, finding only the initial report. Disappointed but unsurprised, I checked my CaseCloud evidence vault for findings from the hotel, but saw nothing. On that note, I emailed the crime lab asking for an ETA on the fiber, hair, and fingerprints; and sent another to the medical examiner requesting that they pull all unidentified males between the ages of sixteen and fifty so that I could attempt to make an identification myself. With no other desk chores to do, I set myself to following up on my leads.

First, the blue sedan. If I knew who owned it, I would have my first suspect—and it happened to be the easiest lead to pursue. (After the fingerprints, of course. For whatever reason, the forensic evidence, which I ought to have gone over first, slipped my mind.)

I ran a partial plate search and received 46 results, of which 32 were sedans. Car-by-car I called manufacturers and asked them to decode each sedan’s VIN to tell me its factory color.

After two-and-a-half hours of call after call of reciting license plates, I came to the conclusion that not one of them was blue.

With no way to narrow down my search, I sent Sergeant Matthews an email asking him to query NCIC for the criminal histories of each of the sedan owners—and received an automatic out-of-office response.

After several hours of wasting time, I was stumped—so I thought back to the beginning of my investigation. Scouring social media in the coffee shop, tracking down Geraldine, convincing her to let us find him, reassuring her that he wasn’t dead—

‹Ah shit, Geraldine…› I had been putting off what I should have been doing on a daily basis since she hired me for the case. She deserved a long overdue update on the state of my investigation.

Upon arriving at the apartment building, I gave Chance a nearly perfect (if slightly high-pitched) impression of Judy, and he let me in. I knocked on her door and hoped that she was home. The door cracked open cautiously, much as it did the first time I knocked on it. “It’s me, Andrea Bachman,” I told her through the crack. “I wanted to give you an update on your husband.”

The door closed, the chain scraped in its track, and the door opened all the way, revealing a face without the stubble but not without the worry she had been wearing when we met, and a fashionable medium-length wavy blonde hairdo. “Thank you. Do you have any idea where he is?”

I steeled myself for tears. “I’m sorry. I don’t.”

Her bottom lip quivered and, sure enough, dew formed at the corners of her eyes.

Sensing a storm of negative emotions on the horizon, I quickly lied, “But I sincerely believe that he’s alive. And I’m absolutely convinced that I’ll find him.”

Despite my reassurances, she began to sob.

‹Shit. She’s crying now. I’ve made her cry. What the hell do I do? I need a drink to clear my head.› I had never needed to comfort someone worrying or grieving a loved one before this woman. Hell, I’d never needed to comfort anyone, not even Shosh—she was always the one there to comfort me. I felt a little like I needed her.

“(Hug her,)” I thought I heard somebody say, closely and quietly. I didn’t see anyone else around, but it was my best bet.

I took a chance without asking permission and wrapped my arms around her. She nestled her chin on my shoulder and cried. I had expected an emotional reaction. Disappointment. Maybe worry or panic or frustration or even anger. But of all the negative emotions she might have felt, I was not expecting a widow’s grief. We didn’t know for absolutely certain that he was dead—it was merely almost certain. She seemed to have gotten the impression that her husband was beyond all doubt deceased, that we would never catch the people who did this. “I’ll make them pay. I promise.” Her misery doubled. “Geraldine, I’m going to throw the whole book at them. I’ve got evidence. I know the body color and part of the license plate of the kidnappers’ sedan. I know exactly when and where he was abducted, and the first place he was taken.”

Her sobbing subsided. “You know where he’s been?”

“Yes. I’m on his trail. I have multiple leads. I have DNA to work with. I have fingerprints which I can run through IAFIS, which will tell us at least one of the people involved—if they’ve ever been booked. And once we know who did it, either we’ll know where to find him or we’ll know someone we can interrogate to find out. There’s lots of hope. The odds are on our side.”

She had stopped sobbing. “You honestly think he’s still alive?”

“Honestly.” After struggling for hours calling automobile manufacturers for each vehicle of interest’s factory color under the delusion that it would help me find the instrumental car, I had decided that, more likely than not, he was buried next to a patch of incienso with an ocotillo serving as his grave marker. “I can’t imagine anybody having the guts to kill him, not even the people who say they want him dead.” I surprised myself with how convincing my lies were.

“Oh.” She sniffed. “I love him so much. I can’t imagine living without him.”

Out of nowhere came an emotion I had last felt 12 years, 11 months, and 4 days prior. ‹He’s dead, I know it. A great human being, a pioneer, a muse, a husband… stolen from the one who loves him more than anyone.›

She muttered something morose to herself.

‹No. Whether he was great is irrelevant. He was a human being; that’s all that matters. He was a person, and now he is dead. And nothing can bring him back.› I choked back a sob. I couldn’t cry in front of her. I had told her there was hope just the moment prior, and if I showed my dismay she would know that I had lied, that I was a manipulative hypocrite. Even if it had been out of practicality or out of sympathy, my lie would be proof that I couldn’t be trusted. If the only gumshoe willing to help her turned out to be a liar, Geraldine would be absolutely crushed, and if I was wrong about him being alive, she would know I was a fraud. I knew that once I found him—if I found him, if he hadn’t been dissolved in lye and poured down the drain, or ground up and mixed in with cow feed—it was going to be either under six feet of soil… or under 6 feet of sand. I had doomed my reputation as an investigator, and I had doomed her to distrust and misery.

I struggled against my sorrow and despair. I shrank under the realization that I had harmed her ex-ante. I simmered in my self-disdain. I wanted to be alone so that I could cry. I wanted tequila.

But she needed me to be there. More than that, she needed me to be confident and optimistic. I felt the threat of snot and tears bubbling up within me; soon would follow the sore throat, a dead giveaway of the treachery I would no longer be able to keep hidden from her.

I pulled back and told her, “I’m sorry to cut things short, Geri, but I have to get back to work.” I gave her a pat on the shoulder.

“It’s brunch time, though.”

‹Brunch? On a Monday?› “I suppose it’s always brunch time in California.” My throat was already sore.

“What are you having?”

“Oh. Well… I don’t… usually… eat brunch. Not on weekdays, anyway.”

“I made kale chips and a scallion eggless frittata to tide us over into lunch, enough for Alex to have some, too, out of habit, so there’s food for one more.”

The thought of eating anything made me nauseous. The thought of eating an egg dish not actually made out of egg filled me with despair. “That would be lovely, but I eat while I work.”

“You really shouldn’t, meals should be times of relaxation. You’ve been working hard, you deserve a break,” she insisted, probably having not taken one herself in days. “Did you have a hearty breakfast this morning?”

“No, I… didn’t have time to eat.”

“All the more reason for you to eat something now!”

“Sorry, I really hafta go.” I about-faced and took one step.

“Please! You remind me of him.”

I stopped.

“You both have such strong drives for justice, you both care about people, you both know the right things to tell people, you always know when to have hope. You both speak the truth. You have ideals you work towards and you would never trust a cop and you’re both about as far away from being cynics as human beings can get. You’d be doing me a great service if you kept me company for a few minutes.”

Fortunately, I was facing away from her, so she couldn’t see the wretched agony twisting my face. “Um… Now that… you… put it… that way… I suppose… I owe it… to you.”

“Thank you so much. This way.” I swallowed my distress, then let her lead me into the kitchen-slash-dining room and seat me at the table. I noticed on the way that there were 4 plated slices of ‘frittata’ on the counter. The doorbell rang. “Oh that must be Alicia.”

I wanted to cry. And because I couldn’t cry, I wanted to vomit. And because my hangover wanted me to be as miserable as humanly possible, I couldn’t vomit. And because I couldn’t vomit, I wanted a shot of something strong.

She answered the door and let Alicia in. Alicia Brown, that is, president of SVPDefund, the activist organization that sought to cut funding for the police department.

While they greeted each other and came to the table, I heard the sound of running water, before another familiar face appeared from what I presumed was the bathroom: Christina de la Torre, director of Abolish Modern Slavery, which fought to dismantle the school-policing-prison nexus.

I would not need to mention that both of these women were vehemently anti-police, were it not for that very knowledge seizing me that moment, in light of the fact that I was myself a cop, and sending me into a silent panic. I grasped at the escaping threads of my sanity, caught one, and it told me to measure my breaths. I did exactly that, and by the time everyone had reached the table, my anxiety had come down to a tolerable if excruciating level.

I still wanted to barf, but that would have to wait until I had something in my stomach to barf up.

“Good afternoon, friend,” said Alicia. “I’m Alicia Brown, she/her.” She held out her hand, and I nodded as I accepted it. “And… who would you be?”

“Andrea Bachman. Um, she/her.”

“Nice to meet you, Andrea.”

“Christina de la Torre, she/they,” self-introduced the other with a raised eyebrow. “‘Andrea Bachman’… That name sounds familiar.”

“Really?” I asked, my mind instantly jumping to the conclusion that she might be trying to remember the fact that I was a cop. “I can’t imagine why. I’ve never been in the news.”

“It wasn’t in the news. I heard it from… somebody. Somebody I trust. You have a reputation that would have preceded you if my memory wasn’t overloaded at the moment with statistics and facts about the prison pipeline.”

“Oh. I can’t imagine what that’s like. I have a very good memory for faces and reputations.”

“Brunch is served,” announced Geraldine as she set down the last plate before me. I didn’t want to look at it. Brunch was missing mimosas—or, better yet, sweet, citrusy, delicious screwdrivers.

“Maybe your memory can help her figure out who told her about you,” suggested Alicia.

“Oh, well, maybe,” I admitted.

“It was me,” said Geraldine. “She’s the private eye I told everyone about.”

Both of the activists brightened up and said, “Ahh…” and Alicia asked eagerly, “How’s the investigation going, Magnum?”

I didn’t want to talk about the investigation, I didn’t want to think about the investigation, I just wanted to be somewhere private so that I could cry while praying over a porcelain shrine. “I prefer not to talk shop over meals. If you don’t mind.”

“That’s understandable. You can tell us all about it after brunch.”

“I have to get back to work as soon as I’m done eating.”

“That’s too bad. If there’s anything we can do to help you find Xander, just let us know.”

“Thank you.”

They got to eating, and talked shop (leaving me to focus on forcing down the uncanny flavors and textures of this counterfeit egg substance that my stomach was quickly coming to suspect was made from some kind of legume). All of their conversation had to do with the SVPD and their major revenue streams, nothing that wasn’t public knowledge, and eventually they got hung up on civil forfeiture. “This is the next front. We need a way to cut them off,” opined Christina.

“There’s nothing we can do,” responded Alicia.

“Stop being pessimistic, it’s very unlike you. We need to have a real meeting of minds and discuss possible solutions.”

“There. Is. Nothing. All we can do is campaign for legislation to do away with it.”

“I refuse to believe there’s nothing we can do right now.”

Their bickering was exacerbating my anxiety and my headache and my fatigue and my alcohol craving, so I interjected, “Excessive Fines Clause, Eighth Amendment.”

“What does that have to do with asset forfeiture?” asked Alicia.

“Your lawyers never told you about Timbs v. Indiana?”

“We don’t have lawyers. Our annual budget is less than what the police make off of parking fines on Adams in the daytime.”

“3 years ago,” I explained, “the Supreme Court ruled that the Excessive Fines Clause applies to forfeitures by local and state governments. Spread the word, and you might help a few people get their stuff back. There probably won’t be a huge tidal wave of victories, most will probably die on the first day of court, but win or lose, I would expect that encouraging as many victims of police theft as possible to challenge forfeitures in court would pressure the PD to hire more lawyers, which would eat into their budget—and if enough forfeitures are found unreasonable, that could shine a spotlight on the department’s abuse of civil forfeitures.”

“See?” said Christina.

“That’s a wild goose chase,” insisted Alicia. “And even if it does have an effect, that effect’s gonna be limited to our city, and it will be temporary. Plus, the judges are best buddies with the pigs.”

“Maybe,” I admitted. “But just knowing they have the right to challenge a forfeiture might help anyone with the resources to sue. A little extra knowledge never hurt anyone except the people who don’t want you to know. And… if it works here, other communities will certainly give it a try.”

Alicia shrugged. “Alright. Maybe it’s worth a shot.”

“And make a big event of it, make it sound like you’re going after all their forfeitures. They might reel in seizures out of fear of hemorrhaging money on hiring lots of lawyers and paying plaintiffs’ attorney’s fees. They’ll cut off their own stream of income to avoid the risk of it turning into a costly liability.”

Christina nodded, convinced. Alicia ran a few calculations through her head before admitting, “Alright. I’ll run it by our budget committee and ask another org to lend us a lawyer. The ACLU or NAACP might be able to give me an hour with one of theirs.”

“How much does it cost to broadcast a hoot a few times a month, or throw up a web page with whatever advice you can legally share?”

“The bare minimum? Not much. But a major campaign like this needs more than that if it’s going to have the reach it needs to make an impact, which means it has to be voted on by the committee, and it’ll also require us to borrow another org’s attorney to vet the project and write the legal advice we’re going to share—or pay for one out of our own pocket if we can’t find a loaner.”

“You gotta do what you gotta do. Plus… well, you only met me a few minutes ago, you don’t have any reason to trust me to give good advice.”

“As long as you aren’t a cop-lover, I’m willing to take your advice into consideration.”

My mouth ran dry.

“That said, P.I. is cop-adjacent, so you can expect me to scrutinize your proposal a little more closely than the average Jane off the street.”

“I’m used to being distrusted. I hope you don’t feel any guilt for taking every word that comes out of my mouth with a block of salt.”

“A lotta salt on top of some very thin ice,” said Alicia. “And not a grain of guilt. I took a look into your past.” She leaned towards me and said, quietly yet harshly, “You used to have a badge, Miss Bachman. That thin ice already has cracks in it.”

I swallowed. ‹‘Thin ice’… that ice would vaporize in an instant if she found out I became a cop all over again. Should I have been hiding this for as long as I have? Shouldn’t I be honest with all of them, shouldn’t I have been honest from the beginning? Wasn’t that my policy from the beginning? If I’m caught lying to a single antifa about being a law enforcement officer, the rest will either refuse to trust me when they meet me, or cease trusting me if they were already my allies. And I can’t risk losing the few allies I have.› The only cure for my dread would have been an old-fashioned. Trembling, I reached into my coat, pulled out my badge wallet and laid it out on the table, open-faced. “For the sake of honesty, I should have warned you as soon as you began discussing business matters in front of me.” All three pairs of eyes were wide with disbelief. “I should have revealed to Geraldine that I received this the instant the chief handed it to me, Monday morning. I should have warned her about my plan to become a Crimes Against Persons Detective the second I made the decision to accept the position, Saturday night. I regret not being as forthright as I should have been. I’m sorry.”

“You’re a cop,” observed Christina. Christina’s and Alicia’s faces, while civil, were more stone than flesh; Geraldine’s, on the other hand, was a blend of fury and incredulity.

“I chose to become a bastard… because only the police department has the resources and expertise I need to rescue Alex, but no blue-blooded police officer has the desire to help him. I had no other choice.”

“I’m still getting over the fact that you’re a police officer who thought she could hide that fact from us,” said Alicia, coldly but professionally.

“And I regret not being open about it from the outset. I’m sorry, that was a mistake, and I have no excuse for failing to be forthright.”

She shook her head. “I have no need for your apologies.”

“Geraldine?”

“You… lied to me.”

“I really was investigating privately when you hired me—but—I guess… contrary to my good intentions… I lied by omission. I’m sorry.”

“If you hadn’t hidden what you are—maybe I could have trusted you.”

I wanted to tell her, to make her understand, that she could trust me. That I wasn’t like other cops. But I had long ago taken what every reasonable person said to heart. I knew that none of what I wanted to tell her was true. “You’re right. You can’t trust me. You can’t trust me to be honest, you can’t trust me to tell you everything you deserve to know, you can’t trust me to comfort you when your despair becomes too much to handle. You shouldn’t trust me.” I pocketed my wallet. “None of you owe me your confidence. I only ask that, if you have any information about Alex’s enemies or his activities during the 24 hours preceding his disappearance, you consider sharing it with me to help me find him. Thank you for the brunch, Missus Pasteur. It was an honor filling your husband’s seat at the table.”

I let myself out, lumbered down the hallway, lurched down the stairs, and stumbled towards the entrance… before the nausea squeezing my stomach wrested control of my faculties.

Synchronized
Hourglasses

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,

Mistress:

Done.

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—

Leche

Cacao

Piloncillo

Masa

Vainilla

Canela

Hinojo

Y una pizca de chipotle

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—

From your earth

Springs proud maíz

Whose nixtamal we pound

Till fine as gold dust

Of our California rivers.

Your sweet dough brings life

And happiness, enfolding carne,

Scooping beans stewed in manteca;

Emulsifying cocoa azteca,

Azucar as brown as the leaves
That have survived past autumn,

In leche white as mountain snow;

Steaming like the desert hot springs,

Sipped on chilly mornings

Alrededor del tiempo de Navidad,

Thick and creamy, herbal, spicy.

Winter—crisp, cold, merciless—

Brings warmth and comfort.

I sucked far more aggressively than I had intended. She gasped dramatically and wove her fingers through my hair and pulled downwards, securing my head to her crotch. I sucked even harder and she held back a scream. Her husband has never pleased her the way I can. I tested her vagina’s lubrication with a finger and found it to be as copious as mine tended to be, so I inserted my finger into her dripping hole and felt around for her G-spot. She hummed lewdly in approval, and if that wasn’t a clear enough sign that she was enjoying herself, she moaned, “(God, yes…)” ‹I bet she’s never whispered that to him, never screamed her excitement.› A few times I thought I had found the spot only to discover a lack of sponginess, but on my fifth attempt I knew that I had it because she pulled my hair and wrapped her legs around my head and squeezed and gasped. ‹He’s never felt her legs squeezing his head.› I continued even as I felt a little squished, sucking and fingering industriously, bringing her closer and closer to perfection, her voice rising, her moans growing deafening, until we were rewarded with a scream of pleasure and the clenching of every muscle in her body, including the ones wrapped around my finger. ‹He’s never made her cum like this. He’s never made her cum at all.› I stopped, disentangled myself from her legs, and got off my knees. Her chest was heaving, her head was resting on the back of her chair, her face and chest were dotted with beads of moisture, and her mouth was wide open as she panted. ‹He’s never made an absolute sweaty mess of her.› I sat in my chair, brought our faces together, and kissed her cheek.

The Silent
Whistleblower

Content Warning:
Discussion of Police Misconduct and Brutality

She giggled. “So, that’s an orgasm.” She sighed. “My God, I have been missing out on something wonderful.” She turned her head and shared a smile with me. “I always felt like I must be doing something wrong. Like I didn’t know how sex works.”

“Why did you feel that?”

“Sex with Fred… When he kisses me, it’s all lips, no tongue. He never gives me hickeys or plays with my clitoris or sucks on it. He never puts his fingers inside me, only his penis—well, that’s just about the only thing I enjoy when we have sex, but only long enough for him to orgasm. I never get to orgasm myself. He could at least stick his finger inside me after he’s finished so that I get to finish, too, but…”

“You need to tell him what you want him to do. And he needs to hold off on his orgasms until you’re both ready.”

“He says he doesn’t like tongue, he doesn’t want to put his mouth on my hoo-ha because he doesn’t want to put his mouth where his semen goes or ‘where pee comes out’, and when I asked him to take a break before he climaxes, he told me that he doesn’t like having to wait for his orgasms because he doesn’t like having ‘blue balls’.”

“He needs to grow a pair and meet you halfway.”

“Maybe if he tried a little harder and put up with a little discomfort, that might be enough to solve his side of the problem, but not mine. I like his personality, that much is true, and how caring he is, and his passion for wanting children—I really think we’ll be good parents together—but I don’t look at him and feel physically attracted the way I do with you. As soon as I first laid eyes on you—even smelled your perfume—I felt this… feeling in my… my pelvis… that I need you, and I had to try so hard not to let it take over me, but you… you undid me. I’ve never felt anything like that with him. After this beautiful moment with you… I find myself questioning why I said ‘I will’ and ‘I do’.”

‹Andrea finds Andrea attractive. Ha.› “If he put on a dress, would you want to fuck him more?”

Her face changed several times as she pictured it, until she said, confidently, “Yes, I think I would find him more attractive.” She continued to imagine for a few seconds before concluding, “I would be even more excited about sex with him if he shaved… and put on makeup… and got a woman’s haircut.”

“We’re exactly the same person, we’re both bisexual but mostly attracted to feminine people. I don’t know what to call it, but I don’t really care. ‘Femsexual’, maybe.”

“‘Femsexual’… I like having a word for what I am. Word or no word, though, just understanding what I like… I needed what you just gave me. I thought there was something wrong with me. But… it turns out the problem wasn’t me doing sex wrong—it was me not knowing what I needed.”

“In my limited experience, you’re going to find out even more about yourself as you experiment with other people.”

“I can’t experiment, though. I’m married. It’s bad enough I gave into temptation with you.”

“That doesn’t have to be a barrier. Ask him if he’d be interested in a threesome. Hell, I’ll join the two of you if he says ‘yes’, even though I’m not really into masculine men. Or ask for his permission to sleep around. If he doesn’t consent, divorce him.”

Her eyes grew wide. “I can’t divorce him!”

“You don’t enjoy sex with him, and I have a feeling he isn’t going to want to dress up like a girl. Am I right?”

She was torn, but she had to admit, “Ugh… Probably. Yeah. Yes, you’re absolutely right. He likes being a man too much to feminize himself. But I can’t just… leave him. Even if I don’t really want to be married to him for the sex, I… I still love him and want to have lots of children with him, so how can I justify a divorce? People who love each other don’t get divorces…”

“I’m pretty sure they do, actually. Such as when one of them finds out the other is gay. And in your case, you might be the gay one.”

Her eyes flew open. “Oh… I’m… (gay.)”

“You like girls, you like guys. Do you think you might be bisexual?”

“I’m bisexual! I’m an adulteress and I’m gay and I’m bisexual!”

“You could ask him if he’d like to try a threesome, and if he’d be willing to wear a dress and makeup and maybe a wig—be sure to explain how important it is to you, that you haven’t been enjoying sex and this is the only way to make it work with him. If he loves you, he’ll either give it a try—or he’ll let you sleep around to make up for not fulfilling your needs, to show that he cherishes you. If he refuses to give you any of these concessions, your marriage isn’t worth the paper the certificate was printed on.” Some may find my relationship advice questionable, which would be reasonable considering the meager breadth and depth of my experience with being in any number of relationships.

She considered my advice with a tormented face, for quite some time, until she admitted, with great reluctance, “You’re right. I’ll ask him about dressing up like a girl.” She sighed. “Thank you.”

I petted her hair. “Good. I need to get going, there’s no reason to stick around here if I can’t get my video evidence.”

She pouted. I had said something cruel.

“What’s wrong?”

“I would think that I’m a good reason to stick around.”

“Oh. I thought you were satisfied. Do you want more?”

“Well… I need to make you climax.”

I checked my phone—12:09. “Okay. We can do that. But we’ve been in your office for over an hour, and people might start to wonder—especially if anyone heard you scream.”

“I screamed?” she asked with horror.

I nodded. “When you came—but it wasn’t deafening, just… kinda loud, maybe enough for it to be heard just outside your office or next door. If you want to return the favor, it might be better if you waited to fuck me at my place after work.”

“Yeah. Oh… I’m having a sexual affair, this means—I’m—I’m… an adulterer.”

“I think you need the sex more than he needs your fidelity.”

“I’ve decided… I’m not going to ask him about sleeping around.”

“Then be sure to ask him to wear a dress.”

“No. I’ve changed my mind completely. I’ll leave him alone, I won’t ask him to wear a dress, I won’t ask him for a threesome, I won’t ask if I can sleep around.”

“You’re going to have an unhappy sex life if you don’t try at least one of these courses of action.”

“I said I wouldn’t ask him if I can sleep around—in California I don’t need his permission to have sex with whomever I want. I’ll just be careful about it. I’ll keep an eye out for private investigators following me, I’ll only use cash when I go out on dates, I’ll use a messaging app that locks when I exit it, all those precautions. And I’ll use an alter ego when I meet new… lovers. I’m willing to accept a sexually-unfulfilling marriage as long as it’s stable and as long as we’re happy together as parents. I still love him, enough to wear the ring.” She held up her left hand, which had no such ring. “Oh! I took it off yesterday to lay bricks for the new back patio, and I guess… I forgot to put it back on.”

“I might not have made a move on you if you’d been wearing it. Might not. Fucking a married woman is actually kind of exhilarating.” She blushed, and tried and failed not to smile. “Does the shame of being unfaithful feel awful… or does it feel… like… bad, but in a good way?”

She sighed. “Ugh… Bad… in a very good way. I want to have sex with you again. At my house. In the bed I share with my husband. While he’s at work. No, while he’s busy in his workshop out back. I didn’t tell him I took the day off so he has no idea I’m 50 feet away, having sex with you. And… the windows and blinds are open, so the neighbors can see and hear everything. But they don’t tell him about my cheating because they know it’ll break his heart. And he can’t hear us because he’s wearing hearing protection while sawing wood. God… and just imagine how satisfying it would be, if… you could… you could get me… pregnant, but he thinks that he’s the…”

As her fantasy rapidly ballooned my eyes grew wider and wider and my jaw fell further and further, until what she was planning out became so extreme that even I, the submissive-dominant freak with a breeding kink currently engaged in a cucking competition with one of my girlfriends, was feeling (a teensy tiny bit) uncomfortable, so I gently cut her off before she could finish describing her exhibitionist cuckolding impregnation fantasy. Uncomfortable or not, though… I was really digging her boundless energy. “Wow! That’s… hot. You are… really into adultery, all of a sudden. And I hope you get to indulge in your newfound kink.” She nodded shamefully… but couldn’t hold back a naughty smile. “We can hook up later. I’ll give you my number if you give me yours.” She nodded, and we traded phone numbers. “What time do you take your lunch hour?”

“12.”

“It’s 12:14. People might be wondering why you haven’t gone to lunch yet.”

“There’s no one here to notice… but I am really hungry after the sex. Would you like to go to Del with me?”

I wasn’t the least bit in the mood for food, but everything I had eaten that day was in a puddle behind a bush. “Definitely. I… missed breakfast. And I’m starving.”

She drove us there in her red Hyundai Sonata; just before pulling up to the drive-through, she asked, “Do you mind eating in the car?”

Having a very nice car had put me in the mindset of needing to preserve the niceness of said car, which meant permitting absolutely no food or drink in her to eliminate the possibility of stains or crud in the cracks. Because of this self-conditioning, I hesitated. “Are you sure you want to get crumbs between the seats?”

“I’d rather have crumbs everywhere than be seen in my uniform in public.”

Indeed, the Hyundai’s cloth interior was stained throughout and there were little particles of food everywhere—even so, living in an apartment that I cleaned far less often than I should have left me perfectly comfortable with, and nonjudgmental of, the shabbiness of her car. “Alright. It’s your car.”

She ordered our food and insisted on paying the bill to thank (or, as I preferred to see it, compensate) me for the sex, and she found a parking spot for us to eat.

All the while, I puzzled over why she didn’t want to sport her uniform in public—I had a hypothesis, but I didn’t want to assume.

“Why don’t you want to be seen wearing a uniform?”

“You know the acronym ACAB…”

“I suppose… you could say… I take it seriously.”

“I’m afraid of someone dumping a milkshake on me or spitting on my burger.”

‹Bingo. But how deep does her anxiety over the uniform go?› “Do you think those people are delusional?”

She hesitated, then said, diplomatically, “Besides having listened to the news and reading the hard data… I’m in charge of pulling body cam and dash cam footage at a police department with a reputation for having a civil rights record that ‘has room for improvement’. I’ve seen…” She squeezed her eyelids shut, then slowly peeked out. “…God, things I will never forget. Things I’m glad I wasn’t an eyewitness to. Verbal abuse, unprovoked threats of violence, dragging perfectly compliant people out of vehicles and throwing them to the ground; screaming at people who are already lying face down on the asphalt; screaming contradictory orders—‘down on the ground’ and at the same time ‘get down on your knees’ and ‘hands against the wall’, and ‘hands over your head’ and ‘hands behind your back’—at people who are showing signs that they might have mental disabilities; screaming at people just because they don’t like them; putting people in chokeholds—‍”

“Some of us still use chokeholds?”

“As far as I can tell, we all do, and no-one’s been disciplined for it. That would be practically impossible, because the brass never ask for recordings of misconduct, and the union is so aggressive about defending every allegation of misconduct that they’d just get the punishment reduced to a slap on the wrist even if one of us got in trouble. There’s no incentive to be humane, and it’s a lot more satisfying to be cruel.”

“That’s true. These are some pretty awful things.”

“They are. There are cases where officers draw their weapons even though the subject is complying with their orders with no indicators of violent intent. And… I’ve seen a few shootings. One or two were maybe justified, but too many of them are simply…”

“‘Simply’…?”

She shook her head.

“What are they?” I asked gently.

“I don’t want to talk about those, forget I mentioned those ones. They make me feel like I’m part of a machine designed specifically to oppress people.”

“Which… is exactly what it is.”

She sighed. “Yeah. It is.”

“If it’s so evil, why do you continue to work here?”

“Right now? My husband quit his job 8 years ago, right after we married, to become an aspiring writer, and he’s still working on the rough draft of his first book, so I’m the breadwinner; we’ve got a mortgage to pay and we’re trying for a baby. When I entered Academy, I wanted to make a difference in society. I wanted to help people and protect them and put the dangerous ones somewhere they wouldn’t pose a threat. But the way the job is structured, you can’t do your job without hurting everyone you come into contact with. That’s why I transferred to Safety and Accountability, where I don’t have the temptation to use my sidearm or cuffs, or a mandate or incentive to harass or ticket or arrest people. I’m not personally doing these things anymore, so most of the time I’m able to convince myself I’m not complicit. And… maybe, someday, I can testify about what I’ve seen. Maybe someday I’ll build up the courage to prove to the world just how awful my coworkers are by bearing witness to their sins.”

She leaned back and stared at her taco. After a minute of silence, I asked, “Have you ever considered reporting them?”

“Well… in the first place, I’m not supposed to pull footage without an I2R or subpoena; and second, I’m not even supposed to watch the stuff I receive a request to pull, beyond the bare minimum necessary to verify that all the streams are present and that it doesn’t have any transcoding errors. If I report anything I see, even while performing the duties I’m charged with, I would get in trouble for accessing law enforcement sensitive information without a need-to-know, as well as violating the contractual right to privacy of the officers involved. And I’m too much of a coward to go through that. I’ll lose my job and go to jail for half a year.”

“Damn,” I muttered. “God (damn it…) There has to be a way to report it anonymously. Could you pull it and burn it to a DVD and drop it in a newspaper’s mailbox?”

“In order to initiate DVD burns I require either a valid I2R from a captain or higher specifying that the video should be on a DVD, or I need a subpoena; and the identity of the officer who pulled the video is logged on the server and embedded in an invisible watermark in the video and audio streams, which I have no idea how to remove.”

“You could record the videos with your phone.”

“The recordings would lack the metadata embedded in the video files as stored on our server, which is vital to verifying the authenticity, the time of day, the officer name or car number, and the location that the video was taken for the sake of prosecution; and even if the missing metadata wasn’t a concern—if I decided to grab the videos that way, I’d need to hold my camera with my hand, which will shake, or use a camera stand, which I’ll have to smuggle into the console room, which is right next to the captain’s office—either way, the video quality will be degraded by the fact that it’s a recording of a recording; there’s also the fact that I would need to capture the recording in real-time, which would mean being restricted to filming 15-minute segments at a time; and the whole time I’d be hoping no one notices that I’m not fulfilling requests as quickly as usual, and hoping that nobody walks in and catches me with my phone on a tripod, pointed at the console screen. Which isn’t going to happen right away, but it’s bound to happen eventually. I’d be at this for months or even years recording all the videos, and all the while my backlog would be growing, which would arouse suspicion if it got too big.”

“Shit.” I understood her desire to cover her ass—no-one wants to go to prison and pay a crushing fine for leaking law enforcement sensitive information when that would mean being separated from your spouse and children for months to years. No matter how we looked at the problem, that would always be a risk. Then a memory flashed through my head, almost too quickly to read. “Wait. There was a web training back in 2018… SB 1421. Police Officers: Release of Records. When we had it I just clicked through without paying any attention because I was having a particularly bad depressive episode, but I think it was something about the public getting access to certain kinds of records, including footage.”

“Oh! They didn’t make me take that one.” She found an encyclopedia article explaining the law. “Oh my God. That’s our ticket!” She pinched my arm and beamed her teeth. “Except—if I put in the requests, people are going to wonder how I knew which ones to request.”

“You can give a list of the recordings to a civil rights or watchdog organization, anonymously, and they can make the requests.”

“Wow. Holy cow. I’m finally able to do something about this without destroying my own life in the process!” She leaned over and wrapped her arms around my head. “Oh my God, you’re an angel, an angel of Justice!”

I couldn’t hold back a grin. “I’m just a woman with a conscience. And so are you. On a related note, how do you feel about… (prostitutes?)” The word didn’t taste as good as ‘sex workers’ or ‘whores’.

“Well…” She took a bite of her fish taco and pondered as she chewed, then swallowed. “Do you promise not to judge me or break up with me if you don’t like my answer?”

‹‘Promise not to break up with me…’ I guess we’re a couple, now.› “I don’t know if I can make that promise, but I promise that if I don’t, I’ll be civil and talk it out with you and try to come to an understanding.”

“Alright, I’ll go out on a limb, because I have a good feeling about you. I just gave it some thought. Before you gave me cunnilingus, I thought they were leeches on society. But now that I’ve experienced sex outside of marriage… I think they get a bad rap.” I smiled. When she saw my smile, she gave me one of her own. “I think they should be allowed to do their thing without being jailed or fined. They’re productive citizens, they’re fulfilling people’s needs, they’re doing work that needs to be done, they’re contributing to society. And I don’t always feel like I can say the same about my own job…” My smile grew wider as she went on. “If I hadn’t felt compelled to be faithful to my husband for so long… I might have gotten into the habit of hiring them myself. They aren’t worth less than me for doing what they do. I think the law should leave them alone, and they deserve the same respect you or I deserve. They’re human beings with jobs, trying to make ends meet, just like me—except… except the part where I’m a cog in a machine hell-bent on hurting people for fun and profit.”

“I liked that answer, Andrea.”

“I take it you feel the same way.”

“Yes. I am a sex worker.” Her eyes grew in disbelief. “Or maybe I should say that I was one—I don’t know if it’s one of those ‘once a marine, always a marine’ situations. I’ve only had one client, but I enjoyed it, and she ended up becoming my girlfriend. I might try it again, but as an escort next time—streetwalking is kind of terrifying.”

“Wow. Good for you!” She finished her last taco, and I was able to force myself to finish my red burrito. “It’s 12:45, gotta get back to work.”

We went back to the station and I followed her back to SAO. She sat at her desk and assessed my face and body thoroughly before surprising me with, “May I ask why you’re requesting all this footage? Most cases that come across my desk ask for 4 to 8 officers and 2 to 4 cars, at most.”

“I guess if this room is good enough for clandestine sex and saying nice things about sex workers and calling ourselves oppressors, it’s good enough for secrets. I need you to promise me you’ll keep this between us.” Excitement bubbled up in her eyes as she zipped her lips. “Only a couple people know what I’m up to, because I don’t trust anyone here. Well, 3, including you. Somebody outside the department knew there was going to be a Vice raid on the Old Torrey Pines, and timed the kidnapping of Alexander Brookvale for when the hotel and street were empty.” The bubbles of excitement faded. I’d yet to see her eyes grow so wide, so full of shock. “I have a hypothesis that the chaos of the raid was a reasonably compelling explanation for Alex getting ‘lost’, and the empty hotel was a convenient location for an interrogation—or handover, if there were multiple parties at work. If either theory is true, they’ll have no way to argue that this wasn’t premeditated. I suspect both theories are correct.”

“Oh my… God. Oh my God! This was premeditated, and the people involved had contacts inside the department, so at least one cop is going down.”

‹Ah. Shit. She’s right.› Though in the past I had been willing to bear in mind the possibility that Diane had been involved, I had only done so when forced to confront the possibility, because it was simply too obvious to ignore. Just a little less obvious would be the involvement of pretty much any other employee of the SVPD—other than myself, and I was able to conveniently forget that just about everyone within the department was a suspect. I didn’t want to think about how evil my department was, I didn’t want to hear yet again about officers committing crimes, I wanted to believe that this organization wasn’t so awful that it would kidnap Alex. But I had to face the evidence. Every officer in the department (besides Diane, Andrea, and Tom, who all showed progressive leanings) was a suspect. “Yeah. Someone we work with was involved in some way or another, directly or indirectly. There’s no doubt about it.”

Her eyes scanned my face, perhaps hoping to see sarcasm shining through the cracks, to give away that I was pranking her. But there was no light of humor to be found, only the mourning-black desire to pursue justice. “You need this footage.”

I nodded.

“This is the most important case I’ve ever dealt with… Depending on who was involved, it has the potential to shatter the department into splinters.” She logged into her workstation and clicked around, typed, and clicked. “The I2R is requesting 24 officers and 12 vans from ignition to 12:00 PM on July 13th. That’ll be around 150 to 200 hours of footage, which is… a lot for one detective to scrub through. I need to run a query against the car numbers and officer names from the ShieldCam console in the server room, but if you prefer, I can break up such a large request into smaller batches and feed them to you as they become ready instead of waiting for one big export to complete.”

“I would appreciate that.”

“I’ll take care of these right away. Before you go…” She got up and walked around her desk to the visitor’s side. I could see in her face the subject in her head changing as she avoided eye contact. “Thank you for setting me free from an unhappy sex life. And thank you for letting me know I’m not the only one who cares about the horrible things this department does.”

I closed in on her and pressed my breasts against hers (equally ample as mine), and waited for her to examine my features one-by-one until our eyes were locked like the face of the moon to the Earth. “And thank you for being so cute I couldn’t resist fucking you, and thank you for being brave enough to help me.” She melted as I said this, and melted even more as I placed my hands on her waist and kissed her.

She responded aggressively, with her lips and tongue, and her hands on the back of my head. Then she dragged a hand across my shoulder, over my collar bone, down my upper chest, until it was cupping my breast. She squeezed and rubbed my tit as she kissed me eagerly, taking a break from my lips to whisper, “I want to stimulate your clitoris right now, the way you did mine.”

“I’d love that, but we have work to do.”

“Work can wait a couple minutes, let me… pleasure you. I need to suck your clitoris.” She resumed kissing me and started to undo my pants.

As tempting as it was to let her have her fun with my body, I gently restrained her hands. “Later. You can come to my apartment tonight and have a threesome with me and one of my girlfriends.”

“‘One of’ your girlfriends?”

“Yes. I may have started a collection.”

“I suppose… that you are the type to have multiple partners.”

“Maybe she’ll become your girlfriend, too.” I teased.

“Oh. Maybe… maybe.”

“How does 6 sound?”

“Oh, my! That’s a lot of girlfriends, but—the more the merrier!”

“No, no…” I chuckled. “6 o’clock.”

“Oh! Ha… ha… Yes… That… should give me enough time to get ready.”

“I live at 2840 Chester A. Arthur, Matteo’s apartment complex, room 201. It’s in the front, up the stairs.”

She added that in her phone. “Alright. Let’s get back to kissing.” She planted her lips on mine.

I checked my phone, then pulled away to inform her, “It’s almost 1:30, we have only an hour-and-a-half left in the shift, unless you want to put in for overtime.”

She sighed in frustration. “No, I’m not even authorized for overtime, otherwise I wouldn’t have a backlog. I’ll grab your footage ASAP. The first 10 videos should take about half an hour to locate, transcode, and replicate to your CaseCloud. I’ll include a copy of the standalone viewing software you’ll need to watch and annotate them.”

“Thanks, Doll.”

She smiled, blushed, and averted her eyes bashfully. “I like it when you call me ‘Doll’.”

“I think people officially become lovers once they invent pet names for each other. So if you can come up with one for me…”

“Holy cow. All I need is a pet name for you…?” She muttered too quietly to make out her words, then with an expression of satisfaction announced, “Clover.”

“Interesting. Why ‘Clover’?”

“Your eyes.”

“Oh, okay. Yeah, that works. I approve. We’re lovers.”

Her lips latched onto mine, where I allowed them to stay till 1:45, at which point I tapped her on the shoulder. She pulled away. “What is it, Clover?”

“We, um, really need to get to work, Doll.”

Her disappointment—no, her absolute sorrow, sent a bullet of regret right through my heart. “Oh. Right…”

“Tonight, remember?”

Her mood bounced back. “Okay. It’s a date.”

“A sex date. Bring a change of clothes, you might be too tired to drive home by the time we’re done. Go, get that footage. I gotta talk to the medical examiner before COB.”

She ushered me out of her office and left for the server room with a smile and a bashful wave of her hand.

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Content Warning:
Mass Arrest by Police (No Bloodshed)

I wandered over to the morgue and let myself in—there were no guards or even an assistant, and the door was unlocked. As I entered, I noticed a name placard next to a door which proclaimed that the office’s occupant was one ‘Georgia Dominguez’. ‹Assuming that’s a typo… congratulations, Asta.› The door was open; I stood on the threshold, saw that she had her face buried in paperwork, and knocked on the doorframe. She looked up and smiled. “Oh, hey, Prax.”

I shushed her, “Not at work!”

“Relax, the only other person here is Doctor Regina Klein, whomst you are aware is one of our mistress’ other pets.”

“I’m a little worried Alex might not have made it.”

“Maybe! Wanna bet on it? I’ll give you 3-to-1 odds he’s a goner.”

“Uh. No.”

She was silent for a few seconds, then admitted, “That was crass.”

“It was.”

“I get it. I understand now. This is why I’ve been passed over for promotions so many times.”

“That’s a possibility.”

“It isn’t the first time today. I made a joke to Diane this morning that did not go over well—which I will not be repeating—and she disciplined me. God, I’m letting another human being control me. I should be pissed, I should have told her to fuck off, but instead I feel like… I have to obey. No. Not ‘have to’. Want to obey. I crave her approval. I’ve never craved approval. Respect, sure, but not approval. I’ve never felt this need to be liked by someone coming from inside me until I gave myself to her.”

“You’re her pet.”

“I’m domesticated,” she observed with mild devastation.

“You’re not alone.”

“Yeah. She’s got both of us whipped.”

“I wouldn’t mind a whipping,” I admitted.

“Christ. Me neither, I guess, now that I think about it. I’ve only ever been the whipper, not the whipped, but now I find myself wanting her to give me a few trial lashes on the ass to see if it’s something we might like to do together. This is fucked up.” She shook her head. “So. You’re concerned this missing person case was bound to turn into a lost-and-found-too-late person case.”

I nodded solemnly.

“Well, I would have checked the cadavers myself, but I’ve been busy. Just to err on the side of caution, we have 36 unidentified males ranging from sixteen to sixty. You aren’t squeamish, are you?”

“I’m no Columbo, but the sight of death is one aspect of the job I can handle better than him. Show me.” She pulled out cadaver after cadaver, and each time I said, “Nope.” 36 negatives. This ought to have been encouraging, but I wanted Geraldine to see him again so she could stop worrying. I was desperate to find him, and him turning up in the morgue would be the most expedient way to do so, as well as the most probable. But I knew I was wanting the wrong thing.

“That’s the last of them. On the bright side, I suppose this means there’s a chance you might find him alive.”

“Yeah. The bright side.”

“Is that… disappointment I hear in your voice?”

“Just because his corpse didn’t turn up at the morgue doesn’t mean he won’t turn up tomorrow,” I quickly improvised.

“True. Come on, let’s relax, get this guy off your mind.” She sat me down in front of her desk. “I take it the investigation is kicking your ass.”

“I had an interaction with the wife.”

“And?”

“I guaranteed her that he’s still alive.”

“Shit. You over-promised when you’re probably going to under-deliver. You fucked up, girl.”

“Yeah. I did. And there’s more.”

She let her head tilt to the side. “Oh, God. What else happened?”

“As far as she knew, I was still a private investigator.” She nodded. “She had two friends over. Everyone there is an antifa. And they were talking about plans and strategies, and I got it into my head that it wasn’t right that a police officer was listening in on that, so I showed them my badge and told them I understood if they didn’t trust me. And they didn’t. So now the family and friends of the vic hate me.”

“Ungrateful bastards. They don’t understand how hard you’re working to save their guy. You came out of retirement for this, came back to work at a place with rampant sexism and sexual harassment—I’ve endured plenty of both—and on top of that, everybody here is gonna hate you for rescuing the one guy they hate more than anybody else—maybe even more than they hate the guy.”

I decided not to explain to her that the antifascists had a right and reasons to distrust me, because doing so would probably lead to an argument about the legitimacy of the concept of ACAB. I nodded with an unenthusiastic “Yeah…”

“I’m sorry you’re being treated like shit.”

“I’m unhappy, but there’s nothing I can do about it. Has your new job been kind to you?”

She bobbed her head side to side. “My first day at work? For the most part, it’s been kind to me. I knew when I asked for this position that I wouldn’t be doing any real work until I’ve finished my residency—in about 7 long years—but I’m glad Regina’s given me something to do, even if it’s a bunch of underwhelming paperwork. As much as I would love to stick my hands in someone’s chest cavity and hold their cold, decaying heart in my hands…” From the look in her eyes, and the sincere smile on her face, it was clear that she was by no means being facetious about the joy she anticipated in handling dead hearts. “…I’m still happy enough to be busy and working in a morgue at all. Not satisfied, but the distraction helps me cope with the unbearable excitement and anticipation. How was your hangover?”

I blinked a few times, then realized she had asked me a question. “Oh. Right. So… I barely managed to get out of bed, I forgot to put on deodorant, I almost wasn’t able to put on my pants, I rushed to get out the door and down the stairs which I nearly fell down multiple times, and I barely arrived on time to work… Only for Nichols to tell me he doesn’t give a shit whether I’m late… or even whether I show up.”

She laughed. “Yeah, I’ve heard if you get on his bad side he has the tact of a bull kicked in the nads. Regina, on the other hand, was an hour late this morning. I asked her if something happened on the way to work and she said she didn’t ‘feel like coming in at 7’ so she slept in. I’ve concluded there’s no discipline here. Which is great if you enjoy a laid-back work environment… but I’m a workaholic, and I prefer starting my day an hour if not two hours early. Now that I’m working here, I don’t get to start my day until she hands me my assignments, so I expect to be spending a lot of time going stir crazy while waiting at my desk for her to show up.”

“That’s rough. Maybe once you’re… digging around dead people’s innards, you’ll be able to clear out her backlog.”

She grinned. “Oh, yeah. The feeling I get after clearing out somebody else’s backlog faster than they can? It’s like heroin for me. Doing Regina’s job for her on top of doing my own is my dream.” She leaned forward and whispered, “Maybe if I’m lucky… she’ll let me do a few autopsies before I graduate. Like an apprenticeship.”

“Maybe. Fingers crossed.”

The scanner finished processing the paperwork and she jogged the pages into alignment. “Anyways, they’ll respect you once you find their man, Ventura.” As she stapled the stack, I intuited there was a joke in there somewhere, and as she filed it in a cabinet, the movie reference hit me, and I busted into laughter. She giggled. “Jim Carrey fan?”

“Not especially, and I find that particular movie offensive, but I’ve watched all sorts of detective movies.”

“Lemme guess—being a detective has been your dream since you were a little girl.”

“As a matter of fact… yes, it has been.”

“Well, I see we both share a desire to acquire our dream jobs that’s so strong that we gave up our bodies, and in your case, your reputation among your fellow antifa.”

“Two kindred souls.”

“Peanut butter and jelly. Do you need anything else?”

“Nah. You showed me a bunch of dead people, and now I’m satisfied there’s a slightly less insignificant chance that my guy hasn’t been murdered yet.”

“Speaking of satisfaction, do you think maybe I could pound your cervix again tonight? Diane gifted me her strap-on.”

I blushed. “I would absolutely love to have you do that to me, but I invited someone over to do nasty things with me and my other girlfriend.”

“Would you by any chance happen to… have room for… a fourth?” she asked gingerly.

I needed a gentle way to say ‘no’. “How would you describe our relationship?”

She didn’t sound unsure of herself, but certainly unsure of my response as she answered, “Girlfriends?”

[Oh? You called me ‘Little Lady Lush’ last night. When did we become ‘girlfriends’?]

“When I joined Diane’s harem and dicked you so hard you developed another addiction. I have something you need, ergo I am your girlfriend.”

“Ah.” Her argument was crude, but nonetheless compelling.

“Well? Four-way with your girlfriends?”

“I need to… ask.” I SecreTexted Doll,

Me:

Do you mind if I invite other people tonight?

“Sent. If you end up coming, this would be her first time getting involved with two women—three if Judy joins in—at the same—‍” My phone notified me of a response.

Doll:

id love that!

“Oh. She says yes.”

“Awesome!”

“6 o’clock. 2840 Chester A Arthur.”

“I already have your address. I’ll bring some booze and mixers.”

I figured Judy could stop me if I had a moment of weakness, but it would be nice not to have the temptation… so I gave her a hint and the opportunity to withdraw her offer. “Sure. But they better be good mixers, because that’s all I’ll be drinking.”

“I’m joking! I’m not an asshole, I’m not going to bring temptation into your home.”

“Oh.”

“I’ll bring drinks, but I promise, nothing with ETOH. You are swearing off the booze permanently, aren’t you?”

“No-yeah, for sure. Back on the wagon, and this time I’m buckling my seatbelt.”

She gave me a thumbs-up. “Good luck, Prax.”

‹She wants to bring it, though, doesn’t she? It could certainly add to the experience for the others. Maybe it’ll be better this way. I can handle the compulsion, no reason to dampen their fun.› “Georgina… alcohol is a constant temptation, not just when it’s available, but every day—when I drive home after work, I want to stop by the liquor store and buy a bottle of tequila and drink it in my car until I can’t read the road signs. The same for my drive to work. But I’ve pushed that… it’s almost like anxiety, into the background, it gets a tiny bit easier to ignore the longer I’ve gone without. I can handle a bottle in my house without losing my dry streak.”

“You must be incredibly strong-willed to deal with that.”

I shrugged. “I prefer not to pat myself on the back for exercising basic self-control. And I don’t know if I like someone else expressing admiration or telling me how inspired they are by how strong I am. Especially when I just relapsed and made a fool of myself last night.”

“First of all, not feeding an addiction isn’t ‘basic self control’; second of all, I said nothing about you ‘inspiring’ me.”

“You were headed in the general vicinity. Every one of my therapists did it, constantly, so I’m familiar with the conversational foreplay that comes before being told I’m an inspiration.”

“Oh. Well. I’m sorry I engaged in ‘conversational foreplay’. If you’re going to pitch a bitch fit about it, I’m not bringing anything.”

I grunted. “Do you want to come or not?”

“Yeah.”

“Then be a little bit nicer to your host.”

Her cunty expression morphed into realization and regret. “(Ahh, shit…) I’m being a bitch again, aren’t I?”

“Kind of a big one.”

“Ugh. Sorry.” She seemed equal parts regretful and frustrated. “Our mistress gave me a command this morning and… I’m… trying to obey it.”

“It’s fine. And I’m not going to ask what it was she told you to do… or not do.”

“You’ve probably already guessed it. Anyway… I’ll bring soda.”

“Bring alcohol, too—anything but tequila. Bring red party cups so I can pretend I’m drinking booze. And a change of clothes, you’re sleeping in my bed tonight. I don’t want you driving home drunk at three in the morning.”

“Are you saying that from personal experience?”

“I am. But we’re not at the point in our relationship where I share details of that experience.”

“Alright, alright, I won’t try to get you to talk about it. Sorry for… prying. And I promise I will bring red cups.”

“Good. Thank you for showing me the bodies. I have to go over all the evidence in my CaseCloud and figure out what the hell my next step is gonna be.” She got up and hugged me firmly, something I was not expecting from a cutthroat workaholic bitch, but sure enough she squeezed me tight, authentically, then kissed me long and hard and aggressively. I occasionally glanced at my phone and watched the minutes tick by. We kissed for 11 minutes, until we were interrupted by the clearing of a throat. My heart skipped a beat. I turned around slowly, dreadfully, to see the source of the sound as it asked, “What’s up, bitches?”

The woman was maybe 2 or 3 years my senior, 5′8″, with azure hair peeking out from a lighter blue bouffant, and teal scrubs under a white lab coat, both stained with blood. On her breast was a brass name tag labeled ‘R. Klein, MD’. I relaxed as soon as I recognized her name. Under her arm was a thick stack of paper held together by a binder clip. “Did you finish digitizing the Tenderloin John Doe, Georgia?” Medical Examiner Klein asked sternly.

“Georgina, and yes, I finished it like 5 minutes ago.”

“15,” I corrected her.

“We kissed for a quarter of an hour?”

“11 minutes. Time flies.” I extended my hand. “Examiner Klein, it’s nice to finally meet you.”

She shook it. “Call me ‘Reggie’. Diane’s mentioned you a couple times. Said you were ‘very loyal, very obedient, and very expressive’…”

“I suppose I am.”

She smirked. “You don’t know true pleasure until you’ve felt her wrath. You owe it to yourself to give being a bad girl a try.”

“I’ve considered it,” I replied cautiously. “Disobeying her goes against my nature, though.”

She shook her head and smirked as she strolled past us, sat on Georgina’s desk, dropped the stack she was carrying on it, and said, “Georgia, here’s the Dennis Fahrenheit drowning. Get to work.” Georgina hummed, returned to her chair, and leafed through the report. “So, Andrea… I’m quite interested in you, I’ve been told you have the libido of a rabbit and you make the cutest sound when you cum.”

“And was it… Diane who told you this, or was it Georgina?”

“First Georgia, but I didn’t believe her so I asked Diane. So I know it isn’t simply one person’s opinion, but an objective fact.”

“I won’t argue with them.”

“So I was wondering if you might like to come by my place tonight and demonstrate for me. I’d love to play with your body and record what kinds of sounds it makes in response to various stimuli. I’ve been working on a scientific system of mapping the qualities of a given sexual vocalization to the location, intensity, and pleasurability of the erogenous stimulation that prompted it. The key factors are changes in the formants of a train of sexual utterances and the timing of those changes. Gonna make Kinsey proud, bringing sexology to the front page again.”

She was attractive enough, and my clit was swelling at the implication that I was nothing more than a sexual curiosity to her, one data point of many, a subject to be dissected and studied, a stepping stone towards her ambitions, but… “Any other day I’d visit and let you analyze me all night long, but tonight I have a prior engagement.”

“I’m sure it can be rescheduled.”

“I’d rather not reschedule when there are 3 guests.”

“They won’t mind.”

“Regina… I’m inviting 2 women over to meet my soulmate.”

“So?”

“For… sex with me. And her.”

“Then make me your plus-one! Ju mer vi är tillsammans!”

“What does… ‘you mare—’ that mean?”

“Roughly, ‘the more the merrier’.”

I rolled my eyes. ‹First Georgina invites herself, now Reggie. This “threesome” is multiplying uncontrollably.› And yet… I couldn’t help but feel like it would be a little bit—not insignificantly, but still not by very much at all—unfair to Reggie if I didn’t invite her, and a little hypocritical. Plus… she was a fellow pet, it was reasonable to assume I had an implicit obligation to show her hospitality.

“Or are you jealous because I’m her favorite?”

I gave her a dubious stare. “I wouldn’t necessarily say you’re her favorite. As you should be aware, I am her most loyal and obedient and trusting, so it follows that I would be her favorite.”

“She doesn’t care about how well we follow orders. She’s in it for the psychological games and inflicting pain, which pet is the least well-behaved, which pet is the most pathetic, which pet is the most receptive to punishment and abuse. And I am all of those.”

“I was working on Adams on Saturday. She was my first john. She started insulting me as soon as we had privacy, and I responded by insulting myself so hard she threw herself at me and told me to fuck her.”

“So… you like to think of yourself as a little whore?”

“I serviced 2 people at the same time in exchange for a work favor, and they both called me a whore and a slut and compared me to a sex toy, and I couldn’t have stopped violently fingering myself if somebody had held a gun to my head. Being treated like an object with the sole purpose of pleasing others turned me on so hard I couldn’t even crawl for 5 minutes after I came. So, no, I’m not a little whore. I’m not a big whore, either. I’m the biggest fucking whore you’ve ever met.”

She laughed skeptically. “I have to see you getting fucked with my own eyes—and my own fingers—to believe you.”

“Fine. 2840 Chester A Arthur, apartment 201, 6 o’clock. There will be alcohol and it will probably go irresponsibly late on a weeknight, so bring a change of work clothes.”

With a renewed and especially mischievous smirk she patted me on the shoulder. “I will be there at your orgy.” ‹Oh. I suppose an orgy is exactly what it is, now.› “I will make you cum—hard. And I’ll be the judge of whether you deserve the title of ‘Greatest Whore’.” And then she left.

I checked on Georgina; she was busy typing. “Asta—‍”

“I hate that name.”

“I’m not a big fan, either, it isn’t feminine and it isn’t feline. You should ask for a new one, I’m sure our mistress will agree it’s not the right name for you.”

“I guess I can leave a couple minutes early to swing by her office.”

“Good. You’re busy, I don’t want to bother you, I’m gonna go look at the evidence I have so far.”

“Seeya, ya big whore,” she said affectionately; I giggled.

As I left the morgue I checked the time for the hundredth time that day: 2:14 PM. I had until about 5:30 before I needed to leave to arrive at the get-together on time. I decided to give a heads-up to Judy, who answered her phone right away. “What’s up, Andy?”

“I’m having a few guests over for a little get-together. There isn’t a dress code, but you may want to make sure whatever you wear is… easy to remove.”

“How many guests are we talking about?”

“‘Just’ 3—4, if you count yourself as a ‘guest’.”

She laughed. “You don’t do anything by half measures, do you?”

“It just kind of snowballed, people kept inviting themselves and… well, you know I can’t often find a reason to say ‘no’ to this kind of thing. Or anything sexual, to be honest. I blame you.”

“What time is it scheduled?”

“6.”

“That should be enough time to prep. I’ll see you at your apartment, 6 o’clock, on the dot.”

“I promise I won’t be late.”

I logged into my laptop and then into CaseCloud. The dash cam footage from 5 of the vans was there, and with trepid fingers I opened the first van’s file.

With more skepticism than optimism, I watched from the dashboard a van idling for a couple of minutes. Nothing happens, other than someone asking about the countdown, and someone else responding that they have another 40 minutes until they’re moving forward with the operation. Sure enough, at precisely 09:00 the van starts moving. Nothing continues to happen, other than chatter about the Roadrunners’ most recent series against the Padres, for a quarter of an hour… and then the steeple of the Hotel Torrey Pines appears, towering above the other rooftops of Adams. As soon as the van turns eastbound onto Adams the mysterious blue car comes into view. I waited for the camera to get close enough to read the plates—

And then I noticed the blue car’s model—Dodge Charger. I scrubbed back and forth to find a frame where the front plate is legible, to no avail—the camera’s resolution was simply too low.

I let the video resume. The vans park on the wrong side of the street a few tens of meters behind the car, facing the hotel. Teams alpha through delta report that they are ready, and at 09:14:59, a battle cry of ‘Go!’ comes in over the radio. Not long after, thumps and thuds occasionally disturb the silence for several minutes, concluding with the slamming of the doors. At 09:25:24 an announcement comes over the radio, ‘Zone Tango Papa Hotel clear, all Operation Broken Wishbone units return to Papa-one.’

The vehicles head back to base amid mutual congratulations. The van is parked and turned off, and the only sounds are the footsteps of the detainees being unloaded from the van and verbal prodding from the officers. I scrubbed through the rest of the video, and found nothing. I sat back and worried about the blue car. I had no doubts that the other vans would provide equally poor views of the car’s license plates. I would have to wait for the body cam recordings.

It was 5:14, giving me plenty of time to get home and begin welcoming guests.

I locked my laptop and headed home, stopping at the Groceright along the way to pick up a box of Teddy Grahams while fighting the temptation to grab a bottle each of top shelf tequila and triple sec and a dozen limes.

Six’s Company, Too

As I walked from the parking structure to the apartment building, I spotted someone standing by my door. As I drew closer I recognized Andrea, in a pretty black shirt and skirt with an overnight bag slung over her shoulder. Once I reached the top of the stairs, I was close enough to see that she had put on false eyelashes, copper eyeliner wings, generous amounts of blue eyeshadow, and a touch of blush. “Wow, Doll. You’re stunning.” She smiled bashfully. I gave her a hug, pressing my pelvis against hers. “How long have you been waiting here?”

“Only about 10 minutes.”

“It’s 5:48. When someone invites you to a party, you’re supposed to be 15 minutes late, not 20 minutes early,” I teased.

“It’s not really a ‘party’ though, it’s more like… a date.”

I chuckled. “A 5-person date, I guess that’s one way of viewing it.” I pointed at Judy’s door. “The first girlfriend visiting us today lives right next door to me.”

“The location’s convenient.”

“Being neighbors made meeting for the first time interesting. Let’s go inside. You can put your shoes on the rack to the right.” I unlocked the door, but didn’t open it. “I should probably warn you… it’s pretty spartan.” I opened the door, and was frozen at the threshold by the strange collage of Things and Stuff that had replaced the emptiness of my room. Neon signs covered the walls, advertising vintage cigarettes, guitars, classic cars, live nude girls, and revolvers, among other things. Filling the spaces between them were framed movie posters, including Who Framed Roger Rabbit, The Cheap Detective, Charade, Clue, Deathtrap, Hot Fuzz, Fargo, Super Troopers, The Thin Man… My room was unrecognizable.

“Clover?”

“I think my girlfriend decorated my room for me while I was gone.”

“Oh! Well? Do you like it?”

I grinned. “I’m a simple woman with simple tastes, and she has already mastered my complicated parts. Come, sit.” Judy had added throw pillows to the couch, which was a nice detail, but also a tiny bit annoying… in my experience they took up valuable seat space that I needed for my extra plushy ass. I suspected that Andrea would be just as inconvenienced, given her equally generous fat distribution. I hung up my coat and jacket as I told her, “Make yourself comfortable, there’s Tang and Kool-Aid in the fridge, and… Georgina’s bringing more beverages. While you occupy yourself, I need to change into my dress.”

“I’ll stick to the couch.” She leaned back and relaxed.

I retrieved my dress, checked it for stains, inside and out, and thanked God that (first) I couldn’t find any that were visible under indoor lighting, and (second) that Judy had not decorated my room with a blacklight. Being unsure of how to proceed with an orgy when we were 10 minutes early and 3 people short, I attempted to strike up a conversation while I changed. “So… Doll. Are you excited?” I removed my pants.

She nodded with a grin. “I never imagined doing anything remotely this fantastic. I’ve woken up inside a dream.”

I started on my shirt. “Great! Are there any particular acts you’re hoping to try?”

“I guess whatever anyone wants to try with me. I’m open to suggestions.”

“You’re a cutie, and very expressive of your pleasure… They’re gonna fight over you.” She blushed; I was down to my underwear, and started putting on the dress.

“That’s a pretty dress. Is it silk?”

‹Naughty girl is watching me.› “I don’t know, but it’s my lucky dress. I’ve gotten laid in it with 3 different people since Saturday.”

“That is lucky.”

I slipped my panties off and threw them in the hamper. I returned to her, and observed, “Your eyes are big right now.”

“You took off your panties.”

“It gives others easy access. And it’s slutty.”

“Oh. Should I take mine off?”

“If you like being a slut.”

“I’m about to have sex with multiple women, even though I’m married. I’ve accepted the fact that I’m a slut. And an adulteress.” She slipped hers off and shoved them in her purse.

“It’s good that you’ve accepted it, but do you enjoy being those things?”

“I won’t know until I’ve done a few things with a few people, but I expect I will.”

“That’s the spirit.” I stroked her hair.

She leaned into my hand and smiled. “Would you like to get a head start, Clover?”

“I think it might be rude to start the festivities before all my guests—pardon me, all of our dates have arrived.”

“I suppose.” She delicately pulled my hand to her mouth and kissed the backs of my fingers. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t make out.”

“You have a point, I guess—hah!” With enthusiasm she grabbed my face and followed the time-tested script by kissing my neck, then my cheek, then my lips, then thrusting her tongue down my throat. The kissing went on for a while, until she snuck her hand under my dress and creeped it up my leg.

Then, just as her fingertip plunged into me and brushed up against my G-spot, the door opened without a knock. Having both been startled, Andrea hastily withdrew her hand while I whipped my head around in time to see Judy—framed by the doorway, wearing a red blouse and black skirt, of all outfits, and carrying canvas grocery bags full of stuff—to see Judy cross the threshold and close the door before kicking off her shoes. “Naughty girls, starting the party before everyone’s here,” she chastised us with mock-scorn as she put the bags down in front of the coffee table. “That’s bad orgy etiquette, you know that?”

“It just kind of happened,” I said.

“We only got to second base,” claimed Andrea. ‹Liar! Your finger was inside me, that’s definitely third.›

Judy smirked. “I saw your hand under her skirt. You were on your way to third, if you didn’t reach it. That said… what matters is, nobody cums till everyone has arrived. Andy, you haven’t introduced your new friend to me.”

I smiled. “Judy, I would like you to meet… Andrea Buchanan. When I told her about my case today, she jumped at the opportunity to help.”

“Wonderful! It is a privilege and a pleasure to meet you, Andrea. I’m Judith.”

“Nice to meet you, Judith,” replied Andrea, offering her hand to shake; but Judith took her hand and kissed it instead—and Andrea began staring into Judith the same way she stared at me when we first met. I thought little of it.

“Charmed. Andrea Buchanan and Andrea Bachman… You’re almost name-twins.”

“Yep.”

“Is she cool with women born with… (you know?)”

I smirked. “Gee, I wonder. Let’s ask her. Doll… What would you do if you discovered your husband was infertile?”

“Well… I want to make my babies naturally, so… I would have to have sex with another man.”

“What if I had the equipment to get you pregnant?”

“Oh, don’t tease me. Getting pregnant would be so much easier for me if women had penises and testicles. Easier, and more enjoyable.”

“Did you coach her, Bachman?” asked Judy, her voice thick with skepticism.

“No,” I said, perfectly innocent of her accusation. “Doll… How many children do you want to have?”

She shrugged. “As many as I can have before menopause. I’m hoping for at least 8.”

Judy remained in shock. “Would you continue to have sex with a woman with a penis even after menopause?”

“Of course! A woman with a penis…” She sighed. “I wish there was such a person… A woman with a penis would be my ideal partner.” Judy shattered her own shock with a snicker, which apparently hurt Andrea’s feelings. “What? I know it’s a fantasy, but I can’t help what my heart wants or that it doesn’t care much for men, even though I like penises. Do you think I’m weird?”

“No. Not at all. In fact, I have a surprise for you, later. After everyone has started grooving, just ask to see it and I’ll show you.”

“Oh.” She smiled so, so sweetly as she told my mate, “I’m looking forward to your surprise.”

“You’ll love it. Do you have a nickname I can use to avoid confusing you with my girlfriend?”

“Clover calls me ‘Doll’, but that’s her pet name to use for me. My middle name is ‘Priscilla’, you can call me that, or… you could call me ‘Prissy’.”

“‘Prissy’ is cute. And you do look very proper.” She checked the contents of each bag, then pulled out a bowl of diced apples with grapes and another of tropical fruit, which she placed on the coffee table. “I’ll be your caddy. If you need anything and I’m between sessions of being face-deep in pussy, just ask for anything—if it’s important, I’ll get it, even if that means walking to the drug store. And on the topic of drugs…” She picked up a small white box that had been on the coffee table the whole time (which I hadn’t noticed for my wonder at the new decorations) and tossed it to me.

A wave of relief flowed through my heart as I caught it. “Oh, thank you so much, Judy. I haven’t really been thinking about it much, so it’s a good thing you reminded me.” I rearranged the pillows to give my ass more room, read the instructions—

{My belly swells millimeter by millimeter, day by day, until I have to be carted to the maternity ward to squeeze out our child; I hold her in my arms until she’s too big for me to hold; I tell her how to behave until she’s too old for me to tell her how to behave; she lives with her mothers until she’s too in love with someone to remain in her childhood home—but she spends Sundays here; then the joyous day comes when she brings her own child to our house, who grows up to do all the things her mother did growing up. And Diane and Judy and Tommy and Pink are all there, walking this journey with me even if our child is genetically related to only one of them—my lovers, me, and our children and grandchildren, doing something fantastic merely by loving each other.}

I placed the box on the coffee table and stared at it, devastated by the vision, wondering how happy we could be raising a kid and watching them grow, starting as a blank slate and ripening like a fine wine into a human being over the decades, taking care of me and my lovers into old age, burying us when we were gone… As much as I loved Judy and Diane and Tom and Nico, this would be a kind of love my lovers were incapable of giving me. To love my children would be something even purer and demanding of patience and unconditionality and devotion than any romance.

“Andy?”

I muttered, “(I… don’t… know… if…)”

“If… what?”

“If… I… want… to do this.”

“That’s what the pill is for.”

“Not—that, I’m saying I’m not sure I… want to… take the pill.”

“You mean… you’re going to… wait and get an abortion?” she asked, half-hanging over the edge of calm.

“Maybe…”

When she didn’t respond right away, I looked up to find her eyes wandering the room, brimming with anxiety, then they returned to me and she asked, hopelessly, “You’re thinking of taking this one to term, aren’t you?”

“I… I’m feeling a lot of feelings right now, Judy.”

“I’m sorry,” interjected Andrea. “I feel like I’m eavesdropping on a private conversation. I can wait in the bathroom, or on the balcony, if you’d like.”

I was silent. Judy was too freaked out to say anything.

“I’ll just wait outside.” Doll started to get up.

“No. Please, sit. This discussion can wait,” I said.

“I guess… it can wait… until tomorrow,” added Judy. “We need to be in a serious mind space to talk about this, but everyone’s already getting ready to be in an orgy space. So, if anything, it needs to wait. Until we’re both ready to talk. So don’t worry about it, Prissy.” Judy smiled nervously and set out some crackers and artichoke dip. “So, have you two done it?” She continued unpacking as we talked.

“Yes,” said Doll. “She performed oral sex on me in my office.” I tried to recover from my motherly vision while Andrea and Judy carried the conversation.

“You make it sound so clinical. ‘She ate me out in my office’, or ‘ate my pussy’ or ‘sucked my clit’. Give it a try.”

She struggled at first to restate her experience with me… “She… ate my pussy… and… put her finger—fingerbanged my… fuck hole. In my sex dungeon. And… I screamed like a whore!” …but by the end she was grinning.

Judy laughed. “That’s way better. I want to use that exact kind of dirty language while I’m fucking your ‘fuck hole’.”

“We can compete to see who’s the dirtier talker.”

“I like the way you think!” Judy finished unpacking. “Alright, everything’s ready.” There was a knock on the door. “I’m up, I’ll get it.” She opened the door to reveal Georgina in her white dress, carrying a backpack. “Good evening! Judith Lucas, Andrea’s girlfriend. Are you here for the ‘party’?”

“Yes. Georgina Dominguez, also Andrea’s girlfriend.” They shook hands, which turned into a hug. Judy told her where to put her shoes, then Georgina joined us on the couch and excitedly whispered to me, “Andrea, she gave me a new pet name! And it’s actually good!”

I did my best to focus on the here-and-now rather than 39 weeks in the future. “Okay… Alright. Let’s hear it!”

“‘Koko’!”

“Oh, that’s way better than ‘Asta’. Actually… I’m super jealous—yours is from a series of mystery novels I enjoyed as a kid.”

“Oh, what were they about?”

Before I could answer, Judy cleared her throat. “Andy, is Georgina involved in your case in any way?”

“She’s helping with it. As for your other concern… I’ve seen her with a dick inside her.”

“Yeah. I was trying P-in-V for the first time last night. It ended up being coitus interruptus after like three strokes. Thanks, Prax.”

“I’m sorry.”

She chuckled. “Oh, don’t apologize. I had an opportunity to give you a hard time while Moneta isn’t around—and I had to take it. I didn’t spend enough time with that dick to form an opinion, so I’d like to know what all of you think about them.”

“The silicone one you have never goes soft so I bet I could just get fucked non-stop all day with one,” I admitted. “And it’s big. The feeling of you stretching me with your girth is amazing and it’s also long enough to hit my cervix. However. A flesh-and-blood penis is more… primal. Watching it grow before your eyes is magical; the fact that it’s flesh and blood and nerve makes it organic and a little bit… hmm… surreal; and my partner being inside of my most intimate part feels amazing to them—so good that all they can think about is fucking me, and that’s a very satisfying concept. So, I like real cock more—but silicone is a very close second.”

Georgina nodded. “When you put it that way, I’d like to show the next dick I see a good time.” Judy was struggling to keep a straight face.

“Doll, what do you think, dick or dildo?”

“I’ve never used a dildo, but… I really like penises. Even if I don’t find men physically attractive, I really like making my husband climax with nothing more than my… pussy. But I would add that we’ve been trying to conceive for a few years now and… every time he ejaculates inside me, knowing that his sperm is swimming around, climbing through my cervix, up my uterus and into my fallopian tubes, searching for my egg, racing to fertilize it… is absolutely exhilarating. The best feeling. Sex with him is worth it for that alone.” Georgina did not try to hide her feelings as Andrea described in detail the biological process of conception—her eyes said, quite loudly, [Okay, you’re kind of a huge freak.]

“She’s your fucking clone, Andy,” opined Judy with a chuckle.

“I can’t wait for the big reveal,” I replied.

Then, in Judy’s eyes, I saw her anxiety return. “Yes. The… big reveal.” I knew that she wasn’t worrying about how these women would react upon discovering she was assigned male at birth… she was more likely thinking about which gender her own baby would choose. I wanted to reassure her that raising a child would be good for us… but not in front of the others.

There was another knock on the door, and Judy answered it— “Doctor Regina Klein, here for the Bachman shindig.” The medical examiner, dressed in a crimson women’s suit, thrust out her hand, and Judy kissed it.

“Judith Lucas, Andrea’s girlfriend. Shoes go on the rack.” She let her in.

“Nice to meet you, fellow girlfriend, et cetera.” ‹You are not one of my girlfriends, weirdo.› “I get first dibs on the hostess’ pussy tonight.”

“If that’s what she wants.”

“We have an agreement.”

With a glance, Judy asked me to confirm Regina’s claim. “I didn’t agree to anything,” I insisted, “but I will let her go second out of—‍”

Regina raised her voice. “Second? No, I’ll be first. Just you wait.”

“Don’t hold your breath. As I was saying, I’ll let you go second out of courtesy and hospitality towards the newest member of my sexual circle.”

“Or sexual ‘constellation’,” suggested Judy, “if you’d like to make it sound more academic, or ‘polycule’ if you would like to avoid sounding pretentious. Okay, Regina, meet Andrea Buchanan; now everybody’s met our newest star, Andrea, AKA Prissy, and I also brought the supporting cast: snacks—diced fruit, plus crackers and artichoke dip—on the coffee table. Now, let’s get started.”

“Not quite yet.” Georgina dragged her backpack to the breakfast bar and pulled out a bottle of Seagram’s tonic water, a big glass bottle of top shelf vodka—

I could see in Judy’s posture that Georgina was playing with matches in a gunpowder factory. “Georgina… We need to converse.” They whispered back and forth a few times before Judy called me over and quietly asked, “Did you tell her about your ‘feelings’ on alcohol?”

“Yes; she was there when I relapsed, and was very supportive.”

“Do the other two know?”

“I’ll take care of that real quick. — Andrea, Regina, I want you to know that I’ll drink to excess if I have any alcohol, so if you see me pouring myself a vodka tonic, please politely stop me.” They nodded and voiced acknowledgement. “Judy, I told Georgina she could bring alcohol if she wanted to give the others the option of drinking.”

She gave me a worried look, but respected me enough not to question my decision. “Alright. Go ahead, Georgina.”

She continued unpacking, a six-pack of coke, orange juice, cranberry cocktail, a Ziploc bag of limes cut into wedges, and red cups—

Although not my fav’rite,

Vodka serves a purpose

Satisfying thirst, and

Cranberry is such a

Tasty mixer making for

An easy drink to swallow

In vast quantities

I stared at the liquor and imagined a nice, cold mix of sweet and booze, breaking away when Georgina told us, “Let’s get disinhibited!”

“Wait!” yelled Judy. Everyone turned their heads. “We need a safe word.”

As annoyed as I was by Regina, I had to admit that Diane’s system was a solid suggestion: “‘Red’ means ‘stop immediately’, ‘yellow’ means ‘back off’, and I’m not going to explain ‘green’. It’s what we…” She glanced at Andrea. “…I use with my ‘primary girlfriend’.”

“I like it. Thank you. Is everyone okay with those?” We all agreed. “Okay, now you can get drunk.”

Judy and I abstained—the vodka called to me, offered to whisper sweet nothings, and I did my best to ignore it—while the others clustered around the impromptu bar and started mixing drinks—

Another knock sounded through the door. “Andy, did you invite a fourth guest and forget they were coming?”

“No, Regina was the last.” I was just as puzzled as she was.

“I’ll… answer it.” She swung the door open to reveal—

My eyes grew wide. I asked myself how inviting her could have slipped my mind, and concluded there was a substantial probability of her informing me within the next five seconds that snubbing her had been a grave mistake.

The Uninvited
Guest of Honor

“Do we know each other?” Judy asked our surprise visitor with a smirk.

The surprise guest wore an old-fashioned tuxedo and hat, goldenrod, with a saffron shirt tied at the collar with an amaranth necktie, and carried a rather large bag. A tiny part of me feared what was inside, and a little bit more was trying not to get distracted by an intense curiosity over the same—but most of me was simply terrified that I had offended her by not inviting her to my accidental orgy.

Diane smirked back. “Ah… That depends. Would you happen to be Judith?”

“Yes. And you are…?” Dread froze me in place. ‹Let her in—!›

“Diane. I believe we possess someone in common.”

‹Let her in, let her in, let her in!› “Actually, she owns me.”

Diane giggled. “That girl is full of surprises.”

“She sure is. What can I do for you?” ‹You can move aside so she can come in!›

“You could grant me entrance.”

“We’re having… a closed gathering.” I wanted to scream, ‹Let her in! Let her in, now! Ask her to come inside! Make a welcoming gesture! Tell her my house is hers! Tell her that it literally belongs to her now, I’m putting her on the rental agreement!› —but I was paralyzed by fear.

“And I was… to my dismay, not invited. That said, three of my pets are here; I have come to supervise them, to make sure they play with each other nicely.”

“As rude as I feel for turning you away, I’m afraid your lack of an invit—‍”

My horror that my mistress was not receiving the most prompt and sincere hospitality from my other girlfriend had grown so hot that I found myself freed from the cold dread that had shackled and gagged me; I launched myself towards them and my voice burst forth in a screeching hiss, “For fuck’s sake, Judy, let her in before I get in trouble!”

With her smirk spreading wider across her mouth and eyes, Judy told me, without uttering a single word, [Made you sweat.] “Please come in, Diane. Snacks on the coffee table, drinks at the breakfast bar.”

My mistress entered, then stopped as soon as she saw the bar spread. “Is that vodka?” she asked Judy icily.

“It sure is.”

“Do you not recall that she cannot have alcohol?”

“Andy?”

I got close enough for quiet conversation and explained, “I did, it’s alright, Mistress, I told Georgina she could bring alcohol—as long as it wasn’t tequila.”

She sighed. “If you say so. But consider yourself on a virtual leash until all traces of alcohol leave your apartment.”

“Of course, Mistress.”

“Oh, I hate being so strict with you! You are such a flawlessly good girl.” She aggressively wrapped her arms around me and squeezed, then kissed me. “I can’t resist a little shop talk, I haven’t seen you all day. How is the case coming?”

“I’d rather not.”

“Is it going poorly?”

“I wouldn’t say ‘poorly’, a few things have gone my way. I skipped to the month-long queue and acquired the dash cam footage from the raid thanks to Andrea being willing to break regs.”

“Are you… talking about yourself in the third person now?”

“Hm. No, Lieutenant Andrea Buchanan, Officer Safety and Accountability Office. She also goes by ‘Prissy’. She’s on the couch.” I nodded across the room. The other two pets were leaning on her and touching her chest and legs and in general showing her physical affection, to her nervous delight, while drinking from red cups.

“That is excellent. Introduce me to her… after you tell me about your findings.”

To my ‘primary’ girlfriends I gave a summary of my interaction with Geraldine and company—making it clear that I didn’t want to talk about it in greater detail—then recounted the relevant events of the single dash cam video I had watched.

Diane lamented, “I knew it. I am a part of this.”

“Don’t start beating yourself up again,” I told her. “Please.”

“Alright. I will make an effort to ease my conscience. This is a party, after all, an occasion for levity.”

“Exactly. I’d like to change the topic to anything besides this cursed case.”

She patted me on the shoulder. “I will grant you your request. Jude, this is a small group, but do you have a nanny and caddy?”

“I’ve designated myself the caddy.”

“Then I will be the nanny; most of them are my pets, after all, I know best how to soothe them. As for this bonus Andrea, Prissy… Drea, would you be a good pet and introduce us?”

“Of course, Mistress.” The others were on the couch, with the two other pets flanking Andrea, complimenting her hair and her eyes and her tits, and telling her about the various ways they were going to fuck her, touching her shoulders, arms, thighs, and stomach, scratching her back and the nape of her neck, and petting her hair, all while she wore manic eyes and a very contented smile.

I led Diane by the hand to my Doll, even though there was absolutely no need to lead her so—I just wanted an excuse to touch her. Her other pets greeted her with restrained enthusiasm, addressing her as ‘Diane’, rather than ‘Mistress’.

Andrea offered her hand, and Diane accepted it with a warm smile, kissing it. “Andrea Priscilla Buchanan, but you can call me ‘Prissy’ to avoid ambiguity.”

“That is a very cute nickname. It has an air of… meekness.”

Andrea was caught off guard, but if she was offended, she didn’t show it. “Uh. Thank… you? That isn’t the kind of compliment I expected to receive from anyone, ever. I get the impression you are full of surprises like that.”

“Your impression is spot on. Nice to meet you, Prissy. I am Diane Somers, Andrea’s other girlfriend.”

Andrea’s eyes darted across Diane’s face in bewilderment, but once she’d made up her mind, she asked, “You wouldn’t happen to be acquainted with Captain Diane Somers of the SVPD, would you?”

“The very same.”

“Oh. So… your relationship is why you took the time to sign off on Andrea’s I2R.”

“Even if she was not my pet, I would have signed off on it, because I want to see Alexander Brookvale safe and sound and back at home.”

“Oh? I’m happy to hear that. But part of what you just said—I’d like to rewind a little. Did you call Doll your… ‘pet’?”

“Yes, as well as the two women trying to persuade you to let them up your skirt.”

Andrea looked at Georgina, who nodded, then at Regina, who also nodded. “Alright… What do you mean, exactly, by ‘pet’?”

“They wear collars to signify that they are mine, and either obey my commands in exchange for rewards… or disobey them in exchange for punishments. As their owner, I train them, pamper them, take them to community venues and events, and lead them around on leashes to inspire jealousy and admiration in onlookers. They don’t always enjoy the leash, so I often use it as a disciplinary measure, and as a reminder to the insufficiently obedient…” She gave Reggie and Georgina pointed glances, prompting both of them to smirk, and she in turn shook her head and permitted amusement to lift the corners of her lips (but only a millimeter or two). “…that they are still works in progress. Drea, how do you feel about being tethered?”

“I… kind of… like it. I hated it at first, but now the thought of being on a leash… makes me feel comfortable. Safe, even.”

“An exceptionally positive association after such a short time wearing it, but then again, Drea is the freakiest pet I have ever owned or handled.” I blushed at her compliment. Regina, visibly displeased, looked like she had something to say, but contained her words inside her lungs—which might have been the safest places for them to stay until they wasted away.

Doll pursed her lips, then said, “I think I understand the appeal.”

“You do? Is it something that might appeal to you?”

“To me? No, of course—‍” She gave it more thought. “Huh. I’m not… sure. Do you have sex with them?”

“All the time. They please my every whim. If I want to fuck one of them, I call her and she drops whatever she is doing and asks me what I would like her to do for me, and when I am finished with her, she thanks me for the honor—and the pleasure, because they love to make me happy; you see, disobedience is generally for our shared amusement, and furthermore serves me with opportunities to give them the punishment they crave.”

“They ‘crave’ punishment?”

“Receiving punishment is a quarter of the fun of being a pet.”

“They enjoy it. They… misbehave… on purpose?” Diane and both of her other pets spoke some variation on ‘yes’. “Huh. What… kinds of punishment do they enjoy?”

“It depends on the individual, what they are comfortable with, and how close we are. The most common corporal punishments are nipple torture, spankings, whips, riding crops, hot wax—and for the pain queens, paddles and floggers. One who does something shameful might wear an oversized white T-shirt inscribed with an insult befitting their crime, or—if they are very naughty—I might write it directly on their body and forbid them from wearing human clothes.”

I was transfixed.

“I may force them to wear a remote-controlled bullet vibrator or two for a day, or a week, or a month, so that I can force them to orgasm at inconvenient times; on the other end of the torture spectrum, I may require them to wear a chastity belt or cock cage for just as long. If they do something beastly, I may require them to crawl on all fours and deprive them of the ability to speak, allowing them to communicate only via animal sounds. Only Reggie has gotten this far. If my pets were to decide to push themselves beyond this limit… there are worse punishments still.”

I was enthralled.

“In the more extreme cases, if I and a given submissive have a strong, trusting bond, established over the course of several dates… I might make them ‘perform’ in front of an audience any number of humiliating acts, from being led around on a leash, to having their clothes torn or cut off, to masturbating in front of the crowd, to being showered in the semen of audience members, to being used by the audience for whatever purpose pleases them.”

I was enraptured.

“But in the most egregious of cases, I may blindfold and bind them. This I reserve for the worst offenders, because it is an intricate, creative, and time-consuming art. It is also very intimate, requiring courage and patience and trust, because total restraint can be terrifying. Only the submissives closest to me, my most loyal, my favorites, may receive that punishment if they disobey me—since for one of those I trust most to defy my will would be the most despicable betrayal, deserving of the most artful punishment.”

Her diverse and seemingly endless list of punishments left me sweating and eager, my mind and body aroused by the possibilities… But this last one, the prospect of being—

bound immobile

helpless fearful

in the dark

mind twisted

by her passion

propelled by punishment

pain produces pleasure

till I reach at last

my psychosexual

climax

—filled me with a mind-altering enthusiasm, a reaction I did my best to hide behind a pacific expression.

I had to know what must be done to earn such punishment. “Mistress… That sounds pretty awful. What kind of crime would I—I mean, how would one of your subs have to misbehave for you to be angry enough to do this to me—them? And is there anything you might do to make the ‘punishment’ more intense? Like… a gag, or hot wax, or having people ejaculate all over my… face…” I stopped elaborating, because my voice had betrayed from the start how excited I was about the possibility of being tied up; I never fooled anyone that I feared it.

She had watched me tear to lint my own threadbare façade of indifferent curiosity, while only hiding most of her amusement at my enthusiasm. “As I have already told you, Sweetie, that punishment is reserved for those closest to me, in the event they take advantage of me when I am at my most vulnerable and trusting. My police pets are among the few who can earn it—so if you, Eupraxia, somehow managed to commit some unforgivable act, a particularly uncomfortable work of kinbaku would certainly be my punishment of choice.”

‹Well… she’s ‘vulnerable and trusting’ when her tits are out in the open. I could disobey an order to play with them… but I have a feeling that would be a minor infraction, at best. So if she asks me to pleasure her, I might as well obey. Although… What if I don’t finish her off? What if I bring her to the brink of orgasm, then stop?› I grinned as my plan came together. “Don’t worry, I would never betray you, Mistress.”

She giggled. “Do you really think that you, my most loyal sub, have the capacity to hurt me? You couldn’t betray me if I ordered you to. The guilt you would develop from merely thinking about doing it would drive you insane. You would cry and confess your plan halfway through designing it. Enough talk from you, though, shut it while I talk to the new girl.” I had nothing else to say, so obeying was easy enough. “Prissy, does any of this interest you?”

“Well… it’s very weird, but… not in a bad way. I can imagine wearing a leash, and I think it would be as Clover says: comforting. And… I think I would enjoy wearing a collar, especially a fashionable one. Yes, I know I would. And I think I might enjoy being obedient, because I’ve had this desire since she, um, ‘ate me out’—to do for her sexually whatever she wants.” ‹Wow. I did not realize her feelings for me went that far.›

“Then perhaps I am the wrong one to be inviting you to pethood.” Diane smiled at me. “You seem to be already loyal to her.”

Doll asked me with her eyes if I was interested. As cute as she was, as sweet a servant as she might potentially be… “I’m still figuring out being a handler with my first pet. And I don’t have all the things I need to punish you. I could maybe adopt you later, but if you need a handler right now, you’ll have to figure something out with mine.”

She nodded once, disappointment staining her face, and continued with Diane. “I’ve never been spanked or whipped, but I’m… interested in trying punishment. I’ve given it a little thought, and I’ve decided it might be exciting and psychologically stimulating. And there are a lot of things to try—but I don’t know if I want to commit.”

“Even if you submit to me as one of my elite pets, you are under no real obligation to do anything that you would not already want to do, and you can leave and return at any time, with no hard feelings. With that in mind, we can give it a try, one day at a time, until you either decide it is not for you, or you decide to be one of my regulars, or… you decide to go all-in. Does that work for you?”

“Before I decide, I need to know… What kind of animal would I be?”

“You choose—that is one of 4 decisions that are not mine to make. You can be a dog, a cat, a bird, a reptile, an amphibian, or a sea sponge; you can even be a normal human being who just happens to be in a pet-handler relationship. No matter what you pick, you can choose whether you are allowed to talk or pretend that you can only bark or meow or bleat or chirp. You can crawl at all times, or only when I command you to—or never, if you find quadrupedalism excessively strenuous. And you choose whether and how to decorate yourself to resemble your chosen animal, with ears or tails or paws or whatever else may please you.”

Doll looked at each of Diane’s favored pets, then whispered into Georgina’s ear, received a whispered reply, then repeated this with Regina. Once she had her answers she weighed her options—but only briefly—and concluded, “They’re very happy to be your pets, so… I’ll give it a try.”

A pang of joy caught me by surprise as she joined our pack. “What kind of animal are you?” I asked excitedly.

Diane shushed me, but lent her ears to Doll, who answered, “A… cat.”

“Splendid.” Diane reached into the bag and held out some cat ears and a tail buttplug. “You may wear these if you so desire.”

Doll put on the ears; Regina pointed her compact mirror at her—prompting a delighted giggle from the newly-adopted kitten. She inspected the tail. “How does this work? I don’t see any way to strap it on.”

Diane showed her the butt end. “This shiny knob… goes up your ass.”

“Really?” Diane nodded. “I don’t know if I…”

“Butt plugs feel kinda good,” said Georgina. “If you’re not sure how to do it, I can help.”

“(Um…) Thank you.”

Diane handed out cat tails and cat ears to Georgina and Regina, along with a bottle of lube, then offered more of the same adornments to Judy.

“I’m not really the feline type.”

“I have dog accessories, as well.” She put the cat parts back in the bag and held out dog ears and a dog tail; with an overwhelmed glance at me, Judy awkwardly accepted them.

Then with a wide smile Diane offered me a fancy box. I opened it—inside were dog ears and a tail, but much higher in quality than the body parts she was handing out to the others. “Mistress… If it’s alright with you, I want to be a cat.” I had made up my mind after watching the three kittens put on their ears and pretend to clean themselves the way cats do, licking themselves and each other, giggling or yelping playfully in protest.

My request puzzled her. “You are so utterly canine, though.”

“You said we get to pick what kind of pet we are, not you.”

“Well, yes, of course, but I wish to point out that you have the temperament of a dog, so it would be criminal for me not to offer you the ears and tail of a dog. Ever since you first obeyed one of my commands, I have thought of you as a dog. Specifically, a German Shepherd.” She gently shook the box. The accessories were the exact shades of black and brown that dominated the coat of her chosen breed. They were subjectively beautiful and objectively impressive in their craftsmanship, and yet… “I had these made for you. Do you not wish to wear them?”

I wanted not to disappoint her but sorely to please her, but I had my heart set on being a cat girl. “That was very sweet and considerate, and I do appreciate that you were thinking of me when you got them… but you didn’t ask me what I wanted to be before you went through the trouble.” She didn’t try to hide her embarrassment. “I wish I liked them, but I want to be a cat.” The dog girl and three cat girls were paired up and kissing while groping each other’s tits, waists, hips, and asses, Judy with Georgina, Doll with Regina. “Everybody wants to be a cat—except Judy.”

She sighed. “Of course. I get it. I am embarrassed to have made such a foolish assumption—I ought to have asked you before buying you anything, the pleasure of surprise be damned. Thank you for trusting me enough that you feel free to contradict me. Of course, I had never intended to coerce you into accepting this gift, but now I must certainly give up on trying to persuade you.” She put the lid back on and sighed. “I feel that I was pressuring you into accepting doghood, and for that I apologize, Drea.” She put the dog stuff back in the bag and pulled out some cat accessories, which I accepted with a smile. “But this means you have to change your behavior. Cats are capricious. You will need to misbehave.”

I put on my ears, and felt a tiny, tingling rush shoot from my crotch up to my head. “Who says they can’t behave? I could be the most well-behaved cat ever owned by a human being. A cat who’s so fantastically sociable and obedient that she does tricks even the smartest and most loyal dogs either can’t do or refuse to do.”

She shrugged, but smiled. “It is all roleplay; your and your partners’ imaginations are the only limits to your pleasure, and ‘most obedient cat’ ought to be well within anybody’s ability to imagine. So why not? Enjoy your new feline features, Eupraxia the obedient cat. I will have a new set crafted to your specifications…” She pursed her lips. “How would you feel about being an orange tabby?”

“Because I’m a redhead?”

“Precisely.”

“Permission to be blunt, Mistress?”

“You do not require my permission, speak freely.”

“I think it’s too on-the-nose. Maybe try thinking about trainable breeds.”

“Alright. Easy. Maine Coon—no, too big. Hm… How about Abyssinian?”

“I don’t know what those look like, but as long as they aren’t red or orange, I don’t really care.”

“Brown, gray, and rusty tan. If ‘not orange’ is all you care about, then you will like it.”

“Works for me.”

She clasped her hands. “I am so excited! I am certain that turning you into an Abyssinian will be even better than watching you transform into a German Shepherd. Come, now, grab some lube and put your first tail in!”

“Yes Mistress!” Buzzing with curiosity, I nabbed the bottle labeled ‘silicone’ and gave the steel knob a generous slather, then hiked up the back of my skirt and aligned the point of the plug with my anus—and gently pushed. It slipped in without trouble—and while I was disappointed by the overall lack of stimulation, I felt pleasantly full. I looked over my shoulder and shook my ass, and there was a tail there to wag. I giggled. I looked at Diane, who was smiling. And then she surprised me with a kiss.

‘Reneging’
on Regina

Minutes into our kiss, I heard laughter and shouting and opened my eyes to see who was making the noises. Georgina was straddling Judy on the floor, restraining her by the wrists, bouncing up and down on her cock and yelling, “Tell me you love my pussy! Tell me it’s heaven for your cock!” to which Judy replied, “Your pussy is heaven!” Meanwhile, Regina and Andrea were not fucking but standing next to us. They waited for another minute while we kissed before Regina loudly whispered, “(Mistress.)”

Diane sighed and asked, “What is it, Reggie?”

“Andrea Number Two and I have a conflict that requires resolution.”

“Call her ‘Prissy’, Blue. Explain.”

“She wants to eat Eupraxia out first. But I also want to eat her out first, and Eupraxia said that I had first dibs.”

Diane asked me, “Is this true?”

“She gave herself first dibs. I never promised her anything.”

Regina made a sound of disgust. “Are you reneging on our agreement?”

“I didn’t agree to you eating me out, and you invited yourself to my orgy—but out of kindness and respect for a fellow pet, as well as to avoid giving you the impression that I dislike you, I very graciously allowed you to attend. You seem very invested in the prospect of eating me out, so for the sake of maintaining peace among us pets, I’ll allow you to do so—after Doll has done what she’s been wanting to do since before you and I met.” Throughout my lecture, Regina’s frown slowly turned into a scowl, while Doll’s slowly turned into a beaming smile.

“Are you kidding me? I’m being screwed!”

Diane grunted, then plucked Regina’s ears from her head, causing her pet’s scowl to evolve into a pouty frown of suffering. “Doctor Regina Klein, you need to take a step back and examine your sense of entitlement. What have I told you before?”

“Ask, don’t take.”

“And what did you do?”

She groaned.

“Regina?”

“I took,” she muttered.

“Honesty with others is worth a small fortune. Honesty with yourself is a mint. Treat.” She pulled a Teddy Graham from her pocket and tossed it at Regina, who caught it in her mouth and wolfed it down. “I will fuck you while the Andreas do their thing.”

Regina perked up. “Really?”

“Yes, on the couch. Fingering.” She replaced her pet’s ears, who became cheerier than I’d ever seen her. “Heel, Blue.” To me and Andrea she said, “You two have fun. I believe that your rather expansive bed has yet to be claimed.”

Indeed, we had it all to ourselves. We climbed on and I laid on my back. She fell on top of me and kissed me forcefully. Her hands started at mine, then brushed the undersides of my wrists and forearms, a gentle and pleasant sensation; tickled the inside of my elbow, forcing me to giggle; made their way to my shoulders, from which they trailed down to my collarbone, where they teased me as they lightly traced its contours; and then headed down my dress to my breasts, which her groping hands played with through fabric, squishing and squeezing, cementing the long-brewing notion that my body was worthy of all admiration, worthy of all lust, worthy of all desire. I reciprocated, grabbing her chest and playing with it.

Then one hand moved across my stomach, across my lower abdomen, and down to the crux of my legs—where she very boldly pressed down through the dress’ fabric into my clit, causing me to grunt in surprise. She massaged it through the fabric, which wasn’t as pleasant as her bare fingers would have been, but I knew from my experiences in the laundry room and at Asmodeus that fucking or being fucked while still wearing a dress was hot.

After a few minutes of this, though, I concluded this wouldn’t be enough to satisfy me any time soon. “The fabric doesn’t feel as good as your skin.”

“Alright.” She backed up, then crawled under my dress and then—then I felt an overwhelming suction on my clitoris, forcing me to gasp whorishly. The pleasure was breathtaking, as I felt my lungs violently squeeze, emptying themselves with each sound that tore its way through my throat. My hands clung to the comforter and tugged at it, and my leg muscles all contracted simultaneously, wrapping themselves around her head.

Then I felt fingers enter me, flooding my barely-functioning brain with anticipation and lust, emotions that were vindicated and amplified as my G-spot was squeezed, then massaged. I was no longer capable of intelligent thought—only whatever thinking was necessary for mating—and without thought, speech was out of the question. Not that I’d be able to talk with the second mouth on mine, which I reflexively thrust my tongue into; there was another mouth kissing my neck, sending chills down my spine, which would occasionally trek up to my mouth and take over for the other mouth, and they did this back-and-forth between them, trading countless times.

My tail was being gently tugged, I felt another pair of hands on me, and then another; then two more pairs, tickling me and stroking me and petting my hair and reaching down the front of my dress to pull out my breasts and play with them. I was vaguely aware of giggling and snippets of conversation—

“She’s lost her mind.”

“It’s like she’s on drugs.”

“Damn, she’s wasted. I want Prissy to suck me off next.”

“I thought Eupraxia was talented at sex, but the new girl is giving her a run for her money.”

“I’ve never seen her like this. Leigh, have you?”

“Never. Then again, neither of us has known her as long as we would like.”

My clit felt like it was going to explode—in a good way—and whoever was playing with my nipples was definitely helping, because the zaps running up and down my abdomen gave variety and complexity to Doll’s already astounding work.

I felt something building up inside me, as a reservoir threatens to overflow its dam. As my Doll sucked, the pressure within me rose rapidly, faster than I had ever felt it rise before; with each pinch or nibble of my nipples it jumped by several feet, and with each squeeze of my G-spot it shot upwards by tens. I was dimly aware of what was being done to my body, but struggled to recognize the faces of the ones doing it out of the corners of my rolled-up eyes as—

the brimming lake beneath the storm
drips—

each drop a slosh

each slosh a wave

each wave a crack—

the levy splinters,

bends and breaks—

the concrete dam of self-control

against the pressure gives at last—

my waters pour and flood
the valley of my blooming mind

with sexy-happy chemicals

and drown me in my ecstasy—

my toes to curl, my throat to cinch

around my trademark lustful sigh—

my pelvic muscles to contract

so pleasantly, again, again, again…

My skin buzzed softly, as though engulfed by some kind of electric halo. I lost track of time; whether my euphoria lasted an instant, an hour, a day, or an eternity, I don’t know, but it did eventually come to an end—except for an afterglow that lasted well into the following day.

As the pulsations of pleasure ended, I noticed a circle of faces around me. They were talking, but all over each other, all at the same time, so that I couldn’t understand them. I looked at Diane, who was silently grinning, then pointed at her. “No-one but our mistress speaks.”

She emerged from their silence with praise. “A wise directive. Did it feel good?”

“Yes. God, yes, it did, it was absolutely cosmic in proportions. For a while there I forgot how to use my brain. Doll, even though this was just your first time sucking a clit, your mouth has already proven to be positively magical. You’re welcome to eat me out any time, and I hope you join us and become a permanent pet.”

She beamed. “Thank you! I’m having fun being a kitty.”

“Do me next, Prissy,” demanded Georgina.

“I can do that.”

“Were the contributions made by the rest of us helpful?” asked Diane.

“Yes. They were very welcome. Did all of you help?” I looked from smiling face to smiling face, Andrea, Diane, Judy, Georgina—even Regina had a satisfied smirk.

“Everyone participated.”

“So… I was the center of attention?”

“You certainly were. You are the hostess, so I decided to reward you.” She combed her hand through my hair and played with one of my cat ears—I wished that it was a real ear, so that I could feel her touch. “And what a wonderful performance it was.”

“What happened during… my ‘performance’… that was so ‘wonderful’?” I asked nervously— ‘nervously’ because I had no clue what might have happened after I lost all control.

“The little sounds you made when we touched your body or kissed it or nibbled it, the constant moaning as Prissy sucked on your clit, the whimpering when one of us kissed your mouth, the gasping whenever someone pinched or sucked your nipples or kissed your neck; the way your back arched and your body undulated in response to touch, showing off your curves; and the way you kissed us back, eager for every pair of lips and every tongue that mated with yours.”

I relaxed. “Okay, nothing embarrassing, then.”

“Just being slutty and cute.”

“It’s my turn with her,” said Regina. “Everybody off the bed.”

“I will leave you two to hammer things out,” began Diane, “and I want you, Regina, to allow Drea to take the wheel. Jude… Would you be interested in ‘acquainting’ yourself with your owner’s owner?”

“Very much, Leigh.” They departed for the couch, arm-in-arm.

“Finally, some space,” said Regina, before surprising me with her face in my crotch—which was very sensitive after what Andrea had done to me. The stimulation of my clit was even more intense than before, bordering on unpleasant, and I was again robbed of my speech. I wanted her to slow down, but I was incapable of communicating—when I tried to speak, my words were replaced with shrieks and gasps. I hiked up my skirt to uncover her head, grabbed her hair, and tried to pull her off… but this only encouraged her to suck harder.

And even if I might have eventually regained my ability to speak, Georgina sat on my face. There was no point in trying to do something about my situation, so I went along with it by kissing and sucking her clit.

At no point did Regina falter in her pleasure-giving, which she augmented not just by massaging my G-spot but also feeling around inside me, exploring my interior beyond the minimum necessary to please me; I relished the fact someone was indulging their curiosity over the tiniest details of my body. I had nothing else to do, and no one was playing with my chest, so I used my hands, free of any other task, to massage and play with my own breasts.

Together we found a rhythm and stuck to it for I-don’t-know-how-long, until somebody sat on my stomach and took over playing with my tits. I felt myself teetering on the edge; my vocalizations grew more intense—then Regina stopped. “What are you mf—?” I began to yell, my sentence cut short by a mouthful of pussy. I felt my need for satisfaction straining against the weight of my now-static gratification, so close to breaking that even a breeze across my clit would have been enough to set me off. Georgina said, “Blue is asking whether you’ve cum yet.”

“Mf!” I exclaimed through her flesh. She removed herself from my mouth. “She stopped right as I was about to! Tell her to keep going!” I heard devious laughter. “Regina, are you fucking with me?”

“You didn’t let me go first.”

“(Jesus Christ.) Okay, you’ve had your fun, now please finish me off.”

“Apologize.”

“I will tell Mistress that you’re extorting apologies out of me.”

“Tattletale.”

“Which of us do you think she’ll side with?” No response. “I didn’t think you’d want to answer that. Get back on my cli—ah!” She resumed, and not even five seconds later my—

back arches

like Saint Louis’s gate

toes curl

like Amazonian rivers

clit smarts

like a .50 cal to the crotch

—as my clitoris flicked my ‘happy’ switch for the second time in not enough seconds, sending waves of bliss throughout my body and mind—but not without a side of discomfort throughout the journey from the sustained intensity of the clitoral stimulation.

Georgina got off to let Regina kiss me; she gave far more passion than I would have expected from such an annoying ass. Andrea and Georgina played with my tail, twirling-twisting-tugging it, while I reluctantly bonded with Regina.

As the primary component of the orgasm faded, leaving behind the glow from the previous one, Reggie stopped kissing me and turned her head away. “Yes, Mistress?” she asked.

Diane was standing next to us, topless but not pantsless. “Did you satisfy our hostess?”

“Yes, Mistress.”

“Good. All of you: get up, move aside. It is my turn to spend time with her.” The other pets made like trees so Diane could crawl over me.

I recalled my plan. “Mistress—actually—‍”

“Take off your dress.”

“Oh.” As I slipped out of it, I explained, truthfully, “I’m perfectly satisfied, and—I’m so sensitive from Doll’s mind-blowing pussy-eating that having my clit stimulated kind of hurts right now—but I would be happy to gratify you.”

“Hm. How about we take a break from sex and chat awhile?”

“I would appreciate that.”

She laid beside me. “How proceeded your acquaintance with Prissy?”

“We complimented each other’s eyes, I offered to have sex with her, she accepted, I ate her out.”

“That is a remarkably rapid escalation in intimacy… and yet I am unsurprised that you would be able to pull off such a feat. What did you perceive in her that you would so immediately pursue her?”

“Well, her eyes are pretty, I like her face, and I like her hair.” Something… was missing from the list.

“You look troubled, Drea.”

“Something else about her.”

“Her voice? Her mannerisms?”

“Her scent.”

“Her scent?”

“Yes. She smells like champurrado.”

“‘Chomp-poo-rod-though’?”

“Champurrado. It’s a thick Mexican chocolate drink made from milk, masa, evaporated sugarcane, anise, cinnamon, vanilla, and—if you want a bit of heat—a little chipotle.”

“I take it you enjoy the bouquet of chocolate and spice.”

“It’s comforting. It reminds me of Christmas time and buying tamales from the pretty abuelita who went door-to-door in my neighborhood. I couldn’t resist her. Smelling her… filled me with…” I stared at Diane, my neck suddenly stiff with apprehension. “…the same feelings I had when I smelled Judy. And you.”

“I see.”

“I think I love her.”

“The way I love you.”

“Yes.”

“An insurmountable love.”

“Yes.”

She nodded.

“I want to eat you out. I want to think about you while I’m talking to you.”

She shifted nervously. “I would rather you not.”

“Why not?”

She looked away.

“Diane.”

Silence.

I recalled the last time a woman refused to show me her genitalia. “Diane… are you trans?”

She faced me, hesitated, then nodded.

“I want you to cum inside me.”

She shook her head.

“Please. It’s the most romantic thing you’ll ever experience.”

She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, undid her zipper—then stopped.

Impatiently, I reminded her, “Button.”

Her face bunched up in agony as she unclasped her fly and lowered her slacks. I watched impatiently as she undressed, ready to mount her as soon as her cock was out and hard. She pulled her pants down around her ankles and my pussy ached for the thing tucked between her legs.

“Panties,” I urged, shaking with anticipation. And then, despite my excitement, it occurred to me that—

‹Making her do this is…›

«It’s my biological imperative.»

‹I’m forcing her to have sex with me.›

«She isn’t resisting.»

‹Her heart isn’t in it, though.›

«It’ll feel just as good for her as it will for me.»

‹She doesn’t want to do this.›

«And yet she’s doing it.»

‹Because her love compels her to make me happy.›

«Because mating is HER biological imperative, too.»

‹Just because her instincts are telling her to do it doesn’t mean she consents.›

«Consent doesn’t matter.»

‹I’m not going to do this without her consent.›

«Oh, yes, I will CERTAINLY do this, whether or not she consents, and whether or not I consent.»

Her thumbs hooked under the waistband of her panties.

‹No…›

«Just watch.»

Her panties dropped a millimeter, and my heart galloped.

«I want it.»

‹I want it…›

«I need it.»

‹I need it…›

«And so does she.»

I looked up at her face and witnessed the agony in her eyes. “Wait,” I choked. “Red.”

She stopped with her thumbs tucked into her waistband, with the base of her penis just visible.

«What the fuck?»

“I’m… sorry. I shouldn’t be making you do this. You don’t want to penetrate me. I shouldn’t pressure you to do it. I’m sorry. Please… put your pants back on. I’m sorry.”

She sighed in agonized relief and quickly pulled her slacks up. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me. I was taking us down a dark road, and… I feel gross. God, I came so close to—‍”

“Don’t say it. And don’t fault yourself. Sexual desire can drive us to do horrible things.”

“I’m supposed to be able to make ethical decisions, but—there’s this part of me that keeps telling me what to do—‍”

She wrapped her arms around me and squeezed. “I hear the commands, too. But you resisted it. That’s what matters. You were tempted, but you fought temptation, and you decided against evil. Only a truly good person is capable of doing the right thing in spite of their instincts.”

“I shouldn’t have gotten so far.”

“To the contrary. You stopped before the point of no return. You demonstrated remarkable self-control, given your history.” She kissed me gently. “I am relieved. And I am proud of you for overcoming the temptations of emotional leverage.”

We cuddled, and after a while we exchanged kisses. Between kisses she whispered, “Drea… there is something I want you to know.”

“What is it, Mistress?”

“Something you must never tell another pet.”

“My lips are sealed, Mistress.”

“And you must not let it get to your head.”

“I’m not sure that’s a promise I can keep.”

“I know that it is, because if you were not obedient enough to follow my orders, I would not be telling you.”

“Okay. What is it?”

“Out of the 50-plus submissives I dominate, you are the most loyal, the most obedient, and the most resourceful in pleasing me. I have never had a pet bring me two candidates for adoption in all the time they’ve been with me, let alone on consecutive days. This should come as no surprise, given my proclamation of love last night, but I must say this. You are my… favorite.”

I forgot to kiss her.

“Drea?”

“I’m hon—honored, Mis—tress,” I said as my head swelled with helium.

She squeezed me. “And I am honored to have you.”

“Even if I can’t have your cum… I will savor every moment with you as though you’re inside me.”

She giggled. “Since I have no intention of penetrating you, I believe we have no choice but for me to pleasure you in other ways.”

I sighed. “Yeah. There aren’t very many options. My clit is still sore, but my G-spot is available.”

“Very well.” She kissed me… and she kissed me… and she kissed me; her raspberry-almond-vanilla musk wafted up my nose and seized my brain—I kissed her, and I kissed her, and I kissed her. And then her hand alighted on my thigh, inspiring anticipation, and proceeded to crawl upwards until it reached the crux of my legs—and a single finger entered me, sending that now-familiar rush through my body. I wanted so desperately to be hers, I would be hers, I must let her—

delve deep into my cave;

i moan; her echo laughs

as fingers grasp this gem

and with it steal control

of all my faculties;

so taken by her touch

I slip

and tumble down

a pit inside my heart

I came-to.

“Andrea.”

“(Hmf?)”

“Release me.”

“(…Hrmf?)”

“Remove your teeth from my neck.”

“(Mf—!)” Indeed, there was something in my mouth, between my teeth. I removed my mouth and saw that I had bitten her on the neck. “(Ah, shit.)”

“What were you thinking?”

“I…”

“Out with it.” The gentleness of her voice was only outweighed by her fury.

“I don’t know… what… but… maybe…”

“Go on.”

“I want you to be mine—and—I—biting—it just happened—I bit you, I was thinking about owning you and I—and then it happened when I came—I guess I thought that maybe if I bit you, you would belong to me forever.”

She favored the bite. “This is going to bruise, and people are going to see it. Is that what you wanted?”

“N—‍” ‹Don’t lie.› “Yes, Mistress. I’m sorry.”

“Do you wish for the whole world to know that we are engaged in an illicit relationship?”

The idea made me feel a little bit dizzy. Pleasantly dizzy. “Um. Maybe.”

“‘Maybe’?”

I avoided her furious gaze. “Yes.”

“Even if that means us losing our jobs?”

I hesitated before admitting, “Yes.”

“You are also the craziest pet I’ve ever had.” She sighed. “Not the craziest sub, but still…” I shed a tear, and then another, and more still, until my face was wet. She petted my hair, then cupped my cheeks in her hands. “Drea, my Sweet… You should be sorry, but you should not be crying.”

“I betrayed you. I took advantage of your devotion and hurt you.”

“You hurt me while we were being intimate when I had not given you consent to do so. You will be punished. But I am aware that you weren’t trying to seriously harm me, and, indeed, the bruise is neither debilitating nor permanent…” Her expression softened, the anger melted away, leaving only the pain. “…and I would be a hypocrite if I were to allow myself to be too harsh, considering I bit you without your consent the very night we met.”

I wrapped my arms around her and squeezed. “Thank you, Mistress… I love you.”

“And I love you, too.” With the guilt of hurting her still fresh in my heart, I clung to her for a while. A few minutes in, I asked, with a sneaking suspicion, “May I ask what my punishment will be?”

“Turn over.” I obeyed, and I felt my anus spreading followed by the emptiness of not having a tail, then my ears came off. I turned over and pleaded with my eyes and my frown for her to give them back. “That is the first part.”

I reminded myself that I had behaved as a pet perfectly even before I had ears and a tail. But the feline accessories had instantly become not so much the cherry on top, but the vanilla in the ice cream, something that should not in theory be separable from the end result once mixed in. I wasn’t empty without them—well, my ass was—but something was definitely missing. “And… the second… part?”

“You will find out what the second part is when it is administered. Do you regret doing what you did, Drea?”

“As soon as I saw the bite mark—and then I heard your voice when you asked me what I was thinking—I could tell you were so angry, I knew that I had done something wrong, and I wished that I hadn’t done it.”

“With that in mind, you probably don’t understand why you need me to punish you, given your regret.” I shook my head. “I do it to remind you that I am in charge; and that it is not your conscience that determines wrong and right, but my will. Does that make sense to you?”

It made sense enough. Twisted, fucked up sense, which tickled my desire to submit myself entirely to her and encouraged me to consider the possibility that I really, truly belonged to her. “Yes, Mistress.”

“Good.”

I stared into her eyes as my thoughts swirled and darted about like minnows caught in a current. Once one of the thoughts matured, I said, “You know I’m madly in love with both you and Judy.”

“You have made that more than sufficiently clear.”

“So if I ever did anything truly bad to either of you, if I harmed you in a way you could never forgive, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.”

She tapped me on the nose. “I know. And you know well that I love you back. And that will never change. You will always be my favorite.” She kissed me on the mouth, then the cheek, then the neck, then—I felt an agonizing pain in my neck that caused me to gasp sharply, a pain that surprised and confused me until I realized that she was the source, that she was biting me.

I endured it, whispered, “Please, don’t stop,” and began playing with my clit. The afterglow, the increased sensitivity since Andrea sucked me off, the love I felt for Diane, and the pain she inflicted—all synergized. Within just a minute of her biting me, my limbs were seized and my body was pulsing with joyful warmth. “(Ahh…) Okay… okay… you can… stop.”

She let go of my neck and kissed me on the mouth. “If anything good has come out of this, it is that you have inspired me to brand my favorite pet so that others know to treat her right or face my wrath.”

I nodded and smiled lazily through the delirium brought on by the mark of her love. “Though it’s only going to last a couple of weeks. Maybe you could mark me with something permanent…”

“We will see.”

“Thank you for being a good owner.” She petted me some more. “When can I have my ears and tail back?”

“Midnight.”

“Oh, thank you, I was worried you’d be taking them away for days. What do I tell the others if they ask why I don’t have them?”

“Be honest. You misbehaved, and now you are an example to the rest.”

“Okay.” I kissed her. “I want to make out with you and Judy at the same time.”

“Jude currently has a different Andrea impaled on her cock.”

I couldn’t see from that angle, so I listened for Andrea’s voice, which was making ecstatic sex sounds between declarations generally of questionable sexiness, such as ‘your penis is way better than my husband’s, I’d suck it but I need every drop of your seminal fluid inside of me’, and ‘fill me with your seed until one of your spermatozoa fertilizes my egg’ and ‘Fred must be doing something wrong, how about we make him watch you fuck me so he’ll learn the right way to get a woman pregnant?’ and ‘I want to have your progeny, Judith!’ Hearing her constant calls for impregnation and having babies made me conscious of my own possible conception and my own love of riding Judy’s penis. I had a desire to push Andrea off of her and take my lover’s ‘seminal fluid’ for myself. Instead, I told Diane, “I’m ovulating soon—if I haven’t already.”

“Please…” she said nervously, “tell me you’ve been using condoms.”

“I don’t like them.”

“If you are to be having anonymous sex, even non-casual sex, you need to be using contraceptives. You have no excuse.”

I shrugged. “I don’t like condoms. They feel unnatural. I want people to cum inside me. I crave it. Judy and I made the conscious decision to get as much of her semen inside me as she’s capable of producing.”

“I don’t understand why you would—are the two of you trying to make a baby? Or are you complete morons?”

“The latter.”

She was completely stumped. “Why?”

“We’re into breeding.”

“Oh… Oh, for fuck’s sake… Both of you are into that brand of lunacy?”

“Yes. It’s just… so… exciting to think about her semen turning my egg into the beginnings of a human being.”

“Breeding has to be the most irresponsible kink. Plenty of kinks carry a risk of unwanted death. Breeding is the only one to carry the risk of unwanted life.”

“Yes, but it isn’t exactly… unwanted, though.”

“You… wish to be pregnant?”

I nodded meekly. “I don’t think she wants it, but… I do.”

“Because you get off on being pregnant?”

“Yes. And also because… I… just… (want a baby.)”

Her cheeks puffed up as she exhaled to make room in her chest for patience. “Andrea. Look around you. I do not mean to insult your dwelling or how much you earn to pay for it… but is a studio apartment the size of a postage stamp the kind of home you want to raise a child in? Will your job pay enough to feed and clothe them and send them to daycare? Are you emotionally prepared to do all the work of motherhood? Are you ready to sacrifice any and all of your you-time to ensure that your child gets enough you-and-them-time? Are you willing to fundamentally change every facet of your life and dedicate every ounce of your being to ensure that your child thrives?”

Her arguments were mostly effective in wearing me down, and yet, “I want a baby. As I was getting ready to take the morning after pill, having a daughter was the only future I could imagine. I know I’m only considering the good parts, but…” I hugged her. “Would you help me… if…” ‹This is a helluva lot to ask of the person who didn’t get me pregnant.›

She took my hand and squeezed tightly and sighed at length. “Yes. Yes, Drea, my love, of course I will help you—I would do anything for you, and I will treat your child as my own, even if Jude is the other mother. The apartment… will not be your problem to solve; I will find you a two bedroom so that they will have their own room once they are old enough. And I know that Jude has a respectable income, so between the two of us, we will easily defray the costs of another human being. The one thing we cannot help you with is the free time you will no longer have for yourself.”

“Only at first. Once she can drive and cook for herself—themself, I’ll have more time to do my own things.”

“I suspect you underestimate how much of your day your child will require at any age. Until they have a living income, you are still raising them.”

“This is a lot to ask, but… if we shared the responsibilities…”

“Yes. That is true, and—as I have already told you—the child may as well be mine. If the three of us take turns, each will have a little time to herself. But childrearing is very hard work. All of the problems you dealt with as a child will revisit you, only this time you will not be the one handling them—that responsibility will belong to your precious, naïve progeny. All you will be able to do for this person with far less experience than you is give them advice, which they may or may not follow, and watch them stumble through life trying to figure things out for themself. Parenthood is the most difficult job in the world.”

“It may be hard, but I think I would be a happy mother.”

She grumbled, as politely as one can grumble, in frustration, and took a while to answer. “You might be. You might be, because you are eager to love unconditionally, and to wait on the ones you love, hand and foot. Hmm. That being the case, maybe the most difficult parts of being a parent for you will be avoiding spoiling your child and finding the will to fulfill your own needs.” She sighed. “I do not wish to encourage you by admitting this, but… you deserve my honest opinion on one aspect of this venture: I think you would make an excellent mother. Of course, Jude and I would hardly get to spend any time with you, alone or at Asmodeus or on dates, once there is someone in your life whom you feel compelled to give your constant and uninterrupted attention to—but if spending all your time with your child and no longer partying with your girlfriends is what you have decided is right for you…”

Her words gave me pause. A big pause, which was very hard to swallow and caused me to panic when it got stuck in my throat, rendering me unable to speak.

“Drea, are you okay?”

“Excuse me,” I croaked. I launched myself off the bed. With trembling hands I picked up the morning-after box, dropped it, picked it up and tried to open it, fumbled and dropped it again, tried not to freak out as I asked myself if I really wanted to do this, recovered it and managed to open it, pulled out the foil pack, struggled to peel off the foil without dropping that, second-guessed my decision for the third time, picked at the edges to peel up the foil only to be foiled by said foil, figured out that I was supposed to push the pill through the fragile shiny part, made far too many attempts and took far too long to get it out…

“Would you like me to give it a try?” asked my lover. I entrusted the pill packet to her. She punctured the foil effortlessly and handed me the pill. I accepted it, dropped it, retrieved it from the floor, and finally swallowed it with nothing to wash it down.

She led me back to bed, where she told me, “I am aware that was difficult.”

‹It was. Fuck, was it hard. Dropping it and not being able to get it out of the pack made it even worse. And after all that, I feel like I did the wrong thing. But I know that it was right.› I forced a smile. “Thank you for talking me out of committing myself to a life without regular partying.”

She squeezed me. “Thank you for giving my advice your consideration.”

“You could have just ordered me not to do it.”

“I could have. But could I then be certain that you would be happy with my decision? Could I be certain that you would obey me?”

“Of course I would’ve obeyed! I’m your sub!”

“But if I hadn’t explained the consequences, would you have been happy with me ordering you to take the pill?”

“Probably… not.”

“As your devoted lover, I am (towards you) a beneficent tyrant. I will not order you to do something you would not do of your own volition unless I expect you will enjoy being told to do it, and I will only delay giving you something you desire with the aim of amplifying your gratification when you finally receive it. Think of this as your first experience of hardcore delayed gratification. Framed that way, is holding off on motherhood not sexy?”

“Hmm. I suppose it is.”

“Good. I aim to keep up my sham as Vice Captain until 55, so once I quit the force in 7 years, I will be able to go back to being a full-time dominatrix, which means more money to support you and your child—it turns out that making people cross-dress while torturing their cocks pays better money than a police captain’s salary, money which is acquired ethically to boot. I will be able to afford to send our child to college without taking out any student loans.”

“Even though… they won’t be yours.”

“Shush. Who the other parent is doesn’t matter to me—you are my partner and my submissive. Your wellbeing is my responsibility—and by extension, so is the wellbeing of your DNA and that of your other partners.” The ribbon attaching my balloon-head to my shoulders snapped, and my head floated away. “You are devoted to me as my most-of-the-time sub, and I am equally devoted to you as your most-of-the-time domme.”

‹I have two women devoted to me. What noble deed did I perform to deserve this?› I laid my arms across her shoulders and kissed her for a while, then leaned my forehead against her nose and told her, “Thank you.”

“You are welcome, Drea.”

I stroked her hair. “By the way… I’m 34.”

She immediately understood where I was going, and was appropriately alarmed. “Oh. Oh—I did not know that. Oh, my.”

“My clock is ticking loudly, so if you could shuffle your retirement schedule around…”

“Alright. Alright, I’ll retire in… (Hmm…) Oh, this is so extreme—I can’t give you a solid guarantee, but I will aim to be out of there within a year.” I kissed her again. “But that will require you to commit to doing something for me from the end of my career to the end of yours, which you may not find appealing.”

“Anything for you.” I surveyed the room to see what everyone was doing; Doll was encouraging Judy to “Cum inside me again! Come on, stay hard, sixth time’s the charm!” Judy looked exhausted. The other two were snuggled up on the couch, eyes heavy. “I’m feeling tired, Mistress, and—‍”

“‘Diane’.”

“Dee.” She giggled. “And everyone else looks like they’re crashing… except for Doll, who appears to be a sex fiend with bottomless energy, hellbent on accomplishing what I’m now trying to avoid. How about we get some sleep?”

“That sounds like a good idea. But those two, Gina and Gina, will be waking up with stiff necks if they fall asleep on that couch.” We gave each of them a gentle shake of the shoulder and encouraged them to come to bed, and they followed and snuggled up with us.

Half an hour later, Doll told Judy, “God, that was good. Six is a great place to take a break. Let’s get our drink on. No alcohol for me, of course.”

“Judy,” I called out, “are you doing okay? Are you feeling sleepy at all?”

“I’m doing fine,” she groaned. “Although… yes, I’d like to go to bed the moment she’s satisfied.”

“It’s pretty cramped between these sheets, could you and Doll sleep in your bed?”

“That might be best. Prissy, let’s get decent enough to move next door…”

She took Doll away, and all was quiet in my apartment, except for the very loud sex sounds next door that started up almost as soon as they left my apartment. I drifted off into sleep amid the gentle, soothing snores of three other women, and the occasional muffled scream of sexual release from next door.

The Morning After
the Morning-After
Pill

Wednesday, July 17th, 2024

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.

Canary
in a Cop Crime

Thursday, July 18th, 2024

Content Warning:
Dead Animal (Canary);
Death Threat

My eyes opened sometime before it was time for my wake-up alarm to go off; numbness confined me to my bed until that time arrived. I had my coffee black because I couldn’t stand the thought of enjoying anything while Geraldine worried, without any relief from me, about her husband’s safety. I needed one or all four of the 4 people closest to me to comfort me, but I also wanted to isolate myself. I called my supervisor.

“Sergeant Matthews.”

“Sarge, it’s Bachman. I’m—‍”

“Why are you calling me?”

“I’m not feeling well, I’m going to need to take the day—‍”

“Leave request approved. Next time you wanna stay home, don’t ask permission.” Click.

I finished my cup, and had another, then a third. I rarely drank more than three but my mood was sour so I had a bitter-black fourth and tried to relax even as my pulse sped up.

I was hungry. I decided to get some Jack, because I lacked the will to cook myself even a pair of eggs. I put on my Rage Against the Machine T-shirt and a pair each of my police uniform pants and combat boots, and opened the door—

Something was waiting for me on my welcome mat, something reddish-orange and feathery, attached to a piece of twine. I bent over and picked up the corpse of a ginger bird, some species of canary. The twine was looped once around the bird’s neck, with one end wrapping around the other several times, forming a miniature hangman’s noose; the bird’s head was twisted, and dangled loosely. I tried not to understand what I was holding in my hands—but the message someone was trying to send me was all too clear.

I stared at it—this little dead creature in my palm—panicking, heart vibrating like a redlining V12—and, luckily, remembered before I spiraled out of control to regulate my breathing; counted to 4 as I inhaled, as I held it in, as I exhaled, and as I held it out. The panic survived, but—thanks to my oft-practiced coping mechanism—so did my wits.

I wondered who was trying to intimidate me—and I needed to know whether the death threat extended to my lovers, as well as why it had been sent before I was expecting it, before I started making arrests.

Somebody had figured out I was working on Alexander’s case. ‹But how? Nobody outside my circle knows that it was Alex’s blood that was spilled in room 410. Unless they’ve tested it and somehow matched him. There are databases after all, though Alex was quite particular about his OPSEC, so I doubt he would have willingly handed over his genome to any entity—it would have needed to be collected one of the times he was arrested. There’s a chance whoever sent this threat suspects that Alex was a victim in the Torrey Pines case—but they’d have needed to be looking over my shoulder from the moment I was put in charge of searching the hotel to have even a clue.

‹But… There are two cases, remember? And the other one has Alex’s name on it. And every case assigned to every detective, hot or cold, is tracked in the Crimes Against Persons Unit’s CaseCloud Team Database, which everyone in the unit has access to. If even one detective peeks at my entries in that file, they’ll tattle to the rest of the nest that its newest hornet is trying to find SVPD’s least wanted. And my bosses probably don’t care about keeping my assignments on the down-low.

‹Shit.›

There would be no fingerprints to lift from the bird’s porous feathers, and finding surveillance footage of its delivery would be impossible in an apartment complex with landlords too cheap to install security cameras; without any leads, further investigation was pointless. I threw it in the trash and walked to Jack in the Box. Along the way somebody whispered, “(Ya gotta get these bastards before they get you, Lieutenant.)” I wasn’t certain they were talking to me, so I just ignored them. I saw no utility in the whispers of invisible fools—besides, I wasn’t a lieutenant. I would never be one as long as Alex’s body remained hidden.

While I was waiting for my Breakfast Jack, I received a SecreText message:

Mistress

I heard that you took the day off.

Are you well?

I didn’t want to interact with anybody, but I felt compelled to give my lover some kind of response.

Me

Told Geraldine Pasteur I’m no closer to finding her husband, and she doesn’t want anything to do with me.

Mistress

I am sorry, sweetie.

You might watch a comfort movie or have some chocolate

Me

Good idea.

I ate my sandwich, then walked to Walgreens, bought a pint of Ben & Jerry’s Fudgegettaboutit, and ate it while watching The Cheap Detective. I didn’t laugh at any of the gags, and I felt bloated after eating a pint of milk and sugar.

But I had succeeded in all but forgetting about Geraldine’s ire. Instead, by the time Lou joined his polycule of femmes fatales (and femmes inoffensives) before the credits, I had only one thing on my mind: the red bird.

I fished it out of the trash, gently set it down on the coffee table, and stared at it. While the detective part of my brain slowly booted up, I took some pictures. ‹Who bought it?› I had never seen a reddish-orange canary in my life, not even a photo of one, and they had never come up in any conversation I had listened to… so they had to be at least slightly less common than the yellow kind, and not likely to be stocked at pet shops that didn’t deal specifically in uncommon birds. A quick search turned up that red factor canaries were indeed uncommon in run-of-the-mill pet shops. I compiled a list of every store in the city that specialized in birds, dialed the first one—and groaned as it occurred to me, ‹Georgina was only joking about the Ace Ventura thing… but here I am, tracking down the seller of a canary entangled in a kidnapping. Next I’ll learn how to talk to cats. Oh, right—I am a cat.›

I tapped the ‘call’ button, and someone picked up on the sixth ring. “Love and Feathers, how can I help you?”

“Good morning, this is Detective Andrea Bachman, SVPD. Do you carry red canaries?”

“We can order you one and have it to you by tomorrow.”

“I need to know if you’ve had any in stock recently.”

“Sorry, ma’am, we don’t, but we deliver straight to your home, next day.”

“No thank you, I’m not looking to have anything delivered to my home. Do you know of any businesses that do carry them?”

“I have no idea. Is there a reason you need it same day? I may be able to arrange something, though it will cost more.”

“No thank you. Nothing off the top of your head?”

“We don’t keep track of other stores’ stock. I can have one delivered to you before 1 o’clock, which would be much more convenient than going to another store to pick up in-person.”

“No, thank you. You don’t keep track of what your competitors sell?”

“No. Could I convince you to do business with us if I waive the delivery fee?”

“Thank you but no thank you, I don’t need a bird, I already have more than I wanted. Why don’t you keep track of others’ sales? If you know what they sell a lot of you can stock the same things and bring in more customers.”

“You ask me about a new bird even though you aren’t interested in buying, and then you tell me how to run my business. What’s wrong with you?”

“I never—I never said anything about buying, and I’m not telling you how to run your business.”

“Yes, you are telling me how to run my business. Now if you don’t mind, I have paying customers to tend to.”

“Thank—‍” Click. “…you. (Fuck.)”

I found another one. “Bill Bird’s Bird Bills, this is Bird Bill Bill Bird.”

“Good morning, Mister Bill, my name is Andrea Bachman and I’m trying to identify the purchaser of a particular bird.”

“Are you a cop?”

“Y-yes. Detective.”

“Call me back when you have a warrant. Have a nice day.” Click.

I kept calling stores until I received the response, “We sold our last one yesterday, Detective.”

‹Bingo.› “Would you be able to identify the person you sold it to?”

“I get about 50 customers a day.”

“Can you at least try?”

Sigh. “It was… a man… with… brown hair.”

“Curly, wavy, straight?”

“I don’t remember. It could have been black.”

“Was it long?”

“It was average length.”

“I… don’t know what ‘average’ means in this context.”

“It was about as long as most men wear it.”

“Medium?”

“Sure. ‘Medium’, ‘average’, you like using the thesaurus while you interrogate people?”

“No, I—‍”

“I’m a businessman, Detective. Which is to say, I have a business with which I am very busy. I would appreciate you getting to the point.”

“How tall was he?”

“Medium.”

“You mean ‘average’?”

“Please put down your thesaurus.”

“Right… um… ‘medium height’. Any scars, tattoos, unusual facial features?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Tsk…” I sighed.

“Are you investigating a crime?”

“I’m afraid I can’t say at the moment.”

“You wouldn’t say that you ‘can’t say at the moment’ unless you were investigating ‘at the moment’.”

“I’m trying to say I don’t know if it’s a crime yet.”

“You could have just said that.”

“Ah. Yes. I suppose I could have.”

“Is this guy a victim?”

“No.”

“So he did something.”

“I’m not at liberty to say either way at the moment.”

“He’s a suspect.”

“Ye-esss… He is a suspect.”

“What did he do?”

“Do you have a surveillance camera trained on the register?”

“Yes. What did he do?”

“Would you mind if I came down and watched the footage?”

“I’d like you to answer my question.”

I grunted. “Criminal threat.”

“Who did he threaten?”

“A police officer. He threatened to kill a police officer. Happy now?”

“Oh. If you’d told me sooner we could have done this quicker.”

“I’ll remember that next time. Can I see the security footage?”

“I’ll get it ready for you.”

“Could I get your name?”

“Jason Ibrahim.”

“Thank you, Jason. I’ll be there in a jiffy.”

I dressed in my professional fineries, grabbed my professional equipment, pocketed the bird, and drove off.

Cheeps Not Cheaps exotic bird shop was located in the Fordham Valley Shopping Mall, nestled between a Sinnerbon and a Funkin’ Donuts. I turned on my phone’s wire mode as I made my way to the counter, behind which waited a person—‘a businessman’, he called himself, so I presumed he was a man—5′7″, about Judy’s age, black hair, in a T-shirt and jeans under an apron printed with the store’s name. I showed him my badge and informed him, “Good afternoon, I’m Detective Andrea Bachman. Are you Jason?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Do you consent to being recorded? You are under no obligation, I can turn it off.”

“That’s fine.”

“Would you happen to be the owner?”

“Yes.”

“Then I’m talking to the right person.” I removed the hanged canary from my pocket and held it out, nestled in my palm. He tensed up. “This is the criminal threat in question. Do you recognize it?”

“Oh. Oh, jeez… Yes. I sold that… poor thing to that medium-average man, yesterday.”

“Does the bird have any distinguishing features that make you so confident in saying that?”

He was careful not to touch the bird as he pointed. “There’s an imperfection in the cheek plumage, it’s more yellow than red. He asked for our cheapest ‘redhead-colored’ bird, and that innocent creature… was the least expensive, because of the imperfection.”

“Thank you. Would you like to inspect it further, just to be certain?” I held it out.

He took half a step back. “No, no thank you. That won’t be necessary.”

“Are you telling me you’ve never touched a dead bird before?”

“I handle them all the time, just not ones with nooses around their broken necks.”

I put the bird back in my pocket. “I understand. Could we take a look at the surveillance footage?”

“Right this way.” His DVR stretched the definition of ‘modern’, but it worked well enough. He already had the video feed rewound to the moment of the purchase, with the customer standing at the counter. “That’s him.”

‹5′9″, T-shirt and jeans. The ball cap is obscuring part of his face, but not enough for anonymity. That’s Detective James Horton, CAPS First Precinct. He was sitting not 20 feet away from me yesterday. He might have even overheard me asking to take on the case, though I can almost swear I was the only detective in the bullpen when I asked the captain for it.

‹Why the threat, though? He can’t be aware that I’m sincerely trying to rescue Alex, unless he’s privy to more than he should be.›

“Detective? Do you recognize him?”

“Not a hair on his head. Can you burn me a DVD of this?”

“Of course.” He pulled a disc from a spindle of blanks and started the burn. “Detective…”

“Yes, Jason?”

“You said this was a criminal threat.”

“Yes.”

“Is that all he did?”

“As far as I know, no. Why?”

“What department are you from?”

“Crimes Against Persons Squad, First Precinct.”

“Like, assaults and threats.”

“Yes.”

“And murders.”

“Yes, and manslaughters, missing persons, accidents, suicides, anything involving harm to a human being.”

“Did this man… kill someone?”

“No.”

“Did he kidnap someone?”

“No.”

“Did he try to physically hurt anyone in any way?”

“No. He intended only psychological harm.”

“That’s a relief. Are you going to be able to find him?”

“I’ll try.” The disc ejected, and he passed it to me. I recorded the date, time, and occasion on the front with a Pointie marker, and deposited it in a coat pocket. “Thank you, Jason. I saw that he paid with a card. Could you send me the transaction record from your point-of-sale system?”

“Of course.”

I suppressed a sigh of relief over the favorable conclusion to an interview that had such a rocky start. I wrote my email and cell in my notepad and tore away the page. “Feel free to call me or send me anything else you think might be relevant. You’ve been a big help, Jason.”

I drove to the station and made my way to Diane’s office. “Tricia, I have something for Diane.”

“Go on in, Prax.”

Diane smiled when she saw me and gave me a tight hug. “You look like you are doing better! How is the kidnapper hunt going, Sweetie?”

“Geraldine basically told me to fuck off until I had good news, I just kind of… felt numb after that. No news turned out to be bad news, and I wanted to process it alone.”

She brushed away a curl of my hair. “I am sorry, Sweetie. It is your business why you did not come to me for comfort, but did you by any chance talk to Judy?”

“I wanted to be alone. I didn’t want anyone around feeling bad for me. I didn’t want to be comforted. I just wanted to stare at the TV and drool.”

“We all have our own ways of coping. I hope that you are feeling better after getting some sleep.”

“I’ve been trying since that phone call to convince myself that she hasn’t lost all hope, while simultaneously trying to accept the obvious conclusion that she has—because I’m a cop, and she knows damn well that cops can’t be trusted.”

“You are trustworthy. Someday she will come to realize that, even if that someday is the day you find him.”

“Maybe…” ‹But there’s someone interfering with my search…›

“What is on your mind, Drea?”

I pulled the bird out of my pocket and dangled it by its noose. “There was a present on my welcome mat when I finally got around to leaving my apartment this morning.”

The concern in the wrinkles of her skin doubled, while the concern in her eyes turned into the beginnings of rage. She held out her cupped hand and I let the bird fall into her palm. Fear mixed with fury. “Do you have any idea who would want to do this?”

“James Horton.”

“I’ve never heard of him.”

“CAPS First Precinct, two desks over from me.”

“A pig. Any idea how he found out?”

“He must have seen that I was assigned to Alex’s disappearance in our CaseCloud Team Database.”

“How do you know it’s him?”

“I tracked down the pet shop that sold him the canary, and watched the DVR footage. I have it on DVD…” I showed it to her. “…and I have the credit card transaction record from the payment system in my work inbox.”

“I’ll spin up a CaseCloud vault and add you so you can upload the evidence. I’ll make sure he gets his 3 years for criminal threat.”

“I appreciate you going to bat for me, but… I’m thinking I might also be able to spin an accessory after the fact for Alex’s kidnapping…” A subtle smile reversed her negative demeanor. “…on top of the Section 422 PC.”

“Accessory to kidnapping might be a little bit of a stretch for something so simple as a dead bird… but I think you might be able to use that threat to extract a favorable plea bargain.” She kissed me, and with an affectionate pat on the cheek, ordered, “Get to it, Eupraxia.”

“As you command, Mistress.”

After one last peck of our lips, I went to my desk, uploaded my pictures of the hanged bird, the video of Detective Horton purchasing it, and the point-of-sale transaction record.

About that point-of-sale transaction: the record made no mention of the name of the payer, his billing address, his issuing bank, or his bank account number—only that the payment had been made with a PassPorter contactless credit card with the last four digits ‘7956’. The transaction information had been obscured to the point that I had no straightforward way of proving the purchase was made with Horton’s card. I therefore had no choice but to go straight to his bank to acquire a full record of the incriminating payment.

Which meant I needed a warrant.

I created a new DOCX in the CaseCloud vault, only to be interrupted: my calendar notified me that I was due in Traffic Court at 10. ‹Here we go…› I called Sergeant Matthews and informed him I had a citation to respond to, and he kindly pointed out, “You already called in for the day, and I don’t care what you do with your time. Stop bothering me.” If anything, there was a hint of hostility in his dismissive tone.

I showed the courthouse security people my badge and they let me skip the security line. I joined a crowd waiting outside court room 23, Traffic, and a few minutes later we were shepherded in and seated in the gallery. I was optimistic that my case would be resolved quickly, since I had been blessed with a last name that started with the second letter of the alphabet…

Then the docket for the day popped up on the big monitor in the corner… in reverse alphabetical order. ‹Ah, Christ, fuck me.›

“(Sucks,)” said somebody, quietly.

“Hm?”

“(Waiting.)”

“It is what it is.”

There was no further rapport; I preferred to think about my partners than talk to strangers. Tom came to mind, probably because I hadn’t seen him in a couple of days. I missed him. Nico, too.

I sat through speeding tickets, expired licenses and registrations, vehicles registered for non-op being taken out for a spin, red zone parking, DUIs, expired parking meters, and a dozen other categories of vehicle violations both moving and non-moving. Three hours of that bullshit later, I heard, “City of Santa Virginia versus Andrea Bachman.” I rose and stood at the defense podium and the bailiff approached me. “Raise your right hand. Do you solemnly swear that you will tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?”

“Yes.”

They swore in Samuel Prince next. Judge Frita Mendez asked him, “Officer Prince, pardon me, but I’m having a hard time making out your handwriting, and you neglected to file the ticket electronically. Which section are you accusing Mizz Bachman of violating and which day did it occur?” I resisted the urge to correct her use of ‘Mizz’ instead of ‘Detective’.

“The ticket was issued on the 14th, your Honor. It’s a parking citation.”

“And the charge, Officer?”

“Parking meter racketeering.”

She stared at him over her reading glasses for a solid 5 or so seconds. “My apologies, I think I may have just had a senior moment. Could you repeat the section of the Municipal Code you are alleging was violated?”

“Parking meter racketeering.”

“‘Parking meter… racketeering?’”

“Yes, your Honor.”

“Pray tell me, Officer Prince, is that in the Municipal Code?” she asked, her words sticky with sarcasm.

“N—no, your Honor.”

“What makes you think you can unilaterally legislate for the City of Santa Virginia?”

“She…”

After a few seconds of silence, she told him, “Take as long as you need, Officer, you’re only wasting everybody’s precious time.”

“It’s—it’s a special case.”

The needles in her eyes sharpened. “Please, explain, Officer, what is so special about Mizz Bachman’s actions that you found it appropriate to make up a new law.”

“Y’see, the defendant has organized a crime ring—‍”

“A ‘crime ring’,” she repeated, her impatience not entirely contained within her throat. “And what are you alleging was her organization’s ‘racket’, Officer Prince?”

“The systemic nonconsensual topping off of parking meters on Adams Avenue, in violation of Santa Virginia Municipal Code Chapter Seven Article Four Division Three Section Eighty-Two.”

“That would be conspiracy, not racketeering, a charge which would only be applicable if Section 74.0382 MC was at least a misdemeanor.”

“Can we amend the charges?”

The judge sighed and rubbed her temples, and muttered almost too quietly for me to hear, “Meter maids.” Then, for the whole court to hear, she informed Sam, “Whereas the defendant is being charged with an infraction, therefore there is no requirement for indictment; and whereas this is a ‘critical’ section that the city hasn’t shut up about for as long as it’s been on the books, I have been politely asked by my superiors to invest more of my resources in its prosecution; I will amend these frankly ridiculous charges to something actually on the books—if the defendant consents. Mizz Bachman, would you consent to amending the charge to a single violation of Section 74.0382? If you do not, I will drop your case with prejudice, and you may go home. I should hope that the smart response is obvious.”

“Well, I was in the middle of investigating a possible murder, when I had to come here and wait 3 hours for my name to be called…”

“‘Investigating’? Are you a reporter, Mizz Bachman?”

I retrieved my badge and credential wallet from my left pant pocket and flipped it open. “Detective, SVPD Crimes Against Persons, First Precinct.” Sam’s eyes inflated.

“May I? Bailiff O’Reilly, if you would.” I gave it to the bailiff, who passed it on to the judge who examined it closely, then chuckled silently. “Officer Prince, I would like to compliment you for demonstrating the integrity needed to pursue justice against a fellow officer, and a detective of higher rank, no less. Detective, do you wish to give Officer Prince the opportunity to hold a fellow officer of the law accountable by consenting to amending the charges, or do you believe that doing so would be a complete waste of time?”

I was curious about how this traffic case could play out. “Well… I used to be in Parking Enforcement, so I know what it’s like to witness the injustices perpetrated by fellow officers of the law going unexamined. I worked alongside Officer Prince for 6 years, and I know him to be a man of diligence and sincerity.” He was neither. “It would be a grave insult to his reputation as a peace officer, and to the court he has asked for assistance in seeking justice, if we didn’t amend the charges and see his allegations of wrongdoing through to their just and legal conclusion.”

As I spoke, her face turned to ash and despair. “Are you… absolutely certain that you wish to decline the opportunity to have your case dismissed outright, Detective?”

“Yes, your Honor. This is a serious allegation, deserving serious examination.”

“It is by no means serious, Detective.”

“It’s a conspiracy charge, isn’t it?”

“Not without an indictment. You are facing a single count of violating Section 74.0382 of the Municipal Code.”

“Regardless, I consider this a professional favor to Officer Prince, an honest opportunity to show the world how justice is done.”

She looked at me like I was the stupidest person in the world. Which I was, but I was having fun watching Sam’s jaw drag on the floor, and I wanted to see just how far the judge was willing to go, anticipating the possibility that she might even hold him in contempt… or me. “If you insist, Detective. Officer, do you have any evidence supporting your allegation of violation of Section 74.0382?”

“Yes, your Honor. On the night of Saturday, July the 13th, the defendant was spotted on Adams Avenue in skimpy clothing, cavorting amongst known prostitutes.”

“A detective… ‘cavorting’… with ‘known prostitutes’.” She nodded. “I’ve heard of stranger things. I’ve presided over more extreme and more flagrant corruption.” She faced me. “Detective, whatever your answer is to my next question, I will take you at your word. Is it true that you were ‘cavorting amongst known prostitutes’ last Saturday?”

“He hasn’t specified a time. I would also like to know exactly how well he ‘knows’ these prostitutes.”

She allowed herself a chuckle even as she shook her head and looked to the heavens in frustration. “God save me. Officer, what time did you witness this alleged ‘cavorting’?”

“About 8 o’clock.”

“Detective, were you on that street at 8 o’clock?”

“I was in my apartment, getting ready to have coffee with my girlfriend at 9,” ‹in the morning.›

“You drink coffee at night?”

“I used to work the night shift. Sometimes that meant coffee at night.”

“Alright, that actually makes sense—but I take it you no longer—‍”

“I saw her there,” said Prince. “She was wearing—‍”

She banged her gavel. “Officer, do not interrupt the judge when she is speaking. You already started off on the wrong foot today, so now you’re on paper-thin ice. No more outbursts. That said, I will hear your testimony.”

“She was wearing a black dress.”

“Do you have photographic or video evidence?”

“Yes, your honor.”

“Alright, just… bring them directly to me—Bailiff Watson, let him through. If procedure is the bath water, decorum is the baby. Officer, you are free to approach the judge’s bench, I don’t want to play telephone with the… ‘evidence’.” He pulled a handful of 8-by-10 photographs from his bag and presented them to Judge Mendez, who put on her glasses. “I see.”

“That’s her,” he said, pointing at one of the photos. “In the black dress.”

“Possibly. Detective, you may approach the judge’s bench.” She showed me the first photo, which was more glare than subject. “In your opinion, Detective, does this look like you? With the red hair?”

“It’s hard to tell.” She showed me another, which was even worse. “Hmm. That doesn’t look like my face.” She turned to the next, which was better than the others, but my face was still hard to make out. “It’s still too blurry.” She showed me the next one, which kind of looked like me, but still could just as easily have been someone else. “I dunno. We redheads tend to look a lot alike.”

“No comment. Officer, did you take these?”

“No, your Honor, that would be Officer Damien Firth.”

“Is he available to call as a witness?”

“No, he, ah—elected not to—was busy.”

“So you had another witness you could have called, but were unable to persuade to come to court?”

“Y—yes, your Honor.”

“I… see. Do you have any witnesses who could identify Detective Bachman at the scene?”

“I doubt the prostitutes would be willing to testify against her.”

“Whether they are willing is immaterial. What matters is whether you brought them here today.”

“No… I did not.”

“Tsk tsk tsk. Well, Detective—will you admit that you were there, or do you deny it? I will take you at your word.”

“Could we entertain Officer Prince’s claim without me admitting that I was there? For the sake of giving his case a fair shake.”

She sighed. “Normally, no, I would have simply dismissed the case if you were to deny his claim. However, you are willingly measuring out your rope on his behalf, and I will henceforth cease my efforts to dissuade you from tying it around your own neck.” She pondered for a moment, then said, “You know what? I would like to understand what the original charges stemmed from. Officer, pray tell, what exactly did the detective do… that led you to believe that she was leading a quote-unquote ‘racket’?”

“Well, ma’am—‍”

“‘Your Honor.’”

“Your Honor—‍”

“How long have you been a peace officer? A few months?”

“7 years.”

“And you don’t know how to address a judge.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am, I don’t show up in court very often.”

“You just write tickets and assume they won’t contest them in court.”

“Um. Yes… yes, ma’am. Your Honor.”

She shook her head and sighed. “Try not to forget: ‘Your Honor’. Proceed.”

“First, near the beginning of her assignment as a Parking Enforcement Officer covering Adams Avenue, there was a precipitous…” A very good word to use in a report addressed to police leadership, but judges are generally unimpressed by fancy diction—big words are to persuade the jurors, not the person who hears the lawyers’ eloquence all day, every day. He got the word right, but of course he second guessed himself and gave it another try. “…a precipitous drop in citations since she was first assigned to the area. Second, we noticed that the prostitutes would load the meters whenever she came around on her route. And third, an Internal Affairs investigation discovered that she was loading the meters herself.”

The judge’s head pivoted slowly around to me. “Is this true, Detective?”

“Yes. I violated Section 74.0382 on a few occasions.”

“Off- or on-duty?”

“On, your Honor, in cases where, based on the class and condition of the vehicle, I was concerned the driver might struggle to afford an expired meter fine.”

“As much as I hate to say this, the financial hardship of violators wasn’t material to your application of the law as an officer, Detective. You have just admitted to— Do you understand that you did not need to consent to have the charges amended? That you could have avoided this self-incrimination?”

“Yes, your Honor.”

“Then—for my edification, please, would you explain why you agreed to move forward with this case?”

“Because I was curious.”

“Because you were ‘curious’? Is that a good reason to put your wallet in danger?”

“Also… because I waited 3 hours to have my name called, I wanted to experience some courtroom drama to make up for the boredom.”

She convulsed and covered her mouth, as if to stifle a laugh. She tried not to smile, but I could tell she wanted to. Once the urge had passed, she asked as seriously as she could, “Are you always this self-destructive, Detective?”

“If you knew about the kinds of activities I freely engage in with people I barely know, you would know that the answer is a resounding ‘yes’.”

A few chuckles emerged from the gallery, but not from the judge. She was trying her best to maintain a straight face. “Order. This is not a joke, Detective. I suggest you give me serious answers from now on, unless you want time behind bars. Am I clear?”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

“Now tell me, do you or do you not understand the consequences you are facing?”

“In all seriousness? No. What’s the worst that can happen to me if I’m found guilty on all charges?”

“The charge of conspiracy is nonsensical, but there appears to be a real case against you for violating Section 74.0382 multiple times. That’s a 500 dollar fine per violation.”

“How many times did I violate it?”

“Officer Prince?”

“Um. Your Honor… I don’t… have IA’s report on me, so I don’t know.”

“Detective, do you recall—and are you willing to admit, under oath—how many times you violated Section 74.0382?”

‹10,423.› “Twice.”

“Twice? My impression is that there was a systematic pattern of violations of the section. Are you certain that it was only two times?”

“At least twice… that I can remember. Could be more, but I never made a spreadsheet to keep a tally.”

More laughter from the gallery. “Order. And perhaps not keeping track of your crimes is the smartest thing you’ve done in this case. Officer, outside of the Internal Affairs investigation report, how many times did you witness the defendant violate Municipal Code Section 74.0382?”

“Well, I wasn’t—I didn’t personally witness any acts.”

She sighed. “Of course you didn’t. We have two violations that Detective Bachman is willing to admit to, and the issuing officer is unable to provide a higher number. Detective Andrea Bachman, I have no choice but to find you liable for two counts, and only two counts, of nonconsensual meter payments in violation of Santa Virginia Municipal Code Chapter Seven Article Four Division Three Section Eighty-Two, and thus fine you 1,000 dollars.”

I pulled Saturday’s wad of bribe money from my purse and held it up. “Is cash okay?”

She was amused, but she tried not to show it. “The judge does not accept payments, Detective, you should know that.”

“Of course. That fact slipped my mind.”

“You may leave, Officer Prince. Stay, Detective.” I had a very explainable desire to obey her command and an equally explainable anticipation of her giving me either a treat for being a good girl or a spanking for being a bad one. After Sam had left, she told me, quietly, “What I am about to tell you does not leave this courtroom. Nod if you understand.” I nodded. “I knew this case was going to be bullshit the moment I laid eyes on his chicken scratch. And then I made a mistake: I gave you the choice of whether to give him what he wanted or go on our merry ways, thinking, she’s a detective, she’s gotta be smart, she can take a hint. But you didn’t. Past every exit, you stayed on the highway to Hell. And then… I understood what was going on. I relaxed. I played along. I enjoyed myself. For the first time since I saw fireworks on the Fourth, I felt a smile coming on. I felt like I was watching two clowns taking turns kicking each other in the groin. This case… was a nice breather. I’m actually glad you two screwed around today and showed everyone just how stupid cops can be.”

“I’d say Parking Enforcement is the bottom of the barrel, but it isn’t. It’s the shit someone put the barrel on top of to cover the smell.”

She clapped her hand over her mouth, but a little hint of a laugh escaped. “That’s true. But I’ve seen some real numbskulls. Narcotics in particular.”

“They can be pretty dumb. But we both know the real nincompoops come out of Crimes Against Persons.”

She allowed herself a little chuckle. “All that said… come a little closer.” I got as close as I could. She whispered, “Detective Bachman, if you show your face in my courtroom and waste even a second of my time again, I will find you in contempt. Next time I make you an offer to have a bullshit case against you dismissed, are you gonna take it?”

I was shocked by her sudden change in attitude, and a little turned on by her aggression. I looked for a wedding ring, and didn’t see one. “I value our time together far too much to waste it… Judge.”

She raised an eyebrow. “‘Judge’? How close do you think we are?”

“Not as close as we could be.”

“Detective, are you the kind of woman who might play roller derby?”

“If you enjoy watching sweaty fat girls being rough with other sweaty women, I’ll buy myself a pair of skates and learn the game.”

She shrugged. “I could see you wearing a star on your helmet.”

“I don’t understand the significance of the star, but as long as you’re having a good time while you’re cheering for me from the stands, I’ll wear anything you want me to wear.”

She smirked as her eyes dwelled on mine. “I’m waiving your fine because I hate this stupid regulation. And I had fun, so I’ve decided you can have a minor favor at a later date. Go.”

I pulled out my notepad and quickly scribbled my number. “Thank you, Miss Mendez.” I tore off the sheet and plopped it down on her stand. “Keep in touch.” And with a parting wink, I left her smiling.

Outside the courthouse I brought my phone back to life to find a message in my inbox:

Mistress

if you require the assistance of a judge, I suggest Edgar Juarez.

I thanked Diane and let her know about the arrest I had planned for later, then went back to my desk, whipped up an affidavit summarizing Horton’s crime, and made my way back to the courthouse. I informed Judge Juarez’s assistant that “I have an affidavit.”

“Arrest or search?”

“Both.”

“Is there a reason you didn’t submit it electronically?”

“I was… not told I could do that.”

“Export to PDF, sign digitally, submit to the Santa Virginia Court Order Request System, and one of our judges will get it back to you in 30 minutes. You can even do it from your phone if you have the patience to type everything out with your thumbs.”

“Oh. Okay.” ‹Well, damn. I already do everything else from my phone, what’s one more convenient way to bind myself ever tighter to its all-knowing power?› “I’ll remember that for next time. (Hm…) since I’m already here, can I still submit in person?”

“Yes, can I see some creds?”

“Sure.” I showed them.

“One moment.” They picked up their desk phone headset. “Judge, there’s a Detective Andrea Bachman, SVPD CAPU, here in person with an affidavit for you. — Yes, apparently she didn’t know. — I was a little confused, myself. — On it, Judge.” They hung up. “May I?” I handed over the affidavit and they got to typing, then stopped and stared at me. “James Horton?”

“Yes.”

“Detective James Horton.”

“The same.”

They shrugged. “Alright…” They continued typing and clicked their mouse a few times and scanned my affidavit through a very compact desk scanner that I coveted upon sight. “The judge isn’t busy, he’ll see you right away.”

I entered the judge’s chambers to find him reading a cooking magazine. Judge Juarez, early 60s, white hair, navy suit, put the magazine down when he heard me, brought his head up 6′2″ into the clouds, and extended his hand; I shook it and we took our seats. “Detective Bachman, it’s not every day I have the privilege of conducting my business face-to-face. Do you consider yourself old-fashioned?”

“In some ways—I still memorize phone numbers.”

He chuckled. “I don’t know how I survived my first 5 decades on this Earth without my phone remembering everything for me.” His decades had been kind to his face; he was no Peter Falk, but I would have to admit that his wrinkles were handsome. “First order of business, your creds.” He looked over them briefly with a pair of stately reading glasses. ‹Flirt with two judges in one day? Maybe.› “Alright, those are copacetic. Let me bring up the affidavit.” He finger-poked his password on the keyboard and clicked around. “Are you new to CAPU? I haven’t seen your face ’round these parts.”

“Yes, your Honor.”

“First case?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re getting an arrest warrant. If I have you one by the time you’re done talking to me, that would be a good sign you’ve been doing your job right as a detective. Alright, paperwork, paperwork…” He double-clicked. “There it is. Let’s see here… a 7460 and an arrest for… one conspiracy to kidnap resulting in an injury, after the fact… one conspiracy to falsely imprison, also after the fact… and a criminal threat… paired with a threat against a public official, and our perp is James Horton.” He glanced up from his screen as he recalled, “There is a Detective James Horton at the city PD, First Precinct CAP Squad, if I recall. Hmm… Sure enough, you listed the First Precinct as the premises. That is verrrry concerning.” He chewed on one arm of his reading glasses as he stared me down.

“I’m shocked.”

He eyed me all the more critically. “This warrant isn’t some practical joke or revenge… is it?”

“I barely know the guy.”

He nodded, but he was still looking at me with discomforting suspicion.

“I’ve never talked to him longer than it takes for one of us to say, ‘Hello,’ and the other to ignore them. Neither of us has any history of interpersonal conflict. This threat came as a complete surprise to me.”

“Right… Let’s see the affidavit.” He double-clicked, hummed to himself, muttered little fragments of sentences, and ‘huh’ed several times as he read it. “I’d prefer to see this surveillance video and this dead bird with my own two eyes… but that isn’t necessary for issuing warrants; the higher ups want me to just take you blue bloods at your word.”

I pulled the bird from my pocket and gingerly placed it on his desk.

He stared at it for a moment, then picked it up, held it in his palm wordlessly for another moment longer, then passed it back. Once it was back in my pocket, he ordered, soberly, “Raise your right hand.” I did. “Do you swear that the affidavit you are submitting to me, Judge Edgar Juarez, is factual, that you have not knowingly or intentionally made any false statements, and that you have not made any statements in reckless disregard for the truth?”

“I swear.”

He handed me a pen, I signed my affidavit and passed it back, he stamped it and scanned it; then printed out two pages, signed and scanned those, then handed them to me: my warrants. “For your sake, Detective, and for the welfare of your loved ones, I hope you have at least a tiny fraction of an idea of what’s going to ensue once you pierce the blue shield. Especially over a missing antifa—that’s high treason as far as your brethren are concerned. Giving this detective what he’s earned…” He pulled a lollipop from a jar on his desk and got to peeling the wrapper. “…is a problematic goal. Don’t ever take your piece off. Not when you’re off duty, not when you’re sleeping, not when you’re showering, not when you’re making love. If you can get a ballistic vest—and you should—you must wear it at all times, too.”

“As you are already aware, I’ve already received my first threat,” I said with a smug smile.

He finished unwrapping the lollipop and started sucking on it. “You did a good job tracking down your man’s avian purchase, but that isn’t enough to give you the right to smirk about the situation you’re putting yourself into.” I wiped said smirk from my face. “You’re lucky I’m not into the whole blue brotherhood thing, or I’d’ve laughed you out of here. And maybe blacklisted you. Assuming you survive this case, if you ever need to catch another officer, you bring the affidavit to me, or to Judge Ashley Kirkland, or to Judge Frita Mendez. A few of the other judges can be trusted half the time to deliver, but most of them are either ex-police leadership or ex-DA jackasses who drank the blue Kool-Aid decades ago and will bury your case before it can see a prelim.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. Thank you, your Honor.”

“Tell me, Detective: do you think Horton is the worst apple in the department’s bunch?”

“Only the worst at not getting caught.”

He chuckled exactly once. “Either you learned that from observation or someone else’s advice—or you were smart enough to figure out the answer based on the fact I even asked the question at all. The latter is cleverness, which has the potential to get you outta danger. The former is wisdom, which will keep you out of danger altogether.” He pulled out the sucker and pointed it at me. “It’s a helluva lot better to be wise than it is to be clever. Capisce?”

“Perfectly, Judge.”

“Wisdom or cleverness, your answer was correctamundo. The worst of the bunch know how to avoid getting caught, and how to silence the people who catch them in spite of their efforts. Take a lollipop and watch your back.” He resumed sucking.

“Thank you, Your Honor.”

The lollipop was delicious—lemon, my new favorite—and the drive back to the station was uneventful, except for the quiet plea emanating from the passenger seat: “(Don’t do this.)”

“I’m doing my job.”

“(I don’t want them to hurt you.)”

“I’ll be fine. I’ll have my gun on me. I’m a quick draw and a good shot, you made sure of that.”

“(They’ll shoot you or hang you or—)”

“They won’t go that far.”

“(The judge thinks otherwise.)”

“I’ll get a vest.”

“(A vest won’t keep them from bruising and breaking your bones or hitting you with a car or dragging you behind one.)”

“I’ll be fine,” I insisted—perhaps a little too forcefully because the voice didn’t reply.

I stopped by the armory to grab a pair of handcuffs and swap my badge into a necklace. “Okay Andrea. Just like in Academy. Remember to read him his rights. For God’s sake, do not forget Ol’ Miranda.” I steeled myself for whatever may come. I found Detective James Horton at his desk in the CAP squad room. I tapped his shoulder.

“What’s up?” he asked in a friendly tone before swiveling around and seeing who it was.

“James.”

“Ugh. What do you want, Ronald McDonald?”

I handed him the warrant. He chewed his cheek as he read, then his eyebrows quickly popped and just as quickly fell, squinting his eyes. “Did you really get one of these for me?”

I nodded.

“What are you gonna do, arrest me?” A couple of heads turned in confusion.

“Yep. And you’re gonna comply.”

He stood to tower over me menacingly as he asked, “And then what are you gonna do?” Several more heads swiveled our way.

“Read you your rights. Then I’ll have you booked and arraigned.”

He nodded slowly. “I had nothing to do with anything alleged in that warrant.”

“I’m sure the jury will believe you once they’ve seen the evidence.”

“Whatever.”

“You have the right to remain silent…” He let me cuff him, and I informed him of his rights. As we departed for Booking, every eye in that squad room stared at us in either disbelief, shock, or horror; a few pairs had something else in them, though—something that looked like fury.

I supervised the officer who rolled his fingers on a tenprint scanner while the other officers stole offended glances at me. I was making waves. I was doing my job right.

I felt a tap on my shoulder. Behind me was a fresh acquaintance, 5′6″; a soul exuding ‘late 40s’ but a body clinging securely to youth; luscious curly brown locks; a power suit that would intimidate even those braver than the troops, with a crisp shirt yellow as the waist of a wasp; and a smile both soft as marshmallow and sharp as obsidian. They offered a hand, and I accepted it. “Detective Bachman, I presume.” They squeezed—very firmly.

I cinched my fingers tightly around theirs. “Yes. I am afraid you have me at a disadvantage.”

“Indeed, that appears to be the case. Eileen Nuñez.” Our fingers dug into each other’s palms. “Your Deputy District Attorney for the Alexander Brookvale kidnapping.” Our otherwise professional handshake veered into arm-wrestling territory.

I smirked. “Charmed.” Bones flexed and joints popped.

She sneered. “I bet you are.” Our arms trembled as our muscles strained. My smirk evaporated. My flesh bruised and the pain of her crushing my hand began to get to me when, mercifully, she suddenly (but gracefully) withdrew. Our arms fell to our sides, two dueling lawmen with twelve empty chambers and a hole in my hat. We curled our crumpled fingers into fists in unison, then shook out our aches. Her smile reappeared—this time with one cheek pinched in approval—as she pulled me aside from the booking area. “I will be handling all of your cases personally, Detective, on the recommendation of your superior.” Matthews picked her? She brought her mouth to my ear and whispered, “Mistress Moneta and I are ‘special pals’.”

Dazed by the blast of sound that had just pierced my eardrum and skewered my mind, I replied, “(Hah…) Oh… Great… (Hah… Um.) As you may have noticed, our suspect is ready to be sent to the holding cells, but with you here we can move onto the fun part.”

“Yes. We shall begin immediately. I would like to extract from him whatever I can before his lawyer gets here and shuts him up. I have been informed that you are a reasonable woman, and I loathe playing the bad cop, so if you do not mind, I will be the good cop.”

I closed my eyes. “You’re making me play the asshole.”

“Yes.”

“Because you don’t like to be mean, or because you think I’m naturally uncivilized?”

“Oh, I love being mean…”

“Alright. You’ve only just met me and you’re already assuming I’m a bitch.”

“…but I don’t get many chances to be sweet.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“For reasons I would rather not discuss, I have been assigned the part of government prosecutor, a convert to a creed wholly contrary to my values.”

“If you’re not gonna be able to—‍”

“I am perfectly capable of doing the job assigned to me, Detective. I am simply unaccustomed to manipulating or hurting people on the receiving end of the law, and I would prefer not to make doing either a habit.”

“Oh my God, I’m fucked.”

“Pardon?”

“Nothing. You better be a damn fine good cop.”

“I am the nicest cop you will ever meet.”

I found an interview room for us and ordered an officer to fetch Horton. He acted chill as he took his seat.

“Hello again, James,” I began.

“I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“We all know you did. If you continue to underestimate me, your efforts will pay off eventually. Do you know why you’re here?”

“You hate me.”

I pulled the dead bird from my pocket and dangled it in front of him, but he acted like it was nothing—while Nuñez feigned horror. “No, Jimmy. You’re here because you hate me. Or, more accurately, you hate Alex Brookvale so much that you would threaten my life to discourage me from looking for him.”

“I didn’t ‘threaten your life’, and I didn’t aid or abet any kidnapping.”

“If this isn’t a threat, what is it?”

“A dead bird you found… somewhere.”

Nuñez scratched her chin. “He has a point, Detective Bachman. It looks like any old dead bird to me. My cat brings me a dead bird once or twice a week. How do you know that a cat has not bonded with you without your knowledge?”

“Do cats wrap nooses around their victims’ necks?”

“Oh, I thought that was a twig. Oh, my. Detective Horton, can you think of an explanation for this?”

“It’s a stupid bird. It probably got its head caught in the string and fell onto your balcony after it died.”

“A bird not native to this area hanged itself on my roof, died, then wandered over the edge and fell onto my welcome mat.”

“Sure.”

“I’m not dignifying such baloney with analysis. This was a message. A jury is going to look at this and know instantly that the message was ‘proceed at your own peril’. Only a guilty man would deny the only reasonable interpretation. Which tells me you’re quite aware I have proof that you’re the one who left it on my doorstep.”

He looked at the bird, then at me. “I didn’t put it there.”

“If it wasn’t you, then who?”

He shrugged. “I dunno. Not my job to find out.”

“That is true, Bachman,” interjected Nuñez. “You are slinging around a lot of accusations without any evidence to back them up.”

“I have evidence.”

“I am certain Detective Horton would like to see this evidence with his own eyes, so that he has a chance to refute it—wouldn’t you, Detective?”

“I’d love to see it,” he replied.

With my phone I showed him the surveillance footage of him buying the bird. He reacted visibly—then, as soon as he caught himself, said, “That ain’t me.”

“I believe him,” said Nuñez. “You’re wasting his time. We should let him go, Detective.”

I closed the video and tabbed over to the card processor’s transaction record and showed him that. “That’s your credit card.” I had not verified that it was in fact his card, because I had yet to extract the identity of the purchaser from the obfuscated transaction record, and I had neglected to search his bank records before proceeding with the arrest, so I was sort of… bluffing. “You bought a red canary on Wednesday the 17th at 4:23 PM. In this surveillance footage, you dial your pin… at 4:23 PM. The customer in that video is you, James. There is less than a shadow of a doubt. A fair jury would convict you on these three pieces of evidence alone. You are screwed, Jimmy. Royally screwed. And I’m just getting started.”

He looked like he was finally beginning to understand his situation.

“Miss Bachman!” exclaimed Nuñez (softly) with pretend outrage. “I expected a little more civility from a woman with your reputation—especially towards a fellow officer of the law.”

“‘Civility’? What kind of civility was he showing me when he left a dead bird with a noose around its neck on my doorstep?”

She shook her head. “Please. Be a little more polite.”

“No. By threatening me,” I told him, “by interfering in my investigation, you have aided and abetted a kidnapping, which has a significant chance of turning into first degree murder. You are a CAP Detective, Jimmy. You know how this kind of thing goes down. You can do the math.”

He whispered, almost inaudibly, “(Fuck.)”

“You’re rotting behind bars for a long time, old timer.”

“Unless,” interjected Nuñez slyly, “we work out something that works for you, Sergeant.”

“I want to see him rot, Lawyer Lady.”

“Well, I do not, Detective. James, would you like for us to come up with charges that are more to your advantage?”

“Maybe,” he admitted, fully succumbing to the same ineffective interrogation technique he had utilized himself more times than I ever would—and to a pair of novices, no less.

“Fine,” I relented. “But there are two things I want to know.”

“What do you—‍” he began to ask in a desperate rush before slowing down, “—want… to… know?”

“Everything you know, starting with whatever you know about the kidnapping, proceeding to who told you where I lived, and finishing with whether they knew what you were going to do with that information.”

“What’s in it for me?” He held back desperation.

Nuñez proposed, “Your sentence is reduced to California Penal Code Section 422, criminal threat, 3 years; and Penal Code Section 71, threatening a public officer, 1 year; to be served consecutively.”

Her offer didn’t satisfy me, so before he could respond I spiced it up: “And accessory to a 207 kidnapping, 8 years—even if it ends up being a murder.”

Nuñez cleared her throat. “But we might be willing to go lower than that, if you’re willing to help us.”

“Yeah?” he asked, his eyes glistening with anxiety.

“We recognize the possibility that you may not have been aware this was a kidnapping,” she admitted. “If you promise to help us in any way we ask, we will drop the kidnapping charge altogether.”

“So… I got a choice between 12 years or 4.”

Nuñez gently kicked my ankle. “Somebody decided to ‘practice their dentistry’ on Mister Brookvale,” I explained. “Tell me, Jimmy—if a kidnapper pulls one of their victim’s teeth during their captivity, is a 207 still a 207?”

“It would probably be charged as a 209.”

“The max for a 207 is 8 years. How long is a 209?”

“It’s… life.”

“Would you agree 4 years is a helluva lot better than ‘until you die’?”

He considered his only real option for a solid 2½ minutes, but eventually resigned. “Okay. Show me the bargain.” She removed another sheet from her briefcase and I grabbed a pen from my purse and we placed the two of them in front of him. He read his ticket to delayed freedom carefully, signed it, and said, “I don’t know who has him.”

“Thanks, that was real helpful,” I scoffed. “Who gave you my address?”

“Matthews.”

“Why did he share it with you?”

“Because I asked.”

“You didn’t establish a need to know?”

“I just asked.”

“Did he know what you had planned?”

“I dunno.”

“Part of the deal was you tell me whether Matthews knew what you were up to.”

“Well, I can’t know what he knows. Only he can.”

“Then tell me what you told him you were going to do with it, or I tear this up.”

Nuñez cleared her throat again. “And then we’ll get you a new one with the same things written on it, but in a prettier font.”

“I told him I was gonna give you a surprise.”

“Thank you.” I fetched his escort; as they left, I told him, “Enjoy your stay at Centinela State Spa and Resort.”

“Fuck you, too, Fire Crotch.”

“Take care,” concluded Nuñez.

Once Horton was out of the room, I admitted, “That went well.”

She sighed. “Detective, I would like to have a word with you.”

“About what?”

“Let us have our discussion somewhere that does not have a pane of glass someone can eavesdrop from behind.”

We found a single occupancy bathroom. “So, what did you want to talk about?”

“What you just did.”

Tzedek

Content Warning:
Discussion of Injustices
of the Criminal Justice System

With well-composed fury she explained, “I realize that you are thirsty for blood given Alex’s dire situation, Detective… but I need to know what it is you are trying to accomplish by stretching Horton’s sentence so far into the future that it is ready to snap.”

“He tried to help the kidnappers by impeding my investigation.”

“Did you take his threat seriously for even a second?”

“No,” I lied.

“Even the 4 years we gave him is too much in my opinion, but I did not wish to risk insulting you, the victim, by being too lenient.”

“He deserves exactly what I offered.”

“All Cops Are Bastards, and that man in particular is garbage, no argument. But the deal you gave Horton has me fearing what you have planned for the actual kidnappers.” When after too many seconds I failed to tell her what I had planned for them, she said, “But as much as I fear it, I must know. When the time comes to arrest the rest of the ne’er-do-wells, what kinds of bargains will you try to extort from them?”

“None. I’ll force them to go to trial.”

“Why would you do that? A plea bargain is a safer bet; minimum sentences are already grotesquely disproportionate to the impact of their corresponding crimes. The system is designed to force the accused into accepting bargains as a rule.”

“The unfairness of the system is immaterial to my decision, the kidnappers deserve life.”

“Their lives seem like a lot to take from them if they have taken only a finite portion of one man’s life, don’t you think?”

“‘Finite portion’? We don’t even know whether Alex is still alive! As for your ‘one man’s life’, the bastards who took him have traumatized his loved ones, robbed his comrades of a powerful ally, deprived countless vulnerable people of a hero, and demoralized the communities and movements to whom he has given hope. Whoever took him hurt many people’s lives and deserves the worst punishment on the books.”

She sighed, shook her head, and exhaled a single, extended, disappointed stream of air. “Detective. The first step towards a favorable outcome for the prosecution is securing a bargain as soon as the defendant signals that they are amenable to negotiations. We are at our most powerful now, before we arrive at the preliminary hearing. The best possible outcome for the prosecution is the judge sealing the deal at pre-trial, negating the need for a trial altogether. Sending it to a jury, I should not need to tell you, takes time and resources and gives the evildoers an opportunity to get away scot-free.”

“The kidnappers won’t be getting away ‘scot-free’. Diane trusts you to do a good job in court, so I do, too.”

“Do you trust the judge? The jurors? Your witnesses?”

“The judge…” You can probably tell by now that I hadn’t thought that far ahead—Diane was right to tell me I wasn’t a good detective.

“You are no longer inspiring confidence within me, Detective.”

I winced. “We have a solid case for Horton, so even if the plea bargain falls through, we still have him dead to rights for accessory to kidnapping—will you at least admit that?”

She pondered the question for a disconcerting length of time before admitting, “Other than the fact we have neither Alex nor his corpse to testify for us at the moment—sure, for however long it takes for the wills of the jury to melt in a poorly air-conditioned courtroom in late July.”

“And… and wouldn’t you say that its solidity is the most important factor in predicting success?”

She shook-nodded dubiously. “If our judge is honest and fair and competent, and the jury isn’t biased or tampered with, and the witnesses are respectable and compliant, if his counsel doesn’t manage to get any of our evidence thrown out in pretrial for being warrantless… then the persuasiveness of the case is a modestly effective predictor of success.” I nodded, satisfied. “But if you have a judge with blue blood, Horton might not look so guilty; and as for the actual kidnappers: if one of our witnesses ‘disappears’, or is intimidated into silence, or turns out to have ‘bad character’—cough, cough, gets paid for sex—or if we have a single bad juror; or if any of your evidence was hearsay or acquired in violation of the Fourth… you can show the jury absolute proof, but in the end he will walk out of that courtroom unshackled.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. ‘Oh’ is right. But do not dwell on it. We were able to secure a bargain, and we may yet persuade the real kidnappers to sign their own, so you have not seriously screwed anything up. Yet.”

“Okay. For the rest of this case and every case that follows… I’ll let you make all the big decisions.”

“Assuming I accept any more cases for you.”

“If you do a good job, Diane will insist that you take it on.”

She sniffed through a smirk. “Then there is a perverse incentive for me to fail as miserably as I can.”

“Do you already hate working with me?”

She patted me on the shoulder. “Are you sure you want to know?”

“I’m assuming the answer is ‘yes’, so I’ll change my question to ‘How much do you hate me?’ I need to know if we’re actually capable of cooperation or if you were just going easy on me earlier.”

She leaned against the paper towel dispenser. With her biggest smile, she reminded me with measured deliberation and forceful enunciation, “Detective Bachman: you… are a cop.” Every nuance—bold or fine—in every thought of hers—conscious or subliminal—concerning police officers was made flawlessly clear in her enunciation of the word ‘cop’. “I am an attorney who specializes in civil rights violations, by cops… like you.”

“Or like Diane,” I riposted.

“Diane has deliberately decided to put as few people in jail as she can get away with and allow the few she is forced to catch to go free without punishment at her earliest opportunity; she has secured not even a single conviction, neither by her own hands nor by any of her subordinates… in her entire career. You went in person to the judge to get your warrant, having spent your day off investigating instead of recuperating; you arrested Horton yourself; and you wanted me to put him behind bars for an excessive length of time. Your aims diverge from hers.”

“But she supports my decisions.”

“Which—‍” She allowed a little frustration to dribble out. “—boggles my mind. I have been transplanted—without anesthetic or antiseptic or antirejection medication—into the DA’s office and given a badge without any training, like Dorothy being given silver shoes without a good witch to guide her through this depraved permutation of Oz. This was the punishment inflicted upon me by Diane.”

“Punishment for what?”

“Things I will not explain to you because it is our business, not yours.”

“Whatever. I don’t know how to feel about being on my girlfriend’s other submissive’s shit list. I wish she hadn’t told you anything about me.”

“I am her lawyer. I have a need to know about her indiscretions. She could be fined for quid pro quo and be liable for a God-awful sum in damages if any of you decide to exercise your legal and human rights—enough to have a significant impact on her finances. Not to mention—it is simply unethical, and unbecoming of someone who believes in the inviolable right to control one’s own body to engage in these exchanges of power and liberty. I’ve told her she’s a fool and a hypocrite, but she insists on playing the sexual harassment lottery. Nobody tells Moneta, Teacher of a Hundred Naughty Subs, what she can and cannot do.”

After an awkward moment, I admitted, “I hadn’t considered her net worth until you brought up damages. How much does she make?”

“Attorney-client privilege.”

“Aww. Guess I’ll have to ask her myself. You sure you don’t feel like dishing on how you pissed her off?”

She smirked. “Why? Are you in need of inspiration?”

“Sure. What if I share my own naughtiness? We could trade stories.”

She shook her head and zipped her lips.

“I’ll tell you anyway, because you might find it amusing and thus like me more than the big steaming dog shit you stepped in right before meeting me.”

“I won’t stop you from trying to endear yourself to someone whose mind has been permanently concluded since she first heard about Diane’s new pet who wanted to be a cop and really wants to fight crime.”

“I bit her on the neck.”

She was caught off guard; unable to hold back the laugh forcing its way out of her throat, she resorted to covering her mouth to suppress it. “(Hmh!) Oh my God.”

“To mark her as mine.”

She cackled. “You are insane!”

“She took away my ears and tail. Absolutely devastated me, and she warned me of some additional, vague punishment to come at an undefined date.”

“I’ll be damned… I’ll be damned. What could she have in mind for you? Something horrible, no doubt, if you displayed such insubordination.” She sighed. “Something that will be difficult to one-up.” She removed a card from her jacket and offered it. “Until I hatch a plan to piss her off, I have work to do.” I accepted the business card, which simply listed her name and number. “I will be off.”

“Nice chatting with you, Eileen.”

She waved as she left.

“Tough crowd,” observed a voice once Eileen was gone.

“Huh?” I looked around for the source of the utterance.

“She’s got a point though.”

“Where…?”

“The kind of consequences you want… you really think they’re fair?”

“Christ, I’m hallucinating. Fuck.”

“You don’t recognize your old Ma’s voice?”

The reminder that she was always there for me shot from my heart up into my brain, and her sudden appearance startled me. “Ah!”

“What’s up with the spooking, did ya forget I exist or something?”

“Um. I don’t… know, I just… haven’t seen or heard from you in a while.”

“It’s getting harder to get through to you nowadays.”

“Why’s that?”

“The same reason any parent loses touch with their adult child. You don’t need me anymore—most of the time.”

“I’ll always need you.”

She shook her head. “You don’t. It’s a fact of life, it’s a part of growing up and becoming an adult. You spend so much time with your parents as a kid that whenever you get an opportunity to be away from them, you make the best of it—and when those opportunities eventually grow so close together that they become one, long, uninterrupted opportunity extending to the grave… you never see them again.”

“Don’t say that. I want to see you every day.”

“When? You spend every waking moment with your girlfriends.”

“I’ve had plenty of moments here and there for you to visit.”

“You’ve been so invested in your girlfriends and sleepovers and kidnapping that you never think about me, never call out to me anymore.”

“I’ve called out before and you didn’t show up.”

“Maybe because I wasn’t the person you actually needed. You call out for me sometimes, but the loved ones you really need are your girlfriends. So I can’t show my face.”

“How do I get you to visit?”

“Maybe… do things that remind you of me. Things we did together.”

“I’ll watch more mystery movies—without my girlfriends, so there’s room for you on the couch.”

“That… might work.”

“So… Why did you come to me now?”

“To help.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re bloodthirsty.”

“What the hell makes you think I’m ‘bloodthirsty’?”

“You want to destroy the culprits’ lives, not serve justice.”

“Of course I want justice! Justice is all I want!”

“Alright. Tell me: what is justice?”

“Justice is people getting what they deserve. Good people getting good things, bad people getting bad things.”

The voice sighed. “I can’t believe I’m doing this, but you’re not gonna see clearly until I blow your mind with wisdom. There’s a saying I want you to know: ‘Tzedek, tzedek tirduf.’”

“This… is a surprise. You never talk to me about Yiddish. Every time I ask about it you act like I’ve just spit in your face. Except for this Monday night, but then you were kind of a bitch about it.”

“Right. I was. I’m sorry, and I wanna make things right between us and do better from now on by teaching you all about this stuff. Anyways, it isn’t Yiddish, it’s Hebrew. It’s usually translated as Justice, justice you shall pursue.”

“Is it a common phrase?”

“It’s from Parshe Shoftim of Devarim—for gentiles that would be the reading portion of Judges in Deuteronomy—chapter 16, verse 20. These 3 words are thousands of years old, and are part of the foundation of one of the world’s oldest and most-debated systems of ethics and justice.”

“Why are you suddenly okay with talking about this? You never talk about the Old Testament with me, it’s even more taboo than Yiddish.”

“It’s called the Torah, emphasis on the second syllable—only Christians call it the Old Testament. I’m teaching you now because that lawyer’s words made you doubt yourself, caused you to realize that you’re lost, and I owe it to you to help you find your way. Because I never showed you the way. But now I share these ancient words with you, words that have chased me no matter how far I run from the faith of our mothers: Justice, justice you shall pursue. In your crusade for Brookvale, have you done anything that you believed was not in line with your understanding of justice?”

“Well… I tried to avoid becoming a cop, but that didn’t last very long.”

“And what about the plea deal?”

“I think Horton deserves worse. He tried to get in the way of my attempt to rescue Alex. He was in league with the kidnappers.”

“Okay. Let’s stick a pin in that and address the cop thing first. Here’s my understanding of your thought process: becoming a cop was the lesser of two evils in a matter of life and death—you could either become a cop and save a man’s life, or let the cops bury the case and let him die. At least in the first course of action the victim stands a chance. Is that an accurate summary?”

“That was my reasoning to a T.”

“So would you say that becoming a cop was the just course of action, even if it wasn’t ideal?”

“Hmm. I… guess. Yes.”

“And has your goal always been to achieve a just outcome, no less?”

“Justice has always been my goal.”

“And did you try to show fairness to this Horton guy, or were you cruel?”

“I think I was fair, but I, um… was… a little harsh, according to Eileen.”

“Somebody took a man away from his loved ones and away from the people who look to him for the right path in life—and for all we know, they took not just his body, but his life. And Horton tried to help them.”

“Yeah. Exactly. He was an accessory.”

“But he doesn’t know where Brookvale is.”

“That doesn’t matter. He tried to help the kidnappers get away with their crime.”

“Did he succeed?”

“No.”

“Then what harm has he caused?”

I shrugged. “He scared me and he killed a bird.”

“Do those sins warrant taking him away from his loved ones for the rest of his life?”

“Well…”

“If the bird thing had been a practical joke, would you have bothered arresting him?”

“I, uh… probably would have told him to grow up.”

“And then let him go.”

“Um. Yeah.”

“Putting him in jail won’t make Alex magically reappear, it just takes Horton away from his family, depriving them of a husband and a father and a breadwinner—a triple hardship. Is that fair to his loved ones?”

“Oh. No. It isn’t.”

“It’s one thing to save a man from a kidnapping. But is putting a man in prison truly an act of justice?”

“Well… I can’t say ‘yes’ following that logic. Locking someone up doesn’t really accomplish anything positive.”

“Does prison change people? At all?”

“Maybe some people, but… a lot of people, it does nothing. Reconviction rates in the state have gone down in recent years, but as of 2020 they were still at 39 percent. And… even the people who learn their lessons… their lives and their families’ lives are destroyed.”

“Do you really want to destroy that man’s life?”

I sighed and shook my head. “No… Not anymore. But, if not jail, what punishment does he deserve?”

“Maybe justice isn’t about punishment.”

“Okay. If not punishment, what is justice about?”

“I feel like I fell short, back when you first started getting into police stuff, by not teaching you about this… and many other things. Righteousness, to be clear, is a better translation than ‘justice’. ‘Tzedek, tzedek’—Righteousness, righteousness, spoken twice to emphasize how critical it is, but also to emphasize that there are two aspects to its pursuit. You must take to heart the fact that tzedek is more than merely enforcing rules and punishing rule-breakers—in fact, punishment and retribution are only small slices of the pie. Beyond correcting and punishing antisocial behavior, tzedek is vastly more concerned with acts of compassion—giving money to those in need, protecting vulnerable people like orphans and widows and migrants, clothing the naked, feeding the penniless, assisting the abused, sheltering the homeless, paying fair wages, that kinda stuff. Mending wounds, if you will. Tzedek is the righting of wrongs in all senses.”

“Okay. So… how do we right our wrongs for all the people we’ve sent to prison?”

“T’shuvah. In English we say ‘repentance’, but the word literally translates to ‘return’, as in ‘return to the righteous path’. Realize what you have done wrong, regret what you have done wrong, confess what you have done wrong, resolve never to do it again, mend the wound as best you can, and ask for forgiveness.”

“So… society needs to figure out that the justice system is hurting people needlessly, and then… make it up to them.”

“In summary.”

“That’s just apologizing.”

“You can apologize without understanding what you did wrong, and without making amends. You can even apologize without confessing your wrongdoing, if you word it carefully—or carelessly. Most importantly, an apology isn’t a guarantee that you’ll never do it again. You need to own your mistakes in all respects.”

“I do that all the time.”

“How often, after you apologize for a mistake, do you make the same mistake the next day?”

“I don’t…”

“Be honest.”

I sighed. “I’ve… apologized a lot at work for not doing a good job, and then… I continue not doing a good job.”

“Unions organize those kinds of ‘mistakes’ all the time. It’s protest. That’s good work.”

“Oh. Well. Okay. Then I’m okay.”

“How about alcohol?”

“I’m sober again. I’ve confessed that I need to avoid it, and I’ve decided to never drink again.”

“Except, can you say that you’ve truly repented if you haven’t had the opportunity to turn it down since your confession?”

“There was alcohol at the orgy, and I didn’t touch it.”

“…‘Orgy’?”

“Yes, me and my 5 girlfriends.”

“Alright. Okay. My baby is going to orgies.”

“Hosting them.”

She nodded, and after a few seconds of silence, continued, “Anyway… you’ve done t’shuvah, Esti. You are a ba’alat t’shuvah, a master of return, when it comes to alcohol. As for being a cop, I don’t think you were a bad cop. If anything, you were a good cop. Never arrested anyone you didn’t believe was guilty—which was nobody—you never ratted anyone out, you filled the expired meters instead of writing parking tickets. But now you’re taking being a good cop to the next level. You’re showing people that you aren’t gonna abuse your police powers. You’re actively helping people instead of passively avoiding hurting them. You’re helping the people that cops usually hurt, and you’re helping them even though it’s gonna make your fellow cops mad. That’s returning to the righteous path.” She wrapped her arms around me. “You’re on the path, Esti. Try your hardest not to stray, but if you do, know that it’s never too late to return again. The gates of repentance are always open, even to your dying breath.”

“Thank you.” I squeezed thin air.

I sat on the toilet and mulled over her words. Once I had recovered from the unexpected but welcome Hebrew lesson, I called Diane and told her, “I have Horton.”

“Good.” Then gently she commanded, “Go home, Sweetie. You will need the rest for the coming days.”

So I did; but before I unlocked my door, I knocked on Judy’s, and she answered with a hug, a smile, and a brief kiss. We sat on my couch and I caught her up on my hunt for Horton.

“You had a helluva day,” she observed.

“Yes. I’m kinda bushed.”

“You could lie down while I fuck your pussy.”

“That would be nice, but… I’m kind of sexed out. Hmm. We were supposed to buy you a collar yesterday. Wanna go do that?”

She looked like she was going to panic, then calmed down and smiled. “Yeah, sure. We need to make sure it’s real leather. I won’t settle for any plastic or plant-based crap.”

We went to BEaST FuRIENDS Pet Shop and immediately found what she wanted, metal spikes on black leather, sized for a large dog. “Andy,” she said, putting it on and admiring it through her compact mirror, “Andy… this is making me…” She whispered into my ear, “Super fucking horny.”

I snickered (once I had recovered from the ear blast). “We are both as bad about any given kink as the other. You were right to call us soulmates. Okay, take it off so we can buy it.” She pouted. “Oh my God, you’re giving me puppy dog eyes. Yes, Blondie, it breaks my heart to ask you to do this, but please take it off so I can pay for it.” She removed the collar—very reluctantly—and relinquished it. I paid with cash, and as soon as we were past the checkout she asked, “Can you put it back on me now?”

I laughed. “Of course.” I bought a dog tag from the engraver machine with the name ‘Blondie’ in a curly-girly font. “Without the dog tag people probably wouldn’t care, but with it… maybe you shouldn’t be wearing it in public.”

She whispered, “I wish I’d tried this sooner, because I’m having a blast. Please don’t take it off of me.” I could hear pain in her voice, and in her eyes was the fear of having something precious taken away.

“I’m not sure I could do something so cruel to you,” I confessed. “Even if it needed to be done, I don’t think I could. It would break my heart. I won’t. I will have to euthanize you before I take that thing off your neck.”

Her worry went away. “Thank you, my Lady.” As she said ‘my Lady’, as she hugged me in gratitude and ground her pelvis against mine, as her cocoa-honey-mallow musk migrated from her chest into my nose, I suddenly became very ready for coitus.

“How about we go home and take care of the effects of that collar, Blondie?”

“Hell yes.”

The drive took too damn long; we were both horny as hell, and our car talk devolved into dirty talk, which only made our anticipation more intense. We held hands as we ascended the stairs and as I unlocked my door; I tugged her to the bed and told her to get undressed while I did the same. As soon as she was down to nothing, I pushed her onto her back, grabbed her cock, wrapped my lips around the head, and got to sucking.

“Andy…”

I took my mouth off her penis. “What did you call me?”

“Oh. Uh—I meant to say ‘my Lady’.”

“I’m busy, Blondie, what do you have to say? Out with it!” Her cock bounced eagerly in my hand.

“I was hoping you might… stick it in… your… pussy.”

“No.” I resumed sucking; she groaned, perhaps a little disappointed that she wasn’t inside me, but that would only be the case for a few seconds more because I was coming closer and closer to losing the fight against my instinct to mount her.

“Okay—Could you—(mgh)—maybe slow—down? I don’t want—(ah)—to cum right away.”

I took my mouth off her cock and snapped, “I might have granted your request had you asked with manners!” Then I doubled down on my sucking.

“Oh—I’m—(hah)—sorry—my Lady! Please, would—you slow—(mh)—down so that I—(ah!)—don’t cum?”

I pulled my head off her cock. “Much better.” I got up and rifled around in my purse, pulled out the box of Teddy Grahams and tossed one at her—it landed on her stomach.

“Is this a… a Teddy Graham?”

“Yes. It’s a treat, a reward for addressing your mistake.” I returned to bed.

“A… treat.”

“Well?” She ate it, and I petted her hair. “Good girl.” I grabbed her cock, startling her, and gave it a squeeze to check that she was still firm, and, satisfied that it was still rock-hard, climbed aboard her and slowly slid her inside myself.

“(Ohhhhh… fuck.)” She had a stupid smile on her face.

I began riding her. “What do we say, Blondie?”

“(Ahh…) Thank you, my Lady, for… (mh…) gracing my cock with your… (mh…) beautiful, tight… (hah…) pussy.” She moaned quietly, placidly, and placed her hands on my hips. I bent forward, our tits touched, and I kissed her Eve’s apple. Her hands moved from my hips to my back, where her fingers slowly curled and the pressure of their tips increased with each thrust. Her moans turned into groans, and her nails dug into my flesh, carving welts into my skin, and I sighed in pleasure at the pain and doubled my efforts to make her flood my pussy. Her phone rang, but we ignored it. Her hips moved with mine as I rode her and squeezed her and did my best to make her cum as there came a knock on the door, and I could feel her cock getting ready to explode when we were interrupted by a series of forceful raps, insistent enough to break through the overpowering haze of our libidos and touch our brains’ fight-or-flight organs.

Once I had come to my senses I growled, “Oh, for fuck’s sake…”

“Just ignore it.”

“Are you commanding me, Blondie?”

“(I’m sorry, my Lady,)” she mumbled.

“Just for that, I’m cutting this short and answering the door.”

She groaned. I gave her a poison glance as I (more reluctantly than I wanted to let on) got off of her. The visitor knocked again; I forgot to cover up, Judy hid under the covers, and I answered.

It was Diane. “Mistress! Uh, would you like to come in?”

She sized up my naked body, but chose not to comment. “I am looking for Judith, she is not answering her phone or her door.”

“She’s… here. We’re in the middle of fucking.”

“You are? She and I have a date very soon.”

“At 6, right?”

“Yes.”

“Um… what time is it?”

“5:35.”

“That’s… early.”

“It takes 20 minutes to get to the restaurant.”

“Oh—then I guess she needs to get ready immediately. Please… come in, Mistress.” She followed me. “Judy, your date is here.”

“She is?” She peeked out from under the covers. “What’s the time?”

“5:35,” I repeated.

“Leigh, you’re early. Which is good, but I was expecting you at 6 because I made the reservation for 6:30.”

“Oh? Then there was a misunderstanding. My apologies for interrupting. Were you nearly finished?”

“I was close,” I said. “But… I can finish myself off if you need to take her away.”

“No, we have time. Go ahead.”

“Thank you, Mistress!” I launched myself at Judy, yanked off the sheets, mounted her, vigorously rode her, and within half a minute I was sighing my satisfaction. As I recovered from my orgasm I observed that she was still rock-hard. “Did you cum?” I asked.

“Unfortunately, no.”

I kept going. Diane surprised me by joining us and kissing Judy. After a few minutes, Judy grunted. I fed my pet a treat and patted her on the head. “Good girl.”

“I am happy to see that you are remembering to reward her, Prax.” She stole a Teddy Graham and fed me.

“Thank you, Mistress. Judy, you should have time to take a shower.”

“I… like,” confessed Diane, “when my partners have sexual fluids on their bodies, when they go out in public. It feels exhibitionistic.”

“Really? Maybe I should have Judy give me a pearl necklace next time we go to Asmodeus.”

“That would be lovely. Up, Jude. Get dressed.”

“Yes, Mist—‍” She cut herself off. “I mean—of course, Leigh.” Diane laughed.

“We can share her,” I told Diane. “What’s mine is yours, after all…”

“Well? What do you say?” she asked Judy.

“Um… Having two owners sounds a little confusing… but, okay.”

“Splendid. What is your name, pet?”

“Blondie.”

“Cute. Get dressed, Blondie.” Judy chuckled and obeyed without hesitation.

“Did you find my command humorous?” Diane hid her smile behind an artfully-chiseled façade of stony disciplinarianism.

“Oh, uh… No, Mistress.”

“Good.” She smiled and winked at me, then returned her eyes to Judy. “Blondie… how big is the table you reserved?”

“I figured you’d prefer to limit your public association with a merchant of regulated substances, so I reserved a private table, which seats up to 6.”

“Prax, you shall be joining us.”

“Thank you, Mistress!” I ran to the bathroom and put on makeup, then put on my black dress, and we left for Lorenzo’s.

The restaurant’s reputation as swanky was well-deserved, with fine China, crystal drinkware, and flatware that had a hint of real silver patina. We chatted and bonded and ordered nice food. Judy was Diane’s primary focus, but she was careful to give me enough attention that I didn’t feel left out. We ate, talked into the night, and, satisfied we’d gotten our money’s worth, Diane insisted on paying because she was ‘responsible’ for us; as her pets, we knew better than to object.

We went back to my apartment and shagged a couple of times, until Diane reminded me, “You have kidnappers to find, who no doubt took greater care to cover their tracks than the idiot you have already caught. You need a good night’s sleep if you are going to cope effectively with that frustration.” She gave each of us a gentle kiss. “You are so close, Drea. I will see you tomorrow. Good night, and much devotion to both of my pets.” She left.

“She’s a helluva woman,” opined Judy.

“She sure is. Want to sleep over? I sleep better with you next to me.”

“You decide, remember?”

I laughed. “With Diane, I feel good following her commands without pause, but you… I like to let you have your free will from time-to-time.”

“Of course, my Lady. I enjoy sleeping next to you.”

“‘Andy’. Get your jammies, Judy.”

She changed into her pajamas and joined me in bed. Sleep came easy and went easy.

Cheesecake

I racked my brain at my desk the next day. ‹Where the hell do I go from here?›

‘…Bring you now a breaking story about one Santa Virginia prostitution ring’s attempts to create an illegal brothel downtown, minutes away from the family-friendly shopping district of Balboa Hills…’ My head swiveled towards Sergeant Detective Fred Tiernan to hear more clearly the news report he was listening to on his phone. ‘…sparking fears that children may be lured into their sex trafficking rings. Now on the scene of the Torrey Pines Hotel is Fochs News correspondent Harry Dickson.’

‘Good morning, Gerry, it is a beautiful Monday morning in Santa Virginia, California, and I am standing in front of the not-so-beautiful Torrey Pines Hotel on Adams Avenue, a building that has seen better days on a street notorious for its Red-Light District, where a human chain of criminals and prostitutes is attempting to prevent the renovation of the rundown hotel.’

‘Harry, could you tell us why the hotel is set to be demolished?’

‘Of course. The derelict hotel, not even fit to be called a “fixer-upper”, was recently purchased by property development firm Gunther and Sampson with the aim of restoring the neighborhood to the opulent glory of its distant past, back when men were gentlemen and women were ladies. The neighborhood is to be rezoned, and all the properties replaced with high-rise luxury residential buildings, which are expected to bring in hundreds of millions of dollars into the city’s economy and jumpstart the local tech sector with an influx of affluent STEM professionals and businesses who are expected to bring millions to the city’s coffers and invest tens of millions more into local businesses, such as Starbucks coffee shops and Amazon.’

‘Why not simply renovate the hotel?’

‘Well, the structure, as I have said, is derelict. The wiring is not up to code, the rooms are too big, it hasn’t been rated for earthquakes, there’s no Wi-Fi to speak of, and we have been informed by the city’s Department of Environmental Health that there is asbestos— “a substance known to the state of California to cause cancer”, as the locals like to say—’ Both newsmen laugh. ‘—there is asbestos falling out of the walls and ceiling. The city has acknowledged that the building is a public health hazard that needs to go.’

‘And what are the prostitutes demanding?’

‘The hotel is notorious for hosting their sordid activities, and we have been informed by police that it has been functioning as a sort of headquarters in their efforts to legalize immoral and unnatural extramarital behavior, and indoctrinate vulnerable children into their cult of indecency. They wish to continue using the hotel for these indecent purposes in spite of widespread opposition to their efforts to rebrand their criminal enterprise as a “legitimate business”.’

‘That is very concerning, Harry. What is the city doing to address a moral crisis that is threatening to cripple the city’s economic growth, destroy loving marriages, set a precedent for tolerating immorality that will spread throughout the nation, and corrupt our children’s sacred bodies and eternal souls?’

‘A source on the scene has stated that the homicide unit of the Santa Virginia Police Department has dispatched a detective along with a Crime Scene Investigation team to investigate a “blood pool” inside the hotel. We have been unable to get ahold of the officer in charge of the investigation, Detective Andrea Bachman, for an explanation as to why she is investigating a few specks of blood in a building that has already been condemned, thus delaying its demolition, so vital to public health.’

‘Are you telling us that Detective Andrea Bachman is actively hindering the demolition of a den of misery and sin?’

‘That would appear to be the case, Gerry, though sources within the department have informed us that the Vice Unit is gearing up for a raid, though the unit is notorious for being slow to react to emergencies. Our sources explain that the unit’s First Precinct squad has had its funding cut several times over the past decade, and many have alleged mismanagement.’

‘That is unfortunate, Harry, but I have faith in our boys in blue.’

‘As do I, Gerry. Harry Dickson, signing off.’

‘Also happening in Santa Virginia, the same detective investigating a tiny blood spot in the Torrey Pines Hotel in Santa Virginia, Detective Andrea Bachman, is also investigating the disappearance of Alexander Brookvale, the city’s most notorious antifa, considered by numerous experts an America-hating terrorist, who was last seen Wednesday morning. Detective Bachman has so far ignored our requests for comment, and it is unknown whether she has a secret liberal agenda, or even… possible antifa sympathies. We interviewed several of her fellow officers anonymously and every one of them was shocked that one of their own would attempt to rescue a criminal agent of chaos who stands in the way of the very Constitution she has sworn to protect and the law and order she has sworn to uphold. Next up on Fochs News, another substance known to the State of California turns out to be not-so-harmful: a groundbreaking study by the Heritage Foundation has discovered that, contrary to what liberals want you to think, lead is not in fact hazardous to children but is rather an essential dietary mineral critical to the suppression of gender and homosexuality in school-age children. Leading health experts including Doctor Oz and Robert F. Kennedy, Junior have therefore proposed that the essential mineral should be added to drinking water in place of fluoride…’

Every hair on my body stood tall throughout the entirety of both of the reports that had mentioned me. I had made national news. Conservative national news. The conservative national news every other blue blood in the country watched religiously. And every one of my coworkers had known I was on both cases since the day I took the oath. I looked around the squad room. No-one was looking at me.

‹Maybe the rest of them missed the news reports. Maybe only a few of them know what I’ve been up to. Or maybe they’re waiting for me to make my next move.

‹Regardless, I have a mission, and I’m running out of time. I can’t keep fucking around trying to determine with absolute certainty who did it, I need to just skip to figuring out where they took him.

‹I need to start playing hard and fast with the facts. I need to start making guesses.

‹Who had a reason to kidnap Alex? Everyone. But… how did they do it? They took him into the Torrey Pines. Who had access to the hotel? Gunther and Sampson. And where did they take him after they beat him up in the hotel? Somewhere else they had access, of course. Another one of their properties. An unused property—either abandoned or waiting for a tenant. Remote, rundown, inconspicuous.

‹I might finally have a lead… Took me long enough.›

I SecreTexted Diane to ask her:

Me

What’s Plaut’s favorite kind of cake?

Mistress

...

Pause.

Mistress

WHY do you want to know?

Me

I want him to owe me a favor.

Mistress

i will take care of it.

Me

You want me to take over for you some day.

Pause.

Mistress

you are not yet ready.

Me

There’s no time to start the transition like the present.

Mistress

*sigh* you have a point. strawberry cheesecake. homemade is best but store bought is fine, get the one from hangar foods, it has a firmer curd that takes more force to deform, which allows for greater precision.

Me

Thank you, Mistress!

I scheduled a surprise appointment with Plaut, bought a strawberry cheesecake from the nearest Hangar Foods, grabbed a plastic fork from my desk, and was back just in time to see him.

“Um—Detective…” asked his assistant on my way in, “are you planning on giving him that cake?”

“Of course not, giving a gift to a superior would be inappropriate. I just wanted to have a snack while we talked. As you can see, I’m fat, and fat people like to eat vast quantities of food.”

“Oh… kay…” She let him know I was here, then cleared me to go in.

“Andrea, how can I help you today?” He was no doubt annoyed that I was visiting him on short notice without having given him a reason for it, but not so inconvenienced as to be irritated, no, not bothered in the slightest, as was made obvious by him very cordially referring to me by my first name… which indicated, to my surprise, that he and I were on friendlier terms than I had previously thought. Far friendlier. I had a feeling this was going to be a breeze.

I placed the cake on the floor and popped off the lid.

“Andrea…” He stood and leaned over his desk. “What exactly are you… doing with… that?” But the look in his eyes, previously simple confusion, told me he had a very good idea of what I was about to do to him with that cake. And as I took off my shoes and socks and cuffed my pants, he knew for certain the beautiful agony I was about to inflict upon him.

I balanced on my left foot and planted my right on the cake, being careful not to squish it yet.

“(Ohhhh…)” he groaned quietly.

I brushed the cake in sensual circles with my big toe, caressing it like a partner’s chest, spreading around the strawberry topping and getting some of it on my big toe.

“(Ahhh-haghhh-haghhh…)” His pleased gurgling fluttered as he bent all the way over his desk—ass up, like he was ready for a paddling—to get a better view.

I gently poked the cake, then pulled back to reveal the impression left by my toe.

“(Nnnggghhh…)” he moaned as he loosened his tie.

I splayed out my piggies and pressed them all in, creating more indentations and extruding strawberry stuff between them, then artfully raked them backwards, leaving behind long, shallow gouges and streaks of topping.

“(Hmmmmmmmm…)”

I pressed the ball of my foot into the cake and slowly sank it in, deeper and deeper, distorting the cake’s roundness just noticeably with the weight of my corpulence.

“(Hah—ah—hah…)” To my great satisfaction, he was now gently humping his desk.

I lowered my heel and pushed it down halfway, causing the cheese to splay out around it, and the cake to bulge at its edges.

“(Ahhhmmmggghhhaaahhh…)” His voice trembled with delicious, agonizing anticipation.

“Before I go any further, I need you to do me a favor.”

“(Hah… Ahh… Hah…) Anything… (Hah… Ahh… Hah…)” he moaned pathetically between pants.

“I want Intelligence to give me a report of all unoccupied or abandoned buildings in the city along with the title owner, current tenant, market value, square footage, business purpose, and purchase date.”

“It’s all yours…” He yearned for the sight and sound of my milky skin caressing the cheesy dessert.

I sank my right heel the rest of the way down, and he moaned in satisfaction. I shifted my weight and placed my other foot on the cake and started to repeat this process, but halfway in flicked my foot outwards, tearing and smearing and flinging chunks of the cake, causing his whining to rise in pitch—

“(Haah—haah—aah-haa!)”

I continued aggressively mashing and spreading the cake until it was unrecognizable, getting it all over his carpet as he continued to grunt and moan and whine in ecstasy, until there was no more cheesecake left on the tray, the whole of it having been spread across the room—

At which point I began grinding chunks into the piles of the carpet, staining and soiling his office while he whined and howled in delight.

As soon as there was no more clean carpet to stain, I stopped stepping, and he stopped making noises, other than panting and a satisfied ‘(oh)’. He pulled out his handkerchief and wiped the sweat from his brow.

I walked around behind his desk, pulled his chair out, and sat in it. “Kneel.” He obeyed, and I extended a cheese-caked foot. “You know what to do.”

He crawled towards me, as much like a worm as he could while on his hands and knees, and timidly licked my big toe, then, little-by-little, more and more aggressively. He wrapped his fingers around my foot and plunged the toe into his mouth.

I slapped his hand. “No hands. Only mouth.” He let go and bobbed his head up and down, sucking my toes and licking between them like my foot was a five-headed cock, grunting and moaning in pleasure while I held back tickle-giggles. Once my toes were clean, he leaned on his elbows so that his mouth could reach the bits of cheesecake sticking to my sole. After the whole foot was clean, I lifted the other to his face, and he repeated the process of greedily sucking and licking until it was clean. “What do we say when Mistress lets you have some cheesecake?”

“Thank you Mistress!” he said with a big, stupid grin.

I got up and gave him a smile and a pet on the head. “Good boy. Remember, Intel search—unoccupied or abandoned buildings, title holders, tenants, market values, square footage, business purposes, purchase dates. And… Can you have them handle my request ASAP? Drop whatever they’re working on, make my job their top priority.”

He plopped down in his chair and caught his breath. “As you wish, Mistress. I mean—‍” He shifted back into his professional voice. “—of—of course, Detective.” A pleased sigh escaped his throat as he leaned back and gave into the temptations of relaxing and smiling and giggling and letting his eyes droop in exhausted satisfaction.

I put my shoes back on and left him to take care of the mess on his floor.

Mother-Daughter
Heart-to-Heart

Content Warning:
Reference to Past Sexual Assault

With a scream I let out all my feelings in the privacy of a gender-neutral bathroom: a forest fire in my stomach, which at first I thought was disgust until it migrated down into my crotch where it burned like a motherfucker and I wondered—

‹Holy shit, did I enjoy that?› I thought back to my emotions as I did that to him, and though they were all a blur I was able to pick out moments of triumph and satisfaction and… arousal. ‹I got nothing from the stimulation itself, of his tongue and mouth on my toes—but manipulating my boss’ boss’ boss’ boss’ boss, the man at the top, the chief himself, into obeying the unspoken command to bring himself down low, below the level of even the lowest of his underlings, to get down on all fours and lick her filthy foot clean, and with such reverence, such religious passion, was… positively exhilarating, and the only reason I didn’t try to fuck him halfway through was my state of mind, a singular focus on giving him exactly what he wanted so that I could slip my collar ’round his neck and teach him to do my bidding unquestioningly…›

It was no different from holding down Judy and fucking her and bragging about the child support she’d be paying, except… there was no involvement of genitals. I got off with the chief without us touching each other’s erogenous zones. Without us taking off our clothes.

I got off with the chief.

It was a disturbing realization. The idea to indulge his cake fetish had popped into my head and taken control, unchallenged, until its mission was complete, and now I was having feelings that discomforted me deeply—no, I should say that they disturbed me.

“I enjoyed it though. So it should be okay, right? It wasn’t weird. It was a normal exchange of sexual favor for work favor. Nothing more than a little quid pro quo. It’s okay. Yeah, he’s the chief, but—oh God—‍”

I rushed to the toilet and vomited. Not very much, but enough to get the idea that something about this situation was improper. No—it was unholy. He wasn’t the kind of man I was interested in. Older, yes, that was my type, older than Tom, older than Diane, older than Judy—

“Whatever you did with that cheesecake had to be weird, though. I thought you were just gonna eat it with him, I bailed when I realized it was some freaky shit with your feet.”

I wiped the corners of my lips before hugging her. “You picked a helluva time to show up. But I wasn’t thinking of you.”

“Maybe you did, but subconsciously. You feel icked out, and that’s one of the few emotions I’ve helped you with in the past that your girlfriends haven’t. Or they aren’t here for you, in this room, right this moment, so you reached further, for dear old Shosh.”

“Oh. It’s probably one of those. So can you help?”

“The only man I’ve ever been with was older than me.”

Until that moment, she had never talked about him, had never volunteered information about him, had never dropped hints, had never given up intel when interrogated. But now, after all these decades… she was dangling a nice juicy steak in front of my face and telling me to go ahead and take it. Carefully—fearing that anything might happen to ruin this moment—I asked, “How… much… older?”

“He had to be about 40.”

My heart was racing. “Where—did you—meet?”

“I snuck into a bar. Pretty guy caught my eye. Green eyes and light brown hair, almost as curly as ours.” I had never known how to picture him. ‘Light brown hair, almost as curly as ours’ was practically a library of 35-millimeter film capturing every angle of their time together, compared to the single blurry frame of half-burnt celluloid she had shared with me in life: ‘You look more like me than like your father.’ “Very handsome. I found him at a bar a couple days after I ran away, and he bought me a few drinks. I don’t remember most of the conversation, but he said he was a detective, which I found very mysterious because I had never heard or read much about them.”

I was on the verge of breaking down from toxic levels of happiness that she was actually, finally telling me about him. “Because you were trapped in your community.”

“I spent most of my childhood inside the eruv—that’s a sort of symbolic wire strung around the community that makes all of it a semi-shared space and enables… certain activities to be done that would otherwise be prohibited on Shabbos.”

She had also refused in the past to tell me about her childhood, so I very eagerly asked, “Which activities are prohibited?”

“We’re straying off topic.”

“Right, back to my father.”

“After 3 or 4 or maybe 5 drinks, I blacked out. I woke up in a strange bed the next morning with a headache and a spotty memory of the night before.” ‹Oh. Oh no. Oh, Christ, no. I don’t want this to be how… how I was conceived.› “I had no idea what had happened between taking my last drink and waking up. He made me eggs and bacon—I’d never had bacon, but as soon as he served it, I ate it in an act of defiance of God’s mitzvos forbidding unclean foods, and I washed it down with a glass of milk for good measure.” She ‘ha!’ed forcefully. I was devastated. “He gave me his phone number, and I told him goodbye and spent the last of my money on a taxi back to my hostel. When I told my bunkmate about the friendly drinking and the fun flirting and the eggs and bacon the morning after, she explained to me that—he’d—well—‍” She fell silent.

I squeezed her. “He ‘took advantage’ of you.”

She nodded subtly.

“This is why you never wanted to talk about him.”

“Yes. Because I didn’t want you, or anyone, to know that—that was how you were made.”

I held her tightly for some time while I tried to find a way to cope with this old news. “At least… Now I know he isn’t worth my time. And I appreciate you considering the stigma in your decision not to tell me, and maybe… maybe it’s for the best that you waited until I was old enough to wrap my head around this without letting it affect me too much.”

“I wish I could have told you about how awful he was, but awful he wasn’t. Most of my time with him is a blur or missing completely, and everything I can remember is pleasant, even dreamlike. But… even if you don’t want to get to know him, I could give you his name and address so you could go punch him in the face. Would you like that?”

“Hm… Not unless that’s what you want.” I gave her a squeeze.

She shrugged. “Doesn’t matter what I want. Whether you decide you want to meet and bond with him or break his nose, it’s up to you to decide whether it’s worth the trouble of tracking him down and whether you’re willing to risk disappointment or assault charges.”

‹Maybe I do want to meet him. Even if he’s been buried or cremated. Maybe I do want to give him hell for what he did.› “Did you… consider abortion?”

“No. My life wasn’t in immediate danger, physical or mental or emotional, and by the time I realized I was pregnant—two weeks after conception—it was long past the cutoff for halachically-permitted abortion. And, besides… (hmm…)”

“Knowing that you didn’t have a choice doesn’t really hurt, I’ve always figured there was a good chance you didn’t want me, if it wasn’t the most likely explanation for you having me…”

“Esti, I was overjoyed to be pregnant, I wanted to have you! Even though what he had done to me was despicable, maybe even unforgivable, he had also…”

“Had also…?”

“It’s never a good thing. It’s horrifying to have it be done to you. But for me… the thought that I had something—something that had the potential to someday become a human being, growing inside me, demanding a love I wanted to give, that I wanted to give enthusiastically… Do you know that feeling?”

“Uhm… Yeah. I do. It’s been there, buzzing around in the back of my head, ever since me and Judy… you know.”

Her face screwed up in confusion. “You’re thinking about adoption?”

“No, uh… she… was born with a penis.”

She processed this news for a few seconds. “She’s… a guy.”

“No, she’s definitely a woman, but… when she was born, everyone thought she was a boy. Then she figured out she was a girl, at some point.”

“Oh. So…” She resumed processing. “She’s… not a man. But she has… a shmekl.”

“A what?”

“A shlang. A penis.”

“Right. Yes. A woman with a… a ‘shmekl’.”

“I see.”

“She’s a trans woman. Transgender woman. The T in LGBTQIA-pl—… I mean, in LGBT. Old folks say ‘transsexual’.”

“Ohhhh! She’s a transvestite!”

I winced. “No… she’s just a woman. A woman with a penis. That’s all. Please don’t call her a crossdresser.”

“Oh. Sorry. I guess I’m behind the times.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll catch you up when we have some time.”

“So… she, um… you two… got to know each other, biblically.”

“Yes. And I got to know a couple of guys, too.”

“Oh. Oh…”

“I love them. I would be just as happy to have their babies as to have Judy’s.”

“Oh—kay. And you’ve been thinking about pregnancy.”

“Constantly.”

“So you know what it’s like to want a baby.”

“Yes.”

“So when I say that… that for me, being pregnant with you was more good than… y’know… bad, I hope you don’t hear me trying to say that I could ever forgive him even though— Maybe I could put it like this: if I could go back and warn past-me so that she could avoid it… I… wouldn’t interfere. I would let it happen to me exactly how it happened. I’ve always wanted you. You have been my best friend in pregnancy, in motherhood, and in death. I could never give you up.”

“You think it was a good thing that he did it to you.”

“It feels wrong to put it that way. I just want to emphasize the undeniable fact that I have loved you ever since I knew you had entered my life, that I was excited to have a friend for the rest of time.”

I breathed to keep my throat from tightening too much—though I could only contain most of my emotions. “Do you think our need to have children is genetic?”

“My parents loved me from the moment my mother found out she was pregnant, just as much as I’ve loved you since the moment I found out I was pregnant.”

“Yep, that tracks. I’ve been doing just about everything I can do to become pregnant.”

“I inferred as much.” Her eyebrows popped up. “I might be a grandmother someday.”

“Maybe.”

“Wow.” She smiled and sighed. “So, about your father…”

“I don’t want to know anything more about him, I’m done searching for him in my dreams, I no longer feel like solving the mystery of that half of my heritage. The sun has set. I can finally rest.” My throat cinched. “Thank you, Shosh.”

“You’re welcome, Esti. So, you absolutely do not want to know his name?”

My face scrunched in frustration. ‹God damn it.› “Urgh… Okay. Fine. Yeah. I might change my mind later and punch him. And I don’t know when… or if you’ll ever again be in the mood to tell me.”

She nodded solemnly. “Good point. Alexander Coen.”

I turned just about catatonic. “(Alexander Coen,)” I mumbled. “I know his name, at last.”

“Lemme guess: you’ve already changed your mind.”

I nodded. “Yeah… I… gotta meet him now.”

She smiled. “That’s what I figured.” She stepped back and mussed up my hair. “I didn’t want you to know because I was afraid you meeting him might be disappointing or even heartbreaking. But in my last moment of consciousness I wanted you to know his name, because I thought that leaving you with no family to help you through your grief was cruel. But then, after I figured out I was somewhere between alive and dead, I became afraid that you would adopt him as my replacement or something if you ever met him. Since I died, I’ve been flip-flopping between telling you or not telling you—until now.”

“What made you finalize your decision? Was it what happened at the club?”

“You said withholding his name was the only way I ever fucked you over. I’ve always wanted to be the perfect friend… the best mom.”

I desperately wanted to share the identity of my father with my wives. “Well, you’ve certainly…” She disappeared before I could thank her. “…unfucked… (God damn it,)” I hissed.

I returned to my desk and dialed Intelligence.

“Detective Beltran.”

“Hey, Detective Beltran, it’s Detective Bachman.”

“Ah. You requested a GIS dataset.”

“Yes. I know I haven’t waited very long, but I was wondering if it might be ready.”

“Give us 5 minutes to verify none of the properties have changed hands since we started our research.”

“Great, thanks, I’ll swing by to pick it up in a bit.”

“It’ll be in your CaseCloud when it’s ready.”

“Oh. Right. Thanks.” ‹Old fashioned.›

As soon as the Intel GIS file was in my vault, I imported it into LEGIS Maps and felt my way through the application’s capabilities (with the help of the user manual and several forum posts) until I had generated an aesthetically pleasing interactive map of Santa Virginia where each property’s address was plotted and labeled with its title holder, tenant, purchase date, market value and business purpose, with the fill color of each property polygon determined by who held the title.

The result was a shotgun blast of data that I couldn’t make sense of—so I filtered out all the properties where neither the title holder nor tenant were listed as ‘Gunther & Sampson’, then set the property polygon line color based on whether G&S was the titleholder or the tenant, and the fill color of each polygon ranging in shades from green for the highest cost per square foot to red for the lowest. An obvious pattern emerged immediately. The map showed that G&S had 376 properties spread throughout the city, of which only one—the old Fitzsimmons warehouse on Jefferson Avenue, the reddest property—had no tenant assigned to it.

More curious, though, was the coincidence of the warehouse being located less than half a minute by foot across the old train tracks from the Torrey Pines Hotel.

I felt my blood pressure spike. “No. Fucking. Way.” Four abandoned train tracks separated the southern edge of the abandoned Fitzsimmons warehouse (the facility’s rail docks) and the Torrey Pines’ private train station on the hotel’s northern edge. Our kidnappers didn’t need to transport Alex across town by car, they could have simply carried him a few dozen yards across the tracks—out one back entrance, in the other.

Finding Alex had proven to be shockingly straightforward—notwithstanding having to teach myself how to use LEGIS. The hard part was coping with my inability to save him in time.

—No. The hard part was going to be telling Geraldine I had failed her, that I had promised her something I couldn’t actually give her: her husband, alive.

I had to keep my upper lip rigid as granite. And if I couldn’t tell her, there were plenty of people who could do it for me. Judy, Diane, Koko, Doll—actually, she probably wouldn’t want to have anything to do with Diane or Doll or Koko because they were (or had been) cops, just like I was, and she might not like that Judy was in a polycule with the same cops.

There was no point in ruminating over Geraldine’s hatred for me. If ever there was a way to change her mind, it would be bringing him back alive. I went home and had some of the chili I had started on the stove a couple days prior.

Action Girl
Task Force!

After taking my last bite of chili, I notified my girlfriends via SecreText:

Me:

I think I’ve found him.

Koko:

Where?!

Mistress:

Do tell!

Blondie:

:O

Blue:

good job

Doll:

how and where did you find him?

don’t keep us waiting!

Me:

I plotted abandoned properties throughout the city and the only one owned by G&S that didn’t have a tenant was the old Fitzsimmons warehouse.

Right next door to the Torrey Pines.

I figure I can brew a few thermoses of coffee and stake out the train tracks for a few days and maybe catch them going in or out.

Mistress:

No.

you are not engaging in hot pursuit.

Me:

Why not?

Mistress:

you will be sending in a team of officers to do it for you.

Me:

I don’t trust anyone to put in an honest effort.

I’m not sure a few crooked officers wouldn’t just let the perps go.

Mistress:

you are NOT doing this.

Me:

You aren’t telling me WHY I’m not supposed to do this.

Mistress:

because I don’t want to lose you again.

Me:

You never lost me in the first place.

Mistress:

I could have lost you at Asmodeus.

Me:

Nothing’s going to happen this time.

Mistress:

you are going to end up shot or stabbed or clubbed on the head or something else awful. do not do this.

Me:

I’ll maintain a safe distance.

And I know how to stay hidden, the other kids picked on me all the time at school so I got lots of practice.

And I’m good with a gun, too.

Mistress:

we have no idea how many of them there are. there is only one of you.

Me:

Then I can take someone with me.

Blue:

ill go

ill be your harry morgen my man friday . or yuor huckleberry

Mistress:

I forbid it.

Blue:

i know how to use a gun

Mistress:

you do not!

Blue:

if i dont go who will

Mistress:

no one will!

Blue:

what do you want do you want her to go in all by herself or with a buddy

Koko:

Stop.

Mistress:

that is not what I meant!

Blue:

explain what you mean??

Koko:

Stop.

Mistress:

I am saying that she should not go, period!

Blue:

then how my dear is she going to capture the bad guys

Koko:

STOP

Blue:

WHAT

Mistress:

KOKO WHAT DO YOU WANT.

Koko:

Diane, this is Andrea’s case, not yours.

Regina, I only showed you how to shoot a dinky .22 yesterday, not to mention you’ve never been trained in CQC.

Judy, I’ll venture a guess that you have never held a gun in your life.

Am I wrong?

Blondie:

you are not wrong.

Koko:

Diane?

Mistress:

i have a “medical exemption” from quals…

Koko:

That leaves me and Prissy.

If you want us to have a numerical advantage, you will accompany me and Prax on this mission.

Doll:

of course.

Mistress:

no.

I forbid it.

Prissy, you shall not go.

Koko:

Okay, Diane.

It’s just Koko and Prax, catching bad guys all alone.

Mistress:

fuck god damn it

Fine.

You may all go

vests and helmets

Regina, keep your distance from the action

Koko:

If that’s how you want to do it.

Prissy?

Doll:

I’m game.

Me:

Okay.

We’ll look like tacticool dorks.

But okay.

I drove to the station house and showed up at the armory. With no shortage of suspicion, Armory Sergeant Arthur Fletcher informed me, “Armory doesn’t stock office supplies, civvie.” He was much friendlier after I flashed my badge. “What can I do ya for, Detective?”

“I haven’t been issued armor, yet.”

“We can schedule a fitting next week.”

“Oh, I’ve been fitted already. Do you have any small concealable vests?”

“Yes.”

“One small concealable vest, and one small helmet.”

“Alright.” He went into the back and came out with my body armor.

Once I had signed for my new dress-up accessories, I departed with a “Thanks!”

The final step in our preparations was to convince Judge Juarez to give me a search warrant.

“Detective, you have my sympathies, but this affidavit is miserly with its evidence. Being abandoned and next door to the site of a kidnapping isn’t much to go on for an investigation, and certainly isn’t probable cause.”

“Alright. Well.” ‹Fuck.› “The property is owned by Gunther and Sampson, but there are no tenants, and it isn’t being actively used for anything.”

“And what difference does vacancy make in determining probable cause, Missy?”

I sighed. “None, Judge.”

“Detective… You’re either gonna need better evidence or consent straight from the owners.”

“Thanks, Your Honor. I’ll figure something out.”

“What did I tell you about wearing a vest?”

I chuckled and patted my chest. “Concealed, and my girlfriend insisted on helmets for this one.”

He smiled warmly. “Your girlfriend’s a smart cookie. Have a sucker, and bring her one for being so thoughtful about your safety.”

The sky had started to sprinkle by the time I arrived at the courthouse, and as I left it was pouring. When I got home I told my girl squeezes what the judge had told me:

Blondie:

consent probably won’t be too hard. you’re pretty good at getting consent. :P

Me:

What?

They’d have to be insane to consent!

Blondie:

not if whoever manages the property doesn’t know what they’re consenting to.

Me:

Why would they consent to a search when I have no way of convincingly articulating to them that I’m certain there’s a man being imprisoned on their property without the word “liability” flashing in big red neon letters over my head?

Blondie:

tell them you’re an exterminator hired by a neighbor who’s sick of vermin nesting in the warehouse.

Me:

I’m not lying to them!

Mistress:

Drea, she has the right idea. you often evade or twist the truth in trying to get your way. with enough preparation you may be convincing.

Me:

No!

I don’t twist the truth!

I just… know how to… present it in interesting and compelling ways.

Mistress:

(quod erat demonstrandum.) then by all means be “interesting and compelling”. you may be more convincing if you engineer your “truth” ahead of time.

‹Ah… hmm…› My mind ran at a million miles a minute. ‹Vermin… neighbor… community… neighborhood… neighborhood watch… police… Yes. I have it.› The plan built itself in a minute, and as the last brick was laid I replied,

Me:

Okay.

Thank you.

I just thought of something that just might work.

I texted Koko and Doll to notify them I was making a move, and they were on my couch in 20 minutes flat.

And then Blue showed up.

“Hey, uh. What’s up, Blue?”

“I wish to partake of this conspiracy that ‘just might work’.”

“Oh.” ‹Shit, fuck, damn it.› “The strike team is, uh, at max capacity.”

“What if one of you gets shot? Having a doctor tag along might save a life.”

“Ah. Uh.” ‹Shit, piss, cuck, dick.› “Yyyeah, I suppose it could. Come in.” She took her seat. “Alright, let’s talk tactics. We could lie about our identities and who we work for, which in my case might be a good idea… but I don’t want to play that dirty. We are who we say we are.”

Georgina shook her head. “Prax… You’ve made national news. They know who you are and what you’ve been up to, so if you tell them your real name there’s no way they’re letting us in there.”

“If they don’t, we’ll break in.”

“What are you talking about?” she asked incredulously. “You’re a cop, you know about the Fourth!”

“Evidence be damned, the mission is to save Alex, not to punish his captors. If we can get them in trouble, so much the better, but conviction is a lower priority than picking where we eat when we’re celebrating his return home.” ‹Or, to be honest with myself, the flowers and ‘our condolences’ card we’re giving Geraldine after her visit to the morgue.›

Georgina nodded slowly as she processed my madness.

“Unless you think that waiting for probable cause to show up on our doorstep is gonna work…”

“God damn it, Andrea,” she growled. “You’re right. But flouting the Fourth Amendment is just our backup plan. I want these people to rot if we can help it.”

“I do, too. We downplay my presence, but we don’t lie about who we are. Let’s get to work.”

Doll dialed G&S’s office and put them on speaker. “Gunther and Sampson, this is Kelly O’Kelly speaking, how may I help you?”

My sweetheart lieutenant responded in her cute little voice— “Good afternoon, Kelly, I’m Lieutenant Buchanan from the Santa Virginia Police Department. I’m currently heading a task force whose mission is to identify and target resources involved in vandalism, and I was hoping to enlist your company’s assistance in verifying our assumptions and computer models.”

“We are always eager to assist our partners in the law enforcement community, Lieutenant.”

“Of course you are. I’ve heard wonderful things about G&S from my colleagues within my department and at other agencies.”

“How may we be of assistance?”

“Our analysts have identified several underdeveloped and underutilized properties throughout the city, many of which we suspect criminals have been using as bases of operation for their activities. Unfortunately, several of your company’s properties are among those we have calculated to be in the highest risk category.”

“Oh, my. I’ll connect you with Tony Hopkins, our Property Crisis Manager.”

“Much appreciated.”

“One moment while I transfer you.”

Four rings later, a deep voice announced, “Tony Hopkins, Gunther and Sampson.”

“Good afternoon, Tony, I’m Lieutenant Buchanan from the Santa Virginia Police Department, I have a special request for you.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you Lieutenant, how can I help you?”

“To begin with, I’m currently assigned to a property-oriented task force.” She began, repeating all the sort-of-technically-true bullshit she had fed Kelly.

“Interesting. Which department do you work under?”

“It’s actually a multi-unit task force composed of volunteers, but listing all of the units contributing to the mission would take more time than I have to spare—I have several other property holders to contact and many inspections to lead.”

“How many?”

“For the sake of our community partners’ privacy, we are only disclosing the properties of interest to the affected stakeholders.”

“That’s very discreet of you.” I could hear him smirk in satisfaction.

“Yes, we understand how much our community developers contribute to our city’s prosperity and wish to maintain their trust in our department and in the other agencies they depend on to protect their interests.”

“And I sincerely believe our trust is well-placed, Lieutenant. What can I do for you?”

“We’d like to begin by conducting inspections of a few of the properties that our algorithm has flagged as high-risk for squatters, vagrants, and miscreants; plus a few low-risk properties as controls, to verify the algorithm’s ability to eliminate false positives.”

“Which properties would you be starting with?”

“Very conveniently, we have a high-risk site, the Torrey Pines Hotel, right next door to a low-risk site, a warehouse just across the rails.”

“The Fitzsimmons warehouse?” he asked warily.

“Yes, but we are more interested in the Torrey Pines—we likely won’t need to inspect the warehouse.”

“Hmm. Alright. What time shall we meet?”

“Midnight is the best time to catch indigents and miscreants off guard.”

“That’s rather late.”

“That’s when they come out of the woodwork.”

“If you say so. I’ll see you at midnight at the Torrey Pines Hotel, front entrance.”

“Of course. Thank you, Mister Hopkins.”

“I should be the one thanking you.”

She laughed, delicate as butterfly wings. “Trust me, you’re doing a service to your community. Have a nice day.”

“You, too.”

The drizzling had turned to pouring just as I finished the phone call. We polished off our cover story around 11. We put on civilian clothes, the better to blend in, and met up in front of the Torrey Pines under umbrellas. We waited for Tony, and were not disappointed when a gray suit as big as their voice showed up. “Good evening ladies!” He offered his hand. “Tony Hopkins, at your service.”

We shook it in turns. “Lieutenant Buchanan, it’s nice to finally meet you in person.”

“Officer Bachman, nice to meet you.” If he recognized my last name, he didn’t let it show.

“Georgina Dominguez, former crime scene investigator, now community volunteer. I’ll be dusting for prints, if necessary.”

“And I’m Doctor Regina Klein. I’m here to assess the health of any indigents we may come across.”

“Pleased to meet ya. Well, I’ll be. Is there a height requirement for your task force?”

“No. Why do you ask?” asked Doll, coldly.

“I mean—well…”

“We’re short,” I admitted. “We’re also all women. But since you ask… This task force’s ulterior goal is to prove that short women have what it takes to safeguard our city. I hope you can take us seriously.” I hazarded a “Sir.” to drive home the fact that he was a big man worthy of our deference.

“Of course. I believe in you,” he claimed, his over-acting betraying his true feelings.

I smiled despite the very audible condescension ‘hidden’ within his voice. “Thank you.” He could take seriously a group of men that just happened to have one woman in it, but four broads? We were a joke that didn’t need a punchline. But as long as he held onto that preconception, these 3 tiny and 1 average-height females had the element of surprise. “Would you care to show us around the properties, Tony?”

He let us into the hotel and showed us around. “This is the Torrey Pines Hotel. 55 rooms, including 10 honeymoon suites—‍”

I tested him. “One of the rooms here was searched by us recently, if I recall correctly.”

“Yes. The investigators tore out the carpet.”

“Oof… I’m sorry to hear that. Sounds like the detective in charge has it out for you.”

“It’s alright, we were fixing to knock the place down, anyways.”

“When’s that scheduled?”

“Hellifino, buncha bellyaching activists got it on the city’s Historic Architecture Register.”

“Let me guess, antifas?”

“Prostitutes, actually.”

“Real pains in the ass. Hey, Lieutenant, what do you think of that closet?”

“That’s definitely a critical risk factor.”

“Dominguez, do you have anything so far?”

“The usual, no electricity, no maintenance.”

“That’s what I thought. Doctor, do you see any health concerns?”

“I need to swab some surfaces and check the samples at my laboratory.”

“Mister Hopkins, do you have any security systems here?”

“There are, but there’s no electricity to run them.”

“Security guards?”

“No.”

“Huh. I wouldn’t be surprised if a pack of hoodlums came out of a closet and ran right past us this very second. We shouldn’t be here very long.”

We putted about pretending to inspect things, taking notes on legal pads, and looking ponderous and analytical and official. Whether he saw us as little girls playing pretend or real, grown-up officers of the law didn’t matter—what mattered was him seeing our act as sincere, and we had the wool over his eyes from the moment I ‘admitted’ that we were trying to ‘prove’ ourselves as little women in a world run by big men.

“Alright, ladies,” I announced, “what do we have?”

“All the evidence I’ve gathered so far supports the algorithm,” said Georgina.

“This place is crawling with risk factors,” bullshitted Doll.

“I’ll be able to get you the SARs by open of business.”

“‘SARS’?” asked Tony frantically.

“Sample analysis reports.”

“Oh.” He sighed in relief.

“Which could turn up traces of SARS.”

“Oh, Christ…”

“Look,” I interjected, “these power outlets are ungrounded. If an intruder plugged in a single-insulated appliance, they could electrocute themselves… or worse, start a fire, burning down the building and spreading to adjacent properties.”

“Which introduces an additional liability equation into the risk matrix,” said Georgina very seriously. “This isn’t looking good, sir. It’s definitely going into the report.” Then, very ominously, she added, “Hopefully we can avoid… reporting such variables to Health and Safety, forcing you to renovate a hotel that’s better off as rubble.” Her thinly-veiled threat had the intended effect on him, further stressing him out.

“Hm,” I began, stroking my chin ponderously and sounding very concerned. “The algorithm has indicated in the past that nexuses of these particular risk factors can spread like viruses. It might be wise for us to closely investigate any of your properties in close proximity before any poverty threats can spread and infect your property values.”

His brow furrowed anxiously. “Now?”

“For the time being, we have enough data for our preliminary analysis on this property. Details are vital, but, in light of these very concerning findings, it’s more important at the moment that we improve our view of the big picture as quickly as possible. All of your company’s assets are potentially in harm’s way. We need to knock out a hundred birds with one stone so that we can help you with more than just the Torrey Pines. You might want to get some coffee, sir, you’re going to be escorting us all night.”

He was genuinely worried. “I don’t drink coffee—the caffeine—makes my heart palpitate.”

“Fortunately, we’ve already had our fix. Can you get us into the warehouse?” I asked.

“I can get you on the property, but—‍”

“Let’s go.”

We drove right around the block. He scratched his head as he got out of his car. “I’m not supposed to…”

“Mister Hopkins, I’m afraid we’re going to need unfettered access to the facility if we’re going to do our jobs and get you the information your company very urgently needs to protect your very vulnerable assets.”

“I don’t have the keys.”

“You don’t?”

“I thought this was just going to be a little walk around the grounds.”

“Well… how long would it take you to get them?”

“I would have to ask one of the execs for it.”

“And wake them up.”

“Which I’d rather not.”

“Well, with your consent,” I said, flashing my lockpick case, “I can pick it.”

He considered his options carefully. “I don’t know if…”

“Sir… this inspection could be the deciding factor in future cases like the Torrey Pines, where prostitutes were violating your rights as property owners, squatting in and abusing the hotel, leaving your company vulnerable to legal liabilities and a PR nightmare before getting it placed on the City Historic Architecture Register and ruining your project. This disaster, without a doubt, could have been avoided with closer cooperation between our agency and yours. Our goal is to target high-risk facilities and head off any squatters before they multiply out of control and, like the hookers, take over completely—thus heading off another catastrophe like Monday’s. If you let us in, you could be saving your bosses from a lot of future headaches. If you don’t let us in, though…”

“Oh…” I was tearing him apart.

“We aren’t gonna find anything your company needs to worry about. And even if we were in theory to find something legally questionable, we don’t have a search warrant—and you know what that means.” ‹Absolutely nothing.› “And, besides… Misters Gunther and Sampson are friends of the mayor. We wouldn’t want to upset either of those very important people by digging up skeletons that are best left buried and forgotten. We know how to be discreet.” ‹We know how to be, and we will not be.›

In the midst of dissociation he nodded.

“Yes?”

“Uh. Sure.”

“I need an affirmative ‘yes’ or a negative ‘no’, Tony. Do you consent to us picking this lock and going in and searching every nook and cranny for anything we think might be interesting?”

“Yes.”

I held back a grin. ‹Bingo.› “Great!” I patted him on the shoulder and fiddled with the lock—fortunately for us, it was a cheap one, so with 3 quick rakes across its 4 non-security pins, it was open.

“That was a very difficult lock,” said Georgina, “based on how long that took you.”

“Ha. Ha. Cheap or expensive, raking anything that fast still takes a delicate touch.”

“It’s a Lansuo. I could have opened it in one movement… with my bare hands.”

“Bullshit.”

She closed the shackle and thumped the lock on its side—quite forcefully—with the butt of her hand… and the shackle popped right open. “See? Lansuo. Every knowledgeable picker learns about that attack in kindergarten.”

“Oh.” I blushed.

We spread out, searching offices and loading bays and storage pens and lofts and closets.

“Nothing,” whispered Georgina; Doll said as much, and Regina nodded in defeat.

My heart sank. There was no sign of Alexander Brookvale, anywhere. I found an old wooden crate to sit on, a safe place to allow my very quickly growing disappointment to fester.

Forgiving Ghosts

Content Warnings:
Depression;
Complex Grief;
Survivor’s Guilt

“So, uh, Officer, are there any risk factors here?” asked Tony.

“No,” I said morosely. “We expected something big. We found jack.”

“You look disappointed. Did not-finding anything break your algorithm?”

“Yeah. Basically.”

“I bet if you keep looking, you’ll find something.”

“You’ll find him,” said Shosh.

“Maybe bits and pieces.”

“Bits and pieces are better than nothing,” said Tony. I gave him a dirty look. “Christ, I’m sorry. This really that important to you?”

“It’s a matter of life and death.”

“Since when? I thought this was just a neighborhood watch type deal.”

“Yeah,” replied Shosh, “and it’s your job to find him, in whole or in part.”

“It’s hopeless.”

“You searched 2 properties,” reassured Tony. “You got lotsa data left.”

“He’s right. It’s not like you’ve searched high and low.”

“We’ve literally searched all the lofts up high and the bays down low.”

“There are other properties,” they both stressed.

“This was it. This was the one. This was the only one that made sense. He’s in the ground. Probably has been for weeks.”

“‘In the ground’?” asked Tony. “Who’s ‘in the ground’?”

Shosh reminded me, “You. Don’t. Know. That.”

“He’s dead.”

“You haven’t found a body!”

“Who’s dead?” Tony asked, more bewildered than frantic. “What are you talking about?”

“Because it’s gone, buried in the desert.”

“Officer, you seem like you’re having some kind of… trouble.”

“Not yet,” she insisted. “He isn’t dead yet.”

“How can you possibly know that?”

“You’re… talking to yourself,” he observed.

“I gotta hunch,” she ‘explained’.

“‘A hunch’,” I echoed skeptically.

“I wouldn’t call it a ‘hunch’,” he said. “It’s pretty clear you just aren’t making any sense.”

“He’d be haunting you, just like me. You can’t let go of me, you won’t let go of him. If he’s dead, he would have joined me in the cast of people whose deaths you feel responsible for.”

“Because I am.”

“You’re not making sense… because you’re making sense?” he asked. “This is what I’m talking about.”

“You weren’t the one who killed me! They weren’t looking at the road!”

“It should have been me.”

Tony was dumbstruck.

I’d caught her off-guard. “That’s what’s been eating you for a decade?”

“Yes.”

“Esti. Being alive doesn’t make it your fault. Just let it go.”

“‘Let it go.’ My life isn’t a Disney cartoon. I can’t just magic away a decade of grief.”

“You, uh, wait here, Officer, I’ll get one of your friends to help you.” I don’t doubt that he left, but I wasn’t paying attention, so I failed to notice whither.

“I’m not asking you to ‘magic away’ anything, I just want you to accept this one little change to your worldview. I promise, reality won’t fall apart if you do this for yourself.”

“I can’t.”

“If not for you, for me. Because now I feel guilty.”

“Why do you feel guilty?”

“Because I died when it should have been you who got hit that day.”

I stared at her.

“Did you hear what I just said?”

“Do you really… mean that?”

“Of course I don’t, ya big dummy! I feel guilty for dying, you feel guilty for not dying, it’s neither of our faults, it’s both of our faults, pick one, pick both, move on, get over it. Apologize to me if you want, seek my forgiveness and you shall receive it. You can’t change the past. You can only accept that it was me who died, appreciate that you’re alive, and make it up to me by living a happy life, the way you’ve been living the past week. Make my death happy by making your life happy.”

I had no words.

“You need to stop blaming yourself, Esti. I’m begging you, let history be history, spilt milk under the bridge. If we can joke about it, maybe it’s time you stopped taking it so damn seriously.”

‹How can I not take it seriously? On the other hand—why do I laugh when she makes light of it? Is death so dreadfully terrible that it’s impossible to laugh at it? It isn’t. Whether it’s her death or mine, humor is somehow acceptable.

‹Where are the lines? What parts of death can be mocked, and what parts are sacred? I’ll only find out if I test our boundaries.›

“The best part about that car hitting you was the funny sound you made.”

One surprised second later, she was cracking up.

“Ah! Oomf! Thud-thump.” I hadn’t actually been there to hear it, but it was easy enough to imagine how it went.

She slapped me on the shoulder. “Damn it, I can’t breathe! That’s exactly how it sounded, being tenderized by a speeding Escalade.”

“The punchline is you heard the ‘ah’ and the ‘oomf’ coming out of your own lungs, but you didn’t hear yourself hitting the ground until you were already standing next to your corpse.”

“Ha-ha-haaa! Yeah-yeah, keep ‘em coming!”

“‘Oy vey!’” I parroted her in distress. “‘Somebody hit that poor, poor woman! I hope she isn’t dead! I can’t find my cell phone, somebody call nine-one-one!’”

“I didn’t sound like that!” In all ‘seriousness’, though, she found my impression convincing—she was just adding to the comedic tension, giving me a ‘yes, and…’ to riff on.

“You did, though. The most panicked you’ve ever sounded was when you saw your own body bounce off that car and hit the pavement.”

She giggled. “Alright. Yeah. I knew for certain I was staring death in the face, except I didn’t realize it was through the looking glass.”

“You mean the windshield glass.”

“Yes!” she exclaimed with a cackle. “How’s my Esti feeling, guilt-wise? Better?”

Suddenly sober again, I explained, “I still feel like I failed you.”

“‘I didn’t fail my mother.’ Say it.”

“Saying it isn’t going to make me believe it.”

“Humor me.”

“I didn’t fail my mother.”

She pulled me up and hugged me. “And even if you did somehow fail me, I’d never be disappointed in you, and I’d still depend on you no matter what, because I’ve always loved you and I’ll love you always.”

My throat was sore before I could reply. “Okay.”

She held me out at arm’s length. “Ya gonna move on, now?”

I nodded.

“Good. Now go find Alex.” And with a final squeeze, she left.

“Hey, Prax?”

Soft as her voice was, Georgina startled me. “Ah! Uh, hey.”

“You feelin’ okay?”

“Yeah, I had a discussion with—I did some thinking and got a new lease on this case.”

She nodded skeptically. “That’s… good. Very good.”

“Yep.”

“Tony said you were… talking things through.”

“Yes.”

“Out loud.”

“I think out loud sometimes.”

“Would you say that you ‘talk to yourself’?”

“You could put it that way.”

“And there’s… nobody… else there when you’re talking to yourself?”

‹Fuck.› “No. Just me.”

She bit her bottom lip. “Of course there isn’t.”

“I’m fine. I just think out loud when I’m stressed out, that’s all.”

“Okay. That’s just what you do sometimes.”

“Yes.”

“And there’s nothing to worry about.”

“Exactly.”

She patted me on the shoulder. “If you’re feeling stressed, you have like, 5 people you can reach out to at any time.”

“Of course.”

“Can I ask what’s on your mind?”

“He isn’t here. He should be here, but he isn’t. He’s somewhere else, where he doesn’t belong.”

“That’s how things seem to be. I’m sorry.”

“He was supposed to be here… (Hmmm.) Not now. Earlier. Maybe this morning, maybe yesterday, maybe a week ago, but he was here at some point.”

“We don’t have any evidence pointing to that, though.”

“Of course not. This is just a hunch. But even if it’s just a hunch, I’m still certain he was here but they moved him. And if it happened today…”

I sprang to my feet and inspected the ground outside each of the warehouse bays, ‹1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6…›

Until I found what I was looking for, outside an open bay door.

“Not this morning,” I said, pointing out deep tire tracks in the mud that easily could have belonged to a van. “A few hours ago, at the earliest.”

“Shit!” Georgina leaned over the gouges in the earth and got a good look. “Damn, Sherlock.”

“If I were Sherlock, I probably would have noticed them right away with my computer brain and not mention them until after we found Alex. We need to follow the crumbs.” She called Doll; after snapping some shots of the tread, the three of us traced the tracks to another gate on the other end of the yard, beyond which close inspection revealed that the tires had left a short trail of mud as they veered left onto Sylvester Street. “They went south.”

“And ditched the mud,” pointed out Doll. “I’m afraid our trail runs cold after this. But even if they hadn’t shaken off all the mud so soon, there would still be the mud of a million other cars crisscrossing the trail to throw us off.”

“They left after the rain started; this dirt is fairly silty, so the soil infiltration should be somewhere around half an inch per hour; given how thoroughly soaked the ground must have been for the tracks to be this deep… they left at least a couple of hours after the rain started. And on the topic of the tracks’ depth, I suspect they were in a hurry—and I think I can confirm that suspicion.” We checked back at where the tracks began, where they were indeed at their deepest, precisely where the rear tires would have been parked with the rear of the van up against the dock. “There. They tried to peel out and dug themselves a furrow. And now I’m wondering…” We went back and I inspected the mud tracks on the street. “The outer tracks are thicker than the inner ones, but end sooner. They took the left turn so aggressively that the van put most of its weight on the right tires and shed their mud more quickly. They needed to get out of here, ASAP. They were expecting visitors. They knew we were coming.”

Georgina whistled. “That’s some crazy good work, Detective. But, like Prissy already pointed out, the tracks end after the turn, leaving us with no breadcrumbs to follow.”

I pointed at the traffic lights. “Santa Virginians don’t like to drive in the rain, so the streets along the way might well have been empty. If they were really in a hurry, they might have felt brave enough to speed or run a red light—or several.”

“Ah.” Doll nodded, and a smile shortly crept into her lips. “Do you think you could convince Traffic to fork over the pics?”

“I’ll have to, while crossing my fingers our perps ignored traffic regs.”

“Ladies, where ya been?” asked Tony, catching up with us. “You disappeared!”

“Just gathering more data,” I said. “There may be a risk factor in the lack of pavement on this property. Dust attracts crime, and mud… encourages… trespassing.”

“That makes sense,” he said after mulling over my nonsense for a few seconds. “What was all that about life and death earlier, and a guy being in the ground? Is something bad going on?”

“Um.” ‹Shit, do I really have to make something up?› “Uh. Yeah… I was thinking out loud, and… I sometimes think in metaphors.”

He looked at me dubiously. “You were acting like somebody’s actually dead.”

‹Tell him the truth? Does he have a need to know? No. But he’s going to hound me until I give him a satisfactory explanation.› “I… Okay. There was a—my mother—she died several years ago, and—I have a case I’m working on and it’s reminding me of her, so I’m reliving some trauma and I—had a breakdown. Because I’m a woman, with lots of feelings. And I’m on my period.”

“Oh.” He seemed to believe my mostly bullshit explanation. “How did she die?”

“I’d rather not talk about this, if you don’t mind. You know, like, the way a man buries his feelings. I’m trying to be tough, like a man. Because I’m an insecure woman who feels the need to pretend she’s masculine around men.”

“Oh. Sure. Of course.”

“Thank you for your understanding. And thank you for your assistance!” I gave him a grateful pat on the shoulder. “We’re finished here. Now we have to do some number crunching and some data wrangling. We’ll give you your results in a month, after we’ve processed all our data.”

“It was nothing,” he said cheerily.

“Alright, ladies, move out.”

The trail was cooling, but still warm to the touch—the situation was much further from hopeless than I had convinced myself, but there was no time for fucking around. We discussed our plans over Bluetooth on our way back to the station house and met up at my desk. I called Diane and asked her to submit a department information request to Traffic on Doll’s behalf, and she was able to send one from her phone. Regina decided to take a potty break when I bid Doll good luck and sent her on her way to First Precinct Traffic Squad—I sent her in my stead because I figured Traffic might give me a hard time.

After about 3 minutes of radio silence from her I was about ready to burst out of my own skin as I came closer and closer to concluding that they were giving her a hard time.

“You okay?” asked Georgina.

“Yes. No. Nervous. I’m worried they’re going to give her as hard a time as they would have given me.”

“She’s charismatic, she’s sweet, but she knows when to be assertive.”

“She should have texted something by now.”

“There could be a line.”

“She would have said so. Besides, it’s night shift, no one’s going to be waiting in line to talk to Traffic.”

“Well… It’s probably just the regular bureaucracy and red tape slowing things down. Or whoever’s at the front desk decided they wanted to chat about something random.”

“Maybe.”

“Hey.”

“Hm?”

“They have to give her the traffic data.”

“Not right away.”

“Sending her was your idea, remember? Like I said, she’s nice, she’s professional, she’s polite, people like her.”

“Unlike me.”

She chuckled. “Exactly! She’ll convince them to give our request top priority.”

“But does she know how to lie if they ask her the wrong questions?”

“She’s an adulteress. If she can get away with keeping a secret from her husband, she can discreetly neglect to mention that this request is actually for your case.”

I hummed doubtfully.

“Christ, there’s no way to satisfy you.” She scanned the room—empty. “Well, there might be a way…” She straddled my lap and brought her mouth to my neck, and I felt and heard gentle moisture, forcing a sigh-groan from my throat.

“We—don’t have any privacy here, Koko.”

“It’s night shift.” Another kiss stole my breath. “There’s nobody around.”

“This is a bad—(ah)—idea…”

“We fucked next door to a crime scene—‍” Another kiss, another sigh. “—while it was being investigated.”

“But this is—‍” Her mouth smothered my words. During the next kiss she undid my top button. When she gave me room to breathe, I muttered, “(Koko… I don’t think we should…)” She kissed me again, and I kissed her back. Another button came undone. I wrapped my arms around her neck. “(This is a bad idea…)” I whispered half-heartedly.

“Yeah, well—(mwa)—you shoulda considered the cons—(mwa)—when you got with a girl—(mwa)—who gets off on doing it—(mwa)—in unusual places.”

“‘Unusual places’?”

“Why else would I have been so eager to fuck right next door to a bloody crime scene?” Kiss. “If I could have fucked you in that very room, I would have done it in a heartbeat.” Kiss.

“Huh.” I was too turned on by how intensely weird she was to be disturbed by said weirdness.

Another kiss, another button, another kiss, another button… Once enough of them were loose she snaked her hand up my bra cup and tweaked my nipple, inspiring me to moan a little more forcefully than seemed wise to me—which in the first place was with any force at all. As it was, there was an audible echo within the squad room.

“For someone who’s scared to fuck at work, you’re awfully noisy.”

“Shut up and kiss me, but keep your eyes peeled.” But my own eyes grew heavy, and I stopped paying attention to the outside world. I hadn’t recently spent much time with Koko, so it was nice to bond with her.

Somebody cleared their throat from across my desk.

My heart skipped a beat, my eyes shot open, and my head jerked to the source of the sound. To my relief, it was Doll.

“Christ almighty,” muttered Koko. “Good job keeping watch, Prax. I just about had a heart attack.”

“Sorry, I’m sorry. I was just so relaxed…”

“Fortunately for you,” pointed out Doll, “it’s only me who caught you.”

“And me,” said a voice behind us. The voice belonged to Regina. She had been watching for God-knows-how-long.

Koko dismounted me, and I rebuttoned. “Oh. We were… passing the time until the two of you got back.”

Doll snorted very cutely. “Did you see my SecreText?”

“You sent one?”

“Yes, they were able to identify a brown van speeding through the first intersection, and said the files would be in your CaseCloud in ‘a few minutes’—which was a few minutes ago, so it might be there by now.”

“Oh.” I finished buttoning and logged in. “(Yesss,)” I hissed victoriously as CaseCloud opened to reveal the coveted pictures and records of violations. “Clues, precious clues.” They pulled up chairs for a better view of the first traffic light photo, which was at the intersection of Adams and Sylvester. “There’s our brown van alright. 1987 Ford Econoline E-150, license plate B120NKL7, registered to Advanced Plumbing Services, Inc. I’m a little disappointed that it’s hard to make out the driver, but we’ve got plenty to work with here.”

“I’ll say,” said Koko. “Are those photos for every intersection they passed through?”

I snorted. “Looks like they really were in a hurry.”

We plotted the red lights south and west, all the way to the Cargo District north of the wharfs, due south of Santa Virginia Bay, where the traffic cameras ended their vigil—and the trail, once again, ran cold.

“We know they went in the direction of the wharfs,” said Doll, “but we don’t know if they stopped there or kept going.”

“Yeah. Fuck.” I stared at LEGIS’s satellite view of the Cargo District and tried to get inside our culprits’ heads.

Tried. But I didn’t know them. They were sadists, probably working class, the loyal servants of capitalists. I didn’t know how to think like them, and I began to doubt being able to wouldn’t bring me any closer to understanding and predicting their behavior in doing something so mundane as driving.

So I was left with the question, ‹Where would they try to go?› Which I quickly realized ought to have been, ‹No, if I’m a rat whose hole might be trapped, where do I shelter to avoid getting my leg snapped off? If only I had more than one rat hole.› “Oh my God, I’ve been staring at this screen for like 3 minutes and the answer is in another file.” I opened up the property plot I had crafted earlier in LEGIS. “This will show us the way.”

My girlfriends ‘ahhh’ed.

I imported the coordinates of the traffic violations into the map to give us an idea of what other properties our kidnappers had to choose from. Filtering out everything except G&S’s holdings left us with 3 properties located south of the Bay. The largest was the massive cargo processing facility leased by Customs and Border Protection (no doubt G&S’s biggest cash cow). The next down in size was Delta Nile’s third largest fulfillment center in Southern California, which I doubted had any convenient hiding spots for kidnappees. But my pulse spiked as I saw that the smallest G&S property in the neighborhood was a container terminal operated by Ulysses TransPacific Solutions.

I tapped on the screen excitedly as I announced, “He’s here, he’s here! Alex Brookvale is here! If he’s alive, he’s here!”

“Let’s go, Clover,” said Doll, smoothly. “Let’s rescue him.”

‹They might have chopped him into pieces and tossed him in the ocean.› I shook my head. ‹I can’t handle this case if I think that way. If he’s alive, time is of the essence. I have to assume he’s alive, or else I’ll drag my feet and allow this prophecy of his death to fulfill itself.› I checked my holster just to be absolutely certain I had my piece, checked my coat pocket for my cuffs and grabbed an extra pair from my desk, and locked my laptop. “You guys ready?” They nodded. “Holy shit. He’s so close, I’ll fucking die if it turns out they kill—‍” I stopped myself with a deep breath. “Don’t think about that possibility, Andrea… just focus on the mission. Let’s go, girls.”

Steel Casket

Content Warning:
Arrest at Gunpoint

The drive was hell.

I fought back waves of panic that whispered worries of death and dismemberment and failure. I saw his face with a thousand awful expressions ranging from agony to terror to eyes-rolled-back succumbination to unconsciousness, always pale with blood loss, blood which was no longer flowing under cardiac power but slowly oozing from one or more orifices or wounds.

‹He’s dead. If they actually know we’re on their trail, they should know the smartest thing for them to do is feed him to the fish, quietly and without delay. This is a homicide case, now, Andrea. Accept the unpleasant truth, be honest with myself. Geraldine is going to hate me even more than she already does. She’s gonna be beyond devastated, and she’s gonna despise me for being a worthless no-good pig. And there’s nothing I can do to help her except retrieve his body to make his funeral possible, so that she can have the closure she deserves.›

We parked around the corner from the Ulysses TransPacific Solutions container terminal and, darting from cover to cover, peeked through the iron bars of the fence to check for anybody looking our way then cased the fenced perimeter. We split up and inspected each of the four truck gates quickly; upon checking the fourth I discovered that it was unlocked. Bingo. I motioned to the others to fall back into cover. “(This one’s unlocked,)” I whispered. “(Safety check?)” Doll and Koko nodded. “(Looks like we’re complying with the Fourth Amendment tonight… assuming the judge agrees there’s a chance someone could have wandered in there and put themself in danger.)”

Amidst the sound of the Ocean Pacific raging against the sea wall, we stepped between the shadows of parked trucks and unladen 20-foot trailers until we reached a labyrinthine holding area for shipping containers, the only place besides the container crane’s operator cabin bearing any resemblance to a base of operations. While doing our best to keep out of sight of the cabin, we checked for unlocked containers, but every one we came across was locked.

Without warning the crane began to slowly creep towards the pile of containers, causing me to jump out of my skin. Christ! We looked at each other in alarm. ‹Someone’s operating that thing! It has to be them!›

I motioned to my girls to follow me, and, taking token care to remain concealed, rushed the crane’s stairs. Tiptoeing was unnecessary under the noise of the crane’s busy motors and hydraulics, so we ascended as quickly as we could while maintaining a tight formation, by which time the pick-up mechanism had been positioned more-or-less above one of the containers we hadn’t gotten to, where it hovered patiently for reasons that were beyond me. As we reached the door to the cabin the crane resumed adjusting itself and its arm so that the pickup mechanism was sitting squarely above the mystery container. I gave Koko and Blue the sign to stay back, prompting them to nod and make room for the women who still had badges and guns—then motioned ‘on three’ to Doll. By the time I got to ‘two’ the pickup device had descended within arm’s reach of the container, and as my fingers wrapped around the knob and turned it, the claw clamped onto the container’s four corners.

I swung the door open, and Doll and I strolled in to find two black suits working the crane, a blonde bun at the controls and a black crew cut holding up the user’s manual for a Hymore B102 ship-to-shore crane for the other’s reference. They looked up from their activity and froze.

“Good evening,” I began as I flipped open my badge wallet. “Santa Virginia Police Department, Detective Bachman, this is my colleague, Lieutenant Buchanan. We noticed that one of the gates to this facility was open and unsupervised, so we decided to make a safety check to ensure that no unauthorized persons had entered this area without proper supervision and personal protective equipment.”

They continued to stare at us.

“Are one or both of you employees of Ulysses TransPacific Solutions?”

Panic wafted out of their eyes like thick columns of smoke billowing from a burning oil rig.

“Is that a ‘no’?”

No ‘yes’es, no ‘no’s, no shakes, no nods. Just frozen, deer-staring-Death-in-the-headlights silence.

“Would you mind explaining to us why you are operating a crane after hours and out of uniform?”

No response.

“How about telling us your names?”

Not a syllable in reply.

“Two people out of uniform and clumsily operating a crane with the user manual open in their laps, who are refusing to identify themselves when asked if they are authorized to be on the premises. This is not a good look.”

The man snaked his hand inside his coat—but our guns were drawn and aimed before he could lay a finger on what he was reaching for.

“Whatever you have in there, it better not have a trigger. Show that empty hand.” He obeyed. “Put the book on the table.” He did. “Come here, stop 5 feet away from me.” He approached me and stopped. I patted his chest, felt something, and reached into his inside pocket. It was a very familiar shape, made of metal and checkered wood; my guess from the shape—snub nose .38 special—turned out to be on the money. “We aren’t the shoot-first types, friendo, but you very nearly got yourself killed. Hands up and against the wall.” I cuffed him. “Hey, lady, you wouldn’t happen to have any surprises, either, would you?” She nodded timidly. “Up, over here.” I patted her down and pulled a compact 9mm from her waistband before cuffing her. With our quarry restrained, we holstered our pieces. I told them their rights before adding, “I’m not promising immunity or a plea bargain, but the first one of you to confirm whether the body is in that crate you just picked up gets a kind smile and a good word with the DA.”

“He’s alive,” they said in unison.

“He’s alive?” I exclaimed. “How alive is he?”

“Just a few scratches,” claimed the bigger one.

“Is there a lock on the container?”

“We threw away the key,” said the less-big one.

“Shit… Doll, let’s get these fuckers outside and get a look at the lock on that container.”

On the way down the stairs I opened the land mobile radio app on my work phone and keyed it. “Oscar-4582 to Dispatch.”

“This is Dispatch, go ahead, 4582.”

“I am at the Ulysses TransPacific Solutions container facility in South Bay, I require medical transport for one adult, a locksmith, transport for two perps, a CSI team, and a tow truck.”

“Is the casualty stable?”

“Perps say yes, but we can’t access him for inspection, he’s locked in a shipping container.”

“Copy, your resources have been dispatched. Case number?”

“Mike papa 20240710003.”

Keyboard clattering in the background. “Missing Person, Alexander Brookvale.”

“Affirmative.”

“I’ll log this call in the CaseCloud momentarily. Keep us apprised of any developments.”

“Roger, thanks, out.” As we arrived at Alex’s steel coffin, I inspected the padlock. “Shit, it’s a disc detainer—and I left my disc detainer tool at home.”

Koko cleared her throat. “Hand me your picks.”

“O-kay…” I obliged her, unsure of what she had in mind.

She stuck one end of a tension wrench into the lock and gently jiggled it. “Never seen this brand, looks Chinese. This particular model tensions on the first disc, though, so you can use pin tumbler tools to pick away.” She got to work rotating discs.

“Ah. I feel like a dumbass for not bringing all my tools.”

“I’ll get him out. You should know how to improvise with the wrong tools when you don’t think to bring the right ones.”

I blushed. “And I feel like even more of a dumbass for not knowing how to improvise.”

She mumbled to herself as she worked her way back and forth and between discs, until—

The shackle popped free.

“Quick! Get it open!” I urged.

We unbarred the door and threw it open. Lying supine on the metal floor, facing the back of the container, was a man, hooded, naked, hands tied, and bruised. I thanked God when I saw the side of his chest expand and contract. “Alex.” I removed the hood. He made no sound. I gently shook his shoulder. “Alex, you’re free.” His head turned a few degrees. I cut his bindings and rolled him onto his back as I assured him, “Mister Brookvale, you’re going home. Would you like to talk to your wife?” I waved Blue to come hither, and she began inspecting him for injuries.

He slowly turned his gaze to my face, and looked me in the eye. After a pause, he asked through desiccated vocal cords, “Who are you?”

“Andrea Bachman. I started looking for you after a few days of the police not doing anything to find you.”

“Oh.”

“And this is Koko—um—Georgina Dominguez. And this is Andrea Buchanan. And Doctor Regina Klein is the one giving you a checkup. She’s… the best doctor I know of in her field.”

“It’s been a while since I had a patient that wasn’t stiff from rigor mortis. Can’t say I like it when they start asking for me to give an explanation of their condition that they’re not gonna understand or give medical advice they’re just gonna ignore, but being able to ask them questions about their medical history is nice.”

I grimaced at Blue’s remark. “Yeah, uh… Anyways, they’ve helped me rescue you. So did my other girlfr—a couple of my other friends. Are you ready to talk to your wife?”

He nodded. I dialed her and put my phone to his ear.

“Geri. I’m safe.” I could hear her talking loudly but couldn’t make out her words. “I love you, too. — I don’t know. Andrea, where are we?”

“The Ulysses TransPacific Solutions container terminal, South Bay. We have an ambulance on the way, and as soon as we know which hospital they’re taking you to, I’ll notify your wife.”

“Ulysses TransPacific Solutions container terminal in South Bay. — Andrea Bachman. — She has been? — Geri says, ‘Thank you.’”

My head became lighter than air, and all the tension in my body evaporated, to such an extreme that I nearly fainted; Koko and Doll caught me. “Clover! Are you alright?”

“(Yeah…) Yes. I’m okay. I’m… happy to have been of assistance to you and your wife, Mister Brookvale. Thank you for staying alive throughout this. And I hope you can forgive me for taking so long.”

“I’m alive,” he replied dismissively.

“I… can’t imagine what you’ve been through.”

Blue pinched his bicep; he ignored her and me in favor of his wife. “Geri, can you make that meatlessloaf from last Tuesday for dinner when I get out of the hospital? — Yes, I think the homemade ketchup improves it. — She said she’ll call you with the name of the hospital as soon as she finds out where they’re taking me. — Really, now…?” He eyed me. “You’re a cop, Andrea?”

I bit my lip. “Despite my conscience’s objections, I decided it was necessary to become a Crimes Against Persons Detective in order to rescue you.”

“Do you think it was worth it?” He grimaced and grunted as Blue palpated his side.

“Yes. No, wait—it’s complicated. Actually… it isn’t up to me to decide whether saving your life justified me doing any of what I did. The only person who can know whether it was justified is the person whose life was at stake.”

He smiled through pain as Blue felt his hands and fingers. “That’s where you’re wrong, Andrea. It was your decision to become a cop, not mine. It’s up to you to figure out whether it was the right one.”

“Are you saying you have no opinion, either way, whether I did the right thing or should have left you for dead?”

“I have an opinion, but my opinions are not a substitute for your introspection. You have to examine and constantly re-evaluate your own values, tweaking them as you learn more about the lived experiences of others, to determine whether the actions they drive are ‘correct’. No-one can tell you whether what you’ve done was truly righteous.”

“Okay—but—do—do you think I did the right thing?”

“I have far too much respect for you to decide for you whether your actions have been good or evil or amoral. Now, if you don’t mind, I was chatting with my wife.” He resumed talking on the phone.

I wanted to scream.

‹All Cops Are Bastards. I am a bastard. I used my resources and powers as a bastard to save the life of a community leader, a revered light illuminating a brighter future, a beloved husband, and a human being deserving of dignity and life and good health. I am, nonetheless, a bastard, because All Cops Are Bastards. Other bastards are sending me death threats, making it clear to me that I am not a fellow bastard. I am, nonetheless, a bastard, because All Cops Are Bastards. No matter how often I may risk my life, no matter how many sadists I catch, no matter how many lives I save, no matter how compassionately I may fight for the well-being of society’s most vulnerable communities… I’m still just Another Cop, Another Bastard.

‹Fine. They can call me a bastard. I won’t argue with them. From their perspectives they aren’t wrong, and, given the poor character of the average cop, they have no reason to like me at any point in our relationship, no matter how sincere may be my efforts to gain their trust. People don’t have to like me right off the bat, people don’t have to like me ever, people don’t have to tell me I’m a good person for me to follow my own conscience.

‹So, yeah. It was worth it. I would have sold my body, if it had been the only way to save him. I might have even sold my soul.

‹…

‹In a way, I did.›

“How is he, Doc?” I asked, with the aim of changing the topic in my head.

“Hematomas everywhere, 4 fractured fingers, 3 fractured ribs…” She felt his nose and he yelped in pain. “Nasal fracture…” She spread his mouth open and looked inside. “…2 missing molars, and mild-to-moderate dehydration. He’ll be fine.”

“Thank you for the good news.” I quickly relayed her diagnosis to Dispatch. “Koko, getting that lock open was very heroic. He might have asphyxiated if we hadn’t gotten him out so quickly.”

She pointed at a series of slits on the side of the container. “Vent.”

“Oh.” I blushed as I realized this was the sort of detail Columbo would have noticed immediately and effortlessly. I turned to the two perps in black in order to distract myself yet again. “So you two weren’t planning on suffocating him.” They were silent. “But were you gonna bury him at sea?” Not a peep. “Here’s your first chance to either confess your sins or take them to the grave. Were you or were you not in the process of drowning him?”

She grunted, at which he hissed, “Don’t.”

“Good choice. Silence is your best bet right now. I ain’t a priest, so I have no obligation to keep your misdeeds between us. Still, I gotta get your names.” Doll and I patted them down for ID, but there were no drivers licenses in their wallets. “Who are you?”

Silence.

“You’re under arrest. Failure to identify yourselves can result in charges of obstruction under California Penal Code Section 148(a)(1). You want another year in jail on top of whatever trouble you’re already in?”

More silence. Maybe they knew their rights. Maybe they knew it was only a 148(a)(1) PC if they refused to identify themselves during booking. Maybe they knew I was lying. Maybe I was dabbling in the timeless law enforcement pastime of stretching the truth or outright making shit up when explaining the law to laypeople. Maybe that wasn’t entirely ethical. Power is a greater pleasure than heroin and thanks to all the power fantasies I indulged in throughout my life, I had been addicted to it since childhood, even before they gave me that badge. Maybe I was weak. Maybe I had no business carrying a badge and a gun.

I wasn’t thinking about any of that, though. I was in the moment. I was enjoying the rush injected by my conquest of these two wicked human beings.

“Fine. There’s nothing we can do to get you to talk, so I guess we’ll just have to wait for your lawyers to give us your names.”

The squad car arrived first and took them away. One SecreText debriefing and 2 minutes later, the EMTs picked up Alex. I immediately called Geraldine to notify her that they were whisking him away to Cottonwood Lodge Memorial Hospital. The ambulance drove off into the night, sirens blazing, leaving the 4 of us to each other.

“Good job, Clover.” Doll gave me a kiss, and Koko and Blue followed her example. “He’s alive. He’s safe. And he’ll be home once they’ve taken care of the fractures and given him some fluids. You can relax.”

“Well… I… I’ve been fucking around the whole time his life has been in danger.”

“But not to excess,” said Koko. “You didn’t fuck around so much that you lost sight of your objective.”

“I dunno… I spent an awful lot of time doing freaky shit with my girlfriends when I could have been interviewing witnesses and gathering clues.”

“Shush,” said Blue. “Work-life balance isn’t made-up bullshit. If you work 24/7 without intermittent rest and recreation, you’ll suffer increased anxiety, fatigue, sleep issues, and stress. Take a break—doctor’s orders.”

“Hm. If you say so.”

“We can use your break time to celebrate your victory,” suggested Doll.

“I’m feeling pretty jittery from all the action, I think I’d like to… chill. Calm down. Then take care of the paperwork in the morning, bright and early.”

“Then get chillin’, catcher of villains,” urged Blue with a smile. We all kissed each other good night and went our separate ways. ‹I did it. I saved his life.›

Sleep came easy. But there would come a night, very soon, when sleep would be hard to come by, when one of the very pairs of handcuffs I slapped on these kidnappers would be cinched around the wrists of one of my lovers—

Because they had laid in wait for him. They had stolen him out from under the light of the sun and into the shadows of terror and suffering. They had delivered him into the hands of torturers and would-be killers.

And I would be the one taking that lover’s freedom.

Afterword

I was circling the creative drain while editing what was intended to be my debut story (titled In the Shade of the Tiger Lily, a sexy drug-fueled sci-fi spy thriller set in the ’80s) when my spouse suggested that I try working on something else instead. The plot of this new venture was born of a joke concept: a lowly meter maid bumbles her way through solving some inconsequential mystery with sex… or (as Adrian puts it) the pitch for Zootopia, but with horny humans instead of celibate anthros, and queer kinky erotica instead of sterile corporate cishet Disney ‘wholesomeness’.

The idea gradually accrued gravitas as I continued to explore it, until the story became a romantic thriller about a meter maid who refuses to play by the rules, fighting for her life against the forces of corruption and social injustice. The spirits of humor and sex, however, never left, but merely made room for the gravitas and romance, and the three moods got along so well that they found themselves in an intimate relationship with each other. Polyamorous love wins again.

About the Author

Fannie Spanker was born and raised in Southern California. She listens to the music of the Red Hot Chili Peppers as though they were the prophets of the southern half of her state. She dreams of someday smashing a police car (or a Tesla) in an L.A. riot, though she’s too much of a coward to participate in even the most peaceful of protests.

Once upon a time, Fannie had a badge, but it got taken away because she slacked on her tasks and slept on the job when she thought nobody was looking. (Her boss came a-looking whenever he couldn’t reach her on Skype, and on at least two occasions caught her in the act of snoozing with her face planted on her desk.) For 12 years she sucked at her job. For 12 years she observed the behavior of her coworkers and the inhumane and unethical behavior they engaged in. For 12 years her bosses were unable to hire someone else to do her job because they didn’t want to deal with the union. And now that she’s retired and collecting a government pension paid for by the bastards whose time and money she wasted, they’re officially paying her to not do her job while she writes pornographic anti-cop propaganda.

At least, that’s what she tells herself to feel better about being a pig for over a decade and only leaving her fascist profession when her mental health issues made her so bad at her job that her employers had no choice but to fire her and the union was sick of trying to protect her. She wouldn’t blame you for hating or mistrusting her for her past career choices.