“Aw, hell. You’re a good one, Zach. And you better consider yourself lucky that I think so. There aren’t many people I’d resist breaking over my knee for impropriety with that girl. Or people I’d endure a talk with Strauss for,” he jokes, sending me into a ridiculously giddy fit of laughter.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Kayla
After another terrible bout of sickness, there’s nothing to do but wait. But after all my training for peak readiness, I’m not so good at sitting still.
So I prepare. This time, instead of preparing for a future or goal, I prepare for quitting that goal. After all the heaving, dull numbness is a relief. And doing something beats doing nothing.
Luckily, I didn’t bring many items with me that need to be packed. This should be manageable, even between sessions of dry heaves. I begin ending my life at the Academy and my future in the police. Oh, I’m sure maybe I can get on later, maybe on dispatch or something. Dispatching is honorable as hell. Maybe I haven’t failed so much after all.
I take out my dad’s old duffle bag and take stock of my belongings. Black trousers, black sweatpants, black tee shirts. Yes, this will go quickly.
I stuff them inside the bag and reach above my bunk to the teeming bookshelf. I paid for all these manuals and binders, so I guess they’re coming with me. But despite being so focused on my task, tears rise up.
“Come now,” I tell myself, since there’s no one else to talk to. “It’s gonna be okay. Everything’s gonna work out. Maybe this will work out and you’ll still graduate. Plus, you’re having a baby.”
A baby! Holyshitimhavingababy.
I got so sidetracked with the Academy and Zach, I haven’t even let myself get excited at this most incredible, amazing joy. It starts to peak out of my gloom like glowing cracks in a hatching eggshell.
At this moment, I don’t even much care if Zach wants to help me or be with me. In this instant of realization, I’m suddenly flying so high, the rest of my packing is done while singing every silly lullaby I can remember. I must look insane.
But I’m at peace. I’ve done what I could to salvage the situation for Zach. And I will honor my Dad with how amazingly I will raise his grandchild. This is good. Wonderful, even. It will be wonderful enough.
I do a final check even though I don’t yet know if I will be forced to leave here. I realize I forgot the books on that shelf above my bunk. I reach up and as I pull down a handful of book spines, a couple of binders fall out. They bounce off the bed, onto the floor.
Perfect. Every time I bend over, my center of gravity flops and nausea always returns. I bend my legs, employing many lessons from Zach about body awareness. Easy does it, I tell myself. As I lower my upper body down to the wide open binder, one page inside catches my attention.
It reads:
All illness or any related changes in physical abilities must be reported to the Academy’s on-duty medical personnel. List any change where the cadet could be physically harmed by academy training, such as pregnancy or disease.
Holy shit holy shit holy shit.
It goes on.
This report must include what restrictions, if any, from academy training are needed. (Please note, such restriction may interfere with cadet’s ability to perform the required training and may thus prevent successful completion of academy graduation.)
Fuck me. So even if a miracle happens and I don’t get expelled for my tryst with Zach, my graduation will get canceled if anyone finds out I got pregnant?
The next paragraph gets even better.
Failure to disclose risks to cadet’s health while in training constitutes an automatic dismissal from the academy.
Third one’s the charm. Another way to get kicked out of the academy. It’s like the universe is telling me something now. I take a deep breath. There’s no choice really to be made here. If I’m going to do the right thing, I’m going to do all the right things. Even if it means I must leave now.
I halt my packing, with a grim sense of duty and acceptance. It seems that being a self-respecting responsible woman is only a few steps away, in the medical building.
***
I keep doing it. In my hand, I weigh my newly returned phone by turning it, front over back repeatedly, as if another turn will reveal something new. Over and over, I kneed it, reorienting my hand to its once familiar shape and weight.
I never imagined I could live for almost half a year without it. Strangely, now that I have it back, I’m not sure what to do with it. But considering its solid weight and metal casing, I think I know exactly how to throw it like a weapon.
But the use for that knowledge is gone. What I’ve learned will probably now be wasted, lost to any street patrol use that might’ve come.
Yet, it also occurs to me that the phone-as-stun-weapon lesson might come in handy if this little baby grows to be too unruly as a teenager.
I giggle to myself and lean against my car, packed with everything I brought to the Academy with me. The evening is falling, twilight on the horizon, stars twinkling above me. A chorus of crickets sings from the woods surrounding me for the occasion. The concrete academy parking lot sits mostly empty, including the space where Zach parks his car every day.
I don’t know what to do. I don’t know where to go.
I look down to my phone, and tap Zach’s contact picture. In it, he’s holding a giant nitrate-free smoked ham over his head, shirtless, grinning, sweat glistening. I hope to see him feeling this victorious again some day.
Here I am, all clear. And, of course, I don’t know what to say. I start several texts and delete each one. I settle on the surest, or the one that seems the surest and punch it in.
Just as I finish typing, We need to talk, I receive a message. Ah. From Zach.
Where are you? I heard you turned in resignation papers. Wrong ones, Beautiful. I have different paperwork for you to sign. We need to talk.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Zach
“So what I’m saying is, you can graduate in a month from the police academy, just like you planned.”
Her hand radiates warmth into both of mine. Standing in front of her, this close, finally so close and free at the same time, I can hardly believe it’s happening.
Kayla wears this serene face I haven’t seen outside of post-sex bliss. I like it on her. She definitely wears it well. It’s like there’s some kind of weird brilliance emanating from her whole body. I couldn’t describe it precisely, like for the purposes of a line-up or anything. But she’s turning me on like nobody’s business.
Damn it’s been too long since I’ve relished the simple sight of Kayla in my apartment. But what’s getting me right now is how serene she’s been since she got here. Like how, before I told her that all her dreams were coming true, she looked as happy as she does at this moment, when her fears have been fully and utterly destroyed by yours truly.
Now why would that be?
I know a lot of blood is down in my genitals, anticipating our reunion this night. But that’s not making my mind a total waste. Yet I can’t quite put it together either. Why is she this happy—before knowing her dream still lives?
Looking up at me, she smiles slowly, slyly, adding a very earthy, very hot dimension to her ethereal glow. I decide not to care about silly little details.
I want to sink my mouth into hers and lose myself in every inch of her I can get. But first, the truth-telling.
“As I said—Kayla, just a sec, honey.” I stay her hand traveling to the bulge of my manhood over my pants.
I continue. “As I said, you can graduate from the police academy, just not our police academy.”
I pause and look carefully into her face, eager for her response. She only wears that mysterious smile, mouth corners twitching slightly. I guess I’ll take that. But her eyes are mesmerizing, enquiring so deep. These looks she’s giving are potent. Bewitching. But she’s saying so little, after all that’s gone on.
This is all very fuckin
g weird.
She draws her hands up, resting her forearms on my shoulders, fingers loosely clasped around my neck. “Well. That’s great to hear.” Her last word draws out, like she’s almost singing it. “I’m glad I don’t have to go back to that old place.”
“Oh. Well… great! Wow. I’m glad you feel that way.” Relieved, I brush her cheek and bring my mouth to her neck, nibbling and talking. “It’s smart, actually, with the taint of scandal and the nasty nasty gossip. Oh that Kayla’s a bad bad girl…”
“No.”
I stop short, popping my head back in place like a puppet. “What do you mean, ‘no’?”
“Our existing scandal isn’t why I don’t want to go back there.”
I’m getting desperate. What the fuck’s going on with her?
She breathes a laugh. Her eyes gleam. Her voice registers barely above an excited whisper. “I don’t want to go back there… because I’m pregnant.”
I’ve never been out to California. Never felt a earthquake. Or stood by a geyser blowing at full power. But I bet it feels a lot like this.
Invisible thunderbolts jolt down my legs into the floor. Giant beams like from old Godzilla movies but now of joy want to shoot out of my mouth. I must look crazy because Kayla’s eyes are wide.
So I kiss her.
I didn’t realize until now that I never wore a condom with her. All of the time we had sex were unprotected, and I never considered the consequences.
It’s an anomaly in my life. I’m normally very conscious of using protection with my partners. My fear of sexually transmitted diseases has kept me from ever fucking a woman bare. Until Kayla and I joined genitals.
Even if our first one was random, all of the other times we engaged in sex, I had condoms near me. It’s almost as if I wanted this to happen and wanted it to happen now.
And now I will be someone’s father. Me.
Sure, every man has thought about being a father, but the idea doesn’t come around often for people who aren’t trying to get their partner pregnant, or are avoiding the responsibility. Now that I’m faced with the prospect… I want to be a father. A good one. One who’s there. One who doesn’t abandon his child or their mother.
I want to be a father like Kayla’s.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Kayla
Quite a pair Zach and I are.
We go years without talking to each other for most of our lives, and after just a few dates, we’re absolutely inseparable, going so far as to endanger our futures. Our breakup only lasted a couple of days.
He started a new path, taking night classes for a dual degree in psychology and criminal justice, while working another patrol position. Back on the force. And I was told I wouldn’t be expelled. It figures that we only lasted less than a week apart.
I love Zach. I’m in love with him. And the feeling is mutual. We both sacrificed something for the other. And due to these sacrifices, we were able to keep ourselves from hurting our lives. And now there’s nothing to stop us from being together.
Well, except for the miles between us.
My time at the police academy was short-lived and ended with a scandal. But thankfully, due to some strings-pulling by the powers that be, instead of being expelled, I was transferred to a nearby police academy. It’s a drive from my town, but some new scenery is a small punishment considering that I could have ended up getting no further training.
Zach also no longer spends his time at the police academy campus we once shared. He now spends a lot of his waking hours on patrol or studying for class, until a detective position opens up. He’s passed the detective exam already, but thinks the degree can only help him catch “the biggest fish,” as he calls them.
It’s grim, grueling work, I remember my dad saying of homicide, but that despite seeing dead bodies and grieving families regularly, getting justice for victims is the greatest sense of accomplishment he’s known, outside of raising a kid. Zach always seems chipper about his new job and what he does on a daily basis.
Every night, we set some time aside to talk to each other about our day since we don’t have many opportunities to see each other in person very often. Or at all, really.
We’ve mended our relationship since we were forced to temporarily go our separate ways. But not being able to see each other does make it difficult to feel wanted. After voicing this concern to Zach, he’s tried to comfort me by repeating what he said before; the same schtick about waiting until I graduate.
Two more weeks.
But today, he asked me to set tonight aside and make sure that nobody will interrupt what he has planned. I assure him that I’ll be alone all night and that he can go on and start whatever it is that Zach has up his sleeve.
“Open Skype,” a text from him reads.
I do so and am surprised by Zach’s naked, hard cock taking up most of my laptop’s screen. He leans to his side and reveals his movie star face hiding behind his gorgeous penis.
“Like what you see?” He raises an eyebrow.
I choke down some drool with a nonchalant chuckle. “Of course I do.”
“This guy has missed you,” Zach says as he runs his hand down his shaft as if it were a pet. “You seem pretty warm with all of those clothes on. Don’t you want to get comfortable?”
“I’d be able to get comfortable much easier if you were here to help me.” I’ll be the first to admit that I’m coming off as bitchy, complaining about not being able to be together while he’s trying to get me turned on.
“Come on, babe. This is the best we can do for now,” he explains without diminishing his sexy smile. “If you don’t feel like talking, I can just put it on mute. Then you can watch me jerk off.”
“I don’t mind. I like seeing you stroke that monster,” I moan, getting in the mood. I lick my lips and stare in awe at the giant slab of Zach he holds in his hands.
As I watch Zach touch himself, I start to lean into role-playing as a stranger who just happened stumbled upon this act of voyeurism. I overreact happily, opening my eyes as wide as possible and react as cartoonishly as possible, like I’ve seen pornstars do in videos. This is the closest Zach and I have gotten to having sex in two long weeks, I’m not going to ruin it by complaining.
“Do you think you could fit that monster inside of me,” I ask in my breathy porn star voice.
He cracks a smile. “Let me see what you’re working with, honey. It’s the only way to find out.”
I do as he says and slide my shorts off. I keep my panties on, for the moment anyway, and slide it to the side to show Zach my pussy.
“I’ve never had something that big inside of me. Will it hurt?”
“Yes. In the best way,” he moans. “But it’ll hurt less if you get yourself nice and wet. And even less if you put those lips around my cock.”
Because I’m seeing him look at me through a screen I’m looking at, it’s difficult to pinpoint exactly what part of me Zach is staring at, but since my webcam is pointed at my pussy, I start to play with myself while he speeds up his strokes.
I lean back in order to have my face back in the frame, and use the fingers on my other hand to show Zach what I’d be doing to his member if it wasn’t miles away. I wrap my tongue around my index and middle fingers, and get them dripping with my spit. I then suck the spit back into my mouth and swallow it.
“I want to taste you,” he tells me.
I repeat his words and ask him if he’d like to see more of me. He nods his head and moves his face closer to see me more clearly. I remove my top and squeeze both of my tits with the same veracity Zach has grabbed them with in the past.
“Yeah, take this, baby,” he says breathing heavily. “Take my cock.”
I instead take his cue, and start fingering myself while I play with my clit. Masturbating doesn’t satisfy me nearly as much as being pinned down and ravaged. But having an audience may be a significant variable I should incorporate more often. I imagine Zach being in front of me. Not j
ust through an LED screen, but actually in front of me, breathing. Sweating.
Zach’s moaning helps me envision him crawling on top of me and wrapping his arms completely around me, holding me still, enclosing me while he fucks me. My fingers don’t compare to the girth of his cock, but they do the job fine.
“Fuck yes,” I hear Zach scream.
I shoot up from my bed to watch Zach shoot his load. The cum lands on his chest and slowly makes a path towards his bellybutton. I take a mental snapshot of this, and use it to bring myself to completion. One orgasmic scream later, I’m left flat on the bed.
“Your legs are shaking,” Zach comments.
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