by Sacchi Green
“Have you thought about moving out?”
“Yeah. I have to save for first, last and security deposit, but believe me. I’ve thought about it.”
Marleen poured coffee. “It’s fresh,” she said. “I put it on as soon as I got home.” Nechama sat at the table. The familiarity of it all had her reaching for her voice recorder, bracing herself for the horrors that waited upstairs. She shook her head, realizing she was picturing her own mother up there, not Chantel Costas.
“What did you say to your kids?” Nechama said. “Since you think they understood what was going on?”
Marleen’s smile was bitter. “I taught them a prayer,” she said. “I told them that if they say it before they go to bed, nothing will come and hurt them in the night.”
Nechama stared at her. She reached out across the table and took the hand that came to meet hers there. The gesture had been instinctual, but as soon as they touched skin to skin, fire ran up and down her veins.
“Officer Zayden,” Marleen said.
“Nechama.”
“Right. I’m sorry about the way I’ve been to you.”
Nechama shrugged. “I didn’t—”
“No. Let me apologize.”
“You shouldn’t have to. I was looking at you that way. I wasn’t going to do anything about it. It wasn’t a requirement before you could have my help. But I did like the way you touched me.”
Nechama looked at their hands, still linked on the table. She blinked back sudden tears and fixed her eyes on Marleen’s stove. The dark hand that gripped her cheek and turned it was delicate, firm and callused. Though Marleen was the shorter one, she pulled them both up and sucked Nechama into another of her hard kisses.
Ever since she was a teenager, Nechama had been the harder one with her lovers, pushing against their softness, bending them to her desire. It was strange and new to open her mouth and let Marleen’s tongue inside, to feel the biting empathy of the way the other woman explored her.
Marleen’s hands were claws, tearing at Nechama’s uniform, opening buttons and armor and, sometimes, skin. Nechama stood shivering, passive for once, letting the other woman reveal her. When she stood naked, Marleen finally took her lips away and stood back.
Nechama looked down at herself. She saw red marks across her breasts and belly, and felt them also stinging across her back. The sight of Marleen still dressed and neat sent a flash of arousing humiliation through Nechama. Marleen reached out and pinched Nechama’s nipple hard, digging her fingernails in. Nechama sank to her knees on the tiled kitchen floor.
“You like it like this?” Marleen said.
“Yes,” Nechama gasped. “Please.”
Marleen let go of Nechama’s nipple and grabbed her hair. She stepped closer. Nechama gripped Marleen’s legs to keep herself upright, clinging to them through the tears clouding her vision. Marleen pulled up her skirt and yanked Nechama’s face against her panty-covered pussy.
Nechama pressed forward and breathed the other woman’s strong smell. She found Marleen’s clit with her nose and wiggled against it as she licked her red silk panties.
Keeping hold of Nechama’s hair, Marleen stepped further forward, driving Nechama to her back on the floor. She settled herself over Nechama’s face, trapping her between small but powerful thighs.
Nechama brought her hands up and pulled the panties aside, working one of her fingers inside Marleen’s pussy as she sucked her clit into her mouth. Marleen let out small grunts and ground hard against Nechama’s face. Her hips wound in a circle, and she pulled Nechama’s hair hard enough to keep the back of her head off the floor. Nechama could barely breathe, but the feeling of drowning just excited her more. She worked second and third fingers inside Marleen and kept her tongue moving desperately.
She felt the other woman’s thighs tensing as she got close to coming. “Come on,” Nechama murmured into her pussy. “Come for me. All over my mouth.”
Marleen was gasping and sweating, her pussy clenching Nechama’s fingers. Nechama felt her getting closer and closer. Marleen’s head tilted back, and her jaws went rigid. Then at the last moment, Marleen whispered a broken “No!” She jerked away from Nechama’s mouth, releasing hold of her hair so quickly that the back of Nechama’s head crashed against the floor.
Nechama lay panting, still tasting and smelling Marleen. She lifted a hand toward her. “Wait! Why?”
Marleen hugged herself, shaking her head. She paced the kitchen, her skirt askew.
“Come back and let me touch you,” Nechama whispered. She held out her arms.
“No one ever makes me come,” Marleen said.
“Maybe I’m different.”
Nechama was rewarded with the signature hard stare, and then a hesitant step forward. Slowly, Marleen lowered herself to the floor beside Nechama, nestling into her arms. Nechama stroked her back and kissed her forehead. “What you want,” Nechama whispered, “is for me to touch you like this. You want me to make you feel good, but you’re afraid to let me. Why?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Marleen said. She rolled onto Nechama and pressed her tongue into her mouth again, chewing on Nechama’s lower lip, almost cutting off her air supply. Nechama groaned and arched her hips up. Her body opened under Marleen, softening and moistening. She spread her legs, just in time to receive the fingers Marleen jammed inside her.
Marleen bit and pinched her way down Nechama’s body, so that Nechama blinked back tears of pleasure and pain by the time the other woman’s mouth arrived at her pussy. Marleen twisted her fingers inside Nechama, spreading them to stretch her, shaping them like a hook and pressing hard against her G-spot. Nechama could smell her own scent filling the kitchen. She’d never been so wet in her life. She ground her heels against the tile and pressed up against Marleen’s hand, just as the other woman bit her mound.
Nechama shrieked and came, felt stabbing pleasure as her pussy convulsed around the fingers stuffed inside her. Marleen licked her then, her tongue rough like a cat’s but tender, and that soft core inside the painful orgasm made Nechama sob and try to pull away.
Marleen didn’t let go, her tongue inexorable and slow. Her hand knew just when to twist to prolong the sensation for Nechama. She didn’t pull back until Nechama lay gasping and completely spent.
Nechama reached for her. “Please,” she said. “Come here. Please.” Marleen didn’t respond, but she didn’t pull away when Nechama hauled herself up and rolled onto her. She slipped her finger between Marleen’s labia, just stroking up and down without particularly trying to stimulate her.
Nechama kissed Marleen. It was actually possible to keep her tongue patient now that Marleen had worked her over so hard. She moved her tongue and finger in time—carefully, never urgently. She laid her free hand against the side of the other woman’s neck. Every time Marleen began to stiffen, Nechama eased up just a little. Though Marleen’s pulse pounded against Nechama’s fingers, her body stayed loose.
Then she gave a soft grunt, and Nechama felt the orgasm rippling out of Marleen, around Nechama’s tongue in her mouth and Nechama’s finger in her pussy. Nechama didn’t try to draw the orgasm out or change it. She just soothed Marleen as it happened, petting her neck and kissing her temples.
“There,” Marleen said finally, voice hard. “You got what you wanted.”
Nechama looked up and saw tears welling in Marleen’s eyes. “I hope we both got what we wanted,” Nechama said. Her body felt sore and empty, as if her own stabbing orgasm had expelled some old splinter that had lodged deep inside her.
“I don’t think anyone can give me what I want,” Marleen said, her eyes drifting to the ceiling.
“What’s that?” Nechama said.
“I want to be safe.”
The words stabbed Nechama’s heart. She had wanted that, too. When no one else seemed able to give it to her, she’d wanted to do what she could to make others safe. It was hard not to take Marleen’s statement as a personal criticism.
She cl
asped Marleen against her chest. “Let me help you,” Nechama said. “Let me make you safe.” Nechama repeated the words and rocked there on the sticky tile. It wasn’t just Marleen she was talking to now. She also spoke to her mother, to Chantel Costas, to Marleen’s children, to herself. Marleen’s small body rested in her arms, filled with heat and anger but pliable for now. There was no forgiveness or softness in her anywhere, Nechama thought, but there might be a seed of hope.
HOW DOES YOUR GARDEN GROW?
Cheyenne Blue
The track was rough enough that the patrol car wallowed in the sandy soil, its sump scraping over protruding rocks. By the time I reached the building at the end, I knew I had several long scrapes on the car’s paint from the banksias that crowded the lane and probably underbody damage.
The track ended in a clearing in the trees. The building was not exactly a house, but more than a shed. It was long and low with a veranda running the full length, facing south into the sun. A few chickens pecked their way around the ground, weaving through piles of timber, an old mangle and an ancient Toyota.
I got out of the patrol car and started toward the shed.
“I don’t get many visitors. What do you want?”
I turned in the direction of the voice, shading my eyes to the slanting sun. A woman hunkered down on the veranda steps smoking a roll-up. She was weather-beaten and nut brown, wearing a faded singlet top and tattered shorts. Bare toes curled around the wooden step.
“Eve Jarmyn?”
“Yeah, that’s me.” The woman uncoiled herself and stood, digging small hands into the pocket of her shorts. Even standing on the bottom step, she barely topped my shoulder.
I flashed my badge. “Senior Constable Cole. I’m here to investigate a complaint about a barking dog.”
She stopped my hand as I went to put my badge away, studying it intently. Her eyes crinkled in amusement. “A barking dog? What wally complained about that? My nearest neighbor is over a kilometer away.”
“This your only dog?” I pointed to the red heeler standing by her side.
“Yeah.”
I glanced past her at the shed, wondering if she had a permit to live in it. “Mind if I take a look out the back?”
“Would it make a difference if I did mind?”
I shrugged. “Easier for both of us if you let me take a look.”
“Go ahead. I’m not hiding anything.”
I flicked her a glance to see if she looked worried. The barking dog was a cover. We’d had a tip-off she was growing dope. Not a commercial concern, just a few plants, but we still had to follow it up. But she was relaxed, smiling slightly. Either she really did have nothing to hide, or she was sure nothing would be found.
I walked around the side of the shed, noting the rough-hewn timber and wide veranda. Indeed, most of the shed was open; there was no wall separating the veranda from the house. I could see a couple of couches, a long timber table and a kitchen bench top covered with jars of something.
Behind the shed were raised garden beds with a profusion of growth. Heavy tomatoes grew along one side, peas and beans curled over trellises, a forest of basil grew underneath a passionfruit vine. There was more I couldn’t name. If she had dope plants here, they’d be well hidden.
“Quite the gardener,” I commented, as I walked between the beds.
Eve followed me. “I grow enough for myself, some leftover to sell.” She picked a Lebanese cucumber from the plant and bit into it. She handed me the other half. It was crisp and tasted of sunshine.
Beyond the vegetables there was a cleared patch of ground and then the rainforest started abruptly, palm trees and thick, lush undergrowth as impenetrable as a manicured hedge. I turned around and started back between a different set of beds. There were eggplant, capsicum, bok choy and many green plants I couldn’t name, but no sign of anything illicit.
“No dogs down here,” I remarked, remembering my cover.
“No,” she agreed. “Just Jaffa.”
“I’ll need to see the dog license.”
“It’s in the house.” She led the way up the back steps to the veranda. Pots of herbs were clustered about the posts, and there was an old enamel bath sunk into the timber. Maybe she bathed out here on warm summer evenings. I imagined her slim figure lying back in warm water, looking up at the stars.
“Come through.” She led the way into the house. As well as the kitchen and couches I’d seen earlier, now I could see a large bed in one corner, rumpled and unmade, and a tiled shower in an alcove. No shower curtain. Either she lived alone or saw no need for privacy.
Eve went over to a corner and rummaged in a drawer, coming back with a crumpled piece of paper. “The last dog rego renewal.”
A quick glance told me it was current, but I’d guessed that already.
“Is that all?”
“That’s all. I’m sorry to bother you. Obviously the complainant was wrong—you’re too far away from anyone for it to be your dog.”
“Obviously.”
The shoulder of her singlet had fallen down one arm, and she hitched it back absently, but not before I’d caught a glimpse of small curved breast. My stomach tightened in reaction. How long had it been since Renny, my last girlfriend, left? Too long, obviously, if a sun-brown shoulder and a flash of nipple could get me hot under the collar.
I turned on my heel and headed back to the patrol car. “We’ll be in touch if there’s a problem.”
As I bumped my way back along her laneway, I could see her in the rearview mirror. Her long, black plait fell forward over one shoulder as she bent to pet the dog.
A couple of days later, I was heading out from the station for another boring few hours standing beside the highway with a radar gun, when the sarge called after me. “Kaye, one last call for you. You need to go back to the Jarmyn place where you were the other day. There’s been another anonymous call about her growing dope.”
“I saw nothing except eggplant two days ago.” And a nice breast, I added to myself.
Fred shrugged and hoisted his gut higher. “We have to follow these drug calls up promptly. Queensland Government antidrugs initiative.”
“I’ll try and get by later.”
“Make sure you do.”
After three hours beside the highway, I figured that Fred had been insistent enough that I get out to Eve’s place to justify shutting the radar gun off a bit early. It was a good twenty-minute drive to her shed, through the hinterland and up a series of dirt roads into the hills. Far enough from the coast that land was cheap and would attract few chance visitors. Perfect if she is growing a plant or two.
I bumped down the track to her house and cut the engine. The dog, Jaffa, ran out to greet me, but there was no sign of Eve. The pickup was still parked out front and the shed was open; the few doors that could shut were wide open to the sunshine.
“Anyone home?” I called. “Police. Routine visit.”
Lorikeets chirped in a red gum, but otherwise there was no answer. I stepped onto the creaking veranda and rapped hard on the framework with my knuckles. “Police. Anyone home?”
I walked around to the other side and repeated my call but all was quiet. Perfect. I could take a long look at exactly what was growing in that veggie garden without Eve being any the wiser. Methodically I started down the first row, making sure to part the thickets of beans and look behind.
By the third row, I’d seen more veggies than were contained in the local supermarket. I’d also found some prolific raspberry bushes and guiltily sampled a handful. They were so sweet and juicy that I had another handful, and then another. By the time I’d reached the end of the veggie patch, I’d sampled crisp cucumber, sweet passion fruit, young peas and tiny guava, but there was no sign of anything illegal.
Obviously, this was a wasted trip. Yeah, wasted because Eve wasn’t home, my little inner voice responded. Because she’s the first woman who’s pinged your interest since Renny left.
I turned back to the car,
and then I saw a figure sitting silently on the rear steps.
“Find anything?” Eve rose to her feet and ambled over. “Of course not, because there isn’t anything to find. Nothing that would interest you anyway.”
Her lips twitched, as if she were trying not to grin.
“I called out several times,” I said defensively. “You didn’t answer.”
“I was potting seeds out the back; it’s hard to hear out there. I just happened to see you grazing in my veggie patch. The raspberries are good, aren’t they?”
Reflexively I wiped the back of my hand over my mouth, and this time Eve did grin.
“It’ll take more than that to get rid of the stains.”
She moved in front of me. With the sun behind her she appeared ethereal; fine boned, slender, almost fragile as her silhouette softened her outline. Then the illusion dissipated as she moved closer. Now the sun threw firm muscles into relief and spun the fine hairs on her arms into gold.
When had I become this fanciful? I thought in bewilderment. Cops were practical people, hard-edged and brittle, not given to poetic musings about strangers. About suspects.
She moved closer still, into my personal space, and licked her fingers. Cops are taught not to let people get too close, but I fought the urge to step backward, out of Eve’s reach. She was no threat—at least not to my physical safety. Carefully, she wiped around my mouth with damp fingers. When she pulled them away, they were stained raspberry red. My skin tingled where she’d touched it.
“That’s better,” she said. “Evidence gone.”
I cleared my throat, desperate to return to my accepted role. I was here on police business and I needed to remember that. Police business, I thought, with an edge of desperation, as Eve touched my hand. Police business. Police busi…
Thought fled as she stretched up and pressed her mouth to mine. Her tongue flickered out to lap at the corners of my lips.
She stepped back again. “Are you going to book me for assaulting a police officer?”