by V. K. Powell
Syd felt the blood rush to her face. She and Gil were developing a friendship, but they’d never discussed her personal life. It seemed he was more comfortable avoiding that specific topic.
“I have, but mostly I come to support Jesse. If you’re asking if gay men and women hang out here, the answer is yes, but so do straight people. It’s not strictly a gay-and-lesbian club.”
“I think Priscilla meets women here.” The look on Syd’s face must have been one of obvious shock because Gil added, “It’s just a feeling I get. I don’t think she’s sleeping with another guy. She says she loves me and wants our marriage to work.”
“Then why would she want to meet women?”
“That’s what I need your help with. I was thinking you—”
“No.”
“You haven’t even heard me out.”
“The answer is still no. I’m happy to offer advice, but I’m not going to be bait for some experiment to lure your wife.”
He grimaced. “It’s not like that. I just want you to help me stake out the place and see if she shows up. Is that too much to ask?”
Syd had a shaky gut feeling that told her to haul ass in the opposite direction. But Gil was becoming her friend and he was confused and worried. “Why don’t you just ask her outright? Sneaking around spying on her is not the way to build trust in your marriage.”
“I need to know the truth. Please, Syd. There’s nobody else I can ask.”
The desperation in Gil’s voice tugged at Syd’s heart. Her head said this was a bad idea but her heart was just beginning to understand that strong feelings for another person could create internal turmoil that had to be resolved. She wanted to help. “And what happens if she is sleeping with women?”
“I just want to know if she still loves me. Nothing else matters.”
Syd couldn’t believe she was letting her emotions rule her judgment, but Gil needed a friend and she was it. “When do we start?”
“How about right now? I left my car at the station so she won’t see it. We can use the parking garage across the street for high-ground surveillance.”
Syd finished her martini and walked to the bar to pay Jesse.
“Do you know what you’re doing, Syd?” Jesse nodded toward Gil. “He’s—”
“Don’t be crazy. We’re just friends.”
“But do you know who that is?”
“Of course I do. I introduced the two of you. He works on my squad.”
Gil walked up behind Syd. “You ready?”
“Sure.” Syd gave Jesse a reassuring smile, touched by her obvious unease. It felt good to have someone who looked out for her. “See you later, Jess.”
She and Gil exited the club and climbed to the fourth floor of the parking structure. An hour later, staring out into the night, she wondered what she was doing. She was perched on the fourth floor of a parking deck with a squad mate spying on his maybe-cheating, maybe-lesbian wife. This was crazy.
“Hey, Syd, get over here. There she is. How did she get in without us seeing her?”
Syd rushed to Gil’s side and peered below. “She probably went in the back door.”
Two women exited the Cop Out holding hands and leaning into each other. A tall, mocha-skinned African-American in tight leather pants and T-shirt pinned a short blonde with pale skin against the wall and kissed her roughly. The tall woman plunged her hand under the blonde’s skirt, eliciting a loud moan of pleasure that resounded off the building-lined street. Muscles rippled along the stronger woman’s back as her hand worked feverishly between the blonde’s legs.
A shiver shot up Syd’s spine, and the hairs on her neck prickled to attention. Her mouth felt dry and sticky as she recognized the woman humping the blonde as her sometimes-paramour Lacy.
When she found her voice she asked, “That blonde is your wife?”
Without turning to face her, Gil said, “No, the other one.” His voice held no hint of anger, only sadness.
“That’s Priscilla?”
“Yep. We can go now. I’ve seen enough.”
Stunned, Syd allowed Gil to lead the way down the stairs. She didn’t trust that her mouth wasn’t still hanging open. “Lacy” was actually Priscilla, Gil’s wife. She had trouble believing it. Jesse’s anxious face flashed through her mind. She knew. This was what she’d been trying to warn her about. Lacy was obviously a regular, so she must have been in the bar with Gil occasionally. Syd couldn’t remember ever seeing them together, but the last eight months had evaporated into a haze. She had to wonder what else that she’d forgotten or suppressed would come back and bite her firmly on the butt.
“I’m really sorry, buddy.” And he had no idea just how sorry she was. She wanted to tell him the truth, but her mother used to say, “If it ain’t a gift, don’t give it.” Syd wondered if she was just being a coward. Maybe she would let him know, but not right now. Not after what they’d just seen.
Gil stopped at the bottom of the stairs and turned to her. “Please don’t spread this around.”
“I won’t. Trust me. What are you going to do?”
Most men would’ve charged their wife’s lover like a raging bull and done serious bodily damage. Maybe it was just Gil’s nature to take things in stride. His self-discipline had probably made him an excellent soldier. It was certainly an asset for a cop.
“I’m not sure,” he said. “I need some time to think. All I really want to know is if she still loves me. I think I could forgive everything else.”
They circled around the back of the parking deck, Gil’s shoulders slouched as he moved like a man carrying too much pain. Syd didn’t linger, afraid she might somehow reveal her role in Priscilla’s double life. As she walked home she felt as though everything around her was changing form. Another piece of her life had suddenly been twisted into a new shape. She was disoriented, no longer at home in her world. Yet she wasn’t sure if she wanted things to go back to the way they were before the shooting. Could she just step back into her life as if none of this had happened? Syd didn’t think so.
Things kept changing around her, but there was more. She was changing too.
*
Crushed Diet Coke cans filled the wastebasket near Regan’s desk, and scattered papers covered the floor of her den. She’d received the files she requested from the chief and had been reading ever since. Saturday had blurred into Sunday with little sleep as she tried to forget kissing her client. But the memory was branded into her mind just as Syd’s touch was tattooed on her skin. A foreign longing permeated her entire being. Her skin prickled with sudden shudders of sensory recall. Muscles in her legs and arms tensed and simultaneously weakened with a yearning so intense it seemed to attack the very framework of her body. Nerve endings quivered with an appetite for something obscure to her sexual palate but vital to her emotional survival. She felt like a live electrical wire severed from its source and floundering dangerously.
What about this particular woman affected her so powerfully? Syd would look great fighting crime in her uniform or making dinner wearing only an apron. She was certainly attractive, with a body that curved, dipped, and swelled in exactly the right places. One of Regan’s fetishes was full, soft breasts that she could nurse, tease, and suck. Syd’s fit the bill perfectly. Burying her face in cleavage and being surrounded by the yielding mounds could almost bring Regan to orgasm. She also enjoyed rounded hips that she could hold and sink her fingers into while making love.
Her body thrilled as she remembered the masterful feeling of holding Syd’s breasts in her hands and manipulating them into pinpoints of arousal. She’d wanted to take Sydney Cabot right where she stood, on her loft balcony, for anyone who cared to watch. Her restraint had been so weakened by their interaction that she’d blatantly disregarded the voice of reason that screamed in her head, grabbing and clawing her flesh like a cannibal hungry for her next meal. And when her lips touched Syd’s she was lost. Truly, deeply, irrevocably lost. She knew she could never go there again
, or she wouldn’t be able to leave. It had taken all her willpower to walk away that night.
Regan quivered, and the file she was holding fell from her hands. Looking at the papers on the floor, she realized she’d been staring at the same pages for almost an hour, but only now did she grasp their significance. Syd had only one reported use of force in her twelve-year tenure with the police department—the fatal shooting of Lee Nartey.
That was unheard of in police work. Most officers used their mace or ASP batons numerous times, in addition to physical restraint. To have no reported instances was unusual. However, reports of on-duty injuries seemed to be in abundance in Syd’s history. These documents, one after the other, told the story of an officer more interested in verbal than physical resolution to dangerous situations. Syd tried to talk suspects down, which often worked. Other times her repeated attempts at communication annoyed an already-hostile suspect and he took out his frustration on her. Copies of medical-services forms detailed Syd’s many visits to the city nurse or hospital for injuries ranging from a bloody nose to stab wounds.
Regan shivered at the thought of a weapon piercing Syd’s soft skin and causing her pain. Her temper flared and she wondered why Syd hadn’t defended herself better. Taking a sip of lukewarm Diet Coke, she smiled at her protective attitude. If Dean Bell thought this file would help his case, he was mistaken. These documents squarely supported Syd and the training she received from the city.
Regan sighed in relief and reached for the yellow padded envelope marked Confidential. This was possibly the last obstacle between Syd and a complete dismissal of the case, and it was the file Regan feared most. She ripped the protective tape from the envelope and emptied the contents onto the floor. Several lined index cards fanned out around her. Each contained a woman’s name, address, and telephone number, along with a brief summary of an unsatisfactory personal encounter with Syd. As Regan read the reports, her spirits sank. “Unsatisfactory” seemed to be a relative term. The women’s issues centered mainly on dissatisfaction with the longevity of their interaction with Syd, not with her performance during it. Six women in the past twelve years had an encounter or a relationship that ended badly enough for them to complain to her boss.
If six had come forward, how many more had not? The memory of kissing Syd suddenly felt cheap and inconsequential. She was just another dissatisfied customer and the thought sickened her. Forcing the unpleasant idea from her head, Regan willed herself to examine the cards more closely. Most of the complaints had occurred during the past eight months, since the shooting. This fact seemed to support her theory that Syd had tried to assuage her professional guilt through personal pleasures. But, with one exception, none of the incidents had been pursued beyond the collection of preliminary data. Taped to the back of one of the index cards was a microcassette tape marked “Gina Lorrey complaint; received by phone.”
Regan turned the tape over and over in her hands. It seemed to scorch a fiery path up her arm and into her heart. Her body already knew what was on the tape without hearing it. Her mind wasn’t sure it wanted confirmation. The warring feelings sparred back and forth like a feedback loop caught in continuous repeat mode. She didn’t want to hear another woman’s voice maligning Syd’s reputation or her private life, and she wasn’t sure she could endure any other woman describing the physical pleasures that Syd was capable of providing. But she needed to know what was on the tape because Dean Bell had obviously listened to it. If she had any hope of defending Syd, she had to know what the opposing counsel intended to use against her.
Filled with trepidation, Regan found her cassette player and started the tape. A deep male voice spoke first, providing the routine details of a conversation taped in August, the month of the shooting. The officer who took the complaint was Detective Ramon Boudy with the Internal Affairs Division.
The female complainant provided the information requested in a tone designed to arouse speculation and fantasy. Her soft, breathy voice oozed sexuality. Regan pictured a diminutive blonde batting her baby blue eyes, cooling herself with a hand-painted paper fan, and sipping a mint julep. After a feeble protest about getting anyone in trouble and a few over-exaggerated attempts at modesty, Gina Lorrey began her tale.
“It was August twenty-first. I remember specifically because it was my birthday and I was supposed to meet some friends at the Cop Out club, to celebrate. I parked in the back lot and was walking to the door when this cop came up to me. She was in uniform but I didn’t see a cop car anywhere. Of course my first reaction was, ‘What have I done?’
“She seemed to be in a daze or something. I asked if she was okay. I mean it looked like she was going to cry. Being the kindhearted person that I am, I reached out to comfort her. Well, that was the wrong thing to do. She grabbed the front of my jeans. Don’t misunderstand. I’m no prude when it comes to sex, with men or women. It was just a surprise, that’s all. Then she kissed me, and it was pretty clear what she wanted. I’ve never been kissed like that before. It was like she sucked the energy out of my entire body.”
Regan crushed the Diet Coke she held in her hand and the sticky liquid spewed everywhere. She’d experienced that kiss, and listening to another woman try to explain its effects was like exposing raw flesh to acid. She didn’t want to hear anymore but knew she had to. Wiping the spilled soda with the hem of her T-shirt, she concentrated on the breathy voice.
“She never spoke a word. She just backed me into a dark corner and onto the hood of a car. It was still hot. It felt like my ass was burning. She ripped my blouse open like a mad woman. Then she yanked my jeans down around my ankles.”
Grabbing the pillow from her desk chair, Regan put it under her head and lay down on the floor. Tingles of excitement rippled through her as she remembered the texture of Syd’s skin beneath hers and the pleading look in her eyes. Regan slid her hand down the length of her torso and cupped the quivering flesh that begged for attention. She’d never been the kind to enjoy girlie magazines or even dirty talk, but ever since she’d seen Syd having sex in the restroom, fantasies had played incessantly in her head like porn movies. Something about Syd called to the primeval urges of her body and soul.
“When I was completely naked, lying there on the hood of the car, she stopped.” Gina Lorrey’s tone hardened. “I’m not sure what happened but she just stared for the longest time. It was getting a little awkward, if you know what I mean. So I asked if she was okay. She started apologizing and told me to get dressed. But I was already too far gone.”
After a long hesitation the voice changed. Regan had the impression that Gina Lorrey had decided to play a game with the detective at the other end of the phone.
“I grabbed her by the gun belt. She put up a bit of resistance, but I unzipped her pants and stuck my hand right in there. God, she was wet like you couldn’t believe.”
Regan plunged her hand into the band of her sweats and into the liquid warmth between her legs. She imagined Syd’s hand there smoothing and stroking the engorged shaft of aching flesh. She pulled and kneaded the tender folds of skin. It had been entirely too long, and touching Syd on Friday night had rekindled her appetite for physical satisfaction.
“Well, she was having none of that,” Gina continued. “She wanted to be in charge. She took her nightstick out and flicked the tip across my breasts. Do you have any idea how that feels?”
The detective made an impassive sound, like he’d heard it all before.
Gina’s voice took on a taunting lilt as she said, “It’s like the hardest dick in the world begging to be fucked. I felt like I could’ve taken the whole thing if she’d given it to me. She twirled it around between her thumb and palm like you cops do and started rubbing me with the handle.”
The idea of making love with Syd in her uniform had played itself out more than once in Regan’s imagination, but being seduced by the tools of her trade was a new spin. The delicate skin around her nipples dimpled in anticipation. She massaged her left breast in
time to the intensified stroking between her legs. She was the woman on top of that car in the dark parking lot behind Cop Out. Syd was teasing and tantalizing her with her nightstick, bringing her closer and closer to orgasm.
“That handle has these ridges on it, you know. And when she dragged it between my legs, I thought I was going to come right then. She knew I was in a bad way. I started humping that stick. The harder I tried to get a piece of it inside me, the more determined she was to keep it away. I was on the edge.”
Regan was starting to lose control. Like the woman on the tape, she’d long since abandoned any sense of modesty or decorum. She writhed on the hardwood floor, her clothes oppressive with their confinement. All she wanted was the precious release that only Syd could provide.
“I was desperate, I’m not ashamed to say it. A girl can only stand so much torment. I begged her to fuck me with that long, hard stick. Then she finally said something. I still remember it. ‘Every woman deserves to come with something hot and throbbing inside her.’”
Regan sighed. The voice droned on, blurring with the sounds of her own rapid breathing.
“Oh, God, I’ve never been fucked so good. It was like she knew exactly how much I needed and how hard. I’d get right to the edge and she’d back off. When she told me I could come, I didn’t ask questions. I blew.”
Regan’s climax ripped through her and weakened her extremities. Her muscles contracted, relaxed, and then trembled before she slid into complete euphoria. She inhaled deeply and allowed Syd’s imaginary hands to once again run the length of her body and persuade her to rest. How long she had waited to feel this kind of liberation.
The tape droned on. “By the time I composed myself, she was gone.”
Regan looked around her empty home, alone, postorgasmic, and craving more. The tape was silent and she reached to turn it off. Just before she hit the stop button, Detective Boudy spoke.
“Um…well, I guess I’m confused, Ms. Lorrey. What exactly is your complaint?”