* * *
When the sun goes down and the desert cools enough, we go inside.
“Tell me about the article.”
She’s drying the dishes as I wash, putting them away. Something mindless flickers on the television, an old sitcom, maybe; there seems to be an over-indulgent studio audience.
“Domestic violence,” I say over the water spraying a stainless steel frying pan. “Statewide angle, but especially the rural counties.” Cow counties, they call us in Northern Nevada, but there are plenty of humans in them, behaving badly.
Sadie knows the stats as well as I do, maybe better; she responds to a lot of the calls. But when I glance up and see her face, she’s gone still, as if something has frightened her. No, that isn’t it. In the shadowy night time kitchen we can’t ever get quite properly lighted, she looks like she’s seen a ghost. Something she completely didn’t expect to see. A surprise return from her past. Not a happy one.
“Sadie?”
She waves a hand, long brown fingers wrapped around a tea towel. “I just hate it. Such an easy topic to exploit. Tear jerker, you know? Like those damn pink ribbons.”
Sadie has a deep hatred for the breast cancer conspiracy, as she calls it, as though she thinks just the sight of pink ribbons, looped, is enough to give someone breast cancer. But this isn’t like that and waving her hand doesn’t change the fact. Besides, it stung.
“You think that’s what I’m doing?”
She stares at me in the half dark for an instant, then laughs and hugs me. “Of course not. I’m sorry. You know what I mean. It pushes my buttons. Those cop and court shows on TV? Battered wife equals instant sympathy. It’s a beat-the-chest-wailing mentality.”
I gape at her. Just a little. “There’s got to be some way I can work that into the article.”
Amusement. “Don’t you dare.”
“Haven’t I made it clear you’re always on record with me?”
Mock annoyance as she glances at me. “Haven’t I made it clear—” She stumbles and laughs.
“What?”
“I don’t know. I can’t think of anything.” When her arms slide around me, for just an instant I wish she was still in her uniform. Sometimes just feeling the gun on her hip, the wide belt and the baton is enough to send me fantasizing for most of her shift. I get very little painting done then, too, and what I do accomplish I definitely can’t sell.
“Can I play with your gun?”
She doesn’t even get mad anymore. No lectures about how it’s not a toy. Since the beginning, it’s been my fantasy: her gun, unloaded, carefully checked, sliding up inside me. That hard, unyielding darkness, the trigger guard against my clit, hand grip against my ass, Sadie’s hands on my breasts, pinching my nipples, playing hard.
But she’s never given in. Most of me is glad. It’s a stupid fantasy. Guns aren’t toys.
I still ask.
“Go in the bedroom,” she says. “I’ll give you something to play with.”
I know what she means.
* * *
The baton, the way it’s shaped now, not the mashers cops and robbers hit each other with in old movies—those little bat-shaped weapons—but today’s police baton with the handle and the martial arts training, it’s got history.
In the bedroom, Sadie lights candles. We rarely have the overhead lights on here, or even bedside lamps. Candles in the dry of the desert are idiotic and dangerous. We do it anyway. Sadie slides down beside me on the bed, the last of my clothes falling away, and she nips my neck, runs her fingers down my throat, over my breasts, stopping only to tease, to press and pull and move away. I’m already aching for her touch. Instead of letting her hands travel farther, she hands me the baton, twenty-four inches of hard wood, ridged and bumpy in spots, smooth in others.
I wish she’d cuff my hands to the headboard, use her teeth and nails and tongue and baton on me herself. But Sadie likes to watch. And making her happy often makes me happier than getting exactly what I wanted would.
Her mouth is on mine when I start, her hands in my hair. Her mouth is still hot, sweet and hard on my lips. My hands slide down to my breasts. Hers follow.
“Here,” she says. “You don’t do it hard enough.”
Intense pain and pleasure. She pinches hard, twists my nipples and pulls, grabs handfuls of breast to squeeze. My hands move down, guiding the baton, holding the handle until it’s between my legs, and then I just hold the long end of it, the handle down where it can catch on clit or cunt or asshole, the long slick length of baton sliding hard and hot through my lips, touching nearly everything at once. My hips rise up as if reaching for a lover’s touch.
Sadie bites my mouth and whispers in my ear. “Fuck yourself with it. Make yourself come. I want to feel it.”
Feel it. Hear it. Because I’m not quiet. My head goes back and I start to make strangled cries as I move the baton faster and faster, still bucking against it, holding it against me rather than inside me, and Sadie reaches down and moves the handle, shoves three fingers into my cunt and I tumble over, shouting, everything in me seeming to grasp, catching at something ephemeral and true that glides just within reach. Just for an instant.
The orgasm crashes through me. I shudder with the waves of it, sinking back down slowly, the candle lit room coming back into focus. Sadie’s face. Sadie’s mouth. Sadie’s fingers in my mouth. Sadie’s body against mine.
Sadie.
* * *
In the middle of the night I wake to her screaming. The disconnect and terror are instant. She’s not beside me in the bed. She’s gone off to sleep in the guest room, then, which means she was restless and dreaming and tossing. I’ve told her, every time, I don’t mind. Sleep is my super power. I can always get back to sleep. I want to be there for her. I want to help her go back to sleep as well.
Let me help.
At least don’t throw up barriers like half a cabin’s distance between us. My toes catch on the sheets. I ram a leg into the bedside table. I rebound off the door jamb. She should definitely be awake. Anyone could hear me coming. Between blows and explosions of swearing, I call, “I’m coming. Sadie, wake up, I’ll be right there. Sadie?”
She’s awake by the time I reach her. Sitting up on the edge of the daybed, a broken kind of sobbing, the kind of crying performed by people who don’t do it very often.
“Sadie?”
I’ve asked her. She’s never answered me. I’ve come to respect it. Her right to own her past. Even that sounds pompous, even if I mean it.
Tonight when I say her name, she turns to me and holds out her arms and right now she doesn’t look like my dusky warrior, with those big brown eyes and still hard muscles. All that muscle, quickly softening and dissolving, has let her down. There’s a real girl in there, underneath.
I just sit down beside her and wrap her in my arms and even though she’s bigger than me—taller, broader, more—I enfold her easily.
Her crying doesn’t cease. It grows stronger.
“He used to beat her. Almost every night.” Some of the strength flows back into those muscles. Her fists clench. One of them smacks the top of her thigh, hard enough to bruise.
I don’t think I actually ask
who
aloud. But she answers.
“That bastard. My father. Almost every night. Like goddamned clockwork. He didn’t even drink.” She says this as if it’s irony. As if, of course, if he drank at least that problem would compound or explain or exacerbate the other. Not excuse.
She’s still now. A quarter moon shines in the southwest window, big enough to provide light. In the shadows, her tears look dark.
“And then he killed her.”
The frown covers my face before she finishes her sentence. She can’t see me. I’m slightly behind her on the bed. But…
“Sadie, your mom died of…” Breast cancer. Oh. Or maybe she didn’t.
Maybe every one of those stupid pink ribbons is a reminder. A reminder of the story, and the truth.
When she turns to look at me, moonlight illuminates her face. She’s clear and present, awake, not dreaming. Fully aware.
“Oh, my god. Oh, Sadie.”
When she reaches for me and I hold her, for once I’m doing the holding. For once I’m the one doing the caring. For the first time, I think she’s truly here. Maybe now Sadie can learn to trust me. Maybe now the uniform will be the mask and what we have, the safe place we’ve made, can be reality.
* * *
It takes a long time for the crying to stop. A long time before there are only occasional hiccups. She rests her head on my shoulder. My arms still surround her.
When the crying finally does stop, I feel her muscles tense, bunching, as if she means to throw me off, sit up, take charge. Move on.
Maybe she’s done enough of that already. This night isn’t going to slide quietly into her closed off past. She’s opened the door and I’ve seen the demons there. Now together we have to do something about them, the same way she takes care of the daily demons in her job. “Cows, Jill,” she’d say, if I told her that. “They’re cows.”
“Lie down,” I whisper, and she starts to shake her head as if I’m some idiot who thinks this would be a good time for sex. “On your stomach. Oh, just lie down, Sadie.” And when she does and I’ve got her t-shirt off her, I straddle her narrow hips, dip my fingers into the lotion on the bedside table and start digging into her golden flesh, feeling the muscles give under my hands, tension draining, resistance ebbing. Sadie is muscle, and in those muscles tonight I feel trust.
Alphas
Harper Bliss
Robin’s hair looks meticulous again. I wonder if she stops at the hairdresser every morning before work. It must be statistically impossible to have a good hair day every day of the week. Does it fall as gloriously on Sundays—
“Kate?” Bruce cocks up his eyebrows.
“Yes,” I say quickly, not having a clue what they’re discussing.
“You and Robin will work this case together.” He aligns the stack of papers in front of him without taking his eyes off me. He gives me a swift nod to indicate his word is final.
“Of course.” I hide behind my best poker face. The last time Robin and I tried a case together, I had to hit a punching bag for at least an hour every night to decompress. The woman is a delight to look at but a pain to work with. It’s obvious that she thinks having the cheekbones of an angel makes her the best lawyer in the firm.
I can’t stand her, but I can’t keep my eyes off her either. Every day she wears another pristinely starched designer blouse, open at the throat, and while I’m sure the direct view at the hollow of her neck influences some jury members, I wouldn’t exactly call it expertise.
“I look forward to it.” Robin shoots me a mechanical smile—she saves the heartwarming ones for court. Today’s blouse is baby blue, bringing out the clear colour of her eyes.
I vow to not let her boss me around this time. To not let her take control the way she always does.
“That’s settled then.” Bruce ends the staff meeting. Chairs scrape against the floor. I take a deep breath before standing up.
“My office in ten?” Robin asks. She towers over the table. I follow the line of her cleavage because it’s impossible not to. It doesn’t give anything away though. Robin is all about suggestion.
“Sure.” At least I’ll have a few minutes to compose myself and check which case we’re meant to crack together.
I shuffle out of the conference room behind Robin and can’t help but inhale a whiff of her perfume. I’ve been trying to figure out which one it is—sniffing endless scented paper sticks at Sephora—but I’m a much better lawyer than I am a detective.
Nine minutes later I knock on her open door.
“Come,” she says, her voice measured and authoritative. She sits behind her desk like a queen on a throne, illuminated by light streaming from giant windows. Robin started at the firm barely a month before I did, but she’s always had a knack for securing things well above her status. My office is spacious and light, but not nearly as big and bright as Robin’s. No matter how hard I try—and sample different dry cleaners—my suits are never as crisp as hers. And my nerve always seems to crumble when I’m within three feet of her.
I sit down in a chair opposite her desk without being invited.
“Would you mind closing the door, please?” Robin’s eyes rest on me, a tight smile tugging at her lips. I know she waited for me to sit so she could ask me to get up again. It’s how alpha females like Robin assert their power—with the small things that get under people’s skin the most.
“Sure.” I stand and turn. Before I head for the door, I tug my skirt down to draw her attention to my legs. In situations like this, they’re the only thing I have going for me. My legs are the reason why I so easily agreed to meet in Robin’s office. I’ll get to cross and uncross them while on full display, as opposed to hidden under a desk.
I sway my hips a bit when I walk back to my chair. Her eyes follow me, but she doesn’t flinch. I cross one leg over the other and lean back, legal pad with notes on the case ready in my lap.
We both start speaking at the same time and one of those awkward moments ensues. A small crack appears in her veneer, allowing the beginning of a silly grin to peek through. She dips her head slightly and I take it as a sign that I should continue.
“I think…” I need to glance at my notes. I’m thrown by the unexpected curve of her lips and the twinkle of amusement in her eyes. Just like that, the image flashes through my mind again. The image I fall asleep to most nights. Robin’s blouse a crumpled heap on my bedroom floor. Robin face down on my bed, her wrists and ankles bound so she can’t move.
“Take your time.” The smile she sends me is so condescending it makes my blood boil. It also makes the picture in my head spark to life again in vivid colour.
“Let’s start with the witness list.” I quickly regroup. “This doctor…” I glimpse at my notes again. “Barnes. He seems—” The beep of her mobile interrupts me. Robin holds up one finger as she scans the screen. Frustration builds in my gut. Not just because of the way she treats me, but also because of how her hair slides off her forehead as she tips her head, and how her eyes narrow while she reads the text message. I envision her looking at me like that. Her eyes narrowing for different reasons and her hair clinging to her forehead in sweaty strands. It’s not easy wanting someone you dislike so much.