Flesh & Blood (4 page)

‘Good morning,’ the woman said, her accent bearing the surprising lilt of one of Britain’s fancier private schools. ‘I am Captain Taja Mbweni. Prior to assuming this position I was Lieutenant in charge of the robbery squad at Westgate. Prior to that I was a detective sergeant with burglary in Torrance. I have been a police officer for fourteen and a half years.’ She stepped around the podium and her eyes moved over the police officers in the room.

She’s
hot
, Leah thought, growing aroused despite herself, inexplicably lurid images rolling through her head.

‘I do not expect unquestioned obedience,’ Mbweni said, her voice hardening. ‘But I expect absolute obedience. If you don’t think I am correct you are free to politely and respectfully state the reason for your disagreeing. But anyone caught disobeying my orders in the smallest degree will need to find somewhere else to work. I will not tolerate disobedience anymore than I will tolerate incompetence or laziness.’ Her eyes settled on Leah, and she seemed to frown. Then they tightened at the sight of Sara before continuing along their row.

‘I am not here to be your friend, your confessor, or your coach. I am here to supervise the detective squads of this district, and you are here to support whatever goals and practices I feel will best serve in policing and maintaining order. I have already met with the senior officers and expressed those policies and goals to them. They will in turn communicate those requirements to you.’

‘Jeez, what a bitch,’ Sara whispered.

Definitely, Leah silently concurred, but what a hot one! For some bizarre reason she saw her in leather and high heels, glowering down at her from above, and jerked her eyes away, gazing nervously around in fear someone might sense her interest, and wondering where it came from.

‘I will meet with each of you privately for a few minutes, however, to help familiarize myself with your strengths and weaknesses. I will express my opinion regarding this to you, and you in turn will consider ways of improving any faults I find in your professional conduct.’

Without a further word she strode straight down the aisle between the silent police officers and out of the door.

‘Well, she seems fun,’ Scott commented ruefully.

‘Too much compensation,’ Leah replied. Too many women she knew thought they had to be harder than the men in order to be obeyed and respected, and Mbweni was obviously of that school. But still, she
was
hot.

Lieutenant Patterson silently tacked up a list of detectives’ names Captain Mbweni would see, and in what order. It was noted that the female detectives appeared first on the list.

Leah was the fourth, just after Sara. She judged that Mbweni was going to be the punctual type, and arrived only a minute or so before her scheduled time. The door was closed, but she could hear the woman’s chilly voice coming from within.

‘I don’t care about quotas or statistics,’ she was saying. ‘Your presence is a distraction to the smooth operation of this district station, and the only reason I don’t immediately institute a complaint to Internal Affairs to have you fired is that the story would inevitably go public and would make for sensationalist press, which in turn would reflect badly on all of us here. But I will accept your request for transfer by the end of the day. Now get out.’

Leah heard another voice start to speak but Mbweni immediately overrode it. ‘I said that will be all,’ she snapped, her icy voice rising. ‘I find your presence annoying. My advice for you is to resign before you are charged. You are an absolute disgrace to the police service.’

Leah edged back as she sensed movement. The door was yanked open by a black hand and Sara stumbled out, her face ashen, and moved down the corridor in the opposite direction to where Leah stood. Mbweni turned cold eyes on her and jerked her head imperiously.

Leah took a deep breath, then walked into the office and waited anxiously while Mbweni closed the door and went around her desk to sit. The austere woman placed a folder onto a pile of others on her desk, then took one from a second pile, opened and examined it. After a long minute she raised her eyes towards Leah.

‘Sit,’ she ordered.

Nervous, but doing her best not to show it, Leah sat, her back stiff and her heart pounding a little.

‘You have good reviews,’ Mbweni said. ‘Various reports reflect on your empathy and how this gives you a knack for knowing when people are lying, for knowing what their motivations are. But you have less experience on the street than you should have for a detective, no doubt because you were promoted rapidly, in part due to being female.’

Leah frowned without thinking.

‘You think it doesn’t play a part?’ Mbweni said caustically. ‘Don’t be naïve. I wouldn’t have reached this level this soon had I not been a black lesbian. I am extremely competent but there are many extremely competent white heterosexual males out there who have as much if not more experience than I.’ She sat back a little in her chair, her eyes raking Leah.

‘You are indeed a fashionable girl,’ she said. ‘There is nothing in your attire which goes against the letter of the dress code; but you dress too well and too fashionably. You are not here to look attractive, MacInnes. You are not here to impress people with your looks and color-coordinated wardrobe. Tone down your dress. Buy dull grays and blues and blacks, which are looser. A police detective is in plainclothes so as not to be noticed, not to indulge ones taste for stylish fabrics and colours.’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ Leah said, a little chastened and red-faced.

‘You heard what I said to Yi?’

Leah hesitated. ‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘A friend of yours?’

‘I like her,’ Leah said uncertainly.

‘She’s a common slut.’

‘She does her job well, so far as I’ve seen,’ Leah said loyally.

‘Perhaps by the letter of the requirements, but there are unwritten rules at play, MacInnes. A police detective is expected to maintain a professional relationship with his or her colleagues and to be above reproach, even in their private life. Someone who is known to boast about the variety of public places in which she has had sexual intercourse and the wide variety of individuals she has had them with is a fool in too many ways for me to list. Not to mention lacking the dignity needed to uphold the reputation of the service. She has only gotten away with it because she is a visible minority member, and that irritates me immensely, both as a visible minority member and as a female.’

She leaned forward, eyes hard. ‘Do you know that I wanted to strike her? I was so utterly outraged with her behavior I wanted to physically thrash her. Given the nature of this service, the old boy network, and the feeling among so many that females can’t cut it, I find it appalling to have a female like that in my section. She ought to take up prostitution and put her undoubted talents to work at something she clearly feels a calling for.’

Leah held her breath, feeling again that intense and inexplicable desire to prostrate herself at the woman’s feet, a buzzing excitement in the pit of her stomach, and yet at the same time a rising indignation. What a bitch, she thought. ‘I… I think you’re being a bit harsh, ma’am,’ she ventured.

‘No doubt the many men here who have sampled her dubious pleasures will agree,’ the superior snorted, ‘and I expect a lot of protests when the news of her resignation gets out. But it will be interesting to see just who those are who do protest.’

‘Why?’ Leah asked, frowning. Mbweni’s eyes narrowed, but Leah continued. ‘It certainly won’t be an indication of who has and hasn’t slept with her. The cowards won’t say boo to you no matter how many times they might have had sex with her. The only ones who will express any reservations are those with, excuse me, the balls to support someone they have some affection for.’

Mbweni smiled coldly. ‘Did you use that expression deliberately? Can you imagine how a proud lesbian would view that expression, one which presumes that the bigger one’s testicles the braver one is?’

‘It’s a common expression,’ Leah said, ‘used metaphorically.’ Again she felt that sense of erotic tension, a longing to see Mbweni naked, an almost physical heat at the thought of their bodies pressed together. Yet running counter to it was a rising sense of actual dislike for the woman.

‘Yes, used by common people.’

Leah felt her face flushing, and glared across the desk. ‘I’ve never claimed to be up on a pedestal beyond the popular culture of the little people,’ she said. ‘It has been my experience that placing oneself above others merely sets one up for a very hard and painful fall.’

She was not at all certain why she was daring to argue with a captain. She had certainly never done so before, even the boorish ones like Gladwyck. But something inside her didn’t seem to mind if Mbweni was angry with her. Something inside her almost wanted to bait the woman, to anger her so… so she would be punished.

Mbweni smiled thinly. ‘Pretty little rich girls always have such confidence.’

‘And others have confidence which is of such magnitude it turns to arrogance,’ Leah stated. ‘And such confidence often turns out to be misplaced.’ She felt her stomach clench, wondering if she’d gone too far, her mind still swirling with a potent mixture of arousal, anger, indignation and pride.

‘You will tone down your wardrobe,’ Mbweni said. ‘Pull your hair back and get rid of the flashy jewelry. This isn’t a runway or a tea party at the palace. You don’t need to light up the eyes of every male you come across.’

‘And females?’ Leah goaded sarcastically. ‘Do you think certain females might find me too attractive to concentrate on their work?’

Mbweni stood up, her eyes cold, and Leah did the same.

‘Do you think that merely because you have a pretty face I am attracted to you?’ the severe woman demanded.

‘Did I suggest that?’ Leah asked, putting on a show of casual insolence while her insides knotted with fear.

Mbweni moved around the desk, stopping with her face mere inches from Leah’s. Both were tall, but Leah had to tilt her head back fractionally to look into the woman’s eyes. She fought to keep still while her heart pounded so strongly she was worried Mbweni would hear it.

‘What I would like to do to you, MacInnes,’ the fearsome woman hissed, ‘is put you across my desk and take a crop to your bottom until you beg to obey my every word.’

Leah’s mouth opened in surprise and she felt an almost physical blow of shock in her tummy. Mbweni leaned in even closer until her lips were next to Leah’s ear.

‘And I don’t think that would take very long, MacInnes,’ she said in a controlled, threatening tone. ‘I think after the first blow you’d be stamping your feet and screaming like a petulant little girl, and after a few more you’d be on your knees with your tongue cleaning my boots.’

‘And you’d like that, wouldn’t you?’ Leah challenged, her voice more defiant than she felt. ‘But then you’d be as bad as Sara, letting your pussy get in the way of business. Or is that why you want to get rid of her; because she behaves as she wants to and you wish you could too? Have you had something stiff inside you lately that wasn’t made of plastic, captain?’

That
was
too far. Her own behavior shocked her and her stare faltered nervously as she took a half step back.

Mbweni leaned forward, eyes burning, and hissed harshly, ‘Get out of my office, MacInnes.’

Chapter Three

The room was still, quiet, and bathed in shadows. Moonlight streaming through the bay window was broken and scattered by small, interlocking diamond-shaped panes. A hesitant moan drifted through the silence, then a drawn out sigh.

To one side of a tall, chrome and mirrored dresser, a large bed squatted partly in the shadows, upon which were a tangle of dark sheets, and beneath them a figure which shifted and turned, twisting without rhythm or reason.

The figure rolled and long, sleep-tousled hair spilled across closed eyes and an open mouth. The head rolled slowly as the body twisted languorously, like a cat stretching. As if drawn by a cord the thin sheets slid slowly downward, revealing ivory skin glowing in the pale light of the moon.

The sheets slid down to reveal full breasts upon a slender ribcage, breasts that rose and fell as the lungs fluttered uncertainly. The sheets continued downward, baring a flat stomach, softly rounded hips, and then the dark ‘V’ of pubic hair between shapely thighs.

Naked, sighing, Leah twisted onto her side, and then almost immediately slumped back. Her head rolled more slowly and her fingers, resting on the bed beside her, clenched unconsciously.

Slowly, as if drawn by unseen hands, her slender legs shifted apart, spreading fluidly and evenly as the girl continued to sleep. She sighed again and her back arched slightly, pushing firm breasts tautly upward. The pink areolas puckered and swelled, the nipples at their centre stiffening into rigid attention. Leah sighed again, her heels slipping farther apart, knees drawing slowly up, raising her exposed sex.

A shadow slid across the room, darker than night, menacing in its unhurried pace, moving up across the bottom of the bed between Leah’s parted legs. It played across her ivory flesh and she gasped, her back arching urgently.

The perfectly smooth flesh of her breasts began to move, to flatten and distend as if squeezed by unseen fingers. It flowed and shifted, the nipples turning and twisting. Leah’s breathing became quicker, more ragged, and she whimpered in her sleep.

The tight lips of her sex seemed to quiver, and then gently ease apart to reveal her glistening vagina. Her clitoris swelled wetly, quivering like an eager antenna in search of stimulus. Then the inner lips were gently pushed in and back, her inner tunnel opening and blossoming wide. Her breathing became deeper, a flush spreading over her body. The flesh of her breasts seemed to ripple unceasingly, her erect nipples rolling from side to side.

She groaned aloud, her back arching fully as she took her weight on her shoulders, her fingers clawing the sheets at her sides. She fell back to the mattress, only to arch again, and then again.

The lips of her sex pushed out, and then drew back within her body, repeating continually as she began to gasp rhythmically in her troubled sleep. Her body lurched and the bed began to creak gently in time to her movements.