Tropes, Relationships, Kinks, and Fetishes

Extra-spicy polyamorous, kinky, bisexual romance.
Camp politically charged suspense mystery: repentant ex-cop sex worker infiltrates police department to save missing activist.
Gen X GILF next door in a May-December relationship with virgin Millennial.
Love at first sight/love at first fuck/whirlwind romance.
Multiple later in life romances (FFFFFF and MMF, all over 30).
Soulmates (complicated by past romantic trauma and fear of commitment).
Hurt and comfort.
Spankings and kisses.
Unprotected anonymous sex.
Lesbian sex party/gangbang (FFFFF on F).
Cunnilingus (on cis women—trans mascs to follow in future installments).
Fellatio (on both cis men and trans women).
Penetration (by trans woman, cis woman with strap-on, cis man).
Office romances (multiple).
Sexual quid pro quo.
Switch FMC engaging in dominance, submission, and competition.
Consensual ‘non-consent’ roleplay (with ongoing and enthusiastic consent, including safewords).
Ownership kink.
Degradation/humiliation kink.
Pet play.
Bondage fantasy.
Public sex and exhibitionism.
Masturbation and fingering.
Body scent fetish.
Cum fetish (creampies, swallowing, snowballing).
Pregnancy/impregnation fetish.
Biological clock running out.
Ugly duckling.
Love for gender non-conformity and androgyny.
Love for trans women’s bodies.
Love for fat women’s bodies.
Love for muscular women’s bodies.
Love for short women’s bodies.
Love for tall women’s bodies.
Height difference (11 inches).
Money fetish.
Millionaire partner.
Enthusiastic sex work (not sex trafficking).
Antifascist and sex worker activism and direct action.
Exploration of the concepts and praxis of justice, righteousness (tzedek), repentance (t'shuva), and reproductive rights beyond a Christofascist lens.

Content Warnings

While this story’s tone can be described as generally lighthearted, it deals with numerous topics demanding varying degrees of sobriety. The sensitive content in the following book includes but is not limited to:

Danger and Violence

A nearly lethal strangulation.
A death threat.
A dead bird.
A bloodless mass arrest.
Discussions of Christofascism.

Reproductive Rights

Sexual extortion.
Sexual harassment.
Whorephobia/slutphobia.
Chemsex (sex while under the influence of recreational drugs).

Mental Health and Substance Abuse

PTSD flashbacks.
Complex grief.
Mood disorders.
Fear of abandonment.
Impulsive and reckless sexual behavior.
Alcohol use disorder, relapse, and binge drinking.
Polydrug use (alcohol and MDMA).
Chemsex.
Seeing, hearing, and feeling things that are not there.
Body dysmorphia.
Internalized sanism.

~*~

Act 1: Carnal Entrepreneur

From the ashes of a parking Nazi emerges an antifascist hero. A very horny hero.

~*~

Chapter 1: You Know I Like My Girls a Little Bit Older

Friday, July 12th, 2024

Content Warnings: Depressive Episode; Internalized Fatphobia; Body Dysmorphia

Despite its lowest-bidder manufacturing and fascist symbolism, that shield-shaped hunk of brass had long propped up my last hope that I might find happiness. As I departed Chief Plaut’s office without it, I found myself lost. And as I approached the welcome mat of my own home, I still had no idea where my heart was.

An hour before my shift would have ended, I fumbled my key into the cheap lock with poorer hand-eye coordination than I’d have after a fifth of a fifth. I dreaded what I must do next to survive. I turned the key, pushed open the flimsy hollow core door, and edged the steel-reinforced toes of my boots into my dingy studio apartment.

I surveyed its unimpressive contents: an aughts-era plasma TV (with the Martian Marine main menu burned into the screen), an outdated PlayBox U game console (which had started having issues reading discs 8 months prior), plain wooden box containing the plastic-wrapped bricks of my mother’s ashes (which I had no idea where to spread), and my most prized luxury: my king-size bed (which I had cleared of clutter just the night before because the mess had accumulated to the point there was no longer enough room for me to lie down).

I considered the value of each of my possessions and tried to plan out which I could sell to stretch my funds. “(Couch…)” I mumbled, “(…20 bucks tops on DansForum; TV… might be able to sell it as an antique—let’s say 30; console… auction on Awkshion.stuff for parts, same for the laptop…)”

“How much do you think you could get for the ashes?” asked Shosh as she sidled up next to me. She had haunted me since I identified her cadaver.

“I am not selling those.”

“They take up space.”

“They’re the only thing I have left of my mother.”

“You got Banana Shark.”

“Fine, they’re the only thing I have left that fits in my apartment.” She pinched me. “Ah!”

“There’s me.”

“You aren’t always around for me to talk to. The ashes are there for whenever I need to… um…”

“Hold the door open? Fill a sandbox? Start a Zen garden? Replace the kitty litter?”

“Ugh.”

“Relax, I was joshin’ ya. Mostly.”

“I know. Please try to be serious and constructive right now.”

“Have you ever known me to be serious?”

“When you told me never to trust men and to always use a condom.”

“Those lessons are more important than deciding what to do with the ashes.”

“I don’t feel that way.”

“If you come across someone who collects strangers’ ashes, you could probably get at least 10 bucks for them.”

“They’re in my custody, not yours, I decide what to do with them.”

“Excuse me? Those are mine, Esti.”

I ignored her. “When I have the money… I’ll buy a nice urn.”

“Save your money. Spread them at ground zero,” she suggested in an accent cultivated in Brooklyn.

“I don’t think the City of New York would let me do that. And I would expect you to have a little more respect for the worst tragedy to hit your city.”

“Not ground zero of 9/11, ground zero of the place the accident happened.”

“In the middle of the street?”

“Exactly.”

“California Health and Safety Code Section 7116 specifies that scattered remains may not be ‘distinguishable to the public’—and a street is about as public as it gets.”

“Then pay your grandparents a visit and give the ashes to them.”

“I don’t have the patience for flippant suggestions right now.”

“I’m being perfectly serious. Let them decide what to do with the ashes.”

“No, you aren’t being serious. I don’t even know where they live.”

“I’ll tell you where they live if you promise to give them the ashes.”

I shook my head. “I thought the whole point of the cremation was to give them the middle finger and scare them away from us forever. And now you want me to hunt them down and rub salt in their wounds?”

“You could piss them off even more by using your dear old Mamaleh’s ashes as kitty litter.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose and groaned. “You are needlessly cruel sometimes, you know that?”

“Do you love me anyways?”

“In life and in death.”

“You swear?”

I raised my hand in oath. “I swear that I will love you until the end of time and since the beginning of time.” And then she left me standing in the doorway, half-in and half-out of my apartment. Here my mind wandered for several minutes as I tried to accept my new life without my livelihood and lifelong dream, tried to make plans for it… but the more I planned for my future, the more surreal my situation became.

I was lost, and there wasn’t anybody around to give me directions. I hadn’t had a tangible person to guide me since that Cadillac deprived me of the only one I loved.

After a few minutes of numb contemplation, I decided to kick off my shoes and lie down; the couch was the closest comfortable spot for that, so I chose it to flop onto. A few seconds later, the surreality of my situation came crashing down on me—and with it, doubt, self-hatred, and a complete absence of hope.

I became glued to the couch, immobile, for uncountable hours. I wasted away, the breeze from the air conditioner slowly eroding me one atom at a time, like wind chipping away at a mountain. At this rate I would be reduced to ash, just like her, in a few million years. I set my sights on joining my mother that way—but eventually my body begged me to get up and move around. I focused on wiggling my toes, first, then bunching my fingers into fists, then squeezing my core muscles in a halfhearted crunch; eventually, I was able to rub my eyes, twist my spine in a half push-up, and right myself onto my fat ass.

I was alone, and the longing for companionship I had felt in my now-leaking soul throughout the last twelve years and eleven months was no longer a dull ache but a searing agony. For the first time since Shosh died, I could not quell my need for interaction with another human being, a friend with a heartbeat. The psychologist who had evaluated my fitness-for-duty had forced me to realize that I needed friends, even a single pal to spend a little time with every other month, if I had any desire to ‘survive another year’ of my ‘self-destructive maladaptations’.

Bars overflow with people looking for friends but are radioactive for someone with my particular curse. Going back to college would be a great idea—except for the whole business of me paying tuition while I was on a fixed income, as well as the risk of developing a reputation as that 34-year-old square who’s awkwardly (or creepily) trying to befriend youths only a few years past half her age. That left me with… what? “How the hell do I make friends at 34?”

“You never played much with the other kids,” she reminded me. “When the two of us weren’t wreaking havoc, your eyes were glued to the tube, either a game or a movie or a show.”

“You know how much they hated me. You’ve been through the same shit I have.”

“Well… I actually haven’t. You were the only redhead at all of your schools. You stuck out like a smashed thumb. Me, though, I went to school with other redheads. I was ‘normal’ back home.”

“You were an atheist with a religious family in a religious community.”

“Yeah, but I kept that a secret, so no one picked on me or excluded me. I made lots of friends. You need to make some yourself.”

“I know I do, I can feel it. I just don’t know how.”

“Start with your hobbies.”

“I don’t have any.”

“You play games.”

“I play two games.”

“Can you play either of them with others?”

“I don’t know any others to play with.”

“Is there any way to find other people to play with?”

This question, my friend, was—if you have not already guessed—the moment my miserable life took a turn for the better. “Yes, actually. There’s a matchmaking system that will pair me up with strangers who like Martian Marine as much as I do.”

“Then get to it, Esti! I’ll step out and let you do your thing.” And then she was gone again.

So, I booted up my ancient PlayBox U, started Martian Marine, and entered the cooperative matchmaking lobby. Fifteen seconds later, the servers offered me a partner with zero ping, which I accepted without hesitation. HalenBunny entered my lobby, and I donned my headset (which was good for its microphone but no longer produced sound through the earphones, forcing me to pass game and voice audio through the TV).

“Which level are we playing, Lou Peckinpaw?” asked the sultry contralto of a woman much older than myself. “By the way, that’s an interesting gamersign.”

I was not expecting a fellow woman, let alone someone who had been around the sun at least 10 times more than I had. “Thanks. Hmm… ‘Terran Interloper’.”

“That happens to be my favorite. Difficulty?”

“Hmm. Can you handle nightmare?”

“That’s my setting of choice. And while you’re configuring the game… turn on all the skulls.”

I smirked. “Sure. I can chew a chili pepper without breaking a sweat.” I enabled all of the challenge modifiers—known colloquially as “skulls”—adding several unpredictable, frustrating, and perennially humorous tweaks to the game’s normal mechanics, such as grenades flying like bullets and ricocheting off walls like Superballs, enemies’ corpses exploding 3 seconds after death, vehicles always driving like they’re on ice, and so on.

“Very good. Let’s snuff out some Heavenly Lights.”

We launched into the middle of an orbital ambush on our scouting party by the luminous legions of the Heavenly Lights Alliance, a coalition of photon-based lifeforms religiously hell-bent on eradicating all matter-based life in the universe. Despite piling on a dozen challenge-multiplying game modifiers, we mowed them down left and right, above and below. We had each other’s sixes, we traded with each other for our favorite weapons, we carefully rationed ammunition and power ups… we were immortal, and we were in all respects a compatible and deadly pair of cybernetic space soldiers.

“You’ve been playing this game a long time,” she observed.

“I can tell you’re experienced, too.”

“I picked this game up a few summers back, but I can tell that you have much more than that under your belt—you’re practically carrying the game.”

“Well… I wouldn’t say that I’m ‘carrying the game’, though I have been playing since launch day.”

“That was about… 2000, or 2001, so assuming you came out of the womb with your fingers wrapped around a controller, you’d be at least 23 or 24 by now. But… you’re comfortable playing a game with someone older than yourself, so I’m guessing you’ve got quite a few more years than that, maybe… 35.”

“Close, 34. How old are you?”

“Guess.”

“Hm. 45.”

“Think ‘AARP member’.”

“You’re 55?”

“57, as of the last day of last month.”

‹She’s older than me,› I realized. ‹She… is a mature woman. Old enough to be a grandmother. Not old enough to be my grandmother, alas.› “Happy birthday, Bunny. Mine was today.”

“Happy birthday to you, too! It’s pretty rare for someone under 50 to make their gamersign a furry-flavored reference to a detective comedy from 1978.”

“What about it is ‘furry-flavored’?”

She chuckled. “Are you kidding me? ‘Peckinpaw’, substituting P-A-W instead of P-A-U-G-H?”

“Oh—well, I needed to shorten the name to fit the 12-character maximum, I never intended to make it ‘furry’.” Not consciously, anyway.

“I see… So you aren’t a furry.”

“You sound disappointed.”

“I might be.”

“Then I must presume that you are a furry.”

“Are you cool with that?”

“I’m cool. Fursuits, forums, art, cons, porn, whatever—have fun, explore your identity, express yourself wherever, however you want.”

“And how about… yiffing?” She stretched the word mischievously.

“Um… I don’t know how it works, but as long as it’s consensual and everybody is enjoying themselves, I’m happy for them.”

“I’m glad you see furrydom that way. You mentioned furry porn.”

“I’ve never seen it,” I lied as unhastily as I could. “I don’t look at it.”

“Never?”

“I’m not interested in anthro— I’m into human women. Exclusively.”

“Women only? Well, I just happen to be bisexual. Sooo…”

She didn’t finish her sentence, but I knew where she was going. “This is a very interesting direction you’re taking our conversation. You’re over one-and-a-half times my age.”

“I agree. It is interesting. So.”

“So…” I pondered to myself, ‹She’s 57. I’m 34. We’re both mature adults, we can cyber if we want to. Assuming I can figure out how it works.› “Bah,” I scoffed. “Age doesn’t bother me, and…” ‹57 divided by 2 plus 7 is… 35½.› I voiced my conclusion: “…I’m only a year-and-a-half under according to the half-plus-seven rule—close enough for hand grenades—we can lie about our birthdays if anyone starts asking questions.”

“I’m glad you’re so open-minded. I’m into some things, things that might be a little weird to some people—so if you’d prefer being the one who sets the pace, you can share your own kinks and we can explore those first.”

“Kinks? I don’t have any. I guess I’m… boring.”

“My girl, you are 34, and you’re telling me you haven’t done any kind of exploration? Are you still a virgin?”

I bit my lip and confessed, “Yes.”

“Would you like to ameliorate that?”

My rapidly mending heart decided to improvise a spirited drum and bass tune titled ‘Ameliorating Your Virginity’. I could only mumble, “(I-I-I… don’t… know if I…)”

“If we live close enough to each other… we could maybe meet somewhere in the middle.”

“Why are you so… interested in me, when we’ve just met?”

“Because you’re a girl gamer, and a very skilled one. I find that attractive. Hell, you’ve been playing video games for decades and you could probably stomp me in deathmatch. And that’s fucking sexy.”

“Wow. You… um… know how to flatter a girl.” I allowed myself to smile at the first compliment I’d ever consciously accepted as sincere flirtation.

Not that I accepted it wholeheartedly. I got up, approached my closet’s sliding door, carefully peeled away the Martian Marine and L.A. Noire posters which I had taped over the full-length mirror, and assessed my appearance for the first time in many years.

Red, frizzy, shoulder-length hair drawn up into a bun that met the bare-minimum criteria for professionalism—I pulled out my hair tie and let it down, admired it as soft, incandescent lighting played along my tight copper curls, combed my fingers through it to appreciate its texture and bounce. It needed a trim and some conditioner… but it was still pretty. Contrasting it were green eyes that alluded to something other than pure Ashkenazi, vibrant hints towards the ancestry of the man who my mother refused to talk about. Beneath those, freckles generously dusted my nose and cheeks—a nice bit of texture to break up the shocking paleness of my skin.

The shape of my face though… I shook my head. Shosh, despite having a nearly identical face… I had no idea how she could be so pretty.

Descending further, I examined my breasts; they were not at all flattered by my no-nonsense police uniform, so I undid a couple buttons to get a better look at my cleavage—and it became apparent that my breasts were more generous in proportion than the average pair found on a 5′2″ frame that modern medicine would consider obese. ‹Too big,› I thought to myself. They bounced flamboyantly when I ran, and at times I had to shield my cleavage to avoid distracting people. Shosh said they were better than hers, but I disagreed.

Even beneath my uniform, my hips and buttocks were visibly on the more expansive side, and after factoring in the generous fluff in all the wrong places, I had to avert my eyes because, I thought to myself, ‹That is the reflection of a hideous bag of lard and bones.›

Shosh had taken every opportunity to reassure me that I was ‘cute’, yet my clinical depression and general lack of self-love compelled me to believe otherwise. ‹Who could possibly find me attractive?› I thought. ‹She’ll be turned off when we finally meet. This is hopeless—but… I need a friend. I can be ugly and still be her friend.›

“Lou? Are you there?”

“Huh? Yeah. I’m… still here.”

“You weren’t responding, I was beginning to wonder if the connection dropped.”

“(Oh. Sorry,)” I mumbled. “(I was… looking at… reading a pop-up on the screen. Um.) Call me ‘Andrea’.”

“Nice to meet you, Andrea, I’m Judith. Would you be interested in meeting up?”

“I… guess. Sure. Definitely. But if meeting in the middle’s more than a day trip, I’m gonna hafta do some serious budgeting first.”

“I’m not opposed to working something out. How far are you from Santa Virginia?”

“Ah—Are you screwing with me?”

“No. What makes you think that?”

“I live in Santa Virginia.”

“That’s quite a coincidence… but it isn’t that strange. It’s a big city, and it makes sense when you consider the fact that our pings are zero.”

“True. Okay, what part of town do you live in?” I countered.

“I’m in Hillside.”

‹Okay… this is a little weird,› I thought to myself; to her I pointed out, “I’m in Hillside.”

“Um. Do you know where… Matteo’s Apartments are?”

‹And now it’s gotten plain spooky,› I wondered. “Yes. I rent… a room… here.”

There was a moment of silence as we both processed the cosmic coincidence, which she broke. “What’s your room number?”

“Two-oh-one.”

“Two… oh-one?” she asked incredulously.

“You heard me correctly.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake…” I heard her headset clacking on a hard surface through my television—then heard the thump of a door being shut in the next apartment over and, simultaneously, the same sound through the TV’s speakers. Three seconds after that, somebody knocked on my door.

“(No way,)” I murmured. “(No fucking way.)”

With my mind clouded by wonder at such a coincidence, I answered the door and was greeted by a handsomely beautiful and (at 6′1″) very tall blonde with sharp amber eyes framed by defined-yet-soft and somewhat time-worn features; in agreement with her pinot-supple face were the gently-etched muscles visible on the parts of her body not covered by her Black Sabbath T-shirt, green boxer shorts, and Crocs painted to look like half-submerged sharks.

And then a quiet fragrance, carried to

me on a subtle current to my nose,

bashed in my skull with its intensity

of character. It sang of coffee, dark-

roasted and freshly ground, squeezed through French press

and poured while hot to be consumed as jet—

and I for once enjoyed my mug without

the cream or sugar to adulterate.

‹It would seem,› I realized, ‹that I have what people refer to as a ‘type’.›

“You’re that redhead cop from next door,” inferred my new friend with a disdainful tone and a sharp glare.

“(Not… anymore.)” I continued to look her up and down. ‹I’m not intimidated by your height,› I thought. ‹I’m inspired.›

“You quit?” Her distrust was not going anywhere.

“(Let go. Unfit for duty,)” I muttered as I admired her shape and fantasized, {I climb you like a tree and get lost in your foliage…}

“You’ve heard of ACAB, right?”

The all-too-familiar acronym pulled me out of my reverie and caused me to kick into coping-with-humor mode. I nodded and chuckled. “Sure have! I’m a bastard who beats and extorts and kills—bloodthirsty, crooked, and heartless by nature. And I’ve always been this way, since the day I was born. A bad seed, evil by nature. People fear and hate me for being what I am, and they fear and hate me even more for being a vicious PEO. As they should.”

Her harsh expression softened into bewilderment. “I don’t see what’s so funny. And I hafta ask, PEO as in…?”

“Parking Enforcement Officer. It’s a more dignified title than ‘meter maid’. Not that we have any dignity.”

“Hm. Yeah, the most pathetic of all the swine, though hardly the most loathsome—that title goes to Vice.”

“Vice? The most loathsome? No, the most loathsome is definitely Parking. We’re the real bastards who work forces. We hold weekly cross burnings and write hate speech on the back of our parking tickets and choke people to death for parking 14 feet and 11 inches from a fire hydrant.”

“Do you think making light of your sins will absolve you of them?”

My smile dropped, my gaze dropped, my heart dropped. “Dogs go to Heaven. Bastards don’t. There is no absolution for the spawn of Satan.”

“You aren’t a cop anymore, which means you aren’t a bastard anymore.” Then she smiled at me.

I considered her kindness silently. ‹You… you gave me your smile. Even though I am… was a cop.› My eyes rose to meet hers, and I dreamed within them. {You sweep me off my feet, hold me up by my fat ass so that I can wrap my legs around your waist and cling to you and kiss you…} I replied, “That’s… the most reassuring thing I’ve heard in over a decade. Maybe I’m not a horrible person for having once been complicit in a corrupt and hateful institution. Just kind of… worthless.”

That precious smile disappeared— ‹Left me, abandoned me.› —to be replaced with her pitying stare. “You have some real self-esteem issues, don’t you?”

“Is knowing that I’m objectively lazy and incompetent a ‘self-esteem issue’, or am I simply being honest with myself?”

She rested a hand on my shoulder and gave it a couple pats. “It may take some time… but I’ll fix you up.” She took a seat on my couch.

“I don’t need or even deserve—‍” ‹Be her friend,› I commanded myself. ‹Doctor Huygen’s orders. Don’t question her kindness. I have no friends, I need a friend, she wants to be my friend, just be her God damn friend.› I corrected my response: “—I mean, I don’t need a lot of help, but—I’ll accept it—and I appreciate your kindness.”

“Oh, but you do need a lot of help. You’re an ex-cop—you need to be rehabilitated, and you need a new career, and you’re never gonna get a new job as long as you’re convinced that you’re good for nothing. This isn’t going to be easy, you understand?”

I joined her on the couch. “I guess you’re right. Thanks. But this is a lot to promise someone you met a few hours ago through a video game.”

“With a computer server as our matchmaker, yes—but you should know that I’ve been around the sun my fair share of times and I’ve learned to be an efficient judge of character. There’s something about you that I really like, and I want to figure out what it is. And now that we know we’re next-door neighbors, we can be friends!”

“‘Friends’…” I slipped into thought. ‹I did it. Now all I have to do is not drive her away with my pathetic personality and my hideous face and my grotesque body.› I asked her, “What would you like to do as… friends?” My imagination ran wild. {Like maybe draping your mass over me like a weighted blanket while kissing my entire face, my chest, my belly, my…} It was a good thing she couldn’t experience my fantasies.

“Depends on how far you want to take it. I have quite a few friends already, but I’m not super close to any of them, but (you…)” She smiled slyly. “I’d like to get really close to you—if you know what I mean.”

“Right. You expressed a certain interest in me.”

Her response was to spread her mischievous smile into a devilish grin.

“Well,” I explained, “I have no experience, unless you count having my ass groped by college girls in the showers after cross country…”

“Was it consensual?”

“It gave me funny feelings, but… I… liked it. The same thing happens at work all the time.” The echo of the sentence rang painfully loudly, so I quickly added, “But I don’t like it at work.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, but you didn’t answer my question. Have you ever consented to having your ass touched?”

“(No. Um—well… I guess… in a way…)” I muttered.

“If consent isn’t communicated enthusiastically, it isn’t actually consent.”

The episode in the showers played out in my head; I avoided thinking about the episodes at work. “It’s more complicated than that, and only just now did I start processing my feelings about being touched back then. It didn’t bother me at the time, though, and still doesn’t.”

“If you say you don’t mind, then I guess we can say that no harm was done—but it still doesn’t count towards your experience. So… would you be interested in an arrangement?”

I considered her offer silently. ‹This is happening so… fast. But… I am curious. I want to know what it’s like to actually be with a real woman. In many diverse ways.› Timidly (yet eagerly), I responded, “I would like to… try.”

“That didn’t sound very enthusiastic.”

“Do you want me to beg?”

“No. I just don’t want to hear any hesitation in your voice.”

I groaned. “Fine. I enthusiastically want an arrangement. I want you to make me into a real woman. Is that enthusiastic enough for you?”

“Much better.”

“Good. Now, tell me about this arrangement.”

“We’d be fuckbuddies.”

My head reeled. ‹But,› I wanted to point out, ‹I’m ugly as sin…› Instead I softly muttered, “(Fuckbuddies…)”

“Don’t tell me you’ve never heard of a ‘fuckbuddy’, pal.”

“Oh, I know what they are… It’s just that… all of a sudden, I have someone in my life who I’m going to regularly… engage in… sex with.”

“Deal?” She offered her hand.

‹You have a nice face,› I observed silently, ‹and rich eyes, and there’s an alluring heft to the muscles in your arms, and you… smell good, and I like how freaking small I feel next to you—I want to sit in your lap, or be picked up by you and cradled in your arms like a bride on her way to consummating her marriage. I should have fun while I still have a few years of youth left—and you’ve got the experience to help me make the best of them. Yeah, fuck it, I’m in.› I accepted her hand and gave her a healthy shake and a hearty “Deal.”

“Would you like me to take the lead?”

“For reasons I shouldn’t have to explain… yes, I would appreciate that.”

“You got it.” She leaned in; I closed my eyes and parted my lips, expecting hers to meet mine.

Instead of a kiss on the mouth, though, I felt a wet pressure on the side of my neck, and then a vibration in my throat, and I thanked God that I was seated because my legs instantly turned to jelly.

Chapter 2: Best Fuckbuddies Forever

She pulled her lips away, but I remained gelatinous. “(That was such a cute noise you made,)” she whispered.

“(What… noise?)” I squeaked.

“Kind of a whimper-slash-moan.” She kissed my neck again, and this time I heard it. She moved to my throat, which caused me to make the same sound and feel even weaker.

“(Right there,)” I whispered as my chest began to heave. She kissed my throat once more, and I whimpered again. She kissed my chin, which was not arousing in and of itself, but made clear to me she was heading for my mouth, thus stirring my anticipation.

And then she really kissed me. I grunted between our lips and my instincts took over. I wrapped my arms around her neck, kissed her back for a while, then gave into the urge to shove my tongue into her mouth. She giggled, then cruelly pried her mouth an eighth of an inch away from mine.

“(Why—hah—did you stop?)” I whimpered while trying to catch my breath.

“I just wanted to point out that you’re a natural.” To my relief, she resumed kissing me.

Over the course of the next few eternal minutes of her touch, a need within me grew, a need for more which I was compelled to satisfy. With simultaneous reluctance and eagerness, I pulled away and told her, “If you don’t mind, Judith… I’d like to invoke the ‘fuck’ part of our fuckbuddy agreement. Right now.”

“I think we should take it slow, since this is your first time.”

“I’m ready.”

“You aren’t.”

My clitoris, vagina, cervix, uterus, fallopian tubes, and ovaries began conspiring to overthrow my brain. “You can’t know that. Only I can know whether I’m ready.”

“I’ve had a lot of partners. I’m pretty good at telling when people are ready.”

My reproductive organs began their assault, but with all my strength I was able to maintain control and force myself to reply, “Alright. Fine. You’re older but wiser—‍” She snorted. “What?”

“Nothing. There’s a song in a musical—never mind.”

“Alright… If not sex, what do we do next?”

“Foreplay.” She began unbuttoning my shirt—I took that as my cue to pull her tee up to her armpits; she took the hint and raised her arms, allowing me to pull it off and expose her toned-but-not-chiseled abs and her bare and surprisingly youthful breasts. While she resumed unbuttoning my shirt, I marveled at them, imagined touching them and feeling how soft they were. I spread my fingers out and held them inches from them, coiled tight and ready to spring forward and latch on. She giggled. “Damn, you’re eager.” I wanted to grab them, and I wanted her to grab mine and do things with them.

I grunted, and as she untucked my uniform shirt I hastily ‘unbuttoned’ (popped off) the last button and cast it away without care for where it landed before ripping open my tank top and disposing of it likewise. She pulled my sports bra up and over my head, letting my ironically more mature breasts bounce, and as soon as my hands were free, I grabbed her tits and brushed my thumbs across her nipples, causing her to gasp. I devoured her tender chest as she squeezed mine; she pinched my nips, forcing from me a yelp of pleasure. I wanted to rub my tits against hers but couldn’t quite get them to meet because of our height difference, so I leaned against her chest until she got the hint to lie down. Once she was on her back, I climbed on top of her and rubbed myself against her.

By chance I breathed in through my nose and caught a full blast of her scent—

Fresh ground

French roast

Hot pressed

Steamed milk

Go juice

Fuck her

All night

A dial inside my head turned from 9 to 10. “Fuck.” I hastily dismounted her, unbuckled, and undid my fly.

“Andrea, I don’t know if you’re ready…”

“I’m extremely ready, damn it.” She had been compelling before, but now she was irresistible.

I peeled off my pants, then tried to pull her boxers off while she was seated, but she gently curled her long fingers around my hands and told me, “I’m not ready, okay?”

My heart was beating faster than a hummingbird’s and my body was driving me forward at a mile a second and she was asking me to take a leisurely stroll like it was a balmy July afternoon— (And while it was July 12th in sunny Southern California, we were only a few miles from the chilly Pacific and the sun had set hours ago, so it was starting to cool off outside.) —whereas I was in the mood for a cross country sprint. On the brink of devastation, I stared. I gently, quietly, breathlessly explained, “(You… You said we were fuckbuddies. Fuckbuddies, they, you know… they fuck.)”

“I did say that. But right now I’m telling you I’m not ready to go all the way.”

I groaned and plopped down next to her. “I feel a need.”

“Horny?”

I caught my mouth before I could respond as I realized, ‹Wait. You know I’m a virgin, but you might be under the misconception that I’m one of those innocent virgins, rather than one of the pathetic femcel variety… and innocent is sexy.› As naïvely as I could, I asked, “This is what being horny is like? I’ve never felt this way before. It’s like… a… a strange kind of tension, almost like… anxiety, but different because… it has this extra physical aspect to it. My body is telling me, ‘Do something with your genitals,’ but I don’t know what it is I’m supposed to do until I’ve already started doing it. Is this what ‘horniness’ is?”

“Yep. And you’re not always going to have someone to help you resolve it, so you need to learn how to take care of it yourself.”

“Are you saying… I need to…” I dropped to a loud, scandalized whisper. “(…touch… touch myself?!)”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

“Alright, if I gotta solo this one… I gotta solo this one.” (Gently put, I had extensive experience in the subject. Bluntly put, I averaged about 3 hours and 30 orgasms per night to help me fall asleep.) I realized there may yet be a way to persuade her to touch me. “So… how exactly do I… do… (‘it’)?” I asked in feigned ignorance.

“You… did take sex ed, didn’t you?”

“They never talked about masturbation.”

She narrowed her eyes. “I’m not comfortable with going any further with someone who didn’t receive a well-rounded education in sex.”

“I know how sex works! But only straight sex. I know all the things, I know how to put a condom on a penis, I know about STIs, I’m not completely uneducated! I just don’t know about masturbation because—because I wasn’t paying attention during that part because I thought it didn’t apply to me.”

One of her eyebrows cocked up. “And why wouldn’t it apply to you?”

“Because… I wasn’t interested in masturbating. Um. I wanted to save myself for marriage.”

“Yet you aren’t saving yourself for marriage anymore.”

“Yeah, uh, no, um… but… when Peter died, I knew there was no way I’d ever get married. So I decided not to save myself anymore. But I didn’t—don’t know how to masturbate, so I’ve never tried.”

“Never tried…”

I nodded.

She stared me in the eye, stared through me like I was made of glass. For a moment I thought she could read my mind. Then she shrugged and smiled. “Alright. I’ll teach you how to masturbate, because despite knowing for decades that you had a clitoris, you somehow never managed to figure out how to use it.”

“Thanks. What do I need to get started?”

“You need either your hands, a dildo, or a vibrator.”

“The things lesbians use because they don’t have penises?”

I narrowly picked up on the mild annoyance she took care to hide behind a tutor’s encouraging smile, though it was hard to tell why my question bothered her. “Yes. Very good guess for someone who has no idea how masturbation works. Lesbians also use their mouths.”

“Okay. Out of those, all I have are hands and a mouth.”

“And while I would love to see you use your mouth…” she began; I suppressed a perverted smirk as I thought to myself, ‹Oh, who among us doesn’t find the concept of autocunnilingus extremely hot?› She continued, “…I’m not holding my breath that you’re one of the lucky few who are that flexible (assuming they exist), so hands it is. First, you want short nails—yours are already chewed smooth, so that step is taken care of. Second, you should wash your hands before you touch anything.”

I usually skipped the second step out of laziness, but figured following her advice would make her happy, so I washed in my bathroom then pretend-bashfully strolled up to her in nothing but my socks and panties.

“Now you’re gonna wanna get comfy.”

“Okay. My bed is the most comfortable spot in my apartment.” To myself I added, ‹And also the closest to being worthy of the adjective ‘romantic’.›

“Let’s go.”

I led her by the hand past my kitchenette to the area I called my ‘bedroom’… my apartment being a studio, it wasn’t so much a room as it was an area partially separated by my closet to give me a shred of privacy while I was jerking myself to sleep. I reclined on my flank so that she would have a good view of the show, and just close enough to the edge that she would be right next to me when she joined me. “Won’t you lie down? So that you can use your fingers… to point where I should put mine?” She shrugged, kicked off her crocs and took up that narrow space, her body inches from mine. “What now, teacher? Will you guide your student?” To myself I hoped, ‹Fingers crossed you’re into teacher-student fantasies…›

Sure enough, her eyebrow raised, piqued. “‘Teacher and student’, right… I’m assuming you don’t mind me seeing your pussy.”

“You need to see my… (p-pussy?) I… guess it can’t be avoided.” With less hesitation than would have been ideal, I yanked off my panties and handed them to her. “Can you toss those in the hamper?”

She sighed as she tossed them in the basket.

“Thank you. I’m ready for the next step.”

“You can figure out what to do from here.”

“No! I can’t!”

“It isn’t hard. Try experimenting.”

“I don’t know where to start.”

“Just do what comes naturally.”

“This is all very unnatural.”

“Then… maybe masturbation isn’t right for you. Maybe sex isn’t right for you. Maybe we’ll never be fuckbuddies. Oh, well…”

“No! I just need to give it a try! Teach me!”

She sighed. “Alright. I’ll ‘teach’ you. Start by inserting your finger.”

“(All… right…)” I had never bothered to experiment internally because I had read somewhere that clitoral stimulation was the only thing capable of bringing a woman to orgasm; nevertheless, I had to go with the flow. I considered asking her to take my hand and guide it… but decided that might be a little too bold. “Alright.” I placed my forefinger at the entrance of the place where only tampons had ever ventured before, then slowly slipped it into what turned out to be a very slick hole. “(Oh!)” The sensation was surprisingly pleasant, with a sudden and powerful rush as I crossed the threshold, as electrically stimulating as having my nipples abused. “(I like that.)” I repeated the motion while she watched, intrigued. “(Mm…)” I even uttered for her enjoyment the sounds people make in porn—it was my hope that she’d get off on my noises and maybe give into her horniness. “(Ah… Oh… Yes…)”

“Wow, um… So, you’re probably not gonna cum from just that, most women have to play with their clits. Pull out your finger.” I mentally cursed, ‹Well, shit.›

I removed it reluctantly, and a string of a substance resembling raw egg white stretched from my vagina to my finger, the stuff that would frequently overflow and soak my panties throughout the week following a bleed. “Can you grab me a tissue? I need to wipe off my finger.”

“Why? It’s lubricant, you need that—unless you have a bottle of lube lying around.” I shook my head in spite of the pint of Maude Shine I kept hidden inside my nightstand next to my Magic Wand. (It was just about empty, so I wasn’t being entirely dishonest.)

“I didn’t know this stuff was lubricant.”

“Okay… Andrea? You can drop the innocent ‘I don’t know how to masturbate’ act. I checked your drawer, you have a Magic Wand, as well as a bottle of Maude Shine, which I know you use because it’s empty.”

I grunted exasperatedly. “Okay, fine, I lied, but I really haven’t ever used this… stuff… on my clit. I’ve never stuck my fingers inside my vagina because I was perfectly happy just touching my clit.”

“So… you weren’t acting when you hesitantly inserted your finger and started making those noises?”

I nodded.

“Whew… Alrighty then. Get the other fingers on that hand wet.” One-by-one I moistened the fingers on my right hand, navigating each as far as it would go up the rainy season Nile between my legs and savoring the sensation of being spread each time. As I pulled out my pinky finger, I was overcome by curiosity—and an idea for how to turn her on.

I placed my pinky finger in my mouth and sucked it off.

The flavor was pleasant, albeit hard to describe beyond the notes of vinegar and olive, and there was something about consuming my own juices that appealed to my pervy brain, so much so that I found myself moaning as I slowly withdrew my moistened finger from my mouth.

Judith muttered, “(Christ.)”

“What’s wrong?” I think I managed to hide my satisfaction that my performance had the intended effect.

“Nothing. Well… The sound you just made… The look on your face when you did that… Are you sure you’ve never put your fingers in your pussy?”

I had seen many other women suck on pussy juice-slick fingers on camera, but I was being perfectly, sincerely honest when I replied, “Only tampons and speculums have gone in there before now.”

She shrugged. “If you say so. Try touching your clitoris.”

I hovered my finger over my clit, stopping an inch short. “(I’m… kind of afraid to do this, Judith,)” I pretend-whimpered, quite eager to ‘do this’.

She sighed. “You’ve already confessed to playing with your clitoris.”

“Can we just…. please pretend that I’ve never done this before, that I’m innocent and you’re gently corrupting me? If you won’t actually fuck me the way a fuckbuddy is supposed to, will you at least let me have my fantasy of being taught how my body works by an older, wiser woman?”

She blinked. “Um. If that’s… fun for you, I suppose… I don’t see why not. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve done something like this. Let’s pretend.”

“Alright. Thank you. Where was I?”

“You’re scared to touch your clitoris.”

“Right, right. I don’t know what’s going to happen when I touch it!”

“You’ll be fine.”

“Maybe if you… took my hand… and guided it?”

“You don’t need my help. You can do it.”

‹It was worth a shot,› I thought with a sigh before replying, “Alright. Here goes.” I spread my lips with my left hand and touched my clitoris with my right, exactly as I had 10 to 30 times every day since puberty. I felt a familiar, gentle spark shoot up my stomach. I pulled my hand back and gasped in feigned surprise. “Wow!”

“Try rubbing it.”

“Okay.” I touched it again, causing a shower of sparks to carve its way outward from my crotch and throughout my pelvis, then made a little circle with it—the sparks grew hotter and attacked me more fiercely. “(Holy—fuck,)” I gasped between machine gun breaths as I found myself overwhelmed by the pleasure, my habitual compulsion mindlessly accelerating my motions, jiggling my clit with my whole wrist, arm, and shoulder until every nerve in my body gently toasted beside the flames of excitement. I moaned continuously—until my mouth was smothered by someone else’s. I kissed Judith back as I thrust my crotch into my hand, eager, so incredibly eager to release that carnal energy that ever called to me from within—and even more eager to get her to do it for me. That energy grew and grew with each stroke, I felt my desire inflate, I grabbed Judith’s tit with my left hand and squeezed; I dragged my thumb across her hard nipple, causing her to shudder and moan into my mouth.

Then, unable to bear the thought of my first orgasm with a sex partner being at my own hand, I abandoned my clitoris, wrapped my fingers around her wrist, removed her hand from my cheek, guided it towards my crotch, and released it as I meekly whispered, “(Please.)”

So her fingers invaded my country and I surrendered to her every maneuver as she politely conquered me. She performed magnificently, vigorously ruling over my clit with a firm hand, and I let her know I was hers with my moaning and whining until time bled over into space, until I felt—

A fuse within me catches flame.

It burns and fizzes, throws its sparks.

As it grows shorter, closes in

To detonate my heart and mind

And spread my shrapnel ’cross the world,

Which folks make into effigies

To bury with their kin and pets.

I lived these lovely decades few

And died a million lives and am

Remembered by a billion more.

I rest, immortal as the earth

In which forever I’m entombed.

In my remains I plant a seed;

I germinate, extend my roots,

Foundation for self-masterpiece.

I sprout my stem into a trunk,

Proportions of which beggar awe.

My leaves spring forth

from branches high

And spread to eat the sun and moon.

My waist grows tall to reach the sky

Throughout a thousand years of life.

My cones will wait decades or more

To split and birth my progeny.

I am majestic, great and old,

I am Sequoia, Queen of Woods.

You laze within my shade, my child,

And marvel at my majesty;

So gaze upon this wondrous tree,

And know I am your Goddess.

My explosive death and gradual rebirth caught me completely off guard as it forced my back to arch, my legs to stiffen, and my toes to curl. Pleasure rained down like El Niño, flooding my mind with a euphoria that outdid tequila by a wide margin before slowly easing off, then dissipating, leaving me drenched but thriving beside a tranquil pond fit for dreaming, with a pleasant buzz permeating my body not unlike a very intense marijuana high. I sighed, perfectly content without alcohol for the first time in my post-pubescent life.

“Did you enjoy yourself?”

I smiled lazily and brushed her cheek. “All I can say is… I’ve been missing out half my life. I wish we’d met before I became a cop. Maybe you could’ve stopped me.” I softly dragged a fingertip up and down her cleavage as butterflies waltzed upon my skin. “Thank you, Judith.”

“You’re welcome, Andrea. Is this a queen? It feels bigger than mine.”

“King. I take up the whole bed when I sleep.”

“The size might come in handy.”

“For what?”

“I dunno, it just… might.”

A moment passed as I tried to figure out what she had in mind for the bed, but my mind wandered until I got to thinking about what my newfound sexuality meant, and how my frustration had been so easily released after a decade and a half of silent physiological readiness. But then, despite having so recently declared myself queen of my newly formed forest cult of bliss, I began to worry. Quietly, almost hoping that she wouldn’t hear me, I asked, “(Am I a… a slut?)” At that point in time, I still thought that sluttiness—like fatness—must be a trait undesirable to anyone and everyone who might get to know me.

“Not even 6 hours into our friendship you literally popped a button and ripped your shirt off in anticipation of having sex; when I refused that sex, you started vigorously jerking off in front of me… then grabbed me by the hand and begged me—with the saddest pair of eyes I’ve ever seen—begged me to finish you off. But you also have a very recent history of being a ‘chaste virgin’, so what happened now might’ve simply been a fluke. I would say your slut status is… debatable.”

“When you say it’s ‘debatable’, are you just being diplomatic, or is that your honest answer?”

She shrugged. “It’s my honest—‍”

I sat up and leaned over her. “Keeping in mind I was dead set on skipping the masturbation and just fucking you on the couch.”

“Good point. The evidence strongly favors you being a slut.”

I worried to myself, ‹I’m a slut. The rumors in school were true—it just took a couple decades for real evidence to surface.› Lightheadedness mixed with euphoria, yielding a short-lived anxiety. I wanted to tell her that I didn’t like the idea of being a slut.

My worries eased. ‹I asked for your honest opinion, and the verdict was ‘maybe’. But when you said the word…›

“Are you worried about being a slut?”

All the bullshit my classmates put me through in middle and high school floated in and out of my head before deflating and dropping to the floor, flaccid and impotent. I shrugged. “Eh. I’ll be fine, I guess.”

With concern she observed, “Based on how long it took you to answer that question… you don’t sound fine.”

‹In fact, your words hurt so little…› I realized silently, then concluded out loud, “Coming from you, it doesn’t bother me. I…” And so I asked myself, ‹Dare I say it?› then decided to admit to her, “I guess you’re just what I needed.” {‘Just what I needed…’}

“Is it the perfume that I wear?”

I grinned. “No, and ‘It’s not the ribbons in your hair.’”

She snorted and nodded with an appreciative smile, then sang, “Do you mind me coming here?”

I shook my head. “I don’t. And in case you’re worried about wasting all my time… my time has never been so well spent. You came along when I needed you most—‍”

Three words tickled my throat, three words that needed to hold their fucking horses… three words that would have better gone unspoken until much later in any other seemingly healthy relationship.

And in the case of our relationship, I could have avoided pushing Judith to run away—to abandon what we had made together, to leave me all alone with only tears for company—if only I had left those three small words unspoken till the end of time. If only—after those few days together, too beautiful to last and too brief to deserve import—I had held my tongue. If only—when her eyes caught fire, burning with fear—I had held back my emotions and refrained from speaking to her those cursèd words over and over and over again, driving her to flee from the woman I knew damn well she loved more than anything. If only—when she told me repeatedly that I was wrong about what kind of relationship we were in—I had closed my mouth and heeded her warnings, I could have saved myself from the greatest fear I had ever felt, which would also be the greatest despair I had ever suffered.

I hurt her when I finally said those words. I wish that I had found another sentence to tell her how I felt. Having in hindsight just an inkling of what she had gone through before me, I wish I hadn’t hurt her.

But the most horrible moment in our ephemeral romance did not yet come that night—a few fleeting days of bliss would pass before she threw open the door and took that single step without me.

“—though I wish you could’ve come to me sooner,” I said instead.

“Aw. That’s so sweet,” she said dearly, and… with… what I almost swore to myself was pity… and… sorrow… and… regret. “You’re… a very… sweet woman. I’m glad… I’m glad I came into your life at the moment I did, too.” She was silent, pensive for a few seconds, but then she looked like she had some kind of revelation and cleared her throat softly. “You know, I don’t even know your last name. Isn’t that crazy?”

“Bachman.”

“Lucas. So, it feels a little weird to be talking like we’ve known each other for months—and yet…” Even as she admitted this, she relaxed. She didn’t look or sound weirded out. The pity, the sorrow, the regret—all gone, replaced with the same sympathetic confidence she had maintained since the beginning. She seemed perfectly comfortable as we lay next to each other, our tits facing each other, my pussy out, one of my arms slung over her waist, the chewed-nail fingers on that hand gently ‘scratching’ her back, and the other five running through her hair, coating it with my juices; one of her hands cupping my face, thumb brushing my face cheek, the other hand squeezing my ass cheek—fingers feeling me, massaging me. Life had never been this good. I never would have imagined losing my job would bring me such pure and genuine joy. I never imagined losing her, nor the terror that would follow.

I kissed her for half a minute, then explained, “The shrink who told my bosses I was too disabled to work told me I needed friends and ordered me to befriend the next person I met… and that ended up being you.”

She stared into my eyes with a pale smile. We rested our lips for a moment, with only the jet-engine whir of my gaming console’s dust-clogged CPU fan to cut the silence. Then she hugged me tightly and sighed loudly. “I think that doctor was right. I think they were spot-on.”

Her embrace brought me comfort, of which I had both a cornucopia and a famine. “Definitely.”

She released me. “You need sleep. What time do you get up?”

I shrugged. “I don’t have a job anymore. What’s the point in having a schedule?”

“Schedules are good for your mental health. Do you take any medications?”

“Yes. Adderall.”

“Medicines like that work best when you take them at the same time every day. Having a schedule is imperative for you in particular.”

“Okay. I guess… 9 o’clock. I can get away with just a few hours of sleep, for a couple days at a time. One of the few things I had going for me in my quest to become a homicide detective.”

“A homicide detective?” Her face had changed. I asked myself, ‹Is that a twinkle in your eye?› It was. Excitement, curiosity, eureka—in her eye a puzzle piece slipped into place and completed a picture—a picture obscured from me. “Or any kind of detective?” she continued. “Might you solve… kidnappings?”

“Yes. I would prefer homicides specifically, just like Lieutenant Columbo, but he rescues his nephew’s wife from her kidnapper in No Time to Die. Not my favorite episode, but it’s fun to watch the lieutenant pull out all the stops and work at a breakneck pace and just be a hero in a way he can’t be if the victim is already dead. And… I really like seeing him in a tuxedo. Very handsome.”

“You really like Peter Falk. You got a crush on him or something?”

“He’s the only man I’ve ever had a crush on,” I told her, lying more to myself than to her.

She might have interpreted this as a joke, because she chuckled. “You think he’s sexy?”

“He was at his sexiest as Grandpa in The Princess Bride.”

At this fact she laughed with extra gusto, mirthful surprise pinching her cheeks. “Yeah, he was pretty sexy with gray hair! And in his trench coat I consider him a rare exception to ACAB. If you had become a detective… maybe I would have considered you an exception, too. Though I can’t say that any antifascist who takes themself seriously would agree with such an unorthodox attitude.”

“Well—I’m not a cop anymore, so it doesn’t matter what they would think about me hypothetically being a detective.”

“Well…” She curled a lock of my hair around her finger. “…you may find that a lot of people won’t agree with me that you’re not a bastard anymore, either. A significant minority might be of the attitude that ‘once you’re a cop, you’re always a cop’. But, in my humble opinion, that’s unfair. Nobody’s born perfect. People change.”

“I guess.”

She checked her phone. “That was a blast, but… it’s midnight-oh-six, and I set my alarm for bright-and-early-thirty.”

“Are you sure you can’t stay a little longer? We could maybe go for a quickie.”

She shook her head. “I’m still not ready. I don’t fuck until I know someone’s favorite song, movie, and book.”

“My ass you don’t! You just fingered me a few minutes ago.”

“I had a moment of weakness. The face you made was so… pathetically needy, I felt compelled to finish you off. I’m not letting that happen again—no more sex until you dish.”

“Favorite song: ‘Just What I Needed’ by The Cars; favorite movies: The Cheap Detective, The Princess Bride, and A Friend in Deed from Columbo (if you count feature-length television episodes as movies); and my dearest, most favorite book: Just One More Thing by Peter Falk.”

“‘Movie-s’? I said ‘mov-ie’, singular.”

“I like all three.”

“Singular.”

“Well, I like all three.”

A cruel smile danced across her mouth. “I guess we’ll just have to spend a little more time getting to know each other—and ourselves—before we take things to the next level. I’m going to bed.” She got off the bed and grabbed her shirt.

“Wait!”

“Gotta sleep.” She started putting her shirt on as she took a few steps towards the door.

“Give me a minute to think about it!”

“This is something you should know off the top of your head.” She took the last few strides to my front door.

“No, it isn’t! Movie lovers never have just one favorite!” She opened it and crossed the threshold, and I felt my compass begin to spin.

She asked over her shoulder, “But are you a movie lover?”

“I like a few movies, yes.”

“If you just like ‘a few’ movies, you’re just a casual viewer. And if you’re a casual viewer, you don’t have an excuse for not knowing your favorite. Bye!” She shut the door behind her.

I sprinted from the bed and flung open the door. She turned around and her eyes spread wide. “Coffee!”

“Uh-huh. You do realize that we’re on the balcony—and that you’re only wearing socks, don’t you?”

“Shit!” I ran back inside, wrapped a once-upon-a-time-white polyester-cotton blend Hallmart bed sheet I bought on clearance around myself like a cloak, and ran back out. “Well?”

“You’re getting up at 9, so… how about Holden’s Café at 10?”

“Works for me. Goodnight, Judith.” I waved with simultaneous unease and eagerness.

She shook her head and stepped most of the way into her apartment—but popped her head out and returned my “Goodnight!” before disappearing entirely.

I had been lost, but now was found—a firstborn wretch redeemed by a Providence that had been indwelling so close to me. For the first time in my life, I could see my path.

Chapter 3: Coffee and a Caper

Saturday, July 13th, 2024

Content Warnings: Internalized Fatphobia; Depression

As I woke and stretched, I decided I wanted to be prettier than I’d ever been in my entire life—a bar I estimated so low, given how homely I thought I was, that it should be trivial to clear.

I showered—and conditioned (for the first time in 9 months; I had to unclog the 6-year-old bottle’s nozzle with a floss pick)—I brushed and detangled my hair; I put on what I estimated to be a reasonable amount of makeup, including a bit of low-coverage foundation, rose eyeshadow, rouge, and my blood-red lipstick; I blasted myself with the (miraculously still-potent) perfume my mother bought me for my 21st birthday; I moisturized… I never moisturized, as evidenced by the hitherto factory-sealed container. There I was, incapable of working, yet preening myself like I was getting ready for the job interview of a lifetime, aiming to give my best possible impression. Because every impression I gave that woman mattered more than all its predecessors put together.

As ready as I was in body and in mind, my wardrobe was not. I hadn’t done my laundry in a month because I’d been in the midst of a moderate (verging-on-severe) depressive episode during which I worked, played Martian Marine, occasionally ate, and jerked myself off to sleep—and not a damn thing else.

Now that there was someone in my life whose opinion of my outward presentation I actually cared about, depression was no longer a valid excuse for skipping laundry. I needed all of my clothes to be freshly laundered from there on out. I smelled everything in my closet, and nearly all of it had a… let’s just say it had a detectable hint of sweat—except for the dress my mother had given me for my 21st birthday, the one I had worn only twice: first, on said birthday, when we both went to a bar and got plastered and remained plastered from noon to noon; and last, to her funeral a month later, because even back then it was the closest thing to a ‘formal’ outfit I had in my wardrobe. (In hindsight, I really ought to have bought something more appropriate for such a solemn occasion, but in my defense I was mentally disabled by my grief.) And since I hadn’t worn it since I last had it dry-cleaned a week after the funeral, it still smelled more-or-less freshly laundered. It was an off-the-shoulder knee-length black satin dress with a slit down the side that exposed my plus-size left thigh, and a plunging lace-up neckline that brought further unwanted attention to my already excessive cleavage. I dreaded all the eyes that would be wandering over my body, ogling all the fat stubbornly clinging to my skeleton, but I had no other options. I either wore the dress, or I wore my natural perfume.

What I did not anticipate was the opinion that it might have… somehow… actually… looked… good on me?

“Look at you! Ready for the show, Elvira!” Judith expressed her approval as she approached the booth I’d claimed for us, loudly enough for the entire café to hear.

“Um… ‘the show’?”

She sustained the unmasked part of her grin in the corner of her eyes as she took her seat on the opposing bench. “That’s a pretty fancy dress you got on, and it’s awfully flattering to your cleavage.”

I grimaced severely enough that it likely escaped my own mask. “I’m overdressed, aren’t I?”

She ignored her phone as it sounded, ‘(Hoot hoot hoot!)’ “I’m wearing my 1979 CaliFFornia World Music Festival tee, riddled with holes…”

Her shirt was so worn out and patched up that it was hard to tell that it had once upon a time been a concert tee—I was able to make out a crinkled blue orb covered in illegible cursive surrounded by four blobs of color that had once, long ago, been images of I-knew-not-what.

“…and the pants that I was wearing when I caught a mild case of bicycle-induced road rash 20 years ago…”

The knees of her subtly-flaring brown corduroy bell-bottoms had seen better days.

“…and a pair of Chucks held together by Shoe Goo and embroidery floss.”

Last of all, her faded red canvas high-top All-Stars looked cobbled together from multiple donor shoes.

(Her floral deodorant caught my nose, overpowering but pleasant—though I could still smell that espresso musk beneath it—and I would much rather sniff a big cup of Ethiopian blend medium roast than some sissy flowers.)

She looked and smelled magnificent in spite of how incredibly casual and beat-up her outfit was.

“So, with these duds, would you say I’m underdressed?”

“If you’d known today was Band T-shirt Day,” suggested Shosh, “you could’ve worn your Mötley Crüe tee, too.” I glanced over and saw that she was indeed wearing her own 2005 Carnival of Sins tour shirt.

I sighed. “I would have liked something a little more casual…”

Judith chuckled. “I can’t imagine being any more casual than I already am!”

“I suppose I can’t either. Me, on the other hand… I wish casual was an option, but all my T-shirts are dirty. This was the only clean thing in my closet. Everything else… smells like…” I finished the sentence with a shamed whisper: “(B.O.)”

“Did you forget to do your laundry?” asked Judith.

“Neglected to. Depression. Laziness.”

“Sounds about right.” Her phone hooted again. “Except your so-called laziness—don’t insult yourself.”

Our waiter arrived wearing jeans with gently torn knees and a T-shirt depicting a cartoonish (yet, nevertheless, revolting) The Human Centipede-inspired take on The Very Hungry Caterpillar, captioned ‘The Very Human Caterpillar’—further highlighting how overdressed I was. “Good morning, ladies, can I start you off with anything to drink?”

“Four shots of espresso in a coffee mug,” said my new ‘fuckbuddy’ who had fucked me but whom I had yet to fuck, “and… the senior biscuits and gravy.”

I was struck by the realization that ‹Christ, she’s a senior. I’m hanging out with an older woman. Most people would probably think I’m weird. But why should I agree? She’s pretty, she’s nice, I like her, and knowing that she’s more than two decades my senior doesn’t make me uncomfortable. I’m happy to spend time with her. Her age, if anything, means she probably has a personality that has aged like a bottle of The Last Drop No. 29 scotch, and lots of experience to share. Including sex experience. Sexperience.›

Shosh caught me admiring my new friend, then asked, “Is she your… type?”

I nodded. “An appetizing and satisfying dish.”

Our waiter examined Judith skeptically. “You’re 57?”

“She could be your age,” I couldn’t help quipping to Shosh.

The server raised an eyebrow.

“Ha!” Judith laughed and replied in amusement, “Nice compliment.” She showed our server her driver’s license.

“She’s youthful, yeah,” replied Shosh, “but I dunno about looking 40. Maybe halfway between that and her actual age.”

He looked at her license, nodded, and smiled politely. “A belated ‘happy birthday’ to you, Ma’am. And you, Miss?” He waited for me.

“Um…” I obsessed over his choice of words. ‹She’s a ‘Ma’am’ to him, I’m a ‘Miss’…›

“Bring me one-a everything,” joked Shosh.

I rolled my eyes. “Good luck eating all that. Hmm… Just a sec, almost there…”

“Nah, I’m kidding, I ain’t paying for that. I’ll take the Gouda omelet, French toast with strawberry sauce, maple sausage links and… I’m watching my carbs, so I’ll take a fruit bowl instead of the home fries.”

“Their Gouda omelet actually sounds pretty good, but I’m… thinking… a flat white, and… a short stack of pancakes. That’s all.”

Shosh quickly injected, “I changed my mind, I’ll have what she’s having.”

“You got it, boss.” He took our menus and left, and Judith’s phone tried again, futilely, to get her attention.

“What’s a ‘flat white’?” asked Shosh.

“Espresso with steamed milk.”

“Which I’m sure is delectable,” said Judith, “but I prefer my espresso unadulterated.”

My grin escaped my mask through my eyes. “I suppose avoiding adulteration is a safe policy. Though I’m not one to tell people what kinds of forbidden mixtures they may partake of when nobody’s looking.”

She nodded and her eyes grinned back. “Yes, very safe. But… I will admit to indulging in forbidden mixtures from time to time.”

I giggled. Shosh rolled her eyes.

Even though I was okay—if not pleased—with Judith being so much older, the age gap still seemed a little… ‘novel’ is a gentle word to describe it, albeit a misleading choice given the frequency with which the word ‘mature’ appeared in my search history and my browser homepage being set to www.NubileGILFs.vidz. I leaned towards her and smiled playfully. “Judith… I’m kind of reeling from the fact that I’m… special friends with someone mature enough to order off the senior menu.”

“I’ve had the right to order old people food for 2 years, now. I thought that wouldn’t bother you. Is the age difference suddenly a deal-breaker?” Her eyes and tone of voice were not playful, as mine had been—rather, they made it clear that I was welcome to say ‘yes’, and in that case, she would rectify the inconvenience of her presence by leaving me with the bill and the displeasure of never seeing her again.

I chuckled just a little nervously. “No, absolutely not! I was just saying that I find the age difference… amusing. I’ve been around the sun enough times to be with someone old enough to be my mother. I like you. You’re sexy. And you’ve done a lot for me in the few hours we’ve known each other.” I descended into thought. ‹I wonder if you realize just how alive you make me feel, if you realize that you’ve cured my depression, that you’ve brought out something that I never thought I had inside me. You probably have no idea. And I’m not sure I should tell you.›

“And I can do even more. I can help you with your laundry, if you’d like.” Another three hoots from her phone, quickly followed by more.

My insides tied themselves into one big knot. “You’d do that?”

“Sure.”

“I don’t want to inconvenience you.”

“We’re friends.”

“Yes, we are indeed friends…” ‹I wonder if things might be even better if we were more than friends…›

“Friends help each other out. And I’m guessing you’re feeling overwhelmed by how much needs to be washed.” ‘(Look at me!)’ cried her phone in owlish.

I nodded. “On the bright side, I don’t need to clean my uniforms, I can just burn ’em.”

‘(Read your hoots!)’ “No way! I’ll punk ’em up and wear ’em. Or buy a badge—or steal one—and impersonate a cop.”

Shosh cackled.

“The first idea sounds fun, the second sounds very, very poorly advised.”

“It isn’t ‘poorly advised’, it’s fucking hilarious!” opined Shosh.

“I could put on lots of makeup to hide my identity,” suggested Judith. “Who doesn’t find a clown dressed like a jackboot amusing?”

“It isn’t ‘hilarious’, it’s dangerous.”

“I’m joking,” said Judith.

I rolled my eyes. “Please promise me you won’t do it.”

‘(Hoo-hoo-hoot hoot hoot!)’ “Seriously?”

“Yes. Promise me.”

“Alright, I promise.” ‘(Hoot-hoot-hoot! Very urgent!)’ “Okay, my phone is driving me nuts.” She glanced at the lock screen. “I’ve gotten 67 hoots since last night. Gonna silence it.”

“I don’t mind you checking them.”

“We’re having a conversation.”

“About what?”

“Impersonating cops.”

“Which you’ve promised not to do, so the discussion is over. What else do you want to talk about?”

“Uhm… Well, everything that’s coming to mind is NC-17 or higher, but we’re in public.”

“I’d be delighted to talk about naughty things when we have some privacy, so hold onto them for later. If you’re getting bombarded with so many hoots, it could be something important.”

She shrugged and checked Hootr. “Buncha quote hoots tagging me.” Her eyes grew. “(Christ.) Andy, listen to this!”

I really liked her calling me ‘Andy’. “I’m listening.”

“This is coming from your ex-employer’s Public Information account. ‘Missing person, Santa Virginia: Alexander Brookvale was reported missing Wednesday when he failed to return home that evening.’ Holy cow! Can ya believe it?”

“Oh. Him.”

“So you’ve heard of him.”

“My coworkers never shut up about how much they hate his guts.”

She eyed me with what felt like an unfair amount of suspicion. “Do you feel the same way?”

“Nah, I hope he turns up alive and unscathed. I’m just sick of overhearing them badmouthing him. They think he’s the spawn of Satan, but to me his ideas seem perfectly reasonable, and his leadership and charisma is sort of… inspiring. I even follow him on Hootr.”

“Really? Would you consider yourself an antifascist?”

“I… guess… if I was allowed to call myself one? I’ve been thinking about going to rallies or marches, but I either don’t have the energy—or ‘the spoons’, I could say—or I’m anxious about the crowds. And when neither of those things is a problem, I remember that I’m a cop, and that if I’m found out I’ll be excluded from society the way anti-vaxxers ought to be.”

She shook her head. “How the hell does a decent woman like you become a pig?”

“Don’t call her a ‘pig’,” demanded Shosh. “Yeah, there are a few bad cops, but you know she was one of the good ones.”

We paused our conversation while the server doled out our coffee and food, then took off our masks once he was gone.

I blew on my flat white as he left, then explained, “We all know there are no good cops. I simply had delusions of heroism.” I took a sip…

…just as Judith put her espresso down. “And that’s your story?”

“The same as every other would-be good cop. Some of us want to do good, but we don’t know how. Or when we do realize we’re in the wrong profession to be doing good, we’re afraid to sacrifice something even more important than our incomes.”

“And what’s that?”

“The one thing more important than anything else, more than love or money or sex or drugs or sleep.” I nodded at her phone. “Is there anything else after the hoot?”

“Is there something you’re hiding, Andy?”

“Yes, but it’s nothing you shouldn’t have figured out by now. Let’s hear more about this disappearance.”

“Na-na-na, finish explaining yourself. What’s this thing that’s ‘more important than anything else’ you’re not talking about?”

“Our capital-I Identity.”

“Ego?”

I nodded.

“It’s that ingrained?”

“I wanted, more than anything, to be a real-life hero. Validation of our heroism is what we ‘good cops’ all crave. And even a lot of the rotten ones see themselves as heroes.”

“‘Wanted’, past tense—you don’t want it anymore?”

“I’m trying to change my Identity so that it doesn’t rely on being a cop.” She nodded. “That said, yes, my identity will be ‘cop’ for a while, until I’ve fully come to accept that I no longer have a badge and accept that I will never wear one again. As for wanting to be a hero… I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to let go of that, even if moving on is the only way to keep my sanity.”

“You have a rough road ahead of you—but you don’t have to give up being a hero. The fact that cops can’t actually be heroes doesn’t mean that heroes don’t exist at all. You just need to tweak your definition of ‘hero’ to include other possible careers.”

“She’s right,” said Shosh with a sigh. “Just because you don’t wanna be a police officer anymore doesn’t mean you can’t do great things.”

I shrugged dismissively. “Maybe y’all’re right. Judith, what else does the rest of the thread say?”

She (hmm)ed with a hint of dissatisfaction, but continued, “‘Brookvale was last seen Wednesday morning by his wife, Geraldine Pasteur, as he left their apartment in Sunnyvale to meet with an unidentified social justice group.’ Here ‘social justice’ is in skepticism quotes, of course. Today’s Saturday. The report was filed 3 days ago, and it’s just coming to the public’s attention this morning? That’s negligent.”

“That is extremely unusual. The first 72 hours of a disappearance are the most critical in finding a missing person alive and unharmed. SOP for these cases is to get the word out ASAP, in the news and on social media within minutes of the report being filed. Maybe the timestamp on the post is wrong, or there could’ve been some kind of computer glitch or human error to explain the delay. Let’s check for updates.”

We ate and drank as we scrolled through the SVPD’s news feed and social media accounts, looking for updates on Brookvale’s disappearance, but in the crucial 60 or so hours since the report was originally filed with the department, nothing else had been shared with the public.

“Alex hasn’t been seen for two-and-a-half days,” I pointed out. “His disappearance was announced as the survival window is hours away from closing, and there haven’t been any updates since then… This situation is very strange.”

Judith stroked her chin curiously as she hummed. “Hmm… Hey, Andrea…”

“Yes?”

“You like solving mysteries, don’t you?” she asked with a knowing glimmer in her eye.

“I’ve never had the opportunity to solve a real one, but I like to think I do.”

“Well, Sherlock… here’s your ‘real one’.”

An invisible tail, puffed up like a bottle brush, sprouted from my ass and swished side-to-side; my ears, like a sheep hound’s, swiveled the better to hear her; my pupils dilated in anticipation of the words that would give me an opportunity to earn me a bone—as I replied, not the least bit convincingly, “(This?) Oh, no, definitely not, I don’t want to interfere with an official investigation…” I sipped my flat white to force myself not to grin.

“What investigation?”

“Yeah, alright, that’s true, the cops aren’t doing jack squat.” I caught myself falling for the temptation. “But that doesn’t mean his disappearance will go unnoticed. SVPD probably just… hasn’t had a chance to… do anything… about it. Too busy with other cases. Inundated.” Alexander Brookvale was the very last person any law enforcement agency was going to put any effort into saving.

“Do you really believe that?” Obviously, to you, and probably to her, I didn’t, but I manufactured a naïve shrug anyway. “You are aware that Alex wants to defund the SVPD,” she informed the ex-cop who had an intimate familiarity with the culture of that very agency including its passionate and absolutely thorough loathing for our missing man because of his efforts to curb the department’s power and resources. “They do not want to save him from danger—we both know that they would actually prefer to leave him to his fate.”

I asked myself, ‹Should I be delicate?› I leaned forwards and explained in a low voice (with bated giddiness), “(You may be right. There are a few who might make the best of an opportunity to harm him… and they have made their presence known before. Last time I was doing my pistol quals, someone replaced all the paper targets with Brookvale’s mug shot. I had to schedule a make-up exam because—not only was I unable to pull the trigger, I couldn’t even point my gun in his general direction.)”

“Christ, they really did that?”

With a Girl Scout salute, I assured her, “I would never say anything about the SVPD that I didn’t know for certain to be true.”

She rolled her eyes. “Cops are fucking insane. Did anyone get in trouble?”

“Everyone except my old captain—Peter Hobarth—found it hilarious. I was the one who snitched to him, told him that it was disrespectful and unprofessional and that if the public caught wind of it, we’d have a PR nightmare. The targets were incinerated in 5 minutes flat, but the whole incident was swept under the rug.”

“The bastard didn’t get anybody in trouble.”

“Ehh… If he tried to get anybody in trouble, he probably would have faced retaliation. As for being a ‘bastard’, he was… kind to me. I struggled to meet expectations for 9 years, and doing my best for the next 2 burned me out for the last leg of my career. But he tried his damnedest to accommodate me the whole time.”

“Correction: considerate bastard.”

I shrugged. “I think he cares. If Hobarth was captain of the Crimes Against Persons Squad—they’re the ones who handle missing person cases, as well as criminal threats, assaults, sex crimes, homicides, harassment, stalking, and DV—I think our man would have been found by now. There aren’t any good cops, but there are a few with good intentions.”

Her eyebrows questioned my assertion momentarily, but she quickly shrugged her doubt away. “So he’s a good little piggy… Maybe they should fire him so he can stop being a bastard.”

I rolled my eyes. “If only he weren’t so damn good at his job, they might. He’s the reason I was able to hang from the department’s leg like a leech for so long.”

“Hmm. I’m loath to suggest that you continue associating with any cops, but this one shiny apple in the spoiled bunch… might be helpful. But back to Alex’s case; whadaya say? Our gone guy is hopeless without a citizen detective coming to his rescue.”

“(Citizen detective…)” I whispered, and the possibilities flashed through my mind:

‹Andrea Bachman, Citizen Detective—

‹Andrea Bachman, Investigative Journalist—

‹Andrea Bachman, Private Investigator—

‹Ah… Maybe something a little shorter, a little snappier… Even if it’s obvious:

‹Bachman, P.I.›

My diaphragm shuddered. “I dunno…”

‹If I take this path, my ego will inflate to outclass the Hindenburg.

‹But I want it. And if I want it, I must do it.

‹Yet… I want it for the same reasons I became a cop.› “(I’d be doing it for myself,)” I muttered.

Shosh nudged my shoulder and asked, “If you aren’t for yourself, who is for you?”

I replied, audibly only to Shosh, “(Judith…)”

“She’s a big help, but she isn’t gonna do everything for you. Who is for you?”

I quietly admitted to her, “(It must be me.)”

“Correct. When you are for yourself, what are you?”

I shook my head and mumbled, “(I don’t know.)”

“What do you feel you must do?”

I admitted, “(Someone needs to find him. But…)”

“If not now, when?”

I shook my head again. “(I don’t know…)”

“His life could be in danger. If not now, when?”

I cursed almost silently, “(Shit…)”

“How much time does he have, Esti? A lot, a little?”

I explained under my breath, “(Probably… days, hours, none. Every second counts in a missing person case.)”

“I’ll ask you again: If not now, when?”

The answers to her questions crystallized, and I could see the path I must follow. ‹Unless somebody else has already put in the effort to organize an investigation, I’m his only hope. My heart is telling me that finding him is what I was placed on God’s Earth to do. I cannot continue denying what I must become—what I am:

‹I’m a God damn detective.›

I feigned reluctance as I replied, “Oh, fine. I’ll do it, Judith. I’m really not qualified, and I’m still recovering emotionally from being fired. I’ll get started after I finish my pancakes.” I stifled my giddiness as I forced myself to take a bite—not too greedily, not too hastily, though a little too tremulously—and resolved to wait until the meal was over to get started on my new job.

“You’re not fooling me,” said Judith. “I know you want to do this more than anything else.”

“No, this mystery is really inconvenient. My detective days were over before they could even begin.” My heart vibrated in anticipation.

She shook her head and smiled. “Bullshit.”

“I’m supposed to be retiring, not chasing dreams. I’m not a hero.”

Visions from God smashed into my head, one after another after another. {The subject proves elusive as I tail them, taking circuitous routes and unexpected turns on the way to wherever it is they’re going—they lose me. But all is not hopeless. I skulk down a damp and dark alley to meet a self-proclaimed friend of the subject to find out where they go after work. They earn themselves a Benjamin for their trouble—a business expense the client will be covering when it’s time to pay the bill. I venture into the Blind Owl—a seedy dive bar on the East Side—where the subject orders a Boilermaker with a maraschino cherry on top. A ‘stranger’, already seated a couple stools over, abandons their drink, joins the subject, and orders the same bizarre cocktail—then almost at once departs for the back of the bar. Exactly 30 seconds later, the subject follows. I tiptoe towards the back door and crack it. It’s dark outside, and I don’t hear any people sounds. As I sneak around the corner, the subject and drinking buddy are quietly discussing prices. Once the deal has been settled, the subject hands over an envelope in exchange for a hundred stack. The two begin to go their separate ways. “Not so fast,” I tell them. They stop dead in their tracks. “I have some questions—for both of you.”

{The IP trace brings me to a Garlic router endpoint, which would normally be the end of the road for me—but one of my underground contacts owes me a favor, and I’m willing to spend it for the sake of such a lucrative case. Once they’ve cracked the entry point and given me the IP address of the client who tunneled through it, I’m able to trace it to an Internet service provider on the East Side. A little ‘gentle persuasion’ with the ISP—they wouldn’t enjoy a bunch of feds rifling through their records if I had to ask the FBI to investigate a breach of the CFAA—yields the physical address of the customer to whom they assigned the IP. I knock on the perp’s door and introduce myself: “Good evening, I’m a representative of one of your ‘customers’. My employers are willing to refrain from pressing charges against you if you hand over all your blackmail material.”

{“I’m afraid they don’t love me anymore. They spend all their time on business trips, they decline dates, we haven’t had a vacation together since our honeymoon. I’m afraid… I’m afraid they might be cheating on me.” “You just relax while I get to the bottom of this,” I tell them. I tail one half of the pair of suspected adulterers to their rendezvous place in a hotel. A Benny slid across the front desk earns me their room number. From a building across the street I snap lurid photographs of the lovers in media res through a telephoto lens, capturing every square millimeter of their passion. Careless, I think to myself, making love with the drapes open. I follow the other lover home, where I convince them to divulge their name with my census-taker impersonation. “I’m sorry,” I tell my client as I hand over the dossier. I rest one comforting hand on the shoulder of the crying spouse as the other hand greedily accepts my pay…}

I was ready to go off like fireworks dropped in a bonfire.

“Retirement is when people chase their dreams,” she pointed out.

I couldn’t keep up the façade any longer and my eager words tumbled from my mouth as one long word: “Good point we need to get to it right away work and eat at the same time we need to trace his footsteps from the moment he was last seen do we have any idea where he was going that morning?”

She blinked. “Can you repeat that?”

“We… need… to… retrace… his steps,” I explained at as moderate a pace as I could. “Do we have any specific idea where he was going that morning?”

“Ah. All we know is he went to a ‘social justice group’ meeting.”

“And the hoot said ‘unidentified’. Which group could it be?”

“No clue, there are like a million groups with a presence in this city.”

“And from what I’ve seen of his hoots over the years… our man has his finger in damn near everyone’s pie.” I mentally savored my situation: ‹Yes… This tangled tale is gonna take street smarts and elbow grease to unravel. Of which I must admit I don’t have much, but I can get some real quick if I put my nose to the grindstone.›

“He sure does, and people listen to him. He is, without a doubt, the most influential man living in this city.”

I spoke through a bite of syrup-drenched pancake. “Now I’m wondering about the fact that he has so many friends—and still nobody’s spotted him the whole time he’s been missing. Hmm.”

“Could have something to do with the fact he has just as many enemies.”

‹I shoulda thought of that,› I thought to myself; to her I observed, “With a résumé like his… I shouldn’t be surprised. We’re looking for a man who has a lot of anti-antifa anti-fans—I should just say ‘reactionary haters’—a man who said goodbye to his family then simply vanished without a trace. It smells like a kidnapping to me.” I kept my pessimism to myself, though. ‹Best case scenario. Worst case… we don’t think about worst cases until they’re staring us straight in the eye without blinking… even if those are more exciting and dramatic.›

“Crap. That’s what I was afraid of.”

“But we won’t know what happened until we dig a little bit deeper. And the most obvious place to dig is the spouse. 99 percent of the time, the spouse knows something that’ll change the rules of the game—if you can persuade them to cough it up.” I mused to myself, ‹I’m willing to bet it’ll be easy enough to find and get some kind of story out of them, but getting them to give up the real gems can often be a challenge.› “I imagine doing that might take a little bit of effort, though.”

She checked her watch. “10:40. Come on.” She got up. “Let’s get to it.”

I stood, plenty eager to get started, but before we departed I needed to know, “Where are we going?”

“To see Geraldine Pasteur.”

“We don’t know their address.”

“Sunnyvale.”

“There are thousands of houses in Sunnyvale, though.”

“She doesn’t live in ‘a house’.”

“Right, the PIU hoot mentioned an apartment. Good catch. Well, there still hafta be at least… Actually, I don’t think I’ve ever seen any apartment complexes in Sunnyvale.”

“There’s exactly one: Ingram Suites.”

“That narrows it down. I suppose if it’s small enough, we’ll be able to canvass the entire building in a few hours.”

“Exactly.”

“No time to waste.” I dropped a few twenties on the table to cover the meal and tip.

“I can pay for my own food.”

“You can pay for lunch,” I suggested.

“That works. You take the bus?” she asked me as we exited the cafe.

“No, I have a car.”

“Great! That’ll be way faster.” We made our way to Matteo’s parking structure and then my car. “What… is that?”

“She’s my car.”

“It’s ancient.”

“Older than me. Younger than you—by over two decades.”

Shosh bursted into laughter and I grinned as I unlocked Judith’s door.

Judith narrowed her eyes. “Ha. Ha. It’s obviously from the ’80s. I see from the trunk ornament that it’s a BMW… but what kind of BMW is it?” She appraised the immaculate cream interior as she took her seat.

“She’s a 1988 M6 with all factory parts—except the banana-yellow paint job…” I got behind the wheel and took a moment to appreciate her luxurious hand-stitched Nappa leather upholstery. “…for which she was dubbed ‘Banana Shark’.”

“How can you afford the payments for the massive loan you needed to buy this monstrosity—on a meter maid’s salary? You couldn’a been making very much.”

“She was my mother’s.” I twisted the key in her ignition and her Bavarian Mountain Hound 3.5 liter inline-6—as quietly, nimbly, gayly as a butterfly—growled to life. “She likes older cars. She saw the M6 in someone’s driveway one day, wanted to buy her, asked the owner, and he decided he didn’t want her anymore. He sold her to my mother at half the market value—which was way less than what these very rare beauties are worth nowadays—and hooked her up with a paint shop who gave her a deal on the… questionable coat of yellow.”

“‘Questionable’? What color would you have painted it?” asked an offended Shosh.

“I’d’ve left it black.”

“Black always looks good,” opined Judith.

“Black is boring,” insisted Shosh.

“Black is classy,” I insisted back.

“Exactly,” said Judith.

“It looks better in yellow.”

“The yellow is just fine, but I prefer black.”

“Yeah, it isn’t ugly, but it wouldn’t be my first choice,” said Judith.

“I’ll admit the particular shade of yellow your old lady went with wasn’t the best choice,” said Shosh.

“I never mentioned my feelings on the banana yellow in the past, that it might not be the most stylish shade, because I do think it has character, and while I would’ve preferred to keep the color the way it was, I’ve never given any thought to repainting her.”

“You promise not to?”

“I assure you, if the paint gets scratched, the new job will match what it is now as closely as the shop can get it. Anyways, Judith, back to her history… All of this happened a few weeks before I graduated high school, by which time the car was already 20 years old. My mother claimed that if she took good enough care of her, Banana Shark would outlive her.”

“And she… gave you the car as a graduation gift?” asked Judith.

“I inherited Banana Shark when she passed. 2011.”

With appropriate solemnity, she observed, “You were young. So was she.”

I backed out of my spot. “August 12th, precisely 2 months shy of the big four-oh. I remember receiving the news like it was yesterday.” I noticed Shosh sitting in the back seat in discomforted silence, doing her best to keep her mouth shut to avoid saying anything that might upset me. I was in a surprisingly good mood, so I smiled at her through my rearview mirror and told her, “It was a long time ago, you don’t need to be so serious about it. We can even joke about it, to lighten the mood. There’s no reason for you to be carrying my grief on your back.”

“Um. I don’t know if I’m comfortable…” replied Judith.

“Okay,” Shosh ventured cautiously. “Why did your ma cross the road?”

It took a little bit of thought for the punchline to burst from my mouth amid laughter. “To get to the other side!”

“Are you alright, Andy?” asked Judith, her voice thick with a mixture of confusion and concern.

“I’m just fine. She was killed crossing the street, so… ‘Why did my mother cross the road?’”

“I’ll bite. Why did she cross the road?”

“‘To get to the other side!’” I grinned.

“I don’t get it.”

“Here ‘the other side’ is referring either to the other side of the street, literally, or to the afterlife, metaphorically.”

“O—kay… The punchline is there, but my laughter isn’t.”

“Yeah—I—it’s a tough subject for me and I don’t want to be a downer about it, so—we’re trying to lighten the mood for once.” I shifted into first gear and departed the parking structure for a new topic before I could return to feeling morose about the death that had completely obliterated the remaining shards of my already recently shattered life, or guilty for laughing at Shosh’s joke about the most soul-crushing loss a human being had ever survived (or so it was in my opinion). “Let’s stop—‍” Two words into switching gears, I was already feeling like an asshole. “—let’s stop talking about it, let’s move onto something… not… something that isn’t making light of losing her. I got it. What do you do for work?” At that precise moment, we just happened to pass a Kismet Kush dispensary. “Oh! Lemme guess: a dispensary.”

“In a manner of speaking.”

“In what ‘manner of speaking’?”

“I’m an ‘independent’ dealer.”

“So… unlicensed.”

“Breakin’ the law, breakin’ the law!” she growled rhythmically.

“Having someone next door I can buy stuff from should be handy. Discount?”

“For you… free.” Quickly, while raising a finger with a caveat wrapped around it, she added, “Within reason.”

“Nice! I won’t be greedy. Just flower, or do you have pre-rolls and edibles? I’ve always wanted to get into edibles, but I want to try homemade brownies, not the factory-made candy crap they sell at dispensaries. They all taste like shit, and I want the classic ‘special brownie’ experience.”

“A cop who starts smoking pot as soon as she loses her badge? I shouldn’t be surprised.” I had started as soon as I lost the last of my self-respect, the day I was reassigned to Parking Enforcement, having flunked out of Patrol and Reconnaissance after 6 months of underperformance. “Well, you’re in luck. My supplier gives me exclusive access to strains stronger than anything on the market—some of them make Godfather OG taste like parsley—I roll joints and blunts to order, I make my own bubble hash and cannabutter, and I bake brownies from scratch—not from a box—and mix them to order, so if you like blondies—my favorite—or chocolate chips or butterscotch or walnuts or M&Ms or espresso powder or anything else added in, or if you have a specific strain in mind, just ask.”

“Would you cook with LSD?”

“Are you asking about using the cannabis strain named after LSD in your baked goods, or are you asking whether I would bake while becoming one with alien gods, or are you saying you want to meet the alien gods yourself?”

“Well, I was thinking of the strain, but now that you ask…”

She huffed in amusement. “I can procure a sheet for you—if you’re feeling super adventurous—but you don’t strike me as the hallucinogen type.”

We passed a Jack for the fourth time that ride, reassuring me I had not unintentionally left Southern California. I leaned towards her and loudly whispered, “For the past month, I’ve been microdosing shrooms.”

“Really? While you were still a cop?”

“Yep. I read they can help with depression.”

“Are they working?”

I shrugged. “I really can’t tell whether they’re making a difference. But, ever since my cubensis fruited, I’ve been tempted to… eat a whole mushroom, just to see where it takes me.”

“I’ll be damned. You’re full of surprises, Andy. If you ever need a trip sitter for your psychonautical voyages, I’ll gladly keep you entertained and safe from bad trips.”

“I appreciate that, and I do plan on taking you up on your offer, once I finally work up the courage to completely and irreversibly fuck up my central nervous system.”

“You’re welcome, and take your time. I suggest you wait until you’re at least my age to rearrange your brain cells. Keep driving past Orange, take a left onto Olive.”

I followed her directions, passing the third Del Taco of our journey, and we arrived at a 5-story building that ‘towered’ above the surrounding 1- and 2-story homes. “How come I’ve never seen this place before?” I asked as we got out of the car.

“Maybe you don’t explore the city enough.”

“Hm. Maybe. That’ll have to change if I’m gonna be a P.I.” The front door was sturdy enough to withstand the scratched and painted vandalism consisting of the usual racist, queerphobic, anti-Arab, and anti-Jewish symbols and remarks. “Based on all the colorful swastikas decorating the entrance, I believe we have found the residence of the city’s leading antifascist.”

“And this mess is fresh,” she observed.

“How would you know that?”

“I was here Wednesday morning, and the door was spotless then.”

“Delivery?”

“An astute deduction, Miss Bachman,” she said in a semi-convincing old boy English accent.

“Thanks! Well, from the looks of it, we aren’t the first to figure out where they live.” I checked the tenant call panel for either ‘Brookvale’ or ‘Pasteur’ and found both on the same label, next to a number. “Room 302.”

“Good work,” she complimented me.

“Not really, just looking in the obvious places first.”

“You’re on your first case. When you’re learning to walk, you need to give yourself credit every time you take a step, no matter how short the stride, no matter how easy it was, whether forwards or even backwards—you’ll keep yourself motivated that way. When you’re learning to run, then you stop rewarding yourself for the little things. Hmm…” She pondered the vandalism. “Based on the horrid abuse this door has suffered, I’m guessing Geraldine isn’t gonna be answering the door for strangers.” She selected one of the other call buttons instead… “So we’ll need somebody else’s help.” …and pressed it. “Hopefully my inside man is home.”

It rang 11 times before a sleepy voice answered. “Hullo?”

“Hey, Chance, it’s Lola. I have another client in the building, but he isn’t answering his intercom. Let me in?”

The door clicked and buzzed, and we made our way in and up to the third floor. Judith rang the doorbell to 302, and a minute later we heard the sounds of locks clacking and clicking before the door slowly swung inwards, stopping before the chain protecting the apartment’s inhabitant could be pulled taut.

“I’m not interested in joining your cult,” said a very shaky feminine tenor. “The sign says, ‘No solicitors’…” Indeed, it did. “…and that includes Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Scientologists, Amway, and Hare Krishnas.”

‹Could this be my femme fatale?› I tried to find the right words to introduce myself, strong words that would establish that I was serious and wouldn’t accept dishonesty or intentional omission or attempts to seduce or betray me or any other funny business, unless it was narratively compelling or the product of a deliciously devious intellect willing to engage me in a battle of the minds, clever fox against persistent hound… but I was too excited to think straight.

I choked.

Chapter 4: Well-Read Means Well-Worn

“Judith Lucas and Andrea Bachman, Private Investigators,” replied Judith, before I could find words to say or the composure to say them. It pleased me that she was calling herself my colleague.

“I didn’t call for you,” murmured a voice as exhausted as it was anxious.

At that very moment I observed that a private investigator’s reliance on government agencies for job-critical resources creates a major conflict of interest in a case where the missing man is hated by one of the agencies that provide those resources—so I asked, “Did you call for any P.I.s?”

She shut the door.

“We aren’t cops!” I shouted through the thick wood. “And we know better than to work with them!” A truth that—against our ethical judgment—did not survive the weekend.

The chain clinked and clattered, then the door opened all the way. Beyond it stood a woman midway in height between me and Judith, around 5′7″, hair shaved to fuzz, soft features fit for celluloid marred only by a hint of despair’s shadow along her jaw and upper lip, and a robe with red and orange flowers—straight out of the blessed ’70s—cinched tight around her waist. She might have been the victim’s tortured wife in a how-catch-em; she could be an innocent witness… or, just as easily, the devious guest star. Her thumbnail-chewing implied an excess of anxiety, and from her tense, pointed posture I inferred that she was no less prepared to slam the door on us and scream for help. If she was acting, she was very good at it. Most Columbo villains could fool the average viewer who missed the first half-hour during which the who, why, and how of the crime had been revealed. She couldn’t fool me, though. I’d seen every episode a hundred times, I knew every trick in the murderer’s handbook. I was an expert.

Of course… There was still the possibility that this had not been a murder, so all the investigative skills I had learned by observing the master sleuth’s work might well be useless.

Even so, I decided to treat her as an innocent witness for the time being. “None of the private investigators would work for you, would they, ma’am?” I asked.

Her feet shifted, opening her posture to us a little. With profound disappointment and excruciating despair she told us, “I asked for help… and they hung up on me as soon as I mentioned his name. Every detective agency in the state.”

“They didn’t want to risk the PD retaliating by withholding future assistance or interfering with their work. Your husband’s disappearance is a hot potato and we’re the only ones with the pain tolerance to handle it.”

“Smooth,” remarked Shosh.

Geraldine stopped biting her thumb, which was reassuring. After looking each of us in the eye for a solid 3 seconds apiece, she solemnly bid us, “Come in.”

And just like that, I had planted the seed of trust, the first factor in encouraging any witness to cooperate.

Or so I thought.

She gestured towards a vintage couch with modern upholstery and sat in an even older and even more anachronistic arm chair across from us. Her eyes danced between me and Judith, each saccade driven by the cruel spurs of hope.

I turned my memo pad to the first blank page, noted the date and time—10:54 on Saturday, July 13th, 2024—as well as the interviewee’s name, and initiated the questioning. “Around what time did he leave that morning?”

Before she could answer, a husky voice called out from elsewhere in the apartment, “Geraldine?”

“Yes?”

A person—about 5′6″, with short black hair and wearing jeans and a button-up cowboy shirt—came in from another room. “Ah. I see we have visitors. Goody…”

“Yes. Judith, Andrina, this is Harris, my cousin.”

“Harriet,” corrected the cousin. “Nice to meet you, Andrina and Judith. Are you friends of Geraldine’s?”

“Private investigators,” said Judith.

“Dicks.”

“You could call us that,” I admitted. “Though P.I. is a little more dignified, if you don’t mind.”

“I like ‘dicks’,” said Judith.

I raised an eyebrow at her. “I’ve known that for almost as long as I’ve known you.”

Her cheeks grinned past her mask.

Harriet rolled their eyes. “And what are you here to investigate?”

“Xander’s disappearance,” replied Judith.

Harriet nodded. “Alright. Please avoid upsetting her. She’s… delicate.”

“You got it, dude,” I acknowledged with an upbeat tone and a thumb’s up.

“Please don’t call me ‘dude’, friend.” They took a seat in the chair next to Geraldine’s. “Proceed.”

“Alright,” I said. “Um…”

“You were asking when he left,” Shosh reminded me.

“Oh, right. Thanks. As I was asking before the introductions: Geraldine, what time did your husband leave the apartment that morning?”

“Which morning?” she asked back lethargically.

“I should have specified ‘the morning he disappeared’—my apologies, ma’am.”

“Oh… That morning. That dreadful morning. The weather was actually nice, but—‍” She choked down tears. “—he left. He left and he didn’t come back!”

“He’ll come back. What time did he leave?”

“What does it matter?”

“She’s hiding something,” suggested Shosh.

I accepted her suggestion, and asked, “Geraldine, is there something you’re having a hard time telling us?”

Her eyes narrowed, and she inserted a dramatic delay before calmly growling, “Are you accusing me of withholding information from you? Of harboring secrets like a villain?” Calmly at first, but increasingly irate. “Do you take me for some half-rate wife who would sooner have him declared dead so that I can collect the insurance money than see his face again? Is that what you think I am?”

“No—not at all—but—could you please focus on the interview and tell me what time he left?”

“‘Focus!’ How can I focus when my other half is missing?!”

Their voice thick with suspicion, Harriet asked, “Do you two have licenses?”

“Probationary,” suggested Shosh.

“Probationary,” I repeated.

“‘Probationary’?” echoed the cousin skeptically.

I nodded as I insisted, “Probationary.”

“Could I have your business cards?”

“(Uh…)”

Shosh came to my rescue. “There was a typo, so you had to get them reprinted.”

“There was a typo, so we sent them back,” I quickly explained.

“Right,” muttered Harriet. “How inconvenient.”

“Geraldine, would you please tell us when he left?”

“It doesn’t matter. He’s gone!”

“Geri,” said Judith, “I know you’re strong. I know you’re able to gather yourself up to answer a few questions. You can do it.”

Geraldine sighed and calmly replied, “8:37.”

“Is that down to the minute?” I asked.

“‘Is that down to the minute—’ I gave you the minute, do you think I made up the last digit for spits and giggles? Of course it’s down to the minute!”

“Oh-kay, uh. You must have an impressive memory.”

“I remember numbers.”

“You remember things, too,” Shosh reminded me. “You could bond with her over that.”

I decided that was an excellent idea. “Wow! Me, too! And license plates and car models and lotsa other things. We could start a club.”

“A club. You want to start a club. A club for people who remember trivial details. What are we gonna do all day, see who can memorize the most digits of pi? Play card-matching games competitively?”

“(If… that’s what you want to do.)”

“I would never waste my time with a group of circle-jerking elitists who think they’re better than everyone else because they have an advantage in pointless parlor games, and I would prefer that you stop wasting my time by proposing such asinine concepts.”

Judith discreetly whispered to me, “You’re off topic.”

“(Right. Um… ) What was he wearing when he left?”

“I don’t see how his fashion choices are relevant.”

“It’s for identification. Clothes are easier to describe to potential witnesses.”

“‘Witnesses’?” she asked frantically. “Was there a crime?”

“We don’t—know—what happened—yet.”

“Please stop agitating her,” said Harriet.

“I’m sorry! She’s just so damn…” I groaned.

“This queen needs to suck it up,” said Shosh.

“I wish she would. Geraldine, would you please cooperate?”

“I am cooperating!”

Judith nudged me and whispered, loudly, “(Go easy on her.)”

“(I am going easy!)” I hissed quietly.

“(Relax, take it easy, go easy.)”

I huffed. “Geraldine… People who have seen him since he left the apartment might have an easier time identifying him by his clothing than by his face.”

“Is that it? You should have explained that earlier, we could have avoided a great deal of discord. You have a lot to learn about communication. You need to explain things before you go charging in with questions. Do you understand how important it is to get your point across?”

I took a deep breath to ease the stress of interacting with this woman. “Yes. I understand. I was a very solitary child, so I am aware my interpersonal skills are not… exactly… impressive. Would you please—‍”

“Your barren childhood isn’t an excuse for being socially inept. You need to get better, by interacting with people, by practicing, by reading.” She took in a breath.

“Her childhood wasn’t ‘barren’, and she isn’t ‘socially inept’,” growled Shosh.

Geraldine exhaled. “How old are you, Miss Bachman?”

“I just turned 34. But—‍”

“Thirty-four? You are thirty-four and you proudly admit to having the manners of somebody one-third your age? You should be ashamed.”

I concentrated on breathing, deeply, slowly, evenly. I managed to hold onto my sanity.

“I can’t believe this woman,” muttered Shosh.

“Geraldine,” interjected Judith calmly, “we’ve veered off-topic. We need to know what your husband was wearing at the time you last saw him so that we can ask people if they’ve noticed anybody matching his description.”

Geraldine glanced at me critically. “Is that what you were trying to ask?”

“Yes.”

“You have some serious communication issues. Did your mother neglect you?”

“Her mother did her best under the circumstances!” snapped Shosh.

“My mother taught me to be kind to others,” I told Geraldine. “I wish you could have been my sister.”

Geraldine scoffed. “I can’t say I would have had a very pleasant childhood with you microagressing against me at every turn.”

“What the hell is ‘microagressing’?” asked a very confused and extremely irritated Shosh.

“Geraldine… Could you explain what you mean by the word ‘microaggress’?”

“Merriam Webster defines a microaggression as ‘a comment or action that subtly and often unconsciously or unintentionally expresses a prejudiced attitude toward a member of a marginalized group.’”

“Thank you. Does knowing that clarify the comment about pleasant childhoods?”

“I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t think my meaning would be clear.”

“Nope,” admitted Shosh. “Sounds like mumbo-jumbo to me.”

I nodded. “It isn’t mumbo-jumbo… but I still don’t understand the intended message.”

Geraldine groaned irritatedly. “Like I said, you need to practice communicating, and the most important component of effective communication is listening to others. But it is not my job to teach you or tell you how to go about improving yourself. Besides, your underdeveloped social skills have driven us completely off topic.”

I nodded my numb head.

“But I will help you this one time. All you need to tell me is what you want to know. No details, no explanations, no qualifiers, just tell me what it is you want to know in the simplest language possible.”

“(I… don’t know if I… know how… to…)” I gulped.

“Esti, you know how to word the question. Just ask it.”

I began shaking. I opened my mouth. I choked.

“We’d like to know what he was wearing,” said Judith, to my rescue.

“Oh, what a simple question! I don’t understand why you have insisted on unnecessarily complicating this interview, Miss Bachman! He was wearing his Smash the Piggy Bank T-shirt, his new blue jeans, and his tan sustainable vegan sneakers.” Her face scrunched in agony. “And his vintage Casio watch that I bought for him at the thrift shop back when we were still dating—it’s an ‘old-fashioned’ digital timepiece with a metal band—a work of art, he’s very fond of it. It’s as valuable to him as his wedding ring. He proposed the next day. And now… Oh God…!”

“Geraldine, we’ll find him,” I said.

“He’s gone forever!” she cried out. “Him and his watch!”

“We’ll find him and his watch,” Judith assured her.

She calmed down instantly. “(Thank you,)” she murmured weakly. “(I’m feeling… better now. Thank you, Miss Lucas.)”

“(What the fuck is going on?)” whispered Shosh.

“(I need to work on my people skills, I guess,)” I mumbled. I had seen the shirts advertised in fundraisers on Hootr, so I already knew the color of the fabric (plain white) as well as the print (a cartoon piggy bank dressed in a police uniform being smashed by a hammer). I put on a strained smile and, in the happiest, most grateful voice, told Geraldine, “These are some great details that you’re giving us, ma’am. Where did he go?”

She sighed. “To ‘a meeting’.”

“A meeting with whom?”

“He didn’t say. He never says. Because he doesn’t want me telling anyone who has ‘no need to know’ where he is, especially if they try to ‘legally compel’ me.”

“You married a very smart man, although he’s making our job a little more difficult than I’d like it to be.”

“‘Smart’?” she yelled, suddenly hysterical again. “On a good day I worry about where he would be if something happened to him! Wednesday ended up not being one of those ‘good days’, and now he’s missing and I don’t know where he is because he never tells me where he’s going!” She choked back a sob.

“Ah…”

“If you continue to upset her,” warned Harriet, “I might have to ask you to leave.”

I blanched.

“(Sympathize,)” whispered Judith.

I thought his secrecy was perfectly reasonable given his relationship with the authorities, but I was not inclined to contradict a wife scared shitless and on the verge of what would be one in a long series of breakdowns while her cousin was threatening to kick us out. “Yeah, um. Good point. Effective OPSEC…” (short for Operations Security) “…can be inconvenient.”

‘On the verge’ of a breakdown one second, stepping into it the next. Her face scrunched up in despair and her tear ducts threatened to strangle me. “You come into my home and insult my husband!” Harriet gave me a death stare. “You insinuate that he is so inconsiderate as to inconvenience his loved ones for the sake of… arbitrary principles! Do you have no respect for pragmatism?”

My jaw fell. I froze. I didn’t know what to say. Even if I knew what, I didn’t know how to say it. And even if I knew how, I wasn’t sure whether trying to say anything would help the situation.

“Esti?” asked Shosh. “Esti, snap out of it.” She shook my shoulder. I remained frozen.

“She didn’t mean to imply that he’s trying to make your life difficult,” Judith interjected after several seconds of silence from me. “He’s trying to protect himself and protect you. But you can explain your feelings about his secrecy to him once he’s safe and sound at home.”

Geraldine nodded, apparently reassured, and calmly stated, “Yes. That is exactly why he does it. It’s a necessary sacrifice, not some unnecessary inconvenience. We’ll have a chat once you’ve brought him safely home.”

I decided I was no longer in trouble, and thus defrosted. The cousin, on the other hand, was scrutinizing my actions ever more closely, as though I was the one making scene after scene.

“The cousin looks close to calling it off,” said Shosh, “but she wouldn’t dare to kill this queen’s only hope of getting her husband back.”

Emboldened, I continued, “Missus Pasteur, I need you to buck up and take this investigation seriously. Did your husband say anything else before leaving your apartment?”

Bumbling thus, I pushed her towards the edge once again, undoing Judith’s careful diplomacy. The now very upset wife shouted at me, “All he told me was, ‘Geri, I’m going to a meeting, I don’t know exactly how long I’ll be out, but I should be back before seven!’ And of course he didn’t say where he was going! All this secrecy drives me crazy! I’m always worried about him when he goes out, but now…” And then she started to shake herself to pieces. “…this time, this time it’s finally happened! And I don’t know what it is, I don’t have even a tiny clue, he might have gotten lost, he might have been kidnapped, he might have—might have been kill—‍”

We didn’t want this woman falling back into the bottomless pit of despair she’d been trapped in before our arrival, and we also didn’t want to be kicked out, but I did nothing to catch her—my avoidance of human contact beyond Shosh had robbed me of all opportunity to learn the art of comforting strangers, so I had none of the confidence necessary to handle her reaction, and no clue how besides. Judith elbowed me, spurring me to… do something, anything, to leap the treacherous expanse separating me from this woman beset by terror and hopelessness, where I took her hand, squeezed it, and said the first thing that came to mind… “He’s still alive, Geri. He’s gonna be alright.” …with zero evidence to back my claim. “I swear, he’ll be back.”

“How can you know that?” Her eyes pleaded for me to give her a reason to believe…

…which I gave her… “If he were dead, we would know by now.”

“How could we possibly know that?”

“If someone went after him, an important public figure, they wouldn’t be keeping it a secret, they would have made a public example of him. And they would have done it by now.” …in the form of a big steaming pile of bullshit. “But that hasn’t happened, which means he’s alive, probably… I mean, probably stranded… maybe… without bus fare… or… he took the wrong bus… and got stuck… in the desert.” ‹Or buried in the desert.› I waved away the thought. “A town in the desert… and nobody will give him the bus fare he needs to get home. They’re too poor to afford to give it to him. Or they’re conservatives who hate him. But not enough to hurt him. Peaceful conservatives.”

“You gotta be kidding me…” muttered Harriet.

And yet… my convoluted lie seemed to peel a thin layer away from Geraldine’s anxiety. Her eyes dwelled on Judith, even as her head was pointed at me. I glanced at Harriet, who seemed to be one tiny infraction away from pulling the plug.

“Where were we…?” I puzzled.

“He said he was going to a meeting and would be back by 7,” resumed Judith.

“Ah. Can you recall his exact words, Geri?”

“Those were his exact words.”

“You’re telling me that he said, quote, ‘He was going to a meeting and would be back by 7’, end quote.”

“Yes,” she replied with a weak nod, clearly exhausted from her worrying and outbursting. “His words. Verbatim.”

I blinked several times in frustration, but decided not to explain to her that it would be very strange for him to speak in the third person past progressive tense. “You have an excellent memory,” I told her delicately, “and it’s been a big help, and it’ll continue to be a big help.” This seemed to encourage her a little. “Does he have his phone’s location history enabled?”

“No, we both keep it off. And also the GPS itself, which means half the apps on our phones are useless. And he turns his phone off when he goes to activist functions anyway, because the cell towers can track his location. ‘Can’t trust the cops not to hack into our data.’ More paranoia…”

I exhaled. ‹Shit. We only just started and we’ve already hit our first dead end.› “Do you know how he was getting to the meeting? Bus, trolley, car, foot, bicycle?”

“He either walks or takes the bus or trolley. I can’t tell you which it was this time.”

“Does he change up his routes,” asked Judith smartly, “or does he always take the same ones?”

“I haven’t a clue. I’ve never gone with him to a meeting or a protest. He keeps me out of his business. He wants me safe at home in case something bad happens at an event.”

“Of course,” I said. “If the bus or trolley was running late or was at capacity, would he have taken a Ridr or a taxi?”

“Neither. He boycotts cars. He would simply wait for the next bus with space for him.”

“Interesting, and very useful information, thank you. Does your husband have any enemies that you know of?”

She eyed me suspiciously.

“She’s pissed,” said Shosh. “You said something wrong. Not sure what, your question was straight from the textbook.”

Cautiously, I asked, “Please pardon me, ma’am… Did I say something to offend you?”

With no small measure of agitation she asked, “What kind of person asks me or my husband, ‘Do you have any enemies?’”

“Alright, yes, I realize it sounds like a stupid question, but I still need to ask it. Specifically, I need to know who comes to mind first.”

“They all come to mind first!” I had, once again, upset her. “Everybody hates us!”

“Of course, but it would be very helpful to us if you were to share your gut feeling.”

“I don’t have a gut feeling, I’m paying you to have gut feelings for me!”

“Yes, that is our job, I’m just trying to gather enough information to figure out what exactly my gut is currently trying to tell me. Have you received any threats recently?”

“I’ve already told you, Alex and I are the most hated people in the city,” she pointed out exasperatedly. “We get threats every day!”

My patience was at last wearing thin. “Could you please tell me whether you know who sent them?”

She shook her head and gave me an incredulous stare. “How many times do I have to tell you? Everybody’s got a bone to pick with us! Why do you keep asking me about this over and over again?”

I suppressed an irritated growl. “Can’t you just—‍”

Harriet opened their mouth, no doubt to declare the interview over, but before they could speak a word Judith interrupted diplomatically, “Geri, dear, we’re just trying to build a more nuanced picture, and that means asking questions that may sound very similar to each other which nonetheless have subtle but critical differences.”

“‘Subtle differences’?” Geraldine echoed calmly. “Alright. Nuance away.”

A relieved sigh forced its way through my throat. I gathered myself back into one piece and asked, “Alright. Any threats in the 24 hours before you last saw him?”

Her ire returned as quickly as it had left. “Did I not just tell you that we get threats ‘every day’?”

I used the pain from biting my tongue to distract myself from my frustration. “(Alright…) Were any of them unusual?”

“They’re all the same. They’re all the same! There’s nothing setting any of them apart from the rest. They. Are. Identical.”

“She’s a dense motherfucker,” opined Shosh.

“No comment. Geraldine, I get that most of the threats you receive are similar and nonspecific. I need to know if any of the threats you’ve received in the past have been specific about what they claimed they were going to do. Specific. Like, they have instructions, details, places, methods, etcetera. Can you tell me if any of them have been specific?”

“No,” she whined, “just ‘you’re going to pay’ and ‘watch your back’, that sort of thing. Like I already said: ‘They’re all the same.’”

“(Butter her up,)” whispered Judith.

I nodded. “I’m sure it must be difficult talking about these things, ma’am, thank you for pushing through this painful questioning. All of this is very helpful information.” Judith had a point: persuading a despairing witness—even an irritable one—into believing that they’re being the most helpful witness ever might be enough to pull them out of a rut. The perception that they can make a difference gives them hope, and hope motivates them to give up every piece of information they have, and some of those pieces are bound to be useful, thus proving that they can make a difference. Tell them that they’re the MVP you want them to be, and they will strive to become it. “Hm. You know what would be even more helpful to know? Whether he took anything with him. The things he brought along to the meeting could give us clues as to where he was headed. If you could tell us what he had on his person when he left, you’d be doing us a huge favor.”

And, sure enough, she perked up and eagerly yielded her investigative fruit to me. “Well, I can tell you that! His phone, his keys, and his backpack.”

“Did he pack his backpack himself?”

“No, I did.”

I did my best to contain my excitement to a level that wouldn’t put her or Judith off. “That’s very good to hear, ma’am, thank you! What did you put in it?”

“He gave me a list.”

“And…?”

“‘And’ what?”

“And what was on the list?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t bother memorizing a list. I don’t remember such trivial, ephemeral things as what my husband wants in his backpack.”

My heart fell a few inches. “And I wouldn’t expect anybody to memorize every list they come across, that’s humanly impossible. Do you still have it?”

“No,” she replied matter-of-factly.

I began very rapidly losing my cool. “What did you do with it?”

“I disposed of it,” she said, calmly.

I withstood a wave of anger before being walloped by a tsunami of depression.

“Why do you ask? I can’t see how an insignificant slip of paper could be important. It was trash. Trash belongs in the trash basket.”

Being a complete rookie, I had not yet mastered the art of tempering my expectations, which I had built up to metropolitan proportions. “And… you took out the trash, and the trash truck came and took it away forever.” Dismayed by my purely reason-based deduction that was not at all an aggressive leap in logic spiraling into a spiky pit of pessimism, I buried my face in my hands and resisted the impulse to cry.

“Well, there’s no need to get so worked up, Little Miss Drama, I haven’t emptied the basket yet!”

I lifted my head and, barely containing my irritation, exclaimed, “Then you do still have it! Why didn’t you say so?”

“I forgot because I’m not used to taking out the rubbish! Xander is responsible for it

Lakeside Encounter: A Magic University Story

Cecilia Tan

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