the heat in my face, the throb of the sting corresponding with the throb between my thighs. I stared at him, naked except for my soaking wet panties, thinking I didn’t even know who he was. Thinking I loved him, wanted him, needed him. Thinking, if he stopped now I would die.
He grabbed me by my hair and pulled me down to the floor with him. ‘Little bitch,’ he growled, dragging me across his lap by my hair and smacking my ass hard with his other hand. ‘You fucking little bitch, driving me crazy all this time.’
I whimpered, my ass burning with every hard slap. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I didn’t know how to tell you!’
He flipped me over on my back and palmed my pussy through my panties. ‘Your pussy is so fucking wet. You love this.’
‘Yes,’ I gasped. ‘I do.’
‘Good,’ he said, roughly stripping me of my panties with one hand while he got his pants undone and his cock out with the other. ‘So do I.’
He was in me with one quick thrust. I gasped at the onslaught, the sudden sensation of fullness. He sat up, taking me with him, so that he was on his knees and I was wrapped around him as he buried himself inside me. He caught my hair in one hand and pulled it back until my neck arched painfully. Then he slapped me again – not my face this time, my breasts. First one, then the other. I gasped at the sensation, my nipples tingling in pain and pleasure, my clit throbbing, his cock hitting just the right spot.
I came, moaning, crying, as he slapped my face, then my breasts, then pinched my nipples hard, once, twice, all the while whispering filthy, nasty things to me. Telling me what a whore I was, what a fucking slut, what a nasty, dirty girl. I eagerly agreed to all of it as I came on his cock. I even gave him a few more words to use, which only made him fuck me harder.
As my orgasm ebbed, he lowered me back to the floor gently – gently, after all he’d said and done to me – and covered my body with his. He fucked me with hard, steady thrusts to get him where he needed to go, to bring him to where I already was. His breath coming in fast pants, his cock swelling inside me, his balls slapping my ass. Brian. Solid, dependable Brian. My boyfriend, my love. I wrapped my arms and legs around him, holding him to me, clenching my pussy around him, surrounding him with my passion.
‘Fuck your slut, baby.’ I whispered the words like a love poem again and again. ‘Fuck your little whore. Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me. Fill me with your come.’
He came with a bestial moan. Body tense as he arched up over me, he thrust into me one last time before putting his full weight on me, our hot, damp bodies pressed together in a way that was so familiar, after an experience unlike any we had ever shared.
He whispered something in my ear, so soft I couldn’t hear him.
‘What, sweetheart?’
‘I said, I love you,’ he whispered again. ‘I love you, I’m in love with you, I’ve never loved anyone more than I love you. Whatever this is, however fucked up we are, I love you. You need to know that. You need to believe it.’
I cradled his head against my shoulder, shifting my hips so that I could bear his weight for as long as he needed to lie there. ‘I do, Brian. I know it. I really do. And I don’t think we’re fucked up.’
‘No?’
I pulled his head down and kissed him hard. ‘No. We were made for each other. I have never loved you more than I do right now.’
And as I said the words, I realised how true it was. It didn’t matter if everyone else thought we were fucked up. I didn’t believe that any more and I would make sure he didn’t believe it either. He was mine, I was his and whatever ‘this’ was, it was our story and ours alone.
And that was all that mattered.
Leo started coming in my bar a couple times a week after he got out of the police academy. He was a baby-faced rookie with silver-rimmed glasses and a shiny utility belt not even broken in yet. He looked like a kid playing dress-up in his daddy’s uniform. He’d sit at the end of the bar and order a club soda. Thirty minutes later, he’d give me a nod, throw down a five and be gone.
I know all the cops from the Third Precinct. They come in during their shifts to check on me and shoot the breeze while pretending not to notice the array of shifty characters sharing the bar with them. They come in after work dressed in their civilian clothes so they can throw back a few shots before heading home to their wives or girlfriends or Playstations. They’re good guys, most of them. They treat me with respect and keep an eye on the place when I’m not around.
I’m no badge bunny, but I’ve taken a few of them home. Usually the single ones who’ve had a rough shift and would rather sit on a bar stool all night than go home to an empty apartment. I’ve done my part as marriage counsellor and sex therapist, too. Being a cop is tough on a relationship and wreaks havoc on the sex drive. Sometimes a man just needs a good no-strings fuck to remind him that he’s alive, that there’s something worth living for. Call it my pro bono contribution to society. Not that any of the wives or girlfriends would thank me.
I never thought of Leo like that. He just looked too damned young for me to go dipping my fingers in that particular pie. He came in one night with a look I’ve seen on a hundred cops’ faces before. That bleak, empty-eyed stare of a man who has seen something he wishes he hadn’t. It’s a hazard of the job and it fades with time, but a little bit of their soul gets replaced by a hard edge of cynicism in the process.
He claimed his usual seat at the bar and gave me a wobbly nod of acknowledgement. I sidled up in front of him, wiping down the already clean mahogany bar.
‘Bad night?’
He nodded, studying his hands as if they contained the secrets of the universe.
‘What was it? Homicide?’
He jerked his head up. ‘How’d you know?’
I shrugged, almost embarrassed by my own nonchalance. Everything I knew about police work was second-hand information. I’d feel differently if I’d been the one standing over the body. ‘Seen that expression before. First one, huh?’
‘Yeah. Never seen a … dead person … before.’
‘That sucks,’ I said, filling a beer glass with seltzer. ‘What’s your name, kid?’
‘Williams,’ he said. ‘And I’m no kid.’
‘Yeah, I know. What’s your first name?’
‘Leo, ma’am.’
‘Well, Leo, I’m no ma’am. My name is Kayla,’ I told him. ‘This is my bar.’
‘Yeah, I know. The guys told me.’
I wondered what else the guys had told him. Cops talk. They’re more gossipy than a bunch of housewives drinking the kitchen sherry. I knew more about their lives than their own families did.
I fished a couple of maraschino cherries out of the container under the bar and dropped them into
