DOUBLE-D DOUBLE CROSS
A Butch Fatale Caper
by
CHRISTA FAUST
Butch Fatale Double D Double Cross
Christa Faust
Copyright 2012 by Christa Faust
Smashwords Edition
Original cover art © Jed Dougherty 2012
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means without permission of the author.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
1.
When the tattooed tomato walked into my shabby Echo Park office, I had no idea if she was gonna kiss me or slap me. I was hoping for the former, but betting on the latter.
Her name was Diversity. Back when we first met, she’d been this waifish hippie chick fresh out of UC Berkley. A second-generation granola dyke whose homespun, organic hemp exterior hid a multi-O dynamo that wouldn’t quit. We had three tempestuous months together before it ended badly. Can’t say I was surprised. She was the type who got all juicy over the idea of slumming with a rough and tumble blue-collar butch like me, but couldn’t stop lecturing me about how I was internalizing patriarchal oppression because I cut my hair like Tony Curtis.
In the years since we’d parted ways, I hadn’t changed all that much. I’ve been 5’10” since I was fifteen and walk around at a fit 150. Muscular arms, broad shoulders and big, solid tits that I gave up hiding years ago. Never been pretty, but I’ve grown into handsome pretty well. Still cutting my hair like Tony Curtis.
Diversity, on the other hand, was something else. She’d gone from womyn-with-a-Y to all woman and then some. She had put on twenty curvy pounds. The kind of curves that don’t come from tofu and lentils. There was candy apple gloss on her wide, expressive mouth and a labret piercing through her lower lip. Her once waist-length dirty-blond hair had been chopped into a bob, bleached Jean Harlow platinum and coiffed into retro curls, anchored behind her left ear with a glittery black orchid. The lonely labrys tattoo on her right wrist had multiplied into two full sleeves of girly pin-ups and black cats, dice and snakes and flaming hearts.
She was delicately balanced on strappy wedge heels and squeezed into tiny, high-waisted denim shorts that covered the legal minimum of her sturdy, tattooed legs and ass. Her tissue-thin vintage blouse was tied in a knot just below her chubby cupcake tits. She’d obviously rethought her stance on the oppressive nature of traditional gender roles, but she hadn’t given up all the principles of her old-school feminist upbringing. She still didn’t wear a bra.
“Hello, Butch,” she said, slinking towards my cluttered desk with a calculated switch and sway that wasn’t doing my ailing air conditioner any favors.
“Diversity,” I replied, displaying my natural aptitude for witty repartee. “You look… um… wow.”
“It’s Diva now,” she said, fishing a glossy postcard out of her kiss-lock purse and setting it on my desk.
I looked down at the postcard. It advertised a burlesque show, staring Miss Diva Derringer. There was Diversity, front and center, wearing a red cowboy hat and little else.
“I’m in town for a few weeks with my burlesque troupe,” she continued. “I thought maybe you might like to come see the show. I can put you on the guest list.” She looked up at me, trouble in her eyes. “You know, if you’re not busy.”
By that time, I had figured out that she probably wasn’t gonna slap me. I figured I’d see if she was interested in the other option.
“I’m not busy right now,” I said, holding her gaze as I stood up and came around to the front of the desk.
“No?” She arched a slender, delicately plucked eyebrow. “What about…?”
She gestured at my paperwork with a coy half-smile.
“It can wait,” I told her, snaking one arm around her narrow waist and using the other to sweep everything off the surface of the desk.
I kissed her, cupping her ample ass in both hands and lifting her up onto the desk. Her clunky shoes thumped to the carpet as she wrapped her legs around my waist and pulled me in closer, giving it back in spades. Her tattooed skin smelled like raw sugar and fresh girlsweat. No more patchouli. I never wanted to stop kissing her.
But eventually, I needed more. In breathless seconds I had her bent over my desk with those tiny shorts around her ankles. I knelt down behind her, hungry but wanting a moment to enjoy the scenery. In that moment, her ass was my whole world. Voluptuous, pear-shaped cheeks that begged to be slapped. The full pink lips peeking out between them begged for something else. I was happy to oblige.
I spread her wide and buried my face, tongue stretching to tease her fat clit from behind. She let out a gasp that swiftly melted into a happy purr as I slid my tongue slowly backwards, through her slick folds and over the salty, hairless skin that lead back to her musky asshole. I started working her clit in earnest with my middle finger, then slid my thumb into her pussy, homing in on her g-spot while circling her back door with my tongue. Listening to her body. Finding her rhythm. Letting muscle-memory guide me back in time. Even after all those years, I still remembered what she liked.
Feeling her build up to that first orgasm was like watching a favorite scene in an old movie. First her strong, meaty thighs started to tense up, just like they used to. Then she went up on the balls of her bare feet while the hidden muscles inside her thickened and tightened around my thumb. She went from kittenish sighs to deep, throaty grunts and emphatic profanity. Then that rapid butterfly flutter traveled through her pussy like a miniature thunderstorm as the rest of her body went pliant and boneless against me.
I knew from experience that this was far from the end of the show. She was just getting warmed up. As for me, you better believe I was ready to go the distance.
In pulp novels, the private dick always keeps a gat in his desk drawer. I keep my iron in a gun safe keyed to my fingerprint, but I do keep an extra strap-on in my desk drawer. You know, for emergencies.
I pinked up her ass and thighs with a couple of healthy slaps, then dropped my jeans, got the rig strapped around my hips, and rolled a condom down the length of the silicone shaft.
You probably think that’s funny, don’t you, using a rubber on a dildo? But experience has taught me that unless you crack open a brand new package right in front of them, most women won’t let you use a sex-toy raw. They don’t know where it’s been. And let me tell you, mine have been around.
She looked over her shoulder at the dildo and then up at me with wide eyes and flushed cheeks.
“What?” I asked. “Don’t tell me you still think the dildo is a tool of the evil patriarchal oppressors?”
A cute little giggle bubbled out of her.
“Shut up and fuck me, Butch.”
Who was I to argue? I did what the lady asked.
I started slow, but she was having none of that. She bucked with her own demanding rhythm, daring me to keep up. Not about to be outdone, I sucked in a deep breath, gripped her plush, fleshy hips and went at her double time. She responded by jacking her clit like Eddie Van Halen ripping a guitar solo.
Sweat was everywhere. Running into my eyes and down between my tits, pooling in the hollow between Diva’s shoulder blades. Tiny droplets flew from her tangled hair. Her nipples were drawing crazy Spirograph circles of sweat on my desk with every thrust. The multi-O dynamo was working at optimum capacity.
But the friction of the harness strap against my clit was making me crazy, and I’d had just about enough of being chivalrous. She was ahead by three when I stopped counting. It was time for a little quid pro fucking quo.
I tore off the harness and tossed it aside, gripping a handful of platinum curls and guiding Diva’s head down to my aching cunt. She didn’t need instructions. She just spread the thick black hair with her thumbs and got to work.
She started off teasing with gentle sucking and nibbling, torturing me for several excruciating minutes before settling into the swift side-to-side rhythm I needed. She obviously remembered me, too.
I leaned back against the edge of the desk and let my legs fall open a little wider, losing myself in the building sensation.
That’s when somebody rang the downstairs buzzer.
Diva looked up at me with questioning eyes.
“My assistant’ll handle it,” I told her.
I was nearly there when I heard a sheepish knock on my office door.
“Butch?” It was Penny Park, my trusty Femme Friday.
“Goddamit,” I said. “I’m not in.”
“It’s work.” She lowered her voice, barely audible through the closed door. “Paying work.”
I swore between clenched teeth. I hadn’t seen a paycheck for so long, I’d forgotten what went on the left side of the decimal point.
“Five minutes, Penny.”
I lifted Diva off her knees and kissed my juices from her mouth.
“We’ll finish this later.”
She looked up at me with smoldering, mascara-smeared eyes.
“My email’s on the postcard,” she said. “Use it.“
We swiftly sorted through our inside-out clothing and got everything buttoned and zipped. After another lingering kiss, I hustled her out the back door with one last slap on the ass.
I picked up all the scattered papers and used them to cover up the sweat smears on my desk as best I could. I ran a comb through my hair, fixed my collar, then sat down behind my desk, trying to remember how to look professional.
“Send in the client, Penny.”
That’s when I noticed that I’d left the sticky, well-used strap-on in the middle of the floor.
2.
I threw myself into a home-base slide across the carpet, scooped up the incriminating dildo and was frantically stuffing it into a random file drawer when my potential paycheck walked into the room. If she noticed, she was too polite to say so.
The client was the kind of butch that makes me feel like Little Bo Peep. Not that she was bigger or stronger or tougher. Just colder. More guarded. Hard, but brittle, like she had way too much invested in maintaining that masculine armor. Like she had everything to lose.
She was short and wiry with a stoic Mestizo face under a #2 buzz cut. Concrete complexion and harsh crow’s feet. She was probably younger than me, but didn’t look it. Her dark eyes were narrow and wary.
She wore a white tank undershirt and sharply pressed Dickies work pants slung low on her prominent hip bones. Shaky blue hood ink on her sinewy arms. Calloused hands criss-crossed with healing burns. A cook’s hands. She wore too much Tres Flores aftershave and was flat as Nebraska, but the big, aggressive nipples poking through her sweat-damp beater were giving me ideas. Bad ideas, since she would probably slug me and call me a faggot. Me, I’ll eat anything. Anything with a pussy.
That cunnilingus interruptus had clearly left my motor in overdrive. I needed a cold shower. Or a hot woman. I didn’t see either option in my immediate future.
I wiped my sticky hand on the leg of my jeans before extending it to the client. Class, all the way.
“How ya doing?” I said. “Butch Fatale.”
She shook my hand with a stiff, challenging grip.
“Mickey Hernandez.”
It was all so damn manly, I almost giggled.
“Have a seat.” I sat back down behind my desk. “What can I do for you?”
I gestured to the good chair. The client chair. The only piece of furniture in the whole damn office that didn’t feature duct tape as a major structural component. She sat, then shifted. Obviously nervous. Or maybe the chair wasn’t so good after all.
“So you’re a lesbian, right?”
I snorted.
“Okay, okay.” She shrugged. “It’s just… well… you know how it is.”
“That’s why I’m here.”
She nodded. Shifted again. Looked down at her chewed fingernails. No eye contact. I knew there was no point in pushing somebody like her, so I just waited until she was ready to continue.
“I need you to find my girl. She disappeared.”
If she was coming to me and not the cops, I figured this was just another lovers’ quarrel. Half of the time the little runaway would show up on her own after a few hours of pouting. The other half, it turned out she had run away for a damn good reason.
But, hey, money’s money. As long as the missing girlfriend didn’t have a restraining order against Mickey, I was in no position to turn down paying work. I flipped my notebook to a blank page.
“How long has she been missing?”
“Five days.”
That raised an eyebrow.
“And nobody else has seen her during that time? Have you talked to her family? Friends?”
“Her parents don’t talk to her no more because… well you know.” She picked at the corner of a ragged nail. “They sure as hell ain’t gonna talk to me.”
“So then how do you know they haven’t seen her?”
More silence, then:
“A friend saw her yesterday.”
I frowned.
“Wait a minute,” I said. “If someone saw her yesterday then she’s not really missing, is she? She’s just not with you. Besides, if you know where she is, then you don’t need me. Go to wherever she is and talk to her. If she wants to come home, she will. If not, there’s nothing I can do to help you anyway.”
Another long, uncomfortable silence filled my stuffy office. My residual horniness was swiftly souring into hostility. I wanted to throttle Mickey and make her cough up whatever it was that she needed to say. I didn’t. I kept cool and waited.
“She has a drug problem,” Mickey finally said.
Even better.
“Hey, listen,” I replied. “I’m real sorry to hear that. But I’m a private investigator, not an interventionist. If you already know where she is…”
“You don’t understand,” Mickey said, dark eyes angry and defensive.
“Make me understand,” I replied, trying to keep my tone gentle and keep the frustration out of my voice.
“She only uses the crystal so she don’t feel bad about tricking.”
This was getting uglier by the minute, but it still didn’t sound like something I could do anything about.
“So she’s a prostitute?”
“She used to be,” she said. “Back before we got together. But she hated it. She would never go back unless there was something seriously wrong. When Chuy told me he saw her copping with one of the chicks she used to trick with, I knew…”
“Addicts have relapses,” I said.
“You think I don’t know about relapses?” She stood, restless, fists clenching. “We met in N.A. I got five years sober. I know all about fucking relapses.” She turned away, pacing. “Just like I know what’s going on right now is more than some relapse. She don’t need money. If she just wanted to get high, she has more than enough for a five-day binge in her fucking pocketbook. Longer, even. No, she’s in trouble. Serious trouble. I just know it.” She turned back to me and thumped her flat chest. “In my heart, I know it. You understand?”
She stalked over to the single dusty window, looking out without seeing.
“I can’t go to the place where Chuy saw her,” she said. “If I do… I just can’t.”
I got it. I nodded.
“Just find out where she’s staying. Find her and tell her…” She turned back to face me again, heartbreaking vulnerability seeping through the cracks in her tough-guy façade. “I just want her to come home. No questions asked. Okay?”
I looked away, knowing this was gonna get messy but not seeing any way to stay out of the mess. Mickey must have figured I was about to turn her down.
“I don’t know how much you charge,” she said. “But I’ll pay double. Three days, up front and you can keep it all even if you find her tonight.”
I could do a lot with that kind of money. You know, unheard-of luxuries like rent and bills and groceries. Maybe I’d even go hog wild and get new soles for my disintegrating shoes. Or buy some flowers for my long-suffering assistant.
“Mickey,” I said. “You just bought yourself a dick.”
Mickey allowed herself the smallest of smiles, then pulled out a fat roll of hundreds and started peeling them off one at a time.
“Tell me when.”
I was gonna stop her at twelve, but made myself wait until fourteen, feeling giddy. She nodded, then pulled a snapshot out of her wallet and laid it on top of the money.
“Her name’s Angie,” Mickey said. “Angela Marina Bedrosyan.”
I picked up the picture and forgot about everything else for a minute.
There was no getting around it. The first thing you noticed was tits. I’m not talking porn-star silicone either, I’m talking the kind of overflowing, all-natural double-D beauties that could make Russ Meyer rise from the grave. It took me a second to switch gears from leering cartoon wolf to serious professional and actually take in the rest of the photo. Okay, maybe more like thirty seconds. A minute, max.
The woman behind that astounding prow was hardly a supermodel, but it didn’t matter. You could see in her dark eyes that she was something special. Brunette with olive skin, a wide, heart-shaped face and a nose that other women in Los Angeles probably would have fixed. She had been caught by the camera in mid-laugh, and she seemed sweet and genuine. Utterly unselfconscious. A lot of femmes tense up when you take their picture. They may be smiling, but you can tell they’re worried about whether or not they look fat. She wasn’t like that at all. She was the kind of woman you fell in love with and stayed in love with. The kind you could see yourself getting old with. She was real.
Like her tits. I did mention the tits, right?
Mickey was in the photo, too, arm slung possessively around Angie’s shoulders and grinning like she just won the Lotto. Lucky bastard.
“Cute as lace pants,” I said.
“Yeah.” She looked down at the photo and then away. “What else you need to know?”
“Let’s start with the basics.” I gestured for her to sit back down, then handed her a standard form and a pen that wasn’t too badly chewed. “Full name, social security number, driver’s license number, cell number, make and model of her car with plates if you know em, plus where she lives and where she works.”
“She don’t have to work.”
Why didn’t that surprise me?
“Okay, how about you then?” I asked. “What restaurant do you work at?”
“Choux.” That little smile that wasn’t quite a smile was back. “Started washing dishes straight out of rehab and worked my way up to sauté. How did you know that?”
“That’s my job,” I said with a smirk of my own. “Choux, huh? That French fusion place on Beverly?”
“Yeah.”
“Nice,” I said, writing it down.
Mickey hunched over the form with an arm curled around it like she was worried someone might try to read over her shoulder. I let her write in silence for a minute or two.
“Things been all right between you two?” I eventually asked.
The pen froze. She didn’t answer. Didn’t look up.
“Look,” I said. “If you want me to find Angie, I’m gonna have to ask a lot of personal questions. If you can’t be honest with me upfront, then you’re wasting my time and your money.”
“Things have been good,” she said, shrugging. Still not looking up. “Better than good. We’ve been together for three years now. Every day I look at her and…” She fidgeted with the pen. “I just can’t believe it, you know?” She was trying to stay frosty, but I could see how torn up she really was over all this. “I mean, we have our fights. Who doesn’t, right? But nothing ....”
“Nothing that would make her go back to tricking?”
“No.” She shook her head. “Nothing.”
“Any family troubles? Trouble with friends?”
“Nothing with her friends that I know of. Her family…” She shrugged.
“Tell me about Angie’s history with prostitution.”
Her body language was becoming increasingly tense and conflicted, like a skittish street dog afraid to take a treat from your hand. Wanting to trust me, but fighting years of conditioning telling her to keep her mouth shut.
“She don’t like to talk about it too much,” she finally said. “But I can tell you what I know.”
“Can’t ask for more than that.”
“I know she was working outcall at first. Making big money through some kind of private agency, but blowing it all on shoes and crystal. Of course she burned that bridge pretty fast and wound up on the street.”
“Any names from back then?” I asked. “Anybody she might still be in contact with?”
Mickey shook her head, emphatic.
“She put all that behind her when she got clean. All I know is she used to work Hollywood, usually down Santa Monica. Copped there too. That’s where Chuy spotted her.”
“What about the name of the girl Chuy saw her with?”
“Goes by Lexi,” she said. “Don’t know any last name.”
“Description?”
Mickey shrugged. “I didn’t ask.”
I wrote some more.
“How about contact info for this Chuy guy?”
“Jesus Nava,” she said. “Works the line at Choux.”
She rattled off a number. I wrote it down.
“Do you have an exact address for the location where she was last seen?”
She answered way too quickly.
“It’s a little white house on Sycamore, right around the corner from the Youth Center.”
She meant the drop-in for homeless LGBT teens. I shook my head. Fucking predators. Like queer kids don’t have enough problems. I wrote it down.
“Okay,” I said. “How you doing on that form?”
“Done,” she said, setting down the pen.
I picked up the form and looked it over. Everything in order. Mickey’s handwriting was surprisingly neat, perfect little block letters like soldiers.
“Angie wouldn’t do this,” Mickey said again. “I know her. She would never go back.”
Except that’s exactly what Angie did. What I wanted to know was why.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “If nothing else, I’ll get you some answers.”
“Just find her,” Mickey said. “She… I can’t…” She stood up abruptly. Her face was stony, but her whole body still vibrated with inarticulate anguish. “Just find her.”
3.
I showed Mickey to the door with another manly handshake, then turned to my pouting assistant.
Penny’s a grad student at USC, with a dual major in criminal law and computer science. She’ll probably break my heart someday and go get a real job with the feds, helping track down hackers and cyber criminals. Truth is, she deserves better than me. She’s a good kid.
She’s also a hammer. Half-Hispanic, half-Asian, and you’d think her two halves had been grafted together in a lab rather than mixed through the usual genetic roulette. On top, she’s a prim, willowy Korean girl with a slender waist, modest bust and a brainy, brook-no-bullshit gaze that sizes you up from behind vintage cat’s eye glasses. On the bottom, she’s J-Lo after too many trips to Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles. And you better believe she knows exactly what she’s got.
She’s tiny, barely five feet, and she’s got this sort of goth librarian look going. Long black hair twisted into a sleek bun and dark, vampy lipstick on her generous lips. Tight pencil skirts, seamed stockings and chunky heels. She can easily pass for straight, which makes her an invaluable asset when I need to get information out of people who won’t talk to someone like me.
To tell the truth, Penny is pretty much the only thing keeping this business from bankruptcy. She’s my secretary, my undercover operative, my accountant, my research assistant and my computer tech. The only thing she isn’t is my girlfriend. An oversight to which she calls my attention on a daily basis.
“Is that tattooed slut gone?” she asked, giving me a jealous glare that was only half acting.
“Yeah,” I said with a smirk and a shrug. “I let her out the back.”
“Honestly, Butch,” she said. “When are you gonna grow up and quit all this tomcatting around?”
“You mean when am I gonna realize you’re the only woman for me?”
This was our shtick, her pretending she was jealous and me pretending that I didn’t want to be with her. We’d been exchanging convoluted variations on this routine for almost two years now, and I couldn’t help but notice that she was pretending less and less, while I had to pretend a little harder every day.
“You know it’s true.” More elaborate pouting.
“You know I can’t live without you, baby,” I told her, hand on my heart. “That’s the real reason why we could never date. You’d get sick of me in a couple of days and dump my ass. Then where would I be?”
“Off chasing some other piece of flashy trash who will never make you happy,” she said. “Anyway, how do you know I’ll get sick of you if you won’t give me a chance?”
She had a point. As usual. Plus she was looking real good in that tight skirt. She knew it too, turning and cocking her hip to give me a traffic-stopping side view. I resisted, but just barely.
“Okay look,” I said, handing her Mickey’s form and the notes I’d taken on the Bedrosyan broad. “Run this name through the usual databases. Then see if you can talk to the family. Find out if they’ve seen or heard from her. I’m going go talk to Brink. Find out what LAPD’s got on our little runaway.”
“What do you need to talk to Brink for?” Penny was pouting again. “Anything she knows, I can find out quicker online.”
She was right. As usual. But information wasn’t the only thing I needed. I shook my head.
“See you later, beautiful,” I told her.
I turned to go, but she stepped into my path and held her hand out, palm up.
“Not so fast.”
“Aw, come on, Penny.”
“You owe two months on this place, three on your apartment and your license has expired. Again.”
I sighed and handed over a healthy chunk of my new bankroll. Easy come, easy fucking go. She tucked the cash into a discreet pocket, then reached up and smoothed my rumpled collar. Didn’t say anything else. She didn’t need to. I looked away and felt like a heel. I told you, I don’t deserve that kid.
***
My office is two floors above one of the less savory stretches of Alvarado, in a ratty, pink stucco fire-trap that also houses a Salvadorian bakery, a Vietnamese nail salon, a questionable dental clinic and a law office specializing in Immigracion y Amnestia. I keep on telling myself I’m gonna move, but somehow I never get around to it. The bakery lady knows me and always gives me an extra pineapple semita for Penny when I stop in to grab my morning java. I love watching the rotating cast of hot young Vietnamese girls at the nail salon painting each other’s toenails when business is slow. I’m comfortable here.
The gritty August heat was all over me like a groupie the second I stepped out into the street. It was even hotter inside my piece of shit Plymouth Sport Fury. The cracked not-so-white vinyl seats flash-fried my ass through my jeans the second I sat down. The wheel was almost too hot to touch.
I cranked the ignition a few times, eventually bullying the Fury into turning over. When it finally caught, the engine blasted me with hot air through every vent. No AC, of course. The reluctant beast needed a minute to get used to the idea of running, so I pulled out my phone and texted Brink. She was available. We agreed to meet at the usual place.
I suppose I oughta tell you I used to be a cop. The less said about that, the better, but I still have a friend or two on the force. Chief among them is my sparring partner and occasional fuck-buddy, Brink Bannon. Though she’s as out as I am, Brink managed to sidestep a lot of the problems I had during my blue period by keeping her head down, playing by the rules and not punching any superior officers in the face. She made detective a year ago. Whenever I need a peek at police records, she’s who I call.
The usual place was the Short Stop. Back in the day it was a cop bar. Now it’s just another Silver Lake hipster joint. Lots of bad 80’s hair, skinny jeans and ugly-ass glasses with no lenses. Brink and I still use it as a rendezvous spot when we want to hook up, partly for old times sake, and partly because no other cops would be caught dead there anymore.
Apparently, neither would Brink. She waved me over from her unmarked Caprice as soon as I pulled into the parking lot. I coasted into the spot beside her and she rolled down her passenger-side window.
Brink is muscular and clean-cut with big hands and straight white teeth. Sandy hair chopped high and tight. Beefy shoulders and skull-crushing Tyrannosaurus thighs furred with fine, golden down. She looks like a Mormon quarterback but fucks like a wolverine.
It can be pretty tough to find an older butch that’s into other butches. Especially here, in L.A. Funny, when you consider how often you see butch men together. And like I said before, I’m an omnivore, but Brink, she’s not like that. Lipstick leaves her cold. It’s tragic too, because femmes’ll be all over her and she’ll sit there pining over some stone electrician who would never give her the time of day. That’s what makes her such a reliable play-date. She’s always horny and rarely getting any. She’s also one of my best and oldest friends. Good cop to my bad cop. Tango to my Cash. Even though she looks way more like Kurt Russell than I do. Anyway, my point is that she’s got my back.
“Get in,” she said. “I’ll drive.”
I didn’t bother to lock the Fury. There’s no glass in the driver’s side window, nothing of value inside the car and nobody in their right mind would want to steal that crotchety old beast. If they did, they were welcome to it.
I opened the passenger-side door of the Caprice and got in.
As soon as I sat down, Brink threw a playful cross at my shoulder. I caught her wrist, gripped a fistful of her neatly pressed dress shirt and kissed her.
She threw herself into that kiss like she was starving for it, and her hunger brought mine to life again, stronger than before. I let it burn for a minute or two, then broke the kiss, slid my forearm across her throat, and shoved her back against the driver’s seat.
“Drive,” I told her.
She grinned.
“I thought you had some questions for me.”
“Pleasure before business.”
“That’s the way I like it,” she said, cranking the engine.
I smiled. She drove.
4.
We wound up in Elysian Park. Brink turned into a “Park Personnel Only” service road that wound through a stand of close set trees.
“You gonna fuck me?” I asked. “Or kill me and toss my body in the reservoir?”
“I’m not gonna kill you,” she said. “Not until after, anyway.”
After a few more twists and turns we came to a gravel lot filled with dusty back-hoes and parks department maintenance vehicles. She pulled into the shade between a dump truck and a padlocked storage shed and then cut the engine.
This was a risky location for our little tryst. If we were a couple of cute femmes going at it, the city workers that frequent this area would probably cheer us on and enjoy the show. Me and Brink, we don’t turn straight men on. Just piss them off. We even got mistaken for gay guys once, and let me tell you those sorry knuckleheads were more surprised to find out we had vaginas than they were to find out we had guns. Of course, if we were ever in a situation where we were compelled to fire those guns, it would cause an endless shitstorm of paperwork for Brink.
Like that ever stopped her.
She unfastened her seatbelt and reached for me but I dodged her grasping hands and slipped out of the car.
“You want some of this?” I backed away, unbuttoning my jeans. “Come get it.”
“Fuck yeah,” she said, climbing out of the car after me.
Of course I wasn’t going make it easy.
I put one hand in the center of her chest and slid the other down into my open jeans. She could have easily pushed my arm aside, but didn’t. She let me hold her back, breath coming hard and fast.
Making her wait was almost as hard on me as it was on her. I slid my hand up from her chest and around the back of her neck to pull her into another voracious kiss.
She had this warm, wholesome, clean laundry smell that always made me want to get her dirty. I broke the kiss, pulled my other hand out of my jeans and smeared my juices across her flushed face. She sucked greedily at my fingers.
“You need it bad, don’t you?” I asked, mouth a hot inch from her ear.
“Yes, sir,” she replied.
I smiled against her neck.
“Yeah, you do.”
I gripped her throat and slid my other hand down between her muscular legs. Her pulse hammered beneath my palm. I could feel how wet she was through the cheap fabric of her JC Penney slacks. I teased her a little, then shoved her away. She staggered but managed to stay on her feet, teeth bared and eyes wide and hungry.
“You ready to get to work, boy?”
I leaned back against the hood of the car, dropping my jeans to my knees and giving her an eyeful.
“Yes, sir,” she said, eyes locked on my exposed cunt.
I was ready too, beyond ready, but I still made her wait some more.
“Undress,” I said.
She cast a quick glance around the deserted yard, then set her shaking fingers to the task of buttons and zippers. She struggled briefly with her scuffed Doc Martens dress shoes and crumpled black socks, and then she was naked in the hot afternoon sun.
Brink always seems kind of awkward and uncomfortable in her utilitarian, unflattering work clothes. Shirts too tight in the shoulders and too loose in the waist. Pants baggy and bunched up around her belt. But naked, she was stunning.
She has a handful of freckles scattered across her broad chest and tiny, barely pink nipples capping her single-scoop tits. A lean waist and strong, sculpted abs with a thin golden treasure trail from her shallow navel to her wild, reddish-blond bush. And those legs, those powerful thighs and bulky, brutish calves.
She was even more jacked than the last time we’d hooked up. I guess when you rarely get laid, you gotta to do something to blow off steam. She’d clearly been hitting the gym hard. Looking at her flawless physique made me feel both aroused and competitive in equal measure.
Every muscle in her finely tuned body was tense and humming with desire. An athlete, coiled and waiting for the starter pistol. I couldn’t wait any longer.
“Now,” I said.
She was on me in half a heartbeat, like an unleashed attack dog. Kneeling in the dirt and ravenous mouth on my clit, pushing me right to the edge and over before I knew what hit me.
Damn, I needed that.
She still wanted more and I sure wasn’t gonna stop her. She kept at me, working it, pushing me, and I just couldn’t seem to get enough. All that built-up frustration dissolved under her tongue as I hit another orgasm and then a third. My legs felt weak, and my clit was throbbing and hyper-sensitive, almost painful by the time I finally pushed her away.
“That’s enough, boy,” I told her. I held out my hand, palm up. “Get the lube.”
“Yes, sir,” she said, voice gone thick and husky.
She pulled a bottle of Astroglide from an inner pocket in a large leather messenger bag in the back seat and tossed it to me.
“You know what to do,” I said.
She did. Leaving the rear door of the Caprice open, she sprawled on her back across the seat, muscular legs cocked wide.
I smiled and upended the bottle of lube, slicking both my hands and drenching her flushed pussy. She had a monster clit, a souvenir from an ill-advised flirtation with Winstrol back in college, and it twitched when the lube hit it. Like it knew exactly what was coming. She threw her head back and made a small, breathless sound of anticipation.
I started with two fingers. Then four. Right hand jacking that massive clit while I worked my left fingers in deeper, palm slowly folding inward, like I was trying to escape from handcuffs.
“Look at me, boy,” I told her.
She opened her eyes, locking her gaze with mine as the wide bridge of my knuckles twisted and slid inside her, centimeter by excruciating centimeter.
“Tell me how bad you need this,” I said.
“Bad,” she breathed. “So… fucking…bad…” The head of my thumb joined my other fingers. Her eyes closed, then opened wide. “Sir.”
And just like that, my whole hand was inside her.
In that moment, I fell in love with her a little, the way I always did. Neither one of us had illusions about being anything more than friends. Me, I guess you could say I’m a sucker for the stereotype. Always had it in the back of my mind that someday I’d hang up my strap-on and settle down with a pretty little femme. Someday being a good long way away from now. Brink, she knew she needed more commitment than a tom cat like me could ever give her. What she needed was a full-time dyke-Daddy, and while it was fun to play that role every now and then, I couldn’t see myself locked into that action 24/7. But I’ll tell you what, the way that Brink looked at me when my hand slipped all the way inside her made me forget all that.
She was so fucking beautiful in that moment. Slick with sweat, gritty dirt stuck to her shins and battered red knees. Breathing heavy, teeth clenched and sleek belly heaving. Savage almost, like some kind of mythical animal that normal people would never be allowed to see. All our convoluted history and the mundane details of the job and the ugly, unforgiving world around us just burned away. Her eyes were dilated, nothing but the thinnest blue rings around bottomless black pupils. That gaze was so honest, so raw and intimate, it made me feel like I was falling. Like I had my hand inside her hot, beating heart.
Unlike Miss Diva Derringer, Brink’s a one-hit wonder. She’ll only have the one orgasm, but when it comes, she’ll just about tear your hand off. I could feel it building up fast inside her, and I held onto that gaze, greedy and drawing out the moment for as long as I could. Savoring it the way you do with any beautiful thing that doesn’t last.
Then she came. Her eyes rolled up and closed, and that connection was lost. Vanished into the ether like a dropped cell-phone call. She was alone with her orgasm, pulled under by the crashing waves and lost to me. All I could do was ride it out until it was over.
When she came back to her senses, she was grinning and a little sheepish. I withdrew my hand slowly and she shuddered, laughing and wrapping her arms around her sweaty ribs. I stretched my freed fingers, clenching and unclenching. Making sure they were all still there.
We never kissed or cuddled afterward. There was always this slight sense of awkward embarrassment between us. Not shame over what we’d done. More like a need to look politely away while everybody got their armor back on.
“God damn,” she said, rolling away from me and sitting up. “That’s what I’m talking about.”
“Actions speak louder,” I replied, buttoning my fly.
This was a kind of ritual too. Cracking wise. Making it not matter. Burying any remnants of that intimate connection like scraps of blood-stained evidence.
“So,” she said, unballing one of her socks and shaking out the dust. “What’s this case of yours?”
I filled her in while she got herself cleaned up and dressed.
“And you figured you’d fuck me into a puddle and then make unauthorized use of police records while I lay here in a dopamine coma?”
“Something like that.” I shrugged and grinned. “You know, run her name for priors. See who salutes.”
She got into the front seat, swiveled the on-board laptop my way and started up the car.
“Have at it,” she said. “You earned it.”
I typed in Angie’s name, and the results of the search popped up on the greasy screen. Angie’s last bust was more than three years old, which seemed consistent with Mickey’s timeline. Before that there had been a year-long string of low-level felonies and misdemeanors. Solicitation, public lewdness, possession, petty theft. I clicked on one of the later solicitation arrests, looking to see if she had been picked up with someone else. She had. There were a handful of names. A corner sweep. No “Lexi,” though that could have been a nickname for any one of those women.
I jotted down the names on my notepad, then clicked on another report. More names, and two from the previous – Lisa Peña and Jennifer Traynor. I underlined them, then clicked on a third report. Lisa and Jennifer showed up again, along with a name from the second report – Shawna Butler. I underlined her name too, then did searches for them all. Shawna was dead, ODed a year before. The other two had both had catch-and-release arrests within the last three months. Lisa appeared to either be homeless or unwilling to commit an address, but Jennifer gave a home addresses in the vicinity of Western and Santa Monica. Not too far from the place where Mickey said Angie had been seen. I copied the address and tried to memorize their mug shots.
“What’s your plan?” Brink asked, pulling the car into the parking lot at the Short Stop.
“No fucking idea,” I said. “But it’ll be brilliant.”
“Wanna get a bite?” she asked. “I’m starving.”
“I’ll take a raincheck,” I told her. “I gotta run down this Bedrosyan broad. Next week?”
“I’ll bring the chainsaw,” she said, like she always says.
“I’ll bring the beer,” I replied, like I always do.
5.
I had two choices at that point. See if Ms. Traynor was in, or try staking out the house on Sycamore and waiting for my little lost femme to show up at the salt-lick. Sitting on the Sycamore house in my unairconditioned Fury on an August afternoon wasn’t my idea of a good time.
The address on Virginia Avenue turned out to be a sad old brick apartment building overlooking the 101 freeway. The heavy-duty security bars on the windows and doors had been painted gaudy teal blue in a misguided effort to make them seem less depressing. There was a red and white FOR RENT sign with a space beneath for handwritten details. There may have been something written there at one time, but whatever it said had long since faded to illegibility.