The Sheriff's Little Girl

by Alex Reynolds

  Despite how sweet and endearing Julie looked in her slumber, Peter couldn’t help but be annoyed that she had left the light on yet again. She left lights on everywhere she went. He knew that he was probably silly to care as much as he did about this, but saving electricity really mattered to him. It was just so easy to turn lights off, and he didn’t understand why Julie never seemed to do it. She must fall asleep reading or playing on her phone, he figured, deciding that he was going to talk to her about it in the morning.

  ‘Morning’ was pretty loosely defined for Julie, though. Even though Peter had made it very clear to her that he didn’t like having to wake her up when he got home from work in the afternoon when he worked that shift or finding her still awake when he got home from spending the night in the station, she continued to keep the strangest hours possible.

  Whenever Peter tried to talk to her about it, Julie shrugged and insisted that she didn’t have anywhere she had to be, which was a decent enough point. Still, it bothered him that she seemed to have never had anything that she had to do. Julie had told him that she hadn’t even completed high school, and that she had worked “a little bit at a couple of jobs once in a while.” She didn’t have a driver’s license. Mostly, she just refused to grow up, and other people took care of her. It seemed like her entire group of friends was like that: finding ways that they could make money without really working, and simply doing what they pleased. It was something that had always frustrated him about their subculture. None of the ‘party people’ that he had met seemed to contribute anything to society, or give back to the community that they lived in. Julie told Peter that he was ‘old-fashioned’ when he talked about things like this, but he was pretty sure he was just ‘correct.’

  * * *

  When Peter got home at three the next day, he was pleasantly surprised to find Julie awake.

  “Julie, can I talk about something with you?” he asked her right away upon walking into the living room where she was watching anime on demand on TV.

  “Sure,” Julie muttered without bothering to look up from the screen.

  “No, can you pause the magical girls or whatever that is?” he demanded.

  Julie sighed and hit the pause button with a dramatic motion.

  Peter glared at her. His patience for her bad attitude was starting to wear thin.

  “What are the rules of this house?” he asked, his own attitude toward the conversation becoming a little bit more stern.

  “Don’t go out of it ever again?” Julie grumped back.

  Peter frowned. “I know that you don’t like having to be here, but it’s for your own protection. I’m sorry that the investigation could end up taking so long, and I do feel bad for you being all cooped up with nothing to do but make messes and watch television all day. But I did ask you to do a few other things while you were here, didn’t I?”

  Julie shrugged her shoulders. “I’ve been picking up after myself and not getting paint on the rug,” she told him.

  “You’ve been picking up after yourself in the very loosest sense of that term,” Peter scolded. “I still have not seen you do any dishes or laundry, but that’s not what I want to talk about right now. I asked you to turn off the lights when you aren’t using…”

  Julie interrupted him. “Seriously?! This is about the lights? Could you be more lame? Why do you care so much about electricity? It’s like an obsession for you and I really hate it.”

  Peter didn’t expect to, but he felt hurt by Julie’s words. Despite her difficult behavior and how bad her attitude could be, Peter had grown very fond of the girl, and he liked coming home and knowing that she was going to be there. He felt like he was doing a pretty good job taking care of her, too, and took pride in that. Hearing her talk so harshly to him was shocking.

  Peter’s face must have shown his sadness, because Julie’s face immediately fell, too.

  “I’m sorry. That was mean.”

  Peter nodded. “Yes, it was.”

  The two sat staring at each other for a moment, both being quiet.

  “I’m not used to being around nice people,” Julie finally admitted. “But I just talked to you like Crank talked to me and that’s not okay.”

  Peter felt like he was having a real conversation with Julie for the first time since she came into the police station. He didn’t want to let this go.

  “You’re right, it wasn’t okay,” he told her.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered, tears starting to well up in her eyes.

  Peter smiled and reached out, brushing the tears away. “It’s okay. I forgive you.”

  “It’s not okay, though,” Julie insisted. “You shouldn’t buy me any ice cream or something.”

  Peter smiled to himself at this. “Your apology is enough,” he said, “but if you ever talk to me that way again, I will punish you. I’m glad you understand that that’s fair.”

  Julie shrugged again, but it wasn’t dismissive. Instead of showing an attitude, it just showed him that she understood but didn’t know what to say.

  “Turn the light off when you go to bed,” Peter insisted. “I know you don’t understand why I care, but I do. I have adult responsibilities to worry about, like saving the planet and saving money, and turning the lights off does both those things at once. You don’t have to worry about any grownup ideas like that right now. You have to worry about…” Peter paused, thinking of the right word to use. “You have to worry about less grownup things, like obeying the rules of the house and being a good girl.”

  Peter waited to see how Julie would respond to this, but she just nodded, her blue eyes still twinkling from the tears that had spilled out earlier.

  “I don’t want to turn the light out, though,” Julie whispered, brushing her slightly faded pink hair out of her face as she did.

  This thought had not occurred to Peter in the least. He had assumed that Julie was being forgetful, or just staying up too late and falling asleep with the lights on, not that she was doing it on purpose.

  “Are you scared of the dark?” Peter asked, his tone gentle. He smiled a sad, sweet smile. Something about this idea touched him.

  Julie looked down, her cheeks flushed with embarrassment. “Maybe,” she muttered.

  Peter reached his hand out and put it on her shoulder. “I’m sorry I scolded you about that,” he told her. “You feeling safe and comfortable is more important than the electricity bill. In fact,” he added, “it’s the most important thing to me, other than keeping our town safe.”

  Julie’s face lit up at these words. “It’s really nice to feel important to someone,” she admitted.

  Peter responded by pulling her into a big hug.

  Chapter Nine

  Julie spent the rest of the day trying her best to be well behaved. She was touched by how gentle Peter could be. It made her feel bad about all the times that she had snapped at him and thought of him as being grumpy.

  Peter went out to the store to get a few things for dinner, and Julie tried to pick up some of her clutter while he was out. Then, after they ate, she made a point of washing the dishes and putting them away.

  Peter seemed happy with her, and it made her feel good. Not in the secure way that she felt when people were happy with her before. It used to make her feel like their happiness was a good thing because it meant that they weren’t angry at her. This time, she felt a sense of pride in making Peter smile at her when he looked over and saw her standing on her tiptoes to try to put the clean dishes back in the cabinet.

  Around eleven, when Peter usually started to get ready for bed on days that he didn’t work overnight, he came into Julie’s room. She was sitting on the edge of the bed reading an old issue of National Geographic that she had found in Peter’s office. It seemed like a boring thing to read at first, but she had quickly become fascinated with a story about bears living on an unpopulated island off the coast of Alaska.

  Peter sat down on the edge of the bed next to Julie. “I want you to get

ready for bed now,” he told her. His deep voice sounded so soothing when he spoke quietly.

  Normally, Julie would have immediately protested, but tonight, she wanted to listen to him. Not because she wanted to please him, but because it somehow made her feel safe. That was what it had felt like when Peter had hugged her earlier: safety. There was something exhilarating about the coldness that she felt from him when he was in his police gear and heading out to work, and she liked the person who she had gotten to know when she first moved in with him, but this was a third feeling. It was something she didn’t really understand.

  “Okay,” she told him, rising to her feet.

  Peter smiled softly. Julie thought that the few lines that aged his face had mostly been caused by frowning, and she wished that there was a way that she could change that.

  “Change into your pajamas and brush your teeth and I’ll come back to tuck you in,” he told her.

  Julie couldn’t remember a time when she had been tucked in. It seemed like a distant memory. But she wanted more from this. “Will you help me?” she asked softly.

  Peter looked taken aback. “You want me to help you get ready?”

  Julie smiled a little bit coyly, opening her eyes wide when she did. “It would just feel nice to me, that’s all. You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

  Peter didn’t say anything, but instead turned and opened her dresser, pulling out a pair of blue pajamas with pink pinstripes that he had brought back from the store for her a few days ago. He walked over to where Julie was sitting and helped her to her feet.

  Julie’s body tingled with excitement at this attention. She hadn’t been aware of it until now, but she had been craving touch for ages. She wanted to feel Peter’s strong hands on her body. She had no fear of his strength.

  “Arms up, Julie,” he instructed, his tone still comforting and secure.

  Julie raised her arms in the air, feeling a little bit gangly as she did.

  Peter gripped her sundress and gently pulled it over her head.

  She wasn’t wearing a bra. Her petite figure meant that her chest was small, and she didn’t feel that she needed one, especially when she wasn’t trying to impress anyone.

  Now, she felt a mixture of brazen excitement and a giggling, girlish shyness as she stood with her breasts on display to the sheriff. Dressed in only her black lace panties, she didn’t know if she felt shy and embarrassed or sultry and seductive. Either way, she knew she was a little aroused, but that the calming, reassuring feelings that she got from being taken care of this way were also inescapable.

  Peter gently slid her panties down to the floor. Julie stepped out of them as gracefully as she could, heat growing in between her legs. Peter said nothing, though, and simply picked up the pajama pants and helped her slide into them. Julie put her arms up to be dressed in the shirt instinctively, knowing that this was what came next. Peter slipped the top over her head.

  “Let’s go to the bathroom now,” he instructed.

  Julie wandered across the hallway with Peter following her. She stood in front of the sink and brushed her teeth as he watched with his arms folded across his chest. She then quickly washed her face, too.

  “All clean?” he asked.

  Julie nodded. “Yeah, I’m good now.”

  “Let me see,” Peter insisted.

  Julie blushed a little, but stood facing him.

  Peter studied her face closely for a moment, then gently kissed her on the nose.

  “Good girl,” he told her. “Now it’s bedtime.”

  It was much earlier than Julie normally went to sleep, but being looked after this way seemed to have tricked her body into sleepiness. She let out a yawn as she headed back to the bedroom.

  Peter pulled the white comforter back so that Julie could slip underneath it. She snuggled in, and Peter placed the downy blanket over her, gently tucking it against the sides of her body.

  “I’ll be right back,” he told her, exiting the room.

  Julie lifted the pillow to find her bear and nestled it in the crevice of her arm. She was quite certain that she looked nothing like a twenty-four-year-old right then, but that didn’t bother her. Maybe she even liked the idea a little bit.

  Peter returned with something in his hand. He walked to the other side of the room and started fiddling with the electrical socket there. “I got you this at the store this evening,” he told her tenderly.

  Julie sat up a little to look and see what he meant. He had plugged a star-shaped nightlight in for her.

  She grinned from ear to ear. “Thank you,” she squeaked out.

  Peter tousled her rosy locks. “Okay for me to try switching off the light?” he asked.

  “Yeah, it’s okay,” Julie told him.

  Peter flipped the light off.

  Julie couldn’t help but kick her feet a little when she saw what the nightlight did. It was shining stars across the ceiling and walls of the room. She shook her head back and forth with glee and giggled.

  “I take it you like it?” Peter asked with a smirk.

  “It’s the best!” Julie told him.

  Peter gave her a hug again, and Julie sank into it. “Remember,” he whispered in her ear, “nothing that hurts you or scares you is allowed in my house, and that includes in your dreams.”

  Chapter Ten

  Things had been better around the house since the day when Peter realized that Julie was afraid of the dark. He found that her habits stopped being annoying when he thought of her as a young and vulnerable girl who needed his guidance instead of as a full-fledged adult who simply couldn’t live up to her responsibilities.

  Every night now, Peter put her to bed. He tried to hide his arousal when he undressed her, but it was a challenge. His cock hardened at just the thought of her lithe, naked form. Her slightly tanned skin looked like it would be buttery smooth to the touch and when he had caught the odd glimpse of her pink pussy, it was almost too much for him. But he assumed that a girl like Julie had no interest in a man of his age, and out of respect for this, he did his best to look the other way.

  Just knowing that Julie would be there when he got home had brightened his daily routine, but knowing that, whether or not she was in a good mood that day, he’d be putting her to bed that night made things that much better.

  Peter had lived alone ever since he had moved out of his parents’ house, and he had his own apartment when he was studying in college. Although his family home had been warm and comfortable, being one of eight children had left him with a craving for a space of his own. Once he had started living that way, he had become private, almost a little reclusive. He knew it was a good thing that Julie was breaking that down. Maybe he was getting too old to keep shutting people out in the name of ‘needing space.’

  One Friday night after dinner, Julie immediately disappeared into her room instead of helping him clean up. Peter didn’t really mind, since he hadn’t made it a rule that she help him. Besides, there was no way that her good behavior was going to last. He had known that this was probably just a temporary thing.

  He sat down on the sofa and looked at a few files that he had brought home from work. There had been a few other crimes in Palm Oasis recently, unrelated to the drug problem. Three houses had been burgled not far from the town center, and he was reading the reports again to try to come up with a plan of action to catch the culprit.

  These sorts of crimes happened once in a while, Peter had learned over the years. They were usually caused by people from outside of the community who were passing through, although once in a while they came from young people who had grown up here. Discipline just wasn’t what it used to be, Peter was afraid, and people were raising the next generation without such a strong sense of right and wrong.

  He heard Julie head from her room to the bathroom and then back again two or three times, but thought nothing of it. He wondered if they needed to have more visiting days from the local officers at the Palm Oasis school maybe, so if parents weren’t instilling a strong respect for the law at home, he could at least get kids interested in taking care of their communities…

  His train of thought was interrupted by Julie quietly walking into the room. She was wearing a tiny pink party dress that she had brought with her from Crank’s apartment in her camping bag, a pair of bright green leg warmers, her clunkiest sneakers and, it seemed to Peter, every single piece of plastic jewelry that she had brought with her. He couldn’t figure out where she had found so much, even. Her arms were covered in beaded bracelets and there was a stack of necklaces around her neck. Two pacifiers hung among the beads piled on her chest.

  She had styled her hair in two poufy pink pigtails high on the top of her head and had used whatever makeup she had with her to dress up her face in neon colors. She accented her look with a few stickers on each cheek.

  Peter immediately crossed his arms across his chest sternly. “Why are you dressed like you’re going to a rave, Julie?” he asked.

  Julie shrugged. “I want to go to the foam party. It’s not fair that I can’t. I promise that I’ll be safe there. Vanessa is going and she doesn’t know Crank, so I can just hang with her and no one will notice that I’m even there.”

  Peter couldn’t help but snort. “I have a feeling that no matter where you are, someone will notice a girl dressed like that!” he told her.

  Julie stamped her foot. “Don’t make fun of me!”

  With a gentle sigh, Peter tried to calm her. “I’m not making fun of you. But the answer is still going to be no, Julie. This simply is not allowed.”

  Julie jumped up and down, her beads clanking together as she did and her pigtails bouncing comically.

  “I wanna go! It’s not fair! It’s not my fault that this happened and I shouldn’t get punished for it!” she whined.

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