Tales of River City

by Frank Zafiro

  “I can’t stop him if I don’t know who he is,” I said, trying to keep the frustration out my voice. “I’m not even sure if he’s a city officer or not. He could be a county deputy.”

  She took a deep breath and let it, slow and wavering. “What if you watch out for me?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What if you watch out for me? Like, stakeout my house or something. If you catch him doing it, then I wouldn’t feel so bad.”

  I shook my head. “This guy is stalking you. Just tell me who he is.”

  She ignored my statement. “He said he’d deny the whole thing if I ever told anyone. That’s another reason why…why I want you to see it.”

  “Just give me his name.”

  “No. Not yet. I might…might be over-reacting. And he might have a family. I don’t want to be responsible for ruining his life.” Her eyes frantically scanned my office.

  “Carie,” I said, leaning forward and catching her eye. “If he’s stalking you, he’s ruining your life right now, isn’t he?”

  She shrugged and looked away. She started to say something but stopped. I thought I knew what it was she wanted to say, though.

  I don’t matter.

  But you do! I wanted to yell at her. I knew that would only make it worse, that it would push her away, so I said nothing.

  We sat in silence. Finally, I asked her, “You’re the victim here. How do you want to proceed?”

  She looked up, her doe eyes radiating fear, panic and seduction. “Would you…just watch my house a little? It’d make me feel safe.”

  “Okay. But only if you’ll do two things for me.” Of course, I knew that I’d do what she asked anyway, but I had to try to help her to help herself.

  “What things?”

  “First, start saving the phone messages that come in. Do you have an answering machine that using tape?”

  She shook her head. “No. It’s digital.”

  I opened my desk and took out one of the small dictation recorders I had in the bottom drawer, along with a new mini-cassette and handed them to her.

  “Record them onto this tape. Make sure you include the time and date stamp if the answering machine has one. Otherwise, just say what the time and date of the message is before pushing the play button on the answering machine.”

  She nodded and held the mine-recorder to her body, nestled beneath her breasts. “What’s the second thing?”

  “Call me,” I said.

  Her eyebrows raised questioningly.

  “If he shows up outside your house or outside your office, then call me,” I explained. “I’ll be there as quickly as I can.”

  She nodded. “Okay, I will.”

  “That’s if he’s just watching you. If anything else happens, you call 911 right away and report a DV stalking.”

  Her face pinched and she gave a small shake, “I don’t want to get—”

  “Carie, if he tries to break into your house or attack you, it has gone beyond what you’re talking about. At that point, it’s gone too far and the police need to become involved.” I stared hard at her. “Your safety is the number one concern here.”

  The tears appeared in her eyes again, but she wiped them away before they could tumble down her cheeks, nodding as she did so. “Thank you,” she whispered, and stood up.

  “I’d like to get some more information,” I said, but I kept my voice soft so that she didn’t cry anymore.

  “I’m just on a break,” she said, “and I have to work through lunch today.”

  “Okay.”

  “I can…I can come back tomorrow, if you want.” She looked at me, then looked away quickly.

  “I do,” I said. “In the meantime, call if he comes near you. And tape the phone messages.”

  She walked toward the door. I rose and walked with her. As we approached the door, she stopped suddenly and turned into me. Her arms wrapped around me before I could even think and she squeezed me tight. She buried her face in my neck and her breasts flattened against my body. I could feel her heat and her smell was intoxicating. I was immediately hard.

  “Thank you,” she whispered, but her voice had a husky rasp to it.

  My arms, which had opened up in surprise when she latched onto me, slid around her shoulders with a mind of their own. I gave her shoulder blade a small rub and then patted it. “It’ll be all right,” I whispered back, wondering if she could feel my erection against her belly.

  She nodded, not releasing me from her clutching embrace. “I know,” she whispered.

  We stood there for what could have been ten seconds or ten hours before she pulled away, whispered “thanks” and slipped out the door.

  That night, after watching a re-run of Touched By An Angel, I tried to make love to Marianne, but she whispered that she was tired and “on my special time.” She pushed my hands away and gave me her back. Five minutes later, she was asleep and snoring lightly.

  I lay next to her, my cock so hard that it hurt and I thought about masturbating for the first time in decades. But I didn’t want to debase myself, and besides, this erection belonged to someone else.

  Sleep came. Eventually.

  “No calls?”

  She shook her head.

  “Is that normal?”

  She shrugged. “Sometimes he goes a day or two. I think it’s when he’s mad at me.”

  “Carie,” I said, “what color uniform does this officer wear? Is it green or blue?”

  She squirmed, avoiding my gaze. “Blue,” she said finally.

  That meant he was a city officer. That at least told me that I had jurisdiction, and I was glad for that. If it had been a deputy, I would have had to call their IA office and turn over the investigation to them. I didn’t want to do that. For one, they are a bunch of good old boys over there and the IA office should be called the “cover it up and make it go away” office. And secondly…there was her.

  “Have you watched my house?” she asked.

  I had. I’d sat up the street from her small house for an hour that morning and seen nothing other than her leaving for work. She’d worn a long gray blouse over the top of a gray skirt. The skirt was tight and I’d admired the curve of her hips from my car as she walked to her car in the morning light.

  “Yeah,” I answered, “but I didn’t see anything.”

  She smiled, but said nothing.

  “What are you smiling about?”

  She shook her head. “I’ll tell you later.”

  “Tell me now,” I said lightly.

  “Nope.” She stood up and moved to the middle of the room. “I want to show you something, though.”

  “What?”

  She motioned to me to join her.

  I stood and walked to her, curious and a little excited. “What?”

  She pressed her lips together and swallowed. Her exhale had a catch in it. “I…want to show what he did to me the last time we were together.”

  My mind raced and I immediately pictured her naked, with sweat on her upper lip and her eyes half-open.

  “What did he do?” I asked, my voice breaking.

  She reached out with her right hand and grasped my throat softly.

  My eyes widened.

  She gave a slow nod. “That’s not all,” she said, and then reached out with her left and tried to grab onto the hair at base of my neck. The short hairs weren’t long enough to grip, but they bristled under her fingers. She settled for laying her palm across my neck.

  “Did he hurt you?” I croaked.

  “A little.”

  “That’s assault,” I whispered. “We can’t let that stand. We have to—”

  “He told me to try to get away,” she said, her voice like velvet. “But I couldn’t break his grip. I felt that if I could, I could escape him completely.”

  I swallowed. Her fingers remained firmly on my throat, each fingertip a point of fire. The hand on my neck stroked my skin lightly.

  “How would you get out of this
hold, Alan?” she asked me, her eyes boring into mine, full of need and seduction and crisis.

  “I…wouldn’t want to,” I admitted in a whisper.

  She nodded her head and I found myself nodding mine. Her right hand slid away from my throat and rested on my chest. Her nails bit into me through my uniform shirt. She drew my head forward and stepped closer to me. The heat of her body enveloped me as her breasts pressed into my body. The invitation in her eyes was unmistakable. It was a hungry look, a look of deep need. Her hand slipped around to the small of my back and then my mouth was on hers, kissing her deeply, ferociously, feeling the fire whipping through our lips and probing tongues. I drew air in through my nostrils in deep gusts, my heart pounding and my legs quivering.

  A moan escaped her mouth and I captured it in mine. Her nails raked up and down my back.

  “Oh, God,” she said in a pant, when I broke away from her mouth and kissed her neck. She gave soft moans, telling me how sensitive she was there. I could feel her whole body quivering as she pressed it against me. “Oh, God, you feel so good,” she said in my ear, her hot breath punctuating each word.

  She pushed me back suddenly, her strength surprising me. I staggered backward into my desk, my arms still outstretched as if holding onto a ghost.

  I looked at her in surprise and wonder. “Wha—?”

  She smiled then, a savage smile that had none of the weakness of prey that she’d shown before. This smile was triumphant.

  She stepped toward me, unbuttoning her blouse and letting it fall away. Her bosom strained against the tan bra and she undid the clasp between them, setting free the most beautiful pair of breasts I’d ever seen, or even imagined. They dropped a fraction of an inch when released from the bra and the way they hung and swayed when she stepped in tight to me told me they were also perfectly natural.

  She kissed me again, hard and quick, then pulled her head back. Her breasts ground into my chest. Her head drifted down and in another moment she had my zipper open and pulled my cock out of my uniform pants. Wet warmth surrounded it a moment later and I let out a long, low groan. She used her mouth expertly, almost as if she were kissing me down there the way she’d kissed my mouth a few moments ago.

  I ran my hands through her hair as her head bobbed slowly below my belt. After less than thirty seconds, I felt the back of my legs beginning to stiffen. I tried to will it down, tried to think of the most sterile things I could, but the feel of her mouth and tongue swirling around my cock and the soft feel of her hair was too great.

  The orgasm welled up and washed over me, forcing a series of short guttural yelps out of my throat. She didn’t stop or change her motion even slightly, working her jaw and lips and mouth and tongue together and every moment that I came was harder than the last.

  When it ended, I sat gasping on the edge of the desk. She sucked gently on me for a few more long moments, just enough to feel good but not too hard to overwhelm the tenderness. Then she slid up my body again and put her forehead next to mine.

  “Are you finished?” she asked me, her voice brimming with passion.

  My cock remained rock hard, showing no sign of diminishing. I couldn’t speak so I shook my head.

  “Good.” She hiked her skirt up above her waist and I saw that wore a garter but no panties.

  She kissed me again then, and I could taste a tang in her mouth and knew it was me, but I didn’t care. I just wanted her again.

  She pushed me back, until I was sitting firmly on the desk. She straddled my lap and guided me inside her. We both moaned as I slipped deep into her. Her warmth was even greater there than in her mouth.

  Her lips and tongue sought out mine and she began to rock ferociously, her heels wrapping around hooking into the small of my back. A low moan began deep in her throat and built slowly.

  My God, I thought. I am fucking a receptionist on the desk of my office. What am I doing?

  Then she came and I came again and for a long time, maybe forever, I lost all sight of everything except her.

  Afterward, she clung to me for a long while, rocking gently. Her hands caressed the back of my neck and she cooed softly with each exhale of breath. I remained stock-still, taking in the smell of her hair, her skin and our sex.

  “Do you know what I was going to tell you before?” she whispered.

  “When?” I grunted.

  “Before. When you asked me why I was smiling.”

  “Mmmm,” I answered. “What?”

  She smiled and I felt her cheeks rise against mine. “I was going to tell you that it made me feel safe to know that you were watching my house.” She gave me a hard squeeze with her arms, her legs, her whole body. “Very safe.”

  When she left that day, I sat and thought about what had happened. I tried to analyze it. I tried to deny it. But mostly I tried to relive it and found myself growing hard again.

  Before I went home, I walked across the cul-de-sac to the main building and took a shower in the locker room. There was always a hushing sound as I walked past the officers changing their clothes. Some gave me a practiced courtesy nod. One or two flashed a look of contempt my way. Most, however, merely pretended I wasn’t there.

  The shower was hot. I scrubbed myself from head to toe and stood beneath the shower head for a good long while. When I left, I didn’t have any vestige of our encounter left on my body and I was wearing a brand new uniform, but I felt anything but clean.

  If Marianne noticed me wearing a fresh uniform home, she didn’t mention it. She knew I sometimes worked in the field, tailing officers. Surveillance sometimes led me to dirty places.

  We sat on the couch, an empty cushion between us as we watched a re-run of Magnum, P.I. I glanced over at her breasts twice during the show and during a commercial, I almost leaned over and began kissing her. But if she’d refused me, I couldn’t have handled the unspent erection, so I did nothing. An hour later, when we went to bed, so did she.

  A week later, I asked her, “How did you meet him?”

  She was fixing her hair after slipping the sweater over her head and ignored me for a moment. The scent of our sex hung in the air like an exclamation mark melting into a period.

  I repeated my question.

  “I heard you,” she said. “Why do you ask? Are you jealous?”

  I shook my head. “No,” I said, more harshly than I intended. My jaw was clenched and I forced myself to loosen it. “I just wondered.”

  “In the elevator, if you must know,” she said.

  “In this building?”

  She nodded, distracted by her hair.

  “Carie, how many days since he’s called?”

  A shadow fell over her face. She stood and smoothed her skirt with the palms of her hands. I imagined doing the same myself to her breasts.

  “What is it?” I asked. “Has he called again?”

  She nodded, her chin quivering. The fragile look was back in her eyes.

  “Last night,” she muttered and looked up at me. “You couldn’t tell by the way I made love to you?”

  I shook my head. “Baby,” I said, “you’re like a freight train every time.”

  A ghost of a smile crossed her lips and was gone. “He called and said he couldn’t live without me.”

  My brow furrowed. “Did he sound…desperate?”

  “Yes.”

  “Suicidal?”

  She shrugged.

  “Carie, if he’s suicidal, you’ve got to tell me who he is. Not only to keep him from hurting himself, but for your safety, too. He’s got a gun. And if he thinks he’s got nothing to lose—”

  “How did you get this job?” she asked, interrupting me with soft tones. She finished with her hair and leaned into me. Her breasts pressed lightly against my chest and her face was only a few inches away.

  Being interrupted has always bothered me, even infuriated me, but with her, it was a kiss instead of a handshake. She brushed away our entire conversation that easily, with a single question.

&
nbsp; “As a cop? I took the test and—”

  “No,” she purred, leaning the rest of the way into me and kissing my neck. “The job here. In this office.”

  I thought about how to answer that one. There were a dozen answers, but none of them told the complete story. Not about the troubles I had on patrol, the hatred I engendered by having standards that men did not want to meet, the insubordination I faced every shift, the fact that by the end of my tour in patrol, I was essentially spending most of my time fielding complaints from citizens anyway because the troops had stopped listening to me. I couldn’t tell her that, any more than I could tell her that the Chief told me the troops needed a fresh face and that they’d lost respect for me because of some of my decisions. I couldn’t tell her how much I hated them and hated him for kowtowing to them simply because they were the rank and file majority. A leader doesn’t conform to his men. He forces the men to conform to him. That is leadership. But I couldn’t tell her that. And surprisingly enough, I couldn’t bring myself to tell her how great her nipples felt when they were against my tongue or how I was already growing hard and wanting her again and again…

  I flailed around inside my head for a while, thinking of which inadequate answer to use while her warmth breath plumed out onto my neck.

  Finally, I said, “I guess I was just the best man for the job.”

  It came out sounding lame, but she let out a satisfied sigh as soon as I said it. “In more ways than one,” she said, and suddenly it was okay.

  Her hand traced the line of my jaw and stopped at my chin. “Will you make love to me at my house? In my bed, Alan?”

  A little bit at a time, I started to solve her mystery. He called a few times a week, sometimes lovelorn, sometimes angry and she said that she recorded all of the calls. I asked her to bring the tape in but she refused. She still protected his identity and said she would until it became necessary to stop. But he didn’t seem to escalate and may even have begun to taper off a bit. She said she hadn’t seen him outside her home or workplace in a while, so that was good news. Usually stalking cases get worse as time goes on, not better.