BENCHED

by Abigail Graham

  I may be the biggest asshole in the Professional Football League, but I have rules, and married women are off limits. Not that she’d take me up on it.

  Why am I still thinking about her? I should be thinking about my dying career instead of the cop who slapped me with this bullshit, and her cute little nose.

  There’s nobody on the street this time of day. I’m probably lucky, or I’d get mobbed. I can’t go outside back home without fifty people trying to talk me into signing something or taking a selfie with them. I don’t get it. I run around and slam into people wearing football pads. People act like I’m the second coming because I play a game.

  At least it pays well. There’s that.

  I check my watch. Larry better hurry his ass up. I’m getting tired of waiting.

  Finally my phone rings. “You can move in tomorrow,” he tells me. “You need a ride back to the motel?”

  “No, I’ll walk it. I can find it. I told you today.”

  “The owner is out of town, sir.” He puts a harsh emphasis on the sir, like it’s a curse.

  I trudge back to the motel, as promised. I’m getting antsy. Haven’t exercised properly since I came out here to answer my summons. I make do with pushups on the motel floor, growing angrier each time my nose gets close to the old carpet. It must be from the sixties and probably hasn’t been vacuumed since then.

  I can, at least, work up a sweat. Once again, the shower switches between scalding and freezing. Oddly enough that becomes soothing. I may have to try it more often. Feels good for my muscles.

  There’s a delivery place that has fried chicken. That’s the best I can do for lean protein around here. The delivery guy seems confused by the amount that I ordered since it only appears to be one guy in the room, until he looks up at me and realizes why.

  “You’re,” he says, “You’re you.”

  “Yeah. I’m me. Here.” I feel magnanimous for the moment, so I give him a twenty dollar tip and sit to peel the crispy skin off the chicken. It’s not chain crap. It’s actually good and nice and meaty. After discarding the plate of chicken bones I leave behind, I settle in for a good nine hours of sleep.

  The next morning, Lou has made a few calls for me. The house came unfurnished, so I had him rent some stuff from a local place. No sense in buying it, I won’t be keeping it.

  As the delivery people carry it in, I stand on the front lawn and watch Larry take down the “FOR RENT” sign.

  At that moment, I hear an angry “oh my God.”

  I look over and see Officer Maguire striding across my lawn, all the cop stuff she carries on her belt jiggling with the waggle of her hips. She may look like Detective Pippi Longstocking, but at least walks like a woman.

  “What are you doing?”

  I round on her.

  “Lady, if you think you’re going to follow me around the whole time I’m stuck in this place, check yourself. I’ll have my lawyers all over you for harassing me.”

  She looks at me and blinks. “Oh.” She extends her arm and points at the house next door. “I live there. Hello, neighbor.”

  We stand and glare at each other. The effect of her harsh expression is somewhat blunted by her height. The top of her head barely reaches my chest.

  She’s in good shape, though. The stab vest she wears makes her upper body formless and flat but I can see the outlines of nice legs under her uniform trousers, and she’s got those tight muscular arms girls get when they spend a lot of time in the gym, and nice shoulders. If she let her hair down and dressed like an actual lady, she’d look halfway decent.

  “What are you looking at?” she demands.

  I extend a hand. “Hi, neighbor. Can I borrow a cup of sugar? Maybe you want to invite me in for tea.”

  She scowls. “F-”

  “Mom?” a small voice says.

  A little girl walks up to Officer Tightwad and takes her hand. She must be what, six years old? It’s hard for me to tell. I’m not big on kids. She’s about two thirds her mom’s height with the same coloring and hair, and she looks at me with wide blue-green eyes and shock on her face. Her little mouth falls open.

  “Mom? Is he…”

  I blink a few times.

  “Are you Alexander Wright?”

  “Yes,” I grunt.

  “From the Philadelphia Corsairs?”

  “Yes,” I say, a little more unsure this time.

  “Oh my God!” she shouts, darting towards me.

  “Carrie-”

  The kid throws her arms around my legs. “Ohmygodohmygodohmygod,” she chants.

  “Get it off!”

  Officer Maguire pulls her daughter back by the arms. “Carrie!” she snaps. Then she looks up at me. “My child is not an it.”

  “How are you even old enough to--”

  Her look actually shuts me up, as she rises to her feet. She is stronger than she looks, strong enough to pick up her kid in her arms.

  The little girl gazes at me with a mixture of awe, terror, and surprise. Her mom lowers her little feet to the ground.

  “Go back in the house, honey. It’s homework time.”

  “But, Mom,” she protests.

  “Stop calling me Butt Mom!”

  The girl giggles, then looks and reddens, as if embarrassed by her mom’s dirty joking in my presence. She doesn’t argue any further, but instead scampers off to run through the open front door and into her house.

  Officer Maguire turns to try to kill me with a harsh stare. “You have to pick this house.”

  “I didn’t know the bitch queen of Shitkickerville was my next door neighbor.”

  “Watch your language. My daughter could overhear you.”

  “What was that about?”

  She rolls her eyes. The gesture is actually a little cute. “She adores you. She’s a huge Corsairs fan. She even has your doll.”

  “My what?”

  “That little doll they make of you. It’s like this big,” she holds out her hands.

  “That’s an action figure.”

  “If a girl buys it,” she smirks, “it’s a doll. An Alexander Wright doll.”

  “It’s not a doll.”

  The corner of her lips twitches into a half sneer, half smirk. A little snaggletooth pokes out when she does, and something in me turns hot and wriggles in my chest. I’m suddenly looking at her in a different light. Take that stupid vest off her and she’d have a slender, athletic body that nicely fills out her uniform. My eyes keep falling to the way her handcuffs rest in a little leather pouch on her sleek hip.

  She folds her arms and cocks her head to the side.

  “Why are you eyeballing me like that?”

  “Why do you have to be so harsh all the time?”

  “Me? Oh, I’m harsh. I’m not the one who went flying past the school in the lime green death trap, jackass.”

  “If you’d just listened to me--”

  “About what? You realize my kid was there that day?”

  “What, do they have peewee cheerleaders, too?”

  She sneers at me even harder. “You’re a total jerk, you know that?”

  “That was a really cutting barb, officer smarts.”

  She rolls her eyes, so hard it makes her whole head move. “Yeah, you have a real rapier wit yourself.”

  “You’re on my lawn. You have a warrant or something?”

  “No, but I’d love to bust you for something else,” she says, stepping back onto her grass.

  “I bet you’d like me to bust something.” I grin at her.

  She snorts. “Oh, please. Waving your dick around doesn’t work any better than waving your wallet around.”

  “I wasn’t trying to bribe you. I just wanted to talk.”

  “Yeah, smooth talk your way out of a ticket after you showed complete disregard for the safety of--”

  “I’m done here,” I snap, and turn on my heel to walk away from her.

  “Hey! I was talking to you!”

  “I’m done listenin
g. Go inside and play happy homemaker. I’m sure your husband will be home soon. Do you keep the uniform on for him?”

  It’s her silence, oddly enough, that makes me turn around.

  I look back at her and see her with a horribly wounded look on her face, like she’s been physically struck. When her eyes meet mine she flinches and runs full tilt at the house, then slams the door behind her. It’s shocking how fast she can run.

  “The hell,” I mutter to myself.

  Shaking it off with a shrug, I head inside. The rent-a-room guys are done setting up and the delivery kid from the grocery store has finished stocking my pantry. I tip them all and Google the nearest gym. I have some pent up emotion to work out.

  Chapter Two

  Phoebe

  I can’t believe this.

  Of all the luck, he picks the rental next door to my house.

  “Honey, are you working on your school stuff?”

  “Yeah,” Carrie calls down from her bedroom, a note of childish reluctance in her voice.

  “Good. Mommy needs a shower and then I’ll make us something good to eat, okay?”

  “Okay,” she calls back. “I’m missing my shows.”

  I sigh. Loudly. “They’re streaming, Carrie. You can watch them after dinner.”

  “Moooooom.” She drags the word out into a lament.

  “Do your math!”

  As I head up the stairs, she calls back, “I hate math.”

  I stop at her bedroom door and lean on the frame. “Why?”

  “Well,” she shrugs, sitting at her little desk, “it’s hard.”

  “Good. The things worth doing are always hard.”

  “Why is it good that they’re hard?”

  “I don’t know, hon. Look, it can’t be that hard. Mrs. Robinson says you’re getting top marks in math.” Carrie looks at the carpet and toys with her pencil in hand. “What is it?”

  She clears her throat. “Cassidy made fun of me.”

  “What?”

  I step in and crouch next to her. “Why?”

  “I’m good at math and stuff. She said--” Carrie starts, but stops.

  “She said what?”

  “She said girls aren’t good at--”

  “Stop right there,” I tell her. “I don’t want to hear that. It’s bad enough you have to hear that crap from boys. You shouldn’t have to hear it from girls, too.” Carrie looks up and meets my eyes. “All your life, people are going to tell you that you can’t do this or that because you’re a girl, and you’re going to have to prove them wrong.”

  “You mean like you?”

  “Yeah.” I sigh. “Like me.”

  “Cassidy said something else.”

  “What?”

  Carrie looks at her feet as she swings them under her desk chair. She’s still wearing her school shoes, sneakers that light up when her heel hits the ground.

  “She said you’re a bull dyke. Her daddy says so.”

  I nod, and through some miracle keep my calm, happy mom-face on and smile at her. “I’ve heard that before, honey. It just rolls off my back. Don’t let them get to you, or they won’t stop.”

  “What does it mean?”

  “It’s just a mean thing men say about women who are too strong for them, that’s all.”

  “Why?”

  I let out a long, angry sigh. “I wish I knew. Finish up, huh? How much do you have?” She holds up her homework papers. “Not much at all. Let me get cleaned up and we’ll eat and watch something, all right?”

  Carrie nods and turns back to her work with a huff.

  I walk into my bedroom. I remove my sidearm from my duty belt, clear it, and lock it in a fingerprint-coded safe bolted down in my closet. I remove my duty belt, regular belt, and then strip off my uniform. I hang my cumbersome anti-stab vest on the rack I’ve screwed into the back wall of the closet, then pull on a loose tank top and shorts.

  I walk down to my garage, step inside, and lock Carrie out.

  I then proceed to beat the shit out of my punching bags. I throw myself at the heavy bag with punches and kicks until I’m covered in sweat from head to toe, then work on the speed bag, pummeling it until I’m exhausted, my arms drooping.

  Then I jog upstairs and lock myself in the bathroom.

  Carrie is so intent on her homework, she didn’t notice me. I start the shower and then change my mind, filling the tub with water so hot that it steams. When it’s half-full, I slip inside and let it rise around me, the heat soaking into my aching muscles.

  I spent most of the day sitting on the side of the road outside town, running the speed trap. We don’t talk about this openly, but I’m expected to get five or six good tickets. Most of the time, it’s mind numbing.

  No one listens to me, but I’m honestly sick of sitting there handing out chicken shit fines to people going ten over because the driving handbook says a two lane road with hard shoulders is a 50 mph zone, but it drops to thirty-five in town. The mayor refuses to have the bushes that hide the speed limit sign trimmed back.

  The reason why is pretty obvious. It’s my job to give out the tickets.

  I just want to forget about that, but apparently the tickets are following me home now.

  Alexander Wright. Football god. It only makes it worse that my daughter adores him. Why can’t she adore a scientist or a politician or a poet laureate or something? Why him? I’d gladly buy her all the Marie Curie action figures she could stack on her desk.

  I can’t get the image out him out of my head. He’s so… big.

  I mean, tall. Huge. Very thick. I mean muscular. He’s a large man. I swear his arms are as big around as my whole body, and I have to walk around in stacked heel boots to reach his chest with the very top of my head. Tall men have always bothered me. My father was tall.

  At least, the poster Carrie has is age appropriate. It’s just him in his football pads with a sappy grin on his face, like a trading card scaled up. I was nervous about her having a picture of a man on her wall, but she still seems innocent of that. I wonder what he’d think if he knew that his picture was next to Princess Sparkle Twilight or whatever that My Little Pony thing is.

  That puts a smile on my face. There are, ah, other pictures of him, though.

  He must have a good trainer. When I picture a linebacker, I picture a guy with a gut hanging over the top of whatever you call those football pants, but Alexander Wright is a different sort of animal. He’s solid muscle from head to toe, and damn me, even when I was very angrily writing his citation, I was picturing him with his shirt off.

  After I had the honor of writing him up for a gross traffic violation, Howard, the other cop on my shift, bought a giant beefcake poster of Alexander and hung it in the locker room.

  The Sylvester Police Department’s locker room is basically unisex. I lock the boys out when I need to use it. I’m the only woman on the force, and let’s face it, the force is the three guys and the chief, Bill Ames… and me.

  God, I need a hot bath. I let it drain a bit and turn the water on to get more heat soaking into my body. Carrie is probably totally engrossed in her homework. So this is my mommy time. I take it where I can find it.

  When I close my eyes, I can see that beefcake poster, but now I’ve seen the real thing, so I can picture him breathing, moving, turning his head to look at me.

  I’m not a robot. He’s hot.

  He doesn’t have that squashed face a lot of footballers have, either. Less Incredible Hulk and more suave seducer with full lips, a strong chin, and large piercing eyes, a slate gray color.

  Deep down, I admit I felt a little something when he propositioned me, a little flutter in my stomach. He’s so big, and it’s been a long time since anyone has looked at me in that way. I can’t tell if he was just saying it to get a rise out of me or actually hitting on me. Even the ambiguity is more than I get around here. Everyone in town just treats me like the Butch Lady Cop.

  It must be the vest I have to wear. I’m not generousl
y endowed, but it leaves me completely flat. I’m not that bad looking, am I?

  In the mirror, I see a woman pushing thirty with dark circles around her eyes from lack of sleep, a sour resting bitchface, stringy unkempt ginger hair, and outrageous freckles.

  It would be nice to be looked at by a man the way women look at Alexander Wright. Half the women in the courtroom were eye fucking him, and he didn’t even seem to notice. Then again, half of that half were meth heads there on some summons. Probably beneath his notice.

  He did keep looking at me, though.

  The fantasy creeps up on me almost before I realize it.

  The locker room is all mine, the boys are locked out so I can change. I turn around, and it’s not a beefcake poster that someone bought at Spencer’s Gifts anymore. It’s the real deal standing in all his throbbing, manly glory. Acres of muscle flexing and bunching as he moves, shining with a coating of sweat clinging to his skin in big droplets, begging to be licked off.

  I press against the lockers, feeling the cold metal against my bare back. Only then do I realize I’m topless, stripped to the waist. As he towers over me, his gaze meets mine, and I can feel him thinking about looking lower, raking my half naked body with his eyes. It sends a shiver down my legs and a hot flush rising between my thighs, and I move to fold my arms and cover myself.

  He stops me and looks down, drinking in the sight of my body as he presses my hands to the lockers. His breath is hot on my cheeks.

  “I was wondering what you were hiding under that uniform.”

  “Nothing much,” I choke out. My throat has gone dry.

  He leans toward me, his body arched hungrily, heavy muscles still slick with sweat. “I don’t think so. I like what I see.”

  “W-what’s that?”

  “Mmmm. You’ve got nice lips. I’d like to see them wrapped around my cock.”

  Back in the real world, I slip my hand between my legs and a finger inside my body. I shiver at the sensation. My mommy time has been sparse lately.