Women With Handcuffs

by Sacchi Green

  “Look,” you said. “I didn’t think it was appropriate to talk about, but you’re a graduate now.” You paused for a moment. “I know you’re a dyke, and you know that I’m one, too.”

  “How could you know a thing like that?” I said. “Do I act gay? Do I look gay?”

  You smiled, and I wanted to melt in your arms.

  “We can just tell, sometimes. I’ve seen how you look at other girls. Please, tell me if I’m wrong.”

  “You’re not,” I said. “But Amy’s not gay. We’re only friends. I am ready, though, for a real relationship. I’m eighteen. I’m ready for more adult stuff.”

  You still didn’t invite me inside. You started talking about lesbian relationships, and then you were off in lecture-land. Hope for the future. Gay marriage someday. You weren’t even looking at me. You tilted your head to the sky, and you looked at the street behind me, and you looked down at your front porch. Not at me.

  I’ve experienced agony in my life, Officer Birch, but nothing has come close to how I felt when you reached out and squeezed my shoulder, the same way my dad and uncles did. That confirmed I wasn’t special. I was just another student in the crowd. Nothing dirty or kinky was ever going to happen.

  I began to cry, slow tears at first and then an overflow. Snot dripped all over my dress. You withdrew your hand. I fished around in my purse for an envelope with Officer Birch written on the front, my Plan B.

  “There’s a letter in there for you,” I said. I handed you the envelope. “There’s also a list of my favorite movies. If you watch them and you like them, if you ever change your mind, please come and find me.”

  I wobbled back to my car, threw mom’s heels in the backseat and drove off. My parents thought I was at the lock-in, so I couldn’t go home. I knew there was a Super 8 fifteen minutes away; I got on the highway and headed east. Once I was in the room, I turned on the TV, turned down the air conditioner as far as it would go and stripped off my clothes. This time, I just pulled the covers over my head and listened to the muffled voice of a news anchor talking about a drug bust from earlier in the evening.

  Do you want to know about my life since that night, Officer Birch? Well, you don’t get to. Not now, maybe never. You can make up something if you’d like. Make me a good girl, make me a responsible adult. Make me a slut. I really don’t care.

  Twelve years. You finally came and found me. How did you track me down? If you called my parents, I’m sure they hung up on you. I guess the how doesn’t really matter. You got my email address, and you sent a one-line message with an attachment.

  The message said, “Do you still feel this way?”

  The attachment was a scanned picture of the letter from graduation night. Some of the ink was smudged, and the paper had deep creases, as if it had been folded and unfolded many times.

  I should’ve lied. I should’ve said how happy I was. I could have made up a wonderful wife and six or seven children, a family of love and a marriage of lust.

  I should’ve lied, but I didn’t. I just typed, “Yes,” and hit REPLY.

  You sent me an address in our hometown, a date and a time.

  I don’t like to wear dresses, Officer Birch, but I dug out a low-cut red one for you. I found some heels. I got a haircut. And I made the long drive home all done up. I didn’t stop to see my parents; there’s no reason to go to a place where I’m not welcome. I just headed through town and out into the country. I had a map spread out on the front seat and managed to find the correct gravel road after a couple of wrong turns.

  When I was close to the address, I heard the siren and saw the police car trailing me. I pulled over, got out and leaned against the door. When I saw you walking toward me, I was amazed at how good you looked. I was happy that the stress of being a cop hadn’t aged you prematurely.

  I didn’t know what greeting would be appropriate. A hug didn’t seem quite right. A handshake, maybe, would be better. When you reached me, you grabbed me and bent me over the hood of my car. You had me in handcuffs before I had a chance to say anything. Being cuffed with my hands behind me was not comfortable, and the metal dug in my skin when you dragged me to your car, my heels digging two jagged lines in the dirt and rocks.

  You threw me in the backseat. It was difficult to see you through the wire mesh that divided the cops and the criminals.

  “What took you so fucking long?” I said. “Twelve years? You made me wait twelve years before finding me?”

  It looked like your shoulders slumped.

  “I know,” you said. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  “Do you know what my life has been like, how lonely I’ve been? I’ve been dying for someone to come and take me away.”

  “It hasn’t been easy for me either,” you said, and I heard you sigh. “Are you with anyone?”

  “That’s none of your business. I’m here, aren’t I?”

  You pulled the car onto a bumpy side road. We went for at least a mile, and then you stopped the car and pulled me out. You led me into the woods. Branches slapped my face, and something thorny scratched my arm. We ended up at a small clearing, a square of dirt surrounded by four logs cut from very wide trees. You undid my cuffs, and I sat down on one of the logs, not caring if the bark ripped up my dress. You sat down on the other side of the square.

  I knew this was your attempt to give me what I wanted. From the way you set up the entire encounter, I could tell you had watched the tapes. You were planning something similar, but I wasn’t going to do anything until you answered my question.

  “Did you know why I was at your door?” I said. “Before I gave you the letter. Did you know?”

  “I don’t want to talk about that right now.”

  “You don’t want to talk about it?”

  I should explain that the reason I yelled, “You fucking asshole!” and started toward you was to punch you in the face. I have never punched anyone before, but I was ready. You didn’t want to talk about the defining moment of my life? You didn’t want to give me any answers after waiting more than a decade to find me? How selfish, how awful a person could you be?

  I made it halfway across the square. My right hand was balled into a fist, but then I looked at you. At your face, fighting back tears but not succeeding, your hand holding a folded-up piece of paper that could only be my letter.

  I looked at your badge, still shiny. Your uniform, still spotless. The model cop. The perfect school resource officer. The woman who saved me from being bullied.

  The cop who would never, ever let herself be attracted to a student, even if the student was a legal adult. The cop who would never give in, no matter what.

  The woman who still wondered, even though so much time had passed, even though we were only a few years apart in age, if what she felt was wrong.

  I dropped my fist and went to you. I removed your cap to find a perfectly formed flattop, sides and back shaved to the skin. I kneeled on the ground, grabbed your cheeks and I kissed you. On graduation night, I was certain our first kiss would be rough, maybe painful. This was a gentle kiss, sweet, not angry. I put my anger aside for the rest of that afternoon.

  “I can’t, I can’t be like you want, not right now, not today,” you said. “I had it all planned out so well. I can be hard, I promise, just like the videos, but…”

  “Get up,” I said.

  You stood. I traced my index finger up and down your zipper and around the outline of the dick you packed especially for me. I pulled down the zipper, and I pulled your cock out through the hole in your men’s briefs.

  Your dick was so wonderful in my mouth, Officer Birch. It was warm, and my spit made it slippery so that it slid through my lips with ease. Your hands touched my head, guiding me to blow you the way you liked. Your mouth made a noise that was a cross between a moan and a growl.

  With my index finger, I found my way behind the harness to your pussy. I knew that touching it might offend you. It had offended some of my butch lovers in the past. That
day, I did it anyway. I rubbed your clit with my finger in a circular motion, then rubbed it between my finger and thumb. Every time I added pressure, you shuddered. When I took your dick out of my mouth and concentrated on you, putting the tips of my fingers inside your pussy, you shuddered even more.

  But that wasn’t what I wanted. I needed something else. I kicked off my shoes, pulled my dress over my head and literally ripped off my panties.

  “Fuck me,” I said. “Right now.”

  You were on top of me immediately. You kissed my mouth, my neck, and you nibbled on both ears. Then, you stuck your cock inside of me. You moved your hips in just the right way, putting it all the way in and then pulling it out so just the tip was inside.

  You were fully clothed, and I loved that your body was still a mystery. Your badge cut me on my left breast; there’s a sharp point somewhere on the shield that cut me and kept digging into me, but you didn’t notice. The more it cut me, the more I wanted the pain. I wanted to bleed out everything inside of me and replace it with that feeling.

  Right when I was about to come, you pulled out and rolled me over in the dirt.

  “Get on all fours,” you said. “Ass in the air.”

  That’s what I had been waiting for all this time, Officer Birch. I did as I was told. I was scared, but I was so proud that I was able to take your entire cock inside my asshole. You didn’t have to nudge it in. I took the whole thing right away.

  You started growling loudly, and I felt like I was floating. I reached down and rubbed my clit. You pounded me so many times, more than I ever imagined I could take.

  When I came, I screamed. You went on for a couple of seconds, but then you stopped, and I collapsed. Dirt got in my fingernails, in my mouth and ears, in my pussy. I rolled around on the ground because I was still coming down. I ended up caked in dirt.

  You stood over me and grinned. You unbuckled your belt, and you maneuvered your dick through your pants as you took them off. You removed your underwear, your uniform top, your undershirt and your sports bra. Finally, you removed your dick.

  “This is me,” you said. “This is all of me.”

  Your arms were so muscular, your legs and your pussy so hairy. You looked like a sculpture, the perfect body carved out of wood.

  I pounced on you. I wanted to devour you. I didn’t have a strap-on, but I had fingers and a tongue and toes. You let me fuck you even though my body was filthy. You let me give you pleasure, and you came quickly, a lot quicker than I did. I felt bad that I couldn’t make it last longer.

  Or, is it something else? Do you allow yourself pleasure, Officer Birch? I’m not talking about masturbation or sex. I’m talking about letting down your guard for actual pleasure, for true desire. I don’t let my guard down either, at least not very often. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. You looked ashamed after your orgasm, after you squirted on the ground, making a small mark of mud. But, it’s okay, Officer Birch. It really is.

  “I’m sorry,” you said. “I wanted to give you…”

  “Shut up,” I said. I kissed you, and I let you hold me, but I really didn’t want a lecture. I think we’re past that now.

  So here we are, Officer Birch. Was this a one-time thing? The start of something everlasting? Will I ever see you again? I’ve given you my address and phone number. You haven’t moved so I know where you live.

  Can we build something out of this, or should this be the end of the story? I don’t know. I’m not sure if I should make the next move, or if it’s your turn. I’m still not very good at this.

  There is one final thing I think I should share with you. Actually, I want to share it with you. It was scary and sad at the time, but it happened and it’s part of my life. Maybe sharing will help us answer these questions.

  This is an excerpt from my journal, from after my junior year of college when I was home for the summer:

  I forgot to close the lock on my fire safe. Mom found all of it, the old VHS tapes and the new DVD that shipped right before I moved back.

  “Are you a dyke?” she asked me. I had just come home from work to find her sitting on my bed, crying, with porn sprawled all over the comforter.

  “Why are you going through my personal stuff?”

  “Just tell me, damn it. Are you a fucking dyke?”

  “Yes!” I screamed. “Couldn’t you tell? Didn’t you wonder why I’ve never had a real boyfriend? I’m not that ugly. Some girls up at school even like me.”

  “Shut up,” she said. “Just shut up. I’m so disgusted right now, I don’t know what to think.”

  “Are you going to kick me out? Make me leave, another gay runaway living on the streets?”

  She had stopped crying by this point, but she didn’t answer my question. “These tapes…”

  “You don’t bring up the tapes, and I won’t ask what you and Dad are into, okay? You know Dad has porn. I know where he keeps it.”

  “What are we going to do?” she said. “Do people know? You can’t tell anyone we know.”

  “I’m out at school. I know how to tell people, and I don’t really care what they think. I definitely don’t care if it embarrasses you.” I said that last part just to be mean. I wish I hadn’t said it.

  “All right,” she said, “I know you think you understand things. But a woman is not supposed to love another woman. Two women cannot actually be in love.”

  “You’re wrong,” I said. Now I started crying, but I kept talking, and my voice kept getting louder. “I do love another woman. I’ve been in love with Officer Birch for four years now. I love her so much it hurts. And I’ll never, ever have her. I tried once, and I failed.”

  “It will pass,” Mom said. “It was just a crush. In a while, you won’t even remember her name.”

  “It won’t pass,” I said. I dried my eyes, and I looked directly at my mother. “My love for her will never go away. I wish it would. I’ve tried to make it stop, but I can’t. I just can’t do it. I need her.”

  RAVEN BRINGS THE LIGHT

  Kenzie Mathews

  Thomasane didn’t want to talk about it when she finally came home, but I’d been watching the news. I find monotones soothing when grading the kids’ papers. I like white noise in the background while I think. According to the news report, the body found in the abandoned Toyota Corolla had been identified as Libby Shields. I stopped grading the minute the newscaster said her name.

  I remembered the girl: pretty, thin, elfishly punk with her facial piercings. She’d come to my class a few times to pick up her younger brother’s art homework. Once, she’d asked me about Van Gogh. Why was he so important now, when in his time, he’d been a freak? I don’t remember now what I said, but it made her smile. Sad, soft, fleeting.

  I watched the news now, thinking of that smile.

  Last October, twenty-year-old Libby Shields left her house with just the clothes on her back. Her mother thought she might come home once Libby realized she’d left behind her purse and driver’s license. They’d argued before and Libby always came back once she cooled off. The night turned into weeks, and then months. And then it was April with the snow and ice breaking up under the weight of long fierce sunlight.

  Come breakup, everything hidden rises up.

  A man jogging on the highway followed his dog to an abandoned car. The Labrador went crazy, pawing wildly at the window on the passenger side. The jogger came closer when the smell overwhelmed him. Sweet as old perfume, thick as smoke, it made him choke and gag. Covering his mouth and nose with his elbow, he peered in. At first he thought the car had to be filled with rotten fish or rancid moose roadkill. But the slight shape hidden beneath a gray military parka was too big to be an ice chest of fish, too small to be moose. His dog knew already and barked nonstop.

  The jogger called the troopers on his cell, occasionally waving his arms at the passing cars. It was ironic in a way; the highway was always busy as it connected several small communities to a major city. Even in the dead of winter, the highway
was heavily policed and populated. And yet, here Libby was, hidden in a Toyota Corolla, buried by snow for six months.

  The only thing Alaska promises for sure is a beautiful death.

  Thomasane and her partner Brady were the first Troopers on scene. And I know that it’s not because Thomasane is some super trooper, even though she is…it’s just that it’s all small-town out here. We’re such a small collection of communities, we only have four pairs of Troopers. But the territory they cover is vast.

  So, now when Thomasane said instead, “Chris, did I ever tell you about Raven and the Hunters?” I said no, even though I’m pretty sure I told her that story first.

  I put down my graded papers, pushing the dogs off the couch to make room for Thomasane. They settled on the floor, one on each side of me. My Chow Shepherd mix, Raulie, sat on my left. Ginger, the Labrador Rottweiler mix, lay down next to my right side.

  Thomasane unbuckled her gun belt and hung it on the coatrack next to the front door. She covered it with her brown Alaska State Trooper jacket. I patted the couch beside me and gave her my best and campiest come-hither look; I’m terrible at flirting, but I cover my inadequacies with self-mocking overexaggeration. Thomasane said once when we were first dating that clowns were holy. That’s funny to me, because I think clowns are terrifying. What are they really thinking behind the makeup and costumes?

  Either way, Thomasane thinks I’m funny. I guess it all works out in the end. In Thomasane’s family, no one ever dared to laugh or smile, much less talk. Even now, when her family calls, I know who it is based on the silence and breathing at the other end of the phone. Thomasane’s half Russian, a quarter Norwegian, and a quarter Native. She’s tall, dark and muscular, her blue-black shoulder length hair always pulled back tight in a ponytail, her black eyes unreadable.

  In my family, all we did was laugh, even when the joke hurt. It stopped us from killing each other or committing suicide. I’m all Irish: short with curves and pale, with embarrassingly uncontrollable reddish brown hair.