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Blue Lights, Pulsing I don't need to hear the siren. It's the blue lights, pulsing against a darkening sky, that start the trembling. It's always been that way. I wasn't going all that fast. I never do, not down here. I like to linger on the long, low bridge over the river, to see how the wide water catches the light today, to sniff the faintest tang of salt, to watch the black cormorants wheel and dive. It was when I went away from that I got lost. Sometimes I think I'll never go away again. The cop took his own sweet time, I have to say. In the mirror, I could see him bend his head, jot a note. I saw him, radio held close to mouth, call in -- to run the plate, maybe, get this over with? Or just to tell the dispatcher where he was, to drag an end-of-shift traffic stop out just long enough so he could sign off a little early and head towards home? I had a feeling this would get a little complicated, take a while. Last too long. Good things never do. The drive over the Rappahannock has to end, no matter how long the bridge seems once you've started across, how much you let the gas pedal slide along the sole of your shoe. The diving birds come up for air. Even down here where folks move slow, to savor the evening glow, an oft-told story, the slap of water on the shore. Even down here, bad things dawdle. Good ones race. I watched the cop slowly push open his door, stand, stretch. Snap creases in gray shirt, brush something from his shoulder, take his broad-brimmed hat, set it just so. He looked both ways for the traffic that was never there, never on this road, and walked towards me. Usually, we like to think we pass. I tell myself I do, that I can toy with cloth and color, that brush and bra can make the change. Back in the days when I would stop at bars I'd had a friend who'd gently hint that it's not so easy to slip over the border I had crossed. You know the one. My friend would try to say "slow down, don't try so hard" -- for I have a certain manner once I cross, a way I toy with words, as aimlessly as I pluck at a dress's hem, or wrap a strand of hair around a finger -- that is to say not aimlessly at all, for these are gestures I have studied, learned from those who were born to make them. My friend would say: Though you ramble on, though you can try to lose yourself in a web of words, you cannot hide. Not really. Usually, I think he's wrong. Usually, I like to think I pass OK. I need to think so. "License and registration, please," the cop's voice is flat, his wall against the world. In his "i", there's that mountain country dragging out, like a little boy going "ah" for the doctor or like what you say when (later than it should) the truth suddenly dawns. He's not from here. The State Police don't like to post you where you're from, not right at first. Helps them keep apart from all the rest of us, like that unreadable stare, the one they learn down in Richmond, at the academy. It's getting dark, he hasn't flicked his flashlight on. I tried, as he was fussing in his car, to tug my coat in place so that the curves I'd tried so hard to make look right would now not be quite so obvious to see. So that soft cloth, a texture and a color men would never wear, was covered, would not help give me away. I hunched low to tuck shaved legs out of easy sight, hoping dim light would make it hard to read my face or notice faded lipstick, hastily if not quite completely wiped off on a coat sleeve. It's just a little letter, small as the "n" or "v" that follows a word you just looked up in the dictionary. It's right in the middle, after height and weight, printed atop the figure on the state seal, right where, for those of us who think she is a woman, she bares her breast. It is the letter "m". It's the letter on the license he holds in his hand. The license that he hasn't glanced at yet. He asked, just like they always do, if I knew how fast I had been going. I answered the question the way I always do -- whether to a cop who's pulled me or to a stranger in bar -- with a lie. I didn't catch if he said "m'am" or "sir", the way they're taught to. From the corner of my eye, I saw him glance down at my license, glance back. No reaction. But he saw the flash of gold in the mess I'd spilled from my purse on the seat, and asked, just as he had to, I suppose. I passed the fake- leather wallet over: special deputy's badge, a courtesy from long ago, from cops I'd known and traded favors with, something meaningless that just might help in case I'd ever roust a bail-jumper dumb enough to think he had to come with me. I never had. I kept my P.I. license with it, tucked behind a clear plastic window, for all the good it'd ever done me. It'd be another month or two until I had to pay my fee. I hadn't yet decided if I'd bother. For now, though, it meant a hint of hope: If things went a likely way, maybe I could say that I was undercover. Maybe he'd believe me. Maybe. He took them all -- license, registration, badge-wallet -- back to his cruiser. All I could do was wait. And worry. In the bars, back in the days when I would go, when I brushed off the guys who want what I was not ready yet to give and the guys that I was pretty sure just wanted to take it, I heard the tales of moments just like this. Lonely road. Discovery. And always an angry man. Always. I used to wonder why sometimes: why always anger, why do we always warn of anger, why do we seem to need to feel the fear, the shivering that exposure brings. Why is it, when the blue lights pulse, do we think trouble's coming and not that rescue's on the way? True stories, false: all these angry men? Stories that we need somehow. Maybe to feed a love of thrills that makes us do these things, walk these walks, dressed this way -- thrills, those to come, those we hope will come. Thrills that if we can't grasp for ourselves, we'll let other people tell us of. The spice of fear. It goes with the hunger, somehow. Maybe makes the meal go down. It gets so that you ask if fear, if hunger is the price you have to pay, to step across to the other side. If they are what you tug so carefully into place, sometime between hooking a bra shut, pulling a slip over your head. He's walking back now, I see him in the mirror. I can't read his face. My heart is racing, breath short. Whatever's going to happen, 's going to happen. He stands, in exactly the approved manner, just behind the handle of the door. It makes him seem to loom, to see him I must crane myself around, shift awkwardly. I don't. Most people don't. That's why the lecture always seems to come as you stare down, like a child, in shame. "This IS your license?" I nod. I do not trust my voice. I cannot look at him. I hear him tap the plastic on the metal of his clipboard. He's not writing, no tiny grunt of held breath released, another box filled in, decision: Call it 14 mph over, maybe go to court? Save the hassle, call it 9? This going on too long. He's playing. I'm sure he is about to ask me to step out, but he's not moving. I can't open the door unless he does. I do not sense him tense, don't hear the brush of leather sleeve on coat that says: my hand is on the pepper spray, the flashlight. My 45. "This IS your address?" he asks at last. I nod again. Try not to think about the little jail, up in Saluda. Bunkbeds in the corridors, 30 guys in each tank. The hot-pink paint in the two nut cells -- I guessed that's where they'd stash me, unless Elton'd been drunk and yelling at the judge again. 100 men in jail meant for 45. I'm not sure there was a law against what I'd been doing, not even in Virginia. But I'm pretty sure of the judges hereabouts. They don't always read the same lawbook that I once had to learn. I'm pretty sure, too, there'd be a classmate or two or three from high school sleeping there tonight. Nice reunion, that'd be. But that's the kind of thing that happens next, you get a cop and someone in my situation. Try not to think, the other possibility. Long walk to woods. Kneel... The cop grunts softly. Then just quiet breathing. His. Mine. We must have stayed like that at least another minute, saying nothing. Nothing. Just the sound of shallow breathing. Just the nighthawks in the trees beyond the cornfield. "Lighten up, on the pedal," he finally says. "Gwan. You're almost home. Just slow down. Don't want to have to pick up the pieces, you get careless someday." *** I live down a one lane road, a mile from the highway. On the way, you'll see mostly woodlots full of trees, what people here call their retirement accounts: turn 65, let the logger haul 'em all away down to the pulp mill. Just before you get to my place, you pass a field full of winter wheat drying in the sun. I like to walk out to middle, my skirt brushing the heavy heads, listening as the breeze washes over, making brown waves ripple. No one can see me. Not quite the ocean and the beach, but things didn't work out down there the way I'd hoped. The road goes nowhere. It's private. I can be just what I want. Go outside, if I chose. No one to see. It's only lately, I've started driving, too. I guess I'm trying to find my back to world. Not too fast, though. I didn't venture from the house for many weeks when I first came back - - it's the old cross-roads store, three rooms behind, that Grandpa used to run, where my dad had grown up, before they built the house down by the highway. The road I live on ended at a ferry landing, when the ferry stopped running, so did the store. I had a lot to do, to fix it up. I kept so busy, I didn't even try to cross over, not at first. I told myself that it was wrong. I didn't need to, shouldn't want to. Wouldn't. Shouldn't. Did. I told myself it'd been just a kind of breakdown. That things just kind of fell apart on me, down by the shore. A case took me to Norfolk, a runaway. I blew it. There was someone ... I thought I'd found something that I'd been looking for. Turned out, I didn't. He told me he was tired of watching me fighting with myself. Accept it, he said. You are a ... So I fled home. Home. Where I'm on my own. No one to see, no one to care. No one to hold, no one to try to hold me where I'm not ready to be held. Where I practice what I want to be. Where no one will snicker when my heels trip me, laugh when the colors do not work, the clothes fit wrong. Where only I know what's in the mail-order boxes. Where I don't need a visa, not to cross that border, travel on the other side a while. Home. Where no one ever comes. And where now someone's knocking at my door. I look -- because, well, no one should see me now. I'm never all that fancy. But it is a dress. That is lipstick, a brush of pink on cheeks. Those are heels. Those are nylons. I tiptoe to the big window where Grandpa used to pile the best things from the Norfolk steamer, long ago. It's night, I keep the curtains drawn just to be sure, although I know no one will pass by here. I'm careful, too. Draw them tight, I don't think there's a light to see. Or sound to hear. I peek out, as knuckles rap the door again. It's the cop. He's alone, at least. As far as I can see. Just his car. Blue lights dark, but parked next to mine -- he'll know I'm here. But nothing else. If someone's with him, as the manual says there ought to be, it'd be a long walk through the wheat. I see no sign of broken stalks. If no- one's with him, as there should be when you going after someone in their home (no bolting out the back door with these guys), maybe it won't be so bad. Except, of course, for the fact, the inescapable fact, that he is here. Knocking. I've got to let him in. He moves quietly, self-assured, through the doorway, looking around the way cops do, scanning corners, noting doors and windows, taking stock. Nods, like someone back at grandma's place, first time in years, remembering the old, familiar things: Oh that, I'd always liked that. And that, yes I remember. Yes, I do. It's like he's prowling in my home. Like it is his. I'm trembling again. No siren. No blue light. But I'm trembling, watching him -- watching him stripping my refuge bare, the cozy yellow lamplight, soft old furniture worn into comfort, familiar books, favorite pictures. It's like he's chewed them all up, leave them all emptied. I watch his eyes ravage my home. Fear what it may be the prelude to. His eyes circle back to me, run up and down. He's got to see, he's got to know. I try to read his face, but can't. "May I?" His voice low, he gestures at the low, overstuffed chair I keep before the window and sits before I can reply. "Please," he says. Open hand gestures towards my couch. I drape myself carefully, knees pressed tight. I try to tug the hem over my knees, but the skirt's not quite long enough. I see him staring at my legs. It's been a week, two since he stopped me. I can't imagine -- no, I'm afraid I can -- what he wants here. I'm scared. Whatever I have done before, whenever, whoever I held to me -- not many, not none -- I have done willingly. I can't lie. Confused, sure. Too much to drink. Hesitant, halting. Maybe ashamed, later. But, ultimately, willingly. Took me longer than it should to know that. But I do. "I'm not sure how to start," he says. I will not help him. I just watch, and wait. Because I had the training, long ago, and do not know what else to do as he hesitates, I try the inventory -- I don't know why, I've never trusted Internal Affairs, probably won't call when this is over. But: 6-1, I figure. 210. Brown, blue. Crew cut. Works out -- that weight's not flab. Straight nose, thin lips. Pursed. Something about the eyes -- one's maybe a little lower? A scar, yes. Cold eyes, I think. Yes. Cold eyes. "Fact is, I need a hand," he says. "I've got a problem." He must see something in my face. Stops. Tries again. "Not that problem. No," he sort of smiles, tries to be disarming. Isn't. "And you don't have a problem. I don't do that. I don't do shakedowns, either. It's like this -- look, you know the way we work. The sheriffs, counties like these, they try, O.K. They try. They're O.K. closing down the nip joint for the night. Busting the kids for grass. Moving traffic along. " He shakes his head. "Like that," he says. "But you know who becomes a deputy, place like this. Nice kids, sure. But -- they can't do what you can." "Me?" I hope it's not a squeak. "You're good," he said. "Look good, in case you're worried. Suspect you do. My guess, it'd be hard not to." I feel him staring. Feel devoured. His eyes still roving, I sit as still as I can, the way a mouse does when the cat is watching, tail twitching. I just don't trust him, for all he says that's not where this is going. "Still, I did have the license," he continues, staring "Can't get around that. I know. You know I know. I don't really care. You wanna, that's OK with me. Not my thing, nothing to do with me. Run you in? For what? Take you to the woods? I know you were afraid. Are. I'm not gonna take you to the woods. What I know is this: you're not the only one to go your way." "No," I say. "I'm not." "That's why I'm here." He's got a folder in his hands. "May I?" And before I can react, he's on the couch beside me, folder open on his lap. I see a grainy picture, girl bent low beside a car, skirt riding up. Arrest report. Front and side mugs. "I gotta find her. Him," he says, tapping a finger on the hooker's butt. The grainy photo's from one of those cameras cops are putting up in the places where the hustlers troll; it's got that hard to read look, slightly out of focus, like the stick-up shots the TV runs after a bank is robbed. I don't recognize the street at first: Atlantic, maybe, but I thought Virginia Beach cops did better sweeping up down there. Hampton Boulevard, outside the Base? But then, a corner of a familiar sign, a memory. Ocean View. "Find her yourself," I mutter. "You're the cop." "I'm the cop here. I got things to do here. This is more ... personal." I shake my head. "You have to," he said. "Maybe only you can. You and ... he, you're the same, aren't you? You'll understand, know where to look, what he'll do. Me, I can't. I just can't. I don't get it, never have. Sorry." "I can't." "You can. The Commonwealth says you're a P.I.," he says. "Whatever else you think you are. I'll pay your fee." My fee? I haven't earned a fee in ... well, in since I can't remember. Not since I've been here, any road. "Two-fifty, up front" he says. "$75 a day, expenses on top. I know you don't go cheap." "I'm not cheap," I say. "No." He's staring at me still. "No. I can tell you're not." *** It's not that hard to find a hooker. I mean, really, that's the whole point. In any city: yours, his, theirs, there gets to a place to go; different places, if you like different things. So, Ocean View. Ocean View again. I like it, 'way out on the Spit, where the Bridge-Tunnel comes to shore. Water all around, beach. It's only farther down, you get the action. I went where the action was. That's where I had to look, though I'd said I'd never go again. I felt a little funny: jacket and tie. A different role to play, this time, down in the bars. Hanging out when they were just getting ready for the night: You seen, um, her? I got the stare, of course. Cop. I know how to play that. Deal with the wall, buddy. It's not me here. Just a cop. I needed the distance; I'd meet more of the working girls, hear more, if I'd play this a different way. But that way, those ways -- pants or skirt, hunter or hunted, to put it plain -- came with too much trouble. I'd get more talk, find more traces, maybe. But I'd get the come-ons, too. The little looks. This market seems to like the spice you get from mutual disregard; a seasoning of contempt not quite expressed, not quite hidden. Hooker to mark. Mark to hooker. You get that, get the hunger, too. Intense stare, across a dim lit room. Thumping of drum, of bass, off a jukebox full of ancient songs, memories of high school's feverish hunts, memories for guys who are too many years past high school. Some of them, anyway. The dance of eyes, a stare, a glance away. Unconsciously, tongue wets a lip. Hand touches face. You need the hunger, and, I guess, the spice. Otherwise, a $25 tryst, back in the alley, down in the dunes, is just scratching an itch. Anyway, I'm no mark. And although when I'm feeling low I worry I'm a little too much like ... well, never mind. I'm not that way, either. So I played cop. It works well enough for what I've got to do. By my third stop, I knew. The bar-tender, just a kid really, too new to know to ask me for a badge, told me she worked the place sometimes. Good place for her, I figured, like all the other bars in this part of Ocean View. A lot of Navy kids hung here; it's not too far from Little Creek. Back in barracks, first post after basic in Great Lakes, Orlando, the hot word was that this is where the action is. Pimply 19-year-olds, men of the world after six months in the blues, telling the kiddies off the farm in Iowa where you can drink and you can score. And there you can. A buck more for a beer, of course, but what's a farm boy going to know. A tickle in the corner, who cares that it doesn't always have to be for sale. Like the scrawny kid at the bar, wiping a spot that wasn't there, toying with a fuzz trying to be a goatee, the kids who come here don't know a lot about what they ought to know, what they need to know, if they chose to hang out in a place like this. 25 bucks? Do THAT? Sure baby. Wowza. Who cares who baby is. I asked the kid for a beer, stared at the dusty photos of long- decommissioned ships that served as some old retired chief's idea of decoration, and waited. It didn't take too long. I knew it wouldn't She was quite tall. Big hair, blonde, big curls made her seem taller. So did the heels. She wobbled only a little bit. Short skirt, long legs, rich red lipstick. Nothing subtle, not with her. A hand, long red fingernails, on my thigh. Bigger hand than mine, covered it whole. I got the line. Shook my head, flashed the wallet, too fast for her to look too hard. Showed the photo. Sure, she said, she knew her. Worked the kids a while, some of 'em are scared by big girls. Half-closed eyes squinting at me, Adams apple bobbing as she swallowed -- a word? a wish? Trying to read me: Some of 'em are scared, she said again. Like you. The girl who I was looking for? She did alright, then got lucky. The jackpot. "Lucky?" I asked. "Got a steady," the hooker said. "No more hustle -- or not quite the same one, know what I mean? No more cold nights, freeze your ass. A nice place, the guy set her up." "Set her up?" "Yeah." A sip of watered drink. "Both of the ways that you can mean it. Got her place, down in Virginia Beach. Beach house; off season they're cheap. Maybe a house sitting thing, for all I know. He'd come and visit. Not his place. In and out. Men, they're all the same, aren't they, baby? Love 'em, leave 'em. Still, he set her up, that way, it was nice enough. Then, he's gone. Set her up, the other way then. See what I mean?" She'd lost track, after that. Maybe six months ago, back in the winter. Yeah, she was surprised she hadn't seen her since, high season coming. Tourists, too, not just the sailors. A girl can do OK, you know. You sure you don't wanna try? Him? He was a big guy, she said. Six feet, built strong. Crew cut. Funny eyes, can't quite say why. Aha, I think. So, you do the slog. The house was empty, boarded up. The agent said she couldn't let me in. Knock up the neighbors. It's tough by the beach before Memorial Day but I got a little lucky. One of the two I found at home recalled a car, red? maroon? One of those cheap Korean models, dented fender. Virginia tag, sure. X, A something. Three, not four numbers. Well, he was a statie, he could run it, down at DMV. I called in with what I had, waited for him to tell me what, exactly, I was doing here. He said to call back, in an hour. Cops can move things fast. A PI's got to have a friend these days, to run a registration. I don't have that many friends left anymore. When I called back, two hours later -- the hell with him, I decided -- he had a good lead on the car. With the color, likely make, guess at the year, a partial number, he thought he had it, anyway. That got him a name, address. It was good work, I had to say. I told him so, too. Standing in the damp and chilly wind (it takes forever to find a payphone you can use these days) watching the grey clouds churning in the sky, I told him he'd paid me way too much for what I'd done, that I'd write up a bill, sent back some of the retainer. Long pause. Static. I hear a roll of distant thunder, drumming of rain. "No," he said. "No. Keep the clock ticking. We need to talk." No, I thought, No, we don't. There are some talks you just don't want to have, standing in a phone booth on the corner, in the rain. Talking to a guy who knows your secret, the guy whose secret you're pretty sure you know yourself. Yours, the secret at your very core, the secret that transforms you in the quiet of your bedroom, in the stillness of an empty house, in the dreams of your nights. Yours, a secret that you know others say is shameful -- a guy who wants to be a girl -- but that is you, your very essence. His, a secret -- well, who can say for sure. But he didn't look to be guy whose secrets would sit easy. There's shame there, I suspect. I know. I've been in locker-rooms, in station houses. I've heard the talk. I've seen fists fly, talk gets too close to something secret, something true. Right now, I think, right now's the time for you to go your way, me mine. I told me I was going home. We'll talk, he said. Click. I swore at the beeping dial tone. Plodded off into the rain. *** I was soaked by the time I got back to my car. Still damp and chilled two hours later, peering through the darkness, the highway lines vanishing on the rain slick tar, ground-mist glowing in my headlights, making the last turnoff home. I was drenched, again, getting inside. I flicked the lamp by my front window on, yanking curtains closed, harder than I needed. A puddle formed by my feet. Jacket on the floor, tie torn off, shirt over head, don't bother with buttons. I left my sodden clothes piled on the floor, stalked into the bathroom. Hot bath. Big towel. Back room. My room. Time to be me. Like I said, I'm not fancy. I want to snuggle, something warm. Nightgown, lace brushing shoulders, silky. Feels nice. Don't care if no sees the strap begin to slide, reaches to ease it into place, to let his hand linger. Big robe, thin arms in loose sleeves, brush damp hair smooth. A book, a last patrol. My place. I curl up on the armchair by the lamp to read. Hours later, one a.m.? two? Neck sore from sleeping where I'd left the book slip from my fingers, not yet sore enough to wake and trudge back into bed. A creak I half hear, or maybe not. A thick arm slips under knees, another under shoulders. I must be dreaming, nice. I'm being carried. I'm dreaming, reach out, touch: yes, a face. Sigh. Gentle bounces, five steps, six. Softly down on soft bed. "Mmm." "Shh," a voice. His voice? Dreaming? Not? "We'll talk." Just like he told me on the phone, there in the rain "Mmm." I feel the bed sag. "Look," the distant voice again. "It's really pouring. I'll just crash here, O.K. with you?" "Mmm." I'm dreaming again. It gets cold in those old, country places. They never really bothered with insulation, old windows leak, the chill damp seeps in everywhere. I keep a lot of covers on my bed, burrow down deep. He -- did he trying sleeping on the sofa? Did I, sleeping, sense him there lying stiffly, outside the covers, arms wrapped tight for warmth? Did I dream something? Did I know but not quite care? The first gray-blue light of the dawn always wakens me. I don't always get up, sometimes I slip back again to sleep, sometimes I just lie there for a while. I heard the rain beating the shed roof, pushed deeper under covers, half aware, maybe, that they weren't pulling as easily as normal over my head. Wriggled to the center of my bed. Feel ... A sleeper turns, heavy arm follows, settles on my waist. Warmth, like the hot bricks wrapped in rags, the way they warmed beds long ago. He is a furnace. Silk slips a little on smooth skin, his arm slips, a hand, relaxed by sleep, brushes my belly. Half sleeping still, I feel his breath in my hair, soles of my feet touch shins, warmth as my back, his belly touch. Nice. Yawn. I drift off. Awake again after a bit. Not a dream. It's been so long since I woke up next to another, I'd forgotten how a bed sags under the weight of two. My hand slips over his, he doesn't stir. I hold it, slowly ease onto my back, onto my side, so that I face him. I touch a finger to his face, as gentle as moth, a dream. I trace an eyebrow, the line of nose, lightly, more lightly still, his upper lip. A finger, lightly, follows the path where crew cut hair and sun-browed skin meet. Behind an ear. Bristles on a chin might burn, touched just a little harder. Down. My palm can't quite cover the firm muscle above his heart. I leave it there, to feel the slow beat, steady, calm. He stirs a little, but doesn't waken. Fingers on shoulders, down arm. Down. In the warm cave between his belly and mine. Wrist bent, hand to a wall of muscle. Feeling the rise and ebb of breath. Waiting. After a while -- who knows, who cares how long -- his eyes ease open: It's tough to fight the daylight sometimes, try as you will. I feel him, half asleep though he still is, begin to tense. I know why, I think I do, but I won't let him get away. Not that easy. Not after he played me. I lay my hand on his upper arm, leg between his. He may stronger than me, lots stronger. But I have the angle on him. I'm liking this. His eyes peer into mine. Mine to his. Inches apart. "Not so fast, buddy," I whisper. Then, astonished, I feel his hand stroking my hair. A smile, a sort of smile. Disarming, this time. "I guess I said we have to talk," he murmurs. "So talk." He bites his upper lip. "Did we?" he asks. "Did we, um?" I shake my head. "No," I say. "No. I just found you here. So yes, we have to talk. And yes, you're welcome, happy to have you. No need for thanks, in case you were about to. But for right now, why don't you just lie back, relax. And start talking." His hand still strokes my hair. "I don't do this, you know. I never have." I hear him, voice tiny, almost like he was talking to himself. "I have," I say. "I do." And then, as if too weak to keep my head those long six inches away, I sink -- as if the force of gravity, inevitable, inexorable had overwhelmed, as if, maybe, the hand tangled in my hair did more than merely lightly stroke, began to weigh, to gently push. My lips on his. Touch. Press. Hand on back of my head. Lips part. A moan. My hand cups his face, as we kiss. Down his chest, slowly, down. Down. And he is rising, I feel him rising, feel him brush my belly, feel the warm, smooth shape, hard, long. Not quite demanding. My fingers touch, gently, gently, follow the curve of him lower still. In my hand: warm, round shifting beneath skin, wiry fur. Trail fingers up. Does he shiver? Again. And once again. He does. He's shaking. Trembling in the cool blue light of morning. But he still holds me close, his tongue in me. I could, I guess, slip free. Let lips slip lower. Or maybe later, maybe another time. This is good. Fingers trail, tease again. Then, close round the shaft. Slide once, slide twice. Grip just a little tighter. Loosen, trail fingers. Trace this line, that spot. Feel the damp. Close fingers once again. Stroke. Very slow. No hurry. Kissing. Stroking. Stroking. Suddenly: I feel him gasp into my mouth. Pump warmth onto my stomach. We lay there, entangled, just as if he couldn't push me off, swing out of bed, break free. I felt him try to start to speak -- something about the way his breathing caught, relaxed, caught again, maybe the tiny shifting beneath my palm as it lay on his cheek. What to say now? How to say it? Finally, I have mercy. Not too much. "Don't tell me what you do, you don't." I keep my voice small, mild. "I'm not a rule for you break. A way you swing, if you decide to get all honest on me." He swallows hard. "I've never..." "Well, then, you have now. It's what we do. One of the things we do. Men..." I touched his nose with my finger. "Girls." "You're a..." "I'm me." I cut him off. "Me. For better. For worse. Just me. You said, the other day, you said when you showed me the picture, bullied me to do your searching for you, you said that I was just like him. That I would know what you could not." "I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't mean... Maybe we should." "No." Firm now. I've decided. "No. You need to hear. You said that I was just like him. But really I am just like you." Now, he does try to shake me off. Seems to try, but can't. Maybe I've got the angle, maybe he's not trying too hard: I can't say. But I've got him, he's got to hear what I've got to tell him now. "Not that," I add. "I'm not saying you are a -- you fill in the word, it makes you feel better to call me whatever name you want. I've heard 'em all before. I'm just like you, just like him, just like your girl, if you've really got one, like your sister, brother, best friend. Because we all need something sometimes that only someone else can give us. Just like today. Now tell me why you want me to find her? Who is she? What is she to you?" *** I let him drive. It's maybe an hour to Newport News, depending. I never hit the lights right. He did. Some folks have all the luck. At least when it comes to traffic lights, I guess. The place was all the way downtown, where railroad tracks and highways converge over what was once a swampy slough. The high-rise jail loomed across the interstate, a trick of perspective, a reminder of where all too many folks from this place will spend a night. Sometimes a year of them. Rows of brick, barrack-like buildings. They call them, they're not laughing when they do, garden apartments. Broken sidewalks, vacant lots. The old high school's a quarter mile down the street, it's where the crews stay when the carriers come to the shipyard for a refit. When the Navy comes to town, so do the hookers. They walk down from the apartments to the school, circle round slowly on patrol. When it gets cold, there's a stripper bar, where sometimes they aren't thrown out; the girls there have work to do, too. They don't care much for the guys in drag. You'd think they wouldn't feel they were that much competition. Still, everyone's trolling for the swabbies. Who, when it comes to someone in a short skirt with an offer, sometimes don't know better: stripper or queen. Or, a drag queen's dream, maybe they do. We're trolling, too. Likely don't know better either, when it comes to that. What we're looking for, I'm still not sure. He said it's case he's working. I think that's bull. He said, he'd never done it that way. I think, that's bull, too. He'd given me a funny look when I got dressed but I wasn't going to let him off the hook. Drag me along, to find your -- well, whatever you say she is. Drag me along, you get me. Me. Today, I feel like the full deal, you get me in my Number Ones, my own Dress Blues. Cope. The dark blue skirt fits tight across hips, flares out so that it flutters at the right time, like a tiny waggling of fingers saying come closer. The blouse lets you get a flash of lacy promise, you look the right way. I'm better in my heels than the hooker was in Ocean View. The way the jacket nips in close: a nice line. I know I can look good. So the drive was kind of tense. Lots of questions still unasked, lots of answers never given. He'd seen the picture on my mantle, I know, I saw him do his double take. For all I've changed since, you can tell who's there. I know he's puzzled: Why would a guy who's had all that, why would he? I know he wants to, needs to ask. Like I know, when he slams the gearshift into fifth, he wants to let his hand fly off the knob, rest on my thigh. It's why I lean this way, for goodness' sake. I know he wants to touch. I know what he wants to ask me, needs to ask me. Instead: "Why would he do it? Why that, you think?" So, I try to tell him about the hunger. How desire can mean more than just taking, can mean taking inward, being taken. How it can have rough edges, bulky lines. Not just be something soft or sweet. Not just something that you fill, but something that is filled. I'm sure he doesn't have clue who I'm describing. I try again, slow, a different tack. Start over, talk about the baggage that we pick up over the years. Men and women. Looseness and constraint, one sprawls, one locks knees together. One looks outward, one looks in. Projecting, accepting. Closed. Open. One runs cool, the other hot. Except that we all run cool sometimes. Run hot, too. He shakes his head. Guys never like to hear that said, not even afterwards, especially not afterwards. Not after they'd done it with you. It's something else, he says. A kind of desperation, he's decided. As if you're seeking something that's gone missing, some essential cog, or spring, that keeps the whole watch running. As if, without the coiled spring, a battery, you always need to plug in more time. The get the charge, the jolt of juice that keeps you going for another day. I know just what he means, of course. It's not that all the time, not every case, I want to tell him. But sometimes. For some. Not me, I think. Pretty sure, not me. Because I was afraid it was, I stopped going to bars. Went home. When we found the place his search had told us we should do, though, no one was home. Battered wood door, mud-colored paint chipping. The stairwell smelled. You know how. We waited. Nothing else to do. Parked, waited. Watched. Dusk came, some of the streetlights, some, not all, flickered on. Then we saw her. Tottering on the uneven concrete slabs, drunken swabbie hot behind. Short, short skirt. Tight shirt. Big, too big, up top. Scarlet slash of lipstick, an empty curve, not quite a smile. Hollow eyes, hollow cheeks. They stopped at a vacant lot, she nodded, pushed through the underbrush. He followed. Leaned, he was that drunk, against a crooked, dying tree. Not caring if he could be seen. She knelt. I felt him tense beside me. Laid a hand on his. Don't think he noticed. A pro doesn't need take too long. She didn't. Finished, stood. Shot glance up the street, down. The swabbie grinned, pants still at his ankles. Said something. She ignored him, stumbled back out to the sidewalk, barely disarranged. Beside me, I saw his head slump, forehead on the steering wheel. If I didn't know better, I'd say: as if about to cry. He didn't see her stopping at the corner, where a shadow waited. Didn't see the shine of plastic baggie in the streetlight's yellow gleam, the $20 bill change hands. Instead, he slammed the car in gear. Screeched round the corner, towards the interstate. "Calm down," I said, too loud, too frantic. "Calm down, you knew it'd be like this." I think, sometimes, the saddest moment in a movie, the magazine cartoon that breaks your heart, when it's trying to be a gag, is when a guy sees his wife, his woman, with another man. Don't ask me why. But I think that I can guess at how it feels, the hollow sense in your belly, the sliding downward sense of a whole world you'd thought you'd made now gone to hell. I tried to say what you would try to say, if it was your friend in the cartoon panel. It does no good, you say it anyway. "Forget it," I tried again, trying to sound softer, less alarmed, trying to stroke his arm. "Never mind her. Don't let her..." "Fuck you," he yelled. "Fuck you." I glared. "You wish." I snapped, not thinking. A long pause. Staring at the road. "I do," he said. *** We ended up back at his place. A small house, on the outskirts of the courthouse town. He slammed the car door, stalked inside. I thought, if I were smart, I'd take my car, drive on home. I thought, I don't want to get involved in this. I thought I'd better go inside. I didn't see him right at first. Didn't worry. My turn to do the copper's survey, look things over. Prowl his turf. Living room. Couch. TV, too large, too close, in front. Bookshelves, more books than I'd have bet. Desk in the corner, paperwork piled high: staties in the country take their work home with them. Hallway, bathroom at the end. A bedroom door ajar. He's not there. A bedroom no one uses, it's got that still and quiet air, like the one your mother keeps for you: kids' books on the shelves, pennants on the wall, clothes you long ago outgrew in the dresser drawers. Except in this one, nothing mom would leave: Frilly blouses, miniskirts hanging in the closet. Lacy bits of nothing much in the drawers. Well, well. Behind me, I hear his footsteps, bathroom door slam. Hiss of water. I tell myself: step out, step back to neutral ground. You don't need this. You make him take the extra steps, stop in his room, throw trousers, shirt on. Let things cool down. Is that what I want? Look at my feet, not moving. Why not? Eyes drift up: my legs, my favorite skirt. My pair of not-too-big-at-all cupped in my lace. In my hands, a froth of lace and silk and ribbon from her drawer. Something you wear only one place. For one thing. I hold it up, look in the dresser mirror. The shower's hiss has stopped. I don't notice at first -- by the time I hear the quiet, or maybe it's his breath, it's too late to retreat. Not quite startled, not quite not, I turn towards the hallway, still holding the negligee straps to my shoulders. He's framed in the doorway. Barely framed, it feels. His hand holds a towel around his waist. I see the tension in the line his bent am makes, almost as if he's fending something, someone, off. He stares. I flush. "Go on," he says. "Try it on. You know you want to." There's an edge in his voice, a coldness in his eyes. Something's in the way here. "It's hers," I halfway ask, halfway declare. He shrugs. "Hers," I say. "The girl we saw. Another. Doesn't matter. Hers." I take a deep breath, a shuddering deep breath, the kind you hear even when you're standing, framed in a doorway, a few too many steps away. "I know what I would like right now," I say. "Maybe you'd like it, too. But if we do, I'd like it to be you and me. Me. Not me as her, whichever her she is. You, with me. Not you angry at her, not you rebounding from her, not you proving something to her." My hands fall, Negligee slips to floor, a tiny crumpled pile of pink and white. Another shuddering breath, I can't stop it. Then, he is there. He's let his towel slip to the floor so he could slip his arm round my back, around my waist, so he could circle the other on my shoulders, pulling me across the last small step between us. His lips on mine, angry? Urgent. Yes, I think, if you can say what I'm doing right now is thinking. Urgent. He eases back, as if to catch his breath. Enough distance, one inch, two, to let me see -- I look into his eyes, look deep. Cold eyes? No, how could I ... He's kissing me again. This time, easy, gentler. A kiss, a tiny shift, a kiss. Better here? Or here? Have we maybe missed a spot? How many spots to test in such a tiny space, a space so small his hand can span; at one point does, my lips brushing a palm that moves to hold my face to his. A thousand? Ten? Now my hand on his shoulders, on a bicep. Squeeze. A small jump to ribs, to chest. Fingers plowing furrows in hair, a flat, hard breast of muscle. Muscle below, below. Small shift of hips, the tiny fault line widens, just enough for hand to slip lower, still lower. Fingers encircle. Almost like velvet, almost like steel. Curved like a scimiter, who will he cleave? A deeper kiss, his tongue in me, pushing deep in me, a promise. My lips touch chin, feel Adams apple shiver, feel wiry hair, muscle not quite ready to tremble. Tongue touches, tastes a damp that's already touched my skirt, right at my belly. Hand on my chin. Gentlest pressure up. "No," his softest voice. "No. I won't make you kneel." So knees unbend, rising for a kiss, long kiss. Then, a sudden dip, an arm behind my knees, my arms lock on his neck. A burst of laughter. We collapse onto the bed. He's on his back. I have his two wrists in my hand, trap them on the pillow, just above his head. Lips on his forehead, eyes, nose. Lips on his lips, linger for a time. Lips on throat, on breastbone. Straddling him inching down, I feel a shaft, warm, firm, slide under a hem of skirt, feel him slide on the slick, slippery cloth I wear beneath. To inch still lower now I slip off him. Now, no need to kneel, tongue touches, tastes the wet. Traces a circle. Another. Lips part. Sink. Desire needing to be filled. Sink slow, rise slower. Feel trembling. Sink, rise. Let tongue trace the curve, lips taste the heft. Steel in velvet. A groan. A moment, waiting on the edge, waiting for what we both know is coming, waiting. It comes, a pulsing of joy. But not the turning to the side, the look away, the eyes that will not meet that sometimes follows. Not this time. Back in his arms, again, drifting for a while. Then watching his face. Waiting to know. His hand stroking my arm. "It wasn't hers," he says. "Not really." "What wasn't?" I'm feeling half asleep, just drifting, don't want it to stop. "The thing I saw you with, whatever it's called. It wasn't hers." "No?" I murmur. "No," he says. "Just a gift for someone. Too late to do much good." He smiles. Whatever edge that had been there was gone. "Go on," he says. "Try it. You know you want to." Well, no, I think. I don't know that. I don't have anything like that. But... My skirt is wrinkled, waistband bites. Blouse disheveled. We are in bed, we may -- I hope we may -- stay there a while. Might as well get comfortable, as if that crumpling of silk and lace down on the floor had anything at all to do with being comfortable. I swing legs out of bed. Stand. Not too shaky. Step towards the dresser, bend. Negligee in one hand, I turn back, see him nod, smile. "Go on," he says. "O.K.," I whisper back. "I'll only be a minute." Sex is, I think, as much something in your mind as it is surge of hormones, pounding of blood, breath snatched away. You kind of have to think that way, in my position, anyway. Sex -- love, too. I don't have problems needing artifice, don't have qualms using them. In one sense, I know I'm not who I really want to. But I tell myself -- don't shatter my illusion -- I can be her. A swoop of color, a curve of line. One tiny step, another. I can transform myself, I do believe. But then, I think we all can, if we really want it. And so, a bit of color, a curve. Lace fluttering above soft skin. I retreat to the bathroom: he doesn't need to see illusion born. All in the mind. The negligee is not for sleeping, the ribbons on my shoulders would bite or rip when dreams would make me toss and turn. The band of lace along the hem barely reaches to my thighs, just inches far enough to tease and promise. The slick cloth flutters when I move, clings, but isn't tight -- clings, floats away. It'd ride up, while you slept, wouldn't keep you warm at night. Not for sleeping. Nor was the scarlet I painted on my lips, the rose-pink on my cheeks. I waited, framed in the doorway, till he noticed. I didn't wait too long. A low whistle, he sat up, started out of bed. Before he could, I pinned him. This time, it is my lips pushing hard. This time, my urgency, my need. This time, I stay straddling him, feel his shaft on my skin, almost where I need him, as I press my tongue into his mouth and I inch down his belly just a little, just a little. just a little more. As I lift my hips, ease them back down, to feel him slide along the valley there. Lift my hips, his hand is there now, yanking at panties. A tiny, hissing tear, they're gone. His hand is on my belly, easing me down on him. A gasp. He's there. Slowly, he slips still farther in. Slowly, I slide down. Hips pivot, gently rocking on a new axis deep inside. Fault lines both separate and join, one side slides past the other, sometimes is locked in place, maybe forever. Maybe you'll find a gaping rent across the earth, maybe just an idea sketched across a map, a line no one can see. Maybe a memory of a field trip, tracing a line, heavy blue-grey gneiss on one side, pinkish aplite on the other, teacher's voice droning, one side, see, here, had swung along this line, turning slowly on a axis, as tension builds, heat and the whole earth trembles. Lift just a little, slide down again, rocking, gently rocking. A warmth suffuses, radiating, waves -- like the wheat must feel when the combs through, great waves rippling, rustling My calves by his thighs, feel heavy muscles mass, stretching, reaching as they might stretch and reach to stride across a field. Hips push the backs of my thighs, hands hold my waist -- as if I would be anywhere but here right now. He plows me deep. Slow push, slow retreat. Push. Slowly at first, then not so slow. Trembling. His, mine. Riven, re-weaving the tear. Riven again, again re-weaving. We go on, long time past counting, me impaled but without a wound, cleaven in two. As reknitting as one, panting as we come closer, part, come closer, closer. And then he groans, pumping himself into me; me to the space between our bellies, the fault line that's now closing again as I fall towards him, his arms pulling me close. *** There wasn't really room for two, but we slept there anyway. Not really room, but each needed to hold the other tight, so it was fine. We slept. I slept dreamlessly, quiet and still. I think he did. But sometime in the last hours before the dawn, the phone gave a single, drilling ring. Then, cut off. I think I was so deep in dreams, I could've slept right through, except that we were entwined so closely that when he jumped to answer, I awoke. So: one is shouting into the dead air of a dead connection, the other cries: What is it? What's wrong? Something's always wrong, at three in morning. Confused, clumsy, our regiment of two scrambles in all directions now that the alarm sounds. He fears something, something he's feared for a while, knows something's wrong though he has no reason to know, knows where he needs to go. His fear -- or maybe what he knows, or maybe only that he knows he has to go -- makes me afraid in turn. Of what, exactly, I can't say. We try to force the muzziness of sleep away, to reach deep down to try to focus, try to think. To move. Trying to shake off the sleep trying to pull me softly back to bed, I watched him stagger to the other room, fumble into jeans. Curse. I asked, though I think I knew, I feared, what he was doing. "Trouble," he said. "She is in trouble. I know. I've got to go." Not without me, you don't, I think. I drag myself a little more awake, push myself out of bed. "I don't have time," like a complaint. "I've got go. Now." "Not without me," I say, out loud. He bit back what he'd planned to say. Staring at me, standing there in swirl of pink and lace, as frivolous as a toy, as a spun sugar rose on the cake you shouldn't eat, rubbing fists in eyes just like a child when she's trying to show she can, just this once, stay up past her bedtime. "Not without you," he said. A little victory. I thought, if you try run back to her, I won't just let you slip away; if you, I'll run after. If she is calling you, she needs to know there is another with a call on you. If you are leaving me, I won't let it go easy for you. Crazy, of course. But it was three in the morning. So I stumbled into a miniskirt from her closet, a blouse, half toppled in my heels behind him as he hurried to the car. The night air was sharp, cool. But I shivered more than I likely needed to, unlike the heater, cranked up all the way, kicked in at last. At night-time, if you run the reds, if the driver has aced his high- speed course at the academy, you can make it down to Newport News in 40 minutes. About halfway, where the great bridge soars over the river channel, I finally managed the question I needed to ask: "Who is she?" just a whisper. He didn't reply. "Who is she?" again, not too much louder . "He," was all he said. "He?" He nodded, lips pressed tight together. "So," I said. "He. And who is he?" "Someone..." A heavy sigh. "Someone; I'm responsible. Responsible. Sometimes, I think that I'm not much, but what I've got to do, I do. What I've got to take care of, I take care of." "Responsible?" "I've known him a long time. Long time. I made a promise." Oh, God, I thought. Dark trees whipped past, stars blurred. I tried to understand, thought I did. Didn't want to. "You and he?" I whisper. "You and he?" He turns, a sharp look. A hint of the cold eyes I'd thought I'd seen from the first. "No." A hint of anger. "No. I told you. Tried to. I don't do that." I bit off something like a laugh, turned away, watched the night rush past. A minute. Two. Five. "You know," his voice almost too soft to hear. "You know, you weren't speeding." I knew. But waited for him to tell me anyway. "The day I stopped you. You weren't speeding. I just stopped you." He's stalled. I'll have to help a bit. I reach, lay my hand on his thigh. Breath: "Why?" "I'd seen you," he said. "Seen you around. Like I see lots of folks. Just wanted ... Curious, I guess. Guess I was curious." "Curious?" voice flat, to say but not quite say: I don't believe you. "Well no," he said. "Maybe not quite. I'd seen you driving, seen you pass by. Thought you looked like someone I might want to know. It was afterwards, I got curious." I waited. He needed to tell me, I needed to hear. But I knew that he would not be hurried. "I'd known." He tried again. "I knew. Not about you. Not when I stopped you. But I knew people who ... I heard what you said: not like him, but ... You know what I'm trying to say." "You knew some of us like to cross a line," I say. "You're a cop, you have to know. That line, other lines. Sure." "I knew I should have let you go, gone on my way. I couldn't. I told myself to just move on." "You didn't, though." "No. I didn't. Like you said, cops know the line. That line, others. We may not understand, but we know the line." A sigh. "As it happens, I know that one a little better. I know someone..." "I thought you said." "I said. It's true. I know someone; I've never understood. But I'm responsible." "Responsible." Heart sinking. "Responsible. Not like I think I am to you." Hand on my hand now. "Not like I will be to you, if that's OK. But still, responsible." Street-lights, the ones that worked, still flickered. But even the hardest of the hard-party guys and gals had gone home for the night; the strip bar dark, the neon sign an empty promise. Not even the queens patrolled the streets, not even the dealers. He pounded up the dim-light stairs, hammered on the door. I saw a line of light along the bottom edge. "Open up," he cried. "Open up. Goddamn it." His fist slammed down. "It's your brother. Your brother. Open up." Any old sergeant will tell you it's a bad idea to try to force a door with just your shoulder, but old sergeants don't have brothers turning tricks and shooting smack down where the drunken swabbies hunt for fun. Most locks are better, too. The door crashed open. She lay there on the sofa, by the window open to the stars, sprawling, like a broken doll. Skirt pushed up, her sad secret flaccid on a stocking thigh, wig knocked askew, a smear of red on her face, lipstick or blood or maybe both. He groaned like a man gored by a bull, pain dragged up from deep by a brutal hand; I didn't wait, dropped to my knees, despite the shards of glass and muck, took blue edged fingers, lifted her hand. The faintest pulse. "Call," I shouted to him. "Call." I heard him punch the three numbers, shout the address. And waited, looking out the window, down the street. Felt him come beside me, take that thin wrist as if by holding tight he might keep the faint beat of life from slipping on, up towards the cold white stars. I couldn't hear the sirens. But I saw the blue lights pulse against the lightening sky, coming towards us, nowhere near fast enough. I watched the blue lights, pulsing. Though he slipped an arm around my waist, I trembled, all the same. -o-