This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, merchandise, companies, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. All characters are 18 years or older when in sexual situations.
*
It was the same interview room I'd used hundreds of times with suspects and witnesses. Room 3. It had three post-WW II heavy oak chairs, the kind you'd see in a school library, and a gray rectangular Steelcase table that sported dozens of dents and scratches. The table was bolted to the floor. The light above was buzzing. It was a fluorescent fixture from the 60's, and it was drawing its last breaths. The linoleum floor was from that era as well.
I looked around and wondered if I had wasted the last ten years of my life on a shit marriage and a job I was learning to hate. I took the crumpled coffee cup the last occupant left on the table and banked it off the back wall and into the waste basket. That was about as thrilling as it got, and now this bullshit interview regarding my recent performance.
I looked to my left. There was a large "window" in the room, which was really a one-way mirror, and ahead of me was a steel door with a small window in the upper half that allowed persons to peek inside. It was the first time I sat in one of the interviewee chairs. I didn't like the perspective at all.
I suspected what this was about, but wasn't certain. Whatever was going to happen, it wasn't going to be good. My supervisor told me to wait in here. He didn't tell me why. I took another sip of my tepid coffee and checked my phone again. No messages. Fuck.
I could hear muffled voices outside the room. A face briefly appeared in the observation window of the door, though I didn't recognize who it was. My bra strap was digging into my shoulder so I reached inside my uniform and adjusted it. I'd already been in there for fifteen minutes and decided in five more minutes I was going to leave the room and would let them find me. I was about three minutes into my five minute countdown when the door swung open and two uniformed officers I didn't know took the two seats on the opposite side of the table. It was my guess that my supervisor was observing through the one-way glass panel. The officer on the left, a male in his 40's, was impeccably groomed and all business. His fellow officer, a female in her mid 20's, was in the seat next to him and appeared to be there to observe.
"Your name is Maxine Pemberton, rank Sergeant, is that right?" he said crisply.
I thought a little charm wouldn't hurt. "That's right. Though my friends call me Max. You're welcome to call me Max if you like." I hated myself for it, but I shifted in my seat and let me tits wiggle underneath my uniform. I could have sworn that he sucked in his breath before he began to talk again.
"Thank you Ms. Pemberton. I'm Lieutenant Brandon Beshears, and this is my colleague Corporal Francine Tompkins. We're with internal affairs."
"Please to meet you." I really wasn't pleased to meet them. Fucking internal affairs. What had I gotten myself into?
I noticed how perfectly Brandon's shirt was ironed. And not a hair out of place. "Do you know why you're here Max?" He said it as if I could read his mind. Fuck him.
"No. Why should I?"
"You know. Your relationship with Addie Russell."
"What. Is it illegal for me to date a woman?" And fuck you very much asshole.
"No. But it's illegal to beat up her boyfriend." Addie's ex-boyfriend must have filed a complaint with the department. Asshole.
"Swore out a complaint against you." Brendan shuffled through his neat stack of papers. "Here's a copy for you. He alleges you assaulted him." That's not good, but ...
"After he pointed my gun at me," I shot back. That was a material fact I bet wasn't in his stupid fucking complaint.
Brendan was unimpressed by my excuse. "Well, that will be for us to sort out. Until then, you're on paid administrative leave. Leave your badge and gun here ... please." He pointed to the table in front of him.
I slipped off my badge and unholstered my Beretta. I made sure the safety was on and that the firing chamber was empty. I ejected the ammo magazine and put the gun down in front of him with a resounding "fuck you" thud.
"For fuck's sake, make the investigation quick. I've got work to do." I wanted to appear indignant, not apologetic. I was going to go down swinging.
Beshears was waiting until I was done. He was unmoved by my display of righteous indignation. "Officer Tompkins will handle the investigation ..."
Officer Tompkins looked like she just graduated from the academy. She could have been my much younger sister. My much better looking sister. I suspected she was still in diapers when I was at the academy. "You mean her?" I said, pointing at her like an imbecile.
It slipped out of my mouth before I could stop myself and of course didn't come out quite right. It never did. Tompkins glared at me as if I was a perp. Strike one, and maybe strike two as well.
"I'm sorry ... " as I began to mutter an apology. I'd seen that look before on Francine's face. It was on mine every time someone impugned my gender or my age. I admonished myself for the millionth time. Couldn't I ever learn to think before I spoke?
Predictably, Beshears jumped to her defense before Tompkins could upbraid me. "I'll have you know Officer Tompkins finished top of her class at the academy. I have every confidence in her abilities and so should you." He was using his best "I'm going to skull fuck you" look when he delivered his eloquent endorsement of a very comely cadet.
Francine was an attractive brunette with a freshly scrubbed face . Her hair was pulled back and braided into a French plait. She was much too good looking to be on the police force. I would have believed you if you told me she was a professional actress. I smiled at her to break the ice. She forced a smile, though daggers were still coming at me from her ice blue eyes. She squinted like an inscrutable cat.
I was fucked.
* * *
Maxine was my great aunt's name. I was the eldest daughter in a family of five, born and raised in Kenosha, Wisconsin. I'd just turned thirty-five, and was residing at a Super 8 motel located in one of the grittier parts of Cincinnati. You know, where tattoo parlors and check cashing stores abound and where there's a price on whatever you want. It's definitely a place you wanted to be "from."
I was officially divorced after ten years of a rocky marriage. I fucked it up like I'd fucked up a lot of stuff in my life. I'd been living in this budget motel room for the past month and had "celebrated" receipt of the final divorce papers with a handle of vodka and a bag of sour cream and onion potato chips. Pathetic, and I knew it. The real problem was that I didn't care. I was emotionally numb and past the point of caring.
My phone alarm went off at 6 a.m., jarring me awake from a restless night of sleep. I was hung over and bleary eyed, staring at three empty vodka bottles, two empty pizza boxes, and a stack of dirty paper plates, all crowded on the top of a shabby dresser. My throat parched, I emptied the dregs of the three vodka bottles into a used paper cup and drank it. I not only hit bottom, I went through it. I was a hot mess and everyone around me knew it.
I certainly didn't start out like this. I was an easy going, fun loving girl, who partied a lot in high school and then pulled herself together to attend a police academy and graduate with honors. There were only two women in a class of twenty, so I felt a strong sense of accomplishment when I graduated, and had enough confidence to not only work, but thrive in a male dominated environment. I was no beauty queen but I didn't obsess over some of my physical imperfections like many of my friends did. I wanted to think of myself as a Suzanne Pleshette type, with dark hair and dark, smoky eyes, but I wouldn't say my face was anywhere close to as beautiful as hers. My build was much more buxom, something the men never let me forget. I spent a lot of time working out. I had a hard body, made for police work.
I married my high school sweetheart Ron, and thought we'd be together forever. He was the only guy that I had ever dated and the only person I'd ever had sex with. He was generally a good guy. He had a steady job as a foreman at a local foundry, and was always respectful of my overbearing job with the County police department. I spent most of the years of our marriage at work, and my husband learned what it was like to be a police "widower."
In the beginning, Ron generally amused himself with the woodshop he built in the garage and going to the bar with his high school buddies. The sex? It was "fine." By fine, I meant that he was satisfied. We would always have sex in the missionary position and he would come inside me and collapse, but I was always left high and dry. Most of the time I'd push him off me and bring myself off with my vibrator.
The passion was never there, but I just chalked it up to being either asexual or unable to feel sexual pleasure like a normal person. It wasn't as if I wasn't properly equipped. I had large breasts (which believe me, can be a liability on a male dominated police force -- I mean how many different terms are there for breasts? -- I think I've heard them all), and could orgasm with my fingers or my vibrator. But conventional sex? It wasn't happening for me and wasn't a priority.
After eight years of police overtime and unimaginative sex our marriage devolved into a living relationship between virtual strangers in the same house. I started drinking, heavily, and he started coming home late, every night. I suspected he was having an affair, and accused him of such one night when I was drunk, and he not only denied it but shoved me out of the bedroom, accusing me of being the whore. I walled myself off from him, and started sleeping in the guest bedroom.
