If you've never hauled off and slapped your man across the face, I highly recommend you try it. It's not like I'm into pain or anything -- but sometimes it's the only way to wake a guy up to what's standing right in front of him. If he's half a man, he'll take it like one. He knows damn well he's been begging for it -- especially if he's just said something hurtful, such as you're just not worth it, or the whole thing between you is only in your mind. In fact, you always run the risk he'll only end up liking it. Men are stupid like that. For us girls, though, like that first kiss, a good hard smack changes everything. 
The captain had all kinds of renewed interest in me when word got out I was seeing Officer Matt "Bad-Ass" Muñoz. It really wasn't serious between me and Matt -- who I only wanted around for muscle -- but that's not the kind of thing you want to run around sharing with the secret love of your life and his really terrific wife. Things get so messy when your intimate little foursome shares a workplace, the spotlight and some really twisted secrets.
"Let me ask you something," she tossed out. "Who are you seeing to play me in the movie?""Studio release or pay cable? I mean, Viola Davis can't be slumming it on a Lifetime movie of the week. Maybe Alfre Woodard?"
"Hallie Berry," she announced, vamping in the mirror. I bopped myself in the forehead to admit I'd missed the obvious. She really wasn't so bad. Maybe she felt guilty for not coming back in to catch Rita's case herself that night. This would eventually become a cornerstone of the defense's nutty accusations of both intricate police conspiracy and shoddy police work. "Get the captain to sign last night's DUI bookings," she called after me up the back stairs. "I got a whole lot of junior criminals to release to their senior agents."
I knocked on the captain's door, ready to re-organize another filing cabinet while he pretended not to watch me bend over his lower drawers. He would, after all, be on another very important phone call with someone super important."Come on in, Cherry," he said, looking up at me over his glasses. He gestured toward the couch. "Have a seat." I flopped myself down, sullenly crossing both my arms and legs in an effort to say as much as a reasonably attractive young lady can when giving some jerk the silent treatment. He got up to light a cigarette, holding it out the open window. "Do you mind?"
"So how are you these days?" he asked, glossing over all that with a long inhale. "You can imagine how crazy it's been up here, but I have been thinking about you."
"Is that so?" I crossed my legs the other way, just for fun. They were very shiny that day, as I had shaved them in the shower, and rubbed them with baby oil before slipping into a sexy little pair of black patent leather slingbacks. There was a lot of talk in the press about my choice of footwear -- how the heels were distracting to the officers and inappropriate for police work, how all of this must say something about me. When you refuse to comment, they feel better about making stuff up. "What exactly have you been thinking, sir?"
Stamping out his cigarette, he shut the window against the hubbub and sat on the edge of his desk. I can't remember once seeing him this nervous -- not before or since. He pulled a fifth of whiskey from a desk drawer, pouring a shot for each of us into a pair of shot glasses. "Look, Cherry, I know the timing is bad in terms of all the commotion around here, but I'm going to be running for city attorney.""Oh. Well, wouldn't you have to be a lawyer first?"
"I was a lawyer first. Before, you know, everything." He gestured toward his desk -- the empty frame, the child's yo-yo, the wedding rings inscribed with the words "Eternal Bond" cast aside in a pile of extra paper clips.
"Actually your timing is pretty terrific," I said as the light finally went on. I knocked back my whiskey without a wince, toasting him with my empty glass. "Who wouldn't vote for a fancy war hero lawyer who joined the force after the tragic murder of his son? Is that why you kept it quiet when your marriage fell apart and neither one of you could nail the bad guy? Or was all that a chicken and the egg thing?""Does it matter?"
"You know what you are? You're a rogue cop. You'd do anything to get a big conviction." I looked out the window toward the media vans camped out below like food trucks at the county fair. "The feeding frenzy is just getting started and you're just going to throw me to the dogs."
"I'm not going anywhere right now. And I'm not throwing you to the dogs. You are really overreacting.""Man, you are good. You don't even deserve your wife. I really wanted not to like her, but it turns out I don't like you." With that, I got up to go.
"Cherry, wait," he said, though he would have to talk to my back. "We can't help out internally, since you're a non-sworn -- but I recommend you get a lawyer."
"Why would I need a lawyer?" I asked, narrowing my eyes. "I'm not the criminal here."
"It's the smart thing to do, under the circumstances. For your own protection."
"You mean your own protection!"
"I don't know what you're talking about, Cherry."
With one swipe, I cleared his entire desk -- unraveling the carefully packaged mystery of his past into a meaningless heap on the floor. "You used me, you bastard!" As I reached for the doorknob -- he slammed his hand over mine and pressed himself against me -- grabbing a fistful of freshly washed hair to inhale the dangerous scent of female anger and good shampoo. "Do you know how much I wish things were different?" he whispered, his breath hot in my ear.
That's when I turned around and smacked his face. "I deserved that," he said."You can stop pretending you ever wanted me now." I decided to slap him again, but he grabbed my hand and slammed me up against the door -- laying a long, hard kiss on my lips. I melted into him as he reached a hand up my skirt, teasing me with a finger coiled around the hip string of my bikini panties. "You do what you have to do," he said, rubbing the stubble of his cheek against mine with the jolt of a thousand tiny electric shocks. "But don't ever think I don't want you."
There was an urgent tap on the door behind me, followed by the sound of Georgia's voice. "Captain? I really need those reports."
I stepped away from the door and straightened my skirt, as the captain wiped the stain of cherry-flavored lip gloss from his mouth and opened the door. Georgia didn't seem to notice anything unusual as she picked a file folder from the rubble on the floor. Anyway, that's how she would testify later under oath, when questioned about her knowledge of the illicit affair alleged to have unleashed the whole sickening scandal mushrooming up beneath Rita's brutal murder. "Gonna be a busy night out there," Georgia May said as blandly as a watch sergeant at evening roll call. "Come on, boys and girls. Let's get back to work."
