“I don’t know.” Diana shook her head. “Lovers? Friends with Benefits?”
“That’ll do. I think I lose a friend and a lover and you still want me to stay, you still want me, even though you’ve already said I’m in suspension because of Julie. You bring me a gift. And then you tell me you want me, you want to claim me, possess me.” She shook her head in puzzlement. “What are you when you’re not here? Some kind of dominatrix?”
Diana had to laugh although it was an uneasy laugh. “No, just a spoiled kid who’s accustomed to getting her way.”
“Well, I can see you’ve been getting it.”
“Pretty much,” Diana admitted.
“Diana.” Jessie made Diana look at her. “You did not hurt me. I wouldn’t let you hurt me. Do you really think I’m so weak I would let you abuse me? I gave my consent, my permission. At any time I could have stopped you. You didn’t tie me down to the bed, you told me to stay there.” She kissed Diana’s forehead. “No harm done. Actually it felt pretty good.”
“Pretty good?”
Jessie looked a little arch. “I’ve been telling people what to do for months. It was sorta nice not to have that responsibility. And I came over with the intention of getting laid. I certainly did.” She looked at Diana. “You still don’t believe me.”
“It’s not your behavior I’m concerned about,” Diana said. “It’s mine.”
“And what bothers you about yours? Can we get off this floor? It’s cold, and it’s hard. I don’t have enough cushioning on my butt, not like some people I know.” She patted Diana’s ass.
“Watch it,” Diana warned.
“I try, all the time I can.” Jessie looked positively relieved at Diana’s faint smile. They both got up and Jessie retrieved the kit from the tub. She picked up the dildo, glanced at it and the other items in the bag, looked over her shoulder at Diana. “I would have, you know. I haven’t before, but I trust you.” Diana winced and Jessie shook her head. She put everything back in the zippered pouch. “Maybe next time. Now tell me why your behavior bothered you. Let me be the one who listens this time.”
They returned to the bedroom. “This is uncomfortable,” Diana said in an effort to delay.
“I know. You’ve had me in this position several times. Paybacks are hell.” Together they picked up the blankets, the bedding and remade the bed.
“Sometimes,” Diana said, “when I have a difficult task or really focus on something, I get into this mental zone and that’s all I focus on. Call it tunnel vision or whatever you want. While I can do whatever I’m doing, sometimes I miss things. I wanted you.” She closed her eyes for a moment then shook her head. “Maybe too much. Anyway, it would have been real easy to miss something, like you were being hurt. And being that I was ready to do something that was a first for you, I could have easily hurt you. And I wouldn’t want to do that.” She looked up across the bed. “I really wouldn’t want to do that.”
“I believe you,” Jessie said. She went around and turned off the lights, checked the room. “Get into bed, Diana.” She slid into bed beside Diana after she turned off the bathroom light. She put her arm around Diana, pulled her close. “But you see, my dear, I hear what you say, and I remember all the things you’ve done for me and how you’ve treated me for what, these past two years—three years, whatever it’s been. I trust you, I don’t think you would hurt me.” She rolled over, put Diana on her back. “And now, I’m going to hold you to your promise.”
“What’s that?”
“That I could love you. You said later, after you showed me everything I could give.”
“You said you wouldn’t have anything left.”
Jessie bent down to kiss Diana. “I was wrong.”
Diana moved around the room while Jessie was in the shower. She tossed the pillows and the covers back on the bed, picked up the glasses, the fast-food wrappers from their three a.m. foray out for something to replace their missed dinner. Jessie had been relaxed, congenial, not like she had been in the early evening, hesitant and needy. Maybe she was right, a session of sexual domination was just what she needed. Didn’t have to be responsible for anything for a change, didn’t have to worry about pleasing Diana, just be fucked, even told when not to and when to come. She said it was very freeing. Diana wasn’t so sure. Yes, she believed what Jessie said. She just wasn’t sure about her own behavior.
She had never brought that part of her personality to Jessie. That was the part she was leaving behind. Jessie was so far away from Diana’s life that she was a breath of fresh air, a getaway from all the issues and motivations that were beginning to surround her at home. She would have to start making choices soon, choices she wouldn’t be able to take back, life-changing choices. It would be so much easier if she knew Jessie wanted to be in her life, but Jessie was waiting for Julie. Damn that woman. Julie, not Jessie. Diana admired loyalty. She would never interfere with it. Sometimes loyalty was all there was. Even misplaced loyalty. If it weren’t for Julie.
Diana picked up Jessie’s clothes. Jessie never hung them up, just threw them on whatever was handy. That was why Diana had hung up the tailored leather jacket the night before. It was much too expensive and whatever she was carrying would have pulled it out of shape. She spread the silk shirt out over the chair, running her fingers over it. Such a change from cotton shirts, but so sexy. My, my, Jessie could dress up impressively when she went about it. She shook the trousers out, lining up the pants legs, when something fell out of the pocket, a credit card or something.
The shower was just stopping when she bent down to pick it up. It became one of those moments remembered with such clarity that every little thing registers, the sound of the shower, the lighting in the room, the texture of the light wool pants still in her hand, the dark stitched leather, the silver color of the metal, the shape, the engraving, Lexington-Fayette Urban County Police Department.
Diana literally lost her breath and her initial fight or flight response set her heart pounding before her quick thinking stifled all reactions, or at least most of the drastic ones. She stood up, still staring at the badge when Jessie came out of the bathroom, wrapped in the big bath towel.
“What’s wrong?” Jessie asked.
“What’s this?” Diana was able to say with some calmness.
“My badge.”
“Your badge,” Diana repeated like she didn’t understand the word. “You’re a
cop?
” She hoped it sounded surprised rather than horrified, but from the change in Jessie’s expression she didn’t quite pull it off.
“Yesssss,” Jessie said with some guardedness. Diana just stared at her, like she was seeing some stranger. “Is there a problem with that?”
“When did you become a cop?” Diana asked, trying hard to give an even inflection to every word.
“I’ve always been with the police department.”
Diana closed her eyes, trying to shift all the mental gears, to take this in and not panic at the same time.
“Where did you think I worked, Diana?” Jessie moved cautiously, taking several steps toward her.
Diana opened her eyes, let out a long breath. She needed to treat this casually, act casually, not like she just got caught red-handed doing a criminal act. She shook her head and looked at Jessie in puzzlement, innocent puzzlement. “Every time we were together and you had to go to work, you were going to the horse farm. I thought you worked at the horse farm, the one you took me to when we had the picnic.” She put the badge back in the trouser pocket with great deliberateness. “You really need to learn to hang up your clothes when you take them off. I’ll have to use the steam iron on these.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Jessie replied, her senses still on alert over Diana’s changed behavior. “You always came in on the weekends. The horse farms usually hire off-duty police when there are big doings going on. Extra pay. And Dad was head of security for Broadrick. He worked there after his heart attack forced his retirement from the police.”
“So he was on the force too?” Diana said, turning back. “Family tradition.” She shook her head again, trying to clear it.
“What’s wrong?” Jessie took Diana by the arm. “Is this a problem?”
Diana looked her in the face. Probably it wasn’t best to freak out a cop even when she was standing there in nothing but a towel and you were standing between her and her gun. “I don’t think so,” Diana could say honestly. She deliberately relaxed. “It—it’s just a shock.”
An understatement if there ever was one
. “I mean, all this time, when I’ve been away and thought of you, my image has been of you in blue jeans and a white shirt, working around horses, riding, walking them, grooming. I’ve pictured you on a horse farm even if I didn’t have a clear idea of what you were doing.”
She could look at Jessie in honest bewilderment. “And now I find out you’re a cop and I see you in a navy blue uniform and carrying a gun?” she asked in a questioning mode. Jessie nodded, with some caution, still watchful, still holding onto Diana, but with a more relaxed grip. Diana let out another breath, in understanding. “That’s what was in your jacket last night when I thought it was so heavy. Ahhh.” She stepped away, out of Jessie’s grip. She sat down on the bed. She shivered. All those months and she had been bedding one of Lexington’s finest. She gave a shaky laugh.
“What now?”
“Oh, shit Jessie,” Diana said with forced deprecation. “Learning you’re a cop, and thinking of everything I did to you last night?” She brought her hand to her mouth, half laughing, half crying.
Jessie squatted down in front of Diana, with a reassured look. “I’m still Jessie,” she pointed out. “I’m still the same person. Just because you know something about me that you didn’t know yesterday doesn’t change anything.”
Just everything
, Diana thought. “Changes all my memories,” she said aloud. “I realize it’s hindsight, but still.”
“Does it change how you feel about me?”
“No,” Diana answered instantly and realized only after she said it, that it was true. But the ramifications, they were mind-boggling. “No, it doesn’t change my feelings at all.”
“I’m glad,” Jessie said with relief. She stood up. “Sometimes when I’ve dated someone, there’s been issues. And I’ve lost some friends who discovered what my job was. Problems with drugs sometimes, maybe problems with authority.”
“Well,” Diana said with forced casualness, “now I might have a problem with that.” Jessie gave her a quick questioning look. Diana shrugged. “Like last night, sometimes I like to be in charge.”
Jessie chuckled. “And sometimes I like not to be,” she said carefully.
Diana stood up. “Like I said last night, it’s appalling what we don’t know about each other. I mean, I’d recognize your voice, your walk anytime, the way you move.” She chuckled, revising images as quickly as they came to mind. “I wonder if I would recognize you in uniform.” She looked up at Jessie in puzzlement. “I thought you had to carry your gun and ID all the time.”
“My little black bag,” Jessie answered. “My change of clothes.”
Diana slowly nodded in realization. Of course, Jessie always had her little black bag. Diana had thought it was because she was so confident of scoring when she was on the prowl.
God,
talk about only seeing what I wanted to see.
She kissed Jessie quickly rather than follow that train of thought. “So where are we going today?”
Some place busy, active,
so we don’t have to talk.
Jessie drew Diana back for a longer kiss. “Are you all right with this? Really? I’d be upset if I lost you.”
Diana closed her eyes, lost a little apprehension in that kiss. She waited until Jessie let her go. “Well, we don’t want to make you upset, do we?”
“You know, we don’t have to go anywhere.” Jessie again wrapped her arms around Diana.
“Tempting,” Diana ran her fingers across Jessie’s face. “But we need to do something, go somewhere. I need to see you out and about, process all this,” she said honestly. “Seeing you naked in bed and getting lost in you won’t do it.” Just the same, she still ran her hand under the towel. “I should have it processed nicely by the time we get back, get adjusted, you know.” She looked up at Jessie as if with a sudden thought. “Does that mean you have handcuffs?” she asked playfully.
Jessie laughed, back to her old laughter, Diana was relieved to hear. “For me or for you?”
“Oh, honey, I don’t think I could stand the cuffs on me. I was thinking more for you.”
“Maybe we’ll just skip the cuffs. And maybe it’s better we go out today.” She kissed Diana again. “I was thinking of taking you to Berea.”
“What’s Berea?”
“It’s a little town about thirty miles from here. It’s full of craft and folk art shops. There’s a college there originally founded for the mountain folks and there’s lots of craftspeople. I thought you’d like it.”
“Sounds like something Nicki would like,” Diana suggested oh so casually.
“No. She’d find it boring and then we wouldn’t have tonight, which I’m really looking forward to.” She leered at Diana. “God knows how long I’m going to have to store this up for.”
Diana chuckled and shook her head. She’d manage some way.
***
Diana pulled into the driveway with a sigh of relief. It had been a weekend, about as far away from her expectations as it could have been and yet still be with Jessie. God, Jessie a cop. Never in her wildest dreams. She really had put Jessie in some small secret part of her mind where the world didn’t exist. Margaret was right. That really was dangerous. Maybe she should be glad Jessie had been a cop and not any of Papa’s rivals. A cop was bad enough but it could have been worse. The world did exist, and Papa’s part of it wasn’t always a pleasant place.
She walked into the house, dropped her suitcase, surprised to see bigger suitcases packed and lined up by the door.
“What’s up?” she asked as soon as Margaret entered.
“We’re going to Wyles.”
“In Miami?”
“You’re good,” Margaret pointed out with respectful sarcasm. “Have a good weekend?”
“Eventful.” Diana passed off, not ready to confess to Margaret her lack of caution. “What’s up with Wyles?”