The next day Julie stopped at the Starbucks near Police Plaza and purchased two venti roast-of-the-day coffees and a bag of mixed Danish pastries. She’d try a peace offering and see if she couldn’t change Tommy Lomax’s attitude just a little. She was early but Tommy was already in the interview room they had commandeered for the case. She had put the evidence boxes in a carryon suitcase for convenience so she could wheel them around. Tommy didn’t look up when she entered the room nor did he offer to help her to juggle the evidence boxes or the coffee.

“I got black, there’s sweetener and cream in the bag if you need it; Danish too,” Julie put the sack of Danish on the desk and held out the venti to Tommy who got up from behind the laptop where he’d been working.

“Careful, it’s hot,” she said when Tommy took the coffee from her.

He lifted the lid and inspected the contents.

“You shouldn’t have,” Tommy said; a conciliatory tone in his voice and Julie gave him a wry smile.

“No I mean it. You shouldn’t have,” Tommy hawked up phlegm and spat in the coffee.

He put the lid back on the coffee and dropped it in the trash.

Julie’s smile disappeared. At least she knew where she stood with him. Nothing had changed.

“Make that coffee to go; we’re off to the morgue,” Tommy took his jacket from the seatback and put it on.

He scooped up the bag of Danish and threw it in the trash next to coffee she’d bought him. Julie just sighed and followed him to the city car. The lingering hint of Old Spice, cigarette smoke, fast-food and Jack Shepard’s farts had dissipated little overnight but Julie knew better than to open the window. Tommy still a found a way to torment her though. Every time she tried to take a sip of coffee he’d brake, causing her head to jerk. If the coffee didn’t have a lid it she would have scalded herself.

The childish prank got the better of her and she put the coffee in the cup holder in the console and left it undrunk

“Do you want to know what I found in the missing person’s files and the surveillance video?” Julie broke the silence.

“Amaze me,” Tommy said.

“The missing person’s files refer to Steven de Lorraine as a twenty year old college student and the pictures in the files were taken a few years before he went missing. Everyone would have been looking for a twenty-year old man not a young woman,” Julie began.

“So what?” Tommy gritted his teeth.

“Stephanie Carter was a nearly fully transitioned woman when we found her so I’d assume that Steven de Lorraine was likely presenting as feminine or at least androgynous when he went missing,” Julie took a breath.

“Despite what you think, young men don’t just wake up one day, put on nylons and lipstick and start calling themselves a lady. I’d guess that Stephanie Carter’s gender dysphoria would have been known to her parents. Even if Steven de Lorraine was publicly presenting as male you can bet he was dressing feminine out of the public eye,” Julie stated.

She could see the look of disgust and confusion on Tommy’s face.

“Maybe that’s why he cleaned out his savings and ran away. His parents couldn’t come to terms with his gender issues so Steven takes the money and begins to live as Stephanie. No one is looking for a young woman, they’re still looking for Steven,” Julie continued.

Tommy nodded. He had to concede that what Julie was saying was likely the truth.

“The driver’s licence that was found at the scene belonging to Stephanie Carter was a forgery but a good forgery. She had help,” Tommy added, surprising Julie by actually discussing the case with her rather than telling her to shut up or giving her busy work.

“Maybe her pimp?” Tommy speculated.

At least Tommy wasn’t misgendering Stephanie and Julie was tempted to tell him what she knew about Fleur de Lis but she wasn’t ready yet. She’d have to tell him how she came across the information and that would be difficult.

“You know what to do when we get to the morgue,” Tommy reverted to his surly self.

“Just observe, take notes and keep my trap shut,” Julie repeated Tommy’s instructions.

“And the security videos?” Tommy asked.

“Probably useless. By some coincidence the camera in the hallway on the floor of Stephanie's apartment wasn’t working and I don’t like coincidences. The footage from the lobby shows a procession of residents and visitors coming and going from the building on the day of the murder but unless we find a suspect to compare it to it’s not much use to us,” Julie read from her notebook.

“The uniforms who did the door-to-door interviewing Stephanie’s neighbours report that Stephanie kept to herself. She did however seem to have a lot of visitors, mostly men, some couples, often leaving in the early hours of the morning. No one heard anything untoward on the day she was murdered,” Julie closed her notebook.

Tommy just grunted and turned into Camden City Community Hospital and parked in a spot reserved for doctors. He put a ‘Police Business’ sign on the dashboard and Julie followed him into the hospital where they took the elevator down into the morgue.

The elevator ride was only two floors but the elevator was slow and Tommy got talkative.

“So you and Gail had a thing goin’ in New York City a while back?” Tommy blurted out.

This was the conversation that Julie was dreading.

“I always wondered why that chick never succumbed to my charms then she tells me she’s a lesbian and that you and her used to fuck,” Tommy continued

Julie refused to be drawn into the conversation. Now she knew what Gail and Tommy were talking about when they were alone in Stephanie Carter’s bedroom.

“So you alphabet people; you got like a radar or something so you can sniff each other out?” Tommy continued to goad her.

Julie grinned not only at the mixed metaphor but also because ‘Gaydar’ was in fact an LGBTI dating site.

“But is Gail technically a lesbian if you’ve still got a cock? Because I thought lezzies were only into carpet munching you know. So if Gail is still keen for cock maybe I still got a chance. Maybe mine’s bigger?” Tommy grinned.

When Julie didn’t rise to the bait Tommy let it go and then thankfully the doors opened.

Hector ‘Doc’ Freeman and Gail Johnson were dressed in protective clothing standing over Stephanie Carter’s nude body. Stephanie was ghostly pale. Her makeup had been wiped away when the body was cleaned but she was still an attractive woman even in death. Except for her genitalia it would have been impossible to guess that she once been a young man. The Y-shaped incision in her body had been stitched shut.

“We’ve run some of the trace evidence and bloodwork through the lab. Her clothing has been processed, catalogued and bagged. Gail will sign it into the evidence room at Police Plaza to maintain chain of custody,” Doc began without any preliminary small talk.

“Stephanie Carter had traces of cocaine, MDMA and alcohol in her system but not enough to incapacitate her. I’d say she was a frequent user but was relatively sober at the time of her death,” Doc read from a sheet of paper on a clipboard.

“She also tested positive for Rohypnol in a quantity that would likely have put her in trancelike state. She would have been conscious but not responsive,” Doc continued to read from the clipboard.

“There was semen from two different men in her anus and her own semen was found in her panties. She ejaculated just prior to or at the time of death,” Doc said dispassionately but Tommy screwed up his face.

“Cause of death was exsanguination due to the wound inflicted on her throat. As was presumed at the crime scene, there is no evidence of a struggle or defence wounds. She is slightly underweight for a person of her age and her stomach was almost empty except for alcohol and sperm,” Doc said dispassionately and once again Tommy screwed his face up.

“She has fine scars associated with facial feminisation surgery, breast augmentation and a tracheal shave and she was taking a regimen of female hormones,” Doc flipped through the pages on the clipboard and looked up at Tommy expecting questions.

Julie saw the fine silvery scars on the underside of Stephanie's perfect breasts. Julie had similar scars herself and then she subconsciously rubbed at the faint scars on her wrists.

“So, what do we have that’s useful?” Tommy looked from Doc to Gail and back again.

Gail took a deep breath and began.

“There are no signs of break and enter nor signs of struggle. I proffer that Stephanie let her killer or killers into her apartment with the intention to have consensual sex. The semen found in her body and her underwear confirms that she’d had anal and oral sex within twenty-four hours of being killed. The two samples from her anus are being processed for a DNA match but the sample from her stomach is corrupted by her digestive juices,” Gail directed her response to Tommy.

“She was killed sometime between midnight and four in the morning by a single knife wound to the throat and given the quantity of Rohypnol in her system she was likely in a vegetative state and unable to fight back. Her mobile phone is missing, there was no computer found in the apartment so she either didn’t have one or it was taken too. She doesn’t have a vehicle registered under either identity but we’re continuing to search the apartment block parking garage,” Gail continued.

“There was only one glass found at the scene which has Stephanie's prints and lipstick on it and traces of Rohypnol. The killer took the second glass with him. There is a glass missing from the set of six and the rings on the countertop suggest a second glass was used and the wine bottle was nearly empty,” Gail looked up at Tommy who just nodded.

“Even though the apartment was scrupulously clean there are prints from at least thirty people in the apartment but specific areas have been wiped clean with alcohol including the door handles. Except for the semen, even if it is his, the killer left no trace evidence behind and the cut to her throat was precise, almost clinical. The killer knew what he was doing,” Gail finished her summation.

“Sex, drugs and money. The john or pimp she’d ripped off came to her apartment, drugged her, fucked her, and killed her, wiped down any surfaces he had touched and took with him anything that might incriminate him,” Tommy surmised.

“Why was she posed?” Julie blurted out and Tommy’s eyes flashed at her.

“As a warning to the other hookers. Don’t steal my money or my drugs,” Tommy snapped.

“What about the Fleur de Lis card? Was it hers or the killer’s?” Julie wouldn’t be silenced.

“Stephanie’s fingerprints were on the card. The phone number on the back of the card belongs to a burner and is unregistered. I’ll leave Tommy to call the number and see who answers. He likes to be in charge,” Gail gave Tommy a cheeky smile.

“Send the reports and findings through to Detective Sanderson,” Tommy nodded at Julie dismissively.

“Let me know if you find anything else of significance. I have an appointment with Senator de Lorraine and his wife that I’m not looking forward to,” Tommy ushered them both out of the morgue back to the elevator.

“You still don’t want to believe that it was her pimp or john that killed her,” Tommy sighed.

“It’s too clinical and she was posed. If it was her pimp, if there is one, or a john, I’d expect it to be a crime of passion. Why drug a girl who is going to let you fuck her anyway?” Julie replied.

“And what about the Fleur de Lis card? What’s the significance of that?” Julie asked, not expecting a reply.

“We’ll interview the senator and his wife and then I’ll consider what to do about that telephone number. You wanna stop for coffee on the way?” Tommy chuckled and Julie felt her stomach roil.

*****

Senator Raymond de Lorraine and his wife Judith lived in a mansion surrounded by well-tended gardens bordering a tennis court and a swimming pool. The house was set back from the road and walled and gated. Tommy had to flash his badge and speak into an intercom to gain access. He parked the city car on the pristine raked pea-gravelled circular driveway.

Tommy didn’t need to reiterate his warning about keeping her mouth shut to Julie, he just gave her a withering look that substituted for the verbal warning.

Tommy and Julie were ushered into a sitting room where the senator and his wife were sitting side by side in winged white leather chairs. A two seater sofa was positioned across from them with a silver coffee service set on a walnut coffee table between the seats and the sofa.

Tommy and Julie were led to the sofa by the valet who retired and closed the double doors behind him. Tommy was uncomfortable sitting so close to Julie that their thighs were nearly touching. Today she was wearing a navy-blue pantsuit and low heels so at least there was no flesh to contact.

The senator was wearing a dark business suit with a white shirt, striped tie and polished brogues. His hair was perfect and he looked like a caricature of himself in his election posters and pamphlets. Judith de Lorraine was wearing a bone skirt suit and mauve blouse, sheer tan nylons and white heels. She was stick-thin and her grey hair was coiffed; her makeup was perfect. The couple looked like they were ready to give a television interview rather than to be questioned by detectives.

“First, please let me say how sorry I am for your loss,” Tommy began.

“Steven has been missing for over a year so we would be lying if we didn’t think it was a distinct possibility that he was dead,” Raymond de Lorraine responded.

Julie felt herself tense up. So this is how it was going to be. Stephanie Carter was going to be misgendered by her parents who were in denial about their son’s transition.

“You are aware of the circumstances surrounding how we found Steven,” Tommy decided that it was no use getting into an argument regarding Stephanie Carter’s gender at the time of her death.

“Yes and it was awful but I think we lost our son long before he disappeared,” Raymond said while his wife began to pour coffee.

“In high school he started dressing and behaving differently and hanging around with a bad crowd. We figured it was just a phase he was going through, you know wanting to be a Goth or something. He grew his hair out, wore makeup, black clothing, even tights and skirts sometimes,” the senator explained.

“Then we found a collection of girls’ clothing and pictures of him dressed as a girl on his computer,” the senator continued.

Julie remembered how mortified she was when her parents found her stash and confronted her when she was only thirteen.

“We put him in a male-only private boarding school where there was discipline and a curricula pertaining to men’s studies and an emphasis on outdoor and sporting activities and we thought that he’d gotten over it,” the senator passed a cup to Tommy and Judith passed one to Julie.

“He was fine when he first started college but then his abhorrent tendencies resurfaced. His grades dropped, his attendance became sporadic and he turned up for classes wearing makeup, and androgynous clothing. I hired a private investigator who found that Steven was living as a girl nearly full-time and even worse he was hanging around with others who shared the same aberration,” Raymond visibly shuddered and his wife issued a sob.

“If my political opponents found out about it I would have been ruined,” the senator sipped his coffee as if he was telling a fictional tale rather than telling the tragedy that was his child’s life.

Julie fought hard to keep her emotions in check and once again thanked god that she’d had such understanding parents.

Tommy sipped his coffee and nodded sagely. Julie had to put her coffee down because her hand was beginning to shake with anger.

“I told Steven that I was going to stop paying tuition fees and close out his bank account if he didn’t straighten up and fly right. My investigator found a place that discreetly conducts conversion therapy. We were going to give Steven the option of undertaking the therapy of his own free will or I was going to have my investigator arrange for an intervention,” the senator frowned.

Julie knew that the scientific consensus is that conversion therapy is ineffective and when it fails to change someone's sexual orientation or gender identity, participants often feel increased shame that they already felt over their sexual orientation or gender identity.

“What do you mean by intervention?” Tommy asked.

The senator looked at his wife briefly before answering.

“We were going to have Steven taken forcefully to the conversion therapy facility,” Raymond de Lorraine said stoically.

“If we knew about all this when we were working on your son’s missing person case we would have handled things a lot differently,” Tommy said as gently as he could.

“We would have investigated the kind of places where people like that tend to congregate. The pictures you provided us to give to the press and print on the missing persons posters showed Steven presenting as a man,” Tommy explained.

“He is a man!” Raymond de Lorraine yelled and thumped his fist on the table.

“Stop it Raymond; stop it!” Judith de Lorraine began to sob.

Her shoulders shook and her cries of anguish were heart-breaking.

Tommy dug his elbow into Julie’s ribs and she took the cue and extended her hand across the table and took Judith’s hand in her hers.

“You don’t understand,” Judith de Larraine sniffled.

“I understand very well,” Julie whispered stroking Judith de Lorraine’s hand.

Judith looked at Julie suspiciously then her look turned to anger and she recoiled and snatched back her hand.

“You're one of them, aren’t you?” Judith hissed.

“You vile creature!” she looked at Julie with absolute hatred.

“Let me tell you something. When we get Steven’s body back from the coroner I’m having his hair cut short, I’m having those plastic tits ripped out of his chest and I’m burying him in a tuxedo. His name is Steven de Lorraine and that will be the name on his gravestone,” Judith hissed.

“Get out! Get out of this room and never come back!” Judith unleashed her fury at Julie.

The manservant entered the room and politely led Julie out of the sitting room and sat her in the entranceway next to the door.

“I was running for election while Steven was carrying on that way in college. The party would have dropped me from the ticket if it came to light what Steven was up to. It could be worse for me now if it came out that my son was some sort of transvestite prostitute. You understand what I’m saying here detective?” Senator Raymond de Lorraine glared at Tommy.

“Senator Graham Milburn is coming after me because I’m next in line for party whip. He’s trying to poison my reputation with the party because he wants the job. Politics can be vicious and playing dirty is all part of the game. It would be best if my private life remained private,” Raymond took Judith’s hand in his and squeezed it lightly, to emphasise that the couple were in agreement.

“If you want a career in the Camden Police Department or anywhere else in this state you better keep a lid on this,” the senator growled.

“I have been instructed to use the utmost discretion Senator. This case is being handled with extreme delicacy,” Tommy replied.

“Thank you. When you put my son’s killer behind bars without any fanfare or public debacle you will find that I can be more than generous. It might be more convenient if the killer is never actually arrested. My understanding is that felons often meet their demise if they try to evade arrest of if they are armed and dangerous,” the senator raised his brows knowingly.

Tommy just nodded sagely but said nothing.

“What about the thing in the pantsuit?” Judith de Lorraine nodded towards the door.

“Detective Sanderson is working for me solely in an advisory capacity. You understand that she has knowledge on how these people operate and how they think. She knows to keep her mouth shut and she will return to New York as soon as the case is closed,” Tommy said, the lie sticking in his throat.

“You called Detective Sanderson she,” Judith de Lorraine glared at Tommy.

“Only as a matter of convenience Mrs de Lorraine,” Tommy said sagely.

Tommy stood and nodded at the senator and his wife and left the room.

“Let’s get out of here before I throw up my breakfast,” Tommy pushed Julie through the door towards the car.

“You saw the denial there Tommy. If they had treated Stephanie with a modicum of love and respect, this might never have happened,” Julie said.

“Fuck their respect. I get it that they're angry that their fucked up son wanted to become a girl; I have no problem with that but they lied to police and that asshole offered me a bribe,” Tommy slammed the car door closed and reached for his seatbelt.

“Mrs de Lorraine liked your pantsuit by the way but I prefer it when you show a bit of leg,” Tommy quipped and Julie couldn’t help a wry smile.

They stopped for coffee at the Starbucks on the way back to Police Plaza. Julie brought the coffees over to a small table in the corner away from the other customers.

“You want it with or without the spit?” Julie held out Tommy’s coffee.

“I make the jokes and I’m sorry about this morning,” Tommy said begrudgingly.

Julie sat across from him and Tommy studied her closely.

“What are you looking at?” Julie blushed.

“No one would ever know, would they?” Tommy mused.

“Know what?” Julie frowned.

“At least half a dozen guys checked you out when you walked in here with me,” Tommy said and Julie blushed for the second time that day.

“I’m five ten in my low heels. I stick out because I’m a tall woman. People stare at me all the time,” Julie replied.

“Yeah but it’s not just that. That guy over there hasn’t taken his eyes off your ass since you walked in,” Tommy nodded at a man pretending to read his newspaper.

“We call it being clocked. That’s when someone suspects that you're a transgender woman. I don’t hide the fact that I am but I don’t advertise it either,” Julie took a sip of her coffee.

“No one here has clocked you. They're checking you out because you’re a good looking woman,” Tommy shrugged.

“I’m waiting for the insult,” Julie said dryly.

“Listening to the senator and his wife got me thinking. You have to put up with that a lot don’t you?” Tommy said.

“Ok. Mostly I don’t because except for my height I’m pretty unclockable. It’s when people find out that I’m trans that their prejudice shows through. You can imagine what I went through at the academy?” Julie replied.

Tommy nodded sagely. The police academy was hell on all the rookies especially women. Julie would have copped it worse than anyone.

“And then there are the tranny chasers. Some men think because you're trans you're promiscuous. They wonder what it would be like to fuck a trans woman but there is no way they're going to date you,” Julie said dispassionately.

“What about Gail?” Tommy raised his brows.

Julie sighed. She might as well get it out in the open.

“We were lovers. We shared an apartment. She wanted commitment, a relationship… and I didn’t so we broke up. She moved to Camden when a better job came up here and I stayed in New York,” Julie said soberly.

“So… you never considered…” Tommy formed his fingers into scissors and imitated a cutting motion.

“Now you are getting really personal Detective Lomax,” Julie stirred her coffee.

“Where to now boss?” Julie broke the awkward silence.

“Let’s see what happens when I dial that number on the back of the card,” Tommy said.

As it turned out, Tommy didn’t get to dial the number that day. They ran into Jack Shepard back at Police Plaza. He was coming out of the temporary office that supposedly only Tommy and Julie had access to.

“What’s going on Jack? You know this case is close-hold,” Tommy asked.

“Just looking at what you have Tommy. You know. Fresh set of eyes and all that,” Jack made light of the matter and changed the subject.

“How’s the tranny cooze working out Tommy? You have to rap her on the nose with a newspaper to keep her from sucking dicks in the parking lot?” Jack looked at Julie with disdain and thought he was hilarious.

“Don’t be like that Jackie boy. You know she got foisted on me by the captain, I didn’t bench you,” Tommy wouldn’t be seen defending Julie Sanderson but he wouldn’t have Jack continue to disrespect her either.

“Why don’t you type up our notes from the interview with the de Lorraines and see if the autopsy and trace evidence reports have come in,” Tommy ushered Julie into their temporary office as much to get her away from Jack Shepard as anything else.

“Tell me what you got Tommy,” Jack dragged Tommy into the adjoining interview room.

“You know this case is close-hold Jack. I’m not supposed to discuss it with anyone,” Tommy grumbled.

“I was in at the start Tommy, just let me know where you're at with it. When are we going to be able to partner up again?” Jack whined.

Tommy relented and gave Jack the down low on the case and then he was summoned to the captain’s office to update him.

When Tommy returned to the office Julie was affixing some evidence to the crime wall, standing on her tiptoes to blu-tac crime scene pictures next to the picture of Stephanie Carter and Steven de Lorraine. Her pants were stretched tight across her buttocks and Tommy realised why the guy in the coffee shop was staring at Julie’s ass. It was a fine ass.

“You're not sharing information about our case with Jack Shepard are you Tommy?” Julie said with her back to Tommy.

“You know I wouldn’t do that Detective Sanderson and just because we shared a cup of coffee doesn’t make us buddies,” Tommy said gruffly.

Julie was used to this. Colleagues would be open and friendly with her when they were alone but as soon as they were in the company of others or in the workplace they treated her like a pariah.

“We have just about everything from the autopsy and most of the trace evidence has been processed. I’ve asked for the DNA to be fast-tracked because it’s our most compelling evidence if there’s a match,” Julie said evenly.

“Not that it will be conclusive if we do get a match. We’re almost certain that Stephanie Carter was working as a prostitute so the sperm samples in her body may not have been deposited by her killer,” Tommy looked up at the crime board.

“But it will lead us to whoever was with her on the day she was killed,” Tommy added.

“Stephanie Carter’s stomach was devoid of food. She would have douched before engaging in sexual activity so the sperm samples were reasonably fresh. There were samples from two different men in her anus. The sample in her stomach was too adulterated by her stomach acids to be useful and may have come from one of the other secretors anyway,” Julie tapped her pen against her teeth as she studied the crime board.

“Doc said that her own sperm was present in her panties. Is that usual?” Tommy blushed when he asked the question.

“What I mean is, if she was raped it is unlikely that she would have ejaculated right?” Tommy’s pink blush turned bright red.

“Involuntary erections or ejaculations can occur in the context of non-consensual anal sex. Erections and ejaculations are only partially under voluntary control and are known to occur during times of extreme duress. Also, she was under the influence of Rohypnol,” Julie replied.

“You know a lot about this stuff,” Tommy said carefully.

“You can imagine the type of cases that I’m assigned to. Back home almost any crime involving sexual assault on a trans woman is tossed my way,” Julie visibly stiffened and unconsciously fingered the scars on her wrist.

“Homework?” Julie changed the subject.

“Study the autopsy and trace evidence reports. See if they can help us put together a timeline. That’s our task for tomorrow,” Tommy began to pack up and Julie did the same.

She signed out the laptop on which the reports were stored. Given the delicacy of the case, chain of custody was tight. Tommy locked up the interview room behind them. Their farewells were brief and cursory.

On the drive back to her hotel in her rental car Julie pondered the day’s events. Tommy was no longer being outright vindictive towards her and they were starting to work as a team. Julie didn’t flatter herself that she had made Tommy any less prejudiced against transgender women, he had just come to realise that Julie’s insights were helpful.

Back at the Grand Hotel she toyed with her phone, considering whether to use her escort service app to summon the urban cowboy to her room but given all she had been through today she wasn’t in the mood.

She laid out the evidence and opened the laptop ready to work through the night. She showered and changed into her silk pyjamas, poured herself a glass of wine and was studying the room service menu when there was a knock on her door.

Julie looked through the peephole and was surprised to see Gail Johnson outside her room.

“You know they have these devices now you can use to call people rather than dropping by unannounced,” Julie said flippantly, turning her back on Gail and walked back into her hotel room.

“I have more crime scene evidence for you,” Gail waved a slim file and followed Julie into the room.

“And it couldn’t wait until tomorrow or you couldn’t give it to Tommy?” Julie sat down and took a sip of her wine.

She didn’t invite Gail to sit.

“So it’s Tommy now; not Detective Lomax,” Gail looked around the hotel room.

“Yeah, he’s actually been a little cordial today. You find what you're looking for? Want to go into the bedroom and see if I have a man hiding under the bed?” Julie waved a hand at the bedroom door.

“Or a woman, you have eclectic tastes,” Gail dropped the file on the countertop in the little kitchenette and poured herself a glass of wine.

“No one invited you to stay. You look like you're ready to hit the town anyway,” Julie flashed her green eyes at Gail.

Gail was wearing a little black cocktail dress and high heels. Her nylons were so sheer that they were almost transparent. Her makeup was heavy, her lipstick bright red and the bangs of her short black bob were cut evenly across her eyebrows. She looked like a little pixie dressed in black. An evil little pixie.

“Wanna come? We can go hunting for men,” Gail licked the rim of her glass.

During their tumultuous relationship they sometimes went out together to pick-up bars and rubbed against each other and smooched: the tall elegant trans woman and the pretty little lesbian. They’d have men falling all over them and they would pick some hunk and bring him home and have a wild threesome.

Gail would watch the hunk fuck Julie and then she’d take her turn but she wouldn’t let the guy fuck her. Everything but. Gail liked extreme sex but her vagina was reserved for Julie. Julie would watch the guy eating Gail’s pussy while she suckled him but as soon as the guy tried to fuck Gail she would direct his cock towards Julie’s willing ass.

They were wild times but then Gail had spoiled it all by telling Julie that she loved her and wanted to be exclusive. Julie could live without the wild threesomes but she wasn’t interested in settling down, especially with Gail. Gail had become clingy and sentimental and even raised the spectre of marriage. Gail told Julie that it would even be possible for them to have children and Julie was horrified.

The breakup was messy and the gossip was wild. A transgender woman detective and lesbian CSI living together fuelled plenty of water cooler speculation amongst their female colleagues and sexual fantasies among the men. Their breakup became public knowledge because Gail kept breaking down at work.

When Gail accepted a transfer to the Camden PD Julie was relived and entered self-imposed celibacy until she found the discreet escort service that catered to her needs.

“Ok. You’ve delivered your evidence. Finish your wine and leave,” Julie picked up the room service menu.

“Dining alone? Not expecting company? What a boring evening you have ahead of you. Love the pyjamas by the way, whatever happened to the lacy babydoll pyjamas you used to wear to bed with me?” Gail sat down next to Julie uninvited.

“Come on Gail. I didn’t ask for this assignment. Can’t we just behave like professionals?” Julie sighed.

“I don’t want us to behave like professionals. You know I never really got over you,” Gail swallowed half of her wine in one gulp.

“You had to tell Tommy about us didn’t you,” Julie said angrily.

“You got the hots for Tommy? Forget it. He’d put his cock in a meat grinder before he’d put it in you,” Gail snapped.

“Of course I don’t have the hots for Tommy. He’s a transphobic asshole,” Julie regretted taking the bait.

“I have a girlfriend. We live together and we’re thinking of settling down. She’s a flight attendant for Delta,” Gail said almost triumphantly.

“I’m happy for you Gail, now I think you should go,” Julie stood up and held out her hand to take Gail’s wineglass.

Gail held onto her glass but she got to her feet unsteadily and Julie realised that Gail was drunk.

“Come on. Go home,” Julie snatched the wineglass from Gail’s grip and helped her towards the door.

“I don’t wanna go home. Sally’s away and I'm lonely,” Gail whined.

Julie couldn’t help letting out a little laugh. Sally the flight attendant… how fucking Gail was that!

“Don’t you laugh at me, you bitch!” Gail tried to slap Julie’s face but she stumbled against the wall and Julie caught her before she fell to the floor.

Gail took the opportunity to put her arms around Julie and forced a kiss on her.

“Come on Julie, just for old time’s sake,” Gail put a fumbling hand inside Julie’s pyjama bottoms.

Julie’s cock was unfettered in her boy leg panties and Gail's fingers found it. Gail pressed her lips against Julie’s and slipped her tongue into her mouth and pressed her body against her, wrapping a calf around her salaciously.

Gail tasted of wine and cigarettes. She only smoked when she was drunk or angry and Gail was obviously both.

“Come on girl, give it up for your old girlfriend,” Gail stroked Julie’s penis just the way she knew Julie liked having it stroked.

“You fucking bitch,” Julie gasped and crushed her lips against Gail's.

“You looking for a sympathy fuck, well here it comes,” Julie’s anger had been channelled into lust.

She picked Gail up and carried her to the bedroom and dropped her unceremoniously on the bed.

Gail’s short skirt rode up her thighs revealing that she wasn’t wearing panties. Her shaved sex was visible through her gauzy transparent pantyhose, her coral pink labia extruded through the fleshy outer lips of her pudenda and dewy beads of Gail’s vaginal secretions glistened like little pearls tucked the in folds of a succulent oyster.

Julie could actually smell Gail’s cunt.

It had always excited Julie when Gail became so licentiously excited, usually in anticipation of sex with some handsome stranger she and Gail had picked up in some seedy bar. But tonight Julie’s lust was fuelled by contempt. Gail had come to Julie’s hotel room wanting what? To rekindle their relationship? To rub her vapid flight attendant girlfriend in Julie’s face and make her jealous? Or did she just want a drunken grudge fuck?

She was getting the latter whether she wanted it or not.

Julie sprang onto the bed and Gail opened her arms expecting Julie to fall into them but Julie pushed Gail’s legs open wide and tore out the crotch of Gail’s pantyhose with her teeth.

“Oh my god you bitch!” Gail gasped as Julie’s mouth closed over her sex.

Julie pushed her tongue into the folds of Gail’s sex and lapped up the glistening secretions and found Gail’s clitoris nestled in her clitoral hood. She sucked the little protuberance into her mouth and thrummed the tip of her tongue on the delicate little bud and Gail began to thrash and mewl as Julie expertly induced Gail’s orgasm.

Gail’s climax had always been easy to trigger and Julie smiled wickedly around the fleshy parts of Gail’s pubis as Gail screamed obscenities and entwined her fingers in Julie’s hair and pushed Julie’s face into her cunt as waves of delight radiated from her sodden sex. Gail’s cunt tasted sweet, with a just a tinge of bitterness. The smell of her cunny-juice and vaginal deodorant mingled with her exotic perfume.

Julie was rampant. Her cock engorged with lust and anger.

She climbed up Gail’s body like a panther clawing its way up the body of a fallen prey. Julie smashed her mouth against Gail’s red lips and thrust her throbbing penis into the sodden maw of Gail’s vagina. Gail’s cunt seemed to welcome Julie’s penis inside her like a lost limb. Her labia opened like the petals of a flower and closed around the base of Julie’s shaft as Gail’s steamy vaginal walls enveloped Julie’s phallus like a tight, fleshy sheath.

Julie pushed her tongue into Gail’s mouth and pinned her arms up behind her head and began to fuck her, each lunge a vicious attack on Gail’s delicate sex. Gail’s cries were muffled by Julie’s mouth but Julie knew that Gail was still climaxing from her oral attack on Gail’s clitoris and she was now riding another wave of orgasmic rapture.

“Fuck me you bitch!” Gail’s head rolled from side to side on the pillows as she rose up to meet Julie’s plunging rod.

Gail locked her legs around Julie’s waist and writhed underneath her. Gail grunted every time Julie slammed her cock into her bruised cleft.

Julie could feel Gail’s vagina clutching at her throbbing, swollen appendage, compressing her warm spongy channel around Julie’s cock attempting to express Julie’s essence deep into her clunge. It was this neediness that so enamoured Julie in the bedroom and repelled her when they discussed their relationship. It always felt Gail wanted to own Julie.

Julie glared into Gail’s glazed deep blue eyes. There was no love, only lust and anger and Gail smiled up at her.

“There’s the cunt I knew and loved,” Gail goaded her.

Julie slammed her cock into Gail so hard that it almost winded her but Gail still smiled up at her and raked her heels along Julie’s flanks, encouraging her, goading her, deliberately antagonising her.

Julie put her hands under Gail’s armpits and gripped her shoulders, holding her like a fuck-toy as she slammed her cock in and out of Gail’s tight snatch. The room reeked of sex and the walls reverberated with grunts, groans and squeals as the two women fucked each other viciously.

Gail let out a withering moan like a wounded animal in its death throes as the almost perpetual orgasm she had been enduring peaked. Julie felt Gail’s cunt clasp at her juddering, turgescent member, expressing Julie’s essence. Julie’s scrotum contracted and her testes roiled as she pinned Gail to the bed and drove herself all the way inside Gail and filled her with scalding semen.

Julie closed her eyes and ground her pubis into Gail’s clunge, oblivious to Gail’s shrieks and moans. She didn’t feel Gail’s nails raking her back or her heel’s stabbing her sides or Gail’s body shaking under her. All she felt was her bloated phallus finding relief as Gail’s cunt clenched at it, milking it, draining Julie of her creamy efflux.

Gail lay under Julie panting, trying to control her ragged breathing. Her makeup was ruined, her dress sodden with sweat, her hose torn and laddered, her body aching and bruised in some places and her cunt so raw that she hissed when Julie extracted her swollen appendage.

“There’s your grudge fuck now fuck off back to Sally the trolley dolly and don’t come back here,” Julie pushed her deflating penis inside her pyjama bottoms and half dragged Gail off the bed.

Gail got to her feet unsteadily. She had lost a high heel during the melee and she snatched it off the bed and almost fell over as she tried to put it on while standing one-legged like a drunken flamingo. She pulled down her dress to cover her bruised and battered pudenda feeling Julie’s semen leaking out of her vagina and soaking into her snagged pantyhose.

Julie took Gail by the wrist and gathered her purse off the kitchen counter and pushed it into her chest as she bundled her to the door.

“You're pathetic Gail. Get on with your life and forget about me. Forget about us. This is the last time you play your mind games with me,” Julie opened the door to her hotel room.

“Sally and I are going to have a baby. She loves me and I love her,” Gail sniped.

Gail wasn't as drunk as she was when she arrived but she was far from sober.

“I hope you have wonderful life together,” Julie pushed Gail out the door and closed it softly, resisting the urge to slam it shut.

“Fucking evil little pixie,” Julie hissed as she headed for the shower.

Day Three

Julie’s phone began to bark and she reached for it on the nightstand and looked at the time. It was early. The grudge-sex with Gail, the wine and busywork meant she hadn't gone to sleep until the early hours, which she was used to, but she wouldn’t mind another hour or so sleep.

“You get the papers delivered to your room?” Tommy said without any ceremony.

“Sure,” Julie yawned and swung her long legs out of bed.

“Check out the Times political pages then call me back,” Tommy hung up on her.

Julie padded barefoot to the door, stopping briefly to put a coffee pod in the machine and turn it on. One copy of the New York Times and one copy of the local rag had been left outside her door by the night concierge. Julie picked them up and took them to the kitchenette where she poured espresso and took a sip.

Julie wrestled with the broadsheet until she found the political commentary section. There was a small column on page three below the fold under the headline:

WHAT IS SENATOR DE LORRAINE HIDING?

Senator Graham Milburn has accused Senator Raymond de Lorraine of hiding the truth about his missing son. Twenty year old Steven de Lorraine was reported missing just over a year ago and at first there was speculation that the Senator’s son had been kidnapped. Steven de Lorraine was attending Camden University at the time of his disappearance.

Tragically, this reporter has learned that the missing person’s case has been closed as the result of Steven de Lorraine being found deceased. Camden PD has refused to comment claiming that it is policy not to comment on ongoing investigations. Senator Raymond de Lorraine and his wife Judith were interviewed by homicide detectives and there is speculation that Steven de Lorraine was murdered.

Senator Graham Milburn has accused Senator Raymond de Lorraine of hiding sensitive information regarding his son’s disappearance and death from the public because it is likely to affect his chances for selection as the majority whip and embarrass him politically. Senator Milburn and Senator de Lorraine have both been critical of each other in the past and the speculation raised by Senator Milburn is seen by Senator de Lorraine’s supporters as an underhanded attempt to smear Senator de Lorraine at a time when he and his wife should be consoled and allowed to grieve privately.

Julie snatched up her phone and returned Tommy’s call.

“What the fuck Tommy?” Julie gasped as she began to pull clothing out of the wardrobe haphazardly and lay it on the bed.

“Get your ass down here asap, the captain wants to see us and he isn’t happy,” Tommy hung up on her again.

She and Tommy endured a thirty minute tirade from Captain James McElroy the gist of which was that if he found out who was leaking information to Senator Milburn he would have their badge and lock them up and throw away the key.

“It wasn’t either of us Captain. The case is being kept close-hold but the leak might not have come from inside the PD. The coroner’s office, a nosy neighbour, someone who knew Stephanie Carter… the leak could have come from anywhere,” Tommy defended himself and his partner.

“Whoever leaked the murder didn’t give specifics as far as we know, the newspaper didn’t speculate exactly what Senator de Lorraine might be hiding,” Julie added and for once Tommy agreed with her.

“Get it solved Tommy and do it quick. And keep it tighter than a fish’s asshole. No one, I mean absolutely no one, except you me and her are to be privy to anything to do with this case,” the captain pointed his finger at Julie, sighed and waved them out of his office.

“What do we do now? We still don’t have a suspect,” Julie followed Tommy down to their makeshift office.

“Let’s try that number we found on the card. Tech Services still haven’t been able to find out where the burner was purchased or when it was last used. It’s the best lead we have at the moment while the DNA is being processed,” Tommy locked the door to their office behind him.

“What’s the strategy?” Julie asked.

“I don’t have one. We don’t know if the number belongs to Stephanie Carter's pimp, her dealer or a john. It might be the number of her fucking hairdresser for all we know,” Tommy speculated.

“I’ll try to be as vague and innocuous as possible when I make the call and see what happens,” Tommy said and Julie nodded.

Tommy looked at his notes and punched the number they had found on the back of the Fleur de Lis card into his phone.

“Here we go,” Tommy pressed the call icon and put the phone on speaker.

“Yes?” a male vice answered on the third ring.

“Hey, I got your number from Stephanie Carter. She told me you have good stuff,” Tommy tried to sound casual.

The phone went dead.

“Fuck!” Tommy hissed.

“What now?” Julie asked.

She was thinking that now was the time to tell Tommy what she knew about Fleur de Lis and take her lumps when he ragged on her about how she had obtained the information.

Tommy’s phone vibrated and he stabbed at the answer icon.

“I’ll text you an address. Be there at noon. Call me when you're there. Come alone and bring cash. One thousand dollars in small bills. Then you get the good stuff,” the man said in short staccato sentences and then he hung up.

Tommy and Julie looked at each other.

“Noon. We have time to brief a team for backup. Maybe SWAT?” Julie speculated.

“Nope. You heard what the captain said. It’s you and me,” Tommy gritted his teeth.

“Jesus Tommy, we don’t know what you’re walking into,” Julie whined.

“Then we better make sure we’re prepared. We have three hours,” Tommy stared at the phone.

It pinged and tommy picked it up and looked at the address on the screen.

“The warehouse district. Let’s find it on the map,” Tommy woke up the laptop and began to punch the address into the browser.

The address provided was a street in the warehouse district of Camden, intersected by rail lines and service roads leading to freight yards. It was surrounded by heavy industry and manufacturing. The area was also known to be a drug distribution nexus but as soon as the drug squad shut down one drug distribution centre, another popped up. No one was winning the war on drugs except for the criminals.

“We should have backup. We should at least have a team standing by,” Julie pleaded with Tommy.

“I’ll wear a vest and a wire. You’ll be my backup. If it’s just one guy I’ll see what he’s offering and make an arrest. If it’s more than one guy I’ll withdraw and we do it your way. I don’t want anyone else to know about this. If we cock it up we keep it under wraps,” Tommy said with determination in his voice.

They used the time as best they could. Tommy signed out two ballistic vests and they both carried backup pieces. Julie had opted for a skirt suit today, Tommy’s comment about seeing some leg might have played a subliminal part in that, but in reality she had snatched the first thing she found in her wardrobe. She wished she was wearing her pantsuit but there was no time to change which meant that she had to put her snub nose .38 backup weapon in her purse rather than strap it to her ankle.

Tommy took their mobile phones down to Tech Services and had Phantom software installed on their devices. The software allows undercover officers to covertly record and broadcast conversations using a smartphone app and remote hardware instead of a physical wire on the body.

Tommy spent some time with Julie explaining how it worked and then they checked their weapons and headed out with a plan that Julie thought was close to being half-assed but Tommy was determined to keep the sting close hold.

Julie knew that Tommy was hoping that they might break the case but she was concerned about the risk. They went back and forth about contingencies while Tommy drove to the warehouse district. He let Julie open her window so the stink of Jack’s old farts and cigarette smoke wasn’t as cloying.

“You ever think about getting this city car cleaned and detailed? It smells like a college boy’s dorm room,” Julie made small talk to try to break the tension they were both feeling.

“You been in many college boy’s dorms?” Tommy gave her a cheeky smile and she gave him a mew.

Julie noticed that Tommy was not averse to looking at her legs now and then but she still wished she was wearing her pantsuit.

At eleven fifty they pulled the city car over in a cul-de-sac at the address provided. They were surrounded by what looked like abandoned warehouses, some of them dilapidated. What concerned Julie was that there was only one escape route, the warehouses backed onto rail lines that were protected by a twelve foot chainlink fence topped with barbwire.

There were sightlines into their vehicle from any of the top floor windows of the warehouses but they only had a ground level view of the old buildings. It was the perfect place for an ambush. They both checked their weapons again ensuring they each had one round in the chamber.

For a split second Tommy recalled what Senator Raymond de Lorraine had said about how it might be more convenient if Stephanie’s murderer never made it to trial.

They checked that the Phantom software was working correctly, Tommy talking conversationally with his phone in his jacket pocket while Julie listened. The signal was clear and the conversation was recorded.

“Will you still have a signal inside the warehouse?” Julie asked.

Tommy shrugged and just then his phone vibrated and he answered it.

“The old Wellington warehouse. The office out back. Bring the money; leave the cooze. I’ve got the good stuff,” the voice sounded like it had been put through a synthesizer.

The Wellington Furniture Company had ceased manufacturing furniture in Camden over twenty years ago and now imported their stock from South East Asia for pennies on the dollar. The warehouse to their right looked like it hadn't been used since.

“Ok, this is it. If you hear gunshots come a running and call for backup, otherwise keep your tidy little ass in the car and make sure everything is recorded,” Tommy reverted to his old gruff self.

Julie guessed it was nervous tension and she just nodded.

The big main doors that trucks used to enter and leave the warehouse were securely locked but the pedestrian access door had been prised open long ago and stood ajar. Tommy checked his weapon for what must have been the twentieth time and stepped into the gloom. He gave himself a minute for his eyes to adjust.

The main warehouse floor was deserted except for some old furniture probably used by the homeless or teenagers looking for somewhere to party. Empty booze bottles, cigarette butts and drug paraphernalia littered the filthy floor. There were signs that someone had lit a fire in a rusty old forty-four gallon drum.

“I’m in,” Tommy whispered, his feet crackling on broken crack pipes and syringes.

The only light came from the rays of sunshine shining through several holes in the roof and the dim yellowish light coming in through the few filthy windows where the boards had been ripped free. He could make out what he believed to be the office at the back of the warehouse through the gloom. He saw a mattress pushed against the far wall surrounded by used condoms shrivelled up like small dead jellyfish. A pair of panties bunched up in pantyhose lay tossed aside beside the makeshift bed.

“I’m heading to the office. I think I see someone,” Tommy whispered.

In the car Julie was chewing her lip.

As he approached the rear of the warehouse Tommy saw a sign on the partially open door that said Dispatch Office confirming what he suspected. As he got closer he could see that someone was sitting in a chair in the middle of the floor.

He got closer still and saw that it was a woman with long blonde hair. She was tied to the chair with her back to him.

“Our suspect has a hostage. She’s tied to a chair in the office,” Tommy said evenly, although his heart was racing.

Tommy’s instincts took over and he abandoned caution and ran into the office and straight to the woman tied up to the wooden hard-backed chair.

He ran around the chair so that he was facing her and realised too late that he was looking at a mannequin. The female dummy was dressed in a cheap dress, a cheaper blonde wig and her face was crudely made-up. Tommy heard the crunch of footwear on the filthy floor and reached for his weapon but it was too late.

He felt the sting of the needle on the side of his neck then his knees buckled and his sight grew dim. A shadowy figure took Tommy’s gun from his holster and shoved it in his pants then he pushed the mannequin aside. The rope around the mannequin’s chest was in fact loosely tied; just a prop.

The figure manhandled Tommy into the chair and ripped off his jacket and his ballistic vest. He used the same rope to tie Tommy into the chair so that he didn’t collapse. This time the rope was no prop.

“Don’t worry detective. The injection I gave you won’t kill you or even knock you out for a little while. I want to ask you some questions,” the shadowy figure was dressed all in black and wore a black ski mask and soft leather gloves.

“Fuck you,” Tommy’s voice was a whisper and to him it seemed indistinct and far away.

He hoped that Julie had heard him and was on her way or calling the cavalry.

The man hit tommy in the stomach with a roundhouse punch and Tommy doubled over, held in the chair only by the rope.

“Be nice detective. All I want to know is how you know Stephanie Carter,” the masked man asked.

Tommy’s head felt like it was filled with cotton wool, his throat was parched and he was dizzy. His belly felt like it was on fire.

“She’s dead,” Tommy replied.

He didn’t want to tell this man anything but he found that his free will seemed to have deserted him.

“How did she die?” the man asked.

“Fuck you,” Tommy managed to overcome the almost irresistible urge to tell the truth.

This time the blow crashed into his cheek and Tommy’s head lolled to one side.

“Be fucking nice!” the man hissed.

“Murdered,” Tommy whispered when the man pushed back two of Tommy’s fingers to the stage where he thought they would pop.

“By who?” the man asked.

“By you asshole,” to his surprise, Tommy managed a snigger.

The man pulled Tommy’s nine millimetre from his waistband and put it against Tommy’s head.

“I can make it look like suicide. You cops eat your guns all the time,” the man sniggered right back at Tommy.

“Fuck you,” Tommy spat blood and the man eased back the safety.

Julie was a good shot but the office was shrouded in shadows and she didn’t want to hit Tommy so took a few steps closer until she was at the office door. Her low heels crunched on a piece of broken glass and the masked man turned her way and emptied the magazine in her direction.

Julie dived for cover and luckily landed on the filthy mattress. She rolled over and returned fire through the doorway but aimed deliberately high so as not to hit Tommy. The masked man dropped Tommy’s pistol and wrenched his own pistol from a shoulder holster and fired back at her and Julie kept rolling until she was up against the office wall.

She heard running footsteps and a door slam and she rolled into a crouch in the open doorway with her pistol aimed where the man had been standing but he was gone. She heard a high powered car engine fire up and the screeching of tires. As much as she wanted to follow in the masked man’s footsteps, even if only to get a tag, she didn’t. Her first duty was to Tommy.

His head was bowed and he seemed comatose and Julie put her hand on Tommy’s neck and felt for a pulse. His pulse was steady and then Tommy coughed and whispered something.

“What Tommy?” she leaned in close to him.

“No hospitals, no cops, keep this to ourselves,” Tommy seemed to have exhausted himself speaking those few words but he whispered something else.

“What?” she leaned in again.

“You're a lousy shot sweet cheeks,” Tommy managed a faint smile before the darkness swallowed him.

*****

Getting Tommy back to her hotel room had been a logistical nightmare. She tried to half drag – half carry Tommy to the car which became too difficult because Tommy was a dead weight so she resorted to using a fireman’s carry. She’d been terrified that the gunfire would attract attention and that a squad car would arrive at any moment. Luckily the noise of the gunshots which had sounded thunderous inside the cavernous warehouse hadn't travelled far.

The Grand Hotel had an underground parking garage and Julie parked the city car as close as possible to the elevator then waited until she was certain that the car park was devoid of other guests before she dragged Tommy into the elevator and held him upright as the elevator crawled its way up to the uppermost floor where her suite was situated. Her excuse for Tommy’s condition if a hotel guest or one of the staff entered the elevator was that he had drunk too much but luckily they had the car to themselves all the way to the top.

Inside her room she dragged Tommy to the bedroom and conducted a cursory examination. Every fibre in her being told her to take Tommy to Camden City Community Hospital and to inform Captain McElroy what had happened but she had made a promise to Tommy and unless it appeared he had sustained life-threating wounds she would keep it.

Tommy’s cheek was bruised but his breathing was steady. He was not bleeding as far as she could tell so he hadn't been hit during the crossfire. She undressed Tommy, checking for any other injuries as she did so. All she found was the bruising on his flat stomach where his assailant had punched him. His breathing remained steady. It appeared that he was in a deep sleep.

What else she found was disturbing. Tommy was lean and muscled, his skin pale except for his arms, legs and face which were tanned. His chest was scarred by little pockmarks of silvery flesh. Julie had investigated cases reported by the Child Protective Service involving criminal abuse. She recognised the scars as cigarette burns. There were other old scars on his torso and his upper arms and legs. Experienced child abusers knew how to hurt kids in such a way that their injuries did not show.

She softly circled the scars with her fingertips and choked back a sob. It looked like Tommy had been systematically abused as a child. She used warm soapy water to wipe down his body, leaving on his underpants for modesty. He had a substantial package in his briefs and she blushed when she cleaned his lower body.

She put a sheet and blanket over him and brushed the thick dark hair out of his eyes. Instinctively she leaned down and kissed his cheek.

The man who had tied up and assaulted Tommy had told him that the injection that he’d given Tommy wouldn’t kill him and Julie had to take that on its face value. When she was reasonably assured that Tommy was not going to die and that he had no critical injuries she left him to sleep off the drug and took some time to evaluate the situation.

She had Tommy’s gun, his vest and his phone. The city car was theirs for the duration of the investigation. She and Tommy reported directly to the captain so no one was going to be checking up on them. She replayed the recording they had made using the Phantom software.

The man who had lured them to the warehouse had set up an elaborate trap but he hadn't known that Stephanie Carter was dead or that she had been murdered or who was responsible so it was likely that he wasn’t the killer but that couldn’t be ruled out. She replayed the sequence of events as she stripped off her filthy suit and took a shower.

She changed into lycra sports tights and a T-shirt not bothering with shoes. She checked on Tommy and suddenly felt exhausted. Julie lay down on the other side of the bed and fell into a deep sleep. Sometime during the night Tommy rolled over and put his arm around her. She could feel his breath on her neck. His respiration had changed; it was no longer the deep steady breathing that one associated with someone who was unconscious or in a coma. It was more staccato, like someone who was dreaming.

“I’m sorry mom,” he mumbled and then he was silent.

She listened to him breathe for a while, feeling his chest rise and fall and then she fell back to sleep.

Day Four

It was still dark when Tommy stirred and woke her up and for a second or two Julie didn’t realise where she was. The only person who had ever slept in her bed overnight was Gail Johnson. Julie had never let a man stay overnight. She gently removed Tommy’s arm and rolled out of her side of the bed. The lights of the city crept through the cracks in the curtains.

Tommy rolled over onto his back and his eyes opened. He stared at the ceiling for a while then he tried to get up but his head fell back onto the pillows.

“Did someone shit in my mouth?” Tommy said.

His voice was weak and gravelly.

“Someone drugged you,” Julie replied as she walked out of the bedroom and then returned with a bottle of chilled water and a glass.

Tommy reached for the water but he was uncoordinated.

Julie poured water into the glass and gently lifted Tommy’s head and put the glass to his lips. He tried to snatch the glass from her hand and gulp down the cool refreshing liquid but she refused to let go and made him sip it.

“Do you remember what happened?” Julie asked.

“I don’t know who was the biggest dummy, me or that mannequin. It was a rookie move. I remember being tied to the chair and some guy in a mask beating on me,” Tommy’s speech was becoming steadier.

Julie checked his eyes and saw that they were focussed.

“Follow my finger,” she held up a finger and moved it from side to side and Tommy followed it.

“The side of my face hurts and I feel like a mule kicked me in the guts,” Tommy tried to force a smile and Julie let him take the glass and he finished the water.

He held it out for a refill and realised that the bedding had fallen away from his chest and he snatched it back up to his neck.

“I’m naked,” Tommy declared as he sipped more water.

“I undressed you and put you to bed,” Julie watched him intently; looking for any signs that Tommy might be concussed.

Tommy felt around under the covers and seemed relieved to find that he was still wearing his briefs.

“Did you check me out?” Tommy tried to give her a salacious grin.

“You want me to get mine out so we can see whose is bigger?” Julie smiled back at him.

Tommy instinctively looked at her crotch and saw the tight ‘V’ in her spandex tights.

“Does it hurt tucking it away like that?” the old Tommy was back.

“Do you want something to eat? I’m famished,” Julie ignored the question.

Tommy nodded and was able to sit up in bed. He kept the sheet pulled up tight under his chin.

“I want a burger, fries and a shake with a shot of Jack in it,” Tommy grinned at her.

“I’ll call room service and see what they can rustle up,” Julie replied.

“Shit! My gun!” a look of panic crossed Tommy’s face.

“I have it and your vest and your phone. The city car is parked downstairs. No one knows what happened except us and the masked guy and whoever sent him,” Julie replied leaving the bedroom to use the house phone next to the sofa.

She found that there were slim pickings available from room service at this time of the morning but she placed an order and returned to the bedroom. Tommy had tried to get out of bed but he lost his balance so he sat on the edge of the bed with the sheet wrapped around him.

“Get back into bed. I’ll feed you and we can go over what happened yesterday, take stock, and determine our next move. Do you need your phone? Is there anyone you need to call?” Julie asked.

“Nah. No wife, no girlfriend, no family. Now you have my life story, tell me yours,” Tommy grunted at the pain in his belly as he climbed back under the covers.

“I was a happy NYPD detective but my boss made me go to Camden to work with an angry, transphobic, masochistic asshole who it turns out has a modicum of affability that he keeps well hidden. Now you have my life story,” Julie replied.

Tommy shrugged. Neither of them were willing to share anything about their past and Julie figured there was no need to but she couldn’t help thinking of the scars on Tommy’s body. She knew that children who were systematically abused usually grew into adults who were emotionally scarred and found it hard to trust others. They put a hard shell around their true feelings.

Julie turned on the television, tuned it to local news and muted the sound and they watched the scroll at the bottom the screen but there was nothing about a disturbance at the warehouse district or about the Stephanie Carter murder.

“It will get out eventually,” Tommy said and Julie knew that he meant the truth about the Stephanie Carter case.

“Then we better solve it quickly Tommy,” Julie replied.

She went into the bathroom and came out with a toothbrush loaded with toothpaste, a glass of water and another empty glass for Tommy to spit in.

“You asked if someone had shit in your mouth,” she offered the toothbrush to Tommy.

He stared at the toothbrush quizzically.

“I don’t have cooties,” she smiled at him and Tommy took the toothbrush.

She left him alone and went to answer the door when their room service arrived. She wheeled the trolley into the bedroom and took the toothbrush and water glasses back into the bathroom, pouring out the glasses and rinsing them before returning to the bedroom.

“Come sit here,” Tommy patted the bed beside him.

Julie tentatively parked her bottom on the edge of the bed.

“I’m sorry,” Tommy choked on the words.

“Sorry for what?” Julie whispered.

“Sorry for being an angry, transphobic, masochistic asshole. You’re a good cop,” Tommy gave her a boyish smile.

Julie said nothing.

“You look younger without the makeup,” Tommy reached up and gently smoothed the bangs out of her eyes with his fingertips.

Julie blushed. She wasn’t used to affection except from Gail and she had pushed her away when Gail wanted commitment.

“Don’t go soft on me Tommy,” Julie made to get up and Tommy pulled her down.

His strength had returned and she felt the tightness of his grip on her upper arm. He raised his head off the pillow and pressed his lips against hers.

The kiss was soft and affectionate. There was no passion but Julie felt an undercurrent like the pull of an undertow that could easily cause them to drown together if they let their feelings get away from them.

She broke the kiss and cleared her throat nervously.

“I’m sorry,” Tommy whispered again.

“But not for the kiss. Thank you for everything you have done for me,” he rubbed her arm affectionately, like a close friend might do.

They ate soup and crackers and shared a grilled pastrami and Swiss cheese sandwich.

“I need to tell you something. Unless the DNA turns up anything it might be our only lead,” Julie broke the silence.

She told Tommy about what Ryan had said about the Fleur de Lis business card. She didn’t tell Tommy how she and Ryan had met and Tommy didn’t ask but he guessed that Julie had picked Ryan up in a bar or on one of the many of escort and dating sites.

“So this Ryan guy, we need to interview him,” Tommy sounded like the effects of the drug had left his system.

Julie reached for her phone, opened her escort service app and brought up the picture of the man Ryan had identified as having worked for Fleur de Lis.

“No. We need to find this guy,” she held the phone out so that Tommy could see the screen.

“How do we do that?” Tommy looked at her quizzically.

Julie blushed again. She was making a habit of blushing in front of Tommy and it irritated her.

“I’ll call him for a date and we interview him,” Julie said matter-of-factly.

Tommy remained silent.

“Or you can. I'm sure he swings both ways,” Julie snipped.

“You do it,” it was Tommy’s turn to blush.

*****

Tommy snatched a few more hours sleep while Julie worked the case and drank coffee. She showered and changed while Tommy slept. She fixed her makeup and woke Tommy up and left him alone to shower and dress. His suit was a mess and his shirt was stained and they stopped off at Tommy’s apartment while he changed clothes. Tommy didn’t invite her in and Julie waited patiently in the car.

“What the fuck happened to you?” Jack Shepard asked back at Police Plaza.

“I had a falling out with an uncooperative witness,” Tommy made light of the bruise on his cheek.

“The tranny cooze wasn’t much help I take it,” Jack snarled, giving Julie a look of hatred.

“You know what. Come with me Jack. Julie, open up the office please,” he tossed the keys to their makeshift office to Julie and led Jack into the adjoining interview room and closed the door.

“Lay off Julie, please Jack,” Tommy said.

“What, it’s fucking Julie now? You're not fuckin’ that broad are you? I never figured you for a homo Tommy,” Jack baited his partner.

Tommy pushed Jack into the wall.

“She’s a good cop Jack. I got her all wrong. Sure she’s… well she’s different but she doesn’t let that stand in the way of policework and that’s what I need right now Jack. Someone who’ll call me on my bullshit, test my theories, cooperate when I need her to and argue when it’s called for,” Tommy let go of Jack and smoothed his lapels.

“When this case is over we’ll team up again and it will be like old times,” Tommy said, reassuringly patting Jack’s meaty shoulders.

“You know what? Kiss my ass Tommy. That queer broad has fucked up your head. I’m not sure I wanna work with you anymore,” Jack said bitterly.

“Just let me close this case Jack and we’ll be good,” Tommy said, trying to appeal to Jack’s camaraderie.

“Fuck you Tommy,” Jack said sulkily and slammed the door on his way out.

Tommy went next door and joined Julie.

“Trouble in paradise?” Julie had heard the door slam next door.

“Don’t start please,” Tommy said and Julie took the hint and let it rest.

“I ran a search on Stephanie Carter’s apartment. It’s leased through a shell company, not in her name,” Julie changed the subject.

“Yeah,” Tommy sounded distracted, probably because of his altercation with Jack Shepard Julie thought.

“The company’s name is White Lily Investments,” Julie added.

“Right,” Tommy was still distracted.

“Tommy! Fleur and lis mean 'flower' and 'lily' respectively in French. Are you even listening to me?” Julie barked.

“Oh, ok. So it’s possible that Stephanie Carter was not just working as a whore for this dating agency, which let’s face it is just a fancy name for procurer of prostitutes, she was being supported by them,” Tommy came out of his reverie.

Julie flinched when Tommy described dating agencies as procurers of prostitutes because she was a regular user of their services.

“They own other apartments scattered around Camden City but the listing for the company address is just a mail drop. What I’m getting at Tommy is that the pimp theory doesn’t hold water. Why kill one of your most valuable assets?” Julie speculated.

“Like I said it could be a warning to the other hookers. Don’t steal my money or my drugs,” Tommy replied.

“We’re not dealing with street hookers here. Stephanie Carter was accommodated in a nice apartment, her clothes were expensive, she had designer shoes. The pimp angle doesn’t work for me,” Julie said.

Tommy reluctantly agreed.

“What about the drugs? Could she have been ripping off a dealer?” Tommy asked.

Julie searched through a pile of reports on her desk until she found what she was looking for.

“The cocaine, speed and ecstasy found in her apartment were very high quality. The drugs were cut with bespoke laboratory chemicals not the usual crap like baking powder or talc. These aren’t street drugs,” Julie began to get excited.

“Think about it Tommy. Stephanie is living in a very well-appointed apartment; the sound system alone cost more than my car. The drugs are designer and so are her clothes,” Julie continued.

“She works for an exclusive dating agency that doesn’t advertise publicly, doesn’t even have a website that I can find, it’s only available by recommendation. Stephanie Carter was like a bird kept in a gilded cage, only available to select clientele,” Julie tapped the royal purple business card with the raised gold printing.

“So who was the guy who drugged me and beat me up?” Tommy countered.

“Maybe this White Lily Investments hired him to find out what happened to one their most exclusive investments? The thug didn’t seem to know what happened to Stephanie Carter either. He drugged you to get information from you,” Julie replied.

“So, all roads lead to Fleur de Lis. You better make your date. How do you want to do this?” Tommy’s attitude had changed.

He was deferring to Julie rather than bossing her around.

*****

The sting was nothing elaborate. Julie used her escort service app and found Randy, which was the name of the man identified by Ryan. His profile listed him as ‘Bi and Top or Bottom Versatile’.

“What the fuck does that mean?” Tommy asked.

“Have you been living under a rock Tommy? He’s bisexual and can switch between catching and pitching,” Julie said and Tommy still looked perplexed and then he deciphered the metaphor and it was his turn to blush.

She made the booking and Tommy made a quip about being able to claim it on expenses if she got a receipt and Julie told him to fuck himself.

They decided that Julie’s hotel suite was a good a place as any to spring the trap so they went there via a liquor store where Julie picked up two bottles of Australian Pinot Noir and Tommy two six packs of domestic beer which Julie thought said a lot about how different they were.

Tommy sipped his Bud while Julie poured a glass of wine and retired to the bedroom to change.

“I need to look the part when I answer the door otherwise Randy will smell a rat. These guys do this for a living, they are always careful with a new customer,” Julie explained.

Julie was living out of a suitcase so she wore same ensemble she had worn for her interlude with Ryan: the same heavy makeup, ultra-sheer nylon stockings, black lacy boy-leg panties and the semi-transparent black negligee and black high heels.

“Jesus!” Tommy choked on his beer when Julie came out of the bedroom enclosed in a miasma of exotic perfume.

“I told you I need to look the part. Women like to look sexy and desirable even when they're paying for it,” Julie said matter-of-factly.

Tommy tried to avert his gaze but it was difficult as they sat side by side on the sofa reviewing their plan, she drinking a Pinot Noir and Tommy his Bud.

When the doorbell chimed Tommy retired to the bedroom.

Randy turned out to be a twenty-something blonde twink. He projected a confident demeanour and was comfortable with his handsomeness. He was wearing ripped jeans, boots and a skin-tight t-shirt but it was all designer. His hair was professionally styled.

“You look ravishing,” he kissed Julie’s hand as he entered the suite, taking in the surroundings as men and women employed in his profession were want to do.

He knew that Julie must have money to be able to afford his services and she was staying in one of the hotel’s best suites. She led him to the same couch where she and Tommy had been talking only minutes before.

“Do you want to make small talk or shall we just get down to it. Ryan tells me you have quite a voracious appetite,” Randy smirked at her and Julie took an instant dislike to him.

“I thought my service promised discretion,” Julie sniped.

She knew that Tommy was listening to their conversation from the bedroom.

“Sex workers talk amongst ourselves but we never snitch to our clients and never to people outside our circle,” Randy smirked.

“Well I think you will talk to me and my partner,” Julie whipped her badge and her gun out from under the couch.

Tommy came out of the bedroom and went straight to the door, blocking any attempt Randy might make to flee.

“This is entrapment,” Randy growled.

“We’re not vice and we have no interest in your employment or your current employer for that matter,” Julie gave him a smug grin.

Julie put on the white terry bathrobe provided by the hotel. She had no intention of grilling a potential witness dressed only in her lingerie.

“Ryan tells me that you used to work for Fleur de Lis,” Julie sat Randy down on the couch while Tommy took up station behind him.

The look of anxiety on Randy’s face was either a product of Julie bring up the name Fleur de Lis or Tommy’s menacing presence or likely both.

“Ryan talks too much,” Randy whined.

“Like my partner said, we are not vice cops but we know plenty of them. If you cooperate and answer our questions you walk out of here with your fee and a generous tip. If you don’t we know some police officers who can make your life very uncomfortable,” Tommy tapped Randy on the shoulder.

“Fleur de Lis can make my life very uncomfortable if I talk to you about them. They have people who, shall we say, enforce their non-disclosure agreement very forcefully,” Randy was no longer smug.

“Caught between a rock and hard place Randy,” Tommy squeezed Randy’s shoulder.

“Just tell me about your employment with Fleur de Lis. Ryan said you made your money and got out,” Julie tried a more friendly approach.

She poured him a glass of wine and Randy drank it in one swallow and held out the glass for a refill.

“I worked for them for six months. They're very exclusive. Their clientele are the rich and famous and they demand secrecy but they like special services,” Randy began to open up.

“Any perversion you can think of, they offer. Any type of man, woman and everything in between is on offer,” he stared at Julie and gave her a sarcastic grin.

“Go on,” Julie encouraged him.

“They pay well and the clients tip well. They also provide recreational substances and performance enhancers. Fleur de Lis employees are encouraged to motivate the clients to partake of said substances and are paid a bonus if they upsell. You can’t go wrong selling sex and drugs to the affluent,” Randy smiled.

“Fleur de lis, whatever you desire. Their trademark says it all,” Randy’s smile became a smirk.

“Why did you leave?” Julie asked.

“I didn’t like some of the stuff I was asked to do. You do not say no to a client. I won’t go into details but I’m not into torture porn, scat, sadism or any other form of paraphilia. I’m a meat and potatoes guy. Straight, gay, trans, anal, oral, top, bottom, a little light B and D, sure. Group sessions are fine too but it got to the stage where I didn’t like what I was doing and I didn’t like pushing drugs,” Randy said with a straight-laced expression on his face.

“And they let you leave?” Tommy asked.

“Sure. I signed a non-disclosure agreement and I was visited by a very scary guy who reminded me of me my obligations,” Randy replied.

“But not all of Fleur de Lis’ employees are so fortunate,” Julie pushed Randy for more information.

“Look. They gave me a secure login to their website and access to their dating app. I was told where to go and what to expect when I got there. They provided me with a stash of products to push and to be honest most of the clients had requested their drug of choice when they made the booking,” Randy explained.

“I was picked up and dropped off at the venue and taken home after. Sometimes there would be a few of us in one car if it was a sex party,” Ryan took a sip of wine.

“Some of us knew that Fleur de Lis had other employees whom they kept in various apartments around the city who select clients would go to visit but I wasn’t with Fleur de Lis long enough to find out who they were and where they lived. Nobody uses their real names we all used nom de plumes. They liked their French,” Randy chuckled.

“Ryan said something to me. He asked me if Fleur de Lis had offered me a job. He said I was their type,” Julie continued the interview but changed tack.

“Hey, a beautiful trans chick like you? You’d be very popular. They’d love to have someone like you on the books,” he gave Julie an appreciative look.

“So with all the secrecy, how would one gain employment?” Julie asked.

“Like I said, potential employees and potential customers have to be recommended,” Ryan shrugged his shoulders.

Randy spied Julie’s laptop sitting in the little nook where there was a desk. Julie had set up a work station there.

“Look. I haven’t been on there for a while but last time I checked my login was still active,” Randy nodded at Julie’s personal laptop

“Show me,” Julie stood and indicated that Randy should follow her to the desk.

Tommy followed but ensured he was positioned to block Randy’s escape route.

“You have a VPN I take it?” Randy asked as Julie opened her browser.

“Who doesn’t?” Julie replied activating her VPN and vacating the seat so Randy could sit at the desk.

“Ok, were going onto the dark web. I'm going to need to download the Tor browser,” he said clicking away on the keyboard.

A few minutes later Randy entered the web address for Fleur de Lis and the webpage opened.

It looked very benign. The page looked exactly the same as the business card they had found in Stephanie Carter’s apartment. It had a royal purple background with the stylised emblem of a three-petal lily and in gold font were the words Fleur de Lis - Whatever You Desire. In the top right corner was a login icon.

Randy logged in.

“I have an employee account and can access content that customers don’t have access to,” Ryan explained while the little hourglass icon spun around in circles.

Julie and Tommy noticed that pages loaded a lot more slowly on the dark web because of the level of encryption in use.

“Voilà! We’re in. I still have access,” Randy sounded pleased with himself.

He clicked an icon that said Whatever You Desire and a menu appeared.

“This is where customers browse for services,” Randy explained.

“Go ahead,” he vacated the seat and Tommy sat down.

Randy was going nowhere now.

A pull-down menu allowed clients to select: ‘Girls’ ‘Boys’ or ‘Specialties’.

Tommy clicked on the ‘Girls’ icon and a series of thumbnails appeared on the screen. The women were mostly young and all were attractive; the same when Tommy selected ‘Boys’.

“They still have me listed,” Randy pointed to his thumbnail on the screen.

Under several tastefully posed pictures of Randy both clothed and naked was listed his proclivities and a rating. Randy’s rating was 8/10.

“I was rated higher when I working,” Randy said almost apologetically.

“I'm surprised they still have you listed and that you still have a login,” Julie said.

“Well when I stopped working for them they asked if I might come back and I said sure, maybe. Some of their employees take a break, a sabbatical if you like, and then come back to work for Fleur de Lis. Its hard work but the money is good,” Randy explained.

“Hard work!” Tommy scoffed.

“Hey selling your body, letting people do things to you that are utterly humiliating and sometimes involve pain and degradation is not easy employment,” Randy whined.

Tommy pulled down the ‘Specialties’ menu and the first thumbnail to pop up was a huge, obese woman. She might be fat but she was pretty. She was wearing a black G-string and tiny bra that barely contained her huge breasts. Her skin was milky white and covered with intricate tattoos. She was pierced in every place that it was possible to be pierced and in her nudes you could see that her nipples and genitalia were also pierced.

“Chick looks like she landed face first in a tackle box,” Tommy chuckled.

“Some people like facial piercings,” Randy sounded nonplussed.

“Let’s see if we can find Stephanie?” Julie said.

They found Stephanie Carter listed under the name Angel. There was a description of her proclivities which ran to the exotic but not perverse.

“What’s this gold star?” Tommy asked, moving the cursor over the gold star icon in top corner of the page.

“It means she’s only available to gold star members. She’s special and she is very expensive,” Randy explained.

“Do they give frequent flier miles?” Tommy’s joke fell flat.

“She’s listed as eighteen, bottom only and provides the full GFE. Available for in and outcalls and is available for groups and parties by special arrangement,” Julie read from the screen.

“GFE?” Tommy asked.

“Girlfriend experience,” Julie and Randy chimed in unison.

“Girls like her attract repeat customers and they treat them more like lovers than prostitutes. That’s where the big bucks are,” Randy sighed.

“Stephanie was twenty when she ran away so she was at least twenty-one when she died,” Julie mused.

“Look at her. She could pass for sixteen if she wanted. Youth sells,” Randy added.

“Here you go,” Randy pointed to a menu icon labelled Employment Opportunities.

Tommy clicked it.

Upload recent pictures, resume and contact details here. All applications must be lodged by Fleur de Lis employees

“See what I mean. It’s a closed shop. You have to be recommended,” Randy sounded almost proud of the fact.

“Ok, here is how this is going to work Randy. You’re going to leave me your login, password and contact number, then you are going on a holiday as far away as possible,” Julie said in her most serious tone.

“The fuck I am!” Randy protested.

“This is a murder investigation. Stephanie Carter had her throat cut and I was nearly killed while investigating the case. We will contact you once we close the case. If you stick around we’re goin to lock you up in solitary. Your choice, it’s either a vacation or a cell,” Tommy growled.

Randy snatched up a piece of hotel stationary and began to write.

“I hear Florida is nice this time of year,” Tommy patted Ryan on the shoulder as he led him to the door.

“One last thing Randy. I don’t have to say this but I will. One word to anyone, including your buddy Ryan and I’ll find you and lock you up and charge you with obstruction of justice and resisting arrest because you will arrive at Police Plaza battered and bruised,” Tommy patted Ryan’s shoulder again.

The smug look disappeared from Randy’s face and he bolted out the door forgetting to ask for his tip.

“The threat Tommy? Really?” Julie sighed.

Tommy just gave her a cheeky grim and shrugged.

“Ok, what now?” Tommy asked Julie.

She was surprised that Tommy was asking her what to do next as he was usually so forceful.

“I think you know what I’m thinking. I apply for a job and see what else I can find out about Stephanie Carter or Angel as we now know her,” Julie offered, pulling the terry robe tightly around her.

She wasn’t cold; it was a subconscious action because she was once again alone with Tommy and dressed provocatively.

“I don’t think so. I think we get a warrant and go at it that way,” Tommy replied taking another Bud from the refrigerator.

“Remember when you said that the alphabet soup brigade should understand that we need PC. Where’s the Probable Cause Tommy? We haven’t yet linked Stephanie Carter’s employment to her murder,” Julie sipped wine.

“And who do we serve the warrants on, White Lily Investments or Fleur de Lis? We only suspect that White Lilly owns Fleur de Lis we can’t prove the link legally and we have no idea where the company is situated. Once we start sniffing around using subpoenas and search warrants you can bet the company will clam up. Operations like these can shut down in a flash then reopen under another name. All they need is to keep their employees and clientele,” Julie continued.

“Anyway I’m not convinced that Fleur de Lis is directly responsible for Stephanie’s murder otherwise why would they send a thug to interrogate you? It’s more likely the murderer is one of their customers or possibly an employee and the way to find that out without giving away our hand is to infiltrate Fleur de Lis,” Julie took another sip of wine.

“Remember we need to keep a lid on this and Randy said that Fleur de Lis clientele are the rich and famous. If we stir up the hornets’ nest we are likely to get stung,” Julie concluded.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Tommy put his hands on Julie’s shoulders and searched her eyes.

It was reassuring feeling Tommy’s hands on her body. She recalled him putting his arm around her when he slept and the kiss the following morning. They hadn't spoken about it since.

“I don’t want to do it Tommy, I have to,” Julie sighed.

“Then we’re doing this together. I’m going to be on you like white on rice. We’re heading into uncharted territory here Julie,” Tommy said.

“Mixing your metaphors again Tommy,” Julie smiled at him and once again Tommy was taken with her unique beauty.

She padded over to the laptop. Randy was still signed in and she clicked the Employment Opportunities icon and read the instructions and began to type.

“What are you doing?” Tommy leaned over her shoulder so he could watch.

She smelled beer on his breath and the cologne that he always wore. Whenever she smelled that scent it reminded Julie of him. It reminded her of his manliness, his powerfulness, the anger and rage that seemed to dwell just below the surface. But he also hid a soft side of himself, the gentle side, possibly a loving side. Tommy Lomax was an enigma.

“I’m filling in the resume. It’s along the lines that I’ve done this before but I am new to Camden and looking for employment opportunities,” Julie wrote up a resume that was simple and succinct and full of lies.

There was a checklist of sexual peccadillos which the potential employee was prepared to undertake.

“I don’t even understand what some of these things mean,” Tommy stared at the screen with a furrowed brow.

“For a man of the world you lead a very vanilla life Tommy,” Julie teased him.

“It’s easier if I just tick this box that reads anything and everything, it will make me a more desirable candidate,” Julie said.

She clicked the box and it autofilled all of the selections.

Then she came to the section that read: Upload recent pictures here. Must include at least three full-frontal nudes, eveningwear and portraits. Julie swallowed.

“Ok. I’m going to need your help here Tommy. A couple of selfies aren’t going to cut it,” Julie’s voice was a little hoarse at the prospect.

“No fucking way!” Tommy baulked.

“Be a professional Tommy. They're just photographs,” Julie insisted but she was nervous too.

“Here. Go and get yourself another beer and pour me another glass of wine and let’s get this done. The alcohol will mellow our inhibitions,” Julie finished her wine and handed him her glass.

“If Jack Shepard knew I was doing this he would have a heart attack,” Tommy whined as he opened the refrigerator.

“I thought I’d cured you of Jack Shepard’s influences and opinions,” Julie said, a little irritated.

Julie led Tommy into the bedroom.

“I’m already dressed like this so I’ll pose on the bed and you snap away,” Julie handed Tommy her phone and fussed with her hair in the mirror.

She dropped the terry robe to reveal her body: her long shapely legs sheathed the ultra-sheer nylon stockings, her pert bottom clad in the black lacy boy-leg panties, her perky breasts clearly visible under the semi-transparent black negligee and her feet shod in black high heels.

Julie finished her wine in one long gulp and lay on the bed and began to pose while Tommy took pictures with her phone. Tommy was both sheepish and excited. Once he started taking pictures he got into it and gave Julie some tips on how to pose provocatively but tastefully.

They took a series of cheesecake pictures and she and Tommy looked at the results, discarding those that weren’t worth keeping.

“You look good in these. Have you done this before?” Tommy quipped and she gave him a withering look

They were both aware of how close they were to each other standing shoulder to shoulder with Julie dressed in lingerie, her perfume invading Tommy’s nostrils. It was as if he could feel the heat of her body and part of him longed to reach out and touch her soft, creamy skin.

“Look away please Tommy,” Julie blushed and when Tommy turned away she untucked her penis and slipped off her panties and negligée.

“Ok, please take these quickly Tommy, to save us both the embarrassment,” Julie got back on the bed.

When Tommy turned around Julie was lying on the bed posed only in her stockings and heels. She lay on her side facing him. Her breasts were opalescent and lush, the areola pinkish-brown her nipples engorged in the cool of the air conditioning. Her pubic area was devoid of hair and her long thick penis lay on her upper thigh.

Tommy swallowed.

He’d seem tranny porn before and he’d never been particularly excited by it. When he was working vice he’d snared his haul of transgender and transvestite streetwalkers and he’d been repelled by them. Any mention of the ‘alphabet soup people’ had enraged him because he had been raised by a stern father who was ultra-conservative and Tommy had joined the PD at a time when women were only just being accepted as equal to men in their abilities.

He had disliked, no that wasn’t right, he had hated Julie Sanderson the minute he’d laid eyes on her not only because of who and what she was but because she had displaced his partner.

But…

He had grudgingly come to respect her and then to actually like her, not just as a partner but as a person. Now seeing her ‘transness’ openly displayed like this he was conflicted. Part of him reviled her and another part of him desired her.

“Are you going to leave me lying here with my dick out or are you going to take the pictures?” Julie brought him out of his reverie.

Tommy reached for the can of Bud and swallowed what remained and began to take pictures. He handed her the phone when he was finished, he couldn’t bring himself to stand beside her while she reviewed his efforts. Instead he used the excuse of going into the kitchenette to refill Julie’s glass and get himself another Bud as justification to leave the bedroom.

He stood at the kitchen island and drank a full can and then reached for another. He was aware that the alcohol was taking effect but he was far from drunk.

When he returned to the bedroom Tommy was pleased to see that Julie had changed. She was wearing a body-hugging red satin floor-length gown. It was low cut and split up one side.

“I don’t even know why I packed this but hey, it’s come in handy,” Julie smiled at him and pirouetted.

Tommy’s heart did a flip. She looked beautiful. Except for his inveterate prejudice he would be proud to be been seen with Julie on his arm at any public event. In fact he would have paraded her around just to make the other men jealous.

They finished the photo shoot with a couple of portrait shots and once again Tommy was taken with Julie’s unique allure. Her emerald-green eyes, her flawless skin, her crooked nose and too-wide mouth and the almost severe shoulder-length blunt-cut bob made for a striking visage.

Tommy left the room while Julie shimmied out of the gown and put her boy-leg panties and the semi-transparent black negligee back on and then put the terry robe over the ensemble for modesty. She had changed into red Louboutin's for the eveningwear shots and she’d kicked them off when she put on the bathrobe and saw no reason to put her black heels back on.

She padded into suite in stocking feet and joined Tommy at her laptop, transferred the pictures from her phone, did a little editing and then uploaded the best of them into the online application form. She used her personal mobile number and email address to complete the contact details and submitted the application.

“Done! I need a cigarette,” Julie sighed contentedly.

“You can’t smoke in here,” Tommy’s words were slightly slurred.

Tommy followed her when she opened the door to the balcony and closed it behind him so that the smoke wouldn’t befoul the hotel room.

Julie lit up and drew in a lungful of smoke which, along with the wine, made her feel a little dizzy.

“I only smoke when I’m drinking, thinking, or after sex,” Julie jiggled the cigarette packet at Tommy and he took one.

“I’ve given up,” Tommy took a hit of his beer then lit up.

Julie leaned in close to light his cigarette and the tension between them was palpable. They smoked and Julie drank her wine while Tommy finished his beer. Julie rested her forearms on the balcony rail and took in the view of Camden City and Tommy stood beside her.

“This is going to be dangerous for you,” Tommy broke the silence.

Julie turned to face him, her face illuminated by the city lights.

“What do you care?” she looked into his deep brown eyes.

“Shut up,” he whispered and kissed her.

This wasn’t like the kiss in the bedroom. It wasn’t shallow, soft and affectionate. This time there was real passion and Julie did feel the undertow pull her and Tommy into the depths and she felt herself drowning.

“We shouldn’t be doing this Tommy,” Julie gasped.

“Shut up,” he growled and enfolded her in his arms.

He kissed her eyelids and the tip of her crooked nose and her too-wide mouth. Their tongues touched and it was like a spark passed between them, igniting their passions.

Julie felt safe and secure in Tommy’s embrace which was silly because she was tough cop who could look after herself. She knew that what they were doing was stupid. They had known each other for four days, for most of which Tommy had teased, insulted and derided her.

But Tommy had changed and she had to admit that she had changed too.

She let Tommy guide her to the bedroom where she silently undressed him. Tommy eased the terry robe off Julie’s shoulders and let it fall to the carpet and took her in arms again and kissed her. Julie melted and pressed her body into him, feeling his cock press into her belly. Her own erection pushed painfully against her silky boy-leg panties but she was grateful that it lay flat against her body. She didn’t know how Tommy would react if her felt the protuberance that betrayed her sex pressing into him.

“You are such a beautiful woman Julie,” Tommy whispered as he lowered her on the bed and crawled up beside her.

He cuddled her and kissed her, his lips soft, his tongue tentatively slipping between them and the tips of their tongues touched and ignited the passion that had cooled a little as they paused to undress. Tommy kissed her with more intensity when his hand found her full breasts. He cupped one bosom then then the other, thumbing her nipples into full bloom.

Tommy rolled Julie on her back and straddled without breaking the kiss. He loomed over her, his face close to hers, his eyelashes fluttering her cheek, his breath whispering against her neck, his cock distended, the head pushing lightly on her belly.

Julie moaned when Tommy opened her negligee and suckled her breasts. His tongue circled her areola then lashed her nipples. He sucked a nipple into his mouth and fluttered his tongue on the dark berry, first one breast and then the other. His hands were everywhere on her body except her pubis, stroking her flesh, teasing her.

Julie reached for him and found him rampant and throbbing, a string of pre-ejaculate trailed from the eye of his penis and Julie gathered the slick salve and rubbed it into the shaft and slowly stroked him. Tommy shuddered and gasped into her mouth. She slowly and deliberately kneaded his manhood while Tommy whimpered, his mouth nursing her breasts, his hands caressing her cheeks, circling her ears, stroking her neck, drifting down past her breasts, circling her navel and her flat belly.

Julie lifted his face to hers so she could kiss him. She kissed him deeply and his hand continued its journey down her abdomen and then paused when his fingers touched the waistband of her panties. Julie sensed his hesitation and snatched his hand away. She sensed that as much as Tommy wanted her, he wasn’t yet ready to touch her down there.

She didn’t mind. She understood his reluctance and Tommy had awakened such yearning and need in her that she forgave him. He would satisfy her in other ways.

She rolled from under him. Julie was a big strong woman and Tommy was a little surprised when she pinned him down on the bed, exchanging positions so that she was straddling him. Her face fell to his, her soft hair tickled his cheeks and formed a curtain around his face as her lips opened and she devoured his mouth. Her lips savagely pressed against his, she sucked his tongue into her mouth and their tongues attacked each other.

They both gasped with the intensity of it and Tommy was a little disappointed when Julie stopped kissing him but then her mouth began a slow journey his body. She nipped his neck, lapped at the hollows his clavicle, she nibbled his nipples. Julie paused and gently touched the circular scars on Tommy’s chest and then she lowered her face and kissed each one of them. She caressed the other raised jagged scars on his torso with her soft lips.

Tommy felt a wave of emotion as she did so. Most women found the scars repulsive but Julie tended to them like she was trying to swallow the pain that Tommy had suffered and in that moment he would have done anything in the world to protect Julie. To savour her uniqueness and compassion. To take away the pain she must have felt every time he had insulted and aggrieved her.

But she never gave him time to say anything because she continued her journey down his body and she took his manhood in her mouth.

Tommy groaned and sighed as Julie collected him with her lips. She flittered her tongue along the shaft and when she came to his fraenulum she lapped at the sensitive flesh and Tommy snarled his fingers in her hair and pushed her face harder into his groin. Julie sensed his need and she swallowed his penis, her lips working on the turgid flesh of his shaft whilst her tongue flittered his glans.

Circlets of intense pleasure erupted from Tommy’s groin; his body alight with desire and longing. Julie brought him to extremis, she cupped his scrotum and sucked his cock and felt it contract and his penis stretched to full tumescence in anticipation of ejaculation but Julie denied him.

She spat out his cock and quickly mounted him, straddling him, guiding his rampant member inside the crotch of her panties and guiding the head of his penis into her puckered bud.

Julie smiled down at Tommy as she slowly impaled herself on his stallion-like protuberance, wincing with the pain of it, moaning with the pleasure. Her sphincter opened like a tight fleshy seal as Tommy’s glans slipped past the circlet of nerve endings which ignited with pleasure, whilst at the same time protested with pain. Then his shaft slid inside her tight sheath, a steady stream of pre-seminal fluid partially lubricating its passage.

Tommy lightly rested his hands on her hips, not wanting to hurt her, resisting the temptation to drive her ass down on his aching cock, amazed by the utter sensuousness of the feel of Julie’s tight sheath around his rampant organ.

When she had Tommy fully inside her Julie began to slowly raise her buttocks up and down, riding him. Tommy pulled her face to his and kissed her passionately. He rose up to meet her, timing his thrusts with her motion. She ground her bottom into his pubis each time he was fully buried inside her.

Tommy’s cock felt magnificent inside Julie’s anus. It lit up her pleasure centres, enflaming her sphincter, drawing deep feelings of fulfilment from her prostate. Her cock tented the front of her panties, aching for Tommy to touch it, aching for sweet release as she felt Tommy’s penis begin to throb inside her, his heart pounded, his breathing become ragged as a precursor to climax.

She felt his hand snake across her belly but once again when it touched her panties he withdrew it.

Julie didn’t care. She drove her tongue into his mouth and bucked up and down on his rigid pole and when she felt his engorged phallus begin to shudder and spew forth his roiling issue she drove herself down on him and shuddered as her sphincter lit up and her prostate combusted, issuing ringlets of intense delight and she climaxed right along with him.

The front of her panties suddenly bloomed with milky spunk as Julie ejaculated. Tommy was oblivious; he was kissing her heatedly as he drove his cock deep inside her back passage and deposited his seed. She clung to him and he to her, their bodies melded as they shuddered and writhed against other until they were spent.

Julie eased the gusset of her panties back into place when Tommy finally withdrew his cock from her anus. She ripped a pillowcase off one of the pillows and wiped herself dry as best she could while Tommy lay back and stared at the ceiling, fully contented and amazed by what had just occurred. He tried not to think about Julie as a trans woman, just as a woman who had pleasured him beyond his wildest beliefs.

Julie lay in Tommy’s arms fully sated. The last time she had felt this way was when she and Gail Johnson were in a good place, before Gail had started hinting at marriage and children.

She turned on her side and lightly stroked the circular pockmarks on his chest and the long-healed silvery scars on his torso.

“Who was it?” Julie whispered.

Tommy lifted Julie’s arm to his face and he kissed the faint horizontal scars on her wrist.

“You first,” he replied, searching her face with his dark brown eyes.

Julie never spoke about it, not even with Gail but because she felt safe in Tommy’s arms and because he bore similar scars to her own she thought they might be kindred spirits.

“It was my first year in college. I was eighteen and was finally comfortable in my skin and with my transness. I didn’t go around waving the transgender flag but I didn’t hide who I was either,” Julie spoke softly.

“There were four of them. I went to a frat party and I had been drinking and one of them was cute and we started making out. I was still a virgin. The cute guy coaxed me up to his room and I was excited because up until then boys had been wary of me,” Julie’s voice became hoarse as she continued.

“I told you in the coffee shop that some men think because you're trans that you are promiscuous. I’m not making excuses for them by any means. No means no,” Julie sighed.

“It took all four of them to hold me down. I was tall and fit but they were all football players and I didn’t stand a chance. In the end I stopped fighting,” tears began to form in Julie’s eyes.

“They didn’t even undress me, none of them wanted to actually see my penis,” the tears in her eyes welled.

“They took turns. They pulled aside my panties and tore open my pantyhose used my anus and my mouth and I just lay there while they did it,” the tears flowed down Julie’s cheeks leaving black runnels of mascara.

“When I left the room it felt surreal. My makeup was ruined and my pantyhose were ripped but other than that I looked like a drunken party girl staggering downstairs from the dormitory, back to where the party was still in full swing,” Julie choked on the words.

“I saw the looks on the other partygoer’s faces: the boys looking knowingly at one and other and the girls looking at me with disgust. I was a trope: the tranny libertine, the tranny slut who gave it up at her first college party,” Julie choked back a sob.

“I didn’t report it. I knew what their defence would be. I was a slattern who gave it up after a couple of drinks and then cried wolf. I cut my wrists that night and woke up in hospital,” Julie began to regain her composure.

“Everyone, including my parents thought I was still having issues with my transgender identity. The rates vary from study to study but it’s estimated that forty percent of transgender women attempt suicide. I went back to my psychiatrist and I lied,” Julie sighed again.

“You're the first person I have ever told about the rape,” Julie gave him a wan smile, wiping the tears from her cheeks.

“That was when I decided that I would become a policewoman and bring men like those who raped me to justice,” Julie smiled weakly.

“Then I realised that I was good at being a cop. I made detective in record time and spent my first few years in sex crimes and vice, then I moved around and settled in homicide,” Julie had her emotions under control.

“The guys who raped you? What happened to them?” Tommy asked, knowing better than to offer Julie sympathy right now.

“One died in a car wreck. He was drunk behind the wheel. Two of them went on to become serial rapists but I got them eventually and they're still serving time. Not for what they did to me of course but I found justice for the other girls they had defiled. The other man is the CEO of a Fortune five-hundred company. I guess three out of four ain’t bad,” Julie actually chuckled at the irony.

“After the rape I did actually become promiscuous. I thought I could fuck my way out of my feelings of anger and worthlessness. Then when I joined the PD and became good at my job I channelled my anger and determination into work,” Julie sighed.

“Now I think you do have my life story Tommy Lomax,” Julie gave him a wan smile.

Tommy kissed her cheeks. He could taste the saltiness of her dried tears.

Julie rolled over and kissed Tommy deeply and passionately and she snuggled up to him and he held her close.

“My dad was a drunken asshole. Kids at school who came from single-parent families used to complain about it but I wished I was one of them. I wished my dad would leave me and my mom and never come back,” Tommy began.

“He delighted in torturing me for any perceived infraction. At first he used his fists but his fists left marks on my face, you can only have so many ‘I fell off the swing’ black eye stories,” Tommy said with little emotion.

“He figured out that using his belt on my back and buttocks still left marks but no one could see them. Then came the cigarette burns. I refused to cry and that only enraged him further,” Tommy fingered one of the circular scars on his chest.

“He’d start on my mom and I’d try and defend her, to deflect his rage onto me and most of the time it worked. He liked that I was a strong young man who he could beat his values into,” Tommy whispered.

“He’d laugh when I went to my mother and told her I was sorry if he beat her instead of me. He told me to man up that women belonged in the kitchen or the bedroom. At night I would hear him and my mother going at it. Hear her moan and encourage him to fuck her harder. How confusing was that?” Tommy gave a mirthless chuckle.

“I joined the marines straight out of high school. I volunteered for three rotations in the sand pit before I realised that the violence was becoming addictive,” Tommy said.

“I used my veteran’s scholarship to finish college and joined the police. I found the discipline and routine similar to the military and I was able to use my fists with some impunity provided I used them on the right people,” Tommy sighed.

“I hated that man but in some ways I became my father,” Tommy sounded a little choked.

“You're not your father Tommy. You’re not Jack Shepard either. You try to be, but the goodness inside you has won through,” Julie said gently.

“We’re a couple of sorry assholes crying about our past,” Tommy said with false bravado.

“Maybe we’re a couple of lost souls who found each other in the most unusual of circumstances,” Julie soothed him.

“Now make love to me again,” Julie slid under Tommy’s lean muscled body and locked her legs around him.

To be continued…

Julie woke up with a man in her bed for the second time in her life. Tommy was awake and leaning on one elbow looking down at her.

“You’re making a habit of sleeping in my bed,” she looked up at Tommy who still looked handsome even with tousled hair and sleepy eyes.

“How do we play this?” Tommy asked.

“The case?” Julie replied but she knew what he meant.

Despite the intimacy they had shared Julie was fully prepared for Tommy to behave like most men she had bedded. He might even be suffering post-coital regret. After all they had both drunk a lot before they fell into bed.

“Don’t be obtuse Julie, you know what I mean,” Tommy leaned down and kissed her cheek.

“Before Gail went all fruitarian on me, we behaved perfectly professional whilst at work and were able to keep our work and home life separate. Besides I’m sure you wouldn’t want it getting out that you have slept with me,” Julie gave him a pinched smile.

Tommy smiled at the fruitarian reference from Notting Hill.

“I don’t want what we have to be a dirty little secret Julie. We really connected last night,” Tommy replied.

“But you are correct. I don’t see why we can’t behave professionally at work and what happens outside of work is nobody else’s business,” Tommy said soberly.

“Then it’s agreed. We’ll be fuck-buddies when we are off the clock,” Julie made to get of bed but Tommy pulled her back.

“Don’t say it like that. You know it’s more than that,” Tommy searched Julie’s eyes.

“Let’s be practical shall we Tommy. You live in Camden, I live in New York. Neither of us is going to move so we can be together and you’re not going to take me home to meet mom. Let’s just enjoy each other’s company while I’m here in Camden,” Julie reached up and kissed Tommy’s cheek and this time she managed to slip out of his embrace and pad away to the bathroom.

She came out freshly showered wearing the hotel provided terry robe and she fixed her makeup and hair while Tommy showered. When Tommy came out of the shower she was tucking her blouse into her navy-blue skirt. Tommy stopped briefly to kiss her cheek and squeeze her ass then he dressed.

“I’ll stop by my place to change and meet you at the precinct,” Tommy said and made to kiss Julie on the lips but she turned her head away so that the kiss landed on her cheek.

“Watch my lipstick Tommy,” Julie flinched.

Tommy shrugged. Julie was obviously already in ‘professional mode’.

At Police Plaza, as usual, Jack Shepard came sniffing around.

“Hey Tommy, how goes the case?” Jack asked as if they hadn't had a falling out yesterday.

Julie made herself look busy but she could feel Jack’s eyes crawling over her body.

“You know I can’t discuss the case Jack,” Tommy aid staidly.

“Come on. Let’s let bygones be bygones,” Jack tried to wheedle his way further into the interview room, his fat neck swivelling to look at the crime wall.

“Who is Fleur de Lis? She another hooker friend of Stephanie Carter?” Jack asked.

“Come on Jack let me buy you a cup of coffee,” Tommy bundled Jack Shepard out of the interview room.

Tommy returned later and handed Julie a venti cappuccino in a takeout cup.

“Spit or no spit?” Julie gave him a wry grin and if they weren’t at the precinct house Tommy would have kissed her there and then.

Julie got the text from Fleur de Lis the next afternoon.

The text came from someone identifying themselves only as ‘Amanda’ who proposed meeting Julie in the bar at the Marriot Hotel at five in the afternoon which gave Julie and Tommy plenty of time to prepare. Tommy would tail Julie and she would use the Phantom software on her work phone so he could listen in and the conversation could be recorded.

“I’m still not a fan of you going undercover for Fleur de Lis,” Tommy griped.

“What else have we got Tommy?” Julie asked.

“If I can get access to Stephanie’s client list we should be able to find out who her clients were on the night she was murdered,” Julie said yet again.

Tommy was sulky for the rest of the day as they worked their way through the evidence they had so far. The DNA obtained from Stephanie Carter’s body was a busted flush as were the fingerprints and they had little else to go on and the phone that had been used to lure them into the trap at the warehouse had gone dead so they were running out of leads.

Nothing new came to light and to make matters worse the New York Times printed a follow up piece in the political commentary section.

SENATOR DE LORRAINE KNOWS MORE THAN HE’S SAYING

Senator Graham Milburn has claimed that Senator Raymond de Lorraine knows more than he is admitting publicly about the disappearance and murder of his son Steven de Lorraine who was attending Camden University at the time he was listed as a missing person.

Senator Graham Milburn claims that a source has leaked to him that Camden PD appear to be making little headway into the murder investigation. Senator Milburn also claims that there is a bigger conspiracy that would hurt Senator de Lorraine publicly and politically and that there is speculation that Steven de Lorraine’s murder might be linked to involvement in criminal activities.

Camden PD are refusing to be drawn into the feud between the two senators who are both vying for the party whip position and has reiterated that it is policy not to comment on ongoing investigations.

Senator de Lorraine could not be contacted for comment and his office claims that it is a personal matter and that the senator and his wife should be allowed to grieve in private. Senator de Lorraine returns to Washington next week where it is expected that the feud between the two senators will continue in the party rooms and on the floor of the Senate.

Captain James McElroy had received an ass-kicking from the mayor and because shit rolls downhill Tommy was called into the captain’s office to receive his own ass-kicking and was told to use any and all available means to solve the case and to keep the details under wraps.

*****

Julie decided to present herself professionally but sensuously at her meeting with ‘Amanda’ and chose a black leather skirt, matching heels, a white silk blouse and red jacket. Her ensemble was tight fitting and designed to put on display her best features. Her makeup was on the heavier side but not outlandish.

She and Tommy tested the Phantom software in the car to ensure that it was working. Tommy would let Julie enter the lobby bar at the Marriott and meet with Amanda and then follow her in and find a seat at the bar where he could keep her under surveillance.

Julie entered the bar and quite a few heads turned in her direction. She looked stylish but could also be perceived to be a high-class hooker. A woman sitting alone at a table in the far corner beckoned to her and Julie took a deep breath and made her way over.

Amanda turned out to one of those women who could be any age from forty to sixty. She was dressed in a fashion-label pale pink tailored skirt-suit with a black satin camisole top. Her makeup was perfect and her blonde hair was piled high on her head in a Patsy Stone banged beehive. Her long legs were sheathed in glossy tan hosiery.

“You must be Julie,” Amanda air kissed Julie’s cheek and indicated for her to sit.

“I must say you look even better than your pictures,” Amanda complimented her.

“Ok let’s not fuck around. In your resume you say you’ve been employed in this kind of work before so you understand that confidentiality and tact are paramount. Fleur de Lis clientele are mostly the rich and famous and as our slogan says, we offer them whatever they desire,” Amanda took a tablet out of her large designer bag.

“You’re lucky in a way because I had someone with similar qualities to yourself on my books until recently but she is no longer with us. My intention is to offer you to her client list. She was younger than you but other than that I think most of her clients will be willing to date you as an alternative,” Amanda got right down to it.

“I’m staying at the Grand Hotel in a suite until I find somewhere permanent to live but it is discreet and will do for now,” Julie offered.

“Ok. Your application was submitted through Randy’s login so I assume he told you how we operate. I take it you will have no issue with providing your clients with the range of mind-altering and performance enhancing substances that we offer as a secondary leisure pursuit,” Amanda raised her brows as much as she could on her Botoxed forehead.

“I don’t use them personally but I have no problem supplying them providing I don’t have to procure them,” Julie chose her words carefully.

“But your hormone supplements do not affect your ability to perform?” Amanda was very forthright.

“Not at all. I can top as well as bottom,” Julie said and cringed inwardly knowing that Tommy was listening in.

“Ok, let us put you on a one month trial to see if we are a good fit. I’ll give you a login and password. When you login for the first time I will need your bank account details so we can pay you. You take one third of the fee and you keep any cash gratuity that the client gives you. Other than that you never handle cash,” Amanda got down to business.

“The subsidiary transactions made to purchase those substances you upsell are also paid for electronically and you receive one third of any sales made. Everything is done through the website and the app. We will seldom meet in person,” Amanda explained.

“You will however be given a mobile phone number to use in event of an emergency and one of Fleur de Lis security staff will arrive at your door as soon as possible. I expect a woman of your expertise should be able to de-escalate most situations without any fuss so only use the number in event of a genuine emergency,” Amanda said sagely.

“You are also responsible for your own health care. We require you to lodge proof of your PrEP prescription and a STI clearance medical certificate every four weeks,” Amanda added.

“Is that it?” Julie asked.

“That’s all,” Amanda stood up ready to leave.

“When you log in for the first time there will be instructions and procedures to follow but all going well you should be working as soon as the day after tomorrow,” Amanda dropped her tablet back in her bag.

“One last thing. Any breach of client confidentiality or Fleur de Lis terms of employment will be dealt with quite severely. You’re a big girl, you understand that don’t you?” Amanda gave Julie a withering look and Julie merely nodded.

“Good. Welcome to Fleur de Lis,” Amanda offered her hand and Julie shook it.

Tommy watched Amanda sashay out of the bar and followed her as far as the parking valet but she didn’t pick up her personal vehicle, instead she slipped into the rear of a rented limousine and Tommy quietly cursed because he hoping to trace her plates. If they had more detectives working the case they could tail her. Tommy could try and tail her anyway but he decided against it and went back inside the Marriott to join Julie at the bar.

As he approached Julie he saw a tall handsome man talking to her. The man smiled at Julie ruefully and walked away from her table heading back to the long bar.

“What did that jagoff want?” Tommy asked pulling up a chair.

“He wanted to give me a thousand dollars to spend the night with him in his room. He thought I was a hooker,” Julie looked amused.

“Well you’re about to become one,” Tommy sniped.

Julie reached across the table and took Tommy’s hand in hers.

“We’re making real progress here Tommy. We might break the case,” Julie stroked his hand.

“But I don’t like the way we are going about it. What we are doing is illegal. You know that any evidence you get will be fruit of the poisoned tree. We have no warrants, no subpoenas, we’re operating off the grid,” Tommy squeezed Julie’s hand.

“Tommy, I don’t profess to know everything about you but I know enough about you that operating in the grey area of law enforcement is nothing new to you. All we need to know is who was with Stephanie Carter on the evening she was killed. We can make a case against him once we know who he is, especially if the DNA is a match. We’ll let the prosecutor’s office deal with the legalities,” Julie whispered.

“Let’s go back to my room and get started, we can’t do any of this in the precinct house; it needs to be off the books. I’ll make it worth your while when we’ve finished working. We can stop and get something nice to drink at the liquor store and I’ll spring for room service,” Julie leaned over the table and made to kiss Tommy but he flinched.

“We shouldn't show any public displays of affection,” Tommy cleared his throat to hide his embarrassment.

Julie was used to men not wanting to be seen being intimate with her in public even though it was doubtful that anyone in the bar had clocked her. She hoped that it was just Tommy wanting to behave professionally in public and not that. She really hoped it was not that.

“Amanda didn’t say anything to me that could be used to incriminate her. She chose her words carefully and deliberately. She’s no mug. There was no direct reference to drugs or prostitution,” Julie decided to change track.

“I told you that I don’t like the idea of you going undercover as an employee of Fleur de Lis. So far we have nothing concrete on them being involved in the murder or what happened to me in the warehouse,” Tommy sulked.

“But she did hint that she would be directing Stephanie’s clients my way. As I have said before, if I can get access to Stephanie’s client list we can start working our way through it and find out who her clients were on the night she was murdered,” Julie reiterated.

“What’s the plan? You going to fuck your way through Stephanie's client list and during post-coital cuddling ask the john if they are a murderer.” Tommy quipped.

“I think we can come up with a better way of doing it than that Tommy. Let’s get the fuck out of here,” Julie snatched up her bag and made to leave.

Back in Julie’s hotel room Julie went to work. She found the link to the Fleur de Lis website and her login details in an email sent to the email address she had provided in her application. There was also a link to the Fleur de Lis app which she downloaded to her private phone.

There was no way that Julie was going to provide her personal banking details to Fleur de Lis. She found a bank that would let her open an account online provided she was willing to make an immediate deposit. She created the new account and deposited two thousand dollars of her own money and the account was created.

She was provided with an e-credit card which she stored in the wallet of her phone. She sent the bank account details to Fleur de Lis and received an instant reply acknowledging that the account had been registered in her name at Fleur de Lis and all payments would paid into that account.

On the Fleur de Lis app was a link to an electronic payment app which she downloaded. Clients would use the tap-and-go function to pay for any pharmaceuticals that Julie provided to them.

“You know that once you make a single drug sale you have committed a felony,” Tommy griped.

“I think once I agree to a monetary transaction for sexual services I’ll have committed a crime Tommy. Our plan is to try to find the guy or guys who murdered Stephanie Carter by luring them into a honey trap. I have no intention of actually fucking the guy or selling him any drugs,” Julie said coolly.

“What if the murderer wasn't a client? What if we have it all wrong? What if it was a jilted lover or a burglar or some psycho?” Tommy countered.

“Do you really think Stephanie’s murder wasn’t somehow linked to Fleur de Lis?” Julie asked.

Tommy shook his head. He didn’t have an answer.

The final step in setting up her profile on Fleur de Lis was to provide a nom de plume. She chose the name Candy and submitted it.

Tommy wasn’t drinking beer tonight. He acquiesced to drinking the Australian Pinot Noir that Julie had selected at the liquor store. They ate the best that room service had to offer: seared scallops followed by New York strip with all the trimmings.

They had kissed a little when they first entered the hotel room but Julie had work to do and then the food arrived so they didn’t have time for canoodling but Tommy had been studying Julie closely as she moved around the room. The tight black leather skirt kept riding up her thighs and Julie had to keep tugging at the hem to keep it down. Tommy found her long legs clad in the black sheer hose were a distraction as was the turn of her hips and the sway of her buttocks. Her perfume was alluring and further beguiled him.

Her red jacket was open and the swell of her breasts cupped in the lacy black bra was visible through the sheer white blouse. Her bangs framed Julie’s entrancing face, her eye makeup was heavy, her lips bright red; she kept playing with her hair and Tommy was becoming increasingly aroused. He could well understand why the man in the bar at the Marriott had mistaken Julie for a high-priced hooker.

They ate in the little dining nook and Julie collected the plates, cutlery and side dishes and put them on the tray and carried them into the kitchenette and Tommy’s eyes followed the curve of her buttocks and her coltish legs as she moved around the suite and he eased back his chair and followed her to the kitchenette.

When Julie put the tray on the marble counter he sidled up to her and pressed himself into her back. He leaned in and kissed her neck, drawing in her perfume as his lips nuzzled her soft delicate skin. Julie purred as Tommy put his arms around her trim waist and held her close. Julie could feel his steely rod pressing against her buttocks.

“I’m nearly done here,” Julie whispered, anticipating Tommy’s need.

Tommy unbuttoned her blouse and slipped his hands inside and caressed her breasts through the lace cups, feeling her nipples harden to his touch. Julie turned her head and Tommy found her mouth and kissed her. She tasted of sweet wine and expensive lipstick.

Tommy popped her breasts free of her brassiere and pawed at them, flicking her nipples until they were fully engorged. His crotch rubbed against her buttocks insistently.

“Wow! Let’s move this to the bedroom,” Julie’s voice was sultry with anticipation.

Tommy kept one hand on her breast, tweaking the nipple between his fingertips while the other journeyed down her body to her hip. He rested it there as he kissed her passionately, nipping her tongue gently.

“Let’s go,” Julie gasped as her excitement swelled.

Tommy kept her pressed against the counter as his hand slipped under her skirt and stroked her thighs. He thrust his tongue into her mouth and ground his groin into her.

Julie attempted to twist away from him and Tommy used his strength to keep her pressed against the counter as his fingers pinched her nipple and pawed at her buttocks.

“Come on Tommy, let me get ready for you and I’ll join you on the bed,” a little irritation entered her voice.

“Here,” Tommy growled and nipped at the back of her neck.

Tommy’s fingers circled her pert buttocks. Her panties slid over her pantyhose as he pawed at her; the rasp of her glossy satin panties rubbing against her nylons was audible above their heavy breathing.

“Not here Tommy. I’m not ready,” Julie began to struggle.

Tommy’s weight lifted off her and for a second Julie thought that Tommy was acquiescing to her desire to let her get ready for him and move to the bedroom and she smiled at the thought of pleasuring Tommy after a long hard day.

Tommy’s hand left her breast and his arm circled her waist. He pulled her away from the counter, her heels skittering on the tiled floor. He pushed down on her back and kicked her heels apart and rucked her skirt up around her waist exposing her curvaceous buttocks clad in the black, lace-trimmed panties.

“Tommy no!” Julie said, exasperated at Tommy’s insistence.

“You wanna pretend to be a whore; then I’ll treat you like one,” Tommy grunted as he yanked at her panties, pulling them down to the top of her thighs.

Julie’s face was pressed into the countertop as Tommy used all his weight to hold her down with her back bent and her spread legs apart. She heard the ominous sound of his zipper and then he tore a little hole in the crotch of her pantyhose.

“No Tommy, I’m not ready,” she beseeched him as she felt the head of his cock press into the crevice of her buttocks.

He pressed his glans into her sphincter and Julie hissed and gyrated her buttocks to prevent him entry. Julie constricted her sphincter as Tommy tried to force his way inside her. Tommy was frustrated and he searched the countertop and saw the little butter dish on the dinner tray. He scooped up the remaining butter and smeared it on his swollen phallus, desperately trying to hold Julie down as he did so.

This time his cock slid into Julie’s rectum easily and Tommy pushed it all the way into her until his groin nestled in Julie’s soft, pantyhose-sheathed bottom. He gripped her hips and stayed perfectly still, trying to suppress the orgasm that threatened to erupt as Julie’s tight sphincter constricted around the base of his penis and her rectal muscles clutched at his shaft and glans.

When Tommy’s cock slid into her ass Julie knew that the fight was over. He’d won and she surrendered. Tommy would have to deal with the consequences of entering her unclean because as soon as his cock opened her sphincter and his glans pressed on her prostate she became concupiscent. Her cock hardened and her testes descended as ripples of pleasure spread from her rectum to her groin.

She pushed back against him.

“Come on then Tommy, fuck me,” Julie wriggled her buttocks.

Tommy held Julie by the hips and began to slam his cock in and out of her tight passage, the sensation was overwhelming. Her anus caressed his cock in a velvet grip and her gossamer-clad bottom squirmed against his groin when he fully impaled her.

“You whore!” Tommy hissed and fucked Julie with a series of long deep thrusts.

Julie released her penis from the confines of her pantyhose and stroked it viciously as she felt her climax rushing upon her like an oncoming train.

“Well fuck me like a whore Tommy! Give it to me you cocksucker!” Julie pressed back against him and began to writhe as she felt Tommy’s cock judder inside her anus.

She sobbed as her orgasm blossomed and her senses became overloaded with the intensity of it. Her cock throbbed and her anus palpitated, the sensations of Tommy expressing himself deep inside her, her buttocks pressed against his goin with his glans pushing on her prostate caused her to cry out at the intensity of it. Ropes of semen erupted from her throbbing cock. She whipped her hand back and forth as her juices spattered on the counter wall and tiled floor.

Tommy held onto Julie like a bucking bronco as she shuddered and bucked against him. His cock felt like it was about to burst and then he experienced the sweet release of orgasm as his seed spewed forth from his quivering manhood. At that instant in time he both loved and loathed Julie.

She had fought him valiantly and then surrendered utterly to him.

He held onto her tightly as he ejaculated every scintilla of his essence deep inside her, the cloying stench of her musky semen invaded his nostrils and he knew that she too had climaxed. His fingers dug into her hips as he deposited the last of his spend in her warm, tight channel.

Julie stayed bent over, her breathing jagged, her body spasming even as Tommy pulled his cock out of her with an audible plop. She felt the mess he had made begin to dribble down her thighs. The piquancy of butter, semen and ordure drifted upward from her crotch and she reached down and pulled up her panties tightly. She kept her skirt rucked up out of the way of the mess.

“What the fuck was that Tommy?” she said between jags of hyperventilation.

Tommy’s head was bowed. He’d never felt so sated whilst at the same time felt so ashamed of himself.

“I'm sorry Julie, I just lost control. I couldn’t stop myself,” Tommy whispered, his breathing still jagged.

“Well I’m using the bathroom first, so you can clean up in the kitchen sink or stand around with a dirty cock waiting to go next,” Julie scowled.

Tommy watched Julie walk almost bowlegged to the bedroom, still unsteady on her feet and then he looked down at his groin. He had to suffer the indignity of kicking off his shoes and taking off his pants and underwear whilst keeping his penis away from his clothing. Lucky for him he was still semi-erect, although his erection soon shrivelled when he awkwardly put his privates under the cold water from the kitchenette spigot. He found some dishwashing detergent under the sink and thoroughly washed himself.

Julie emerged from the bedroom dressed in a chiffon nighty and clean panties. She smelled of bath soap and her hair was wet from the shower. She found Tommy sitting on the couch with his head in his hands and Julie sat down beside him.

To her amazement she found that Tommy was weeping. He screwed his knuckles into the corner of his eyes to stem the flow of tears.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, around a crying jag.

Julie had come out of the bedroom angry but her anger dissipated and she sat down beside him and she put an arm around him to comfort him. He nestled his head in her shoulder.

“See what I mean about becoming my father,” his voice muffled against her neck.

“It was just a little roleplay Tommy. I would have spiked you with my heel if I really didn’t want you to fuck me like that,” Julie said and they both knew that what she said was a half-truth.

She led Tommy into the bedroom and undressed him then she put on a show as slid into a pair of gossamer flesh-toned stockings and slipped on her high heels. She joined him on the bed and this time they made love, they didn’t just fuck.

Day Six

Julie had received another email from Fleur de Lis overnight advising her to login and activate her account. She called Tommy who told her that he would check in at Police Plaza and then join her in her hotel room. What they were doing now had moved out of the grey area and bordered on entrapment and was possibly felonious.

Julie made coffee and ordered breakfast from room service and logged into her Fleur de Lis account. There was a link provided for Julie to upload copies of her PrEP prescription and latest STI clearance medical certificate.

The dating apps that Julie used didn’t require any such formality. You selected an escort, you paid for his services by credit card, you fucked and if he was any good you tipped him. Julie deliberately chose different men each time to provide her with what she needed. She had no interest in establishing any sort of relationship with any of the men who serviced her needs.

But having sex with multiple partners came with associated risks, as she’d discovered in the period when she became dangerously promiscuous after being raped by the frat boys so she had regular check-ups. She had been prescribed PrEP since adolescence and was fanatical about taking the medication at the same time every day.

Julie’s last check-up had been just before she left New York and she took photographs of her PrEP prescription and her STI clearance certificate and uploaded the JPEG images. This was a calculated risk because she would be providing Fleur de Lis with documentation that contained her real name but she had come this far and Fleur de Lis guaranteed that their confidentiality agreement worked both ways.

By the time she had showered and dressed she had received a reply advising her that her profile was now active and instructions on how to pick up her first supply of pharmaceuticals. She was provided with a four number combination for a luggage locker at Camden Union Station.

She went alone to pick up the drugs because if it was a trap she didn’t want to implicate Tommy.

There was no trap and Julie dropped the Ziploc bag that she found inside the storage locker into her purse without inspecting the contents. She drove back to her hotel and put the drugs in her hotel safe. She had no intention of selling any but she was sure that Amanda or one of her minions would check to make sure that Julie had taken possession of them.

Tommy arrived looking tired and moody. He kissed Julie perfunctorily and she made him coffee and explained to him where she was at.

“Now that you have taken possession of the drugs you have committed a felony,” Tommy grimaced as he sipped coffee.

“Come on Tommy. Undercover cops and DEA agents make drug deals every day in the performance of their duties,” Julie replied.

“Yes, but if you on sell them on to clients you’re effectively a drug dealer,” Tommy countered.

“We’ve already crossed the Rubicon, Tommy. There’s no going back now.” Julie said testily.

“Anyway it shouldn’t get to that nor should I have to fuck my way through Stephanie’s client list. Once I lure the clients into my bedroom and get them to verbally admit to paying for my services, I will identify myself as a police detective and show them my badge. I will compel the mark to provide a DNA sample or threaten to arrest him, inclusive of a perp-walk. If these guys are rich and famous they do not want that,” Julie said smugly.

“And when you get the killer in there and he tries to kill you rather than provide a DNA sample?” Tommy countered.

“I’ll have my service weapon handy under a pillow and a big strong police detective close by waiting to come to my rescue,” Julie smiled and leaned in and kissed Tommy quickly on the lips.

“It sounds like a dumb plan to me. I’d prefer it if we hit Fleur di Lis with a whole bunch of warrants and subpoenas,” Tommy griped.

“I told you why that won’t work,” Julie sighed.

“Then let’s have a fucking SWAT team standing by and take down these assholes one by one when they come to visit you,” Tommy said angrily.

“Well there is a little a matter of PC. Even us alphabet soup people know that setting a SWAT team on a person suspected of soliciting a prostitute probably constitutes excessive force and rich and famous assholes employ rich and famous lawyers who would put you, me and Captain McElroy through the wringer,” Julie sniped.

“Yeah… sorry about the alphabet soup remark,” Tommy’s anger had dissipated.

“Stop saying sorry,” Julie smiled and kissed him and Tommy held her close for longer than was prudent because they both became horny but there was work to do.

She opened Fleur de Lis’ main page and found her profile listed under ‘Specialties’. The gold star icon in the top corner indicated that she was only available to gold star members. Amanda, or whatever her real name was, had decided that Candy was hot property. Julie couldn’t help but feeling a little tickled that she was considered so privileged.

Whoever had compiled her profile had knocked five years off her age and edited her pictures to make her look even more attractive and alluring. The list of services she offered was exhaustive and Julie winced when she read some of the more extreme. Thank god she wouldn’t have to actually provide those perversions.

She deliberately kept the laptop turned away from Tommy until she found what she was looking for. Fleur de Lis had provided Julie with a list of prospective clients which Julie assumed were Stephanie Carter’s regulars. Not that it helped much because they were all listed under pseudonyms and the only way to contact them was through the website or the app.

Tommy had brought in some paperwork from Police Plaza and was busy working on his own laptop when Julie went to the kitchenette to make more coffee. When she turned around she saw that Tommy was sitting in front of her laptop looking at Candy’s profile.

“Jesus Julie!” a look of disgust crossed Tommy’s face as he looked at her pictures and read her profile.

“It’s a fucking trap Tommy. I’m just bait. You know that’s not who I am right?” Julie brought the coffee over and set the cups down.

“Where am I going to be when you entertain these so called clients? Have you thought about that?” Tommy asked, his face still a mew.

“I already booked you a room here in the hotel,” she held out the passkey to him.

“I couldn’t get another suite so you're four floors below me, that's the closest room I could get. You can listen in the on Phantom software and if it looks like I need backup, you come a running,” Julie sidled up to Tommy and stroked his arm.

“It’s a long way from my room to your suite,” Tommy reached for his coffee.

“You're fit Tommy. If the elevator car isn’t on your floor you can race up the stairs. You will be like a superhero coming to my rescue,” Julie rubbed against him like a cat seeking attention.

“Don’t joke about this Julie and don’t think you can beguile me into thinking this is a good idea,” Tommy sipped coffee, ignoring Julie’s advances.

“Really Tommy? Do you find me beguiling?” she reached down into his crotch and found a burgeoning erection.

“You wanna put that thing to good use? We have plenty of time before I have to set up the honey trap,” Julie squeezed Tommy’s cock and he groaned.

Just then Julie’s personal phone pinged. She had an alert on the Fleur de Lis dating app. She snatched up her phone and saw that she had a message from a man who used the nickname ‘Caesar’.

She opened the chat box read the message: Hi Candy. 7pm at your place? I want you all evening was the succinct message.

Julie replied: of course, any special requests?

Caesar replied: just you doll and wear the lingerie you are wearing in your profile pics

Julie tapped away on her phone: you like what you see (smiley face emoji)

Caesar came back: i like your kind and my regular girl is no longer available

Julie’s heart began to race as she typed a reply: Angel?

There was no reply. The little pulsing ellipses in the text box flatlined.

“Fuck! I went too far and scared him away,” Julie hissed.

The room was silent for what seemed like an eternity and then the little typing awareness indicators began their little dance.

Julie’s phone lit up: yes. 7pm. your place. all night. deal?

Julie smiled and typed of course Caesar. I’m at the Grand hotel. Penthouse suite 4

She received a response immediately: don’t forget the lingerie, stockings and heels

The text box closed.

A few minutes later her banking app pinged. Two thousand dollars had been deposited into her account which meant that Caesar had paid Fleur de Lis six thousand dollars for her services. Julie knew that was a very good price even though she had never booked an overnight session herself. Once she had finished using her dates she wanted them gone.

“Okay Tommy we’re on. This Caesar guy is listed as one of Angel’s favourites,” Julie tapped the screen on her laptop and sounded excited. Tommy looked morose but the trap had been set.

“I’ll try somehow to get this guy to admit that he was with Stephanie Carter on the night she was murdered. Something innocuous like ‘when was the last time you saw Angel?’ but I won’t push it. It will be even better if he also asks me to provide him with an illicit substance,” Julie reiterated the salient points of their plan.

“Once I get him in the bedroom and get him to admit that he has paid for my services I’ll whip out my badge and gun and make him an offer he can’t refuse. Provide a DNA sample or we perp walk him into Police Plaza,” Julie continued.

“What if he’s just some rich asshole who doesn’t care if he’s exposed in the media? Plenty of the rich and famous have been caught out using prostitutes. Eddie Murphy’s career hasn’t suffered or that floppy-haired limey guy,” Tommy grunted.

“Clients using Fleur de Lis do so not only because they can have whatever they desire; they are also guaranteed anonymity,” Julie countered.

“We need a safe word. Something out of context that can’t be mistaken in case something goes wrong and you want me to hightail it up here,” Tommy insisted.

“Good idea. What about ‘unicorn’? I can’t imagine a context that we would use that word in normal conversation,” Julie offered and Tommy agreed.

They tested the Phantom software and then Tommy went down to his room and they tested it again.

Julie douched before she showered which was unnecessary because she had no intention of engaging in sex. But it was part of the ritual of preparing to meet someone that was familiar to everyone on the trans spectrum, from weekend closet crossdressers to transgender women who had retained their penis. It’s just what you did.

You never knew when sex might happen and being a good girl scout Julie liked to be prepared.

She wasn’t prepared the night the four frat boys raped her. They made fun of her because of it, laughing at her sodomised shitty ass when they had finished using her.

Julie had the last laugh though when she attended the drunkard's funeral and again six years later when she kicked the shit out of the two serial rapists before she arrested them. It was the only time that she had used excessive force making an arrest. She had laughed again when they each got fifteen years without the possibility of parole.

She would eventually catch up to the asshole CEO and then she would laugh at him too.

She had laid out the clothing Caser requested she wear on the bed: the ultra-sheer nylon stockings, black lacy boy-leg panties and the semi-transparent black negligee. The black high heels sat on the floor ready for her to wear when he arrived. She sprayed herself liberally with perfume; her makeup was heavy, slutty. She needed to look the part.

Julie checked in with Tommy as five minutes to seven and waited nervously for the door chime.

While she waited she thought about all the things that could go wrong and all the things they should have done. The hotel’s security cameras would capture Caesar entering the hotel but she and Tommy should probably have set up their own surveillance cameras. But that was a double edged sword because although it would incriminate this Caesar guy it would also prove that she and Tommy had lured him into an unsanctioned honey trap.

Julie centred herself. They both knew that any evidence they obtained would be inadmissible but once they knew the identity of Stephanie's killer they could then use legitimate means to obtain a legal DNA sample or use the warrants and subpoenas that Tommy had proposed so vehemently. Everything was a risk but Julie wanted justice for Stephanie Carter. Too many transgender women were tossed aside by the legal system. She doubted that if Stephanie Carter hadn’t been born Senator Raymond de Lorraine son there would be any time or resources spent solving her murder. She would be just another tranny prostitute who met an untimely end.

The doorbell chimed and Julie slipped on her heels, checked for the twentieth time that her badge and gun were under the pillows on the big bed, and made her way to the front door.

Julie peeked through the peephole and immediately recognised the man standing outside her door. She was very excited but she would feign ignorance and concentrate on the job at hand. For now she needed to behave like a seductress.

Julie opened the door wide and gave her client a brilliant smile. Her perfume wafted into the hallway and her client smiled back at her. His eyes unapologetically roamed over her body. Caesar wanted to see that he had got what he had paid for after all.

“You’re perfect,” the client’s smile was dazzling but also a little evil.

“Come in Caesar,” Julie returned his smile.

She stepped into the room so that Caesar could follow her and too late she heard a second set of footfalls behind him. She turned quickly and saw not only Caesar but a man she vaguely recognised, not his face, but his build and mannerisms as he followed Caesar into the room and closed and locked the door. She was sure that it was the man from the warehouse.

Julie was about to scream “unicorn!” when the muscled man clamped his big hand across her mouth.

Julie felt the sting of the needle then she felt nothing. That’s not quite true. She could see, hear and feel everything but she couldn’t move and she couldn’t talk. The room spiralled. Julie was lightheaded. An out of body sensation took over, sending her soul somewhere dark while her body performed the menial tasks of breathing and keeping her heart beating. The only part of her body she could move was her eyes. It was horrifying.

“It’s the same stuff Mister Wilson used on your partner so you are familiar with the effects,” Senator Graham Milburn said.

“It’s a derivative of Rohypnol but far more powerful,” Graham Milburn said as he carried Julie into the bedroom and lowered her onto the bed.

Julie just stared up at the senator. At least she could move her eyes. She tried her best to flash her hatred at him.

“You have beautiful expressive eyes. You want to know what happened to Stephanie Carter don’t you? I might as well tell you because you will never tell another soul. You see, you’re going to suffer the same fate,” the senator flashed a straight razor in front of Julie’s face.

“Of course I’m going to fuck you first and so is Mister Wilson. Neither of us will wear condoms so your CSI people can link our sperm with the specimens we left in Stephanie. We will pose you just like we posed Stephanie,” the senator licked his thick red lips and Julie shuddered inwardly.

“As soon as I saw your profile posted on Fleur de Lis I recognised you and knew that I had to have you. It was silly of you really because now I have the means of disposing of you, ruining Tommy Lomax’s career and sending Camden PD into a never-ending spiral as they search for a serial killer,” Graham Milburn grinned.

“If you people had just followed the trail of clues we left you none of this would be necessary. That useless fat fuck Jack Shepard was supposed to lead detective Lomax down the path of the drug dealer scenario but then you showed up,” Graham traced a finger along Julie’s thigh.

Julie might have been paralysed but her brain was still working. Now it made sense why Jack Shepard was so pissed that Julie had been brought in on the case, why he kept badgering Tommy about how the case was progressing and why he kept sticking his nose in. She tried not to think about the senator’s fingers stroking her legs.

“But let’s start from the beginning shall we?” the senator caressed Julie’s flesh.

“I’ve always had a penchant for special girls like you but of course I could never indulge my fantasies because of who I am. You could imagine the furore if it got out that Graham Milburn liked to diddle ladyboys,” Graham smiled evilly and Julie hated him even more if that were possible.

“Then these adult dating sites that catered to people like me began to popup and how wonderful was that? I could entertain my perversions in secrecy. All it took was money and I have plenty of that,” the senator patted Julie’s thigh as if she understood.

“A friend of mine who has his own perversions put me onto Fleur de Lis and when I saw Stephanie Carter I had to have her. Of course I had no idea that in a former life she was Steven de Lorraine. She recognised me immediately but she still let me do all the dirty little things that I enjoy doing to ladies like you,” the senator began to stroke Julie’s thigh again.

“Then the silly little bitch told me who she was and of course she knew about the rivalry between me and her father. She hated her father as much as I do but Stephanie was never one to let a business opportunity pass her by,” the senator's fingers drifted across the front of Julie’s panties and she shivered inwardly.

“Stephanie blackmailed me. Threatened to expose me for what I was. She said nothing would be better than coming out to the world so that daddy and mummy would be forever shamed whilst at the same time she ruined my political career and my reputation. She was smart I’ll give her that,” the senator stroked the bulge in Julie’s panties.

Julie wasn’t erect and she would never be again because she knew she was going to die.

“Stephanie wanted a lot of money up front and she wanted a stipend to keep her living the lifestyle she had become accustomed to. Of course it would be far away from Camden. She probably imagined herself living on some tropical island being buggered regularly by a dark handsome houseboy,” the senator became bored with Julie’s flaccid cock and his hand began a journey back down her thigh.

“I was tempted or make her a counteroffer. It would have been blissful irony to keep Stephanie as my mistress, knowing that I was boning Raymond de Lorraine’s little boy up the ass on a regular basis. The only thing that would be better was if he and his stuck-up hag of a wife knew about it,” the senator sniggered, the hatred he felt for the de Lorraines flashed across his eyes.

“But I couldn’t take the risk of course so I employed the services of Mister Wilson whom I have used on a number of occasions to do dirty little deeds for me,” the senator’s fingers continued down to Julie’s ankles.

“I love the feeling of expensive nylons on a good set of legs, don’t you? I don’t know why ladies nowadays hardly ever wear them. But I digress, where was I?” the senator chuckled.

“I made my regular appointment with Stephanie but this time I brought along Mister Wilson who drugged her for me so I could have some fun with Stephanie before Mister Wilson cut her throat. He had a go too. He explained that having multiple semen samples inside Stephanie would make the CSIs job more difficult but I think once Mister Wilson saw how magnificently beautiful Stephanie was he just wanted to fuck her,” the senator’s fingers began their journey back up Julie’s legs.

“We posed her like you found her. We figured that once the police found the drugs they would go looking for a dealer or possibly a pimp. Mister Wilson knew Detective Shepard from the private security firm where Jack moonlighted. The fat fuck took the money and we thought that was the end of it,” the senator sounded smug.

Neither Mister Wilson’s DNA nor my mine is on file anywhere so that would be a dead end. Jack Shepard would find a drug dealer to pin the murder on. Mister Wilson provided Jack with DNA samples from Stephanie for your CSIs to find on the dealer’s dead body,” the senator patted Julie’s thigh like he was explaining a fairy story to a young girl.

“But then you and Tommy stuck you noses in and here we are,” the senator sighed with the finality of all.

“Such a waste,” the senator shook his head.

“The police will go ape-shit when they find you. Tommy will be disgraced, probably be drummed off the job after he faces misconduct proceedings. This time Jack Shepard will get it right. We’ve already selected the low-life drug dealer who will get shot resisting arrest. Jack will plant the bloody towel and DNA from Stephanie and yourself in the dealer’s home along with her laptop and phone. The panties you are wearing will also be found there,” the senator sounded content.

“Sometime down the track Jack Shepard will die in a tragic accident of course. Can’t leave any loose ends,” the senator chuckled evilly.

“And the icing on the cake is that Senator Raymond de Lorraine and his wife Judith will have to face the humiliation of the whole world knowing that their son was working as a tranny prostitute when she died,” the senator had a self-satisfied grin on his face.

The bed groaned as the senator's weight was lifted off it. He started to undress.

“Now I’m going to fuck you for a while and then Mister Wilson will have a go. I know you will be able to feel everything that we do to you, which is too bad for you but quite exciting for me. The good news is Mister Wilson tells me that you will hardly feel a thing when he cuts your throat,” the senator flashed the blade in front of Julie’s eyes.

Senator Graham Milburn was naked. His pudgy white belly was covered in wiry grey hairs. His stubby thick cock stuck out from under his belly leaking precum. The senator improved his erection until he achieved full tumescence.

“Time to fuck, sweet cheeks,” Graham Milburn grinned.

He put the razor to Julie’s throat.

“I might even do it myself this time,” the senator smirked.

Then the top of his head blew out and his blood and brains spattered on the wall behind the bed.

Julie’s face was covered in gore and she screamed inwardly. She was deafened by the sound of the gunshot.

Her eyes searched the room frantically and then she saw Tommy Lomax framed in the doorway. The gun in his hand was still smoking.

Three Months Later

On the short flight from New York to Camden City Julie remembered lying on the hotel room bed being unable to move or speak, covered in gore. She remembered Tommy pointing his gun at Mister Wilson, aching to pull the trigger, but instead he cuffed him and made him lie down on the floor.

She recalled Tommy fawning over her, ensuring that she wasn’t otherwise injured. Tommy going into the bathroom and returning with a wet facecloth to wipe the blood and gore off her face. She remembered the paramedics having to force Tommy away from her so they could treat her.

She remembered the ambulance ride with Tommy holding her hand the whole way to Camden City Community Hospital where she was required to hole up for three days under observation. She remembered the interviews with the investigating detectives who had taken the case away from Tommy.

The ambulance ride was the last time she had seen or heard from Tommy and she had steadfastly refused to text or call him.

But she would have to see Tommy tomorrow in court. Edgar Middleton, otherwise known as Mister Wilson had pleaded guilty to murder and assaulting a police officer. Even though they now had his DNA and had matched it with one of the sperm samples taken from Stephanie Carter the DA refused to charge Edgar Middleton with the rape of Stephanie because she was a prostitute. They knew that Middleton would claim the sex was consensual despite the presence of the Rohypnol-like substance in Stephanie’s bloodstream.

Edgar Middleton would have to confess to his crimes in open court and would be allowed the opportunity to allocute before a sentence was passed. The Camden City District Attorney wanted Detectives Lomax and Sanderson present in court in case the judge wanted them to validate the statement of agreed facts in Middleton’s confession which he had plea bargained in order to get the death penalty taken off the table.

There was also the slim possibility that Edgar Middleton would recant his confession and they would have to go to trial.

The irony was not lost on Julie that Camden PD had reserved a room for her at the Grand Hotel and once again she upgraded herself a suite. But not the suite in which she had nearly met her death.

She hadn't even finished unpacking when she heard a tap on the door and when she looked through the peephole she saw Tommy Lomax standing there with his head lowered. She let him in without saying a word and he followed her into the suite.

Tommy had lost weight. His suit hung off his tall, lithe frame, and he looked miserable but he still had his good looks: those deep brown eyes, the chiselled features, the mane of thick brown hair and those full sensuous lips. Julie felt her heart skip a beat but she said nothing.

Julie was wearing the same charcoal skirt-suit, white shirt and low heels that she had been wearing when they first met. She’d highlighted her hair and it looked good on her. Her makeup was subdued except for her favourite red lipstick which Tommy could almost taste when he looked at her mouth.

“You look a lot better than the last time I saw you,” was Tommy’s opening segue.

Julie just gave him a sarcastic look and pretended to be busy unpacking, but her mind was in turmoil.

“Jack Shepard is being indicted for obstruction of justice and accessory to murder,” Tommy said to fill the empty void.

“The DA was going to drop the accessory charge if Jack cooperated but Jack hasn’t much to trade now that Middleton is pleading guilty,” Tommy added.

“You forgot to add politics and power to your holy trinity of drugs, money and sex,” Julie stopped fussing in her suitcase and turned to look at him.

Tommy looked puzzled.

“Besides keeping his dirty little peccadillos a secret, Senator Milburn was determined to expose Senator de Lorraine for hiding the fact that his son Steven was in fact a trans woman named Stephanie Carter who was working as a prostitute. It would have ended de Loraine’s political career and Milburn would have stepped into the void,” Julie said.

“Yeah. This case had it all: sex, drugs, money, politics and power,” Tommy agreed with her.

“Are we gonna talk?” Tommy interrupted the awkward silence.

“About what Tommy? About you almost abandoning me when I made the decision to work for Fleur de Lis or you ghosting me once I was safely at the hospital?” Julie sniped.

“After you were safely in hospital I went to arrest Jack Shepard but he put up fight. He ended up in the same hospital as you but I was suspended and ordered not to contact you until after the trial,” Tommy shook his head and Julie sensed his remorse.

“The DA issued me with a subpoena stating that you and I were material witnesses and any form of communication between us could be construed as collusion and could possibly decimate the prosecution's case given the circumstances under which we had lured senator Milburn and Edgar Middleton to your hotel room,” Tommy was visibly shaking.

“Since when have you been one to abide by the rules Tommy?” Julie quipped.

“Since I met Julie Sanderson and realised that I was a worthless shit compared to her. I met a woman whose integrity, tenacity and vivaciousness are extraordinary. A woman who has overcome the worst of prejudice, intolerance and discrimination for no other reason than simply being who she is,” tears ran down Tommy’s face.

“Despite my desperate need to talk to you, to see you, to hold you in my arms, I couldn’t jeopardise the case against the man who had every intention of raping and killing you,” Tommy choked on his words.

“What really happened to Jack?” Julie asked suspecting that she knew the answer.

“I found the fat fuck at Police Plaza trying to shred the documents he’d copied and passed onto Edgar Middleton. I broke his nose, two ribs and left him with a testicular torsion before I arrested him. His union rep advised him to bring a case of excessive force against me until the rep heard the case against Jack and then the Police Benevolent Association washed their hands of him and suspended his membership,” Tommy gave a wry smile.

Julie was pleased to see a smile on Tommy’s hound dog face and couldn’t help smiling herself.

“So where does that leave us Tommy?” Julie looked into his big brown eyes.

“I don’t know. I can’t stop thinking about you. You turned my world upside down. You changed me. You made me a better man,” Tommy’s tears began to flow again.

“You haven’t become a tranny-chaser have you Tommy?” Julie said and immediately regretted saying it.

Tommy leaned in and kissed Julie on the forehead and turned to leave.

He took three steps towards the door before Julie put her hand on his shoulder and stopped him.

Tommy turned and looked into Julie’s emerald green eyes and felt himself drowning in them.

“You changed me too Tommy. I never met a man I could trust until I met you,” she whispered and stood on her tippytoes and kissed him softly.

Julie took his hand and led him to the bedroom.

Tommy quickly undressed but he took his time slowly undressing Julie so that he could savour every moment. He took off her jacket and hung it over the back of a chair and then he had her sit on the edge of the bed.

He removed her heels and lifted her feet to his face. He rubbed her nylon-clad feet on his cheeks, marvelling at the red nailpolish on her toenails through the reinforced toes of her nylons, inhaling the ambrosial musk. Then he kissed her cute digits and finally he suckled them.

Julie shivered with delight when he did so. The act was primal and sensual and little slivers of exhilaration radiated up her legs from her toes.

Tommy unzipped Julie’s skirt, stopping briefly to kiss the side of her mouth before he slid the skirt down her legs. He folded the garment carefully and laid it on top of her jacket. He unhurriedly unbuttoned her blouse, smiling when the heft of her breasts came into view, cupped in the lace-trimmed cups of her brassiere. He slipped a hand into the small of her back and expertly unclasped the brassiere, allowing Julie’s breasts to fall free.

He marvelled at her almost translucent flesh, tracing the blue veins with his fingertips. He circled her pinkish brown areola and her nipples engorged and he softly caressed them. Julie felt like butterflies were fluttering their wings on her nipples and she bit her lip to suppress a gasp. Then Tommy lifted each breast in turn to his mouth and ran his tongue along the fine scars left behind from her implant surgery.

Julie thought it was one of the most loving acts that had ever been performed on her and she gasped as Tommy suckled one teat and then the other.

He lifted Julie to her feet and took off her blouse and her brassiere and they joined her jacket and skirt.

Julie expected that Tommy would stop undressing her and begin to make love to her. They had always fucked while she was wearing nylons and panties but Tommy was relentless. He hooked his fingers into the waistband of her pantyhose and rolled them down her legs, bunching up her panties as he went. He slipped them off her feet and tossed them aside.

He stood looking at Julie in all her naked glory. Her body was perfectly proportioned for her size: broad shoulders, full bosom, slim waist, rounded hips and long runner’s legs. Her skin was almost alabaster and unblemished. Her pubis was bereft of hair her genitals incongruent to her perfect female form… but not to Tommy. To Tommy, Julie was perfect.

Julie had bowed her head. Tommy had never seen her completely naked and standing before him she felt vulnerable and a little ashamed. Tommy lifted her chin and placed his mouth on hers and kissed her deeply.

When she became erect Julie tried to twist her body so that her cock didn’t press against Tommy in case he found it revolting but Tommy held her still and his hand slowly snaked its way down her torso, hefting each of her breasts, circling her flat tummy and coming to rest against her turgid member. He lightly circled his fingers around the shaft and stroked it and Julie gasped into his mouth.

“Tommy, you don’t have to…” Julie began to say and Tommy shut her up by kissing her even deeper.

He lowered her onto the bed and lay down on top of her, pressing his lips to her lips, his chest to her bosom, his belly to her belly, his penis to her penis. Julie felt the heft of his cock pressing against her own protuberant member, expressing droplets of pre-ejaculate that comingled with his juices.

Julie wrapped her arms around his broad shoulders and lifted her legs and crossed her ankles behind the small of his back and Tommy’s penis was perfectly positioned for entry. It was snug between her buttocks and pressing on her puckered bud. Tommy realised that Julie was unlubricated except for the oozing precum dribbling from his cock but before he could think about asking Julie for lubricant she arched her back and thrust upward.

Tommy’s glans pierced her tight sphincter and Julie hissed. It felt like she was being impaled by a fleshy spear but the pain soon turned to pleasure and Julie smiled up at him and nodded and Tommy slowly inserted his member all the way inside Julie’s tight anus.

For the first time they were both completely naked and entwined in each other’s limbs. Their bare flesh pressed together, Julie’s long legs unadorned by pantyhose or stockings, her buttocks and pubis unencumbered by panties.

It was liberating and cathartic and tender and loving and Julie adored Tommy for taking her in her natural state.

Tommy lay still, kissing Julie softly, pausing to look into her eyes, stroking her cheek lovingly and then kissing her sweet mouth again. It was heavenly. Julie could feel Tommy’s penis filling her void, swelling and pulsing each that time his heart beat. She stroked his neck and circled her fingers in his thick hair.

Julie entwined her fingers in his curly locks and drew his face to hers, the yearning and desire building to boiling point. She opened her mouth and slid her tongue into his mouth and pulled him closer, locking her ankles in the small of his back. Her tumescent penis was flat against his belly, oozing precum. Tommy felt the heat of it and growled.

“Make love to me Tommy,” Julie whispered breathlessly.

Tommy withdrew his penis until just his glans where girded by Julie’s tight sphincter, then he slowly slid his penis back inside her warm, moist channel. Julie rose to meet him and her whole body shuddered. He did it again, the divine ache as he did so was felt by them both.

“That’s it honey; I want you so much,” Julie whimpered.

Tommy withdrew again and Julie arched her back. Tommy slipped a hand between their bodies and found Julie’s cock, rampant, throbbing and dribbling pre-ejaculate. He gently squeezed it and Julie shuddered and mewled. She could feel the divine sparklets resounding from her sphincter tightly circling Tommy’s boated appendage, feel the deep ebullience reverberating each time Tommy’s glans pressed on her prostate and the tingling delight radiating from her penis as Tommy stroked her in time with his thrusts.

Tommy felt Julie’s anus contract around his swollen member and the deep ache in his belly that told him that he was about to climax.

He fucked Julie slowly but determinedly, timing each thrust with a stroke of her cock. Julie began to writhe beneath him, her senses overwhelmed with the lust and passion of their lovemaking.

Julie whimpered and buried her face in his neck as her cock began to judder and Tommy felt the sweet heat of her spend releasing, splashing on his belly. He drove his cock into Julie as far as it would go and sought her mouth with his and kissed her with such passion that his head began to spin. His body convulsed and his cock quivered and he inseminated Julie, his issue rushing forth, filling her with his musky seed.

They were locked in an orgasmic tryst, Tommy evacuating his essence inside Julie’s tight spongy void, Julie expelling her juices onto his fingers, coating his belly with her piquant semen. Julie’s arms and legs were tightly wrapped around Tommy, holding him so close that he had to remove his hand from between their bodies. They felt each other’s hearts racing, their breathing ragged, their bodies shuddering with the intensity of it.

Their kisses were so full longing and desire that they could hardly breathe.

“Oh my god Julie, I want you so much. I adore you. I never want this to stop,” Tommy whimpered in the afterglow of his climax.

“Me too Tommy,” Julie smiled up at him and Tommy’s heart nearly broke.

They both sensed that there was more to say but it was left unspoken.

The Next Day

Before the judge could pass sentence in a plea-bargain case he had to read the statement of agreed facts submitted by the prosecutor and the defence attorney then the prosecutor had to outline the circumstances of the case in front of the judge in court. The defence attorney then had to respond that the facts in evidence were agreed upon.

Then the defendant had to state to the judge that he agreed with the terms of the plea bargain and formally plead guilty to the charges.

Edgar Middleton stood in the open court and admitted that he had killed Stephanie Carter at the behest of Senator Graham Milburn and confirmed that Senator Milburn was present in Stephanie's bedroom whilst Edgar slit her throat.

Julie and Tommy sat in the back row of the crowded courthouse listening to Middleton describe his crimes in detail, confessing to murder and implicating Senator Graham Milburn in the homicide and inculpating Detective Jack Shepard in the conspiracy to pervert the cause of justice.

When he got to the part where Senator Milburn discovered that his transgender lover was the child of Senator Raymond de Lorraine and Stephanie’s attempt to blackmail the senator the courtroom erupted and the judge banged his gavel. The journalists in the courtroom bolted for the doors attempting to be the first to publish the facts of the case online, on television and in print.

Edgar Middleton was not required to allocute the circumstances around Senator Milburn’s death nor the circumstances of his arrest. The facts were inconsequential to the charges against him and both Tommy and Julie breathed a sigh of relief when his allocution was completed and judge handed down the sentence agreed to in the plea bargain.

Jack Shepard never made it to court. Whilst out on bail the night before he was to appear in court he swallowed his service weapon and pulled the trigger.

One Month After The Court Case

Tommy Lomax sat in the garden chair drinking an ice-cold Bud, his belly full of the best barbeque he had ever eaten. He watched as Julie Sanderson and her mother Beccy fussed around the outdoor dining table clearing up after the sumptuous meal that the Sanderson’s had provided. Julie was dressed in shorts and a tank top and was wearing strappy sandals. Her arms, legs and shoulders were pink from the summer sun.

Beccy was dressed in short-shorts and a halter-top. She was as tall as her daughter and had the same crooked nose and wide mouth. They could easily be mistaken for sisters. Elliot Sanderson, Julie’s father, was as well-built as Tommy with some added muscle courtesy of his home gym. He finished cleaning the barbeque and pulled up a chair beside Tommy and took a beer from the cooler.

“They make quite a pair don’t they?” Elliot nodded in the direction of his wife and daughter and Tommy nodded.

“I love them both with all my heart Tommy. Come with me would ya? I wanna show you something,” he patted Tommy on the shoulder with paw that nearly sent Tommy sprawling out of the garden chair.

Tommy followed Elliot into the three-car garage where Elliot kept a yellow 1977 Chevrolet Camaro and Tommy whistled when he saw it.

“Quite the car,” Tommy complimented Elliot.

“I don’t give a fuck about the car Tommy. I give a fuck about my daughter,” Elliot put up his hand to stop Tommy from answering.

“You’re the only guy that Julie has ever brought home Tommy. We knew about Gail of course but Julie refused to bring her around to meet us,” Elliot continued.

“That means something Tommy,” Elliot paused to pull on his beer.

“Julie is an amazing person. She’s beautiful, perfect in fact, inside and out,” Tommy interposed.

“Don’t tell me shit I already know Tommy. What are your intentions with daughter? Do you love her?” Elliot growled.

“Yes, I love her,” Tommy’s voice broke as he said the words.

“Have you told her?” Elliot asked.

Tommy shook his head.

“Well quit fucking around and tell her before you lose her,” Elliot beamed a smile at Tommy and slapped him on the back.

Tommy returned to the Sanderson’s backyard where Julie and Beccy were sipping wine spritzers.

“Let’s take a walk. There’s something I need to tell you,” he took Julie’s hand and led her down the path that wound through the expansive gardens at the rear of the property.

The End

Note from the author: Please be kind enough to leave a comment and rate my story.

xxx
Michele Nylons
November 2023