Poppy lay on the couch in a very undignified repose. She was wearing a black vinyl micro-miniskirt, a pink crop-top and transparent white lycra tights. Her legs were splayed, lying side-on watching TV. Elliot could see what he thought was a camel-toe in her tight pink nylon panties, but he knew it wasn’t and quickly averted his eyes.

“I saw you looking,” Poppy caught him averting his gaze

“You're intrigued aren’t you? How has she got a god-dammed camel-toe there where there should be a moose knuckle?” Poppy opened her legs wider.

“Can you behave with a little decorum at least?” Elliot huffed and left the room.

Elliot was not happy with this assignment. He believed it was beneath him and a waste of his investigative talents. Even worse, the pretty whore was often insufferable, deliberately giving him a hard time. She was the most uncooperative, cooperating witness he had ever met.

Poppy had been taken from the interview room and treated remarkably well considering how badly she had been treated up until then. A female officer had taken her to a small room where she was given breakfast, coffee and had her rights explained to her by a junior ADA. Saul Ginsberg sat there and said nothing; Poppy thought he was as useful as a knitted condom.

As a material witness she was being held in protective custody for her own safety. She would be taken to a safe house and guarded around the clock until her presence was required in court. Only a few trusted souls would know where she was being held and contact with the outside world would be severely limited and under no circumstances was she to disclose her location.

In another office upstairs Detective Elliot Granger was in a heated argument with Danny Logan the Chief of Detectives, a Deputy Police Commissioner and Brett Mendelsohn the senior ADA who was handling the case.

“You can continue to interview her while you have her in custody and prepare her for the witness chair,” Brett Mendelsohn pressed.

“You’ve been with her since she was picked up at the Metropole, you’ve got a rapport with her,” Danny Logan added.

“Just keep the tranny cooze alive long enough to testify, you don’t have to buy her dinner or read her bedtime stories,” the Deputy Commissioner growled.

“Luca Tattaglia made bail and the Napolitano crime family have the best defence attorney in the city defending him. They took out the concierge who was working the Metropole the night of the killing. The hooker is the only witness left, how hard do you think they are going to come looking for her?” Danny Logan continued.

“Corruption is rife in City Hall and Police Plaza. Half the force is on the take and so are the courts; I need someone I can trust on this. No one except me and a select few are going to know where you are,” Brett Mendelsohn added, receiving withering glares from the Deputy Commissioner and Chief of Detectives regarding his comments about officials being on the take.

Elliot raged and argued until he was blue in the face but he got nowhere. He was stuck looking after the smart-ass tranny hooker until she had given her testimony.

With the support of a Tactical Response Team they visited the housing project where Poppy lived to pick up her personal effects. Elliot was surprised at how neat and clean her tiny one-bedroom apartment was kept. One wall was fitted with a bookcase filled with books, not fiction but text and reference books. He was still waiting for her to start jonesing and fully expected her to pull a stash and a fix-kit from some hidey hole but she packed everything she needed into two battered suitcases and one box of books.

“Let me get this right. I’m not under arrest but I am in custody. I can make one phone call a day but I can’t disclose my location which is impossible because I have no fucking idea where I am being taken anyway. The State is going to pay me a stipend while I’m in protective custody,” Poppy repeated again, irritating Elliot Granger even more.

“The ADA explained all that to you at the precinct,” Elliot kept his eyes on the road.

Poppy was deliberately annoying him. She sat slouched in the front passenger seat of the unmarked car her miniskirt high on her thighs, her breasts hanging out of her tank top and her fuck-me heels propped on the dash.

Elliot reached over and pushed her heels off the dashboard.

“This car belongs to the State, show a little respect,” Elliot glowered.

Poppy swung her legs up and propped her feet in Elliot’s lap which was the last straw. He jerked the wheel to the right and slammed on the brakes pulling into a dusty parking area on the side of the interstate. He leapt from the car and dragged Poppy out of the passenger seat and slammed her against car, entwining his fists into the material of her tank top.

“You listen to me you fucking tranny whore! You’re nothing but lowlife scum. You’re the dogshit I scrape off my shoe. You're not even a person as far as I’m concerned. If you weren’t a material witness I’d choke you until you croaked and claim that you were resisting arrest,” Elliot hissed, his face inches from hers.

“Who’s going to miss you? Who’s going to fucking care if some lowlife tranny hooker disappears off the streets never to be seen again? You're a shit-stain on the toilet bowl of society you fucking freak. We’re going to have to spend some time together because it’s my job to protect you until you testify but I’ll decide how pleasant that is going to be for you. You understand?” Elliot was screeching so hard and loud that he was spitting in her face.

Elliot finally saw fear on Poppy’s face. Despite her heavy makeup, dyed hair and slutty clothing there was no doubt that she was attractive with her green eyes, full lips, pert breasts and long legs. Her skin was clear and toned and she had good teeth, Elliot had changed his mind about her being a junky but she was still a whore. A tranny whore!

“Well do you?” Elliot seethed.

Poppy nodded, genuine fear on her face.

“I’ll behave, I promise,” she added.

Elliot let go of her and turned away. He suddenly realised that her pronunciation had changed, her voice was clipped and polished and she no longer had her street accent. For some reason this infuriated him even more.

“I’m sowy Elliot,” Poppy said in a singsong little-girl voice.

Elliot turned around and swung a punch that hit Poppy in the midriff, winding her. She doubled over and Elliot brought his knee up into her breastbone and she collapsed onto the ground.

“You still want to be a comedian? I’ve got custody of you all by myself sugar and I can hurt you like you have never been hurt before without leaving a scratch on you. Got it?” he seethed, standing over her as she lay in the dust.

Poppy nodded because she couldn’t speak.

“Here, let me help you up,” he offered her his hand and she took it.

He lifted her halfway to her feet and then dropped her.

“Get up yourself, you skank,” Elliot left her in the dust and sat in the driver’s seat waiting for her to get in the car.

Poppy slowly got to her feet using the car for support. She had a burning pain in her side and her chest but she tried her hardest not to show it as she gingerly made her way to the passenger door. She grimaced as she slowly lowered herself into the seat.

“Put on your belt,” Elliot barked as he put the car in gear.

“We clear on how this is going to work?” Elliot kept his eyes on the road.

“Yes,” Poppy whispered.

She played with the hole in her pantyhose and rubbed her skinned knee. Elliot glanced over and then put his eyes back on the road.

The safe house was set on the beachfront well away from the other houses in the area. It was three bedrooms with two baths, a laundry, and a combined kitchen-family room with windows that overlooked the beach. It was surrounded by lawns with very low shrubs running along the boundaries. Anyone approaching would be easily seen.

The fridge-freezer in the kitchen was well stocked and there was another in the garage that was fully stocked as were all the cabinets. The house was virtually a fortress with bullet-proof glass windows, triple-locked doors and a fitted alarm system.

“I’m taking the master bedroom; you take one of the others. You can watch TV or spend the day jacking off for all I care, just keep quiet and stay where I can see you,” Elliot opened the trunk.

“Let me get this right? You want to watch me jacking off all day?” Poppy couldn’t help herself.

“Jesus!” Elliot left her to carry her own suitcases and her box of books.

A wary truce developed between them. Poppy would push Elliot’s buttons until he was about to crack and then she would back off. He would never tell her so but he admired her spunk. She had taken the beating without complaint and some of her quips were amusing.

He was intrigued by her polished accent but she still dressed like a streetwalker. Elliot guessed that she did it to annoy him.

Their first night at the safe house Poppy took it upon herself to cook dinner. She made a brisket with mustard sauce, sautéed potatoes, carrots and onions. She set the table and plated the food.

“You going to eat?” she leaned against the table looking nothing like a housewife in her moot-skimmer miniskirt, come-fuck-me-heels and troll makeup but the food smelled delicious.

Elliot got up from the couch and sauntered over to table. He lifted the plate to his nose and sniffed the food. Then he walked over and scraped it into the trash, dropped the plate in the sink and went back to the couch.

Unfazed, Poppy picked up her plate and utensils and took them over to where he was lying on the couch and sat on the coffee table blocking his view of the TV. She took a forkful of brisket and poked it at his mouth.

“You want me to feed you like a kid?” she smiled at him and he couldn’t help smiling himself.

He opened his mouth and she put the beef into it and Elliot chewed it and swallowed.

“Nice?” she asked, picking some veggies up with the fork.

“Yeah, it’s ok,” Elliot said begrudgingly.

Sitting like she was he could see all the way up Poppy’s skirt. He could see her toned thighs clad in shimmering flesh-toned nylons and her pink satin panties covering her cooch or whatever it was she had under them. He didn’t know if she was doing it on purpose or if she was even aware that she was doing it but either way it was distracting.

He took the plate from her and got up off the couch and went over to the table and she followed. She made herself another plate and sat across from him. They ate together in silence.

Every evening at 7pm Poppy made a phone call. He repeated the warning about not disclosing where they were and she repeatedly told him that she would abide. She wasn't stupid and knew that her safety depended on keeping her location secret. She took the long-lead phone into her bedroom and talked for about an hour. She spoke softly and affectionately to whoever it was she was speaking to. Elliot guessed it was her pimp or some boyfriend.

After she returned the phone she stayed in her room reading until the early hours of the morning. In the morning she did a brisk workout in the back garden under his watchful eye. Elliot wouldn’t let her leave the grounds without him and after a couple of days she convinced him to let her go running. Her ass was tidy in the lycra sports tights but Elliot was too much of a professional to be distracted and he concentrated on checking their surrounds as they ran along the beachfront. Poppy wasn’t too concerned, she knew that he wouldn’t have let them leave the house unless it was safe.

The records the State held on Poppy were sketchy at best. She had changed her name by deed poll when she was eighteen. She had applied for subsidised housing. She didn’t have a driver’s licence, all she had was a social security number and several solicitation arrests.

Elliot was tempted to demand that she tell him who she was talking to on the phone each evening and to ask her what she was studying but he didn’t want her to think that he was that interested.

Some nights they played scrabble after dinner and it was obvious to him that Poppy was educated and intelligent. Despite her bravado, street smarts and appalling dress sense, she was articulate and bright. She deliberately teased him but she was smart enough to know her boundaries, one beating was all it had taken.

Elliot guessed that she had taken far worse. Sometimes when she wasn’t watching he studied her and he noticed the scars from healed wounds on her otherwise perfect skin. He couldn’t help but being curious about her but he was never going to give her the satisfaction of asking her about her past and how she had come to be living like she did.

Every day he grilled her about the murders at the Metropole Hotel and prepared her for the witness chair. Every second day Brett Mendelsohn would visit and check on their progress. They both asked the ADA when he expected the trial to start and the he was continually non-committal but optimistic that it would be soon. Luca Tattaglia’s lawyers kept filing motions and asking for continuances, he explained.

After nearly a month in the safe house Poppy asked to see Brett Mendelsohn alone in her room. Elliot was not happy when Brett agreed. He heard Poppy and Brett having a heated discussion for a while and then it went quiet and all he could hear was murmured voices. Brett came out of the room, his face was flushed and he looked agitated.

“Detective I need you to escort Miz Evesham to attend to a personal matter tomorrow,” Brett said indignantly.

Elliot was about to complain but Brett held up his hand to stop him.

“She’s got us over a barrel. We facilitate her request or she refuses to testify,” Brett hissed.

“I’ll make the bitch testify!” Elliot balled his fists, his face full of anger.

“No, no, no. Just drive her and protect her. We need her to cooperate. Straight there – straight back; she doesn’t get to make any other stops. I’d put another car on the security detail but the more people know where she is the more likely she gets hit. Word on the street is that the Napolitano family are willing to pay big to find out where she is,” Brett explained.

He took a handkerchief out of his pocket and mopped his brow.

“What were you doing in there?” Elliot nodded at Poppy’s bedroom, his face filled with disgust.

“She bribe you Brett? She put a bit of honey on it?” Elliot gave him a salacious grin.

“Fuck off detective. I treat her with respect because I need her testimony but I wouldn’t touch that thing with your dick,” the ADA hissed.

Elliot flinched when Brett called Poppy a ‘thing’.

Poppy made pasta for dinner that night and Elliot could no longer contain his curiosity.

“How’d you get the ADA to approve our little field trip tomorrow,” he asked around a mouthful of garlic bread.

“I gave him a hummer then took him down the dirt road. Didn’t take long, his wife’s a prude who won’t take it up the ass so he was gagging for it,” Poppy glared at Elliot, her accent was all street.

Elliot pushed his plate away.

“Why do you talk like that? Why do you dress like that?” he folded his arms across his chest and glared back at her.

“Because it’s what you expect of me. It’s what all men have ever expected of me. I’m a freak who is just a shit-stain on the toilet bowl of society remember?” Poppy pushed her own plate into the middle of the table and stormed off to her bedroom, snatching the telephone handset on the way.

Elliot sat there fuming but his eyes followed her, taking in her coltish legs and tight ass in her little miniskirt, nylons and cum-fuck-me heels.

There was no PT or beachfront run the next morning and Poppy had not made breakfast. Elliot stood at the breakfast bar drinking coffee and eating a pop-tart.

“That shit will kill you,” Poppy announced as she purposely strode out of her bedroom and sashayed to the coffeepot and poured herself a cup.

She was surrounded by a miasma of perfume.

To his amazement she was dressed in a navy blue business suit, white cotton blouse, black patent leather heels and sheer flesh-toned L’eggs nylons. Her makeup was perfect and the bulk of her hair was pulled back in a sleek ponytail the remainder tucked behind her ears. She still had her bangs but even with the blue and cerise highlights in her blonde hair, it looked professionally styled and elegant.

She looked professional, she looked sophisticated and polished, she looked beautiful.

“Well you look dressed to kill; do you always dress like that to see your pimp?” Elliot needled her.

Poppy just frowned at him and handed him a card with an address on it.

“Jesus! This had got to be a two hour drive,” Elliot complained looking at the card.

Elliot didn’t know exactly where he was taking her but he knew the area well enough. He had been raised in the town of Braidwood across the county line but only a few miles from the address on the card. His sister still lived in the house that had been left to him by their parents. He’d started his policing career in the Braidwood PD before he had moved to the city.

“You can keep preparing me for the stand during the drive or you can keep reminding me how worthless I am. If we’re stopping for a beating I would prefer that you give it to me on the way back after I’ve had my meeting,” Poppy sipped her coffee and glowered at Elliot with her emerald green eyes.

Elliot just grunted and took his suit jacket off the back of the stool and put it on. Poppy had to admit that she found the presence of the big semi-automatic pistol tucked beneath his armpit comforting.

“If you need a piss take one now because we ain’t stopping,” he growled, picking up the car keys.

“I don’t think so honey, I’ve got my tuck down perfect and I don’t wanna ruin it. Feel how good it is,” she snatched his hand and put it under her tight skirt but he snatched it back.

“Jesus,” Elliot shook his hand like he was shaking poison off his fingers but the feel of her slinky nylons and silky panties remained ingrained in his memory for the whole trip.

Poppy just laughed and strode over to the interconnecting door to the garage. The trip took place in silence although Elliot had a thousand questions he wanted to ask her, not the least being: Who was she meeting? Where exactly where they going? How long would they be there? But he refused to ask and Poppy remained steadfastly silent, studying a package of letters she had brought with her.

Elliot looked down at the card and realised that they had arrived at their destination; he turned to Poppy and looked at her inquisitively.

“Turn down here,” she pointed to well-tended gravel road.

“Pull over here please,” she said as they approached a set of wrought iron gates with signage that read ‘The Grosvenor School’.

Poppy’s bravado had dissipated and she stared down into her lap.

“I have a favour to ask,” she whispered.

Elliot was intrigued and said nothing.

“Don’t tell him why you’re with me. Don’t tell him what I do. That’s all. Anything you want from me after just ask but please just do this,” she looked up from her lap and her eyes were brimmed with tears.

Elliot said nothing; he just nodded. He didn’t know where exactly they were and what they were doing here but this was the most quiet and well behaved he had ever seen Poppy.

They drove in silence while Poppy checked her hair and makeup in the mirror.

“Here,” she indicated a visitor’s parking lot.

“Poppy!” she wasn’t halfway out the passenger door before a young boy came running across the lawn with his arms out.

Elliot stood leaning on the car, a look of amazement on his face as the boy leapt at Poppy who hugged him and kissed him and then spun him around, his feet lifted off the ground.

She lowered the boy to his feet and Elliot studied him. He was about eight years old and good looking. He was wearing grey shorts, a white cotton longsleeved shirt, striped tie, a navy blazer with the Grosvenor School emblem on the pocket and black shoes. The clothing was expensive and he looked well fed and cared for. The similarity between Poppy and the boy was amazing.

“Robert, this is Mister Granger, please introduce yourself,” Poppy pointed at Elliot, her nervousness evident.

She gave Elliot a beseeching look.

“Pleased to meet you Mister Granger, I’m Robert Evesham,” the boy extended his hand.

Elliot took the boy’s hand and shook it.

“Call me Elliot, Robert,” Elliot smiled down at the kid and then looked across at Poppy.

“Mister Granger drove me from work today because I have an important meeting to attend this afternoon, that’s why I can’t stay overnight with you in town,” Poppy said, as much for Elliot’s benefit as for Robert’s.

“Let’s go visit over there on our favourite bench. Mister Granger can sit just over there, a little away from us. How’s that?” Poppy asked Robert who nodded enthusiastically.

“Now... Mrs Frobisher tells me you are making good grades, how is everything else going?” Poppy asked the boy leading him away towards the bench.

Her love for the boy was evident and the boy’s adoration for Poppy was obvious and he made no attempt to hide it. Elliot took a seat on a bench a respectful distance from them and studied them. They were extremely comfortable with each other’s company and their love for each other was manifested in their gestures and their constant touching. The visit lasted three hours and they talked constantly, the only interruption was when a school employee brought them sandwiches and iced tea. He offered Elliot the same refreshments but Elliot gave a polite no.

“Goodbye Mister Granger, thank you for bringing Penelope to visit,” Robert extended his hand to Elliot when it was time to leave.

Elliot gave Poppy a wry smile when Robert called her Penelope and she gave him a ‘don’t you dare’ glare in return.

Elliot turned away to give them some privacy as they hugged and kissed each other goodbye, Poppy wiping lipstick off Robert’s cheek before she let him go.

The return journey was silent for the first hour.

“Not your son obviously,” Elliot broke the silence.

Poppy scowled at him and he smiled.

“Your brother?” Elliot raised his brows.

Poppy nodded.

“So… your mother? Your father? Other family?” Elliot turned to her.

Poppy just shook her head and looked out the window steadfastly.

Elliot said nothing for a while and then suddenly slammed on the brakes and pulled into a dusty parking area on the side of the interstate just as he had before. Poppy raised her hands to protect her face, expecting another beating.

Elliot gently lowered her arms and studied her face. She looked back at him, her face devoid of emotion.

“Jesus! No drugs. No pimp. The apartment. The law books. The accent. You’re hooking to put your brother through school,” Elliot sighed.

Poppy’s expression didn’t change.

“Why? You're smart, you're articulate, you’re… well you're beautiful…” he let the question trail off.

“How many transgender legal secretaries or businesswomen have you met? How else am I going to make enough money to give him the education and the care that he deserves?” Poppy glared at him and Elliot looked away.

He put the car in gear and continued driving. It was dusk when they arrived back at the safe house but Poppy insisted on going for a run so Elliot had no choice but to go with her. When they returned they showered and Poppy came out of her bedroom dressed in her usual attire, short skirt, crop-top, heels and nylons. Her makeup was heavy and she’d frizzed out her hair.

“Why do you dress like that?” he asked her for the thousandth time.

“It reminds me of who I am. It reminds me of what I am,” she replied matter-of-factly and began to make dinner.

Elliot shook his head and turned on the TV. Namath was past his heyday but he was still quarterbacking for the Jets and Elliot was a fan. Poppy made sandwiches and coleslaw which they ate in front of the TV drinking cold beer. Elliot explained some of the finer points of the game to her but Poppy seemed tired and distracted.

She started to doze and fell against him, her head on his shoulder.

Elliot’s instinct was to push her off him but he stopped himself from doing so, instead he settled back into the cushions and Poppy lay with her head on his chest fast asleep while he watched the remainder of the game. He absentmindedly stroked her hair and she smiled in her sleep and snuggled up to him.

Poppy awoke with start and quickly sat up, looking around startled and ready to defend herself, her hands covering her face.

“Oh… I’m here,” she said, regaining her composure.

She got up and cleared away the dishes and cleaned up. Elliot decided that one more beer wouldn’t affect his reflexes. He checked to make sure the place was locked up securely, the alarm set and settled back down the couch.

Poppy sat across from him in the big overstuffed lounge chair, her knees drawn up under her chin.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

“For what?” Elliot studied her.

“You know for what. He thinks I’m a hotshot lawyer with a big law firm in the city. I’m too busy with work to look after him full-time so he has to go to boarding school,” Poppy answered one of Elliot’s unasked questions.

“What does he know?” Elliot asked intrigued at how she maintained the ruse.

“He knows I’m transgender but I’ve always been his big sister. I was already presenting as female when he was born. He’s smart enough to know not to talk about it,” Poppy shrugged.

“What about the holidays, surely you can’t bring him home?” Elliot pressed on.

“I’m an enterprising young woman. I visit him once a month and we stay overnight at a nice bed and breakfast near the school. During the big holidays I take him away somewhere nice but where I can still work after he’s gone to bed. I can make enough money selling my ass to pay for our holiday in places like Tahoe, AC, Chicago or LA.”

“I’m a doting sister during the day and a whore by night. It’s tiring but it pays the bills and he wants for nothing,” Poppy said pragmatically.

“There’s more to it. How did you end up living like you do and with custody of your brother?” Elliot asked.

“That’s a story for another day,” Poppy smiled.

She got out of her chair, stretched and yawned.

“Thanks for today,” she surprised him when she leaned in and kissed his cheek.

Elliot didn’t recoil; instead he took her wrist and held her there.

“I misjudged you. I shouldn’t have insulted you and I certainly shouldn’t have beat you,” he gave her a meaningful look and Poppy just shrugged.

“It’s what I expected. It’s what I am,” she looked away from him.

Elliot pulled her back to him and kissed her softly on the lips and she let him, leaning over him and keeping perfectly still.

“Good night,” she whispered, breaking the kiss.

She took back her hand and padded off to her bedroom, her heels dangling by the straps from her hand.

Elliot was sleeping fitfully when he heard his bedroom door open. He intuitively reached for the 9mm automatic on his bedside table and then he smelled Poppy’s perfume. He rolled over and saw her framed by the light of the corridor briefly before she closed the door behind her.

She crept silently over to his bed and lifted the covers and slid in beside him.

“What…” Elliot muttered.

“Shh,” Poppy put a finger to his lips in the dark room.

She snuggled up to him and put her leg over his. Elliot was naked except for his boxers and Poppy was wearing rayon babydoll pyjamas and pantyhose. The pantyhose were a precaution to keep herself tucked because she knew that Elliot would not want to feel her penis. The silky nylon hosiery felt delightful against his skin.

As did the soft silky rayon of her pyjama top and before Elliot could say anything Poppy clambered onto his body and pressed her lips to his. He instinctively put his arms around her body and held her. She kissed him again and then put her head on his chest.

“Are you ok with this?” she whispered in the dark.

Elliot didn’t answer; instead he lifted her face to his and kissed her. He knew that she was different to other women but all he could feel was her plump breasts pressed against his chest, her smooth skin on his flesh and her tight buttocks which he cupped in his hands.

He squeezed her buttocks and caressed her thighs. She froze when his fingers grazed the front of her panties and she took his hand away and guided it back to her breasts.

She moaned quietly when his hands went inside her top and stroked her breasts. He tweaked her nipples as they hardened to his touch. Their kisses became more passionate and Elliot put his tongue in Poppy’s mouth and she met it with her own. She felt his cock, hard and hot, pressing against her through his shorts and she rolled off him so that she was lying sideways against him and had access to his groin.

Her fingers found him proud and throbbing when she freed him from his shorts and Elliot lowered his mouth to her breast, suckling her nipple, causing her to sigh contentedly.

They remained silent, letting their fingers and their mouths express their feelings. Poppy kissed him deeply, thrusting her tongue into Elliot's mouth as she gripped his cock and began to stroke it. She smiled when he groaned and felt the pre-ejaculate begin to dribble from his glans.

Elliot caressed her flat stomach through the satiny garment and his fingers worked down to her pelvis and she firmly redirected it to her thighs. Elliot tickled her thighs while he suckled her breasts and Poppy gasped as did Elliot when she squeezed his throbbing cock.

They kissed and caressed each other, taking their time, exploring each other’s bodies but Poppy steadfastly refused to let Elliot put his hands anywhere near her pubis. She was erect and her penis was uncomfortable taped to her perineum but she was prepared to put up with the discomfort rather than suffer Elliott's disgust at her repulsive genitalia.

When Poppy broke the kiss and began to explore his body with her mouth and her tongue Elliot was at first disappointed but when she nuzzled his neck and licked and kissed his chest he lay back and was content to let Poppy do what she was expert at doing.

She licked his hard belly with her tongue and her soft lips, making Elliot squirm and then she took him in her mouth and cupped his scrotum.

She used her tongue on his glans and her lips on his shaft masterfully and in such a way that Elliot had never felt before. The feeling was wondrous and his hands went to her head to guide her but she impatiently pushed them away. She was an expert fellatrix and needed no guidance.

Elliot began to gasp and writhe on the bed as Poppy fellated him in ways he hadn't dreamed possible, the feelings of bliss she illicited from his throbbing organ were mind-bending. Three times she bought him to extremis and then backed off and started all over again, teasing him, bewitching him.

He couldn’t help for a fleeting second thinking that this is what she was paid to do. This was her calling. She was a whore.

The thought disappeared as Poppy suckled him in such a fashion that he was unable to hold back his orgasm and his cock exploded in her mouth. Poppy swallowed the musky offering whilst continuing to work her tongue and lips on his phallus, she squeezed his scrotum and sucked every drop of his seed from him.

She continued to suckle him even as his penis began to slowly deflate. Elliot lay exhausted on the bed, recovering from the most tremendous orgasm he had ever experienced. Poppy let his flaccid penis fall from her mouth and she tucked it back inside his shorts. She worked her way slowly back up his body until she was face to face with him.

When she tried to kiss him he pushed her face away. He just couldn’t do it. He was seized by post-coital regret and he just wanted her to go.

She sensed it and unwrapped herself from his body and got out of the bed.

“Call it payment for being nice to my brother today,” she whispered from the door.

“Don’t go,” Elliot called after her but it was too late, she had closed the door behind her.

She’d heard what he said through the closed door and knew that it was just guilt; Elliot was glad that she was gone.

She climbed into her own bed and relieved herself before falling into a deep dreamless sleep. She wasn’t disappointed with Elliot. Poppy expected men to treat her this way. They couldn’t wait to feel her body against theirs and then they couldn’t wait for her to leave once they were sated.

Elliot came to her bedroom door in the early hours and opened it and looked at her sleeping. She looked beautiful and serene and he hated himself for being thankful that she was not awake so he would not have crawl into her bed and whisper lies into her ear.

He couldn’t sleep for the rest of the night and finally fell asleep exhausted just before dawn.

The next morning Poppy was dressed in her running gear as usual: black lycra tights, matching sleeveless top, running shoes and ponytail sticking through the back of her ball cap. She was sipping orange juice and rearing to go. Elliot was not as enthusiastic but he went back into his bedroom to change when he saw her dressed in her PT gear.

At least they wouldn’t have to talk, he thought, as they set out on their run. Poppy was behaving as if nothing had happened last night although her usual small talk was not evident.

Elliot took station behind her and as much as he tried not to he couldn’t help but look at her tight ass clad in the tight lycra. He recalled the things she did to him with her mouth last night and he was glad he was wearing baggy shorts.

They got to the turnaround point which was a small beachfront park with a drinking fountain and they headed over to it both parched.

Poppy stood aside so Elliot could go first, she was panting, bent over with her hands on her knees.

“Ladies first please,” he too was bent at the waist and taking deep breaths.

“You go. You won’t want to use it after I’ve had my mouth on it,” she said caustically.

“Here we fucking go! I was waiting for this,” Elliot whined.

“Waiting for what?” Poppy said innocently.

“You know what I mean. Reprisals for me turning you out of my bed last night,” Elliot breathed deeply.

“Nothing that I didn’t expect. Most whores don’t expect to stay the night,” Poppy said sarcastically.

Poppy didn’t know why she was so upset. Elliot had behaved exactly as she had expected him to. It’s not as if there was anything between them.

Elliot lost his temper and pushed Poppy against the wall of the ablutions block next to the drinking fountain.

“I didn’t call you a whore last night,” he glowered.

“You didn’t need to, it was unspoken,” Poppy glared at him.

“Fucking hell Poppy I don’t know what’s going on with you,” Elliot let go of her shoulders.

“You’re an enigma. You told me to call last night payment for taking you to see your brother. You’re obviously intelligent, you love your brother, you’re enchanting and amazing when you want to be but most of the time you’re a… you're a...” Elliot was lost for words.

“I’m a shit stain. Maybe I need another beating,” Poppy ducked under Elliot’s arm and started sprinting back the way they had come.

Elliot took after her and caught her, crash-tackling her off the path and onto the beach. He pinned her down on the sand and straddled her as she fought him, lashing out at his eyes with her nails. Elliot grabbed her wrists and pinned her arms back behind her head.

“Time for that beating?” she goaded him.

Robert looked down at her face. She still had her mascara, eyeliner and lipstick on from last night and it had run. It made her look sexy.

“Shut up!” Elliot snapped and lowered his face to her and kissed her.

She fought him briefly, trying to turn her face away and then she capitulated and put her arms around his neck and returned the kiss.

“Now what?” Poppy panted into his mouth when they stopped kissing.

An elderly couple walked past hand in hand and smiled at them.

Elliot was still straddling her.

“We go back to the house,” Elliot panted his reply.

“Then what?” Poppy asked, not letting him off the hook.

“I don’t know. We talk I suppose,” Elliot got off her and helped Poppy to her feet.

“Talk about what?” she wouldn’t let it go.

“We talk of many things: of shoes and ships and sealing-wax, of cabbages and kings,” Elliot brushed the sand off his knees.

“Don’t be facetious!” she berated him.

He spun Poppy around and brushed the sand off her back and legs, taking longer than was needed on her bottom.

“Hey, hands off my fanny,” Poppy slapped his hand away.

“Come on, keep up Penelope,” Elliot slapped her on the ass and took off down the track laughing.

“Don’t you dare call me Penelope!” she called out and ran after him.

They both showered when they got home and Elliot was surprised when Poppy came out of her bedroom dressed in a bright summer dress and sandals. She had toned down her makeup and her hair was still wet from the shower.

Elliot was sitting on the couch wearing shorts and a t-shirt sipping coffee. He’d poured her a cup and it sat steaming on the coffee table. When she went to sit in the lounge chair he caught her wrist and hauled her down beside him and pulled her close. She put her feet up on the couch and he handed her the coffee.

“Brett Mendelsohn won’t be here until later this afternoon so that leaves you all day to tell me,” Elliot stroked her damp hair.

“Tell you what?” she looked up at him.

“Everything,” Elliot leaned down and kissed her forehead.

“In that case I’ll need something stronger than coffee,” Poppy said.

“It’s not even ten o’clock,” Elliot cautioned her but she gave him a reproachful look.

He came back to the couch with a glass of scotch which he put on the table. When he sat back down Poppy lifted her head and put it back in his lap and curled her legs under her.

She told him her life story.

…..

Poppy had been born Paul Evesham to middle-class suburbanites who treated him as their pride and joy. He was raised in comfort wanting for nothing. He went to the right school and had the right friends.

By the age of six Paul was displaying signs of gender dysphoria. Terms such as transgender and gender dysphoria were not yet being used but Paul’s mother recognised that Paul was special.

He showed some classic symptoms. He preferred to sit to urinate and he preferred to play with girls rather than boys and to play with girl’s toys when they visited with friends and family who had daughters. He would sometimes wear their clothes and play dressup. His mother noted other nuances about her son that exhibited subtle femininity.

Margaret Evesham saw these things in her son whilst his father, Daniel Evesham, only noted his son’s budding proficiency in track and field events and his dexterity when roughhousing with other children. Daniel and Margaret were visiting friends and ten year old Paul was upstairs playing with their friend’s daughter. Daniel went up to check on his son because the children had been upstairs now for quite some time and they were suspiciously quiet.

He found Paul dressed in a frilly dress, tights, and Mary Jane’s, with his hair brushed out and an otherwise hilarious attempt at makeup. The two ‘girls’ were holding a tea party with their dollies. Daniel blamed Margaret for mollycoddling his son.

Paul was already calling himself Penelope and dreaming of being a girl instead of a boy when this incident occurred. Margaret and Daniel’s marriage was already shaky; Daniel was philandering and Margaret was using alcohol to numb the pain.

Daniel left Margaret when Paul was twelve, leaving them destitute and homeless when he sold the house out from under her and cut her off from his bank accounts. Margaret and Paul moved into a cheap apartment and the luxuries and good schools went by the wayside. Margaret had to go back to work as a real estate agent and she was a minnow in a shark tank, a good looking recently divorced woman approaching middle-age who was a lush, looking for affection and needing money.

Margaret started coming home late or sometimes not at all. She was day-drinking and had stopped paying attention to her appearance and the men at the office had passed her around to the extent that she no longer interested them and when her work performance started to deteriorate she was fired from her job.

The cheap apartment became an even shoddier flat in a disreputable neighbourhood and Margaret started to hang around with a seedier crowd. She took low paying positions and went through a succession of bad boyfriends eventually settling on a detestable lowlife named Raymond ‘Ray-Ray’ Smith.

Paul worked hard at school even though the school was populated by children from a lower the socioeconomic status and the teachers were apathetic. He was outwardly androgynous, wearing long hair and some makeup. Many of the fashions of the day were unisex anyway: flared pants, platform-soled shoes, psychedelic puff-sleeve blouses. It would amuse Paul’s friends to know he was wearing satin panties under but by then the eclectic crowd he hung around with suspected that he was gay and knew he was effeminate.

When they first moved into their cramped apartment Margaret was hardly ever home and Paul presented as feminine but when she gave up work and Ray-Ray moved in Paul kept his crossdressing proclivities confined to the bedroom and presented as androgynous to the outside world. Ray-Ray called him a fag and a loser which didn’t hurt Paul one bit. What really hurt him was that his mother didn’t defend him but by then Ray-Ray had introduced Margaret to the delights of addictive narcotics and specifically meth.

Ray-Ray was selling drugs out of their apartment and tricking Margaret out to those men who had a penchant for older women who would do things that other women wouldn’t.

Paul spent most of the time in his room adopting the persona of Penelope, his feminine alter-ego. Unable to attend college Paul had taken menial but reasonably paid positions and continued to study at night school. Paul would have left home but he still loved his mother and cared for her and tried his best to keep her from destroying herself with booze and drugs.

Margaret would get sober, throw Ray-Ray out and clean up the apartment and then a few weeks later Paul would return home to find Ray-Ray had moved back in and his mother high as a kite defending Ray-Ray to her son.

The best and worst possible thing happened to Margaret when she fell pregnant to Ray-Ray. Despite Ray-Ray’s insistence that she get rid of it, Margaret saw out the pregnancy and gave birth to her second son who she called Robert. Born underweight and suffering from the effects of his mother’s addiction, Robert was still a beautiful baby and it was Paul who took care of him. He loved his baby brother.

One day not long after his eighteenth birthday Paul came home from work to find the house was cleaner than usual, Robert was fed and playing on the carpet and his mother looked better than he had seen her in weeks.

“Honey I know all about your thing. I always knew that you wanted to be girl not a boy but it was your father who tried to beat it out of you remember, not me,” Margaret sat her oldest son down beside her on the couch.

That wasn't quite how Paul remembered it but he was not about to argue with his mother who was showing him affection for the first time in months.

“Come on honey; I’ve bought you some presents,” Margaret took his hand and led him into her bedroom.

“Let me show you how to do this properly. I’ve been remiss as a mother not showing her little girl the secrets of womanhood,” she smiled at Paul and stroked his hair.

She helped him undress and wasn’t surprised to find that he was wearing feminine undergarments.

“Do you have a name honey?” Margaret asked as she seated Paul at her vanity.

“Penelope; what a beautiful name,” she picked up her scissors and straightened Penelope’s bangs.

Penelope had some rudimentary makeup skills but Margaret taught her the secrets of feminising her face so that her best features were highlighted: her emerald green eyes, her full lips and arched brows. She showed her how to style her hair, painted her nails and then led her to the bed.

“This is all yours. Let me show you how to wear it properly,” Margaret waved her hands at the packages and boxes scattered on the bed.

When Margaret had finished Penelope was dressed in a black taffeta ruffled miniskirt, a mauve satin blouse, sheer flesh-toned pantyhose and six-inch high heels. Her hair was frizzed out and her makeup was heavy and exotic. It was not exactly how Penelope wanted to present herself to the world but she loved how feminine and pretty she looked.

Then Margaret committed the ultimate act of betrayal.

She opened the bedroom door and Ray-Ray entered.

“I’m sorry Penelope. What else can I do?” Margaret took the baggie of powder that Ray-Ray handed to her and left the room.

By the time Ray-Ray left the bedroom four hours later Penelope knew things sexually that a girl her age had no right knowing. Ray-Ray came out of the bedroom sweating, dressed only in his shorts, whilst Penelope lay on the bed sobbing, her clothing stained and dishevelled, her makeup ruined and her body broken.

“Get cleaned up, I got customers lined up for you,” Ray-Ray growled.

Ray-Ray turned Penelope out and added her to his small stable of prostitutes. She lived full-time as Penelope and any vestiges of Paul were discarded as she hardened her heart and set her resolve to keep her mother and her brother safe. Robert now had a sister but he couldn’t pronounce her name; he mispronounced Penelope as Poppy and it stuck.

Margaret died of a drug overdose when Robert was five and Poppy took Robert and all of their meagre possessions with her and left the apartment late one night while Ray-Ray was so high that he didn’t even know they were leaving.

She also took with her the scars that Ray-Ray and his friends had inflicted on her. One night he had held her down and burned the letter R into her shoulder blade with the end of his cigarette. He told her that he had branded her and that she would always be his. He liked to burn her, cut her, blacken her eyes and break her fingers. Poppy told the emergency room doctors that she was accident prone; not that they cared about a teenage transsexual hooker.

Poppy had squirrelled away enough money to get a fresh start. She found a small apartment and set up house. By now she was passable as a woman; Ray-Ray had paid for breast augmentation because he saw it as an investment. Poppy had wanted the surgery of course and she had been especially nice to Ray-Ray when he offered it to her but she wanted breasts proportional to her body but Ray-Ray had insisted that she get big tits ‘because guys want girls with big tits’.

Poppy put Robert in daycare and hit the streets fighting off the other hookers and pimps who saw her as competition but she eventually established her own patch. She always dressed conservatively to drop off and pick up Robert from daycare and whenever she was in his company. She led a complicated life hooking to survive, raising Robert the best she could, presenting as a law abiding model citizen whenever she wasn't hooking.

Her first solicitation pinch put the fear of God into her. She used her one phone call at the precinct to call a friendly neighbour and got her to collect Robert from school and care for him until she was released. She told Robert she had been called away urgently for work and went on to explain that he would have to go to boarding school because she couldn’t look after him properly and work the busy schedule she needed to provide for them both.

Poppy enrolled Robert in the prodigious Grosvenor School using every penny she had saved to pay the deposit and almost every penny she earned to pay for his ongoing board and tuition. When he was old enough to understand she told him about her being transgender but by then she always been his big sister and he wasn't fazed by it.

What Poppy did keep from her brother was how she lived and made her money. He was convinced that she was a high flying legal eagle who travelled the country extensively and for that reason she had to keep him in boarding school except for the holidays.

*****

“And that’s everything,” Poppy drained the last of her scotch and put the glass on the coffee table.

Elliot remained silent and she wondered if she had put him to sleep with her story.

She looked up at him and saw the tears falling from his cheeks.

To be continued

“And that’s everything,” Poppy drained the last of her scotch and put the glass on the coffee table.

Elliot remained silent and she wondered if she had put him to sleep with her story.

She looked up at him and saw the tears rolling down his cheeks.

After telling Elliot her story she was jonesing for a cigarette.

Poppy had not had a cigarette since she arrived at the safe house, Elliot expressly forbade her from smoking indoors which meant her only opportunity to smoke was either before or after her morning run and PT which seemed contradictory.

She looked up at Elliot and reached up to touch his cheek to wipe away his tears.

“What’s wrong?” she sat up and looked at him concernedly; she didn’t understand his reaction.

“What’s wrong?” Elliot was shocked by her story.

“What you have lived through, the way you have been treated, how you have had to make a living… and what did I do? I threw you in the tank to be molested by lowlifes and then I beat you,” Elliot was still whimpering.

“I can’t believe the sacrifices you made for the sake of your brother,” he shook his head in disbelief.

“Look Elliot. I chose the life I live. I could have run away from Margaret and Ray-Ray. It’s not like I’m not used to being treated the way you treated me. You can’t imagine how many times I’ve been violated against my will, how many times I’ve been beaten, how many times I’ve been treated like I’m worthless. I’m hardened to it. What you said and did to me is nothing,” Poppy stood and went to the kitchen to pour herself another scotch.

“Your perception has only changed because you know I’m caring for my brother. Nothing has changed. I am what I am,” she took a long pull on her drink.

Elliot leapt off the couch and strode to the kitchen and took the glass out of Poppy’s hand. He took her by the shoulder and looked into her eyes.

“What you are is beautiful and I was stupid and prejudiced. I can’t forgive myself for the way I’ve treated you,” he said, his voice trembling.

“But I can Elliot. I forgive you,” Poppy returned his gaze.

Elliot brushed the hair out of her eyes and lowered his face to hers and kissed her.

She let him but she was passive. He broke the kiss and studied her face. It remained impassive.

“What?” Elliot looked confused.

“I don’t want your pity Elliot. I don’t want what I told you to skew whatever it is you feel for me. Do you even know what it is that you feel for me?” Poppy tried to pick up her drink and Elliot put his hand on her wrist and stopped her.

“I don’t know exactly what I feel for you Poppy. I’m confused. I can set aside how you live because you have to do what you have to survive and to care for Robert, that's not the problem,” Elliot sighed.

“I know what the problem and so do you. Say it. Say it’s because I’m transgender,” Poppy toyed with the glass.

“It’s because you’re transgender,” Elliot breathed.

“There you’ve said it. Because I’m transgender we have no future, we have no… whatever this is,” Poppy felt broken-hearted inside but she was an expert at concealing her emotions.

She put down the glass and walked back into the lounge. Elliot followed her and spun her around to face him.

“No it’s not that. You have it all wrong. I have deep affection for you. I want to get to know you better. It sounds stupid but I don’t want our situation to change; I want us stay like this… living together. I want to make love to you… I just don’t know how,” Elliot wrapped his arms around Poppy and kissed her before she could respond.

This time, she wasn’t passive. She put her arms around him and glued her body to his and kissed him passionately. She felt him become tumescent against her and she smiled when he gasped into her mouth when she sought his erection with her fingers. She stroked him though his shorts.

“I so want to make love to you; I just don’t know how,” Elliot repeated himself.

“Then let me show you… if you’re sure,” she smiled up him and his heart soared.

She looked up at him coyly.

“There are preparations I need to make and I want to make myself beautiful for you. I want you to remember our first time together as something special. Go to your bedroom and wait for me. I guarantee it will be worth the wait,” her coy smile changed to a lascivious grin and she squeezed his penis through his shorts and let him go.

Elliot watched Poppy walk away. Even in her flowing dress and flat shoes she exuded femininity and sexuality. She disappeared into the bathroom and closed the door and Elliot went to his bedroom, lay on the bed and tried to imagine what was to come.

Poppy did the things a trans woman needs to do prior to having sex and took another shower then put on a robe and went to her bedroom to dress. Elliot caught a glimpse of her as she walked past his open door on the way to her bedroom. He beckoned to her. He was naked, lying on the bed, his erect penis standing proud. Poppy smiled at him and shook her head. She would make him wait; build the anticipation. She closed the door on him.

She sat at her vanity and put on her makeup; not quite street-walker heavy but exotic and erotic: dark eyeliner and mascara to emphasise her emerald green eyes, rouge to highlight her cheekbones and red lipstick. She teased out her blonde hair. Her dark roots were showing and the colourful streaks were fading because she hadn't dyed her hair since she had been in protective custody. She doused herself in perfume and pondered how she would dress.

Elliot heard the doorknob rattle and he turned towards the door in expectation.

Poppy entered the room and Elliot was both shocked and surprised. She was wearing matching black satin and lace panties and bra, a black satin and red lace suspender belt fastened to vintage, long, black, fully-fashioned stockings with backseams, reinforced heels and toes, and gauzy welts. Poppy had deliberately chosen the six-inch black high-heeled sandals to show off the dark toes and Cuban heels of her nylons. She was wearing silver drop earrings, a silver choker necklace with matching bracelets and rings on her fingers. They were knockoffs of course but they glittered in the lamplight. She even wore a silver ankle bracelet.

The package was wrapped in a gauzy black see-through negligee tied loosely at the front. A miasma of exotic perfume preceded her.

“You're beautiful,” Elliot gasped as Poppy approached the bed.

Poppy had been with hundreds, possibly thousands of men, but she felt like a young girl about to lose her virginity. The truth was that Poppy had never truly made love to a man. She had been fucked and fondled by her customers and abusers but this was the first time that she was going to bed with a man because she wanted to make love to him, not because she had been paid to, because she wanted to manipulate him or because she was forced to.

Poppy and Elliot were as nervous as each other.

“Scoot over,” Poppy shoed him with her hands.

She sat on the edge of the bed, took off her negligee and began to unbuckle her heels which she had worn for effect during her entrance.

“Will you get mad if I ask you to leave them on?” Elliot whispered sheepishly.

She saw his cheeky grin and she couldn’t help but smile.

She climbed on the bed and crawled towards him on her hands and knees. She leaned over him and kissed him, deliberately not touching his body, making him wait, teasing him. Their kiss was passionate, her red lipstick transferred to his lips and he tasted it. It tasted exotic, like Poppy. Elliot yearned for her and tried to pull her to him but she resisted.

He pulled harder and she giggled which became a shriek of laughter when he dragged her to him and lifted her on top of him. She clung to his hard body, one leg curled so that his cock was rubbing on her gossamer-sheathed thigh as she kissed him. Her nipples were engorged and she was uncomfortably erect. She had tucked and taped, not wanting to disgust Elliot.

His hands were everywhere, caressing her shoulders, stroking her breasts, tweaking her nipples, pawing her thighs. She was a wonderland of pleasure for Elliot to explore. Poppy kissed his mouth, she bit his lip, nuzzled his neck and nibbled her shoulder; she rubbed her stockings seductively on his tender flesh and was delighted when he moaned.

Elliot suddenly rolled Poppy onto her back and she squealed like a schoolgirl. Elliot fell on her and kissed her, grinding his cock against her belly. He knelt over her and began to explore her body with his mouth. He kissed and nibbled her earlobes and then her neck and shoulders. He worked his way down to her breasts and spent some time there using his hands and mouth on her tender flesh and engorged nipples. Poppy entangled her fingers in his thick glossy hair and writhed beneath him, pleasure radiating from her aching breasts.

When he had Poppy gasping, squirming and moaning like a slattern he moved on. He investigated her flat belly and probed her bellybutton with his tongue. Poppy still had her fingers entwined in his hair and she tried to guide his face back to her breasts but he fought her and continued to move his mouth down to her pubis.

Poppy tugged and ripped at his hair, trying to get him to move away from there, even as his tongue licked the bare flesh above her panties.

“No!” she screamed, yanking madly at his hair.

Elliot looked up at her, his face hovering over the V of her pubis.

“Why?” he smiled up at her.

Her mascara was running and he was not sure if was because of the wicked pleasure he had illicited from her body or because she was sacred and ashamed of what she had hidden inside her panties.

“How do you do that?” he asked her matter-of-factly.

Poppy was caught off guard by the question.

“How do I do what?” she wasn't sure what Elliot was talking about.

“How do you get this delectable V in your panties and tights like that,” Elliot stroked the front of her panties softly.

“It doesn’t matter Elliot. There’s nothing there for you,” she whispered, imploring him with her eyes to leave that part of her body alone.

“Oops… too late… your secret is out,” Elliot grinned, pulling aside the gusset of her panties.

Poppy covered her face with her hands. She had never felt so ashamed.

Elliot knew that it was best to rip off a band aid rather than pull it off slowly and that was exactly what he did with the surgical tape holding Poppy’s penis along her perineum.

She gasped but not from pain. Poppy was completely shaved down there, freshly shaved, and Elliot was transfixed by what he saw.

Poppy’s penis sprung out from between her legs and Elliot let go of her panties so that it was straining against the satin and lace, the glans peeking up above the waistband.

“You don’t have to… of god!” Poppy wriggled like a slattern when the tip of Elliot’s tongue touched her glans.

“Please Elliot,” she tried to force his face away from her body again but he resisted.

He stroked her shaft through the satin panty material and Poppy shuddered and gasped.

“Please!” she implored him and Elliot’s mouth began the journey back up her body, stopping briefly at her belly, onto her breasts and finally he kissed her again.

She wrapped her arms and legs around him and drove her tongue into his mouth, his penis pressed against hers, rubbing against the silky fabric of her panties.

“I tried to hide it. I didn’t want to disgust you,” Poppy buried her face in his shoulder.

“You promised me that you would show me how to make love to you. When I make love to a woman I want… I need her to enjoy it as much as I do. Show me how to pleasure you,” he whispered in her ear and then nibbled her earlobe and pressed his cock harder against her rampant member.

Poppy nodded and squirreled her hand between their bodies. Elliot realised what she was doing and he eased his belly away from hers so she could take him in her hand. She locked her legs behind him and lifted her buttocks.

“It will work better if you put a pillow under me,” she whispered, a little embarrassed.

Elliot reached across and a little impatiently he snatched a pillow and shoved it under the small of Poppy’s back.

Poppy slid Elliot's penis inside the gusset of her panties, she was still too embarrassed to take them off. She nestled his glans in her puckered bud which she had heavily lubricated as part of her preparation. She was well aware of the length and girth of Elliot’s cock and men were often impatient, especially the first time they had anal sex.

“Are you ready?” she smiled up at him.

“Are you?” he smiled down at her.

Poppy nodded.

Elliot lowered his face to Poppy’s and kissed her gently then he kept his eyes on her face so he could see her expression as he slowly pushed himself inside her. When she winced he stopped.

“Don’t stop,” her voice was husky with lust.

He didn’t. He pushed his cock slowly inside Poppy’s anus until he was fully inside her, her face a mask of passion and desire.

She moved her legs so that her ankles were on Elliot’s shoulders. He turned his face and kissed the little wrinkles in her nylons and licked the ankle-strap of her sandal and Poppy wriggled her buttocks invitingly.

“You little minx,” Elliot smiled at her.

She put her hands around his neck and wriggled her buttocks again.

“Make love to me Elliot,” her eyes were filled with tears but they were tears of joy.

Elliot put his lips on hers and drove his tongue into her mouth mimicking the movements of his hips as he fucked her, slowly at first. She felt his cock quivering inside her and she knew that he was close. Poppy didn’t mind, she was close herself. Her cock was pulsing in her panties and every time that Elliot thrust his cock into her, his hard belly pressed against her penis adding to her excitement.

Elliot’s whole body shook and his breathing became uncontrollably ragged as he orgasmed. Poppy felt his cock throb and shudder inside her and the scalding heat of his semen as it filled her anus. She clung to him, grinding her buttocks into him as her own cock exploded, filling her panties and spattering Elliot’s belly with her emission.

The lovers clung to each other, kissing and grinding their bodies against each other, eking out every scintilla of pleasure from each other. Poppy raked her nails along his back and her heels grazed his flanks. Elliot bit her lip in his excitement and they tasted the saltiness of her blood which incited them both to an orgasmic high. Poppy was shaking uncontrollably, whimpering like a small animal underneath him whilst Elliot rode her, pounding his cock in and out of her as another climax wracked him.

They lay on the bed exhausted, Elliot trying to keep his full weight off her but Poppy wouldn’t let go of him.

“That was wonderful,” she whispered shakily, finally able to speak.

“It was amazing,” Elliot panted in her ear.

“Are you ok?” Poppy asked.

She was aware of the sticky mess she had made on Elliot's midriff, her slowly deflating penis pressed against him, the redolence of her semen.

“I’m in heaven I think,” Elliot smiled down at her.

He tried to roll off her and Poppy held onto him, preventing him.

“Can you hold me, stay inside me and comfort me?” she pleaded with him.

Elliot realised that the men who used Poppy climbed off her as soon as they had finished. She just wanted to feel wanted, needed, cherished and Elliot felt all those things for her.

She lowered her legs and wrapped them around his waist and locked her arms around his muscled torso. Elliot covered her face in kisses and nestled against her body, feeling her adoration, feelings he reciprocated.

They fell asleep in each other’s arms, the weight of his body on hers was comforting. At some stage Elliot slid off her and lay beside her, snuggled up, their bodies a tangle of intertwined limbs.

They awoke around noon and made love again, quickly this time, knowing their time in bed was limited, ADA Brett Mendelsohn was due to visit later that afternoon. They showered together, Poppy at first embarrassed at showing Elliot her naked body but he soon put an end to her embarrassment and before they had finished showering Elliot had taken her from behind as she leaned against the glass shower wall. He soaped up her penis and brought her off with his hand while he fucked her.

Any trepidation Poppy had that Elliot was repulsed by her body had been put to rest. She was also amazed by his virility; he was insatiable.

Poppy emerged from her bedroom wearing her streetwalker hotpants, tank-top, L’eggs pantyhose and fuck-me-heels with her hair frizzed out and her makeup heavy.

Elliot had dressed in a suit in anticipation of the ADA’s arrival.

“Why are you dressed like that?” Elliot asked.

“You're the detective. How long do you think it will take Brett Mendelsohn to figure out something is going on between us if I suddenly start dressing like a housewife and treating you nice,” Poppy straightened Elliot’s tie.

“You need to be mean to me while he’s here. You can make it up to me later,” she leaned in and kissed him and then rubbed her lipstick off his cheek with her thumb.

She skittered away from him when he reached for her.

“Behave!” she gave him a serious look as the ADA pulled up outside in a nondescript white van instead of his usual Crown Vic.

Brett Mendelsohn was all business when he arrived. He struggled, trying to juggle two pelican cases and a tripod as well as his briefcase, he glared at Elliot who took the hint and gave him a hand with the equipment.

“The judge has set a trial date and advised the Napolitano Family lawyers that there will be no more delays. The heat will be turned up by them to find the material witness,” Brett looked around the room, setting one of the pelican cases on a table.

“I’m going to swear you in and record your testimony Miss Evesham. It’s only a precaution but you can never be too careful,” he busied himself setting up the equipment he had brought.

Poppy looked expectantly at Elliot.

“They're recording your evidence just in case the Napolitano Family rub you out,” Elliot said, trying to sound pragmatic.

“But we’re safe here right?” Poppy looked genuinely concerned.

“Look doll, if they try to take you out here it means they will try to take me out with you. Your ass might not be worth much, except as witness, but I have a family and roots in the community so you can bet your skanky ass that I’ll put up a fight,” Elliot snapped at her.

“Can you get her dressed in something other than ‘cheap American hooker’? I want the jury to believe her testimony,” Brett said, fiddling with the camera.

“Well toots, do you have anything besides ‘cheap American hooker’ in your wardrobe?” Elliot asked, knowing full well that she did.

Poppy flounced off to her bedroom to tone down her makeup and get changed.

“Do you have to make her scared like that?” Elliot growled at Brett Mendelsohn.

“What the fuck do you care? Fuck that whore! The Napolitanos killed the other witnesses. Robert Farragut and the concierge Stanley Britton both took two to the head so I’m not joking when I say they're going to turn up the heat and come looking hard for the tranny cooze,” Mendelsohn snapped back.

He set up the Sony u-matic video recorder on the table and Elliot went over to look at the 30 by 24 by 12 inch box with its myriad knobs and dials. It was state of the art and recorded video on ¾ inch magnetic tape. Elliot was fascinated and watched captivated as Brett mounted the camera on the tripod and plugged it into the recording device.

But both Elliot’s and Brett’s attention was diverted when Poppy entered the room dressed in her navy blue business suit, white cotton blouse, black patent leather heels and sheer flesh-toned L’eggs nylons. Her makeup was toned down and her hair was pulled back in a sleek ponytail the remainder tucked behind her ears.

It was not the first time Elliot had seen her dressed this way but he was still astounded by how professional she looked.

“First time I’ve seen you out of a cooch cooler honey, you don’t look half bad,” Brett pointed to the chair he had set up in front of the camera.

Poppy sat on the chair and demurely pulled down the hem of her tight pencil skirt whilst the ADA explained to her what he was going to do.

Brett started filming and had Elliot hold the bible while he swore her in. He gave a preamble to the camera, stating the case number, the charges against Luca Tattaglia and the reason he was recording the testimony.

“You are legally known as Paul Evesham but you identify as Penelope Evesham is that correct?” Brett asked.

Brett had warned her that her gender identity and her occupation would be difficult for the jury to deal with and challenged by the Napolitano lawyers so his strategy was to get it out front and deal with it.

“That’s correct, I was born male but identify as female,” Poppy kept her head up and Elliot was proud of her.

“And you were on the second floor of the Metropole Hotel on the night in question?” Brett was allowed some latitude with the recorded testimony and in any event there was no one there to object that he was leading the witness.

Poppy answered in the affirmative.

“What were you doing there Miss Evesham?” Brett got straight to the point.

“I was there with a customer. A man later identified as Robert Farragut,” Poppy replied.

“What were you and Mr Farragut doing at the Metropole hotel?” Brett nodded at Poppy to answer frankly.

“We were having sex. More specifically he was paying me for sex,” Poppy answered but she couldn’t help blushing.

“So let’s get it out there Miss Evesham… you are a transsexual prostitute, is that correct?” Brett said gravely.

“That is correct Mr Mendelsohn,” Poppy replied and couldn’t help cast a guilty look at Elliot.

Elliot nodded at her and smiled, letting her know that she was doing well and that he understood her embarrassment.

Brett Mendelsohn then led Poppy through her testimony including having her positively identify Luca Tattaglia in a photograph as the man who had shot and killed Pussy Raggio and George Basso.

After her testimony Poppy was craving for a cigarette and she cadged one from Brett Mendelsohn.

“You can smoke that shit in the laundry,” Elliot scowled.

“The cooze cleans up pretty good. If she didn’t have a pistol in her panties I’d give her one. You ever tempted?” Brett said to Elliot who was glad that Brett was busy packing up his gear and couldn’t see the guilty look on Elliot’s face.

“Never mind about the cooze, shouldn’t we be ramping up security now that we know that the Napolitanos are going to come after her hard?” Elliot asked.

“If I bring in backup they're more likely to sell you out to the mob than to protect you, you know how corrupt things are down at Police Plaza and City Hall. Anyway, I have her testimony now so if they come for her, just duck or use her as a shield,” Brett joked.

Elliot was not amused but he followed the ADA outside and helped him load the equipment in the van.

“Look the cooze ain’t all that bad. She’s got a kid brother she’s putting through boarding school, that’s the only reason she’s hooking,” Elliot felt the need to defend Poppy.

Brett stopped what he was doing and gave Elliot a serious look.

“You're not sweet on her are you Elliot? You know that would be dumb. Look, you got her all to yourself out here, she’s pretty and she’s got killer legs, a fine ass and great tits, if you want to give her one up the wazoo or get some head go crazy, but don’t let that thing get under your skin. When the trial is over we’ll toss her back on the street and she’ll be dead before she sucks her first cock,” Brett said dourly, shrugging his shoulders.

Elliot was barely able to contain his anger but he put on his poker face.

“I never wanted this assignment anyway. As soon as you’ve finished with her I can throw her under the bus and get back to doing some real detective work,” Elliot sniggered.

“That’s the spirit. You’re only gonna have to bird-dog the tranny slit for another couple of weeks. The trial date is set. Just keep your head down if the Napolitanos come looking for her,” Brett winked at him and slammed the doors closed on the van.

Elliot decided that he hated Brett more than he thought he did.

He went back inside, locked the place up and set the alarm. Poppy was just coming out of the laundry when Elliot grabbed her and pulled her into his arms. Even the reek of her recently smoked cigarette didn’t spoil the pleasure he took from kissing her.

“Well that was a pleasant surprise,” Poppy smiled up at him.

“Is this suit better than the cheap American hooker look I was wearing before?” Poppy teased him.

“Can I watch you take it off?” Elliot teased her back.

“Sure you can, come this way,” Poppy took his hand and led him to her bedroom.

She just managed to get out of the skirt before Elliot pounced on her.

*****

For appearances sake Elliot and Poppy kept their separate bedrooms but Poppy slept in Elliot’s bed every night. Elliot became more comfortable with Poppy’s gender and less sheepish about touching her genitals. He joked about her inability to fake an orgasm like a cisgender woman could. That joke cost him an evening in the doghouse but they were mostly inseparable.

And it wasn’t just the sex. Elliot became more infatuated with Poppy’s character, individuality, intelligence and warmth and Poppy came to realised that under his hard cool exterior Elliot was in fact a considerate and thoughtful man. Neither of them raised the question as to what would happen to their relationship after the trial. For the moment they were content to live together just like any other couple.

Elliot helped Poppy study for her law degree and they settled into a pleasant routine. Elliot traced the scars on her body with his fingertips but he never asked her how she had come by them. She would tell him when she was ready. The raised burn scars forming the letter R on her shoulder was particularly repulsive and Elliot thought that he would like some time alone with Ray-Ray.

It was visiting day and Poppy changed into her business suit to visit her brother at The Grosvenor School having to continually slap away Elliot’s hands. She loved that he couldn’t keep his hands off her but it annoyed her when she was busy doing things that she needed to do.

They chatted amiably during the drive to the school unlike the stony silence the last time they had visited. Poppy had to keep reminding Elliot to keep his eyes on the road not on her thighs as her pencil skirt kept riding up. Elliot reminded Poppy what he was going to do to her when he got her home and for the first time in a long time she actually blushed.

They parked in the same car park but this time Robert didn’t come bounding across the lawn to hug his big sister. A Lincoln Continental town car screeched into the car park parking diagonally behind Elliot, effectively blocking in his car. Elliot reached under his jacket for his weapon but it was too late. The doors of the Town Car were open before it had even stopped and two large men stood on either side of driver and passenger doors of Elliot’s car with their pistols drawn.

One of the men made a motion to indicate that they should roll down their windows and before Elliot could stop Poppy from doing so, she complied. The man reached across Poppy and aimed his gun at Elliot.

“Roll down the window and drop your weapon on the ground. Don’t do anything stupid or the bitch gets it,” the man moved his weapon and pointed it point blank at Poppy’s head.

Elliot carefully engaged the safety on his semi-automatic and then held it in two fingers and tossed it out the window. Poppy stared straight ahead; all she could think about was where was Robert?

Elliot’s police training kicked in. The first thing he thought of was that they were not going to kill him unless they really had to. The Mob had a strict rule that law enforcement officers were not to be harmed under any circumstances without permission from the Commission and then permission was usually only granted if the police officer concerned was corrupt.

He felt guilty about thinking about his own skin but secondly and more importantly to him was the realisation that they hadn't killed Poppy. It would be a simple thing for these men to shoot her dead and then simply drive away. Something else was going on here.

“Come on toots, we’re going for a ride,” the man standing next to Poppy’s door opened it and waved his pistol at her.

The man standing next to Elliot’s door put his pistol to Elliot’s head.

“Don’t do anything stupid. The tranny cooze ain’t worth it,” the man pressed the muzzle into Elliot’s temple.

The other man dragged Poppy from the car. She wasn’t really resisting, she was just unable to move because she was so scared.

“Don’t fuck me around toots. Look over at the car,” the gangster pointed his pistol at the Lincoln

Robert's terrified face was framed in the rear near side window. Poppy yelped and bolted towards the Lincoln but the gangster held her by her arm.

“Take it easy, lets behave in a nice orderly fashion,” the man holstered his weapon and led Poppy towards the Lincoln, holding her by her upper arm.

“Keys,” the other gangster took the pistol from Elliot’s temple but kept it trained on his head.

Elliot removed the keys from the ignition and handed them to the gangster.

“Drop them and keep your hands inside the car,” the gangster was having Elliot’s hands nowhere near him.

Elliot did as he was told and the gangster bobbed down quickly and picked up the keys.

“This is a simple transaction. We’re going to talk to the tranny cooze for a while. So long as she plays along the kid will be safe and so will the cooze. She does anything stupid and she watches the kid die and you don’t wanna know what we’re going to do to her before we take her out,” the gangster explained.

“You tell anyone or do anything that upsets our little plan, we take out the kid and we do it hard. Then we take out the cooze and we do it hard. We’ll send you some pictures so you can see what they got.”

“You go back to your little beach house and wait and we’ll bring you back your little boy-toy in one piece. You know that we’re gonna know if you fuck this up. We found you, the cooze and the kid, so we got our resources. You gonna play along? Just say yes or no,” the man waggled his gun at Elliot.

“Yes,” Elliot hissed through gritted teeth.

The gangster tossed Elliot’s car keys into a copse of thick bushes across from the car park and slowly backed away from the car, keeping the gun on Elliot. The other man opened the back door of the Lincoln and Poppy scrambled into the car and hugged her brother, kissing the top of his head and repeatedly asked him if he had been hurt.

The gangster pushed her across the seat and got in beside her while the other man who had his gun trained on Elliot backed into the front passenger seat. As soon as he was inside the car the driver sped off, spraying gravel across the car park.

“Put this on bitch!” the man in the back seat gave Poppy a blindfold which she dutifully put on.

She wondered why they hadn't made Robert put on a blindfold but there were too many thoughts spinning around in her brain for her to concentrate on one in particular.

Elliot got out of his car and picked up his pistol. His hand was shaking, not with fear but with rage. While he searched for his car keys his thoughts were running in circles. He knew that he needed to get control of his emotions and think this through rationally. He found his keys and went back to his car and sat in the driver’s seat, he put his hands on the wheel and forced himself to take a series of deep breaths.

He asked himself a number of questions: How did they know about Robert and where to find him? How did they know about Poppy’s recorded testimony? How did they know about the safe house?

Poppy’s testimony had only been recorded last week so the mob didn’t know where she was until then otherwise they would have tried to take her out before the recording could be made. That also meant that whoever had leaked the information to the Mob had only done so recently. The ADA would have had to file a copy of the transcript of Poppy’s testimony with the court so the leak had likely come from someone in the judicial system rather than the police, but that couldn’t be ruled out either. Everyone talked.

Elliot looked around and saw that everyone in his field of view seemed to be going around conducting business as usual. Although it had seemed to take for ever Poppy’s abduction it had taken less than a minute.

He started the car and put it in reverse. He would have plenty of time during the return journey to contemplate how the Napolitano Family had got their information but all he could think about was that they had Poppy. He smashed his fist against the steering wheel in anger and drove off.

The three gangsters said very little during the drive. Robert clung to Poppy. He told her that the man beside her had approached him while he was sitting on the bench waiting for her. Robert knew not to talk to strangers but he was inside the school grounds and he figured the nice man in the suit was either visiting his kid or was a school official. It was only when the man had put his big hand over Robert’s mouth and carried him away that Robert realised that he was being abducted. The man had told him to behave and he would soon see his sister so Robert had sat in the back of the car and behaved.

The man sitting beside Poppy was uncomfortably close and she scooted over as close as she could to Robert who was pressed against the car door. The driver had activated the door locks so even if they wanted to they couldn’t jump out of moving vehicle.

The man followed her across the seat and pressed against her.

“You look pretty good for a hooker. Is it true you got something special under that skirt? You look like a real woman to me,” the man whispered in her ear.

He put his hand under her skirt and pawed her thighs. Poppy squirmed but she kept Robert shielded so that he couldn’t see what the man was doing to his sister. The gangster’s fingernails laddered her L’eggs and then he found her panties and fumbled around.

“I can’t feel a braciole in those cooch-covers but I can’t feel no bernarda neither,” the man fumbled at the front of her panties.

“Leave the travestita alone. We got plenty of time to play with her when we get to the place,” the driver was watching them in the rear vision mirror.

The goon reluctantly withdrew his hand from under Poppy’s skirt.

Poppy held Robert close and comforted him, telling him that everything was going to be ok. The car left the highway and turned onto a secondary road and finally turned onto a road that was little more than track that wound through the forest and ended at a small cabin.

The man sitting beside Poppy pulled his gun and pointed it at her when the driver popped the door locks. He took off her blindfold and indicated for Poppy and Robert to get out, which they did, Robert clinging to his sister. Poppy stumbled on the gravel path in her high-heels as she made her way to the cabin.

The driver led the way and unlocked the door to the cabin and held it open while Poppy and Robert went inside followed by the other two mobsters.

“Take the kid into the room,” the driver told the man who had sat in the front passenger seat.

“No! No! No!” Robert clung to Poppy and refused to move, even when the man pulled on his arm.

“Fuck this. Do what you’re told kid or your sister gets it,” the other man put his pistol to Poppy’s head.

Robert wasn't mature enough to understand that the men could have killed Poppy any time they wanted but he certainly knew they could hurt her so he let go and complied. He was taken to another room and locked inside leaving Poppy alone with the three men.

“Sit!” the driver pulled a wooden chair out from a wooden kitchen table.

The main room of the small cabin was a combined kitchen, diner and family room. The place wasn’t connected to the power grid but it seemed to be well maintained.

Poppy sat in the chair, primly pulling down the hem of her skirt, the three men circled her menacingly.

“You can imagine what we can do to your brother. We’re keeping him until after the trial; he’s our insurance. We know about the recorded testimony, you’re lucky the ADA did that toots otherwise you’d be dead now but we need you to recant your testimony,” the driver explained.

“Let Robert go. I’ll tell the police and the ADA that I didn’t see the man who did the shooting. I’ll say the police coerced me and made me say it was him, that they threatened me. I’ll say anything you want, just let Robert go,” Poppy beseeched them.

“Do you know what guys will say to save their asses? I’ve had guys offer me money, their wives, their daughters, anything to spare them. It doesn’t matter, we’ve heard it all before,” the man said matter-of-factly.

“So we’re keeping the kid until the charges against Luca Tattaglia are dismissed with prejudice or he’s found not guilty. You’re going to retract all of your testimony and if they put you on the stand you’re going to recant… get it?” the man pulled out a chair and put his foot on it.

Poppy nodded her head.

“Don’t hurt him,” Poppy begged.

“He’ll be fine. He’ll be well looked after and after all this has gone away we will release him. He and you will be of no further interest to us,” the man wiped his hands figuratively.

“I’ll do it! I’ll do anything,” Poppy cried.

“Well that’s that then. Easy peasey Japanesey,” the man grinned evilly at her.

“We’ll take you back to your safe house and you tell your bodyguard that you are going to take back your testimony. Tell him that you’ll refuse to testify and if they use the recorded testimony that you will take the stand and say it’s all lies,” the gangster put his foot back down on the floor.

“Of course we’re all going to fuck you first,” he said clinically.

Poppy paled.

“Oh come on honey, you’re a hooker for god’s sake, this shouldn’t be something you haven’t done before,” the big guy who had sat next to her in the car said.

Poppy started to tear up.

“Cut that shit. We can do this two ways. You either take us on willingly or we bring out the kid to watch his sister being fucked against her will. What’s it going to be?”

Poppy just shook her head, composed herself and prepared to do what she needed to do.

She stood up and unbuttoned her jacket and hung it over the chair.

“What are you doing?” the big guy asked.

“I’m getting undressed,” Poppy replied, beginning to unbutton her blouse.

“Fuck that! We ain’t got the time,” he slapped her hands away from her blouse and pulled her to him.

His breath tasted of garlic and cigarettes but Poppy didn’t complain. As soon as he started to kiss her she opened her mouth and returned the kiss, her little brother’s life was at stake. She tried to put her arms around the big man but he was just too big so she clung to his shoulders as he kissed her and pawed at her blouse, ripping off the buttons.

The big man continued to kiss her whilst he pulled down the cups of her brassiere and groped her breasts. She felt one of the other men move in behind her and hike up her skirt, his hands squeezed her buttocks cruelly then he yanked at her panties and pulled them down to her ankles. Poppy obligingly kicked them away.

“Hey Frankie, let me get at her ass,” the man behind her whined.

Frankie, the big man, broke the kiss and pushed down on her back, forcing Poppy to bend over. He pushed her face into his crotch while he fumbled with his flies.

The man standing behind put his finger in the runner of her pantyhose crotch and enlarged the hole a little. She heard him spit and then felt his penis probing her sphincter. Poppy was experienced enough to relax her sphincter and as she did the man forced his cock inside her anus.

Poppy attempted to cry out but Frankie pushed his cock into her mouth. It was warm and pungent, tasting of piss and smegma. Poppy filled her mouth with spit so she could swallow the fetid substance and wash his penis with her tongue. This was not her first rodeo by any means. She had been defiled before by several men at the same time, often for the amusement of Ray-Ray, and she knew that being helpless as she was, the easiest and quickest way to get through the ordeal was to take the path of least resistance.

That meant pleasuring the men and getting them to cum as quickly as possible. To most women it would be unthinkable but for Poppy it had often been the status quo.

The man standing behind her gripped her hips and began to slowly fuck her. Poppy wriggled her buttocks to encourage him and encourage the flow of pre-ejaculate so that it would better lubricate her anus. She was rewarded almost immediately when she felt the man’s cock begin to slide in and out of her tight hole with ease.

“The pretty puttana has a tight ass and she knows how to use it,” the man behind her groaned as he fucked her.

“She knows how to use her mouth too,” Frankie held her head and fucked her mouth.

Poppy didn’t like it when men did that but she was in no position to complain. She used her lips and tongue to good effect, sucking Frankie’s penis which wasn’t as repulsive now that it was clean. She lifted her hand and put her fingers around the base of his thick pole and worked her mouth on it. Frankie obligingly let go of her head and let Poppy do what she was trained to do.

The man standing behind her knew how to fuck and he was in no rush, he was enjoying fucking Poppy’s snug rectum and Poppy would never admit it but he was stimulating her quite effectively. She was glad that she was heavily taped.

Frankie was close and she could sense his need as he put his hands back on her head. She could feel his cock begin to pulse and suddenly her mouth was filled with his creamy load. She swallowed it and he gave her more which she also swallowed.

Finished with her, and probably feeling a little sheepish about having sex with a transvestite, Frankie ripped his cock from her mouth and stuffed it back into his pants. He was quickly replaced by the driver who offered Poppy his long thick cock which she dutifully took into her mouth. This penis was immaculately clean and the man was gentle with her. Instead of holding her head and fucking her mouth, he caressed her cheeks and stroked her hair.

The man standing behind her was getting close too. He thrust his cock deep into Poppy’s anus and ejaculated. Poppy was ashamed that the feel of his throbbing cock against her prostate and the tight ring of her sphincter was evoking waves of pleasure. Her cock was so hard that the tape holding it to her body was coming loose.

The man fucking her stabbed her repeatedly in the rectum with his fleshy sword as the last of his spend filled her back package and began to dribble down her thighs. Then he suddenly stopped and ripped his dripping weapon from her puckered bud.

He joined Frankie in the kitchenette leaving Poppy alone with the driver.

“Ok doll; that's enough,” he extracted his cock from Poppy’s mouth and helped her stand erect.

He pulled her to him and kissed her and she clung to him feeling hot cum dribble out of her anus, run down her thighs and soak into her pantyhose. The driver lowered his face to her breasts and used his lips and his hands to stimulate her sensitive bosom. Her nipples hardened and she gasped with delight when he gently nibbled her nipples.

“Come on Salvatore. Finish up with the puttana, we gotta get going,” Frankie called from the kitchen but Salvatore, the driver, ignored him.

He kissed Poppy again and she responded by kissing him back and wrapping her arms around him, she raised her leg and rubbed her calf against him seductively. She told herself that she was only encouraging him so that the ordeal would soon be over but her body had betrayed her.

Salvatore turned Poppy so that her back was to the dining table and then lifted Poppy up and planted her derriere on the edge of the table, her skirt hiked up and her buttocks exposed. He hooked her knees under his elbows and lifted her legs so that he could place his cock on her sphincter.

He pushed it in slowly, his compatriot’s semen greasing the way. Poppy clung to him, sitting on the edge of the table with her legs splayed, moaning like a slattern. Her cock had burst loose of the tape and was standing up proud, tenting her pantyhose, aching for release.

Salvatore leaned forward so that he could kiss Poppy while he fucked her and she drove her tongue into his mouth and wrapped her legs around his waist so that his cock stayed deep inside her. Salvatore fucked her hard and fast which was what she wanted, not only because she wanted the ordeal over with but because she was aching for release and she flooded the front of her pantyhose at the same instant that Salvatore flooded her anus.

Poppy quivered with delight as her guilty orgasm erupted. It wasn't the first time she had climaxed whilst she was being used against her will but the shame of it never went away.

When he was finished coming Salvatore unwrapped her legs from around his waist and pushed her down so that she was lying flat on her back on the table panting, trying to control her breathing.

She squealed with surprise and repulsion when the man who had fucked her before Salvatore sprayed her face with his scalding semen. He had been watching Salvatore fuck Poppy and become aroused again and had been masturbating.

Salvatore returned from the kitchen with a roll of hand towel which he dropped in her lap.

“Clean yourself up. We gotta go,” he grunted.

Poppy rolled onto her side putting her back to the men while she wiped the semen off her face, from between her legs and from her thighs. She closed her blouse and dropped to her feet, bending down to pick up her discarded panties. She pushed her penis between her legs using her ripped pantyhose and panties to hold it in place then she pulled down and straightened her skirt.

Her handbag was still in Elliot’s car so she had no tissues, makeup or hairbrush to properly fix herself up so she did the best she could.

“Come on toots we gotta go,” Frankie mumbled around a mouthful of bread from a loaf he had taken from the kitchen.

“Can I see Robert before I go?” Poppy asked as she put on her jacket.

“Honey, you do not want your brother seeing you like this,” Frankie replied and Poppy could only imagine what she looked like.

Frankie dragged her over to the door where they had Robert locked away.

“Talk to him. Reassure him,” he grunted.

“Robert honey. I have to go but you have to stay here and be a good boy and these men will look after you. This will all be over soon and we will be together again,” Poppy called through the closed door.

“Poppy… don’t go… don’t go,” her brother cried and Poppy sobbed but Frankie pulled her viciously away from the door and frog marched her to the car.

He put her in the back seat and climbed in after her and Salvatore got into the driver’s seat. The third guy was obviously going to remain in the cabin to look after Robert. Salvatore locked the car doors and Frankie blindfolded her again and the car took off.

They were on the road for about an hour before Frankie took Poppy’s blindfold off. Any consolation she might have found evaporated when she saw that he had his cock out and he grabbed Poppy by the neck and pushed her face down into his groin.

She did what was required of her.

They threw Poppy out of the car at the beachfront park and sped off. She had to do the walk of shame along the walking track back to the safe house. Fortunately by then it was dark.

As soon as she approached the house her presence activated the security lighting, illuminating the surrounds of the house with harsh light. This was the last thing Poppy wanted because she knew that she looked a mess. Elliot came running down the path to greet her and came to a sudden halt when he saw the state of her.

It was only for a split second but Poppy saw the look of disgust and revulsion pass over his face. It was obvious that she had been sexually abused. Her hair was a mess, her makeup ruined, her blouse unbuttoned, runners in her pantyhose and the tell-tale silvery stains on her skirt.

“Poppy, where did they take you, what did they do to you, what did they want?” Elliot ran to her with his arms open.

“Don’t!” Poppy pushed past Elliot and strode to the front door.

“I can’t talk to you like this. Leave me alone until I’m ready to face you,” she ran to her bedroom and slammed the door.

The first thing that she noticed was that Elliot had put her handbag on her bed. She ripped off her clothes and threw them in the corner. If she could she could burn them she would. She put on a robe and went to the bathroom and stood under the scalding water until her skin was red. She douched repeatedly then climbed back into the shower, taking her toothbrush and mouthwash with her.

When she was thoroughly clean she went back to her room, pushing past Elliot who was waiting for her outside the bathroom.

“Now that you are safe I have to call the ADA and Chief of Detectives and tell them what happened,” Elliot pleaded with her.

Poppy spun around and stepped up to Elliot her anger flaring.

“They have Robert, Elliot! You don’t do anything yet! I’ll talk to you when I’m ready. Give me some space,” Poppy barked at him.

“Ok… ok… ok… is there anything I can do?” he asked, his face full of concern.

“Make me a drink. Make me a big drink. I’ll be out soon,” Poppy closed the bedroom door on him.

Poppy came out of her bedroom about half an hour later. She was dressed in jeans and a long-sleeved t-shirt, her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, she was barefoot and her makeup was lighter than Elliot had ever seen it. He had never seen her dressed down this much before. She looked younger, vulnerable.

Elliot knew better than to try to engage with her; Poppy had made it clear that she would talk when she was ready. He brought a double scotch on ice over to where she was sitting on the couch with her feet tucked under her. He wanted to take her in his arms and comfort her, he wanted to hold her and tell that everything was going to be ok. But she was radiating hostility and bitterness and he knew that trying to touch her was probably the worst thing he could do.

He had seen what she looked like when she came home and wished he could unsee it. He felt pity for her and he felt that he was useless. Men used her, men abused her, men treated her like shit and he believed it was his job to protect her from all that and he had failed.

Poppy gulped the drink down in a few swallows and waved the glass at Elliot who dutifully went to the kitchen to refill it. He returned with the bottle figuring he would save himself having to keep going back. Poppy took her cigarettes out of her purse and put a Newport in her mouth and glared at Elliot, challenging him to stop her lighting it but he said nothing. Instead he fetched a saucer from the kitchen and put it on the table so she could use it as an ashtray.

“Quite the lapdog tonight aren’t you Elliot?” Poppy quipped and immediately regretted saying it.

Taking out her anger on Elliot would solve nothing.

Elliot remained stoic. He couldn’t imagine what the men had done to her but then again he could. He hated himself for thinking about it but he wondered if he could touch her again knowing that those mobsters had been in the places that he considered his. He knew it was selfish, he knew it was unforgivable, he knew it was hateful but he couldn’t help feeling what he felt.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t take my anger out on you but they have Robert and that’s all I can think about,” Poppy took another slug of liquor.

“Ok,” Elliot decided that acceding to her wish to tell him what happened only when she was ready was the only way to deal with the situation.

“They took us to a cabin, a cottage, whatever the fuck. It was somewhere in a forest, I have no idea where, I was blindfolded,” Poppy began.

She told Elliot everything… everything except the sex. There was no need to; he knew that they had taken turns with her just by looking at her. In some ways her omission made it worse because Elliot could only imagine it: Poppy lying on the bed resplendent in her lingerie beckoning the men to join her one after the other, Poppy being held down and brutally taken while she screamed, and all the permutations in between.

“I have no choice Elliot; I have to recant my testimony. They have my brother, the only thing in the world I care about,” she didn’t cry, she was all cried out.

Elliot took it like a shot to the heart when Poppy said that Robert was the only thing in the world that she cared about. He didn’t know exactly what they had between them but he knew that she had become precious to him. She was an enigma, she was impenetrable but she was also vulnerable, she was beautiful, sophisticated and intelligent but she was whorish, street-smart and offensive. He had seen all sides of her and he thought he knew which parts of her were real.

Her sexuality and gender were a metaphor for her life, she was no longer a man but she was not fully a woman but whatever she was he cared for her.

“I’m duty bound to report the abduction Poppy. They’ll probably take my badge from me for not telling them immediately but I can use the excuse that they promised to release you and if I reported it they would torture and kill you both,” Elliot murmured, his head in his hands.

“But now that you’re back I have to report it to the Chief of Police who will bring in the FBI because it’s a kidnapping,” Elliot explained.

“It’s not going to change anything Elliot. I’m going to renounce my recorded testimony and if necessary I’ll take the stand and tell the court that I lied, that I never saw the man who committed the murders. I’ll say anything. I’ll say I did it hoping for a payoff, that I did it just to get off the streets,” Poppy lit another cigarette.

“The prosecutor will say that your testimony is coerced because the Napolitano family are holding your brother. He’ll say that the recorded testimony is the true version and that you are lying to save Robert,” Elliot explained.

“He can treat you like a hostile witness,” Elliot sighed.

“I will still have done what was demanded of me by those hoods. I’ll have played my part, they’ll let Robert go,” Poppy whispered.

“Will they?” Elliot reached for her hand but she snatched it away.

“Can you at least sleep on it? Can you wait until tomorrow?” Poppy stubbed out her cigarette.

“I’m just so tired. I need to sleep,” Poppy got up off the couch and padded down to her bedroom and closed and locked the door.

Elliot went to bed but he couldn’t sleep. He lay awake staring at the ceiling in the dark.

When the door opened he didn’t reach for his gun, he could tell by her scent that it was Poppy. She slid under the sheets. She was naked except for her panties, no sexy lingerie tonight. She snuggled up to him and Elliot held her close.

“It’s ok. We don’t have to do anything. Let’s just hold each other,” Elliot whispered when her fingers sought him out.

“I need it Elliot. I want it. I want you to make love to me so that I know that someone cares,” Poppy began to softly stroke him.

“Make love to me Elliot. Don’t fuck me, don’t bang me, don’t hump me… make love to me like you care,” Poppy whispered.

That’s exactly what Elliot did. They took their time, they knew exactly how to pleasure each other and they did it, but they did it slowly, tenderly, intimately.

They fell asleep in each other’s arms and when Elliot awoke he had made his decision.

“I’ll get Brett Mendelsohn down here first thing and tell him that you are going to disavow your testimony. He’s going to hit the roof and I’m going to have to play along. I’m going to have to treat you pretty rough,” Elliot explained to her.

“Well you’ve done that before… oh I’m sorry Elliot; I shouldn’t have said that,” Poppy snuggled up to him on the couch.

Elliot was wearing just his boxers and a t-shirt and Poppy had put on her negligee.

“You’ll need an excuse; a reason that you’ve changed your mind,” Elliot said.

“I’ll use a half-truth. I’ll say that I’m scared that as soon as the trial is over and I’m no longer in protective custody that the Napolitanos will kill me for revenge,” Poppy replied.

“I’ll call Mendelsohn. Go and get dressed,” Elliot stood up and went to the phone.

Poppy followed him and gave him a hug.

“Thank you,” she kissed his cheek then walked away.

Elliot watched her walk to the bedroom. It wasn’t just lust he felt for her; it was something else but he didn’t know what it was. He was too scared to even think about what it might be. He took the receiver out of the cradle and made the call.

To be continued

“If you hadn't spent all your time trying to put your pee-pee in her pooper and done your job we wouldn’t be in this predicament,” Brett Mendelsohn was ropeable and taking it out on Elliot Granger.

“I know you're angry Brett but you better curb your mouth. The tranny cooze had changed her mind and I did everything I could to get her to stay the course,” Elliot replied.

Brett eyed him suspiciously.

“Everything? What does that mean?” he asked.

“I’m saying that maybe if she was given a physical right now there might be a few bumps and bruises on her,” Elliot gave him a knowing look but he was lying.

“Without her evidence I don’t have a case and I’ll have to drop the prosecution. The Napolitano lawyers will want prejudice attached which means that I can’t charge Luca Tattaglia with the same crime again. He walks and I look like a schmuck,” Brett shook his head.

“I’m going to give her one last chance,” Brett sighed and opened the door to the living room.

Poppy was sprawled on the sofa in her hooker attire, micro-miniskirt, crop-top, L’eggs sheers, red heels, heavy makeup and teased out hair.

“You know that from now on your life is fucked. If the Napolitanos don’t kill you to keep you quiet, your life is still not going to be worth living. Every time you show your face on the street I’ll have you locked up. You’ll have so many raps that you’ll have to do hard time,” Brett threatened her.

“That kid in the fancy school won’t be there much longer, you won’t be able to pay the tuition, besides which when I tell the school board that he’s being sponsored by a hooker, those skinny white bitches will see to it that he’s kicked out,” he continued.

“If you ever finish your legal studies I’ll make sure you never get a job. You’ll live your life sucking off old geezers for rent money, maybe your brother will have to join you selling his ass,” Brett kicked her feet off the coffee table.

Poppy glared at the ADA when he mentioned her brother.

“I’m recanting my testimony and that’s that! You can’t make me say that Tattaglia guy did it,” Poppy folded her arms.

“Get the tranny whore packed up and drop her off at her apartment. Charge her with soliciting, she admitted that she was having sex for money at the Metropole,” Brett Mendelsohn was defeated.

“Ok. Get packed up, your holiday is over. At least I can go back to doing real police work,” Elliot snatched Poppy’s elbow and dragged her to her feet.

When Brett Mendelsohn left both Poppy and Elliot breathed a sigh of relief.

“Well that went better than I thought it would. I thought he would throw me in the clink on some trumped up charge,” Poppy said, wiping off her heavy makeup with a towelette.

“It went almost too well but I suppose there isn’t much else he can do,” Elliot rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

“Are you going to charge me with soliciting at the Metropole like he said?” Poppy asked.

“He was just angry. You made the admission during testimony that you have since recanted, the custody Sergeant wouldn’t even lock you up,” Elliot replied and felt instantly guilty about when he had her thrown into the tank and withheld her legal counsel.

Poppy had not told him about what she’d had to do to prevent herself from being gang raped.

“What do I do now?” Poppy asked.

“You get packed up and I take you home,” Elliot replied.

“Do you think he’s right? Will the Napolitanos kill me anyway?” Poppy looked frightened.

“I’ve thought long and hard about it. The mob is about making money not attracting undue attention from law enforcement. You and I are the only ones who know that Robert has been kidnapped and they aren’t going to kill me; they hardly ever kill coppers, that draws way too much heat,” Elliot explained.

“They know that it’s highly likely that if they do take you out that I will testify about Robert’s kidnapping and that means bringing in the FBI which they definitely don’t want. Also if they kill you the ADA can use your recorded testimony as you won’t be around to recant it. It’s classic Catch Twenty Two. I think that once they hear that the ADA is dropping the charges against Luca Tattaglia they will let Robert go and leave you alone. They’ve sent their message. With prejudice attached the ADA can’t charge Tattaglia again anyway,” Elliot took Poppy in his arms and comforted her.

“When will I get Robert back?” Poppy began to shiver.

“The honest answer is I don’t know but I’m guessing as soon as the charges are dropped, so soon,” Elliot hugged her.

“Go and get packed. We’ve still got to play this out until we get Robert back. You’re the crazy hooker who I hate and I’m the angry detective who you despise,” Elliot let her go.

Poppy was far from happy with the current situation but her ears had pricked up when Elliot had used the words ‘until we get Robert back’.

She packed two battered suitcases and the box of books and had to admit that she would be sad to leave the safe house. Although it was effectively a prison except for their daily exercise, it had become their home; she and Elliot had lived together as a couple. Her government stipend would cease. She would need to earn money. She would have to go back to the streets.

The drive back to her city apartment was conducted mostly in silence; both she and Elliot were lost in their thoughts.

Elliot helped Poppy carry her suitcases up to her tiny one-bedroom apartment. The locals looked at Elliot suspiciously; it was obvious to them that he was a cop.

The first thing that Poppy noticed was that there were new locks fitted to her apartment door. Strong, commercial grade locks. The keys had been left on the kitchen counter.

She looked at Elliot questioningly.

“I had them fitted today. It will give us more security,” Elliot began to unpack her books.

“Us?” Poppy looked surprised.

“You don’t think I going to let you live here alone until all this over do you?” Elliot smiled at her.

“I don’t get it?” Poppy was confused.

“I’m going to have to work my day job; I have to keep up the façade. But I’m staying here with you,” Elliot smiled at her again.

“How do you know I want you to?” Poppy sulked.

Elliot was surprised; the disappointment on his face evident.

Poppy locked the three deadbolts fitted on the door and turned to him and smiled.

“Don’t be silly. Of course I want you to stay here and keep me safe. But I only have one bed so we will have to share. Why don’t we go and see if we can both fit into it?” she smiled at him coyly and took his hand and led him towards the bedroom door.

“Don’t you have to… you know?” Elliot blushed.

“I already ‘you knowed’ before we left the safe house. I always intended on throwing you a farewell fuck,” Poppy was using her street voice again.

“I hate it when you talk that way,” Elliot bowed his head.

“Then come and make love to me. Make me feel safe. Make me feel like you care,” she looked up him with her big green eyes and Elliot’s heart melted.

He scooped her up in his arms and carried her through the door and she squealed like a girl. He put her down on the bed and looked down at her. She posed for him, splaying out her arms, tucking her legs, her hair fanned out on the pillow. Elliot sat on the bed and leaned down and kissed her softly, working at the knot on his tie, then unbuttoning his shirt, all the time kissing her.

Poppy reached up and helped Elliot take off his shirt and then she reached for his belt buckle. Elliot became impatient and ripped his pants open and pushed them down where they bunched around his feet. Poppy giggled as he maniacally ripped off his shoes and socks without untying his laces.

She stopped giggling when he loomed over her, naked and rampant, his muscled torso pumped, his eyes clouded with lust. He fell on her and pulled her tank-top up over her head and then fumbled with her bra which he eventually managed to unclasp and throw across the room. Poppy lifted up her feet so that he could pull down her miniskirt which ended up being tossed next to her bra.

Poppy hooked her fingers into the waistband of her panties and pantyhose with the intention of rolling them down her legs but Elliot fell on top her and kissed her passionately as his hands went to her bosom.

Their lovemaking recently had been tender and unhurried but Poppy had to admit that she was turned on by Elliot's new eagerness and passion. His mouth alternated between her breasts and her mouth, sucking and nibbling her nipples and excitedly driving his tongue into her mouth and crushing her lips with his.

She reached for him and found him hard, throbbing and ready; precum leaking profusely from his glans. Elliot surprised her when he leapt off her and spun her around on the bed and pulled her to her knees. He yanked her pantyhose and panties down her thighs and tore away her tuck.

“Oh my God!” she gasped as he plunged his rampant cock into her anus.

She arched her back and wriggled her buttocks, pushing back against him.

“Fuck me Elliot! Fuck me!” she moaned like a slattern.

Elliot placed one hand on her hip and reached under her with the other and found her erect. He squeezed Poppy’s penis and began to fuck her. He stroked her in time with his thrusts as he violated her anus.

“Yes, Elliot, yes!” Poppy screamed as his cock pressed against her prostate and stretched her sphincter.

His hand milked her, squeezing and caressing her throbbing her cock, eking pre-ejaculate from her pulsing phallus. He drove his cock deep inside her, feeling her anus squeeze his bloated organ.

Poppy’s semen spattered on the bedspread as she orgasmed. She would have collapsed but Elliot gripped her hips with both hands and held her as he pounded his cock in and out of her tight passage as he inseminated her anus.

Poppy squealed and writhed as she felt Elliot's cock pulsing inside her, filling her with hot ejaculate. The last of her issue dribbled from her sensitive cock, she milked it with her fingers, relying on Elliot to keep her on her knees. She fell flat on the bed and Elliot collapsed on top her, squirming and bucking as he squirted the last of his spunk deep in her bowels. She lay there gasping, the weight of his body pressing her to bed, his breath ragged in her in her ear. He bit her shoulder, but not painfully, it was a passionate nip.

When they had their breathing under control Elliot climbed off Poppy and fell onto the bed beside her. She rolled over and clung to him and he enfolded her in his arms.

“What was that?” Poppy gasped.

“I don’t know. It was just… I don’t know… I just wanted to fuck you, to possess you,” Elliot panted, wiping her sweaty bangs from her eyes.

“Well you can do that again but not until my ass has recovered,” Poppy smiled and ran her fingers though his sweat-soaked hair.

“So you liked it,” Elliot grinned at her.

“Don’t grin at me like you’re some champion lover,” she teased him.

“I thought I was pretty good,” Elliot propped himself up on one elbow.

“Well now I need a shower and I need to change the bedding,” Poppy pouted.

“Oh shut up,” Elliot laughed jovially.

He leapt off the bed and picked Poppy up and threw her over his shoulder.

“Put me down you Neanderthal!” Poppy beat her fists on his back and kicked her legs, but she was giggling uncontrollably.

She managed to kick off her heels before Elliot dropped her on her feet in the shower, stepped in with her and closed the door.

“There isn’t enough room for both of us,” Poppy protested.

“Well we’ll just have to wash the bits we can’t get to on each other won’t we,” Elliot laughed and turned on the water.

Later when Elliot was getting dressed things became serious again.

“I have to go down to the squad room Poppy and go back to work. I’ll be assigned a partner and a shift and being gone from the squad for so long I will likely get the graveyard shift,” Elliot explained.

“Which isn’t a bad thing. It means I’ll be working nights so you can stay here locked up safe while I’m working. I’ll check on you during my breaks and I’ll be able to spend my days with you,” Elliot thought it was a good deal but when he saw the storm clouds in Poppy’s eyes he realised that she was going to push back.

“You’re not telling me that I’ve got to hold up here in my apartment while you’re working? That I can’t go out at night? How am I going to make a living?” Poppy put her hands on her hips.

“You're not telling me that you're going back out on the streets?” Elliot was incredulous.

“You told me I’m safe from Napolitanos so why not?” Poppy inclined her head, giving Elliot attitude.

“Because I assumed that your hooking days were over,” Elliot’s face was becoming red with anger.

“Robert still has a place at the Grosvenor School and I need to keep paying for it so he can go back there when he’s released. In case you didn’t hear your friend fuckwad Mendelsohn, the gov’mint turned off the tap honey; I ain’t got jack-shit,” Poppy had reverted to her street voice which irritated Elliot.

“We don’t know for certain about the Napolitanos. Anyway, how can you go back to selling your body like that? How can you throw away what we have together?” Elliot was nearly shouting he was so angry.

“What he have together? You had your pretty little tranny fuck-doll all to yourself at the safe house living in our little fantasy world. Me pretending to be a housewife and you pretending to be my knight in shining armour but what did you think was going to happen after?” Poppy was seething.

“You goin’ to take me home to meet mom? You goin’ to take me to the annual policeman’s ball? Am I going to live in the suburbs, cooking and cleaning and waiting for you to come home? You goin’ to be a brother-in-law to a junkie whore’s son?” Poppy was livid.

“You really are just a whore aren’t you?” Elliot leaned in, his face inches from hers, his fists balled.

“And you really are just a cop. Go ahead and hit me. That’s what cops usually do. They take a freebie or they give me a kicking or sometimes both. You’d know all about that wouldn’t you?” Poppy glared at Elliot’s clenched fists.

He threw a punch at her but he aimed it to miss and he smashed a hole in the wall beside her head.

“Fucking tranny whore!” Elliot screamed at her, snatched up his coat and slammed the door on his way out.

Poppy triple locked the door and folded herself up into a ball on the floor and sobbed uncontrollably.

Elliot took the stairs, fuming. He hated Poppy but he hated himself more. He hated that he had called her a whore, he hated that the last time they had lain together it had been a ferocious animalistic fuck instead of the tender, caring, intimate, lovemaking they usually enjoyed but most of all he hated that Poppy was right.

Elliot met with Danny Logan, the Chief of Detectives, and briefed him. The Chief was livid that Poppy had recanted her testimony.

“What the fuck happened Elliot? You had that cooze cooped up in that fuckin’ holiday shack… you didn’t beat her did you? I heard about what you did to her in the lockup tank… Jesus… did you knock her around?” Danny ran his hands through his hair.

“Not that I’d blame you. That fuckin’ tranny hooker has a mouth on her and she had it coming, but fuck man, we don’t need to get the blame for this,” Danny continued before Elliot could answer.

“Chief, I think we can lay this right at the feet of the prosecutor. The cooze was ready to testify but it just all took too long. The longer she had to think about it, the longer she had to think about what would happen to her if she did. Then the fucking ADA recorded her testimony just in case she was killed. Shit, that would’ve scared the shit out of anyone,” Elliot offered.

“Yeah, well that’s the line I’m taking. The ADA is making a formal announcement this evening. He’s going to say that all charges against Tattaglia are being dropped because his only witness refuses to testify. It’s a fucking half-truth but it saves his face. He’ll infer that the Napolitanos got to her, try to push the blame away. I don’t care so long as we don’t have to eat the shit sandwich. Get down to the squad room and pick up your assignments; I want you to lay low for a while until this blows over,” the chief dismissed him with a wave of his hand.

*****

“Hey girl, you lookin’ fine. You been on vacation, I ain’t seen you in a coon’s age. You nearly lost your corner sister,” Latisha Collins was squeezed into leopardskin lycra leggings and a black lycra longsleeved top; her gold fuck-me heels, high hair, heavy makeup and junk jewellery advertised her trade.

“I took my brother away on an extended vacation. Lake Tahoe. Frolicking on the beach during the day and fuckin’ high-rollers for money at night,” Poppy hugged Latisha and air-kissed her cheeks.

Poppy was back in her hooker’s livery: black velvet hotpants, a mauve satin blouse with a cheap imitation chinchilla fur coat to keep warm. She had re-dyed the blue and cerise highlights into her blonde hair. Her makeup was heavy and she was wearing cheap cherry-red fuck-me shoes and L’eggs Sheer Energy pantyhose. It felt almost like she had never left the streets but her heart sank every time she recalled her time at the safe house with Elliot so she tried her hardest not to.

All she was worried about at the moment was when Robert was going to be released and how she was going to continue to pay for his board and education.

A car backfired and Poppy ducked down and turned away. This was not lost on Latisha.

“Word on the street is that you got tied up in that mob hit at the Metropole. They say you were a material witness or some shit,” Latisha came over and offered Poppy a smoke.

“They say a lot of things don’t they?” was all Poppy replied, looking up when a passing man showed interest in her.

He approached Poppy and solicited her. She took him down the alley behind the dumpster and blew him for twenty five dollars. She was pleased to find that the car floor-mat was still under the dumpster and she was able to pull it out and kneel on it while she worked. The girls used it to protect their knees from the filth-strewn ground while they fellating the customers.

She was busy that night and she was happy to be. It was sorely needed money and it kept her mind off thinking about Robert, even though worrying about him took up every second of her free time. She did a few knee-trembling tricks up against the wall. It was easy work for her, lean against the wall, pull down her shorts and pantyhose just far enough to provide the john access to her ass, let him finish the job then pull the condom off his cock and flick it in the dumpster.

A few of the johns wanted full service and the comfort of a bed. She led them back to the Metropole Hotel where a new guy had replaced Stanley Britton as concierge and the bloody carpet had been replaced in the hallway where the shooting had taken place. Even murder didn’t stop commerce.

One of her regular leg fetish guys paid her extra to keep her pantyhose after he had blown his load over her legs and feet. It was money for nothing because she would have changed into a fresh set of L’eggs anyway.

For a few days life returned to normal for Poppy, she worked the streets in the evenings and returned to her little apartment exhausted just before sunrise.

One morning just after she had returned home and taken off her makeup and changed into a housecoat there was a knock on the door and Poppy froze. The door was triple locked but she still didn’t feel completely safe. The nearest phone was located in the corridor near the stairwell and she wished that she had paid for her own telephone to be installed but it was an expense she could do without. She doubted that Elliot would have given it to her but she wished she’d asked him for a gun.

Poppy shivered with fright waiting for the door to be forced open or for a fusillade of bullets to rip through panels but she heard nothing other another series of knocks on her door.

“Poppy! Poppy! Let me in; it’s me Robert,” she heard her brother cry through the door.

She ran to the door and fumbled with the locks, ripping off an acrylic fingernail in her eagerness to open the door. Robert stood there looking forlorn, carrying a backpack. He was still dressed in his school uniform but he looked clean, well fed and unharmed. Poppy pulled him inside, slammed and locked the door and wrapped her arms around him, nearly crushing him in her eagerness and excitement.

Poppy smothered his face with kisses and Robert squirmed in her grasp. As much as he loved being cuddled and kissed by his big sister, this was becoming embarrassing.

“Are you ok? Did they hurt you?” Poppy began to bombard him with questions which the boy calmly ignored until she let go of him and allowed him to sit down.

He looked around her apartment and studied it. It had been a long time since he had been here and he had expected that his sister would have moved into a well-appointed condo, not still be in this one bedroom flat in a low rent apartment block. He might be a kid but he knew that hot-shot legal eagles didn’t live in tenements.

Robert explained to her that he had stayed at the cabin with Frankie for the few days that he was kidnapped. Frankie had treated him well and was friendly. Frankie taught Robert how to play cards and they had also played checkers. Frankie made him Italian food and told him stories of his life as a boy in Sicily. Robert had been well treated and talked to Poppy about his abduction as if it had been adventure. She recognised the symptoms of Stockholm syndrome.

Frankie had delivered Frankie to Poppy’s front door and told him to count to twenty before knocking and left him there.

Poppy hated that Robert talked about Frankie like he was some sort of burly benevolent uncle but Robert wasn’t to know that Frankie had sexually violated his sister repeatedly … nor would he ever know.

Poppy explained away the tenement apartment she was living in as being a contingency.

“Remember when I visited you at the Grosvenor School with Mister Granger?” Poppy asked Robert.

She kept stroking and touching Robert and like most young boys his age he was becoming annoyed with her being overly affectionate.

“Elliot? He seemed like a nice man. He was with you when the men took us away, I remember that,” Robert hopped off the lounge and made his way over to the small refrigerator.

“Well I suppose you’ve already guessed that he is a policeman and that he was my bodyguard. He put me here to keep me safe because those guys know where I really live,” the lies just rolled off her tongue.

“I was involved in a big mob case but now it’s gone away and we are no longer in danger. You can go back to the Grosvenor School and I can go back to my apartment,” more lies, easily told.

Poppy joined him at the refrigerator and took the candy bar he had selected from him and gave him an orange instead.

“Can I say with you at your real apartment for a while Poppy?” Robert asked.

“I want you back in school Robert. You’ve already missed some tuition. We’ll go somewhere nice next semester break ok?” Poppy mussed his hair and he allowed her to because she relented and gave him the candy bar too.

Poppy left Robert in front of the TV and went to use the public phone near the stairway.

“I need a favour Elliot, please don’t hang up,” Poppy breathed into the phone.

“I’m not in the favour business Miss Evesham,” Elliot said gruffly but if Poppy could see his face she would see the glimmer of hope in his eyes.

“They released Robert. He’s safe and well,” Poppy said.

“Thank god,” Elliot said and she could hear the genuine relief in Robert’s voice.

“I need to get him back to the Grosvenor School as soon as possible and I don’t have a car and I can’t ask anybody I know. Robert is here at the apartment, he thinks this is the safe house. He still doesn’t know about… about how I make a living,” she said reluctantly.

“I don’t know Poppy,” Elliot sighed.

“Don’t do it for me. Do it for Robert. I won’t ask for anything else I promise,” she pleaded.

*****

The long drive to the upstate school was uncomfortable for Elliot and Poppy who kept their conversation to a minimum. Poppy was wearing one of her business suits, passing herself off as a legal professional. Elliot and Robert hit it off and Poppy let him sit in the front seat of the unmarked police car so that Elliot could show him how the lights, siren and police radio worked.

He entertained Robert with police stories, nothing too grisly or gruesome but exciting ‘cops and robbers’ tales that kept Robert amused and fascinated. Robert bombarded Elliot with questions about being a policeman which Elliot gladly answered and embellished.

Every now and then Elliot would look at Poppy in the rear vision mirror but she seemed lost in thought. They stopped for a break halfway and over Poppy’s objections Elliot bought Robert an ice-cream.

“He likes you,” Poppy said to Elliot when Robert went to use the bathroom.

“He’s a good kid,” Elliot licked his ice-cream cone.

“He is a good kid,” Poppy agreed with him.

The silence became uncomfortable.

“I’m sorry for what I called you; I apologise,” Elliot finally broke the silence.

“Apology accepted. You didn’t really insult me; you just told me what I am. It doesn’t change anything Elliot,” Poppy folded her arms and looked away from him.

“You ever wonder how they found out about Robert? How they knew you were visiting him? How they knew where the safe house was?” Elliot changed tack.

“Someone in law enforcement told them. Brett Mendelsohn kept carping on about corruption and the need for secrecy,” Poppy answered.

The truth was that Poppy hadn't given much thought as to how the mob knew about Robert; she was too concerned about the consequences.

“Until the ADA recorded your testimony, the mob would have been happy to just take you out so there were no witnesses left to the homicide. If they knew about the safe house they would have come for us. So logic says that they didn’t know where the safe house was until after you recorded your testimony,” Elliot explained.

“So what?” Poppy sounded disinterested.

“Listen to me Poppy. Their lawyers would have told the Napolitanos about the recorded testimony because the prosecutor would have had to tender a copy of the tape to the court and the defence attorneys. But Robert’s existence and whereabouts were not common knowledge. Only myself and Brett Mendelsohn knew about him so if Brett got mouthy then word would have got to the Napolitanos,” Elliot continued anyway.

“What does it matter Elliot? I have Robert back now and I’m safe now that Luca Tattaglia has immunity from prosecution,” Poppy sounded exasperated.

“What matters is someone put your life at risk. Someone put Robert’s life at risk. They did it on my watch!” Elliot said grimly.

“So as usual it’s all about you,” Poppy hissed and turned away.

Elliot spun Poppy around by her elbow so that she was facing him. Her green eyes were aflame with anger.

“No, it’s about someone putting people I care about lives in danger. Someone sold you out,” Elliot tried to sound calm.

“That’s what people do to me Elliot. They sell me out. So now I’m selling myself out, but I’m selling myself out on my terms,” Poppy glared up at him.

“Why do you hate yourself so much?” Elliot appealed to her.

“Why do you hate me so much?” Poppy continued to glare at him.

“I don’t hate you Poppy, I…” Elliot looked away.

“Yes?” Poppy waited anxiously for the rest but Robert came skipping up to them with a smile on his face.

“What were you two talking about?” Robert grinned at them.

Elliot took a step back and breathed out.

“Nothing important Robert. I was telling your sister that I think that you are very brave boy,” Elliot took the car keys from his pocket.

They spent the rest of the trip explaining to Robert that he couldn’t tell anyone about his kidnapping. That even though Frankie had been nice to him, that if he told anyone found out what had happened to him that Frankie and his cohorts would come looking for Poppy and him.

Robert was intelligent enough to understand the seriousness of the situation.

At the Grosvenor School they parked in the same place they had parked in before. It was midweek and the visitor’s car park was empty.

“I won’t be long. I just need to check in with the Dean and get Robert settled,” Poppy said, helping Robert into his blazer and straightening his tie.

“I need to use the phone anyway,” Elliot said and walked over to a public phone in the corner of the car park.

He turned and watched Poppy walk away from him down the path holding Robert’s hand. He tore his eyes away when the longing he felt for her began to resurface. He turned to the phone and picked up the receiver.

The Dean of the Grosvenor School was a tall man in his fifties. He spoke with a clipped accent and welcomed Poppy and Robert into his office. Poppy noticed that his eyes crawled over her. Something had changed.

Poppy told the story they had fabricated during the journey about a family emergency and apologised for taking Robert from the school without notice.

“We kept Robert’s place of course because you continued to pay his board and tutelage in his absence. His teachers will provide him with make-up tuition so that he won’t be disadvantaged,” the Dean smiled at them both.

“Now Robert, go outside and meet up with Mrs Frobisher who will settle you in your dorm and take you to class,” the Dean smiled at Robert.

Robert gave Poppy a hug and a peck on the cheek; he picked up his backpack and left the office.

The Dean’s demeanour changed immediately that Robert left the room.

“I had a call from Assistant District Attorney Mr Brett Mendelsohn,” he announced and Poppy felt the ground open beneath her.

“He didn’t tell me everything because he couldn’t for legal reasons but he did tell me that you are not the legal secretary you claim to be. He told me that you are in fact making a living immorally,” the Dean’s eyes scathed her breasts and drifted down to her demurely crossed legs.

“I’m a progressive man Ms Evesham but if this were to come to the attention of the school board I’m afraid that Robert would have to be expelled,” he got up from behind his desk and walked to the office door and locked it.

Poppy wasn’t stupid. She knew what was coming next. She just wandered if Brett had also told him that she was transgender.

She looked at the Dean who stood before her, looming over her, his eyes filled with lust.

Poppy dropped to her knees and unzipped his fly. The Dean was already erect and she had difficulty taking his penis from his underpants but when she freed it, it stood out proud and throbbing. It was nothing impressive but then again Poppy had seen hundreds of penises.

She dutifully lowered her mouth to his organ and lapped at it. The Dean was so excited that he climaxed immediately, spattering Poppy’s face with the first rope of ejaculate. Poppy engulfed his penis and swallowed the remainder, not to pleasure the Dean but to keep his spunk off her clothes.

The Dean put his hands on her shoulders to steady himself whilst she sucked him dry and then spat him out. He patted his penis dry with a handkerchief which he pointedly didn’t offer to Poppy. She took the box of tissues off the Dean’s desk and wiped her face whilst he tucked his penis into his pants and zipped.

Poppy got to her feet.

“I take it you will be wanting this type of payment every time I visit the school?” Poppy said pragmatically.

“You are indeed an intelligent young woman, even if you are a whore,” the Dean’s smile held no warmth.

“See yourself out Miss Evesham,” the Dean made his way back behind his desk.

Poppy stopped at the ladies room to rinse out her mouth, wash her face and reapply her makeup. She wasn’t so much angry as disappointed but then again she expected men to treat her this way and she would do anything to keep Robert at the prodigious school.

She walked to the car and found Elliot leaning against it waiting for her. She desperately wanted a cigarette but she knew he would get angry so she didn’t ask.

He got the door for her and she noticed the appreciative look he gave her legs as her skirt rode up when she climbed into the car but she was in no mood for men’s appreciative glances at the moment.

They drove in silence, Poppy wondering how long she could keep Robert at the Grosvenor School with the sword of Damocles hanging over her head. Men like the Dean were seldom kept happy with a monthly blowjob. He’d want a regular fuck and likely pass her around his friends. She wondered how many other women the Dean had blackmailed into providing him with sex so that their children could attend the school.

She was leaning against the window and not paying much attention when she suddenly realised that they had entered a town that was not on their route back to the city.

“Where are we?” Poppy asked as she stopped daydreaming.

“Welcome to Braidwood,” Elliot said, his voice noncommittal.

“Why are we here?” Poppy asked looking around the main street of the town.

It wasn’t exactly a small town but it wasn't a metropolis either; far from it in fact. The buildings were well maintained but they had an air of antiquity to them. The businesses seemed to be prospering and the townsfolk well-heeled.

Elliot drove through the town without stopping and without answering her question.

He turned down a long well-kept gravel drive that led to a ranch-style house where a woman wearing an apron waited on the porch watching the car approach. When Elliot stopped in front of the house Poppy could see that the woman was wearing a stylish housedress, low heels and nylons. Her makeup was light but perfect and her long brunette hair was piled loosely on top of her head, held in place with long wooden pins. She looked like a country wife who had style.

She also had a strong resemblance to Elliot. She was tall, slim and very attractive.

Elliot parked the car and the woman came down off the stoop and hugged Elliot and kissed his cheek. A Labrador scampered around Elliot and he hugged the dog, stroked it briefly and threw a stick for it to catch. Elliot opened Poppy’s door and helped her out of the car.

“Penelope Evesham this is my sister Sharon Granger,” Elliot grinned.

Poppy offered her hand nervously but Sharon leaned in and hugged her and kissed her cheek. The Labrador returned and got under everyone’s feet.

“That’s Charlie, I see his manners haven’t improved since I was last here,” Elliot threw the stick again and the dog bounded after it.

“You go set the table. I’ve made us a late lunch. Don’t you dare touch a thing until we join you, now scoot. I want to talk to the woman who has turned my misogynist asshole brother into a gentleman,” Sharon waved Elliot away.

Poppy was speechless and dumbfounded and allowed Sharon to lead her onto the porch and seat her at a white cane outdoor setting under the shade of the veranda.

“He said you were beautiful but he didn’t do you justice,” Sharon smiled at Poppy and poured homemade lemonade from a pitcher.

Poppy still didn’t know what was going on.

“That lunkhead didn’t tell you did he?” Sharon passed Poppy a glass of ice-cold lemonade.

“This is our family home left to us by our parents. We were going to sell it and split the profits but it has too much sentimental value and when Elliot left for the city it made sense for me to live here,” Sharon at least explained something.

Poppy sipped the lemonade. She was parched and needed to wet her mouth so she could talk.

“Ok. Why am I here?” Poppy asked, still confused.

“Do you know how many women Elliot has bought to this house since he moved to the city?” Sharon looked at Poppy over the rim of her glass.

Poppy couldn’t get over Sharon’s resemblance to her brother or how beautiful she was.

“That many,” Sharon circled her finger before Poppy could answer.

“Oh we’re not… we’re just… we are not a couple,” Poppy blurted out.

“Bullshit!” Sharon retorted but she was grinning.

“My brother hasn’t been as enthusiastic about telling me about a woman since he took Helen Carter to the prom,” Sharon patted Poppy’s knee affectionately.

“It’s not what you think? How much has Elliot told you about me?” Poppy’s anger was simmering under her outward appearance of calmness.

“Come and walk with me a little. He can wait awhile,” Sharon got to her feet and Poppy followed suit.

She led Poppy along a path shaded my trees to a large garden crisscrossed by a sandstone path.

“Elliot hated me until I was in my I was nineteen. I’m a lesbian and he despised me for bringing shame on the family. He thought it was something I could change if I just tried hard. This town is small enough that people still know everyone else's business and he was a police officer on the Braidwood PD,” Sharon paused to smell a rose.

“Two brothers from the wrong side of town thought they could fuck the lesbian out of me. They abducted me and took me to an old barn were they took turns on me until they were exhausted. Needless to say their strategy didn’t work,” Sharon smiled wanly.

Poppy was amazed and appalled that Sharon could talk so matter-of-factly about her rape.

“Elliot told me that similar things, no, far worse things have happened to you. He told me about the scars on your body. He was crying into the phone when he told me,” Sharon offered the bloom to Poppy.

“He told you about me?” Poppy was stupefied and appalled.

“Everything,” Sharon looked pointedly at Poppy.

Sharon stepped into Poppy and hugged her briefly.

“He told me about how badly he treated you when he first met you and how he despises himself for it. When they arrested the two men who raped me they had to confine Elliot to another cell to prevent him from beating them to death,” Sharon continued.

“Elliot begrudgingly came to understand me after the rape; he came to love me but it took the assault and the loss of our parents for him to find his real feelings for me. I forgave him but he still hates himself for how he treated me. He still blames himself for my rape,” she paused at another bloom.

“He confessed to me that he recently allowed history to repeat itself. That he mistreated a woman he loved because of prejudice and self-loathing,” Sharon offered Poppy the second bloom to smell.

Poppy had not noticed that Sharon had used the word love.

“So why has he brought me here?” Poppy asked.

“Because he knows that you won’t listen to him. Because you told him that he was never going to take you home to meet his mom. He doesn't have a mom now, I’m his only close family and now he’s taken you home to meet me,” Sharon’s smile was beatific.

“He told you I’m transgender?” Poppy was incredulous.

“He told me that you are beautiful. Not just pretty but beautiful inside too. He told me about Robert, about what you have to do to look after him,” Sharon touched Poppy on the cheek.

“I can’t imagine… I don’t want to imagine,” Poppy was surprised when a tear ran down Sharon’s cheek.

“So what do we do now?” Poppy’s head was spinning.

“We go and have lunch… provided Elliot hasn’t eaten everything,” Sharon laughed and it was infectious.

“He does like to eat,” Poppy smiled.

The two women walked back to the house and found Elliot waiting anxiously on the porch.

He opened the screen door for them and stood aside to let them in ahead of him.

“Get that shit grin off your face brother. If this beautiful girl ever forgives you I’m taking her for a sanity test; you’re not out of the doghouse by a long shot,” Sharon dug her brother in the ribs when she squeezed past him.

The three had a long lunch, conversation carefully steered clear of anything painful. Elliot and Sharon told Poppy stories of their childhood growing up in Braidwood. His father had been a Deputy Sheriff for the county and Elliot had followed his father into law enforcement and joined the Braidwood PD.

When Elliot and Sharon reconciled Elliot got his sister a job as a Public Service Officer on the front desk at the police station. By then he had risen through the ranks to Deputy Commander of the Braidwood PD but after their parents died in an automobile accident Elliot moved from Braidwood to undertake a career as a detective in the city.

It was just on dark when another vehicle pulled up outside of the ranch house and an attractive woman in a business suit alighted. Sharon raced outside to meet her and the two women kissed unashamedly on the porch.

“Sharon’s partner, Bethany,” Elliot explained and Poppy smiled at Elliot's discomfort at watching the two women kiss.

Bethany was a lawyer who had met Sharon through work it was explained over a cup of coffee prior to Elliot and Poppy’s departure.

Despite everything that had transpired Elliot and Poppy had not really reconciled and an uneasy truce entailed during the drive home. Little was said and Poppy kicked off her heels, pushed back her seat and tried to sleep. Elliot had the radio turned down low, grateful for the caffeine in his system to keep him awake.

Elliot gently woke Poppy when he pulled up outside her apartment block.

“Do you want to come up?” Poppy asked but she said it without conviction.

“I don’t think I should,” Elliot shrugged.

*****

Over the next two weeks Elliot put ADA Brett Mendelsohn under surveillance. Twice Brett Mendelsohn met with members of Napolitano crime family. To Elliot it confirmed that Brett had given up Poppy and Robert to the Napolitanos. Elliot ascertained that the ADA had purposely recorded Poppy’s statement and deliberately leaked it to Napolitanos and then sold them the information that Poppy had a brother in boarding school.

Mendelsohn had likely entered into a conspiracy with the Napolitanos, trading Robert and Poppy’s location and devising the kidnapping plan, all for money.

Elliot put all of the evidence he had collected into an envelope and instead of delivering it to the Chief of Detectives or the DA’s office he anonymously dropped it at the offices of the Napolitanos lawyers.

Having achieved everything in his power to avenge Poppy he dropped an envelope containing his resignation into the Chief of Detectives in-tray along with his Detective’s badge.

Elliot drove to Poppy’s corner but she wasn’t there. She was likely with a customer.

Latisha Collins dressed in skin-tight leggings and heels with her big hair and heavy makeup, approached Elliot’s car.

Elliot rolled down the window.

“You might as well hang a sign that says Five-O around your neck sugar,” Latisha leaned on the car door and looked in at Elliot.

“I’m looking for Penelope… for Poppy,” Elliot said.

Latisha studied Elliot and broke into a smile.

“If I was cooped up with you for two months I’d probably go all gaga too sugar,” Latisha crooned.

Elliot looked at her quizzically.

“Poppy ain’t been on the streets for weeks. I checked up on her to make sure she be ok. She’s fine but she workin’ hard. Got a full time day job bussing tables and works nights cleaning offices seven days a week. That girl gonna work herself to death but she won’t come back to the streets,” Latisha explained.

“Where is she now?” Elliot asked, his concern evident.

“You the detective, so go and detect,” Latisha pushed herself off the car and went back to her corner.

Elliot found Poppy on her hands and knees dressed in coveralls scrubbing the floor of a middle-school classroom. When she heard his footsteps behind her she panicked. She was a woman alone in a school building late at night. She turned around on her knees with her hands raised ready to fight.

Elliot grabbed her wrists to stop her failing at him. She stopped fighting when she realised that it was Elliot. She lowered her head in shame.

Elliot bent down and picked her up and carried her from the classroom. She put her hands around his neck; she was exhausted. He took her to his car and put her in the passenger seat.

“What?” Poppy was confused and disoriented.

She woke up in a strange bed on clean sheets, sunlight streamed through the window, the light dappled by the leaves of the trees outside the window.

A towel, toiletries, cosmetics and clean clothes were laid out on a camphorwood chest at the bottom of the bed. Poppy found the bathroom in the strange house and took a long shower and washed her hair. She put on some makeup, the jeans and t-shirt laid out for her and padded down the polished wooden stairs barefooted where she was met with the smell of bacon, eggs and pancakes. Her hair was still damp and she was carrying a pair of trainers with clean socks tucked into them.

Elliot and Sharon were sitting at the kitchen table. She had no idea what day it was but she knew where she was.

Elliot kicked back the chair and strode over to her. He hugged and kissed her unashamedly in front of his sister who politely left the room.

“Why did you bring me here?” Poppy asked.

Elliot didn’t answer; he just moved the bangs out of her eyes.

“It’s Saturday. The weekend,” Elliot said.

Poppy had never been more confused in her life.

“You don’t have to work weekends anymore,” he smiled down at her but Poppy remained dumbfounded.

Suddenly the outside door slammed open and Robert burst into the kitchen his face flushed, grinning like a Cheshire cat. Charlie the Labrador followed him and began bounding around the kitchen excitedly.

“They have horses Poppy! And they have a dog! And I have my own room… well I do if you let me stay,” Robert ran up to his sister and hugged her.

Elliot gave Poppy and Robert some space and took Charlie outside. Five minutes later Robert burst through the door and he and Charlie ran out back towards the stables.

“So you kidnapped my brother?” Poppy said but she was smiling.

She held a cup of coffee and she sat down in the cane chair across from Elliot.

“The Dean allowed me to take Robert for the weekend knowing that you will be joining us. We had a frank and honest conversation which I’m sorry to say resulted in the Dean falling down a few times but he has agreed to halve Robert’s tuition fees and will not require any ancillary services from you any longer,” Elliot said purposely.

“How did….” Poppy began but Elliot silenced her by putting a finger on her lips.

“You didn’t have to say anything Poppy. I knew as soon as you got into the car. I think I know you as well as I know anyone,” Elliot said.

“So what now?” Poppy sighed.

“Robert seems to like it here and it’s close to his school. He wouldn’t have to board,” Elliot pursed his lips.

Poppy looked concerned.

“Are you going to take custody of Robert away from me?” Poppy began to panic.

Elliot burst out laughing and once again Poppy was perplexed.

“No. I’m proposing you move in here. Just for now until we find our own place,” Elliot smiled.

“I’m confused Elliot. What about my apartment? What about my jobs?” Poppy began to realise what Elliot was proposing.

“What about them? You and Robert can live here with me, Sharon and Bethany. Bethany has an opening for a legal secretary. It’s not charity, she really needs one and you can continue your studies,” Elliot beamed.

“What about you? How are you going to work, it’s too far to commute,” Poppy’s head was still spinning.

“I have my job back at Braidwood PD. They were looking for a replacement Deputy Commander and it just turns out I’m available,” Elliot's smile was beginning to annoy her.

“So you kidnap me and my brother and bring us here and make me an offer I can’t refuse. It seems to me like you’ve been planning this for a little while,” Poppy’s emerald green eyes flashed anger at him.

Elliot liked it a little when Poppy got angry. He liked the fire in her. He liked the fight.

“Go and get some breakfast and think about it. You have nothing to do all weekend but think about it. Sharon has gone to pick up Bethany, we have the place to ourselves,” Elliot stood and picked up her empty coffee cup.

She followed him into the kitchen and made herself a plate of the delicious food left warming on the stove. She didn’t realise how hungry she was and Elliot watched amused as she ate two full plates.

“You’ll get fat,” he teased her.

She threw a pork rind at him.

“Where are these horses?” she pushed back her chair.

It was just as well that the house was big. Sharon and Bethany had the master bedroom but Elliot, Poppy and Robert each had a room of their own and even then there was still one spare bedroom. After a barbeque dinner they retired to their respective bedrooms. Robert had gone to bed early; Charlie and the horses had tired him out.

Elliot couldn’t sleep knowing that Poppy was sleeping only just down the hall from him; his need for her was a deep ache.

He thanked god when his bedroom door opened and her perfume preceded her.

Poppy was dressed in a t-shirt and panties because she had none of her own clothes with her. She took them off before slipping under the sheets.

Elliot lifted his arm and Poppy snuggled up to him.

“Do you really think this will work?” Poppy asked.

“Why shouldn’t it?” Elliot whispered; the house was quiet.

“Because of who I am. Because of what I am,” Poppy stared up at the ceiling lit by the moonlight coming through the window.

“You’re not that any longer. This is a fresh start in a new town, no one here needs to know about your past,” Elliot replied.

“That addresses the situation with who I am but not what I am,” Poppy said flatly.

“What are you? You are a beautiful, kind, considerate woman who I am deeply and unashamedly in love with. You decide who needs to know you’re a trans woman but the way I see it it’s no one else's business,” Elliot sighed.

“Wait… go back to that part about being deeply and unashamedly in love,” Poppy said, her voice trembling.

Elliot rolled over and straddled Poppy, his knees either side of her, his body supported on his elbows.

“I love you Poppy. I can’t live without you. You don’t have to move to Braidwood if you don’t want to. You don’t have to change your way of life if you don’t want to but nothing can stop me loving you. I know because I’ve tried,” Elliot kissed her cheek.

“But…” Poppy tried to reply but Elliot cut her off.

“You were angry when you asked me if you were going to live in the suburbs, cooking and cleaning and waiting for me to come home and was I going to be a brother-in-law to a junkie whore’s son. I don’t want that. But what I do want is for you and Robert to live here with me and for Robert to keep attending the Grosvenor School and for you to do whatever you want but the offer of the job with Bethany is real,” Elliot continued.

“How long do I have to make up my mind?” Poppy asked.

“Only the rest of your life because that’s how long I intend to love you,” Elliot smiled down at her.

Poppy put her arms around Elliot’s neck and pulled his face down to hers so they could kiss.

“This place is as quiet as a church,” Poppy whispered when the bed creaked as they kissed.

“Then we will have to make love slowly,” Elliot grinned.

His penis was hard and pressing against Poppy’s, pre-seminal fluid lubricating their hard shafts.

“Can you do that?” Poppy grinned up at him cheekily.

She wriggled under him so that his glans was nestled in her sphincter.

“Let’s see,” he lowered his face and kissed her, sliding his tongue into her mouth at the same time that he slid his penis into her anus.

Poppy suppressed a gasp and when he was fully inside her she locked her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck and let him press his body against hers. His cock was stretching her anus, delightfully grinding her sphincter and pressing on her prostate. She mewed softly and hung onto him as he slowly began to fuck her.

Elliot valiantly held on for what seemed to Poppy like an eternity, edging her to the brink of orgasm and then backing off but eventually he couldn’t control himself and he began to fuck her with long hard strokes and Poppy moaned beneath him.

The bedsprings creaked and complained as Elliot ground his cock deep inside Poppy’s anus and ejaculated which timed perfectly with her own orgasm as she spent herself against her lover’s belly.

They clung to each other as they writhed and wriggled their slick bodies against each other.

In the bedroom next door Sharon looked up from between Bethany’s legs and smiled knowingly and then went back to her task, making Bethany squirm and squeal when Sharon’s tongue lapped her tender clitoris.

Poppy and Elliot lay in each other’s arms uncaring about the scent of sex that permeated the air. Later that night Elliot perched Poppy on the seat under the window and took her again, the moonlight illuminating her beautiful face which was contorted with passion.

They went back to bed and fell asleep exhausted and when Elliot awoke he found Poppy leaning over him. He looked up at her quizzically.

“I love watching you sleep,” she smiled down at him.

“Then why don’t you do it on a permanent basis. If you live with me you can do it every night,” Elliot teased her.

“Ok then,” Poppy smiled and lowered her face to her lover and kissed his lips.

*****

At an undisclosed location somewhere in the city the Commission consiglieres met to discuss their bosses’ business matters. The Dons had voted unanimously that Assistant District Attorney Brett Mendelsohn was to be quickly and quietly eliminated for his role in manipulating the Luca Tattaglia prosecution for his own financial gain. It was ironic that the contract was awarded to Luca Tattaglia who carried out the task discretely. Brett Mendelsohn simply disappeared from the face of the earth. There were no witnesses to his dying screams.

The End

(Or maybe not… I’d like to visit Poppy again sometime in the future and see how she gets on)

Author’s Note: As always, your comments and critiques are always welcome and gratefully accepted
Michele Nylons, Feb 2021