To Protect and To Serve

Author's Foreword—

This is my eleventh offering to Literotica and her readers. You're invited to leave a public comment and access my profile to see what other goodies can be found in my archives.

Enjoy!

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It was a boring evening to be out on patrol. Thursdays usually were.

Officer Jose Ocala turned off Central Avenue and slowly headed down a residential street, scanning the neat middle-class houses as he past them. Upon coming to an alley, he stopped his patrol car and activated the sideways shining spotlight mounted next to the red and blue strobes on the light bar. The harsh white light showed no prowlers or vagrants, just somebody's tabby cat looking through trash barrels for a bite to eat. The cat's eyes reflected the spotlight back before it lost interest and moved on. Jose lost interest and moved on as well, stifling a yawn.

He continued the length of the street, turned left and went down a block before turning left again and heading back toward Central Avenue. The occasional house had a pale blue glow being cast upon the closed curtains as the people living there watched Jay Leno or the late news. One or two houses had a softer white glow on the curtains covering their bedroom windows as Mr. and Mrs. Average American twisted the sheets before calling it a night. One resident had his garage door open for ventilation as he wrenched on his 1960 Ford Starliner hardtop. Jose took note of him but kept on going; he wasn't making enough noise to disturb anyone, but he would know right where to come if dispatch got a call of complaint.

Another hour passed and late Thursday became early Friday. It was a balmy summer night and Jose decided to cruise past the city swimming pool. It wasn't uncommon for teenagers to sneak out of the house and scale the fence for a skinnydip before Mom and Dad found out they were gone. Jose turned right and made his way east on Trekell Road. The only traffic at one in the morning was a crappy 1986 Buick Skylark with a dragging muffler and a broken spring that let the right-rear corner sag.

"Patrol seven, Columbia City," spoke his radio.

Jose picked up the microphone. "This is seven."

"Seven, see the man at 304 Gerber Street in the Nelson Estates subdivision," his dispatcher told him. "Subject advises he has seen a suspicious vehicle driving up and down his street."

Jose thought back to the shitty Buick he'd seen awhile ago; it was headed away from the Nelson Estates area. Maybe the reason the rear suspension was sagging so badly was because something heavy had been stolen and stashed in the trunk. "Did subject advise make a model?"

"Negative, seven."

"Understood, dispatch. My ETA is four minutes." Jose wheeled his Crown Victoria patrol car around and headed for the Nelson Estates.

Jose arrived at the address and saw a late-twenties man dressed in a bathrobe looking out the biggest window. That man disappeared as Jose got out and approached the front door, sliding his baton into his belt. The door opened and he stepped out. "Thank you for coming. Please come in."

Mr. Bathrobe stepped back and let Jose enter ahead of him. "You saw a suspicious car prowling your street, sir?"

"Uhh… no," he replied nervously. "That's what I told your dispatcher. I apologize for lying but we need to keep this as discreet as possible. You'll understand when you see my problem." Mr. Bathrobe gestured him to follow. Keeping his hand on the grip of his baton, Jose followed warily—it was never good to lie to the police, no matter how discreet things needed to be kept.

Mr. Bathrobe turned into a bedroom. It was softly lit within; obviously there had been some romancing going on. There were burning candles all over the place, and an open and empty Barry White CD jewelcase stood next to the portable boom box atop the dresser. Jose watched the homeowner gesture at the queen-size bed and saw the romancing had led to some good time full-on sex—a pretty woman, obviously nude under the top sheet covering her, was held in a half-spread eagle position by two pairs of handcuffs.

"We can't get the handcuffs unlocked," said Mr. Bathrobe, his voice a nervous squeak.

Jose tried really hard not to laugh. "I see."

"We figured the police handle handcuffs everyday and would know how to handle something like this," the woman added. Her voice turned sarcastic. "That's because Mister Cheapskate here wouldn't cut them off like I told him to!"

Officer Ocala felt laughter try to surge over him, but he engaged all his training to keep it in check. "Ma'am, I have to ask—"

"He's my husband and today is our three-year anniversary," she interrupted. "My identification is in my purse in the living room if you need to look."

"I'll look after we get you out of there." Jose held his hand out to Mr. Bathrobe and he produced a set of handcuff keys. He got to work, trying his professional best to ignore the woman's mouthwatering good looks.

Jose fiddled with the handcuffs, wiggling the key in the lock. The problem was obvious to him within a moment—the handcuffs were cheaply made, with no or little thought to precision of assembly. Even though she had allowed her husband to captivate her with handcuffs to the bed's headboard posts, she had struggled hard enough to distort the ratchet mechanism inside. "How much did these cost?"

"They'll end up costing him two months of no sex and sleeping on the couch," the woman grumbled, highly annoyed.

"Honey, please—" Mr. Bathrobe started to protest.

"Don't you `honey, please' me, you cheap-ass dipshit!" she snarled. "I told you those things looked too cheap when we were looking on the Internet!"

"So you ordered them from a website?" Jose asked, his tone professional.

"Yes, sir. It was a website that specializes in gear for the Hell's Angles type of biker," she said. "I thought they looked cheap and poorly made, but my dear-sweet husband Mister Thrifty here said they looked just fine to him." She looked at her guilty-looking husband, mightily peeved. "They looked fine to him because of the nine dollar price tag!"

Officer Jose worked even harder to suppress a broad smile as he continued his work. "Professional quality handcuffs cost the department thirty-eight dollars a set. The cheap kind like these are easily jammed and are mostly for looking the part."

"`For amusement only'?" she asked, her tone ringing with challenge.

"Exactly."

"That's what it said on the website!" she snarled, trying not to complicate Jose's job by struggling her way to freedom for the purpose of kicking her husband's ass. "But no! My know-it-all husband said, `that's merely a disclaimer to keep them from getting sued!'"

Jose knew Mr. Bathrobe would soon find lodging at Camp Lack-of-Nookie and likely be there for the foreseeable future.

Work continued on the handcuffs as the restrained woman watched and waited. Meanwhile, Mr. Bathrobe stewed. After a few minutes, Jose said, "I need a long, thin screwdriver."

"Straight of Phillips?" asked Mr. Bathrobe.

The woman and Jose exchanged glances. His expression silently said it all—you married this guy?! He didn't need it to unscrew some screws, he needed it to reach into the mechanism to force the ratchet pawl out of the way. Being unable to figure that out demonstrated that she was the apparent brain of the family. "Straight, please," Jose said with a straight face. Mr. Bathrobe nodded and departed for the garage.

Jose watched him go, and then looked back at the woman. "He's a twink but he's sweet," she said, answering the unasked question.

"You did consent to this?"

"Yes. It's our three-year anniversary and we were looking to spice up our sex life with something out of the ordinary."

"You did indeed get that," Jose quipped. The woman wanted—and tried—to scowl at him, but her grin stole away much of the effect.

Her husband returned with two long-bladed screwdrivers, one bigger than the other. Jose selected the thinner one and inserted the bit between the stamped outer shell pieces of the handcuffs. He could feel the ratchet pawl through the tool but couldn't get it to move. "I have to squeeze them tighter to take the load off the ratchet." He told her. "If they jam in that tighter setting, they'll have to be cut off. I have a set of bolt cutters in my patrol car."

"I understand," she said. "Go ahead."

Jose worked on the ratchet as she watched and tried to hold still. Finally, there was a "tick" and the handcuff opened most of the way. "Can you get your hand through there?"

"I'll try." Jose held the bracelet still as she narrowed her hand and pulled. It wasn't enough. After a couple of moments, Jose squeezed her hand even further and walked it through as gently as possible as she gritted her teeth against the pain. But it worked. Her right hand came out of its confinement.

"That's better," she said with a sigh. "You said you had some cutters?"

"Yes."

"Go fetch them. That hurt like a bitch."

"Dear—" Mr. Bathrobe started.

"To hell with the eighteen dollars!" she growled. She looked at the alarm clock on the dresser. "That took thirty minutes for just one! There's one more to free me, and two more to get them off the bed! Unless of course you like the thought of explaining to your snoopy grandmother why we have two pairs of handcuffs hanging on our headboard?"

"Okay, fine," grumbled Mr. Bathrobe, annoyed. His Grandma Maye liked to pry into the sex lives of younger people to relive her own long-gone sex life vicariously through them.

"I'll go get them," Jose said as he stood. He allowed himself to smile broadly on his way to and from his patrol car, but reasserted his professional demeanor once back in the bedroom.

He found her sitting up and using the headboard as a backrest. Her freed arm held the top sheet over her chest and her nudity as they watched Officer Ocala insert the lower jaw between the handcuff's hoop and her wrist. The tool made short work of the cheap restraint and she rubbed her wrists gratefully. Jose then made like a good neighbor and cut the hoops holding the handcuffs to the headboard's decorative posts.

The couple displayed their driver's licenses without a fuss upon request. They were indeed married; their last names and addresses matched each other, and the house's address matched their licenses. The couple, Jeff and April Marche, offered a cup of coffee and a danish for his time but he declined—he had to get back on his rounds. They thanked him profusely as he departed.

Jose was laughing his ass off as he resumed his patrol down the quiet residential street.

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Copyright © 2008 by the author, John W. Adams, Jr. All rights reserved.