Metamorphosis Ch. 03

I sat listening in (mute buttons are wonderful things). She was really into role playing. "I'm going to pretend to be Betty. I'll even use her first name." I listened to her talk to the guys whose letters she liked: one guy was so angry about his marriage failing, he was a lousy prospect.

"I want a good time" Tina told me after talking to him, "not baggage".

A few men talked about looking for the "right woman". That made us both uncomfortable. She just wanted dates, not a long term commitment.

In the end there were three "possibles."

The black guy, Paul, was a manufacturing manager, he had been divorced for three years, and was going to be transferred out of state in a month - that was a definite advantage. He seemed a bit crude to me, but that wasn't a problem for Tina. She was looking for 'different' guys. Different from me.

Phil sounded like a nerd - a CPA of all things, but there was something about him that appealed to Tina. He had never been married. "Just playing the field, meeting some wonderful people" he said. Sounds like a loser. Maybe I AM a little prejudiced there.

Joseph was a cop. He'd been divorced three times, he said, and decided he'd rather be a cop than be married, but he still liked to be around women. "So long as you weren't kidding about not wanting to get serious, we could have a good time" he claimed.

By the end of the evening, she had set up a "let's meet for a drink" date with Paul and "dinner at Marybelle's", a nice restaurant, with (loser) Phil, the CPA.

Joseph, the cop, had an interesting line. He soon established that Tina (AKA Betty) had just separated. "Look, I know how hard separation is. I've gone through it three times. Cops don't make good husbands, I guess, at least this one doesn't. Anyhow, you have to start somewhere. I don't want a serious relationship, and your ad says you don't, either. Meet me for a cup of coffee or something, we'll talk, and we'll be able to figure out if we even want to see each other any more."

Joseph had some other advantages as far as I was concerned. He lived in Queens - 60 miles away. That, in the jargon of singles here, makes him "geographically undesirable". He's just too far away. Any dates would be casual - and infrequent. No chance of, shall we say, 'romantic entanglements'.

Tina agreed. "OK - where?"

No, it wasn't at Dunkin Donuts, smartass. They agreed to meet at the Candlelight Diner, a few miles from Northport, the next evening after Joseph finished his shift.

"That was pretty quick work" I told Tina when she hung up.

"We only have three weeks left, honey" she reminded me. I'd like to get a couple of dates in before it's too late."

We were both as excited as teenagers the next day, as Tina drove off on her first date, for a cup of coffee!

She didn't return for two hours!

That's a lot of coffee in anyone's book.

"What happened?" I demanded to know.

"We just sat and talked, and drank coffee. He's really pretty nice, and you know, maybe I might just develop a thing for men in uniforms."

"Are you going to see him again? Did he try to make a date or anything?"

"Yeah, he did. We're going to eat dinner there tomorrow - is that all right?"

"You mean, at the diner?"

"Yeah - big deal, isn't it? But Joseph says he has to be careful where he goes when he's in his blue bag - that's what he calls his uniform. He offered to take me to dinner someplace else over the weekend when he'd be off duty, but, you know, this seemed like a good idea, so. . ."

"Is this like going to be your first real date with him?"

"Bob, what are you doing? Keeping score or something? I don't think so; I think we can count tonight as a first date."

"Oh." I wasn't really sure just how I felt about that. Kind of excited, but kind of scared, too. The water here was getting deep really fast.

At bed time, Tina rolled to me, wanting to be held, wanting loving and romance. "Bob, I'm glad we're doing this. Thank you." she said.

"Is Joseph someone you might, you know. . ."

"I don't know. I feel safe with him, though, he's not aggressive or anything the way I'd expect a cop to be. . ."

By then I had her nightgown pulled up to her waist, and rolled onto her, erect, horny.

Imagining Joseph doing the same.

Man, do I need therapy.

We started. "I wonder," she said, "if I could really do. . . .you know, this with someone else. . ."

And just a couple of minutes later, still under me, actually moving with me, she murmured, in a small voice. . .

" . .yeah, yes, I think I could. . ."

The next night after her dinner she came home, eyes glistening. "He wanted a good night kiss - he kissed me in the parking lot! And he hugged me really tight, and even though he had on his uniform, I could tell, I could tell. . ."

"Tell what!"

"I think he had an erection! He held me tight against him, honey, and I'm pretty sure felt it! I think he's big!"

She talked about dinner, almost a fork by fork description but honestly, my mind was elsewhere. Joseph's job took a lot out of him, he told her. His wives, all three of them, felt he was more married to it than to them. "'And they were right,"' Tina repeated what he told her, and she reminded him that she sure didn't want a serious relationship so soon after separating, and besides, she was going to move away soon anyhow.

"Even so, he wants me to eat with him again tomorrow," she told me, and I agreed. Is that OK?"

Three dates in three nights!

That's THREE. The magic number as I recall.

"Sure!" I agreed.

Hey, why not? That *is* what I wanted after all.

Isn't it?

The special phone line rang early the next evening. "Betty, we had a sort of an emergency, and I'm working until 9 tonight. I'm sorry," he said.

"That's ok. I can meet you then," Tina offered.

"That's kind of a problem. I'll still be stuck in my uniform, and I wanted to get home and change, and take you out to a nice place. I'm really disappointed 'cause I'd really like to see you again." I remembered he lived a long way away - he wasn't going to drive all the way home, and back out here again.

"Uh, Betty, look don't think I'm too forward or anything, but maybe I could maybe order a pizza and bring some beer over to your place?"

Tina paused, exchanged startled glances with me, and then without prompting, said "Ok. Sure. Yeah, I like that idea."

She gave him directions to her 'apartment.'

"I hope it's ok to bring him here. I think so. This is all so new to me. I'm a little scared. I'm glad you'll be watching, though," she said to me. That evening she, wearing a simple button down the front dress and sensible loafers, went down to assume her role. "Wish me luck!"

.

"I'm sorry you'll be moving away" were the first words he uttered when Tina let him in. "I think you're kind of special, and I wanted to get to know you better."

He was in his full patrol uniform. "I gotta get rid of some of this stuff."

His coat come off, and his equipment belt. Tie off, shirt opened at the neck.

He opened the bag he brought with him, and pulled out two Stouts. "I hope you don't mind."

She took one of the beers, and just as it was being opened our front door bell rang. I got on a robe - yes, I was naked on our bed, watching channel 30 - to find the pizza guy there.

"It must be my tenant who ordered that," I said, pointing him toward the path around to the apartment.

I was back in the bedroom in time to see Joseph paying for the pizza, and apologizing to the delivery man. "Yeah", the guy was saying, "it's only after 9 and I think your landlord was already in bed. I must have disturbed him."

'Betty' can be wicked, sometimes. She went to the phone, and dialed our number!

"Mr. Barnes, it's Betty downstairs." she said to me. "I'm sorry about the pizza delivery confusion. The delivery guy didn't disturb you, did he? I know you must have been in bed."

I made some noises in the phone, and she, turned, smiling, towards the HAVC vents so that Joseph couldn't see, stuck her tongue out at me, and hung up!

They were soon sitting on the sofa, beer, pizza, and napkins occupying them.

"Some fancy date, huh, Betty?"

"Joseph, it's different, and kind of fun. I'm glad you came."

Their conversation meandered as slices were eaten.

"Joseph, tell me more about being married three times. What happened? Did you choose wrong wives, or did you cheat, or did they, or what?"

He paused for a while. "It's not easy to talk about, I don't like screwing up. My shrink told me I'm like a lot of other cops. When you run around with a gun all day, expecting people to obey you, you get to be control freaks. That carried over to my marriages - I'm OK for a while, but then I want to control everything! What about you?"

"My marriage was all right," Tina/Betty said, "I'll tell you about it, but tell me more about this control thing."

"Control!" went though my mind like a bolt. "Convents control everything! That explains a lot, even about her dealing with the flooding thing. She likes being controlled!"

Joseph was talking: "Sometimes I wanted to control everything. Sometimes I even handcuffed my last wife. I was having fun, but after a while she didn't like it. It's hard to explain. . . so, tell me about your story for a while."

"All right. My marriage was OK, I thought, but my husband just wasn't happy with me sexually. He was the only guy I'd ever had sex with, and, you know, I just didn't know how to please him."

"He must have been a jerk."

"No, he really isn't. It's just that, like, all of my life I thought 'sex' was 'making love'. He wanted it just be sex sometimes. Not making love, with all of the inner stuff that goes on, just having physical pleasure."

"Nothing wrong with that."

"Yeah, but I don't know how to do it that way. It seems so strange"

"You should try it sometime. Let your hair down, it can be fun. You been dating a lot since you split?"

"Nope. I just couldn't get my courage up. Joseph, you're the first guy I've dated since I moved into this apartment."

"Oh. I didn't realize that. I guess that's an honor. Are you scared getting out in the world again?"

"Yeah, and since I'm moving back to Pennsylvania next week I didn't want to start anything here. But then I figured out a couple of nights out would be fun."

Joseph nodded, the story made sense to him.

By now the pizza was gone.

She wandered over to his equipment belt. "What all do you carry on here, anyway? It looks heavy."

"You can see the pistol - it's a 9 millimeter automatic. We carry a baton" - he showed her that - "pepper spray, a couple sets of 'cuffs. . ."

"More than one set?"

"Yeah. The department issues us one set, but most of us buy extras. Bad guys come in pairs, sometimes."

"Do you use the cuffs on women, too?"

"Oh yeah - department regulations. We have to. Women are dangerous, too, you know."

"What's it like to be handcuffed?"

"Well, you're pretty helpless, unless you've had a lot of experience wearing them. They're not all that bad, I guess. Want to try them on?"

"Are you serious?"

"Yeah."

"Ok. Show me!"

"Ok". In an instant he had her hands cuffed behind her back. "See, you aren't much of a threat to me when you have these on, but it's not uncomfortable, is it?"

"No. . . I do feel pretty helpless, though."

"Well then, in that case. . ." he turned her to him, embraced her, and kissed her - quickly, but firmly. He then turned her again, and had the cuffs released in an instant.

"There you go. Just like Houdini!"

"Uh!" she said - "do you do that to all the women you handcuff?"

"I don't think I could get away with that. You said you felt helpless, and it's that control thing of mine. I have to be careful about that."

He went to sit on the sofa - she went to the wall light switch, turned it off, so the lighting was just from a table lamp - more than enough for my sensitive cameras, but more romantic.

"Here it comes" I thought/hoped.

He sat beside her, got an arm around her, turned her face towards his, and a kiss started.

She just didn't respond - she sat there, her arms at her sides.

"Maybe I shouldn't have done that - not then, and not before," he almost apologized.

"No. No, I liked it. Joseph, I'm just a little scared. You're the first guy I kissed, since, you know. . ."

"You're really up tight about me being here, aren't you? I mean, if you're not having fun maybe I should go."

"No, it's not that. Look, this dating stuff is all new to me. I don't even know how it's supposed to go. . ."

"I do. It's supposed to be fun. Like, like, well, eating pizza or something. Like, well, like handcuffing you. Man, in the old days, if I had a prisoner like you. . ."

She interrupted - "You liked cuffing me?"

"Sure. Like I told you, I like being in control."

"Funny, I, uh, kind of liked feeling helpless, and NOT being in control."

Joseph is a smart cop. He picked up that idea right away. "Well, some people do like stuff like that."

"What do you mean?"

"Look. Some of us like being in control, and some people are more comfortable when they're being dominated - it means they're not responsible for whatever happens, I guess."

"You know a lot about that stuff, huh?"

"Yeah, like I said I played games like that with my last wife a few times - it's a big turn on for me. It was fun for her, too."

"Tell me about it."

"Look, I don't like talking about the ex wives, OK? I'll tell you a little bit. We did it like this. I'd be in charge. I did whatever I wanted - whatever I thought would be fun for me, and for her. But - and this part is very important - if I started to go too far all she had to do was say a magic word - we used 'Herman' - and I had to stop, right then, and put things right, like taking off the handcuffs, and everything. No questions, no pleading. The cuffs or whatever came off, I stopped what I was doing, period. Simple, huh?"

"But you could do anything you wanted!?"

"Right up until she said 'Herman'. That's right."

"So, what kind of things did you do?"

"Uh - well, sexy things, you know."

"Well, yeah I guessed that much. But what things, specifically? Tell me a few."

"Come on, Betty, this is embarrassing. I hardly know you."

"Joseph, I don't know anything about stuff like that. I want to. Please tell me."

"OK. Like, sometimes we would act out a rape or something. Or, I'd handcuff her and undress her and we'd have sex. Or, like in real life, I'd be a cop. . . ."

"That's not so bad. Except maybe the rape. I'm not sure about that. What else? What's the worst thing you ever did with her?"

"Come on, Betty. . ."

"No, tell me. Come on, I'm really interested."

"She really got turned on by guns."

"Oh. I was raised in Pennsylvania, I like them, too."

"No, that's not what I mean. Like, once, well, I unloaded my nine millimeter, and we played touching games and stuff with it, that's all."

"What do you mean 'touching games'?"

"Like, she liked to feel it on her neck, things like that."

I could see Tina's body language. This was getting to her!

"Joseph - did you only touch her neck with it?"

"Uh - no."

"What else did you touch?"

"Damn it, it was foreplay, all right!?"

"Her breasts?"

"Yeah, sure, her breasts."

"And more?"

"Yeah, more, we used it like a sex toy: it was foreplay, damn it! Look I don't want to talk about her any more, OK?"

There was a pause.

"OK," she agreed. "No more talk about that. There're still a couple of cans of beer left. Let's open them."

She got up, did that, got the CD player running, and sat next to Joseph, each with a beer. The room was quiet for a moment.

"I guess I understand now about you wanting to be in control."

"I don't want to talk about it any more!"

"I didn't mean to talk about her. It's just that it's all so new to me. Joseph, do you always follow the rules, like the Herman rule, when you play?"

"Absolutely! If I didn't, and I was playing with someone who wasn't my wife, I could be accused of anything. I'd be in a whole world of trouble. Like, if I had someone handcuffed, they could accuse me of false arrest, or kidnapping, or rape, or anything. I'd lose everything; I could even go to jail. Believe me, for a cop, that's real misery, could be fatal."

"So you have to trust whoever you're controlling - trust her a lot, huh?"

"Yeah, but she has to trust me, too."

'Betty' drank from her can. So did he.

I thought I could see where this was going. She asked again, "And if you were playing, all the person would have to do is say 'Herman", right? It's that simple?"

"Yeah, why do you keep asking me that? But yeah, Herman stops everything." Joseph was looking at her, questioningly. "You never did bondage or submission, things like that, did you?"

"A long time ago, submission, yes, but it was a religious thing, not a sexual one. I've always been pretty inhibited sexually."

"Submission takes sexuality completely out of your hands, you give yourself completely to your master - at least that's what the boss is called."

"Oh."

You want to try it out, don't you Betty?"

"If I did, would you stop if I say Herman?"

How obvious, I thought - it IS flooding!

"Ahhh. Yes. If you want to play, it'll be great! I NEVER played before with someone I didn't know really well already, and I hardly know you. Jesus! Do you really want to?"

Small voice - "I do."

Joseph stood up, and looked at the woman he knew as Betty.

His voice changed temper - it got lower almost threatening.

"Stand up, Miss!"

She did.

"Put your arms behind you."

She did.

He turned her around - I could hear a click - and she was handcuffed again.

"Oh, I'm gonna love this!" he said.

"Don't hurt me. . ."

"It's not about hurting. It's about controlling. It's about stuff like this."

He turned her again, kissed her again.

She didn't protest - she stood there, almost unresponsive.

"I like this. You're mine to do whatever I want with." He turned her again, so he was behind her, and he pulled her to him, his hands creeping up her sides, still holding her close.

"Things like this."

His hands moved in front, one below the other, moving, down, then up, caressing her torso.

They moved higher, and higher, to just under her breasts.

I noticed she leaned back against him.

"I like doing things like this." I watched as his palms turned upward, under her breasts, supporting them, weighing them, from beneath...

"See, Betty," he continued, "now nothing that happens is caused by you; it's all being done by me. You're totally innocent. I, on the other hand. . . "

I could see Tina take a sharp breath! She was being touched sexually, blatantly, and she was helpless. Flooding!!! I'll bet she was!!!

She said nothing, still not resisting, not moving.

Finally his hands were on her blouse, over her breasts.

"I can't stop you from doing that, can I?"

"No!" gruffly.

"I'm helpless now."

"Um hmm."

He leaned down, kissing at her ear.

She tilted her head, making it easier for him.

He bent more, his mouth tracing from ear to neck.

"Oooh. That's nice" she said, in a whisper.

"There's a lot more to come." His mouth was busy again.

"You're going awfully fast. . ."

"So? It's not like you could stop me. I'll do what I want with you. You're mine to play with."

After a moment, he maneuvered her so that he could reach his equipment belt - one of his hands found his baton!

Still holding a breast with one hand, he brought the baton up in front of the both of them.

He rubbed it lightly along the side of her head, down beside her ear.