Loss of Innocence

"Lehka!" I shouted, giving her a massive hug. "You came."

"Anything for you Max," she choked out during my boa constrictor squeeze.

I held her at arm's length. "You looked like you haven't aged a day." Then I picked up one of the gray hairs on her head. "Well, maybe a couple of days."

"You look great Max. No foolin'."

"That's what a few months of sobriety will do."

"So sorry to hear about Rach and Brianna."

"It's why you're here."

We got to the top of the stairs. I looked at her for direction.

"Room 205," she said, looking at the plastic fob on her key. No fancy cards at this motel. Old school keys.

"Next door to mine," I observed, stating the obvious.

"That was the idea."

I opened the door for her and we carried her bags in. The room was configured the same as mine. There was a door between our rooms that was locked. She unlocked her side.

"I think we'll be spending a lot of time together over the next week," she said. Was her voice dripping with sexual innuendo or was it my imagination?

She opened her suitcase on the collapsible folding luggage caddy. "I'll change and freshen up. See you in half an hour?" she asked.

I was already halfway out the door. "You got it."

* * *

I unlocked my side of the pass through door and opened it. I decided to take a shower and change my clothes into something nice. Tattered jeans and a t-shirt probably wasn't the best look for me. I put on a summer dress, something breezy. I didn't usually wear dresses. I looked at myself in the mirror. Still holding it together, even at forty. Of course my breasts were my most noticeable attribute, but a little make-up and a nice dress made me presentable.

Lehka came through the door. She also had shed her jeans in favor of a blouse and skirt. The blouse was unbuttoned enough for me to admire her cleavage. She was always a good looking girl.

"Night on the town Max?"

"I'll take you through my usual routine. First Nicky's, then the Landing."

"Sounds perfect."

She drove. Nicky's was only a five minute drive and she remembered the way. The small parking lot in front of the diner was full, so we parked a bit down the street and walked back past modest brick ranch houses. The diner was an old trailer with white aluminum siding. I opened the ancient wood screen door and held it open for my new guest. The dollar bills pinned to the wall fluttered in the breeze.

Nicky skirted past me and hugged my companion. "Lehka, it's been years. You look as lovely as ever."

Lehka beamed, maybe more than when she saw me. "Oh Nicky, I can't tell you how good it is to see you." Everyone treated Nicky as their second mother.

"So how's your godchild... Rina was it?"

"You have a very good memory Nicky." Lehka was already feeling warm and fuzzy and so was I.

She pointed to her rounded waistline. "Honey, it's about the only thing I have left."

"I'm sure you were a beautiful young woman," said Lehka, always knowing the right thing to say.

Nicky looked at her wistfully. "Thirty years ago. I had packs of men follow me like dogs."

"Men haven't changed," said Lehka.

"Oh, I'm sure of that," Nicky said. I'm sure she was thinking of my pussy hound partner Lanny when she said it. I caught Lanny looking at me that way, and he knows I'm a lesbian.

We sat down at a table for two. Most of the other tables were occupied. I could see Nicky's eyes wander elsewhere. Someone was waving for her attention.

"Hey Nicky, why don't you take care of the other folks. Just bring us whatever you want," I told her.

"Thanks honey," she said as she pivoted to head back to the kitchen. Lehka watched her amble back.

We both rearranged the silverware in front of us. It was cheap flatware, but at least it all matched. There was a moment of awkwardness. Were we getting back together? Were we going to have sex?

So I did what I always did at these critical moments in a relationship. I fumbled.

"So Lehka. I was reading that Ohio State had a great recruiting class."

Lehka kind of screwed up her face. "Max. I didn't take vacation days and come all the way here to talk about football."

"I always seem to miss the elephant in the room," I confessed. I wasn't good at these moments.

"Fucking Tyrannosaurus rex." Lehka put a finer point on it. Like I said, she always said the right thing.

"Yeah..." I said, buying time to figure out what I was going to say. I knew if I said something about the Reds she'd throw her water in my face.

"I thought about you..." I started. It was a weak beginning and Lehka had obviously been thinking about this for a long time. Why was I such a doofus when it came to relationships?

"Max... you asked for me. Lanny called me and told me you were going to go on a drunken bender if I didn't come. I'm here. Talk to me." She was getting impatient.

Shit, I forgot how she made Grade One. She was a smart motherfucker and I was always going to be one step behind. OK. Now was the time to tell the truth, even if it didn't come out right.

"My call to you a few weeks ago really brought you to the front of my mind." This was a much better start. I was feeling better. She was paying attention instead of interrupting me. "You know, all the shit that's happened here. Five years zipped by in a heartbeat." But I was still stalling. Get to it, I told myself.

"I really like you Lehka, and..."

Lehka stopped me. "You told me you loved me." Such a phrase was not soon forgotten. I hadn't forgotten.

"I do Lehka, I do."

"You told me you loved me Max. You broke my heart." I could see a tear welling up in her eye. I had already fucked this up royally.

"Look Lehka. Let's enjoy Nicky's dinner and then go to the Landing for a drink. I promise I'll only have one. We've got all night to talk."

She backed off a bit. I was relieved I said something that made sense. Of course we had all night. We had the whole fucking week to hash it out. She was wound tight as a spring. I'm sure she realized she was coming on strong.

She put her hand on top of mine. The beautiful Lehka returned. "You're right Max. We haven't seen each other in five years. We've got plenty of time to talk this through. I'm sorry. You know I run a department of sixteen so I always have to be sharp and to the point. Sometimes I can't turn it off."

"Another reason to take this a bit more slowly." Now I was back on an even keel with her.

"Right," she said. She settled into her seat.

Nicky's timing was impeccable. Saved by the bell. She brought her trademark beef roast with carrots and potatoes. The whole plate was swimming in a lake of thick, rich brown gravy. I watched Lehka sniff the steam rising from her plate.

"Oh Nicky. I missed your cooking." Lehka took a forkful of the fluffy mashed potatoes and dunked them in the gravy pond.

"Ummm. This is better than sex," she told Nicky.

Nicky knew that Lehka and I were an item. That night at the Landing was part of common folklore at the police station. She gave us a mischievous smile. "Maybe you're going to find out." She winked and walked away.

I took a bite of the potatoes. Lehka watched me as I licked the gravy off the tines of the fork. Subtlety wasn't my strong suit. I knew what I wanted. She did too.

She looked at me and gave a quick snorting laugh. "I get it Max. I've been thinking about this a long time."

Maybe it wasn't as long as for me. We broke up for the simple reason that her family and her career were in Columbus and my career was in Cincinnati. She was a romantic. How could we have ever made it work? This was a one week thing.

"I have too," I fibbed. I should have been thinking about her the whole time we were apart if I really loved her.

* * *

We were stuffed after leaving Nicky's. Lehka said that it was a long day, and she asked to skip the Landing. We had the whole week to see everyone. We drove back to the motel. She went into her room without saying a word so I went into mine. I wasn't sure what was going on, but I wasn't going to make the first move. She was the one who had been thinking about it for such a long time.

I turned on the Reds game and sat on the bed. I twisted the cap off a bottle of water and took a long draw. Dinner was salty, and I was thirsty. The cool water made me think of Lehka. The deep shimmering pools in those dark eyes. The game faded away as I started thinking about her. When we made love. When I told her that I loved her. It was a too short glorious period of my life when I got to look into those eyes every day.

I heard the door separating our rooms open. Lehka was wearing sandals. Nothing else. She leaned against the door frame. I saw her brown skin, still stippled with small droplets of water from the shower she'd just taken. Her hair was wet, and hanging down past her breasts. All the curl was taken out by the weight of the water. Water dripped off the ends of her hair. She shaved her pussy. That was a change. It was wet, but I think for a different reason. Also a little tattoo on her thigh. It was a butterfly. I used to call her my little butterfly.

The game was forgotten. Everything was forgotten for that moment. Brianna... Rachel, all of the good and bad. It was my chance to try to capture lightning in a bottle.

"You're every bit as beautiful as the day I first saw you," I told her. I had finally said the right thing at the right time.

"And you are everything that I want."

She stood up straight, kicked off her sandals and padded into my room in her bare feet. Water dripped onto the carpet. She turned off the television and stood in front of me.

"Kiss me Max."

She pushed me back onto the bed and fell into my arms.

The passion of a five year hiatus came welling up, immersing us in a field of kisses, on her lips, on her neck and on her breasts. I felt her wet hair clinging to my body. I remembered why I told her I loved her. I wanted her desperately.

My hand went to her sex. It was slippery and wet. Her lips welcomed my fingers in, and before long she was moaning. I captured one of her dark brown nipples in my mouth, feeling the hardness and bumpiness of the skin. Her back arched as my fingers found that perfect rhythm in harmony with the undulation of her hips. She called my name. She held me tight. It was as if we had never separated.

When her orgasm subsided she rolled off the bed. I admired her cute tush as she went back into her room and brought back a pink vibrator, a bullet style one like I have.

"Get it wet babe," she told me. This was a new Lehka. The naughty Lehka. I liked Lehka 2.0.

I put the entire shaft in my mouth and made a show of it as I pulled it out slowly. Two can play at this slutty game. It was shiny with spit.

She rubbed it lengthwise up my slit, wetting it further and giving me a sizzle of pleasure, then dragging it back and forth.

It was too intense. "You're teasing me," I choked out.

"That's the point Max."

She did it until I begged her to stop.

"Fuck me with it," I told her.

"Get on your hands and knees Max."

My God. Good girl Lehka had been up to no good over the past five years. I got on my hands and knees and raised my ample booty high in the air. I felt the tip of the vibrator push into my slit, filling me up. She turned it on. I flinched. She spread the cheeks of my ass, lapping at my furiously winking hole while she fucked me hard with the vibrator. This was no innocent girl any more. Her tongued rimmed my ass and then pushed to enter it.

I let myself be carried to some dark celestial plane of wicked pleasure.

"Lehka," I gasped. "How...?"

She tongue fucked my ass. I'm sure I woke up the people in the unit below. I used words Leka didn't know. My body was hers. To the core.

She purred as she licked me, a low throated growl. I wanted to remember this sinful feeling. The feeling of unadulterated pleasure. Her tongue was deep in my ass. She pulled down hard on my nipples. I shrieked.

"We're going to wake up everyone at the motel," I cried out.

She pulled her head up, just for a moment. "I don't fucking care."

She went back to eating my ass.

There were too many orgasms. I felt completely wrung out. I rolled over and held her tight. She raised up on her elbows.

"Max?"

"Yeah," I said, in an post-orgasmic glow.

"You talk too much."

* * *

I was sitting up in bed in my birthday suit, my head propped up with several pillows. Lehka was naked as well.

"I always wanted to get back together with you," she confessed to me.

"I've even thought about moving to Cincinnati."

She never mentioned the last part to me. I didn't think I could tear myself away from the Queen City. I was born and raised here, and imagined I would die here as well. Besides, with all of my ups and downs, I was practically unemployable anywhere else. I never thought she'd consider moving away from her family and her career. Stupid Max. She loved me that much and I didn't see it.

I wasn't getting any younger. Maybe we could make it work this time. But how?

Lehka laid her head on my chest. I raised my head up to look into her dark brown eyes. "Why me," I asked myself. My life was a series of train wrecks. Did she really want to get on board? I knew it wouldn't come out right, but I had to ask her. I did love her, and part of love was telling the one you love that your love was toxic.

I sat up straight. She reluctantly moved her head and sat up next to me.

"What's up Max? Something's eating at you."

She looked so beautiful. Her soft curves. My Indian princess. I wanted her to stay but I had to say my piece.

"Lehka, you know me better than anyone. I want to make sure you know what you want. I do love you but I also know that I have a history of destroying relationships with the ones I love. Are you sure?"

She smiled and kissed me on the cheek. "Oh Max, sweet Max," she started. "I do know you." Her hand wandered down to my breast. She playfully twisted my nipple that gave me a zing of pleasure. "Max... you're like a drug. You make me feel good... and I want more."

She cupped my breast with the palm of her hand as if she was weighing it. I couldn't help but sigh. "You're dangerous Max. I'm the sweet, innocent Indian girl. I'm smart. I studied hard in school. I followed the rules. I've always tried to be the good girl. That's why I've never told my parents I'm gay. They have this illusion that someday I'll see the light and marry a good Indian boy and give them many grandsons. I'm a pleaser Max. I want to please everyone."

Then her hand went lower, her fingers raking through the matted hairs of my pussy, feeling the wet, ripe lips they guarded and that she so recently plundered.

"But there's a darker side to me Max. The sweet Lehka is a veneer that I show everyone. But you... you bring out something else in me."

She put two fingers inside me. She was waking the beast again. I lifted up my hips to meet her. She was toying with me.

"I like danger. That's why I became a cop instead of a doctor. You bring something out of my soul. Something raw. Some call it a zest for life. Some call it living on the edge. I want to walk that edge with you Max. You were my first. I've been with a few women since, but none of them measured up to you. I feel alive with you. Every nerve ending. Every pore in my skin. You make me feel, Max."

Her fingers churned inside me. She knew how to touch me. She knew how to make me cum at her whim. My breathing became ragged.

"This is my answer Max."

I watched her slide her index finger in her mouth to wet it. She was so hot. Her perfect olive skin pressed against mine, white dappled with freckles. With a naughty glint in her eye she slid her saliva coated finger under me, finding the crinkled skin of my anus and rimming me with it as she fucked me with her other hand. I could do no more than pant, and let her possess my body. The finger went inside me, deep in my back channel, and the pleasure soon came in waves, tossing me back and forth in the bed. I called her name. Then again. Until I threw my head back and issued a low, throaty moan from that beast that lived within me. Her answer was a resounding yes.

Chapter Three

The Phone Call

The next day was Monday, and I had put in for the rest of the week off. We had it planned out. We'd go for a run in Hopkins Park, lunch downtown at the Bearcat Club and then dinner at Nicky's. We put on our running outfits and put in a solid 5K. Lehka was five years younger than me, and more fit. She finished the course and had time to buy us both coffees before I finished the run, panting and hunched over with my hands on my knees. I fucking hated running.

"Middle age is creeping up on you Max," she chided me as she handed me my coffee. She pinched around my midsection. "And some love handles?"

I put her hand on the swell in my sweat soaked Dri-Fit shirt. "But my tits are bigger, and that's all you care about, isn't it you perv?"

"Gross," she spat out. "I love your tits, but you need a shower first."

I kissed her on the cheek. "Love me like I am," I told her.

"Unfortunately that is the case."

* * *

We did shower and then went to the Bearcat Club. It was a pretty sedate lunch crowd. Lehka had never been there so I showed her around. We made a stop at the bar. Grace was setting up for the evening's happy hour. She was sixty and crusty and made a mean Manhattan. She was my kind of gal. She was washing highball glasses when we approached the empty bar.

"Who've you got there Max?" she asked me without looking up, her hands still working in the sink.

"Lehka Singh. A detective in Columbus. We worked a case together a few years back and now she's visiting me."

Grace put a glass on the drying mat and wiped her hands on a dish towel. She could see how Lehka had cozied up next to me.

"Looks like a lot more than a visit," she cracked.

Lehka put her arm around me and kissed me on the cheek. "We have a thing going."

Grace chuckled while she appraised my girlfriend. "That much is obvious. You have to watch out for that one," she said, offering sage advice and pointing to me. "She's trouble, and that's with a capital "T."

"In River City?" I asked her, in an obvious reference to The Music Man.

"With a capital "T" that rhymes with "P" and that stands for pool," Grace added, finishing the line.

"You're a laugh riot Grace," I told her sarcastically.

"That's what everyone tells me Max. So can I get you something?"

"I was bragging about your Manhattans."

"Of course you were."

"Could you make us one?"

"We'll share it," added Lehka, showing Grace who the boss was in this relationship. She smiled at me. She approved of my choice.

"You guys having lunch here?"

"Uh huh," I grunted.

"I'll have the drink brought to your table."

The lunch was great. Old school. Cobb salad for me. Pan fried trout for Lehka. We both enjoyed the Manhattan. Lehka had a sip and I finished it. I resisted the temptation to order another one.

We went back to the apartment. We were just about to get another play session in before dinner. I had just finished taking another shower when I heard my phone ringing.

"Should I get it?" Lehka asked.

"Yeah," I told her.

She rolled over in bed to retrieve it off the nightstand on my side of the bed. "Max's phone," she answered. I was drying my hair with a towel.

"Uh huh."

"Right."

"Thirty minutes."

She put the phone down without giving it to me. She was now sitting up in bed, resting against the headboard, and not saying anything. She was nude, and her skin and breasts were flawless. I toyed with the idea of hopping back in bed for a quickie. But of course curiosity got the best of me.

"What?" I asked her.

She covered herself up with a sheet, pulling it up to cover her breasts. "You need to be at the station in 30 minutes. Captain Sheehan cancelled your vacation. Apparently there's something big going down today."