The Dividing Line

About five minutes later she came out. There must have been a pair of gym shorts stuck between the t-shirts, because she came out wearing gold colored shorts, a white t-shirt emblazoned with an L.A. Laker's logo, some white gym socks and an almost new pair of black suede Pumas.

Ed McCarley's blood pressure probably went right off the scale. The girl that walked out of the bathroom in his apartment that day looked hotter than a firecracker on the fourth of July. Her hair was reddish-blond once the dirt and grime of the city was rinsed clear; it struck him after a moment that she looked like a very thin Sissy Spacek, the girl from that freaky Carrie movie. Suddenly his voice was shaking, and he looked away. "Well, how'd that feel?" He felt his face flushing.

Sara Wood walked into the room and sat on the couch next to Ed McCarley; she obviously knew enough about the world, and the baser instincts of men, to understand the effect she was having on him. "That felt really nice," she said with a smile, drifting into silence. She found herself looking at his forehead, and the wrinkles above his eyes, at his receding hairline. His left eyebrow was twitching!

But Ed McCarley stood up and walked away, headed toward the bathroom. "If ya don't mind, I'm gonna take a quick shower, then I'll take ya out to dinner. How's that sound?" 'And it's gonna be a cold fuckin' shower, to,' Ed McCarley thought.

Sara Wood sat on he sofa, smiling. 'So, he isn't like all the rest of them,' she said to herself. 'And he blushed! I hope he loves me as much as I love him!' In Sara Wood's world, people either used you, or loved you. While Sara Wood knew what it felt like to be used, she was pretty certain she had no idea what love was supposed to feel like, because she was certain that in her entire life, not one soul had ever loved her. But something deep in her belly was connecting to a primal scream that crawled through her very being, seeking connection, seeking release. Sara Wood knew that this was what love felt like.

She got up from the sofa as Ed McCarley walked into the bathroom and closed the door behind himself. She heard the water turn on and walked around the apartment, curious. She walked into his bedroom, around the bed, looked out the window. As she turned to go back to the living room she saw some magazines under the bed, and bent down to look at them. She couldn't read the words on the covers, but there were women on them, women with very few clothes on. She picked one up and opened it up; there were men sticking their things into women, women sucking on men's things, women sucking on women - which she thought looked really funny, and laughed at - and all of the women were wearing costumes. She had never seen anything like what these women had on; not anywhere, anytime. She picked up another magazine, and another, and they were all filled with pictures like the first one, and all the women were dressed up in these silly looking costumes.

Ed McCarley finished drying himself off, and cursed when he realized he'd left his change of clothes in his bedroom. He wrapped the towel around his waist, prepared himself to dash across the hall and into his bedroom. This he adroitly did, only to screech to a halt as he saw Sara Wood sitting on his bed giggling at pictures in last month's copy of Leg Show magazine. Like a deer caught in headlights, Ed McCarley froze.

But Ed McCarley had failed to appreciate the innocence harbored within this girl; she turned another page, completely focused on the new images, giving an appreciative ooh here and a stifled giggle there. At some point she became aware of Ed McCarley; she turned around to him and said, "Look at this!"

Ed McCarley, rarely at a loss for words, was now speechless. He shook his head to clear his mind after a few more moments in the headlights, and as nonchalantly as he possibly could, asked Sara Wood if he could have some privacy and get dressed. She grabbed a handful of the magazines and headed out of the room with them toward the sofa with a look of happy curiosity on her face! 'Oh, brother,' McCarley said to himself, closing the bedroom door behind her and wiping the band of sweat that had suddenly erupted on his forehead.

Soon they were headed back down the steps and out into the parking lot. He went up to a car covered with a heavy tan cloth and pulled the fabric away from the vehicle, revealing a tangerine colored Triumph TR6 convertible; Sara Wood squealed "Neat-o!" and clapped her hands as she jumped up and down.

"C'mon, help me put the top down," McCarley said, pointing to hooks and levers, giving her directions. They folded the top down, and he pulled a vinyl-canvas cover out of the space behind the seats and snapped it into place. He opened her door and showed her how to put on the rather complicated manual seatbelt, and he shut her door.

"Oh, cool," she said, rapidly drumming the dashboard in front of her as Ed McCarley turned the ignition and the Weber carburetors feeding the little six cylinder engine kicked the beast awake.

"Nothin' like an old British roadster," McCarley said as the car sputtered and burbled to life. "So," he went on, "you want dinner and a movie, or dinner and shopping at the mall?"

Sara Wood's eyes went round as saucers. "The mall?" she exclaimed. "Could we...I've never bought stuff at the mall before." When McCarley simply said, "Let's do it, kiddo!" she just squealed again, and bounced up and down in her seat.

Ed McCarley backed the little roadster up and pulled out onto the street, heading toward a gathering of restaurants clustered around the mall nearest to his apartment. "Whatcha feel like eating?" he asked. He looked across at Sara Wood, her long hair dancing in the slipstream, whipping around in her face as she laughed at the new experience of bouncing down an urban street in a roadster.

"I don't know. Can you pick something out?"

They had dinner at an upscale chain steakhouse. He delighted in watching her fiddle with onion rings, and he ordered her - again at her request - a king-sized filet mignons, fully dressed baked potato, and a heaping bowl of creamed spinach. She wolfed the food down again, and McCarley was certain he could see a little color return to her cheeks. After they had finished, he told her they would get dessert in the mall, and she again clapped her hands and bounced in her seat.

He took her to The Gap, and she picked out some - to Ed McCarley - wild low-cut slacks and some equally "interesting" shirts to go with them. He also got her some khaki shorts and a white cotton polo shirt. They went to one of the athletic shoe stores, and she picked out some tennis shoes and some hot pink Converse All Stars, which she found especially "cool" and asked to wear from the store. They made their way down to the food court, where she ordered some pineapple sherbert in a small sugar cone, and Ed ordered the same thing. They gathered her packages from the counter and went to sit by a fountain under a huge skylight in the center of the food court.

Ed McCarley watched Sara Wood lick the soft sherbert in the cone, watched as her small clean tongue licked at it white cream, and he saw his penis under her tongue in a flash that was as suddenly gone. He shook his head, and licked his cone, and in his mind's eye he was licking a chaste virginal vagina. Again, he shook the vision from his mind. He looked at her again and he saw abuse and neglect and a society that turned it's back on people like Sara Wood all too often. He saw the Sunday school hypocrites that complained about the tax burdens of helping the poor as they drove past starving families on their way to the Sunday buffet at the country club. And he had seen the incremental effects that suburban johns had inflicted on suburban runaways over all too many years. He thought of fucking Sara Wood and it made him feel sick to his stomach; not that she was ugly or a turn-off, far from it as he sat assessing her open, guileless, and very cute face. It was the thought of being the next cock in the line to be shoved in this poor unwitting girls face. If ever their was a victim of society's hypocrisy and overt neglect, Ed McCarley felt, here she is, sitting right next to me. Sara Wood was the poster child of the broken American dream.

"Can we go look at more stuff," she asked. The childlike aspect of her personality was in full flower, as if the prospect of having something to call her very own could erase the facts of the last nineteen years of her life - hit the erase button, as it were - and let her start all over again. Given the morality-free void that she had grown up in, perhaps it was remarkable she had the capacity to feel good about herself on any level. But, more to the point, she had a huge grin on her face, and she was happy in a very childlike, innocent way, for the first time in her life.

They took off and walked down a wing of the mall they hadn't seen yet, and she saw things she had never heard of in an infinitely bewildering progression. She didn't know how to ask for things, she had no experience with asking for anything from anyone who might have had the assets to give her anything at all. She had never been spoilt; it wasn't just that things were out of reach, it was that there had never been anyone there to teach her how to reach.

She saw shiny white iPods and had no idea what they were; the purpose of a laptop computer was a mystery to her. She saw posters of popular teen idols, and had no idea who or what they were. The corridors of the wealthy were a mystery to her, beyond comprehension. As they walked along they came to a store that had mannequins in the windows dressed like the women in the magazines she had seen at the police officers home. She stopped and looked at them; Ed McCarley looked embarrassed as he stopped along side her, noticed the locus of her attention. She ran inside.

She ran up to a figure that was outfitted all in white, kind of like what McCarley thought might be Hugh Hefners idea of a bridal lingerie-slut outfit. "Can I get it?!" she exclaimed. A salesgirl came over and looked at Sara Wood, then at Ed McCarley, and she gave him a knowing smirk. Ed nodded at the salesgirl, sent Sara Wood off to be measured. She looked at another outfit that was very pale lavender and said, "Oooh, ain't this pretty!?" Ed again nodded to the salesgirl, who solicitously added, "Would you like to see some shoes, Miss?" When Ed McCarley walked out of the trashy lingerie store she was outfitted with the whole regalia; garters, stockings, pumps, bras, panties, 'you name it,' Ed thought, 'I bought it.' He shouldered the load and carried her loot to the car. They made their way to the Triumph and stashed her clothes in the trunk, and headed back to Ed's apartment as the sun set.

He carried her packages up the stairs, into his apartment. He paused, thinking about what had been bothering him all evening long, and made a decision. He took her packages into his kid's room and put them on the top bunk, then went back out to Sara, who was standing in the doorway. "Do you live somewhere I can take you?" he asked.

She shrugged her shoulders, looked uneasy.

"Listen, Sara," Ed McCarley started. "If it's none of my business just say so, or if you feel I should just shut-up, just - tell me, O.K.? My kid's only come here at Christmas and Easter; their room is empty the rest of the time. If you want to live here with me - in their room - for awhile, until you can figure out what you want to do, well, it's yours if you want it. You won't have to worry about eating, or getting new clothes, or having a place to sleep. O.K.? I just have a couple of rules."

Sara Wood was looking at the floor, she didn't have the words for what was streaming through her mind.

"No drugs, no booze, no friends hanging out in here when I'm not around. O.K.? You keep yourself clean, and your room picked up, and I'm going to figure out how to get you some schooling..." Ed McCarley was cut off when Sara Wood ran into his arms at full speed, he put his arms around her as she started wailing and shaking. He kept his arms around are and stroked the back of her head saying little things like 'sshhh, it's going to be all right' and 'it's O.K. baby, it's O.K.' He held her until she was spent, until he could feel her relaxing in his arms. She looked up at him, he looked down into her very tear-streaked face and kissed her on her forehead. "It's O.K. baby, you're home now," he said. "You don't ever have to worry about falling down again, because I'm gonna be here to catch you." He held her face in his hands and wiped away her tears with his thumbs.

"Can I ask you something?" she said.

"Yeah, sure."

"What's your name?"

A blank look came over Ed McCarley's face as he thought back. 'I gave her my card...oh, God, of course, she can't read...' He shook his head and laughed. "Yeah, darlin', I guess you should no my name. Ed...call me Eddie, O.K.?"

"O.K., Eddie."

"Now, let's get those teeth brushed. And get you to bed."

After he had her tucked into the bottom bunk in his kids' room, he flipped out the light and closed the door. He went into the living room with a rum and coke, and sat down with his feet up on the coffee table. He reviewed the decisions he had made in his mind, which was a problem, because he had made the big one with his heart. He thought about Sunday School hypocrites; he thought about Sara Wood lying curled up and unconscious in an alley with a beer soaked bloody cock in her mouth. He thought of the dividing line between right and wrong, the grey area - the no man's land between the absolutes of good and evil - where his feelings for this girl lay.

He leaned forward and put his head into his hands and cried. Officer Ed McCarley cried for a very, very long time.

He was lying in his bed a couple of hours later, on his back, eyes wide open. There was no way he was going to get to sleep, he thought, glad for the three day weekend he had. Suddenly, quietly, the door to his room opened. He saw Sara Wood silhouetted in the doorway, her long straight hair falling over the t-shirt she had gone to bed in. She walked in slowly, and sat on the bed, looking at Ed McCarley's face.

"Eddie?"

"Yes, Sara."

"I don't want to be your kid." She was speaking with a tremor in her voice. "Ya know what I mean, Eddie?" When he was silent for a moment, she went on. "I want to be in here with you, Eddie. You said you wanted to take care of me; well, I want to take care of you, too. ...Eddie, say somethin'?"

He sat up in bed, pushed himself up with his arms, and flinched as an old shoulder wound bit into the present, and he cried out.

"What is it, Eddie?" she said, plainly very scared.

"It's nothing, doll. I broke my arm once, and some nights it hurts me."

"Can I see?" she asked. She slid forward on the bed until she was close to Ed McCarley at the head of the bed. She reached out to touch his shoulder, and he flinched again, slid away from her. "Please," she pleaded, "don't run away from me, Eddie." She reached out again, and touched his shoulder. She rubbed her fingers on his skin, probing and stroking. "I'm not goin' to hurt you," she continued. "Promise, O.K.?"

Ed McCarley felt an electric tremor pass from her fingers to his skin as she touched him; he felt this tremor on the skin of his shoulder, and he felt it boiling up from his groin, into the small of his back, up his spine. He tried to look away, close his eyes, but he felt that the worst thing he could do right now, do to the very fragile Sara Wood, was reject her, hurt her again in some new, unexpected way. But he knew he had to control the situation; all of his training commanded that he control the situation.

Sara Wood felt the fragility of her own sense of control, as well. But, from the moment she ran her fingernails over Ed McCarley's shoulder, and across to the back of his neck, she began to control the music of his heart.

"Turn over, Eddie, turn over lay on your stomach for me." Ed McCarley slipped back down into his bed, turned over onto his stomach.

A good, safe position, he thought.

She continued to scratch his shoulder lightly, running her fingernails in little circles, moving over to his neck, running her fingers through his hair, scratching and rubbing his head gently. He felt her moving, felt her mounting him, then sitting in the small of his back. He felt her pubic hair on the skin over his spine, felt warm dampness spread on the skin of his back. He felt her lean forward, put her hands on his back between his shoulder blades, begin to rub his back with the open palms of her hands. She put strength into her movements, rubbing from the middle of his back with both hands, moving again up to his neck. After a few such strokes, he let out a deep sigh. She retreated down the same slope with her fingernails, which coursed down his back gently, like a brook meandering through a sun-dappled glen.

Sara Wood kept rubbing his back, his shoulders and neck, for what felt like hours. Every now and then Ed McCarley sighed "Oh, God, this is heaven," and "that feels great," until he once said, "oh God, you feel so good." With that said, with that opening, Sara Wood leaned forward and slid her arms under Ed McCarley's arms and cradled his soul in hers, put the side of her head on his back, just below his head, and she nuzzled her face on his back. She then kissed his back, moved her tongue up and down his spine, ran her hands over his outstretched arms, tracing little eddies in the flow of her currents. She then sat back up, and slid down until she was sitting on the backs of Ed McCarley's thighs. She scratched his back as she slid, scratched where she had been sitting, scratched the warm-moist slick where her vagina had rubbed against his back. She lightly ran her fingernails over his buttocks, felt him tense in the ticklishness of the silvery motion, then rubbed his butt coarsely, soothing the currents out and away into the charged atmosphere of her intentions.

Ed McCarley felt the weight of Sara Wood on his back, felt the weight of her need, and he felt the weight of his desire for her growing with each stroke of her hand, each warm breath she took. With the tension that melted from his knotted muscles with each pulse of her beating desire, he felt his resistance to her withering within the ever-slowing heartbeats of time. He moved from the world of his training, his profession, into the dim grey world of the dividing line.

She asked him to turn over.

Ed McCarley felt the battle rage between his head and his heart. He saw his ex-wife looking at him, fellow officers in the department, store clerks and fast food cashiers, all looking at him.

She lifted herself up from his thighs as she felt him beginning to turn.

He turned his body under hers, struggling to make sense of this new world.

She straddled his belly now, just below his chest. She reached behind herself, reached for Ed McCarley's groin, ran her fingers through his pubic hair, moved her hand purposely toward his cock.

Ed McCarley's entire body stiffened as her hand made contact with his belly. He felt her hand as it moved downward, as it circled his cock.

Sara Wood grasped his cock and stroked it. She continued to look intently into Ed McCarley's eyes. She saw the smile on his face as an echo of her smile.

Ed McCarley felt her sliding away from his face, away from his chest. She was sliding down through time, down to infinity. He felt her pubic hairs as they traced faint electric contours on the charged surface of his cock.

She still had his cock in her hand as her vagina hovered wraith-like, pulsing, above his groin. She lowered herself slowly, gently, until she felt the head of his cock just grazing the petals of her lips. She reached with her fingers and spread these dewy petals apart, leaving a faint pink opening that seemed to reach of it's own volition for the straining cock below.