The Girlfriend Ch. 01

"It looks like Sam has a girlfriend at last."

"Huh, what?" My attention was fixed on the rugby on the TV and I really wasn't paying attention to my wife.

"I said, numbnuts, that a giant sinkhole has opened up in the high street and swallowed the pub and all the customers."

"Oh, OK."

Rolling her eyes, she said, "What did I just say?"

The game was on a knife edge and I couldn't tear myself away. "Um, you're going to the pub?"

A cushion thrown at my head finally got my attention, allowing her to grab the remote and mute the sound.

"Oi, not fair, turn the sound back up."

"Stop watching the TV and listen for once. I said Sam has got a girlfriend."

"Sam? A girlfriend? How do you know?" I could watch the game over her shoulder.

"As I came in, I saw a girl going into his flat. Nice looking lass by what I could see."

I turned away from the screen to look at her. "How do you know it's a girlfriend?"

"Women know these things. Trust me, I can tell."

"Humph. Women's intuition is BS."

She glanced at the TV. "By the way, someone's scored a try."

I locked back at the TV just as she flicked it off with the remote.

"You witch, who was it?" I tried to grab the remote, but she giggled and hid it behind her back. She fell back on the sofa and I tickled her, making her scream with laughter until she cried, "I give in."

Putting her arms around my neck she pulled me down into a kiss. She grinned. "If you're lucky, someone else might score."

It was only later when the blood had returned to my brain from my groin I remembered what she had said about Sam having a girlfriend. We lived on the first floor of a block of flats and Sam had the ground-floor flat beneath us. We had been here for a couple of years since we got married, and Sam must have moved in about a year after. He seemed a nice enough guy; slender, softly spoken, polite, and a little shy. At our summer BBQ in the shared garden area we chatted about this and that the way you do at such parties. He told me he was a freelance writer and worked from home. Features stuff mainly, magazines and technical journals. He spent a long time talking to Sophie, my wife, and they seemed to hit it off. I saw him around the place a few times and we nodded and smiled at each other.

I'm a police officer and work what are euphemistically called unsocial hours. So, it's not unusual for me to get home sometimes very late from a call out, and on those occasions, I would sleep on the sofa bed rather than wake Sophie. And so, a few weeks after the girlfriend episode I came home in the early hours from a crime scene, dog tired, wanting only to crash out. As I walked from where I had parked my car I could see a light burning in Sam's flat. I thought nothing of it, but as I drew level with his front door, I saw light spilling onto the path and I realised the door was open.

A cop is by nature a nosy parker. We can't help it. It may even be one of the reasons we get attracted to police work in the first place. Also, we're trained to notice odd things, and Sam's door being left open at three in the morning was something I couldn't simply pass by. I stood by the door and listened. It was open by a couple of inches and I thought Sam might have forgotten to close it properly. I could hear nothing from inside and I debated with myself about closing the door and telling him in the morning to be more careful.

Tired as I was, instinct or training told me I should check. I knocked on the door, "Sam, are you there?"

Hearing nothing, I knocked again, harder this time. "Sam, it's Joe from upstairs. Are you OK?"

The rattle of a nearby tube train made me jump, but I thought I caught something else; a sound sensed more than heard. I strained to listen, but couldn't hear anything at all. However, all my instincts told me something was off. Pushing open the door a little more. I called out, "Sam, it's Joe, I'm coming inside, you left your door open."

This time I heard it. Somewhere inside the flat someone groaned and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up.

I edged further into the flat, wondering if I should call for backup, but then if it turned out Sam had the flu or something, I would look stupid.

"Sam, where are you?" I had made it into the living room, and it seemed his flat had the same basic layout as ours. So, when I heard the next groan I knew it came from the bedroom. The door was ajar and as I eased it open I saw a woman in her underwear sprawled face down across the bed. Her ankles and wrists were tied with what looked like stockings and she appeared to be wearing a hood over her head. The first thought which leapt into my mind was Sam had freaked out, done this to his girlfriend and fled.

"OK, love, I'm here, I'm from the police. You're safe now."

I loosened the stockings tied around her wrists and ankles, and I could see she was breathing, taking in great gulps of air despite the black hood covering her head. I tried to undo it, but she kept shaking her head as if she didn't want it taken off. She tried to say something, but the words were muffled by the hood.

"Listen, love, I'm with the police, you're safe now. Hold still and I'll get this thing off your head."

She struggled a little more, and I thought she must have been terrified to be tied up and hooded like this.

"Keep still love, and I'll have you out of this in a jiffy."

She stiffened and stopped struggling, finally accepting, I thought, that I was who I said, and I wasn't going to harm her. There was a zip at the back of the hood which I unzipped and pulled it off her head. She rolled over and buried her face in the sheets on the bed.

"It's OK, it's all over now. What's your name and who did this to you?"

She sighed and turned her face towards me for the first time, before saying "Unfortunately, Joe, it's not really going to be all over, is it?"

I looked at her thinking I had seen her before somewhere before it finally dawned on me that underneath the blonde wig was Sam.

"Sam? Is that you?"

Not the cleverest of questions, but, in my defence, I had been knocked sideways when I realised it was him.

"Yes, it's me." I sat down on the bed next to him and he turned away, unwilling to look at me.

"Is this a joke or what?"

He shook his head. "No, it's no joke."

"Did you do this to yourself?"

Sam turned and looked at me for the first time. "Really, Joe? Do you think I could do this to myself?"

"OK, stupid question, but what's this all about?"

"What does it look like? I'm a crossdresser."

I must have looked puzzled, because he went on, "I like to dress in women's—"

"Yes, Sam, I know what a crossdresser is, but the tying up? Do you like that too?"

He shook his head, "No, no, that's not my thing at all."

"Then, how?"

"You don't want to know."

"Did they hurt you?"

"Who?"

"Don't fuck around with me, Sam. Whoever did this to you and left you there."

He looked at me again and I noticed for the first time he was wearing makeup and his hair was out of its usual ponytail and tumbling around his shoulders. I thought how vulnerable he looked, and with a start how pretty he was. He stood up, took a pink satin robe from a hook on the back of the door and put it on before sitting back down on the bed and crossing his legs.

"It doesn't matter, Joe. I'm OK, and thank you for coming in, but you don't need to worry." His eyes widened in panic, "You aren't going to report this, are you?" His face was pale, and I thought he was about to cry. "You can't, please, you can't report this." He was on the edge of hysteria and I put my hand on his arm.

"Well, no. You seem to be alright, and if you don't want to take it any further, then there's no need for anyone else to be involved."

His whole body sagged in relief. "Thanks Joe, you're an angel."

"I can guess why you don't want this reported, Sam. But for God's sake be more careful who you let in here."

He smiled, "You're right, I won't always be able to rely on a knight on a white steed coming to my rescue."

"I thought I was an angel."

He laughed as we walked to his front door. "Thanks again, Joe. I'm not sure how I would have got free by myself."

"Like I said, be careful."

He giggled, "I will, I promise." Before I realised what he was doing, he kissed me on the cheek and closed the door. I stood there for a few seconds, stunned at what he had done. Cheeky little sod, I thought. The adrenaline was ebbing away, and I yawned. Shaking my head, I thought I needed to get some sleep. I went up to our flat and tried to let myself in without waking Sophie, but she must have heard the door open. She walked into the kitchen, rubbing her eyes and yawning. "You're late, or is it early?"

"Sorry love, I didn't mean to wake you up." I wrapped my arms around her and she snuggled into me.

"No, you didn't, I was half awake. I thought I heard your car a bit earlier."

"Oh, I thought I saw someone loitering around the back of the flats and went to have a look. It was nothing." It took me a few seconds to wonder why I had lied to her. Perhaps, Sam's little secret should remain between us two. I'll tell her sometime, I thought.

She yawned again. "OK, are you coming to bed?"

"Sure, let me finish this, and I'll be right behind you."

As I drank the last of the juice, all I could think about was the peck on the cheek and how pretty Sam had looked.