It was a Monday. Little before noon. Cruising with my chosen cop. Looking for the perfect cop lunch spot.

"How about right here?" I said to the man in blue with me. Hey, I can say that. He was wearing a blue shirt.

"No way, doll. Even for me, this is a dive."

"That's the point, Bud."

His eyes did a 360. You know what I mean? One swiping look at the joint, one hard glare back at me and then that little roll he does like he's looking straight up to see if the Holy Mother is catching a load of this.

"C'mon, flatfoot. Out with ya," I said as I skipped out of the car, one inch ahead of the long arm of the law reaching out to grab me back to safety.

"Hey!" I heard his shocked yelp as I scooted up to the joint I'd picked because, unlike Bud, I did happen to know that inside would be plenty of New Orleans' finest eating a nutritious lunch. Sure, sure.

Now, I'd never actually been inside this place. Or others like it. Well, I went inside a few strip joints in the Quarter one night with a fun man visiting me during a wicked Mardi Gras last year, but that was different. For one thing, I'd been drinking. Not a lot, but enough. For another, they were a whole world away from where this one was.

Airline Drive. Just outside New Orleans city limits. A stretch of bitter highway littered with motels that rented by the quarter hour, sleazy strip joints, bars where you drank your liquor hard and neat or you'd get your ass kicked for being a sissy, and more hookers per corner than inhabit the entire state of Arkansas. But, hey, it does have some charms. It is where Jimmy Swaggart got cozy with a prostitute for three years before he got caught and then had that crying jag on the old time religious revival show of his.

It's about ten minutes from the airport. I'd picked Bud up after his flight in and he'd whispered a naughty suggestion in my eager ear as we strolled to the car. I can do you one better, I'd told him. Got that look of his. The one that tells me he just didn't believe me.

"I want to go slumming with you, Bud. Someplace I've never had the guts to explore. Driven past it a lot but never been inside. Never had a man I thought could protect me if I went in," I told him.

That cute smile of his. The one that never fails to make my knees go squishy. He pushed me up against the side of the car, dropped his suitcase at our side and put his mouth at my ear. "Slumming's no place for a lady, Ann. Tell me you ain't gonna be a lady today for old Bud."

He thought that he was playing a game. Well, what's a girl got to do to be taken seriously? You know me - I do like to start things in the most novel way I can find.

Grabbed handfuls of his ass and dragged him right up to me. "Today, Bud, for your dining pleasure, we have one raw me on toast, no dressing. Blue plate special. You ordering up?"

"Jesus Christ, Ann." I suddenly felt him spring to life. "Keep it up and I'm not going to let you out of the garage before I nail you."

"Ah. So you like imitating Terry, do you? He'll be so flattered," I sassed him.

His entire body bolted away from mine and I caught a full watt glare from Bud. "Jesus."

Whoa. I reached out to wrap my arms around his waist. Cooed for all I was worth. "Bud? Baby? I'm sorry. Really I am. I was just joking around. I thought you were as well. I'm sorry. No other men's names get mentioned. Ever again. Promise."

"I don't need you reminding me of the shit he talks you into." We stood there, me leaning into him and him wanting to be anywhere but there at that moment. But after I'd caressed his back a few minutes, I felt him relax and then his arms hugged into me. "Sorry, babe, just hit me the wrong way. Shouldn't talk to you like that."

Crap. Why is it lately that whenever Terry's name gets mentioned, I feel like I look like I'm a junior high nerd mooning over the high school quarterback? Next thing I know, Terry will be patting me on the head and telling me I'm cute as a speckled pup.

So here I was on Monday. And I almost told Bud about Sunday's revelations. I opened my mouth. But, you know what? I also didn't care to let anyone in anymore. So instead, I continued the cover-up by saying, "He's a good guy, Bud. And you know it."

"He's a fucker. Don't try to make me feel sorry for him. Last time I felt sorry for a guy, I got my ass shot." He said it just like that, in that plain way he has. I mean, you can tell he's barely holding himself together and yet ...

I started chuckling against his chest. "Stop. You're killing me here, Bud."

"What? You think that's funny?"

Leaned back and looked into his dark face. "Okay. Now you look like you're in the perfect mood to take me slumming. Any shitbird comes within a yard of me, I expect to see you draw blood."

His eyes narrowed at me. "What are you thinking, doll?"

"I'm thinking a big strong man like you will protect me. Now, get in the car and I'll take you where I want to go."

He groused at me but I tell you, one look at him and I knew he was up for some dirty work. When I pulled up outside the tawdry strip joint, I know he was seeing the harsh reality. Discarded ecstasy vials, crushed plastic go-cups, a smattering of recalcitrant trash that no one ever got the energy to really clean up. Two bored hookers out front, hoping to catch the truly desperate before they snuck inside. The lunchtime trade just trickling in. And in the parking lot, enough white Crown Victoria's for this to almost be an outpost of the NOPD's detective divisions.

Bud thought I was yanking his chain. So I made it inside before he was even out of the car. When the outer door closed behind me, I shoved open the blackened inside door and stepped into another world.

Red. Tawdry red that looked as filthy as the minds inhabiting this place. A few tired eyes cased the door but as soon as they saw me walk in, it was like the men attached to those eyes had told all the other men, "Hey, a broad's breeched the inner circle."

Not that there weren't women in there. But they were working. Two were up on stage. Their tits were sagging so low, it made me blush. Didn't even bother with pasties. Wearing thongs I swear I think they put on backwards. Three barmaids were weaving around the tables. Wearing these tiny t-shirts several sizes too small that rode way too high over hip-hugger satin tap pants.

I was studying the tables. Two or three men sitting at most of the dozen or so inside there. Most had no reserve about meeting my gaze and giving me the once over a few times. Had to be cops who belonged to those Crown Vics out front. Three of them were already rising from their chairs with those silly grins on their faces that say "hey baby" all over them.

Just then, I felt Bud come in behind me. Took him about a breath to scope the joint and he was trying to drag me out. "C'mon, Bud. Let's have lunch. Cop special. I know just what it'll be. BLT on wheat with a Bloody Mary."

He looked at me and I think something about my voice must have gotten to him. Little girl out having her thrill, he was thinking. So he'd just prove to me what a big man I was with. "Okay, babe, if that's what you want. You gonna be a bad girl for me today? You know, that turns me on, honey."

All during lunch, I was eyeing the joint. But more than anything, I was watching Bud react to the women in there. I could see pity in his eyes at first and that clutched at my heart. What a sweetie he was. But after he got more used to being in there, he was watching them move and I think it was bringing back some not-so-unpleasant memories of his old life. There was something unabashedly male about the hunger in his eyes.

Watching Bud ... letting everything wash away except for how he was making me so hot that all I wanted to do was get him home and have my way with him. But when we stepped back out from the sad black of the strip joint into the gay sunshine of the day, I remembered that I wasn't ready to go home yet because my home wasn't the same refuge it had been the day before.

What I really wanted was an adventure. I hugged in tight to Bud and cooed in his ear until he gave in to me.

It's how we ended up at the next joint just a short drive down the gritty highway. The infamous Change Of Heart trailer bar. Cops I knew used to tell me stories about it.

He went in ahead of me, opening the door like he expected trouble to be waiting to pound him into the ground and he just couldn't wait to show trouble what trouble really was. His hand was holding mine so tight; like he thought I might run away and he was determined he was making me go through with this. He led me to a little round table, pulled out a chair and scooted it in for me when I sat down. I watched avidly as he took his time walking to the seat across from me. He was not just checking the joint out; he was using his body to telegraph a clear message to the other men in this hellhole: mess with me, suckers, and you'll be lucky to live to regret it.

I think I would have wet my knickers but for the fact that I wasn't wearing any.

He caught my grin and shook his head at me as he sat. 

"I'll take a scotch, Bud. Neat. Thanks for asking, sweetie."

Flick of his fingers in the air and the barmaid was there with us. We all love Bud. She returned pretty quickly with the two scotches. I started feeling more at ease as I sucked on my drink. There was something I was looking for and ... there it was. Bud saw my eyes light up and groaned, knowing already that I was about to talk him into something he was unlikely to want to grant me.

Leaning across the table, I carefully let my breasts fall over his forearm. I had his attention. In my best sex voice, I said, "Baby, I have always wanted to learn how to play pool. Will you teach me?"

I led him to the pool table. The one in the far corner. The one I'd heard all about. Light had a real tough time making it into that corner. About all that even came close tumbled haphazardly over the table itself - from the dim lamp hanging gloomily from chains falling unevenly from a dirty, water-marked ceiling. I waited while Bud put in the quarters to release the pool balls. He watched me pull them up when they came rushing out to the slot by me and put them in the triangle. Shook his head in disgust and came around the table.

"Let me show you, doll. There's a right way to do it. See? Gotta make it alternate between the stripes and solids. The 8-ball goes right here. Then you snug it up real good before you release the triangle on this little white dot. See it?"

Hanging on him, paying devoted attention, mewling out my newfound understanding of these little intricacies of the game of pool.

"Okay. I'll try to remember that, Bud." Taking him by the hand to the rack with the pool sticks. "These are all so big and long, Bud. How do I pick a good one?"

What could he do but believe I'd lost over half my brain cells just by walking in this joint? He gave me this odd look but I had such innocence written all over me. Standing there before him, wearing a white shirt tucked in a short denim skirt. No hose and my toes peeking through heeled sandals that he'd already told me he loved because when I wobbled on them, I moved in a way he appreciated.

I loved watching his body move. I leaned against a stray stool and watched him study the sticks. He was wearing a short-sleeved button-down blue shirt and khaki slacks. He still walked like he had at least four balls to the normal man's two. He still had a back and arms that made me sweat. He still wore his hair short. He still shaved clean every day. He still smelled so damned good. Oh. Sorry. Got a bit sidetracked there.

I watched him do the old roll-the-sticks-on-the-table-to-see-if-they're-straight trick. When he had two he liked, he handed me one. I propped it on the wall and pointed at the table. "Why don't you do the breakie thing, Bud?"

Got another critical eye from him. I took a good position to watch him lean his body over that table just so with that sweet ass in the air ... and then make the fast, thrust of power to send that white orb screaming across the green felt.

S-m-m-m-m-a-c-k! 

Man, alive. Is there another sound to compare to a great break on a shitty pool table?

I squealed with delight as the balls flitted around the table and a few of them fell in the pockets. Bud's eyes glared around the room at the men who'd taken new notice of me as I bounced up to him.

"Oh, you have just gotta show me how to do that, sweetie." I squirmed my body in between him and the pool table. Grabbed his pool cue from him and held it like I had once been a majorette and still liked twirling things between my fingers. In my best imitation of a sex kitten voice: "Okay. Show me how to hold your great ... big ... stick."

I felt him chuckle behind me. And I knew he was finally catching on to what was going on. He backed up a few steps. "All right, doll. But first, bend over the table and let me check your stance."

"How's this? Look good?" I said, peering up and over my shoulder at him, all big eyes and sweet smile. Wiggled my ass just a bit.

He was sweating. I swear. It popped out on him. He looked around to see if anyone could see what he was seeing. There was no one. C'mon, what do you take me for?

I felt his groin move right up into my backside and he bent over me. His right hand came gliding down to rest over where mine was gripping the stick. His left hand ... well ... Let's tell it this way instead:

"Fuck, Ann." This long groan in my ear while he couldn't get much closer. "You're gonna give me a heart attack."

"Don't like the view, honey?"

"Like the view, doll. Damn." I heard him swallow hard. Little hoarse whimper to tell me the real reason for his sudden distress: "You're not wearing any panties."

"Really? Oopsie! I wondered why it was so drafty down there." I closed my eyes and hoped he'd just be Bud. Let me get away with this and just ... not ... ask. "Do you need to correct my stance, Bud?"

"Yeah," he whispered against me. My God but he has the most magnificent sex voice. Why had I never really noticed it before? So gruff, like each syllable he utters causes pain to his throbbing cock. "Spread your legs a little wider, babe. Better stability. Now let me show you the right way to hold my stick."

"I hope to God that's your hand between my thighs, Bud."

"Spread your legs just a bit more. Yeah. Like that. Feels better, doesn't it?"

"I'll never make a shot with you distracting me like this."

"Who the fuck gives a shit about the shot?"

"I do, Bud. You're supposed to be teaching me this game. Now I have a question." I squeaked just a bit as he pinched my thigh and then giggled against my ear. Gathered my calm to ask, "When the white ball is so far across the table from me, and with me being so short and all, how do I reach it from here?"

"Crawl right up there, Ann," he murmured huskily.

He thought I wouldn't. "Little boost up, Bud."

Before he knew it, I had a knee on the edge and I would have been up there if ... only ... well, after all, he is Bud and I think you can only push him so far. Thankfully.

"Christ," he hissed out to me, one big arm dragging me back to the floor and his body bending back over me. Gripping the pool stick with both hands, pretending to the other men in that bar that he was taking advantage of his opportunity to teach me a few trick shots. "Stop it, Ann. You're gonna get me in a lot of trouble if you don't settle down. Let me just ..."

"You don't want me to settle down, Bud," I cooed to him. "You want me moving, baby. Like this."

He felt delicious against me. A stiffie nestled right in my crack. Rock solid and so big.

"You're asking for it, babe," he groaned as I showed him no mercy.

"What do I need to do to get it, Bud, beg? Unzip you myself and shove my wet cunt right over your big old cock?" His head was buried in my hair and I felt him shake his head against me and whimper as he started moving with me. "C'mon, big man. You know you want to give it to me. You've been hard for far too long. No one can see us back here."

Choking on the words: "I am not fucking you here so knock it off right now."

"And what can you do to stop me, Officer White? You gonna arrest me?" Cooing at him with everything I had. Hoping I didn't have to lead him by the nose. "Might need a full body search, is what you're thinking? Wonder who'll play the good cop to your bad cop, Wendell."

"Don't push me, Ann."

"Will you shove me up against the wall? Tell me to spread 'em while you pat me down for hidden ... weapons? Read me my rights? Hey, I bet I know the rights you'll read me. None of that Miranda crap. The White rights would be 'You have the right to not remain silent. Anything I have can and will be used up you. You have the right to be fucked by the dick of your choice as long as its mine. Do you understand these rights as I've explained them to you?'"

Seems I'd pushed the perfect button. Joe Friday on a Monday. Noon had just been chased. Officer Wendell White had his suspicions. I looked like a shifty character and he was taking no chances with this collar.

Oh, yeah.

He stepped back away from me and yanked me around to face him. ID'd me right away as the guilty party. Went into full cop mode and I swear I would have dropped to my knees and paid homage to his billy club if he'd just let me. Instead, he growled out in this voice that made me drip for him. "Kiss the wall, snowflake."

I would have cooed out, "Oh, Bud!" but I was a bit too busy scrambling as he pushed me in the general direction he wanted me heading. Put both hands up on the cheap wood laminate paneling and waited for him; it felt grimy and mysterious. When he finally made it over there, he did one of those full-body leans into me. He must have slugged down a goodly bit of the scotch right before he approached me because I could smell it strong on him.

"Spread your legs," he said in a dangerous semi-whisper as I felt his feet nudge mine apart. His hands went pat-pat-stroke along my body. "I'll do the cavity search later, little lady."

Did I come when his first hand touched my wrist and shoved it into the small of my back? Or when he repeated the action with my second hand? How about when I felt his body shift and knew he was getting his cuffs out? Or when I felt the cold metallic bracelet latch on to first one then the other wrist ... and heard the accompanying ripple of the cuff's teeth gripping to the proper fit?

No, I actually think it was when his big hand on the cuffs yanked me away from the wall. You should have seen the way he was looking. I peered at him over my shoulder. God. He was a magnificent animal ... blood up, proving his manhood, and not taking shit off anyone. They cleared a path for him to shove me out of the trailer bar. We had witnesses to the way he hauled me off to his undercover cop car where he unceremoniously dumped me in the back seat. They must have thought he was way deep undercover because it was a damned unlikely cop car.

We didn't make it to my home. We didn't use the skanky No-Tell Motel either. He simply pulled over at the first big industrial lot he saw, parked between two discarded tractor-trailers and turned to look at me from the driver's seat as he shoved it full away from the steering wheel. "Crawl up here and do me."

I thought I'd come again. "Bit hard to comply, Officer, without the use of my hands."

His entire body lifted from the seat; he reached back, grabbed me under my arms and pulled me toward him. We were face-to-face and next thing I knew, his mouth was all over mine. His tongue making sure I wasn't hiding the key to the cuffs in there. Meanwhile, he was dropping me to my knees on the floorboard in front of the center console. I heard that telltale zipppppp and started sucking his tongue with genuine enthusiasm.

"Do me," he grunted as his hand wrapped in my hair shoved my face into his groin.

I did him. With relish. I loved making him squirm and moan. Almost as much as I loved it when he pulled me up onto his lap. Eyes locked to mine; this harder-than-hard set to his jaws. Those eyes making me melt for all their complexities and needs.

"Oh, Bud," I whispered to him when I saw his hurt there. "Let me help you."

He buried his face in my shoulder and let me sink down atop him. Without his help, it took me several tries to get him seated in me. I was afraid I'd lost him. I turned my head and kissed into that telephone-poll neck of his. Licked slowly up to his ear.

"C'mon, Officer, don't let me off with just a warning."

Felt him take in a shuddering breath and then he pumped hard into me, hilting like I needed to feel him do. He sucked in at my neck, nipping me, but all the while, helping me grind in against him. Then thrusting hard, so hard it hurt. I bit my lip and kept quiet. Just before he came, he leaned back in the seat, arching his neck back and just about howled. I'd never heard a man do that before. He closed his eyes and came with a drawn-out litany of "fuck, fuck, fuck."

I nestled into his body and made soothing noises at him until I felt his heart stop racing. His arms hugged in around me and that's when I think he realized that I was still cuffed. "Oh, baby, I ... Christ, Ann, I'm such a ... What'd you let me do that for?"

"Hush, sweetie. Let's just rest for a few minutes. I'm fine." Felt his lips at my temple in such a moment of tenderness and it was a struggle to remember who I was with suddenly. I had to sit up and look at him just to make sure I remembered it was Bud. "Are you okay?"

Felt his chest give that big heave that conveys so much. "I will be, doll. Promise. You don't need to worry about me."

We gave each other fake smiles and I laid my head back down on his shoulder. God, but he has such nice shoulders. I drifted for a while and just relished the safety of being held by Bud, the man who never asked me too much. It just never mattered to him - the only thing he cared about was that I was his friend. Our hearts weren't that entangled; we just liked being with each other and when we were together, it was never complicated.

It seemed like an hour had passed by the time I felt his hands fumbling behind me, slipping the cuffs off. I sat up and stretched to get some of the stiffness out of my shoulders. He brought each wrist to his lips and kissed their tender undersides. Ever the gentleman, he started mopping me up with his white hankie; made me giggle when he lowered the window and tossed it on the parking lot. That look he gets in his face when he does things like that.

By the time we got to my house, I was chattering at him and he was having a blast listening to my rendition of the latest cop scandal in Louisiana. We started riffing together about various cop shows on television; we even sang the "Bad Boys" song together. Bud has the loveliest singing voice; I told him he should lend it to the man who'd brought him to life every so often. He pretended not to like the joke but I think, deep down, he was flattered.

He ended up staying at my joint for a week or so. The rest of the time with him was easy. So easy. By unspoken agreement, all we wanted to do was simply enjoy the time together. Not that I didn't know he was using my old tactic of hiding. I just ignored it, hoping that having a respite with me from some tough things that were happening in his life was what he needed. But the last evening he was there, he finally opened up to me, probably because he was just then trying to figure out what he was going to do when he left my place. We were sitting on my back deck, drinking and watching the Love Bugs copulate in their twice-yearly ritual of do-it-or-the-species-dies.

"You know what she did?" he asked me and I think only his body was near me at that moment.

I sat up so I could look at him. Oh, poor baby! Where had he been hiding that pain and anger all week? It was there, so plain for me to see, and for once, he didn't even bother trying to pretend that he was hiding it from me. Bud's eyes. He speaks more with them than with words. They drive me crazy. They break my heart. They make me want to make it all better for him.

"I heard some of it, Bud. And I know it hurt you. I'm so sorry for that."

"She shouldn't of lied to me. Women shouldn't hide important things from a man who matters to them. Same as lying. Right?"

"Or maybe we just trust in ..." I paused and blinked. A memory grabbed at me. "Don't shut her out, Bud."

His eyes narrowed at me and I looked away. "What are you hiding?"

Shook my head at him, gave him a grin as a gift. Shifted the subject back to him: "Do you know what, Bud? You should see yourself through my eyes, honey. You are the finest of men. It's why women adore you, Bud. You got that big old heart and you just can't help getting it involved in helping women."

"Don't do this to me, Ann. She lied and ..."

"Was what she did really so hard to forgive, Bud? I mean, what's the alternative? Right? You want to let this nonsense be the end, go ahead. But I don't think that's what you want. I don't."

"Why are you doing this?"

"I've been thinking that we're not supposed to be this possessive." We were staring right into each other. I think he knew what I was going to say even if I changed it to: "Work this out, Bud. Find a way to make it right again."

He knew. Bud ... I think sometimes we forget how well he reads women in trouble.

"So ... You gonna explain you and Thorne and you and Jack to me?"

"There's no me and Terry. I was never even a person to him." I smiled at Bud and felt such a white hot sadness. But I wasn't sad about Terry. "He was here. Jack, I mean. Sunday."

His eyes got a sudden twinkle and he gave me a smile. "Well, that's great, babe. Then you two are ..."

"He doesn't want anything to do with me now." 

I don't know why it was Bud I told this to. I hadn't been able to tell anyone else yet. I hadn't told anyone about the increasingly disconnected conversations between Jack and me over the last two weeks. It wasn't fair of me to just dump it on Bud like that.

"I deserve it, Bud. Think how Jack must have felt. It would have killed me if I'd been him. Imagine, the person you think has always been honest with you and she looks like she's been lying the whole time. That she never really loved you enough because she was mooning over another man the whole time."

I adore Bud. For this reason: he always knows when to touch me. Right then, he reached across and pulled me over to him, guiding me onto his lap and holding me in to his big body.

"I saw the truth a lot better than any of you gave me credit for, Bud, so don't feel sorry for me and don't be mad at Terry," I whispered to him. "I just hoped Jack would give me a chance to explain. I think I took for granted that he'd be the easy one for me to deal with."

And, here's the thing. I have no regrets. None. I just have wishes. 

Like, I wish I hadn't hurt Jack. I wish I hadn't seen his face when he came to see me the day before. I wish Jack had been able to forgive me when I asked him to. I wish Terry had never asked me what he had. I wish I'd done better than to risk someone I loved in order to help someone else I loved. I wish I'd not been told by a friend that the one I'd needed to help had never considered me as anything other than a woman whom he knew would do anything for him. I wish I'd never known that all I'd been was the sap when I'd risked so much. I wish somehow that hadn't made me feel like the nothing I felt I was because I think I was carrying too big a burden between guilt and wishing when I finally got the chance to talk to Jack about what I'd done.

I wish I'd just told Jack plain and simple that sometimes you do the right thing even when you know you'll suffer for it. That's something Jack might have actually understood.

I wish to start over. And, right there, is a wish I can make come true. It's my choice and I know what it is. I'm not sitting around and waiting for someone else to make a choice because, truth is, I can't live life that way. I'm going to be wanted for me or there's no reason to be with someone. I never wanted to be chosen by someone who even feels the need to think about what their choice is. Jack and I are exactly alike in that way.

Oh, it's really too funny. I knew just what my choice was. But I blew it the first chance I had ... and all because words failed me when I needed them most. Now, there's the supreme irony in all this for a writer, eh?