Prove It, Pérez

The captain's office smelled of burnt coffee and old toner. I stood at the corner of the desk. I did not sit for a signature this cheap.

Sebastián Rivas filled the doorway the way he filled his own club, taking the frame, not borrowing it. He did not make himself smaller for the badge on my chest. He was thirty. The gold chain lay in the open V of his shirt. I was twenty three. I had cited Club Ámbar twice. I still had to share this pen with him.

Captain Ramírez set the rider down between us. "Six weeks of posed dates. You touch on camera. You do not touch anywhere else. Pérez, this campaign is the only language I will accept for those videos. Rivas, your December books are thin. Sign."

I knew what broke if we were stupid. Internal Affairs already kept a folder on the leather and the uniform. Those videos paid my mother's clinic copays in Cartagena. Sex with the owner I cited was a fraternization charge. That put me on traffic. That killed the extra money. He knew his break too. One photograph of him in bed with the citing officer read as a bribe to the Junta. That padlocked the liquor license. Twenty people lost pay.

The captain took a call with his back half turned. The office was too small for three. Sebastián's sleeve kept brushing mine. Heat came through the cloth into my arm. I did not step away. He did not step away. When I reached toward the page his breath changed. I felt it on my cheek.

I looked up. He was already looking. The look held. It broke. He took it back. My mouth went dry. I wanted my teeth on that chain. I also wanted him out of my week.

"On camera," I said. "Nowhere else."

"That is the rider." His voice sat low. "You going to smile, Pérez?"

"You going to keep your hands where I put them?"

I waited.

He signed first. The pen looked small in his hand. When he passed the paper, his knuckles stayed on the back of my wrist. The touch was not an accident. I did not treat it as one. I signed through that heat.

The captain dismissed us with two fingers. In the corridor I walked wide of him. I still caught lime and the ghost of smoke. My thumb found the salsa callus and rubbed. I made myself stop. That was the gesture I used right before I named a cost.

He had not flinched at the badge. I hated that. I wanted him anyway.

"Garage," I said.

He followed.

The parking garage under the alcaldía held engine heat and wet concrete. My black boxer sat on the kickstand. Twenty minutes after we signed, I backed him into the pillar beside it.

"This is private," he said.

"Then you already broke it."

I kissed him like a citation. Teeth. He made a sound into my mouth and I took it. His hands found my waist. I caught his wrists and put them on the concrete above his head. Palm to stone. I left them there.

"Stay."

I waited to see if he would. He did. The gold chain sat still against his throat. His shoulders wanted to drop. He kept them up.

I opened his belt with the same hand I used for the yellow triplicate. The leather was warm. I got the zipper down. I slid my hand inside and found him already hard in the briefs.

I did not ask. He did not stop me. His hips pushed into my palm. That pleased me more than I wanted it to. The rider was twenty minutes old. Internal Affairs was a folder with my name. His license was a padlock waiting. I stroked him anyway.

I worked the head through the cotton first. He was wet at the slit. I shoved the waistband down enough to get skin. His cock was thick and hot in the garage air. I wrapped him and stroked from the root, twist at the top, mean rhythm, the way you handle a man you do not plan to keep. He swore. I laughed once, blunt, and did not slow.

"Pérez."

"Quiet."

He tried to thrust into my fist. I pinned his hip with my other hand and kept the stroke short and filthy. The chain jumped against his sternum. I watched it. I felt him swell. A car door slammed two levels up. Neither of us moved our feet.

"You first," he said, rough. "I am not walking out like this alone."

"You are." I twisted at the head. "Smile."

He came in the briefs, spilling over my knuckles, pulse after pulse into cotton he had to walk out in. His head hit the pillar. I held him through the last shudder until he was messy and done. His wrists had not left the concrete.

My radio chirped from the charger clip in my bag. A code. Night shift. I had to answer.

I wiped my palm on his shirt so the evidence was his problem. "Stills on Friday. Hands where I put them."

I left him there. His come dried in my palm lines on the bike, all the way to the locker. I went on duty with it. I told myself that was winning.

Closing at Ámbar. First campaign stills done. We had held hands over a tinto neither of us drank. His thumb had drawn one slow circle. I had let it, for the lens.

After, I followed him into the staff stairwell. Bleach. Spilled aguardiente. The rubber tread printed my regulation sole.

"You clipped my video in the staff chat," I said. "Prove the mouth."

He looked at the fire door. He looked at me. "Here?"

I waited.

"You wanted the uniform off. Get on your knees."

He went. I was choosing it. This was not the job. The mangrove scar on my inner left thigh pulled when I set my feet apart.

He put my uniform skirt around my waist. He hooked my underwear aside. He put his mouth on my cunt in a stairwell anyone with a key could enter. I held the rail. I did not tell him to stop. I told him harder.

His tongue was flat, then pointed. He sucked my clit and I swallowed the sound. He licked into me like he had something to prove and I opened my stance to give him room. Wet ran down to his chin. The duty ring tapped metal each time my fist clenched. I kept my eyes on the landing above. I wanted the risk. I also wanted not to be seen. Both things sat in me at once.

"Don't you dare stop."

He did not. I came standing. My knees tried to go. He held my hips and drank it. I pulsed on his tongue and I did not pull away. I chose that too.

Sneakers hit the stairs. A busboy, too fast. I yanked the skirt down. Sebastián stood, mouth wet. The landing showed empty space and my scuffed regulation shoe as the kid rounded. Then we were two people in a hall. The kid's eyes did the rest.

Gossip started before I had the zipper all the way up. I tasted myself on the breath he left on my mouth.

"That was on camera," I lied.

"No," he said. "That was mine."

I left by the service door. The first bill was already due.

Wednesday after last call. His loft above the club. I laid the empty leather duty belt on the sheets like a third body. I did not pretend I was off the clock.

"From behind," I said. "You do not get my face for free."

"Then don't look back."

He bent me over the iron headboard. I was already wet from the stairs we had not finished talking about. He pushed into my cunt in one slow drive that forced the air out of me. His gold chain tapped his sternum in time. I braced. I gave the order anyway.

"Deeper. Don't you dare come first."

The cop voice leaked. Heat ran down my thighs around him. He held my hip. Each thrust shoved me into the iron. I was wet enough that the sound of it filled the loft. I used the voice anyway. "Harder. Hold it." He did. I bit the pillow so I did not hear myself. I heard myself anyway, short now, the same word, please, please, because nothing else would come. His fingers found the mangrove scar and pressed until the old white line showed.

The folder with my name sat in my head the whole time he was in me. I came around his cock with my teeth in cotton and clenched until he cursed. He kept going until I shook. Then he pulled out. He spent on the yellow noise citation I had written him, the one he had kept in the nightstand, carbon still on it. Stripe after stripe across my handwriting. Come as a receipt. It sat there wet and stupid and I could not look away.

I had given an order. I knew that was the self I had to give up if I stayed. I also knew I had not told him to leave.

I slept two hours. At dawn I wired my mother from his bathroom like the night had not happened. The radio charger was at home. Even without it I heard the chirp in my head.

"Cameras still off?" I asked from the door.

"Until the next still," he said.

I left the belt where it was. Let him look at it. Let him remember who held the leather when we started.

Station lot in La América, gray hour, 06:10. I was still in uniform. He had no business in my personal car. I had let him in anyway.

Pants shoved to my knees. Seat cranked. His two fingers in my cunt, crooked, wet to the knuckle. My salsa callus scraped his wrist each time I grabbed him to pull him closer. I wanted a third finger. I also wanted him out of the lot before third shift walked.

"The head," I said. "Just the head. Then you stop."

He got his cock out. He set the thick head against me. I was open from his hand. I almost took it. I thought of the red REC I used at home. I thought of IA scraping hashtags. I thought of this windshield and a patrol slot I still needed. Mother's copays. His twenty people. The folder with my name.

Knuckles on glass. Palomino from third shift, wanting a cigarette.

I bit the inside of my cheek to kill the sound. I yanked the zipper. My pants fought me. Sebastián's gold chain caught the gray light. Palomino saw the face. Palomino saw the chain. Palomino took the cigarette I shoved through the crack and took the picture in his head with him.

"Thanks, Pérez." He lingered. "Late for you."

"Early," I said. "Move."

He moved. The lot was not empty anymore.

I sat with my thumb on the callus and rubbed until the skin burned. Sebastián zipped without being told. We did not look at each other.

A colleague now held the picture Internal Affairs did not have yet. The fake couple had a witness. I started the engine. I dropped him two blocks short of Ámbar so nobody saw the door.

"We are done in cars," I said.

He nodded. He still had my wet on his fingers. He did not lift them to his mouth. He had quit nicotine. The gesture still lived in his hand.

Ámbar roof after the final campaign set. 03:00. Alumbrados still on the trees. No captain. No lens.

I took off my own leather duty belt. I held it out. This was the expensive turn. I chose it.

He did not take it at once. "You sure, Pérez?"

I waited. The belt hung between us. I could have put it back on. I did not.

"Rail. You cinch it. I keep the tongue."

He bound my wrists to the metal with my own leather. Tight enough that I felt the holes. Not enough to mark me for morning. The free end stayed in my fist, the tongue, the out. I tested. The belt held. I pulled once more and stayed. Relief went through me and I hated it, and I got wet from it in the same breath. Public if anyone on the next roof looked. I wanted that. I did not want a photograph of it. Both.

"Mouth."

He fucked my mouth standing, one hand in my hair, chain tapping my cheek. I took him until my eyes ran. Saliva on my chin. The head hit the back of my throat. I moaned on him so he would know I wanted it. I did not use the tongue of the belt. I chose that again when I did not pull off.

He pulled out. He turned me. He shoved my skirt up and entered my cunt from behind, wrists still bound to the rail, the out still in my hand. He fucked me until my knees shook. Belt. Chain. Stretch. I came with Cartagena in my mouth, ai, a coastal please that had no business in Medellín. He followed, deep, and held me while the leather took my weight.

He undid it. He rubbed my wrists with his thumbs. I was intact. I was satisfied. I still hated how easy the relief had been.

Below us a phone lit. Staff. An anonymous tip hit IA the same hour. It was timed like someone on his floor had sold the landing gossip. I did not know that yet. I only knew I had handed him the belt. I did not get that version of myself back.

My kitchen, 09:00 the next morning. The IA notice sat on the counter beside the radio charger. The charger chirped even with the handset in the other room.

I read the letter aloud so it became real in my own voice. Thirty day suspension. Leather videos down for a quarter. Reassignment pending. The Cartagena money did not leave on the first. Ámbar's liquor license opened for review on the busboy story and on Palomino's mouth.

We were not a fake couple. We were a file.

I still pulled him down on the tiles. The letter's header sat under my palm, my name in a font that meant suspension. I sat on his face until I soaked his chin and the tile. His tongue was tired and filthy. I ground on it and came with my other hand over my mouth so the neighbor would not get a name. Then I took him on the floor, slow and deep, and I said his name like a report I did not file.

I did not say love.

After, I did not ask him to stay. The wanting was spent in that room. The bill arrived in the same room.

"Cameras off," I said. "Thirty days. If the license review names me I will deny the roof. I will keep the stairwell. A stairwell can be called a mistake. The belt cannot."

He nodded. He had knelt. He did not get to keep the story that he never did. I did not get to keep the officer who did not get handled.

The campaign stills stayed online, smiling. We waited to see which photograph landed first.