This story is loosely based on a little vignette I saw on a reality show about conservation officers. LOOSELY. All the characters in here are pretty new, except Prince Carlos.
Oh. And, I never thought I'd type this, but... apologies to Bryan Adams.
Enjoy!
* * *
"Unit Four. Show me at..." I peered out the windshield, having completely forgotten the address Dispatch had sent me. I hoped I had the right house; I hated sounding like a moron over the radio. "1443, uh, Justin Street? Responding to that noise complaint, over."
The pause that staticked its way out of my speakers told me I'd fucked it up. "That's 1443
Josslyn
Street, Unit Four? Over?" I closed my eyes and cursed silently. "You're sure you're on the right street?"
"Affirmative. Out," I grunted back. I was. And if I wasn't? It didn't matter. I'd just kick the fucking door in anyway, and the residents of 1443 Whatever-The-Fuck-It-Was Street could take it up with my captain later.
Besides, it was clearly the right house: the whole place was done up in balloons and streamers. Strobe lights pulsed out into the night, and I could see the shadows of arms flailing behind the blinds. Hell, I could feel the bass shaking my patrol rig from clear across the street. I parked behind a dusty blue van advertising some kind of dog-walking service.
The song sounded like "Kernkraft 400." I cringed.
Sighing, I studied myself in the big truck's side mirror. I always tried to look stern in a gig like this, since it's always really hard to break up a party single-handed. I thought about radioing for the other deputy on shift, but this was a nice neighborhood: most likely a bunch of kids. They'd probably scatter as soon as I hollered, "County Sheriff! Stay where you are!"
They'd disobey, of course, because nobody respected sheriffs. Out here in the boonies we were the primary law enforcement, but since we didn't wear blue people didn't think we were really law enforcement. So? I tried to look serious, tipping my Stetson low over my tight braids, making sure my mouth was set in a firm line. I thought about wearing shades, but it was nearly midnight and my fucking name is Colleen Weber, not Corey Hart.
I hitched my gunbelt around, hearing the clink of my cuffs on the back, and then I was off, up the brick walk between nicely-kept laws. A curtain flicked aside off to my left, two houses down: ah. That would be the busybody that had called 911 for a fucking party.
I sighed. You join up, thinking law enforcement is going to be taking down drug dealers and busting child molesters, only to find it's an endless sea of traffic stops and dealing with really, really smelly people. In fact, this party was probably going to be the highlight of my week.
The front door glared at me, pink with three diagonal windows up over my head. I leaned sideways to peer into the bay window, but the blinds defeated me. The music throbbed through the porch under my boots, and I peered at the door while I decided whether it would get tore up if I used my Mag-lite to knock.
Fuckit.
The flashlight thudded hard into the pink, and yep. It left a mark. I pounded again. "Hey!" I called out loudly. "County Sheriff. Come to the door, please!" I was not surprised when the music stayed loud, the party humming. I hesitated, then tried the door.
Well. Unlocked. I'll be damned. And the scene that greeted me when I leaned in gave me a strange sense of dΓ©jΓ vu, but then I recalled my ex sister-in-law's bachelorette party and everything started to make a lot more sense.
The first thing I figured was that whoever was throwing the party had to be loaded, meaning this little ranch house on Josslyn wasn't theirs. No, the person footing the bill of this had to have big money, West Park money, because that was the only way to explain the ratio. See, when we'd hired strippers for my ex-SIL's party, it had been so expensive we'd needed to spread the cost of three dancers among like 25 guests just to make it practical. And as I glanced around the trim little living room now livid with whirling strobes, I only saw six guests.
And three nude men, two of them thrusting enthusiastically with gloriously enlarged penises. The third, judging by the dripping face of the woman kneeling in front of him, had definitely been just as gloriously enlarged a few seconds before.
Fuck me! Three for six! Loaded, definitely, and in more ways than one.
Most of the people in the room saw me at once, the activity continuing with that weird sort of disbelieving confusion that tends to come along with a cop at a party. Six sets of female eyes swung toward me, one pair blinking through a semen curtain; three sets of male eyes did the same thing, and everyone was wondering the same thing for different reasons: who's the stripper dressed like a cop, and why is she a woman?
But the music throbbed through the room, so I focused and dragged my attention off the dicks and onto my job. "Hey!" I shouted. "St Agnes Sheriff! You need to turn the music down!"
"Huh?" It came from a woman on the far end, in clothes way too nice to be the hostess here. So, she was the bankroll. She blinked up at me through makeup thickly caked. "You serious?"
"Who's the homeowner?" I demanded, ignoring her. My eyes roved over the other female eyes, all wide, all well-lashed, one of them under a rhinestone tiara. She'd be the bachelorette. "Who lives here?" I was trying hard for
command presence,
that intangible something that made people snap to it and obey. But I'd only been in law enforcement for two years now; I didn't have that instant gravitas. "You?" I was screaming.
The bride (she had a sash, I noticed now, as my eyes flicked briefly over her miniskirted body) waved a hand vaguely toward a woman on the other side of her, one of three packed onto a ratty couch. Her other hand had a death grip on the dangling scrotum of an oiled man with massively bulging muscles, who now stood calmly with his hands on his hips and his eyes transparently trying to figure out how big my tits were.
Big enough, thank you.