Chapter I: Rookie
"Jesus," Lisa bitched into her beer, "if I wanted to be a damned secretary, I wouldn't have bothering going to college. I want to be a cop, damn it!"
"Know what your problem is?" Barney asked. He didn't lisp any more than he simpered. So much for her naive stereotype of gay men. He was the only person in the precinct she could talk to - her first true friend since high school, really.
"Yeah. I was born without a cock."
He laughed. "Wrong. You could be riding in a patrol car in under a month if you'd just loosen up."
Officer Lisa Cole leaned back. Her wide leather belt creaked. Her narrow, high-boned face was made ugly by her sneer. "Like Sally Dawson loosened up? Had her uniforms tailored so tight that her nipples poked through and her ass crack showed?"
"Come on. You know that's not what I meant."
"I should file sexual discrimination charges. The only reason I'm not pulling some kind of real duty is because -"
"Whoa, girl. And lose any chance you've got to ever make it? Bad plan, Lisa," he warned. "You walk around with a chip on your shoulder. Everybody thinks you're arrogant. Know what they say behind your back?"
"Yeah. They think I'm a fucking dyke or something."
"Are you?"
That hurt. She didn't show it. "Are you out of your head, Barnes?"
The conversation drifted away from anything serious after that, but haunted her for the rest of the week. She hated to admit it, but Barney was right. She acted cold, impersonal - entirely asexual and professional was the way she'd thought of it. But that wasn't the impression her fellow officers got. That kind of thing shouldn't matter, but it did.
She observed Sally Dawson with new eyes. The woman had a great body, and didn't seem to care if the men looked at it. Her uniforms weren't really as tight as all that, and Lisa grudgingly confessed that the woman was a good cop. Not better than she was. Not even prettier, for that matter. What rankled was that she managed to use her femininity. She let her big tits bounce and her hips sway. And she was out there where the action was as a result.
Over the weekend, Lisa grudgingly admitted that she had a choice. She could enter and retrieve data for the rest of her career, or make some changes and get on with her life. On the whole, letting herself act a little more feminine seemed less odious than the alternative. She didn't have to look like a fucking bimbo, for Christ's sake. Just a human being.
So, when Monday came, she steeled herself, stifled her fear, and went to work literally with her hair down. And her bra off. With an almost invisible trace of makeup she'd had to go out and buy. She felt ridiculous at first, but her astonishment at the difference it made in the way the rest of the guys acted banished her self-consciousness before lunch.
Not that she was able to forget about any of it. The continual covert looks directed her way kept her aware of herself all afternoon. Her badge and nametag attracted more attention than usual, as did the revolver on her hip. People who hadn't even known her name went out of their way to smile and say hello. Every time she used the john, she studied her reflection in the mirror. Each time she touched up her powder, she did it with a severe expression, as if that could offset the unseemly joy of finally losing the invisibility she'd wrapped about her when she was twelve.
And it wasn't just the patrolmen who noticed her. Captain Wilson actually smiled at her a couple of times. He was the one responsible for her assignment. She made herself smile back.
The next day, she added a refined touch of lip gloss to her look. The day after, a hint of mascara. Wednesday, she wore the slightly altered uniform she retrieved from the tailor. Every evening, she pored through magazines, desperate for information on how to use the unfamiliar feminine utensils that were making all the difference in the world. That Friday, she went so far as to buy herself a dress to wear to a party she'd been invited to the next evening. In entire five months she'd been on the force, it was the first time she'd ever been included in any extra-curricular activity.
Lisa spent hours getting ready. Curling her hair. Doing her nails. Shaving her legs. All the things most women took for granted, she felt like a fool for doing. But, she was a determined fool. If this was what it took to get out from behind her desk, it was worth whatever humiliation she had to endure.
Walking through the door of the apartment where the party was happening was harder than anything she'd ever done in her life. She was terrified. The dress was too small and too tight and too red. The nail polish made her fingertips feel heavy. The lipstick made her afraid to talk. The heels made her awkward and the pantyhose made her legs oddly slick.
But nobody noticed her tremendous discomfort. The looks she'd gotten at work were nothing like what she got that night. Within an hour, everybody there had pulled her aside, had expressed sincere interest in getting to know her better as they stared at her half-exposed tits. It was exciting as hell. For the first time, they treated her like a real person, not some damned robot. Hell, even Sally Dawson complimented her and displayed more friendliness than she ever had before.