I heard the police sirens just moments after I heard the squeaky screen door on my porch open. I wasn't expecting any guests at 2 am on a snowy morning so I figured it was prudent to get out my 9mm Glock and go perforate somebody. The lights of the police cars lit up my living room as I made my way in the dark to the back porch. Walking past a mirror I not only scared the shit out of myself, I also noticed that the only thing I was wearing was the Glock.
"There's a guy who's dressed for the occasion!" I just whispered it out loud.
I heard a few things moving around on the porch and realized, for sure, that I had company. I stood there for a moment to figure out my best strategy when the doorknob turned tentatively. My right hand came up level with the center of the doorway and my left hand came up on the light switch.
I was about to shoot someone and I realized that I really, really, needed to pee.
First things first.
The door creaked open and a smallish figure slipped in and gently closed the door. With the intruder's back to me I figured this was the best time to make my move.
"FREEZE!" I shouted as I flipped on the lights.
"Ohmigod, don't shoot me! Please don't shoot me!"
What was this? Here I'm expecting some toughened thug and it turns out my burglar is a girl? Well, I guess criminals come in all shapes and sizes, now don't they?
"Okay, easy now, you keep facing that door and you don't get shot, understand me?" I moved a little closer to her.
"Yes, sir...I was just..."
"SHUT UP!" I screamed, mostly due to adrenaline and a little touch of fear. "Don't move and don't speak until I tell you to, you hear me?"
"Yes, sir." Her voice became smaller and, somehow, very feminine.
I pulled the knit hat from her head and revealed a tousled head of shoulder length dark brown hair.
"Okay, very slowly now, take off the jacket and drop it behind you."
She readily complied and then I saw her lithe form and I also saw that she was not visibly armed. I relaxed a little.
"Okay, you can turn around now. Slowly."
She turned around and we both caught our breath at about the same time. She was an angel. If you can imagine a young lady with the flawless beauty of, say Natalie Portman, but with piercing blue eyes and the most angelic face then you know who I was looking at. I could not believe that this girl was in my house, and I could not believe that she was running from the cops!
"You're naked." She actually blushed. Despite the circumstance of her being a criminal in my house at gunpoint, it was still cute.
"Uh, well, so I am. I guess I should get a robe. You walk ahead of me and go into the bedroom over there and I'll get my robe."
She walked, almost floated, across the floor with the grace of a ballerina and into my room.
"Better yet, that's my robe on the end of my bed. Toss it to me, gently."
She did as I asked.
"Now lay face down on the floor so I can get this thing on and be a little more presentable."
Again, there was no complaint and no resistance. She lay face down on the floor and I laid the gun down on the dresser and slipped into the robe. I tied the robe off and then got into my slippers since the floor was getting a bit cold on my feet.
"Better. Now get up and let's go sit down and figure out what to do with you."
She did as she was told and had no sooner sat down on my couch then the tears started.
"Please don't call the police! I'll go to jail for the rest of my life and they'll..."
The sobs wracked her little body and I fought the urge to comfort her: what if it was just a ploy to make me lower my guard?
"Fine, fine, I won't call the police..." she looked up with a sense of hope on her face, "...yet. But you're going to settle down and then you're going to tell me just what the hell you're doing in my house, okay?"
"Yes, sir."
I pulled a throw out of my armoir and tossed it to her.
"Cover up, it's chilly in here."
She drew the thick wool around herself and visibly relaxed.
"Thank you."
"No problem. Take off the boots and get your feet under the blanket."
She looked at me hesitantly. I realized what she must be thinking, practically naked guy with a gun and all.
"Sweetie, your muddy boots are fucking up my Persian carpet if you don't mind."
"Oh, I'm so sorry..."
While she was undoing the laces on the boots I went to my bar and poured a generous glass of my smoothest brandy and exchanged it with her for the boots. She stared at the glass in her hand as if it were poison. I opened the back door and tossed the muddy boots out on the porch with a thump.
"I, uh, thank you, uh, but I don't drink."
She made to hand the drink back to me.
I don't know why, but I felt compelled to exercise my control of her.
"Drink the damn thing and then we'll have a nice little chat or I'll call the cops right now."
Fear ran across her face and she upended the glass down her throat and then she looked at me for a moment before the alcohol started to burn. Her eyes welled up and then she hacked a little bit before settling down.
"Have you ever had brandy before?"
"No. Never."
"Well, sweetie, you just tossed down about $20 of my best sippin' brandy. I didn't mean for you to drink it all at once."
Her doe eyes looked up at me through her bangs.
"I'm sorry. Really."
Well, the brandy soon kicked in and my guest started to spill her guts. And I mean spill. She started in about her father dying some years ago and then her mother married the Assistant DA. It turns out that Mr. Assistant DA had a thing for my twenty-year-old guest, Laura, who was just finishing up her sophomore year in college. She went on to tell me of him groping at her whenever the mother wasn't around. And then earlier this evening, with the mother in Chattanooga for business, Mr. Asst. DA decided to step into the shower with Laura.
She broke down in tears at this point.
"Laura, tell me, what did you do that the cops are chasing you now?"
She stopped her crying and got very quiet.
"Laura, what did you do?"
She looked up me, every bit the angel.
"I shot him. I blew his brains out all over the bathroom."
Her head hung down and was soon buried in the blanket that covered her sobbing body.
I knew what she was facing. In our genteel Southern town she'd be lucky to get to trial. The Assistant DA was a 'pillar' of the community and the cops considered him to be one of their own. No doubt they'd shoot her on sight. If they didn't then the best she could hope for would be most of the rest of her life locked up in some hell-hole with a bunch of lesbians. The death penalty was a serious possibility, too. And Laura was smart enough to know the cards she'd been dealt.