Smut 69: Restraints
Sometimes the big parties were fun. Tons of other cop brats, all knowing the score, free to intermingle and bitch about their parents could be a hoot. They were like minister's kids-always under someone's watchful eye, held to a higher standard, the last consideration after their parent's service to the greater good. Sometimes they were a fucking pain in the ass.
Alex resisted dressing up for this one, settling on clean jeans and one of the white button downs she wore to school. It was a carnival after all, what was the point? There had been a brief and terrifying moment when her mother suggested she just wear the rest of the uniform. Alex wasn't sure which of them was more horrified by all that encompassed. The jeans in Alex's hand were rapidly approved and her mother moved on to her younger sister.
She did manage to ditch responsibility for her siblings at least. With all the cops around, no one could pretend there weren't eyes enough. Hair tucked under a baseball cap, hands in her back pockets, she wandered the place trying hard to avoid anyone she knew. She knew she looked younger than she was, so she probably wouldn't be harassed by the occasional band of older boys and no man would dare. For once she had complete freedom to move. Maybe she'd get herself some cotton candy and really do it up right.
Cotton candy in hand, she found a bench and sprawled on it so no one would sit with her.
The day was supposed to be fun. Angie had been after him for weeks to arrange something for the family to do, but work kept interfering. She said she understood, but the tension grew and grew. Finally he knew he could get free the day of the carnival and bought tickets. They'd have the whole day to wander. Maybe he'd win both his girls a stuffed animal. He woke that morning genuinely looking forward to going.
And then Angie told him the baby was sick. He held the little girl while Angie showered and while she seemed a little sleepy, he didn't think there was anything seriously wrong. Worst case she could sleep in the stroller while they walked. That idea led to a fierce if remarkably quiet argument. Angie would hear nothing about taking a sick child out among so many people. If Jimmy thought it was so important to rub shoulders with the Brass, he could go himself.
Deeply stung by the accusation, he stormed out of the house. With some distance, he suspected this was her way of getting back at him for canceling plans a million times. That wasn't as painful as the idea that she might really think he only cared about advancing in the department. The hours he worked were to provide for his family. They didn't need much, but he wanted to be certain they had it all and more. He did love his work, but that didn't mean he loved them less.
With nothing better to do, he used one of the tickets to the carnival. It was a fundraiser and maybe if he threw a few dollars around he'd feel better. He couldn't do anything nice for his girls; he could donate to other cop's families. Wandering the fairgrounds, he scanned the crowd for men he worked with, planning to steer clear of them if he could. He didn't want to explain why he was there alone.
After struggling through a crowd around the baseball toss, he almost stumbled into a clear spot. Across it was a bench occupied by a little girl eating a huge ball of cotton candy. He smiled at the perfect image of childhood excess.
Then she moved the cotton candy and his smile faded. Sitting thirty feet from him, contained in her own little world, was the gamine he couldn't get out of his mind. For a dizzying moment he was thrilled his wife had thrown him to his own devices and the thought made him miss a step. That brought him back to reality. He hadn't even known he started walking toward her.
She looked up just as he stopped. Unlike him, she knew him immediately. Much less surprised to see him than he was her, since she knew he was a cop, she still blushed furiously. The last time she'd thought of him had only been a few days before and she'd been gasping and jerking in her bed at the time. There was no way she could face him and no good way to get out of it. She had to thank him for the photo.
Taking a very deep breath, she sat up straight and smiled at him. She didn't quite wave him over, but her expression was clear. 'Come talk to me.' She even shifted on the bench to make room.
Taking as deep a breath as she had, Jimmy closed the distance between them and sat beside her. He tore a piece of cotton candy off the ball in her hand and popped it in his mouth to give him a moment to steady his voice. When he glanced at her, she had an amused grin that almost stopped him from speaking again. "So, what precinct is your old man in?"
She laughed, pleased that he cut right to the chase. "The 4-0. He's a sergeant." She cocked her head. "You aren't here alone, are you?"
He sighed deeply and took another bite of her cotton candy. "I am. My daughter wasn't feeling well, but my wife thought I should come anyway."
Alex turned on the bench, pulling her feet up to sit Indian style and watch him. She could see there was more to it than just the baby feeling badly, but there wasn't anything she could say about it. "That's a shame." She smiled a little. "Thank you for the picture. It meant a lot to see the doll house being played with."
He nodded. "Of course. She loves it. I think she'd sleep in it if we let her." He grinned a little at the memory of catching her trying just that. "I should stop in and pick up a few more pieces. Maybe some things for the attic."
Alex practically jumped up. "Oh, I know the perfect thing. We just got in a set with a trunk filled with dress up toys. And a big mirror. She'd love it."
He laughed. "Would you put it aside for me? I'll stop in next week for it."
"Of course!" She blushed at her painfully obvious enthusiasm. "I work tomorrow, so it'll be there anytime after that."
He grabbed another bit of cotton candy, causing her to jerk the candy away from him. Laughing, he apologized. "I couldn't see walking around with it. Wouldn't do much for my image, would it?"
"No, probably not." She held it out to him again. "I want one of those stuffed pigs or something, but I'm on my own, too. How would it look?" She pointed to one of the large stuffed pigs hanging in a game booth.
He'd been surprised to see them given the venue, but even more surprised to see kids carrying them. He shook his head. "Preacher's kids." When she laughed so hard she had to lean against the back of the bench he just watched her until she recovered. "What about your boyfriend? Won't he win you one?"
Inwardly he cursed himself and hoped she took his slip as a compliment. She had no idea he'd listened to one of her most intimate moments and he hoped to Hell she never did. Better she thought he was a pandering old man than that.
She sighed. "Nope. No boyfriend these days. Cut the last one loose before I broke him." She smiled faintly. "So it's all on me and while I throw plenty good enough, and maybe even shoot well enough, it's just not the same."
He watched her for a long moment, studying her young face and the set of her shoulders. She didn't miss the boy, just the idea of the boy, which was pretty much what he expected. Still, she was a pretty girl at a carnival. She deserved to have someone win her a stupid stuffed animal. That was how it was supposed to work. Some boy who didn't know how good he had it was supposed to show off muscles he didn't know how to control yet and win her something pointless.
He stood up and flexed his hands. "Come on. I wanted to win something for my daughter anyway and I'd feel stupid just whaling away without an audience." He had no idea at all what he was doing. She was going to laugh or get spooked that he meant to molest her. When she stood up and headed to the arcade, his jaw dropped. He had to hustle to catch up with her.
She knew any minute he'd remember she was just a kid and ditch her, but as long as he was interested, she'd play along. It was shameless of her. Every minute with him was a minute with a real man who would fuel her fantasies until she could get one of her own. She knew it was nothing more than that and she felt guilty for about two seconds.
Alex led him through the booths of skill games, looking for one that they could even get to. Booth after booth of milk bottles and water guns were three people deep with people waiting. The first even remotely accessible booth was a pick the duck game, but that was full of little kids. Then she found one and stopped next to it with a grin.
The feeling that he was being led around by a sensitive bit of his anatomy didn't make paying attention to where they were going easy. When she stopped, Jimmy almost ran into her. The huckster saw them immediately and pitched his game relentlessly. The object of the game was to hit a plastic frog and make it jump over a moat into the appropriate cup. It took some skill, and some practice, to win at it.
Jimmy looked down at her and raised an eyebrow. She grinned up at him and pointed. With the huckster's encouragement on top of her smile, he couldn't resist. Glancing at the price lists, he groaned. This was going to cost a fortune. He paid for enough chances to get him started and got into position. Just before his first attempt, she pulled off her baseball cap and her hair fell over her shoulders.
Her hair had an affect on him, but it was the change in the tone of the huckster that really threw him. The man must have suddenly realized this girl wasn't his daughter. He probably thought she was his mistress or something and there was no point in trying to aim after thinking that. Jimmy made a show of lining things up and smacked the poor little frog so hard it almost cleared the other side of the table.
Alex heard the change in the man's spiel, too. Unlike Jimmy's nervous reaction, she felt like she grew two inches and ten years. It was all meant to get him to spend more money, but she didn't care. Now he was playing the game for her. She tossed the cotton candy in a nearby trashcan and stood a little closer to him, just shy of crowding him.
She sensed a sadness that went beyond his daughter feeling sick when he explained why his family wasn't there. Maybe he'd had a fight with his wife because she doubted he would be there if the little girl was very sick. He wouldn't be playing some game for her amusement, either. She focused on his shoulders and how he moved his arms to keep from staring at his face while he played.
It didn't help much, since she'd thought plenty about those arms at night and how they would feel around her. She knew better than to look at his hands. She'd flush bright red if she let herself think about where she'd imagined them. The poor man would be horrified if he knew what some kid thought of him.
It took him ten dollars to be able to concentrate with her standing so close. Once he had a rhythm going, it only took another five for him to win a respectably sized stuffed octopus for his daughter. The electric blue beast would look great in her room and he knew she'd cart it around everywhere. He handed it to Alex, who petted it and laughed. Seeing her with the toy almost broke his heart.
He couldn't give her what she needed any more than David had. His instinct was to lean over and kiss her fiercely, pulling her slim body against his and hold her until she could barely breathe. When he let her go she'd laugh again, the sound completely different. Then he would win her the biggest, showiest toy he could.
But she wasn't his and never would be. He had no business at all winning her anything, much less thinking about kissing her. Some boy should be looking at her the way he wanted to. Swallowing hard, he turned back to the game. He couldn't do what he wanted, what he thought she needed, so he'd do the only part of it he could. He'd win her the biggest damn beast they had.
She watched him working toward the second prize through wide eyes. He failed miserably for a little while, then hit a streak and got frog after frog into the little bowls in the center of the table. He could have stopped when he got five and given her a toy similar to what he'd already won, but he kept going. Suddenly she realized what he was trying for. She bit her lip and watched him carefully as he worked toward the ten he needed.
When he reached ten, she jumped in the air, clapping around the octopus. The huckster grumbled a little, but got down one of the big stuffed pigs and passed it to Jimmy, who promptly handed it to Alex. She traded the octopus for it and hugged it tightly. Any discomfort about being with him fled in the face of the ridiculous toy. Her father would hate it, but at that moment it was the most wonderful thing she'd ever had.
She kissed its nose and grinned at him. "It needs a name. You won him so you have to name him for me."
He swallowed hard, touched by her exuberance. Without thinking, he brushed her hair back from her face. When she didn't jump away, he went further and tucked a strand behind her ear. "Call it Jimmy? So you'll always remember me?" He swallowed hard again at her expression. If he'd thought at all about what he said, he would have expected her to panic. Years of training should have told her to run like hell from the old man suddenly touching her. Instead he saw something else.
If he kept his hand on her, she would turn in a minute and kiss his hand. Her expression was unmistakable, even on a woman-child. If she did that, he'd be lost. It would be impossible not to kiss her the way they both wanted. Realizing the madness of that, he slowly dropped his hand and took a half step back. No matter what he knew about her, or how he thought about her when he was alone, she was just a kid. Just a kid no matter what her eyes told him.
When he stepped away from her, she understood she hadn't imagined it. The man she had a schoolgirl crush on wanted to kiss her. Maybe he'd just gotten caught up in winning her something, but he did want it. She waited for him to move further away, but he didn't. He had his eyes firmly on her and she remembered he'd asked her something. She nodded slowly. "I will." It was the answer to both his questions.
"Alex!" From across the arcade a child's voice made Alex jump. Jimmy glanced around and saw a girl running toward them. She was clearly Alex's younger sister. Alex waved at her, then turned back to him. She hugged the stuffed pig tightly and whispered a simple 'thank you.' That was his cue to go, he knew, but he was tempted to stay and greet her family. Seeing the look on her face, he thought better of it and bowed briefly before walking away from her.
Alex watched him go; only turning to her sister when the girl practically ran into her. There was a momentary scuffle over the pig before their parents got there. When asked, Alex said a friend won it for her. Later she mentioned to her mom that she'd seen the man who bought the dollhouse. If anyone had seen them together, she didn't want to be accused of hiding something. That night she fell asleep wrapped around the stuffed pig named Jimmy and dreamed of kissing a man who gently touched her hair. She slept amazingly well.
Jimmy, on the other hand, didn't sleep well at all. The octopus was a huge hit and his daughter slept with it much as Alex did with the pig. Angie seemed to believe his story that the toy had cost him a small fortune to win, so he didn't try again. That didn't make her any easier to live with. She was still pissed he'd walked out and after a tense meal and letting him put the baby to bed, she'd make it quite clear he was more welcome to sleep on the couch than anywhere else. He dreamed of Alex as well, tossing uneasily on the couch.
His last conscious thought was that she'd said she'd hold the doll set for him the next day. He knew where she'd be.
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