The Road to Redemption

--Officer Beth, morning of January 1st, 2026 (earlier that same day)--

During my first week in the office at my new assignment in South Patch, I found myself praying to hear the door chime ring that tells me when someone's walked into the police station. I wanted it so badly that I literally prayed for it in church, actually.

South Patch isn't like the city I moved from. My superiors back in the city framed this as a promotion, telling me that the departure of the previous sheriff was a career opportunity for me, but I think now that they just saw me as a nag or a pain in their collective neck, just because I didn't like the lax way they conducted business. Is it my fault that I see errors and demand they be fixed? Is it a crime to tell my superior when I notice that the suggestions I add to the clear plastic suggestion box in our lobby just sit there gathering dust, like nobody's ever going to pull them out? Is it such a crime to want to be useful and busy?!

I was punished in the most fittingly cruel way possible: I was moved to a town where nothing would ever happen. Even though they had a streaker walking the streets every night and various other accounts of public indecency, everyone was happy with no desire to report any of it. No need for a sheriff, really, which explained why I was the only police officer anywhere in the whole village.

The entire "police station" was just a single office with a lockup in back, large enough to hold a single occupant and nothing more. There were no filing cabinets, no bulletin boards, no organizational materials except for a single outdated desktop computer at the desk, which I eschewed in favor of my personal laptop. There had evidently been posters at one point, judging by rectangular discolorations on the walls, but those had all been taken away with the last sheriff. Given the sorts of things he was allowing to go unpunished in terms of public decency, I assume the posters weren't particularly tasteful.

Tasteful or not, the whole town was peaceful... Then I came in like a whirlwind and wrecked everything with that hair-brained chase. Now, despite all I prayed for that door chime to ring when I first came here, I shrink in fear every time I hear it. Part of me is worried that she's haunting me-- that it's her, tormenting me for her wrongful ****! The more rational part of me knows that it's just the mail-woman, Sheryl, but she's about as bad as a vengeful ghost herself.

The people around town were too mild-mannered to complain to me or take it up with me directly, but I knew that the accident with Ichika had made me public enemy number one. Sheryl's attitude towards me was every bit as cold as the weather outside. She wouldn't speak to me and she slapped down my mail onto my desk before leaving. I kept worrying that I was going to start getting hate mail, but that didn't happen. Again, most of the people in South Patch were almost stupidly friendly to strangers, making my betrayal of that trust all the worse.

I was so eager to bring in my first perp here in South Patch that I got an innocent woman killed! No, I take that back. I'm not calling her innocent, given that she was known for committing public indecency just about every day. You'd be arrested for the kind of thing she does anywhere but here. Actually, am I even really to blame here? What kind of a police officer doesn't arrest a streaker?! It's not my fault if she didn't look where she was going!

But I digress. I feel guilty about it right now, that's a fact. I'm feeling so guilty that I haven't even figured out how to apologize to the one person I need to the most. From what I hear, she was living together with a man, Otto Sugar, in that fishing shack out near the marshland and he was planning to propose the day she died. He probably had a ring and a spot picked out, everything planned out in his head... his whole life leading up to that moment before I pulled the rug out from under him...

How do you smooth that over?! They don't make sympathy cards specific enough for something like this!

I've got to try to give him a heartfelt apology, though. It might help me with my guilt and it's definitely the right thing to do.

Suddenly, the door chime rang, making me jump. Sheryl came in, looking disgruntled as ever, with her pink lips held in a distasteful frown that was meant for me alone. She was quite pretty, apart from that: a nice figure that had only just begun to decline in any way, almond eyes, voluminous blond hair... she was the definition of the most popular girl in high school who'd somehow lost her footing going out into the working world and slipped to the bottom of the ladder. It was hard to identify her as a post-woman at all unless you knew her, considering that she was dressed in tight blue jeans and a zip-up sweater instead of her uniform.

She threw me one pink-nailed finger-- the middle one-- when I called out to her on her way out the door.

I gave one glance to the mail... there was an odd red letter there with a silver cross seal holding it shut. It looked unusual, but I ignored it. I couldn't let this grudge with the post-woman keep going this way or I was going to go crazy. I ran outside after her and called her name. "Sheryl, you and I are both adults. Please, tell me what I can do to make things right with you and the townspeople."

She curled up one side of her lip in a snarl. "Huh? You serious? You have to apologize to Otto, duh. I don't give a shit about him, but he was Ichika's hubby. He deserves some closure, don't you think?"

Dammit. She wasn't stupid and this situation wasn't hard to understand. I wasn't being picked on for being an outsider here, nor was I being treated unfairly-- everyone just knew the same thing I did. I had an obligation to make things right with Otto.

"Alright. I'll head to the local flower shop and purchase the nicest sympathy bouquet I can find-"

"No, girl, they're probably sold out of all the good stuff by now, with all the people who brought one to him. Besides that, I dropped some mail off at his place earlier, and it doesn't look like he cared about flowers enough to even open the door for the people bringing them by. Besides, if you're really sorry, you ought to do something sincere, right?"

"Well, yes, but I don't even know what he likes-"

"T&A, obviously. He was Ichika's boyfriend, after all."

It took me a moment to put together what she was saying, like the acronym was so bizarrely deployed in this context that I couldn't fish the meaning out of my memory. When it finally came to it, I went a bit red and balled my hands into fists unconsciously. "W-What are you suggesting I get him? I'll have you know, respectfully, I am not planning to fill the void left by his wife!"

Sheryl gave a snicker, covering her mouth with one hand. "You're too skinny to fill that void, trust me," she laughed. "Look. I'm a practical person who says it like it is. Got me?"

"Oh, yes, I had gotten that."

"So I'm telling you straight up, as somebody who knew this geek in the early days, the only thing that's going to lift his mood is tits and-or ass. Yours are pretty good. Not as good as mine, but-"

"I am not gifting him my breasts and-or buttocks!"

"Doi! I'm saying just wear something nice. Not classy nice, like slutty nice. Go over, bring him some food, maybe something homemade, and wear something he'll like to look at. That'll cheer him up."

"... It still sounds a lot like you're asking me to act like I'm his wife."

"Not his wife. Just a single neighbor with a rocking bod that might be interested in him. You don't have to actually be into him. But thinking you might be will get his motor running a little."

"... And just to be sure, I couldn't 'get his motor running' with a nice gift basket or an expensive bottle of wine instead?"

"Damn, you give out expensive wine as a consolation gift? Maybe I've got to get hitched somewhere and then let you kill my husband," Sheryl cackled, slapping her thigh in amusement at her own joke. "Now, I know you probably don't have a single slutty item in your wardrobe, so I'm going to be a doll and lend you one of my clubbing outfits."

"There are night clubs in South Patch?"

"Just one-- and it's just about the only hot-blooded thing to do in South Patch. Why, you interested?"

"... No."

"Kind of figured. Anyway, just come over to my place after I get off work in about an hour and I'll have it ready for you."

Knowing that she had actual work to do for an hour while I'd be shirking work to make a casserole got me steamed, but there wasn't much I could do about it. I resolved that if all I had to do was wear a clubbing outfit and bring the widower something nice to eat, that was really the best thing I could do for the state of civil affairs in South Patch. A civic duty, in other words. If I thought about it that way, I wouldn't be embarrassed. This still didn't feel like a sensible thing to do, but it seemed sensibility was really secondary to other matters around these parts.

--Otto, afternoon of January 1st, 2026 (later that day)--

The first thing I knew when I opened up the door after my reunion with Ichika was that blessedly, the person who'd come to visit was not one of the exorcists who'd be hunting down my wife.

The second thing I knew was that I... didn't know. By which I mean I had no idea who the woman on my doorstep was. I wasn't the type who got around town much, but still, it was easy to memorize the faces of every woman around my age in South Patch. There weren't that many. This was one I'd never seen before.

Of course, I realized it was possible I was mistaken. I wasn't really able to focus on her face very well, given that she was wearing a sparkly, silver-colored tube dress that seemed somehow too insubstantial on both the top and the bottom. It looked like if she tugged it to fix either place, it was either going to be her boobs or her ass spilling out, one or the other. I felt like I'd seen the dress somewhere before, but I couldn't place it...

Anyway, the woman wearing it didn't look like anyone I could remember seeing. Her hair was long and brown, very straight-combed to remove every flip or tangle in a way that somehow felt like it didn't match the dress. Her body was dynamite and the dress flattered her. Now, granted, she didn't exactly fit my marrying tastes: I had married a rather heavy, plump bodied woman, after all, and this woman was fit to the point that I didn't think she just went jogging every day-- I figured she might be the type to practice boxing or karate at a gym or something like that. Her eyes were bright blue and her face was putting on an obviously **** smile. In her hands were a casserole dish and I have to admit, even with her cleavage hovering just above it, the smell of cheese and whatever else coming from that direction was the most appetizing part of this visit so far.

Then I realized something a little less appetizing: she had a police officer's badge clipped to the belt of gold rings that circled around her waist. There was only one police officer in town... the one that killed my wife!

I tried to slam the door in her face as soon as I saw it and was amazed by the lightning fast reflexes with which she stuck one leg out to stop me from doing so. As my eyes bulged, seeing her toned thigh nearly up to the panty-line, it occurred to me for the first time that she must be incredibly cold, standing outside in just that dress and high heels. For that matter, walking on the ice and snow in high heels was a **** wish. I started to feel sorry for her, especially because I hadn't answered the doorbell all that quickly.

I decided to step aside and let her in. Not because I was afraid of her kick, you understand, but because I was a chivalrous person with a soft spot for women in need.

She was the first to introduce herself, giving a stiff bow of apology while holding the covered casserole dish in both hands. Why the bow? Did she think that just because I left my shoes off indoors and I had a Japanese wife, it meant she had to bow to me like a Japanese person would? I didn't get it and I didn't ask. "My name's Beth... and I'm so, so sorry about your wife!"

Her earnest voice and awkward mannerisms were punching right through the iron wall I'd put up, determined to keep this woman out of my good graces forever. It was immediately obvious that she really meant it and how much it had been bothering her.

Still, however much it had been bothering her, I was the one who was really bothered here! I wouldn't forgive her just yet. "You drove all the way here in that outfit just to tell me that?" I poured on the derision, making it clear she had more work to do if she wanted me not to hold a grudge.

When her head came back up from the bow, I could see a confused frown on her face. "I didn't drive here. I actually rode my bike."

That didn't make sense. I'd seen an odd, white van parked on the other side of the street when I opened the door earlier to let her in. Plus, it was absolutely freezing out there. "How the hell did you make it here on the bike!? The roads are too slippery, aren't they? Not to mention all the snow!"

"It's okay. I know what I'm doing." She tossed her hair with self-confidence-- earned, I suppose.

"Yeah, but also, if anyone saw you biking like that, they definitely saw your panties too, right?"

"What?! No way! They wouldn't look!"

"This is South Patch. They definitely looked," I argued. "Anyway, never mind that. Why the hell are you dressed that way to begin with? This is like... the opposite of the image I had in mind when I heard about you from the others, Beth."

"... Sheryl told me that I should try to look... less formal when I talked to you." Beth cast her eyes aside awkwardly, like she'd begun to piece together that she'd been tricked.

"Sheryl did? She's one-hundred percent just fucking with you."

"I knew it!"

If she'd known it, she wouldn't have put on that slutty dress and biked here from the police station with a casserole for me. Regardless, her silliness and the way she was clearly a victim in this too rapidly eroded whatever hatred I had left for her. With that out of the way, I could appreciate the situation a little more. Beth was easily the second hottest girl I'd ever had in my house, next to my wife, and dressed in the kind of outfit that I loved to see my wife wear. Between this and the fact that my wife was apparently floating around the place as a horny-- but sadly invisible-- ghost, I felt like my sex drive just might manage to make a recovery.

Apparently I was staring a little too obviously, because Beth put on a somewhat impatient frown. "Is there a kitchen where I can put this down?"

"Oh, uh, at the back of the room. You'll see a mini-fridge... just stick it in there."

I could tell that she was really flabbergasted that my house was as small as it was and was trying hard not to make a comment to that effect. She'd moved here from the city, I think, so she probably had an apartment or something there... being looked down on by someone used to living in such a cramped space was annoying. I swallowed it down as I followed her across the room, covering my mouth with one hand and focusing real hard on the sway of her hips. Every step seemed to ride the skirt of the tube dress a little higher. With her hands full, she couldn't correct it, and by the time she'd reached the fridge, she was showing the bottoms of the cheeks. I felt myself starting to show a little something too.

Too much of something, actually. When I looked down, I saw that my fly had come unzipped again. While I was trying to tuck it back in, my eyes traveled back upwards, and I saw Beth sticking out her firm, round ass at me while she leaned down toward the fridge.

"'Just stick it in there.'"

"Huh?" I asked dumbly, momentarily stopping the fight to zip up my fly.

"You said 'just stick it in there,'" she reminded me, sounding increasingly annoyed, "but there isn't any place for it. I think it'll only fit if the top shelf is cleared out."

"All that stuff's shitty leftovers, you can just toss it in the garbage."

She gave a big sigh of exasperation, making it clear that this was not the sort of task you **** on house guests. I got that, sure, but I wasn't about to jump in there and do it when it'd mean spoiling a view like this. I felt like if I just went to a crouch, I could probably make out her panties, which'd really go a long way towards building a positive association for her in my mind.

As Beth continued to take more old noodle boxes, Styrofoam containers, and etcetera from inside the fridge and chuck them into the trash, I saw something curious. She was wearing a pocket book on a spaghetti strap and, unbeknownst to her, it was tilted in such a way that things were falling out of it while she worked. One of those things was a little hand mirror, like for applying makeup.

And in that hand mirror...

I covered up my mouth to suppress a scream. That was the first time I'd seen it: the face of my dead wife. She was wearing the same warm and erotic smile she often wore when she was alive, looking just as plump, but not quite as healthy... her skin had a ghoulish, pallid look to it and her black hair, usually brushed away from her forehead. Now, a bit of it fell over her eyes, giving her a look vaguely reminiscent of that girl from The Ring. She was also wearing some sort of red bondage harness, I noticed, but that was par for the course for Ichika-- funny to see that it continued into the afterlife.

I didn't care what she was wearing or what she was doing-- just seeing her again made me fall to my knees and tremble. She really was in the room with me as a ghost, even if I couldn't normally see her. I resolved to start carrying a mirror around with me so that I could see her face more often. Just as I was thinking that, however, she disappeared from the frame...

... And I understood why, when I spotted what had replaced the image of her face. The pocket mirror was pointing straight upward, giving a clear, unobstructed view of Officer' Beth's undercarriage. Evidently, Sheryl hadn't tricked her into just the dress-- she'd even gotten Beth to swap out her panties. The straight-laced officer was wearing a leopard patterned thong, probably straight out of Sheryl's closet. The coverage was so little and the angle so profound that it went beyond the realm of peeping into softcore pornography, revealing enough for me to make out the shape of her pussy lips strained by the thin, taut fabric. The arrangement of this lens was very intentional. That was my perverted wife's handiwork, for sure.

Miracles, apparently, would not cease, as I noticed the zipper on the back of the dress begin to worm its way down, past the shoulder blades. The movements of the zipper weren't smooth-- they were a bit jerky, as it seemed Ichika hadn't gotten full control over her powers yet. Either way, it was on the trail, and before I could decide if I wanted her doing this or not to a woman who clearly spent time boxing in preparation of bringing down perps in hand-to-hand struggles, the zipper was all the way down to the hips. The dress was fairly likely to fall off when she stood back up, if the belt didn't stop it. I made a motion towards where I assumed my wife was floating, pantomiming zipping the dress back up, but she was always a quicker undresser than she was a redresser. Or perhaps she just wasn't done with her mischief.

I freaked out as Beth suddenly turned, holding a tupperware container with some unidentified, moldy stuff in it gingerly in both hands. "Alright, I've been quiet, because I'm a guest, but this is disgusting!" she protested. "This doesn't happen over the span of a week, Otto. You two really lived like this?! I'd say you had a few other domestic issues you ought to have worked through before planning on marriage, like, I don't know, one of you learning to clean out the fridge!"

I wasn't paying attention to her nagging at all, because sure enough, the dress had ended up without the leverage or security it needed to continue defying gravity. It ended up slumped around the belt at her waist, allowing me to realize that apparently, Sheryl's clothing allotment hadn't included a bra. I'd kind of figured that, given that there weren't any bra straps visible with the dress, but sure enough, Beth's well-sized breasts were hanging out, the nipples still a little pointy from her time out in the cold. Her tits weren't nearly as big as Ichika's, of course, but they were still a sight for sore eyes, and the little glimpse of her toned abdomen wasn't bad either. With her fit body providing a contrast to Ichika's, she was definitely the kind of girl that my wife would have said had a lot of threesome potential.

Her body was actually way too eye-catching... I couldn't pull my eyes away.

Beth quickly realized where I was looking and when she did, she threw the tupperware container at me. I freaked out as the front of my shirt was instantly covered in stringy, moldy whatever the hell it was, stinking to high heaven. This was karmic retribution at its most direct and immediate. "What the hell?!"

"You're asking me?! You unzipped my dress and pulled it off while I was in the fridge, you freak!" Beth complained, crossing her arms at her chest with fury flashing in her eyes. I thought a taekwondo kick was probably coming in my immediate future. "You're under arrest!"

"You can't arrest me! You fucking killed my wife, remember!?"

"Watch me!"

I made a run for it, heading towards the front door in the opposite direction of Beth. I had no idea what I'd do when I was out there. My short legs and lack of any kind of regular exercise weren't going to do me any favors here and even if I got a head start, she apparently had a bike. My ghost wife was not so proficient yet that I could expect her to lock the door behind me when I slammed it. In other words, as soon as I was out that door and in the snow, I was sure to be apprehended in a matter of seconds!

I begged a higher power for my third miracle of the day. Was it the third? They were getting hard to count.

I had that ridiculous thought in my head as I barreled into the person standing just outside the door with one fist raised to knock.