The Civilian

Chapter 1

By checker

2453 words

"Nine Bravo Six, be advised, Code Two, to Dempsey Park at Wellington, for a six-four-seven-Alpha."

The call from dispatch came in over the radio of their cruiser. Officer Elana Reynolds sat in the passenger seat and scrunched her face trying to remember the last time she had to respond to a 647(a). Lewd conduct wasn't something that occurred often around her old precinct, but she knew she'd be seeing a lot more variety now that she was working as a floater. Her partner, Officer Tony Sharpe, barely blinked as he quickly reached for the radio mic.

"This is unit Nine Bravo Six," he said into the receiver, "Copy six-four-seven-Alpha at Dempsey Park and Wellington. Show me responding." His voice was deep and firm, and Elana had grown to appreciate how naturally authoritative he always sounded. Over the past week of working with him, she had noticed that he was able to defuse situations just by the bravado in his voice.

He returned the receiver to its cradle and placed his steaming coffee cup into the cup holder. Elana wasn't thrilled that they had made the cliché coffee-shop-stop, and she was much less thrilled that the cruiser now strongly smelled of a dark roast, but apparently Officer Sharpe had been woken up multiple times the previous night because of his baby girl, so she accepted the necessity of their detour. If her life was ever on the line, she wanted to make sure her partner was mentally ready to assist and if that meant he needed to be fueled with caffeine, then so be it.

Without activating the lights and siren, Sharpe shifted the cruiser into drive and pulled away from the curb even as Elana punched the address into their navigation. He seemed to already know where they were going, but when it popped up on the monitor, she saw they had been parked only a few blocks away from the incident so their response time would be short.

"Do you get a lot of lewd conduct calls around here?" asked Elana.

"I take it you don't know Dempsey Park's reputation?" Sharpe looked over at her and smirked. The combination of his stubble and chiseled chin made the expression particularly roguish. Elana hated how attractive she found him; policework was hard enough without unnecessary distractions like that. When she had been assigned to help pick up the slack in this precinct, she hadn't expected to be placed with someone so good-looking. Not that she was expecting her partner to be a slob, but she certainly wasn't expecting a partner who looked like he'd be at home on the cover of a fitness magazine. She really wished there was a way to completely suppress base emotions like attraction, it would make policing much easier and safer.

"Since Dempsey Park is so close to the college, the students spend a lot of time getting... familiar with each other there," he continued with his attention back on the road. "The res halls have a pretty strict no-fraternization policy, so you find a lot of them thinking they're being sneaky in the bushes. And that's not even mentioning the crap the frats get up to." He laughed, but looking over to see her stoic, unimpressed expression made him cut it short by clearing his throat.

He looked ahead again as he turned the cruiser onto Wellington Avenue. "We get calls like this maybe once a week," he continued, "Like I said, it's usually a couple kids getting frisky in the bushes, but they always scatter as soon as a uni shows up. I know all their favorite spots. First, we'll check the lilacs, then the gazebo, then the bench by the pond."

"I don't think we'll have to look very far," Elana said, pointing at a crowd that had formed around the stately fountain.

Officer Sharpe furrowed his brow. "That's odd," he said. "They're usually a bit more discreet than that."

He pulled up to the curb and parked the cruiser. "Let's go see what's going on."

They both exited the vehicle and began walking towards the crowd. Dozens of people were gathered around one side of the fountain, craning their necks and holding up their smartphones to record what was going on. Whatever it was, the crowd successfully obscured it from the view of the two police officers as they approached.

Elana briefly wondered what they were going to see on the other side of the crowd. If it was actually two college coeds acting out a scene from a porno, she was going to be seriously unimpressed. She had become a police officer to protect people, to make a difference, not to do the job of a chaperone at a school dance. It was hard enough being taken seriously as a female police officer and having to break up some lewd conduct would only put her in danger of sexual harassment.

She understood it was part of the job, civilians don't exactly have to report to HR, but precinct walls talked as well and there was a reason Elana had developed her stoic, reticent demeanor. She was very attractive and she knew it. Not even in a vain, narcissistic way, but she understood the many pros and equally numerous cons of being conventionally good-looking. In her personal life, men rarely looked her in the eyes (even though she considered the contrast of her brilliant blue eyes and her dark brown hair to be her most striking attribute), instead they spent most of the time talking to her boobs, no matter how much she covered up. She didn't even consider herself particularly busty, especially not by today's standards, but on her fit physique her breasts just stood out like she was begging for attention. Frankly, it sometimes felt like a liability in the field and she had once tried wearing a minimizer bra, but it ended up affecting her mobility.

Even worse, when men weren't staring at her breasts, she often caught them trying to sneak a peek of her round backside, an unfortunate side effect of her passion for distance running. For someone who preferred to be taken seriously, it was rather annoying. Fortunately, the boxy standard-issue police uniform helped to hide those attributes from most civilians. With her hair pulled back into a tight bun and her uniform crisp, pressed and creased, she managed to hold a no-nonsense authority in a way that no one could ever use her appearance or her gender against her.

With that being said, Elana could only imagine the optics of her current situation. Here they were, two oddly attractive officers responding to a ridiculous call possibly involving public sex acts and approaching a large crowd of people cheering, commenting, and catcalling. It felt like the start of some primetime procedural drama - the kind where the plots are more concerned about who's having sex with whom than actually solving cases.

Officer Sharpe was a few paces ahead of Elana and she caught herself noticing that he managed to fill out his uniform like it was a tailored fit. She chastised herself for getting distracted, not to mention how hypocritical she could be, but felt slightly vindicated when he approached the crowd and caught the gazes of a few of the women there.

"Police! Make a hole!" Sharpe barked. Some people jumped in surprise, but his commanding presence was effective. He was a big guy and no one in the crowd wanted to be in his way. Elana followed a step behind him. Her hand was instinctively resting on her belt, ready to grab whatever she may need to handle the scene ahead. With his loud demand, the cacophonic din of the crowd actually quieted, and Elana was able to hear some of what was happening inside. There was a distinct shrill moan from a female and a repetitive slapping sound. It was unmistakably the sound of two people performing sex. This seemed way more demonstrative than just some college students sneaking off to explore each other's bodies.

When they made it to the center of the crowd, Elana's suspicions were verified and by Officer Sharpe's distinct (albeit brief) pause, it was clear that this was far from a typical 647(a). A man and a woman were actively engaged in sex, continuing even as Officer Sharpe reprimanded them. They just kept going at it like a pair of dogs in heat. These weren't your typical run-of-the-mill frisky teenagers, either... or at least the woman wasn't. Just looking at her, Elana wouldn't have been surprised to see her on the set of an adult film shoot. Elana tried to push aside the shock of the scene, however, and let her training take over.

She started by appraising the scene: two subjects engaged in coitus. Subject one was a white female in her early twenties, waist-length platinum blonde hair tied in pigtails, and a slender build with disproportionate, surgically-enhanced breasts. Minimal clothing, wearing only a red tartan micro skirt pushed up around her waist and six inch platform heels. A white blouse was discarded approximately two feet away, likely belonging to this subject.

Subject two was a black male, possibly early twenties, with a frail build and short black hair. He was wearing an oversized light-blue t-shirt, stained with sweat, and black jeans bunched around his ankles, obscuring his feet.

The female subject was leaned forward, holding on to the concrete wall of the fountain and the male was standing behind her and thrusting with a surprising level of endurance given his slight build. Elana noted that he was exerting a high level of **** based on the rhythmic slapping of his hips against the woman's backside.

Officer Sharpe was the first to act: stepping forward, announcing their presence with a bellowed, "Police!" and issuing orders for them to stop, but the couple kept up their depraved performance. The woman even seemed to moan louder, but Elana couldn't tell if it was just coincidence. The two almost seemed like they weren't even aware that Sharpe was there.

While Sharpe was occupied dealing with the primary subjects, trying to make them stop and throwing the discarded blouse at the woman, Elana noticed something else. Off to the side, but still separate from the crowd, sat a pair of men.

Subject three was a Caucasian male in his late teens or early twenties. He had blonde hair gelled in a short, spiky style, and a strong, athletic build. He was wearing a burgundy letterman jacket, blue jeans and white sneakers, but he was oddly positioned on his hands and knees facing the fountain wall like a human tabletop, and he remained completely still despite the awkward pose.

Sitting atop him as if he simply was a park bench was subject four. This man was what really caught Elana's eye, primarily because of how unremarkable he was. Like she did with everyone else, Elana tried making a subject profile of this man, but she struggled to find anything of note about him. He had a light complexion, but it could have bordered on pale, and his facial features didn't give any indication of ethnicity or age. He had an average build: not strong or athletic, not slight or frail; his hair was a nondescript shade somewhere between blonde and brown, and his clothing was too nondescript to even mention. In her four years on the ****, Elana had never encountered anyone so blatantly plain. The most remarkable thing about him was how completely unremarkable he was. Had she not been actively trying to profile the scene, Elana probably would have looked right over him.

What bothered her most, more than how he was using another human being as a piece of furniture, was his reaction to the scene in front of him. He sat atop the third subject like a king on a throne, but his face conveyed a disinterested, almost bored, expression. While all the other voyeurs were cheering, gawking, or recording with their phones, the unremarkable man just watched stoically like he was an unamused art critic. He was seemingly bored and expressionless, that is until Officer Sharpe began using **** to separate the fornicating couple.

Sharpe, distracted by the lewd spectacle, seemed completely unaware of the spectator, even as the man started to call out, "As always, you're right on time to ruin everything." The man's expression turned to one of irritation or disgust, like a spoiled toddler who didn't want to take 'No' for an answer.

If Sharpe heard the man's statement, he made no indication. He was too busy detaining the scrawny man, but Elana couldn't tear her eyes away from the extraordinarily ordinary stranger. She knew she should have been dispersing the crowd or assisting her partner, but she couldn't shake the feeling that this man was a threat. Her hand reflexively reached for the sidearm on her belt, ready to engage at a moment's notice.

That moment arrived all-too quickly.

Seemingly irritated by the interruption and by Sharpe forcing the woman to put her blouse back on, the man rose from his human throne and began to approach Officer Sharpe.

"You have a much stronger will than your partner," he said. "I really thought a newborn at home would have squelched your dedication by now."

Elana leaped into action. It was odd that he knew personal details about Sharpe, but she couldn't worry about that now. "Sir!" she commanded with as much authority as she could muster, one arm outstretched while the other remained ready at her hip. "You need to stay back."

The man stopped dead in his tracks and slowly turned to face her. His eyes were wide in surprise, but the corners of his mouth had tilted upwards as if the turn in events pleased him. "You’re new," he said, his voice flooded with a sudden, malicious inspiration.

Unsure of what he meant, Elana tried to maintain her position of authority. "Are you involved with this?"

The man chuckled as though her question was pointless, like she was a child asking why her parents had to go to work. "You have no idea. And I find your brute partner's insistence on inserting himself to be rather annoying." He gestured over to Sharpe, who was visibly irritated by the fact that the woman couldn't button her tiny blouse over her massive chest. "He has to go. But you... you can stay."

Elana didn't understand. He was obviously delusional, but she needed to secure the scene regardless of his mental state. "I need you and your... chair... to step back and let us handle this."

The man smiled. "Gladly."

He took a step back and...