Busted

They took him into Interview Three, a cell-like room with cinderblock walls painted a sickening shade of light green. Jackson pulled out a plastic and metal chair and said "Have a seat, Andrew."

The kid was looking around at the dingy room like he was inspecting an apartment he might want to rent.

"Wow, so this is where you interview the bad guys..." He took a deep breath. "What is that, ammonia?"

"Sit your ass down," said Turk. He kicked the chair, and it scraped across the cement floor and hit the kid in the leg.

"OK, you must be Bad Cop," said the kid, and he sat down.

"Who the fuck you calling a bad cop?" asked Turk. "I oughta kick your ass, you little shit."

"No, no, I mean like Good Cop/Bad Cop - you know, where one cop pretends to be nice, and the -"

"He knows what you meant," said Jackson wearily. He was a heavyset black man in his forties, and he had the air of man who had seen it all and was sick of it. He dropped into a chair across the little wooden table from the kid with a sigh. His partner remained standing. Turk had too much energy to sit for long, even at five in the morning.

Jackson watched the kid for a few seconds, trying to assess his mental state. Nervous, maybe a little excited, but not scared. Probably sober.

"OK, Andrew, listen carefully. You have the right to remain silent. If you choose to waive that right, anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law."

The kid smiled. "I understand my rights, Detective Jackson. And I don't want a lawyer."

Jackson nodded. "OK, that's good. You co-operate, tell us everything that happened, that's the best thing you can do for yourself, believe me." He started the tape recorder on the table and spoke the date and the time.

"State your name, age, and occupation."

"My name is Andrew Miller. I'm twenty-one years old, and I'm a full-time student at Landover."

Jackson nodded. The kid had Landover written all over him - the expensive casual clothes, the trendy haircut, the polite but condescending attitude. They had picked him up at an off-campus apartment after a woman had showed up at the station, said she had been raped, and had given his name and address.

"Do you know a woman named Sarah Glassman?"

"Sure."

"Did you see her this evening?"

"Yes I did."

"Did you have sexual intercourse with Miss Glassman this evening?"

"Yes I did. Consensual sex."

Turk snorted. "Sure it was. Once you tied her up and gagged her, she didn't protest at all, right Miller?"

He pulled out another tape machine and slotted a cassette into it. "Well listen to this, you little prick, and then tell me that the lady didn't protest." He pushed the play button and sat back.

A woman's voice said: "Incident report by Sarah Glassman, Saturday 29th of November 1997 at 3.30am. OK, go ahead Sarah, speak into the microphone ...."

Another woman's voice, lower, and a little quavery, started speaking:

"I went to bed early - I wasn't feeling very well for the last few days and I want to get a really good night's sleep. So I must have gone to bed at 10.30, maybe 11.00. I was fast asleep but I came awake with a start - you know when you know that there's something wrong? So I jerked awake and I tried to sit up, but suddenly there was this hand over my mouth. A big hand with a thick leather glove on it. I couldn't sit up, I could barely breathe. Then I felt something at my neck. He told me it was a knife and that if I screamed, he'd slit my throat. He pulled the duvet down off me and pulled me up out of the bed by my hair, with the knife at my throat - he was behind me by this time. He asked me where I kept my scarves and when I pointed to my cupboard, he pushed me over towards it. He told me to take out a folded square headscarf and to put it in my mouth and to tie it in place with another square scarf, folded down into a band. When I did that, he tugged at it and then he pinched my breast and told me to tie it tighter. Then he told me to pick out a black silk square and to fold it down into a blindfold and then he told me ..... he told me to blindfold myself with it."

The first woman's voice spoke again: "And what did you do Sarah?"

"I did what he told me. I gagged myself tightly with two scarves and then I blindfolded myself with my black Hermès Les Cles."

There was a pause and then the first woman spoke again. "What happened then Sarah?"

"He pushed me face-down onto the bed and tied my hands behind me with some rope or something. It was very tight and it hurt a lot. Then he gagged me with another scarf .."

"Weren't you already gagged, Sarah?"

"Yes, but he tied another scarf over my mouth. He wrapped it twice around my head and tied it off beside my ear. It was so tight.... And the knot hurt me..... I could barely breathe .... And I was so frightened." The speaker broke down into quiet sobbing.

"I know Sarah, it must have been horrific for you. But talking about it will help you get over it and it will help us catch the bastard who did this to you."

The sobbing continued for a few moments and the speaker continued. "He gagged me with another scarf and then he tested it by pulling my hair until I screamed. It must have been too loud, because he put another scarf over the others and tied it off too. The he jerked my hair again until I screamed and screamed and screamed, but no sound got out. I couldn't make a sound. It was horrible - I was almost suffocating." There was a long pause. "Then he turned me over onto my back and he cut my night-dress off me."

"Exactly what did he do, Sarah?"

"He started pawing my breasts and then he tried to rip my night-dress, but it was made of thick ivory satin and he couldn't do it, so he cut it with his knife, between my breasts and then he tore it all the way down to the hem and he cut the hem and the straps with his knife. I could feel the cool air on my chest when he pulled it off me. Then he tore off my panties and he started to finger me...."

Turk punched the off button, walked around the table and stood behind the kid, a menacing presence with his slicked-back hair and square jaw. The kid craned his head around to follow him, and said "She didn't protest before or during, Detective. Only after."

Jackson glanced at Turk. So the kid wasn't going to deny the incident, that was a little unexpected. Most rapists denied everything at first, and didn't change their story until the physical evidence started rolling in.

"We'll get to that in a minute, Andrew. I want to get some more background for the record first. Have you ever met Sarah Glassman?"

"Yes."

"Is she your girlfriend?"

"Not exactly. We're friends, though."

"Have you had sex with her previous to tonight?"

"Yes."

"How many times?"

The kid puffed out his cheeks, making an elaborate show of thinking about it, like he had so much sex it was hard to keep it all straight. Shit, he was a good-looking kid, maybe he did get it all the time.

"Maybe ten times or so. I can't remember for sure."

"Uh huh. But she isn't your girlfriend?"

The kid smiled sheepishly. "Well, you know how it is... not my steady girlfriend."

"Yeah, we know how it is," said Turk sarcastically. He was pacing around the room like tall, thin cat. "We just fuck 'em and leave em, right Roy?"

"OK, Turk, take it easy." Jackson turned back to the kid and said, "So Sarah was a friend of yours with whom you occasionally had sex, and tonight was one of those occasions."

"That's right. Is that a one-way mirror?" The kid pointed to the mirror, which had a suspicious greenish tint. "Looks kinda fake, you know?"

"Yes, it is," said Jackson. "There's no one on the other side right now." He gave the kid a long stare, wondering why he was so relaxed. He opened his notebook, and said "Miss Glassman claims that you broke into her apartment at around midnight, tied her up, and then forced her to have sex."

"I didn't break in, I used a key. The rest of that is true."

Turk and Jackson exchanged a look. The kid was confessing, so they needed to play it cool and just keep him talking.

"You had a key to her apartment?" asked Jackson.

"She keeps one hidden by the front door. I saw her use it once, so I knew where it was."

"That's still breaking and entering, if you didn't have permission to use the key," pointed out Turk.

The kid shrugged. "OK, whatever."

Jackson shut off the tape recorder. "Now, the next thing I'm going to ask you is how much you had to drink before you went to Sarah Glassman's apartment. Before you answer, I want you to know that if you were drunk, that is a legitimate extenuating circumstance. I don't mean that it makes you innocent, I mean that a judge will take it into account when he sentences you."

"But I am innocent."

Turk said "Shit, Roy, I don't know why you're trying to cut this asshole any slack." He reached past Jackson and restarted the tape recorder.

Jackson shrugged and said, "How much did you have to drink tonight, Andrew?"

"Absolutely nothing" the kid said. "I wanted to be clear-headed so I wouldn't make any mistakes."

Jackson snapped his notebook shut. "All right, then. Why don't you just tell us what happened. Give us your side of the story."

This was a subtle reminder that they already had Sarah Glassman's side of the story. The kid shifted in his chair, took a deep breath, and said "Sure. But I don't know if you guys are going to buy it."

Turk laughed, a short sharp sound. "I was thinking the same thing."

"That's not really the best way to start out your story," pointed out Jackson.

The kid smiled briefly. "Yeah, I see what you mean. It's just that...OK, here's the deal: Sarah wanted me to rape her."

There was a moment of silence.

"Go on," said Jackson.

The kid looked back and forth between Jackson and Turk. "Sarah wanted me to rape her, so I did. That's it."

Turk said "Then why the fuck is she down the hall crying? Why the fuck did she call the police?"

Jackson put his hand on Turk's arm like a man restraining an overexcited dog, and said "Why do you think she wanted you to rape her?"

"She thought it would be exciting. She's a weird chick, that way. She's like, I don't know, addicted to danger or something. She says that adrenaline is an aphrodisiac."

"Adrenaline is an aphrodisiac," repeated Turk. "You're so full of shit, you tilt your head it'll start coming out your ears."

"Lemme get this straight," said Jackson. "You're saying you had this all arranged ahead of time, that she knew you were coming over to play a rape game with her tonight?"

The kid licked his lips, looking a little nervous for the first time. "No, not exactly."

Turk banged his fist on the table and said "So then you raped her, asshole."

The kid shook his head, looking scared now. "No, I told you, she wanted me to do it. I was supposed to sneak into her apartment some night, wake her up, and rape her. Or pretend to rape her, I mean. But I wasn't supposed to tell her ahead of time when it would be."

Jackson shook his head and said, "Son, that's the flimsiest story I've ever heard. Maybe you do need a lawyer."

"Look, it'll be a lot more clear what happened if I start at the beginning and tell you how it is between me and Sarah, OK?"

"You do that," said Turk. "This should be real interesting."

The kid took a deep breath, looked around like he was trying to soak up the ambience, and began.

"I met Sarah at a Frat party a couple of months ago. Well, actually I knew who she was before that, but I'd never really talked to her. Anyway, that night we danced a lot, got wasted, and slept together. The next morning I was worried that she might be pissed off, because she was so drunk when we had sex. I called her, and we talked about it, and it turned out it was cool, she wasn't pissed. She said the fact that I was concerned made me better that ninety-nine percent of the guys she knew. So after that we were friends. We didn't sleep together again for a while, but we used to hang out and talk a lot. We always ended up talking about sex. One night we were on the subject of fantasies, and Sarah told me she fantasised about bondage..."

He remembered how horny it made him when Sarah told him she wanted to be tied up. Of course, Sarah always made him horny. They were in the Orange Tree, a poorly-named establishment if there ever was one, sitting in the dim back room at a scarred old oak table with their regular crowd. As usual, he and Sarah were sitting next to each other and carrying on their own conversation, kept private by the loud background noise.

"Tied up?" he said. "Why?" He knew why of course, he could see the attraction, but he always played the role of the naïf with Sarah.

"Danger." she said. "Adrenaline. Fear, ...all that good stuff." She gave him a sidelong look. "You know what I'm talking about?"

He held the look, gazing into her brown eyes. "Yeah, I know what you mean."

"Do you really?" she asked.

He was about to ask her if she wanted to show him exactly what she meant, but she turned away to look at the people trying to get her attention. Her turn in the running game of quarters. Sarah adjusted the position of the full glass of beer and carefully gripped the quarter in her fingers. She was dressed all in black, with a designer scarf tied at her neck as usual - a thin girl with long dark hair, pale skin, and an interesting face. Not beautiful, or even pretty, but sexy.

She measured the distance to the glass carefully, and made a few practice motions. He smiled - Sarah was the worst quarters player around; half the time she didn't even get it airborne. But she always gave it her full concentration, staring fiercely at the glass with the tip of her tongue poking out of the corner of her mouth.

This time the quarter rose in a perfect arc and swished right into the centre of the glass, to a roar of surprise.

She laughed and slid the glass in front of him. "There you go, Andy. Drink up."

"Why me?" he asked, pretending to be hurt. He drained the glass and passed it over to be refilled. He wanted to make a shot of his own and give the beer to Sarah, but he bounced it too hard and sent it over the glass.

"Thanks a lot," he said, elbowing her in the ribs. "Now how am I supposed to study Bio tonight?"

She laughed and put her hand on his thigh under the table.

"You can think of something better than that to do tonight, can't you?"

He felt his cock getting hard, just a few inches away from her hand. "Maybe I could tie you up," he said.

"Oh, so you want to tie me up," she said, raising her eyebrows. "What makes you think I'd let you do that?"

He shrugged, feeling the numb buzzing in his head from the beer. "The way you talked about it a second ago I thought you were serious. I guess it was just talk."

She laughed, appreciating his verbal jab. "Oh, it wasn't just talk. Why don't you tell me exactly what you would do to me if I let you tie me up?"

Her hand was a warm, heavy weight on his upper thigh. He wondered if she could feel his cock growing, pushing at the tight denim. He leaned closer to her ear and told her what he would do if she let him tie her up, and she shook her head in disappointment.

"That's it? That's so gentle, so boring...so nice. You don't need to tie me up to do that."

Oh? So maybe that was why they hadn't slept together again since that first night... "So what would you want me to do, then?" he asked, feeling a little exasperated.

"You're missing the point. I want to feel like I'm not in control, that I'm just along for the ride. If you're just doing what I want you to do, then what's the point of it all?"

"OK, if that's the way you feel, I know what I would do," he said.

She smiled. "What?"

"What's the point if I tell you ahead of time? You won't get the full experience if you know what's coming. If you want to find out, you'll just have to trust me."

She looked a little surprised, and she licked her lips thoughtfully. "Good point, I must say."

She slid her hand over the bulge in his jeans and squeezed his erection, making him flinch. "So what are we waiting for?"

"Just a second," said Jackson. "Are you describing something that happened earlier tonight?"

"No, this was a few weeks ago. You said you wanted to hear everything, and this is relevant."

"All right, that's fine. Please continue." When a suspect is in a talking mood, the best thing to do is let him talk.

The kid looked up at the clock on the wall. Quarter to six. "We left the Orange Tree and went back to her apartment..."

It took him forever to get her tied up. He had never done it before, of course, and he was pretty buzzed, not to mention nervous. He tied her hands behind her back with her scarf, which was silk and felt pretty expensive. But she somehow managed to wriggle them free, and then she started tickling him and squirming away when he tried to hold her hands in place. He finally rolled her over on her stomach, sat on her, and tied her hands again, more firmly this time, and then he paused to think it over. Sarah just sat there on the bed in her black silk shirt and black jeans, wriggling against the scarf that restrained her, looking at him with amusement.

"Some rapist you'd make," she said.

"You got a pretty big mouth for someone who's tied up."

"You call this tied up? I could just walk right out of here."

He grinned, and got up and shut the door. "Now you can't."

With her arms pulled behind her back he could see her small bra-less breasts outlined through the shirt, little bumps where her nipples were poking at the smooth fabric. He had tried peeking down her shirt all night, but never quite managed to get the right angle.

Something clicked inside his head. He was in charge now, so what was he waiting for? He went over and stood in front of her and she looked up at him expectantly. Then he put one finger down the front of the blouse and pulled it away from her chest until he could see her small breasts with their firm pink nipples.

She laughed, and said tauntingly, "What an imagination. He has me at his mercy, and all he wants to do is peek down my blouse."

He looked at her, not smiling, staring her down until she looked away.

"Stand up," he said, taking her arm and pulling her upward. He unbuttoned her pants and pushed them down, letting them fall to the floor. Then he reached under the hem of the blouse, found the waistband of her panties, and slid them down off her narrow hips. She stepped out of them automatically and he reached down and picked them up.

"Hey, now he's cooking," she said. "No more messing around, no siree." He noticed she sounded a little less sure of herself, a little breathless maybe.

Behind his back, he rolled her panties into a ball. Then he put his face close to hers as if to kiss her and said: "Close your eyes and open your mouth. Wider."

He quickly stuffed her panties into her mouth and held them there, gagging her with his hand.

"Mmmph!" Her eyes flew open and she lost her balance and sat back down on the bed. He grabbed another scarf from her wardrobe, pulled it into her open mouth and tied it tight behind her head.

"There!" he said. "Now we're getting somewhere. No more snide comments to distract me from my work."

She said something completely unintelligible, but from the tone and cadence he was pretty sure it was "Asshole."

"Tut tut. I'm not sure what you said just now, but I don't think I want to hear even that much." He took a third scarf and folded it into an oblong silken bandage and began wrapping it over the lower half of her face. Sarah started really struggling then, screaming into the scarves that muffled her, but he overpowered her and tied off the final scarf behind her head.

"You know how to do 'Shave and a haircut, two bits?'" he asked. She nodded and grunted it out, seeing where he was going.

"Good. That's your ticket out. If you do that I'll stop what I'm doing, untie you, and tell everyone what a coward you are."

She faintly grunted something else that he probably wouldn't want translated, and then, with no warning, she bolted towards the door. Turning her back to the doorknob, she fumbled at it with her tied hands. He caught her just as she got it open and dragged her back to the bed. She continued to struggle, not violently, but enough to keep him from doing anything to her.

He grabbed some more scarves and managed to tie her ankles to the scarf holding her hands together, and at that point she really became helpless. He suddenly noticed her ripe scent in the air, and he laughed out loud as he realised how turned on she was by what he was doing.

The rest of the night was a blur. He remembered playing with her nipples for what seemed like hours, licking them and biting them, until she had tears in her eyes and was literally trying to hump his leg. He remembered putting her across his lap and spanking her until her round little ass turned red, and then finally putting his hand between her legs and rubbing her sopping pussy until she had two shuddering climaxes. And he remembered putting her on her knees with her head pushed into the mattress and fucking her doggie-style, slamming into her as hard as he could, and then pulling out just before he came and spurting his hot seed all over her back, just for fun.

When he untied her she threw her arms around his neck, kissed him, and said "Andrew! I never knew you had it in you. We're going to have a lot of fun."

Jackson and Turk exchanged a look. The kid seemed like he was telling the truth, and they both knew that with a past relationship that included bondage games it would be hard to make a rape charge stick. As it stood, it was her word against his anyway.

"So you and Sarah engaged in bondage games regularly?" asked Jackson.

"Once in a while. But like I said, what she was really into was danger. Pushing the edge, anything to get an adrenaline rush. Let me give you an example...you remember that call from campus that there were two people fucking on a table in the library?"

The two cops nodded - the story had done the rounds of the station.

"That was us," said Andrew. "Remember the couple who were fucking on stage when the curtain went up during the Theatre Society's production of Salomé?"

The cops looked blankly at him.

"Hadn't heard huh? That was us too ...."

"But you continued to have a sexual relationship with her, despite this crazy stuff?" asked Jackson.

"Oh yeah, I have to admit, I was enjoying myself. At least at first. I mean, we'd do some crazy, dangerous stunt, and I'd swear I was sick of the whole thing, but then we'd gave great sex afterwards, I mean, really amazing sex..."

"Uh huh. You said 'at first'. Are you saying you were trying to end the relationship?"

"Well, things started to get out of hand. Some of the stuff we did..." He shook his head. "Like the time in her car..."

She picked him up in front of his place one night around eleven. She had said she wanted to have sex in the car, park somewhere private and do it in the front seat. He thought that sounded innocuous enough. More privacy than the crowded movie theatre they had used the previous week, anyway.

She drove off the Landover campus and through the small college town of Chelmsford.

"Where we going?" he asked. "Let me guess, the supermarket parking lot? Right in front of the store?"

She smiled, keeping her eyes on the road. "Someplace dark and quiet, don't worry."

As they left the town they passed a police car set up to catch speeders. "There's the fuzz," said Sarah. A little while later he realised they had circled back and were heading past the cop again. Suddenly Sarah floored it, and they roared past the cop at well over the speed limit.

"What the hell are you doing?" He felt the usual sinking feeling in his stomach. He turned around, and sure enough, the cop was following them, lights flashing. The siren burped a short refrain. When they didn't slow down, it went on and stayed on.

"Hang on!" Sarah was leaning forward over the wheel, her eyes wide and her cheeks flushed. They took a curve at high speed and he felt the car start to skid, almost losing traction.

"What the hell are you doing?" he yelled. "You've got to stop!"

"Says who?"

"You can't outrun the police!" He looked back and saw the cop was right behind them now.

"Don't worry, I've got a plan."

Suddenly she floored the accelerator again, pulling away from the cop, then she braked and turned onto a side street. It turned out to be one of those maze-like housing developments where you can get lost even if you live there, and Sarah turned off the headlights and made a series of quick turns, seemingly at random.

He looked behind them again, not hearing the siren. "He's gone!"

"Good." She came to the edge of the development and turned onto a bumpy dirt road that led into a forest preserve. She followed it a little ways and parked in a small parking area, out of sight of the road.

She turned off the ignition and smiled at him. "The cop will think we doubled back out of the development onto the highway."

In the quiet, dark car he could feel his heart pounding in his chest. "You're nuts, Sarah, but I have to admit, you did it...shit!"

"What is it?"

"The license plates! The cop must have gotten your license plate number."

"I caked them over with mud. But thanks for reminding me - we should clean them off now. Do you mind?"

He got out of the car and kicked the dried mud off the plates. What else was there to say? Sarah thought of everything. When he got back in the car she was all over him. She squirmed into his lap and kissed him, and her greedy tongue snaked into his mouth.

"I'm sorry Andy," she said after a while, her breathing heavy. "I shouldn't do these crazy things to you. I'm a bad girl."

"A very bad girl," he agreed.

"How can I make it up to you?"

He said nothing for a moment, but untied her scarf from around her neck and blindfolded her and then snapped handcuffs onto her wrists, locking her hands behind her back.

"Suck my cock. And swallow every drop." Before the words were out of his mouth she was nuzzling at the bulge in his pants with her mouth. He undid his zip and let his cock spring out. When her hot, slippery mouth closed over his organ he closed his eyes and let out a moan.

"I don't get it," said Turk. "She scares the hell out of you, almost gets you arrested, and for what? Just a thrill?"

The kid nodded slowly. How could he explain the adrenaline rush, the feeling of being completely alive...?

"Yeah, just a thrill," he said.

"And tonight?" said Jackson. That was more of the same thing?"

"Right."

Turk put his hands on the table and leaned forward until he was in the kid's face. "I'm gonna ask you this one more time. If it was a consensual rape game, then why did she have you arrested?"

"I don't know. Maybe she had second thoughts. I was pretty rough with her, maybe it was more than she could handle." He glanced at the clock - six am. "I'm sure she'll change her mind once she thinks it over."

"I don't think so, you little asshole, I think ...."

"Turk!" Jackson took Turk's arm and pulled him towards the door. "Sit tight," he said to the kid, and he and Turk went into the hall, shutting the door behind them.

"What the hell, Roy?" Turk was about to say more, but he saw his partner's face and decided against it. Roy Jackson rarely lost his temper, and it wasn't a pretty sight when he did.

"I want to talk to the girl again," said Jackson.

A female detective came up to them before they had a chance.

"Hey Jackson, I was looking for you. Sarah Glassman changed her story. Now she says it was a big misunderstanding. Just some kinky fun that went too far and scared her a bit."

"Goddamn it," said Jackson. "I knew it."

"Misunderstanding?" said Turk.

The woman nodded. "She says it was consensual - they had it arranged ahead of time. But she panicked - lost her head."

"You think we can charge her with something?" asked Jackson. "Filing a false report? Wasting our fucking time?"

The woman looked doubtful. "You could, but I doubt it would stick. I mean, it's not one of those cases where she made up a story to get back at her boyfriend for dumping her - it was a sex game that got out of hand. That's a touchy area you'd be getting into - might just end up being bad press for the department."

Jackson nodded curtly. "OK. Let them both go."

Turk looked surprised. "You sure about this, Roy? Maybe we ought to hold them overnight, find out exactly what happened. I don't like that kid's attitude."

"No. We'll see one or both of them back here soon - you can bet on it. They're playing with fire, and eventually they'll get burned."

A uniformed cop finally opened the door and told Andrew he was free to go. He took a deep breath and let it out, feeling the relief seep into his limbs.

"Let's go," said the cop. "I'm supposed to give you a ride home."

"No thanks. I don't need a ride."

The cop shrugged. "Suit yourself."

He went out into the parking lot, walking slowly on rubbery legs. She was waiting for him in her car, and she rolled down the window as he approached. Her face was framed by a silk headscarf knotted tightly under her chin.

"How was it?" she asked, her eyes sparkling.

"How do you think it was, you crazy bitch? Scary as hell." He grinned at her. "Now let's get out of here."