The Dividing Line (2016 rewrite)

Ed McCarley felt Sara Wood as she moved down his back, felt the weight of her need, and he felt the weight of his desire for her growing with each stroke of her hand, each warm breath of her's on his back. With the tension that melted from his knotted muscles, with each pulse of her beating desire, he felt his resistance to her withering within the ever-slowing heartbeats of time. He moved from the world of his training, his profession, into the dim gray world of the dividing line.

And then she asked him to turn over.

Ed McCarley felt the conflict between his head and his heart. He saw his ex-wife looking at him, fellow officers in the department shaming him, store clerks and fast food cashiers casting dark, sidelong glances; all of them looking at him in the darkness, judging him.

She lifted from his thighs as she felt him beginning to turn under her.

He turned his body under hers, struggling to make sense of this new world.

She straddled his belly now, just below his chest. She reached behind, reached for Ed McCarley's groin, ran her fingers through pubic hair, moved her hand purposely towards his need.

Ed McCarley's entire body stiffened as her hand made contact with his belly. He felt her hand as it moved down, as she encircled him.

Sara Wood held him and stroked away his fear, only now she looked intently into his eyes. She saw the smile on his face, an echo of her own, perhaps.

Ed McCarley felt her sliding away from his face, away from his chest. She was sliding through time now, away and beyond infinity. He felt her pubic hairs as they traced faint electric contours on the charged surface of his need.

She still had him in hand as her vagina hovered, wraith-like, pulsing, above his groin. She lowered herself slowly, gently, until she felt the head just grazing the petals of her lips. She reached with her fingers and spread them apart, leaving a faint pink opening that seemed to reach of it's own volition for the straining loneliness below.

Ed McCarley felt the heat of her folds radiating throughout his body, and he arced to meet her vast, oceanic pull. He felt his skin and her lips, felt her lips parting in supplication, conforming to the shape of their need. He moaned as her warmth penetrated the darkness, as the flooding tide of the moment flowed through the fabric of time.

She felt the head of his cock as it's rim slipped past the rings of her vagina, and rise into the waiting embrace of her womb. The muscled walls of her vagina gripped his cock in rippling waves and she fell down, ever downward, onto the base of his cock, thrusting back, driving her clit into his groin. Her head vaulting up to the stars, she was daring time to interfere with this moment.

He drove his cock into her as she sank down to meet him, felt her contractions as the tightness of her vagina defined his progress through her womb. She began to lift, the speed of her rise not tentative, clamping down on his cock as she climbed to the light of heaven.

The arc of time stands still, looking down on two lovers. Time does not judge, does not weigh motive or intent. If the infinity of time can be measured between two beating hearts, when two lost souls collide and dance in molecular fury, and surely this was a moment of time's choosing.

Time fused in the heat of new love's release, bathed in the light of this new passion's uncertain wisdom, and time laughed with them -- if only for a little while.

+++++

October 7^th

Ed McCarley, sitting in the watch commander's office, Central Division sub-station; there are knots in his burning stomach, a acrid-tight sensation boiling deep in his gut, spreading to his chest. The watch commander, an old captain named Thomas Hardy sits opposite; Hardy has been in the department more than thirty years, has been at the job even longer than MacCarley. His close-cropped hair is silver, his stomach flat as a board. Both men look very careworn; there is a large bottle of antacid tablets on the watch commander's desk, next to a cluster of photographs of a woman and several children. On the watch commanders breast is a small gold pin that states clearly, in bold letters: "Try God."

The watch commander has a file folder open in front of him on the chipped plastic-laminate desktop; a cigar smolders in an gleaming amber glass ashtray off his left hand. He continues reading the documents in the file, occasionally back-tracking to a previous page to double check a fact or relate to some other bit of information. There are moments when he stops reading to rub the bridge of his nose, then his closed eyes.

The files detail an incident that had happened the day before. McCarley had responded to a call in an affluent neighborhood to back up a unit on a suspicious persons call. He had arrived just moments after the first responding office, an old friend named Alan Simpson. He had seen three very sweaty, very dirty Latin American men standing by the street, their hands in the air. Simpson had his Sig-Sauer P-226 drawn, and he was yelling at the mute and visibly very cowed men. It was obvious to McCarley that the men were mowing a nearby lawn, yet Simpson was treating the men as if they were subjects of a felony drug bust. There were also several women standing in the doorways to their houses, looking on with barely sated curiosity. McCarley was still off balance as he watched Simpson; he must have missed something, maybe some resistance before he arrived, but what? His training explicitly told him to back his fellow officer, no questions asked. But McCarley was concerned that the level of force on display was getting excessive, out-of-hand.

Simpson holstered his weapon, but he swung the night stick out of the loop on his belt with his left hand and moved toward one of the men.

McCarley now acted instantly. He jumped between Simpson and the man, who by that time had backed down and was cowering on the ground, crossing himself and crying "Madre de Dios" over and over. McCarley looked into Simpson's eyes and saw blind rage: it looked like the depths of hell had boiled to the surface of some private inferno, that Simpson was getting ready to beat the man to death.

In a guttural whisper McCarley said, "Simpson, get it together."

Simpson tried to push McCarley aside...

"Alan! Get the fuck out of here. Now!"

Something caused Alan Simpson to pull back from the edge; he shook his head, cleared the fog and walked back to his squad car. Simpson tore away from the scene in a hail of flying gravel and exhaust fumes, leaving McCarley and the Mexicans standing in the street.

MacCarley checked with a few witnesses -- the women in their doorways were more than ready to talk -- then let the men resume mowing lawns and picking weeds. No suspicious people found, no burgled houses reported or observed. He called the watch commander on the telephone a few minutes after he cleared the scene, told him what had happened. The commander told him to come down to the station and write up a detailed summary of the event.

That had been yesterday afternoon. Now he was back in the W/Cs office.

"Anything you wanna add to this, Ed?" the watch commander asked.

"No, sir. I think that about covers it."

"Well, this is a goddamned mess. Lots of civilian witnesses came down to fill out complaints. Even so, it's probably going to have to go to the DA, Title 18 civil rights violation alleged with no probable cause. It's good you came to me with this stuff when you did. If you hadn't, you'd burn to."

"Yes, sir."

"You know there's gong to be some pretty heavy fallout headed your way. Lotta the guys aren't going to like you doing this, not at all, but don't get me wrong, Ed. This was the right thing to do, but watch your back for a while, okay?"

"Yes, sir." He knew this would happen; it always did. You break ranks, you pay, so Ed MacCarley stood to leave. "Thanks, Tommy." They had been friends a long time.

"Yeah, okay Eddie. I mean it, watch your back."

+++++

It was a little after eight in the morning. A trace of cool just edged into the air, stirring faint echoes of autumn into the still city air. Ed MacCarley walked around his squad car giving it a once over, checking for any overt exterior damage, then he checked the Remington 870 shotgun, first to see that rounds were up the tube -- and that there wasn't a round in the chamber. There was another, much younger officer walking around the black-and-white Chevrolet behind him, looking as though he was taking mental notes and not just a little perplexed. The young man with Ed McCarley was that most dangerous of all creatures on Earth, a rookie police officer -- one fresh out of academy.

Ed continued to point out things in the car to check for, like the correct functioning of the lights and siren, spare rounds for the shotgun in the glove box, the proper operation of the radio. Tire pressures, fuel gauge, cones and flares for accidents scenes. Ed asked the rookie if he had his clipboard and enough report forms to get through the day -- and of course he didn't have squat, and had to be sent back into the station to retrieve everything he'd forgotten.

McCarley shook his head, opened his briefcase, took out a bottle of antacid tablets and unscrewed the lid. As a training officer it was his job to get the rookie up to speed fast enough to be useful, but not so fast the rookie would be more dangerous than he already was, and the long favored method for breaking-in rookies was ridicule and derision, then build them back up after breaking through the 'macho he-man gotta badge and a gun' mentality. He brought the bottle of antacids to his mouth and poured several tablets into his mouth and started chewing. 'Ah, breakfast...' he thought as he crushed the cherry flavored chalk with his teeth.

Ed strapped himself into the passenger seat and started getting settled in for a hard day's work. He turned on the radio and set the frequency to the division primary, checked the tactical and intercity frequencies for normal function. He logged into the computer, checked the secure computer-to-radio hookup. He picked up the radio's microphone from the console, and pushed the transmit button on the upper side of the mic.

"2141, radio check," he said into the microphone.

"2141, you're five by five. Uh, 2141, are you in service yet?"

Ed looked around, saw the rookie headed out of the station back to the squad car, and he wondered what poor fool would forget next. "2141, 10/4."

"2141 10/8 at 0817 hours. 2141, signal 4b, 3601 Hollandale, see the resident in unit 2."

"2141, en route."

"2141 en route 0818 hours."

MacCarley scribbled notes on his DAR, his Daily Activity Report, then yelled out the window to the rookie, "C'mon, Meathead," thinking that rookies were really a pathetic life-form. "Let's try to hit the streets sometime today, okay?"

The rookie got into the car. "What, we got a report already?" When he saw his training officer nod his head he said, "Aw shit, man, that sucks."

To which MacCarley replied, "Well, Meathead, when you live in a sewer, you'd better get used to the stink."

"C'mon, Ed. Do ya have to call me Meathead?"

"No, Meathead, I don't. But you don't want to deprive me of one of this job's few pleasures, do you?" MacCarley turned his head and smiled at the vacant stare hanging in the air. "And I'll tell you something else, Meat. You call me Ed one more time today and we'll have to get you to County, and fast, to get my boot out of your stupid ass."

"Yessir," Meathead replied, now sitting at attention.

"So, 3601 Hollandale, sig 4b. Remember what a 4b is, Meathead?"

"4b? That's a rape?"

"No, Meathead, but you're getting closer. A barking dog complaint. Quick, hit the lights and siren!" As the rookie reached to switch on the lights and siren, MacCarley swatted the kids hand away from the console, shaking his head as he growled. "Pathetic," McCarley said to himself. "Well, okay, sometime today would be nice. And no, I don't feel a need to run code 3 to a barking dog call, OK?" He paused, let the sarcasm sink in.

"Yessir."

"Hollandale, Meat? Think you can find it?"

The rookie started the squad car and swung it out of the station's lot northbound onto Grand Avenue. MacCarley sat in silence. Hollandale was south and west of the station. 'Oh God,' he thought, 'it's going to be a long day.'

+++++

A little after five thirty that afternoon McCarley and the rookie walked back into the station and turned their day's reports over to the evening-shift sergeant. He sat in the briefing room with the rookie while the sergeant read through the reports for errors, then, after the final 'okay' was given, they headed back to the locker room. McCarley felt the chill in the briefing room, and as he walked to his locker he saw a piece of paper taped to his locker door; "Pig Fucker!" was written across the note in big red letters -- and there were several -- apparently used -- condoms stapled to it. McCarley left the note taped to the locker door as he changed out of his uniform and into his jeans. He put his gun belt in the old academy gym bag he'd been using for almost twenty-five years, and zipped it shut, then walked out of the station, heading towards his apartment. He never looked back at the rookie; the kid sat dumbfounded in front of his own open locker, looking at the stapled rubbers like they were a dead dog hanging from his training officer's locker door.

+++++

Ed McCarley climbed the steps up to his apartment, and went to door number seven and slipped the key into the lock. He turned the doorknob quietly and opened it, walked into his apartment, the apartment which until so recently had been such a dim, lonely place. As he turned toward the living room he heard, then felt Sara running at him, saw her leaping through the air for his arms. He turned in time to catch her, gave way a little bit under the momentum of her impact. He felt her legs wrap around his hips, her arms around his shoulders, her hands in his hair. He turned and pinned her body between his and the wall, put his arms around her waist, and their faces met in an explosion of hot breath and wet kisses.

It had been almost the same every day since that first weekend in June. Ed McCarley had thought that the force of her love for him would diminish, but it hadn't. He had felt her thirst for intimacy would diminish, but it did not. And Ed McCarley had for a while lived in fear that this miracle of God named Sara Wood would in time simply vanish, that the whole miracle of her smile and laughter would turn into one more empty dream. Yet she had not. Every minute of every day he spent with her was a gift, the priceless bestowal of life. Such is the nature of destiny, the measure of love's hold on the human heart that Ed McCarley had committed himself to this dramatic course of action -- and never once looked back.

McCarley ran his hands down Sara Wood's lithe body, and he smiled inwardly as he felt the lingerie and the stocking tops with his starving fingertips. He kissed her with even more passion, felt the room around him dissolving into sweat-filled mists of open mouths and healing hearts. He fell under the weight of their combined need, the burden of her escape from poverty now a cold, distant memory. She played her heart's strings only when he was gone from her, and when he walked in that door he fell under the weight of destiny's undeniable call to love, and he fell slowly to the floor as he cradled her in his arms. He fell weightless through mists of hope and fear, came to rest on top of her, between her legs. They seemed to kiss for an eternity, his hands moving over her body with practiced ease now, finding her hands, holding them in his as if they were the forge of redemption.

She rolled on top of him, laughing with a child's joy at the conjoined mystery of his need and the salvation of his offering. She felt him growing under her frail weight through the rough fabric of his jeans and reached down to release him. As she fumbled with his jeans, she laughed and kissed his face, yet she grew more aroused and in love with each breath she took. She was so hungry for McCarley's love that food had become unnecessary -- at least when she was with him.

And then in that sudden silence all her own, she was poised above him. Poised above the arrow of his need, her nether lips brushing the tip of his cock as she slid lightly back and forth, teasing the head with each grazing stroke. She kept her hands flat on his chest, her eyes languidly locked on his. As she danced above his need she could feel the warmth, at first from deep inside her belly, then spreading slowly through her loins. The heat and the wetness coated the walls of her womb, rolled down to the straining cock below. She lowered herself gently on each successive stroke, controlled his entry with her descent as her thighs yearned for the trembling release just over the next...

He could feel the warmth, the fury of her impending need, as she lowered herself, and he took her hips in hand and helped guide her motions. Forward, back, and twisting; he moved her from front to back in motive bursts. She began to move at her own speed, her pulsing stride storming inward to the full fury of release. Soon two bodies were fused in consuming rhythms of heat and release, each building to singlular release, a unique fusion of fear and desire always carrying them higher.

Soon they lay spent, quiet decay in the other's arms, and only then would all her vast uncertainties come to the surface. The call of her past was still a vast shadowland, a huge swath of fear and loathing that still came for her unexpectedly at times, though not as often these days. Sara Wood lost focus on the present in those moments, lost her grip on the here and now, and when her uncertainties found her she was soon confronting images of other men in her mind's eye, other tongues -- surely not her own? -- probing the warped desires of those who would never truly know her. Yet today, for some reason she wilted, and under the breaking wave she looked into Ed MacCarley's eyes and suddenly knew she was -- not -- worthy of him. With peaks of ecstasy receding in that sundered instant, she felt implosively exposed and began to cry.

She had found her shadowlands once again, and fell into the looming darkness.

McCarley felt her unravel in his hands, and he met the extremity of her need with insight born of years on the street.

He held her.

He let her go to the darkness and despair, visit it, touch it for the slightest moment.

And just as quickly he pulled her back, let her feel only the vague outlines of her fear. Now he kept it from consuming her. He pulled her closer to him, held her tightly, told her that he was with her, and would be with her for as long as she wanted him by her side, and he felt her relax -- then...

"Want you!?!" she cried. "All I want is you. I die every morning when you leave, Eddie. Want you? I get so afraid..."

"Tell me what you're afraid of, baby."

"That you won't come back. That one day I'll be alone again. I don't want...I can't..." and she fell to the private music of her very own symphony, the music of despair.

"You'll never go back there, darlin'," Ed said in velvet soft whispers of reassurance. "You don't have to worry about that anymore. I've taken care of all of that, Sara. If I die tomorrow, I'll still be able to keep you from going back there. But, now listen to me honey, I'm not going to die tomorrow. I'm not even going to work tomorrow. As a matter of fact, darlin', I've got a pretty big surprise for you tomorrow. But the best part of that surprise, Sara? I'm not going to work for almost three weeks, and you and I are going to be together all that time. And you know what else? I'm not going to leave your side for one second. Not even when you take a shower. And you know what? That's where we're going, right this red hot minute."