DISCLAIMER: I did not create the characters in this story. I claim no ownership or legal right to their usage. They appear here with the utmost respect and gratitude to James Ellroy, who first dreamed them, and Curtis Hanson, Brian Helgeland, Russell Crowe and Kim Basinger, who brought them to life.
"Loaded Dice"
by Roo
LYNN
He comes to me at strange hours sometimes, watching my house from his car if he hasn’t called first, making sure that I’m alone before he’ll come to the door. His schedule is so unpredictable that I’m never quite sure when he’ll turn up. He’s even had to cancel dates now and again when they give him a “special assignment,” but he always calls. He’s thoughtful that way. He knows I’ll worry if he doesn’t call.
More than once he’s shown up around dawn. He knows I’m always alone by then. No one stays overnight but him. No one else gets to be with me, the real me, like that. Only Bud.
He did that the other morning, appeared on my doorstep just before daylight. I’d heard his car outside, recognized the sound of it’s big motor and knew it was him. I opened the door and there he was, looking so tired that it nearly broke my heart, as if he had taken a beating himself, though I knew it was most likely the other way around. There was blood on his shirt and his knuckles were bruised raw.
“Oh, Bud, come inside,” I said, leading him into the house. I closed the door and held him close for a long moment, smelling a rough night on him, sweat and booze and frustration.
“Don’t,” he mumbled against my cheek.
“Why not?”
“I’m getting’ you all messed up.” He tried to pull away.
“I don’t care about that.” I looked up at him with a grin. “They’re just work clothes anyway.”
“They’re beautiful.” His eyes held mine for a long moment, searching for something, I wasn’t sure what. He half-smiled through his exhaustion “You’re beautiful.”
“Come into the kitchen,” I said gently, taking him by the arm. “Let’s clean you up.”
I led him into the back part of the house, my private living area, and sat him down at the table. His head hung on his chest as he watched me moving around getting this and that.
“Here, let’s get you more comfortable.” I started to help him take off his jacket and tie.
“I can do it,” he snapped. “’I’m not one of your fucking cust-“ He stopped himself, sighed and shook his head. “I’m sorry, Lynn. Goddamn it. It’s just been a real tough coupla days and, I just… needed to see you.”
“It’s okay.” I shrugged off his slip of the tongue, pretending not to care, telling myself that he hadn’t meant it, not really. “Let me see your hands.”
He held out his hands like a little boy showing that he’d washed for supper. His knuckles were scraped bloody and bruised and I could still see the marks from a set of brass knuckles across his fingers. “Poor thing…”
I began tending to his cuts, washing his hands and gently drying them with a soft towel. He never flinched once, though I know the iodine probably stung plenty. He looked so exhausted, I half expected him to fall asleep right there in the chair.
“I know what you need,” I said, setting the pan of soapy water in the sink.
“Yeah…you,” he said, grabbing my hand as I passed, using it to pull me to him. “I need you.”
“Oh, Bud, “ I sighed. “What am I going to do with you?”
“Whatever you want.” He shot me that sleepy little boy grin, the one that always makes me melt.
“We’ll see,” I smiled down at him, ruffling his short dark hair and kissing his forehead. “You wait right here.”
“Okay, but don’t be long.”
I fixed him a drink, two fingers of single malt neat, just the way I knew he liked it, and brought it to him, standing over him until he took a sip. “Better?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“You drink that while I get things ready.” Before he could argue, I left the room and headed upstairs.
Ten minutes later, I had him soaking in a hot bath, soothing his aching muscles, washing away the night. I washed his hair and soaped his back, kneading his shoulders and arms until I felt him begin to relax beneath my touch. He sipped at his drink and let me tend to him, something he never used to let me do.
“Why are you so good to me?” he sighed.
“Because you’re a good man and you deserve good things.”
“Good things like you?” His green eyes fixed on mine with an expression I couldn’t quite read.
“You may deserve even better than me, but I doubt you’ll find it,” I said lightly. When I looked up from sponging his chest, his eyes were dark and haunted.
“I don’t always do good things,” he said. “I’m starting to think that some of the things I do are pretty wrong.”
“Even a good man can’t do the right things all the time,” I reasoned. “Sometimes he has to do what he’s told. Besides, who’s to say what’s right and wrong or good and bad? Do the things I do make me less good in your eyes?”
He thought for a moment before answering, so I knew he was being honest when he shook his head and softly replied, “No, baby. You just do what you need to do to survive in this world.”
“Same as you do.”
“Yeah, I guess so.” He sipped the last of his drink and set the glass down on the floor beneath the big old claw foot tub. “We’re two of a kind, I guess.”
“Like a pair of loaded dice,” I grinned.
“Something like that.” A lopsided grin tugged at the corner of his lips. I knew he was beginning to feel better when he started splashing me a minute later, grinning like a kid as he soaked the front of my gown.
“Bud, stop it!” I warned, trying to hide a smile as I pulled the chain on the bath plug.
“You’re not so tough,” he shot back, splashing me again.
“I’m tough enough to take you on, “ I countered, chin set defiantly.
“You think so?”
“I know so.” I tossed him a towel. “Get dried off. You’re all wet… Officer,” I teased.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“To get ready for bed.” I sashayed to the door, well aware that he was watching my body move under the silky gown I wore. It was even more revealing than usual, now that he’d soaked the front. I paused in the doorway and glanced back at him over my shoulder. “Don’t be long.”
“Hey.” He stopped me with a word.
“What?”
He moved to me and pulled me into his wet embrace. “Thank you.”
“Anytime.”
He kissed me then, long and hard, the kind of kiss that I could feel all through my body. I felt him growing aroused as he turned me loose. “Is that for me?” I teased, brushing against him with my thigh.
“You know it is,” he growled softly. His breath caught in his throat as I rubbed up against him again.
“Then you’d better hurry up.” I gave him a squeeze and ducked out under his arms, heading for the bedroom.
He appeared in the doorway a minute later, wrapped in a towel that did little to hide his growing excitement. I caught his eye in the vanity mirror where I sat brushing my hair, wearing only a light dressing gown and a smile. I know what my Bud likes.
He came to me and took the brush from my hands, scooped me up into his beautiful strong arms and lay me gently across the bed. He kissed my nose, my eyelids, my chin and then, finally, my mouth. It felt so good, so right to be there in his arms, kissing him. It made the world outside seem petty and unimportant. The only thing that mattered was the two of us and the way it felt to be together.
I awoke a few hours later to find him lying on his side, watching me. He saw my eyes open and reached out to gently stroke my hair back from my cheek. I smiled at him sleepily. His expression remained serious. "What’s the matter, baby? “ I asked. “What’s on your mind?”
“I just want so much more than this for you… for us.” He frowned slightly.
“We’re doing just fine,” I told him. “You’re all I need.”
“You deserve better-“
“No.” I cut him off. “Right here, right now, in this room, we have each other. Nothing else matter. The rest of the world and everything outside this room can just go to Hell. None of it matters. It doesn’t exist. Not here. Not as long as we have each other.”
“Do you really mean that?” he asked, eyes searching mine.
“Oh, Bud, you know I do.” I reached out to stroke his face, ignoring the rough feel of his stubble against my fingertips.
He cupped my face in his big, strong hands, kissing me so tenderly that I knew he understood. One hand slipped under the sheet to caress me then, and he began to kiss his way down my body, leaving a wet trail on my flushed skin.
BUD
Sometimes, in my line of work, I have to do things that I’m not exactly proud of, things that are above and beyond the regular call of duty. Used to be I enjoyed cracking the skull of some wife-beating shitbird. It’s not exactly the sort of thing they teach you about back at the Academy, but we all find ways to make peace with ourselves. But, ever since Dudley appointed me to his “special task force,” I find that more often than not, I’m just doing his dirty work, working over some dumb prick who may or may not even deserve it. I’m just doing what I’m told.
Then there’s the times I look down at some guy, eyes wide pain, just about pissing in his pants with fear and I catch myself wondering, “What the fuck am I doing? Is this justice?” What scares me the most are the times that I don’t care.
Thank God for Lynn.
Take the other night. I roll up to her place about 0400 and sit out in my car for a few minutes, watching the house, making sure she’s alone. I see the curtain move in the front room and see the porch light go on and know she’s made me, so I head for the door.
She opens the door before I can knock and she’s standing there, so beautiful and soft that just looking at her I start to feel both better and worse. She gets a good look at me and knows just what kind of night I’ve had.
She pulls me inside, into her arms, holding me close. I hold onto her until I realize that the blood on my hands is starting to stain her dress and try to pull away. She acts like she couldn’t care less that I’m ruining a dress that probably cost more than I can make in a week of overtime.
She takes me back into the kitchen and starts fussing around with hot water and soap. I’m tired and want to tell her not to bother, that all I need is her. Instead, I start to snap out some real fucking stupid line about how I’m not one of her clients, and the moment the words leave my mouth I see the hurt in her eyes and wish I could take them back.
“I’m sorry, Lynn,” I say. “Goddamn it. It’s just been a rough coupla days and I just… needed to see you.”
“It’s okay,” she shrugs, not meeting my eyes. “Let me see your hands.”
She starts cleaning the cuts on my hands. Being real careful, and I watch her, so goddamned beautiful in her fancy dress with her long blond hair falling around her face, and I can’t help wondering why she’s so good to me.
She gets me a drink and takes me upstairs where she puts me in a hot bath. She starts soaping me, rubbing my aching muscles, taking care of me like no one ever has. Better than I have any right to expect.
“Why are you so good to me?” I ask, feeling miserable.
“Because you’re a good man and you deserve good things,” she tells me. And I look at her and see that she really believes it, as if she can see something deep down inside me, something that I’m not entirely sure even exists anymore.
“Good things like you?”
“You may even deserve better than me,” she drawls teasingly,” But I doubt you’ll find it.”
She glances up at me with those blue eyes of hers, and I realize that she’s half-serious, which makes my stomach do a slow roll-over ‘cause I can’t stop seeing the face of the guy I was working over at the Victory little more than a n hour ago, his lips pulled back and quivering as he spilled his guts along with his teeth, and Dudley… so smug, his Irish Brogue dripping with sarcasm as he said “I think he’s still being reticent, Wendell, don’t you?” forcing me to go on until the stupid prick in the chair was broken and bawling like a baby.
“I don’t always do good things,” I tell her, gulping down the last of my drink and trying to block out the scene in my head. “I’m starting to think that some of the things I do are pretty wrong.”
“Even a good man can’t do the right things all the time,” she tells me, and I know that she’s thinking of herself as much as me. “Sometimes he just has to do what he’s told.”
A second later she’s asking me if I think she’s any less good because of what she does and I actually have to think about it for a minute because what she does with other men has so little to do with us that sometimes I forget all about it, her other life, like it’s some other person, which I guess in a way it is.
“We’re two of a kind, I guess,” I say, finally cracking a smile.
“Like a pair of loaded dice,” she laughs in that musical way she has, and I just want to take her in my arms right there and then and make the rest of the world disappear forever. Instead I start splashing her, getting her wet, making her dress cling even tighter to her curves until she tells me to stop and she pulls the plug on the bath and throws me a towel.
I watch her jiggle and sway to the door, knowing that she is putting on a show for me and wonder how I ever got so lucky. Lucky to have a woman like her care about a big dumb cop like me.
“Hey,” I blurt out and she turns to look at me over her shoulder.
“What?” She asks, shooting me a smoky look.
I open my mouth, realizing that I care about her more than any woman I’ve known in my entire adult life and suddenly I’m afraid of what I might say. So, I pull her into my arms and just say “Thank you.”
“Anytime,” she says, and I can tell she knows what I mean. My lips find hers and tell her all the things I can’t say out loud, and she feels so good in my arms, pressed up against me like that, the heat of our bodies about to start a fire even though I’m still dripping wet.
She feels my excitement growing and rubs up against me cooing, “Is that for me?”
“You know it is,” I say, about to explode.
“Then you’d better hurry up,” she says, reaching down to give me a squeeze that leaves me gasping for air as she heads for the bedroom.
I dry off quick as I can, wrap the towel around my waist and head for her room. I find her sitting at the dressing table, brushing out her beautiful long blond hair and wearing a silky robe that clings to her in all the right places. She catches my eye in the mirror and I can’t wait another second…
Less than a minute later, we’re on the bed and I’m forcing myself to slow down and make the most of every moment of being there with her, in her arms where nothing else matters and there’s just the two of us.