Elena trotted. Small steps, like she was almost running. In the dark, a little after 3 am, she didn’t feel safe. She limped a little. The shoe she had been wearing was one size smaller and it suffocated her feet. She tied her jacket around her waist because she felt hot from all the drinking. Her head hurt too. She doesn’t remember much from the night. Although the night wasn’t over yet. Her handbag bulged from the sides and the zip could barely hold what was inside. She looked on both sides of the street. It was, after all, a walk of shame.
Two policemen on patrolling duty stood on the other side of the street. Elena made brief eye contact and continued limping and trotting as fast as she could. The policemen after exchanging a quick conversation with each other proceeded to stop Elena. “Excuse me Miss?” one of them called her out from behind, “Excuse me?” the other one chimed in. Elena stopped as her heart jumped. She turned around, smiled awkwardly, and darted her eyes left and right. Fear was her first instinct because she hadn’t paid a traffic fine. But these were policemen she thought to herself, not the traffic police.
The taller policeman eyed her bag and asked her what the piece of cloth was. She jumped and said, “It’s nothing.” The other one proceeded to ask her for an ID. She put her bag on the footpath and sat and said, “I am sorry, my head hurts. Just give me a second while I dig in for my ID.” As she put her hand inside, one of the policemen saw a dark red spot on the clothing stuffed in. “Step away from the bag Ma’am. Hands over your head.” He shrieked, his voice breaking. The other one proceeded to remove the cloth with his baton. It looked like a Bedsheet and the blood was the size of an orange, lighter around the corners like somebody had tried to clean it up. “I can explain.” She proceeded to move ahead and he stopped her. “You better have a good explanation for this,” he asserted as he checked her ID. “So Ms. Elena Gale,” he enunciated reading her driver’s license, “Tell me where you were at? And how did blood get on the sheet?”
“I was at Hemington Pub last night.” She proceeded to say flushed, with tears in her eyes. “I had a couple of drinks and met this guy. We danced some and then he asked me if wanted to go back to his place.” She swallowed her saliva and proceeded. “We started having sex. And it was all fine until then. But I got my period in between.” She couldn’t hold her tears and the officers looked confused. “I was embarrassed. When he turned the light on, there was blood all over the sheets. He tried to pacify me, but I was really embarrassed.” She cried some more and continued, “As soon as he left to wash the blood off of himself, I stuffed the sheets and left his apartment as quickly as I could.”
The Officers who were looking for a killer on loose in the area didn’t believe her story and asked her to take them to the guy’s apartment. The guy, who was practically a stranger, opened the door to the officers and the girl he had hooked up with. He panicked but proceeded to confirm her story.
Flushed, mortified and in a lot of pain, Elena mouthed “Thank you” to the guy. He smiled and waved off. The officers, relieved but humiliated proceeded to drop Elena home and even got her a burger on the way.
Alas, Strawberry Kisses wasn’t too sweet for Elena!
-RR
Inspired by the prompt from Puttingmyfeetinthedirt.
Anonymasked 