Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

I’m Lieutenant Deviled Yeggs.  I work homicide in the big city of Tracy.  Working for me are my old partners: Detective Sgt. Jim Wednesday and Detective Poached Yeggs, my nephew who is slowly becoming a good detective.

Poached was running an errand.  Georges was in his office, and Jim was in the squad room alone.  All the detectives from the other divisions were out on cases.  I was in my office, reading Jim’s well-written reports and the bizarre reports by Poached.  He had his own style, and oddly, the D.A. only occasionally complained or called for clarification, so maybe I am being too hard on him, like GrandPa reminded me about recently.

There was a knock at the door, a soft knock, not a police employee unless it was Rookie Ruthie Toody.  The window in the door is smoked glass, so I had no idea.  I beckoned them to come in.  It was Sophia, second oldest child of ours, oldest of the three left in the house now that Easter lived at Lily the Pink while going to college.  I think Easter will be a professional student.  He must be a student to drive the Turtle, supervised by a professor, unless he is twenty-five with a commercial driver’s license (CDL).  Since he just turned twenty-one a couple of weeks ago, he still has a lot of classes to take.

Sophia sat in a visitor’s chair and asked, “Daddy, can I tell you about a dream that has me worried?”

I shrugged, “Sure, Sweetie, and I can call you that since you are Sweet Sixteen, but you’ve been kissed.  Your Mom would be better.  She has taken courses in interpreting dreams, or at least that was in the course.  She drove me crazy that year.  Every morning, did you dream?  Can you remember the dream?  Tell me the dream in mind-numbing detail.  I said that I tossed and turned all night a couple of times just to avoid the inquisition.  But before you get started, how did you get here?”

Sophia said, “Menzie and Emmett came with me.  I drove.  A pink SUV is in the underground garage in a visitor’s spot, and Sergeant Weiss has been informed.  I told Menzie and Emmett to stay in the car and work on homework.  I hoped I would not be too long.”

I sighed, “It is going to take me a while to get used to Sergeant Weiss.  I am so used to him not being a sergeant and everyone calling him Wise Guy.  But the floor is yours.”

Sophie nodded, “Okay, Menzie and I looked just like we do now, but she was driving a delivery truck into the rich part of Tracy.  We were doing some undercover work, but I have no idea to what it was connected.  We pulled in front of the house.  The package was COD, strange since I did not think they did that anymore.  All we had in the back of the truck were hundred-pound boxes of yoga mats.  Four boxes, 20 mats per box, heavy mats, so with the weight of the box, about 100 pounds each.  Menzie and I carried them, one box at a time onto the front porch.   We rang the doorbell, and this woman, wearing a floor length robe, came to the door.  She pulled out 12 hundred-dollar bills and handed them to me, since I had the clipboard.  I had her sign the receipt and gave her a copy.  While I was doing that, she waved a couple more hundred-dollar bills for our tip since we had come at night.  Menzie grabbed them and stuffed them in her bra.  Her uniform was already getting out of order.  With all that carrying heavy loads, she only had one or two buttons left buttoned.  Both of us had the shirttails hanging out.  That was hard work.  The lady called for some help and four guys with muscles that had muscles came out.  They grunted, but they each carried one box into the house.”

“I asked, ‘If you don’t mind me asking, why do you need 80 yoga mats, all at once?’ ”

“The woman said, ‘Can I trust you to not tell anyone, unless they want to join?  Nothing is illegal, as far as I know.’  We eagerly nodded and she invited us in.  In the room in one direction, there were about thirty naked people on yoga mats in a big circle.  They were all pleasuring the person that was next in the circle, foreplay, no one was going further, but there was soft jazz music playing and soft lighting, and thirty people enjoying themselves.  She said, ‘This is the advanced group.  They need no supervision.  They stay within the rules.  Foreplay only.  If someone gets pregnant, that happens after they get home.’  We nodded.  Then, she showed us into another large room and there were about twenty people, doing the same thing.  She said, ‘These are the intermediates, and we have some instructors in the circle to make sure everyone keeps to the rules.’  Then, we went into a third room, much smaller.  In this room, there were couples, doing the same thing, just individually, four couples.  She said, ‘We usually do background checks, but you two look like you really like each other.  Do you want to try?’  Menzie asked, ‘Try what exactly?  All we have seen are couples having sex, except for those circle things.’  She said, ‘Foreplay, technically sexual acts, but not anything that gets you pregnant.  We are running a foreplay clinic to help couples with their sex life.’”

I was getting very uncomfortable.  Here was my sweet sixteen daughter telling me about a dream where a lot of people were having inappropriate relations, if you will.

Sophie saw the concerned look on my face.  “Daddy, it gets worse.  I asked, ‘Why all the yoga mats?’  She said that they got rather messy, and they all require hand cleaning, so they are tossed after three uses.  I asked, ‘How did you get started?  Is there a certificate for this kind of therapy?’  She said, ‘That’s why this is not really illegal, but we are not certified.  We don’t even know if this qualifies as therapy, but we have had so many people tell their friends that it is a great way of working up to copulation that we went from once a week to six days a week, always at night, thus we insisted you come after normal delivery hours.’ “

Sophia continued, “ Then the woman said, ‘But as for how we got started, there were three couples on this side of the pond.  We were new rich.  The Hoity Toity set let us into the club, but did not want to be our neighbors.  My husband is a lawyer.  One other lady is married to a doctor.  The third lady is married to the color commentator for professional football radio here in Tracy.  He retired here as the quarterback, when the team was not very good, but he is knowledgeable, and he has a radio voice.  Anyway, since we knew no one and we felt uncomfortable with the neighbors across the pond, we became great friends.  One night while playing a trivia game, the doctor’s wife said that she was not happy in bed.  Her husband got angry, but the football player’s wife said the same thing, and I agreed.  The guys quickly changed the subject, but the next day, with them gone to work, we got together.  Pardon the expression, but what we had experienced, even producing children, was the old “slam bam, thank you ma’am”.  We were revved up, and they were spent.  They rolled over and fell asleep while we stared at the ceiling.  The doctor’s wife was the first to mention it, but she said that the three of us could satisfy each other.  We did not need to be romantically attracted, just meeting each other’s needs.  So, we all three got naked and helped each other, if you understand.  But I had preschool children.  The doctor and his wife had elementary school children, and the footballer had teenagers.  We all had maids who doubled as babysitters.  So, a couple of times each week, we rotated from one house to the next, but the maids saw what we were doing and wanted to join in.  They even got someone to babysit the children, at least the ones that were at home.  Then the footballer’s teenagers got wind of it and wanted to join.  That led to the first boy in the circle.  About that time, the doctor came home early and caught us on the floor on yoga mats.  We thought that was the end of our fun, but he had to admit that his wife was happier, and she was better in bed.  So, the group expanded to include the husbands.  As we formed the circle, we went boy-girl, but there were always extra girls.  We never wanted a male-male couple, because we often swap up.  And by word of mouth, it has grown to this.  So, if you want to try it out, you have to perform in the beginner room.  If you do okay, you’ll advance to the intermediate room and you stay there, being willing to help others and not just the two of you.  Then, if you are trusted, you advance to the big room.’  Menzie jumped at the chance, and I followed.  We both got mats, got naked, and explored each other.  We were on each other like ravenous wolves in no time.  The woman said, ‘I thought you liked each other.’  And then she left.”

This had just gone from weird, to painful.  My teenaged daughter had a dream like this.  How did she even know about such things?  And since she wanted to become a police detective, she might be put in a situation similar to this.  Then Sophie seemed to gather her thoughts.

Sophie said, “So, I told Menzie that Emmett must not know about this.  And Menzie asked me if I had spotted cameras.  The couple next to us said that cameras were forbidden.  They wanted no blackmail photos, in case a couple was not really married.  Since the man and woman had suggested it, we asked if they were married, and they laughed and said they were not.  Then, Menzie said that I asked too many questions, and I was falling behind on the pleasure.  That’s when I woke up.  Daddy, I did not like what I was doing, but it was the job to get evidence.”

Then, it struck a nerve.  I told Sophia to collect her thoughts and retell the story to Jim.

Sophia said, “But Daddy, I barely had the nerve to talk to you!”

I explained that Jim was stuck in an investigation and what I saw in the dream could be similar to his case.  The wife of a retired football player, a defensive lineman, was killed, and no one knew anything.  Jim came in and took a lot of notes as Sophia retold her story.

Jim nodded.  “Thanks, Sophie, Poached and I can talk to the neighbors with a new line of questions, and we can stake out the pond beneath the house.  The lack of people visiting might be answered by parking at the pond and walking to the back door.  You at least got our brains out of a rut.”

Sophie was at an emotional edge, but she had told the story almost the same way, with a few details that she had forgotten the first time.

We all walked out of my office into the squad room.  At the same time, Emmett and Menzie walked out of Gisele’s office.

Sophia asked, “I thought you were waiting in the car?”

Emmett said, “No, we talked about it.  The Snazzy Taz has a request for a private party.  Menzie does not like the setup, and we went in to ask Gisele if the Purple Four could do a set.”  Emmett looked at the floor.  “Soap, we heard everything, and I don’t know.  I don’t know if I can have a girlfriend that has wet dreams about doing it with other girls.  That does not match my core values.  I’m sorry, Soap.  It was a fun ride.”

Sophie asked, “Wha…  What?!  It was just a dream.  And what is a core value of eavesdropping on a conversation?”

Menzie said, “I’m with Em.  Girl, you dream of me, and you say I’m the one that is hot for your body?  That’s just sick.  So, I was wondering if we should stop being best friends.  But then, you said that you didn’t like having sex with me, and I know if you really had sex with me, you would like it, so something is wrong with you.”  Menzie turned to Em and said, “We could call somebody to pick us up.  Soap can go home on her own.”  Menzie walked to Emmett, and he put his arm around her.

Emmett said, “I was going to surprise Soap with my martial arts skills.  I’ve been taking lessons, and I think I can act as your security at the club, Menz.  We don’t need Soapy’s security team anymore.”

Menzie looked into Emmett’s eyes and said, “Oh, Em, come back to our apartment and maybe we can turn your Sax into sex.”   And then Emmett kissed her, a long passionate kiss that seemed to not have any ending.

Sophie turned to me, “Daddy, arrest them!  Their kissing in public.  Tongue?!  I saw tongue!  Daddy, he’s never used tongue with me!  Do something!!!!”  Tears were pouring down her cheeks.

I shrugged, “Sophia, I think this is a good lesson to pass along to the Police Academy.  You cannot arrest someone because they do something that you personally do not like.  They have to violate one statute or another.”

Sophie stammered, “But, but that statute that got Easter and Jemima into trouble…”

I shook my head, “That was repealed by your cousin soon after he took office.  The city commissioners were embarrassed to have such a Puritan law still on the books.  Nope, the only problem here is that you do not like the situation.”

Sophie cried, “But, Daddy, my life, my life is ruined!  My boyfriend who promised to ask me to marry him someday.  My best friend that was supposed to be best friend forever.  And the security job is my best money maker.  All of it gone, and you just sit there?!”

I looked at her sternly.  “Sophia, we cannot have police officers who make up rules to suit themselves.  If you persist, you might need to rethink your career goals.”

Sophie started sobbing.  Poached walked in and asked, “What have I missed?”

Gisele, who was leaning against her office doorframe, said, “I made an audio copy.  Sophia had a wet dream.”

Sophie turned with venom toward Gisele, “What is all this wet dream business?  I did not get wet!”

Menzie pulled away from her lip lock, “Aww.  All that, losing her boyfriend, her best friend, her job, and maybe her career, and she didn’t even do it right.  You know, the wet dream thing.”  She went back to kiss Emmett again.

Gisele said, “Sophia, do not worry about the meaning of this dream.  Having that kind of a dream does not mean that you secretly love girls, or you want to go to bed with Menzie.  You just may want to spend more time with her, as friends.  If the dream starts to become repetitive, then you might need to seek some help.”

Sophie asked, “What made you the expert?”

Gisele replied, “While you were going through the dream the second time, I was looking it up online.”

Sophie sat at the desk across from Jim, where Poached sat.  She put her face in her hands and sobbed.  Emmett broke away from Menzie.  He walked over and put his hand on Sophia’s shoulder.

Emmett said, “It’s alright, Soap.  It was just a…”

By this point, Sophie had spun the chair around, and she slapped Emmett hard.

Gisele said, “That’s going to leave a mark.”

I groaned, “Now we have a reason to make an arrest.  Emmett, do you wish to sign a statement regarding police brutality?”

Emmett was trying to figure out if he had any loose teeth.  If he loses his front teeth, he may not play the saxophone anymore.  He said, “I was just about to say it was a joke.  Gisele suggested it.  And, no, I deserved it.  The kiss was too much, but no teeth seem to be loose.”  He turned to Sophia, “Soap, we were joking, Soap.  Let’s go by the ice cream parlor.  I’ll pay.”

I pulled out two twenty-dollar bills and suggested that I could pay.  Menzie ran over and slid them into her bra, “Hey, bestie, did I do it the same way you saw in your dream?”

Sophie did not respond.  Sophie and Emmett were kissing.

Menzie shook her head, “We may be a while.  They say that make-up sex is great, but make-up kissing takes a while.”

They finally made it to the ice cream parlor.  Poached finally listened to the recounting of the dream.  And he and Jim solved their case.  It took a lot of work though.  The woman who was killed was not doing what Sophia had dreamed about, but they had something shady going on that violated some rarely enforced statutes, but they had taken pictures and tried to blackmail one of their clients.  It took a lot of interviews.  The ex-football player had not been a highly paid player, and he ran through the money quickly.  His wife thought of a dodgy scheme to make some money, and it backfired.

And as for Emmett, Menzie, and Sophia, they are back to being the fun-loving trio that they had been before, except for Menzie talking, much too often, about how a kiss with Emmett was a special experience.  Samuel, Menzie’s boyfriend, has sworn that when he and Emmett have their next martial arts class, he’s going down.  I think that’s all talk.  Samuel is six months older than Emmett, but Emmett is a head taller.

Credits

Other than Gisele’s analysis of the dream coming from AI search composites, this was pure fiction.