Living in Sin
Copyright© 2025 by Al Steiner
Chapter 30: Still Just a Rat in a Cage
Fiction Sex Story: Chapter 30: Still Just a Rat in a Cage - Two single-parent sheriff’s deputies move into a wealthy, uptight neighborhood and accidentally set off a storm of paranoia, lust, and suburban meltdown. As judgmental neighbors spiral, sexually frustrated housewives come calling. Amid threesomes, gossip, and chaos, Scott and Maggie discover their friendship hides something deeper. Darkly funny, raw, and fearless, Living in Sin is a satire of morality, desire, and the lies we live behind picket fences.
Caution: This Fiction Sex Story contains strong sexual content, including Ma/Fa Fa/Fa Illustrated
Wednesday, February 18, 2026 — 0205 Hours
The night air had that damp, empty chill that seeps through the seams of the uniform no matter how good the jacket is. Maggie Winslow sat in her parked cruiser at the far end of an abandoned strip-mall lot, the engine idling low, the dashboard lights painting her face blue and amber. A half-empty coffee cup sat in the holder, cold as everything else.
She was tired. Not bone-tired—just the kind of slow frustration that comes from spending over an hour proving the obvious to people who wore the same kind of uniform but answered to a different god.
It had started on Hillsdale Avenue: a sedan coming at her head-on, driving on the wrong side of the road, its headlights blasting directly into her eyeballs. She’d swerved out of his way, swung around, lit him up, and chased him for half a mile before he finally drifted to the curb, the car sighing to a stop like it had given up.
When she walked up, the smell hit her in waves—cheap whiskey and Basic cigarettes. The driver had been a middle-aged man with gray stubble and the lazy half-smile of someone who didn’t understand why driving under the influence was illegal. When asked how much he’d had to drink tonight, he gave the all-time classic answer: ‘Two beers’. He’d stumbled getting out, eyes watery, breath hot enough to light with a match. Two prior DUIs, one with injury, suspended license. Slam-dunk.
Except, of course, it wasn’t her slam to dunk.
The sheriff’s department didn’t do vehicle code enforcement. They left that to the California Highway Patrol—or, if inside the city limits, to Heritage PD. Her job was to detain, hold, and wait for someone else—someone with the right kind of training—to decide whether the guy weaving into oncoming traffic was drunk enough to arrest.
She’d waited thirty-three minutes on the shoulder for the CHP unit to arrive. Another thirty-one minutes watching the state boys run him through the full Field Sobriety Olympics. Walk-and-turn, one-leg stand, finger-to-nose—the works. He failed everything. They hit him with the breathalyzer.
0.28.
More than three times the legal limit. Professional-drunk level. Maggie knew that if she ever got much above 0.20, she would likely be Jimi Hendrixed in her bed, choking on her own vomit until she died. But she’d seen professional drunks walking around and talking as high as 0.40. Tolerance was a real thing.
The CHP guys thanked her for the assist, cuffed him for felony DUI based on the priors, and hauled him off toward the county jail while a tow truck hauled his car to the impound lot—hopefully for good.
Now she sat in the empty lot, typing the report into her MDT. The hum of the engine mixed with the faint hiss of the heater. She finished the last line, clicked SEND, and watched the little status bar crawl to completion.
She then pushed the AID tab on the touchscreen. Available in District.
For about six seconds, there was peace.
Then the MDT beeped again. The new line of text appeared across the top of the screen in its blocky amber font, the kind of glow every cop in the county could read half-asleep.
NEW DISPATCH: 415 PC
12A1+ 11A1+
SKYVIEW CT, THE GREENS
MAP: 71B3
TB: 245H2
CH: A1
DISTRICT 1 – NORTHWOOD
DOMESTIC VERBAL – LOUD ARGUMENT
TXT: NEIGHBOR REPORTS MALE/FEMALE YELLING INSIDE DUPLEX,
POSSIBLE INTOX, NO WEAPONS SEEN,
RESIDENCE OVER UNIT B, “THE GREENS” COMPLEX,
RP UNK EXACT UNIT #, SOUNDS ACTIVE
She read the screen once more, then sighed and rubbed the back of her neck. The Greens. Christ.
No one knew why it was called that. There was nothing green about it. Tucked in immediately next door to Baptist of Northwood Hospital, the place was brown—brown buildings, brown yards, brown everything. A sprawling mid-century maze of duplexes and fourplexes, thrown together back when America still thought stucco and gravel counted as architecture. Every one of them was some flavor of Section 8 now, a patchwork of peeling paint and sagging gutters.
Still, someone at county planning must’ve had a sense of humor, because all the streets carried postcard names: Snowcap Peak Circle, Alpine Ridge Street, Canyon View Court. And, of course, Skyview Court—though in that case, the name wasn’t a lie. You could actually see the sky from Skyview Court, unlike any snowcaps or alpine ridges or anything that even remotely met the definition of a canyon.
She’d been there plenty of times. Fights, noise complaints, welfare checks, take-your-pick. Tonight would be no different.
Her cover officer was Mendez. Good. Mendez was solid. A fuckin’ pervert, sure—the kind of guy who would take a picture of his own balls if you left your phone unattended—but a good copper. He’d have her back like he was supposed to.
Maggie eased out of the strip-mall lot and headed North on Highlands Avenue. The city lights thinned as she turned off the main drag and into the mouth of The Greens.
It was always the same scene this time of night—because in The Greens, this was primetime.
Day and night ran backward here. Two-thirty in the morning looked like two-thirty in the afternoon anywhere else. The grills were lit, the arguments were loud, and the kids were still outside chasing whatever passed for a ball. Before noon, the place would be dead silent, blinds drawn, nothing moving but the flies.
Daytime didn’t mean much here. Half the residents slept through it; the other half were just coming down from whatever high or fight they’d been on since sundown. Why get up early? Nobody had a job to go to, and the kids—if they made it to school at all—did it by habit or accident.
Her cruiser rolled past clusters of people perched on stair rails and busted lawn chairs. Smoke hung low in the courtyards, curling around the balconies. Somewhere, bass thumped from a car stereo. Kids darted through the street.
Some of the adults waved as she drove by. More of them flipped her off. Maggie kept her eyes forward, one hand resting lightly on the wheel. You didn’t wave back in The Greens. You just kept moving and hoped the beer bottles stayed in their hands.
At the corner of Mountain Trail and Skyview she slowed, found a space beside a line of dented mailboxes, and parked.
The radio hissed softly. Mendez was still a few minutes out. She killed her headlights but left the parking lights on, bathing the cracked asphalt in pale gold.
The call text glowed on her MDT, the amber letters steady against the dark: MALE/FEMALE YELLING – POSSIBLE INTOX.
A pair of headlights finally swung around the corner behind her, bouncing over the ruts before dimming to parking lights. Mendez.
She keyed her mic. “Twelve-Adam and Eleven-Adam on scene.”
Dispatch came back with the flat monotone of every night shift: “Copy, Twelve-Adam and Eleven-Adam on scene.”
Together they pulled around the corner into the open court, their twin beams cutting across the cracked asphalt and the tired stucco buildings.
Then they heard it.
A man and a woman, loud and raw, trading words through open windows. The sound carried clean through the cold air. 2109 Skyview Court. Curtains twitched behind the balcony glass, a porch light burned weakly near the door.
Maggie braked to a stop, killed the headlights. She updated dispatch to the actual address. That produced an update on her MDT. No visits to this particular address in the past twelve months. Newbies? Or just fucked up documentation? Maggie leaned toward the latter. Addresses they’d never been to before were rare in Northwood.
She and Mendez got out and met at the front of her Tahoe. Both kept their gun hands free, eyes scanning automatically through the shadows and upper windows.
“Looks like we’re actually going to have to deal with this shit,” she said.
“Yep,” Mendez replied, his voice dry. Then, like it was an afterthought: “So, you ready to admit you and Dover are bumping uglies? I won’t tell.”
She gave him a flat look. “Just like you promise girls you won’t come in their mouths?”
“No,” he said, deadpan. “I’ll actually keep this promise.”
Maggie shook her head. “Do your chippies get hazard pay and free counseling as part of the deal?”
“Standard chippie benefits package,” he said. “I’m nothing if not generous.”
“You’re a pig.”
“And you’re a fucking hetero,” he shot back. “Admit it.”
“I admit nothing.”
“But you’re not denying it?”
“I am denying it,” she said. “I’d be just as likely to have a threesome as I would to fuck Dover.”
He nodded thoughtfully. “Threesomes are pretty hard to come by.”
She tilted her head toward the duplex. “You think we should go deal with whatever’s living behind 2109’s shared walls?”
“If we must,” he sighed.
“We must.”
They started toward the cracked walkway, voices from the apartment above snapping through the night like static. Both turned on their body cams without thinking about it. Live and nationwide.
They moved quietly up the cracked walkway, the night swallowing their footsteps. The argument grew clearer with every step—words snapping through the thin duplex walls like radio static.
At the front door, they split automatically. Maggie took the doorknob side—the one that opened toward her. Mendez slid to the hinge side, back against the stucco, his flashlight ready but angled down. Neither of them spoke. They just listened.
The fight wasn’t physical—yet. It was the kind of everyday domestic insanity that always sounded worse from the street. A woman’s voice, sharp and ragged, cut through first: “You never fuckin’ help me fold the clothes when I get back from the fuckin’ laundromat! Not once!”
A man’s reply, slurred with anger. “You drank my last six-pack, you fat bitch! Every fuckin’ can!”
“I’m the one that buys the shit in the first place!”
Maggie exhaled quietly through her nose. She and Mendez exchanged a look. Nothing they hadn’t heard before. Nothing they were going to fix, either. But the job wasn’t to fix people. It was to bring peace—if only for a few hours.
She reached up and knocked firmly on the door. “Sheriff’s Department!” she called out.
The shouting stopped instantly.
A few seconds passed—muffled movement inside, the creak of floorboards, something metallic clattering against tile. Then the door swung open.
The woman standing there was ... hard to age. Late twenties, maybe, though life had clearly done some mileage. She was heavyset, wearing a long sleepshirt that clung to her in unflattering places and offered more of her upper thighs than either deputy wanted to see. Her hair was greasy and pulled into a messy bun; her eyes were rimmed red from either tears or whatever she’d been drinking.
She looked Maggie up and down and immediately scowled. “We didn’t fuckin’ call you.”
Maggie kept her tone easy. “I know. But someone did.”
The woman rolled her eyes. “Nosy fuckin’ neighbors. Always in our business.”
Behind her, the man appeared—shirtless, tattoos, beer in hand, and a look that managed to be both defiant and pathetic. The air rolling out from the open door smelled like cigarettes, spilled beer, and something sour underneath.
“Nevertheless, we’re here,” Maggie said.
The woman sighed, arms folding across her chest, and leaned against the doorframe.
Maggie kept her tone calm, her stance relaxed. “Why don’t we come inside and talk about what’s going on? Maybe we can help find a way to keep the peace tonight.”
The woman hesitated for a second, glancing back over her shoulder toward the man still hovering in the kitchen doorway. Then she shrugged. “Yeah, fine. Whatever.” She stepped back and held the door open.
Maggie nodded once, polite but not deferential, and stepped inside. Mendez followed, keeping a half-step behind her and just off to the side, the way you did when walking into an unknown room.
She didn’t have to let them in. That was the quiet truth of it. No warrant, no crime in progress, no legal reason to cross that threshold unless invited. She could’ve told them to fuck off and die and been well within her rights to do so.
But cops got away with a lot of assumed authority in their day-to-day lives. People were conditioned to comply, to read confidence as permission. Ask someone politely enough and in the right tone of voice and they assumed you had the right to do whatever you were asking. It worked the same way on traffic stops—Maggie could ask, “You mind if I take a quick look in the trunk?” and half the time they’d pop it open without a thought. Consent disguised as command.
Good cops—like Maggie, like Scott, like Mendez—knew the game. They didn’t abuse it, but they used it. It was a kind of social judo: turn the illusion of authority into cooperation.
And tonight, it worked its charm again.
They were inside.
The air was thick and humid, carrying the layered scent of stale beer, fried food, and something faintly animal-like. Not a cat or a dog or even a bird, but something. A quick glance around showed no cages or water bowls or visible droppings. The TV flickered in the corner, frozen on a paused screen from a reality show.
Maggie took a few steps further in, scanning the space out of habit—layout, exits, anything that might be a problem later. Mendez drifted toward the kitchen doorway, careful not to block it, hands loose at his sides.
For the moment, it all felt manageable. Another domestic, another night in The Greens.
Maggie had no idea she’d just invited herself into Orwell’s Room 101—and that she was Winston Smith.
The man started toward the kitchen, but Maggie’s voice stopped him.
“Sir, stay in the room for me, please,” she said, calm but firm. “We’ll talk to both of you, just hang out right there.”
He scowled but obeyed, dropping onto the arm of the couch, beer can still in hand. His expression was pure hostility mixed with cheap lager.
The woman flopped down on the couch, arms crossed under the thin fabric of her long sleepshirt.
“All right,” Maggie said, keeping her tone level. “Let’s start with names, just so we know who we’re talking to.”
“Darla Lane,” the woman said. “L-A-N-E. Twenty-nine.”
“And you, sir?”
“Jimmy Davis,” the man said. “Thirty-two.”
Mendez was already jotting the info in his notebook. “Dates of birth?” They gave them up without a fight. He nodded once and shifted subtly toward the corner, facing the room, one hand on his shoulder mic. He murmured the details under his breath, calling in the names to dispatch, but he didn’t take his eyes off either of them.
Maggie gave a quick nod. “All right, Darla, Jimmy, we’re just going to talk for a few minutes, see if we can cool things down.”
The woman started in right away—something about nosy neighbors, lazy boyfriends, beer, and laundry—but Maggie’s brain was only half on her words.
Because that’s when she saw it.
Movement. On the back of the couch.
A rat appeared—calm, deliberate, like this was just its shift on patrol. It climbed the cushion, trotted up Darla’s arm, and perched on her shoulder like a parrot.
Maggie froze.
Her pulse thudded once, sharp and heavy. She forced her hands to stay still at her sides.
Rats were her kryptonite. Always had been. She didn’t know why—there’d never been some childhood trauma, no attic full of them or surprise bite in the dark—but something about the slick tails and the darting, clever way they moved hit her straight in the primitive brain. They didn’t short-circuit her; she wasn’t that fragile. But the sight of one could still make her pulse climb, her chest tighten, and her focus narrow to a single thought: don’t lose it. She could handle snakes just fine—actually liked the little bastards. If the Bible had it right, they were the reason anyone got to enjoy sex and looking at their partners naked. Spiders didn’t bother her either. Scott was the arachnophobe at home; she was the one who smashed them, because somebody had to be the fearless one. But rats ... rats were not cool.
Darla reached into the pocket of her sleepshirt, pulled something out, and handed it to the animal. The rat sat up, holding a pumpkin seed in both paws, nibbling like it was enjoying dinner and a show.
“I see you’ve got a little pet rat,” Maggie said, her voice carefully steady.
Darla smiled proudly. “This one’s Peter. He likes pumpkin seeds.”
“This one?” Maggie asked, each word coming slow. “There are... others?”
Mendez’s voice came quietly from behind her. “Uh, yeah, Winslow. There are others.”
She forced herself to look.
There were.
A pair perched on the entertainment center, watching like tiny sentries. A group of smaller ones clustered on the table around an open cereal box. A steady trickle of them scurried along the hallway baseboards, tails flicking in the dim light. Two more crouched on the fake fireplace mantel. A few clung to the light fixtures. One sprinted across the top of the TV like it was clocking in for work.
Maggie’s throat went dry. She could feel her heart pounding beneath her Kevlar vest. Every instinct screamed to back out and call it a night. She didn’t move. Not yet.
Each rat was patterned differently—white and brown, gray and black, even a few with pale patches like calico cats. None of them were the solid, greasy brown of a wild rat.
“Why...” she began, forcing the words out evenly, “why are there so many rats in here?”
Darla looked puzzled by the question. “Oh, that. We used to have a python. Big one. He disappeared about a year ago. Since then, we just let the rats live out their little rat lives in peace and harmony. Their reward for outliving the snake.”
Mendez straightened slightly, still keeping his voice low. “Python?” he repeated. “You’re saying there might still be a python in here somewhere?”
Darla shrugged. “Maybe. We never found him. And some of the rats do just disappear from time to time.”
Mendez’s eyebrows went up. He shot a look at Maggie. “Outstanding,” he muttered.
Maggie was fighting for control. She could feel her pulse hammering in her throat, her stomach tightening with every little movement that caught the corner of her eye.
She couldn’t lose it. Not here.
Leaving wasn’t an option. Mendez was still in the room, and she wasn’t about to abandon her partner because she couldn’t handle a few dozen glorified hamsters. And she sure as hell couldn’t show fear. Not in front of him. Not in front of anyone.
If Mendez found out she was terrified of rats, it would be over—absolutely over. Not because anyone hated her, but because cops were cops. They didn’t let things go. Ever.
There would be stuffed rats hanging from her locker by morning. Plastic ones dropping from the ceiling tiles. Someone would rig one to spring out of her warbag when she opened it. One would end up in her lunchbox. Another would be taped to her patrol visor. They’d do it all while laughing their asses off and calling it “unit morale.”
She could already hear the laughter.
Never show fear.
So she didn’t. She kept her expression neutral, her stance squared, her hands loose and visible. But her eyes kept darting—little involuntary flicks to the movement along the walls, the flashes of tails under furniture, the shifting shapes in the shadows.
Darla was talking again, something about how the pandemic had “ruined everything.” 2021. Lockdowns. Unemployment. It seemed every mistake, every resentment, every drunken fight had been assigned to those two years like a cosmic scapegoat.
Maggie caught maybe one word in ten. She wasn’t listening anymore.
Mendez eased closer, eyes still sweeping the room. When he leaned in, his voice was barely a whisper against her ear. “I don’t do snakes,” he said. “We need to get the fuck out of here.”
She nodded, keeping her face still. “Anything on either of them?”
“Both have priors for possession and possession for sale,” he said. “But no active warrants, no probation.” He looked around, lowering his voice another notch. “Not that I’m gonna search this fuckin’ horror show.”
Maggie shuddered despite herself. The thought of digging through cabinets or drawers in a house crawling with pet-shop vermin made her skin crawl.
A white-and-brown one ran along the back of the couch and disappeared into a pile of laundry. Another flicked its tail from atop the curtain rod. Maggie could feel the hairs standing up on her neck.
She swallowed hard, trying to keep her voice steady. “Okay,” she said quietly. “Let’s get this wrapped up and get the hell out.”
They carried on.
Darla continued with her version of the argument—now up to 2022. Back then, she said, her old man was “stuck in the house twenty-four-seven” and it “messed with his fuckin’ head.” Tonight’s fight, somehow, was about the TV remote. He always got to pick what was on. Every. Single. Night.
Now Jimmy had the floor, and he started earlier. Pre-pandemic. Back when he’d lived “in the trailer” with his mother and two sisters. They’d always hogged the remote, too, made him feel like “he wasn’t an alpha male in his own goddamn home.”
Maggie listened, or at least pretended to, nodding occasionally while her eyes kept flicking across the room. The rats were everywhere—constant motion, white flashes, pink tails, soft squeaks. Her chest was tight, her palms slick inside her gloves. She could feel her control fraying at the edges.
And then it happened.
A rat ran straight across the carpet, bold as anything, and climbed up onto the top of her boot.
It just stood there, front paws resting against the toe, looking up at her expectantly and making little chirping noises. Like it wanted a treat.
For a heartbeat, Maggie couldn’t breathe. Every muscle locked. Her brain went white with panic.
Then she squealed—an honest-to-God, high-pitched girl squeal—the first time she’d made such a noise since she was maybe eleven years old. The sound came out before she could stop it. Instinct took over. She kicked.
The rat went flying.
Not a line drive. More like a perfect football punt—clean ballistic arc, high trajectory, full rotation, all physics and horror.
“Squeakers!” Darla screamed.
The rat landed in a pile of dirty laundry, bounced once, and vanished down the hallway.
“Oh my God, you did Squeakers dirty!” Darla shouted, pointing at her. “He’s my favorite!”
Jimmy barked out a laugh. “Holy shit, did anybody get that on video? Or did your camera just happen to be off, Officer?”
Before Maggie could even process that, something clattered over near the TV—an empty beer can, maybe, or something small knocked loose by one of the rats.
Mendez jumped back, hand going to his gun, the other snapping open his collapsible baton with a metallic crack. “Is it the snake?” he barked, voice sharp with real fear.
The room froze for a second—Darla shrieking, Jimmy laughing, Mendez standing ready like he expected a ten-foot python to drop from the ceiling.
Maggie just stood there, heart pounding, fighting the urge to bolt straight through the wall.
“Fuck this shit!” she cried. She turned to the two combatants. “You two need to keep it down. Fight all you want, just do it on the fuckin’ down-low! Don’t make the neighbors call us to chill you out. Fight quietly. That is your command. That is your advice. We are leaving and if we are called back out here, I will have animal control come out here and remove Peter and Squeakers and every other member of the Rodentia family from this house. Do I make myself clear?”
“Squeakers too?” Darla asked, aghast.
“Squeakers too,” Maggie said. “Do we have a deal?”
They agreed to the conditions. Maggie and Mendez headed for the door.
“Do not make us come back here,” Maggie warned one last time.
They staggered back toward their patrol units like soldiers coming off the line after a vicious fight. The door to 2109 closed behind them, muffling Darla’s voice as she resumed yelling about Squeakers.
For a long moment neither of them spoke. They just stood there under the flickering sodium lights, looking at each other—the shared trauma plain in their eyes.
“So,” Maggie said finally, still catching her breath, “you’re afraid of snakes, Mendez?”
He nodded once, grim. “And you’re afraid of rats?”
“Ever since I was a little girl.”
They kept staring at each other, silent acknowledgment hanging between them.
“I vote we never speak of this to anyone,” Maggie said. “We can tell the story, sure, but no mention of fear. Deal?”
“Deal,” Mendez said immediately. “Story only. No fuckin’ phobias.”
“I know what they’ll do if they find out I’m afraid of rats,” Maggie said. “There’ll be rubber ones in my warbag, plastic ones in my lunchbox, stuffed ones hanging from my locker.”
“Yeah? Fuckin’ rats are nothing compared to snakes,” Mendez countered. “They’d shove a live one through the vents into my locker. Don’t even think they wouldn’t.”
She nodded. “Oh, they absolutely would.”
He tilted his head. “You at least got the advantage—they can’t do that with a rat.”
“Not even a baby one,” she said.
They fell quiet again, the absurdity of it settling in.
“We need to pinky-swear this one,” Maggie said finally.
Mendez held out his hand. “Pinky swears are sacred.”
They locked fingers, solemn as priests performing a rite.
“That includes Dover,” he said as they dropped hands. “Just because you’re boning him doesn’t mean he gets to know.”
Maggie smiled, the first real one of the night. “Allegedly boning him,” she corrected.
Mendez grinned back. “Allegedly,” he echoed.
They climbed into their units, engines starting almost in sync, and rolled away from Skyview Court like two survivors leaving the battlefield behind.
Six hours later, Maggie was in a much better place, physically and mentally. She was in the back of Stacy’s minivan in the parking lot of the hoity-toity gym. Wednesday mornings were their normal “workout”, said workout being a hot, steamy sapphic love session that would leave both women satiated and sweaty.
Maggie had already eaten Stacy to a toe curling orgasm. Now Stacy was working on Maggie. Maggie’s yoga pants and maroon panties were dangling from one leg, her freshly shaved nether region exposed for plunder. Stacy’s tongue and mouth worked on her frantically, drawing her closer and closer to the point of no return. She’d gotten much better at it since that first time. She knew how much suction to use on the clit, how many fingers to put inside of her, how fast and deep to piston those fingers in and out.
Maggie exploded, her thighs tightening around Stacy’s ears, her fingers pulling Stacy’s pig tails (she wore them only for Maggie) as the pleasure had its way with her.
After, they cuddled together on the minivan bench, softly kissing each other, tasting each other’s essence until there was nothing left. And then they just cuddled. They had fifteen minutes left before gym time was over. Stacy needed to go inside and take a quick shower before going home. Maggie had taught her this. Don’t shower with soap or shampoo, just rinse off. That way, if hubby gets a sniff of you, he’ll identify it as sweat from the gym, not naked female lust that had just been slaked in a parking lot.
“Can I tell you something?” Stacy asked hesitantly.
“Sure,” Maggie told her. “Anything.”
“I’ve accepted that I’m a lesbian.”
Maggie raised her eyebrows, half incredulous. Your pretty face was just between my naked thighs! And you want to tell me you’re a lesbian? The timing alone was surreal.
“That’s what you want to tell me?” she asked.
“Yes,” Stacy said. “I’ve come to that conclusion.” She hesitated, her eyes softening. “And I know what you’re thinking, but hear me out. I’m sure you’ve been aware I’m a lesbian for some time now, but I’m finally admitting it to myself. Do you see the difference?”
Maggie did. She remembered the moment she’d admitted it to herself—years ago, after her one and only attempt at heterosexual sex. She’d spent a lifetime since then pretending not to care who knew, but that first realization had hit hard. Quiet. Final.
She nodded, slowly and with respect. “Is this a good thing or a bad thing?”
Stacy’s eyes dropped to the floorboard. “It’s a confusing thing,” she said. “And there’s a new variable.”
Maggie tilted her head, frowning slightly. “Meaning?”
Stacy sighed, then met her gaze. “Meaning you and me. What this is.” She gestured vaguely between them. “You’re the one who helped me accept who I really am, and for that, I’ll be eternally grateful. But...”
Maggie felt her pulse pick up. There’s always a ‘but.’
“ ... there’s no hope of a romantic relationship between us, right?”