She had been one of my brother's best friends for as long as I could remember, but I hadn't seen her for almost four years, since she went off to college in California. Both she and my brother had returned home for Christmas, and Eileen came over to talk to my mother and brother.

I had just come off duty, being the low man on the pole at the station. A day spent driving around in a patrol car in this small town was mind-numbing and ass-crushing, and all I wanted to do was take a long, hot shower and then relax in front of the TV and watch some football.

I came in the back door and ran into Eileen. The girl I remembered from four years ago as being all elbows and knees had matured into a very attractive female, and I was caught quite short by the view I was presented with. She was bent over, looking in the icebox for a beer when I walked in. I let my briefcase hit the kitchen table, and she looked over in surprise.

"Oh," she said casually, "hi, pig." I slapped her on the ass with my gloves as I walked past. "Better watch it, bitch, or I'll arrest you."

"Yeah?" she sneered. "For what?"

"Mopery in the first degree." She was a math major, smart as well as pretty, and she looked like she wanted to ask what mopery was. Thinking better of it, she shrugged and return to the icebox.

"Bottom shelf, behind the egg salad," I said, going up the stairs. "And get me one, too."

"Fuck you," she called cheerfully after me. She'd always been like that, a sixty-pound mouth attached to a one-ounce brain. A major pain in the ass, but lovable all the same only because she'd been around the house in one form or another since she was six. She and my brother had dated briefly a few years ago, but that was over now, and they were just good friends.

I thought about Eileen as I soaped myself up in the shower. She had turned into quite a good-looking woman, a woman I might be interested in asking out. I was 26, in my first year as a policeman in my hometown, and was pretty much just looking for a casual screw. I knew my brother had copped her cherry, and that he considered her a dead fuck. He told me once that she just laid there like a fish. I contributed that more to my brother's apparant lack of skill as a lover than any frigidity on Eileen's part. Maybe all she needed, I chuckled to myself, was a real man.

The sudden cool blast of air on my ass drove all thoughts like that from my head, and I turned over my shoulder to see Eileen standing outside the stall, holding the door open with one hand a cold, sweating bottle of beer in the other.

"You want it here, or outside?" she asked, totally unconcerned. I hooked my chin over my shoulder. "Out there. And close the damn door! It's cold in here!"

She checked my back and ass out and then shot me one of her smirks, the same expression that always makes me want to kick her ass. The door closed, and I finished my shower. When I came out, Eileen was sitting on the bed, legs crossed, looking at my gunbelt. I laughingly called it my 'bat utility' belt after the comicstrip Batman. It had my Ruger P-85 9mm semiauto duty pistol, two extra fifteen-round magazines, two pairs of handcuffs, a slot for me to stick a portable radio into, and a collapsable metal baton.

"What's it like," she asked, "carrying a gun all the time?"

"It's a responsiblity," I said, "like driving a car or owning a house, that's all. Only a little more so."

"Can I see your badge?" she asked.

I tossed my uniform shirt over to her. "It's called a shield," I said. "Not a badge. Firemen wear badges; cops wear shields."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because it's supposed to shield me. From what, I have no idea!" Eileen didn't laugh at my admitedly feeble joke, and I didn't push it. She held the shirt close to her face and lightly traced my silver patrolman's shield with one delicate finger. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that her nostrils were flaring, and I realized she was sniffing my shirt!

Deciding to ignore her for the moment, I walked to the bed and retrieved my duty pistol. Clearing it, I put the magazine and extra round on the dresser, and the now-empty pistol on the top shelf in my closet.

"Don't you keep it loaded all the time?" she asked.

I nodded and opened my dresser drawer, returning with another magazine. "The rules say I have to carry hollowpoints on duty. I like these Devestator rounds better, so that's what I carry when I'm off-duty." I reloaded the gun and returned it to the top shelf.

"Can I see your handcuffs?" she asked. I indicated with a nod that she should take them out if she wanted. Eileen reached into one of the cases and took out my black adonized hingecuffs.

"I thought they had little chains."

"That's so I can speedcuff," I explained.

Her expression indicated that she didn't know what I meant. "Stand up," I said, using my cop-voice. Eileen stood and looked at me with wide doe eyes.

"Turn around, hands behind your back!" I said. She slowly turned and presented me with her wrists. Taking the cuffs from her hand, I speed-cuffed her. (If you don't know how that works, you hold the middle of the cuffs in your hand, closed, and then apply them with a little force to both wrists at the same time. The ratchets release, and the free ends of the cuffs come out, around and back. In this way, you can cuff someone with a single motion.) She was now effectively cuffed. I heard Eileen take a sharp intake of breath, and I turned her around to face me.

"That's speedcuffing," I said.

"Oh." She was breathing deeply now, and I noticed how much her breasts had grown since she was younger. The were round and about the size of a softball. Very pretty breasts that were now jiggling as she inhaled and exhaled.

"God, this feels weird," she said. "Being handcuffed and all."

"Just be glad you're not hogtied!" I laughed. She gave me a confused expression, so I explained how we'd use legchains and then connect the handcuffs to the legchains, and make someone 'hogtied.' Eileen's eyes got very, very wide.

"When would you do that to someone?"

"When they resist arrest, or are violent, or on drugs or something like that. It's for the protection of the officers, and mostly, for the protection of the person. It's not cruel, it's actually a lot safer!"

She nodded. She'd been in the cuffs now for about five minutes. She started twisting her hands in the cuffs. "I can't get away, can I?"

"Not unless you're a magician or something!" I kidded. I went to my gunbelt and got my cuff key. It looked like a minuature PR-24.

"No, don't!" she said, twisting away from me. She took a step away and turned to face the wall. "I like the feeling of being...captive. Of not being in control. If being in...your control." That, to say the least, took me a little aback. I'd never experienced anything like this.

"You mean you like being cuffed?"

"It's...strange. Comforting. Like I'm safe, protected. Since I'm in your custody, you're responsible for me. I have to do what you say, whatever you say...right?"

I nodded silently, not sure where this was going, but damn eager to find out. "That's right, missy. If you screw with me, you're going to find out what trouble really is!" The effect my cop-talk had on her was electric. I watched in amazement as her nipples visibly hardened under her sweatshirt.

"How can you tell if someone is carrying a weapon?" she asked.

"Usually, I search them."

"Oh." The invitation was unspoken but glaring nonetheless. I finally understood what was going on here. Eileen wanted to know what it was like to be arrested; this had taken on the kinky air of some sex game, and I didn't know the rules. But, I was willing to find out. My brother was crashed out in his bedroom, probably sleeping off a long day of delivering flowers. My mother was probably still at her law office. We were, in effect, alone in the house for at least another three hours.

I spun Eileen around and put her head against the wall. "Feet apart...spread 'em!" I snarled, kicking the inside of her left ankle to spread her legs. In that position, all it would take was a light shove to send her tumbling to the carpet of the bedroom.

"Before I start this, do you have any needles or anything in your pockets?" I asked.

"No...sir!" Eileen said. "I'm not a junkie."