We looked at each other in silence. I raised my glass of pineapple juice to her and drank, watching her for any sign of embarrassment. There were none. Eventually I said, “Ana? When you said you were on love with me …?” 

The hurt I’d heard in her voice yesterday: there it was in her face. I couldn’t help it. I took her hand. “You meant it, didn’t you?” Ana blinked back tears. They’d arrived so quickly. She nodded, not wanting to speak. I took a long, shaky breath. “And when you asked me if I loved you…” 

“Yeah” Ana looked at the table cloth. “And you told me not to talk about it.” Her mouth quirked. I’d hurt her. 

“Ana, I’m sorry I responded like that. I was trying to protect myself. But you know I love you. Of course I do.” 

“Do you?” She was trying to sound calm, but there was too much hope in her voice. 

“Yes. You know I have to say, ‘yes, but’, though.”

“‘Yes, but.'”

“Look, you know I think you’re lovely. I mean, of course you’re hot, and I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about you: you’re lovely. Person. A lovely person. If we’d met under other circumstances, we could have been … Anyway, even if I wasn’t with Sa’afia, there’s my job. I can’t get involved with you.”

“That’s a stupid rule.”

“Well, the rule doesn’t even matter, because: Sa’afia. I’m with Sa’afia. But if I put my hands on that pretty little ass -.”

“‘Pretty little ass?'” Some of the light was back in her eyes. “Oh, so you professionals are allowed to say ‘pretty little ass’. Huh. I didn’t even know you’d noticed.”

“You’ve been wiggling it at me for the last eight months, Ana. Yeah, I’ve noticed your ass. It’s, um, pretty. But if I did anything about it they’d fire me.”

“That’s stupid. What are you protecting me from? Having a choice? What if  you should do something about my fucking ass? What if I want you to?”

I sighed.

Workplace gossip is great, but I didn’t want to be in it. So we walked a way from the office to get lunch. My colleagues were short-range browsers, so four blocks was enough to be safe. 

I led Ana to a back table in a sushi booth, done in the very best Japanese kitsch. It was as kawai as baskets of puppies with enormous eyes and white cotton panties. Ana was an entertained as I’d expected by the Disney castle with the electric-powered boat towing little barges that went round and round the moat, each barge carryng a little dish of something weird.

Not a sushi train. Or boat. 

I’d expected her to stick to the crumbed prawns and other Western-friendly boy-food, but she tended to the cephalod and seaweed end of the spectrum. So we ate, and talked about harmless things, while she wanted to talk about being in love with me, and I wanted to ask her if she happened to have sucked my cock recently. 

Eventually an English girl, probably on a backpacking holiday, cleared our plates and asked if there was anything else. Anna made to get up. I gestured for her to sit down again. “No, let’s talk.”

I ordered two pineapple juices.

On Friday morning I said goodbye to Dwane, the guy who’d touched up his boots with another man’s blood. I’d recommended eight years. He’d got ten.

He was in the holding cells in the back of the court, waiting to be taken to prison. I told him he’d be out of my jurisdiction for at least five or six years, and it wasn’t likely he’d get assigned to the same parole officer. So for us, this was the end of the line.

I told him I’d be recommending to the prison that they get him into treatment to dealt with his rages. I told him the name of the psychologist who’d contact him, and suggested that he take her seriously. Otherwise that five or six year waste of his life would just be the beginning. Then I said goodbye.

He looked sideways up at me. He said I’d done my best, and he thanked me for that.

I considered letting that stand. But I was angry at him so I told the truth. “There was no best. There wasn’t a damn thing I could do for you. And that’s pretty much what I did.”

“Bro,you recommended less than the judge gave me. It probably dragged it down a year. Thanks anyway.”

“Yeah huh.” I left him then. Sometimes you win something, as a parole officer. But those little cells in the back of the court: that’s where the people go when you’ve failed them and they’ve failed you, and you go to face it.

The next item for the day was my eleven o’clock with Ana. Her problems, her teasing, and even that awkward thing about being in love with me, if that was real, were something to look forward to. By contrast, anyway.

Ana launched herself into a hug when I guided her into my office. I stopped the hug at about the stage where it started to feel that it would be good to put my hands on her ass. That’s always a good time to stop. I sat her down and gave her a print-out of the resume I’d written for her, and a pen. She filled in more details about her work experience and her education, and added names and numbers of two people who’d make good referees.

Then we went through the help wanted and the situations vacant ads, and I coached her on how to make a good “you want me working for you” call. Through her own skills, plus beginners luck, she’d actually lined up two interviews by lunch time. 

After twelve  I took her to lunch, as promised. I needed to ask her … Well, I needed to know if it was Ana who’d sucked me off that night.

I wasn’t quite sure how I was going to get that question into the conversation.

At the restaurant we’d been at, before I took the two of them home and put Ana on the couch, Ana had taken over ordering the drinks. And she’d got me a ludicrous selection of boat drinks with straws and umbrellas. All of them used pineapple juice as the base.

I’d had a woman stay with me once, who’d started an affair with the biker next door. Sge was pregnant with another man’s child, so she kept her biker happy and interested with two blow jobs a day. She’d bustle around our kitchen in the morning, so she could arrive next door with his breakfast. She told me she always brought him a glass of pineapple juice in the morning (did I want to know this? I certainly hadn’t asked), and chai with lots of cinnamon in the evening, so that his come tasted sweet.

It had sounded to me like a Marie Claire Sex Tip for Girls, and not without a generous quota of bullshit. But maybe Ana had read the same article. Maybe, for that matter, it was true, at least for girls who like pineapple-flavoured come.

But it didn’t matter whether pineapple-based cocktails would really make my come taste better.

I’d seen Ana order those drinks as though she was doing something mischievous, and a certain amount of bright-eyed giggly whispering between her and Sa’afia. So maybe there’d been a girlish conspiracy. Ana wanted to reward me by sucking me off, and she talked Sa’afia into helping to make it happen. If Sa’afia hadn’t helped then it couldn’t have happened.

But if Sa’afia’d been part of the conspiracy, then why was she so angry with me afterwards? 

But if that train of thought was right, then I’d have to believe that Ana had sneaked into bed without waking me up. And rolled me onto my back – I remembered a hand on my chest; was that Sa’afia’s or Ana’s? – and taken my cock into her mouth and licked me till I was hard, without Sa’afia objecting or making a fuss.

Ana would have had to take the risk that I wouldn’t reach up and put my hands on her breasts, or her ass. Because if I’d felt her body, I’d have known it wasn’t Sa’afia. She or Sa’afia had pushed me back onto the pillows, to signal that I should just relax and be pleasured. I’d lain back and relaxed, since I was tired, and a little amused. If Sa’afia wanted to be a kitten and play with her master’s cock, then let her, I’d thought. I’d indulged her, and myself … But it had been an extraordinary risk for Ana to take. And Sa’afia. 

Not the world’s most original fantasy. But yes, it crossed my mind.

What would I have done if I’d reached up for Sa’afia, and found Ana? If it had been any other two girls I’d have been pleased. I supposed I’d have kissed and spanked both of them, and fucked them one by one. Not at once, sweet though that thought would be, since they were cousins and I didn’t think they’d like that.

But I wasn’t supposed to fuck Ana. And that certainly included fucking her mouth.

In practice I’d have been aghast if I’d reached for Sa’afia and discovered Ana. I probably wouldn’t have been angry; I’d have seen that they’d meant well. But if I’d found Ana sucking me I’d have been horrified. I’d only know that I shouldn’t have let it happen.

I don’t know exactly what I’d have done, but at least I’d have sent Ana back to the couch. She’d be crying. Sa’afia would be upset. I’d have had to be looking after them, while wondering what the hell was left of my professional ethics. Also my career. Even if it wasn’t my fault, I couldn’t have stayed on as Ana’s probation officer. I’d have to transfer her to someone else’s caseload. And that meant I’d have to explain why.

On the other hand, the thing was impossible. Wasn’t it?

Ana had called me late on Thursday afternoon, to confirm that she was coming on Friday. She sounded a little sad. Wistful, and faintly accusing. It occurred to me that maybe she’d been serious when she said she was in love with me. In which case my response had been far too brusque. It would have hurt her. I’d have to say something to comfort her without giving her any encouragement.

Not that she needed much encouragement.

So on Thursday night I was home alone.

I still hadn’t seen Sa’afia in the last two nights. I’d called her twice a day, and she’d been distant, tolerating my call and then ending it.

I put on Dr John and took a beer to the couch in the living room, where Ana had slept. I noticed the line, “brain salad surgery”, in “Right Place, Wrong Time”. I’d first heard that phrase as the title of an Emerson, Lake and Palmer album. Apparently it meant “oral sex”. In the Dr John song it sounded sexy, though not obviously about cock-sucking But everything sung by Dr John sounds like it must be filthy. While nothing by ELP sounds sexy at all. I love ELP, by the way, and I enjoy how unfashionable they currently are, but they couldn’t do “sexy” to save their lives.

So I was thinking about Ana, and how pleasant it would be to let her have her way with me. I bet … And then I pressed my thumb and forefinger together and put them into my mouth. I said, “shhhhhhh”.

At least, I tried to.

I couldn’t even attempt the sound without my teeth closing onto my knuckles. It was a bite. To shhhhhh someone, you have to have your teeth close together, not clenched, but nearly. I hadn’t felt teeth closing on my cock when Sa’afia had said “shhhhh”. And when I had the obstacle of my thumb and finger in my mouth I found that I couldn’t make the sound at all. The best I could manage was something like, “hoooooowh.”

But I’d heard Sa’afia say, “shhhhhhh”. While my cock was getting sucked. And I hadn’t felt any teeth.

I sat there, mouth open. I suspect most of my readers had realised this days or weeks ago. But I sometimes missed things that concerned me, if I wasn’t expecting them. I said, “oh.” 

I was at home. Sa’afia hadn’t called me all day. That wasn’t like her. 

I missed her. And, because I’m a shallow man, I’d thought she’d be all warm and affectionate and loving and sexy, because I’d got her cousin out of some major trouble, and … Well, I was expecting her to be telling me how clever and brave and good I was, and demanding to fuck me till I ran out of puff. N’ stuff. It wasn’t compulsory for her to say that, and even then I had an inkling that my infinite taste for being praised wasn’t entirely adult. But I heard nothing from her at all, and that lasted long enough to move from being disappointing to being actively strange. 

So I called her and invited her over, with a guarantee to cook her something Indian, probably malai kofta and rice and parathas. I wasn’t really expecting her to accept, because her mother was home. But I’d hoped it’d be a cheerful conversation-starter. 

It fell flat. She said she had to look after her mom, and she let her end of the conversation die.

I tried a couple of other openers, like what she thought might be a good job for Ana to go for, and if she wanted to see the new Star Trek film, a topic we’d touched on before, and that allowed us to be pretty damn hilarious about Bill Shatner’s awesome toupee. 

Those fell flat too. She seemed distracted. 

“Uh, Sa’afia, are you okay?” 

She said she was fine, in the voice that means she is far from okay. 

“Well, have I massively pissed you off, and if so, one, I’m sorry, and two, is there anything I can do to unfuck up whatever it is that I’ve fucked up?” 

“What? No, you’re fine; you haven’t done anything wrong.” This was in the tone that said I’d done something terribly wrong, and that only an oaf would fail to know, or pretend not to know, what it was.

I tried one more starter – “So you’re missing out on amazing malai kofta; what are you having for dinner?” – and when that fell flat I felt the need to get off the phone, about as urgently as she wanted this conversation to end. So I said, “Okay! Talk to you soon!” 

And I hung up. So I was out of her misery, or she’d put me out of mine. I stared at my phone. I wanted to call her back, but I knew a second conversation, just then, wouldn’t go any better.

What, I wondered, the fuck was going on?

Ana called me in the afternoon. She told me she’d been fired from Chicken Licken, because her boss hadn’t liked his employee getting threatened by cops outside his kitchen. She’d explained that those were corrupt cops, and she hadn’t been charged with anything, while the cop who’d harassed her was likely to get fired. But the branch manager still fired her. She’d brought cops and dishonor down on the good name of Chicken Licken.

I said, “Okay. That’s fucked up.”  

“What should I do? Can I get the bastard?”

“You could force him to take them back. Maybe. Jane, you know, Law Centre Jane, she could take it on.”

“Would I get my pay while I was off work?”

“I don;t know. You’re a casual worker. Government’s gone to a lot of effort to make sure you don’t have much in the way of rights. You really want to know what I think?”

“Of course I do, Jaime.”

“I think the odds are stacked against you. Even if you won, you’d waste so much time and mental energy with it, with the case and everything, that … It wouldn’t be worth it if you won. And you’ve got a bit less than one chance in two of winning. Ask Jane, but that’s my estimate.”

“That’s what I thought. But it’s so not fair. They’ve got no reason to fire me.”  

“True. But another thing that’s true is, you always hated that place anyway. Why don’t you get a better job?” 

“I can’t do anything else! I’ve got no skills.” 

“You’re doing all right at school. You can manage a till.”

She made a dubious noise.

“Of course you can manage a till. Anyway, if you don’t know how, I can get someone to teach you. You can at least get a shop assistant job. Or … I don’t know. But come in on Friday, and we’ll go through the jobs in the paper together. I’ll get you a resume. And I’ll happily tell anyone they should hire you.”

“Would you?”

“Of course I’ll say you’re bloody wonderful.”

“Awwww…”

“Though probation officers aren’t necessarily a good look, as references go. So you think of two or three other people who’ll say good things about you. Then you show up to an interview looking all bright and sassy, and you’ll do fine. The pay’ll be better and you won’t have to breathe in chicken fat all the time.”  

“Aue, that place stank. Yeah, okay. Good riddance. We’ll look at jobs on Friday?”

 “You bet. Come in at …” I checked my appointments. “Eleven.” 

“I’ll take you for lunch, afterwards.” 

“No, you won’t. You can’t afford to spend your money until you’ve got another job. But I’ll take you out to lunch.” 

“You know, Jaime? I’m being serious this time. I think I’m in love with you. I love you.” 

That hit me. Because I felt a bit unloved by Sa’afia. I said, “No, you don’t!” 

“No, I do. I am.”

“No, I meant, you can’t say things like that. To me. I can’t hear them. I’m sorry.” 

“Aren’t you at least fond of me?”

“Yeah, I’m fond of you.”

“Well then, do you love me?”

“Girl, you’re dangerous. No more of this, okay?” 

“Aue.” I could imagine her face when she said that, half sad and half teasing. “All right. I’ll see you on Friday at eleven?” 

“Yes. Bye, Ana.” 

I hung up, though she had more to say. I scowled, annoyed with myself. I’d lost that round when I’d said she was dangerous. That told her what she wanted to know. 

Here’s a recap of the story so far.

I was working as a probation officer in LA, near Palm Beach. I had a client, Ana, who was 19 to my 23, so we were both a bit sillier than we should have been. One day Ana discovered two things, one of which is that I fancied her, while the other was that I wasn’t allowed to have sex with any clients, and I didn’t intend to break that rule. So I was safe sex, or at least safe teasing. I didn’t much enjoy being her safe guy, but that was my job.

One day I happened to meet Ana at a party. It turned out that we had mutual friends. Her cousin Sa’afia was with her, and I paid Sa’afia a lot of attention partly to keep Ana off me. But that turned into genuine lust and liking for Sa’afia in no time. We went to bed, and over the next months we developed a cautious not-quite-declared kind of love.

I’d discovered that the police, one officer in particular, were harassing Ana to get at her father, who was a drug dealer who – they thought – owed them money. Things came to a head with a rape threat, and I guessed that an attempt to plant drugs on her would be the next step. And I’d managed to put a stop to that and get the most corrupt officer suspended, and probably fired.  

The night that officer, Greg Curnow, was suspended, I felt it wouldn’t be safe for Ana to go back to her apartment. Sa’afia hadn’t had time to organise an alternative place for her to stay, so Ana spent the night with Sa’afia and me at my place. She slept on the couch while Sa’afia and I went to bed together. 

Some time in the middle of the night, Sa’afia had sucked me off. And in the morning she’d fucked me, but she seemed to be angry. I had no idea why. I’d called her since, and she still was angry. 

So I shelved that problem and went to work on my other clients, the ones who weren’t Ana.

Now read on.

Jock was back in his office when I got back. With the door shut. I figured he was intending to make me sweat. It took a while to understand that he wasn’t going to talk to me at all that day. He wasn’t hiding. Jock doesn’t hide. But he had nothing to say to me. 

I called Sa’afia. She was pleased with my news about Ana, but not pleased, separate from that, to hear from me. No, her mother was back. And yes, that’s right, she’d be staying with Mum tonight. I called her my blossom possum, and when that got no reaction I tried peril squirrel, then combat wombat. Sa’afia liked rhyming compliments, or at least she got them. But I didn’t get a laugh or an endearment back.

I wasn’t her little man, just then. I had no idea what she meant by that particular endearment, but I missed being it. 

I lurched through the rest of that conversation, without burning any bridges. I felt relieved by the time I’d steered to the end and it was time to hang up, and immensely worried about that feeling of relief. What the hell was going on?

The rest of the day I spent dealing with clients I haven’t mentioned here before, and probably won’t mention again. A guy called France, for example, had got drunk and tried to hold up a paint shop with an ancient shotgun that might, or might not, have gone off if he’d actually pulled the trigger. Or it could have gone off and killed someone if he’d just bumped it. Or it’d have blown up and killed him. He was lucky that no-one had pushed the issue one way or the other. He was lucky, also, that when he’d collected his $80 and run out of the shop, straight into a police floodlight, he’d laid down when they’d told him to. 

I’d interviewed him and I knew enough about why it had happened: metamphetamine, greed, anger and stupidity, mostly, though I could have written about family trouble, homelessness, his being bullied and raped, and I’d have been telling the truth when I said those things too. But he was going to get five years and serve three, no matter what I said. I had his and two other pre-sentencing reports to write.

So I typed.