I said, “Christ, I’m really sorry. I shouldn’t be – . Anyway, there are things you need to tell me, about what’s going on with you and the cops.” 

Ana shook her head. 

So it seemed I’d lost whatever trust I’d managed to build up. Whatever she’d been close to telling me before she’d started crying, she wasn’t close now. “And there are things I need to tell you. No, I mean about cops. There are ways of talking to cops, and acting around them, that makes it much harder for them to arrest you. I wanted to talk about that. Yeah. I’m sorry.” 

Ana was still staring at me. She shook her head again. “I didn’t think you were even human. And it turns out you’re weird.”

I wondered how the hell she’d known I’d been thinking about spanking her when I’d got hard. I blushed. I could feel the heat in my face. “Yeah, well, I’m sorry.” 

“You’re still saying sorry. That’s so weird.” 

Probation officers

“Well. I’m really, really not supposed to get turned on by, well, clients.”

“You wanna fuck me?”

I hesitated. First because of course I wanted to fuck Ana. I knew it’d be a terrible idea, but the temptation was nearly irresistible.

Then I hesitated some more because if it really was an invitation she’d have said, “You wanna fuck?” She wasn’t inviting me: she was asking to see what I’d say.

“Yes, of course I do. Definitely. God yes, of course I do. And I can’t. Or I won’t, or whatever it is. Sorry. If I’d met you at a party or something, it’d be different. But I’m working, for you. I’m not supposed to be … Ah, I mean you’re a client.”

She breathed out. That was something like the right answer. “Okay, I’m a client and you’re a probation officer. And you’re weird.”  

Not probation officers.

“I’m an idiot, anyway.” I ought to have meant getting an erection was idiotic. But part of me thought that telling Ana I wouldn’t fuck her was stupid. Oh well. 

“No-one’s ever apologised to me for having a stiffie before.”

“I’m your first probation officer, then?”