Notes: This must be the result of a depraved childhood. Sorry, I meant deprived. Yeah, riiight.

As always, this is for Tinnean, who knows just how far to push me, but always pulls me back.

Naked City
by Silk

There are a million stories out there in the naked city. This...is just one of them....

I wasn't searching for trouble. But it found me.

I was off-duty for the first time in about twelve hours. I'm a cop. My name's Joe. Joe Friday. I *love* the city. The rank smell of garbage when it's gone bad. The cold sheen of rain as it washes the piss off the sidewalks. The dark, dank alleyways where the Ladies of the Evening ply their trade.

Only thing is...I don't go for the Ladies.

You can sing "There ain't nothin' like a dame" till the cows come home, but I've got only one number I want tattoed across *my* nipple line. There ain't nothin' like a dick.

I was tired. Like I said, I was coming off a brutal tour in the heart of the city. I'd seen it all. Murder. Mayhem. Free seats for "CATS" at the *back* of the Goddamn orchestra, for Cripes' sake.

Don't get me wrong. I'm no nancy boy. I'm a man's man. I don't take it up the ass for just anyone.

And that dick just better belong to my partner. Frank.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but Frank is pretty near perfect. Hard in all the right places. Soft, too. He keeps begging me to show him how I made Sergeant. Someday I might oblige.

Anyway, there we were, snoring away in each other's arms at last, the come barely dry on our stomachs, when the phone rang. It was Frank's wife. Marge.

Marge was trouble with a capital T. She thought she could seduce Frank back into playing house by getting pregnant. Only thing was, Frank would rather play hide-the-salami with *me*.

Our conversations usually didn't last too long. We didn't have much in common, her and me, except for one thing. We both fucked Frank.

"So, Marge...how's tricks? Still giving it away for free behind the USO down on 33rd Street?"

"Funny, Joe. Can I please speak to my husband?"

"Of course." I could be as civilized as the next guy. "Frank! Wake up! It's the devil bitch whore who wants to steal you away from me!"

Okay, subtlety never was my strong suit.

I listened as Frank talked to his wife. I didn't mind eavesdropping. Why, if it wasn't for eavesdropping, I wouldn't know a damn thing about what was going on.

Then again, if it wasn't for eavesdropping, I would be blissfully happy, ignorant but secure that my baby did the hanky-panky, but only with me.

When Frank hung up, he wouldn't meet my eyes. That was a sure sign that whatever Marge had said, it had gotten to him. He leaned over the side of the bed and picked up his shirt. I put a stop to that right away. "Hey...where do you think *you're* going? We finally got some down time and you promised to spend it with *me*."

"I can't do this anymore, Joe."

The hangdog look on my lover's face was enough to twist my guts into the shape of a pretzel. "What?"

"I'm leaving you, Joe. I'm going home to Marge. For good."

"But why? What did she say?" Frank pulled his shirt on with unnecessary vehemence, but didn't say a word.

"Talk to me, Frank."

Frank would have reached for his pants, but I grabbed his wrist. His skin felt warm and vaguely redolent of sweat, the good kind, the kind you work up fucking someone you actually care about. "Tell me what she said, Frank."

He nodded sorrowfully.

"And Frank?" He looked up, his heart in his eyes, his pants still in a heap on the floor.

"Just the facts, Frank. Just the facts."

"Marge said..." Frank sighed so heavily, I wanted to cradle him in my arms and whisper, Everything'll be all right.

"...that if I don't come home..."

I tilted my head encouragingly.

"...she'll use blackmail."

I frowned. "How?"

"She'll go to the Captain about us," Frank murmured brokenly.

I burst out laughing.

"Aw, come on, Joe. I didn't honestly expect you to be broken up about the end of our affair, but shit...do you have to be so all-fired happy about it?"

I wiped at the tears that trickled from the corners of my eyes. "I'm not laughing at *you*, Frank. It's just that--if I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times, you have *got* to pay more attention to office politics."

"Meaning?"

"I've been doing Cappy every other weekend."

Frank's mouth curved into a face-splitting grin. "The fuck you have!"

"Pretty much, yeah."

Suddenly all the life drained out of Frank, making him look smaller and frailer and older than I'd ever seen him.

"What's wrong, Frank?"

"I'm not sure how I feel about you fucking somebody else, Joe. I guess I thought--"

I cupped his chin in my hand and asked softly, "What did you think, Frank?"

"That you loved me." Frank might have been a street cop almost all his life, but he looked damn near adorable right then.

"But Frank...I do."

"You do?" His face lit up again like the Christmas Tree at Rockefeller Center.

A moment later, his entire face fell again. "Then why are you fucking the Captain, Joe?"

"Just trying to get a little money ahead...so we can build us a future somewhere, Frank."

His mouth dropped open with an almost audible sound. "You're blackmailing him, Joe?"

I pulled his ass back into bed with me and for the longest time, we kissed just like a couple of lovesick schoolboys. Marge was never going to get him back.

That man could play the strings off a banjo and make me think it was a symphony.

It doesn't get much better than that.

End