Ticket To Paradise

Tears flowed freely down her cheeks, warm and heavy, and she wiped them away with the back of her hand. The patrolman’s cruel laughter and abusive manner flashed in her mind, and she felt miserable. Most of the time, her masochistic thoughts were pleasant, because fanciful, but she found no pleasure in the memory of the cop’s harsh laughter and his challenge that maybe, instead of a victim of gender dysphoria, Toni was just fucking nuts. To add insult to injury, the bastard had even had the gall to give her his telephone number and command her to call him!

Through the veil of her tears, Toni saw the slip of paper on which he’d written his name and number. She snatched it from the seat beside her and tossed it out of her vehicle. A gust of wind caught the paper, and the slip somersaulted through the air, zipping past the cars and trucks behind Toni’s Mustang.

She smiled, glad to be rid of the bastard.

A moment later, red, blue, and amber emergency lights flashed in her rear-view mirror and heard the shrill siren of the police car.

Damn! She was being pulled over by another California Highway patrol officer.

She drove off the highway, onto the shoulder, and stopped. The police cruiser rolled to a halt behind her, and the door on the driver’s side of the vehicle opened. A smaller version of Patrolman Rogers exited the police car. This patrolman wore the same starched uniform, the same badge, and the same equipment of revolver, cuffs, Mace, and baton, but no sunglasses, mirrored or otherwise. As the patrolman approached Toni, she saw that this officer also wore makeup-nothing heavy, just a hint of eye shadow, blush, and lip gloss-and she had long hair, done up in a bun, and there was a hint of her ample breasts beneath the heavy fabric of her shirt. Her name badge read J. Summers. What did the J stand for? Toni wondered. Jennifer? Julie? Jane? Janet?

“Do you know why I stopped you? the police officer asked.

It seemed unlikely to Toni that she’d get off with another warning.