The locker room was empty at the start of the swing shift. The sign-out sheet was missing pages. The uniform on the hanger had no name strip, no badge number, just the precinct patch and a smell of cigarette smoke under the polyester. You took it down. You meant to find the officer it belonged to.
You put the cap on first. That was the mistake. The brim sat low across your eyebrows and stayed. Your shoulders narrowed inside the shirt before you had even taken your own shirt off. Your slacks loosened around your hips. The shirt buttoned itself, then unbuttoned itself one button, then two. A holster strap closed around your right thigh. The handcuffs on the desk—
You picked them up. They felt like part of the uniform. You set the cuffs down again and the shirt re-buttoned. You picked them up again and the shirt unbuttoned. Your hair felt short. You ran a hand through it. It was blue. It stayed that way. Your old pants fell off your hips and landed at your boots.
The shirt was tight across the chest. The skirt sat low at the navel. The belt held everything else where it should be. The mirror in the locker door showed someone you had not met. She was leaning a hip on the bench in your stance. The cap brim hid one eye. The mouth lifted at one corner without you doing it.
You walked out into the night air. The street was wet. The neon ran in the puddles. The duty belt rode at your waist and the cuffs swung at your other hand on every step. A patrol car flashed its lights once at the curb. You did not need to be told it was waiting for you. You walked toward it.
***
You opened the passenger door and got in. The seat was warm. The man at the wheel was older than you. He had gray at the temples and smelled like rain on a uniform shirt. He said a name and it was yours. He put the car in drive without looking at you.
He drove one block and turned into a service alley. He put it in park. He killed the lights. The neon kept on outside the window. He reached across and undid the next two buttons of your shirt without asking, then the next two, then the one above the navel. His hand slipped under the shirt and up. It felt good. You were breathing fast.
He pulled you onto his lap in the driver seat. He unbuckled. The skirt rode up. His hands held the new curves of your hips and lifted you a half inch and brought you down on him. You braced one hand on the steering wheel and one on the seat behind his head. The radio coughed static. The rain came down harder on the windshield. He moved and you moved with him. Your body knew the rhythm before you did.
The old name was wrong now. The thought arrived fully formed and was not yours and then was: tomorrow you would be back on shift, your hips would know the count of the cruiser at idle, the cuffs would swing at your other hand. He came under you. You came on him a beat later. The old self watched from somewhere small, and then from nowhere.
He held you against him for one long breath. The wipers had stopped at the top of their arc. He started the car and slid you off his lap onto the passenger seat. He buttoned one button on your shirt and left the rest. The radio cleared its throat with a dispatch number that was yours. You picked up the handset. The rain hit the alley behind you in a single slap.