I met Lady Godiva on a balmy evening in early spring, and by the time we’d parted ways, I’d learned a good many things. While placing her under arrest, I learned all about compound words and just how many adjectives could be strung together before end punctuation using the word bitch was necessary:

“Does this make you feel good you chicken-shit, nasty-ass, good-for-nothing, sold-out, lame-brain, ugly-as-sin bitch?”

During our ride downtown, Lady Godiva described (in graphic detail) the various sexual positions in which she was an expert, and she promised me the time of my life if only I’d let her go about her business. I was both frightened and fascinated by much of what she said, and had circumstances been different, I might have enjoyed exchanging stories with her about what each of us did under cover of darkness in our respective professions. But the circumstances were this: she was headed for the county jail, and if she didn’t listen to me, her time there was going to be humiliating.

Lock-up is no place for a drag queen, and I’d taken the long way to the jail to try to get
that through Lady Godiva’s head; however, by virtue of my uniform, I was the enemy, and I wasn’t to be trusted.

As we sat in the parking area of the jail’s in-take facility, I did everything I could to get Lady Godiva to understand the bigotry that awaited her on the other side of the in-take door, but she’d lumped me in with all the other cops who’d shown her no respect, and part of me didn’t blame her. Truthfully, the pain I wanted to spare her was for my benefit as well: once we crossed the threshold of the jail, I’d have little control over how she was treated, and I didn’t want either of us to suffer.

We were buzzed in and faced a full house: the long, metal tables were filled to capacity with cops on one side and crooks on the other. The stares and whistles and snide remarks from the other prisoners began immediately, and Lady Godivia did what anyone would do: she retaliated verbally.

I couldn’t shut her up, and most of the other cops didn’t bother trying to calm their charges, so the jail’s duty sergeant did the only thing he could to restore safety and order: he stripped the attitude from Lady Godiva. He started at the top of her head by removing her Dolly Partonesque wig, and before Lady G knew what was happening, her show-girl lashes and earrings were gone, too. Her stiletto heels were potential weapons, so the sergeant collected those and handed her paper shoes to wear in their place. Then the sergeant pointed at Lady G’s bust and barked,

“Take ‘em out, or I will.”

Lady Godiva reached into her dress and removed her false breasts. The action transformed her oh-so-tight, sequined gown into a sagging sack of clothing, but she never took her hate-filled eyes from those of the sergeant. Lady G no longer looked like a lady: she looked like a scrawny, broken-down man fighting to hold on to a thread of dignity.

The sergeant stuffed what he’d taken into two property bags and nodded us toward a vacated space at one of the tables. As I sat across from Lady Godiva, I noticed tears had begun to slide down her cheeks, and in her eyes, I believe I saw surrender.

When I initially encountered Lady Godiva, she’d refused to identify herself properly, but instead of going through her purse at the scene to locate what I needed, I’d opted to wait until we’d reached in-take. Now, she would neither look at me nor respond to any of my questions, so I filled out the things I could for the arrest report while trying to impress upon her how cooperation would make both of our lives easier. Her tears continued to fall, so I pulled a tissue from my pocket and offered it to her. She used her free hand to take it and dab at her face while the metal-on-metal sound of her handcuffed hand sliding along the prisoner bar covered up the grunt she’d given me in what I hoped was thanks.

I moved on to the property inventory, but as I began to dump the contents of her purse onto the table top, she came back to life and began hurling insults and threats at me. (So much for the tissue truce.) With surprising quickness, Lady Godiva stood to the height her handcuffed arm would allow, reached across the table with her free hand, and groped for the purse as if to snatch it from my grasp.

The motion of her grasping and my dodging her reach sent much of the contents of the purse flying though the air. Coins and makeup and a little-black-book all took flight and landed in various unnoticed locations on the in-take floor. They went unnoticed because an extraordinarily long, black, cigar-like object was sailing through the air headed straight for the duty sergeant, and everyone’s eyes were fixed on its flight. It hit the ground, bounced, and scooted towards the sergeant’s boots where it came to rest. In brief time it took for everyone but Lady Godiva to figure out what it was—she knew, of course—the thing began to buzz and shake as it lay on the floor at the sergeant’s feet.

As quickly as I could, I headed for the object, and with my already gloved hands, I picked it up and put it into its own evidence bag on which I wrote “one double-headed vibrator; black” before tagging the bag as a biohazard. (I did my best to ignore the stares and whistles and snide remarks now directed at me.)

The thing continued to writhe in the clear-plastic property bag, but I wasn’t about to ask Lady G how to turn it off: I’d learned all I’d cared to from her that night, and as I met her eyes, I believe I saw satisfaction.

Author’s note: This is a true story, but Lady Godiva’s name has been changed.

Shawn Hansen is busy writing more stuff.