The Interrogation (WoE week 39)

Write at the Merge gave us two pictures for inspiration this week. One is of a crate of what looks like peaches (maybe apricots?) and another is of two loaves of bread.

The idea behind it is to have something from scratch. Something new that leaves one with the same feeling of contentment that freshly baked bread can bring.

Well, I wanted quirky this week. So guess what. Yup, I'm going somewhere completely different.


I offer the following in response: If Interrogation Rooms Could Talk

“And what happened then, Miss Leipsing?”

Lola stopped twirling her hair between her fingers. She wasn’t getting far with femininity. The officer was all flatfoot and no stooge. But, for the first time in her life, she didn’t care. She pushed her chewing gum to the other side of her mouth with her tongue. “He placed a hand where it didn’t belong.”

The officer cleared his throat. “Where did he place his hand, Miss Leipsing?”

She lowered her eyes. “Where. It. Didn’t. Belong. Are you deaf or somethin’?”

“Miss Leipsing,” he growled through a rack of snarly teeth, “I can’t help you if I don’t know specifics. ‘Where it didn’t belong’ doesn’t tell me much.”

“Ain’t you got an imagination, Flatfoot?” Lola smacked her gum. “Do I really gotta spell it out for you?”

“Yeah, I’m dumb. Feel free to treat me that way.”

“Huh, sarcasm. Maybe you've got some imagination after all.” Leaning back in the world’s most uncomfortable chair, she blew a bubble to the point of explosion. “He reached across the couch and he squeezed my real estate.” She cupped her breasts for emphasis.

“No way it could be an accident? Maybe he was reaching for his drink and you-“

“I under-estimated you, Flatfoot, you got an amazing imagination.” Lola leaned forward and tapped her fingernail on the table. “Let me make this crystal clear. He said, ‘nice peaches, baby’ and he man-handled me like he was tuning a radio to Tokyo.”

“And you explained that his touch was unwarranted?”

She coughed and her gum shot across the table. “You bet your ass I ‘explained his touch was unwarranted’, you doughnut-stuffed bulldog. Hence the reason his head broke my best table lamp.”

His eyes crossed above his nose as he picked the lump of saliva and pink from his notepad. “And, ah, how did that happen?”

“I hit him with it.”

He tapped his pencil against the table. “When did the money become involved?”

She waved his comment away. “I didn't say money, I said bread. There was bread in the oven, but that’s not important.”

“Look, I don’t tell you how to, uh, do what you do for a living. Don’t tell me what’s important.”

Lola tried really hard to kill him with her stare, or at least maim him, or she’d even settle for giving him indigestion. “What, you think it’s easy to sit, naked, anywhere and allow addled boys to sketch you for hours on end? It’s always ‘turn this way’ or ‘pout more’ or ‘my, my it must be cold in here’. You try it someday. I started baking bread to keep them distracted and me much warmer.”

He sighed.  “Fine. I apologize Miss Leipsing. What happened next?”

Lola shrugged, “He called me a two-bit floozy then screamed like a little girl.”

“A man his size and he screamed like a girl? Why would he do that?”

“Because I took my derringer and shot his stupid ass.”