"The more familiar two people become, the more the language they speak together departs from that of the ordinary, dictionary-defined discourse. Familiarity creates a new language, an in-house language of intimacy that carries reference to the story the two lovers are weaving together and that cannot be readily understood by others."
― Alain de Botton, On Love

"What song is playing in your head, Michonne?" I found my voice.

I wasn't really surprised by what was happening between us. The squad car was thick with confusion, misplaced words, boundaries that reached the moon. We weren't going to continue messing around was the last thing that we both agreed on. Within three hours it was blown apart.

She had me pressed against the wall inside of a free room in a local Holiday Inn. We had gone to apprehend a suspect that had slipped through our visual surveillance and we were in a two hour pursuit. The door was left open. Nothing that belonged to the suspect was left behind. Greenlight.

Michonne spoke softly in my ear in response to what I had asked just moments ago. My emotions were wrapped in every word that she recited as if it was a spoken word.

You've got me surrounded,
It feels like I'm drowning and I don't want to come up for air.
I lost everything, I threw myself in and you took me when no one was there.
Well you can take what you need, take the air that I breathe and I'll give away all that I own.
Whatever I lose, is put back by you in a way that you'll never know.

I was lost in her eyes when I realized where the lyrics came from-Seafret. We had both said the next line together.

Cause I can't be without you.

We were sharing a very intense moment because both of our breath caught in our throats, no air found to fill our lungs until I remembered the next verse. I spoke them with great conviction as if it was with my last dying breath.

I'll be there when you need me most
I'll be there if you're ever alone
Together, we can grow old.
I can't leave you
I can't leave you,
No.

Michonne and I found these string of lyrical verses that danced in our minds, pulled and twisted at our hearts, strangling away any notion of ever turning back on what this was or could be for both of us. It was in that hotel room on that day.

We quickly got each other into a state of no return. It would take a fire truck to come hose us down, to tear us apart or to momentarily jar us back to reality after the hot kisses we shared. Both of our gun belts discarded across the tub rim. We had our pants pulled down to our ankles inside the bathroom with the door locked just in case someone, anyone that the room belongs to would come back for whatever reason. I turned her back to me and kept her in position to plow inside. God, I needed her legs to open wider. I needed to feel the heat, the wetness, and the fucking tightness was like two nights ago in the parking lot of the theater after the play had closed for the night. That was reckless and intense. I wanted to fuck her again like that. I wanted to feel her all around me. I could barely make out the visual of her face since she was hovering over the sink. The mirror provided a great view. I couldn't help but stare back at my reflection that revealed everything that I was doing and would continue to do. I almost didn't recognize the man staring back at me with the perspiration that began to bead on my temple and right above both my brow.

I found my rhythm in her chaotic one that was increasing the likelihood of having one choked out too fucking soon for my liking no matter how I gripped her waist and hips. I didn't want to fucking cum too quick, so I pulled out to regroup.

She began to whine and beg for it, destroying my resolve to give myself a few more seconds to offset the momentum. I couldn't bring myself to finger her after already having her coat me. I would have quickly ejaculated in no time right on the uniform shirt that she still wore. The sounds she made echoed and bounced off the walls to sear onto parts of my brain. The way her body writhed against me, the sight of her smooth brown ass pressed against my swollen cock was enough to cause me to seek her hold over me again and just succumb to the deliriously beautiful place I wished to remained buried, dick and face deep in her pussy. Michonne positioned herself up more to where we held eye contact, entranced by the two people staring back at us. Our reflections.

We were pulling an overnighter, one of many, inside of the cruiser. It was the best place to talk about anything.

"What age were you when you first fell in love?" Michonne had asked me out of the blue.

I had told her.

"15."

"Are we talking, Lori level love or school crush?"

"She would have been my first girlfriend."

"We are going with, a school crush."

"Call it what you want, Mich. I was in love. LOVE." I felt the heat in my cheeks.

"The unrequited kind. Grimes, if you want that as your starting point for your story, I am all ears."

"She would have been my first everything. I was crazy about her. I would have dated her. I would have liked to at least."

"What happened?"

"She said she didn't find white guys attractive."

"Really? If she didn't like white guys what race was she, Asian, Hispanic?"

"African American."

"You are blowing my mind right now."

"There wasn't anything I could do with that. I didn't know how to improve upon knowing I was someone she would never be interested in. It hurt for a very long time."

"Nope. You are white. Can't change the skin you are in no matter how long you are lying on a tanning bed. Probably really white back then if a mixed girl says she doesn't find your whiteness attractive."

"What are you talking about, Mich?"

"I'm trying to picture what this girl must have looked like back in-Wait, how old are you again? Would have been 1980 something if I were to subtract your 50..."

"If I'm 50 you are 46."

"How did you get all that damn gray around the edges, man? One thing about black people we age very slowly. We can be 85 and look almost 30. Take a white person, add a little crystal meth and you got the Walking Dead."

"Sometimes I really have no words. No way to respond to some of the shit that comes spewing out. Sometimes it's startling."

"Truth. Besides you look like you are possibly in your thirties. You can tell me exactly how old you are when you are ready. Your secret is safe with me."

Michonne doesn't give up fishing for information. She was trying to get a range to narrow it down. She finally conceded to what was reasonable to how old I was in general. If I'm thirty-something, it meant she was thirty-something too.

"She wasn't mixed." I had informed Michonne.

"Do you know when you are looking at someone who is mixed?"

"Of course."

"I'm not talking by today's standard I'm talking about this King's County Warped worldview?"

I put her question on ignore. I would have to look up variations of mixed race in private. From what I remembered the girl in high school had a black mother but no father. She had much lighter skin than Michonne's, and her hair was different but similar to mine, and she had light hazel eyes. Either way, she ended up marrying Tyrese Goodman the star football player right after graduation and moved with him to Florida where he had eventually gone Pro. They were still married since the last time I checked on Facebook a year and a half ago.

"Do you like white guys, Mich?"

"What kind of question are you asking me? I am a married woman."

"Have you ever dated a white guy?"

"I've dated one. College. I was going through a fine ass brown temporary hiatus when I had a short-lived fling with an Italian guy I was tutoring."

"What happened?"

"I wasn't comfortable. I was out of my element."

"Was this 1975 standards of acceptability..."

"How old are you trying to say I am, Grimes?"

I couldn't help but laugh. I knew Mich was maybe three or four years younger than myself and she knew damn well I wasn't more than four years older than her.

"Nothing to do with acceptable. I wasn't adaptable. Plus I don't like white guys that think they must act more black when around people of color. For that BS to work, he would need to remain himself no matter the crowd. It was like a light switch that would turn on and off. It was weird, but fascinating in retrospect. I mean that guy was woke, and the term wasn't coined then."

"Woke?"

"You won't get it, and I am not about to bust a blood vessel talking to you about it, Grimes."

"All Lives Matter, Mich. My life matters. Your life matters. Everyone we know and don't know lives matter. Everyone should be treated fairly. I understand for the black community, very small here in King's County, doesn't seem to matter at all in comparison to the goal of All. I am aware that it's not fair or right or whatever on the treatment and the mindset that is ingrained."

"I want to cuss you out, right now."

"Mitch, you've cursed me out five times on this very topic in the last 6 months."

"I have no idea why you keep bringing this shit up."

If we weren't going back and forth with music lyrics, she was generally impressed if I memorized something from her list of great Authors. Michonne had a long list she had given me, and it included a couple of comic books that she adored. One book she had provided me for enlightenment purposes was written by James Baldwin, and she had some quotes that she had printed off from his other random works that we have discussed in the past. I began first to smooth the situation. I didn't want her to get out of the car and possibly walk off for a while.

"Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced."

She responded back with a quote. "It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power is the most ferocious enemy justice can have."

"The paradox of education is precisely this- that as one begins to become conscious one begins to examine the society in which he is being educated," I recited back.

"Anyone who has ever struggled with Poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor."

"That's why I understand that Black Lives Matter, Mich. It is our job as law enforcement to ensure that we treat everyone fairly, with dignity, and respect. No matter a person's race or color. That is what I have been trying to get across."

To her, to Michonne, I still didn't get it. It would take a few years later for me to really understand...

I hadn't fully realized how much of my headspace, my heart was filled with her and by her. I was changing, and the process was gradual at first. It wasn't overnight. The man that I had become or the man I was no longer could see that it was going to destroy everything that was safe, familiar and promised. I loved the debates we would have and the ideas and thoughts that came with communicating. Nothing was too dumb or stupid to discuss or taken for granted that it was understood. Sometimes we could sit for hours without saying anything because our connection was just being together in the same space whether confined to the cruiser or the office.

The more she began to talk about Montana, the more I saw myself watching her shiver to indicate that it was too cold. I could see myself standing with her at the base of a mountain and her eyes travelling upward when she realizes it's too steep of a climb compared to a hill. I wanted to watch her eyes widen with tears once she witnessed real people that were already rafting, because she would need me to hold her tissues once she went into full-blown hyperventilating. There was something about the idea that Michonne would more than likely try to endure the cold, climb that mountain, and step on to that raft with every life-saving apparatus strapped to her body that I wanted to witness. I secretly hoped more than ever that it included me.

Neither she nor I could control what was happening, we were destined like the River, winding down a path in whatever direction. It was the thought of the Road, The Mountain and The River that filled my heart with anticipation, longing, and desire. Together.

I was searching Whitewater Rafting Excursions when Lori came up from behind me while I was on the family computer in the living room where Carl would typically do his homework.

"What are you looking at?"

"Montana."

"Why?"

"Why not?"

"What's in Montana?"

"I've been told fresh air."

"Rick, I don't want to go to Montana. I have no desire to go before you get your mind on a vacation that we can't afford. We have to save for Carl's future."

"Well, what about us? Where do we fit into Carl's future?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean we have this life planned out for Carl, what is the plan for us?"

"I don't know honey. Grow old together. Grand children. What's got into you?" Lori kneeled where I sat at the desk one hand on the back of the chair and the other resting on my forearm.

"I'm asking a simple question, Lori."

"Rick, your question isn't that simple. I mean it is, but it seems like you are looking for me to say something and lately, I haven't been saying the right things, the way you want to hear them. You've been acting like you have a chip on your shoulders, and I am not sure why."

"I feel like there's nothing."

"What?"

"I feel like there's nothing to look forward to anymore."

"Where is this coming from, Rick?"

"What if I wanted to go to Montana?"

"To do what exactly?"

"To see it."

"To see what? Ice-capped mountains? Bears?"

It is quite startling when the person you're married to becomes someone unfamiliar. Similar to a phone that hasn't been hung up correctly and you just aren't willing to make it right by just picking it up and placing it on the cradle to stop the noise of the busy signal. I was sending her a message no matter how obscure it may have seemed to her. The thing with Lori is that she was sending me a message too, but I was the phone that wasn't connected properly. Our marriage had become an old phone, and we weren't necessarily old, just getting older.

"How old are you?"

"You have been trying to figure out my age and using the former existence of a frigging party line is not going to get you any closer, Grimes."

We were listening in on a conversation that was happening in a trailer less than a football field away. A few months ago we had arrested a few people inside. Wire-tap.

I wanted to ask Michonne about where she got her authority but I never did. We were doing a lot of things that stretched what I in lower level law enforcement should have access to do or permitted without a warrant and even then I wasn't on the investigation unit. I had a feeling she carried Federal weight. Herschel had told me when she was assigned to me that I had to do whatever to get her an Andrea and the rest of the plague to leave King's County. Almost two years later the possible federal plague was still attached to our department, disguised as bringing big city views to our small town.

"Then why did you reference it if you never heard of it?" I had asked.

"Random knowledge. Around these neck of the woods, I am an MF Genius."

"MF?"

"Do you want me to say it?"

Mich sought permission from me to go back to her limited vocabulary. She was frustrated that she couldn't hear clearly what was being said by the three men inside of what may be a makeshift meth lab at this point. My partner has gone 48 hours without saying her favorite curse word that had Mother at the beginning. She usually keeps mother out of it all together, and now that I have made my point of her limited english she has been trying to refrain from cursing altogether. Well, she only uses the word at crime scenes that have dead bodies that have been left for days to rot, unexpected hoarders, Smart mouth meth addicts with rotten teeth or no teeth at all. Similarly overall.

About the teeth...

"It's amazing what fascinates you, Mich."

"What should amaze you is the powerful drug like Meth or Heroin that can cause a person to forget about oral hygiene."

"Causes major weight loss too." I had pointed out.

"Probably because you have no teeth? What is your mind thinking as teeth are falling out of your mouth, and you aren't four years old but a grown ass individual?"

"Scary, huh?"

"Scary to have a drug that can have your mind so relaxed about the whole thing where you can still smile and beg for the very thing that has your teeth around your neck like a necklace."

"What person have you witnessed around here, Mich that is wearing their teeth as a necklace?"

"What could go through a person's mind to not have a single molar in their mouth?"

"Why were you looking down their throat?"

"Molars aren't located in the throat. When was the last time you've been to the dentist, Grimes?"

"I was going once a year until I was reassigned a partner that took it upon herself to care about what's going on with my oral health."

"I'm a positive influence. Don't you want to be known as that guy with pleasant smelling breath and a winning smile?"

"I'm not normally in a person's personal space."

"Just mine." Mich batted her eyes at me.

"I told you that your breath is always nice."

"Which was a weird observation."

"You are the most unusual person."

"I have a case study."

"I'm going to ban IPads in the cruiser."

"Knowledge is king, my friend."

"I have all this stuff swimming in my head, Mich. Can you give me a second to organize and compartmentalize random before you give me more?"

"You can juggle more. Now listen. It says here that two people that find each other's breath pleasing are more inclined to find themselves lip-locked. Lucky for us we have spouses that are the best cockblocks."

I was stunned. It was her uncanny ability to know what was on my mind and had been for some time, that bewildered me. How obvious was I? How transparent were the things I thought I had hidden, tucked away from verbal acknowledgement easily decipherable by her?

My brain pushed aside everything that Michonne had piled in, and concentrated on that nugget of BS. I mean, I refused to believe she found some case study about breath. I had found myself lost on more than one occasion if I were positioned face to face with Mich when she spoke. It didn't matter if it was in the office or in the Squad car. I found her breath pleasing, the fullness of her lips appealing and the gloss she wore when she couldn't find her chapstick, mesmerizing.

She had called me on it, and I am positive that was her way of calling me on it again. It was hard to keep eye contact when words were coming out of that fresh smelling sanitized cave that held pristine white teeth.

Yes, Mich, I want to kiss you. Would love to kiss you. I want to know more than I care to admit to myself how lips like yours compare to lips I have only known. These private thoughts were mine to never act upon. My secretly controlled wildfire of desire was possibly sending smoke signals her way.

Smooth Life.

I was parked outside while Michonne ran inside. I wasn't aware that we were changing our eating habits again. Michonne called healthy eating, burger joints. Greasy eating was when we were randomly back on a diet of damn smoothies. I promised myself to put in for a new partner the second time this happened but we were on the 7th time in our two year union of Monkey See, Monkey do. I was the monkey.

"What's this?" I had asked her.

"We are back to greasy living, my traveling companion?"

"Why did we stop the healthy eating again?"

"We need to lose weight."

"We?"

"There is no way I am going to survive if you are biting down on a burger, Grimes. We have to do this together, or the chance of failure will be catastrophic."

"Catastrophic?"

"I have been speaking in Hyperbole for how long now? It's interesting you want to challenge my word usage when it comes to continued weight loss."

"For you?"

"For us."

"Remind me to always drive when it's around our chow time."

"Here, Grimes, you are going to like it."

"How does this random dieting work again?"

"Listen. I don't want to have to repeat myself. This is to replace the cheeseburger we really want to eat. If you drink this Green Smoothie, it will increase your life expectancy. Don't you want to live a long time?"

Michonne did an Asian impersonation from out of nowhere. I couldn't figure out the connection other than in a sexual way.

"What's in it?"

"Good, greasy, cheesy, mayo, all the works stuff. See? Mmmmm." I watched Michonne sip from her straw. "Now copy me."

I was reluctant. The 20-ounce smoothie was like a cup of green algae.

"Why didn't you get the strawberry banana for me? I like the Strawberry-."

"Put the straw to your lips, Grimes! Copy me." Her tone was full of exasperation.

I copied. Hesitantly. Michonne was more than someone new, different, she was Everything. And that smile blinded me to keep drinking that almost tasteless cup of sweet green foam, happily, as I smiled back at her.

We had our first witness to our indiscretion. It wasn't the reason why things happened the way they did, not by a long shot.

Michonne exited the bathroom first after giving me a slap on the ass to hurry it up. I had to take a piss. We had officially began resorting to having sex where ever and when ever. The Holiday Inn was the first time and it wouldn't be the last time if we kept it up while on the clock. It would take something really life altering to stop our spiraling out of control into the abyss. I washed my hands quickly and dried them off on an unused towel. The man in the mirror was different. My reflection indicated not a tinge of regret nor shame. This was the type of sex I wanted. She was the type of woman that I wanted it with and often, much as possible. Acknowledging this fact in the short time I spent in the bathroom would bleed over rapidly in to my marriage.

Alarms went off in my head when I didn't hear Mich talking to me through the door about what we were to do next. I had my gun out of my holster. I slowly opened the bathroom door to find our assailant had quietly returned and he had a gun pressed against Michonne's temple. I didn't think. I didn't ponder what to do next or have a conversation about it with the guy in a fancy suit holding the gun regarding his intentions nor did I tell him mine. I didn't hesitate. One glance into Michonne's eyes was enough for me, her hands up, trembling, tears, I took the headshot. Bullseye.

Blood was in her dreads, peppered her uniform, seeping towards the soles of her shoes. Mich was frozen in place. I went to her immediately and held her to me even when backup and the paramedics arrived. I didn't let her go until told to do so by her husband, Mike.

I had to tell Lori before word got to her from someone in the department. I didn't want Lori to find out that way. She was surprised that I made good with my promise to go with her to a mall that was thirty miles outside of King's County to find a pair of cleats for Carl while he was in school. We were in the food court. I had already gave Shane a heads up and he had sent a text that he was no more than five minutes away.

"You should have seen Carl's face when it was announced that he made the team. He was excited. It was-"

"I'm having an affair, Lori."

"...a dream come true for him. He was nervous that he wouldn't make the team because he thought a lot of the kids were way better players..."

"I didn't want you to find out from anyone that might tell you. I wanted to be the one to tell you. I'm having an affair."

"Is it with Mich?"

I nodded. I cleared my throat. "Yes."

"Why are you telling me? Was she going to beat you to it?"

"No. I don't know if her husband knows yet. Mich wouldn't tell you. She's not like that at all. If anything she would expect me to tell you."

"How long?"

"Just recent."

"Bullshit, Rick."

"Keep your voice down, Lori."

"How long have you known that you would do this?"

"I don't understand the question, Lori."

"Were you really sleeping over at Shane's the other night?"

"It wasn't the other night that I told you that-."

"That lie." My wife was trying to direct the conversation to answers that her mind needed answers for what she believed my very out of character behavior.

"Lori..."

"Was this your plan? To do this in public? To keep me from screaming at the top of my lungs or wallowing in tears?"

"I feel like shit."

"Just imagine what you have just done to me. To my heart. To the trust."

We sat there at the table farthest away from an occupied table of young women conversing and laughing about whatever, compared to the dark cloud that hovered over ours in silence.

"What are you going to do?" Lori finally asked me. I could tell she was struggling to hold back her tears.

"I want to be with her."

"Is that what she wants?"

"We haven't really talked about it."

"You want to throw away our marriage for someone that you haven't even discussed your future with or if she would even leave her husband?"

"I'm not sure we are there yet. We aren't sure."

"Just sure about stumbling in bed with each other?"

"Can you keep your voice down, Lori?"

"You were worried that someone would tell me. Who would have told me? Were you not discreet?"

I didn't want to go into details about what happened the day before with Michonne and I in the Holiday Inn. I wasn't sure if Lori was aware or cared that it was broadcasted on the news early that morning and it involved me having to kill someone. My mind was back on the blood that was in Michonne's hair. I should have been the one to help her wash it away, to console her.

"I want you to stop seeing her."

My wife had every right to request it and or demand it from me, her husband. I wanted to be clear about any willingness to comply.

"I won't."

"What?"

"I won't."

The silence was deafening between us. It was the only time where a person could almost compare life without sound for the briefest of seconds.

"I can't stop, Lori. I can't." The truth I spoke even though the words strained and twisted. I didn't expect to hurt so much to announce it. I didn't expect the tears to fall from my eyes that didn't fall from Lori's.

I was choked up about it. I felt deeply about it. What I felt for Michonne I had to express right then and hoped Lori would hear me out. This shit hurt. Awareness is a bitch.

"Maybe I can go a day. Maybe. Maybe I can take some time off of work or put in a request for reassignment for a new partner. I know what the right thing to do is. It is the right thing for you to have peace of mind, to sleep at night and busy yourself in the day without worrying about me trying to find a way to be with her without you finding out. The only reason you know about it in the first place is that I told you. You didn't stumble upon anything because I didn't want you to find out that way. You didn't deserve to find out that way. So to be clear, I won't stop and to say I will is to lie to you. The very fundamental thing that could keep us together is I would have to love you more than I love her. Do you know what it is like to feel something for one person and be obligated to another? I know, Michonne like the back of my hand. I am not saying this to hurt you, I am saying this to be clear, I will find a way to be with her."

I sat there with a cup of her soda splashed in my face and her container of warm Chinese Noodles on top of my head. I wondered if being humiliated in public was better than Lori taking my revolver and just putting me out of my misery.

Lori exited the food court. She took the car and left. The moment that she did, Shane stepped up with a napkin.

A/N:

I have no idea how many people are truly interested in this story but it is or could be a mammoth. I have trimmed away the crazy and the last chapter will close out with Michonne.

For those who are new to how I write, I presented the bottom half of this chapter of how to take a puzzle piece written earlier and how in my mind it joins together chapters later. I don't think I will ever do it again but anyone who stumbles upon any of my stories after reading this may see the picture coming together faster. Not all the time but most of the time.

P.S. I am proofing All I Need. Will continue to proof this story.