A/N: HUGE thanks to Twilover76 for reading this over and to JaspersDestiny along with Dragonfly336 for their beta skills. We miss you, Perry. Get well!

Also a ridiculously large debt of gratitude from Flanny and the Freak to Kitty Vuitton & Kelly Clwn for their oh-so-giggle-worthy review of PENAL CODE over at The Lemonade Stand this week! THANK YOU LADIES! You make us smile.

Penal Code 6 - Put Your Pudding Where Your Mouth Is

Edward POV

I had taken a sick day after Bella left me.

I'd also kicked Alice out of my apartment.

It seemed appropriate since I felt like I'd been kickedin the ball sack several times throughout the morning. Since it wasn't exactly something I wanted to re-live over and over so… she definitely needed to skedaddle.

I fell into the bed and just lay there, thinking about how, not twelve short hours earlier, I'd been happy.

Really happy for the first time in an extremely long time.

Including the day I'd been inducted into the police force.

Now? Not so much.

I eyed the pillow Bella had used the night before as it lay next to me with it's full color Starsky and Hutch Ford Gran Torino that was printed across it's front... I picked it up... and then I smelled it.

Then I moaned out like a jackal in heat, with absolutely no clue of how incredibly desperate I probably sounded to anyone that might have been walking by the apartment.

I didn't care. I'd show the desperation of ten thousand jackals if it meant I could make things up to Bella.

For the moment though, I was lost in that pillow.

It still smelled like her shampoo.

It smelled like everything about her.

From her perfume, to the fabric softener she used...just, everything.

I wonder how long it would take to suffocate myself with this pillow.

"Ow, fuck."

I rolled over to see what had just stabbed me in the back and found one of Bella's hair pins.

I stared at it and grinned a little, remembering that first night I'd met her and how we somehow had managed to equate Bea Arthur to Bella's hair.

She made me laugh.

She made me feel light. And she made me realize my job wasn't the only thing in life that mattered. Granted, the epiphany had come about totally the wrong way, but still... I knew. She was it for me.

Why couldn't she see that?

Ideas raced through me suddenly. Ideas about how to make her see.

I called Alice. Somehow I had managed to make her feel guilty enough about blurting out my mistaking Bella for a hooker that she gave me Bella's work schedule for the rest of the week.

Then I dialed up the Commissioner's office and asked for Bella Swan's extension.

I knew she wouldn't be there yet. There hadn't been nearly enough time for her to have gotten into work, but it didn't matter, I just needed to get the words out that would, hopefully, plant a small yet powerful seed of forgiveness inside Bella's heart.

Provided she listened to the message past hearing my voice.

Just hearing her voice with a much more lighthearted tone to it as her voicemail greeting played made my heart pound against my chest, and when the beep sounded, I swallowed hard before beginning step one of plan Get the Girl Back.

"Bella, hey, it's Edward..." I hesitated before adding, "Cullen." Then I stopped and chastised myself for yet another act of idiocy. Like she wouldn't know me by just Edward the Jackass or, I don't know... Edward the Dick.

"Um... anyway, I just wanted to call and... you know, say again how incredibly sorry I am about... this entire week, and if I could erase it and start all over again, I swear, I'd ask if you were a hooker first."

Shit. I should have written something out before calling.

"I mean..."

Because fuck me, I am not good at this.

"Ya know what? I'm just gonna quit while I'm ahead here. You... have a good day... I mean, as good as you can have... after... the morning that shall not be named."

This was not going well.

"Goodbye."

I hung up the phone and then threw the entire machine across the room. I'd been cursed with awkwardness and it sucked.

It sucked really bad.

Then, I got another idea.

A crazy, wonderful, completely insane idea.

All I had to do was go downtown to the Commissioner's office, find her in her office and perform some act of grandeur... something huge that she'd never expect... like... I could quit... YES! I'd go straight to the Commissioner himself so she'd see how serious I was and that I didn't care about moving up in my career at all... that I wasn't just another dill hole looking to use her… despite my recent actions that might have said otherwise.

In the end… it was just her... only her.

I had no idea what career path I'd take afterward, or... how I'd support myself but who cares, right?

This is love we're talking about.

Something close to it, anyway. Something that could maybe, possibly... yeah, definitely one day turn into love.

And if it didn't work? If Bella still told me to fuck off?

I couldn't think along those terms. It would work. It had to.

I typed up a resignation letter to Charlie Swan and composed myself before dressing and then heading over to the First Precinct.

It was pure coincidence that I ran into Emmett McCarty on the way.

"Edward! What's up, dude?"

"Little busy here, Em," I told him, walking a little more hurriedly along the sidewalk leading me to Bella.

"No sweat. I'm headed this way, anyway. Hey, you really goin' out with Bella Swan, man?"

"Uh… something like that."

I didn't know how to answer him. I mean, I knew I wanted to be going out with Bella… I had actually had a date with the woman. Two if you count the first night when she'd wrapped her oh-so-talented and very non-hooker hands around my dick.

"She's a great girl… dude… do you know her friend? Rose?"

"Rose Hale? From the Commissioner's office?"

"Hell, yeah, Rose Hale. That woman is… hot. I've been dying to meet her and Bella was gonna introduce us, officially, the other night at Rose's Vicar and Vixen's party but then she never showed up. I didn't even get in through the front door."

Vicar and Vixens party?

Shit on a stick.

"That's why she was dressed like a hooker."

"What?"

I shook my head. "Nothing, um…"

"'Course, I have to say I'm surprised she's dating anyone so soon after that break-up with the gay guy."

Did he just say... "Gay...?" My feet halted abruptly, and then I stopped Emmett. "What?"

He looked sincerely sorry for what he'd said. "Oh, shit, sorry dude, you didn't know she's in rebound mode?"

Oh... the crestfallen. That was me. My chest hurt.

Because rebound mode, my ass.

I didn't want to be Bella's rebound.

I wanted to be her forever.

At least as close to forever as we could get without turning into some abomination of the human state, like zombies or... I don't know, vampires?

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Jesus, no wonder she reacted the way she did that morning. I was just another douchewad in a long list of douchewads that had made her feel less than worthy.

Shit.

This was not boding well. I needed to act fast.

Because Bella Swan was more than worthy. More than what I deserved. But I had to try.

"Look, Em, I really gotta go," I told him and then quickened my pace and left him behind, calling after me. "Dude, let's double date! Hook me up!"

As I climbed the steps of the building that now held my fate, my jaw tightened and my stomach turned. I was so fucking nervous that my knees wanted to buckle, but I forced myself up the stairs and into the lobby, clenching my resignation letter in my hand and willing my feet to take me over to the receptionist's desk.

I must have looked like a complete asshole, just standing there, gawking at the door I knew led back to all of the offices, wondering if Bella was already there, what she was doing, how she looked… how she felt.

Whether or not I was just the re-bound guy that would lead her to her Prince Charming.

"Can I… help you?" the receptionist sneered and my head snapped to face her as my heart beat raced to near fatal speeds.

"I um..."

Her eyebrows curled up as she gave me a questioning look. "Yes...?"

"I need to see..."

She suddenly became distracted with a hubbub of commotion coming up the stairs behind us and I turned to see what it was as she cursed under her breath.

"Oh Lord, not another one."

My eyes widened as two police officers wrestled with a tall, big haired hooker they were bringing in. She was a wild cat, and she wasn't to be taken lightly from what I could tell.

She also looked as though she might have purchased her outfit from the same shop Bella had.

The one I met her in, that is. The one that had been my downfall.

"Okay, Tanya," one of the officers said. "you wait here like a good girl and we'll make sure your pimp doesn't know you keep a percentage of your nights earnings inside your mattress."

"Ju reep dees material and ju hwil be buyink me new top, deell hole, cost thirty rubles..." she said before she caught me slack jawed and staring at her in disbelief.

She arched an eyebrow. "Hwell, hello dare, cutee pie."

I blushed and tried to look away as the two cops left her in the waiting area to go start her paperwork. I turned back to the receptionist to ask for Bella's office again.

"Is..."

"What brinks such a sweet boy to place like dees, mmmm?"

It was the hooker again, and she was invading my personal space with her loud voice and heavy make up. Her fingernail scraped underneath my chin, lightly, pulling my face to meet hers.

"I'm, um..." My eyes found the receptionist, silently asking for some help.

Help was coming alright... just... not from the receptionist.

"What, do you have some kind of a hooker fetish, or something?" Bella accused from the doorway I'd been ogling at earlier.

The scowl on her face and the rage in her words told me one thing.

This was not about to go down exactly the way I'd planned.

At all.

Bella POV

The phrase "walk of shame" had never before been so apt.

After leaving Edward's apartment this morning, it wasn't until I was alone on the elevator that I'd realized I had neglected to put on my clothes. That's also when I'd noticed the Starsky and Hutch sheets. The 70s cop kitsch was so adorably Edward I'd wanted to cry... and then maybe scream and puke again.

Despite the terrible humiliation and disgust that I could feel in every molecule of my body, I also knew the fondness I felt for Edward would probably never fade. I mean, there was no way in hell I could have a relationship with him now - not after he paid me for sex - but it didn't change the fact that I wanted him.

"Earth to Bella!" Rosalie snapped.

"Sorry...we were talking about cheese?" I had absolutely no clue what we were talking about, but cheese was as good of a guess as any.

"I asked you about the press release for the mayor. How did you get cheese from that?" She regarded me like I had grown a second head.

"Mayor McCheese?" I shrugged. "You know... word association, like in therapy when the doctor shows you an ink blot, and it looks like a vagina?"

"Maybe you shouldn't have come into work today," Rosalie said, patting my shoulder. "Everyone is entitled to the odd mental health day."

I blew out a frustrated sigh. I loved my job, and it really pissed me the fuck off that this bullshit was messing with my ability to perform.

"Do you wanna talk about it?"

I shook my head. "Yeah."

"I'm getting mixed signals here." Rosalie laughed, spinning my chair around away from my desk, forcing me to face her.

"Did Alice tell you about the, um, misunderstanding between her brother and me?"

"She mentioned in passing that he thought you were a hooker."

"She said that in passing?" Why was I friends with Alice, again? "How did that even come up?"

"Calm down, okay?" She walked over to the door to my office and closed it. For some weird reason, she also shut the vertical blinds. "She sent me a text message that you were going to be upset today. At first I thought she was pretending to be psychic again, so I told her to stuff it."

"And then?"

"Then she called me and said you had inadvertently exchanged money for sex with her brother...and that you were upset about it." She glanced away from me and pulled her long blonde hair away from her face, securing it in a low ponytail with a rubber band that she grabbed off my desk. Rose always preened whenever she was uncomfortable.

"You're judging me."

"I'm not...but you were dressed like a hooker the other day." She plucked a compact out of her purse and applied lipstick to her wide mouth.

"Because you were hosting that stupid costume party!"

"Which you never showed up at." She smacked her lips together, narrowing her eyes. "Look, Bella, if you needed money—"

Around three o'clock it occurred to me that I'd forgotten to eat. I raked my hands through my hair and glared at my phone. I'd made the mistake of checking my voicemail after kicking Rose out of my office, and I was greeted with the oddest message from Edward. He had this fucked-up, halted way of speaking that was so annoying.

Like, couldn't he get a fucking sentence out without pausing or going on in some weird tangent? I tugged at my hair and growl-whimpered (not the most dignified sound) because hearing his voice made my stomach drop in a not-all-the-way disgusted manner.

He infuriated me.

I hated him.

But he'd given me the best orgasms I'd ever known. My knees still knocked with the aftershocks.

Why couldn't I stop thinking about him?

He wasn't adorable or sexy or sweet. He didn't smell like Irish Spring, and even if he did, I didn't like that scent...not anymore. He most definitely didn't have rock-hard abs and a cock that rivaled my favorite toy.

His awkward jokes and rambling speech pattern didn't make me think of John Cusack. He wasn't my Lloyd Dobbler.

He sucked.

Sucked. Sucking. Mouth-fucking. Oh fuck, I could still feel the soft, wet pressure of his tongue on my clit, throbbing and licking and—

Gah! Stop!

I hated him. Why did he have to remind me of Lloyd Dobbler? I think it was because he shook when we made love... or fucked or whatever. It made me think of that scene in Say Anything when he's about to pop Ione Skye's cherry.

Edward, naked and trembling. I swear, my pussy just shed a tear at the thought of never riding him again.

My hands shook with frustration as I buttoned my jacket and ran out of my office, chased by my own overactive imagination. I definitely needed to double up on my therapy because if I didn't have weird issues about sex before, I certainly did now. I mean, I had gone from a long term, committed relationship with a homosexual to an impassioned fling with a guy who thought he was paying me for sex.

That wasn't normal, right?

Stupid Edward with his Richard Gere complex. And did I mention that I hated the movie Pretty Woman? That shit wasn't romantic. It was ridiculous. THE GUY PAID HER FOR SEX! Him saving her from a life of prostitution was hypocritical. Also, how could she ever trust him after that?

I hated Richard Gere.

I hated Edward whateverthefuck-his-name-was.

I hated myself.

The elevator doors opened and I stepped out into the lobby, heading over to reception to see if Leah wanted me to pick her up a coffee. As I approached, a commotion from a few feet away caught my attention.

"What brinks such a sweet boy to place like dees, mmmm?" A crazy-haired prostitute said, running her hands all over a guy that looked a bit like John Cusack, only in a cop uniform.

Oh. My. Fuck.

"Motherfucker," I muttered, tossing my purse on Leah's desk so my fists would be free to take a swing.

Irrational rage filled me, boiling my blood.

"What, do you have some kind of a hooker fetish, or something?" The words flew out of my mouth as I stumbled towards the two of them.

"No. Shit, no! I mean—I don't. Only you—not that you're a hooker! I mean, fuck..." Edward took a step away from the woman in the same instant that I closed the distance between us.

I unclenched my fist and opted for an open-palmed bitchslap.

"Bella, no!" Edward yelled.

"Get your skanky paws off my boyfriend!" I screamed, shoving the prostitute to the ground.