Ardently I Admire and Love You

Chapter 1: Sex, Birth, Death

"Between the idea and the reality, between the motion and the act, falls the shadow." - T.S. Eliot

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June 2021

No one ever tells you how loud and quiet a gunshot actually is. You, of course, trained with guns at the academy. You passed the gun certification, but all of that was done on a closed course. Guns in the real world, you've learned, are louder.

But louder still is the reality of what you've just witnessed.

It's only training that stops you from falling to your knees to apply pressure to the wound. It's only training that reminds you that there is still a man with a gun facing you and your superior officers. And it is only training that stops you from turning your gun on the senior officer who just shot a girl at point-blank range.

She was close enough to the unsub for it to pass as an accident. You want to believe, in your heart of hearts, that it is an accident. That you didn't just watch an innocent woman (woman? She's a girl, barely a woman) die at a federal agent's hand. 'Serve and Protect:' that's the motto, but who exactly was protected here?

Somewhere in the back of your head, you process that this is the first kill you've seen. That since you've been in Vegas, all of your cases have ended with non-lethal arrests. You've seen bodies, sure, but not one who was breathing one minute and not the next. Not one that's actively bleeding out on the pavement.

No one's calling for the medics. They have the unsub in handcuffs, but no one is doing anything about the girl on the ground.

"(Y/L/N)," your commanding officer says. "You okay?"

"Is she..?"

"Yeah. Unfortunate, but unavoidable."

"Unavoidable?"

"She was shielding him."

"What about her family? Who's going to..."

"She's a prostitute, kid. Probably no family," he peers closer at you. "This your first casualty?"

"Yes, sir."

"It doesn't get easier," he tells you. "But this one, this one shouldn't be as hard. She's a criminal, too."

He walks away from you then, presumably to go question the unsub and find out if this casualty was, indeed, unavoidable.

"Yeah," you whisper, trying to convince yourself. "She's a criminal, too."

---

November 2023

"Look, I can appreciate what you're trying to do here," you tell the FBI agent on the other end of the phone line. "The women who work the streets need all of the protection they can get, but I can't help you."

"Congresswoman Steyer directed us to you specifically. You're the current expert on the layout and structure of prostitution in Washington, DC," the man says. "If you care as much as your work shows you do-"

"Agent, let me make one thing crystal clear: because of your press conference, I have women from all over the city waiting to be interviewed and assisted by my foundation. With all due respect, your press conference just put DC back on my ass regarding getting all sex workers off the street. As much as I would like to come down to DC to help, I can't. Especially with the number of women who want to be off the street as early as tonight."

"Can we send an agent to speak with you at your property?"

"You do that; I'll see how many of the girls here are willing to talk to them. Send the least threatening agent you have, if you don't mind. I've got women and children here who have seen a lot of the wrong side of law enforcement."