Tales From the Sorcery Patrol: Case # 9812: Domestic Upset

By: C.M. Ellis

 

Officer Mark Chandler

20:23 hrs

03/28/02

My partner Emily and I were on patrol when we received a 329C Domestic Disturbance call in the area. Apparently, neighbors had reported some shouting, and sounds like breaking objects and such. We were just going to check it out; usually these calls turn out to be nothing. Everything calms down when we get there, and there's nothing really to be done. We can’t just go around arresting anybody who yells at his wife. Sometimes though, it can really be a volatile situation so we really have to be cautious on this sort of call.

We arrived at the reported address and it was a seemingly normal, little, lower-middle-class suburban house. As we exited the vehicle, we heard some yelling coming from the house. Emily looked back at me briefly before flying up to the front window. I got some ribbing from some of the other officers for having a pixie for a partner, but I was surprised myself at how often her special skills came in handy. Like here for example, Emily can easily take a peek through the window to get an idea of what the situation is inside.

The other officers may tease, but there’s no real malice in it. Officer Emily Fae is well respected as an asset to the Sorcery Patrol. Sometimes I think she takes it personally though, so I make sure not to participate in the jokes. The relationship between partners is very important. More than once, I've depended on Emily for my life and vice versa. If there's no trust there, it just doesn't work.

By the time I had climbed the porch steps and arrived at the door, Emily had finished looking through a few windows and hovered next to me. We could still hear some ruckus inside.

"How's it look, Em?"

"Well, I couldn't see much, they're in the kitchen, but it looks like a fairly standard marital spat, neither of them seem to have any weapons or anything."

I knocked hard on the door once and called out "Police," and the shouting suddenly stopped. After a few silent moments, the door unlocked and opened.

The man at the door seemed upset and tired, yet at the same time, glad to see us. That was the one reaction that we rarely get in these domestic calls. He invited us in.

"Officer." He noticed Emily, "oh, sorry, officers. I'm so glad you're here! You have to help me with my husband!"

"Husband, sir?" Emily spoke up. "Care to explain that, sir?"

The man looked sheepish. "The woman in the other room is my husband. I wanted to punish him for cheating on me, so I bought an idol to switch our bodies. And now he won't switch back!" The man's eyes glistened with tears.

I wish I could tell you that this was a new one on me, but we saw it all too often. Body swaps rarely go as intended, especially non-mutual exchanges. If Em and I were going to make any headway in this situation, we needed to speak with both parties.

"Ok, si-, well, ma'am, we need to speak with your husband too then. Is he just in the other room?"

" ‘He?’ What's this ‘he’ crap?" A woman stood in the doorway, wearing a short red dress that hung awkwardly, standing in a position that could only be called macho. With one hand cupping the body's large left breast, and the other gripping the crotch, the woman spoke again. "Does this look like a he to you?"

"Would you prefer to be addressed as she, ma'am?" I calmly asked the woman.

"Duh! It's what I am now, isn't it? Thanks to-" An ugly sneer appeared on the woman’s face. "Him."

The man winced. "I'm not a him! This was only supposed to be temporary, Gerald! This was supposed to show you how I felt!"

"How you felt? Well, Carol, if you felt like this," Gerald began to caress her body sensually, "Why the hell were you so frigid? Hell, I wouldn't have needed to cheat on you if you would just have put out more often. And know that I know how that feels, I think that you would've had the best of the deal."

"Yeah, well, maybe I would have if you had been any good at it! You'd come home from the bar half blind from booze and then you want a quick bang with your pathetic, little equipment!"

"Your equipment now, baby!"

"All right, all right, now cool it, you two!" I spoke up here as they started to shout again. "I want both of you to sit down, right now, and then we're going to listen to each of you one at a time."

"But I -"

"You don't -"

"One at a time, now sit down, both of you, or we'll arrest both of you for disturbing the peace, your neighbors are trying to sleep."

After we got them sitting, we asked Carol for her story, and made it clear to Gerald that no interruptions would be tolerated.

"Ok, well, Gerry and I haven't been doing too good for a long time, but I thought that he was still at least being honest about it. And then I find out that he's been sleeping around on me. Not just an affair, he's had at least a dozen different women in the last year, the son of a bitch!" Gerald started up at that, so we asked Carol to refrain from the name calling for the moment. She wiped a few tears with her large masculine hands, and almost started crying all over again. She managed to get a hold of herself though. "Ok, well anyway, I decided to teach him a lesson about how I felt. I went to a spell shop and bought a body-swapping idol.

"I thought that if he spent a few days in my body then he'd understand how I felt. That was two weeks ago, and now I find out he's been sleeping around on me again, this time with men! For all I know, he's gotten my body pregnant or infected with something, and he won't swap back and-" Carol's eyes began to tear up again, "and now I'm stuck like this!" With that, she degenerated into sobbing again, the baritone cries sounding slightly odd.

I looked over at Gerald to see what he had to say about all this, and he just rolled his eyes at his wife's tears, while idly playing with one of his nipples.

"Do you have anything to say about that?"

"No, not really, she got it just about right. Last I heard it's not actually a crime to sleep around a little, and besides, the body swap was her idea in the first place. I didn't do anything, and just because it blew up in her face, all of a sudden, I’m the bastard? Serves her right. I'm having fun, and I’m not changing back until I’m good and ready."

Emily finished writing, and then spoke. "So, are we to understand that you don’t intend to press charges against your wife?"

"So they can make us change back? Hell no, I’ve got the best of the deal right now."

The hard part about this was that he was right. Technically, he hadn't done anything illegal. He was a scumbag, and now, a slut, but there wasn't anything illegal about it. In fact, the wife committed the only crime when she performed a non-consensual body swap in the first place. Gerald there didn't seem like he was going to be pressing any charges on that matter, so there wasn't a whole lot we could really do unless we wanted to arrest the both of them for causing a disturbance.

"Ok, I think I get the picture here. Carol, you have a problem here, because your non-consensual body swap was against the law, and you could be charged for that, but as it stands, possession is nine-tenths of the law, and Gerald's refusal to swap back does not constitute a theft. Likewise, adultery is not actually illegal."

Gerald looked smug, but then Emily spoke up.

"What adultery is though, is grounds for divorce. As an officer of the law, I’m not allowed to give you legal advice, but in a similar situation, I knew someone who got a decent attorney, and sued for possession of her original body, and given the blatant cheating and lack of contrition, she got it, and most of his money to boot."

The tearful male face currently belonging to Carol brightened up a bit, and then outright smiled. "My cousin is a divorce attorney and she never liked Gerald to begin with. You remember Edie, right Gerald? They call her the Castrator!"

By this time, Gerald was no longer looking very pleased. He stood up quickly and almost fell in the high heels he was wearing. Despite his claimed femininity, he still moved like a truck driver with boobs. He marched up to Emily and stuck a finger at her.

"Why don't you just stay out of this, Tinkerbell?"

I winced in anticipation, but she handled it well. She spoke with cold monotone of someone restraining anger.

"Sir, I'm doing my job as an officer, and informing the victim in this situation of her options. If you have a problem with that, than you are within your rights to file a formal complaint with the Sorcery Police Department. Otherwise, I'm going to have to ask you not to interfere with my duties."

"Oh no? So what are you going to do about it if I do? Huh, Pint-size?"

Emily said nothing, but set her jaw, and narrowed her eyes. I was actually a little worried, but I knew that she’d give me hell if I interfered before she really needed it.

"Nothing, huh? Some policeman you are, honey. What a pushover!" With that he poked her with his finger, then stiffened with an excruciating expression on his wife's pretty face. With that, he slumped slowly to the floor. Good for you, Emily, you waited for him to make the move! I smiled at her.

Emily flew over to Carol and showed her the miniature stun wand issued by the department.

"No lasting damage, I assure you, but it hurts like a sonofabitch." She said with a triumphant grin. Carol grinned back.

Emily got the final statement from Carol while I carried Gerald in his wife's body down to the patrol car. When he woke up he'd be charged with assaulting a police officer, although under the circumstances of the impending divorce, the DA would most likely drop the charges.

I smiled a little at how this had all turned out. So often with these domestic disputes we find a battered wife or husband who's too afraid to press charges, and although we are given some discretion to assess the danger ourselves, it’s always a huge gray area. Here though, I feel like we were able to help someone out, and that's a good feeling. Emily flew through the car window and settled into her special seat. We nodded at each other, and then drove off to the station.

 

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