Breaking the code

Incidents described in this entry actually occurred, although a small number of details have been altered for artistic and privacy reasons.

Not a single car had passed me since my last ride dropped me off at a turnoff a half hour ago, and I slowly walked along the graveled shoulder just to keep me busy until somebody picked me up.

Hitching to Queensland didn’t seem like such a good idea right now, but halfway between Newcastle and nowhere was not the best place to change my mind. I had to keep going now, at least until the next town big enough to have a bus stop.

I looked behind me to see if there was anything coming up the long dark stretch of highway at my back, but there was nothing except asphalt shimmering in the heat as far as the horizon. I turned round, readjusted the small knapsack on my shoulder and continued slowly walking north.

I was thumbing north out of Newcastle to Queensland where I planned to put in some time on the Great Barrier Reef. It was a reward I’d promised myself after completing a year as a titleholder and all the obligations and events that title entailed. I’d spent the previous year going to fund raisers, parades, bar special events and more (drag queen) court functions than I cared to think about. I don’t think I’d ever seen so many men in dresses and bad wigs as I did when I was a leather title holder, and if I never shook hands with another man in a dress it would be too soon. I was just plain tired out from all the events that ate up almost every weekend and sometimes several nights a week, and about half way through the year I’d gotten it into my head that quitting my job and going to Australia for a couple of months would be a great way to finish off the year.

So a couple of weeks after the new Mr Leather took over my duties, I hopped on a flight from LA to Sydney and found myself sharing a bed with a very hot man named David with a fantastic body and a not so fantastic boyfriend.

If I remember correctly – and I do - I spent a very enjoyable night exploring David’s body after I‘d gagged the boyfriend, tied a pillowcase over his head and bound him to the footboard. He was into that, so he didn’t mind at all, and neither did his boyfriend and neither did I. I ended up seeing him (David, not Mr pillowcase) for a week or so, but knew better than to wear out my welcome, so I took a train up to Newcastle where I hooked up with a fellow player I’d met vacationing in Mexico the year before.

Jack had invited me to stay with him after we’d played together in Mexico, and I took him up on the offer. He lived on a huge spread of land in an old house that had belonged to his parents, and he’d grown a beard since I knew him, but other than that there were no surprises. He was a lot of fun, but after a few days I was itching to get north to the Great Barrier Reef.

Hitchhiking was not something I usually did even when I was young, but I was on vacation and interested in seeing what would happen. Years later I never would have done something so risky, but with the bravado of youth I wasn’t afraid of trouble and thought I could handle just about any situation that might come up. Like the saying goes, ‘fools rush in where angels fear to tread’.

It was a fantastic summer. Long sunny days with no clouds at all, and heat shimmered off the asphalt. It would have been even more fantastic to be lying on a beach towel instead of standing here at the side of the road, but I was confident that would happen soon enough.

I travelled light – just a shoulder bag with the bare essentials - and I was hitching in polished 12-hole Corcoran military jump boots with cap toes, cutoff shorts and a slightly too small clean white t-shirt. I also carried a red baseball cap and sunglasses, but I wasn’t wearing them while I was on the side of the road because I wanted potential rides to see my face and eyes.

It was odd hitching on the wrong side of the road. Like England and a few other countries, traffic in Australia runs in the opposite direction and the steering wheel on cars are all on the other side. It took some getting used to, and I often forget which side of the car I was supposed to get into.

I got rides from a number of interesting men on the trip north, and even now remember a buff athletic couple who invited me back to their place for dinner and a place to 'sleep' (if bonking like rabbits in their bed can be called sleep). Had to improvise their bondage with neckties, shoelaces, belts, saran wrap and clothespins as they had an interest in bondage, but no gear at all, but we were all satisfied with the results in the end. The next morning they asked me to stay on for a few days, but I really did want to get up to the Reef and took a rain check.

I trudged on for another twenty minutes or so without a single car passing me, then from nowhere I heard the distant sound of an approaching engine. Thank God! I turned to face the car, put out my thumb and tried to look as approachable as possible.

And watched the car zip by me at 70 miles an hour. Damn.

I’d hardly turned started walking again when I heard another car coming up behind me. This is just like the busses at home, I thought. Nothing forever then two in a row. I turned to face the car, but out my thumb again and put on my game face again.

The car continued on passed me without slowing, and it was far enough ahead of me now that I thought it was a lost cause. Just then his break lights came on; he slowed, and then pulled over to the graveled shoulder, stirring up a cloud of dust and gravel until he came to a halt.

At last!

I jogged up to the driver’s window and said hi. The man inside looked pretty decent, pretty safe. About 35 or 40, clean shaved, short dark hair, white shirt. Very middle class. He was alone in the car, and I got a pretty good feeling about the ride. He looked like somebody I could handle if something went wrong, but I didn’t have a sense that anything would.

He asked me where I was heading and then invited me to hop inside. His voice was deep and masculine, and very sexy.

I didn’t need to be asked twice: the afternoon had worn me down and I desperately wanted to get off the road. I went around to the ‘wrong’ side of the car, got in and put my bag between my feet. (Somewhere I’d heard that you should keep your bag with you at all times, so that if you did have to beat a hasty retreat from a bad ride, your bag went with you. Put it in the backseat or trunk and you may be left at the side of the road with nothing.)

He put the car in gear, shoulder checked, then pulled back out onto the road. A few minutes later we were cruising down the highway at a comfortable 70 miles an hour and I settled into the leather seat and welcomed the cool flow of conditioned air that quickly evaporated the sheen of sweat on my face.

I had a better chance to look him over now that there was more time and I was actually sitting next to him in the front seat of the car. He looked a little like Gerard Butler’s brother, if Gerard Butler had a kid brother. OK, not as good looking as Gerard, but the same kind of face. Not a pretty boy face, but good looking. Rugged. Real. There was nothing fussy about his short dark hair with a little grey at the temples. Almost a military cut, but maybe two or three weeks out of a barber’s chair. Age lines around his eyes and mouth suggested he was a little older – maybe in his 40s – but not much older than that.

He said his name was Jason and I told him mine. We shook hands and made small talk for the next hour or so.

He told me he was a civil servant, an instructor of some kind. I told him I'd just graduated from a Masters' program at UBC. He asked me about where I'd been so far, and we filled the time exposing little bits of ourselves. When I pressed him for details about his career, he was vague, almost aloof. I sensed that he was hiding something, but I didn't know what it was. My gaydar reading suggested he was straight, so I kept the 'other' details of my life pretty close to my chest. As far as I was concerned, this was just another ride, and conversation was just a diversion to pass the time, not a means to get into his pants. Sure he was good looking and masculine, but no skin off my nose if he was straight.

Whatever else we talked about, his questions kept coming back to drugs – well, to questions about weed really, and how I felt about it. Was I against it? Had I ever tired it? How did I feel about other recreational drugs? How did I feel about police arresting traffickers? Did I think cops deserved a bum rap? His questions really made me think he must be a dealer or something with a thing against cops. I was completely on the wrong track, but didn't know it till later. Because I had – and have – a big thing for law enforcement guys and gear, my responses were pretty supportive of how police work and their enforcement role. He was fishing for cop criticism, but he didn't get any from me. Sure there were bad apples in every group, but on the whole they performed a necessary service in often difficult environments, and generally did a good job but got no respect for it.

I wondered if perhaps he might be couriering drugs up to Brisbane, but it was none of my business, and I didn't pry. If he wanted to talk about whatever it was, he would.

Jason often went totally silent after these replies to his questions, and I just assumed that that was just the way he was. I suspect now that during his silences he must have been deciding if he could tell me his secret.

The back and forth questioning went on for a couple of hours, including a stop for a beer and bathroom break, and only when we were back on the highway did he reveal that he was an off-duty cop on a fortnight's vacation.

FRACK!

I never picked up any signs that Jason was a serving law enforcement officer. Oh sure there was the hair cut and formal manner, but that didn't prove anything, and the haircut was several weeks old. 'Civil service' covered a whole range of jobs, and he'd deliberately mislead when he said he was an instructor. Nothing about the car or anything in the car or on the windows (such as decals or parking stickers) gave anything away, and neither had he. A very slippery fish here, and one very good at hiding in full view. If he could hide this big part of his life so easily, what else might he be hiding?

It was as though a dam had burst, and where there had been long stretches of silence before, he now talked almost non-stop. It was something he almost never had a chance to do, he said. Generally he got negative responses from 'civilians' – his term. He called the public civilians in the same way that military personnel often do. Cops tend to socialize with other cops, and that often meant keeping things bottled up inside. There were many things that just couldn't be discussed with other cops, except maybe in a joking way. Things like personal issues and problems in the bedroom. You counted on your wife for some of these things, he said, but even she can't understand a lot of what you're dealing with. Only other men in uniform understand you.

You end up saying things when you're drunk you wish you could take back. His wife had gotten fed up with the silences, the loneliness and the anger and began an affair with a mealy little account manager in a software firm – a man with regular hours and regular issues, she said, and had packed up her stuff and moved out of their home and into his a couple of weeks ago and served him with divorce papers. Jason had asked for and gotten time off on the advice of a counselor at work, and this was why he was on the road on his own.

It was getting late and the sun almost touched the rocky western horizon as we drove through Ballina. Jess suggested we stop somewhere for the night and get a room with two double beds, which struck me as a good idea too. We were getting a long really well, and I had to sleep somewhere, so why not split a room with this young single cop?

It was just getting dark by the time we checked into a cabin near the beach at the beach town of Byron Bay. Jason said he'd get the room if I got dinner, which seemed more than fair, and we tucked into an excellent Italian feed at a nearby family-run restaurant. You can get good Italian almost everywhere in Australia. Aussies love their protein and carbs.

The vacationing cop had loosened up quite a lot since revealing his secret to me, and even laughed from time to time - something he hadn't done at all earlier in the day. He really seemed to be warming up to me, and I to him, if I was honest with myself. He might be straight, and he might be more than a little uptight, but he was sincere, and he came across as a good man, a man worth knowing.

We walked down to the beach after dark and walked along the water's edge, pretty content with the world with full bellies and being out in the cool evening air. A half hour later we were back at the cabin, lying in our skivvies in separate beds, still talking, about what I no longer remember. Conversation slowly died in the dark and I drifted off, the rhythmic sound of the waves and the chirrping of crickets in the night lulling me to sleep.

I was awakened suddenly by movement at my side. Someone - Jason - was stealthily creeping into my bed and under my sheets. What the frack was happening here?

My first impulse was to freeze. Maybe this was a mistake. Maybe I was dreaming. Nothing he’d said earlier had prepared me for this. He made it clear he was straight and grieving over a failed marriage. He'd put out no overt or covert signals that he was gay, and neither had I – or at least I didn't think I had. Once I learned he was a cop I'd butched it up a notch, so what the frack was this all about? We're supposed to be two straight guys here sharing a room, so what the hell was he doing sneaking into my bed like a teenaged girl?

In my confusion I didn't know what to do. Should I act all indignant, should I respond, what? Because I didn't know what to do I did nothing, and so I just kept on doing the same thing. I didn't move. I though maybe he'd think I was still asleep – as if a cop crawling into my bed wouldn't wake me. Yah, right. But I'd already decided to pretend to be asleep, so I stuck with that fiction and lay still and kept my breathing regular and normal.

He nestled his body next to mine so that his ass and back were pressed up against my side. OK, now what do I do? Nothing in my sexual vocabulary prepared me for a situation like this. A gay guy sneaking into my bed – sure I knew what to do about that- but a cop – and a pretty big married cop at that? Don’t even know if what I was thinking about doing was legal here. Could I end up getting arrested? Could he arrest me? What was the status of gay sex in Australia?? Who knew? New one on me.

What the hell was I supposed to do?

I let my instincts take over. What was he asking for? Probably just human contact. But if I get this wrong, things could get real nasty real fast. I sighed and rolled over so that my chest now pressed against his back, my left arm wrapped around his chest, and my tented tightie whities pressed against his beefy hams. I suppose we both agreed to pretend I'd just rolled over against him in my sleep and we stayed like this for quite some time, a cop lying in a leather title holder's arms. I knew he was a cop, but I don't think he knew I was a leatherman – just a man he wanted to lie next to.

I don't know if he'd ever done anything like this before, and I still don't, as he never talked about the incident later. He never even acknowledged that it happened. I don't know how convincing my 'sleep' was: inside I was vibrating like tuning fork, feeling this man next to me, feeling my chest and stomach pressed against his smooth hard back, my cock on his ass. My thighs against his.

We spooned like this for a long time, and at some point he laced his fingers into mine and pressed me even closer to his furred chest. Occasionally he would move some part of his back, butt or thighs a little so that we snuggled even more closely, but on the whole we lay still in the dark, pressed together under a single white sheet. I don't know when it started, but I felt him moving slightly and it took me a while to realize he was sobbing, muffling the sobs as best he could, but sobbing nevertheless, weeping softly in my embrace. When it dawned on me what was happening, I pulled him into me even more closely, and awkwardly stroked his hair with my right hand, still saying nothing and pretending nothing was going on, that I wasn't lying in bed with a crying cop nestled in my arms.

How long did this go on? I don't know, but eventually he stopped shaking with sobs and his breath settled into a more rhythmic pattern and eventually fell into the long rolling pattern of sleep. I must have drifted off too, because the next thing I knew it was morning and light was streaming in around the edges of the curtains and across my bed. Jason was already up and in the bathroom.

What the hell had happened here? And what do we do about it now? How do I broach the subject?

Jason came out of the bathroom all business-like and said he wanted to get an early start. He'd take me back out to the highway after breakfast if I liked, but he'd be going inland for a while from here. I said a ride to the highway would be fine and after I showered and dressed we walked up to a breakfast place for coffee, eggs and sausages. As we finished up the meal, I asked him what happened last night and he asked me what did I mean? What happened last night?

"You came into my bed last night, that's what I mean."

"I never did. You must have been dreaming. I don't sleepwalk. Why would I do something like that?"

This continued for some time and I started to wonder if I'd imagined the whole thing. Had I imagined the whole thing? Was it all in my mind? Jason almost – almost – had me believing I imagined the whole thing. I was getting pretty mad about his denials the more he insisted nothing had happened and also felt confused and more than a little used. I'd got nothing out of the sympathetic gesture I'd offered this man last night, and as excited as I'd been, we'd done nothing to get my rocks off. And here he was now acting as though nothing had happened. Damn I was confused.

You see, I hadn't figured out 'The Code' yet and didn't know I was supposed to play along. Things happen, but you never, EVER, acknowledge them. Everything was OK as long as you didn't talk about what happened.

True to his word. Jason dropped me off at the side of the highway and waved so long as he headed off on his own vacation. I didn't expect to see him ever again, and chalked the encounter up to a learning experience. So after I did my ten days up on the Barrier Reef, I retraced my route back down to Sydney along the same highways I'd hitched going north and was totally surprised when one of my sourht rides turned out to be Jason.

I thought it was a one in a million coincidence at the time, but now I wonder if he hadn't been cruising the highway looking for me. He knew my itinerary and plans, and had a pretty good idea when I'd be on the road again, and it's conceivable that he was actually looking to hook up with me again. But that's what I think today. At the time I just thought it was a fantastic coincidence and we picked up pretty much where we left off two weeks earlier.

I jokingly touched on the subject of the night time sleepover, and again met his quizzled response, so dropped that subject and went on to other things. I was starting to understand The Code by this point and suspected I knew what was going to happen tonight, only this time I'd be playing the same game too. We weren't going to acknowledge anything in the light of day, and that made it all OK.

Turned out we drove together all the way to Sydney and spent three more nights sharing rooms along the way. Clearly neither of us was rushing to get back to the city. Just as he'd done the first night, he crept into my bed again that night, but this time things didn't stop at cuddling. Events that happend on those nights are buried in other diary entries, but are not described here. Now I'm in on 'The Code', and won't tell you what happened, 'cause it's OK to do anything with a cop so long as you don't talk about it.

Things Jason couldn't admit to ten years ago are now acceptable in many environments, but still not on OK the force. Things that happen in the dark stay in the dark, and I'm prepared to honour Jason's unspoken wish that I abide by that code. Jason was a great man – is a great man – and a good police officer too, and his reputation is safe with me.


CELLBLOCK DUTY DESK.