The Homicide Detective (Part One)

Some women might find a man in uniform sexy. Perhaps a police officer is appealing as a potential mate for some women. I might have thought the same until I met Matt. He wasn’t exactly in a uniform, but he was on duty the night we met. We met at one of the local New York bars I frequented and he was wearing a suit. He had a gun strapped to his waist and a beer in his hand which I found to be an interesting combination. Apparently this was what detectives in New York did during their downtime.

We flirted and chatted a bit and by the end of the night we’d exchanged numbers and planned a dinner date for the following week. On our first date these are some of the things I learned about Matt. He was a 44 year old homicide detective and had been a cop for over 20 years, he was going through a bad divorce and temporarily living at his sister’s house, he had 3 children, he had his own construction company which was another completely full time job so he rarely ever had time for sleep, he had an attractive face but he had a horrible hairstyle. So I’d managed to pick yet another man who was far too old for me and who had more baggage then I see in a days work, but for some reason I looked past all of that and decided I really liked him. He seemed nice, charming, appeared to be a gentleman, and I figured if it got serious we could work on his awful hairstyle.

Over the next couple of months we dated and saw each other often and grew closer. It seemed like he really cared about me and I enjoyed spending time with him. My birthday came around and he bought me the first pair of diamond earrings I’d ever owned and treated me like a princess. My roommate told me if I didn’t hang on to this one I was crazy. I thought maybe she was right, maybe I should get serious with Matt. So we did, we became a couple. I was happy for a while, I believed we were in love and content. He spent the few hours in between jobs with me and frequently stayed over at my apartment. He got along with my roommates. We even went on island vacations together. Then slowly everything began to change.

The thing about detectives is they are extremely good at being manipulative, they do it for a living. I didn’t see it coming since he had portrayed himself to be such a kind, patient man. When he started to change into the devil I was blindsided. It started when his insecurities began to play with him, and he’d initiate arguments with me over ridiculous things. He would accuse me of being too friendly with a bartender, or he’d want to know why someone from work we ran into seemed to be flirting with me. All things which were untrue but I found myself constantly defending myself for sometimes a good hour or more. I would exhaust myself trying to make him understand how absurd his accusations were, and he would finally let it go and apologize. I’d be so thankful that the argument was over I was missing the fact that the arguments were unnecessary and wearing me down. It was a relationship of highs and lows. One day we’d have an amazing night together and laugh and talk, then the next day I’d be crying and yelling and defending myself. He started to show true colors but he had begun to break me down so I couldn’t see them clearly. He would point the finger at me so I wouldn’t have time to take a really good look at him and his situation.

I started to have nagging feelings about the facts he shared about his life. That feeling in the pit of our stomach that tells us something isn’t quite right , the one we’re never supposed to ignore, I was ignoring it. My gut instinct told me he was lying about possibly everything but I didn’t want to believe I could be that naive and I didn’t want to believe he could lie to me. As the months went on I would ask questions about his situation, about why he was living with his sister for example. He told me it was because she had a huge house with her husband and he had a whole wing to himself there. When I’d ask about why he kept his phone off at night so that I could never get in touch with him he said he just did that so he could charge it. When I asked why he wasn’t yet divorced since they’d supposedly been legally separated for a couple of years, he said it just takes a while for these things. When I asked why I couldn’t come to his sister’s house he said it was because she wasn’t on his side with his divorce so he didn’t know how she would react to me. Everyone around me believed he was lying. About everything. I didn’t want to believe it but deep down I felt the same way.

Then there was his hair. I had heard rumors around town that he had fake hair, that he wore a toupee. I tried to pretend I thought the rumors were silly and untrue but I secretly became obsessed with his hair. He never really let me grab his hair even in a passionate moment, he’d move my hand. We would take baths together, but never a shower and he never put his head under water. Even when we were on vacation, I’d swim out under the gorgeous crystal blue water, because that’s what people do while on an island, and I’d look back and see him standing there, water only up to his waist. I even shared my suspicions with my roommate and she and I would analyze pictures of him, pointing out the fact that the bottom of his hair looked questionably different in texture and color from the top half. I found myself staring closely at his hair while he was asleep. I could have easily found out if the rumors were true by just catching him off guard and pulling as hard as I could on the top of his hair, but part of me didn’t want to know if was fake, and the other part of me believed I loved him and didn’t want to embarrass him if the rumors were true...........To Be Continued........