The Artist (12-01-2011)

“Ma’am, can you describe the creature that took the lower half of your top?”

Debra shook her head, trying to recall all the details. “It was, well…”

Officer Chuck Boulder put his hand on Debra’s shoulder, his eyes drawn to her undercleavage, unable to find a decent angle to look at it. “Just describe what he did, rather than what he looked like. Bits and pieces might come to you as you talk about it. Re-enact it, if you want.”

Debra stood up, pulling at the sides of her top to stay inside it. “I…I think it was…a fantasy artist.”

Chuck rubbed his chin, grimacing. “What did he look like?”

“Reddish tint to his skin from exerting himself. Mouth full of crooked teeth. Small, spindly arms despite him having a large, ball-shaped body.”

Chuck pulled out his notepad, writing it down. “Yep, sounds about the type. We’ve had a rash of them wandering around here, making alterations to women’s clothing and the like. They’re usually content to put poorly conceived dragons into places, or give men thirty extra pieces of armor where they don’t need it. Harmless stuff, but a couple of them usually get into the bondage stuff. Decking women out in a few coins and some string, calling it armor and the like.”

“So you have a file on this guy already.”

Chuck tapped the pad, thinking. “I’m not sure if this is our guy. If that had been him, I’d have found you sitting at an impossible angle with a body drawn as if you didn’t have internal organs. You’re wearing something skin-tight and revealing, something more indicative of a sci-fi artist. Looks about the same, but has a different M.O. Leaves a lot of space ships lying around.” He pointed into the distance at the plain ship that stuck out from the ground. “That yours, ma’am?”

Debra shook her head, almost shaking herself out of her top again. “No, I’ve never seen it before.”

Chuck leaned over to his squad car, a boardroom sized computer sitting in the passenger’s seat, its cap pulled down over one of its giant monitors. “McTavish, run the plates on that space ship and see if we can get an artist’s signature on this perv.”

“Computing, partner. Perhaps later we can engage in some sexually derogatory banter about the opposite gender while consuming grease-laden food products.”

“Maybe later, McTavish.”

“Acceptable response, partner. Also, in reference to witness number 00982, Debra, I would like to state that intercourse with her would be pleasant and acceptable, as she is visually stimulating, if you know what I am attempting to communicate.”

Chuck threw his hat on the seat. “Dammit, McTavish, I’m not gonna have you get me in trouble with another witness. Cram it.”

The computer’s monitors lit up. “That is what she stated.”

Chuck growled. “Not funny.”

McTavish began to hum, clicking as he processed the data he was receiving. “Allow blood pressure levels to return to a nominal state, partner. I was only trying to exchange ideas in a personable fashion. On a similar point, what is the current status of your previous spouse?”

Chuck grabbed the punch cards almost all the way out of his card reader, seething right up against one of McTavish’s monitors. “I told you never to bring her up. Never talk about Myrtle again, you got it?”

A report slowly came out of McTavish’s printer, the machine grinding as it chugged away at its task. After five minutes of uninterrupted noise, the sheet was finished, Chuck taking it in disgust and walking toward Debra, holding it out for her to take.

She reached for it, her hands shooting back to her clothes before she fell out of the top. Instead, she leaned over to have a look at it. “That looks like the guy. What will you do with him when you catch him?”

Chuck started back toward the car. “If we catch him. He could already be well on his way to another fictional place, drawing seductive cat people or big-eyed anime girls. We’ll do what we can, though.”

And somewhere, not far away, a man giggled as he drew another impossible outfit on an unsuspecting heroine…