Chapter 6
It wasn’t the smartest thing she had ever done, but she did it anyway. She gave Philip a token—a pair of her unwashed underwear. She learned of Philip’s fetish one day in the cafeteria, when the guards were teasing him mercilessly. It was after a government inspection, and one of the inspectors, a female, complained that some of her clothes were missing. Philip neglected to pay off Isaac enough, and the next day a surveillance tape of Phillip sneaking into her room was discovered. He was reprimanded, but worse, he incurred the savage taunting and teasing of the guards. Blake even told a few of the prisoners, and they teased him, chanting a particularly dirty limerick they devised as he would patrol at night. It took him a full six months to fully move past it, and ever since then he ingratiated himself as often as possible to Isaac and Blake.
So Phillip was overjoyed when Elaine slipped him her little gift, and he allowed her to sneak into the cells. She wanted to visit Ronald, and make sure he was alright. She tried to talk herself out of it, but she felt so responsible for his beating, and no matter what he had done before he was incarcerated, he was still a human being, and deserved some basic form of respect. Of course that was just a lie. She needed some excuse to have an adventure, and supposed guilt over prisoner treatment was as good an excuse as any.
It was one o’clock in the morning, and most of the prisoners were asleep. A few still had on their AV units, and they buzzed with an old comedy or sales pitch. She crept by the cells, one by one, pausing each time she cleared a cell-front. The grey marble floor was cold under her hands, and all she could think about was what she was putting her skin on. Often the prisoners would urinate outside their doors, out of spite, just to make the guards get a eual to clean it up. Or the more mentally unbalanced ones would throw feces at the guards, or smear it on the cell doors, like they were marking their territory. There was little bleach inside the facility, so the filth was merely washed off with pressurized, scalding hot water. Her nose itched terribly, but she forbade herself the pleasure of itching it, pretending her hands were some alien objects she couldn’t trust.
She carried a small penknife she managed to buy several months ago, a little form of protection, and she held it tightly against her chest.
Just a few more . . . just a few more. I can hold myself together, for just a few more.
Luckily the lighting was quite dim or the prisoners on the other side of the bay would have been able to see her. But as it was, the cells she passed by held only snoring giants, some of which kicked and thrashed in their sleep. What made it more terrifying for her was not only that she knew which prisoners she was passing by, but now she had an idea of what crimes they were guilty. She stole a glance at one youthful man, who was a little heavy, that she knew killed his wife, her lover, and both their families. While the number of people killed wasn’t great, the fact that he strung them up on meathooks and cut off their limbs until they died made him much more threatening. There were times, before she knew, that she wondered what he was in for, if it could’ve been a mistake, so passive, calm, and intelligent he was. Afterward, she knew better.
Just another sociopath.
The next cell she passed by held a thin, short man, who was nearly bald, who always spoke with a heavy lisp. He had large grey eyes, and always kept his lips tightly shut. He was beaten up on by many of the prisoners, even sodomized by some of the guards – at least she heard rumors. Now that she knew that he not only killed his wife, but their five children, after raping them all and eating their eyes, she understood more.
Finally.
She stopped just around the corner from Ronald’s cell. He unfortunately wasn’t one of those she learned of, for if she knew of his crimes, she knew she might not have come.
But here I am. She turned the corner, and bent down low to the floor. “Ronald?” she whispered, in a voice barely audible. “Ronald?”
She heard him stir in his bed.
“Ronald?” This time a little louder, so her trip wouldn’t be in vain.
He groaned, and sat up. She waved at him, and he crept down onto the floor, putting his blanket under him, so he would make no noise as he shuffled over to the door.
“That you Lainey?”
“Yeah, it’s me.”
“What’re you doin’ here?” he demanded in a harsh whisper. ”If you get caught, or hurt—we all get punished!”
“I . . .” she sat back against the cell door, wondering if she really would tell him. “I—did you get my message?”
He nodded affirmatively, letting out a long sigh.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, reaching out to the door, only to curse herself as he instantly seized on her hand.
“Oh Lainey, you don’t know how long it’s been since I’ve touched a woman,” he said, as his fingers savored every crack and crevice of her hand. She felt for a moment like she was being molested, so intense was his touch. Then, he suddenly pulled away. “I—I’m sorry Lainey, I just, well, I get these desires—needs, you know.”
“I know. Are you alright?”
He leaned back against the cell wall. “Colin wailed into me pretty good. Guess I deserved it, seein’ what I saw.”
“No, you didn’t deserve it,” she said emphatically. “I just wanted to come by, and tell you that. I know I’ll see you in group, but I could never say this to you in front of others, and I knew it needed to be said.”
“You don’t know how much this means to me, Lainey. I mean, bein’ behind these walls, these bars, all this time, well, I gave up hope so long ago. Not hope for gettin’ out—I was never stupid enough to have that. But hope that I could live as a souman being, live with some kind of dignity. When someone has the right to tell you to strip down, and spread your ass so they can poke inside, well, it does something to a man. When someone like Colin can beat on someone like me, and not get anything as punishment, well, sometimes I just wish he would finish the job.”
“No,” she said, putting her hand back on the cold metal rails. He lightly put his hand on hers, not seizing it or gripping it, but merely gently laying his flesh next to hers. “You should never think like that.”
She heard him take a deep breath. “As much as I like having you here, you need to leave. And believe me, your message worked. I knew he would beat on me, and I was prepared for it, and that’s a whole lot better than bein’ ambushed. You’re alright Lainey, and if it means anything comin’ from a piece of shit like me, you’ve got a friend.”
She started to move away, but she needed to ask one last question. “Have you heard or seen anything about John?”
“No,” he said, sadly shaking his head. “Haven’t heard a single thing! And that’s odd. Usually someone would talk, especially the guards, who love to brag about what they do to us behind closed doors. But this time, nothing. And that worries me.”
“It worries me too.”
She moved back equally slowly, her eyes now thoroughly accustomed to the darkness. Something about the black shadows was appealing to her, and felt like home. She even moved differently on the floor, her limbs moving in concert, her points of contact with the ground becoming fewer and briefer. She crept quickly and quietly with an efficiency of motion, brought on by some instinct she never knew she had. As she came on the last row of cells to pass by, something else within her asserted itself, and her hand almost refused to move, as if some unseen force was battling with her. She pressed forward and put it down, and suddenly out of the darkness of the cell bolted a thick hand that gripped her wrist like a vise.
Damn!
It took all her willpower not to cry out, not to yell, especially when the hand pulled her entire arm inside the cell in one lightning motion. She lost control, and fell back on the floor, looking up into a pair of hateful, evil eyes framed by a darkness that was now full of peril and death.
“Hello Lainey,” hissed the voice. “I saw you pass by earlier, and was hurt you didn’t stop to say hello. I thought I’d make sure you p
aid me a visit. After all we’ve been through in the cafeteria, I just knew you’d say hello.”
She visually double-checked what cell it was, because she dreaded the thought if it was who she thought it was. Unfortunately, she knew who was in the cell.
“Ian, you need to let me go.”
“You shouldn’t be here, Lainey,” he said, stroking along her arm. “This is the very last place you should be. If all the lights came on, I’ll bet the guards would just look at you and laugh. They might even open up all the cells, and let us all have our way with you.”
She thought of pulling out her knife and slashing his hand with it, but she knew it would only cause an alarm, and get her into a great deal of trouble. I’ll just have to deal with this, and hope for the best.
He scooted closer to the cell door. “So you just go and cry out, Lainey, and take your chances with those assholes that are guards. Or, you just close your eyes, and in a few minutes, it’ll all be over . . .”
She closed her eyes, and in a few minutes it was over, and she moved quickly on, wiping her hand on her shirt, struggling not to vomit. She managed to walk calmly past Philip, who was too preoccupied with thoughts of rubbing her panties all over himself to take any notice of the sticky fluid on her shirt.