by Michelle Amy
We made our way out of the room and down the stairs to the ground floor. The sun outside beat down on my skin and I was instantly grateful for remembering to apply the sunscreen. I pulled my sunglasses down over my eyes and McCoy and I followed a winding path through palm trees and fountains down to the beach.
The sand was a dazzling white that practically glowed in the sunlight. There was a tiki bar to our left that I instantly made my way over to, slipping under its thatched cover to seek shade. McCoy stepped in after me and we waited at the bar, scanning the drink menu on the counter. I jabbed my finger at the pina colada. “What are you going to have?” I asked, waiting for the bartender to make his way through the guests and to us.
McCoy was reading the menu over my shoulder. “I don’t know, I haven’t tried any of these kinds of fruity drinks before… I don’t know if that’s my style.”
“You can try mine and see if you like it. Order a mojito or something to start.”
When we had our drinks in hand we sought out two open beach chairs and claimed our spots with our towels and my cover up. I draped it over the back of the chair and kicked my flip flops underneath it. “Water?” I said, nodding towards the ocean.
McCoy nodded and I took his hand and brought him across the burning hot sand. When the waves crept up the beach to kiss my toes I smiled. “This is by far my favourite thing in the entire world,” I breathed, closing my eyes as the water enveloped my ankles.
When I opened my eyes McCoy was watching me as he sipped his mojito. “Same,” he said.
I laughed and waded out deeper into the water. It was warm and pleasant as it hugged my legs. I went in until I was up to my ribs before turning back to McCoy. He was following me, slowly but surely, and running one hand over the surface. “I didn’t expect it to be so warm,” he looked down, “or clear.”
“Nice, right?” I handed him my drink and lifted my feet off the bottom and submerged myself, enjoying the hush of quiet under the water. The echo of the waves hitting the beach rushed in my ears. When I resurfaced I slicked my hair back and rubbed my eyes. My lips tasted like salt.
McCoy was sucking some of my drink through the straw. He peered down at the drink before his eyes flicked to me. “This is delicious.”
“Right? Just don’t get too attached, you should only have one a day, tops two.”
“What? Why?”
“Coconut is a natural laxative, you know.”
His laugh was contagious and I started giggling too. He drew another mouthful of the tropical elixir and handed it back to me, along with his drink, before he too sank down beneath the surface of the water.
He grabbed my thighs under water and tickled me, and I spilled some of his mojito into the water as I struggled to escape him. When he came back out he spat ocean water out of his mouth.
“That’s the only unpleasant thing,” I said as I watched disgust settle on his features, “salt water isn’t the best tasting thing.”
He held his hand out for his drink and chased away the taste of the ocean with several swigs, which drained the cup quickly. “Finish that,” he said as he nodded to my drink in my hand. “Chop chop.”
I finished the drink and suffered the repercussions of brain freeze. We brought our cups to the chairs before racing back to the water and falling into it in a similar fashion to the way the children on the beach did. We waded out to the deeper water until I could barely touch the bottom. I wrapped my legs around McCoy’s waist and hooked my arms behind his neck. Then I rewarded him with salty kisses.
It didn’t take long for him to get handsy. As I held myself to him he pulled the cups of my string bikini open and my breasts floated in the water between us. We were well enough away from anyone else in the water for them to see what we were doing as he pinched my nipples playfully. The feeling of weightlessness was blissful.
I struggled to keep my composure as he grew hard in his shorts, pressing against the front of my bikini bottoms. I unhooked one arm from around his neck and began stroking him through his shorts, and he didn’t seem to have the control to try to stop me. He stared at my lips as I untied his drawstring with one hand and slipped my hand down the front of his trunks. As soon as I touched him I was filled with lust. I wanted him to touch me, to kiss me, to fill me.
I pulled him free from the confinements of the swim shorts and gave him a teasing smile that ended with him kissing me. As his tongue filled my mouth I pushed aside my bikini bottoms and brought myself closer to him, holding him out so that I could slowly ease him into me. He moaned into my mouth as I rotated my hips against him. I liked having this sort of power over him. It was very rarely ever bestowed upon me.
His hands held my bottom and he pushed himself deeper into me. We stayed like that, paralyzed by one another’s softness as the waves lapped against our shoulders and our lips tasted each other’s skin and salt. This was the definition of paradise. The palm trees that swayed gently back and forth on the beach and clear blue skies were the perfect backdrop to our exquisite moment; a moment that I wanted to stretch on into eternity.
I buried my fingers in his wet hair and pressed my forehead against his in a desperate attempt to somehow be closer to him as he slowly moved within me. When we kissed I could taste the lingering mint and lime of his mojito. I suckled his bottom lip and then trailed kisses along his jaw until I reached his ear, which I nibbled gently as he rested his mouth against the curve between my shoulder and neck. His breath on my skin made me wetter, and his whisper of a moan told me he felt it.
“Cum inside me,” I whispered into his ear, “please.”
He shook in my arms and his teeth pinched the skin on my shoulder. He held me to him until he was done. Then he let me go and I resented the empty feeling I was left with. He pulled my bikini back over my breasts for me and held my chin with his thumb and forefinger. He kissed my lips and then my forehead.
We didn’t need to say anything to each other. We stayed in the water, floating in the weightlessness of the salt water and letting our hands continuously explore each other’s bodies. The beach slowly emptied as the sun began dipping lower and lower in the sky, until it was alit with a pink glowing hue that was too marvelous to leave.
We continued to float, our skin wrinkled from the water, until the sun finally kissed the horizon and the stars began to appear in the ever darkening sky. Then McCoy took me in the water again. No one remained on the beach but the bartender who was closing down his tiki bar. He was too far away to know what we were up to as I hung my head back and closed my eyes in sheer pleasure. McCoy’s fingers played with my clit as he thrusted in and out. This time he was rougher. There was no one to hear us as we breathed into each other’s kisses and expressed our delight with moans and delighted whispers.
Chapter Thirteen
When we were too hungry and too tired to stay tangled around each other McCoy and I made our way back up to the beach where we wrapped ourselves in our towels and took to the path to our room barefoot. The cement was still warm from the sun and felt good on our cooling skin.
The shower in our room proved to be another place where we were incapable of keeping our hands to ourselves. As we shampooed and lathered we indulged in more intimacy but refrained from sex. McCoy assured me that I would be satisfied by the end of the evening. I believed him.
I skipped doing my makeup and we went to dinner at one of the restaurants by the pool. The lights reflected off of its still surface and I dreamed about skinny-dipping in it later. When I shared this fantasy with McCoy, he promised that we would do it before we went home. Then he smiled at me and grazed my thigh with soft fingertips. I told him to stop touching me when a fresh wetness bloomed between my legs.
This was how we spent our first few days. By the end of the fourth day I was high on life. My body was thrumming with continuous pleasure, my skin was tanned and I felt vibrant, and I was full of liquor, which made me giggly and weak kneed when McCoy joined me on the bed.
He wrapped his han
ds behind his bed and stared up at the ceiling while I lay on my side watching him. “What are you thinking about?” I asked, lowering my head down to my pillow.
He continued to stare at the ceiling. “I was thinking that I would like to tell you the rest of what happened to me. If you still want to know.”
I propped myself up on an elbow. “I do.”
“It may be a bit of a buzz kill, you know.”
I shook my head. “There are better things than a buzz. This is one of those things by a long shot.”
He finally looked over at me and for the first time since we arrived in Mexico I saw that old lingering pain in his eyes that made me want to cradle him in my arms and hold him to my chest and promise him that everything would be fine. Then I reminded myself that everything was already fine, and he knew that. His memories just hurt him, and there was nothing I could do but listen.
He took a breath, nodded as if giving himself permission to tell the story, and began right where he left off.
Chapter Fourteen
I spent a week in solitary for what I did in the cafeteria to the new inmate. When they let me out the guard asked me if I understood why they had put me in there. I nodded. They asked me if I regretted what I had done. I nodded. Then they asked me if I would ever do something like that again. I slowly shook my head.
They brought me back to my cell and let me in. Bruce and Clint were there, but the guy who I’d gone after wasn’t around. Bruce stood from his bunk when I came inside. “You look good,” he said, his voice quiet. “You alright, McCoy?”
I shrugged and rubbed the back of my neck. “I’m alright. I’m glad to be out of there. It takes cozy to a whole other level.”
Bruce grinned. “Good to see it didn’t suck out your sense of humour.”
“Never,” I said, nodding up at Clint who was sitting on his top bunk. “Where is the ass hat, anyways?”
“His name is Rich. They toted him off to solitary shortly after they took you. He started up a decent sized brawl when the guards tried to take him. He’ll be in there for a while still.”
This new information was extremely satisfying. I hoped he had to rot in there for at least another week before they decided to let him back out. Two or three more weeks would have made me feel like an eight year old version of myself on Christmas morning.
I didn’t get another two or three weeks. I got three days. Rich was returned to our cell in the morning before breakfast. Both of his eyes were swollen and dark purple. His nose had a metal bracket on it that was held in place with layers of white medical tape. His jaw was bruised and the side of his right head was shaved just below the temple. There was a dark red line there that indicated he had received stitches; most likely from the hit I had given him with my food tray. The sight of him made it nearly impossible for me not to grin like a fool when he deliberately refused to meet my stare.
He sat down on his bottom bunk and lifted his feet off the floor to lie down.
“You’re top bunk now.” I said, nodding my chin to the bunk above him. I had taken his bottom bunk for the last three days and now had no intentions of letting him walk all over me. When he shot me a sour look I shrugged. “Hey, don’t blame me. If you hadn’t been such a prick you’d still be sleeping on the bottom and neither of us would have had to spend any time in purgatory.”
“Purgatory?” Rich mumbled as he watched me from beneath his eyebrows.
I nodded. “I can’t think of a better word for it. Now, move to the top. I don’t see any reason why the two of us can’t put this behind us and be civil. I’ve got eight more years to go and I don’t want to spend it wiping the prison floors with your ass. Can we agree?”
Everyone was stunned by my forwardness. I meant it. I wasn’t messing around. I had no interest in getting into anymore fights. I wanted to follow through with my original plan: which was to keep my head down, do my time, and go home- not that I had a home to return to. Those were details I could sort out when I was released.
Rich stood with an irritated growl and waved his hand over the bed. “It’s all yours, pipsqueak. Go nuts.”
Instead of retorting with a smart ass remark, I thanked him. He rolled his eyes at me, climbed up on to the top bunk and then rolled away to show me his back.
Clint, Bruce and I chatted amongst ourselves until the doors all slammed open and we were free to go down to the cafeteria for breakfast. The four of us filed out in typical single file order and followed the other inmates to the cafeteria. We ate quietly amongst each other and Rich remained impassive and mute. He offered nothing to conversation and sat silently while he sipped his black coffee.
I suspected that he was humiliated. He had picked a fight on his first day with the wrong guy. He knew it just as well as all the other inmates knew it. My reputation was starting to grow. My name was familiar in every ear even then, when I was only two years into my sentence.
Within the next few years things settled down into a mundane rhythm. I wasn’t targeted anymore by new or old inmates. Rich had been transferred out to another prison along with Bruce and some of the other guys I had grown to like.
I was two months shy of my eight year mark when shit went south. I was holding out for an early release on good behavior. I hadn’t had any confrontations like my first two with Link and Rich. I had only been involved in small skirmishes that didn’t amount to anything being on my record. The guards seemed to like me well enough because I did what they said and didn’t ask questions. I wasn’t a hot head like some of the other guys. I was calm, reserved, and eager to taste freedom again.
“When we get out,” Clint was saying as he spooned jello into his mouth, “where are you going to go? Back to live with your folks?”
“Not likely,” I said, watching him squish some of the blue wriggling gel with the back of his spoon.
“You don’t think they’ll want you back?”
“I took a baseball bat to my dad’s face before I proceeded to break his kneecaps and any other bones I could land a hit on. What do you think?”
“Well, Clint shrugged, “maybe your mom left him. Maybe she has a place you can hole up in while you get your life sorted out. While you get a fresh start.”
“No,” I admitted, “I think it’s best if she doesn’t see me anymore. I’ll find somewhere to go.”
“If you don’t have friends or family on the outside who will be willing to take you in for a month or two you’re going to end up on the street or in a shelter. You may as well stay here. They take better care of us. I’ve done some time out there alone. It’s not… you should do everything you can to avoid that.”
“There isn’t anything else I can to, Clint. I’m fresh out of options.”
“Not necessarily,” he said, leaning on the table and knitting his fingers together. “I have some boys who would let you in. They have a place in the city. There are a few of them there. That’s where I’m staying when I get out. One of my cousins is in with them. He comes and visits me in here, want me to task if they have room for one more?”
I saw the red flags flashing before me. I knew that this was bad news. But it was also a place to stay. Somewhere that I could sleep and eat and work at putting the pieces of my life back together after losing eight years in this concrete Hell. “I would appreciate that a lot, Clint. I owe you.”
He waved his hand at me dismissively. “It’s what friends are for, man.”
The doors to the cafeteria opened and four new inmates were lead in by two guards. They were big men. Their visible skin- necks, hands and forearms- were decorated in tattoos that looked like they had been needled in by an amateur in a back alley in Bangkok. Their eyes swept over the rest of us as we sat in our bench seats with our forks halfway to our mouths.
“Holy shit,” Clint breathed, drawing his shoulders in as if he were a turtle with a shell that he could escape into.
“You know them?” I asked.
His eyes fell to the aluminum surface of the table. “Yeah.
I know them. They run in some of the same circles as my cousin. And by same circles I mean opposite circles.”
I raised an eyebrow to him. “You don’t need to talk in code. I can put two and two together. Your cousin is in a gang, right?”
His eyes shot up from the table and widened at me. “Yes. He’s in a gang. But he takes care of me. These guys… they’re bad news, man. They’ve killed people.”
“So have you,” I pointed out.
“Mine was an accident,” he spat. “They kill recreationally if they can get away with it. You don’t want to cross them. They have connections. What do you think the chances are that all four of them end up in the same penitentiary? The system splits guys like them up for a reason.”
I took a sip of water and watched the four men sit down at an empty table. They sat huddled together casting their eyes around the room. They were surveying the premises. The one of them spotted Clint and me. He lifted a meaty finger and pointed it at us. I didn’t look away when all four of them turned to look in the direction that their companion had pointed.
Unsettling smiles broke out across all their faces.
I nudged Clint. “You may have a problem. I think they know you, too.”
“Of course they do,” Clint groaned, burying his face in his hands.
“What do you mean of course they do? Are they looking for you or something?”
Clint spoke to me in a voice that was muffled by his hands over his face. “The robbery… the one that went bad and landed me in here. I killed one of their boys. I’m screwed, McCoy. I’m totally screwed. They’re here to kill me. I know it.”
“They’re not going to kill you,” I said, rolling my eyes at his dramatic statement.
“I was supposed to be out of here in weeks. Weeks! And now I’m mysteriously going to die in one of the dark corners of this fucking prison and nobody will find my body for days, and when they do all the evidence will be buried and those assholes will be long gone and-”