by R. J. Lewis
I remained silent. I waited for him to go. The walls around me were up, boxing me in a fortress where nothing could get to me. I was safe from him now. He looked at my detached face and knew he had no way in. Giving up, he went to my phone and turned it on. He tried at my passcode a couple times and failed. Then he slid it off the desk and let it fall to the ground.
He left, shutting the door quietly behind him. I grabbed my pillow and buried my face into it, holding my breath between my cries so he couldn’t hear. It was what damned me in the first place.
He’d heard me cry when I moved here, the despair of losing my father and witnessing it had crippled me. Wasn’t that why he came to sleep with me in the first place? To make me feel better?
My life was in shambles now. I had nowhere to go. I was tempted to pack my bags and flee back to the city I knew. But then I thought of Conor, and I couldn’t bear to leave.
This wasn’t lust then, was it?
Fuck you, Jem. You know nothing.
Finding the strength, I climbed off the bed and locked my bedroom door. I stripped my clothes off and kicked them in the corner. I could smell Billy in the room. I smelled his release and felt it on the sheets – he had marked them in my absence, the sick fuck. I tore those off too where they joined the corner. I picked up the phone and entered my passcode, the numbness still flowing into every crevice of my soul. Nothing could be worse than what Devil had just done. Violated and sick, I opened my messages and read every one of them with empty eyes.
How could you do that to Reid?
Are you fucking serious?
You’re a bitch!
Slut.
Slut.
You’re a fucking slut.
Part Two: Consequences
You are free to choose, but you are not free from the consequence of your choice.
– A Universal Paradox
Chapter Seven
Thames
Prison was supposed to get easier every time he got thrown in. Category B was still tame, but the inmates were fucking cunts. He’d had the unfortunate displeasure of witnessing these idiots naked in the shower to know their braincells were as little as their dicks. It took everything in Thames not to bash their skulls in every time they approached him with useless fucking offers.
“You wanna be associated with our cartel, Thames? We got a marijuana farm at my nan’s residence if you’re interested.”
No, he wasn’t fucking interested in weed distribution from grandma’s farm. Soft-core cunts.
“Wanna go in on a venture, Thames? We’re gonna partake in a truck transport company. We’re talking freighting drugs as far as the eye can see. Interested?”
Fuck off.
If they got busted for it, he wasn’t interested in getting involved.
Nor was he interested in touching drugs. That shit got messy. He’d seen it growing up. Jem’s dad got heavy in the transport business and he died a violent death. Not that the guy didn’t have it coming, or anything. Not that Thames would ever say that to Jem, either, but anyway.
Prison became a natural way of life for Thames. He mostly kept to himself, and not because he was an anti-social cunt. It was mostly so nobody pissed him off enough to beat seven shades out of shit out of them, and that led to consequences. Anal prison guards weren’t easy to pay off. All this social righteousness movement bullshit that was happening outside the walls were softening these princesses into little moral bitches. It was either that or they were scared shitless of getting caught and being shamed on powerful platforms like FaceCover or whatever the fuck it was called. Thames didn’t know, didn’t care, and spent more time in the real world than these screen obsessed junkies.
But that was straying from the point. To put it simply, he kept to himself for the safety of others and because he didn’t want another extension on his sentence – particularly this sentence. Every day felt like a school trip to the newspaper factory: long, boring as fuck, and annoying because you had to obey the rules and not push someone onto the conveyer belt just to see what would happen.
Note to self: resist arrest next time and get sent to Category A. Hard-core cunts don’t care for rules there.
Extra note to self: Is walking yard okay for drone drop off?
Extra-extra note to self: Jack grandma’s grow-op and silence these whiny sissy cunts.
Maybe he was riled up a little more than usual because for the first time in his prison filled life, he was itching to get out. The days were particularly longer than what he was used to. Lights out every night consisted of staring at the ceiling in the darkness, listening to coughs and heavy breathing and annoying fucks wanking off. He couldn’t close his eyes and fade into nothingness.
The heavy muscle in his heart was beating erratically these days. It even squeezed. What in the fuck was that about?
Patience dwindled straightaway. His eyes dimmed, his vision darkened, and his muscles felt heavier. To top it off, he was hornier than he’d ever felt in his life.
He thought of hazel eyes and plump lips. He thought of raven hair and shy smiles and glares that damned him in his spot. He thought of smooth skin and hungry kisses.
Problem was simple to figure out.
Charlotte Miles had fucked him up. He’d never wanted someone more in his life. There was a cavity in his chest that had lay dormant and empty. Now it felt like it was slowly being filled with a warm tonic, and it was leaving him a little high, kind of like the high he felt when adrenaline surged in his veins right before he hurt someone.
At least during the day, he had distractions. He could sink his teeth into the daily grind of prison politics, inmate work assignments, and the leisure time programs in the yard. But nights…holy hell, nights were another matter. He kept reliving the moment he saw her, the second she’d wrapped her hand around his useless cousin’s weedy arm and shook him delicately. Thames wasn’t going to pretend he hadn’t heard about her. They were remarks about her beauty made in passing in casual conversation, and he’d never given a shit until he laid his eyes on her and understood what the fuss was about.
Charlotte was a weird kind of stunning. She had more meat on her bones than what he was used to. Her face wasn’t all symmetry. She had a scar above her left eyebrow that was quite pronounced when she arched it. Her lips were fuller on the bottom, and her nose was a little big for her face. Her cheekbones were deep, and her eyes large. She had a random splash of freckles that she didn’t try to hide under inches of make-up, and she looked sun-kissed despite the Autumn season. Her facial features should have been too strong, but she made them work flawlessly. Her gaze was soft but distrusting. She wasn’t afraid to be shitty or express her disapproval, but her body would stiffen like she was getting ready for a throwdown. Her body language screamed trepidation around him, but her eyes were hardened and unruly. She tested her boundaries with him, he could tell. She had been way out of her realm of comfort, and it fed his ego all the more when she surrendered to him.
Had she regretted cheating on Reid to have him? Was the night one she was trying to put behind her and forget? Thames didn’t think like that, though the questions in the night sometimes spoke against his nature. He liked to believe he’d given her the best sex she’d ever had, but trying to impress a girl or simply trying to keep her was way out of his element. When had he ever given a fuck? The girls orbited him like he was a sun in the sky and they’d begged for his heat, begged to be burned and used, and they were always forgotten, but being forgotten never stopped them from coming.
As much as Thames was experienced in the art of fucking, in the melody of wooing and foreplay, when it came down to it, he knew nothing about relationships.
All he knew was he fiercely wanted a girl.
All he hoped was she fiercely wanted him in return.
Charlotte was inconsistent. Like a paradox, she had unpredictable layers and he couldn’t figure her out. In a short time, she had opened herself to him, but the reveal was not a linear line; it was zig-zagged a
nd changeable. He supposed that was what made prison worse.
He didn’t know if she’d be waiting.
It grated his nerves. He made it a rule to keep the world outside the prison walls. He strictly avoided visitations and remained in the dark. He didn’t want to feel like life was bleeding on by without him. Once you got stuck in that rut of realizing the days went on and the people in your life went on with them regardless of where you were, it became a psychological torment. Simply put, you left your life at the prison gates and that was where it remained until you left.
To make things bearable, he made an oath to himself every night.
If he felt the same way about her on the last day of his sentence, he would break down walls and destroy everything in his path to get to her. It was a dangerous oath, because he didn’t want there to be conflict or coercion. He knew, sanely, that a girl had the right to choose, but goddammit, his mind was all kinds of fucked up. Being locked up made his brain stray from rationality. It was ironic, really. The walls that were closed around him were meant to teach him to walk the line, but he wondered how that was possible when all they did was fuck with his clarity and make him walk out more clouded than ever.
When it came down to it, he would pursue Charlotte, even if she didn’t want it. That was the cold truth. He wasn’t about to pretend he was a good guy. After all, he was a repeat offender for a reason.
*
Thames knew he’d had a week left to serve before his release. The last week of anything was always the longest haul.
Because he hadn’t laid a finger on a single useless soul, he had charmed his way into good graces. He was no longer a safety risk, and they were confident he wasn’t going to escape, not when he was so close to the end. His final duties in the last several weeks was the upkeep of a nearby national forest. It was good for him to be hands on. There were too many times he’d found himself punching a nearby trunk to rid the adrenaline coursing through his body. The monotonous routine was like slowly cutting into a vein with a dull blade. It made him angry and erratic. It made his muscles twitch and his head pound with pressure
This was his disease. He couldn’t stop fidgeting. Couldn’t stop pacing. His adrenaline was constantly through the roof, and his outlet was always a hands-on approach.
His final day found him sling blading through the brush of a dense trail. Eight hours straight of solid physical labour. This was so fucking dull, but it made his limbs ache, which was refreshing because his body was always restless.
This being good shit made him turn to weight lifting. While it didn’t satiate every need in his body, it quieted the bad voice in his head enough he could ignore it. Now he was bigger than he had ever been, and he was steam rolling through the bush like fucking Rambo.
After he had finished, the chirpy foreman smiled at him when he returned. “Boy, Thames, you’re a Rockstar here. I can smell your rehabilitation from a mile away.”
The fucking idiot was smelling body sweat and nature, but Thames just smirked back. Sure, fucker, think that way. If it made the man go to bed feeling like he was helping the world one inmate at a time, who was Conor to stop him? Sometimes you needed a bit of purpose to make it by in this life, and he wasn’t so much of a cunt to strip him of that.
Just before he boarded the prison transport bus, he heard, “I hear you’re heading out tomorrow.”
Thames paused and whipped his head at the foreman still standing proudly, still smiling. “Tomorrow?”
“Yeah, tomorrow.”
“That’s three days early.”
“Then I guess you’re lucky.”
Thames looked at him dryly and then boarded the bus.
Sure enough, his case worker Jordan was waiting for him upon his arrival. They’d given him hardly twenty hours’ notice.
“Take it, or someone else will,” Jordan told him when he noticed how dumbfounded he was.
“I’ve never been let loose early.”
“It’s three days, Thames.”
Three days in real time was different to three days prison time. It was still an adjustment for him. Not that Thames was going to shed any tears. He had no profound moments in the prison walls. There was no “tide of change” epiphany he kept hearing every time they’d been forced to listen to a visiting ex-convict preaching to stay clean.
“Be the change,” they’d rattled away. “Be the man you needed when you were a boy.”
Personally, Thames didn’t buy a word of that shit. In his opinion, they were just a bunch of snowflakes, and maybe they were making a cent or two in their motivational speaking careers. These days everybody wanted to have a say, and they wanted an audience to listen. Frankly, Thames didn’t care for it.
Be the change? What the fuck did that even mean?
Be the man you needed when you were a boy? That was cute. But tell that to the boy growing up in the projects. The man he’d have needed would have beaten seven shades of shit out of him because, let’s be real here, he deserved it for being a smart-ass motherfucker. Truly, his bitch ass should have been beaten hell of a lot more, and maybe if he had lost a few more fights as a kid, he wouldn’t feel so fucking invincible all the time.
Perhaps it was his giant ego that was to blame for all this bullshit.
He kept his departure to himself. He didn’t want to tell anyone. The fellas weren’t all that keen about throwing good-bye parties with cake and sprinkles, anyway. In truth, Thames had made no friends here. Maybe acquaintances he could shoot the piss with every now and then.
But friends?
Calm your tits, please.
The next morning, he stared out the barred window. He was dressed in his joggers and white tank top. He dubbed them Freedom Clothes. He’d combed his hair back and shaved his beard. The prison uniform was folded neatly behind him. He stared at the sky, watched the clouds inch by. It was ten minutes before the prison’s triple locked cells opened for the morning when he heard his.
Now that was the sound of release.
“Morning, Thames,” the CO said. “Time to get you into processing. Receiving and Release is ready for you.”
Thames smiled.
It was about fucking time.
*
He collected his belongings and his life at the gate. He’d been the only one released today, so no waiting around, thank fuck. They had the cheek to strip search him and sort through his items. He wondered what they’d hoped to find. Did they think he would smuggle shit out of the fucking prison? Bunch of tools.
“I do have one weapon,” he’d stated proudly at the overweight CO that had asked him to spread.
The man looked up, his rosy cheeks waiting expectantly for Thames to respond.
Thames grinned. “It’s an eight-incher. Swings like a wrecking ball. Careful, your fingers might not meet around the base. Can you guess what it is?”
The man glowered, realizing. “You’re funny, Thames. Please, let’s never see you around again.”
With a bag in one hand, he walked out, a smirk forming at the corner of his mouth. Fuck yes, it was good to be out. The air smelled different when you were free. The heat was brutal, even for summer, but he welcomed it on his skin.
When he saw Jem standing out front, leaning back against his monstrously big truck, that smirk transformed into a huge fucking grin.
Jem smiled at him and spread his arms out. “Are we fucking done? I’m getting tired of picking you up from this place, Conor.”
Thames wrapped him in a quick hug. “I think I’m owed a fucking thanks, Jem.”
“Yeah, you’re right. You were the perfect distraction. I got the money out of my office at the nick of time and I destroyed the vin numbers in the black book. We’ve got a yard of metal scraps for the hungry fellas, there’s no way to trace the parts back, but we need your magic touch.”
Thames pulled back, nodding. “How many cars we talking?”
“Buddy, now’s not the fucking time to talk about this shit. Let’s at least be a mile aw
ay from this hellhole first.”
Laughing, Thames rounded the car and jumped in. He had a spring in his step. This was what life was about: the moments in between the treacherous monotony, moments of never taking shit like freedom for granted.
Jem slid in and threw a brown bag into his lap. “I got you a burger from your favourite joint.”
“Kindred gestures, Jem? I didn’t think that was your thing.”
“I’m trying my hand at romance.”
“Wooing an old friend?”
“Sometimes you get tired of pussy.”
Thames laughed. “Speak for yourself.”
Jem laughed, too. “Okay, I wasn’t thinking straight just now.”
“I got a bit worried.”
“Tell me you didn’t feel every day of these eight months.”
Thames heaved a shrug. “You feel it and then you don’t.”
Jem nodded, but he would never understand. He and Max had been careful their entire lives. They looked after their names and they knew every inch of the law. They played the system, while Thames wanted to break it.
The truck roared to life, and it was damn good watching the distance between the prison and him grow. Fuck that place.
“So, update me then,” he demanded, giving Jem a cursory glance.
Jem nodded. “Alright, well, your mom’s adopted like four cats and she’s taking up arts and crafts. It’s this new pottery craze happening around town.”
“What the fuck?”
“Yeah, it’s weird, like she’s making pots instead of joints these days. Is this what will await us in our old age?”
“She’s forty-seven, Jem.”
“And she looks damn good.”
“Ember?”
“Ember is Ember. Need I say more?”
Thames’ face went tight. “New guys?”
Jem looked surprised as he answered, “Actually, none. She’s put Lily in a dance class and now she’s in this mommy crew. After all those pageants, I think she looks for competition in her spare time.”