by Marni Mann
“Why?”
“Because I can’t be here with you, and I can’t have any feelings for you.”
His tongue swept across the inside of his bottom lip. “But you do.”
“I…” How could I put this into words? “I feel something, yes.”
His face moved a little closer. “How is that a bad thing?”
“I told you, I can’t do this.”
He searched my eyes, a silent plea to give him more honesty. I couldn’t do that either.
So, he said, “I don’t understand.”
“I’m sorry. I know how this must sound. I’ve been nothing but an emotional wreck since the moment you met me, and tonight is no different. I’m probably making less sense now than I did the last time we were together.”
“Why can’t you do this, Tyler?”
He moved his hands to my cheeks and held me steady. Something about his touch pulled the truth right out of me.
“My job doesn’t allow it.”
“Fuck your job. You’ll find a new one.”
I scrunched my eyes shut and took a breath. “I can’t. It’s not like that.”
He searched again once I opened them, and I could tell he’d come up with nothing. “Then, I’ll protect you.”
I couldn’t get him involved with the trouble I was in. Regardless of how much I wanted his protection, I would never do that to him.
“No, Jae. You can’t.”
“Listen…”
I tried to pull back, and he only held me tighter.
“I’ve been thinking about you since I dropped you off that night, worried as hell that something had happened to you and wondering why you hadn’t come back here. You said this place was your favorite.”
I didn’t know why he cared, but I loved that this tall, brawny, beautiful man was so concerned. It changed nothing between us, but I’d still give him an answer.
“I went to Rudy’s instead.”
“Rudy’s?” His voice went so deep, it almost sounded like a roar.
A hint of a smile tugged at my lips. “You said it was your favorite, so I tried it. Twice.”
“And?”
“It was good. Dirty, like you said. Burger was delicious.”
“But?”
“They have popcorn here. Their fries have potato skin still on them, and everything is extra salty, just how I like it.” For some reason, talking about the bars and their food didn’t make me feel like I was doing anything wrong.
But then his hand moved, reminding me that he was touching me and that everything about this had to stop.
“Jae…”
Silence ticked away, but it felt like so many words were passing between us. I didn’t trust myself. I had to get out of this restroom before something else happened.
“I have to go.”
He shook his head. “No.” His grip became more intense, clinging to the strands of my hair and pulling until my chin pointed up. “If you’re not going to say it, then I’m going to take what I want.”
“Say what?”
“Say how much you want me and how I can have you right here in this restroom.”
A shiver ran through me. I believed he would take whatever he wanted, and I believed I would like it.
And then where would that leave me? Guilty of being with someone outside of The Achurdy. Guilty of hiding a secret. Guilty of lying.
Could I live with that?
Could I hide that secret? Could I lie even more than I already had?
His mouth got closer and closer.
In my mind, I saw Mina’s face, the glare she had given me in her office, the sharpness of her words, how badly it had stung when she threw my sales in my face.
“She’s been breaking some of our rules, and I have zero tolerance for that,” repeated in my head.
Once again, I had to make a choice, and I only had a few seconds to do it.
“Jae, I—”
His lips touched mine, cutting me off from saying another word. It seemed, no matter how hard I tried to fight this, he was determined to kiss me.
And I wanted him to. Despite every fear, every bit of anxiety.
He pushed his body against mine, holding my face so tightly that I almost couldn’t take a breath. But I didn’t want him to touch me any other way. The feel of him matched his kiss. It was brutal but consuming, sharp, and demanding. More dangerous than I’d ever felt.
“I’ll keep you safe,” he promised when he finally pulled away.
I clamped my fingers around his and took in his stare.
I believed him.
There wasn’t a question in my mind that he would do what he’d said.
I just wouldn’t let him.
Beard
I found myself going into The Eyes of the prison and straight to The Log. That was what we called the death book. Inside, we listed each inmate with their real name, the client who had hired us, the number we had assigned to them, and their cause of death. We tried to be exact when we described what had killed them. It was hard to guess sometimes because we often tortured with multiple devices at the same time. So, in those cases, we had to use our best judgment and pick the method that had caused the most trauma.
I flipped toward the back of the log and found the listing for Inmate #1501. Shank had promised to take care of that pregnant bitch, and he had. She’d been dead for weeks. I’d just forgotten to ask him what he’d done to her, and now, I couldn’t with him being on vacation in the States.
In Shank’s messy handwriting, he’d written the chick’s real name, the client who had hired us, and her assigned number. At the end of the page, he’d jotted down a whole paragraph about her death. I loved every fucking word.
Inmate wouldn’t shut the fuck up, so I cut the cunt’s tongue out. I’d already stabbed her tits with an ice pick, ripped her hair out with pliers, and soaked her feet in boiling water. When I took the saw to her tongue, I clipped a part of her throat by accident. She didn’t last long and bled out in the chair.
Inmate #1501 wasn’t the first chick to have lost her tongue in here. Shank would remove most girls’ tongues because women had a tendency to chirp, and he couldn’t stand that. I liked that he was hard on them. I wished everyone in here were, but we’d had to get rid of a few of the sweepers because they’d had soft spots for the women.
Pleas didn’t work on us guards. If we were hired to kill, inmates were going to die in here whether they had a cock or a cunt. And, for the cunts, it didn’t matter if they had a baby in their stomach or one at home. As far as I was concerned, those were the ones I despised the most. The ones I would ask Shank to torture harder than the rest. The ones whose screams were the loudest, where I would make a special trip down to the cell block just so I could hear them.
I hadn’t been around to hear #1501’s screams.
What a shame.
I shut the log and sat in one of the seats behind the desk. The monitor showed all twelve inmates. I wasn’t interested in looking at any of them. So, I pulled up the feed from The Pit. Even though I knew it wouldn’t be there, I still had to check. There were a few hands and a toe. But no tongue. No remnants from #1501. Her body had been turned to ashes, and those were somewhere in the ocean.
Damn.
Since Bond had reminded me of the day when I had moved into his place, I’d been thinking about my mother a lot. She didn’t enter my thoughts all that often. I didn’t allow her to. But, when a female came into our prison, like #1501, and I heard she had children, my mom would find her way into my head.
Fucking cunt.
I hoped, one day, she would piss off the wrong person and find herself on our plane, and I would get to see her face behind bars. I wanted her to get a taste of the man I had become, to leave her in that cell so that she knew what it felt like to wait for my return. And then, as I listened to her screams, I wanted to wrap my hands around her throat and strangle every bit of air from her lungs.
We all had reasons for being here.
<
br /> My mother was the start of mine.
“Baby, are you packed?” my mother shouted from downstairs. “We have to go!”
She sounded all crazy, like during the mornings I was running late for the bus because I had taken too long in the shower. But it was Saturday morning, so I didn’t get why she was in a hurry. She was just dropping me off at Shank’s place for the night, and I went there all the time.
I looked down at the empty trash bags by my feet. Mom had told me not to use the backpack I usually took when I went to Shank’s. She’d said I needed something bigger and that I had to bring more stuff than usual. It made no sense why I needed so much, but she had given me two of these big, black plastic bags to pack all my stuff in.
God, she was acting strange today.
“I don’t need these bags!” I yelled back. “I’m just gonna bring some jeans. If I get them dirty, Shank’ll let me borrow some of his clothes.”
I heard her climb the stairs, and she came into my room, walking straight over to my dresser. She was moving so fast, I couldn’t see what shirts she was grabbing. Every time she turned around, her arms would be full. She quickly filled the first bag. Then, she opened the second and started tossing clothes in there.
“Mom, stop.”
She didn’t answer. She just kept on packing for me.
“I’m only going for a night. I don’t want to come home and have to put all this stuff away.”
She looked at me for just a second, and that was when I saw the tears on her cheeks.
“Why are you crying?” I asked.
She didn’t say anything. Instead, she kept on filling that second bag. When she was done, I heard her go into the bathroom and take some things off the sink. I figured it was my toothbrush and toothpaste.
“Come on!” she shouted as she dragged the bags to the top of the stairs. “We have to go now.”
What the heck?
Not wanting to get screamed at, I shut the door to my room and went into the kitchen.
When I opened the fridge for some orange juice, she said, “Take the brown bag that’s on the top shelf. I made you a lunch to go.”
“Lunch?” I turned around to face her. “But it’s not even ten in the morning.”
“You can eat it later if you’re not hungry now.”
This morning just kept getting weirder.
“Take the bag, baby, and shut the refrigerator door. We really have to get going.”
I tucked it under my arm and followed her outside. The back seat was full of my clothes, and a coffee was in the center console. Mom never drank coffee. She’d said it made her too wired.
“What are you doing today?” I asked.
Her head moved, looking both ways, as she backed out of the parking spot. When she got out of the neighborhood, she drove much faster than normal, and she wasn’t staying inside the lines.
“Mom?”
“Yes?” she said although it had taken her a while to answer.
“I asked, what are you doing today?”
We reached a red light, and she stared at me. There were still tears, but they weren’t on her cheeks. Only in her eyes this time.
“I don’t know.”
She took a drink of the coffee and cringed when she swallowed, like I would do whenever she made me eat cooked carrots. Nasty stuff.
“Probably just hanging around the house.”
“All day?”
“Yes.”
Then, why had she rushed me to get out the door?
Maybe someone was coming over. That had to be it.
I turned on the radio and sang along to the tunes until we reached Shank’s. Mom and I lived in a small apartment, but Shank’s house was a mansion. They even had people working there who would cook and clean for them. Since Shank’s mom had died when he was a baby, it was just him and Bond. Because I was there so much, Bond treated me like another son. He was the one who had talked to us about sex and taught us how to put on a condom even though we hadn’t needed to use one yet, and he had given us his login to some porn sites.
He was the coolest.
I hadn’t told Mom any of that because she would be upset. She was harder to talk to, and she treated me like I was still a baby. That bugged me.
Mom parked in Shank’s long driveway, and we both got out of the car. I took the bags out of the back seat and she walked me to the door just as Bond opened it.
“Hey, kid,” he said, standing at the top of the steps.
Mom stopped before the stairs and didn’t go any further.
“You’re not coming in?” I asked her.
Whenever she dropped me off, she always came in for a few minutes and talked to Bond. Sometimes, she’d even stay for dinner.
“No, I really have to get going.”
“Okay, whatever. You’re coming to pick me up tomorrow night, right?”
Now, the tears were dripping. Her chin was quivering, too.
“Mom, what is wrong? Do you want me to come home with you?”
“Just come give me a hug,” she said.
I left the bags on the top step and went back down to meet her. I wrapped my arms around her neck, and she hugged me so tight, she lifted me. She did that once in a while. I hated it because it made me feel like a little kid, and I wanted to be treated like an adult. But I didn’t fight her on it today. Something told me she needed it. I just hoped Shank wasn’t looking out the window and that Bond wouldn’t tell him because he’d give me so much crap for it.
“Be careful, sweet boy,” she whispered in my ear. “Be good, and don’t get in any trouble. I’m so proud of you. I always have been, always will be.”
“I know, Mom. You don’t have to say all this. I’m just going away for the night.”
“Yes, I do. I need you to know how much I love you. Don’t ever forget that, okay?”
“Okay.”
She set me back on my feet and hurried to her car. Once she got in and shut the door, I grabbed the bags and brought them inside.
“Got a lot of stuff there, don’t you, kid?” Bond said from behind me.
When I looked at him, he was still on the step, facing the driveway, his arms crossed over his chest.
“Mom said I needed it all. I don’t know why.”
“I’m sure she has her reasons. I don’t pretend to understand women and the things they do sometimes.”
I carried the bags up the big set of stairs, so I could bring them into Shank’s room. As I got to the top, I looked down and saw Bond. From the big window over the front door, I could see Mom slowly working her way out of the driveway and onto the road.
“Did I forget something?” I yelled down at him, unsure of why he was still outside.
It was pretty cool out, and he was letting in tons of cold air.
“No, kid. I’m just getting some fresh air.”
Wherever the hell my mother was, I hoped she was gumming her food and having to write down whatever she wanted to say because some motherfucker had ripped out her tongue. That cunt had known she wasn’t coming back for me. And, if she came into my prison with a tongue still in her mouth, I’d rip it out. Not with a saw, but with my own goddamn fingers.
Bitches in here wondered why tears didn’t affect me.
It was because they were just salty water.
And that didn’t mean shit.
My phone vibrated from my pocket, and I pulled it out. Layla’s name was on the screen.
I answered the call and held it up to my ear. “Miss my cock already?”
“Mmm, you have no idea. My pussy feels so empty without you in it.”
I leaned back in my chair and kicked my boots on top of my desk. “What are you wearing?”
She laughed. “Are you alone this time? Last time, we almost started something, and we got interrupted.”
I looked at the monitors that showed all twelve guys. “I’m alone.”
“Lying in bed?”
“I’m touching my dick. Isn’t that what you w
ant?”
“Well, yes, but I want you to come home, too.”
I put my hand over my zipper and pushed my cock down, so it would stop rubbing against my jeans. “Give me a couple of weeks, and I’ll be there.”
“You can’t come sooner?”
“Layla, I can come right now if you tell me how you’re touching yourself.”
She laughed again. “How about we come visit you?”
My hard-on was quickly softening.
This was why I didn’t get involved with women. Why I gave them my cock and nothing else.
I didn’t like questions, and Layla was starting to ask too many.
She might have one of the nicest cunts I’d ever been in, but it needed to stay in Miami and let me fuck it whenever I wanted, or I would end this shit right now.
I dropped my feet onto the floor. “You’re going to have to wait until I return, darling.”
“Are you sure we can’t change your mind?” She paused, and I heard a beep. “Check your text messages.”
It was a picture of Layla getting fucked in the ass by the stripper. As I stared at it more, I realized it was the same blue dildo I’d used on the girls while I was there. It had been in all their holes, and now, it was in the only one my cock hadn’t entered. But my finger had been in there, so I knew how tight it was, how hot it had felt on my skin, how it had clenched when she came.
I was jealous of a dildo; that was something new for me.
“Fuck, you look hot.”
One of the images on the monitor caught my attention. It showed an inmate sitting in the gyno chair in Diego’s OR. He was beat to hell, and Diego was trying to saw off his arm. The problem was, the dude was three times Diego’s size. Larger inmates usually meant thicker muscles and harder bones.
Diego was going to need some help.
And my conversation with Layla had made me hungry enough to go volunteer.
“Then, come back, and put your dick where the dildo is,” she said.
I growled but not for the reason she probably thought. “When I call you tomorrow, I want all your little toys nearby. And, when I tell you to fuck your cunt with one of them, I want to hear how good it feels. No questions, no demands. I want full submission from you.” I stood and walked to the door. “Got it?”