There was a knowing light in his grey eyes that reassured me in the quiet darkness. My breath caught in my throat as he slowly trailed his hand up my inner thigh. He didn’t break eye contact. His fingers followed the tiny goose bumps that rose on my skin like they were Braille instructions. He wasn’t shy or nervous; it was as if we’d known each other forever, and I was his. I held my breath as he looked away from me to lower his head.
His lips touched a sensitive spot on the inside of my ankle and it felt like I’d been hidden away for years in a cold, dark cave and his touch was my first sunrise. I closed my eyes, silently telling myself, Girl, breathe before you fall out. His lips felt like warm honey as they trailed wet kisses up my calf and inner thigh. The heat from his long fingers scorched my skin as he began slowly pushing my panties to the side. Involuntarily my head fell backward and a soft moan somehow snuck out from between my lips just as I felt his lips close in on my clit.
Oh, Lord, this nigga was not playing around. He went straight for the gold. My hands had a mind of their own and somehow they found their way to his ears. I caressed them, dug my nails into the skin around them, and then I was holding on for dear life. He was busy introducing himself to my pussy. Telling her she was his favorite color, and she was his favorite food, and how much he’d missed her. He said all that with his tongue in between softly licking and sucking on my clit. My body was loving his introduction and I pulled harder on his ears, begging for him to tell my pussy his life story. Hell, he could tell her about nuclear physics if he wanted to, just as long as he didn’t stop.
I moaned again, but this time the sound alarmed me. It sounded like I was outside of my own body, like the moan came from someone beside me. I glanced down to see if he’d noticed, but the lighting in the room had changed. The shadows were back and darker than they were before. It was too dark for me to see him, but I could still feel the warmth of his hands and his mouth. I was getting closer and closer but something was pulling me away, throwing me off. There was an odor in the room that I couldn’t ignore any longer. It smelled like sour sweat and old urine. I opened my mouth to breathe but couldn’t get air. Panicked, I tried to tell him to stop, but I couldn’t see him and his head was no longer in my hands. Reaching out for him my arms only caught cold, empty air, and I felt a sharp pain across my cheek.
My eyes jerked open. Someone’s hand roughly covered my mouth. My senses were coming to me too slowly. It was cold. It was dark. My heart was speeding in my chest as the haziness of my dream faded. The rough wool blanket on the floor underneath me felt scratchy against my bare skin, but the good feelings were still there. My storyteller was still talking; I just couldn’t see who it was. I was about to cum and my head rolled back against something cold, metal, and hard. I reached out again and my hand came in contact with long, thick hair.
Smack. It was too dark to see the hand that struck my face.
“You better stop that shit and be quiet.” The voice trailed off as I felt warm breath and fingers spreading me open.
I froze. It was a woman’s voice. Where the hell was I and who was she?
Shock and confusion were the only things that kept me still long enough to fall back under the spell of her lips. My mind was reeling and the slow throb building between my thighs was clouding my ability to think clearly. Without warning she sucked my clit hard between her lips and as if on cue my body and mind exploded at the same time. Like lightning, everything hit me in a flash.
Six months ago I was arrested for embezzlement. The FBI came to my office, handcuffed me, and read me my rights in front of my employees, some of whom were people from my church. Did I do it? Of course not, but I should have known from the smug looks on the agents faces down to the disapproving glares of people I worshipped with—that I’d already been judged.
Apparently I was a millionaire to the tune of around $2.5 million and I didn’t even know it. “Ghost money”, is what I’d started calling it since no one seemed to know where the hell it had vanished to. Transia, was my company. I’d started it my senior year in college. After taking out a small business loan I bought a shipping container and leased a Mac Truck. My fiancé drove the wheels off of that thing and we undercut the prices of nearly every competitor in the area until we had enough customers to afford another truck. Those two trucks turned into a fleet that serviced the entire U.S. shipping anything from Audi’s to office equipment.
It’s bad when you have to learn about your alleged crimes one by one, piece by piece as they’re laid out in front of you like a mine field. Every time you acknowledge a ‘mine’, a small explosion goes off in the heads of everyone listening, and the shrapnel spells out the word guilty.
Yes the company is mine. Yes the invoices are mine. Yeah, that account has my name on it, but it’s not mine. Boom.
“Over the course of four years, you invoiced three specific and I dare say affluent warehouses for transit charges, weight fees, and container rental. All of your paperwork shows that this happened. When the warehousing records for those companies are pulled it’s peculiar that there were in most cases no pickups by Transia on those days. In addition to that, in the event there was a pickup the amount on your paperwork doesn’t match the inflated invoices that these warehouses received and paid.” Brimmer the prosecuting attorney stated in his condescending high-pitched nasal tone.
The public defender I was assigned turned out to be about as useful as snow to an Eskimo. His off white dress shirts were stained yellow at the armpits, drawing attention to the rivers of garlic scented sweat that rolled off him at each proceeding. We’d gone over my case briefly; he’d simply nod causing the third chin underneath his second chin to jiggle in agreement. There was no way to explain how funds were wired to various accounts in my name or how invoices were sent out at nearly triple what they should have been.
Where is my wonderful fiancé Dontay you’re probably wondering? Dead, I hope. No, I shouldn’t think like that. Especially since I hadn’t spoken to him and I don’t know what happened. Me and God are still working on this forgiveness thing as you can see.
Jabber Jaws my public defender would only tell me but so much, but Dontay was picked up on separate charges and tried separately. They had him for stealing cargo, as well as “assisting me.” That idiot sold me out as a plea bargain, he admitted to everything—damning me in the process. That bitter little pill of information settled itself in my stomach and began to slowly poison me with anger from the inside out. I’d sacrificed so much for love and at the end of the day; love didn’t give a damn about me. The only good thing I’d gotten out of love was my daughter Jada.
My parents were overly religious, like church on Sunday, Wednesday, & Friday religious. I wasn’t even allowed to associate with boys after I’d turned eighteen.
“You keep your eyes on The Father, and nothing else.” Momma would say with a slap across the back of my head every time she’d catch me staring out the window at boys.
It was like the sound of a fuse being lit or something similar to the gritty head of match running along the smooth flint runway on the back of a book of matchbox. That’s what it was like the first time I saw Dontay and he saw me. If I were the ship this fool had to have been my Captain, yes he was my Noah—because that’s how serious we were. There was a time when I would have gone against every single biblical scripture I’d ever been taught if he so much as frowned. I mean commandments were broken, sins were committed and there was all kinds of hell and hedonism going on when we were together. In the aftermath of it all we made another life, procreated and all of it transpired under my mother’s unconsenting roof.
It was so extensive, this emotionally unyielding physically mind-blowing me every which way kind of love that every time we saw each other it was like falling in love all over again. A sensual fuse of feeling would be lit literally, and we only had seconds to figure out who’d be the victim of the resulting passionate explosion. Full of sin we were and at all times. We were divine together but neve
r anything good. When you love as hard as we loved there ain’t no amount of praying in the world that can stop the jealous fights we’d have.
Jada was three now and Dontay had missed the first two years after she was born because I was weak in my spirit and in my faith. I cheated on him in anger and I’ve regretted it every day since. He eventually forgave me, said he couldn’t live without me, and I forgave him as well. We fell back into our routine like synchronized swimmers.
At the end of the day my forgiveness cost me, as I was sentenced to six years in the East River Correctional Facility in Suffolk, Virginia with the option for parole in three. My parents had disowned me when I’d gotten pregnant, because even though I wasn’t killing anyone or doing drugs I was still living in sin. I’d managed to take what little I’d had back then and do something. Now, despite everything my life was being ripped away from me slipping through my desperate fingers like smoke rings.
Welcome to my life, ladies and gentlemen, or what’s left of it.
Chapter 2
Night Dreams and Day Mares
I lay momentarily dazed by both pleasure and pain as I remembered where I was and what got me here. I hated falling asleep. Whenever I slept I’d dream of being home with my baby girl, or I’d see Dontay’s smiling face and we’d be at the house having dinner or making love. Whenever I’d sleep, Aeron, my cellmate, would take the opportunity to let it be known that as long as I shared this cell with her, I had to share my body as well.
“Go ’head, princess. Tell momma she the G-O-A-T.” Aeron lay down on her side in the shadows facing me from the bunk across the cell. A smug grin was spread across her face. This was routine with her. First she’d take it, then she’d gloat about it. Fighting her was pointless. I was all of five feet two inches and about 120 pounds soaking wet. Aeron was five feet ten inches, thick for her size, and strong. If we were in different circumstances I’d say she was actually not bad looking. Those different circumstances would have to be me being a member of the opposite sex, however, because as it stood there was nothing attractive or sanctifying about what had just occurred.
She had a soft, oval-shaped face, with strong, high-arched brows. She didn’t do like most of the Puerto Ricans who shaved theirs off and drew them in. I was sure in another lifetime and another place she could probably pass for a model with her small waist and perfect features. But her eyes told a different story. Her dark hazelnut brown eyes were always stormy, always angry, as if she were coming from an argument or on her way to handle one. She had a way of squinting and raising her eyebrow as if she were daring me to defy her. Defeated, I shifted my cotton prison uniform back on my body and made my way off of my makeshift pallet on the floor. I moved cautiously toward the bottom bunk where she was lying. We’d had a disagreement earlier when Aeron swore I was looking at another inmate too long. Her punishment was to make me sleep on the floor with nothing but a thin wool blanket. I sighed before answering her, my body felt stiff and sore.
“Yes, you are the Greatest of All Time. Can I lie down please?” This was our custom. She was bigger and stronger, she was highly respected by the other females in the unit, and as long as I was hers, as long as I was with her, I was safe.
She moved to the side and I scooted onto the bunk in front of her and tried my best to ignore my humiliation. There’s nothing to describe what I went through daily knowing my body wasn’t mine. I was raised by the church and these homosexual acts, whether I was a willing participant or not, still felt like a huge stain on my soul. I’d beg for forgiveness and deliverance but it was like I was stuck in a hamster wheel. Every day it would all take place all over again.
It was a Tuesday and normally I would be getting home from choir rehearsal around this time. On Wednesdays after work I’d go to the church and work with the teen Bible Study group, and on Mondays, Thursdays, and Fridays I assisted Sister Patterson with the women’s ministry. Those days seemed like a lifetime ago, when it was such a hassle to get out of my office some nights at a reasonable hour.
I’d debate about stopping and picking up something quick and easy or just ordering pizzas because I was too tired to cook. Dontay would complain but of course he’d been home all day and hadn’t bothered to fix anything let alone thaw something out. But, my chunky little baby girl would eat anything; she was never picky when it came to food. The memories alone made my eyes and my mouth water. Church was such a huge part of me that no matter how much I prayed on my own, I didn’t feel like the one-hour community sermon they held on Sundays in here was enough to get me back into God’s good graces.
“You know I’ll be gettin’ out of here soon, don’t you, Mami?” Aeron’s voice broke into my thoughts, a warm whisper across the back of my neck. “You won’t have anyone to protect you when I’m gone. I really do care about you. I don’t want anything bad to happen to you.”
I lay listening quietly. She didn’t like to be interrupted so I was always careful to make sure she was finished before I’d speak. I’d learned that about her quickly after I’d impatiently rushed to answer her a few times. The sting of her hand would stop the words from forming right on the tip of my tongue. Now, I listened patiently and waited before I spoke.
Aeron was at the end of a five-year sentence for larceny, and I looked forward to and also secretly dreaded the day that I’d no longer have to share my cell with her. Because of my small frame and quiet demeanor, I got tried on a daily basis in here. I used to carry a Bible; it got knocked out of my hand and the pages were ripped from it. I used to wear a beautiful fourteen-karat gold cross around my neck: a gift from my mom for my sixteenth birthday. I got jumped in the showers for that. Everybody always wanted to mess with the “Church Girl,” steal from the “Church Girl”; they knew “Church Girl” wouldn’t fight back. I wasn’t made for nobody’s prison or jail. I wasn’t even a criminal.
My first month was by far the hardest. I couldn’t figure out if I was being blessed or if karma was just messing with me. Out of all the real ‘threatening’ cellmates I could have gotten, I was celled with a psychotic little Filipino woman with large, wild eyes and stringy blond and black hair that fell past her butt. I think her name was Reynoo. Well, that’s what I called her anyway. I could never understand a word she said because her accent was so thick. The only thing I was certain of at the time was that we were going to starve to death, because the other inmates would steal every bit of food right off our trays during meals. I wasn’t stupid. I knew if I so much as slipped a note to a correctional officer about it, I’d get beaten or stabbed to death for something like that.
My first night in our cell will be imprinted in my mind forever like the seal on all those ‘ghost greenbacks’ that landed me in there. My stomach was in knots from not eating. I huddled on my bunk, watching in horror as Reynoo took her own feces out of the toilet and smeared it in the corners of the cell walls along the floor. She was crawling along on her hands and knees, singing softly in Tagalog. I buried my head under my pillow to try to block out the horrifying stench. I cried and prayed myself to sleep just knowing she was going to try to kill me before the sun came up. My family wouldn’t even be able to have an open-casket funeral because she’d probably eat me or something crazy.
Four days later, after having absolutely nothing to eat and with no money in my commissary, I watched in absolute disgust as Reynoo gathered several huge roaches. My momma always called them things water bugs when they’d get in her house. They’d hide all day and as soon as company would come over or you’d find yourself in a comfy spot, they’d climb up the wall or perch on the ceiling just to fall and scare the living daylights out of everyone in the room. Everybody and anybody would call themselves gangsta until that water bug starts flying. I’d seen the manliest of men go to climbing on the couch, running around, screaming all girly and whatnot when there’s a rogue water bug zipping around the house.
Reynoo managed to catch six or so that were drawn to her “shit traps.” Hunger will make a person fast as a
ll hell, because those things are no joke when it comes to running. She’d trap them in an old sardine can, placing the thin tin lid carefully in place and then hold it over a small candle. It’s hard to describe the smell because of all the shit everywhere, but they surprisingly didn’t smell any worse than roasting cashews. I could hear them in there scraping, clawing, and scurrying around for a few seconds, and then it would go silent.
For an entire week I lived off of that filth. I still gave thanks, I still prayed like I was supposed to. I even meditated and chanted. And then one morning, after I’d gone through the breakfast line as I usually did, I set my tray on the table and waited for the vultures to come. The line served apple cinnamon oatmeal, cheese eggs, grits, and a buttered biscuit that morning. I still remembered. They even used lemon-scented soap in the kitchen because it made me think of lemonade every time I smelled it. I knew it would only be a matter of time before I completely unraveled or died from some type of disease from eating an infected roach.
On that particular morning Stanika, one of the bigger girls, was one of the first to assault my breakfast. Ripe onion and ass: I smelled her before I saw her. She was what the correctional officers called a “habitual hose-down,” notorious for never taking showers. Her residual funk would get to the point where they’d have to throw her into a holding cell and literally spray her down with the fire hose. I initially just thought she was nasty. I didn’t find out until later she had a fear of the showers because she was assaulted and raped in there by a male correctional officer her first week in. The other COs stood by, laughing and recording it on their phones. Just so happened that a phone got stolen out of the CO’s car not too long after and was sold to the highest-paying news team. Everyone involved was fired, fined, and punished.
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