Ari swallowed hard.
“Yes. Yes, of course, Sir.”
Stubbins nodded approvingly.
“All right then, good. Then here’s your first kite.” He held up a slip of grubby white paper. “Says there’s a glow out in the cellblock E bathrooms. You’ll need a new glow and a screwdriver.”
As he spoke, he drew the items out of the toolbox, spat on his thumb, and then pressed his wet thumb to the base of each where there was a small, black button Ari hadn’t noticed before.
“Now you,” he said, motioning for her.
“Now me what?” Ari asked uncertainly.
“Now you spit on your thumb and put it over where I had mine.” Stubbins sounded impatient. “Haven’t you ever used restricted tools before?”
“Um, no.” What he was asking her to do sounded gross and unsanitary to Ari but she didn’t dare say so. Instead, she licked her thumb and pressed it tentatively to the red button on the base of the screwdriver.
She was half expecting to get a horrendous shock again but to her surprise, she felt nothing but a slight, humming vibration and then the red handle of the tool turned blue for a moment. The same thing happened when she pressed her thumb to the base of the new glow.
“This is amazing,” she remarked, examining her new tools. “Is it DNA activated?”
“You got it, lad.” Stubbins nodded. “Any kind of body fluid works, really. Piss, spit, or blood. But I ain’t about to bleed just to get a damn glow changed in a cellblock shithole.” The other Spice Lords roared dutifully at his joke as he cocked an eye at Ari. “I might piss on the tools though, if you get me mad enough. Let you lick them to activate them afterwards—how’d you like that?”
Ari felt her gorge rise. Why was everyone here at BleakHall so willing to threaten and humiliate others? Probably because it’s a freaking prison, Ari, whispered a little voice in her head. Get over it and get on with your new job.
“I wouldn’t like it at all, Sir,” she said in a low voice. “And I promise you, it won’t be necessary. I’ll do a good job and come right back as soon as I finish.”
“All right.” He nodded. “Prove it. Go change that glow. And mind you don’t take too long about it.”
“Yes, Sir.” Tucking the fragile glow globe in one pocket of her jumpsuit and the screwdriver in the other, Ari ran up the stairs heading for cellblock E. Behind her, she could hear the deep, raucous masculine laughter as the Spice Lords enjoyed yet another joke at her expense.
Assholes.
But she was stuck with them—and with this new job. There was nothing she could do but complete her tasks and get back down to Stubbins before her new boss got impatient.
Ari just hoped she could be fast enough.
Twenty-Six
Cellblock E was up five flights of stairs but Ari was getting used to climbing steps everywhere she went. BleakHall’s vertical construction insured that all the inmates got plenty of exercise in their daily routine, though it was hell on the knees of the older prisoners.
As she found the communal restroom and rounded the corner, Ari was confronted by a long row of open stalls, each housing a small rounded fixture with a black gaping mouth-like hole in the center. There was no toilet paper in sight—not even the brown scratchy stuff that felt like sandpaper against her sensitive parts that Lathe had in his small bathroom.
Ari began to understand why the trustees with their tiny private restrooms were so envied by the other prisoners. The idea of having to eliminate in front of everyone, squatting over one of those awful, stained and splattered fixtures and not having anything to clean up with afterwards made her shiver with disgust.
Luckily, there was no one using the Cellblock E bathroom at the moment so she was able to change the burnt out glow by standing on the dull silver sink and reaching over her head. It was a precarious position but Ari was light on her toes and had good balance—she managed easily enough and was about to go when she heard a strange noise coming from deeper in the bathroom.
Leaping lightly and soundlessly to the floor, she took an uncertain step towards the strange sound. There was a rounded archway that led from the toilets into what she assumed was the communal shower room. It sounded like choking and gasping—was someone being sick?
It doesn’t matter if someone’s sick, you should just leave them alone, Ari, whispered the voice of caution in her brain. Get out of here now—it’s not safe to be someplace like this by yourself! Remember what Lathe said—never go in the showers alone!
But the choking got louder. What if someone was really in trouble? What if they died just because she was too afraid to put her head in the door and see if there was a problem? At the very least she could run and fetch Lathe to help them. Couldn’t she?
A broom had fallen across the entrance to the showers, its long handle positioned as though to bar access but somehow Ari found herself stepping over it and making her way down the short, tiled hallway that led to the communal showers.
The choking and gasping sounds were louder in here, echoes bouncing off the dirty tiles, magnifying the noise which made the short hairs at the back of Ari’s neck stand up for some reason.
At last she reached the end of the hallway and peeked carefully around the corner, trying to keep her breathing as quiet as possible so as not to disturb whoever or whatever was making the awful sound.
What she saw made her stomach churn.
Tapper was standing there with his dirty jumpsuit unbuttoned past the crotch, exposing his short, stubby root of a cock. Kneeling on the floor in front of him was a young man Ari vaguely recognized from the large hall where she’d waited to be processed into the prison.
He was a tall, good-looking guy with short brown hair, brown eyes, and intimidating-looking tattoos. Ari remembered thinking that she’d better steer clear of him—he looked tough.
But he wasn’t so tough now. His hands were balled into fists at his sides and he was gagging and choking as Tapper shoved his dirty member down the tattooed man’s throat.
“That’s right, lad,” he was growling, as he pumped his hips steadily. “That’s right—suck it good, there’s a good boy.”
Ari felt faint and weak with disgust. Tapper’s vile body odor wafted towards her and she had to fight not to puke, just as she had when he’d shoved that dirty, malodorous root in her face. She felt sorry for the tattooed man but she didn’t know what she could do for him. Rape and abuse seemed to be the order of the day at BleakHall and there was no one she could think of who would even care if she told them what was going on.
The guards turned a blind eye to everything and none of the other gang lords would bother to lift a finger. Wheezer would probably just shrug and tell her that was life in BleakHall and as for Lathe—well, the big Kindred might care but he and Tapper were already in a kind of war. Would it really be wise to involve him in something like this?
As she stood weighing her options, her rubber slipper slipped in a puddle of water on the floor and made a sound. Not a very big sound, but the tiled walls magnified everything.
Tapper’s head jerked up, quick as a wink, and before Ari could pull her own head back behind the corner the crime lord had seen her.
His small, piggy eyes widened, then narrowed as he took her in but to Ari’s horrified fascination, he never left off thrusting into the other prisoner’s mouth.
“Well, now—if it ‘ent pretty boy come to see me. Didn’t you see the barrier I put up, pretty boy? This here’s a private moment you’re interrupting, so you are,” he snarled, smiling at her in a shark-like way that made Ari’s heart pound so fast she felt dizzy.
“B-barrier,” she managed to get out. “What…?”
“The barrier—the broom I laid over the threshold of the showers.” Tapper was still speaking casually, as though he wasn’t currently in the act of raping the hapless prisoner’s mouth. “Didn’t you see it, pretty boy? Or did you come to watch the show? Maybe you wanted to see what’s in store for you the minute Me
dic gets tired of you? Turn around!”
This last command was directed at the tattooed prisoner who was still gagging and choking on Tapper’s cock. With a jerk of the other man’s hair, Tapper yanked the man off his shaft and turned him roughly so that he was kneeling with his back to the crime boss.
“That’s good. Now drop trou and put your ass in the air,” Tapper commanded.
The other prisoner whimpered but did as he was told, tears running down his tattooed cheeks as he slowly unbuttoned his orange and blue striped jumpsuit and shucked it down, baring a pair of pale white buttocks.
Tapper examined the other man’s backside for a moment and then nodded approvingly.
“Good—that’s good. Not too hairy. I likes ‘em smooth, I do. Yes indeed, lad—I was right to put you on my list. Although you’re not at the top of it. That honor is reserved for someone else.”
As he spoke, he spread the other man’s ass cheeks roughly apart and thrust deep and hard into his anus.
An agonized cry was forced from the tattooed prisoner’s throat as Tapper began sawing back and forth, forcing himself deeper and deeper into the recesses of the other man’s body as his victim shivered and cried in pain.
“See, now this is what I’m going to do to you, pretty boy,” he told Ari, who was still staring in mute horror at the spectacle playing out in front of her. “I’ll use your mouth and your ass right proper and then I’ll pass you on to Gorn and Fenrus and let them have my sloppy seconds. Just as soon as Medic gets tired of playing big brother to the newbie and kicks you out of his cell.”
“He…he’s not going to…Medic would never do that,” Ari protested, unable to think of a more coherent response. She’d never seen anyone raped before—nor had she ever wanted to. It was a horrible sight and yet she felt frozen to the spot, unable to look away.
“Oh yes he will kick you out pretty boy,” Tapper huffed, apparently warming to his task. “You keep claiming you’re still a virgin. If he hasn’t taken you yet, he’s not going to. Which means that sooner rather than later, he’s going to get tired of sharing his personal cell with you and boot you out on your delectable little rear, so he will.”
“You…you don’t know anything about it,” Ari exclaimed. “You’re sick—all you think of is…is this.” She pointed at the spectacle before her—the tattooed prisoner bent over, his jaw clenched, tears running down his stubbled cheeks as Tapper rode his ass.
“I know enough to know that a man’s not going to keep a pretty boy like you around unless he’s putting out,” Tapper grunted, shoving hard into the trembling body kneeling before him. “You can’t expect to get Medic’s protection for free forever. Eventually he’s going to get tired of you stringing him along, ‘ent he? And then…there I’ll be. Waiting…for…you.”
He thrust forward forcefully on the last three words, forcing the tattooed prisoner from his hands and knees, down to his elbows. He went with an anguished cry and tried to get away from Tapper but the crime lord held him fast by the hips, a look of twisted concentration on his ugly face. It was clear he was finishing inside the other man, Ari thought sickly. Goddess, of Mercy, how could anyone treat another person so horribly?
At last Tapper withdrew, grinning at her.
“There we go—all nice and broken in, lad,” he said and slapped the tattooed inmate on his quivering ass. There were trickles of blood running down the insides of the man’s thighs, Ari saw, feeling sick all over again. Clearly Tapper didn’t give a damn who he hurt in order to get his own pleasure. In fact, she had an idea that the pain he caused was part of the pleasure for the crime lord.
“You can get up now.” Tapper prodded the other man with the toe of one rubber-slippered foot. “Unless you want to wait for me to go again.”
His words seemed to galvanize his shivering, crying victim into action. Wincing in pain, he pulled up his prison-issued jumpsuit and got to his feet as quickly as he could.
“You’ll bleed for a bit,” Tapper told him matter-of-factly. “But you’re off my list, lad. For now, anyway.” Then he looked at Ari. “Just remember, pretty boy—you’re next.”
His menacing words seemed to break the paralysis that had gripped her. Turning on her heel, Ari ran as fast as she could, her rubber slippers flapping and squeaking down the tiled hallway as she rushed away from the awful scene.
Never, she thought frantically, her heart pounding, her throat filled with bile and her eyes stinging with tears of pity and disgust. He’ll never do that to me! Lathe won’t let him!
But even as she tried to reassure herself, Tapper’s words echoed in her head.
“I know enough to know that a man’s not going to keep a pretty boy like you around unless he’s putting out.”
Did Lathe really feel that way about her? Was he getting disgusted with waiting for her to “put out” as Tapper had said?
Of course not, Ari told herself uneasily. He thinks I’m a male and he doesn’t like other males—he said so himself.
Yes, but he had also held her in his arms and urged her to come and then licked her fingers clean afterwards. Even in Ari’s limited experience those weren’t the actions of an uninterested male. Maybe Tapper was right. Maybe Lathe was waiting for her to give him some compensation in return for his protection. Maybe—
“No, stop it. It’s not true—it’s not true,” Ari hissed to herself angrily as she took the stairs two at a time back down and away from the awful sight she’d witnessed in E-block.
But if it wasn’t true, then why did Tapper’s words weigh so heavily on her? And why couldn’t she get the big Kindred and his possible motives for protecting her out of her mind?
Maybe it would be better to hedge your bets, whispered a little voice in her mind. Do something about the situation before it gets out of control.
But what could she do?
Slowly an idea formed in Ari’s mind. At first she pushed it away, unwilling to even consider it. But it kept nudging at her, wiggling under the corners of her consciousness until she had to acknowledge it.
Surely not, she told herself. I couldn’t do that—could I?
But it would certainly solve her problems—both of them. It would show everyone in BleakHall that she most certainly belonged to Lathe in every way. And it would prove to the big Kindred that she was worth keeping around…worth protecting.
It was also humiliating and something she would never, ever have considered doing for any man during her life out in the free world away from BleakHall.
But the prison seemed to make things that might once have seemed like impossibilities into necessities.
I’ll do it, Ari thought, squeezing her hands into fists at her sides. Maybe…
Twenty-Seven
Ari was quiet during Mid Meal, answering only in monosyllables when Lathe asked how his first day at his new prison job had gone. But his large dark eyes kept darting to Lathe’s face when he thought Lathe wasn’t looking and then darting away again when Lathe locked gazes with him.
What in the Seven Hells was going on with the boy? Lathe wished he knew. All this jumpiness and uncertainty made him worried. Had something happened to Ari? Had someone threatened or hurt him?
Just the thought made a fierce, protective anger rise in his chest which Lathe subdued only with some difficulty. He was getting used to this strange, insistent urge to keep the boy safe but it wouldn’t do him any good to go into Rage, like a Kindred male trying to protect his female, when he didn’t even know what was going on.
Maybe I can get him to talk on the Rec Yard, he thought hopefully as Mukluk blew a blast on his incongruously dainty silver whistle, sending all the inmates scrambling for the outside door.
He went to the weight station as he usually did and noticed that Ari was following close on his heels. That was a good sign—at least the boy was staying near. But of course he couldn’t talk to Ari while he was pumping iron. There were too many listening ears on this end of the yard and besides, it was damn hard to talk when
you were lifting a thousand-weight of iron-bricks over your head.
Ari broke the silence at last as Lathe loaded the heavy bar with weights, testing as he went to make certain they were balanced.
“Need a spotter?” he asked as Lathe lay back against the bench and gripped the thick metal bar.
“A spotter?” Lathe suppressed the laugh that tried to rise in his throat because he recognized that no matter how ridiculous Ari’s offer was, it had been made in good faith. The boy was genuinely trying to be useful here. “All right, sure—you can spot me,” he said seriously. “Ready?”
“Um…sure.” Ari grasped the metal bar in the middle and helped—a very little bit—lower it down for Lathe. “Merciful Goddess that’s heavy,” he breathed when he at last relinquished his hold on it and watched as Lathe began to pump the weighty load slowly but steadily.
“Have to… stay in shape… at BleakHall,” Lathe informed him, grunting a little as he started another set.
“Yes, I…I guess so,” Ari muttered. He still seemed distracted, his eyes darting everywhere but lingering, Lathe saw, on the corner where Tapper was holding court with his cronies.
At last he couldn’t stand it anymore. Putting the heavy bar back on the stand with a bang, he sat up and frowned at the boy.
“Is something bothering you, Ari? Has Tapper been at you again?”
“At me?” Ari gave a jagged little laugh. “I guess you could say that. Tapper’s been ‘at me.’ But not nearly as much as he wants.”
Lathe wiped the sweat from his forehead with one sleeve of his trustee jumpsuit. He had the top part of it tied around his waist to keep him from sweating through it as he pumped.
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