Desire Behind Bars

by Salome Wilde

  If she was silent when she went to work on me, she was anything but when I went down on her. She’d grip my hair again to shove me tightly between her thighs and tell me just what she wanted. “Keep that tongue nice and flat for Honeybun,” she’d command with her rich Tennessee twang as she rode my face. When she needed more, it’d be, “Suck my clit, girl. Make it big and hard.” I could barely breathe, but even death wouldn’t have made me stop. Nothing was sweeter than when she called me “girl.” I felt so alive, and so wanted.

  I went from worry to panic after about fifteen minutes in that shed alone. Terrible thoughts crowded my brain. She’d forgotten because I was forgettable. She’d found someone new because I wasn’t worth more than a few sloppy romps. I pumped myself as full of self-loathing in those minutes as she’d pumped me full of hooch and happiness in all our time together. I went back to my bunk in tears, crying into my pillow as I hadn’t since my first weeks in prison.

  After a fitful but surprisingly dreamless sleep, I woke with puffy, sore eyes to the buzzer and the harsh lights snapping on. I had my early shift at the library, previously a biweekly penance for my glorious misdeeds, but today merely misery. I had no idea why Honeybun hadn’t shown and little means of finding out. Even if I felt bold enough to ask Sissy, it’d have to wait until lunch, or even later, depending on her work schedule. And, of course, she might not know anything.

  I couldn’t eat, but I managed to get down enough black coffee to handle the limited challenge to my brain of cataloguing some new books that had been donated by the local university. Judy’d been saying there would soon be college courses in the prison, but I’d heard that promise before. What did I need more education for, anyway? I’d had to quit before finishing my BA in History to support myself as a secretary long ago, and I’d sealed the deal on my future when I’d killed Sam.

  In the box before me there were old editions of psychology and women’s studies textbooks, a bunch of fiction paperbacks and a few volumes in Spanish. Making out cards and taping on Library Of Congress numbers so they could be shelved was at least something to do to keep my mind off what I couldn’t control. I smiled weakly at the thought of control, of how impossible it would be to control a wild woman like her. For almost three months I’d had her in my life. I should just be grateful and get back to the old sows, where I belonged.

  About halfway through the stack, I found a dog-eared copy of Raymond Chandler’s The High Window. I didn’t know the title, but Bonnie loved Chandler’s detective, Phillip Marlowe. She thought he was the sexiest character ever written, and she’d read excerpts to me in bed and ask me to act them out with her, adding graphic sexual interludes of her own imagining. Even if her unwillingness to leave her marriage didn’t clue me in about our future, her fondness for role-playing a sexist private eye who saw every woman as a threat should have.

  The combination of Chandler and Bonnie and Marlowe inspired a sudden click in my self-pitying brain. Maybe, I thought, Honeybun didn’t show because she couldn’t show. Maybe something had kept her away, something other than a new lover. And, like the flash of insight that lets the detective at last grasp the full truth within the web of deceit and lies, I leapt for the answer that kept my ties to Honeybun alive: she’d been caught with the hooch and sent to solitary.

  Gratitude for this solution quickly shifted to guilt. No one with a soul could wish anyone else time in solitary. My heart clenched at the thought of my big, lusty babe in the hole. She’d probably cope better than I had the one time I’d landed there, after fighting with a former cellmate over the brush and mirror she’d stolen from me and traded to another prisoner for cigarettes. Solitary could break your spirit, and I’d rather it happen to me a hundred times than to my Southern beauty. The thought made my heart hammer with a new knowledge, the knowledge that I was in love with Honeybun.

  The next three days were perhaps the longest of my life, or felt so. Sissy reported that Honeybun hadn’t been to work, but she knew nothing else. Offering to loan her my well-thumbed copy of the lesbian pulp novel Anybody’s Girl brought a promise to dig for more information, along with a smirk and a quip. “Who’d have thought you’d be the bitch she’s been bragging to everyone in shop about.” She looked me up and down and clearly saw nothing she liked. “No accounting for tastes,” she added before leaving with the book. I ignored the insult while I relished the implications of the news. I couldn’t believe Honeybun would be talking about me to anyone, but I thrilled at the sliver of possibility that she was. That I truly was Honeybun’s “bitch.”

  On the fourth day of scant eating and little energy, I finally got confirmation of Honeybun’s whereabouts. She’d been caught with several jars of contraband hooch beneath her bed and sent to the hole for a week. Again, I felt the pull of contradictory reactions. A week down there was hell on earth, but a week also meant she’d be out in only three more days. I thanked Sissy for the scoop, even as I began to contemplate a plan of action.

  “I had no idea, Miss Bev,” Nickerson said, eyes wide. “That’s awful.”

  I rejoiced in his sympathy, which I was milking for all it was worth with fake tears that I drew from real pain. Nickerson had no reason to doubt I had a niece, Honeybun (whom I called Carter, her last name, because I didn’t know her real first name), or that she was the daughter of my younger half sister Lana and her Southern husband Al. It wasn’t difficult to stretch the truth that they did indeed have a blonde daughter, even if she was both younger than Honeybun and living where she was born, in New York, as far as I knew. Nickerson couldn’t know Lana’s husband was a Yankee because neither Lana nor her family ever visited me. In fact, I hadn’t seen her since the trial, when she’d cried for Sam—her father not mine—for our mother, and for herself. Mom had lived with Lana until her death, the two no doubt bonding over Sam’s absence as they had over the secret of his abuse.

  Nickerson continued. “I hate to see you like this. You’re such a good woman.”

  So much like my mother, I filled in mentally for him.

  “I wish I could do something,” he said instead.

  I pressed his arm warmly and let my voice grow ragged. “I couldn’t ask. You’ve always been so kind.” I held my breath, hoping he’d take the bait.

  “Ask what?” he replied, right on cue.

  I should’ve gone another round, but I was too desperate. “You could take her a note.” Quickly, I waved my hands in front of my face and grimaced. “I can’t believe I said that aloud. Forgive me. I’m just so worried.”

  Nickerson wrapped an arm around my shoulder and brought his voice down to a conspiratorial whisper. “You write it this afternoon and I’ll take it tonight, and I’ll let you know what she says after, to ease your mind.”

  When I kissed his cheek with genuine gratitude and looked as if I’d cry again, he blushed and tutted. How could he not help someone out who was doing a good deed for family, even if that family member had done wrong to end up in the hole? He concluded with the most generous words of all. “And I’ll see if we can’t do something to get her into A Block with her sweet old Auntie Bev to keep her out of trouble. There’s Bicks’ bunk to fill, after all.” I managed not to cringe at his description of me.

  It was far easier to slip Nickerson the note after lunch than it was to write it. I needed to reassure Honeybun that I’d be waiting for her after solitary, and I needed to find out if she cared. So much was at stake.

  Honeybun, I began. So sorry you’re in solitary. I’ve been there, so I know what you’re going through. Know that I’m here for you—as much as you want me to be—when you get out. Might even be able to get you into my block, if you’d like. I signed the note “Auntie Bev.”

  The report from Nickerson was short but sweet, though hours passed like days. “She said she’s very grateful for your concern. That she’d love to be in A Block, and would even share a bunk if offered.” He made the aside that he couldn’t promise anything like that anytime soon, at which I smiled wanly and no
dded. “She said she was looking forward to sharing recipes, and that she’d like to do some gardening together, like you used to.”

  As Nickerson babbled proudly on about how he liked planting, too, and that it wouldn’t take much to get the prison garden going again, my thoughts were miles away. I was imagining Honeybun in my arms, the two of us making love in my bunk, jars of Honeybun hooch fermenting beneath us.

  Dislocations

  by Alex Andrea

  Work. Prison. Gaol. The smell hit her first: concrete and bleach with the slightest undertone of mold. She straightened her shoulders and focused on keeping her mind clear for the day ahead, mentally repeating her self-control mantra, Stay sharp, stay calm, stay safe. Jan stood facing the guard gate on the sunny east corner of the admin block. The cells, yard and activity rooms were part of the prison block. Together the buildings looked like two mismatched cubes intersecting at one corner, creating a boxy figure-eight layout. As a result, every hallway led you back to where you’d started. She was early, so there was no line up.

  “Thorpe, how you doing? Didn’t know you were back today,” McPhee said, smiling.

  Jan managed a grin as she slid her bag onto the X-ray table.

  “How’s the arm?” He glanced up from the scanning monitor and she saw real concern in his eyes.

  “All good, Mac, hundred percent.” She answered with the confidence she wanted to feel and stepped through the security scanner.

  “Glad you’re back.” He nodded and winked.

  “Thanks.” She wondered if Mac noticed that she used her left hand to retrieve the small backpack. It wasn’t pain she felt in her right shoulder, but tension. Two months of physiotherapy and light duty at head office had completely healed the dislocation. Jan knew that physically she was fine, but emotionally she still had some scattered pieces to fit into place. She looked up towards the camera and waited for the thunk and slide of the secure door mechanism. She wondered briefly who was stationed at command.

  Lunch stowed in the fridge, she went through the familiar motions of making coffee. The persistent staleness was soon replaced by the fresh-brewed smell. Chief Warden Johanna Trevigge showed up just as Jan was checking her hair and uniform in the mirror next to the bank of staff lockers. Johanna stood behind her. The warden was head and shoulders taller than Jan, and with her hair pulled back into a tight French braid her features looked more sculpted than ever. Jan had a flashback to a similar view: Johanna, long curls tumbling over her bare shoulders, sliding her arms around Jan from behind, strong lips pulling at Jan’s neck as their fingers pulled at her uniform.

  They had started flirting when they were both guards. Johanna had been finishing her degree part-time so they had taken things slowly. By the time Johanna applied for her first promotion to Shift Supervisor, Jan was completely in love. Jan had been willing to transfer, to find a way to make it work, but Johanna had not. Three years ago she closed the door on their relationship with a text: “Now that I’m your boss it’s just impossible.” She shook the memory away. Aware of the security cameras and the possibility they were being observed, Jan froze, hoping her thoughts had not shown on her face.

  “I’ve done a lot of thinking while you were on leave,” Johanna said. Her voice was so quiet Jan wondered if she had meant to whisper. Jan had liked it when Johanna would whisper in her ear in the staff room. She used to encourage all sorts of risky behavior at work. Jan had sometimes been downright cocky herself before: before their shared secret became Jan’s private pain, before the daily torment of seeing but not touching, before feeling love but never speaking of it. Thinking about what, She wanted to scream, kissing me or firing me? Her heart raced. Now the anxiety shivering up her spine was equal parts attraction and anger. She watched Johanna’s eyes trace a line from her shoulder to her neck.

  “I like the hair,” her voice sounded louder and more confident. When their gaze met in the mirror and Jan clearly saw desire there, she stepped away and headed for the counter to grab a mug. She couldn’t let herself feel any strong emotions on her first day back, especially not rage or passion. The only way she would get through her shift was to return to her usual professionalism, to keep her feelings partitioned, stay safely distanced from everything and everyone in this building.

  “Thank you. It’s a safety precaution, mostly, but I like it.” Jan ran her fingers over the back of her skull, smoothing her newly shorn hair. “Coffee?” She looked Johanna in the eye, trying to communicate with her straight posture and calm manner that whatever they’d once felt for each other would not be rekindled in the staff room. The yearning in the warden’s gaze seemed to evaporate. She pulled at her jacket to straighten it, even though it was perfectly pressed and crisp.

  “No thanks, Thorpe. Glad to have you back. See you at preshift.” She strode silently back down the carpeted hall to her office. It was the only carpet in the entire prison. Soles squeaking on polished linoleum signaled the arrival of more guards. Jan added sugar to her mug before turning to face the room, feeling secure in her plan to stay in control.

  She heard Sharkovski’s deep voice and smiled in anticipation of their reunion. Francis Sharkovski—former linebacker, power-lifter and classically trained tenor filled the doorway. As he approached, he was still half-looking over his shoulder and didn’t notice Jan right away. She put down her coffee.

  “…it’s all about directional pain, baby!” he joked with the man behind him. At last he looked in her direction. “Jan!” He dropped his giant gym bag, and Jan was lifted into a tight bear hug. She squeezed him back as best she could and laughed at his happiness. “Why didn’t you call? I could have picked you up.” He put her down and held her at arm’s length. “Shoulder good?” The careful pressure of his hands on her shoulders felt as good as the hug.

  “Yeah, Sharky, I’m fine.” He gave her a questioning look, so she insisted: “I swear.” Happiness at seeing her surrogate big brother was safe as long as it was confined to the staff room. Her cheerfulness was replaced by something infinitely more complex when Salome Josepha James came in. Salome stowed her bag and closed her locker, not noticing that Jan watched her every move. When she offered Jan a soft smile, Jan simply nodded at her, convinced that if she opened her mouth she would make a complete fool of herself.

  For the guards, any show of emotion was a potential weakness for the prisoners to exploit. All her feelings would have to be toned down before she was out on the wards. As Sharky introduced her to the few newly hired guards, she thought about how good she had become at hiding her feelings. Perhaps that had been part of the problem with Johanna, sharing seductive whispers and stolen kisses one moment and then cold professionalism the next. They even avoided coming out to their colleagues.

  “Good to see you, Thorpe.” Salome stepped towards her and for an instant Jan imagined that she was going to embrace her. Her one constant companion since the incident was the thought of Sal’s strong arms around her, protecting her, supporting her arm and easing the searing pain of her dislocated shoulder. She recalled looking up into Sal’s light brown eyes, feeling her strength, smelling the light lime scent of her shampoo as prisoners scattered and guards yelled. She felt hot, momentarily lost in the past.

  Jan had been jumped during breakfast. A violent offender had grabbed her by the hair and shoved her into the metal doorjamb while twisting her arm. At the time, she, Sharky and Phuong were the only guards present. Her screams caused chaos in the cafeteria. By the time staff stationed in other areas of the prison arrived, Sharky had tackled the prisoner and Phuong was yelling orders at the jostling inmates. Jan was curled on the floor, gasping in pain. Sal had gently rolled her over and supported her weight across her thighs. Coming out of the blinding pain, the first thing Jan could focus on was Sal. She was leaning over her, shielding Jan with her upper body, repeating, “You’re safe, Thorpe,” and “I’ve got you.” Looking up through her tears, Jan saw something more than duty in Sal’s eyes. She saw the anxiety when Sal looked around at the
prisoners whom Jan only perceived as blurry beige shapes lined up along the wall. When the darker shapes of black-clad guards arrived and Sal once again looked down at her there was concerned affection in Sal’s eyes. Johanna came into her limited vision, “Jan,” a tortured whisper on her lips. As Johanna’s soft hands caressed her bloodied face she fainted. She regained consciousness while being lifted into a wheelchair. With both Sal and Johanna close enough to kiss, she could remember feeling happy. She had said something, but she couldn’t remember what. Overwhelmed by physical pain, she had blacked out.

  More guards entered the room and greeted Jan, pulling her out of her memories. Locker doors slammed and conversation rose while they waited for the warden. Jan sat sideways on the bench at the staff table. She faced the sofas and armchairs, sharing nods and hellos with everyone settling in. Sharky was hamming it up for the new guards, but when Johanna entered the room his jokes and all other conversation quickly stopped. Sal came to sit on the bench next to Jan. She leaned her back against the table and sipped her coffee. She was close enough that Jan could smell her fruity shampoo. The fantasies that had filled Jan’s mind over the past few months returned with the scent. Her pulse throbbed at the thought of Sal’s warm, capable hands.

  Jan had checked the schedule on the staff website before leaving home. She was partnered with Salome on general patrol for the first half of her shift, then she would switch to command for her second half. Guards on patrol spent most of their shifts within a few feet of their partners. Several hours in the company of the woman she couldn’t stop thinking about would make Jan’s mission of emotional self-control much more challenging. Although she enjoyed the thought of partnering with Salome, she felt increasing anxiety at the thought of general patrol. GP meant replacing the guards that had escorted the women to breakfast. Since Jan had been attacked, schedules had shifted to allow a thirty-minute overlap between graveyard and day shift, keeping additional guards at breakfast and dinner. She was relieved that her first day would not be a full day patrolling the wards.