by Alexis Angel
"I thought you were feeling better?" she asks.
"Me too. Looks like we're both wrong."
"Maybe you're just stiff."
I laugh. "You make me stiff."
I see her look at my mouth for a good long while, like she heard what I said but is taking a while to process it all. Will she be flattered or offended?
"Immature—but you know something? You remind me of someone."
"Who's that?" I ask.
"My father, actually."
"Is that a good thing, or a bad thing?"
"Neither. It is what it is. He had a way of putting his foot into his own mouth—like you."
"I only put my foot in my mouth when I'm around beautiful women."
"Does that line work often?"
"It's not a line. I mean it."
"Sure, Mr. Stone. Look, I know guys like you. They flatter you one minute and walk out the next. My father walked out when I was young. He had his faults, but he had his kinder, tender moments too, like the night he decided to sacrifice his booze money on a Barbie doll, or when he'd let me ride around on his shoulders at the local mall when my legs were too tired to walk."
Her honesty surprises me, and I feel like I should be honest too. I say, "You're right. I'm far from perfect. I've fucked up in a lot of ways. I've hurt people. I'm not proud of that, but I'm working on it, you know?"
"Good. At least you recognize that. Let me ask you a question. What constitutes a 'perfect' day for you?"
"Easy. Any day not spent in this prison."
"No, I mean, outside of here."
I find myself looking at the kindness of her face. The way the corner of her mouth is turned up in the beginning of a smile. Her empathy. Her soft blue eyes and her red hair burning like a perfect halo around her head. She's the first person in this place who seems to give an ounce of shit about me. I take a deep breath, and wrack my brain for the right answer before responding.
"Let's see. If I'm honest, I don't need much to have a perfect day. A roof over my head, a warm bed, a good meal—maybe a woman next to me, kicking my butt in a game of Uno or something." I say this and laugh. "I just mean that I'm happy with the simple things. Being in here has put that into perspective, you know? I bet you think I've gone soft or something."
"No, no I don't. I get it. After my dad left my mom and I, I felt the same way. I mean, any day that I wasn't worried about filling up the bathtub with water because our utilities were getting shut off was a good day. So long as we had a roof, a meal, and a bed, I was happy. Of course, I always envisioned having a man by my side too, but I've learned that's a ridiculous thing to hold onto."
I notice that we are now both locked into each other's gaze. I can't believe she's opening up to me like this. I mean everyone in this place keeps a healthy distance—the only thing I ever hear coming from people's mouths are either rules or insults, so this is different. I take a quick look around the room and notice that we are alone. The guard is gone, and so is everyone else. So, I lean a little closer. I notice that she seems to be leaning into me as well. We are so close now that I can feel her breath on my upper lip. I want to touch her hair, her cheek. But just as I'm about to touch her lips with mine, a guard runs in and we both snap our bodies back like rubber bands.
For a moment, I'm worried that he saw us, but judging by his frantic entrance, I can tell that he hasn't. His mind is on something else.
"Kerri, we need you! There's a lot of blood!" he says.
Kerri
The guard looks frantic. His hair is disheveled and he is acting panicked. His shirt is has come partially untucked. I wonder if it's a true emergency, or if he's overreacting… he's new here. How long has it been, maybe a couple of weeks? In any case, he hasn't seen it all yet. He's as green as they come, so that wouldn't surprise me.
"Kerri, we need you! There's a lot of blood!" he says.
"I'll be right there," I say, and then I look over at Lucien Stone. My mind is flopping between the current emergency and this man sitting in front of me. His soft, brown hair and his broad shoulders are just begging me to touch them. Did we almost just share a moment? He was leaning into me—and I was leaning into him, but I'm not sure where we were going. And to top it off, he's an inmate. What am I even thinking? I can't believe I'm having these thoughts. What are you doing? I ask myself. You'll get in serious trouble. Now is not the time to compromise your career. Do you really want to go and mess everything up now? My pep talk seems to help, but looking at Lucien—his strong arms, and his soft, full lips, and—I-I don't know. He stirs feelings in me that I thought I no longer had, at least not since Jonathan. But my mind snaps back to the present and what I do know is that I have to leave him right now, and follow the guard.
"I'm sorry, I need to go. Just uh—t-take it easy, OK? Don't overextend that arm and I promise you'll be fine. Give it time, and stay off the weights. Bones don't heal overnight." I watch as he just looks at me, unable to find anything else to say, and I have no choice but to turn away and leave him.
I follow the guard into the next room and I see a man sitting in one of the plastic chairs. He's pudgy, with a haircut that looks as if it were cut with a bowl—perfectly round and reaching to the tips of his thick eyebrows in the front, and the tips of his ears around the sides. I don't actually see the back of his hair right way, but it all looks symmetrical. I look at his nose and see that it is swollen and an angry purple color at the bridge. It's leaking a steady stream of blood down his lips and chin, and it's pooling onto the floor.
"What happened?" I ask.
The inmate doesn't look at me, and keeps his eyes on the floor. I prod him a second time and then he mutters, "It was a dare… My cellmate had five packets of Ramen noodles and a honey bun. I've been lookin' at those damn things for weeks. He probably wasn't even gonna do nothin' with 'em, but I wanted 'em so damn bad. I would've done damn near anythin' for 'em. What was I supposed to do? I don't have any commissary money. I thought it was my lucky day."
"So, what did you do?" I ask, trying to get to the bottom of things.
"Well, my cellmate dared me to snort two fat lines of table salt. He said if I could pull that off, I could have 'em all. On account of my stomach growling and my mouth practically drooling all over the place, I took him up on it."
"And that's why your nose is bleeding and swollen?" I ask.
"No, not exactly. So, this dude sets the lines up, and cuts them perfectly straight—made them extra big—that bastard—and I snorted it all up. And let me tell you, it burned somethin' awful! I'm not lying. I swear, it was like someone had lit a match up there, and I was dancin' around our cell in a panic, and I'm not even one to dance. But then I had a sick feeling in my stomach—like I had swallowed a bunch of water from the ocean, but I figured I'd get rid of that feeling with the honey bun—sweeten up those taste buds. But then as soon as I go to grab it, that son of a bitch says he was just kiddin'. Can you fuckin' believe that? Who kids about somethin' like that? He says he just wanted to see how stupid I could be, and that was it. That's when we got into it. I think he broke my nose."
I step closer and inspect his face. "I agree," I say. "It definitely looks broken to me. I see some bruising starting to form just under your eyes as well, which is also a sign of a beak. If the fracture is bad, you could need surgery, but right now, I think it'll heal on its own. Despite all this blood, it doesn't look too bad."
I grab an ice pack and bring it back. "Here, use this and keep your head tilted back. I'm going to pack a bit of gauze into your nostrils—it may hurt a bit, but that should help stop the bleeding. But do me a favor please. Quit putting things up your nose, OK?"
The inmate chuckles a bit. "Sorry, I can't promise you that ma'am. I got the honey bun and the Ramen after all, and you know what? I'd do it all again for those damn things. Little packages of heaven if you ask me."
I shake my head but decide to not prod him any further. And then after I stop the bleeding, I turn to the guard. "Jesus, Ger
ry. With the way you ran in here, you'd think someone lost their head!" I say, laughing. "Next time, hold the drama, OK?"
"I know—sorry 'bout that. It was just a lot of blood to see all of a sudden, I guess."
"I’m just giving you a hard time. I suppose it's always better to err on the side of caution," I reply. "You can go ahead and take this inmate back now. He should be just fine."
I watch as they both get up to the leave. The inmate walks with his head still tilted back and his mouth slightly ajar for breathing. I keep watching as his feet do a delicate shuffle out of the room and then I walk back to my desk. I sit in my chair and look over at the spot where Lucien sat just moments before, and I exhale deeply. I swivel around in a few lazy circles and look at the calendar hanging on the wall. The image is a tropical beach scene with palm trees, an impossibly blue ocean, and white sand. I picture myself lying on that beach, my skin moist with a mixture of warm, salty air and coconut-scented tanning oil. I can also picture Lucien there with me too—a thin film of sweat across his rugged abs and his hands on the small of my back. In my mind, I feel protected in his embrace.
Then I hear footsteps just outside the door and the noise causes my mind to bounce back to reality. Why is this happening again? Why am I falling for someone who is completely outside the realm of possibility? Why am I allowing myself to have these thoughts? My mind is reeling with a million questions and no answers. I know what I need to do… I need to stay focused. My career is important, and nothing is going to get in the way of my goals. And right now, that goal is to go to nursing school. As a medical assistant, I don't have many options, but if I'm an RN, the opportunities are limitless. With that, I could take care of myself, and maybe even my mother.
Now that I've got my head on straight, I reach for my purse and a pen. I'm keeping a running to-do list in a small journal. Call me old fashioned, but no matter how many 'productivity' apps there are currently available in the app store, nothing comes close to a good old journal and pen. I keep everything straight that way, and it works. I keep digging my hand through my bad. In moments like these, when my bag feels like a frustrating abyss, I vow to dump everything and get organized, but it never seems to happen. I still can't find it and after a few more minutes, I decide to just dump my bag out on top of my desk. Everything rolls out, and I push it into a single pile—crumpled receipts, lip gloss, keys, pens, gum, hair bands—everything I would expect except my journal. My heart starts to race—I keep everything in that journal. I'd be lost without it—notes, phone numbers, personal thoughts, and even passwords, which I know is a bad move. Where can it be? I am 100% positive that I packed it. I always pack it.
And then my heart freezes in my chest. It's missing.
Lucien
Maybe I don't understand women, but who keeps a daily, hand-written journal these days? Isn't there an app for stuff like that? I carefully take the blue, spiral-bound journal out from under my shirt and look at it in my hands. I can see she uses it often. The corners are bent and the blue cover is fading. It's surprising I wasn't caught. When she looked back at me in the infirmary, I thought for sure I was fucking done for. But you know something? I don't feel bad about taking it. Sure, she may miss it at first, but it's just a book. It's replaceable. She'll get over it.
I open the journal and see that this woman's got a list for everything. There are notes upon notes and some that read, "pay cell phone bill," and "go for a run," which make her seem pretty organized I guess, and then there are some more interesting notes like "change wifi password to 'shutyourdogup' so the neighbor gets the hint." I grin and think that at least she has a sense of humor.
I think back to how long its been since I've lived in the real world—to a time when things like barking dogs were actually a problem, and not whether or not some asshole was going to punk you in the yard, or whether or not you had shower shoes to get cleaned up in because you didn't dare touch your bare feet against some fucking scummy tile. What I wouldn't give to have those kinds of problems now. But what am I even saying? I'm in this shithole for life. I didn't pull that fucking trigger—I ain't a baby killer, but who's going to believe me? Not a single person, that's who. If they have their way, I'll take my last breathe between these four walls. They'd love to see me rot in this joint.
Maybe if I made lists like these—run today, eat tomorrow, and pay this, and pay that—I wouldn't have been such a fuck up, right? It's hard to say. Life seems like one giant poker game to me. Some people are just born getting dealt a shitty hand. If you think that's just some negative bullshit story, it's not. It's the fucking truth.
It wasn't my choice to have the parents I did, or grow up in certain neighborhoods. I think back to being 8 years old, living in a small, brown house with my mom, dad, and brother. One night, my dad's been tinkering with his VW bug in the garage. "Come out here son!" he yells. I come out, and it's night. I remember the air being fucking freezing and only wearing a thin, white t-shirt. I cross my arms across my chest to try and keep warm, and also, looking back on it, I think as a defense for what's to come. My old man looks at me and says, "It's time you learn to be a real man. Grab this." His voice is slow and gravelly from years of smoking and hard drinking. He hands me his shotgun. From the look on his face, I know better than to talk back. I unhook my arms and take it. My arms sag under the weight and seriousness of it all.
"Point it there—to the back of the garage," he commands. I raise it up and rest it against my shoulder like I've seen in movies—as if I were some fucking cowboy. He continues, "Now pull the trigger son." I pull it and I'm bucked back, my ears are ringing, and I'm crying some hot tears. I remember being scared out of my fucking mind. Who the hell knows where that bullet even went? And my dad got some kick out of that—boy, he was laughing so hard his Coors Light nearly came out of his nose. Some prankster he was. That was the last time I saw him. We later learned he ran off with a woman named Ruby and was married by an Elvis impersonator in Vegas. My mom was so depressed she locked herself in her room for weeks on end. I'd watch her hold a pen in her hand in an attempt to write love letters to my old man, but she'd fall asleep in a fit of emotional exhaustion before she could ever actually write them. I'd come check on her in the morning and see that the pen ink had bled into her sheets—a pool of blue as dark as her state of mind.
I tried to be a straight arrow in school. And for a minute, I thought that maybe I had a real shot. Maybe I'd graduate and go to college. But who the fuck was I kidding? I never had a shot. I was on the losing end of the stick from day one. And once I realized that, I stopped caring. Then fast forward a few years and I meet Billy and the whole gang of those assholes—stealing cars, fucking women, and getting sucked into the crazy web of mob politics. Fucking Billy. If I would've known I was going to be framed, I would've put my fist so far down his fake-ass mouth it would've came out of his asshole. I should've rearranged his face, that's for sure. Too bad I'll probably never get that chance now.
I let out a sigh and lay down on the bed. The pillow is flat, but it's still better than the few months I found myself sleeping in a car—it's impossible to get comfortable in a small car, and if you've never tried it, I don't recommend it. I look at the blue journal again and flip through the pages. My eye lands on one page in particular. The handwriting seems hurried with the letters written in large loops. It reads:
"I saw a homeless man outside of the grocery store yesterday and I gave him $100. It was a lot to give, but it made me feel good. Then, later I was flooded with old memories. If I wasn't burdened by J--, I wouldn't be here, hiding in the alcove with bags under my eyes. I can't stop crying today. I feel stupid. He's not worth crying about anymore. I want to be the bigger person. I want to forgive him, but I can't. But at least I have this secret spot—The Alcove—it's my one sanctuary in this place, where no one finds me. At least here I can cry without anyone asking questions."
The Alcove? I'm guessing she means a secret spot here in the prison. I wonder where though? And
who is J? Sounds like a Grade-A bastard if you ask me. I continue to flip through the pages and a loose picture falls out. It flutters to the floor of my cell in slow motion. I bend over and pick it up. It's a picture of Kerri. She's standing by a pool in a red bikini that nearly matches her hair. She is dipping one toe into the water and her head is tilted back into a smile. I can't help but look at her tits—those perfectly firm mounds, and her legs—toned and long. Holy shit. I've seen her outside of her uniform and she looks even better than I imagined. I picture myself moving my hands up her legs—as if I am at her feet and working my way up, and then in between her smooth thighs, and inside of her secret crevices. I kiss her warm skin and drag my lips upward.
Then I looked back at the picture—at her tits, and I envision my mouth wrapped around her nipples—maybe even gently holding them in between my teeth. I'm giving them a little nibble, only enough to send a shiver down her spine. And then I look at the tight crevice between her tits; I picture sliding my cock between them. Warm and tight. That thought puts me over the top. I notice that my cock is throbbing and erecting a tight tent inside of my pants.
I wet my hand with my mouth and reach into my pants, grabbing my cock with a firm grip. I imagine this grip is really the crevice of her tits hugging my cock, and I stroke it, slow and steady at first, and then I increase the tempo as if I were fucking those sweet tits of hers. Oh fuck, I say, just above a whisper. I move faster. I feel my balls clench. My whole body is pulsing with desire. Shit, I can't hold back any longer. My body bucks and ropes of hot cum shoots out of my cock and into my fist. I keep coming and some of it shoots onto the floor. I continue to milk my cock, even when I think I have nothing left. Wave after wave of cum is spilling around me.