“Do you plan to kill yourself while you’re in lockup?” asked the dead-eyed C.O. at the intake desk.
Gage imagined Ariel’s retort: “Why on earth would anyone want to kill themselves in here?” He shook his head.
“Say yes or no. I’m typing.”
“No.”
“Any gang affiliations?”
“No.”
The officer click-clacked on her keyboard. “Do you have enemies inside that you’re aware of?”
Gage shook his head again. “No.”
“Are you a homosexual, or do you engage in sexual relations with men?”
“No,” Gage half-lied. The intake officer looked up and met his eye, then returned blank-faced to the screen. Click clack clack.
Gage shifted in his orange jumpsuit. His jeans, polo shirt and hoody were bagged with his phone and filed away in the depths of Orleans Parish Prison. His hours-long spell of traumatic disassociation concluded when he was ordered to squat and cough, stark naked before a handful of COs.
It can’t get any worse than this, Gage assured himself. This is your life but it’s just your life right now. (Cough.)
The C.O. gestured for Gage’s removal. “All done.”
“Where’m I going?”
“You wait for your bond hearing.”
“When’s that?”
“Court’s back in session Monday.”
It was Saturday. “And then what?”
“You move into a gated community.”
#
Four hours later, the instructional video in the dismal holding area looped for the sixteenth time.
A grim, perfunctory female CO droned, “…defined by the PREA as ‘the carnal knowledge, oral sodomy, sexual assault with an object, or sexual fondling of a person forcibly or against that person’s will…’”
Gage’s eyes fell onto a bank of phones beneath the screen, all in use, with three inmates waiting in line. He scanned the waiting crowd, eyes resting on a small, wiry, 50-something whom Gage figured he could take in a fight.
“Hey, can you just call anybody on those?” He pointed toward the bank of phones.
“I s’pose,” the inmate responded, his face tightening briefly. “I’m Tic-Tac.”
“Gage. Can I call collect?”
“Whoever ya callin’s gotta get an account first. Prepaid.”
“You think the C.O.s would, like, lemme get a number off my cell phone?” Gage gestured toward a forbidding bank of windows in the corner.
His new friend was amused. “You got a nice phone?”
“It’s okay,” Gage replied. “I mean, there are nicer ones.”
Tic-Tac ticced again. “Ain’t no way yer gonna getcher numbers. Odds is you ain’t gonna getcher phone back, neither. I got two stoled from this shithole before.”
“How do inmates steal the phones?”
“Not inmates, bro. I’m talkin’ ‘bout the COs. They dematerialize ‘em. Shit got resale value.”
The only phone number that Gage knew offhand belonged to his parents. Reaching out to them wasn’t a consideration, he decided. He knew what lay at the end of that path. He’d been the Good Boy all his life. He was always The Boy Who Did What’s Best For Everyone …else.
Scratching his forearm, Gage noticed a message in fading marker, still legible:
“Property of Brian. 504-555-0137.”
#
“You like getting topped by a dirty hooker?” Ariel barked at Gordon, who lay face-down beneath him on the bed.
“Oh yes!”
Ariel studied Gordon’s face as he worked. No signs of distress nor discomfort. Quite the opposite.
During their getting-ready conversation, Ariel followed Gordon’s lead and assumed a bossy, dominant role, mindful that Gordon hadn’t touched anyone sexually in over three years.
Not since the fire.
Ariel abused Gordon as gently as he could without breaking character. From fear of overtaxing his client, and with the tape in sight, Ariel galloped toward the finish. “You want my babies? Beg.”
“Oh please, Sir!”
“‘Cause my big ol’ dick makes babies.” His delivery of the line rang true, Ariel realized, kissing Gordon’s cheek and pounding away. “You good?”
“Yes, Daddy!”
After a few preparatory yelps (as if before a sneeze), Ariel roared as he blew triumphantly into the condom, his face beatific, Gordon whimpering happily beneath him. Then Ariel laughed, shuddered, and collapsed on top of his client with sweaty, full-body affection.
“I get a little slippery, in case you didn’t notice,” Ariel whispered, his mouth in Gordon’s ear.
“Why were you laughin’ just now?”
“‘Cause you remind me how I love my job.”
“Havin’ sex all the time?”
“Bringing a guy places he doesn’t get to go in his day-to-day.”
Gordon relaxed. “‘Kay.”
“You having fun?” Ariel asked.
“Oh yes.” Gordon turned his face to the light.
Ariel kissed his head. “Good.” He ran a gentle finger along a knot of scars on Gordon’s right residual arm. “This all right?”
“Don’t hurt none. It’s nice.” Gordon stretched beneath Ariel. “Only people who touch me are doctors and nurses. So thank you.”
“Thank you.”
“Sorry it took a long time to get me ready. To get clean in the back. I got embarrassed.”
“Pssch. Medical stuff don’t faze me a bit,” Ariel assured him. “My friend Tyler was an RN, back in her twenties. She says in a previous life I musta been a triage nurse on the battlefield. I’m unflappable.” He nestled his nose in the nape of Gordon’s neck. “Was I too mean?”
“No! Guys get scared to, y’know, do it how I enjoy…” Gordon’s voice trailed off.
“You showed hella confidence just now.”
Gordon demurred into the pillow.
“It takes confidence to be vulnerable. More than to be cocky.” Ariel slapped Gordon’s butt. “Can I help you shoot?”
Gordon paused. “Do you mind… Could you… spoon me?”
“Bruh,” Ariel growled in his tough-daddy voice. “I will spoon you THE FUCK UP.”
Gordon giggled. Ariel rolled aside, tied off the rubber, then spooned Gordon, wrapping a protective arm around his chest. “Too rough?” Ariel teased, settling in.
Gordon chuckled. Ariel felt his client’s body melt for the first time in his arms. They breathed together for a long spell. In, out… in, out… in, out…
Finally Gordon ventured: “You really have kids?”
Ariel paused. “I have a son.”
“How old?”
“Twenty-one.”
“He in your life?”
Ariel considered. “Saw him this morning.”
“He know what you do for a living?”
“He does.”
“He accept you anyways?”
“He does,” Ariel replied, realizing that it was true.
“So he loves you, then. You’re blessed.”
Lost in thought, recalling the awful conflict earlier, Ariel stroked Gordon’s cheek.
Gordon kissed his hand. “Most folks don’t look beyond the surface. You gotta hold tight to the ones who do.” Gordon snuggled in as if to fill the vacancy that compressed Ariel’s heart all of a sudden.
“Because while the surface may be true,” Gordon added, “so is everything else.”
#
Tyler unlocked the empty apartment and pushed the door open for Betty, who rolled in with her pink carry-on, eyes alight.
“Oooh! This is where GramMeeMee put me when I was the cutest little girl,” she cooed. She inhaled through her nostrils, then exhaled in a nostalgic manner. “I remember this smell!”
Tyler wrinkled her nose.
Betty fanned herself. “Sorry. I’m just an old softie.”
“Place got pretty dilapidated.” Tyler gestured toward the crumbling ceiling, then the crumbling walls.
“Really?” Betty looked around brightly. “Hasn’t changed much from what I recall.” She ran her finger along the rim of a three-inch hole knocked in the plaster. “I remember this little, this little knothole. I dropped my first sanitary napkin I ever used right in there, in that lil’ cranny.” She stood on her tiptoes and peered inside. “Like a time capsule.”
“How long you stayin’?”
Betty turned. “I thought I’d cool my heels ‘til a little ‘trouble’ dissipates back home.” She leaned in, as if to a conspirator. “Betwixt us goyles, I got enmeshed in a little scenario back in Boca Raton.”
“Scenario!” Tyler replied in a sisterly manner. “Do tell!”
“Well, you can mention it to Ariel,” Betty began, “but if you do, tell him I didn’t want you to tell him. I’m not sure how else to, y’know, break the news. You know how he is with grudges.” She took in the view across the courtyard, reflecting. “He’s still mad at me for missing his formative years. You’d think I chose the penitentiary.”
An uncomfortable pause descended. “What went down in Boca Raton?” Tyler finally asked.
“Here’s the thing about the cartels,” Betty began. “They don’t tell you they’re cartels. And before you know it, your courier gets pinched by the DEA, and you’re left holding the bag for a lot of product worth gobs of money...”
Tyler winced. “Like how much?”
“Oh, just… a lot. Five figures. Wait, do I just count the zeroes?” Betty wondered. “No. Six figures. Times three. Or four. Thereabouts.”
“You could just be, like, overthinking it,” Tyler consoled her. “Maybe it ain’t so serious.”
“They firebombed my house.”
“Oh.”
“So I grabbed one of my ‘go bags’ that I stash in adjacent cities, and drove here to cool my jets - ‘heels’? No, ‘jets’ is right too - and get, y’know, grounded, reconnect with my heart center.” She dropped the subject, turning brightly to Tyler. “And how are you, punkin’? Better?”
“Than what?”
“Didn’t Ariel say you had a little, y’know, long-term fiasco with certain substances? He said you were kind of a trainwreck when he found you, if I remember right. Maybe he said ‘shipwreck.’”
“A decade ago, yeah,” Tyler replied with as much spunk as she could muster. “Been on the mend ever since.”
Betty wasn’t listening. “I’m home again.” She took a deep breath and hugged herself. “Home. Like Scarlett O’Hara, ‘There’s no place like-’ Oh wait. ‘Tomorrow, you’re only a day away.’ Wait.”
Attention derailed, Betty squinted across the courtyard. “Is that Brian? What’s he doing?”
Tyler followed Betty’s gaze toward Brian’s apartment across the way.
#
When thirty seconds of flexing garnered a 20-coin tribute from “HrneyBeyotch,” Brian dropped back in the chair in front of his laptop. He plopped an insouciant foot on his desk, manspreading provocatively.
“Want my big straight Alpha prison dick?” Brian growled into the screen. “Make it rain, homos, not sprinkle. Yeah. Tribute another thirty coins and I’ll unleash my sweaty jailhouse ballsack.”
CACHINGCACHINGCACHING went the donations.
Brian’s phone buzzed. He glanced at the Caller ID:
“NOLA PARISH COR FAC.”
Uh oh, Brian thought, raising a “hold it” finger to the camera. He pressed the phone to his ear.
“You are receiving a call from ...” began a recorded female voice.
“... GAGE FROM LAST NIGHT ...” continued a desperate male voice.
“... an inmate at Orleans Parish Prison,” finished the female voice.
“The fuck?” Brian groaned, leaning forward.
“Your phone service does not allow calls from this number. If you wish to receive collect calls, you must establish a pre-pay account...”
“Aw jeez,” Brian fretted in a most un-Alpha manner, running his fingers through his crew cut. “Aw JEEZ. Poor baby!”
He noticed his concerned expression, reflected in the laptop screen. Fucking softie. His thuggish cover blown, Brian shrugged at the camera and slammed his laptop shut.
###
Chapter 14: Honey Buns
Thank You For Reading!
☮️ & ❤️ ,
