Page 20 of The Way We Rot
With a sigh, I bumped my skull back against the wall, wincing at the pain from where the lump remained, but as the throbbing lingered, a smile spread on my face. Still alive, then. I made my head bounce again, enjoying the way my mind swam, how all my neurons zapped to where the sting was and yelled at me to stop whatever the hell I was doing.
“Any contraband?” CO Darling’s voice came as he stepped into my cell and shut the door behind him, bringing my attention to him with a sharp slap. Interesting. They weren’t supposed to shut the door. I should hate him for what he did, sending Randal into my cell with promises of what I would do. I should despise him for bragging about my nakedness, for making me vulnerable, but I just… didn’t. Instead, my pulse spiked, ready to extend this game we played.I wanted to dig into why he did it, told Randal to come, what game he thought he was playing.
If it was the same one I was.
I took CO Darling in for a moment; he looked good. He’d shaved; his eyes were bright and his hair was neat. The ugly CO uniform fit his wide frame well, his muscles filling out the cheap fabric. I shook my head, and he nodded, getting to work.
We said nothing as he searched my space, lifting up my mattress, running his gloved hands along every surface like an AK-47 might leap from beneath my pillow if he wasn’t thorough enough. All they ever found in these sweeps were ragged shivs and the occasional cell phone smuggled in up someone’s ass.
“I don’t have anything,” I said when he started again, getting rougher, upturning my mattress, throwing my pillow across the room. And it was true; despite recent sexual interactions with two COs, neither had brought me anything good. Randal hadn’t delivered on his shower promise, and I had nothing from Darling despite him feeding me his cum-coated fingers.
It wasn’t fair, really. In the past, I’d managed to get things by manipulating the COs, but with Randal and Darling I… well, for different reasons I didn’t want to ask. Randal, because he would love the power it gave him, and Darling because I didn’twantto give him any.
Darling finally stopped, standing in front of me, legs spread, arms crossed over his chest. He looked down at me, keeping his chin tipped up, his breathing steady.
I met his gaze head on, waiting for him to react, to do whatever he’d planned. I let the ripple of trepidation washing through me turn into fear. It harbored in my bones, in the way they ached.
There was real darkness behind those eyes of his, anger, cold and hard, demanding. Curiositycompelled me to reach for them, to pluck them out of his skull and study them. How much would he bleed? Would he still want me if he couldn’t see?
“What are you doing?” he asked, and I realized my hands were up, reaching. I snatched them back down with a small gasp. “You want to touch me, little killer?”
I chewed the lining of my cheek. Because I did, I did want to touch him, but it twisted up inside me. I didn’t know if I wanted to make him feel good, make myself feel good, or hurt him. Kill him. Maybe they were all the same thing. There was a kindredness between us; I could sense it, even if he refused to admit it. It was there, festering.
Darling, without moving his gaze from mine, slipped his hand into his pocket and pulled out a plastic bottle of diet coke. My gaze darted down, caught on his movements. The liquid inside was not the right color. Pale, milky, not much of it at all, filling only about a fifth of the bottle. My head cocked.
It was thick, too.
“What’s that?” I asked, my eyes almost rolling to the back of my head when his thumb touched my chin andtilted it up, just the shyest brush to return my attention to him.
Swallowing down the groan, I battled with the urge to mount him or to hurt him for touching me. I’d never met a man who twisted me up as much as CO Darling, and he was here to keep me in check. He had power over me. I stared at him through my eyelashes, making sure to look as demure and innocent as a killer could.
“It’s a gift,” he told me, pressing the bottle into my hand. “Hide it away and use it tonight to slide your fingers inside yourself.”
My eyebrows dropped. What the hell was in the bottle?
“Rub it on your skin before your next shower, let it soak in while you walk through the prison. I can’t… I don’t like that he was there last.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked, the tension between us growing. “Who?”
This time it wasn’t a gentle brush of my chin; he grabbed me, his fingers curling around my jaw and tightening. It wasn’t fear that rushed through me, norwas it desire. Maybe a mix of both, but I wanted to claw at him, hold him closer, push him away.
His touch.
Hard and commanding, it made me want to turn to jelly.
“Don’t lie to me, little killer; you won’t enjoy what happens.” His voice was rough as gravel, so low and rumbling I swear I could have come from listening to him read a dictionary.
He brought his face close to mine, a smugness showing at how fast he’d turned me to mush under his touch. Confusion sped through me. Who was leading who here?
When I thought I had the upper hand, he would twist it on its head and tug me under his thrall. I never expected to actually be attracted to a CO in here. It… complicated matters. Attraction wasn’t something I experienced for men, toward anyone, really. My body was no device for their pleasure; it was mine.
Darling’s breath mingled with mine, and I let it, pressing forward to try to kiss him. But he held me back by my throat and raised an eyebrow when I pouted.His hand was firm but not squeezing. Still, blackness blinkered. Not my throat.
This was the moment. Combative or sweet? Angry or scared?
“I…” I murmured. “He hurt me, okay?” Tears welled in my eyes, from the throat constriction, but he didn’t have to know that. My weakest spot, where I had to hold my demons at bay as they tried to claw to the surface. “CO Randal came into my cell and… forced me to do what I didn’t want to. He hurt me.”
I looked away, sniffed, and made myself small.
