Page 29 of The Way We Rot
The next time I was in the prison, I was on the night shift, having requested a change due to supposed family commitments. The warden didn’t question it and switched me over to the less popular shift with no complaint, trying to decide who would be most beneficial to move to the day without sparing me another glance.
I hadn’t slept well, spending the day as usual, busy building and learning, and now I had a twelve-hour stretch in front of me. I rubbed my hand through my hair and made my way onto the main floor.
“They were rowdy today,” CO Randal told me at handover, leaning over the desk in our large, windowed observation room. The ladies were all in their cells, and everyone was changing over, filling each other in on the day just gone. Randal waggled his eyebrows at me, and I sighed, not wanting to press him for why they’d been rowdy.
"Why’d you move to the shitty shift?” he asked when I just grunted at him, not looking him in the eyes. I was afraid I’d kick him in the nuts if I caught sight of his expression. No doubt it was a punchable one.
“Stuff to do in the day,” I huffed back, snatching up a stack of papers to flick through.
Randal hummed, and I knew his stupid beady eyes were still on me.
I had filled another few inches of a bottle up for Karner, cumming into it for the last few days to build up a good amount for her. My plan with it was different, though. I loved watching her degraded, looking weak and pathetic. She’d worn my cum on her flesh last time, on my demand. I was itching to find out what more I could make her do.
She was getting under my skin, and I hated it.
It was never supposed to happen, an inmate catching my eye, especially not one like her, a killer. The most depraved kind of killer. But she had something about her impossible to resist, and seeing her do what I told her made my flesh run hot. I used to be a good man, an upholder of the law.
Penelope Karner screwed that all up.
“What happened then? Why the rowdiness?” I asked Randal, indulging him with a sigh, watching as he stood and gathered his shit. The clock had ticked over to 8pm, so it was time for him to fuck off, and he never stuck around a second past if he could help it. But this time he was lingering, acting like he had more to say. Questions to ask.
“Ah, just the food issue again,” he said after a few beats. “Breakfast was cut down too, and lunch was a sandwich by itself, so they’re all cranky bitches. I swear, man, it’s running hot out there.”
I frowned. Tensions were building in the place with every passing day. Anger and resentment and boredom mixed with empty bellies and a break in routine — I couldn’t see it ending well. These women thrived on predictability; calm thrived on it too. Without that, all bets were off.
I could almost taste the shift in energy; it was thick and bitter.
I placed my bag on the chair Randal had vacated, thinking of how to smuggle some of the food in there to Karner. She’d be hungry too, and it might workto build more favor with her, get me more of what I wanted…
Shit, I was messed up. Swinging from one extreme to the other in just a few seconds. Fuck, I’d even switched to the night shift so I would have more access to her.
At night, we were by ourselves, pacing the halls up and down, waiting for trouble. It would be so much easier to slip into her cell. I’d had her old cellmate removed so Karner was alone all the time, ripe for me to pick. It was an easy lie to tell that I’d found her with a shiv on repeated occasions, and she needed to be moved to a new block where she would be more closely watched.
Cell Block A housed the worst of them, but if they were on good behavior, they could still find time alone. Karner’s old cellmate now had hourly observations and bars rather than a door.She’d kicked and screamed when we dragged her away while Karner was elsewhere.
“And the warden’s said nothing about the budget going back up?” I asked, the warden was always morevisible during the daytime hours, so the night shift heard a lot through the grapevine.
Randal shrugged. “Dunno, man, wasn’t paying attention. Have a good shift!” He left, a wave behind him as he slipped out onto the floor and made his way to the gate with the rest of the day shifters. He gave me one last look before he turned a corner. I frowned and turned away.
Hours stretched ahead of me.
I waited until it was quiet, until we were well into the shift and the early hours of the morning, all separate, some COs half-asleep, some playing on their phone in the break room, before I filled my pockets and made my way to the second floor row where Karner had no idea I was coming for her. My veins bubbled with need as I got closer.
She might have wondered where I was today, but she would be fast asleep now, none the wiser to what awaited her. I smiled to myself as I reached her door and slipped inside, a crackling voice on the radio telling me no one would be up here anytime soon. The only active CO was on the other sideof the prison.
I moved into her cell and locked it behind me, taking a few steps to her bed. She was still asleep, at odds with her location. You’d think no one would sleep well in prison, but here Penelope Karner was, her hair fanned out behind her, her lips parted ever so slightly, a soft snore falling from her every few seconds.
She was beautiful. Even like this, when all the bravado had stripped away. Young, fresh-faced, with that feral gleam hidden in dreamland. Relaxed and docile, you might almost be forgiven for forgetting she was a depraved killer.
Grunting, I climbed on top of her and grabbed her hands, pinning them above her head as she woke with a flash. She gasped, her eyes widening as she was thrown back into consciousness with a start. But as soon as she saw it was me, her body relaxed and her eyes sharpened.
Bad mistake.
“What are you doing here, Adrian?” she said, using my name for the first time. It did something to me I had to ignore, bury deep deep down.
“Call me CO Darling or sir, or nothing at all,” I growled, hating the way she was burrowingunderneath my skin already, with just a connected gaze and a few words, all my intentions went out the window.
Penelope Karner was about to get fucked.
