Page 3 of The Way We Rot
I hated crowds.
But at least these crowds were just women, the odd bossy man, but mostly women, in the same situation as me.Eight years in prison and I still loathed everyone as much as on that first day I was dragged behind these walls.
The mess hall was quietening down, the perfect time to try to sweep up the last of whatever was left on the food line without sweaty bodies and masticating mouths.
It was loud as I moved through the narrow halls, a sea of faded orange polyester and blotchy faces, scoffing up the last of their bland meals. They stressed me out — too political, too tense. They laughed at the newbies, flirted with the guards to get their little treats, and held onto grudges for years.
I always preferred the enforced quiet time, and now was not that. Head down, business to myself.Get my belly filled and get out.
But that hadn’t worked so well for me today, because fucking Mandy, an old tramp who’d begun her sentence around the same time as me, had a problem, it seemed.
A problem with my face, she said.
She lunged at me again, skidding over one of the long metal tables and smashing through someone’s cold mashed potatoes. I snorted as I watched her scramble her ass back up and turn to me, globs of beige mush on her shirt and splattered on her cheek.
I frowned when she stuck her tongue out to lick some of it up. Gross.
“Shit, Mandy, you look like crap,” I said, taking a steady step back. Woman had a shiv, a sharpened toothbrush or something just as ridiculous, and while I admired her tenacity, I wanted nothing to do with it. I needed to learn to keep my mouth shut.
The guards would be here any second to break us up, but she’d chosen that perfect moment, their weak point when they split up, taking the early finishers back to their cells while the rest remained, watchful but bored.
Budget cuts had less of them too. Had this place falling apart along with it.
“Shut it, bitch,” Mandy scowled, and I saw the second she decided to lunge again, her whole body sort of shuddered before she built the momentum and shot forward while the middling crowd around us yelled in joy.
We’d shared a cell when we were brought in, and when I told her I wouldn’t be pandering to her attempts to be top dog or whatever, she’d always had it in for me. I was her first loss in here, and she was still trying. Her lofty goals were to rule this prison, and she knew I thought that was pathetic.
Rankled her panties, I guess.
But Mandy wasn’t as wily as she thought she was, and used the same stupid trick that ended up with her becoming a dinner plate in a quirky restaurant —we want plates, damn it— I stepped, calm and casual, to the side as she reached me, my eyes on her as she stumbled past, wincing at how embarrassing this was for her.
Why she didn’t just forget about me, I didn’t fucking know. It was exhausting.
And this time she tripped into a guard, shiv raised to stab, and got a swift bonk around the head with his baton. Mandy shrieked as she fell, shock ruining her whole angry top dog vibe.
I laughed, turning to face them both at the same moment another guard appeared as if from thin air and yanked my hands behind my back. Panic heated me, flashes of men above me, of evil eyes and hyena laughter. But I blinked it away; it was easy these days.Years of practise.
“I didn’t do anything!” I yelled, fighting against the guard on instinct, male fingers clawing into my skin making me ache and panic.
Men didn’t touch me and leave with no pain. Here, I couldn’t kill them, but they could hobble off with a testicle twisted up, or rush to the med bay with their sleeve holding off a nosebleed. I hated that they had control of me in here. It was my biggest regret for getting caught.
I strained my head around to see which guard had me, and felt a frisson of pleasure at the sight of one of the only handsome ones, just inches from my face. I could use this.
“Hey, gorgeous,” I grinned at him, pressing myself backward rather than forward, smirking when he grunted at the contact. All men were the same. They all just wanted to take.
“Shut it, inmate,” he replied, turning his gaze from me and to his superior, the guard subduing a spitting mad Mandy. It took two of them to drag her away while I watched, my wrists loose in the pretty guard’s grasp. My skin under his touch itched, but it was a comfort, something I could still scratch.
“Well, what the hell do we do now?” I asked, turning back to him again. His eye caught mine, and I let some heat show.
He was newish. I’d seen him about a little, but hadn’t interacted much. There were rumors, though, about what he’d do for trades. He smirked his full pouty lips and raked his eyes down to my chest. If I could have pushed my tits out further, I would have.
Predictable little shit turd, boobs or a cunt and they would do anything. And he was too new to know my reputation. Fresh meat. A bit of fun to break the monotony.
“Isolation,” he grunted, his eyes darting away from my body to check who was watching. The rest of the guards were sorting out the other inmates, herding everyone back to their seats or to their cells. Fights like this happened a few times a week, so it was nothing too exciting.
Life just moved on in here if no one spilled any blood.
“Ah, but I’ve hurt my head. Think I need a checkup.” I pouted my lips, looked at him through eyelashes.
