Caged

[Ludub]

Thanks for the feedback guys! Much appreciated!  Hope everyone had a good New Year's Eve and I wish you all a very happy 2017  Hope you all like this chapter! x

 

WARNING: VERY ADULT THEMES!

 

 

Chapter 11

 

 

 

“Hey, c’mon, sit down” said Aaron, nodding for Josh to sit down beside him on the bed. They’d brought him back to their cell to get him away from all the stares and whispers of the other inmates but it didn’t seem to be doing much to calm his nerves. He was shifting from foot to foot and chewing anxiously on his finger nails. Kyle had already sat down on the floor cross-legged and was looking up at him in a sympathetic way.

“I’d rather stand” mumbled Josh, frowning and crossing his arms across his chest. He didn’t seem to know what to do with his hands. He leaned his back against the wall of the cell and stared out through the doorway in a jumpy sort of way. He looked like a hunted animal.

“Okay” said Aaron, looking at Kyle in concern. They’d seen how much discomfort Josh was in when he’d sat down at the table in the cafeteria. It was clear for anyone to see that he was still in quite a bit of pain. “If you’re sure?” he said, with a kind little smile.

“Mate, can you tell us…?” Kyle started to say, but Josh interrupted him.

“There’s no point” snapped Josh in an exasperated way, “What difference will it make to anything?! …Talking?! …It happened… and I can’t… I can’t change that… and neither can you!” He hugged his arms around his chest a little tighter and walked to the door to have a quick look into the hallway. He just didn’t seem to be able to stand still. “I just want to try to forget about it” he added, “And I really don’t want to tell you about it, okay?!”

“It might help to talk?” said Kyle, thinking that he sounded like some sort of wannabe counsellor and cringing a little at his own words. He glanced at his watch and grimaced a little when he saw what time it was. They didn’t have long before they’d have to go to their work detail but he wanted to get Josh talking. He didn’t think it was good for him to retreat into himself like this. “It might help you to… I don’t know… to… ‘process’…”

“To ‘process’ things?!” snorted Josh, sounding more than a little irritated. “You’re not my shrink!” he said, scowling at him as he leaned against the wall again and fidgeted, “Nothing’s gonna help… So, can you just leave it… Can you do that?!” His face took on a pained expression, like he had a really bad taste in his mouth.

“Okay, okay” said Kyle, glancing across at Aaron in the hope of a little moral support.

Aaron gave a little sigh and tilted his head at Josh in pity. He was pretty sure that he wouldn’t want to talk about it either if he was in his position. “Can you at least tell us what happened with the guards last night?” he asked, “…I mean… which ones questioned you?”

Josh shrugged again in a weary way. “I don’t know… all of them?” he said, staring out the door in an anxious way again, “That guy… the one with the moustache… He was leaning on me pretty heavily.”

“Smithy?!” said Kyle, looking a little startled, “The one with the shaved head?!”

Josh nodded and clenched his jaw in anger. “I think…” he said, through gritted teeth, “I think Alexei’s been paying him… I mean… I know he has… I think he handpicked me for him… handpicked me for Cuddles.”

“Smithy?!” repeated Kyle, as he glanced at Aaron in a wide-eyed sort of way. The deal was today! And it was too late to get word to Brax and Ricky now! It was going to go ahead whether they wanted it to or not! “Are you sure?!” he asked, looking up at Josh again with a slightly panicked look, “Are you sure we’re talking about the same guy?! …The one with the shaved head and the thin little moustache?!”

“Yeah? …That’s the one…” said Josh, wondering why Kyle looked so worried, “… He was always laughing with Alexei… More or less admitted that they were mates.”

“Oh god!” gasped Aaron, shaking his head at Kyle, “It’s today, isn’t it?!

“Yeah it is” he replied. He got to his feet and started to pace back and forth in the cell. He put his hands on the back of his head in a frustrated kind of way and turned to look at Aaron again. “Do we know anyone with phone-call privileges today?” he asked him.

“What’s going on?” asked Josh, looking back and forth between the two in confusion, “What’s wrong?”

Aaron and Kyle exchanged glances and silently agreed not to tell him. “Uh… I just… I really need to make a phone call!”

 

*****

 

“Okay, so… keep your wits about you” said Brax, pulling the car into a space in the shopping mall carpark. “If you see anything that… I don’t know… that doesn’t sit right, just keep walking and call me.”

“I know” said Ricky, looking a little nervous, “We’ve been through this so many times, Brax! …Will you just let me do this?!” She held the heavy gym bag on her knee and unzipped it for the umpteenth time today just to check that the money was still there. “Okay, I’m going!” she said, beginning to open the car door.

“Ric, wait!” said Brax, catching her by the arm to stop her, “I can’t let you do this!”

“It’ll be okay!” she said, turning to look at him, “I’ll be in and out in a few minutes… job done!”

He nodded at her and then rubbed his face in his hands with a loud groan. “Okay… but Ric?” he said, pulling her towards him for a kiss, “I love you.”

They kissed for a moment and then Ricky pulled away with a worried little frown on her face. “I’ll see you soon” she said, opening the car door and jumping out quickly, before he could stop her.

He watched as she walked away. He had a bad feeling about all of this. Kyle seemed sure that this guard would sort things out, but from what he’d heard, this ‘Smithy’ guy was seriously dodgy. He just hoped that Kyle knew what he was doing.

Ricky walked in the sliding doors of the brightly lit shopping mall and began to make her way towards the foodcourt. She kept scanning the faces of the people that she passed, convinced that police officers were going to jump out at her at any moment, or that people knew what she was up to. She smiled at herself when she realised how nervous she was. She was actually shaking a little! ‘Ricky Sharpe!’ she said to herself, ‘Pull yourself together! You’ve done a lot shadier things than this in your time… and you’re basically a Braxton now… so get it together and grab yourself a cup of ‘toughen up’!

Arriving at the foodcourt, she did a quick scan of the tables and didn’t see anyone matching the guard’s description, so she went up to one of the food outlets and ordered herself a coffee. ‘Just sit down’ she told herself, ‘Sit down and enjoy your lovely cup of coffee… You’ve just been to the gym and this is your gym bag… and no-one knows what’s going on…”

She tried her best to look relaxed as she looked around her. A man with a bald head and a blue sweater began to walk towards her and she looked up at him expectantly but he just kept on going and ended up at a Fried Chicken place just behind her. She shook her head at herself and rolled her eyes. She checked her phone. He was a few minutes late.

“Hey gorgeous!” said an unknown male voice, making her jump when he put his hands on both her shoulders from behind and leaned around her to give her a kiss on the cheek, “Did you work up an appetite at the gym this morning?”

She pulled away from him in a startled and disgusted kind of way but he ignored that and took the seat opposite her. “You didn’t get me a coffee?” he asked, nodding at her coffee cup with a smirk on his face, “You still sulking with me for earlier? …I said I was sorry I called your sister ‘fat’!”

Ricky stared at him, taking an instant dislike to his weasely face and strange choice of facial hair. She also didn’t like the way that he was looking her up and down either, or the way he was lingering on her breasts. In any other circumstance, she’d have kneed him in the groin and been done with him.

“Can we just get on with it?” she said, frowning across at him as she began to lift the bag.

He reached under the table and put his hand on her knee, giving it a short but vicious squeeze. “Now, play nice!” he growled at her.

“Get your hand off me!” snarled Ricky, pulling her knee away from him with a flash of fury in her eyes, “Don’t you ever touch me again!”

“Can’t a husband touch his wife?!” laughed the guard, putting his hands up in mock surrender, “What is the world coming to?!”

“Can you just stop playing games?” she whispered, refusing to play along with the charade, “I came here to do a deal.”

“And I came here…” he said in a loud and theatrical way, clearly enjoying her nervousness and discomfort as they drew the attention of people at the tables beside them, “…to have a nice day with my wife… to spend a nice day shopping… for ‘normal things’! …But you always have to start a fight, don’t you?!” He shook his head and crossed his arms across his chest. “I don’t care how much you want it… We are not buying you a strap on!”

“Oh, my God! Shut up!” she growled at him through gritted teeth as she glanced at some of the faces now taking a definite interest.  She couldn’t help blushing when she saw some teenage boys staring at her and giggling at one of the tables nearby. What on earth was with this guy?! Did he want to get caught?! He couldn’t have drawn more attention if he’d stood up and done a striptease! “Why are you trying to create a scene?” she asked.

“Oh, come on!” he laughed, giving her a little wink, “Where’s your sense of humour?!”

“That’s it! …I don’t know what your problem is, but I’ve had enough!” she said, getting up and taking the bag with her, “I’m going!”.

“Hey… Don’t be like that!” he teased, grabbing her by the arm as he caught up with her. “Here, give me that bag and I’ll take it back to the car” he said, with a cheeky smile, “Then we’ll go buy you that dress you wanted!”

Ricky rolled her eyes at him and handed the bag over. She really didn’t have a good feeling about any of this but what else was she to do?! “What is your problem?!” she asked him, knitting her brows in anger.

He smirked at her. “What do you think all those people saw today?” he asked, walking her away from the foodcourt with his arm around her shoulder.

“I think they saw a total idiot!” she snapped at him, shrugging her shoulder away from him. She didn’t like this man being any closer to her than he had to be.

“Exactly” he said, with a huge grin on his face, “They saw an idiot, being a total tosser to his poor long-suffering wife… Trying to make a scene and embarrass her in public!” He threw the bag over his shoulder and gave her a little wink. “What they didn’t see was two strangers meeting in a public place to do a handover of $10,000 in cold hard cash… They’re gonna go home tonight and talk about the weird couple and their fight about a strap-on! …Winner, winner, chicken dinner!”

She nodded at him. Much as she hated to admit it, he was right. No-one had been paying any attention to the gym bag, that was for sure!

“Well” he said, giving her a little smile, “It’s been a pleasure doing business with you.” He turned to leave but thought better of it and spun around on his heel to face her again. Pulling his wallet from his pocket, he peeled off $50 and handed it to her. “Why don’t you go get yourself that strap-on?” he said, laughing and raising his eyebrows suggestively, “I wouldn’t want to disappoint you now that I’ve put the idea in your head!”

She gave an exasperated little huff and stuffed the $50 in her pocket rather than create more of a scene. “What guarantee do we have?” she asked, narrowing her eyes at him, “How do we know you’ll do it?”

“You don’t” he said with a creepy little wink as he walked away backwards, “You’ll just have to trust me.” With that, he turned with the bag still thrown over his shoulder and swaggered back across the mall towards the lift.

She watched him go. This had been one of the strangest exchanges she’d ever had with anyone and she wondered what Kyle and Josh were getting themselves into. She gave a little sigh and headed back towards the carpark. What was she going to tell Brax?

 

*****

 

“Where do I put these?” asked Josh, making an effort to raise his voice despite the pain in his swollen vocal chords. It came out more as a shredded sort of rasp than a shout though, and the old man clearly hadn’t made out a word of it. “Where… do… I… put… these?” he tried again, doing his best to enunciate each word carefully. He just couldn’t make himself heard, especially with the noise of all the washing machines and tumble driers, and other men shouting.

The old man on the other side of his folding bench stared at him in a wide-eyed and vacant way. His name was Frank, and he was in his 70s, and he’d spent more than 30 years in prison for murder. His hearing clearly wasn’t what it used to be, probably from working in such a loud environment, so pairing him up with someone who could barely speak seemed like a particularly cruel joke on the guards’ part. “What?!” shouted Frank, cupping his hand around his ear and tilting his head at him.

Josh walked around the table to his side and gave him a sympathetic little smile. He hoped that they could get on if he was going to have to work with him every day. “Where… do… I… put… the… bags… when…. they’re… done?” he asked, pointing at the mountain of folded sheets that he’d bagged up over the last hour. There were too many on the trolley now and not enough room for any more. His throat felt like it was on fire. Having to shout all the time was excruciating.

“Oh… You take them to that storage cupboard down the end there.” shouted Frank, nodding to a door at the far side of the room, “Stack them on the shelves and then bring the trolley back.” Frank went back to folding, making it clear that he wasn’t in the mood for a chat. He was much faster than Josh, deftly folding the sheets in rapid movements like someone on an assembly line. He’d obviously been doing this mind-numbing job for quite some time.

Josh gave a little nod. It was pretty clear that he and Frank weren’t going to be the best of buds. He seemed to be a man of very few words and didn’t have the friendliest demeanour. “Okay, thanks” said Josh, going back to his side of the bench and taking the handle of the trolley. He pointed towards the storage cupboard again to let him know that he was going and then set off across the room with the trolley. He kept his head down as he passed the other inmates. He could feel them turning to look at him as he passed, and heard the odd whisper and snigger, but he tried to ignore them. At least in here, the men were busy, and under the watchful eye of a number of guards. He felt a little bit safer here. Not much… but a little.

He nodded at the nearest guard as he pushed the door to the store room open and checked that there was no-one else inside.  Then he pulled the trolley through the door as he backed through it. The door closed and he gave a little sigh. He was alone at last, and this room was quiet and peaceful, and only dimly lit. He was so tired. He would have liked nothing more than to curl up in a ball in the corner and try to get some sleep. To be able to sleep somewhere that wasn’t haunted by painful and traumatic memories. He just wanted to hide from the world for a while. Hide from everyone! He began to stack the bags of blankets on the shelves, taking his time with it, and hoping to stay in here a little longer. As boring as the work in the laundry room was, the repetitive and monotonous nature of it was actually helping a little bit. Fold, fold, stack... Fold, fold, stack… Fold, fold, stack… Even the strong smells of detergent were helping… It was the first time in days that he’d been able to think about anything other than Alexei.

Suddenly the door flung open and a very large man sauntered in. He closed the door behind him and stood there looking at him with a cruel sort of smile on his face.

“Well! What do we have here?!” he asked in a teasing tone of voice. He was a monstrous man compared to Josh, with massive veined muscles, like someone who eats steroids for breakfast.  It was the ‘bulldog’ from the mess hall that Kyle had identified as Vasily Ivanovich. “You’re the ‘Little Fish’, are you?” he asked with a raise of his eyebrows and a mischievous grin. His accent was still noticeably Russian but he spoke much better English than Alexei.

Josh backed up so his back was pressed against the shelves behind him and frantically glanced around him in search of a weapon. There was nothing! His heart was pounding as he looked at the large man looming over him. Had he come to kill him… or maybe worse?!

Vasily made a move towards him and Josh flinched, pushing back as far as he could.  The grin on the larger man’s face sent a shiver down his spine. “Get off me!” he shouted, shoving him in the middle of the chest, “Don’t touch me!”

“Shhhh shhh shhh” said Vasily, shaking his head at him in a patronising sort of way as he moved in, getting too close for comfort, “Calm down…”

“NO!” growled Josh, doing his best to push him backwards and trying to wriggle free, “Noooo!”

“Stop” said Vasily in a scolding voice, as he got hold of his arms and restrained him, “Come on, now…”

In a sudden and very quick movement, Josh drew his head back, and then headbutted him in the face. As Vasily staggered backwards with a bloodied nose, Josh slipped around him and made a mad dash for the door, but to his horror he found it locked. He didn’t get a chance to turn around again before his face suddenly smashed against the heavy metal door and he felt the full weight of Vasily’s body pressed against him, crushing him. He was a little dazed but the adrenalin was still coursing through his veins and telling him to run for his life. His whole body was shaking but he couldn’t move. He could hardly draw breath! The pure terror that he felt was overwhelming. He felt completely powerless again and frozen to the spot with fear. ‘Again!’, he thought to himself, ‘It’s happening again! …How have I let this happen?!’ He waited, clamping his eyes shut, and bracing himself for the inevitable…

But nothing was happening… All he could hear was Vasily’s excited breathing right beside his ear… and the pounding of his own racing heart…

“Now” said Vasily, leaning in even closer and whispering in his ear, “Alexei’s ‘Little Fish’ is going to listen to what his new friend Vasily has to say.”

[Ludub]

Thanks again everyone for taking the time to read and comment  Hope you enjoy this one!

 

WARNING: VERY ADULT THEMES!

 

Chapter 12

 

“I don’t… I don’t understand” stammered Josh a little breathlessly. He was still pinned against the door by Vasily’s monstrous frame but what he’d feared the most didn’t seem to be happening. At least not yet. Vasily had simply made a very strange demand.

“What’s not to understand?!” laughed Vasily, pressing his groin hard into Josh’s lower back, “You do what I ask and you get to keep those tighty-whities on… You don’t and… well…”

“But …but why?” asked Josh, trying to turn his head a little to look at him, “Why would you want me to do that?!” He’d asked him to go to the warden and name one of the Russians in his crew by the name of ‘Sergei Dimitriov’. He just didn’t understand. Why would he want him to name one of his own?!

Vasily shook his head at him and made a ‘tut tut tut’ noise, with his mouth drawn into a funny little pout. It was like the sound you’d make if you were telling off a very small child or a puppy. “Little Fish…” he said, with a sarcastic little smirk, “Reasons are for people who have choices to make… You have no choices… You just do what I say.” Suddenly he grabbed hold of the hair at the back of his head, burying his fingers in it and pulling at it a little viciously. He was still holding him against the door with an arm across the back of his neck and crushing him a little. To Josh’s horror and embarrassment, he began to grind his hips against his body, rubbing himself against him through their clothes. “You tell them… what I told you to tell them…” he said, punctuating his sentences with little grunty noises, “…and we’ll have no more trouble.”

Josh clamped his eyes shut and squirmed. He couldn’t move.  He wanted to tune it out. He wanted to go somewhere else for a while if only in his mind. ‘I’m not here’ he told himself again, ‘I’m not here… This can’t be happening!’ How had he let someone get the better of him again? How had this happened?! How had he ended up with some Neanderthal dry humping him like this in a store room?! Did everyone out there know what was happening? Did the guards know?! Is this what he’d become? A target, like an open invitation to all the perverts and rapists in the prison?! Is this what that guard had meant? Was he ‘fair-game’ now? He wanted the ground to open up and swallow him. The humiliation was just too much to take.

Vasily suddenly and very abruptly stepped back, releasing him, and grinning at him as he spun around with fear-filled eyes. “C’mon then, Little Fish” he said, making a show of undoing his pants, “Let’s see what you have…”

Josh stared at him in horror and disgust as he stood there with his back now pressed up against the door. “Wuh…what?!” he stammered, watching in fear as Vasily undid the fly on his pants.

“C’mon, Little Fish” he smirked at him, “Don’t make me spell it out for you”

“No! Please?!” pleaded Josh, “No!”

“On your knees!” he snarled at him, “Now!”

“No!” said Josh, shaking his head at him, “I’m not doing that!”

Vasily made a sudden move towards him as though he was going to hit him and Josh flinched, putting his hands up in front of his face to defend himself.

“The look on your face!” laughed Vasily, “The look on your little face! …It’s priceless!” He zipped his pants back up and shook his head at him in a mocking way. “I’m just kidding with you!” he laughed loudly, “I couldn’t resist!” He hopped up to sit on the metal trolley table that Josh had wheeled in and just sat there grinning at him. “Ah, come on! You have to admit it! …It was funny!”

Josh stared down at the floor, visibly shaking, and flushing red with shame and anger. His heart was still thumping at an alarming rate and his chest was heaving as he tried to catch his breath. He really didn’t know what to make of this man. He was still frightened of him, but he was seething with anger at the same time. Part of him wanted to rush at him and smash his stupid grinning face in, but he also knew that he was no match for him physically. He’d just end up getting another kicking… and his body was already bruised enough! ‘Another madman’, he thought to himself, ‘I’m dealing with another one!’

“Our dear friend Alexei?” said Vasily, “He’s an interesting man… He was an interesting man, I’m sure you’ll agree… Maybe not the smartest man in the world but what he lacked in brains, he made up for in crazy… That man was insane!” He looked at Josh, still flattened against the door with his arms pulled protectively around his chest. “Just a madman!” he said, laughing and shaking his head in an incredulous way. “I’m not the same as Alexei Petrovski…” he said, “I like to use my brain… I’m not afraid to play the part when I need to, but I’m not a mad dog like him…” He smirked at him again. “And I don’t like little boys in tightie whities… Not my thing at all… So, breathe easy, Little Fish… That little butt of yours is safe from me! …Maybe not some of my boys… but from me… for now.”

Josh glanced up at him, flushing an even deeper shade of red. In some ways, it was even more humiliating to have someone make fun of the trauma that he’d been through. “Then… then… why?” he stammered, grimacing at the thought of what might have happened.

“Maybe I have a bad sense of humour?” answered Vasily, laughing a little, “It always makes me laugh to mess with one of Cuddles’ boys…” He wiped at his own bloody nose and raised one eyebrow at him. “You put up a lot more fight than most of the other boys… I’m impressed” he said, “I knew after the first night when he had to beat you… He had a few cuts himself… and… how you call them? …’scrapes’ …That does not often happen… I said to myself, ‘this one is brave!’”

Josh looked away. He didn’t feel brave.

“I knew when I heard about Alexei and his… his unfortunate… what is it you call it?  Ah yes …his…’boner’…” He gave Josh a little smirk and nodded at him. “I knew it was you… I knew it!” he said, clapping his hands together, “It had to happen sooner or later... One of his boys, I mean… You can’t expect someone to bend over and take it, night after night… The others just broke… suicides… pathetic little children… But you?! …I saw something more in you… But you surprised even me! Impressed me! …I expected a knife…maybe some broken glass… but Viagra?! …Now, that was very clever… very clever indeed! …Inventive!” He jumped off the table and brushed his clothes down in a theatrical sort of way, picking at imaginary bits of fluff on his prison uniform. “So… a boy like you?” he said, “I think we can work together… I might be the friend you’ve been looking for?”

Josh turned to look at him and furrowed his brow. He still didn’t understand this.  “So, you were… you were just kidding about me going to the warden?” he asked, hoping that that was the case. The last thing that he wanted to do was snitch!

Vasily made that tut-tut-tutting noise again, shaking his head, and giving him a cruel little smile. “I wasn’t joking about that bit.” he said, “You will talk to the warden and you will tell him what I tell you to tell him.” He began to walk towards him again and cocked his head to one side with an evil glint in his eye.

Josh braced himself, getting ready to put his hands up to protect his face. There was something very menacing in the way that this enormous man was looking at him. His ribs still weren’t completely healed and his body was still covered in bruises. He didn’t think that he could take much more. He flinched when Vasily moved in closer and began to press himself against him again. Had Vasily been lying before?! Was he going to rape him after all?! Before Josh could react, Vasily suddenly clamped his hand around his throat, and gripped him firmly.

“Okay, okay!” he gasped, pulling at the fingers of the hand around his throat, “Please just…!”

“You do what I say or I set some of my boys on you” said Vasily, narrowing his eyes at him, “They might not be as… ‘respectful’ as I am.”

Josh stared at him in fear, his eyes bulging, as he squirmed in pain.  

“So, we understand each other?” asked Vasily.

“Y-yes” stammered Josh, “Yes, I’ll do it!” He needed him to let go. He wanted desperately to get out of this room and away from him by whatever means necessary. He would have agreed to anything!

 “Good!” said Vasily, releasing him and allowing him to fall to the floor.

“I’ll do it!” gasped Josh, as he writhed on the ground and looked up at the large man above him, “I’ll do it!”

“Now that’s what I wanted to hear!” laughed Vasily, as he knelt down next to him. “So?” he said, giving him a vicious little smile, “Decision time, Little Fish… Fingers …or teeth?”

 

*****

 

Kyle pulled his t-shirt up to wipe the sweat from his face and then put his hands on his lower back. He was pretty tired. It was a really hot day and they’d been digging solidly for about the last three hours. Work in the vegetable garden was the most sought after work detail in the prison, and only for the best-behaved prisoners, but it could sometimes be really tough. Today they were digging drills by hand.

He turned to look at Aaron and couldn’t help smiling. He was red-faced and sweaty but he was whistling some silly tune and obviously very happy at his work. Aaron loved being outside and had always talked about what he was going to do when he got released. He’d always had this idea that he wanted to work in a garden centre or at least find some kind of work that allowed him to work with his hands in the air outside. He couldn’t imagine him all dressed up in a suit working in some office somewhere. It just wasn’t him.

“Want some water?” he asked, going and picking up their bottles. He walked over to him with a little smile and held the bottle out to him. “It’s hot, isn’t it?”

“You’re hot” replied Aaron, with a mischievous little grin as he took the bottle from him.

“That was so cheesy!” groaned Kyle, as he rolled his eyes at him and laughed a little, “Really… you should be ashamed of yourself!”  He glanced around to make sure there was no-one nearby, more out of habit than anything else. This was one of the few places, other than their cell, that they could speak freely. There was no-one within hearing distance.

Aaron smiled with the tip of his tongue on his eye-tooth, and raised one eyebrow at him in a seductive way. “What?! You are!” he said, looking him up and down in his sweat-drenched work clothes, “I mean, look at you standing there… all hot and… sweaty… I’d rip that shirt off you right now if I could!”

Kyle blushed a little and looked away. He was having similar thoughts. He drank down the last of his water bottle and gave a little sigh. He wondered what would happen if he and Aaron just started going at it right there in plain view. Would the guards step in and separate them? How would the other inmates react? Would they get beaten to a pulp?

“We’ll just have to wait till tonight” he said, biting his bottom lip as he watched Aaron pull his t-shirt up to wipe his face. He hated not being able to touch him.

“We only have tonight and tomorrow” sighed Aaron, suddenly looking a little downcast, as though that thought had only just occurred to him, “We have to make it count.”

“I know” said Kyle, putting his arm around his shoulder in a ‘man hug’ kind of way, “I know…” He was hoping it would pass for a friendly gesture and not come across as anything romantic. He didn’t want to attract the wrong kind of attention. He didn’t want to take any chances with Aaron’s last days.

Aaron glanced sideways at him and gave him a sad little smile. “I’m gonna miss this” he said, blinking frantically as he began to tear up a little, “I’m gonna miss you.”

Kyle nodded and looked at the ground. They’d said it all already. There wasn’t anything more to be said. He had no idea how he was going to go on without him but he was going to have to. In a few days, he’d be out here digging with some new workmate, and that would be that. His heart hurt just thinking about it.

“C’mon” he said, giving Aaron’s shoulder a little squeeze before walking back over to his spade, “We’d better get back to work.”

Aaron wiped at his face again with his shirt. This time it was tears and not sweat. He began to dig and tried to whistle again, but it was clear that he was still crying from the breathless sound of it. “I wonder how Brax and Ricky got on with the deal” said Aaron, glancing across at him as he turned the soil, “I mean… was it really a scam?”

“I guess we’ll soon find out” replied Kyle, driving the spade into the ground. He was worried too. “I’m sure Smithy won’t stay quiet for long.”

[Ludub]

Thanks again everyone for the kind feedback  Hope you like this one! (It's a bit steamy, this one, haha! You've been warned! )

 

WARNING: VERY ADULT THEMES!!!

 

Chapter 13

 

 

Kyle rolled over onto his back, panting and smiling in a sleepy sort of way. “That was…” panted Kyle, “That was amazing!”

“Yeah… It was” said Aaron, pulling in close beside him and leaning across his chest. He traced his fingers in small circles on the skin on Kyle's chest and rested his chin on his shoulder.

They’d been worried about Josh and the fact that he hadn’t shown up in the mess hall at dinner. There were rumours doing the rounds but they didn’t know what was true and what wasn’t. They knew that it didn’t bode well, but by the time they’d made it back to their cell, all thoughts of anything else had been replaced with an insatiable need for each other’s bodies. As soon as that door had clanged shut, they’d torn each other’s clothes off, and collapsed in a heap on the floor. This was their second-last night together and there was a certain desperation in their love-making.

“I think that might be a record!” laughed Kyle, glancing down at him with a mischievous little smile, “I don’t think we’ve ever done it this many times in one night!”

“Oh, what?!” laughed Aaron, “Have I tired the old man out?! …Does he need a nap?”

“Hey!” gasped Kyle, pretending to take offence, “Last time I checked I was only a year older than you!”

“Well, it obviously makes a difference!” laughed Aaron, pulling himself up a little to kiss him on the lips. He kissed him gently, pressing their lips together, and then pulled at his lower lip with his teeth in a seductive way. Pulling back from the kiss, he licked his lips slowly and raised his eyebrows at him.  “I can’t help it if you can’t keep up!”

“Is that so?!” teased Kyle, as he rolled him over on his front, and climbed on top of him again, straddling him. “What about this?” he asked, leaning down to blow softly on the back of the neck and sending shivers down his spine.

Aaron giggled a little, and looked back at him in surprise, when he took hold of both his wrists and pinned them above his head. This was new! “What did you have in mind?” he asked, craning his head to look back at him.

Kyle just winked at him and stuck his tongue between his teeth in a mischievous way. He held Aaron’s hands above his head with one hand, and began to run his tongue in little flicking movements along his naked flesh, working his way down the centre of his back. Aaron let out soft little moans, shivering under the heat of Kyle’s tongue, and shuddering a little with anticipation.

Kyle smiled to himself as he felt Aaron’s body trembling with excitement. He wondered at how natural this had become to him in only a few short months. Here he was, licking the hot salty flesh of his male lover, and he was loving every moment of it. This body. This man. Kissing and fondling him… How on earth had this happened?!

Aaron moaned loudly, as Kyle moved to his lower back, and let go of his hands. He kept them there above his head and closed his eyes as the pleasure overtook him. No-one had ever known how to read his body better…......

 

Afterwards, they lay there panting in each other’s arms. “Oh, my God!” said Kyle, sounding very out of breath, “That was…”

“I know” laughed Aaron, enjoying the weight of Kyle’s body on top his own, “It was.” He reached up and pulled him down into a deep and tender kiss.

After a moment or two, Kyle rolled over onto his side, and pulled him in close beside him. “I love you” he said softly, as he stroked his hair behind his ear.

“Listen to you!” laughed Aaron, trying to hide his sadness, “Wouldn’t say it for months, now it’s every five minutes!” He gave him a little smirk. “Sure it’s not just the sex talking?”

“Maybe” said Kyle, giving a little shrug, “…But I do.” He tangled his fingers in Aaron’s hair and pulled him in for another little kiss. “I love you…” he said, “…and no matter what happens in the future… No matter who you end up with… I just want you to remember that.” He rolled onto his back and looked up at the ceiling. “I loved you… we loved each other… It was real.”

“Hey... it isn’t over…” said Aaron, shaking his head at him, “I’m gonna come visit… I’ll be here as often as I can.”

“No” said Kyle, suddenly sitting up and looking at him with a worried frown. “We’ve talked about this” he said, running his hand through his own hair, “I don’t want you to visit… I want you to have a life… and you can’t do that if you don’t move on.”

“And I’m not just walking away!” said Aaron, sitting up and resting his chin on Kyle’s shoulder again, “I don't care what you say! You can’t expect me to do that!”

“You’re gonna have to.” said Kyle, clenching his jaw a little, “I’m going to refuse you visitation.” He turned to look at him with a slightly teary look and lifted Aaron’s chin to look him in the eye. “I love you… I want you to be happy… and I need to protect myself… That’s why it has to be this way.”

“That makes no sense!” exclaimed Aaron, reaching for his hand and looking at him pleadingly, “If you love me, how can you just pretend I never existed?!”

“I won’t” he said, shaking his head at him, “I just can’t have you wasting your life in that visiting room… and once you’re out there you won’t want that either.” He looked down at their hands tightly clasped together and gave a little sigh. “Maybe it’s selfish, but I can’t live this life in here wondering who you’re with out there.”

“I wouldn’t!” said Aaron, looking decidedly hurt, “I’ll wait for you”

“Ten years?!” said Kyle, shaking his head again sadly, “Ten years if I’m lucky… You can’t make that kind of promise! …And I wouldn’t want you to!” He smiled at him in a gentle sort of way. “Think about what we just did… I mean, you can honestly say you’re not gonna want that with someone?! …I mean, no sex?! …Nothing?! …For ten years?!”

Aaron went to speak, but Kyle cut him off.

“If you say that, you’re a liar” he said, frowning at him, “And you know I’m right …because I know I do… I mean, I will… I’ll want that… with someone.”

“You’ll just move on?” asked Aaron, with a wounded look on his face, “What?! You already have someone in mind?!”

Kyle rolled his eyes at him and let out an exasperated little huff. “See?!” he said, stroking Aaron’s hand with his thumb, “You’re jealous, just thinking about it! How hard do you think it would be for me?! I’d be going crazy, knowing that you’re in that big world out there… You could be hooking up with anyone… and you will.” He slumped a little, looking very downcast. “It’ll be bad enough as it is…” he sighed, “but at least if we’re not together…”

“You’ll change your mind” said Aaron, staring past him as though he could see the future playing out in front of him, “I know you will.”

“I won’t” said Kyle, shaking his head and pursing his lips together, “I need you to do this for me… Just let go… okay?”

“I’ll be waiting” said Aaron, setting his jaw and nodding his head at him, “When you change your mind, I’ll be waiting.” He leaned across, turning Kyle's face towards him, and pressed his lips softly against his. “You’ll change your mind” he whispered.

“Don’t hold your breath” mumbled Kyle, as he accepted Aaron’s kiss. He didn’t know if he’d really be able to go through with it when it came down to it. Could he really rip Aaron off like a sticking plaster and throw him away like that? How long would it take him to break?

 

*****

 

Josh lay there on the pile of clothes on the floor in his cell and gave a shuddering sigh. He’d never been so tired in his life but he couldn’t sleep. He put one hand under his head as he lay on his side, and looked at the other, all bandaged and splinted. It was still throbbing. Two broken fingers taped together and splinted with a couple of metal strips. It was the most recent injury that he had but there were other things that hurt more. He began to do a mental inventory of all the injuries that he’d sustained since he’d arrived in the prison. It was an extremely long list, and he could still feel a lot of them, some more intensely than others. More than the injuries, he could feel every terrible thing that had happened to him since he’d come here. He could feel everything…

He retched as flashes of that last night with Alexei flooded back through his mind.  Alexei’s enormous frame crushing him down on the mattress and making it hard for him to breathe. The heat of his breath on the back of his neck, and in his ear, as he whispered sweet nothings and vicious threats... Hot sweaty skin, slipping and sliding in a sickening way against his own.  Hands, rough and unyielding, exploring his body without consent. All of it! He couldn’t forget it, no matter how hard he tried, and it was there every time he closed his eyes.

Today with Vasily had proved to him that he was weak. A pathetic weakling! He couldn’t defend himself even when he tried to and the one thing that was clear was that it was only going to get worse. He’d only been here a couple of weeks. How would he survive 28 years?!

And what was he going to say to Vasily tomorrow? Things hadn’t worked out like he’d wanted them to. It turned out that you couldn’t just get to see the warden when you wanted to, broken fingers or not. He’d asked the doctors in the infirmary, telling them that he had new information about Alexei Petrovski, and that it was very important. They’d told him to put in a request and that he might get to see him tomorrow. Would that be good enough for a rabid animal like Vasily, he wondered? For a man that broke his fingers just to get him out of laundry duty? Would he accept that as an answer?

He looked up at his bed and eyed the bedsheets. He knew that he didn’t have the energy right now but the idea of taking that bedsheet and making a noose out of it seemed like a very attractive option. He looked at the ceiling and wondered if the light fitting would be strong enough to take his weight. The only other thing that he could tie it to would be the bedframe and he didn’t know if he’d have the determination to hang himself that way. Being able to stand up again would probably make it impossible. Maybe there was some way to get around that? Or maybe he could find something sharp tomorrow to cut his wrists with?

“Little Fish is coward?” came an all too familiar voice, “He hang himself instead of putting up a fight?”

He looked up in horror. There were a pair of tattooed legs dangling over the edge of the bed. Suddenly Alexei sat up on his top bunk and grinned down at him with those awful gold teeth. Josh scrambled into a crouching position and stared up at him. He knew that he wasn’t really there but it didn’t stop him from feeling scared.

“Alexei always knew that Little Fishy was very weak man… Not man, little boy… That why Little Fish so easy to... how you say? …’persuade’…He does anything not to hurt… Not to feel pain… So scared of pain!” He grinned at him and shook his head in a pitying sort of way. ‘Oh, no, Alexei?! Please?!” he said, mimicking his voice, “Please no, Alexei, please?!”  He slapped his thigh and laughed loudly.

“Shut up!” pleaded Josh, clamping his hands over both ears, “Shut up!”

“What did Little Fish do on the outside to get himself in here?” he asked, with a nasty smirk, “He was tough guy? He big criminal? …He kill many men with bare hands?”

Josh glanced up at him and flushed bright red.

“No!” laughed Alexei, “He silly little boy… Self-defence, I hear… Killed woman by accident!”

“Shut up!” shouted Josh, “Just shut up!”

“Now he here with murderers and rapists… Real men!” he said, sneering down at him, “Little Fish is snivelling little girl… He is joke… Everyone is laughing at him!”

Josh stared up at him, breathing hard as he felt a rage building inside him.

“Little Fish is weak …is pathetic!” he continued, “Everyone knows… He spend his time on knees… He beg… He do what he’s told.” He began to laugh even louder. Big belly laughs, reverberating around the cell. “He have no guts… Little Fish will never stand up for self!”

Josh glared up at him. The anger that he felt was overwhelming. He couldn’t hold it in any longer!

“I stood up to you!” he roared, suddenly leaping to his feet, “I nearly killed you! …I neutered you!” He began to pull all the blankets off the bed and dragged the mattress off the lower bunk. He was screaming now, shredding his vocal chords as he let out a low guttural cry. He wasn’t even making words anymore. He went to the bookcase unit and tore everything off the shelves, firing the few possessions that he had against the wall. Then he toppled the bookcase and began to kick it into splintered pieces. Kicking and kicking and kicking at it. He let out the loudest scream that he could manage and began to punch the wall. He punched it over and over again, breaking the skin on his knuckles, and leaving a smear of blood. “I neutered you… I stood up to you” he sobbed in a hoarse and broken voice. “I said ‘no’!” he cried, before sinking to the floor in floods of tears, “I put up a fight!”

Looking up to where Alexei had been before, he gave a loud sob when he saw that he wasn’t there anymore. He was alone in this dark and squalid, smashed up cell. He’d always been alone. He’d always known that. He kneeled there panting on the floor, feeling pathetic and foolish and sad. Shouting at an apparition, as though that would make any difference to anything? What was the point in anything anymore? What was the point?!

He looked at the pieces of splintered wood on the floor and picked up a long and particularly sharp piece. It sort of looked like a flimsier version of a wooden stake. Like something you might drive into the heart of a vampire in an old Hollywood movie. He twirled it round and round in his splinted left hand and gave a little sigh. Maybe he had exactly what he needed right here?

[Ludub]

Thanks again everybody for taking the time to comment! Much appreciated!  Hope you like this one (Might not have time to update again for a little while but we'll see...)

WARNING: VERY ADULT THEMES!!!

 

Chapter 14

 

“Okay, Josh” said the doctor, giving him a pitying little smile, “That’s your hand patched up… You’re lucky there aren’t any broken bones… and your wrist should heal pretty well too… The cut wasn’t too deep.”

He glanced up at her in a shame-faced sort of way. He knew that she’d seen through his explanation but she’d been polite enough not to ridicule him. He probably wasn’t the first to fail in a clumsy and half-hearted attempt at suicide. It turned out that wood didn’t cut very well.

“And you’ll be relieved to know” she continued, “…that I’ve been speaking to the welfare officer… and he said they’re willing to overlook the damage that you’ve done to your cell… given the… the circumstances.”

“Can I go now?” asked Josh, staring at the floor again. It wasn’t that he particularly wanted to get back out into the general population, with all the dangers that that entailed, but the smirks and pitying looks of all the medical staff were a bit too much to take. He was sure that he’d even seen the nurses laughing at him.

“Wouldn’t you rather stay here?” asked the doctor, “You can stay in here for a while and… maybe we could run a few tests?”

“What tests?” he asked, glancing up at her with a worried frown.

“Well” said the doctor, “I know you’ve been sharing a cell with Alexei Petrovski, and…”

“Nothing happened!” he snapped, hugging his arms around himself and wincing from the pain in his hand. He knew where this was going.

“Josh” she said, tilting her head at him in a way that said she didn’t believe him, “I can see the list of injuries that you’ve sustained since you arrived… and well…”

“Nothing happened” he growled at her through gritted teeth, “So can you please just leave it?”

“I think we both know that’s not true” she said, shaking her head at him, “I just want to help”.

“Can I please just go?” he asked, making a move to get off the bed that he was sitting on. He didn’t know where he thought he was going that would be better than here, but he wanted out.

“Josh, please?!” she said, taking hold of his arm to stop him, “Just hear me out.”

“What?!” he asked, sounding a little impatient, “What is it that you want from me?!”

“I think… given the circumstances… it might be prudent for us to run an HIV test” she said, tilting her head to one side sympathetically, “…and maybe check you over… physically?”

Josh blanched white and looked away abruptly. HIV?! It was like she’d just kicked him in the stomach! He felt his heart begin to race and he found himself taking deep breaths just to keep from vomiting. It wasn’t like he’d never thought about it before. Everything about what had happened had made him feel ‘infected’ in some way. Tainted and dirty, like he’d never feel clean again. But HIV was a fear that he’d been trying to push to the farthest recesses of his mind. Now she’d just thrown it in his face and made him confront it. What if Alexei was HIV positive? What if he’d done more than just mark his territory when he’d forced himself on him? What if he had infected him?!

“Is he… Is he positive?” he asked, glancing up at her with fear-filled eyes, “Is that why you’re asking?”

“I honestly don’t know his status…” she said, giving him an apologetic little head tilt, “…and even if I did, I wouldn’t be allowed to discuss another patient with you… But it wouldn’t take long to do the tests …and they’re relatively painless…” She patted him softly on the knee. “It might put your mind at rest?”

He gave a little snort and smiled at her in a bitter sort of way. “Put my mind at rest?” he repeated, as he looked back down at the floor. His mind was never going to be at rest again.

“Hopefully” she said, “And… depending on when it happened, we could even put you on some preventative medication?”

“No” said Josh, getting to his feet, “I don’t… I don’t need it… I told you, nothing happened!” He didn’t want to talk about it. Not with anyone.

“Josh, please?!” she pleaded, catching hold of his arm again as he tried to walk past her. The guard was waiting for him just outside the door.

“Get off me!” he snapped, pulling his arm away from her, “Just… just let it go, will you?!”

“Josh, did Mr Petrovski force you to have penetrative sex?” she asked quite bluntly as he stood there in front of her.

He flinched at the brutality of the words. ‘Penetrative sex’? …‘Penetrative’ He knew exactly what that word meant and what it felt like. He’d never be able to forget that moment when it happened for the first time. The shock and the pain… and the utter humiliation. He felt physically sick just thinking about it.

“Josh?” she said, using a soft tone of voice as she watched him shaking in front of her, “Did he?”

He took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. “It wasn’t sex” he muttered, as he kept his eyes fixed firmly on the ground, “That wasn’t ‘sex’… What he did to me… It wasn’t…” He looked up at her in a shame-faced sort of way. “I’m not gay, okay?!”

“No-one’s saying that you are!” she said, shaking her head at him, “No-one thinks that, Josh… It was rape… You didn’t have a choice.”

He nodded and pulled his arms tighter around his chest.

“So… We’ll start with a blood test if that’s okay with you?” she said, nodding for him to sit down on the bed again, “And then we’ll do the physical examination”

Josh dithered for a moment and then reluctantly walked back to the bed. He wondered what he was doing. Last night he’d tried to slash his wrists, very unsuccessfully, with a piece of splintered wood. What did it matter if he had HIV?! What would it matter if he’d be dead soon anyway?! He could see her entering details on the computer and wondered what she’d written about him. Did he seem as sad and pathetic on paper as he did in real life? “I …uh…” he stammered as he eased himself down on the bed, “I don’t… I don’t want people to know.”

“I’m a doctor” she said, trying to reassure him, “Anything you tell me is confidential… I won’t be telling anyone anything… okay?”

He nodded, as she went back to her typing, and stared down at his feet again. This was beyond mortifying.

“So…” she said, going to a cupboard at the side of the room and producing a white and blue hospital gown, “I’d ask you to get undressed and pop this on.” It was the type of gown that ties at the back, leaving the patient deliberately exposed, like some kind of cruel joke.

He gazed at it and felt his stomach tighten and his heartrate pick up. He didn’t want to be naked in front of her if he could avoid it. He didn’t want her to see all his injuries. He didn’t want to have to explain them.

“You can use that screen over there” she said, nodding at it as she began to fill in some additional reports on her computer, “And I’ve asked for a nurse to come and assist with the physical examination.”

He sat and stared at the gown in his lap and wondered if he’d really be able to go through with this. He thought he might be sick.

Just then an large older man in blue scrubs walked in and smiled at the doctor. “You asked for a rape kit?” he said, carrying a metal tray with some worrying looking pieces of medical equipment. “Dr Monroe said for me to assist.” he said.

“Thank you, Calvin” she replied, nodding for him to set the tray on the treatment table, “We’re just waiting for Mr Barrett to get changed.”

The male nurse turned to look at Josh and gave him a curt little nod. He could see him staring at the tray. “Well…” he asked him, “…Are you getting changed or not?”

Josh looked at the man in front of him and thought about what this physical examination was going to entail. He’d have to lie on a bed, half-naked, and vulnerable. He’d have to expose himself and allow them to touch him. He’d have to allow them to touch him there. He didn’t want a man touching him. Not there, not anywhere… Not ever again! His heart was hammering now and he felt like he couldn’t breathe. His whole body was telling him to run. “I can’t do this” he said, leaping to his feet and making a run for the door. “This was a mistake!” he said, “…I can’t, I’m sorry!”

“Woah, woah, calm down!” said the nurse, stepping into his path and grabbing hold of both his arms, “You’re not going anywhere!”

“Get off me!” squealed Josh, struggling to free himself, “Let me go! Get off me!” He was clearly panicking.

“Let him go!” shouted the doctor, giving the nurse a very disapproving look when she saw that he almost had him in a headlock, “Calvin, let him go… Let him go!”

Calvin released him and stood back in a melodramatic kind of way. “Go on then!” he huffed, “Do what you want!”

Josh stood shaking and hyperventilating by the doorway. “I can’t!” he said, in a breathless way, “I can’t do this… I have to go.” He reached for the door handle with a shaking hand and opened it. “I’m sorry, Dr Stevens…” he said, trembling as he looked back at her, “I just can’t.” With that, he walked back outside to the guard and turned to allow his wrists to be cuffed behind his back.

“You know where I am, Josh” said the doctor, standing in the doorway now, “Just ask for me, and we’ll have a chat, okay?”

He nodded at her and gave her a sad little smile as he was led away. He didn’t think that he’d be back. Not alive anyway.

As they walked out through the secured doors of the infirmary, the guard raised his eyebrows at him in interest. “The warden wants to see you” he said, “Just got a call on the radio to bring you straight there.”

Josh nodded and looked at his feet. This was the moment of truth.

“What’s this about then?” asked the guard, as he dragged him along quite roughly. “You’re gonna get yourself a reputation, Barrett!”  he teased, “Not content with being a little bitch, you’re gonna be a dog now too?”

 

*****

 

“Shower time!” grinned Smithy, as he shoved Josh through the door to his cell with his hands still cuffed behind his back, “Word is you’re starting to smell! …Had some complaints from some of the other inmates… They say there’s a strong and distinctive smell of ‘dog’ off you!” He gave him a vicious little grin and then followed him inside.

Smithy had come to get him after he’d made his statement to the warden and had made a point of making vicious little jibes to him about being a ‘dog’. It was the word used in the prison for the worst kind of snitches and not a name that you wanted to earn for yourself. Not if you wanted to live! The only thing worse than being a ‘dog’ was a paedophile. If everyone found out about it, he would soon be a target for anyone with an axe to grind. He’d be a dead man!

Josh turned and looked at him in a frightened sort of way. “I… I don’t need a shower” he said, feeling very vulnerable in his restrained state. The cuffs were biting into his injured wrist too. “I don’t think I should be getting these bandages wet.” he said.

“Not my problem!” laughed Smithy, as he picked up Josh’s towel and threw it over his shoulder for him. The cell had been tidied up and a new bookcase unit put in. His washbag was sitting on top of it. Smithy picked it up and unzipped it. “Mmmm” he said, after sticking his nose in and breathing in slowly, “That is a nice soapy smell, isn’t it?!” He walked over to Josh and laughed as he backed away from him until his back was against the wall.

“Please?” he said, starting to sweat as Smithy invaded his personal space and pressed against him, “I’ll take a shower tomorrow.”

“Well, now… That just won’t do!” said Smithy, leaning in closer and sniffing his neck in a slow and creepy kind of way, “That won’t do at all… I am getting a definite whiff of dog off you!”  He sniffed him again, in a long and lingering way that made his skin crawl. “Come on now” he said, grinning at him as he stood far too close, “Don’t you want to get nice and clean?”

Josh shook his head and pulled away as much as he could as Smithy leaned in against him. He turned his head away and stood there shaking. Was everyone in this prison a potential rapist?!

“Maybe we could come to some kind of arrangement?” he said, softly stroking Josh’s hair behind his ear, “Something that would be mutually beneficial?”

Josh glanced at him sideways in a fearful sort of way. “No!” he said, shaking his head at him with a pained expression on his face, “No!”

“Ah, come on?!” hissed Smithy, leaning in even closer and nuzzling his neck a little with his nose, “I’m sure we could work something out? …You’ve already done it a couple of times… What’s another go?”

Josh gasped and gave a sudden jump when he felt Smithy’s hand between his legs He was cupping him and caressing him in an insistent sort of way. “Get off me!” he gasped, wriggling and bucking to try to get away from him, “Get your hands off me!” He couldn’t defend himself with his hands still cuffed.

“Ho ho!” laughed Smithy, with a vicious little smile, “What have we here?! …You say ‘let go’, but your body’s telling me something else! …You want it, don’t you?!” He grinned at him. “You wanted it with him too, didn’t you?! …I knew it!”

He flushed bright red at his body’s betrayal. He was embarrassed and confused and angry. He didn’t want this! He didn’t want this man anywhere near him, never-mind touching him like this! Why was his body reacting this way?!

“Get off me!” he shouted, wriggling his body in a desperate attempt to get away from him, “Get off me!” The shame he felt was overwhelming.

“Okay” said Smithy, giving him one last squeeze, and then letting go, “But I think you’ll regret that decision.” He grabbed him by the shoulder and turned him round roughly, shoving him hard and smashing his cheek against the wall. “The shower it is then!” he said, tucking his washbag under his arm, “Off we go!”

Smithy shoved him back out the door into the hallway and began to lead him towards the shower room. Faces peered out of the cells as he passed and he heard the men whispering. He didn’t know if this was what Vasily had intended when he’d asked him to dob Sergei in, or if this was Smithy taking matters into his own hands. Maybe he was seeking revenge on Alexei’s part?!

They reached the still-forming queue for the showers, and Smithy finally uncuffed his hands. “Well, Little Dog” he whispered in his ear, laughing and ruffling his hair in a patronising way, “Enjoy your shower!”

With that, he left him standing there. He was still shaking and red in the face with shame. Some of the men in front of him in the queue turned to look at him and he wondered if they knew.

He hung his head and gently massaged his injured wrist and hand. His heart was still going like a jackhammer in his chest and he felt like vomiting on the spot. He glanced behind him. A number of rough looking older men had now joined the queue behind him and they were whispering among themselves. He’d never felt more alone. Was this how it was going to end? Today? In the shower? He hoped that they’d make it quick, but he suspected that they wouldn’t. He just wondered who it was going to be...

His legs felt like jelly, but he followed the line, shuffling along with his head down. As he tried to tune out the sounds around him. He began to think about his life. How had it all gone so badly wrong?! Twenty years on this planet. Twenty years! It wasn’t long enough. It wasn’t long enough for anyone! He hadn’t had a chance to make something of himself. He hadn’t got the chance to really live. But the more he thought about it, the last year of his life hadn’t been worth living anyway. He’d hurt so many people! If he could have wound back the clocks, and turned that life support machine off himself, he would have. It would just have been over. Blessed darkness… He would never have known anything about it. He would simply have ceased to be. The world would have been a much better place if Andy had just allowed them to turn the machines off. Beep, and he’d have been gone… Andy wouldn’t be in prison now, and Oscar and Hannah wouldn’t have died. He’d ruined everything for everyone, just by being alive! Maybe he deserved this? Maybe this was his punishment?

“Josh!” came a shout from further up the line, “Josh!”

He lifted his head in a startled way and peered along the line trying to see where the shout had come from.

“Josh!” shouted Kyle, making his way along the line of men with Aaron trailing behind him, “Josh!”

He raised his hand in a dazed sort of way, and furrowed his brow at them. They were jostling men out of the way to get to him. Were they crazy?! What on earth were they thinking?! He might as well have had a bullseye on his back, so anyone with any sense would have been giving him a wide berth. Did they want to get themselves killed?!

“Josh, mate, are you okay?!” asked Kyle when he reached him, “We’ve been trying to find out where you were… What’s going on?!”

[Ludub]

Thanks again to all you lovely people who take the time to leave a comment. Much appreciated! Hope you like this one!

 

WARNING: VERY ADULT THEMES!!!

 

Chapter 15

 

 

Josh pulled his sweatshirt off slowly and glanced across at Kyle and Aaron in a nervous sort of way. Kyle had his back to him and was chatting quietly with Aaron as they got undressed. He’d asked them to go about their business and stop fussing over him. Their well-meant concern was making him feel suffocated and uncomfortable. He could see that Kyle was down to just his underpants now, and Aaron had his shirt off, and was busy folding it. They seemed so relaxed in comparison to him and that just made things even harder. He was shaking and sweating as he stood there beside them. He wondered if everyone could tell how scared he was. He was sure that he was going to throw up. The place was packed with men in various states of undress. Some were wandering about a little brazenly, puffing their chests out in a way that said they didn’t care who saw them, while others were clearly a little ill at ease with the situation. There were about thirty men inside the shower room and a line was still forming at the door. At a glance, there were four guards on duty too. He took hold of the bottom of his t-shirt and took a deep breath. This was something that he didn’t want to do. The last thing that he wanted was to have to stand here naked in front of all these men. He could feel their eyes on him already! In some ways, it was even worse that Kyle and Aaron were here. They were his friends and they cared about him. They were sure to ask him about his injuries. They wouldn’t be able to ignore them. Good friends wouldn’t ignore marks like these. But that meant that they’d know! They’d know what had happened, and he didn’t want that. His suffering was etched all over his body in black and purple and yellow for anyone to see… But he didn’t want them to see… Not them! He didn’t want their pity. He felt ashamed. The problem was that he didn’t have a choice… If he refused to have a shower, the guards could force him. They’d be well within their rights to strip him naked and hose him down in front of everyone. There would be nothing that he could do about that. He’d already seen them do that to one of the older inmates who was going a little senile. They’d do it! Prison regulations said that inmates had to shower at least once a day. No exceptions.  They’d make him shower whether he wanted to or not.

He took a deep breath and glanced around him at the other prisoners as he slowly pulled his t-shirt over his head. He looked down at his chest and grimaced a little at the sight of his own bruised torso. He ran his fingers over the dark bruises on his abdomen that still hadn’t really faded much and winced a little because they were still quite tender. He looked like he’d been in a car accident! He saw an older man give him a very startled look. He was standing at the bench across from him and he’d just caught sight of his bruises and done a sort of double take. There was a flicker of concern on the man’s face. The first hint of kindness from a stranger that he’d seen since he’d been here. Another couple of men turned to look at him and whispered to each other in a way that seemed almost sympathetic. They looked like they were old enough to be his father and like they maybe had sons of their own. Then he heard a few snorts of laughter and turned to see a group of younger Italian or Greek looking muscle-heads staring at him from another bench. One of the guards was laughing too. They all seemed to find it decidedly amusing. He couldn’t help flushing a little red with anger and embarrassment and turned back to face the wall as he continued to undress. This was hard! He balled the t-shirt up and threw it down on the bench before undoing the strings on his tracksuit bottoms. He glanced at Kyle and Aaron again, making sure that they weren’t looking. They were clearly making an effort to give him some privacy, just like he’d asked. He quickly pulled his tracksuit bottoms and underwear down and kicked them off as fast as he could. He didn’t want anyone to see them, so he picked them up in a hurry, and bundled them on the bench beside him. Then he picked up his towel and wrapped it around his waist.  He looked down and saw his trainers lying where he’d kicked them off, so he crouched down and set them out of the way. As he stood back up he realised that Kyle and Aaron were staring at him now. They looked noticeably shocked and Aaron was running his eyes slowly up and down his body.

“I know” said Josh, hanging his head and staring at the floor, “I know, okay… Can you just not…?”

“Josh?!” said Kyle, staring at him in horror. He was shocked at the extent of his injuries, now on full display. The bruises were bad enough in themselves, telling a story of weeks of physical abuse, but there were other things that he hadn’t been aware of, and the bandages on his hands just made him look even more pathetic. “Josh… I didn’t…” he stammered, “I didn’t know…”

“Can we just go and shower?” said Josh, flushing red with shame, “I told you…I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Are those… are those bite marks?” asked Aaron, stepping around Kyle to take a closer look. His face was full of kindness and concern. He looked truly shocked. “Oh, my God! Josh?!” he said in a hushed tone, “…He… he bit you?!”

“Don’t!” gasped Josh, flinching and stepping away as Aaron tried to touch the marks on his chest. There was no mistaking them. They were clearly bite marks and they were deep and painful looking. Alexei’s gold teeth had done a lot of damage! He had a bite just below his collarbone, and another on his back in the soft tissue between his shoulder and his neck.

“Sorry” said Aaron, tilting his head at him in pity, “I didn’t… Josh… I wasn’t going to hurt you…” He glanced at Kyle in a worried kind of way.

“Mate…” said Kyle, moving towards him, “Why didn’t you tell us how bad it was… I mean, have you even had those looked at?!” He couldn’t take his eyes off the nasty looking wounds. They looked so painful.

“They’re fine!” growled Josh, moving out of his way, “They don’t hurt… They’ll heal”. He glanced in embarrassment at some of the other men now looking on. They were certainly attracting attention! He could see two rough looking men who were entertaining their group by pretending to hump each other. He winced a little when they all turned to look at him and started to laugh.

“They’re not fine!” said Kyle, putting his hand on Josh’s shoulder, “Someone bit you, Josh! …They could be infected!”

“Get off me!” snapped Josh, pulling his shoulder away from him and glaring at him, “Don’t touch me!”

“Okay” sighed Kyle, letting go and holding his hands up in a conciliatory way, “Okay, Josh, calm down!”

“Don’t tell me to calm down!” he snarled, “Just… just, stop touching me!” He was feeling particularly uncomfortable because both Kyle and Aaron were naked.

“Okay, okay Josh!” said Kyle, keeping his hands held up, “No touching… I just want to talk…”

“I don’t… I don’t want to talk about it” said Josh, feeling even more embarrassed now, “Can we just go and get washed?”

“Okay, okay…” said Kyle, stepping back from him, “We’ll just go and shower… We can talk about it later.”

Josh closed his eyes and blew out a breath in an exasperated way. “Seriously, Kyle!” he growled through gritted teeth, “What part of ‘I don’t want to talk about it’ do you not understand?!”

“Hey, we’re just trying to help!” said Kyle, in a frustrated tone, “This is what you always do! …You shut people out, you push them away when you need them most!”

“Kyle! Give him a break!” whispered Aaron, giving him a disapproving look, “He doesn’t need a guilt trip!”

“No” said Kyle, turning back to look at Josh again, “It’s Aaron’s last day today… He’s getting out tomorrow… and there are things we’d rather be doing than babysitting you! But we’re here and we want to make sure you’re okay…”

Josh hung his head. He hadn't asked Kyle to come and 'babysit' him.

“Kyle, he really doesn’t need this!” scolded Aaron. He didn’t like how aggressive Kyle was being with Josh but he knew that it had more to do with the fact that he was leaving than anything else. Kyle was obviously hurting, and he was taking his frustration out on this poor boy. “You can’t bully him into talking to you!” he said.

“He needs to learn when to accept help” replied Kyle, remembering how Josh had behaved when he’d come home blind from the hospital. He’d needed ‘tough love’ that time too. “He can’t keep pushing people away!” he said.

“I don’t think this is the way to get through to him” argued Aaron, as he pulled Kyle’s arm to make him step back a bit, “He doesn’t need you in his face like this either!” He could see that Josh looked a little intimidated.

“I’m not!” said Kyle, pulling his arm away from Aaron.

“Stop it!” snapped Josh, “Stop talking about me like I’m not here!”

“See?!” said Aaron, “You’re just freaking him out!”

“I’m just trying to help him!” said Kyle, rolling his eyes at Aaron and giving a frustrated little huff.

“I didn’t ask you to help me!” said Josh. This was humiliating!

“I never said you did” replied Kyle, “But we’re here now… and we’re trying to help anyway, so stop throwing it back in our faces!” He nodded towards the group of burly men mucking around on the other side of the room, and lowered his voice. “You really wanna shower on your own… with them?!”

Josh followed Kyle’s gaze and then stared down at the floor in a shame-faced sort of way. “No” he said, feeling ashamed of himself. He was grateful for their help. He just didn’t know how to show it. He didn’t want to be alone in here with all these men but he was more than a little on edge. Everything was making him jumpy.

“Then let us help you” said Kyle, trying to put his hand on Josh’s arm again.

“Just back off!” exclaimed Josh, flinching his arm away from him again. He hadn’t really meant to shout at him but he just couldn’t stand people touching him. Not anymore. It made his skin crawl.

Kyle shook his head at him in a pitying way. It felt like it was one step forward, and two steps back with him!

“Sorry” mumbled Josh, giving him an apologetic look and fidgeting a little with the towel around his waist. Kyle and Aaron were still standing too close to him for his liking and it was making him feel more than a little uneasy. He didn’t like being naked, and he really didn’t want to be around other naked men, friends or otherwise. Since Alexei, it felt like every man posed a real and present threat! Like they might try to pounce on him at any moment. He was scared. He glanced down at their exposed groins for a moment, wishing that they’d cover up. It was an involuntary action but he blushed bright red when he realised that they’d seen him do it. They’d seen him look at their crotches!

Kyle gave him a strange look and then took yet another step back. He turned and reached for the towels behind him on the bench, wrapping his around his waist, and handing the other to Aaron, who quickly followed suit

Josh’s face was burning bright red now and he could hardly look them in the eye. Kyle’s reaction, and sudden desire to cover up, had more than confirmed his fears. They’d seen him looking! How could he explain why he’d done it? Would they think that he’d been checking them out?! Would they think that he was gay?! Was that what people thought?! After all, straight men didn’t stare at other men’s crotches. They didn’t get an erection when other men touched them… And they certainly didn’t ejaculate while being raped. What was wrong with him?! Had he asked for it in some way?! …Had he made Alexei think that he wanted it?! …Had he deserved what had happened to him?! Maybe he was gay?! Why else would his body have reacted the way that it did?! Maybe he was sending out signals?! Maybe that was why he kept finding himself on the receiving end?! Maybe all of this was his fault?! Maybe he did deserve it? He’d never been so confused… or so full of self-loathing… or so aware of other men’s bodies. He felt sick to his stomach. He felt ashamed. There was an anger rising up inside him too, a rage that he didn’t know what to do with. He felt like he needed to hit something… or hurt himself… or something! He wanted to scream.

“C’mon, mate” said Kyle, making a move to usher him towards the shower, “Let’s go get that shower…”

“I’m not… I’m not…” muttered Josh, glancing up at them in an apologetic way.  “I’m not gay!” he said, flushing even redder in the face, “I wasn’t looking at you like that….”

“Yeah, we know” said Aaron, “It’s okay… Don’t worry about it…”

“No-one thinks that.” added Kyle, glancing sideways at Aaron. He could see that Josh was more than a little upset. He wondered what he’d think if he knew about him and Aaron.

“Well, I’m not!” snapped Josh, looking up at them with a pained grimace on his face, “You think I wanted it?! That I wanted that?!” He looked like he could vomit on the spot, “I’m not gay!”

“I’m not gay!” came a high-pitched shout from across the room. Josh’s outburst had caught the attention of the group of young ‘Italian’ men, and one of them was using a high pitched falsetto to imitate him, and walking back and forth in a camp sort of way. The whole group began to laugh really loudly. This guy was obviously the clown of their group. “Suck on this, sweetheart!” he shouted, as he turned back towards Josh and grabbed his own groin, “Come over here and I’ll show you what a real man is!”

Josh looked away and clenched his jaw as the mocking continued. Part of him wanted to charge over there and smash that grinning ape’s face in, but he knew that he’d just get himself killed. Even with Kyle and Aaron for support, they’d be outnumbered, and these guys were much bigger and tougher anyway. He’d just have to try to ignore them.

“I’m not gay” he mumbled again, shaking his head at Kyle and trembling with anger, “I’m not”.

“Yeah, we know that” said Kyle, “Don’t let them get to you.” He picked Josh’s washbag up off the bench and handed it to him. “C’mon?”

“I’m not!” insisted Josh, staring past them at the group across the room. They were still laughing, and from the crude gestures they were making, it was pretty clear that they were still making jokes about him. “I don’t care what anyone thinks of me!” he said, “…I didn’t want what happened!  I’m not gay! …What they do? Gays? …It’s… It’s disgusting! …It’s sick!”

Kyle glanced in an apologetic way at Aaron. He knew that Josh was just angry, and that he was simply lashing out, but the words still hurt. Josh was his friend, and in some ways, he felt responsible for the things that he said. As though Josh making homophobic comments somehow reflected badly on him by association. He didn’t want Aaron to be upset.

“No-one thinks you’re gay” said Aaron, giving Josh a sympathetic little smile, “Believe me”. He couldn’t help feeling sorry for him. He just looked so beaten down and miserable. He couldn’t even feel angry with him for making such offensive comments. Josh’s anger and disgust seemed like a pretty natural reaction to him, and fairly justified. After all, this was a boy whose only experience of gay sex had been extremely violent rape. It wasn’t something that he’d invited, or that he’d consented to, and he’d been hurt badly in the process. How else was he meant to feel about it?!

“Yeah, mate… Seriously… just ignore them” said Kyle, motioning for him to walk towards the showers with them, “Let’s just go.”

Kyle and Aaron followed along behind him and exchanged glances. This wasn’t how they’d planned to spend Aaron’s last day. They’d hoped to find a little bit of private time together where possible today and spend their time in the shower throwing caution to the wind and even being a little bit flirty. Babysitting Josh hadn’t been on the cards at all… but here they were now…

They walked into the showers and Josh stared down at the ground as he took his towel off and hung it on one of the hooks. He was trying not to attract too much attention or accidentally look at anyone else. All he wanted was to get through this and get dressed again as quickly as possible. Was that so much to ask?!

Kyle and Aaron took the showers on either side of him and began to soap themselves down. He knew that they were just trying to be protective but having one on either side of him was just making him feel hemmed in and claustrophobic. He closed his eyes and tried to slow his heart rate and his breathing. He felt like he was on the verge of a full-blown panic attack. Was anything about this life ever going to get any easier?!

Kyle looked at Josh as he stood there under the water, and tilted his head at him in a pitying sort of way. He could see that he was shaking. As he looked at him, standing there with his eyes fixed on the floor, he couldn’t imagine what was going through his head right now or how he was feeling about things. Josh’s prison experience was so far removed from his own that he almost felt guilty for having had things so easy. He didn’t know why Josh had been so unlucky. He did know that pushing him to talk before he was ready might not be the right thing, but he couldn’t help feeling frustrated by his retreat into silence. He just wanted him to talk to him! He wanted to try to help! That was why he’d decided to take such a risk with Smithy. On reflection, handing over so much money with very little guarantee might not have been the smartest move, especially if it turned out now that it had all been for nothing, but he couldn’t see what other option they’d really had. He just hoped that Smithy would still deliver on his promises. He’d obviously turned out to be a bit of a loose cannon, but that wasn’t to say that he wouldn’t still follow through on the deal. Especially with Alexei removed from the equation. They’d simply have to wait and see.

Suddenly, he realised that Aaron was watching him. Their eyes met and he gave him a sad little smile. This was going to be their last shower together. He didn’t want to think about what was going to happen tomorrow. Tomorrow was tomorrow… They still had today, and they still had tonight. He looked around to make sure that no-one was looking and then mouthed the words ‘Love you’ to him as subtly as he could. Aaron winked and went back to washing his hair.

After a few minutes, Kyle turned off the water and went to get his towel. The other two joined him and they walked out side by side to the benches where they’d been before and began to get dried and dressed. The ‘Italians’ were gone now and there was a whole new crowd of men getting undressed. While some of them could be seen taking an obvious interest in the young man covered from head to toe in bruises, for the most part they were keeping their heads down and getting on with things.

Josh sat down on the bench after he pulled his tracksuit bottoms and t-shirt on and began to untie the shoelaces on his shoes. He was relieved that Kyle and Aaron seemed too engrossed in their own private conversation to grill him any further. He didn’t have much energy left. All he really wanted was to get back to his cell. He was going to end it tonight. He’d made his mind up and he thought that he’d figured out a way to do it.

“There he is!” shouted a large blonde man with an underbite, and a tattooed chest like Alexei’s. He had a very thick Russian accent too. “The stinking little dog!” he growled.

Josh jumped to his feet and glanced at Kyle and Aaron in a frightened kind of way. ‘So, they’re coming for me after all’, he thought to himself, ‘I’m a dead man!’ This was why he hadn’t wanted Kyle and Aaron involved! They were going to get themselves killed now, just for helping him! Kyle and Aaron were both on their feet now too, waiting and watching, as a group of very large Russian men made their way towards them. They were like a pack of angry Rottweilers, snarling, and foaming at the mouth. All they were missing were the spiked leather collars!

Josh watched as the place began to clear and the guards slowly slipped out of the room.  It was clear that they would be on their own now. There would be no help from anyone! His heart was racing!

“You informed on Sergei!” said Vasily, as he stepped out from behind the other men, “Told the warden that he drugged Alexei! …Told him he wanted our dear friend Cuddles out of the way, so that he could be the alpha?! …Didn’t you?! That’s what you told him?!” He stepped right in front of Josh and shook his head at him in a disapproving kind of way, “I mean, don’t you know what we do to ‘dogs’ in this place?! To little cowardly snitches?! …What made you think you could get away with it?!

[Ludub]

Thanks for the kind comments people. Hope you like this chapter...

 

WARNING: VERY ADULT THEMES!!!

 

Chapter 16

 

“Okay, so this is it” thought Josh, as he stared up at the face of the large Russian man above him, “I’m gonna die now.” He’d tried to fight back. They all had. He’d managed to get a few good blows in, even bloodying Vasily’s nose again, and catching one of them in the groin with his knee. But in the end, they were too large, there were too many of them, and he just wasn’t vicious enough a fighter. Neither were Kyle and Aaron. He lay there, still reeling from the kicks that he’d taken to the stomach and face, and spat out a little blood onto the floor. He was surprised there weren’t a few loose teeth. He glanced up at Kyle and Aaron who were pinned to the wall by the rest of Vasily’s men. They were sporting injuries of their own. They wouldn’t be able to help him. He looked into the cruel eyes of the man towering over him and something inside him just snapped. “Just do it!” he roared at him, through bloody teeth, “Do it! …If you’re gonna kill me, just get on with it, because I really don’t care!” Some part of him really meant that. He just wanted it all to be over.

Vasily stood over him for a moment with a cold and cruel glint in his eye and he wondered what he was going to do to him. How was it going to end? Would he just kick him to death or did he have something much worse and more painful than that in mind? Suddenly his face broke into a cruel smile and he began to laugh.

“Your little face!” chuckled Vasily, as he shook his head at him in a mocking sort of way, “The look on your little face… It never fails to make me laugh! …So serious!” He knelt down beside him, and reached out, trying to take his chin in his hand.

Josh flinched his face away and glanced at Kyle and Aaron again in a wide-eyed ‘what on earth is going on?!’ kind of way. They were both pretty battered and bruised, with cuts and scrapes, and they were being restrained by four of Vasily’s men. From the looks on their faces, it was obvious that they didn’t understand what was going on either. Why was he laughing?!

“Little Fish!” scolded Vasily, using a voice that was obviously meant to mimic Alexei, and struggling to keep a straight face, “Don’t be like that!”

Josh grimaced a little at the unpleasant reminder of a man that he’d been desperately trying to forget, and tried to sit up. Vasily made a move to help him but he flinched quite violently and batted his hand away. “Get off me!” he growled as he cradled his injured ribs and wondered if they were broken for a second time. He groaned as he pulled himself into a sitting position. “Keep your hands off me!” he snarled.

“Ah, come on! We’re just messing with you!” teased Vasily, as he began to really laugh, “I like a bit of a scrap from time to time… and it’s always good for the other prisoners to know that they should not mess with us… The scary Russians and… all this!” He turned to look at Kyle and Aaron who were still being crushed against the wall by his overenthusiastic henchmen and gave them a little nod to let them go. “If we’d wanted you dead, you would not have seen us coming” he said, with a little laugh as the two boys began to cough and splutter quite loudly. They’d been held against the wall with a forearm each against their necks, crushing their windpipes. “You’d just be choking on your own blood in that shower room” he said, “…and watching your life disappear down the drain hole…”

“He needs the infirmary” coughed Kyle, nodding at Josh on the floor as he massaged his own bruised neck, “Let me take him?!”

“Yeah, we’ll take him…” offered Aaron, nursing his own injured arm and making a move towards him, “We won’t say what happened to him.”

“Very kind of you!” said Vasily, giving Kyle and Aaron a look of interest as one of his men stopped them in their tracks, “But he will be okay… It’s nice that you… that you care about him.” He nodded at two of his men to make them sit down on one of the benches. “Just be careful” he said to Kyle, with a mischievous little smile as he nodded at Aaron “…that you don’t make your boyfriend jealous!”

Kyle blanched white and stared at the ground. He didn’t dare look at Aaron for fear of confirming things.

“We’re… we’re not” stammered Aaron, suddenly feeling quite frightened for Kyle. What if he left him here now with a bunch of homophobes and bigots?! What if their love for each other ultimately got Kyle killed?! “We’re not gay” said Aaron, seething inside and feeling ashamed of himself for lying.

“Hah! You think people don’t know?!” laughed Vasily, “You think your neighbours have not heard what you get up to at night?!” He looked at Josh and laughed when he saw the look of pure shock and disgust on his face. “You didn’t know?!” he asked, raising his eyebrows at him, “You didn’t know what your little friends have been up to?!”

Josh stared past him to Kyle and Aaron. They both looked so shame-faced and guilty, like naughty little children who’d just been caught doing something that they shouldn’t. He didn’t know what to think! ‘Kyle is gay?!’ he thought to himself, ‘When did this happen?!’

“…The walls here have eyes…” said Vasily, turning to grin at Kyle and Aaron again, “…and ears!” He giggled and clasped his hands together in front of him in a camp sort of way. “Ohhh Kyle!” he exclaimed, batting his eyelashes and speaking in a girly sort of voice, “I love you… mwah mwah mwah…” He made a slightly more masculine voice and answered, “And I love that tight little ass of yours!”

All the men began to laugh. Kyle clenched his jaw and began to look more and more angry.

‘Is that what everyone is doing when the door to their cell closes?!’ wondered Josh, ‘Am I the only straight man in this place?!’ The thought that Kyle would voluntarily sleep with another man made him feel a little queasy. He’d never been homophobic before, but everything had changed since Alexei. Now, the thought of gay sex simply horrified him, turning his stomach, and filling him with fear. It was an experience that he’d been trying to wipe from his memory ever since it had happened and the very idea of it repulsed him. How could anyone choose to do that sort of thing?! What the hell was wrong with them?!

“So…” said Vasily, turning to look at Josh again with a nasty smirk on his face, “You see?! If I had wanted to kill you and your little boyfriends here I could have done it…” He made a click with his thumb and middle finger, “Like that!” He leaned down and razzled Josh’s hair in an affectionate way. “This way, you and your little… How do you say this? …Your little… ‘fairy’ friends here can work for me… You are more useful to me alive than dead… For now!”

“I’m not working for you!” snarled Josh, “I’m done! …I don’t care if you kill me! …I don’t!”

“Maybe that’s true” said Vasily, with a little shrug of the shoulders, “Maybe it is… but maybe I kill you and… and then I make your little boyfriends here pay the price… Maybe they spend the rest of their sentences servicing all the men in this prison?” He turned and winked at Kyle and Aaron with a cold and nasty smile, “Of course, maybe they would like that… I don’t know.” He turned back to Josh again, bringing his face really close to his, and gave him a little wink. “For all I know, maybe you would like that too?”

“**** you!” growled Josh, as he suddenly spat in his face, “**** you all!”

“Ha ha!” exclaimed Vasily, wiping the spit from his left eye, “Is that an offer?! It sounded like an offer to me!” He turned and grinned at his men. “Didn’t it boys?!”

Josh tried to make a lunge at him but the pain in his ribs brought him to an abrupt stop and he winced with pain and began to cough.

“Little Fish has some spirit after all!” he laughed, throwing him a huge grin and wiping the spit off his fingers. In a sudden fluid movement, he grabbed Josh’s hair and yanked his head towards him so their faces were only inches apart. “Well played” he whispered in his ear, so close that no-one else could hear him, “I knew you’d figure it out! …You’re a smart kid!”

Josh glanced sideways at him and saw him give him a little wink. With that, he grabbed him by the front of the shirt and dragged him up onto his feet, shoving him forward and forcing him to sit down on the bench. “Now, Little Fish!” he said, slipping his arm around Josh’s shoulder, “I think we can… we can come to some sort of arrangement, can’t we?” He smiled at one of the men in his crew and nodded for him to come over to where they were sitting. “This” he said, picking Josh’s wrist up and forcing him to hold his hand out for a handshake, “This is my brother, Dimitri…”

Josh let the monstrous man now standing in front of him take his hand and nearly break his fingers.

“See those scars?” asked Vasily, pointing at Dimitri’s face. The man had scars on either side of his mouth, like the Joker in Batman. A Chelsea Grin carved into his face in what must have been a very vicious attack. “Our dear friend Cuddles gave Dimitri those scars…” said Vasily, “…and Sergei, our other dear friend held him down so that he could do it.”

Josh looked up at Dimitri in an effort to gauge his reaction and see what his intentions were. The man just stared at him.

“So…” said Vasily, squeezing Josh’s shoulder a little too hard, “You did us a little bit of a favour when you got rid of Alexei… and you’ve shown that you can keep your mouth shut when you need to… and you can follow instructions when you have to…” He turned and gripped Josh’s face in his hand and squeezed hard, making him wince with the pain of his bruised and bloody mouth. “And now you’ve shown that you can take a beating too and not run your silly little mouth off.”

Josh looked at him in confusion. What was he talking about?!

“You could have told my men here that I ordered you to snitch on Sergei” he said, giving Dimitri a little wink, “Couldn’t you?! … You could have tried to… to under... to under… to…? …What is this word?!”

“Undermine” said Dimitri, puffing his chest out and looking quite proud of himself.

“Yes!” smiled Vasily, “Undermine me… Make me look bad to my men… But you didn’t! …You took your beating…” He squeezed Josh’s face even harder, rocking it back and forth, and laughing at his obvious discomfort. There was blood all over his teeth! “And you kept this pretty little mouth of yours shut!” he said, “Didn’t you?!”

Josh stared at him with pure hatred. He wanted to wipe that stupid grin off his face so badly right now. All of this, and he’d just been testing him!

“Come on!” laughed Vasily, hugging him towards him in a playful sort of way that made him hiss with the pain in his ribs, “I would like us to be friends!” He held his hand out to him and made a sort of puppy dog face at him with his lower lip stuck out. “No hard feelings?” he asked.

Josh glanced at Kyle and Aaron. They were both watching on in a fearful sort of way. They were clearly worried in case he would do anything to set this nutcase off again. They gave him a little nod, silently begging him to accept, and he rolled his eyes.

With a little huff of frustration and defeat, he took Vasily’s hand and shook it. “No hard feelings” he muttered quietly.

“Good!” laughed Vasily, slapping him hard on the back as he got up off the bench, “Let’s go get something to eat! … I don’t know about you boys… but I’m hungry!” He pulled Josh to his feet and made a show of brushing Josh’s clothes down for him and tidying his hair. “You boys are at our table now, where we can keep an eye on you… and we will have a friendly chitter chatter about what we need you to do.”

He put his arm around Josh’s shoulder again and began to lead him out of the shower room. Josh still had no shoes on but he followed anyway.

He hobbled along, allowing Vasily to support him as they went, but kept glancing back at a frightened and shame-faced looking Kyle and Aaron. ‘How did I not see it?!’ he asked himself, as he watched the pair of them exchanging guilty glances and finding it hard to look him in the eye, ‘How did I not know that they were a couple?! Have they been laughing at me all this time?!’

Vasily pushed the door open and gave the guard standing outside a little nod of recognition as he let them all pass. They limped their way along the hallway, passing the line of prisoners who avoided eye contact with them as they best they could. No-one wanted to start anything with someone as unhinged as Vasily Ivanovich. Slowly the queue began to move again, and as they walked away they could hear the shower room fill with noisy conversation once more, as though nothing had happened.

“You boys will be happy to hear that we have sausages for dinner tonight!” said Vasily, glancing over his shoulder at Aaron and Kyle and giving them a sarcastic little wink. His men all laughed in an exaggerated and nervous way and he rolled his eyes at Josh and shook his head. “They laugh because they want to please the boss” he whispered to him, as he pulled him towards him and razzled his hair again. “You’re too thin…” he said, shaking his head at him as though he was his father, “You need some feeding up!”

Josh grimaced and tried to pull away from him a little. The pain in his ribs was intense and it was taking everything he had just to stay on his feet. He also didn’t appreciate jokes about being fed sausages.

As they neared the door to the canteen a sudden flash of bright light startled him. He furrowed his brow, trying to understand where it had come from. He glanced at Vasily but he didn’t seem to have seen it. He was much too busy speaking to the man next to him now, chatting away in Russian, and laughing in a relaxed sort of way. He glanced over his shoulder at Kyle and Aaron but they were staring at their feet as they shuffled along behind him. They mustn’t have seen it either! Maybe he’d been imagining things? After all, he had taken more than a couple of blows to the head. Maybe he had a brain bleed that he didn’t know about?! Maybe that flash had been a symptom?! He did feel a little strange…

Flash!

There it was again! A sudden glint of bright white light like the flash of a camera… but that wasn’t possible… Surely? No-one would have a camera in prison… would they?!

Flash again!

This time he saw it! Someone had stuck a mirror out through the door to their cell just for a moment. Just one fleeting moment. It had caught the light! Whoever it was was trying to see who was coming!

He turned to Vasily, trying to open his mouth to warn him, but nothing would come out! It was like he’d forgotten how to speak! The panic overtook him and he simply stared as a number of angry men appeared from that cell and moved towards them at great speed. They were coming! He could see them! “Vasily” he finally whispered, unable to raise his voice, “Look!”

Vasily turned just as the blade went in. It happened incredibly fast! The blade was drawn out and plunged in again a number of times! A look of confusion passed over his face, like a cloud obscuring the sun, and replaced the stupid grin that he’d been wearing all day. He furrowed his brows at Josh, making a strange gurgling noise, as blood bubbled up and began to pour out of his mouth. The young skin-head man who’d been wielding the knife had already turned and run and was disappearing at great speed into the distance. Vasily put his hand to his mouth and wiped at some of the blood before bringing his hand up to look at it. He rolled the blood between his fingers and then widened his eyes at Josh in a shocked sort of way. “What?” he spluttered, as he fell to his knees and pulled Josh with him.

All hell broke loose. Or at least that’s what it seemed like to Josh. There seemed to be men with weapons appearing from every doorway. There were screams and shouts and yells of anguish as make-shift weapons sliced through flesh. It was a flurry of green, as men ran in every direction, and bodies fell to the floor. Alarms were sounding with bright flashing lights, and among the green shapes rushing this way and that, there was the odd beige coloured form too. The guards were trying to get away! He couldn’t see what was going on all that well, not from where he was lying, but he could hear the screams! What was he going to do?! He couldn’t move! Vasily had fallen on top of him and the man’s enormous frame was pinning him to the floor. He tried with all his might to lift him, to push him away so that he could scramble out from below him, but he was just too heavy. “Please?!” he wheezed, desperately turning his head to see if anyone could help him, “Please?!” His chest felt like it was being crushed and the pain in his already injured ribs was something shocking. He could hardly draw breath. The panic that he felt was out of this world but he could tell that he was close to passing out. His vision was blurring and he was feeling dizzy. Maybe this was how it would end? “Please?!” he wheezed again, as he saw a fuzzy green form approaching. He couldn’t see who it was, and he couldn’t raise his voice much more than a whisper. “Help?!” he called.

[Ludub]

Thanks again everyone! Your feedback is always appreciated  Really hope you like this one!

 

WARNING: VERY ADULT THEMES!

 

Chapter 17

 

 

Josh gasped in pain, and coughed and spluttered, as the heavy weight of Vasily’s body was rolled off him. He turned onto his side and cradled his broken ribs as he struggled to draw breath. “Oh God!” he groaned, in a laboured wheezing way, “Oh God!”

“No time for pray!” said Dimitri, grabbing him by the back of his shirt and dragging him up onto his feet, “We have to get out of here!” He pulled Josh’s arm around his neck, ignoring his cries of pain, and began dragging him along the hallway. “Come on!” he grunted, as he carried him, “Move feet! …Little Fish help?!” They were stepping over dead and bloodied bodies as they went.

“I can’t!” grunted Josh, as Dimitri trailed him along with his legs hanging limply, “I can’t! …Please?! Just put me down!” Every step that Dimitri took was sheer torture, sending sharp bursts of pain up through his body, and making it hard for him to breathe. “Please?! Dimitri!” he begged, crying out loudly with each step, “Please?! Just… leave me here! …I can’t! …Stop!”

“No!” said Dimitri, picking him up and throwing him over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift, “I help Little Fish!”

“Gnnnnrrrrrr!” cried Josh, as Dimitri began to run down the stairs. The pain in this new position was even worse! Something that he hadn’t thought possible! Dimitri’s shoulder was putting direct pressure on his injured ribs and he couldn’t really breathe at all.

As they turned the corner onto another corridor of cells, Dimitri stopped in his tracks, and watched the four young inmates running towards them. There was a momentary standoff as the other group stopped and stared at Dimitri in an anxious and frightened sort of way. He was well-known in the prison as being part of the Russian gang, so it was obvious that they were more than a little worried about what he might do. After a moment, he stepped out of the way, and nodded for them to move on, so they filed past him slowly, and then charged down the stairs.

The alarms were still sounding loudly, and lights were flashing all along the corridor above their heads. The prison was going into lockdown so they had to get inside a cell as soon as possible.

“Come on!” he said, picking up speed and running down the corridor, “Nearly there!”

“Uhhhh!” groaned Josh. The pain was unbearable and all he wanted was for it to be over, to slip into unconsciousness, and not be here for a while. In fact, he didn’t care if he never woke up. “Stop!” he cried through gritted teeth.

“Okay, here here!” said Dimitri, slipping inside a cell and setting him down on the bottom bunk a little too roughly.

He lay on his back, panting in a shallow kind of way, and gripped at the sheets with both hands. He had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. What if Dimitri had amorous intentions like Alexei, and had brought him back to his cell to have his way with him, broken ribs or not?! “What now?!” he gasped, keeping his eyes clamped shut and shaking a little.

“Now, wait” said Dimitri, sitting down on the floor beside him, “Now we wait…”

“Wait?” asked Josh, talking through gritted teeth, “Wait for what?!”

“For noise and lights to stop” he said, patting him softly on the knee, “It stop soon… Until then, we hide… It safe in here.” He turned and looked outside the door. There was a blur of green as two inmates ran past at speed and clattered their way down the corridor. There was still a lot of shouting and screaming going on too, along with the blaring of alarms, and warnings being made over the Tannoy. It sounded scary out there! “Maybe friends of Little Fish come back” he said, sounding hopeful, “Maybe they come look for you?”

“My friends?” asked Josh, wondering who he meant. Alexei had insisted on calling himself his ‘friend’, as had Vasily, and they’d done nothing but hurt him. Who were these ‘friends’ he was talking about?!  He opened one eye and glanced sideways at him. He couldn’t understand what was going on

“Yes… Friends” said Dimitri, nodding at him and giving a little smile, “The boys… who like to kiss each other.” He giggled a little, closing his eyes, and making a kissing shape with his mouth. “Like this!” he laughed, kissing the back of his own hand in a childish and exaggerated way.

“Kyle and Aaron?” asked Josh. He still couldn’t quite get his head around all of this. How could he not have seen what was plainly right in front of his face?! How did everyone else know when he didn’t?!

“Friends of Little Fish really nice!” nodded Dimitri, somehow sensing the question that was on Josh’s mind, “I like them… They nice… Not mean.” He turned to look at Josh and gave him a toothy grin which looked a little threatening because of the ragged and nasty looking scars around his mouth. “I work in garden sometimes… They not know I see them.” He smiled and bit his bottom lip in an embarrassed sort of way. “I see them kiss once!” he giggled. He made the kissing face again and kissed the back of his hand making funny little noises.

Josh couldn’t help smiling a little. Dimitri’s explanation was very childlike and it was hard not to be disarmed by it.

“They nice” continued Dimitri, “They… kind.” Suddenly he frowned, pulling his enormously muscled arms around his knees, as he began staring at the ground. “Most people not nice to me…” he said, “They laugh at me!” He put his hand to the side of his face, looking a little lost in thought, and ran his fingers gently over the deep scar lines. It had obviously been very traumatic. “Sometimes” he said, “…they hurt me…”

“They hurt you?” asked Josh, eyeing the nasty scars on Dimitri’s face. He couldn’t help grimacing at the thought of being held down like that, and having someone slash a knife through his mouth. The pain must have been horrific!

Dimitri nodded and pursed his lips together a little angrily. “They think I stupid… They think I not listen…” he said, furrowing his brow in a sad kind of way, “But sometimes I not remember… My head not work so good… I forget things… I make mistakes… Vasily say I stupid… He get angry... He say I bad…. But… but… I not bad!  …I try!”

It was then that he realised. Dimitri wasn’t the monster that Alexei was, or the cruel bully that Vasily was either! He was somewhat of a gentle giant. And he was a victim himself… What was he even doing in a prison like this?! He clearly didn’t belong here!

“I not like Alexei” he said, sort of blurting it out and turning to look at Josh, “I hate him! …He bad man!”

“I know” sighed Josh, giving him a sad little nod, “He’s a very bad man”. There was never a truer word spoken.

“You know?” asked Dimitri, tilting his head at him with a look of suspicion, “You know Alexei is bad?” He tentatively reached over, raising his eyebrows in a way that asked permission, and then pulled gently at the neck of Josh’s shirt. He flinched a little but he let him do it. It was clear that he wanted to see the bite marks on his chest. “He hurt you?” asked Dimitri, looking a little tearful, “He make you do things?”

Josh looked up at him in a startled sort of way. He hadn’t expected that Alexei would have raped one of his own. Or that he would have targeted someone so large and physically imposing. He hadn’t expected this!

“He do things?” asked Dimitri, looking away again and staring at the ground, “He… do bad things? ...He hurt you too?”

Josh nodded. To his surprise, he began to cry, like a floodgate of emotion had simply burst open, and his whole body began to tremble. “Yes” he whispered, hardly making himself heard over the noise of the alarms outside, “He hurt me.” It was the first time that he’d said it out loud in those exact terms and he was surprised at the feeling of release. He couldn’t stop shaking.

“Me too” said Dimitri, nodding at him in a sad sort of way. He lifted his own shirt and showed him the white outline of a bitemark on his chest that must have been at least a few years old. “He very bad!” he said, nodding decisively, as he stared down at his own chest, “I glad he gone!” He turned to look at him again with a little smile. “You make him go?” he asked, looking noticeably impressed, “Vasily say you make him go.”

Josh nodded in reply and wiped at the tears rolling down his cheeks. “Yes… I made him go.” he answered, with a weak little smile.

“Good!” smiled Dimitri, producing a lolly from his pocket and holding it out to Josh, “We be friends…” He tilted his head at him again with a look of interest. “Your name is really Fish?” he asked.

Josh snorted a little and took the lolly out of his hand. “Josh” he wheezed, “My name’s Josh.”

“Josh and Dimitri” giggled the larger man, as he popped a lolly in his mouth and held it between his teeth, “Josh is nice name!”

Josh smiled to himself as he looked at the enormous man in front of him. He was quite the sight, with his steroid induced muscles and natural bulldog looks. Combined with the scars on his face, and his child-like demeanour, he was a walking contradiction. It was like someone had taken a four-year-old and fed him nothing but growth hormones for years!

“Where are we?” asked Josh, glancing around the cell that they were in. It was the mirror image of his own cell, with the bed on the opposite side, and a cleaner newer looking toilet unit in the corner.  There were cartoon type drawings and pages ripped from a child’s colouring book all along the wall. He didn’t recognise them or any of the other little keepsakes on the bookcase unit. He didn’t know this cell.

“It my cell” said Dimitri, “Mine and Vasily’s… This my bed… and that one is bed of Vasily.” He smiled proudly, and then furrowed his brow as though he’d suddenly remembered something. “You know that my brother is dead?” he asked, looking a little scared, “There no-one to look after me… not anymore… I all alone.” He hugged his arms around his chest and began to rock back and forth. “I not want to be alone” he said.

“You won’t be alone” said Josh, figuring that it was probably a good idea to keep him onside, “We’re friends now, aren’t we?”

“Yes” said Dimitri, smiling up at him with a big wide grin, “We friends!”

 

*****

 

“Are they still there?!” whispered Kyle, as they crouched behind one of the serving stations in the mess hall, “Can you see them?!”

“Shhh!” warned Aaron, popping his head above the level of the counter to have a quick look. There was a large crowd of skin-heads gathered at the door to the mess hall. He could see that they were well armed and that there were about twenty of them. He sat back down and put his finger to his mouth to tell Kyle to be quiet. He held up both hands to indicate ten, and then did it again, and mouthed the word ‘twenty’.

Kyle’s eyes widened and he blanched a shade paler. “Twenty?!” he mouthed back at him, “What are we gonna do?!”

Aaron grimaced and made a little shrug. What could they do?! They’d have to wait it out. He looked at the small paring knife that he held in his hand and glanced at the one that Kyle had managed to find under one of the kitchen units, and shook his head. They might as well have been unarmed. They weren’t exactly mighty swords, or even particularly sharp knives, but he supposed that they were better than nothing. At a glance, the men on the other side of the room had managed to arm themselves with a selection of worrying looking weapons and were currently standing with three of their victims in pools of blood at their feet. It didn’t look like they were the friendliest of chaps!

Kyle looked at Aaron as they sat there cowering in fear and wondered how on earth this could have happened on his last evening in the prison. They should have been back in their cells by now! They would have been lying in each other’s arms on their make-shift bed, trying to take advantage of their last night together, and doing their best to prepare themselves for the big farewell tomorrow. Now it looked like the prison might be in full lock-down for at least a few days so the chances of Aaron being released tomorrow were probably pretty slim. Was it bad that he was actually a little grateful?!  Maybe they’d have each other for a day or two more?! Aaron glanced at him and smiled and he wondered if he was having similar thoughts.

Aaron reached for his hand and gave it a little squeeze. “We’ll be okay” he mouthed to him as quietly as he could, “They’ll move on soon.”

Kyle nodded and lifted his hand to give it a little kiss. As scared as he was in this moment, hiding here, and hoping that they wouldn’t get killed, he couldn’t help being glad that they were still together. He just wondered what had happened to Josh.

Suddenly there was a clatter, followed by panicked shouting, and then the group of men started to cough and splutter. A canister of tear gas had been fired through the door and a cloud of thick noxious fumes released within a matter of seconds. They were pushing and shoving at each other, and blindly staggering towards the door in the hope of getting away.

Kyle stuck his head above the counter to see what was happening. “Tear gas” he whispered to Aaron. They were far enough away not to be affected but neither of them wanted to take any chances. “Let’s go!” mouthed Kyle, pointing to the door closest to them. He was hoping they could get back to their cell without running into any more trouble.

They decided to crawl so as not to attract any undue attention. The clouds of gas had also begun to fill the room and it seemed like they might have a better chance of not getting a lungful at a lower level. Kyle grabbed a couple of aprons off the counter and gave one to Aaron. They balled them up and held them in front of their faces to try to keep from inhaling the fumes.

Once they reached the door, Kyle tentatively pushed it open just a little so he could peek through and check for danger. “All clear” he whispered to Aaron, “Let’s go!”

They got to their feet and snuck through the door. Out in the hallway, the noise level was astonishing. There were alarms continuing to sound, announcements being made over the Tannoy, and the screams and howls of injured inmates. The corridor was empty but for a couple of lifeless bodies at the end. They began to tiptoe their way along the corridor, stepping over debris, and trying to be as quiet as possible. Kyle led the way.

They weren’t too far from their cell. It was only to the end of the corridor, down one flight of stairs, and then along the hallway to the right. Kyle reached behind him and took hold of Aaron’s hand. If everyone knew already that they were gay, then he really didn’t care if they saw them holding hands. He wanted to make sure that they didn’t get separated. Aaron took his hand and held it tight. They made it to the top of the stairs and peered down into the stairwell.

“It’ll be okay” said Aaron, nodding for him to go ahead, “We’re nearly there.” He had the little knife held tightly in his other hand. He was scared. There was something a little eerie about all of this. Where was everyone?! They’d seen about eight dead bodies so far, and there’d been one inmate badly injured, and crying out hysterically for help on the other side of the floor they were on. But otherwise, the corridors were empty. Was everyone else already in their cells?!

Kyle started to lead him down into the stairwell and glanced back over his shoulder a little fearfully. He tread as quietly as he could, placing his foot carefully on each step, and holding his knife in his right hand, ready to slash if he needed to.

With a sigh of relief, they turned the corner on the little landing and the way was clear. There was no-one there! They picked up the pace and walked the last few steps quite a bit faster.

Now for the final stretch! Just one long corridor and they’d be home and dry! They walked as quietly as they could along the corridor, glancing at the doors of the cells as they went. Most of them were closed, but a few of them had open doors, and frightened looking faces peering out of them.

“Kyle?!” said a loud and excited voice as they got near to their cell, “Aaron?!”

“Dimitri” said Kyle, grimacing a little. Now was not the time for this! They knew him to be a gentle soul who really meant no harm. He may have been part of the Russian mafia but that was an accident of birth, and not really a choice. He worked with them in the garden, and he often came and asked them silly little questions, and tried to tell them jokes with limited success. They liked him, but right now all they wanted was to get past him, and home to their own cell eight doors down. “We’ll talk to you a little later, okay?” he said to him, in a coaxing sort of voice, “You should go in your own cell until things calm down.”

“But your friend!” he said, grinning at them in that toothy kind of way, “Your friend… Josh… He here!”

“Josh?!” exclaimed Kyle, peering past Dimitri into the cell. Josh was lying on the lower bunk and looked a terrible shade of grey. “Josh, are you okay?!” he asked.

Josh opened his eyes and gave them a very weak smile. “Hey” he said, sounding breathless and wheezy, “What happened you guys?”

Dimitri walked back in and sat down on the floor again with a happy little smile on his face. They had a pack of cards out and they’d clearly been playing ‘Snap’.

“Ah, you know” said Kyle, giving a nervous little laugh “We’ve been around.” He was certainly relieved to see Josh, but he was also pretty concerned by his appearance. He didn’t look too well at all! He glanced at Aaron and widened his eyes in a ‘what do we do now?’ kind of way. It was pretty clear that Josh needed a doctor, or more accurately, he really needed a hospital.

“Dimitri’s been looking after me” wheezed Josh, “He’s been keeping me busy with his cards…”

“Has he?” said Aaron, smiling at Dimitri, “That’s very kind of you.”

Suddenly Josh’s eyes widened in fear, and he gave a startled jump, but before he could speak, two bald headed men had appeared behind Kyle and Aaron.

“Here’s a couple of little homos!” sneered a voice right behind Aaron’s ear, “Turn around, fairy!”

Aaron and Kyle glanced at each other in fear, but began to turn around slowly, coming face to face with a couple of tattooed skinheads. Both of them had visible Swastika tattoos on their necks, and one had a tattoo of a skull and crossbones, right in the middle of his forehead.

Aaron clenched his fist around the knife in his right hand and got ready to use it if he had to. The man in front of him was simply staring him down, standing too close, and eyeballing him in a very aggressive and threatening way. No-one said anything…

Suddenly what sounded like an air-raid siren went off, followed by an announcement over the Tannoy. “Lockdown will come into operation in two minutes. For your own safety please ensure that you are inside your cell at that time. Any inmates not in their cells will be severely reprimanded.” Then the lights went out for a moment and when they flicked back on again, the two men had already fled along the corridor. They could hear them laughing loudly as they went.

“That was…?” said Kyle, searching for the right word before turning to look at Aaron. He was bent over and clutching his stomach. “Oh, my God!” he exclaimed, “Are you okay?!”

“Yeah, I’m fine” groaned Aaron, as he stood back up again “Bastard just punched me in the stomach.” He winced a little and shook his head at Kyle. “Just knocked the wind out of me!” he said, sounding a little breathless.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” asked Kyle, leading him into Dimitri’s cell and watching him lower himself onto Dimitri’s bed by Josh’s feet. “You don’t look okay?” he said, glancing at his stomach in concern. He had his arm pulled across his abdomen.

Suddenly the door closed and the bolt slid into place. Automatic lockdown had come into effect.

“Yeah… I’m… fi…” he began to say, but as he took his hand away from his stomach, he saw the blood. He looked at his hand in confusion and then looked up at Kyle. “I’m… I’m…” he stammered, as he began to slump forward, “I’m… f… fine…”

[Ludub]

Okay, so finally a new chapter! Sorry for the delay! Hope you like this one...

Chapter 18

 

 

“Any word from the prison?” asked Heath, as soon as Brax opened the door, “Can we go visit? Is he okay?!”

“All they keep saying is he’s not allowed visitors” said Brax, stepping out of the way to let Heath in, “We’re just watching the news.”

“Hey Ric” said Heath, as he came and sat down on the armchair opposite her with a nervous little smile. “Hey Case!” he said, holding his arms out to his nephew, “How’s my little man, eh?!” Casey ran towards him and let him lift him onto his knee with a little giggle.

“I think things have calmed down now…” said Ricky, frowning as she watched the TV and waited for the news to come back on, “…But they said there’s been fatalities and they still haven’t informed all the families.” She was flicking through articles on her phone as well. There didn’t seem to be any new information. Not even on Twitter.

“I’m sure he’s okay” said Heath, “They said he’s not allowed visitors… I don’t think they’d say that if he wasn’t accounted for… Would they?!”

Brax walked back from the kitchen with a couple of beers and handed one to Heath. “Nah… sounds like they’ve just gone into lockdown… No visitors till they get everything back to… back to normal.”

“Shhh! It’s back on.” said Ricky, “I want to hear it.”

“At least 30 men have been killed in a prison riot in the Highfields Correctional Facility, southwest of Sydney, when fighting broke out between rival gangs, an official has said. Prison officers were forced to use tear gas and water cannons to control inmates, who were armed with homemade weapons, when they broke down an internal fence and went on the rampage. Around 600 inmates were involved in a 20-hour riot, which was only brought under control when specially trained riot squads, backed up by about 60 riot police officers, entered the facility.  Prison authorities say that control of all areas has now been regained after violence spread across six of the ten wings of the jail on Thursday. Order was not restored until Friday afternoon. At least forty prisoners are known to have sustained serious injuries, as well as three prison officers, and they have all been transferred to hospitals in the surrounding area. One corrections officer is also known to have died. Visiting has been suspended until further notice.”

 

“Jesus!” said Brax, looking back and forth between the other two, “I’ve been in riots, but nothing like that!”

“I’m gonna call them again and see what’s going on” said Heath, setting Casey down on the floor and walking out to the balcony to make the call.

“God, I hope he’s okay!” said Ricky, looking at Brax in a guilty sort of way, “I feel so bad… I haven’t seen him in so long!

Brax nodded and rubbed his face. They were all guilty of that. None of them had made enough effort to visit him. “Yeah, I know” he said, turning to look at Heath as he paced back and forth on his phone, “What about Josh? Any word of him?”

 

*****

 

Pitch darkness… He looked around him in a frightened sort of way but there wasn’t a chink of light anywhere. Not even from under the door. Nothing! As he sat there in the dark he began to wonder if he’d gone blind again. That was the only time that he’d ever known darkness like this! He waved his hand in front of his eyes and his heart began to race at the thought that it might be happening again. How would a blind man cope in prison?! There was an eerie silence too. Not a sound from anywhere. Just his own rapid breathing. He didn’t understand what was going on… He lay down and put his face to the floor, feeling for the underside of the door, and peering underneath it. There wasn’t a hint of light out there either. Where was everyone?!  Suddenly he heard a growl come from the corner of the cell. He sat bolt upright, turning around, and staring in fear into the darkness. He was sure that he’d heard something, but now there was silence again. His heart was pounding in his chest! “Hello?!” he whispered, peering into the darkness and listening intently, “Is there someone there?!” For a moment, there was nothing, and he wondered if he’d simply imagined it… Then he heard it again! A low and rumbling growl! It made him jump… “Who’s there?!” he asked, sweating and trembling where he sat. He was terrified! “Dimitri?!” he asked, feeling his whole body shaking violently, because deep in his heart he already knew that it wasn’t him. “Kyle? Aaron?” he asked, hoping and praying that one of them would answer. He couldn’t see anything and the cell was eerily quiet again. Was he going mad?! He got onto his knees and moved a little towards the place where he thought the sound had come from, squinting into the darkness, and trying to see if there was anything there. This time he heard it, loud and clear. It was a low warning growl like that of an animal protecting its food. He froze! His heart had never beat so fast. It felt like it would burst! Suddenly a pair of yellow eyes appeared out of the darkness, moving towards him so fast that he didn’t have time to react. Within seconds he found himself flattened on the ground and those scary yellow eyes were only inches from his own! It was on top of him! Weighing him down! He frantically tried to push it away, struggling to free himself, and wriggle out from under it. It was an enormously heavy-set dog, with huge muscly shoulders and a massive square head.  It was incredibly heavy and had its paws on his thighs and shoulders, pinning him to the floor. It was drooling and snarling in his face with yellow eyes and long sharp teeth. Strings of foamy saliva trailed from its mouth like shoelaces onto his face and he could feel the heat of its breath on his skin. He was frozen with fear as he lay there and stared up at the cruel eyes of the dog above him. All he could see was those eyes and all he could hear was its heavy panting. “Please?!” he whispered to it, “Good dog… Good dog?! Please?!” With a sudden snarl the dog clamped its monstrous jaws around his throat and started to squeeze. He panicked completely, clawing at its mouth and trying to pull the jaws apart to free himself. He couldn’t breathe!

“Josh! It’s okay” came a soothing female voice, “It’s okay, it’s just a nightmare… Just breathe…”

He let out a loud and anguished scream, desperately pushing her hands away, and clutching at his throat. “Oh God! Oh God!” he spluttered, coughing and wheezing like he’d really been choked.  He couldn’t breathe! His heart was hammering so hard now. As he cupped his hand protectively around his throat, he could still feel the pressure of its jaws and the heat of its breath against his flesh. It had seemed so real! The monsters weren’t just in the real world anymore, they were in his dreams now too!

“It’s okay!” repeated the nurse, sitting beside his bed and taking his hand in hers, “You’ve been out of it for a few days. You gave us all a scare.”

“Where am I?!” he asked, still breathing heavily and staring around him in a wide-eyed kind of way. He was fairly sure that this wasn’t the prison infirmary although he was still wearing handcuffs. It looked like a real hospital, and from what he could see, he was in a shared room but the curtain had been pulled around his bed. Through the gap in the curtains, he could see another bed across the way, and a guard standing watch outside the door. He looked at the back of his hand and saw a cannula that had been hooked up to two IV bags above his head and his chest was bandaged on one side. There was a thick tube coming out of his chest and he could see a sort of thick bloody substance inside it. It hurt just to look at it! He felt hot and sweaty and the mattress felt like it was soaked in sweat. “What happened?!” he asked, looking around him. As hard as he tried, he couldn’t remember anything!

“Shhh, it’s okay” said the nurse, lifting a glass of water and offering him a sip through a straw, “You’ve been in a bad way and it’s really important that you get some rest now.”

“What’s wrong with me?!” he asked, feeling even more anxious because of her evasiveness, “What happened?!” He brought his hand up to guide the straw to his lips and winced a little at the bruising around his mouth. He took a small sip and lay back with his chest still heaving.

“You have three broken ribs on your left side” she said with a sympathetic head tilt, “…and one of them caused a small tear in your kidney… and some damage to your spleen… We had to operate, so you’ve been in an induced coma for a few days just to give you some time to heal… But you’ve been very lucky… You’re going to be okay.”

‘Three broken ribs?!’ he thought to himself, ‘Lucky isn’t the word that I’d use to describe anything about my life!’ An image of Vasily and his men kicking him when he was on the floor flashed through his mind. He remembered every blow. He grimaced as he tried to shift his position a little. “My friends?” he asked, looking around him as though they might be sitting by his bedside or about to pop out from behind the curtain. “Did two of my friends get brought in too? They were there when it happened.” The last thing he remembered was lying on the floor in that shower room.

“I don’t know” she said, with a soft and sympathetic smile, “If you give me their names I can check for you.”

“Okay” he said, leaning back against the pillow with a little sigh, “Thank you.” He was exhausted and his whole body felt like it had been put through a meat tenderiser. Every part of him hurt.

“There are some men from the prison authority here” she said, giving his hand a little squeeze, “They want to talk to you… interview you about the riot… If you’re feeling up to it?”

“The riot?!” he gasped, trying to sit up but crying out in pain as soon as he tried to move. It had all come flooding back in one terrible flash. “Aaron?! Is he okay?!” he wheezed, “He was stabbed! He was bleeding really badly! …Did he make it?! …Is he okay?!”

“Sssh sssh ssssh” she said, gently pushing him back down onto the pillow, “You need to calm down… You still have a chest drain in and you’ve had quite serious surgery… You’ll burst your stitches if you’re not careful!”

“I need to know how my friends are!” he said, pushing against her hands to sit up again and looking up at her with pleading eyes, “I need to know that they’re okay!”

“I tell you what?” she said, patting him on the hand, “I’ll go and get the doctor and tell him you’re awake… He might have some more information for you.” With that, she got up and slipped out through the curtain.

He lay in the bed and tried to cast his mind back to what had happened. Everything was pretty hazy but things were coming back in flashes. The last thing that he remembered was Aaron crying out, and begging and begging Kyle to get him help. He’d been in so much pain! They’d pressed the emergency call button, hoping that someone might come, but hours had gone by with sirens still sounding and endless announcements over the Tannoy. The riot squad had come flooding through at one point, with tear gas and water cannons, and everything had died down after that. All they’d been able to hear was the shouting of the other inmates in their cells. Kyle and Dimitri had shouted too! They’d banged and banged on the door, and pleaded, and even passed a note under the door in case someone might see it. All the while, Aaron had been slowly bleeding to death. Kyle had desperately tried to stop it, bandaging his wound and putting pressure on, but he’d been bleeding too fast. Hours had gone by and no-one had come. He figured that he must have passed out at some point because he couldn’t remember anything after that. It was all a blank. He didn’t even know how they’d gotten out.

“Psssh!” said a voice on the other side of the curtain, “Hey?! You’re that new kid, aren’t you?!” Suddenly an Asian man with a grin and a spiky haircut popped his head around the side of the curtain. “You are! You’re that kid… You’re the one that put Cuddles out of commission!”

“What do you want?!” asked Josh, looking at him in a startled way and glancing around for the emergency call button. He didn’t recognise him and he wondered if he’d made an enemy of yet another gang within the prison. Had he somehow gotten on the wrong side of the Triads or something?!

“Ah nothing!” said the other man, sliding through the curtain and reaching as far as his handcuffed wrist would let him. “Just wanted to shake your hand!” he said, with his hand held out just within reach and a strange smile on his face. “Shake?” he asked.

“Why?!” asked Josh, staring at the hand as though he might be concealing some sort of a weapon.

“Cos you got rid of one of the worst gangs in the prison” he said, with an impressed look on his face, “This prison has been ruled by the Russians and the Neo-Nazis for years, either one or the other… You came in here and somehow you’ve managed to wipe them both out in a matter of weeks!” He tilted his head and proffered his hand again. “Shake?” he asked again, “I’m Kwon”.

Josh tentatively took his hand and said his name. He wasn’t sure of what to make of him. Was he serious or would he just turn on him like everyone else had?

 “Kurt’s dead too!” he said with a big smile, “Do you have any idea how hard that man has been to get to?! We’ve been trying for years!”

“Great” said Josh, shaking his head, “So what, half the prison’s dead then?!” He could see that Kwon had a large bandage on his abdomen too.

“Thirty-two fatalities” said Kwon, with an excited little nod, “Quite a shake-up…”

Josh looked at him and wondered what kind of person would look so happy about the death of 32 people. Admittedly, some of the men who had died weren’t people that he would feel particularly sorry for, but he couldn’t bring himself to feel happy about them dying either.  He wasn’t happy and he wasn’t sad. At least not for them. He was just tired.

“Do you know anything about Aaron… A guy called Aaron?” he said, frowning at the realisation that he didn’t actually know his surname. “He shares a cell with Kyle Braxton… If he hasn’t been released.”

“Taylor?” said Kwon, “He croaked it… Bled out before the screws unlocked the cells…”

Josh looked at him in shock. “He’s dead?!” he asked, feeling his stomach give a terrible lurch, “Aaron?! The guy with black hair? Works out in the garden?”

“That’s him” he said, giving a little shrug, “Bled like a stuck pig… Smell of blood sent the dogs crazy when they opened that cell door!”

Josh grimaced and looked at the floor. He didn’t remember! Had he been unconscious when Aaron had died or had he simply blocked it out?! He couldn’t be sure. He had a vague memory of guards in riot gear, and large Alsatian dogs, but he’d been trying to convince himself that that was just a part of his dream.  Maybe it wasn’t?! “And Kyle?” he asked, “Is he okay?!” If one thing had become clear in the time that they’d been trapped together, it was that Kyle loved Aaron. They loved each other. He could be in no doubt about that, and he wondered how Kyle would ever come to terms with the death of his boyfriend

“That Braxton guy?” said Kwon, with a nervous little laugh, “He went nuts when they came to… to move the body… Wouldn’t let them move him… Wouldn’t let go… Hit one of the guards and earned himself a week in the hole… Least, that’s what I hear.”

“He’s in the hole?!” exclaimed Josh. How could they do something like that?! Put someone who was so obviously traumatised, and grieving, in a cell by himself?! What kind of hellhole was this place?!

Kwon looked suddenly towards the door when it opened. There were voices from the corridor and they could hear the doctor having a conversation with the guard outside. “That’s my cue” he said as he skipped back behind the curtain, and disappeared as quickly as he could.

“So… Mr Barrett?!” said the doctor, as he pulled back the curtain, “You’re from Summer Bay?!”

[Ludub]

Thanks everyone for the all the kind comments! Hope you like this one! 

WARNING: ADULT THEMES

Chapter 19

 

 

♪ “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, How I wonder what you are!” ♫

 

“Shut up!” pleaded Kyle, as he sat in his cell and rocked back and forth on the floor, “Please, just shut up?!” He held his hands against his ears and stared at the large Russian man who was sitting opposite him on the cot bed. He couldn’t help seething with anger as he listened to him croon that same lullaby over and over again. He would have strangled him to death with his own bare hands if he hadn’t been so clearly a phantom of his own imagination. He wanted him to be quiet. Even just for a little while… He wanted to go to sleep.

Then again, did he really? Every time he closed his eyes, he saw Aaron’s grey and lifeless face in front of him. Those beautiful grey-blue eyes of his, once so bright and full of life, had become dull and vacant. The light had simply gone out like someone had turned off a switch. When he tried to sleep, he would wake in a panic, imagining himself drowning in pools of dark red blood. He could still see it, the way it had seeped across the floor… Aaron’s blood… Draining out of him and taking with it the man that he had loved more than he’d ever thought possible. He’d been soaked in it. Of course, the blood was gone now. He knew that. The guards had stripped him naked and hosed him down, so there wasn’t even a trace of it left, but every time he looked at his hands he could still see it, as though it was still there. He could still see the thick congealing blood of the man he loved under his fingernails and splattered up the skin on his arms. He could still smell it. The iron rich smell of his blood had been so strong that when he thought about it now, he could almost taste it. The thought of that made him sick to his stomach! He hadn’t known how much blood there was in a human body, but he never would have guessed at there being so much! He’d had to sit there, cradling Aaron’s butchered body in his arms, and watch the life drain out of him across that dank concrete floor. He hadn’t been able to stop it. He’d tried! Oh God, how he’d tried! And poor Aaron had fought so hard too. He’d held on for hours and hours, desperately hoping that someone would come, but they never did. He’d promised him over and over that he wasn’t really dying. That they’d get him help. That he only had to hang on a little while longer…

♪ “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, How I wonder what you are” sang Dimitri, as he sat opposite Kyle and smiled from ear to ear, “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star…”♫

Dimitri had sung that song over and over in the cell in an attempt to comfort Aaron and Josh, and now that Kyle was stuck in here on his own, he couldn’t get it out of his head. It was going round and round as though it was on a loop. Like some cruel and unusual form of torture. A terrible echoing reminder of what had happened.

Kyle looked around the cell and then felt with his fingers at the bareness of his wrist. They’d taken his watch from him when they’d put him in here, so he’d begun to lose track of time. In fact, that had happened some time ago! He didn’t know what time of day it was or even which day anymore! He couldn’t even be sure how many days he’d been in here now. He knew that he smelt pretty ripe so he figured that it had to have been at least a few days at this stage. Washing with a washcloth was not the same thing as showering! He felt disgusting! The days melted into each other in here, and because of the artificial light, it was hard to gauge whether it was morning or night. Sometimes he relied on the food that they gave him to help him to figure that out. The flap in the door would open three times a day, and someone would shove a tray of food through. Cereal meant that it was morning time, sandwiches meant either afternoon or evening. It was the only real indicator that he had. After a while though, paranoia had begun to set in, and he wondered if they were switching the trays just to mess with him. Maybe they’d given him cereal but it was actually night time?! He had no way of knowing. No-one had spoken to him in what felt like weeks. The flap would open but they’d close it again before he got a chance to see them and no-one ever spoke. He wondered if they were ever going to let him out.

He gazed at the large and ugly man in front of him on the bed and shook his head at himself. He knew that he wasn’t really there. He did know that… Part of him was glad that his brain had created a cell-mate for him, to stop him from going completely insane. Being in here alone would have been intolerable, but he wondered why it had chosen Dimitri of all people, and why it insisted on torturing him with that song. That song of all things?! That song was so closely intertwined with the events of that terrible day that hearing it over and over like this was like someone tearing his heart out. It hurt so much! He wanted to cry. He wanted to cry so badly… but he just couldn’t. He needed a release of some sort. Maybe having someone to be angry with was what he needed right now?! Maybe he needed something to rail against?!

♪“Twinkle Twinkle Little Star…”♫ continued Dimitri. He only knew the first two lines! “I sing good!” laughed Dimitri, “This song make you feel better!”

“No, it won’t!” roared Kyle, “Just shut up! …I can’t listen to you anymore! SHUT UP!!!! SHUT UP!!!!”

“This song make you feel better!” Those words echoed in his head. Dimitri had uttered those exact words to Aaron when he’d been close to the end. Kyle had been holding him close, as he shivered in his arms, and trying to keep him warm with his own body heat. He’d known that the real reason Aaron was cold was because of loss of blood, and that no amount of extra clothes was going to help, but he’d pulled a blanket off the upper bunk and wrapped it around their blood drenched bodies. Aaron had simply lost too much blood at that stage. Not even a hospital would have been able to save him then and they’d both known it. Aaron had known that he was dying. “This song make you feel better!” Dimitri had promised. Aaron had looked up at Kyle in that moment, laughing a little, and rolling his eyes about Dimitri’s singing. “I sing good!” Dimitri had insisted, and Aaron had laughed, and agreed with him. Even in his final moments, he’d managed to find humour in the idea of a man as large and imposing as Dimitri singing a half-garbled version of a child’s lullaby. “You’ll have to teach him the rest of that song” he’d whispered to Kyle in a pained and shaking voice, “Or I’ll come back and haunt you!” He’d tried to laugh too but it had hurt too much.

♪“Twinkle Twinkle Little Star…”♫ crooned Dimitri, with a stupid smile on his face and a lollypop in his hand.

“Shut up!” shouted Kyle, “Stop singing that stupid song!” He just wanted him to stop! Was that so much to ask?! This was torture! He picked up a crushed plastic bottle sitting beside him on the floor and threw it at him.

“You’re too hard on him! You know that, right?” said a voice right beside his ear, “He’s a sweet guy… He’s kind of like a little kid.”

“Aaron?!” he gasped, as he turned and saw his sweet smiling face beside him, “Oh my God! I th-thought I’d lost you!” He looked even more handsome than he remembered him.

There was a voice in the back of his head saying ‘This isn’t possible! You know this isn’t possible!” but he was trying desperately to drown it out. He wanted it to be true. “Aaron is dead!” the voice continued, “He’s dead! And you know that! …You know it because you watched him die. You watched him take his last breath. You held him while his body grew cold in your arms. You know that this is isn’t real! He’s gone!”

“Hey” said Aaron, softly stroking the side of Kyle’s face, “You’re never gonna lose me…”

“But I w-watched them t-take you away” he stammered, “I held you… You …You stopped breathing!”

Aaron shook his head and made a gentle shushing noise before leaning in for a kiss. “I might be dead” he said, with a mischievous little smile, “But I can still do this!”

Kyle felt the soft warmth of Aaron’s lips as they made contact with his own and reached out to pull him towards him. He was surprised to feel the warmth of his flesh against his hands and the rough stubble of his chin against his face. He was as real as he’d ever been. “I love you” he whispered, as tears began to stream down his face, “I’ve never loved anyone the way that I love you”.

“He’s not real!” said the voice in the back of his head again, but he pushed it away. Did it matter if it wasn’t real?! This was the first time since Aaron had died that he’d been able to really breathe. The grinding pain that he’d been carrying in his chest for days was suddenly gone. He wanted to pretend that it was true. He wanted to believe that it was true! If only for a little while…

“I love you too” said Aaron, as he pressed his lips against Kyle’s and parted them gently with his tongue. They began to kiss a little more passionately and Kyle ran his fingers through Aaron’s dark messy hair.

“I don’t think I could live without you” said Kyle, realising those words to be true, “I don’t want to!”

“You’re never going to have to” said Aaron, taking his face in his hands and gently wiping at his tears with his thumbs. “I’m never going to leave you.” he said, giving him a sad little smile.

Suddenly a loud Russian voice cut through and caught their attention. ♪ “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, How I wonder what you are” sang Dimitri, “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star…”♫

“So, you still haven’t taught him the rest of that bloody song?!” teased Aaron, with a little giggle.

“I’ve been a bit pre-occupied” said Kyle, rolling his eyes at him, “I’m glad you kept your promise though!”

“That was supposed to be a threat!” said Aaron, pretending to be offended, “Are you saying I’m not a scary ghost?!”

“Oh, no, you’re very scary!” laughed Kyle, pulling him in towards him for a kiss, “Very frightening!”

“Does he ever shut up?!” laughed Aaron, glancing sideways at their very annoying Russian friend, “That’s gonna get a little annoying if we have to listen to that forever!”

“I know!” said Kyle, turning to look at Dimitri too “Who’s being mean now though?!”

Dimitri looked down at the two boys on the floor and giggled a little. “I see you kissing!” he laughed, making a ‘kissy face’ and closing his eyes, “You look funny… Like this!”

Both Kyle and Aaron began to laugh as they watched him tongue thin air in an exaggerated way. Dimitri was such a big man and at a glance he would have seemed like someone you wouldn’t want to meet on the street for fear of being stabbed. The scars on his face made him look particularly dangerous. But then he’d start to laugh, or make silly faces, and it would quickly become clear that he was an innocent soul. Here he was giggling like a mad thing because he’d seen two boys kissing.

Kyle interlaced his fingers with Aaron’s, as they sat side by side, and lifted their hands towards his mouth. “I’ve missed you” he said, turning to look at Aaron again and kissing him on the back of the hand, “I need you here with me.” His eyes filled with tears again as flashes of Aaron’s lifeless body appeared before his eyes. He knew that he wasn’t really there, but he wished that he was.

“Kyle and Aaron… sit in tree…” laughed Dimitri, “K-I-S-S- And -G”

“K-I-S-S- And -G?” repeated Kyle, trying to keep a straight face, and then raising an eyebrow at Aaron, “I wonder what the ‘G’ is?!” They both burst out laughing.

Suddenly the metal flap in his door opened and a tray slid through the opening. “Hello?!” pleaded Kyle, as he leapt to the door and tried to see the person on the other side, “Please, say something?! What day is it?!” The flap simply snapped shut.

As he turned to tell Aaron how much it upset him that none of the guards would speak to him, he realised that he was gone. Not only that, but Dimitri was gone too! That song that had been so annoying was suddenly gone and all he was left with was silence. He was on his own! He looked at the tray in his hands. There was a carton of cheese sandwiches, a yogurt, and a bottle of orange juice. With a sudden roar, he threw it across the room and smashed the plastic tray off his knee. “Aaron!” he sobbed, slumping to the floor and hugging his arms around his legs, “Aaron!”

[Ludub]

Okay... so here we go. Apologies for the delay on this chapter. I hope you like this one...

WARNING: ADULT THEMES!

Chapter 20

 

 

 

“I don’t remember anything!” said Josh, staring down into his plastic cup of lukewarm tea as he tried to avoid eye contact with the woman in front of him “I’m sorry… I wish I could help, but I really don’t remember.” He shifted a little uncomfortably in his wheelchair and gave a shallow cough. He was still in quite a bit of pain. “The doctor said it’s normal…” he said, glancing up at her, “…to have some memory loss.”

“We really would appreciate your help” said the woman, “I know it’s probably… It’s not something prisoners are comfortable doing… Talking about what happens inside those walls.”

“It’s not about that” said Josh, with a little shrug, “I just can’t remember much.”

This was the third interview that he’d done in as many days and he was getting very sick of answering the same questions over and over. ‘How did the fighting start?’, ‘Did he remember which prisoner stabbed Vasily Ivanovich?’, ‘What happened once the fighting broke out?’, ‘Where did he go?’, What did he see?’, How did he get to his cell?’, ‘Where were the guards?’, ‘How long were they inside the cell for?’, ‘How did Mr Taylor come by his injuries and what actions were taken by those within the cell to save his life?’, ‘Did they press the emergency call button?’, Did they try to raise the alarm?’, ‘How did the guards deal with them once the cell was reopened?’, ‘Did he witness, or was he the victim of, any excessive force on the part of the guards?’… The list went on.

 “I know you’re probably scared” she continued, “I know you don’t want to be seen as… as an informer… A ‘dog’… But this is different… It’s not about what the prisoners did… It’s about the guards… the system… and anything you tell me would be confidential.”

“I don’t know anything” he repeated, glancing up at her and narrowing his eyes. He didn’t trust her as far as he could throw her and he had no intention of answering her questions. Apart from anything else, there was a guard standing outside the door, and he’d already made a long enough list of enemies in the prison without adding the guards to it. Was she mad?!

“Josh, you know that’s not true! You do remember… You’re just not being very cooperative” she said, looking more than a little frustrated, “I’ve been here over thirty minutes now …and I haven’t managed to get one sensible answer out of you!

“What does that tell you?” he snapped, “I’m not telling you anything… and no amount of questioning is going to change that!”

She’d wanted to know how he’d sustained his incredibly long list of injuries, because it was pretty clear that a large number of them were older than the riot, and his previous stints in both the hospital and the infirmary were well documented, and certainly supported that fact. He’d trotted out the same old answers. He’d fallen, he’d walked into things, his choking fetish had landed him in hot water… He’d refused to implicate anyone in anything. He wouldn’t even talk about Sergei Dimitriov, who he had previously implicated in the near-fatal drugging of Alexei Petrovski. He just wasn’t playing ball!

“So… you’re sticking with those weak cover stories, are you?!” she asked, flicking through a brown file on her knee, “A fractured larynx, three broken ribs, a lacerated kidney, a ruptured spleen, bite marks… I could go on!”

“I guess I’m clumsy” he said, glancing at the door where the guard was standing, “I fell over.”

“And the gonorrhoea?!” she asked, “How did you get that?”

“That’s none of your business!” he said, looking down at the table and flushing a little red with shame, “And who gave you permission to look at my medical records anyway?!”

“I have authorisation” she said, flashing a badge at him, “The Attorney-General ordered this investigation …and I have the right to look at the records of any prisoner I choose. I know that you were admitted with broken ribs following the riot, and you had a number of internal injuries that required surgery… and I also know that you had to be treated for rectal gonorrhoea… probably the result of a serious sexual assault by your cellmate.”

There was a long silence as Josh stared at the floor in a sullen sort of way and picked at the bandage on the back of his hand. He’d been told about the gonorrhoea yesterday. It was why he’d had such a high fever and why he’d been in so much discomfort. He was on medication for it now. The good news was that he’d tested negative for HIV.

He glanced up at her for a moment and gave an angry little snort. “If you know everything already” he asked quietly, “Why do you need me?”

“I need details” she said, seeing a glimmer of hope, “I need someone who’s willing to go on record… Tell me how they’ve been treated… the dates and times when guards looked the other way… any dodgy dealing? …backhanders? …the names of the guards involved?”

“And you think I’m the one who’s going to do that?!” he asked, with an incredulous laugh. “Not gonna happen!” he said, “I don’t know how many ways I can say this… I don’t know anything.”

“Josh, please?!” she said, looking at him in a searching kind of way. She was interviewing all those who had been injured during the riot, and anyone who had sustained serious injuries in the prison over the last year where very little action seemed to have been taken to protect the victim. Out of everyone that she had reviewed, Josh seemed to be the most worrying case. There were few prisoners within the system that had been so mistreated. He was her shining light. Her best chance of highlighting the downfalls of the Highfields Prison and kick-starting some real policy changes. This was a make or break moment in her career! She needed to win him over!

“I’ve only been here a month” he said quietly, “…I don’t know anything, okay?!” He closed his eyes and pressed at the temples of his forehead with his one free hand. He had a headache. “Can you please just leave it?!” 

 “Josh, you need to do this!” she said, “We can help you… We can protect…”

“No, you can’t!” he said, laughing a little bitterly and glancing up at her from the floor again, “You can’t!”

“We can, Josh!” she insisted, “If you help me, I can help you… Maybe get you transferred? …Maybe even get your case looked at again?”

He looked up at her and gave a sad little smile. “Assuming I knew something that you could use… and I’m not saying that I do… But… If I did…” he asked, “Are you gonna get me transferred today? …Move me to a different prison… Move me today?”

“No, that wouldn’t be possible” she admitted, with a little sigh, “It takes a bit of time… Maybe a couple of months… maybe only a few weeks… I’m not sure… But we could put you in the protection wing in the meantime?”

“Protected by who?” he asked, with a wry little smile, “The guards?! Have you even listened to yourself?!”

“I can talk to my boss and see what we can do.” she said, “…but I’d need you to go on record first… Tell me from start to finish how the system has failed you.”

Josh looked up at her again and then glanced at the door. The guard outside was being relieved for the evening and a new one was taking his place. With a sinking feeling in his stomach, he realised who it was, as he watched him standing there joking with the other guard. It was Smithy! He hoped that he wouldn’t think that he’d co-operated with this woman! He hadn’t! Suddenly, as though he’d somehow read his mind, Smithy turned, grinning through the glass at him, and gave him a little wink. The interviewer was sitting with her back to the door, so Smithy started making crude gestures about her through the glass, and laughing in a maniacal kind of way.

“Josh?” she asked, realising that he seemed distracted by what was going on in the corridor. She turned to look, but Smithy reacted quickly, and all she saw was a guard standing with his back to the door. As she turned back to Josh to continue the conversation, Smithy mimed to him to keep his mouth zipped, and then made a slashing motion across his throat. It was more than enough warning for him to keep his mouth shut. He was scared.

“I don’t think so” he said to her, straightening up a little bit and shaking his head, “I want to go back to my room now… I’m really tired.”

“Josh?! Please?!” she pleaded, “I’m just trying to hel…”

“I don’t need your help!” he snapped, “I need to go back to bed… I need to sleep.”

 

*****

 

“Okay, this is you” said the new guard, as he opened the cell door manually to let Kyle in. He watched Kyle wander inside in a dazed and confused sort of way and stand a little aimlessly in the middle of his empty cell. “You know what they say?” he said, laughing out of a sort of nervousness, “New cell, new you!”

Kyle nodded in a vacant sort of way and sat down on the bottom bunk. He looked around. The cell was completely empty apart from a small cardboard box of his belongings that had been left on the bookcase unit.

“All your stuff is over there… You know, the personal items you had in your old cell…” said the young guard, “Anything else you need you can get from the commissary in the morning… You know, wash things… and… stuff like that… You’ll be getting a… a new cell-mate in a couple of days… Got the place to yourself till then!”

Kyle just nodded and stared at the space between his feet. This new cell wasn’t much different from the isolation cell where he’d just spent the worst week of his life. The only difference being that the door would open in the morning and he’d be expected to file out among the general population of the prison as though nothing had happened. To go on with this prison life of his as though nothing had changed! As though he hadn’t just spent a week being mentally tortured, and as though the one person that mattered more to him than anything else in this world hadn’t just been ripped away from him. As though his heart hadn’t been broken into a million pieces. As though it didn’t hurt just to breathe… He sat there and stared at a crack in the floor and wondered what it would feel like to fall into that crack and disappear forever.

“You have visitors coming tomorrow” the guard continued, speaking in a chirpy and upbeat sort of way, “Your brothers have been beating down the door to come visit… Really worried about you… They’ll be here tomorrow!” He frowned a little when he got no response. “Bet you can’t wait to see them?” he ventured.

Kyle just stared at the floor in silence.

“Hey?” said the guard, tilting his head at him in concern, “Are you okay?”

Kyle hadn’t said a word to anyone since he’d been released from solitary. Not even when they’d taken him to the shower room and made him have a shower. He’d followed all their instructions, and he’d signed the form to get his personal belongings back, but he hadn’t uttered a single syllable. He hadn’t even really looked at any of them. This guard was in his first week on the job and this was the first prisoner that he’d had to deal with one on one.  He didn’t really know what to make of him.

“I mean” said the guard, leaning against the doorframe, “Do you need me to get you a doctor or something? You just seem a bit…”

Kyle continued to stare at the floor and gave no sign of having understood.

“Man… are you… are you even listening to me?” asked the guard, furrowing his brow at him, “Can you even talk?” He glanced down the hallway both ways to ensure that he wasn’t being watched and then walked slowly into the cell. He knew that this was against regulations, and probably a good way to get himself fired in his first week on the job, but something about this guy just tugged at his heartstrings. He kind of looked a little like his kid brother. He slowly and cautiously hunkered down to the side of Kyle and tilted his head at him in a sympathetic sort of way. He tapped him gently on the chest to get his attention and then asked him slowly ‘Can you understand me?’ enunciating each word carefully to see whether he could read lips.

Kyle didn’t answer. He looked at the guard, with his red-faced sincerity and kind brown eyes, and tried his best to understand what he was saying. For some reason, he couldn’t make sense of it. His words just seemed like a series of unorganised noises as though he was speaking another language. In fact, he hadn’t been able to follow anything that anyone had said all evening. He wondered why that didn’t scare him. Surely, he should have been frightened?

The guard raised his hands and began to slowly sign “My name is Trevor. What’s yours?” Not that Kyle had any idea that that was what he was saying.

Kyle didn’t answer. He really couldn’t understand what this man wanted or what he was doing.

‘Do you know how to sign?’ he asked in sign language but he got no response. With a little sigh, he reached inside the pocket of his uniform and pulled out a chocolate bar that he’d been saving for his coffee break later. He gave Kyle a little smile and offered it to him as though he was a small child but Kyle just stared ahead of him as though he didn’t see it.

“Mate, I’m just trying to help you.” he said, giving him a soft little pat on the knee as he set the chocolate bar beside him on the bed, “You know… We’re not all bad… us guards… Any more than you guys are.”

Kyle just sat there staring straight ahead.

“Okay” said the guard, with a sigh of frustration, “But if you’re not okay… If you need anything, I’m gonna be on duty all night… so you can press the emergency call button over there… I’m just gonna be in the control room.” He slowly got to his feet, and stood in the doorway for a moment, as he tried to decide what to do. Kyle really didn’t seem too well, and he was wondering whether he should go and radio the infirmary for a doctor, or maybe take him up there himself.  He was worried that he might be a suicide risk but he also didn’t want to raise a stink on his first week on the job and get himself a reputation as some sort of panicker. He glanced around the cell and did a slow appraisal of all the potential ways that he could hurt himself. The cell had been checked for contraband so there were no drugs or blades anywhere, and there wasn’t anything high enough that could hold his weight so he wouldn’t be able to hang himself. So, apart from bashing his head off things, there weren’t really that many hazards. He really hoped that he’d be okay till morning. “So… I don’t know, mate…” he said, getting ready to close the door, “Maybe you’ll feel a little better after some sleep?”

Kyle nodded slowly, as the door was pulled closed, and continued to stare into space. The guard stood outside the closed door and pressed his ear up against it. There was silence. With a little sigh, he set off to do his nightly checks, and made a note to himself to pass this way in about half an hour and just have a little listen again. He was worried.

Kyle listened to the guard’s footsteps dying away into the distance and then slowly got to his feet. The little box containing his meagre possessions was on top of the bookcase unit, so he walked over to it, and picked it up. There really wasn’t much in there to show for his time on this planet. A small stack of photos, a couple of books, and a little metal tin containing some shortbread biscuits. Pretty pathetic really! He carried it to the bed and began to slowly sift through his things. As he flicked through his small collection of photos, looking at all the smiling faces of his loved ones, a sort of heavy pain began to develop inside his chest. These were the people that he loved, but right now he wanted to wipe the smiles off each and every one of their faces! Right now, he hated them! Here they were, grinning out at him from the photographic paper that they were printed on. They looked so smug and self-satisfied! They had their freedom! They got to laze around in the sunshine, and do whatever they wanted, when they wanted! They got to breathe fresh air! They got to eat whenever and whatever they pleased, and go to bed when they wanted to! Hell, they even got to go to the toilet in private! They had so much to be thankful for and they didn’t even know it. Aaron was supposed to have all those things! One more day, and he would have had all those things! Instead he was dead! It had all been stolen from him! Like some cruel joke! Ripped out from under him right at the last moment! He was dead and he’d never get to have those things… It was beyond unfair. The faces in the photos seemed to mock that fact. Laughing it up like it was some big joke! He hated them all. He hated Ricky and Casey for having fun on the beach, he hated Heath and Bianca for having ‘oh so much fun’ with their kids, and he hated Phoebe and her stupid guitar! But most of all, he hated Brax! There he was, grinning from ear to ear, in a way that seemed to taunt him! His stupid smirking face seemed to say ‘Haha! I got away with it… I got away with everything!’  He looked at the photo and he imagined the many ways that he could wipe that smile off his face. He wanted to hurt him right now. He wanted to hurt everybody! He wanted to set the world on fire and watch it burn! He gathered the stack of photos in his hands and began to tear them, ripping at them frantically, and tossing the ragged pieces on the floor. He was crying now. Tears were streaming down his face and he could hardly see in front of him anymore. He screwed up the last few pieces and threw them onto the floor too before grinding them with the heel of his shoe.

“Well, that was a bit childish… wasn’t it?!” said Aaron, taking hold of his hand and pulling it away from the book that he was holding before he could start tearing at the pages, “What have those photos ever done to you?!”

“What the?!” exclaimed Kyle, as he turned to look at Aaron in shock, “I thought you’d gone?!”

“I told you I’d never leave you!” said Aaron, shaking his head, “I’m always gonna be with you… No matter what.”

“You’re not real” sighed Kyle, as he wiped at his teary eyes, “You’re dead… and I’ve just gone completely crazy…”

“Does it matter?” he asked, giving him a mischievous little smile, “Does it matter if I still feel real?” With that he reached out and turned Kyle’s face towards him. “If I can still kiss you… If I can still make you feel good?”

Kyle stared at him for a moment, almost sure that he could smell the scent of his skin, and feel the warmth of his breath when he’d spoken. He wanted more than anything to kiss him. To lose himself in Aaron’s warm embrace just one more time. To feel safe. But this was madness! In the true sense of the word. He was going crazy, and the longer he let this go on, the more likely it was that they were going to be carting him out of there in a straitjacket! “You’re not real” he said, turning his face away and closing his eyes, “I want you to be real… but you’re not… You’re just a coping mechanism.”

“I might not be real” said Aaron, gently stroking Kyle’s thigh with his thumb, “But what does that even mean? …I mean, how does anyone know what’s real?!”

“I know that you died” he said quietly, “I know that your heart stopped beating… I know that your blood is still in the workings of my watch… It doesn’t even work anymore…”

“Okay, so I died” said Aaron, leaning across to smile at him, “But I’m here… I’m still here… If you want me to be.”

“You know I want you to be!” he said, turning to look at him with big teary eyes, “But no-one else can see you… You’re just something I made up… You’re a figment of my imagination… A way for me to cope with being on my own.”

“Maybe” said Aaron, with a little shrug, “But here’s the thing… Would you rather be happy with someone that you love for the rest of your life, in the knowledge that no-one else can see them… Or be miserable on your own, just because you’re worried that people will think you’re crazy?” He reached over again and stroked Kyle’s hair gently behind his ear. “Does it matter if other people can’t see me?” asked Aaron, “If you know that I’m real?” He took Kyle’s hand and made him place his palm flat in the middle of his chest.

Kyle’s eyes widened when he realised that he could feel Aaron’s heart beating. He was warm, and breathing, and as real as he’d ever been.

“See?!” said Aaron, smiling at him in an excited sort of way, “I’m real… To you, I’m real!”

“You’re real” whispered Kyle, as he began to cry a little, “You’re real.”

With that, Aaron reached out, grabbing the front of Kyle’s t-shirt, and pulled him towards him for a kiss. Just like the last time, Kyle was surprised by how real the whole thing seemed.

The guard had finished his round of checks and everyone seemed to have settled down for the evening. He was headed back to the control room when he remembered Kyle Braxton, and decided to pop up to his floor to make a quick check. He crept up quietly to the door, and stopped outside, before pressing his ear against it. There was a very low humming coming from inside. ‘It can’t be?!’ he thought to himself, with a bemused little smile, ‘It is! That’s Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’!’