by Bebe Lix
Birds Of West County Jail
by Bebe Lix
Birds Of West County Jail
Published by Bebe Lix
Copyright © 2014 Bebe Lix
All Rights Reserved
May not be copied or distributed without prior written permission.
Cover photo: Can Stock Photo 2014 © wlangeveld
Cover Design: Bebe Lix
Birds Of West County Jail is the stand-alone prequel to the sweet and sexy 60-page novella Shakedowns Are The New Foreplay!
The women weren't chanting "fresh meat" in low tones as I walked, hands shackled, through the narrow hall of West County Jail.
That would have been too cliche. Things like that don't happen in real life. If I thought I heard their quiet whispers, it was only because I was imagining it.
They weren't looking at each other and grinning, laughing at the scared-looking white girl who had suddenly found herself in their midst. Real women don't do that, even incarcerated ones.
They weren't trying to freak me out with the way they shook the bars of their cells and stared at me with terrifying intensity in their eyes.
If they were trying to freak me out, though, it was working.
Every few steps that I took led me past another cell, some on the left and some on the right. The hallway seemed endless, and the women, white and black and Latina in identical orange jumpsuits, blended into each other. Soon I would be another one of them.
I wasn't meant to be here. I had committed the crime, it was true. Well, I guessed it was true. But I wasn't like these women, and that was clear to all of us.
"This is your cell, Molly," the guard said. She hadn't introduced herself, but her nametag read Thompson. Her no-nonsense attitude was strangely comforting. With her white hair and stern glasses, I almost felt as though I was back in primary school.
The three other women in the cell stared at me openly as Thompson unlocked the bar door and led me inside. One, a short chubby black woman with braided hair, licked her full, round lips.
"Thank you," I said. As much as I would have liked to scream and curse, I figured it was necessary to be polite. I wouldn't want to be on the guard's bad side, after all.
A shout came from across the hall. "Fresh meat!" The four women in that cell were all at the door holding the bars.
Thompson nodded curtly, ignoring the other women. Gesturing to the upper bunk of the bunk bed closer to the bar door, she said, "Your bed."
I would be sleeping above the black woman. Well, it didn't matter. I didn't think I would be any more or less safe if I was sleeping closer to the other two. The young white girl with a long scar down the side of her face chewing gum slowly was probably more dangerous than her. She was pretty enough to be a model, or at least a stripper. If she was in here, she must have gone wrong somewhere along the line.
How had I gotten myself into this situation? I never thought I would end up here when I agreed to transfer funds to an account that wasn't on the payroll. It was such a small amount, and my boss was the one who told me to do it. But the courts hadn't believed that I didn't know what I was doing.
"Make your bed," Thompson continued. "Lights out in ten minutes."
I wiped my sweaty palms against my khaki jumpsuit as Thompson left, locking the bar door behind her. In a day or two I would be getting my orange one like the other women here - like the other prisoners, I should say. For the moment, the color marked me as new. It wasn't something that I thought I would enjoy being marked as.
Ignoring the other three, I climbed the stepladder to my new bed. "Nice ass," I could have sworn I heard one of the three whisper.
I looked back; from her guilty expression, it must have been the thirty-something light-skinned black woman who had spoken. I wasn't hearing things, after all.
It was kind of flattering that she liked my ass. I always found it too big, totally out of place on a slim white girl like me. In any case, it wasn't worth responding to.
At least the prisoners across the hall seemed to have lost interest in me. They could probably see as little of what was going on in my cell as I could see in theirs.
With my knees on the hard mattress, I began to put the rough white cotton sheets that had been provided onto the bed. After putting the equally rough pillowcase onto the flat pillow, I realized there was no blanket. Lights out was coming up, and I didn't want to be going out looking for a blanket after that.
When I turned back around, all three of the women were still staring at me. The one who had commented on my ass looked particularly eager.
I didn't want to interact with them at all, but there was no other way for me to figure things out. Asking them one question wouldn't mean I was befriending them. I would just get the information, get the blanket, and then go to sleep.
"Hi," I said, my voice somewhere between a whisper and a squeak. "Do y'all know where to get a blanket?"
From her bunk beneath me, the curvy black woman was the first to break into laughter. The light-skinned one followed right after, while the young white girl's stayed stone-faced.
"A blanket?" the black woman said. "You must be shitting me."
"Don't be rude, Malone," the light-skinned woman said. "She's new. She don't know."
"We're in prison, not the damn Hilton," Malone laughed. She seemed less intimidating now that she was amused, but her attitude could change any minute. Without being able to see her face, I couldn't judge how she was really feeling. Besides, she was here for a reason, like the rest of these women.
"There's no blankets?"
"Hell no! Do you see any blankets?" Malone asked. I assumed it was a rhetorical question. "You got a blanket, Rugburn?"
The white girl - Rugburn - blew a gum bubble half the size of her head and let it pop. That meant "no," I assumed.
"You, Hendricks?"
The other black woman shook her head.
"So what, you just sleep under the air?"
Hendricks stood up. She was a lot taller than I had realized, and her breasts jutted out imperiously under her bright orange jumpsuit.
"Hey!" Malone objected as Hendricks climbed onto her bunk. Ignoring her, Hendricks pulled up the corners of the sheets I had just put so carefully into place.
"There," she said. "You sleep under the sheet."
I glanced over at the two bunks across from me. It was true, they were also set up like that. It seemed unhealthy to sleep on a bare mattress, but somehow I suspected that complaining about it wouldn't get me anywhere.
This wasn't the damn Hilton, after all.
"Thanks," I said reluctantly.
She was still standing at the edge of Malone's bed, her dark brown eyes focused intently on my face. I was starting to wonder how long she planned to stand there. Trying to act normal, I pulled the sheet over my body and laid down. It was still colder than I would have liked, but better than having no blanket.
"It's not lights out yet," she said meaningfully.
"I'm tired." I turned onto my side and closed my eyes, hoping she would leave me alone.
"Come on." Malone's cheerful voice came from below me. "We want to get to know you. What's your name? What'cha in for?"
"I'd rather sleep."
The bed squeaked loudly and I felt the frame shift below me. I didn't want to look, but could guess that Malone was standing on the edge of her bunk beside Hendricks.
"I said," she emphasized, "what's your name?"
Even if I was going to avoid making friends, it would also be better to not make enemies. Biting my lip, I rolled onto my back. "Molly."
Malone laughed again,
with less humor this time. "We use our last names here," she told me.
On the lower bunk behind her, Rugburn blew another bubble. It grew slowly, coming out of her red lips bit by bit until it was stretched larger than I would have thought possible.
I had hoped she might feel some racial solidarity with me. But she seemed the least interested in me of any of them.
Of the three of these women, she probably scared me the most.
"She's going to need a new name," Hendricks said before I could respond.
A new name? Of course - the way Rugburn clearly wasn't the young white girl's real name. I wondered where that came from.
"I'm good with Molly," I said.
Malone and Hendricks laughed, making the bedframe shake again. I was liking their closeness to me less and less. But there was no way to make them go away without sounding even more like a pussy.
I sat up, setting my back against the wall. If I was tough, I would have said, "What's so funny?". There was no way I was going to fool them into thinking I was tough, though. It was probably completely obvious that I was in for something nonviolent, something white-collar. I didn't belong there the way they did, and they knew it.
So I would be nice to them. It was all I knew how to do. "How long have y'all been in here?" I asked.
The corners of Hendricks' eyes squinched up as she thought. "Just about one year now," she said. "These two, a lot longer. Y'all remember when I was fresh meat?"
"I sure do," Malone said. A look passed between them that I didn't quite understand the meaning of. It was the kind of look that my ex-boyfriend used to give me.
The wall was too hard against my back and I wanted to stretch my legs out, but these two were only inches away, close enough to touch me. "What's with the fresh meat thing?" I asked, not thinking about the words before they came out of my mouth.
That cracked both Hendricks and Malone right up. They laughed like crazy, Malone doubling over the mattress and Hendricks wiping tears from her eyes. Even Rugburn, sitting on her bunk alone, had suddenly developed a sardonic smile.
The laughing seemed to get the attention of the prisoners across the hall. "What's so funny?" one woman yelled, the bar door clanking as she shook it.
"Mind your business!" Malone shouted back at her. "We got our fresh meat, you get your own!"
Hendricks smirked, her hands folded on the mattress in front of her. "The fresh meat thing?" she said. Finally someone was going to answer my question. "It ain't no big deal. We've all been there."
Before I could ask anything more, Thompson's reedy voice rang out in the corridor outside the bar door. "Lights out!" she called, her voice getting louder and then softer as she walked down the hallway. "All of you had best be turning your lights out!"
That same look passed between Malone and Hendricks. Malone's thick lips twitched. "Turn off the lights," she ordered Hendricks.
Without a word, the older woman climbed down and flipped a switch. The tiny cell was bathed in darkness, although the lights in the hall were still on. I would never be able to sleep with so much light around.
For the moment, though, it didn't look like sleeping was on the agenda.
Malone got off the bunk, too. "Get down here," she said.
My heart pounding, I did as she said. I wouldn't disobey her until she crossed a line, I decided. No friends, but no enemies.
She and Hendricks stood with their backs to the bar door. Rugburn still sat on her bunk, blowing her bubbles, ice-blue eyes on me.
"Now take off your jumpsuit," Malone ordered.
Even trying not to show any reaction, my palms were sweaty enough that I wiped them on my jumpsuit pants again. "What?"
"You heard her," Hendricks said, coming closer to me.
"Look, I don't want any kind of initiation or hazing or whatever it is you all are trying to do. I just want to keep to myself. I won't cause you any trouble, you don't cause me any." My voice shook as I spoke. These women didn't seem like they would listen to reason, but I had to give it one last try.
Hendricks took another step forward. "Take off your jumpsuit." All humor was gone from her attitude now. She looked serious - deadly serious.
Despite my dry throat, I managed to choke out another sentence. "What if I don't?"
Rugburn exploded off the bed in one swift movement. All of a sudden she was in my face, her eyes wild and her hand on my throat. Her voice was raspy as she spoke for the first time, nearly screaming. "You don't want to fuck with us, bitch! You know who we be? You know where we been?"
I jumped back, my back hitting the metal bunk hard.
Malone and Hendricks had backed up too, but were watching us with amusement. "Rugburn killed a man," Malone said off-handedly.
The scar that ran down Rugburn's face went white, then deeper red, as she continued to shout at me. "You think you better than us, bitch?"
"No!" I protested. Her chilly hand was still on my throat, her grasp light but determined.
"Then take off your clothes," she snarled.
My modesty wasn't worth my life. This girl, as young and pretty as she was, seemed like she would kill me as soon as shake my hand.
Hands trembling, I unbuttoned my khaki jumpsuit, silently thankful that Thompson had at least let me keep my underwear when she confiscated all my other stuff when I got here.
Rugburn looked me up and down, her eyes narrowed. From the sidelines, Hendricks and Malone were looking at me with obvious approval. Rugburn, though, didn't show any kind of reaction.
"Your bra and panties, too," she said.
There was no use in protesting. Swallowing hard, I took off my bra. Now I was nearly naked and trembling in the middle of the cell. Across the hall, the four prisoners had returned to the door to watch.
Footsteps came from the hall. Thompson! She was out there - she had to be making rounds. She would have to save me from whatever these women were going to do to me.
Of course. I wouldn't come to any harm. I was in jail; these women couldn't run wild doing whatever they wanted. If there was any place in the world that was subject to law and order, this was it.
My breathing came easier and my back even began to untense as I listened to the sweet sound of Thompson's feet getting closer and closer.
They were just outside the cell now. As the severe-looking woman walked down the hallway, she glanced into my cell and took in my nearly nude body. I caught my breath. She had to say something now that she had seen this; she had to yell at the other women and tell them off. Maybe I would even get my own cell.
For a brief moment, my eyes made contact with hers. I begged her silently for help. She was the only person that could save me.
But her pace didn't even slow.
"Thompson!" I yelled. I ran to the bar door and shook it, frantic. "Thompson!"
Without a pause, she kept walking down the corridor. She was ignoring me!
Rugburn pulled me away from the door, my hands opening to release the bars without any resistance. "Bitch, you ain't finished taking off your panties," she said, smacking her gum. "What are you waiting for?"
Hendricks and Malone's laughter was joined by that of the women across the hall. They were grinning, apparently finding my predicament the most hilarious thing in the world.
"What's going on?" someone from what sounded like the cell beside mine called out.
One of the women across the hall called back. "They got fresh meat in C2!"
"Y'all are so lucky you can see!" the first woman yelled. "We ain't had or seen nothing fresh in forever."
"Yeah, she's a pretty little one, too," the second woman said. She held the bars tightly next to her cellmates, all four of them leering at me.
Were these women all lesbians? Or had they become that way once they got here? Pretty much every woman I had seen had looked at me like a piece of meat or made comments about me.
"Drop the damn panties," Rugburn growled.
I had almost forgotten. She sounded more serious than e
ver, and she was right - I didn't want to fuck with her.
Trembling, I dropped my panties to the ground and stood in front of the other prisoners naked.
Rugburn chewed her gum lazily as she looked me up and down. I hoped she liked what she saw - somehow I felt things would go better for me if she did. But she still showed no reaction.
"Sit down," she said, gesturing to Malone's bunk.
I had half expected her to order me to go down on her or something. If I was going to be sitting down, it couldn't be that bad. I took a seat on the hard mattress, trying not to bang my head on the bunk above me.
Malone came forward, seeming to be taking over again. I breathed a sigh of relief; she wasn't great, but Rugburn was just scary. "The first thing is you need to get wet," she said. "Hendricks is going to do a little strip for you."
I blinked rapidly. Hendricks had to make me wet? That was going to be hard. "I'm straight, though," I said.
"We'll see about that."
Hendricks stood in front of me, looking almost as uncomfortable as me. It was clear that she was at the bottom of the food chain in this cell - and that Rugburn was at the top.
She was at the bottom of the food chain until I came along, I should say.
I watched with slight curiosity as she began to unbutton her orange jumpsuit. I'm straight, but I can appreciate a woman's body. And Hendricks had a nice one - a vast expanse of smooth, light brown skin, and her breasts jutting firmly out in front of her. She let the top half of the jumpsuit rest on her wide hips and paused, looking down at me.
"Look at the look on her face," Malone said to her. "Check the sheet under her."
"Not yet," Rugburn said. She had her ice-blue eyes on me, too, watching my expression carefully.
Squirming nervously, I looked at Hendricks again. As she took off her bra, my clit twitched a little bit. It wasn't gay to feel like that. It was just that it was a person, with warm blood and less and less clothes on, standing just inches away from me. That doesn't make me bisexual if my clit responded.
Her breasts were just as perky without the bra as they were with it, even though they were big and round. I almost wondered if they were fake, but the way they jiggled as she moved told me they weren't. Her nipples were a dark purplish color, just begging to be sucked.
