Betrayal

by Simon King

  “Are you hearing these words coming out of your mouth, kid? You really want to stay here?” he asked, leaning forward in his seat and slapping the pen on top of the notepad. “This isn’t exactly the Hilton, Las Vegas. I’m giving you a real opportunity to grab a chance at freedom.”

  “That’s right. You are. A chance at freedom. You can’t guarantee it.”

  “Guarantee it? No-one can guarantee anything. But I can put you into the ring to at least have a crack at it. Fight a little.” He was eyeing me suspiciously, as if seeing something I wasn’t feeling. “Are you insane? Passing this chance up is like…” He paused, the shock robbing him of the words.

  “There’s nothing out there for me now. In here, in here Giorgio, I have a job to do.” It wasn’t the work in the hospital I was referring to, but he didn’t need to know the truth. But it was true. I still had some scores to settle and there was less chance for me to settle them if let out.

  I sat back pausing, looking out the window. I wondered whether that was true or whether there was something else. Could I really handle having my hopes dashed again? I struggled the first time I had to let go of freedom and accept this place. Could I really go through all that again?

  “Think long and hard before you throw this chance away, kid. Your Dad is fitting the bill and I’m here free of charge as far as you’re concerned. This nightmare could all be over within a couple of weeks.”

  I turned back towards him, lent forward and lowered my eyes. I stared at his pad, trying to make sense of my feelings. It was hard, fucken hard. Did I really want to do this?

  “Your Dad just wants you out of here. Out of harm’s way.” It was hearing that final sentence that sealed the deal for me. It was Frank. He was the one threatening my safety now, not Rock, not the Jesters. It was the man who swore to bring me into his so-called family and protect me.

  I suddenly stood, looked at Giorgio and knew that I was making the right decision. Regardless of what else happened, I had a score to settle. A score for more than just me. I had to settle it for a little boy that lost his father; an innocent young girl. The decision I made that day was one of the hardest, but when I made my mind up, was actually happy with my decision. I held my hand out to Giorgio.

  “Tell my Dad thanks. But I need to stay here.” He stood, pumped my hand a single time, then shook his head as I turned away. And just like that I committed to finishing the rest of my sentence.

  6.

  I returned to the hospital unit and once I had the German screw sign me back in, headed to the laundry room to grab the mop and bucket. I was overdue to clean out the rest of the cells along the East wing, 8 rooms needing my sanitary touch of cleanliness. There was a bit of a skip in my walk as I went, one that was about to get a real boost.

  7.

  The laundry room was around the back of the far corridor, past a bunch of doors that held the kitchen, tea room and toilets. It was a quiet part of the unit at the best of times, only visited by those needing a bathroom break or coffee refill.

  I walked past the closed doors, pushed open the laundry room and grabbed the bucket. After squeezing some floor cleaner in, I turned on the tap and began to fill it with hot water. I was whistling as the water poured into the bucket, loud enough to muffle the sound of the door opening behind me.

  The first indication I had that I wasn’t alone was when a hand slid down the front of my pants. I hadn’t tied the string around my tracksuit pants, giving the squeezer easy access to my throne room. The hand almost reached the treasured jewels before I spun around and saw Officer Friendly less than two inches from my face.

  She smiled briefly, pushed my hand away and grabbed hold of my dick, a tool untouched by anyone else’s hands for a very long time. Despite wanting to resist, there was little hope, the warm touch of her soft fingers already building the firmness up. When she dropped to her knees and began to suck with a slow rhythm, I knew I lost the battle.

  She knew exactly what she was doing, her tongue working magic as the warmth engulfed me. Her blowjob was the best thing I’d had in years, my cum flowing in less than a minute. As much as I wanted to savour the moment, there was very little hope, Friendly’s hand virtually draining me as my knees threatened to buckle.

  I looked down as she stared up at me, my dick still comfortably nestled between her lips. She gave it a final suck which sent shivers through me, stood and wiped her mouth on one of the towels sitting on the edge of the sink.

  “Sorry, Dylan. No swallow today,” she said when she finished wiping. “Tasted good though.” And with that, she turned and left me with my dripping dick still hanging out, my shaking legs begging for reprieve. It was the first bit of sexual contact I had in years and it lasted all of 40 seconds.

  It may not have been a candle-lit dinner and a bottle of wine. But that moment in the laundry room had been one of the most erotic of my life. I won’t lie to you, I relived it later that night in my cell, and not for the final time.

  8.

  I wanted San to understand my reasons for knocking back his offer first hand. I didn’t want him to misconstrue my objection and thus phoned him the first opportunity I had the following morning. Better to hear it from the horse’s mouth I figured.

  There was no answer the first time I tried, nor the second a few minutes later. When I dialled his number for a third time, I saw both Frank and Nails standing on the top tier along the opposite wall to the bank of phones, watching me with shit-eating grins, the kind you knew meant trouble. I knew they were up to something but didn’t know what. But that wasn’t the day for me to find out their secret.

  9.

  “Up out of bed, turn around and put your hands on the window sill,” the voice said as the light flickered into life. I’d been in a deep sleep and my pillow felt wet beneath my face. “Moody, now.”

  I tried to force my eyes open, looked out and saw night was still hanging outside my window. I peered back at the trap and saw a face peering in. It wasn’t one I recognized, possibly a new recruit. The Tactical Team always ran a unit ramp when a new intake of recruits was in training. A random unit was always chosen, usually early morning.

  “NOW!” the voice spat through the trap and I slowly peeled the sheet back. The air was cold, almost enough to bite. There wasn’t a lot of heating in the units and cold nights called for extra clothing to be donned. It wasn’t that cold when I hopped into bed the previous night, thus remained in my jocks alone.

  “Can I put some pants on?” I asked, but the door opened instead, one Tactical Uniform walked in followed by the voice that spoke to me. It was a young guy, eerily similar in looks to Sam Lester. The Tactical officer waved for the new recruit to take point as I turned and grabbed the window sill.

  “Listen to this officer’s instructions,” the large lad said before stepping back and waving the fresh-faced screw forward. He looked paler than my bedsheet, maybe a few years older than me. He looked like one of those guys that was more in tune with a bank counter or some office job.

  “Turn and face me.” I did, facing him with my hands by my side. With only my jocks on, there wasn’t a lot of instruction to follow. “Lose the underwear,” he said. I did as he asked, painfully aware of the ‘cold shrinkage’ that every man dreaded in times like this.

  There was a snicker from the door and I saw another blue uniform staring in. It was Dhurrin, peering in with the same kind of grin I saw on Frank’s face the previous day.

  “Damn, it really must be cold,” he snickered, a couple of others joining in the chuckle. I felt my cheeks flush a little, now standing naked before 4 sets of eyes.

  The next few instructions went by the book, me doing the strip-dance every crook is subjected to repeatedly. There’s the same routine to follow and this screw was following it precisely.

  When I finished with the usual finale of ‘turn, bend over and spread your cheeks’, I grabbed my jocks and slid them on. As I reached for a t-shirt, Dhurrin suddenly chimed in.

  “H
ey, don’t grab your clothes. It needs checking.” I was about to pick up my jumper to throw at the officer to check, but the head screw had other ideas.

  “Nope, leave them on your bed.” He turned to the Tactical Officer and said, “Take him out to the chook pen.” My protests fell on deaf ears as I was escorted out to the exercise yard where I joined about half a dozen other lads already pacing.

  “Prick,” I muttered, watching as Dhurrin moved to my neighbour’s cell. I turned to look at who else was outside with me, some clothed and some topless. I was the only poor sap in my jocks, embracing my arms around me as white tendrils of mist flew from my mouth.

  It was fucken cold and holding my arms around my upper body wasn’t helping. There was a bank of clothes dryers along one wall of the chook pen and I went to check them for anything.

  “Don’t bother, I already checked,” a voice said from behind me. I turned and saw Razzie, standing topless near the side fence. He was alone. His own arms wrapped around his upper body.

  Just as I was about to greet him, the door to the chook pen opened again and another crook was shuffled through.

  “Hey, boss. It’s cold out here. Could we please get some jumpers?” another voice cried out. The Tactical Officer looked, grinned and nodded.

  “Sure. Let me see what I can find,” he said, but his grin said otherwise. He didn’t care and there would be no jumpers coming.

  “Arsehole,” Razzie muttered under his breath and clapped me on the back. “Let’s walk.”

  Walking was good and one of the regular activities undertaken while in the chook pen most days. Either alone or in a line, crooks loved to walk back and forth, chatting as they paced up and down the line. Razzie and I stuck to one side of the chook pen, taking advantage of the low numbers still there. It wouldn’t be long before the numbers would make pacing impossible and I needed to warm up before then.

  Each time we turned back towards the unit; I saw the officers working inside through the row of windows. There must have been at least 60 officers in total, 25 of which were Tactical Officers. They wore their blue uniform with pride, evident in how they carried themselves. There were a few women mixed in, none harder than Kate Norton.

  She was a fair but firm hard-arse that swung a dick bigger than most men around the jail. In all my time at the Palace, I had never seen her back down from anything, always one of the first in to any disruption, regardless of the circumstances.

  She would go nose-to-nose with some of the scariest fuckers in this joint and never backed down an inch. Her confidence got her through every situation I’d ever witnessed. While not the most attractive of females, she wasn’t ugly. Her long blond hair was always pulled back in a ponytail, her staunch face never appearing to falter. The boys would always comment on the size of her tits, calling them ‘rumble-bags’, as in air bags for rumbling.

  I watched as she conducted the ramping, allocating officers to certain cells and running the show while Dhurrin appeared to wander from cell to cell. While he may have been in charge, it was Norton that ran the show.

  10.

  The numbers continued to build as daylight finally began to brighten the sky. It was still chilly, but with more and more crooks squeezed into the small space, the air flow reduced considerably, giving those of us without clothes a bit of a reprieve.

  It was a little after 7 by the time the final crook was shoved through the door, a wall of faces pressed against the windows and watching the proceedings continue inside. They would holler whenever someone was caught with incriminating gear, banging on the windows and obnoxiously cheering on the officers.

  “Anything in your cell they’ll find?” a voice suddenly said from behind me. I turned to see Frank standing behind me, his new favorite minion by his side. Nails scowled at me with a contemptuous stare. I didn’t care, more interested in his boss.

  “Nah. I wouldn’t be that stupid,” I lied, Frank knowing his question was loaded. The question he asked wasn’t about whether anything was in my cell. There was always something hiding in there. The question was whether they would find anything and that was the aim of the game we played.

  How well you could hide the crap in your cell was the only thing that mattered. The best place to hide stuff was where shit was supposed to live; up your arse. Half the boys in the chook pen would have things ‘booted’ up their cake holes. Screws weren’t permitted to search anal cavities.

  If they suspected someone of hiding contraband internally, that crook could be taken to hospital for scans and monitoring. But that was rare, only really happening when someone was dumb enough to swallow something to avoid getting caught.

  “Good boy,” Frank said, clapping me on the back. “How’s the supply line these days?” My work in the hospital unit was still one of the biggest money spinners for Frank and he knew it. While he may have acted like I’d been replaced by a more formidable person, the truth was, I was promoted to a far more important and profitable position.

  “Great. Had a few decent-sized bounties arrive this week.” I looked at Nails as I spoke, returning his grin in spades. I wasn’t going to be intimidated by this arsehole, regardless of who he thought he was.

  “Keep me posted. And say hi to your dad for me,” Frank finished, turning his attention to Hal who was standing a few yards across from us. I watched as they walked away, feeling the burn of revenge in the pit of my stomach.

  11.

  The unit ramp cost a lot of people some hard-earned privileges. Most had been found with an assortment of porn, drugs and weapons. Shivs were the most common, some actual knives, but most home-made designs that looked fucken horrific.

  One shiv I saw was made from a ping-pong bat; razor blades inserted along the outer edges. Another had been fashioned from a piece of metal torn from one of the washing machines. It was almost a foot long and could have taken someone’s head off.

  But one of the odd discoveries that quickly gained attention were photos found in one crook’s personal belongings. It was Razzie, the photos not his to begin with. They had in fact belonged to Frank. Razzie was Frank’s cleaner, the kid cleaning the cell on a daily basis. He would change the bedding, clean the toilet and mop Frank’s floor.

  The photos he’d stolen from Frank’s cell were of a certain female officer. Despite her face never appearing in any of them, the tattoos on both her wrists and arms betrayed her. There were also tattoos on both breasts and a very distinctive tramp stamp above her butt crack.

  As luck would have it, he was discharged the following day, his lawyer getting him out ahead of schedule. It was probably a life-saving outcome for him, Frank no doubt looking to fix him up for stealing from him. As it turned out, the kid evaded him.

  12.

  Officer Jackie Friendly was fired that very day. There’s a rumour that she offered to blow Dhurrin if he forgot the whole thing but I don’t know how true that is. I don’t doubt the rumour, remembering how keen she sucked my own dick without invitation.

  Although the lockdown continued until lunchtime, once the 12 o’clock muster finished, the unit was unlocked and the day continued as normal, with me heading off to work.

  I never saw her again, her things already cleaned out by the time I reached my job later that day. Although she had been my first sexual experience in the prison, I didn’t consider her a great loss.

  Chapter 3

  1.

  “They’ve been acting all weird the past few days,” Jack said as we sat in his cell, sorting through piles of books. The screws had given Jack a direct order to reduce the number he had in his cell. A directive had been handed down from the front that limited cells to just 10 books. Jack owned about 40 just in his cell alone. There were more held in his property tubs, housed somewhere inside the jail.

  “Who?” I asked, picking up a worn copy of Christine and holding it up for him. He considered for a moment, then shook his head. I added it to the growing pile headed for the front door, to be picked up by his mother.

&
nbsp; “Frank and Nails. They’ve even asked us to leave the cell a few times now. Think they’re up to something?” he asked, shaking his head at a copy of the Tommyknockers.

  “Like what?” I asked, unsure of what he was getting at.

  “Not sure. But I don’t like all this secrecy. We’re supposed to be a family.”

  I hadn’t been to Frank’s cell for quite some time at that point, especially during meetings. I was like the silent partner in the Cruds’ framework, performing my duties away from the public eye, behind the scenes. I held up one of his alternative endings to The Stand and he nodded enthusiastically.

  “How’s the writing coming along?” I asked. There hadn’t been a new release from Jack in several weeks and I wondered whether he’d run out of things to write about. To my surprise, he reached under his bunk and pulled out a bag, reached in and came out with a large notepad, thicker than any I’d seen in the past.

  “You mean this kind of writing?” I grinned and tried to reach for it. Jack pulled it back a little, holding it from my reach. “Ah-ah, not yet. Need to finish it first.”

  “Holy shit, man. How many pages? That looks fat as,” I said, leaning forward to try and grab it. He pushed me back a little, returning the book back to the bag.

  “Why do you fags always have to be touching each other whenever I come and see yas,” a voice suddenly spoke from the cell door. I looked back over my shoulder and saw Hal sticking his head through the gap. I picked up a jumper and threw it at him, watching as he ducked, then walked in.

  Hal fist-bumped with each of us and sat on the bed, Jack and I cross-legged on the floor. To my surprise, Hal began to mirror Jack’s concerns about Frank.

  “Anyone know why Frank and that dickhead have been so secretive lately?” he asked. Jack and I exchanged a brief glance which Hal instantly picked up. “What? You guys know something?”