Low (Low #1)

by Mary Elizabeth

  Furnished with only the bare minimum, the place doesn’t have a couch, but there’s a television, and Poe says the cable works. My girl flips on a light, so there’s electricity. And when I follow her into the small kitchen, we don’t have a table, but there’s a refrigerator, and a microwave I recognize from her parents’ house.

  Poesy turns on the faucet. “Water’s included in the rent,” she says and winks.

  The bathroom counter is covered with her lotions and makeup. It’s candy-perfume scented and bare, with the exception of the pink towel that hangs from a towel rack.

  Poe slides open the glass shower door. “I got you some man shampoo and a razor,” she says, pointing toward the store brand bottle of shampoo.

  “Thanks, babe,” I say quietly. My chest fills with a heavy pressure, overwhelmed by the simple gesture of toiletries that aren’t prison-issued, but mine.

  “Want to see the room?” she asks, tucking her long hair behind her ear.

  I nod.

  Hand-in-hand, Poesy leads me to the one bedroom in the apartment and flips on the light. Lacking heat and much of everything else, a queen-sized mattress lies on the floor, covered in messy sheets and blankets. Poesy’s dresser is against the wall, and the TV from her old room is on top of it.

  “I sold the actual bed frame for the rest of the money to get into this place,” she explains, kicking what must be her work clothes into the corner.

  The tears that burn my eyes now aren’t from carbonation but completely legit. I’ve slept on one-inch padding for the last two years, and for as long as I can remember before that, I crashed on my mother’s couch. Bed frame or not, I want to sink into it.

  “Your mom brought over your things, and I bought you some new socks and stuff.” My girl opens the top drawer of the oak dresser. Then, she walks over to the small closet and slides open the door. “And clothes for job interviews.”

  “You didn’t have to do all of that, Poesy,” I say, tightening my jaw to keep from crying like a fucking baby.

  The girl who waited for me slips out of her shoes and pushes her sandals into the closet with her foot. Next, she unbuttons her jeans and shimmies out of them, keeping them in a ball around her feet. Poe lifts her white shirt over her head and lets it fall to the floor, leaving her in nothing more than black lace.

  She’s always been beautiful, but Poesy’s developed and filled out in our time apart. She’s a girl-turned-woman, and the sight of her near-naked body nearly drops me to my knees.

  It’s been too long.

  She gathers her long hair and ties it into a knot at the base of her head. Random strands of blonde hair fall from her impromptu bun. Stepping away from her discarded clothes, wider hips sway as she steps forward.

  I suck in a breath when she touches me. Goose bumps stick the translucent hairs on my arms straight up. Her hands smooth them over, past my elbows, up to my shoulders.

  “You’ve worked out.” She smiles, gripping on to my biceps.

  Her body presses against mine, and I light up from the inside out, letting tears fall boldly and freely. The touch of her soft skin is better than I remember when I was in that place. The smell of her vanilla-scented hair takes me back to times when I was inside this girl without a thought of losing it.

  But I did.

  Determined to never let that happen again, I slip my hand around her lower back. Poesy steps away with a devious grin on her red lips. She beckons me with her pointer finger until she stops at the end of our bed.

  “Over here, boy,” love-like-wild says in a tone sweeter than sugar. She turns around and peeks at me over her shoulder as her hair falls from its knot. “Come fuck me on our new mattress.”

  Scrubbing my hands over my face, I inhale an uneasy breath through my nose as brutal anticipation hardens my cock and tightens my stomach. Mercy is watching this girl crawl into bed on her hands and knees, curving her back so that her bottom sits higher. She slides her palms forward until her thin fingers clutch the pillow and her chest is flush with the sheets.

  “Don’t make me be easy with you, Poe,” I say roughly, pulling my shirt over my head. I toss it to the corner with her work clothes.

  “I wouldn’t dream of it.” Poesy parts her knees and bites her lip.

  Unbuttoning my jeans and stepping out of my shoes, I walk toward seduction with a fever and two years of caged craving pumping thick blood to my unworthy heart. The mattress sinks under my weight, and Poesy curls her red painted toes. She cries out when I grab her hips and breathes in as I stroke against her warmest spot. Even with denim and lace between us, it’s the best I’ve felt since I was penned behind bars.

  Poe’s slender and wide-hipped in the palms of my hands and completely out of her mind. I lean down to press a heavy kiss at the base of her spine, and she reaches back and pulls my hair.

  “Go ahead and make me crazy,” she says impatiently. Strands of my hair come loose between her fingers, but my girl doesn’t let go until I sink my teeth into her round bottom. She scratches and tugs at the white cotton sheets, and whispers, “You know where I want you. You already know.”

  “Like this? Are you sure?” I ask, kissing the back of her shoulder.

  Tight muscles move over Poe’s small bones, and her back rises as her lungs fill with hectic breaths. She nods, giving me the permission I didn’t need to ask for, and closes her eyes as I inch her tangled blonde hair away from her face. Cupping my hand around the back of her neck, I push my thumb into her pulse point and feel it soar when I use my other hand to jerk her underwear down to her bent knees.

  Poesy’s spine curves, and she tries to lift herself, but I hold her down and slide two fingers into her pussy from behind. Knuckle deep in the kind of love that kept me awake and hard those lonely nights, I curve my fingers and make this girl sing.

  “Lowen.”

  She rocks back and forth on her knees, fucking my hand, chasing a feeling I haven’t been here to give her. When she starts to tense up and stiffen, I quickly pull my jeans down and thrust my cock into her. Poesy’s center melts around me, and she comes violently, crying horrible everythings and sweet nothings.

  “You stupid fucking bastard,” she says in a broken voice. “I missed you so much.”

  Grabbing a handful of her hair, I pull her head back and lift Poe back onto her hands and knees. I stroke desperately harder, leaning over so that my chest is pressed flat against my girl’s back.

  “Forgive me,” I say in a strangled tone. “Forgive me. Forgive me.”

  I come with my face buried in her neck and my body totally covering hers. Before both of us have an opportunity to catch our breath, Poesy turns in my arms so that we’re face-to-face and guides my cock between her legs. This time we share easy kisses and feather-like touches, tender and steady.

  “I can’t feel my toes,” the girl who waited for me says with tears slipping from her eyes.

  Carefully stroking my length in and out of her, I hold Poesy’s face between my hands tenderly and ask, “Can you feel me?”

  “Always,” she whispers.

  THE NEXT MORNING, I have a mandatory meeting with my parole officer, but rolling out of bed feels nearly impossible after last night.

  “Come on, Low. I’ll drop you off on my way to work.”

  I crack open an eye, and Poesy stands over me in her green and black barista uniform. I smile.

  “Sexy, right?” she jokes, tying her apron behind her back.

  After a quick shower and an even quicker breakfast, we’re out the door, depriving me of time to enjoy my first morning out of the pen.

  “The coffee shop’s a few blocks from here,” she says, pulling alongside the curb in front of the probation office. “Walk that way when you’re done.”

  Once inside, I’m surrounded by a bunch of parolees whom I can’t help but feel like I’m better than, but recognize we’re all in the same position. There’s a lot of waiting, plenty of frustration, and no answers when I ask why my parole officer hasn’t c
alled my name yet.

  “My appointment was two hours ago,” I argue, running my hand through my hair.

  In a bored tone of voice, the lady behind the counter says, “Sit down until your name is called.”

  It takes another forty-five minutes.

  First, I’m told to pee in a cup while my parole officer, Rick, watches. Next, we go over the possibility of random drug tests and home checks.

  “You’ll need to find employment in the next fourteen days.” Rick passes me a sheet of paper. “That’s a list of places who hire felons, but don’t depend on it. Try to apply yourself.”

  “Okay.” I fold the paper.

  My PO eyes me. “That tattoo on your face isn’t going to help you land a job, and you need a haircut.”

  He sits back in his chair and folds his hands over his round stomach.

  “Anything else?” I ask.

  Rick nods. “Restitution fees, Lowen. You owe your victim and the State of California a lot of money. Get that job, fast, because your first two hundred dollar payment is due in a week.”

  I request applications from a few places on my walk toward Poe’s workplace. I’m greeted with tension and awkwardness. One place, an appliance store, claims that all applications are done online. The custodial supply warehouse isn’t hiring, and the Asians in the donut shop pretend not to speak English.

  Even if I did land a job today, I wouldn’t get a paycheck in time to pay that first restitution fee.

  “Hey, baby,” Poesy greets me along with the smell of ground coffee beans and fresh baked pastries when I enter her workplace.

  My stomach growls.

  Stress eats me alive, chewing a hole in my chest, and I don’t have it in me to pretend differently.

  “Take a seat. I’ll make you a drink and get you something to eat.”

  As I walk toward the table in the far corner, hipster dipshits on their fancy laptops and smart phones glower at me from the corners of their eyes and whisper amongst themselves as I pass.

  I kick my chair out and sit down, pissed that I didn’t even get twenty-four hours before the world came crashing down.

  “Try this. It’s a pumpkin frap. Totally what dreams are made of.” Poesy sets a tall plastic cup in front of me with a green straw and a pastry. “And the cure for your hunger.”

  She sits back and watches me eat with a small smile on her face, and as the minutes pass and the ache of hunger is treated, I’m not as bothered by the people who judge me or the fines hanging over my head.

  “We’ll figure this out, Low.” Poe crosses her arms over her chest. “Even if we have to rob a bank.”

  THE THOUGHT CROSSES my mind every time I’m told some place isn’t hiring, or I don’t get a call back from an employer I thought was promising. The list Rick gave me was useless; there are more convicts on parole than there are jobs to fill, and as I come up on that fourteen day mark, I’m shit out of luck.

  Meanwhile, Poesy paid my first restitution fee out of her savings, and she’s taken on more hours at the coffee shop to pick up my slack. The topic hasn’t come up, but I know her job gets in the way of school.

  Utility bills come in as fast as they’re paid, and the car needs gas. The food that was in the refrigerator when I got here is gone, and last night, Poe and I ate stale, leftover blueberry muffins she brought home from work for dinner.

  But today—day thirteen—is looking up.

  Poe’s sitting on the floor in front of the TV with all of her schoolbooks open and circled around her. Her stringy hair is tied up, and she’s dressed in a pair of my boxers and a white tank.

  “How do I look?” I ask, buckling my belt.

  Poesy glances up from her homework and gasps. “You’re hot, inmate. You’re totally going to nail this interview. I can feel it.”

  The car won’t start, so we have to get a jump from the neighbor. I’m not late for my interview, but Poe drops me off in front of the recycling plant with only seconds to spare.

  “Good luck,” she calls as I run into the plant.

  The cutting scent of mildew and wet aluminum assaults my senses and kicks me right in the gut. But I swallow hard and walk past crates of crushed cans and bins of scrap metal, toward the small office in the center of it all.

  I knock on the thin, green door.

  “Come in,” someone says.

  I open the door, and a short, dark man in a stained, white tee, torn jeans, and work boots greets me.

  “You Lowen?” he asks in a thick Spanish accent.

  “Yes, sir,” I answer. “I’m here for the interview.”

  He drops a stack of papers onto this desk, and dust floats into the air. Small and stuffy, it’s hard to breathe, and it doesn’t smell any better in here than it does out there.

  “No interview,” he says, facing me. “We’re too busy for that. You’ll get minimum wage, but if you fuck up, you’re gone. You steal from me, I call the cops. No bullshit. Got it?”

  I nod.

  He throws me a neon vest. “You start now.”

  Jorge, my new boss, gives me a quick rundown on everything and leaves me to it. My job is simple: cleanup.

  It’s my duty to sweep broken glass, dry spills, throw out the trash, mop the bathroom, and anything else that needs to be washed, wiped down, and scrubbed. This wasn’t what I expected, but the exhaustion in my girl’s eyes makes pushing a broom easy.

  As the weeks pass after scoring employment, My PO’s satisfied with my progress. He still makes me pee in a cup every time I see him, and Rick kept his promise about random home checks. My bi-weekly income from the recycling plant is enough to pay my restitution fine and put a little food in the kitchen. Poesy and I live paycheck-to-paycheck, but we scrape by, and we’re happy.

  Weeks pass into months, and spring burns into summer. The air conditioner goes out in the car, and the rattle in the engine we ignored for so long is the alternator. When it goes out, there’s no money to buy the parts, because the rent is due, and the semester at school is about to start in August, so Poe has tuition to pay, which kills the last of her savings.

  We ride the bus, and she swears, “Everything’s still fine.”

  Slowly, there’s less and less money coming in and more going out. The cable gets shut off, so we watch movies from the dollar rental box. The gas bill’s past due, so we suffer through cold showers. But when the electric company comes by, we have to pay the bill, leaving us no choice but to skip a few meals.

  I ask Jorge about the possibility of a raise, a better position, or more hours, but he pretends I don’t exist. Meanwhile, Poesy had to cut back at the coffee shop to free time for school.

  By Christmas, I’ve been out of jail for eight months, but I feel like we’re both imprisoned by the pile of bills on the kitchen counter and limitations of a felon.

  There are no funds to buy my girl a present for the holiday, and she’s struggling under the pressure of the life she chose by choosing me.

  While the car collects dust in the driveway and my heart is full of burden, Poesy slips off our mattress on the floor, unaware that I’ve spent the whole night awake, plagued by culpability. After she’s left the room, I roll over onto my back and run a hand through my sleep-messy, still-too-long hair.

  “I know you’re awake,” Poe says. She pokes her head in from around the doorframe. Her long hair swings back and forth, tattered at the ends.

  She steps into the room with her hands behind her back and a sly smile on her pink lips. Dressed in nothing but one of my tees and a pair of blue underwear, she curls her purple painted toes and sways her hips.

  “Hiding something from me, girl?” I ask, leaning on one elbow.

  “Merry Christmas to us,” Poe exclaims, presenting the red and white packaging from around her back. “It’s bacon.” My stomach growls, and my mouth fills with saliva. “I got eggs and orange juice, too. Let’s make breakfast.” She skips out of the room.

  Our small apartment saturates with the scent of maple and greas
e. Oil pops from the pan as the bacon fries, and a pile cools on a plate beside the stove. I reach over Poesy and grab a strip, unable to hold myself back any longer.

  My girl swats at my hand, turning around to push me away as I shove slightly burnt swine into my mouth.

  “Sorry,” I mumble, licking my fingers.

  “Control yourself, boy. It’s almost done.” She snaps her cooking tongs at me.

  While she flips our breakfast, I come up behind her and move her hair over, kissing the side of her exposed throat. Poesy sinks into me and curves her neck to the side, opening until her bluish veins are visible through her pale skin. I press my lips to her pulse point and push my hardening cock into her soft bottom.

  “Is it me or the bacon?” she asks playfully. Her nipples harden beneath her shirt.

  “The pig,” I say with a smile.

  Poesy leans her head back, and our lips touch. We kiss in this awkward position, brushing lips and touching tongues. My hands slide from her hips, under her oversized shirt, until my fingertips sweep across her breasts. Goose bumps rise on her arms, and my girl circles her hips, rubbing against my length.

  I turn her around and cover her mouth with mine properly, tilting her head back and gripping her hair between my fingers. Poe takes slow steps back until she’s pressed to the kitchen wall. Lifting her up, she circles her long legs around my waist and digs her short fingernails into my shoulders. I stroke against her heat, pushing her harder into the wall.

  A soft moan hums breathlessly from between her sweet lips, and I slither my hands between us, caressing my knuckles against her middle as the fucking smoke detector starts to ring.

  Poesy drops to her feet. “Dammit.”

  She hurries to the oven and turns off the flame, fanning smoke with a dish towel she grabs from the counter. While she opens the small window that leads out to our excuse for a backyard, I jerk the alarm from the ceiling and pull out the battery.

  “It’s burned.” Poe sighs.

  “Only a few pieces,” I say, tossing the alarm onto the fridge.

  “That’s not the—” Poesy suddenly starts to scream. She jumps back and forth from foot to foot.