“I’ve had it, brat. Now you’re going to get it.”
The threat was spoken in a menacing tone, but not in a raised voice. It was not the scream of someone challenging an opponent to a fight, it was the grim acknowledgment of someone about to deliver on a promise. And though spoken at a low volume, it was soon taken up and passed on down the line.
“Woo-hoo, you hear that? Callie gonna give her bitch a little limbo time!”
“Ooo, bitch, you done push her too far this time! Your ass is grass, girl!”
“Eh honey, come hook up with me! I treat you better than that.”
The hoots and catcalls and laughter echoed around the cells till everyone within hearing range knew that Calyx was about to punish her “bitch” Loki. Most of the inmates at Yountsville Women’s Minimum Security Correctional Facility – known to inmates as “the Bucket” – were not sympathetic to Loki’s plight. It wasn’t that they bore her any ill will. She was a fish, a newbie, but she was no fool. She’d quickly learned the way to gaining protection in the Bucket was to be taken under the wing of someone more powerful.
Unlike most of the other inmates who were in for drug related offences, Loki was in for identity theft. She had no shortage of brain power, but also no biceps to speak of. To avoid being made to serve some gang warlord, Loki decided to pick her own guardian….and she picked Calyx.
Calyx’s parents named her after the sepals of a flower, perhaps hoping this would impart a certain delicacy to their daughter. This often has a way of boomeranging horribly, and such was the case with Calyx. “Delicate” was the last attribute one would think to apply to her, and she switched to the nickname “Callie” as soon as she mastered the power of speech.
Callie was a loner. She had no girlfriend as far as Loki could tell, but she didn’t give the impression of having a boyfriend on the outside either. Loki had a boyfriend waiting for her on the outside, as did most of the women there. But while in prison, many women formed the practical bonds necessary to get by, including taking female lovers. Callie seemed to spend most of her time reading or working at the iron pile — the free weights available as part of their recreation.
While she was friendly enough with other inmates, Callie seemed to avoid all of the politics associated with prison life. In spite of this, or perhaps because of it, people left her alone. They didn’t hassle her, but she seemed to have influence among the inmates and guards both. Whatever she asked for, she got. Loki spent the first week very carefully observing things, and she decided this valuable ally was the best investment for serving out her two years of incarceration. The trick was getting Callie to think so too.
She knew right away the usual offer of physical companionship would not work. Loki was an attractive woman, well-endowed in all the right places. But if Callie wanted conventional (or what passed for conventional in prison) sex, she could easily have gotten it before this. No, it was going to take some other kind of merchandise to perk her interest.
“You need someone to take care of your laundry,” she said one day, nonchalantly parking herself next to the weight bench where Callie was working out.
Loki couldn’t tell whether the sound Callie made was a snort of disdain, or a grunt caused by lifting weights. “I can do my own laundry,” she said.
“I’ll give you my dessert,” was her next offer. She thought she detected a nearly imperceptible pause in Callie’s barbell curl. Bullseye! It gave her the patience to wait out the curls and an entire set of squats.
“Don’t like the orange jello,” Callie said at last.
“I’ll give you my roll on those days,” she answered quickly. “But Thursdays? You’d get double chocolate pudding….” Loki dangled the bribe before her like a diamond ring. When your life revolves around a tiny cell and very little else, routine things like meals take on huge importance. Riots have erupted over incidents as minor as burnt crust on a pizza slice.
Callie put down the weights and stretched a bit, looking out over the yard. “What do you want?” she asked at last.
“Your protection. Move me to your cell and look out for me. Keep the others from bothering me.”
Callie gave a rare laugh. “You don’t ask for much, do you, fish? Forget it. Bitches are too much trouble. All the chocolate pudding in the world ain’t worth the extra headache.”
“I can tell you stories.” Loki played her ace. She’d noticed how much Callie liked to read. And she knew the books donated to the prison made for a rather limited library. That did it…the older woman looked over at her now.
“What kind of stories?” Callie’s tone was skeptical, but there was a definite gleam of interest in her eye.
“Whatever you like. I was a writer on the outside, you know.” And this was the truth. Loki was a very good writer. The trouble had come when her creativity extended to taking on new identities for profit.
Callie grunted. She lay down and reached over her head to grasp the bench, anchoring her body for the 200 leg lifts she did every day. “Okay…tell me one now.”
That was unexpected. But Loki was up to the challenge. She took a deep breath and considered carefully. What would catch the attention of one of the most respected convicts in the prison? The obvious choice would be some action/adventure or comedy. But Loki rarely went with the obvious choice. She wove a tale about two women who met at a pool hall…a love story.
When Callie finished her leg lifts she lay there with her eyes closed, breathing hard and sweating. She rested her hands on her midsection and gradually her breathing slowed. Loki couldn’t tell whether she was still listening or if she’d fallen asleep, but she kept talking. Finally the story ended, happily ever after in the best tradition, and still Callie had not moved. Not wanting to awaken her, Loki started to rise. And that’s when Callie spoke.
“You’ll move in with me tomorrow. And Thursdays, I get your pudding.”
“You got it.” Loki hid her desire to cheer behind the biggest grin ever.
And that’s how their partnership began. It worked well for both of them. Loki got her protection, Callie was entertained whenever she felt like it. She didn’t ask for a story every night. Some nights she read instead, some nights she wrote in a composition notebook she kept under her bunk. Loki assumed it was letters she was writing, because when she was done she would usually tear them out and stuff them into the waistband of her trousers. But at least three times a week she would lay back, close her eyes, and say, “Okay, fish – tell me a story.” And Loki would spin her tales.
In the beginning, Loki would finish the story in one telling, but she soon realized that she would quickly run out of material that way. So she began to tell longer tales, and continue them over several nights.
“What happened then?” Callie asked, the first time that happened. “That’s not the end, is it?”
“Nope…to be continued,” Loki replied with a smile.
Callie frowned slightly, and for a moment Loki wondered if there was going to be insistence on having an ending, and if so, how she was going to stand her ground. But then Callie just shrugged and closed her eyes again. “Installment payments,” she muttered to herself. “Eh…why the hell not?”
As a cellmate, Callie left something to be desired. Not because she was messy – she had few possessions and she always kept them neatly stowed. Not because of her snoring – she did snore but it was soft and compared to the constant noise of the cellblock Loki could barely hear her. Not because of her temper, either. She had a temper, but it usually expressed itself in narrowed eyes and a low growling sound deep in her throat. The few times Loki had seen her lose it, some inmate had gone flying with a warning shove, and that’s all it took for people to back off. Her temper had never been turned against Loki.
Unless, of course, you counted that minor incident with the notebook.
Every evening after dinner, inmates were allowed an hour of freedom before being locked back in their cells. Most of the women preferred to watch television in the recreation room, or spend some of the 300 minutes of phone time they were allotted each month talking to their families. Some visited the commissary to purchase toiletries or detergent, anything better than the prison-issued generic toothpaste or the harsh blue stick of soap which refused to lather.
Callie usually visited the chapel, of all places.
“I…uh…didn’t know you were religious,” Loki said once.
“I’m not,” was the terse reply. “It’s a quiet place to meditate.”
Though Loki didn’t think Callie was the type to meditate either, she wisely decided to drop the subject. But for someone like Loki, who preferred a bit of interaction in her daily routine, bunking with Callie was rather unsatisfying.
One evening, while her cellmate was away, Loki went over to Callie’s bunk and pulled out her notebook. She had been dying of curiosity for weeks, and Loki was not a patient person. But when she finally got a peek in the notebook, she was disappointed to see only blank pages and torn edges of pages – no writing to be found. She stuck it back beneath the mattress with a snort. “Now why am I not surprised?”
The next thing she knew, Loki found herself shoved down onto that very same mattress, face first.
“Hey!” She struggled to rise, but was pinned down by a strong hand at the back of her neck.
“What the hell were you doing?” Callie’s voice was soft, but furious.
“I was just curi—” she got no farther than that when a hard palm cracked sharply against her buttocks – once, twice, three times. “Ow! Cut that out!”
Now she was grabbed by the back of the shirt and pulled upright, then whirled around to face her angry cellmate.
“Don’t you ever touch my things without permission, you hear me?” Callie released Loki, who stepped back and rubbed her bottom resentfully. The prison-issued uniform – bright orange with the same style and thickness as medical scrubs – didn’t provide much protection, and those swats had hurt.
“Okay, okay…geez, you don’t have to HIT! It’s not as if there was anything to see anyway!”
Callie stared at her in disbelief. “You’re very lucky,” she said at last, “that I am a patient person.”
“Yeah, a regular Mother Theresa, that’s you,” Loki muttered under her breath.
Now you would have thought that someone as bright as Loki would’ve learned from this little incident. But most people who end up in prison are there because they don’t make the best choices. Far from being warned off as Callie had intended, Loki found her curiosity piqued.
For one thing, as painful as those swats had been, it was still mild compared to the punishment Callie could’ve doled out. Was everyone wrong about her? Was she really a softie underneath? The thought intrigued Loki no end, and she was determined to find out.
Thursday night’s menu was always some type of pasta, usually spaghetti or macaroni and cheese, salad, a roll, and chocolate pudding for dessert. Normally Loki handed her dessert over to Callie, as per their agreement. This time, however, she ate it.
“Oh, I’m sorry! I must’ve forgotten,” she said, hand over her mouth in apparent remorse, when Callie came by for it later.
The older woman looked at her without speaking, and Loki felt a little twinge of fear. Then Callie shrugged. “Okay, next time.” She walked off, accepting Loki’s explanation without question.
Velda, a woman serving a 10-year sentence for trying to bring a station wagon full of pot across the border and considered by most to be the Bucket’s matriarch, shook her head. She was sitting at Loki’s table, had overheard the exchange, and knew quite clearly that it had been no “accident.”
“Girl, you didn’t ask for my advice….”
“Yes?”
“I wouldn’t cross that one.” She jerked her head in the direction of the departed Callie.
“Who’s crossing her? I just forgot, that’s all.” Then she grinned. “Besides, all those extra desserts aren’t good for her figure. She’s lucky to have me looking out for her.”
“You better be looking out after your own skin, that’s all I got to say,” Velda countered darkly. But she knew there was no sense in pursuing it. Some youngsters never learned about playing with fire until they got burned.
Friday night was fish sticks and green beans and orange jello. According to their agreement, Loki usually gave Callie her dinner roll. That night, she handed it off to Elevator Mary instead. As her name (never said within her hearing) implied, Mary suffered from bi-polar disorder, and would’ve benefitted from proper medication. Loki watched as Elevator Mary’s face lit up, and knew Callie would never try to take the roll away from her. She braced herself as Callie approached her table with a baffled expression on her face.
“What the hell?”
“Oh, sorry! I forgot again,” she said apologetically.
“Did you really?” Callie’s nearly black irises bored into hers.
“You know,” Loki said, avoiding the question, “you really should be watching your calories anyway.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“As you get older your metabolism slows down,” she continued earnestly. “And even weight training can’t prevent a spare tire.” She reached out to pat Callie’s midsection, adding insult to injury.
Loki heard the low rumble start in Callie’s throat as she leaned over Loki in a threatening manner. “Maybe this arrangement ain’t working out,” she said. “Maybe you need to be Elevator Mary’s bitch instead.”
“Well, she’s not as buff as you are,” Loki responded, batting her eyelashes. “But…she probably would love my stories.” She let that statement hang in the air between them. She knew how much Callie had come to rely on her stories, and she was betting her welfare on that. She watched as Callie’s hands curled into fists as she fought to contain her anger, and felt that funny tingle again in her tummy. Would this be the day Callie finally lost it? She braced herself.
After a moment Callie swore softly. “Fish, you are damn lucky I’ve lost my appetite.” She stalked off.
Loki released the breath she had been holding. Her heart was pounding with the surge of adrenaline, but she felt a curious sense of disappointment. Twice now her provoking behavior had been ignored. The only time Callie had really reacted was when Loki had touched her property. Obviously it would take something big to get her attention. Loki was nothing if not imaginative…it only took her three days to drop her bombshell.
Callie felt something weird in the air as she walked to and from meals that day. It seemed to her that women were avoiding looking her in the eye. She usually kept to herself, but wasn’t above exchanging a friendly nod or two with both inmates and guards as she passed them. Today, however, she swore that she even heard snickers of amusement behind her as she passed by. It was Velda who eventually clued her in.
“So… it seems you’re famous,” she drawled, falling into step with Callie as they left the cafeteria after lunch.
“I am?”
“Mm-hm. Your little fish has been telling stories about you.”
“What! When?!”
“Last night in the TV room. No wonder you took her on – she’s talented. People rather listen to her than watch ‘Deal or No Deal,’ at any rate.”
Callie stopped dead in her tracks, a growl starting in her throat. “What the fuck is she saying?”
“Oh, it’s just made-up stories, I reckon. But they’re pretty entertaining. Like the one about you and your stay in the county jail. When you took a liking to one of the cops there and found imaginative uses for his…uh…baton.”
“What!?”
“Apparently you bat for both teams, though. She told a great one about you at a federal camp, where your old lady kept you in line by making you service the other cons. People seemed to enjoy the thought of you rolling over so meekly, for some reason.”
“I’ll bet.” Callie took a deep breath. “I’m going to fucking kill her. I should never have taken a bitch on…I knew they were too much trouble!”
Velda grabbed her arm. “You know she’s just trying to get your attention, right?”
“What? What are you talking about?”
“Think about it. Why would she screw up such a sweet deal? Who’s going to treat her better than you have?”
“That’s what I don’t understand,” Callie said, running a hand through her short dark hair. She sounded almost hurt, rather than angry. “You know,” she admitted, lowering her voice, “I’m not even fucking her. I know everyone figures she services me, but I haven’t asked her for anything. I don’t even think about her like that….she’s like a kid sister or something.”
“Maybe that’s the trouble.”
Callie was taken aback. “What, you sayin’ she’s interested?”
“No, no, that’s not what I meant,” Velda shook her head. “But you’ve got this…well, almost maternal feeling going on. It’s made you too soft on her.”
Callie frowned. “You think so?”
“Think about it,” Velda patted her shoulder, resuming her walk toward her own cell. “The way she’s acting right now – if that ain’t testing you, then may my own three children call me the biggest fool in history!”
Which brings us, dear readers, to the present moment, and Loki’s impending punishment, which the whole cellblock was now aware of. Loki looked into Callie’s furious face and wondered why she ever thought it would be fun to provoke her.
“Uh…is something wrong?”
“You know exactly what’s wrong, fish. And now you’re about to find out what happens to a bitch who misbehaves.”
At that moment the heavens intervened, and the bell rang for recreation hour. Every day after lunch all the inmates were let outside into the prison yard for an hour. No one was exempt unless she was sick, in which case she was expected to report to the dispensary. The Correctional Officers frequently took that opportunity to inspect cells and check for contraband, but none of the inmates would’ve dreamed of staying in their cells anyway. The one hour outside was the closest thing to freedom they would taste. Loki didn’t know how she was going to make Callie forget about her punishment, but she had sixty minutes to work on it.
Loki watched nervously as Callie headed for the iron pile and picked up her weight belt. The other women gathered in groups to talk or exercise, but all of them kept an eye on the proceedings. Even the guards patrolling the perimeter seemed curiously watchful.
Then she noticed Callie walking away from the iron pile and heading for one of the tables set in the middle of the yard. There were several of these picnic tables, painted industrial green with benches attached, set out for the inmates to gather at. Callie climbed atop a table and sat with her feet planted on the wooden seat. She looked straight at Loki and crooked her finger. Come here.
Loki’s eyes widened. She looked around her. Most of the women were watching expectantly, a few with pity, and few with amusement. No one seemed inclined to come to her aid.
She looked at Callie pleadingly, her hands outstretched to indicate their surroundings. Not here, not now.
Callie’s jaw tightened and she pointed to ground in front of her. Here. Now.
Loki panicked and headed for the fence. Though normally the guards would be the last people she turned to, right now they were her only hope. But she had reckoned without Callie’s sphere of power. Before she had gotten more than a few steps she felt her arms seized and she was being dragged backwards.
“Hey! Stop it!” The two cons holding her were among the biggest, butchest women in the Bucket. Her feet barely touched the ground as they propelled her toward the table where her cellmate waited. Loki craned her head frantically to find the guards behind the fence…they weren’t even looking at her. The person they were looking at was Callie, who was gesturing to reassure them: A brush off her forehead, a slicing motion across her throat, and final thumbs up. Everything’s under control…leave it to me, okay?
The guards settled back to watch. They knew they could trust Callie. She understood very well how things worked. The routine at the Bucket ground everyone down. Sometimes they all – cons and C.O.s both – needed a little entertainment. And thanks to Callie’s recalcitrant little bitch, they were about to be treated to some.
“Little girl, you know why you’re about to get your ass whipped, right?” It was more a statement than a question.
“Please, Callie, I didn’t mean…”
“Too late, little girl. You’ve been pushing it all week. Well, you’re about to get the licking you’ve been asking for.” Callie didn’t even look angry anymore, just unyieldingly stern. She nodded at the two women holding her, and they lifted her easily to a horizontal position. Over Callie’s lap she went, protesting the whole time.