to sweeten the things he said. All burrs and sharp edges, coming off the smooth slickness of his tongue. His tongue. Did he miss how a woman tasted, after all this time? Would he want to do that, or would he be selfish, concerned only with what I could offer his cock?
Annie,
he’d whisper.
And I’d murmur,
Yes?
He’d say, he’d say . . . He’d say,
Lemme taste you. It’s been so long. Lemme kiss you. Down there.
Would he even ask permission? Maybe it would be all needy grasping and bossy hands. No requests, no coy “down there.”
On your back. I gotta taste your cunt.
A fever broke out all over my body. I imagined the same happening to him, two towns over in the human kennel he got locked in every night. He’d escape for just a few moments, in thoughts of me. Of us, together.
The twitching of his hand, the buck of his hips. He’d yank his tee shirt up from his waist, expose the taut, flexed muscles of his abdomen. His fist would race, and—
I jumped as my phone came to life, shimmying on the glass side table next to my bed. My hand flew out of the boxers I slept in and I fumbled for the device.
Mom cell.
I hit Decline. It wasn’t late enough to be an emergency, and I couldn’t just go from masturbating over a convicted felon to chatting about what was blooming in her and Daddy’s garden. I couldn’t go from imagining my name on Collier’s breath to hearing it in my mother’s chirpy voice.
Tomorrow,
I thought, and shut the thing off. And I went back to my fantasizing, back to gruff words and warm breaths, a starving man’s hungry mouth, approximated by my own fingers. There was nothing else, not tonight. The real world could wait.
* * *
I read his letter a hundred times in the next week. I read it so many times, those words in my handwriting, I began to worry it was all a fiction I’d penned. I read it so many times I didn’t need the paper anymore. His voice was in my head, clear as a recording, saying all those things. And his voice was in my head every night, saying whatever I scripted for him. Filthy things, romantic things. He called me tenderly by my name, nuzzling my ear. Called me
bitch
and forced my thighs apart with his. Called me
darling
, like in the letter, the word dark and charged and electric as the clouds before a summer storm.
I could only imagine how he might be, in real life—how he’d treat me if we were alone together. Happily there was no possibility of
us
, alone together in real life, and so I imagined everything, every possible flavor, relieved to know my hypotheses would never be proven right or wrong. That he’d never get a chance to disappoint me.
I spent so much time fantasizing about him, it occurred to me on Friday morning that I had no idea how to act toward him, if he approached me again. Play dumb, pretend I really did think that letter had been meant for some other woman? Be stern, shut him down before he grew bolder?
I knew what I was
supposed
to do. I was supposed to tell Shonda or any other CO about it, but I also knew I wouldn’t be doing that. Selfishly, I wanted the letter for myself. And recklessly, I even hoped maybe he’d want to tell me more.
It was insane, of course, but when you’ve not felt sexual hunger for months, for years . . . The idiotic risks people take in the midst of affairs made sense to me, suddenly. Nothing felt as good as this wanting. Logic was impotent. Flaccid. A pitiful, powerless thing.
I saw Collier as I passed through the dayroom, and it was recognition as I’d never felt it. I’d lived out a thousand imagined intimacies with this man, and when our eyes met it felt as though he must have lived them, too.
It was muggy and brutal that day, leaving inmates and staff alike punchy. The convicts bickered and baited, but it was for the best—the discord kept me on my toes, kept my mind off Collier through Literacy and Composition, kept my eyes off him for the most part during Book Discussion.
As always, though, he
Annie,
he’d whisper.
And I’d murmur,
Yes?
He’d say, he’d say . . . He’d say,
Lemme taste you. It’s been so long. Lemme kiss you. Down there.
Would he even ask permission? Maybe it would be all needy grasping and bossy hands. No requests, no coy “down there.”
On your back. I gotta taste your cunt.
A fever broke out all over my body. I imagined the same happening to him, two towns over in the human kennel he got locked in every night. He’d escape for just a few moments, in thoughts of me. Of us, together.
The twitching of his hand, the buck of his hips. He’d yank his tee shirt up from his waist, expose the taut, flexed muscles of his abdomen. His fist would race, and—
I jumped as my phone came to life, shimmying on the glass side table next to my bed. My hand flew out of the boxers I slept in and I fumbled for the device.
Mom cell.
I hit Decline. It wasn’t late enough to be an emergency, and I couldn’t just go from masturbating over a convicted felon to chatting about what was blooming in her and Daddy’s garden. I couldn’t go from imagining my name on Collier’s breath to hearing it in my mother’s chirpy voice.
Tomorrow,
I thought, and shut the thing off. And I went back to my fantasizing, back to gruff words and warm breaths, a starving man’s hungry mouth, approximated by my own fingers. There was nothing else, not tonight. The real world could wait.
* * *
I read his letter a hundred times in the next week. I read it so many times, those words in my handwriting, I began to worry it was all a fiction I’d penned. I read it so many times I didn’t need the paper anymore. His voice was in my head, clear as a recording, saying all those things. And his voice was in my head every night, saying whatever I scripted for him. Filthy things, romantic things. He called me tenderly by my name, nuzzling my ear. Called me
bitch
and forced my thighs apart with his. Called me
darling
, like in the letter, the word dark and charged and electric as the clouds before a summer storm.
I could only imagine how he might be, in real life—how he’d treat me if we were alone together. Happily there was no possibility of
us
, alone together in real life, and so I imagined everything, every possible flavor, relieved to know my hypotheses would never be proven right or wrong. That he’d never get a chance to disappoint me.
I spent so much time fantasizing about him, it occurred to me on Friday morning that I had no idea how to act toward him, if he approached me again. Play dumb, pretend I really did think that letter had been meant for some other woman? Be stern, shut him down before he grew bolder?
I knew what I was
supposed
to do. I was supposed to tell Shonda or any other CO about it, but I also knew I wouldn’t be doing that. Selfishly, I wanted the letter for myself. And recklessly, I even hoped maybe he’d want to tell me more.
It was insane, of course, but when you’ve not felt sexual hunger for months, for years . . . The idiotic risks people take in the midst of affairs made sense to me, suddenly. Nothing felt as good as this wanting. Logic was impotent. Flaccid. A pitiful, powerless thing.
I saw Collier as I passed through the dayroom, and it was recognition as I’d never felt it. I’d lived out a thousand imagined intimacies with this man, and when our eyes met it felt as though he must have lived them, too.
It was muggy and brutal that day, leaving inmates and staff alike punchy. The convicts bickered and baited, but it was for the best—the discord kept me on my toes, kept my mind off Collier through Literacy and Composition, kept my eyes off him for the most part during Book Discussion.
As always, though, he
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