Chapter 5
Phineas opened his mail bright and early in the morning. The contents of same told him what kind of day he was in for. It told him what kind of mood to assume, what to expect in his future as well as immediate present. It was flipping a coin.
This morning it turned up tails, in the form of a short letter from Farley Brock, the lawyer. He knew Brock, had heard all about his nosy overzealousness from his friend Judge Harris and some of the other circuit judges in the state. Phineas knew all the lawyers and judges, either directly or indirectly. Knowing Brock indirectly was sufficient for Phineas to have an immense dislike for the young man. He was an outsider come to upset the big, beautiful apple-tart that had taken the in-group years to build, from the Governor down. Phineas was a small part of that apple-cart, and the wardenship of the State Penitentiary was a very small apple, but for Phineas it was food and sustenance and prestige otherwise obtainable to a man like him. He knew It.
Now, according to the letter, Brock would be down in a day or two to have a long visit with his client, one Susan Sills, and he knew Mr. Plane would cooperate in every possible way and afford Sills every break possible. That was the jist of the note.
Mentally, Phineas combed the prison with a fine-toothed comb. For a prison, the men's section was paradise. It was strictly model stuff. It was the women's prison that needed a bit of sweeping out. Bertha would have to be combed down into a more conventional-looking figure and some of the convicts themselves would have to be appeased today and tomorrow so their songs would be a bit milder if they were inclined to sing to Brock when he came striding arrogantly through those corridors.
He didn't think it.
Not honestly, anyway, for that would have been implicit admission of his own corruption-he just rationalized the whole thing in the time it takes to snap a finger.
Phineas picked up a phone.
"Send Bertha Starr to my office. Immediately." Click. A few minutes later, footsteps, a knock at his door. He shouted for her to come in and there stood Bertha in all her glory.
"Good morning, Bertha." Bert noticed his look of barely disguised disgust and thought Careful buster, or I'll bust your skull like an egg-a rotten egg. Only their arrangement and the fact that he was her boss prevented Big Bert from giving full vent to her attitude toward Plane.
"Morning, Warden." She stood there in her boots and leather jacket, looking tough.
"Sit down." She did, lit a cigarette and leaned back easily, with an air of total possession. When you looked at Bert, you saw no fear, no signs of uneasiness: just complete assurance, and to a man like Phineas Plane, who had anything but self-assurance that or any other morning (or afternoon, evening or night), it was annoyingly disconcerting. Bertha was a foul human being, he thought-foul, unutterably foul. Thinking this, he felt gentle waves of superiority sweeping over him.
"I received a letter this morning," he said. He handed it to her to read, which she did quickly. "Know who that man is?" When Bert shook her head, he told her, "A boy-scout lawyer from Norfolk, that's who. Sills' lawyer-the kind of guy who still reads the books and believes them."
"A Samaritan."
"Yes. Who'll sing in a damned minute if he sees one thing amiss here. I'm afraid of certain prisoners in your block."
"Martha and who else?' she asked.
"Hannah's okay, I know. But there's Sills herself and that friend of hers, what's-her-name, the colored woman."
"Cindy Martin. Don't worry about her," Bert smiled. "She'll be just fine, Warden, just fine."
"If you say so. But what about Martha and the Sills girl?'
"I'll have to straighten 'em out, especially Sills, since this eagle scout's comin' to see her."
Brilliant deduction, Bertha, Phineas thought facetiously. Positively brilliant.
"How do you plan to do it?'
"Scare the-living daylights out of 'em."
Phineas shook his head violently. Just what I was afraid of, he thought with alarm.
"No, that won't work. I want you to be especially lenient with them today and tomorrow-until Brock comes. I want you to soften them up so they'll sing with a little less nasty tone when he comes, you understand?'
"You think they'll talk?' Bert looked at him incredulously.
"A chance, don't you think?'
"Nope. Not a chance. Not with me runnin' things there." She puffed visibly.
"Well, I want you to soften toward them-stop riding herd on them and for God's sake, get into regulation uniform, starting as soon as you leave here."
Bert's face fell.
"I'll lose my authority, Warden. They'll all get outta line."
"Not in two days. They'll hardly forget the pastor the future," he said with a sinister smile. Bert mulled this bit of information in her mind. Hell, I guess. She was astonishingly quick to see the implications all this had for her personally.
"Okay. I'll clean things up real pretty," she smiled. "You'll never know it was jail."
"Just go by the books, Bertha, and then some, until after Brock gets out of here."
The chicks'd be nuts, she thought, when they saw so many sudden changes; not that she gave a damn ,for their feelings (didn't have any), but she did for any possible negative results from all these sudden changes. After she changed into the regulation uniform that all the women prison guards wore, she looked in the mirror.
Pretty sad.
Pretty damned sad.
She saw a big, ugly bird, shorn of feathers and magnificent plumage. There was nothing there to command attention, nothing to command fear and respect. She saw no authority in the mirror-just an ugly bitch. She turned away quickly, and cursed. God, why don't he ask me to go around naked?she thought. She felt honestly afraid to go and face her charges. What if they laughed at her? Ignored her orders?
I'll bust their goddamn skulls.
Vaguely at first, then more distinctly, she remembered what Plane had told her to do. With a sigh, she laced her shoes and walked outside, toward the prisoners.
One of the male guards in the tower saw her. "Hey Bertha, you goin' to a masquerade or somethin'?"
"Shut up!" she screamedback.No, no, Bert, don'tdon't blow it, don't let these creeps get under your skin, she told herself hurriedly.
She kept walking and wondered how in the name of hell she was going to be nice for a whole day, possibly two or three.
Cindy lay in her bunk, with her face toward the wall, and pretended to sleep. As long as she did, Sue would not talk to her, would not ask her questions. She knew she would have to face them eventually, and answer them-or just refuse, which would ultimately be worse than answering. She breathed deeply. It was a struggle to breathe the breath of sleep when your lungs screamed for easy, shallow breathing. But she had to be left alone, even by Sue. She couldn't talk now.
She had to collect herself.
She had to digest slowly the knowledge that she was no longer Cindy Martin, the holdout, but Cindy the cop-out. She had to accept her likeness to the others. Hannah. Martha. Those others. Those dykes, those leather-eaters-she was one of them.
Cindy didn't want to be, hadn't wanted to be; but yesterday, something had snapped inside her. The nerve-strand had been weakening, getting more and more frazzled every day, and something had simply snapped yesterday.
Now it was gone.
She tried to sleep, than merely to pretend sleep. Slowly, she dozed, but her mind was too full of images, last night's images, to relax or turn itself off. It raged and unreeled at full speed. The harassment from Big Bert all day, and toward the end of it, a slight, unmistakable exchange of glances that told them both it was all over. No one saw it. It was too brief, too fleeting-but they knew, and last night, Cindy had waited impatiently, fearfully in the cell, waiting for Big Bert to come.
Sue had been asleep when the guard had come and led Cindy away. There had been the blindfolding, the rushing and shoving of hands on her, and when the blindfold had been removed, she had been in a room. Not with barred windows and concrete walls-but a nice room: small, comfortable, cozy. Not Big Bert's cabin, not the warden's office or any of the offices-she didn't know where. Nor did she care. It didn't matter where she got defrocked of her normality.
"So you finally decided to play," Big Bert had cackled. It was a sound that ran through Cindy like a rusty butcher knife, tearing and grating painfully. "Tired, huh?"
She nodded mutely.
"Damn, if you knew how I been itchin' for you, girl. You'll have it lots better from now on-lots better. C'mere to Bert, let her love you up a little."
Cindy's body revolted at that last moment, even though her will said Go ahead, why not, it don't matter anymore. Her stomach churned, her head went fuzzy with nausea, and she had to swallow very hard as Bert's powerful arms came around her and crushed her in embrace.
Hands tremulously cupped her breasts through the thin, gray dress, hefted them, squeezed and teased the nipples into involuntary budding and stiffening.
It'd been so long. So damned long since she'd had any loving at all. She couldn't help those nipples swelling into hard, red tips as the fingers squeezed them through the dress-couldn't help her quickened breathing as she fell weakly against Bert, "You could have it so nice around here, kid," Bert whispered, then crushed her against her again and kissed her hard, forcing her tongue between Cindy's lips. "I can look out for you, you know. Hell, you could be my favorite."
While Bert talked, her hands unbuttoned Cindy's dress down the front. Bare, smooth golden-hued flesh tempted her. Then she unsnapped her brassiere and the breasts leaped free, tumbled out like rich, cascading cannonballs. She stroked them, put her lips to them, and Cindy felt weak with desire. She no longer fought her feelings-she had to be quenched one way or another.
By hook or crook.
"Do you like me, Cindy?" Bert asked. It was an absurd question for obvious reasons, and Cindy was unable to answer, also for obvious reasons. "You know I can take real good care of you; can't nothing happen to you with me lookin' out."
Cindy regarded the black boots. They suggested the obvious: Bert's obvious power. She was the leather jacket, unbuttoned at the front. That, too, suggested power. Power surrounded and encompassed by leather I For the first time, it no longer frightened the girl-it suggested security, the closest thing to peace she would ever achieve in prison.
She would have to suffer, of course.
Dues would have to be paid. But what did that matter, when weighed against day-to-day, hour-to-hour torture?
"Answer me, Cindy. You like me?" Bert asked, her voice rising. "You like me enough to let me punish you for your misbehavior?"
"Yes," Cindy heard herself whisper. Big Bert smiled, removed her jacket and laid it carefully on a chair. Then she rolled up the sleeves of her white shirt.
"You've been bad, haven't you?"
"Yes." Her lips trembled as she answered, and Big Bert nodded with a gesture of curt satisfaction. She picked up a whip.
It was a real whip, made of leather, with frayed edges that branched off into separate tendrils, octopus-like.
"On your knees, in front of me, Cindy." With gestures, she instructed Cindy onto her knees so that her face was above Bert's boots. "Lick my boots. Kiss them," she said, no longer in a gentle tone; her voice had risen and sharpened into command.
Cindy hesitated.
"Kiss them, goddamn you! C'mon, c'mon! Show your betters some respect!" She looked down on Cindy as the latter knelt slowly; her bared, heart-shaped buttocks stood out starkly, temptingly, her thighs spread enticingly, her head bent low to the ground. Her lips touched a boot.
Bertha trembled violently at the figure in submission beneath her, and as she raised the whip, something kept her hand and arm poised for a moment. But just for a moment. A very brief moment. Her arm muscles tightened as they gathered force and descended almost limply and the whip fell against the bare back.
Cindy flinched.
Surprisingly, it didn't hurt, not physically, but she had immediately associated pain with whipping. The whip fell again in the same way, again and again, only stinging mildly, but not hurting beyond endurance. Big Bert could mutilate her, she knew. The bastard could tear her apart without batting an eye-but she wasn't, she hadn't, and gratitude, being the relative thing it is, swept through Cindy at that moment.
She kissed the boot again.
Again.
Again and again, until Big Bert's whole body shook with passion, as she stood looking down on the prostrate figure.
"You lovely girl," she murmured, "you love my boots, don't you?"
"Yes," Cindy dried, "yes, yes, yes-yes!" She threw her arms around the high, stiff tops and embraced them as she lay full length on the ground.
Big Bert knelt downward and picked her up in her powerful arms. She sat her in a chair.
"Adore me. Look at me and my beautiful boots," she quaked. Cindy did. She looked on while Big Bert strutted assertingly around the room, assuming all sorts of gestures and postures of strength. She held her shoulders erect, and Cindy sat sprawled in the chair, naked, looking on. Finally, the powerful figure stopped strutting, stopped dead in her tracks, and turned and smiled at Cindy.
She walked just in front of the chair.
"Close your legs on this," she commanded, and put the toe of her boot between Cindy's silky thighs, prodding, pushing forward, until the naked girl leaned back and closed her legs tightly against the leather, her face contorted with quiet passion and self-hatred. Big Bert watched her stonily while her subject grasped the boot between her thighs and moved convulsively back and forth, her jaw going slack with desire, her head thrown back jubilantly. Faster and faster she moved until whimpers began to spill out of her wet red lips.
"Ooh!" she cried, with a whinnying sound, moving at lightning speed with the boot pressed against her passion, until suddenly, she was still.
She lay back limp.
"Like that?" Bert asked, moving her foot away. Cindy nodded dumbly, and let her head drop forward.
"Then do something for me." Cindy nodded without even looking at Big Bert. Hell, what did it matter now? What did anything matter?
She heard rustling sounds, and when she looked up, she saw Bert unbuttoning her breeches-wiggling the hips out of them, and letting them drop down over the top of the boots. She stood close to Cindy.
"You know what to do," she said with trembling voice.
Cindy knew.
She had never done it before. With all her sordid experience, she had never indulged in Lesbian lovemaking, and she had never committed an act approximating this.
Now she did.
With incredible ease, she moved forward and sat on the edge of the chair and threw her arms around the massive buttocks and hips in front of her, drew the body close, put her head, her lips forward, and closed her eyes tightly.
The body moved grotesquely against her.
It made sounds: whimpering, sighing, grunting sounds, and it trembled and convulsed and shook and stiffened-and finally stopped and retreated from her grasp, which relaxed with sudden resignation....
And now, Cindy pretended sleep. Soon, she would have to talk to Sue, would have to say I did it, I copped out and things're gonna be easier from now on.
And bitch, I'm gonna come on regular.
She would have to say all that, or just bow her head ashamedly in the presence of Sue. All that talk, she thought disgustedly, all her talk. It was so cheap. On the outside, talk was everything. Here, on the inside, you couldn't buy a paragraph for two cents. It just didn't mean a damn thing because you knew, everyone knew, that whatever you said was a sometime thing. It could change in a minute, a second, become a complete lie.
She wanted a cigarette.
At first, she told herself to forget it, but thoughts of tobacco streaming into her lungs plagued her, and finally she could stand the urge no longer. She got out of bed and reached for the pack that was inside her shoe.
"Cindy?"
She stood frozen, the pack of cigarettes in her hand. It was dark now-the sound of her own breathing seemed thunderous.
Finally: "Huh?"
"Where were you-last night? What happened?"
"You must've been dreamin'. Wanta smoke?"
"No. I saw you leave-I woke up at the last minute, like. Where'd you go, Cindy?"
"Nowhere."
"Let me have a cigarette, huh?"
"Sure. Here." In the dark, a match was struck, and in the orange glow, they could see one another's faces. In Cindy's was wide-eyed sorrow; Sue saw it, and her own eyes widened into pity and wonder.
The match went out.
"Thanks. Now, tell me what happened, Cindy. What did they do to you?" Cindy heard the concern in her friend's voice; it was not morbid curiosity, but genuine friendship talking.
"I guess I've gotta tell you," she sighed.' 'I copped out."
Sue was silent with total inability to speak for a second.
"You mean, Big Bert-?"
"That's right. I couldn't take it no more. Hell, everybody else around here has it halfway decent and she's been ridin' herd on me 'til I couldn't stand it anymore."
Sue said nothing.
"Damn it, I had to!" Cindy's voice rose hysterically, "You hear me, I had to! Don't sit there and judge me!"
"I'm not-"
"Oh yes you are! You think, 'Cindy's a liar, a cop-out, she told me to be strong.' Goddamnit, I know what you're thinkin'!"
"I can't help it," Sue sobbed. "Damn it, Cindy, you had nine months-nine months to sweat it out!"
"And you got ten years, girl! Ten years! How long you think you'll hold out, huh?" There was a note of hysterical triumph in her voice, but almost as soon as the words were out, she regretted them bitterly.
She didn't want Sue to weaken.
"If I ever get the chance," Sue said quietly, "I'm going to kill that dyke sonofabitch."
"You'll never get the chance, so forget it," Cindy said tersely. "Sue?"
"Huh?"
"You hate me a whole lot now? You hate me as much as I hate myself?"
"No, Cindy. I'll never hate you-I just feel very, very alone, now. You know?"
Cindy knew.
Guilt swept through her more violently than ever. Sue was alone because of her, because of her weakness. She knew what Sue meant, all right. Her one ally had defected to the other side, had gone over to the enemy. It was war, and in war you needed allies, especially when you were right smack in the middle pf enemy territory.
Cindy knew.
"I'm sorry, girl," she whispered weakly. "Really sorry."
Sue said nothing. She finished her cigarette and flipped it into the toilet bowl without moving from her bunk; it went out with a hiss, and made the girl think, That's how it is-hsssst, and it's over, like that. It was a sensation of helplessness, to think in terms of your life being no more controllable and predictable than the extinguishing of a used cigarette.
Now she was alone.
Totally, completely alone.
No Cindy to cling to, no other prisoners to talk to-just her against all of them. Suddenly she laughed. It started as a quiet laugh and rose into loud, simple laughter.
"Something funny?" Cindy asked gloomily.
"I just realized that I never knew what living was all about before I got busted-I mean with Howard and all. Kid stuff I I was going through life with my eyes closed. But not any more. Now I'm beginning to see what it's about."
"Yeah."
They sank into silence, and the night wore on. The day hadn't been bad. For the first time, Big Bert had chucked that SS rig, or whatever it was supposed to be, and had behaved half-decently towards them. Once, she had even smiled at Sue. But Sue knew how she was hated, and would be hated until she too fell into the sin-nest that Big Bert so carefully constructed, made tighter and tighter and more escape-proof as the days wore on., It had struck everyone by surprise. Big Bert had suddenly seemed no longer like Big Bert, but just an ugly dyke guard you'd better not mess with because she was a guard, a screw, a bull-but Big Bert had been strangely missing.
And what would it be like tomorrow? What had happened today? So many thoughts whirled in Sue's mind, that she went limp and headachy with them. They were too much to cope with, then. She felt worn, frazzled, and realized in a dim way that emotional shock was beginning to batter down her resistance.
And she wondered too, if Farley Brock had forgotten her. Was he really trying out there, in that other world, or had he just given up and left her to rot?
Hours later, she fell asleep.
Martha had been behaving strangely. She hadn't talked to anyone. She had all but stopped eating, and when she sat in her cell, her cellmate Hannah couldn't get a word out of her. She just sat there twisting her fingers, biting them sometimes. To have your behavior noticed by people in prison, it must be unusually bizarre-what is strange to us on the outside goes unnoticed behind bars, in that nether-world of emotions and desires, where women groan passionately by night and stare sullenly at one another by day, forgetting the hot, naked embraces that they shared hours ago.
Sex is a snap in prison.
Just forget about men and women, and think about women and women. It becomes easy, then necessary, then a foregone conclusion. But it didn't work quite that way for Martha, not completely. She kept seeing, feeling Phineas behind her, shoving, pushing, straining, spreading her bare buttocks with his hands while he spoke of power and punishment Whom could she talk to?
Where could she run?
No escape, no release, no outlet except to go back into that horrible arena again when Big Bert pushed her in that direction, for Phineas had told the dyke that Martha was far and away his favorite, although he simply had to try Cindy and the Sills girl. But Martha just sat there and felt doomed.