Big Chicago

Big Chicago Part 3…..by Samayel


These have been the most surreal weeks of my life, and that’s saying a lot when you’ve done a mess of drugs and wandered the streets of Chicago. Harry Black is my alpha-wolf, and I am his property now. Flint was flown out of here with very few questions asked. They’re honor bound to heal him up in some hospital with a guard on him at all times, but he’s no threat to anyone. The cartilage in his right knee has been shredded, some of his face has to be reconstructed, but since he’s prison trash they won’t do a good job, and the fingers Harry smashed mean that Flint will probably never be able to pick up anything heavier than a full spoon or a coffee cup for the rest of his life. When he comes back here, it will be to the special ward for cripples and old-timers.

Black is nothing but contradictions. He can talk like a sailor or a trucker, but he can sound like a professor or a poet when he wants to. What are the odds that the ‘weird’ things he sometimes says would be recognized by a pathetic prison bitch? He knows that I know he’s educated. I was so surprised when he quoted a passage from Dante’s ‘Inferno’ that I accidentally whispered the name of the book in response. Prison bitches don’t generally remember their private lessons in history and literature, and only I would recognize Chopin, and know the title of the song, when he whistled it during an idle hour. When I look at him or whisper the source of his oddball quotes, all he does is smirk mildly, or give me a wink when no one else can see us.

He can be stunningly violent, and he’s good at it in a way that makes the rest of these people look like the dumb brutes that they really are, but under that lurks a gentleman, who doesn’t seem to have any desire to hurt the weak…specifically me. I can’t help but appreciate that. I’m sure you can see why.

He’s had plastic surgery. You couldn’t tell unless you went to school with the silver spoon crowd and knew what to look for. His forehead. The skin is shinier, smoother than normal, and the creases that other people would have from frowning or smiling seem a little off on one side. Scar removal or a skin graft from an old injury. It was a good job, and that means money.

I haven’t been forced into sex in three weeks. Not with him, and not with anyone else. He fakes it. Tells his goons to fuck off so he can get some head and relax, but it’s always the same as before, and I play my part convincingly. I’ve seen his dick. Out of the corner of my eye while he was pissing. He’s not shy, and I’m thankful he isn’t using me the way he could. It isn’t the stuff of legends or something that belongs under a mule, but it is big, and if he were rough like Flint, a thing like that could do some damage. To be honest, if I weren’t burned out and sick of sex right to the core of my being, I’d be trying to get him to fuck me, just to prove that I could. If he wanted me, he could have me, and I’d do it just to keep my position secure, and I’d make sure he enjoyed it enough to keep me around, but he doesn’t seem to care about that. He is my type. Darkly handsome, tanned and muscular, powerful and dangerous, but he’s very different from the type I’ve always known.

I don’t understand him at all. There are moments when he looks at me and I know he’s just a man…and not as straight as some might guess. He’s thinking of it…fucking me… or coming in my mouth just to relieve the tension, but he never does anything about it. I can see it just behind his eyes, but even when no one else is around he doesn’t even hint at it. He knows he can take what he wants. No one would stop him, but he doesn’t. Not that I want him to, but I can’t understand why he doesn’t. If he were really straight, he wouldn’t show the little signs and signals of attraction, and he shows those just like most men do when I’m around. How many rats do you know that ignore cheese when it’s right in front of them? Maybe…maybe Harry Black just isn’t a rat.

He’s all business. There are hushed conversations with other prisoners, runners from different gangs, all day and in the early evening. Messages passed almost constantly. He’s making deals, building his reputation, making alliances, and buying favors wherever he can. The guards ignore all this studiously. Normally, they hate new guys for the same reasons I did…change is a disruption to an environment you want to keep peaceful. This time they let Black do his business without complaint. They barely investigated Flint’s near death, and there was no punishment for Black afterwards. Normally, someone like Black would be in solitary just on principle, isolated as punishment for causing serious trouble. Something is just wrong enough that I can feel it, but no one would dare to say it. If he’s an undercover narc, he’s the craziest one ever, and the last person to call him that discovered what it was like to shit out his own teeth.

I’ve begun to suspect that, when that guard nodded to Flint as he moved toward Harry Black’s cell, he wasn’t privately pitying Black, he was laughing at what was about to happen to Flint. Black is working toward something, but I don’t know what, and I don’t want to. I just want to stay alive.

It feels weird. I have no purpose. I should be relieved, and I guess I am, but I’m terrified at the same time. I used to know what to expect. I have my stuff from Flint’s old cell, but Black doesn’t care if I wear make up or not. Every little thing I do is new around him. A stupider queen would do something riskier than changing their look, just to test their boundaries and see what they can get away with. A stupider queen would get beaten…or handed over to others for a nice, old-fashioned, very humbling gang rape.

I stick to very small things, and he never cares or says a word. He doesn’t perceive my actions as rebellious, and he doesn’t seem to care about small differences of behavior or appearance. I obey his words implicitly, when he bothers to speak to me, and I maintain the illusion that he uses me for sex every day or every other. No other demands. None. It drives me crazy. I don’t know what part to play, and I don’t know what tomorrow will be like, and I have no idea what to do next.

Three weeks of playing out this fucking insane fiction, pretending I’m his whore without doing anything more than laying my head in his lap for a few minutes. It’s weirdly more intimate than the sex I got used to providing. So close to him, and yet completely apart, playing the role that’s been handed to me. Sometimes, it scares me almost as much as the routine of genuinely sucking off Flint. There are unknown factors at play, and I’m only ashamed of the tears spots I left on his pant leg once. I never cried when I was actually giving head…why…why would this fill me with dread? I only barely remembered to pick up another batch of Vaseline from the doctor. I discreetly dumped the rest of the old batch down the toilet, just to maintain the illusion that we’ve been busy in here when no one is watching.

I don’t even know what his crime was. Murder would be an easy guess. He could kill without breaking a sweat. I know he could. He’s too smart, too educated to be here, too decent to have any business in a place like this, but he’s here. I was just an ignorant little slut who let a boyfriend talk him into being a drug mule, but what’s his story?

He asked me questions at first. About other bosses, about locations and gangs and who the real players are. I answered as quietly as he asked. I told him who to watch out for, and how to deal with the other bosses most effectively. He knows I’ll follow his lead. Now he doesn’t ask anything at all, except meaningless little questions that make no sense. How do I recognize Chopin? Because I played piano for nine years. Why do I recognize passages from Voltaire’s Candide? Because I fucking well read the blasted thing. The satire aimed at the fatuous and self congratulatory nature of eighteenth century pseudo-intellectuals was brilliant, but that shit has NO RELEVANCE TO MY LIFE NOW!

I hate these questions, but what can I do but answer quietly and keep my complaints to myself? Making him angry is not on my agenda. It’s just…would anyone headed for a life of shit want to be reminded of the life they lost? I wish he understood that.

So intense. His eyes are still hypnotic, which is why I spend a lot of time staring at the floor. I feel shaky when he tells me to look at him while he’s talking to me. I get lost for a second and come back wondering what he‘d just said. It scares me that after watching out for myself carefully for almost seven years, one pair of green eyes could put me this close to fucking up my situation. I can’t stop remembering the way he looked, standing over Flint and the others. I know he isn’t God, but I still feel intensely self conscious of the mistakes I’ve made, and of the shallow, stupid things I’ve done. He knows I’m scared. Of him. Of change. Of death. He can tell, but tenderness has no place here. His actions say he won’t hurt me if he doesn’t have to, but I can’t believe in anything…I can’t afford to.

Something is brewing. He acts contented, like he’s confident that all is well, but no one is talking to him today. Something is in motion, and it’s likely something to do with him or he wouldn’t look so pleased with himself or be nearly so calm. It’s all I can do to keep from screaming from tension, but he looks like he’s just taking a Sunday stroll through the park. The day passes like it’s in slow motion, and I ache from head to toe every fucking second of it.

“When you close your eyes, where do you dream of being? Beaches, bars, a ranch in the country? Or even another country? Where do wish you were?”

We’re alone in his cell, like we always are at this time of the evening, and that’s when the stupid questions come. My guts are aching because my life is upside down and he still asks me things that hurt, and have no bearing on my life. I have to answer, or maybe I don’t. I just don’t know. I’m so dangerously close to telling him to fuck off that I can feel the words on my lips, but I bite my tongue and give him what he wants.

“I went to Europe when I was a kid. I liked Italy. I used to wish I had a little villa somewhere quiet and out of the way, where no one would bother me, and I could just enjoy the coastline and the mountains whenever I wanted. That‘s what I used to dream about.”

“Used to? So what do you dream about now?”

It’s too much. It would be better to get hurt than face this. Pain is direct, but brief, and this is subtle. It’s suicide, but I’m not really afraid of that. I’ve wanted to die before. Maybe it would be even better for me than what’s waiting for me outside of here. I can feel the grip I’ve kept on myself snap, and the words are out before I can stop myself.

“Anything but here! Fucker! Fuck you! Fuck…you! Anything but this shithole and your stupid fucking questions and this…this fucked up freakshow I call a life! I dream of nothing anymore. Nothing! Are you happy? Ask another question!”

I’m fucking crying again. I was too loud. People would have heard that. He has to do something. It’s going to hurt. He’s rolling off his bunk slowly, calmly. I can hear it creak even while my eyes are too blurry to see much.

“Get in the corner.”

I stumble out of the bunk and head for it, shoving the heel of my hand across my face to clear my eyes. I want to puke. I did it. I went too far. I who knew so much and never pushed my luck. I did this. The lights are going out here, and it’s time for sleep, but I couldn’t wait another few minutes for some peace and quiet. I had to put him in this position. He’s not stupid. If he lets a bitch tell him off, he’ll spend days fighting to gain control of people who already follow him right now. I hit my knees, gulp back tears, and wait for his fly to open.

“No! Stand up and turn around. Drop the shorts, bitch. Let’s see your ass. You need to know who‘s in fucking charge. I can show you that.”

I really did it. I made him angry enough to do that. I didn’t think he would, but he has to now. I still wonder if he really wants this. I can’t keep the composed face I kept around Flint. It was routine. Always the same. Now I know nothing, and I’m ready for nothing. I stopped greasing my ass after two weeks without sex. I got overconfident, and if he’s angry enough to do this, I don’t dare ask for a break to grab some lube. I’m going to the hospital. A raw grudge fuck will put me in the infirmary, with our asshole doctor giving me a local shot and some penicillin before putting a few stitches in my ass to heal up what I’ve gotten myself into. All I can do is turn around, drop my shorts and put my hands on the wall. I’m shaking, and my knees are weak, and then a fist is in my hair and I’m pushed level against the wall, legs kicked apart, ass exposed and waiting. I hear his fly come down, and his elbow is in my back. I can feel hot breath on my neck and his voice is a quiet whisper in my ear and my ear alone.

“Make some noise, or we’re both fucked. Sorry, but we have to do this and make it look good.”

He slams into me from behind, and I’m so surprised that at first I can’t make any sound but a gasp. It’s dark. No one can see all that well. He isn’t fucking me. Just two dark shapes, one large and one small, locked together and close enough that with the right noise you’d think I was getting the grudge fuck of a lifetime. I make the noises I made for Flint as soon as I get my head together. No mistake, it does hurt, but not like I’d imagined. I’ll have bruises, but mostly from having my hips slammed into the wall so many times. I won’t be in the hospital. I won’t be stitched with my knees in the air. The only price I pay is making sure he looks cruel to the rest of this place. I want to laugh with relief. No one this good should be here. I am the luckiest bitch who ever walked the earth, and I’d sing if it wouldn’t get us both killed.

He throws me to the floor after he plays the part of finishing, and I try to crawl to the toilet and retch a bit for our audience. It’s believable, the way he lunges after me in the dark and grabs my hair. They know he’s whispering death threats and promises of revenge, but only I hear his words.

“You belong on silk sheets and under candles. Kissed by starlight with champagne bubbles on your tongue. This is not where you belong. I’m almost finished here, and your help will not be forgotten. Your release date just got moved up. There will be a car waiting to pick you up. If you want to see me again, I suggest you take the car. For the record…hurting you would be like ripping the Mona Lisa in half. I would never destroy something beautiful. Now go to bed, and stay quiet once you get there.”

He drops me back to the floor and stalks to his bed like an angry tiger. I crawl to my shorts and then to my bunk, trying to remember to sound and look pitiful, even in the shadows. For all they know, I just got my ass torn into for speaking up. They’ll never know that my heart is soaring. Seven years. I haven’t felt this good in seven years. This one isn’t like Blaise…or Flint…or anyone I’ve ever seen or heard of…and he wants me. I haven’t been wanted for anything but a warm hole to come in since…well…since I was too young to know about come or holes. Anyone else who said those things would be a smooth talker like Blaise. Harry Black makes me believe in him. That has to be worth something, doesn’t it?

Another day starts, and there’s no mistaking that I’m sore. It doesn’t take faking. My hips hit that wall at least two dozen times. If I’m limping while others snicker at me, it’s because it hurts like hell. I’m grateful for the pain in a way I’ve never been before. I can act my part easily. He doesn’t ask me any questions now, and he can’t possibly know what I think of him. It’s better that he doesn’t know. What people know about your feelings gives them power over you. The only edge I have over him is that he doesn’t know what I think or feel about him. I don’t even want sex, but I want him. I want him to be mine. I want him to think of no one but me. Not because I owe him, but because I want him more than anything I’ve ever wanted.

Most human emotions except fear have been a stranger to me since I got here, and he woke them all up in just a few weeks. I know enough to know that love is a joke that never stops being funny, as long as you like shitty punch lines. So maybe there is no love, but when you want somebody enough, when you feel a need for them, like they’re your personal cocaine and all you want is to get high forever, that has to be something. It has to count enough to be worth trying to have them.

A day later we start ’the routine’ again. I have to get in the corner…on my knees and waiting. He’s unzipping his fly loudly, letting the world know I’m his and no one else’s. His hand is soft on the back of my head while I make the small noises and movements that ought to be real. It’s an impulse. I’m a fool. I slip a hand into his fly. He doesn’t dare move, and I’m fumbling to get it out of his pants while not spoiling the act.

A glance upward, and he’s mouthing the words to me. ’You don’t have to do this’. All I do is smile. I haven’t enjoyed having a cock in my mouth since the last time I saw Blaise. I was eighteen the last time I wanted someone and did what I do best for all the right reasons, even if it was with the wrong person. His body is so taut it’s a wonder he doesn’t pop a vessel from the tension. Flint never got head like this. I’m not giving a blowjob, eager to get him off and be over with it…I’m using my mouth to make love to his cock. This is an act of worship disguised as sex so that no one other than us is the wiser. I love that he has to work so hard to pretend indifference. I enjoy the way it fills my hand, warm and stiffening with every second of contact until it’s as hard as stone. Thick, long and scrupulously clean. The kind of cock that’s a pleasure to make use of. His come is liquid gratitude, and I drink it all. It’s good to be proud of sex again, even in the middle of hell. He could take me back to heaven…and I’m reminding him that it’s worth the effort.

Three days. I gave him three days of the best head I could give. He looked at me differently, but he never said anything out of the ordinary. He has to know that I did it because I…I approve of him. He looked like he was measuring me. Weighing me. Not my body…my soul. He didn’t tell me when they would come. My release was moved up without a word to anyone. One day I was a number, and then I’m escorted to the offices, given my clothes and personal effects and allowed to dress, handed my paperwork and led to the exit. I never got to say anything to him. He never said anything. He’s still in that cell, and I’m walking out of the building.

Where will I go? What will I do? How will he find me? There shouldn’t be one fucking thing that would make me look back at where I’ve spent the last seven years of my life, but I’m staring behind me all the way, wondering if he arranged to be able to say good bye. Maybe even just a waved hand. Anything.

It’s been so long that I’ve forgotten how clean it smells to be outside. The stench of fear, hate and anger from thousands of men blows away on the breeze. It doesn’t seem real. I didn’t get to the yard much. Flint liked to stay near his cell or in the gym. I was always with him. The sky is dizzying. It goes up and up forever. There are a couple of other releases today. There’s a van to take us back to the city. Our papers include the locations of employment services that will place convicts, as well as charitable organizations, halfway houses and shelters. There’s also a black sedan with tinted windows a few feet from the van. The others are shuffling toward the van. I don’t know what to do.

What if it isn’t here for me? I believed in him…in there…where there was nothing else to believe in…but it all sounds crazy now. Everything is surreal and I feel dizzy and sick and nervous. I’m not used to decisions. I didn’t make any for seven years, except the silent kind that ensured my survival, and I don’t think I know how to make them anymore. If I knock on the car’s window, will I get dragged away by guards or told to fuck off? The door opens while I stand there, wearing the sexy little outfit that Blaise bought me seven years ago. I’m a prison whore in an outdated skirt and top, stinking of brimstone and sulfur from the hell I belonged in. What will the man getting out think of me?

He wears a chauffeur’s uniform, right down to the formal cap. He steps out and opens the door to the back, then stands aside, as stiff and formal as his hat. I can’t make out any expression through the sunglasses he has on, but his jaw is tight and a fringe of red hair is peeking from under the edges of his cap.

“Mister Black sent word that you would require a ride. If there is anything else you require, please feel free to ask.”

It’s real. It has to be real. I’m not asleep in a cell dreaming of things that will never be a part of my life again. Maybe it’s stupid, but I pinch myself just to be sure. I hurt, and it’s real. I sit in the back of the sedan, running my hands across the plush interior. Every inch of the interior is a mild beige or light tan. This is the softest thing I’ve sat on or touched in years. I can’t stop stroking the material of the seat because it just feels soooo fucking good. The last car I was in was a police car. Then it was prisoner transfer vans and the bus that led here. This car has no barrier between the driver and the back. We’re already in motion and I just haven’t paid attention.

“Where…where are we going?”

The driver’s head doesn’t move an inch, and the car is moving onto the road to the highway.

“Mister Black’s penthouse suite, unless you request another location, in which case I am to take you wherever you wish to go.”

“Will ’Mister Black’ be showing up there anytime soon?”

“I’ve been instructed to give you this package before we reach the highway. I expect your questions will find answers inside.”

He hands back an envelope. It’s a fat envelope. It isn’t even sealed. Before I even see the letter, the greenbacks catch my eyes. It’s all twenties. There must be a couple thousand dollars here. Enough for a cheap apartment or a trip to wherever I want to go. Enough to get a good first few steps on life anywhere. If I went somewhere small and quiet, I could make this last. Then I pick out the note.

A lot of people would take the money and run. It’s yours if you want it, no strings attached. You don’t know where you’re going, and if that doesn’t worry you, you’d have to be insane. I understand.

You gambled on me once, and I hope you didn’t regret it. I’m asking you to gamble on me twice. If you give the money to the driver, he will take you to my place. It’s very comfortable. You deserve to enjoy that comfort. If you keep it, he will take you anywhere you want to go, and I hope you have a good life.

If you wait, and stay put, I will be there, and very soon. If you choose to leave before I get there, there won’t be any coming back. We have a lot to talk about, but there’s no pressure. Do what you want to do. It’s your life.

But if you gamble on me, you won’t regret it.

Yours, Harry

How many people have crossroads in their life that stump them? All of us? I’m in a car worth sixty grand with a chauffeur and two thousand dollars in my lap. Two thousand dollars is real. It’s now. I didn’t have a work program in prison…Flint was too busy fucking my face or my ass to let me earn a little money or a skill for the future. I have a matching outfit and a purse full of junk I barely remember. I have no money and no future, unless I take this two grand in cash. I could be anywhere in the U.S. before the week is out. I could start over with no one to tell me what to do. I could get dropped off anywhere and find a trick with some coke to celebrate my freedom. I’m out of practice at making decisions for myself. Basically, I’m scared shitless.

I shove the money back into the envelope with hands that shake and then drop it over the edge of the seat, wondering what the fuck is wrong with me.

“Take me…take me to heaven. And turn on the air conditioning.”

“As you wish.”

The AC unit drops the temp in the car to a crisp fifty degrees in a matter of seconds, and the highway back to Chicago is a ribbon of flowing asphalt and speeding steel. I’m going to where the angels sip champagne. I’m going home.

TBC!!!