Disclaimers: The characters in this novel are of my own creation. That’s right, this is an ‘uber’ story. Some may bear a resemblance to characters we know and love who are owned by PacRen and Universal Studios.

Violence and Naughty Language Disclaimer: Yup, both. And quite a lot of each, to be truthful. This takes place in a prison, and where there are criminals, there’s gonna be violence and naughty words.

Subtext Disclaimer: Yup, there’s that too. This piece deals, after a fashion, with the love and physical expression of that love, between two adult females. There are some graphic scenes located within this piece, but I have tried to make them as tasteful as possible so as to not avoid anyone’s sensibilities. Let me know if I’ve succeeded.

Serialization Disclaimer: When I first started writing and posting, I made a promise to myself and to anyone who read me, that I would never post a work that wasn’t finished. I detest serialization, normally. But . . .this novel, which is one week from being finished, is becoming very long and I’ve had readers write to me that they won’t read novels because they just don’t have time to sit down and read such gargantuan tasks. So, I compromised. This piece is finished (very nearly) and will go up at regular intervals so that the folks who like to read in small chunks can do that and the ones who like to read the whole thing can do that too.

My name is Angel, and around here, I’m known as the woman who can get whatever you need. ‘Here’, actually, is the Rainwater Women’s Correctional Facility, more commonly known as ‘The Bog’ because we’re safely tucked away in a nice cedar forest hard by a cranberry bog. That’s probably more than you wanted to know, but I promised myself when I started writing this that I’d try my best not to leave anything out and so now you know the name of our little community.

As you may have guessed by now, my name isn’t really Angel either, but I’m gonna save us both a bunch of heartache and just stick to the name I’m known by here. Names are really important in the Bog. To get one means you’ve succeeded in mastering some metaphysical rite-of-passage where the rules and players aren’t really known until after you’ve succeeded. One day, they’re calling you by your real name and beating you up at every opportunity; the next, you’re given some sort of status and the abuse seems to lessen. Oh, it never stops altogether, unless you’re really lucky or really strong, but at least you can close your eyes at night reasonably sure that your body will be in pretty much the same working condition as it was before you went to sleep. And believe me, in a place like this, that’s really important.

They say that I was given the name ‘Angel’ because of my innocent looks. And, looking in the mirror, I guess that’s true enough, though I can tell you that the face looking back at me isn’t the same one that came into the place five long years ago. Back then, my hair was really long and more red than blonde. My face was unlined and my figure could best be described, I suppose, as awkward young adult. Now my hair is short and blonde, my face has lines added by the sun and worry as much as by simple aging, and my body has muscles that would make even an aerobics instructor jealous.

My time here has certainly changed me, and not all of it for the better. But I’d like to think that I’ve been able to retain at least some of that youthful innocence that came into this place with me. And believe me when I tell you that that is very hard to hold onto here. I’ve seen good women become heartless killers in the Bog. I’ve seen strong women end their own lives at the end of a belt. There but for the grace of God, I guess.

I suppose that if I’m to keep to total honesty here, I might as well tell you why I got locked up in the first place. Back in 1978, I was convicted of murder. Of my husband, to be precise. Now, most women in the Bog will tell you they’re here on a bum rap. I’m not one of them. I killed my husband. Oh, I didn’t mean to, but, as someone or other has been known to say, dead is dead.

My story is pretty much the same as any other’s. Just your basic small town girl desperate to get away, grabbing on the first coat-tail heading out of town. My ticket happened to be my high-school sweetheart; a sweet, if rather dull, boy who happened to land a job at some steel mill or other in Pittsburgh. He wanted company and I wanted out, so we eloped, found the first Justice of the Peace who would marry us without our parents’ permission, and set up house in a run-down studio in Pittsburgh. If you could ignore the squadrons of cockroaches who shared our apartment with us, noisy neighbors and middle-of-the-night shootings, our first six months together playing house like a couple of bona fide adults was pretty smooth. I managed to land a job as a secretary and general Gal Friday at a local warehouse while my husband worked nights at the mill. We didn’t get to see each other all that much, but at the time, I was just so relieved at getting out from beneath the oppressive shadow of small town life that I didn’t have time to be lonely.

Then Peter, my husband, started coming in later and later from his shift. He told me he was putting in a lot of overtime so he could buy us some nicer things, and I believed him. Then whole days went by without hearing from him and I began to suspect things weren’t going the way they should. Then he’d come home from these binges smelling of sex and cheap booze and I realized that I’d made a very big mistake. But like many young women, and maybe you are one of them, I was too ashamed to reach out to my folks for help. Besides, I’ve always been an optimist and strong in my convictions. I thought I could change him. Of course, I was wrong.

What I called trying to change my wayward husband’s habits for the better, Peter called nagging. He’d come home drunk, I’d start in on him, and the fights would begin. They weren’t bad at first. Mostly yelling. Then he started becoming a really big man with his fists and I started getting to try out my budding storytelling abilities in explaining just how a cupboard door can manage to hit your face in the exact same spot three weeks in a row.

Now I know that there are plenty of you out there who are just shaking your heads and asking why I didn’t just up and leave the bastard. I’ve asked myself that same question more times than I can count since coming to this place. All I can tell you, and myself, is that I don’t have any good answers. I was young, and naïve, and scared. But most of all, I was trying to hang onto any thread that would tell me that I hadn’t just flushed my life down the proverbial toilet.

One evening, Peter came home smelling like a really bad whorehouse and demanding ‘husband’s rights’ to my body. When I refused, he threw me down on the bed and started shredding my clothes. I snapped. I’d taken to sleeping with a baseball bat at the side of my bed for a sense of protection from intruders. I never thought I’d need to use it against my own husband. But use it I did. God knows, I didn’t mean to kill him, just to stun him long enough to get away. But when that wood came into my hand, well . . . .I can’t really explain it. It was like I knew exactly how to wield it as a weapon, and did. I can still remember the sound it made when it crashed down on his skull. It makes me physically sick to think of it to this day. He went limp and I pushed him off of me. He was dead before he hit the ground. At least that’s what the coroner said at the trial, and I’ve got no reason to disbelieve him.

To say that I was completely devastated over what happened would be putting it mildly. At the time, though, it all seemed sort of surreal, like a really bad underground film. I had reached another crossroads in my life; a place where the most important decisions I’ve ever been faced with would have to be made. Should I run? We lived in a very bad neighborhood. Chances are, the police might have believed it was a simple burglary gone awry. Or should I stay and face up to the fact that I’d just taken a human life?

Maturity is a funny thing. You never know how it’s going to come into your life. Most people just go along gaining maturity drop by drop as they grow older. They don’t know they’ve fully matured until they find themselves making the same remark to another that their parents made to them. It’s a scary moment. For me, maturity just walked up behind me and tapped me on the shoulder. One moment, I was a sobbing young girl who had just killed her husband in self defense. The next moment, I was a full-blown adult, with a telephone in my hand, ready to take full responsibility for my actions.

Maturity isn’t always everything it’s cracked up to be, however. It doesn’t come with an instruction manual, and believe me, it should. When the police came to my home, I did the worst thing I could ever have done. I confessed.

Now remember, I grew up in a small town where the worst crime we ever heard came from old Mrs. Simpson getting another ticket for driving on the wrong side of the road. I was raised to believe that the policeman was your friend and you should always be honest with him. So, that’s what I went with.

I was handcuffed and in the back of a squad car before the idiocy of my actions bloomed fully in my brain.

Still, I hung onto that naïve optimism for which I’m well known, even here, in a place as near to Hell as I ever hope to get. I mean, the evidence was clear, at least from my viewpoint. My clothes were ripped to shreds and I had bruises, old and new, littering my body bearing what I thought to be mute testimony to Peter’s drunken actions.

I couldn’t afford a lawyer, and was too mortified to call my parents, so they assigned me one. He was an older fellow who always sported a heavy growth of beard no matter how early in the day he came to see me. His suits were shiny, his shirts always stained, and he smelled of those red-striped mints people suck on to cover the scent of whiskey and cigarettes. He had a big mole on his right earlobe and whenever he would listen to me talk, he would rub at it constantly, as if trying, by sheer friction, to wear it away.

But still, I had faith in him and his big shiny briefcase and told him everything I could about the living Hell my life had become in the last six months. He always appeared distracted, as if listening to a sound that only he could hear. As I talked, he would scribble things down on his big yellow legal pad, using a mechanical pencil whose point invariably broke during the most important parts of my recitation. We would then spend the remaining time searching for another one. It got to be so bad that even the guards in the county jail where I was housed pending trial could barely cover their looks of sympathy when they’d bring him yet another pencil.

The days between my arrest and the trial dragged on interminably. Aside from talking to my lawyer, all I could do was sit in my tiny cell on my tiny cot and try to decipher the scribblings of the people who had been housed here before me. Jailhouse writings range from the profound to the sublime and if the day ever comes when I’m able to walk out of here as a free woman, I hope to write a thesis on them.

I won’t go into the details of the trial. Suffice it to say that since I’m writing from within the hallowed halls of the Bog, the verdict didn’t go quite as I’d hoped. My bruised body and torn clothes, which I had assumed would prove my case, were instead shown to be the marks of a valiant man’s struggle against the rage of a jealous and deadly wife. My plea of self defense crumbled before my eyes and before I knew it, I was a felon, convicted of one count of second degree murder.

The part of me that was raised Catholic welcomed the verdict and subsequent sentence, seven years to life, as a justified penance for my sins. The rest of me grew red with rage. And believe me when I tell you, the color of rage is red. All bright and shining, like newly spilled blood, and impossible to think past once it has you trapped within its hungry grasp.

If red is the color of the enraged, the color of the despairing is green. Industrial green, as in the peeling, chipped paint adorning the interior of my newest home, Rainwater Women’s Correctional Facility. It is the color of lost hopes and shattered dreams. It is the flat monochrome hue of the loss of innocence.

In the eight years since I first entered the battered steel doors here, that color has become more of a blessing than a curse, but when I first set eyes upon it, I experienced this strange feeling of a huge ocean wave, green and silty and violent, drawing up and over me and bearing me down with it to rest, broken, at the bottom of its oceanic home. In a weird sort of way, that sensation was almost familiar, as if it had happened to me before in some unknown past life.

Now, normally I’m not the type of person who believes in karma and past lives and astral projection, but if, from somewhere down deep in my subconscious I can dredge up a comfort in drowning, I’m more than happy to go with it. That feeling kept me sane those first few months of my new incarceration.

As I look back on the four pages I’ve managed to write amidst the clanks and yells of a humid jailhouse night, I realize that I’ve gone off on an incredible tangent. This story’s not meant to be about me, not really. But, since I’m a large part of this narrative, being your person in the know, so to speak, I’ll just continue on this way in the hopes that you won’t find it terribly inane and boring in the extreme.

As I said before I drove down this long side road, I’m known here as the person who can get it for you. Now I know that makes me sound like I’m some big woman on campus, and, in point of fact, it does give me some sort of pull with the guards and prisoners alike, but mostly it means that a lot of my fellow inmates, big ones who would otherwise like to see what interesting shapes they could twist my nose into, instead come to me with the tiniest shard of respect shining in their eyes. Now, despite the depravity of my crime, at heart I’m still Ms. Small-Town-America. What this means, in plain English, is that I only get what could be gotten by your average citizen, and that in a totally legal way.

So, if they don’t carry your brand of cigarettes in the commissary, or if you’re wanting to wrangle a conjugal visit with your old man, or any one of a hundred other small things, I’m the person you come to see. Because I don’t really have much need for money in the pen, I only mark the price slightly above cost. A girl’s gotta make a living somehow, and for me, this is as good as any. I’ve been able to develop a good rapport with the guards, and the prisoners who’d normally have fun preying on a woman like me give me a wide berth. So it works out quite well for me, as you can guess.

I suppose, to keep this narrative complete, I should backtrack a little, once again, and tell you a little about the hierarchical structure of this particular state prison. In the eight years I’ve been here, I’ve seen two wardens grace the big office. The first, a woman by the name of Antonia Davis, was every writer’s dream, if he or she were trying to think up a stereotypical warden for a revival of one of those horrid nineteen fifties Women in Prison movies. Her blonde hair was always kept in the most severe of buns and her lips were always heavily glossed with a color red more common to fire engines and ladies of the evening than blushing passion. She wore her uniforms at least two sizes too small, as if to show us by the very size of her ‘assets’ how qualified she was to be the top sow in the pen. She was also known to have a voracious appetite, tending toward nubile young blondes fresh off the streets. As a member of that particular genus, I always found it a bit miraculous that I never came under her scrutiny. In this one thing, I consider myself well blessed, since her conquests never did fare well once she tired of them.

Antonia was the darling of the prison gangs, a subject which I shall delve into with a great deal more detail latter in this missive. She curried their favor with a passion, and they, hers. Suffice it to say, for now, that when Antonia got over her latest convict du jour, she’d toss the leavings to her prison pets. What was left after they were through wasn’t pretty.

The warden’s downfall came when she let her hormones rule her mind and picked the wrong prisoner to love and leave.

You may remember, if you’ve been around town long enough, the story of one Missy Gaelen, a State Senator’s daughter who was caught buying the wrong drug from the wrong dealer in a huge police sting. Not all of the mighty Senator Gaelen’s money or prestige could get his daughter out of the trap of her own making, though he did manage to get her sentence reduced from five to ten down to two with one served. Nothing, however, could prevent her from being incarcerated in the Bog, and therefore coming under the appreciative and predatory stare of one Antonia Davis.

That Missy was a beauty there is no doubt. Tall and thin, she had a shock of white blonde hair tumbling in glorious waves down her back and deep green eyes that seemed to melt you even as they looked into the depths of your soul before finding you wanting and moving on. She was also so hooked on the eight-balls that consumed her existence that her beauty paled in comparison to her ravenous need.

Warden Davis hooked her talons into Missy right quick, discovering the quickest path to the young beauty’s heart and trading drugs for sexual favors. At two months, the liaison lasted longer by far than any of Antonia’s past conquests had, but in the end, she found her concubine wanting and tossed her into the tank with her pet sharks, daring them to do their worst. The repeated beatings and rough sex didn’t do the young woman in. Rather, it was the abrupt loss of her drugs that cost her her life. She had turned up missing from the head count one evening, and by the next morning, was found in the laundry room, cold and stiff as the sheets which she had wrapped around her in an hallucinogenic nightmare of drug deprivation. The cause of death was easily discovered and Warden Antonia Davis, defiler of the innocent and guilty alike, went out in a blaze of glory, found at her desk with her service revolver, something she loved to use in her games of sexual power, gripped in a cold, dead fist.

As payment for not using his considerable influence in closing down the whole she-bang, Senator Gaelen was allowed to choose the next warden. And choose he did, bringing in a man who had as much experience in the administration of a prison system as I do in chicken farming. Which is to say none. What he did have, this man by the name of William Wesley Morrison, was the Pastorship of the largest Pentecostal church in Pittsburgh and its surrounding environs.

William Morrison is a man who wears his religion, like a badge of office, on his sleeve. He is also the man who, through his gifts of oration, was able to get the Senator over that final hump and into the State House with a few votes to spare. Morrison had always expressed a fervent desire to ‘minister’ to a group of ‘godless prisoners’ and so, patronage being what it is in this country, his back was scratched quite nicely by the Senator from Pittsburgh as payment for services rendered.

The new broom swept through the Bog with a passion. Gone were the trappings of individuality so prized by the inmates. Bright orange jumpsuits, designed to stand out from the rest of society like the proverbial ‘Scarlet A’, became the new uniform of the damned. Cells were turned out, personal items removed and replaced with crucifixes and bibles. A framed rendering of the Ten Commandments hung in each and every room in the prison, as if to make sure that we knew exactly which rules we were breaking. Cosmetics, jewelry, radios and televisions were confiscated. Mealtimes were preceded by prayers and on Sundays, chapel worship was mandatory no matter what God you did, or didn’t, believe in.

Lily white he isn’t, despite the most careful of appearances. William Morrison, almost immediately upon being instated in his high office, sunk his fingers into many of the prison pies and has, over the years if the rumors are to be believed, made himself a very rich man. Coveting his neighbor’s goods apparently isn’t a commandment Morrison needs to follow, and if the prison grapevine is any indication, he’ll soon be coming to a rude awakening. This too will be delved into later in this story, and with much satisfaction, I might add.

Beneath the Warden come the guards and unlike other prisons, our group is quite extraordinary. The Head Guard is a woman by the name of Sandra Pierce and to the prisoners, she’s a godsend. Tall and broad of body, with arms a bodybuilder would envy, her physical presence alone is enough to intimidate all but the most depraved inmate. Underneath it all, though, she carries a heart that is compassionate, caring and considerate. Her hazel eyes are always twinkling, as if laughing at a joke whose punch line only she knows. Her fellow guards follow her example well or risk expulsion or worse. But, cutbacks in the prison system being what they are, there simply aren’t enough people who are willing to risk daily danger for the meager pay they’re offered.

And so, when all is said and done, it’s the prisoners who rule the roost.

Prison gangs are a fact of life in most facilities across the world, and the Bog is no exception. The gangs are separated along racial lines, with the African Americans holding the top honors in terms of sheer size, followed closely by the whites, with the much smaller groups of Hispanics and Asians rounding out the top four.

Contrary to popular belief, not all prisoners are gang members. The top third of each gang is filled with predators, sexual and otherwise. Most of the rest are hero-worshippers and hangers on who use the gangs to give them a sort of status that they otherwise would not have. The bottom rung is comprised by ‘prey’. By this, I mean young women who haven’t been able, for whatever reason, to find a niche in prison society and so are preyed upon daily by the other inmates. Many of these women turn to the gang for protection against this systemic abuse and so are swallowed up, never realizing that their protectors often turn out to be worse than their nightmares ever were. These hollow-eyed women, resembling nothing so much as World War Two concentration camp victims, shuffle through prison life, merely existing day to day, subjected to the basest depravities their so called protectors see fit to heap upon them.

Young, innocent, naïve and on the verge of an all out suicidal depression, I was destined to become one of those women. Only a chance encounter with an extraordinary woman saved me from my fate. Though it was five years ago now, I remember the facts as if the scene had only played out earlier this morning.

And that’s how I met the infamous Corinne Weaver, known as the Black Widow; a woman who married for money and killed for fun.

In her mid-sixties, Corinne had been behind bars for more than thirty years when we first met, making her both the oldest and longest incarcerated inmate in the Bog. She also had the distinction of being the first prisoner transferred after the prison was changed to female from male back in the late forties. Corrine was a cool and calculating woman who never expressed regret or remorse for her crimes. Indeed, she was known to say, and that often, that if she had the chance, she’d do it all over again. She enjoyed killing and the money it earned her.

But she could also be gentle, considerate, kind and extremely loyal. Though she would cheerfully admit that reformation was a lost cause on one such as her, she was a zealot when it came to the reforming of others. Most of the inmates in the Bog weren’t murderers. Rather they were young women who had made stupid mistakes with their lives. Their short sentences would either reform them or make them worse than they ever were. That was the inmate’s choice. And Corrine made it her sacred duty to set out and find as many as she could, to make sure they made the right choice.

Every day, the library would see at least two or three young women studying for their GED amidst the musty papers and the yelling inmates. There were even a few, like myself, who studied for college courses. Yes, as of this writing, yours truly is the proud owner of a Bachelor of Arts in American Literature and is only six credits shy of obtaining her MBA. Now, before you ask what possible use a killer like myself would have for an MBA, let me remind you of what I’ve said earlier. I’m an optimist. And one day, I’m going to get out of this place. Now, given that I’ve already lived off of the generosity of your tax dollars for five long years now, which would you rather have? Me, an able bodied, intelligent young female spending the rest of her life on state aid, or me, an able bodied, intelligent young female contributing to your local economy? Thought as much.

Corinne was a favorite of the guards, always able to lend a willing ear when troubles with husbands, lovers, children or finances abounded. Though she had killed her own husbands, she was a firm believer in the power of love and was known to give sage advice where matters of the heart were concerned. Her advice actually saved a number of marriages. She was also a financial wizard, somehow managing to retain the fortune obtained with the murder of her husbands. That fortune grew from behind bars, making her one of the richest women in Pittsburgh, a thought that brought her wild glee over the years. To Corinne, it didn’t matter that she couldn’t spend her money. All that mattered was that she was playing the system, and coming out ahead.

Though growing ever older and tending toward frailty, despite her rather rotund stature, Corinne was considered an untouchable inmate. Her library was inviolate and all within were under her protection for as long as they stayed within the safety of those four walls. Aside from earning the respect of most of the prisoners and all of the guards, it was also said (and I have since, to my joy, confirmed this to be truth) that she had the full protection of a prison legend who, though she wasn’t in the prison at the time, had her finger firmly on the pulse of inmate life. To touch Corinne was to die slowly and no one wanted to risk that.

Though I was somewhat under her own protection, that blanket didn’t extend far enough to cover me completely. What I’m absolutely sure of is that I got nowhere near the amount of abuse I was destined for, but even ‘light’ pummeling is no picnic, as I’m sure you’ve guessed.

Though I didn’t know it then, I had just met my first Amazon.

In the months and years to come, I would learn a great deal about this mythical gang. It was something of a secret society, comprised of the best of the best and carrying out the sacred duty of inmate protection. The Amazons were around to make sure the other gangs didn’t get too much control over the prison population, endangering both inmates and guards. If a certain gang leader needed to be knocked down a few pegs without an all out riot starting, the Amazons took the job. If a new fish like myself happened to luck into befriending a friend of the Amazons, we were protected, to some extent.

What made the Amazons so respected, and feared, is that they didn’t try to control the other gangs or inmates. But they made sure everyone followed the rules. Much like my new friend Corinne, they were dangerous and ruthless, but they could also be kind and considerate, lending help to those in need. One thing was known about them as sure as the sun rises in the east. You didn’t cross the Amazons.

Anyway, the next morning, I came into the library sporting two impressive shiners and a new attitude about my incarceration in the Bog. Corinne looked at me with a knowing grin and sent me, post haste, outside to begin my lessons in self defense.

The exercise yard is a study in segregation. It is bordered on all four sides by a fourteen foot high fence topped off by razor wire which loops in great silver-spiked coils along the boundaries. Guard towers, their mirrored windows reflecting the activity in the yard with benign introspection, stand sentinel over each of the four corners.

Within the fence lay the outdoor facilities for the inmate population. A softball diamond with a weedy outfield takes up almost half of the grounds. Closer to the main building, a basketball court, complete with cracked concrete and high backboards sporting rusting hoops without nets, comes next. Hard by the prison proper lies the large cement square which comprises the free weight area. Weight benches, their vinyl padding cracked and stained by the elements, sit, rarely empty of human companionship. Huge stacks of iron weights, collars, plates and bars, their shining finish long since flaked away, lay waiting for an eager hand to lift, push or press. A large, cinder-filled heavy bag hangs down on a thick chain from an overhang on the main building, its off white canvas long stained by hundreds of angry fists.

The whites usually hold court in the softball field, while the blacks use the basketball court as their gathering arena. The Hispanics and Asians grab up what little room is left over for their own devices. The free weight area is the one place in all the prison, inside and out, where all the groups come together, if not in peace, then at least with a sense of mutual understanding. It’s considered a serious breech of prison etiquette to show aggression in an area where weapons are free for the taking and displayed so prominently. And, of course, the Amazons hold dominion over the area, making sure the tenuous peace is held and doling out punishments to those stupid enough to break the rules.

During the weekdays, each cell block is let out into the yard for one hour to exercise, talk, make deals or do whatever else women kept together by forced circumstances are wont to do. My cell block is designated with the letter "E" and so, for the past five years, the time between eleven and noon has always been associated with the outdoors.

I can still remember the first time I went outside, the smell of snow in the winter air, the dull pain in my belly and back from the beating I’d taken the night before, and the insistent throbbing of my nose to the beat of my heart with every step I took.

The next six months of my incarceration managed to pass more smoothly than I ever could have hoped. Between the friendship of Corinne and the long range protection and training from the Amazons (though it would be a few more months before I knew that this gang actually existed. Yes, I told you I was naïve.) I felt, if not happy, at least the beginnings of an acceptance for my particular lot in life.

Knowing of my interest in books of all kinds, Corinne immediately put me to work cataloguing her vast assortment of reading materials into some kind of coherent system. I was also appointed her chief scribe and soon developed blisters on my fingers from pounding out notes begging various governmental and non-profit agencies for books or the funds to procure more. More often than not, rejection notices filled our mail slot, but there were times of happy surprise, like when the ACLU donated seven cartons of used and new books as well as a five hundred dollar check to purchase more.

In addition to my own college studies, which Corinne insisted I pursue, I was also pressed into service as a teacher-at-large, doing my best to help several young women in their quest for educational advancement. Most of the women who came to see me weren’t hardened criminals by any stretch of the imagination. Prison life scared many of these women straight, and they begged me to help them do whatever it took to be able to get a better life once outside these cold walls.

I must admit that it gave me a great deal of satisfaction to be able to help these women make something better of their lives.

It was during this heady time that I ‘earned’ the name Angel as well as the reputation as the woman who could get it for you. The Amazons had taken to giving me small jobs to do which usually involved asking the guards for some inmate favor or other. Because I was young, innocent-looking and unfailingly polite, my requests were granted more often than they were refused. I was soon able to set up my own contacts, both inside and outside the prison walls and before I knew it, other prisoners were coming to me asking for favors. By dealing with everyone fairly and granting as many requests as I could, my reputation grew and my status within the prison rose.

They say that pride goeth before a fall, and that was certainly true in my case.

As I’ve already said, pride is a spiteful master. Just when you think you have a handle on it, it turns around and bites you on the ass.

If you’ve ever watched a prison movie, you probably already know what the inside of a prison shower looks like, that being the site of so much action it seems, but in case you need to be reminded, I’ll tell you.

The shower room in the Rainwater Women’s Correctional Facility is a green tiled number that smells of mildew and sharply scented disinfectant. It’s one large square without dividers or privacy of any type. Twenty showerheads, ten to each side, jut out nakedly from the wall. The knob beneath each head dispenses just two temperatures. Cold and colder. The water pressure is sometimes set to ‘sandblasting’ and sometimes, ‘gentle rain’. It’s always a bit of a gamble as to which you’ll be blessed with. The floor is solid cement with a large drain in the middle and is always slimy. Shower shoes are always recommended attire.

Anyway, back to my story.

To this day, almost five years later, I believe the only thing that saved my life that night was the fact that I’d chosen such a late hour to go into the showers. The lights out head count is taken with the utmost seriousness in the Bog and the warning buzzer must have rung during my beating because when I woke up, I was alone, save for a broken and bloodied mop handle and the third woman’s broken teeth sharing space with me.

Though to this day I’m not sure how I managed it, I was able to talk Sandra into allowing the doc to examine me in the hallway to the shower room. After determining that no major damage was done, the head guard agreed to take me back to my cell. Though she had to carry me in her arms like a small child, I felt an absurd sense of triumph in the fact that I would spend the night in my own bed, in my own cell. I can remember falling into bed, still sobbing, praying that one day, a way would be found to give my abusers the justice they so richly deserved.

I’ve heard it said that sometimes, when prayers are made with a pure and hurting heart, someone listens and gives an answer. Mine certainly were.

*********

It’s nighttime once again and as the prison settles down for the evening, I look back over these pages I’ve managed to write and can’t help but wonder what you must think of my naivete in the face of so much obvious danger. I’ve also noticed that I’ve managed to, yet again, bring the story back around to me, though it was never my intention to write a tale about myself. However, I’ve also discovered that if the Muse points you in a certain direction, it’s always best to just follow along so your words don’t turn on you and make you fight and scrape for every inch gained.

In the preceding twenty or so pages, I’ve used two different pens to differentiate between things happening now and scenes from my checkered past. Since I’ve grown to absolutely detest this purple pen of mine, I’m going to trust that you have figured out my writing style by now and will be able to tell the difference without it.

***********

The morning after my altercation in the shower, I woke up wishing I hadn’t. There wasn’t a place on me that didn’t throb and my body was doing a very good job convincing me to just throw in the towel and spend the day in bed trying to let the blissful fog of unconsciousness soothe away the pain.

Luckily, my brain had other ideas, most of which involved dragging my ass out of bed and being seen as one who wouldn’t back down from a fight anymore. After a long internal debate, I decided to go with mind over matter and slowly pulled myself, like an arthritic old woman on a rainy winter morning, out of bed and onto my feet. I stood by the side of the bed, panting, swaying and willing down the terrible nausea that had decided to come out to play.

After making sure that I wouldn’t lose consciousness with the least of my actions, I slowly began to prepare myself for the day. The rough cloth of my prison uniform rubbed the raw welts littering my back and I used the pain to steady and center my wavering resolve. Come what may, I knew that the only way I would be able to face myself was to start my day under my own power and wear my injuries as a badge of honor for a battle well fought and hard won.

Deciding to skip a breakfast I would, by all rights, be unable to keep within the confines of my stomach, I headed, at a slow walk, toward my sanctuary, the library. As I walked, I took in the glances tossed my way, some filled with barely veiled sympathy, some with hatred, and some with a new sort of respect. The prison grapevine was apparently in good working order.

There was also a sense of excitement that permeated the prison, as if a very important event were about to happen and everyone but me knew all about it. I couldn’t help but wonder if it had anything to do with me, while at the same time praying fervently that it didn’t.

Corinne met me before I even made it to the library door, catching me under the arm and leading me into the warm room with a hard sheen of respect shining in her eyes. Helping me over to one of the tables, she sat me down in a newly padded chair and bustled over to her hotplate, quickly returning with a mug of fragrant tea.

"Drink this down, Angel. It’s got some stuff in it that’ll help ease your pain."

I took the mug gratefully, bringing it to my lips and inhaling the steam with a sense of pleasure. It smelled of mint and lemon and something almost familiar, though I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. I took a sip, groaning out my gratitude as the mellow taste soothed the rawness of my throat and warmed my insides. My stomach was apparently happy with the gift, for it remained steady and silent. "So, you heard, I guess."

Corinne smiled, her grin almost hard and predatory. "Sure did. Mouse’s arm is in a cast and her little friend won’t be talking clearly for quite awhile."

I winced. "I didn’t mean to hit them that hard."

Reaching out, my friend put a gentle hand beneath my chin, tilting my head up. "Don’t ever be sorry for defending yourself, Angel. They would have killed you last night if they could have. You managed to stop them, and put them out of commission for a long while to boot. Not bad for a night’s work."

I winced again. "I’m not proud of what I did, Corinne."

"You should be."

"Well, I’m not." I ended the conversation by taking another sip from the mug and tilting my head back, my eyes drifting closed. The fact of the matter was that my actions scared me. It’s one thing to know you’re capable of defending yourself. It’s quite another to realize that you have the strength, the skill, and even the will to kill another human being. I’d already done that once. I had no desire to ever do it again.

Corinne sat herself in the chair next to mine, placing a warm hand on my wrist. "I’ll cancel your teaching session for today."

My eyes popped open and I fixed her with a stare. "I’d rather you didn’t. I made a mistake by taking a shower alone. I paid for it. Those women don’t need to suffer for my ignorance."

"They won’t suffer, Angel. It’ll only be for a day or two, until you’re well enough to teach again."

Somehow I managed to straighten myself in my chair, leaning over just slightly to meet Corinne’s concerned gaze with a steady one of my own. "Corinne, please. I need to do this. I appreciate that you care for me, but I don’t want to be coddled, by you or anyone else."

After a long moment, Corinne threw back her head and laughed, her soft round belly jiggling in time to her mirth. "Well, well, well, our little Angel is all grown up."

I looked at her for a long moment, then let out a slow sigh. I even managed to chuckle a little. "Not really. For a minute there, I was worried that I’d offended you."

Corinne laughed again, shaking her head. Then she leaned over and engulfed my upper body in a hug that smelled of cinnamon and warm affection. "Don’t you ever change on us, Angel. You’re perfect, just the way you are."

"Thanks. I think." The words, spoken from the warm heart of a cold killer, warmed me right down to my toes. It was one of those unexplainable paradoxes of prison life, but one I accepted gratefully. Love, after all, is love and you learn to take it where you find it and be grateful for the giving.

Corinne finally released me and sat back in her seat. Looking closely, I could see that same sense of barely repressed excitement hovering around her.

"Corinne, is something going on here that I don’t know about?"

The smile that crossed my friend’s face would have done the Mona Lisa proud. "Could be," she allowed.

"Are you gonna tell me what it is?"

Her grin widened. "Angel, sometimes it’s good to experience certain things by yourself."

Shaking my head, I heaved a sigh of frustration.

"I think you’ll like it. You’ll see."

"Can you at least answer two questions?"

"Try me."

"Ok. Will this thing happen today?"

"If the prison grapevine is correct, yes."

"Alright. Does it have anything to do with me?"

Corinne’s thin brows knit together in thought for a moment. Then her face cleared. "Perhaps not at first, no. But I have a feeling that one day, it will have everything to do with you."

I resisted the temptation to roll my eyes. "So, that’s all you’re gonna tell me, huh?"

My friend smirked. "Yep."

Any retort I could have made was cut off by the entrance of my two students, who walked in giggling and looking at me in a way I’d never seen before. Hero worship.

This time, I did roll my eyes.

Some three hours later, I found myself in a blissfully quiet library, taking a well deserved break. The session had gone only minimally better than the day before and I was beginning to despair over ever getting the basic concepts of English across to my two willing students. Several Spanish to English translation dictionaries hadn’t helped as much as they should have and my mind was too tired to think up something new.

Corinne sat behind her desk, her gray hair sparkling in the round, soft light of her desk lamp. The sound of her ancient fountain pen filled the air with its soothing melody and I allowed my whirling thoughts to calm. The tea had done immeasurable good and, all in all, I was feeling as well as could be expected, given my ordeal.

The comforting sounds of pen to paper combined with the ticking of a clock to put me into a light doze which was more healing than all the sleep I had gotten the night before. A different sound cut through my senses suddenly, causing me to bolt upright in my chair, my body groaning out its protest quite loudly. "What was that?"

Corinne kept silent, smiling that blasted enigmatic smile yet again.

The sound repeated, then became a chant as more voices added their strength to the harsh chorus. Then the noise of metal on metal wove through, keeping time to the voices. My eyes narrowed, trying to make out the words. I stiffened suddenly as I realized that the chant wasn’t a group of words, but rather one word repeated continually.

"Fight! Fight! Fight!"

Turning to Corinne, I struggled to get up out of my chair, thoughts of retribution by proxy tumbling through my scattered thoughts. In my mind’s eye, I could see Pony going up against Mouse and her gang with inmates standing around, cheering their favorites.

As she was often wont to do, Corinne appeared to read my mind and smiled a calming smile. "They’re not fighting. Listen closer."

Try as I might, I could only hear the word "fight" being shouted over and over and over again. I looked back over at my friend. "Is this the surprise you were telling me about?"

"Most likely, yes."

"But it’s not a fight."

"No."

"Then what is it?"

Turning her attention from me and back to her letter, Corinne smirked. "Only one way to find out, Angel."

Still not trusting my friend completely, I nevertheless managed to lever my sore body up and out of my comfortable chair and stand on my own two feet once again. "This better be a damned good surprise," I muttered half under my breath.

"Oh, it will be," Corinne smugly told her paper.

Shooting her a withering glance, I gingerly made my way out of the library.

The shouting and banging became ever louder as I made my way to the prison’s main square. If I haven’t described it before, the Bog is made up of eight levels of cells which run around an open central square. Two sets of winding metal steps, one on either end of the square, wait patiently, their railings rubbed raw of paint from the press of hundreds of hands.

As I made my way down the long hallway that housed the library and stepped out into the square, my vision was filled with hundreds of orange-suited inmates yelling, jumping and chanting in unison, their faces bright with excitement and anticipation. They had split into two huge groups, leaving a narrow alley in the middle, looking much like a gauntlet of old. Even the stairs were crowded with inmates all looking toward the far entrance with expectant expressions.

My lack of height compromised my vision, and by this time, curiosity was killing me. Like the Red, or to be more accurate, Orange Sea, the inmates before me parted to admit a grinning Pony who gently herded me though the crowd and up onto the first riser of steps. Critter and Sonny were also in attendance, and both grinned at me and slapped me on the arms, gently, in congratulations for surviving the beating of the night before. I grinned back happily. "What’s going on?" I shouted above the din.

Critter grinned. "You’ll see!"

Settling back and crossing my arms over my chest, I resolved to wait it out. The sound of the chant finally came together in my ears and I realized that the women weren’t yelling ‘fight’, but ‘ice’. I turned back to Pony, confused. "Ice?"

My friend simply nodded and directed my attention back to the far end of the square and the barred door standing there. My attention managed to wander at the exact second the chanting stopped and the cheers began, swelling in intensity until I was sure my eardrums were going to burst with the force of the noise.

Returning my attention to the waiting door, my eyes caught a flash of bright orange surrounded by the dun brown of guard uniforms. One of the guards stepped forward and grabbed the keys hanging from his belt, using one to unlock the massive door and sliding it open.

An expectant hush settled over the prison as the guard stepped back, hand on the butt of his baton, which was hanging from a loop at his belt. With a nod to his companion, he started forward once again. As they stepped through the door, the prison exploded into a cacophony of sound. Plastering my hands over my ears, I watched the spectacle unfolding before me.

The two guards stepped through with almost military precision, obviously well prepared for trouble. Then, walking a perfect half step behind, arms and legs firmly manacled, came the center of everyone’s attention.

I found myself riveted. The sounds around me seemed to fall away into silence, though my body continued to feel their vibrations. Standing at least half a head taller than the men surrounding her, a vision stepped into the prison proper, moving with a regal grace the likes of which I’d never seen. She seemed to command the room with the strength of her spirit, issuing a compelling summons I found myself unable to turn away from.

Her hair was black and shining, tumbling in violent waves down her back and brushing over shoulders so broad and perfect that they strained the orange jumpsuit that clung to her magnificent form like a lover. In that moment, I would have given anything to be that particular prison uniform.

Her face seemed carved of alabaster, a perfect rendering of some ancient goddess full of fire and fierceness, all slashing cheekbones and full red lips.

But her eyes. If I live to be a hundred, I’ll never be able to describe the beauty of their perfection. Shining fierce and proud, they glowed the deepest blue of the hottest part of a candle’s flame. Or, perhaps, the center of a perfect block of ice.

With that thought, I came to realize the meaning of her prison name, and it fit her like none other has before, or ever will.

Her stare burned hot and cold at the same time, taking in the whole room while dismissing us all.

Closer she came on long, muscled legs that carried her like a predatory beast. Her guards followed like a retinue of fawning advisors, keeping her adoring public at a safe distance, lest she lash out, chained limbs and all, killing with just a thought.

Her gaze was straight ahead until she mounted the first step. Then, ever so slowly, her head turned and I felt the heat of those cold eyes as they engulfed me, drowning me in a pool so deep and so pure that I couldn’t help but go willingly to my death. Our gazes locked and I’m sure my face went white. An eternity passed in that brief second. Her soul called out and mine answered as visions spun out between us of past lives led and sacrifices made. All in the name of a perfect love that was never born and would never die.

The attention of the entire prison was upon us, but I had eyes only for her. She represented freedom in a way that even life outside the confines of this prison never could. I saw the blue of a perfect summer’s day in her glance and the promise of safety, and a tattered soul, and a love so deep, offered up in one brief look, if only I could gather the courage to reach out and take it.

My body followed where my mind had already lead and, quite beyond my conscious will, my arm lifted, reaching out to confirm with solid, human contact that this was no mere dream but a living, breathing reality that stood before me.

A flash of brown entered the periphery of my vision and I felt my arm being gently shunted aside as a guard stepped back, shattering the moment. A smirk curved the soft, full lips of my enchantress. With the raise of an eyebrow and the barest ghost of a wink, she turned her attention from me and headed up the stairs to the segregation unit, leaving me more bereft than I can ever remember being.

The sound rushed back, as if from a vacuum, and my head spun from the intensity of the moment. Pony caught me as I sagged back against the railing, the strength suddenly gone from my legs. As the prisoner was led into her new cell, the crowd started to break up and Pony and Critter each took one of my arms, leading me back down the stairs and toward the library, Sonny keeping close behind.

I remember very little about that short trip. The best metaphor I can come up with now is to liken it to the touching of an electrified fence unawares, being galvanized by the current, and, if lucky, living to feel the after-images as they tingle through your seared nerve endings.

So wrapped up in these strange new feelings was I that I didn’t even notice when we finally entered the warm dimness of the library. My new friends escorted me to my chair and parked me there, then grinned down at my dazed expression before talking quietly with Corinne and leaving me to my thoughts once again.

The next thing I can truly remember is Corinne approaching me with a mug of her famous tea. She handed it to me and I gulped almost the entire thing down, unmindful of the intense heat burning at my tongue and palate.

The pain hit a split second later, and I slammed the mug down, fanning my face as my eyes watered. My friend had the good grace not to laugh at my foolishness, but I felt like a child nonetheless. I know I blushed from more than the heat of the tea, and the scarred table top suddenly became an interesting work of art, one requiring my full attention and study.

Corinne patiently waited me out and, finally gathering up the tattered remnants of my courage, I chanced to look up, internally wincing against the look of gentle mocking I was sure was in her eyes.

Instead, her gaze was calm and compassionate and I sunk into it with a feeling of relief. "Are you alright?" she asked in a gentle, quiet voice.

"I . . .I’m not sure. I think so." Looking at her, I struggled to put my feelings into words. "What happened?"

Corinne smiled. "Ice happened."