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 stating that they won’t read novels because they just don’t have time to sit down and read such gargantuan works. 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.

As the last warm days of summer gave way to the cool chill of fall, the colorful autumn leaves signaled my anniversary. One year behind bars. I was no longer the young girl who had first entered the building, trembling and crying so hard that every figure I passed seemed to glow with shimmering radiance as they taunted me and hollered names at me I had never heard shouted in quite that context before.

No, I was a year older, a year wiser. The Bog was still a very frightening place, but in that time, it had managed to become, in a fit of morbid perversity, a home to me, and many of its inmates, family. I never really understood the phrase ‘Institutional man’ until the first morning I woke up after a sound sleep without one memory of a terror filled dream of incessant claustrophobia and total loss of freedom. Somewhere along the line in that year past, I had stopped looking at each morning as one step closer to eventual freedom and started looking forward to the adventure it would bring.

That doesn’t mean that I didn’t long for freedom, because I did, and still do. I ached for it the way one would ache for a drop of water in the desert. I yearned for it. Hungered for it. But I no longer obsessed over it. That, in its own way, was a very liberating feeling for me.

Without doubt, my friends aided me in this transformation. Corinne helped every day, being at turns scathing and grandmotherly. The Amazons helped, teaching me to be the best kind of fighter, the one who defends the weak, while at the same time lending me their friendship and support unconditionally. And Ice helped. The mystery of her kept my mind occupied during times when it might otherwise have dumped me into a vat of depression too deep to crawl away from.

In the days after the incident with Psycho and Heracles, Ice had remained very distant and withdrawn, spending most of her time in her cell, staring at nothing and talking to no one. But gradually, with the speed of an iceberg melting in an Antarctic winter, she began to come out of her self-imposed prison, letting us in again. Or at least as ‘in’ as anyone ever was allowed to go.

Much to the surprise and delight of Corinne, she would sometimes make the trek into the library where she would sit, sip tea, and listen as we talked, occasionally adding commentary when she felt it was warranted. Wordy she was not, but, as I came to find out, Ice possessed a keen intellect; a razor sharp mind that, had circumstances been different, would have caused her to come out at the top of whatever profession she chose. That made her situation all the more heart-breaking for me.

Sometimes we would sit beside one another at one of the tables, talking about our common interests. Solzhenitzyn invariably came up as a topic for conversation and debate. She would speak with a quiet intensity about his message of the true freedom one gained from oppression, be it the body, as in Cancer Ward, or the entire being, as in One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich or The Gulag Archipelago. Her arguments were always well worded, well thought out, and shone forth with the true belief in his vision, a vision which she shared under much the same circumstances as the writer himself.

There were other times when I would sit, sipping my ever-present tea, and listen to the interplay between Ice and Corinne. Though they spent most of their time batting keenly edged barbs back and forth, there was a strong undercurrent of deep affection between the two. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t even slightly jealous over the relationship those two women shared. Ok, I was a lot jealous. At least at first. As close as I’d gotten to Corinne, there was a line I couldn’t cross. A line I didn’t even know existed until I saw her interact with Ice.

Conversely, I was jealous at the seeming ease with which Corinne seemed to bulldoze down those walls around Ice’s heart. I had known Ice for almost six full months and had yet to scratch the surface of the most intense person I’ll ever have the privilege to know. I wanted so badly to sink myself deep within her, to get a sense of that person I had seen in her eyes the day we first met. I knew it was there, waiting for me to take it. I just didn’t know how.

Still, the passing days saw us drawing closer, if only by mere inches, and I contented myself with waiting, watching and listening, secure in the knowledge that I would one day find the magic needed to look into the window of her soul. After all, didn’t a person have to peel back the tough skin of an orange to get to the succulent fruit beneath?

The coming of fall also brought with it an increase in tensions among the inmates. It was as if, knowing that the coming winter would force them to be in one another’s intimate presence for the next several months, they were staking out claims on prime territory early, so as to avoid the rush.

This was especially prevalent in the yard, where many petty skirmishes over the least of imagined transgressions turned to all out bloody wars among the gangs. The Amazons had been very busy trying to keep the peace over the last week or so and, to my dismay, I hadn’t seen very much of any of them, Ice included.

On one particular day, I decided to venture out into the yard. Early fall had been cool and rainy, keeping me inside most of the time. The lack of fresh air had been making me feel restless and edgy and the thought of four or five months more of the same caused Corinne quite pointedly to suggest that I either go outside for awhile or stay away from her library until I could force myself into a better mood.

Taking her not so subtle advice, I decided to take a walk outside. It was a Saturday, the one day when there were no outside restrictions, and so when I stepped out into the cool, but sunny, fall air, I couldn’t help but notice that most of the prison seemed to want an open sky over their heads. The yard was crowded with prisoners and, near the basketball courts, the two largest gangs seemed to be getting ready for yet another tussle.

After recovering from her injuries, Derby managed to regain control of the white gang, wresting the leadership from Mouse. It appeared that surviving a beating from Ice gave her more status with her cronies than Mouse’s surviving a beating from me.

Shaking my head and smiling a bit, I moved toward the weight area where Ice was standing, nonchalantly curling a fifty pound dumbbell as if she were lifting a feather pillow and spotting Critter who was gamely trying to bench press ninety pounds over her head.

As I walked, I allowed my eyes once again to drift back toward the two gangs who were massing like thunderclouds toward the center of the yard. The other gang’s leader, a woman who went by the prison name of Trey, was currently standing nose to nose with Derby. I’d always liked Trey. She was a tall woman with dark skin and dark eyes and a wide, infectious smile. She had, at one time, been the shining hope of the Lady Vols basketball team and still retained that athletic physique. She’d come down to the library occasionally to pick up some books that would help her complete her Physical Therapy degree and we always got along well enough. I found her to be soft-spoken and intelligent and was really surprised when I found out that she was a gang leader. Since that time, of course, I’ve grown to understand gangs and gang leaders and have come to the realization that not everyone is a Derby or Mouse.

I finally joined my friends in the free weight area, coming to stand beside Sonny, who was doing some bicep curls of her own, albeit with much less weight than Ice was using. The entire group seemed casual and unconcerned about the potential gang fight. "Hi, Sonny. Looks like a storm’s brewing over there."

Grinning a greeting at me, Sonny looked over to the growing groups of women. "Nah. They’re just having a pushy fight."

"A what?"

"A pushy fight. You know. Derby pushes Trey. Trey pushes Derby. They trade insults on whose mother is the bigger whore." She shrugged. "Shit like that."

"And that doesn’t concern you?" Looking back over my shoulder, I estimated that at least a hundred women from either side had joined in and the crowd was continuing to grow.

"Nope. Everything’s cool right now. If it gets worse, we’ll step in."

The sound of a heavy weight hitting the cracked concrete interrupted whatever more I might have had to say and I looked up, catching an orange streak flashing out of the corner of my eye as Ice blew by me. "Let me guess. It just got worse."

Sonny winked, dropped her own dumbbell and shot to her feet, grinning wildly. "Yup."

Turning fully toward the group, I watched as my friends jumped into the developing fray, led by Ice who leapt between the two gang leaders, one long leg lashing out strongly. My eyes followed the arcing path of a shiv as it flew through the air, tumbling end over end and flashing brightly as the sun winked off its metal finish. Critter was on the weapon in a flash, scooping it up and slipping it inside her jumpsuit.

Ice interposed her long body between the two lead combatants, grabbing Derby by the front of her jumpsuit and pulling the huge woman up onto her toes. Pony and Sonny each grabbed one of Trey’s arms, holding her back. "You know the rules, Derby," my friend said in a low, even voice. "No weapons."

Derby was red-faced with anger. "Fuck off, Ice. This ain’t your fight. You got no business interfering."

"When you pull a weapon, it becomes my business. You want those guards up in the towers to spray this place with bullets?"

"I don’t give a flying fuck. Just as long as I get what I want."

"And you can get what you want without the shiv. I don’t give a shit if you beat one another to death, but no weapons. Got me?"

At Ice’s statement, I looked up, noticing that indeed the guards in the two towers nearest the altercation were standing on the catwalk, their rifles aimed and ready. I felt a little shiver of fear race down my back at the thought of a high-powered weapon being aimed at me or at my friends. I hoped Ice would be able to settle the dispute peacefully.

Looking around, I noticed the hard smiles on the faces of the inmate onlookers. Off in a corner, a woman was taking bets. It sickened me, but I struggled not to let that sense of disgust show. It was like being present at an execution.

After a long moment of tense silence, Derby finally nodded and Ice let her go and stepped away. She turned her head toward Trey, nodding to the Amazons to let the other woman go, which they promptly did. "What about you, Trey? Have any weapons?"

Trey snorted. "Me? You think I need a knife to beat this two-bit wannabe honky piece of trash?"

Roaring, Derby lunged at Trey, to be stopped by Ice’s firm hand against her chest.

"Answer my question, Trey."

"No. I don’t have any weapons." She tipped a wink in Ice’s direction. "But you’re more than welcome to search me if you like."

At Ice’s nod, Sonny and Pony patted down the taller inmate. "She’s clean, Ice."

Ice smiled slightly. "Alright then. Have fun."

With a regal elegance all her own, the leader of the Amazons strode forth from the circle of inmates, the smirk on her face faintly pronounced. The prisoners closed ranks again as the Amazons followed Ice out of the crowd.

"So, what now?" I asked as my friends walked over to me. Behind them, the two gangs had resumed their tense stand-off.

Ice shrugged. "Guess they’ll pound the shit outta one another and be done with it."

"What are they fighting over?"

Sonny stepped into the conversation. "Use of the basketball court. Derby wants it for her gang and Trey isn’t willing to give it up peacefully."

"All this for a basketball court?"

Sonny shrugged. "It’s territory. That’s important to people like them. Law of the jungle."

I looked over at Ice, who wasn’t inclined to disagree with Sonny’s blunt assessment. "Well that’s about the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. They’re willing to risk getting killed for a sport?"

"That’s about the size of it," Critter replied.

In front of me, the voices had risen once again as Trey and Derby began to shove one another back into their respective groups. I could feel my own anger build up inside me. "This is just idiotic! I can’t believe grown adults would stoop to something this . . .this . . .juvenile!"

"We’re talking about hardened criminals here, Angel," Critter supplied. "Not exactly an Einstein in the bunch, ya know."

"Yeah," Sonny jumped in. "Besides, it’s not as if this shit doesn’t go on in the outside world. Whole empires have been overthrown for lesser reasons."

"That’s ridiculous. We’re not talking about the acquisition of land here."

"That’s exactly what we’re talking about," Ice interjected softly. "Trey’s gang has the basketball court. Derby’s gang wants it. It’s that simple."

"And you don’t see any problem with that," I replied, disbelief evident in my tone.

Ice shrugged. "As long as they stay outta my way and don’t endanger anyone else, nope."

"Well I do." Giving them all a last baleful glare, I spun on my heel and started walking toward the huge crowd, determination in my every step.

As if surprised to see me with such an expression on my face, and I’m quite sure most of them were, what with me being Little Miss Innocent and all, the crowd parted and I slipped through the throng of onlookers without difficulty, managing to make it up to the very front. I stood there, hands on hips, waiting to be noticed.

After a moment, Trey turned her head to meet my gaze, a small smile playing over her lips. "You better get outta here, Angel. You’re gonna get hurt."

Derby took that moment to chime in in her own literary style. "Yeah, fishie. Wouldn’t wanna get that cute snatch of yours all busted up now, would ya? Your Amazon buddies wouldn’t be happy if they didn’t have their little play-toy around to fuck anymore."

She made as if to grab me, then froze, looking over my shoulder. I didn’t have to turn to guess who was behind me and I’m afraid my smile grew rather smug. "Can I ask you a question?" I directed my words to both parties.

Derby grunted.

"What in the hell are you doing here?"

"What the fuck does it look like we’re doin’, fish? Playin’ checkers?"

"What it looks like is two three-year-olds squabbling over a plastic shovel in the sandbox. I’d like to think that you’re both a little more mature than that."

Derby scowled, no doubt trying to wrap her lumbering mind around the visual I provided. "Shows how much you know," she finally mumbled.

"Then tell me, Derby. Because I really want to understand."

Clenching and unclenching her fists, the huge woman looked down at the ground, unable to say anything.

I turned to Trey, who was standing there smirking at me. "What about you, Trey? Can you tell me why you’re doing this? I thought you were more intelligent than this."

The tall gang leader shrugged. "Intelligence doesn’t have anything to do with it, Angel. It’s a simple matter of space and possession. There isn’t much in the pen you can call your own. This is ours. Someone comes along and wants to take it from us, we fight. Nothing more to it than that."

"You do realize that the guards could come out here and take it from you in a second, right?"

Trey smiled that dazzling grin of hers. "Course I realize that, Angel. We all realize that. But until the guards come and take it away from us, we’ll fight to keep it. They have their space, we have ours. It keeps us happy. Well, for the most part, anyway."

I sighed and scratched my chin, trying to think of some logical argument that would sway her to my view of things. "Alright. How about if you guys trade up? Derby’s gang takes the basketball court and Trey’s gang takes the softball field. Would that work?"

"What the fuck are you, crazy?" Derby exploded. "Ain’t no fucking way we’re givin’ up the field!"

"But I thought you wanted the basketball court."

"I do want the fuckin’ basketball court, ya idiot! And I want the field!" She looked at me as if I’d suddenly given birth to a second and third head.

"And what are you going to do if you get the basketball court?"

Derby squinted her eyes at me. "You mental in there or somethin’? We’re gonna fuckin’ play basketball on it!"

Taking a deep, cleansing breath, I slowly counted to ten, willing my frustration to drain away. "Alright then, how about this? It seems like you’re willing to beat each other’s brains in for a few square feet of broken concrete and rusty backboards, right?"

"Noooow ya get it, fish. Very good."

"Well, instead of fighting for it, why don’t you play for it?"

"Play what? Fuckin’ Twister?"

There are some moments in every person’s life when they fantasize about seeing whether it really is possible to twist someone’s head off. For me, this was one of those moments.

Luckily, Trey took that moment to step in and save me from my second, and this one intentional, murder. "Basketball, Derby. She wants us to play basketball."

"Well no shit, Sherlock! That’s what we’re fightin’ about, ain’t it??"

Trey rolled her eyes. "Against each other, Derby. Am I right, Angel?"

I smiled in relief. "Exactly right, Trey. Five of your best against five of Derby’s best in a ‘winner-take-all’ game. You win, you keep the court. They win, they get it. Make sense?"

Derby did her level best to imitate a large-mouth bass, and I must say, her effort was a good one. If I’d have had a pebble in my hand, I might have been tempted to play my own little basketball game. Forcing my evil thoughts down and away, I simply waited for Derby to fully process my idea.

Trey stepped to my rescue once again. "I think that sounds like a great idea, Angel."

"Thanks," I replied, grinning at her.

Nodding, she turned her attention to the still gaping Derby. "How ‘bout you, white bread? You up for a little five-on-five?"

After a moment, the large woman nodded vehemently. "You got it, spade. I’ll wipe up the court with your ass."

"Yeah, if you can even see the court past that inflated tire you call a belly, honkey. Your fat gut’ll be bouncing more than the ball!"

I rolled my eyes, tensing up as the two behemoths started going at it again. This was definitely not what I had in mind when I started this little windmill tilting expedition. "Enough, you two. Save it for the game, alright?"

"Alright," Derby spat. "Fine. We get Ice."

That statement caused the courtyard to erupt. Derby’s gang was shouting in frenzied appreciation while Trey’s gang was protesting quite loudly.

"Forget it!" Ice’s low timber was easily heard above the din of the crowd. The inmates went silent. "It’s your game. You play it."

"At least referee, Ice!" someone shouted, to the agreement of the rest.

Ice held up her hands. "Oh no. No thanks. It was Angel’s idea. Let her ref."

I spun on my heel, wide-eyed. "Are you joking? Look at me, Ice! I wouldn’t last a second with these monoliths. You’d do much better." I tried out a smile. "Besides, you’re much more intimidating than I am." As I met her eyes, my smile deepened. I just couldn’t help myself. And if you ever had the chance to look into those perfect sapphires, you wouldn’t either. I decided to go for broke when it looked like she wasn’t going to waver. "Please?"

"C’mon, Ice!" another inmate shouted.

"Yeah, c’mon!"

Isolated pleas continued from the crowd until Ice finally relented. "Fine. Be here tomorrow at noon. Whoever wins gets the court for the next year and all my decisions are final. Got it?"

The courtyard erupted again, the inmates joining together in mutual excitement of the next day’s contest. Chancing a look into the corner of the yard, hard by the fence, I saw the resident bookie had garnered some helpers and was doing a brisk business.

Shaking my head at the sheer unreality of it all, I graciously accepted words and pats of congratulations as I made my way from the center of the melee.

"Great job, Angel!" Critter shouted as she came over to me and slung an arm around my shoulders, hugging me briefly as we walked. "When they spring ya, you should apply for a job at the UN. Those bureaucratic idiots could use people like you!"

Blushing, I allowed Critter to lead me back to the free weight area, where Ice was lounging on one of the benches, watching me with a smile on her face.

I stopped before her. "I hope I didn’t break any rules or anything."

The smile broadened, sucking me in. "No. Ya did alright."

My blush deepened, beyond pleased at the unexpected compliment. "Really?"

"Really. Great job of negotiating there."

"Thanks. And thank you for watching my back. And agreeing to referee. I really appreciate that."

"No problem. Ya owe me one."

My mother was always fond of telling me that when someone opened a door, you’d best go through it before it slammed in your face. "You name the time, Ice, and I’ll name the place."

The other Amazons went absolutely silent at my bold comment. From the corner of my eye, I could see incredulous expressions on every face save one. Ice narrowed her eyes at me in an expression that became extremely predatory and caused my mouth to instantly dry. "You’ve got yourself a deal, Angel," she said, the low, soft, smoky voice caressing the vowels and consonants of my name like a lover.

Oh boy.

*******

That evening, I stood in my cell, shoulders slumped, head down, sweat-streaked, covered with printer’s ink and dust, and totally exhausted. We’d finally received the shipment of textbooks we’d been begging for for months. When we opened the boxes, it was apparent that they had been sitting in some warehouse or other since, perhaps, World War Two. Maybe even earlier than that. The dust on the boxes and books was thick enough to cut with a knife and was that greasy kind that just makes you shudder when your hands sink into it. My sinuses were stuffed so full of it that I remember being surprised that when the inevitable sneezing fit came along, I didn’t shoot my head clear off my neck.

To say I was miserable would be putting it mildly, but it was late and I wasn’t about to chance another encounter in the showers no matter how good at defending myself I’d become. Though Derby and her cronies seemed to be pleased with the arrangement I’d managed to work out, the woman’s mercurial mood swings made her too dangerous a fate to be tempted a second time.

Resolving to bear my misery stoically until morning, I turned down my bed, wincing at the thought of laying my grimy body down on the still-pristine sheets. In the Bog, you get clean sheets once every two weeks, come hell or high water. And since I was already in hell, and a rescuing flood didn’t appear to be on the horizon, I didn’t appear to have much choice in the matter.

Just as I was stripping off the last of my jumpsuit, Critter and Sonny showed up outside my cell wearing identical grins. Those expressions quickly turned to amused smirks when they caught sight of my dishevelment. They entered the cell, threw my grimy uniform up over my chest, grabbed my arms and quick-marched me down to the showers, promising to stand guard outside the door to protect me from any unwelcome surprises.

Once I realized my eventual destination, my struggles ceased quite nicely.

It was disconcerting being in the shower alone again and my mind didn’t help, insisting on showing me flashbacks in vivid detail of my previous encounter with Mouse and her crew. Though the rational part of me knew I was as safe as could be expected, the cautious young woman in me still checked every shadow in every corner to make sure I was well and truly alone.

Satisfied with my assessment, I peeled off the rest of my clothing, grabbed a clean towel and padded into the dank shower room, listening as the dripping faucets laid out a counterpoint to my soft footsteps. I added a melody line, humming quietly to myself to keep the demons at bay as I walked over to a gleaming showerhead and prepared to be assaulted by the frigid spray.

"Damn, that’s cold!"

My flesh humped right up in swift agreement and I had to force myself back under the stinging spray, rubbing my hands furiously over my grimy face to restore circulation as much as to remove the dirt and dust that had accumulated on my face.

Grabbing the slimy cake of soap, I hurriedly got right down to it, once again cursing the hard mineral water for the pitiful attempt at lather I was able to work up.

After I scrubbed my skin to the point of rawness, I set to work on my hair, wincing as I worked my fingers through the wet tangles, resolving to myself once again to just get the whole mess chopped off and be done with it.

Despite the temperature of the water, I found myself relaxing as my body became clean once again. A final rinse and I turned off the shower, grabbing my towel and drying myself off briskly, still humming.

As I turned from the wall, my towel gathered up to my chest, I froze. There, standing no more than five feet away, hands on hips and an unreadable expression on her face, was Ice.

Shock poured through my body with the speed of a freight and I felt my muscles tense up again, as my hands gripped the towel spasmodically. "Jesus, Ice! You scared me! Where did you come from?"

My silent watcher merely raised an eyebrow and smirked, her eyes drilling into mine. I stared back, thoroughly disconcerted. "Is . . .there something you wanted from me?" I asked finally.

Her gaze dropped down to my feet, then did a slow crawl up the rest of my body till she looked into my eyes once again. "The time is now, Angel. Is this the place you had in mind?"

I looked around the empty shower for a moment, trying to figure out exactly what she was referring to. When it hit me, suddenly, I whipped my head back to face her, sure that all the blood had drained from my face. "What . . . ?"

As she closed the distance between us in one easy stride, I could feel the almost unholy heat as it radiated from her body through the thick fabric of her jumpsuit. Still looking at me through those piercing, hard-cut gems, she reached up casually, grasping the front of my towel and drawing it easily away from my body.

My brain must have short-circuited because the messages it was sending to the rest of my body were indecipherable. I stood there, gaping up at her, as she reached out that same hand and tilted my chin upwards.

"Is this what you wanted?" she murmured as she brought her head down slowly, still pinning me with her bright gaze.

The first touch of her lips on mine brought out feelings I’ll never be able to fully articulate. It was like dying. It was like being born. Like drowning. Like flying. Like unsullied innocence and primal want. It was raw and tender. Achingly familiar, though I’d never felt anything like it before.

Contradictions? You bet. But they didn’t stop my body from completely melting into hers as she deepened the kiss and slowly moved forward until my back was pressed tight against the tiled wall of the shower, which produced within me another set of contradictions. The tiled wall was cold and damp against my back while the front of my body was pinned to a great wave of living heat. The clean scent of her was almost overwhelming, as was the silken texture of her thick hair as it brushed lightly against my cheek and neck, to fall against my shoulder and linger there in a soft caress of the finest silk.

I’m sure I moaned, but she swallowed it up as the very tip of her tongue danced across my lips, seeking out an invitation which I willingly granted.

As my lips parted, she engulfed me, pressing ever harder against my trembling body as she explored my mouth with probing sweeps of her tongue, mapping, it seemed, every inch within. When my knees threatened all-out rebellion, she smoothly insinuated her own leg between them, bearing my body up against the length of her thigh.

I know I cried out then; as a part of me which had become molten slid along solid muscle.

Breaking off the kiss, she slid her hands between the wall and my body, her palms and fingers cupping themselves against my backside as she looked down into my eyes. "You’re very beautiful, you know." Her voice was husky with some unnamed emotion, though by the look on her face, I guessed it to be desire.

I tried to return her compliment in kind, for she was incredibly beautiful, but my ability to speak must have fled with my senses because it was nowhere to be found. Instead, I nodded, hoping to get across to her the intensity of my feelings without benefit of words.

The kiss had left me reeling. My only anchor to reality seemed to be the rock-steady leg seated between my thighs and the hot hands beginning a slow caress against my back.

"So innocent. Pure," she continued in an almost-whisper as she brought her lips down upon mine again.

This time, I returned the kiss, reaching up to tangle my fingers in her hair, pulling us closer together and inhaling great lungfuls of her scent as it mixed with the arousal in my own. She growled, deep in her throat. Sharp teeth nipped at my lips and I felt them start to swell, tingling as they pulsed with the beat of my heart. Not wanting to be left out of the picture, my hips picked up the rhythm of our dance, guided by the hands on my back.

I could feel the big muscle in her thigh clench and relax beneath me, pressing into me smoothly before withdrawing, then pressing again, relentlessly. Her large hands kept me steady and the feelings continued to increase in intensity until it was all I could do to lay my head back against the chill wall and let my body take over completely, which it did willingly and without complaint.

Ice followed me, lowering her head still further and attaching lips, tongue and teeth to my neck, nipping, suckling and tonguing as my head whipped back and forth against the cracked, chipped tiles of the wall. I could feel the hard tendons in my neck stand out as my jaw clenched hard against the pleasure soaring through my body.

Her hands seemed to be everywhere on my body; measuring the breadth of my shoulders, running up and down my clenched and straining arms, cupping my breasts and molding them to her palms, trailing down the outsides of my spread thighs and back up, grasping my waist and aiding in my ever quickening rhythm.

Colors spiraled in kaleidoscopic patterns behind my tightly clenched eyelids and I know I must have begged her not to stop because I could feel her chuckles against the skin of my neck. I bit on my own lips hard enough to draw blood, and it was that taste that followed me down as my body became one tiny, brilliantly shining point of light in that eternal half-second before detonation.

As she leaned in slightly closer, the slight brush of coarse fabric against my painfully erect and wanting nipples was all the catalyst I needed.

I know she felt it coming, because she released from my neck, buried her face into my shoulder and grabbed my hips, thrusting her thigh up against me smoothly. I trembled and shook as a great braying sob burst from my captive lungs.

"Don’t be frightened," she whispered into my ear. "Let it out. Let it come."

My body released, pulling in energy, it seemed, from the world around me and sending it back out in torrents of sensation and light, thundering through my body like a herd of untamed horses stampeding across acres of fertile land. I could feel the sting of tears in my eyes as I furiously chewed the inside of my cheeks to keep from screaming out. My body wasn’t under my own control anymore and the feeling, quite frankly, scared the hell out of me.

Finally spent, I collapsed into her all-encompassing embrace, my tears falling on the fabric of her uniform and glittering like tiny diamonds in the muted lighting. "I’m sorry," I whispered, still sobbing and not knowing quite why.

"Shhh," she crooned, her voice low and comforting in my ear. She took us both to the floor, cradling my body like a mother would her child and rocking me with my head tucked under her chin.

After what seemed like an eternity, my crying tapered off and she pulled away slightly, once again lifting my chin with gentle fingers. "You alright?"

Meeting her glance briefly, I lowered my eyes, blushing. "Yes. I . . .don’t know what came over me."

"Sometimes it hits people that way," she said, smiling slightly.

"Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, right?"

"Something like that, yeah." After placing a tiny kiss to the crown of my head, she rose, bearing me up with her and setting me on my feet. Then she reached down, picked up my towel and handed it to me, helping me wrap it around my body.

Then she stepped back and looked at me, her eyes so warm and full of caring that I felt my eyes begin to water once again. "Ice, I . . . ."

"Shhh," she whispered again, reaching out a finger and laying it across my lips. "Thank you, Angel."

With another crooked smile, she turned on her heel and was gone from my sight.

*******

A half hour later, I was standing in my cell, looking at my face through the wavery lines of a cheap prison mirror bolted securely to one wall. The picture I saw was identical to the one that stared back at me an hour earlier, though much cleaner, to be sure.

Why, then, did I feel that a stranger was looking back at me?

I remembered the stories I used to hear in the girls’ room at school, about the first time you went ‘all the way’ with a boy and how much different you were supposed to feel the next morning. Fitting my mother’s definition of the sexual behaviors of a ‘proper’ young woman to a T, I’d waited until my marriage bed to see if that old adage bore fruit. But, aside from some slight soreness between my legs, I didn’t feel any different than any other morning. The loss of my virginity didn’t usher forth any blinding wisdom or staid maturity. It just . . .happened.

I’ll admit to a bit of disappointment, but soon chalked the whole thing up to another of the seemingly unending ‘old wives’ tales’ taught to almost every young girl during her formative years.

Apparently, I was wrong. Whatever had happened between Ice and myself in the showers had changed me in some fundamental way that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. The change eluded me the way a word will dance tauntingly on the tip of your tongue, refusing even the most desperate pleas to come forward and announce itself.

One of the worst parts was that I couldn’t tell exactly how I was feeling about the whole thing. Good? Bad? I didn’t know and that frustrated me. On the one hand, I was happy, gloriously so, that my midnight fantasies had finally come to fruition. On the other, I felt a curious sense of emptiness deep within me, as if I’d been shown the glimpse of a wonderful future full of possibilities, only to have it snatched from my grasp at the last second.

Perhaps it was the casualness of the entire encounter, at least from Ice’s respect. Living life between high walls and steel bars hadn’t robbed me of that mushy romantic side. Many things shone through in my dreams, but being pressed up against the shower wall by a fully clothed Ice wasn’t one of them. At least for a first time, anyway.

But I knew, too, that Ice had enjoyed herself. At least on some level. I could tell by the way the taste of her kisses changed. By the way she breathed and moved over me. By the way her heart thundered against my chest.

And she was tender, beyond all doubt. Incredibly tender. Especially in the way she held and soothed me at the very end.

Why, then, when I was strong enough to once again stand on my own, did she leave? What went through her mind at that moment? Was I just another assignation? Another seduction in a long line of them? The rumors of her sexual appetite were as great as those of her fighting prowess. Everyone, it seemed, had a story to tell. And if even one quarter of the stories were true, she had slept her way through the entire Bog, twice. And that was before she was let out the first time.

Obviously, I was intelligent enough to realize that the vast majority of rumors came from deluded thinkers with serious wish-fulfillment issues. But I also knew that within every legend lies a kernel of truth. If I ever wanted to learn the real story behind the myth, I suspected that I would have to quickly become very adept at separating the wheat from the chaff.

All these feelings accompanied me, laying on my shoulders like the world upon Atlas, as I slid between the cool sheets of my prison bunk. The shifting, mournful wind matched my turbulent thoughts perfectly and it was a long time before sleep finally claimed me that night.

*******

When the morning brought with it no inspiration, divine or otherwise, I decided to give in to my demanding stomach and head down to breakfast. Arriving earlier than I normally would have, I was faintly surprised to see the cafeteria filled almost to capacity. I might have imagined it, but the noise level seemed to dim appreciably as I stepped into the muggy room, only to rise once again by the time I’d grabbed my tray, waiting in line behind the others for my serving of thick gruel that tasted like nothing so much as library paste.

After grabbing the bowl thrust at me and picking up a mug of horridly strong coffee, I looked around to see if anyone I knew occupied the tables. When only strangers’ faces stared back at me, I quietly made my way over to one of the corner tables and sat down, determined to enjoy what passed for breakfast in peaceful solitude.

As my senses got used to the crowded din of the cafeteria and began to settle in on little snippets of conversation, the gruel turned to a hard leaden ball in my stomach. Turning my head slightly as I lowered my spoon, I set my gaze upon four women who were sitting at the edges of their worn, metal seats, their heads bowed conspiratorially together. "Yeah," one said in a voice full of brazen mirth, "the perfect little Angel got her wings clipped but good last night."

"Ice bags another one!"

The group slapped hands as they laughed and elbowed one another.

"I heard she squealed like a pig," said the third.

"No, it was more like a bitch in heat!" The fourth lifted her head and let out a screaming yowl to demonstrate her point.

Other heads turned and laughter began to roll through the group seeming to pound upon the concrete walls like some maleficent wave.

Dropping my spoon, I stood up so quickly that I sent my chair flying back to clatter against the far wall. At the sound, heads turned my way and the laughter died off quickly.

Caught halfway between crying and screaming, I settled for stalking out of the cafeteria with as many tattered shreds of my dignity as I could possibly preserve. Which wasn’t much.

I know I must have looked like Satan come to earth as I marched out of the cafeteria and toward the stairs. Inmates took one look at me and gave me wide berth. The expressions on their faces would have caused me to laugh had I been in the mood for it.

Instead, I ignored them, taking the stairs two and three at a time, my breath coming short and fast through my nose. As I reached the top floor, I strode down the long corridor, the paint-chipped bars of Ice’s cell growing larger with each step I took. Gone was the trepidation I’d felt in my last trip to this particular inmate’s home. I was an angry woman on a mission of retribution.

I strode through the open door to her cell, then, not breaking step, stalked over to where she sat on her bunk, her back up against the wall, her long legs splayed, feet firm to the floor. I stopped in between her knees, staring down at her, hands on my hips, knowing my eyes were flashing messages which I hoped were well and easily read.

She looked up at me, her expression calm and serene as an unblemished lake, waiting.

I took in a breath. Then another to calm my temper enough so that I could speak coherently. Her calm attitude only made my anger burn hotter. "God damn it Ice! Isn’t it bad enough that you fuck me and leave me standing there like some two dollar whore? Did you have to go and brag to your god damn friends about it too?!?" Now I’m not usually much for swearing, thinking the words trite and very overused, but there’s a time for everything and, for me, the time for swearing was then.

Though the expression on her face didn’t change, oh, her eyes . . . . The vibrant blue leeched out of them, leaving a glittering silver behind. It was like looking down into the twin barrels of a shotgun and I found myself actively fighting back a strong current of almost primal fear. "Finish what you came here to say, Angel," she purred, her voice deathly soft and smooth as satin.

"Finish . . . ." I trailed off, disbelieving. "You don’t get it, do you?! They’re laughing at me down there, Ice! It’s nothing but a joke to them! Well, it’s not a joke to me!" I threw my hands up in the air, keeping myself from breaking down by the greatest force of will. "My god, Ice, I thought we were friends. I thought I meant more to you than . . .than . . .than just another notch on your god damned bedpost."

She stood so quickly that I didn’t realize what had happened until I felt her long body pinned up against mine. "That’s enough, Angel," she said in that same quiet voice.

"No, Ice, it isn’t enough! It isn’t nearly enough!"

"Yes it is." Pushing me away slightly, she turned and headed for the door to her cell.

"Wait! Where are you going?"

For a long moment, it looked as if she wasn’t going to answer me. Then she turned, slowly, that glittering steel still very present in her eyes. "Alright," she drawled, smiling a smile so cold it chilled me to my very marrow. "I’m going to pay Sonny and Critter a little visit. We’ll see how well they can spread stories with their tongues ripped out of their mouths."

As she turned once again, I reached out, stopping just short of touching her arm. "No, wait. Don’t do that. They wouldn’t spread stories about me. They’re my friends."

Back came those eyes again, though this time I swore I could see a small seed of hurt in them before the emotionless mask settled back down over her face seamlessly. The corner of her mouth turned up in a smirk. "I see. Your . . .friends . . .wouldn’t spread tales out of school, but I would, is that it?"

I stood there, hundreds of conflicting feelings shooting through me at her soft, uninflected words. The anger drained from my body, leaving me off balance and uncertain.

She closed the distance between us and looked down into my face, sharp gaze assessing. Was that disappointment I saw? "Tell me Angel," she said in a completely emotionless tone, as if she were talking about nothing more important than the sports scores, "if your opinion of me is so low, why did you let me fuck you last night, hmmm?"

With that, she turned away and stepped to her bed, reclining lazily on the mattress and dismissing me completely. I stood there, rooted to the floor, my mouth opening and closing, fruitlessly trying to form words to thoughts that weren’t even complete. "Ice, I . . . ."

She held up her hand, not looking at me. "No, Angel, it’s alright. I think we’ve said pretty much everything that needs to be said. You don’t have to worry about the stories; they’ll be stopped. You have my word on that. As for the rest . . . ." She twisted her wrist, as if throwing something away to the wind.

As I stood there, staring at her like a cross between a spanked child and a spurned lover, my mind sifted through a myriad of things I wanted to say. I bit at my lip, a bad habit of mine, and winced at the soreness still present from the evening before. Taking a deep breath, I decided to go for broke. "Can I ask you a question, Ice? Can you at least tell me why?"

"Why what," she muttered, staring down at her hands.

"Why you did what you did. Last night, I mean. Why you came to me in the showers. Why you made . . . ." My voice trailed off, together with my thoughts. What did we do last night? Make love? Have sex? What? That I didn’t know was the most frustrating part for me. Looking down at Ice and trying to read her emotions through the carefully blank tableau of her face was something akin to being blind and entering the Philadelphia Art Museum. Not very enlightening, to say the least.

It was by the barest of margins that I resisted stomping petulantly on the floor. "Damn it, Ice. Say something! Anything!"

The eyes that finally met mine were cold and hollow. "What do you want me to say, Angel?"

"Tell me why! That’s all I’m asking here!"

Her broad shoulders shrugged slightly. "You made an offer. I took you up on it. Simple as that."

If you are incredibly lucky, there will be very few times in you life that you will ever feel what I did when those softly spoken words seeped into my ears. I could almost feel my heart close in upon itself as it shrank from their meaning, cowering. Tears came again, but I held them back with steely determination.

"Why are you looking so surprised? It’s what you expected to hear, isn’t it? A cold blooded murderer takes an innocent young girl as a trophy then brags about it to her friends?" She shrugged again. "Happens all the time here. If it wasn’t me, it would’ve been somebody else."

That did it. The damn broke and my anger rushed forth, controlling my emotions once again. "You cold-blooded, heard-hearted, evil son of a bitch!"

I felt my hand go up, though to this day, I have no idea what I was planning to do with it. It was caught in a grip of iron and I suddenly found myself, once again, face to face with Ice. She smiled coldly down at me. "I wouldn’t do that if I were you, or ya just might find out how true those words really are."

Tugging hard, I was surprised when my hand came easily free. Still, I met her gaze dead on, vowing not to show any fear. I was with a predator and I knew it. If she smelled fear on me, the situation could turn from bad to worse in a heartbeat.

Refusing to even give her the satisfaction of seeing me rub my tingling wrist, I stood my ground, staring up at her, almost daring her to show me her worst. When she didn’t, my racing heart started to calm and my anger along with it.

As I looked at her, her face seemed to change, as faces often will when you stare at them long enough. I began to imagine I could see past that carefully cultivated fierceness and into the woman beneath; a woman who had held me so tenderly in the shower the night before, rocking and soothing me with a gentleness this present persona belied; a woman who could create such a marvelous sense of freedom with just a few hand-held tools and a few stunted trees; a woman who would unhesitatingly thrash the living daylights out of an inmate twice her weight for laying hands on an innocent girl. Most of all, though, I imagined I could see a woman with whom I felt a profound connection that not even the heat of our anger could dissipate.

"I don’t believe you, you know," I finally managed to say in what surprised me by turning out to be a normal tone of voice.

"About what?"

"About what you said. That it was a game, that I was a trophy. You may have said those words, but I don’t think you meant them at all."

Raising one eyebrow, she continued to stare down at me, her face still completely expressionless.

"You’re hiding something."

"Oh? What am I hiding?"

"Your feelings."

The eyebrow arched higher as a faint smirk played across her face. "I’m a murderer, Angel. An assassin for hire. I lost anything that even resembles feelings a long time ago. Don’t waste your time looking for something that isn’t there."

I allowed my own smirk to curve my lips. "Oh, it’s there alright. You just have to know where to look."

"And you know where to look."

"No, not yet. Not completely. But I will." Taking a big risk, I brought up my hand again, one finger extended, and poked Ice in the chest. "Beneath that oh-so-cold exterior lies a living, beating, feeling heart, Morgan Steele. And I’m gonna find it. I’ve got nothing but time on my hands, and believe you me, I will find it." Grinning triumphantly, I turned on my heel, prepared to make my dramatic exit.

I was a step away from the door when the barely whispered words met my ears. "I hope you do, Angel."

Lacking the courage to turn back and catch the expression on her face, I continued out of the cell and into the hallway, a woman whose mission had been changed irrevocably.

*******

Sunday dawned cold and with a drizzle that was just a degree or two short of being sleet. Apparently, though, I was the only person in the prison surprised when the much anticipated basketball game managed to go off without a hitch.

That’s not to say it was smooth sailing. It appeared that the game of ‘inmate basketball’ was quite a different animal than any I’d seen before, and believe me when I tell you that, being from the mid-west, I’d seen enough of ‘normal’ basketball to last me several lifetimes. The rules seemed to be non-existent and the object appeared to me to be ‘stuff the ball through the net while injuring as many opponents as it was possible to without becoming a victim yourself’. There were several instances when I began to doubt my wisdom in assuming that this would be a peaceful way to settle the differences between the two gangs.

For her part, Ice appeared to be having fun. Her job seemed to be to keep the fights from becoming too bloody and interrupting the flow, if it could be called that, of the game. Rain glittered in her thick, black hair and every so often she would shake it out, sending a fan of fine mist out over the yard.

Our eyes would meet occasionally and, for those brief moments, nothing else seemed to matter to me. Her small grin warmed me inside and the rain, as well as the roar of the crowd and players, seemed to fade away to nothing. Then, invariably, another fight would break out and her attention would be called back to the game and I would feel the cold and damp all over again.

When it was over, Trey’s team easily maintained possession of the court for the next year. The score might have been closer, and the game more interesting, if Derby had put some of her more athletically inclined people in to play. Since her overblown ego didn’t allow that, it was, quite simply, a rout. Trey, who by herself managed to score more points than Derby’s entire team combined, was paraded around the court on the shoulders of her teammates, grinning wildly and proclaiming her dominance to all who would listen.

It was with a feeling of great relief when I finally pulled my protesting body up off the rain-slicked tarp that Critter had managed to put down and escaped back inside the warmth and quiet of the prison walls. All in all, I was quite pleased with myself. My plan, for better or worse, had worked and peace, or what passed for it in the Bog, reigned for one afternoon at least. Ice wasn’t mad at me and our connection seemed as strong as ever, despite the wounding words of the day before.

It was another good day.