"Can you give me something for this pain, nurse?" he asks. "I ain't a pussy, but this shit hurts."
I think for a moment. In here, painkillers are given sparingly. It's how addictions are formed or fed, or maybe even both. But I can see he isn't pulling the wool over my eyes. He's in visible pain.
"Sure. I can give you something to take the edge off."
I look around the room for the syringe. That's another thing about being a nurse in this place. I can't leave anything in plain view for inmates—even something like a strip of tape or a paperclip can be stolen and used as a weapon. Not necessarily against me—I mean, everyone is on the defense in this place at any given time. They are mostly protecting themselves against each other. And as far as syringes go, we're always told to "count our sharps." They have to be closely monitored.
I ask Lucien where he'd like the injection.
"Where do you like it?" he asks, looking at me for a moment. "In your ass or somewhere else?"
"Well, for an intra-muscular injection, I would go for the butt. It's a big muscle, and lends itself well for that," I say.
"I thought you'd be the kind of girl who would take it in the ass," he laughs.
I realize the double entendre of his question and blush for the second time, and hate myself for it all over again. This is embarrassing. How is this guy making me put my own foot in my mouth? I look at him and see that he's still smiling. There seems to be a new, sharper shine in his eyes. He notices my embarrassment.
"I'm kidding," he says, noticing my embarrassment. "That's fine. Let's do it. Should I undress?"
"There's no need to uh, fully undress," I say. "Just pull your jumpsuit down past your waist."
I watch as he slowly removes his jumpsuit. It requires quite the effort to pull his arms out and he contorts his face in an acrobatics of pain. As he moves his jumpsuit down, I get a good look at his chest. He won the genetic lottery, that's for sure, I think to myself. I can almost visualize tracing my fingers down the mountain range of his abs. Shit. There I go again. I shake my head as if it was an Etch-A-Sketch and I was deleting the image, ready to start over.
He moves in front of me and turns around, holding his jumpsuit around his waist. I see the sculpted muscles of his back flex. He pulls his jumpsuit down lower and exposes the top of his perfect, muscular butt cheeks. "What are you waiting for?" he asks.
"I—I'm just grabbing some gauze and the syringe."
I find the gauze and sterilize the injection site. "It's in your best interest to relax. Don't clench your muscles like that, " I instruct.
"What makes you think I'm—ah, shit! Did you just stick me with a dart gun or something?"
"I warned you."
"Well, I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't that. What other surprises do you have up your sleeve for me?" he asks.
I feel like I've engaged him too much already, so I don't respond. Why do I continue to open myself up for conversation? And damn it, here I am, blushing for the third time today. But I refuse to let him have this kind of power over me, and I motion for the guard to come back into the room and place his handcuffs around his wrists again.
I walk out of the room and look back at him one last time. We lock eyes and in that moment I feel a familiar coldness surge through my chest.
4
Lucien
"Yo, Stone!" someone yells, getting my attention. "What the fuck happened to you? Looks like you really got your ass kicked this time."
"Fuck you, Spider!" I yell back as the guard prods me to keep walking. Spider got his name from his legs. It's like something out of a freak show. I swear this guy is all legs and no torso. "You should see the other dude. If you want to see someone who's really fucked up, just take a look at his face." Spider laughs at that, and I watch as his freakish legs carry him off down the hall.
The guard walks me to a part of the prison I've never seen before. It's a hallway lined with hermetic, sealed off cells. So this is solitary, I think to myself.
"I wasn't lying when I said we don't tolerate violence," the guard tells me, noticing my hesitation. "But maybe now you'll believe me."
"If you think this place will teach me anything, you're fucking mistaken."
"Don't make this harder than it needs to be Stone."
"Or what?" I ask with a flash of defiance.
"Or your life sentence will feel like an eternity. You'll beg the universe for death but it won't seem to come fast enough."
I don't respond and he unlocks the door, ushering me in. I lean against the concrete wall, and slowly slide down into a sitting position. The door slams shut and it sounds just like a gun going off in my head. Bang. The same noise that haunts all of my waking moves. I clench my fists.