Clack Clack
Officer Parker opens the section door, and I have a sickening feeling she’s not actually taking me to the storage room for cleaning tonight. However, to my surprise, we walk straight to the door. She unlocks it and holds it open for me to step inside.
The privacy presses in on me. If there’s ever a moment to find out the truth, it’s now. “You see things different from up there, don’t you?” I ask.
“What are you talking about?”
“In quarantine, when you were up on the second level instead of down with the other COs.”
“You mean while I was doing the rounds and your buddies started with their little charade to get new carts?”
Okay, with that response I’m pretty sure I’m off the hook. She just happened to glance down at me right when I looked up at her.
“Oh, you were just doing your rounds. That makes sense.”
After I answer, she closes the door with a loud click, then turns to face me.
“Why do you look so worried?” she asks, suspicion creeping into her voice.
“I’m not worried... I’m new and just trying to figure out how everything works.”
She parrots my words back to me. “Oh, you’re just new and trying to figure out how things work. That makes sense.”
Yikes! Her tone feels off. I don’t know if she believ-
“Because I could’ve sworn you’d be nervous about whatever’s in your sock right now.”
Damn it! I’m trapped!
“Don’t give me that face. You said yourself you saw me watching you.”
I can’t believe this is happening.
“All I said was I saw you up on the second tier, I didn’t know why you were up there yet!”
A wicked smile spreads across her face as one hand moves to her pepper spray. “Here’s how this is going down. You’re going to reach down slowly, take off both your crocs and socks, and show me what you’ve got. If you don’t, I’m pepper spraying you and charging you with assaulting an officer.”
This is insane, I have no choice but to comply. Then the strangeness hits me: why is she doing this here, so unofficially? Shouldn’t this involve more coppers and handcuffs, not behind closed doors with no cameras?
Before I follow her command, I ask, “Why are you doing this? Why not just turn me in?”
“Where’s the fun in that?” She checks her watch. “We don’t have all night, so this needs to happen quickly. No resisting. Put your stuff on the table, then open the package.”
One hand still rests on her pepper spray, her other hand reaches into her pocket and pulls out a smartphone. I hear the little beep of the record button and realize she’s filming me.
For fuck’s sake, this just keeps getting worse. I take off my crocs and socks, then fish out the package and start opening it carefully. Inside is clear plastic film wrapped around a bunch of little white squares. She stops recording and says, “Now, when I press record again, I want you to tell the camera your full name, what you have, and where you got it.”
This is the most excruciating thing I’ve ever gone through.
“My name is Cillian Knight. I have some crack, and I got it from one of the trustees in quarantine.”
She stops the recording, but not her smiling. “Good. Now when I start recording this time, I want you to take the rest off.”
Now she’s just humiliating me, but once again, I do as I’m told.
She presses record, and I take off both my shirt and pants. I’m standing there in my green cotton underwear, hoping it’s enough.
It’s not.
She motions for those to come off too.
I have no choice.
I do as I’m told.
Here I stand, a man naked before God and woman. My pride stripped as bare as my bottom. I really am just a menace to society and a cancer to all those who have ever loved me.
“Okay, now turn around and give one of those little cheeks a slap!”
Smack.
“Oh, come on, you can do better than that!”
SMACK!
“There you go!” Officer Parker giggles then I hear the little ding of the video stop recording. “Okay, all finished! See, that wasn’t so bad now, was it?”
“Can I get dressed now?”
She looks me up and down. “Yes you may, my little bad boy.”
Her voice doesn’t belong in this room after what just transpired. Who is this creature with shifting personalities that has taken over Parker’s body?
“What are you going to do with that video?”
“Nothing, so long as you never give me a reason to.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that I own you now. If you ever even think about telling a single soul about us and what we do-”
“Us? What we—”
She cuts me off by sliding her hand behind my neck and pulling me in for a kiss.
My head registers the silver and cold spreading through my veins, but my heart is melting with molten fool’s gold.
Her watch beeps, marking the start of the hour and the end of our kiss.
Only one word escapes my lips. “Wow.”
She lets out a little cough. “That was even more delicious than I thought it’d be.”
“So this,” I point back and forth between us, “is the ‘fun’ you were talking about? This is the whole point of humiliating the hell out of me?”
“What can I say? I’ve got a bit of a trust issue.”
“A bit?”
Her playful slap on my shoulder sends a wave of intimacy down my spine. It feels like a lifetime since I last shivered in such a warming way.
We look into each other’s eyes again. This time, I’m the one to pull her close and lock our lips together.
She breaks the kiss and says playfully, “Okay okay, that’s enough dessert for tonight. We need to get you back to the section.”
I gesture to the drugs on the table. “What about those?”
“What about them? Wrap them up like they were before and put them in your sock.”
“So like nothing happened?”
She winks. “Nothing did happen, and even less will happen next week when I’m assigned to your section again.”
It would feel more like a setup if we hadn’t just shared two intimate kisses, with the promise of more to come. But this woman is shifting faces and characters right in front of me, can I really trust her?
Then again, what choice do I have? Even if I did have a choice, would I even want to say no?
I start packing the drugs up and slip them into my sock.
We’re in the hallway walking back when something dawns on me. “If you needed the video as blackmail, why make me undress?”
“Only the drug part was for blackmail. The other part was for my own satisfaction.”
Wow.