Beast: Part Two (3 page)

We pass the huge, cement sign
: LA ROSA PRISON – STATE OF CALIFORNIA. The road goes from old asphalt to dirt, and the Explorer bounces over it.

The moment we sight the first tall, barbed-wire fence, my stomach does a
back flip. I’ve been here at least a dozen times in my life, but today is different. Today, I’m here because I’ve made a questionable decision.

I turn over the why of it in my head as Clinton slows the SUV beside a metallic-looking tower bearing several key pads.

Why?
I fold it up and hold it. Squeeze it like a dirty tissue. Toss it over my shoulder, because the truth is—I don’t have the slightest idea what’s behind this particular unwise choice. You could put it down to pure obsession.

Clinton rolls his window down, reaches out, and punches in a code.
On the other side of the barbed-wire fence, I see a flash of green light: acknowledgement that Clinton got the code right. The fence—which, evidently, has wheels—rolls slowly open, just wide enough for a car’s passage, and Clinton gasses it.

A second later and we’re through, and the person at
a small kiosk topped with red and green, police-style lights strolls out. It’s a tall man wearing the same outfit as Clinton’s, only blue.

He walks over to the
Explorer, leans inside, and looks right at me for a long, assessing moment. My throat tightens.

Then h
is pale blue gaze drags over Clinton’s face. “This your cargo, Clint?”

Clinton nods, and the guard rolls his eyes. “Looks ‘special’ to me.”

Clinton shrugs. “I’m not one to judge, sir. Special cargo is special cargo.”

The man in blue steps back, waves his arm, and a second later, when he disappears inside the kiosk, another fenc
e rolls open: this one shorter and less prison-y, but still topped with barbed wire.

I want to ask on whose order Clinton went to fetch ‘special cargo,’ but I think I already
know: Beast’s. He really does call the shots here.

Clinton
repeats the code-punching at one more keypad—this one attached to a very ineffective-seeming mechanical arm that bars our path—and then we’re in the clear. Sort of. The prison parking lot is smooth, black asphalt. It’s basically a circle that runs all around the hexagonal facility. Every however many feet, near the outside of the lot, there’s a tower that holds an armed guard, looking down on come and go traffic.

“That make you uncomfortable?” Clinton asks me as he navigates the spottily filled lot.

I shrug. “Not my first time here.”

He chuckles and gives me a smirk. “I don’t think it’ll be your last.”

My face reddens, more out of indignity than embarrassment. “Does everybody know I’m coming here?”

Why did I do this?
!

Holt said everything was okay!

LIAR. SUCH A LIAR. Even lying to myself. I’m here because I want to be.

Foolish
.

Masochistic.

Fed up.

Trapped
.

Maybe I need to have something go horribly wrong. So the fact that my mom is dying in our apartment while Adrian plays IV-fluids Barbie isn’t the worst thing in my life. Maybe just one time, I want to pick my own poison.

Clinton parks the car and leads me through the raggedy grass that fringes the building. I feel like a lamb being led to slaughter. Except my face is red. Heat brews somewhere deep down in my belly, suspiciously close to my girly bits. My eyes water. Adrenaline, I tell myself. I’ve got way too much adrenaline going through my veins right now.

“You heard me, didn’t you?” Clinton asks, pausing on our trek to wherever.

“Umm? Maybe not?” I raise my eyebrows.

“I said nobody knows. You’re a big secret. Only Memphis, back there at the gate, myself, a
nd some of Beast’s one-to-ones.”

“What’s a one-to-one?”

“You know, some of his right-hand men.” Clinton laughs. “Nobody is gonna know, girl. Last time you came, you caused a riot.”

“I did?”

He nods. We’re walking right beside the building, following its every hexagonal turn. He gestures me to stop, and I notice we’ve walked from the front of it to the back. Just out in front of us, connected to the back of the hexagon by a tunnel-like hallway, is a big, plywood structure shaped a little like a bullet.

“What is this?”

“This,” he says with a dramatic wave, “is the library we’re building.”

“Back up a minute, though. Why was there a riot?” I want to know the answer to this question before I go inside.

Clinton shrugs. “Someone got his sights set on you. Tried to make a move to…you know, get you. Snatch you up and get a taste of that Julio pussy.”

My eyes widen.
“Julio?”

“Hispanic. Latina. You’re not white, are you?”

“Does it matter?”

“Here it does.”

“Julio is La Rosa slang
for Hispanic. Anyway, this guy, the one who started the uprising—he’s got some supporters. Trying to be the number one of his people’s clan. A little emotion got out of control and you’ve got a riot. People flexing their muscle, trying to look like they own this place.”

“But they don’t? Because Beast does?” He nods. “By clan, do you mean the other prisoners of that same race?”

He nods. “That’s how we do it here in prison.” He nods ahead, at the spot where the closed walkway leads from the hexagon to the bullet—I mean, library. “There’s a door. I’ve got a key. I oversee construction here. I’m one of the guards that does that. I can let you in. Patricia and Fred—they’re the checkpoint supervisors for guests—both of them already know. Beast is there today. Most of the other men, they’re working on special projects in another area of the unit.”

I nod
, and we start walking toward this door on the other side of the tunnel. “Do you always do what he asks?”

“There are junior wardens,” he says.
“Three of them. Perkins, Lully, and Perez. I’m under Perkins. Perkins told me to do this, I do it. Perkins and Beast, they on good terms.”

“And Perkins does what
Beast wants?” I bite my lip as a breeze whips my hair, and little raindrops start to fall, cold on my scalp. “What happens if he gets in trouble? Beast, I mean.”

“He’
s a model prisoner.”

“Are you serious?”

“Of course.” His face is a mask. I can’t tell if he’s serious or sarcastic.

We
bridge the dirt-patched grass in silence, side by side, and then he leads me around the back of the library building. On the other side of the tunnel that connects prison to library, there’s a small, steel door.

“Fire exit,” he tells me with a wink.

He waves his badge over a little rubbery-looking square beside the handle, and it clicks and flashes green.

He nods at the door, and I wrap my hand around the handle.

My palm tingles. My brain tingles. My breaths grow shallow.

“Good luck,” he says, and tips an imaginary hat.

I think I hear him chuckle as he walks away, but I’m too busy peering into the building to know for sure.

It’s shadowy inside, as if the only light is the sunlight streaming through windows
in that high, dome-like ceiling. 

I step insi
de, and am reminded, strangely, of a cathedral. Everything is bare wood: raw, unsanded. Wooden ceilings, wooden floors, and walls, with scaffolding here and there. Square windows punch into the walls. Round ones dot the ceiling. Shelves line every wall, and little window-seat alcoves break up the semi-circle walls. It’s as if my eyes know just where he is before I actually set my gaze on him—because I can’t bring myself to look dead at the center of the room until I’ve checked out every other detail.

When I do, I feel th
e air whoosh out of my lungs.

He leans on a ladder, arms folded, looking enormously bulky in just jeans, which hang loose around his
holy fuck yes
hips. In the dim gray light streaming through the windows, I can see his body is covered with a sheen of sweat.

As I step toward him, he leans down
and sets a sheet of plywood on the floor. His eyes never leave mine.

They’re doing something to me.
Making me feel…almost high. I stand there, with my sweater tugged around myself, staring at him as if I’ve just beheld the sun.

CHAPTER 3

Annabelle

“How do you like my library?”
he asks.

There’s fifteen or so feet between us, but his low, resonant voice is loud in my ear.

“It’s yours?”

His gaze rolls up and down me.
“I’m financing it.”

My e
yes flicker up and down him, around the room, then back to him. “How are you allowed to be here with no guards?”

“I’ve got certain…privileges
.”

I tug my sweater more tightl
y around myself, and he takes a few strides toward me. “How?” I hear my voice ask. “Do you pay everybody off?”

A few more strides. He’s looking right at me. Moving
slow, almost as if he’s stalking me. My God, he’s tall—so tall. So tall and ripped and handsome. He looks pissed. “Does that notion offend you?”

I shrug.
“It’s not how things are supposed to be.”

“Why’s that?”

“It circumvents the system. How it’s supposed to work.”

Another two steps, and he’s close enough to touch. He
holds his hand out. “Give me your phone.”

“Why?”
I whisper.

“Because I asked you to
.”

And because he asks me to, I do it. I hand him my phone, and study the fresh scar underneath his chin as he punches something in. A second later, he
hands it back to me with my bank’s home page open.

“Put in your info
rmation.”

“Why?”

“Because I said so.” His hand cups my cheek, and his mouth tugs into a grim-seeming half-smile. “Oh, Angel,” he says softly. “I see we’ve got a lot of work to do.”

I can’t look at him.
My body’s gone white hot. I keep my eyes on my phone’s screen and try to remember to breathe. My fingers type my sign-in information. The page flickers, then loads.

AVAILABLE BALANCE: $51,110
.03

My eyes fly to his. “Why?
Holt told me the two of you made nice.”

He closes the
remaining two-inch gap of space between us. His hips against my stomach. His abs against my breasts. One hand comes up to caress my hair. “I’m doing it,” he says slowly, “because I want you. And what I want, I take.”

I wonder who
else’s he’s wanted since he’s been here. Do women line up on conjugal day to fuck him? If they do, does he meet them here, in this empty library?

“Who’s the warden when Holt is gone?”
I ask instead.

“N
ame is Perkins.”

I’m lost in his eyes. Now I understand that phrase from books: I’ve fallen in
to them. I blink. Still in. “He lets you do what you want?” I can’t tell if I’m whispering, or if my voice sounds small because the roaring in my head is so loud.

His
fingers comb through the coils of my hair. “He and I have an understanding.”

“Not just him,” I say.
“Everyone seems to do whatever you want.”

“You want to know how much power I have. Why? Because you need to know before you fuck me again?” He drags his thumb over my lip. I have the urge to part my lips, but don’t obey it.

“Last time,” I manage. His eyes are rapt on mine. “I wanted it,” I hear myself explain. “But…”

I want to tell him that it frightened me. How utterly I surrendered. The way I lay there, l
etting him have his way with me. He flung me down and pushed inside, and I— I what?

I let him.

I shake my head. “If that keeps happening…”

Already happening.

I’m drifting like space dust, no longer corporeal. All my atoms are vibrating in sync with his. My feet work on their own. I take a small step back.

“
You look nervous,” he says. His hand, still in my hair, turns to my cheek. It’s warm. Calloused. “Come sit down.”

He takes my hand and leads me to a window seat. A built-in bench, pressed up against a wall of glass.
He wraps his hands around my waist and lifts me up. My eyes scan the patchy, dirt-strewn yard outside. The way the raindrops make the puddles ripple. The sky is white. Stark white.

“Just a minute,” he says.

I turn back around to see him reach onto some shelves along the wall and grab an armful of navy blue blankets. Painters’ blankets, I realize. He sets them on the bench beside me. Smooths one out. Lifts me up and sits me on it. Then he tucks another one behind me.

“Thank you,” I murmur. Despite the blankets’
tattered appearance, they seem soft enough. There’s no paint on them, and they don’t smell like it. Another one unfolded by his big hands, tucked around me.

“You got wet. Warm up a minute
.”

I sit there because m
y brain is broken and my heart feels puffed up like a balloon. I sit there, watching him. The last thing I expect is him, climbing up behind me. He leans his torso against my back, spreads his legs around my butt and thighs. Gentle fingers stroke my hair off my back, over my shoulders. Strong hands begin to knead.

“Don’t be nervous
, Angel. I’ll take care of you.”

*

Beast

I’ve brought many women here. Conjugal sessions are every Tuesday and Thursday, on a small hallway with hard cots and no heat. But I bend the rules to suit me. Holt and the others let me get away with it. I’m a bad habit, one none of them understand how to shove back into a box. Which is a good thing. Which was the plan.

I’m special. A special prisoner.

Special privileges, special obligations.

Like tonight…

I got the phone call today. The go-ahead. The confirmation.

Tonight will be…trying, but today is Angel.

She’s got tight shoulders. Tiny shoulders. My hands fit around them so thoroughly, I’m scared I’ll break her.

Maybe she’s scared, too, because as I massage, her muscles tremble.

“How can I not be scared,” she says. “Considering where I am…”

Her voice is
so soft. Trailing off. My hand are overtaking her.

I lean down close enough to smell her hair. Something soft and warm, like flowers in the sun.

“No one will ever hurt you while I’m here, Angel.”

“What about a riot?”
she almost slurs.

I’m so glad I did this. My thumbs rub a line on either side of her spine, and she leans over even further.
“There won’t be another riot while you’re here. If something comes up, we’ll reschedule. I won’t put my needs above your safety.”

“The other day,” she says, “your needs were… You were rough with me.”

I sit up straighter. Dig my fingers in a little harder. Remember how to find air with my lungs.

“The other day was a fuck up,” I murmur. Shame spreads through my head like so many cobwebs—and at the same time, I’m getting hard remembering. “The other day I was an animal.
You
were an animal. I was angry and my mind was somewhere else—where it was all—more straightforward.” In that place I go where consequences melt away, at least for some amount of time. Where I’m what I became that night she held me. Where nothing matters. I close my eyes and inhale slowly.

“Annabelle. Do you know what these things are like in prison?” I lean down, touching my forehead to her soft hair. “You should never know, Angel. Tell me—why did you come back here?”

My fingers, now pressing all around her shoulder blades, stop.

Horror strikes me. “Were you…hurt before?”

“Hurt?” she says.

“Is that why you liked it rough? What I did?”

She’s still for a long moment while my soul riots. Then she shakes her head. “I don’t think that’s why.”

“Holt was
right. I wanted him to tell you things were mended. That coming back here wasn’t a necessity. It is a necessity,” I correct, “it is a necessity that I touch you, but I wanted you to have a chance to back out.”

“I did,” she whispers.

“And you didn’t take it.” My voice is a growl now. I’m becoming animal again. This is what she does to me. “Why didn’t you take your out, Angel?”

She bows her head. I want to
bite the back of her neck. I cup her shoulders. Rub…

I’m not breathing.

Why did you come back for this? Why did you come back for me?

I remember her hair and her eyes and the stars flung up above us and the smell of blood. It could be blood from
them
. It could be the blood I wash off my hands after tonight. If there is any justice in this world, it will be my own blood sometime soon. Karma will catch up with me, and I’ll pay for all my crimes.

I can’t sit still like this. I
stop rubbing. Get down, so I’m standing beside her. I frame her flawless angel face with my hands.

“I’m going to kis
s you now, Angel. My tongue against yours. My mouth over your mouth. My lips bruising your lips.” I flick my eyes at the door. “I’ll give you one last chance to go. If you stay, I’ll fuck you hard.”

*

Annabelle

“I want to stay.”

I look at him and I feel down in my bones that I’m making the wrong move. Not because I’m afraid of him. Because of where we are. Because of where we’ve been. He may not remember that night, but I’ll never forget it. In fairy tales and myths, sometimes there are people meant to spin around each other, their cycles
intertwined. Pleasure and pain, pain and pleasure. I know he’s about to give me pleasure, so when the pain?

That’s all the time I have to wonder.

He hoists himself back up on the window seat with me. He snatches me against him, and his mouth comes down on mine. Our kiss is hard—painful. But it’s not all him this time. My heart is beating hard, my blood singing for his. I give as hard as I get. I grip his neck and cup his jaw and lock his mouth on mine.

A few frantic kisses, and h
e’s in control again. He pushes me back against the blankets and crouches over me like a predator. His hands press my shoulders down as he kisses down my neck. His hands cup my breasts. His fingers tweak my nipples. His tongue dances with mine. I throb between my legs.

“Oh—” gasp—
“God…” He rubs his cock against my thigh, and I can feel a gush of heat and moisture in between my legs.

His fingers work my jeans open and stroke my mound. I buck my hips. “More,” I moan into his mouth.

Down and around, his fingertips feeling. Parting me. Pushing in. One finger, two.

I’m panting
.

“Spread your legs
wider, Angel. I want to bury myself in you. Feel you clench around me.”

I obey without a word, and with his free hand, he yanks my jean
s down. His mouth is on my neck. Is on my throat. My purple and white striped panties are being pushed aside.

“Oh GOD.”

He’s gliding in. So slick. I’m so slick. Filled up by his fingers. Rocking up, against him.

And then it’s like my brain snaps back to life. My hands, grasping g
ently at his abs, jet to his jeans button. Work it open. He helps me take the zipper down. My hands fly inside and find he’s wearing boxer-briefs. Soft cotton over that big bulge. I’m panting: little gasps.

I
work my way under the elastic of his briefs and find his hard, flat belly like warm velvet. Warm and hair-dusted. The head of him juts up. I wrap my hand around it. So soft. And damp.

Holy fuck, he’s oozing. Ready for me.

Beast wants me.

I want him.

His fingers push inside me till they’re buried to the knuckle. He spreads them out a little, making me feel oh so full. Then he curls them back, toward my spine. His fingertip brushes my g-spot and I grunt and thrust against him.

My
hand tugs on his dick. Up and down… I’m stroking: wrist flick, wrist flick. My hand shaking.

“That’s it,” he grunts. He grabs my elbows. “P
ut your arms above your head.”

I’m flat on my back on the library window seat. As
he grinds himself against my leg, his fingers move a little deeper.

Then
, moving sure and quick as a sexual superhero, he flips me over on my stomach.

I
hear a tearing sound—a condom wrapper being opened—and have the brief, terrifying thought that maybe he plans to fuck me up the ass, the way they say it’s done in prison. I’m gasping in advance as he jerks my hips up off the seat, grinds his length against my butt, spreads my legs, and positions his head at the pool of moisture right there at my entrance.

“Hope you’re ready,” he says.

He punches in and starts out slow. Push and slow drag out. Punch and slow drag out. Punch and out and
punch
—“oh God!”— and PUNCH!