Protection

Protection

S. A. Reid

Copyright © 2012 S. A. Reid

Second Edition

Cover design by
J. David Peterson

All rights reserved.

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Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictiously; any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

N
ew inmates came to Wentworth Men’s Prison on Sunday afternoons. They arrived by bus, shuffling single file down the vehicle’s steps and into the exercise yard. Gabriel MacKenna knew precisely what awaited them. First they would be marched to the infirmary, where their leg irons would be unlocked and a cursory medical exam would follow. Then the new men would be led down Wentworth’s long green and white halls to be kitted out. Jeers and laughter rang through the crisp spring air as the inmates emerged, but Gabriel didn’t join in. He stood quietly in the shadow of the watchtower, smoking a Pall Mall and taking their measure.

Gabriel loved the taste of Pall Malls. Convicts detained at His Majesty’s Pleasure in April 1936 were issued half an ounce of plain tobacco and a dozen cigarette papers each month, but Gabriel was so skilled at cards, he rarely rolled his own. Wentworth was a modern facility, host to several experimental programs and far removed from its Victorian roots. Gone were the days when prisoners were masked, referred to by number and forbidden to speak to the guards. At Wentworth, the guards were encouraged to mix with the prisoners and provide a wholesome example. Gabriel wasn’t sure if gambling with McCrory, Buckland and the other F-block guards had strengthened his moral fiber, but it kept him supplied in Pall Malls. It also kept him informed about recent developments, including the details behind new inmates. None seemed likely to challenge Gabriel’s supremacy in Wentworth.

The biggest, a bona fide village idiot named Benjamin Stiles, kept his head down, shooting nervous looks at the gray stone walls and hugging himself tight. Apparently in the village he hailed from, idiots were treated gently. And perhaps Stiles was innocent of the charges, like so many morons condemned by British justice. Or guilty only in a manner of speaking. Either way, Gabriel had no interest in him, because all Stiles had was bulk. To take on Gabriel, a newcomer needed more than mere size.

The last man in line moved slowly, forced to do a hop-step each time the chains pulled tight. He was trying to take it all in – not just the outer wall, erected in 1876, but the watch tower, manned by two guards, and Wentworth itself, old and new. “Old Wentworth” was the original building, four wings radiating off a central area called the Roundabout. A, B, C and D block were there, each cell exactly twelve foot by seven foot. The new prison, constructed in 1910, was a three-story building containing offices, a cafeteria and the infirmary. E, F and G blocks were smaller, but their cells were large enough to house two men.

“Cooper!” bawled Llewellyn, the guard bringing up the rear. “Keep up!”

Gabriel’s cigarette halted midway to his mouth. Cooper? Dr. Cooper, the convict McCrory had told him about?

Gabriel stepped out of the watchtower’s shadow for a better look. Cooper was no more than twenty-five, with thick ginger-brown hair and wide eyes. Of medium height, he was surprisingly well built for a professional man. The prison uniform fit snug across his broad shoulders and tight against the nip of his waist, the curve of his ass …

Within hours, the name and story came to Gabriel. Joseph Cooper was a newly qualified doctor convicted of malpractice and gross negligence. Educated at Oxford, Cooper had joined the practice of a well-respected physician in Kent. When Lady Wheaton, wife of Baron Wheaton, went into labor with her first child, Cooper had been entrusted with her care. And when the laboring woman went into distress, Cooper played the hero, attempting to save her single-handedly. He’d confessed as much in writing – his pride, his overconfidence in his own abilities, his hope to be publicly acclaimed by Lord Wheaton. But Jane Wheaton, only twenty-one, had died, and her infant son had died with her. According to rumor, Cooper had attempted an emergency Caesarian, but that, too, had been hopelessly botched. The newspapers had described the scene in loving, lurid detail: Lord Wheaton bursting in to find blood-spattered walls, his young wife slashed open and the infant dead in Cooper’s hands.

Lord Wheaton had wanted Cooper charged with double murder, leaning heavily on both the home secretary and the prime minister. But Cooper’s physician status shielded him from capital prosecution; the Crown couldn’t credibly argue he’d attacked Lady Wheaton, or harmed her through malice. Nevertheless, Cooper had received the maximum sentence for his crimes: eighteen years inside Wentworth, no possibility of parole.

Gabriel saw Joseph Cooper again that evening, in the common time between supper and “reconfinement,” as Wentworth’s progressive governor, Sanderson, preferred to say. Reconfinement replaced the old term: lockdown. The guard in charge of passing out linens greeted Cooper with passable friendliness.

“C’mon, mate, get yours while it’s fresh.”

Cooper lifted his chin, smiling back so warmly the guard blinked in surprise. “Ah. Right-o. Thanks very much.”

“Talks like a toff, don’t he?” Lonnie Parker sounded impressed. During common time he was often at Gabriel’s elbow, if not directly beneath his feet.

“Like he’s checking in at the goddamn Ritz-Carlton,” Gabriel agreed, watching Cooper collect his striped pillow and gray blanket. Cooper’s eyes were a very light blue, almost the color of the standard-issue blanket, and long-lashed. He was pale, too, a fellow Celt if Gabriel had even seen one, but pink-cheeked and vigorous, with a healthy bloom to those perfectly shaped lips.

“They say he’s a doctor. A bad one.” Lonnie loved parceling out bits of gossip he overheard while working in the infirmary, rolling bandages and scrubbing instruments. “Dr. Royal knew all about him.”

Birds of a feather
, Gabriel thought darkly. He hated doctors in general and Dr. Royal in particular. Gabriel hadn’t seen the inside of the infirmary since his last mandatory physical exam, and even then, they’d had to threaten him with birching to make him comply. Corporal punishment was still very much a part of the British penal system. Not even Governor Sanderson was prepared to abolish the practice – public birching against bare buttocks for misdemeanors, an old-fashioned lashing across the back for serious misdeeds. All but the most defiant personalities took the threat seriously. Not even Gabriel would choose the birch over a mere half-hour in Dr. Royal’s domain.

“Gabe.” Lonnie pressed closer, lips brushing Gabriel’s earlobe. “Fancy visiting the library?”

Lonnie didn’t want to borrow a book. In fact, Gabriel had never seen the younger man read anything except the cafeteria’s daily menu. But the library stacks were good for quick bits of mischief, especially Fiction A-Br, which was tucked in the library’s back corner. After three months, Gabriel was already tired of Lonnie, but that glimpse of Cooper – chin lifted, smiling – had primed his pump.

“Go on. I’ll meet you.”

As Lonnie headed to the library, Gabriel hung back for a judicious interval, asking Tom Cullen to keep an eye on the library’s entrance and Bobby Vincent to lurk near the card catalog. F-block men traded such favors all the time, without complaint and never demanding details. Of course, allowing Lonnie to get him off within earshot of Tom and Bobby was mildly embarrassing, yet necessary. To be surprised by a guard, even one like Buckland, who would break up the action but never report it, would have shamed Gabriel far worse.

The stacks had that familiar old scent, a mix of decaying paper, glue and old leather Gabriel had loved since childhood. Leaning against the steel bookcase, Gabriel unbuttoned his fly, closing his eyes as Lonnie knelt before him. Hands drew out his cock, squeezing it with a firm, practiced motion. Gabriel tried to think of Marlene Dietrich – lately the image of her wavy blond hair and those long, perfect legs was his surest route to satisfaction. But after what seemed like forever, Gabriel was there, wasn’t even close. There was no firmness in his balls, no rising tension in his lower belly.

Lonnie shifted from hands to mouth, enveloping Gabriel with hot, wet strokes. Gabriel opened his eyes and watched for a bit, then closed them again. True, it felt good – sweet Christ, he was only human, and Lonnie knew his way around a stiff cock. But actually seeing Lonnie sucking him usually did nothing for Gabriel. Sometimes the sight caused a total loss of arousal.

Casting about in his mind, Gabriel thought suddenly of Joseph Cooper – prison uniform taut across his broad shoulders and clinging to that firm, perfect ass. Remembering Cooper’s smile, the shine of those gray eyes, the curve of those lips, Gabriel felt his cock jerk. Then it wasn’t Lonnie down on his knees, but Cooper, mouth wide, taking every swollen inch. And before Gabriel knew it, release was near.

“Oh,” he whispered, imagining Cooper tug, tug, tugging as he sucked the root of Gabriel’s cock. Something about the memory of that smile, those long-lashed gray eyes, made Gabriel’s asshole clench helplessly. Then he was unloading down the back of Lonnie’s throat, coming hard as he imagined sending a jet of white-hot cum into Cooper’s belly.

* * *

G
abriel walked Lonnie back to E-block. Pretty little Lonnie, a natural victim in Wentworth’s harsh Darwinian model, constantly attracted the wrong sort of attention. That night one of the new men, a recidivist named Smyth, was holding court with his old cronies, telling stories about the outside world. Catching sight of Lonnie, Smyth broke off in midsentence.

“Oi! Girlie! You’re the first improvement I’ve seen in this old heap!”

Lonnie kept walking toward his cell as if he hadn’t heard. Gabriel moved to Smyth’s side. Gabriel was six feet tall; Smyth, a burglar known for crawling into manor houses through cat-flaps and doggie-doors, barely came up to Gabriel’s shoulder.

“You’re new here.” Gabriel smiled.

Smyth rose up on the balls of his feet. “Been on holiday is all. Back now. You’re the one is new. Who the fuck are you?”

Gabriel tapped the MACKENNA sewn above his uniform’s left breast pocket. “Not much of a reader? That it?”

Smyth’s upper lip curled. From the rapid flush across his cheeks, Gabriel guessed he was a hotheaded little man, desperate to prove himself. “Bloody well pardon me, Irish. I meant to say, who the fuck do you
think
you are?”

“Like it says.” In one move, Gabriel dug the fingers of his left hand into Smyth’s shoulder while seizing the little man’s balls with his right. “MacKenna. Gabriel. Should’ve got the noose. Got two life sentences instead. That girl,” he said, meaning Lonnie, “is mine. All mine. Step out of line and I’ll kill you.”

Giving Smyth’s balls a vicious twist, Gabriel left the little man on his knees. Turning, he made his unhurried way back up to F-block. Dozens of inmates and at least one guard, Buckland, had witnessed the exchange. But the prisoners would never grass. Even Smyth, if questioned, would claim ignorance of who assaulted him. Every convict in Wentworth would rather be known as a coward or a moron than a grass. It was a facet of prison culture that particularly frustrated Governor Sanderson. He had no idea why inmates obeyed that unwritten code, or why guards like Buckland played by the same rules. But Governor Sanderson dwelt in his mahogany-paneled office with a soft chair, a wide picture window and a liquor trolley. He only mixed with the convicts a few times a year, under carefully controlled circumstances. Eight hours a day, five days a week, Buckland lived alongside Wentworth’s prison population, good times and bad.

* * *

B
ack in his cell, Gabriel stretched out on the bottom bunk and pretended his cellmate, a flatulent mouth-breather named Owens, didn’t exist. Owens was due for release in a month, and was plainly terrified by the threat of freedom. His wife had run off years ago; his children, whom he wouldn’t recognize, lived in an East London orphanage. The only sort of work Owens was trained for – old-fashioned blacksmithing, shoeing horses and hammering out crude farm implements – had dried up while he served his time. Gabriel suspected his vacation from Owens would be brief. No doubt the big oaf would endure six months of freedom, commit a second offense to dwarf the first and return to Wentworth for life.

Wentworth’s overhead lights extinguished at nine o’clock in autumn and winter, ten o’clock in spring and summer. When they shut off, Gabriel put aside his book –
The Woman in White
– and thought again how useful a handheld torch, like the guards carried, would be. All he had to do was maneuver Buckland or McCrory into wagering one, and sooner or later it would be his. Gabriel hated putting aside a book before he was ready.

As usual, Owens waited until two minutes past lights out to squat over the bucket and take his nightly shit, stinking up the entire cell in the process. Then he clambered into his top bunk with all the finesse of a rhinoceros. Flopping onto his back, he had a wank, mattress springs squeaking as he worked himself up to a fever pitch. Gabriel wouldn’t have put up with either from most of the other inmates. But for all his fearsome reputation, Gabriel was slim and compactly muscled, better known for fighting dirty than overcoming men with brute strength. Twice Gabriel’s size, Owens had been convicted of beating two men nearly to death over someone else’s unpaid loan. As much as Gabriel resented the nightly shit followed by the audible wank, he had the feeling if he took a stand over such inconveniences, he was the one who’d exit Wentworth in a pine box. And that, surely, was the Lt. Governor’s reason for assigning Gabriel and Owens to the same cell – so F-block’s alpha males could effectively neutralize one another.