She turned the key, relieved to find that it worked and that the door opened. Excitement, nostalgia and gut wrenching sadness boiled in her stomach, but first things first, she had to get out of her clothes. She tossed everything away, save for the fnnel that she took the time to carefully fold and pce in her humper. It was the first thing getting washed. Without even thinking of anything else she practically ran straight to the shower, staying inside until she had made absolutely sure she had gotten all of the me prison smell off her. Words could not describe how thankful she was to have been taking a shower in private again, without a throng of horned up white-colr criminals twice her age ogling at her. Not that she had anything against older women, she just wanted her boundaries respected. Boundaries meant nothing in prison.
She missed her old hair, there were no two ways about it. She didn’t feel like herself without them, the st thing she had left of her mother. But short ones were easy to wash. She was done much quicker than she was used to, drying herself off as she walked naked around her apartment. She fished through the pockets of her jeans, finding a lighter but no cigarettes, a couple year-old condoms and a crumpled up paper. She straightened it up and hung it on the fridge with a magnet shaped like Mytilene, her grandparents’ birthpce before they were chased out of the country by the junta. The paper had a number and an address on. Themis was not sure what to do with it.
Her better judgement told her to throw it away, burn the fnnel and move on with her life. But her other mind, the one between her legs, compelled her to call the guard. She understood how fucked up the situation was, a guard hitting on a prisoner must have been the mother of all ethics viotions. Meeting her again would be dangerous for both of them.
Yet if Themis used any one adjective to describe the sheer attraction she felt towards her, it would not have been enough. Ethics aside, a meeting between them couldn’t hurt. And, besides, they were not getting into a retionship. At most Themis expected a ‘thank you for lending me the fnnel’ hook-up, maybe a ‘you are welcome, thank you for returning it’ followup the morning after and even that was pushing it. ‘Fuck the police’ was, afterall, every outw’s motto. Why shouldn’t she give it a try?
“Fuck it,” she said with a shrug, before throwing the towel away toward the general direction of the bathroom. It plopped over her gss coffee table instead, knocking a wooden statue some Apache girl driving home on the wrong highway slipped in her backpack as thanks after a quickie at the back of her car a few years ago. She could deal with the guard after she had some food in her, and after she straightened things out with the club. Whatever that would look like.
She opened her fridge, surprised to find it stocked up. She browsed through it for a moment, seeing nothing ready to eat. She was not in the mood to cook. She shut the door, walking to her bedroom. Being back at her apartment felt surreal. Her bedroom was nothing like her cell. It was light, the air was easy to breathe, and compared to the cell it was massive. Too massive. Without the comfort of the walls around her she felt exposed. No windows meant no surprises, that wasn’t the case anymore.
She closed her eyes, her heart beating fast. For a moment, she was back inside. In the cafeteria, surrounded by Brenda and her cronies. Punches and kicks flying everywhere, cracking against her face, her ribs, breaking bones and bloodying noses. She tried to fight back, she really did. But there were too many of them, and not a guard in sight. They beat her within an inch of her life, it had taken her months to heal in the infirmary. Her body still ached, the memories haunting her dreams. Then she opened her eyes again, and took a look around. The iron hand that gripped her stomach and squeezed began to relent. Her smell, ingrained to the room down to its atomic composition, calmed her down and slowly brought her back to reality.
Her bed was made, with clean sheets and a new mattress. She felt a prick of guilt pierce her heart as she took notice of how clean and tidy her room, and by extension her whole apartment, was. Artie’s doing, no doubt. She could picture her on all fours scraping off cum stains, and dried up blood. On the first drawer of her bedside table she found her sex toys, neatly organised by type and size. A couple of cock sleeves, one vaginal and one anal, a magic wand vibrator with some attachments and a couple bullet ones, a vibrating ring, a gss dildo and a few metal buttplugs of varying sizes. She blushed, more guilt pooling inside of her. No baby sister should have to take care of that kind of stuff. Things would be different, from now on. Provided she could still afford the apartment, after she got kicked out of the club.
With a heavy heart Themis threw some clothes on, jeans and a t-shirt, and got back out to the living room to put on her boots. She left the apartment, hair still dripping, unsure of what to do about food. She craved a pizza, a double cheese with bacon, sausage, chilli con carne and sour cream at the rim. But the sun was still up, and she didn’t have a phone to call Spinelli’s with. The Hummer was gone, whatever business Tracey had in the neighborhood no doubt concluded. Themis could not bring herself to care. She turned around, walking into the Korean market. Instant noodles of some sort seemed like a five course meal.
