[Placeholder] Raphtalia Sloane

Chapter 4 - Of cells and bunkmates

Joan was trying hard to not show how afraid she was.

After seeing what had happened to that guy in the waiting room, she told herself to never contradict one of the guards. As she followed along a burly guy who had taken her with him, to bring her to her cell, she almost began to tear down, as the reality of the place she was in began to manifest.

Still, she didn’t give in, forcing her tears to stay in her eyes, not wanting to break down and marking herself as an ‘easy prey’. As she looked around, seeing the countless cells piled one on top of the other, each with its four jail mates inside, she shivered thinking that she had to survive five years in a place like this.

Distracted as she was, she didn’t see the guard stopping near her, soon to be, cell and walked right into him, only to look up with the most contrite expression she culd assume. The guy barely looked at her as he quickly passed one hand over his belt, then relaxing he used his fingerprints to open the cell.

“Inmate get inside. This is your home now.”

As she walked inside the rather large cell, she noticed right away that there were four bunks, each paired against the side walls. In the middle, there was a flimsy semi-transparent door behind which was the toilet.

As Joan stepped inside, she felt a slight electrical discharge and when she twirled around facing the outside of her cell, she didn’t see any bar, nor any door preventing her to leave the cell. Slowly walking forward, her hands in front of her she quickly found out why. As she moved forward, she felt some kind of transparent wall preventing her to go any further.

‘An energy field. They have each cell closed by an energy field…’

As she crumpled there, falling on her knees, she heard a snicker coming from the cell. Looking up she saw that she wasn’t alone, as she had thought, but there were other two people in there. Moving her stare from one to the other, she tried her best not to tremble in fear. On the beds at her right, on the topmost bunk, sat a shady fellow with the face of a rat, his face was covered in scars and had holes that had to be have been filled by piercing before his arrival on the station. The guy looked at her while licking his lips.

On the other side, on the lowest bunk, laying down, was a woman, a girl that looked in her mid-twenties. She raised her head for a moment, taking a good look at Joan, before laying down again with a smirk.

Joan didn’t know what to do, so she began to slowly scoot away from the rat faced man but, as she inched closer to the bunks where the girls seemed to be resting, she was suddenly stopped by her voice, charged full of menace.

“Don’t come any closer or I’ll choke you with your own hands, cunt. Stay on the other side. Weaklings don’t deserve my company.”

At first, Joan would have wanted to act as she had always done, taunting and being just as aggressive but, this was her new reality and she couldn’t do much but accept it. For now, at least. The rat faced man, then, swiftly jumped off his bunk and began slowly walking toward Joan, opening and closing his hands as he approached. His eyes filled with lusty desire, as he inched closer and closer to the fresh meat just arrived.

He had tried to do the same to the other woman in the cell but, that bitch had almost gouged one of his eyes out. He learned and didn’t move any closer to her. But the new arrival? She was primed for the taking, he could see her already, broken doll within his grasp.

“Come on, sweetie, let Uncle Mike show you a good time…”

Just as he was nearing her, ready to jump on top of her, a guard arrived in front of their cell and, seeing the situation, rapidly extracted the Relaxatron, zapping the man right in the crotch. Mike howled in pain for a moment, before falling on the ground as he lost consciousness and pissed himself in the process. The guard moved closer and, seeing as the inmate was waking up, she barked him a few code phrases that rendered him pretty much nothing to be afraid of.

As she did so, she opened the cell to let the fourth, and final, prisoner into the cell. Joan barely had the courage to look up and see what other monster would enter in the nightmare that her life had become. But as she heard the energy field closing behind her, she felt a gentle hand caressing her shoulder.

As she looked up, she was met with the gentle eyes of Glenda looking down at her.

“G-Glenda?”

“Sure am, sweetie. Now, how lucky can ah be in finding you here, uh?”

As the statuesque woman helped Joan to stand, she turned around seeing how the bunks where disposed and rapidly grabbed the would be rapist, moving to drop him on the topmost bunk on the left side of the cell, right above the menacing young woman bunk. This one, opening her eyes saw what their new cellmate was trying to do and, without turning around, confronted her aggressively.

“You better throw that trash on the other side. The top bunk is mine too, you get it, Bitch?”

Glenda, letting the corpse of the still unmoving guy on the floor, inched slightly toward the apparently sleeping form of the girl, with her hands on her sides, while looking pensive.

“Nah…You ain’t nothing to be afraid of, ah think.

Barking to others but not, really, capable of doing anything, aren’t ya?

Now shut up, will you, you little, big tittied, freak show?”

As Joan watched, unable to speak, she saw the woman laying down opening her eyes in rage, as she slowly stood up from the bunk, revealing a short, thin frame but with a really impressive set of bazongas attached to her chest.

What caught most of her attention, though, was the pure hatred she was showing on her face.

“What did you call me, fatso? Nobody calls me ‘Freak’ and live to say it again…
Going to kill you for…uh? Oh, for the fucking Christ, is this a joke on me?”

“No, it ain’t sugah. Nice to meet you again, Lei Lei.”

Joan, astonished, saw the situation that seemed ready to blow up at any moment, defuse immediately as the twentyish girl tried her best to avoid getting caught by the immense bear hug coming from Glenda, only to end up being smooched in between of those massive arms. Joan looked surprised as she saw the bored expression of the younger woman as she looked up, as Glenda lifted her off the ground, keeping her against her bountiful chest.

“For Christ sake, Glen, let… me… Go!”

With that the woman managed to get free of the bear hug ad scampered quickly back, against her bunk, looking with a mix of hatred and joy at the older woman in the room. Glenda, on her side, was still smiling as if she had just received the most beautiful of presents. Turning sideways she signed to Joan to come closer, as she turned her stare upon the hugely endowed woman.

“So, Lei Lei, this is Joan… I’ve met her just as I arrived here. Would be happy if you tried not to scare her too much. Joan? This is Lei Lei, an old friend of mine. We’ve been bunkmates in another penal colony.

You can trust her, she’s good at what she does but she isn’t too bad to hang around with.”

Joan, trying to hide herself as much as she could behind Glenda, looked at the girl, at Lei Lei, noticing only now that despite how she had sounded like, she was a very short girl, hardly frightening at first glance. Especially with her huge chest jutting out of her, seemingly even larger than what already was due to the shortness of the girl herself.

“H-Hi..”

Lei Lei, bringing one hand up to her face, let out a huff of despair.

“Oh, god…You’ve got to be kidding me.
You’ve got another little protégé under your wing, haven’t you, fatso?”

Glenda, being as big as she was, turned and sat on the lowest bunk on the right side of the cell, making the bed creak ominously, still smiling out at her old friend and at her new protégé.

“Well, ah haven’t heard ya complainin’ when ah had you under mah wing, didn’t ya?”

Joan, now more confused than ever tried to look at both women, trying hard to understand what was going on, without much success. Slowly she began to move backwards, toward the energy field, as her bottled out fear began to cripple her mind, making her think that the two women could now, literally break her apart, and nothing would stop them. In hindsight, seeing as Glenda had always treated her, Joan knew it was fairly safe to be around her but, all the pent-up emotions since her arrival in that place, were now exploding out of her.

As Glenda watched, with a slight worried expression, it was the other girl that moved silently beside Joan, grabbing her from behind and keeping her still while, at the same time, whispering to her soothingly.

“That’s right, let it all out… Like that… Now, let it all flow out and relax.

I’ve been in your same spot, so I know what you are feeling now…

Shh, it’s okay. Good girl.”

As the short Asiatic woman helped Joan to lay down on the topmost bunk on the right side of the cell, right above Glenda’s bed, she turned to look at the older woman with a little smile.

“She really is a first timer, uh? I see why you’ve got your mother instinct all around her. Still, she’s got to toughen up if she wants to survive here. True, we’re in one of the less dangerous sectors but, still there are nasty people in here.”

“Ah know it… It’s just… it’s her first day here. Ah don’t wanna to scare her shitless…”

“Did you tell her why you’re in?”

“Ah…Ah haven’t really told her… she found it out on her own… a bit, at least.”

The Asiatic girl, sitting down in her own bunk, looked to Glenda, moving her stare to the still unmoving guy on the floor, and then back to the massive woman.

“You have to tell her. She won’t ever trust you if you don’t tell her your version. You know how the show goes, don’t you? Someone else will tell her something and she won’t come closer to you anymore.”

Glenda, looking glumly down in sadness, nodded slowly.

“As you did, you mean?”

“Yeah… with me, though, you’ve been pretty lucky. I managed to find the truth on my own and I came to you to apologize.

She’s a kitten, Glen, she’s not as strong as you and me.”

As the two women talked, Joan, still on the topmost bunk listened in trying not to be caught in the act of snooping on their conversation. As she listened, she tried to understand what Glenda may have as excuse for being a murderer, had she done it for revenge? To protect someone else, and in that case, who could it have been? Still, Joan didn’t move, trying to glean as much as she could from the two talking.

“So, Lei Lei, what are yah doing here?”

“Eh… the heck if I know. I was content to be in Leukos, not making too much of a ruckus, getting my weekly dose of smokes… it was good enough, I think.

Then the sentry came to me one day and told me I was being transferred. And here I am… You?”

“Same, more or less.”

“Don’t believe it. I know you, Glen… What did you do?”

“Ergh… Ah should have made yah learn to respect your elders better…”

“Wouldn’t have worked… and you know it.”

“Yeh… Ah know…Anyhow, was teaching another young boy how to survive in Melpomene, when the fool tells me that he’s befriended one of the henchmen of this big boss guy in our section and so he doesn’t need me anymore… Next day, ah found his corpse riddled with holes in front of mah cell.

Ah… Ah couldn’t rein it in, Lei Lei… he was just a boy…”

The Asian girl, staring at the face of her old friend, couldn’t repress a hint of fear. For Glenda’s face was full of sorrow and of a blindingly hot rage.

“So, when the time of the walking hour came, Ah took his body and brought him to the infirmary. Then, Ah went where this pile of shit lived… and Ah… Ah lost it. When ah arrived, they were laughing of him.

Of the pathetic fool who had delivered himself in their hands.

I… Next thing Ah see, is the guards taking me away… and blood.

Lots of blood everywhere ‘round the cell...”

“Christ, Glen…”

With that, Lei moved forward and sat beside the massive woman, hugging her as much as she could, as Glenda began sobbing.

“It’s okay, Glen… I’ll help you with the kitten… just, don’t coddle her too much… Its ok…
It’s going to be ok”

As Joan heard all that and seeing Glenda, the muscular woman who had seemed to her so indestructible, crying, she couldn’t refrain herself from climbing down and place her hand on the shoulder of the large woman. Glenda, tears in her eyes, looked up seeing the sad smile on Joan’s face and couldn’t hold it anymore, grabbing both Lei Lei and Joan in a massive hug.

As the other two girls were now together, separated only by inches, the Asian girl smiled toward Joan.

“That’s what you get if you get too close to Glen, here… She’s a hugger.”