Adieu warm sunshine, p.11
Adieu Warm Sunshine, page 11
"How?"
"They tweet their prison transports."
"They do not."
"They do. It's part of this anti-Patriot Act thing that New York got sued for, moving people around from prison to prison to cover up corruption witnesses."
"I saw that on The Good Wife," she mumbled.
"It was in the goddamn Village Voice."
"I just got here a few months ago!"
"You are not an intellectually curious person."
"No. I'm observant."
"But not crime scene observant."
"Human behavior observant."
"What's the difference?"
"Live bait."
"Okay. Anyway, your princess is in another castle. This castle."
"Are there visiting hours?" Sunny asked.
"I don't know. I don't think so. This is, like, crazy maximum security."
"But it's a state facility. Not federal."
"It seems so," Vash said.
"What does that mean?"
"She got arrested for something?"
"And is just now going to jail?"
Sunny put down her tea slowly and then got up and slid to the floor, sitting cross-legged with the scrap of paper in her lap.
"Aw, shit, now what?"
"I didn't think she was really alive, Vash."
"Me either, but lookee here."
"I still don't believe it."
He knelt in front of her. "Well, if you don't believe it now, it's because you don't want to believe it."
"I know." She began to cry.
He settled down and wrapped his arms around her and let the vodka-stinking drool run down his shoulder and his chest.
"This is pretty typical, you know," he said when she'd stopped her gasping sobs.
"Hm?"
"For missing person cases. Lots of shock involved. Hard to trust."
"I am not a statistic," she said.
He rubbed her back.
"And neither is she."
#
"Change into these clothes and put your personal belongings in this tub." The matron, nametag: Rita, handed her a plastic tub about the size of a dictionary.
"Okay..." Pamela studied her curiously.
"If you make an Orange is the New Black joke you don't get to eat today."
Pamela slunk to the corner to change.
She was getting used to the crush of people again. The smells of body odor and sweat and cologne, the sight of people trying to ignore her or trying to check her out. She changed into the prison jumpsuit, dropped her old jumpsuit in the trash, and put nothing in the tub.
"Nothing?" Rita asked.
Pamela shook her head.
"Okay. You're B. Costis?"
"P."
"Must be a typo."
Pamela grinned. Someone knew her name. Incredible. She nodded.
"You're off to solitary. Follow the guard here." She gestured to a young, swarthy male in a uniform.
"Solitary? What did I do?"
"That's just what it says on the paper. You some kind of serial killer?"
Pamela's face flushed. "No. No, I'm just—" What was she?
"Come with me," the guard said.
"I don't want to go to Solitary. Just—What can I do?"
"Talk to your lawyer. But for tonight, you're going in."
"I don't have a lawyer," she told the guard as he led her down the hall. He had no comment.
He shoved her into a dark room, only a dim light bulb high above that she couldn't reach, with a cot and a toilet. No kitchenette. No shower.
"What do I do?" she asked him.
He slid the door closed and opened the peep-hole. "We'll serve you dinner in here. Tomorrow at five a.m. you'll be led out to shower and then to the prison library to pick up any reading materials you might need. Then you'll go back in here until your lawyer makes an appointment."
"I don't have a lawyer!"
He slid the peephole shut.
She sat down on the bed, too exhausted to cry. Relief at being alive had turned to bitterness. Would she have a record? Would she be wanted?
She imagined moving back in with her parents. Working at Starbucks. Having investigators coming to her door every year. No future.
The light bulb flickered and went out.
#
Angela was at her makeup counter, examining a new wrinkle, when SWAT made her front door explode.
She nearly stabbed herself in the eye with her finger and turned around, screaming at the top of her lungs.
Her husband sat up in bed. He was pushed back down by a cop in a SWAT vest. They filled the apartment already. There was nowhere to go.
"Where's the duffel bag?"
Her blood ran cold, but she tried to stall anyway. "What duffel bag?"
"You know the one!" the masked man shouted. He held her arm. He was terrifying.
She was terrified.
"In the crawl space, behind the pantry, in the kitchen."
He looked toward the kitchenette corner. "Yeah, there. In the closet."
Someone else went to the pantry. The man stood, holding her arm. He looked down at her with a pitying expression. "You have a lawyer?"
"Yeah."
"You have a good excuse for hiding this shit?"
"Is blackmail a good enough excuse?" She tossed her hair expertly, despite his grip. She was a professional actress.
"Might be. What kind?"
"Shower pictures."
"Sick fuck. Why didn't you turn him in?"
"Does anyone really ever turn anyone in for anything?" she asked.
The helmeted head shook.
"Exactly. Now, unhand me, villain."
"Can't do that, lady."
"No, you wouldn't—"
"Oh yes. You're going to get booked. Downtown."
"Please. Call my lawyer. I'll do anything."
"This is why people should turn people in. Because otherwise they get left holding the bag. Literally." He drew her to her feet. "Now tell your man to call your lawyer and wake up the bank. We'll have you out on bail in an hour."
"And keep me out of the press?"
"We'll see, lady. Have you seen anything relating to Derek Little's business in the press?"
"No. No, and I didn't know it either."
"So you see. We're good at keeping secrets. If you cooperate."
"He's dead, now. I can tell you everything."
"Perfect, sweetheart. For that, I'll even let you get dressed."
She got dressed. Jeans and a comfortable sweater. It was humiliating all the same.
#
When Pamela arrived in New York City, she was a virgin. She wasn't smart enough for college, even for a dance scholarship, so she took classes at Merce Cunningham and went on auditions and waited tables.
She figured waiting tables was a good idea for her field, since she would eventually be working every night as a dancer anyway. It would pay off.
Which didn't leave her much time for a social life in New York, either. But it became a question of libido.
She'd had friends pressuring her—or politely inquiring—about why she wasn't sleeping around in high school. And since she lived in the modern age, they inquired about boys and girls. There were plenty of girls in her dance programs and several who made out with one another. There was a straight boy in ballet, and though she swooned a little when he picked her up over his head, it was more about the dancing. Strength. Majesty.
"So what do you like, anyway?" Marisa had asked her point blank at high school lunch, on a quiet day when everyone else had gone off-campus. Pamela ate salad. Another thing that freaked her friends out.
Pamela shrugged. "I think I don't want to talk about it."
"Well! Aren't there plenty of your type around?"
"Yeah, I guess."
"And have any of them asked you out?" Marisa asked.
Pamela remembered April’s quick, friendly smile, leaning in close, asking her to hang out sometime. Jo's invitation to a pot party. Jennifer slapping her ass. People checking her out in the shower.
"I guess," she said again.
"Maybe it's true what they say about dancing. It kills puberty."
"Hey, I get my period."
"And you have boobs," Marisa said.
Pamela looked down at her chest. "And I have boobs."
"Do they, you know, affect your chances?"
"Yeah. I'll never be a top dancer. But I can still be a working dancer."
"You should go on So You Think You Can Dance, so you can be a Vegas dancer. Wouldn't that be awesome? There's that guy who works for Lady Gaga now."
Pamela blushed and took a sip of her milk.
"You did try out!" Marisa said.
Pamela nodded.
"And you failed?"
"Pretty hard."
"Man."
"Pretty damn hard."
"And no sex? Girl, you fail all over the place."
"I'm going to get my high school diploma. My cousin can't say that. Pregnant and out in the tenth grade."
"Sheesh. There you go. At least you're not pregnant."
"Yeah."
"And not going to be pregnant at this rate," Marisa said and snickered.
"I don't know what you're talking about. I just haven't found the right guy yet."
"You keep telling yourself that, sister."
Even in New York, Pamela didn't quite manage to get a girlfriend. But she had a few lovers, mostly men, some she saw over a few months, never exclusively. And never fans.
Outside of a regional theater, refusing to smoke but hanging out anyway, Pamela got checked out by a fan. She smiled back.
"No," Brie, her brand new friend and roommate, had said.
"Why not?"
"Because she's a tourist. She doesn't have a bed."
Pamela frowned.
"And you can't have sex at our place."
"Not even once?"
"Definitely not even once. Rules are rules. You take that shit in someone else's dump."
Pamela gagged.
"Or something," Brie said. "No fans."
It was easier said than done. Men and women checked her out at the theater at least once a week, and more often when she was waiting tables. Once, she had asked someone to stay until after her shift and then had gone home with her, smoked a joint, and then fallen asleep. The woman kicked her out at 3 A.M., presumably to masturbate.
It hadn't been the finest hour for her ego, sex- or stamina-wise. For a few years she did nothing but dance, seemingly 24/7.
Then a girl called Texas, with tattoo sleeves up both arms, visited the stage door three times in a week. Pamela consented for coffee.
"You're so much hotter without your costume," Texas slurred, already drunk from a flask in her jacket because otherwise, who would talk like that?
"Thanks," Pamela said.
When Texas walked her to the subway, they held elbows, and Pamela noticed the track marks down her arm. She didn't sleep with Texas that night. She'd given Texas her number and was happy when Texas didn't bombard her with texts or calls like some drunken mistakes.
So when Texas invited her to a dance film on a Monday night, her only day off, she relented.
Texas didn't tell her how beautiful she was, only lit up like a firecracker when they met outside the theater and enveloped her in a massive hug that spun her around and made her laugh because Texas was laughing.
Texas was tall and thin, with dark hair and piercing violet eyes—contacts, she admitted, because they were so witchy—and she liked to wear leather. Her nose was pierced, and her tongue, and Pamela, not quite a virgin anymore, was intrigued.
Very intrigued.
When Texas put her pockmarked arm around her at the movie, she smelled like strawberries. Explained when she passed her flask to Pamela, who demurred, until Texas whispered in her ear, "It's strawberry wine."
Pamela took a sip. It was good. Light and fruity on the tongue. She took a second sip and then turned to meet Texas's incoming kiss. Also light and fruity, with a warm, teasing tongue for a chaser.
After the movie they went to Texas's place. She had her own room in Jersey City, an apartment shared with a guy roommate who didn't acknowledge them coming in.
Pamela was jealous.
Texas kissed her some more, standing with her in the bedroom, hands lightly at each other's waists. Pamela liked the taste of Texas's lips and was glad to think that she didn't have to do anything but kiss. No pressure. Just this. But her body responded. She stepped closer, wanting more.
Texas pushed off her own jacket and then tugged at Pamela's shirt. "We doing this?"
Pamela grinned. "I think so."
Texas freed her from her shirt and then left the bra to her, sliding down to kiss her chest, then her stomach, and then nuzzle through her jeans.
"I can tell you're ready," Texas said.
"I've been ready since the subway."
"Me too, baby. Me too."
Texas got to her feet, pushed Pamela onto the bed in a careless, airy way, and stripped off her own clothes. No preamble. Just more tattoos and skin and a tightly trimmed, dark bush and long legs. Pamela giggled. Texas resembled a praying mantis.
Texas went to work on her jeans, and Pamela let herself be undressed, let Texas take all the energy and infuse back into her, first with her feet and then impatiently her calves, her thighs. Texas crouched over her, Pamela still delighted.
"I want to fuck you. I want to kiss you all over. I can't decide."
"Do I get to pick?" Pamela asked. Her breath was shaky. Her hands grabbed at Texas's back, ass, shoulders.
"Sure, P. Where do you want me?"
"Kiss me everywhere, and then I'll scream."
She was getting used to the blunt way Texas talked. Stating the obvious. Talking out loud. "You're really fucking hot."
Texas grinned. "Good of you to finally notice." Then she lowered her head.
They smoked pot together the second Monday, since Pamela could sleep in. The third Monday the needle came out.
"Uh," Pamela said.
"It's fantastic," Texas said. "It makes sex so much better." She tightened rubber tubing around her elbow.
"Was sex bad before?" Pamela felt prim and proper, sitting naked on Texas's sheets.
"You know what I mean. It gets so... I can't describe it. So powerful and so sexy. Sexy like you."
"You go ahead," Pamela said.
Texas went ahead. Then she made love to Pamela with surprising passion and nurturing and staying power that Pamela was tempted. Texas was the lover she wanted to be, freed from her dull sex life. She wanted to see life move in front of her during more than just a stage show.
The third time Texas brought out the needle, Pamela took her hand, and smiled.
"You sure, P?" Texas asked.
"I want to know what you know."
"I know how to take you on the ride of your life," Texas said.
She wrapped Pamela's left arm in the tubing, which hurt like hell, and her vein popped to the surface, ready for Texas's needle.
"You'll go first," Texas said, gallant as ever, and pricked her.
The rush was quick and sudden, and Pamela nearly puked with the sensation coursing through her arm, down her chest, to her clit. It felt like being injected with ice water, a tidal wave of it. She gasped, and by the time she came to her senses the tubing was gone, the needle was in Texas's arm, and Texas was smiling at her. Teeth like Christmas lights.
"I need you," Pamela said.
"I'm right here, baby."
"I need you right now," Pamela growled. She was surprised at her own voice. Who had she become?
Then Texas was on her, kissing her, and Texas was really the best kisser that she had ever known, and their bodies fit together so perfectly, and they moved. It felt like forever, and then it felt worse, like she was unable to come. She forced Texas away from her and reached between her own legs, aching, nearly screaming, feeling like sandpaper.
"That's just you coming down, baby."
"So quickly?"
"I didn't give you very much. Your first time."
And it was still there, coursing through her, but a gentle bath now, not a wave. She came and let the echoes go through her body and out through her head and toes, and after all that felt... perfect. Like she had no muscles at all.
She needed her muscles. To dance. But why dance when she could fly?"
"I've never felt like this," Pamela said.
"What do you think?"
"That I can fly."
"Pretty useful skill for a pretty ballerina like you."
"You think I'm pretty?"
"I think you're a goddess." Texas kissed her and requested help, which Pamela was happy to give.
#
The relationship ended soon after. Pamela freaked out over heroin, Texas freaked out over her freaking out.
Pamela never had sex that good again.
She'd try once or twice a year, with a girl at a New Year's Eve party or once a lovely, older lady from Match.com who couldn't really give her what she needed.
She needed to dance.
And after four months without Texas, she needed heroin.
She asked around, and Derek was the one to serve it up, in eye drops. He explained to her how to use them, and she was so needy she dropped them right there, an hour before curtain up on her big show A week in and already she was getting high.
She was stressed.
Her muscles ached from dancing so much, day and night, from jogging, from stretching. From the raked stage.
She began to feel old. Like she'd have to give up someday. There weren't any dancers much into their 30s.
She needed something to take her mind off, to take the edge off.
She could blink away all the pain and truly dance again.
But she made mistakes while on the tar.
She slept with a fellow dancer, who got upset with her and left the show.
She spent all her money on tar and couldn't make rent, and Brie screamed at her until she sold her television and her stereo. She didn't listen to Brie's "This is how it starts" and found her own solution to the problem.
Derek would keep her in drops for a blow job once a week. That's all he asked. He wasn't greedy.
Right there in the theater she'd put her mouth on his slimy stick. Down there she promised to give it all up. To make her focus dancing.
To treat her body like a temple instead of exploiting it with black tar and semen.
