Girl in a Box Ch. 4-9

“I know. I’m sorry. You have to let me make it up to you.”

“You shit in my mouth,” Laura said, both her voice and her body starting to rise.

“No, no. I never. You have to forgive me. Please, Laura, let me help you. Please.”

“I hate you,” the guards quickly moved in. “I hate you, I hate you, I hate you,” she kept raving as they took her away.

Helen sat alone in the visitor’s room, staring at the closed door. It was never supposed to be like this. Her wild fantasy was never supposed to come true. It had seemed so perfect at the time. A beautiful, evil, murderess, a heartless dyke, running from the law. All the sick things she and her partner had grossed each other out with on their long shifts, all the nasty things they had whispered in bed, while they made love.

Nothing in their kinky fantasy had accounted for the fact that a real human would be their toy. Nothing in their thoughts considered the harm they could do. They’d both watched Laura disintegrating on TV, and they didn’t talk about kink any more.

Her partner had moved out and was giving her marriage another go, but Helen’s life had ended that night in the police car, when the little girl in this woman’s body had begged her to clean her mouth out one more time, and put on the garb of a vamp like a child wearing her mothers clothes. There’d be no forgiveness for Helen, what she’d done was unforgivable, but she would save this woman, even if it killed her.

Chapter Seven

One Little Candle

Laura didn't see him until he stepped in front of her. Her guards moved protectively ahead a step, but he appeared harmless as he wrung his hands and kept stepping backwards. Bobby the preacher was clean and washed, and except for his haunted eyes, could pass for a normal person.

"The voices, always confused. Guardian angel, so sorry. Can't say the words, too many voices," he rambled in a soft voice.

Agony wracked every muscle of his being as he tried to find words. Laura didn’t see his torture, she was mesmerized by something in his eyes. There was something of Jim in those eyes, though not a molecule of them looked the same. It dawned on her as she watched him writhe. It was love, unconditional, without strings. Bobby Thompson was here to save her.

"Can he come with us?" Laura asked her guards.

"Are you sure?"

Laura watched the lines of pain melt into relief on Bobby's face, "Yes," she said, "I'm sure."

Her lawyer was late again, so she asked if she and Bobby could wait in a conference room.

"Try to relax, Bobby. Take a deep breath. What have you been trying to tell me?"

He sat looking at her, nodding his head in an exaggerated way for entirely too long. It was as if he was waiting for her words to be translated. She was about to say more when he took a tremendous breath and slowly let it out.

“The evil one did it. He wants to destroy you,” Bobby said.

“You know who killed my husband?” Laura said.

“Yes,” Bobby said. He was pleased and relieved that he had finally gotten his message to Laura.

“Who? What’s his name? What does he look like?” It was all Laura could do to keep from grabbing his lapels and shaking it out of him.

“He takes many forms, invades many bodies. He’s invaded you and me, and your friend Julie as well. He can’t stay for long. The good in us drives him out,” Bobby said.

Bobby had not been able to put so much coherent speech together since the accident. The voices in his head were hushed in wonder.

“Oh shit,” Laura said, slumping. She wanted to start bawling. Always a hope, always dashed. She saw Bobby’s composure start to crumble before her eyes.

“No, no, Bobby. Stay with me. You’re doing fine,” Laura said.

She knew now that he couldn’t help her, but the demons he was fighting were even mightier than hers. Whatever happened to her, she couldn’t let this wretched soul be another one of her casualties.

“Love thy neighbor, do unto others, what you’ve done to the least of them, you’ve done to me,” Bobby’s face was screwed up into knots as he tried to get the words out in some semblance of order.

Look at him, Laura thought,he’s killing himself trying to help me.

“You’re doing fine, Bobby,” she wanted to hold his hand, pat it, tell him everything would be all right. “Treat other people the way you’d like to be treated. If everybody did that, all the other laws would be obsolete. I understand, Bobby, I understand more than you know.”

“Forgiveness, that’s very important,” his eyes were brimming with joy, but there was urgency that she understand this more than anything else. “You’ve been forgiven by the grace of God, but it doesn’t work unless you forgive yourself. You have to forgive everyone, you have to forgive yourself.”

Laura sat with her mouth open, staring at the madman. This crazy little bag of bones was her white knight. When all the others had betrayed her, Bobby held true, fighting his own dragons as well as hers. Could she do what he wanted? Could she forgive those who’d done the unforgivable? Could she forgive herself?

“Thank you, Bobby. You’re an angel,” Laura said.

Tears popped out of his eyes the moment she said it, and ran unnoticed down his cheeks as he smiled like an idiot. He seemed to float as he went to the door, and if he’d had a tail, it would have been wagging. Laura was still smiling when the bailiff came to get her.

Chapter Eight

The Light…

The hooker was waiting in the holding area, waiting for an appearance in the adjoining court. They never should have had the two of them in the same area, much less left alone together.

Laura was still lost in thoughts of Bobby and his victory over himself, and took a long time to recognize her. The words; “Forgive the unforgivable” kept echoing in her head.

“Marge,” Laura said.

“What,” Marge said, trying to act tough and failing miserably.

Everywhere Laura looked, she saw people living in their personal hell. Had the world changed? Or was it only now that her eyes were open?

“Is there any way you can forgive me?” Laura said.

“What are you talking about?” Marge said.

“I need to find some way to get you to forgive me. Please tell me how. What can I do?”

“After what I did to you in court? You want me to forgive you?”

“That was nothing. It was as if I stabbed you in the chest. What forgiveness is due for splashing blood on me? I may not know what happened, but I know why. It was my fault, I know that now, can you forgive me.”

“Like, you want to be my girlfriend again?”

She wasn’t backing away any more, and there was frightened hope in her eyes.

“We were two frightened souls, that night. We were pretending it was love, but it was terror of the dark. I’ll hold you again, like that, and I won’t let you go until you’re ready to walk on your own. Please forgive me Marge, I need it.”

They were so close that their breasts were touching. Laura’s arms were lifting to embrace her when Marge stepped back and dropped her head.

“I can’t. I’ve been horrible. How can you…, How can I…”

“It won’t work unless you forgive yourself,” Laura said, taking her hand and drawing her close. “Ask for forgiveness and grant it. That’s what a crazy man said to me. I think we should listen to him. Crazy people are always right.”

Marge started to laugh, but Laura’s serene smile told her she wasn’t kidding. The gap between them disappeared as Laura drew her close. Face to face, nose to nose, Laura opened her lips and tilted her head.

“Take this first step with me, Marge,” Laura said. “I need more than love, or my soul will die.”

Alone in the small holding area, the two girls kissed. First feverishly, then tenderly. They kissed each other’s tears away before they could fall, and were hugging each other tight when the bailiff came.

“I love…” Marge started to say at the door, “I forgive you with all my heart, and I am forgiving myself.”

Laura’s fingertip traced lightly over her lips. She still tingled from the kiss, but it wasn’t just lust, like it was with Julie. Something deeper had passed between her and the troubled girl, something that would keep them together as long as was needed, and allow them to part when the time was right.

Judge Katherine Pool’s longtime companion sat on the bench in the adjoining courtroom. She was not pleased to see Marjorie Kuntz before her again. An hour later, she was sitting in her chambers as Marge told her story to the head prosecutor for the city of Alexandria. It had been a long time since she had felt good about being a judge.

For the first time since the nightmare began, Laura entered the court without that lump of coal in her heart. Within a step, another face hit her, and her step faltered. It was Tex, and she could see he was being torn up inside.

“It’s all right,” she said softly, as he stared at her with his hollow eyes. “Trust me. Everything is going to be all right.”

The prosecutor called expert after expert that day. The forensic evidence they labored over was supposed to prove that Laura had killed her husband beyond a shadow of a doubt. Laura didn’t know what the hell they were talking about, and for some strange reason, didn’t care.

“Dear Helen,” she started on a yellow legal pad.

Her lawyer tried to see what she was writing, but she shooed him away.

This was a hard one. What Helen and Rose had done was the ultimate betrayal of the “do unto others” creed that Bobby held so dear. As she searched her mind on how to start, the aftermath of the rape came into clear focus.

Someone had known entirely too much about those two female cops. Knew that they fantasized about raping a woman, knew that they’d have to justify it in their own minds. What better victim than a murderous vamp? They had been primed for her, and that stupid story the bum had given her, had sent her right into their arms.

They hadn’t been fooled by her succubus act. Their lust was probably the reason they didn’t suspect sooner. As soon as Laura had tried to act like the very thing they had thought she was, their culpability had hit them like a sledgehammer. Rose had gone into a shell, and Helen had been so wracked with guilt, that she broke down in tears and ran away when Laura kept putting on her pitiful act.

They were all pawns of the same chess master, and the two lady cops were being destroyed just as surely as she was.

Laura had to tell her. Tell her exactly what she thought had happened to them both. Tell her she understood, and forgave. And most important, make her forgive herself.

“Tex?”

There was some kind of stir in the courtroom.

“He was here just a moment ago.”

“Have someone check the halls and the men’s room,” Judge Pool said. “In the meantime, why don’t you call your next witness?”

“I’m sorry, your honor. I can’t produce either of my next two witnesses.”

“Why is that, Mr. Prosecutor?”

For the first time since the trial had started, Laura saw the Prosecutor look sheepish.

“One of them called and said he wouldn’t be testifying,” he gave an amused snort as he said it, “I won’t trouble the court with what he said I could do with the subpoena. And I discovered that the other one’s testimony would probably be a pack of lies.”

“Too bad the jury couldn’t hear you say that,” said Laura.

He looked at her, but she couldn’t read his face.

“I’m sorry,” Laura said with a shrug of her shoulders.

He gave her a nice smile in return, “Nothing to be sorry about.”

His smile faded when he looked at Laura’s lawyer, and then he turned to the judge, “I don’t know what to say, your honor. He was here before the break.”

A commotion in the hall drew everyone’s attention to the back. Suddenly, the door burst open and a distraught woman ran in.

“Someone’s committed suicide. There’s blood everywhere. Somebody do something!”

“Oh, God!” Laura said, and was the first one out the door. She knew instantly that it was Tex out there, and she knew why.

A bailiff caught up with her, but knew right away that this wasn’t an escape attempt.

“It’s my fault,” she said, tearing her eyes away and burying her face in his chest, “it’s all my fault.”

He didn’t have much choice but to hold her as she trembled.

Dave and her lawyer left as soon as the judge announced that they’d pick it up again tomorrow, but Laura got the guard to wait while someone reported to the prosecutor.

“He’s dead, isn’t he,” Laura said.

“No. He’ll be all right. It looked a lot worse than it was, and they’re getting very good at patching folks up these days.”

“Thank you, oh thank you,” Laura pumped his hand, and was able to hold back her tears of relief.

She gathered her things, and thanked him again as she hurried out. She never noticed her note to Helen slip out of her pad, nor saw it settled on a stack of similar sheets on the prosecutor’s table. She was long gone when the prosecutor packed it unseen along with his other papers into his case.

Chapter Nine

…Of Truth

“Looks like you get a long week-end,” the head guard told her when she got back from court. “They’ve canceled tomorrow’s session and they’ll start again Monday.”

“I’m ready to go back to a regular cell,” Laura told her.

“We’re a little overcrowded,” she said, “I’d have to put you in with two others.”

“That’s all right,” Laura said. “I’m fine.”

“Judge Pool left it up to us, but she feels the same way. We don’t have to rush things if you’re not sure.”

The matronly woman had a hard cast to her face, but Laura could see a very nice woman behind the façade. The job makes her wear that mask, Laura realized, but that’s all it is, a mask.

“I’ve turned the corner. I’ll be all right, no matter what happens to me.”

“Go get some chow, I’ll find a couple of girls who won’t be a problem for you,” she said, and the mask crumpled into a beautiful smile.

Laura wanted to give her a hug, and the head guard knew it. She gave her a smile instead.

“I’m a new person,” Laura said. “You’ll see.”

“You give ‘em hell, girl,” she said.

Laura strode to the chow hall with a big smile on her face. The picture of the whiter than paste, middle-aged head guard giving her a ‘you go girl’ speech while chicken heading like a sista’, would have put a smile on anyone’s face.

Laura was the last person in line, yet someone cut in front of her. A tough looking black woman, six foot at least, hair in tight cornrows and a scar on her face. She had an ass like that cop, Helen, only bigger, much bigger. If an ass like that came down on Laura’s face, she’d never come out alive. Laura was transfixed by that ass, and jumped when the woman spoke.

“Hi, doll face. Like what you see?”

“No, I mean, it’s…, I…,” Laura stammered.

What happened to all that confidence she had just had?

Composing herself, Laura said, “I have some problems I have to work out.”

“Maybe we can work them out together.” she said, stepping closer. She took Laura’s hand and pressed a note into it. “Read this, ma’am,” she said, folding Laura’s fingers over the note and walking away.

“Not here,” a voice said from behind her. “Back in your cell, when you’re alone.”

Laura turned to ask why, but the girl who had spoken was rushing after the first one. She ducked under the big woman’s arm, and held the arm over her shoulder as they walked out. Laura saw the dainty white hand cup the black woman’s ass as the door closed behind them.

Laura sat by herself and was lost in thought, when the biggest, fattest black woman she’d ever seen sat down next to her. The woman was gigantic, and had a face as hard as nails.

“Hi, gorgeous,” even her voice was deep.

“Hello.”

“Nervous?”

“No, I… yes.”

“You gonna’ finish that?”

Laura offered her tray, but the woman only took the cardboard tasting turnover she’d put down after one bite.

“Thanks,” she said. “You’ve got friends in here, and more outside. In fact, you’ve got a whole shit-load of guardian angels. We thought you needed to know.”

She picked up her tray, and left.

Laura watched her leave. From behind, one couldn’t tell if she was a man or a woman, but at that moment, Laura thought she was beautiful.

The note was from Helen, and Laura’s mouth stayed open after the first line. Helen had a new “friend,” and together, they had been very busy girls. The revelation that the man prosecuting her was now in the circle of people who thought she’d been framed would have been enough to floor her, but what came after, made her skin crawl. She soaked the note into mush in the sink after she read it, and added her daily constitutional to its remains before flushing the whole mess.

It was just before lights out when her cellmates showed up. It was a startling reunion, and all three gawked at each other for a moment.

“All that James Bond stuff seems kind of silly, now,” the tall, black woman said.

Laura broke into a smile and started to chuckle. “Grass grows on the knobby hill,” she whispered conspiratorially.

“Not if you wipe from front to back,” the black woman whispered back.

Laura and the other girl instantly condemned her choice of counter-signs with, “Yuck,” “Gross,” gagging sounds, and general laughter. She took it all with a look of wide-eyed innocence and upturned palms.

“Please ignore my friend,” the white girl said. “She just learned that in the prison health class, and she’s trying to impress people.”

“My name is Maureen Barbour,” the black woman said as she dragged the white girl in front of her and clamped a hand over her mouth. “Everybody calls me Mo.”

“That’s because she can’t spell Maureen,” the white girl said, pulling Mo’s hand off her mouth. “I’m Stacy.”

“Which is the short form of an Indian name that means; ‘Paleface who walks into trees a lot,’” Mo said.

“I’m Laura,” Laura said, holding out her hand.

The lights flickered as they shook, meaning lights out in five.

Stacy’s mood seemed to falter, and Laura caught her glance at an upper bunk. Laura realized that only two of the four bunks were made up, hers, and theirs.

“I guess I’ll sleep up here tonight,” Stacy said, starting to put blankets on the bunk over the other made up one.

“No, wait,” Laura said, rushing over, “not on my account, please.”

“Its no big deal,” Mo said, starting to help make the upper bunk.

“Bullshit,” Laura said, getting right in Mo’s face. “You’re in love, both of you are, a blind man could see that. You’re not going to miss a single night of that love on my account, and that’s that.”

“It’s all right. We can wait,” Stacy said, looking down.

“No,” Laura said, lifting Stacy’s chin with her fingertips, “don’t ever wait. Never miss a kiss, never put a hug off until tomorrow. Some day you’ll run out of tomorrows, and you can’t bring the lost days back.”

Laura had started to get choked up at the end of her little speech, and gave them a bright smile to ease the concern on their faces.

“We could just sleep in the same bed and not do anything.”

Laura gave them a stern look, followed by an exasperated one. “I won’t look,” she said.

“We don’t care if you look,” Mo said. “It’s just that we get a little freaky and have a hard time keeping quiet.”

“It’ll be music,” Laura said. “I’ll dream of my own loves as you sing me a lullaby.”

There was a short pause before they both cracked up. They were still giggling and singing “Lullaby and good night” in ‘wicked witch of the west’ voices when they tumbled into bed.

Laura didn’t want to look, and kept her breathing steady as she half-heard their whispers. Long moments of silence would follow each creak of their bed, and Laura kept wanting to change position, as she stayed frozen in one spot, pretending to be asleep.

An indrawn breath was suddenly silenced, and faint whimpers made their way thru a muffling pillow. Laura wasn’t sure if it was arousal that was forcing her head to carefully turn, or morbid curiosity.