Lady Behind The Wall

"Good afternoon. Your name, please?"

"John Middleton."

She checked her clipboard. "May I see some identification, please?"

"Will my driver's license do, ma'am?"

She nodded and I dug my wallet out of my coat. She scanned it, recorded the number, and pointed to a dirt parking lot inside and to the left of the gate.

"You can park your car there, sir. May I suggest that you leave your sport coat behind? It's hot today and there is no air conditioning in the Visitor's Hall. It will be one less thing to worry about, and you will have to leave your car keys and wallet at the sign-in desk anyway. You know you're only allowed $20 in change?"

I nodded and took two rolls of quarters out of a pocket. She frowned, stepped back into the guard shack and came out with a plastic sandwich bag, which she handed to me.

"We don't allow rolls of coins because they can be used like brass knuckles. Just dump the coins into the bag."

I thought to myself that a bag of quarters plus a sock equaled a blackjack, but kept quiet as I obediently broke open the rolls and tipped the quarters into the baggie. She zipped the bag shut and handed it to me with a knowing smile that said as clearly as if she'd spoken, "Newbies!" She raised the pole and I parked.

A "You Are Here" map at the entrance to the parking lot oriented me. The route to the Visitor's Hall was marked, as was the Admin Building. Other buildings were shown, but only as anonymous rectangles. Warden Duffy might be a progressive penologist, but she was no fool. She understood that information is the most important item required if one is to attempt escape, and was insuring that visitors would not be able to acquire sufficient data about the camp layout to aid in an escape attempt. The information I'd gleaned about Rosemary Duffy, third generation penologist and granddaughter of the legendary Duffy of San Quentin, was that she was on her third assignment as a TDCJ warden. There had never been an escape from any prison she supervised. Attention to this kind of detail was a major reason for that.

The heat was high, but mercifully the humidity was low. I pushed my hat back on my head and walked slowly to the Visitor's Hall. Arriving, I was surprised to find an ordinary white frame and clapboard structure. I suppose subconsciously I'd been expecting something in gray concrete and steel out of the movies. A sign on the door said, "All Visitors Check In Here." I pushed it open.

I found myself in a medium sized room with benches along the walls and two rows of the kind of seats you'd find in a bus station running down the middle. About two thirds of the seats were occupied. The people waiting to visit their loved one were a mix of races with Hispanics predominating, many of the older women riding herd on children. I didn't see any other men. Signs on the walls reiterated the rules that the prison had sent with the letter approving my visit, along with framed inspirational posters.

"I'm here to see Deirdre Little Fox," I told the guard behind the desk.

"ID?" asked the guard. I handed her my driver's license. She typed the information into a computer and said, "Stand here, please." I shifted to a painted block on the floor in front of a camera and she took my photo. Next, I had to press my thumb onto a tiny screen. A printer hummed and a visitor's badge emerged from its slot. The guard handed it to me along with a plastic clip that she fastened through a slot.

"Put this on and wait over there." I clipped on the badge and obediently took a seat. There was nothing to do except watch the other people and wait.

At ten minutes to one, three more guards walked in. Their leader, a thin brunette all bone and whipcord muscles with something of the 1930s Okie Migrant look about her and sergeant's stripes on her collar points, clapped her hands to get our attention.

"Listen up! I know most of you have heard this before, but for the benefit of those who haven't I'll say it again. These are the rules for people visiting inmates here at Camp Jackson.

"One. Visiting hours are from 1 to 5 PM. You may leave sooner if you wish, but at 5:00 everyone must leave, no exceptions.

"Two. Leave your wallets, car keys and purses at the desk. The only things allowed inside are up to $20 in coins in a clear plastic bag and for you mothers, three diapers, a pack of diaper wipes and a plastic tube of ointment.

"Three. ID badges will be worn at all times. Turn them in at the desk when you leave and we will hold them for your next visit.

"Four. We allow visitors to have physical contact with the inmates. Use your heads and maintain public decorum. If you don't, you will be escorted out and you may not be permitted another visit with your inmate.

"Five. Rest rooms are located next to the vending machines. Be advised that there are security cameras covering them and govern yourselves accordingly.

"Are there any questions?"

A baby cried in its grandmother's arms, but that was all. As if that had been a signal, people began to shuffle themselves into a line in front of the guards. They looked us over, examining the diaper bags and handing us numbered trays into which we deposited the walking-around junk that assures the average American he or she is alive, retaining only our bags of quarters. One at a time, we were motioned forward and detection wands were waved over us to make sure we weren't concealing anything. After that check, the guards waved people through the door that led into the Visitor's Hall proper. With four officers, it went quickly. I drew the sergeant.

As she expertly inspected me, to my surprise she whispered, "John, when you get inside don't waste your time looking for Deirdre. She's out in the pavilion, at the far end. Go through the screen doors opposite where you come in. You ought to have a couple of minutes before anyone else goes out there. She's eager to see you, but please don't let her do anything stupid." She stepped back and motioned me ahead.

"Thank you," I said politely, trying to convey my appreciation with my eyes. She nodded back and gave me the barest hint of a wink as I walked past her.

The Visitor's Hall was plain, with lots of screened windows open to let in the breeze. Overhead fans stirred the air. The vending machines were to my left and a children's play area, padded with what looked like wrestling mats, was to my right. I wove my way through the tables and chairs to the patio doors the sergeant had told me about, ignoring the meetings going on around me. Pushing through them, for the first time I saw Deirdre in person.

She was looking out through the screens onto the grounds, her back to me. She was wearing a red sleeveless blouse and a black skirt that hit about three inches above the knee. Even the flats she was wearing couldn't disguise the shapeliness of her long bare legs and slender ankles. She was wearing her hair in a ponytail that hung almost to her waist, the lustrous blue-black of a grackle's throat. She was hugging herself and as I got closer, I could see her biting a finger in anxiety. She wore no perfume, but had a spicy, clean scent of her own. I laid a hand gently on her shoulder.

She whirled around and saw me. Her eyes lit up and she threw herself into my arms, wrapping me in a tight hug I reciprocated with equal fervor. She tipped her head back and found my mouth, kissing me with an urgency I hadn't expected. Although I was mindful of the guard's warning I could not resist dropping a hand to cup her buttocks and responded to her by slipping my tongue into her mouth to touch hers for an instant before breaking the kiss and cradling her head on my shoulder. I could feel her nipples through my thin summer shirt and her equally thin blouse, hard little buttons against my chest. Her pubes pressed against mine, rubbing against my rampancy. I looked at her, her eyes almost level with mine.

"Hello, Deirdre."

She kissed me again, with closed lips that nevertheless lingered sweetly. "Hello, John, my darling." Taking my hand, she moved to the wooden couch that looked out onto the grass and we settled onto it, me leaning against the arm and her leaning against me in the vee of my legs, her head pillowed on my chest and my arms encircling her beneath her breasts. She sighed in contentment. Many lines flashed across my mind, but all seemed somehow trite and went unuttered. We didn't need words to express our closeness. The feeling of her body against me, and mine against hers, said all that needed to be said.

Loud footsteps off to our left caused us to turn our heads. The guard sergeant who had told me where to find my girl was coming our way. She saw us on the couch, smiled, flashed us an 'okay' sign and retreated.

"Jarhead's one of the good ones," Deirdre said, looking at me and seeing my confusion. "She plays by the rules, but she'll bend them a bit if it might help one of her cons. Just like she's doing now." She shifted in my arms. "John, you know this sleeveless blouse I'm wearing?"

"Yes?"

"Well, when I lie down like this, there's a gap under my arm. The back of this couch conceals me from the eyes down, you know. I'm not wearing a bra. Go ahead. Fondle me. I want to feel your hands on me, lover. Please."

Casually looking to verify that no one was nearby, I slipped my hand into the gap she had indicated and found her breast. I cupped it, feeling its weight and firmness as I squeezed it gently. Deirdre shifted to place her nipple against my palm, whispering, "Don't be shy, darling. We don't have much time. Play with my tits!"

I got her turgid nip between my fingers and pinched while continuing to knead her ripe melon. She sighed and closed her eyes, murmuring, "Oh yes. That's so good! So good! I wish I could be naked with you. Don't stop! I love it!"

Emboldened by her reaction, I eased my other hand down to her waist. Her blouse was worn over the skirt and it was the work of an instant for me to slip my hand beneath her waistband, boldly sliding down the curve of her belly to her panties. Not asking permission, my hand dipped under them and found her divine fulcrum with its sparse border of hair. I gathered some of her moisture onto my fingertips and located her clitoris, tracing it lightly.

"Ohhhh..." she whispered, dropping her right leg off the couch to rest the foot on the concrete floor, bent at the knee, spreading herself to allow me better access to her pussy. Her eyes closed as she breathed, "Ohhh yes! Don't stop, John! Make me cum! I want to cum for you! Please! Make me cum for you!"

Thanking God at that moment for the wider angle of vision I possessed, I added a second finger and twisted her nipple as hard as I dared. I leaned forward as if to kiss her but nipped her earlobe instead, whispering in her ear.

"You like that, don't you, you little fox? You're a hot-blooded bitch in heat, my little vixen, my daring slut, aren't you, Deirdre? You love this, don't you?"

She was biting her lower lip, trying to control herself but at the same time desperately needing to scream her pleasure from my masturbating her. The need to present a decorous face and yet respond like a minx warred in her, heightening her pleasure masochistically.

"Yes!" she moaned between clenched teeth. I pressed a little harder and shifted my hand to bring my thumb into play, using a hangnail to scratch the clitoral shaft.

"And this? You like this, sugar tits?"

"Please!" she begged, barely audible, on the verge of losing control and shrieking her impending climax to the whole camp. For the first time, I touched the bud on the end of her clitoral shaft, feeling it hot under my thumb as I teased it, simultaneously and with no pretense at gentleness twisting her nipple and squeezing that glorious tit as hard as I could.

"Cum, Deirdre! Cum for me! Cum for your lover!"

Her hips rose off the couch as she pressed hard into the tormenting hand inside her panties. I heard her teeth grind as by a superhuman effort she contained the cry of exaltation she so wanted to release, to announce to the world that she was mine and proud of it. She fell limply back, breathing like a runner who had just finished a dash as I withdrew my hands to simply hold her again, watching as the flush faded from her chest and she rested in my encircling arms. When she was able, she turned her head and kissed my cheek.

"Oh, thank you, my darling. It's been so long since I felt the hands of a lover. I'm yours, John. All yours. Any way you want me, any time you want me." She paused and studied me. "You do want me ... don't you?" Bad as I am at reading expressions, I needed no crib sheet to see fear in her face.

"That was my reason for this scheduled visitation, o beauteous one. We needed to ascertain whether we are mutually compatible. Not merely in the coital arena alone. We must determine if we between us can devise amodus vivendiagainst the day you depart durance vile." Deirdre changed position so she was more sitting on my lap, the better to look at me.

"Your shift into professor-speak means you're scared. Why are you suddenly frightened of me, John? I'm your girl, any way you will have me. I'll be your friend, your lover, your live-in maid, your sex toy, whatever you want. How can that be frightening to someone like you, so powerful you can take me to heaven using just your fingers and your voice?"

I paused for a moment, trying to gather my thoughts so I could present them in a precise, concise bundle. She gave me the time, waiting with the patience of a geisha in the presence of her patron despite the urgent need to know where she stood with me.

"Darling Deirdre, Asperger's can make exchanges that are routine for the unafflicted exquisite torture for those who suffer from the syndrome. We are rarely positive that what issaid is what ismeant, that the words normals utter have meaning identical to what we are hearing. The stilted, formal speech that is the primary symptom of the illness gave rise to its nickname before Doctor Asperger's research became general knowledge in the medical community: 'the Little Professor Syndrome.' The uncertainty that accompanies our reception of speech frequently borders on the Heisenbergian! I can try to explain it this way.

"You lived abroad as an Army brat. I suspect you picked up languages quickly, because I know both your mother and your father were multilingual and children acquire foreign languages with far greater facility than do adults."

"Yes. Maman and Papa always spoke French around the house because Maman's English was not so good at first. I spoke French before I learned English. And I can stumble along in German, Vietnamese, Spanish and Tagalog; enough that a native speaker can understand me even if my grammar is a little fractured."

"Right, then. With that as a referent, here's how the world appears if you have Asperger's.

"Imagine you were born and grew up at Oxford University, speaking purest Oxonian English amongst the most cultured and educated folk in all England. Then you were magically zapped into the depths of the criminal underworld in Sydney, Australia, where the inhabitants of that milieu speak only Strine with a thieves' cant slang overlay, and gestures that can shift the apparent spoken meaning drastically, dramatically and diametrically.

"Do you think you would be able to understand what they were saying with absolute certainty that what youheard was what wasmeant? Or comprehend their expressions correctly?"

She paid me the supreme compliment of stopping to think about it before she made her reply. She took both my hands in hers and looked into my eyes.

"John Middleton, I am going to say this as simply as I can, using language so plain that my meaning cannot be mistaken.

"I have been falling in love with you since before our first telephone call. I believe you are the man I have been looking for all my adult life. I am your woman, if you will have me. I will be your woman any way you want me. You don't have to promise me anything. All I ask is that when I am released from here, you be waiting for me. That you let me be with you. That you let me try and make you happy, as you make me happy.

"Is that what you want, my darling love?"

The great weight of fear that had been pressing on me since I'd made the decision to come visit Deirdre lifted and my soul mounted to the sky on eagle's wings.

"Yes, darling. That's what I hoped you would say. That's what I want."

Her smile was bright enough to melt steel as she leaned forward and kissed me lightly, but with promise for the future. "So let's talk. What do we need to settle between us?"

Minutes flew like seconds as we continued the courtship that had begun with correspondence and ripened with telephony. Deirdre was serious about wanting to get out of Texas, selling her house and furnishings if that was what it took. She wanted to live with me and make a clean start. I had no problem with that, but suggested that she engage a real estate agent and rent her house out instead of selling it. She suggested in turn retaining the house in Las Vegas, pointing out that it could work as a base for many hunting and fishing trips in Nevada and neighboring states. It would also be handy if we ever decided to vacation there, which to my surprise I learned she had never done. All her time in the gamblers' paradise had been spent working, not playing. It meant we could discover the town together.

One point on which I would not budge was a requirement that her car be equipped with a breathalyzer ignition lock. "My sweet, you have told me you were caught twice in DUI-type situations from which you couldn't use sex to extricate yourself. How many times did you suck or fuck your way out of a trip to court where booze was a factor?"

She looked down. "More than I want to remember. Maybe as many as ... twenty, going back to college. More were for public drunkenness and not drunk driving, but I see your point. I like my booze, but it hits me like a ton of bricks, hard, heavy and faster than most people. I don't crave it, I'm not an addict. I can get along without it just fine, especially when I feel secure. The headshrinkers say I'm not an alcoholic, but there it is. If I don't watch myself when I drink, I'll do stupid things and sometimes I get caught."

"You shouldn't be all that surprised at not being able to hold your liquor, dear." She looked sharply at me as I continued, "It's probably genetic. None of the Native American tribes, North or South, ever developed brewing and distilling to the degree the Middle Eastern and European peoples did. The European settlers remarked on the natives' inability to hold their drink, and the incidence of alcoholism among Indians is many times the national average. And it's a fact Asian ethnicities often have a lower tolerance for alcohol than Europeans.

"Brewing and winemaking have been around for at least 5,000 years, and distilled spirits for more than 1,000. That's long enough for Mother Nature to genetically select for tolerance of alcohol. Three parts of your ancestry have low tolerance. The one part that comes from a high tolerance ancestor doesn't make up for the rest."

She relaxed again. "Just as long as it's nothing personal!" We laughed and after a quick peek I caressed her again, stroking her inviting thighs and arms as we continued to talk.

She definitely wanted to work once she got out. "I'd like to have my own beauty salon, but I suppose I'll have to work for someone for a year or two, build up clientele and establish myself before that can happen. And I don't want any help from you!" she added fiercely. "I want to do this on my own. I need to prove to you that I'm capable of standing on my own two feet before I can let you sweep me off them!"

"A little late for that, I should say," I replied, letting my hand stroke her inner thigh. She sighed and parted her legs, inviting more intimate caresses. Her skin was smooth velvet. My cock throbbed, wanting to bury itself in her and screw her silly. She trailed her fingers over the tent in my trousers and purred.