Family Issues Ch. 12

Author's Note: Any and all persons engaging in any sexual activity are at least eighteen years of age.

As always, I need to thank, Stylus and Madison, my cool editors - for their endless patience, and great insights.

Last chapter had ton of complaints, and mixed emotions. I've been building the gangsters stealing Helen's company since chapter 3, and I thought it would be super-awesome. Just goes to show that what looks super-awesome in your mind can come out as a meh, or a blaghhh, when put on paper.

Too late now, the show must go on.

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"Yo, Kev, those semi-cuties from the pub I told you about, it finally happened." Mike kicked open his dorm room at noon. He wasn't surprised to find Kevin still in bed. "They succumbed to the Mike magic. Your bro is the king of low-hanging fruits. "

Kevin lay on the bed, staring at nothing.

"Anyway, long story short, I'm tired like a thirteen-year-old's arm." Mike checked the watch and scratched his dreads. It was half-past eleven. "Dude, it's a bit too early for a midlife crisis. Like twenty years early. I brought sushi."

"Not hungry," Kevin said.

"Come on, you gotta try it." Mike dumped a spicy salmon roll into his mouth. "It's bitchin'. Yum! Fresh! Just killed it."

Kevin shook his head.

"Apropos of sushi, Kev, did I tell you about the time I crapped on the train in Japan? Totally rad."

"We have toilets on trains in the USA."

"In Japan, they don't."

"Go be annoying someplace else, Mike!" Kevin collected his legs to his chest, entered a fetal position, and turned his naked back to his friend.

"What, not even a smile?" Mike started drumming on Kevin's bum with the chopsticks. "I can show you pictures."

Kevin shoved his head under the pillow.

"I know what will make you feel better."

"You, leaving me alone."

"Nah, let's go out and spread the love. Help an old lady cross the street, shit like that. I helped this grandma cross the street the other day, twice. The old girl fought a bit on the way back, but boy oh boy, what a good vibe."

Kevin growled.

"Dude, you gotta snap out of it!"

"Fuck off!"

"Can't, bro. I'm bound by the sacred vow of 'you shall not leave thy brother to mope.' Plus, you're stinking up the bed."

Kevin pulled the blanket over the pillow, but Mike pulled both off.

"An Indian-sounding chick by the name Riya called last night. She wanted to know when you're coming back to work and how come I'm answering your phone calls. She figured I was your boyfriend. I had no choice but to tell her how I'll make her scream in bed. By the way, if you do go back to work, it's best to avoid Riya for a while. Like, a couple of years."

Kevin sat up and sighed. A ninety-year-old-on-his-deathbed's sigh.

"Professor Ziegler was kind enough to call and ask why you didn't deliver the assignment yet. And last and certainly least, Jack called. He asked if your majesty would be willing to take a group for a couple of dives this coming Sunday. Man, the world didn't stop just because you decided to."

Kevin stared at him stupidly.

"That's it. I'm calling your dad. You have a dad somewhere, right?"

"Don't!" Kevin said. "I think I'll go out for a jog."

"What you need is to go out and get laid, dude. Tonight, you and I are going out to this banging new club I've been telling you about, the one on Washington Street. We're getting you some pussy. There is this Jamaican cutie who works there—I've hooked up with her once. You should hear her talk, she's a trip."

"They won't let me see her or even call her. They don't allow her to see anyone other than her lawyer."

"The police?" Mike didn't have to ask who 'her' was.

"The FBI. They already say they'll press fraud charges against her in a federal court after the murder trial."

"Jesus."

"I've got to talk to her, Mike, I've got to. I was shitfaced when she called me. I said stupid things. Mean things. Terrible things."

"Maybe it's for the best?"

"What?"

Mike let out a long breath. Comforting and counseling a friend whose girl was about to go for a lifetime in prison was way beyond his skill set.

"Mike, she didn't do any of the things they say she'd done. Don't believe a word of what they say in the papers. They don't know her. I do."

"You would never believe she could cheat on you either. Maybe you should accept the fact that you didn't really know her? Maybe...? Maybe you should try to let her go?"

"What?"

"Plenty of fish in the sea, Kev. Well, fish don't have boobs. Okay, forget the fish. But maybe it's time for you to move on?"

"Maybe it's time I get a new friend?" Kevin jumped out of bed.

"Man, what you all trippin' like that for? And where are you going?"

"I don't know!" Kevin put on his high school running shoes. A hundred yards out of the door, and he already regretted blowing Mike off. Mike was the best friend a man could ask for. But asking Kevin to try to forget Helen? He might as well have asked him to forget that there is a sun that shines every morning.

She was out there, locked beyond his reach, always present. Thinking about his beautiful Helen inside an ugly jail cell kept him awake at nights. Was she hurt? Was she scared? Helen was a slow adapter, and changes terrified her. She was terrible at reading situations, and jail wasn't exactly known to be a tolerant place. She didn't belong to a gang; she had no friend-making skills. The fact that he could do nothing about it sent him into episodes of impotent rage and despair.

Kevin ran aimlessly for miles. Like a broken GPS, his feet took him to the dead, empty streets south of the river, past the rubble mountains where once stood crime-infested high-rises. People lived and loved here. Helen and Diana grew up in this place, and those neighborhoods had once shaped his Valkyrie. Nothing remained but piles land broken dreams. Jogging, his heart was busy pumping blood, but even that wasn't enough to dim the ache in his chest. He went to sleep and woke up with it.

Kevin was so absorbed in his dark thoughts that he almost crashed into a black Toyota van. The car screeched to a halt for no apparent reason, veered onto the sidewalk, and blocked his way. Cursing, Kevin stumbled and found his balance.

"Asshole!"

The side door slid open, and Cecilia, AKA Madam Hulk, jumped out, faster and much more agile than a woman her size had a right to be.

"Hey, angel." She grinned. Her two upper teeth were missing. "Did it hurt when you fell from heaven?"

Kevin turned wildly, but another black Toyota van screeched on the asphalt and blocked the street and his route back. He changed direction again and dived under Madam Hulk's fist, then used a fire hydrant as a springboard to fly onto the van's hood. He ran over the windshield up to the van's roof, danced like a cat over to the other side, and like a cat, he landed on his feet and sprinted down a deserted alley... like a terrified cat.

Kevin heard shouts and curses behind him, but he didn't dare turn his head. He sprinted past a skeleton of what used to be a street. Cracked concrete and peeling walls, broken windows gaping into lifeless buildings. Down into a boulevard's corpse—dead trees and broken lampposts.

Don't look back.

Turn left, turn left.

Lose them.

Shouts behind him. They sounded far.

A yellow Suzuki DR buzzed like an angry bumblebee to his left on a street parallel to his. The tall motorcyclist wearing black leather and a black helmet went for a wheelie, then hit the gas and was lost behind a building.

Was he trying to cut him off?

His heartbeat was a furious drum.

Kevin doubled back, away from the motorcyclist's course, then changed his direction again, cutting through an abandoned playground and a muddied trail leading to a small, crumbling shopping center.

Hide?

They know where you are, keep running.

Through the open road, run all the way to the river. Lose them in the tall reeds.

"Shit!"

The motorcycle waited on the road ahead. The rider revved the engine twice, like a boxer in a ring, teasing his opponent. Kevin took off in the other direction, up a broad flight of stairs leading to the deserted shopping area's second floor. The rider fired up the engine and zoomed after him, not even slowing as the front wheel hit the stairs. He punched Kevin's back as he passed him. Kevin rolled on the concrete, kicking the bike hard as he fell, flipping both man and vehicle on its side.

Kevin rolled back onto his feet.

Fight or flight?

The Kevin from seven months ago would have turned his back without giving it a second consideration.

The current Kevin decided to make them think twice. He jumped on the downed man, not allowing him time to recover, kicking while the biker's leg was still pinned under the motorcycle. To his utter shock, the man effortlessly grabbed him and spun him into the concrete wall.

They were both up, facing each other. Kevin had his arms in the air, entering his Krav Maga stance. The motorcyclist limped a little; he must have hurt his leg when the bike fell on it.

The man took his helmet off, not a man after all. "Hey, sweetie."

"Hey, Brigitte."

"You were a little rabbit the last time we met."

"People change." His nose throbbed. He wondered if he broke it when he fell.

"Get in the van, sweetie."

"Can you sound more like an old pervert trying to nail a ten-year-old kid?"

"Nothing nasty like that. We're going on an actual date, you and I. Someplace nice."

"Cool. I won't be there, but you go have fun." Kevin flipped her his middle finger.

She smiled, and for the first time, he saw something other than the North Pole in her dead grey eyes. "It's strange."

"What is?"

"I tend to see most people as canceled abortions, but I like you, Kevin."

"You don't even know me."

"You're different."

"What do you want from me, Brigitte?"

"To use you."

"Sex?"

She smiled and licked her upper lip. "I wish. No, pumpkin, I need to use you as bait."

"Huh?"

She pressed her index finger to her leg and winced. "You've really done some damage there."

"I'm sorry."

"See? There! Right there! You're not just saying it, you're genuinely sorry, even though I don't deserve an ounce of pity. You're wired up differently. You're fucked up."

"Maybe it's you who's wired up wrong?"

"Probably." She extracted a smartphone from a duffel bag tied to the bike, and he was surprised to hear the camera click.

"Next time give me a heads-up, I'll fix myself and make a duckface."

"I just need to send a pic to confirm that I've got you bagged. No point in bait if no one knows about it."

"You need to catch me first."

"Yeah." Brigitte pulled out a Beretta M9. "Get in the van, sweetie."

--

"Ah, ah, ah, ah."

"Beautiful love of my life."

"Ah, ah, ah, ah."

Helen crossed off the words she'd written and started again. "I always thought that my existence was set on hold. Waiting to begin. Then you came, Kevin, and everything changed. It's like a sun with purple eyes shone over me, and all that used to be drab was suddenly radiant."

She crossed these words off too.

"Ah, ah, ah, ah."

In the upper bunk opposite Helen's, the blanket rose and fell like a mythical beast's hump. The two futa girls beneath it started out quietly, but as the fun progressed, one of them had a hard time keeping it down.

"Ah, ah, ah, ah."

Valerie grunted as she stood up and strutted heavily to the fornicating couple's bed. "Shut your hole, you hear me?" She banged on the metal frame. "Fucking animals!"

A raven-haired girl popped her head out of the blanket. Her face had a healthy flush. "Sorry, Patron." She huffed, then cuffed the blond girl beneath her. "Pipe it down, bitch!" She then dived under the covers again. The blanket kept rising and falling, but the sex show's soundtrack was reset to mute.

"Fucking animals." Valerie collapsed on her bed, blowing out air, and groaned as she fished out an onion from somewhere beneath her cot. "I'll tell you something, Barbie, you want to turn a human being into an animal, just lock him down." She peeled her onion, fished out a kitchen knife, and then, almost in slow motion, sliced a precise, thin ring, savoring the moment. She picked it up and gently placed it on her sandwich, next to the tomato, on top of a cucumber slice, on top of the thin bacon strips.

Helen felt her mouth water. She'd barely touched the food served that evening in the 'Chew Hall.' The meal cost the taxpayer $1.25 per inmate. It consisted of bread as hard as a hockey puck, watery oatmeal with extra protein in the form of a dead cockroach, and sausage the inmates called 'You don't,' which is short for 'you don't wanna know what's inside this shit.'

"It's a jungle, and they're fucking animals, Barbie."

Helen stared at Valerie's sandwich for a second; her taste buds pleaded with her to take a bite. Then she remembered Kevin's Jambalaya, and she resumed pouring her heart onto the page.

"Who are you writing that for? Your boy again?"

Helen paused her scribbling. The letter was already twenty pages long. "They won't let me talk to him. Maybe they'll let me send him a letter?"

"Lemme see that."

"It's private."

The Dominican futanari frowned. Valerie weighed over 260 pounds. She strutted around the cell wearing dark underwear and a black tank-top, proudly displaying numerous tattoos on her arms and her enormous chest. There were six beds in total. Except for Helen and the other blond girl, the other futanari sharing their small cell were Dominicans, and they followed a strict hierarchy. The guards called Valerie Ms. Diaz, but the inmates called her Patron. She carried herself with the swagger of someone who owned the jail. Helen found it perplexing, and she settled on not calling her at all.

"Don't be shy, Barbie." Valerie grabbed the stack of papers.

"Kevin, I miss you so much," Valerie licked her lips and continued to read out loud. "You're not allowed to call me, but I know that the thing we shared can't die so easily. Kev, I know you're angry, even if I don't understand why. Whatever happened between us, I know that we can fix it. If you could just send me a message through my counselor. Just a hint that I still have your love. I need it so much right now. I feel transparent in here." Valerie gave a Bronx Cheer. "Transparent? What's that supposed to mean, Barbie?"

"That nobody sees me in here. Nobody cares."

"You're such a funny Barbie. Every eye in this shithole has been on you since the day you've shown up."

"What?"

"It's a jungle, and the other animals are trying to figure out if you're a predator or prey."

"I'm neither."

"There's no such creature."

"I'm not a creature."

Valerie snorted. "They want to know if they should keep their distance or exploit you. You look hot, Mamacita, and in here, a mix of good-looking and naïve can be fatal."

"I'm no predator."

"You don't act the part, but you got them scars and this shit," Valerie pointed at her eye. "And you're here for homicide. People are not sure."

"And what do you think?"

"I think you should work at adapting, fast. You can't let people make you their bitch. Focus on your trial, Barbie; stop wasting your time on love letters. Boys come and go. You know what always remains?"

"Hope?"

"The knowledge that people are total crap."

"Kevin is special." Helen let her long legs dangle from her bunk. "I love him."

"Kevin is special." Valerie imitated her. She was the first inmate to address more than a single sentence to her, and Helen was grateful, but now she regretted sharing her private life. "Your bitch is not special. Give him a few months, and he'll forget you even exist. They all do. Find yourself a mint boy on the inside. There are fifteen men here for every futa bitch. There are cuties here who take three cigarettes or ramen soup for a blowjob, and three soups for a—" She nodded towards the bunk where the two girls were humping under the blanket.

"I thought that any physical contact with men was strictly forbidden?"

"So is almost everything here." Valerie pointed to her sandwich. "So is keeping sharp objects with stabbing potential." Valerie lifted her kitchen knife. "So is sodomy and shooting cheap Mexican Horse." She nodded towards the bunk below the fornicating couple. A nineteen-year-old girl named Josephine lay there on her back, her head in the clouds and the syringe still sticking out of her arm.

"I see."

"No, you don't, but you will. I'll teach you, Barbie."

"Why do you want to help?"

"Cause Mom never bought me any Barbies to play with." Valerie was so pleased with her joke she laughed until she coughed. "You're like a toddler. Transparent? Amarrar los perros con longanizas."

"Tying dogs with what?"

"It means you're naïve, and your enemies will exploit your naivety."

"What enemies?"

"Everyone here is an enemy, Barbie." Valeria snorted. "Transparent? That jumpy blondie Daria is playing Hide the Salami with... Why do you think they replaced one of my girls with that putana last night? She's here on a special delivery, just for you."

"Naomi?"

"Naomi's an FBI snitch. It means your investigation has reached a dead end. They're hoping you'll open your sweet mouth. Be careful around her."

Helen stared at the blanket as it rose and fell. A jail was terra incognita, with a set of laws different to everything she knew. There were no textbooks; you learned on the fly. "I don't need to be careful around her. She'll get nothing from me. I did nothing."

"Exactly! Be a smart Barbie."

"No, I really did none of the things they accuse me of."

"You and everyone else in here." Valerie stopped her lecture because the inmates from the other cells started whistling a warning of an incoming guard. The sandwich and the knife disappeared in a quick magic act that would have shamed David Copperfield. The two girls fucking on the bunk stopped the live show and helped their stoned partner to compose herself.

A few seconds later the cell door was opened by a guard leading a male inmate wearing a striped white and orange uniform. Helen, after seeing Orange Is the New Black, expected orange jumpsuits. She was dismayed to discover that striped uniforms were making a comeback in US jails and prisons, big time. The penitentiary issued all the girls on her block striped black and white jumpsuits on arrival.

"Took your sweet time, David," Valerie smirked.

The guard named David looked around the cell and frowned. "Will you fucking tone it down, Val? If Alex decides to go on inspection, he'll blow a fuse, and then he'll have my hide."

"Val? Val is what you can call your gonorrhea-infected girlfriend. It's Ms. Diaz for you, Jew Boy."

"Watch it, Valerie."

She arched an eyebrow.

"Whatever." He grunted and pushed the inmate in, locking the door.

Early on, it was discovered that it was a bad idea to incarcerate futa girls in female prisons and jails. Tossing them in a male prison didn't turn out to be a hot idea either. Male or female, futa criminals, with their natural strength, became any penitentiary's top dogs. There were no futa-specific incarceration centers, but they were kept segregated in their own wards, despite human-rights groups' pressure. Futas were only allowed to mingle with the other inmates during yard time, under the guards' strict supervision.

Apparently, there were exceptions.

The young man was in his early thirties. He had a dark complexion; he was slim and a little on the short side. His hair was a wild black jungle of curls.

"How was your infirmary vacation, baby?" Valerie smacked her lips.

"Cool. We had pudding tonight."

The cell had six bunks, and now, seven inmates. Helen wondered where the hell the new guy was supposed to sleep.

"Nurse Abigail is still a horny bitch?"