The Ballad of Verdene Molloy Ch. 01

(I was reading Alfred Bester's classic sci-fi novel The Stars My Destination when Verdene popped into my head and started threatening all kinds of shit if I didn't tell her story. I knew next to nothing about her but I had a go. I found out a lot. Some of it was quite alarming - this first chapter contains a graphic scene of sexual violence, so don't say you weren't warned. This is my first attempt at SF, hope you like it...)

*

Verdene Molloy was a grifter. Nature had blessed her with looks, smarts and charm, and her upbringing (orphaned at ten, ran away from children's home, living on the streets of New New Lansing since eleven) had taught her how to get people to do what she wanted.

She was twenty-six, had a mop of copper-coloured hair, pale skin with a hint of honey, wide green eyes, a wide mouth that smiled often, and a body that was simultaneously girlish and sinful. If you merely glanced at her, she looked much younger than she was, almost virginal; if you looked closer, you noticed the amused twinkle in the green eyes, the firm breasts, the curve of her hips.

She was a natural actor. With a bandaged chest, a grey linen smock and a wimple, she passed as a shy Novice of the Order of Saint Valentina. In a bustier she could hang with the saltiest whores on Lafayette Street. In a dark business suit and glasses she was a respectable and ambitious young employee of Bluewater Corporation. She kept a pod in Brava Whiskey Outpost and a shack on the edge of the great forest on Oriano 3. She liked spicy food and her freedom. She intended to make her pile by forty, then set up as something more respectable. She had long since decided that she wasn't interested in marrying money.

Verdene was a good grifter, but sometimes the law catches up. She was working the Art Garfunkel Memorial Spaceport on Algenib 4 when the meaty hand of the local police clamped on her shoulder. Her partner, a dough-faced kid, a friend of a friend for whom she was basically doing a favour and who had been trying and failing for two weeks to get into Verde's pants, was nowhere to be seen, of course. Protesting her innocence and claiming to be Sallifer Rosmus, an exobiology student from Diplopic 2 travelling the area on her gap year, she was taken down to the security office.

They scraped the fake prints from her fingertips and extracted, none too lovingly, her blue contact lenses. They took a blood sample, established that she was not an Earthborn but a Proxie, and arrived at a 67% probability that she was one Verdene Miranda Molloy, wanted in six systems for parole violation and fraud. That was good enough for them, and they took away her boots and belt and slung her in the cooler.

Verde never liked being pushed around, and she told the jailer what she thought of him in the ripest terms. Or rather she told the cooler door, which had already shut on her. Feeling better for having vented, she turned around.

There was only one other person in the women-only holding cell. A girl in her late teens, slender, expensive party gear, blonde hair, sitting with her face in her hands. Her shoulders were shaking.

Verde felt a pang of sympathy, but on the other hand her head did not have a zipper up the back, and the words 'STOOL-PIGEON' were blinking on and off in her brain.

'Hey,' she said cautiously. 'What's your grief?' The girl ignored her.

'My name's Verdene,' said Verde. 'My friends call me Verde. What's your name?'

No response from the sobbing girl. Verde took a packet of gum out of her pocket and popped a piece. She chewed thoughtfully.

'First time?' she said in a softer voice. The girl nodded without looking up. Verde went over to her and pulled a handkerchief out of her pocket. She held it out to the girl and touched her shoulder. The girl raised her face, which was swollen and tearful, and she took the 'chief and blew her nose.

'Thanks,' she muttered. 'God. This is so embarrassing.'

'What is?' said Verde, amused.

'I don't belong here,' the girl wailed, and tears welled up again. 'I've never broken the law before in my life! My dad's gonna kill me!'

'What'd you do?'

The girl twisted the 'chief in her fingers for a moment.

'Stole a flappy and totalled it,' she mumbled.

'What took you to do such a thing?' asked Verde, more amused by the minute.

'I don't know,' the girl said. 'I just wanted to piss them off. My mom and dad. I hate them.'

'Was it a new flappy?'

'Yeah.'

'What model?'

'Kestrel 54.'

Verde whistled.

'Shit. That's a couple of hundred grand down the clanky.'

'My dad's gonna kill me,' said the girl wretchedly. Verde eyed her for a moment.

'Gimme your hand,' she said. The girl looked at her, alarmed.

'Why?'

'Just gimme your hand, child. You can trust me or not, but you'll have a sad time if you don't, cause I'm the only other one here. Gimme your hand.'

The girl held out her hand, a frightened look in her face. Verde took it and examined it closely, peering and prodding at the fingertips. She then looked the girl in the eye.

'Never done a day's work in your life, have you?' she said. The girl blushed and shook her head no. Verde let go of her hand.

'I reckon you're telling the truth,' she said, and smiled, stroking the girl's head. 'Not everyone you meet in a holding cell is a pleasant customer. Count yourself lucky you met me. What's your name?'

'Alicissiter Himmelkreis,' said the girl. She was slim, with an oval face, blue eyes and very fair skin. She was, Verde noticed, extremely pretty.

'That's quite a handle,' said Verde with a grin.

'Lissy for short,' said the girl. 'Why am I lucky I met you?'

'Cause inside, someone like you needs someone like me.'

'But I'm not going to be here for long,' said Lissy.

'I wouldn't bet on it,' said Verde.

***

They had the hearings the same afternoon.

Verde and Lissy were the only women before the 'strate. On a colony world like Algenib 4, the justice was sometimes as rough as the manners. Verde stood before the 'strate and waited in patient silence as that gentleman roundly condemned her as a habitual and common criminal who deserved the full penalty of the law. It pained him, he added, that since the offence for which she was before the court was a relatively minor one, he was not at liberty to punish her to the degree she so fully deserved. Nevertheless, for the misdemeanour of displaying forged identification tabs to a law officer, he sentenced her to twelve weeks in the Dennis Hopper Correctional Facility.

Twelve weeks wasn't much to Verde, who had spent her entire sixteenth year being screamed at in behavioral school. She flashed the 'strate her most charming smile and sat down.

When Lissy stood in the dock, quivering and rubbing her lower lip like a small girl, the 'strate launched into a long speech about how she had been given every advantage in life and yet she had persistently repaid her parents' loving devotion by behaving like a hooligan. Verde sat and watched him, thinking to herself: Why do I just know that he teaches Sunday school. The 'strate worked himself into quite a lather over Lissy and her demolition of a valuable conveyance, and Verde realised that the poor girl was not going to be let off with a caution. To make matters worse, the 'strate informed her that her parents had refused to attend the hearing or to post bail for her. Lissy looked shocked. It was nothing to how she looked when he sentenced her to fourteen weeks in the same facility as Verde, the punishment to be erased from her record when she was released.

It wasn't much of a sentence for taking, driving away and crashing, and Verde cynically noted that a girl of less good family would have been put away for half a year or more. But Lissy bent over, as if punched in the stomach, and her face collapsed. She started to howl. The cops took her off the stand and sat her next to Verde, and she fell on the older girl's shoulder, sobbing uncontrollably. Verde did her best to comfort her, but Lissy cried all the way back to the cell.

This is not going to be easy, thought Verde.

***

The prisoners were taken to the Dennis Hopper Correctional Facility in an armoured flappy. They were chained together. Lissy stuck with Verde, having evidently decided to adopt her as protector. Some of the other cons made looks at them. Three or four of them were tough-looking women, and one of them -- a tall, powerfully built, handsome, heavily tattooed Draconian - looked hard at Lissy and made a gesture of opening and closing her fist, leering at her.

'What does that mean?' Lissy whispered, clinging tight to Verde's arm.

'You don't want to know,' Verde said softly, ignoring the stare of the others.

When they got to the facility they were ordered to strip off and form a line to the showers. As Lissy took off her outer clothes she began to weep, and a thin-faced women with bad teeth, one of the big Draconian women's crew, said something in their language about skinning the lamb. Verde pulled her t-shirt over her head and said to the thin-faced woman quietly 'Touch her and you'll regret it, pantywaist.'

'Watch your mouth, Proxie,' said the big Draconian in her deep voice. 'If we can't have her, we'll settle for you.' There were some cheers at this. Verde was down to her underwear, and as she removed her bra there were wolf whistles.

'Like to see you try, you fuckin' lizard,' she said with a smirk.

The Draconian, who was naked by now, and a formidable sight with the elaborate design marking out the raised crest that ran down her spine beneath her skin, glowered at her.

'Don't tempt me, Proxie,' she said, licking her lips as Verde slipped out of her briefs and dumped them in the basket with the rest of her clothes. 'I have a big clan. Think you can take all of us?'

'Any time you're ready, Gojiro,' Verde said, standing naked, resting her weight on one hip and giving the Draconian a bright smile.

The Draconian hissed with rage and lunged for her. One of the guards raised her stun-stick in an almost bored way and a bolt of light sprang from it and hit the Draconian in the small of the back. She crashed to the floor, gagging with pain, doubled up. The rest of her crew began to come forward, but the six other guards all cocked their sidearms and they subsided.

Lissy was naked now, and trembling. Verde quietly took her by the elbow and led her to the showers. They left the tall Draconian woman on the floor, being tended to by her crew. As Verde passed into the shower area, she saw the woman raise her face, wipe the puke from her chin and glare at her -- a look of pure hatred.

As she stood under the painfully hot, chemical-smelling water, her eyes shut, Verde reflected gloomily that she hadn't even got to her own cell before making an enemy.

***

Lissy and Verde were given the same thin cotton pants and shirts as all the other prisoners in Dennis Hopper CF, and put in the same cell. For the first day or so, Verde let her new cellmate adjust to institutional life. Or rather she tried to do so. The trouble was, Lissy wouldn't adjust.

She crept through those first few days in the prison as if they would go away if she ignored them. She stayed close to Verde but didn't speak to her. She wept all night, which kept Verde awake. She argued with the guards, which earned her nothing but smacks in the face and on the backs of her legs. She pleaded that her parents couldn't know what had happened to her, or they wouldn't have left her in this horrible place.

Et cetera, thought Verde. She had been where Lissy was, and she knew she had to snap her out of it and wake her up to her situation.

On the third night, after lights out, Verde lay and listened to Lissy's snivelling and weeping for half an hour, before she finally spoke.

'Lissy,' she whispered. Silence. 'Lissy! Lissy, I know you can hear me!'

'What.' Sullen and reluctant.

'You need to shape up, girl. You draw far too much attention to yourself.'

'Leave me alone.'

'You aren't alone anymore, child. You're in here with the rest of us. I suggest you learn where you are in the hierarchy.'

'I don't want to be in the hierarchy.'

'But you are, whether you like it or not. Lissy, I know you don't care about this, but if I hadn't been looking after you, you would have been eaten alive by now.'

'I don't want to be looked after. I hate it here. I want to be eaten alive.'

'Don't talk shit!' Verde snapped. 'You don't know what you're saying. You know what happens to girls like you in here? Cute rich girls with blonde hair and bubble butts? You know that Draconian, Joko? You know what she would have done to you if I hadn't provoked her?'

'I don't want to know!' Petulant and tearful.

'You would have been raped, Lissy, sure and certain! That whole crew would have eaten you for lunch, maybe not in front of the guards but they would have found a way! And I stopped that happening! Reckon I dunno why, now, considering all the thanks I get. I shoulda left you to them, if that's what you want.'

Silence.

'Lissy,' said Verde, 'inside isn't like outside. We do things we wouldn't normally do. I stood up for you, and that makes you my bitch. You're seen as mine now, whether you like it or not. And I could claim my privileges, cause you better believe, if you're my bitch I am entitled to them. But I don't claim 'em. Cause I don't want you to do anything you don't wanna do. And you tell me you don't want to be looked after? You don't even know how lucky you are. You spoiled little fuck!'

Verde was surprised at how bitter she was feeling that Lissy was pushing her away. But now she was very conscious that the girl was lying only a few feet below her, on the bottom bunk, still and silent. She could see, in her mind's eye, Lissy's oval, serious face, her slightly narrow blue eyes. She was aware of Lissy's breathing, which was measured and regular. Verde's throat ached and her heart was pounding. What was this she felt?

The bed below her creaked. Then a hand laid itself on Verde's arm. She looked right. Lissy was standing on the cell floor in the darkness, barely lit by the faint glow of the security lights on the landing outside.

'I am grateful, Verde,' she said solemnly.

'Good,' said Verde in a hoarse voice.

'Forgive me?' said Lissy. 'I didn't get it. I get it now.'

'Course I forgive you, dumb-ass,' said Verde, forcing a smile.

Lissy held out her arms, and Verde raised herself on one shoulder and looked at her. Lissy took Verde's face, raised herself on tiptoe and kissed Verde on the lips.

Verde melted inside. She made a soft moan. Then, to her amazement, she felt Lissy's hard tongue pushing between her own lips and into her mouth. She leaned into the kiss and Lissy responded eagerly, whimpering into Verde's mouth.

Verde disengaged from the kiss, smiled at Lissy and swung herself off the bed. She stood on the floor facing the younger girl, who was a couple of inches taller. They fell to kissing again, and this time Verde felt Lissy's hands on her body, quickly undressing her until Verde was naked in the faint glow of the security light.

They lay down on the bottom bunk, Verde on her back, Lissy crouching astride her. The blonde girl kissed Verde all over her body, her lips touching the redheaded girl's nipples, throat, face, chest, navel, hips, moving into her crotch...Verde arched her back and moaned...Lissy's fingers were everywhere, touching her most intimate places, feeling the soft smooth curves and unexpected hardnesses of Verde's body. Verde was dizzy. She felt that she was falling into Lissy and would never emerge.

Lissy stripped off her shirt but retained her thin cotton trousers. It was warm and close in the cell. Lissy parted Verde's thighs and put her face between them. Verde shut her eyes tight and hissed as Lissy's tongue brushed her labia. Lissy kissed and tasted and nuzzled and worshipped her protector until Verde had to clamp the pillow over her own face to muffle her cries of pleasure. Then Lissy took off her uniform pants and rolled Verde onto her belly and took the older girl to another level of excitement.

After they were done, and Verde was lying in a haze of something more than pleasure, Lissy was lying in the crook of her protector's arm, sleepy and tactile.

'Verde?' she mumbled, drifting off to sleep.

'Yes, darlin?'

'I will always love you for looking after me.'

'Thank you.'

'Whatever else happens,' Lissy breathed, 'remember that...'

Verde's mind was totally empty of anything but a long sense of satiation, and it took her a few moments to realise that that was an odd thing to say. But by the time she glanced down at Lissy to see if she could read her expression, the younger girl was asleep.

***

After that, Verde and Lissy were a normal prison couple. Verde, as protector, had Lissy to run small errands for her, sit at her feet and generally be her number one fan and admirer. Lissy had Verde to keep an eye out for her. There were a couple of occasions when some woman would talk to Lissy in the showers; Verde would go over, link her arm with the younger girl's and smilingly ask the stranger what she wanted. The stranger would get the message, except in the case of the Sirian girl who looked down at Verde and suggested that she mind her own business, and who Verde spun over her shoulder to slam face down onto the tiled floor of the shower, breaking her nose and lip.

Verde, for her part, was very happy. Lissy had unlocked something in her that had been buried for too long. She loved the girl's straightforwardness and innocence, and she liked having such a beautiful creature on her arm. She preened herself before the jealous gazes of so many of the other women. And at night, having been the strong one all day long, she got to melt under the surprisingly expert hands and tongue of her beautiful ward. In bed, Lissy was the one on top. Verde decided that maybe an expensive boarding school education wasn't such a waste of money, if it bestowed on the owner such cunnilingual virtuosity.

The period of pure happiness lasted about three weeks.

Then it changed. It always changes.

It started one association period, when Verde noticed that Lissy was a long time coming back from the john. She went to look for her and couldn't find her. Eventually she asked an acquaintance from Block F, who told her that she wasn't sure but she thought she'd seen Lissy talking to a Draconian woman.

Verde was astounded to find that this news hit her like a physical blow. She had had many lovers in her life and had never been jealous before, but the idea that Lissy might have been talking to a Draconian woman (how many Draconian women were on the wing? Maybe twelve, fourteen? And Joko was their leader...) was almost too painful to contemplate.

She went back to her seat feeling hot and anxious. When Lissy finally returned, Verde took her back to their cell and interrogated her at length about where she'd been. Lissy was at first confused, then denied everything, then admitted she'd been talking to a woman but denied it had been a Draconian, then finally admitted that it had been a Draconian but that she hadn't thought it mattered. Verde lectured her angrily about the danger she'd been in, and told her that Draconians were vicious animals who didn't give a fuck about anything except what they wanted and what they already owned. Lissy said that Verde was over-protective.

They fought. Lissy tried to hit Verde, who easily restrained her. Lissy cried and Verde wanted to, and they made up just in time for the evening meal.

In bed that night, their lovemaking was more tender than usual. Lissy apologised, and Verde forgave.

But the suspicions would not go away. Lissy would vanish for up to ten minutes at a time and claim that she'd been told to mop a floor, or sent on some errand for the assistant warden. Verde started to become obsessed with the idea that Lissy was cheating on her with a Draconian. She couldn't help herself. She was obsessed. Lissy had become her whole world now, and the idea that one of those huge, hulking, violent Draconians could be laying a finger on her beautiful girl was driving her mad.