The Box

"Just stay off the box," Alina, my new bunkmate said to me as soon as I arrived.

It was the first piece of advice that anyone had given me since I had turned myself in for my prison sentence and I had no idea what it meant. At that point, I was too afraid to ask. I was too afraid to even respond. I just sat on the thin mattress and platform bed that would be my sleeping place for at least the next 11 months and tried not to cry.

*****

My name is Audrey and I am 26 years old and I'm white. It may seem odd that I mention my race here, but that is the most important identifier in prison. It never felt that way out in the real world but here we are divided into groups and that division is by the color of your skin.

It's no surprise that blacks are in the majority here. The black population in the United States has been unfairly incarcerated for centuries. I read somewhere that a black person was 20% more likely to go to prison than a person of any other race doing the same crime. It isn't fair and once I arrived in prison I learned that not only were the black inmates unhappy about it, but they were also going to take it out on any white person they could find.

There are other races here as well. The prison has a fair number of Hispanics and a smattering of Asians. They all keep to themselves. The Hispanics try to be tough but they mostly fight with each other. And the Asians just hide. We rarely see them.

And while I am being racist, I'll also say that on the whole, the black women here are big and very scary, especially to a 25-year-old rich white girl like myself. I'm 5'5" and weigh 120 pounds. Some of the black girls have a good six inches and 80 pounds on me.

To make things a bit worse, most guards are also black and angry. They rarely appear when a black girl bothers a white girl and they seem to appear out of nowhere if a white girl is causing any sort of trouble.

So how did I get here? I recently graduated college and was out on my own for the first time in my life. I think at this point I can safely say that my post-college life is not going so well. After graduation, I moved to the city to take on a job as a software security engineer for a retail chain that had recently moved into online sales. It was a great job that paid well and excited me. The job was not only interesting but it was tempting as well. I quickly found that I could pay my rent and utility bills through the security holes I was supposed to close.

That is until I learned that my bosses were smarter than I realized. In another office far away from where I was located, sat another team also doing software security. And yes, they saw everything that I was stealing -- right down to the penny.

One morning I came into work to find my manager and a police officer waiting for me at my desk. Not only had I been fired but I was being charged with embezzlement. Suddenly I was dealing with arraignments and lawyers. And when they were done with me I was looking at an 18-month sentence that could be reduced to 11 months if I didn't get into trouble.

Before leaving for prison, my lawyer told me about this place. It was a small building in a huge state prison system that held no more than 50 women, all of whom were short stays -- that is inmates who had sentences of less than three years. He explained that this was good news as I would not be placed with serial criminals or murderers. He called it a country club prison.

I reported to the prison on a Wednesday morning. I hadn't slept for at least 48 hours as I was cycling between getting what had been my personal life in order and worrying about life in prison. My lawyer walked me into the intake offices, wished me luck, and hurried out to his car, not wanting to be reminded of the client whom he had failed or to see me witness the reality of the "country club" that he had kindly described. I quickly learned that this was no club I would ever want to join.

Going through intake was a humbling and humiliating experience. I was literally and figuratively stripped of everything I owned. First, they took my belongings; a bracelet that I forgot to leave behind, the hair band that was holding back my long auburn hair, and the phone that I had considered to be an extension of my body.

Then they took my clothes.

In front of two (thankfully) female guards I removed every piece of clothing I had and stood stark naked

as they searched every cavity of my body looking for who knows what.

When they were done they marched out of the room without a word. Leaving me behind, stark naked as if I was a forgotten item. At this point, I had been stripped of absolutely everything -- including my dignity.

I don't know how long I stood naked and alone in that room. It could have been five minutes or half an hour. I just wrapped my arms around my naked body and cried. Finally one of the ladies returned with a package wrapped in paper and string. She handed it to me and said, "Dress!" Nothing else. I opened the package to find a one-piece orange jumpsuit with the word 'inmate' stamped in large letters on the back and a six-digit number on the front. With it was a large white bra and old-lady panties along with some ill-fitting slippers. I rushed to rid myself of my nakedness and move on to whatever was next.

*****

Soon after I met Alina I was exposed to many others in the ward. My lawyer was right. There were no hardened criminals here. It was mostly women who had too many DUIs, had gotten into too many fights, or like me had stolen money. Being young white and pretty made me an instant target among the black girls who regularly taunted me about being a rich white babe.

Alina explained to me about the different gangs in the building. Sitting on the beds in our bunk she whispered about the Big Sister gang,

a group of large black girls who controlled the prison. As she spoke she pointed to the wall behind me indicating that some of the Big Sisters lived next to us. "You do what they say," she said quietly.

I quickly learned that privacy doesn't exist in this place. We all live in a large room that is divided into two-person bunks. The walls between the bunks are only five feet high so if you stand up, you are in full view of everyone. The bathroom has communal showers and doorless stalls which means that being naked among fellow inmates is common and peeing in public is the norm. I can't count the number of times one of the Big Sisters with her tits hanging down to her belly grabbed my tiny breasts or slapped my bottom just to remind me that she is in control.

The yard is another scary place. Like in the showers, you rarely see a guard and if you do they are busy talking to each other and staying out of the little skirmishes that would result in them doing some unwanted paperwork or getting on the bad side of the Big Sisters.

During my first visit to the yard, I was accosted by one of the Big Sisters who got in my face and asked me for a cigarette. Responding that I didn't smoke didn't seem to appease her. She backed me into a wall, placed her hands on my crotch, and told me that I should have one next time. Alina saw me being accosted and came to rescue me, handing a cigarette to the big girl.

Later, back in our bunk, Alina consoled me. "You just gotta keep feeding the sisters," she said, handing me a pack of cigarettes that she had hidden between her bed and the wall. "Take these until you can buy your own at the store."

Like everyone else, I have a job and receive a meager payment for my work. The money I earn is spent at the prison store where I now buy the cigarettes that keep me in good graces with the Big Sisters as well as toothpaste, real toilet paper (the little squares given to us in the bathroom are useless,) used paperback books, and other items that make my life a little bit better.

Two important things are missing in prison. The first is color. The cinderblock walls are all puke green. Every piece of furniture is black. Black tables, black chairs, black counters and puke green walls define the space we live in. Even the grass in the yard is puke colored. I can only dream about other colors.

The other missing item is men. I have not seen a single male since my lawyer left me at the door. I constantly yearn to see a man, any man. He could be tall, short even fat. I just want to see the male figure. At night when it is quiet I slip my hand below my blanket, rub my pussy and try to imagine the form of a naked man. Though nothing is ever said and no moans are ever heard, I think everyone else is doing the same.

*****

For the most part, I stayed out of trouble during the first nine of what I had hoped would be an eleven-month stay. I have learned what the box is and gave the same advice to the new girls that Alina had given me on my first day. "Just stay off the box," I would say almost as if I knew firsthand the horrors that it would contain.

Occasionally I would hear about someone who had been to the box. We leave those people alone for a while after they return. They often stay in their bunks, sometimes missing multiple meals. Some permanently change. They get quiet and keep to themselves after seeing the box.

Sometime during my ninth month, someone went on a stealing spree. Everyone started missing their valuable possessions. Aline lost the pen and paper that she used to write home. It was heartbreaking for her as that was the only way she could communicate with her parents as they lived out of the country and the prison phone system wouldn't allow for those calls. I had a book that I was reading stolen. I had saved for weeks to buy it and it felt like my only connection to the real world. Both of us cried over our losses.

Then one day my world imploded. It started when I noticed that my mattress was getting lumpy. It was pretty thin from the beginning but now I couldn't even sleep on it. One night I pulled it off my bed planning to put my blanket between me and the wooden plank that was supposed to be a bed. When I pushed the mattress off the bed I heard a loud rattling and then the mattress burst open sending a flood of stolen items onto the floor.

The loud noise called the attention of my neighbors as well as the guards who arrived to see me sitting on the floor with everyone's lost treasures. I was immediately branded a thief by both the guards and the other inmates.

I had no mattress that night but it didn't matter because I sat up crying. Aline tried to comfort me but I couldn't tell whether or not she believed in my innocence.

The next morning I was delivered to an office where I stood at attention and listened to a loud and angry warden give me a long talk about consideration of others and the need for honesty among inmates. I tried to explain my innocence but she said that she had heard it all before. I had been caught red-handed and was presumed guilty unless I could prove otherwise. I had no way to do that.

At the end of her tirade, she hit me with the bombshell. I was going to the box. My knees buckled under me. I needed to sit but there was no chair. I placed my hands on her desk to hold myself up as I said, "Yes ma'am'" before being dismissed.

It wasn't until I got back to my bunk that I realized that she hadn't told me when this was going to happen. Was I going to the box today? Tomorrow? Next week?

I had a constant knot in my stomach for the next two days. Even though I had been given a brand-new mattress, I couldn't sleep. I tried to eat but no food would go down. I was in constant fear of a guard showing up to take me away.

On the third day, one of the guards stopped me as I was leaving my uneaten breakfast. She told me not to go to work but instead to go back to my bunk. Tired from lack of sleep and weak from hunger, I dragged my body back to my bunk where I sat on my bed, put my head in my hands, and waited.

My heart was beating so hard that I thought it was going to leave my body. I started feeling sweaty and sticky. I wanted to run but there was no place to go so I just sat there until a guard arrived and, without saying a word, took me by the arm and walked me away.

We went down the long hallway that led to the administrative offices. Along the way, we passed a couple of the inmates who were scrubbing the floors. They stopped and came to attention as we passed as if they were watching a funeral procession.

I had only been in this hall twice. Most recently for my visit with the warden where I tried unsuccessfully to convince her that I had been framed. The only other time was when I was admitted months ago.

We stopped by a door not far from the warden's office. Unlike the other doors, it had no nameplate. There was no sign of what was behind it.

I had expected to see the box when he opened the door but instead, it was an empty room with three folding chairs set against one wall. Across from the chairs was another door and to the right was a utility sink. The walls were the same as everywhere else in the building -- puke green cinderblock. I was seated in the middle chair by the guard who then left wordlessly.

Again I sat and waited. While sitting there I had decided that I would state my case again. Maybe whoever was going to punish me would go easier if they knew I had been framed and that I wasn't a thief. At this point, it was my only hope.

While I sat, waiting two more inmates were wordlessly delivered into the room. I recognized the first one to arrive. Stela was one of the Big Sisters, a tough black woman who occasionally picked on me. She liked calling me a spoiled white bitch, a description that haunted me as I felt like she had me pegged.

The second to arrive was one of the Asian girls. I don't recall ever seeing her before which was not a surprise as these girls tended to stay to themselves. She was a small girl with long black hair and a slight figure. If I had seen her in the streets I might have guessed that she was a teenager but to be locked up here she had to be older.

Stela didn't look nervous at all. She sat up tall in the little folding chair and crossed her arms as if she was ready to fight off whoever came out to get her. The Asian girl was quite the opposite. Her left leg was moving up and down uncontrollably causing her whole body to shake. She literally looked like she could explode at any minute.

Aside from the shaking, it was deathly quiet in the room. We didn't talk; we didn't look at each other. We just sat waiting for whatever was going to happen next.

Time is a funny thing in prison. You are placed here for a certain amount of time. When you come in you know how long you will be inside but what you don't realize is that time seems to move much slower here. A day may feel like three days. An hour can seem to take a day. On this day, in this room, time had begun moving so slowly that I thought it might have stopped altogether.

The sound of a handle turning and the slight squeak of door hinges finally broke the silence. The windowless room lit just a bit as a door opened and a guard appeared.

Her sudden appearance made all three of us jump.  The woman was dressed like the other guards with a brown shirt and badge.  Unlike the other guards who wear pants, this one wore a long tight skirt with a slit up the side. As she walked into the room I so noticed that she was wearing something I hadn't seen in my nine months here. Heels. They were low heels not like ones that I would wear to a party but they had that distinct clicking sound as she walked along the cement floor that only shoes with heels can make. I couldn't help but think that I would die to be wearing a pair of heels instead of my dirty slippers.

This guard was also younger, white, and much prettier than the guards on the floor.  Her long black hair fell in a single neatly tied braid almost to her butt and her figure showed through her uniform. I was taken aback by this person who was so different from anyone I have seen, staff or inmate for the last nine months.

She looked at the three of us like she was trying to solve a puzzle. We all stared back at her trying to anticipate what was to happen next. Finally, she wordlessly lifted her arms and pointed to Stela. I watched as Stela tried to look calm and collected as she stood and followed the guard through the door. I could see a little stagger in her step though. While she tried not to show it, the big girl was scared silly.

When the door closed the Asian girl and I were left alone. Her shaking hadn't stopped and she was beginning to look a little green. I wanted to tell her that it was all going to be all right but I didn't know if I believed that to be true. I kept my mouth shut and watched her fidget.

We both listened carefully for any noises behind the door that might give us a clue about our futures. I could hear some muffled talking. It sounded like Stela was getting louder maybe even begging. It sounded like, "No...Please..."

Then suddenly there was a loud snapping sound that almost rocked us out of our chairs.  It was followed by a guttural scream.  A silent pause and then another snap and another scream.  The snaps continued and the screams turned to sobs.  The sobs turned to pleas and then back to sobs. 

The girl next to me suddenly stood and rushed to the sink where she immediately threw up, gagging through her tears, her leg still shaking as she leaned over the sink. As I stood to go help her I realized that I might join her over the sink. Instead, I handed her some paper towels from the roll above the sink and rubbed her back as the loud snapping noises and the sobs continued from the next room.

As we both returned to our seats we realized that now there was only the sound of Stela crying. The snapping had ceased. Her punishment was complete and that meant one of us was up. We sat in our seats, both of us with our legs shaking now, and listened as her sobs subsided leaving us again in perfect quiet.

The door opened again. The same guard appeared, her shoes clicking as they had done earlier. She stared at us for a full minute like she was making up her mind about whom she wanted to torture next. My breathing stopped as her hand rose in slow motion. I couldn't tell which one of us she had chosen until I looked into her eyes. She was staring at me. I stood or I should say I tried to stand. My legs wouldn't hold me up and I fell back into my seat. Taking a deep breath I made it to my feet on my second try and walked toward her.

The time had come.

As I walked through the door I immediately noticed that this room was different from any other I had seen here. The walls, while still cinderblock, were painted a dark blue and held a few paintings. I wondered how a room like this could exist in the puke-green world that surrounded it. In the middle of the room sat the box highlighted by a large hanging light that was shining down on it.

The box was made of wood with a leather-like top. It was about six feet long and about as wide as a single bed. An eye hook was attached to each corner and a wide belt hung from the middle. It was obvious that I was to be tied to the top of this structure. At the side of the room sat a table with the equipment that was to be used to punish me; cuffs for my wrists and ankles and more importantly. a long leather strap that was to be slammed into me. Staring at this scene I didn't immediately realize that the guard had started talking to me.

"Audrey." the guard said in a pleasant voice that I wasn't used to from guards or inmates. "My name is Denise and I am going to be assisting in your punishment today. Do you understand why you are being punished?"

I could tell she was trying to make me comfortable in a very uncomfortable situation. It was working to an extent. She was the nicest person I had met in nine months and I began to relax. Maybe she is someone who would understand my dilemma. "Yes, I understand," I responded. "But I was framed. I didn't steal. I didn't do anything wrong."