The Last Time

"There's another 'nonce' in the prison and this time Tony and Darren want an audience," a faceless man whispered in his ear, interrupting the voice of caution nagging inside his head.

He turned quickly in his chair. The speaker was a fat man holding a cigarette between his fingers and swearing at a lighter that wouldn't work.

"What...When?" he prompted the fat man, reaching into his pocket and lighting his cigarette, just avoiding setting fire to his long unkempt hair hanging over his face.

"It's going to happen at six o'clock tonight," the fat man confirmed in a soft Northern Irish accent, pausing to look over his shoulder and pulling nervously on his cigarette.

"Tony and Darren said you have to be there," he whispered, before disappearing into the crowd of anxious visitors filling the room.

The painful screams echoed off the walls inside the pre-fabricated building as Tony Elliott and Darren Adams exploded into a frenzied and violent attack.

With one foot pushed inside a dustpan Tony Elliott lost control, inflicting the paedophile with an onslaught of continuous kicks and punches to the lower body and head.

"Fucking nonce...Fucking cunt...Dirty fucking bastard," Tony barked, kicking the man repeatedly in the head, his growling aggression synonymous with a chained scrap-yard dog.

The battered man struggled helplessly on the floor, pleading for his life, trying to manoeuvre his body into a tight ball in a desperate attempt to protect his face from Darren's burning cigarette, his efforts futile, his cries for help smothered under the cacophonous chants from an audience of bloodthirsty inmates demanding nothing less than serious injury or death from their defiant gladiators.

The beating was swift and brutal, the inmates slowly melting away from the scene of the crime, the 'nonce' left lying unconscious on the floor in a pool of blood, his trousers pulled down to his feet, the wooden handle of the dustpan inserted into his anus and a letter 'N' burned into his forehead bearing the trademark of his heinous and unforgiving crime.

It was a freezing cold morning in March, the crisp fresh air stinging his face, as he headed towards the main entrance gates of H.M.P. Tollgate.

But the weather was the last thing on his mind.

He was going home.

After a cursory smile and a muttered 'don't come back,' the security officer opened the prison gates and he walked back into the civilised world of sanity and normality.

Blinking tears of euphoric release from his eyes and scanning the car park for his brother Frank, a bellowing voice and a waving hand guiding him along the path to freedom.

As he headed towards the car he wondered whether the best part of his life was already behind him. How he had missed the simple but precious moments that life had to offer.

An unexpected smile that had been hibernating for the last six-months suddenly lifted the corners of his mouth.

He looked back for the last time.

A sea of blue denim uniforms flooded the forecourt like a swarm of locusts, hundreds of inmates waiting anxiously for the morning roll-call register.

The haunting vision brought him back to reality, turning quickly on his heels, the biting wind in his face sweeping away the memories. The filth...The shit...The maniacs...The perverts...The screws...Douglas Wood...Tony Elliott...Darren Adams...Christine Noble.

Gone and forgotten...Forever.

Never again, he vowed...Never again.

Few things in life are more fulfilling than the euphoria of sex, although the feeling of walking through the main gates of a prison to freedom must rank as a close contender.