The Prison Officers Balm

The meal continued with a smaller contribution to the general chit chat from myself than that I provided at the initiation of the evening. The beer in my system pursued its inevitable journey to the sea and I got up from the table and went to the toilet. On my way back I met Will walking the other way down the corridor. I nodded acknowledgement still burning with embarrassment. He stopped me outside the Ladies john.

"Todd, I just want you to know something about Amanda, this time last year I thought I would have attended her funeral by now. I don't care what you are getting up to, but whatever it is it is doing her good." With that he patted me on the shoulder and made his way towards the Guys toilet.

I made my way back to the table, frankly still embarrassed but feeling better about myself. The meal ended with handshakes all round and promises to do it again soon. I walked out to the car park hand in hand with Officer Barratt and got silently into the car.

"You OK," she asked.

I smiled ruefully, "thank you for doing what you are doing, I'm OK, it was just a bit of shock. Who else knows."

"Oh just, Eva, Will a couple of other women in the office, some workmen I met in the canteen."

"Stop already," I cried interrupting her then we both laughed.

"What did Will talk to you about," she asked, her voice nonchalant, calm sounding but I could detect the strain.

"He mentioned you appeared to be happier, he thought you might have been dead by now without me. I have recorded it so you can listen if you wish."

"Todd I really love you, don't ever leave me. Put the cuffs on."

I took the cuffs out of the glove box and put them on, my hands in front of me and in my lap. We made our way home in convivial silence.

An increasing source of strain on our otherwise perfect relationship started to become apparent about four months in. Officer Barratt had booked a holiday before she met me with her mother and as the day of departure approached she became more stressed. She was sometimes snappy but always repentant afterwards, freaking out about me being out of her control for two weeks.

She was due to fly out on the Sunday and on the Thursday before while we were having breakfast she said, "I need to sort out some stuff at the prison on Saturday before I leave for my holiday with Mom. Come with me and we can fit in some fun while we are at it."

I looked up from my breakfast serial and nodded agreement. In the past few months of domestic bliss we had got into a routine. Prison visits had become less frequent, with the room downstairs we really did not need to take the risk of going to the prison for play. I suspected that she was just planning on locking me in a cell for a couple of hours while she did some admin. I knew what she was like when I was not under her control, going out to do extras work was not paying the bills and I sometimes thought more trouble than it was worth.

What she was going to be like while she was away on holiday I just did not want to think about. Maybe a couple of hours in the pokey was worthwhile if it helped de-stress her. She obviously still had issues.

So on Saturday morning she drove to the prison with me in the passenger seat. As we drove I talked about the auditions I had applied for, her grunting acknowledgement in a parody of active listening. We parked in the front yard of the prison. There where no other cars in the car park as walked over into reception, the cold plastic chair unchanged since the last time, but the chill in the air lent the room an even more miserable aspect.

She escorted me down to the room where I had originally been shackled those four months before for the TV show. There on the table was the cloth bag and also an orange prison uniform. Without a word I started to undress and put on the jump suit. It was one I had not worn before and was a bit bigger.

The restraints went on quickly I was surprised that she shackled my hands to the front and did not put on the chest restraint. The chain went around my waist down to my handcuffs that where in a handcuff cover and then onto the ankle chain. I could take slow hobbling steps.

"OK with me," and with that she walked me back through towards reception and through a door on the left I had not been through before. A short corridor led to a loading bay and parked in there with it back door open was a prison truck. I started to get anxious.

"What is going on," I asked.

"Get inside and I will explain the game."

I did as she asked nervously walking into the back of the truck. There were two lines of seats on opposite sides of the van. The windows where opaque letting in a dim light but you could not see out of them. She walked me over to one of the seats and pushed me into it. She strapped my arms and chest down and then attached my ankle chains to a ring bolt on the floor. Satisfied she grunted, and took a seat on the bench on the other side of the van looking at me.

"I have thought long and hard and decided that it would be too stressful for me to let you stay at my house while I am on holiday. It would ruin it for me and I would make Mom's life a misery. So I have signed you up for a twenty day sentence at a prison upstate."

"What!" my jaw dropped. I struggled in the seat and realised I was helpless.

"It is a good prison, not much violence mostly older guys serving out the last few years of the sentence. You can kick up a fuss and without much effort show what I have done but that would mean me going to prison and I know you love me too much to let that happen for just a twenty day stretch at a country club."

I was speechless, she was right I did love her too much to risk her going to prison, but this was pushing the bounds of it. This was not a game, I was in the prison system!

She got up without another word and locked the door. I expected the truck to start moving but I seemed to sit there for ages before I heard a dull thud I took to be the drivers door and the engine started. I did not bother to call out.

I had no means to judge time but after an age the van stopped. The rear doors opened and Officer Barratt appeared. "You are booked in for tax irregularities if anyone asks, minor stuff but the IRS likes to make an example every now and again."

"You don't have to do this, please don't."

"It is done now if you don't show there will be a APB put out for your arrest and questions will be asked and we will likely both go to jail."

She leant down and undid the waist strap and the padlock securing the leg irons to the floor of the van. She helped me to my feet and as I walked out of the back of the van onto the car park ground I realised that she had not been kidding. This was definitely a male prison, the walls were grey I could see behind me a fence topped with barbed wire and another fence after that. I was now terrified but continued to walk forward with Officer Barratt into the reception area of this prison. Behind the desk was a large black officer who gave me a cool and disinterested stare.

Officer Barratt handed over some paper work to the guard who came through to reception and led me into the prison. The door shut behind me and Officer Barratt was nowhere to be seen. Now was the time to tell the truth, but as she knew, I could not do it. I would serve my time with my mouth shut but I would have time to seriously consider my life choices.

She at least had been as good as her word about the prison. It was not too bad. I was not gang raped or attacked. Most of the guys were pleasant enough almost everyone had only a couple of years or less to serve so where not interested in having a fight.

The twenty days passed slowly but eventually it was release day.

"A message was left at reception for you, your gal will pick you up from the bus stop outside at 11:45," said the Guard he was the same one I had seen on the first day.

"11:45, bus stop" I replied.

My clothes had somehow made it to the prison so I walked out into the cold air of a March day with snow on the ground wearing a tee shirt and a thin jacket. It was 10am, I walked away from the prison and stood by the bus stop. Straight away Officer Barratt pulled up in her mini-van. I climbed into the passenger seat and without a word we drove away. After we had driven about twenty silent miles she pulled into a deserted shopping mall car park and stopped.

We both got into the back where she began to undress me I kissed her passionately on the lips but she pushed me away saying, "hands in front."

I hesitated for a moment but then complied, and she expertly applied the handcuffs, securing them to the top of the put up bed in the back of the van.

She stripped naked then lay on top of me, my hands held above my head. She kissed me on the lips and the neck and stroked my hair smiling all the while.

"You can't do that to me again, putting me in prison, if you do I swear to god I will tell."

She looked down at me and smiled. She brushed my hair from my eyes and caressed my face.

Then she whispered in my ear, "it will be the same time next year for the same period while I take my vacation with mom. I love you Todd but I can't deal with the thought of you being on the loose without me to make sure you don't do the wrong thing, leave me, or see another women. I could not bare that happening. Call it a trust thing."

I looked at her big eyes, her, hair had escaped from the pony tail and was lying across her face, I looked at her smile, she loved me, she was just a bit, intense.

"OK," I said.

"Will you Marry me," she asked.

"Yes Officer Barratt," I replied.