Page 6 of Mutant Mine

When our eyes meet, mine dart away. My cheeks flush pink, even though he was staring at me too.

“What the hell is his problem?” I mutter to myself as I load my cart up with fresh uniforms. So what if I gawked like a fish for a moment when I first saw him? I can’t be the first person to ever have that reaction.

Frowning, I straighten my back, determined not to shrink under his gaze.

“Okay,” I call down the corridor. “Laundry time! Please put your dirty linen and clothes into your drawer!”

“IF YOU DON’T HAVE ANY DIRTIES TO TRADE, YOU WON’T BE GIVEN ANYTHING CLEAN!” Gregory bellows right by my ear.

He means it, too. As I move down the corridor, some listless men haven’t bothered to get up from their nest of dirty sheets. They’ll stay dirty, since Gregory stops me from sending any clean linen through.

It hadn’t really occurred to me that taking the prisoners’ clothes to wash will mean that they get naked. But that’s what’s happening. They’re matter-of-factly stripping everything off and dumping not just their gray jumpsuits, but t-shirts, underwear, and socks into the drawers. I swallow, trying to look unbothered.

You’re a man,I remind myself.You’re a manly man, and these are men, and you’ve all got the same… stuff. There’s nothing interesting about this.

I take the bundle of dirty laundry out of each drawer, and place a folded set of sheets, a towel, and two clean sets of clothes back in.

The rude man from yesterday, whose name I’ve discovered is Hatha, is trying to get my attention as I scoop the sweat-stained fabric out of his drawer.

“Lunchlady,” he whispers. “Hey, Lunchlady!”

I don’t look up. There’s nothing in there I want to see.

My nerves are building as I approach the end of the corridor. I don’t know why Roth is watching me, and I don’t know why I can’t stop looking back at him. I just know that my eyes are dragged back to his cell every few minutes. He’s magnetic in the way that terrifying things can be; like when you’re standing at a height and can’t resist peeking over the edge, down into the abyss, imagining what it would be like to fall.

It’s more than a little unnerving to find the abyss staring back at you.

Does Roth dream of me toppling into the black heart of him? Does he want to burst out of that cell and rip meto shreds, along with every other guard in here? He could probably do it with his bare hands.

My heart hammers.

Don’t think about that. I remind myself of what Carl said.He’s contained. He can’t get out. He can’t hurt anyone ever again.

I reach Roth’s cell, and keep my eyes down as I take up his worn clothes and sheets. The jumpsuit on top is warm from his skin. Jeez. How hot does he run?

The bundle also smells good. Like, really good. There’s none of the stale body odor that rises from the rest of the unwashed clothes. Instead, it’s sweet and spicy — like woodsmoke and brown sugar, and something else I can’t figure out.

Whatisthat? If I just bring it up to my nose and take a sniff, maybe I can identify…

…What am I doing?!

I hastily shove his dirty laundry into the cart, put the clean replacements into the drawer, and slam it through — glancing up at him at the last moment, just as I’m about to turn away.

Standing at the very back of his cell, Roth is undressed — like everyone else, but also really, really not. Just like the last time I got a good, close look at him, the breath is sucked from my lungs.

The man is a work of art. Weird, sure, butstunning. Those blue swirls carry on under his clothes, all over his body: spiraling down his limbs, gathering in a whirlpool on his chest, even trailing down onto his feet and to the tips of his fingers.

Every inch of him is perfectly in proportion and bound with muscle, like an anatomical illustration of the ideal man. He has no scars, no flaws, nothing. Even his horns are sculptural, looking like they’re carved from dark blue stone.

My eyes drift down… but the lower half of Roth’s body is hidden in the unlit depths of the cell. Thank goodness. Why am I even trying to look? Embarrassed, my gaze bounces back up — and meets his.

Roth isn’t parading his body for show. He’s just standing there, motionless, watching me watching him.

Shit. I’m a bad person. Imagine if this was the other way around: if I was the captive forced to take off all my clothes, and Roth was the captor with the stun-gun, ogling every exposed inch of me. How would I feel? Pretty fucking bad is how. Get agrip.

But I can’t, not yet. Heat prickles up my throat as Roth lets me stare for one long moment more. He gives me an indecipherable look — then turns away and starts to dress.

“That’swhat you like?” Hatha’s unwelcome voice snaps me back to reality. “Well Christ, babyface. If we’d known you had such freaky tastes, we wouldn’t have been playing so gentle with you.”

---