Page 30 of Auctioned to the Prisoners

The nickname is new, so maybe they did bond. Maybe she really is okay.

Lory considers, pursing her pretty lips and staring up at the ceiling. “It’s got to be yogurt and berries. I just love the really thick stuff. Full fat.”

For all of us, it’s basically anything that isn’t what we’re being forced to stomach.

I watch as Lory laughs at Rock’s attempts at humor and listens intently to Hyde’s childhood story. She has a way of focusing her dark eyes on a person and giving them her entire attention.

We pass the time the best way we can. I teach Lory a card game I learned from another inmate years ago to distract her from where we are and what she’s here to do for us. Rock takes it upon himself to keep things light, cracking jokes. Hyde stays close to her, but he’s different today—quieter, more introspective. I catch him watching her when he thinks no one is looking, his expression softening in a way that makes my chest tighten with a mix of hope and fear. At one point, he tugs her into his lap and feeds her little bites of bread slathered with peanut butter. It’s hardly gourmet, but she opens her pretty lips for each offered bite and smiles softly when he wipes a fleck of peanut butter from her lips and licks it from his finger. They remind me of high school kids fooling around in the cafeteria.

We’re walking a tightrope, all of us trapped together, but Hyde is doing better than I could have hoped.

When I check the clock on the wall and find it’s eleven am, I can’t wait any longer.

Lory’s sitting across from me, and she must sense the increased intensity of my gaze because she shifts in her seat, and then her eyes dart to the open door of the room she shared with Hyde last night.

She knows what’s coming.

And she licks her lips.

“Lory, want to come with me?” I make it a question, but I’m sure she hears it as an order. She could say no, sure. But she won’t get paid for that.

I wish it wasn’t resting like a wedge between us. In another world, in another lifetime, I wish I could have met this girl in a bar or at a supermarket, taken her home, and shown her a good time. We could have dated, and maybe more. It’s easy to imagine how a man could fall in love with a sweet girl like Lory, and I’m not a man who’s ever been in love. I don’t remember what loving or being loved is like. Respect, I understand. Friendship, I get. But love? It’s something that exists in books and movies and for people with fewer boulders weighing them down.

It’s for people who are free enough to let go of their hearts.

I hold on to every single protection mechanism I’ve developed. I sleep with one eye open and the rattling of suspicion in my ears.

With Lory, all I can do is focus on the physical. I can be a good lover if I can’t be a good human.

She rises, and Hyde and Rock watch as she walks slowly and purposefully to the room. I nod at my friends once, letting them know their turn is coming before I follow the mesmerizing sway of Lory’s hips and close the door behind us.

“You did well with Hyde,” I tell her as I strip my shirt over my head. “Kept him even.”

“He’s just like everyone else,” she says. “He just wears all his emotions where everyone can see them.”

“Was he gentle with you?”

She nods. “He was fine.”

“Good.” It’s a relief to know I won’t have to manage their interactions, although the idea of watching Hyde lose control between Lory’s legs sends hot blood to my dick.

I might want to be a good man, doesn’t mean I’m not a sick fuck in the privacy of my mind.

Lory eyes my body, lingering on the tattoos that pattern my skin and the muscles that boredom has honed. It feels good to be desired and appreciated. I missed being wanted.

“You got the condoms?” I ask. “I mean, I’m clean. There’s been no one else for… years.”

She grimaces. “I’m on contraception, but it’s better to be safe.”

“Don’t want to leave here with a crim baby in your belly.”

“I barely keep my head above water as it is,” she admits. “No way I could manage life as a single mom.”

I think about my mom, who had a revolving door of boyfriends who made my life a misery. They didn’t beat me like Hyde, but they kept mom’s attention elsewhere, and kids without attention don’t thrive. No kid of mine is ever going to go through that kind of hell.

“I don’t mind wrapping it up.” In truth, I’m happy it’ll make me last longer.

She nods, then slips her shirt from her body. Warden didn’t bring her a bra, but in truth, she doesn’t need one, and I love the fact that there’s no barrier between her sweet tits and the thin fabric of her shirt. Later, when she’s dressed, I’m going to pull her into my lap and run my palm up her flat belly and over hertits. I’m going to play with her in front of Hyde and Rock, maybe pinch her nipples hard enough to hurt so they hear her gasp. I could slide my hand into her leggings and rub her little clit until she’s squirming and wet.

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