Chapter Nine
Pretty in Pink
Eli did fall asleep, nodding off during Samuel's “bedtime” story. He’d always liked making up stories, especially children’s stories.
He’d written some to Hailey already, and with every letter she demanded another one.
The stories were an escape for him, a way to organize worlds that didn’t follow prison rules and that (usually) had happy endings.
He was constructing the next one in his head as he fell asleep and didn’t wake until something was being dangled in his face.
He reached up to bat it away and got a handful of pink synthetic fabric. It was the prison thong.
He flung it away with a horror bordering on psychosis. “ What the fuck , Thompson!”
Eli exploded into laughter, doubling over with the glee of a much younger man. One younger than Samuel, that was for sure.
“It’s not funny! That thing’s probably riddled with aids. Burn it.”
“It gives me nostalgia.”
“Your ex-wife?”
“My underwear drawer back at home.”
He choked—an impressive feat, considering he wasn’t even eating anything. One of the more ignoble ways to die, definitely. “Your own?”
“Don’t look at me like that. Nathaniel’s the pervert, not me.
” Eli pulled off his shirt and stuffed it into the laundry bag.
The bruise was gone. “Every Halloween I have to dress up as one of those “sexy” versions of some normally honorable profession. You know the ones. Sexy firefighter. Sexy police officer. Last year I was a sexy garbage man who came to ‘take out the trash.’” Eli was wearing that bittersweet smile he used when talking about his old life.
“It’s too bad I can’t do it for Than this year. It’s his favorite holiday.”
Worse than Eli’s anger, it was the man’s disappointment he couldn’t stand. He sighed and used his penlight to scoop up the diseased-looking G-string. “I assume Nat hasn’t seen ‘sexy prisoner’ yet?”
Eli’s face lit up. Samuel tried not to look directly at it. From the corner of his eye, he saw Forest Chuck (named for his lumberjack beard) shoot him a wink. That too, he wished he hadn’t seen.
“Come on,” he said with all the enthusiasm of a kid forced to go to school on a snow day. “We’ve got a lot of sanitizing to do.”
He wouldn't admit it, but the result was worth it. Nathaniel’s face after Eli bent over and exposed his pinkly framed ass, was one for the ages. The white of the bow looked particularly good against his dark skin.
“Eli Marcus Thompson how on earth did you get your hands on such a thing?”
Samuel wasn’t sure who was enjoying the scene more. Nathaniel, the audience, or Eli, who gave his husband an exaggerated wink and said, “Trade secret.”
The pair smiled at each other, and Samuel thought he’d done well, but then Nathaniel’s smile cracked at the edges. “I miss you.” The man tried to say the words conversationally and failed. His lips were pinched together, forced to look down at the dinged-up table.
Eli moved his hand forward until their fingers were only just brushing.
He didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to.
His eyes were full of apology. Samuel looked at Jenny who was just returning with their coffee.
He always looked at her to fix things, but there wasn’t much she could do this time.
Or so he thought. But then she slid his coffee in front of him—and something else.
A twist-tie, the sort they put on cheap bags of bread, but it had been wrapped into a circular band.
She didn’t need to say anything to explain it. He understood. If he couldn’t fix the situation, he could, at least, distract from it. He palmed her gift and tapped Eli on the shoulder.
“Yes, Puppy?”
He sank down to one knee. He knew it was only an act, and worse, a joke, but his heart was hammering so loudly he was sure everyone in the room could hear it. He forced some spit into his desert-of-a-mouth and spoke.
“Doctor Thompson, I know we haven’t known each other long, but I can safely say no one has ever been to me what you’ve become. Would you do me the greatest and ever-cherished honor of consenting to be my unlawfully married prison husband?”
He looked up into Eli’s face and held up the “ring.”
There was a sudden whoop, and not from Eli, who had more or less experienced the proposal already, but from Nathaniel, who hadn’t yet been told the news.
“What the hell! You guys! Oh my god.” He was laughing.
Thank God he was laughing. Eli was laughing too, the heartbreak in their eyes put away.
Mission accomplished. But the laughter stung, and not because Eli or Nathaniel were being mean, but because he was an idiot loser for getting nervous over a joke, taking the game of make-believe too seriously.
All around them people—prisoners and visitors alike—were craning closer, trying to understand the source of the commotion. Eli was looking at Nathaniel. For permission, perhaps? But the permission had been given long ago, and all that was left was impatience. “Say yes already!”
And Eli did, his eyes warm as he gave over his hand to slide the ring into place.
Samuel hoped nobody noticed the tremor in his hands.
He did a good job, he thought, of climbing to his feet, natural and unrushed.
The casual end to his little joke. Only it wasn’t the end, because Nathaniel seized him by the front of his jumpsuit and hugged him close.
“ Thank you .” And Samuel was shocked by the fervor in it, flustering him worse than the fake proposal had.
“I’ll protect him,” he blurted. The situation deserved something more, but he wasn’t sure what.
Maybe Nathaniel knew, because as he pulled away, the man clamped down on both sides of his face, and with those crazy burning eyes, added, “I love you for this,” and kissed him.
Right there on the mouth, in front of prisoners, visitors, and husband all.
It must have shorted out his brain, because he just stood there, staring at Nathaniel, like he’d just fallen from outer space. And then an arm snaked around his waist. A warm arm. A strong arm. “Laying hands on my husband already, Pearson?”
A small crowd had gathered, but Samuel was only vaguely aware of them—the two of them. A whole world. Nathaniel slid a hand onto the back of Eli’s neck. “What’s yours is mine, isn’t that right?”
Eli made a small sound in the back of his throat, something like a growl , and yanked his husband forward.
Nathaniel’s body collided with Samuel’s, sandwiching him between them.
Samuel opened his mouth, to say what, he wasn’t sure.
Maybe a plea to be released, or a reminder about the COs who wouldn’t take kindly to this.
But he didn’t speak fast enough, because Nathaniel raised himself up on his toes, and kissed his husband over Samuel’s shoulder.
Nathaniel’s hair was brushing his neck, and part of that jaw was pressed up against his face, but even more overwhelming was the crush of their bodies.
Nathaniel had fistfuls of Samuel’s jumpsuit in his hands and the whole of him was pressed up against him, aided in part by his husband’s hold, but also his straining enthusiasm to be closer, to be with the man he loved, except Samuel was in the way.
Why was he in the way? And as if that wasn’t enough, Eli— all of Eli—was at his back. Every bump and line of him.
It should have terrified him into shoving them both down and running.
Instead came an undeniable fascination. Already he could feel Nathaniel’s cock waking up.
It was smaller than Eli’s. Safer. And it wasn’t meant for him, anyway, even though it was pressing into his thigh.
No, it was for Eli, who seemed to sense his husband’s desire, even if he couldn’t feel it, and crushed him still closer, heedless of the 200-pound barrier blocking him.
The kisses became hungry, starving . Samuel found his hands jumping up to steady Nathaniel as he surged forward, but if he thought the foreign touch would bring the man back to his senses, he was sorely mistaken.
Nathaniel seemed to take the support for granted, or perhaps he just hadn't noticed it at all. “ Please ,” he gasped into Eli’s mouth, and, by proxy, into Samuel’s ear. “I need—”
Samuel knew exactly what the man needed, since Nathaniel’s hips were making it abundantly clear, seeking friction and satisfaction.
And he wasn’t the only one. With a groan, Eli’s arm left his waist and came up to clutch at Nathaniel’s face, kissing him, and kissing him, until the whack of the truncheon that Samuel felt like an echo, vibrating through Eli’s body and into his.
There was a jerk, and then a truncated and altogether distinctive grunt of pain, and already Nathaniel was coming to life with the realization of what had happened. “Son of a bitch, did you really just—”
Samuel was already pushing him back into safety. His sister’s arms. “Get him out.”
“Be safe. Don’t fight.” Jenny’s words were barely constrained panic as Samuel’s arms were yanked behind his back. Eli had already been hauled off.
“Sammy—!”
“Fine. I’m fine.” But his assurances were perfunctory. He was already swiveling his head toward Eli. They had to stick together.
“Let go. He didn’t do anything wrong! Let go!” Nathaniel wasn’t hiding his panic well. He’d slipped Jenny’s hold and was trying to make his way back to his husband, his outstretched arm going over the CO who was trying to keep him back. “Don’t hurt him! You’re hurting him!”
Eli was already being frog-marched back toward the gate, but he twisted his head around to shoot a reassuring smile his husband’s way. “Love you, Than.”
But Nathaniel wasn’t reassured, especially when Eli got another whack with the truncheon. Samuel too was receiving the royal treatment, but he didn’t feel it. His vision had narrowed to that truncheon. He imagined snapping it across his knee.
“Hit him again, Jameson,” he said, and it was in that voice he didn’t recognize. “I dare you.”