Total pages in book: 75
Estimated words: 71444 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 357(@200wpm)___ 286(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71444 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 357(@200wpm)___ 286(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
How does a man eat ice cream for thirty days, knowing that his diet for the rest of his life will be plain oatmeal? Savoring anything new is a risk to my state of mind. But it's a risk I need to take. I can't live in this place for another day without seizing this chance to feel what it'd be like to be a man on the outside again.
“They're coming out,” Hyde hisses, shifting his feet.
I follow him back into the open area just as Kinkaid leads Lory into the kitchenette.
He opens the refrigerator and pulls something out. It looks a lot like a store-bought ready meal. “There's food,” he says, “and a microwave.” As I get closer, the fixing anchoring the appliance to the wall comes into view. We’re not even trusted to use a microwave without it being bolted to the wall.
“You hungry?” he asks Lory. She shakes her head, and he frowns. “When did you eat?”
“This morning,” she all but whispers.
“So, you need to eat.” He finds a bunch of plastic forks in a drawer and tries to pierce the film. Every restriction carries a price. Every modification in this place is an accusation of what they believe we're capable of. They don't consider the circumstances that got us here. Any man is capable of violence, given the right trigger. Doesn't mean they'd do it again. Doesn’t mean they don’t regret it.
When the food is circling around in its illuminated, whirring chamber, Lory leans against the wall. Well, she kind of sags. I guess the threat of our presence is tiring.
“What else is in there?” Hyde asks, his eyes lit up like Christmas trees.
“You expecting beer?” Kinkaid asks wryly.
“One bottle would be nice.”
It would be. One bottle of beer would be sweet as honey, but it won't happen. Well, maybe it might if we're good boys and the warden's gratitude gets too much for him to contain. It's possible, but I'm not greedy. Little Lory is all our Christmas gifts for the rest of our miserable lives rolled into one sweet package.
The microwave dings and Kinkaid takes the hot tray from inside. He doesn't pass it to Lory, but instead, he carries it to the small table, complete with attached benches, also bolted to the floor, and places it down. “Sit,” he says softly. “Eat.”
She eyes the food, then us, more terrified deer than a human woman, but his tone is firm and seems to motivate her in the right direction. That's Kinkaid all over. Firm. In control. Always trying to keep everything straight.
“You hungry?” he asks me.
“I'm always hungry.”
He snorts and returns to the kitchen, but not before he nods for me to sit next to Lory.
“You making me dinner, too?” Hyde asks. “You playing momma?”
“Shut up and sit your ass down,” Kinkaid says, laughing. He could have added that Hyde's momma was all bruised skin and bone, so nothing like Kinkaid. He could have added that he'd make a better momma than that waste of space ever would. But he's not a mean man, and Hyde doesn't like to remember her that way.
While Kinkaid is busy, I fold myself into the seat across from Lory and make sure Hyde sits next to me. She tentatively peels the film from over the food, keeping her eyes low.
“So, Lory, you from around here?” I ask.
“I'm from Holdridge, two towns over.”
“Yeah? Me, too.”
“Me and Kinkaid are from Blackstone Valley,” Hyde tells her. “Still home, even though we're not.”
“You go to school there?”
Her dark eyes flick up to mine, and they’re wide with fear. I guess that Grady told her not to tell us about herself. He warned her not to give us information we could use against her, although why, I don't know. None of us are up for parole anytime soon.
“I went to Holdridge High School. Horrible place. Food was worse than in here.” She smiles fleetingly, but I continue. “Principle was one of those old dudes with a combover. When the wind blew, it'd end up hanging long on one side.”
“I had a teacher with the biggest tits you've ever seen.” Hyde rubs his fingers across his lips like he's tasting the memory. “Bigger than my head.” He glances at me. “Bigger than yours.”
“That's big,” Lory says, shocking me. I didn't think she'd be ready to talk back yet especially not about Hyde's teacher's tits.
Hyde snickers at the jibe I don't think she intended to make. I'm a big man with big everything. But I'm not the kind of man with an overly inflated ego.
“Was she pretty?” I ask Hyde, wanting to keep things light.
“Nah,” he says. “She was fifty and used to wear these cardigans buttoned up to the neck, except the buttons would open where her boobs were straining their way out.”
Lory glances down at her chest like she's conscious she's lacking in some way. Her tits are mouthwateringly small bumps beneath the too-tight dress. If I was a betting man, I'd guess she's not wearing a bra. Just the thought sends blood surging through my dick and fear pulsing close behind it. She's so unbelievably breakable, and none of our hands are gentle. We could do real damage with our pent-up sexual energy and the rough edge that comes with living in a place like this. You have to toughen up to survive. It's life or death, and for better or worse, I'd choose to live every time.