Hidden Faults (17 page)

“Would you fuck a toddler?”

He looked about to punch me, his hands bunching into massive fists. “That ain’t funny.”

“No, but that’s my point. Everyone’s got a line they won’t cross. They wanted me to kill people. That’s why I turned them down. But it made me realise that I do have a choice, I do have power, even if I have to pay for it. So, I’m saying no more cock sucking, no more theft. Do your worst. You warned me. Can’t say you didn’t.”

I turned my head so I didn’t have to look at him. Noret and Kregan had made a mistake giving me the naksen shot. If I’d still been in withdrawal, I’d have done anything they wanted. I wasn’t
that
brave. As the silence went on, my courage started to disintegrate. Ganwe wasn’t exaggerating the situation. I’d seen enough now to know that.

“Look, Jodi. You’re putting me in a bad position here. And I don’t want to see ya pissing away your health to score a point off me. You lose fingers, eyes, a kidney—ain’t gonna be much of a consolation to ya. Can we make a deal?”

He was trying to meet me halfway. That wasn’t something Ganwe ever did. Never had to. Compromise wasn’t part of his technique. It was enough to get my attention.

“Tell me what you propose.”

In the end, neither of us got our way entirely, but it was still an improvement, at least for me. The sex trading was an integral part of the prison economy, and if I wasn’t part of it, then I’d lose any negotiating power on my own behalf or on Ganwe’s. So we agreed that I’d become an active participant. I could choose or refuse a man, and provided I wasn’t too picky, Ganwe thought it might even raise my value, though he warned me it could backfire, which I acknowledged as a risk.

I hadn’t realised that a queue had formed for my services. Ironic that I’d trained all those years as a doctor only to find my blowjob technique would be the making of me. I wouldn’t be servicing many men in the next four weeks anyway. The withdrawal would be rough, but worth it to get the debt off my back. I got the slight feeling Ganwe was relieved I’d taken a stand over that. Watching me in withdrawal every week couldn’t have been pleasant, and it cost him in customers for my other services. When it came down to it, I’d rather suck cock than go through withdrawal, but I had a choice which one I went for. Not how I wanted to spend the rest of my life, but it was the best I could hope for now.

It was brutal, that next month. My resolve to do it so hard and fast weakened every single time I started to show severe symptoms—fortunately, too late to go back on it. Once I’d got a new dose, I reminded myself that I had knocked another week down and survived it, and I managed to steel myself to face it again. The naksen helped in that, ironically. It dulled the memory of pain, dulled everything so it was all slightly more bearable. The thought of giving in to Noret still constantly tempted me. What Noret didn’t know was how long I’d spent fighting my own desires, my own nature. Those years of hiding my sexuality had given me more backbone than I realised. I wasn’t proud of it. It was merely a fact like my cursed pyrokinesis.

No one contacted me. I’d half expected Noret to check up, see if I’d changed my mind, but nothing. I supposed he thought I’d come crawling back, and find a way to contact him. But I had the upper hand here. He’d overplayed it, wheedling, bullying, trying bribery. Bringing Kregan in showed his desperation. I didn’t like the man. Spitting in his eye by not playing his game was an incentive in itself. The lustre of victory might wear off in a year or so, but for now, the idea of that creep spluttering with rage over my refusal gave me some of the strength to get through it.

The day finally came when I returned from the medic, and Ganwe didn’t tell me to roll up my sleeve. I had grown very thin and now had hardly any stamina. Another week like the last one would probably have been the end of me.

He looked at me as I walked in and climbed up onto my bunk rather shakily, then he came over and leaned his elbows on my bunk.

“You know you could sell that junk for a lot of favours. Don’t have to be every week.”

“I know. It’s not up for negotiation, Ganwe.”

“Okay. I can’t help it. I sees an opportunity, I got to go for it. It’s my nature.”

I rolled over and looked at him as I lay on my side. “Yes, I know that too.”

“You still hate me?”

I chuckled. He sounded so mournful. “You said yourself, you’re not a nice man.”

“No. I ain’t the worst, though.”

“No, you aren’t.”

A worse man had walked in, struck a chained man, and tried to force me to work for him. Ganwe kept telling me I’d get used to prison eventually—I doubted it, somehow. But at least I could live with my conscience. If I worked for Noret, even my soul wouldn’t be my own any more.

It became easier after that, though never actually
easy
, or pleasant. The new arrangement about sexual transactions caused some trouble, and Ganwe had to beat some heads together when men were turned down for past misbehaviour or present poor hygiene. But I made an extra effort to please those I did accept, and word got around that it was worth being vetted. Just as Ganwe predicted, he could then charge slightly more for my services.

None of the payments were in actual money, of course, since it was worthless in here, and virtually unobtainable. The currency in the prison varied considerably. Food was the big one—it came in through parcels sent by relatives, through trustees with access to the prison shop, and guards wanting drugs or sex. None of the prisoners used naksen unless forced to, for the simple reason it was too valuable, and getting hooked with no certainty of supply wasn’t worth it. A small amount of alcohol could be had, and things like books, toiletries, pictures of naked women, and even a couple of carefully preserved sex toys, were traded, as well as a frightening number of homemade weapons. I had no interest in it. My arrangement with Ganwe was simply for protection. I had no use for the rest, and didn’t want to carry a weapon even if I’d had the first idea what to do with one.

A month after I paid off his naksen debt, the medic surprised me on my regular medical appointment by completely filling my implant reservoir. He treated me with as much disdain as ever, so I doubted he’d had a change of heart.

I told Ganwe, expecting an attempt to wheedle those extra myclits from me as he did every so often, but he just went, “Huh. They’re early.”

“‘They’?”

“The Brethren. Them Marranite busybodies. I done told you,” he added, shaking his head impatiently at my stupidity.

“Oh yes. I don’t see the connection.”

He pointed at my arm. “Can’t risk them seeing you jerking all over the place, can they? Embarrassing for the big men here. Things’ll be pretty good over the next week, then it’ll be back to the same shit as before. Watch and see.”

He was quite right. Our diets suddenly improved, and there was a flurry of dental and medical checkups. Our worn overalls mysteriously disappeared, and ragged shoes were replaced. We were all given a luxurious three days’ exercise time under the sun replacement lamps—our pasty complexions needed improving. I regarded it all with cynical amusement. I had nothing against the Marranite charities who did some much needed work among the poor and unwanted, but if they were fooled by this nonsense, I didn’t think much of their analytical skills.

My opinion would be of no importance to them, of course. Only a small minority of Marranites—basically only the Children of Marra—considered paranormals abominations, along with any infertile or genetically defective person. But all of Marranism took a very dim view of homosexuality because of the importance of families to their beliefs, and of making and raising children, so I was damned whichever line they took. Spiritism’s tolerance of ‘deviants’ was another reason that the religion had been suppressed with such enthusiasm. The likes of me had no spiritual haven. I couldn’t dredge up much regret over that—not after everything else.

So my strongest emotion over the upcoming visitation was simply relief at being spared any withdrawal symptoms this week, though Ganwe warned me that the medic would probably scrape back what he’d given me this time. I tried not to think about that because the only way I got through any of this was to refuse to think about the bad things waiting in store for me. I had a lifetime of them to look forward to. What was the point of living them twice?

The other prisoners were similarly unmoved. I heard a few jokes about some of the Brethren females being ‘doable’ and fantastic plans were hatched to secrete them off to a side room and have their way with them, but no one had much interest in the religious side of it at all. Most, like Ganwe, saw it all as a sop to popular sentiment, and of no enduring benefit to the prisoners themselves.

Ganwe told me the Marranites would be here for a few days, seeing prisoners, doing random inspections of cells and so on. I looked meaningfully at his collection of ladies on the walls and he grinned.

“Guards know better than to let them idiots near my cell. They’ll herd them down another hall. This is a sacred monument, this is,” he said, stroking one of the pictures fondly. Other prisoners sometimes paid to look at his collection. Wasted on me, of course.

We knew when it was to be our day to be ‘visited’ because we were taken back to our cells after breakfast instead of the farm or to the exercise room. Already bored by the whole thing, Ganwe lay on his bunk whistling tunelessly and picking his teeth. I did some of the light callisthenics I’d started doing since I’d been freed of the punishing cycle of naksen withdrawals, trying to get a little fitter and put on some muscle mass—perhaps rather pointless but to abandon such a lifelong habit meant giving up.

The guards collected us at ten to join a group of twenty prisoners being taken to the visitors’ room. Twice our number of sky-blue-robed men and women met us there, all tidy and clean and holy, heads covered, protective symbols around their necks and gloved hands to prevent our skin contaminating them. They wouldn’t have admitted that was the reason, but my mother had made me cynical. A guard read our names off a list, and as each one was called, two of the Brethren—always a man and a woman—came up and guided the person away to one of the tables for a private chat. No one had asked me at any point if I even
wanted
to see these bloody people. Only curiosity stopped me telling the guard that I didn’t.

The guard called my name, and my two minders approached, smiling politely. I scraped up what was left of my manners to do the same. The plain, middle-aged woman had kind, rather tired eyes. The man—

Huh. What was left of my libido poked its head up and decided there might be an upside to this nonsense after all. While I stared at him, the woman greeted me.

“Brother Jodimai, the blessing of his Mercy on you. Please come with us.”

She put her hand on my arm, and I let them lead me over to the table. The modest robes with the long cape disguised the outline of their bodies pretty well, so I couldn’t tell what the guy was like. The outfits only left their faces exposed, but that was enough, at least in his case. He had the most extraordinary dark, long-lashed eyes, and strong, narrow features that I found curiously appealing. Of course, I couldn’t do more than look, but he was the most normal and attractive person I’d seen in months. For some reason they had amazingly ugly guards in prison, and the prisoners...well, the conditions and the shaven heads made everyone look old and grey and worn out.

I suddenly hated these people for flaunting their health and freedom in my face like this. As I sat down, I looked the woman in the eye.

“Anyone tell you I’m a deev?”

I expected some slight disapproval, had hoped for open-mouthed shock, but she only smiled. “Marra loves all his children, brother Jodimai.”

I did a double-take. “Really?” I narrowed my eyes at her. “Are you
sure
you’re a Marranite?”

Shut up, Jodi.

I jumped as a voice sounded in my head. I looked around to see who or what was doing it.

Knock it off! Do you want the guards to see you? Look at me. Yeah, me.

I turned and found Big Eyes staring at me with an intent expression.

Name’s Kirvo, not ‘Big Eyes’. I’m a deev too, just so you know. And a paranormal. We’re here to get you out of this place.

I froze, utterly shocked as the woman—
Jeyle
, Kirvo supplied—babbled harmlessly about Marranism and how it was their duty to see all his creations were well cared for. Kirvo was still watching me.

How?
I asked.

Wait. We have to go through with this for a few minutes. Try to look as if you’re listening to her.

Who are you people?

We’re not the government. It’s easier to show you than tell you.

My heart thumped so hard I thought I’d be sick. Was it possible? Was this one of Noret’s tricks?

No, it’s not. I can’t really prove that to you, but we don’t work for him. He can’t be trusted, Jodi.

How do you know my pet name?