The Look: Alpha Male, Feisty Female Romance (80 page)

“OK.”

“The guy is a bastard. You don't know the shit he committed trying to get your boy in the chair. He would do anything if he thought you were guilty. I wouldn't be surprised he if he has murdered someone himself in the past. I just wouldn't put it past him.”

“What did he do?”

“So many things with the jury, to make sure you wouldn't get in his way.”

“He rigged the fucking jury. I knew it.”

“Well yeah, but he's smart Carter. He did it right on the edge of the law, where it would be hard to pin him down.”

“But you could testify.”

“Do you know what he'll do to me, Carter? He'll find a way to frame me. God forbid he find out about us.”

Carter sighed. “You knew all along and you didn't say anything.”

“What was I supposed to do, stand up in court like a fool and vouch for the outcast? I'd lose my job.”

The words stung more than Carter was used to, and he turned away, his cheeks hot with shame. “Look,” Ingram said, standing up to put on his underwear, “I'm sorry I didn't do what's right. Just give me some time to think about how to help you.”

“You already know how to help me. You're just too chicken shit to do anything about it.” Carter got up from the bed and closed the door to the bathroom, ready to take a shower.

Ingram sat down on the bed, his shoulders rolling over his chest, thinking. Then he got up and knocked softly on the door. “Carter. I've got an idea.”

III

Showers on death row are almost as dangerous as eating the food sadistic guards give you. Stetson walked to the edge of the shower, the steam making a dense fog he could not see through. He was naked, in full glory, and he feared the Pops the Queer was waiting for him in the back of the showers, where no one could see him. Stetson didn't doubt that the guards would schedule his shower time with Pops, so he was extra ready, as Pops was known to bite various appendages off in a tussle. Fortunately Stetson was about three inches taller and 20 years younger, so he had a chance to keep from getting raped then.

There was a light window which opened into the courtyard next to the shower doorway. The only sound anyone could hear was the soft hiss of the water. Stetson removed his towel and stepped onto the tile, making sure to stay next to the edge of the wall so as not to get lost. He lathered some soap from the dispenser and began washing his body. He heard a young guy laugh from within the tiled chamber, then a figure emerged from the middle of the room. Stetson's heart jumped as the 20-something walked away from him toward the exit. Then everything got quiet again.

Stetson continued washing himself, this time washing his nasty hair, anxious to get the soap out of his eyes. In the white noise of the water jetting from the shower heads, Stetson's mind began to wander, invariably toward Carter. He knew the guy cared about him, otherwise he wouldn't have gone to such lengths to help him. Carter didn't come by to visit Stetson on death row for several weeks after the verdict, so Stetson did sometimes wonder what happened. Maybe the kid moved on. Stetson really couldn't blame him if that was the truth--no one wants to fall in love with a prisoner on death row.

He imagined Carter put his hand on his shoulder from behind, caressing him quietly, apologizing about not making sure to see him, and abandoning him when he was this alone--saying all this without words but only touch. Then Stetson realized the hand on his shoulder was no fantasy, but in fact was the 60-year old hand of Pops the Queer. Adrenaline immediately pumped into Stetson's mind, and he turned around with a clenched fist, slamming one strong thwack on Pops' face. He whimpered like a girl but kept coming at Carter, like some starved incubus in a bad dream, incapable of feeling remorse or self-doubt or discouragement. He pushed the guy away from him, sending Pops into the tile wall, cracking a few pieces with the back of his skull.

“Oh baby, you fight too rough.”

“Where's your makeup sister.” Stetson put his fists, naked in the shower, his large member hanging like a bored dragon in the steam.

“I left it in my purse baby. Don't you talk to me like that, or I won't go as soft as I want to. You sure do have a nice booty. I can't wait to slip inside it and drop a few loads.”

Stetson nearly gagged at those words, but didn't hesitate to tackle Pops back into the wall, this time knocking out one of his teeth. Pops laughed and spit out a slew of blood, leaving a maroon trail from his mouth to the drain in the middle of the room. Stetson told himself right then and there that he would die fighting this freak before he would allow anyone, male or female, to rape him.

IV

Carter sat in the front seat of Stetson's blue truck, thinking about how quickly he was forgetting the guy's smell. The truck was parked in front of a taco bell, at midnight, and he was petrified that Michael Ingram would abandon him. He could never be sure that Ingram was on his side. Perhaps this was because Carter had been betrayed by so many people for so long. There was a true, genuine compassion with Ingram that Carter noticed most conspicuously when Ingram made love to him. For example, his favorite position was the missionary one, as he always wanted to see Carter's face during the act.

There was a guy who passed by, standing in a white shirt and black jeans, and Carter found himself wondering what it would be like to have sex with the guy. In his imagination, he got out of the truck and walked to the front door, and the guy held the door open for him. The guy had black hair and brown eyes, wearing a red cap and black gym shorts. Carter followed him back to his car without saying a word. In the passenger, quiet and still, he looked over at the car who stared him down with his brown beady eyes, saying nothing. His throat was so full of anxiety and terror, but he couldn't help himself and reached over to begin masturbating the gym, who let him. He then let the love juices slobbering down his chin and onto the guys lower waist. They drove back to his place, an apartment in the city, seeming like a dump from the outside, but on the inside a vast and beautiful loft, with open spaces and large windows, looking out onto the night. There were cars in the city honking, making tons of noise, but up here on this space there was nothing but the guy and Carter, who refused for some reason to say something to each other. In Carter's heart he just knew the guy was using him but part of him didn't get care. The guy threw off his shirt and headed into the bathroom, shutting the door behind him. The door remained closed for several minutes while Carter lay back on the fluffy down pillow and bedspread, wondering if getting this close to something so intimate as the guy's bed was the same thing as getting to close to him. The guy was impenetrable from the looks of it, and Carter wondered whether he had any feelings at all. Did he care about him? What insecurities and self-doubts did he have? Carter tried to imagine him as a child, a baby, so vulnerable and seemingly pure, but it was hard. All he saw in his mind was a cold-hearted, strong child unable to express his fears to anyone, let alone himself. It was an alienation painful in the experience but otherwise somehow magical and intriguing for Carter. The guy walked out of the room completely naked, with black pubic hair, but not a hair anywhere else. He was skinny through the shoulders and chest, but for some reason his thigh muscles were strong as an ox. He stood next to the bed for a minute, staring at Carter with a knowing glance and then crawled onto the bed. Carter could sense a double-sidedness to the guy, where it seemed like the guy wanted him for sexual pleasure but at the same time didn't want him around at all.

“Do you think I'm cute?” Carter asked, getting no response. The guy pushed him on his back, pulling off his pants and underwear at the same time. The guy was already hard and he crawled on his knees along the bed, to the point he could put himself near Carter's mouth, where Carter could take him in, tasting him fully. Carter grabbed the guy's cheeks from behind, squeezing them somehow opened his nasal passages, clearing the way for his olfactory bulbs to get a good whiff of the guy's scent. It was a brutish sweetness, something Carter didn't expect. The guy began pumping himself into Carter's mouth vigorously, as if he were in a hurry, and Carter used the guys cheeks as a break. He was enjoying this, and he couldn't stop himself from thinking what it would be like to have a threesome with this guy and Stetson. He wondered how Stetson would react to seeing the love of his life being used, pliant, like a toy by another guy, who didn't seem to care at all how Carter was doing. The guy continued pumping away for a few second then got back down on the bed, rolling over lackadaisically. He seemed tired for a second, and Carter tried getting on top of him, lying with his waist on the bed, kissing his chest, but he wouldn't have any of it, pushing him off and pulling him to the edge of the bed. He was naked and hanging off the bed as the guy guided himself to Carter's entrance, forcing himself into him without any lube. Carter expected the sensation to be painful but it was more pleasurable than he anticipated. The guy did let Carter hang his ankles on his shoulders as he pumped into him for several moments. In fact, several moments seemed much longer than really what it was. The guy continued pumping away inside Carter, and he tried to bend Carter into a contortionist position. It hurt a little at first, but Carter was willing to let it happen. He wanted the guy so much to like him, for reasons he wasn't aware of. As the guy continued pumping away inside him, he looked into his eyes, searching for signs of inner life. He wanted to know why this person, who seemed in all ways human didn't show more emotion. He tried touching the side of his face, but the guy shook it out, letting out only a faint smile. He pulled out and flipped Carter over on his stomach, leaving him to know what the guy was doing only the sensation of his nether regions on Carter's bottom. Carter stuffed his face into the guy's bedspread, inhaling no doubt the scent of scores of girl they guy had been with, in this loft of lofts. The pressure on his ass was too intense and he pushed the guy to stop. Carter got up off the bed and walked around the side of the elevated area in the apartment to test whether the guy would let him perform analingus. He wasn't having that either, and he got up and went to the kitchen for a glass of water. When the guy came back, he planted one cold, callous kiss on Carter's lips and stared at him for several moments before Carter's reverie broke.

--

He checked the analog clock on the dashboard, which read 12:05 AM. Ingram was late and the Saturday evening partiers were dwindling down the road in their sports cars and drunken shouting. The quietness to Carter was eerie, as he could hear the locusts in the night and feel the humid summer air wrap itself around his neck like a mildly suffocating cat. Nothing but silence when a mustang pulled into the parking lot. Carter could feel the paranoia of being watched all around him, through the trees across the street, the stares from the man at the register, watching him through the front window, all the passers-by getting gas at the pumps, the drunk fat girl competing for a spot in her friend's group. They all knew what he was doing, and they would stop him, just like Presley Watkins stopped him, and his own brother stopped him before that. The driver in the mustang got out of the car--it was Michael Ingram, dressed civilian uniform. He took a glance around him, finding no one suspicious, then got into the passenger seat of the blue truck.

“Did you get it?”

Ingram took a look at Carter from the corner of his eye. “Yes, calm down. I got what you wanted.”

“Well let's hear it then.” Carter grabbed the tape from Ingram's hand and popped it into the cassette player.

There were two voices mixed with the sound of cloth rubbed on a microphone (probably Ingram's coat pocket).

“Howdy partner. It's been a while. You ready to get some criminals?”

“Sure thing Lt.”

“What you been up to over your vacation the last few weeks?”

“Aw, nothing much. I was just hanging out with my wife. She's got this new technique she does with her tongue. Let me tell you.”

“Oh yeah? How was it?”

“Bitch can suck start a leaf blower ha-ha.”

“That's great man. I'm happy your marriage is going great.”

“So did you hear about that cowboy on death row?”

“What about him?”

“He got stabbed by another prisoner. He's recuperating in the hospital.”

“Deserves the son of a bitch right. Bastard had it coming.”

“We sure put him straight didn't we?”

“Hell yes we did. He never knew what was going to hit him. Glad we took care of that jury member too.”

“I took care of that jury member, remember, you pussy. And if it wasn't for me that cowboy would be home free. I had to make sure he was going to the chair.”

“You're a hero aren't ya.”

“What I did was between me and you. I can't get caught rigging things--” Carter stopped the tape, his eyes bright and full of life.

“That's it! We got him! Yeah, you did it.”

“Quiet your voice Carter. Now you've got something you can use, and I'll just say you put the thing in my pocket.”

“Ok ok.”

V

By the time the guards decided to break up the fight in the shower, three other prisoners had entered the area trying to help. One of them, Kwahu Ross, a Native American from Iowa, stood several inches above everyone else, second in stature only to Stetson himself. Ross found Pops the Queen with three broken teeth, a fractured cheek bone, busted rib, strained ankle and finger, and a torn ACL. Stetson had a mild bruise on his thigh.