I Was Alright With It

I managed to get myself off the floor and, even though I felt self-conscious, I even forced myself to walk outside. I saw my canister in the corner of my blank slate room. Someone had taken it off for me at least. That was nice.

I still had my black cross trap harness on. I sheepishly wandered over and sat with the other girls.

Their heads turned to see me come in, one of them offering me a seat at the bench. I took it.

I looked around and they all looked at me.

That moment of awkward silence.

We all knew it. I was gonna be here a while.

They silently wanted to know if I was ‘cool’ or a problem.

We all did it. Whether we liked to admit it or not.

We compared.

My eyes went around. Lucy was an older woman. Not ancient. Just in her early 40s. She wasn’t bad, but she’d definitely let herself go a little. She wasn’t fat… she just wasn’t slim. Like she’d recently lost a lot of weight. She also had pretty big tits.

Definitely the hot cougar type. But I got mom-vibes from her.

Kinda weird cus that’s what I thought about Forest, to a lesser extent. Forest was a pretty fit woman, in her thirties. Reasonable by all standards. Plus she honestly had a crazy great personality for a woman locked up in the slammer.

Kinda made me wonder what she did.

Bet it was murder.

It’s always murder with the sweet ones.

But then there was Swan Yi.

Swan Yi had an amazing body. Not the fit kid like me. She was… that kinda shapely that only happens in Asia.

Tight. Compact. Mildly round in all the right places. She was a sentence if the coma was sexy.

I liked looking at it.

I had to force myself not to look at it too hard while we were all assessing one another.

I kept looking at her lips.

I liked them. They were slim and shapely like mine.

It was Swan Yi who first broke the silence.

“Soooo, welcome to hell,” She said in a sing-song voice.

We all gave a short laugh. Genuine but… bitter sweet really.

Truth hurt.

For a girl named Swan Yi she didn’t have a Swan Yi accent.

She sounded like a valley girl from some strip mall tycoon family.

I was into it.

Cute nose too.

Even when she caught my eye, I caught her’s back.

Those slim, petal lips…

Was I into chicks?

Not to my knowledge.

But to be honest, I didn’t know what I was into.

Life just got weird too fast for me to think about it.

God that still aches inside.

The shit show of a performance my life was.

My insta-shitball trial.

I even failed at failing.

Not to mention that teary eyed break down in court.

Telling the whole town counsel I’m a virgin.

I wanted to vanish every time I relived it in my head.

“Hey… Day dreamer.” Lucy said.

I shook my head a little and came back to life.

Like my batteries had been plugged back in.

“Sorry. I space out sometimes.”

“We see. You’ve been sittin’ there staring through your bubble like your life depends on it. Take that damn thing off.” Forest bitched.

I nodded, reaching up, giving my helmet a disengaging twist before lifting it off of my head.

It didn’t feel freeing. The room was full of the same oppressive kind of sterilized air. Not fresh air. Not new air. Not outside air. We were vacuum sealed again.

That was the new normal for me. Even if outside was outside… the rules were the rules.

I was bubble head or sealed-in-girl.

My very breath now belonged to the U.S. Government’s Michigan Penal System. Women’s Correctional for hot little deviants like me.

“Wow… hey, you’re really pretty. What the hell are you doing in jail?” Lucy asked.

“I … have no desire to talk about it.” I said overly accentuating the perfection of my words.

“Ooohhhh,” the group of three sang together in that tone that suggested they could guess how bad it must be.

“That bad, huh?” Swan Yi asked.

“Yeah… it’s that bad.”

“Oof…” Lucy shook her big head of bushy hair.

She looked mixed. I kinda wondered how she ended up in jail too really… she seemed like the wife type. Or the career type. One of those two. Couldn’t decide.

Her hair had ring lines in it like she kept it in a bun all day. Likely smashed down in a net for her bubble. It’s a wonder they didn’t make her cut all that hair off.

Like they cut all my hair off…

Left me with this messy mop of lazy red waves.

“Can we get a hint?” Swan Yi asked.

“Don’t press, now,” Forest said, lifting her hands to pat the air. “In her own time.”

“No,” I shook my head, blowing a sigh, “Look. We’re gonna be in here a long time together, I might as well get it over with now.” I inhaled a slow breath.

All three of them looked at me in the day glow bulb light.

It just seemed surreal.

Three women I barely knew, all squeezed into achingly tight suits, displayed like animals to one another. All of our good ’n plenty out in the open.

Which was a lot to deal with in Lucy’s case. Bitch had titties the size of Texas.

And even with all of that, I was still unbelievably embarrassed.

They could all tell it was bad… Who else would be this ruined in front of a room full of losers like us but the biggest loser of all time?

I stood up… paced around…

“It’s okay. You don’t have to.” Forest said.

“I dunno. I think she kinda does at this point,” Swan Yi said. “You don’t get to make it a big deal then chicken out.”

“Swan!” Forest bit at her.

“I’m just sayin’,” she threw her hands up, sitting on the end of the community table.

I walked around the swaths of layered carpets they’d salvaged, looked all over the magazine clippings and stacks of LP records in the corners… The weird… fuzzy lounger chair with the vibration buttons…

That was odd.

All this random shit they’d turned Into a home.

And I was fucking embarrassed to death.

Drowning in it as I hung my head. Stopped pacing…

And just said it.

“I got caught jillin’ it with my tits out behind a daycare…”

“OOHHhhhh,” Lucy said, her eyes wide.

“Damn… Damn… Wow.” Swan Yi said.

“In broad day light.”

“Nooooo…” They all said, eyes huge.

“Yup.” I bit my lip… cringing. “That was me… fucking loser.”

“Yeeaahh…” Swan Yi said slowly, curling her lip. Then she blurted out, “I shot my dad.”

“WHAT!?” My eyes shot wide.

“To be fair…” Forest cut the silence, “He was a son of a bitch.”

“… I mean…” I started, my eyes moving around slowly in thought, “I… gotta be alright with it.” I shrugged. “Not like we’re going anywhere.”

“Truer words,” Lucy said, lifting a fist in solidarity as she slipped into a seat at the table. “So come on, whose serving?”

“Oh, I will,” Swan Yi said and I watched her.

The mention of food made my stomach grumble. I moved over to the table and sat down, just as Forest came over and sat across from me.

“So are you gonna tell me?” I asked.

“About what?” Forest asked.

“What a Sud Monkey is.”

“Oh,” she said, frowning and waving a hand as if it slipped her mind. “Yeah.”

Swan Yi went to that waist high counter near the barred door just as a panel opened and out from it slid a… plastic carrier crate of what looked like juice boxes. Unremarkable, tan juice boxes. They looked like the drink from a military MRE or something.

I frowned.

Swan didn’t.

“A Sud Monkey is our clearing tool. Your rebreather?”

I turned my head partially back to Forest, but watched Swan Yi come over with the crate.

“Uh-huh.” I intoned, half listening.

“It’s the multi-cleaner kinda. It shoots disinfectant. That’s all that stops the infected animals. That or maybe a Sud Bomb. That’s the strongest thing we got though. Otherwise the main thing it does is collect samples. That’s what you want. Samples.

“Yup,” Swan Yi said as she came over, “Sud Monkey collects samples, the second half of your Rebreather canister compresses the goo into hard cubes, we fill the Mini Bus’ tug. Simple.”

Swan Yi sat down and slid everyone a juice box. Even me.

I stared at it. She stared at me.

My eyes flicked back up to her. Her coffee brown eyes read my face before my own eyes bolted. Fast.

I glanced back quickly to catch her smile but looked back at my gray, unremarkable juice box.

“That’s about all of it. We turn our cubes in at the end of a shift and get paid. Shitty part is, whatever company sponsors our zone that year gets 90%. We get 10% towards our fines. No since going any faster or slower, what we get paid caps daily,” Lucy clarified.

But I was still staring at that juice box.

My eyes ticked around at each of them. Watching for an equal reaction to me.

They all peeled their straw, stuck it in and started sipping away.

“I thought you said we were eating.”

“… Oh- right…” Forest said. “Welcome to eating.”

“No.” I said, simply. My head broken on that idea.

“Uh, yeah,” Swan Yi said. “You don’t think I look like this for nothin’ do ya?” She winked. “All jokes aside, everybody loses weight. You probably won’t though… you’re already kinda… You know.”

I flushed a little. But my stomach grumbled so I cracked open my straw, poked it in and sipped away.

Everything about it was humiliating. Not just the thought of sipping my meals for the rest of my short days on this earth through a child’s juice box. But also that it was so fucking satisfying.

They’d starved the fuck out of us anyway and what little bit I got in me came out hours ago. I was absolutely starving.

It… was meh.

It was meh. Not bad meh. Just meh. Kinda… V8 Splash meh.

You know where you kinda want it to be better, but it’s not? And the more you sip it, it’s not notting anymore? You’re just sorta in it to finish it?

Yeah. That.

That was food now.

“Why?” I asked, gulping down what to me was better than gold. It was thick enough to have a weighty feeling going down though. Satisfying…

I was alright with it.

“So the suits never have to come off. It’s material we can sweat out. And when the chemical wash comes through, we get plugged in, suit gets flushed, we’re good.” Lucy said, offering a shrug. “Otherwise we liquid flesh in the shower stall,” she pointed at the bathroom.

Now it made sense why it was so small. Showering was now hooking up a hose. The bathroom was now hooking up another hose. All to that one small port on my right side.

About the size of a quarter.

“Well.” I said, smacking my lips. “I’m properly fucked.”

“Yyyyyup.” Swan Yi said, lifting her juice box in cheers.

Everyone echoed her gesture.

I nodded a little and did the same as I let my eyes wander around my new home.

Could be worse for a fuck up like me.

I didn’t have to run anymore. Least not everyday. God knows what was out in the wilds of Michigan’s Irish Quarantine Zone for me.

Also, I wouldn’t go hungry.

And my cell mates didn’t wanna fuck me up. That was good. I was kinda worried about ending up a prison bitch or getting beat up every day like the movies.

One of ‘em was really hot… That was good. Sure.

The fact that I thought so was troubling. Definitely. I never met a girl that turned me on before.

And now I couldn’t even do anything about it. I was in permanent chastity panties. Suit-style.

The food was meh. But it was free. I liked that. I wish it was real food, but… the trade off was running my ass off every day from shelter to shelter. Indy was a God send but for how long?

Til the tentacle monsters came back to turn us all into zombies?

Til we ran out of food and had to move on again?

I was fucked either way and too much of an airhead to do anything else in my life.

And I’d fucked up every opportunity I’d ever been given.

My mouth and my behavior burned every bridge along my selfish, idiotic journey into the slammer.

And the fucked up reality?

When you’re a god damn loser…

Like… seriously.

Don’t let my cute face fool you.

I accepted a long time ago my life was all bad luck.

But people like me only end up a couple places. Neither of ‘em are good.

One of ‘em is right where I’m at.

I gave a weak little chuckle as I looked around at my new… people.

Whatever they’d end up being to me…

I almost wanted to cry at the reality of this moment.

This shouldn’t be the only stability I’ve ever known.

That thought hit different.

Bell curves, y’know?

This was the best I was ever gonna get.

I was alright with it.