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Chapter One

This is the story of a man who lost everything and had no interest in getting it back. A small, frail, comatose little prick who let it all slip through his fingers one day and decided that was the end of it. And this little shit...well, you wouldn't believe it, but he still hasn't worked up the guts to kill himself yet.

Yea, fancy that.

When the counselor had asked him for names to put on his visiting list, he just crossed his arms and kept his fucking mouth shut.

"You get ten names, Mr. Powalski," the middle-aged vixen informed him, sliding a clipboard and pen towards him from across her finely varnished desk. He stared at it for a few moments, ten equidistant black lines formed into two columns on pale white paper. He looked at it and wondered how easy it would be to cut fine gashes like that into both his wrists. Five on the left, five on the right. Maybe one across the neck just to keep it symmetrical.

"Isn't there anyone," she asked, removing the thinly framed reading glasses from the bridge of her muzzle. Her eyes were a light blue that seemed to radiate against her slightly faded orange fur.

There's a chain attached to the end of the pen, he thought. Maybe I can strangle myself with it. She'll probably rush over to stop me, though.

"Maybe friends who might come and visit you?"

She's thin, well-proportioned, but she doesn't seem like the type to body-build. Maybe a morning jog a few times a week, but that's it. A swift kick to the ovaries should send her to the floor pretty quickly.

"Distant family? Or maybe an acquaintance?"

I reach forward and press my fingertips into the clipboard, sliding it back towards her. She sighs and replaces her glasses, signing the bottom of the form where it says "Counselor's Signature". A manilla folder seems to appear out of nowhere and its filled to the brim with paperwork. She slips the form in with the rest of my file and adjusts it so it's sitting at a perfect right angle with the edge of the desk.

"You know what this means, correct?"

I tug at the chain that attaches my handcuffs to the ankle restraints. They're fine and polished and really compliment my dark purple jumpsuit. Another disappointed sigh escapes her lips and she presses the button on her intercom, eyeing me once more before calling the guard in.

"He's done. You can take him now."

Barely a week passes, and the old guard who always wreaks of brandy and cheap cigarettes comes by, rattling his truncheon against the bars of my cell. He grunts a brutal cough and waves the tip of his weapon at me.

"Get up," he gruffs, "Visitor."

Visiting will only be permitted during authorized hours on designated visiting days.

Mondays and Wednesdays for A block. For B it's Tuesdays and Thursdays, and C gets Fridays and Saturdays.

Sunday is reserved for the chaplain.

He's at the farthest booth in the hall and I see him snickering through the bulletproof soundproof glass plating. The row guard hands me off to the area guard and he follows close behind me until I sit myself down.

I don't even move to pick of the receiver. I just stare at him through six inches of reinforced glass. He picks up his and pinches it between his head and shoulder while he digs around inside of his jacket pockets. His blue eyes lock onto mine and he grins, motioning for me to pick up my receiver. He mouths the words "stop fucking around" as he pulls out a crumpled pack of cigarettes.

Visits are to be conducted in an orderly manner and in accordance with all regulations. Violation of visiting rules will result in suspension of visiting privileges.

I reach for the receiver with both hands because there isn't enough slack in the chain to let me do otherwise.

"You look good in that jumpsuit," he scoffs. "It really sets off your eyes."

Inmates must request changes to their visiting list through their respective counselor. It may take up to twenty (20) days for changes to take effect.

"And those chains? Well, I think you already know, but I think that stuff is damn hot. Really."

Visits will be thirty (30) minutes in duration.

"You're into that sort of thing, right? Of course you are."

An inmate may have one (1) visit per day.

"Shit, I hope you are."

"What the fuck are you doing here?"

Falco pulls a cigarette from the pack and dangles it from the corner of his beak. "That's no way to talk to a visitor, Leon." A chrome lighter flips out from inside of his sleeve and he twirls it like a small baton in and out of the gaps between his fingers. "You've gotta sweet-talk me." The lighter seems to dance across his knuckles and with a flick of the wrist a small flame bursts out and latches onto the tip of his cigarette. "You've gotta make me feel like I'm floating on a fucking cloud. Leave me wanting more, wanting to come back, you know?" The cover on the lighter clamps shut and the flame suffocates within it.

Suffocation. Too bad the pillows are too firm for that.

"You're not on my list," I tell him. "I don't have anyone on my list."

"I know," he replies calmly, putting his boot against the glass to tip his chair back onto its hind legs. He scans to his left and then gets caught staring at something to his right but there's a partition on my side of the glass.

"Damn, did you see that ass," he asked, shooting a small puff of smoke from the side of his beak. "I'd fuck that in a heart beat."

"They're probably looking over the sheet now," I explain.

He's still eyeing whoever or whatever is across the room. "Yea, you're probably right." I start to speak but he pulls the receiver from the side of his head, holds it up over his head and points to it with his free hand, signaling for whoever or whatever is across the room with a lustful smirk.

"I don't believe you."

"Huh? What was that?"

"I said, 'You're unbelievable.'"

"And that's why you love me, babe."

I take the receiver and press it to the glass, which is visiting area lingo for "Fuck you." He rolls his eyes and removes the cigarette from his mouth, twitching it between two fingers to kick off the remnants of ash. His boot slides off the glass, he dips forward, and a single blue finger presses up to the glass, which is visiting area lingo for "Give me one more chance."

I put the receiver to my ear. We both lock eyes for at least a whole minute and he just smiles, sucking on his cigarette and blowing thick plumes of smoke between us.

"Are you holding up okay?"

"I can watch my ass."

"Ooh, so can I."

I move to hang up but he presses his hand against the glass, which I can only assume is visiting area lingo for "I'm the most pathetic piece of shit in the whole fucking room."

"You can't have that many allies. I mean, considering what you're in for and all."

"I don't need any."

"Oh, come on. I've been on that side of the glass before, too. Don't kid me."

"So?"

"So I know what they do to guys like you. You've gotta start playing the politics, Leon. Join some fascist group or beat the shit out of a child molester or something. Prove you're a fucking man."

"I'm going to hang up now."

"Can I visit you again?"

I let out an exasperated sigh and run my hand up the top of my head. "After they find out you aren't even supposed to be here, I doubt you'll be able to at all."

"I can work something out," he says with a warm, inviting grin. "But I need to know that you won't just blow me off."

All it takes is a twist of the arm and I can hang up. I can slam the receiver down on the wall and declare our conversation-our acquaintance-terminated. Void. Deceased.

"Sure," I tell him. "Sure."

He beams. "See you around, Powalski."

I hang up the receiver and the room guard is signaled that my visit is over.

Chapter Two

"Hey," the sergeant gruffs. "Get up. Breakfast."

He's a stout old mutt pushing the limits of middle age. His shirt bulges out from his belt line and he always has one thumb tucked in-between them as if he had to hold them in place. I always wondered if he ever had any family that he went home to on the weekends, and if they missed him, or if his kids had already grown up and never returned his calls. Maybe his wife had died years ago in a tragic accident and he still kept a wrinkled photograph of her in the wallet protruding like a cancer from his ass.

He rattles his truncheon between the bars. "Hey. Get up. Breakfast."

It was just that I never saw him leave. I was stationed to mop floors during work hours and every hour of every day he just paced the grated walkways and rattled his black truncheon between the bars.

"Hey. Knock it off."

"Hey. Keep the noise down."

I'd never seen him too cross with anyone. The closes he ever came to expressing any kind of emotion was when the guards would congregate at the end of the hall. Someone would talk about a bar fight or one of the inmates who twitched whenever he was nervous. They would mime the way he squirmed whenever they lunged at him to get him riled up. A few of them would roar with laughter, but the sergeant just grinned and shook his head.

"You hear me in there? I said, 'Get up.'"

I sit myself up and plant my feet firmly on the floor. The cell they have me in is small, maybe about seven feet wide and a few more feet deep. I'm poor at judging distances. There's a tin sink and a tin shitter and a small plastic mirror made of safety glass. Some inmates have posters up on the walls. I don't.

The sergeant grumbles something about laziness and then shuffles to the next cell. There are a few moments of relative silence before I hear the familiar sound of his truncheon clanging against the bars.

"Hey. Get up. Breakfast."

Everything in prison is what is for a reason.

Take your silverware for example. No knives, nothing sharp. Not even a fork. I could understand not giving out knives. That was obvious. But forks? As it turns out someone managed to plant those puny little tongs into someone's carotid artery in a fit of rage. So that was the end of that.

Now we use sporks.

They herd us down the side of the mess hall where we're given our meals and then it's up to us to sit down and finish it. I look out over the throngs of deep purple coveralls and polished aluminum meal trays and seek out the most distant table. The one that everyone avoids. The one with the seats that are on the verge of collapsing and the rusted unfinished edges. I sit there because to sit anywhere else would require some kind of loyalty oath. Sometimes it takes more than that, but I'll let you fill in the blanks yourself.

But for me it's not as simple as pledging allegiance to a person, place, or species. Because of the nature of my crime I'm an outcast. That old saying about "honor amongst thieves" or something like that, well, it's true in some respects. There are certain things that even criminals find reprehensible. Oddly enough, these things generally don't bring with them life sentences.

Except, of course, in my case.

There are discussions going on about it all the time. Abuses in the prison system by guards, by inmates, by whoever or whatever. Everyone has their own agenda and everyone is looking to benefit. They want their security camera contracts, their group therapy funding, or a Bible in every cell. There's always something. And I'm stuck in the middle of it. I'm the scapegoat that everyone brings out of the back room. People's exhibit A: the poor, defenseless chameleon who's serving life. Society rejects him. The inmates reject him.

He deserves to be punished in peace.

It just never made any sense to me. Prison isn't Summer camp. It's not some daily seminar or a field trip to the basketball court. It's raw and it's brutal and it's degrading but it's justice. I'm here because I'm responsible.

I can't bring her back.

Chapter Three

There's never enough shade on the roof and for that I'm glad. There's never enough light inside where you spend most of the day. The windows are tall and monstrous but they're facing north and south. It's as if they hadn't planned on installing windows at all until they began to run short on concrete.

"Fuck it. Just throw some glass in those gaps or something."

The sky is clear and seems brighter than normal. Maybe it's just the fact that now I'm only able to see it for an hour a day. I'm not sure. But the sunlight warms my blood and that's usually enough of an energy boost to keep me running for the rest of the day.

I sit myself down on an old set of wooden bleachers across from the basketball court, just next to the weights. The boards are warped from being out during the rainy season and small chips of wood stick out from the edges. I take one between two fingers and pry it off, rolling the brittle timber between them. A few other inmates are sitting on the far end as well. One of them peers over their heads and gives me a quick once-over. He's a wallaby. Maybe a few inches taller than me but it's difficult to tell. I recognize him from C Block because one of the other inmates mopping floors with me a few days back pointed him out.

"That's Roger," coughed the weasel. "He'll slit your fucking throat."

Then we went back to mopping.

Even in the lowest ranks of society there's some kind of social order. Here, Roger was big, but he wasn't the only one. He had his gang and he had some sway with the rest of the inmates but he was far from being without competition. There were the fascists to deal with, the panthers from D Block, and the anarchists, who for reasons I had yet to figure out actually had a leader of sorts. Roger's was the remnants of some large urban gang that had stirred up a little too much trouble with the authorities. The members who got sent here grouped up and just started another turf war like they had outside. It made you wonder if they were really after the power or if they just enjoyed the conflict.

I did my best to avoid them, just like everyone else. There's was an exclusive club. You couldn't just hop in and get a pat on the back and a cigarette. If you wanted favors or you wanted to be left alone, often times you had to play politics. They had their sphere of influence, and if you ever found yourself inside of it, well, sometimes it's better to be a footstool than a doormat.

The alarm chimes. It's loud enough to do ear damage and it means that recreation time is up. I stand and pat the dust and bits of bench off of my coveralls and follow the rest of the inmates inside, careful to keep my distance.

"You've got quite a cell here, Leon," he whistles, sucking in a large breath only to shoot a plume of smoke in my direction. "Not a lot of color, though. Kind of dreary, if you ask me."

He's lying on my bed, one leg cocked up and folded over the other, a wing behind his head and another tapping the end on his cigarette into an empty soda can he must have brought with him. He tips his sunglasses up onto his forehead and his eyes creep up my body without any hesitation.

"That jumpsuit really suits that body of yours. Have you been working out?"

"I can't work out," I tell him, leaning up against the far wall. "Gang territory."

Falco grunts and nods his head. He's wearing a deep red jacket over a deep blue t-shirt and his jeans look dirty as he sits up and plants his feet over the side of the bed. He moves the soda can/ash tray between his boots and taps the smoldering end of his cigarette into the opening as he speaks. "I told you that you had to make them notice you. Did you try joining a fascist group?"

There's a guard posted at each end of the block. One patrols up and down the block as well. Security cameras cover every angle of every door in every room.

"Beat up a child molester yet?"

I can't even sneeze without somebody telling me to keep the noise down.

"Just don't end up as somebody's bitch, okay? They might sweet-talk you with all of this 'lubby-dubby' bullshit but in the end all they're interested in is the sex. It's a really hollow relationship."

"I'm sure you'd know all about that."

He grins and presses the whole of his cigarette into the can. "Well, that's what my bitch always told me, at least." Picking up his little ashtray he stands and makes his way over to me. I'm waiting for a guard to walk by or one of the inmates to see but there's nobody. Even the cell door is open.

Maybe he's some kind of apparition, or some hallucination. He stops a few feet away from me and his smell drifts past my nostrils. I can see the well-defined curves of his chest and stomach and a small tuft of feathers is sticking up from the neck of his t-shirt. My eyes lock onto his and he just smiles at me as if we had just swapped confessionals or something. I hear the air conditioning kick in but his tall frame is blocking the cold from me. For the first time in a long time I feel comfortably warm.

"Well, I guess I have to split," he says, tipping his sunglasses forward. I spot my reflection in the lenses and he must notice me studying myself through them. "Always watching out for ya, babe," he smirks, patting my cheek and then making his way towards the open cell door. He grips the bars on either side and leans his body forward, scanning side to side briefly before he catches me staring at him.

I hug my arms across my chest and try to play it off.

"Don't blink," he tells me. "Or you might miss everything." He points towards the mirror over my sink and by the time I'm looking into it he's vanished, the cell door slamming shut behind him.

Chapter Four

We had a small bathroom attached to the master bedroom. That's where she spent most of her time. I watched her from the bed as she examined herself in the mirror. She would check her hair and then her eyes and then her teeth and on down as I lied naked on my stomach with the sheets below me. She runs her hands across her white-furred cheeks, her slim neck and shoulders while I watch, silent and marveling because I can't understand how any of it ended up like this.

Gloria. She leaves the counter overpopulated with beauty products. I thousand perfumes and a thousand shades of blush and eye liners and conditioners and scissors and tweezers.

"Leon," she shouts, knocking the tall and short bottles around, a few of them tumbling down onto the bathroom floor beneath her. "Have you seen my masking creme?"

And masking creme. She has masking creme.

I ask her why she needs it and she just turns and frowns at me, which always makes me smile because it seems impossible for her to appear any less beautiful than when she's happy.

"I found this...this blemish or whatever. I just want to patch it up before I forget."

You're not a fucking pair of slacks, I tell her. You don't need to "patch yourself up".

"But it's a big one," she pouts. " A big nasty one and it'll show when I'm wearing my new dress."

I tell her I love her blemishes. I love all of the nasty shit that appears on her body. She rolls her eyes and shuts the light off in the bathroom, tying her crimson robe across her body before she lies down on her side of the bed. I shuffle my way over there and drape one hand onto her petit little stomach, her tiny vixen waist and she shifts her large flowing tail so that it's not brushing up against my manhood.

"Don't you ever put on pants?"

I inch closer and rest my head in the nook of her shoulder, tracing circles over her waist and stomach with my fingers. By now her perfume has worn off and her natural smell begins to emerge. She smells like vanilla except it's bitter in the back of the throat when you inhale it too deeply.

She shivers and tells me my fingers are like ice as I slip them in under her robe, running them across the short, smooth fur of her stomach. The fur turns white at the base of her neck and it's like a sheet of ice that runs down between her breasts and down to her groin. The rest of her is a light brown, maybe a cinnamon with a hint of red that offsets her bright green eyes. I wrap my arm across her waist and pull her close to me, the warmth she gives loosening my blood and exciting my senses. She sighs and starts to loosen the belt on her robe.

"I swear. It's as if all you think about is sex."

The robe drapes off to her sides and she spreads her legs. My body must be cold because I can feel the warmth emanating off of her. It hits my face and my chest and my legs like a soft caress and the closer I get to her warmth the better it feels. I'm already hard and I press myself into her slowly and she starts to quiver, twisting her waist until she becomes more comfortable with my size.

"Just let me know when you're done, okay?"

I pull myself out until just the head is inside of her and then I thrust my waist into hers. There's a short burst of a breath that escapes from between her lips. It's all the encouragement I need.

I love the way your legs are small but not too small. They're the perfect size. I told myself that when I met you, when you sat down next to me and you asked me what I was reading. Bukowski, I told you, and you said how sad and depressed that man always made you feel, and how you couldn't stand him. That he was rubbish. I only laughed and I told myself that it shouldn't be too difficult to find something like that about you. And for the next six months I tried. I tried to hard to find something about you that made me want to write like him. Something that could make me feel hollow and miserable so I could pen up a damning poem about you and how you're a spider, a roach, a stray cat with mange and I would title it "Gloria."

But there was nothing. Because every time I thought of you all I saw were your legs, your brown hair that rolls so lightly across your shoulders, your white chest fur and your breasts that shook ever so slightly as I made love to you.

"Just let me know when you're done, okay?"

Chapter Five

Every night after Falco had visited me, there seemed to be something waiting for me. It would be late at night and the guards would have already shut the lights off in my block, only a dim sliver of moonlight making its way in through the large windows. I would fall into bed and hear the unfamiliar crumple of paper beneath my pillow.

_and remember the old dogs

who fought so well:

Hemingway, Celine, Dostoevsky, Hamsun.

if you think they didn't go crazy

in tiny rooms

just like you're doing now

without women

without food

without hope

then you're not ready._

I carried them with me. Every morning I would read the one he left for me that night again and again and again until the old sergeant waddled up to the front of my cell and smacked his truncheon against the bars.

"Hey. Get up. Breakfast."

Then I would fold it up, and throughout the whole day I would feel it pressed up against my chest, underneath my coveralls. It was an escape. It kept me sane. You don't know how much just a simple letter can mean to you until that's all you have to remind yourself that there's a world outside of the cage you're locked in. I would read it several times a day, whenever the slightest part of me felt the urge to, and every time I would find something that I hadn't seen before. A new escape. A new creation. And sometimes others-the ones who normally made a note to avoid me for fear of being associated with my kind-would climb up the back of the warped old wooden benches and ask, "Hey, is that a letter?"

"Yea."

"Who'd you get it from?"

I'd pause for a moment. "A blue-winged guardian angel."

"Got any sexy stuff in it?"

"There's a hooker named Georgia who hates pantyhose."

"She get porked by the end?"

"...No."

After that they usually stop bothering me. He never sent me the juicy ones. Not that they were meant for that, but when you're stuck like we are the closest you can get to a woman is that six inches of reinforced glass, and only then for thirty (30) minutes once a day. I've seen guys jerk off to grime that looked vaguely like a clitoris because that was all they had.

But there was always a new one. Every night when I fell back into bed at the end of the routine-that "get up and do nothing" malaise that can drive you mad in a week-and that poem was faded on that crumpled, sweaty piece of paper, there was a new poem on a new crisp sheet of paper set carefully beneath my pillow. And, like the sun, it was enough to get me through the next day.

_a single dog

walking alone on a hot sidewalk of

summer

appears to have the power

of ten thousand gods.

why is this?_ He never told me how he did it or why. And after a few days it didn't matter to me anymore. As long as there were poems in the evening there was hope in the morning and that was all that mattered. None of the inmates seemed to notice that he had been inside the block itself that day, and no one said anything about anyone leaving. The guards never talked about security breaches or started shake-ups. They just went about their business, gathering at the ends of the halls and talking about shit-faced women they met in bars and how ridiculous their sex had been.

And then they would all hold their guts and laugh and pat each other on the backs while the sergeant just grinned and shook his head.

One morning after breakfast I went to the custodian's store room to find another inmate had taken my supplies.

"You're done here," he told me and pointed down the hall. "You're in laundry now."

It's a long, hollow room just behind the wall that separates the blocks from the main offices of the prison. Twelve industrial washing machines line one wall. Eight dryers line the other. In between them is a great basket where all of the dirty bed sheets are thrown, and next to that is a large series of grated shelves where we place the clean laundry, neatly folded and tied into bundles of eight (8) bed sheets or twelve (12) pillowcases. I enter on the far side and the noise from all of the machinery is deafening. But above the clamor another inmate, my partner, hollers to me and motions for me to meet him over by a large stack of sheets he's made up in the corner.

His name is Ethan, a frail young border collie who tells me where to stand and how to fold each sheet into a perfect rectangle like it shows on the diagrams they have drilled up on the walls.

Fold lengthwise, then along the width, and then repeat a few times. It's too simple not to get but he watches me in silence until he's certain that I can do it on my own. Once I get a pile of the correct amount I reach for the roll of twine that's attached to the shelves. The string is precut so that it's barely long enough to fit around the bundle, and still short enough to ensure that nobody can make a noose out of it.

"It means they trust ya," he tells me. "Letting you handle the string and all. Guess it's just a bit too tempting for some people."

I tug on the small strand of rope to test it's strength and it snaps almost immediately.

We work for about a half an hour without either of us saying another word. The pile that we have set up for the day is large and only gets larger when another load is brought in during the afternoon. Ethan steps aside and starts loading them into the washers as I tie off my fortieth bundle and place it on the shelves.

"I've heard about you, Powalski," he shouts over the roar. I stop what I'm doing and I watch him as he makes his way around the shelves, eyeing me between the piles of folded sheets. "Maybe you don't know, but you're pretty famous around here." He stops once he makes it to my side and leans up against the shelves, darting his finger through the twine and sheets as he talks to me. "I feel sorry for you. I really do. Because, you know, we're all in here for something. We all did something dastardly and all that. But you..." He snickers and shakes his head. "In cold blood, that was." His eyes are bright green and they pierce into me. "They didn't show you no mercy over there at the trial, did they? Well it's the same around here. Most of us have someone like that on the outside." He takes a step closer. "They come and visit us and even the best of us get all mushy inside when we see em." Another step. "That's why we can't tolerate what you did."

He's right up against me and he grabs the neck of my coveralls. He's only a bit taller than me but he manages to lift me off the ground all the same. I grab onto his hand and it's ice cold.

"You've got a sick fucking head, you know that?" He grunts and tosses me into the concrete wall. I crash into it with a thud and manage to land on one knee and keep myself from falling over, the pain piercing through my back like a hatchet but then he rushes up to me and plants his foot right in my gut. I groan and double over on the floor, gripping my stomach and I feel the bile start to creep up the back of my throat.

He kneels over me.

"Worthless piece of shit."

Rising to his feet he turns, running a hand over the top of his head and letting out a hiss of a sigh. I start to get up but then he wheels around, and with a shrill yell he kicks me across the jaw. My head reels and there's a popping sound and I cry out. My mouth clenches shut and I press my hands against it as if to suffocate the pain. My legs curl up to my chest and I feel a torrent of fresh blood begin to flow over my tongue and down my throat. I gag but that just makes my stomach hurt even worse. I'm lying like a pitiful aborted fetus on the cold concrete floor and he struggles to slow his breathing, grabbing a handful of sheets and tossing them onto me.

"Get the fuck back to work."

Chapter Six

I duck down so that I can see myself in the small plastic mirror above my sink while I turn the hot water nozzle as far as it can go. There's a large lavender bruise forming along my lower jaw that stands out like a fucking neon sign against my scales. It's sensitive to the touch so I try to tongue at it from the inside to see if it feels the same.

It does.

The water is like ice when I finally run my hand under the faucet. I cup my hands and let a good amount of it build up before splashing it all against me. It spreads across my face and runs down my neck and finally begins to soak into my lavender coveralls, into the tapestry of bumps and abrasions and cuts and gashes and burns and scabs and numbness. After a few weeks it had gotten to the point where I couldn't muster up the will to even bother checking the progress on them all. Unless something really started to shit up my senses I just left it alone.

They never healed all the way, but that was how I wanted it.

Every scar became a checkmark on the wall.

Think of my torso, my legs, my arms, my face as just a giant calendar. Every day has a mark, a story, a legacy.

Inside the mirror my twin reflection traces a large, deep gash that's just begun to heal over. He's gentle because he knows that if he presses too hard the blood will just seep back through. He runs an idle finger over the small crevice that peeks out just over his eyes like a small mountain ridge.

January 12. Mess hall. He walks down between the rows of other inmates until a foot collides with his ankle, he begins to fall, and an elbow in his back guides him so that his forehead makes sweet contact with the corner of the table.

My body is a giant PDA where I keep track of all my important dates.

February 15. Laundry Room. Ethan finds out that his wife has been sleeping around with one of his old friends from the workshop. I have my back to him as I unload a pile of sheets from the dryer. He comes over, tells me what happened and then pulls a broom from the corner and beats me across the back with it until his arms get sore. Then he explains how I'm the reason why this is happening, how what I did has effected him emotionally, spiritually. All this while he plants his foot into my ribs, my face, my arms, legs, groin, ass, whatever's convenient for him at the time. He gives a compelling argument, and then when the end of the week rolls around I'm counseled because I'm not getting enough laundry done.

I can't blame him. I might have done the same thing.

When you're stuck inside, time doesn't stop. I mean, it does in your head, and you figure that when you manage to get out that everything will just go back to what it was. It's what keeps you going, what helps you to pass the time. You remember everything good about your life on the outside because everything that used to get you riled up just doesn't seem that important anymore. Suddenly you realize all of the things you were missing out on and you can' wait to step out of those gates with a fresh suit and tie.

Only it's never like that. Ever.

And maybe that's part of the reason it happens the way it does. People leave, and then a few months later they're back looking worse than before. They can't get a job, all of their would-be friends have distanced themselves, found others to associate with. Their wives, girlfriends, they've become the harlots they were in the first place. Friends, co-workers, acquaintances. All of them become potential partners in the blink of an eye.

I'm here to give them something to vent their frustrations on.

I'm the recipient of every death threat that would have gone to their significant other.

I'm the punching bag that shouts back. The one that begs you to stop. The one that bleeds and breaks and groans underneath your fist, your foot, your elbow, your knee, your whatever.

I'm the counselor's assistant. You tell her what she wants to hear because she's the one who gets you out on parole. Who tells the review board that you're rehabilitated, that you're cured, that you've found religion.

Jesus. Buddha. Mohammed. Whoever.

And then you come to me. I'm the one who hears your real problems. I'm the one who sees you burn with rage, who sees your face riddled with sloppy tears as you drag my face across the asphalt. You tell me about your loves, your hates, your ambitions, your fears, all while you slam your fist into my stomach until I'm vomiting blood. You tell me your sins and I give you your salvation in the form of teeth, skin, blood, bile, unconsciousness.

I am your Christ. Your Messiah.

Your Satan.

I'm the reason why your wife is leaving you. I'm the reason why your kids stopped writing you. I'm the reason you're forced to pay child support. I'm the reason why your family avoids you.

No one else. Just me.

They say that Christ died the most demeaning and humiliating of deaths because it would save us all.

Maybe it's the same with me. Maybe if I die in here like this, one of these days, they'll just let everyone go. The cell doors will open and then they'll never close. Everyone will be free.

Including me.

Chapter Seven

"Now, I want you all to close your eyes," the middle-aged counselor told the group with a comfortable smile. Our chairs were assembled in a small circle in the middle of her office. Six inmates in lavender coveralls with handcuffs and chains attaching their wrists and ankles to prevent them from doing anything but shuffling their feet across the floor. With a guard posted just outside of her office, she studied us from behind her thin-rimmed glasses, allowing her eyes to fall on each of us individually for a few moments.

To remind us that we were people. We were inmates, and we were all guilty, but we were people all the same and deserved respect.

I tug at the chain that connects my wrists to my ankles as I hear the guard outside of her office lurch out a wet cough into his shoulder.

"I want you all to close your eyes," she repeats. The other inmates eye each other and then one by one they let themselves slip into her grasp. I'm the only one still watching the counselor and she looks at me and cocks her head a bit to the side. "It's okay. You can do it."

Early on in my adult life I had come to the conclusion that all shrinks were also crooks, gypsies, liars. People who made a living making up phobias and cures that required years of intense mental therapy that only they could provide. Kind of the same way a car mechanic will rattle off a thousand different problems that the engine has. Problems that need to be fixed immediately. Parts that need to replace without hesitation.

And you should always trust your mechanic.

"Please." She smiles and nods.

I give up and close my eyes, an act which receives a soft, aggravated sigh.

"Now, I want you to take a deep breath. Envision the air coming in through your nostrils, slowly traveling down your throat and into your lungs. And then as you exhale through your mouth, the air travels out of your system along with all of your tension." The others in the group emit an awkward hiss like an oxygen tank somewhere has sprung a leak. "Again."

I want to ask her how much she gets paid to teach us how to breathe, but I'm too busy trying to follow her instructions.

"Now, allow your whole body to relax. Concentrate on the muscles in your forehead first. Relax them. Then move to the other muscles in your face. Focus on each one individually and allow it to relax, making your way down to your neck, your shoulders, your chest and your back, your stomach, all the way down to the tips of your toes. Feel all of the tension in your body escape through your pores, through your breath, through the tips of your fingers and the tips of your toes and the end of your tail."

The scam doesn't lie in the fact that the process doesn't work. It does. If you try to relax you will relax. I would bet money that each of these guys has done this very process on his own at least once in his lifetime. But since she has a PhD she must know something about it that the rest of us don't. Right?

"Now, imagine that you are on a long, endless stretch of shoreline. The sun is bright and hot against your body and heats the sand between your toes. The ocean is a pure, clear blue and the waves crash in perfect symmetry along the shore."

I twirl my thumbs around each other and wait for the session to be over.

"It's midnight, and you're standing on the street in a large metropolis. The neon signs glow in the night, and all around you are thousands of people going about their business. You don't move, you don't speak to anyone. You take it all in. The sights. The smells. The sounds."

None of them can remember what it's like to simply exist. They can't remember what it feels like to just blend into a crowd and not have someone watching you. Not having to watch yourself. To just drift along in space and let the world take care of itself.

"And now you turn and start to walk."

Even I'm starting to have trouble.

"And you disappear into the crowd."

It's mid-afternoon, and when they release us up onto the roof for recreation he's sitting on the top of the warped wooden bleachers in his jacket and shirt and dirty jeans, a lit cigarette dangling from the corner of his beak, and when he sees me coming in with the rest of the crowd he smiles and waves me over. Some of the inmates around me begin to talk amongst themselves as I limp towards him, my June 21st abrasion on my right thigh starting to give me some trouble. He notices the awkward steps by the time I'm around three fifths of the way there and jumps down onto the asphalt.

"You look like you got hit by a fucking truck," he tells me under his breath, eyeing the small crowd of inmates who've gathered around the basketball court.

"That would have been nice."

He sets me down on the top bleacher and sits to my left, straddling the one just below it. Neither of us speaks for a few minutes while he just studies me from behind his well-polished sunglasses. The smile has all but faded from his expression.

"I didn't find anything under my pillow last night," I tell him, rubbing at a sharp pain that's starting to surface at the base of my neck.

August 8th.

Falco pulls a piece of paper from the inside of his jacket and lifts his sunglasses up onto his skull, squinting against the sunlight as he reads.

_I know a woman

who keeps buying puzzles

chinese

puzzles

blocks

wires

pieces that finally fit

into some order.

she works it out

mathematically

she solves all her

puzzles

and believes

ultimately

in a better world._

"I don't know what you see in this stuff," he says with a smirk. I grab the paper and he lets it slip from his fingers without any resistance. As I begin to read it silently I feel him shift so he's facing the recreation field, lean back against the top bleacher and reach one wing around my waist. My blood starts to warm as I savor every word, his wing tugging at my waist, pressing against my ass and pulling me close so that his head is resting against my side. He pulls his sunglasses back down over his eyes.

_ her teeth are snaggled

and she wears loose shapeless

coveralls over a body most

women would wish they had._

"He's so depressing," he tells me as he nuzzles into my side. "No wonder you like him. He's just like you."

_for many years she irritated me

with what I considered her

eccentricities-

like soaking eggshells in water

(to feed the plants so that

they'd get calcium).

but finally when I think of her

life

and compare it to other lives

more dazzling, original

and beautiful_

I almost say something to him. I almost speak. But then his arm retreats and he sits up. A small group of inmates is making its way towards us. I recognize Ethan in the back and up in front is the wallaby named Roger.

"Friends of yours," Falco asks me, taking his sunglasses off and placing them next to me.

I shake my head.

"Interesting."

The group stops and the bottom of the bleachers but Roger takes a few steps up. Falco is slipping a cigarette between his lips and as he cups his lighter with one hand and lights it Roger asks me, "Who's your friend?"

Falco places the lighter next to his sunglasses and stands. He easily towers over Roger but the wallaby doesn't seem to be bothered.

"Haven't seen you around before, bird."

"Funny. Because I've seen plenty of you."

"I'd be wary of hanging around the likes of Powalksi. He tends to attract unwanted attention."

"You don't say."

"Just step aside. You'll see what I mean." Roger leans to the side and shoots me a sadistic grin. Then all of a sudden Falco puts his hand on Roger's chest and forces him down the bleachers.

"Oh, hah, I see," Roger laughs, stumbling back into the group of inmates that had started to collect around the commotion. "Think you've got a little claim on him, don't you? Sorry to tell you, pal, but I'm afraid he's taken."

I hear Falco suck in a deep breath, sending a large plume of smoke into Roger's muzzle. His face sours up and he starts to cough, which gets a bit of a laugh from the crowd.

"You son of a bitch," he growls as Falco grins and looks back at me as if he felt he was somehow detached from the whole situation unfolding before him.

"He seems like a nice enough guy."

I try to warm him, but as soon as he turns back around Roger has a fist waiting for him. There's a crack and Falco's head pivots to the side, his cigarette dodging under a nearby fence.

"How's that," Roger hisses between breaths, his eyes gleaming with rage. "You fucking faggot!"

Falco brings a wing up under his beak and cracks his neck, a slight sneer creeping up his lip and he turns and thrusts his head forward and lands a hard peck into one of Roger's eyes. The wallaby yelps and leaps back against the crowd, a stream of blood spurting from behind the one hand pressed firmly over the side of his face, the other side frozen in shock.

"Jesus fucking Christ," he shouts, a blood dripping out from between his fingers. "What the...fuckin'...what the fuck did you do?!" Falco takes a few steps towards him, moving like a ghost, a man without a conscience. As if the decisions he was making had no effect of anything. Roger pushes back against the crowd only they won't let him leave.

This is their therapy. My therapy.

There's a small bit of blood on the tip of his beak. He reaches up with one wing and rubs it off and locks his pale blue eyes onto Roger's and pulls his hand from his face. The trembling wallaby doesn't even resist him as the avian studies the shriveled mass of organ that's bleeding down his face with a sort of childlike curiosity. Or when he takes one of Roger's stained, crimson fingers and slides it into his mouth, letting out a soft moan as he twists his tongue around it, sucking off the traces of fresh blood in his fur.

"Get...get the fuck away from me!" Roger finally manages to yelp, his voice cracking as he clamors over the inmates behind him to escape. The shrill sound of the siren bursts through the commotion, the gates sliding open, the crowd dispersing as if somehow disappointed at the outcome, Roger retreating back to his group of loyal followers.

"Bye, honey," Falco hollers at Roger before he jumps back up the bleachers and begins to collect his sunglasses, a smug little grin on his soft face.

The poem is crumpled and sweaty in my palms as he slips sunglasses back over his eyes. He pauses and the two of us just stare into each other for a few moments. Something about him is calming and familiar. Something about him reminds me of her.

Gloria.

"Shouldn't you be heading back," he asks me.

I stand up and slip the poem into my coveralls. As I start to make my way down the bleachers I feel him grip my arm and wheel me around, and before I can even ask what he wants he leans forward and I feel him press his lips against mine. A shiver rolls down my spine and I can feel the blood rush through my body like lightning as he presses his tongue against my teeth, his saliva sweet with the faint, bitter tinge of Roger's blood. His hand brushes against my cheek and he breaks the kiss and smiles.

"See you around, babe."

Chapter Eight

It was a year before. Or some time around then.

I was stirred awake in the middle of the night. I'm not sure exactly what it was, but at the moment all that interested me was getting back to sleep. Turning over onto my other side I found a mass of sheets and an empty pillow, a small crack of light creeping up across the doorframe of the bathroom.

The dull red light from where the cordless telephone should have been.

I wasn't bothered. At some point in a relationship you just stop giving a shit. It's not that you don't care, but, well, you don't. At least not about the same kind of stuff that you will a decade down the road. But I had noticed a shift, a defined change in direction. Though nothing seemed out of the ordinary I could feel something crawling beneath the surface like a worm under the skin. Like an ingrown hair.

My feet sunk into the carpet as I crept around the end of the king-sized bed, past the dresser and up towards the doorway. The cold air seeps out from beneath the door, from the small crack where the vanilla tiling meets the carpet and sends a shiver down my spine. I'm not wearing any clothes and that always seemed to bother her on some level. It's like when you go to someone's funeral and you wear a flashy tie. It's not like you went in a fucking clown costume but you can tell that it bothers people. You make out muffled conversations about it but no one ever addresses it directly. You just see them fidget uncomfortably whenever you're nearby.

My hand reaches the doorframe and I gingerly lean forward to peer through the small crack. The fluorescent lights sting my eyes and I hear one end of a conversation.

"Oh, yea, that's it, fuck me."

She's sitting on the toilet but the seat is down and when she shifts her small, petit cheeks on it you can see the moisture in the air condense on top of it. The cordless phone is pressed against her ear, against her muzzle, and as she whispers sweet sounds of lustful sex into the receiver two fingers plunge in and out of her like twin pistons.

"Oh, God, that feels so fucking good."

She's hammering her fist up against her clit in unison with her short, panicked breaths. Her hair is matted and a little disorganized but it still glows like gold in the light. She closes her eyes and clenches her teeth and I hear things come out of her mouth that I only hear in my dreams.

"Harder, yea...fuck me."

It could be anyone. The car mechanic. Some celebrity. Or maybe some stranger she's never met. It makes no difference to me and I'm sure it doesn't make a difference to her, either.

It's the same clit. The same dick. The same fingers and the same feeling.

My erection pulses between my legs. I grip it with one hand and press my lips against my bicep as I start to stroke. This is magic in the making and I'm not about to miss out.

"Harder, baby, harder."

She starts to accelerate and so I do. She doesn't mention any names but then again she never does. My breath quickens and my hips buck into my fist as she grunts and hisses her raunchy passions into the cordless telephone.

I'm a silent witness to her slowly advancing orgasm.

"Ah, oh yea....ah baby."

I close my eyes and hear her soft, panicked voice as it begins to rise in expectation. I feel her breath as mine bounces back into my face. In my head I'm pressing her against the seat, groping her ass and feeling the moisture on the polished plastic. Her legs are spread around my waist as I begin to ravage her, send her into fits of passion that she never knew she could have. My tongue runs across my own arm but it's her soft breast, her neck and as I bite into it she squeals.

"Yes, oh...ah!"

My body tightens and twitches as we both reach our climax simultaneously. Her back is arched and my cock is spilling a seemingly endless flow of juice into her belly. My hand. The door. The carpet and portions of the tile. We both struggle to cath our breath and I bury my face into her bosom. My arm. My shoulder. And slowly she leans forward, her lips just barely grazing my cheek and she whispers faintly into my ear - into the receiver.

"That was amazing."

It felt good to rinse off at the end of the day. The only time when I could truly experience the joy of hot water. It was only for a few minutes but it had become a sort of ritual, a kind of rebirth in which I would cleanse myself in preparation. Because after each evening shower break I would return to find another of Falco's gifts underneath my pillow.

Think tooth fairy, but, you know, without the pixie dust.

I ran the soap across the front of my chest and watched the suds ebb and flow over the scars that ran across the front of my body. The August 4th caning. The July 27th assault that cracked one of my ribs. And the July 13th laceration where Ethan managed to patch up a very impressive piece of rope with small weights and a few thumbtacks. You have to give him points for creativity.

But it was Falco's sudden appearance on the recreation field that was really on my mind. It was the first time he had actually interacted with someone other than myself, effectively trashing my hallucination theory. He had given Roger a serious injury, and word around the cell block was that his eye was done for. Part of me felt sorry for the young wallaby. I'm sure if he'd known the way Falco does his fighting - like a complete madman - he might have taken a minute to think things through. We aren't always gifted with that kind of foresight, however.

My hand twists the hot water nozzle further and the steam begins to fill the tiled corridor. Through the polished chrome on the water valves I see the distorted figure of a lone security guard patrolling from the towel area. I was the only inmate who had decided to take advantage of the showers this evening, which, while unusual, probably allowed him to slack off just a little. Everyone deserves a break every one in a while, I tell myself, a small grin creeping up my lip. The soap runs across my waist and for a brief moment I see Falco pressed up against my side. There was a warmth about him then that I hadn't seen or felt in anyone before.

And then a flash, a pain against my back and I'm pinned up against the cold and slippery tile that lines the walls. There's a form that's pressed up against me and he has my arms pinned behind my back. A shoulder is rammed in between my shoulder blades and my back and I wince at the pain.

He brings his muzzle up next to my ear and sure enough there's a large black eye patch over his right socket.

"Hey there, Powalski."

He grabs my wrists and presses them together behind my back. I don't struggle. It's just not worth it. I hear the crunching sound of a zip-tie and feel the sharp plastic dig into my flesh. I eye the chrome reflection for the guard but he's nowhere to be seen.

"Your fucking tit friend thinks he's ace, does he?" His breath wreaks of cigarettes and absinthe. "Hopping in and out of here and fucking with the rest of us." One of his hands presses the side of my face into the tile as the other holds my wrists against the small of my back. "How's he get in here? Tell me."

Immediately I think of all of those cheesy spy movies where the dashing secret agent refuses to give up the top secret documents or some shit. But he has secret compartments and some kind of freaking laser watch or a grappling hook.

He's never naked, zip-tied, and being pressed against the wall by an equally naked wallaby who has a vendetta against his queer avian friend.

"You've got a lot of fucking nerve to hold out on me like this, Powalski," he growls, forcing his whole weight into me and lifting up my tail. "But if you wanna be someone's bitch that badly..."

I try to remove myself from the situation. There's a long stretch of beach, bronze sand and perfect blue ocean. I'm on that beach and I'm dragging a bleached piece of driftwood from the waves to add to my collection.

I'm not whimpering into a cold tile wall as Roger murrs and presses himself deeper into me.

There's an endless downtown street and the neon lights glow like a thousand stars that fell from the sky and came to rest on the sides of run-down buildings. I'm wearing my best suit, and even though I may have just lost one of the biggest games of seven card stud I have warm comfort of smooth alcohol running through my bloodstream. I drift through the crowds like a phantom.

I don't hear the sickening slap every time Roger's crotch comes into contact with the base of my tail. I don't feel myself getting torn apart from the inside, or hear his low grunts and soft moans as he begins to grow slick inside of me.

I'm a thousand feet above the clouds. I'm ten thousand feet below the surface of the ocean. I'm lying next to Gloria and she has her satin robe on and she fusses with me as I rest my head on her torso. She tells me how I'm such a baby and how I could never make it alone. I smile and I laugh because I know she's right and that at the same time she's completely wrong.

I'm lying curled with my knees up against my chest on the small cot in my cell. There's a presence behind me. I can't see or hear him but I can feel him hovering over me. The lumpy grey mattress beneath me shifts and pivots as he lies down with his shoulder nudged up against the center of my spine and tells me he's sorry. I turn over and bury my face into the warm center of his chest. He wraps his wings around my shoulders and his chin comes to rest on the top of my head and his warmth envelops me. My chest heaves and my body begins to twitch in a horrible nervous fright as I tell him I want out. That I want to escape this place, this personal Hell. I feel his heartbeat through his tight blue undershirt and the soft, rhythmic rise and fall of his chest against me as my eyelids grow heavy and drape themselves like curtains over my eyes.

Chapter Nine

I opened my eyes a few hours later. I had dreamed up a story about a man who went to his brother's wedding, and as he stormed up the middle of the aisle, concerned murmurs rising over the heads of the patrons along the pieus, he let a small knife slide from his coat sleeve and slashed the groom across the throat. And as he collapsed like a sloppy garbage bag across the carpeted stars up the altar, blood pouring from the large gurgling smile across the side of his neck the other man cut ragged tears into the scremaing bride's dress, threw her to the floor and began to rape her. Right there up against the altar. And no one in the crowd even moved to stop him, or to aid the suffering groom as he slowly bled to death.

I couldn't understand what it meant. I sat myself up and planted my bare feet on the icy cold floor. There were remnants of salty tears streaming down the sides of my face that refused to disappear despite my frustrated rubbing. The dull light from the large bulbs that hung outside the rows of errily silent cells gave me enough vision to see constantly morphing shades of grey where my feet should be.

Enough to see that the bars to my cell had been left open.

Rising to my feet I moved with cautious steps towards the opening, the light growing stronger and more brilliant with every movement forward. The faint smell of Falco's musk still lingered on my purple coveralls, and as I gripped both sides of the cell door I leaned my upper body out into the empty cell block.

Nobody. No guards. Not even the obnoxious sounds of buzzsaws that usually accompany the awkward sleep of a hundred and twenty inmates. It was as if everyone had suddenly been set free and no one bothered to send me the memo. It wouldn't have surprised me. I stepped out into the hallway, waiting for a burst of gunfire or another inmate with a zip tie. I wait for a stinging alarm to begin to echo down the cooridors as I open the door to the offices. Waiting for a birght flashlight to blind me as a security guard growls into his personal radio for reinforcements. Waiting for a searchlight to hover over the reflective paddings in my coveralls as I make my way down the gated walkway towards the front gates.

Waiting for a laser scope. A shout. A care.

The gates are left wide open. The guard post is manned by a young, blue-feathered avian donning a security guard's cap that's tipped slightly over his right eye, and as I stumble in bewilderment towards him he smiles and grabs me by the arm.

"So," he asks me with a grin the size of Corneria. "How's it feel?"

I pause at the large gates and turn. The prison stands like an ancient artifact. A bold stack of concrete and steel that rises like a bloated cow into the midnight sky.

"I'm not sure," I tell him.

He leads me to a small town a few miles from the prison. The air is cold and the wind beats against my bare face and feet as we walk. It makes my scales dry and my blood run like syrup. We enter the town through a dirt road that slowly morphs into a paved walkway. As my feet slither against the concrete I hear the soft, muffled sounds of music coming from a small brick building a block away. Falco removes his jacket and drapes it over my shoulders, pressing my body closer to his. The warmth of his arm and the side of his chest numbs me to the weather and fills me with a sense of comfort.

"I figured we'd celebrate your release," he told me, kissing me on the side of my forehead. "And this is the best place to do it."

A nameless tavern. The small window cut into the side of the wall beams yellow with the light from the inisde, but the glass is too dirty to show anything else. Steel plates are bolted to the small front door, a tiny peephole cut out from the center that emits a thick beam of light onto the nearby wall. Falco slams his balled fist against them a few times, drawing me closer into him when he feels me shiver against another icy burst of wind. The beam of light is cut off briefly by a figure inside, followed by a series of loud clanks and thuds. Metal against metal. The door creaks open and the festive folk music blares into the walkway behind us.

"Falcone, you sunovabitch!" A middle-aged dark grey rat bellows from the doorway. He's wearing a leather jacket and three small piercings run up his left ear. He grins through yellow teeth and his breath is so thick you might think it slips from his lungs like liquid. "I thought you would never come back here again. Thought you was too good for us, eh?"

"Just terrified of you, Feliks. My good friend here just got out of prison. Though you guys could help show him a good time."

Feliks grins and lets out a laugh from the deepest regions of his lungs. The regions where all of the cigar smoke settles. The ones that make him hack and wheeze and cough up bits of black magma.

"Well, I know that we can make him a feel right at home. Come in, please."

The tavern is one small room carved into the side of a factory. The air is thick with smoke and the lights keep everything basked in a dull yellow glow. There is a bar on the far wall sporting a large array of alcohol, a grizzly old bartender enjoying a good, hearty laugh with the various patrons who formed a small crowd, sharing anecdotes and passing drinks. A small folk band sits in the far corner, their instruments bright, shined, and gleaming against their dirty clothes. Feliks leads us both to a large corner stall, motioning for the group to pass a few drinks their way.

"I suppose I never, uh, formally introduced myself. My name is Feliks Afanasii. I am a, uh, how you say, accomplice of Falcone here." The rat chuckled and slapped Falco on the back, eliciting an awkward grunt from the avian.

"Partner in crime, of sorts," Falco explained, removing his guard cap and placing it on the table in front of him. "He's an old friend from a dark corner of my past." Three drinks made their way to our table and Feliks passed them between us: a semi-transparent brown liquid held in a dirty, re-used longneck bottle. Feliks pushed the bottle into his greasy muzzle and took a large drink, letting out a satisfied sigh and slamming the now half-empty bottle into the rough wooden table. Falco did the same in turn, both eyeing me eagerly as I picked up the bottle.

The liquid is sharp, and I have to struggle not to gag against the hard liquor as it shoots down my throat.

"You know," Felicks cackled, leaning towards me from across the stall. "I've heard a lot about you from this guy over here."

Falco rolled his eyes. "For Christ's sake..."

"Let me tell you. There was a young woman in here a few months ago, and she had a real eye for this fella right here, let me tell you. And I says to him, 'Falcone, I'm telling you, she wants you.'"

I can feel the alcohol churning in my belly. It's like I just drank a gallon of fighter fuel. Falco eyes me with a hint of concern. I can see him growing uneasy with Felick's anecdote as he shifts his gaze out towards the crowd gathering in the center of the bar.

"But, Falcone, the sunovabitch, he played her off! I practically knocked his fucking lights out right there. I tell you, this man could probably have any piece of ass he wanted. But, I don't know, he is, eh, how you say..."

"You're done, right?"

The band stopped, a small commotion began in the center of the tavern as the patrons gathered, moving the tables and chairs against the grimy walls. As the band picked up their instruments, Falco leaned over towards me.

"Care to dance?"

Chapter Ten

Maybe it was the alcohol.

Then again, maybe not.

There wasn't much that made any sense to me anymore.

I figured my best bet was to just set all of the unanswered questions aside.

At least for now.

I didn't want any distractions.

I didn't need anything to make me lose focus anymore.

The room upstairs was dark. Really dark. I stumbled up the stairs and busted up my shins but the pain only made me laugh. I've never laughed to hard in my life. Falco just smirked and rolled his eyes, grabbed my hand and hoisted me up onto my feet. The single exposed light bulb in the hallway behind him silhouetted his face but you could still see the cobalt in his eyes. Walls were warping and spinning and each of my feet wanted to walk in their own direction. I fell forward onto his chest and he caught me, stumbling backwards against my loose weight and as he grunted a complaint - something about a fucking rag doll - I leaned forward and kissed him.

It was a drunken kiss; an honest one. His lips tasted sweet like wine.

I'm sure my mouth tasted like motor oil.

Whatever that tastes like.

The music was dull and muted like it was when we were standing outside. Only now I was warmer, calmer.

See: inebriated.

The band had struck up an infectious tune; a combination of instruments that seemed as if they would only make useless noise. But the rhythm just took you over and after a while there was nothing in the world that mattered but the music and the company.

He sat me down on an old mattress in the middle of a small room. He told me not to move because he forgot to watch how much I was drinking. He sat down next to me and kicked off his boots, our bare feet placed on the cold wooden floors and he told me to look straight at his eyes.

"Just look directly into my eyes for a minute."

Calm and concerned. For a good half minute we just stared. It was some kind of inebriation test he had learned from Feliks. The dilation of the pupils and the general wandering of the eyes were sure signs of intoxication. At least for the kind of drinks they served here. His deep blue eyes shifted focus to my left, my right, back to my left, center, my right, left, center, left, right. The more he switched the harder it got to follow him. He noticed my growing frustration and sighed.

"Am I moving too fast?"

I wrapped my arms around his neck and closed my eyes, pressing my dumb lips against his. I felt him breathe in sharply, tensing up for a moment before his body relaxed and he returned the favor.

Not moving fast enough.

He lowered me back onto the mattress, using his weight to push his kiss deeper into mine. The surge of adrenaline sent me into a spin. I slid my tongue against his, across, around, tasting the dull remnants of rich alcohol on his breath. He let out a subtle murmur that echoed back from within me, reaching down and undoing the large zipper that went down the front of my coveralls, one wing gliding against my flushed cheek while the other slid in through the exposed portion of my clothing and wrapped itself around my bare waist.

Twisting my body, I slid both my arms out from the sleeves, my upper body exposed: cuts, gashes, bruises, abrasions, welts, scars. He gently ran his hand across them all with a mix of pleasure and sharp spikes of pain. My hand moved down his well-toned back, gripping the bottom of his blue undershirt. Falco broke the kiss, catching his breath through short, strong breaths as he quickly leaned up onto his knees, both legs straddling my waist and rolled his shirt up over his head. I sat myself up underneath him, my face parallel with the top of his stomach, his bold musk rushing through my lungs, and I groped at his polished metal belt buckle, my hands still sloppy and awkward and again Falco grinned at my frustration.

He grabbed my shoulders and set me back down, softly kissing me on the lips and moving over my cheeks, my face and neck. One hand supported his upper body while the other unhinged the belt buckle on his jeans and removed the top button. I could feel the heat rising up from within me, my blood growing warmer under the heat of Falco's body. Loosening the waist straps on my coveralls I quickly slipped them off my legs, kicking them aside. Falco had the top of his head resting against my upper shoulder, silently admiring my sleek yet destroyed body. He tugged at the waist of his jeans and slid them down across his thighs.

I had said it. I couldn't count how many times. To her. To myself. But it didn't strike me until now that no one else had ever returned the statement.

"You're beautiful."

His heat pressed up next to mine. I shivered and sucked in a sharp breath which was cut off by the avian's tongue. He pressed himself hard into my mouth, struggling to taste as much of me as he could. As if he had been starving for it for months. My lungs fought against the weight of Falco's chest to fill with air, the room now filled with the smell of sweat and musk. I wrapped my arms around his back, one of his wings sneaking down to playfully grope my ass. My hips bucked up against his stomach, the both of us tense and drunk on the atmosphere.

He grabbed my ass and lifted my lower body up, positioning his knees underneath me. My tail curved around his waist and under the base of his tail, grazing against his backside. I felt his thick erection probe up against me, slick off of himself, and he paused, chest heaving, feathers covered in a mist of finely beaded sweat, his eyes reflecting my own back towards me.

I bit my lower lip and nodded.

Our eyes locked. He leaned his upper body forward, craning his neck down and slowly I felt myself begin to open against his heat. My teeth sank harder into my flesh, my hands gripping at bits of mattress as he sank deeper inside of me, letting out an unsteady breath. I feel him slowly pull himself back out, thrusting harder against my ass. My body ripples against his, a short moan escaping my lips. With every buck of his hips his stomach rubs against my erection and sends an electric shock down my spine. One hand is on the back of his neck, the other gripping the edge of the mattress to keep me from being forced off onto the hardwood floor. His pace is slowly escalating and I hear short whimpers from him every time his crotch slaps against my ass.

My forehead leans against the side of his face and I'm mesmerized as I watch his body force itself between my legs, the base of his cock briefly visible every time he pulls out, greased with his own fluid. His dark blue waist pivots into the base of my tail, pushing my body backward. I wrap my thin legs around his back and use them to press my ass into him, letting him slip deeper. I let out an uneasy moan as I feel his cock swell thicker inside my bowels. His stomach is stained with me and I hear his voice slowly begin to rise in volume.

"Ah...Leon..."

He's given up on holding back. His crotch drives itself against me with short, panicked thrusts, his heat exploring as deep into me as my body will allow it. I begin to feel a dull ecstasy flowering, and as I grip at his neck and back, pressing his face into my scarred chest, I utter words that I never thought I'd hear myself say.

"Agh...take me."

Time slows.

Our bodies freeze.

The room seems to dissolve around us.

He's cupped me against his chest, his eyes clenched shut, his breaths briefed and disorganized. I arch my back and my arms clench around his neck. His erection pulses inside of me and I feel a rush of hot liquid pour into my body. My seed spills into the narrow space between us, flushing over my stomach and soaking into his soft feathers. The air is thick with our salty musk, his body moist with sweat, and as the endorphins rush into our bloodstream he collapses on top of me as if he's just been shot. The both of us struggle to catch our breaths. I tug his body close to mine, running my fingertips over the contours the muscles make on his back as he nuzzles into the nook of my neck.

"So," Falco says, running a wing under my shoulders and hugging me closer. "How does it feel to be free again?"

I close my eyes and feel myself begin to drift asleep.

"I don't know."

Chapter Eleven

I was standing in the doorway when I found her.

Lying in the bathtub, naked, her eyes beginning to glaze as they stared back into mine.

It's all gone. Vicodin. OxyContin. The leftover pills from when I had broken my forearm. From our honeymoon. The three orange plastic bottles lie empty at her twitching feet.

It doesn't look like they're doing her much good.

From my spot in the bathroom doorway I can see the slight glimmer of a box cutter in one of her hands. Her arms are contorted in an awkward cramped state, like a retarded child, and her mouth seems to produce an endless amount of semi-opaque drool from the corners of the lips.

And still she stares.

Large, deep gashes trace along every corner of her body. Desperate slashes across her face, neck, arms, chest, stomach, waist, thighs, knees, and ankles. I've seen drunks in knife fights place better cuts than these. She had a plan but had no idea where to start, and as the pain worsened she became more desperate, slashing at whatever point on her body wasn't yet stained with her own blood. The fur across her body is crusted against her, the bottom of the tub a milky pink. As her chest rises with every breath the deep cuts on her breasts crack open like long, thin mouths gasping for air.

And still I stare back.

She almost looks embarassed.

I walk towards her, the tile like ice beneath my feet, and I kneel down next to the bathtub. I want to ask her why she's doing this. Why she didn't let me know. She knows I hate being out of the loop but the truth is that I'm already aware of the answer. I was aware of it when I first saw the unusually high phone bills. The supposed collect calls from old friends. Or the supposed customer service hotlines for that new PDA you had just bought yourself.

You took me for a fool, but the truth was I was just letting you. I was waiting for the day when you would finally snap. The day when you would burst into tears and confess and I would hold you tight against my chest and run my fingers through your soft hair and tell you that I had always known and that everything would be all right. That we would work things out. That I loved you enough to forget about this whole ordeal and start over.

I waited. But the day never came.

Every month you gave me an excuse. Some of them believable, some of them asinine. I accepted every one without a second thought. I figured the guilt would get to you. Or bet everything on the slim chance that you were actually telling me the truth. That I was paranoid.

But I'll be honest, Gloria. I never saw this coming. Never in a million years.

I slid my arm under her shoulder and lifted her upper body up against me. Her head seemed too heavy for her neck and she slumped against me, a small trail of drool dripping down into the porcelain. I rest my chin on the top of her head, the last place on her body where there isn't the filthy tinge of drying blood. I take in a deep breath and the back of my throat starts to sting.

Vanilla.

She reaches towards me and grabs my hand. I feel the warm metal of the box cutter on my palm. For a few minutes I just stare at it, turn it over and over in my hand. Her eyes pierce into mine and start to well up with tears. Her breaths are slowly becoming wheezes and her body is beginning to twitch more violently. I can't imagine what all of those painkillers are doing to her system. If it's even worth calling for a paramedic. Her mouth starts to slowly move and I lean in, her dry lips touching the side of my face.

"Please."

I open the box cutter with one hand and tilt her head so that it's over her right shoulder. With two fingers I search the clumps of matted fur for her pulse. After a few seconds of searching I find it, faint but consistent and her breathing picks up as I move the blade against her.

The short box cutter slips into her flesh like butter. I drag its raged edge down across her jugular in one quick stroke and the blood pours forth like a fountain. Tossing the knife aside I quickly clutch her close to me as she begins to panic with the overwhelming sensation of her body beginning to drain onto her. My forehead is pressed up against hers and I'm clutching my eyes closed to fight the tears that are threatening to escape from them.

"I love you, Gloria," I tell her between sobs. "I do, I love you, I love you, Goria, I'm sorry, God, I'm sorry I love you."

Her blood is cascading onto both of us, my arms and chest now soaked, the bathtub slowly draining crimson. Her hand comes up and brushes faintly against my cheek, and I feel her cracked lips press up against mine.

"Thank you," she whispers, growing pale, her eyes distant and dissolved, unmoving. I gently laid her down onto the porcelain, crossing her arms over her stomach, her feet over each other. Her chest stopped rising and falling and her pulse faded, the bloodflow slackening until there was none left to bleed. For a few minutes I simply stared. She seemed so calm, so uninterested. I had seen a lot of people die this way but none of them with the grace and beauty that she had. They were always twisted and contorted like someone had rearranged their bones, their faces frozen in fear.

I wiped the tears from beneath my eyes and stepped back into the bedroom. Picking up the phone, I slowly dialed, leaving bloody fingerprints on each of the numbers, bloody stains on the carpet beneath me. After a few rings the operator picked up, adressing me with a calm, concerned voice.

"What's the emergency?"

I turned and took one last look at her, taking in every detail. I knew it would be the last time I would be able to see her.

Gloria.

In exelsis deo.

"There's been a murder."

I woke up cradled gently against Falco's chest. The tavern below was now silent, the band having left hours ago. The young avian stirred awake as he felt me shift myself away from him. His eyes fluttered open and locked on me in a confused bewilderment as I got to my feet and searched for my coveralls.

"Hey," he cooed with a slight smile. "Something wrong?"

I found them lying in a mass at the base of the mattress and began to slip my feet into them.

"Hey," he asked, growing more vocal. "Talk to me, here. What's the problem?"

Sliding them up to my waist, I struggled to tighten the straps. A crude wooden cuckoo clock on the wall chimed once, twice, three times. As if to mock me. I wanted to reach over and slam it to the floor, see it dashed into a million pieces.

Falco's wings run down my arms and grab onto my hands, pulling them from my waist. He presses his warm body up against my back and craned his head down so that it's level with mine. Nuzzling me with his cheek, he asks me to stop and tell him what I'm doing.

"Do you know why she killed herself?"

He grows eerily silent. His hands remain clenched on top of mine, our fingers entwined.

"Because I changed. I wasn't the same person she had met on that bench reading Bukowski. I had become somebody else."

"That's not true."

"I wasn't good enough for her."

"She had issues, Leon. Things you could have helped her with but instead she locked you out."

"She was suffering. Every day she was with me she was slowly dying."

"Stop lying to yourself. You have to let it go."

"No. Not this time." I pull my arms away from his and slip them through the sleeves of the coveralls. "She didn't think I'd ever understand. That's why she did what she did." I look down over the raised scars across my chest. "And that's why I'm doing what I'm doing. I need to know. I need to prove to her that I know exactly what it feels like to die inside. Then maybe she'll forgive me."

I head for the door.

"Please."

Pausing in the doorway I turn. He's standing in the middle of the room, his body shimmering blue in the dull moonlight seeping in through the window. "Don't go."

He pauses.

"I love you."

I say nothing. I'm afraid to open my mouth because I know that the minute I do I'll lose my nerve. I'll snap. I'll tell him I love him, too, but it will only be so many useless words. Because I know that sooner or later I'll just end up throwing myself out of a window. And then what?

Falco stumbles backward onto the mattress behind him. He reaches across the floor for his jeans and digs in one of the pockets, pulling out a crumpled case of cigarettes. Placing one between his lips, he looks up at me one last time, his eyes shrink-wrapped in tears. I start to close the door behind me, going against my better judgment and peering in through the crack between the door and the frame. He looks back towards the moonlight, flipping out the lighter and coaxing the flame towards the end of his cigarette. Only he's sobbing so much that he can't steady it enough to light it. After a few seconds of struggling he closes the lighter in frustration, tossing it into the darker corner of the room, wrapping his wings around the back of his neck and bringing his head down to try and muffle the sounds of his own weeping.

I made my way up to the recreation area. The halls were still quiet, still errily devoid of guards. I climbed the warped wooden bleachers, sitting myself down on the highest one, the usual spot in the usual corner. The air was frigid and kicked up bits of dust as it blew by, stinging my eyes. Everything seemed to glow a dull blue under the cold watch of the full moon that sat lazily in the night sky above, accompanied by a plethora of stars.

I reached into the front of my coveralls, but the paper was missing. Maybe it fell out on the way to the tavern. Maybe I left it in the room. Maybe it fell out on the way back.

I didn't know and it didn't really matter to me anymore.

As I stood up, dusted off the back of my coveralls, and looked up at the big white glob of shit in the sky, I recited the rest of the poem from memory.

_but finally when I think of her

life

and compare it other lives

more dazzling, original

and beautiful

I realize that she has hurt fewer

people than anybody I know

(and by hurt I simply mean hurt).

she has had some terrible times,

times when maybe I should have

helped her more

for she is the mother of my only

child

and we were once great lovers,

but she has come through

like I said

she has hurt fewer people than

anybody I know,

and if you look at it like that,

well,

she has created a better world.

she has won._

I make my way back to my cell. To the cold walls and the metal sink with the hot water that runs cold, the small mirror and the lumpy old mattress. The bars clamp shut behind me and I collapse onto my bed face-first, smell the faint musk of Falco on the side of my pillow, and wait patiently for the round, middle-aged guard to come by and rattle my cage.

"Hey. Get up. Breakfast.