I first met Alex Vause when I was fourteen and she was twelve.
Her and her mother moved into the house next door to mine. At first, I was a little sceptical about this nerdy kid with the classes and avoided her at all costs during that hot summer to ensure I would not loose my coolness in the eyes of the other kids. That all changed on the first day of school, however, when I noticed some girls pushing Alex down in the dirt and kicking her. I immediately intervened and scared them away, they didn't dare to mess with the most popular kid in school. I helped her to her feet and asked if she was okay. Alex could only manage a nod.
"What's your name?"
She pushed her glasses higher up on her nose. "It's Alex. What's yours?"
A friendship was born. I didn't associate much with her at school but at home we were always together. Since Alex's mother liked to drink too much, we would spend most of our time at mine. My parents, good and devout Christians, thought nothing of adopting a second daughter in order to help a lost sheep. My father loved the shepherd allegory of Jesus and wanted to be the same. Therefore, they never thought something untoward was going on, even when Alex and I shared our first kiss together when she was fourteen and I was sixteen. By the time Alex was fifteen we were having sex. We kept our relationship a secret from my parents, knowing how they would react. But we were still worlds apart, I was still associating with the popular high school kids, while Alex was an outcast. The people at school considered us to be mere acquaintances, and Alex was fine with allowing them to believe this for my sake. I wanted college to be a joyful experience and figured a younger, nerdy lesbian lover would not do much for my street cred. It was only at Alex's that we could act like a couple, have sex in her bed, cuddle on the couch and play boardgames at will. Alex had told her mother about us and she was fine with it. I could not knock her daughter up and ruin her future. Besides, she had a new guy and was pretty much never around anyways.
The shit hit the fan about two months before I was supposed to start college. With raging teenage hormones, we snuck into my room when we thought nobody was home and went at it like bunnies. Unfortunately, my father had chosen that particular day to be sick, heard us in my room and walked in on us in the middle of a session. I had forgotten in the haze of desire to lock the door like I usually did. He promptly threw Alex out and in a long discussion with my mother, they decided to move to the other side of the country and transfer me to a college there to get me away from the bad influences of Satan. They considered Alex to have corrupted me, essentially she turned me into a lesbian. Of course, they didn't know, like I did, that although Alex had been my first, I had had girl crushes long before Alex came along and had even fooled around with two or three of them. It was actually the last one of these girls, and Alex's jealousy of her, that first enlightened me to the fact she might see me as more than a friend. My parents promptly did as they had promised. We moved to California and it would be four years before I saw Alex again.
During my senior year of university, at 22, I transferred back to New York when I received an apprenticeship at a prestigious company. My parents wanted to refuse but a chance like this comes along once in a lifetime. They therefore allowed me to go. It did not take me long to break free from their reins and soon enough I was partying every night and doing every drug imaginable and fucking a new woman every night. Because I showed up for work and school each day, my parents never heard of my shenanigans that they were funding. It was at one of the numerous parties I attended in New York that I ran into Alex again.
She was twenty by then; life experience had hardened her facial features. She came to sell the goodies, and quickly finished her stash. It was then that she saw me and a smile spread over her face like no other. We held each other tight for what seemed like hours and spent the rest of the night sober, catching up. Occasionally, I would reach out and touch her with the sheer abandoned joy of being able to do so. Even though we were both glad to see each other, it was a quiet moment and in between talking, I would look at Alex and hardly believe my own eyes. It must be the wish of some malevolent spirit, ready to take back the wish when it suited him. Or I was smoking some really strong stuff?! Either way, I hardly cared if I was dreaming or awake, as long as she was there.
For the next few weeks, we began the process to get to know each other again. I noted Alex had not changed much, she was still a rebel, tough as nails, hated chicken with a vengeance, loved to read and was terrified of elevators. There was a more bitter taste to her drink but I loved to chug it all the same. For those first few weeks we decided to keep our relationship strictly on a friendship level. I could not afford my parents finding out I had rekindled the relationship with Alex and she had just gotten her heart broken by some motorcycle chick. That changed one night, however, when we went to the movies and afterwards ran across the street to catch a cab in a torrential downpour that only happens in New York. By the time we had crossed the street we were both soaked. Alex pulled me into an alley, and kissed me like she had never done before. It was only when I had her in my arms, her tongue in my mouth and her fingers inside me, that I realized how much I had missed her.
Thus, we reignited our relationship as if it had never been over. Perhaps, I realize now looking back, it never was. We would meet up as often as we could, either at my dorm or Alex's apartment. Those stolen moments were some of the best in my life, taking a bath together, watching endless tv-series of various kinds while pigging out on Hagen-Daas, doing the crossword puzzles in bed together on Sunday mornings, having Alex make me breakfast on the days I did not have work. I can still hear her in the kitchen, singing along to the radio as she burns the bacons to charcoal. I always ate it and pretended it was the best I had ever tasted.
Our happy time together came to an end after three short months. That was when I had to confess the truth to Alex. I was actually engaged to the son of a friend of my family. We had been involved for seven months and he had proposed after three. For fear of disappointing my family, I had accepted. Therefore, it seemed inevitable that I end things with Alex before they went further, and I chose this day to do it. I had expected her to shout, be angry or even hit me, but she did none of that. She just sat there like a statute throughout our talk and stayed where she was when I arose to walk out the door. I bid her goodbye and she did not even turn to meet my gaze for the last time.
For the next few years, I led a heteronormative life. I married my husband Peter within a year of us beginning to date, got pregnant in our first year of marriage and had the child nine months later. My son, Sam, was the light of my life. I found purpose in him when Peter became increasingly distant and began to devote all his time to work and church, while I took care of home and hearth. Therefore, three years passed in this quiet manner before Something within me grew restless. I thought about Alex day and night and before I could stop myself, I was calling her to set up a meeting.
From the time my son was one year old until he turned two, Alex and I had an affair under the nose of my husband. He enlisted in the Marines at my urging and was away most of the time on various deployments. Therefore, Alex and I could easily meet up whenever business brought her to New York. We continued this illicit affair, knowing that one day it would end. I remember savouring each moment with her, knowing it might be our last. Yet, neither one of us seemed capable of ending it. It was like being stuck in a quagmire without means of extrication or being trapped inside a burning house with the walls caving in on you.
On Christmas Day, after we had been seeing one another illicitly for about a year, my husband arrived home unexpectedly from Iraq to spend the holidays with us, as I would later testify in court. All went well at first, we opened the presents and had dinner together with his parents and mine. After the guests had gone and the little one had gone to bed, we sat down together to read the cards we had gotten for Christmas. I was in the kitchen when Peter came thundering in, a card in his hand, and even from a distance I recognised Alex's writing. He began yelling at me and I was shocked to the core since I had never seen him this angry before. It took me a moment to understand he had accidentally thought the card Alex sent to me was for us both and had opened it without a second thought. Turns out Alex thanked me in the card for our last meeting and Peter thus put two and two together, he understood I had been cheating for the better part of our marriage. He did not appreciate being made to look like a cuckold. He came at me and I had no choice but to protect myself and my sleeping son by stabbing him with the kitchen knife lying handy. I called the cops and Peter was rushed to the hospital, but it was too late.
The prosecutor immediately indicted me for murder in the first degree while my lawyer maintained I had acted in self-defence. The jury did not believe this when evidence came to light of my affair, and the fact my husband had a generous pension coming due to his job in the Marines. There was no history of domestic abuse, either. It took them fifteen minutes of deliberation to find me guilty and send me away to Litchfield for a long time.
I was surprised to say the least, to meet Alex there for unrelated charges. During my trial she had been stated as a motive for my killing Peter, as well as the life insurance. Yet, she could never be found when my trial was ongoing, even though her testimony might have saved me from the forty year sentence. At first I met her with hostility, blaming her for my situation and seeing her as the reason I was there in the first place. After all, would I ever have killed Peter if Alex had never entered my life? Once I realized I had to assume responsibility for my own actions, we settled down into an indifferent friendship. We did not seek each other out, but were not openly hostile to one another either. A sort of truce developed.
That was the situation when I noted a pretty young blonde thing at Litchfield one day. She stank of fresh meat and freedom. I regarded her from a distance and was about to make a move when I noted her first interaction with Alex. A startling revelation occurred to me. This stranger and Alex knew another. It only took a couple of hours for the story to spread due to a chatty prison guard. This was Piper Chapman, now in jail for smuggling drugs a decade back for Alex. Not only did they know each other, but they had been lovers. I cared little about the pesky little nuisance of a fiancé that turned up to visit Piper those first few months at Litchfield. He didn't look fit enough to lick her shoes, let alone put a ring on her finger. The fiancé seemed to present no hindrance to the evolution of the relationship between Piper and Alex. She may have lied to others and herself about who she was but she most certainly seemed gay now.
A crush presented itself to my consciousness the likes of which I had never had before. I could think of nothing but Piper, dreamt about her at night and yearned to kiss her lips. Sometimes I would stand where she had been moments before in the bathroom to feel her smell overwhelm me. I tried to step in the shower right after her to feel the same water running down my naked body as it had done hers. I couldn't stop grinning for a week after she sent me a single smile the likes of a thousand lightings. Here was a well-read woman with morals, with beauty and most of all, class. She seemed to be different to Alex and myself. That was what I liked about her. Until the day I woke up trembling after having dreamt about me, Pipe and Alex in some kinda threesome.
That was when I realized I didn't have a thing for Piper. I still loved Alex.
I wanted to kiss Piper merely because they might still contain the lingering taste of Alex. I wanted to be close to the blonde in order to smell the perfume my ex likes to use. I yearned to be more like Piper, have her long blonde her and skinny legs that seemed to go on forever. I wanted that silvery laugh only she had that sounded like midnight. Most of all, I wanted that magic touch she seemed to have over Alex, whatever spell she had cast to make her so in awe of her. Alex had even gone so far as to reveal Piper's involvement with drugs in order to get her sentenced to jail and to Litchfield in order to get back in her pants.
Especially after all I have done for her. As I lie in my bunk this night, thinking back, I am reminded of the sacrifice I made for her. Didn't I lie blatantly to the cops and tell them Alex was not involved in my husband's murder? What if I were to tell them she was actually the one to pull the trigger? That I cleaned up the evidence and asked her to make herself disappear in Mexico for a year or so while I sorted this mess out, thinking the jury would look favourably upon a beaten wife and sentence her to a couple of year in prison for self-defence, or even probation? I thought she would be waiting for me when I got out, after all we had been through together, this would be our chance for happiness. Our happily ever after.
How could I have been so ignorant, so blind?
As I lie here, I can here them lying together in Piper´s bunk a short distance away. They are whispering together and I note the sweet tones in Piper's voice, how she pulls Alex in with her intoxicating words as they lie together under her bed sheets. I am stewing with anger thinking about all the things I sacrificed to be with her, my friends, my family, husband, son and freedom… What about all the times we shared together, everything we had together?
I feel out the shiv hidden underneath my pillow.
Perhaps Alex Vause needs to be reminded.