Helen Stewart had never expected to feel so friendless as she had confronted the harsh reality of being G Wing governor. She had hoped to be seen as caring, both for staff and prisoners alike with her warm-hearted personality and her humanitarian ideas diffusing itself through G wing to transform it. She saw herself as firm, fair and principled but it took time for her to see that all the cynical old-timers were interested in was in rigging the game to suit their selfish interests and to keep troublemakers down. It meant that it took time for the prisoners to understand her as covert injustices were first considered to have Helen's name on them until, they got her measure. Helen got to hear too many instances betraying an endemic favouritism in barely suppressed asides at meetings and this shocked her.
At the center of her struggles was that most puzzling conundrum, the supposed hard case lifer, Nikki Wade. Helen knew enough to instinctively reject such easy labelling. She saw that the other woman's accusations and public taunts of injustice aroused a sneaking sympathy, though she could never admit her feelings to the woman. Sometimes, Nikki was halfway responsive to her attempts to get her onside and other times, coldly rebuffed her. Nikki Wade resonated through her in ways she couldn't describe or explain, and she had to admit that the other woman's opinion mattered to her, as an index of honesty, she supposed. She fiercely contested the scoffing words of her enemies that 'Wade was only a troublemaking con.'
Looking back Helen now understood why she had let Nikki off with a caution for attacking Shell Dockley. This was Nikki's heartfelt protest at life being considered so cheaply, like Rachel Hicks' suicide and it resonated with Helen. If she'd been in Nikki's shoes, she might have done the same, she concluded with a dreamy smile on her lips. She'd watched that hard mask drop from the other woman's face and seen the real woman walk uncertainly out of her office that she'd always suspected had existed. It was events like this that had started an unusual friendship between the two women. Somehow, Nikki sensed Helen's feelings and responded to them and this was a new experience with just that dash of emotional agitation that she couldn't put her finger on.
She lay on the settee watching some meaningless TV while becoming conscious how Sean's prattle over the top irritated her. She became aware that her mouth playfully bantered back at him while completely disengaged from her brain. By contrast, she remembered when she and Nikki talked about one of her favourite books, their conversation was as real as can be, just like the way she enlisted Nikki's help to get Monica to pursue her appeal. She was conscious that, while others faded into an amorphous background blurs, Nikki's tall slim shape, those deep brown soulful eyes and perfectly formed face stood out in sharp relief. She felt more alive and focused when she was with her than at any other time in her life while Sean finally faded out of her life.
Helen and Nikki had exchanged brief kisses on two occasions and they had feasted their eyes on each other across the hard red Formica table in the visitor's room. Even then, Helen blanked out any eye contact with Fenner and Bodybag on her way out after saying goodbye to Nikki. They both knew that her promise to 'make things work' wasn't just Nikki's appeal.
Today was the tipping point in her relationship with Nikki. For a long time, Helen couldn't get that image of the three women out of her mind because of her own slow burning emotions. That image of Sapphic erotica unleashed a torrent of emotion and desires that burned through her system. It also gave her some much needed validation and reassurance that her feelings weren't just running out of control. One of the women might be redundant but the other two certainly weren't. All this time, Helen had grown to feel intensely and romantically in love with Nikki but this vision pushed her that one step further. It enticed her to want to take a more deliberate step. She wanted this woman who had first captured her imagination, then her heart and finally her desires.
Today was face up time, Helen concluded as she dug out Nikki's prison file and her analytical mind set to work. She didn't know what she would find.
"Oh shit," she exclaimed to herself as she saw Nikki's blind anger lashing out at the police in her statement much as she had seen in the protest over Carol Byatt's miscarriage. She'd felt similarly angry at Bodybag's criminal neglect in causing that horrible accident and lying through her teeth when she questioned her the morning after.
"Are you a cold-blooded killer?" Helen asked Nikki in the library as she tried to map out her own feelings, her own capacity for anger.
"Of course not," Nikki replied intensely, all her fiery passions proving the lie to the judge who had sentenced her.
When Nikki gave her a sideways nod, Helen eagerly gathered up her possessions, as she knew that their capacity for passion united them. Somehow, everything between them was delightfully turned upside down as she crossed the barrier to the Art Room and found Nikki's open arms and open desires waiting for her. They slipped into each other's arms and kissed each other's lips and cheeks. To Helen's intense frustration, she somehow froze when Nikki's fingers were delicately stroking her breasts and her dreams were being most realized. To her horror, some panic fears of intrusion into their world took hold of her against her will.
"You really must think me totally lame, Nikki. I'm really sorry. This isn't what I wanted," she said at last, leaning her head against her would be lover.
"I'm sorry too, Helen if I come over as some experienced lesbian lusting after you all the time," Nikki said at last, in a heartbreakingly controlled polite tone of voice. Unknown to the taller woman, her noble self-sacrifice totally did in Helen. She wasn't used to not being blamed for something that was arguably her fault.
"Don't you think I don't feel the same, especially when I read your love letter to me in bed. I could imagine you next to me so easily…." answered Helen, her voice suffused with desire and her large green eyes locked on Nikki's as she temporarily grabbed hold of what she wanted. "I'm just scared of Sod's Law – the one time we're snogging, some bastard interrupts what we most want."
"So let's talk – afterwards," Nikki urged eagerly. She was on fire all over with desire for her woman.
"Not so fast, Nikki. We need to talk. About our future, I mean."
Helen finally steadied her wildly oscillating emotions and started to frame words round them. That way, she felt more secure. The problem was that always and always, the tangible conflicting realities of her role in the prison service and Nikki as prisoner made her look over her shoulder all the time and did weird things to her head. This was her way out, correction, their way out.
Nikki's expression had become downcast when Helen started speaking, fearing it was the prelude to her breaking off their relationship. The final words turned on a ray of sunshine in her mind.
"I'm listening, Helen," she said, speaking as a true friend ought to. The words reassured Helen.
"Nikki, this is all so new to me. It's like learning a new language or getting all of me to go the way I really want to go. This is more than some romantic dream. I can see that this is life changing; about the way we live our lives. It's isn't so easy to change the habits of a lifetime, especially when I've always been so certain of what I've wanted to do with my life. I've wanted to make something for life, to realize my dreams for justice, to finally settle down with a man. It's so scary to think of how others might think of me……."
"I can give you nearly everything Helen, except the last one," Nikki said softly as she touched the other woman's chin. "That could be a problem. I'd just love to invite you back to my place and let the evening flow together between us. I can promise you that you'll end up thinking that any other way of living isn't natural."
"Except for the slight problem of pushing your appeal for all I'm worth and getting you out of here. I'll do it. I mean that."
"You really do mean every word you say," breathed Nikki. The determined tone of Helen's promise spoke love to her and was music to her ears. They looked into each other's eyes and kissed each other twice, softly and gently, rubbing noses against each other. Both women's hearts were beating loudly as the Arts Room detached them from everyday pressures.
"In the meantime, I'm stuck with being a prison officer and you as prisoner. It won't be easy living our lives under wraps," pronounced Helen soberly.
"I know," sighed Nikki in frustration even though she knew that Helen's talk of their future was another of Helen's declaration of love.
"I gotta go, Nikki," Helen finally said as they caressed each other's hands in silence.
"Do you really have to go right now?" Nikki replied, her big brown eyes looking appealingly into Helen's. The smaller woman's eyes flickered and she knew that Nikki saw right through her.
"I, we, I have business to get on with but I find your honesty so intense at times that it makes me feel dizzy. There is no one like you. I'm worried that I can't live up to it….."
"Helen, the last thing I ever want to do is to hurt you or upset you," Nikki said in such melting tones, when she had so nearly said 'darling.' To move from 'Miss Stewart' to 'Helen' was such a mighty leap. "Hey, put your head on my shoulder."
With a relieved sigh, Helen laid her head against Nikki and felt that strength and sympathy wrap itself round her as Nikki's hand gently caressed her back. She let her arms slide round the other woman's waist and let her head slip a little lower. She wished she could stay like that forever.