Lying back on her bunk and assessing, as she had done thousands of times before, the rabbit-shaped watermark on the ceiling, Oksana was feeling somewhat pleased with herself. It wasn't an unusual feeling for her. She had a lot to be pleased with herself about. Presently though, that feeling was more prevalent than any other. She had been, in part, winging it when she accused Dr Polastri of being jealous. She hadn't truly allowed herself to believe that suggestion until she had witnessed Dr Polastri's reaction to her words. Only it wasn't Dr Polastri anymore. It was Eve.

The name suited her, Oksana decided. The first woman. Well, if you didn't count Lilith, and it seemed that these days most didn't. Lilith seemed to go widely unmentioned, like a regrettable belch that was best left unremarked upon. Oksana had read about Lilith when she had been scraping the barrel of books on offer in the prison library. Oksana had felt a kinship with her. Or maybe it was empathy. If Oksana were capable of such a thing.

Eve, however, Oksana had felt she had less in common with. Oksana wouldn't have been coerced into eating that apple. Oksana would have been the serpent.

Yes, the name suited Dr Polastri. And Eve Polastri was jealous. Oksana didn't bother to fight the satisfied smirk that spread her across her lips. Perhaps there was a hope then that Oksana could enact some of her recently developed fantasies, perhaps Eve would be susceptible after all. Oksana would simply have to find the best way to tempt her and then she could have what she wanted. There was nothing Oksana liked more than that, simply getting what she wanted. Oksana wanted her freedom and Eve Polastri. One seemed still as unattainable as ever, but the other was coming into focus. The idea of having Eve in her grasp was a pleasant one. To fill her nostrils with the scent of that perfume and her arms with the warmth of the other woman. Yes, that would be nice.

More immediately though, Oksana needed a new book. She had long since finished Pargrave's most recent donation to her own private library and now she was left with no choice but to return to the prison's motley selection of literature. She needed to go now if she was going to pass the afternoon in her cell reading in solitude and ruminating on her morning with Eve. There was a slight problem though. She had told Nadia she would meet her in the library. And Nadia, eager as a bumbling new puppy, would not miss their rendezvous. Oksana rolled her eyes. She would just have to get in and out as quickly as possibly. Literally speaking, of course.

And so Oksana made her way to the library. In the daytime, the inmates in her wing of the prison were mostly allowed to make use of the communal areas within the building as they pleased. They remained closely monitored by guards of course, and some were more agreeable than others. Needless to say Oksana, for the most part, stuck to her cell with occasional visits to acquaintances when the urge struck or she needed something. Inmates were allowed an hour a day in the outside air of the exercise yard (weather permitting) and were marched out in groups dictated by their cell numbers. Oksana never missed that hour if she could help it.

The library was quiet, as is the tradition. Its rows of books were housed on metal shelves with the white paint flaking off in chips from years of use. The floor was covered with a brown industrial carpet, hard and thin, through which the concrete beneath was easily discernible. There were a variety of suspicious stains on the carpet and Oksana knew from experience that its rough texture could leave vicious friction burns.

Oksana pushed through the double doors to gain entry to the library after winking flirtatiously at the guard stationed there out of pure habit. Inside the library the prison librarian looked up as Oksana appeared and he smiled faintly.

"You're back." He said.

"Obviously." Oksana replied.

"And feeling better." He added.

Oksana shrugged.

"Got anything new?" She asked, stepping over to the librarian's desk and placing both palms flat on it, leaning over the young man.

"Uh…" He started, "A couple of boxes came in. A house clearance I think. How do you feel about tropical fish?"

Oksana groaned. A fair amount of the library's book stock came from house clearances. Books piled indiscriminately into boxes when a person died and nobody could be bothered to go through the belongings in their home. These books were often of dubious quality, Oksana had learnt that over the years.

"I do not want to read a lonely dead man's book about shitty fish." Oksana explained scathingly.

"How do you know they came from a man?" The librarian queried. Oksana sighed.

"Only men keep those stupid fish. I don't know why. Probably something about control. Controlling the temperature, collecting the different colours, making them breed. It is sad." Oksana rattled off.

"OK…" The librarian drawled unconvinced.

"Do you have tropical fish?" Oksana asked.

The librarian cleared his throat and averted his eyes.

"You do!" Oksana declared. "Sad little man." She added.

"There's more to it than controlling the—" He began.

"Whatever," Oksana cut him off, disinterested, "Any novels?"

"Another Thomas Hardy." The librarian sighed.

"Ugh." Oksana huffed, "Miserable English countryside crap." She lamented.

"You don't have to read it." The librarian mumbled.

"No, no, I'll read it. Where?" Oksana demanded.

"On the shelf already." The librarian nodded towards the meagre fiction section.

"Thank-you," Oksana replied tunefully, drawing out the second word and offering the librarian a winning smile before whisking away in the direction he had indicated.

Oksana was running her finger along the spines of the books beyond the colourful 'H' divider when she felt a presence at her elbow. That hadn't taken long.

"Hey." Came Nadia's voice.

"Hello." Oksana replied, not bothering to actually look at the woman to her side.

"I wasn't sure you would come." Nadia breathed.

"Well, here I am." Oksana shrugged, finding the book she was looking for and pulling it off the shelf.

"How was your appointment?" Nadia enquired.

Oksana smiled, though she still didn't look at Nadia, her eyes raked over the blurb on the back of the book in her hand.

"It was very nice." Oksana said, smile still in place.

"Oh." Nadia let out, a note of surprise in her voice.

Oksana took a couple of steps along the shelf and picked up another book. She had read it before, but not for a couple years. Nadia followed closely, close enough that Oksana could hear her breathing.

"It was with the psychologist, wasn't it?" Nadia asked.

Oksana frowned.

"How do you know that?" She said lowly. She hadn't told Nadia that. She had simply said she had an appointment, enjoying the air of mystery she had cultivated around it.

"I met her." Nadia said simply.

Oksana finally looked at the woman next to her.

"What?" She growled.

"Yes. Dr Polastri, right?" Nadia offered, somewhat excitedly.

"You do not have a psychologist." Oksana accused.

"Oh, no." Nadia agreed, "She came to the canteen. With Pargrave." She explained.

"I know," Oksana replied hurriedly. She didn't know they had gone to the canteen. But she didn't want Nadia to have more information than she did. Not about this. Not about Eve.

"For coffee." Nadia added.

"Yes." Oksana snapped. "So?"

"Nothing." Nadia replied quickly. "I just thought you might like to know." She offered quietly.

"I already knew that." Oksana shot back.

"OK. Sorry." Nadia replied softly.

Oksana returned to her perusal of the books in her hand and Nadia turned to lean her shoulders against the shelf behind her. A thought niggled at Oksana until she had to voice it or she would spend the afternoon wondering.

"Were they talking about me?" Oksana asked, trying to keep her tone casual, and her eyes on her books.

"No." Nadia replied simply.

Oksana didn't know how to feel about that. But she didn't have time to investigate her response further before Nadia spoke again.

"They were talking about a… Liam? And Niko. I think Niko." Nadia said slowly, as though she was trying to remember exactly what she had heard.

Oksana's eyes flicked away from the words they were pretending to read. One of those names might belong to Eve's husband. Liam. Or Niko.

"Oh right," Oksana shrugged lightly, "Yeah, I know what that was about."

Nadia looked a little disappointed, not that Oksana would have noticed. Oksana moved yet further down the shelf and Nadia followed again, matching Oksana step for step.

"Do you want me to read to you?" Nadia asked after a moment or two in silence.

"No thank-you," Oksana murmured. Nadia sighed and rocked forward on the balls of her feet before leaning back against the shelf once more.

"I heard them in Pargrave's office too." Nadia said suddenly.

"Oh?" Oksana mused.

"Sounded like the were arguing or something." Nadia said leadingly whilst studying the nails on her left hand and then sneaking a look at Oksana to see if her tempting information had landed.

"Arguing?" Oksana asked, her curiosity piqued and her desire to seem uninterested forgotten.

"Well, there were raised voices. That's why I stopped outside the door." Nadia explained.

"And what did they say?" Oksana asked curiously.

"Um…" Nadia started, taking a deep breath and flitting her eyes towards the ceiling as though casting her mind back. "She said, 'I am just here to do my job', and then he said that he was sorry and he had been unprofessional or something."

Oksana's eyebrows rose dramatically.

"Anything else?" She bit out through clenched teeth.

"Well, they stayed in there for a while, but I couldn't hear much else." Nadia confessed, "Then the woman, Dr Polastri sort of burst out of the door and crashed into me. She was in a hurry to get away."

Oksana felt her hand that wasn't holding her books clench into a fist. So Pargrave had been unprofessional towards Eve? He had made her stay behind, taken her to his office and what? Made a pass at her? Oksana felt a burst of fury erupt somewhere within her.

"Are you pleased?" Nadia asked keenly, her voice irritatingly close to Oksana's ear.

"Pleased?" Oksana spat, spinning to be face-to-face with Nadia's wide eyed expression.

"That I stayed. And listened." Nadia clarified nervously.

God, she was annoying. So subservient and eager for praise.

"So pleased," Oksana husked, smiling sweetly at Nadia and leaning towards her, forcing Nadia back against the shelf and standing in front of her, so close that they were sharing body heat.

Nadia swallowed, her throat bobbing visibly and Oksana leaned in even closer until they were eye to eye. Oksana watched as Nadia's eyes closed.

"Good girl." Oksana whispered, her lips brushing Nadia's as she spoke.

Nadia whimpered pitifully and Oksana lifted an arm and reached behind Nadia to replace a book onto the shelf just to the left of her before pulling back entirely and striding away down the aisle of bookshelves.

Nadia's eyes shot open and she looked in confusion for a moment before catching sight of the retreating form of Oksana Astankova. She leant back heavily and sighed.

Eve had scrambled her way through her presentation in court. She was standing as an expert witness. It was a good side-line for her, offering her professional opinion on cases that didn't involve clients of her own. Normally she breezed through these things. Today she had been distracted. Her presentation had been shot through with ums and ahs and more than once she had needed to refer to her notes. It was sloppy and Dr Polastri didn't do sloppy.

She had edged her way home through the usual traffic and finally fallen in through the door just past six p.m. That was apparently half an hour later than she had promised, but in the grand scheme of things, what was half an hour really?

There had been family dinner of delayed shepherd's pie from the night before, during which Leo had loudly announced that he thought he preferred pizza really. Eve had stifled her laughter and Niko had explained why a balanced diet was very important. Now Eve was in her home office, her email open before her as she watched the promised prison file of Oksana Astankova download onto her desktop. It was a fair few pages.

This was her client, she told herself. Over the years she'd had hundreds of clients. There was nothing different about this one. Apart from the fact that the good Dr Polastri found herself undeniably drawn to the woman. Was it attraction? Jesus. Probably. It was certainly something.

Eve opened the file. The first page included a more recent photo of Oksana than the eight-year-old mugshot Eve had first seen, along with Oksana's basic information. Eve began to scroll through the following pages. The record spanned eight years. The early years were spattered with bouts of visits to solitary confinement, with attacks on guards and refusal to obey rules. There was one particularly violent assault on another inmate that had seen Oksana break the other woman's nose and fracture her eye socket. The guard that had broken up the altercation noted that Oksana had been laughing when she had finally been pulled off of the other inmate. Yeah, that didn't sound great.

Over the years though, the violent episodes decreased. The visits to solitary confinement all but ceased, and the reports from guards seemed more positive, or perhaps just less negative. Oksana Astankova was nobody's favourite inmate. She was rude and obstinate. She was inappropriate and disagreeable. But the reports made her seem less dangerous. It was her attitude that troubled the guards, not her actual behaviour.

There were a couple of incident reports detailing fraternisation with other inmates. Sex. Eve thought blankly. Why don't they just call it that? It wasn't unusual for prison residents to find ways to get intimate with one another. Though Oksana's record did seem more littered with those kinds of exploits than others Eve had read. So Oksana hadn't been exaggerating. That was an uncomfortable discovery. And were these incidents transactions like Oksana said? Did she trade sex for something in return? There was no way of knowing from the scant information on the screen. And could Eve simply trust that it was the case because Oksana had said so? No. Of course she couldn't. But she wanted to. Eve scrolled back up to the first page of Oksana's file, ready to read it through more closely in case she had missed anything.

The door to the study closed behind Eve. It had been standing open. Eve minimised the file on her computer swiftly, though if asked she wouldn't have been able to say why.

"Busy?" came Niko's voice.

Eve let out a long breath and leant back in her chair.

"Just reviewing a case file." She said softly. "Do you need something?"

She heard Niko take a couple of steps across the office floor and then felt his large, warm hands on her shoulders. Eve had always thought of them as kind hands, they weren't rough like some men's hands, and they were capable of creating beautiful paintings. This evening though, she didn't want them on her.

"Maybe." He said teasingly.

His fingers began to rub circles into Eve's shoulders and she felt herself tense them in response.

"Remember when I used to give you massages?" Niko said lowly.

"Yeah." Eve nodded.

Niko's fingers continued to work and Eve continued to feel tense. Niko chuckled.

"Feels like you could use one now." He suggested.

Eve propelled herself forwards a little on her wheeled office chair, Niko's hands slipping from her shoulders as she did so.

"I need to finish this." Eve said apologetically. "Sorry." She added for good measure.

"I thought you were just reviewing something?" Niko asked, a little perturbed.

"Well yeah, it's still something I need to do though." Eve replied, matching Niko's tone.

"Something you need to do." He repeated. "Right now. At 9pm. On a Thursday."

Eve said nothing, just scrolled uselessly through her emails as though looking for a particular one.

"Is it that client in Hertfordshire?" Niko asked.

"Who?" Eve replied in confusion.

"The client in Hertfordshire, where Bill works. What did you say his name was?" Niko pressed.

"Oh, right." Eve nodded. "Yeah, it's him. Alex."

"Alex." Niko said. "OK. Did you see Bill today?"

"Mmm?" Eve mumbled, "Oh, yeah. I did."

"And did you ask him to dinner?" Niko pushed.

"Oh shoot," Eve let out, "I totally forgot. I will do it next week, OK?" She cast a glance over her shoulder and just caught Niko's disgruntled look.

"Fine. Don't forget it's dinner with the Austins next Thursday though." Niko reminded her.

And, yeah, she had forgotten.

"I haven't forgotten." Eve assured him.

There was a stretching silence while Eve could feel Niko still standing behind him, feel his eyes burning into the back of her head. She span around in the chair and took hold of both of Niko's hands.

"Sorry darling. I'll just be another hour or so." She said softly, lifting one hand and then the other to her mouth for a passing kiss. "Then you're right, a massage would be wonderful." She smiled.

Niko studied Eve's face for a moment or two, and then pulled his hands from her grasp.

"Actually I'm pretty tired." He said monotonously. "I think I'll just clear up the kitchen and head to bed."

"Oh." Eve said in a tone of surprise, "Well, OK, if you're tired."

"Goodnight, Eve." Niko said, turning to leave the room.

"Uh… Goodnight." Eve replied. She watched Niko leave the room and pull the door closed behind him; he didn't spare her another look.

Eve turned back in her chair and brought Oksana's prison file back to the forefront of her screen.