Part Twenty Three
As Karen drove in through the gates of Larkhall, she found that she really didn't want to be there. She'd spent most of the last three days in Yvonne's company and she felt totally at home with her. But as for holding on to Yvonne's hand for as long as she had in court that morning, Karen really didn't know where that had come from. What had made her do it, and even more oddly what had made Yvonne do it. Karen had never been that touchy feely type, especially in public, but with Yvonne it felt almost natural. Like the other night when she'd made such a tit of herself. Karen loathed herself for revealing how weak and insecure she had the potential to be. She didn't do tears, not her. Well, not usually anyway. It was something neither Mark nor Ritchie nor any of her other brief liaisons had ever seen her do. The only one who'd really witnessed her undoing was Fenner, but then he'd been the cause of it. But she had to admit to herself that after totally letting go with Yvonne on Monday, she'd felt lighter, almost cleansed, as if her soul had been purged of some of the pain. As she strolled along the corridors to G wing, she wondered what brought her back here, day after day. Was it simply as a means to existing, or did she still have the burning need to change the system, in the same way Helen Stewart had. Locking up women for a living wasn't a satisfactory life for anyone, except maybe Jim Fenner. Then her thoughts drifted to what Jo Mills had said to her outside the court. Could she bring a case against Fenner after all this time? She didn't know if she really had the emotional energy she would need in abundance to go through with something like that. But if she succeeded, it would get him away from vulnerable women for good, or at least for ten years or so.
As she let herself in to the officers' room, she was greeted by the familiar site of Di, Sylvia and the new one Selina, drinking tea and generally taking it easy. With the inmates still on afternoon lock up, this was nothing new. Di looked up in surprise,
"Karen, we didn't expect to see you this week. How's everything going?"
"Not too bad," Replied Karen. "I thought I'd come and see how you were all getting on without me."
"No problems so far," Added Sylvia, clearly implying that they didn't need Karen as much as she liked to think they did.
"Who's in court tomorrow?" Asked Karen. Di glanced over at the duty roster.
"Selina's escorting Snowball and I'm escorting Al McKenzy."
"It's a poor lookout when the courts start relying on the evidence of the likes of Alison McKenzy," Said Sylvia.
"Yes, well, thankfully you're not in charge of the fate of criminals," Threw back Karen, "Or prisons would be even more overcrowded than they already are."
"They gave you a rough ride yesterday," Commented Di, whose turn it had been to escort Snowball.
"They certainly did," Said Karen dryly.
"Mind you," Continued Sylvia. "Atkins definitely gave that barrister what for on Monday. You missed a treat there, Di."
"So, anything happened I should know about?" Asked Karen, not wanting to stay there any longer than necessary.
"No, not really," replied Sylvia. "They're all quite fired up because of the trial. Half want Merriman to get off, and the rest are threatening to do her in if she's put back in here."
"Well, she's on segregation for the whole of the trial, but if she is found guilty, we might have to think about transferring her."
"What do you mean if she's found guilty?" Asked Sylvia, astounded. "That bomb had her name all over it."
"That's for the jury to decide, Sylvia."
"British justice," muttered Sylvia, "Most cons don't know the meaning of the word." As Karen left them to it a while later, she reflected that if nothing else was certain, Sylvia's unchanging attitude towards inmates would always be so.
On reaching her slightly cluttered office, Karen remembered Yvonne asking her to tell Denny to give her a ring some time this evening. Karen knew she could do better than that. She rang down to the wing and asked Di to bring Denny up to see her. It was nearly six-thirty, so Denny would be in the middle of association, and possibly not all that impressed at being summoned to see the governor. When Di showed Denny in, there was a slightly belligerent yet half worried look on Denny's face.
"What've I done, Miss?" Was her immediate enquiry. After Di had left, Karen said,
"Nothing, at least nothing that I know about. Yvonne would like to speak to you, and I thought it might do the two of you some good if you could talk uninterrupted."
"During association?" Said Denny in utter scorn, "You've gotta be joking. The queue for the phone's about a mile long."
"Which is why you can call her from here," Said Karen patiently. "Do you think twenty minutes will do you?"
"Really!" Asked Denny, a broad smile transforming her face in to that of the unsuspecting child being given exactly what he or she wanted for Christmas.
"Yes, really, but no forming escape plans or arranging for anything to be smuggled in, because I won't be far away." Karen picked up the phone and dialed Yvonne's number. On hearing the voice she was coming to know so well, she said,
"There's someone here who can't wait to talk to you." Handing the phone to Denny, Karen first went to make herself a coffee, returning to her computer to move her way through the prison's slightly higher-tech workings. The allocating of proposed transfers, the moving around of the jigsaw pieces that represented inmates, moving some on to enhanced to provide more basic and standard cell places for new convicted or remand prisoners, all part of her daily chores. Karen was aware of Denny's voice, she could hardly be otherwise with the girl sitting on the opposite side of the desk, but from long practice Karen had learnt to tune out the actual words. Lighting two cigarettes, she handed one to Denny and pushed the ashtray between them.
"Denny," Came Yvonne's voice, clearly with a smile. "How're you doing?"
"Okay. I take it you want to know about Al." She said this with one eye on Karen, who was sat at the computer, half with her back to Denny.
"Yeah, is she still high as a kite?"
"Not since I flushed her stash, no. She weren't too happy about it though."
"Does she know it was you?"
"come on, man, I'm not that stupid. I think she thinks Buki knicked it."
"Has she done cold turkey yet, because the last thing we need is for her to be coming down in the witness box."
"She'll be fine by tomorrow. How's it going anyway?"
"You'd have liked watching Fenner get some of his just desserts," Grinned Yvonne.
"Wicked!" Denny giggled. "did they make mincemeat of him?"
"Yeah, just a bit. Denny, listen. Tell Al for me that if she comes good in court tomorrow, I'll owe her one."
"Okay. Will you bring Lauren with you next visiting?"
"Yeah, I should think so."
"It's just, you're my mum now, innit, which means she's my sister. It'd be nice to get to know her a bit before I come out of prison."
"That's a lovely thing to say, Denny." Karen let them talk uninterrupted for another quarter of an hour. When she'd retrieved the phone from Denny, and asked her to go back to the wing, she said,
"I thought you might appreciate a decent chat."
"Yeah, thanks. You didn't have to let her do that."
"My pleasure. Oh, and you'll be interested to know that you gave Sylvia some entertainment with your performance on Monday."
"Jesus, I bet she's loving all this, isn't she?"
"Probably a little too much."
"So, the prosecution is half way through, and we've got Al the razor head on tomorrow. I don't think we've seen the half of it."
"No, me neither. We're all going to know about it when the defense kicks off."
"How're you doing, really?" At this, Karen experienced the sudden urge to cry, but did her utmost to suppress it.
"I'm just about holding up, and this doesn't hit home with me anywhere near as much as it will with you."
"Yes it does, just in a different way."
"This might sound stupid," Said Karen, taking the bull by the horns. "But I don't think I'd be getting through this without you."
"That's the nicest thing anyone's said to me in a long time," Yvonne found herself admitting. "And at the risk of having my daughter tell me what a soppy cow I am, I'll say the feeling's mutual."
As Karen worked her way through the rest of her outstanding mail, a feeling of deep depression began to creep over her. The rain running down the panes of her office window wasn't helping. august weather could be more unpredictable than a wing full of hormonal women. At around nine, she switched off the computer, collected her things together and went out to her car. Driving through the still pouring rain, she decided that the only thing to do when she felt like this was to have a long soak in a hot bath, with a bottle of wine and some soft music. Purchasing an already chilled bottle of Frascati on the way home, all that remained for her to do was to put on her favourite CD and fill the bath with foamy, scented water. As she slowly worked her way down the bottle, and allowed the music and the water to ripple over her, she could gradually feel the tension flowing out of her muscles. She realised that her life was drifting these days. Ever since Ritchie, and really she supposed it was ever since Fenner, she'd only been existing, not really living. She drifted in and out of Larkhall, performing her tasks to the best of her ability, but her heart wasn't in it anymore, she knew that. But if anyone were to ask her what her heart was in, she wouldn't have any kind of an answer. Probably the only thing she continued to understand with the deepest clarity was her own body, but at times even that would deny her access to the feelings she'd been used to for so many years. She ran her hands over her well-defined figure. She knew she was still an attractive woman, and at not quite forty, she physically had a lot to offer anyone. She was only too aware that her still firm breasts grabbed the attention of men and women alike when displayed in the well-cut blouses she usually wore. She was inexorably proud of these two finest assets of her creation, with their ripe nipples just begging to be fondled and teased. As she touched herself so familiarly, she thought it was almost a pity that no other person was here to watch her little show. As one hand moved below the level of the water, and she spread her legs to accommodate it, she briefly wondered if there would ever be another one to share in her pleasure, and who that person might be. she had never felt anything akin to shame or disgust at her self-gratification, because she reasoned that the clitoris and Graffenburg's pinnacle of ecstasy could only ever have been created with the pursuit of pleasure in mind. They served no other useful, practical purpose. Her pulse quickened as she delicately coaxed her clitoris in to joining her in her body's all too basic of needs to occasionally feel that slowly increasing rhythm in the dance of erotic necessity. As she slipped three long, tapered fingers inside herself, she encountered her body's liquid-fire response to her well-skilled and by now long-practiced hand. Her hand molding itself to her body's increasing fever to reach the point where the soul is open wide and all revealing, she soared over the peak of her sexual Everest, closing her eyes to preserve her, till this point, unknown fantasy. At her point of completion, it wasn't the face of any man that appeared behind her eyes, it was the by now well-recorded face of Yvonne.
When she later got out of the bath, dried off, and crawled under her duvet, she wondered if this was what her life had come to, the lusting after a woman who couldn't possibly be straighter. Was this what happened to you when you were acutely aware of James Fenner's presence in every bed you would ever again share with a man. That was why nothing had really worked with Mark afterwards. Fenner was always there, somehow between them in what should have been their own private haven. At the time, Karen liked to think that she'd managed to exorcise Fenner's influence when she'd so pathetically fallen in to Ritchie's trap of seduction and charm. But in her heart of hearts, she knew this wasn't true. What had all that with Ritchie been about, but for her to try and convince herself that neither Fenner nor what he had done, mattered to her. She'd allowed Ritchie to fuck her as forcefully as he wanted, because the more intense the physical act, the less she hoped Jim's face would continue to intrude on her sexual dealings with men. Maybe if Ritchie hadn't tried to fuck with her mind and her career as well as her body, she might have succeeded in this endeavor. But as she drifted towards a sleep tormented half by dreams of pleasure and fear, she wondered if she would ever find that erotic equilibrium with anyone, which she had for so long taken entirely for granted.
As Karen drove in through the gates of Larkhall, she found that she really didn't want to be there. She'd spent most of the last three days in Yvonne's company and she felt totally at home with her. But as for holding on to Yvonne's hand for as long as she had in court that morning, Karen really didn't know where that had come from. What had made her do it, and even more oddly what had made Yvonne do it. Karen had never been that touchy feely type, especially in public, but with Yvonne it felt almost natural. Like the other night when she'd made such a tit of herself. Karen loathed herself for revealing how weak and insecure she had the potential to be. She didn't do tears, not her. Well, not usually anyway. It was something neither Mark nor Ritchie nor any of her other brief liaisons had ever seen her do. The only one who'd really witnessed her undoing was Fenner, but then he'd been the cause of it. But she had to admit to herself that after totally letting go with Yvonne on Monday, she'd felt lighter, almost cleansed, as if her soul had been purged of some of the pain. As she strolled along the corridors to G wing, she wondered what brought her back here, day after day. Was it simply as a means to existing, or did she still have the burning need to change the system, in the same way Helen Stewart had. Locking up women for a living wasn't a satisfactory life for anyone, except maybe Jim Fenner. Then her thoughts drifted to what Jo Mills had said to her outside the court. Could she bring a case against Fenner after all this time? She didn't know if she really had the emotional energy she would need in abundance to go through with something like that. But if she succeeded, it would get him away from vulnerable women for good, or at least for ten years or so.
As she let herself in to the officers' room, she was greeted by the familiar site of Di, Sylvia and the new one Selina, drinking tea and generally taking it easy. With the inmates still on afternoon lock up, this was nothing new. Di looked up in surprise,
"Karen, we didn't expect to see you this week. How's everything going?"
"Not too bad," Replied Karen. "I thought I'd come and see how you were all getting on without me."
"No problems so far," Added Sylvia, clearly implying that they didn't need Karen as much as she liked to think they did.
"Who's in court tomorrow?" Asked Karen. Di glanced over at the duty roster.
"Selina's escorting Snowball and I'm escorting Al McKenzy."
"It's a poor lookout when the courts start relying on the evidence of the likes of Alison McKenzy," Said Sylvia.
"Yes, well, thankfully you're not in charge of the fate of criminals," Threw back Karen, "Or prisons would be even more overcrowded than they already are."
"They gave you a rough ride yesterday," Commented Di, whose turn it had been to escort Snowball.
"They certainly did," Said Karen dryly.
"Mind you," Continued Sylvia. "Atkins definitely gave that barrister what for on Monday. You missed a treat there, Di."
"So, anything happened I should know about?" Asked Karen, not wanting to stay there any longer than necessary.
"No, not really," replied Sylvia. "They're all quite fired up because of the trial. Half want Merriman to get off, and the rest are threatening to do her in if she's put back in here."
"Well, she's on segregation for the whole of the trial, but if she is found guilty, we might have to think about transferring her."
"What do you mean if she's found guilty?" Asked Sylvia, astounded. "That bomb had her name all over it."
"That's for the jury to decide, Sylvia."
"British justice," muttered Sylvia, "Most cons don't know the meaning of the word." As Karen left them to it a while later, she reflected that if nothing else was certain, Sylvia's unchanging attitude towards inmates would always be so.
On reaching her slightly cluttered office, Karen remembered Yvonne asking her to tell Denny to give her a ring some time this evening. Karen knew she could do better than that. She rang down to the wing and asked Di to bring Denny up to see her. It was nearly six-thirty, so Denny would be in the middle of association, and possibly not all that impressed at being summoned to see the governor. When Di showed Denny in, there was a slightly belligerent yet half worried look on Denny's face.
"What've I done, Miss?" Was her immediate enquiry. After Di had left, Karen said,
"Nothing, at least nothing that I know about. Yvonne would like to speak to you, and I thought it might do the two of you some good if you could talk uninterrupted."
"During association?" Said Denny in utter scorn, "You've gotta be joking. The queue for the phone's about a mile long."
"Which is why you can call her from here," Said Karen patiently. "Do you think twenty minutes will do you?"
"Really!" Asked Denny, a broad smile transforming her face in to that of the unsuspecting child being given exactly what he or she wanted for Christmas.
"Yes, really, but no forming escape plans or arranging for anything to be smuggled in, because I won't be far away." Karen picked up the phone and dialed Yvonne's number. On hearing the voice she was coming to know so well, she said,
"There's someone here who can't wait to talk to you." Handing the phone to Denny, Karen first went to make herself a coffee, returning to her computer to move her way through the prison's slightly higher-tech workings. The allocating of proposed transfers, the moving around of the jigsaw pieces that represented inmates, moving some on to enhanced to provide more basic and standard cell places for new convicted or remand prisoners, all part of her daily chores. Karen was aware of Denny's voice, she could hardly be otherwise with the girl sitting on the opposite side of the desk, but from long practice Karen had learnt to tune out the actual words. Lighting two cigarettes, she handed one to Denny and pushed the ashtray between them.
"Denny," Came Yvonne's voice, clearly with a smile. "How're you doing?"
"Okay. I take it you want to know about Al." She said this with one eye on Karen, who was sat at the computer, half with her back to Denny.
"Yeah, is she still high as a kite?"
"Not since I flushed her stash, no. She weren't too happy about it though."
"Does she know it was you?"
"come on, man, I'm not that stupid. I think she thinks Buki knicked it."
"Has she done cold turkey yet, because the last thing we need is for her to be coming down in the witness box."
"She'll be fine by tomorrow. How's it going anyway?"
"You'd have liked watching Fenner get some of his just desserts," Grinned Yvonne.
"Wicked!" Denny giggled. "did they make mincemeat of him?"
"Yeah, just a bit. Denny, listen. Tell Al for me that if she comes good in court tomorrow, I'll owe her one."
"Okay. Will you bring Lauren with you next visiting?"
"Yeah, I should think so."
"It's just, you're my mum now, innit, which means she's my sister. It'd be nice to get to know her a bit before I come out of prison."
"That's a lovely thing to say, Denny." Karen let them talk uninterrupted for another quarter of an hour. When she'd retrieved the phone from Denny, and asked her to go back to the wing, she said,
"I thought you might appreciate a decent chat."
"Yeah, thanks. You didn't have to let her do that."
"My pleasure. Oh, and you'll be interested to know that you gave Sylvia some entertainment with your performance on Monday."
"Jesus, I bet she's loving all this, isn't she?"
"Probably a little too much."
"So, the prosecution is half way through, and we've got Al the razor head on tomorrow. I don't think we've seen the half of it."
"No, me neither. We're all going to know about it when the defense kicks off."
"How're you doing, really?" At this, Karen experienced the sudden urge to cry, but did her utmost to suppress it.
"I'm just about holding up, and this doesn't hit home with me anywhere near as much as it will with you."
"Yes it does, just in a different way."
"This might sound stupid," Said Karen, taking the bull by the horns. "But I don't think I'd be getting through this without you."
"That's the nicest thing anyone's said to me in a long time," Yvonne found herself admitting. "And at the risk of having my daughter tell me what a soppy cow I am, I'll say the feeling's mutual."
As Karen worked her way through the rest of her outstanding mail, a feeling of deep depression began to creep over her. The rain running down the panes of her office window wasn't helping. august weather could be more unpredictable than a wing full of hormonal women. At around nine, she switched off the computer, collected her things together and went out to her car. Driving through the still pouring rain, she decided that the only thing to do when she felt like this was to have a long soak in a hot bath, with a bottle of wine and some soft music. Purchasing an already chilled bottle of Frascati on the way home, all that remained for her to do was to put on her favourite CD and fill the bath with foamy, scented water. As she slowly worked her way down the bottle, and allowed the music and the water to ripple over her, she could gradually feel the tension flowing out of her muscles. She realised that her life was drifting these days. Ever since Ritchie, and really she supposed it was ever since Fenner, she'd only been existing, not really living. She drifted in and out of Larkhall, performing her tasks to the best of her ability, but her heart wasn't in it anymore, she knew that. But if anyone were to ask her what her heart was in, she wouldn't have any kind of an answer. Probably the only thing she continued to understand with the deepest clarity was her own body, but at times even that would deny her access to the feelings she'd been used to for so many years. She ran her hands over her well-defined figure. She knew she was still an attractive woman, and at not quite forty, she physically had a lot to offer anyone. She was only too aware that her still firm breasts grabbed the attention of men and women alike when displayed in the well-cut blouses she usually wore. She was inexorably proud of these two finest assets of her creation, with their ripe nipples just begging to be fondled and teased. As she touched herself so familiarly, she thought it was almost a pity that no other person was here to watch her little show. As one hand moved below the level of the water, and she spread her legs to accommodate it, she briefly wondered if there would ever be another one to share in her pleasure, and who that person might be. she had never felt anything akin to shame or disgust at her self-gratification, because she reasoned that the clitoris and Graffenburg's pinnacle of ecstasy could only ever have been created with the pursuit of pleasure in mind. They served no other useful, practical purpose. Her pulse quickened as she delicately coaxed her clitoris in to joining her in her body's all too basic of needs to occasionally feel that slowly increasing rhythm in the dance of erotic necessity. As she slipped three long, tapered fingers inside herself, she encountered her body's liquid-fire response to her well-skilled and by now long-practiced hand. Her hand molding itself to her body's increasing fever to reach the point where the soul is open wide and all revealing, she soared over the peak of her sexual Everest, closing her eyes to preserve her, till this point, unknown fantasy. At her point of completion, it wasn't the face of any man that appeared behind her eyes, it was the by now well-recorded face of Yvonne.
When she later got out of the bath, dried off, and crawled under her duvet, she wondered if this was what her life had come to, the lusting after a woman who couldn't possibly be straighter. Was this what happened to you when you were acutely aware of James Fenner's presence in every bed you would ever again share with a man. That was why nothing had really worked with Mark afterwards. Fenner was always there, somehow between them in what should have been their own private haven. At the time, Karen liked to think that she'd managed to exorcise Fenner's influence when she'd so pathetically fallen in to Ritchie's trap of seduction and charm. But in her heart of hearts, she knew this wasn't true. What had all that with Ritchie been about, but for her to try and convince herself that neither Fenner nor what he had done, mattered to her. She'd allowed Ritchie to fuck her as forcefully as he wanted, because the more intense the physical act, the less she hoped Jim's face would continue to intrude on her sexual dealings with men. Maybe if Ritchie hadn't tried to fuck with her mind and her career as well as her body, she might have succeeded in this endeavor. But as she drifted towards a sleep tormented half by dreams of pleasure and fear, she wondered if she would ever find that erotic equilibrium with anyone, which she had for so long taken entirely for granted.