Written in the Stars

by Mynameisnancy - deceased

Naomi is 23 and serving a long prison sentence. After 3 and a half years of cell block misery, a transfer to more open conditions, and a new personal officer, life seems to be getting better But is it? More plot twists than a pigs tail and several chapters which should be read alone.. Other Skins characters appear in very different personalities than those we remember. Just saying

9. Chapter 9

A/N

So... You had enough smut yet? I can't hear you... deafening silence Oh well, you may have to wait because I have to get some plot written out here, and the smut keeps distracting me from my goal. Naomi, or I Moan s JJ called her, is not a happy girl, even with the Duracell bunny recharged and ready with the self lowering knickers (TillyHo, I love you, even though we've never met!) Do you remember the Duracell bunny with the cymbals? Well, my minds eye sees Ellie with the same attributes and speed, but its her tongue that...(Shut up Nancy, that's disgusting!)

Right. Thanks to my wonderful reviewers and followers, I am writing more. Thank you one and all.

I don't own Skins, because if I did all the men would be written out and it would be a big old lezzer multi partner swap shop. The only function Cook and Freddie (let alone bloody JJ) would perform would be serving drinks and keeping us in batteries (ahem) So there. (but Naomily would be sacrosanct of course, because...they are Written in the stars, duh...)

Naomi

Fucking bitch, fucking bitch, fucking bitch. Fucking bitch. My mind repeated the words in time with my stomp up the wing stairs to my landing. Every step a winner. The night screw looked at me in amazement as I repeated my mantra passing her, and walked along the landing to my cell. Ellie, of course, was at her own open door, looking hopeful, and as I approached, she opened her mouth to say something. Probably something sympathetic, how the fuck do I know?

I glared at her, and she actually physically flinched at my expression. They don't call it the Campbell death stare for nothing. I swear if I had looked in a mirror right then, my hair would be all live. writhing snakes, and I would instantly turn to stone at my own reflection

I slammed my cell door behind me so hard, the frame shook. Funnily enough, I didn't get any more visitors that night. I sank onto the bed and folded my arms tight around me, looking out of my window at the night sky. The only person I could trust was holding me tight. I sat like that for about 10 minutes, replaying the conversation (oh yeah and the mind blowing kiss, don't forget that, eh Naomi?) I had had with Emily Fitch in the library. If I had been outside this place when a black mood like this seized me, only alcohol and mind altering drugs would have been powerful enough to shake me out of it. But despite rumours to the contrary, drugs are not on tap in prisons. You have to know the right person, have something they want, and that's not always money, believe me. And be crazy enough to trust they weren't mixed with bleach powder, flour or something. I wasn't that desperate. Yet.

I got up and used my mini kettle to make a hot chocolate and crunched a McVities Digestive while I waited for it to cool in my Greenpeace mug. Fucking hell, I was even out of Garibaldi's. Cosmic.

Blowing on the hot brown liquid and still gazing out of the window, I mulled over what had happened tonight. A feeling of helplessness and dark despair washed over me. Whenever I had been fucked over in the past, it had always been in a situation where I could just run away. That was the old Naomi Campbell stock answer to problems. Skip school, skip college, go up to my aunts in London, sleep in the park with a vodka bottle for company, you name it. Every girl who had however briefly held my heart and then kicked it down the street had been forgotten just by the simple mechanism of me disappearing for long enough for the pain to subside. OK, nothing in my past was even close to preparing me for a world without the force of nature called Emily Fitch, but tried and tested routines are hard to shake off, and my instincts were screaming at me "Run, just fucking run Naomi"

Run where, I thought, a wry smile on my face. Twenty laps of this 8' x 10' box? Not much point, was there?

I gradually started to cool down and think about things a bit more clearly. OK, Emily had shagged another woman (whoever Sophia is, my little green mind-devil nagged). But fairs fair, I had been about 30 seconds away from shagging Ellie at the time, so I was hardly in a position to throw accusations. Why the fuck was I so incredibly bitter about it all? Then it hit me like a ton of bricks. I was insanely, totally jealous. Not just the normal human reaction to finding out you didn't have exclusivity on your lover, but a boiling, bubbling, spite filled green morass that consumed me like molten lead. I had never actually been properly jealous in my life before, and the feeling wasn't at all pleasant.

I sat there for another 10 minutes, absorbing the pain, and then shook myself physically. What the fuck was there to be jealous about? I'd shagged, she'd shagged. Neither relationship was based on anything other than basic and immediate sex. What's the problem Campbell. I thought finally. Hadn't that incredible, mind blowing kiss with Emily erased everything unimportant from my brain in one blinding flash? It had, hadn't it, till my personal green eyed monster had emerged, spitting fire and bile at her.

In the end, it all boiled down to one simple fact. Could I trust her to be absolutely truthful from now on, or not? After all, I reasoned, she could have just kept the whole Sophia thing to herself. I wouldn't be any the wiser. It's not as if I was likely to bump into the two of them in a bar was it? But she hadn't. I remembered how that slip of the tongue had made her blush with shame and stutter out an explanation.

I remembered her expression when she had admitted she was taking a huge gamble on me. For fucks sake. She was a Governor, kissing the face off a female prisoner and promising much a full blooded affair if not explicitly. If I could only keep it in my pants. Who was taking the biggest risk here? Suddenly I felt like the worlds biggest fool. And that's not something I was either used to or happy with.

So here I was, locked on my landing, with a sex crazed bunny boiler for a neighbour, and the person I most wanted to see, talk to, and hold, was right now driving away from this place, probably with a firm resolve never to have anything to do with prisoner Campbell N. ever again in the history of the world. What did I want to achieve with my treatment of her tonight? For her to look up Sophia for a second sympathy shag? Fuck no, I thought, the images that conjured up in my mind were too horrifying to contemplate. I lay on my bed, looking up at the stars in the night sky for ages. It was after 12 when my eyes finally closed and I slept.

Morning. I groaned as the bright sunshine made the world seem red under my closed eyelids. Fuck it was bright. I tried opening one eye, but immediately regretted it as the sun shot rays of pure brilliance into my brain. I rolled to one side and looked at the blank wall beside my single bed. Hmmm, I thought, there needs to be a picture, right there, and I know just the one to fill that space on the plaster and the space in my heart. But for once it wasn't my lake I was thinking about. I nice portrait of one Emily Fitch would have been perfect. If a little unlikely. I groaned again as the events of last night scrolled through my head, like a slow motion car crash you feel compelled to watch over and over again. What had I been thinking, I cursed myself for the thousandth time. I finally found the woman who had woken me from my faux hetero hell at the age of 15, and now I've done the one thing that I seemed destined to do over and over again. I'd fucked it up.

Getting up and about was a relief, after my all night introspection jag. At least doing something, even something as mundane as cleaning my teeth and queuing for a shower took my mind away from my self flagellation. I passed Ellie on the landing and returned her worried look with a small smile. I am never going to be a morning person (unless Emily Fitch is, and then I might just.. shut the fuck up about her Naomi, I reminded my inner devil) I think she was still freaked about my death stare of last night, so I let myself enjoy the interlude while it lasted.

Dressing for the day back in my cell, I let my mind wander to that kiss. Jesus. Nothing was ever going to be the same again. I knew that with every part of me, body and soul. If I thought that adolescent snog nearly 9 years ago had changed my world, the kiss she had shared with me in the library was like comparing the Mona Lisa with a school hand painting exercise. I had literally been rocked off my feet, and without her to hold on to, I knew I would have collapsed in a hysterical puddle at her feet.

But none of this would help me resolve the situation my fucking maniac temper had got me into. I was terrified that I had played into the hands of her reluctance to cross the professional boundary she should have been well the other side of. Those boundaries were my sworn enemies, and I had just given them my battle plans and pointed out very helpfully where my weak points were. Stupid,much?

I racked my brains as I got ready to go down to the library. I knew that she wouldn't be in this morning after pulling a late shift yesterday, so at least in the peace and quiet of the room full of books and memories, I would have thinking time. I passed Ellie again on the way and this time gave her a word of comfort.

"Sorry hun" I began, then cursed myself for giving her the encouragement that obviously came from my friendly opening, as she flashed me a brilliant smile and linked arms with me as I walked down the corridor to the block door. She would be going to the 'salon' to colour and cut the queue of cons hair which was bound to be waiting on a Monday. I carried on walking, my mind desperately searching for an out to this pretty but irrelevant problem walking beside me.

"Err" I began, temporarily losing the power of coherent speech. "About yesterday"

She beamed up at me from somewhere south of my armpit "That's OK baby" I winced at the word. If I was anyone's baby, it was either Gina Rose Campbell or a certain red headed pocket dynamo from Bristol. Still, I felt I sort of owed her for the brush off last night, even if I had no intention of reconvening our shagathon session. I kept the conversation light and shallow, which should have suited her fine, being a hairdresser, and soon enough we separated at the door with no more than a squeeze of her hand on my upper arm. Funnily enough I had to stop myself bristling even at that casual touch. My inner devil shouted in my ear "Stop it, I'm Emily's" Ho ho, I wish...

The morning dragged, with nothing more exciting than a few desultory enquiries from fellow cons for the next issue of Hello and OK. I had to stop my eyes rolling otherwise I would have ended up looking like a drunken sailor on shore leave. Most of the rest of the morning I was left to my own devices, as Barbara, my supposed predecessor was giddy on what we call 'gate fever', and if I gave her the chance, would spend the whole day telling me what she was going to do to her boyfriend the minute she was released. I don't know about straight girls, but I had soon had far too much information about what sort of tune she was going to play on his pink trombone. Blow jobs make me queasy at the best of times (OK, I have tried it, but I think swallowing wallpaper paste is way over rated) so I turned the subject firmly above waist level, and thankfully she relented after I flat refused to join in her reminiscences and fantasies. She left me to it after a good ten minutes of silent treatment from yours truly. At last I was free to indulge my new favourite occupation.

What to do about Emily.

With the other cons in their rooms for lunch (I settled for a banana – no cracks- and a large coffee) I finally had time to think about how I was going to rescue the situation. That's if it wasn't totally unresolvable, thanks to my fucking green eyed temper monster.

It came to me in a flash of realisation. We would never get the time to have an in depth, drawn out exploration of our feelings, at least not as things stood, so I had only one alternative. I would write her a letter. Not your average, how are you, I wanna fuck your brains out, letter. But a full and frank confession about my feelings, both towards her, and why I was so insecure about anything and everybody. I also had to deal with the Ellie situation, of course. But this would be a start. There was always the possibility that she could just screw up the letter and blank me. But hey ho, what had I got to lose?

Starting the letter was fucking agony, and I screwed up reams of half begun ramblings before I finally decided on an intro.

Dear Emily, I wrote, and then wasted spent ten minutes worrying about whether I should personalise it at all. Then I cussed myself as a tit and decided she was hardly likely to share this with anyone, whatever the result, so I should just get the fuck on with it.

So, Dear Emily

First of all, I am a tit. Not just a common or garden blue or great tit, but a great jelly like wobbly tit with the brains of a bar of soap. I'm sorry. I'm gonna say that about a hundred fucking times in this letter, so get used to it.

If you screw up this letter and forget you ever knew me, I will understand, I promise. I will however go into terminal decline, refuse to eat or drink,and almost certainly do a swan dive off the top landing, to land with a liquid thud right next to your office. Pretty it won't be.

Just so's you know I love you. Not the soppy soap opera will she won't she love, but for the first time in my life, ever, I am totally, head over heels, silly grin permanently on my face, "Jesus if she doesn't love me I may just die", type of in love.

You may think you know me after reading my file, and that secret stuff they hold on computer which never actually exists. But you don't. I would love to able to say I had a shit upbringing, with an absent father (well OK, that bit is accurate) and indifferent mother, but nothing could be further from the truth. My mum is ace. She is a daft eco warrior hippy with strange ideas about banana's (I'll tell you all about it later, right) but she loves me, even if I have been a total bitch to her and shut her out for the past year or so. Its only because I cannot survive these places if I show weakness. Holloway and Styal taught me to build walls that aren't make of bricks around me, and it has served me well so far. Until you that is.

You obviously remember that kiss the way I do. Otherwise this has all been for nothing. You changed my life in that garden on that summer night. I may have perved over my art teachers tits a year before (OK ,shoot me) but I never knew what I was actually feeling until a certain little brunette (I love the red by the way, don't change it!) rocked my world, and made me want to shout from the school roof "I'm Naomi Campbell, I've just kissed this amazing girl and I'm fucking GAY!"

The fact that your psycho homicidal sister almost scragged me bald afterwards (I still bear the scars, you can look if you like) was by the way. I finally knew what I was and I wasn't ashamed at all. My mum thought it was uber cool to have a gay daughter, so bringing girlfriends home was never an issue. I know you won't want to hear details, but I took my sexuality as it came, and never had an issue with it afterwards. And that was because of you Emily Fitch. You didn't know it, and never admitted you felt the same, but it mattered to me, OK?

But I know you're busy and may be reading this letter through your fingers, so I'll get to the point. The monster you saw last night isn't me, not really. It's the me I have manufactured to stop me being hurt in here. OK, I am not a happy bunny about this Sophia, and just writing her name makes my stomach churn, but as with Ellie from my landing, I think she's just a distraction. I could be wrong, but what happened last night was like all the birthdays and Christmases I have wasted in here have suddenly joined in a massive mental celebration. I am drunk on you Emily Fitch, and if this thing of ours never gets further than touching hands and furtive kisses, I will die happy. You're beautiful, funny, smart and so drop dead gorgeous that I will have to start carrying a change of knickers around for the odd occasion we bump into each other in the wing. Too much information, I know, but I have always been one to say it how it is. The upside of that (if you're interested) is that I can be very creative err, verbally in some 'horizontal positions', so if you ever want to find out I promise it will be fun!

OK, last paragraph. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Do you get the picture. I promise to be a good girl from now on. Not get obscenely jealous when you have the odd liaison outside to scratch your itch, and I will personally abstain from letting Ellie into my knickers any more. Just one condition. You love me Emily Fitch, you just love me, and fucking tell me you love me every time you can. That's all you have to do to have a happy and contented Naomi Campbell. Just saying...

Forgive me?

Love always your Naomi

I finished the letter sappily I knew, but that's what the girl did to me, what am I gonna do?

I sealed it inside a reusable envelope one of the local library memo's had come in and stored it in my knickers (I didn't have any perfume to make it more fragrant, but I somehow suspected that she wouldn't complain much) until I could stash it upstairs. She wouldn't be in until Tuesday morning, so I had to keep it safe till then. Anything with Emily and my name on it was dynamite, so I had to be more than careful.

Back upstairs, I body swerved Ellie, promising to see her in the evening and stashed the letter inside the tubular leg of my bed, putting the rubber stop back on the steel afterwards and thought about tomorrow. Tomorrow, I hoped everything would be OK... wouldn't it?

Tuesday

Up with the lark (well as lark like as a Campbell ever gets) and a swift shower, dab with some body lotion, dress in black skinny's and blue tee and off I go, downstairs to my 'Rehabilitative Counselling' session – sadly a group one – with Emily Fitch.

I even had a smile and a wave for Ellie, which after my last few days of basically ignoring her was enough to brighten her day. I just hoped she didn't expect a shag on the strength of it. Shags would be in short supply from now on.

I knocked on the Governors office door and entered at the brisk 'Hello' which answered it.

Emily sat behind her desk, dressed in a light grey business suit with a black buttoned top underneath. My brain said 'fuck me sideways' and I had to physically prevent my body carrying myself over the desk and into her lap. Her eyes were cool, as she stared at me, and I almost lost my nerve. I had never seen those beautiful brown eyes anything but alive with feeling and I cussed myself again for making this all so difficult for her on Sunday. I gathered my nerve and did what I said I was going to do. Holding out the sealed letter, still warm from where it had nestled until very recently, I said in a formal voice

"Oh, Miss Fitch, this is the letter you were expecting"

My eyes begged her to take it, and after a small but significant pause, she took it from my hand and went to put it on her desk. The other three women in the semi circle of cons watched us like hawks, because nothing in prison goes unnoticed, but my girl never missed a beat. As the letter passed her face on its way to the drawer, I saw her eyes dilate and her nostrils widen. Fuck, I thought, she can smell me on it, and in a very nice way!

Not a flicker after that. In the drawer it went, and after I sat down in my place, the session got under way.

It wasn't quite an AA meeting, but at times it got quite emotional. Everyone has a back story in prison, and these sort of group meetings tend to reduce some women to tears quite easily. When it came to my turn I adopted the contrite sinner pose the authorities loved although, as I'm sure it said on my file, I had never really done the whole confession thing. Comes from not actually fucking knowing what I did really. Short of second sight, I was never going to remember the events of that night. I was desperately sorry for the young couple who had died, and many nights were spent wishing it all away, but truth to be told, I was still really waiting to deal with my crime. I suppose that was the point of these meetings, and because Emily watched me like a hawk while I was showing remorse, I tried to be the penitent for her. Sounds hard I know, but it was all still after all these years confusing to me.

After an hour of soul searching and executive listening skills from our wing Governor, we were dismissed. I tried to lag behind, but Emily was having none of it. She was professionalism personified. I gave her one last long look, but her head was down in her paperwork, and my last memory was just of that head of beautifully managed red hair.

The afternoon passed as slowly as any afternoon does when you are waiting for a response to something important, so you can imagine my plummeting heart when I saw Emily leave her office at 5, locking it behind her before leaving the wing at a fast clip. She never even glanced my way, and it took all my willpower to keep the Campbell mask on tight. I swallowed hard at the disappointment, and turned back to my room. The ever present Ellie was there of course, like a Remora fish, clinging to any hope of shagathon the sequel. I chatted to her half heartedly, but she could sense my mood and left me to my thoughts without too much of a struggle. I remember muttering something about 'family problems' and she seemed to accept that lie with good grace.

6 pm saw me in the library again. Barbara was absent, again, supposedly getting her hair done for imminent release, so that left me without the problem of my love bunny Ellie 'just passing' my place of work. I settled down for an evening with the Lakeland Poets. My course tutor would be proud of me. Of course, reading the same fucking line for 15 minutes doesn't really count as revision, does it?

So when the door opened at 6.30, I sat upright, glad of the interruption. I smelt her perfume before she came in, so the flash of red wasn't such a surprise. Her face was guarded, but in her hands she was carrying a large cardboard box. She plonked it on the desk in front of me before speaking.

"There are last weeks Hello, OK and a few Closers here Naomi" she smiled with her mouth. I noticed it didn't reach her eyes. "I usually bring them in for the wing on Tuesday".

I held my breath, hoping there was more.

"You might find something of use at the bottom too" she said breezily, before turning on her heel and walking back out of the door. It closed behind her with a heavy thump, which was echoed in my falling heart. Fuck, she was dumping me!

I thumbed through the stupid girlie mags with no enthusiasm at all. Fucking silicone models and Z list celebrities adorned every front page. I almost dumped the whole lot in the bin, but something wasn't quite right. The bottom layer wobbled slightly and I could see something underneath. Something in a small box, about 6" square.

Checking the door and corridor for wandering screws, I slid open the plain black slip case and nearly dropped the fucking thing on the floor. The word Samsung jumped out at me in full glowing colour. It was a tiny fucking mobile, for Christ's sake.

The short journey up to my cell was a nightmare. Have you ever tried to smuggle a mobile phone in your knickers, even a very small one, across a crowded concourse, thronging with very observant people? Thought not. I had to adjust myself several times on the way. I wasn't quite brave enough to put it in the obvious crevice. I didn't know if it was waterproof for a start! Anyone looking too close at my crotch would assume I had gained a small but perfectly formed addition to my anatomy. I would have been killed in the rush, no doubt.

Shutting my door behind me, I slid the phone rapidly into the same place the letter had occupied earlier and breathed a little easier. Once lights out was called, and the place calmed down a bit, I unfolded the single sheet of A4 paper that had been wrapped round the handset and read what it said.

"Naomi. You are forgiven. This is for you. Text me later, say after 11. I love you. E")

Simple, to the point and enough to make my heart swell like the sun.

She loved me. She loved me, she loved me.

Well guys, I have to post this now, without revealing the texts that transpire because I have to at some stage do my fkin job and stop hammering at my keyboard. But don't worry, you will have ringside seats at the Naomily text fest. Promise!

Review guys, I love it!