PART ONE

- 1 -

Timing.  That's all it comes down to, really, simple fucking bad -- *rotten* -- timing.  Forget comedy, timing's the secret of *life*.  Everything rides on how, and why, and when.
 Kinda timing makes you so desperate for money you know you have to do something, anything, or face having your "pretty  face" turned into spaghetti, 'cause you owe too much and your next check from the nightclub will be way too late. So you take your last hit and you head for the store, and you don't let yourself think about it 'cause you just don't have the time.  Helmet on, into the store, gun out.  Shouting.  Cash in the bag, out the door and holy *shit* the fucker's got a *shotgun* -- you fire without thinking, grabbing the pimply passerby and using his screaming face as a shield, fire again and *damn*, you got him and oh *shit* he's fucking *dead* --
 No time, no time no time no time.  Onto the bike, full throttle.  Your ears ringing, your balance shot to fuck.  Gun the gas as the sirens begin to yowl.  Down the street, wind roaring against your visor, pressing hard.  The bike weaves back and forth, squirming under you like a woman trying, and failing, to buck you off.  Lights flashing in the rearview mirrors now, but too slow, too slow, as you finally begin to get your balance back, the exhilaration of triumph and escape and meth making your head blaze and your skin crawl. And then you are *gone*, motherfuckers, try to catch you *now* --
 Timing.
 The car turns the corner into the street, out of fucking nowhere.
 You don't even hit, that's what really pisses you off.  You swerve, he swerves, and next thing you know the ground's coming up at you sideways like a haymaker from the fist of God.  Blinding impact, so fierce you can't even see what happened, and you roll over and over, the world spinning'till pain slowly tells you you've stopped moving.  The sirens fade into a pulsing whine like a TV test pattern signal, blood inside your eardrums. You stare at the sky, trying to focus, your arm stiff and hot, all pain from wrist to shoulder.  Broken, fucker must be broken.  You see the dim figures, blurred by sun, blurred by meth, blurred by pain.  The sky beyond. So clear.
 Timing.
 It's the timing that kills you.
 

- 2 -

Keller always remembered the actual robbery that way, in disconnected flashes of sensation, like separate security cam photos laid out in sequence -- blurred, broken images of black and white, ending in static.  Then again, that wasn't exactly unusual.  He remembered a lot of his life that way, high or sober: with gaps -- sometimes chemically induced, sometimes deliberately chosen.  It was the only form of anesthesia readily available to him, and he'd gotten very good at self-administering it.
 It wasn't coming now, though, no matter how hard he tried.  He knew that was part of it.  You couldn't *try*, or you were fucked right there -- like a Zen thing or some bullshit like that.  The knowledge didn't help.  He stared at the cast on his arm, trying to lose himself in its whiteness and failing.  The effort made him yawn.
 Oz.
 Eighty... eight... fucking... *years*.
 (Up for parole in fifty.)
 The numbers still weren't real to him.  Ten, fifteen, even twenty years he could have understood.  Eighty-eight?  That wasn't a prison sentence, for Chrissake.  That was the number of keys on a fucking *piano.*  He shook his head, unable to get around the image and equally unable to dismiss it.
 "Hate to tell you, buddy, but starin' at it ain't gonna make it go away."
 Keller looked up at the words and blinked.  The man lounging in the door was tall, pallid, and shaven-headed, but definitely *not* one of those Aryan Brotherhood fucks Chris remembered so well from Lardner.  He didn't have the eyes or the face for it:  his narrow eyes were too green, his face too flexible and skeptical for the stiff-necked zeal the Brotherhood cultivated.  There was a glitter to those eyes, but it was a mocking, knowing, hustler-like glitter, not the shine of the fanatic.
 "Who're you?"
 The man unwound himself from his arms-folded pose, sauntered loosely over to the table and dropped without audible impact into the chair opposite Chris.  "I'm the welcome wagon.  Your duly-appointed new best friend in this shithole."  He offered his hand.  "O'Reily.  Ryan O'Reily.  You want something, I can get it."
 Chris didn't move to take it.  "Can you get me a new trial, *friend*?"
 "Funny.  I like that."  The smile widened, the eyes bright, almost glassy.  Keller wanted to edge away -- *Yeah, you like it, like a cat likes to swim* -- but kept still.  You gave ground like that, they saw it as weakness, and you were fucked.  Literally.  And just 'cause he knew how to handle that, if he had to, didn't mean he was interested in inviting it.  Especially if he was in for the long haul.
 Eighty eight years....
 (*Christ, STOP it, already!*)
 He realized Ryan was speaking, had been speaking for a few seconds.  "...show you the ropes in Em City, help you get your feet under you, that kinda shit."
 This caught his attention.  "Em City?"
 Ryan snorted; his grin hovered halfway between malicious delight and sympathy.  "That's what McManus calls it.  Made his own little slice of penal-system paradise on Earth, here.  Just like that old movie. You know: 'Where the streets are paved with gold...and nobody ever gets old...'"
            (*'Cause they all get shanked--or otherwise screwed over--before they get the fuckin' chance.*)
 "So McManus is, what, the great and powerful wizard?"  Keller raised his eyebrows.
 "Yeah.  The man behind the curtain nobody gives a fuck about."
 Keller had to laugh.  It was more reluctant snort than hearty guffaw, but it was the first thing he'd laughed at in a while.  "Okay, Scarecrow."  He stood and gestured to the door.  "Lead the way."
 "Down the Yellow Brick Road," grinned Ryan, pushing himself to his feet.  Keller noted the way he held himself, lightly and loosely, not exactly looking for a fight but ready for it if and when it came.  But there was a thread of tautness and stiffness there as well -- as though his body was wired around some inflexible inner tension -- and it came to Keller for the first time that Ryan did not look well; that his pallor was more than simple prisoner no-tan, his shaven head more than an affectation of toughness.  And the glitter in his narrowed, snake-green eyes now seemed feverish.
           As the contact gates screeched open to let them enter, Ryan shot Keller a cool glance, bullshit Irish charm boiling away somewhat. Warning:  "Just don't expect me to wipe your ass for ya, okay?"
           Keller met the freeze, and matched it. "This ain't exactly my first hitch, O'Reily."
           "Yeah." And the smile returned--a little less fake, this time. "Mine either."

- 3 -
 

Most prisons, like Lardner, were grey inside and  out: Grey walls, grey floors, grey mood. This was different -- *white*, so white in places it hurt his eyes, made brighter for the constant reflections of light and face against wall after wall off'a -- ex-CUSE me?
 Ryan swaggered ahead, either not noticing or just plain ignoring Keller's gawk.  "Guess Whittlesey already gave you the rundown, right?  No fighting, no fucking -- "
 "Yeah."  Keller scowled around, squinting up and down the double-tiered open space.  "All these walls made of *glass*?"
 "Some kinda plastic."
 Right.  Well, it would have to be.  "Unbreakable, huh?"
 "Yeah.  Mostly."  Ryan shrugged.  "Saw one guy break a wall once -- course, he was pretty fuckin' high at the time."
 (Oh, that's *real* reassuring.)
 "Thought there were no drugs in Em City."
 "Drugs?  Noooooo."  Ryan grinned yet again, obviously his mask of choice; a half-circle of scar tissue on his chin creased with the expression, like a second, sidelong smile.  "All the tits you can suck on, though, you got the money -- know what I mean, bro?"
 Keller only nodded.
 (Yeah... I know what you mean.  Bro.)
 Without warning Ryan suddenly swung to the left, ducking around a support pillar.  Keller followed at a more sedate pace, eyes still flickering back and forth:  Place might be strange, but the faces were the same.  Not the same *men*, of course--just the same dull, wary curiosity, the same formless, barely-restrained hostility.  It was weirdly reassuring, somehow.  Like coming home, huh, Chris?
 (Man, I HOPE not.)
 "C'mon, man--you think you got the rest of your life?"  Ryan leant against the door of a cell, perpetual grin almost a snarl below fever-bright eyes.
 "Pretty damn near," Keller snapped back.  This Leprechaun act could get *real* old, *real* fast if it didn't stop soon.  "You like this with everyone?"
 "Just the ones he ain't plannin' to take out right fuckin' now."  A voice chimed in, echoing from beyond the cell door.
 "Fuck you, Hill," Ryan tossed over his shoulder.
 "Yeah, right back atcha, homo erectus."
 Ryan blinked; his smile flickered a little, but only for an instant.  By that time, however, the second speaker had -- *rolled*? -- out of the cell, and was sizing Keller up with all the automatic 'tude of a lifetime habitual offender: arrogant, penetrating, defensively analytic.  Black, dreadlocked, a mobile mouth held in something that wasn't quite a scowl... sweatshirt and wheelchair alike stamped with PROPERTY OF OSWALD PENITENTIARY.
 The man -- Hill -- tilted his head.  "So who the fuck are you?"
 "I'm your new cellmate."
 "Podmate," corrected O'Reily.  "We call them pods."
 Keller raised his eyebrows.  "The fuck?"
 "Cell's considered a de-*rog*-atory term, these days," said Hill.  "We say 'inmate', 'stead of 'prisoner'.  Or 'final termination of sentence', 'stead of 'waste his con ass.'  Gives us all a little more... dignity."
 (Uh-HUH.)
 "Pod," Keller repeated.  Thinking:
 Yeah.  Stacked up like peas.  Only with less privacy.
 Still, could be worse.  He let himself take another look around, revolving slowly, half check-your-back reflex and half wanting to get away from O'Reily's and Hill's amused, almost *gleeful* banter.  Sure, he was the new boy, and you had fun with the new boys -- it was part of the game, Keller accepted that.  But there was something just a little too sharp-edged about this particular hazing.  Too much strain in the air, a tension he hadn't felt even in Lardner, like a riot was about to erupt, or something --
 'Cept they'd already *had* a riot at Oz, almost a year back.  He'd seen it on the news.  And usually, that brought a little relief to a place.  Like draining off pus from an open wound -- a spontaneous eruption of fear and exhaustion that left you too tuckered out to do much but keep your head down, eased the pressure.  But, then again...
 (Maybe it's like this ALL the time.)
 Ohhhh, shit.
 It could be worse, Keller told himself again, though he believed it even less this time.  Things could always be worse, right?  Things --
 And then, a smash-and-grab flash of peripheral vision, like something physically jumping across the room and jerking his head back, locking him in place:  A silvering blond head he'd skimmed over the first time, maybe because its owner had had his back to the main entrance.  But from this angle the face was clearly, sickeningly visible.  The same deceptively mild profile -- a little looser-jowled now, less hair, more overall bulk.  The same relaxed, benign pose, leaning back in his uncomfortable prison chair like an uncle enjoying his favourite seat at the head of the table.  And the same merciless blue eyes, flat with studied disinterest, like chunks of tinted glass.
 Almost under his breath:  "Holy... fucking... *shit.*"
 There was no way those words could have crossed the distance and the noise of the hall to reach the blond man's ear.  But as Keller well knew, he'd *always* had this spooky knack for sensing when someone's attention had turned his way. Like an animal, a bear maybe, grizzled and wily and secure in the knowledge that most people knew so little about his kind that they'd always end up underestimating him -- to their cost.  And as Keller breathed the words of dismayed recognition, Vern Schillinger turned, his cold eyes sweeping across the room like twin radar beams, locking onto Keller with a nearly audible click.
 He didn't grin.  Grins weren't Schillinger's style.  But a faint tug at the corner of his mouth showed the signal had gone through all the same.  Keller kept his own face blank, too rattled to be sure of controlling it any other way.  He made sure not to break eye contact, projecting without words:
 *Yeah, that's right: It's me. But this ain't Lardner, Vern.  I ain't seventeen any more. And I AIN'T -- your prag.*
            (Or anybody else's.)
 No reaction on Vern's face.  He just looked away -- not the way a weaker person looks away from a stronger, but the way a stronger person shifts attention, dismissing something beneath his notice.  Keller became aware of a weird pain in the palm of his left hand -- the one on the arm withOUT the cast -- and looked down to realize he'd been clenching it into a fist, fingernails biting raggedly into his own skin.
 Probably a good idea to pay his respects, anyways.  Not that he particularly *wanted* to, but... it looked like -- once again -- Vern had found his way into the top dog slot of the local A.B. chapter.  Better to deal with that as soon as possible.  The longer he put it off the weaker he would look when the confrontation finally happened.  He wasn't out to "win", of course.  Just play to a (hopefully) neutral draw.
 (You leave my back alone, I leave yours?)
 Hah.  He'd never even gotten *near* Vern's BACK.
 The thought brought a twist of humour to his lips -- bleak, but oddly comforting.  He took a breath and headed out across the room, forcing himself to fall into a mock-confident stride, leaving O'Reily and Hill to their own devices.  Way they were goin' at it, they'd barely notice he was gone.
 (Fuckin' Welcome Wagon.)
 Vern looked back as he approached.  This time, he did smile -- a faint but perceptible twitch that could have been anything from amusement to contempt.  If he knew Vern, it was probably large shares of both.  "Well, well, well."
 "Vern."
 "Chris-to-pher."  His eyes dropped to the cast.  "Busted up your arm pretty good, huh?"
 Small talk.  Okay.  He could play small talk.
 "Yeah. Took a header off the bike."
 "Huh. What kind?"
 "Kawasaki."
 Vern raised a sketchy non-brow. "You *bought* a Kawa-fuckin'-saki?"
 "Wellll...I didn't actually BUY it."
 Keller shot Vern a look from under his lashes, cocking a--considerably more impressive --brow of his own. Added a knowing grin, like a secret shared between them.
 Vern shook his head, smile now a definite *smirk*: Ah, Chrissie, Chrissie, Chrissie.
 (You slut.)
 Yeah, well: You think that all you want, big Daddy, Keller thought.  'Long as it gets me back in your...good graces. WithOUT me having to search your pants to find 'em.
 Which, of course, was the point.  He'd spent way too much time on his knees in one position or another in places like this, with guys like Vern.  And the one bright spot in coming to Oz had been the idea of breaking new ground.  No rep, no name, no past to live up -- or down -- to.  No jizz, either, but he could live with that until he built some of his own.  For once, if he played this right, he might be able to slip out from under the goddamn "prag" label.
 Provided, that was, Vern kept his mouth shut -- and didn't expect Chris to keep his permanently open in return.
 On the other hand, there was no real subtle way to bring that topic up
 (so to speak)
 in public, and no way to have themselves a "private talk" without Keller laying himself open to a... resumption of their old relationship, either.
 Devil and the deep blue sea, frying pan and the fire, rock and a hard place.... business as fucking usual.
 Well.  If he had to take a risk, better make it one he already knew -- worse came to worst -- he could handle, if not enjoy.  He jerked his head away from the table.  "Can we talk a sec?"
 "We're talking now."
 (Oh, you fucker, you're gonna make me work for this, aren't you.)
 "In private," Keller amplified, between not-*quite*-clenched teeth.
 Vern exchanged glances with the other men sitting at the table.  One, a tall, muscular guy with a black lightning bolt tattooed on his naked scalp, shrugged.  "We ain't goin' anywhere."  A pause.  "Sure you wanna make the little woman jealous?"
 (The *what*?)
 Vern stretched expansively and blew out a breath.  "You're a funny man, Gorman."
 Keller almost smiled.  Some things never changed.  Vern was still one of the few people he knew who could take an utterly innocuous statement and make an open threat out of it.  He followed the older man across the central area, up a flight of stairs, and into a cell --
 (POD.  Right.  Pod.)
 -- pod that, fancy name aside, looked like any other cell he'd seen.  Metal-frame bunkbed, militarily neat, automatic toilet facilities.  A miniature table, two chairs, the usual stack of political tracts and tomes Vern favoured as reading matter scattered over it --
 -- plus a *very* large book, written in what looked like insanely tiny-printed legalese, spread open to pages on jailhouse appeals.  And a tube of screaming scarlet lipstick standing upright beside it, looking as out of place as a boner on a statue of the Virgin Mary.
 Either Vern was broadening his fashion horizons, or Keller wasn't going to have quite as much of a problem here as he'd been afraid he would.
 Vern slung himself onto the bottom bunk, sprawling comfortably at length.  Keller's eyes narrowed as he leant back against the glass wall by the door.  The Vern he knew had rarely looked this relaxed, even on his own home ground.  Magnanimous, even.  Something *had* changed here.  Then again, maybe this was just Vern's way of showing him exactly how unafraid he was.  How well he still knew him:  *I don't have anything to worry about from YOU, do I, Chrissie?  Even if you're twice as pumped, and possibly pissed, as you were in Lardner.  I know where you stand.  Not that you usually do -- stand, that is....*
 "So what's on your mind, cupcake?"
 (Don't fuckin' call me *cupcake*, that's what's on my mind.  You Nazi asshole.)
 Keller's fist tightened again.  He bit back the urge to say something really stupid -- like what he'd just thought -- and opened his mouth.  He still wasn't sure exactly what he was going to say.
 It turned out not to matter.
 A *crack* of sound erupted in his ear instead, close and sharp and loud as a gunshot.  Keller spun on one foot, jerking back from the door frame, hands up, and found himself suddenly face to face with a small, compact, infuriated figure.  Blue eyes, dilated and slightly aslant under blond brows, blazed into his.  One square hand was planted palm-flat against the glass, next to where Keller's head had been; the other was clenching and unclenching spasmodically, not into a fist but into a feral claw, ready to scratch.  A knit bag lay fallen at their feet, spilling clothing.
 The voice, when it came, was ridiculously level.  Almost *cultured*.  Inquiring:  "You trying to step in my spot?"  Half a heartbeat.  "PRAG?"
 And he *lunged* on the word -- the epithet exploding right in Keller's face a split second before tiny white teeth snapped closed JUST in front of his nose, so close he could actually *feel* the enamel scrape his skin.  He whipped his head back and away, hand flying to his nose.  "*Jesus* fucking CHRIST!"
 "Language," said Vern reprovingly.
 (Easy for *you* to say!)
 Keller checked his fingers.  No blood.  The freak hadn't actually bitten him, thank God.  He dropped his hand and gaped, too rattled to take full inventory, getting it in snatches:  Pale skin, compact form. Blond hair, long enough to reach the jawline; blue eyes, a little darker than Vern's, with hints of green and hazel. A snub-nosed, secretive face.  Wry, pouty mouth, clean-shaven chin. (No whisker burn for Vern, of course.)  And those sharp little TEETH.  Tight t-shirt, sleeves rolled up to show surprisingly muscular arms.  Small stud earrings, fake sapphire crystals glinting in Em City's ceaseless white glare.  A chain around his neck attached to a pair of gold-rimmed -- glasses?
 "You might wanna ask around, you get the chance."  The rage was audible in the man's voice now, though controlled: the strange, cultured enunciation never slipped.  "Find out what happened to the *last* guy who took a run at replacing me -- "
 "To*bi*as."  Vern lifted a finger and actually *wagged* it at the man.  "Play nice."
 The man froze -- one instant of dead stillness.  "Sir."
 A flat, uninflected word.
 And then he stepped to the side of the bed, all the fury gone -- so completely Keller had to blink.  It was as if he'd disappeared and been replaced by a different man who just happened to superficially look the same.  The freak -- "Tobias" -- dropped to his knees beside Vern's bunk, without grace but without awkwardness, and let his head droop demurely.  Vern reached out and ruffled his hair.
 "That's my baby," he murmured.
 Before Keller could think of something to say Vern looked up at him.  "So just in case you were wondering -- you don't need to worry your pretty little head about me, Chris.  As you can see -- " his hand stopping, fingers tightening almost imperceptibly -- "I'm a happily married man."
 "And... this is the missus?"
 "Chris Keller -- Tobias Beecher."  Vern glanced at the blond, moving Tobias' head gently back and forth, as if entreating a shy child.  "Tobias.  Say hi."
 Tobias glanced up through lowered gilt lashes, then lifted his left hand, back towards Keller, and waggled the ring finger slightly.
 (Is he flippin' me off?  With the wrong finger...)
 Oh, *Jesus.*
 The band of darkness around the ring finger that Keller had automatically assumed to be a ring -- even though he *knew* you weren't usually allowed to wear rings in prison -- was a *tattoo*.  A closely-woven, intricate mesh of thorned strands, like a band of barbed wire, in a stark black that made a startling contrast against the pale hand.  And given the tat's detail and its location -- right in the middle of one of the skin's most sensitive areas, almost directly over bone -- the only thing Chris could think was:
 (Man.  That had to *hurt.*)
 "Hi, Chris."  Saccharine and mocking.
 "I can see you're... committed," Keller managed.  Thinking:
 (Christ, you should BE committed.  Both of you crazy fucks.)
 "Oh, hell, yeah."  Vern's eyes shifted back to Beecher.  "Show him your engagement present, cupcake."
 A moment -- a flicker from Beecher's eyes, pale blue meeting paler; that set look in Vern's, unreadable and implacable -- and then Beecher turned and dropped trou, mooning Keller without a sound or a wiggle.  Keller blinked down at the uneven, swastika-shaped scar on the (much better-shaped) gold-furred butt before him.
 (You don't like this nearly as much as you let on, do you, kitty-cat?)
 Not that *THAT* takes a whole lot of smarts to guess.
 "Gave him that the first night we met," Vern reminisced.  "Took a little time, 'cause you know, he was squirming and all, but I think it came out all right.  Don't you?"
 "Yeah.  It's... nice."  Keller's voice was a little fainter than he wanted, but Vern didn't seem to notice.  Beecher didn't move.
 "Uh-huh.  Won't say it wasn't work, those first few months, but -- "  Vern stretched once more, almost luxuriously -- "I broke him. And now he's mine--so you can look, but you better not touch."
 "Like I'd want to."  Not, perhaps, the entire truth -- no denying that *was* a nice ass -- but Keller's nose was still tingling.  And he knew better than to contradict Vern anyway.  About anything.
 Vern snorted. "Fuck I care what you WANT? I *know* you, Chris-to-pher. So hands off."  He abruptly seemed to become aware of Beecher again, still bent over, patiently waiting with his pants around his ankles.  "'Kay, that's enough, for Chrissake.  Laundry's not gonna put itself away, is it?"
 "No, sir."  Beecher bent, fastened his pants, then began collecting the spilled clothes docilely.  Keller watched him, still not quite able to reconcile his memory of blazing eyes and snapping teeth with this... this *handmaiden*.  Neat, efficient, clean -- and he'd learned exactly how *Vern* liked his shirts folded, too.  He shot a look at Schillinger.
 Vern wasn't even looking.
 That threw Keller more than anything else.  Whatever else he was, Schillinger was always *alert*.  Even when monitoring prags' actions, or close comrades.  This was... this was just out to lunch.
 (This guy must be some kind of amazing in the sack.)
 A bell rang.  Vern looked towards the door.  "Christ, five already?  Where *does* the day go."  He waved at Beecher.  "Go fill my order, and let the guys know I'll be down in a minute."
 "I haven't finished here, sir -- "
 "After dinner."
 "Yes, sir."  Beecher left the shirt he'd been folding on the table, headed for the door -- but paused by the bunk, dipping down to give Vern a discreet, brush-by kiss.  Close enough to count, but just subtle enough not to get the hacks' shorts in a knot.  Keller heard the faint scrape of dull gold stubble, and saw just a *hint* of pink tongue at the lip's edge, leaving a hot, moist trail...
 In his crotch: A tug, a TWITCH.
 Same thing Vern had to be feeling.  Not that he let on--in any way an outside observer who *hadn't* once been where Beecher is now could tell.  But it was there.  The tension in arms and legs, the subliminal shift in body posture.  And the momentary flicker of his eyes following as Beecher walked away, swinging his hips.
 "Spitfire, ain't he?"
 "He's a fuckin' *nut*."
 "Yep, that too. But SWEET."
 (Sweeter'n *you*...sweetpea.)
 Fuck *that* chain of thought.  Keller forced himself to remember what he'd come in here for in the first place:  To get his non-prag status established... and get his past left alone by the one person in a position to dig it up.
 And nonetheless found himself sidetracking, the first thing out of his mouth:
 "I thought you didn't like hustlers."
 "Him?" Vern chuckled. "He's a *lawyer*.  Used to be, at least."
 "Thought you didn't like lawyers."
 "Went to Harvard," continues Vern, ignoring the implication.  "Rich little prick, too.  Could buy and sell both of us."
 (Which must make you *really* powerful -- now you're slippin' him the high, hard one every night.)
 On the other hand, Keller had to appreciate the irony of it.  Since lawyers, far as he'd ever been able to tell, usually spent their entire life shafting *other* people.
 But Vern was saying something now.  Keller made himself focus.  "...thinkin' maybe I was gonna spread what we had together around -- Chrissie?  Nope. What you get up to doesn't concern me -- "  His eyes hardened.  " -- just so long's you keep a distance from what's mine."
 Well.  *That* was simple.  Keller felt like he'd wound up to punch a brick wall and ended up with his fist wrist-deep in marshmallow.  "...thanks," he said.
 "Don't mention it.  I won't."
 

- 4 -

Hill and two older guys, Rebadow and Busmalis, accompanied him down to the chow hall.  They were, Hill cheerfully informed him, part of the Others -- the misfits and outsiders who didn't fit comfortably into any of Em City's other factions.  Until the cast came off, Keller would be an honourary member of this little clique.  He couldn't say he was much impressed with any of them, but a slow look around the dining hall didn't offer him any better places to sit.
 Gangstas to the right of him.  Latinos to the left.
 (Here I am, stuck in the middle with *these* fucks.)
 Sicilians and Christians and queers, oh my.  Micks at the front of the hall -- probably to be near O'Reily, who was ladling out slop at the kitchen counter.  Keller wondered how you went about getting that job.  A little further down, a large group of Muslims sat centred around -- holy shit, that *was* him.  Kareem Said.  Keller still remembered the news furor from when he'd been arrested, and the grapevine had placed him at the bottom of Oz's recent riot.
 And there, across the room, Vern's bunch:  Tall, white, proud and bald, and about as bright-looking collectively as a sack full of wet mice.  Vern was centre stage, holding forth about something or other.  Keller suspected he could fill in the blanks, even now.  The White Race blah blah blah, Fucking Country's Going to Hell blah blah blah, Gotta Hold Our Heads Up Against These Niggers / Mongrels / Chinks / Kikes / Spics / Micks / Hacks / Whatever-The-Fuck-Else-I-Can-Think-Of blah blah blah.
 (Blah, blah, *fuckin'* blah.)
 And on the edge of the crowd, Beecher, just sitting down with what was evidently his *own* tray -- he'd probably had to stand over an empty seat holding Vern's until Schillinger actually showed up. Several of the nearby queens hissed at him.  He gave them the finger -- accurately, this time -- and sat down without looking.  Keller half-smiled. Unlucky fuckin' bastard.
 (Still, better you than me, freak.)
 He shoveled a forkful of mashed something into his mouth -- instant potato, from the powdery over-garlicked taste of it -- and paused.  Beecher had picked up his own fork, but hadn't moved.  His eyes flicked from side to side, as if making sure Vern's attention was securely elsewhere.  Then, with a quick, almost spasmodic movement, his free hand dipped, caught up his glasses, and jammed them onto his face.  He took one brief look at the tray, then whipped them off again and began eating.
 Keller had never worn glasses himself.  But Bonnie had, on the numerous occasions she didn't bother with her contacts.  And he recognized that movement.  It was the quick-check reaction of someone too vain
 (or owned by someone else too vain)
 to wear glasses, but too myopic to function well without them.  Keller stared at his tray, realizing the awful truth.  This poor geek actually needed his *glasses* to figure out exactly what he was having for *dinner.*
 Of course, given what they were eating, he supposed it might taste better if you *didn't* know.  What the fuck *was* this green stuff, anyway?
 And only eighty-seven years and three-hundred and sixty-four more days of this to go, a little voice whispered in the back of his head with malicious glee.
 (Better get *yourself* a Beecher.)
 But this, as Keller well knew, was easier said than done.
 

- 5 -

Later that night, lying in the top bunk above Hill -- who, of fucking *course*, SNORED -- Keller woke, disoriented and pissed-off.  Sleep had been slow enough coming, and he wasn't even sure, for a moment, what had woken him, since Hill actually seemed to have found a position that cleared his nasal passages.  A sound:  Heavy breathing, not his or Hill's.  Rhythmic creaks like a metal frame giving slightly.  All with a tinny quality, almost echoey with distance, as though filtering down through the... ceiling?
 Oh, man.
 ('Cause -- I'm right *under* Vern's pod, aren't I?)
 Now it was obvious.  Too obvious.  Keller squeezed his eyes shut, fell back on his mattress and draped his uncasted arm across his eyes, as if that could block out the noises.  The queasily familiar noises of what had to be Vern and his "missus" going at it less than ten feet away, right above Keller's vaguely nauseated head.
  (Eeuucchh.)
 In detail, he knew all the sounds, could imagine -- *remember* -- the moves.  Beecher, moaning.  That deep chuckle Vern always gave.  The creaking as two bodies shifted weight violently on a bunk only meant for one at a time, and a smacking sound like flesh meeting flesh wetly --
 -- no, that wasn't right.
 What WAS that sound?  Not slurpy enough for cocksucking, too squelchy for --
 Oh... *shit*.
 (He's KISSING him.)
 Possibly the one thing in the universe grosser than having to personally take it up the ass from Vern Schillinger: Having to suck on his *tongue* while you did it.
 And then, weirdly resentful:
 (He never kissed *me*.)
 But if they were *kissing*, then Beecher had to be... face UP?
 Curiouser and fucking curiouser.  Not that Keller actually *was* that curious... or not that he *wanted* to be.  But it was like an auto accident.  You told yourself not to look, that this was not only tragic, possibly revolting, but also CLEARLY none of your business -- and you stared anyway, right?  'Cause you had to *see* it.
 There, at least, something resembling God was on Keller's side.  There was no way he could actually *see* anything with a solid concrete floor separating him from the action.  Unless of course he looked across the hall to see if there was a reflection in the opposite pod doors (oh CHRIST, Chris, don't do it!).
 He did anyway.  There wasn't.  His eyes closed and his breath rushed out of him thankfully.
 Except now, of course, he had to -- couldn't help *but* -- IMAGINE what's going on.
 (Beecher on his back, legs wide; Vern between them, laboring. That forward grunt, that backward wheeze. And those mewling, purring noises...with facial contortions to match, no doubt.)
            Urrrgh.
            Keller rolled over on his side, almost aggressively trying to squirm into his mattress, thinking about anything except what was now demanding *immediate* attention in his shorts.
 Ah, hell.
 So: Couldn't ignore it -- not *completely* -- and he sure as hell didn't want to keep teasing himself, however disgustingly, with more Vern/Beecher imagery, forcing himself to speculate on just what might or might not be making all that racket. Nothing to do, in fact, but take himself neatly in hand and "amuse himself" to a quick and dirty climax.  Then drop back to sleep, perchance *not* to dream...
            (hopefully)
            Above, Beecher made a wordless, inquiring noise; Vern laughed again, weirdly tolerant. Rumbling:
            "Get some sleep, you slut."
            And Keller heard Beecher sigh, as though genuinely disappointed--slide "reluctantly" from the top bunk, pausing for what sounds like one last spit-swap...
            Thinking, amazed: Damn. That bitch is GOOD.
 And once again, just before drifting off:
 (He never... *ever*... kissed ME.)

END PART ONE
 
 

UNBOUND
PART TWO
 

- 1 -

Normally, Chris liked to vocalize during sex.  Audible gasps and grunts, reactions, soft encouragements, loud demands, shouts and -- on occasion -- screams.
            Fucking in a library kind of limited your options in that area, though.
            Still, silent could be good too.  *Anything* could be good when there wasn't much else to do except count hours until your first parole hearing, which wouldn't be until the middle of the next century -- well after he would have already retired, if he'd ever had a job he could have retired *from.*
            This was where Richie Hanlon came in, so to speak.
            Richie was a nice guy, for a drug dealer.  He'd been caught because he'd stayed to make sure the customer who'd OD'd on his stuff didn't actually die.  Reward:  ten years plus in Oz.  He'd caught Chris' attention because of the weird resemblance between them -- same receding hairline, same beaky nose, same well-kept body.  Richie was somewhat less catholic in his tastes -- he'd pledged outright to the gays, so he tended to listen to Keller's reminiscences about his wives with polite but visible boredom.
            That was fine too.  Conversation wasn't what Chris was primarily after.
            No, silence wasn't a bad thing.  Fighting to keep your gradually slowing gasps from being audible outside the copier-paper storage room could actually be kind of... arousing in itself.  What *really* pissed him off was that there wasn't anyplace comfortable to lie down.  He supported himself against the nearest shelf, arms trembling a little with after-reaction, Richie's back sweat-slick against his chest.
            "Wanna do this again sometime?" Keller whispered.
            "Sure."  Half breathy-laugh, half why-not shrug.  "You're not bad for a semi-straight guy."
            "You're not bad for a fag."
            "Yeah, well, I've had more practice."
            There -- the perfect opening.  "Speaking of practice, you know where my pod is?  Right under Schillinger's."
            Richie grimaced, bending down to grab his trousers.  "Aw, come on, man, I was planning to go eat."
            "I put you off your food in this place, I'm doin' you a favour."  He watched as Richie zipped up.  "What do you know about this prag Beecher, anyway?"

"Beecher?"  Hill's expression was a weird mix of disgust and anticipation -- like he was exasperated by the story but still reveling in its telling.  "Beecher came in spring of 97, 'bout six months before the riot.  Run over some little girl when he was all boozed up.  BMW, meet bike.  Guess who won.  Fifteen years for vehicular manslaughter; he coulda got parole in three.
            "Corporate lawyer, suit an' tie an' *glasses*, way out of place.  Walks in here looking like the daily special, all big eyes like a Disney cartoon, man, one of them cute little bunny rabbits, you know?  Walking roadkill."
            (Oh, and I'll bet Vern just *loved* that.)
            "Never saw a guy go face-down so fast, now I think about it.  Little bidding war between Schillinger and Adebisi, but Schillinger talks Beecher into *asking* McManus to put him in Vern's pod.  Man, how fuckin' dumb do you have to be?"
            "Pretty fuckin' dumb, I guess."
            "You got that right."
            (But Vern said it "took work".)

"That's... one way of putting it."  Richie pinched the bridge of his nose, frowning, like it was giving him a headache just to think about it.  "The way *I* heard it, that guy was put through more hoops than a circus act.  Like, Schillinger paid Jamie from Gen Pop to give Beecher a full makeover, then made him walk around like that all the time."  He shook his head.  "Christ, I dress up for Pride Day every year and it turned *my* stomach."
            "No shit."
            "He made him sing a song once, too.  You know that mike in the chow hall?  They use it for talent shows.  Schillinger made Beecher go up there in full outfit and sing him some damn love ballad.  Shit, what was it -- oh yeah."  He looked straight at Chris.  "'I Got It Bad -- '"
            "-- '(And That Ain't Good)'," Chris completed.
            "Wasn't, either."
            (Singing obviously not being one of Beecher's many... talents.)
            "He seems... okay with it now," Chris ventured.
            Richie laughed.  "Ask Scott Ross about *that*."

"Scott Ross?  Now Scott Ross was a biker."  Hill leaned forward in his chair.  "Tall, lanky mothahump, young guy but his hair's gone grey already -- what they call that?  Prema*ture*ly.  Friend of Vern's from the old biker gang days."
             "Bike *club*," Chris corrected automatically.  "What was he in for?"
             "For life.  For selling *weed.*"
             "Weed?"
             "New World Order, man.  Three strikes you're out, baby!"  Hill laughed and slapped the arm of his wheelchair.  "Still cracks me up."
            (Yeah, you're a fuckin' wheel-barrel of laughs.  Augustus.)
            "Anyway -- Vern decides he's had enough of Beecher's whiny lawboy ass, always sulkin' around, suckin' on O'Reily's tits -- you *know* what Schillinger's like about tits, man."
             For a moment Chris had to make an actual effort to banish the oddly lascivious image of Beecher's pink cat-mouth suckling at O'Reily's skinny chest.  "Yeah, it's an A.B. thing.  So Schillinger decides to go after Ross?"
            "Kicks Beecher out wearin' a brand-spankin'-new Confederate flag t-shirt," Hill confirmed.  He swept an arm out to indicate the quad.  "Now, how you think everyone down here gonna take that?"
            Chris surveyed the scattered groups of men, over three-quarters of them... not exactly Ivory-soap pure white.
            His expression was evidently answer enough for Hill, who nodded in satisfaction and leaned back.  "That's what Schillinger thought, too.
            "But he was wrong."

"First place Beecher went was O'Reily," said Richie.  "And O'Reily gave him angel dust.  Them being such good friends and all."
            "I didn't think O'Reily even *knew* Beecher."
            "Oh, they were tight for a while.  Not fuckbuddy tight -- O'Reily's *waaaay* too straight for that -- or wants everybody to think he is -- "
            " -- not to mention you don't fuck with Vern's property, even if he says he doesn't want it any more."
            "Yeah, there's that too.  So there's Beecher, stoned to the eyeballs on PCP, staggering back along the upper deck.  And he stops, just staring at Vern's pod.  Ross and Schillinger are in there shooting the shit.  Beecher picks up a chair..."

"...goes screamin' straight for Vern's pod, and *smashes* that motherfucker straight through the fucking *wall*."  Hill's voice had dropped to an intense, almost boyish whisper, the "This is the *good* part" storyteller voice.  "I guess he ain't used to bein' replaced... and you know how mean lawyers tend to turn when they get canned."
            "Yeah, sure."  In fact Chris had never actually known a lawyer... to speak to, anyway.  He suspected some of his "clients" had been lawyers -- they'd had the suits and the cellphones for it -- but their profession wasn't usually a subject that came up.
            (There's that phrase again.)
            "The glass slices Ross' face all to crap, and he is *pissed*.  I mention he was big?  Comes tearin' out of the pod, grabs Beecher and starts tryin' to pound his head on the railing... 'cept he didn't know Beecher was dusted.  Beecher kinda *squirts* out of his grip like a bar of soap, grabs Ross' shirt and *shoves*.  And Ross -- " he paused -- "is standin' right next to the railing."
             Chris:  "Oh... shit."

"It *was* self-defense," Richie allowed.  "Least, the shoving over the railing part.  Which is why Beecher's not on Death Row."
            "So what, they gave him more time?"
            "Life."
            "Jesus."
            "Yeah."  Richie tilted his head and gave him a sidelong look.  "After they brought him back from Ad Seg, he must've made arrangements with Vern, somehow.  Better to stick with the asshole you know, right?  If Vern would take him back."
            "Which he did."
            "Oh, yeah.  This skinny little lawyer shoots his mental wad -- *kills* a guy -- just to stay hooked up?  Tell me a closet case like Schillinger isn't gonna cream his jeans over that."  Richie folded his arms.  "It's jizz, man.  Beecher's a freak, a *pretty* freak, and after the thing with Ross, he's a lifer as well.  He's got nothin' to lose.  He knows it.  Everyone knows it.  And if Vern can keep him coming to heel, well...."  He raised his shoulders, a truncated shrug; deadpan: "That makes Vern one really -- impressive -- guy."
            "Makes... sense.  I guess."
            "As much as anything.  Except...."  Richie glanced out the storage room door, warily scanning for witnesses.  "...people keep forgetting something."
            "Which is -- ?"
            "Ross wasn't the only person in that pod."
            A moment: eyes locked, nothing spoken, but the unvoiced implication louder than a shout.
 

- 2 -

When you spent a lot of time studying a guy, just for sheer survival's sake, you picked up cues -- you couldn't NOT.  Like most habits, this one didn't go away, either.  Chris couldn't think when he'd ever seen Vern treat *anyone* the way he treated Beecher -- never.  Not even him.
            And his relief at not having to play the same part in Vern's sideshow was gradually becoming tinged with a fairly explicit, creeping sense of... *envy.*
            Though of who, exactly, he couldn't quite say.
            Over the following weeks Keller kept their "happy marriage" under regular surveillance -- Vern's own words of disinterest notwithstanding, he didn't intend to be caught napping if Schillinger decided to make a move in his direction anyway.  And what he saw reminded him, more than anything else, of some supremely fucked combination of incestuous *Father Knows Best* and one of those old film noirs where the head mobster seems to get a kick out of letting his moll play the tease around the rest of his gang.  Dress up real skanky, flirt and snap, strut her -- *his* stuff, wiggle and giggle and file his claws
            (and teeth?)
            for everyone to see.
            Not that Keller ever heard Beecher giggle.  In fact... he never really even laughed.  At all.
            This didn't appear to worry Vern, however.  Beecher had more than his share of other ways to express "enthusiasm".  For one thing, he seemed to take a perverse pleasure in picking fights on Vern's behalf; almost as much as Vern took in ending said fights.  Though not personally, of course.  Never that.
            (Gotta let the meat handle *that* action, you wanna stay out of the Hole.  Right, Vern?)
            And then there were those nightly... exercise sessions.  *Every* night.  They didn't bother Keller now as much as they had at first, but he was seriously beginning to wonder how Beecher managed to walk normally during the day.  Man.
            (Talk about being a glutton for punishment.)
            The daily roster of chores, the instant obedience, the constant attendance except when explicitly dismissed or permitted "leave"... Beecher acted almost like Bonnie, the first time Chris had married her.  One of the reasons Chris had eventually left her, in fact.  Having somebody be a *willing* slave felt... really good.
             At first.
             Then it got on your nerves.  And then it got somewhere deeper.  Under your skin, into the darkest part of your heart, the part that said *You KNOW you don't deserve this.  You know you're not worth *anyone*'s unwavering devotion, not even coming from this poor pathetic bitch.  Do both of you a favour and get out.  Now.*
             If Vern heard any kind of voice like that somewhere inside him, he could evidently tune it out a whole lot better than Chris had ever been able to.  Or maybe he just didn't have one.  Which wasn't all that unbelieveable, really.
             (Given past events.)
             Except... the longer Chris watched, the more he caught momentary glimpses of something hovering just below the mask of compliance and lunatic cheer.  Richie Hanlon's unspoken opinion on the *real* target of Beecher's manic explosion had never left the back of his mind.  And the more cracks in the mask Chris saw, the more convinced he was of what Richie had been unwilling to state aloud.
              And there was something else, too.  The longer he looked, the more cracks he saw in Beecher's mask... and the more convinced he was that Vern *didn't* see them.  That Vern, in fact, didn't even realize they *might* be there.
              This wasn't just a matter of a trophy or a victory.  Vern enjoyed showing off his various types of jizz -- jizz was something you *had* to show off if you wanted to keep it, for that matter.  But Vern had always, in the past, been incredibly alert to anything that could erode that jizz -- that could cut into his power base.  He tested his Aryans as ruthlessly as he tested himself... except when it came to Beecher.  Like the younger man had become some sort of blind spot.
              Blind spots were weaknesses.
              Keller wasn't sure what he intended to do with that knowledge.  But he kept it squared away.
 

- 3 -

"Keller."
            McManus leant in the library doorway, arms folded in the trying-to-look-casually-comfortable-and-not-quite-succeeding manner Keller had observed in their first meeting.  "How's the job working out?"  He nodded around.
             "I put books back on shelves.  It's not exactly backbreaking."  Keller turned away and began collecting more volumes from the reading tables, loading them onto the cart.  "What do you want, McManus?"
            "Your arm's doing okay?"  McManus glanced at the paler skin of Keller's arm, still marked with the grooves of the recently-shed cast.
            "What do you want, McManus?"
            "You know, if you wanted to affiliate with one of the other groups, you could, now.  If you wanted to transfer back into Gen Pop."
            (The only thing that could make me *want* Gen Pop is having to listen to *you* much longer, McManus.)
            "What do you WANT?'
            A beat.  McManus closed his eyes, dropped his head.  Keller thought again, as he had on their first meeting, that McManus seemed far more scarecrow than wizard: a straw man, angular and haplessly tragicomic.
           "Today, Richie Hanlon confessed to the murder of Alexander Vogel."
           "...What?"
           "Today," McManus repeated more slowly, "Richie Hanlon... confessed... to the--"
           "I *heard*, okay?  I fucking heard you the first time!"  Keller slapped a book down on the reading table.  "You know this is bullshit, right?"
            "Know?  No.  Suspect...."  McManus paused.  "If you know anything -- "
            " -- and I tell you, that makes me a snitch."
            "*Do* you know anything?"  McManus wasn't looking away now.
            "Why would I?"
            They looked at each other.  In the other man's steady regard, Chris saw the dots connect, one by one, inexorable and cold as a snowfall.  Maybe Keller *could* testify to Richie's innocence, if he could alibi him for the time of Vogel's death... by admitting that they'd been fucking in the copy storage room.
             Which would send Chris to the Hole and fuck up his so-far perfect prison record.  Not to mention getting him in the shit with whoever had tried to set Richie up in the first place.  And having an enemy you couldn't name was *not* a good idea.
             (Sorry, Richie.  I liked you.  Just not that much.)
            Evenly, Keller shook his head.  "Sorry, McManus."
            "Yeah, you look it."
            Keller flushed.  Before he could think of a response that was both safe and cutting, however, McManus had already swung away.  He paused and leaned back.  "By the way, Keller -- "
            "What?!"
            "Don't forget your drug counselling appointment with Sister Pete."
            And he was gone.
            (Poof.)
            Like magic.
 

- 4 -

Sister Peter Marie Reimondo was one of the very very few bright spots in Oz: one of the only people Keller genuinely enjoyed talking to, honourary hack or no.  Granted, their conversations were seldom entirely comfortable -- from Chris' point of view, anyway -- but they were always entertaining.  Not much else in Oz could lay claim to that.  He sometimes felt a slight tweak of conscience about habitually lying to a nun, but from the twinkle so often present in her dark liquid eyes, she bought very little of his bullshit anyways.
            (Which makes it all right.  Right?)
            Riiiiiiiiiight.
 Plus, of course, the other not unpleasant fringe benefit:  Sister Pete's office was where Beecher worked... and about the only place he didn't have Vern hanging around him.
            (But that's backwards, isn't it?  He's the one who "hangs around" Vern.)
            It was true, though; in Sister Pete's office Beecher was almost a whole 'nother different guy.  Still a freak.  But a *cool* freak -- bespectacled, calm, almost eerily silent; and when he *did* speak his voice was level, precise, professionally clipped, without the mock-seductive edge of malice and mania he affected in Vern's presence.  Keller wasn't much sure he liked *this* Beecher any better than the other one, but he definitely had it all over the nutjob who'd almost shaved an inch off his nose.
             Not, Keller had to admit, that he couldn't have spared it.
             This morning, however, he was in no mood to linger on pretty boys, manic or otherwise.  He slammed past Beecher and into Sister Pete's office only to meet her going the other way, a pile of files and loose papers clutched to her chest.  "Oh -- Chris!  I'm sorry, we'll have to reschedule -- "
              "Sister -- "
              "Talk to Tobias," she threw back over her shoulder, squeezing past him and out the door.  "Try for Thursday, I'm fine Thursday, goodbye!"
              Keller stared after her.  "Where the fuck does she get off being so goddam..."
              "Chipper?" supplied Beecher, without looking up.  The rattle of keys on his computer keyboard didn't even slow.  "Or did you mean busy?"
              Chris pivoted, turning his stare on the back of the blond man's head.  His retort died as Beecher spoke again, still in the same absent, not-quite-mocking voice.  "Sorry about your nose."  He paused.  "And your friend."
              "Yeah."  Keller looked down uncomfortably.  Embarrassment and guilt warred in his gut and threw off a steaming curl of anger.  "Sure you are."  A calculatedly vicious beat:  "Vern tell you to say that?"
            "Matter of fact -- no."
            Keller's mouth tightened.  "That's pretty bold."
            Beecher looked up finally, the rattle of his keyboard falling silent, his eyes flaring behind his glasses.  Chris felt himself lean back just a little.  Thinking:
            (Oh, yeah.  *There's* the ToBIas I know.)
            "Yeah, well," Beecher snapped, "life sucks.  And so do I.  For a living."   He turned back to the computer and began typing again, not looking up.  Continuing:  "So, my advice -- my *professional* advice -- is this:  As with most -- other inequitable situations -- since you can't do anything about it, you might as well just learn to live with it."
            *Easy for *you* to say,* Chris thought.
           Or, then again--
           (--maybe not.)
           Hell with this.  He turned to stomp from the room and stopped on the threshold.  "Wait a minute.  How the hell did *you* know about Richie?  McManus just told me fifteen minutes ago."
            The typing stopped again.  Beecher's answer, when it came, was uncharacteristically diffident.  "Let's just say I had a little... advance information."
            Keller scowled.  What the --
            (ah-*hah*.)
            Vern.
            He gave a single curt nod.  "Thanks."
            "For nothing," Beecher emphasized.
            (Nothing at all.)
 

- 5 -

Later that night, in the pod, Hill snoring gustily below and the lovebirds making their own discordant music above, Keller lay awake and simmered.
            He didn't know why Schillinger had picked Hanlon, out of all the people he must have had something on, to take the fall for Vogel.  He knew Vern; odds were good it wasn't even especially personal.  Sorry, Richie, but I need a fall guy and you're convenient... you fucking faggot.
            (So not entirely IMpersonal, either.)
            But then, Vern had always had more than enough hatred to go around.
            Except -- and again, the single *except* that was becoming a deeper and deeper rift in Vern's usual patterns -- when it came to Beecher.  The old Vern wouldn't have told his *prag* enough information to allow that kind of slip, let alone kept him on such a loose leash that he could even think about making it.
            Above, more moans, more creaking, more... *kissing.*  Keller grimaced and covered his ears, squeezing his eyes shut.
            What if he was wrong?  What if it *had* been personal?  Vern's little message to him:  Just 'cause I'm not putting my brand on you right now, Chrissie, don't think you get free rein to treat Em City like your own personal singles bar.  I might need you again, after all -- though probably not for my own *personal* use.  You should make sure you're... *available*.
            'Cause if you don't -- I will.
            Bastard.
            Fuckin'... Nazi... bastard.
            It was just like Vern, wasn't it.  Never waste a stone on one bird when you can kill two: shield yourself *and* put another troublesome element in its place at the same time.  Who cared about what *they* wanted, right?  Like to see how you react if it was *your* little fuckbuddy got put away for something, Keller thought in a mixture of resentment and anger boiling towards rage.  What'd you do if you had to use *Beecher* as a fall guy?  You "love" your "wife" that much, Schillinger?  What --
             Keller's eyes opened.
             What *would* Schillinger do if somehow Beecher was taken away from him?  Not in body, so much, but... in spirit?  If someone stole him right out from under his nose  -- cuckolding him, proving he *couldn't* keep what he'd proclaimed to be his?  Someone like, say, his own former prag, Christopher Keller?
             He'd try to kill that someone.  If he ever found out.
             (But you know... it might be worth it.)
             A slow smile spread on Chris' face.  Yes, Vern owned Beecher about as completely as it was possible to own someone.  But Chris knew something that Vern, apparently, had forgotten.
            (Anything you own and can't let go of, owns YOU.)
            And after all, if there was one thing Chris had a particular talent for, it was... insinuating himself into someone's affection.  For all Vern's power -- perhaps *because* of Vern's power -- Schillinger didn't know nearly as much as Keller did about subtlety.  About manipulating, rather than crushing, someone's emotions.  About seducing allegiance rather than commanding it.
            (You can mess with their minds, Vern, and fuck with their bodies.  But when it comes to putting hooks into somebody's heart, their soul... that's MY ball park.  And you just ain't in my league.)
            He rolled over, smiling now.  It would take some care, he knew.  Some work, as Vern himself had said.  Using sex as a weapon was like wielding a two-edged sword.  The deeper you cut somebody else with it, the greater the risk of inflicting an equally deep wound on yourself.
            But he could do it.  He *would* do it.  It was just a matter of...
            Timing.

If Keller hadn't robbed the store.  Hadn't killed that guy.  Hadn't got *caught*.  Hadn't got *eighty-eight years* -- in OZ...
            If Vern hadn't been there.
            If Beecher hadn't been... Beecher.
            He could have gotten away clean.
            THAT kind of timing.
            The kind so bad -- it kills.

END PART TWO
 

UNBOUND
PART THREE
 

(You stack sixteen reams, and what do you get?)
          Keller swung another bunch of wrapped 500-sheet reams to the top shelf and paused for a gulp of breath.  Jesus, who would have thought *paper* weighed so fuckin' much?
          (Another day older and deeper in... the shit.  Of Oz.)
          Another three stacks, swing, pause, *slap* of them hitting the metal shelf.  Bend, grab, *heave*.
          (Sister Pete, *please* call me 'cause I'd love to get *out* of this for just a second.)
         Paper was the fuel that Sister Pete's office ran on: reports, memos, requisitions, files, and the endless whirring of the Xerox machine.  As run by your friendly
         (yeah, right)
         neighbourhood cellblock psycho, Tobias Beecher.
         His target.
         He'd confined his visits to Sister Pete's office to his required appointments, so far, and hadn't tried for much beyond a few tentative stabs at conventional friendship with Beecher.  All rebuffed, so far; but that was fine.  If Beecher was thinking about him enough to know he disliked him, that still meant he was *thinking* about him.  Keller knew you had to be patient in the first stages.  You had to establish your ground, find a common link, something to *share*.  That was how you slipped inside.
          Trouble was, the more he kept his eyes open and watched, the less opportunity for "sharing" he saw.
          As far as he could tell Beecher only left Vern's side in two places:  Sister Pete's office, and the library.  And so far the former had proven to be spectacularly infertile ground.  It wasn't that trying a seduction in a nun's office bothered Keller at all -- nor, Keller was guessing, did Beecher have much in the way of religious scruples about *anything*, any more -- but... Beecher was too much of a damn *professional* to relax in his place of work.  It was like trying to flirt with an oyster: nothing but hard, cool, smooth shell.  And Keller had left his winkling fork at home.
          (What a dumb fuckin' name for a utensil, anyway.)
          Keller had worked as a busboy at a hoity-toity restaurant on the East Side once, where the prissy maitre d' had constantly gotten on his ass--in between attempts to get *up* it -- about the proper arrangement and names of such items:  butter knives, sauce ladles, salad tongs, dessert forks -- fuckin' *dessert* forks!  Any dessert you needed a special kind of fork to eat, *he* didn't want.
          (But anyway.)
          The library seemed a better bet; Keller was there most of the time to begin with, and Beecher spent a lot of his free time there too -- in between running Vern's errands and doing his... whatever.  Had Beecher been... well, anyone other than who he was, Keller would probably have feigned interest in whatever he was reading.  If you could actually understand what the other person read, great; you had something to talk about.  If you *didn't*, you just asked the other person to explain it: most people loved nothing better than a chance to talk about themselves or what they were reading, especially if it made them look like experts.
           This tactic, however, didn't seem to work so well with Beecher.

"Whatcha reading, Toby?"
           "Probate law as it applies to custody.  Keller."
           "...Sounds interesting."
           "Isn't."
           A pause.
           "So... why are you reading it, then?"
           "Because it beats sucking Vern's dick?"
           (Yeah.  If those are your only two options, I guess so.)
           "Well -- if you need help finding anything let me know."
           "I won't."
           (Need help?  Or let me know?)
           Both, probably.
           Keller studied the top of Beecher's blond head, bent so far over it seemed he was only a half-inch from the page, lips pursed, blue eyes dilated myopically.  Faint lines gathered and knit across his forehead, and a vein pulsed in his temple.  Without even looking up, he projected a pure bubble of "leave me the fuck alone" for at least three feet in every direction.  Neat trick, Keller had to admit.  Somehow whenever *he* tried that he *still* ended up with people coming on to him.
           (But then, you're just basically one sexy motherfucker, aren't you, Chris?)
           Not to Beecher, obviously.
           Keller sighed and went back to his book shelving, something that wasn't quite a smile pulling at the corner of his mouth.  He wasn't pissed off, exactly... but then he wasn't happy, either.  Exactly.
           Patience was fine.  Keller could be patient.  He'd heard it was a virtue.  But it would help if he was seeing at least *some* sign of progress.
           (Probate law as it applies to custody?)
           Probate.  That was wills, Keller knew.  So -- custody?  Of someone who'd died?  No, that was stupid.  Custody of some*thing* belonging to someone who'd died.  Something or...
           ...someBODY.
           (Oh, shit.)

A day earlier.  The quad.
           Keller had been watching from the upper deck, as was his current habit.  Not only was it a good place for observation, it was the one way he could guarantee getting away from Hill on the *frequent* occasions his oh-so-amusing podmate almost earned himself a kick in the teeth.  Which Keller didn't wanna do, 'cause the guy was in a wheelchair and all -- not to mention little things like hacks with clubs, and the prospect of Hole time.  So:  Up to the second tier, where the most irritating thing he usually had to face was just O'Reily's constant offer to score him some tits.
           (Fuckin' salesman.  Doesn't take no for an answer.  Ever.)
           Down near the TV bank the Aryan Brotherhood sat clutched, a sprawling area of chairs and tables already staked out and claimed.  The ones on the outside glared at various gangsta and Latino passersby, while the ones on the inside gave their full attention to Vern.  Or at least as much of their attention as they could manage, given that Miss Sally, and her puppets -- and her bazooms -- were in full view. Plus the fact that they had so little to go around in the first place.
          Beecher was sitting by Vern, as always--at his feet, actually, leaning neatly up against his legs like a cat, a study in veiled disinterest.  But Keller had to fight down his laughter when he noticed that Beecher was so bored he kept sneaking glances at the TV screen, though he probably couldn't even see it.  Unfortunately, his proximity to Vern meant that *he* turned into the object lesson whenever Vern caught somebody's eyes drifting: a sharp smack across Beecher's skull usually brought the rest of them round.  Keller's smile twisted.  He wasn't sure whether this was funny or pathetic.  Both, maybe.
          Shit, Vern, he thought.  Guy's still a *guy*.  Cut him some slack.
          (Oh, wait.  Right.  Vern doesn't do that.)
          Ever.
          On the other hand, what was Beecher's entire existence right now if it wasn't the single biggest case of slack he had ever seen Vern cut anyone?
          (If that's "slack" I don't wanna know what happens when he pulls the leash tight.)
          God knew he'd had as much as he ever wanted to of Vern's "discipline" back in Lardner.
          A stirring in the crowd, and the inmates parted like the Red Sea -- if the Red Sea had been sneering and whispering mocking comments to itself about Moses' sex life and hairline.  McManus marched through the gap wearing what at first glance looked like his usual oblivious expression.  Then Keller took a second look and frowned.  No.  His eyes were too intent, too shadowed.  Too focused on... someone in the A.B.'s gathering.  Vern?  That seemed to be where he was heading.
          McManus stopped, arms folded, standing before Vern, waiting.  Vern finally lost patience and looked up, snapping a question Keller couldn't make out.  McManus replied inaudibly, nodding his head down at Beecher.  Vern scowled; Beecher looked up in unfeigned surprise, then turned to look back at his "husband":  You okay with this, honey?
          Vern shrugged and flipped a dismissive hand, though he still didn't look too happy.  The Aryans watched as Beecher and McManus moved a little ways off, heads bent together in the shadow of one of the support pillars.  A minute or two later McManus lifted a hand towards Beecher, as if reaching for his shoulder; at a look from the smaller man the hand stopped cold, hovered a moment in midair, then fell.  McManus drifted away, not looking back.
          Beecher just stood there.
          "Hey."  Vern's voice, raised to carry to Beecher, was audible now on the upper tier.  "*Bitch*-er.  Get back here."
          ('Cause I need you around so *much*. Helps me...think.)
          Beecher didn't move.  Vern's voice got louder, impatience edging into anger.  "Beecher!  NOW!"
          Keller wondered cynically how much of that visible anger was genuine and how much sprung from the fact that the other Aryans were watching.  Can't have your prag ignore you in front of your boys, right?  Not much jizz in *that*.
          "TOBIAS!"
          At that, Beecher turned -- but not towards Vern.  He spun away, shoulders tight, fists white-knuckled, and strode off towards the corridor leading to the shower room.  Like what he'd just heard made him feel really... dirty.  Vern stared, then jolted upright, chair almost falling over, and took off after him at what wasn't *quite* a run.
          The Aryans exchanged sniggers and raised eyebrows.  Keller thought a moment, then -- making sure his walk was the idle saunter of someone moving in no particular direction for no particular reason -- ambled towards the stairs.  He threw aimless glances at everyone, including the Aryans, never long enough to become eyefucks, never short enough to be dismissive.  As if it was simply the first empty table he'd found, he strolled over to the nearest empty space by the Brotherhood and relaxed into the chair, arms folded, staring at his outstretched legs.
           His ears were so keenly tuned he felt they might have cocked themselves like a dog's, if they'd been capable.
           Gorman:  "...that about?"
           "Beats me," said another one of the interchangeable flunkies.  "I couldn't hear."
           "*I* did," threw in a third.  The voice jittered with nervous glee.  "His wife offed herself."
           A beat.  Gorman, with patience:  "Mack -- Vern's wife died.  He told me."
           "Not Vern's, jerkoff.  *Beecher's*."
           (Beecher had a... wife?)
           Another of the Aryans whistled, a long, slow note of disbelief.  "Piss up a rope and try to climb it."
           Gorman frowned as if suspecting a joke he wasn't in on.  "Beecher's *married?*"
           Mark Mack:  "Not any more he ain't."

His wife.  Killed herself.
           So if he'd had a wife, he must've had *kids*.  Which explained the custody part.  And since he had to look up law on this, he was expecting a fight; which meant it had to be his in-laws who had the kids now, not his own folks.  If he still had folks.
           (Guy's in jail the rest of his life, how's he gonna look after kids anyway?)
           Keller had never wanted children.  His second wife Angelique had, which was why *they*'d broken up.  Paternal instinct, shit -- what point was there in bringing anybody into this world, and sacrificing twenty years of your life to raise them, when the one thing you'd want was for them *not* to fuck up like you?  And not to end up anywhere *near* a place like Oz, even if they were coming there to see YOU.
           Keller let himself slide down the wall into the shadow behind the paper shelves, thinking in furious silence.  He wasn't sure yet how he could use this, but this was the key.  He knew it, intuitively; all his instincts locking on like a gunsight going red.  All he had to do was figure out *how* and --
           Footsteps, quick and sharp.  Keller looked up.  Against the bright glare of the library lights outside, Beecher was a faceless silhouette haloed in dull gold, his body slashed by the shelves of paper.  He paused, scanning the top shelf, then reached up and tore one of the reams open, grabbing a few of the topmost sheets.
            Keller grinned to himself.
            (Gee, Tobias.  You know you're supposed to ask *me* for those.  That's *stealing.*  Not very... lawyerly of you.)
            "Well, how about this."
 Beecher whirled, back visibly going up as he planted himself against the shelf.  Behind him, still unseen, Keller stiffened.  He could see the tension in Beecher's shoulders, but the blond man's voice held no fear at all -- only anger, like broken razors.  "What the fuck do you want, Robeson?"
             The other person sniggered.  "You got it."
             And in the shadows behind them, Keller closed his eyes.  Thinking:
             (Shit.  Shit, shit, SHIT.)
 

- 2 -

The worst thing that could happen now, the absolute WORST, and it was happening right in front of him:  Someone *else* trying to catch Beecher alone, and for almost exactly the same reasons, probably.  Whatever happened, this might sharpen both Vern's and Beecher's paranoia to the point where nobody else would ever get near Beecher again physically, much less emotionally.
          And it had to be James Robeson, of all people.  Keller had already run into him a couple of times and sized him up instantly: dumb, but big, and fast for his size.  Not to mention mean, and perpetually horny.  Keller had him marked AVOID in the strongest possible mental terms and had so far managed to stay out of his way -- not much of a stretch, since Robeson was in Gen Pop rather than Em City, so it wasn't like they were seeing each other every day.  And Keller also hadn't had to test his character judgement skills too far to guess that Robeson probably wasn't really a library person.
           Now, though....
           (Wait a minute.  How the fuck does *Beecher* know this guy?)
           Bad blood between them, though, obviously.  Bad enough to make Beecher show those little... *teeth* of his.  And bad enough that Robeson would do something so spectacularly dumb-ass as make a move on Vern's prag in the first place.  Privately or not.  Just how pissed off -- or how stupid -- *was* Robeson, anyw--?
          "How stupid are you, exactly, *Jim*?  You know Vern'll kill you."
          (Okay, THAT's creepy.  Thinking the same thing, AT the same time -- )
          Robeson's heavy breath fluctuated in a mouth-breathing, schoolyard bully's parody of a laugh.  "Yeah, well -- Vern ain't gonna be around much longer, TOE-bee.  Either way.  So maybe you should be thinkin' about the future."
          Beecher snorted.  "And that involves you?"
          "You know how it goes in here for *your kind*, when your Daddy gets paroled."  Robeson's voice was tighter now, halfway between a gloat and a curse.  "Best thing *might* happen to you is Vern-o passes you on to somebody else... instead of leaving you behind for the whole gang to take a crack at."  The thick voice rolled the words out, as if savouring them.  "You could do a lot worse."
          A beat.
          Then, absurdly -- almost theatrically -- cheerful:  "Right.  SURE I could."
          (You asshole.)
          Sucked-in gasp of fury.  "Don't you get smart with *me* you pissy little hooker!"
          Mock-sweetly:  "But it's so hard *not* to be.  Considering."
          "SHUT UP!"  The cry came out half-strangled, caught between a shout of rage and the instinctive, almost reflexive whisper *everybody* adopted in the library and its adjuncts.  Keller heard Beecher skip aside, shoes scuffing lightly on the floor: an instant later the shelf rocked with the impact of Robeson's wide-swung fist.  Keller twisted onto his knees to get a better view.
          The air whickered.  Beecher brought the heavy law book in his hand around in a short, sharp, vicious arc, its spine cracking up into the side of Robeson's lantern jaw.  The bigger man made a choked sound of pain and staggered, then forced himself upright again, hooking Beecher in the stomach.  The blow slammed Beecher straight back into the shelves with a thud Keller almost felt himself; he cringed in sympathy.
          "Now that..."  From Robeson's gasps it was clear he hadn't recovered completely from Beecher's attack.  "...was NOT... smart."
          Beecher's heaving breaths were almost gags.  But somehow he still managed to get out a response.  "Well... you'd know all about... dumb moves.  You half-dicked piece of wannabe... Aryan... *garbage.*"
          Standing now, hidden behind the edge of the shelves, Keller watched as Robeson's reddened face contorted.  "You little -- "  His throat closed as he ran out of words; he reared up and lunged, like a maddened bear in a cloud of bees.
          Smoothly, the whole thing one unbroken movement, Keller seized a ream of paper from the shelf, swung around and whacked it edge-on across the back of Robeson's head.  500 sheets of wood pulp, stiffened and held lengthwise by their wrapping, had a kick like your average two-by-four.  Robeson dropped face down, as if Keller had sunk an axe in his undersized brain.
          Not much of a fight, really, Keller thought distantly, looking down at the unconscious man.  Hit him from behind.  There was no real reason to feel so ridiculously satisfied.  But he had to work at keeping his grin back all the same.  Then he looked up at Beecher and the urge faded.
          Still half bent over from Robeson's only punch, the smaller man's gaze held absolutely no expression whatsoever.  No gratitude, not even much surprise.
          (Guess it really takes a lot to freak *you* out, Toby... ya freak.)
          "You okay?"
          Beecher's eyes shrank to thin blue slits.  "Hope you're not expecting to *get* anything out of that."
          Keller allowed himself a lopsided smile.  "Most people might say thank you."
          "Am I most people?"
          "Not most people *I* know."
          (No, Beecher, you're in a class all by yourself.)
          For once, the thought held no mockery, and Keller realized with some shock that he was actually beginning to *respect* the man who'd taken what used to be his "place" -- and taken it *willingly*, the second time around at least.  That might have been what Beecher saw.  Or it might just have been the awareness that he was still alone in a small space with a much larger man -- his supposed "rescuer" status notwithstanding.  For whatever reason, Beecher dropped his eyes.  "Whatever," he muttered.
           Keller shrugged and looked down at Robeson, who was bleeding slightly from the nose.  "You might wanna be out of here before he wakes up."  He nudged Robeson with the toe of his shoe.  "Why's he so pissed off with you, anyway?"
           "After the riot, when we all got slung into Gen Pop, they broke me and Vern up.  Robeson was my cellmate.  First night he wants a blowjob.  I bit off his dick."
           Keller's jaw fell open.  He'd always thought that was just something people said -- but no, here he was, aware his mouth was hanging open slackly and simply not able to find the coherent thought to close it.
           Eyeing his reaction, Beecher's own mouth quirked in a slight cat-grin.  Assuring Keller:  "Not *all* of it.  I guess he can still get a hard-on."
           "And he wants to *fuck* you?" was the only reply Keller could think of.
           "He's a slow learner."  And Beecher actually laughed.  The first time Keller'd ever heard him do it.  It was... nice.  Civilized.  Like somebody had just told him about last week's *Seinfeld* episode around the office water cooler.
           It cut off abruptly in a grimace; Beecher's hand moved reflexively to his stomach, nostrils flaring in a slow breath, controlling his evident pain.  Keller pointed to Beecher's gut.  "Might wanna have somebody look at that.  You could be, like, bleeding inside or some shit."
           Beecher shook his head, more in dismissal than direct refusal.  "I'll just go to Nathan, tell her I fell down.  I do that."
           "A lot?"
           "What the fuck do *you* care?"
           Keller eased his weight back a little, shifting the angle of his body away from Beecher.  "Just... trying to figure out how it is for you."
           "No one can know how it *is* for me."  For the first time since the day they'd met Beecher actually stepped closer to him, moving to stare up unflinchingly into the taller man's eyes.  "Not unless they -- "
           (-- they've BEEN there.)
           Which I *have*, Keller thought, not breaking eye contact.
 Except that Beecher had it better -- or maybe worse -- because Vern actually seemed to...
 (*care?*)
 for him.
            But Keller wasn't about to admit to his previous prag status.  Not just yet.  He'd save THAT little tidbit for when things got really... intimate.  "Hey," he murmured.  "I can imagine."
            "No.  You can't."  Without pausing Beecher pushed past him, heading for the copy room door.  Keller stepped aside to let him go, knowing that it was too soon to try any kind of physical contact, let alone restraint.  But he watched carefully, timing his exit line.  Just as Beecher stepped over the threshold should do it.  He opened his mouth --
             "Thanks for helping."
             Keller swallowed his line in a startled blink.  Beecher had only paused a moment, just long enough to cut the wind out of Keller's sails with his own utterly unexpected shot.  Before he could recover, Beecher added, "Goodbye."  And was gone, almost *slithering* from the room, like a housecat vanishing through the flap.
             Keller considered various responses.  One -- very -- tempting option was to swear out loud and punch the wall, but that didn't really seem productive.  Another was to step outside, call in a hack and tell the whole story; that got dismissed when he realized he'd have to explain what he was doing hiding behind the shelf in the first place, instead of stacking paper in front of it.  Not to mention that involving McManus in *any* of this was the last thing he wanted to do.
             In the end, he picked the easiest idea: he simply left Robeson there to recover, gambling that the library would be closed by the time he came around.  It also, unexpectedly, proved to be the most amusing.  Keller got to spend the rest of the day snickering to himself over the idea of Robeson struggling to explain, when the hacks went looking for him at count, just why he'd ended up in the closet in the first place -- much less how he'd managed to knock himself out.
              ("Uh, see, well... I went in there 'cause I wanted to fuck that guy Beecher, the one who bit my knob off, and somebody whacked me upside the head....")
             Sometimes, there were small pleasures to be found in Oz.
             And bigger to come.  Hopefully.
 

- 3 -

"Did you hear?" said Rebadow, as Keller plopped his lunch tray down beside the rest of the Others.  "They found Robeson in the gym last night."
            Busmalis sniffed.  "They always find people in the gym."
            Keller:  "Pumping iron?"
            "Yes."  Rebadow nodded with that solemnity that might or might not be mocking; Keller had never been able to tell.  "Exactly."
            Hill rolled his eyes.  To Keller:  "He means *dead*, man.  'Cause that's where the Aryans always dump their bodies.  'Cept this time they hung him upside down from one of the weight machines.  Cut his throat so he bled out like a hog in a slaughterhouse."
            (Well.  THAT was quick.)
            Keller kept his face blank except for a certain mild interest.  "That so?"
            "It was because he wouldn't leave Beecher alone," said Rebadow, still in that weirdly solemn voice.  "So Schillinger made sure he wouldn't bother Tobias again.  Ever."
            "Know what *I* heard?"  Hill leaned over the table, grinning.  Automatically they leaned closer to hear.  "Word is, when they found him, somebody'd finished the job that crazy fucker started."
            Busmalis gaped.  "On his *dick*?"
            "What dick?" Hill asked, grinning wider.
            The rest of them exchanged glances and grimaces.
            (Ouch.)

Another break in the pattern, Keller thought, making himself eat.  Not the killing, or even the mutilation -- that was pure Vern all down the line -- but he usually let things slide for a few days, to make his target think he'd gotten away clean.  Once the tension had died down, once the target was off guard, *that* was when he would strike.
            Only one explanation for Vern taking his revenge so quickly:  He had decided, for some reason --
            (a reason about five-seven with blond hair and blue eyes, maybe?)
            -- that it was more important to send a message about the consequences of trying to fuck with his property (literally) than it was to keep his nose clean, even in light of his impending parole.  Of course he'd have made sure to have an alibi, but there was always a risk with actions like that.  One thing about Vern Schillinger, he was *not* a fan of avoidable risks.
            And speaking of Vern -- across the hall, Keller could just see the Aryan bunch, Vern already in motion towards that huge hack Metzger, with whom he seemed to have some... *special* understanding.  No Beecher, as yet.  Probably on some errand or other. Keller got up, having had all he could take of what passed for meatloaf, and trudged over to the garbage cans to scrape the remains of his so-called meal from his tray.
            At almost the same moment, Beecher scurried in.  He paused for a moment to look around, his habitual squint deepening.  Keller cleared his throat.  "If you're looking for Robeson, don't bother.  He's dead."
            Beecher shot him an unreadable glance.  "Quelle surprise," he murmured.  "Vern did it."
            (Not a question.)
            "Yup," Keller confirmed.
            "*Himself?*"
            (Yeah, 'cause that's what you want, isn't it, kitty?  And why would THAT be?)
            Well, why *would* it?
            (Because... *you* want Vern stuck in here... with YOU.)
            Keller had asked around.  He knew the riot had pushed everybody's parole chances back by months.  But Vern had already been close to serving his minimum sentence when Said and *O'Reily*, weirdly enough, had tried to bring McManus' house of cards down around his ears -- so close that he had apparently told the Aryans to stay *out* of it, much to the disgust of hotheaded youngbloods like Mark Mack.  His first hearing was probably only weeks away, if that.  Which would leave the lifer Beecher -- as the late Mr. Robeson had so aptly pointed out -- up cocksucker creek without a condom.
            "Not that I know of," Keller said.
            Beecher hissed.  Not a word; just a slur of repressed, sibilant consonants, a tangible exhalation of disgust and...
            ...disappointment?
            "Sorry," Keller offered.
            Beecher's eyes flickered back to him.  Something -- some spark, some connection  -- flared.  Maybe the simple recognition that, on some level at least, Keller actually *was* sorry.  Maybe a sudden understanding that for once that sorrow didn't involve either greed or pity.
            "Thank you."  He looked away sidelong, a vaguely sheepish expression.  "Again," he added.
            Keller smiled.  "No problem."
            And -- after one suspended half-second -- Beecher smiled back.
            (Bingo.)
            That was it, Keller knew, instantly and completely.  The breakthrough.  The chink in the armour, the common ground -- the *sharing*.  A small thing, right now.  But something at which to work away, with patience, gradually enlarging that tiny gap until it was big enough for whatever was left of Beecher's soul to leak out through....
             ...or for Keller to pour his soul *in*.

And:
            *Gotcha,*  Beecher thought.

END PART THREE

UNBOUND
PART FOUR

*Gotcha*, Beecher thought.
     The word itself sounded like a trap snapping shut in his mind.
 

- 1 -

Survival was a matter of never closing your eyes.
     Tobias Beecher had learned a lot about Vernon Schillinger in the time he'd spent as his reluctant, then willing prag.  The first, last, and most critical thing being: the man was *dangerous*.  There was never, EVER, any genuinely safe moment in the man's company.  Some moments were safer than others... but those usually were the most costly to bring about.
     Of course, Beecher was dangerous himself -- now.  Which Vern well knew, and seemed to appreciate, in his typically perverse kind of way.  Playing it sweet wasn't enough; lying down wasn't enough.  There had to be some shadow beneath the surface, some counterpressure to the pressure, to keep Vern interested: the idea that one day the pet he was stroking might turn and NIP him.  Hard.
     Thus earning punishment.  The other factor in the equation.
     Beecher had spent most of his first time around trying to *avoid* being punished.  He knew better now.  The key wasn't to avoid, because that wasn't possible; the key was to *control*.  Give Vern what he wanted -- what he *really* wanted, as opposed to what he *said* he wanted -- read his mind, and learn to trigger righteous retribution at times and places of YOUR choosing.  Like periodic ventings of steam from an ancient boiler, a blood-clogged engine.  Like taking the slap, rather than standing up and provoking the beating that puts you in the hospital.  Deliberately giving limited provocation for limited punishment.  Barter.  Balance.  Tacit negotiation.
     (Give and take: he gives it out, I... take it.)
     Like marriage.

Keeping your eyes open.  Playing danger against danger.  Watching the balance, stepping in only to ensure your own survival.
     So when he'd seen the stranger standing in Vern's pod, Vern stretched out on his bunk -- a pose of condescending relaxation Beecher had previously only seen him adopt when alone with *him* -- hard-acquired instincts shrilled.  Control the situation.  Demonstrate your power, but only as a possession.
     Never show your fear.
     He'd hurried up the stairs, straight to the pod and slapped his hand flat against the plastic just behind the stranger's head -- a whipcrack of sound, a little trick he'd learned to cut through shouting matches back at the firm.  It worked even better here, where the din never dimmed and every man's nerves were wired tight enough to snap even at the lightest touch.  The stranger practically *threw* himself away from the pod wall, spinning; Beecher didn't give him any time to recover but stepped right into his space, locking eyes --
      (dark blue, set deep, startled wide)
     -- to eyes.  Inquiring, as sweetly as he could:
     "You trying to step in my spot... PRAG?"
     And his trademark: the BITE.  Pulled back at the last moment, of course.  He had no intention of inviting Hole time, or inflicting any permanent damage -- not after Robeson.  Just enough to get the... *point*... across.
     Besides, it was a good trick.  One Vern always liked.  Roll over, play dead... show the nice man your ass, cupcake...
     ...now *sic* 'em.
     That first time, Beecher hadn't seen Chris Keller as more than a means to an immediate end, that of staying where he'd worked so very hard to get.  The coveted spot he'd given up so much to keep: the closest thing to an actual safety zone that existed in Oz.  For him, at least.  He hadn't even needed to consider Keller a threat: just react the way Vern wanted him to, like always.  With the side benefit that if Keller actually *was* making a play for his role, Beecher's already-patented brand of lunacy (Copyright 1998!) should send him screaming for the hills.
     But maybe, subconsciously, he'd seen something different in the taller man, even then.  Something present in Keller's eyes, face, or stance that hadn't been there in anyone else's.  Or maybe something missing that *was* there in everyone else.  Some hint that, if handled correctly, Keller could be -- useful.
     Some small hint of... sympathy.
     Which, in Oz, was a commodity second in value only to information.  Or brute force.
     Beecher had spent the last two years professing no real interest in the latter.  Which meant that if he *was* going to take advantage of Keller, perhaps by letting Keller "take advantage" of him, he was going to need the former.
     And lots of it.
 

- 2 -

"I hear you're Keller's sponsor."
     "Damn, you know, I was really tryin' to keep that secret."  Ryan didn't look up from the deck he was shuffling, carefully using only his right hand.  His shaved head shone in the neon light, slick and pallid.  "Tits?"
     "Not today, thanks anyway."  Beecher moved to the chair opposite O'Reily and sat down, careful not to infringe on the other man's personal space.  Thinking, mockingly, amused by his own automatic approximation of civilian good manners:
     (Well, aren't we civilized.)
     Ryan shrugged.  "Suit yourself."
     Since the beginning, really, Beecher's relationship with O'Reily had rested on one simple foundation:  O'Reily's instinctive recognition that Beecher was the perfect customer.  Someone so desperate to be anywhere other than Oz he would pay dearly for the privilege.  Not that Ryan had ever actually asked him for *money* -- he'd been more interested in non-threatening, non-sexual companionship: "buddyhood," as Beecher had often thought of it between heroin hits.  And, of course, whatever snippets of information Beecher might "overhear" during his forced proximity to the leader of one of Oz's most powerful factions, and then let slip to Ryan -- out of gratitude that someone could see him as more than a convenient mouth attached to a convenient ass?   Well, that'd just be gravy.
     And so it continued to this very day.  Especially since Ryan was the person who'd originally suggested Beecher attempt to reconcile with Vern --
     (-- motivated purely by the sheer goodness of his heart, of course.)
     Pretty slick move-and-countermove combination, when you recalled he was *also* the guy who'd fed Beecher angel dust and steered him back towards his master's pod in the first place.  So now here they were, their information-for-tits partnership all the stronger:  Thanks to Beecher's more stable, favoured status with Vern, he was allowed occasional drug "privileges" he hadn't had before, as well as access to more information with which to *buy* said drugs.  Not that Schillinger knew that's what Beecher used it for.  He just chatted blithely away to his prag, the way someone might muse aloud to their cat about the hard day they'd just had at the office.  And if Schillinger sometimes noticed the glassy look to Beecher's eyes wasn't always ordinary boredom... well, he already knew that Beecher was weak.  Diseased.  An unsalvageable addict, who simply needed a hit now and then to get through things a *real* man could have taken in stride.
     (As if Vern wanted a real man anyway.)
      But then, Schillinger had never actually had to take what Beecher did.  From him. And therefore had...no idea how MUCH strength that actually required.
      Had no fuckin' idea what he was talking about, basically.
      (Like usual.)
     All of which just left Ryan sitting pretty.
     In his more paranoid moments (of which there were depressingly many) Beecher had to wonder:  Just how much of what went on in Oz *did* O'Reily control?  It was difficult to believe one barely high-school educated, chain-smoking, edge-of-starvation skinny Irish-American smartass could manipulate the entirety of a maximum security prison -- hacks *and* inmates alike -- into doing his bidding.  But it was equally difficult to believe that the way events continually arranged themselves in his favour was sheer coincidence, or LUCK.
     Ryan knew everything that happened.  He knew the stories people told, particularly about themselves, and the real stories those stories covered up.  Which, along with his matter-of-public-record association with the man, made him the perfect person to ask about Keller.
     (Wanna use a weapon, you probably need to check the instruction manual.)
     The aforementioned manual was now looking at him, eyes simultaneously bright with anticipation and dulled by his daily post-chemo hangover, like an oil fire wreathed in noxious black smoke.  "What's on your mind, Beecher?"
     "Oh, the usual.  Makeup, nails.  How best to please my hubby."
     "Possible competition?"
     "Now why would I think THAT about Keller?  He seems pretty... manly."
     "Oh yeah.  You just decided to almost give the guy an amateur nosejob for the fuck of it."
     "Well, I've switched careers so many times already."  Beecher folded his arms, letting his eyelash-fluttering whore's smile harden into something sharp and thin.  It was an expression he rarely used around anybody except Ryan; altogether too sane, and angry, for Vern's consumption.  "So what *is* the deal with him and Vern anyway?"
     "Vern didn't tell you?"
     "He doesn't tell me *everything*."
     Ryan smiled himself.  "Try harder."
     Deadpan:  "That's funny."  Beecher leant forward on his arms, hands joined, eyes narrowed.  "Come on, Ryan.  God knows I've given *you* enough tidbits over the years."
     "Yeah, and you got paid for 'em.  You tryin' to tell me I *owe* you something?"
     (Oh, no, I'd NEVER presume to do THAT.)
     "Call it...."  Beecher tilted his head.  "...a friendly gesture."
     Ryan snorted.  But the temptation to show off was as irresistible as Beecher had known, all along, that it would be.  When your own mammary gland turned against you, Beecher guessed, demonstrating your control over everything else in your life became ever more important.
     "Okay.  According to his rap sheet, his last hitch was up at Lardner, back when he was seventeen... and according to a *guy* I know in Gen Pop, who did time there round about the *same* time...."
 

- 3 -

Well.
     Prag versus prag.
     Now *this* was going to be a challenge.
     The background Ryan had outlined certainly did go far towards explaining the innate seductiveness lurking beneath Keller's most mundane interactions.  Even during his sessions with Sister Pete -- the woman was a *nun*, for God's sake!
     (Exactly.)
     But Keller really was some piece of work, all the same: Hard muscle over slippery charm, like a coiled python--a sex-oozing, sinuous, hawk-nosed omnivore. And those eyes, so blue, under roguishly questioning brows--DARK blue, not like Vern's icy gaze, or his own--they seemed almost black...
     "Hey!"
     A hard whack, across the back of his head:  Beecher swallowed the automatic yelp of indignation and pain.  Shit.  He'd forgotten where he was for a second:  At Vern's feet, demonstrating that that was where he belonged, providing visual reinforcement for Vern's daily ritual harangue to the assembled Em City Brotherhood.  He squinted, trying to make out the faces of the Aryans through his myopia, then gave it up.  It didn't really matter which one had let his attention drift.  Beecher was the whipping boy for all of them.
     (See what happens when you don't pay attention?)
     But it was so easy to let his mind wander.  It could happen without warning, even without intention.  Between the haziness of his enforced glasses-deprived state and the continuous threatening pressure of emotions he couldn't even admit to, let alone express, while "making nice", "being nice", reality had a terrifying but seductive way of suddenly graying out on him.  As if everything since killing Scott Ross had been just one long hallucination:  a fluctuating, gap-ridden nightmare of chemicals, phantasms, and pain.
     So what did it matter who you killed, who you used... what you chewed off yourself in a vain attempt to -- not *escape* the trap, that wasn't even conceivable at this point, but transform it to something you could endure a little more easily.
     Like an asylum.
     The only "asylum" he'd ever be likely to find.
     He hadn't yet quite succumbed to the temptations of a complete breakdown.  But he knew the madness was there, waiting.  Inside him.  Like that nasty voice with its periodic commentary, so familiar from his ranting, wall-pounding time in the Hole.  The voice that piped up, every time he realized just how hard he was having to fight his own incipient lunacy, and said things like:
     (Talk about control?  You're not even in control of yourself.)
     It dismayed Beecher that he couldn't even control the shape of his potential collapse: would the mania be catatonic or homicidal?  If it had to happen, he knew which he wanted  -- God help him, he would prefer to go out in a red rage of biting, clawing, tearing.  Starting with Vern, then Robeson, McManus, Glynn... that cunt, Judge Lima...
     (Um -- Toby -- she's not even IN Oz.  Remember?)
     And then, finally, himself.  If someone hadn't done him a favour and beaten him to it by then.  Maybe Whittlesey; he could cope with getting shot by Whittlesey.  She'd make a clean job of it, at least.
     "...Beecher."
     It took Beecher a moment to realize that the voice wasn't actually Vern's.  He looked up, squinting hard, and recognized the rangy, balding figure before them.  McManus.  What the fuck -- ?
     "What about?"  *That* was Vern.  Of course.  Nobody got to play with *his* toys without permission.  Not even the Wizard.
     "If I wanted to talk to you about it, Schillinger, I'd have said, 'Hey, Vern, I want to talk to you AND Beecher.'  Thus my use of the phrase, 'I need to talk to *Beecher*.'"
     (Oh yes, Timmy.  Treat him like a toddler.  He likes that.)
     Vern's mouth tightened, brow knotting.  But his eyes, Beecher knew, would be flickering from side to side, checking where the hacks were.  After a second, evidently deciding it wasn't worth his dignity to protest, he gave a deliberately uncaring snort.  "Go ahead and enjoy yourself, McManus.  What's mine is yours."
     (Mi praga es su praga.)
     McManus only nodded:  Of *course* it is.  He had that luxury.  With a jerk of his head to Beecher:  "Come on."
      Beecher considered saying "no".  It might be worth it just to fuck with McManus' expectations, not to mention those of the Brotherhood, who would assume he'd take any chance to get away from Vern.  Besides, it wasn't something he got to say very often these days -- aloud, anyway.
      But curiosity was as much his weakness as O'Reily's, when it came down to it.  A quick look to Vern, just to make sure it was okay -- a gesture for both Vern and himself -- and he pushed himself to his feet, following McManus to the shadow of a nearby support pillar.
     "What do you want, McManus?"
     And then...
 

- 4 -

A long time later -- a whole fucking *day*, he later found out -- Beecher came back to himself in the library, staring down at a text he couldn't even remember picking off the shelves.  Where the fuck were his glasses?  He always brought them to the library, since it was one of the few places he was conditionally allowed to use them.  Vern's objections to a prag who looked like a bespectacled geek were suspended here, the same way that they were in Sister Pete's office, for the same reasons: Beecher's value to the Em City community -- and his continued presence therein -- depended on doing his jobs to the best of his ability.
     Which, strangely enough, required that he be able to READ.
     (Unlike, say, the non-literary task of sucking Vern's dick.)
     Come to think of it, virtual blindness -- his constant eyestrain headache aside -- was actually a preferable state, there.
     (Oh, what's that up above me?  A blurred, alien thing -- why, it must be a UAFO:  An Unidentified Ass-Fucking Object.  But I can't see it very well, so I guess it doesn't matter.)
      But here, here he wouldn't have come without his glasses.  Maybe he'd left them in the pod.  There'd been a time when he'd *always* misplaced his glasses, he'd even done the classic trick of pushing them up on his forehead and forgetting they were there.  Gen had always thought it was sweet.
     (That Toby, he's so sweet and helpless.  He needs me.  That's why I -- )
     -- *loved* --
     Gen.
     Genevieve was dead.
     Genevieve, his wife, the mother of his children, had taken her own life.
     (Genevieve.  MY wife.  My -- ex-wife.)
     His *extremely* ex-wife.  Now.
     (Haaaahhhhhhh.....)
     Something moved to his left:  Keller.  Oh, perfect.  Absolutely *fucking* perfect.  Eyeing him, moving warily, as if Beecher had -- what?  Insulted him?  He had no memory at all of saying *anything* to him.  Not even a simple "hello" or "fuck off" or "hey, if I promise to be YOUR prag would you mind helping me make sure Vern has to stay in here with the both of us, at least as long as we BOTH have to be here?  Huh, huh, huh?"
     (I mean, you've BEEN in my position.  Lit and fig.  Right, Chris?  You understand.)
     He stared down at his book, wondering why he'd picked it in the first place.  He bent close and squinted: oh.  Yeah.  Probate law as it applied to custody.  Jesus, Tobias, you're still the fucking perfect lawyer -- even in a post-traumatic psychoactive fugue.
     (One of the best things about working in a psychiatrist's office:  You get to know the lingo.)
     Keller slipped into the copy room.  Beecher didn't look up, but was aware of the departure all the same.  Slick, snakelike.  Confident.  Untouched.  Like there had never been anything in his life named Vern Schillinger.  Utterly unbound by pain, or fear, or memory.
     But not by desire.
     Keller wanted him, Beecher knew. Yet one more little gift Vern had given him, along with everything else: The ability to sense, chart, *provoke* another man's primal sexual greed.  On the outside, Beecher had been just one more slightly balding, dishwater-blond-and-blue office suit.  But in here, with cheap jewelry in his ears and a brand on his butt, he was Marilyn fucking Monroe.  The one everybody wanted -- the one that, in a pinch, they'd pay, or kill, or die for.
     The one that brought the power to its
     (HIS)
     owner.
     Take Jim Robeson, over there, by the door.  A blurred mass of muscle, detectable at a distance by the weight of his tread, the air he displaced, and the stale stink of sweat he produced even five minutes after showering.  Beecher remembered that smell -- just like Robeson remembered *him*.  Guy's tongue was practically hanging out like a panting dog's, a junkyard mastiff scenting a bitch in heat.
      And the bitch... would be Beecher.
      (Don't drool on the floor, Jimbo.  Poor overworked Keller, he'll probably have to clean that up -- )
      Keller.
      The decision, the realization, came instantaneously, so fast as to be barely conscious.  Aware only of a sudden white energy galvanizing his limbs, like some weird kind of euphoric electroshock, Beecher let himself rise -- almost float -- to his feet.  Not giving any sign that he had realized Robeson was there, he walked across the room and into the door of the copy room.  Badly lit, as usual; they still hadn't gotten around to fixing the fluorescents.  He went to the shelf, ripping open a package for a few sheets of paper -- petty thievery in action.
      (All alone, nobody to help me... heeeeerre, moron moron moron....)
      Perfect.
      Except --
      -- Keller was nowhere to be seen.
      There *was* nobody to help him.
      (FUCK!  Wait a minute.  Where the -- ?  There's no way out of here!  How could he have  -- ?)
     Yes, after all, with *his* eyesight Beecher would have spotted him leaving instantly, wouldn't he?
     "Well, how about this."
     (Shit.  Shit, shit, SHIT.)
 

- 5 -

Beecher didn't hesitate: he spun and got his back to the shelf, protecting it.  "What the fuck do you want, Robeson?"
      (As if I didn't know.)
      "You got it."  Grinning as if that was the funniest gag in existence.  Teeth white, the only thing Beecher could see in the silhouetted blur of Robeson's head.
      He felt himself become displaced again, reality ungluing around him.  Robeson sliding into Ross, his grey hair red with blood, glittering with glass, grabbing Beecher like a rat-killing dog and *shaking* him.  Beecher's teeth rattling with the impact.  His back smacking against the railing, hard:  A line of pain and numbness across his spine.  His balance, going haywire as Ross bore down on him, bending him back over the metal until his shoulders started to give...
      Then -- *twisting*.  Mind dissolving into drug-hazed rage, a reddish-black cloud.  Sliding sideways out of Ross's grip, bringing up both arms at the same time to slam, hands fisted, into Ross' side as he staggered against the railing --
      One moment of perfect clarity as Beecher *felt* Ross' centre of gravity shift, tipping up, over...
      ...and down.

After the Hole, after McManus' quiet news that Beecher's sentence had been upgraded to life -- possibility of parole in fifteen years (felony manslaughter, not murder, given Beecher's almost-certain lack of intent to kill and Ross' almost-certain *possession* of said intent) -- Beecher had been transferred to O'Reily's pod.  Where Ryan, the ever-compassionate, had provided a suspectly "free" sampler of welcome-back drugs.
     Along with some *definitely* un-free advice.
     "I know you're not... not gonna wanna hear this."  Ryan punched Beecher's arm weakly, as though marvelling at how hard a target it had suddenly become.  "But I really think... you should go back to Vern."
     Beecher's head turned, very slowly, like a balloon bobbing on a string, to face O'Reily.  His jaw dangled below his skull, feeling like the orthodontic headgear he'd worn as a child: a skewed, alien protuberance.  Its slackness was half heroin, half unspoken *What the FUCK*?
      "I mean it.  Make it up with him."
      Beecher's mouth worked as if chewing something large, soft and invisible.  "I'd ask you what the fuck you're on, O'Reily, but... I know already."  He giggled.
     Ryan lifted his hand to emphasize something, stared at it as though he'd forgotten what a hand was, then continued undeterred.  "All I'm sayiniss... *saying* is, amount of time you're gonna have in here, if Vern ain't got your back, who does?"
     (Well, not YOU, obviously.  My fine feathered friend.  Except you don't have feathers, and you're not really my friend.)
     But Beecher's resentment was already dissolving into tits-bliss.  He let his head fall back against the pod's wall.  "Assuming I wanted to... how am I supposed to convince the fucker this is a... a good idea?  I put a chair through a wall tryin' to kill him."
     "He doesn't know that."  Beecher threw him a 'you-must-be-shitting-me' look, but Ryan bludgeoned on.  "Nobody does.  Think about it.  'Cause what everybody saw... was you killing *Ross.*"
     (You know... he's right.)

And that was how -- or why, at least -- Beecher found himself back in Vern's plexiglass domain, the very next day, after watching until he saw the older man's new buttboy flounce out to the showers.  Thinking:
     (Oh, man, I SO do not want to do this.  Which I guess proves I'm sane again.)
     Little as that helped.
     Beecher rapped on the doorframe.  Vern looked up from his magazine; his brow creased.  "What the fuck do *you* want?"
     A breath to steady his voice.  "You told me the romance had gone out of the relationship."
     "Well, yes, I did."  Vern's voice lilted in feigned bemusement.  Adding:  "As I recall, that was just before you threw my good pal Scott off the deck."
     Beecher nodded.  "Scott Ross.  Whom you were about to fuck up the ass, as *I* recall."
     A blink, reptilian, like a lizard in the sun.  Shadows shifted in Vern's eyes.
     "Gee, sweetpea.  I didn't think you cared."
     (Deeper breath.  Take a moment.  Get it organized.  And:)
     "Well... maybe I do."
     With the speed that was always unnerving in a man of his stocky, big-boned build, Schillinger swung upright, pinning Beecher with an intent, angry gaze.  "What is it you're trying to say here, exactly?  ToBIas?"
     A swallow.
     "You know."
     (Yes, I think I do.  But....)
     "Say it.  Out loud."
     "I want... to be... your..."  Another swallow, a painful spasm.  "To be... yours."
     "My *prag.*"  Vern bit the word off, savoured it.  Then spat it back at him like venom, secure in the knowledge the younger man would cringe from its touch.
     Beecher, however, amazed himself... by standing his ground.
     (Christ.  I can actually DO this.)
     "You take me back," he said, with just a deliberate taste of -- promise? -- in his voice, "I'm willing to be -- taken."
     (Hint at what they want.  Imply, and be reluctant.  People pay higher prices for what they imagine you don't want to sell them.)
     And -- just as Beecher's mentor in the firm had prophecied, back when he'd passed on that advice to the fast-rising young paralegal Beecher had once been -- it was working.  Vern saw through the layer of forced seductiveness, straight to the old revulsion and terror that still quivered beneath it.  And it was that *mix* that was grabbing him.
      (Right by the balls.)
     "No back talk," Vern clarified, standing.  "None of your prissy little prep-school shit."
     "None of that."
     "Mine.  For*ever*."
      The words were ridiculously easy, now:  "As long as you want me," Beecher said, with almost no inflection at all.
      Vern stared at him, measuringly.  Silence stretched out the minutes.
      Then --
      "Prove it."
       And without ceremony, he stepped behind the bunkbed, unzipped, pushed his briefs down just far enough to free his cock, then lifted his hands.  "Well?"
       Beecher closed his eyes.  Then... made himself *open* them.  And without blinking -- seeing in his peripheral vision *Vern's* eyes widening at this unexpected refusal to flinch  -- Beecher knelt to get the job done.
      The experience was even less pleasant than "normal", if that was possible.  Vern had always gotten off on the power of sex, rather than the pleasure: usually when he began forcing Beecher to "perform", he was already close to the edge just from his own glee, and it never took very long.  But here, Beecher was having to start from absolute zero.  So it took both more effort and more... attention to detail... than he was used to.
      And it took a *long* time.
      At last he finished.  Made himself swallow, and keep on kneeling, head down, knees burning.
      Above him, he could sense Vern shivering with reaction; silent, as he'd been throughout, aside from that little grunt he always made when he came -- the one he wasn't aware he made.  Usually there were curses, an exhortation or two, an attempt to provoke tears or disgust.  But this... nothing.  Just silence, gradually accelerating breathing, then -- *finally* -- the grunt of orgasm.
      "Okay," Vern said abruptly.  "*You* talk to McManus."
      Beecher looked up.  Just in time he remembered the proper protocol, and nodded in acknowledgement.  "Yes... sir."   He rose, fighting the temptation to wipe his mouth, and turned for the door.  Only to be halted in mid-move by a final instruction:
      "And don't brush your teeth before you do."
       Beecher closed his eyes.  He had his back to Vern, now.  He could get away with it.  And repeated, through clenched, seed-sticky teeth:
      "Yes, *sir*."
 

- 6 -

It was both easier and harder than it had been.  Easier, because Beecher knew what to expect, and what to supply.  Because he understood, finally, that Vern *needed* him, whether he acknowledged it or not.  And would be willing to do almost ANYTHING to keep that need fed.
     Harder, because Beecher hadn't realized how much *he'd* formerly fed on the (albeit reluctant) pity of others, until it was no longer there.  By going back to Vern of his own semi-free will, he had forfeited his lifelong refuge: the role of victim.  And he had also forfeited the compassion and sympathy it had always evoked from everyone around him -- even in this place.  Perhaps *especially* in this place.  Here, after all, almost everyone was a potential candidate for pragdom, and even the hardest cons lived in fear of one day being too weak to prevent themselves from getting turned out the way they'd turned out whole schools of fresh fish, back in the day.
     But someone who *chose* to be a prag... why, they were only a step away from being a full-blown (so to speak) fag.  The single most spat-upon group in Oz.  And that was saying something.
     And someone who chose to be *Schillinger's* prag....
     Beecher could see people looking at him and wondering how he could even *pretend* to be affectionate towards Vern.  They didn't know how comforting it could be to have somebody to hold you, in the darkness of Oz.  Anybody.
     Even Vern.  Who was, after all, large, warm and strong.  Outside, if not in.
     Vern, who might have stood a decent chance against Robeson.
     But as it turned out, it didn't matter that much anyway.  Keller to the rescue, handy pack of paper at his side, out from his hidey hole *behind* the shelves....
     (Behind the shelves.  Clever.  You penal-system superhero, you.)
     Though he could still be shocked by some things, apparently.  Beecher watched Keller's eyes as he retold the story of Robeson's involuntary circumcision.  Surprise, and reflexive disgust.  But no fear.
     (Ah, the penis is an interesting machine, isn't it.)
     And he actually went so far as to recommend seeing Nathan.  Which Beecher had been planning to do anyway, what with his side stabbing him every time he took a breath, but the fact that Keller had dared to show *concern* -- granted, not while around any eyewitnesses -- said a lot.
      (Careful, Toby.)
      Now Beecher fully understood what, before, he had only been dimly aware of:  Keller wanted him, and he felt *sorry* for him.  Because of Gen.  Because of Vern.  Because he too had felt Vern's weight on his back, felt Vern's breath in his ear, felt Vern's joy in his humiliation.  Beecher could not have asked for a more perfect catspaw.  A more perfect tool.
      A more perfect engine for his revenge.

A day passed.  Robeson met his doom.  One less competitor -- though Beecher had to admit he was surprised by the viciousness of the mutilation.  Pleasantly surprised.  And Keller graciously let him sink in another hook or two.  One reluctant smile, and he could practically *see* the man melting.
     (Jesus, this is almost too easy.)
     Later, however, sitting in the infirmary -- as Nathan strapped his ribs -- Beecher heard the little voice again, asking:
     Your wife *dies*, and you use it?
     (Yeah. So what's your point?)
     No, but let's get this straight: Your WIFE dies, and you USE it. For revenge.
     Uh huh.
     (So what's. Your fucking. POINT?)
     I'm a lawyer, Beecher thought. God hands you lemons...
     ...you made lemonade, poison it, and give it to the fuck you want dead, dead, DEAD.
     So this was how it would be.  He would give Keller what the tall man wanted, and let Keller think he was tricking HIM into giving it. Seduce, by *seeming* to be seduced.  Manipulate, by seeming to be manipulated.
     Keller was a lifer too, or close enough as made no never-mind. So say he killed Vern; vicarious revenge, with Keller paying the penalty. Beecher could testify, make sure he wasn't executed...but even if he was, it might be worth it. Or he would stay in Oz, life piled on eighty-eight years (man, what a sentence!); take Vern's place in Beecher's bed, at the head of the Aryans' table--or not. Who gave a fuck?
     Or, maybe Vern would kill Keller. Which meant *Vern* would get life.  Not the most desirable result... but no worse off than he was now.  Better, in fact: with no possibility of parole, Vern would cling to Beecher even more strongly.  No threat of ever being replaced.
     Beecher could deal with that. Had done, up 'till now.
     And then, the worst-case scenario.  Vern might figure it out.  Or maybe Keller might.  And one of them -- or both of them -- might kill the erstwhile object of their thwarted desire.
     Beecher smiled.
     Well: He was dead anyways, wasn't he?
     But that really didn't seem likely.  He knew Vern too well, by now.  And Keller....  His smile widened, remembering the look in the other man's eyes.  Remembering thinking, half-amazed, to himself:
     (You know, Chris, you're the kind of guy who, if *I* was the kind of guy I *used* to be, would scare the CRAP out of me.  But... you're so *simple*.  You want what you want, and -- if it gets me what *I* want -- I'll give it to you.
     And you'll do what I want, and you'll never.
     Be.
     The wiser.)

Trap.
     Snap.
     Shut.
     Done.

*Gotcha*.

END PART FOUR

Continued...