Tobias Beecher's version of Tuesday morning, meanwhile, begins like this: Jerking awake in a slick of sweat, half-hard and half-dazed, to find Christopher Keller laid out beside him, full-length--his hawk-sharp nose a bare micro-inch away from Beecher's cheek, dark eyes infinitely watchful, infinitely suggestive.
     "Hot dream?"
     "Get off me."
     "I'm not ON you."
     (Yet.)
     Adding, as Beecher's eyes flick away, automatically scanning the tier outside for any possibility of rescue: "Hack won't be back for ten."
     "You think they can't see us from the station?"
     Keller chuckles. "Beech. You really think they *care*?"
     And: Given what used to go on pretty well nightly, with Vern--and how contemptuously OBVIOUS he was about it, more often than not--Beecher knows Keller's right. But it pisses him off, nonetheless--this *certainty* of his. The sheer, banked heat of him, crouched and supple, trailing down along Beecher's arm, his hip, his thigh; with Beecher straining not to move, to avoid even the most casual contact, and Keller not straining at all. Just smiling, faintly...
     ...in the general direction of Beecher's sheeted groin.
     Beecher closes his eyes, exhausted all over again, (fairly) good night's sleep notwithstanding. Unable to stop himself from thinking: Why is this happening to me? Why does this *keep* happening to me?
     Whine, whine, whine; shut the fuck up, you fuckin' little prep-school pansy.
     (Thank you, *sir*.)
     Because...you asked for it. Remember?
     Drank to put on the false face; drank to maintain the false face. Drank--or drugged--to reward yourself for having to *wear* the false face.
     To charge yourself up for that last trip home...afterward, to dull the shock of having *killed* somebody...to get through the trial...to get through Oz...to get through VERN...
     And after the laundry room, when Chris was in the Hole--you drank *then*, too, didn't you? Drank to kill the pain of separation...to rebuild your own flayed hide, recapture the mad self-sufficiency of those days before you dared to let yourself hope that someone--anyone--might ever find you worthy of love again...
     (*Love*, right. Four broken limbs' worth.)
     A rush of memory, now, equally uncontrollable--his father, oh-so-righteously "disappointed", after some long-forgotten indiscretion: A lost piece of equipment, a bad mark, a lie found out. Some failure. Patiently explaining that  *oh, no, of course it wasn't *your* fault--because NOTHING's ever *your* fault. Is it, Tobias?*
     The Beecher family's essential, Catholic dichotomy: Take the blame, and your guilt controls the world. You're responsible for *everything*. Then all you have to do is lay yourself open, and wait for the comfort to come rolling in.
     The magic words: I'm sorry. So sorry. So very, very sorry...
     (Yeah, you sure are.)
     "You really gonna try 'n' teach Cyril O'Reilly how to play chess?" Keller demands, inadvertantly rousing Beecher from the impromptu stew of self-pity he's just slid into. And Beecher, seizing this opportunity to turn away, turn his back on Keller, with pointed emphasis. Replying, coldly:
     "He couldn't be worse than *you*."
     Skeptical: "Wanna take a bet?"
     "Not particularly."
     Keller runs an idle finger up Beecher's exposed spine, right to where the first tight, dull gold waves of hair begin, and watches him barely control a shiver. Only now realizing--
     (like usual)
     --the possible respercussions of his impulsive shift in position.
     And tensing, studying Chris's faint reflection on the pod wall in front of him, that predatory shadow. Studying him, at close range, AS he tenses.
     Smiling just a little wider.
     (Oh, will you just *go away*?)
     But where would he go? They're locked in, after all--
     --together.
     Toby feels his face tinge red, the blush growing, spreading. Beneath the sheet, he feels himself stiffen further, helpless as ever--his erection crushing up against the bunk's side-pannel, pumped to over-sensitivity. Leaking, slightly.
     And Keller's breath on his scalp, a hot shadow falling over him. Murmuring, quietly:
     "You got a nice neck, Beech. The back of it--*nape*, right?" A pause, waiting--teasingly--for an answer. "Anybody ever tell you that?"
     Muffled: "No."
     (Not even Vern.)
     And God knows, he SAW it often enough.
     "Want a little help with that?"
     *With WHAT?* Beecher almost snaps. Then realizes that Keller--taller, propped on one elbow, *his* astigmatism-free eyes wide open--probably has a far better view of Beecher's "problem", all told, than Toby does himself.
     (Oh...THAT.)
     Oddly prim: "I'm fine, thanks anyway."
     Helpless. Hopeless. And how the fuck could he ever have thought he could fight Chris off, anyway, day after endless day, here on his--*their*--own home ground? Always rubbing up against him, impinging on his space, touching him briefly and then moving on before Beecher even had the chance to wonder what he was supposed to think, leaving nothing behind but an itchy, unsatisfied lick of flame--just like during those first few months, back before Beecher knew the REAL reason Keller kept acting like he wanted to get inside his pants.
     ('Cause that's where your LEGS were, idiot.)
     "I know you want it," Keller tells him. Simply. "And you know *I* want it. And...sometime soon, when you're finally over that whole--*gym* thing...we BOTH know you're gonna let me."
     Still without turning, still muffled, Beecher replies--gamely mimicking a confidence he doesn't feel: "In your dreams."
     "That's right."
     And adding--leaning down, almost in his ear--
     "--yours, too."
     A moist little flick against his tragus for punctuation: Keller's wicked tongue. Beecher lets his eyes squeeze tight against it, a last desperate defense--as Keller whispers, lips brushing the inner shell of cartilege, the blood-bright whorl:
     "Who you think you're foolin', man? All you gotta do is *smell* me, and you're halfway there already."
     And Beecher, shaking his head, stubborn, silent. Trying his level best not to breathe--through his nose.
     He hears Keller exhale, an amused, annoyed snort. Hears the mattress's springs squeal in protest as he shifts over, onto his back, looking up at the top bunk's underside. And says:
     "'Kay, fine. Be that way. Guess I'll just have to...amuse myself. For now."
     Then, silence--for a second or so. Follwed by--
     (What the--?)
     --a whisper of cloth, up *and* down. The sound of spitting. An exploratory lull. Then a hitch, a soft growl in the throat, followed by a...gradually quickening...pattern of breath. Mixed with--
     (--he *can't* be doing--what I THINK he's--)
     --soft, rhythmic...slapping sounds.
     (Oh, shit. He IS.)
     Lying there, listening to Keller--*amuse* himself--Beecher digs his nails into his palms, determined to resist the growing urge to hump up, ever so slightly, against the bunk's restraining barrier; to coordinate his movements with that onanistic siren song coming from behind him, and rub 'till he finds release. Not deliberately, so much, as almost accidentally: Excess sexual energy overspilling like infection, draining away like disease, exploding on contact like a punctured pocket of pus.
     Hot and shivering, Beecher lies their paralyzed. Thinking:
     He's jacking off, and I feel like *I*'m the one getting fucked--and I didn't even DO anything, damnit.
     (...damn it.)
     Appalled *and* aroused, mountingly--though much against his will--by the idea that Keller might still be looking at him at he does it, his dark gaze riveted to Beecher's neck, back, spine, hidden ass...
     (...using me like some kind of VISUAL AID, that shameless 'ho...)
     And, *uh*: That all-too-familiar rush of sweet pain, making Toby's throat clench, his eyes water, his head spin. His barely-healed muscles knot and sing with traitorous anticipation, perversely deferred pleasure.
     Not wanting to look back. *Refusing* to look back--or forward, either, for that matter. Just in case he can make out, even through a blurred and distorted play of light on glass, Chris' face, deformed by ectasy; his mouth, working. Shaping. Naming his object of desire, soft but clear:
     (T..oh...beee...)
     But then, trembling on the verge of protest or surrender, the voice of reason intrudes, coldly insinuating. Asking:
     (And what makes you think he's thinking of *you* at all, Tobias?)
     Which somehow makes him feel, mortifyingly enough--even worse.
     This sudden cynical insight--unsought, yet pretty well inarguable--is enough to defuse the dopamine/adrenaline cocktail he's been riding on contact, freeing his mind from this creeping haze of desire, and returning Beecher to a far more normal (ha, ha) state of detached and frigid rage. Prompting him to inquire, icily:
     "You DONE yet?"
     And the sounds...stop.
     A dead moment. Then another squeal, another shift--as Keller swings his long legs off the bunk, stands in one graceful move, takes a half-stride to the sink. And begins washing his hands, with careful attention, as though absolutely nothing just happened.
     (Not that is HAS.)
     Masked by the sound of running water, Beecher draws a long, careful breath, recharging.
     Christ, I need my meds, he thinks.
     (Already.)
    Then levers himself vertical, ignoring the pain, with a grunt and a jerk--so that when Keller finally spins the taps closed, he turns to find Beecher sitting there, staring at him.
     "Well," Beecher begins--his tone cool, measured, infinitely unamused. "That was--interesting. But since you're up anyway..."

Which is how, hours later, Keller comes to find himself lurking outside the Oz post office door with a set of "terms" to deliver, watching Vern Schillinger sort, stack and mark his way through a heap of inmate mail--a study in comparison and contrast. So very different, physically, from the version he knew at Lardner: That slimmer, blonder, more overtly angry young(er) man, already thirty-plus with nothing on his plate but three more years to do and an Aryan Brotherhood leadership position to defend. Yet not so different at all, from what little Chris has been able to glean, on the *inside*.
     (WORSE, if anything.)
     Look at him now, cast and all. Moving slower. Pain inherent in every motion. And the sheer *level* of obsession he routinely keeps himself vibrating at--mainly over Beech, now Keller comes to think about it...well, it's enough to make even the toughest engine start eating itself alive, 'specially when you're runnin' on empty.
     Actually, Keller's never *seen* anyone as physically on point around a prag, ex- or not,  as Vern is around Beech, these days. Not even--when he and KELLER were "together".
     (And that kinda rides *your* rail, doesn't it, Chris? Truth be told.)
     Truth...
     Truth is, Keller knows exactly why Toby sent him here. Why he put such special weight on the words, during his "instructions":
     *Just thought you might want to take it to him yourself. You two being SUCH GOOD FRIENDS.*
     Not "true", not any longer--but, then again, not entirely *untrue*. And Beech, lashing out over the whole early-morning bunk-bed episode, had thought for sure that getting lumped back in with Vern would HURT Chris somehow. Like he even gives Schillinger a second glance, most of the time.
     Besides which: Just *what* is Beech's big problem, anyways? Keller thinks, weirdly resentful. Always gotta make things hard on yourself, don'tcha, Tobe?
     (Yeah, okay, I guess I made you listen; didn't MAKE you get a hard-on doin' it.)
     Beecher, unable to see the world from any perspective but his own, thinks that since they both took the same ride--with Vern as their oh-so-loving tour guide--the fact that Keller would actually consider himself in Vern's *debt* makes him complicit in everything Schillinger ever did to Beech. What he doesn't understand is just how markedly different their experiences had been--'sides from the SEX, of course.
     Shit, ol' Vern never had to bust *Keller* up to get what he wanted...
     (...though that maybe wasn't such a GOOD thing.)
     But: Fuck *good*. There wasn't any good, any bad--just the score, which Toby hadn't known, in any way, shape or form. And why should he, his background? Money, education. A good job. A soft life.
     And madness always in him, somewhere, buried deep. A seed he watered with alcohol, all the while hoping--subconsciously, but *hoping*, Keller was pretty damn sure--he'd live long enough to see it flourish in some spectacular way, before his liver exploded.
     He'd wanted to be punished, obviously, much as he might deny it now, and Vern was good at that. Match made in hell, or wherever.
     Keller had never been broken to harness and beaten into submission, the way Toby was; he hadn't *had* to be. He already KNEW the rules of engagement, had done for years. The street, and learning how to sell himself, one way or another: That'd been *his* education.
     Get the girls all juicy, make the guys throw a rod. Exert your one power in the face of powerlessness: The power to give far more pleasure than you let yourself feel--then walk away afterwards, free and fuckin' clear.
     Hell, Keller'd been *glad*, back at Lardner, to snag Schillinger as his protector. Way Chris saw it, it'd been sort of a prag coup: Someone shrewd (if not exactly smart), with a bit of a sense of humor (though not about *himself*), and his own set of hangups--ones that left him open, like anybody else, to Keller's not-always-so-subtle manipulations. Not to mention that Vern could actually DELIVER on his part of the prag/patron bargain: Challenge him, and he *would* fuck you up--but if anyone else tried to step in, they'd get fucked up just as bad.
     All that stuff Vern'd let slip here and there about his Dad, how the "Old Man" used to be on him every minute of every day, calling him a weak, needy faggot, facing off with him over anything from politics to skipping school, while the same Mom Vern claimed he'd die to protect just hurt herself worse trying to get between them--Keller had filed that diligently away, the same way he *knew* Vern filed away anything Chris was dumb enough to tell him. In places like Lardner--or Oz--personal information wasn't useful for anything BUT ammunition.
     So: With regards to Vern, going passive--or flirtatious, which the guy hated more than most of the "subhumans" he was always ranting on about--
    (So how *is* Beech getting away with it, exactly--like in the gym?)
     --was basically the least practical option. You had to come correct, like a true bad-ass, and back it up. Like when Keller broke Mark Mack's nose, right in front of Vern--sure, it pissed him off, but he RESPECTED it too. Manly man-ness in action.
     Still...maybe that wouldn't've been such great advice, for Toby. Considering Vern never really seemed to *notice* him much, except as a sperm despository, before he finally started to fight back.
     That symbiotic groove he and Vern had fallen into, little dog to Vern's big, one mind in two bodies: Toby had grazed its surface, from what Keller had heard. Running errands, doing chores. Carrying messages.
     (So what's this make YOU, Chris? *Beech*'s prag?)
     Keller folds his arms, scowls to himself--his mind slipping back, unbidden, to the end of that strangely comfortable arrangement: The end of his sentence, and his release back into a Vern-less world.
     There, and then gone--in Lardner, then out. One minute, Vern's. The next--no one's. Or anyone's.
     Yet again.
     And remembering, too--Jesus, *this* was stupid--
     --marking off the weeks and days, a vague internal clock, 'till Schillinger's time was up too. The date familiar enough, from casual conversation; Hell, most of the other Aryans rarely  talked about anything else. Then realizing he had no way to contact him...no real assurance Vern even WANTED his contact, anyway...
     (Think I want you fuckin' with my rep, Keller? Sendin' me *love letters*?)
     Be serious.
     (You ain't THAT good a lay.)
     There were only so many Schillingers in the phone book, however, and only one who ran a butcher's shop. Chris had stood outside all day, shivering up against the wall in an alley across the street, studying the family resemblance through the front window--a scary (but fairly accurate) preview of Vern-to-come, minus the terminal alcoholic's complexion. Then continued to stake it out, fruitlessly, well into the night.
     Thinking: Maybe. If he had absolutely nowhere else to go...
     (...yeah. And maybe not even then.)
     Because Vern had zero love for his Dad, basically, no more than Keller had for *his*. And--unlike Keller--Vern's A.B. connections alone assured him of never having "nowhere else to go".
     Chris could still feel the cold clutch of it, even now. That loss. That creeping sense of lost--ness.
     (MAN, he'd been young.)
     Looking back, Keller vaguely realizes, that probably must have been around the time Vern took off for California with that prematurely-grey king snake freak, Scott Ross. When he parked his bike by San Francisco harbor, and--eventually--ended up hitched.
     Finally *got* that wife and kids you were always talkin' about, didn't you, Vern-on? Keller muses. Just like me and MY wives. And did it *help*?
     Thought not.
     Well, that was all one long fuckin' time ago. And Keller...had learned better than to expect anything more from sex, inside prison or not, but a good time--or a leverage point--or a simple matter of convenience. Safer that way, in the long run.
     Safer than this goddamn back-and-forth, wishy-washy, teasing fucking--ambivalence, right?--over what he'd (almost) had with Toby, that's for sure. Considering the sheer, high-maintenance pain the *ass* the whole thing is rapidly turning out to be.
     Hurting Beech, that'd been part and parcel of Keller's debt to Vern, non-nefotiable from the start; he knows he couldn't've gotten out of it if he'd tried--
     (--not that he DID--)
     --and so he doesn't regret it. Can't afford to.
     (Much.)
     But feeling--and evoking--a genuine response...
     (So hey, okay, I know we can't be FRIENDS anymore...but couldn't we at least have sex?)
     Keller curses himself, under his breath: It really does sound pathetic, even to him.
     Chase 'em until they catch you--that's the way he's almost always played it, with guys like Vern. Guy who think they HAVE to be on top. But with Toby...ten times the overt victim Keller's ever been, so vulnerable, all one big unhealed wound beneath a thin layer of scar...
     Toby Beecher, who'd kissed *him*. Who'd told him he--
     (loved)
     --yeah, right.
     Still: Hot tongue, wet teeth. The unexpectedly sweet feel of Toby against him, cradled in his arms--so compact, so sturdy, against Keller's own black panther litheness. That smooth, pale skin laid on his, cheek to jowl. The scratchy gilt of Beech's hair between his fingers. And those clear blue eyes, dazed, replete--drunk on HIM, on Keller. Like Chris was a better drug than madness, a better goal than revenge--enough of a human buzz to send somebody like Toby plunging *straight* off the wagon, smart or not, crazy or not.
     The ambition had birthed itself in that one mad, scriptless moment: To wipe all lingering trace of Vern from Toby's mind AND body, fuck 'em away and and replace 'em with a burnt-in self-portrait, one pleasure-soaked nerve at a time--a fresh new brand, mocking the red, ridged one on Toby's ass...and matching the invisible one on Keller's stunted soul.
     (Vern thinks he knows us both. Thinks he OWNS us both--still.)
     But that kiss--that *kiss* showed Keller parts of Beecher he can only assume no one's EVER seen. Not Vern. Not Toby's dead ex. No one but Chris--and Toby, when he lets himself remember.
     ("Love"?)
     Shit. Not likely.
     But whatever it was--pity, sex, even the legendary ell-oh-vee-ee its fuckin' slippery self, or some typically Beecher-fucked combination of all of the above--Keller wants more.
     And, one way or another...he's gonna make sure he gets it.
     Staring at Schillinger, now, Keller thinks: Good news on the way, buddy. But don't count your prags before they're screwed, okay?
     'Cause you and Toby may have a little interference to deal with, 'fore I'm through.

Meanwhile, in the infirmary:
     "I think we need to look at taking you off these meds," says Dr Nathan--pretty much right as Beecher swallows the pills in question, annoyingly enough. He gulps, trying to clear his throat. And replies:
     "Can I ask why?"
     "Well, with your--history of substance abuse--"
     (My alcoholic junkie-hood, you mean--past, present AND future.)
     "--I'm afraid you might be getting readdicted."
     Well, I'm *not*, Beecher thinks, automatically. And might even say it aloud--except that they both know how much bullshit THAT is.
     The lump in his larynx moves further down, into liquid--and even though he understands there's no physical way it could've hit gastric juice just yet, Beecher still feels the edges of his worldview...tightened against Chris's taunting...start to loosen.
     Of course, that she's absolutely right. But he NEEDS them--needs the rush, the distance, the psychosomatically altered perspective on this huge pile of shit he's decided to throw himself into head-first. So he can do what he has to.
     (HAS to?)
     Wants to. Needs to. Whatever.
     And now--now she's going to take it all away, leaving nothing more than yet another useless "it's for your own good, Beecher" homily in its place. And there is *nothing* he can do about it.
     A momentary flare of hatred, frighteningly outsize, blazes up over him; Nathan sees him flush, and takes a half-step sideways--not *quite* worried enough to call the C.O., yet. For all that her dark eyes slide in the hack's general direction.
     But: Haven't you heard, Glori-osa? Beecher thinks, with sour amusement. *I* only hurt men. Preferably ones who have their dick in my mouth--or who've HAD their dick in my mouth.
     (Oh, yeah--and myself. Of course.)
     "You'll get a full dose today," she tells him. "First one now, next one after physio, just like normal. And then, as of tomorrow--we start replacing one of those doses with simple Tylenol."
     And tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow. 'Till it's all Tylenol. 'Till it's nothing.
     (Hey, look--instant medical degree.)
     Carefully: "You okay with this, Beecher?"
     A hiss. "Does it matter?"
     (Well...no.)
     Funny how you never had this much concern over my health when I was coming in here every other week with a reopened *rectal tear*, Doc, Beecher's unable to keep himself from musing. Then clamps down on the thought, hard--'cause being bitter gets you nothing but nowhere, fast. Right?
     Right.
     (Like anything *does* get you anywhere. In here.)

Once outside the door, however, the orderly leans discreetly by him, muttering:
     "You ever need a top-up on them meds, man, I can give you a real sweet deal, wedo. Cost ya 'bout as much as that rot-gut Luis been sellin' you--'cept it don't leave no hangover to tip Queen Bitch in there off, you know what I'm sayin'?"
     For probably the first time since "checking in", Beecher takes direct note of the guy: So THIS is who got the medical wing 'scrip trade, after Miguel Alvarez bought himself a one-way ticket to life in solitary. With a hefty percentage going straight to El Cid, no doubt, not that Beecher gives much of a good goddamn--except in that it always does to know who's working for whom, in the natural course of things. As Ryan O'Reilly would put it.
     (Though--probably not that way, exactly.)
     "Pass," he forces himself to say--again, a pale imitation of the Irishman. But the orderly isn't insulted. Just shrugs, and replies:
     "Hey, your call, ese. You be back."

So: On the quad, now, dangling his feet from the top deck and floating happily along in the grip his next-to-last full-force pharmaceutical haze, as O'Reilly approaches--sliding, sanke-quick, in to lean against the railing beside him. Mentioning, casually:
     "Hear the latest? Schillinger whacked Jordaire."
     Beecher, squinting: "Him*self*?"
     "Fuck, no.What are you, high?" Then, with a quick sidelong glance at Beecher's goony grin: "Don't answer that."
     Beecher starts to giggle, then reins himself in. "Ohhhh-kay. Um--what for?"
     "So's he could get Wangler off the floor, and blame Said for it."
     "'Course. And what are YOU gonna do about it?"
     O'Reilly's turn to grin, now. "Oh...tell everybody. Muslims, gangstas..." He pauses. "How's YOUR end comin', by the by?"
     "...coming."
     Keeping himself visible, just like right after the riot--when he'd already been jacked to the gills on that first strange jolt of madness made flesh: See-sawing constantly between face-shitting profanity and plaintive amazement at his own extremity, between "that's just not normal" and "do you want to touch my dick?" And riding that familiar, exhilarating high, the high of baiting Vern. Like bull-leaping--move, or get gored.
     Not that the old Nazi's actually *made* any sudden charging motions in Beecher's direction, as yet.
     But he has hopes.
     To Ryan: "Think you could you get Cyril to follow me around, the next couple of days?"
     "He already *does* follow you around."
     "No. I mean--could YOU *get* him to follow me around?"
     Another glance, slightly more focussed this time: Something special you need a chaperone for, bro?
     (Maybe)
     Wanna TALK about it?
     (Nope.)
     And: "Sure," O'Reilly says. "No problem."
     Amenable, but with just that little touch of sting--like: There better *not* be, you don't want Cyril hurt...and me all over your sorry, swatika'ed ass, for now until the end of fuckin' time. GET it, Beech?
     Duly gotten.

And then the intervening hours contract, jump-cut fast. Putting Beecher back in his bunk, Keller back in front of the sink--after count, and mere moments before lights out.
     To Keller: "You talk to him?"
     A stiff jerk of the head. "Says he'll think about it."
     Beecher smiles to himself. "Uh huh. So...where and when?"
     Keller shoots him a narrow look. "Pretty sure of yourself, ain'tcha?"
     "Think you're the one one who knows how to get Vern hard, Chris? I mean, it's not exactly *brain surgery*: Show up. Have a pulse."
     The guard yells; Keller spits, pivots. As the pod goes dim, he settles smoothly onto the upper bunk, pauses. Then says, quietly:
     "He *knows* what you're doing, all right? I TOLD him."
     And Beecher, equally soft:
     "Did he listen?"
     No answer.

Wednesday morning ticks by, with Cyril trailing Beecher to the mess hall, the libarry, the infirmary--Dr Nathan doling out the pills, like it's some kind of new prison game show: Meds or Tylenol? *You* be the judge.
     Tylenol, probably--because, by noon, Beecher can feel an incipient shiver in every limb, a shuddery coiling in the pit of his stomach. Added to which, there's only so far Cyril GETS to go with him, Ryan's promised permission or not: Both of them having jobs to do, after all, at almost exactly opposite ends of Em City.
     Nevertheless, when he sees Schillinger come stalking out of Sister Peter Marie's office, Beecher's still able to pull himself together enough to give ol' Vern's chain at least one good yank--then fade rapidly back to half-speed, lethargically hunting and pecking through the file before him, in between frequent bouts of staring blankly at the computer terminal.
     Behind him, Sister Pete exits her inner office, sighing slightly. "I have to run this down to Tim's office, Tobias--"
     ("This" being Vern's file, if Beecher knows his own color-coding system.)
     "You all right here?"
     Automatically: "Never better, Sister."
     And she nods, absently--too distracted, luckily, to notice *his* distraction. Thank God.
     (Or whoever.)
     A minute later, she's gone, and he's alone with his blinking screen, his withdrawal pangs. His rapidly-dulling sense of self-preservation...

...the same sense which fails to warn him--now that Sister Pete's safely out of the way--of Keller's stealthy approach.

Keller, pausing by the door to admire Toby for a silent second--the fierce curve of his back, his intent, cat-snub profile. Thinking about the night before, when he lay on the top bunk with his hands beneath his head, taking stock of the ceiling--
     (and how many times has he done THAT, so far? Enough to chart the cracks like some fuckin' map of Planet White-washed Concrete)
     --while replaying Vern's last dismissive words in his head, over and over:
     *Tell him...I'll think about it.*
     And: You wouldn't even have anything to "think about" if I hadn't shown up, motherfucker. No chance with Toby what-so-ever, 'till *I* broke him down for you...
     (Piece, by piece, by piece, by piece--and that's just the PHYSICAL stuff)
     ...and now, you do.
     (*You.*)
     Which only serves to remind Keller, yet again--as he observed in the gym, just before Beech did his little lap-dance onto Vern's astounded stiffie--that he does NOT know *this* Beecher half as well as he's been hoping. Not the one apparently hell-bent on doing what *his* Beech--
     (HIS?)
     --laundry-room Beech--would rather die than do: Run right back into his former rapist's arms, rather than trust himself around Chris.
     Well...
     (We'll just see *who* he chooses, at close range.)
     No escape, no mercy. No qualm. It's now or never.
     Closing the door behind him, softly--Keller leans forward. And BLOWS across the exposed back of Beecher's neck...
     (the *nape*)
     ...just for the pleasure of seeing him jump.

Turning, heart in mouth, chest hammering--is it Vern, back to kick (or fuck--or BOTH) his ass over an air-mimed kiss?--only to be confronted with Keller's smirking face.
     (Oh, I SO do *not* need this now.)
     Keller, without preamble: "We need to talk."
     Beecher snorts. Replying, shortly:
     "I don't think so."
     He tries to turn away, back to his work. But Chris blocks the movement with one solid bicep, braced on the desk between them. Beecher glares over the intruding arm, eyes sparking: A pale blue spurt, like gas going up, met and mirrored in Keller's coal-dark gaze.
     And the *scent* of him, like a wave breaking over every part of Beecher at once--so intense, so familiar. So horridly RIGHT, for something so absolutely wrong.
     Every part. But one part...in particular.
     (Okay.)
     Best defense? Good offense, supposedly. So Beecher strikes the pose, hoping mimicry can call his old friend madness to his rescue before anything--too irreparable--has time to happen.
     (Imitation, man. Sincerest form of flattery.)
     Smiling now, wide and nasty: "So tell me, Chris--is this how I'm gonna have to spend the next ten years, I flunk my parole hearing? Beating *you* off with a fuckin' crutch?"
     He kicks out at the implements in question, pointedly--and is rewarded by seeing Keller flush in response. If only slightly.
     "*Said* I was sorry--"
     "Oh, yeah, that's right: You DID." An even *wider* smile: "And that's one better than the LAST guy who screwed me over, at least."
     Keller huffs. Then ekes out, slowly--through his teeth--
     "*One* *more* *time*, okay? I owed Vern. So I PAID him what I owed..."
     Prompting, helpfully: "That'd be me."
     "As it turns out--yeah." Voice lowering, as Keller presses closer: "But...maybe we would'a clicked up anyway, you 'n' me, Vern hadn't been in the picture. Ever think about *that*, ToBIas?"
     (Too often for my own comfort.)
     Beecher draws a breath, embarassed by its length, its raggedness. He feels the coil in his stomach knot tighter, jerking his cock up like a leash--brainless fucking organ that it is--and tries to keep his eyes anywhere but on Chris. Or NEAR Chris.
     Replying, faintly: "Yeah, well--we'll never know, will we?"
     And Keller, from whom *nothing* escapes--the human black hole, as omniscient as he is treacherous--
     "*I* know. And so do you."
     "So you keep saying," Beecher snaps--jonesing, pissed off, fed the fuck *up*. Hearing the words spill out, uncensored, before he has a chance to register them, let alone call them back: Bent on provocation, confrontation. An *end* to all this, happy or otherwise.
     (Probably otherwise.)
     But what the HELL, huh? Nothing *else* left to lose.
     (I hope.)
     "Okay," he says, voice rising, thinning--borne upwards, on a bright, energizing current of reckless rage. "If it'll get you off my back--"
     (So to *speak*)
     "--then put up, or shut up. You wanna fuck with me, Chris? C'mon. Let's FUCK."

Smiling at him, that peeled-back, half-snarl, mad dog grin--*deliberately* evoking, Chris'll swear to God, that sickening moment when Beech met him at the edge of Em City, arms outstretched in "celebration" of his release from the Hole: Drunk and disorderly, half-drowned in a self-inflicted booze halo. When he'd thrown his arms around Chris and felt him up just like any other piece of meat, any other whore you could buy with a packet of smokes and a kind word, a slurry invitation to bonk like bunnies.
     Treated him...like *Vern* would've, in actual fact. Beech's only pattern for that kind of thing, up 'till then, so Keller guesses he can't really fault him for it--
     --except that he does. Did.
     *Does.*
     'Cause I AIN'T his prag, Toby. Not any more.
     (Or yours, either.)
     Repeating those same, ill-fated words, even: *Let's FUCK.* And Keller, hardening all over, lit and fig. Thinking: Okay, that the way you want to play it? 'Ho to 'ho?
     I'm better at this than you are, Beech. Got more...experience.
     (Like a demonstration?)
     Sitting back on his heels, Keller crosses his arms, deliberately--see? Free to leave, anytime you want.
     Not that I see you GOING anywhere...
     Beecher watching him close, fascinated. And Keller, utterly smooth:
     "Oh, but I don't *want* to FUCK you, Tobe. I mean...*I* don't want to fuck *you*."

And: What the HELL does *that* mean, when it's at home?
     Screw this. And screw YOU, you fuckin'--fuckin'--fuckin' I don't even *KNOW* what.
     (But I'm not sticking around to find out.)
     Exhausted, disgusted, Beecher half-rises, half-turns away from Keller, decisively--having learned *nothing*, obviously, from yesterday morning's little exercise in watch-your-back-ness--
     --and jumps again, a truncated little bob, as he feels Keller come immediately up against him from behind--one hand at his throat, the other at his hip. Restraining. *Stroking*. Murmuring, hotly, right into his ear:
     "Bet you'd like that, right? You ever *been* on top, Toby? And not with a chick, 'cause that don't count..."
     (No? Well, shit--there goes all *my* previous experience.)
     But: Keller's hand, spanning his hip. Gripping his hip-*bone*. Tracing the downward curve of his pelvic ridge. The inside of his thigh...
     (Oh God, my God. Oh--)
     And Chris's tongue, his lips. His burning mouth, promising:
     "I'd let you, baby--anytime. Wouldn't have to burn a swastika on MY ass. And you, all the hate you got on for me--all the times you had to take it, when you really wanted to be showin' *Vern* how much it hurts to play pussy-boy for somebody whose idea of good sex looks like two dogs fuckin'--"
     (--Christ. Oh Chr...Chrrr...)
     "--*you*, Toby-baby--you would abso-fuckin'-lutely LOVE it."
     (...ChrrrRIS)
     Beecher sags for a moment, lost--then fights his way free, kicking, tearing: A surge of energy so abrupt it catches them BOTH off-guard. Flipping himself around, their legs tangling--up against Keller, muscle on muscle, his chin colliding *hard* with the inside of one broad shoulder--
     (Too many bad memories in that *other* position.)
     But as Beecher turns, Keller comes in fast and kisses him deep--teeth clicking, tongue probing, painfully electric. The two of them up against the nearest wall, chair already kicked aside; Keller's hands on Beecher's wrists, pinning him butterfly-style, spread wide and wanting. Aching everywhere Chris touches, everywhere he *doesn't* touch...
     Throwing his hip up over Chris's, instinctive, and meeting something just as hard as HE is: Hard, hot, rigid. A wet cloth mesh, proof positive of equal arousal.
     Breaking away, *Keller* stares, this time--struck momentarily dumb by the force of his own response. And Beecher, hoarse, into the unexpected silence:
     "Careful. I *bite*."
     But Keller--though breathless--remains unimpressed.
     "Yeah?" He says. "Then BITE me."

Hit-and-run, no hands, clothes on--just heat, motion, desperate desire in action. It's the perfect thing for skittish customers like Beech: You can come in your pants and pretend it's an accident--the *first time*, at least.
     Not that Chris is thinking about *strategy*, exactly--
     (--not right this MINUTE.)
     Instead, it's Beech's stomach clenching against his as they grapple, palm to palm, fingers locked, for dominance. Beech humping up against Keller's thrust-out thigh, and Keller bending to shower the hollow of his throat with tiny, tongueless kisses, teasing little flicks, each like a shock straight to the groin. Nuzzling, biting, chest to heaving, hammering chest. And Beech keening into Chris's collarbone, muffled, sobbing with helpless pleasure--the same pleasure CHRIS feels pumping through him now, setting everything from neck to knees alight with glorious possibility, with imminent, earth-shaking, teeth-rattling potential for explosion--
     His mind babbling, incoherent: Uhhn, ahhhn...oh yeah, ohh, ohhh--
     (--OHHHH *SHIT*)
     And he can feel himself, feel Beech: Pressed together, erupting practically in unison. *Soaking* each other, themselves.
     Collapsing onto Toby, wrung out, amazed. And knowing, as clearly as he's ever known one single thing in his whole, entire, oh-so-fucked-up LIFE...
     (...*that*...right there, right then...was *well* worth the wait.)
     At which point--
     --the struggle becomes real, once again. Beech squirming, cursing, beating against Keller's slack arms, though still too weak from his own orgasm to free himself by strength alone--
     And Keller, shocked by sudden pain: "Ow, FUCK!"
     --because Beech--
     (MY Beech)
     --that crazy little fuck--actually HAS just bitten him. A nip, just under the earlobe, above the mastoid muscle.
     Shallow, sure, but bloody enough to make Keller recoil, clearing a path for Beech's clumsy, clattering retreat--grabbing his crutches, half-hopping, half-*sliding* out the office door. And leaving Chris behind: Pants full, eyes watering. Hoping like holy HELL that Sister Pete doesn't come right back through that door and find him there, bleeding all over her nice clean floor. And wondering just *what* kind of excuse he's gonna have to come up with, when he hits Dr Nathan up for stiches.
     Holding his jaw, and thinking: Mark me yours, then run away, huh? Perverse little son-of-a-bitch.
     You really sure it's VERN you want, Toby?
     ('Cause I don't see you takin' a chunk out of *him*.)

An hour later, however, the mini-riot breaks out--and all wounds become instantly explicable.

Back in the infirmary, for the third time that day, Beecher--who barely had time to change before he found himself in the mess hall, cracking his left-hand crutch in half over the intrusive, platinum-bleached head of that raving queen who used to do his makeovers--sits next to Bob Rebadow, waiting to take his turn under Nathan's capable hands. Suddenly, he notices that Rebadow's alone: Not exactly business as usual, considering how he and Busmalis have been virtually joined at the hip ever since the Mole hit Em City.
     "Where's Agamemnon?" Beecher asks.
     Rebadow, softly: "Stabbed."
     For a minute, Beecher's taken aback, truly unsure--for once--of what to say. Not that very long ago, after all, since Rebandow was stabbed himself: Back before he took God's advice on the best way out of Oz, only to be hideously disappointed.
     "...badly?" He asks, finally--and is relieved when Rebadow shakes his head.
     "I have it on--good authority--he's going to be just fine."
     This said with a brief...almost *coy*...upwards glance.
     Beecher smiles to see it, thinly. Commenting:
     "Sounds like you and God made up."
     And Rebadow just shrugs. Like always.
     No sign of Vern; coming in, Beecher had to fight his way through a knot of gangstas clustered around Poet, who was complaining loudly about Schillinger throwing the first punch--so maybe he's down in McManus's office, *explaining* himself.
     (Not fuckin' likely, with Metzger covering his behind. That closeted Nazi bastard.)
     And Beecher, coming down now from the mini-riot's taunting little touch of madness, feels fear, shame, a hot burst of remembered ectasy grip him all at once, along with the renewed symptoms of his withdrawal. Knowing he has to remove himself, somehow, from Chris's distracting influence, or face the very real possibility of losing his nerve entirely.
     Giving up Vern...giving up his *revenge*--against Vern, against Metzger. Against the whole goddamn A.B., and anyone who gets in his way while he's doing it.
     (Against...Chris.)
     From beside him, he hears Rebadow's scartchy cough, and looks around to meet the old man's bleak but candid eyes head-on.
     "Beecher," Rebadow begins. Then, almost hesitant:
     "If I told you God told me something about *you*--would you want to know what it was?"
     Beecher stares at him, joints singing, heart pounding. Feeling his sins cluster around him, like flies on an open cut: Those he's committed, and those he's merely contemplated. Knowing there's nothing sacred, but fearing--nonetheless--that he may have already lost the last of what he laughingly used to call his soul.
     "Go learn the oboe, Bob," he says, at last. "I think you owe it to Him. Don't you?"

And then he's back at Dr Nathan's door, with Keller just coming out--his jaw all swabbed and plastered, stained orange-red with iodine.
     "Watch out," she calls after him. "These things can be infectious."
     Keller, locking eyes with Beecher: "I know."
     With the orderly trying to catch his eye, too, off in the corner--knowing a good customer when he sees one, especially one as strung out as Beecher must look now.
     And: I have GOT to get out of here for a while, Beecher thinks. Away from Chris, from him. Take a little detox vacation. Get myself back on track, so I can keep on going straight to Hell at my own chosen speed, with no one trying to slow me down, or speed me up, or pull me back from the brink of my own personal abyss.
     He's still meditating on this statement, in part or whole, by the time McManus and company finally reopen the mess hall for dinner and Keller appears by his elbow, so fast and silent--yet again--that Beecher didn't even know he was there. Pointing, over his shoulder, in the direction of Vern's usual table. And saying:
     "Hey, look. It's the new *you*."
     (Excuse me?)
     Beecher follows the line of Chris's pointing finger, automatically--and freezes. Because there's a strange man sitting at the end of the table, next to Vern--some Gen Pop hump Beecher's never even *seen* before--
     (Or maybe he has, and just doesn't remember; guy's not exactly *memorable*)
     --sitting there, hugging himself--and staring off into space, like he's just been punched in the gut several times in succession.
     (And boy, does THAT look familiar.)
     Beecher, staring, catches Vern's eyes: Calm, *sated*. All balance restored.
     And the unspoken message, there for anybody to read, if they want to--
     (See, bitch? You're nothin' special. Think I need your TERMS, to get what I need?)
     There's a new prag 'round every corner, I *want* to find one there. Anywhere. Anybody.
     (Anybody...but *you*.)
     Beecher can see Keller watching this silent exchange, trying his best not to laugh out loud. Jackal at the lion's feast, that's Chris fucking Keller, all right--barely able to repressed his glee at getting Vern's leavings: Beecher, all his. For good.
     A huge wad of rage expands inside of him, inflating him like a balloon. Sending him limping across the hall, double-time, stop-motion fast as some voracious desert spider.
     (Kill or cure, Beech)
     Discarding his crutches, he slides in between them like a hot knife through butter: Slings an arm over both their shoulders before Vern even has a chance to protest, provocatively casual, and gives them feral grin--with extra teeth.
     To Schillinger: "Hey, nice one: He's cuuute." Then, to the guy: "You know who I am? He tell you, maybe?"
     Guy: "...no..."
     "I'm the WIFE, bitch."
     And he SLAMS this poor fellow victim's head onto the table--once, twice--so hard, he hauls him up choking on his own front teeth, nose smashed flat.
     Turning him, streaming blood, to Vern. And hissing: "How ya like them apples, Vern-baby?"
     (NOT such a pretty picture.)
     A roar, back to the guy: "SO KEEP YOUR FUCKIN' PAWS OFF MY *MAN*!"
     For the second time today, chaos rocks the hall: Double takes, triple takes, *quadruple* fuckin' takes--that one from Keller, by the way. Cheers. CHANTING.
     (Bee-cher. Bee-cher. Bee-cher. Bee-)
     Same people who got such a kick out of me (almost) taking my flying leap off the top deck, Beecher thinks, giddily. Too bad Adebisi's in Ad Seg; too bad *Wangler*'s on death row.
     (Because they'd looked sooo sweet, down in the crowd together--hugging each other, and howling like wolves at his sheer, suicidal audacity.)
     As Vern sits frozen, floored, and the guy continues to sputter bright red...while Beecher just keeps on grinning, shot instantly higher than the moon on nothing but his own screwed inventiveness. Still grinning, even when the guards grab his shoulders, pulling him away en masse--some truly *ridiculous* amount of them, four or five at least, to handle one jealousy-struck prag--back through the mess, out the door, towards the Hole.
    Winking at Chris, as he goes by--
    (not that he seems to notice)
    And screaming back, at Vern:
    "Schillinger! You think I'm serious NOW?"
    (Well. If you *don't*--you BETTER.)
End Part 6/1

MY WIFE AND MY DEAD WIFE Part 6/2

Monday, in the Hole. Cold, and clean, and bare; dark, then bright, then dark again. Silent--a blessing, at first, after the din of Em City. But gradually...as external absence gives place to the babble inside, the tide of his own thoughts lapping up to wash Tobias Beecher from memory to resolution, doubt to despair and back again...
     (...more like a fuckin' *curse*.)
     But: Familiar, now, as Beecher's own naked skin--his goose-pimpled arms and legs, his chapped and flexing buttocks, limbs wrapped tight around himself as though these mounting detox shakes he's riding might actually crack his fragile, half-healed body apart.
     Because this is--what? Fourth time lucky, one past the proverbial charm. A home away from home, almost--so redolent with memories...
     (all those good, good times)
     First time: Carried in, strapped down, screaming and thrashing from a BIG-ass dose of Ryan O'Reilly's patented farewell angel dust packet--a one-way express ticket to unlocking the berserker within, peeling loose the mask of strained sanity he'd worn all through those first six months in Oz. Ripping his false face away down the the bare and bloody roots for the first time in years--maybe the first time *ever*--and inadvertantly doing unto Vern Schillinger...well, if not EXACTLY what'd been done unto him, Beecher, then at least doing *something* worth remembering--for a long, long time to come.
     A scratched cornea, a slight scar quirking the outer eyelid. The marks of victory, however fleeting; a preliminary sketch, and one which fairly begged for embellishment.
     Leading, almost directly, to Beecher's SECOND trip Hole-bound: Weight to the head, bench to the chest--Vern pinned and snarling up at him, one good eye just visible between Beecher's thighs as he wrenched his pants down, snarled a "Sieg Heil, baby!" back--
     (--and the less said about *that*, the better.)
     Still cackling with mad laughter when they threw him bodily through the door--a barking, clawing, howling full-body rush which didn't abate for hours, maybe days.
     Best high I ever had, Beecher thinks--not quite able to smile, yet, at the palpable irony. And shivers again, helpless, in the tightening grip of his impromptu no-meds diet.
     His--no-*Keller* diet.
     Still feeling Chris's lips on his, caustic-sweet: An unhealed phantom scald. Still hearing his whispered words, his profane promise: *I'd let you, baby. Wouldn't have to burn a swastika on MY ass...*
     (Oh, and I'll just bet you would. You 'ho.)
     Not that he'd ever take him up on it, of course.
     ('Course not.)
     But anyway--
     On, straight on, to time number three: That would-be Gen Pop cellblock stud and his...tip. Salt skin under Beecher's lips, painful pressure of hands on his shoulders, forcing him down--a faint, equally salty tang of precum on his tongue--all-too-recognizable smell of unwashed pubes at close range, plus that rubbery, tubular weight gliding past his uvula--in, then out, then in. And then...
     ...that SCREAM.
     (Ohhhh yeah.)
     And had he only dreamed catching a moment's flash, just a flash, of Vern through the bars of the next cell on--coming awake all at once, eye snapping open at *exactly* the same moment Mr Not-Quite-So-Hard-After-All realized just how SHARP those teeth he'd trustingly stuck his dick between could be?
     Thinking, no doubt: Well, hell. That could have been *me*.
     And--it could've. Would've, Vern'd caught him in just the right mood.
     (Might yet.)
     But: You never did seem to *get* in that particular mood back then, did you, Toby? One way or another.
     (Sweetpea.)
     Beecher lets out a long, ragged sigh. Lies back on the frozen floor, painted concrete like a rough, flat cradle against his knotted spine. Crosses his arms again, and lets himself turn sideways, knees coming up flush with his stomach: The classic fetal pose. Feels his stomach clench, as though Chris Keller's long-finger hand has been suddenly laid across it; heave, as though Schillinger's scent has just enveloped him from behind. The heavier man already in position, incongruously cat-silent as ever, before Beecher--too distracted by his own misery to pay the world outside his skull much never-mind--barely has time to realize he's got company.
     Rocked by nausea, rolled by remembrance and hallucination alike. What's been, vs. what may be--two close-matched opponents, fighting the good fight for dominance over Beecher's fevered junkie mind even as he shuts his eyes, digs his cheek into the grainy stone and feels his stubble rasp across it, already sandpaper-thick.
     While thinking, with a certain grim amusement: You figured out whether what happened in the mess hall was a victory or not yet, Vernon? C'mon, you dumb redneck fuck--jump the way I KNOW you want to. Don't look a gift prag in the butt.
     (Man. These images just keep on spilling out, don't they?)
     ...yep. They do.
     Well, it's not like there's a pressing fucking deadline, after all. The Hole keeps its own clock, slow but sure. All the time in the world, in here--time enough for Beecher to consider, remember, plan. To cough his guts out in the corners, piss and shit in that can by the door. Exercise (hopefully). Eat (twice daily). Think (way too much). Jerk off. Sleep. Dream.
     To steel himself, gradually, for his return to the "real" world, with its myriad threats and temptations: Vern, and his comeuppance. Keller, and his interference. O'Reilly, and his assistance. Innocent Cyril. Crazy Rebadow. Poor Sister Pete, still blissfully unaware of the frantic, damnable consummation Beecher carried out with Keller just a few days earlier, up against the pristine plaster of her holy office wall.
     Which rockets him back to Chris's lips, his hands. His breath, so sweet in Beecher's burning ear; those hissing, enticing vows of pleasure, passion...
     (love)
     Lies. All lies, and nothing but.
     More shivers rack him, jack-knifing uncontrollably--mere addiction, or a sympathetic jolt of memory? Beecher's cock pulses hard, bladder burning. Teeth digging down into his own lower lip 'till he tastes blood: Clean, clarifying copper.
     And: Oh, Toby, Toby, he thinks, almost snickering at his own (genuine) desperation. Got to keep it together, man. Just keep a HOLD.
     Because...this *is* just week one of four, trip four of four. And bad as things seem now, they can really only get worse.
     So if I'm halfway bugfuck already, he wonders, what the HELL will I be like by the time they finally come to let me *out*?

In the visiting room, meanwhile, Rachel Renton/Schillinger watches her ex-husband twist his cast and avoid her eyes, booth phone jammed up awkwardly into the crook between his neck and shoulder. Voice gone as rumbly and monosyllabic as it used to get when he'd just come home from a double shift at the post office, only to find her not *quite* as impressed with his travails--heat, out-of-date equipment, low pay, affirmative action loading his department down with niggers, Spics and nigger/Spics who couldn't find their ass with both hands, or remember a postal code "if it was tattooed inside their girlfriend's snatch"--as she was with her own: Colicky kids, not enough left in the household fund to buy milk, unpaid layout and editorial duty on magazines run by madmen, and Schillinger Senior banging at the front door half-tanked, threatening to take the bike as repayment for some loan incurred Vern long before he and Rachel ever MET.
     Just another day at the Schillinger homestead, the one-bedroom Racially Pure Zone that'd been Rachel's sole domain for ten years plus. A White Power sitcom, laughtrack removed; eavesdroping at close range while Vern and his cronies ran the same old tired shit back and forth to each other, 24/7, and treated each brain-dead stanza of the party line as a fresh and brilliant insight.
     Neighborhood gone dowhill? That'd be the niggers, ruining it for the rest of us like usual. Can't get the job you want, qualified or not? That's 'cause the Jews control it all, and they'll keep you out if they can. Bad grades? The Asians, jacking up standards with their unfair, overchieving ways. No sex-life? Well, who'd want to breed with most of the mongrels out there, anyway?
     I don't remember if I ever really believed *any* of that crap, anymore, Rachel thinks. Don't think even YOU believe most of it, in actual fact.
     Much as you may like to pretend otherwise.
     And her own mind retorting, cynical as ever: *Lovely* sentiment, Miss Renton--oh, but wait a sec. Aren't you Professor Paul Clearwater's famous deprogrammed neo-Nazi squeeze, trophy wife of a very different kind--exhibit one at cocktail parties and academic lectures alike? As well as being the anonymous author of such hate-filled bullflop as Survival Of The Purest: Doing Your Part and Holocaust Envy: What Jews Don't Want You To Know?
     (Yeah. That'd be me.)
     But screw it. This isn't about *her*, or Paul, or the way she's slowly realizing that she may well have stepped out of one trap only to end up in another (slightly nicer-looking) one. Or even about VERN, come to think of it. It's about getting Cory and Jan away from that maniac grandfather of theirs, any way she can. Up to and including...the most obvious.
     So--pointing at Vern's cast, she asks: "That still hurt?"
     "Nope."
     "How about the eye?"
     A surprised scowl, flick-quick--wondering just what *else* Mr McManus might've told me about "your business", Vernon?
     "Eye's fine." A pause. Then, quietly:
     "...thanks."
     And oh, that's different. So different--
     (--it's kind of scary.)
     Trying to get a rise out of him: "Well, you look like you're in a LOT of pain."
     "Gonna say that every time you come?"
     "If that's how you *look* every time I come? Yes."
     Vern snorts. Suggesting:
     "Wouldn't be feelin' SORRY for me, would you, Rachel?"
     To which *she* snorts in turn, eyeing him sidelong, from under knit blonde brows. And replies, quietly:
     "I might. If I didn't know better."
     She sees a corner of his mouth twitch--*almost* start to lift, before self-censorship takes over again. And feels the gesture strike her full-force, like an unexpected revelation: A milisecond of the man she once knew, buried deep under these protective layers of prison bulk and attitude. The one whose amused blue glance she caught, so long ago, across the shimmying crowd which packed that skanky little biker bar--the one who drove away with her arms wrapped around his waist while her (ex-)boyfriend's curses faded into the wind behind them, whose big hands kept her up all that night, whose deep and lulling voice convinced her to stay all the next day. And the next.
     Remembering Tim McManus's hesitantly voiced question, last week, during her first visit: Smart woman like you, pretty woman--why Vern Schillinger, of all people? All *possible* people?
     Because of my parents, Rachel thinks, and their tired, academic post-'60's pap: Unconditional acceptance for everyone's views, no matter how radical--a premise I just *had* to test, to map for myself just how far the boundaries of their vaunted tolerance would stretch before snapping. Because of how nuts it drove them when I brought him home, and how they'd NEVER dare say so...to his face.
     Because he knew exactly what he wanted. And because I couldn't have told you *what* I wanted, not even if you'd held a proverbial gun to my head.
     Because he told me I was his, and I believed him.
     (Until I remembered I knew better.)
     He's my husband, damnit. Father of my kids. I don't hate him--
     (still)
     --and I wasn't ALWAYS afraid of him, either. Certainly not back then.
     (That would come later.)
     Youth. Idiocy. Youthful idiocy. Take your fuckin' pick.
     Through the scratched glass, Vern's watching her closely, initial pretense of disinterest pretty much fallen by the wayside. Disturbed by her silence? Her lack of response?
     Hard to tell. As ever.
     "How's Jan?" He asks.
     Shortly: "Better."
     "Cory?"
     "His court date's coming up."
     "Uh huh. The Old Man?"
     "An asshole, like always."
     Another twitch, slightly larger this time; another pause.
     "Boys were pretty fucked up, last I time saw 'em," he says. Slowly.
     She sighs. "Yeah, well--they ARE pretty fucked up. Generally."
     (And I say that as their *mother*.)
     Her big, blond, blue-eyed sons--so unpredictably perfect, even in their current, degenerated state. Can't quite believe they came out of her, most days. Let alone that part of them--
     (and not the better part, either)
     --came out of Vern.
     Distanced from him, now, though--separated by time, steel, the full weight of the law--she finally has objectivity enough to see him for what he really is: Another trapped animal, just like she was seven years ago. The only difference being that Rachel chose *her* cage...
     (But--as she's already observed--he did too. In a way.)
     Chose to take himself away, back to this world he knows so well: The cellblock power struggle, so much more (literally) black and white than this tangled mess of curdled love and entropy her flight had left behind. While her children--
     (HIS children)
     --ended up held hostage to the Old Man's hatred for *him*, stored up over more years than they'd been alive, and forced to foot the bill for both their parents' mistakes.
     Against her better judgement, she feels her moment's jolt of empathy--so swift, so unlikely--begin to devolve, once more, into incipient anger. Even as he begins:
     "If you need me to testify--"
      And she snaps back, without thinking:
     "You know what I *need* you to do, Vernon."
     Rage-flare, red and ripe, easy as breath. Second nature. She sees him re-harden, instantly, at its touch.
     "How's your nigger, Rachel?" He asks, sweetly. To which she retorts:
     "How's your *cellmate*, Vern?"
     (And: Go on ahead and blush, honey. 'Cause they told me about THAT, too.)
     Just like he let slip himself, all those years ago. That one time she got him drunk, daring him outright to match her shot for shot, and watched him slide--slowly, but literally--under the kitchen table.
     Muttering: *Did some guys when I was in, ya know...'cause you DO, right? But that never meant nothin'...*
     (Not like you and me. Not like LOVE.)
     *So* embarrassed to realize what he'd said, too, the morning after. It'd made him turn green, sicker than the hangover itself; sick as he looks now, in point of fact.
     Bad hand fisting, bad eye ticcing half-shut. Grasping for just the right comeback, the knife-twist that'll make her hurt as much as he does--
     "Always did wonder what you saw in him," he continues, carefully. "The afro, right? 'Mind you of that Hippie snakepit I pulled you out of?"
     "It's called *Berkley*, you ignoramus--"
      Without pausing: "--or, wait, I got it now--he slip you the extra inch, that what did the trick?"
     (Oh, talk about CRUDE.)
     "Yeah, you just keep on telling yourself that."
     "Y'know, Ross always said you were party meat, but would I listen? Punk fuckin' dilletante--sell it if you had to, you weren't givin' it away for free--"
     Hitting back just as hard, unable to stop herself: "Well, and he'd know, wouldn't he? Ever do HIM, now we're on the subject?"
     "Cunt."
     "Prick."
     Half-rising: "'Kay, visit over; I got work."
     "I'm sure. Mail to sort, right? Other inmates to screw."
     "Aw, screw YOU, you fuckin' little race traitor *slut*!"
     Both fists slamming down on his half of the counter, as the C.O. jumps to attention, hand on stick. Rachel recoils, instinctively; they lock glares, both panting slightly, humming with that old spark and hiss. That bad old thing between them going up like mortar-fire, burning deep and hard as spread napalm--right to the bone, and deeper.
     Thinking, sadly: Man, we do know each other's triggers, don't we? Where to push, and how far. All the worst places to dig.
     And exactly what we'll find there, when we hit bottom.
     "Just sign the papers, Vern," she tells him, softly. "Please. And you will never have to see me here again."
     ('Cause that's what you want, isn't it?)
     Well...
     ...isn't it?
     Standing, pausing, caught between options. Again, she can see him *almost* hesitate. Almost--think better of what he's going to say, his own automatic reply.
     Then he draws back up, full height, smoothing a quick hand over his own skull, as though to remind himself of who he is. WHERE he is. How little he can afford to lose, let alone give away. To anyone.
     Even her.
     "Not in my lifetime," he says. And stalks from the booth, yelling at the guard to punch the door back into Gen Pop open.

Ten minutes later, Fritz Duchene--leaning against the post office wall--jerks himself vertical at Vern's approach. Calling: "Hey, S-man. Metzger's lookin' for ya."
     Vern doesn't slow. "Yeah? Good for him."
     "Where you been, anyway?"
     From the side of his mouth: "Fuckin' McManus made me go see my wife."
     (AGAIN.)
     And again. And again, and again, and again....
     And Jesus Christ Almighty, the rush of it, the heat--these waves of alternating lust and murder, swarming and squirming all over him like a bath of live maggots. The world-shaking impact of her presence, the bone-break ache of her absence. Rachel's very shadow on the booth's partition enough to start prying him apart crack by crack, hairline fractures of memory springing open like badly-set sutures. Gaping wide.
     It makes him careless, impatient. He knows it. Hates it.
     Can't stop it, even so. Which makes him hate it all the more.
     Burning, too, with no immediate hope of relief: Nameless/faceless still in the infirmary, jaw wired shut; Rachel halfway down the highway by now, in that nigger of hers' (no doubt) expensive car. And who's THAT leave?
     Who indeed.
     "Thought your *wife* was in the Hole," Duchene mutters, annoyed at being once more thrust aside--not QUITE under his breath, this time. But Vern is so distracted, worrying over his own distraction...
     ...he doesn't even notice.

Meanwhile, *in* the Hole:
     "Give me one good reason not to bounce your ass back into Gen Pop, Beecher," Tim  McManus begins, without preamble--riding a typically self-righteous high, and fairly quivering with the oh-so-moral certitude of it all. While Beecher, still on the floor, just cocks a skeptical brow in his direction: You talkin' to ME, Timmy-boy?
     (Well, since there's nobody else *here*...)
     But, oh--
     "You mean about that GUY," Beecher says. As though suddenly connecting the dots.
     McManus crosses his arms, impatiently. "Dr Nathan tells me they're still trying to put his face back together."
     Beecher shrugs. "He insulted me."
     "By what? Sitting next to Schillinger?"
     A thin smile. "Well, c'mon, McManus--everybody knows that's *my* job."
     Suspecting mockery, McManus stares. While Beecher--seemingly entranced with the play of light over his own knuckles, the dull sheen on his lengthening nails--doesn't even bother to stare back. He's said HIS piece; now it's up to McManus to react.
     Or not.
     (Arrogant little bastard.)
     Whoa. And where the hell did THAT come from?
     Whenever he lets himself think too hard about it--which isn't often--McManus is forced to admit the sad truth that he's never much *liked* Tobias Beecher, one way or another. Hard to stay human and NOT empathize with someone who's suffered like Beecher has, but...with every sudden shift the former lawyer's splintered psyche takes, McManus becomes more and more aware that the poor, put-upon soul he first saw come through Em City's gates, eyes wide behind his glasses like a rabbit in the headlights of an oncoming truck--
     (or like Kathy Rockwell, caught in the headlights of Beecher's own car--a split second before she took her last ride up across his grill and over his hood, leaving a  splotch of blood big enough to write her obituary with)
     --may have been as far away from the *real* Beecher as Schillinger is from Said...or Jersey from Mars, for that matter.
     He knows he's failed Beecher, repeatedly so. And the result of that failure, as embodied by Beecher himself, galls him beyond the limits of easy understanding. It's such a tangled knot: Resentment and regret, tied tight together, an insoluble puzzle. And so many different explanations to choose from for everything that's happened thus far, each scenario just as acceptable as the next--this way, that way, both ways at once.
     There's no "right" answer to the Beecher equation, basically. Never has been. Never will be.
     And: I ASKED for this, McManus thinks, amazed--for hardly the first time--by the depths his own miscalculation. Because he looked so good on paper. An educated man, no prior record, first offense. Perfect redemptive material--
     (--right up until you stuck him in with Vern, and turned your back forever.)
     'Cause...you're *not* a travel agent. Right?
     (Yeah, well--and YOU're no saint, Beecher. No martyr.)
     Much as you may like to act like one.
     But then--Tim's not exactly guiltless in *that* department, either.
     (So...let's try this again.)
     "Your physiotherapist wants me to let you out early, this time 'round. Says it'll interfere with your healing process to serve the whole hitch without supervised exercise sessions."
     Beecher nods, slightly. "That Joe. Always looking out for my welfare."
     And then, fixing McManus with a surprisingly steely blue glance: "Guess *somebody* has to."
     The fairly obvious, if unvoiced, implication being--since *you* sure don't.
     McManus flushes, in spite of himself. Hears his own voice go embarassingly reedy,  snapping: "If you'd just told me who broke your arms and legs, back when I asked you   to--"
     "Oh, yes: If. 'Cept I don't *trust* you, McManus. I mean--why would I?"
     (After all.)
     "Well," MacManus says, not quite able to keep a certain needling thread out of his voice, "maybe you'd feel better if I *did* drop you back in the mix, then. Help you be closer to your...JOB."
      Trying to frighten him back in line, on some level, with thoughts of being once more easily within Vern's reach. But Beecher just gives a dry, unimpressed little bark.
      "I don't think Sister Pete'd approve."
      "Yeah, well--I was you, I wouldn't assume I could hide behind Sister Pete's skirts  forever."
     The same glance, narrowed. As Beecher inquires, with just a touch of--weirdly Schillinger-esque--silk in his thin white smile:
      "You saying I need to *hide*, McManus?"
     Ooh.
     (Walked *right* into that one.)
     Adding, before he quite has time to work out a plausible denial: "But that's okay. I kind of like how you don't even bother pretending anymore--you know, that you ever gave a damn WHAT was being done to me, by anybody. Makes my burden of proof all that much easier..."
     McManus frowns. "'Scuse me?"
     And now it's Beecher's turn to cross his arms, leaning forward slightly. Balancing his chin on his drawn-up knees, solemn and sober--
     (as a judge)
     --and going on to explain, his voice dipping and deepening, falling into an almost hypnotic, purely rhetorical rhythm--like a lecture, a well-learned monologue--
     "You ever take a look at what your graduating class from university is doing now, McManus? 'Cause boy, I'll tell you, the Internet's a truly useful thing, 'specially if you've got an understanding boss who lets you surf around on your break time. All those computerized research aids at your fingertips. All that--information.
     "Now, MY graduating class--a surprisingly high proportion actually became prosecutors; guess they really DID believe everything our profs used to tell us, you know, all that stuff about truth, and justice for all, and yadda yadda yadda." Brightly: "Or maybe they just want to keep people like *me* off the streets, whatcha think?
     "So: A bunch of them went prosecution. More went defense. And even *more* ended up where I used to be, back before I started specializing in contract negotiations--over in civil court, where all the REAL money gets made. 'Cause the difference there, and this is interesting--in civil court, verdicts are based on the plaintiff being able to prove a 'preponderance of the evidence', not 'beyond a reasonable doubt'. Stuff like, say...violating the Eighth and Fourteenth Ammendments, maybe? The ones against--"
    McManus, toneless: "--'cruel and unusual punishment'."
    "You got it, Pontiac."
    "We're talking--inmate against facility, I take it?"
    Nodding: "A harmful situation in which the respondent--prison officials, whoever--were made *aware* of a pattern of personal physical and mental injury to an inmate under their protective custody, but practiced 'deliberate indifference' in failing to remove said inmate from the path of said harm. Prove culpable state of mind, prove injury--"
     --Beecher shrugs again, smiling wider--
     "--and go to town."
     A speech. Or...a summation.
     "You threatening me, Beecher?"
     "Just...exploring some possible scenarios. Aloud."
     Laying his head sideways, cheek to folded hands: Ain't I *cute*? And smiling up at McManus, wider this time--those teeth glinting, well-kept, if slightly uneven.
     And SHARP.
     While McManus thinks: So here he is, at last--the famous Tobias Beecher, wolf in suit's clothing. Same guy can knock back four martinis over lunch, then screw the floor out from under his client's opponents with out them even noticing it's gone; same guy with the house, the car, the pretty wife and kids, the guaranteed $300 an hour, and that's not counting overtime.
     The Beecher *you* never met, Timmy-boy--because the only version of him you recognize is that whiny, freaky, ever-more-crazy angst junkie who's spent the last two years wandering through the wormy heart of your own private Idaho, getting fucked up, fucked over, fucked under, and just plain fucked.
     "Most 'cruel and unusual' cases get thrown out on appeal," McManus says, slowly. "As I guess you know."
     "Well, sure. Case like this, though--plaintiff wouldn't be looking to win, place or show so much, as just...oh, how shall I put it? Make a WHOLE lot of trouble."
     (For everybody involved.)
     Financial trouble. Political trouble. *Media* trouble--oh God, yes. McManus can practically start writing the headlines now, if he lets himself:
     "EMERALD CITY" MORE LIKE LIVING HELL, SAY INMATES.
     McMANUS "OUT OF CONTROL", SAYS GOVERNOR.
     DISBARRED LAWYER ENTERS OWN ASS AS "EXHIBIT NUMBER ONE".
     He looks at Beecher, who's still smiling: Cool, calm. Collected as McManus can remember seeing him. And not even pretending to wait for McManus to make the next move.
     Which is just as well, since McManus--abruptly knocked off-balance, in some distressingly intimate way, by the sheer, cold, CALCULATED effrontry of Beecher's attack--has, basically, *no* earthly idea what such a move would be.
     "Of course," Beecher remarks, idly, "this is all just speculation, really. I mean--you've got enough on your plate already, what with the whole Em City council situation...reps dropping like flies, and all: Adebisi, Wangler...*Hill*..."
     McManus keeps on looking, and Beecher keeps on smiling. Time passes, Hole-slow. Like hair growing.
     Until, finally, Em City's resident Wizard feels calm enough to ask, quietly:
     "What ABOUT Hill?"

Fast-forward to Tuesday, in the Em City stairwell: Cyril and Ryan O'Reilly by the window, Ryan smoking a contraband cigarette and tapping his ash through the grill as he studies the Gen Pop yard below, while Cyril keeps time with his ball on a nearby step: Bounce, catch, bounce, catch. Bounce...
     ...catch.
     Stop. Turn. And inquire, plaintively, of his elder sibling:
     "But *why* does Toby have to be in the Hole, Ryan?"
     "'Cause he hit that dude, remember? You were right there."
     "Oh, yeah." A pause. "But WHY?"
     Good question, bro. Good fuckin' question.
     Sun's out, for once, high and dull in a dim grey stretch of sky. O'Reilly can see cons pulling their shirts off right and left, desperate to catch some rays--however weak--before it flees westward; an instant forest of puffy, monochromatically-embellished black, brown and white flesh, blooming everywhere his keen green eyes fall.
      To the extreme left, meanwhile, C.O. Karl Metzger lingers by the fence, deep in conversation with none other than ol' Vern Schillinger himself. Their heads bent together, blond to bald, as Ryan strains to read Vern's lips, catching nothing more familiar than--maybe--the barest shadow of a single word:
     "...ask."
     Or, more likely: "...'ask.'"
     "Ask" about what? O'Reilly wonders--then gets a cold, prescient flash of Beecher, sweating it out in the Hole: At least ten times more vulnerable than that tough gay fucker Richie Hanlon was, before Metzger breezed in and "convinced" him to recant on linking Vern and company to their last public murder *before* Jordaire. The true story having made its way to Ryan by various sources, of course--providing yet more proof that Metzger, and not his favored inmate liaison, is the real White Shadow any Oz-based anti-Aryan should fear. 'Specially now that Vern's jizz is finally starting to drain away, slow but sure, without him even really beginning to see it happen.
     Yet.
     Time to get your mind off your marriage problems, Vern-baby, O'Reilly thinks, mockingly. Time to break out the phone-book armor and check your little house of cards for rats, 'fore it gets so rotten one good, hard push'll be enough to send it ALL tumbling down around you.
     That Duchene, for example--buying drugs on the sly through O'Reilly's connections, secure enough to flaunt his rediscovered habits under Vern's meds-dulled nose. Or Keller, chasing Toby 'round, so obvious it's painful: His attentions the real driving force behind Beecher's attack on Vern's new prag, O'Reilly'd be willing to bet actual money, assuming he could lay his hands to it.
     Distracting Beecher, in exactly the same way Beecher vowed to keep *Vern* distracted. Which he certainly IS, but...
     ...man. What a tangled web we weave, when--much against our own better judgement--we involve other people in our plans. Skittish, cross-addicted little ex-Yuppie maniacs whose hidden agendas change with every shift in the weather, for example.
     (And ain't THAT the fuckin' truth.)
     On the other hand, considering he's the old Nazi's sole remaining secret weapon, Metzger doesn't seem exactly enthused over Vern's request, whatever it might entail. Possible discord there? Something to build on?
     The man's a shark, all cartilege and dumb, doll-eyed, alien hungers. But even a shark can be made to swim the way you want, if you keep enough chum on hand to muddy the waters with.
     (Blood and guts, torn flesh. A promise of mayhem, now or later.)
     In Oz, as O'Reilly well knows, such things are not exactly hard commodities to come by: Pitifully easy to arrange--and tempting to any sociopath, whatever the bullshit "cause" they claim to represent.
     "He's never gonna teach me that game now," Cyril says, sadly.
     Without turning: "Toby? Sure he will."
     "Not in the *Hole*."
     "'Course not. But after."
     Under his breath: "...I GUESS so..."
     Pausing, ball in hand, lower lip already starting to protrude. Tears welling up in his vacant eyes, like he'll start bawling any second--and who's gonna have to deal with *that* particular mess, if and when? Ryan, that's who.
     (Like always.)
     And: Goddamn you anyways, Beecher, O'Reilly finds himself thinking, with an unexpected spurt of pure resentment. Just 'cause you got Keller nipping at your heels, think that gives you the right to leave me stuck babysitting this fuckin' human millstone--this walking wounded clone of MY Cyril, the guy who used to be my brother, my backup, my best and closest friend? When you *know* I gotta be free to move, to maneuver, to cut deals and turn tables at will--for me, for him--and for you too, you selfish fuckin' fuck?
     Taking a minute to pause, breathe deep. Gather himself. Re-collect.
     (Just--cool it, baby. Not Cyril's fault, right?)
     *Your* fault. In actual point of fact.
     (So just...stay cool. Stay cool, and just...maintain.)
     'Kay?
     'Kay.
     Lid firmly back on, therefore, O'Reilly turns to meet Cyril's sad, abstracted gaze--flashes his own scar-crinkling grin, full-force. That hypnotic smirk. And assures him, with utter (in)sincerity:
     "Bro. I *know* so."
     Drawing a tiny smile in response. And thinking, to himself:
     Assuming Toby can keep it together long enough not to prove me wrong.

By Tuesday afternoon--withdrawal symptoms aside--Beecher's feeling fairly good about himself; frankly amazed, if vaguely proud, that he was able to guilt McManus into not only halving his Hole time, but letting him join the Em City council as official rep for the  Others--a slot left inconveniently vacant, ever since Augustus Hill's sudden...departure.
     *And why the hell would I want to do THAT?* McManus had protested, weakly. Only to have Beecher respond:
     *'Cause if you do, I'll back your every play, guaranteed. A free vote to shore up your pretense at democracy, so you won't have to face a riot EVERY time you use your veto.*
     (Besides which--I bet I take MUCH better notes than Coushaine.)
     Remembering McManus's eyes, sliding away. His voice, saying--in uncanny, if unconscious, mimicry of Schillinger's words to Keller--
     *I'll...think about it.*
     Uh huh. Sure you will, you know what's best for this glorified, glass-walled zoo you call a peek into the brave new future of penitentiary design--or, for that matter...for *yourself*.
     ("Tim.")
     This fresh burst of self-confidence disappears like dirty water down a drain, however, when that key he hears in the lock turns out to announce not Beecher's dinner, but a surprise visit from every claustraphobic's nightmare: Metzger, that blue-clad human wall, rearing up to block the entire doorway with a single well-placed move.
     Staring down, expressionless, as Beecher takes an instinctive step back--slack limbs gone all stiff and clumsy--almost stumbling into the slop pail. His brain already yammering, light-headed with fear:
     So this is it, right? Where I "commit suicide". Or choke to death on my own vomit. Or just happen to--fall, somehow--and break both my arms and legs.
     (AGAIN.)
     He feels his lips draw back, equally automatic. Showing his teeth, like any cornered thing--and knowing exactly how pathetic such a gesture must look to Metzger, who could break him in half with one hand. But hoping, against hope, that it might maybe amuse him into postponing the inevitable...
     ...for a few moments, at least.
     Meanwhile, the hack's cold blue gaze flicks up and down, as though measuring him for an invisible coffin--and for the first time in days, Beecher suddenly remembers that he is, in fact, naked. And Metzger, tracing the inevitable blush's slow spread with his eyes, remarks--utterly deadpan--
     "Gotta say--I can't see the attraction."
     (what?)
     And: Ohhh. Oh HO. *I* get it now.
     (...I hope.)
     Beecher clears his dry throat, a faint cough. Replying, with a confidence he doesn't quite feel:
     "Well...YOU don't have to. Do you?"
     Metzger's mouth thins, slightly: Not quite a smile *or* a frown. Something purely other--and pretty much unreadable, unfortunately, to anyone primarily trained in dealing with the inhabitants of Planet Earth.
     "You're a funny little man, Beecher," he says. Not sounding like he really means it.
     Beecher (still a little hoarse): "Thanks."
     "I'm assuming you know why I'm here."
     "Message from Vern?"
     "Bright boy."
     And that *is* a smile, now, of some derivation--the kind a pirahna might make, if it only had the lips.
     "Okay," Metzger begins. "It goes like this: You do NOT get to dictate terms. Everything back the way it was before--and you either like it, or lump it. Deal?"
     Waiting, eyes still on Beecher. Who takes a slow breath, thinking:
     "Like before". Except that I stay in Em City, safely at arm's length--further, maybe. Where I don't have to worry about getting my ribs cracked for talking back, or whether or not I'll be able to sit down in the morning.
     The moment we've all been waiting for, folks. Envelope, please.
     Our--second honeymoon. Where Vern finally gets me right where he thinks he wants me, and ends up *exactly* where I want HIM.
     Because: I'm yours, all right. And you, cupcake, you Nazi rat bastard--you steaming, slimy, cancerous piece of crap--
     (--you're all *MINE*.)
     "I expect protection," Beecher says. Looking Metzger straight in the eye.
     Metzger shrugs, slightly. "From?"
     Without a moment's hesitation: "Keller."
     There's a breathless pause--breathless on Beecher's part, at least. He can see Metzger consider, flipping through his mental Rolodex: No handy pre-programmed response to this one, Karl?
     (Aw, *gee*.)
     Daring to prompt: "So. Do we have a deal, or not?"
     And the inevitable, unavoidable backlash, now that he's actually said it aloud. His traitor heart--
     (cock)
     --whining away, just under the din of Beecher's rising pulse, the muffled hum of Metzger's practically-audible thoughts:
     And what if he kills him, Toby? How're you going to feel THEN?
     (He won't.)
     Uh huh. But what *if*?
     (Then...)
     I tell Metzger, and Metzger tells Vern. And Vern kills him. And he's dead. And nobody gives a shit but his three wives--
     (and me)
     No more Chris Keller. No more lips, or eyes, or hands. He's dead, and I'm Vern's, and there's nothing left to come between me and my sweet revenge--just a few bad memories, a few hot dreams. And *life* *goes* *fucking* *on*.
     (Without him.)
     Remembering his own thoughts, from the infirmary: What *don't* I know about Vern, if I let myself remember?
     So--LET yourself, Beecher. Trust what you know, and let it happen: Let it all come down, like night, like fog, a wet and dreadful flowering of wounds. Like a black and stinking rain made from old blood--yours, his--
     (Keller's)
     --whoever's, so long as it paves the way. Slicks the groove for this rusty machine, this trap already in place around Vern's unsuspecting neck.
     Seems like eons, in Beecher's fevered mind, until Metzger's eyes settle back on him, calm and gelid. Decision made. Stepping back out the door, even as he tells him--on Vern's absent behalf--
     "Deal."

Which brings us to Wednesday morning...when Chris Keller, lost in a daze of pleasant (if provoking) memory, walks absentmindedly around a corner without checking first, and finds himself abruptly in the midst of a looming crowd of Aryans: Forced to his knees, half-strangled, with both Duchene's heavily-pumped biceps locked tight around his neck.
     As Vern leans over him, eyes soft with happy anticipation--and murmurs, in his ear:
     "Got a special delivery, Chris--a word of advice, 'long with a sorta...object lesson."
     Choking out: "Uh--huh--?"
     "You need to keep your hands off'a what's mine."
     "...like?"
     "Beecher."
     (Ohhh...shit.)
     Gasping for enough air to object, to form some kind of objection, however implausible. But cut off, mid-try, as Duchene--prompted by a curt nod from Vern--twists his arm-lock just that little bit tighter. Asking, over Keller's purpling face:
     "Want me to do this?"
     Vern shakes his head. Peels the cast from his hand, one strap at a time, with almost delicate care--then hands it to the guy with the black lightning bolt of his scalp, for safekeeping. Flexes his fingers, like he's trying out an unfamiliar piece of equipment; a favorite weapon, long lost, now rediscovered. And tells Duchene:
     "You just hold him steady."
     Keller lets his eyes roll back, going limp against the first blow. Thinking: Well, Toby--guess you got what *you* wanted.
     (Hope you don't choke on him.)
     Then blood fills his mouth, salty-hot as the stolen taste of Beecher's tongue--and he falls, face-foward, into darkness.

End Part 6/2

MY WIFE AND MY DEAD WIFE, Part 7

Archive: Hell, yeah. At Em City, under Beecher, Schillinger, Conjugals, Fresh Meat, and my name at Poet's Corner.
Warnings: After last time's foul language and nothing but (barring a tiny bit of implied violence near the end), I'm happy to announce that this particular section of MY WIFE... is jam-packed with *SEX*. Rough, nasty, barely-consensual. I fully expect people to be as exhausted and nauseated as I am by the end...oh, okay, so I'm not really *nauseated*,  but--you get the idea.
Also: Freakery, fuckery, dirty deals, weird thoughts. It's Oz, bay-bee!
I freely apologize to: Tom Fontana and Barry Levinson, plus Lee Tergesen, J.K. Simmons, and whoever they might actually be screwing right now.
 

Two weeks is a long time, in Oz--long enough for a *lot* of action to take place, one way or another. For example:
     "Slammed a DOOR on it?" Dr Nathan repeats, frankly incredulous. As Vern Schillinger just shrugs, eyes flicking over the the other side of the infirmary, where--through the ward's big glass windows--he can vaguely make out Tim McManus's similarly bald head, bent in inquiry over the prone and battered form of Christopher Keller. Only to hear Vern's former catspaw whisper, with effort:
     "...coo'n't...see."
     "You couldn't see who did this to you."
     "Nuh."
     "Not at ALL."
     "Nuh."
     McManus huffs, teeth grinding visibly.
     "Any *suggestions*?" He asks. Without much hope.
     An hour later, Vern walks out with yet *another* cast on his bad right hand--stiff plaster, this time. Having broken two more of his already fucked-up bones, it turns out, while in the process of forcibly reminding Keller that prags past--however enjoyable their former owners may have found them, at the time--should learn to keep their fuckin' paws firmly OFF prags present, if they don't want to get their (still-) pretty faces turned into hamburger meat.
     Fore- AND middle fingers busted, plus a full set of bruised knuckles, plus all those traumatically wrenched-out stitches from that gouge Vern sustained during the mini-riot: Quite the load of extra pain to hump around, when placed on top of his chronically debilitating carpal tunnel syndrome.
     But: Fuck it. Worth every minute, every extra med, in the long run. It's a much-needed facelift for his sagging rep--a full-court jizz injection, run all over Oz five minutes after the hacks found Keller's sprawled and bleeding body. A visible, palpable victory, after what seems like months of defeats.
     And victory tastes good. 'Cause, like everybody knows, to the victor...go the spoils.
     Speaking of which--

Jump-cut: Time telescopes, sending the rest of the week whipping by...and we're right back in the infirmary, watching Tobias Beecher--freshly shaved, clothed and fragrant, after his latest release from the Hole--study Keller's slack, wrecked, spectacularly colorful profile from behind the same stretch of glass. Balancing, one-handed, on his shiny new aluminum cane; frowning slightly, his short-sighted blue eyes squinted against the ward's harsh lights. And thinking, to himself:
      Is that *my* old bed they gave him, the one I used to lie in all day, every day--staring up at the ceiling, bored mindless, and dreaming about the simple joys of being able to scratch my own butt? Or do all those beds just look the same, especially when the person in them's too messed up to move?
      Wondering if Keller's really asleep now, or feigning it, expert as ever. For mysterious reasons of his own.
     And wondering, with roughly equal intensity, just why he--Beecher--should possibly give one crap WHAT Keller does, either way.
     From behind him, a familiar voice: "See anything you like?"
     Ryan O'Reilly.
     "He does look kinda cute, doesn't he?" Beecher says, not turning. Making the Irishman snort, and reply:
    "Sure. If you like 'em kicked to crap."
    (The implication clearly being: Which--you obviously *do*.)
    "Quite the job ol' Vern did on him," O'Reilly comments.
    Beecher nods. Absently: "Yeah."
    Then, shooting O'Reilly an evil grin: "And wasn't that *sweeeet*?"
    Truly unsettling, that brief quirk of a smile; got a whole wealth of obscure fuckeditude at work behind it--stuff even Ryan, tough and devious as he is, doesn't want to take a guess at.
    Just then, however, the ward's inner door opens, admitting Nathan, nose buried in Keller's chart...and at the sight of her, O'Reilly spins and sits in one smooth--if rapid--motion, up against the wall beneath the window before she has a chance to raise her eyes.
     Asking Beecher, hastily:
     "Think she saw me?"
     "No."
     Disappointed: "Oh."
     (Well. THAT was a waste of time and effort.)
     "So--what next, bro?"
     "Oh, you know: Hit the pod, check in with McManus, go back to work for Sister Pete." A pause. "Visit the post office."
     (Fuck Vern's...brains out.)
     "Heard he turned down your 'terms'." O'Reilly says, idly. The story of Beecher's ultimatum having ALSO made Em City's rounds, courtesy of a passing, eavesdropping, gossiping Fritz Duchene, who overheard Vern and Keller's conversation on the subject while hanging around the post office door--something he does on a fairly regular basis, apparently.
     (So I guess you ain't quite the distraction you THINK you are, huh?)
     Beecher smiles again, a little wider--and a lot more skewed. Pointing out:
     "Did THIS for me, though. Didn't he?"
     Because, as Beecher now realizes--having originally set this whole ball of wax in motion pretty much on ungoverned instinct--"dictating terms" to Vern, only to have them declined, was always part of the plan. By getting Metzger tell Beecher that everything has to go back the way it was before, Vern thinks he's automatically put himself back on top. A patented alpha male flex, showing his big dog teeth to the world: Grrr, ruff, *yipe.*
     (Yes sir, no sir. Three prags full, sir.)
     ...but let's not start going down THAT particular road again, shall we, Toby? Considering we're gonna need all our wits about us, one way or another, to do--what we have to.
     (*Want* to.)
     NEED to.
     (Whatever.)
     But what Vern can't see, pain-ridden and meds-drunk as he now is--so pathetically entranced by the prospect of having Beecher on his knees once more, he can barely see the proverbial forest for the proverbial fuckin' trees--is that to accept a re-opening of their "relationship" at ALL means he's really playing it Beecher's way, by necessity. Since Beecher was the one lobbying actively to *get* said relationship reopened, in the first place.
     And as for Keller--
     (--who really does look BAD, sleeping *or* faking--both sharp, dark eyes swollen raccoon-black, wicked mouth all strained and torn around the corners--)
     --that, too, was a test. Which Vern--just failed.
     This one thing Beecher knows for sure, intimately so: If you're truly "on top", you don't give *anything* away--certainly not because the person on bottom TOLD you to.
     *I expect protection.* Not ask. Not beg. And what's that, anyway?
     Just another "term", when you come right down to it.
     A true predator, when it wants something, it doesn't make concessions. Just takes, breaks, walks away. Concessions are made out of *need*, not want--and need...is another name for weakness.
     (VERN taught me that.)
     And if this argument strikes you as more than a bit implausible, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, Beecher thinks, then I would beg you simply to keep one important final fact in mind: The plan you see before you, such as it is, was conceived--and is being carried out--by a fuckin' nut.
     Silent for a while, now, musing these things over. Beecher catches O'Reilly staring at him, sidelong. Assessing the situation.
     And asking, quietly:
     "So, Beech--you really up for this? Got your shit back on track?" Beecher shrugs. "You *clean*, at least?"
     "Actually? Yes."
     "Gonna keep it together?"
     (Under pressure, you mean? Or is that...under *Vern*?)
     Beecher straightens, staring down at O'Reilly. Voice and eyes gone equally--abruptly--cold.
     "*Watch* me," he says.

And, scant minutes later, asks Sister Peter Marie--meeting her disappointed, disapproving gaze with a charmingly sheepish smile--
     "...anything you happen to need posted, Sister?"

In the infirmary:
    Nathan having already moved safely on, Ryan slips behind a handy screen, freeing his daily pack of cigs from the back band of his jockeys--pops one free, lights it, inhales gratefully: The lingering smell of Gloria's perfume enveloping him from the inside out, a phantom caress, liberally admixed with nicotine, vague medicinal odors, faint human waste biproduct stench.
     "Hey," a hoarse voice says, from the bed nearby. "'Reilly. Goh--one a'those--f'me?"
     O'Reilly settles back against the wall, squints through the screen's crack. Does a double-take.
     (Well, look who's talkin'.)
     Then takes another long, leisurely drag. And replies:
     "Depends on what you give me for it. Keller."

In the post office:
     Mid-transaction with biker Council rep Jazz Hoyt--a cart-load of mail for Em City, one or two letters resealed after being stuffed with small packets of Metzger's tracts--Vern hears movement at the door, somebody exchanging words with Whittlesey, the hack on duty today. And looks up to see--
     --Beecher.
     Hoyt: "We done here, man?"
     "Uh--yeah. Looks like."
     "Cool. Later."
     Eyes still on Beecher, drifting by, pretending not to pay either of them much attention. Just limping along, cane in one hand, a couple of legal-sized envelopes in the other; slow, sinuous. Same thing he was doing in the gym, more or less: A screwed imitation of Chris Keller's 'ho-like strut, every fascinatingly deformed movement a hot stab straight to the--
     (heart)
     --gut. Or something just a bit--lower.
     "...later," Vern repeats, voice dry. And sees Beecher smirk, slightly, at the sound.
     Hoyt drifts off, past Whittlesey, who keeps on looking the other way. But won't stay that way forever, as Vern knows--so he leans forward, over the counter. And says:
     "Bitch-er. You got a package."
     An arched eyebrow. "Yeah? Who from?"
     Vern nods back towards the storage closet. "'S in there."
     They lock eyes at for a long, teasing second. Knowing Whittlesey's going to turn around any minute, knowing what'll happen then--
     (Or rather, what WON'T.)
     And Beecher just content, momentarily, to let it go, let it go. Thinking:
     Yeah. And I believe I've already seen the size of *that* package.
     "Better show it to me, then," he says, finally.
     And steps inside.

In the infirmary, meanwhile:
     Keller, spinning his rap, one of O'Reilly's cigarettes precariously pinched between crushed and splinted fingers...
     "...come to figure out, Beecher 'n' you got something goin', some master plan to fuck Vern over--guess Beech's gonna provide the 'fuck' part, right?" A phlegmy, hacking laugh: "But whatever, man, All I know, everything he's done so far to get Schillinger back down his pants, it sure *ain't* for love. Which don't leave much else to choose from."
     And O'Reilly, listening. Neither agreeing nor disagreeing, as yet--just taking the other man's measure, silently, while the web of words spills out.
    Because Keller's a liar, sure--shameless, inventive, habitual. Sometimes inspired, even, from what O'Reilly's already observed. But then--
    --takes one to know one.
    "You know as well as I do, O'Reilly: Toby may talk tough--"
    (And: Oh. So it's TOBY, now.)
    "--but he ain't, even these days. He's just crazy." Fixing O'Reilly: "Now, you tell ME--you really wanna take on the whole A.B., with nothin' but a *crazy* man for backup?"
     "Schillinger's not the whole A.B. Not anymore."
     "What, you mean Duchene?" Keller starts to grin, then winces. "Asshole may like to play it like he's Mr Third Reich Squared, but it's strictly a jailhouse conversion. Put him back out on the street, he's just another white-boy wannabe shovin' his own product up his nose. And since the only reason the A.B. in Oz is anti-drug in the first place is 'cause VERN says so..."
     O'Reilly nods. "...if Beech *does* turn Schillinger out, he'll be off the loop faster than you can say Sieg Heil."
     "Which is how I *thought* you wanted to play it, so thanks. But that's still one big if, 'specially when it looks like all you got--for Plan A *and* Plan B."
     Not that that's likely, really, given who we're talking about here--and Keller knows it. But point well worth taking, nonetheless.
     "I'm wondering what is is you WANT, exactly, Keller."
     (Aside from the same thing as Vern.)
     This time, Keller really does smile. Tentatively.
     "C'mon, O'Reilly," he says. "Fuck you really care WHAT I want, as long as you get yours?"
     (Well, you put it like *that*...)
     O'Reilly blows a plume of smoke. "Beecher hates Schillinger."
     "Me too."
     "Yeah? You hate him that time in the gym?"
     A spark between bruises, flint on flint. Keller's eyes slit, protectively--but not before O'Reilly gets a flashing, live-wire hit of emotions rushing by like a tapped current, disconnected and contadictory: Anger, hurt pride, hurt in general. Arrogant pretense. Genuine regret. Even a subtle hint of...
     ...is that--despair?
     Keller pauses. And asks, softly: "You ever do something you were sorry for, O'Reilly? I mean, afterwards?"
     (You mean, when it's long past counting?)
     His eyes slide, automatic, to Gloria's desk. Trying to catch a glimpse of her, some phantom after-image: Her black cloud of hair, her depthless eyes. All those smooth brown curves, so strong and soft at the same time--everything he's never had, and never will.
     "Not much," he says. Meaning it. But knowing, at the same time, in his secret heart of hearts--
     (...yeah. I did.)

And back in the closet--
     (--so to *speak*--)
     Vern closes the door behind them, quietly. Locks it. Leans back, arms crossed, as Beecher turns. Rumbling, without preamble:
     "You hear what happened? With Keller?"
     Beecher: "Who hasn't?"
     The older man nods. "So--what do you say?"
     Their eyes lock again, blue on blue. Equally pale. Equally unreadable.
     A loooong pause.
     Then, deliberately: "...thank you."
     "Uh huh. But HOW do you say it?"

Thinking: There's no way he's going through with this--he'll get to a point, stall, and then I can mock him or beat him up, turn it into straight-up rape, 'stead of this...this, weird-ass...*whatever* this is.
     Something I can control, a fuck I can "run" *my* way. Just like before.
     'Cause maybe--maybe I tore a hole in him, that first time. And it's taken him two years plus, all this wasted time and useless rage, to realize he just can't get no satisfaction...anywhere else.
     Aw, screw it, though--you know what you know, Vernon. You know *him*, right? A born slut, a bottomless pit, a junkie fuckin' Yuppie whore; saw it in him the first time he walked in, very first day. Read it in his face. So what you did to him--that was like evolution, or something. A natural progression.
     Everything finds its own level, eventually. Like Keller.
     (Except that Beecher--is *not* Keller.)
     Shit, why not? They both put out on demand.
     A transaction, nothing more: Prag to owner, sex for safety. Just something you DO, in places like Oz--to blow off steam, keep your head straight. Free your mind, so you can deal with the shit that *really* matters.
     That hot stab again, fiercer this time. The familiar odor of Beecher's milk-fed skin breaking over him in a wave, intensified by the closet's close-quarter mustiness. Kind of hoity, pansy-ass, over-clean smell fairly *begs* to be thrown face-down in the mud, dragged out into the dark with the rest of the animals and made to EARN its keep for the first time in its miserable, useless, parasitical life.
     But: He hates me. I can't trust him...
     (...can't trust anybody, comes to that...)
     The closet's one light catches dimly at Beecher's hair, outlining his head in a faint, dull gold corona. Gilding the lines of his watchful, lowered face--its clean jaw, its cat-snub nose, its firm and ironic lips.
     And: Did he always look this good, under the makeup, the misery? Or did Vern--living so close as to be (literally) on top of him--just never SEE it, somehow?
     (Never see...him?)
     Tobias. To--by.
     (Sweetpea.)
     He--hates me. And I hate *him*...but how much difference did THAT ever make?
     So ask yourself, Schillinger: Is he lying? Do you CARE? I mean--not like he can *fool* you, anyway. Over-educated little son-of-a...bitch.
     He's MINE, first, last, and always; that doesn't change. Mine for as long as I want him--and after.
     And us, him and me, we--we're--
     (--made for each other.)

Beecher meets his eyes again. Smiles again. Lays his cane, with slow and deliberate care, against the closet wall--
     --and lowers himself, just as slowly, to his knees.

And, in Vern's head, his father's disembodied voice. Mocking:
    (Well, SON--you sure can pick 'em.)

In the infirmary:
     "So--your call, O'Reilly. I get to join the team, or what?"
     Ryan looks at Keller, knowing he can always drop the hawk-faced man like a hot rock in a sauna once his usefulness to Operation Vern-baby becomes questionable. And Keller just looks back, knowing--for once--exactly what the Irish Iago must be thinking.
     Knowing. But not caring, too much, 'long as it gets him back where he wants to be.
     He waits, lips dry, for an answer. And, after a moment--
     "Okay," O'Reilly tells him. "We'll try."
     The two great liars of Oz shake hands, gingerly: A meeting of true minds. Another dirty deal, done dirt cheap.
     (For whatever THAT may eventually turn out to be worth.)

And back in the closet, another moment of truth:
     Beecher, unzipping Vern, one careful set of teeth at a time--freeing the hooded monster, already pumped far enough to slap up *hard* against Schillinger's soft underbelly, red and drooling. And thinking, with an evil, giddy jolt of crazy glee:
     Oh, hey. Long time no *see*.
     Thinking: You can DO this, Toby. Just like--riding a bike.
     (Down the slippery slope to hell.)
     Well, yeah. But fuck it; what are you gonna do, now it gets down to it? Jump back up and run away?
     (Ah. If only.)
     Leaning forward. Opening wide, lips carefully folding to mask his teeth, and breathing  --moist, hot, deliberate--across the half-hidden head of Vern's cock; seeing it jump at the sudden stimulus, pump a quick new bead of precum. And then--

(Aaaah, Jesus, I've MISSED this.)
     This heat, these clenching internal muscles; grabbing hard and thrusting deep, and hearing Beecher's snuffly little retch as his gag reflex kicks in. This mucus-slick, slightly abrasive *motion*, almost enough to make you pop right fuckin' NOW--
      --but wait a sec. Wait just one damn--
      Left hand in Beecher's hair, clumsy but painful, Vern hauls Beecher bodily back off, with a wet pop. Growling, breathless:
     "Don't get any ideas, cupcake: I ain't no snack bar. Bite *me*, I'll rip your fuckin' head right off."
     And Beecher smiles back up at him, chin spit-wet--with way too many kitten-sharp teeth in that smile, threats notwithstanding, for comfort.
     "You just tell me when it starts to hurt," he says. And bends to his task again.
     (AaaaUUUGH...)

Inside Beecher, a fresh jitter of helpless amusement:
     (And there's that SOUND.)

Aw, shit. Too good. Too FAST. And not...that way, either.
     Pulling him off again, with a hiss, Vern spins Beecher up onto his feet, half-throwing him against a nearby filing cabinet--same one he keeps dead letters in, for the manditory three weeks, before sending them out with the rest of the trash. Beecher bracing himself as Vern buries his face in the tender back of his neck, arms coming up under Beecher's in a tight double lock, kicking his legs apart: Like being patted down by some extremely zealous hack, complete with impending cavity search.
     Thinking, sickly: After so much time, this--is definitely gonna hurt.
     And the other half of his mind, harder: So what? You can take it. Point is...
     (Can *Vern*?)
     Rubbing his ass back, and feeling Vern jump slightly at the sensation--amazed, aroused. Not expecting it. Not expecting--to like it.
     (So MUCH.)
     Which brings us to my final observation, jury members--the one reached after hours of enforced bedrest, turning this problem of Vern plus Beecher equals--
     (what, what, what?)
     --over and over in my so-called mind: That there's a difference, a BIG difference, between being forced to participate and participating. Just like the big grey area between between doing something because you think you're going to get something out of it--peace of mind, distraction from pain, a sense of your own manly-manhood--and doing it just to DO it. 'Cause...you *want* to.
     (And you DO want to. Don't you, Vern-baby?)
     Oh, yeah. *Thought* so.
     One hand on the cabinet, bent almost double, reaching back to peel his own pants down with the other: Look, Ma! No underwear!
     (Came prepared, honey. Just like old times.)
     This casual revelation of the inaccessible, this prize Vern hasn't seen in over a year--HIS MARK, still there, white scar tissue edged with a kind of blush. Along with all the rest of it, of course: Pale, high-held cheeks, weirdly pristine, even now. That shadowed blond cleft.
     (Ahhhrrr.)
     Beecher (Muffled) "Look familiar?"
     Stab so deep now, feels like a fish-hook down the urethra--except better, so MUCH better. A jerking, painful pulse, swollen *HARD*, like he's ready to split at the fuckin' seams.
     Arms together, rib-crack-tight. He feels Beecher gasp at the strain, a glorious little wheezing *squeak*--then lifts him high, spins him again, ass slamming down fast onto the cabinet's top. Not caring if Whittlesey hears, anymore--hell, not caring if *McManus* does, at this point.
     Something rising in him, unnamable, inignorable. A dangerous, alien impulse.
     Beecher, suddenly--more than--level with Vern's eyes, stares down into them. As Vern "orders", hoarsely:
     "You...kiss me."
     (Like you did, in the infirmary.)
     Adding, quickly: "...bitch."
     Second part more like an afterthought than an insult, though. Face-saving 101.
     (Well, your call. *Sir*.)
     Utterly deliberate, Beecher "charges himself up"--by thinking of Keller, natch, not that he'd admit it. The laundry room, lemon-fresh detergent contact high, Chris's hooched-up breath a longed-for after-work martini all to itself. And held, pinned, fished fuckin' *in* by those strong arms, that skilled and subtle mouth: Bright skewers of painful pleasure transfixing him like nails to the lips, eyes, groin--
     (heart)
     Feeling himself shudder, utterly undone. Wondering if Vern feels it too, if he thinks it's all because of HIM. Wondering if he--
     (--WANTS it to be.)
     And, oh: That *would* be the point of the exercise.
     Temporarily rendered drunk and driven by this sudden plunge into sense-memory, Beecher takes Vern's head in his hands and kisses him DEEP, bruising, nipping. Vern tasting what must surely be himself--dank, musky--on Beecher's tongue--
     (--ugh, yech, *Jesus*--)
     --and then forgetting, again. Forgetting everything but this. Their thoughts overlaid, knit in one bright rush of lust-bright head-static--
     (I want you, I *want* you, I WANT you--)
     (--WANT you--*DEAD*.)
     You Nazi fuck. You--uhhh, you, *you*--
     With Beecher actually panting, moaning now, directly into his mouth--Vern's bad hand pulsing, pain like some flesh-and-blood metronome, keeping perfect time. Hooking an arm under Beecher's right leg, pulling him wide, unable to hold off *one* *damn* *minute* longer; spitting in his left palm, losing most of it before driving two fingers inside, scissoring them dryly. And up against him, head already centred, a mere thrust away from final conquest--
     --but hesitating, warned by some indefinite instinct. Thinking:
     He wants this too much. And if he WANTS it, I must be doin' something *seriously* wrong.
     (Not to mention if *I* want it--too much--)
     Reeling a bit too close to faggot territory, here, for Vern's tastes. A bit too--DANGEROUSLY--close.
     Pausing, caught--until he hears Beecher hiss, a barbed goad in his ear:
     "Hey, Vern--don't TEASE."
     (Ohhhh...kay.)
     Plunging in, then, without further ado--seating himself deep, and seeing it register like a in Beecher's eyes like impalement, from the popped ring itself all the way up to the base of his spine: OH boy.
     (Glad to see THAT still hurts.)
     Gunslinger fuck, Beecher thinks, giddy with pain. Dare me to look away first? Dare YOU, motherFUCKER.
     And then he knits his fists in the small of Vern's back, pulls him further in--unexplored territory, almost. Seeing *that* register, like a pre-orgasmic petit mal spasm: Pure h-shot to the pleasure centre, with just a tad more twist to his own agonized sheath.
     (Oh, yeah. C'mon. Cuh-*mon*, you BASTARD--)
     Burying his face in Vern's wide bull-neck and sucking, nipping--feeling wet skin give way as he draws a satisfying yelp, gifting his tormentor with the mother of all impromptu hickeys, right where no shirt-collar will ever manage to cover it completely--
     Sphincter ablaze, Beecher coos with fake delight, all his old whore's tricks falling right back in place: Concentrate on acting like you like what you're doing, so you won't have to *think* about what you're doing. Feels his own cock stir and jerk, traitorously automatic, as Vern catches his prostate on the back-swing, and dredges his memory for still more scenes, sights, stimuli--anything to make his response seem palatable, if not plausible.
     His role-call of dead loves: Gen, Chris, Gen, Chris, Chris, *Chris*, CHRIS--
     (--if only, if only--*you* on top, or me on top of *you*--)
     Memory sliding to fantasy, whiplash quick: Kissing Vern and seeing Chris, smelling, feeling, aching for him, sucking his tongue to the root. With Vern struggling to take control, exact submission, and Beecher matching him again and again with a gripping, immediate imitation of lust.
     Thinking: Don't get it yet, do you, asshole? You can't take anything from me anymore, no matter how hard you try...'cause I am GIVING it away, before you even think to ask.
     (Crying silently out, with every move, every slamming, tearing thrust: Oh yes, oh *please*. Do that AGAIN.)
     But back to that hickey--too aggressive a move, apparently, even by Vern's standards. Beecher feels his head slam back onto the counter, blood-spurt as teeth meet lip. Gives Vern a red grin--you feelin' ignored, sweetpea?
     (Fine. We'll change the subject.)
     Keller discarded, therefore, in favor of a far longer, more heterosexual litany--
     Bobbie Hollensteen, my wry virginity-taker, in the Dean's office at Miltchard...
     Gen, in tears after that charmingly disasterous second date, in mine...
     Assorted hookers I picked up while drunk, in my office, my home, my car--anywhere and everywhere, the mood and price were right...
     That girl Lindsay, back at Harvard--that Goddess-sized partner of hers, the one with all the jewelry, during a labor negotiation in Boston...
     Guard Whittlesey (those tits!)...Dr Nathan (sorry, O'Reilly)...Sister Pete (sorry, *God*)...
     ...and oh, oh Christ, I'm losing it...
     Michelle Pfeiffer. Janeane Garofalo. Uh, shit--uh--
     --Schillinger's phantom wife, on the other side of the visiting room glass, as Vern pounds and howls--oh, yes, yeah, yes indeed--
     --but most of all, most of ALL--
     (the ultimate aphrodisiac)
     --how much, how much, how *much* I am going to enjoy watching you *DIE*--
     And crying out aloud, a desperate, crooning yelp: "OH yeah, RIGHT there, *JUST* *LIKE* *THAT*--"
     --coming, right on cue, all over the golden fur of his own stomach. While Vern keeps on grinding away, drenched and gasping--Beecher's knee braced up on his straining shoulder, joint stretched wide, *definitely* re-opened for business--
     Thinking: Shut UP, idiot, somebody's gonnaAAAAAAGH--
     --and failing, flailing, giving, burying his face in Toby's sweat-slick shoulder, muffling a helpless bellow, as he feels Beecher clamp down on him, a sprung flesh trap. His heat-boiled brains liquifying, exploding, spurting like the rockets' red glare itself from the barrel of his colon-choked cock.
     At the fatal moment, it's Vern who has to close his eyes, in inadvertant ecstasy: A bitter mastery, his long-awaited victory as jarringly abrupt--and ruinous--as any given defeat.

A half-hour later, Ryan O'Reilly comes whistling around the corner of Em City's upper deck, only to find Beecher sitting with his back to his own pod's door: Face white and set, mouth still bloody, exhaustion and pain in every knotted inch of him. And though several smart-ass comment spring to mind, Ryan finds--uncharacteristically enough--he frankly doesn't have the heart to voice any of them aloud. Let ALONE to tell him he just cut Keller, the other half of all Beecher's troubles, in on their mutual business.
     Instead, he just sits down too, shoulder to shoulder. And waits.
     "Tell me again," Beecher says, finally. "How I ever could have thought this was a good idea."
     His voice as dead, as drained, as his expression. All--fucked out, kinda.
     (Not that *that*'s too much of a surprise. Really.)
     But Ryan...can't. So he just quotes Beecher back to himself:
     "'Nothing you never did before.'"
     And Beecher, with a liquid snort:
     "Yeah, right. But..."
     --after a pause, and just a bit too softly--
     "...it's been  a while."
     But since there's no handy answer, not to *that* one--as they both well know--he and Ryan just sit there, quiet, for a moment.
     As quiet as things tend to get, in Oz.

And then it's dinner-time, in the mess hall. O'Reilly and Beecher walking in together, only to be greeted by the free and easy ring of Schillinger's laughter, rising high above the general din--satisfied, satiated, pain-free and back in his old, supremely self-confident stride. Feeling GOOD about himself.
     (Oh, and what a difference a lay makes, huh?)
     "My master's voice," Beecher comments, deadpan. And the mask's back on.
     (With a vengeance.)
     A minute or so later, he slides in beside Vern, right in the middle of the conversation Vern's having with Fritz Duchene--who goggles, ludicrously, at the sight of Beecher setting a full tray of food down next to the Aryans' elder statesman, all bright-eyed and attendant.
     Gaze drawn, next--instinctively--to that flushed red patch just above Vern's carotid. Not knowing, but suspecting, somehow: Beecher's own brand, left there for the entire Oz-bound world to gawk at.
     Before anyone can comment, however, a shadow drifts over, hovering in the immediate background: Vern's nameless/faceless former cellmate, jaw now reset, nose still splinted. Beecher bares his teeth at him, and watches the guy cringe--poor little ruined son-of-a-bitch. Doomed by cruel fate (and a random accident of proximity) to an existence of general pragdom, playing pussy-boy for whoever gets their claim in first.
     But: I have no sympathy for you, honey. Can't afford to.
     And, as you'll find--nobody else will, either.
     "Uh...Mr Schillinger?" The guy begins. Then, a little more desperately: "...Vern?"
     And Vern--just waves him away. As Beecher, blithe, calls out after him: "Better luck next time, baby-doll!"
     The other Aryans guffaw. Giving Vern time to hiss, in Beecher's ear, now that their attention lies momentarily elsewhere:
     "*Told* you not to bite me, you fuckin' little freak of the week."
     And: "Ohhhh," Beecher hisses back, eyes innocently wide. "I thought you were just talking about your DICK."
     (And what are you gonna do about it, anyway? Pull my fuckin' *head* off?)
     Vern flushes, thrown off-balance, and opens his mouth to reply--but Duchene's already swinging back around, all ears. And all fuckin' MOUTH, he gets five steps outta your sight. So he confines himself to growling, sidelong:
     "Well...don't do it again."
     "'Course not. Sir."
     Beecher flashes him a smile, split lip puffing sexily. And sidles off, cane swinging-- singing, just loud enough to be easily audible:
     "He don't *love* me, like I love him...no one COULD..."
     While Vern pauses, silent, spoon tapping idly at the side of his tray--his forgotten hand suddenly hurting again, a deep and regular throb. And suspecting...somewhere deep below the surface of conscious thought, so deep he barely allows it to register...
     ...that he may have just made a *very* big mistake.

End Part 7
 

Continued...