Part one

Spring 2020.  

The streets were quiet and empty. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, not even a single line of vapour trail spoiled the perfectly clear blue.

My children were playing happily in the back garden and enjoying the unseasonably warm spring sunshine. Thankfully, the weather had been kind and we had the space for them to let off steam.

With the pandemic lockdown in full force, my wife and I decided to try our hand at decorating. The paint arrived earlier that morning and I was in the garage rummaging through the clutter of bicycles, garden furniture and various items of discarded children's toys, in a frankly halfhearted search for paintbrushes and rollers. That is where I came across the box that I found hidden under the workbench.

It was a simple brown cardboard box, which in another life had carried Rioja from Spain. What it contained, instantly shook me and transported me to a period in my life which, although it is always with me, I had managed to lock away somewhere in the back of my mind.

It had been the prison Chaplain, a lovely woman who realised that I was struggling during those early weeks and suggested that if I put my thoughts down on paper it might help. It was she who gave me the notebook which I now held in my hands. I could feel the hairs on the back of my neck prickle as I flicked through the pages, remembering the feelings as I wrote down every word. As I began to reread them now after all this time, it brought back all the painful insecurities, fears and ultimately the humiliation that followed.

Out of the cobweb-strewn window I could see my wife carrying drinks out to our children. The whole experience has changed her. I still love her, and that love will never leave, but she is no longer the woman that I married. We survived but it has left deep scars which I guess will never completely heal. She hides the truth well.

The scribbled words instantly transport me back to life within those walls, the sights, sounds and smells all vivid to me. The first entry that I made was in July 2015, it read:

***

< Lights out. For most people here it is the loneliest part of the day, with only their thoughts for company; time to face up to the reason they are here. Maybe that’s why people call it ‘doing time,’ because if there is one thing that there is plenty of in this place, then it’s time.

Unlike many locked up in this place, I look forward to it, relish it even, wallow in its safety. No one can get to me after the doors have been bolted and the light switch has been flicked off.

I arrived in February, and currently I’m now six months into a three-year jail sentence for fraud. I have been reliably informed that with good behaviour I will be out in a year.>

***

I would love to say that I adapted to prison life like a modern-day Andy Dufresne, but that would only be fooling myself.  I was frightened of my own shadow. It wasn’t really my fault, events transpired against me, but that is what everyone says in there. I learnt that in prison, everyone is innocent, it is always someone else’s fault.  The government, the education system, their parents, society, anyone and everyone but themselves.

Me?  Well, I was just stupid.  I had a respectable job as an insurance company accountant. It was well paid with good benefits and prospects; we were comfortable. What started out as a small unofficial loan to get me out of a short-term cash flow problem spiralled out of control. I borrowed two hundred pounds, and in all honesty, I had planned to pay the money back with my next paycheck, but as I said events transpired to change my mind.

The auditors arrived unexpectedly a week before payday, and I thought that was it. Frankly, I thought I was dead. For a month I couldn’t sleep or eat, and my body shut down as I waited for the tap on my shoulder or a phone call. But in the end, nothing happened, nobody had noticed. I had got away with it scot-free.

So, I devised this scheme and began quietly to siphon funds into a ghost account that I had created. It was only small amounts in the beginning, but it was too easy and human nature took over and I steadily became increasingly greedy. I never thought anyone would ever find out.

It was a Wednesday afternoon, and I had a day off for a dentist appointment. There is not a day that goes by when I haven’t replayed every detail of that moment over and over in my head. Apart from having a tooth filled it was a normal day, nothing that indicated that life for me and my family was going to change forever.

The auditors had paid their annual visit to the office two months previously and this was their third audit since I began my little venture, and as far as I was concerned everything was fine. I watched them come in and I watched them leave.

That Wednesday afternoon I was in the front room watching an episode of Boardwalk Empire when I noticed the car pull up in the street outside. It was a white Audi estate, and two men in dark suits got out and walked across the road towards our house. You kind of know instinctively when something is wrong; there is a sickly knotted feeling in your gut.

My hands grew clammy as I watched them walk up the garden path, and I could feel this wave of dread wash over me. It didn’t feel real, more like some kind of out of body experience. The two men it turned out, were visiting on behalf of Her Majesty. They introduced themselves and asked me to confirm my name and then, without further introduction, read me my rights.

“Christopher Rouse, we are arresting you on suspicion of misappropriation of company funds. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court.  Anything you do say may be given in evidence.  Do you understand?” I nodded; what else could I do. I knew that the game was up.

Don’t let anyone tell you that life in prison is easy. I’ve been guilty of thinking that in the past, saying that it’s a hotel and that they sit around all day playing computer games and having a party, but it’s not. Every day is a living nightmare with not a second where you can completely relax, some days so dark that I can’t see a way out. So, although it sounds like a cliché, I have to take each day as it comes, keep my nose clean and my head down and stay out of the way of a select band of people.

Everyone knew who they were with everything going through them. They effectively ran the place. Drugs and pornography are among the most valuable of commodities, and they control it all, its import and its distribution. The drugs take you to a place away from this hell, pornography gives a little short-term pleasure and relief.

And this is where it all began. I don’t know what I did or how it happened, but unwittingly I brought myself to their attention. I became a person of use, someone that they could exploit.

I hated this place and everyone in it. I had heard all the jokey stories of what goes on in there, the ‘don’t pick up the soap in the showers’ sort of thing, but this went way beyond that; even after cleaning my teeth three times, I was still able to taste him. I spent hours laying on my bunk wondering if there was anything I could have done differently on that day, but every time I reach the same conclusion. The strange thing is there is a part of me that feels that I deserved it, and as I dug deeper there is a smaller part hidden away somewhere in the dark depths that wanted it.

I worked in the prison's laundry room. It was mundane but easy and passed the time. It was a Monday afternoon towards the end if the shift, the radio was playing in the background as I busied myself unloading the prison uniform from the huge washing machines into wicker baskets to be taken to be pressed. I didn’t notice them come in, or the room quietly emptying around me.

Everyone knew how it worked and what was about to happen, everyone one it seems except me. I guess they were all happy to be on the other side, safe.

There was no time to react, which in hindsight was probably a good thing. I was dragged into the storeroom amongst the washing powder and freshly pressed linen when a foot to the back of my knees dropped me to the ground. I couldn’t see him, I couldn’t see anything, but I heard his voice, it was refined and precise like the words that came out of his mouth had been carefully chosen.

“We can do this however you wish, peaceful or painful it is your choice. Personally, I couldn’t care less, although I have to say if I had a preference, watching someone willingly suck my cock is an unceasing delight to me.”

The room was dark, the only light came from the quarter-open door, the sound of Billy Joel singing Uptown Girl drifting through the gap on the warm laundry room air. I still can’t hear that song without sensing a slight sting of panic and humiliation.

I haven’t told anyone, Olivia is still thankfully oblivious and I want it to remain that way. I have no idea how she would react if she knew the truth, how her husband meekly surrendered and complied.

From in front of me, I heard the cutting burr of a zipper being lowered and the smell of his body invading my nostrils. I daren't look up, my body going into shock as I processed what was happening and the act that I was going to be asked to perform.

“So what is it to be Christopher. What do you want me to do, are you going to suck my cock like a good little boy ?” I closed my eyes, aware of the situation. As far as I could see it was self-preservation time, the answer to his question was clearly obvious.

“Yes,” I mumbled, a pitiful voice in the dark.

“Yes, what ?”

“I’ll do it.”

“Do what Christopher, I don’t want anybody to be any doubt.”

“I’ll suck you off.”

“Do you hear that? Young Christopher here wants to suck me off. Very good, but I warn you now, you bite me and I swear it will be the last time you use your teeth.” He held my hair in his fist as effectively he began to fuck my mouth, the brush of his coarse pubic hair on my nose, the tip of his penis first ramming against the back of my throat before forcing its way past my tonsils.

I’m not sure when, but there was a point maybe after about one or two minutes where I realised that he had taken his hand away. His body was no longer moving, but I continued to glide my mouth across his hard cock, feeling the skin on my tongue, he was no longer forcing me.

“That’s right open up, take it all. Mmm.” I could hear his breathing above me, laboured and urgent, feel his finger gripping my hair. “Yesss,” he hissed, and then it happened, his body stiffened as he came, making me gag as my mouth began to fill with his spunk.

As soon as his dick slipped from between my lips I coughed and spluttered, spewing his seed out over my shirt and onto the ground. The room filled with laughter and insults, then I felt a pain I’ll never forget.

I had never been punched before, not in anger anyway. All through my schooldays where petty fistfights were a daily occurrence I didn’t even have one fight. The blow landed on my right cheek, followed by the one which broke my nose.

Three days later Olivia visited me. I hadn’t told her what to expect which I immediately realised was a mistake. She couldn’t hide her shock as she saw me, two black eyes and a taped up and swollen nose. She was inconsolable and asked all the questions that I either couldn’t or wouldn’t answer.

What I didn’t realise at the time was that this was all part of a plan; it was just the beginning. Soon it all became clear that life as we knew it was never going to be the same ever again.