Heaven sucked in her breath. Had she heard him right? She was pretty sure she had, but . . . in the heated moment the room had been spinning and she’d been moaning and all she heard was her heart pulsing in her ears.
No, no—she couldn’t have heard him correctly.
“I love you . . .”
She closed her eyes. Replayed their passionate night in the infirmary, rewinding to everything before their orgasms.
“I love you . . .”
Her eyes flew open. Oh, God, no. She had heard him right. Those three words were the last thing she’d expected to hear from him—or any other man. Not here, not now.
That’s not what she was here for.
Love.
Love . . . that little dirty motherfucking word was what got her here. She hadn’t heard those words—I love you—from a man since . . . Freedom.
She brought her eyes closed again, then slowly opened. She couldn’t deal with this right now. All she wanted to do was concentrate on reading her—
“Hey, Heaven,” someone said; her tone was just above a whisper.
Heaven placed the book she was reading, The Prisoner’s Wife, by Asha Bandele up to her chest, its worn pages (from many years of handling by countless hands) pressed to her breasts. She’d found the book on the tier and decided to read it. So far she was enjoying it.
She looked over at a square-bodied, spectacled woman with brown frizzy hair, who looked to be in her mid-thirties and was built like a Transformer, meekly staring back at her.
“Yes.”
“I was wondering if I can rent out”—she glanced around the tier, making sure no one else was around to hear her—“you know. One of your . . . toys?”
Ever since she’d gotten her sex toys from Rawlings over three weeks ago, she’d been renting the items out to a select group of women on the housing unit. And, thanks to Greta who’d planted the idea in her head, she’d been building up a nice little clientele. She kept record of each transaction and the initial of each inmate in a journal, indicating date checked out, and date returned almost like a library card.
But this woman here, she’d never done business with.
Heaven slid from her bed and walked over to her. She stared at her acne-studded forehead for a moment longer than she probably should have, before locking her gaze on hers.
“Exactly what toys are you speaking of?”
The woman looked around again. “One of your dildos,” she whispered.
Heaven tilted her head. “Well, before we go any further. I need to inform you of the terms.” She paused, and the woman stared intently, waiting for her to continue. “First, you must have a clean pussy. I don’t do business with women with filthy hygiene.”
“Oh, I’m very clean,” she quickly assured. “No bad odors. I wash and shower daily.”
“Good. Second, you pay up front. No layaways, and no IOUs. You wanna play, you gotta pay.”
The woman nodded. “Okay.”
“Third, you must bring each rental back in the same condition it was given to you. It must be washed and cleaned.”
“Okay.”
“Fourth, if you bring it back late, you’ll be charged a late fee—six cans of mackerel for every thirty minutes it’s late. Fifth, you must—and I can’t stress this enough—wrap it in a glove.”
The woman nodded. “Okay.”
“Six, if you get caught with it and it gets confiscated. Then it’s your debt to bear. Do you understand?”
She nodded.
“Great. Now, tell me. How long are you looking to rent for?”
She leaned in a little closer, and Heaven could smell her minty breath. “Well, I was hoping for the whole night.”
Heaven smiled. “Oh, you a greedy one. Huh?”
The woman’s lips spread into a toothy, shy grin. “And I was hoping for that real big one.”
Mirth shone in Heaven’s gaze. “You sure you want that one?”
The woman nodded. “I’m sure,” she said, her tone serious. “It’s been one of my fantasies. To be, well, you know . . .” She paused, gauging Heaven’s expression, “with a big one,” she said in a whisper. “I’ve never done it with, well . . . a black man. I’d never do it in real life, though. But here—”
Heaven lifted a brow but didn’t say anything, not wanting to embarrass her any more than she already was. And, well, it didn’t matter what the woman’s fantasies were while she was fucking herself as long as she was willing to pay for them.
Heaven put a hand up to stop her. “Say no more.” She briskly walked back over and pulled out a plastic bin from beneath her bunk and pulled out Cockzilla (she kept the severely long phallus wrapped in a towel), then sashayed back over toward, um . . .
“I didn’t get your name,” Heaven said, cradling the towel-wrapped dildo in her arms like a baby.
“Oh, right. It’s Penelope. After my grandmother.”
“Oh. Well, nice doing business with you. This one here is going to cost you four books of stamps for all night.” A book of twenty stamps cost nine dollars on commissary, but had a street value of only six dollars in prison. And at Croydon Hill, postage stamps and cans of mackerel were the predominant currency used.
Heaven slid the towel back the way a proud mother would her newborn baby, giving the salivating woman a peek of what she’d be getting.
Penelope’s eyes widened as she sucked in her bottom lip. “Yes, yes. That’s the one I want.”
Heaven smiled. “Then you had better show me the money.”
• • •
A few hours later, Heaven made her way down to the second tier, speaking to a few inmates as she sauntered toward the cell of an inmate by the name of Annie-Mae. Annie-Mae had been incarcerated for the last four years for endangering the welfare of a child and kidnapping and burglary. She’d taken her three children to Texas without their father’s permission. And then was arrested when she refused to return to N.J. with the kids.
“What’s going on, Annie-Mae?” asked Heaven as she discreetly slid into her cell. “Seems like you’ve forgotten how to return my property.” Heaven placed a hand up on her hip. “You’ve had it out for more than four days. And you haven’t said one word to me about it.”
The sandy-brown-haired Albanian stood from her desk, and said in her thick accent, “I’ll get it back to you tonight.”
Heaven tilted her head, and her jaw clenched. “Bitch, this is unacceptable. You’re cutting into my coins.” She had three women on the wait list to use the sex toy, and this ho was hogging the vibrator.
The woman apologized. “I, well . . . see, I let my bunkie use it, and then . . .” She shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “And then—”
“So you loaned my shit out without my permission?”
“Sort of,” she admitted. “But I was supposed to have it back two nights ago, and, well . . .”
Heaven’s nose spread. She didn’t have all night with this bitch. “Look. Do you have payment for the late fees?”
“Well, not at the—”
The rest of her sentence was cut off by a large can of mackerel hitting her in the mouth. Heaven split her bottom lip, then hit her upside the head with the can.
The woman’s hand flew up to her mouth, and her eyes widened in shock.
“Ohmygod! You bust my lip.”
“And I’ll bust your skull if I don’t get my shit back, Annie-Mae—with the interest you owe, because if not, I’m going to claw your goddamn eye out like I did that bitch over on Four East. You have until noon tomorrow.”
And with that, she quickly slid out of the woman’s cell and headed back up to the high-rises up on the third floor. God, she didn’t want to resort to violence. But that was what some bitches only understood. So if she had to resort to barbaric measures, then she would.