First time in prison and sent to Max Security. Not all the guards have high standards and both male and female guards sometimes take liberties with female inmates.
I guess it was not really sudden. I mean we make bad life choices and one thing leads to another. We pick up bad friends and bad habits and it just leads to a conclusion. But it felt sudden when it happened.
I was just chillin’ with him at his place when they banged on the front door shouting,
“Open up. Police.”
We looked at each other then, both jumped to our feet, ran to the back door and straight into the arms of a pair of cops.
They turned us around, twisted my arms so I screamed and clamped on the cuffs. I could hear their radio chatter as a background track. I was being dragged towards their car as they were rapidly firing out, “You have the right to remain silent, you have the right to an attorney, anything you say may be….de da de da whatever.”
I never saw him again. He must have been put into another car. Did you know that cop cars don’t have normal back seats? They are solid molded plastic so nothing can be pushed down between the upholstery and the seat is tilted backwards so you slide to the back and it takes a lot of effort to sit upright or to move.
The next twelve hours were a hell of fingerprints, handcuffs, photos, waiting around in holding cells and shouted orders. If you are a first timer, it is horrible, terrifying and dehumanizing which is the whole point. Every second is designed to enforce the message that you are powerless. What you may think or feel is of no importance at all. You are here to be punished and to do whatever the fuck you are told.
“You sit down. You do not try to walk around. You co-operate or this all takes longer…”
With what they had on me, I was never going to make bail so there I was in County Jail in my orange suit in a communal unit of about thirty bunks and sixty women. County Jail is not segregated like state prison so the woman in the next bunk could be on a traffic offence or Murder One. And you don’t have jobs or courses so you sit around being bored and scared.
The trial took less than fifteen minutes because I had been advised to plead guilty and then I had to stand up – in handcuffs and shackles to hear the verdict read by the judge.
That felt like being repeatedly slapped in the face in front of a huge audience.
“Appalling chain of offences…unmitigated evil…without excuse..complete lack of compassion..I have no alternative but to sentence you to ten years in prison.”
TEN YEARS!
Then they took me downstairs to a holding cell where I sat until court ended at 5.30 and then six of us were loaded into a van for the drive to Montgomery Jail Maximum Security Unit.
That proved to be a repeat of what happened when I was first arrested. Every unit you go to wants to strip search you and read you a whole new list of orders which you don’t take in and they can’t put you in a cell until they have taken blood and done a full medical. They check all bloods for pregnancy, drugs, HIV and diabetes. I was brought a plastic food tray in a holding cell because I would miss chow call in the cell block.
They take your watch with everything else you own when you first come into County and there aren’t any clocks so I had no idea of time but it had to be past midnight when, carrying my plastic mattress, I entered my triple cell and the sliding door slammed shut. Of course, my cellies were not thrilled to be woken up by the noise but nobody ever sleeps through the night in jail due to the constant shouting.
You never have just two in a cell because then a strong one could prey on a weak one. The third person is thought to be sort of a balance. Often you will have four.
One girl was called Franks (only last names in jail) and she barely spoke. She never responded to direct questions and made it very clear that such questions would end in violence. Names are always written outside cell doors and the girls get friends on the outside to search online so everyone knew that Franks was doing thirty years for a liquor store robbery where a clerk was shot dead. I don’t know why she wouldn’t talk about it as, in jail, that is pretty much fine. It is really stupid to try to hide your offence because everyone assumes you are a ChiMo and then life gets VERY hard.
The other cellie was Hooper and, over time, I discovered that she had done just over three years of a fifteen stretch for dope dealing and aggravated assault. Hooper was OK and she looked after me. She helped me to understand the documents which you bring into the cell with you in particular the one about dates.
On day one you can see your release date and also your ERD which is your earned release date. Assuming I was a model prisoner, I could be eligible for parole after half of my sentence.
So, all that is background. What I wanted to talk about was Officer Marsh (not her real name). We had male and female Correctional Officers and my experience is that the females are by far the worst. They are desperate to prove that they are as tough as the men and, with the men, you can flirt a bit. Of course, they are pretty much immune to that but it can help in small ways, “Oh come on, just one more period pad”.
Marsh was there during my Intake and she took an instant dislike to me starting with my accent. COs have power over every small detail of your life and they can make life hard or easy. You can guess which course she chose.
“Ross (me) let’s move it. You heard the call for chow hall.”
“Ross, you get three toilet rolls. That extra one is contraband. Do you want to go to Seg?”
“I don’t care if you haven’t finished eating. Mess is over, let’s move it”.
So, it all moved up a notch one chow call. What would happen is that the COs would move along the landing and, as they reached your cell, you would come out and join the line heading out for chow. Marsh and a male CO were doing this and I followed Franks onto the landing with Hooper coming up behind. Marsh touched my shoulder and pushed me back out of the way for Hooper to walk past me.
“Not you Ross.”
As the line moved away Marsh shepherded me back into my cell.
“I need to do an extra search on you Ross. Do you have anything you shouldn’t have?”
I told her no and she responded that someone had snitched on me for hiding drugs.
“I’m going to perform a strip search looking for drugs or any other contraband. Get stripped Ross.”
Anyone who has not been to prison may find it odd that I simply complied but that is what prison does to you. I stood naked with hands by my sides and legs slightly parted while she ran her fingers through my hair then looked into my ears before making me open my mouth for her horrible, unsanitary fingers to explore my gumline and all around the inside of my mouth. I made no complaint because I had done this many times before.
She made me lift my boobs to show that nothing was hidden in the flesh beneath them (there would not have been space for even a match head). Then I lifted my arms for my armpits to be explored and turned and bent over with my hands pulling my ass cheeks wide apart. She did not feel up there but she made me cough for her to see that I was pushing but nothing was coming out. Just to flex her power, she had me cough three times.
“Harder, Ross. Don’t mess me about or you’ll be in Seg.”
Next, she had me sit on the bottom bunk, legs wide apart, bum pushed forward and my hands pulling my labia wide open. This time she was very hands on and it was now overtly sexual. There was no innocent reason for the way that she stroked my inner pinkness and then slid first one and then two fingers inside and out.
Now that she had clearly broken procedure I protested, not that it did any good.
“Shut up Ross. This takes as long as it takes.”
Her free hand began to stroke my left boob and she kept working on me down there.
“This is between us Ross, everyone will be at chow for an hour. If you try to make a fuss you will be in Seg and you will lose your day” (My EDC).
It absolutely IS possible for a woman to commit r@pe. Bear in mind that I had not been with anyone for several months and even masturbation is difficult in a cell with two other women; you might do it but you keep some sort of control. The guards can look in through the peephole at any moment and, if they see girls together, “helping each other”, they write you up and send you to Seg with petty little jokes about “being a naughty girl”. Prison is strictly a “no touching” environment although it does happen, mainly in the showers where there are no cameras. But, even there, guards can come in without warning.
She was flicking her tongue over my nipples and I could smell her hair as it brushed my face. I was getting turned on and just as I was beginning to like it, she stopped.
“We will do this another day, Ross. You are too late to get to chow now.”
For the next ten minutes or so I was lying on my bunk trying to get myself under control and thinking, “What the hell just happened?” I never said a word to anyone.
Marsh went on being her usual obnoxious self but, just once in a while, when no one could see there would be a little flick of her hair or a sly smile. Sometimes, if we passed in a hallway, her fingers would ever so gently brush my behind or my boobs and, yes, OK, I felt a real tingle. I couldn’t help it.
In prison getting any sort of privacy is pretty much impossible but it does help if one is a CO. Unlike County Jail, in prison everyone works. You do not have time to sit on your bunk having deep conversations like they do in television dramas. The purpose of the regime is to keep us busy the whole time and therefore less likely to cause trouble. The Tanoy is constantly calling time to go to chow, count, education or work and, in addition to that, there are set times when you can ask to be taken to MedCall, Library or Commissary.
I was assigned to work twelve-hour days in the laundry for which one is paid and the money can be spent in Commissary. You don’t see banknotes but you have a prison account to which wages are credited and spending is debited. If there is a credit balance on release that is handed to you as cash when you leave.
Anyway, I found myself reassigned from the laundry to Commissary. I had no idea why this was until I turned up to work (under escort) and found that Marsh was the CO in charge of that work detail. All became clear when I was alone with Marsh and she took me into the store room which most inmates don’t see. This was a small warehouse type room with high shelving for everything from confectionary to stationery to hygiene goods. There was also an open area with a table and a couple of chairs – this was where paperwork was done to keep track of stores in and out. Cons do not get to use computers. The key point which really bothered me was that, as inmates don’t normally enter this area, there were no cameras so Marsh would be free to do whatever she liked knowing that it would be my word against hers.
So, I was now alone with Marsh away from cameras and in an area controlled by Marsh after Marsh had arranged for me to be placed there. Whatever my endorphins might have to say, I was really scared as there was an eye watering power imbalance. Because she had blatantly stepped outside what a CO was supposed to do, I stepped outside of my assigned role and tried to talk to her as an equal.
“Look Marsh. This can go so wrong for both of us. Why don’t you just send me back to the laundry and this will never have happened.”
I knew that I was sounding as if I were pleading and I was but Marsh was reveling in it. She told me that she had to do a strip search to make sure I had not brought anything into Commissary which might be poisonous if placed in foodstuffs. WHAT? People smuggle stuff OUT of Commissary, not in.
I stood there defiantly with my arms folded across my chest but she just took out her pepper spray and pointed it at me. She didn’t have to say anything; it was all too obvious. All she had to do was to pepper spray me and hit the alarm button. Staff would rush in and cart me off to Seg and Marsh would say I had attacked her. I kicked off my orange plastic sandals and took off my orange uniform and my white cotton prison issue briefs. They don’t allow a bra because they say you could use it to hang yourself.
She pushed me back over the table and, perhaps because I had tried to defy her, she was not gentle. Her fat little paw grabbed my left boob and gave a really hard squeeze which made me shriek in pain and try to twist away.
“Keep the fuck still, Ross or you’ll regret it.”
Her other paw went to my pussy and rammed in past my weak defenses. She was fisting me and it was horrible. It was physically very painful but it was also hurting at a much deeper level. We both know that there were no limits to what she could do to me; I had absolutely no rights at all.
She bent over me and dropped her saliva all over my face then her tongue came out and she was licking my face and even in my eyes. Her tongue went into my mouth and triggered my choke reflex while her hands continued to molest my body.
Eventually she was finished with me and she instructed me in the work which I had to do in moving some basic stores out into the counter area so the trustee inmates could issue them without coming back into the store room. It would undermine the authority of a CO to be seen doing manual work so Marsh just sat and watched me work. She did allow me to dress but only because I would be in view of the cameras when I went out to the counter area. I was still in pain down there but Marsh did not see that as an issue.
When my shift ended, Marsh made it very plain that, if she heard that I had squealed on her, her retribution would be swift and forceful.
Now, I don’t know how this story would have ended but Marsh stepped it up several notches when she told a male colleague that Ross was an easy target. That forced me to take some corrective action but we’ll come to that later.
It came without any warning one evening after we had returned from chow and were allowed free association before lockup. A male CO called Flood came up to me, put his hand on my arm and marched me off to I knew not where. The showers are only unlocked for certain hours and, this time of day, they were locked but Flood had a key.
I knew something was wrong – in fact I realized what was about to happen but he was bigger and stronger than me. He pushed me inside and locked the door behind us. I stood facing him and backing away while he advanced on me with his hormones leaking like a mad dog.
“Officer Marsh sends her regards.”
He grabbed my hair and yanked my head downwards while his free hand unzipped himself and pulled it out. It was erect and uncircumcised. I was not going to go down (so to speak) without a fight and my teeth clenched around the organ and came down hard. He yelped and threw me so hard that I fell backwards and landed on the concrete floor. Then he was on top of me with his hands dragging my elasticated orange trousers and knickers down to below my knees. His mouth came down over mine cutting off my air and I felt him enter me down there.
I don’t think his wife ever let him have any as he showed great desperation as he took me repeatedly and with increasing violence. I was twisting my head from side to side in a desperate attempt to catch any available air but then his mouth caught mine again and his tongue hit the back of my throat with the predictable choking. His white, sticky DNA pumped into me and spilt over my entire groin area but, after probably quite a short time (it felt longer) his willy refused to play anymore and he rolled off me leaving me on my back with legs apart and feeling like a used dishrag. His sudden impotence did not prevent him from doing some approximation of kissing me and licking my face like some huge Labrador.
I was aware of tears mingling with all the saliva on my face but I refused to sob. He ordered me to dress and wipe myself on the prison towel which hung on the wall and then he unlocked the door and sent me on my way.
Now, you need to understand prison politics. Inmates look after our own business. You do not run to a guard and tell tales. In fact, you talk to the guards as little as possible, even the nicer ones. If anyone suspects you of being cosy with the COs you get a name as a snitch and it is almost impossible to shed that sort of reputation.
But everyone had seen Flood come and get me and take me to the shower and they had seen what I looked like when I came back. There are a lot of unwritten rules and if those rules get broken, there are consequences. This was a max security unit which means that killers were just part of the GP (General Population). All you need to make a chiv is a plastic prison issue toothbrush and a patch of rough brickwork to use as a grinding stone.
A nice person like you would not want to know the details but all that needs to be said is that Officer Flood was found in a blind spot between cameras with a stab wound right in his jugular vein where blood pressure will empty the entire blood system in seconds flat. It gushes out like a geyser. Obviously, this had nothing to do with sweet little me because I was at work in full view of guards and cameras when the deed was done.
Officer Marsh seems to have put it all together because she never troubled me again.