This is a completed fanfic. It will be posted in smaller pieces maybe a week apart to give people time to read.

Disclaimers: Standard. Characters, most plot details, etcetera all belong to Shed, no copyright infringement intended. I'm not making money off this. The writing is mine, copyright © bg3655.

Distribution: Here only for now. Linkage is fine.

Feedback: I'm very keen on detailed!feedback don'tmakemebeg, but anything and everything (I like it, you suck, etcetera) more than welcome. Really! :lol Email/PMs also fine.

Rating: Beats me, ratings are stupid. M for language in a few places, but tone and subject matter are 18+ so that's where it's going.

Notes: The 'finished' piece shouldn't have line-breaks, I think they're unattractive & break the flow... there should just be 3 spaces where line-breaks appear... but given the board's available coding options, I didn't know how else to make sure the section breaks would be clear, from one post to the next.

It ends where it does for a reason. I definitely do not want anyone 'continuing' it. It's finished, in my head and I hope on the page.

Small angst warning: the intro I've been told by my two very hardworking betas is apparently a bit grim... but it's not like that all the way through... I don't think, anyways. And a word (or a thousand) about betas: they rule. They are essential. They are truly wonderful. And I'm truly grateful for their friendship and the ginormous amounts of time they selflessly gave trying to help me get everything just right. xoxo, you know who you are.

I hate almost everything about my life these days. I hate what it's been reduced to most of all: no purpose, no choice, just a mindless routine to keep the animals docile, rules on rules on more bloody rules. The food's shit, whoever orders it for this place wouldn't recognise a vegetable if it crawled right up their arse. The bugs are endless: you can kill them, and I do, but am sometimes overwhelmed by a feeling of pointless regret, something close to grief at the necessity. Can they really like it better here than we do? Perhaps so. The screws are no better than the roaches—neither have a conscience, although you can at least argue the case on behalf of the six-legged plaintiffs. And screws deserve squashing a good deal more. ...I worry this is how it will happen, you see; before I even notice, I'll be counting invisible things on the head of a pin.

The chill is a constant. Even in summer the thick walls of this ancient building sweat out a dank, foetid moisture, as if all the souls who've lived here, suffered and died here are trapped within, still waiting for release. Over everything is the grinding racket of a huge machine clanking along: pipes gurgling, screws shouting their endless orders, doors, always doors—creaking open in the mornings, slamming shut at night... and the noise of almost a hundred miserably unhappy women, coughing, spitting, cackling, squabbling, menacing each other, whispering to themselves, humming tunelessly, nothing to do all day but try to keep from getting caught up in the sluggish gears and churned out as gristle.

The days are all the same.

Only the meagre intermission of visits from relatives, the few friends who are brave or foolhardy enough to remember you—or enemies who want something out of you—interrupt the days. Visits are terrible in their own way, a strange kind of torture where looking forward to the event is most always better than the thing itself. Everyone putting on a brave face, no one fooled until you're nearly eager for it to be over, just to stop watching the clock and having to search for another stupid, hopeful, false thing to say.

The few classes they offer aren't worth breaking routine for. Many of the women can barely read. Most are in on drugs-related charges. The rest are shoplifters, cheque-kiters... maybe a quarter of this lot are criminals of any sort that deserve the name. They room us together regardless, sixteen-year-old prostitutes with sixty-year-old lifers. Learn how to smuggle gear in your spare time, make weapons out of toiletries, get high on aerosols—there's an education for you. There is absolutely nothing just, useful, or worthwhile about this system. Nothing. It helps no one, teaches no one, changes nothing.

I try to stay sane. I used to think I liked a good challenge.



I exercise, not to keep in shape as I used to—I've no one to stay in shape for, not in this place god forbid—but simply as a way to shave a few minutes off the boredom, and in the vain hope it might help me sleep better. Sometimes it gives my head a rest, if only for a moment: more than worth the effort for that alone, then. It features as a small part of my private wading towards sanity programme.

We are allowed books, and I read as often as possible. I was big on reading when I was a kid, lost the habit after I left home and life seemed to open itself up to me. Now I've acquired it again, a necessary if qualified pleasure I intend to keep for myself even after I get out. If I get out. I try not to think about that most particularly. Ever tried not thinking about something? Cons pass round the same tired old line, like smoking someone else's stale fag: you only do two days, the day you get in and the day you leave.

That's because minding the days between is too painful.

There's a great deal to not think about in here. Amazing how much crap rattles about up there when you've nothing to do but listen to the wind blow.


I have gardening privileges, which does help. Sort of. I enjoy gardening, even before when we had the house I—never mind, none of that. Anyhow, it's the only thing I look forward to. I get to pretend I've some privacy; breathe fresh air for a change, see the sky, remember freedom like a dream from some other life, one I took for granted in a way I never will do again. If I'm not half-dead and mainly cracked when I get out. People say that all the time too—making sure this thing or that will change once they're shot of this cesspool. Usually you can tell they don't mean it, or believe it even as they say it. I say nothing. But I will change a great deal about my life if I get out, and I do mean it.

I smoke out of boredom. Actually, I hate smoking too, while we're at it. I could shift grains of sand from one pile to another, it'd have about the same effect. Watching your life waste away.

And I keep watch over what goes on because, though I don't care much about myself these days, it doesn't bear thinking about, I do mind seeing other women abused, hurt, taken advantage of—and the screws do everything you can imagine, and more.

The days are bad, they're really bloody awful if you want to know the truth.

Nights are worse.

That's when the demons return, the ones you keep at bay while the sun's supposedly up and the clamour of prison serves as a horrible kind of distraction—all of that falls away. There's still noise at night, there's always noise... the acoustics in this place are so dreadful it's hard to believe they're not deliberate—the din rises every day like a great wave beating against you, then drops to a troubling drone at night, its very randomness undermining any sense of relief you might get from its lessening. Sometimes I fancy I can hear the sounds of women trying to stifle their weeping—just the ones in our wing, of course, I'm not quite so far gone yet. But memory, loss of hope... there are any number of things that make nights almost impossible to withstand. The noise inside is far worse than anything the machine can crank out. The loneliness that closes round till you think you might suffocate. The thoughts that won't leave off. All the what-ifs and if-onlys, they mock you and line up like a row of bleeding parents shaking their fingers, confirming everyone's worst fears. Dyke cop-killer. How much worse can you get?

'Course if it wasn't dyke it'd have been something else—prostitute cop-killer, divorcee cop-killer, doesn't matter as long as it sells papers. But dyke, it does have that ring to it, bit of an edge... I've always liked it, myself. That it helped seal my fate is no fault of mine. In here, it's useful in a different way; being a dyke gives me an odd sort of negative status, frightens the sheep. Or at least the screws, there are several who could be even more trouble if the thought of me near their vitals with something sharp didn't give them a few bad nights—or so I truly hope. There's plenty of shagging among cons, most rather desperate—to keep the demons at bay, I expect. Protection's an issue, though nowhere so bad as I've heard them say it is over the pond. But the fact is, very few of these women would choose another if given their freedom—same as outside, really—and some stay shot of me for that reason alone. Fine by me. Some just hate me for it, of course—never mind I wouldn't snog any of this lot if you paid me. Well... I might consider it for a weekend in Spain. San Francisco, anyway.

As for the specific dead cop, I'm sorry in the abstract: that I took a life. There are days I don't know how to begin to cope with the idea, much less the reality. I run it over in my head and for the life of me—an expression one doesn't use idly in my situation—I can't see how I could've done anything but what I did. What in hell was I supposed to do, go find a cop to stop the cop who was raping her? By the time I'd got back the bastard would've been long gone, the damage to Trish unthinkable. Hit him harder? He was big, he was angry, he was drunk and he was out of his mind, crazy with hormones and adrenaline. I stuck that damn bottle in his neck, I wasn't thinking about killing him, just stopping him—but the second it went in—I knew. I knew it was fatal. A mortal wound. Christ, the blood shooting out of him....

I hate remembering how it felt, most of all.

When I take into account the particular life in question, it's pretty damn hard to feel sorry about a thing.

The days are bad, alright. The nights are endless.

Vegetarianism as a response to homicide: they could do a study.

It's not like there any books on how to deal with the subject.

I go back and forth about it. I suppose I always will.



Trish used to tease me about how fastidious I was—more than she, which is saying something. Live rough for even a few weeks, you'd be that way too. Taking out the rubbish every night whether it needed binning or not; so fussy about my showers and baths, the loofahs and pumice stones, plush towels and a small army of bath products tidy on their shelves... and then on my way to the bedroom, the scent of freshly-polished wood from the banister, when I'd done the furniture at weekends—. Memory is no comfort here, memory is a bastard. It's as much the enemy as the screws. However bad it is during the day at least the doors are mainly open, keeps the draughts moving—because the stink of this place! christ. The day-smells—inadequately-washed flesh, sweat, stale laundry, bad breath, spoiled or burned foods from the servery, rubbish piled up in the far corridors, the mouldy vents leaking god-knows-what into our lungs—they make cigarette smoke seem almost honest. At least it's something you control, cuts down on the rest.

But day-smells are nothing compared to the night-smells, of bodies sweating and thrashing in sleep, the wasted energies of the day rising from us all like some invisible, tainted fug... y'know, I've begun to wonder if people with certain mental disorders actually have a different odour. It seems to make sense—schizophrenics, it's a chemical imbalance, isn't it? ...but in truth I can't tell whether to trust my nose or doubt my own sanity with thoughts like these. Yet another thing books are no help with: She fancied she smelled madness at dark. Right. At the start of my time here, when overcrowding was so bad they were forced to let murderers share cells with lesser cons, I was stuck with a woman whose breath became so acrid in sleep I really thought I might totally lose it. She had no mental disorder. Turned out she was scared to death I'd slit her throat while she slept. It was stress, that's all. Just stress.

And under everything—but especially at night, far worse at night—are the open bogs. My mother was overfond of telling me I had a warm imagination. You don't need much of one to appreciate those bogs; in fact, best do away with it altogether. My life passes me by as I lie on a shabby pallet not worth calling a bed, with a sorrier excuse for a blanket, shivering even in autumn—the damp walls sweating, weeping—and everywhere, everywhere the creeping stench of shit. I live in a sewer. We all do. Might as well call it by its proper name, too.

Mine is Nicola Wade, Nikki. In the eyes of society, I'll be a convicted murderer for the rest of my life, which is effectively over at thirty-four. Officially, I've no savings left after the trial—poxy barristers should spend a year at a place like this, see how they feel about their precious justice then. Unofficially... there's still a bit of life out there for me, waiting, if only I could get to it. I've half-share in a business, a club that prospers even now I've nothing to do with it—there was a big bump in traffic right after, of course, punters wanting to gawp at Where it Happened. Must have doubled the nightmare for Trish.

I make efforts to remind myself I'm in good health—no small thing, here, don't get me started on that old soak in the infirmary, now that's criminal. I've still got a brain in working order, all that moronic self-esteem bollocks you're supposed to witter under your breath to keep yourself losing hope and drowning in self-pity. And I do try. But the suffering of some of these women is terrible, and if the misery that's fallen upon them is partly, even largely their own doing, that's no excuse for making it a thousand times worse with this place. So I try to stay alive, inside, for their sake if not my own. Life demands you make an effort, no matter the cause. Else I'd be the sort of walking dead you see in H-Wing.

And then they'd have won.



Staff come, staff go, they're all the same. So at first I thought she was just like them, one of them—hell, she was running the place. Young for the job; some kind of fast-tracker, then. New suit, same old bollocks. She tried to pull a few moves, the sort of thing they probably teach in some mid-level course—we're all in it together—as if she'd be kipping down in her commodious office any minute now to fight the good fight right alongside us. And so forth and so on: us against them, old boys' network, you know the sort of thing. At least I knew the sort of thing, I'd been here long enough. A damn sight longer than she had. That's what I thought, anyway.

You'll just have to trust me. She'd come to see me in stir, first time we'd spoken alone, and that's what she actually said. Almost had me going for a second, naff speechifying withal, she was good. I made a mental note to stay alert around her, but what I thought was—Pull the other one. Didn't they cover this sort of thing in some introductory class, straight out of the gate? So hard to get decent help these days. You can't trust anyone in this place—most especially people who ask you to trust them. Particularly when you're trussed up in the modern-day equivalent of a straitjacket.

I'd spent the weekend bound like a dog save when they let me up to use the loo, it'd been bloody cold and bloody uncomfortable, but what's a little inhumanity between enemies? Didn't even allow me my hour of exercise, half these prats probably think the Geneva Convention is some sort of monthly businessmen's luncheon. So I was fit to be tied alright, but that was Bodybag's doing. And in comes Stewart in her crisp suit, all sincerity and apologies. Wasn't as if Bodybag was about to get a black mark on her record for pulling this little stunt though, was it? The woman lowered herself to my level, sat on the edge of the bed, I could smell her perfume, not cloying or musky, very delicate, a bit spicy, and for a split-second I was horribly disoriented, then furious anything so pleasant should be in the midst of this hellhole. What right had she to come in fresh after a nice long weekend doing whatever people who willingly chose a job like this did—to be handing me a line about how she was going to change things? Co-operate my arse.

So I'd given it to her right between the eyes. She didn't bat one. For the second time.

Hey, nice to see a new story! I will agree that it is rather grim to begin with, but it does a really good job of giving the feel of being in prison, setting the tone as it were. I am looking forward to reading the rest of it. Thanks :D

Good vivid language, really pulls me into the prison with Nikki. Conveys her dark mood quite well. Looking forward to the next posting.

I'm really enjoying this story so far. I like the vivid descriptions of the smells, the noise and conditions of prison. It makes me feel like I'm in there with her and it really helps to understand Nikki better. Great start. Can't wait for the next chapter. :clap :clap :clap

This a great story. Your writing is excellent, your idea is original, your approach is novel and your story just flows, and gets through (to me at least! :) )

Thank you for writing this, and looking forward for more!

You've got something wonderful here. Very unique and quite vivid.
And I'd take something that is deliciously dark with a dash of grim anyday when it is written this well.
Cheers!

Hi all, yessss, feedback!!

Sapphire Glad to hear you're interested despite the Grim! When my betas mentioned it, I was a bit startled: Oh! Really? Hmm. I was so far inside the piece I was more focussed on what prison might do to someone like Nikki, emotionally: the Grim is part of what takes us to that other place, I hope.

Or, after living with it for a while, I'd managed to institutionalise myself, would be the other view. :lol

Lahbiblover Again, so happy to hear it's working for some people, that's quite reassuring. To explore Nikki, I wanted to try to imagine what it might be like from the inside, what strength of character it might take to withstand the whole setting. And as Kellykrackles said, it helped me maybe get to know Nikki better, too. So the 'atmosphere' was another way of looking at Nikki's internal climate, as it were.

iwoman Thank you, your comments were interesting and encouraging. I'm angstily aware it's not 'like' other fanfictions (that I've seen)... so I want to get a sense of how people are receiving that. I know it's different. Hearing about the 'flow' from a reader is also very important to me. :smile I didn't want to break it up at all and worried about that for some time. It's a bit too long to read in one sitting, and not paced for that anyway, but, I don't know... it's of a piece. (Or feels that way in my head.) But I knew if I posted all at once it might max people out... I tried to find a way to strike a balance. So it does feel odd to post in bits and pieces, but after a lot of encouragement from one of my betas (again with their greatness), I finally worked out places where breaks felt logical. We'll see.

strummingalong Cheers mate! Your enthusiasm reminded me: the mood of the piece might overshadow it at first, but there's humour here, throughout. It's meant to mitigate the Grim though it might be just me, that sort of thing is always a bit subjective I suppose. Humour is a characteristic of Nikki's that we see through the whole show, and I believe it's part of what makes her so resilient.

Thanks to everyone who wrote! Anything you want to comment on is fair game, keep 'em coming! :lol

Update info Second bit up tomorrow or Sunday latest. It's brief, so I will post another midweek... and then back to week-long intervals or so, it will be nearly the holiday by then and everyone will be busy with other things I'm sure. // bg3655

Very well-written. Really gets inside Nikki's head and I was wrinkling my nose up at all the vivid smells you described... Ugh!! Looking forward to more!

A great, evocative start to a story. Not sure I would have described it as bad as grim though. It's certainly an area that few fanfic writers seem to address for some odd reason. Too realistic for a happy, love story? Or maybe they think since Nikki is strong, spirited and respected that she has adapted seamlessly to prison life. Whereas I can certainly imagine her dark and brooding when left to her own thoughts in spite of the humour.

Look forward to the next chapter. I haven't read any of your fanfics before but I liked your take on the N&H letters. :)

I don't often comment on the fanfic, but this, as those above me have pointed out is particularly well written (which I deeply appreciate) and I have to echo as well in reiterating "vivid" and "evocative." I can fully accept this as Nikki's internal monologue. Excellent job at capturing the voice and the atmosphere.

Hi unlikelyheroine! I wanted to explore what might be hinted at in the show, but which we don't see, or can't access as directly. As for smell... media is all about seeing and hearing but not so great with the rest of the senses. :lol

Cassandra, glad you liked the letters! I have one other thing here, Liberties, which is as close to lighthearted as I'm likely to get, so you might want to check that out some time. hee.

I feel the same about the 'grim'... I didn't think it was horribly so, given the setting. But after my betas both reacted to that, first, I thought maybe I should warn people or they'd get turned off. But if one suggests something is grim then people will read it with that in mind. Perhaps my lesson there is, less said the better!

I hear you, and yeh, it's an interesting question. 'Happy' doesn't suggest 'lacks depth', to me. The opposite, in fact. Perhaps it's also about whether one likes or understands drama to be about 'external' things (job, family, etcetera) or perceives it to be about what's 'internal'. It may just be a matter of taste too. :lol

That might well be what it's about... again, I don't think there's a disparity: one doesn't have to preclude the other. How Nikki presents herself would not be the same as how she might feel in private--everyone does that, has those places they keep to themselves. It must be especially necessary in prison. She protects others, but she still needs to keep herself safe too.

Jeanna, hello and thanks so much! I was just going to put up a little snippet when I logged on to see your post. I'm glad you like the writing, hopefully there will be more to come! :lol

///

Update info: Very short update follows; another will be posted mid-week. // bg3655

Next she made a total cock-up of the drugs policy, cost me more than a bit of my pride. But she came to apologise, again, I had to give her that. I tore a strip off her but after I'd had a chance to calm down, I revised my opinion of her. Again. Just a bit, the slightest bit. Which kept happening.

It wasn't a steady thing; all the while she'd been banging on about finding the women who did drugs in order to help them, I kept thinking, You haven't a clue, have you. I rather felt my encounter with the squat squad qualified me for a special exemption from this kind of proselytising. Evidently not; she'd caught me outside the showers and seemed to feel the need to make her case right there, despite the fact that I was in my dressing gown and made my disinterest plain. She'd have been shocked, no doubt, to learn a woman got raped for her stash. All that muck about drugs and no one ever found out the one crime that did matter. Typical.

Though when she was faced with a real crime she took it seriously enough—much good it did—and again, I found myself unwillingly giving ground in these ongoing tussles she seemed hellbent on us having.

So it crept up on me, really; you get a fresh suit, everyone stands back to see how the so-called new regime will make things worse. Because things always get worse.

But not this time. Not much improved, at least not straight off, but a few little things functioned closer to spec: most of the bogs in the main loos now worked on a good day; there was a bit more hot water than usual; rubbish disposal actually began following a schedule. Though there was always something else to foul up the machinery. She was gutted when that poor kid Rachel topped herself, you could see that. Worried for her job no doubt, but upset too. For real. Women kill themselves, fall ill, go mad—and the screws make jokes as they clean the cell out, you'd hardly believe it if you didn't see it for yourself, just more shit clogging up the works. Garbage in, garbage out, alright. I know EMTs and the like have graveside humour but there's no call for that if it's not your usual job. And it might as well have been, here, for all the feeling they showed when some junkie OD'd or some desperate mum who'd just lost her kid cut herself, knee to thigh, seeing no other way out. That was when I first got here, gave me the smell of the place, and it never went away.


Helen Stewart didn't seem to find events like the suicide of Rachel Hicks remotely amusing. It made her angry. You could say we had that, at least, in common. More startling, though, when trivial things went sideways she was the same—angry, concerned. A sad creature who turned out to be Denny's mum—can you imagine anything more ghastly than ending up in the same nick with the woman who'd abandoned you as a baby?—she dropped her cutlery one day, so sick from the shakes she could barely force her arms to move. Bodybag was being a perfect wretch, as usual. Stewart saw it all, and she gave the old cow a good bollocking while still trying to help the woman up and get her a cuppa. I was there; she didn't do it because people were watching, she did it because it was the right thing to do, the decent thing to do.



I'd waited and kept my usual lookout, expecting her to get hardened to the place—that's what almost always happened, it's how you cope, screws and cons alike. Oddly, she didn't. The more opposition she encountered, the more she dug her heels in. Either the woman had character or she was bloody stubborn and far less intelligent than she appeared. Stubbornness might not be the most virtuous trait but again, you could say it was familiar to me; I rather admired her for it, however grudgingly. She learned quickly and rarely repeated mistakes. I'd been wrong about her, at least in part, I could see that—after a while—but I wasn't about to admit it, certainly not to her: she was waging some kind of private campaign to get me on her side, she'd been doing that from the start, too. As if I'm going to be a grass for anyone, much less the Wing Gov. Making a one-shot deal—while down the block, no less—didn't change a thing, a fact that wouldn't have escaped the greenest screw: still, she persisted. I'd blow her off time and again, yet she kept on. Always finding excuses to run into me for this or that, suggestions, questions, advice, even—as if this stubborn little Scot genuinely cared about my opinion. Being a murderer affords you a certain kind of status inside, like it or not. I knew it, she knew it.

It'd been so long since anyone had shown any kind of simple, human interest I suppose I was rather thick about it until it began to catch up with me. I realised her job or, likely, how she was going about it probably isolated her from those under her command more than usual—they certainly didn't want any changes. But the way she confided in me, or tried to... a bit odd, that, like a person coming home after a day at work. Sometimes I thought she just wanted someone to talk to; it struck me the woman was more than a bit lonely. Which had to be mistaken, made no sense given her appearance and outgoing demeanour. Wing Governors don't cosy up to convicted felons without good reason. It wasn't as if we were about to become best mates. I shrugged it off—she'd been kind but whatever was on her plate wasn't my business, or my problem. I had problems enough: prison or no I was focussed on Trish. Though I knew in the place I didn't want to look, the night-place, it was only a matter of time. I spent a lot of mine fretting over her—you can't ask someone to wait on you for ten years, maybe more, not really. And things had been slipping long before the disaster that changed both our lives. But the idea of her, out there—I couldn't let it go, I had nothing else. I kept Trish separated from all the rest, inside, the one safe place I had. Like a small vault that would somehow protect what little remained. A vault inside a vault.

I tried to lead Stewart in the right direction with Rachel. She asked and... she was right, it was the least any of us could do. After the fact. The very least. To be fair... the woman didn't make promises she didn't intend to keep, and she seemed sincere. More than sincere, she seemed to give a damn. I'd begun to think her relative youth might be just that: ambitious but too fresh on the job, too naive to see how things really were. Naivety's a luxury no one can afford in this place, not with a prayer of surviving it. She needed to know what kind of snakes were in her garden. But in the matter of Rachel Hicks, I could've told her to save herself the bother: she should have just pointed at every one of us and had done with it.

This is just a beautifully flowing story. Your writing is just spot on with Nikki's character and her thoughts about Helen.

:o OK, I am hooked. Very interesting, BG3655! It's like watching it all from inside Nikki's mind. Can't wait to read more. When does she get that certain feeling about the lovely Miss Stewart? Well done.

I lost my email settings, some board problem... I had to revalidate to update them, so I have no idea how long that's been going on or if I missed anything. If you wrote and did not hear back, that's why. My apologies, I had no idea there was a problem. :err


Hi lahbiblover, glad you're continuing to like it! It's helpful to hear a sense of flow/movement hasn't been entirely lost because it's being posted in pieces. Longer one coming, to help things along!

Good questions 5mins, ones I spent a lot of time thinking over... that's part of what this piece is about. I think they're kind of complicated, actually.... So I guess we'll have to wait and see! :lol


Update Info: Midweek update as promised, next will be Sunday-ish. // bg3655

People on the outside, they're always on about their jobs, partners, flats, and those things are a big deal, sure, they're basic—but they don't rate when you're banged up, there's nothing to compare. The death of someone close to you, a terminal illness... well, those sorts of things you're never prepared for. The really bad things, the unthinkable things. Being put behind bars, say. Possibly for life.

Trish leaving was the last straw.

At least she had the decency to tell me in person. Gave me a pack of fags. No more unanswered phone calls. No more dread. The end had been a long time coming. Which hardly made its arrival any kind of relief.



The littlest incidents set me off, I knew it and tried to manage but, you get right down to it, there was nothing very manageable about my situation. I wasn't a career criminal or a junkie, I wasn't a shoplifter or a bully or even a prostitute, I was just a sodding businesswoman who'd wound up on the wrong side of the looking-glass.

The murder, the trial, the long nightmare of prison, Trish... it pretty much stripped everything away. I'd been knocked so far off course I was scared I'd never get my feet back under me. What if I did get out, what then? How could I go back to anything like 'normal', knowing what I knew now? I couldn't see outside the bars any longer, if anything at all was there for me. That scared me too. I knew what I'd do in the abstract, but the reality... it seemed to fade, every day. You can't look forward to what you're not sure you'll ever taste again, it's killing.



So it was some time after Trish ended it before I discovered I wasn't as dead as I thought. For better or worse, I began to come alive a little. Well—for better and worse, some ways. Like an open wound just starting to heal. When you've had troubles, it's a lot easier not to feel too much of anything. You almost can't, it's as if you've broken something inside. Part of me was scared about that as well, the part that wasn't glad for the reprieve, because—what if it was permanent? What if I'd damaged myself in a way there was no coming back from? Ten years of this... what would be left of me? People thought I was tough and half the time I was shit-scared, bloody frightened to death. Bit of a joke, really.

I could only go on, try to do my time, survive it. Muddle through. That was it, that was all. Seemed simple enough, and simple seemed a good idea, a programme I could stick, stop my brain from burning itself out like a kettle left on the hob overnight. Keep my head in my books, with an eye over my shoulder all the time, just in case. Yeah well—you try it. Of course I'd get into it with the screws, I wasn't going to keep my gob shut over the worst of their offences, but you'd be surprised how much I let slide by me. I was. And more than a little sickened at myself, but... I had to get on. There was nothing else for it. So you go through your day and if it's a good one nothing troubles you very much: you haven't any spare change, you're broke.

Helen Stewart had change to burn.

Now, it's true you'd need to be stone blind or sporting a toe-tag to miss the fact that she was an uncommonly attractive woman, but at first that just got my back up too: part of me wasn't half-convinced it wasn't some tricky administrative ploy, eye-candy to keep the primates in line. You want to believe beautiful people are good, I don't know why. Human nature, I suppose. I look alright myself, I'm used to the face in the mirror; I like to fancy I've got at least a passing acquaintance with the person inside—and I know it gives no real indication of that person in almost any way that matters. After all, you wouldn't think I was a killer to set eyes on me, would you. So while my looks might work for a certain type of woman, and that's nice for both of us—it's not the first thing I'm after. A good heart counts for a great deal more. Brains count, a sense of humour counts; integrity, steadiness of character... and something else that's hard to name—drive, perhaps, a will to really take life by the throat till you can feel its pulse in your own blood. Maybe that's passion. Whatever it is, most people don't have it, not for the long haul. Trish was vital, very alive, she's a good person, a damn good person—but we'd lost it, that thing we'd shared which made every day seem to leap towards us, not slide away. I knew enough now, at least, to know you had to want it very badly, to keep it. You had to work at it, hard, not get lazy or sloppy or complacent. Of course, you had to be lucky enough to find it in the first place.

So perhaps it's not really so surprising that it took me what seems a long time, now, to begin to wonder if I might have found it, in all places, of all the very last places on earth, here—in prison. Locked away from life, from every kind of ability to act, make choices, take risks, make mistakes... what kind of luck was left for a convicted cop-killer, a dyke with a past that would follow her everywhere, closing doors right and left, always changing the balance in relationships, eliminating job opportunities, cutting short potential friendships—I could just see the cocktail-party chat. Real conversation-killer, me.

Helen Stewart, Wing Governor of G-Wing, HMP Larkhall, sailed right past all that. I don't know why. Maybe she simply believed it was not part of her job to judge, only administrate. All I knew was, when she looked at me, she seemed to see me. She wasn't afraid of me, didn't look down in contempt, despise me for my crime, or try to jolly me out of my tempers. She accepted what was in front of her and worked with that. She rarely took what I said personally when I was in a strop, was bloody adult about it, really, I don't know how she did that. I still don't: I've tried it myself, it takes a lot of effort. At the time it tended to set me off even more, I wanted a response, something—I didn't know, quite, what I wanted, I was bouncing all over the place. But she never backed off, there was no quit in her at all. She never looked away. And after a while, I began to find it harder and harder to look away myself. When someone seems to believe in you—for god knows what reason—you begin seeing yourself differently. And however badly you fail at it, you begin to want to offer up the best, only the best, in return.


I'd almost lost it with the screws, the day after Rachel's suicide; I totally lost it when Dockley took that cheap shot about there being more food to go round for the rest of us. Yet the Wing Gov didn't do a thing—gave me a slap on the wrist. I didn't know what to make of that, it was just... odd, set me thinking. She simply wanted me to keep it together? When you put it that way, it was so unexpected, so—well, reasonable... I decided what the hell, I'd give it a go, what could it hurt.

Then she wanted me to take OU courses; do it as a favour, she said, for her. So I agreed—she was playing me a bit but it was hard to mind; she didn't ask for a thing in return, it wasn't the kind of favour you could hold against a person. What she seemed to want, again, was for me to want it for myself. Which was harder than I ever expected, at first: a large part of me didn't want to want anything. But I tried, and after a while, it wasn't so bad: the class material was interesting and it kept my head off my surroundings. My efforts may have been invisible and more than likely for nothing, but I was making them.


It's funny, really, in the not-funny way so typical of my time here; classes were one thing, but—later... the harder I tried with her, the more I cocked things up, felt like. When I had space to pull back, sort things at night, I could see what I should have said clearly enough—what I would have said, in my other life, the one I no longer had. Like looking at myself in colour, then black and white. Here, my temper got the better of me more often than I care to admit. It was fear—okay, anger too... but mainly fear. I'd lost my hope, my future, anything to live for. The OU business actually made things worse in some ways; it was waking me up. Lots of things were waking me up. I didn't know that I was ready for it, but you don't get to choose when life calls you back.


I'd been existing on the surface, not living inside my skin as I used to, that just hurt too much—so a lot of my responses were even more impulsive than I'd been given to in the past, I'd precious little balance left, you see. The punishment society saw fit to mete out left us all with an animal kind of subsistence: to cope, I'd no choice but to trust my instincts; after a while, like the others, I sort of just rode with them. Situations came up, you had to deal. Instantly. It's plain dangerous not to know where you stand, in here. On occasion I could sit back, let others handle things, or at least be a bit strategic, but in living for or through those others, I became one of them of necessity. Animals turn on their own when overcrowded and pushed or threatened, everyone knows that. And blending in has never been one of my specialities—I found I'd even given in to slumping a bit to take the edge off my height.

So I skimmed over the days; found humour in little things when there was any to be found, challenged the most egregious offences by the screws--no shortages there--and tried to get on. Well, when my gob wasn't acting without counsel and getting me banged up. But the fact is, I felt on a tightrope nearly every moment, awake or asleep hardly mattered: most of the survival skills I'd forged on the outside were useless here. You've got to find new ones, or only the most basic—fight, flight, all of that—find you.

And after all, what else was there?

Yet my simple programme no longer seemed enough, somehow. I wasn't sure what should, or could, take its place.

You have a really nice grip on Nikki's voice in her more angry moments! I like the mushy bits as much as the next H&N fan, but it's easy to overlook that Nikki was already more than just a pretty face when we first meet her. This brings the - dare I say - more cerebral quality to the fore. Very much enjoying this POV. Looking forward to future chapters....

Great work. Nikki is a character worthy of this exploration. She is such an extroverted person, that it is nice to get this introspective perspective. I like the idea of her reliving conversations at night, and rethinking what she would have said "before" she became the Nikki we know.

Rock on, BG!

I agree with winsor's "cerebral" description and like the irony of its use by Nikki while she is describing having to live in a very non-cerebral way. I am really enjoying being inside of Nikki's head this way, instead of just seeing her stroppiness. Great job BG3655 :clap I'm looking forward to the next part.

Fabulous flowing language which is so spot on with the original character of Nikki. Even Nikki's thought's of Helen are just spot on. Just a great piece of writing. Really so happy to read this wonderful piece.

I meant to say just like strummingalong that the first few paragraphs were very emotional for me. Yeah, you made me cry, are you happy?

I don't know if it's what you had intended, but this last update made me think of the scene where Nikki tells Helen "you were more than someone I fancied, you were my hope..." and like the scene, the update made me cry.
Damn you BG3655! You and your brilliance!! :D
Cheers again!

Intelligent…but trapped empath…about to gnaw off her own paw…

...seeks naïve, pragmatist for romance.

It worked for Shed…and now for you. Cheers

Thanks for a great couple of updates, BG3655. You seem to have the captured the essence of the Nikki character, her innermost thoughts and tied them in with the script nicely. Not to mention a vivid feel of what prison life would have been like for her. I also liked how you emphasised that prison changed Nikki's behaviour. I'm sure that before Larkhall, Nikki was less aggressive and impulsive. Great to see a story set within the prison itself. Bring on the next chapter!

I'm really touched by the feedback here--I wasn't going to post replies till it was nearer to the weekend, but I just had to thank you all first. To hear someone's been moved enough by something you've written that they have a spontaneous emotional response--laughing, crying, anything--is wonderful.

Loved the 'damn you'!!

Seriously... it wasn't what I had 'intended', in that although there are moments which I myself might find funny, moving, or what have you--and I certainly hope others might too... different people will find all kinds of different things to respond to, many that I might never anticipate. That's why feedback is so valuable. I did aim for a mix of emotions throughout... when I could, within the same paragraph or even better, within a single sentence.

But I couldn't be happier to hear--wait, this isn't coming out right...

Hm, not sure how to put it. 'Glad I made you cry'? --somehow just doesn't... sound... quite the thing does it?!

Heavens no! (hee) I'm not happy to hear I made you cry, personally. But um. Well okay I am. If you see what I mean, and can forgive me. :hug


More replies to feedback and update late Sunday, big thanks for keeping the thoughts and responses coming!

BG no apologies are necessary. Besides, what's a few tears between writer and reader....that sounds wonky but you get what I mean right? :)
Now if I may, I want to relay exactly where in the last update I was reminded of the 'hope' scenes.

When someone seems to believe in you—for god knows what reason—you begin seeing yourself differently. And however badly you fail at it, you begin to want to offer up the best, only the best, in return.

I'd lost my hope, my future, anything to live for. I didn't know that I was ready for it, but you don't get to choose when life calls you back.

Call me crazy but Nikki sounds awfully hopeful here, and hope, as we all know; thy name is Helen.
Damn -sniff- there I go again! :cry2

Hi! Wanted to catch up with some other comments before posting the next bit...

Oh of course! :) I do know, and agree. Thx for clarifying... --it's not wonky, it's how things should work, when they're working. When I read something, I want to be able to go back and find more, if I enjoyed it the first time. I want to experience some of the same moments, but I hope to find new ones, details... that kind of thing. So I'm really glad it moved you--again. That's even better. It's a big part of what I was aiming for. :smile

Why yes, you may! ;D Why shouldn't it be, after all? If, as 5mins says (and of course I couldn't agree more), 'Nikki is a character worthy of exploration' then she deserves some thought herself! :lol

We know Nikki's intelligent. We know she reads... but what would she do with all that 'free' time besides think, when you get down to it? Sure she's impulsive and all the rest, everything we see on screen. But we know there's more to her, all the things that make her Nikki--and a hero: her strengths and her flaws. And... anyone who feels as much as Nikki does isn't going to have an 'off-switch' that's easy to flip. That would be an ongoing struggle for her, too.

This was so interesting, that you felt I'd got Angry!Nikki down... I had to smile a bit, because--well. ;grin She barely gets irate in this part--or so I thought! Did you mean when she was talking about the dressing gown scene by the showers--was that it?

Still just warming up....

Thanks sapphire! What you say rings true for me; I wanted to dignify what we know of Nikki--what we believe of her when she acts for others--I wanted to do that for her, too, in a way. I think she is complicated enough as a character to hold up under that kind of scrutiny. Her reactions may turn on a dime, but I can't believe she doesn't think about them (and her life), later, afterwards. ...When I look at what might have been behind the stroppy, though, I try to never lose sight of how unbearable her situation must be.

tudy, :D!

I think she would have had to have been... the setting is unnatural and extreme, so its harshness would bring up in response many of the sort of emotions we see, not just from her but others too, sort of painted with big red brush-strokes.


Update Info: Next bit, coming up. Best wishes to everyone for the holidays--may you be happy and well! // bg3655

After she sent me up to the Threes, she'd given me a book—an act which must easily have broken a dozen regs. Offhand, casual—as if we were, in fact, friends; there was no detail of the gesture indicating she'd have done otherwise with anyone else. Still, its very presence in my new cell left me a bit scrambled. Yet there it sat, bold as day.



Despite my circumstances I don't think so badly of myself—well, not when my mood or the complete hopelessness of my situation isn't getting the better of me, give me a few crumbs, I can make a meal of them. And what I have to offer, at least on a good day, is still pretty substantial. Or would be, if said circumstances were different. But I didn't have the ability to exactly lay out the goods in an appealing package, as I might have considered doing with someone on the outside, and wasn't at all sure I wanted to, it was stupid to even consider. OU or no, this wasn't a life of my choosing, one I could shape, the very idea was a mirage. My life was nothing here, it was shit. Wanting more didn't help. Feeling more certainly didn't help.

Fact is... I was in extremis. I don't know how else to put it. It felt shameful even to think, for if my life had come to such a dire pass, surely it was no one's doing save my own. When there's truly no fixing what's gone wrong... best not dwell. What possible use is there sticking a thumb up your arse to examine the exact contours of your pain? But—alright then, so... I admit it. It was that bad.

And when you have to live like that, when you're literally that banged up and full of misery, rage, fear... only something of equal measure will do. I tended to believe the evidence of my senses, they were what I'd left to rely on, and—well, they'd been at it for some time, but I'd been ignoring them rather stubbornly, I am at least consistent—they were pretty determined in telling me that this woman carried a charge equal to my own.

I hadn't encountered that before. Not ever. Not even close.

The love Trish and I still shared felt now like something passive: it had for a long time. A love we could both count on, always—and I was deeply grateful for it—but this was different. Whatever this new business was, this—thing... it was beginning to feel more than just active. Electrified. And that scared me; my head had plenty of time to question my senses. More than too much. I'd decided to call it a crush, made more fierce by circumstance, perhaps—sod that I was too bloody old for it; attraction, then. Or maybe just interest. I didn't want to focus on it overmuch, it was too vague and too loaded, all at the same time. At that point and for quite some while after, I was overly—really, flagrantly—careful not to call it more or different when considering the matter: I was desperately at the disadvantage here, and just as keen to protect myself if it was simply that I'd been too long behind bars to know reality from another bad joke at my expense by the gods or whoever runs things. Hadn't they had enough fun with me already? I vowed to stay neutral as possible—hang that neutral has never been my speciality either.

So what Helen Stewart got, oftener than I wanted—after that first stretch, anyway—was me at my worst, nothing like what I intended. Even as a friend. As if that were possible. And still she didn't turn away. It wasn't that she liked fighting, I don't think; she just seemed to understand what I meant rather than what I said. That was the hook, I couldn't back off from it. She didn't only see me: something in her recognised me.



No one should ever have to be this horribly alone, though I suspect it happens to everyone at some point in their lives, this kind of isolation. But loneliness in a crowd not of your choosing, this crowd... not good. Trish and I, we'd had our rows but I'd had a handle on things then. Or maybe I had stopped caring as much as I thought, or wanted to. I hoped not for her sake—everyone likes to think well of themselves, and I hated to think I'd turned into someone like that, but then... that's what turning into someone like that means: it sneaks up on you. I don't know. Perspective is just one of the many items in short supply in prison. What I did know was that whatever it was I had began to feel for Helen Stewart or sense about her, the uncertain connection between us... it wasn't on a scale I could measure. It was not a place I'd been.

It was seductive, it was dangerous, and I was in enough danger every day already. I didn't want to be losing my mind into the bargain, it was all I had left. I can read women pretty damn well when it comes to a basic level of interest, but I was no longer sure I could read myself.



So it crept up on me, it honestly did—well, until it hit me over the head like a sledgehammer. And continued to do so. Always. At first I was only aware in a dimly pleasant sort of fashion that I'd begun looking forward to seeing her, as you would a casual acquaintance or even a friend. Which was—I grew to know it—dead stupid. The worst kind of folly. She was a prison officer, I was a prisoner, we could never be friends, not really—my head knew all of that but still, it was as if she provided the one bright splash of colour in the dull and ugly fabric of my days. And—I don't want anyone thinking I'm obsessed with smell, there are other, better things to be obsessed with but—this place, it's like some great bloody sludge of olfactory toxins, and the woman did smell remarkably good. Clean clothes, the faint scents of her soap, shampoo, conditioner; some days these were layered with what was probably a body lotion, some not. A moisturiser. Touch of make-up. The actual perfume she wore... her own bodily chemistry blended them like a small miracle every day into a harmonious, distinct whole that was her, it was like a shot of pure oxygen when she stood beside me or moved in closer for some fragment of confidential chat. Initially it was distracting in a remote way, I was barely conscious of it, wrapped up in my anger, my worry and sadness over Trish. Later—well. Everyone knows smell is intimately wrapped up with taste. I was still fairly young. Okay, so I'd gone a bit feral but was a right healthy animal when you get down to it, increasingly and rather uncomfortably alive, and whatever the current running between myself and this self-contained, bullheaded Scot, on the most basic level it was as purely elemental as your five senses: I liked being near her.

Perhaps she liked being near me. She'd found excuses enough.

The chats were becoming looser, more personal.

And she'd begun flirting with me.

The real business—serious, dead-earnest flirting. If you can say such a thing about flirting. What you could say for sure was that it tipped the scale.

For she had no idea what she was about. She meant it, alright—but she didn't know she meant it. It was as unconscious, as playful, as close to innocent as a full-grown woman turning on the wattage could be to a child in deep, profound sleep. They were both there, side by side, and the easy pleasure she'd begun to take in my company wasn't something I was eager to part with. I didn't want to wake her. And I didn't want to lose her.

I'd begun to let myself think there might be something to lose, you see, before I could even start to trust it was real, or that we might have a chance at it, something more than just this surface we were gliding over. That was sheer and fast, I'd be lying to say I didn't enjoy the rush. Neither, however, did I want to be responsible for two when my responsibility was to myself only. Not in this situation, most especially. If it happened at my club, I'd know what to do. If I'd met her at a party, a friend of a friend, I'd know what to make of it. I'd like to believe I'd've walked in the other direction: avoiding entanglements with straight women is the first rule of dyke self-preservation for a set of very good reasons. I wasn't already so far gone as to be... that far gone, was I? But here—everything was different, I was afraid I'd lost my compass. I wasn't close to anyone—and am not such a fool I think real friendships are expendable. So even on that level, it felt terribly risky.

Round it went in my head, it was all impossible, wasn't it? She was my warden, my governor, I was a convicted felon. She was sincerely interested in my well-being—that, I did believe. But increasingly, there was this other thing, this more urgent push beneath the flirting, the casual confidences... and she was straight. Far as I knew. Straight, and sound asleep, free to be unconscious as she liked. It would do my head in if I let it. So no, I don't believe I'd have stood for it more than a short while, on the outside: there's a limit to the number of games you can play with straight women. There's no limit, for them. They can wake up the next morning and call it whatever they like.

I wanted her to wake up on her own, however, very much.

Hey BG, another great update!

I was struck by the electricity theme that you used. I especially liked "this woman carried a charge equal to my own" as a description that equates with that 'soul mate' tag that shows up so frequently with Nikki and Helen.

I also loved the obsession with smell that Nikki doesn't have *rolls eyes*..."this place, it's like some great bloody sludge of olfactory toxins"..."her own bodily chemistry blended them like a small miracle every day into a harmonious, distinct whole that was her, it was like a shot of pure oxygen", yeah right :rofl

And then there is the flirting bit, I always kind of thought that Helen knew what she was doing, at least most of the time, in her efforts to get Nikki on her side, just from the snippets we were allowed to see. But Nikki's point of view is interesting "She meant it, alright—but she didn't know she meant it. It was as unconscious, as playful, as close to innocent as a full-grown woman turning on the wattage could be to a child in deep, profound sleep. " Really great description there.

"Straight, and sound asleep, free to be unconscious as she liked" is a wonderful description of Helen, and Nikki's desire to have "her to wake up on her own" shows just how much she has already fallen for Helen.

And now I will stop pretending that I know the first thing about writing :D This story inspires me to step outside of my box, thanks BG!!

What can I say other than this piece is just fabulous. The thoughts of Nikki just seem so spot on with our original Nikki. You captured Nikki's turmoil and her passion and her complexity. I also loved "this
woman carried a charge equal to my own".

I'm having a hard time putting into words just how good I think this piece is. Your words just flow like butter and are just so succinct and beautiful. This update really captured the essence of Nikki and Helen.

I have to say this (and I don't know if anyone else has seen it the same way):
I love how everything about Nikki and her feelings is so "real"!
It's not love at first sight sight, or one of those hallmark story lines. It's very real, and grounded, and grows out of the small everyday things we are all exposed to, and miss most of the time. And I love the poetry you write with everyday words and thoughts, and how it feels like I'm just listening to an old friend telling a story that means a lot to them.
I want to say much more, but I don't think anything I say will be quite enough.

Thank you for writing "Nikki", which is quickly becoming one of my favorites..

"She just seemed to understand what I meant rather than what I said. She didn't only see me: something in her recognised me."
sigh...That's so romantic BG and quite lyrical. (I've got the guitar ready whenever you are)

[QUOTE]For she had no idea what she was about. She meant it, alright—but she didn't know she meant it. It was as unconscious, as playful, as close to innocent as a full-grown woman turning on the wattage could be to a child in deep, profound sleep. They were both there, side by side, and the easy pleasure she'd begun to take in my company wasn't something I was eager to part with. I didn't want to wake her. And I didn't want to lose her.


This passage has been quoted previously, but I must add my WOW to the mix. I too really felt like Helen knew what she was doing with that smile, and popping in to see Nikki whenever she wanted, nudging her in the directions she wanted her to go. She did not know she meant it. So well said, BG3655.

Yay you, for bringing such a different story to light.

Hi all! Wanted to pop in and reply to this new batch....

Thanks so much! I liked the electricity bit myself, and spent a lot of time thinking about the phrase you quoted... until I got it: then it was so clear I had one of those Just step away from the keyboard moments! :) It had to be just right.... And it had to do justice to both these remarkable characters and the feeling itself.

:rotfl! Perfect!! Yes indeed.

Actually, those are great bits of feedback! Because I don't expect everyone to agree with every single tiny detail in this piece--that would be a lot to hope for given how strongly people feel about this character (well both of them), and how differently we all respond to them in many places. But I am really encouraged to know that even if your perceptions are different... you're willing to go with it, that was good to hear. ;grin It might be worth mentioning that my own take on things is not always in line with some of Nikki's perceptions in this piece, either! :lol

We know Nikki has a category in her head for 'straight women' and what she says about them when feeling angry, for example... but here at this early point it seemed to me that if she's not sure if Helen has any idea what she's really about... that would at least allow Nikki to err on the side of caution. She'd want to be fair about it, give her the benefit of the doubt.

I had a lot of fun playing with some of the small things Nikki gives away, without quite letting on to herself. In the line quoted, I always thought that 'very much' was... rather telling.

Thank you, you should step out more often! Everyone knows something about writing, they know what works for them, and that's as sound a place as any to come from or start with. You hit all the major notes in this part spot on! :grin

Hi lahbiblover, glad you are still along for the ride! It's very gratifying to know when a line you're fond of 'lands' for other people too! :biggrin


iwoman, good to hear from you again!

Yes, that is one of the most basic assumptions I started with, as you see... I know some people have other views, but... given Nikki's situation, how risky and serious this is for her, it made sense to me.

There's nowt quite so scary as posting something like this and... well, fearing you might just end up listening to the wind blow, as Nikki put it. Hearing back about any aspect of the piece is valuable: it all matters. ;hug to you all.

Hmmm... it is quiet round here, isn't it! Fairly short update today; a slightly longer one mid-week; then another short one next Sunday. Lots of people are busy or away from their computers this time of year, so that way they'll have a chance to catch up, hopefully. Happy holidays and best wishes for the New Year to everyone! // bg3655

When she approached me in the library, if I'd taken too long to think what I was about, I might have screwed it up. Big time. I was out of practice, to say the least. Sure there were always women at the club—you dip in, say your hellos or someone stops by to chat you up, nothing important, it was just business. Trish and I—hell, that was over a decade ago. But no, some things don't change, this—whatever this was—being one. I slipped into a groove so natural to me, so comfortable I didn't have to think. It was where I lived. I'd forgotten how pleasant it had been.

As it happened, to me the whole brief exchange had a feeling of... well, almost inevitability about it. They get a bit curious, they ask—something. Doesn't matter what. She had the grace not to ask, after the first few questions. But I thought— ...and then she'd stopped dead in her tracks, there was nothing else to say, really. She just looked kind of flummoxed, I'd the urge to somehow reassure her. So I was running on instinct when I responded, it had carried me this far. Right into prison, in fact. In this sorry excuse for a library, standing beside no one's sorry excuse for a woman, she was lovely and so terribly puzzled; the part of me that was standing back couldn't help but find it a bit endearing—the rest of me found it predictable, amusing, and irritating in equal measure: I wasn't at all sure she knew what she was asking me, or why. It was all brilliantly strange, those few moments, like some improbable, logical dream you'd rather just went on—we were teetering right on the edge, I knew it; my body knew it. I always trust my body. I thought, Alright, then: you asked.

I also knew to keep it cool, very low-key; not only was that the sole way to play it given the circumstances, it was the only approach not just with a woman like Helen, but most particularly, Helen herself. If she didn't want to take what I said personally, I'd left her a tiny escape clause. Suggesting she might give it a go sometime didn't have to mean with me, if you were giving evidence in an adjudication, say. If she turned it over in her head later, she could tell herself that. I do know what dealing with these types of situations is like in general, and I could read her well enough on that level, or so I reckoned. Whatever their motivations, if they think about it at all, they tell themselves it's, you know: aesthetic.

In short, it was still just a game: she'd upped the ante the smallest bit—almost by accident, caught herself out, I suspect. But I'd followed suit, and if she'd considered it—she hadn't, of course, or she'd never have spoken in the first place—what else could she have expected? A kind of courtship if you like then. I was nowhere near ready to call it that myself, though of course that's what it was. In spades. Neither of us had brought anything to the table we couldn't walk away from, not yet. But everything in me knew we were drawing close, closer to a time it got to be a bit more real. A bit too real.

Real makes them uncomfortable, almost always. The part of me that was carefully nurturing a small hope, I protected so fiercely I barely had to look at it. Like a tender sapling you couldn't water directly, only mist. Hoping she'd like Real: that she'd rise to it. Play is fun, for a while. It'd given me some of the only good days I'd had in this place. But you can't live on it. So we were both playing games with ourselves. I knew what we were playing at, or felt I'd sussed the general outline fairly well, at any rate; she didn't, or was playing she didn't—same nett result, either way. And the stakes, I felt at the time, were rather different for each of us. I couldn't really trust her, not about this. I was scared to trust myself. Sod it then: I'd be responsible for my part, she could do as she liked with hers.

When you're right in the middle of something, you can't see the shape of it clearly, where it goes—or where it ends. Not calling it other than whatever I'd settle on from one moment to the next was safer and I suppose—a bit superstitious: if I didn't risk naming it... it didn't have to end.

So I'd handed her the book and walked away.



Plants need soil if they're to grow at all. Yes, they can live on air, some of them. Not indefinitely though. They need soil for nutrients, and they need it to protect them when the frosts come and the ground grows hard and ungiving.


I've given some thought over the years to whatever it is, goes on in their heads. But she thought... what, exactly? I suspected she'd been about to say most women had been with a man at some point in their lives. And that's true but so what? We weren't talking generalities here, we'd been speaking rather specifically. As specifically as either of us had been willing, anyway. She wasn't a fool and knew full well, if only in theory, that you didn't need a man to enjoy yourself; I never stuck around for the rest if that old saw came up, can't be arsed. Totally disingenuous. Pisses me off, if you want to know the truth. In this day and age? get real. Because if you don't know what two women do in bed, well then, that's why God gave you an imagination, isn't it. No, I think either they draw a complete and perfect blank before the unthinkable—or see it all too well, and somehow blame you for that too, find a way to make it your doing. So if they actually say something quite that stupid, they're just taking the piss, aren't worth even the bother of a reply. But Helen Stewart wasn't shallow and she certainly wasn't malicious—I'd've never given her the time if so. She was honest enough to stop herself asking whatever had been in her head because she knew—she knew it would have been, would have to be more personal than anything that had come before. Whatever the hell it was. She'd tiptoed onto the ice and been brought up short: maybe it was thinner than she'd assumed, out here in No Man's Land. So what I said gave her an out that way, too. Ironic as that may be. I was alright with that part of it: after the library, I figured she'd had fair warning. If she still wanted to skate, well, I'd see how I felt about it depending on the weather. Sorted.

That's what I told myself. But... it had begun to get in the way, this whole business. You can go out on very sheer ice for just so long. If it cracked, as I feared it would—it would have to—I could only hope we'd both rise to the surface, somehow, gasping for breath, and manage to swim to shore.

I don't know what to say about this except it just keeps getting better. You are definitely in Nikki's head and it sounds just like what Nikki would be thinking. You are just outrageously good.

Aha! A new update. Fear not BG3655 I shall post/PM longer review later, but just to say a Merry Christmas and to keep up the great work! :xmas2

A penetrating intellectual depth to Nikki's thoughts,very impressive, i also enjoyed the bit you and abzug wrote on the letters between Nikki and Helen.Very precisely and clearly expressed writing.


Patti

Update Info: Hi all and thanks for the very kind comments! Bit of a setback, unexpected houseguests and some other things will make the next week or so busy, I'm afraid the update will have to wait past this weekend... possibly until next.

Very sorry, I tried to avoid that but... stuff happens! :blush


Alright, I'm back and thanks all for your patience...!

Further Update Info: Small one after this mid-week, another short one after it next weekend... then back to regular weekly updates!