(Fic) Stockton Gala Days
Here's the second of the Faith ficlets I wrote over Christmas (the first is here if you missed it). Unlike 'Getting In the Game', 'Stockton Gala Days' is much less dark. I mean, it's still pretty bleak and depressing, since this is an episode from Faith's life, after all... but here's she's more able to take care of herself. And even, maybe, take care of others too.
This takes place a couple of weeks after her trial and conviction for murder. Rating 18 for explicit sexual themes (and since it's set in a women's prison, I'll leave you to work out what that means in practice...). 955 words.
Stockton Gala Days
Plenty of screwing went on in NCWF Stockton. Faith wasn’t particularly surprised; she’d heard all the jokes about women’s prisons. Told a few herself, for that matter. It was against the rules, of course; but people don’t get sent to jail because they like obeying rules. Lots of opportunities to be had, if you were quick and careful and knew where to go, and knew which guards were willing to turn a blind eye. Or not turn it, maybe: there were rumours some prisoners had paired-up permanently, and got the guards to switch their cell assignments and put them in together in return for a free show now and then.
Faith wasn’t into that, of course; she’d do what she did for herself alone, not to give some fat-faced guard his jollies. Still, she’d lie awake at nights sometimes - often, in those early weeks - and listen to the distant muffled noises of the cell block. Maybe twice a week there’d be some disturbance; a fight, or someone getting hysterical, or screaming abuse at God-knows-what; and then the other prisoners would start yelling and complaining until the harassed guards came along to break things up and restore the silence.
But it was never entirely quiet even so: certainly not to a Slayer’s enhanced senses.
In the stillness of a California night even the breathing of 200 women crammed in together echoed like the distant ocean, and that wasn’t even mentioning the snores and coughs and grunts. The occasional soft weeping. The laughter. And, yeah, the half-suppressed moans and gasps as people jilled off, or two cellmates went at it together. You learned to keep it quiet, at least if you didn’t want to hear ironic cheers of encouragement and catcalls from the neighbouring cells. Some girls never got over the embarrassment; some thought it was all disgusting; Faith, of course, didn’t care. She’d always had a bit of an exhibitionist streak, and the nights when she shoved her own hand down the front of her prison-issue pants, she didn’t bother to try and keep herself quiet. What the others thought didn’t affect her.
Still, it might be nice to get someone else to bring her off now and then, instead of it always being just her. And it might help her stake a claim in the prison hierarchy, which she pretended not to care about but still kept careful track of. So she kept her eyes open for a likely catch.
She was small and blonde, in on the three-strikes rule for drug dealing. Had a vulnerable air about her that said she wasn’t likely to last long here on the inside, not without a protector. Faith wouldn’t have looked twice a year ago, or maybe she’d have joined in on the baiting. Now, though, perhaps there was an element of rough chivalry urging her to look after the girl herself. Or maybe there were other reasons for noticing her, but Faith was never much for self-analysis.
She didn’t take much persuading. She claimed to be straight, but the joke at Stockton was, you checked your heterosexuality at the door, got it back in 12 to 18. Faith, of course, was in for life. So sooner rather than later they found themselves in the laundry stock room with a clear 25 minutes before the guards came back through.
They’d kissed awkwardly, roving hands on each others’ bodies, until Faith grew impatient at the fumbling and slid her hand into the girl’s knickers, pressing down on her clit and expertly rolling it between her fingers until she brought her to a rapid, efficient orgasm. Waving off her thanks, she’d unbuckled her own jeans and hitched herself back onto one of the wide laundry racks, guiding the girl into position between her thighs.
She’d hesitated at first, not sure what to do until Faith gave her a few handy pointers - with a gentleness and patience that would have surprised most people who thought they knew the Slayer. Then Faith had lain back, breathing in the clean scent of fresh laundry, closing her eyes as the soft, persistent flicker of the girl’s tongue sent mounting waves of warmth through her. As her pulse quickened she writhed, moaning deep in her throat, gripping the rack tightly to avoid moving too violently and hurting the fragile girl kneeling between her legs.
Blinking open her eyes again, she tried to focus on the gently bobbing blonde head, shining golden in the sunlight slanting in from the high, barred windows. For a magical moment reality shifted; she knew who her lover really was, knew her dreams had come true, knew her redemption had won her this prize. Her heart swelled in her chest, tears of joy glimmered in her eyes, as the banked fires of her orgasm roared higher and higher until they consumed her, and she cried out her lover’s name.
Reality bites. Faith had dressed quickly and in silence after that, avoiding the girl’s eyes, their look of hurt confusion, the unspoken question. She hadn’t suggested a second meeting. Guilt overpowered her, and self-disgust, and anger.
But guilt is a funny thing. Two weeks later, Faith had come across two of the other lifers pushing the girl around in the showers. One of them had jokingly asked if Faith minded if they played with her cast-off. Five seconds later, they’d both been stretched out cold on the tiled floor, staining it red with their blood. That earned Faith a week of DD, but she was used to that. It was worth it, to make the point.
Even so, Faith’s next prison girlfriend was a 5’11’’ black-haired Mexicana, and in all her three years inside she never went near a blonde again…
Authors' Notes:
'NCWF' is the Northern California Women's Facility at Stockton, CA. It was a prison built to house 400 women prisoners from Categories 2 and 3, although by the time Faith went there it had over 700 inmates, achieved by forcing most prisoners to share a cell. Accommodation is divided into four cell-blocks; Faith is in Block C.
'DD' is withdrawal of all privileges and restriction of movement, imposed as a punishment.
'Stockton Gala Days' is a song by 10,000 Maniacs. "Emerald green like none I have seen, apart from dreams that escape me. There was no girl as warm as you. [...] Blue in the stream, like none I have seen, apart from dreams that escape me. There was no girl as bold as you. [...] How I've learned to hide, how I've locked inside, you'd be surprised if shown. But you'll never, you'll never know."