TamiraK
TMF Poster
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Farah’s Odyssey I: Divide & Conquer
by TamiraK
(contains m/f, f/f, violence and non-consensual tickling)
The following takes place several years after the events of Gargalaphobia…
PROLOGUE
“You wished for it – you got it!” pronounced Rooster Beauregard Jnr., President of the United Republican States of America, to devout applause from his supporters in the oval office.
He passed the treaty to his left where it was received and co-signed by Jack Jackson, President of the United Democratic States of America, who declared with solemnity, “This will be a new beginning. May it bring a lasting peace.”
“Not exactly a snappy quote for the history books,” Beauregard Jnr’s vice president whispered to his team.
A Chinese administrator confirmed that the ceremony was complete and the two presidents stood and shook hands, neither appearing happy to do so. The event was broadcast live to billions of television screens across the world.
The civil war was over. Officially, at least.
The three years of anarchy, bloodshed and destruction that ignited like a flash fire after decades of intense pressure stoked by extreme political divisionist rhetoric petered into a mutual retreat, which led to a further three years of stalemate as furious negotiations took place over territory and control of every integrated system in the land. The world’s greatest thinkers pointed out that one didn’t need to be a great thinker to know that it was not possible to extract eggs out of a baked cake; a country is easy to divide geographically but not politically. When two warring factions live side-by-side-by-side-by-side from north to south and coast-to-coast, nobody will be satisfied by any agreement.
With the world consequently sent into its deepest ever recession, NATO reduced to insignificance by endless fence-sitting by its members and Russia permanently castrated by it’s own historic miscalculations, it was the leader of China who volunteered, and was appointed by the United Nations, to act as a mediator. He successfully managed to persuade both sides that it was necessary to establish a demilitarised “neutral territory”—officially named The American Corridor—between them. This 80-mile wide area formed a ragged line from south-west New Mexico to the Delware River, and would be under Chinese-led control until a unanimous agreement could be reached about the exact border between the UDSA and the URSA. The American rulers reluctantly agreed, much to the bitter dissatisfaction of the populations on either side of the corridor, who resented China’s involvement and quickly agreed that the neutral zone would be referred to as The Scar.
Anger at the situation was especially prevalent among the people of the URSA. Their side claimed a great victory by securing Washington DC and the White House, but their land mass was noticeably smaller than the left-wing UDSA’s. To their mind, the whole of the corridor should be theirs. Obviously, quibbling over this matter meant it would take years or even decades before a conclusion was reached and the Chinese leadership were happy to diminish concerns by promising that the laws within the neutral zone would not take any strong political leaning, even though future events may lead to justifiable reasons for backtracking on this promise…
CHAPTER I
SIX YEARS EARLIER…
It was just after 11:30pm in Dallas, Texas, as three sisters—Sabrina (23), Farah (21) and Mira (18)—shared the back seat of a taxi cab on their way home from a friend’s birthday party.
“I broke the law! I broke the law!” chanted Mira from the middle seat, dancing her arms in celebration.
“Strictly speaking, Sabi broke the law,” said Farah. “She bought you the drinks.”
“Thanks! Why don’t you tell the whole world?” replied Sabrina, indicating the cab driver.
“Oh, he don’t care. Do you, Mr Driver?” said Mira, leaning forward. The cab driver just smiled and nodded. “See? He don’t care.” Mira slumped back in the seat.
“We’ve got no chance of hiding your alcohol intake from mama,” said Farah, shaking her head as she looked out the window.
“Yours neither,” said Mira. “Like you know how to hold your drink more than I do!” She poked Farah in the waist, making her jump and squeak.
Farah looked down on her younger sister. “You shouldn’t do things that you know will get you in trouble!”
Mira was already giggling and grabbed Farah’s hands as they came towards her, but Farah nodded for Sabrina to take action and Mira was instantly overwhelmed – her older sisters knew exactly where to tickle her and she sank into the seat with shrieks of laughter as she was attacked on both sides. In retaliation, she grabbed for her sisters’ vulnerable spots. Sabrina and Farah spasmed and tried to avoid the probing fingers but there was nowhere to go. They started laughing too and increased the intensity of their offensive.
The cab driver gawped into his rear-view mirror – short, sparkly dresses rode up amid the tussling and shrieking to reveal three writhing pairs of smooth, tanned legs. It was only when an oncoming car flashed its lights and blew its horn that he snapped out of his trance and swerved back into his lane.
“Woah!” said the girls in unison as they slid across the back seat. Then they looked at each other and snickered. They were very used to turning mens’ heads individually, but when they were together they attracted even more attention. It was a common experience to hear a jealous wife or girlfriend hitting their partner and the beginnings of an argument fade into the distance as they walked past. They were very different from each other – Sabrina was business-minded, 5’10” and had the confidence and poise of a renowned fashionista; Farah was sporty, recently discovered a love for martial arts, and was often referred to as a tomboy; and Mira was a natural academic, petite, fun-loving and the very definition of cute. Many people compared their mother to the Algerian actress Amel Bouchoucha in her heyday, and that beauty had certainly been passed down to her daughters along with the bright spirit and positive attitude of both of their parents.
“Thank you Mr Driver!” said Mira in a particularly flirtatious manner as they exited the cab outside the family home. The cab driver opened his mouth to speak but words deserted him and he pulled away, leaving the three sisters to share a laugh.
Then Farah’s smile wavered as she noticed that the front door to the house was ajar; not a wise thing to do in their neighbourhood and not something either of their parents would have done on purpose. “Wait. Why is the—?”
PT-TSHH! One of the house’s front facing windows smashed outwards, making them jump.
“—and we don’t want you here, ain’t that right, Tyler?” shouted a stranger’s voice from inside the living room.
“Mom! Dad!” cried Sabrina, and they ran for the front door.
As they ran, they heard another voice with a gruff southern accent shout, “Damn straight, Davey! You take your wife and get the fuck outta my country, ya fuckin’ sand-ni—” the three girls barged into the house and slammed open living room door. They were horrified at what they saw: their parents, beaten up and bleeding, and three young strangers – two rough-looking men and an attractive but trashy woman. Tyler stood behind the couch and was pinning their mother into her seat by a coarse nylon rope pulled hard against her throat. Their father lay in the shattered remains of a glass coffee table on the floor, facing away from them. Davey held a baseball bat over his head, threatening another blow to add to the several he had evidently already taken. As the door flew open, the young woman gave what appeared to be the last of several kicks to their father’s body. She stopped, sweating and uneasy on her feet. They were drunk.
Their mother clawed at the rope and looked to her daughters with bloodshot eyes – pleading for help and devastated that they had to be a part of this.
“Goddamn! A whole nest of ‘em!” said Davey.
“Well, yeah!” agreed Tyler, obviously taken by how attractive the new arrivals were. Farah found it easy to read the series of expressions that flashed across his face – if his girlfriend wasn’t with them, he would have had horrific plans for the three of them.
“Get away from them!” yelled Sabrina.
“Who you orderin’ around, bitch?” said the woman.
“Don’t worry, Cass. I got this,” said Davey and stepped forward, his bat at the ready.
Hearing his daughter’s voice, their father turned to look. One eye was swollen shut. He reached out a bloodied hand and was about to speak when Cass heaved another kick at his head and he fell unconscious.
Sabrina flew at her and was stopped by a slug from Davey’s baseball bat in her stomach. At the same time Farah ran at Tyler. Her speed surprised him and he stumbled backwards over a magazine rack. Their mother yanked the rope from her throat and leaned forward, gasping for breath.
As Sabrina hit the floor, Davey turned his attention to Mira, who screamed in panic. But Sabrina was only semi-winded and she picked up the shattered coffee table’s chrome stand. “Look out, Davey!” cried Cass, too late to stop the stand cracking into the back of his skull and pile-driving him, face-first, into a glass-fronted crockery cabinet. He dropped like a half-filled sack of sand.
Tyler rolled onto his back as a tunnel-visioned mist descended on Farah and she lunged at him, but he launched both legs at her, slamming his work boots into her stomach. She left the floor and smashed into the wall and a framed family portrait.
Sabrina picked up the baseball bat and turned her attention to Cass; now cornered. Distant approaching police sirens injected focus into her panic and, with nowhere to go, she turned to a ceiling-high book cabinet and yanked with all her strength. Seeing the cabinet about to crush her father, Sabrina dropped the bat and ran to catch it. Books showered down as Cass darted across the room, shoulder-barged Mira out the way and ran into the street.
“Get after her!” Sabrina shouted at Mira as she heaved the book case back upright.
It took Mira some moments to regain her balance and she reluctantly dashed to the front door. Cass was already a distant figure, sprinting down the road. Mira had no hope of catching her, even without high heels. A second later Cass dipped into a side street and was gone. Two cop cars turned a nearby corner and Mira waved her arms to get their attention.
Tyler leapt over Farah and towards the front door. She grabbed at his jeans with one hand and held fast, feeling pain as her fingernails lifted under the strain. He tugged himself free and left the room, but the sight of Mira silhouetted in the doorway by blue and red flashing lights changed his mind. He turned for the back door and saw Farah blocking his path in a perfect southpaw stance. A momentary debate with himself as to whether he could take on a chick who looked as prepared as any MMA fighter he’d ever seen, and raced for his only other option – the stairs.
“Bastard!” cursed Farah and chased after him. She reached the top of the stairs in time to see Mira’s bedroom door slam shut and heard something crash behind it. She pushed it open a crack but it was blocked by an upturned desk. Through the gap, she saw Tyler standing on Mira’s bed and pushing open a skylight window. She stood back and kicked twice at the door, shifting it enough for her to squeeze through.
Through the skylight she heard a loudspeaker announce: “You on the roof: freeze! DPD! Stay right there!”
Farah pulled herself through the skylight and saw Tyler with his hands up, illuminated in a spotlight from one of the cop cars.
“Don’t you move, boy!”
From the street, Mira stood with the police and saw Farah appear on the roof behind Tyler. “Come down, Farah!” she called. “It’s all okay now!”
Keeping his hands up, Tyler turned slowly to look at Farah. “You think it’s okay now, girl? If I go to jail or if I don’t go to jail, you can count on one thing: I’ll come back. And next time I won’t stop with your filthy immigrant ma and pa – I’ll rape and kill your skanky-ass sisters too.”
Terror and rage rinsed through Farah’s blood. There was no way she could protect her family 24/7 for the rest of her life and in that moment she could only think of one way to stop this ever happening again.
Sabrina met Mira in the street, “They’re arresting the other guy,” she said. “Where’s Farah?”
Mira indicated the roof and they watched as Farah stepped towards Tyler.
“It’s okay, ma’am, we’ve got this now,” said a cop over his loudspeaker, but Farah showed no sign of stopping. “Ma’am…?”
“You’ll never do this to anyone again,” said Farah.
CHAPTER II
The court case was short-lived. Farah’s defence lawyer argued that she was protecting her family, didn’t have a chance to fully register that the police had the situation in-hand and that Tyler Mulhill’s threat to harm her entire family was more than enough justification for her to take the action she did, but she did not intend to kill him. The prosecution argued that Mulhill was more intelligent than to make such a threat and had more than twenty witnesses, including the arresting officers, who saw Farah slowly approach a young man with his hands raised, heel-kick him straight in the chest and send him tumbling from the edge of the roof down to the tarmac of the front yard. The sound of his head meeting the driveway made indelible imprints on the minds of the witnesses and so many vivid recounts of the event undoubtedly impacted the jury.
Tyler Mulhill was the best friend of David “Davey” Anderson, who was arrested at the scene and spend a short time in hospital for concussion, and boyfriend of Cassie Jones, who was later arrested at her home in Montopolis. As it was not his first conviction, Anderson received a sentence of 14 years for racially-motivated home invasion and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon that randomly targeted Mr Sami Rashid, Mrs Nora Rashid and their family.
Jones received three years for her part. Her lawyer portrayed her as an unwilling participant who was there only to stop her boyfriend committing the felony. While Anderson remained unmoved throughout the trial, Cassie Jones wept almost non-stop. During the summation, the judge mentioned the death of her boyfriend, her obvious regret at the incident and that her judgement was clouded by intoxication. He gave her a reduced sentence with the proviso that she attended an alcohol addiction support group during her conviction, to which she gratefully agreed.
As Cassie was led away she fired a hateful look at Sabrina and Mira that let them know this was not over.
Farah’s trial went from a local new story to a national one in a matter of days, assisted by several neighbours’ video footage of a beautiful woman with light brown skin sending a young white man to his death while he was clearly surrendering to police. In recent years racial equality, sexual equality and immigration debates had been hammered back and forth between polarised sides with such increased maliciousness that anything that ticked all three boxes would be something that inspired a feud. It didn’t matter that Sami and Nora were legal immigrants who loved the USA, or that Sabrina, Farah and Mira were born United States citizens; the word immigrant was forever stained with accusations of dangerous and unwanted foreign invaders. Farah Rashid’s name and face were now assets to those opposed to deescalation and who could use her as a symbol to stoke outrage.
Farah remained stoic throughout her trial. She did her best not to absorb the emotions of her devastated parents, but she could not prevent the anxious uncertainty of knowing whether she had done the right thing. This plagued her mind from the moment of her arrest and throughout the trial like a verse from a bad song that infects the brain on repeat mode.
She was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter and sentenced to twelve years in prison. It was to be served in an out-of-state facility to best avoid repercussions should she come into contact with associates of Mulhill, Anderson or Jones – something that would be difficult to avoid in Texas’s prisons. It surprised her that the result didn’t inspire any emotion in herself. She put this down to expectation – whatever happened, it wasn’t going to be good.
Now her major concern was how safe her family would be while she was away.
CHAPTER III
Farah watched a dwarf spider crawl along the underside of the bunk above hers. It suddenly fell onto her chest. “You must find these mattresses as lumpy as I do, huh?”she whispered as she carefully picked it up and lowered it to the floor.
The prison induction was short and to the point and it had now been hours since she was introduced to her cell and told to wait. She didn’t know places like this still existed – a room for two people so compact that the head of the bunk bed was jammed against the iron bars that separated inmates from the corridor. She had her pale blue prison-issue scrubs and a toilet in the corner of the cell. The only thing missing was her new roommate and she didn’t hold out much hope for whoever it was to be friendly.
She turned onto her side and watched the spider scuttle under the cell door and into the corridor. I wish I was you right now, she thought.
SLAM! A big, shiny boot stomped down onto the spider making Farah sit up fast and bang her head on the bed frame.
“We don’t want no pests in here,” said a raspy male voice.
Farah got to her feet. A tall, pale officer with a thin, wide smile and a pristine uniform looked down on her. His appearance matched his voice. His name badge read McGunn.
“Self-harming on your first day? Not a good sign,” he said.
“No, I just—”
“Don’t interrupt me, inmate. Or do you want solitary on your first day?”
Farah bridled at the needless threat from someone who was supposed to be professional. Get rid of the bars between us and threaten me again, she thought.
“Do you?” he said, a glimmer of inspiration in his eyes.
A cough came from the neighbouring cell.
“Something to say, inmate?” he said, bending casually to look into the cell. Evidently the occupant shook her head. “Good. Keep it that way.” He looked back at Farah, intent on provoking her further when he was interrupted again; this time by approaching footsteps. “Ah, here’s your cellmate… In you go, Babe.”
A dumpy white girl with dark blonde ringlets stepped into view. McGunn swiped a card to unlock the door. As she stepped inside and the path was temporarily clear, Farah sized McGunn up. As she did so, he deliberately dropped his hand onto a can of pepper spray in his belt. With an undisguised lust in his eyes, he left the door open longer than necessary, wanting her to make a move, then slammed it shut.
“Enjoy getting to know each other, ladies,” he said and strolled down the corridor.
The women eyed one another.
“I’m Ginger,” said the newcomer timidly.
“Farah,” said Farah, holding out her hand. Ginger shook it and smiled. “Does he call everyone here ‘Babe’?”
“No,” said Ginger, looking down. “That’s just for me. Because he says I’m a pig. You know that old film?”
Farah waited until Ginger looked her in the eye again. “He’s one to avoid, huh?”
“Uh-huh,” she nodded. “Not easy though.”
“How long you been here, Ginger?”
“‘bout nine months.”
“What’s it like?”
Ginger wavered. “It’s okay.”
“Trying not to scare me, huh?”
“Kinda.”
They both smiled. Farah got the impression that Ginger was as relieved as she was to be locked up with someone normal.
CHAPTER IV
“Rashid – you’re on kitchen duty,” said CO Bertram, a guard in her 50s who was as cold and grey as the prison bars. “Inmate Brown will show you the ropes.”
Inmate Brown was a big woman with a no-shit demeanour. It was obvious why she ruled the roost. She and nine of her cohorts were already at work in the kitchen and stopped to see their new recruit. The air they gave off was inscrutable; Farah didn’t know if she was welcome or not but she could tell this was a prized domain.
Brown beckoned her over. “Your name?”
“Farah.”
“What can you do in a kitchen, Farah?”
“Pretty much anythi—”
“You can mop the floor.”
Farah nodded. “Sure.”
“Dulce, you’ve been promoted,” said Brown to one of the younger girls. “Hand Farah yo’ mop.”
A tall, Italian-American girl with a pretty face and her hair shaved on one side wheeled forward a mop and yellow bucket. “Thanks,” said Farah.
Dulce didn’t respond.
Seeing the bucket was empty, Farah asked, “Where’s the floor cleaner?”
“We ran out,” said Dulce. “Go to the supply shed.” She indicated a door between the stoves. Leaning against the door with his arms folded was CO McGunn.
“I need to go get some cleaning fluid,” said Farah.
McGunn raised his eyebrows, as if with mild interest, but didn’t move.
Farah understood. “May I please go get some cleaning fluid… Sir?” The obvious insincerity with which she said this got the reaction she was hoping for. McGunn straightened, irritated, and stood aside. Farah pushed open the door and stepped into a yard surrounded by high fences topped with razor wire. Across the yard was a large storage unit. As she approached it she looked back and saw McGunn watching her with an intensity that wouldn’t look out of place on the face of a psychopath. She supposed she would have to make a game of it – winding this bully up without giving him any real reason to discipline her. It was already fun.
Although the sun was high, the windowless unit was dark. She switched on a light but it made little difference and so had to squint as she searched the shelves, finally finding the cleaning products in the farthest corner. Then she noticed the light cast from the doorway began to shimmer. She looked back, expecting to see McGunn, but instead saw the silhouettes of three… four—no, five—figures enter the shed. She recognised one to be Dulce.
Farah picked up a bottle of cleaner and headed towards them. “I found it,” she said, trying to seem carefree, but as she approached the door one of the figures began to close it. Farah just had time to make out McGunn across the yard, still in the doorway of the kitchen. He smiled and went inside, closing the kitchen door behind him.
The unit door closed, creating a vacuum of sound. Farah recognised all of the women in the shed to be from the kitchen.
“What’s going on, ladies?” said Farah.
“It’s time for your housewarmin’,” said one with cornrows.
“Don’t fight it,” said another with an unmistakable Alabama drawl. “We all get one when we first arrive.”
“And what is a housewarming?” asked Farah.
“Oh, it’s when we find out if that pussy is as sweet as it looks,” said a greasy-looking third. Farah backed away and the women advanced. “You can get hurt or you can just enjoy it.”
Farah took hold of the bottle of floor cleaner in both hands, “You can stay back or get this cleaner in your eyes,” she said.
“You can get it in your food every day if you like,” said the fourth, who wore a bandana. “You don’t want enemies in the kitchen, girl.”
“I’m not a lesbian,” said Farah.
“And?” said Cornrows and the women rushed her.
Farah slugged Greasy in the jaw. She fell into a sack of rice, which burst into a plume of dust and surged onto the floor. Cornrows cracked Farah across the cheek with a broom handle, sending her off-balance.
Dulce held back as the three other women tackled Farah to the ground.
Alabama and Bandana pinned one arm each with all their weight. Cornrows grabbed at Farah’s belt, but Farah twisted and kicked her sideways.
“She’s mine!” said Greasy, dropping onto Farah’s waist.
Farah felt the wind knocked out of her and she just had time to gasp for breath as Greasy pushed down on her face with several sheets of high-strength plastic wrap. Her vision was smeared and she couldn’t breathe.
Both arms and legs were now pinned and her pants were tugged down. She tried to buck her hips and breathed in hard, making one sheet of plastic wrap pop in her mouth.
A vague thought said she should suck and pop all the sheets, but she had no more room to inhale.
Shouts and tearing sounds softened as the cloak of unconsciousness enveloped her.
She was on the verge of blacking out when the plastic wrap loosened and she gasped for breath.
Shouting. Not next to her but nearby. He arms and legs were freed. She yanked away the plastic wrap and pulled herself into a sitting position just as Alabama hit the floor next to her, unconscious.
Dulce was backed into a corner while Cornrows, Bandana and Greasy sat in a pile of tin cans and packets of food. Farah’s vision was still blurry, but she could make out someone new who yanked her to her feet and helped her pull her pants back up.
“You’re crazy!” shouted Greasy.
“Yeah! I am!” said the stranger, which brought a silence to the room. “Now clean up this fuckin’ place.”
The stranger helped Farah into the open air. The glare of the sun made it impossible for her to open her eyes. “Thanks,” she said.
“Get yourself to medical,” said the stranger. “You know better than to name names, right?”
Farah nodded. “But who are you?”
The stranger let go of Farah’s arm and walked away fast. Farah strained to open her eyes, and was just in time to see the back of a tall white woman with shaved hair disappear into the kitchen.
CHAPTER V
Farah left the medical centre and was escorted to the main courtyard in a new set of scrubs.
The women who attacked her sat together on some benches. They saw her and showed no acknowledgement.
Ginger was sauntering alone and brightened up when she saw Farah. She hurried over but slowed and her smile diminished as she noticed a wide scuff mark across Farah’s cheek.
“Housewarming?” she asked in a low tone.
“Yeah,” said Farah. “You didn’t wanna warn me about that?”
“Sorry,” said Ginger. “I thought you’d know.”
“Nope.”
Farah scanned the busy area. Many inmates were watching her and she wondered how many would have a housewarming welcome on their minds. There were a lot of shaved heads, but then she saw one woman who was taller than the rest, in a far corner running circuits in the dust.
“Do you know her?” she asked, nodding toward the woman.
“Yeah,” said Ginger.
Farah awaited further details. Ginger just smiled.
“Alrighty then…” she said and went over to find out for herself. She stood at the edge of the path the woman had carved out for herself. On her first pass she ignored Farah. On the second they caught each others’ eye. She slowed on the third and walked over to a nearby bench, picked up a flannel and wiped sweat from her brow, which was clearly the closest to an invitation that she was going to give.
Farah joined her on the bench. “I didn’t want to stop you training.”
“You didn’t.”
“Why did you walk away earlier? Those bitches had already seen you.”
“I didn’t want you to think you can come to me whenever you’re in trouble – that’s going to happen a lot.”
“Because I’m Algerian?”
The woman looked up at her with disdain. She had captivating bright blue eyes and the grade two shave of her hair suited her. She was at least 15 years older than Farah and looked like she could be a former model. However, there was something about her that portrayed she had been through a lot. Farah couldn’t tell whether it was her complexion or expression. Perhaps both. “No, not because you’re Algerian—nobody here gives a shit about that—it’s because you’re beautiful. You need to do something about that.”
Farah almost smiled, flattered. She felt like she was being pranked but the woman was deadly serious. “Well, you’re beautiful. How do you manage it?”
She showed no sign of being flattered. “Shaving your hair is a good start. At least then nobody can grab it.”
Farah nodded. This was a fair point. “So do you go around saving everyone from their housewarming?”
“No. I can just tell you’re going to have enough trouble.”
“From who?”
“McGunn, mainly. You’re really his type.”
“What can I do about that?”
“I don’t know. Everything you can think of, I’ve tried it,” she said and put on her overshirt.
“What does he… do?” asked Farah, not really wanting to know the answer.
From the way she sighed in response Farah could tell McGunn was a big part of this woman’s journey. She was about to respond when there was a distant rumble of thunder and they both looked up – there wasn’t a cloud in the sky.
“What was that?” asked Ginger, who wandered over to join them.
Another rumble. Closer this time.
Inmates and officers stood in silence for several moments.
Then a sound grew over the horizon – an eerily choral wave that evoked fear and rage accompanied by a long stream of echoing pops, like fire crackers.
“Gunfire,” said Farah.
Ginger was alarmed. “Why would—?”
BOOM! A fireball rose into the sky from around four miles away.
“That’s the airport,” called one officer.
BOOM! BOOM! Two more fireballs exploded from the same direction. Gunfire grew closer.
“What the fuck is going on?” cried one of the inmates.
The prison alarm system blared into the courtyard. “This is Warden Parsons. All inmates will return to their cells immediately.”
With a mixture of confusion and concern, the inmates headed inside, guided and ordered to keep quiet by the correctional officers.
“I’m Farah, by the way,” Farah said to the woman as they joined the throng. “You?”
“Holbrook,” she replied. “Vanessa Holbrook.”
CHAPTER VI
As they were ushered into their cells, Farah discovered that Vanessa was in the cell next to hers and guessed that she had been the one to distract McGunn the previous day.
The inmates continued to demand answers for what was going on and were silenced by another announcement from the prison warden: “All staff report to the officers’ mess straight away.”
Once it was confirmed that every inmate was locked in their cells, there was a loud BEEP-CLUNK that resounded throughout the prison and prompted an eruption of outrage from the inmates.
“What’s going on?” Farah asked Ginger.
“It’s a double lock-in. It’s only happened once since I’ve been here – when there was an escape attempt.”
“What’s a double lock-in?”
“There’s a backup lock on the cells that the warden controls – if one of the COs loses their card, it won’t work if one of us has got it.”
“Great,” said Farah.
For the rest of the day there was no prison guard to be seen. Shouts and demands for food from the inmates went unanswered.
Explosions and gunfire from the outer world continued throughout the day and night. Twice they seemed a lot closer, until rapid exchanges ended in a temporary calm.
The following day followed a similar pattern, except that one explosion in the early evening shook the prison walls. Screams of anguish from the hungry inmates became more desperate and emotional.
Still, no guards appeared.
CHAPTER VII
On the morning of the fifth day Farah was awoken by a strange rumbling. On the cusp of sleep, she eventually realised it to be Ginger’s digestive system. She also noticed that, while there was still gunfire on the outside, it was much more distant than it had been since it started.
Then she heard footsteps. Farah, Ginger and the other residents of their corridor jumped out of bed to see who was coming. Some called for help.
McGunn stepped into view. He was wearing camouflage combat fatigues and accompanied by a troop of men, and a handful of women, dressed similarly and holding semiautomatic weapons. Farah could tell just by looking at them that hardly any of them were actually soldiers.
McGunn’s thin smile was emboldened.
“What is going on?” asked Vanessa.
He took a slow swig from a flask of coffee and walked to the middle of the corridor where he could be seen by all the inmates if they pressed their heads against the bars. “Good morning ladies,” he said.
There were demands from all the cells to know what was happening.
“What’s happening is that you all need to shut the fuck up!” he barked, adding the spirit of a marine corps drill sergeant to his tone. The calls faded to a silence. He then spoke more calmly. “Some of the more intelligent of you may have worked out that it’s finally happened: the fight for the real America has begun.”
“What does that mean, man?” Farah recognised the voice to be Dulce’s.
“It means that the wokerati, the liberals and the immigrants who have ruined this country for decades will soon be killed or banished from our shores and we will rise to be the great country that we were promised by the founding fathers!”
This was greeted by a confusion of murmurs, with a few speculating that McGunn had lost his mind.
“Are you saying that we are in a civil war?” asked Vanessa.
“Ten points to Inmate Holbrook,” said McGunn, prompting a panic. “We are in a civil war. But you ladies…!” he shouted, “are still convicts!”
“What about our families?” asked Ginger, tears welling in her eyes.
“Your families are still out there somewhere I’m sure, now shut up while I tell you of some changes that are taking place around here. I’m sure you’re all a little hungry and, even though some of you look to have benefitted from it—ain’t that right, Babe?—we have food for you.”
There were cries of relief and even praises to God from the inmates. “That’s right. So you need to be grateful to me and my friends here, who have taken it upon ourselves to take care of you while the government is in chaos and things are upside-down in the outside world. There are people who understandably want revenge on you and there are roaming groups of men out there who would love the idea of a building filled with imprisoned women.”
The resulting silence to this statement was not comforting. Farah sensed something suspicious behind this apparent altruism.
“Where is Warden Parsons?” asked Vanessa.
“Warden Parsons is gone. She went to protect her family, leaving me in charge.”
“That doesn’t sound likely.”
McGunn lifted his baton and waved it at her. “You, of all people, should know when to keep quiet, right?”
“Yes, Sir.”
Farah was unnerved to hear the instant surrender in the voice of her saviour.
“So, you all need to behave! And you will do what I say without question. Any insubordination from any one of you will mean instant punishment for the whole wing. Do you ladies understand me?”
A range of acknowledgements came from the cells.
“I want a full and hearty, ‘Yes, Sir!’ or you will not get your food today! Do you ladies understand me?”
“Yes, Sir!” came the unified call.
McGunn beamed with pride. “We have food on the way, but I’m sure you’re all very keen to get clean, so you’re all gonna strip and hand us all your clothes. We will wash them and get them back to you when we can.”
Nobody moved.
“Aw, ladies, don’t spoil it now…” he said. “Strip! Down to your bare butts!”
The new military guards wandered the corridor, ogling the women as they did as instructed. Some held black trash bags into which the inmates tossed their clothes.
McGunn took the time to look in each cell. He slowed as he reached Farah’s, as if revelling in a sight he had been wanting to see for a very long time. Although she covered her breasts and genitalia, he drank in the sight of her, seeming to focus especially on her feet. He hummed appreciation and stopped. Noticing Ginger, he curled his upper lip and touched an in-ear communicator. “Unlock.”
The warden’s lock was released. McGunn swiped his card and the cell opened. “You,” he said, pointing at Ginger, “swap with Holbrook.” Ginger did as she was told. He then opened the next cell and Vanessa was taken to join Farah at gunpoint. The cell doors slammed. Farah and Vanessa stood side-by-side, covering themselves as best they could.
“Mmm. There,” said McGunn, encouraging the troop to join him, “One is a mature, slender vamp with lovely tits and delicious big feet. The other one is a fit and curvy tanned firecracker. And just look at her feet too. Perfect, I think you’ll agree. Out of the two thousand women here, this is the greatest sight you will see. That’s why this cell is mine, right?”
The troop agreed and lingered at the spectacle before following McGunn out of the corridor and leaving two armed guards behind.
Farah and Vanessa sat on the bunk. “Fuckin’ freak,” said Farah. “What is with this guy and feet?”
Vanessa said nothing and wrapped herself in Farah’s bedsheet.
“What are you thinking?” Farah asked.
“I’m thinking this is bad.”
“Have you got family on the outside?”
“Yeah.”
“Me too.” Farah’s voice shook a little.
“Who?” asked Vanessa.
“Mom. Dad. Two sisters.”
“At least they all have each other.”
Farah nodded but she wasn’t comforted. If airports were blowing up and people were shooting each other in the streets, there was no way regular law enforcement would be protecting the likes of her family. And who knew where Cassie Jones was at this point?
“Do you think McGunn is telling the truth?” asked Farah.
“About the war, yeah,” said Vanessa. “About this place? I doubt it.”
“I feel like there’s a lot I don’t know here. About him. About you. You were going to tell me something outside. What was it?”
Vanessa took a deep breath. “Okay, for the good it will do, I’ll tell you. Do you remember when Gaby Calhoun was elected president?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you remember a story about her being kidnapped in the early days of her election campaign?”
“Kinda. I mean, I was a kid at the time… Wait, that was you?!”
Vanessa nodded. “I was set up.”
“By who?”
“Someone I got sent to jail for attacking my sister.”
“Wow.” Farah pulled a sheet from the top bunk, wrapped it around herself and sat cross-legged next to Vanessa. “McGunn attacked your sister?”
“No. Another guy. Jake Valentine.”
“I don’t understand—”
Vanessa took another deep breath and blew it out. Farah could tell a big part of her didn’t want to tell this story.
“Jake Valentine is a fetishist pervert and he imposed his fetish on people without their consent. The thing is, when I got him put away he became a hero to a lot of the people who share his fetish. They idolised this guy who did what they wished they could do. Some of them spent their whole time living out fantasies that were directed by him.”
“Like a cult.” said Farah.
“Yeah.”
To Farah’s mind there was one obvious question: “What’s the fetish?”
Here Vanessa struggled the most, almost developing a stutter as she spoke: “Tickling.”
Farah snorted in response, prompting a glare from Vanessa; she was clearly sick of anyone who didn’t take her seriously.
“There can’t be that many people into tickling. Can there?” said Farah.
Vanessa shuddered to hear the word spoken. “More than you would believe.”
“And McGunn is one of them?”
Vanessa nodded. “He used to be a lawyer in Seattle. Then, as soon as Valentine put the word out, he quit his job, moved across country and trained to be a correctional officer, just so he could work here – where I am.”
“So he does it to you?”
“Sometimes hours at a time. Other women too. That’s what happens in solitary.” Vanessa sensed endless questions from Farah. “Look, I told you before: I tried everything—reporting him, fighting back, promising… other things—none of it stopped him. It’s all he wants to do. He’s obsessed.
“I knew you were sexy even without seeing you because within seconds of meeting you he already wanted you in solitary. He can’t wait to find out how sensitive new girls are.”
“That’s freaky,” said Farah, a shiver running all over her skin. Still, the whole story seemed very far-fetched.
“Yeah,” said Vanessa, “and he just brought a whole army in here with him.”
CHAPTER VIII
As promised, a short while later a healthy plate of food was delivered to all inmates, along with a side order of panties. Apparently, it was quicker and easier to get panties washed and dried. Farah bit her tongue to prevent herself asking how much more effort it would have been to wash their bras as well. They were also provided with some complimentary slippers embroidered with a Hilton Hotel motif, presumably obtained during the chaos.
For the following week three meals were served daily and the general mood in the prison was upbeat, despite the ceaseless conflict taking place outside. Hunger headaches and other sick feelings began to dissipate. The prison was warm and it became accepted that clothing would not be forthcoming in the foreseeable future. Inmates were told that the yards were too dangerous to use, encouraged to exercise in their cells and escorted to the showers one cell at a time throughout the day with a maximum of two minutes of warm water per shower.
Farah couldn’t get her family out of her mind. She had no doubt that Sabrina could look after herself but since their dad was currently in a wheelchair and mum was still injured, she had no idea how they would cope.
Nothing out-of-the-ordinary had happened in the past week and Farah was convinced that Vanessa had a touch of cabin fever; that stories of being victimised by the actual president of the United States of America and being specifically targeted by McGunn out of the thousands of younger women in the jail had all the signs of being the result of paranoid delusions. This was supported by the fact that all the other inmates were treating this as a lock-in – calling to each other, playing cards and having as much fun as it was possible to have, while Vanessa was becoming more and more on edge; like she was expecting something bad to happen.
“Your hair’s growing out quite quick,” said Farah, hoping to distract Vanessa from pacing up and down the cell.
“Huh? Oh. Yeah. It does in the warm weather.”
They then heard multiple footsteps approaching and Vanessa froze to the spot.
McGunn stepped into the corridor, followed by more guards than they had seen in a week. There was an air of enthusiasm about them.
“On your feet, ladies!” called McGunn. “I’m sure you all heard the exchange of gunfire this morning from the south wall. That was our sentries defending you from an armed militia who wanted to come pay you a visit.”
“As you can imagine, this is an extremely stressful time for the guards, and I know you’ll want to show your appreciation…”
This expression was so ominous that Farah was sure the guards would enter and try to rape them in their cells. She braced herself – ready to fight or die.
“…we are giving you each a set of handcuffs. You will lie the wrong way round on your bunk, slide your feet through the bars of your cell and cuff your wrists to the foot of your bed.”
The inmates began to protest.
He spoke over them: “Did I mention the penalty for insubordination?”
The protests were subdued and the guards dished out the handcuffs. When they received theirs, Farah looked to Vanessa who, as though programmed against her will to comply, lowered her head and climbed onto the top bunk.
“Vanessa…? What are you doing?!” she whispered. “We can’t do this! They can come in and do anything to us!”
Vanessa lay down with her head at the foot of the bed, shuffled until her feet protruded between the cell bars into the corridor and stretched up to handcuff her own wrists to the bed frame.
Farah just watched in disbelief and could hear the crrriiicks of closing handcuffs up and down the corridor as the other inmates did the same. She looked down at her own, astounded at the surreal situation. For every potential way out of this she could think of, there was nothing that would work.
“They don’t operate themselves, inmate.” Farah looked up to see McGunn watching her. “Everyone’s waiting for you.”
The unfairness and impotence of her situation injected adrenaline into her system like never before. With nowhere to go, she just stared at him and seethed.
A sadistic sneer spread across his pale countenance at being defied. Holding her stare he announced, “It seems as though newbie, Inmate Rashid, wants this to last twice as long as it was going to, ladies!” He then smiled as inmates up and down the long corridor began to hurl insults and threats at Farah to do what she was told.
“Farah,” said Vanessa. “Just get it over with.”
Seeing a woman she respected bare-breasted and resigned to allow herself to be used, Farah felt her jaw clench until she was in danger of breaking her own teeth. She glared at McGunn with frustrated tears in her eyes; she’d never wanted to punch someone in the face so hard in her life.
She lay on the bottom bunk, handcuffed her wrists to the frame and slowly slid her slippered feet between the bars of the cell.
“Enough!” called McGunn. “She has seen sense.”
The inmates calmed, with a final bitter call from Dulce: “…do it again and I’ll fuck you up, bitch!”
Farah noticed a glitch in McGunn’s enjoyment at this comment. He looked down the corridor. “Officer Archer, who was that?”
“Inmate Golino, Sir,” replied a female guard.
“I thought so. All guards: attach ankle cuffs!”
Farah instinctively went to retract her feet but McGunn predicted her move and was too quick for her – he grabbed her left ankle and wrapped a padded leather cuff around it. “Your other ankle: now,” he said. Farah reluctantly slid her right foot back to where it had been. The second restraint was chained to the first. Wrapped and secured in seconds, she was trapped; her body stretched tight on the bed with the restraints kept in place by a single thick cell bar between them.
“And, Officer Archer, you may begin with Golino – she can have five minutes more than the rest.”
“Yes, Sir!” said Archer with jarring enthusiasm.
Farah tried to picture what was happening. Her only clues were the movements taking place a dozen cells down. First, there was an abrupt shuffling followed by clinks and chanks of metal on metal; presumably the chain between the ankle cuffs against her cell bar.
Then came Dulce’s reactions: “Hey… What’chu doin’, girl…? Don’t fuckin’ touch me…! Get off me, bitch…! Get off my feet…! Hey… No…! Get off me…!”
Her ingrained blunt defiance echoed throughout the wing.
Then her voice cracked.
“Get off me…! No, don’t do that…! Not that…! Nooo-ho-ho-ho-ho…!”
Dulce’s protests crumbled into a tone of distress. Farah wasn’t proud that a dark, closeted part of herself thought, Serves you right for threatening me. That’s what you get—
“Nooo…! Not ma toesss…! Aaaalgghhh-ha-ha-ha-haaaa…!”
That was laughter, wasn’t it?
She would never have imagined these sounds of enforced defeat to come from Dulce, especially so quickly. Suddenly the picture became very clear in Farah’s mind – she recognised that disintegration of will from the many times she had tickled Sabrina when she was in her “humourless and assertive” mood.
A cold realisation washed over her. Oh my God, she thought. Vanessa was telling the truth.
CHAPTER IX
There was a paradoxically deep, helpless resonance to Dulce’s laughter, like she was experiencing enjoyable convulsions because she found something hysterically funny. It took her less than a minute to give up protesting, either because it was obviously ineffective or because she no longer had the ability to form sentences, and now her laughter drifted throughout the prison.
From Farah’s position on the bed, she could see a few of the guards—one of them a woman—captivated, almost starry-eyed, at what was taking place.
Then came a pause in Dulce’s laughter followed by yips and yelps, as if being toyed with. Amid the pauses Farah could hear distant calls from the other wings of the prison from women who wanted to know why they could hear laughter. If everything Vanessa said was right, no doubt some of them already knew.
“Fuck-fuck-fa-huck! Bitch, stop ticklin’ my feeeeet…!” Dulce wailed before lapsing back into endless guffaws.
Farah was startled when McGunn leant down to peer at her with curiosity. She could tell he wanted to see an unnerved reaction and immediately swapped her bewilderment for indifference, but it was too late; he saw what she was trying to do, smiled and straightened so that all she could see were his torso and legs as he placed himself at the head of the bed. He lifted his hands towards the top bunk and she noticed for the first time that he had absurdly long and well-manicured fingernails for a man.
Vanessa give a brief, piteous moan and her slippers dropped to the floor.
“Alright, guards – proceed at will!” announce McGunn.
The guards rushed forward and hundreds of women immediately broke into all manner of hysteria. Cries of protest, growls of resistance and threats of retaliation quickly slid into a tsunami of laughter. From low to shrill and everything in between, Farah winced at the sheer level of noise and couldn’t believe this was reality. For a moment she even convinced herself she must be dreaming when she realised something – she was the only one not being tickled.
When the guards she could see approached their allotted cells they went in twos: one for the top bunk and one for the bottom, but McGunn had claimed her and Vanessa’s cell as his and he was currently occupying himself with Vanessa.
Although the cacophony was constant, the acoustics of the cell meant that she could hear Vanessa over and above everyone else – a throaty, mature and unrestrained laughter. The bunk bed shook, but, as far as Farah could tell, the only thing moving was Vanessa’s head. Occasionally her laughter was joined by a whine that, along with her compliant move to her bunk, informed Farah that this woman was absolutely beaten and conditioned into learned helplessness.
Farah noticed that the portion of McGunn visible to her was gyrating. He was evidently very aroused. She looked away in disgust just as the bed stopped moving and Vanessa made coos of recovery. Farah jumped and looked down – her left slipper was gone and McGunn was crouching, mesmerised. She had always been casually proud of how naturally pretty her hands and feet were. Mira often told her she should become “an appendage model”, which was such a funny term that it became a running joke between them and she never followed it up. Now it seemed that having attractive feet was going to be something that attracted trouble.
McGunn moved his face so close that she could feel his warm breath on her toes. He was almost cross-eyed with how intently he was analysing the skin for her feet and she was convinced his next move would be to put her toes in his mouth. She held her breath and remained motionless, sensing that any movement would just encourage him.
He pulled off her second slipper, making her twitch. Although she was completely naked except for her panties, her feet tingled with a sense that they were the most vulnerable part of her body, like she was dangling them into a shadowy pool full of sharks.
From between her feet, McGunn suddenly looked her in the eye and it felt as though she had been caught spying on a private party to which she wasn’t invited. His despicable thin-lipped grin grew and he brought his hands level with her feet, teasing the air with his fingers. Farah hated to give him the satisfaction of seeing her respond to his deliberate antagonism, but before she knew it her toes began to curl in anticipation of what was to come. She saw the moment his attention was drawn to the creasing skin of her bare soles and a deep lust took hold.
He grabbed hold of her right foot and lightly scribbled his fingernails against the ball of her foot. Farah jolted on the bed and instinctively tugged at both her ankle and wrist restraints, which had no room to give. She stared into space, doing all she could not to react, but her body trembled involuntarily as sensations welled up inside her. Her resistance lasted mere seconds before syrupy giggles spilled from her lips. She arched her back and twisted on the prison mattress, knowing there was no escape but desperate not to let McGunn turn something that had always been fun between her and her two sisters turn into something sordid.
“Stop it! Get off me! You can’t do this!” she protested between giggles.
McGunn stopped. “Oh, sweet lord, you’re right. Let me just get your solicitor on the line,” he said.
Farah looked at him in a confusion of resentment at his taunting and a tiny hope that solicitors still existed. Before she could respond he unleashed his long nails on the soft, wrinkled arch of her foot.
She clenched her teeth and pressed the back of her head into the mattress, straining to resist the sensations, but his fingernails then did the same to her left arch and she squealed in surprise and erupted with laughter.
Prior to this, she speculated that being tickled by someone she disliked wouldn’t have an effect on her, but this could not have been more wrong. She writhed on the bed in a turmoil of anger at McGunn for tormenting her and at herself for not being able to control her own mind and body. She was further humiliated by the sight of her own breasts wobbling with the movement of her body. Her heightened emotions at not wanting to let him make her laugh was actually making it worse and she couldn’t dial back her reactions.
“G… G… Get off me!” she shrieked amid open-mouthed gales of laughter.
“You are fucking incredible,” McGunn snarled, losing his facade of professionalism altogether. “Officer Dayton!” he called, stopping and standing up. “Get over here!”
Farah tried to catch her breath. She couldn’t hear the response of the officer over the riotous laughter from all the other inmates, but McGunn was joined by an intimidating young female guard. She was notable due to being one of the few guards who had the aura of someone with military experience.
Farah watched their torsos as they spoke, unable to hear a word of their discussion. Then both crouched into view.
“Hello, Farah,” said Dayton with a leer.
McGunn became even more aroused by Farah’s obvious trepidation and she wondered if there’s anything she could possibly do that wouldn’t turn him on more.
“Get away from me,” said Farah and was perplexed to hear a hint of her mother’s native Algerian accent in her own voice.
“I’m following orders,” said Dayton and she gripped Farah’s foot. McGunn gripped the other and they both scurried their nails under Farah’s toes.
Again the anticipation and passion to resist only made the tickling more intense – Farah yanked at the restraints, trying to break the chain between them but with no luck. The maddening tickling of her ultra-sensitive toes made her scream with frustration. She threw herself back onto the mattress and tugged at the metal handcuffs, hoping that the pain would diminish her need to laugh, but it didn’t work. Each throb of pain in her wrists was overcome by the overwhelmingly powerful constant tickling of her toes.
Eventually, as her own laughter merged with that of the other inmates, and her soft, ticklish soles were expertly explored from her heels to the tips of her ticklish toes, she found herself exhausted and could do no more than thrash her head from side to side… just as Vanessa had done.
CHAPTER X
FOURTEEN MONTHS LATER…
Vanessa sat on a pillow on the floor between Farah’s legs while Farah plaited her hair into two long pigtails on the promise that she would comb them out immediately after, so as not to incite any arousal among the guards, especially McGunn or their other greatest fan, Janine Dayton.
Footsteps approached. Vanessa tied a bandana over her hair.
“On your feet, ladies!” said McGunn and proceeded to step down the corridor, occasionally saying, “That one… Her… Both of them… That one…” when he reached Vanessa and Farah he just said, “Not them.” At the next cell he said, “Yep, Piggy can go…”
Vanessa and Farah looked at each other.
When he had traversed the entire corridor he returned to the middle and touched his earpiece. “Unlock.”
The warden’s lock was released and, one cell at a time, selected prisoners were retrieved from their cells in handcuffs and ankle shackles. This had not happened before. It occurred to Farah that the prisoners now in the corridor were those for who McGunn did not have fond feelings. Ginger looked terrified.
“What’s going on?” asked Farah.
McGunn regarded her and deigned to respond, “I am in constant contact with associates from several other institutions and we’ve decided to combine our efforts. Along with that comes a fresh intake.”
“What’s happening to them?” asked Vanessa, indicating the women just taken from their cells.
“They’re being released.”
This resulted in an uproar from the other cells. “Why aren’t we being released?” came the cries.
“You are under my charge! You’ll go free when I say so!” said McGunn, who then changed his tone to one of a strict but loving carer, but to Farah it was palpably disingenuous. “It’s still deadly dangerous out there.”
“Can’t I stay?” pleaded Ginger. “I don’t want to go.”
“No – it’s time for you to get out there, Babe; stand on your own two feet. And to make room for two nice feet in your bunk. Move!”
Ginger was in tears as the procession of women were led away. Farah reached through the bars to give her a touch of comfort, but McGunn lowered her arm with his baton. “No contact,” he said.
“Fuckin’ bastard,” said Farah when they were gone. “We’ve gotta get out of here.”
“And go where?” said Vanessa. “I’m no fan of this place, but I’m also not equipped to travel a wild country full of gun nuts and rapists.”
“That’s why we’ve gotta do it as a group.”
“If you’ve got a plan, let me hear it.”
“I’m working on it,” said Farah.
The warden’s lock beeped and double-locked the cells once more. An announcement came over the address system: “This is Deputy Warden Dayton. Prisoners will wash their feet in preparation for today’s show of appreciation.”
To be continued…
Farah's Odyssey II: Embrace
by TamiraK
(contains m/f, f/f, violence and non-consensual tickling)
The following takes place several years after the events of Gargalaphobia…
PROLOGUE
“You wished for it – you got it!” pronounced Rooster Beauregard Jnr., President of the United Republican States of America, to devout applause from his supporters in the oval office.
He passed the treaty to his left where it was received and co-signed by Jack Jackson, President of the United Democratic States of America, who declared with solemnity, “This will be a new beginning. May it bring a lasting peace.”
“Not exactly a snappy quote for the history books,” Beauregard Jnr’s vice president whispered to his team.
A Chinese administrator confirmed that the ceremony was complete and the two presidents stood and shook hands, neither appearing happy to do so. The event was broadcast live to billions of television screens across the world.
The civil war was over. Officially, at least.
The three years of anarchy, bloodshed and destruction that ignited like a flash fire after decades of intense pressure stoked by extreme political divisionist rhetoric petered into a mutual retreat, which led to a further three years of stalemate as furious negotiations took place over territory and control of every integrated system in the land. The world’s greatest thinkers pointed out that one didn’t need to be a great thinker to know that it was not possible to extract eggs out of a baked cake; a country is easy to divide geographically but not politically. When two warring factions live side-by-side-by-side-by-side from north to south and coast-to-coast, nobody will be satisfied by any agreement.
With the world consequently sent into its deepest ever recession, NATO reduced to insignificance by endless fence-sitting by its members and Russia permanently castrated by it’s own historic miscalculations, it was the leader of China who volunteered, and was appointed by the United Nations, to act as a mediator. He successfully managed to persuade both sides that it was necessary to establish a demilitarised “neutral territory”—officially named The American Corridor—between them. This 80-mile wide area formed a ragged line from south-west New Mexico to the Delware River, and would be under Chinese-led control until a unanimous agreement could be reached about the exact border between the UDSA and the URSA. The American rulers reluctantly agreed, much to the bitter dissatisfaction of the populations on either side of the corridor, who resented China’s involvement and quickly agreed that the neutral zone would be referred to as The Scar.
Anger at the situation was especially prevalent among the people of the URSA. Their side claimed a great victory by securing Washington DC and the White House, but their land mass was noticeably smaller than the left-wing UDSA’s. To their mind, the whole of the corridor should be theirs. Obviously, quibbling over this matter meant it would take years or even decades before a conclusion was reached and the Chinese leadership were happy to diminish concerns by promising that the laws within the neutral zone would not take any strong political leaning, even though future events may lead to justifiable reasons for backtracking on this promise…
CHAPTER I
SIX YEARS EARLIER…
It was just after 11:30pm in Dallas, Texas, as three sisters—Sabrina (23), Farah (21) and Mira (18)—shared the back seat of a taxi cab on their way home from a friend’s birthday party.
“I broke the law! I broke the law!” chanted Mira from the middle seat, dancing her arms in celebration.
“Strictly speaking, Sabi broke the law,” said Farah. “She bought you the drinks.”
“Thanks! Why don’t you tell the whole world?” replied Sabrina, indicating the cab driver.
“Oh, he don’t care. Do you, Mr Driver?” said Mira, leaning forward. The cab driver just smiled and nodded. “See? He don’t care.” Mira slumped back in the seat.
“We’ve got no chance of hiding your alcohol intake from mama,” said Farah, shaking her head as she looked out the window.
“Yours neither,” said Mira. “Like you know how to hold your drink more than I do!” She poked Farah in the waist, making her jump and squeak.
Farah looked down on her younger sister. “You shouldn’t do things that you know will get you in trouble!”
Mira was already giggling and grabbed Farah’s hands as they came towards her, but Farah nodded for Sabrina to take action and Mira was instantly overwhelmed – her older sisters knew exactly where to tickle her and she sank into the seat with shrieks of laughter as she was attacked on both sides. In retaliation, she grabbed for her sisters’ vulnerable spots. Sabrina and Farah spasmed and tried to avoid the probing fingers but there was nowhere to go. They started laughing too and increased the intensity of their offensive.
The cab driver gawped into his rear-view mirror – short, sparkly dresses rode up amid the tussling and shrieking to reveal three writhing pairs of smooth, tanned legs. It was only when an oncoming car flashed its lights and blew its horn that he snapped out of his trance and swerved back into his lane.
“Woah!” said the girls in unison as they slid across the back seat. Then they looked at each other and snickered. They were very used to turning mens’ heads individually, but when they were together they attracted even more attention. It was a common experience to hear a jealous wife or girlfriend hitting their partner and the beginnings of an argument fade into the distance as they walked past. They were very different from each other – Sabrina was business-minded, 5’10” and had the confidence and poise of a renowned fashionista; Farah was sporty, recently discovered a love for martial arts, and was often referred to as a tomboy; and Mira was a natural academic, petite, fun-loving and the very definition of cute. Many people compared their mother to the Algerian actress Amel Bouchoucha in her heyday, and that beauty had certainly been passed down to her daughters along with the bright spirit and positive attitude of both of their parents.
“Thank you Mr Driver!” said Mira in a particularly flirtatious manner as they exited the cab outside the family home. The cab driver opened his mouth to speak but words deserted him and he pulled away, leaving the three sisters to share a laugh.
Then Farah’s smile wavered as she noticed that the front door to the house was ajar; not a wise thing to do in their neighbourhood and not something either of their parents would have done on purpose. “Wait. Why is the—?”
PT-TSHH! One of the house’s front facing windows smashed outwards, making them jump.
“—and we don’t want you here, ain’t that right, Tyler?” shouted a stranger’s voice from inside the living room.
“Mom! Dad!” cried Sabrina, and they ran for the front door.
As they ran, they heard another voice with a gruff southern accent shout, “Damn straight, Davey! You take your wife and get the fuck outta my country, ya fuckin’ sand-ni—” the three girls barged into the house and slammed open living room door. They were horrified at what they saw: their parents, beaten up and bleeding, and three young strangers – two rough-looking men and an attractive but trashy woman. Tyler stood behind the couch and was pinning their mother into her seat by a coarse nylon rope pulled hard against her throat. Their father lay in the shattered remains of a glass coffee table on the floor, facing away from them. Davey held a baseball bat over his head, threatening another blow to add to the several he had evidently already taken. As the door flew open, the young woman gave what appeared to be the last of several kicks to their father’s body. She stopped, sweating and uneasy on her feet. They were drunk.
Their mother clawed at the rope and looked to her daughters with bloodshot eyes – pleading for help and devastated that they had to be a part of this.
“Goddamn! A whole nest of ‘em!” said Davey.
“Well, yeah!” agreed Tyler, obviously taken by how attractive the new arrivals were. Farah found it easy to read the series of expressions that flashed across his face – if his girlfriend wasn’t with them, he would have had horrific plans for the three of them.
“Get away from them!” yelled Sabrina.
“Who you orderin’ around, bitch?” said the woman.
“Don’t worry, Cass. I got this,” said Davey and stepped forward, his bat at the ready.
Hearing his daughter’s voice, their father turned to look. One eye was swollen shut. He reached out a bloodied hand and was about to speak when Cass heaved another kick at his head and he fell unconscious.
Sabrina flew at her and was stopped by a slug from Davey’s baseball bat in her stomach. At the same time Farah ran at Tyler. Her speed surprised him and he stumbled backwards over a magazine rack. Their mother yanked the rope from her throat and leaned forward, gasping for breath.
As Sabrina hit the floor, Davey turned his attention to Mira, who screamed in panic. But Sabrina was only semi-winded and she picked up the shattered coffee table’s chrome stand. “Look out, Davey!” cried Cass, too late to stop the stand cracking into the back of his skull and pile-driving him, face-first, into a glass-fronted crockery cabinet. He dropped like a half-filled sack of sand.
Tyler rolled onto his back as a tunnel-visioned mist descended on Farah and she lunged at him, but he launched both legs at her, slamming his work boots into her stomach. She left the floor and smashed into the wall and a framed family portrait.
Sabrina picked up the baseball bat and turned her attention to Cass; now cornered. Distant approaching police sirens injected focus into her panic and, with nowhere to go, she turned to a ceiling-high book cabinet and yanked with all her strength. Seeing the cabinet about to crush her father, Sabrina dropped the bat and ran to catch it. Books showered down as Cass darted across the room, shoulder-barged Mira out the way and ran into the street.
“Get after her!” Sabrina shouted at Mira as she heaved the book case back upright.
It took Mira some moments to regain her balance and she reluctantly dashed to the front door. Cass was already a distant figure, sprinting down the road. Mira had no hope of catching her, even without high heels. A second later Cass dipped into a side street and was gone. Two cop cars turned a nearby corner and Mira waved her arms to get their attention.
Tyler leapt over Farah and towards the front door. She grabbed at his jeans with one hand and held fast, feeling pain as her fingernails lifted under the strain. He tugged himself free and left the room, but the sight of Mira silhouetted in the doorway by blue and red flashing lights changed his mind. He turned for the back door and saw Farah blocking his path in a perfect southpaw stance. A momentary debate with himself as to whether he could take on a chick who looked as prepared as any MMA fighter he’d ever seen, and raced for his only other option – the stairs.
“Bastard!” cursed Farah and chased after him. She reached the top of the stairs in time to see Mira’s bedroom door slam shut and heard something crash behind it. She pushed it open a crack but it was blocked by an upturned desk. Through the gap, she saw Tyler standing on Mira’s bed and pushing open a skylight window. She stood back and kicked twice at the door, shifting it enough for her to squeeze through.
Through the skylight she heard a loudspeaker announce: “You on the roof: freeze! DPD! Stay right there!”
Farah pulled herself through the skylight and saw Tyler with his hands up, illuminated in a spotlight from one of the cop cars.
“Don’t you move, boy!”
From the street, Mira stood with the police and saw Farah appear on the roof behind Tyler. “Come down, Farah!” she called. “It’s all okay now!”
Keeping his hands up, Tyler turned slowly to look at Farah. “You think it’s okay now, girl? If I go to jail or if I don’t go to jail, you can count on one thing: I’ll come back. And next time I won’t stop with your filthy immigrant ma and pa – I’ll rape and kill your skanky-ass sisters too.”
Terror and rage rinsed through Farah’s blood. There was no way she could protect her family 24/7 for the rest of her life and in that moment she could only think of one way to stop this ever happening again.
Sabrina met Mira in the street, “They’re arresting the other guy,” she said. “Where’s Farah?”
Mira indicated the roof and they watched as Farah stepped towards Tyler.
“It’s okay, ma’am, we’ve got this now,” said a cop over his loudspeaker, but Farah showed no sign of stopping. “Ma’am…?”
“You’ll never do this to anyone again,” said Farah.
CHAPTER II
The court case was short-lived. Farah’s defence lawyer argued that she was protecting her family, didn’t have a chance to fully register that the police had the situation in-hand and that Tyler Mulhill’s threat to harm her entire family was more than enough justification for her to take the action she did, but she did not intend to kill him. The prosecution argued that Mulhill was more intelligent than to make such a threat and had more than twenty witnesses, including the arresting officers, who saw Farah slowly approach a young man with his hands raised, heel-kick him straight in the chest and send him tumbling from the edge of the roof down to the tarmac of the front yard. The sound of his head meeting the driveway made indelible imprints on the minds of the witnesses and so many vivid recounts of the event undoubtedly impacted the jury.
Tyler Mulhill was the best friend of David “Davey” Anderson, who was arrested at the scene and spend a short time in hospital for concussion, and boyfriend of Cassie Jones, who was later arrested at her home in Montopolis. As it was not his first conviction, Anderson received a sentence of 14 years for racially-motivated home invasion and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon that randomly targeted Mr Sami Rashid, Mrs Nora Rashid and their family.
Jones received three years for her part. Her lawyer portrayed her as an unwilling participant who was there only to stop her boyfriend committing the felony. While Anderson remained unmoved throughout the trial, Cassie Jones wept almost non-stop. During the summation, the judge mentioned the death of her boyfriend, her obvious regret at the incident and that her judgement was clouded by intoxication. He gave her a reduced sentence with the proviso that she attended an alcohol addiction support group during her conviction, to which she gratefully agreed.
As Cassie was led away she fired a hateful look at Sabrina and Mira that let them know this was not over.
Farah’s trial went from a local new story to a national one in a matter of days, assisted by several neighbours’ video footage of a beautiful woman with light brown skin sending a young white man to his death while he was clearly surrendering to police. In recent years racial equality, sexual equality and immigration debates had been hammered back and forth between polarised sides with such increased maliciousness that anything that ticked all three boxes would be something that inspired a feud. It didn’t matter that Sami and Nora were legal immigrants who loved the USA, or that Sabrina, Farah and Mira were born United States citizens; the word immigrant was forever stained with accusations of dangerous and unwanted foreign invaders. Farah Rashid’s name and face were now assets to those opposed to deescalation and who could use her as a symbol to stoke outrage.
Farah remained stoic throughout her trial. She did her best not to absorb the emotions of her devastated parents, but she could not prevent the anxious uncertainty of knowing whether she had done the right thing. This plagued her mind from the moment of her arrest and throughout the trial like a verse from a bad song that infects the brain on repeat mode.
She was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter and sentenced to twelve years in prison. It was to be served in an out-of-state facility to best avoid repercussions should she come into contact with associates of Mulhill, Anderson or Jones – something that would be difficult to avoid in Texas’s prisons. It surprised her that the result didn’t inspire any emotion in herself. She put this down to expectation – whatever happened, it wasn’t going to be good.
Now her major concern was how safe her family would be while she was away.
CHAPTER III
Farah watched a dwarf spider crawl along the underside of the bunk above hers. It suddenly fell onto her chest. “You must find these mattresses as lumpy as I do, huh?”she whispered as she carefully picked it up and lowered it to the floor.
The prison induction was short and to the point and it had now been hours since she was introduced to her cell and told to wait. She didn’t know places like this still existed – a room for two people so compact that the head of the bunk bed was jammed against the iron bars that separated inmates from the corridor. She had her pale blue prison-issue scrubs and a toilet in the corner of the cell. The only thing missing was her new roommate and she didn’t hold out much hope for whoever it was to be friendly.
She turned onto her side and watched the spider scuttle under the cell door and into the corridor. I wish I was you right now, she thought.
SLAM! A big, shiny boot stomped down onto the spider making Farah sit up fast and bang her head on the bed frame.
“We don’t want no pests in here,” said a raspy male voice.
Farah got to her feet. A tall, pale officer with a thin, wide smile and a pristine uniform looked down on her. His appearance matched his voice. His name badge read McGunn.
“Self-harming on your first day? Not a good sign,” he said.
“No, I just—”
“Don’t interrupt me, inmate. Or do you want solitary on your first day?”
Farah bridled at the needless threat from someone who was supposed to be professional. Get rid of the bars between us and threaten me again, she thought.
“Do you?” he said, a glimmer of inspiration in his eyes.
A cough came from the neighbouring cell.
“Something to say, inmate?” he said, bending casually to look into the cell. Evidently the occupant shook her head. “Good. Keep it that way.” He looked back at Farah, intent on provoking her further when he was interrupted again; this time by approaching footsteps. “Ah, here’s your cellmate… In you go, Babe.”
A dumpy white girl with dark blonde ringlets stepped into view. McGunn swiped a card to unlock the door. As she stepped inside and the path was temporarily clear, Farah sized McGunn up. As she did so, he deliberately dropped his hand onto a can of pepper spray in his belt. With an undisguised lust in his eyes, he left the door open longer than necessary, wanting her to make a move, then slammed it shut.
“Enjoy getting to know each other, ladies,” he said and strolled down the corridor.
The women eyed one another.
“I’m Ginger,” said the newcomer timidly.
“Farah,” said Farah, holding out her hand. Ginger shook it and smiled. “Does he call everyone here ‘Babe’?”
“No,” said Ginger, looking down. “That’s just for me. Because he says I’m a pig. You know that old film?”
Farah waited until Ginger looked her in the eye again. “He’s one to avoid, huh?”
“Uh-huh,” she nodded. “Not easy though.”
“How long you been here, Ginger?”
“‘bout nine months.”
“What’s it like?”
Ginger wavered. “It’s okay.”
“Trying not to scare me, huh?”
“Kinda.”
They both smiled. Farah got the impression that Ginger was as relieved as she was to be locked up with someone normal.
CHAPTER IV
“Rashid – you’re on kitchen duty,” said CO Bertram, a guard in her 50s who was as cold and grey as the prison bars. “Inmate Brown will show you the ropes.”
Inmate Brown was a big woman with a no-shit demeanour. It was obvious why she ruled the roost. She and nine of her cohorts were already at work in the kitchen and stopped to see their new recruit. The air they gave off was inscrutable; Farah didn’t know if she was welcome or not but she could tell this was a prized domain.
Brown beckoned her over. “Your name?”
“Farah.”
“What can you do in a kitchen, Farah?”
“Pretty much anythi—”
“You can mop the floor.”
Farah nodded. “Sure.”
“Dulce, you’ve been promoted,” said Brown to one of the younger girls. “Hand Farah yo’ mop.”
A tall, Italian-American girl with a pretty face and her hair shaved on one side wheeled forward a mop and yellow bucket. “Thanks,” said Farah.
Dulce didn’t respond.
Seeing the bucket was empty, Farah asked, “Where’s the floor cleaner?”
“We ran out,” said Dulce. “Go to the supply shed.” She indicated a door between the stoves. Leaning against the door with his arms folded was CO McGunn.
“I need to go get some cleaning fluid,” said Farah.
McGunn raised his eyebrows, as if with mild interest, but didn’t move.
Farah understood. “May I please go get some cleaning fluid… Sir?” The obvious insincerity with which she said this got the reaction she was hoping for. McGunn straightened, irritated, and stood aside. Farah pushed open the door and stepped into a yard surrounded by high fences topped with razor wire. Across the yard was a large storage unit. As she approached it she looked back and saw McGunn watching her with an intensity that wouldn’t look out of place on the face of a psychopath. She supposed she would have to make a game of it – winding this bully up without giving him any real reason to discipline her. It was already fun.
Although the sun was high, the windowless unit was dark. She switched on a light but it made little difference and so had to squint as she searched the shelves, finally finding the cleaning products in the farthest corner. Then she noticed the light cast from the doorway began to shimmer. She looked back, expecting to see McGunn, but instead saw the silhouettes of three… four—no, five—figures enter the shed. She recognised one to be Dulce.
Farah picked up a bottle of cleaner and headed towards them. “I found it,” she said, trying to seem carefree, but as she approached the door one of the figures began to close it. Farah just had time to make out McGunn across the yard, still in the doorway of the kitchen. He smiled and went inside, closing the kitchen door behind him.
The unit door closed, creating a vacuum of sound. Farah recognised all of the women in the shed to be from the kitchen.
“What’s going on, ladies?” said Farah.
“It’s time for your housewarmin’,” said one with cornrows.
“Don’t fight it,” said another with an unmistakable Alabama drawl. “We all get one when we first arrive.”
“And what is a housewarming?” asked Farah.
“Oh, it’s when we find out if that pussy is as sweet as it looks,” said a greasy-looking third. Farah backed away and the women advanced. “You can get hurt or you can just enjoy it.”
Farah took hold of the bottle of floor cleaner in both hands, “You can stay back or get this cleaner in your eyes,” she said.
“You can get it in your food every day if you like,” said the fourth, who wore a bandana. “You don’t want enemies in the kitchen, girl.”
“I’m not a lesbian,” said Farah.
“And?” said Cornrows and the women rushed her.
Farah slugged Greasy in the jaw. She fell into a sack of rice, which burst into a plume of dust and surged onto the floor. Cornrows cracked Farah across the cheek with a broom handle, sending her off-balance.
Dulce held back as the three other women tackled Farah to the ground.
Alabama and Bandana pinned one arm each with all their weight. Cornrows grabbed at Farah’s belt, but Farah twisted and kicked her sideways.
“She’s mine!” said Greasy, dropping onto Farah’s waist.
Farah felt the wind knocked out of her and she just had time to gasp for breath as Greasy pushed down on her face with several sheets of high-strength plastic wrap. Her vision was smeared and she couldn’t breathe.
Both arms and legs were now pinned and her pants were tugged down. She tried to buck her hips and breathed in hard, making one sheet of plastic wrap pop in her mouth.
A vague thought said she should suck and pop all the sheets, but she had no more room to inhale.
Shouts and tearing sounds softened as the cloak of unconsciousness enveloped her.
She was on the verge of blacking out when the plastic wrap loosened and she gasped for breath.
Shouting. Not next to her but nearby. He arms and legs were freed. She yanked away the plastic wrap and pulled herself into a sitting position just as Alabama hit the floor next to her, unconscious.
Dulce was backed into a corner while Cornrows, Bandana and Greasy sat in a pile of tin cans and packets of food. Farah’s vision was still blurry, but she could make out someone new who yanked her to her feet and helped her pull her pants back up.
“You’re crazy!” shouted Greasy.
“Yeah! I am!” said the stranger, which brought a silence to the room. “Now clean up this fuckin’ place.”
The stranger helped Farah into the open air. The glare of the sun made it impossible for her to open her eyes. “Thanks,” she said.
“Get yourself to medical,” said the stranger. “You know better than to name names, right?”
Farah nodded. “But who are you?”
The stranger let go of Farah’s arm and walked away fast. Farah strained to open her eyes, and was just in time to see the back of a tall white woman with shaved hair disappear into the kitchen.
CHAPTER V
Farah left the medical centre and was escorted to the main courtyard in a new set of scrubs.
The women who attacked her sat together on some benches. They saw her and showed no acknowledgement.
Ginger was sauntering alone and brightened up when she saw Farah. She hurried over but slowed and her smile diminished as she noticed a wide scuff mark across Farah’s cheek.
“Housewarming?” she asked in a low tone.
“Yeah,” said Farah. “You didn’t wanna warn me about that?”
“Sorry,” said Ginger. “I thought you’d know.”
“Nope.”
Farah scanned the busy area. Many inmates were watching her and she wondered how many would have a housewarming welcome on their minds. There were a lot of shaved heads, but then she saw one woman who was taller than the rest, in a far corner running circuits in the dust.
“Do you know her?” she asked, nodding toward the woman.
“Yeah,” said Ginger.
Farah awaited further details. Ginger just smiled.
“Alrighty then…” she said and went over to find out for herself. She stood at the edge of the path the woman had carved out for herself. On her first pass she ignored Farah. On the second they caught each others’ eye. She slowed on the third and walked over to a nearby bench, picked up a flannel and wiped sweat from her brow, which was clearly the closest to an invitation that she was going to give.
Farah joined her on the bench. “I didn’t want to stop you training.”
“You didn’t.”
“Why did you walk away earlier? Those bitches had already seen you.”
“I didn’t want you to think you can come to me whenever you’re in trouble – that’s going to happen a lot.”
“Because I’m Algerian?”
The woman looked up at her with disdain. She had captivating bright blue eyes and the grade two shave of her hair suited her. She was at least 15 years older than Farah and looked like she could be a former model. However, there was something about her that portrayed she had been through a lot. Farah couldn’t tell whether it was her complexion or expression. Perhaps both. “No, not because you’re Algerian—nobody here gives a shit about that—it’s because you’re beautiful. You need to do something about that.”
Farah almost smiled, flattered. She felt like she was being pranked but the woman was deadly serious. “Well, you’re beautiful. How do you manage it?”
She showed no sign of being flattered. “Shaving your hair is a good start. At least then nobody can grab it.”
Farah nodded. This was a fair point. “So do you go around saving everyone from their housewarming?”
“No. I can just tell you’re going to have enough trouble.”
“From who?”
“McGunn, mainly. You’re really his type.”
“What can I do about that?”
“I don’t know. Everything you can think of, I’ve tried it,” she said and put on her overshirt.
“What does he… do?” asked Farah, not really wanting to know the answer.
From the way she sighed in response Farah could tell McGunn was a big part of this woman’s journey. She was about to respond when there was a distant rumble of thunder and they both looked up – there wasn’t a cloud in the sky.
“What was that?” asked Ginger, who wandered over to join them.
Another rumble. Closer this time.
Inmates and officers stood in silence for several moments.
Then a sound grew over the horizon – an eerily choral wave that evoked fear and rage accompanied by a long stream of echoing pops, like fire crackers.
“Gunfire,” said Farah.
Ginger was alarmed. “Why would—?”
BOOM! A fireball rose into the sky from around four miles away.
“That’s the airport,” called one officer.
BOOM! BOOM! Two more fireballs exploded from the same direction. Gunfire grew closer.
“What the fuck is going on?” cried one of the inmates.
The prison alarm system blared into the courtyard. “This is Warden Parsons. All inmates will return to their cells immediately.”
With a mixture of confusion and concern, the inmates headed inside, guided and ordered to keep quiet by the correctional officers.
“I’m Farah, by the way,” Farah said to the woman as they joined the throng. “You?”
“Holbrook,” she replied. “Vanessa Holbrook.”
CHAPTER VI
As they were ushered into their cells, Farah discovered that Vanessa was in the cell next to hers and guessed that she had been the one to distract McGunn the previous day.
The inmates continued to demand answers for what was going on and were silenced by another announcement from the prison warden: “All staff report to the officers’ mess straight away.”
Once it was confirmed that every inmate was locked in their cells, there was a loud BEEP-CLUNK that resounded throughout the prison and prompted an eruption of outrage from the inmates.
“What’s going on?” Farah asked Ginger.
“It’s a double lock-in. It’s only happened once since I’ve been here – when there was an escape attempt.”
“What’s a double lock-in?”
“There’s a backup lock on the cells that the warden controls – if one of the COs loses their card, it won’t work if one of us has got it.”
“Great,” said Farah.
For the rest of the day there was no prison guard to be seen. Shouts and demands for food from the inmates went unanswered.
Explosions and gunfire from the outer world continued throughout the day and night. Twice they seemed a lot closer, until rapid exchanges ended in a temporary calm.
The following day followed a similar pattern, except that one explosion in the early evening shook the prison walls. Screams of anguish from the hungry inmates became more desperate and emotional.
Still, no guards appeared.
CHAPTER VII
On the morning of the fifth day Farah was awoken by a strange rumbling. On the cusp of sleep, she eventually realised it to be Ginger’s digestive system. She also noticed that, while there was still gunfire on the outside, it was much more distant than it had been since it started.
Then she heard footsteps. Farah, Ginger and the other residents of their corridor jumped out of bed to see who was coming. Some called for help.
McGunn stepped into view. He was wearing camouflage combat fatigues and accompanied by a troop of men, and a handful of women, dressed similarly and holding semiautomatic weapons. Farah could tell just by looking at them that hardly any of them were actually soldiers.
McGunn’s thin smile was emboldened.
“What is going on?” asked Vanessa.
He took a slow swig from a flask of coffee and walked to the middle of the corridor where he could be seen by all the inmates if they pressed their heads against the bars. “Good morning ladies,” he said.
There were demands from all the cells to know what was happening.
“What’s happening is that you all need to shut the fuck up!” he barked, adding the spirit of a marine corps drill sergeant to his tone. The calls faded to a silence. He then spoke more calmly. “Some of the more intelligent of you may have worked out that it’s finally happened: the fight for the real America has begun.”
“What does that mean, man?” Farah recognised the voice to be Dulce’s.
“It means that the wokerati, the liberals and the immigrants who have ruined this country for decades will soon be killed or banished from our shores and we will rise to be the great country that we were promised by the founding fathers!”
This was greeted by a confusion of murmurs, with a few speculating that McGunn had lost his mind.
“Are you saying that we are in a civil war?” asked Vanessa.
“Ten points to Inmate Holbrook,” said McGunn, prompting a panic. “We are in a civil war. But you ladies…!” he shouted, “are still convicts!”
“What about our families?” asked Ginger, tears welling in her eyes.
“Your families are still out there somewhere I’m sure, now shut up while I tell you of some changes that are taking place around here. I’m sure you’re all a little hungry and, even though some of you look to have benefitted from it—ain’t that right, Babe?—we have food for you.”
There were cries of relief and even praises to God from the inmates. “That’s right. So you need to be grateful to me and my friends here, who have taken it upon ourselves to take care of you while the government is in chaos and things are upside-down in the outside world. There are people who understandably want revenge on you and there are roaming groups of men out there who would love the idea of a building filled with imprisoned women.”
The resulting silence to this statement was not comforting. Farah sensed something suspicious behind this apparent altruism.
“Where is Warden Parsons?” asked Vanessa.
“Warden Parsons is gone. She went to protect her family, leaving me in charge.”
“That doesn’t sound likely.”
McGunn lifted his baton and waved it at her. “You, of all people, should know when to keep quiet, right?”
“Yes, Sir.”
Farah was unnerved to hear the instant surrender in the voice of her saviour.
“So, you all need to behave! And you will do what I say without question. Any insubordination from any one of you will mean instant punishment for the whole wing. Do you ladies understand me?”
A range of acknowledgements came from the cells.
“I want a full and hearty, ‘Yes, Sir!’ or you will not get your food today! Do you ladies understand me?”
“Yes, Sir!” came the unified call.
McGunn beamed with pride. “We have food on the way, but I’m sure you’re all very keen to get clean, so you’re all gonna strip and hand us all your clothes. We will wash them and get them back to you when we can.”
Nobody moved.
“Aw, ladies, don’t spoil it now…” he said. “Strip! Down to your bare butts!”
The new military guards wandered the corridor, ogling the women as they did as instructed. Some held black trash bags into which the inmates tossed their clothes.
McGunn took the time to look in each cell. He slowed as he reached Farah’s, as if revelling in a sight he had been wanting to see for a very long time. Although she covered her breasts and genitalia, he drank in the sight of her, seeming to focus especially on her feet. He hummed appreciation and stopped. Noticing Ginger, he curled his upper lip and touched an in-ear communicator. “Unlock.”
The warden’s lock was released. McGunn swiped his card and the cell opened. “You,” he said, pointing at Ginger, “swap with Holbrook.” Ginger did as she was told. He then opened the next cell and Vanessa was taken to join Farah at gunpoint. The cell doors slammed. Farah and Vanessa stood side-by-side, covering themselves as best they could.
“Mmm. There,” said McGunn, encouraging the troop to join him, “One is a mature, slender vamp with lovely tits and delicious big feet. The other one is a fit and curvy tanned firecracker. And just look at her feet too. Perfect, I think you’ll agree. Out of the two thousand women here, this is the greatest sight you will see. That’s why this cell is mine, right?”
The troop agreed and lingered at the spectacle before following McGunn out of the corridor and leaving two armed guards behind.
Farah and Vanessa sat on the bunk. “Fuckin’ freak,” said Farah. “What is with this guy and feet?”
Vanessa said nothing and wrapped herself in Farah’s bedsheet.
“What are you thinking?” Farah asked.
“I’m thinking this is bad.”
“Have you got family on the outside?”
“Yeah.”
“Me too.” Farah’s voice shook a little.
“Who?” asked Vanessa.
“Mom. Dad. Two sisters.”
“At least they all have each other.”
Farah nodded but she wasn’t comforted. If airports were blowing up and people were shooting each other in the streets, there was no way regular law enforcement would be protecting the likes of her family. And who knew where Cassie Jones was at this point?
“Do you think McGunn is telling the truth?” asked Farah.
“About the war, yeah,” said Vanessa. “About this place? I doubt it.”
“I feel like there’s a lot I don’t know here. About him. About you. You were going to tell me something outside. What was it?”
Vanessa took a deep breath. “Okay, for the good it will do, I’ll tell you. Do you remember when Gaby Calhoun was elected president?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you remember a story about her being kidnapped in the early days of her election campaign?”
“Kinda. I mean, I was a kid at the time… Wait, that was you?!”
Vanessa nodded. “I was set up.”
“By who?”
“Someone I got sent to jail for attacking my sister.”
“Wow.” Farah pulled a sheet from the top bunk, wrapped it around herself and sat cross-legged next to Vanessa. “McGunn attacked your sister?”
“No. Another guy. Jake Valentine.”
“I don’t understand—”
Vanessa took another deep breath and blew it out. Farah could tell a big part of her didn’t want to tell this story.
“Jake Valentine is a fetishist pervert and he imposed his fetish on people without their consent. The thing is, when I got him put away he became a hero to a lot of the people who share his fetish. They idolised this guy who did what they wished they could do. Some of them spent their whole time living out fantasies that were directed by him.”
“Like a cult.” said Farah.
“Yeah.”
To Farah’s mind there was one obvious question: “What’s the fetish?”
Here Vanessa struggled the most, almost developing a stutter as she spoke: “Tickling.”
Farah snorted in response, prompting a glare from Vanessa; she was clearly sick of anyone who didn’t take her seriously.
“There can’t be that many people into tickling. Can there?” said Farah.
Vanessa shuddered to hear the word spoken. “More than you would believe.”
“And McGunn is one of them?”
Vanessa nodded. “He used to be a lawyer in Seattle. Then, as soon as Valentine put the word out, he quit his job, moved across country and trained to be a correctional officer, just so he could work here – where I am.”
“So he does it to you?”
“Sometimes hours at a time. Other women too. That’s what happens in solitary.” Vanessa sensed endless questions from Farah. “Look, I told you before: I tried everything—reporting him, fighting back, promising… other things—none of it stopped him. It’s all he wants to do. He’s obsessed.
“I knew you were sexy even without seeing you because within seconds of meeting you he already wanted you in solitary. He can’t wait to find out how sensitive new girls are.”
“That’s freaky,” said Farah, a shiver running all over her skin. Still, the whole story seemed very far-fetched.
“Yeah,” said Vanessa, “and he just brought a whole army in here with him.”
CHAPTER VIII
As promised, a short while later a healthy plate of food was delivered to all inmates, along with a side order of panties. Apparently, it was quicker and easier to get panties washed and dried. Farah bit her tongue to prevent herself asking how much more effort it would have been to wash their bras as well. They were also provided with some complimentary slippers embroidered with a Hilton Hotel motif, presumably obtained during the chaos.
For the following week three meals were served daily and the general mood in the prison was upbeat, despite the ceaseless conflict taking place outside. Hunger headaches and other sick feelings began to dissipate. The prison was warm and it became accepted that clothing would not be forthcoming in the foreseeable future. Inmates were told that the yards were too dangerous to use, encouraged to exercise in their cells and escorted to the showers one cell at a time throughout the day with a maximum of two minutes of warm water per shower.
Farah couldn’t get her family out of her mind. She had no doubt that Sabrina could look after herself but since their dad was currently in a wheelchair and mum was still injured, she had no idea how they would cope.
Nothing out-of-the-ordinary had happened in the past week and Farah was convinced that Vanessa had a touch of cabin fever; that stories of being victimised by the actual president of the United States of America and being specifically targeted by McGunn out of the thousands of younger women in the jail had all the signs of being the result of paranoid delusions. This was supported by the fact that all the other inmates were treating this as a lock-in – calling to each other, playing cards and having as much fun as it was possible to have, while Vanessa was becoming more and more on edge; like she was expecting something bad to happen.
“Your hair’s growing out quite quick,” said Farah, hoping to distract Vanessa from pacing up and down the cell.
“Huh? Oh. Yeah. It does in the warm weather.”
They then heard multiple footsteps approaching and Vanessa froze to the spot.
McGunn stepped into the corridor, followed by more guards than they had seen in a week. There was an air of enthusiasm about them.
“On your feet, ladies!” called McGunn. “I’m sure you all heard the exchange of gunfire this morning from the south wall. That was our sentries defending you from an armed militia who wanted to come pay you a visit.”
“As you can imagine, this is an extremely stressful time for the guards, and I know you’ll want to show your appreciation…”
This expression was so ominous that Farah was sure the guards would enter and try to rape them in their cells. She braced herself – ready to fight or die.
“…we are giving you each a set of handcuffs. You will lie the wrong way round on your bunk, slide your feet through the bars of your cell and cuff your wrists to the foot of your bed.”
The inmates began to protest.
He spoke over them: “Did I mention the penalty for insubordination?”
The protests were subdued and the guards dished out the handcuffs. When they received theirs, Farah looked to Vanessa who, as though programmed against her will to comply, lowered her head and climbed onto the top bunk.
“Vanessa…? What are you doing?!” she whispered. “We can’t do this! They can come in and do anything to us!”
Vanessa lay down with her head at the foot of the bed, shuffled until her feet protruded between the cell bars into the corridor and stretched up to handcuff her own wrists to the bed frame.
Farah just watched in disbelief and could hear the crrriiicks of closing handcuffs up and down the corridor as the other inmates did the same. She looked down at her own, astounded at the surreal situation. For every potential way out of this she could think of, there was nothing that would work.
“They don’t operate themselves, inmate.” Farah looked up to see McGunn watching her. “Everyone’s waiting for you.”
The unfairness and impotence of her situation injected adrenaline into her system like never before. With nowhere to go, she just stared at him and seethed.
A sadistic sneer spread across his pale countenance at being defied. Holding her stare he announced, “It seems as though newbie, Inmate Rashid, wants this to last twice as long as it was going to, ladies!” He then smiled as inmates up and down the long corridor began to hurl insults and threats at Farah to do what she was told.
“Farah,” said Vanessa. “Just get it over with.”
Seeing a woman she respected bare-breasted and resigned to allow herself to be used, Farah felt her jaw clench until she was in danger of breaking her own teeth. She glared at McGunn with frustrated tears in her eyes; she’d never wanted to punch someone in the face so hard in her life.
She lay on the bottom bunk, handcuffed her wrists to the frame and slowly slid her slippered feet between the bars of the cell.
“Enough!” called McGunn. “She has seen sense.”
The inmates calmed, with a final bitter call from Dulce: “…do it again and I’ll fuck you up, bitch!”
Farah noticed a glitch in McGunn’s enjoyment at this comment. He looked down the corridor. “Officer Archer, who was that?”
“Inmate Golino, Sir,” replied a female guard.
“I thought so. All guards: attach ankle cuffs!”
Farah instinctively went to retract her feet but McGunn predicted her move and was too quick for her – he grabbed her left ankle and wrapped a padded leather cuff around it. “Your other ankle: now,” he said. Farah reluctantly slid her right foot back to where it had been. The second restraint was chained to the first. Wrapped and secured in seconds, she was trapped; her body stretched tight on the bed with the restraints kept in place by a single thick cell bar between them.
“And, Officer Archer, you may begin with Golino – she can have five minutes more than the rest.”
“Yes, Sir!” said Archer with jarring enthusiasm.
Farah tried to picture what was happening. Her only clues were the movements taking place a dozen cells down. First, there was an abrupt shuffling followed by clinks and chanks of metal on metal; presumably the chain between the ankle cuffs against her cell bar.
Then came Dulce’s reactions: “Hey… What’chu doin’, girl…? Don’t fuckin’ touch me…! Get off me, bitch…! Get off my feet…! Hey… No…! Get off me…!”
Her ingrained blunt defiance echoed throughout the wing.
Then her voice cracked.
“Get off me…! No, don’t do that…! Not that…! Nooo-ho-ho-ho-ho…!”
Dulce’s protests crumbled into a tone of distress. Farah wasn’t proud that a dark, closeted part of herself thought, Serves you right for threatening me. That’s what you get—
“Nooo…! Not ma toesss…! Aaaalgghhh-ha-ha-ha-haaaa…!”
That was laughter, wasn’t it?
She would never have imagined these sounds of enforced defeat to come from Dulce, especially so quickly. Suddenly the picture became very clear in Farah’s mind – she recognised that disintegration of will from the many times she had tickled Sabrina when she was in her “humourless and assertive” mood.
A cold realisation washed over her. Oh my God, she thought. Vanessa was telling the truth.
CHAPTER IX
There was a paradoxically deep, helpless resonance to Dulce’s laughter, like she was experiencing enjoyable convulsions because she found something hysterically funny. It took her less than a minute to give up protesting, either because it was obviously ineffective or because she no longer had the ability to form sentences, and now her laughter drifted throughout the prison.
From Farah’s position on the bed, she could see a few of the guards—one of them a woman—captivated, almost starry-eyed, at what was taking place.
Then came a pause in Dulce’s laughter followed by yips and yelps, as if being toyed with. Amid the pauses Farah could hear distant calls from the other wings of the prison from women who wanted to know why they could hear laughter. If everything Vanessa said was right, no doubt some of them already knew.
“Fuck-fuck-fa-huck! Bitch, stop ticklin’ my feeeeet…!” Dulce wailed before lapsing back into endless guffaws.
Farah was startled when McGunn leant down to peer at her with curiosity. She could tell he wanted to see an unnerved reaction and immediately swapped her bewilderment for indifference, but it was too late; he saw what she was trying to do, smiled and straightened so that all she could see were his torso and legs as he placed himself at the head of the bed. He lifted his hands towards the top bunk and she noticed for the first time that he had absurdly long and well-manicured fingernails for a man.
Vanessa give a brief, piteous moan and her slippers dropped to the floor.
“Alright, guards – proceed at will!” announce McGunn.
The guards rushed forward and hundreds of women immediately broke into all manner of hysteria. Cries of protest, growls of resistance and threats of retaliation quickly slid into a tsunami of laughter. From low to shrill and everything in between, Farah winced at the sheer level of noise and couldn’t believe this was reality. For a moment she even convinced herself she must be dreaming when she realised something – she was the only one not being tickled.
When the guards she could see approached their allotted cells they went in twos: one for the top bunk and one for the bottom, but McGunn had claimed her and Vanessa’s cell as his and he was currently occupying himself with Vanessa.
Although the cacophony was constant, the acoustics of the cell meant that she could hear Vanessa over and above everyone else – a throaty, mature and unrestrained laughter. The bunk bed shook, but, as far as Farah could tell, the only thing moving was Vanessa’s head. Occasionally her laughter was joined by a whine that, along with her compliant move to her bunk, informed Farah that this woman was absolutely beaten and conditioned into learned helplessness.
Farah noticed that the portion of McGunn visible to her was gyrating. He was evidently very aroused. She looked away in disgust just as the bed stopped moving and Vanessa made coos of recovery. Farah jumped and looked down – her left slipper was gone and McGunn was crouching, mesmerised. She had always been casually proud of how naturally pretty her hands and feet were. Mira often told her she should become “an appendage model”, which was such a funny term that it became a running joke between them and she never followed it up. Now it seemed that having attractive feet was going to be something that attracted trouble.
McGunn moved his face so close that she could feel his warm breath on her toes. He was almost cross-eyed with how intently he was analysing the skin for her feet and she was convinced his next move would be to put her toes in his mouth. She held her breath and remained motionless, sensing that any movement would just encourage him.
He pulled off her second slipper, making her twitch. Although she was completely naked except for her panties, her feet tingled with a sense that they were the most vulnerable part of her body, like she was dangling them into a shadowy pool full of sharks.
From between her feet, McGunn suddenly looked her in the eye and it felt as though she had been caught spying on a private party to which she wasn’t invited. His despicable thin-lipped grin grew and he brought his hands level with her feet, teasing the air with his fingers. Farah hated to give him the satisfaction of seeing her respond to his deliberate antagonism, but before she knew it her toes began to curl in anticipation of what was to come. She saw the moment his attention was drawn to the creasing skin of her bare soles and a deep lust took hold.
He grabbed hold of her right foot and lightly scribbled his fingernails against the ball of her foot. Farah jolted on the bed and instinctively tugged at both her ankle and wrist restraints, which had no room to give. She stared into space, doing all she could not to react, but her body trembled involuntarily as sensations welled up inside her. Her resistance lasted mere seconds before syrupy giggles spilled from her lips. She arched her back and twisted on the prison mattress, knowing there was no escape but desperate not to let McGunn turn something that had always been fun between her and her two sisters turn into something sordid.
“Stop it! Get off me! You can’t do this!” she protested between giggles.
McGunn stopped. “Oh, sweet lord, you’re right. Let me just get your solicitor on the line,” he said.
Farah looked at him in a confusion of resentment at his taunting and a tiny hope that solicitors still existed. Before she could respond he unleashed his long nails on the soft, wrinkled arch of her foot.
She clenched her teeth and pressed the back of her head into the mattress, straining to resist the sensations, but his fingernails then did the same to her left arch and she squealed in surprise and erupted with laughter.
Prior to this, she speculated that being tickled by someone she disliked wouldn’t have an effect on her, but this could not have been more wrong. She writhed on the bed in a turmoil of anger at McGunn for tormenting her and at herself for not being able to control her own mind and body. She was further humiliated by the sight of her own breasts wobbling with the movement of her body. Her heightened emotions at not wanting to let him make her laugh was actually making it worse and she couldn’t dial back her reactions.
“G… G… Get off me!” she shrieked amid open-mouthed gales of laughter.
“You are fucking incredible,” McGunn snarled, losing his facade of professionalism altogether. “Officer Dayton!” he called, stopping and standing up. “Get over here!”
Farah tried to catch her breath. She couldn’t hear the response of the officer over the riotous laughter from all the other inmates, but McGunn was joined by an intimidating young female guard. She was notable due to being one of the few guards who had the aura of someone with military experience.
Farah watched their torsos as they spoke, unable to hear a word of their discussion. Then both crouched into view.
“Hello, Farah,” said Dayton with a leer.
McGunn became even more aroused by Farah’s obvious trepidation and she wondered if there’s anything she could possibly do that wouldn’t turn him on more.
“Get away from me,” said Farah and was perplexed to hear a hint of her mother’s native Algerian accent in her own voice.
“I’m following orders,” said Dayton and she gripped Farah’s foot. McGunn gripped the other and they both scurried their nails under Farah’s toes.
Again the anticipation and passion to resist only made the tickling more intense – Farah yanked at the restraints, trying to break the chain between them but with no luck. The maddening tickling of her ultra-sensitive toes made her scream with frustration. She threw herself back onto the mattress and tugged at the metal handcuffs, hoping that the pain would diminish her need to laugh, but it didn’t work. Each throb of pain in her wrists was overcome by the overwhelmingly powerful constant tickling of her toes.
Eventually, as her own laughter merged with that of the other inmates, and her soft, ticklish soles were expertly explored from her heels to the tips of her ticklish toes, she found herself exhausted and could do no more than thrash her head from side to side… just as Vanessa had done.
CHAPTER X
FOURTEEN MONTHS LATER…
Vanessa sat on a pillow on the floor between Farah’s legs while Farah plaited her hair into two long pigtails on the promise that she would comb them out immediately after, so as not to incite any arousal among the guards, especially McGunn or their other greatest fan, Janine Dayton.
Footsteps approached. Vanessa tied a bandana over her hair.
“On your feet, ladies!” said McGunn and proceeded to step down the corridor, occasionally saying, “That one… Her… Both of them… That one…” when he reached Vanessa and Farah he just said, “Not them.” At the next cell he said, “Yep, Piggy can go…”
Vanessa and Farah looked at each other.
When he had traversed the entire corridor he returned to the middle and touched his earpiece. “Unlock.”
The warden’s lock was released and, one cell at a time, selected prisoners were retrieved from their cells in handcuffs and ankle shackles. This had not happened before. It occurred to Farah that the prisoners now in the corridor were those for who McGunn did not have fond feelings. Ginger looked terrified.
“What’s going on?” asked Farah.
McGunn regarded her and deigned to respond, “I am in constant contact with associates from several other institutions and we’ve decided to combine our efforts. Along with that comes a fresh intake.”
“What’s happening to them?” asked Vanessa, indicating the women just taken from their cells.
“They’re being released.”
This resulted in an uproar from the other cells. “Why aren’t we being released?” came the cries.
“You are under my charge! You’ll go free when I say so!” said McGunn, who then changed his tone to one of a strict but loving carer, but to Farah it was palpably disingenuous. “It’s still deadly dangerous out there.”
“Can’t I stay?” pleaded Ginger. “I don’t want to go.”
“No – it’s time for you to get out there, Babe; stand on your own two feet. And to make room for two nice feet in your bunk. Move!”
Ginger was in tears as the procession of women were led away. Farah reached through the bars to give her a touch of comfort, but McGunn lowered her arm with his baton. “No contact,” he said.
“Fuckin’ bastard,” said Farah when they were gone. “We’ve gotta get out of here.”
“And go where?” said Vanessa. “I’m no fan of this place, but I’m also not equipped to travel a wild country full of gun nuts and rapists.”
“That’s why we’ve gotta do it as a group.”
“If you’ve got a plan, let me hear it.”
“I’m working on it,” said Farah.
The warden’s lock beeped and double-locked the cells once more. An announcement came over the address system: “This is Deputy Warden Dayton. Prisoners will wash their feet in preparation for today’s show of appreciation.”
To be continued…
Farah's Odyssey II: Embrace
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