Prologue

Jenny knew she looked good. She'd spent more time on her appearance than she had since her wedding day, but she was more nervous by at least an order of magnitude. She looked in the mirror and practiced her smile, determined not to let her fear show through. It was so important, vital that she look her best for her husband, that she not let him know just how hard this was for her to do.

Jenny was going to a maximum-security prison for the first time, and she was scared to death. Jerry had insisted that he didn't want her to see him in jail and he was sure he'd get probation for a first offense. When he'd been dragged from the courtroom, all they'd had was a quick kiss. Now she was about to see him for the first time since that day in a maximum-security prison, which wasn't fair either. His sentence wasn't that long... but this was the nearest facility to her home and he'd been assigned there.

Just two months ago, life had been perfect, if she'd only realized that. Newlyweds, married for less than six months she'd had a mild case of PMS and her car had broken down on the way home from work during a scorcher. The lows for the last week had been in the eighties Fahrenheit and the highs in the triple digits.

By the time she'd gotten to their brand new and oh so stylish home, she'd been in high dudgeon. Jerry had a good job with an international importer, but she pushed for the lifestyle that her parents had. Jerry couldn't say no to her and they were already deeply in debt. Although her car was still in warranty, she stormed about being forced to drive "an old bucket of bolts" as she walked in the door.

Finding Jerry working on the computer while trying to fix dinner she announced in a fit of pique, "If you want in these pants, you're going to have to do something about getting me a decent car!"

She hadn't been serious; it was the heat and the PMS. She was sure he'd known she was kidding. As drained as the Texas heat had left her, she didn't have the energy for sex, but she'd cuddled him to let him know she wasn't serious. Therefore, she was astounded when he took her car shopping the next afternoon. They owed more on the car than they could get in trade-in, but Jenny had always left those sorts of problems to Jerry. They drove home in a new car and she was ecstatic, and even with her period due to start any time she was determined to give her hero his just reward. She had just gotten undressed to join him in their bed when the police were pounding on their front door. Jerry looked terrified and she relived the scene at least once a week in her nightmares. Jerry had been arrested handcuffed and taken to jail! He had sold drugs to an undercover agent to get her car! It was so stupid, he'd discovered that his company was being used by smugglers, and had planned to go to the police, but Jenny's demands had drove him do something stupid. What followed was a nightmare; Jerry had to use legal aid because their credit was tapped. He didn't want their parents to know and since he'd never even had a traffic ticket the PD assured him that he'd get probation if he pleaded guilty.

It didn't work that way. The judge had just put his daughter in rehab, and gave Jerry to seven to fifteen years in prison. Even with good time, it meant that he'd have to spend at least two years in prison! After they'd taken him from the courtroom, Jenny hadn't even been able to see him at all. For about a month, he'd been moved from prison to prison all the over the state as he went through evaluation and classification to determine which prison he'd serve his time. He wasn't allowed visitors until he was transferred to his permanent location. Although the closest to their home, the prison was still about a two hour drive. Jenny had of course lost her car, the house and almost everything else because they'd had to declare bankruptcy. She'd lived with a friend but had just found an efficiency apartment near the school she was teaching. She was able to get a car, dilapidated and the air conditioning didn't work. She didn't mind, but she wasn't making ends meet. Jerry's letter talked about his desperate need for money to protect himself. He didn't say much about what it was like, but Jenny could read between the lines that he was scared of being beaten or worse. She put every penny she was allowed "on his books", but he was hinting that it wasn't enough.

As she pulled off the highway onto the road to the front gate of the prison, she stopped at a little in a line of cars. At a guard shack, a half mile from the prison she saw guards checked under the hood and in the trunk making people get out of their cars.

"What do they think, someone wants to smuggle someone into here?" she thought, trying to control her temper.

When it was her turn, the guards were very polite and very impersonal. Some of the signs posted near the shack were scary; she had to agree to a strip search if it was required. They announced that if she tried to pass any money or other contraband that she would be prosecuted and sent to jail. Jenny was glad she and Jerry didn't smoke because it seemed that any kind of tobacco was also a felony.

After she was cleared, she drove on to the parking lot, parked her car and went to the little building that seemed to be the entrance to the prison. She'd gotten a booklet in the mail that told her what to expect, but this was just so scary. Looking through the glass doors as she approached she saw a little office incased in bulletproof glass and steel prison bars. There was a line of people in front of it. As she walked through the exterior doors an officer, who hadn't been visible stood from a little table and used a wand to check her for metal like at an airport. She then had to pass her driver's license to another guard in the little office through a little tray like at a bank. After that guard, a woman, verified who she was seeing and checked her name from a list, she passed the license back to her.

A heavy door of steel mesh buzzed open into a cage. She walked in and closed it behind her. Then an even heavier steel door slid open by an electric motor whined in strain. As she stepped through, she found herself in a little caged courtyard created on two sides by the concertina topped double chain link security fence. Concertina was everywhere, and it intimidated Jenny. At a buzz, she had to slide yet another gate. This, a section of the fence she had to close behind her. Now she faced a long walk to another building where she went through the same process again before she was led into large room where prisoners wearing colored jumpsuits visited with their families. Jenny was terrified, any of those men could grab her, she didn't see any guards in the room. Then Jenny was appalled to see young children in the room, some sitting on convicts' laps and she wanted to cry.

Going to the non-contact area, Jenny waited. Finally, Jerry came to the booth with a phone on the both sides like you see on TV.

Jenny picked up the phone and the first thing that Jerry said was, "They are taping this and will listen to it so please be careful with what you say or they won't let you come back."

He looked good, but he didn't want to talk about where he was or what he was doing; he wanted to hear about Jenny and what life was like outside. He said that she was allowed to come once every two weeks and that next time would be a contact visit so they could talk without the phones. Jenny was so nervous about being in the place that at first time seemed to drag, but her two hours were over before she knew it. The one thing that Jerry had been clear about was his need for money to buy stuff at the 'commissary'. Jenny understood that he was using the money to buy safety.

Two weeks later when Jerry came to the contact visit table where she was sitting, he looked awful. He had bruises all over his face and she could see evidence of bruises on his body in other places as well.

After the one hug, they were allowed and they were holding hands across a wooden table she whispered, "Oh Jerry, what happen?"

"I fell in the shower but I'm okay, but I've got a problem and I need you to send as much as you can to my account or..."

Jenny felt a cold chill; she was sending more than she could afford already. The only way she could send more would be to go back to one of their parents and Jerry had been adamant that she was not to do that.

"Jerry do you want me to go to my parents?"

"No! Isn't there anything else? I know my parents are tapped, no, I'll just have to figure out something, don't worry about it."

But he was so upset that Jenny was terrified, "Jerry are people going to hurt you?"

Jerry looked grim, "One of the gangs offered me protection for a thousand a month, and I know we don't have that. An officer saw... when I fell in the shower, he broke up the... he said I had to make a choice if I wanted to be one of the good guys, or a hardhead. I'm not sure what he was talking about but I'm going to see if I can't get him to help me."

But Jerry wouldn't say any more about it. They'd talked, but Jenny had watched episodes of Oz and she was scared that her husband was going to have to be someone's bitch. She managed to hold her horror in check and gave him her best kiss when it was time to leave. She didn't pay too much attention when another woman joined her as she was leaving the meeting room and went through what she now knew was the main building sally port.

As they walked toward the front gate, the woman turned to Jenny and said, "I saw your husband, I know a way that you can protect him if you are willing. If you want to hear more about it follow me when we leave the parking lot. I'm in a big red pickup, you can't miss me. I'll buy you an early lunch and I'll tell you what's going on and how you can help him."

The woman seemed nice and seemed to know what she was talking about and before she thought about it, Jenny agreed. She spotted the red pickup as she pulled out and followed her to a local restaurant. They got a table that was off to the side and as private as any in the place.

The woman repeated that it was her treat, "So order a steak or something good," and Jenny did.

After the waitress left Jenny, who was a teacher wondered if she could get a part time job as a waitress to earn some extra money for Jerry.

"It won't matter how much money you pay for protection, it won't be enough! There are too many gangs and just plain bad guys in there to buy them all off. Your man has two choices, he can join a gang and probably count on getting in trouble and earning more time, or he can become someone's pet. Either way his life is going to be hell. He's not that big so even if he joins a gang he'll still be a bitch, and that breaks a man for life."

It took all Jenny's control not to burst into tears right there in the middle of the restaurant.

"Then what can I do?"

"First eat your lunch then take a little drive with me, I don't want to talk about it here... you won't be asked to do anything illegal, but other people might get into trouble if the wrong person heard about it."

The woman, a very pretty Hispanic named Maria, kept up a light chatter as they ate. She was a nurse and had two elementary school children; she didn't say what her husband was in jail for, and Jenny didn't ask. By the time lunch was over Jenny felt very at ease with her; Maria did understand what Jenny was going through and had given her a lot of tips on how to handle problems. Jenny wasn't at all uneasy about getting into her truck and they drove off.

"Jenny, you saw what happened to your husband. What you don't know is that he was attacked by a gang that wants to rape him and use him as a drug runner. They'll let him alone if he can pay them off, but that's just a ploy to see how much money they can get out of him. They'll keep upping their demands until he can't meet it then they'll do it anyway. I know, my husband went through the same thing. If he tries to fight he will end up with a knife in the gut or maybe dead. That happened to my husband too. Like your husband, he wasn't part of the gang scene and didn't have connections inside. You've got one hope and that's to get him special status as one of the 'good guys'."

Jenny had heard the phrase, "How do I do that? What do I need to do? I don't have any political connections..."

"Those would help, but the answer is that there are some guards who will protect him and let it be known that he's one of their 'good guys', protected. You can't believe the power those guys have when they are willing to step a little outside the system. They can give cases that mean loss of privileges and longer sentences and they can make it stick. They can make gangs back off all sorts of things. These are honest men, but they can't protect everyone, because the way things are set up, they have to stick their neck out and if they get caught, they'll get reprimanded. If you are willing you can probably get them to protect your husband, but it will cost you too."

"I don't have much money," Jenny said, "but I'll try to raise all I can, I'd rather pay a guard than a gang..."

"That would be bribery and if would get the men fired; besides they wouldn't do that anyway. No, what it boils down to is this, they'll do you and your husband a favor but you'll have to do a favor for them."

Jenny was puzzled; she had no idea what kind of favor she could do, "What? I'll do anything I can to help."

"Will you? Will you do anything?"

Jenny caught the word and she felt a cold chill flow through her veins like her blood had been replaced with ice water.

"What do you mean?" she asked, but she knew what Maria was saying.

Maria didn't say a word she just kept her eyes on the country road they were driving on.

Jenny bit her lip, "Do you mean what I think you mean?"

Maria didn't look at her but said, "Your husband is going to be forced to provide sex to a lot of men; he's going to lose his manhood in the process. It's not pretty, it's not nice, it's not the way it should be, but it's the way it is. The way I see it, the only one who should be providing sex to men are women, and if the only way to keep my husband alive is for one of us to have sex with men, it shouldn't have to be him. It'll cost me less than it will cost him and I want him back. Juan was my third lover, I never wanted to have another; when he gets out in two years I won't ever! But I know he will be getting out in two years because he's safe, he's protected and he's getting great reviews by the guards. He also has no idea what it's taking for that to happen. He thinks that several of the guards have taken a special liking to him. Actually, they've taken a special liking to me.

"This is your choice, you can make it at any time, but the longer you wait the harder it will be for him, and from what I heard he's due to be raped in the next week unless you can come up with a lot of money to a gang member on the outside. I was told he's thinking about getting protection by joining a gang, but they'll rape him too, as an entrance requirement so there's no protection from it there either. They just won't beat the shit out of him first. You need to make up your mind. You don't know my last name, and this truck has borrowed license plates. If you do manage to track me down, I'll swear that I took you to lunch to give you a few tips and we drove around so we could do some more talking. One other thing, if the word goes out that your husband is on some guard's special shit list it will be very bad for him. The point is you can't blackmail these guys, they aren't breaking the law, but if they stick their neck out they want you to be as cooperative as your husband will have to be if they don't."

Jenny burst into tears and Maria pulled the truck over and took her in her arms to comfort her. She kept saying that it wasn't that bad, that she felt pride in protecting her husband and that the men were nice. When Jenny got her emotions under control she realized that Maria was right; if one of them was going to have to have unwanted sex it should be her, it was her fault that he was in there. Maria was probably right it would be easier on her, her body was designed for a man his wasn't. The image of Jerry bent over or having to take another man's cock in his mouth was too horrible to contemplate. It would be noble for her and sordid for him.

"How do I know that no one will ever know?"

"Think about it, they are more interested in having this quiet than you are. I'm not sure whose idea this was in the first place; I think it was probably a woman's. think about it, if you knew who to go to, wouldn't you make the offer? The problem is that most of the women who have men in there aren't much better than their men, and aren't reliable. A woman who works the streets wouldn't hesitate to do it, but she also wouldn't hesitate to try to blackmail the guards either. You've been checked out, just like I was, like the other women were."

Jenny shivered, realizing that she was considering doing this.

"What would I have to do?"

"When you come to visit your husband you'll spend a nine hour shift at a place they have. You'll entertain eight men during that time, you'll do anything that your husband would be forced to do, that means anal sex. Have you done that?"

Jenny shook her head; she was still hung up on the idea that she'd be with eight men in one day. She'd never been with anyone but Jerry! The idea of anal sex repulsed her; why a man would want to use her that way was beyond her, but she also knew that it would be much easier for her than for him. She remembered a conversation when Jerry marveled that she liked having his cock inside her. She knew what it would do to him to have to let someone do that to him. Jenny bit her lip, she felt bile in her throat. This was horrible, but how much worse it would be for him and he'd probably have to submit to even more men.

"Is that all of them, eight men I mean?"

"No," Maria replied softly, "there are about sixteen or twenty, but you won't have more than eight, maybe less, per shift, but I've got to tell you the total numbers don't make any difference. What difference does it make how many there are? You'll be doing it for eight hours and I think it's easier on us to have several men, since if it was just one man you might get attached or dependant on him. This way you know what you're doing isn't for him and it can be fun in a funny way. I mean I would never come up here on my own, but because I do, I have no temptation to cheat either. I don't like some of what I have to do, but... I can't say if I didn't do this that I wouldn't be tempted and that would be so unfair to Juan. I won't pretend that this is a perfect solution, or that I would ever be tempted to have an affair with some of the men I take into my bed, but in the right circumstances I might with several of them. I do enjoy some of it, which was a surprise to me; like I said I wasn't very sexually experienced when I started this. I can also tell you that what I do here I leave here, when Juan does make it home, he'll find me as chaste as I've ever been. There's an unreality to what I do here; I mean I have orgasms, I'm a very active bedmate to these guys, but I never make love, I fuck them. I never knew what that meant, but even though it can be a lot of fun it's nothing I would ever be able to do with someone I loved. These men have used me in ways that Juan never has but they'll never get even a little of what Juan gets from me. Look, I know what you're feeling right now, I'm just trying to tell you that as a bad as it is, it beats the alternative your husband faces. Are you going to help your husband?"

For several seconds Jenny wondered why she didn't think this wasn't some sort of scam, but she didn't doubt what Maria had said. Suddenly, Jenny felt like the air was being sucked out of her lungs, and at the same time that her whole body was being compressed in some sort giant vacuum bag. This was all her fault; she hadn't even had a chance to make love to him. He'd never said anything about her threat, and it was a poetic justice that she would have to use what she'd denied him to protect him. She didn't understand how Maria could make a difference in what she'd done with these men and what she did with her husband, but that gave Jenny an excuse to smother some of her last reservations.

"When would I need to do this... ?"

"There's no time like the present. Today the shift starts at two and is over at eleven, that will put you home a little late, but you can spend the night here if you want. I know that I always spend the night after, or before if I'm going to have to do an early shift. The early shift starts at six and is over at two. Don't looked shocked at the times, the guards work twelve-hour shifts from six to six and they like to have fun at the end of their day. Besides, it gets us home at a decent hour too. They have a three-bedroom trailer out in the country and we use two of those rooms for what we do; the third one is where we can sleep, there are single beds in there. If you need to call someone who might be worried about when you get home, you can call and say you're having some minor car trouble and will have to spend the night. Next time you have to bring your own sheets if you use one of those single beds, but I brought extra for you just in case. Later you can use the excuse to anyone who might ask that you met a friend from here who lets you spend the night so you don't have to drive up and down on the same day. There's a phone there you can give people if they need get in touch with you.

"You knew that I'd agree?"

"What woman wouldn't? I mean I thought I'd feel bad about making the offer; I've never done it before, but I don't. I'm not trying solicit you; I'm just giving you an option to help your husband. If I knew another way to do it, I'd take it myself. There's another woman who is scheduled to have your shift, now she'll get a break. We're always looking for someone suitable because it means fewer shifts for all of us."

"How often do you... do you have to take a shift?"

"Basically twice a month right now. If you join and another woman we'll talk to tomorrow joins we might be able to drop down to once a month. You'll have to take a shift the next time you come anyway, all the guys will want to dance with you; that's what we call a session, a dance, by the way. I think you should spend the night; you probably shouldn't drive home alone after your first shift. If you do stay, I will be here with you, if you'd like. You'll probably need someone to talk to."

Jenny felt her whole body cringe; this was just so casual, she was in the process of doing something that she never in her wildest imagination thought about doing and she felt like things were spinning out of her control. The idea of driving home after what was going to be done to her was beyond her.

"I don't think I could drive home alone after a... shift."

"Okay, there are some things we'll need to get for you; I'll buy them for you, the guys are really sweet about covering all our costs for this sort of thing. They'll even pay for your birth control. Are you on the pill or do you use a diaphragm?"

"I'm still on the pill, I got the type to help my complexion, but I thought I'd stop after this month."

"They have a doctor up here, one you'll get to know later, who'll write a prescription and who'll do exams and handle anything that you might need that's related to what you do here. I'm an RN and I'm going to take a blood sample now to drop off to have it tested to make sure that you don't have anything that anyone needs to worry about. Everyone has that done at least once a month, especially the guys, but I've been doing this for four years and no one has ever failed a test. The women all love their guys in prison or they wouldn't be doing this. Everyone is getting all the sex they could want so there's really no reason to go looking for something outside the setup."