The Practitioner
Copyright© 2026 by R. E. Bounds
Chapter 5: Go Home, Stay Home
“I suggest walking in them for a bit,” Officer Claire said, her tone shifting back to one of instruction. “Just to be sure everything fits and feels right. Better to find out now. I can always grab a chain of a different length or whatever.”
Isla paused, glancing up. “You mean, walk around in the larger room out there?” she asked, a hint of confusion in her voice.
Officer Claire shook her head, a casual smile tugging at her lips. “I was thinking more around the prison,” she said, her tone light but firm. “I can escort both of you—give you a bit of a tour. You can get a feel for how everything moves. Make sure it’s all okay.”
Isla blinked, clearly processing the suggestion. “You want me to walk around the prison ... in these?” She gestured to her chains and cuffs as if still unsure what exactly was being proposed.
“It’s okay,” Officer Claire replied, her voice steady and reassuring. She gave Isla a quick, confident glance as she gestured for us to start following her. “Everyone will assume you’re a special situation. No one will question it.”
Isla shifted for comfort, adjusting her wrists, trying to keep them limp as she slowly walked behind the officer. “Special situation?”
Officer Claire didn’t hesitate. Her tone was calm and confident, like she’d handled this a hundred times before.
“Reporter, journalist—people come in for stories, research, whatever the case may be,” she said. “If anyone asks, you’re an actor researching a role. It won’t raise any red flags. The staff here are used to it.”
She gave a small, knowing smile. “You wouldn’t believe how many local-news Barbie dolls have come through those doors,” she said, shaking her head. “They show up all wide-eyed and nervous, thinking it’s edgy journalism to spend a day in cuffs. Half of them come in wearing suits—and I don’t mean pantsuits. I’m talking pencil skirts, nylons, and stilettos—like they’re headed to a board meeting, not central holding.”
Chuckling softly, she glanced at Isla. “At least you were smart enough to dress for it.” She then chuckled to herself and mumbled, “Like pantyhose are going to protect your ankles.”
Then her voice turned brisk again, professional. “So, trust me—no one’s going to look twice. You’ll blend right in ... among the staff anyway.”
Officer Claire paused, tilting her head slightly as she studied Isla for a moment.
“Wasn’t this the point?” she asked, her tone softening. “Wasn’t this the point of you being in those? Isn’t that why you wanted a set in the first place?”
Isla shifted slightly, but the officer didn’t wait for an answer.
“I mean, you’re not the only one,” she went on. “You’d be surprised how often it comes up during conjugal visit requests.”
“We’ll get husbands who ask—real quiet, kind of awkward—if their wives have to be cuffed during the visit,” she added with a smirk. “If she does ... well, that’d be okay. And he’s not talking about a few minutes or just visiting hours. He means the whole time. Even overnight.”
Officer Claire raised an eyebrow, clearly amused. “He’ll frame it like he’s asking about procedure. But when he wants to know what time in the morning the restraints come off—because he’s under the impression her hands will be cuffed over her head all night to the headboard—it’s not procedure he’s thinking about.”
Then her expression changed again as she looked back at Isla. “I’m not suggesting you want those for sex. But you’re not the first person to be curious about what it’s like.”
“But you—” she gestured vaguely toward Isla’s restraints, “isn’t this about getting it right for your roles? This gives you real-world experience. Not just pretending to be someone in cuffs, but actually feeling it, knowing it. Being kept in them. That kind of detail makes a difference on screen ... and maybe more importantly, in nailing an audition.”
She went on, her tone thoughtful. “Honestly, the only way you’re going to look like you’ve had experience being in them—like you’re someone who’s really spent time in them—is to actually stay locked in. As if you were a real inmate, with no choice. That’s why I was hinting that you’d go out in them.”
She glanced at us. “I know that’s easier said than done, but it’s how it would really work. You’d have to wear them out, be kept in them—like during a transport. That way, you can get used to people seeing you like this ... and you can look like it doesn’t faze you.”
Isla glanced at me again, her expression still uncertain as she began to realize what Officer Claire’s comments had meant. “Yeah ... I guess that does make sense,” she said softly.
“Great,” the officer affirmed with a nod. She closed the door to the storage room behind us, placing the leather bag containing the restraints onto a half bookshelf in the staff training room. “I can’t take these with us. Procedures,” she added, gesturing toward the bag. “We’ll swing back on the way out and grab it. I just need to get you processed into the system first before we go.”
“Processed? System?” Isla asked, her brow furrowing. “What do you mean?”
“Standard procedure for anyone doing a hands-on story in the facility,” the officer explained, her voice cool but firm. “I need to add you to the system as part of our internal documentation. It’s not a normal visitor process. For media or researchers, we have to process you through the intake system, just like any other detainee. We flag you as a ‘temporary subject’ for the duration of your experience here.”
She saw Isla’s confused look and continued.
“It’s a safety measure. There are a lot of locked doors, secure areas, and checkpoints. We have to ensure that anyone experiencing this is tracked through the system to maintain control. We would normally put you through the same basic steps as someone getting booked, even though this is for a controlled, short-term experience.”
Isla’s eyes widened. “So, I’ll ... be treated like an inmate?”
“Kind of,” Officer Claire replied, the corner of her mouth twitching into a half-smile. “You’ll get a wristband, just like we use to identify someone during intake. But no, you won’t be read in, photographed, or fingerprinted.” She shook her head. “We’re not doing all that. Plus, we’d need a background check first.” She sighed. “This kind of stuff gets coordinated months in advance.” Her eyes flicked between us. “But you’ll have to be in restraints, since you’re not in a cell and being moved. That we can’t get around. We are in a maximum-security facility, after all. But that’s why we’re doing this.”
She gestured toward Isla’s restraints but then noticed her apprehensive expression. “Don’t worry. Really. It’s just standard procedure,” she said, trying to reassure Isla. “We’ll treat you like a temporary detainee for a short time. I’ll make sure you’re flagged in the system, get you a wristband, and then we’ll be good to go.”
“We’re heading through that door,” she said, pointing ahead. “The room we need is next to the operations wing, which is just beyond.”
As we followed her, I noticed Isla tense up—her jaw tight, her eyes flicking around with quiet apprehension. Officer Claire unlocked the heavy door, its mechanisms clicking loudly, before she pulled it open and stepped aside to let us through.
We entered a cold, humming corridor that felt more like a control center than part of a prison—sterile, utilitarian, and wired for surveillance. The air had a faint metallic edge, filled with the constant buzz of servers and the flicker of overhead fluorescents. Dull gray walls stretched ahead, broken only by color-coded signage, emergency panels, and security cameras that tracked every movement.
Through reinforced glass and steel mesh, we glimpsed the facility’s nerve center: officers seated at a long bank of monitors, watching live feeds from every wing of the prison. Every door we passed was fortified with layered locking systems. Every hallway ended at a checkpoint. The whole place was built to contain, control, and never let you forget exactly where you were.
“We’re not heading to intake just yet,” she told us, turning down a narrower hallway. “Just a processing room where I can log you into the system and print a wristband.”
She led us into a small, windowless room and sat down at a computer terminal, the screen already glowing. She glanced up at Isla.
“Uh, you didn’t bring a purse,” Officer Claire said, then gave a soft sigh. “To do this, I need your driver’s license.”
“I have it,” I said quickly. I had grabbed it from Isla when she went to the restroom earlier. I pulled it from my pocket and handed it over.
“Thanks,” Officer Claire responded, stacking the card beside the keyboard. Her fingers flew across the keys as she began entering Isla’s information.
“Isla Bandhavi Kumar ... five-foot-two ... brown hair ... green eyes...”
The soft clack of keys filled the silence as Isla stood still, the weight of the moment settling over her shoulders.
“Is your address correct?” she asked.
“No,” Ilsa replied. “I—I just moved in with Noah a little while ago. That’s my old address in the city. I—I haven’t changed it yet.”
The officer grimaced. “So, the old address—that’s still tied to bills and things?”
“I guess so,” Ilsa replied. “I’ll be changing that stuff. I just haven’t done it yet.”
She nodded, wrote the old address on a piece of paper and then asked for our current address and wrote it down too. Then she asked for her social.
“Do you really need that?” I asked.
“Yeah,” she replied immediately.
Ilsa gave it to her, and she wrote it down on the same piece of paper.
“You’re not putting that stuff in?” I asked her.
“I’ll need it to properly formalize the record,” she said. “Like I mentioned, this process takes months to coordinate, and I’ll need to get the record in correctly later so it doesn’t raise any red flags. I’m just trying to speed things up right now by entering only what’s needed to print that wristband.”
Officer Claire looked up at us. “Without it...” she paused for a moment. “I won’t be able to move you past the next door. Some of the prison guards working today are new and will ask questions. So—just cooperate, yeah? You understand?”
We nodded. It made sense, even if I didn’t really understand why being “new” mattered. I would’ve thought the same policies would be followed regardless of how long you’d been here. But we went along with it.
She then turned back to the computer. “I’ve marked you as a ‘temporary subject,’ indicating you’re a reporter or similar,” she said, her fingers pausing over the keyboard.
After a few more minutes of typing and occasional glances at the screen, she looked back up, her expression one of frustration.
“Okay, since you’re in those”—she gestured toward the restraints—”I have to note that you’re not in standard issue. Like I said, restraint use is highly regulated now, so any deviations have to be documented. And if one of the new guards sees you in those ... they might look up your record. So, I need to make sure this is right.”
She sighed, shaking her head. “Flagging the restraints as ‘non-standard’ automatically classifies you as high-risk. Even though you’re marked as a temporary subject, the system doesn’t recognize that. It’s a flaw—I guess the people who built this thing never considered that a temporary subject might not be in standard-issue cuffs.”
She continued, “And because you’re flagged as high-risk, the system forces me to add notes about the restraints and why. The fields don’t allow for much detail, though, so all I can input is a brief description: ‘Max sec tnsprt rstrnts; Sec bx; B chn; Shrt-chn leg cffs.’ I have to do this so anyone who looks you up knows exactly what you’re supposed to be in. High-risk inmates are generally more heavily restrained, but the specifics vary depending on the situation. For the reason, I noted: ‘Req’d for tnsprt, escp rsk, wrn at all tms.’”
She paused for a moment, noticing the look on Isla’s face, then added, “I had to include that, or else there’d be questions about why you’re in these instead of standard restraints. I’m sorry. It’s just how it works. One of the many quirks we have to deal with in New York’s lovely prison system.”
She then hit a button, and we heard the printer next to her start, and within a few moments, a wristband fell from it.
Isla stood silently, absorbing the information. The weight of the situation settled in. She glanced at me ... she wasn’t happy.
Officer Claire stood up and handed me Isla’s driver’s license. “Okay,” she said, “You’re in the system now. When we get back, I’ll flag your record as ‘inactive’—meaning you’re no longer a temporary subject. We’ll grab the bag, take you out of those, and I’ll take you back to the visitor’s center.”
She then pulled the wristband from the printer and walked over to Isla. She took the visitor badge hanging from Isla’s dress shirt pocket and placed it next to the keyboard. “You need to wear this until I deactivate your record,” she said before wrapping the wristband around Isla’s left wrist and fastening it.
She glanced at both of us, her gaze settling on Isla. “Ready?” she asked.
Isla nodded begrudgingly. “Sure,” she said, trying to hold back the sarcasm, then added, “Lead the way.”
“Great,” Officer Claire replied with a crisp nod, then turned and led us out of the room. We followed her slowly down another corridor—long, dimly lit, and lined with reinforced doors and thick panes of security glass. The atmosphere had changed. This part of the facility felt colder, quieter, and more controlled. As we approached a secondary checkpoint, a bored-looking officer glanced up, barely registering us before pressing a button. The automated door buzzed loudly and unlocked with a mechanical sound, sliding open on its own.
Unlike before, when Officer Claire had opened doors manually and let us through, this wing was different. Here, access was controlled remotely. We were now in a section of the prison where movement wasn’t self-directed. Doors weren’t opened by those walking through them—they were opened for them. Or not at all.
The rhythmic clinking of Isla’s chains echoed off the concrete walls as we walked. It was subtle at first—a faint metallic whisper—but as we moved deeper, each step punctuated by the tension of the chains, the sound began to fill the corridor. The cuffs at her ankles forced her steps to be short.
The intake area loomed ahead. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, casting everything in a sickly pale hue. The air carried a sterile sharpness—disinfectant, rubber, and something faintly metallic, like blood or old steel. The space was quiet now, mostly empty, but it held a kind of ambient tension. Even in silence, you could feel that this was a room where things happened—frequently and without ceremony.
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